Voltron under a new light – Bruna, Light of Alabaster ++ACTIVE++

From the pile of random cards I had acquired when I got back into Magic in 2016, there was this weird Angel card in Italian, that probably came along an order on MagicCardMarket (by the way: don’t call them MKM as most French people do, they hate it. It’s CM, for CardMarket. Period.), as I tend to browse the seller’s page for other cheap cards when I needed something specific at first.

Pro tip : don’t do that. It will make you spend some unnecessary money on cards you either 1. Don’t need right now, or 2. Won’t find in the future when you need them. Plus, they will accumulate in random piles around your collections and cause more trouble than they’re worth.

Anyway, this unusual Legendary Angel, from a set I hadn’t played with (Avacyn Restored) when she was released, had piqued my curiosity as I was looking for a new deck to build.

For starters, she was Azorius, not a color combination that I’m used to playing. I like Blue. White, not as much. It’s not that I hate the mechanical space, or its lower general power in our format – though it’s clearly a weaker color for EDH. There’s something about the flavor, I guess, the rules-setting demeanor, the power of Light, the organized armies, etc… Also usually portrayed as the “Good Guys”(tm). Uh. Boring. I might have to get back to my feelings with White in another post, as it’s been bugging me for a while. Because there are some definitely cool cards in mono-White, and some interesting commanders too!

Anyway, back to our swole Angel. She wanted to suit up, Voltron-style, but not the more treaded way of Equipments. She messed with Auras, something I had little experience with, and is also usually dismissed due to the built-in card disadvantage / blowout potential. But, most importantly, she played with the graveyard. This, I can relate. Graveyard is my jam. I like having this huge mass of cards on the playmat that I can use as a second hand.

Remember this was around 2017, and one of my first, actual, thought-out decks. It’s not like it was ages ago, but the meta felt different. More casual and battlecruiser-y. I could take my time to set my board – and empty my library into my graveyard.

At first glance, Bruna has some key features that make for a good Voltron commander. She provides a big body ; some evasion ; and Vigilance also helps protecting our life total while she swings in. But she’s not an all-star, Voltron-material either. She doesn’t have any built-in protection (Hexproof, the newer Ward, Indestructible…) ; her 5-power still needs a bit of help to get to a quick lethal potential ; she doesn’t have Haste, with no easy way to grant it with her color identity ; all the while requiring an attack trigger to unleash her potential. This will usually mean that your opponents have a full turn to remove her. Lastly, with a mana value of 6, recasting her more than once in Azorius colors feels… ambitious (understatement). And being a scary Voltron commander, rendered even scarier by the fact that you want to dump your Auras into your graveyard (making the scrap pile of Auras known information to all players), the opponents are definitely going to try and kill her before you untap.

Despite this initial assessment, I was still willing to try her out, as I had a couple of other cards amassed that would fit perfectly.

Turns out the deck pretty much functions as intended, aiming at getting a massive collection of Auras onto a huge flying beater as fast as possible, and wiping out players one by one. Interestingly, some synergies are VERY explosive and can lead to games being won almost on the spot, or the opponents conceding right away.

It also often comes down to a « removal check », especially if I manage to land a Haste-enabler before casting the Azorius angelic sister. Allowing her to attack even once is often enough to get massive value ([[Flight of Fancy]]) and/or enough protection ([[Shielded by Faith]]) to wrap things up. As the deck also revolves around a couple creatures for Aura synergies or even ramp ([[Apprentice Wizard]], the various Aura tutors), she isn’t even really vulnerable to anecdotal sacrifice effects like [[Fleshbag Marauder]].

So overall, a pretty cool deck, kinda unusual, with some nice techy cards, but that suffers from Voltron style. If you want to test your nerves (and your playgroup’s as they scramble for removal) and feel like a flying harbinger of righteous fury, test it out ! Who said Azorius can’t be fun at times ?!?