Avacyn, the Purifier

by James Ryman

Embrace the Dark Side

Hello, and welcome back to Conditions Allow, the article series where I take a card with a drawback and build a deck to turn it into a strength. I'm thrilled to once again be on Innistrad, so to follow up last week's article on Jerren and Ormendahl, I thought I'd tackle one of my favorite Innistrad legends this week. For a long time I wasn't sure what to do with her, but I think I've finally settled on a deck for Archangel Avacyn

This particular version of Avacyn represents the angel after escaping the Helvault

That is easier said than done, though. While un-transforming Avacyn is as simple as blinking your commander, continually finding creatures to sacrifice is more tricky. Boros isn't known for its necromantic abilities, but does still have a trick or two up its sleeve. Dealing only three damage is a bit slow, as well. Luckily, Red and White are very good at increasing and amplifying damage.

Hitting Reset

The center piece of this deck is a core of flicker effects that ensure you can transform and re-transform Archangel Avacyn

Sometimes, though, simplest is best. If your goal is to flicker a creature, then look no further than Teleportation Circle

To round out the flicker effects, I have one more enchantment and two creatures. Eldrazi Displacer

A Grim Betrayal

Not all of your creatures need a gift of immortality, though. Neither Squee, Goblin Nabob

Another way to find creatures to sacrifice is to create them. Blessed Sanctuary

Finally, I have to mention a few ways to actually bring creatures back from the grave. Sun Titan is the premier piece of white recursion. If you look through the creatures in the decklist below, you'll notice that almost every one has a mana value of three or less. With Avacyn, the Purifier clearing away blockers, Sun Titan can attack to bring back Wall of Omens for card draw, or Charming Prince to blink Avacyn. Cheap creatures also synergize well with Sigil of the New Dawn, so you can cast them and still pay to return them to your hand when they die.

Burn it to the Ground

Now that you have a way to blink Archangel Avacyn and a steady stream of creatures to sacrifice, the final step is to increase the damage she deals when she transforms. Three damage at a time simply won't end the game. The classic approach is to simply multiply all the damage you deal. Fiery Emancipation triples your damage output to nine damage to each opponent every time Avacyn transforms. It also stacks with other damage multipliers, like Dictate of the Twin Gods. With both in play, Avacyn, the Purifier will deal eighteen damage to each opponent every time she transforms.

One problem with dealing that much damage is that it kills your own creatures that would otherwise survive. Sun Titan is a key piece of recursion, and Flumph is an adorable and amusing draw engine. In order to keep them alive, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell only increases the damage dealt to your opponents, and creatures they control. Even better is Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Combine Gisela with Fiery Emancipation, you can limit the damage Archangel Avacyn deals to your creatures to three. Gisela reduces the initial damage by 2 (1.5 rounded up), which is tripled back up to three. Meanwhile, your opponents and all their creatures will be taking the full eighteen.

It's also worth noting that combat damage dealt by either face of Archangel Avacyn counts as commander damage. And with three damage being dealt to each opponent on your turn, you can spread your attacks around, rather than having to focus on one player at a time like most Voltron decks. The goal is to win with Avacyn's transform trigger, attacking is an important element of keeping life totals low.

Rounding out the deck with ramp and a some interaction gives us this final list.

Archangel Avacyn is one of my favorite legendary creatures, and I think this deck does her justice. It skirts the line between a blink and sacrifice deck, and may surprise anyone more familiar with Angel tribal versions of the deck. Those tend to focus on using Avacyn to protect their big creatures, while this list really just wants to transform her as many times as possible. Because of the timing restrictions on that ability, Archangel Avacyn won't ever be as fast as traditional aristocrats decks, but she can be explosive enough to make up for it.