Kaalia, Zenith Seeker

[Cyberium]

Kaalia, Zenith Seeker

With so many 5cc or less angel/demon/dragon available now, how do people feel about tiny Kaalia? Previously I grab large creatures then use cards like Scroll Rack/Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge to substitute them, or use them as discard fuels, now it seems possible to make better early offense with her. We also have cards like Maskwood Nexus and more shapeshifters from Modern Horizon available.

[Sinis]

I think the thing I struggle with for this Kaalia is the math around how much you can hope to get out of it. This thread hashed out the numbers for random etbs (i.e. not scroll racking to ditch three unwanted cards and just get back 3 creatures you just put there), and... it just feels not very impactful? I think you need to go big or go home, because (obviously depending on deck composition), you're going to probably only get 1 or 2 critters out of each ETB, and then it'd be terrible if you went small and were trying to leverage Serra Avenger or Herald of Torment or something.

I think if it dug though more cards, and could take a huge range of things (like Niv-Mizzet Reborn), then I think I'd be more amenable.

Still, I've been wrong before. It might be worth a try!

[3drinks]

It's fine, actually, it's a fantastic midrange deck that always has a threat which makes it fairly resilient to removal. with the math involved, it's actually not that far off from Collected Company in mardu. "CoCo Mardu", if you will.

It's not the bomb at the table. You're not cheating mana values. It's not inherently unfair. I think people get frustrated with it because they want to play it like the OG, and that's just not the case. If you got about three weeks, we've got a deck tech coming out where I go over it, the synergy plays, and things to avoid precisely because people have been bugging me for my list and they want to see her get cracked just as much.

[duducrash]

It's fine, actually, it's a fantastic midrange deck that always has a threat which makes it fairly resilient to removal. with the math involved, it's actually not that far off from Collected Company in mardu. "CoCo Mardu", if you will.

.

Mardu Lead the Stampede at best

[3drinks]

It's fine, actually, it's a fantastic midrange deck that always has a threat which makes it fairly resilient to removal. with the math involved, it's actually not that far off from Collected Company in mardu. "CoCo Mardu", if you will.

.

Mardu Lead the Stampede at best

As one of if not the lead developer of this deck as a force at non cDH tables, I can say that your short sighted and quick assessment is ripe with preconceived bias without the capacity to show your work to elaborate why you've come to such a damning hypothesis without merit.

[Cyberium]

It's fine, actually, it's a fantastic midrange deck that always has a threat which makes it fairly resilient to removal. with the math involved, it's actually not that far off from Collected Company in mardu. "CoCo Mardu", if you will.

Spicy mocha then. :3 The repeated card grab is one reason why I played her in the first place. Dream Devourer also allows even bigger creatures to be played more easily now.

[duducrash]

It's fine, actually, it's a fantastic midrange deck that always has a threat which makes it fairly resilient to removal. with the math involved, it's actually not that far off from Collected Company in mardu. "CoCo Mardu", if you will.

.

Mardu Lead the Stampede at best

As one of if not the lead developer of this deck as a force at non cDH tables, I can say that your short sighted and quick assessment is ripe with preconceived bias without the capacity to show your work to elaborate why you've come to such a damning hypothesis without merit.

It's not much of a value assesment, nor power level. Just that coco put a two on the battlefield with CMC limitations. Lead the Stampede can get plenty of gas to your hand. they are both incredibilly similar and I don't see how this is in any way would lead you to assume such a defensive position and try go on with your credentials llike this somehow this invalidates the take.

You can win all the games in all cEDH tables in all places of the world. It still works more like Lead the Stampede than it does to Collected Company . And tbh It's pretty absurd to get rilled up and use bigger words at this obvious comparission

[3drinks]

It's fine, actually, it's a fantastic midrange deck that always has a threat which makes it fairly resilient to removal. with the math involved, it's actually not that far off from Collected Company in mardu. "CoCo Mardu", if you will.

