Angelfire: Part 1
By Luke PilonTuesday, December 23, 2008
A Brief History
Angelfire was a URW Control deck that was popular during RAV/TSP Standard. It used a small suite of counters, several Signets for acceleration, and plenty of board control. Lightning Angel and Firemane Angel were commonly used as finishers, hence the name. After Ravnica rotated, the deck pretty much died. Many made efforts to revive the deck, but it never really made an impact in a major tournament.
Recently, a thread was made in the Extended forums on Wizards Community asking whether a RW Angel deck was viable at all. The answer was, of course, no, but it got several people thinking about Angelfire again. Enigmata and I started discussing it and I made a rough list for testing. It worked pretty well, but needed some work. A few days later, Enigmata posted a revised list, with the most notable change being the addition of Gifts Ungiven. There were a few small changes as people made suggestions, I put together a sideboard, and the testing began.
The Decklist
6 Creatures
3 Eternal Dragon
1 Firemane Angel
2 Exalted Angel
31 Other Spells
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Gifts Ungiven
3 Vedalken Shackles
2 Wrath of God
1 Firespout
4 Chrome Mox
3 Lightning Helix
4 Mana Leak
2 Stifle
3 Spell Snare
3 Engineered Explosives
23 Lands
3 Steam Vents
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Plains
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Academy Ruins
15 Sideboard
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Stifle
1 Wrath of God
The Finishers
The finishers for this deck are really good. Eternal Dragon has been called the best or one of the best finishers in the game many times by great players, and I tend to agree with them. Early in the game, you can use it to build up your manabase, which is very useful, as you need mana advantage over other control decks. Its body is big enough to be out of Vedalken Shackles quite often, and it is immune to Smother, Threads of Disloyalty and Lightning Helix, among other less played removal spells. The only things that can really deal with it are Tribal Flames and Putrefy, and you can just bring it back if that happens.
Exalted Angel is known as a very powerful anti-aggro card, and you will very rarely lose a game when you play Angel against Zoo. The worst-case scenario is that they shoot it with a Tribal Flames and you save five life. The best-case scenario, and the one that happens the most, is that you simply ride the lifegain and four damage a turn to victory.
Firemane Angel is the strangest choice, by far, among the finishers. The body isn’t very efficient, and it takes tons of mana to return it from the graveyard to play. The lifegain is nice, but Exalted Angel does it better. The main reason for the use of Firemane Angel is for Gifts Ungiven. If you only play two different finishers, you can’t play a Gifts Ungiven, grab three finishers along with another card, and be guaranteed of getting at least one finisher in your hand.
The Removal
The main reason that Angelfire does well against Zoo and Elves is the large amounts of removal. 6 board sweepers maindeck, along with Chrome Mox to get them out fast, is very effective against any creature-based deck. You run a 3-2-1 split between Engineered Explosives, Wrath of God, and Firespout so you are always assured of getting at least one with Gifts Ungiven.
Your spot removal of choice, Lightning Helix, is also very effective. It is incredibly good against Zoo, killing nearly any creature and gaining three life in the process. It kills any of Elves engine creatures. You can even use it in a pinch against Faeries to get rid of Vendillion Clique, their main win condition. The deck originally ran Condemn over Vedalken Shackles, but it was later switched. Condemn is excellent removal for just one mana, but Shackles is far better against Faeries, the worst matchup. Besides, there isn’t a big difference in power level between Condemn and Shackles against Zoo. Taking their Tarmogoyf and using it against them is quite difficult for them to deal with.
The Counter Suite
Mana Leak is the default two-mana counter in the format, and there is a reason for this. It is excellent in the early and mid-game, where opponents will rarely have three spare mana to use. It can use some effectiveness later, but not enough to make it not worth playing. It is your only answer to Elves game-winning card, Glimpse of Nature. It can also keep an opponent playing control from resolving a bomb like Gifts Ungiven, Death Cloud, or even Bitterblossom from UB Faeries, which is, fortunately, becoming much less popular than MU Fae.
