While I've found that Kuro's spot removal has been pretty good in my meta (Zur, tokens, and Merieke), he takes too much of a toll on my life total, and the upkeep costs has been quite the burden.
Baneslayer's a pretty small card in EDH, but since I'm trying to lessen the burden off of Kaalia, I think she's a good, cheap option. Plus, she helps pay for Hall of the Bandit Lord, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, and pays for five cards off of the Necropotence that I'm looking to include.
I like this change. Baneslayer Angel certainly isn't the absolute beating in EDH that she was in Standard, but she is still aggressively costed and I love having access to a first-striking life-linker who trumps most other fliers that she comes into contact with and, as you say, can offset a lot of the life loss that I inflict on myself over the course of the game. I think you'll be pleased with her.
I like this change. Baneslayer Angel certainly isn't the absolute beating in EDH that she was in Standard, but she is still aggressively costed and I love having access to a first-striking life-linker who trumps most other fliers that she comes into contact with and, as you say, can offset a lot of the life loss that I inflict on myself over the course of the game. I think you'll be pleased with her.
I agree. And, that's why she'll have an eternal place in my list. Still a bit curious on trying Exalted Angel though, but she probably isn't the powerhouse she used to be.
I agree. And, that's why she'll have an eternal place in my list. Still a bit curious on trying Exalted Angel though, but she probably isn't the powerhouse she used to be.
I'm mostly just not a big fan of creatures that operate on the exalted mechanic in Kaalia (although I know you love your Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis :p). It's a bit too situational for me.
I'm mostly just not a big fan of creatures that operate on the exalted mechanic in Kaalia (although I know you love your Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis :p). It's a bit too situational for me.
Exalted Angel doesn't have Exalted though. She's the morph angel. I like her and Red!Kroma for their morph when I'm trying to slow roll my Kaalia. A turn 3 Kaalia just begs to be killed in a 4+ multiplayer game.
Exalted Angel doesn't have Exalted though. She's the morph angel. I like her and Red!Kroma for their morph when I'm trying to slow roll my Kaalia. A turn 3 Kaalia just begs to be killed in a 4+ multiplayer game.
Oh, derp. Was thinking of Battlegrace Angel since they both trigger life gain.
Ahh, I see you've already got quite a bit of metagame calls to make with the deck then. That does make a few choices overall make more sense. I still don't like 'Kromas though. >__________>
At least Redkroma is good versus all that U though. You can do better than Angelic Arbiter and Aegis Angel though.
Redkroma got taken out before Merieke came back into the meta, and Mayael's a little too attached to her right now to give her up, lol.
Angelic Arbiter is on the short list for cards to cut if better ones come out (the new Rakdos, perhaps?), but so far she's been another good meta choice. The Zur player runs a lot of extra turn spells, so having her out keeps him off of the extra turns if he wants to swing for game off of a Time Stretch.
Aegis Angel's been good for me too. Could I do better? Probably, but she keeps Kaalia alive if I need to swing her into Zur or a Consecrated Sphinx unprotected. I did, once, make the mistake of trying to flash her in when Kaalia was equipped with Lightning Greaves. Derp. (x_x)
My meta's also got a lot of land-base sniping with Strip Mines and Crucible of Worlds galore. She can protect needed utility lands like Cavern of Souls, Hall, or Boseiju from that sniping, or just protect a land I want to keep after a Massive Land Destruction.
I like this change. Baneslayer Angel certainly isn't the absolute beating in EDH that she was in Standard, but she is still aggressively costed and I love having access to a first-striking life-linker who trumps most other fliers that she comes into contact with and, as you say, can offset a lot of the life loss that I inflict on myself over the course of the game. I think you'll be pleased with her.
Rakdos Charm got spoiled. Personally, I like it, especially since all three modes are pretty relevant in my meta. But I'd rather find room for Dawn Charm first for the hexproof library/fog abilities.
Well, got plenty of games with Kaalia today. And I've gotta say...the vivids were really annoying. I'm going to take them out and modify the deck list as soon as I get the chance. I'll probably get filters eventually, but I'm fine running three more basics for now. Still not going to put in Land Tax though.
There was one game that I would've liked to have Land Tax because of how hard I was getting mana screwed, but that was the only one. Besides of which, I wasn't drawing into anything that I could've used to tutor for it, so it's a moot point.
I completely forgot I had Flagstones of Trokair out when I blew-up everyone's land base. Would've been a pretty helpful thing to remember instead of relying on Boseiju to power my cards for a couple of turns. Would've had that game if Corrosive Gale wasn't a thing. Knocked out Kaalia before I had a chance to close out the game, so things dragged for a bit before I got killed by Koth-animated mountains.
Rakdos the Defiler was awesome today. I don't know how, but he kept showing up so I kept hitting people big with him. People are much more willing to take hits to their lands than I think they should, but that's just me. He's certainly earned his place in the deck though, and I'm very pleased. I've got to do a better job of knowing when to push with him, though. Defiantly not in the early game, because it's hard for me to recover from the land loss without a Crucible of Worlds, but late games where it's all or nothing isn't even a question. Good blocker, though.
