Discussion Forum

all round advice: tribal = bad (and with bad I mean not ideal in terms of deck strength, if winning is not your goal tribal is just fine), don't play angels just to play angels. Play good creatures or you put yourself behind and then there's no point in optimizing.

cut (I selected what I think are the worst cards in the deck)

Æther Vial
Door of Destinies
Helm of Kaldra
Lifeline
Sword of Kaldra

Angel of Jubilation
Emancipation Angel
Indomitable Archangel
Goldnight Redeemer
Luminous Angel
Radiant, Archangel

Cathars' Crusade
Concerted Effort
Greater Auramancy
Path of Bravery
Sigil of the Empty Throne


What you do need

Mana acceleration: Sakura Tribe Elder, Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, Solemn Simulacrum etc... If you get to a midgame where the other guy(s) have twice as much mana as you do and are playing twice or triple the amount of spells you are playing each turn you will know you have no chance of winning.

Card Draw: tons of it so you can draw through that deck and don't run out of cards. In a multiplayer game your deck as it is will be really struggling in terms of card advantage because you don't refill your cards and you play like a tribal aggro deck. Both are weaknesses in a long game.

Sweepers and removal: you need to be able to blow stuff up, prefferably everything. Don't build thinking you'll be the dominating player and you won't face problems. You will, always, and the more poeple join in the more problems pop up.
Being able to break combo's and soft locks will probably be your main priority.


Currently the way I see it you play/build with the idea in mind that you'll be playing lots of creatures and equipping them and enchanting them. But what if your opponents keep you from playing creatures, when they take turns killing your few angels and or sweeping the board every time you have a few angels out (many decks can keep this up forever, just looping through their removal and reusing it from the yard over and over). Most cards in your deck depend on you having creatures. That's bad.
I would suggest you build with a worst case secenario in mind, find the weakness of your own deck and build with that weakness in mind. What is the worst thing that can be happening for my deck and what can I do to strengthen that weakness.

You're in the best colors for ramp, removal (mass and spot), card draw and control yet have little of any of them.

Jenara's ability very heavily favors a control strategy. She's cheap, you can save your mana and dump it before you turn starts to buff her up. This leads to wanting a lot of instants so that you can interact on other players turns.

You don't have nearly enough lands in your deck. I wouldn't run a three color deck with fewer than 34 lands as a bare minimum (and most people say I run too few lands...). The general rule of thumb is start at 40 lands and cut one for every two ramp spells or spells that help you make your land drops. Also, keep in mind Angels are one of the most mana intensive tribes so you're going to want to side higher than normal to make sure you can actually cast those expensive creatures.

Your deck needs a more direct focus. Is it angel tribal? Is it Jenara Voltron? Is it Enchantment themed? Is it Artifact themed? 18 Artifacts/enchantments is way too many without giving it some type of theme there. Cut a lot of those to add lands, ramp, draw and ways to interact with your opponents.

You need to reach a better balance of colors. 8 blue costs but running Thassa? Kinda defeats the purpose. Scry 1 is nice but not worth the slot on its own and unblockable can be done better, not that angels really need more evasion. 8 blue vs 65 white is a huge bias. I know angels are largely white but that's still a bit silly. If you're not using the two extra colors, why not just stick with mono white for your angel deck?

Lifeline really seems odd here. You have no ways to make the synergy work in your favor or abuse it. No man lands to trigger it after a board wipe letting their triggers resolve, no come into play effects that would be broken when repeated, no sac outlets... etc. All it's doing is letting your opponents gain added value since you have no board wipes and they can likely take better advantage of the recursion than your deck will.