Angels vs. Demons: The Eternal Struggle, Which is the Best?

Angels vs. Demons is one of the oldest rivalries in the world, going all the way back to the biblical days. In just about all forms of fiction featuring them, they are at constant odds, fighting for permanent victory over the other. Angels are generally seen as good, while Demons are seen as evil. Regardless of their affiliation, none of that matters in Magic: The Gathering. What matters is power. This article will look at various Angel and Demon commanders to answer the question: Angels vs. Demons, which is better?

Introduction to Angels vs. Demons

Before jumping into commanders, first, we’ll look at what makes each creature type tick. Angels and Demons play a fairly different playstyle from one another. You are doing very different things with each creature type.

For Angels, you are most often flooding the battlefield. Usually, you’re gaining a ton of life with cards like Righteous Valkyrie or Bishop of Wings. Since they usually have a slower start to the game, the lifegain more than makes up for your early lifeloss. They also have a +1/+1 counter subtheme with Archangel of Thune and Giada, Font of Hope to name a few. Angels are about amassing power progressively as you gain a ton of life for an explosive late game.

Demons, on the other hand, have you paying a ton of mana for explosive effects. While Angels have a stronger early game, Demons shine in the late game to make your opponents lose a ton of life and permanents. Demons’ main gimmick is having big payoffs for the large mana investments. For example, Vilis, Broker of Blood can be used as removal and a draw engine, and Bloodletter of Aclazotz doubles all damage your opponents take during your turn. Cards that discount Demons are vital, such as Herald of Slaanesh and Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Without these cards, you’ll often be taken out of the game before you even have a chance to play them. Demons are very slow, but the payoffs are often game-ending. They’re a lot more about slow buildup instead of progressive buildup like Angels have.

Angels vs. Demons: Best of the Best

Angels and Demons both have their clear “best” commander. These are Giada, Font of Hope and Be'lakor, the Dark Master. Both of these commanders are clearly built for these archetypes, with powerful effects to support what they do best. Generally, these are the most popular commanders for these two creature types, and for a reason. They are very powerful and great at what they do. Don’t let Giada, Font of Hope‘s mono-colored color identity fool you; it’s great. And although Be'lakor, the Dark Master is expensive mana-wise, it comes with powerful effects and lets you play all the best Demons.

Giada, Font of Hope

Giada, Font of Hope is a rather simple commander. You slap it down onto the battlefield and keep casting Angel spells that get progressively stronger. It plays heavily into the theme that Angels have of slow buildup into your most powerful Angels. It’s a mana dork for Angels as well, helping you get ahead on mana (something Mono White in particular appreciates). You also have Herald of War and Starnheim Aspirant to discount Angel spells to be able to cast multiple in a turn.

This deck can take advantage of board wipes that are often one-sided. Everything Comes to Dust is easily convoked and can exile all creatures except Angel ones. You might lose a few Humans, but you’ll almost exclusively have Angels. Being mono-colored, Ravnica at War can snipe a lot of multi-colored permanents that you’re likely to run into. It’s more of a mana investment, but Mass Calcify gets rid of all non-White creatures to clear battlefields for final swings.

Angels can offer you a good bit of protection to keep you safe from varying effects. Avacyn, Angel of Hope gives all your permanents indestructible while having indestructible itself. So, unless your opponents can exile or force sacrifice, there is nothing they can do about your battlefield. Angelic Arbiter and Archangel of Tithes are both Stax pieces that can make it much harder for opponents to attack you. Metropolis Reformer gives you hexproof to make it harder to target you with negative effects, while being a way to gain life too.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. It’s a progressively aggressive deck, slowly building up power and stats before you start swinging out while gaining a ton of life.

Be’lakor, the Dark Master

Be'lakor, the Dark Master is a commander that does it all. It draws you cards and acts as a win condition just by playing your Demon cards. Many Demons have high power, making your commander’s effect especially effective. When you stack this with cards like Warstorm Surge and Bloodletter of Aclazotz, this burn damage can often turn lethal.

This deck cares about Demons entering the battlefield, so there is a handful of cards that create token copies. Even if they die to the legend rule, since they still enter, you still get to trigger any effects that care about creatures entering (such as your commander). Molten Echoes doubles all your Demons, while Echocasting Symposium gives you a creature token every upkeep since it’ll keep recasting itself. If you have a lot of mana to invest, Rite of Replication can be game-ending if you kicked it.

Although it’s a high mana investment, Ardyn, the Usurper gives your Demons haste and lifelink, helping to make up for early lifeloss and triggering your on-attack effects. Since Demons have such high power, the extra combats from Bloodthirster help to dwindle down life totals quicker. If you can cast Rakdos, Lord of Riots, you can discount almost all of your Demons’ generic mana costs, especially if your commander is out since it entering will cause six damage to be dealt.

A sample decklist is viewable below. The deck is about bringing out your Demons as quickly as possible, especially your commander. Then, using blink effects to burn everyone out of the game after dealing direct damage.

Giada vs Be’lakor, Who Wins?

Choosing between Giada, Font of Hope and is a bit tricky. They both excel at different game plans and have different strengths and weaknesses. Giada, Font of Hope has less trouble with mana thanks to only needing White, while Be'lakor, the Dark Master needs three different colors, making it harder to get them all together.

One major weakness of Giada, Font of Hope is that it’s prone to board wipes. It relies heavily on creatures, so if opponents can get rid of them, it can be hard to rebuild (especially with how naturally bad White is at ramping). Meanwhile, Be'lakor, the Dark Master doesn’t have to worry about board wipes, because by the time one gets cast, it’s likely too late. However, you’re more prone to attacks early on since Demons don’t have many low-mana creatures, unlike Angels. So, while Demons can win easily in the late game, Angels can put on pressure right away, especially with Giada, Font of Hope‘s low mana value.