Spicy mocha then. :3 The repeated card grab is one reason why I played her in the first place. Dream Devourer also allows even bigger creatures to be played more easily now.

...Hmm. I like that. I'm not sure how much I want to rely on a two mana value lightning rod 0/3 as the cheat mechanism, but in theory I like it.

[brainface]

I love new Kaalia. She draws none of the terrified hate of old Kaalia, and even if she somehow did, it's an ETB trigger so it doesn't matter. And then you play bombs for their mana cost! If she gets removed, cast her and draw more bombs! If she's not removed, deal 3 flying in the air to someone every turn because vigilance. She's great. 5 stars, best design. I have no idea how this card came out in the set with golos and kykar and yarok while they were pushing brawl but it's a power level I'd like to see a lot more of.

https://archidekt.com/decks/1289949#AD&D This is my decklist. It's not very good! But that's the trick, with 25 5/5 fliers you don't have to have a great deck.

[Cyberium]

On a side note, Kaalia #2 can also grab changeling instant/sorcery, right? Since her ability doesn't specify they have to be "creature" cards.

[brainface]

Absolutely. The list of useful ones isn't very long though, it's pretty much just crib swap and maybe Nameless Inversion.

[3drinks]

On a side note, Kaalia #2 can also grab changeling instant/sorcery, right? Since her ability doesn't specify they have to be "creature" cards.

Yes, I still grab nameless, though you'll cut crib swap since Unmake isn't a particularly strong card.

[RowanKeltizar]

This is one of my favorite decks. You gotta have that high density of angels, demons, and dragons to get consistent value from her triggers. I run about 27 fetchable creatures. And yes, Scroll Rack can be very good here.

You can go several directions with her. I chose to go etb/reanimator.

She's a deceptively good commander, but I think the deck itself matters more. Without support, her vanilla ability is pretty lackluster for a commander, sure. But if you are able to blink her or otherwise get multiple triggers off one cast she becomes a lot better. Panharmonicon can be good if you are going hard into the etbs. But in my experience, there are too few A.D.D. with good ETBs at sub 7cmc costs. You never want to be hardcasting these.

Teleportation Circle is a great include. I also run a couple of mass blink effects like Eerie Interlude which can save your team and get multiple triggers from your other etb creatures.

Reanimation is also a great strategy for this deck since a lot of fatties are going to be hitting your yard.

Sneak Attack is pivotal to my build since it gives you a payoff for filling up your hand with fatties. Spamming things like Junji, the Midnight Sky is a great synergy too. There's redundancy in Heartless Summoning , Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Smothering Tithe and sure you can run some big artifact ramp to hardcast things.

I have found instant speed interaction to be very important. Things like Fire Covenant and Heliod's Intervention have been great.

You can close out games with either mass aggro, Terror of the Peaks or Worldgorger Dragon combo

Decklist in sig

[hyalopterouslemur]

On a side note, Kaalia #2 can also grab changeling instant/sorcery, right? Since her ability doesn't specify they have to be "creature" cards.

Yep, though you can't grab Wings of Velis Vel.

Note that Kaalia Classic (less sweet, more bite, more fizz) can't put them on the battlefield (as they're instants and sorceries). If they brought back tribal and had a tribal permanent with changeling, she could.

I'm going to one of these days have to write up a guide to creatures, tokens, and tribals, and which tribal cards affect which ones.

[3drinks]

I took down a fatal four-way Friday night with this. A Kambul deck that gave up after trying to chip us turned into drawing our aggro, and a Krav, the Unredeemed/Regna, the Redeemer that stuck Avacyn, Angel of Hope but conceded the game when the Zecama deck stuck it's commander.

I didn't see any means for it to combo off so I stuck to it, eventually out playing them with tight play (removal in response to the untap trigger), and an eventual living death|tmp with a Terror of the Peaks in the yard...

Zecama had stuck that green enchantment that halves his commander tax, but I kept making them deal with a Chancellor of the Annex, effectively negating it.