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Are angels hard as a standalone because they have few battle winners or because of lack of good characters? Angels are almost exclusively a support brigade. The closest you can get to a standalone is all angels and Job and his amazing Dust and Ashes and Job's faith. Why is it this way? It's kind of odd.

Are angels hard as a standalone because they have few battle winners or because of lack of good characters? Angels are almost exclusively a support brigade. The closest you can get to a standalone is all angels and Job and his amazing Dust and Ashes and Job's faith. Why is it this way? It's kind of odd.

Angels have great character abilities, but silver enhacements are lacking to say the least. Silver has very few battle winners and lack initiative most of the time due to the fact that most of the heros have high numbers on offense and defense. The closest to stand-alone with angels that I can think of would be an Isaiah offense.

I disagree.  Against anything but these "meta" offenses (i.e. Speed), I feel an all angels deck can compete (and I have felt this for a long time).  They are weak against suicide defenses as well, but then again they have two great FBTN heroes (made even bigger with weapons on them).  They have 4 or more characters now that have access to all sites.  Michael + Angels's Sword equals first enhancement which cannot be negated.  Strong Angel and Captain get lost souls all by themselves.  Gabriel and Angel of the Harvest wreck the opp's deck.  They can search for enhancements, search for sites and fortresses, and even search for Son of God.  They can be brought back from discard easier than any other brigade.  They are immune to unholy writ and many other cards that target "humans".  They have access to the first round protect lost soul immediately.  As long as an EE is not CBN, they have some great interrupts and negates.  They have some of the best weapons in the game.

I wasn't sure what you meant by "hard", so I wasn't sure how to respond.  In fact now that dominants are more limited, strictly angels is probably more competitive than ever (although all my angel decks have Jacob in them too).

Just another (minority) opinion.

Angels are the fastest offense in the game:

Chamber+Gates of Hell= Profit

Not saying it doesn't have its drawbacks though.

Also, one of Angel's biggest deficiency's is lack of speed. They have Birth Foretold and Wheel within a Wheel for searching, but that's pretty much it.

Angel of Warning and Attending Angel let you search for much more.  But if you are only looking for dominants, then you are correct.

I disagree.  Against anything but these "meta" offenses (i.e. Speed), I feel an all angels deck can compete (and I have felt this for a long time).  They are weak against suicide defenses as well, but then again they have two great FBTN heroes (made even bigger with weapons on them).  They have 4 or more characters now that have access to all sites.  Michael + Angels's Sword equals first enhancement which cannot be negated.  Strong Angel and Captain get lost souls all by themselves.  Gabriel and Angel of the Harvest wreck the opp's deck.  They can search for enhancements, search for sites and fortresses, and even search for Son of God.  They can be brought back from discard easier than any other brigade.  They are immune to unholy writ and many other cards that target "humans".  They have access to the first round protect lost soul immediately.  As long as an EE is not CBN, they have some great interrupts and negates.  They have some of the best weapons in the game.

I wasn't sure what you meant by "hard", so I wasn't sure how to respond.  In fact now that dominants are more limited, strictly angels is probably more competitive than ever (although all my angel decks have Jacob in them too).

Just another (minority) opinion.

The main problem with standalone angels is that Sam does virtually everything they can do and much more. Michael + Angel's Sword means a play-first with CBN enhancements, but Sam or Gideon with Samuel's Edict does the same thing, as does any red hero with Bravery of David (provided David is in play - not hard in a Sam deck), without having to have three separate cards (Michael, Sword, and an enhancement to play) to do it. Plus, both Samuel's Edict and Bravery of David are better enhancements than virtually everything silver has to offer in terms of battle winners. They have two great FBTN heroes, but so does Sam (Ira and Benny), and both of those heroes can easily be banded to by a lot of heroes that are found in a lot of Sam decks to begin with. Sam decks utilize so many brigades that site access isn't really ever an issue. They don't have much in the way of deck destruction, but that's mostly fluff to begin with, and I'd rather have Confusion over Gabriel any day. I simply feel like Sam utilizes (or can utilize) all of the strengths silver has without having any of its weaknesses, which forces me to come to the conclusion that angels work best as a support brigade, and that using angels as a standalone offense is something done on principal or for the novelty of it and nothing more.

