Yeah I don't expect it either. Although I can say printing a white imperial recruiter was less likely to me than reprinting grim. If this is the pattern they'll go with conspiracy sets, like i said within our lifetime it'll probably turn up haha
I proxied her replacing read the bones in my duel commander build, and she did a lot of work in my limited playtesting. Just using her -2 once before an opponent removes her via council's judgment or whatnot already makes the 4 mana worth it because it's like a 2 for 0 as far as net card advantage is concerned. Imagine getting to use it twice. I'm getting my copy of her tomorrow morning hehe.
Thoughts on Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast? Do we run enough artifacts to make it worthy of a 3-drop spot? And that foil Kaya price is ridiculous at the moment. Need one! haha
Alright man! Thanks for your input! I will have mine on monday, I'm pretty sure she will be great,and most of the time I play multiplayer games that discard ability will be even more efficient!
I just added Nahiri in my deck , I cant wait to try her!
please note that I am trying to do my best with my english lol
Thoughts on Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast? Do we run enough artifacts to make it worthy of a 3-drop spot? And that foil Kaya price is ridiculous at the moment. Need one! haha
LOL need is right. I got a nonfoil for now, still waiting for my contacts on her foil availability. As for daretti, nope I can't seem to find room for him in my deck. Although if you're playing multiplayer with enough mana rocks, he's a lot more playable than in DC. It's decent value for 3 mana for sure.
Alright man! Thanks for your input! I will have mine on monday, I'm pretty sure she will be great,and since I most of the time now I play multiplayer games so that discard ability will be even more efficient!
I just added Nahiri in my deck , I cant wait to try her! You convinced me, I think that you run her also..
please note that I am trying to do my best with my english lol
Your english is understandable don't worry hehe. Oh your deck is for multiplayer? Then I might advise you to try daretti instead of Kaya.. In a multiplayer setting, the commanders that most benefit from Kaya, Ghost Assassin will most likely be lifegain decks like Oloro or Karlov, because you get to maximize all 3 abilities.
The problem with Kaya in a multiplayer Kaalia is, you're painting an even bigger target on yourself by causing the whole table to discard, even if it's just one card. So you need to think about that. I would wait for 3drinks or shiroe's opinion on Kaya in multiplayer before spending for her.
Yep, or that lol. I think the best way to maximize walkers in multiplayer is to keep the board clean as often as possible. At least in my playgroup, people by default will point attacking creatures at the most available dangerous planeswalker in the field. Losing a walker in just 1 turn in a game that is designed to take quite a while discourages me from playing them outside of dedicated superfriends type decks.
She's very flexible as a 5 mana hard cast-able beater. A life gaining 4/4 that can double up as a blocker makes it worth considering as is.. But the flying servo tokens give her unparalleled flexibility (as far as 5 drop beaters are concerned). Outside of a sweeper or counter she will never be a 1-for-1, and if some butthole taps out to JTMS in an attempt to lockout an impending kaalia with his -1 (which happens a lot and i end up losing most of those games), she gives me another out besides stormbreath dragon to work around it.
Problem is the only cut I can make is baneslayer angel. Or bruna, the fading light but I probably never will since Brisela's become some sort of pet card of mine and that end game reanimation option is so legit.
She's very flexible as a 5 mana hard cast-able beater. A life gaining 4/4 that can double up as a blocker makes it worth considering as is.. But the flying servo tokens give her unparalleled flexibility (as far as 5 drop beaters are concerned). Outside of a sweeper or counter she will never be a 1-for-1, and if some butthole taps out to JTMS in an attempt to lockout an impending kaalia with his -1 (which happens a lot and i end up losing most of those games), she gives me another out besides stormbreath dragon to work around it.
Problem is the only cut I can make is baneslayer angel. Or bruna, the fading light but I probably never will since Brisela's become some sort of pet card of mine and that end game reanimation option is so legit.
She's a 4/3 if you put both counters on her, not a 4/4. Her counters are from a triggered ability, so they can be interrupted by an opponent. If the counters go on the angel and the angel is eliminated, it's a wash. If the counters are used to create servo creatures, then it is a small gain.
I play multiplayer, so the angel is probably not a first pick for me. Baneslayer and Gisela, the Broken Blade are stronger creatures. Angel of Invention's Vigilance does nothing if it comes from Kaalia, so first strike is more valuable.
It's just that thanks to bitterblossom I learned to love flying token production for DC kaalia and it has provided very good supplemental offense/defense, and this angel's technically on theme as well as a good reanimation target for bruna assuming they play together.. That alone made me consider her primarily as a hard-castable threat, not something I'd cheat in with kaalia.
But that said I totes missed the 2/1, I thought she was 2/2. Bolt range with no first strike is a big minus to me if her toughness is that freaking low. Auto-include at 4 mana, but she's not.. this set as expected has nothing decent to give us yet. Not complaining though after getting anguished unmaking, brisela and kaya this year.
Man the more I look at her though she's still decent value for 5. She has marginally less value/mana ratio than broken blade and baneslayer, but she makes up for it with an extra option. And in DC at least, the more resources my opponents spend getting rid of my threats that are not a game-breaking kaalia swing, the better for me.
But I have to concede the fact that the extra tokens and the anthem effect is something that other decks can make way better use of. I guess taken all that into account she'll be edged out by pretty much every card in my current list, but I'm tellin you surprisingly not by that much hahaha!!
