This deck has been retired.
Kalamax, the Stormsire - Double Down on Control and Combo
Approximate Total Cost:
Now that some time has passed since Kalamax arrival, I've been able to play quite a few variations of builds around his abilities to try and make best use and finding better ways to win.
This thread is as much about core features, as it is a number of variety of supporting "packages" you can potentially play. All having their strengths and weaknesses.
Let's look at the four main elements of competitive commander.
- Gaining card advantages.
- Cheap disruption.
- Fast mana.
- Fast combo.
cEDH tends to have staples in colors and Kalamax isn't that much different as it turns out "instants" are popular in competitive circles.
As cEDH requires a focus on gaining resources, card draw being one of the main ways, then it pays to have a decent number of them so that you can make use of Kalamax ability as much as possible when you have mana available to get double the effect.
One and two mana draw or put into hand instants are very welcome being that mana is often the bottleneck for any early to mid game plays, especially when you want to cast optimally 4 instants each turn cycle if possible in a 4 player game for example.
Two of my favorite draw cards once Kalamax has built a number of counters are Shadow Rift and Leap to give him a bit of evasion to push through lethal damage.
Cheap disruption (Violence)
This is often divided between being able to deal with spells on the stack, or permanents already in play.
With Kalamax ability you are able to double up on these spells.
Whats better than a Counterspell? ... Two Counterspells of course.
Creating two copies of a spell that can counter, means that its very hard for opponents to counter back, as they need multiple counterspells themselves.
Also counters that require paying more like Flusterstorm and Izzet Charm are significantly better as opponents will have to pay twice the amount.
Also if you are one of the last to put spells onto the stack, then maybe there are actually multiple spells to target to gain advantages that way.
Most of the time you'd counter a blue permanent with Pyroblast while on the stack, but it might be that there is another blue permanent on the board that you want to remove, so letting it resolve might be in your best interest.
You can use Remand as purely a draw spell for by copying the Remand and targeting your own Remand. Which means that you'll return the Remand to your hand and draw a card. Opponents will get to resolve their spell, so its only when you want to sink mana into draw each turn and opponents are not casting that impactful cards that you care resolve.
Similar you can use Arcane Denial as simply "draw 3 cards in next turn upkeep" by going to counter a spell on the stack then using the copy to actually counter your first Arcane Denial on the stack. You wouldn't get to counter the spell opponent has cast on the stack, but this is just purely for making sure you stock your hand up and you have to think in terms on drawing into additional counters and draw, so it is not inconceivable you do this when you are light on resources in hand.
The removal in the deck also means that you can target multiple permanents, taking opponents off relevant cards. They are all between one to two mana cost and there is a spread between creature, artifact and enchantment removal, as well as non-land bouncing back to hand spells.
So much of cEDH actually is based around cheap creatures for mana, card resources and combo wins.
With the copy ability you can deal 4 damage to each creature with Flame Sweep, Kozilek's Return and because Kalamax gets +1/+1 before they resolve he survives.
I actually was just playing one copy and had my own cheap mana creatures in Birds of Paradise, Arbor Elf, Bloom Tender, but because I found Flame Sweep to be such a pivotal card in basically stopping quick starts by opponents, I've found them to be a key element in winning games.
Thus I've shied away from mana creatures (that want to remain in play), and gone for a tempo that looks to prevent creature resources instead.
This has been instrumental in beating concepts and commanders such as Thrasios/Tymna, Tymna/Kraum that look to lean on them for card advantages.
Because they are all instant speed you can really disrupt people looking to win with literally all the commanders in cEDH but for a few like Gitrog, Muldrotha, Kenrith, Golos.
Fast mana
There are instants that can gain you additional mana like Desperate Ritual and Kalamax even has "Storm" in his name, but as his ability is limited to one double up per turn. It's not that conducive to assume that he is good for a focused storm archetype theme this style is to have one big single turn often.
That's not to say that you can't make a very focused storm build, but my inclination has been towards gaining that copy trigger over each turn including opponents.
There is Manamorphose as a "ritual" type effect in the deck, but this is for as much of the additional draw as you'll add four mana of any color.
Growth Spiral provides draw and potentially putting a couple of extra lands into play.
