From the game's very earliest days, there was one card that became an all-time classic right out of the gate for players everywhere: Serra Angel. Nowadays, it might seem silly to look at this card. It's great in certain Limited formats but is laughably bad anywhere else. At the time of its release, however, it was easily one of the best creatures in the game - a title that would last for years as creatures continued to be substandard.

This would end up leading to Serra becoming a household name in the world of Magic, with the planeswalker's name becoming a title for several cards over the years. The various Vorthos fans out there would know all about Serra's role in the Homelands story that ultimately led to her death. For your average player, however, they'd get to truly see her for the first time as depicted in Urza's Saga as ruler over her realm.

Here we were introduced to her angels, the religion of Serra, and how they healed and revived Urza after his initial assault on Phyrexia. However, this led to the Phyrexians following Urza and corrupting Serra's Realm, leading to Urza inevitably destroying it. When Serra left the plane in the process of this story, she entrusted her realm to the care of the archangel Radiant.

Her aptly named card - Radiant, Archangel - became a beloved favorite of the Urza's Legacy set that followed. At a baseline, she was weaker than a normal Serra Angel on her own. However, if you played some number of creatures with flying, she became a truly devastating force. This made her a pricey card at the time despite a lack of Constructed applications and the love behind the card continues to this day in the era of Commander. She even got a revamp in Commander Legends as Radiant, Serra Archangel since the original was on the Reserved List!

However, today I'm not talking about the newer version of Radiant, which isn't great on her own and practically requires a partner card. Instead, I'd like to focus on the one that I grew up loving when I started playing Magic: Radiant, Archangel.

Since the card doesn't quite line up super well as the commander by today's standards, I'm instead opting to take a look back in time and tackle another PreDH deck instead! In case you're new to that sub-format of Commander, it's a format that includes all cards released before the Commander 2011 precons were printed. That means everything from New Phyrexia (and Magic 2011) backward is fair game. It's a fun time capsule format that allows us to look back at cool cards like this that may have lost their utility to modern design sensibilities.

With that, let's pull up a decklist and get to talking about it!

PreDH Radiant | PreDH | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Radiant, Archangel

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Adarkar Valkyrie
• 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
• 1 Angelic Arbiter
• 1 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Baneslayer Angel
• 1 Battlegrace Angel
• 1 Blinding Angel
• 1 Celestial Crusader
• 1 Dawnglare Invoker
• 1 Devout Witness
• 1 Emeria Angel
• 1 Exalted Angel
• 1 Flickerwisp
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Knight of the White Orchid
• 1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1 Luminous Angel
• 1 Magus of the Moat
• 1 Mother of Runes
• 1 Palladium Myr
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Serra Angel
• 1 Serra Ascendant
• 1 Serra Avenger
• 1 Shattered Angel
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 Wall of Omens
• 1 Wall of Reverence
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Windborn Muse

• Instants (4)
• 1 Disenchant
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Return to Dust
• 1 Swords to Plowshares

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Battle Screech
• 1 Day of Judgment
• 1 Decree of Justice
• 1 Spectral Procession
• 1 Wrath of God

• Enchantments (11)
• 1 Angelic Chorus
• 1 Crackdown
• 1 Ghostly Prison
• 1 Honor of the Pure
• 1 Journey to Nowhere
• 1 Marshal's Anthem
• 1 Oblivion Ring
• 1 Sacred Mesa
• 1 Serra's Blessing
• 1 Serra's Embrace
• 1 Worship

• Artifacts (7)
• 1 Everflowing Chalice
• 1 Marble Diamond
• 1 Mind Stone
• 1 Sensei's Divining Top
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1 Sword of Vengeance

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

• Lands (39)
• 30 Plains
• 1 Blinkmoth Nexus
• 1 Eiganjo Castle
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Flagstones of Trokair
• 1 Kor Haven
• 1 Mishra's Factory
• 1 Mistveil Plains
• 1 Secluded Steppe
• 1 Windbrisk Heights

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When it came to putting this deck together, there was a real challenge of trying to make it feel resonant. After all, when players play a deck helmed by an angel that flavorfully leads the realm of angels, you want to make sure your deck is full of angels. The problem with this, though, is that many of the game's angels that existed at this time weren't all that great. After all, PreDH as a format predates the original Innistrad block with all its solid angels by mere months.

Most of the time in the game's early days you'd see only one or two in a set. Generally speaking, they would often end up being fairly bland and basic. Cards like Seraph, Archangel, Avenging Angel, Warrior Angel, and Angel of Mercy may have been pretty awesome cards back in their day, but times changed. By the time of New Phyrexia and PreDH, most of these cards are just bad. If nothing else, they're certainly not particularly useful for the purposes of Commander.

Even in the Urza Block itself, options were pretty sparse as far as angels went. Of the twelve angels printed across the entire block, only two are really worth playing: Radiant herself and Karmic Guide. Herald of Serra could perhaps be seen as an outside option if you want a creature with a somewhat reasonable rate, but here it's simply not good enough - especially when the deck itself has access to the original Serra Angel itself.

