Heavenly Lunch: Kaalia of the Vast Deck Tech

The next deck I want to take a look at is the WRB deck, Heavenly Inferno. Led by Kaalia of the Vast, the deck revolves around large creatures of the Angel, Dragon and Demon types. Kaalia has the ability to drop a creature of one of those types into play, for free, just by attacking an opponent.

The downside is that Kaalia herself is a puny 2/2 Flyer with no other evasion or protection. She is quite fragile, and often you won’t be able to successfully attack into any opponents without losing her to a larger blocker. The good news is that she’s only 4 mana, so she can usually come out early enough to hit at least once before anyone else can effectively block her. With a good draw, you can cast her turn 3 off a signet, or with a REALLY good draw, you can cast her turn 2, by going: Land, Sol Ring, Singet, then Land, Kaalia… with a good draw.

Kaalia is very much a “build around” Legend. She needs ample support to be worth casting or attacking with. If you’re ever in a position where you’re just attacking with her to get in two damage, but you don’t have anything in hand to sneak into play, you’re probably losing hard. So, we need to build around her along two axes. First we need a strong Tribal theme with plenty of Angels, Dragons and Demons for her to summon. And second, we need ways to protect Kaalia, so we don’t have to re-cast her after every attack we make.

The appeal of a deck like this is, of course, getting to play with big giant creatures, and sneaking them into play early makes this Timmy-est of strategies actually viable. 

Before we get started, I will toss up the original Heavenly Inferno decklist, unmodified, as I want to use the original deck as a starting point, rather than build from scratch.

1 Kaalia of the Vast

1  Akroma, Angel of Fury

1  Angel of Despair

1  Angelic Arbiter

1  Anger

1  Archangel of Strife

1  Avatar of Slaughter

1  Basandra, Battle Seraph

1  Bladewing the Risen

1  Boros Guildmage

1  Dragon Whelp

1  Dread Cacodemon

1  Duergar Hedge-Mage

1  Fallen Angel

1  Furnace Whelp

1  Gwyllion Hedge-Mage

1  Lightkeeper of Emeria

1  Malfegor

1  Mana-Charged Dragon

1  Mother of Runes

1  Oni of Wild Places

1  Oros, the Avenger

1  Orzhov Guildmage

1  Razorjaw Oni

1  Reiver Demon

1  Serra Angel

1  Shattered Angel

1  Tariel, Reckoner of Souls

1  Voice of All

1  Akroma's Vengeance

1  Armillary Sphere

1  Bathe in Light

1  Boros Signet

1  Cleansing Beam

1  Comet Storm

1  Congregate

1  Darksteel Ingot

1  Death by Dragons

1  Diabolic Tutor

1  Earthquake

1  Evincar's Justice

1  Lightning Greaves

1  Master Warcraft

1  Mortify

1  Orim's Thunder

1  Orzhov Signet

1  Path to Exile

1  Pyrohemia

1  Rakdos Signet

1  Return to Dust

1  Righteous Cause

1  Sol Ring

1  Soul Snare

1  Stranglehold

1  Sulfurous Blast

1  Syphon Flesh

1  Syphon Mind

1  Terminate

1  Vow of Duty

1  Vow of Lightning

1  Vow of Malice

1  Wrecking Ball

1  Akoum Refuge

1  Barren Moor

1  Bojuka Bog

1  Boros Garrison

1  Command Tower

1  Evolving Wilds

1  Forgotten Cave

1  Molten Slagheap

8  Mountain

1  Orzhov Basilica

8  Plains

1  Rakdos Carnarium

1  Rupture Spire

1  Secluded Steppe

8  Swamp

1  Vivid Meadow

1  Zoetic Cavern

As you can see, the list is already pretty well stocked for Angels, Demons and Dragons, though perhaps the non-Angel tribes are a bit under-represented. Furthermore, we have some anti-synergy between some cards. Many of our board-sweepers kill our own General – Pyrohemia, Sulfurous Blast, Evincar’s Justice? These are great against token decks, like Ghave, but usually they’ll kill Kaalia before they kill anything else of real value.

And what’s up with Dread Cacodemon? Yeah, he’s a Plague Wind with an 8/8 body attached, but the only reason people are willing to cast a Plague Wind is because they’ll usually win the turn they do. Cacodemon makes that difficult, if not impossible because he taps all of your other creatures too. Meaning you don’t get to attack at all, unless the Cacodemon has Haste, but even then, you’re only getting in for eight damage. But the real kicker is that you can’t even cheat him in with Kaalia. Well, you CAN, but if you do, you won’t get his ETBF trigger, and he’s just a big dumb 8/8.

Yeah, Reiver Demon is much the same, but he’s a bit easier to hard-cast and there are times when you won’t want his ETBF ability to trigger.

 The first thing I want to do is explore some ways to protect Kaalia, so that we can attack early and often, gaining as much value from her as we possibly can. In playtesting the deck, I took note of the fact that usually, if I cast her by or before turn 4, I was all but guaranteed one safe attack to drop something big in, but after that, even something as innocuous as a Mulldrifter made it difficult to attack further. People will drop their flyers ASAP once Kaalia is active.

The simplest and most direct route is spot removal. Early game, most opponents are likely to only have 1 Flyer out to block, so a Terminate or a Path to Exile will do just fine. Luckily both of those cards were included in the deck up front, along with Wrecking Ball and even Mortify. Later in the game, though, pinpoint removal is not going to cut it. Many opponents will be capable of having multiple flyers on the board, and plenty of mana open for their own spot removal.

So we need to take into account those situations in which a single Mortify isn’t going to clear the skies for Kaalia. The phrases “prevent all damage” or “prevent all combat damage” are probably a good place to start. Also, making her unblockable seems like a solid plan. Shroud helps us dodge removal, but not blockers.

