@Yuji "We still noticed that the proportions of control and combo decks are still way too high. The various communities (Italy, France, USA, Russia, etc.) gave us a lot of worried feedback about the dominance of blue-based decks in the current format as those lines are being written."
That sentence made me happy
I still prefer Read the Bones, scry 2 is amazing in my opinion
@Shiroe Yea I guess its time to be more Machiavellian. I will continue to run Ramp in MP then. thank u for your input
@3drinks Jitterblossom sounds pretty cool, might give it a whirl and see how it goes
As for Eldrazi, I'm just not a fan of them although Thot-Knot is amazing
That actually scares me a little, Jeff. I mean everyone knows that blue is dominating the format, but what more can they do? Banning Marath was a much needed move, but in my opinion it's a hail mary. They're definitely hoping for a surge of aggro decks to maybe keep heavy control decks in check, but what's plan B if the zurgos and thalias will be unable to stop the narsets and keranos'? I fear they're nearing a dead end in addressing the issue, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the forecasted aggro surge will be enough to put pressure on blue counter decks. I'd hate for this format to die, or degrade into an oppressive ramp vs counter fiesta.
In my playgroup we've decided against MLD, as such I threw in a reanimator package as a substitute which I have no problem with. Aside from the new Gisela and Baneslayer are there any other creatures in Kaalia's theme that have lifelink that are worth using? Also I'd appreciate any other recommendations on cards suited for multiplayer that are in line with this deck's theme.
In my playgroup we've decided against MLD, as such I threw in a reanimator package as a substitute which I have no problem with. Aside from the new Gisela and Baneslayer are there any other creatures in Kaalia's theme that have lifelink that are worth using? Also I'd appreciate any other recommendations on cards suited for multiplayer that are in line with this deck's theme.
The only thing closest to playable as far as lifelink is concerned is archangel of thune. The best lifelink option after those 2 are in my opinion would be vault of the archangel, or even whip of erebos since you're doing a reanimator thing anyway.
@Yuji, So I am pretty much a noob when it comes to DC Commander however I do believe Thalia has an upper hand against Narset. Though I can't comment much on Keranos and Zurgo because I have never played them. Though I agree with your assessment that there aren't any other significant cards for the committee to ban if this move does not bring back aggro
A bit off topic but which do u think would be better in the possible new meta; GAAIV or Geist?
I'm using this exact list with the exception of Imperial Seal for obvious monetary reasons. I use this deck for competitive play in tourneys where have no restrictions but seeing as my friends have also recently gotten into edh we set aside some ground rules from the beginning. As such I kept the same creature base with a few cards removed for stuff like Lord of The Void, Baneslayer, Angel of Thune, and so on. Truthfully the reanimator package feels underwhelming since I'm not running dump cards for higher threats such as the Eldrazi but at the same time I don't really know what else I could stick in there.
For when I play multiplayer I drop the single target cards in the main board and some of the other stuff like Aven Mindcensor, Magus of the Moon and so on for stuff like Kokusho, Angelic Arbiter, and just creatures in general that affect multiple players instead of one single target.
@Yuji, So I am pretty much a noob when it comes to DC Commander however I do believe Thalia has an upper hand against Narset. Though I can't comment much on Keranos and Zurgo because I have never played them. Though I agree with your assessment that there aren't any other significant cards for the committee to ban if this move does not bring back aggro
A bit off topic but which do u think would be better in the possible new meta; GAAIV or Geist?
Agreed on Thalia being anti-Narset, which is exactly why I'd like to see more of them emerge in tourneys. Keranos is a commander I've overlooked for the longest time, but I completely forgot that it's an indestructible enchantment, making it very difficult to interact with. And with it in play, the owner gets to alternate between card advantage and a free burn, making the latter oppressive for aggro once it resolves, but to a lesser extent than marath (since the burn starts turn 6 earliest, happens once per turn, but is not guaranteed). That explains selesnya colors playing dromoka's command, and utter end is all of a sudden relatively justifiable.
As for your question on a Marath-less meta, GAAIV directly benefits from the ban simply because he can be targeted by that stupid cow's burn ability, while geist can't be. In that sense, geist benefits less than GAAIV, but nothing was taken away from it either. Still hard to tell which of the two will perform better in the new meta, but whether or not the ban happened, I personally find GAAIV scarier. Once he comes down he's difficult to remove and easy to protect, and more than that he creates a resource gap that puts this feeling of heaviness that you can only really understand by going against him yourself. On the flip side, although GAAIV's passive ability is much more oppressive, geist himself is difficult to interact with. I think who ends up more successful entirely depends on how other decks in the meta prepare for hexproof creatures (after all, it covers for narset as well). If geist is allowed to just sit there and carry a sword and swing in tournaments, he'll be much more explosive than GAAIV. If not, then GAAIV has advantage.
From a kaalia standpoint, I've gone against both, albeit 2 years ago. My matchup against both is approximately 40-60 in favor of both of them, which considering how bad our control matchup is on paper, is an overachievement of sorts.
However, I think control decks in general will be experiencing more resistance in tournaments simply because of the increase in aggro decks hurting matchup ratios a little. Again though, this is assuming the aggro surge does happen.
I'm using this exact list with the exception of Imperial Seal for obvious monetary reasons. I use this deck for competitive play in tourneys where have no restrictions but seeing as my friends have also recently gotten into edh we set aside some ground rules from the beginning. As such I kept the same creature base with a few cards removed for stuff like Lord of The Void, Baneslayer, Angel of Thune, and so on. Truthfully the reanimator package feels underwhelming since I'm not running dump cards for higher threats such as the Eldrazi but at the same time I don't really know what else I could stick in there.
