Goal: To give Kaalia a more controlled game plan than the a-typical “usual” strategy players employ with the deck. We will be using Dragonstorm to achieve a win outside of the combat step. This means we’re playing the Storm archetype, which plays a lot of small spells (often “rituals” to gain net mana and build spell count) to have played enough spells before our big nine mana sorcery namesake can be lethal. Our secondary plan is to act as a typical Kaalia deck, just with more dragons than anything else. I mean, we’re still rocking an Elvish Piper in the command zone, right? Handy to keep in mind!
Concerns: But how? Dragonstorm is not Tendrils of Agony, Grapeshot, or even Ignite Memories. We can’t soft-lock opponents out with Temporal Fissure.. So how does summoning a bunch of angry red flyers that typically don’t have haste, end the game without the combat step? Moreover, how do you cast a nine mana sorcery after casting a bunch of spells prior to it?
Resolutions: Of course there has to be a plan, right? Otherwise I’d be pretty not smart to delve into a deck built around this spell. Modern Dragonstorm has been at least a fringe playable deck (prior to the Seething Song ban), although that deck utilized multiples of Bogardan Hellkite for it’s grand finale which obviously we can’t do in this format. Not to fear though, as it turns out there’s a specific chain sequence that can also end the game Outta Nowhere™ for us as well, and that sequence can also be enhanced by a number of cards.
Every chain should start with Scourge of Valkas (the “Scourge Effect”) to get the clock on the board, this dragon’s effect will grow exponentially with each resolved Dragonstorm (1 damage off itself, 2 off the next, 3 off the next, which is six damage thus far...you see where I’m going)? That’s a somewhat slow clock in the scope of multiplayer though, so it may be advisable to speed this up. Luckily, we can do exactly that, without really diluting the game plan much if at all. Turns out, Dragon Tempest is actually a “Scourge Effect” as well as a haste enabler we’re going to play anyway. Having only this and our namesake dragon actually cuts the storm count we need to hit in half! But wait there’s more! Panharmonicon reads If an artifact or creature entering the battlefield causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time. Now, as it turns out, our big sorcery does make creatures enter the battlefield, and our enablers do cause abilities to trigger as those like-typed creatures enter the battlefield…
With Panharmonicon in play, combo dragon triggers twice, and tempest triggers twice, and with all three pieces out, each Dragonstorm carries a “Scourge Effect” of FOUR. Now we’re cooking!
Worth noting, you always end the chain with Dragonlord Kolaghan to ensure you have the mass haste to kill anyone left standing from your triggers. Additionally, this next combat will buy you a lot more triggers of the “Scourge Effect” from Utvara Hellkite, making it especially hard at this point for the combo to not win.
Mechanics: So we have a goal, we have an end game, how do we get from point A to point B? That’s a great question, one that as it turns out, has four different paths of resolution.
1) As it turns out, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. There’s actually a combo built into the deck that can generate an arbitrarily high storm count and end with RRRRRRRRRR - “coincidentally” 1 more than we need for our signature sorcery. Start with Helm of Awakening, and Pyromancer’s Goggles. Cast Seething Song with the eyewear, then let the copy resolve and hold priority. Cast Reiterate with buyback using the first RRRRR a number of times until you have the storm count you desire. Then let the original Song resolve, and let the big sorcery rip.
2) Mindmoil; This card is a “one-card combo” as long as you have a hand as you can keep casting a cheap spell (or a 0 drop like a Mox) to keep hand cycling through your deck building both storm count and digging for the combo. This shores up one of Storm’s few weaknesses of “bricking out” before it has achieved the critical mass of spells cast/mana accrued, however this does not help you find the mana needed to get your grand finale onto the stack. Mindmoil is great because without U, we don’t have the critical mass of Frantic Search esque spells to help us get through our deck.
3) Paradox Engine (with mana rocks); We know how efficient the Engine is at generating extra mana between spells, and this is likely one of the easiest ways to build mana for a nine mana sorcery, but it’s not without a few glaring flaws. At 5, it can be hard play this and a spell to “go off” with it in the same turn. This can be alleviated by using Kuldotha Forgemaster (Forgemaster also finds your Panharmonicon, so it’s worth having in the deck) to cheat it on the battlefield, but the other key sticking point against it is, this does not guarantee having spells to chain into it to build the storm count that the first two methods can build. Still it’s worth noting as it is by far the easiest way to generate surplus mana, which is always going to be in-demand when your entire game plan revolves around casting a nine mana spell that isn’t G. Note that with this method if you wind up drawing dragons mid-chain you will need a way to get them back in the deck somehow as Dragonstorm does not search your hand for the draconic menaces of the sky! I’ve found the easiest method for this is to activate Lion’s Eye Diamond with Dragonstorm on the stack, followed by a Feldon’s Cane activation to ensure you get all of the targets to go off. Nothing worse than actually pulling this off and then fizzling out!
4) Mizzix’s Mastery; Lastly, we can just cheat it onto the stack somehow. As Storm goes, we only need to be able to “cast” the spell to trigger the storm ability. This means while we can’t “Fork” it to get there and count storm, we could still cast it via alternative means. There aren’t really a lot of ways to cast it that cost less than 8R though, and even fewer that aren’t U, but there’s something tricky yet satisfying about being the Kaalia player and cheaty-facing our signature spell with Entomb then Mizzix’s Mastery to call ALL the dragons to your aid, for the low, low cost, of just 3BR! Worth noting your Lion’s Eye Diamond works with this path as well (Vampiric Tutor for Mizzix’s Mastery, crack LED to pitch Dragonstorm, draw your Mastery, and then go off! Don’t forget to respond to the signature spell with Feldon’s Cane if you lost any key dragons you might need.
The Mana: If you know me and my decks, you know my mana bases are meticulously crafted to squeeze as much value and utility as I could from it. That is not the case here. I wanted colour production and untapped sources, free flowing coloured mana is a premium, if it’s colourless it better produce 2+. To that end. No, there’s no Wasteland or Strip Mine here, nor even Hall of the Bandit Lord and Cavern of Souls. The last thing I want to see happen on our critical turn is to stumble into a tapland or a colourless source instead of the one B or R we need...so, yes, the mana I have here is by design. Perhaps that is a bit too cautious on my part, and maybe that is my inexperience as a pure combo player, but better safe than sorry, right?
Link to my original primer: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/forum-1-vs-1-traditional/206319-traditional-commander-kaalia-of-the-vast
