MTG Salvation

Quote from Ruzhyo »

Hey BlueRam, your list inspired mine a bit, though I've changed some cards due to my meta and card availability.

Is there anyway to turn dead land draws into gas? Some kind of reusable loot effect, cheaper Seer's Sundial, or a one-sided Horn of Greed? I find that I keep drawing land in the longer games and would like some way of recyling them, short of hoarding them for a MLD.

I would recommend looking at cards that require a discard cost, like Tormenting Voice, or retrace cards like Waves of Aggression / Raven's Crime.

A friend plays kaalia and I am trying to build a similar deck just to show him how much people hate him for playing it.

Which is the most aggressive route?

the most aggressive would be to great a haste-filled Kaalia, I'd recommend going MLD route becasue i personally feel it is the superior build

though if u really want to show him up, then get a Azorius deck that makes sure Kaalia stays in the command zone. That way he'll have a hand filled with ADDs and no way to cast them

Here's my decklist. I took some things from the main post and your updated list and tweaked a few things. There are some budget cards in there (the dual Khans lifelands will be swapped for the Shadowmoor lands), but I built it around my playgroup that deals with a bit of removal and threat presence.

I do have a question though, why no Aurelia in your list?

Also, I'm considering swapping out SoFaI to some more budgety, would love suggestions for that and any to my list.

So Emeria Shepherd is a thing. Will this find a spot in Kaalia lists?

Hello everyone. I have unfortunately not played EDH regularly in awhile, and need some help/suggestions on updating this list for multiplayer. It's just casual (i.e.: not sanctioned), but budget is not much of a concern. The focus is on multiplayer (usually 4+ players), and I have not updated the deck since M14 was released, so I am behind.

Here is the list:

Quote from umfta »

You have a very solid list there.

Few suggestions/thoughts/ideas:

- There are arguably better 2-cmc rocks than diamonds like Fellwar Stone, Sphere of the Suns and Coldsteel Heart. Imo you could also cut one or two. Obviously you are missing Mana Vault and Mana Crypt.
- Linvala doesn't support your game plan while the effect still can be very useful. Same is true for Sensei's Top and maybe Stranglehold.
- You clearly have a reanimation subtheme going on so adding Faithless Looting could be a good idea?
- I find 5cmc animate spells bit expensive tho I play Unburial Rites my self.
- I don't like Tithe in this deck. It doesn't ramp.
- I prefer Ghostway over Legion's Initiative
- How often do you get Yosei-lock going on? Not sure if he is worth the slot outside the combo with a sac outlet. And even then, it's only one opponent.
- Wear // Tear is imo very good removal
- You could consider Earnest Fellowship. I've found it very good protection for Kaalia. Also Dragon Tempest ain't bad haste-outlet which you don't have too many.

Thanks for the reply, and suggestions.

When I have played it I seem to run out of gas, and wouldn't mind adding more creatures. I have looked at card like Dragon Tenpest but I think I would have to be exclusively dragons for it work right?

I also would be ok with ditching the reanimate on theme. The reason I had cards like that is to either get my guys back, or take theirs that die. I seem to be a target so being more aggressive is fine.

Quote from MTGPackFoils »

I have looked at card like Dragon Tenpest but I think I would have to be exclusively dragons for it work right?

The haste part works on any creature with flying. Almost all Angels/Demons have flying

Oops my bad. I should read these cards a little closer sometimes.

Holy batman thread revival!


I am looking for some help with tuning the deck and have most of the standard pieces mentioned in both the Multi and 1v1 primers, however I am struggling to compete with token decks and combo decks.

I am wondering what the general opinion is for keeping those decks at bay?

I run board wipes and MLD and I still cannot seem to keep them at bay, even with taking them out first.

Any ideas?

Quote from MagicMasterJr »

Holy batman thread revival!


I am looking for some help with tuning the deck and have most of the standard pieces mentioned in both the Multi and 1v1 primers, however I am struggling to compete with token decks and combo decks.

I am wondering what the general opinion is for keeping those decks at bay?

I run board wipes and MLD and I still cannot seem to keep them at bay, even with taking them out first.

Any ideas?

In addition to Wrath sorceries, there's also Steel Hellkite and Balefire Dragon, both of which can help deal with decks when they've gone wide. Rakdos the Defiler can also help, but I'm not a huge fan of it since it's usually only good for 1, maybe 2 attacks after the first time you cheat its trigger. Magus of the Moat is also good for stopping a lot of decks from attacking while still letting almost all of your relevant attackers keep attacking.