I've often said not a fan of renaimator for kaalia simply because others can do it better. If you can just let go of the package to make room for more options, that might be better. Not really a MP guy though so the specifics are beyond me.
Hi guys.. I need a bit of help as far as Linvala's usefulness is concerned. I know her ability is backbreaking, but which decks suffer a lot from her presence? I'm asking this because my primary reason for putting her in was to keep marath in check in DC, and now he's banned. But before I even consider removing this gem, I'd like to know the tradeoffs. Which decks am I neutering aside from Marath? Jace, vryn's prodigy is the only thing I've got from the top of my head.
Edit: oh and Jenara. Question still stands though haha
I would still run Linvala, but I believe its a meta call
But going to a blind meta, i would still bring her. Shuts down a lot of creature decks if not answered, of the top of my head; Anafenza, Titania, Animar (I had all three in my old playgroup + Jenara) and not to mention any elf decks
Even if we don't shut down the commander with Linvala, she shuts down a lot of the 99 (mana dorks and etc)
Hi guys.. I need a bit of help as far as Linvala's usefulness is concerned. I know her ability is backbreaking, but which decks suffer a lot from her presence? I'm asking this because my primary reason for putting her in was to keep marath in check in DC, and now he's banned. But before I even consider removing this gem, I'd like to know the tradeoffs. Which decks am I neutering aside from Marath? Jace, vryn's prodigy is the only thing I've got from the top of my head.
Edit: oh and Jenara. Question still stands though haha
Thanks guys! Guess I'm keeping her for now. By the way, with ooze gone I'm going to bring back hide/seek replacing rakdos charm. It can hit enchantments (bypasses indestructible so decent vs keranos), gives chrome mox a tri-color imprint, and at worst it can pick off combo pieces and gain you some life.
Hey guys. Honestly not so sure how many DC Kaalia players are even in this thread, but after much testing and switching cards in and out, I've pretty much come up with this list. Bulk of my playtesting was done on optimized lists of Jenara, Asura of war, Talrand, The Sky Summoner, and most recently, Narset, Enlightened Master and Titania, Protector of Argoth. The only hole in my matchup data is actually against those new surrak twin exarchs and animar. I'm pretty certain though that our biggest problem is still control. I've been hesitant to post a list until I accomplished the daunting task of getting a positive matchup against all the decks above. But after my most recent list won 2 non-flukes in a row against what I felt was the hardest matchup among those I listed (NARSET UGH), I figured it's time to post it.
As always, thanks 3drinks and this very active kaalia primer.
I'm considering consolidating everything into a primer of my own that will be specific to DC so that I don't interrupt the very healthy traditional commander discussion in this thread, but this will most likely happen only if this list sees enough success in bigger tournaments.
Anyway, some notes before the list. I've made yet a good number of changes in the deck, and they again paid off:
1.) The land destruction package is no more. Ajani Vengeant, Pillage, sinkhole and Rishadan port have been removed. Obligatory wasteland stays of course. Recently, people have been bringing up reanimator packages for Kaalia, and I always say that while Kaalia can flex that reanimator muscle, other decks can do it better. Then it hit me, that makes me a hypocrite in a sense.. I realized adding mana denial into the mix was trying to do 1 thing too much. We already have opponents' creatures, artifacts, enchantments, walkers, and even their hands to deal with after all, and we still have to balance this with our own game plan of beating them up with our angels, demons, and dragons. Keeping this balance in mind, I made replacements.
2.) I added back demonic consultation along with the new Gisela, the Broken Blade and oldie but goodie Angel of Despair. Actually AoD was supposed to be Bruna, the Fading Light but I still have to pick up my PR foil version of her tomorrow. My beatstick count has always been dancing between 9-10, and although it was fine as far as having a kaalia target was concerned, I realized that 12 really is that sweet spot. But the breakdown of the 12 matters (which is why I broke it down in the list). Of the 12, 3 actually have the same cmc as kaalia, and 2 are 5 cmc. This means that almost half the threats can be hard cast with relative ease when the midgame kicks in. This actually hurts opponents a lot, and is very evident vs control. The obligatory counter of defense grid or liliana of the veil, fighting through the occasional hand disrupt, locking out kaalia with the appropriate permission or kill spell, only to see me hard cast a baneslayer angel then a steel hellkite is a little demoralizing to control players. The midrange beaters makes it close to impossible for a control player without a gitaxan probe (*barf*) to make a proper threat assessment. I actually named dragon when I played cavern of souls in the first game against Narset, and it threw him off enough to use up his sweepers and O-rings against my hard-cast balefire dragon and stormbreath dragon and I haven't even cast Kaalia yet, AND I still had Iona and Rakdos sitting in my hand and at that point, were even hard cast-able.
However, hardcasting beaters means that you have a very small margin of error in making land drops. This leads to #3:
3.) Turning the lands up to 40 has been great, and in all honesty I'd rather be flooded than screwed. This change also made Mox Diamond at times even more playable than chrome mox, so the often explosive, sometimes useless, always one-time dark ritual was moved to the sidelines for now. This also greatly reduces the risk of having to lean on tithe.
4.) Blood moon and magus of the moon are still freaking awesome. The 40 lands actually makes fetching for basics less forced, because you draw enough lands to color fix eventually. Because of this however, I wanted to reduce redundancy by removing 1 snow-covered mountain for gemstone mine. The 3-use only is a turn-off at first glance, but in this list, it can be fed to mox diamond, made reusable by urborg, tomb of yawgmoth, or even used sparingly because of the 40 land count. Rugged prairie is still an option, but having all 3 filter lands combined with 5 colorless utility lands is a little risky. I'm even considering turning Graven Cairns into Dragonskull summit quite frankly. I guess the nitty gritty is a preference thing at this point, but I maintain that 40 lands has been good to me. You can try with 39, but I've been there.. you'd think it's enough because cmon the earliest lists made it with 36.. The new mulligan rules are a factor too. Even some abzan aggro decks with a lower curve than us AND with elves play 39 lands. So it's a bit cheeky to follow that land count.
