Pointed Discussion

Emrakul? Papa spank!

Parallectric Feedback. One that hits creatures as well. On legs. Yes please!

I really want to make a edh deck built around this. anyne got any suggestions?

Hate magnet. People don't like when they get punched for doing their thing. In other words, deck strategies that hurt your opponent in and of themselves are more amiable than ones that hurt your opponents whenever they do stuff.

@lyle685
Your opponents won't like it. He will be the first target almost any time he is on field simply because his effect hurts your opponents with every single spell they cast making him an immediate threat all of the time. He's not fun, and consequently not a very good EDH general, in my opinion, for any casual setting.

Combos with Delay, cuz they lose life when they cast it the first time and lose it again when the spell gets un-suspended.

@ Lyle Oh Yeah Bro Demigod Of Revenge ,Terminate ,Ashenmoor Gouger ,Blightning,Avatar Of Discord

Him and furnace of wrath make for one ridiculous chaos game had it out yesterday with an 8 player chaos match and I wiped out three players before it got back to my turn lol.

This card is simply ridiculous. I was playing a tournament with my friends and I had advanced to the last round; we were playing 2 out of 3 and every time I got this guy, which resulted in my victory

5/5 definitely.

Equip him with Grafted Exoskeleton and see how your opponent worries about casting 10 mana's worth of spells.

@Lyle: KikiJikiTiki is slightly wrong: most players will probably start picking on you before he hits the field; after all, when you put him in the Command Zone at the beginning of the game it's a signal to stop you before he comes out and does his damage. So even if you build a deck good enough to withstand all that punishment, it would zap the fun out of playing for everyone else and could even get you informally kicked out of the playgroup until you pick a new deck. Some commanders may not be banned, but they scream "Kill me soon or you'll regret it," and this is one of them. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is another that would creature a similar reaction. Which is too bad, but understandable.

Is that partially-ionized gas he's got in his hands, or yarn? I can't tell because the art is wretched. I assume it's supposed to be fire, but it looks solid. I expect more from rk Post.

Rather sick as an EDH general, too. :)

I disagree with KikiJikiTiki. Though it is true that opponents hate strategies that hurt decks for doing their thing, Kaervek doesn't specify that you must deal the damage to the person who played the spell or one of their creatures. Therefore, any opponent who teams up with you will find their spells magnified by damage equal to their converted mana costs. Alternatively, you could make everyone happy while turning them against each other, by letting your opponents choose Kaervek's targets for the spells they play as long as none of their spells do much harm to you. In this way, Kaervek can actually be a diplomatic commander.

Contrary to popular belief, he's a TERRIBLE EDH general. As soon as people see you're using him, you either become an instant target, or people flat refuse to play with you. He's one of those creatures that are TOO powerful to be a general.

Holy shit.

Try comboing him with Mindslaver for maximum mercilessness. I've always found him to be an alright edh general - he's powerful but somewhat death-prone, so it balances out and no one really seems to mind me running him. Finally I love the flavour text. Kudos to whoever came up with that one.

very good edh general

I just thought of this + Grafted Exoskeleton, as previously mentioned.
But then, throwing out a Mindslaver.

Watch how fast you lose friends.

Hilarious. Terribly expensive though.

So much fun with basilisk collar!

What are the rulings on this card. For example if an opponent has this on the battlefield and I were to cast Gisela, Blade of Goldnight would the damage delt by kearvek be changed?

@7fold
This triggers when you cast a spell (not on resolution), so when you cast Gisela the following things would happen:
1) Gisela would go on the stack.
2) This would trigger and be put above her on the stack.
3) Proving there were no responses, this would then resolve, meaning there would be no change in damage from Gisela.
4) Finally Gisela would resolve.

However if she was already on the battlefield and you cast any other spell her abilities would change the amount of damage dealt.

Excellent EDH general for antisocial players. Play with him and no one will ever speak to you again! (Even if they don't play Magic...they'll know what you did.)

It bugs me to no end when people say he is "too powerful" as a commander. He costs a whooping 7 mana, everyone sees him coming from miles away and any deck can pop him with a single CMC<3 spell.
He is good. I'm not denying that. Set up the battlefield with a Furnace of Rath and a Manabarbs and you can hurt-lock your opponents for good. But he's nowhere close to the guys who actually deserve being hated on (Jhoira, Zur and Kaalia, for example).

This guy is seriously underrated. I can't believe he's rated only 4.0. Ah it's probably hate rate for EDH. Still, even outside of EDH, any deck that can reliably cast him has a serious bomb. The fact that any removal spell spent on him automatically procs his ability before he leaves the field is just too good. Especially if that removal is not cheap.

...And if they can't remove him immediately then they lose. Well worth 7 mana.

KikiJikiTiki: He's a high-cost general in the colors WORST at Mana-helping. Yes there are 'things' and of course ALWAYS Artifacts for all EDH decks to turn to, but part of why I love Kaalia of the Vast so much, and think that she is the only General in MTG that MIGHT have a chance at truly MAINTAINING a continuous presence in an Archenemy Metagame, is because there are just barely enough White cards ala Land Tax to cover this egregious hole in Kaervek's otherwise Merciless plans.

Kaalia may not be the Best at much of anything, but I feel she CAN do ANYthing, thanks to being in the nicest colors for cards that break their own slices of the color pie. :)
(Temporal Extortion, Land Tax, and ZOUNDS everything based off Wheel of Fate). Kaalia is cheaper to cast than Kaervek, and she also has better mana support than Kaervek. It's a lot of little things but they add up eventually.

I can name a lot of Commanders I think would be pretty badass as Archenemies, but the only one that I think would do better than Kaalia, AFTER repeated matches and side-boarding, is Griselbrand. And he's Banned so he doesn't get to show off how he does his T1 Vintage Amazo Stupid Crap. XD The Generals more effective than Kaalia, I believe are also easier to Hate Against if it really comes to it. Except that the only thing pretty much Impossible to Hate Against is T1 Combo.

Which Griselbrand does with a Disturbingly Good Impression of Consistency. X.X

Kaervek is scary the way a Death Star or Imperial Star Destroyer is Scary. It's still a battleship, no matter if it's one of the Biggest Baddest Ever. It's got inherent weaknesses.

Kaalia is scary the way that highly-illegally modified fighter that you just KNOW is being piloted by their Best Flier is scary. It is Much Faster and gives you less time, even if landing the right blow does blow it completely to space dust. It can also think a bit better than the average Battleship.

Griselbrand is scary the way a Sith Lord walking into the room is scary. No normal human ever survives such an encounter, and in fact a lot of people tend to die all at once when it happens. X.X :O :O :O

The general of my first Commander deck, before I really understood the "fun" angle of the format. I loaded the deck down with as much land destruction and removal as possible, with terrible things like Kulrath Knight for a little defense. Needless to say, my friends found it obnoxious and made sure I was dead before Kaervek could see play.
My suggestion if you want to use Kaervek in EDH is to not use him as a general; people see that from miles away and Do Not want him to get out. Instead, put him into a deck with some other appropriately colored general. That way, once you eventually get him on the field (and he will show up, use those black tutors), the high mana cost environment will ensure that your seven mana doesn't go to waste, as long as you can protect him.

He makes his torch that much more unlikely to be countered. Powerful card that immediately stops the game once it lands, woe to anyone who doesn't read his effect. Pair him with defense grid for maximum lockdown effect.