Kalamax, the Stormsire - Double Down on Violence, Speed and Momentum [Retired]

WolfWhoWanders
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

No worries, thanks for the response. I went ahead and gave the breach version of the deck a spin and is a lot of fun to play and seems very strong. Being relatively new to cedh I've made a ton of misplays so far, like crop rotating for something that doesn't make me red and having Kalamax unsubstantiated during a lethal swing with a pyroblast in hand. Silly things that wouldn't seem like they'd end your game in something casual but make all the difference in a competitive match up. I've also inspired a fear of the big dino in people. It's a great proactive and reactive playstyle, I really enjoy it. Love the breach addition too. What a cool card. Got a lot of learning to do in using that, but looking forward to it. Thanks again Darren, you da man.
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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

WolfWhoWanders wrote:
3 years ago
No worries, thanks for the response. I went ahead and gave the breach version of the deck a spin and is a lot of fun to play and seems very strong. Being relatively new to cedh I've made a ton of misplays so far, like crop rotating for something that doesn't make me red and having Kalamax unsubstantiated during a lethal swing with a pyroblast in hand. Silly things that wouldn't seem like they'd end your game in something casual but make all the difference in a competitive match up. I've also inspired a fear of the big dino in people. It's a great proactive and reactive playstyle, I really enjoy it. Love the breach addition too. What a cool card. Got a lot of learning to do in using that, but looking forward to it. Thanks again Darren, you da man.
I've been toying around with a few different configurations over the last week to really play out some other theory-crafting ideas I've had.

I've missed the Chord of Calling a bit so I really tried to think about a combo winning combination of creatures outside of just the Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Deceiver Exarch (or any ETB untap creature).
The reason I cut it in the first place is that I didn't like Kiki-Jiki or Deceiver as natural draws, as they didn't add anything on their own.
Also Chord of Calling for 5ggg in a creature light deck (so you don't get much help the convoke) is a little mana intensive.
Anyway I couldn't come up with a "perfect" set of creatures...however I have been thinking about it a lot...

Some ideas could be getting infinite mana say with Grand Architect + Pili-Pala. But Infinite mana with a mana sink commander isn't an instant win.
Actually that's the reason I've cut Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter from the deck. Getting infinite +1/+1 counter isn't game winning either.

You could go Painter's Servant + Trinket Mage to get Grindstone. At least Trinket Mage provides some value on it's own and Painter's Servant has minimal value with Force of Negation, Force of Will, Pyroblast, Red Elemental Blast if naming "blue". You could also name "black" and get incredible value out of Reap.
But you can only eliminate an opponents at a time, and requires 3 on the Grindstone so even if you Chord for 3ggg you still have cast the Grindstone and activate it. Pretty slow actually.

benjameenbear already suggested Dualcaster Mage + Spellseeker to find Twinflame. The two creatures have some merit on their own. Well Spellseeker is excellent actually. This ends up being a sorcery speed kill and because Twinflame costs mana it's still a 8 mana play if looking to do this main phase. You can Chord for 3ggg and do this at end of opponents turn, and untap and cast the Twinflame, but this obviously means another full turn cycle rather than trying to win main phase. Twinflame on its own outside of maybe Dockside Extortionist is very weak in the deck.

Unfortunately outside of black means that you can't look for a Thassa's Oracle + Spellseeker into Demonic Consultation type win which would be a mana efficient.

