Hey! Has anybody tested Nahiri, the Harbinger? She is kinda toolbox-y and can cheat some fatties.
Maybe too slow, any thoughts?
It might be a little to slow in 1 vs. 1 or Duel Commander. In multiplayer, planeswalkers are huge targets, and Kaalia is an aggressive deck, so it can't be using its few creatures for defending.
With the right boardstate, she can shine. Removal in hand, Kaalia or another creature putting on pressure. Play Nahiri with protection and ride her ...?
I wouldn't play her here, although in a deck that protected better with Elspeth, Knight-Errant or maybe some Oath of Gideon? Sure. Kaalia however, is a bad choice as it defends itself poorly. Plus, the removal it offers isn't something I'm in critical demand for, relative to the strength of the +2.
Mana Crypt is going to be in Eternal Masters. That should hopefully make it accessible enough (or I can open it like a lucksack) to justify tossing it in to Kaalia. Too bad Moat is on the Reserve List so I can't hope for them to also reprint that.
Mana Crypt is going to be in Eternal Masters. That should hopefully make it accessible enough (or I can open it like a lucksack) to justify tossing it in to Kaalia. Too bad Moat is on the Reserve List so I can't hope for them to also reprint that.
I own one on MODO, and I still do not play it. I find there's a limit to the amount of colourless mana a 3c deck can make use of effectively, and I find I'd play Ring + Tomb and that would be my upper limit.
Saw the comments on Nahiri. Here's what I have, at least from a duel commander perspective.
1.) I admit on paper she's difficult to protect, but the DC build at least has enough removal, sweepers and hand disrupt, and getting her to stick is easier than it looks tbh.
2.) Having Vengeant, LOTV and her in the same deck actually gets some heat off kaalia. Having to answer them more often than not leaves them with no answer to Kaalia when she comes down. It's actually good that walkers draw people's attention, at least in this context.. And if the opponent focuses on kaalia and pays less attention to them, then good for us as well.
3.) All 3 of her abilities are relevant and synergistic to the deck. Not sure if other DC builds that use boros colors can boast the same thing. This especially applies to my deck. I run 9 beatsticks which is lower than the ideal 11-12 as far as drawing one consistently is concerned, and I did this in order to make room for more disruption to make kaalia's environment safer (which fortunately is an adjustment that has tangible enough returns). The con of this is that a slightly lower beatstick count on occasion leaves me with a safe kaalia environment but with no finisher to beat opponents with (There have actually been 3 games of drawing max disruption and no beatsticks leading me to beat someone to death with kaalia and a dark confidant) It's a risk that I decided to take, and one that I don't regret. In this type of ratio, I have enough resources to keep nahiri for 3 turns, and with only 9 beatsticks, her ultimate is more relevant to me than most. Not someone I would tutor to be honest, but none of the other walkers I play are tutor-able in my eyes anyway.
4.) 4 mana is reasonable to be honest. It may compete with kaalia for the 4 cmc spot, but in a relatively competitive DC environment, I go against decks with answers (i.e. every single freaking deck in the meta) and the game turns into a battle of attrition to exhaust those answers before kaalia can safely come in.
5.) My one con for her is that I'm struggling in deciding which card will be permanently replaced for her. I considered one of the blood moons but I'm getting so much miles off both even against 2-color decks so I'm hesitating. My current list has linvala and grand abolisher (i put him back despite the redundancy with defense grid just to confirm how good/bad a fit he is for this deck) so I might consider choosing one of them.
My conclusion from a DC standpoint is if you have the room for her, AND if you play 10 or less beatsticks AND lots of disruption, you won't regret adding her.
Multiplayer standpoint: People will most likely hate you to death before you even draw her, and if you do manage to let her stick, it probably means you didn't need her at that point anyway.
Should say, I got the on-time Dragon Tempest in that screen cap thanks to Enlightened Tutor. That is the best line of play I've been able to make with Tutour (in this deck).
This looks like an updated list, is it DC or the normal banlist? Mind sharing your new decklist?
I am considering swithcing my Kaalia to a Multiplayer deck because my new lgs has no 1v1 edh players, sad
It is traditional, since that is what the client uses. I'm not 100% on some of the slots yet, so I'm holding it back. To whet your appetite though, I can say I've been testing Cursed Totem b/c dork decks exist. That ought to be an exciting enough sdd to get you thinking.
Have people tested [[Painful Truths]] in multiplayer yet? I've had some success with it over [[Read the Bones]], but some more experienced players may have an opinion I haven't considered.
I found that Kaalia can run out of gas pretty quick, so I have Painful Truths, Read the Bones and Skeletal Scrying in my deck. My buddy has a real oppressive Kozilek deck that Cursed Totem has really come in handy as sideboard tech vs. him.