Crop Rotation and Harrow sacrifice lands on "cast" so you don't have to sacrifice lands for the copy, meaning you get the effect for free. This means that you will in fact gain an additional mana with untapped lands when casting these with Kalamax copy ability.
The deck does contain a lot of the usual suspects with fast mana like "Moxes", etc.
But it using using the enchant lands in Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth, Fertile Ground.
In a 3 color deck it can be a little tricky to make sure you have a Forest in play for Utopia Sprawl for the first turn, but with fetchlands this is quite consistent.
Fast combo (Speed)
Another feature for looking to win any competitive game can be bound up on mana efficient, fewer cards that are "combined" and potential harder to disrupt ways to win games within a single turn (or stack).
Being able to gain card advantages and disrupt your opponents is of course great from stopping them winning the game, but you also need to have a proactive plan as you can't guarantee stopping every one from establishing some way to win long-term.
This is where I have really experimented with a number of different "combo packages" of varying cards to attempt to create streamlined ways to win.
But first of all let's actually look at Kalamax ability to build up +1/+1. He is the real deal when it comes to piling on the +1/+1 counters and becoming a real threat when it comes to providing lethal commander damage on players.
Now he doesn't have trample, so he can be easily blocked by a stupid mana dork right? Well yes of course, but even in forcing opponents to block you are gaining resources.
Then it gets to the stage where often opponents are having to throw there precious commanders under-the-bus as they can't afford to take lethal.
But there are some are some cards that help with pushing through damage even when opponents have blockers in Shadow Rift and Leap.
What if you also take opponents blockers off the board? There is also creature removal, so you can look to take opponents off their blockers easily when you can potentially double up on these spells.
You can also use an infinite loop of using Kalamax ability to copy spells that copy instants and sorcery, to give him infinite +1/+1 counters.
You'll have to wait until an opponent puts an instant or sorcery onto the stack, but then you cast your copy spell, and then use the Kalamax copy to target the copy spell you cast.
That resolves and then you target the copy spell, and this in turn loops for as many times as you want. You can break by finally targeting the original instant cast by opponent rather than your copy spell. This means that you can put as many +1/+1 counters on Kalamax as you want.
Expansion // Explosion is perfect for that and has a draw ability if the game goes long and you get a lot of mana.
Unfortunately Narset's Reversal cannot be used in this way as if you target the Reversal with the copy then it will end up getting returned to your hand, and is no longer on the stack to be targeted again.
However with Narset's Reversal you can get continuous value with it by using the copy (Kalamax) to target your own Reversal. This will create another copy and then you use that to target the original spell opponent cast. You'll end up returning your own Narset's Reversal to hand and then doing the normal routine of copying the opponents spell and that gets returned to their hand. It just means that you can do this every turn potentially.
Alright so relying on Voltron is not the best when it comes to cEDH and I've already established that we want fast combo.
This is where there are a number of variations to how you might approach winning.
What are potential instants that can help to set up wins?
Temur is not know for that many ways to tutor, which is often the hallmark for being able to consistently get access to the same combination of cards.
I'm going to literally list what is available so far to give a breakdown of their potential
Anything; Intuition, Long-Term Plans.
Creatures: Chord of Calling, Worldly Tutor, Shared Summons, Signal the Clans, Summoner's Pact, Sarkhan's Triumph.
Lands; Crop Rotation, Harrow, Realms Uncharted, Natural Connection, Sprouting Vines.
Instant/Sorcery; Mystical Tutor, Firemind's Foresight, Invert // Invent.
Artifacts; Whir of Invention.
If you look at search library cards that put them back on top of your library rather than hand such as Mystical Tutor, Long-Term Plans, Worldly Tutor then the "problem" when they are copied with Kalamax ability is that they will get wasted as they will get shuffled away.
It is possible however to use another instant draw spell in between to get the card before it gets shuffled by the secondary search effect.
So let's say you want to get something like High Tide and Time Spiral to look to combo off. With Mystical Tutor you can search for both and using something like an Opt to grab one before it gets shuffled away.
Long-Term Plans is harder as it gets buried a couple of cards down so you'd need something like Brainstorm, Anticipate, Impulse to get one, and even then your second search is going to remain a couple of cards down, so you'll need more draw or have to wait a number of turns to get it.
Red is known for making use of graveyard with Underworld Breach, Past in Flames, Mizzix's Mastery.
There are also lots of ways to make use of artifacts from graveyard as well like Goblin Engineer, Goblin Welder, Scrap Mastery, Daretti, Scrap Savant.
When it comes to graveyard abuse however there is one card that stands out above the rest in my opinion and that is Underworld Breach.
I did a dedicated post to this card soon after it was released titled "Underworld Breach - New Era of Winning" and you can check out the thread here => "viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23888
In short though this card is graveyard abuse on steroids and if looking to use Intuition to its finest, then really this is the key to success.
If you skim through that article I wrote, there are basically 3 key elements to getting the most out of Underworld Breach;
- Putting cards into your graveyard.
- Generating mana.
- Graveyard recovery. If Underworld Breach goes to graveyard, do you have a way to recover it?
If Underworld Breach is one of the cards you select with Intuition then it's bound to not be the card opponent will give you. In this respect you'll need ways to retrieve it from your graveyard.
Green has a number of ways of bringing back cards from graveyard, but the most mana efficient cards are Noxious Revival, Reclaim, Regrowth, Reap, Nostalgic Dreams, Road of Return, Rofellos's Gift.
In order to keep recasting spells in your graveyard, you are going to more than likely need a way to generate mana. You can reference back to that article I wrote that lists the various ways you can do this, whether it's via untapping artifacts/lands/creatures or maybe sacrificing artifacts that can be recast for netting mana, or even "ritual" spells.
When it comes to the most mana efficient way, that requires no additional mana to get going then Lion's Eye Diamond can be thought of.
However if you have a number of mana sources that are not lands then Dramatic Reversal can be excellent at gaining mana.
Also if you have ways of producing more than a mana off lands then land untappers like Frantic Search, Snap, Turnabout for example can be used.
When it comes to putting cards into your graveyard from your library so that you can keep exiling 3 cards for the "escape" cost of Underworld Breach, then Brain Freeze is one of the go-to standouts as "storm" is such a great mechanic as it's hard to counter each trigger, and the way that Breach lets you keep casting cards that storm count becomes exponential.
But there are other cards like Oath of Druids or Hermit Druid that can dump your entire library into your graveyard if built around.
In the end I've tried to stick with as compact a "combo package" that I feel gives me consistent wins. The result is basically the below cards with Intuition being the card that sets up the win, especially if you get the copy effect on it.
Intuition/Underworld Breach Combo
This is where almost all of the cards can be used outside of the combo.
Intuition can still be used to find particular cards in tight spots. You might have to counter a spell that is going to win an opponent the game and so selecting an opponent who needs to give you that Fierce Guardianship.
Underworld Breach can be used as a once off Regrowth type effect in a pinch as well. I've certainly chosen to use it that way when it just seemed necessary enough.
Noxious Revival and Reap are often cEDH staples and Regrowth is certainly a versatile card.
Frantic Search is a fantastic card as a way to filter through your deck on its own, and great when doubling up the spell with Kalamax.
Really only Lion's Eye Diamond and Brain Freeze are the more dedicated aspects of the combo part of this.
LED can be used to cast Kalamax, but you wouldn't often want to do that as you want resources in hand.
Brain Freeze can be well timed to nullify a top of tutor effect by opponents like Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, etc, but in general this card is purely used as a win condition.
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.
One of the Intuition can get Underworld Breach + Noxious Revival + Eternal Witness (or Regrowth/Reap for other configs).
Then your second copy of Intuition just needs a mana producer and realistically a Brain Freeze to make sure you can keep comboing.
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.
With this in mind what two creatures can be combined to win in Temur colors?
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker plus any creature that can untap Kiki can be used to make infinite copies of the untapping creature and because they will have haste you can attack for lethal damage.
There are a number of them to choose from in Corridor Monitor, Deceiver Exarch, Bounding Krasis, Breaching Hippocamp, Great Oak Guardian, Hyrax Tower Scout, Pestermite, Zealous Conscripts, Combat Celebrant.
An example would be to Chord of Calling for to get Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Deceiver Exarch.
Chord of Calling Kiki-Jiki/Untap Combo
Also Chord of Calling for in a creature light deck (so you don't get much help with the convoke) is a little mana intensive.
Some ideas could be getting infinite mana say with Grand Architect + Pili-Pala.
But Infinite mana without 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 counters isn't always game winning either.
Temur Sabertooth + Dockside Extortionist with at least 5 artifacts/enchantments in play by opponents can look to make infinite mana. More consistent at being able to do this in competitive games, as so many cheap artifacts and enchantments are integral to the game.
Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake/Palinchron/Great Whale produces infinite mana and if you had another ETB creature like Spellseeker for example you can get infinite triggers off whatever else you have.
Palinchron + Phantasmal Image for infinite mana.
Here is a comprehensive list; Arcum Dagsson, Brutalizer Exarch, Deadeye Quartermaster, Drift of Phantasms, Elvish Reclaimer, Fauna Shaman, Fierce Empath, Goblin Engineer, Goblin Recruiter, Godo, Bandit Warlord, Grozoth, Hoarding Dragon, Imperial Recruiter, Kaho, Minamo Historian, Moggcatcher, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary, Noble Benefactor, Prime Speaker Vannifar, Protean Hulk, Seahunter, Skyshroud Poacher, Spellseeker, Treasure Mage, Tribute Mage, Trinket Mage, Trophy Mage, Ulvenwald Hydra, Woodland Bellower, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Zirilan of the Claw.
You could go Painter's Servant + Trinket Mage or Goblin Engineer to get Grindstone. At least Trinket Mage or Goblin Engineer provides some value on their 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 on the Grindstone so even if you Chord for you still have cast the Grindstone and activate it. A little slow actually.
Goblin Engineer requires sacrificing an artifact, so you would need to meet that criteria as well.
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 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.
Another infinite mana combo you could look for is Spellseeker for Dramatic Reversal and Tribute Mage or Goblin Engineer for Isochron Scepter.
You need an artifact to sacrifice for Goblin Engineer and enough non-land mana sources to be able to go infinite. Plus infinite mana isn't actually a win.
You could Spellseeker for Mystical Tutor and Tribute Mage or Goblin Engineer for Isochron Scepter.
Then you search for Nexus of Fate each turn to have infinite turns and kill everybody with Kalamax attacks.
This requires each turn however so is not the most mana efficient plan.
Kaho, Minamo Historian can get instants and so you could get Intuition as one and look to set up with Underworld Breach combo.
Let's say it was just literally these 3 creatures. Say at the end of opponents turn you can Chord of Calling for 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 () it's very slow.
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.
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.
If looking to do it all in the same turn you'd need (Recruiter) + (Snoop) + (Torch Courier) + (cantrip like Peek/Opt/etc) = . 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. For example you'd getting Goblin Recruiter and Spellseeker (for Brainstorm). Now you can put back a Kiki-Jiki and/or Mogg Fanatic and look to win again.
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 (Brainstorm) + + (Snoop) + (Torch Courier) on top of the Chord for . Realistically you'd need to do the Chord just before your turn to have the available mana.
Chord of Calling Goblin Combo
Chord of Calling Goblin Combo (more redundancy)
Chord of Calling Eternal Temur Dockside Combo
The example I came up with is that say you search for Dockside Extortionist and then Eternal Witness getting back the Chord of Calling.
As a bonus Dockside and Eternal can be used to help pay for another Chord cast. You could look to cast it in the same turn, but you wouldn't get the copy trigger from Kalamax, but you only need to get Temur Sabertooth in order to get infinite mana if opponents have at least 5 artifacts/enchantments in play.
The neat thing is that once with infinite mana you can infinitely bounce the Eternal Witness to get all the cards back from your graveyard and this includes Chord of Calling. You would probably win at this stage just using even a limited number of cards from your deck, but you could introduce a win condition or two on top of this.
Eternal Witness being an easy include in the deck anyway, replacing say Regrowth if wanting to stretch out card slots efficiently.
In this configuration Temur Sabertooth is the only pure combo card as far as its ability to function for you at other times during the game.
Depending on available mana, this is one that you might have to Chord just before your turn for .
Then during your own turn you need to Chord for to get Temur Sabertooth.
Remember you need to bounce the Dockside Extortionist for and recast it for but you will have this as you've already had to meet the "5 artifacts/enchantments in play" clause by opponents.
Chord of Calling Reversal/Scepter Combo
This only provides infinite mana, so the idea is that you actually wait until you can cast the Chord triggering for another copy and this time you can get a mana sink creature as well. There are a number of options but I just chose Thrasios, Triton Hero for the example.
As far as quality of cards, this represents in my opinion the most cEDH "staples".
It does mean waiting a turn as you'd realistically cast the Chord just before your turn, and then again in your turn for the second Chord.
You need an artifact that you can sacrifice for the Goblin Engineer if not specifically playing the Tribute Mage (as it is a little less versatile) and with wanting to produce 3 or more mana off non-land mana sources this could be tricky.
Realistically you'd probably want to introduce more mana sources like Mana Vault, Grim Monolith to make this package more consistent.
Of note you can look to use other tutors that search for creatures to look to combo. As I mentioned with the top of tutors you need additional instant draw, but you could look to use Worldly Tutor to for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Deceiver Exarch with it copied, just as long as you have a Opt type spell to grab one before it would get shuffled away immediately by the copy of Worldly Tutor.
But unlike Chord of Calling which puts the creature directly into play, you'd still need to actually cast Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Deceiver Exarch and you can already see this is a lot of investment in mana and resources to set this up.
Summoner's Pact could be used to get 2 green creatures, but unfortunately I do not think there is any green combination of creatures that can be unitized to get a fast combo win, especially as you still need to cast the creatures you get.
You will also be required to spend in your next upkeep so you either need to win on the spot or have a really good way to pay for them.
Shared Summons can be used to get 4 creatures and this might be that you use mana producing creatures to help pay for whatever you might cast next.
Signal the Clans will mean getting 2 random creatures, which means you can't exactly plan a win out.
Well I personally can't think of many.
Painter's Servant + Grindstone is the most mana efficient combo that I came up with for the Whir cost itself.
Mycosynth Lattice + Null Rod will lock out everybody of tapping permanents for mana. So you could use this if you feel you can defeat opponents with constant pressure of Kalamax attacking.
Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith can produce infinite colorless mana, but obviously you'd need a mana sink to actually make use of this.
Whir/Chord Painter's Grind Combo
However thinking back on the Chord of Calling for Painter's Servant + Trinket Mage or Goblin Engineer to get Grindstone, you could angle a deck to use both of the tutors to leverage these combination of cards.
Whir/Chord Kiki-Jiki Combo
Birthing Pod, Citanul Flute, Expedition Map, Kuldotha Forgemaster, Planar Bridge, Planar Portal, Ring of Three Wishes, Scrapyard Recombiner, Skyship Weatherlight.
It is possible to Whir of Invention for getting Birthing Pod and Corridor Monitor and then sacrifice Kalamax to get Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
This allows you to run the Chord for Kiki-Jiki/Corridor Monitor as well, giving you additional access to a combo.
This is very condensed and effective. Birthing Pod decks normally have a heavy emphasis on additional ways to get value out of Pod, so I feel like the secret to really making this good is to decipher how to create a creature base that can get you value at times you just have Birthing Pod.
But in all fairness as Kalamax suggests an "instant" heavy deck, running too many creatures sort of waters down your ability to get value off him.
That is why the core of the deck is only a handful of creatures.
The sort of train of thought is what can your 1 cmc creatures be turned into? 2 cmc into 3 cmc, etc?
In theory as long as you have Kalamax in play then you can Pod a 1 cmc creature into Corridor Monitor to untap the Birthing Pod to then Pod Kalamax into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
If you wanted to Pod a 2 cmc, then it might pay to also include Deceiver Exarch as another combo target, as it can untap the Pod as well and Pod Kalamax again into Kiki-Jiki.
It might be that you just want to run a few more 1 cmc creatures like Arbor Elf and maybe Joraga Treespeaker, Elvish Mystic, etc to make a Birthing Pod natural draw more valuable.
However 6 or 7 mana in cEDH games can be quite the ask. But it's not inconceivable so lets look at some combos.
Firemind's Foresight for Reset and Reiterate means that you can get infinite mana in an opponents turns upkeep as long as you have 7 lands in play. Once you have infinite mana then you can cast something like Lightning Bolt as the 1 cmc card you got and copy it infinite times with the Reiterate.