I've had a slight deviation in strategy recently involving me not naming human when playing cavern of souls when it's mid-late game and I'm loaded with a certain creature-type. If I can shift to a predominantly angelic lineup, uncounterable angels is probably something control can't ever keep up with. earnest fellowship limits azorius removal to only bounce spells and sweepers after all, and my bigger angels are beyond reach of keranos' wildfire sweeps. That uncounterable angel gig might be a factor behind why I don't think this new angel is that bad, so I wouldn't be shocked if she turns out to be as bad as she initially looks hehe
I like her more in a deck like white weenie or b/w tokens, tbh. She is similar in power level to a Geist-Honored Monk/Cloudgoat Ranger. Her main draw, is providing it's own anthem, and don't get it twisted a 2/1 and a pair of 2/2s (shame servos don't fly) is fine value; but it doesn't do more than what our current suite does. Our current line-up is very, very good, and it'd take an act of congress to get better than what we have, I feel. I'd be very surprised if we got relevant, on-type threats at a higher power level than we have.
That Angel though, would put in some work in my own Alesha build however.
Since this is mostly a traditional commander thread, I wanna share this quote from someone who believes that Kaalia should be banned in EDH. Take note that the last time I've seen anyone whine about Kaalia, it was 2012 and even then, no one was really calling for a ban. For this guy to post something like this just last month really raised my eyebrows.
"Okay I know I am going to catch flak for this but I feel that is necessary to point out this error within the format and its continued existence for its indignation, Kaalia of the Vast and her effects within commander. I will begin making my points:
All Kaalia decks are that one! or at least a variant of this deck ( http://edhrec.com/commanders/kaalia-of-the-vast ) with some minor alterations but are thoroughly consistent in their list. Not to mention the overall cost these decks essentially equate to "Pay this much for this deck and you become over powered in EDH" which goes against the spirit of the format. All Kaalia decks I have encountered in person are the same as the one linked above with the occasional variation. Now I am fairly sure that a few others have encountered this one at their local shop's commander night at some point repeatedly encounter this same deck.
Early to Rise, First to ruin the game , As mentioned above, and long ago, all Kaalia decks (namely the one linked above that every seems to build their deck as) is designed to get her out t2 before most people have a chance cast a creature. What most players will do is mulligan until they acquire a land, sol ring, a hexproofing artifact and a signet where they will play their mana rocks turn one, then turn two play kaalia. Now in most cases others at the table will either instantaneously turn on the Kaalia player or coerce players who aren't in on the "Smash Kaalia" Plan, causing a lot of distaste for one another, disaste being a gentle word in this regard. Once said hexproofing artifact is played, most of us scoop in response and leave whomever is willing to deal with the broken nightmare that is Kaalia of the vast.
Expensive wench! aside from the fact Kaalia and decks built around her contain multiple hexproofing/industrible artifacts to ensure her brokeness remains, Her cost and the decks built to cater to her ability are beyond what most normal players would be willing to spend, not mentioning it goes against the philosopy of " Creates Undesirable Games/Game Situations. Some cards produce the kinds of games we’d like to avoid and we see them as creating a negative experience for a majority of the player base. They tend to be anticlimactic wins out of nowhere, unexpected combos that end an otherwise enjoyable game, or creating situations which completely take play of the game away from the other players.". Just her presence on the board alters normal play where we are forced to take action against it collectively or turn against one another with bad feelings for one another.
Eschewed Power Her ability to "cheat" out Dragons, Demons, and Angels is also drastically disproportionate to her mana cost as well, not to mention what she pulls out mostly prevents other players from actually playing the game. Its like running into Invoke Prejudice which are not fun cards in their own right. Kaalia is like this in regard because of her disproportionate ability in relation to both her mana cost and creature type."
Some might argue that this shouldn't have been worth posting due to the amount of vitriol it had towards our general, but I think this has potential to be a good discussion about the Kaalia stigma in general.
I was hoping to give the multiplayer people a little survey and ask these questions:
1.) As of right now, what's your approach when playing the deck? Like what's your strategy to winning?
2.) How do the politics treat you when playing? Are you often hated out of the game after the first 5-6 turns?
3.) Are there certain changes you made to the deck to make people hate on kaalia less? If so, what are your changes?
I'd really love to hear your answers, and I guess I can start by answering them myself:
1.) I don't play Kaalia multiplayer, at least not anymore. Even back then, I played very few games because she has a very 1-dimensional approach: beat face with monsters. But I realized she doesn't have to be. If I were to brew a multiplayer list right now, I would add 2 elements into the list that she's known for not having: defense and "gas". Attack deterrents like ghostly prison, no mercy, master warcraft, maybe even deflecting palm or similar cards to discourage people from attacking me, or encourage people to attack others. Then a crapton of board wipes when things get out of hand. Then throw in painful truths and night's whisper along with arena and dark confidant for "gas". My strategy will be to stall until only 1 or 2 opponents are left, only then will I cast kaalia and start making a mess. As long as kaalia's off the board people have less reason to attack, especially since as the game goes on other board states are going to look more dangerous.