Have people tested [[Painful Truths]] in multiplayer yet? I've had some success with it over [[Read the Bones]], but some more experienced players may have an opinion I haven't considered.
Cursed Totem is interesting, are you still running Linvala 1.0 though?
Can't wait, hope to see the list show up on MTGS one day
As for Painful Truths, I do run it in my own deck alongside Read the Bones. I usually have no problems casting it with 3 colors after turn 4
Indeed, I still play Linvala. I opted for Totem's inclusion b/c it shuts off dorks two turns sooner. Although, I ran into a snag where I couldn't Steel Hellkite a board (and ofc it shuts off Mom), so idk if that's confirmation bias, or just not a good fit.
I found that Kaalia can run out of gas pretty quick, so I have Painful Truths, Read the Bones and Skeletal Scrying in my deck. My buddy has a real oppressive Kozilek deck that Cursed Totem has really come in handy as sideboard tech vs. him.
Kozilek? I'd imagine the card you want here is Null Rod - not too many dorks in a colourless deck.
I found that Kaalia can run out of gas pretty quick, so I have Painful Truths, Read the Bones and Skeletal Scrying in my deck. My buddy has a real oppressive Kozilek deck that Cursed Totem has really come in handy as sideboard tech vs. him.
Kozilek? I'd imagine the card you want here is Null Rod - not too many dorks in a colourless deck.
New Kozi.. Real oppressive deck that eventually combos out. Shuts out all his artifact shenanigans. Gonna add Null Rod, too.
Indeed, I still play Linvala. I opted for Totem's inclusion b/c it shuts off dorks two turns sooner. Although, I ran into a snag where I couldn't Steel Hellkite a board (and ofc it shuts off Mom), so idk if that's confirmation bias, or just not a good fit.
Most of your Kaalia deck doesn't have creatures with activated abilities anyway, so Cursed Totem may be a fine inclusion if you know your opponents are running more creatures with activated abilities than you. Defense Grid messes up your instant-speed removal on your opponent's turns, but if you have blue opponents, it may still be worth including. It goes back to the "know your meta" advice.
How did you get an Italian Moat? Won it or worked your way up to buying it?
Since my success with blood moon I figured no idea is too crazy to try out, so I strted fooling around with dark ritual, and I'm starting to see it as legit tech for my deck. I decided to list down what i was able to do with it everytime it ended up in my hand:
The good:
1.) turn 1 liliana
2.) turn 1 defense grid + thoughtseize
3.) turn 1 sinkhole + inquisition of k
4.) turn 1 demonic tutor + thoughtseize
5.) turn 3 kaalia + inquisition of k (topdecked)
6.) extra juice for sudden demise, mind shatter, skeletal scrying
7.) winner: turn 6 griselbrand against talrand, the sky summoner with cavern of souls naming demon
8.) turn 4 lightning greaves + kaalia
The could-be-better
1.) turn 1 defense grid (waste of 1 mana)
2.) turn 1 dark confidant (also a waste)
The bad
1.) opening hand along with swords to plowshares, grand abolisher, wear/tear, baneslayer angel (to be fair, i eventually used it to power up my skeletal scrying late game)
2.) drawing it with only castigate and a bunch of lands in hand
This compilation is the farthest thing from an exact science, but for me at least, it's been doing well for me.
The card i took out for it is something that has not been doing well for me: mox diamond. 80% of the time I either have no lands to discard, or the discarded land comes at a cost of missing a land drop in 1-2 turns. The risk-benefit ratio is much worse than chrome mox based on my testing. Sucks that i bought an ftv version, but oh well.
sorry for not linking the card names, currently typing from my phone.
Oh and I finally found the card to be replaced with nahiri: cataclysm.
Yep. Something about it is just off. So far when i draw it, only 1 of 2 things come into mind:
1.) i wish you were armageddon instead
2.) i wish you were damnation instead
In short, I find that completely wiping out one of two permanent types is ultimately more oppressive than letting them keep 1 of each.. it reminds me of what 3drinks said at the bellstriker forum about his apprehension towards browbeat: "i don't like giving my opponents a choice" and unfortunately cataclysm in the end gives them that.. And that doesn't sit well with me.
This requires some testing, but my gut feeling is that I wouldn't include this in the Kaalia deck.
1) By itself, it produces colorless mana. Kaalia decks normally try to limit colorless sources, because we need the colored mana.
2) This is better then Slayers' Stronghold, but since it still requires mana to grant haste, this is not necessarily better than Hall of the Bandit Lord.
3) Dragon's Tempest costs 2 mana and affects all flyers.
