Pointed Discussion

Absolutely love it. 5/5 Travel Preparations, mulch ,borderland ranger, angel of glory's rise, defy death,gavony township and whatever angels and humans you fancy. you can splash blue for tracker's instincts or black for unburial rites! who knows! It doesnt matter! Im going to try them all.

Angel Human mill FTW.

y'know from the looks of this card, it ALMOST seems like they want you to play human/angel tribal

maybe

possibly

Nifty little Lord.

Now we are talking about a tribal angel deck!

It's like Anima, needs only one color but also lacks protection. Most human cards are cheap enough to be casted, the main benefit is the reduction of cost for angels. Then again, you need to attack with her several times to make the effect worthwhile unlike Anima could just pump up via 1cc creatures. By the time it happens, I'd question if this angel is worth the deck slot.

Then again, Herald is not a legend, which means you can have several in play and all provide some cost reduction. Defy Death will speed it up also, same color too.

T5: This
T6: Increasing Savagery

Congratulations, you can now cast Avacyn, Angel of Hope for WWW! :D

But seriously, good card. 5/5

While there aren't too many (decent) humans that would benefit from that second ability, casting Akroma for is probably pretty cool

No one has mentioned the functionality of this card with Mikaeus, the Lunarch. I will be playing these cards together for sure in a Gavony Angel Pump Aggro deck with Thalia.

i opened one of these at the prerelease. it won me games.

Kaalia of the Vast is amused.

Not bad in a {W}{G} Commander, too.

i bought the precon deck becuase of this card. it looked cool foil and it's not a terrible creature. I don't think this guy is that good in a Kaalia deck, unless the build centers around angels and humans. This set has me so confused about Kaalia now! I don't know if I want her to center around demons/angels/humans, or demons/humans, or angels/humans, dragons can go screw at this point.

I have a ghave edh that uses things like doubling season and increasing savagery. It's mostly a token build of course, but something like this will benefit if doubling season is in play.

--"I'll announce my attack with the herald"

--immediately put 2 counters on it (assuming it's not killed during the declare attackers step)...oh my I have a doubling season in play, 5/5 flier!

You're not supposed to pay mana for angels. That's what kaalia of the vast is for. What do you think this is, Standard?

A bit overkill for my tastes. Anything that goes "Oh by the way this is bigger and your stuff is cheaper" irritates me to a certain friend who runs Animar in a Lorwyn elemental deck.

Would have been better as a 2/3 for to keep the cmc5 slot free for angels or Cathars' Crusade.

Eric Deschamps hits it out of the park again. Awesome.

Rating: 2/5.

After having played with this card, here's what I think:

-Too expensive at .
-Too slow for ramping Angels out.
-Too fragile (even w/ it's pump ability) because it has to attack and prone to removal or combat tricks.
-Obv. prone to being countered/bounced.

One of the following would have made this card worth keeping IMO:
-A cost of .
-Not needing to attack to pump it up.
-Not needing to add counters in order lower the cost of Human/Angel spells and replacing it with a static less to play Human/Angel spells.
-A 4/4 body.
-Coming into play with a +1/+1 counter already on it.
-Vigilance.
-Hexproof/Shroud.
-Indestructible.

It wins very few games, and most of the time it just ends up with the player tapping out when they played it and essentially losing their turn after it was countered / removed / bounced.

If you need ramping for Angels+Humans (plus other creatures), you can try splashing in Somberwald Sage. It can be had on Turn 2 or 3, and you will be able to produce 6-8 mana by the time it's summoning sickness wears off (depends on if you hit your land drops and if you have creatures that produce mana).

If you're on a budget and need to replace this Angel with another Angel, Angelic Overseer or Serra Angel are better options and they'll win you games.

Combos with Ring of Thune. This card is so raunchy. I mean, it's not Baneslayer Angel but, it can become just as large of a threat when you have tons of card draw. With this guy you can cantrip your whole hand or more every turn with the help of Mentor of the Meek. Works well with exalted. Also, apparently works really well with Mikaeus, The Lunarch who would have guessed that it just so happens I have him in my deck anyways. Cavern of souls anyone?

@AMart83 If you don't like him, you built your deck wrong. This card is a bomb in limited and a great card in constructed. It's not Baneslayer Angel but, that card is pretty broken. This is Tier 2.

For me, 4.5/5 and for all those fellow Johnny/Spike players out there.

Hi, my name's Harold, I'm here for the war...

A 4/4 flyer for 3WW with a second ability is pretty good. The fact that it gets bigger and bigger if not dealt with is pretty sweet. plus it lets you start playing out multiple creatures or bigger creatures or playing creatures with extra mana open for defense quickly. Wish the picture was better though.

Even though I play this in an angel tribal deck, I rarely rely on the cost reduction mechanic. Just being able to gain counters every turn makes this a threat your opponent has to deal with. Reduced cost is nice (especially since I run Avacyn, Gisela, and Aurelia in one deck) but I don't rely on it to cheat the biggies out early.

Oddly enough, this also reduces the cost of Crib Swap (and other tribal changeling spells).

Kaalia of the Vast is actually great with this.

Kaalia herself is a human. So this will help a LOT with paying the "I Hate Your Commander" Tax, also known as the "Sol Ring" Tax, also known as the 2 mana you pay extra every time your Commander dies. Basically that 2 mana is now 1 mana with this. A savvy table does not let Kaalia live long enough to be useful, but if you can fetch this, you're quite happy because you can now cast your Commander easily with probably Just a Sol Ring and this.

the less mana ramp you have to run, the more room for bombs you have. Kaalia REALLY want to run lots of bombs, so the more -efficient- mana ramp you can find- not just by one or color-shifting but really honest to goodness ramping for cheap- Kaalia loves that because it supports the general being under heavy fire and it lets you play your stuff when you can't defend Kaalia. And you won't be able to always guarantee her safety.

It only works on Angels....but seriously folks, it only NEEDs to work on Angels, because the best Angels are what carries the Kaalia Deck to victory, and the Demons and Dragons are more like "For Funsies".

Thundermaw Hellkite and Shadowborn Demon being the primary exceptions. Sure Demons and Dragons are cool, but the Demons can almost always be found in Sorcery and Enchantment form, and it might be fun as hell to play them, but I suspect it's less efficient TBH. From the Vault: Dragons had the best non-Thundermaw dragons in it. Look there and there are like 3 or 4 candidates for Kaalia's deck.

The only card I think is really unique and really crucial for Kaalia that's not an Angel-- I mean actually strategically crucial because it's hard to get other cards to play his role-- is Malfegor. The non-creature spells are usually as-good-as their flying epic counterparts, but Malfegor fuels Reanimation like a friggin BOSS.

Might be good to run this with any members of Theros's ordeal cycle. The Herald's ability will make the Ordeals Sacrifice more quickly, and the Ordeals will speed up the Herald's cost reduction.

Surprised nobody's mentioned Archangel of Thune.