Calling All Angels precon upgrade guide

Magic has ten Angel creatures a mono-white deck can cast for two mana or less. Calling All Angels plays four of them, and Giada still has almost nothing to do with her best ability before turn four.

Giada, Font of Hope gives every other Angel an extra +1/+1 counter for each Angel you already control. That compounds, so the fifth Angel you cast is worth far more than the first. The box builds toward that payoff and then back-loads the Angels that trigger it.

Three of its thirty Angels cost two mana or less, one of those three cannot legally be cast before your fourth turn, and ten cost five or more.

That is what the twelve swaps below are for. Most of them put Angel bodies on the battlefield early and repeatedly, which is the one thing this commander pays for and the one thing the box is short of.

What are the best Calling All Angels upgrades?

Five of these do the same job from different directions, and that is deliberate: they make Angels without asking you to cast one.

1. Luminarch Ascension ($15.45). Two mana now, then a 4/4 flying Angel for {1}{W} every turn once it carries four quest counters. The board that stops opponents attacking you is the board this deck already wants.
2. Angelic Accord ($2.49). A 4/4 flying Angel at end step for gaining 4 life in a turn. Bishop of Wings gives you exactly 4 when an Angel enters.
3. Resplendent Angel ($7.42). The same deal at 5 life, and it is an Angel itself. Angel of Vitality turns that 4 into 5.
4. Divine Visitation ($0.44). Every creature token you make arrives as a 4/4 flying vigilance Angel instead. Court of Grace alone makes one a turn.
5. Emeria's Call ($4.23). A land for most of the game, and two 4/4 Angel Warriors once you have seven mana.
6. Herald's Horn ($5.60). A mana off all thirty Angels, and roughly three upkeeps in ten it hands you a free card.
7. Akroma's Will ($16.43). With Giada on the battlefield you take both halves, which on a board of fliers usually ends the game.

The full twelve, and the twelve cards they replace, are in the cut list and the decklist below.

Three cheap Angels, and one is off limits until turn four

Here is the curve of the thirty Angels in the box, by mana value: one at one, three at two, seven at three, nine at four, three at five, two at six, four at seven, and one at nine.

Giada is one of the three at two. The others are Segovian Angel, Youthful Valkyrie and Serra Avenger, and Serra Avenger says outright that you can't cast it "during your first, second, or third turns of the game". So on a clean curve you cast Giada on turn two and the next Angel to arrive gets a single +1/+1 counter.

That is the entire payoff for two turns of setup. Giada's counters only get interesting with three or four Angels already down, and this box puts ten of its Angels at five mana or more.

The fix is not cheaper Angels. White does not have them. Counting only cards a mono-white deck can legally run, Magic has ten Angels at two mana or less, and the six the box left out are Angelic Page, Angelic Curator, Angelic Cub, Guardian of the Great Door, Sustaining Spirit and Lightstall Inquisitor. Angelic Page and Angelic Curator are 1/1 fliers whose abilities do not justify a card. Angelic Cub does not fly at all until it has three counters on it. Guardian of the Great Door asks you to tap four permanents as you cast it. Sustaining Spirit carries cumulative upkeep. Lightstall Inquisitor hands an opponent a card to play.

The box already runs every cheap Angel worth running. The bodies have to come from somewhere other than the Angel slot.

Make Angels without casting Angels

The deck has a lifegain chain in it already and nothing at the end of it. Bishop of Wings gives you exactly 4 life every time an Angel enters. Angel of Vitality adds 1 to every life gain, which turns that 4 into 5. Righteous Valkyrie gains you life equal to the toughness of each Angel or Cleric that enters, so one four-toughness Angel clears both numbers by itself.

Angelic Accord wants 4 life in a turn. Resplendent Angel wants 5. Both pay a 4/4 flying Angel, and both of those Angels enter with Giada's counters on them.

None of that is a combo. It is four cards the box already runs, pointed at two cards it does not.

Luminarch Ascension needs no lifegain at all, only four opponent end steps on which you did not lose life. In a four-player game that is three chances per turn cycle, so it usually comes online about a turn and a half after it lands. Archangel of Tithes taxes every attacker, Seraph of the Sword takes no combat damage, and 30 of the 34 creatures fly, so a ground deck has very little to swing into. The only four that do not fly are the four that are not Angels. Divine Visitation sits behind all of them and upgrades the small tokens: Court of Grace's 1/1 Spirits, the Spirit that Bishop of Wings makes when an Angel dies, and the 1/1 Humans from Castle Ardenvale all arrive as 4/4 flying Angels instead.