2.) If you ramp into T3 kaalia with rocks and swing ASAP all the time, no matter what you say you're bound to put a target onto yourself. When I played this strategy, everyone's goal was really to take me out ASAP, and in retrospect more often than not I can't blame them. But then I made a few adjustments after my first game and I started saying this before games: "Hey guys, I only have a kaalia deck on me right now and I really wanna play, but I know she tends to be hated on a lot so I took out rakdos the defiler and master of cruelties, and I did not put any MLD. I know it's hard not to step on people's toes too hard when playing her, but I'll try my best." I find that just saying something like that softens them up a bit and the politics go a bit easier on you from there.
3.) I kinda answered this in 1 and 2. I would remove beatsticks that locked people out of games or caused people to auto-lose, only bring Iona down in a 1v1 situation, and just focus the entire early and midgame fending people off. No MLD is also a breath of fresh air to the playgroup. In a more competitive meta you can always just throw all those bombs back in, but maybe a more defensive early-mid game is still a better way to last, even in competitive groups.
In defense of the guy who wanted Kaalia banned, I think he and his group just lack experience in EDH, because it's kinda weird that this Kaalia player gets so much hate yet seems to keep winning to the point that a Kaalia ban crossed this guy's mind. My point of posting this was to hopefully get some feedback on how your multiplayer experiences are and maybe help brew a list that's both powerful enough to kill, but resilient enough to make it to the end, at a pace that can be deemed "politically acceptable".
Some might argue that this shouldn't have been worth posting due to the amount of vitriol it had towards our general, but I think this has potential to be a good discussion about the Kaalia stigma in general.
I was hoping to give the multiplayer people a little survey and ask these questions:
1.) As of right now, what's your approach when playing the deck? Like what's your strategy to winning?
2.) How do the politics treat you when playing? Are you often hated out of the game after the first 5-6 turns?
3.) Are there certain changes you made to the deck to make people hate on kaalia less? If so, what are your changes?
I'd really love to hear your answers, and I guess I can start by answering them myself:
1.) I don't play Kaalia multiplayer, at least not anymore. Even back then, I played very few games because she has a very 1-dimensional approach: beat face with monsters. But I realized she doesn't have to be. If I were to brew a multiplayer list right now, I would add 2 elements into the list that she's known for not having: defense and "gas". Attack deterrents like ghostly prison, no mercy, master warcraft, maybe even deflecting palm or similar cards to discourage people from attacking me, or encourage people to attack others. Then a crapton of board wipes when things get out of hand. Then throw in painful truths and night's whisper along with arena and dark confidant for "gas". My strategy will be to stall until only 1 or 2 opponents are left, only then will I cast kaalia and start making a mess. As long as kaalia's off the board people have less reason to attack, especially since as the game goes on other board states are going to look more dangerous.
2.) If you ramp into T3 kaalia with rocks and swing ASAP all the time, no matter what you say you're bound to put a target onto yourself. When I played this strategy, everyone's goal was really to take me out ASAP, and in retrospect more often than not I can't blame them. But then I made a few adjustments after my first game and I started saying this before games: "Hey guys, I only have a kaalia deck on me right now and I really wanna play, but I know she tends to be hated on a lot so I took out rakdos the defiler and master of cruelties, and I did not put any MLD. I know it's hard not to step on people's toes too hard when playing her, but I'll try my best." I find that just saying something like that softens them up a bit and the politics go a bit easier on you from there.
3.) I kinda answered this in 1 and 2. I would remove beatsticks that locked people out of games or caused people to auto-lose, only bring Iona down in a 1v1 situation, and just focus the entire early and midgame fending people off. No MLD is also a breath of fresh air to the playgroup. In a more competitive meta you can always just throw all those bombs back in, but maybe a more defensive early-mid game is still a better way to last, even in competitive groups.
In defense of the guy who wanted Kaalia banned, I think he and his group just lack experience in EDH, because it's kinda weird that this Kaalia player gets so much hate yet seems to keep winning to the point that a Kaalia ban crossed this guy's mind. My point of posting this was to hopefully get some feedback on how your multiplayer experiences are and maybe help brew a list that's both powerful enough to kill, but resilient enough to make it to the end, at a pace that can be deemed "politically acceptable".
Reading that thread almost gave me a headache.
I had some experience with using Kaalia in a playgroup that is sometimes variable in size (a games night may involve anywhere from 2 to 5 or 6 players) so I'll try to answer your questions.
1) My Kaalia is a lot more focused on reanimation, wraths and long term card advantage than the disruption-focused 1v1 list presented here. It makes my deck less explosive and less efficient in 1v1 games, but I'm ok with the trade-off. My approach would be to hard-cast one of my cheaper ADDs just to give me some board presence and then try to not draw too much attention to myself, wrath-ing the board as necessary. Going for a T3/4 Kaalia is just gonna get me killed so I instead try to wait for the right moment to bring her out and swing (usually after a wrath).
2) I try to lay low. Usually, someone else would present themselves as a bigger threat by turn 5-6. This normally works for bigger games but this approach have trouble with 3 player games. The game is small enough that I can't "hide" but trying to go aggressive and ending up 1v2 can be pretty bad odds for me.
3) When playing multiplayer, I swap out MoC and Nefarox. Killing someone on turn 4/5 of a multiplayer game that can go on for hours is kind of a dick move and paints a huge target on your head. I still have LD and Iona, but I hold on to them until the game is winding down and I'm trying to finish the game.