Speaking of Crucible, if I'm going to keep blowing things up or sacing my lands to Rakdos, then I need to get one and find a spot for it in my deck. Without a solid, game-winning presence on the board, Kaalia can't come back from MLD very well.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Angelic Arbiter continue to be all-stars. I started playing at a LGS recently, and she's just as amazing there as she was in my regular group. There aren't as many white exile effects there, so her power goes up considerably. Arbiter kept me from getting mugged for several rounds before I was killed off by unblockable slivers. A lot of people seem to forget that they can't attack the turn they play a spell and vice versa. Overall, a good solid day for these two ladies.
CALLED the great utility that Thundermaw Hellkite would bring. Dropping him to clear the air for Kaalia was tremendously helpful in order to get past 5 4/4 dragons while flashing in a Balefire Dragon felt really good.....until the guy fogged and killed me on his next turn, eh heh heh.... ^^;
I don't think I actually won any games, but I came pretty darn close. I'll chalk it up to me still being inexperienced and not making the best plays that I could be. Ah well, that's the way it goes sometimes, haha.
JUST saw the new Rakdos too. 6/6 for BBRR is doable with our mana base, and Kaalia's always around to flash him in. Getting in 8 dmg and reducing Akroma's cost to WWW seems pretty good to me. The problem's going to be figuring out what to cut for him. Hmmm....suggestions?
i have a mayael deck but everyones cutting mayaels throat before she can even use her ability lol.. im thinking about take mayael apart and use the cards for building a kaalia deck.
but i want a non land destruction build so prob. trying out your build with some other cards instead of the land MLD.
blueram what is more fun to play in your opinion ? mayael or kaalia ? btw thanks for posting your primer !
Haha, it's not a primer quite yet since I need to fix the formatting on the OP before it gets approved, but thanks.
If you're cutting out the MLD spells, go ahead and add in more draw effects. Kaalia desperately needs draw power at times, and black's the only color she can rely on for it. My list would include Necropotence for sure if I was cutting out MLD (and it's pretty cheap to buy too). I'd also add in some utility with Dawn Charm.
I have a Mayael deck too. She and Kaalia are both pretty fun to play, and actually have a lot in common. The primary difference is that Mayael has access to better ramp while Kaalia gets better draw/tutoring. But Mayael's hurt less by a small hand than Kaalia is.
In terms of fun, it's hard for me to say. Kaalia's much more aggressive, and probably earns more hate than Mayael does. It's also kind of like playing with The Geist of Saint Traft, only you trade hexproof for bigger creatures that stick around. But because she's so fragile, it can get frustrating to have her out, but no way to flash stuff in without losing her. So on one hand, Kaalia's really appealing because she's a general that wants to get into the fray herself but the attacking clause can be a burden sometimes.
Mayael's ability eats a LOT of mana, but because she ramps so easily, the problem can be mitigated. She can also dig into the deck and rely less on what's in your immediate hand. She can do it at instant speed too, which keeps people off balance.
But the primary difference is that Kaalia's restricted to a tribal theme while Mayael's free to play whatever fatty she can get her hands on. I'm a bigger fan of the tribal theme and the in-your-face action that Kaalia commands though, so for me Kaalia's the more fun deck to play. Doesn't mean I love Mayael any less though.
Usually Sword of Fire and Ice is the first thing I search for. This time, I grabbed Mjolnir and never let it go. Kaalia has such a problem with card advantage without some sort of black draw effect that it's hard to stay in the fight when mid-to-late game rolls around. Sunforger was able to keep me in it with responses to things I needed to respond to.
While Sword of FaI gets me better "pure" value, it requires me to hit people, which either doesn't happen in a playgroup full of Maze of Ith variants, or earns the ire of everyone at the table. Sunforger let me play re-actively, which made it a lot easier to garner that card advantage.
2) I differed answering threats.
I've been pretty bad about dealing with threats. Before tonight, I was usually the first one to respond to threats for fear that they would become threats to me. But by holding back my responses, and allowing my opponents to react first, they ended up taking care of those threats for me (probably because they know me well enough to assume that if I had an answer, I'd have already used it). This helped keep Kaalia on par with the rest of the table in terms of answers that were ready for use when I needed them.
Couple of notes:
The primary plan for this deck remains "quick strike with Kaalia, then land wipe". With that in mind, my meta's clearly not going to let that happen, so I'm probably going to have to make some tweaks to help Kaalia extend her mid-range capabilities.
I'll probably take Jokulhaups out in exchange for Akroma's Vengeance since there've been plenty of times the past few days where I just needed to get rid of everything on the board, even if it gets rid of some of my stuff in the process. Joku is kind of like that, but it's an extremely late game option meant to float mana for Kaalia right before we land wipe. Vengeance will be a little more flexible, with the option to cycle it away if I need something else.
Friends continue to scoff at Baneslayer Angel, but there were SO many times I wish I could've had her out today, mostly to help buff my quickly depleting life. Still waiting for a chance to get to use her properly.
