The first commander deck I've put together. Fell in love with everything Kaalia did when I glanced over her on Card Kingdom's website and I've been putting her together since. I did not have access to the Heavenly Inferno pre-con so she's been a ground-up build. Like getting a hold of a 70's Mustang Mach 1 frame and just working on it when you've got money.
I've read multiple decklists for Kaalia, and I've learned quickly in my own meta how fast hate from the entire board comes at you just for running Kaalia. I've built in what would definitely be considered massive-jerk move MLD because it is a wholly viable strategy considering Kaalia's strengths and very-obvious-to-me-weaknesses and the fact that I'll be taking on the entire board once I'm swinging with Kaalia.
Since I expect to see a massive amount of nukes heading my way when I begin to get the deck rolling there's a significant amount of redundancy in things like enchantments, in most cases this is to help bring out and expend those pesky removals and counters, since most of these enchantments are not to be ignored if Kaalia is available or if I have any creatures out. I've swung for 45 on turn 7 with the right pieces out, especially Gratuitous Violence
+
True Conviction
or Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
+
True Conviction
, since that is essentially quad damage. Card draw is a big disadvantage due to the colors and the fact that this deck has to be rolling no later than turn 6 in my meta, and I know full well that's three turns later than ideal, but once Kaalia is out and swinging, I've been able to offset lack of a non-stop pool of creatures with multiple combat phases and mass damage boost, even two creatures out with multiple combat phases can offset the lack of creatures and make the deck very dangerous early game. Since I pay no cost for the big beasties my mana is freed up for enchantments and paying for any activated abilities on my creatures.
The dream combos for the deck are the quad damage pairings, since these can make a small group of creatures deadly and if fortunate enough to draw into three heavies on the battlefield lethal.
Damage Magnification: Gratuitous Violence
+
True Conviction
, this doubles all damage done and deals this damage twice, this also works with Gisela, Blade of Goldnight or Savage Beating, add in multiple combat turns and the damage just explodes.
Infinite/Multiple Combat Turns Combos: Expect this to be nuked in ridiculous short order as soon as one of the pieces appears on the battlefield, but if the right moment presents itself and you can be reasonably sure there are no nukes waiting in the wing this combo can win you the board.
Aggravated Assault + Sword of Feast and Famine
as soon as you attack, lands untap. Once combat is completed pay for another round of combat, rinse/repeat until scoops begin. The combo can also be done with Hellkite Charger]] at a slightly greater cost. Of important note is the power of creatures such as
Moonveil Dragon
for these extra combat phases, since its activated ability boosts all of your creatures until end of turn, and extra mana unspent after triggering another combat phase can be used to further boost your creatures bigger and bigger each combat turn. Even if you are missing the key components of Aggravated Assault or
Hellkite Charger
you can use limited versions for a boost such as Aurelia, the Warleader or the instant or sorcery versions in the deck such as
World at War
or
Seize the Day
(do remember that Aurelia, the Warleader won't trigger her additional combat phase when she's cheated in by Kaalia since she was never declared officially as an attacker). Other creatures of note in these multiple combat phases are Lord of the Void which is largely a gamble as to whether or not you will get anything useful but you will at least exile answers from their deck, especially useful when you have to pass the turn when the extra combat turns run out.
In most cases however you will probably not be allowed to get all these pieces on the board if you've got shrewd opponents who will save their answers for something that counts, in most cases you'll have to make do with the one shots from spells (which most have the advantage of being recast from the graveyard). Whenever possible I will use as many as possible in one turn, if no counters come flying I'll take advantage of the board state while I've got it, every turn that goes by means my chances of doing anything fall off drastically when the board is discussing group strategies for crushing my run.