I don't have much advise for dealing with Combo players, sadly. Hopefully someone else with more experience can help with that

Quote from Albegas »

Quote from MagicMasterJr »

Holy batman thread revival!


I am looking for some help with tuning the deck and have most of the standard pieces mentioned in both the Multi and 1v1 primers, however I am struggling to compete with token decks and combo decks.

I am wondering what the general opinion is for keeping those decks at bay?

I run board wipes and MLD and I still cannot seem to keep them at bay, even with taking them out first.

Any ideas?

In addition to Wrath sorceries, there's also Steel Hellkite and Balefire Dragon, both of which can help deal with decks when they've gone wide. Rakdos the Defiler can also help, but I'm not a huge fan of it since it's usually only good for 1, maybe 2 attacks after the first time you cheat its trigger. Magus of the Moat is also good for stopping a lot of decks from attacking while still letting almost all of your relevant attackers keep attacking.

I don't have much advise for dealing with Combo players, sadly. Hopefully someone else with more experience can help with that

I have all of those except for Magus of the Moat.

I will try to track one down and see if that is of any help.

Combo is my worst enemy with this deck. I've invested quite a lot into the deck and it just can't seem to beat combo no matter how delicately I play around the combos.

I will post a deck list shortly with what I have built.
Essentially my trouble is infinite combos. My play group plays Arcum, Oloro, Brago, Azusa, Rafiq, Ruhan and Niv Miz.
I usually end up either flooding out or losing steam and having to stop dead in my tracks.

In my experience Kaalia will not beat combo unless you can just focus them and kill them turn 3-4 with Master of Cruelties. If there is only one combo player at the table I will just focus all my attacks on them until they die or win. You can also try to get the other players to gang up on them too. If you're up against three combo decks... good luck.

You could also try things like Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast to fight through counters or counter blue based combo. There are also things like Sadistic Sacrament/Jester's Cap to pre-emptively remove their combo win conditions assuming its just a couple cards and not 20 different ways to make infinite mana. If there is one specific card you are losing too you could even try Nevermore. If it is graveyard based combo Rest in Peace works wonders. If they are storming out you can add Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law. Stop people tutoring for the win with Stranglehold/Aven Mindcensor.

Kaalia was one of my first decks in commander and I still have it assembled but honestly feel it is my worst deck. Aggro has it rough in commander and Kaalia is too fragile compared to some of the other aggro options.

Quote from Patryn »

In my experience Kaalia will not beat combo unless you can just focus them and kill them turn 3-4 with Master of Cruelties. If there is only one combo player at the table I will just focus all my attacks on them until they die or win. You can also try to get the other players to gang up on them too. If you're up against three combo decks... good luck.

You could also try things like Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast to fight through counters or counter blue based combo. There are also things like Sadistic Sacrament/Jester's Cap to pre-emptively remove their combo win conditions assuming its just a couple cards and not 20 different ways to make infinite mana. If there is one specific card you are losing too you could even try Nevermore. If it is graveyard based combo Rest in Peace works wonders. If they are storming out you can add Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law. Stop people tutoring for the win with Stranglehold/Aven Mindcensor.

Kaalia was one of my first decks in commander and I still have it assembled but honestly feel it is my worst deck. Aggro has it rough in commander and Kaalia is too fragile compared to some of the other aggro options.

I am a little dissapointed that you have not had much luck with the deck. I have not either, but was hoping I could could make it to compete.

Here is my deck list:







Let me know of any improvements, substitutions or what not that you would suggest.

Here are some thoughts. I don't think this will help you beat combo in general but it will bring down the CMC a bit and give you a combo of your own in Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine. It also gives you a third way to blow up all lands and come out unscathed with Faith's Reward (adding to Boros Charm and Avacyn, Angel of Hope). You are woefully short on draw effects other than Necropotence which is addmittedly great. Are you just tutoring it first every game? Also I'd recommend Ravages of War but it is $$$. Maybe they will reprint it soon. I also like the look of Hour of Revelation from the new set.

You could also Add Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts for another combo win. Hey if you can't beat them, join them, right?

Also you are running 38 land, you could easily go down to 35-36 in my opinion. Maybe even more and add some more 2 cmc mana rocks to accelerate into a turn 3 Kaalia.