The Lightning Greaves/Aegis Angel conflict has been really annoying the past few days. Although it'd be easy to cut Aegis for either the new angel or the new Rakdos, the real culprit here is the greaves. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to continue running them, but unless I'm trying to meet a curve, Swiftfoot Boots are going to be my primary boots of choice from now on. Shroud doesn't help Kaalia when I'm trying to suit her up with swords, hammers, and angelic gaurdians. Swiftoots do. 'Nuff said.
i made my kaalia list today and tested it on tapped out deckbuilder.
the main thing you want is play ramp spells like sol ring and the signets and some land then having equipment out before you play kaalia it gets removed or tucked right after it hits the battlefield so you want to equip kaalia with some protection the turn she comes into play right ? so how do we get those equipments ? lucky to have them in your opening hand if not tutor them up with stoneforge mystic, black tutors , enlightened tutor or hell yes this card Steelshaper's Gift it's a white equipment tutor for just 1 freakin mana ! if we want to be fast and aggro like then this is a suitable card for kaalia and its like never a dead card. not in start not in midgame and even not in end game. what do you think about that card ?
I think it's a fantastic, cheap, and very easy to obtain card that's never a bad idea to run if you NEED tutors.
Considering I already run: Rune-Scarred Demon, Liliana Vess, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Increasing Ambition (which can be flashed back for twice its original value), I've never felt like I needed to run Steelshaper's Gift, particularly since the black tutors are a lot more flexible for what they can grab. I'm not calling it a bad card by any means, I just don't need it as much.
Not quite. School work's kept me from fixing the things that need to be fixed before I get official "PRIMER" status, but I'm hoping to have those fixed tonight now that I've finally got the chance to sit down and take care of it.
EDIT: Updated the deck list and made the changes necessary to re-apply for primer status. :3
The charm looks very good, first and foremost. It's tutorable off of Sunforger and, if I'm remembering this correctly, serves as emergency graveyard hate, which Kaalia desperately needs right now. Coming in charm form just makes it that much better.
Rakdos gets flashed in with Kaalia, they deal 8 dmg all together. Whitekroma and Avacyn both cost WWW each. Seems pretty good.
Angel of Serenity adds some nice utility, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to take out in order to test her.
The hellkite is sweet, but it'll be better in my Karrthus deck rather than in Kaalia where we skip the first attack trigger.
ALSO!!! Be sure to check out the OP for a sweet piece of art by PolishTamales! :3
Rakdos is definitely going in as soon as I can get him, however, I feel that Skull Rend is too small of an effect for Kaalia.
If you want to go the discard route, Pain Magnification is actually a lot better, particularly since it keeps down the person you're trying to knock out. It's not that hard to give Kaalia a sword or something to get her to three power either, so there's always that.
I need some strength against blue in my play group right now, and Akroma gives that to me in spades. The morph cost always annoyed me, but I've got enough haste effects to not worry about that.
Aegis was really bothering me since I'd equip Kaalia with Greaves more often that not, making them incompatible. I can't cut the boots, so Aegis is being re-assigned to my Mayael deck where she'll pull a lot more weight protecting a Mayael that wants to stay back rather than attack like Kaalia does.
Ambtion is nice because it can be an on-curve card, but I find myself having more lands than I expected when I started optimizing the deck. Revelations gives me a use for those lands by helping to refill my hand. On that point, I'll also be able to grab several cards that I need. I can get three cards for the eight mana that Ambition needs to get me two, and it needs to be flashbacked to get it first. I'd like to have both of them, but then I'd be cutting out cards that I tutor FOR, which I never like to do.
As of right now, I don't have either Angel of Serenity or [card]Rakdos, Lord of Pits[/cards], but I plan to soon enough. I won't be able to test it until then, unfortunately.
It's been a while, so I'd figure I'd give an update while hopefully getting around to updating the deck list later today.
First of all, WOOT!!! Today marks the first day of Primerdom for me! It took a lot of work and effort (plus a TON of waiting), but I'm proud to FINALLY have earned the primer tag. Thanks to the mods for pointing me in the right direction for application and fine-tuning the OP. With that out of the way, let's talk cards.
I finally got Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Angel of Serenity. I haven't been able to find a spot for Rakdos yet, but I'm currently testing the angel in place of Twilight Shepherd, since the trigger is not only a lot more versatile, but has a much bigger impact than getting our lands back from a MLD spell.
At this time, I'm also contemplating adding Sword of Feast and Famine as a means accelerate my turns somewhat. If I can start uptapping my lands, then that opens up the usage of an expensive tutor (say, Diabolic Revelations), attacking, and then using the cards that were tutored for. If I use revelations to search for Avacyn and Armageddon, I'd prefer to use the win condition now rather than waiting a turn when someone would have an answer ready.
EDIT: In order to properly put the picture up on the OP, I'm posting the epic Kaalia picture (by my guy, PolishTamales) here as the source link.
Decklist has FINALLY been updated. I gotten any testing with the new cards yet since I've been working out a couple of other decks for my Commandercast articles, but Kaalia will be back in action soon enough.
Thanks! There's not a whole lot of activity on it right now, but I'm hoping people start showing up.
I'm waiting for Orzhov and Boros Charm like never ! (outmove Unmake/Stp)
Sunforger will be huge, 3 card : 9 effects, wow !
I know! D: I'm currently testing Dawn Charm, but Rakdos Charm will certainly have a place at some point. Of course I'm much more likely to run Boros or Orzhov when they come out. Flexibility is nice!