Infinite Mana Combo: There's one other infinite combo in the deck, which is extremely situational (and is more a combo that I take advantage of if it presents itself rather than focusing on making it happen) and that is Animate Dead + Worldgorger Dragon
. To make the combo work you must have both Worldgorger Dragon and another creature in your graveyard. If there is no second creature in your graveyard this combo will result in a draw for the game if no one can break the endless loop (and with no second creature in the graveyard you yourself cannot break the loop). It works by targeting Worldgorger Dragon with Animate Dead, this returns Worldgorger Dragon to the battlefield whereupon Worldgorger Dragon exiles all permanents you control, including the very enchantment keeping him alive, once Animate Dead is exiled Worldgorger Dragon dies and goes to the graveyard which returns all permanents he exiled back to the board including Animate Dead which now requires a new target, before you select a target you can tap your lands for floating mana before re-selecting Worldgorger Dragon and repeating the process again. Since the turn doesn't end the floating mana can be increased ad nauseam through each successive cycle. When you have enough of whatever mana amount you want you break the combo by selecting a different creature for Animate Dead. Ordinarily this would be when you would cast any X spell for ridiculous lethal damage, you may also notice I didn't fill the deck with that many spells to take advantage of this infinite mana exploit, and that is because I don't derive much pleasure from 20 GOTO 10 logic loop victories, I didn't play Kaalia to watch my heavy-metal-album-cover-army of angels/demons/dragons sit on the sideline bored to death (and I have to wonder what this motley crew would have to discuss while all on the same side and hanging out) while I work out a long, dull 200K damage X spell gleaned from an out-of-flavor-for-the-deck-theme exploit. I'd rather just cycle the combo enough to have the mana necessary to drop my hand onto the board once the combo completes. I will state I am not sure whether or not board-entering effects are allowed to trigger on permanents you control for this combo, if in fact ETB effects do trigger with each cycle then Rune-Scarred Demon slows everything down to a crawl (as you search your library with every cycle) while simultaneously making this potentially even more broken as you could theoretically search for everything you could possibly want to cast and cycle repeatedly for the mana to hard-cast it. I suppose of concern would be self-milling if you've just gone completely mad with power. Enticing as this combo is, I don't pursue it normally as I feel it goes beyond viable fun-to-overcome strategy for everyone into just straight jerk move (though if others are running infinite mana combos and pursuing them, I can go to weapons of mass destruction too). This might raise the question of why I bother running Worldgorger Dragon in the first place, and that is largely as a placeholder awaiting the acquisition of other cards. Worldgorger Dragon is to me a fun potential flicker effect for your board when combined with cards like
Sneak Attack
which is next on my wishlist. Tap out your mana for floating, bring him in for one red mana, and then cast a board wipe for whatever is causing you trouble before he dies at end of turn and restores your board. It can also help if there are boardwipes on the horizon, whether on suspend or awaiting a return to the offending player for untap or an end to summoning sickness, so that you can preserve your board state and recover after the danger has passed.
Mass land destruction: Kaalia is an exciting house of cards, the rush of being so close to having everything fall apart and pulling out a win is why I love her. Other decks have a broader spread of wincons and synergy that can make quick recovery from a setback more viable than Kaalia, but if she is tucked, taxed out of what I can afford at the time, or anyone else's board state is too hazardous for Kaalia to swing into and everything falls apart since without this frail little flying 2/2 what I have is a deck full of some of the most expensive creature drops this side of the Eldrazi. This is why the deck has to move quick, as the longer the game goes, the more lands and permanents are in play, the more answers and combo pieces tumbled out makes the board a very dangerous place for Kaalia and all but assures I will be shut down again and again as the number 1 target for prevention of progress. Towards this you've got to think shrewdly as you won't find many friends on the board and so land destruction is not only a viable strategy, it is practically a requirement for what is most likely a 1v3+ board. As soon as you can get Kaalia out, gauge your board, see how much hate may already be heading your way, and give it a few turns if possible before you either detonate all lands in play or winter orb them down (if you've got three creatures ready to drop in with Kaalia then you can go as early as possible). You will get vocal commentary on your play, none of it nice, but you were already going to have everyone gunning for you in a scant few turns anyway, you're already the villain might as well enjoy the hand-wringing. Do bear in mind however that MLD is one of those things that can absolutely defeat you in your meta in a very simple way: if no one will play against your deck, you lose in totality regardless of how well rated your decklist is. Fortunately my meta takes new vicious strategies in stride as the next thing to learn to defeat.
Defenses: Kaalia is by far the biggest target, she's so easily removed that anyone foolish enough to run Magma Jet in commander could live the dream, and to give Kaalia some chance of protection I've got several utility creatures and spells designed to keep her alive, there are better options in some of these cases but again I have to buy the deck piecemeal as I go. Grand Abolisher is great if he can be cast uncountered (which is another reason I want to run Cavern of Souls to protect the humans), or at least burn out a counter before casting Kaalia, also useful is Iroas, God of Victory for protecting Kaalia in combat and minimizing the effectiveness of potential blockers, as well as rapidly becoming a creature in his own right when you start dropping out dragons and angels.
General's Kabuto
works wonders for combining shroud and removing combat damage, and is something of a place holder for Lightning Greaves and Darksteel Plate which have the disadvantage of being two separate cards I have to obtain and put into play, though their respective powers combined are better. Stoneforge Mystic and Steelshaper's Gift exist as means to tutor for needed equipment, or Sword of Feast and Famine if I've got the necessary defensive cards in hand. Also a great cheap protection option, both in actual cash value and mana cost is
Earnest Fellowship
which gives all creatures protection from their colors, and since Kaalia's in Dega (or are we all just calling it Mardu now?) she can remove some of the sting of the three biggest removal suites. Extremely useful (so useful I threw in Heliod's Pilgrim just to tutor for it) is Spectra Ward making her difficult to target or block by anything that isn't an artifact. Also in deck is Maze of Ith which allows Kaalia to attack, trigger her ability, then back out without taking damage before end of combat, leaving her would-be blocker to deal with the heavy.