6.) Command Beacon is an amazing pressure tool in DC. Unless you're playing against titania, opponents will be aiming to kill whatever 4 drop and above creature comes down on your board because they know what kind of damage they can do. So imagine a barrage consisting of turn 4 kaalia --> turn 5 hard cast baneslayer --> turn 6 kaalia take 2 --> turn 7 kaalia take 3 via command beacon with a few extra mana to spare.. In that sequence we only technically lose 1 card, as opposed to as much as 4 cards from our opponent. More often than not, they'll waste all their resources (though using the term "waste" is inappropriate given that they're removing kaalia) keeping our commander in check until a point in the game where we can even hard cast griselbrand with little resistance. In the second narset match I actually had no beaters in hand, but I kept casting my kaalia via cavern of souls as a bluff. As expected, he let out supreme verdict then a wrath of god sweeper turned spot removal, and even trapped her in a detention sphere. A thoughtseize and countered defense grid later, I got 2 beaters to safely resolve, and that was checkmate.
7.) Hymn to tourach replaced by collective brutality. It's what we always dreamed sin collector should be, and more. I love that it doubles as removal for the possible 2-for-2. The added hand scout makes the package much more reliable.
8.) The impact of our utility lands makes expedition map actually my favorite turn 1 play. Even better than enlightened tutor I'd say. The only thing keeping me from cutting the latter is its ability to fetch for a steel hellkite when times are tough, or a blood moon to bail us out of a tough matchup.
9.) The need for expedition map finally made me do something i should have done long ago. I took out path to exile. Running removal that gives opponents a basic while having blood moon in the same deck made me feel so dirty. I don't miss it, because I decided to run fire covenant and treat it as spot removal instead of a sweeper, so the creature control ratio is still well-balanced.
10.) Nahiri, the Harbinger is legit. In a sea of midrange beaters, if an opponent ranks her low in threat assessment and allows her to resolve, she can take over a game on her own. Her ultimate is so easy to get to, and fetching a rune-scarred demon for a free tutor without spending any mana is absolutely disgusting. It's also very important to note that Keranos, God of Storms has overtaken Narset as the #1 control deck in our current meta. Our colors, and this list in particular I believe boasts 4 hard answers to a resolved Keranos, 5 if we include withering boon, making this list one of the most, if not the most dangerous threats to Keranos himself. Nahiri's -2 is one of those answers.
Other Notes:
1.) The last 7 drop beater is a toss-up between Bruna, the Fading Light and Angel of Despair depending on whether you like having a vindicate on a stick, or the bigger body with vigilance along with the opportunity to meld. I also put in that 3rd option of thundermaw hellkite to make half the beaters hard cast-able midrange threats. I don't have enough data to compare the 3, so I can only say it's a matter of preference. If you ask me, the option to hard cast Bruna for a possible 2-for-1, combined with the meld opportunity makes me lean towards her a bit more.
UPDATE: Bruna's 2-for-1 happens more often than I expected, and has put her way above the other 2 options. That, and I got to smash face with brisela against a comptitive keranos deck. Sold.
3.) If you find 5 colorless lands to be too much (and I admit it is a lot for a tri-color duel commander deck, but not to the point that it's unmanageable), I guess Command Beacon can be some random colored land of your choice.
4.) Demonic consultation is a terrifying hail mary and if I happen to find a heavily played, run-over-by-a-car-and-half-eaten-by-a-dog grim tutor at less than half the store price, that might actually be the safer option. Tainted pact already hurts as it is. However, the awesome thing about this card is that nobody has ever countered it. And I mean nobody. Not even when I cast it while kaalia's triggered ability was on the stack. So that temptation for opponents to just watch you self-destruct plus the instant speed one-mana perk keeps it in the list.. for now. Use at your own risk.
I guess for anyone wondering, I mostly talk about the control matchup because it's where Kaalia struggles most. I don't talk about aggro much because this deck does very well against it. It's all about sweeping at the right time. If that primer thing pushes through maybe I can talk about the matchups against all the different archetypes I got to test with over the years, but honestly I feel underqualified to make one as of now.
@An4ria thank you so much for actually taking a look at the list and counting!! Since I counted cavern of souls as a utility land, I completely missed homeward path. Fixed. This makes it 6 utility lands and 34 colored lands. Thanks again.
I also made a another huge mistake in typing the list. I freaking missed rakdos the defiler. His impact the moment he comes down makes him an auto-include. Since I really love my topdecking ratio with 40 lands vs 39, and 13 beaters is a bit too much, I decided to remove linvala, keeper of silence. I playtested this list against a fine-tuned anafenza deck, and I didn't miss her at all, because we have enough spot removal and sweepers to get rid of creatures with activated abilities in the first place. If you play smart, Linvala is actually just a vanilla 3/4 flier for 4. Another con is that if you lean on her to deactivate mana dorks, if someone manages to remove her, those dorks are online again, as opposed to just killing them. Linvala was actually there in the first place because it's a waste of resources to kill marath over and over again (a problem which has since been solved thanks to the banning).