I use Stonehwer Giant to cheat him on the table and instant pay WR for effect
Btw, his capacity don't target so you can also use it to equip a "boots-ed" Kaalia !
I ran Stonehewer in the early builds, but he was too slow for my tastes. I rarely, if ever, got to use his effect because my opponent's kept getting rid of him before I could fetch any of my equipment. I stick with my primary tutors and Misty for the most part, and that's been pretty good so far.
I don't have a Angel of Serenity but htat will be my next add before Gatecrash. (Aegis Angel out maybe)
I'm still testing Serenity, but Aegis is definitely the card to cut out if you find yourself using a pair of Lightning Greaves or other shroud effects more often than not.
I love that Table's Tourach aka Skull rend !
It's definitely a good way to occur some card advantage, but I'm not a big fan of one-shot effects like that. [card]Pain Magnification is a card I've got my eye on to try at some point though.
UPDATE: Finally managed to get around to updating the deck list on the OP and listed some changes I've made for a while, as well as the new change of having Vault of the Archangel instead of Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion.
I haven't gotten to use Angel of Serenity all that much so far, but so far she's pretty good about getting rid of miracle'd angel tokens and getting some of our girls back from the graveyard.
But sadly, there's one change I plan on making that does not make me happy to do:
The change is waiting for the Sun Titan I plan to get, but it's a necessary change. I don't like cutting Tariel because she's been with Kaalia since their original print run, but that's the way life runs.
Sun Titan gives the deck desperately needed recursion for things like our swords, lands, Sunforger, etc. As such, he'll be one of only three non-angel/demon/dragon creatures in the decklist so far. Grand Abolisher will probably be looking at a chance to get in at some point, but I'm finding it hard enough to cut Tariel as it is. I don't think my heart could take it.
I finally got around to ordering a couple of the filter lands. Didn't have enough to include Fetid Heath, but that's going to be added soon enough. With all of the heavy triple-mana cost cards I have in here (such as True Conviction and Necropotence), they've really helped to smooth out the mana base.
There are times when the deck just REALLY needs quantity over quality, and wheel effects are the way to go. I don't have a Wheel of Fortune, but I like the things you can do with the miracle mechanic, particularly with Sensei's Divining Top and Vampiric Tutor. It can even be used to disrupt your opponent's strategy with top's draw ability or used to get rid of annoying stuff that just got bounced to someone's hand. It's a lot more value than a tutor ever gave me.
Continuing with the theme of adding a couple of wheel effects, DM is a card that falls into the Rakdos-tier of cards that have the chance to just utterly backfire if things don't slant your way. But if anyone's going to go all in, it might as well be Kaalia.
Ryusei was intended to be a psuedo wrath effect, but with my recent shift to harder wraths and non-flying creatures, he just doesn't work out as well.
I like Reya as a reanimation card, but she's much too slow to get any true value from her and is strictly worse than Debtor's Knell at times. At least Debtor's Knell can grab anybody's creature and can be played defensively rather than attacking. This move helps to bring down our curve a bit and works as anti-spot/counter tech to protect Kaalia when she's busy suiting up. Can be another uncounterable creature if we plan on using Cavern of Souls for Kaalia since they share the same race/class.
This was the big change for me in that this was the first time I was looking outside the angel/demon/dragon race for big effects. I realized that the deck desperately needed some form of recursion for its lands/equipment/enchantments/etc, and I kicked myself for not playing the titan earlier. The titan does ALL of that for us. Add in that we have ways to reuse his trigger, and he pulls more than his fair share of weight for the deck in terms of recursion.
With all of that being said, I'm glad Tariel gets to stay in the list a while longer...at least until we see Aurelia widely available.
If the spoilers are to be believed, though, the two actually have some nice synergy with each other. Aurelia curves nicely with Kaalia and can help us get that extra combat step that we need to push through for that last strike. I'm going to be playing Kaalia often in anticipation for this new Boros guildmaster to try and figure out what function she's best at replacing.
Here! Will be testing your deck over the holidays! Thanks for posting and updating, it's appreciated.
That's the responsibility of someone who runs a primer, no?
Although Tariel was on the cusp of getting cut before, I don't think that's going to happen again now that Aurelia's been spoiled.
Maybe I'm just living in magical christmas land, but I like the idea of attacking with both Tariel and Aurelia, getting Aurelia's ability on the stack followed by tapping Tariel for her ability. Both abilities resolve, and Tariel gets another use to grab another body. Good stuff!
Not necessarily. I think it's a good budget option, but I run an arsenal of tutor/wheel/mass draw effects that make it too slow for the deck here. We have enough big-game effects in this list that going for effects that net us 5-7 cards is often better than going for one-two cards. My tutor targets are usually mass draw effects like Necropotence or draw-fixing like the top.
It's good in that it's reusable, but I often have enough to do that I don't want to spend 6-9 mana to tutor up a creature. For this deck, that turns out to be a hefty price to pay without classic land ramp like Solemn Simulacrum and the like.
TLDR: I'm happier with efficient one-shot tutors, and I prefer quantity to quality with this deck.
