How to upgrade Calling All Angels, the Giada precon

How to upgrade the Foundations Commander Angel deck: what Giada, Font of Hope is really doing, what to cut, the cards to add at three budgets, and how the deck closes a game.

Aymeric Lamontagne

Oct 26, 2026

When we ranked the five Foundations Commander decks in September, Calling All Angels came last on power and first on friendliness: a two-mana commander, a plan that shows up every game, and the best removal in the box. All of that is still true. The deck does not have a consistency problem. It has a ceiling problem, and the ceiling has a specific cause.

Here is the honest finding: this deck gains a great deal of life and does almost nothing with it. Its life-total payoffs are thresholds — Righteous Valkyrie and Speaker of the Heavens switch on at 47 life and do nothing extra at 70 — and its per-trigger payoffs, Exemplar of Light and Vanguard Seraph, are worth one card and one surveil a turn. So the precon builds two good engines, Angels that grow and a life total that climbs, and connects them in one direction only: Angels entering gain you life, but gaining life does almost nothing for the Angels. The upgrade is mostly about the other direction. The twelve-card package at the end came to $75.98 in singles on October 23, 2026, and a nine-card version that does most of the same job costs $13.49.

This piece covers four things, in order: what Giada, Font of Hope is actually doing, the twelve cards to cut, the cards to add at three budgets, and how an upgraded list closes a game — including what to do when someone casts a wrath into your sky.

Swaps

12 — Out of the 99

Package cost

$75.98 — All twelve adds

Under-$5 version

$13.49 — Nine swaps

Game Changers added

0 — Still Bracket 2 by the list

The upgrade at a glance. Prices are the cheapest English non-Foundations-Commander printing in Manamancer’s card index, refreshed October 23, 2026.

What Giada is really doing

• Giada, Font of Hope — 1W · 2/2 Angel · mono-white

Giada, Font of Hope is a two-mana 2/2 flier with vigilance and two jobs. The first is the one on the box: each other Angel you control enters with an extra +1/+1 counter for every Angel you already control, Giada included. The second Angel on the table gets one counter, the third gets two, the fifth gets four. The second job is quieter and matters as much: she taps for {W} that can only be spent on Angel spells, which makes her a mana rock on turn two for 29 of the 99.

Two things follow from reading her that way, and the whole upgrade falls out of them.

She rewards a count, not a size. Giada cares how many Angels are already out when the next one lands, so cheap Angels, token Angels and anything that counts as an Angel are worth more here than one expensive bomb — a 4/4 Angel token that arrives on a board of five Angels is a 9/9. It also means the cheap Angels go first, so the expensive ones arrive enormous.

The counters are a resource the deck barely spends. Norn's Choirmaster proliferates whenever Giada enters or attacks, and Metallic Mimic (name Angel) is a second, smaller Giada. Past that, the precon puts counters on its creatures and then simply attacks with them. There is no card that turns "every creature has counters" or "I gained life again" into more counters, more cards or a finish.

Around her, the 99 pulls in the two directions the ranking piece described: Angels and anthems (Lyra Dawnbringer, Angelic Field Marshal, Starnheim Aspirant to make them cheaper), and life gain (Bishop of Wings gains 4 whenever an Angel enters, Righteous Valkyrie gains each one's toughness, Seraph Sanctuary adds 1 more). The halves meet in one place — an Angel entering is also a life-gain trigger. The upgrade's job is to make the life gain pay back into the board every time it happens.

What to cut

Twelve cards, chosen by one test: does it raise the Angel count Giada sees, turn life gain into something, or protect the board? These do not. Six of them are Angels; five Angels come back in the swaps and two more cards make Angel tokens, so the count Giada sees goes up, not down.