Ok, as for your question, if you want command beacon to be a colored land, I would lean towards black first, then white because you're right, this deck skews heavily on black, moderately on white, followed closely by red. But honestly in this scenario I'd deviate from this usual order and choose white just to make our new WW angels more hard cast-able. More important than color though, it has to come in untapped. Or if graveyard still thrives in your meta, you can put bojuka bog, but what I suggest you cut would be boseiju, who shelters all just so you don't increase tapped lands.
A little update on the deck matchup data since we're on the subject. I went 2-2 against a tuned keranos deck. In a best of 3 scenario it was actually 2-1, and I lost because of a stupid misplay (forgot i had withering boon in my hand and just allowed keranos to resolve). As of now my list has positive matches against anafenza and jenara, with even matchups against narset, keranos and titania. I know the sample size is small, but hey it's something, since all the decks I tested with have optimized lists. People are already egging me to go to a tournament with it already, so maybe I will soon.
Just an additional note: I replaced angel of despair with bruna, the fading light. I get to hard cast it once in a while bringing back things like both my giselas and a baneslayer. Sweepers aside, that's a difficult turn 7 play to fight back from. And yes guys. I got to meld. Against keranos no less. I've also updated the list accordingly.
No problem, I'm glad that someone has taken interest in using this list. It'll help me out a lot if someone else gets to playtest.
If those 2 cards are your major roadblocks to giving the list a whirl, you're in luck. Though those 2 cards are expensive and no card can really replicate what they can do, there are so many pieces that fit very well with the deck. You might actually feel like you don't need lili and blossom. (but when you do get them both though, slot them in immediately).
Substitutes in order of my personal preference:
1.) Hymn to tourach: losing 2 cards at random can make anyone sweat. With delve getting a huge hit a few weeks ago, this card is back to its former glory, if it even ever left. I'm not playing this because I wanted a full hand scout package (except for mind shatter, because that card was meant to completely hose an opponent's hand). Collective brutality's ability to scout and remove a pesky creature makes it the superior turn-2 play. But hey. If I had the room I'd play both, and for now you do.
2.) Phyrexian arena: Against dedicated counter-heavy control, Liliana of the veil will most of the time not resolve. This is not a problem for me, because it's one less counterspell to use against the real threats that are going to beat people's faces in. My point is, phyrexian arena will always be threatening to anyone who understands the value of card advantatge, and it will be high on the threat assessment list. It does liliana's job as counterbait, and if people don't bite, you get 2 cards a turn. win-win.
3.) Vampire hexmage: It can kill walkers, wipe out jitte counters (very relevant for our general), and it can safely block geist and narset. Since expedition map is in the deck, dark depths would have been tempting if that land made mana. But it doesn't, so don't play dark depths. =))
4.) Boros charm can do lots of things: kill walkers, survive sweepers, make mass land destruction strategies backfire in the worst way, occasionally turn rakdos the defiler into rakdos the broken, occasionally make gisela, blade of goldnight practically lethal (20 damage + kaalia's 4 damage = ouch). Despite that, it's the last mentioned because if you run a list with decent permanent removal and hand disrupt package, the situations in which this card becomes needed can actually be prevented. With me it often became a win-more or a dead draw. It's a surprising conclusion given its uses, but it is what it is. I'd consider this a last resort addition.
Special mention: Unexpectedly absent is awesome due to its instant speed and versatility, but having to sink more mana into it to make it have a bigger impact is a big minus for me. Admittedly though, if anguished unmaking was never printed, this would be in my list.
Another special mention: Grand abolisher is there if it so happens that there are so many permission decks where you play. It has the added benefit of being a human for added cavern of souls relevance. I've made do without it, however, so I don't see why anyone else can't.
Side note: In my recent playtesting, Nahiri, the harbinger has been the silent MVP of the deck. All 3 abilities are just so relevant, and sometimes I even use kaalia as counterbait to get this walker to resolve. She's that good. Unlike blossom and lili, she has no decent sub. I'd put her high on your priority list, along with Gisela, the broken blade. Turn 4 bombs that aren't named kaalia of the vast really make opponents' threat assessment radar go nuts. It's probably because they have a lot on their plate while our supposed most dangerous threat is still sitting pretty at the command zone.
1.) I agree, Kiki-restoration combo is not consistent enough to be competitive. Once you cut Kiki, restoration should go next.
2.) Mindcensor is a good card that is a bad fit for kaalia unfortunately. Who cares about what they tutor when you can remove it with hand disrupt? And occasionally preventing a fetch is not consistent enough to keep her. And trust me on this because I actually had her in my list for some time too. At least for hand disrupt it can hit even people without tutors.
3.) The only 2 cards I would ever replace phyrexian arena with is liliana of the veil and grim tutor. Unless they're the ones replacing arena once you cut it, you might want to reconsider.
I actually play without arena now, and I'm not running out of gas at all, even late game. But I did do the responsible thing and replaced it with another draw spell, painful truths. Think about it, assuming you cast painful truths with max colors, it'll take 4 turns for phyrexian arena to overtake that benefit, 5 if you include the turn you cast it. I run that card with read the bones, night's whisper, skeletal scrying and dark confidant and I end up having all I really need. Problem with arena is that control decks that understand its power will never let it resolve and green decks will whack it with a reclamation sage ASAP while my one-time draw spells get to do their work almost every time.
The only reason I'm advising An4ria to play it is because he doesn't have liliana of the veil yet, and at that mana cost, Arena's the next best thing I can think of.
I actually play without arena now, and I'm not running out of gas at all, even late game. But I did do the responsible thing and replaced it with another draw spell, painful truths. Think about it, assuming you cast painful truths with max colors, it'll take 4 turns for phyrexian arena to overtake that benefit, 5 if you include the turn you cast it. I run that card with read the bones, night's whisper, skeletal scrying and dark confidant and I end up having all I really need. Problem with arena is that control decks that understand its power will never let it resolve and green decks will whack it with a reclamation sage ASAP while my one-time draw spells get to do their work almost every time.