No updates to the decklist today other than to say that I've started looking for a card to cut for Decree of Annihilation. It's pretty safe to say that I only ever plan to use the cycling ability for what's practically an instant-speed, uncounterable MLD spell. Living Death is a possibility, but I'm not sure yet.
On another note, I'm starting a sub-project for Kaalia.
I'm planning on getting into MTGO with a couple of people I know from Commandercast, but I don't want to drop the same money on virtual cards that I do for the physical copies. It'll be interesting for me to explore options for optimization that can be bought on less than a day's salary, personally.
It'll also be a great way to meet some goals:
1) Power-down Kaalia for less experienced playgroups
I don't get to play her nearly as often as I'd like to, and part of that's because I'm testing other decks for Commandercast. The other is because some playgroups are newbies that get wrecked by Kaalia. To quote one of our beloved Mods, "It was like punching babies". I don't have to feel guilty about using Kaalia when I've handicapped myself to match the group.
2) Give new players a starting point they can use
We were all cheap noobies at some point or another. Sure, we can proxy the expensive lists (I know I did for a little while), but if you're in an area with a stigma on proxies, you prefer owning an actual deck, or the goat ate your sleeves, then you need something you can feasibly afford. Hopefully, this will do it.
3) Give me a chance to consider "less efficient" options.
Budget decks have a way of expanding your view on card evaluation. I've had some decent budget options suggested in this thread that I look forward to trying out. If any of them really wow me, it'll give me the chance to try them out in the main deck.
With all that being said, what do you guys think? Any suggestions or tips, particularly since I'll be buying the cards for MTGO?
Any particular reason that you don't run Scroll Rack? I find myself with a decent amount of mana most games and the deck lets you shuffle quite a bit.
I'm also considering Restoration Angel - it lets you protect kaalia, recycles Sun Titan/Stoneforge/Rune-scarred/Bogardan Hellkite/Hoarding Dragon/Thundermaw Hellkite
I like this change. Baneslayer Angel certainly isn't the absolute beating in EDH that she was in Standard, but she is still aggressively costed and I love having access to a first-striking life-linker who trumps most other fliers that she comes into contact with and, as you say, can offset a lot of the life loss that I inflict on myself over the course of the game. I think you'll be pleased with her.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
I agree. And, that's why she'll have an eternal place in my list. Still a bit curious on trying Exalted Angel though, but she probably isn't the powerhouse she used to be.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I'm mostly just not a big fan of creatures that operate on the exalted mechanic in Kaalia (although I know you love your Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis :p). It's a bit too situational for me.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Exalted Angel doesn't have Exalted though. She's the morph angel. I like her and Red!Kroma for their morph when I'm trying to slow roll my Kaalia. A turn 3 Kaalia just begs to be killed in a 4+ multiplayer game.
Oh, derp. Was thinking of Battlegrace Angel since they both trigger life gain.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Redkroma got taken out before Merieke came back into the meta, and Mayael's a little too attached to her right now to give her up, lol.
Angelic Arbiter is on the short list for cards to cut if better ones come out (the new Rakdos, perhaps?), but so far she's been another good meta choice. The Zur player runs a lot of extra turn spells, so having her out keeps him off of the extra turns if he wants to swing for game off of a Time Stretch.
Aegis Angel's been good for me too. Could I do better? Probably, but she keeps Kaalia alive if I need to swing her into Zur or a Consecrated Sphinx unprotected. I did, once, make the mistake of trying to flash her in when Kaalia was equipped with Lightning Greaves. Derp. (x_x)
My meta's also got a lot of land-base sniping with Strip Mines and Crucible of Worlds galore. She can protect needed utility lands like Cavern of Souls, Hall, or Boseiju from that sniping, or just protect a land I want to keep after a Massive Land Destruction.
That's the idea. I wuv my Baneslayer. (~^_^)~
www.commandercast.com
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My EDH/Commander List:
Wedges:
Numot, the Devastator RWU
Damia, Sage of Stone GUB
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Olivia Voldaren
www.commandercast.com
Commandercast on Tumblr!
My EDH/Commander List:
Wedges:
Numot, the Devastator RWU
Damia, Sage of Stone GUB
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Olivia Voldaren
There was one game that I would've liked to have Land Tax because of how hard I was getting mana screwed, but that was the only one. Besides of which, I wasn't drawing into anything that I could've used to tutor for it, so it's a moot point.
I completely forgot I had Flagstones of Trokair out when I blew-up everyone's land base. Would've been a pretty helpful thing to remember instead of relying on Boseiju to power my cards for a couple of turns. Would've had that game if Corrosive Gale wasn't a thing. Knocked out Kaalia before I had a chance to close out the game, so things dragged for a bit before I got killed by Koth-animated mountains.
Rakdos the Defiler was awesome today. I don't know how, but he kept showing up so I kept hitting people big with him. People are much more willing to take hits to their lands than I think they should, but that's just me. He's certainly earned his place in the deck though, and I'm very pleased. I've got to do a better job of knowing when to push with him, though. Defiantly not in the early game, because it's hard for me to recover from the land loss without a Crucible of Worlds, but late games where it's all or nothing isn't even a question. Good blocker, though.
