Creatures – 24
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Soul Warden
4 Ajani’s Pridemate
2 Knight of Medowgrain
2 Lone Missionary
2 Kemba's Skyguard
3 Seraph of Dawn
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Felidar Sovereign
Other Spells – 12
1 Bassalisk Collar
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Solemn Offering
2 White Sun’s Zenith
2 Day of Judgment
1 Marshal’s Anthem
1 Well of Lost Dreams
Land – 25
25 Plains
General Strategy: I play this as an aggro deck that can shift into a control playstyle when necessary. In my opinion this deck doesn't have enough solid removal to go heavy control. The early game should be focused on gaining life to the magic 30 mark, activating your Ascendants. Any combination of 2 of the Soul Warden, Ascendant, and Pridemate make for a powerful opening play, and you can even put pressure on your opponent early if they aren’t doing much. It’s also pretty consistent given 4 copies of each card. After the first batch of cheap creatures, if your opponent deals with those, you can fall back on your removal, shifting into a control style, complete with a mass removal reset button in Day of Judgment. Then come back strong with cards like Baneslayer Angel to finish up, or go for an alternate win condition with Felidar.
Serra Ascendant – Don’t be afraid to trade one of these in the early game. You have 4, and a way to revive them. Once you hit 30 life, swinging once with this will usually be enough for you to maintain that 30+ life total and seal the game.
Soul Warden – Not much to say about this. The life gain will constantly boost you to your target of 30, and also slow down aggro decks, dragging the duel into the late game where you can finish them. It’s something that needs to be removed by your opponent, but not usually something they want to spend their removal on.
Ajani’s Pridemate – Turn 1 Soul Warden with a this on turn 2 is a very powerful opening play. While it can fall prey to chump blocking, your opponent generally won’t be able to keep up with that if you start swinging in the early game.
Knight of Medowgrain – So I hear first strike and lifelink go well together. A 2/2 for 2 mana plus those abilities puts it well above average.
Lone Missionary – Probably my most “radical” choice of cards to include in the deck, but let’s compare it with it’s competition. Ajani Sunstriker is more prone to be hit with removal due to lifelink, thereby getting removed before even gaining you life. Lone Missionary gains you life on the spot, whereas Sunstriker is required to be in combat twice just to gain as much life as the Missionary. The Missionary’s other competition comes from Kemba’s Skyguard, who does have an extra point of toughness (it’s relevant but only a little, as the Missionary’s role is mostly to chump block/trade while boosting my life total). Kemba only gains you 2 life, costs 1 more mana, and you get flying. I feel the flying aspects are already covered by Seraph and Baneslayers, and an online Ascendant. Speaking of which, this is the best card out of the 3 to help you push your way to 30 life. For those reasons, Missionary got the spot over the other 2 creatures.
Loxodon Warhammer – Hey look, any creature now becomes a huge, trampling, lifelinking threat. Goes especially great with the Seraphs, Pridemates, Knights, and Missionaries. Trample can also help break a stalled board position. For those reasons, I had to include it.
Recumbent Bliss – I don't like these, given how most decks have answers to enchantments/auras. The lifegain does trigger Well and Pridemate and boosts you to those magic 30 and 40 numbers. I’d prefer Journey to Nowhere or Oblivion Ring, but we don’t have that luxury. It takes 2 turns to gain as much life as casting a Skyguard would. Having more creatures gives you more targets for the Collar and Warhammer.
Solemn Offering – The only reason there aren’t 3 of these is due to a couple of decks not having much in the way of artifacts/enchantments (goblins/burn). But these are great. Remove a problematic artifact/enchantment, and gain a nice 4 life in return.
Chastise – It’s decent. It can really boost your life total. However, it’s 4 mana, so your opponent can totally see it coming, and it’s harder to bluff a 4 mana card when you don’t have it and want to be casting other things. Swords can be easily bluffed since you only have to leave open 1 mana. The other downside is that it needs to be used on an attacking creature, so if your opponent suspects it, they can just hold back their best creature. Again, it’s decent given the cardpool, but not optimal.
Day of Judgment – So I hear mass removal is good. Some people may not want to play Day of Judgment in a build with 24 creatures because of the dissynergy they have. But here's the thing, you're in control of when you play Day of Judgment. Obviously you're not going to play it when you have a load of creatures out on the board.
Well of Lost Dreams – Hey look, nice card draw. The only real downside to this is that there aren’t 2 of them. This card can be the deciding factor in some matchups, giving you the card advantage you need to win the game.