The twelve cuts

• Serra Avenger — Cannot be cast on your first three turns, and after that it is a vanilla 3/3 flier.
• Seraph of the Sword — Four mana for a 3/3 flier whose only text protects itself in combat.
• Segovian Angel — A 1/1 for one. Giada grows it, but she grows every Angel, and this one does nothing else.
• Angel of Finality — One-shot graveyard hate on a four-drop. A sideboard card in a format without a sideboard.
• Vanguard Seraph — Surveil 1 is the smallest payoff for life gain the deck could have picked.
• Reya Dawnbringer — Nine mana, seven with Starnheim Aspirant, and nothing happens until your next upkeep.
• Secret Rendezvous — Three cards for you and three for an opponent of your choice.
• Search the Premises — Draws only when opponents attack you — which Archangel of Tithes and a sky full of blockers exist to stop.
• Endless Atlas — Two mana and a tap per card. Herald’s Horn does more for one more mana.
• Day of Judgment — Kills Giada with everything else. Austere Command stays, and its big-creature mode spares her.
• Angelic Destiny — Four mana to make one creature big, in a deck whose plan is making all of them big.
• Temple of the False God — A land that taps for nothing until your fifth land.

Four cards that look like cuts and are not. Speaker of the Heavens is a one-mana lifelinker that, once you are at 47 life, taps every turn for a 4/4 flying Angel — and each of those tokens enters with Giada's counters. Metallic Mimic is a second Giada for two mana; name Angel. Sephara, Sky's Blade can be cast for {W} by tapping four untapped fliers, and gives every other flier indestructible, which is a wrath answer that also attacks. And Cut a Deal is three cards for three mana in a four-player pod; each opponent getting one is a price worth paying in a deck this short on draw.

What to add, at three budgets

Every price below is the cheapest English printing in Manamancer's card index on October 23, 2026, leaving out the new Foundations Commander printings and memorabilia. Every card was checked for Commander legality and a white (or colourless) colour identity, and none of the cards in the first two tiers is on Wizards' Game Changers list — the two that are, in the third tier, are flagged, and the section on brackets says what they do to the deck.

Two near-misses worth naming, because both look like obvious Angel-deck adds: Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Archangel Avacyn are both outside Giada's colour identity — Shalai has a green activation, and Avacyn's back face is red. Neither can go in a mono-white deck.

Pocket change: under $5 each

Turn life gain into Angels. Angelic Accord ($0.95) makes a 4/4 flying Angel at each end step in which you gained 4 or more life — and Bishop of Wings gains exactly 4 the moment any Angel enters, so in practice the Accord reads "every Angel you cast makes another Angel." The token enters with Giada's counters, which in turn triggers Bishop again on the way in.

More Angels that do something. Angel of Sanctions ($0.28) exiles any nonland permanent an opponent controls for as long as it stays, and embalms for a second copy later — removal on a body Giada counts. Mirror Entity ($0.91) is a changeling, which means it is an Angel: Giada's mana casts it, Starnheim Aspirant knocks it down to {W}, and it enters with counters. Its activated ability is the finisher: {X} makes every creature you control a base X/X and gives them every creature type until end of turn, so the counters stack on top — and for that turn Bishop of Wings and Starnheim Aspirant are Angels too, so with Lyra Dawnbringer out, every one of them gets +1/+1 and lifelink.

The X-spell that scales with Giada. Starnheim Unleashed ($1.73) is one 4/4 flying Angel for four mana, or, foretold for {2} on an earlier turn, X of them for {X}{X}{W}. At nine mana that is four 4/4 Angels, and each one enters with a counter for every Angel already on the table. Bishop gains 4 life four separate times.

The draw fix. Well of Lost Dreams ($1.50) lets you pay {X} to draw X whenever you gain X life, so each Bishop of Wings trigger is up to four cards. Herald's Horn ($2.91) knocks {1} off every Angel and, every upkeep, puts the top card in your hand if it is an Angel — about three hits in ten with this many in the deck.

The board-growth engine on a budget. Cathars' Crusade ($4.19) puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control whenever any creature enters. In a deck where every Angel already arrives with a stack of counters, it is the second layer that makes a board of five creatures absurd by the sixth.

Protection and reach. Unbreakable Formation ($0.79) gives the team indestructible at instant speed for three mana. Rally of Wings ($0.23) untaps your creatures and gives every flier +2/+2 — cast after blockers are declared, on a board of six fliers that is twelve more damage, and the whole team is back up to block.