What are some good stax elements to include? I've been running what seems a hybrid list between 1v1 and multiplayer. I know this is for more traditional but the majority of games we end up playing end up being MP.... I have Ghostly Prison and Defense Grid. Anything else worthy of including for some early game protection to try to get to that middle to end game? I was thinking Winter Orb and Aura of Silence...
Just noticed the link below has an outdated deck list. I need to update that but it gives a general idea of what I'm running. I know off the bat, I'm not running all the swords or Wear/Tear, but have more card draw (Painful Truths and Read the Bones).
I had some experience with using Kaalia in a playgroup that is sometimes variable in size (a games night may involve anywhere from 2 to 5 or 6 players) so I'll try to answer your questions.
1) My Kaalia is a lot more focused on reanimation, wraths and long term card advantage than the disruption-focused 1v1 list presented here. It makes my deck less explosive and less efficient in 1v1 games, but I'm ok with the trade-off. My approach would be to hard-cast one of my cheaper ADDs just to give me some board presence and then try to not draw too much attention to myself, wrath-ing the board as necessary. Going for a T3/4 Kaalia is just gonna get me killed so I instead try to wait for the right moment to bring her out and swing (usually after a wrath).
2) I try to lay low. Usually, someone else would present themselves as a bigger threat by turn 5-6. This normally works for bigger games but this approach have trouble with 3 player games. The game is small enough that I can't "hide" but trying to go aggressive and ending up 1v2 can be pretty bad odds for me.
3) When playing multiplayer, I swap out MoC and Nefarox. Killing someone on turn 4/5 of a multiplayer game that can go on for hours is kind of a dick move and paints a huge target on your head. I still have LD and Iona, but I hold on to them until the game is winding down and I'm trying to finish the game.
Thanks for the input, and yeah I can't believe you went to the thread. It's hilarious but not so friendly on the IQ. Well doesn't seem like your group wants to ban kaalia so it seems like you're doin ok lol
What are some good stax elements to include? I've been running what seems a hybrid list between 1v1 and multiplayer. I know this is for more traditional but the majority of games we end up playing end up being MP.... I have Ghostly Prison and Defense Grid. Anything else worthy of including for some early game protection to try to get to that middle to end game? I was thinking Winter Orb and Aura of Silence...
Just noticed the link below has an outdated deck list. I need to update that but it gives a general idea of what I'm running. I know off the bat, I'm not running all the swords or Wear/Tear, but have more card draw (Painful Truths and Read the Bones).
Winter orb makes people hate you. It's not much of protection in a political sense. I like no mercy because it strictly punishes people for swinging at you. If you have the budget, maze of ith would be great too.. You might think master warcraft, batwing brume and deflecting palm are bad choices due to the 1-time use nature of it, but combined with ghostly prison and no mercy, helps discourage people from going for you. If your strategy is to cast kaalia late and go for the win (which I think is a good idea), then those cards I mentioned are really helpful in doing the job..
About STAX, I think queen marchesa can pull that off a bit better.. Also, if you have a reanimator thing going on and you also wanna add defensive spells on top of that, I think throwing in stax will dilute the quality of your strategies a bit. If you ask me, since the point of the deck is not a turn 3 kaalia, you can just drop all your mana rocks, bump your land count to 38-39, then just add more sweepers and attack deterrents.
I took a peek at your list, and overall I think you need to figure out your main strategy and stick to it, rather than having a few cards here and there to have an answer to all situations.. I have some suggestions:
1.) You play phyrexian reclamationobzedat's aid, reanimate, sheoldred and angelic renewal but you don't have unburial rites, animate dead, cauldron of souls, buried alive or entomb. I think if you're going to go reanimator you might as well complete the package for consistency. But I've said many times that my stand on reanimator is that other decks can do it better, and I'd rather just cut all the reanimator elements and replace them with a pillow fort package, stall till the endgame then unleash heavnely inferno on the weakened opponents.
2.) I think waves of aggression can go. In general extra combat steps aren't worth it unless you consistenly have 2 or more big creatures in hand.. This makes Aurelia kinda bad too. If I were to play an extra combat type of spell with the purpose of bringing down extra creatures, it would be seize the day. It's super underrated.
3.) I'm not sure how relevant playing too many swords is to the deck. As far as equipment goes, champion's helm, whispersilk cloak and swiftfoot boots makes a bit more sense. You can keep light and shadow for the reanimation I guess..
5.) You might want to consider bringing your big creature count down.. Or if you're determined to play that many, throw in quicksilver amulet to assist kaalia in bringing them out, or sneak attack for crazy synergy with phyrexian reclamation.
6.) If legion's initiative is there mostly to dodge sweepers, then maybe you should take it out because you have reanimator elements going on to bring them back anyway.
These are just suggestions and I've never played your deck so take them with a grain of salt
I was hoping to give the multiplayer people a little survey and ask these questions:
1.) As of right now, what's your approach when playing the deck? Like what's your strategy to winning?
2.) How do the politics treat you when playing? Are you often hated out of the game after the first 5-6 turns?
3.) Are there certain changes you made to the deck to make people hate on kaalia less? If so, what are your changes?
I have noticed that given any competitive Commander deck, that deck eventually settles into an "optimal build" with slight variations. Kaalia is not the only deck that has an optimal build, so I feel that this line of argument is not that strong in favoring banning it.
Likewise, a lot of optimized EDH decks are pretty expensive, so banning Kaalia wouldn't solve much. You just make more room for other Commanders and their high cost decks to enter the meta.
