Kamahl, Heart of Krosa

GregariousG on Manifest the Deadly Disguise

4 months ago

Kaust is definitely a commander that screams, “I’m working harder to do my thing than you are.” Yes, the draw of Kaust is the surprise element. There is nothing better than an opponent using panic removal on a manifested land. However, Kaust’s problem is that he supports a draft mechanic. As well, Sultai, particularly and , have more impactful morph creatures. However, there should be more resources as Magic will return to Tarkir in 2025. As well, I’m hoping that Disguise will be an evergreen mechanic. For me, this deck needs more ways to manifest and cloak. Ugin's Mastery, Veiled Ascension, and Mastery of the Unseen pull plenty of weight for me. Though it isn’t a permanent, Hide in Plain Sight is too good to not play.

You are 100% correct on your assessment for instants and sorceries. My build really wants to manifest and cloak the top card, which makes these two cards types even worse. Because of that, I use permanent types that do similar things to the instants and sorceries that were previously in the deck. The thing I found about Kaust, whether testing, playing, or research, is that Kaust has to make the gameplay experience “fair”. “Fair” for who? Fair for Kaust, and just Kaust. That means Kaust needs to slow down the game and shut off game elements he doesn’t utilize. The biggest change in success was shutting off ETB triggers. ETB triggers are simply too good. Almost every deck is playing a creature with ETB triggers, except Kaust for the most part. That isn’t fair and it shows. Torpor Orb, Hushbringer, and Doorkeeper Thrull are some of the best cards in the deck. You could add more Torpor Orb-effects, but I prefer these two because they have flying. You also notice that I’m playing some stax creatures, like Void Winnower and Yasharn, Implacable Earth. I'm gonna point out Yasharn because I don’t use any sacrifice elements outside of fetchlands. Though yahsarn’s ETB will be shut off, I will gladly pay that price to stop players from sacrificing treasures. I’m to the point where I want to add more stax elements to the deck. I agree with your assessment about “on attack” creatures, except for Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury. Phlage has been great both with and without a Torpor Orb on the field.

Your version has cost reduction, which is something I should put back into the deck. I was using Trinisphere but it was just ok. I thought about putting in Hydra Omnivore and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa in my version. I had Silverback Elder and it ended up on my “maybe” list. I’d be careful of Helm of Awakening cause I won’t want to reduce cost for everyone. I’m an old school player but I’m moving away from the auto inclusion of Lightning Greaves and/or Swiftfoot Boots. I’m finding that lots of ramp acts as recursion and protection for decks. What is Dawn Charm doing for you? I cut Expose the Culprit for Teleportation Circle and I have no regrets. Your top end is good. I like the new Eldrazi support that I added to mine. Because my Kaust builds just makes tons of mana, I can just hard cast Eldrazi. Let’s keep helping each other to make Kaust great!

GregariousG on Somebody's Watching Me | Primer

4 months ago

To dylan.575:

Kaust is definitely a commander that screams, “I’m working harder to do my thing than you are.” Yes, the draw of Kaust is the surprise element. There is nothing better than an opponent using panic removal on a manifested land. However, Kaust’s problem is that he supports a draft mechanic. As well, Sultai, particularly and , have more impactful morph creatures. However, there should be more resources as Magic will return to Tarkir in 2025. As well, I’m hoping that Disguise will be an evergreen mechanic. For me, this deck needs more ways to manifest and cloak. Ugin's Mastery, Veiled Ascension, and Mastery of the Unseen pull plenty of weight for me. Though it isn’t a permanent, Hide in Plain Sight is too good to not play.

You are 100% correct on your assessment for instants and sorceries. My build really wants to manifest and cloak the top card, which makes these two cards types even worse. Because of that, I use permanent types that do similar things to the instants and sorceries that were previously in the deck. The thing I found about Kaust, whether testing, playing, or research, is that Kaust has to make the gameplay experience “fair”. “Fair” for who? Fair for Kaust, and just Kaust. That means Kaust needs to slow down the game and shut off game elements he doesn’t utilize. The biggest change in success was shutting off ETB triggers. ETB triggers are simply too good. Almost every deck is playing a creature with ETB triggers, except Kaust for the most part. That isn’t fair and it shows. Torpor Orb, Hushbringer, and Doorkeeper Thrull are some of the best cards in the deck. You could add more Torpor Orb-effects, but I prefer these two because they have flying. You also notice that I’m playing some stax creatures, like Void Winnower and Yasharn, Implacable Earth. I'm gonna point out Yasharn because I don’t use any sacrifice elements outside of fetchlands. Though yahsarn’s ETB will be shut off, I will gladly pay that price to stop players from sacrificing treasures. I’m to the point where I want to add more stax elements to the deck. I agree with your assessment about “on attack” creatures, except for Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury. Phlage has been great both with and without a Torpor Orb on the field.

