From the Brim to the Trim - Blessing Your Budget and Dooming Your Opponents Alike
(Kaalia of the Vast | Art by Michael Kormack)
AKaliaaaa Matataaaaa, What a Wonderful Dame!
Greetings and salutations from a country recently ousted from the competition it's hosting (I promise, this is the last time I talk about rugby, don't hate me)! I'm Arnaud and I'm thrilled to take you on a journey of uncanny brews, hidden gems and usage of EDHREC's filtering features.
Is it just me, or do you people have a soft spot for Angels? Last time, we left Liesa and her toolbelt of shenanigans, offering you wonderful brewers the usual choice between three commanders. And what can I say, you did not disappoint one bit.
This time around, the results were extremely tight, all within a ten-vote span. In third position, we got Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief, with 140 votes. In second place came Mazzy, Truesword Paladin, with 142 votes. And in first place, your Cleric of Doom, Kaalia of the Vast, with 148 votes.
So basically, all of these candidates earned 32.5% to 34.4% of the votes. If that's not a tight bundle, nothing is. Alas, there can be only a single winner, so this week we'll dabble into Angelo-Demono-Draconic mysteries together. With that said, I'm safely tucking the other two contenders in the "potential" binder. Who knows, they might make it back in a future poll! On we go then, the skies await.
Saying that Kaalia is a staple of the format would be an understatement. Leading 13,775 decks and coming #16 on EDHREC, this is one of the most popular commanders of all time, also popularized by the original commander precons back in 2011. Man that makes me feel old...
Stats wise, a 2/2 with some evasion is nice, and will serve well the second, much-dreaded ability: spew in expensive monsters on attack to overwhelm the board. Simple and effective.
The issue is, I was a bit worried that all of the payoffs would end up being too expensive for our challenge. So instead of taking only the cards from the main EDHREC page, I also added those from the Cheap filter. Quick reminder, these are the 10% cheapest cards used in all brews.
While this does not ensure for all of them to be playable with our build condition, it should expand the pool nicely and hopefully provide some interesting gems.
As such, the full list stands at 383 cards. Let's get to it, shall we?
First Trim – The Chainsaw Cardboard Massacre
383 then. That's a lot to cut down. Onwards companions, let's thin these troops! No card above the $1 mark shall withstand our mowing might!
As usual, when trying to squeeze down every card worth of your attention, make sure to update to the cheapest version (TCGPlayer usually works better as the lowest cost). We might get to include some nifty goodies!
Before we move on the next section, let's have a look at the cards between $1 and $2. I'm especially keen on this week's selection, as there is a surprising number of great cards in that range. I'll forego the usual draw/removal staples, although you might want to keep an eye out for those.
At the time of writing, there are 37 cards in this section, the most notable being:
- Blast-Furnace Hellkite: If you manage to cheat this puppy in, the double-strike granted to all of your creatures should make short work of your opponents. At $1.05, it's a bargain.
- Bloodgift Demon: A solid body with evasion, including a Phyrexian Arena that can target other players for political goodness? A nice demon all around.
- Sower of Discord: A favourite of mine, this is a two for one that will speed things up quite a bit. I sometimes think of this card as the black Hydra Omnivore.
- Terror of Mount Velus: Probably a cousin of the aforementioned Hellkite. Burn baby, burn!
- Decadent Dragon: The more I use this card, the more I like it. It's nothing special, but fairly cheap to cast for its abilities, and the Adventure is a nice added bonus.
- Angelic Arbiter: A neat way to slow things down on a more than decent body.
- Ob Nixilis, Unshackled: I've been surprised time and again at how effective that first ability is. It basically puts a full-stop to searching your library. No fetching, no tutoring, no ramping on lands.
- Drana and Linvala: Granted, these are not the most impressive beaters of all time, but I live in the hope that, one day, two opponents will play creatures that combo off each other, for me to reap the benefits.
- Rune-Scarred Demon: Tutor on a beater. A timeless classic.
- Basandra, Battle Seraph: Also from the original commander precon, this Angel makes sure your creatures won't be the target of spells from your opponents during combat while making their critters enter the red zone to their demise.
- Liesa, Forgotten Archangel: Heeeey, long time no see!
- Giada, Font of Hope: If you decided to go the full Angel route, this is has quickly become a classic staple of the build.
And with that, we're already down to a healthier 191 cards. Let's take care of the utilities before the real fun part begins. I've got something special in mind this week, you'll see.