Most of us know well by now that Auras have built-in card disadvantage. Equipment, on the other hand is much hard to get rid of – you can’t just kill the creature to get rid of the Equipment. Lightning Greaves is a great start, but we need more. One piece of Equipment I’m excited to try out is General’s Kabuto (oh, and hey, we’re actually Equipping our general with it! Flavor!). Four to cast, but only two to equip, the Kabuto is a fine piece of gear to help us keep Kaalia alive and attacking – it give her Shroud to protect her from spot removal, and it prevents all combat damage to her, making blockers irrelevant. Whispersilk Cloak does much the same thing, offering Shroud and making her completely unblockable.

Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, flipped into Rune-Tail’s Essence, can protect her from all sources of damage, and makes your whole army harder to kill. Angelic Benediction is another great addition. Whenever Kaalia attacks alone, she gets +1/+1 and you get to tap one potential blocker. Finally, Dolmen Gate, while narrow, is a very cheap investment to help protect Kaalia and the rest of your host, Heavenly or otherwise.

Now, remember how we also need a bunch of Angels, Dragons and Demons too? Well, there are a few options within those tribes (okay, mostly Angels) that can perform double-duty of being a fatty to drop with Kaalia and offering protection to her in the process. Folks, I give you: Deathless Angel. This underplayed rare from Rise of the Eldrazi is perfect for a Kaalia deck; likely the first legitimately good use for this card ever! It’s perfectly simple- attack with Kaalia with at least WW open and cheat this Angel into play, making Kaalia indestructible if she gets blocked or targeted by a removal spell.

Razia, Boros Archangel can help out, too, but remember that Kaalia puts her into play tapped, so you won’t be able to use her redirection ability immediately. Angel of Salvation prevents damage, so she can help protect Kaalia. Red’s answer to Angel of Salvation is Bogardan Hellkite, which is on-theme as a Dragon, is one of the best Dragons ever printed already, and can protect Kaalia by outright killing a potential blocker, if that blocker has 5 or less toughness.

Twilight Shepherd can be of use, but only if you actually cast her AFTER Kaalia dies, so that’s probably not the best option at this point.

Among the Demons, only one comes to mind: Malfegor. The plus is that he’s likely to completely empty the board of opposing creatures, but the drawback of discarding your whole hand is very steep.

Finally, there’s the simple fact that, if your opponent only has ONE flying creature to block with, there’s a fair chance that whatever huge threat you cheat out with Kaalia is going to be the priority to be blocked.

Now that we’ve looked at a few ways to keep Kaalia alive, let’s just explore some creatures that will be fun to drop into play.

The big one that everyone is buzzing about, Rakdos the Defiler, is a good place to start. You drop him into play already tapped and attacking so his “when you attack” trigger doesn’t happen, which is good. But his combat-damage trigger does still happen if he hits, which is very good. For you, at least. The only problem is that you don’t really want to attack with him again after that. Fortunately the deck does have Oni of Wild Places to help you return Rakdos to your hand each turn, so that you can just keep sneaking him out turn after turn, never having to suffer the indignity of sacrificing half your non-Demon permanents.

One thing this deck lacks is card-drawing, so I’m turning to Seizan, Perverter of Truth to help us with that issue. He’s a Demon, so he can be Kaalia-ed into play, but at 5 mana, you can hard-cast him easily too. The Dragon tribe lends a hand with Dragon Mage, offering a Wheel of Fortune effect every time he connects.

Heavenly Inferno includes a multitude of sub-par Angels that can easily be upgraded. Serra Angel should likely be Baneslayer Angel instead, and while I appreciate what they were going for with Shattered Angel, I’d prefer either Exalted Angel or Battlegrace Angel for life-gain effects. I’ve seen Shattered Angel gain a metric ton of life, but I’ve never seen it attack even once!

Fallen Angel seems out of place here, with no token production or hordes of cheap, dispensable creatures to sac to her, but she’s better used as method of theft-prevention. Sacrificing the intended target of a Treachery or Rite of Replication is good. Sac-ing everything in response to a Living Death or Insurrection (both included in the other pre-cons) can literally mean the difference between winning a game and losing it.

This deck is very light on reanimation effects straight out of the box, which makes it’s weakness to Wrath effects even more pronounced. Further, the lack of good card draw options means the deck can run out of gas easily. Bladewing the Risen is a cute trick, and fine to leave in, but we need more than that, especially since Bladewing can only reanimate dragons and he might be the only dragon you see in a given game.

It so happens there are two Angels that like to reanimate things: Karmic Guide and Reya Dawnbringer. Both are great options, and easily recommendable for this deck. I’m less of a fan of Reya than I once was, but it’s hard to deny that a free Reya is a bad thing!

The classic staple Beacon of Unrest is always a good choice, but I like Torrent of Souls here, too. This is an aggressive deck, and the combination of a Zombify, +2/+0 and Haste is a bargain at 5 mana.

I’m going to get ahead of myself a bit, but I’m also going to strongly recommend Phyrexian Reclamation. This card is nuts with Sneak Attack, which is something we’ll be exploring a bit more later.

Other demons worth including:

Abyssal Persecutor – A 6/6 Flying, Trample Demon for 4 mana? Sounds good. Nevermind that drawback – it’s likely to die before it matters.

Carnifex Demon – Good against tokens and swarms of weenies

Demon of Death’s Gate – You’re not likely to take advantage of it’s built-in alternate casting cost, but hey, that’s what Kaalia is for!

Havoc Demon – Wipes the board when it dies (usually).

