Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas
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Legality

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
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas

Legendary Creature — Giant Soldier

Whenever you cast a creature spell with converted mana cost 5 or greater, you get an experience counter.

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas gets +1/+1 for each experience counter you have.

Recommendations View more recommendations

Basshunter on She Cried "More, More, More!"

11 months ago

Hi, what do you think about Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas for your deck? So when you cast your commander you start with 2 exp counters...

Coward_Token on Phyrexia: All Will Be One …

1 year ago

Tyvar's flavor being about beatdown while his passive and +1 leading themselves to tap abilities is kinda off

Kinda annoyed if Nissa dies, if only because Vivian and mono-green Garuk are mechanically indistinguishable.

Rhuk: For Mirrodin!-tribal I guess.

Not a fan of the mechanical eyestalks that Serum Sovereign and Jace (and Ajani in one version) have, looks too sci-fi

Hoping against hope that Ertai, the Corrupted gets a non-Secret Lair reprint, he's neat.

IDK if they could have skipped creating Mites and just kept going with Germs

Staff of the Storyteller: I've been down on recent white draw enginge attempts, but this is pretty good if you got a deck where the token is relevant so you're not just paying 2+1 mana to draw your first car

Mesmerizing Dose: Kinda misleading art?

Vanish into Eternity: I hope they're not killing of too many cool planes.

Capricious Hellraiser: Not bad EDH mono-red Dragon tribal if you include some rummaging.

Me as usual complaining that things aren't more pushed: Kinzu seems overall worse than Hofri Ghostforge, even if her tokens are basically 4/1s in EDH. I hope there's some cool "corrupted" cards for her to take advantage of.

Annoyed by Mite Overseer because AFAIK white still doesn't have straightforward weenie makers that are as efficient as green's Jade Mage & Ant Queen

Kinda find Atraxa disapointing, her ETB would have been neat as just a stand-alone sorcery

I wish Staff of Compleation cost 1 less life on all of its tap abilities, not as easily abuseable as Staff of Domination anyway.

Roar of Resistance's triggered ability could just cost to make politicking smoother

Clever Concealment: Booo, when are we getting a straightforward Heroic Intervention color shift? (Don't talk to me about Grand Crescendo or And They Shall Know No Fear, they are not the same.)

Otharri: Yeah this is much more appropritate for the color combination than Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas, but unlike the rest of the original experience commanders there's still not a lot of ways to get multiple counters quickly

Necrogen Rotpriest: with e.g. Goliath Hatchery in mind, I don't see why this couldn't just give out Toxic 1 as an anthem.

Resistance Reuinted: Kinda sad that you can basically counter the anti-board wipe part by removing the targeted creature.

Optimator on FIGHT ME COWARD!

1 year ago

Conventional wisdom is 36-38 lands is where you wanna be. I almost always do 36.

I would cut Reckless Crew, Rune of Sustenance and Rune of Speed.

One thing I thought of, when putting my list together, is that creatures with doublestrike are extra good because of the damage bonus Bruenor gives. Reyav, Master Smith helps with that, but it's only one card. In the maybeboard of my deck I listed a bunch of doublestrikers. I think Mirran Crusader, Aven Sunstriker, Zetalpa, Primal Dawn, Blade Historian, Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder, Boros Swiftblade, Heavenly Blademaster, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas, Skyhunter Skirmisher, and Oketra the True are some stand-outs. It's hard to fit them all in but a few might be good.

I really like your selection of creatures though! Got all the good ones. Nice and cheap, too. Swiftblade Vindicator is an excellent inclusion.

Well I'll be a Bearded Gnome is my deck

Temur_Frontier on

2 years ago

What do you think of Toralf, God of Fury  Flip as a potential win con.? Nice deck, +1! Might try and brew something similar since I really enjoy Giants myself, and this looks more fun to play, and is more thematic, than Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas .

Ocelot44 on RAWRgrin XD

2 years ago

@staxcat

Glitterfang is a hilarious card that not many Vadrok players seem to know about! It’s awesome late game because you just need to have enough mana to mutate Vadrok +1, and then the next turn you’re back online again! Super fun :)

I have considered Land Tax - I play it in my Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas deck and it’s amazing even if you don’t run any graveyard shenanigans or Scroll Rack . I would put it in here, but for now this deck is going to be semi-budget. (Lots of video games I plan on buying.) The only reason I have an Arid Mesa in here is because I opened an Expedition and put the original one I had in here

Thank you for the comment and +1! I really appreciate it :D

Optimator on Giant's Deck

3 years ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.


Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.


Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.


You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.


As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

Optimator on Giant's Deck

3 years ago

It looks like the spoilers that I put the non-Boros giant suggestions aren't working. So weird. I'll try to reconstruct what I suggested.

