Kasmina's Ultimate Ultimatum's

User avatar
darrenhabib
Posts: 1812
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

This thread is more about discussing applications, theory crafting and having fun with Kasmina, Enigma Sage rather than anything too serious.
In fact I've specifically made a budget brew because it actually fell into place that way naturally.
I started to nerf the list to make sure it was more in the casual spectrum and then I just noticed the cards on the whole were under $5.
However I do cover a lot of cards that could fit a theme around Kasmina if you were looking to put a more competitive or expensive version.

Kasmina, Enigma Sage allows a lot of planeswalker to either do her ultimate or their ultimate within a single turn cycle.
If you have a planeswalker that starts off with at least 6 then you can use Kasmina +2 to bring them up to 8 which is enough to use Kasmina -8 to cast an instant or sorcery.
Note however that you can only cast a spell that shares a color with that particular planeswalker.
For example you could get Karn Liberated into ultimate range within a single turn cycle, however you are restricted to casting a colorless instant or sorcery.

The following are planeswalkers that start off with at least 6: Arlinn, Voice of the Pack, Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Chandra Nalaar, Gideon Jura, Huatli, the Sun's Heart, Kaya, Bane of the Dead, Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Nahiri, Storm of Stone, Narset Transcendent, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, Nicol Bolas, the Arisen, Sarkhan the Mad, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Vraska, Relic Seeker, Karn Liberated, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.
Teferi, Master of Time is a bit different but because you can activate each players turn and use +2 each time you can get to Kasmina ultimate range in a single turn round even in a 3 player game.
Nissa of Shadowed Boughs and Nissa, Steward of Elements also have different ways to get more loyalty counters.
Dovin, Grand Arbiter and Huatli, Radiant Champion with creatures are another way to get a quick ultimate.

Given that a lot of planeswalkers can only up tick by +1 naturally, Kasmina, Enigma Sage +2 can also put some walkers on their own ultimate withing a single turn cycle as well: Ashiok, Nightmare Muse, Chandra Ablaze, Chandra, Bold Pyromancer, Garruk, Cursed Huntsman, Kaya the Inexorable, Koth of the Hammer, Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast, Narset of the Ancient Way, Sarkhan Vol, Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker, Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Vraska the Unseen.

There are also a bunch of planeswalkers that could look to ultimate within a two turn cycle.
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Tamiyo, the Moon Sage are examples of this where normally they can only uptick by +1, but because they can use Kasmina, Enigma Sage +2 they can look to get to the ultimate within a couple of turns.

Settling on Planeswalkers and thus what colored instant and sorcery you can cast?
Given that you can literally cast the most expensive instant or sorceries in all of Magic, what are some options?
You could play Enter the Infinite to set up a win (with say Thassa's Oracle).
However if you look at the planeswalkers that start with at least 6 loyalty, less than a 1/3 of them have blue.
Also anytime you cast a spell that basically auto wins the game, it gets really boring, really fast.
Therefore for this exercise I wanted spells which have some variation to them as well as cover colors so that different planeswalkers come out with a variance of options.

Another thing that I've been careful to do with card selection is to lean into the planeswalkers themselves being not very powerful. Most of the high starting loyalty planeswalkers either don't have an "ultimate" or have any plus ability themselves naturally.
Because the idea is more about casting instant and sorceries I've specifically not included walkers that can end the game quickly.
The following I've identified as potentially being game enders (at least for one person) if they ultimate so are not specifically playing them even though they have the starting loyalty 6 or more; Narset Transcendent, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, Nicol Bolas, the Arisen.
However if you wanted to go more spiky then these could be premium options but they are expensive to buy as well, so truly not necessary.

Ashiok, Dream Render and Narset, Parter of Veils are spiker options but the fact that themselves don't have an "ultimate" or a plus ability makes them a great gel for Kasmina.

Of the planeswalkers that can get within their own ultimate within a turn cycle I've chosen Kaya the Inexorable, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Chandra Ablaze.
Their ultimate's are not that powerful, but still can give you the needed time to setup further.
Chandra Ablaze is specifically casting red instant and sorcery so I have made sure that a number of cards have red so that can make use of the -7.

Because Kasmina, Enigma Sage is the pseudo commander of this deck and probably a glass canon without it, I felt it necessary to have a number of ways of returning from the graveyard as she can be removed. It made sense to use legendary permanents as options so that Sisay can be used to search for them.
There is Tamiyo, Collector of Tales, Kaya the Inexorable, Kethis, the Hidden Hand, Rona, Disciple of Gix for this.

Which instant or sorcery?
Here is the payoff part of the deck. I collated a list of high casting cost instant and sorcery and immediately I was drawn to the Ultimatum's as they cover a number of colors as well as being fun to cast while not being too over the top powerful.

Genesis Ultimatum, Brilliant Ultimatum and Emergent Ultimatum can all produce more spells/permanents to the game for value.
Primal Surge can also put more permanents onto the board and because there are quite a few instant/sorcery in the deck it's not like an instant win condition. In fact it could be a completed dud, which is why I am fine to run it in even a casual setting.

Cruel Ultimatum could be used to target an opponent who has clearly gotten ahead.

Ruinous Ultimatum is the main way to remove opponents permanents if you need to clear the board.
Ondu Inversion and Dimensional Breach are also in the deck to remove all permanents.
I though I'd give Dimensional Breach a go because you can set up returning Kasmina and another planeswalker early while your opponents might focus on return mana sources. This way you could potentially ultimate early to do something like Reshape the Earth to get out ahead on mana sources anyway.
Duneblast to specifically remove creatures except for Sisay (or whatever).
Soulfire Eruption is more of a gamble but it could also provide removal as well as card advantage. You could even outright kill an opponent or two by going to the face.
Terminus can get around indestructible and works nice with Kasmina ability of Scry 1 to set this up more consistently.
Devastation Tide is another miracle to clear the board.