Silver can also kill problem characters with The Destroyer.

Silver can do anything and everything you need them to do, they just aren't as fast as other brigades.

There biggest advantage though is that they aren't human, which gets around Unholy Writ, Magic Charms, Balaam's Disobedience, many capture enhancements, Stone of Thebez, Invoking Terror.

I'm not sure about T1, but I think they are competitive in T2, although they might be best paired with a defense that can draw.

Angels do have moderate speed. First of all, AUTO doesn't need to exchange - he can just draw 2 CBN and be done, which is significant, and has no requirements. Wheel Within a Wheel and Birth Foretold have been mentioned; those are both good searches, and Birth Foretold searching for SoG is arguably better than a D3. Attending Angel can get an enhancement you need, Angel of Warning a fortress. Angels also have probably the two best FbtN heroes in the game, and even Gabriel, who, drawn early and kept alive, can take apart your opponent's offense OR defense even before he gets it set up.

What Angels most lack is definitely good battle-winners (or at least CBN ones) and initiative, and that's a big problem, even using Michael + Angel's Sword. Also, moderate speed and pretty good but negatable characters is not enough to win against the speed demons of today. That's why people don't generally use them.

No. Angels don't even have moderate speed, period. Moderate speed is like straight teal. Speed is Sam decks.

Quote from: CJSports on March 29, 2012, 08:29:56 PM

No. Angels don't even have moderate speed, period. Moderate speed is like straight teal. Speed is Sam decks.

You don't disagree with my opinion of angels' speed, you disagree with my definition of "moderate."

Which is the same thing as disagreeing with silver's speed, which I also happen to disagree with. One character that can D2 and a handful of search cards doesn't equal speed in the slightest, especially since that, except for Wheel Within a Wheel and Birth Foretold, you can only use one search (or draw) ability per turn. So, at the most, getting two cards per turn (assuming nobody kills Oak, who's a huge target in an angels deck [Chamber aside]) is simply not speed, or even "moderate" speed. A straight teal deck can manage more than that while making more effective rescue attempts just by having the feasts.

Why would Oak be a bigger target in an Angels deck than Michael, COTH, TSA and Gabriel?

Gabriel is a non-issue to me, since I don't think his ability is really that good. Yes, he can remove a good enhancement from my deck, but I don't really play any decks that can't live without any given enhancement. Most people who use Gabriel tend to go for battle winners anyway, which, if I'm playing a Sam deck, I'd prefer them to take out as opposed to Wheel Within a Wheel or Foreign Sword. Michael simply takes too long to set up, and almost all of my defense is auto-blocks or otherwise abilities that Michael has no effect on anyway. I don't think Oak is a bigger target than CotH or TSA (though I'd be tempted to keep the former around if I was using a Genesis deck), but he's a big target all the same, since he's the biggest speed angel in the game.

So, at the most, getting two cards per turn ... is simply not speed, or even "moderate" speed.

First of all, you can get more than that if you play Wheel or Birth Foretold before battle and/or you band in searching angels during battle (possible with a number of silver enhancements). Also, there is no way on earth that you can say that drawing 2 extra cards per turn is not speed at all. I remember when I used to use red decks that had literally no drawing cards in them. That's what I define as "not speed," and anything more than that is at least moderate speed. (You can call it "very very very little speed" if that's more comfortable for you, but some ≠ none.)

Then I guess it is our definition of speed that differs. Either way, Angels do have ways to get cards out of their deck, including specific useful cards. I call that speed, albeit moderate speed. Call it what you will.

I think we should differentiate between Speed (a deck type or build) and draw/search power, individual cards that help you get what you need.

I do differentiate between speed (cards that get stuff out of your deck) and speed decks (decks dedicated to speed). I still don't think that saying "angels do have moderate speed" is synonymous with saying "angels make a speed deck".

But to reiterate my opinion in verbiage that is hopefully more acceptable to people: I do NOT think that angels can make a speed deck. They DO have SOME good drawing and search cards, and are not completely incompetent, but they are not fast enough to defeat a true speed deck most games.