Your version has cost reduction, which is something I should put back into the deck. I was using Trinisphere but it was just ok. I thought about putting in Hydra Omnivore and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa in my version. I had Silverback Elder and it ended up on my “maybe” list. I’d be careful of Helm of Awakening cause I won’t want to reduce cost for everyone. I’m an old school player but I’m moving away from the auto inclusion of Lightning Greaves and/or Swiftfoot Boots. I’m finding that lots of ramp acts as recursion and protection for decks. What is Dawn Charm doing for you? I cut Expose the Culprit for Teleportation Circle and I have no regrets. Your top end is good. I like the new Eldrazi support that I added to mine. Because my Kaust builds just makes tons of mana, I can just hard cast Eldrazi. Let’s keep helping each other to make Kaust great!

minisnow on Kethis?

10 months ago

Vona, Butcher of Magan, Shadrix Silverquill, Brimaz, Blight of Oreskos, Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter, Ria Ivor, Bane of Bladehold, Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff, Commissar Severina Raine, Minthara, Merciless Soul, Firja, Judge of Valor, Anduril, Narsil Reforged, Gerrard's Hourglass Pendant, Phial of Galadriel, The Celestus, Traxos, Scourge of Kroog, The Immortal Sun, Horn of the Mark, Kamahl, Heart of Krosa, Questing Beast, Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper, Drizzt Do'Urden, Kolvori, God of Kinship ^Flip, The Ring Goes South, Invasion of Fiora ^Flip, One Ring to Rule Them All, Goryo's Vengeance, Robaran Mercenaries, Yomiji, Who Bars the Way

DreadKhan on Kresh of the savage horde

1 year ago

Board wide damage effects seem pretty good with your Commander, Pestilence, Pyrohemia, Chain Reaction and Blasphemous Act all jump out as good enough cards. Mandate of Abaddon is probably well beyond good if Kresh is at all beefy, he'll suddenly be even bigger on an empty board if all goes well. As long as your Commander has at least 4 toughness Ezuri's Predation would be hilarious, even if a bunch of 4/4s bite the bullet your Commander just gets bigger.

Rite of the Raging Storm seems almost unholy with your Commander, I normally love this card but here you are going to be farming 5 power creatures over and over, and they're never attacking you.

They're both small and random, but Temur Battle Rage and Tainted Strike can both turn your Commander into a 1 shot fairly easily.

If your Commander is fairly big then Return of the Wildspeaker, Rishkar's Expertise, Soul's Majesty, Momentous Fall (also good if your Commander is going to die, as is Greater Good), Grothama, All-Devouring, and Mask of Griselbrand can all draw you a decent number of cards. Overwhelming Stampede and Fungal Sprouting both seem very good with your Commander.

I like Fight effects if I suspect I'll have the biggest body on the board, Ulvenwald Tracker, Domri, Anarch of Bolas, Kogla, the Titan Ape, and Thorn Mammoth are pretty good sources you can repeat.

Thunderfoot Baloth, Siege Behemoth, Kamahl, Heart of Krosa, Blossoming Bogbeast, and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma are decent sources of Trample that are stapled to a body, and they're all fairly budget. Keep an eye out incase Pathbreaker Ibex goes down in price, that's a very good effect with your Commander. Just a heads up, but if you run lots of sources of Trample for your Commander, then anything that provides Deathtouch looks a ton better, with Deathtouch you just deal 1 damage per creature and Trample over the rest. Bow of Nylea, Saryth, the Viper's Fang, and Ohran Frostfang are all very good sources afaik, there are others kicking around if you look!

DreadKhan on Gnoll Patrol

1 year ago

I also think Gnolls are cool and approve of this premise! Here are my thoughts about the deck, hope they're helpful.

If you ever want to raise your budget a bit, Pathbreaker Ibex has huge synergy with your deck.