Kuro, Pitlord – The -1/-1 ability is what we’re looking at here.

Pestilence Demon – Yeah, I poo-pooed Pyrohemia earlier, but this is a 7/6 demonic version, which is better!

Spirit of the Night – Almost an Akroma in Black, Demon form.

Stronghold Overseer – Shadow is basically Unblockable in this format, expecially when combined with Flying

Xathrid Demon – Can help you win through a stalled board. If you have some fatties out, but still can’t seem to safely attack, this guy lets you just bleed everyone to death.

There are plenty of demons I’d avoid. Some are obvious, but others might not be.

Ob-Nixilis, the Fallen – This guy is fine in any deck with Green, but without access to some good ramp, he tends to underperform.

Lord of the Pit (and Liege of the Pit) – 7/7 Flying and Trample are great stats, but the drawback here will likely shoot you in the foot. Xathrid is basically the same, but at least he gives you value out of the sacrificed creatures.

Kagemaro, First to Suffer – I am a huge fan of Kagemaro, but he’s wrong for this deck. He belongs in a Control deck with lots of draw. This is not that deck.

Hellcarver Demon – Cute, but he’ll lose you the game nearly every time.

Halo Hunter – Not a “may” ability! You’ll be offing your own angels most of the time.

Grinning Demon – No evasion and a drawback? No thanks!

Next, let’s look at some Dragons we might want to include:

Dragon Tyrant – Double strike! YAY!

Eternal Dragon – Comes back to your hand. Fetches land. Seems okay.

Hunted Dragon – One thing about this deck is that it’s not very political. If it’s working the way it’s meant to, everyone will be gunning for you. Giving someone a few tokens is probably not going to backfire on you too badly, and it might win you an ally for a turn or two.

Hoarding Dragon – Sneak Attack him into play for great justice.

Mordant Dragon – Hit an opponent and one of his creatures? I like it!

Scourge of Kher Ridges – Blow up stuff for fun and profit.

Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon – If this seems overly mean, you obviously haven’t seen what Rakdos can do in this deck!

Steel Hellkite – You shouldn’t have trouble dealing with enchantments or artifacts in these colors, but hey, it’s a dragon!

Yosei, the Morning Star – Darn good already, but if you are in a situation where you have to attack with Rakdos, this is one non-Demon permanent you won’t mind sending to the bin.

Dragons to avoid:

Ebon Dragon – If you’re playing this just for the awesome art, that’s fine. But he’s pretty weak other than that.

Flameblast Dragon – I normally like this guy, but his triggered ability doesn’t play well with Kaalia.

Furnace Dragon – Again, his triggered ability doesn’t work with Kaalia.

Hellkite Charger – For the third time, doesn’t trigger off Kaalia putting him into play, and the whole infinite attacks thing is played out.

Knollspine Dragon – This one actually could work out great, if you know what you’re doing. Usually, though, he won’t.

The big question is Worldgorger Dragon. Newly realesed from imprisonment on the Banned list, WGD is almost always used as a degenerate combo piece. But can he play a role in a Kaalia deck? I don’t really see him being strong, but who knows? He may have found a fair-use application outside of Zirilan of the Claw decks.

Now the fun part: Angels.

Akroma, Angel of Wrath – the one Angel that absolutely should be in every Kaalia deck.

Blinding Angel – I’m not sold on this one, but it could be very playable in some metagames.

Chancellor of the Annex – More of a minor annoyance than anything, maybe not worth it.

Emeria Angel – Cheap enough to hard-cast, and likely to hit while you still have land drops. Great early defense, makes Fallen Angel worthwhile.

Firemane Angel – I’m probably not going to fit this in my build, but it’s not unplayable at all.

Iona, Sheild of Emeria – This one is pretty mean. I’m not a fan, but that doesn’t mean she’s not good here.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence – Very annoying to your opponents. Be prepared not to make friends.

Platinum Angel – Funny, but probably not reliable.

Radiant, Archangel – A nice, on-theme Legend, more for flavor/cool points than power.

Skip these Angels:

Admonition Angel – She’s fine, but she always dies. Always. And then everyone gets their stuff back. Woot.

Desolation Angel – This one is actually very good as just a card in your deck, but don’t cheat her in with Kaalia, unless you’re winning that turn.

Sunblast Angel – Killing your own attacking General (and other attackers) seems bad.

Victory’s Herald – Overcosted/underpowered already, but doesn’t work with Kaalia either.

Wayward Angel – Turns into Lord of the Pit with Threshold, which is already bad, but the terrible artwork doesn’t help it’s case either.

Okay, with all that outta the way, let’s talk about Sneak Attack. Sneak Attack is very fitting for a deck like this, as we’re already playing around a strategy of cheating out big, expensive creatures. Combining Sneak Attack with Phyrexian Reclamation is just plain awesome. Note that this does lead to perpetual Yosei lock, should you choose to run him as well. Some groups will frown on this – mine does, but it happens anyway, because I’m not about to stop running Yosei when and where I can. Just be aware of the potential.

Anway, Sneak Attack is great, as you can combine it with Kaalia to power out a massive horde of gigantic threats quickly. Phyrexian reclamation brings them right back to your hand for only two mana and two life, so you can just Sneak them out again and again. Add Brion Stoutarm to the mix, and you can toss the things that were going to die at EOT anyway for even more damage!