Thankfully, with only 58 angels, there are in fact some that are pretty solid options and are, in fact, worth playing. As sets went on, we'd often see only one angel in a set as design sensibilities improved, so too did the quality of those angels per set. Even smaller and simpler ones like Shattered Angel and Lightkeeper of Emeria did some pretty sweet things that made them on the edge of playable in something like Commander. As you can tell from the list above, the former of those two made the cut, as it gains you quite a bit of life.

Powerful constructed options like Serra Avenger, Exalted Angel, and Linvala, Keeper of Silence each make great picks for a deck like this. They're fantastic beaters that make for stellar mid-game and top end hits. So too do more casual oriented icons like Emeria Angel, Adarkar Valkyrie, and the incredibly iconic Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Luminous Angel and Angelic Arbiter also make for great top end threats while Sunblast Angel can provide a solid board wipe.

Surprisingly, there were just enough decently playable angels that it felt like I was leaving some stuff on the table. For example, cards like Victory's Herald, Deathless Angel, and Chancellor of the Annex are all fantastic cards. That's not to mention the likes of cards like Adomination Angel, Twilight Shepherd, Pristine Angel, and Angel of Salvation. Heck, I didn't even put the all-time design of Platinum Angel in here!

The problem with these is that every one of the creatures I named has a mana value of six or more. As such, the more you include, the more top heavy your deck gets. Commander players everywhere may love going deep on the big battlecruiser gameplay the format advertises, but even that has its limits. If you rely too heavily on these high cost cards, then you'll likely be taken out of the game before you can even cast them. The options I selected were the ones that I thought would play best in a Commander setting, but you should absolutely pick and choose from the ones that feel best for you to play with as well.

In addition to the angels themselves, I wanted to find some cards that felt on theme, even if they weren't directly angels themselves. Going back to the Urza Block itself, it's worth noting that Serra's Realm plays such a big role despite so few angels across the block. As such, there's still going to be a number of cool thematic cards to choose from.

I particularly fell in love with Angelic Chorus as a flavorful way to gain a ton of life and keep yourself in the game. It's especially helpful given how many of your creatures are likely coming down late, ensuring you can live long enough to cast them. Once you have creatures, you can also use slam a Worship. As long as you have one body on the board, this will make it that much more difficult to lose the game and is more resilient than something like Platinum Angel.

Serra's Embrace is also here for similar flavor reasons. It's funny that the flying aspect of the aura has little utility in this deck given how the majority of creatures here already fly, but the power boost plus vigilance is usually enough to make it worthwhile. Alternatively, you can also use the thematic Serra's Blessing to give all your creatures vigilance as well. I also included Elspeth, Knight-Errant given her eventual context with Serra and angels. She also just happens to be good at spitting out creatures earlier in the game, which is important for a deck like this.

I considered something like Serra Aviary given all the fliers, but Glorious Anthem would probably still have the same kind of resonance but play better. Still, I went with Marshal's Anthem just because it had far better utility. Honor of the Pure also sees play here on account of being cheaper to cast. If you really want the flavor home run, though, then by all means break out the Glorious Anthem.

In fact, a big element I wanted to make sure the deck could handle was getting creatures onto the board in earlier turns. After all, most of the deck's angels are quite expensive, so how do you off-set that? One of the simpler ways I found was to use creatures like Weathered Wayfarer, Knight of the White Orchid, Palladium Myr, and Pilgrim's Eye all pull double time in ensuring you're able to get your big creatures down while helping bridge the gap as blockers in the meantime. Additionally, token generators like Battle Screech, Spectral Procession, and Sacred Mesa all do great work - as well as fueling Radiant herself in the late game.

The one other way to make sure you can get to your ultimate angelic gameplan is to just stop your opponents from coming after you effectively. Cards like Crackdown, Ghostly Prison, Windborn Muse, and Magus of the Moat all make it that much harder for you to be attacked. If your opponents' board state becomes too difficult to overcome, you can also break out board wipes like Day of Judgment and Wrath of God or simply resort to potent spot removal like Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares.

What this ultimately produces is a simple yet fun deck that happens to be filled to the brim with flavor. It's a great deck for you to take to an event and hand it to a newer player to get them excited to play the game. Even if you're a veteran player, the more straightforward gameplay can be refreshing compared to the typically complex gameplay you'd see nowadays. Best of all, though, is that there's a surprising amount of customization potential to the list.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Radiant, Archangel - who isn't super expensive given her Reserved List status - I highly recommend giving this one a shot. Most of the cards in the deck aren't outrageously expensive and the ones that are (Sensei's Divining Top and Serra Ascendant) can easily be swapped out with a cheaper alternative. This makes it a fun and very affordable way to have a great time at your next Commander night.

Paige Smith

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