Precisely my point. And you can pretty much accomplish the same thing with seance and creatures in your graveyard. (which there will generally be when you could start using lifegain from obelisk.)

I don't like rhox in place of the saurli ESPECIALLY when running seance though.. That means you EFFECTIVELY miss out on a possible four angel triggers.

All right, based on all the feedback and the limited amount of testing that I've done, I've decided to only slightly modify the original deck. I was so impressed by Obelisk of Alara and I liked the synergy with Angelic Accord so I warped the deck around it and added trilands which meant that Saruli Gatekeepers had to be cut. This was a mistake. Here is the list with just a minor tweak:



I've taken everyone's advice to cut one copy of Saruli Gatekeepers for a copy of Séance, and I've cut three Wall of Omens for two Elvish Visionaries and a singleton Obelisk. The Obelisk is still a strong card but instead of warping my deck around it, I've just included a singleton for value. The blue and red modes aren't supported, but all the other modes are excellent in this deck. The green mode can turn even the lowliest critter into a threat or a huge blocker, the black mode is insane, and the white mode is very good on its own and bonkers with Angelic Accord in play.

Thoughts on this adaptation?

I'll put this together and give it a 10-game run tonight. I'll post the results for your viewing pleasure.

Make sure to post it in the "Ten games in a row with....." thread, if you don't mind. It's fallen off the first page.

I'm keeping the visionary

Hakeem, let us know if you still think it's your strongest deck post xpac. I've run against it and it's a monster.

I'm going to test Naya tokens for a bit myself...

It is, in my opinion, without a doubt the strongest deck (the origianl Azban). It can lose to other decks when they have great draws, but nothing else I've played or seen is as powerful and consistent through all stages of the game. Naya tokens is a beast, but I don't think it is such a beast that it has better than 50/50 against it.

And Hakeem, I'm a regular poster on that thread...

Yes I know you are; I just mentioned because, as I said, it's fallen off the front page!

Hi,

First post for my favorite deck :-)
I hope it's not as bad as it seems since I truly love playing it.



So, first of all this one is really slow before becoming a monster.

The basic idea is to draw and defend with basic cards and once the enchants are up, create a lot of angel tokens or gain life enough to drain your enemy life.

Most of the time people remove Angelic Accord so I'm playing with an other win condition: Seance, Sanguine Bond and Cloudshift which allow me to win a lot of life and draw faster.

Doubling season is there to increase the number of token created from Angelic Accord and Seance.

The Obelisk of Alare was really missing before because it helps to defend against big creatures, remove 2/2 specific creatures easily or gain life during your enemy turn.

Well, what do you think ? :-)
Any advise is welcome ! Thx

I say drop cloud shifts. You want the 4th saurli for SURE and I would put the 3 plekka here too.

I think you can get away with no cultivates if you drop kozie and obelisks which open up lots of options in what you're missing. Then you could put in a third accord and a fourth satyr. At this point you could opt for removal in maybe reprisal or edict and/or elvish visionary for draw and extra draw thanks to seance.

I built a deck very similar when I split apart my original naya world enchants deck. one became this type of build, the other became an abzan lifegain that had the black enchant that hurts on heal. Both are really consistent either way.

If you want to keep the Cloudshift, I would drop the Doubling Season, basically since it does nothing unless you have Angelic Accord out as well, and it is the only thing I saw in your list that abuses it. I would replace it with either another Angelic Accord and Satyr Wayfinder or some sort of removal.

Your other option, and one that I recommend, is just play Hakeem's Azban. Damn thing is a beast, really has no bad matchups, and is basically what you are playing anyways sans Cloudshift.

I just saw you have bond in there too.. I would drop that as well.

Hakeem,

Posted!

Thanks for giving this a spin, I played it exclusively last night myself. I did it while underneath a blanket on the couch, though, so no detailed stats for me! I do know that I only lost twice, once in an Abzan mirror (decks were very similar) because he landed a Griselbrand and drew seven. The game went on for some time longer and I thought I had a chance after I exiled his Kozilek but the extra 11 cards just smothered me. The other loss was to a Boros Act of Treason deck with Blasting Station, Cloudshift, and Fling. I was afraid of playing out my Baneslayer and Griselbrand into it, so I put together Obelisk plus Accord and hoped to run him out of resources dealing with my Angels. I had spent Angelic Edict twice already this game (once via Treasured Find) so when he dropped a Charmbreaker Devils I was in serious trouble. I made an Angel, but he stole it, cast a few spells, and one-shotted me with the Devils.

Regarding Seance, it actually did a fair bit of work for me last night. As 2bestest said, it's at its finest with Angelic Accord in play allowing you to create Angels on your opponents turn. Also, exiling a Rune-Scarred Demon is just about the filthiest thing you can do in this game. I think a singleton is correct but the card is very swingy in just how good it is. Sometimes it does nothing and sometimes it nabs you the win. That's not normally my type of card, but it has a lot of synergy with the deck's Angel plan so I'll keep it for now.

Regarding Elvish Visionary, think of it as Satyr Wayfinder copies five and six. The deck needs early plays to make sure it doesn't miss its land drops and Visionary does that well enough. It's not about the damage these guys do on offense that matters, but the ability to actually kill something on defense that matters to me and why I've gotten away from Wall of Omens.

Regarding Obelisk, some guy ran his Woolly Thoctar into my Satyr Wayfinder last night and learned what the green mode does! He insta-quit once I put it on the stack. I love Obelisk here but the curve is already high enough and it's not a core piece so one copy is just pure value. It's also another reason to shun Wall of Omens because your 1/1s can actually threaten a lot of firepower on offense. The green mode is actually really good here. I took down a Fusion Elemental with a Baneslayer Angel last night, as well, and in another game it saved a key blocker from a burn spell and stifled the planned attack. Boosting Griselbrand is just filthy, but probably win-more in most instances.

The deck is definitely still relevant, though. I was in complete command of most of my games.

My thing with seance is even when it isn't producing angels, it has played a key to me surviving long enough to get a wincon in FAR more games than it has been a complete dud in. (Which is almost never for me)

Thing that is also nice about visionary with seance is that visionary dies easier too so it has an easier time hitting graveyard and getting its second use.

I went in a slightly different direction. The synergy between Rhox Faithmender, Sanguine Bond, and Obelisk of Alara is murderous.



It's a fun deck to play. I'd love to hear any opinions.

I like it!
Why do you use a singleton Muse? I'd say run both, drop one visionary. Speaking of which, Lone Missionary could also work well here instead of the visionaries. Another card you could fit in is Suffer the Past. It defeats certain decks almost by itself, and with your ramp, you could end up casting it for a lot of mana and seal the game with or without a sanguine bond.

I made a similar deck here before. I think you could really capitalize on seance with this build if you drop glazing and run saurli. You also could get away without muse if running 2 seance since you're likely toalways have it. You could see my list I think that would be VERY good with the addition of obliesk, with OR without rhox it pulls it off VERY well. I also think that kozie isn't needed really here. AND grisel could probably be dropped to make things easier to accomplish what you want the deck to be doing.

The reason I like Angelic Accord over Sanguine Bond is that triggering it actually impacts the board.

As far as your deck goes, do you really need two Elixirs in there? I don't think they're remotely necessary so get the other Muse in here and something else. I'm not sold on Grazing Gladehart, either, I think you'd be better off with Lone Missionary to help your aggro matchup.

How did I miss that he isn't running lone missionary?! WTF?!