Real upgrades: $5 to $20

The four that change the deck most

• Archangel of Thune — Every life-gain trigger is a counter on every creature. $18.30.
• Akroma's Will — With Giada out, both modes: the finisher and the wrath answer. $17.01.
• Angel of Destiny — At 55 life, the player it attacked loses. $8.97.
• Flawless Maneuver — Free with Giada on the table. $8.12.

Archangel of Thune ($18.30) is the single best card for this deck, because it is the wiring. Whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control — and it counts triggers, not points. When an Angel enters with Bishop of Wings, Righteous Valkyrie and Seraph Sanctuary all out, that is three separate life-gain events, so three counters on every creature you control, from one spell. Thune is also an Angel, so it arrives with Giada's counters itself. The price comes with a caveat: $18.30 is its Marvel Universe printing; the cheapest of the others was $44.77 the same day.

Akroma's Will ($17.01) lets you choose both modes if you control a commander, and Giada costs two, so you almost always do. That is flying, vigilance, double strike, lifelink, indestructible and protection from every colour, for the whole team, at instant speed. It is the deck's finisher and its best answer to a wrath in one card. If you would rather have a permanent finisher than an instant, Coat of Arms ($12.27) takes the slot instead — every Angel gets +1/+1 for every other Angel — with the caveat that it counts every creature on the battlefield, so it pumps an opposing tribal deck exactly as hard.

Angel of Destiny ($8.97) is a 2/6 double-striking flier with an alternate win: at the beginning of your end step, if you have at least 15 life more than your starting total — 55, in Commander — each player it attacked this turn loses. This deck reaches 55. The catch is the first ability: whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you and that player each gain that much life. While it is out, your damage refunds itself; the Angel is the win condition, not a damage boost.

Flawless Maneuver ($8.12) gives your creatures indestructible until end of turn, and costs nothing if you control a commander. It is cheap today because Reality Fracture Commander reprinted it three weeks ago; the Commander 2020 printing was $14.45 the same day. Resplendent Angel ($7.82) is a three-mana Angel that makes a 4/4 Angel at each end step in which you gained 5 or more life — Bishop of Wings plus Seraph Sanctuary is exactly 5 per Angel. And Emeria, the Sky Ruin ($7.48) returns a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield every upkeep while you control seven Plains. This deck runs 32 basic ones.

No ceiling

• Avacyn, Angel of Hope — Everything you control is indestructible. $36.63.
• Three Tree City — A white mana for every Angel. $28.15.
• Urza's Incubator — Angels cost {2} less. $20.52.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope ($36.63) makes every permanent you control indestructible, which does something quietly enormous in this list: it turns Cleansing Nova, Austere Command and Sunblast Angel into one-sided wraths. She costs eight, but cost reducers only take off generic mana, and this deck has a lot of them — with Starnheim Aspirant, Herald's Horn and Urza's Incubator out, she costs {W}{W}{W}.

Urza's Incubator ($20.52) is that third reducer: Angels cost {2} less. Three Tree City ($28.15) taps, for {2}, for one mana of a colour per creature of the chosen type you control — name Angel, and on a board of six Angels it turns {2} into six white mana every turn.

Two more are better than anything above and come with a flag: Smothering Tithe ($52.94) and Teferi's Protection ($35.76) are both on Wizards' Game Changers list. Teferi's Protection is the best wrath answer white has — it also covers the exile and sacrifice sweepers that indestructible does not. Either one moves the deck up a bracket, which is the next-but-one section.

How the deck closes a game

The printed list closes one way: a few points in the air every turn until the table runs out of life. The upgraded one has four routes, and they share their pieces, so drawing two of them is usually enough.