The lower mana curve of Angels compared to Demons helps to make an impact much quicker. With the lifegain Giada, Font of Hope decks naturally have, even if you lose your battlefield, you’ll have a lot of life gained that you won’t have to worry about being in danger as you rebuild. Be'lakor, the Dark Master decks, on the other hand, only care about the late game. You’re usually the one board wiping to get rid of problems before you start bringing Demons down.

The winner between the two would have to go with Giada, Font of Hope. The best Angel commander is just too good at what it does. There isn’t a moment in the game where you can’t put pressure. Giada makes an impact immediately, and although Be'lakor, the Dark Master and Demons are good, in this case, Angels just take the edge with being good at all stages of the game instead of just the tail-end of them.

Angels vs. Demons: Kaalia Piles

So, this matchup will look at a singular commander instead of two: Kaalia of the Vast. Usually, Kaalia decks play a mixture of Angels, Demons, and Dragons. However, for this article, we will be looking at specifically at an Angel build and a Demon build. Naturally, there’ll be some crossover between some cards (namely, in the noncreature department), but the creature suite is much, much different. Kaalia of the Vast is about triggering its attack trigger to cheat high mana value creatures onto the battlefield without having to pay their mana costs. Angels and Demons both have fantastic high mana cards, but which one is better?

Kaalia of the Vast (Angels)

Let’s start with the Angel version of Kaalia of the Vast. The deck has a sub-reanimator theme thanks to Reya Dawnbringer, which helps to bring back your powerful creatures if they ever get removed while still not needing to pay their mana costs. You also have Tariel, Reckoner of Souls to steal creatures out of opponents’ graveyards (albeit this is at random).

You can utilize Angels with effects that really slow the game down. Serra's Emissary gives you protection from any card type, so if you name creatures, you’re safe from combat damage. Linvala, Keeper of Silence shuts off all your opponents’ activated abilities on creatures, while Drana and Linvala does the same, but gives you their activated abilities too. Angelic Arbiter makes opponents have to pick either casting spells or attacking you, helping to protect you while stalling everyone out.

To make your combat phase even stronger, you have various Angels to give boosts there. Aurelia, the Warleader gives you an extra combat when it attacks, something especially useful for your commander. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight doubles all your damage while making you take half damage to keep your life total safe. You also have Battle Angels of Tyr with myriad, so you attack all your opponents to be able to potentially trigger all of its effects.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The Angels in this deck have high mana value and useful effects to make your future turns a breeze to blast through opponents.

Kaalia of the Vast (Demons)

Unlike the Angel version of Kaalia of the Vast, Demons have a much wider array of effects. It can be very damaging by using Demons like Archfiend of Despair to double all life loss, which is amplified even more with Bloodletter of Aclazotz to potentially burn for lethal amounts of damage with just one trigger if the turn was explosive enough.

Tutoring is extra strong in the deck, as this lets you put any Demon you want into your hand to cheat onto the battlefield with your commander. You can use Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire before you resolve Kaalia of the Vast to put any Demon into your hand for just two mana. Alternatively, you have Demonic Counsel and Demonic Tutor to search out for whatever Demon you need at any given time (or any card if delirium is active in Demonic Counsel‘s case or just in general for Demonic Tutor).

Demons can play a solid control game as well. Archfiend of Depravity is quite strong, forcing opponents to sacrifice all but two creatures every end step. Demon of Loathing is another way you can force sacrifice if it ever deals combat damage. Although the sacrifice isn’t guaranteed, Rakdos, Patron of Chaos can draw you cards if an opponent doesn’t want to sacrifice two of their permanents. This is very good with Kaalia of the Vast as a way to ensure you always have creatures to cheat out onto the battlefield.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are a ton of powerful Demons to cheat out and cheat out quickly, making for a very fast Demon deck.

Angel Kaalia vs Demon Kaalia, Who Wins?

With these two versions of Kaalia of the Vast, they both shine in different ways. The Angel side of Kaalia is stronger at putting creatures on the battlefield that make your combat phases stronger, while Demons are better at playing creatures with more relevant on-the-battlefield effects. Angels are more combat and Stax focuses, while Demons are more control and card advantage-focused.

Nearly every Angel has flying, making them all evasive, so even if Kaalia of the Vast is removed, you still have threatening creatures. Demons, on the other hand, have large stats instead. They’re more focused on dealing burn damage than direct damage.

The Angel side of the equation is stronger and supporting what Kaalia of the Vast wants to be doing, with the exception of card draw. Meanwhile, Demons can easily ensure you’ll have a hand full of creatures to cheat out, something Angels can struggle with. The Demon side of Kaalia is much less prone to stalling out, which is something that can happen in Kaalia decks with how much of a must-answer threat it is.

For the Angel or Demon version being the best, the Demon side just barely edges out Angels. While Angels have more utility effects, Demons are too supportive of Kaalia’s primary game plan: getting broken creatures onto the battlefield quickly.

In Conclusion

Angels vs. Demons is a battle that is constantly evolving in Magic. They are two of the most popular and frequently appearing creature types in the entire game. As such, there are always going to be more powerful cards in both creature types being added.

Right now, Angels are stronger than Demons, but that balance is something that can easily be changed. Demons are lacking in good early-game options, while Angels are lacking in responses to board wipes with slow recovery. Angels have consistency, while Demons have explosiveness.

Both creature types have merit, and both are very strong. You can do a ton of powerful things with Angels and Demons, but in the war of Angels vs. Demons, Angels are in the lead as the winner.