The only reason I'm advising An4ria to play it is because he doesn't have liliana of the veil yet, and at that mana cost, Arena's the next best thing I can think of.
Phyrexian Arena is for the long game, so it's more applicable in multiplayer than in DC. Also, if you can get your mana base right and can spare the life, Necropotence is still pretty good.
Might be a little off topic but have you guys tried lotus petal?
Hi! Yep, lotus is very good once you use it, but unfortunately you only get to use it once. Because of it, I stopped playing it. Doesn't make it bad however. I playtested all 0 to cast mana rocks and I rank them in this order:
If you can find a way to play all 4 you can get a lot of surprise turn 3 (even turn 2 if you get 2) kaalias so that's pretty cool, but kinda inconsistent so I just go for chrome and diamond.
I actually play without arena now, and I'm not running out of gas at all, even late game. But I did do the responsible thing and replaced it with another draw spell, painful truths. Think about it, assuming you cast painful truths with max colors, it'll take 4 turns for phyrexian arena to overtake that benefit, 5 if you include the turn you cast it. I run that card with read the bones, night's whisper, skeletal scrying and dark confidant and I end up having all I really need. Problem with arena is that control decks that understand its power will never let it resolve and green decks will whack it with a reclamation sage ASAP while my one-time draw spells get to do their work almost every time.
The only reason I'm advising An4ria to play it is because he doesn't have liliana of the veil yet, and at that mana cost, Arena's the next best thing I can think of.
Phyrexian Arena is for the long game, so it's more applicable in multiplayer than in DC. Also, if you can get your mana base right and can spare the life, Necropotence is still pretty good.
An4ria is a DC player so my answer was based on that. But yeah for sure in multiplayer arena helps keep you dropping bombs till they decide to kill you.
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That sentence made me happy
I still prefer Read the Bones, scry 2 is amazing in my opinion
@Shiroe Yea I guess its time to be more Machiavellian. I will continue to run Ramp in MP then. thank u for your input
@3drinks Jitterblossom sounds pretty cool, might give it a whirl and see how it goes
As for Eldrazi, I'm just not a fan of them although Thot-Knot is amazing
The only thing closest to playable as far as lifelink is concerned is archangel of thune. The best lifelink option after those 2 are in my opinion would be vault of the archangel, or even whip of erebos since you're doing a reanimator thing anyway.
God your avatar. 10/10. Trample.
A bit off topic but which do u think would be better in the possible new meta; GAAIV or Geist?
@Berlioz, I just finished a draft of my MP deck, it does include MLD but you can swap those out for Reanimate cards. How many threats are u running?
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kaalia-of-the-vast-multiplayer-3/
I'm using this exact list with the exception of Imperial Seal for obvious monetary reasons. I use this deck for competitive play in tourneys where have no restrictions but seeing as my friends have also recently gotten into edh we set aside some ground rules from the beginning. As such I kept the same creature base with a few cards removed for stuff like Lord of The Void, Baneslayer, Angel of Thune, and so on. Truthfully the reanimator package feels underwhelming since I'm not running dump cards for higher threats such as the Eldrazi but at the same time I don't really know what else I could stick in there.
Agreed on Thalia being anti-Narset, which is exactly why I'd like to see more of them emerge in tourneys. Keranos is a commander I've overlooked for the longest time, but I completely forgot that it's an indestructible enchantment, making it very difficult to interact with. And with it in play, the owner gets to alternate between card advantage and a free burn, making the latter oppressive for aggro once it resolves, but to a lesser extent than marath (since the burn starts turn 6 earliest, happens once per turn, but is not guaranteed). That explains selesnya colors playing dromoka's command, and utter end is all of a sudden relatively justifiable.
As for your question on a Marath-less meta, GAAIV directly benefits from the ban simply because he can be targeted by that stupid cow's burn ability, while geist can't be. In that sense, geist benefits less than GAAIV, but nothing was taken away from it either. Still hard to tell which of the two will perform better in the new meta, but whether or not the ban happened, I personally find GAAIV scarier. Once he comes down he's difficult to remove and easy to protect, and more than that he creates a resource gap that puts this feeling of heaviness that you can only really understand by going against him yourself. On the flip side, although GAAIV's passive ability is much more oppressive, geist himself is difficult to interact with. I think who ends up more successful entirely depends on how other decks in the meta prepare for hexproof creatures (after all, it covers for narset as well). If geist is allowed to just sit there and carry a sword and swing in tournaments, he'll be much more explosive than GAAIV. If not, then GAAIV has advantage.
From a kaalia standpoint, I've gone against both, albeit 2 years ago. My matchup against both is approximately 40-60 in favor of both of them, which considering how bad our control matchup is on paper, is an overachievement of sorts.
However, I think control decks in general will be experiencing more resistance in tournaments simply because of the increase in aggro decks hurting matchup ratios a little. Again though, this is assuming the aggro surge does happen.
I've often said not a fan of renaimator for kaalia simply because others can do it better. If you can just let go of the package to make room for more options, that might be better. Not really a MP guy though so the specifics are beyond me.
Edit: oh and Jenara. Question still stands though haha
But going to a blind meta, i would still bring her. Shuts down a lot of creature decks if not answered, of the top of my head; Anafenza, Titania, Animar (I had all three in my old playgroup + Jenara) and not to mention any elf decks
Even if we don't shut down the commander with Linvala, she shuts down a lot of the 99 (mana dorks and etc)
Jace VP
YisanEzuriSisay
Prossh
Those are off the top of my head.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Nephalia Academy.
