Building the (Bad) Kaalia
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on May 16, 2021, 3:51 p.m. by I_Want_To_PlayAllTheDecks
I rarely find commanders that after I still want to build a couple days after first thinking about them. Kaalia, Zenith Seeker is one of them. The only problem is, I don't know how to build her. I know I could go more Cedh by going turbo Worldgorger Dragon + Animate dead. I could go big beater ramp with the demons/dragons/angels she finds. I could try and cheat beaters in with reanimation or Sneak Attack effects. I could try and go with tons of blink effects and try and use Worldgorger Dragon for value. My current thoughts are Blink/Reanimation, both are powerful tools to utilize, and in most cases if you blink something that was cheated into play for a single turn, you get to keep it. The only problem with this idea is I'm not sure how consistent it would be. Any ideas or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks
Hey I_Want_To_PlayAllTheDecks, I picked up the Kaalia precon several years ago and have been tinkering with it ever since to make it as competitive as possible. First I went full-aggro and land destruction. When I realized how easy it was to neutralize my deck if Kaalia was killed, I tried a reanimation-heavy approach. Then I realized my strategy was easily shattered by graveyard hate like Rest in Peace , which happens to be rampant in my play group. Sure I can remove RiP once or maybe twice, but its imposible to deal with hate from multiple players at once.
After countless iterations and strategies, I figured out that a hybrid aggro/stax approach is the way to go. This may sound counter-intuitive at first, but the only way for Kaalia to catch up to much faster competitive decks is to try to slow down the other decks. I cut all reanimation cards, which eliminates the weakness of depending on my graveyard for big creatures. Don’t get me wrong, Worldgorger Dragon infinite combos work and reanimation is a valid strategy, but other combo decks are quicker, especially decks running blue and/or green. If Kaalia gets neutralized, I have stax pieces, ramp artifacts, and tutors to fall back on to get me back into the game. Also I believe other creature-cheat cards like Sneak Attack are redundant and take up space that could be better utilized for more stax or ramp cards.
Please feel free to check out my deck if you are interested!
May 16, 2021 6:50 p.m.
Oops, I just noticed you said Kaalia, Zenith Seeker , instead of Kaalia of the Vast , my bad. I have never tried to specifically build a deck around Kaalia ZS, although I did use her as support in my KotV deck at one time. After testing, I realized that she is not that useful since the commander deck is 99 cards, and she only digs through 6 cards. It seems like a big deal, but imho, I’d rather run KotV as commander and cast a cheap tutor to search for exactly what I want. Then you get to take advantage of her built-in Quicksilver Amulet .
May 16, 2021 9:18 p.m.
RNR_Gaming says... #5
Run an aggro deck with a low curve. Blink Kaalia for more card advantage and just keep turning sideways. It would probably be okay for mid to maybe high power games but there are definitely better options for Worldgorger Dragon combos.
May 17, 2021 7:20 p.m.
I have a list of her Kaalia
I go for a blink, reanimator and sneak attack, all I one...
What I prioritize is having a high count of each type of creature, so I almost always grab two cards with her ETB. I also prioritize having creatures with good ETBs effects.
I tried to make the deck highly consistent, without Worldgorger combos, because I tend to treat this deck more of a Battlecruiser deck.
1empyrean says... #2
I don't know what direction you should take the deck, but isn't it sometimes fun to figure out how to make unused commanders work?
The blink/reanimate idea seems fine to me. Looking at new cards, Kaya the Inexorable might be a good fit here, but if you are trying to make an efficient deck around preexisting shells, I probably can't help much.
May 16, 2021 5:28 p.m.