Playing with Sneak Attack showed me the value of Haste in this particular deck. Haste is already well-positioned as one of the best keyword abilities in the format, but this deck really likes it a lot. Anger is already included as a proven Haste enabler, but I’d like to supplement that strategy a bit. In The Web of War and Urabrask the Hidden are probably the two single best inclusions for adding Haste. Lightning Greaves is five-star, of course, but is included in the deck already. When M12 hits, Swiftfoot Boots (aka, Greaves 2.0) will also be a must for Kaalia. Dragon Breath is hilariously tech-y, too, being appropriate flavor-wise and fairly reliable if you wind up with enough six-power creatures. Hall of the Bandit Lord kind hurts to use more than once or twice, but if you’re using it to cast Kaalia on turn 4 with Haste, you’re probably coming out ahead anyway.

It sucks that we don’t have access to Fires of Yavimaya or Sarkhan Vol. We do have Sarkhan the Mad, but he’s much less appealing here.

Mind’s Eye is a good card-draw enabler, and it’s possible you might want to include Geth’s Grimoire + Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace. With those two cards on the table, you shouldn’t have trouble keeping your hand full, but neither really does much for the deck by itself, so they might be dead cards a lot of the time.

Promise of Power is neither great nor terrible, but it does count as draw, and it can make a demon, so points for being thematically relevant.

Wheel of Fortune is a must, and both Phyrexian Arena and Graveborn Muse are acceptable sources of card draw in our colors. Beyond those few cards, you really have to start getting creative to find draw effects.

Ramp is also tough in these colors. Certainly White has some good picks. Land Tax isn’t ramp but it’ll guarantee land drops. Same goes for Weathered Wayfarer, which you can also use to find key utility lands, like Volrath’s Stronghold or Emeria. Knight of the White Orchid is like a white Wood Elves for WW, but doesn’t do much else. Kor Cartographer does a poor impression of a Solemn Simulacrum. Simulacrum is pretty much an auto-included providing us with ramp and a tiny bit of draw, too. Expedition Map and Wayfarer’s Bauble are both solid contenders as well.

One thing I’d like to do is beef up the removal package. We already have:

Terminate

Wrecking Ball

Path to Exile

Mortify

Syphon Flesh

Soul Snare

And some damage-based removal like Earthquake and Evincar’s Justice.

Soul Snare is a fine new card, but it’s a defensive card and can’t remove pesky blockers. I’d rather replace it with Swords to Plowshares. Syphon Flesh is also a really cool card, but fits less aggressive decks better. I’d swap it out for Vindicate. Terminate is fine, and Wrecking Ball is also good for removing problematic utility lands like Kor Haven or something.

The damage-based removal is also lackluster, save Earthquake. So many of your creatures have Flying that Earthquake seems really good. I’d rather have something like Decree of Pain which is just a hard Wrath effect with built-in card-draw (something we definitely need more of!). Austere Command is also a good way to clear the board of weenies while leaving your high-end dudes intact, and doubles as Enchantment/Artifact removal in a pinch.

True Conviction could be really fun in this deck, with all the large attackers at your disposal. Giving them all Doublestrike and Lifelink seems really neat. As much as I like Avatar of Slaughter, his creature type doesn’t fit the deck well, and he is symmetrical. I’d suggest swapping him for the Enchantment.

By now, you might have notice we have some great Enchantments: True Conviction, In the Web of War, Sneak Attack and Phyrexian Reclamation for starters. This means Academy Rector is a shoe-in for the deck. Idyllic Tutor might be worth a slot, except that we’re in Black so Vampiric, Demonic and Diabolic are all better options. I’d only consider Idyllic if you have neither Demonic or Vampiric.

As for Planeswalkers, there really aren’t any that stand out as exceptional additions to the deck. If I had to choose, I’d give the nod to Sorin Markov, as an all-out aggro deck certainly can use the help getting there.  Setting an opponent’s life total to 10 can quickly bring them from out-of-reach to very killable in a flash. Liliana is okay, as the deck is happy getting another tutor, but really she just doesn’t do much more than that. Gideon might very well be worth adding, though, as a way to clear out blockers for your next assault.

Given the high potential for a deck like this to almost get there only to run out of gas at the finish line, Exsanguinate might be a good finisher along side Comet Storm. I’m not a fan of using X-spells to end a game, but sometimes it’s the best option you have. Death Grasp is good too, but is more of a 1v1 card, while Exsanguinate is tailor-made for multiplayer games. Profane Command is often better-used as a utility spell: my favorite mode is killing a creature with the -X/-X  mode, while reanimating one of my own guys, but it can also just life-drain an opponent on the verge.

Cauldron Dance is a really impressive trick that I’ve yet to make good use of. With the high number of huge guys in a deck like this, it’s probably time to dust off the Dance. You can get two extra guys out of nowhere PLUS whatever Kaalia puts into play. You can go from an empty board of just Kaalia by her lonesome to having three big monsters attacking alongside her, for just 6 mana.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker seems like a ridiculously efficient way to abuse comes-into-play abilities like Bogardan Hellkite, or just double your offensive power if one of your huge attackers actually survives until your next turn.

Amulet of Vigor might even be worth a slot – Kaalia likes to put things into play tapped, but stuff like Razia prefer to remain untapped… plus you won’t leave yourself open to counterattacks.

Another option is Conspiracy, which, set to Angel, Demon or Dragon, will let you cheat any creature into play. Personally, I don’t think this is worth it, from a consistency/reliability stand point. For one thing, if you have enough cards that are naturally the right creature type, you might not get much out of Conspiracy, but if you try to get greedy and run a bunch of off-type creatures hoping to use Conspiracy + Kaalia to drop things like Blightsteel Colossus or Avatar of Slaughter, not drawing Conspiracy or any Disenchant effect could make your General useless.

Changelings can allow you to cheat, but there aren’t many you’d really want. Maybe Changeling Hero and Changeling Berserker, but even those are pretty mediocre. The one advantage is they can Champion Kaalia away if you have reason to expect a Wrath effect is coming up.