Kaalia has a very obvious strategy: cheat something in. Since there is an "optimal build" for Kaalia, it should be relatively easy to deal with it.
If you play Kaalia in multiplayer, I believe that you should expect to be double-teamed or triple-teamed. I would not recommend building a multiplayer Kaalia deck with a linear aggro ("smash face") strategy, because it has no endurance. You can get rid of one opponent, but then you're out of resources to fight off the other two.
If you are a multiplayer Kaalia player, I think you definitely need to seek out the combo players and take them out first.
As 3drinks has often said, players sometimes cannot assess threats properly. They see the "direct" threat of Kaalia, but they often overlook the seemingly innocuous Commander that eventually combos out. The perception seems to be that players will willingly accept losing suddenly to a combo deck from out of nowhere but cannot tolerate a Commander that does visible damage over time. If you're not playing a Kaalia deck, I think you should look at your table, identify the combo player, and make a temporary alliance with the Kaalia player to take that combo player out.
As for Yujipooji's survey questions...
I don't play competitive multiplayer Commander. I play with family and friends. However, I like to build my decks in a competitive sense, because Wizard's Commander decks are not focused enough (but we know Wizards does that on purpose). I like adding pet cards of mine to cripple the deck a little: I like Elixir of Immortality as a graveyard recycler, even though most competitive decks wouldn't use it.
1) I have larger suite of cards that reanimate other cards, either cards of mine or those of my opponents. This helps me not run out of resources, and also take away a resource of my opponent. I also do not aggressively mulligan to get that T2 Kaalia. I also pack a ton of sweepers and removal, which help keep other decks in check.
2) I sometimes get multiple opponents, but I have sweepers. In addition, because I have sweepers, I sometimes am an aid to another player who needs the sweeper to stay alive. So, politically, there is interest in not getting rid of me right away.
3) I don't get specific hate, since my Kaalia deck doesn't try to get the T2 play, and I end up helping other players in some way.
What are some good stax elements to include? I've been running what seems a hybrid list between 1v1 and multiplayer. I know this is for more traditional but the majority of games we end up playing end up being MP.... I have Ghostly Prison and Defense Grid. Anything else worthy of including for some early game protection to try to get to that middle to end game? I was thinking Winter Orb and Aura of Silence...
Just noticed the link below has an outdated deck list. I need to update that but it gives a general idea of what I'm running. I know off the bat, I'm not running all the swords or Wear/Tear, but have more card draw (Painful Truths and Read the Bones).
Winter orb makes people hate you. It's not much of protection in a political sense. I like no mercy because it strictly punishes people for swinging at you. If you have the budget, maze of ith would be great too.. You might think master warcraft, batwing brume and deflecting palm are bad choices due to the 1-time use nature of it, but combined with ghostly prison and no mercy, helps discourage people from going for you. If your strategy is to cast kaalia late and go for the win (which I think is a good idea), then those cards I mentioned are really helpful in doing the job..
About STAX, I think queen marchesa can pull that off a bit better.. Also, if you have a reanimator thing going on and you also wanna add defensive spells on top of that, I think throwing in stax will dilute the quality of your strategies a bit. If you ask me, since the point of the deck is not a turn 3 kaalia, you can just drop all your mana rocks, bump your land count to 38-39, then just add more sweepers and attack deterrents.
I took a peek at your list, and overall I think you need to figure out your main strategy and stick to it, rather than having a few cards here and there to have an answer to all situations.. I have some suggestions:
1.) You play phyrexian reclamationobzedat's aid, reanimate, sheoldred and angelic renewal but you don't have unburial rites, animate dead, cauldron of souls, buried alive or entomb. I think if you're going to go reanimator you might as well complete the package for consistency. But I've said many times that my stand on reanimator is that other decks can do it better, and I'd rather just cut all the reanimator elements and replace them with a pillow fort package, stall till the endgame then unleash heavnely inferno on the weakened opponents.
2.) I think waves of aggression can go. In general extra combat steps aren't worth it unless you consistenly have 2 or more big creatures in hand.. This makes Aurelia kinda bad too. If I were to play an extra combat type of spell with the purpose of bringing down extra creatures, it would be seize the day. It's super underrated.
3.) I'm not sure how relevant playing too many swords is to the deck. As far as equipment goes, champion's helm, whispersilk cloak and swiftfoot boots makes a bit more sense. You can keep light and shadow for the reanimation I guess..
5.) You might want to consider bringing your big creature count down.. Or if you're determined to play that many, throw in quicksilver amulet to assist kaalia in bringing them out, or sneak attack for crazy synergy with phyrexian reclamation.
6.) If legion's initiative is there mostly to dodge sweepers, then maybe you should take it out because you have reanimator elements going on to bring them back anyway.
These are just suggestions and I've never played your deck so take them with a grain of salt
I definitely appreciate the comments. Let me update that deck list because it's actually a bit different now. Reading through it, it's not too representative to what I'm playing now. Regardless of the actual cards, I get what you're saying and can definitely make some changes taking that into account.
Yujipooji's idea of reanimation is different from mine.
I don't need to put any of my creatures into my graveyard. I expect my opponents to do that for me. So, I wouldn't use Entomb or Buried Alive.
