Kalitas - Traitorous Control
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 3 | 1 COMMENT | 1154 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS
First round of modifications, deck is now v1.1 —July 11, 2016
Cutting cards that seemed dead in hand, too slow, or too limited.
Kill effects that don't allow black or artifact targets are out (one of my main opponents plays Oona).
Undead Warchief is out - if I have enough zombies for him to matter, I don't need him. And I'm not hard-casting most of my zombies. And with the big-mana in this deck, the idea is to not need a cost reducer, especially one that affects such a small percentage of the deck (value really only when casting Sidisi or Mikaeus).
Bringing in Steel Hellkite for additional control and a good pumpable flyer, and boots/greaves/plate for some protection (for Kalitas, and also Sheoldred/Crypt Ghast/Nirkana Revenant).
Main opponent is reacting to his losses by adding board wipes, so It would be amazingly evil if I can find space for Living Death. He can wipe my board, and then I'll just flip the table, and with Kalitas, he might not have anything in the grave to reanimate.
Would also love to find space for Sword of Feast and Famine just because it's insane. Also Wurmcoil Engine, see insane. Also avoids Ugin's -X, which is handy, and All is Dust, which I'd still like to find room for.
Found evasion difficult. Playing against black means that fear/intimidate don't help. Whispersilk Cloak is another one I'm really looking hard at for that reason. Shizo would be cut if it weren't a black-producing land; it can help in at least some circumstances and really isn't costing me much.
I appear to be somewhat low on sacrifice outlets. Kalitas is his own sac outlet and token generator, but he's not free and has several conditions that need to be met. That said, Blade of the Bloodchief can potentially make every individual sacrifice crazy value. I may be just relying on old patterns where I try to generate huge amounts of tokens of whatever type and sacrifice all the things for profit and value. Kalitas is supposed to be about exiling enemy creatures to shut down recursion strategies, and then swinging in for commander lethal. Other sacrifice outlets and benefits are gravy, not the primary focus.
I also remain somewhat torn between keeping Kalitas vs switching the commander to Drana. Kalitas has some minor build-around restrictions due to preventing enemy creature death effects, and that keeps things like Massacre Wurm from being so useful.
Difficult at this point to find more things to cut for space.