Speaking of Crucible, if I'm going to keep blowing things up or sacing my lands to Rakdos, then I need to get one and find a spot for it in my deck. Without a solid, game-winning presence on the board, Kaalia can't come back from MLD very well.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Angelic Arbiter continue to be all-stars. I started playing at a LGS recently, and she's just as amazing there as she was in my regular group. There aren't as many white exile effects there, so her power goes up considerably. Arbiter kept me from getting mugged for several rounds before I was killed off by unblockable slivers. A lot of people seem to forget that they can't attack the turn they play a spell and vice versa. Overall, a good solid day for these two ladies.
CALLED the great utility that Thundermaw Hellkite would bring. Dropping him to clear the air for Kaalia was tremendously helpful in order to get past 5 4/4 dragons while flashing in a Balefire Dragon felt really good.....until the guy fogged and killed me on his next turn, eh heh heh.... ^^;
I don't think I actually won any games, but I came pretty darn close. I'll chalk it up to me still being inexperienced and not making the best plays that I could be. Ah well, that's the way it goes sometimes, haha.
JUST saw the new Rakdos too. 6/6 for BBRR is doable with our mana base, and Kaalia's always around to flash him in. Getting in 8 dmg and reducing Akroma's cost to WWW seems pretty good to me. The problem's going to be figuring out what to cut for him. Hmmm....suggestions?
Haha, it's not a primer quite yet since I need to fix the formatting on the OP before it gets approved, but thanks.
If you're cutting out the MLD spells, go ahead and add in more draw effects. Kaalia desperately needs draw power at times, and black's the only color she can rely on for it. My list would include Necropotence for sure if I was cutting out MLD (and it's pretty cheap to buy too). I'd also add in some utility with Dawn Charm.
I have a Mayael deck too. She and Kaalia are both pretty fun to play, and actually have a lot in common. The primary difference is that Mayael has access to better ramp while Kaalia gets better draw/tutoring. But Mayael's hurt less by a small hand than Kaalia is.
In terms of fun, it's hard for me to say. Kaalia's much more aggressive, and probably earns more hate than Mayael does. It's also kind of like playing with The Geist of Saint Traft, only you trade hexproof for bigger creatures that stick around. But because she's so fragile, it can get frustrating to have her out, but no way to flash stuff in without losing her. So on one hand, Kaalia's really appealing because she's a general that wants to get into the fray herself but the attacking clause can be a burden sometimes.
Mayael's ability eats a LOT of mana, but because she ramps so easily, the problem can be mitigated. She can also dig into the deck and rely less on what's in your immediate hand. She can do it at instant speed too, which keeps people off balance.
But the primary difference is that Kaalia's restricted to a tribal theme while Mayael's free to play whatever fatty she can get her hands on. I'm a bigger fan of the tribal theme and the in-your-face action that Kaalia commands though, so for me Kaalia's the more fun deck to play. Doesn't mean I love Mayael any less though.
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1) Sunforger
Usually Sword of Fire and Ice is the first thing I search for. This time, I grabbed Mjolnir and never let it go. Kaalia has such a problem with card advantage without some sort of black draw effect that it's hard to stay in the fight when mid-to-late game rolls around. Sunforger was able to keep me in it with responses to things I needed to respond to.
While Sword of FaI gets me better "pure" value, it requires me to hit people, which either doesn't happen in a playgroup full of Maze of Ith variants, or earns the ire of everyone at the table. Sunforger let me play re-actively, which made it a lot easier to garner that card advantage.
2) I differed answering threats.
I've been pretty bad about dealing with threats. Before tonight, I was usually the first one to respond to threats for fear that they would become threats to me. But by holding back my responses, and allowing my opponents to react first, they ended up taking care of those threats for me (probably because they know me well enough to assume that if I had an answer, I'd have already used it). This helped keep Kaalia on par with the rest of the table in terms of answers that were ready for use when I needed them.
Couple of notes:
The primary plan for this deck remains "quick strike with Kaalia, then land wipe". With that in mind, my meta's clearly not going to let that happen, so I'm probably going to have to make some tweaks to help Kaalia extend her mid-range capabilities.
I'll probably take Jokulhaups out in exchange for Akroma's Vengeance since there've been plenty of times the past few days where I just needed to get rid of everything on the board, even if it gets rid of some of my stuff in the process. Joku is kind of like that, but it's an extremely late game option meant to float mana for Kaalia right before we land wipe. Vengeance will be a little more flexible, with the option to cycle it away if I need something else.
Friends continue to scoff at Baneslayer Angel, but there were SO many times I wish I could've had her out today, mostly to help buff my quickly depleting life. Still waiting for a chance to get to use her properly.
The Lightning Greaves/Aegis Angel conflict has been really annoying the past few days. Although it'd be easy to cut Aegis for either the new angel or the new Rakdos, the real culprit here is the greaves. Don't get me wrong, I'm going to continue running them, but unless I'm trying to meet a curve, Swiftfoot Boots are going to be my primary boots of choice from now on. Shroud doesn't help Kaalia when I'm trying to suit her up with swords, hammers, and angelic gaurdians. Swiftoots do. 'Nuff said.
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I think it's a fantastic, cheap, and very easy to obtain card that's never a bad idea to run if you NEED tutors.