1. The Thune turn. This is the one to understand, because the others grow out of it. Take a good draw — a good one, not an average one. Giada on turn two. Righteous Valkyrie on turn three enters with one counter (Giada is already out), a 3/5. Bishop of Wings on four: it is a Cleric, so Valkyrie gains you 4. Archangel of Thune on five enters with two counters, a 5/6, and its own arrival triggers Bishop (4 life) and Valkyrie (6 life, its toughness). Two life-gain events, so two counters on every creature. You are now at 54 life, past Valkyrie's threshold of 47, so the team gets +2/+2 on top. The board at the end of turn five is Giada 6/6, Valkyrie 7/9, Bishop 5/8 and Thune 9/10 — three fliers with 22 power between them, and Thune's lifelink on the next swing is a third counter on everything.

2. Akroma's Will. Cast it with both modes on the turn after that, and every creature you control — Bishop included, since it gains flying — has double strike, lifelink and protection from every colour, which means only colourless creatures can block it. The lifelink from the first-strike damage step is a life-gain event of its own, so Thune puts a counter on everything between the two hits. From the board above that is 27 damage in the first step and 31 in the second: 58 damage, all of it gained back, aimed wherever you like.

3. Angel of Destiny. The route that does not need damage to stick. You reach 55 life almost by accident in this deck — the turn-five board above sits at 54. Attack one opponent with Angel of Destiny; if it is still on the table at your end step and you are at 55 or more, that player loses. It takes one opponent per turn, so it is the route for the long game against a table that has learned to block fliers, and Herald of Eternal Dawn — you cannot lose and your opponents cannot win — keeps you alive while it works.

4. Starnheim Unleashed. Foretell it early, cast it late. On a table with Giada and three other Angels, X = 4 is four 4/4 fliers that each enter with four counters — four 8/8s. With Bishop of Wings out that is four separate 4-life gains — four Thune triggers, if Thune is on the table — and with Cathars' Crusade out it is four more counters on every creature. The tokens cannot attack until your next turn, which is what Flawless Maneuver is for.

The twelve swaps

If you want one list to take to the shop, it is this one. Prices are the add's cheapest printing on October 23, 2026.

Archangel of Thune and Akroma's Will are $35.31 of that between them. Swap them for Cathars' Crusade and Rally of Wings and the package is $45.09; the under-$5 callout above gets most of the effect for $13.49.

What this does to the bracket

The precon has no Game Changers, and neither do the twelve swaps, nor anything in the first two tiers or the three no-ceiling cards above the flag. There are no extra turns and no mass land destruction, so on paper the upgraded deck is still Bracket 2. It will play above many Bracket 2 tables — Angel of Destiny is an alternate win, and a Thune turn snowballs fast — and that is worth saying at the start of a game. As always, a bracket number describes the natural weight class of the shell, not a promise about your list; the stats panel in the builder is where to check yours.

What would move it:

• Smothering Tithe, Teferi's Protection, Enlightened Tutor and Farewell are all white Game Changers in our index. Adding one to three of them puts the deck in Bracket 3. Humility is one too, and in a deck of counters and anthems it mostly hurts you.
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned is not a Game Changer, and it looks like a perfect fit — whenever you gain life, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature. But with Walking Ballista it is a two-card infinite combo: give Ballista lifelink, ping, gain 1, put the counter back on Ballista, repeat. We left it out deliberately. If your table plays infinite combos, it is the card; if it does not, it is the card to leave at home.

Open the Calling All Angels decklist — All 100 cards on Manamancer — copy it to your decks and make the swaps.

What to make of it

Calling All Angels was always going to be the friendliest of the five: a two-mana commander and a deck that gains life forgives a lot. What it lacked was not Angels — it has 29 — but a reason for its life total to matter after 47. Archangel of Thune, Angelic Accord and Well of Lost Dreams give it one, Akroma's Will and Angel of Destiny give it a way to end the game, and Flawless Maneuver means the board survives long enough to do either. The box already did the expensive part.

Copy the list from the button above into your decks, make the swaps, and the stats panel will show you the new curve. If you want a second opinion on the last few slots, the Agent tab reviews any Commander deck against deckbuilding quotas and only ever recommends cards that exist — the guide explains how.

May your life total keep climbing, and may every Angel arrive to find a crowd already waiting.