Anyway I was thinking with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker there is a combo using Conspicuous Snoop and Goblin Recruiter getting Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. But it requires some other Goblins (or potential) to work.
Let's say it was just literally these 3 creatures. Say at the end of opponents turn you can Chord of Calling for 2ggg getting Conspicuous Snoop and Dockside Extortionist. Goblin Recruiter can get Dockside Extortionist and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. You draw Dockside Extortionist and now Kiki-Jiki is on top. You can make infinite Conspicuous Snoop but they will all be tapped. So you'd need to wait another full turn cycle and make the infinite Snoops at end of opponents turn so that you get to untap with them. So even though it's mana efficient (2ggg) it's very slow.
So Goblins that can help to win faster are Torch Courier and Mogg Fanatic (or any way to creature damage off a Goblin).
The idea is that you can Chord of Calling in your turn and put Torch Courier, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on top with Goblin Recruiter.
You can cast the Torch Courier to give the original Conspicuous Snoop haste and then make infinite copies. Then you can use the copy ability to make another Goblin Recruiter and put Mogg Fanatic on top. Now all the infinite Conspicuous Snoop can be sacrificed to deal damage.
So obviously the downsides to running this all is that it's 6 cards dedicated to a combo. It still running Kiki-Jiki and now it has some pretty weak cards outside of the combo.
The upsides however are that you actually have a way to win with just drawing Goblin Recruiter. You can cast it normally and look to setup Conspicuous Snoop with the other combo Goblins. The deck also has lots of cantrip cards so you can look to draw and cast the Snoop in the same turn you cast Recruiter.
It does require lots of red mana however to try and do this all in the same turn.
So if looking to do it all in the same turn you'd need 1r (Recruiter) + rr (Snoop) + r (Torch Courier) + u (cantrip like Peek/Opt/etc) = 1rrrru. So actually quite doable, but just need to be mindful of how much red you need.
Other downsides to the combo in general is if you've actually drawn some of these Goblins. If you've drawn Kiki-Jiki or Mogg Fanatic then you can't actually combo with the sequence I mentioned.
However the way to get around this is by using Spellseeker instead to get Brainstorm. So for example you'd 3ggg getting Goblin Recruiter and Spellseeker (for Brainstorm). Now you can put back a Kiki-Jiki and/or Mogg Fanatic and look to win again.
So an upside to this combo is that you can't do this same trick using Kiki-Jiki + Deceiver Exarch if you have Kiki-Jiki in hand.
Now don't get me wrong, having to use Spellseeker means that you can't get Conspicuous Snoop into play at the same time, so requires more mana again. You have to cast u (Brainstorm) + rr + (Snoop) + r (Torch Courier) on top of the Chord for 3ggg. So realistically you'd need to do the Chord just before your turn to have the available mana.
So if you wanted to go even further with a Goblins package that can play around even more redundancy then the trick would be to replace Mogg Fanatic with 2 cards in Siege-Gang Commander AND Skirk Prospector. This way it doesn't matter if you have these cards in your hand because as long as you can make infinite Snoops, you can cast and sacrifice for mana to get Siege-Gang into play and then sacrifice Snoops for damage.

This might sound all very long winded, but this is the sort of thing I really like to figure out. I've been trying the Goblin Recruiter, Conspicuous Snoop, Torch Courier, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Mogg Fanatic package to see how it fairs.
I haven't got enough reps yet (4 games with this) to really make a proper assessment yet. I did win a game by casting Goblin Recruiter and winning in the same turn with the 1rrrr needed. The reason I didn't need a cantrip is that I had Sensei's Divining Top in play to draw the Conspicuous Snoop.
But I haven't drawn Chord of Calling in those games either to make use of the double up Chord,
Of note you can of cause just cast Chord NOT copied (no Kalamax) for Goblin Recruiter to try and setup a win that way, so this is another upside of the Goblin package.
I did however have two games that I drew Mogg Fanatic and Torch Courier and those felt like very bad draws. Torch Courier can be used to give Kalamax haste at non-combo times, but this isn't very strong really.
So in conclusion I'm just going to keep trying it out until I feel it's worth it or not.


If you want to know what to get with Intuition then you obviously have to have a way to get Underworld Breach back when it goes to your graveyard.
So one of the Intuition can get Underworld Breach + Noxious Revival + Regrowth (or Reap if you've already cast another one).
Then your second copy of Intuition just needs a mana producer and realistically a Brain Freeze to make sure you can keep comboing.
So for example (Lion's Eye Diamond or Frantic Search) + Brain Freeze + anything else, maybe a counterspell like Fierce Guardianship) to push through the combo easier.
There are ways to trick opponents into giving you cards that might help to make it more mana efficient, but just assume opponents know what is going on and the above type of cards is what you're going to need.



General Changes
On another note I have made some other changes, more or less to help out the Underworld Breach from functioning better.