Whispersilk Cloak and Champion's Helm are too slow. Generally, you want to be able to cast and use the Equipment on the same turn. Whispersilk Cloak takes 5 mana and Emperor's Helm takes 4 mana. Since equipping is sorcery speed, that makes these pieces of Equipment less appealing. If you want to choose one, take Emperor's Helm.
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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)
It is not reserved. But I would not expect Grim Tutor in Conspiracy 2. Although that price would fall HARD if it were.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I proxied her replacing read the bones in my duel commander build, and she did a lot of work in my limited playtesting. Just using her -2 once before an opponent removes her via council's judgment or whatnot already makes the 4 mana worth it because it's like a 2 for 0 as far as net card advantage is concerned. Imagine getting to use it twice. I'm getting my copy of her tomorrow morning hehe.
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)
I just added Nahiri in my deck , I cant wait to try her!
please note that I am trying to do my best with my english lol
LOL need is right. I got a nonfoil for now, still waiting for my contacts on her foil availability. As for daretti, nope I can't seem to find room for him in my deck. Although if you're playing multiplayer with enough mana rocks, he's a lot more playable than in DC. It's decent value for 3 mana for sure.
Your english is understandable don't worry hehe. Oh your deck is for multiplayer? Then I might advise you to try daretti instead of Kaya.. In a multiplayer setting, the commanders that most benefit from Kaya, Ghost Assassin will most likely be lifegain decks like Oloro or Karlov, because you get to maximize all 3 abilities.
The problem with Kaya in a multiplayer Kaalia is, you're painting an even bigger target on yourself by causing the whole table to discard, even if it's just one card. So you need to think about that. I would wait for 3drinks or shiroe's opinion on Kaya in multiplayer before spending for her.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
She's very flexible as a 5 mana hard cast-able beater. A life gaining 4/4 that can double up as a blocker makes it worth considering as is.. But the flying servo tokens give her unparalleled flexibility (as far as 5 drop beaters are concerned). Outside of a sweeper or counter she will never be a 1-for-1, and if some butthole taps out to JTMS in an attempt to lockout an impending kaalia with his -1 (which happens a lot and i end up losing most of those games), she gives me another out besides stormbreath dragon to work around it.
Problem is the only cut I can make is baneslayer angel. Or bruna, the fading light but I probably never will since Brisela's become some sort of pet card of mine and that end game reanimation option is so legit.
She's a 4/3 if you put both counters on her, not a 4/4. Her counters are from a triggered ability, so they can be interrupted by an opponent. If the counters go on the angel and the angel is eliminated, it's a wash. If the counters are used to create servo creatures, then it is a small gain.
I play multiplayer, so the angel is probably not a first pick for me. Baneslayer and Gisela, the Broken Blade are stronger creatures. Angel of Invention's Vigilance does nothing if it comes from Kaalia, so first strike is more valuable.
But that said I totes missed the 2/1, I thought she was 2/2. Bolt range with no first strike is a big minus to me if her toughness is that freaking low. Auto-include at 4 mana, but she's not.. this set as expected has nothing decent to give us yet. Not complaining though after getting anguished unmaking, brisela and kaya this year.
But I have to concede the fact that the extra tokens and the anthem effect is something that other decks can make way better use of. I guess taken all that into account she'll be edged out by pretty much every card in my current list, but I'm tellin you surprisingly not by that much hahaha!!
I've had a slight deviation in strategy recently involving me not naming human when playing cavern of souls when it's mid-late game and I'm loaded with a certain creature-type. If I can shift to a predominantly angelic lineup, uncounterable angels is probably something control can't ever keep up with. earnest fellowship limits azorius removal to only bounce spells and sweepers after all, and my bigger angels are beyond reach of keranos' wildfire sweeps. That uncounterable angel gig might be a factor behind why I don't think this new angel is that bad, so I wouldn't be shocked if she turns out to be as bad as she initially looks hehe
That Angel though, would put in some work in my own Alesha build however.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Full thread here and I even made an account just to comment:
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=18289
"Okay I know I am going to catch flak for this but I feel that is necessary to point out this error within the format and its continued existence for its indignation, Kaalia of the Vast and her effects within commander. I will begin making my points:
All Kaalia decks are that one! or at least a variant of this deck ( http://edhrec.com/commanders/kaalia-of-the-vast ) with some minor alterations but are thoroughly consistent in their list. Not to mention the overall cost these decks essentially equate to "Pay this much for this deck and you become over powered in EDH" which goes against the spirit of the format. All Kaalia decks I have encountered in person are the same as the one linked above with the occasional variation. Now I am fairly sure that a few others have encountered this one at their local shop's commander night at some point repeatedly encounter this same deck.
Early to Rise, First to ruin the game , As mentioned above, and long ago, all Kaalia decks (namely the one linked above that every seems to build their deck as) is designed to get her out t2 before most people have a chance cast a creature. What most players will do is mulligan until they acquire a land, sol ring, a hexproofing artifact and a signet where they will play their mana rocks turn one, then turn two play kaalia. Now in most cases others at the table will either instantaneously turn on the Kaalia player or coerce players who aren't in on the "Smash Kaalia" Plan, causing a lot of distaste for one another, disaste being a gentle word in this regard. Once said hexproofing artifact is played, most of us scoop in response and leave whomever is willing to deal with the broken nightmare that is Kaalia of the vast.