Swords to Plowshares – One of the best creature removal spells ever printed, and it’s an auto-include here. Instant speed, 1 mana, and the drawback is quite negligible, especially for a control deck.
Seraph of Dawn – 4 toughness and lifelink will give the aggro decks a huge hassle. Flying helps you control the air. 2 power is a little underwhelming, but overall, I find this card is worth it.
Marshal’s Anthem – This is not a 4 mana card. The part about boosting your creatures is nice, but what you really want to do with this is revive some of your other creatures (Ascendant, Pridemate, Baneslayer, Felidar, etc.). For that reason, this is one of the finisher cards. Don’t underestimate the graveyard revival. I’d love a Proclamation of Rebirth, but we don’t have that option. Anthem is still good for its role.
Baneslayer Angel – Well, first strike and lifelink was good on the Knight, turns out that still holds true for 5 mana 5/5s with flying as well.
Felidar Sovereign – An alternate win condition. 6 mana for a 4/6 vigilance and lifelink is also nice. The alternate winning ability helps break stalemates between armies.
White Sun’s Zenith – I didn't like this card in March to War, but here it works. This deck has few finishers, but this one works well here, filling some of the holes of the deck. To me, it’s competing with Purity. For 6 mana, you get the same amount of power out of both cards. However, the Zenith does 2 things Purity doesn’t do. First, it makes multiple creatures, which can give you an instant army. Second, speaking of instant, you can use this as a nasty surprise for your opponent when they think it’s safe to swing in. Suddenly you have an army to block them, and make unfavorable combat situations for your opponent. It also has more synergy with the Anthem than Purity does.
Purity – For the most part, this is just going to be a 6/6 with flying. It’s ability is really only relevant against burn (and somewhat goblins), but this deck should already have good matchups against those decks. For those reasons, and given what the Zenith does over Purity, it was clear to me which one needed to get cut.
Basilisk Collar – Turning all of your creatures into a pseudo Vampire Nighthawk is pretty good. It's especially good on things that don't already have lifelink, or things that have first strike.
Cathedral Sanctifier – This deck already has a load of good 1 drops. Lone Missionary can trade with a much wider range of creatures, and gains you more life.
Elixir of Immortality – It’s really only good as an anti-mill card, and while mill does have some inherent advantages over this deck, I don’t include cards that only serve to counter 1 other deck while being useless against other decks. Sure, it gains you life, but so does a majority of the cards in this deck. This deck needs cards that do more than just gain life.
Moment of Heroism – I don’t dislike this card, I just can't find room for it.
Pearl Medallion – Here come the list of reasons why I cut the Medallions again. There’s 2 major reasons here. First, there are 14 cards that don’t benefit from the Medallions (10 1-drops, the Knights, and the 2 Artifacts). Second, there’s not a lot of high mana stuff in this deck to accelerate into. Sure, there’s other cards I left out, but I can’t see myself running the Medallions and some rather mediocre high mana stuff just to accelerate into them. I could see running this if there was more card draw or you’re running both of the Zeniths. This deck doesn’t have a high mana curve, and it already has 25 lands.
Kor Cartographer – Again, there’s not much to accelerate into. Compared to Liliana’s Shade (continuing on the similarities with OD), Kor can only serve as a chump blocker after pulling a land from your deck, whereas the shade can put game winning pressure on your opponent. The land thinning is nice, but not for this particular build, and not for a 4 mana chump blocker. However, I can see it being better in a build with the Medallions and both of the Zeniths.
Rhox Faithmender – The only reason I didn’t include him in my build is the lack of flying compared to the Seraphs. Controling the air is important against some decks, so for that reason, I wanted the third Seraph over this. Doubling your lifegain effects is really nice though, and goes well with the Ascendants and Felidar, but I usually find that it’s not necessary to get to that 30 mark.
Archon of Redemtion – It’s decent, not great, but decent. If you want more flying, go for it. But this build is only running 5 flying creatures (not counting the situational Ascendants). You’d have to run the Kembas too, and I didn’t really want to run those.
Serra Avatar – While Pridemates can fall prey to being chump blocked, it’s moreso true for this. I expect my 7 mana cards to not have issues with being chump blocked.
Celestial Force – Another underwhelming big mana card. Its effect gains you life, and we need something more than that for a lifegain deck. Other than that, it’s a 7/7. For 8 mana, I’d rather play the Zenith and drop five 2/2s on the board at instant speed.
Celestial Mantle – 6 mana auras are generally a no no. This one doesn’t even offer you trample or flying, just a way to be sure your opponent will block your creature and opening you up to card disadvantage.