One trick you could take is to focus on one particular tribe, favoring Angels over Demons or Dragons, or whichever you prefer. If you load up on dragons, then cards like Crucible of Fire and even Sarkhan the Mad become more and more appealing. There aren’t as many cards that really favor Angels or Demons so much, but any of the three tribes should be possible to emphasize over the others.  Blood Speaker is solid gold in any build with 5 or more Demons.

Some cards that are not really on-theme, but aid in an aggressive attack strategy are Crescendo of War, Glory of Warfare, or Fervent Charge. Also, any good Equipment like the Swords from Mirrodin/Scars blocks, Loxodon Warhammer, Sword of Vengeance, etc. Also, additional attack step cards like World at War or Seize the Day are good offensive cards and have the added bonus of letting you attack with Kaalia twice, should you be lucky enough to have two relevant creatures in hand to drop. I like Waves of Aggression the best, as it can be cast once early on to get a fast start, then it sits in your graveyard waiting to be Retraced, probably long after your opponents have forgotten it’s there.

Revisting Conspiracy for a moment, one hilariously bad use of that card could be to pair it with Godo, Bandit Warlord. Set Conspiracy to “Samurai” and just watch what happens! I just wish Finest Hour was in our colors.

Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant are both excellent Equipment tutors, depending on how many pieces of Equipment you decide to run, but I’d have at least one of the three – Godo, Stoneforge or the Giant – just to reliably find Kabuto or Greaves, to protect Kaalia. Throw in a couple of Swords of Stuff and Junk, and I might try to include all three.

One thing I think a lot of people will try to shoe-horn into this deck, because of its colors, is a Sunforger package. I don’t see this being worth it, as you’d need to include the Sunforger, some equipment tutors and as many targets for the Sunforger as possible. I’m a fan of this strategy in my Oros deck, but I think it would dilute the other themes and take up too many important card slots. I’m saving the Sunforger idea for when I retool Oros into a Jor Kadeen deck, where it will add to the themes of that deck, rather than dilute them.

Moving on to the mana base, there is much room for improvement, of course. The requisite duals are a gimme, of course, but if you have Land Tax in the deck, watch out that you don’t skimp on Basic Lands for it to find!  Utility Lands also come with some obvious choices. Everything from High Market to Volrath’s Stronghold are great. Maze of Ith is already a staple of the format, but really fits into a Kaalia deck nicely as a cheap way to keep her from dying to combat damage. Kaalia is a rare breed of general: your plan hinges on attack with her, but not necessarily dealing damage with her.

My favorite piece of Secret Tech is Winding Canyons. Okay, so that one is somewhat popular already, but this is the first deck I’ve ever played where I feel it’s worth running. Yeah, you have to pay full price for the creature, plus two more mana, but it’ll be great in the late-game when attacking with Kaalia (or even re-casting her) becomes too difficult to maintain.

Sunhome is a fun one, a bit expensive, but when you’re dropping 8-mana guys for free, surely tapping 5 to grant them Double strike must seem like a bargain!

Well, this has been pretty extensive already. I’m sure I’m overlooking some other great ideas, but this should get you off to a good start, nonetheless.

Enjoy!

Lunch Counter: Ghave Deck Tech

   Today, I want to take a look at the Counter Punch decklist, headed up by the wonderful Ghave, Guru of Spores. The Counter Punch deck didn’t really look to pack much “punch” when the decklist was first revealed. It was light on amazing reprints, aside from Skullclamp, and it seemed like other decks got the cream of the crop among the brand new spells.

   Upon actually playing the deck, I realized that looks were deceiving. It’s actually a rather strong deck, due in part to an excellent General. Ghave is far better and more interesting than I assumed he would be. While he would be an ideal General for a Thallid deck, he’s more open ended than that. He’s “build around me” but there are many ways he can be built around. Before we get started, let’s go over the official list one more time…

1  Aquastrand Spider

1  Celestial Force

1  Chorus of the Conclave

1  Dark Hatchling

1  Deadly Recluse

1  Fertilid

1  Golgari Guildmage

1  Hornet Queen

1  Karador, Ghost Chieftain

1  Monk Realist

1  Nantuko Husk

1  Penumbra Spider

1  Sakura-Tribe Elder

1  Scavenging Ooze

1  Selesnya Evangel

1  Selesnya Guildmage

1  Shriekmaw

1  Sigil Captain

1  Spawnwrithe

1  Spike Feeder

1  Squallmonger

1  Symbiotic Wurm

1  Teneb, the Harvester

1  Vampire Nighthawk

1  Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter

1  Yavimaya Elder

1  Acorn Catapult

1  Afterlife

1  Alliance of Arms

1  Attrition

1  Aura Shards

1  Awakening Zone

1  Bestial Menace

1  Cobra Trap

1  Cultivate

1  Darksteel Ingot

1  Death Mutation

1  Doom Blade

1  Fists of Ironwood

1  Footbottom Feast

1  Golgari Signet

1  Harmonize

1  Hex

1  Hour of Reckoning

1  Lightning Greaves

1  Mortify

1  Necrogenesis

1  Nemesis Trap

1  Oblivion Ring

1  Orzhov Signet

1  Selesnya Signet

1  Skullclamp

1  Sol Ring

1  Soul Snare

1  Storm Herd

1  Syphon Flesh

1  Tribute to the Wild

1  Vow of Duty

1  Vow of Malice

1  Vow of Wildness

1  Barren Moor

1  Command Tower

1  Evolving Wilds

10  Forest

1  Golgari Rot Farm

1  Orzhov Basilica

8  Plains

1  Rupture Spire

1  Secluded Steppe

1  Selesnya Sanctuary

8  Swamp

1  Temple of the False God

1  Tranquil Thicket

1  Vivid Grove

1  Vivid Marsh

1  Vivid Meadow

WotC gave us a good starting point, but despite the fact that this deck does play better than I assumed it would, it definitely does need some help. There are some really obvious inclusions missing and we can start with those.