Alright this didn't actually require copying Firemind's Foresight either, so with this combo you could back it up with counter disruption for your next search like Flusterstorm, Mana Drain, Fierce Guardianship to feel pretty good about pushing it through.
The other neat thing is that Reset is probably going to be copied by Kalamax, which free up mana to cast counters.
Firemind's Foresight Combo
It is a 3 color deck so it's not like you can have all Islands in play consistently.
But if we break it down you might be easily able to get away with just 2 Islands in play for example.
Let's say you have 4 lands in play and you had cast the Firemind's Foresight off those and a Mana Vault.
If you tap a non-Island to play the High Tide and this gets copied so now Islands produce triple mana. You can tap your 2 Islands to get 6 mana and as long as you have another mana to pay for the Reset and Reiterate your 4 lands can produce 8 mana allowing you to go infinite.
You could go for Crop Rotation as your other 1 cmc to make sure you put a couple of Islands into play.
You could have either Shivan Gorge, Arch of Orazca, Bonders' Enclave, Desolate Lighthouse as a way to win with a Crop Rotation target and infinite land untaps.
But you could easily get Anticipate/Impluse/Into the Roil as a 2 cmc (from the copied Firemind's Foresight) and with the combo you can draw your entire deck and just win via say a Lightning Bolt again. You know the drill, draw your whole deck, it doesn't matter what is in your 99, you win.
Invert // Invent can get sorcery as well as instants and any converted-mana-cost, so the potential for various combinations are too numerous to really mention, or for me to even really come up with the most streamlined.
It might be that you have aimed for a more "storm" orientated build, so imagine getting High Tide, Turnabout, Past in Flames, Brain Freeze and just look to go off.
The idea is that you can play Oath of Druids and then dump a large portion of your library into your graveyard.
As Spellseeker is the only creature in your 99, you'll get its trigger and you can then search for probably a Noxious Revival, Regrowth, Reap.
The main idea is to stock your graveyard for Underworld Breach combo turn. If Breach is put into your graveyard as part of the Oath, then you can get it back with one of the graveyard retrieval cards and likely go off.
Oath of Druids
This is obviously a...gamble, but it might be that you already have a graveyard retrieval in hand so wouldn't matter much.
The fail safe is having to wait another turn for another Oath trigger to mill out your entire library.
With Nexus of Fate in this build you will always have at least one card you can draw. If you have available at that stage then you can just get infinite turns.
To support not having creatures, you can afford to run more creature sweepers.
Certainly you can look at a configuration that leans on Gaea's Cradle a lot for huge mana bursts. But again Kalamax suggests instants heavy not creature heavy, so you give up on a reasonable amount of synergy if looking to dive into the creature pool too much.
I tried to come up with a pure land based win/infinite combo in Temur.
The example that I came up with is Magosi, the Waterveil, Deserted Temple, Nesting Grounds, Karn's Bastion.
Say you look to do the Crop Rotation just before your turn to put Magosi, the Waterveil into play, so that in your turn it will be untapped.
You tap to put an Eon counter on it, and you'll skip your next turn.
You can use Karn's Bastion to put another eon counter on it. Now you move one of those "eon" counters with Nesting Grounds to another card.
Untap the Magosi, the Waterveil with Deserted Temple and now you can tap and return to hand to take an additional turn.
The net result here is that because you skipped a turn, the game will just carry on as normal and opponents will take their turns. However you now have an eon counter that can be moved for your next turn without having to skip a turn.
From there on out you can use Karn's Bastion to keep making an additional eon counter and then use Nesting Grounds to move one of those eon counters onto Magosi, the Waterveil to take infinite turns.
Crop Rotation Infinite Turns Combo
Well this is where things are even a little bit trickier, but very doable.
What you can do is get Mystic Sanctuary and say Magosi, the Waterveil as you first 2 lands.
Mystic Sanctuary (with 3 other Islands in play) can put Crop Rotation back on top.
You can cast it again and get Deserted Temple and say Simic Growth Chamber returning the Mystic Sanctuary.
You can play the Mystic Sanctuary in your turn to return the Crop Rotation to top of library. You will require a draw card however to get it immediately.
Now you can Crop Rotation for the Nesting Grounds and Karn's Bastion.
