In Commander, typal decks are some of the most popular archetypes around. Not only are they often easy to build, but the sheer number of creature types in MTG makes it quite a creative process. While they’re great for casual Commander games, these archetypes rarely succeed in a competitive Commander environment. Recently, however, one Angel Typal Commander deck has impressively bucked this trend.
Giada, Font of Hope and Friends
Helmed by Giada, Font of Hope, this deck‘s objective is to stick Giada and follow up with a flurry of angels. Since each angel you play comes in with more and more counters, keeping up the pressure is trivial, especially with 31 angels in the deck.
Unsurprisingly, given the deck’s desire to go wide, many of these angels are on the cheaper side. Miraculously, this lets many individually weak angels like Segovian Angel and Lightstall Inquisitor make the cut in this tournament-winning deck. Alongside these, Starnheim Aspirant and Pearl Medallion can help you get beefier threats like Exemplar of Light and Archangel of Tithes into play early.
Naturally, this deck also wants to protect its Commander, which makes Mother of Runes and Reverent Mantra a godsend. Thankfully, if you need to protect your board, too, Parallax Wave and Continue? can come in clutch. Failing that, On Thin Ice or Ossification can clear a path for you to set up a lethal swing.
Combining all of this together, Angel Typal can be surprisingly scary when left unopposed. Curving out with this deck can lead to remarkably quick wins; however, it’s sadly not perfect, as this deck is a touch one-dimensional.
Strong But One-Dimensional
Unfortunately, while Angel Typal evidently has some legs in Dual Commander, it’s by no means a tier-one deck. While it can excel against aggressive creature-focused decks like Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, it really struggles against most other archetypes.
Sadly, this deck’s one-dimensional game plan limits its potential versus control and combo. With limited card draw, fighting through waves of counterspells and removal from Tasigur, the Golden Fang decks are tough. At the same time, angels don’t have disruption necessary to hold off Reanimator, nor does it have the speed to race explosive decks like Winota, Joiner of Forces.
Thanks to this, it feels like Angel Typal and Giada, Font of Hope isn’t going to become a staple in Dual Commander. Still, it’s great to see that a typal archetype like this is competitive, and it’s definitely something to consider if you want an easy entry point into the format.
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