So I know you had your heart set on Brion as your commander, but I wanted to list all the good giants with , and in their colors, as there are a bunch that are excellent. Brion doesn't bring much to the giant-tribal table other than a small-ish lifelinking Giant body and occasional face-damage. You may want to use Iroas, God of Victory or Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas as your commander if you're dead-set on staying Boros colors. If the idea of fully exploring Giants in Magic's history is the goal, and being the most Giant-y deck, having more colors or all five colors will give you a greater creature spread and significantly help with the deck's function.

Arbor Colossus - great rate! Worth considering

Beanstalk Giant - ramp AND a giant body! Worth considering

Earthshaker Giant - Worth considering

Garenbrig Paladin - playable, but probably wouldn't make the cut in a five-color deck

Gorm the Great - interesting choice, and nice at four mana, but probably not worth a slot

Marshdrinker Giant - odd removal piece.

Nylea's Colossus - good effect even without a ton of enchantment support. Worth considering

Outland Colossus - Worth considering

Rampart Smasher - watch out, Knights! Probably wouldn't make the cut

Skyshroud Troll - Regeneration is always nice, but the stats aren't great

Sunder Shaman - fucking awesome giant. One of the best reasons to consider running Green cards. Can't recommend enough.

Swarmborn Giant - kinda a weird one, but interesting nonetheless

Towering Titan - potentially awesome! Worth considering

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath - fucking incredible. Pretend you're terrorizing standard! That pricetag though :(

Valleymaker - very interesting utility. Potentially worth considering, but might not make the cut in a five-color deck.

Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig - Absolutely stellar Giant. three on-color might be hard to swing in a five-color deck, although any deck would probably lean Green due to ramp and utility. Very much worth considering.

Frost Titan - outstanding giant. One excellent reason to run Blue. Highly recommended, like all the titans. Too bad Prime-Time is banned! (Primeval Titan)

Galecaster Colossus - extremely strong Giant. better in Wizard-tribal decks, but is still really good on its own.

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - A real powerhouse. Highly recommended

Ruhan of the Fomori - Another excellent giant. Highly recommended

Skaab Goliath - Pretty decent. Might not make the cut in 5-color but worth considering]

Thryx, the Sudden Storm - Incredible! Ramp AND a flying body. A perfect reason to run Blue. Highly recommended

Bartel Runeaxe - this is a giant. Probably only worth running for the memes. Expensive too. A piece of Giant Magic history though.

Doomwake Giant - Pretty decent even without Enchantment support--lots of one-toughness support creatures out there.

Erebos's Titan - slightly recursive threat. Decent

Grave Titan - an utter powerhouse. One of the best giants. Highly recommended

Grixis Slavedriver - decent for a common. Probably not quite worth a slot.

Helldozer - pretty good! Three on-color might be hard but the payoff is huuuge.

Knight of the Last Breath - leaving behind blockers is pretty good. (Mana)-expensive though.

Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger - Pretend you're terrorizing Standard!! Incredible Giant, but expensive.

Necrosavant - recursive creature, but you probably don't want to be sacrificing giants

Nightfire Giant - could be decent utility. Not the strongest giant but worth looking at

Tithebearer Giant - good for a common I suppose!


So as you can see, there are a bunch of fantastic Giants outside of Red and White colors. The stand-outs on a budget are:

Arbor Colossus - Beanstalk Giant - Earthshaker Giant - Outland Colossus - Sunder Shaman - Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig - Frost Titan - Ruhan of the Fomori - Thryx, the Sudden Storm - Helldozer

I should have a Frost Titan, Arbor Colossus, and Outland Colossus for trade.


Once you have the deck for a while, snagging Grave Titan - Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger - Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath- Towering Titan as upgrades would be well-worth it.

Optimator on Giant's Deck

3 years ago

Some more giants that are worth considering:

Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas - Kalemne is bae, but I'm biased.

Realm-Cloaked Giant - this card is mandatory.

Hundred-Handed One

Quarry Colossus - this one is passable.

Grasping Giant - I love this one--just put it in my Giant deck

Oathsworn Giant - Good utility if you are wanting to swing out every turn

Swathcutter Giant - I actually kinda like this one a lot.

Sentinel of the Eternal Watch -

Taurean Mauler - one of the best giants, sadly

Bonecrusher Giant - pretend you're terrorizing Standard!

Arbiter of Knollridge - gimmicky but fun.

Boldwyr Intimidator - I have one in my Warrior deck. Very funny card. Not exactly a powerhouse at 7CMC but the unblockable aspect could win a game here and there.

Siegebreaker Giant - Pretty good for 5 mana IMO

Non-Boros Giants Show

One thing that's tricky with Giants is that they are traditionally commons and uncommons; usually rare large red creatures are Dragons. As such, many giants are pretty low-impact or poor deals for their mana (think of the classic Hill Giant). There are enough good ones to fill out a deck, though, but you gotta hunt for them.

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