Doubling Season is probably the most obvious choice here. The interaction between that card and Ghave are just the nuts. With Doubling Season in play, Ghave comes in as a 10/10, and for 1 mana, you can make two saprolings. For two more, you can sac those tokens to put FOUR counters on Ghave (or any other creature). So Ghave basically grows by +4/+4 for every three mana spent.

Ghave himself acts as a sacrifice outlet, and other cards like Attrition and Vish Kal play the role of sac-outlet-with-benefits as well. From here, we want to maximize those benefits, making the cost of sacrificing creatures really pay off. Grave Pact is an obvious place to start, as is the new Martyr’s Bond. Both work to control the board as you toss unneeded tokens into the bin. Finally, I suggest adding Fecundity. Yes, it helps your opponents too, but trust me – you’ll draw FAR more cards with it than they will. And while Skullclamp is very good, it also will draw immediate removal; Fecundity is much less likely to earn the ire of your opponents.

Finally, Mirari’s Wake is a no-brainer. This is a mana-hungry deck and it makes lots of little 1/1 guys. Wake is excellent at increasing mana production AND making your 1/1 critters into a more significant threat. Yeah, it’s slightly anti-synergystic with Skullclamp, but it hardly matters when your General is a sac outlet. Also if anyone is foolish enough to let you have Skullclamp and Wake out at the same time without killing either of them, you’re winning anyway.

+ Grave Pact

+ Doubling Season

+ Fecundity

+ Martyr’s Bond

+ Mirari’s Wake

Hmm… when I see this many Enchantments and I’m in White, the one card I always turn to is Academy Rector. Rector is going to be a clutch here, as she fetches up Doubling Season or any of the other Enchantments I just listed. I don’t see you going for Fecundity over the others, but still…

Oddly, this is one deck where Greater Good and Momentus Fall don’t really appeal to me. They’re usually must-runs in any green deck, but we’re not really playing the usual Teneb game here. There are few fatties you’d really want to sac to those, and 1/1 tokens really play poorly with Greater Good. But, we have Harmonize, Skullclamp and Fecundity for draw. One additional draw spell that might be fun/good is Collective Unconscious.

A quick word about Death Mutation: Yes, it’s on-theme, and yes when I cast it this weekend it was pretty powerful. Still, eight friggin' mana for sorcery speed removal that still has the non-Black restriction is just bad. I’d rather have Vindicate or even Putrefy than this POS.

+ Academy Rector

+ Collective Unconscious

+ Putrefy

+ Vindicate

At this point, I’m tempted to suggest Asceticism and/or Privileged Position… either is a fine card and would be great in the deck, but I don’t want to overload our deck with expensive Enchantments that don’t actually produce any threat or card advantage. If you’re missing one of the first five I listed, you could easily find a slot for one of these alternate suggestions. Debtors' Knell is also pretty good if you’re running Academy Rector, but you’re still going to want to find Doubling Season most of the time, and Teneb/Karador both do a pretty good reanimation job.

Thinking along the lines of a +1/+1 counter theme, you might not be surprised to see a minor Persist package. Kitchen Finks, Puppeteer Clique and Woodfall Primus all get a LOT more attractive when you have a General that can both sac them AND remove their -1/-1 counter! With Finks and Ghave out, you can basically pay 2 mana to gain two life and have the Finks still be a 3/2. Now imagine Woodfall Primus instead… yeah.

Secret Tech: Here’s one Persist card that you might not have thought of right away: Caldron of Souls. Typically, I find this card to be severely underpowered, but here, it seems like a natural fit. It is basically impossible for your opponents to kill Ghave when you have this on the board and 1 mana open. If they Wrath or otherwise destroy him, you simply tap the Cauldron and he comes back with four +1/+1 counters instead of 5. If they go for a Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, you just tap the Cauldron, pay 1 to sac Ghave to himself, and even though he comes back their targeted removal doesn’t recognize him as the same target and fizzles!

Since we’re playing with a Persist theme, we might want to make room for a Juniper Order Ranger, the long-time BFF to persist guys everywhere. In fact I think JOR is almost strictly better than Sigil Captain, as he works with ALL your guys, not just the tokens and 1/1s.

+ Kitchen Finks

+ Puppeteer Clique

+ Woodfall Primus

+ Cauldron of Souls

+ Juniper Order Ranger

Well, that’s quite a few additions. Let’s see what we can cut to make room. I don’t want to cut the brand-new stuff if I can help it. They were printed specifically with EDH in mind, so I want to give them all plenty of time to prove themselves and see how they play. I like the Vow cycle quite a bit already, and this deck doesn’t have any of the new counterspells. The one thing I just can’t live with is Celestial Force, which I have moved out of this deck and into the Zedruu deck for now – that way I can still play with the card, but in a deck that can make some use out of it.

- Oblivion Ring

- Footbottom Feast

- Alliance of Arms

- Cobra Trap

- Death Mutation

- Tribute to the Wild

- Deadly Recluse

- Monk Realist

- Squall Monger

- Selesnaya Evangel

- Sigil Captain

- Spike Feeder

- Penumbra Spider

- Spawnwrithe

Alliance of Arms will also be moved to a different deck. It’s not that it’s not GOOD here, but really we just don’t need to be the one casting it – if someone else casts it, we still get tokens! Tribute to the Wild also wasn’t doing it for me. Every time I had it in hand I really desperately needed to kill a Mirari or a Phyrexian Metamorph, but instead my opponents wound up sacrificing a Signet or something meaningless. I realize I’ve also cut the deck’s flying defenses down from mediocre to non-existant. But honestly, do we really want cards like Deadly Recluse? I do like Vampire Nighthawk enough to try and leave him around. There is a pretty good chance he can grow much larger than 2/3.