-----------
I'm also ambivalent to Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Sword. Bruna's reanimation ability is only granted on hard casting, so cheating her in with Kaalia doesn't have an immediate payoff. Gisela is castable, but it is just a combat angel. The question is if Kaalia decks can ever keep both alive long enough to get the melded version, which is a card that a Kaalia deck definitely wants, as it shuts down a ton of cheap blue counter spells and general targeted removal. If you cast one of them, that certainly will make opponents want to stop the combo and draw fire away from Kaalia, but is it worth removing two cards to make room for these?
I'm probably going to run both in my Kaalia because Narset has taken over as my all-in win deck. Gisela's 4CC competes with Kaalia on the curve; if she had been 5CC with higher P/T she could potentially fit in because lifelink can help keep the game plan going. And as mentioned I wish Bruna wasn't a cast trigger.
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With the right boardstate, she can shine. Removal in hand, Kaalia or another creature putting on pressure. Play Nahiri with protection and ride her ...?
I buy HP and Damaged cards!
Only EDH:
Sigarda, Host of Herons: Enchantress' Enchantments
Jenara, Asura of War: ETB Value Town
Purphoros, God of the Forge: Global Punishment
Xenagos, God of Revels: Ramp, Sneak, & Heavy Hitters
Ghave, Guru of Spores: Dies_to_Doom_Blade's stax list
Edric, Spymaster of Trest: Donald's list
I would play Aura of Silence before this card.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I own one on MODO, and I still do not play it. I find there's a limit to the amount of colourless mana a 3c deck can make use of effectively, and I find I'd play Ring + Tomb and that would be my upper limit.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
1.) I admit on paper she's difficult to protect, but the DC build at least has enough removal, sweepers and hand disrupt, and getting her to stick is easier than it looks tbh.
2.) Having Vengeant, LOTV and her in the same deck actually gets some heat off kaalia. Having to answer them more often than not leaves them with no answer to Kaalia when she comes down. It's actually good that walkers draw people's attention, at least in this context.. And if the opponent focuses on kaalia and pays less attention to them, then good for us as well.
3.) All 3 of her abilities are relevant and synergistic to the deck. Not sure if other DC builds that use boros colors can boast the same thing. This especially applies to my deck. I run 9 beatsticks which is lower than the ideal 11-12 as far as drawing one consistently is concerned, and I did this in order to make room for more disruption to make kaalia's environment safer (which fortunately is an adjustment that has tangible enough returns). The con of this is that a slightly lower beatstick count on occasion leaves me with a safe kaalia environment but with no finisher to beat opponents with (There have actually been 3 games of drawing max disruption and no beatsticks leading me to beat someone to death with kaalia and a dark confidant) It's a risk that I decided to take, and one that I don't regret. In this type of ratio, I have enough resources to keep nahiri for 3 turns, and with only 9 beatsticks, her ultimate is more relevant to me than most. Not someone I would tutor to be honest, but none of the other walkers I play are tutor-able in my eyes anyway.
4.) 4 mana is reasonable to be honest. It may compete with kaalia for the 4 cmc spot, but in a relatively competitive DC environment, I go against decks with answers (i.e. every single freaking deck in the meta) and the game turns into a battle of attrition to exhaust those answers before kaalia can safely come in.
5.) My one con for her is that I'm struggling in deciding which card will be permanently replaced for her. I considered one of the blood moons but I'm getting so much miles off both even against 2-color decks so I'm hesitating. My current list has linvala and grand abolisher (i put him back despite the redundancy with defense grid just to confirm how good/bad a fit he is for this deck) so I might consider choosing one of them.
My conclusion from a DC standpoint is if you have the room for her, AND if you play 10 or less beatsticks AND lots of disruption, you won't regret adding her.
Multiplayer standpoint: People will most likely hate you to death before you even draw her, and if you do manage to let her stick, it probably means you didn't need her at that point anyway.
Been so long since I sleeved up this #RedQueen here...felt pretty good to hit this ol' 1-2 punch.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I am considering swithcing my Kaalia to a Multiplayer deck because my new lgs has no 1v1 edh players, sad
It is traditional, since that is what the client uses. I'm not 100% on some of the slots yet, so I'm holding it back. To whet your appetite though, I can say I've been testing Cursed Totem b/c dork decks exist. That ought to be an exciting enough sdd to get you thinking.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Can't wait, hope to see the list show up on MTGS one day
As for Painful Truths, I do run it in my own deck alongside Read the Bones. I usually have no problems casting it with 3 colors after turn 4
GWUBAtraxa and Her Superfriends
WUB Oloro, the Life Drain Train
URG Animar, Soul of Elements
WBR Kaalia of the Vast
BWTeysa Karlov, Scion of Orzhov
R Purphoros, Goblins of Pain ($100 Budget Challenge)
U Talrand, Fun Police (Needs updating)
Yes. It is a solid draw, 3 for 3cards and 3 life.