Expensive wench! aside from the fact Kaalia and decks built around her contain multiple hexproofing/industrible artifacts to ensure her brokeness remains, Her cost and the decks built to cater to her ability are beyond what most normal players would be willing to spend, not mentioning it goes against the philosopy of " Creates Undesirable Games/Game Situations. Some cards produce the kinds of games we’d like to avoid and we see them as creating a negative experience for a majority of the player base. They tend to be anticlimactic wins out of nowhere, unexpected combos that end an otherwise enjoyable game, or creating situations which completely take play of the game away from the other players.". Just her presence on the board alters normal play where we are forced to take action against it collectively or turn against one another with bad feelings for one another.
Eschewed Power Her ability to "cheat" out Dragons, Demons, and Angels is also drastically disproportionate to her mana cost as well, not to mention what she pulls out mostly prevents other players from actually playing the game. Its like running into Invoke Prejudice which are not fun cards in their own right. Kaalia is like this in regard because of her disproportionate ability in relation to both her mana cost and creature type."
Some might argue that this shouldn't have been worth posting due to the amount of vitriol it had towards our general, but I think this has potential to be a good discussion about the Kaalia stigma in general.
I was hoping to give the multiplayer people a little survey and ask these questions:
1.) As of right now, what's your approach when playing the deck? Like what's your strategy to winning?
2.) How do the politics treat you when playing? Are you often hated out of the game after the first 5-6 turns?
3.) Are there certain changes you made to the deck to make people hate on kaalia less? If so, what are your changes?
I'd really love to hear your answers, and I guess I can start by answering them myself:
1.) I don't play Kaalia multiplayer, at least not anymore. Even back then, I played very few games because she has a very 1-dimensional approach: beat face with monsters. But I realized she doesn't have to be. If I were to brew a multiplayer list right now, I would add 2 elements into the list that she's known for not having: defense and "gas". Attack deterrents like ghostly prison, no mercy, master warcraft, maybe even deflecting palm or similar cards to discourage people from attacking me, or encourage people to attack others. Then a crapton of board wipes when things get out of hand. Then throw in painful truths and night's whisper along with arena and dark confidant for "gas". My strategy will be to stall until only 1 or 2 opponents are left, only then will I cast kaalia and start making a mess. As long as kaalia's off the board people have less reason to attack, especially since as the game goes on other board states are going to look more dangerous.
2.) If you ramp into T3 kaalia with rocks and swing ASAP all the time, no matter what you say you're bound to put a target onto yourself. When I played this strategy, everyone's goal was really to take me out ASAP, and in retrospect more often than not I can't blame them. But then I made a few adjustments after my first game and I started saying this before games: "Hey guys, I only have a kaalia deck on me right now and I really wanna play, but I know she tends to be hated on a lot so I took out rakdos the defiler and master of cruelties, and I did not put any MLD. I know it's hard not to step on people's toes too hard when playing her, but I'll try my best." I find that just saying something like that softens them up a bit and the politics go a bit easier on you from there.
3.) I kinda answered this in 1 and 2. I would remove beatsticks that locked people out of games or caused people to auto-lose, only bring Iona down in a 1v1 situation, and just focus the entire early and midgame fending people off. No MLD is also a breath of fresh air to the playgroup. In a more competitive meta you can always just throw all those bombs back in, but maybe a more defensive early-mid game is still a better way to last, even in competitive groups.
In defense of the guy who wanted Kaalia banned, I think he and his group just lack experience in EDH, because it's kinda weird that this Kaalia player gets so much hate yet seems to keep winning to the point that a Kaalia ban crossed this guy's mind. My point of posting this was to hopefully get some feedback on how your multiplayer experiences are and maybe help brew a list that's both powerful enough to kill, but resilient enough to make it to the end, at a pace that can be deemed "politically acceptable".
Reading that thread almost gave me a headache.
I had some experience with using Kaalia in a playgroup that is sometimes variable in size (a games night may involve anywhere from 2 to 5 or 6 players) so I'll try to answer your questions.
1) My Kaalia is a lot more focused on reanimation, wraths and long term card advantage than the disruption-focused 1v1 list presented here. It makes my deck less explosive and less efficient in 1v1 games, but I'm ok with the trade-off. My approach would be to hard-cast one of my cheaper ADDs just to give me some board presence and then try to not draw too much attention to myself, wrath-ing the board as necessary. Going for a T3/4 Kaalia is just gonna get me killed so I instead try to wait for the right moment to bring her out and swing (usually after a wrath).
2) I try to lay low. Usually, someone else would present themselves as a bigger threat by turn 5-6. This normally works for bigger games but this approach have trouble with 3 player games. The game is small enough that I can't "hide" but trying to go aggressive and ending up 1v2 can be pretty bad odds for me.
3) When playing multiplayer, I swap out MoC and Nefarox. Killing someone on turn 4/5 of a multiplayer game that can go on for hours is kind of a dick move and paints a huge target on your head. I still have LD and Iona, but I hold on to them until the game is winding down and I'm trying to finish the game.
Just noticed the link below has an outdated deck list. I need to update that but it gives a general idea of what I'm running. I know off the bat, I'm not running all the swords or Wear/Tear, but have more card draw (Painful Truths and Read the Bones).
