Magic: The Gathering Card Spotlight #02: Archangel of Thune

Welcome to my second Card Spotlight! Previously, we talked about my favourite planeswalker, Teferi, Temporal Archmage! Today, we will be going through my favourite White nonlegendary creature – Archangel of Thune!

Wow, this card sure brings back memories. In fact, it was the first mythic I recall opening in M14. Eventually, I put it in my first EDH deck, Marath, Will of the Wild. I broke apart that deck and sold the pieces. Eventually, buying a collection lead to me stumbling across another copy of the card. Now, that beautiful baby sits in my Selvala, Explorer Returned deck. So, let’s get into the flavour behind the place mentioned in its name!

Flavour

Thune is a kingdom that rests on the plains of Shandalar. Shandalar is a rogue plane that drifts about the multiverse and was created to have a generic fantasy plane for the Magic: The Gathering Computer Game by Micropose. This plane was used as Dominaria, the other generic fantasy plane, was going through an angsty post-apocalyptic phase and it wouldn’t make as much sense to have many generic fantasy tropes on that plane anymore. Because of this, Shandalar replaced Dominaria as the setting of core sets (until M15 when Origins took over for Magic Origins and core sets getting discontinued soon after).

Ardestan was once the capital city of Thune before being attacked by Lim-Dul. Aside from that, not much is known about the Shandalaran Kingdom of Thune due to Core Sets not being story driven. Now that we got the story out of the way, let’s get into the power of this card by analyzing its abilities.

Power

Note: (W)=White, (U)=Blue, (B)=Black, (R)= Red, (G)=Green, (C)=Colourless, (t)= tap

Archangel of Thune is a very powerful card for white just based on its abilities!

Oracle Text:

Archangel of Thune (3)(W)(W)
Creature – Angel
Flying
Lifelink (Damage dealt by this creature also causes you to gain that much life.)
Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
3/4

For only 5 mana, you have a 3/4 creature with flying and lifelink. These are pretty decent stats for a creature. However, what really makes Archangel of Thune go over the top is its second ability. Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on EACH creature you control (including itself).

So, she can trigger her own ability each turn by making everything insanely large! This makes her very effective with a whole array of life gain abilities and effects!

Synergy

There is one key combo that can be done with Archangel of Thune and that is with Spike Feeder. Only a 2-card combo! What Spike Feeder does is that it enters the battlefield with 2 +1/+1 counters on it. Then, you may remove a +1/+1 counter on it to gain 2 life. Since Archangel gives everything a +1/+1 counter whenever you gain life, you can repeat the action with the Spike Feeder and gain infinite life and put infinite +1/+1 counters on each creature you control (except for Spike Feeder). So, if you have the Archangel in play on a prior turn or have a way of giving it haste, slamming a Spike Feeder on the board will immediately end a player!

Oracle Text:

Spike Feeder (1)(G)(G)
Creature - Spike
Spike Feeder enters the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters on it.
{2}, Remove a +1/+1 counter from Spike Feeder: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Remove a +1/+1 counter from Spike Feeder: You gain 2 life.
0/0

The most synergistic cards for Archangel of Thune are Soul Sisters cards. Soul Sisters is an archetype in Magic that takes advantage of creatures that make you gain life whenever another creature enters the battlefield.

Examples of cards in this bucket include: Auriok Champion, Soul Warden , and ,for those who are looking for a snazzy commander, Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice.

Oracle Texts:
Auriok Champion (W)(W)
Creature – Human Cleric
Protection from black and from red

Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may gain 1 life.
1/1

Soul Warden (W)
Creature – Human Cleric
Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, you may gain 1 life.
1/1

Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice (W)(W)(G)(G)
Legendary Creature – Dryad
Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you gain life equal to that creature's toughness.

(1)(G)(W), (t): Populate. (Create a token that's a copy of a creature token you control.)

Last Words

I use Archangel of Thune currently in my Selvala Elfball deck as a means to combo off with Spike Feeder. However, she does have insane synergy with Selvala due to Selvala’s ability to gain life every turn. Sometimes, even multiple times a turn with untapping effects.

I wonder if the kingdom of Thune will return with the return of Core Sets with M19 coming soon. However, it looks like it might be another “Origins” style set with the origins of villainous planeswalkers instead. It would be fitting as it would parallel with the style of the Origins-walkers.

Have you heard its call? That is the call of the Planeswalkers of Steemit Discord Server! I am currently trying to build a community for Steemians who play Magic: The Gathering. On our server, we have a post-promotion channel for people to share their MTG-related Steemit Content. We also have an arena for people to suggest challenges through Skype, Facetime or any online app. Finally, we have the Bazaar of Baghdad where players may engage in trades that are transparent for all members of the community (with Steem/SBD transactions encouraged). In the near future, I am hoping to start up competitions to encourage creativity in deckbuilding, card alters or custom card design. So, stay tuned!

Come join us here: https://discord.gg/b6ThDYT

We are using the tag #magictcg . Anyone who uses the tag (at least for now during the early adoption stage) will have our support!

This is part of the TS Gaming Series. Feel free to check out my other posts in this series:
Beginner’s Guide to EDH
Bioshock Remastered
Bioshock Infinite
Loot Boxes and Crack Addiction
Shadow of Mordor

Magic: The Gathering Card Spotlight #01: Teferi, Temporal Archmage

Note: All images portraying cards are owned by Wizards of the Coast.