Hoarding Dragon, Enlightened Tutor, and Stoneforge Mystic are the only true artifact/equipment tutors I run, and the reason I don't run Steelshaper's Gift is because I feel I have enough general tutors to make up for it.
Considering I already run: Rune-Scarred Demon, Liliana Vess, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, and Increasing Ambition (which can be flashed back for twice its original value), I've never felt like I needed to run Steelshaper's Gift, particularly since the black tutors are a lot more flexible for what they can grab. I'm not calling it a bad card by any means, I just don't need it as much.
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EDIT: Updated the deck list and made the changes necessary to re-apply for primer status. :3
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The charm looks very good, first and foremost. It's tutorable off of Sunforger and, if I'm remembering this correctly, serves as emergency graveyard hate, which Kaalia desperately needs right now. Coming in charm form just makes it that much better.
Rakdos gets flashed in with Kaalia, they deal 8 dmg all together. Whitekroma and Avacyn both cost WWW each. Seems pretty good.
Angel of Serenity adds some nice utility, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to take out in order to test her.
The hellkite is sweet, but it'll be better in my Karrthus deck rather than in Kaalia where we skip the first attack trigger.
ALSO!!! Be sure to check out the OP for a sweet piece of art by PolishTamales! :3
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Rakdos is definitely going in as soon as I can get him, however, I feel that Skull Rend is too small of an effect for Kaalia.
If you want to go the discard route, Pain Magnification is actually a lot better, particularly since it keeps down the person you're trying to knock out. It's not that hard to give Kaalia a sword or something to get her to three power either, so there's always that.
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Aegis Angel -> Akroma, Angel of Fury
I need some strength against blue in my play group right now, and Akroma gives that to me in spades. The morph cost always annoyed me, but I've got enough haste effects to not worry about that.
Aegis was really bothering me since I'd equip Kaalia with Greaves more often that not, making them incompatible. I can't cut the boots, so Aegis is being re-assigned to my Mayael deck where she'll pull a lot more weight protecting a Mayael that wants to stay back rather than attack like Kaalia does.
Increasing Ambition -> Dark Revelations
Ambtion is nice because it can be an on-curve card, but I find myself having more lands than I expected when I started optimizing the deck. Revelations gives me a use for those lands by helping to refill my hand. On that point, I'll also be able to grab several cards that I need. I can get three cards for the eight mana that Ambition needs to get me two, and it needs to be flashbacked to get it first. I'd like to have both of them, but then I'd be cutting out cards that I tutor FOR, which I never like to do.
As of right now, I don't have either Angel of Serenity or [card]Rakdos, Lord of Pits[/cards], but I plan to soon enough. I won't be able to test it until then, unfortunately.
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First of all, WOOT!!! Today marks the first day of Primerdom for me! It took a lot of work and effort (plus a TON of waiting), but I'm proud to FINALLY have earned the primer tag. Thanks to the mods for pointing me in the right direction for application and fine-tuning the OP. With that out of the way, let's talk cards.
I finally got Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Angel of Serenity. I haven't been able to find a spot for Rakdos yet, but I'm currently testing the angel in place of Twilight Shepherd, since the trigger is not only a lot more versatile, but has a much bigger impact than getting our lands back from a MLD spell.
At this time, I'm also contemplating adding Sword of Feast and Famine as a means accelerate my turns somewhat. If I can start uptapping my lands, then that opens up the usage of an expensive tutor (say, Diabolic Revelations), attacking, and then using the cards that were tutored for. If I use revelations to search for Avacyn and Armageddon, I'd prefer to use the win condition now rather than waiting a turn when someone would have an answer ready.
EDIT: In order to properly put the picture up on the OP, I'm posting the epic Kaalia picture (by my guy, PolishTamales) here as the source link.
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Thanks! There's not a whole lot of activity on it right now, but I'm hoping people start showing up.
I know! D: I'm currently testing Dawn Charm, but Rakdos Charm will certainly have a place at some point. Of course I'm much more likely to run Boros or Orzhov when they come out. Flexibility is nice!
I ran Stonehewer in the early builds, but he was too slow for my tastes. I rarely, if ever, got to use his effect because my opponent's kept getting rid of him before I could fetch any of my equipment. I stick with my primary tutors and Misty for the most part, and that's been pretty good so far.
I'm still testing Serenity, but Aegis is definitely the card to cut out if you find yourself using a pair of Lightning Greaves or other shroud effects more often than not.
It's definitely a good way to occur some card advantage, but I'm not a big fan of one-shot effects like that. [card]Pain Magnification is a card I've got my eye on to try at some point though.
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I haven't gotten to use Angel of Serenity all that much so far, but so far she's pretty good about getting rid of miracle'd angel tokens and getting some of our girls back from the graveyard.
But sadly, there's one change I plan on making that does not make me happy to do:
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls -> Sun Titan
The change is waiting for the Sun Titan I plan to get, but it's a necessary change. I don't like cutting Tariel because she's been with Kaalia since their original print run, but that's the way life runs.
Sun Titan gives the deck desperately needed recursion for things like our swords, lands, Sunforger, etc. As such, he'll be one of only three non-angel/demon/dragon creatures in the decklist so far. Grand Abolisher will probably be looking at a chance to get in at some point, but I'm finding it hard enough to cut Tariel as it is. I don't think my heart could take it.