If they want to time walk themselves for playing a colourless land vulnerable to Wasteland, I'm okay with that.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
As always, thanks 3drinks and this very active kaalia primer.
I'm considering consolidating everything into a primer of my own that will be specific to DC so that I don't interrupt the very healthy traditional commander discussion in this thread, but this will most likely happen only if this list sees enough success in bigger tournaments.
Anyway, some notes before the list. I've made yet a good number of changes in the deck, and they again paid off:
1.) The land destruction package is no more. Ajani Vengeant, Pillage, sinkhole and Rishadan port have been removed. Obligatory wasteland stays of course. Recently, people have been bringing up reanimator packages for Kaalia, and I always say that while Kaalia can flex that reanimator muscle, other decks can do it better. Then it hit me, that makes me a hypocrite in a sense.. I realized adding mana denial into the mix was trying to do 1 thing too much. We already have opponents' creatures, artifacts, enchantments, walkers, and even their hands to deal with after all, and we still have to balance this with our own game plan of beating them up with our angels, demons, and dragons. Keeping this balance in mind, I made replacements.
2.) I added back demonic consultation along with the new Gisela, the Broken Blade and oldie but goodie Angel of Despair. Actually AoD was supposed to be Bruna, the Fading Light but I still have to pick up my PR foil version of her tomorrow. My beatstick count has always been dancing between 9-10, and although it was fine as far as having a kaalia target was concerned, I realized that 12 really is that sweet spot. But the breakdown of the 12 matters (which is why I broke it down in the list). Of the 12, 3 actually have the same cmc as kaalia, and 2 are 5 cmc. This means that almost half the threats can be hard cast with relative ease when the midgame kicks in. This actually hurts opponents a lot, and is very evident vs control. The obligatory counter of defense grid or liliana of the veil, fighting through the occasional hand disrupt, locking out kaalia with the appropriate permission or kill spell, only to see me hard cast a baneslayer angel then a steel hellkite is a little demoralizing to control players. The midrange beaters makes it close to impossible for a control player without a gitaxan probe (*barf*) to make a proper threat assessment. I actually named dragon when I played cavern of souls in the first game against Narset, and it threw him off enough to use up his sweepers and O-rings against my hard-cast balefire dragon and stormbreath dragon and I haven't even cast Kaalia yet, AND I still had Iona and Rakdos sitting in my hand and at that point, were even hard cast-able.
However, hardcasting beaters means that you have a very small margin of error in making land drops. This leads to #3:
3.) Turning the lands up to 40 has been great, and in all honesty I'd rather be flooded than screwed. This change also made Mox Diamond at times even more playable than chrome mox, so the often explosive, sometimes useless, always one-time dark ritual was moved to the sidelines for now. This also greatly reduces the risk of having to lean on tithe.
4.) Blood moon and magus of the moon are still freaking awesome. The 40 lands actually makes fetching for basics less forced, because you draw enough lands to color fix eventually. Because of this however, I wanted to reduce redundancy by removing 1 snow-covered mountain for gemstone mine. The 3-use only is a turn-off at first glance, but in this list, it can be fed to mox diamond, made reusable by urborg, tomb of yawgmoth, or even used sparingly because of the 40 land count. Rugged prairie is still an option, but having all 3 filter lands combined with 5 colorless utility lands is a little risky. I'm even considering turning Graven Cairns into Dragonskull summit quite frankly. I guess the nitty gritty is a preference thing at this point, but I maintain that 40 lands has been good to me. You can try with 39, but I've been there.. you'd think it's enough because cmon the earliest lists made it with 36.. The new mulligan rules are a factor too. Even some abzan aggro decks with a lower curve than us AND with elves play 39 lands. So it's a bit cheeky to follow that land count.
5.) Rishadan port was replaced with homeward path. Let's face it, Gilded drake is a blue staple, and Keranos lists actually run Bribery and Order of Succession. Add mono-blue staple Vedalken shackles protected by a bunch of counterspells into the mix and the addition becomes a no brainer. And unlike other utility lands like arcane lighthouse, Rishadan Port or even tower of the magistrate (if people even still use this), Homeward path actually has no activation cost other than tapping the land itself. I actually feel irresponsible for only adding this card now.
6.) Command Beacon is an amazing pressure tool in DC. Unless you're playing against titania, opponents will be aiming to kill whatever 4 drop and above creature comes down on your board because they know what kind of damage they can do. So imagine a barrage consisting of turn 4 kaalia --> turn 5 hard cast baneslayer --> turn 6 kaalia take 2 --> turn 7 kaalia take 3 via command beacon with a few extra mana to spare.. In that sequence we only technically lose 1 card, as opposed to as much as 4 cards from our opponent. More often than not, they'll waste all their resources (though using the term "waste" is inappropriate given that they're removing kaalia) keeping our commander in check until a point in the game where we can even hard cast griselbrand with little resistance. In the second narset match I actually had no beaters in hand, but I kept casting my kaalia via cavern of souls as a bluff. As expected, he let out supreme verdict then a wrath of god sweeper turned spot removal, and even trapped her in a detention sphere. A thoughtseize and countered defense grid later, I got 2 beaters to safely resolve, and that was checkmate.
7.) Hymn to tourach replaced by collective brutality. It's what we always dreamed sin collector should be, and more. I love that it doubles as removal for the possible 2-for-2. The added hand scout makes the package much more reliable.
8.) The impact of our utility lands makes expedition map actually my favorite turn 1 play. Even better than enlightened tutor I'd say. The only thing keeping me from cutting the latter is its ability to fetch for a steel hellkite when times are tough, or a blood moon to bail us out of a tough matchup.
