Largely thanks to Baneslayer Angel, we're used
to thinking of demons, dragons, and angels as
being entirely unsuited to each other's company
in deck space. There's really not any reason for
that to be so. Even way back in the dawn of
Magic's history, the only thing more feared than
Serra Angel or Shivan Dragon was having to deal
with both. Angels, dragons, and demons are among
the most feared creatures in EDH/Commander, as
they give you access to everything - defense,
attack, board control, card drawing, and the
kitchen sink. Kaalia is surprisingly hard to
stop, laughing off Doom Blade and being in the
right color for Rebuff the Wicked, and that
means that all those creatures' effects
basically can't be stopped either. If you're not
convinced, I have three words for you: zero mana
Malfegor.
Welcome back readers today's card of the day is
Kalia of The Vast an interesting legend from the
original commander deck lineup which allows you
to cheat demons, dragons, and angels into play.
Kalia only has to attack not survive to trigger
her effect, even so she is fragile as a 2/2 body
that has to live to attack. Smart players will
target her early and often to lock the
person playing her out of the game. In
constructed formats too slow and vulnerable. In
casual and multiplayer shes a huge target and
relies on you having expensive cards in your
hand to power out, this means if she dies your
stuck holding a large percentage of do nothing
cards, she has an obscene power level however
being able to cheat out Iona to lock players out
or Master of Cruelties to reduce them to one
life are some of the more powerful and
disgusting things you can do with her ability.
Kalia is a high risk high reward card and one of
the few Mardu colored generals available. The
power level of demons, angels and dragons is
high enough to make her appealing however
overcoming her fragile nature requires a decent
amount of build around. Overall she is a
powerful general which will make you enemies at
the table and sometimes be not as powerful as
you think.
Today's card of the day is Kaalia of the Vast
which is a four mana White, Black, and Red 2/2
legendary with Flying and whenever it attacks an
opponent you may put an angel, demon, or dragon
creature from your hand into play tapped and
attacking. The 2/2 body is a noticeable
weakness that can be covered with support as the
free plays of generally high end creatures
bypassing summoning sickness is well worth the
effort. Adding in cards like Aurelia or
Red extra battle step plays with cards that give
draw power and it can be a gimmicky, yet lethal
design. Overall a strong and aggressive
commander that can apply a great deal of threat
in the right build plus has the benefit of truly
inspired artwork.
Constructed: 3.0
Casual: 3.5
Multiplayer: 3.5
Armuun
Kaalia of the Vast
This one's kinda tricky. On one hand, you've got
an incredibly powerful effect at a reasonable
mana cost. On the other, her low toughness and
being in a color wedge that isn't the greatest
to fix for loses her some points. But even
managing to swing once with her puts opponents
in a bind, especially with such picks as
Rune-scarred Demon, Akroma, and Avacyn
(original, not the terrible retrained version)
hitting the field for big chunks of life. It's a
mixed bag, but I'm still a fan, and hope to
build one for my mardu EDH slot.