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Plains/Swamp -> Rugged Prarie/Graven Cairns
I finally got around to ordering a couple of the filter lands. Didn't have enough to include Fetid Heath, but that's going to be added soon enough. With all of the heavy triple-mana cost cards I have in here (such as True Conviction and Necropotence), they've really helped to smooth out the mana base.
Diabolic Revelations -> Reforge the Soul
There are times when the deck just REALLY needs quantity over quality, and wheel effects are the way to go. I don't have a Wheel of Fortune, but I like the things you can do with the miracle mechanic, particularly with Sensei's Divining Top and Vampiric Tutor. It can even be used to disrupt your opponent's strategy with top's draw ability or used to get rid of annoying stuff that just got bounced to someone's hand. It's a lot more value than a tutor ever gave me.
Ryusei, the Falling Star -> Dragon Mage
Continuing with the theme of adding a couple of wheel effects, DM is a card that falls into the Rakdos-tier of cards that have the chance to just utterly backfire if things don't slant your way. But if anyone's going to go all in, it might as well be Kaalia.
Ryusei was intended to be a psuedo wrath effect, but with my recent shift to harder wraths and non-flying creatures, he just doesn't work out as well.
Reya Dawnbringer -> Grand Abolisher
I like Reya as a reanimation card, but she's much too slow to get any true value from her and is strictly worse than Debtor's Knell at times. At least Debtor's Knell can grab anybody's creature and can be played defensively rather than attacking. This move helps to bring down our curve a bit and works as anti-spot/counter tech to protect Kaalia when she's busy suiting up. Can be another uncounterable creature if we plan on using Cavern of Souls for Kaalia since they share the same race/class.
Akroma, Angel of Fury -> Sun Titan
This was the big change for me in that this was the first time I was looking outside the angel/demon/dragon race for big effects. I realized that the deck desperately needed some form of recursion for its lands/equipment/enchantments/etc, and I kicked myself for not playing the titan earlier. The titan does ALL of that for us. Add in that we have ways to reuse his trigger, and he pulls more than his fair share of weight for the deck in terms of recursion.
With all of that being said, I'm glad Tariel gets to stay in the list a while longer...at least until we see Aurelia widely available.
If the spoilers are to be believed, though, the two actually have some nice synergy with each other. Aurelia curves nicely with Kaalia and can help us get that extra combat step that we need to push through for that last strike. I'm going to be playing Kaalia often in anticipation for this new Boros guildmaster to try and figure out what function she's best at replacing.
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Here! Will be testing your deck over the holidays! Thanks for posting and updating, it's appreciated.
That's the responsibility of someone who runs a primer, no?
Although Tariel was on the cusp of getting cut before, I don't think that's going to happen again now that Aurelia's been spoiled.
Maybe I'm just living in magical christmas land, but I like the idea of attacking with both Tariel and Aurelia, getting Aurelia's ability on the stack followed by tapping Tariel for her ability. Both abilities resolve, and Tariel gets another use to grab another body. Good stuff!
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Not necessarily. I think it's a good budget option, but I run an arsenal of tutor/wheel/mass draw effects that make it too slow for the deck here. We have enough big-game effects in this list that going for effects that net us 5-7 cards is often better than going for one-two cards. My tutor targets are usually mass draw effects like Necropotence or draw-fixing like the top.
It's good in that it's reusable, but I often have enough to do that I don't want to spend 6-9 mana to tutor up a creature. For this deck, that turns out to be a hefty price to pay without classic land ramp like Solemn Simulacrum and the like.
TLDR: I'm happier with efficient one-shot tutors, and I prefer quantity to quality with this deck.
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On another note, I'm starting a sub-project for Kaalia.
I'm planning on getting into MTGO with a couple of people I know from Commandercast, but I don't want to drop the same money on virtual cards that I do for the physical copies. It'll be interesting for me to explore options for optimization that can be bought on less than a day's salary, personally.
It'll also be a great way to meet some goals:
1) Power-down Kaalia for less experienced playgroups
I don't get to play her nearly as often as I'd like to, and part of that's because I'm testing other decks for Commandercast. The other is because some playgroups are newbies that get wrecked by Kaalia. To quote one of our beloved Mods, "It was like punching babies". I don't have to feel guilty about using Kaalia when I've handicapped myself to match the group.
2) Give new players a starting point they can use
We were all cheap noobies at some point or another. Sure, we can proxy the expensive lists (I know I did for a little while), but if you're in an area with a stigma on proxies, you prefer owning an actual deck, or the goat ate your sleeves, then you need something you can feasibly afford. Hopefully, this will do it.
3) Give me a chance to consider "less efficient" options.
Budget decks have a way of expanding your view on card evaluation. I've had some decent budget options suggested in this thread that I look forward to trying out. If any of them really wow me, it'll give me the chance to try them out in the main deck.
With all that being said, what do you guys think? Any suggestions or tips, particularly since I'll be buying the cards for MTGO?
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I'm also considering Restoration Angel - it lets you protect kaalia, recycles Sun Titan/Stoneforge/Rune-scarred/Bogardan Hellkite/Hoarding Dragon/Thundermaw Hellkite