Kaalia Stax & Aggro

[benjameenbear]

Lord of the Rings Set Review

• The One Ring - broken card is broken. This card is absolutely phenomenal. Grab a copy. Jam it in here. Profit and draw a ton of cards as your opponents try to navigate a Stax-ed out board.
• Orcish Bowmasters - I've never seen a card so easily identified as a cEDH staple since Hullbreacher (toxic card was toxic). So jam this in your deck and snipe mana dorks, utility creatures, and X/2 Commanders. Excellent, excellent card that can also kill people with Wheel effects.
• Boromir, Warden of the Tower - welp, this is an excellent Stax and protection piece for Kaalia. I think it just misses the cut but I could totally be wrong about this. Grab a copy and test it yourself to see how it plays.
• Reprieve - great disruption piece that replaces itself. I recommend grabbing a copy of it and slotting it into your decklist if you have the space. I think it misses my own list due to space constraints.
• Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff - free mana is free mana. So... yeah, this card is good. It will find a spot in the decklist, not sure where though.
• Cavern-Hoard Dragon - I think this card is pretty good. It's dependent on board state of course, but with Dockside being arguably the most powerful card in the format currently, having a pseudo- Dockside on a damage trigger is great. I'm grabbing a copy.
• Minas Tirith - having extra utility on our lands is good and we want to be triggering this every turn. I think it's a solid inclusion since we have minimal tap-lands in the deck. Worth getting a copy and testing out.

"That One Western Set WOTC Made" Set Review

• Angel of Indemnity - this is actually an interesting Reanimate effect on an ETB trigger. I think it's not too bad since it can also pick up Kaalia from the 'yard on top of almost every Stax piece we'd want. I really like it.
• Aven Interrupter - I personally think this is an awesome interaction piece for the deck since it also shuts off Breach Combos. It also allows Kaalia to interact on the Stack, which could completely catch an opponent by surprise. Do note that if you exile a Counterspell to this ability, it becomes exiled forever due to the timing of Plotted spells FYI.
• High Noon - another cool Stax piece that can randomly kill a greedy Naus player? I'm down with it. I'm grabbing a copy and replacing one of the weaker creature Rule of Law effects with this one to minimize exposure to Bowmasters for this deck.
• Insatiable Avarice - this is really cool art that's very thematic for what Kaalia represents. Too expensive and slow for the deck though.
• Terror of the Peaks - a VERY welcome reprint for the deck that helps accelerate the clock on your opponents. Great card and pretty cool art too.
• Akul the Unrepentant - with the right token support, this card could be quite good. But, its ability is one we don't want to sacrifice that many creatures for. Pass.
• Rakdos, the Muscle - I've already mentioned it in a previous post, but this card is very good for what the deck wants to do. Good stats with a good triggered ability that acts as card advantage for the deck and helps turn on Reanimation effects in hand.

Deck updates will be coming shortly as I update the Primer list to what I'm actually running.

And I guess there's a Modern Horizons 3 set review to do as well. Crazy how much product is getting pushed out by WOTC...

[benjameenbear]

Decklist Update (sorry for the multiple posts):

• -Professional Face-Breaker, +Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff - easy switch to get more free mana as cEDH players progress their game plans. Powerful card.
• -Ancient Copper Dragon, +The One Ring - Copper Dragon didn't do as much Reanimating as I wanted and, when it did, the targets weren't as cool as I thought they'd be. Cutting this for Ring is an easy swap.
• -Azra Oddsmaker, +Trouble in Pairs - Trouble isn't a target for Wraths or Bowmasters splash damage and doesn't require a creature to connect. The number of times Trouble will trigger in a cEDH game more than makes up for its steeper mana cost. And even if we're Stax-ing the board and preventing the triggers, then that's probably a good sign for us.
• -Ethersworn Canonist, +Aven Interrupter - this might not be the best choice, but I really want to test the Interrupter in this list. There's already a good amount of spell control Stax pieces in the list, so I think cutting one is ok so I can add stack interaction and another hate piece for Breach.
• -Gisela, the Broken Blade, +Rakdos, the Muscle - Ok, so Brisela is game-warping... but finding all the pieces is tough and requires a ton of tutors or card draw. Rakdos more directly affects my card advantage without as much support, so it gets the nod.
• -Bruna, the Fading Light, +Orcish Bowmasters - same reasoning as above.
• -Dark Confidant, +Hoarding Broodlord - replace a Bowmasters liability with a big fat dragon that tutors. Noice.

[benjameenbear]

Modern Horizons 3 Set Review

• Shilgengar, Sire of Famine - ok, so this is not a good card. But the art is SO damn cool. And I like that they printed another Elder Demon. I wouldn't recommend adding this to your list, but it's such a visually cool card I couldn't really fault anyone. And if you can get its mass reanimate ability to trigger, you're probably going to win.
• Ripples of Undeath - not sure how to evaluate this card. It can fill your 'yard if you're on Breach, but it also allows you to see quite a few cards at the cost of life. I think it could be good, but I'm not sure.
• Imskir Iron-Eater - a pretty good ETB effect to draw more cards. I think it's a solid inclusion even if it only draws 1-2 cards. And if you resolve a Dockside beforehand, you'll probably refill your hand super fast and get more A/D/D's and Stax pieces. A good card that's worth testing.
• Crabomination - um, what? If you could CHOOSE the cards from the 'yard and hand and THEN choose which one you cast, it would be an easy include. As is, I think it's just weird and not good enough.
• Necrodominance - well, they did it. They printed another copy of Necro. It's "fixed", but it's still really solid as a draw engine. This deck will happily take another copy of the effect for redundancy, but the OG Necro is strictly better.
• Orim's Chant - another Silence effect is welcome as a pseudo-Counterspell in these colors.