I really tried to not have Lion's Eye Diamond in the deck as I felt it's pretty lack-luster without Wheel effects like Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, etc.
However it does make comboing with Underworld Breach a lot easier. Often I've found myself having to completely tap out to cast a Frantic Search and get disrupted even though I have access to a counter.
Of note as well for the purposes of trying the Goblin package LED does help out with naturally casting Goblin Recruiter for a same turn win. So the idea is that you can sacrifice the LED in response to a cantrip to then cast the Conspicuous Snoop and Torch Courier with the rrr you'd get.

I also took out Seedborn Muse after trying it out for a while. I did have some good games with Holdout Settlement, Survivors' Encampment, Springleaf Drum, but I also had some games where I didn't and it just ended up being too awkward.

Chain of Vapor is a staple among cEDH decks, and normally I'd sing its praises, but honestly in this deck it has felt very awkward. There is already a lot of removal in the deck, and with Kalamax getting +1/+1 counters you really don't feel like putting it out there to have opponents then bounce him back to hand.
Plus the deck isn't massive on it's own storm approach where you might look to to bounce your own mana sources to recast for a big turn.

I took out the Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter because honestly was pretty weak in the deck. The idea was that Dramatic Reversal could be used as another method for untapping mana sources with Underworld Breach combo, but I've found it better to use Lion's Eye Diamond or Frantic Search (with access to Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth, Fertile Ground) to generate mana.
Then getting infinite mana isn't actually the be-all-end-all you want anyway for this deck as there are no mana sinks.



With Goblin and Chord of Calling package. I'm trying without the copy spells for infinite +1/+1 and a little less on Breach support and control as it moves to more combo.

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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

I'll try a more in depth response later, but I thought I'd ask if you tried Mission Briefing at all? Helps feed the graveyard a tiny bit and can get you an extra free cast of Fierce Guardianship, Deflecting Swat or even an overloaded Cyclonic Rift in addition to some other utility. Got me back a noxious revival to retrieve breach once after brain freezing myself for most of my deck on opponents end step too. Not sure how good it is in the long run, but seems worth consideration.
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

WolfWhoWanders wrote:
3 years ago
I'll try a more in depth response later, but I thought I'd ask if you tried Mission Briefing at all? Helps feed the graveyard a tiny bit and can get you an extra free cast of Fierce Guardianship, Deflecting Swat or even an overloaded Cyclonic Rift in addition to some other utility. Got me back a noxious revival to retrieve breach once after brain freezing myself for most of my deck on opponents end step too. Not sure how good it is in the long run, but seems worth consideration.
There needs to be at least 2 graveyard retrieval cards in the deck for an Intuition (Underworld Breach + 2 graveyard) so Mission Briefing is definitely a good choice.
At the moment I'm running Eternal Witness instead for a few other combo ideas.
I'll get an eye on Mission Briefing as another possible option.

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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

I've done a major rewrite of the primer about theory-crafting around combo ideas and outlined them in detail.

The below changes are organically explained in the primer if you want to understand the ideas behind them. These are all just config changes to try various concepts.


WolfWhoWanders
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

Briefing only gets instants and sorceries, couldn't get back breach. It could get revival or regrowth et al though. Was thinking of it more for an earlier version maybe, to replace snapcaster or something. Might still be a decent add, haven't scoured the new list though. I did like scepter and reversal for getting mana to enable breach, but I think the LED may be a better choice while being a little more all in.
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

WolfWhoWanders wrote:
3 years ago
Briefing only gets instants and sorceries, couldn't get back breach. It could get revival or regrowth et al though. Was thinking of it more for an earlier version maybe, to replace snapcaster or something. Might still be a decent add, haven't scoured the new list though. I did like scepter and reversal for getting mana to enable breach, but I think the LED may be a better choice while being a little more all in.
I know, but you go something like Underworld Breach, Noxious Revival, Mission Briefing.
If they give you the Mission Briefing and you get to double up on it, then you can Surveil 2x2 (filling up graveyard more) and you can target the Noxious Revival (putting Breach on top) and realistically a draw card (say Opt) to draw Breach straight away.