When I was testing out your deck I found that you seemed to be short of creatures for a deck that runs lots of creature payoffs and generally can't win without them. In a deck that's very creature centric I like to run closer to 40, if not more, Gruul has really, really good creatures to choose from. For example, you can run Wood Elves, Farhaven Elf over artifact ramp, these give you a creature body while also permanently ramping you (land ramp is much more stable than artifact ramp anyways). Creature buffs can be stapled to a creature, there are options like Thunderfoot Baloth, Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma or maybe Blossoming Bogbeast or Kamahl, Heart of Krosa. You can use creatures as a great source of removal with options like Thorn Mammoth, Ulvenwald Tracker, Kogla, the Titan Ape, Gruul Ragebeast, Steelbane Hydra, Viashino Heretic, and Outland Liberator ^Flip are all pretty decent at getting things off the table for you while also offering a physical presence. Not sure if they quite fit, but depending on your meta Silklash Spider and Squallmonger are pretty nasty surprises for decks that use Flying a lot, Squallmonger can even kill huge flyers with another player's help, or allow several players to quickly eliminate an archenemy that is lower in life.

There are a few good ways to double your power in Gruul, the new Two-Handed Axe is very interesting, the surprise Double Strike ability works well with your Commander, and the power doubling effect definitely does. Inquisitor's Flail is an incredible equipment if your Commander is either very big or has First Strike, yours can easily get big enough to justify the risk. Berserkers' Onslaught is really strong, even if it's 5 mana, Enchantments tend to stick around for awhile.

I think you should run more sources of Trample in here (there are some listed above as well), but with a budget restriction that does make it more of a challenge. Your Commander is really strong if he has Trample, but can be chumped by a 0/1 goat token without it (funny image, maybe he got hungry?). Garruk's Uprising is a really good card if you have enough creatures with power 4 and up, but the Trample is the real perk here arguably. Kessig Wolf Run might do the trick, and it's on a land. Brawn is pretty budget, but it can be hard to get it killed. War Cadence isn't exactly Trample, but it can easily let you swing with unblockable creatures if someone is tapped out, but remember this can also be used to create chaos on other people's attacks if you've got nothing better to do. It's also not Trample technically, but Siege Behemoth can bypass blockers for your attackers.

With a relatively low budget in Red, I feel like Rite of the Raging Storm is a very underrated card. Those 5/1s are never coming your way, but they will swarm anyone who can't deal with it on their opponent's turns, and yours gets the buff from your Commander fwiw. Breaker of Armies is a good way to clear out potentially a whole board worth of stuff of a vulnerable player, it can deter attacks vs you if their defenders are all going to be stomped by an Eldrazi.

If you can get your creature count high enough, you could sneak stuff like Lurking Predators in, which is pretty impressive card advantage over time in many metas. There is also Heartwood Storyteller, which is very good if you don't run many non-creatures.

ImNora on Cards Like Grand Cenobite?

1 year ago

Hi,

I'm building a The Prismatic Bridge ^Flip deck to cheat out creatures. I'm trying to pack the deck with creatures that boost the power/toughness of my other creatures. I've found things like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Pathbreaker Ibex, Blossoming Bogbeast, Kamahl, Heart of Krosa, Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus, Thunderfoot Baloth, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Fiendish Duo, Angrath's Marauders and Necropolis Regent. I also have Blade Historian and Blast-Furnace Hellkite for double strike since it effectively boosts power.

What cards can you think of that I missed?

Thanks, Nora

suarkdivad on Tale of Doggo and Birb v8

1 year ago

Been wanting to do this exact thing and had many of the same thoughts you've had, including using Anara and Esior until I realized, despite their flavor, they don't do anything.

I'm working on a bant list because I want the tutors, and it gives me access to some cool 3 color cards that trigger Fable. And Falco Spara, Pactweaver. I'm using Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa as my commanders so I can go tall or wide, and Kamahl is a built-in win con for wolves and owls.

What do you think of Species Gorger as a way to reuse the little value guys that also trigger Fable?

RNR_Gaming on Simic stompy?

1 year ago

Honestly, Kamahl, Heart of Krosa and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces is likely what you're looking for. They stomp; most other simic commanders lend themselves better to a tactile combo/landfall strategy with some cool top end pay off but stumpy is all about playing fat things and swinging with fat things.

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

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Kamahl, Heart of Krosa

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