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War in Heaven

Commander / EDH* RBW (Mardu)

Abzkaban

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Creature (22)

Sorcery (9)

Land (34)

Artifact (12)

Commander (1)

Commander: Kaalia of the Vast

Instant (14)

Enchantment (8)

Maybeboard

Creature (7)

Artifact (3)

Enchantment (2)

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

— Revelation 12:7–10 (NIV)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Wait a minute...that's the wrong introduction. Let me skip a few chapters...

The Book of Revelation describes a war in heaven between angels led by the Archangel Michael against those led by "the dragon", identified as the devil or Satan, who will be defeated and thrown down to the earth.

This is the heart and soul of this Kaalia deck. We are playing out the war in heaven with Kaalia at the helm. She cheats out big angels and demons to defeat her opponents. Every move should be about building a superior board state and accumulating value while making it difficult for her opponents to fight back. If winning through combat becomes too grindy, then she'll hurl down the dragon and win via combo.

Born as Lia, she was the crippled daughter of a farmer in Bant after the Conflux. She was born near the ruined castle of Eos. Although bullied by her peers, she hid her emerging magical abilities, which for the time being were limited to the power to destroy pebbles. When the village was destroyed by servants of the Grixis Demon Nefarox, Lia was saved by the Nacatl Nira. Recognizing her magical abilities, Nira needed her to destroy the "keystone" of the dragon skeleton that the servants of the Nefarox were reanimating. To rouse her, she named the girl Kaa ("power") Lia.

Although Kaalia was successful in destroying the dragon skeleton, Nefarox rose and killed her family, all the villagers and Nira too. When she awoke, Kaalia felt empty. Like her insides had been ripped out, and there was just shadows left instead. Somehow she had survived, but her soul was fractured, and a growing hatred soon grew in the cracks. Now, driven by a righteous fury and an unholy thirst for revenge, Kaalia broods feverishly, amassing her vast power, waiting to unleash her apocalyptic might upon any who stand in her way.

-Kaalia History

I should start by saying this isn't my deck. I did have a hand in building it, but only in a backseat role. This deck was built by my wife, and it is her first experience in deckbuilding. She felt that if she went through the process of building a deck herself from scratch that it would help her understand the game better. I really only helped by giving advice and by helping her cut cards. That being said, she wanted to have a deck of angels and demons. Kaalia was the obvious commander choice for the deck she wanted, and so it was the one I suggested. She didn't know the card before I said it's who she'd want at the helm of her deck but went ahead and began to build around her.

Kaalia does everything we want for an angels and demons deck: she cheats them out onto the battlefield. This is great because most angels and demons worth playing come with huge converted mana costs. This lets us play those big fatties for free and fly over the heads of our opponents. Kaalia also happens to be in Mardu colors which give us access to some of the best removal and tutor options in the game.

Strengths

  • Fast and aggressive
  • Puts pressure on decks that don't handle combat well
  • Plays expensive cards for free
  • Denies opponents resources

Weaknesses

  • Reliant on the commander
  • Lacks the ramp and control of
  • Draws a lot of hate
  • Can run out of gas if we run out of creatures and card draw
The best choices for creatures to play for free with Kaalia are those that make an impact on the board as soon as they come into play. We also don't want 30 creatures so as to be too reliant on our commander. The same goes for casting cost. We want a few on the lower end (4-5) so that we can still hard cast them reliably if we're cut off from Kaalia.

Angels

Demons

Dragons

cost mana rocks and Sol Ring. Self explanatory. If we can resolve Dockside Extortionist for five treasures or more, then he's done his job.

Draw

Tutors

To play Kaalia well, we want to get her swinging as soon as she comes out and keep her on the field. Haste enablers will allow her to not sit idly for a whole round where she would be a lightning rod for removal, and protection will help keep her around.

Since we're cheating things out of our hand with Kaalia, we might as well cheat things out of the graveyard as well. Two of these also serve as part of our combo win.
  • Animate Dead - Recur a creature from our graveyard. Goes infinite with Worldgorger Dragon.
  • Living Death - Excellent if we're behind, and still good when we're not. Pull everything out of the graveyard. Can possibly serve to wipe opponents' creatures as well.
  • Necromancy - Recur a creature from our graveyard. Goes infinite with Worldgorger Dragon at instant speed.
  • Phyrexian Reclamation - Bring a creature back to our hand to send out with Kaalia again.
We are running removal in the form of instants and creatures.
With Kaalia online and allowing us to play big creatures for free, land destruction will help make sure we're the only ones building our boardstate and ensuring our advantage over our opponents.
  • Armageddon - Destroy all lands
  • Cataclysm - Board wipe almost everything including lands. Choose Kaalia to keep throwing angels and demons at them.
  • Price of Glory - Protects us from interaction during our turn.
  • Wildfire - Hits them where it hurts, and can be a one-sided board wipe with Earnest Fellowship protecting Kaalia.
The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.

Worldgorger Dragon Combo

In addition to pressuring and overwhelming our opponents in combat, the deck runs an infinite combo with Worldgorger Dragon.

The combo:

How to play it:
  1. Worldgorger Dragon must be in the graveyard with either Dragon Tempest or Rune-Scarred Demon on the field or Aurelia's Fury in hand or Bogardan Hellkite on the field or in hand.
  2. Cast Animate Dead/Necromancy targeting Worldgorger Dragon.
  3. Resolve Animate Dead/Necromancy and return Worldgorger Dragon to the battlefield.
  4. Resolve Worldgorger Dragon exiling Animate Dead/Necromancy and all permanents you control.
  5. When Animate Dead/Necromancy leaves the battlefield, sacrifice Worldgorger Dragon.
  6. When Worldgorger Dragon leaves the battlefield, all permanents return to the battlefield, triggering Animate Dead/Necromancy.
  7. Do not let Animate Dead/Necromancy resolve yet. Tap all mana producing lands and artifacts first. Repeat steps 2 through 7 to generate infinite mana.
  8. Use the infinite mana to cast Aurelia's Fury or Bogardan Hellkite to kill all opponents.
  9. If Dragon Tempest or Bogardan Hellkite are on the field, we win with no need for the mana.
  10. If Rune-Scarred Demon is on the field, we use it to tutor Aurelia's Fury or Bogardan Hellkite to hand.

Turn 4 Win

While this is not a cEDH deck, and the focus is primarily around combat and disrupting the board, we can win on turn 4 with a God Hand.

Opening hand:

This hand also assumes we draw into land to hit every land drop for 4 turns.

How it wins:

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Casual

99% Competitive

Revision 8 See all

(3 years ago)

-1 Slayers' Stronghold main
Top Ranked
Date added 4 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

16 - 0 Mythic Rares

34 - 0 Rares

23 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.44
Tokens Treasure
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