Three of the twelve adds are lands, and they go in for three worse lands rather than on top of them. Castle Ardenvale taps for white and turns spare mana into bodies. Emeria's Call is a white source you can play on turn two and cash in for two 4/4 Angel Warriors on turn seven, which is the right shape for a deck whose top end is already crowded. Emeria, the Sky Ruin returns a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield every upkeep once you control seven Plains, and the deck runs thirty-two of them.

Herald's Horn and Archaeomancer's Map cover the mana. The Horn takes {1} off every Angel and shows you the top card of your library each upkeep, keeping it if it is an Angel. The Map fetches two Plains to hand and then puts a land down free whenever an opponent out-lands you.

Two instants and one sorcery-speed answer finish the list. Unbreakable Formation is three mana of indestructible, and cast in your main phase it also leaves a +1/+1 counter on everything. Akroma's Will reads as a protection spell and plays as a finisher: with your commander out you choose both modes, and a board of fliers with double strike and lifelink and protection from every colour is usually the game. Generous Gift is the catch-all the box has no copy of, killing a permanent of any type for three mana and handing its controller a 3/3 Elephant for the trouble.

Name Angel four times, and know what it costs

Four cards in the upgraded deck make you choose a creature type: Metallic Mimic, Vanquisher's Banner, Patchwork Banner and Herald's Horn. Name Angel on all four.

Thirty of the deck's thirty-four creatures are Angels, so that is not a close call. Naming Cleric would reach six creatures and abandon twenty-seven. What makes Angel better still is Metallic Mimic, which becomes the chosen type itself: name Angel and the Mimic is a two-mana Angel that repeats Giada's counter rule for everything that follows it.

The price is three cards. Speaker of the Heavens, Bishop of Wings and Starnheim Aspirant are not Angels and never will be, so the two Banners skip them and Herald's Horn will not reduce them or reveal them. That is a real cost and it is the correct one to pay, because all three of those cards are worth a slot for reasons the Banners have nothing to do with.

Herald's Horn is the card that makes the naming decision pay twice. Thirty of the ninety-nine cards behind Giada are Angels, so about three upkeeps in ten put a free Angel in your hand.

Three lands and nine spells, starting with the one that makes no mana

Temple of the False God produces nothing until your fifth land and then produces colourless. This deck asks for {W}{W}{W} three separate times, on Archangel of Tithes, Sephara, Sky's Blade and Herald of Eternal Dawn. Radiant Fountain goes for the same reason with a smaller excuse: 2 life once, and 2 is under both of the thresholds that now matter.

Secluded Steppe comes out for Emeria, the Sky Ruin. Both of those enter tapped, and I am not going to pretend that swap makes the deck faster. It is the same slot with a far better card in it.

Reya Dawnbringer costs nine. Emeria, the Sky Ruin has her upkeep ability for the price of a land, needs seven Plains against the thirty-two in the deck, and leaves only the 4/6 body behind. In a deck with seven mana rocks, a nine-drop is a card you draw and hold.

Day of Judgment destroys all creatures in the deck that has the creatures. Cleansing Nova stays because its other mode answers artifacts and enchantments, and Austere Command stays because you pick two of its four modes. Sunblast Angel stays for a better reason than either: it destroys all tapped creatures, and this deck hands itself vigilance three different ways through Always Watching, Thraben Watcher and Angelic Field Marshal. Your attackers are untapped when it lands. Theirs are not.

Cut a Deal and Secret Rendezvous both pay opponents to let you draw. In a four-player game Cut a Deal gives three cards away to draw three, and Secret Rendezvous hands one opponent three cards so that you can draw three. Neither is worth a slot in a deck that is trying to end the game.

The last four are ordinary. Defy Death is five mana for one creature back. Angelic Destiny puts four mana onto a single body in a deck going wide. Invoke the Divine and Exorcise overlap with removal the deck keeps: Destroy Evil and Valorous Stance do the same work at instant speed, and Angel of the Ruins exiles two artifacts or enchantments on arrival. Swiftfoot Boots protects one creature when the deck would rather have another.

The four creatures that are not Angels are all there for the Angels

Every non-Angel creature in this box looks like a cut and none of them is one.

Starnheim Aspirant is a 2/2 for three that does nothing to the board, and it takes {2} off every Angel spell you cast. Put Herald's Horn beside it and Sephara, Sky's Blade costs {1}{W}{W}{W} instead of {4}{W}{W}{W}. That is the real answer to this deck's top end.