Eerie Ultimatum and Triumphant Reckoning are used for a graveyard strategy which actually could be an important path to victory.
Traumatize is a spell you can cast to actually setup your graveyard for these cards.
Seasons Past is a way to get spells back from graveyard and I'm playing this over Praetor's Counsel because even though a lot of the spells cost 7 mana, Seasons Past gets shuffled back into library which means that you can cast it later on.

Reshape the Earth is probably one of the first cards I'd cast in the game if I can ultimate off a green planeswalker. Getting a mana base under just means that you can hard cast a lot of these battle-cruiser spells.

Peer into the Abyss does have the danger of just ending the game, but it was too tempting not to try doing a double whammy on an opponent by targeting them and then following up immediately with Worst Fears to wreak havoc.

Conflux is a catch all for covering all the planeswalkers colors, but depending on where the game is at you have quite a few options.

Same turn ultimate
Oath of Teferi allows you to +2 then -8 your planeswalkers for a same turn ultimate.

Evolution Sage with any type of fetch-land played on the same turn allows for 2 loyalty to be added thus putting them within the -8.
Nissa of Shadowed Boughs also is effected by landfall so you can use fetch-lands to get it into -8 pretty quickly.

Doubling Season and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider allow for getting into ultimate range within the turn you play the planeswalkers.
When I was going to add these cards to the deck, I wanted to make sure there were no "oops I win" combos with planeswalkers themselves.
This was the main reason for not playing Narset Transcendent, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Vraska, Relic Seeker, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, Nicol Bolas, the Arisen as their own ultimate's can be game ending and it just becomes too much of a line of play rather than the purpose of the deck which is to cast beefy sorcery.
However given the price of these cards and the fact the deck is specifically not looking to abuse planeswalker ultimate's expect for Kasmina the deck is perfectly happy for people to play a planeswalker theme without them. This is a real bonus to not feeling bad about not owning them and still getting your Superfriend theme on.
The Chain Veil is another card that you could run to get same turn ultimates.

Blue Fractal Creatures
There is Kasmina ability to make token creatures. It might be that you create a few blockers to protect your planeswalkers for a longer term plan.
But with the graveyard strategy you could easily cast a Eerie Ultimatum or Triumphant Reckoning to turn all the walkers you've burnt through to turn into like 6/6 or 7/7 fractal beaters and wipe out opponents in a few turns.

Scry 1
If you are literally looking to use the +2 Scry 1 each time you up tick a planeswalker might as well make use of it.
Eligeth, Crossroads Augur can turn it into draw instead.
Terminus and Devastation Tide as mentioned is able to be setup more reliably.

Oracle of Mul Daya is a card that you could greatly benefit from if you owned it already or wanted to get one.

Support for the theme
I have added Oath of Nissa and Rhys the Redeemed as one mana cost cards that Sisay can search for on first activation if no other colored permanents to boost Sisay power.
Then you'll be using Sisay to get Kasmina, Enigma Sage if you haven't drawn it to start exacting the plans.

Mystic Barrier is a great way to protect your planeswalkers from attacks.

Land base
I've only list some modal lands that I think are neat and some cheap fetches because you've probably got your own mix of multi-colored lands that you could play.
If you can play as many fetch-lands as you can then it'll make Evolution Sage and Nissa of Shadowed Boughs better.

It's important to note that the Ultimatum themselves with the tricky color requirements are not that important to hard cast. It is more about casting the planeswalkers, therefore pay attention to color fixing mostly on these.
Oath of Nissa can help to cast your planeswalkers and can be searched with Sisay on the first activation.

With Reshape the Earth you could easily make a really neat utility land base as well to really pull ahead.

What spells are not in the deck?
There are a lot of great candidates that I haven't added to the deck.
Decree of Annihilation and Obliterate are perfect with planeswalkers and enchantments as they are not removed.
If you have another planeswalker in play that you can Kasmina, Enigma Sage -8 in a turn or two then you can follow it up with say Reshape the Earth to reset yourself with mana.

There is a wealth of blue bombs that could be played like Aminatou's Augury, Expropriate, Blatant Thievery, Knowledge Exploitation, Time Stretch, Enter the Infinite.
But as I already pointed out there isn't a lot of blue planeswalkers that can ultimate the following turn.
In this particular deck there is in fact only Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner that can do this. Therefore I cut down on the number of mono-blue spells for this reason and also some of those are expensive to get.
If you did play Narset Transcendent, Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh, Nicol Bolas, the Arisen then these will give you more reasons to play blue spells.

There is the suite of "Chaos" spells in Scrambleverse, The Great Aurora, Thieves' Auction, Warp World that you could easily build around if that is your sort of thing.

The following are cards that I had put aside for the deck but ended up removing them for a budgeted list. In the end this deck has a level of jankiness because the planeswalkers themselves are pretty bad on their own. They just are not threatening on their own merit and I really love this fact and consider it a bonus given how I want the deck to be not that obnoxious.
The sorcery are all splashy and expensive to cast and that fits into battle-cruiser Commander perfectly. But with Kasmina you can tutor for what you might need at a given stage of the game and adjust what you cast according to the level of the playgroup.

Kasmina's Ultimate Ultimatum's

Artifacts

Approximate Total Cost:


Tags:

Return to “Decklists”