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Giada, Font of Hope is one of, if not the best choice for an Angel commander inMagic: The Gathering’sCommander format. While Giada does lock you into a mono white deck, this is hardly a downside since the majority of Angel cards are mono white to begin with.
If you’re looking to build an Angel deck, look no further than Giada. Its effect does a ton for the creature type and helps you snowball faster to win the game through combat. If you like Angels or decks that amass large battlefields for massive damage, Giada, Font of Hope is the commander for you.
Speaker of the Heavens
Sword of the Animist
Authority of the COnsuls
x24 Plains
War Room
Windbrisk Heights
The decklistcontains 37 creatures, five sorceries, four instants, six enchantments, 13 artifacts,and34 lands. The deck is heavily creature-focused, hence the high number of creatures, with the rest of the cards either interaction or support cards for Angels.
Key Cards
Giada, Font Of Hope
The commander of the deck, Giada, Font of Hope does just about everything you could want a commander to do. Giadacan tap to add a white mana for Angels, and while this mana is restricted, most of your deck consists of Angels so this is hardly a big deal.
Angels are combat-focused, so Giada’sability to add increasing +1/+1 counters to each creature is vital. Just a few Angels on the battlefield can lead to future ones doubling their stats in the way of counters. Youwant Giada on the battlefield as soon as possibleto make the most out of its effect.
Giada counts itself when tracking Angels you already control, so the next Angel will enter with a minimum of one +1/+1 counter.
Bishop Of Wings
Bishop of Wings adds a lot of longevity to your game. AllAngels entering turn into four life being gained,andany Angel that dies turnsinto a 1/1 Spirit token with flying. The lifegain keeps your life healthy, while the tokens make sure you still have chump blockers if needed.
Bishop of Wings alsoprovides infinite combos if Divine Visitation is on the battlefield. This can be done to either create infinite mana, or mill your opponents' whole libraries. Here is are that combo works.
Prerequisites: Bishop of Wings, Divine Visitation, and either Altar of Dementia (infinite mill) or Ashnod’s Altar (infinite mana)
Step 1: Activate Altar of Dementia/Ashnod’s Altar, sacrificing an Angel.
Step 2: Bishop of Wings triggers, creating a 1/1 Spirit.
Step 3: Divine Visitation makes that 1/1 Spirit into a 4/4 Angel instead.
Step 4: Sacrifice the Angel token to Altar of Dementia/Ashnod’s Altar.
Step 5: Repeat steps 2-4.
This results in generating infinite colorless mana if you used Ashnod’s Altar, or infinite mill if you used Altar of Dementia. It also results in infinite enter the battlefield triggers.
This combo also works with Requiem Angel in place of Bishop of Wings, but Requiem Angel is much more mana-intensive.
Archangel of Thune
Archangel of Thune is another way togive your Angel creatures massive boosts. Unlike Giada, Archangel of Thune keeps growing the stats of Angel after they’ve already entered the battlefield.
Archangel of Thune triggers off of each instant of lifegain. Even if multiple cards trigger that gain you life, each one will put a +1/+1 counter on all of your creatures. So if you have four lifegain triggers, your creatures will always be getting four counters.
Angels can naturally gain a ton of life on their own, so you can consistently trigger Archangel of Thunes multiple times, many times in just one turn. Archangel of Thune turns even your weakest creatures into massive threats, andthanks to its own lifelink,can trigger its own effect on its own.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Heliod, Sun-Crowned is hard to get rid of once it hits the battlefield thanks to having indestructible. It’s a God card thatdoes not matter if it’s a creature or not, because you only care about its effect to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature when you gain life.
Heliod, Sun-Crownedis a massive combo enabler, letting you easily boost a creature to provide infinite +1/+1 counters that can turn into infinite burn damage. The effect to give any creature lifegain is what does it all. Here is how the combos work.
Prerequisites: Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista/Triskelion are on the battlefield.
Step 1: Activate Heliod, Sun-Crowned to give Walking Ballista/Triskelion lifelink until end of turn.
Step 2: Activate Walking Ballista/Triskelion to remove a -1/-1 counter from it to deal one damage to any target.
Step 3: This burn damage will gain you life, triggering Heliod to put a +1/+1 counter on a creature.
This combo provides infinite lifegain and infinite burn damage.
How To Play The Deck
A Giada, Font of Hope Commander deckis built around amassing a giant battlefield of Angels while gaining a ton of life. Since Angels generally have flying, this makes them very evasive to make them hard for many decks to be able to block. Thishelps you to close out games quickly as you often want to always be attacking.
Youare light on rampdue to being mono white. Urza’s Incubator helps to discount Angel spells, Oketra’s Monument makes your white creatures cheaper, and Pearl Medallion makes all your white spells one less mana.
Youwant to constantly be casting Angel spells every turn. A Giada deck wants to always be a threat, and with how big stats can get you can get amazing blockers easily. Generally,you do not want to play Angels if Giada isn’t on the battlefield. While not strictly required to have Giada around, it makes winning the game that much easier with how many counters it can provide.
Theprimary win condition is winning through combat. Angels can snowball very quickly, especially once you have an established battlefield. Thanks to all the lifegain Angels provide, youcan also win the game through Test of Endurance or Felidar Sovereign, which both win the game at your upkeep if you have 50 or 40 life respectively. You alsohave infinite combos with Heliod and Altar of Dementiafor a few extra routes to victory.
Thebiggest downside to the deck is its vulnerability to board wipes. The deck is built around creatures, so having to rebuild after one can take some time.Mono white has bad card draw too, making it hard to keep your hand fresh. Comebacks can be hard thanks to mono white’s natural slowness, but if you avoid board wipes, you can often win the game.