So, we will try to find a way to fit in a bit more anti-Flying defenses. Usually, the best way to do this is to run stuff with Flying, like Akroma or something. I need Akroma for Kaalia, though. One card I love is Silklash Spider. Not many creatures can block Akroma and walk away, but Silky gets it done. And when he’s sick of blocking, you can just tap out and kill everything.

Plummet is really good too. I’ll probably swap out Doom Blade (a card that was VERY poor all weekend long, for me) for a Plummet.

Secret Tech: Twilight Drover. I don’t really have much to say – once you read the card you’ll see why he’s a good fit. Where else are you going to use him?

-Doomblade

- Hex

- Afterlife

+Plummet

+ Silklash Spider

+ Twilight Drover

One thing this deck needs is a way to get back spent guys. We don’t want to push a heavy reanimation theme, as that would step on Karador’s and Teneb’s toes, and at that point we should be running one of them as our General. But I have one spell in mind: Vigor Mortis. I’ve always enjoyed that card, as an almost-strictly-better Zombify. It has the bonus that the +1/+1 counter actually matters. Miraculous Recovery is an Instant-speed reanimation spell that puts a +1/+1 counter on the creature, so that’s up for consideration as well. I’ll just stick to Vigor Mortis, for now.

Oh, speaking of Vigor and +1/+1 counters… Vigor. Yeah!

And finally, what would any Token-Rock deck be without Phyrexian Plaguelord?

-Nantuko Husk

- Fists of Ironwood

- Bestial Menace

+ Vigor Mortis

+ Phyrexian Plaguelord

+ Vigor

All that’s left now is to wrap up the Lands. The one thing I was worried about with these decks was the mana base. I am pleased and surprised to report that they play pretty smoothly as-is, but obviously a smattering of dual lands couldn’t hurt. You don’t need me to tell you that, though. I’ll just skip to the “utility” lands you might consider. Gaea’s Cradle is an obvious starting point, but pricey. It’s not necessary, but it’ll help a lot if you have one. Phyrexian Tower is a fine choice, and so is Volrath’s Stronghold. Kor Haven is great at defense, as is Mystifying Maze.

Llanowar Reborn is a great way to put an extra +1/+1 counter somewhere, but the really exciting land, at least for me, is Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. +1/+1 Counters for everyone?! Sign me up! Combined with Doubling Season, Oran Rief is downright amazing. Oh, and it’s another way to abuse your Persist guys.

So that’s the direction I’m heading in right now. I have some ideas that I haven’t worked in yet, either because I don’t have the cards or don’t have the room (until I test further to see what doesn’t work out).

Further ideas for exploration:

Planeswalkers: The deck would benefit from having a planeswalker or two. Garruk is an excellent go-to, but the main one I am interested in is Elspeth Tirel. I don’t own a copy of the new Elspeth, but I might have to get one, just for this deck. Even the original (and mostly superior) Elspeth is fine here, especially if you get Doubling Season out first.

Avenger of Zendikar is a big fat DUH here, and so is his BFF Primeval Titan. I’d throw both in anywhere I could fit them, but they actually MAKE SENSE here, as the deck has a legitimate need for obsene amounts of mana and the Avenger is totally on-theme here and has great synergy with the deck. Both cards are so good they are playable without any inherent synergy with your deck, but when they actually do fit the deck this well you don’t feel like a dick for playing them.

If you do manage to add Prime Time, you could probably get away with running Emeria, and definitely the good ol’ Urborg/Coffers dream-team. Just make sure you actually have enough plains to truly support Emeria. It’s often risky/do-nothing in a 3-color deck, but if you keep the Plains count high enough (and remember – Godless Shrine, Temple Garden and the ABUR Duals count!) you should be able to make it work.

On the janky side of things, Mitotic Slime, Ant Queen and Beacon of Creation could all be role-players here. Martial Coup is a fantastic on-theme Wrath effect, and Deranged Hermit plays nicely with Acorn Catapult.

Glare of Subdual could be a potent addition as well.

Yosei the Morning Star is an all-star in any deck with a sac-outlet for a General, but is best when you have reliable ways to recur him. That said, some folks don’t really like Yosei-locks, and I totally get that! Just keep it in mind if you do include him, that people might frown upon such a thing.

There’s not much in the way of Equipment – Greaves is all you get. And really, I didn’t feel like this deck NEEDED Equipment that badly. However, few decks get worse for having a few pieces of Equipment. The Swords of Stuff and Junk are always fantastic, but I’d like to be a bit more… creative with my choices. Sword of Feast and Famine gets the nod, if you do want at least one Sword.

But one thing I have my eye on is Blade of the Bloodchief. Nevermind that there are only two vampires in the deck, just put this guy on your general then start churning tokens like a madman. Though, you wouldn’t be a scrub, in my mind, if you wanted to add a couple more vamps to the mix – Butcher of Malakir is great, and even Drana could work out quite nicely. But trust me, when you play this deck a LOT of creatures die, so the Blade can easily turn even a Vampire Nighthawk into the biggest threat on the board. If you manage to Equip it to Vish Kal… oh wow!

Another cool piece of steel is Deathrender. Stick it on any token, then sac it to drop a Vigor, or a Hornet Queen, or whatever. I got a free Selesnya Guildmage one turn, and while that seems horrible, it proved VERY relevant in the particular situation I was in!