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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

Been playing with it a little bit and gotta say it's pretty fun. I really like the addition of mission briefing in the intuition lines. With enough setup you don't even need kalamax out to go for breach. Just intuition at eot to get breach in hand/on top next turn and if you can afford to escape intuition and start brain freezing your good to go. I'd like more tappers for kalamax but there don't seem to be many other good options. I've missed a winning whir of invention line because I'd had to attack to tap kalamax. Couldn't corridor monitor into pod into Kiki jiki and attack that turn. With the prevalence of top of library tutors I kind of miss thought scour a little bit.
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

Also arcane denialed my own arcane denial to draw 3 once, didn't help much then but seemed like decent card advantage
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

Kind of considering Earthcraft and maybe another basic or two. There's almost just enough already there. If you wanted to you could theoretically make infinite mana with the kiki corridor combo.
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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

Tossed in earthcraft for a utopia sprawl just to try it out. Sprawl has sat dead in hand a couple times so thought it'd be a good consideration. I shadow rifted into a chord of calling on my turn, on next upkeep I was able to chord into Kiki corridor combo and use the Mana generated from earthcraft to cast an infinitely large Expansion // Explosion. Kind of a niche win but still cool.

EDIT: tagged cards. Also, this was a 3 player game
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

WolfWhoWanders wrote:
3 years ago
Tossed in earthcraft for a utopia sprawl just to try it out. Sprawl has sat dead in hand a couple times so thought it'd be a good consideration. I shadow rifted into a chord of calling on my turn, on next upkeep I was able to chord into Kiki corridor combo and use the Mana generated from earthcraft to cast an infinitely large Expansion // Explosion. Kind of a niche win but still cool.

EDIT: tagged cards. Also, this was a 3 player game
There is a configuration of the deck where you could have more creatures, which would help to make Earthcraft better.
The idea I was thinking about was making Gaea's Cradle and subsequently Crop Rotation more potent cards.
You'd have Birds of Paradise, Bloom Tender, Arbor Elf, and a number of other Elves perhaps Elvish Mystic, Joraga Treespeaker, etc.
The reason I've personally cut creatures as of late is the success I've been having with Flame Sweep and Kozilek's Return.
But the upside of mana dorks is that you can get faster early mana and it would help to make Birthing Pod a better card.
But even with Gaea's Cradle producing say 3 or 4 mana extra green, there are not a lot of mana sink spells in the deck so I'm not even sure how good this would really be. It only really shines specifically against Stax decks.

As far as mana base for Utopia Sprawl needing a Forest in play and also later into the game Mystic Sanctuary being "turned on" there is a real cost to some of the lands in Holdout Settlement, Survivors' Encampment and Kessig Wolf Run. When these colorless lands are good, they are really good, but any land which doesn't help towards some other things like Utopia Sprawl or Mystic Sanctuary can be a downside.

You do bring up a great point about main phasing a Chord of Calling or Whir of Invention and having to go to your attack phase with Kalamax to get him tapped.
This means that you can't actually make infinite attackers with Kiki as you are past the declare attackers stage.
This is where some of the other combos I've mentioned have an upside as you don't need attackers to win. For example the Goblin package with Conspicuous Snoop.

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Post by WolfWhoWanders » 3 years ago

I wasn't really too concerned with making earthcraft "better" so much as having another springleaf drum effect that has a lower floor and a higher ceiling. I think I prefer having the sweepers available. Since I put it in I just fetch a basic island (preferably) rather than a dual earlier on to make sure it can be turned on. It hasn't negatively impacted mana resources yet because most of our spells are blue. Generally, if the Kiki Corridor gets assembled there aren't many responses after the fact but if there are then earthcraft could allow you to generate more mana for responses. I was thinking that it could potentially win a 4 man pod with Expansion // Explosion as well if you were to 2nd main the chord/whir. Just kill one player with lethal, draw the cards yourself to draw into a recursion spell and recur Expansion // Explosion and then burn a player and draw the last out. I have been focused more on testing my version of this version of your deck than trying out some of the other combos. The goblin package seems a little clunky to me I guess, but it is certainly worth testing. I haven't had nearly as much time to play lately, and sometimes dip into more casual games when a cedh table isn't available. What I like about cedh on mtgo is that I can pretty much always expect an "evenly" powered table and my opponents to be on point. Many times the casual games have highly disparate power levels and my opponents are bouncing between the game and pornhub or whatever which is super annoying and a seeming waste of what little time I can devote to some games on a given night.