Spell Snare is less useful than it used to be, with the development of Elves into a tier-1 deck, but it is still an excellent card. You just have to look at recent tournaments lists to see its usefulness: it counters Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Tidehollow Sculler, Umezawa’s Jitte, Tribal Flames, Spellstutter Sprite, Mana Leak, Elvish Visionary, Magus of the Bazaar, Goblin Lore, Ideas Unbound, Shrapnel Blast, Keldon Marauders, Goblin Piledriver, and many more played cards.
Stifle doesn’t really fit anywhere else, so I’m just lumping it under countermagic. The most common use of Stifle is using it as a pseudo-Stone Rain on an opposing fetchland. This is particularly deadly against Zoo, where their manabase is really weak if they can’t rely on their fetchlands. Storm isn’t played as much as it used to be, but Stifle backed up by counters will usually wreck them. Sadly, Stifle isn’t very good against Elves or Faeries. The best it does against Elves is stopping the storm from Grapeshot, which isn’t even the win condition of choice and they can reuse it with Eternal Witness. You can also make them fizzle with a well-timed Stifling of a Nettle Sentinel trigger.
The Card Drawing and Tutoring
Thirst for Knowledge is the preferred card drawing in this deck, as well as most decks in Extended that play Blue card drawing. You play ten artifacts maindeck, so you will be able to pitch one if you want to pretty often. Even when you can’t, though, Thirst for Knowledge is an excellent card. It is an instant, always a big benefit for control decks, and you get to see three new cards. I originally ran Ancestral Vision, but it was pretty bad outside of the opening hand, as you have to wait four turns to get the cards. With Extended as fast as it is, that isn’t usually a luxury you can afford.
Many decks try to use Gifts Ungiven to set up elaborate recursion packages to get what they want no matter how the opponent splits up the piles. This deck takes a somewhat different approach and just uses Gifts as the amazing card advantage and selection machine that it is. As I mentioned earlier, you are always assured of getting a board sweeper with Gifts if you want one, with the same for win conditions. After that, it really depends on the situation. Most people really don’t want to give you Gifts, so that’s a good choice for an extra card.
Sideboard
In this metagame, Chalice of the Void is an excellent card. When set at one charge counter, it is very effective against Zoo and Elves, particularly if you get it on turn 1 off of Chrome Mox. Storm is less popular now that it use to be, but Chalice can also shut down Rite of Flame and Ponder when set at one, or, if you live long enough, Grapeshot when set at two to stop them from using their win condition.
Your worst matchups with this deck are Tron and Faeries, and both of those decks rely on certain lands to beat you: the Urza lands for Tron and Riptide Laboratory for Faeries. Ghost Quarter is very helpful because, although you do essentially miss a land drop, you can mess with their land-based plans for no mana.
Pithing Needle is one of, if not the, best utility cards in the format. It shuts down Riptide Laboratory, Academy Ruins, Umezawa’s Jitte, Garruk Wildspeaker, Tezzeret, Vedalken Shackles, Magus of the Bazaar, Arcbound Ravager, and Atog, just to name a few.
Tormod’s Crypt, obviously, is used against graveyard-based decks. Currently, Dredge is the only popular one, but Aggro Loam and other Loam-based decks have shown potential. Crypt is also useful against Tron decks using Gifts Ungiven, as it messes with their recursion via Makeshift Mannequin, Academy Ruins, and the like.
I already explained what Stifle is useful for earlier in this article; you just side in the third and fourth when you are playing against a deck that is particularly vulnerable to it. The same is true for Wrath of God.
I hope you enjoyed the first in this series of articles on Angelfire that I will be writing. Next week, I will cover matchups along with alternate builds and card choices. A short tournament report is also a possibility if I can get into a Magic League or similar tournament. If you have any questions, drop me an email at lpilon@subsyn.com