Finally, I want to go full-scrub for a moment and suggest Konda’s Banner. Two to cast, two to Equip and it basically gives every creature in your deck at least +1/+1. Okay, so maybe that is too janky even for me.

The Lieges from Shadowmoor/Eventide are interesting – there isn’t much to really do with Wilt-Leaf Liege, sadly, and I’d expect Deathbringer to under-perform, though he’s possibly worth trying. But oddly the Creakwood Liege seems the most appropriate here. He makes tokens and pumps almost any other token you could make (only the Twilight Drover’s wouldn’t get the bonus). He also keeps your general alive as a 2/2 if you use up all his +1/+1 counters somehow. Plus, like almost everything else these days, Creakwood is great with Doubling Season.

Speaking of Shadowmoor, Shield of the Oversoul is worth a glance, but if you’re really just after the Indestructible ability, maybe Darksteel Plate is a better choice (though more expensive, of course). Or, you could go with Eldrazi Monument. You shouldn’t have too much trouble cranking out tokens to feed it every upkeep, and it makes your whole army Indestructible.

Akroma’s Memorial and of course the ever-ubiquitous Coat of Arms can certainly help you win games on the spot. Other insta-win type cards include Triumph of the Hordes, Overrun or Overwhelming Stampede.

If you want to play up the Saproling theme a bit more, without going Thallid (don’t; Thallids are terrible), you could slot in Verdeloth the Ancient and Nemata, Grove Guardian. I personally wouldn’t go this route unless I was also doing the Primeval Titan thing to get Cradle/Coffers/Urborg level mana. If you do THAT, Genesis Wave starts to look highly appealing, if you weren’t already running it.

This is a rare Green deck that does not seem to want Tooth and Nail, but it’s not a bad idea to just T&N Butcher of Malakir and Vish Kal out onto a board full of tokens. That said, I’d probably just go for a Eladamri's Call or Primal Command for creature-tutoring. Defense of the Heart is another perfectly acceptable alternative.

Geth, Lord of the Vault and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte also seem like they’d be great in this deck, though Geth does push the reanimation a little hard. Elesh Norn is more tempting and keeps us out of Teneb’s domain.

Birthing Pod could be playable, but this is not the absolute best place for it – you are usually going to want to sac a Token, but that doesn’t help since there are no compelling 1-mana guys to play, unless you somehow wind up with Soul Warden in the deck. Still, I put the Pod in my build anyway, and it was pretty key to getting Butcher of Malakir onto the board once. Dunno if it’s truly the right deck for it, but if you at least keep Karador in the deck and maybe one or two other reanimators like Vigor Mortis, it could easily be worth it.

The deck’s low-ish mana curve makes Sun Titan pretty appealing, and all the 0/0 cards like Fertilid and Aquastrand Spider could enable Reveillark foolishness. Reveillark + Hornet Queen also seems really funny.

Well, that’s about it for me, but I think I’ve clearly demonstrated that there is a LOT of room to optimize and individualize a Ghave deck without making it look like “a Teneb deck with the wrong General”. While the two decks will share some staple utility cards, the meat of the decks could and should look very different. WBG Reanimator is fun but overplayed, but if you want to keep your Mortify/Putrefy/Vindicate package but do something different, Ghave should be right up your alley.

Commander!!!!

Ok, so by now most of you have probably gotten at least a couple of games in with or against the newly released Commander preconstructed decks.

My original plan was to sleeve up all 5 decks straight outta the box, play 'em a while and review them here. Then start making suggestions for changes. That plan has been abandoned for a couple of reasons. First, I am at heart a deckbuilder first, and a player second. Tweaking, optimizing, improving, changing... these are the things I am good at (or at least I enjoy them and entertain the notion that I'm good at them!). Second, we didn't really get to play a high number of games over the weekend, meaning it'll take me quite some time to fully test all 5 decks. Third, numerous other sites are doing the same thing I was going to do.

Check out Zimagic's blog, The Crazy 99, for a rundown on each of the decks and some brilliant insights into each one. While I feel his overall approach and style of review was qutie different from my intended approach, I feel like he fairly beat me to the punch and my reviews would be way too late to be timely or important. Also, the guys at Commandercast are supposedly doing reviews on their next 'Cast.

So, the thing is, I didn't want to do "theorycraft" reviews - I wanted mine to be based on real-world play testing for an accurate assesment. I didn't get to play them enough to do this, and I don't want to wait.

Also, given my inate nature as a deck builder/tinkerer, I couldn't resist the urge to start modifying the stupid decks. Everything everyone pointed out to me as being a weak card, anti-synergystic, or just plain odd made my desire to tune them up that much stronger. Finally when someone complained about the Devour For Power deck being counter-intutive to play - she had a Mortivore on the battlefield, but a hand full of Gravedigger effects that, if she used them, would decrease the size of her Mortivore - I just HAD to tear into these things and start trading cards around.

So now my new plan, since I've already jumped the gun and started tweaking the decks, is to do an article on each deck, showing changes I've already made, and suggesting further changes to possibly make. One thing I will try very hard to stick to is not cutting the newly printed cards appearing in this set. The one exception is Spell Crumple, because that card is buillshit. I had it played against me this weekend, and even though it wasn't my General that got Crumpled it just wasn't fun at all.

Anyway, I fell in love with the Ghave deck this weekend, much to my surprise. It's fun to play and though I failed to win any of the three games I played with it, I had a blast playing it, so I will start with that one.

Oh, can you believe I actually forgot to put Mirari's Wake in it, though? WTF?

Look for an article on Ghave either tomorrow or Wednesday. I'll try to have all 5 up by the end of the weekend.