Second Trim – Cardward Scissorhands
The beauty of these prismatic builds is that you're rarely disappointed in the veggies section, as each color offers what it does best. So what do we have at our disposal?
- Ramp: 19
- Draw: 18
- Removal: 24
- Wipe: 8
As you can see, we have more than enough in all of the critical categories. Let's lower the count.
| Ramp | Draw | Removal | Wipe |
Well, that was a lot of removal spells to select from. I've also reshaped the mana base to get to a healthy 36 lands. I've got the feeling that the mana curve will be among the highest we've seen insofar.
And with that, we're down to 132 cards. This are shaping up quite nicely, and we're about to have some fun.
Third Trim – Cutting off the rough edges
Ok, the homework is done. Before we focus on the meat of the deck (aka, its threats), I'd like to quickly address a few spells that I feel like we can safely get rid of.
First, tutors. Open the Armory would only fetch a single equipment, that's too narrow a target to be worth it. And I'm not a fan of generic tutors in budget builds, so Diabolic Tutor has to go as well.
Second, various artifacts. Armillary Sphere is too slow for my taste. Moonsilver Spear is sadly too expensive to be worth it. Same goes with Quicksilver Amulet. At this rate, you're better off directly casting your spells. I'm keeping Sunforger, as there are currently 19 instants in the deck, all of which can be cast with this.
Third, protection. There are currently 11 spells made to protect our stuff. While ensuring our commander can swing at least once or twice is paramount to our strategy, that's simply too many. I won't list them all, but I'll cut about half.
Fourth, the rest. Congregate and Righteous Cause are cute but not really impactful. Away with you. Master Warcraft, you're very fun, but too corner-case for our strategy. Off you go. We don't have enough legendaries to make Primevals' Glorious Rebirth and Dihada, Binder of Wills consistent enough. Out.
Finally, I'm adding Footfall Crater. This is one of my personal hidden gems, and since giving our commander haste is really important, this is a good way to do so consistently. And worse case scenario you can cycle it away. No drawbacks for a card that should see a lot more love.
Now that this has been dealt with, we can address the Tarasque in the room: how many Angels, Demons and Dragons are we keeping?
"Yes."
No, you misunderstood. I said "how many"?
"Yes."
https://giphy.com/gifs/Jim-Carrey-jim-carrey-i-got-the-power-fwta5c1e0O2hymy9p3
All jokes aside, I promised you something a bit different earlier on. So here it is. We're not cutting anything. In fact, we're adding stuff back in.
Hear me out. The sweet spot for our commander to be consistent enough lies at around 20-ish creatures of the relevant type. That gives us an 80% probability to have at least one in our opening hand. So I want to be able to draw from a pool of 40 of these monsters. Not that I said "draw", not "play".
We're going to keep a pool of 40 cards, from which you'll randomly draw 20 at the beginning of each game. This will hopefully ensure some fun variance in your game plan. This is also part of the reason why I don't want to play any tutors, even more so in here (aside from Hoarding Broodlord). This way, the deck will constantly marvel you. I've done this in the past with a Nikya of the Old Ways full-creatures deck, and it was a blast!
So. We currently have 19 Angels, 9 Dragons and 9 Demons, for a total of 37 creatures. I'm going to add in the following four: Abhorrent Overlord, Bladewing, Deathless Tyrant and Rakshasa Debaser.
And there you have it.
Now, I foresee a reaction from some of you which could be translated as:
And... you're not wrong.
So here's another decklist with my personal selection of the top 20 creatures in the fated pool.
Conclusion
Well, today's was a mouthful. And a lot of fun to build around, if I may add. Kaalia has certainly come a long way since her inception back in 2011.
Now it's your turn. Are there any cheap monsters I've omitted, or any absolute favourites of yours? Would you have gone with a single type?
Also, you may have noticed I've tweaked the categories in the decklist, changing card types to the categories they belong in. While the system is not perfect (some cards would fit in several categories), is it something you like better, or should I revert back to the classic card types?
Let me know this and more below (I love comments, all comments, please comment), and I'll see you in two weeks!
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Arnaud Gompertz
Arnaud Gompertz has been playing Magic since 4th Edition, back in 1995. He's been an assiduous EDH enthusiast since 2012, with a soft spot for unusual and casual Commanders. He'll always favour spectacular plays against a boring path to victory. Aside from mistreating cardboard, he's a dedicated board games player, loves a challenging video game and occasionally tries to sing with his choir.
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