Bishop of Wings is a 1/4 for two that will never attack in a deck that wins in the air. It also gains you 4 life per Angel arriving, which is the trigger for two of the adds, and gives you a 1/1 flying Spirit per Angel dying, which is what makes a sweeper survivable rather than fatal.

Metallic Mimic stops being off-type the moment you name Angel, as covered above.

Speaker of the Heavens is a 1/1 for one mana. It is also the only turn-one play in the deck, and once you are 7 life up it makes 4/4 flying Angels for free, which Bishop of Wings and Righteous Valkyrie between them get you to quickly.

What changed, and the one number that did not

Average mana value falls from 3.56 to 3.48 and the nine-drop is gone, leaving four cards at seven as the top of the curve. White sources rise from 39 to 41, which takes the odds of two white sources by turn three from 93.4% to 94.8%. Lands stay at 38, but lands that cannot cast a white spell drop from five to three.

Card draw reads 14 in the box and 12 after, and that is an improvement rather than a loss: the two that left were the two that drew for everybody else. Sweepers go from four to three, the cards that choose a creature type go from three to four, and the bracket floor does not move at all. Giada's deck is Bracket 1 in the box and Bracket 1 after twelve swaps, because nothing on either list appears on the Game Changer list.

One number refused to budge. Mana rocks still count seven, under the eight to twelve a hundred-card deck usually wants, and that is worth saying plainly rather than explaining away. It is also not the whole picture here. Giada taps for white mana for Angel spells, Starnheim Aspirant takes {2} off them, Herald of War takes another {1} off for each counter on it, and Herald's Horn takes {1} off as well. Four accelerants that only accelerate Angels, and Angels are thirty of the thirty-four creatures. A count of rocks cannot see any of them.

Two cards people will ask about are missing on purpose. Smothering Tithe is the first thing most white decks reach for and it costs $56.81 on its own, roughly what the whole box of cards is worth, and it is a Game Changer, so one copy moves this deck out of Bracket 1 by itself. Own one already and you should play it. Buying one for this deck changes what the deck is. Shalai, Voice of Plenty is the other obvious pick and it is simply illegal here: a green-white colour identity cannot go in a mono-white deck.

The twelve adds come to $62.86. The box's own hundred cards come to at least $54.56, and one of them carries no market price at all, so that figure is a floor rather than a total. Every number on this page is computed from the shipped decklist for this deck, at October 2026 market prices for default printings.

The upgraded decklist

The full 100 is below with the twelve swaps applied, grouped the way the deck builder groups it. Hover any name to see the card, its price and where to buy it.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

FAQ

Is Calling All Angels any good before you change anything?

It works. Thirty of its thirty-four creatures are Angels, fourteen of its cards draw, and the mana is honest at 39 white sources across 38 lands. What it lacks is a way to use Giada early, because only three of its Angels cost two mana or less and one of those cannot be cast before your fourth turn. Expect a fair midrange deck that gets dangerous around turn seven.

What bracket is Calling All Angels?

Bracket 1, and these swaps leave it there. Not one of the twelve adds appears on the Game Changer list, which is exactly why Smothering Tithe is absent despite being the first card most white decks reach for. Go further than these twelve and paste the result into the bracket checker, because one Game Changer lifts the floor on its own.

Which creature type should I name with Metallic Mimic and the Banners?

Angel, on all four cards that ask you. Thirty of the deck's thirty-four creatures are Angels, and naming Angel also turns Metallic Mimic itself into one, which makes it a two-mana Angel and a second copy of Giada's counter rule. Naming Cleric would reach six creatures and abandon twenty-seven. The cost is that Speaker of the Heavens, Bishop of Wings and Starnheim Aspirant get nothing from the buff.

Why cut Reya Dawnbringer?

Nine mana, in a deck with seven mana rocks. Emeria, the Sky Ruin returns a creature from your graveyard to the battlefield at the beginning of your upkeep for the cost of a land slot, it asks for seven Plains and the deck runs thirty-two, and the only part of Reya you give up is the 4/6 flying body.

How much do these upgrades cost?

$62.86 for all twelve at October 2026 market prices for default printings, a little more than the $54.56 floor on the box's own hundred cards. Luminarch Ascension and Akroma's Will account for $31.88 of it, so the other ten come to $30.98 if you want the cheaper half of the list first.

Can Lyra Dawnbringer lead this deck instead of Giada?

She can, and she is worse at it. Lyra costs five where Giada costs two, and her bonus is a flat +1/+1 and lifelink where Giada's counters grow with every Angel already on the battlefield. Sephara, Sky's Blade and Linvala, the Preserver are legal commanders here too. All three cost five or more, which is the problem Giada exists to solve.