Hark the Herald Angel Sing

Hello Alchemists,

Christmas is around the corner and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. As we start buying gifts for our family and friends, why not share the yuletide season cheer in your local game store by playing a bunch of angels?!

But I’m not talking about these bad girls because they are all legends and we can’t have as much of them as we can. We need something else that can call our feather friends in throngs!

Divine Visitation is a sleeper mythic that’s cheap at $3.00 and if left unchecked can wreak havoc in the battlefield. When played inside a token shell, we’re suddenly flooded with a massive army of Serra Angel tokens (get cheap foils as tokens)! When we hear tokens in standard, goblins, saprolings, soldiers, vampires, knights and thopters come to mind. Looking at this list, most of the token generators are in White and Green. So let’s take Selesnya as the color of choice moving forward.

In the one-drop slot we have Legion’s Landing and Hunted Witness. Legion’s Landing is a great card to have early which stops 1/1s and 2/1s in their tracks while giving us lifepoint buffers to get to the mid game. Hunted Witness is also a fantastic two-for-one card which the opponent might think twice on killing it if he doesn’t want it to transform into a 4/4 angel with Divine Visitation in play.

In the two drop slot, we have Martyr of Dusk and Dawn of Hope. Martyr of Dusk is Hunted Witness copies 5 through 8. It costs one mana more but comes with one more power as well which makes it better at blocking. Dawn of Hope synergizes with the small lifelink package we have in the deck to help us generate the tokens we need to stay in the game. In the late game, it’s essentially an Angel Factory for 4 mana with Divine out.

In the three drop, we got to use the best token maker in standard even without Divine Visitation. History of Benalia has proven its power in the Protour by taking Boros Aggro and White Weenie to the top. On its own, it gives you a formidable ground army that can get in free swings while still having the ability to block. In situations it doesn’t look profitable, you can wait for the saga to pop and you now have 4/3 knights ready to brawl. But if you draw this late with Divine already in play, then it’s essentially a 3-mana spell that creates two Serra Angels over two turns. We really don’t care about the third saga since we already have as much power on the board anyway.

Ledev Champion is an unassuming card but great in Limited. I want to try him out in constructed because of its token generating ability while having a decent 2/2 body that can swing hard mid-game. I know cards like Queen’s Commission or Sworn Companions are better in terms of going wide for the same cost, but Ledev is still better for the longer game.

Lastly on the four drop slot, we play Leonin Warleader. The interaction of its ability when it attacks and Divine Visitation is super neat. As per ruling found in Gatherer:

The token’s characteristics are entirely replaced by a 4/4 white Angel creature token with flying and vigilance. It doesn’t have any abilities the token would have been created with. Anything else specified in the effect creating the token (such as tapped, attacking, “That token gains haste,” or “Exile that token at end of combat”) still applies.

Therefore Leonin Warleader swings in as a 12 power threat across three bodies! WTF!!! (gonna hype this combo, honestly!)

Then we also play Conclave Cavalier which is my favorite XXYY creature from Guilds of Ravnica. Despite not having mentor, hexproof, regrowth-like abilities, Conclave Cavaliers continues to bring the same power on to the board dead or alive. The bonus though with Divine Visitation is that instead of going from 4/4 to two 2/2s, it goes up to two 4/4s instead, now that’s value!

To help get Divine Visitation out, we will play Sumala Woodshaper which digs deep to help us find creatures to make tokens with, or Divine Visitation itself. Unfortunately we don’t have cards like Benefaction of Rhonas or Commune with the Gods so we will use what we can.

So here’s how the deck looks like!

The sideboard is still on theme but at the same time gives us the flexibility to shift gears depending on the opponent.

Venerated Loxodon gives us the ability to go big without Visitation. We can transform our 1/1s and 2/2s into better creatures that can attack well and trade better. Overall I think Venerated Loxodon gives us a good change against stompy decks like Dinosaurs, SLC-decks and the likes.

Against decks that run a lot of Planeswalkers, we can take them out completely with Binding. It’s also a good answer to artifacts or enchantment as well.

Against History decks or those that run mainboard Ixalan’s Binding, Sprouting Renewal gives us ways to take them out and if they don’t draw them, we can swap this into a 2/2 knight or a 4/4 Angel for 3 mana with Divine out.

Nature’s Spiral is in the sideboard to allow us to get our Divine Visitation back, or History back to outnumber our opponent’s creatures. Since we’re mostly permanents anyway, we don’t mind getting countered or discarded if we can get them back later.

Then against control, we are not really bad against them since we have a lot of creatures and History to keep the pressure but the big green lizard just makes these match-ups much simpler. Tap 6, cast, swing, scoop. That’s the grand master plan if you play Carnage Tyrant.

Overall I really like the deck and the fun factor it brings after you read the Gatherer to your opponent. Turn 4 Warleader into turn 5 Visitation swing for 12 is NUTS! Try it and let me know!

Goodnight folks!

Vanson