Kaalia of the Vast Commander Deck Tech
Kaalia of the Vast by Scott M. Fischer
Fill the skies with wings of feather, scale, and skin as Kaalia of the Vast brings the airborne beatdown. Red, white, and black offer a deep card pool, and Angels, Dragons, and Demons are among the most heavily supported creature types in their respective colors. As a result, there's a vast array of options to choose from.
Do we lean in the direction of the heroic Angels, the villainous Demons, or the chaotic Dragons? Do we just cherry-pick the coolest flyers available and hope they play nice and that we live long enough to cast them? Come along as we create a cadre of critters to crush our compatriots!
Core Engine
They say cheaters never prosper, but we're not building Prosper, Tome-Bound, we're building around someone who knows the rules but is chaotic and selfish enough to feel like they don't apply and can be skirted. We want to find any way possible to get our big, beefy flyers out... besides waiting for our mana to develop naturally, of course. The game has sped up a lot since Kaalia was printed, and being able to avoid costs by paying life with Bolas's Citadel or Marshland Bloodcaster or dramatically reduce costs with Sneak Attack or Quicksilver Amulet helps us keep pace.
In fact, like those last two cards, we want to load up on ways to drop stompy creatures down regardless of the turn. Surprise Deployment is a solid card in a deck that has three colors as there are lots of red and black creatures our white spell can enable. One of these is a newcomer from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, Akul the Unrepentant. Akul lets us sacrifice three creatures to drop something into play, but it's also easy to drop into play, itself. If we have extra bodies, awesome. If not, it's a decent beater on its own.
Why do we need so many ways to cheat in large creatures? Kaalia has been around long enough to gain a certain stigma. We need to be prepared for her to absorb removal and keep on pushing. Once she's been removed two to three times, she winds up costing as much as our big beaters. It becomes more cost-effective to either let her die and Cauldron Dance her back or just let her sit in the command zone and look down on the chaos her library is causing. After all, there's a reason people have become afraid of her!
Kaalia Win Conditions
The cards that win the game are about as subtle as a brick. Well, a flying brick. And we want enough of them that we're not left drawing bricks. English is weird, and Magic jargon just makes it weirder sometimes. We want a critical mass of huge flyers, so it stands to reason that, given the array of options, we go for ten each of the three different types that Kaalia can cheat into play. This is where the deckbuilder can customize the deck, mixing and matching flavors of flyers to their Timmy/Tammy heart's content.
The Best Angels for Kaalia
We may be packing Angels, but they're certainly not the kindly overseer type. Gisela doubles damage to opponents and halves damage to us, which Aurelia brings the beatdown, alongside extra combat steps. If the opponents did have flying blockers, they won't be around for long, and if our creatures die, such as to Sneak Attack, Liesa provides a way to get them back.
The Angels of Despair and Serenity team up to provide some much-needed removal, in addition to bringing the beats. The ability to destroy any permanent makes Angel of Despair a classic beater, going back to the days of Hypergenesis in Modern. Angel of Serenity has been a trendy reanimation target for a long time, as it exiles multiple permanents. We do need to be careful with Serenity, though, as we don't want to cheat her into play with a card that sacrifices her at the end of the turn.
The Best Demons for Kaalia
The Demons of the deck provide a powerful influx of chaos. Master of Cruelties is extremely difficult to block and threatens to almost one-shot a player. Abhorrent Overlord brings an army of flyers with it, lingering long after the Sneak Attack has connected. While we are in three colors, the devotion to black can still get quite high, especially as we aren't casting many of the creatures we drop into play.
The Demons also know a thing or two about taking down opposing creatures and clearing the way for the stompy creatures to smash in. Archfiend of Depravity helps to level playing fields with decks that go wide, while Reaper from the Abyss hearkens back to the global enchantment The Abyss by making players sacrifice creatures, one at a time. Eventually, only Demons remain. Them, and a pile of dead opponents.
The Best Dragons for Kaalia
Dragons are where the damage output of the deck really scales. Get it, "scales"? Anyways, Terror of the Peaks and Balefire Dragon burninate our opponents' boards and faces, while Ancient Copper Dragon brings in riches that would make Smaug jealous. Blast-Furnace Hellkite is one of the nastiest cards in the deck, giving anything attacking an opponent (we have three of those!) double strike.
Not to be outdone, the Ancient Dragons of Brass and Gold bring reanimation and another small army with them. Terror of Mount Velus gives us another way to double strike, slamming our way through any defenses our opponents can put up.
Removal
While we have some spot removal tucked into our beatdown package, it helps to have some anti-removal spells, as well. Galadriel's Dismissal can either be removal or board protection, with overload helping to bridge the gap there. Akroma's Will is board protection that also brings the beatdown, working perfectly with our flying army. We should even get both modes decently often, as well as Flawless Maneuver free, as our commander is cheaper than our board!
Teferi's Protection is what Galadriel's Dismissal wishes it was, although both are powerful and necessary. Turns out a three-mana get-out-of-jail-free card is pretty good in Magic. Even without Sunforger, its partner in crime, Boros Charm is a solid board protection piece that could even deal the last bit of damage in a pinch. Oh, you survived combat with one life? Too bad I have priority!
Card Draw/Advantage
Rune-Scarred Demon is an exceptional source of card advantage. It not only tutors on entering the battlefield, it puts the card in our hand, where it can be cheated out. Thanks for the assist, big guy! Speaking of assists, who better to assist Kaalia than another version of herself? Zenith Seeker isn't nearly as strong as our commander, but she does synergize well, loading up the hand with cheatable fatties. In fact, since we have such a solid balance, it's likely that we'll be able to hit two or more different creatures!
Bloodgift Demon is my personal favorite Demon, as it's surprisingly friendly, offering half a Sign in Blood to whomever we want every turn. In this deck, we're likely to be a bit more selfish, but we can always be political and spread the love.
As a whole, the deck is looking to beat down with large flyers that have been dropped into play for a discounted cost. After all, what better way to represent Mardu than to know the rules and find ways to break them for fun and profit?
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