Indeed, I still play Linvala. I opted for Totem's inclusion b/c it shuts off dorks two turns sooner. Although, I ran into a snag where I couldn't Steel Hellkite a board (and ofc it shuts off Mom), so idk if that's confirmation bias, or just not a good fit.
Kozilek? I'd imagine the card you want here is Null Rod - not too many dorks in a colourless deck.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
New Kozi.. Real oppressive deck that eventually combos out. Shuts out all his artifact shenanigans. Gonna add Null Rod, too.
GWUBAtraxa and Her Superfriends
WUB Oloro, the Life Drain Train
URG Animar, Soul of Elements
WBR Kaalia of the Vast
BWTeysa Karlov, Scion of Orzhov
R Purphoros, Goblins of Pain ($100 Budget Challenge)
U Talrand, Fun Police (Needs updating)
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Most of your Kaalia deck doesn't have creatures with activated abilities anyway, so Cursed Totem may be a fine inclusion if you know your opponents are running more creatures with activated abilities than you. Defense Grid messes up your instant-speed removal on your opponent's turns, but if you have blue opponents, it may still be worth including. It goes back to the "know your meta" advice.
How did you get an Italian Moat? Won it or worked your way up to buying it?
$250.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Congratulations on obtaining a card that you've been wanting for your deck.
Since my success with blood moon I figured no idea is too crazy to try out, so I strted fooling around with dark ritual, and I'm starting to see it as legit tech for my deck. I decided to list down what i was able to do with it everytime it ended up in my hand:
The good:
1.) turn 1 liliana
2.) turn 1 defense grid + thoughtseize
3.) turn 1 sinkhole + inquisition of k
4.) turn 1 demonic tutor + thoughtseize
5.) turn 3 kaalia + inquisition of k (topdecked)
6.) extra juice for sudden demise, mind shatter, skeletal scrying
7.) winner: turn 6 griselbrand against talrand, the sky summoner with cavern of souls naming demon
8.) turn 4 lightning greaves + kaalia
The could-be-better
1.) turn 1 defense grid (waste of 1 mana)
2.) turn 1 dark confidant (also a waste)
The bad
1.) opening hand along with swords to plowshares, grand abolisher, wear/tear, baneslayer angel (to be fair, i eventually used it to power up my skeletal scrying late game)
2.) drawing it with only castigate and a bunch of lands in hand
This compilation is the farthest thing from an exact science, but for me at least, it's been doing well for me.
The card i took out for it is something that has not been doing well for me: mox diamond. 80% of the time I either have no lands to discard, or the discarded land comes at a cost of missing a land drop in 1-2 turns. The risk-benefit ratio is much worse than chrome mox based on my testing. Sucks that i bought an ftv version, but oh well.
sorry for not linking the card names, currently typing from my phone.
Yep. Something about it is just off. So far when i draw it, only 1 of 2 things come into mind:
1.) i wish you were armageddon instead
2.) i wish you were damnation instead
In short, I find that completely wiping out one of two permanent types is ultimately more oppressive than letting them keep 1 of each.. it reminds me of what 3drinks said at the bellstriker forum about his apprehension towards browbeat: "i don't like giving my opponents a choice" and unfortunately cataclysm in the end gives them that.. And that doesn't sit well with me.
1-2 punch more like a jab followed by a knife to the face =))
Hanweir Battlements
Looks like a great Haste provider
This requires some testing, but my gut feeling is that I wouldn't include this in the Kaalia deck.
1) By itself, it produces colorless mana. Kaalia decks normally try to limit colorless sources, because we need the colored mana.
2) This is better then Slayers' Stronghold, but since it still requires mana to grant haste, this is not necessarily better than Hall of the Bandit Lord.
3) Dragon's Tempest costs 2 mana and affects all flyers.
-----------
I'm also ambivalent to Bruna, the Fading Light and Gisela, the Broken Sword. Bruna's reanimation ability is only granted on hard casting, so cheating her in with Kaalia doesn't have an immediate payoff. Gisela is castable, but it is just a combat angel. The question is if Kaalia decks can ever keep both alive long enough to get the melded version, which is a card that a Kaalia deck definitely wants, as it shuts down a ton of cheap blue counter spells and general targeted removal. If you cast one of them, that certainly will make opponents want to stop the combo and draw fire away from Kaalia, but is it worth removing two cards to make room for these?