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)
Thanks for the input, and yeah I can't believe you went to the thread. It's hilarious but not so friendly on the IQ. Well doesn't seem like your group wants to ban kaalia so it seems like you're doin ok lol
Winter orb makes people hate you. It's not much of protection in a political sense. I like no mercy because it strictly punishes people for swinging at you. If you have the budget, maze of ith would be great too.. You might think master warcraft, batwing brume and deflecting palm are bad choices due to the 1-time use nature of it, but combined with ghostly prison and no mercy, helps discourage people from going for you. If your strategy is to cast kaalia late and go for the win (which I think is a good idea), then those cards I mentioned are really helpful in doing the job..
About STAX, I think queen marchesa can pull that off a bit better.. Also, if you have a reanimator thing going on and you also wanna add defensive spells on top of that, I think throwing in stax will dilute the quality of your strategies a bit. If you ask me, since the point of the deck is not a turn 3 kaalia, you can just drop all your mana rocks, bump your land count to 38-39, then just add more sweepers and attack deterrents.
I took a peek at your list, and overall I think you need to figure out your main strategy and stick to it, rather than having a few cards here and there to have an answer to all situations.. I have some suggestions:
1.) You play phyrexian reclamation obzedat's aid, reanimate, sheoldred and angelic renewal but you don't have unburial rites, animate dead, cauldron of souls, buried alive or entomb. I think if you're going to go reanimator you might as well complete the package for consistency. But I've said many times that my stand on reanimator is that other decks can do it better, and I'd rather just cut all the reanimator elements and replace them with a pillow fort package, stall till the endgame then unleash heavnely inferno on the weakened opponents.
2.) I think waves of aggression can go. In general extra combat steps aren't worth it unless you consistenly have 2 or more big creatures in hand.. This makes Aurelia kinda bad too. If I were to play an extra combat type of spell with the purpose of bringing down extra creatures, it would be seize the day. It's super underrated.
3.) I'm not sure how relevant playing too many swords is to the deck. As far as equipment goes, champion's helm, whispersilk cloak and swiftfoot boots makes a bit more sense. You can keep light and shadow for the reanimation I guess..
4.) Liliana Vess should be Nahiri, the Harbinger. Or if you like her for the tutor effect, beseech the queen
5.) You might want to consider bringing your big creature count down.. Or if you're determined to play that many, throw in quicksilver amulet to assist kaalia in bringing them out, or sneak attack for crazy synergy with phyrexian reclamation.
6.) If legion's initiative is there mostly to dodge sweepers, then maybe you should take it out because you have reanimator elements going on to bring them back anyway.
These are just suggestions and I've never played your deck so take them with a grain of salt
I have noticed that given any competitive Commander deck, that deck eventually settles into an "optimal build" with slight variations. Kaalia is not the only deck that has an optimal build, so I feel that this line of argument is not that strong in favoring banning it.
Likewise, a lot of optimized EDH decks are pretty expensive, so banning Kaalia wouldn't solve much. You just make more room for other Commanders and their high cost decks to enter the meta.
Kaalia has a very obvious strategy: cheat something in. Since there is an "optimal build" for Kaalia, it should be relatively easy to deal with it.
If you play Kaalia in multiplayer, I believe that you should expect to be double-teamed or triple-teamed. I would not recommend building a multiplayer Kaalia deck with a linear aggro ("smash face") strategy, because it has no endurance. You can get rid of one opponent, but then you're out of resources to fight off the other two.
If you are a multiplayer Kaalia player, I think you definitely need to seek out the combo players and take them out first.
As 3drinks has often said, players sometimes cannot assess threats properly. They see the "direct" threat of Kaalia, but they often overlook the seemingly innocuous Commander that eventually combos out. The perception seems to be that players will willingly accept losing suddenly to a combo deck from out of nowhere but cannot tolerate a Commander that does visible damage over time. If you're not playing a Kaalia deck, I think you should look at your table, identify the combo player, and make a temporary alliance with the Kaalia player to take that combo player out.
As for Yujipooji's survey questions...
I don't play competitive multiplayer Commander. I play with family and friends. However, I like to build my decks in a competitive sense, because Wizard's Commander decks are not focused enough (but we know Wizards does that on purpose). I like adding pet cards of mine to cripple the deck a little: I like Elixir of Immortality as a graveyard recycler, even though most competitive decks wouldn't use it.
1) I have larger suite of cards that reanimate other cards, either cards of mine or those of my opponents. This helps me not run out of resources, and also take away a resource of my opponent. I also do not aggressively mulligan to get that T2 Kaalia. I also pack a ton of sweepers and removal, which help keep other decks in check.
2) I sometimes get multiple opponents, but I have sweepers. In addition, because I have sweepers, I sometimes am an aid to another player who needs the sweeper to stay alive. So, politically, there is interest in not getting rid of me right away.
3) I don't get specific hate, since my Kaalia deck doesn't try to get the T2 play, and I end up helping other players in some way.
I definitely appreciate the comments. Let me update that deck list because it's actually a bit different now. Reading through it, it's not too representative to what I'm playing now. Regardless of the actual cards, I get what you're saying and can definitely make some changes taking that into account.
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)
I don't need to put any of my creatures into my graveyard. I expect my opponents to do that for me. So, I wouldn't use Entomb or Buried Alive.
Whispersilk Cloak and Champion's Helm are too slow. Generally, you want to be able to cast and use the Equipment on the same turn. Whispersilk Cloak takes 5 mana and Emperor's Helm takes 4 mana. Since equipping is sorcery speed, that makes these pieces of Equipment less appealing. If you want to choose one, take Emperor's Helm.