EDIT: Forgot to add a thought on holdout settlement/survivor's encampment vs earthcraft. Earthcraft is a bit more like springleaf drum in that it is mana positive where the other two "cost" a land drop. I doubt I'd take the lands out because they are still super useful and Earthcraft and drum are 2 cards in 99. Crop rotation is just pretty good, and as long as that's in there's no reason to cut the creature tap lands. I haven't found Kessig Wolf Run useful yet but I see the potential so have left it in. I guess the main point is that earthcraft can "ramp" you where the lands can't. Therefore allowing you to drop kalamax with 4 mana and a basic out and potentially giving you the mana to cast a cantrip and draw 2 earlier on.
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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

WolfWhoWanders wrote:
3 years ago
I wasn't really too concerned with making earthcraft "better" so much as having another springleaf drum effect that has a lower floor and a higher ceiling. I think I prefer having the sweepers available. Since I put it in I just fetch a basic island (preferably) rather than a dual earlier on to make sure it can be turned on. It hasn't negatively impacted mana resources yet because most of our spells are blue. Generally, if the Kiki Corridor gets assembled there aren't many responses after the fact but if there are then earthcraft could allow you to generate more mana for responses. I was thinking that it could potentially win a 4 man pod with Expansion // Explosion as well if you were to 2nd main the chord/whir. Just kill one player with lethal, draw the cards yourself to draw into a recursion spell and recur Expansion // Explosion and then burn a player and draw the last out. I have been focused more on testing my version of this version of your deck than trying out some of the other combos. The goblin package seems a little clunky to me I guess, but it is certainly worth testing. I haven't had nearly as much time to play lately, and sometimes dip into more casual games when a cedh table isn't available. What I like about cedh on mtgo is that I can pretty much always expect an "evenly" powered table and my opponents to be on point. Many times the casual games have highly disparate power levels and my opponents are bouncing between the game and pornhub or whatever which is super annoying and a seeming waste of what little time I can devote to some games on a given night.

EDIT: Forgot to add a thought on holdout settlement/survivor's encampment vs earthcraft. Earthcraft is a bit more like springleaf drum in that it is mana positive where the other two "cost" a land drop. I doubt I'd take the lands out because they are still super useful and Earthcraft and drum are 2 cards in 99. Crop rotation is just pretty good, and as long as that's in there's no reason to cut the creature tap lands. I haven't found Kessig Wolf Run useful yet but I see the potential so have left it in. I guess the main point is that earthcraft can "ramp" you where the lands can't. Therefore allowing you to drop kalamax with 4 mana and a basic out and potentially giving you the mana to cast a cantrip and draw 2 earlier on.
Actually I've removed Springleaf Drum and Arcane Signet in favor of land ramp (Nature's Lore and Three Visits) as I've moved away from artifact mana due to not trying to support Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter.
The upside is that it's more robust against removal and artifact hate (Collector Ouphe, etc). Slight edges in setting up Mystic Sanctuary and even Utopia Sprawl.
The downside is the deck is not quite as good against Winter Orb, Blood Moon, Back to Basics.

I've also added a basic Island over the Kessig Wolf Run as I've missed out on full value with Harrow a few times (as I've already drawn/milled/etc all the basics). This also helps with the cards I mentioned above with Blood Moon, Back to Basics, Mystic Sanctuary.

I added Mana Vault as with Chord and Whir it would be nice to have the cost paid, leaving up more colored mana to try and push your plays through.

I'm playing Thrill of Possibility over Into the Roil as cheaper card draw. Obviously I give up on some disruption, but I just wanted to have another cheap draw rather than waiting to kick the Roil for draw.


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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

I wanted to add an additional graveyard to hand card to make the Intuition plan more functional as I found a few games where I'd already used a Noxious Revival or Eternal Witness.
Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary cost one more than a Regrowth, but the land drop element I think makes it just slightly better.
Deliberate is a fine draw card and I'm replacing Thought Scour. Thought Scour was used to fuel Dig Through Time and Underworld Breach more consistently, however I unluckily milled a combo piece for the Chord of Calling and Whir of Invention and it's just too risky in that respect.

Because of Harrow and Mystic Sanctuary wanting basics and Islands respectively trying to make use of Zendikar Rising new untapped lands in Turntimber Symbiosis, Sea Gate Restoration, Shatterskull Smashing is just too awkward to fit in.


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