Pioneer: Selesnya Angels (2025) - Deck Tech & Sideboard Guide

Selesnya Angels have been around in Pioneer sinceKaldheim was released in 2020. The Norse-themed set introduced Righteous Valkyrie and other creatures like Youthful Valkyrie that allowed for interactions between a creature type that previously had relatively little support for a deck.

Coupled with Giada, Font of Hope in Streets of New Capenna, Angels have become one of the main predators of very aggressive Metagames in Pioneer due to their versatility in establishing pressure on the board while delaying any deck that needs damage to win games, occasionally even interrupting the combo-kill possibility of archetypes like Greasefang, Okiba Boss.

This is the standard Selesnya Angels list that has been showing up in the last few months. There are some flexible slots, such as whether to include Shapers’ Sanctuary in the Sideboard instead of Tocasia’s Welcome, or even whether to prefer Get Lost instead of Portable Hole to deal with higher mana value permanents like Unholy Annex and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria.

As a deck focused on life gain and creature interactions, Selesnya Angels mainly preys on Aggro and has poor matchups against removal-focused strategies, especially those whose interaction does not depend on damage like Rakdos Demons or Azorius Control — currently, it is in a good position due to the growth of Red Aggro caused by both Cori-Steel Cutter and the results of Mono Red Lynx*. However, due to the ability of Screaming Nemesis and Sunspine Lynx to “lock” life gain, this game is not always 100% guaranteed.

We cannot ignore the ability to gain absurd amounts of life with Bishop of Wings and Righteous Valkyrie, making all creatures turn into a considerable clock in the game and making Selesnya Angels a beatdown option with little interaction, but very resilient against other archetypes trying to play under.

Maindeck

Mana dorks speed up the casting of Collected Company and Kayla’s Reconstruction, two defining cards of this archetype which allow for its most explosive plays as the game goes on. They are a common side out when we know that winning on the race is not the best option.

The angel package that makes this archetype possible.

Bishop of Wings, despite not being an angel, is the ideal two-drop for the list: it makes each angel enter with a considerable life gain and turns all removals into negative trades.

Giada, Font of Hope is a mana dork that interacts only with angels and turns any creature into a bomb if we have a positive board position, in addition to interacting with the rest of the list to trigger Bishop of Wings and Righteous Valkyrie.

Righteous Valkyrie is the main lord of the archetype — conditional, since we need to have 27 or more life, but with a more impactful power increase. Two of them, coming from a Collected Company or Kayla’s Reconstruction, tend to create a game-winning board state, with each turn that it remains in play turning into another snowball pile for the opponent.

Especially if a Resplendent Angel is already in play: in addition to the decent body for its cost, it creates tokens easily with Bishop of Wings and Righteous Valkyrie, putting more permanents on the board each turn and invalidating the opponent’s removals if they don’t resolve it quickly.

Inspiring Overseer offers another way to keep the gas running while interacting with Bishop of Wings and Resplendent Angel to put a token on the board when it enters. It's not the most efficient card in its category, and we could consider other angels in this slot, but other options, like Youthful Valkyrie seem win more or less efficient for the current Metagame.

Skyclave Apparition isn't an angel, but provides a board interaction that handles almost everything that matters in Pioneer today, and is our main way to answer Screaming Nemesis or Sunspine Lynx in this list.

Collected Company and Kayla’s Reconstruction offer resilience against targeted removal by offering a two-for-one or greater, and they also enable the most explosive plays in this list. They are the other reason to play Selesnya Angels, and the main reason we need mana dorks like Llanowar Elves.

Despite having only two colors, Selesnya Angels is relatively greedy for white mana, so we maximized the amount of nonbasic lands — after all, we can easily guarantee that Sunspine Lynx doesn't end games against us.

To maximize mana efficiency, we included a full set of all untapped dual lands in the colors available in Pioneer, along with Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire as a utility land that doubles as removal.

Sideboard

Tocasia’s Welcome provides more breathing room in longer games against Midrange and Control, and also offers ways to generate some value from our creatures before they are destroyed by a sweeper or spot removal.

Reidane, God of the Worthy has several functions: it delays sweepers like Supreme Verdict and Extinction Event, Planeswalkers like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and also has a side that prevents damage from Mayhem Devil and makes spot removals cost more mana.

Archon of Emeria works in games where the opponent casts many spells in a turn: Izzet Phoenix, Prowess, Lotus Field, among others. Since we have higher mana requirements, we don't usually suffer as much from the one-spell-per-turn clause, and we still take advantage of the opponent's lands entering tapped.

Rest in Peace is our answer against archetypes that rely on the graveyard in some way — Jund Sacrifice, Izzet Phoenix, Greasefang, Okiba Boss, among others.

Deafening Silence and Damping Sphere target almost the same matchups that Archon of Emeria does: Izzet Phoenix, Lotus Combo, Prowess, among others. Normally, we don't want Damping Sphere against Prowess given we already have many answers against it, and spending the second turn on a card that does nothing is far from our ideal.

Portable Hole is the main removal available in the Sideboard for Aggro, but it also deals with other troublesome permanents like Witch’s Oven. It’s worth noting that it can be found with Kayla’s Reconstruction. Therefore, it’s common to leave it instead of Collected Company in some games.

Mono Red Lynx

IN

OUT

Rakdos Demons

IN

OUT

Izzet Phoenix

IN

OUT

Rakdos Prowess

IN

OUT

Jund Ygra

IN

OUT

Mono White Tokens

IN

OUT

That’s all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!