This sounds fairly convoluted and well it kind of is. It might be more realistic to assume that you have already drawn one of the combo lands and played it.
And so a much more reasonable line of play is that you have to search for 3 lands and you can still use the Mystic Sanctuary play to get access to 3 lands.
Even further to this it is reasonable to expect to have instant draw as well so that you can draw into the Crop Rotation a second time without waiting a turn.
The best case scenario is if you've already played Magosi, the Waterveil and it's untapped. This way you can actually look to setup the combo just before your turn, meaning that you can look to go infinite rather than having to pass for another turn cycle.
As well as tapping each of these lands you need (Magosi) + (Temple) + (Nesting) + (Karn's) = . It is fairly mana intensive as well.
The upside to all this however is that land slots are much easier to slot in and Crop Rotation will be in any good Kalamax build.
Not to say however that there isn't a cost to running 3 colorless lands in a 3 color deck and a tapped land. In cEDH terms this realistically isn't going to cut it.
But if you are playing in an environment that justifies playing more lands, then you could look for this combo over say a more spells based combo for the sake of hitting land drops.
There are other non-land cards that can help to make this possible without the Karn's Bastion in;
Doubling Season, Pir, Imaginative Rascal, Clockspinning, Contagion Clasp, Contagion Engine, Evolution Sage, Guildpact Informant, Merfolk Skydiver, Thrummingbird, Viral Drake.
It might be if you are looking to have this combo that you have some number of these fill roles in other ways as well.
Kalamax already has +1/+1 counters so leveraging additional counters could have additional benefits.
In Conclusion
At this stage I'm in a flux of trying various combinations to see how they feel and fare, but I honestly need to get lots of reps in with each of them individually before I can tell you conclusively any final decisions on solidifying them as part of this primer.
One of the great things about getting these ideas on the table is that over time they can be refined as new cards are printed and maybe one will step ahead of the rest because of it.
Also if anybody can think up mana efficient and quality (cards provide value with non-combo) and quality (low count) ways to win with various cards like Chord of Calling, Whir of Invention, etc then I am all ears
Whir/Chord Kiki-Jiki Combo
I'm playing Eternal Witness over say Reap/Regrowth for the sake of Chord of Calling value setup.
The idea is that you can Chord for to get Eternal Witness and another value creature like Spellseeker or Dockside Extortionist, before you Chord for for the win.
Eternal Witness and Spellseeker also give some versatility in general with Chord, if you need to get removal or a counterspell or whatever.
Also if you have the dreaded Kiki-Jiki in hand, then you can look to do the Chord for Eternal Witness (getting Chord back) and Spellseeker getting Brainstorm. Brainstorm puts Kiki-Jiki back into library and now you can Chord for the full combo.
Also Whir of Invention can just be used to get value if somehow the Birthing Pod and Corridor Monitor into Kiki-Jiki line is not available to you.
On the land base, there are 3 "colorless" lands in Kessig Wolf Run, Holdout Settlement, Survivors' Encampment.
A lot of other cEDH Kalamax decks would probably try and run fewer lands than 32 and no colorless lands in a 3 color deck.
However I've found the Holdout Settlement and Survivors' Encampment to be invaluable in my build as Whir combo really want to be done pre-combat as you are trying to make infinite attackers. So if you are getting Kalamax tapped via attacking then you basically have to wait a turn to do the Whir combo for an actual win. So this is where the tap creature for colored mana really has shone.
Also Kessig Wolf Run has done excellent work as well.
The way I look at it is that I'm happy to consider these colorless lands taking spell slots, that help to make land drops waaaay more consistent.
Because the other thing is that it's not the most efficient deck for mulligans. The reason being that there is less quick mana sources like mana dorks and other one-and-done effects like Lotus Petal, and also there are no Wheel effects like Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, etc. When you run decks that do have these, you have more consistency to have a hand that can look to play out more quick mana sources and then use a draw 7 spell to refill.
So if that makes sense your mulligans are not as potentially impressive and as such really you just want to make sure you have spells and lands in your starting hand and I've found 32 to be much better than trying to push it with less.
I feel like too many people try and use a set "29" lands for their list because other cEDH decks use around these numbers, but honestly you need the right type of Wheel deck in my opinion to warrant more aggressive mulligans.
Zacama