Quote from Patryn »

Here are some thoughts. I don't think this will help you beat combo in general but it will bring down the CMC a bit and give you a combo of your own in Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine. It also gives you a third way to blow up all lands and come out unscathed with Faith's Reward (adding to Boros Charm and Avacyn, Angel of Hope). You are woefully short on draw effects other than Necropotence which is addmittedly great. Are you just tutoring it first every game? Also I'd recommend Ravages of War but it is $$$. Maybe they will reprint it soon. I also like the look of Hour of Revelation from the new set.

You could also Add Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts for another combo win. Hey if you can't beat them, join them, right?

Also you are running 38 land, you could easily go down to 35-36 in my opinion. Maybe even more and add some more 2 cmc mana rocks to accelerate into a turn 3 Kaalia.

ChangesMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
In 1 Faith's Reward 1 Anguished Unmaking 1 Crackling Doom 1 Hero's Downfall 1 Painful Truths 1 Vindicate 1 Crucible of Worlds 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 1 Aggravated Assault 1 Gisela, the Broken Blade 1 Archangel of Thune 1 Catastrophe 1 Vandalblast	Out 1 Tariel, Reckoner of Souls 1 Angelic Arbiter 1 Malfegor 1 Orim's Thunder 1 Bathe in Light 1 Dawn Charm 1 Akroma's Vengeance 1 Insurrection 1 Obliterate 1 Berserkers' Onslaught 1 Hammer of Purphoros 1 Whip of Erebos 1 Darksteel Plate

Those are some good suggestions, I do not mind getting Ravages of War, they made a Judge Promo reprint that is not too bad compared to some of the other cards in the deck.

I already have a Sword of Feast and Famine and was considering using it, but had not made the decision to do so yet. I have the following cards also I can try,

• 1 Faith's Reward
  
• 1 Crackling Doom
  
• 1 Painful Truths
  
• 1 Vindicate
  
• 1 Sword of Feast and Famine
  
• 1 Vandalblast

I will see if I can locate the other suggested cards and give them a whirl. I can also remove the two scry lands and see how that works, and maybe add in a couple more mana ramp spells and lower my overall casting cost.

Quote from Patryn »

In my experience Kaalia will not beat combo unless you can just focus them and kill them turn 3-4 with Master of Cruelties. If there is only one combo player at the table I will just focus all my attacks on them until they die or win. You can also try to get the other players to gang up on them too. If you're up against three combo decks... good luck.

You could also try things like Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast to fight through counters or counter blue based combo. There are also things like Sadistic Sacrament/Jester's Cap to pre-emptively remove their combo win conditions assuming its just a couple cards and not 20 different ways to make infinite mana. If there is one specific card you are losing too you could even try Nevermore. If it is graveyard based combo Rest in Peace works wonders. If they are storming out you can add Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law. Stop people tutoring for the win with Stranglehold/Aven Mindcensor.

Kaalia was one of my first decks in commander and I still have it assembled but honestly feel it is my worst deck. Aggro has it rough in commander and Kaalia is too fragile compared to some of the other aggro options.

As a very competitive player with three cEDH decks that I play now (Yisan Combo, Memnarch Combo, and Teferi Stax), I will comment that any way that you can limit or destroy mana sources, things that Mardu is VERY good at, than you will have a fair chance of winning the game. Kaalia is uniquely suited for this role because once she's out in play, you can ignore your mana base entirely and just drop in creatures to deal enough combat damage. In analyzing the cEDH scene, or generally top tier strategies, there are two basic methods of ramp that are most effective in winning. Creature based ramp, a la Birds of Paradise and co., or mana rocks. Destroying these will give you a strong advantage against the top-Tier decks. Combine that with a very strong creature removal package, which is a natural strategy to clear the skies for Kaalia anyways, and the deck nearly builds itself. I would suggest starting off with a strong artifact removal suite, perhaps something like this:

Then, add some mass land destruction with:


Finally, a strong punisher theme would be useful as well:


I'll post my wife's optimized list below for reference.

There's a ton of sweet synergies here and the cards I hate above all in this list are Cursed Totem and Pithing Needle. They are stupidly hard to fight against with the lists I play, and by the time I've spent resources trying to solve those problems which seriously hinder my game plan, my wife has cast Kaalia and is dropping something stupid into play and pressuring my life total. It's a very, very strong list that brutalizes creature decks and blue-based combo decks, hard.

Sorry sir, but you can´t play talisman of dominance because of the color identity.

Good Point. I'm writing up a Nicol Bolas list and I listed the two Talismans together, hence my inclusion. Grim Monolith included in its place.