9.) The need for expedition map finally made me do something i should have done long ago. I took out path to exile. Running removal that gives opponents a basic while having blood moon in the same deck made me feel so dirty. I don't miss it, because I decided to run fire covenant and treat it as spot removal instead of a sweeper, so the creature control ratio is still well-balanced.
10.) Nahiri, the Harbinger is legit. In a sea of midrange beaters, if an opponent ranks her low in threat assessment and allows her to resolve, she can take over a game on her own. Her ultimate is so easy to get to, and fetching a rune-scarred demon for a free tutor without spending any mana is absolutely disgusting. It's also very important to note that Keranos, God of Storms has overtaken Narset as the #1 control deck in our current meta. Our colors, and this list in particular I believe boasts 4 hard answers to a resolved Keranos, 5 if we include withering boon, making this list one of the most, if not the most dangerous threats to Keranos himself. Nahiri's -2 is one of those answers.
ANYWAY here's the freaking list already.
1 Kaalia of the Vast
BEATERS (12)
Four drops
1 Gisela, the Broken Blade
Five drops
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Master of Cruelties
1 Stormbreath Dragon
Six drops
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Rakdos The Defiler
Seven drops
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Bruna, the Fading Light
Eight drops
1 Griselbrand
Nine drops
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
PROTECTION (3)
1 Mother of Runes
1 Earnest Fellowship
1 Defense Grid
HAND DISRUPT (7)
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Distress
1 Castigate
1 Collective Brutality
1 Mind Shatter
CARD ADVANTAGE (5)
1 Night's Whisper
1 Read The Bones
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Painful Truths
1 Dark Confidant
HASTE (2)
1 Dragon Tempest
1 Lightning Greaves
REMOVAL (13)
For creatures only
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Dismember
1 Go for the throat
1 Fire Covenant
1 Withering Boon
1 Dreadbore
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Lightning Bolt
For nonland permanents
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Council's Judgment
For permanents
1 Vindicate
For artifacts/enchantments only
1 Hide // Seek
1 Wear // Tear
TUTORS (6)
For artifacts/enchantments only
1 Enlightened Tutor
For Any Card
1 Demonic tutor
1 Gamble
"Mill" Tutor
1 Tainted Pact
Suicidal "Mill" Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
For Lands Only
1 Expedition Map
WALKERS (2)
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Nahiri, the Harbinger
SWEEPERS (3)
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Sudden Demise
1 Damnation
MANA ROCKS (2)
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
TECH VS NON-BASIC USERS (2)
1 Blood Moon
1 Magus of the Moon
MASS LAND DESTRUCTION (1)
1 Ravages of War
OTHER (1)
1 Bitterblossom
LANDS (40)
Core Manabase
1 Arid Mesa
1 Badlands
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Caves of Koilos
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Fetid Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Godless Shrine
1 Graven Cairns
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mountain
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Plains
1 Plateau
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting pool
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Scrubland
1 Snow-covered Plains
1 Snow-covered Swamp
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Wasteland
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Hall of The Bandit Lord
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Command Beacon
1 Homeward Path
Other Notes:
1.) The last 7 drop beater is a toss-up between Bruna, the Fading Light and Angel of Despair depending on whether you like having a vindicate on a stick, or the bigger body with vigilance along with the opportunity to meld. I also put in that 3rd option of thundermaw hellkite to make half the beaters hard cast-able midrange threats. I don't have enough data to compare the 3, so I can only say it's a matter of preference. If you ask me, the option to hard cast Bruna for a possible 2-for-1, combined with the meld opportunity makes me lean towards her a bit more.
UPDATE: Bruna's 2-for-1 happens more often than I expected, and has put her way above the other 2 options. That, and I got to smash face with brisela against a comptitive keranos deck. Sold.
2.) Painful truths or read the bones can be replaced with phyrexian arena if you prefer the cards over time. I personally want a deeper dig, even if it's just one time.
3.) If you find 5 colorless lands to be too much (and I admit it is a lot for a tri-color duel commander deck, but not to the point that it's unmanageable), I guess Command Beacon can be some random colored land of your choice.
4.) Demonic consultation is a terrifying hail mary and if I happen to find a heavily played, run-over-by-a-car-and-half-eaten-by-a-dog grim tutor at less than half the store price, that might actually be the safer option. Tainted pact already hurts as it is. However, the awesome thing about this card is that nobody has ever countered it. And I mean nobody. Not even when I cast it while kaalia's triggered ability was on the stack. So that temptation for opponents to just watch you self-destruct plus the instant speed one-mana perk keeps it in the list.. for now. Use at your own risk.
I guess for anyone wondering, I mostly talk about the control matchup because it's where Kaalia struggles most. I don't talk about aggro much because this deck does very well against it. It's all about sweeping at the right time. If that primer thing pushes through maybe I can talk about the matchups against all the different archetypes I got to test with over the years, but honestly I feel underqualified to make one as of now.
I also made a another huge mistake in typing the list. I freaking missed rakdos the defiler. His impact the moment he comes down makes him an auto-include. Since I really love my topdecking ratio with 40 lands vs 39, and 13 beaters is a bit too much, I decided to remove linvala, keeper of silence. I playtested this list against a fine-tuned anafenza deck, and I didn't miss her at all, because we have enough spot removal and sweepers to get rid of creatures with activated abilities in the first place. If you play smart, Linvala is actually just a vanilla 3/4 flier for 4. Another con is that if you lean on her to deactivate mana dorks, if someone manages to remove her, those dorks are online again, as opposed to just killing them. Linvala was actually there in the first place because it's a waste of resources to kill marath over and over again (a problem which has since been solved thanks to the banning).