Cloudshift
allows me to cheaply blink Kaalia for a last ditch save, or even flickering Rune-Scarred Demon for a cheap tutor. Most of these however are to keep Kaalia alive long enough to swing, whereby her bigger protectors will be cheated in for free. Four angels round out the protection needs of the deck: Basandra, Battle Seraph to keep the battles clean from spell interference, Angelic Arbiter to force opponents to choose creatures or removal, Avacyn, Angel of Hope which should be self-evident, and her runner up if I can't get a hold of Avacyn at that moment: Deathless Angel. There's a few dragons included for protection reasons:
Forgestoker Dragon
, provided I'm willing to pay for the ability, can have his ability activated to selectively blast creatures I don't want to be able to be declared as blockers (I passed on Thundermaw Hellkite, despite his superior ability, because it doesn't trigger off Kaalia bringing him in), also note
Aurelia's Fury
will achieve the same result, and if I blast a player (which I can do during their turn as an instant) I can shut off their spellcasting for a turn. Balefire Dragon can assist in blasting creatures away to reduce or eliminate retaliatory actions during my opponent's turn, as can Steel Hellkite as targeted destruction provided I'm willing to pay for it. On the demon side Reaper from the Abyss fills a defense from retaliation role if anything died that turn, useful because it can be any creature that dies, it can trigger during each player's turn, and I can target any creature on the board with his effect, attack one opponent, blast another opponent's creature. Get mileage off the bickering of other players or combo on my own removal. Also great for revenge if someone drops Kaalia. For those asking "where are the haste enablers?" I'm only able to run Anger for the moment, which I'm not thrilled about either, I want to throw in several options to increase my chances of having haste available to me early game, cards like Hall of the Bandit Lord, Lightning Greaves, or Archetype of Aggression are in the mana costs I can afford by turn three or four.
Card draw/Tutors: You'll notice I have virtually no card draw spells, I ran Harvester of Souls but found him problematic in that he does not have flying, and since I tended to attack whoever's skies were clear of blockers I wasn't seeing creatures dying early on like I wanted when I got Kaalia out faster, my other options for card draw were black and red, black being prohibitive in cost for the speed at which I need Kaalia to start rolling, and red having discard side effects for their draw. I'll admit, I'm very tempted to spring for Wheel of Fate for max hand card draw, but so far I've made a strategy decision not to run it, namely if I have been able to field creatures or enchantments without interference early game it is usually due to these answers being burned out already on other opponents, a lack of answers in the hands on the board, or mana problems. All of which can be fixed by my spell making everyone grab 7 new cards, if they weren't giving me problems before, they're sure to very soon if I dropped a discard/draw seven spell. So at the moment my strategy is doing the most that I can with the toolbox I have. My tutor suite has much cheaper costed choices, a little beyond what I can spend at the moment, and while I'd gladly swap a Diabolic Tutor for a Demonic Tutor, I actually like Increasing Ambitions for its flashback ability.
Graveyard Reclamation:
Phyrexian Reclamation
is my absolute favorite, which is why it gets nuked regularly, but I also have a few other pieces in place in Animate Dead and Unburial Rites which has flashback. Reya Dawnbringer also sits in for this role, and works to take a shot for other heavy hitters for targeted removal.
Weaknesses: At the moment the biggest weaknesses of the deck are lands, I don't have the cash to spring for the top lands I'd love to run at the moment, and I hate how much of my multi-lands come in tapped, the only thing saving me is the people I'm playing against in my meta are in a similar situation, so the version is running a turn or two behind better Kaalia decks, I'm also hoping to swap out several other pieces like Dragon Arch for similar but better pieces such as Quicksilver Amulet in a utility suite to help the deck out if Kaalia gets tucked or taxed beyond what I can afford at the moment. Though in most cases if I'm in that situation fortuna already turned her back on me awhile ago. The rest of the deck's weaknesses are standard for any Kaalia deck: blue players. Counters, bouncing permanents and tuck spells, at present the most I have is decoy targets that can't be easily ignored to take shots and look for my window to start running. Were I able to afford her I could run Iona, Shield of Emeria to help shut down blue, but if they're mono-blue I've just ruined someone's enjoyment of the game and lessened my chances of playing against that person again.
If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them, sharing tech is the virtual purpose of these sites, and the multitude of different ideas, metas, and strategies is why I love Magic, no one answer is what makes this something enjoyable to keep grinding at.
Thanks for any feedback!