I have made some suggested adjustments and will update after testing tomorrow. I play tested today a little and it worked better. I have a Ravages of War on order, and will be expecting that within a week or so. I lowered the overall cost of cards to play by a bit and that seemed to help.

I will update tomorrow afternoon after the tournament.

@MagicMasterJr
All competitive EDH decks keep their CMC low, so anything you can do to shave the CMC of your deck will help your deck get streamlined. Fast Mana and compact CMC's pretty much make cEDH what it is. I think that Kaalia hate-bears/Stax/MLD, fast mana, and the natural suite of heavy hitting Angels, Demons, and Dragons that are normally played could be cEDH material. It won't be Ad Nauseam material, of course, but I think redesigning the main-deck to include hate-bears and Stax elements might bump her up to the higher Tiers.

Quote from benjameenbear »

@MagicMasterJr
All competitive EDH decks keep their CMC low, so anything you can do to shave the CMC of your deck will help your deck get streamlined. Fast Mana and compact CMC's pretty much make cEDH what it is. I think that Kaalia hate-bears/Stax/MLD, fast mana, and the natural suite of heavy hitting Angels, Demons, and Dragons that are normally played could be cEDH material. It won't be Ad Nauseam material, of course, but I think redesigning the main-deck to include hate-bears and Stax elements might bump her up to the higher Tiers.

I am not sure if that stax would be fast enough to kill the combo players off first? I do have some hate bears and some stax cards, but am not really sure how I would go about building the Kaalia deck without diluting its raw power and effectiveness....

Stax effects are inherently game-slowing, so you are correct in that they won't be fast enough to kill the combo players first. But that's not the point. Usually, the highly efficient combo decks are very, very tight on their resources. They literally need every card to be a mana source, card draw, or protection so that they can execute their combo. Any stax effect strains these resources to the point where it takes them several turns to assemble the correct amount of resources to execute their combo. During those turns where their lands are gone, they can only play one spell per turn, that is where Kaalia shines.

Kaalia doesn't need lands to cast spells; she is the mana engine for the deck by circumventing the mana cost of Angels, Demons, and Dragons entirely. If you play a Thaalia, Guardian of Thraben, it might slow your ability to play removal spells, but for the storm player or combo player who needs to play 2-3 cards simultaneously on their turn, adding an additional 2 for those spells is back-breaking and locks them out of executing their combo. Further, some of the Angels, Demons, and Dragons that are played are very disruptive pieces by themselves.

Consider this line of play, which I don't think to be unreasonable: T1 Fetch-land for a Scrubland into Mana Crypt into a Eidolon of Rhetoric. The combo players (who have fast mana as part of their decks) can now only play one spell per turn. Their best line of play could be a T1 Mana Crypt or Sol Ring, so that's what they do. On our next turn, we play a land and cast Kaalia of the Vast. They match our Kaalia play by casting a Tutor in order to find the combo pieces they need or, better yet, a piece of removal for the Eidolon of Rhetoric. The fact that they can only play a single spell per turn is slowing them down drastically, as they would have probably been able to play fast mana AND the tutor on their T1. On our T3, we attack with Kaalia, windmill slam Iona, Shield of Emeria naming blue (since the best combo decks are blue-based), and then cast a tutor or another stax piece. The opponent now needs to deal with Iona and the Eidolon before they can even execute their game-plan.

So, now each opponent is trying to remove these threats, while you are continuing to apply ridiculous pressure to their resources and their life total. Do you begin to see the value of Stax pieces? In the example above, your opponents were drastically slowed because they needed to spend even more turns and resources to either solve the highly problematic board state. Since Ad Nauseam[/CARD} based combo decks are clearly the fastest, followed VERY closely by Food Chain decks, anything we do to pressure their life total drastically decreases their effectiveness.

I would suggest keeping about 20+ Kaalia targets, including the best ones for disruption (Sire of Insanity, Rakdos the Defiler, Iona, Shield of Emeria, etc.), adding about 5-6 additional Stax pieces, and then fast mana. Any remaining slots should be for card draw and removal. Adding in the Stax pieces won't dilute Kaalia's strength; on the contrary, I believe that will enhance the mana denial game plan that Kaalia decks are so famous for already.

Okay, I do have those two, and a few more. I used to run Grand Arbiter IV so I have most of those stax cards. I can try that game plan and see how that works and if it has the desired effects.
I will fiddle around with it and make some changes and post a new list.