Ok, as for your question, if you want command beacon to be a colored land, I would lean towards black first, then white because you're right, this deck skews heavily on black, moderately on white, followed closely by red. But honestly in this scenario I'd deviate from this usual order and choose white just to make our new WW angels more hard cast-able. More important than color though, it has to come in untapped. Or if graveyard still thrives in your meta, you can put bojuka bog, but what I suggest you cut would be boseiju, who shelters all just so you don't increase tapped lands.
A little update on the deck matchup data since we're on the subject. I went 2-2 against a tuned keranos deck. In a best of 3 scenario it was actually 2-1, and I lost because of a stupid misplay (forgot i had withering boon in my hand and just allowed keranos to resolve). As of now my list has positive matches against anafenza and jenara, with even matchups against narset, keranos and titania. I know the sample size is small, but hey it's something, since all the decks I tested with have optimized lists. People are already egging me to go to a tournament with it already, so maybe I will soon.
Just an additional note: I replaced angel of despair with bruna, the fading light. I get to hard cast it once in a while bringing back things like both my giselas and a baneslayer. Sweepers aside, that's a difficult turn 7 play to fight back from. And yes guys. I got to meld. Against keranos no less. I've also updated the list accordingly.
If those 2 cards are your major roadblocks to giving the list a whirl, you're in luck. Though those 2 cards are expensive and no card can really replicate what they can do, there are so many pieces that fit very well with the deck. You might actually feel like you don't need lili and blossom. (but when you do get them both though, slot them in immediately).
Substitutes in order of my personal preference:
1.) Hymn to tourach: losing 2 cards at random can make anyone sweat. With delve getting a huge hit a few weeks ago, this card is back to its former glory, if it even ever left. I'm not playing this because I wanted a full hand scout package (except for mind shatter, because that card was meant to completely hose an opponent's hand). Collective brutality's ability to scout and remove a pesky creature makes it the superior turn-2 play. But hey. If I had the room I'd play both, and for now you do.
2.) Phyrexian arena: Against dedicated counter-heavy control, Liliana of the veil will most of the time not resolve. This is not a problem for me, because it's one less counterspell to use against the real threats that are going to beat people's faces in. My point is, phyrexian arena will always be threatening to anyone who understands the value of card advantatge, and it will be high on the threat assessment list. It does liliana's job as counterbait, and if people don't bite, you get 2 cards a turn. win-win.
3.) Vampire hexmage: It can kill walkers, wipe out jitte counters (very relevant for our general), and it can safely block geist and narset. Since expedition map is in the deck, dark depths would have been tempting if that land made mana. But it doesn't, so don't play dark depths. =))
4.) Boros charm can do lots of things: kill walkers, survive sweepers, make mass land destruction strategies backfire in the worst way, occasionally turn rakdos the defiler into rakdos the broken, occasionally make gisela, blade of goldnight practically lethal (20 damage + kaalia's 4 damage = ouch). Despite that, it's the last mentioned because if you run a list with decent permanent removal and hand disrupt package, the situations in which this card becomes needed can actually be prevented. With me it often became a win-more or a dead draw. It's a surprising conclusion given its uses, but it is what it is. I'd consider this a last resort addition.
Special mention: Unexpectedly absent is awesome due to its instant speed and versatility, but having to sink more mana into it to make it have a bigger impact is a big minus for me. Admittedly though, if anguished unmaking was never printed, this would be in my list.
Another special mention: Grand abolisher is there if it so happens that there are so many permission decks where you play. It has the added benefit of being a human for added cavern of souls relevance. I've made do without it, however, so I don't see why anyone else can't.
Side note: In my recent playtesting, Nahiri, the harbinger has been the silent MVP of the deck. All 3 abilities are just so relevant, and sometimes I even use kaalia as counterbait to get this walker to resolve. She's that good. Unlike blossom and lili, she has no decent sub. I'd put her high on your priority list, along with Gisela, the broken blade. Turn 4 bombs that aren't named kaalia of the vast really make opponents' threat assessment radar go nuts. It's probably because they have a lot on their plate while our supposed most dangerous threat is still sitting pretty at the command zone.
1.) I agree, Kiki-restoration combo is not consistent enough to be competitive. Once you cut Kiki, restoration should go next.
2.) Mindcensor is a good card that is a bad fit for kaalia unfortunately. Who cares about what they tutor when you can remove it with hand disrupt? And occasionally preventing a fetch is not consistent enough to keep her. And trust me on this because I actually had her in my list for some time too. At least for hand disrupt it can hit even people without tutors.
3.) The only 2 cards I would ever replace phyrexian arena with is liliana of the veil and grim tutor. Unless they're the ones replacing arena once you cut it, you might want to reconsider.
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)
The only reason I'm advising An4ria to play it is because he doesn't have liliana of the veil yet, and at that mana cost, Arena's the next best thing I can think of.
Phyrexian Arena is for the long game, so it's more applicable in multiplayer than in DC. Also, if you can get your mana base right and can spare the life, Necropotence is still pretty good.
Hi! Yep, lotus is very good once you use it, but unfortunately you only get to use it once. Because of it, I stopped playing it. Doesn't make it bad however. I playtested all 0 to cast mana rocks and I rank them in this order:
Mox diamond > Chrome Mox > Jeweled amulet = Lotus petal
If you can find a way to play all 4 you can get a lot of surprise turn 3 (even turn 2 if you get 2) kaalias so that's pretty cool, but kinda inconsistent so I just go for chrome and diamond.
An4ria is a DC player so my answer was based on that. But yeah for sure in multiplayer arena helps keep you dropping bombs till they decide to kill you.