MTG Salvation

Red/White/Black has long been my favorite set of colors in magic and after my first failed attempt at a Marrow Gnawer deck, Oros, the Avenger was my first real, good Commander. Well, it's hard to look back and call that mish-mashed pile of cards "good" by any stretch of the imagination, but it was roughly on par with the other terrible decks my playgroup had at the time, so it was fine. Before the precons had even been announced I had started refining the deck, both to increase its power level and in terms of theme. I decided that I wanted just a bunch of big dragons all over the place. I wanted to slap a Basilisk Collar on Oros, windmill slam a Shivan Dragon or something onto the table, and go to town. The weird part is that I otherwise don't identify that much with the Timmy psychographic! I guess the big spells of Commander just bring that out in me.

Fast forward a bit and the Commander precons are announced and cards are slowly getting revealed. I was very happy when I learned that they were focused on the 5 wedge color sets, but even more excited when I heard that there were going to be two new Commanders for each wedge! I remember Tariel, Reckoner of Souls was revealed first. She was interesting, and I thought about building a new deck based around her. Then Kaalia of the Vast was revealed. This was it. This was exactly what I was hoping for from this set!

So the following deck is the result of, wow, at least a year of tinkering and modifying and is a true labor of love. Keep in mind, however, that it is rather precisely tuned to the decks and players I can expect to play against every week, and so may not pack answers or cards that might otherwise be expected. Mass LD, for instance, is not even a thing where I play outside of a single Godo, Bandit Warlord deck and so I hardly worry about it. Also, there's maybe 10 counterspells total among the decks I commonly play against so, again, not much of a concern. If you're casting Genesis Wave for 72 your biggest concern with my friends is getting it Reiterated or maybe Draining Whelked, but you hardly have to worry about anything like Faerie Trickery.

Finally, yes this is all about to be massively shaken up with all the glorious Angels and Demons in AVR, but even with the whole set spoiled now I just have not decided where to begin. That's an effort for another time.



For those who don't want to count, that's 17 Kaalia targets and 9 Sunforger Targets.

I'll go over some of my specific card choices:

Haunted Fengraf, Anger: These are the most recent additions to the deck, and I haven't had a chance to actually play with them yet. They're really on in a trial basis for now. I can easily see the Fengraf becoming Slayer's Stronghold in the spell land slot, which also frees up the Anger slot, which is only there because I felt like I needed one more way to grant haste not only to Kaalia but also to any fatties I want to start casting out of my hand in the lategame.

Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep: Might as well be a mountain, I guess. The ability has never actually been relevant, I just thought it was a pretty cool card. If I had another full-art mountain I could be convinced to make the switch.

Sensei's Divining Top: Probably doesn't even really belong in this deck, I've just wanted to play with this card for a while and since this is by far my most played deck I figured it was a good spot. Could easily be replaced by just about any other card.

Darksteel Ingot: Honestly just a holdover from when I had a much worse mana base. This is unneeded for mana fixing now and doesn't actually speed up Kaalia like a 2-cost mana rock would. I'm looking to replace this with a Mind Stone.

My top 5 cards in the deck are:
Dragonstorm: Bogardan Hellkite + Knollspine Dragon is always good, even without Warstorm Surge out. Admittedly a bit limited in that it can only get dragons, but the above combo is good enough for me, honestly.

Cauldron Dance: There has never been a situation where I have cast this card and it wasn't amazing. Rune-Scarred Demon from hand, Bladewing the Risen from graveyard, anyone? Cards like these make it fun to treat the graveyard as nothing more than an extension of my hand.

Reiterate: Initially, I had Sunforger almost exclusively because of Reverberate. As I worked on improving my Sunforging package, I learned about the other Fork variants, but this is easily my favorite of the bunch. Once Sunforger is on the field and equipped, I always leave WR untapped, just waiting for a Genesis Wave or Tooth and Nail.

Knollspine Dragon: One of the worst dragons to cheat in off of Kaalia since it happens before combat damage, but it's always fun to swing for a bunch and draw just about half of my deck. I've definitely had games with my graveyard towering over my insignificant library. Between this and Decree of Pain my personal record for most cards drawn in one turn is 57, and this isn't even a blue deck!

Basilisk Collar: Man, what creature in this deck isn't infinitely better with Lifelink and Deathtouch?! Between Scourge of Kher Ridges and Balefire Dragon I just love playing against token strategies, and this card turns Ancient Hellkite into a real machinegun.


So, now that I've put my one true pride and joy out in the world for all to see and mercilessly critique, what do you think? Is it just another run-of-the mill aggressive Kaalia deck? I honestly don't know. The only other list I've ever seen was basically just the precon with a Jokulhaups added in so I haven't exactly seen either a lot of variety or the bog standard.

Changelog: