Pointed Discussion

.5/5 for getting way to many references. Gets annoying, so Ill take it out on the cards rating.

Too friggen powerful in my opinion. Run this with Chancellor of the Annex Iona, Shield of Emeria and Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and you've basically won. Add in black tutors (Demonic Tutor & friends) and the fact that all three colors have ample supplies of board wipe, land destruction and (free) fatties, and you should win pretty much any game unless you're playing against a counterspell or infinite combo deck. Of course, if you're playing competitive, this card is really really good, but as for being fun, this card more often ruins the game for everyone else than not.
I'll give it 5/5 for being really really powerful, but 0.5/5 for having ruined almost every edh game I've seen her in this year.

I was really hoping the Commander's Arsenal would bring back interesting and unique legendaries that would provide entirely new strategies for budding EDH players.

Yeah. Well, I suppose boring competitive folk need their fix too.

@DarthParallax: Wow, you're right about one thing. That comment was so hardcore-fanboyish I practically had to scrub the love juices off my screen. No, the point is is that everyone and their mother uses Kaalia because she's so painfully obvious. There's no real cleverness or strategy a lot of the time, it's just 'oh look I threw down Rakdos, the Defiler or Baneslayer Angel aren't I amazing.'

I would really love to see a deck that uses her in an interesting and unique fashion, so if you want to do that go right ahead. But I'm just fed up of the fact that they could've encouraged players to try something really outrageous with a little known legendary, and instead they just throw in the most over-used commander there is. And a lot of people do use her just because she is very powerful, without any concern for flavour, so my point still stands.

I'm sorry if I offended you that much by posting my opinion, but just remember that every time you criticise another card there's going to be another fanboy out there who'll feel as hurt as you just did. Dem's the breaks!

@TheWrathofShane ^_^ umm....yeah...sry :/ Hey at least I had the civility to also name Kaalia under Human Frailty? :P But look..seriously.

@psychichobo: I understand you better now :P We nearly agree on how to use her PROPERLY- I am taking months to fine-tune my deck to tell the most epic story possible, and doing my best to keep her power under control. She's awesome for that- but some people don't realize they should use her with RESTRAINT, like an Artist, like a Daredevil or Batman graphic novel writer- Commander is the format where a deck can most be an extension of your person, an expression of yourself, and Kaalia gives you the farthest range of emotions to draw on: Epic Love, Epic Wrath, Epic Justice, Epic Hate, Epic Betrayal....I see what you hate is when people use her like Superman instead of Batman. In his own way, Batman is MUCH more powerful than Superman, but ALSO more Intriguing as a person. I may have initially been drawn by all the synergies I saw, but the more I saw, the more I saw an Epic Movie, and the more I thought Myths of 'Movie' or 'Book', the more I was drawn to consider just her art and flavor text. I kind of really, really, wish she'd be nerfed somehow to remind people of the old Legends Legends- that would separate the people with Good Taste from people who don't have it :P


This is the sound of my Kaalia Deck:
Dante's Inferno, the wails of a Torrent of Souls
Lord of the Rings (especially the Nazgul choir parts)
Fantasia, Night on Madblind Mountain)
THOR
Ride of the Valkyries (The Ring Cycle. Speaking of which, German Sol Rings are BAMF)
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (Best War between Evil Vampire Doritos and Colors of the Wind Butterflies EVER!)
Requiem for a Dream (Probably the "Kaalia of the Vast" of YouTube, lol ;):
Ghost Riders in the Sky (Din of the Fireherd)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hellfire, The Bells of Notre Dame)
I Wish I Had An Angel (Nightwish)
Through the Fire and Flames (Dragonforce)

And if you've gone through Gatherer looking at cards like Vault of the Archangel, or wished you could use Glimpse the Unthinkable, JUST FOR THE ART...

Kaalia of the Vast is the most terrifying, beautiful, awe-inspiring, angsty, Vorthos-is-a-helpless-crack junkie-mess-about-her, Gothic, sexy, ummmm >.>

She's like everything you like in Jaya Ballard, Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, Ajani Vengeant, Liliana of the Veil, and even Elspeth, Knight-Errant ever, completely: Abilities/color mechanics are one thing, but she EVEN copies all of their FLAVOR! :O THAT is a feat unmatched to my knowledge.

I want to use her with both Vampires and Undead Slayer. She's Evil Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer! o.O
I want to use her with Anger and with White Knight and Silver Knight, even though none of those are Angels, Demons, or Dragons. I want to use her with any Hypnotic Specters, but probably especially the Xth Edition one (can I have 9?)
I want to put Patronuses and Dementors in the same deck with her.
I want to see her marshal the Ghost Riders and the Daredevils right alongside the Kings and Queens of Narnia and the Jabberwocky, and take all that is Lawful Good AND Lawful Evil and THROW IT, HARD, RIGHT in the Insane Chaotic Neutral Illogical Flying Spaghetti Monster's FACE!

I KNOW this post is slightly excessive, but I really think that few people have pondered just HOW RIDICULOUSLY AMAZINGLY EPIC she actually is, because if you IGNORE HER TEXTBOX and build a completely UNSYNERGISTIC deck that only included

"ANY cards in Black, Red, and White, plus Shivan Dragon, Serra Angel, and Lord of the Pit",

then HONESTLY....I think you'd have, frankly, an AMAZINGLY COOL DECK that would represent a great movie. It's built into the personalities of these colors. I don't know how many other color combinations or Legendary Creatures are out there that you could produce the same results with, and actually have fun playing, because she's the Pinnacle of Vorthos/Mythicness. Kaalia taps more into all the beyond-just-MTG kinds of EPIC than any other card off the top of my head.

What would a Legends-Legends Kaalia, with a proper book and everything, look like to you?

"So there's this commander deck that you can destrollish with just an Icy Manipulator!"
"No way, man, how is that possible?"

This and all the other "commanders" from those boxes should've been foil from the get-go.

Hoping my local store decides to keep Commander's Arsenal packaged instead of ripping it open and selling everything as overpriced singles.

Regardless, I really hope I get a copy of her for my first commander deck. She just looks like so much fun.

Ok, ok, I'm ready to get flamed, but seriously. If anyone has seen the gatecrash spoilers... Oh. My. God. The Boros leader will make this 100x worse.

"So... You wanted to drop two abhorrent blasphemies per turn? Yea, I can do that."

- Aurelia, The Warleader

Irandura, I almost agree with everything you say, but I do think that Vorthos plays as heavy a role in Kaalia's Epicness as the Timmy/Spike factor.

Of the 5 Commander Precons, the Generals that stand the most out to Vorthos are Kaalia and Riku, in my humble opinion. Zedruu is just plain wierd, and there's a certain subset of Vorthos that's fascinated by her, while many other Vorthoses overlook her because she doesn't fit with the kind of flavor they're used to.

Ghave and Karador have neat stories, but not exactly FASCINATING unless you are seriously IRL Green-Black, and more Green-Black than anything else. Which I think few people are, since I think most people are Red/X or Blue/X at least.

The Mimeoplasm and Animar are really neat creature types, but don't seem to be quite exactly sentient. They're either more or less than normal mortal intelligence, Animar being slightly transcendent, Mimeoplasm being a bit more of a beast. Like Progenitus and Grim-grin. They certainly have interesting flavor, but they don't have a human element of relatability as PEOPLE the way Riku, Kaalia, and even Ghave, Karador and Zedruu have.

Tariel is the closest we'll get to having The Spectre in MTG. The Blind Judge of Souls-type thingy. She's got some neat flavor, but I find myself more drawn to and intrigued by Kaalia BECAUSE she's mortal. Tariel is an Angel, and has more distance from my comprehension.
Damia is strange. I feel like most of her flavor is locked up in all the hidden stuff in the background of her art, and she's sort of like an "Evil Elrond" Loremaster-type by flavor. Maybe she's got the same flavor as Acererak the Demi-Lich. She feels especially D&Dish compared to the rest.
And the guy with huge giant weapon honestly feels like mostly just a guy with a huge giant weapon, and feels like he has the weakest flavor of all 15 of them.

But if someone asked me what a Five Color Personality would be like, I'd say that it wouldn't just be every part of the 5 colors on their own- it would be specifically those parts of Green and Blue you see in Riku, and specifically those parts of Red Black and White you see in Kaalia. That's my estimate of what such a being would have to be like. That's why those two are my favorite.

I feel like the world is honestly full of people who are just like Kaalia or just like Riku, and there aren't a lot of Magic characters I feel are comprehensive, deep enough characters to represent real personality types. 3 colors seems to be the minimum to capture a believable person, any less and it looks more like psychological myth figures of PART of ourselves, but not a whole persona because it's too shallow or narrow a view on life. Kaalia and Riku don't feel either shallow or narrow. :P

Gentlemen, please...

Kaalia was reprinted because she is a popular and beloved card. The measure of a deck's worth is not its uniqueness. The measure of a deck's worth is how much fun it brings to everyone in the game. This does mean that a deck's value is highly context-dependent: EDH decks, Standard decks, casual decks, etc., are all very different, and all casual groups are different.

Kaalia helps to make decks that many people find fun, both to play with and against. She helps accelerate into giant angels, demons, and dragons. That is, for lack of a better word, fun: it is viscerally entertaining for many players. I don't see how you could do something off-beat with her, short of a weird changeling deck, but more important I don't see why you would want to. She is not designed to be a weird Johnny combo card. Generals like Riku, Ghave, and Zedruu easily fill that need. Kaalia is for people who want to play big, exciting creatures and smash face, and she does an admirable job helping those people. Kaalia is not a card for 'boring competitive people' either: Kaalia is a Timmy or a Timmy/Spike card, designed for people who enjoy the rush of playing huge, exciting creatures. Those people deserve to have some cards to cater to their playstyles.

She is not overpowered nor is she obnoxious. Note that she has no way to dodge removal and she doesn't have haste, so in a heavily multiplayer format like EDH, she has to get quite lucky to avoid removal, or even blockers (the vast majority of which will kill her); and even then she's dependent on you having big angels, demons, or dragons in your hand. She's in WRB, colours that do not have easy access to reliable card draw (Black has some, admittedly, but usually with drawbacks), and in my experience Kaalia EDH decks run out of steam very quickly.

Maybe she is difficult to beat in your local metagame. The solution is either to play some cards that can deal wit her - and come on, removal and flying blockers, these are not obscure or difficult to find cards - or to talk to the player with the unbeatable Kaalia deck and explain that the rest of you aren't having fun. This is called behaving like a mature adult.

This is a good card, I rate it highly, for power, for balance, and for being perfect for the people it is designed for.

Dear ParallaxtheRevan: I agree that Kaalia is also flavourful and interesting. She has a strong personality and communicates a powerful emotional experience; the desperate need for vengeance. That said, I don't think she's a terribly three-dimensional character, as her card, backstory, flavour text, etc., all revolve around this one emotion. It's a powerful emotion, but it's still just one. Jenna Helland's fiction about Kaalia adds very ittle.

I did not rate the card in Vorthos terms even though it has a strong flavour identity that Vorthos likes, because my feelings on Vorthos are rather odd. The short version is that in my opinion Rosewater's two-axis system doesn't work very well, but it does correctly identify that Vorthos isn't the same type of person as Timmy, Johnny, or Spike. Matt Cavotta originally defined Vorthos as the person who, to quote him, 'understands that Magic can be fun even when you're not playing the game'. This means that Vorthos does not actually play M:tG. Vorthos enjoys the art, the flavour text, the plot, and so on, but a pure Vorthos doesn't play. He or she buys M:tG products and he can be marketed to, but they're not interested in it as a game; rather, they likes to interact with the setting as a creative experience. There are even Vorthoses who have no interest in plot or creativity whatsoever but who enjoy collecting cards, in the same a stamp collector collects stamps. Vorthos is the M:tG fan who does not play M:tG. A self-identified Vorthos who plays M:tG is actually playing it for Timmy or Johnny or Spike reasons. Someone who plays in order to creatively express himself or herself through the deck, or who makes a deck to tell a story is a Johnny or a Vorthos/Johnny. ('Deck Artist Johnny' is the term Rosewater uses.) In any case, I agree that Vorthos should like Kaalia.

(If you are curious, I consider myself a Vorthos, but insofar as I play the game, I am essentially Social Timmy/Deck Artist Johnny.)

Fun with Warstorm Surge for mad damage, Aggravated Assault for bazonkers.

The deck also has great synergy with Deathrender, especially equipped to Kaalia for a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't setup.

If you want to throw the above all in, toss in an Academy Rector and a couple of sac outlets (Phyrexian Altar works best to provide you with that elusive third color to recast her) - get those Enchantments out on the board earlier and enjoy!

Anyone who says she is too powerful is not playing in a competitive playgroup. She loses way more than she wins as she is always viewed as the aggressor in the early-game, and ends up playing Archenemy without the Archenemy cards. By mid-game, unless you work hard to get her protected and set up, she will usually cost too much to make it worth your while.

@Irandura: Choosing just one tribe rather than your favorites of all three, especially if that tribe is demons, would be a lesser-done route and differentiate such a build from the usual Kaalia decks. Angels are an extremely popular tribe, so most Kaalia decks have a ton of those, so choosing not to run any angels would be much more unique.

I love Kaalia. As with many players, I love angels. While I already had a casual 60/4 angel deck, there was a push to run more copies of important cards to have a decent and more consistent deck. Building a second angel deck, this time a Commander one, gave me a ton more access to angel cards that I couldn't otherwise use. Yes, "run angels, demons, and dragons" is a pretty obvious statement from WotC R&D as to how to build a deck with her, but not every legendary creature must be open-ended in building, and even then Kaalia is more open-ended than people give her credit.

Above and below, huh? What about the forces that are on your level, Kaalia? What about them? They feel very left out. CAW!

Dan Brown - Angels And Demons (And Dragons)

@Kryptnyt: well, that's why she should always wear Lightning Greaves. Or better, a fashionable Whispersilk Cloak.

I hereby declare DarthParallax the undisputed winner of the intelligent comment contest. But most everyone else has done a decent job.

Even though I despise Kaalia and am not a fan of half of the pieces of music on Darth's song list, Darth's comment does demonstrate a human quality that the Magic player base- the World even- is severely deficient of:

Self-awareness - if you exist, you should have some. lol

So...... about Kaalia's power level. There is one important thing missing from the back-and-forth discussions about Kaalia's power, mostly from the side that suggest that she is not that powerful. Even in the most competitive of playgroups (a bunch of pros playing on ***atrice) its not difficult for Kaalia to get just one attack in to drop an Avacyn followed by Armageddon or the like. Now don't miss my point here. Agreed, such a play does not lock in the game for the Kaalia deck. It WILL kill one player and severely injure a second. The player that got left alone will most likely be the winner. If you feel that is a *fun* game, then you are one of these people below:

-Extremely good and not drawing attention and diverting it to another player
-A co-conspirator of the Kaalia player
-Built an EDH deck with Goblin Skycutter as a general, or otherwise have an EDH deck with enough removal (a lot) to kill a turn 3 Kaalia before she attacks
-The person playing the Kaalia deck
-Enjoy multitasking while playing Magic... easy to do when you are in the game for only 5 turns and can't cast anything or have no cards in hand
-Like me..... I don't mind a failed and miserable game of Magic..... especially while I'm playing Super Mario All Stars

You can brag all you want that you built an illegal B/R/G EDH deck with 5 Swords to Plowshares and 4 Force of Will, but it won't change the fact that turn 1 Serra Ascendant, turn 3 Skithiryx, and Kaalia- though those players don't come out as winner- WILL make some random unlucky schmuck lose really early in the game.
*One more thing: If you have to intervene (a la United States) to help some other unlucky player from dying in 5 turns to a Kaalia player, do you think that qualifies as Kaalia not being insanely powerful?

Jesus christ, what is wrong with you people? It's a magic card... we're supposed to be discussing it's uses, possible combos and whether it's overpowered or not. What's with the crazy off-topic?

@Irandrura
"She's in WRB, colours that do not have easy access to reliable card draw (Black has some, admittedly, but usually with drawbacks"
Umm....
Necropotence
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Phyrexian Arena
Dark Confidant (bad for kaalia generally)
Bloodgift Demon
Seizan, Perverter of Truth
Graveborn Muse
Sign in Blood
Ambition's Cost
Underworld Connections
Ancient Craving
Moonlight Bargain
Ad Nauseam (again bad in kaalia imo)
Decree of Pain
Greed
Harvester of Souls

Yes, most black card draw costs either life (as seen above) or creatures. But a player's life total is just a number that represents how many cards he can get with Necropotence without dying. Besides... you're running white- just drop a Celestial Force or something with Kaalia if you're that scared of losing life.

And let's not mention:
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Tutor
Grim Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Beseech the Queen
Demonic Collusion
Diabolic Revelations
Imperial Seal

And of course Red has lots of filter with Wheel of Fortune, Faithless Looting, and the like.

This card is cool to look at, fun to play with, but impossible to ignore. Because of that last bit I will never consider her as a general. Things can definitely turn out well for you if you draw your demonic or vampiric tutor and put all your marbles into that attack trigger, but it draws too much attention in a format where responses come in the form of everything from stifle to final judgment.

Look at her flavor text, when I read it I picture her in a starbucks texting up a storm on her iphone.The Mimeoplasm is a putty with a T-rex for an arm. I'll stick with chompy.

Edge Walker in EDH makes her fun.
Rakdos Lord of Riots becomes easy to get out.
She can die over and over. Who cares she only costs 1R to cast +2 per previous deal -X where X is life lost by opponents. With a source of haste you can get free timmy cards and use them to get lowered costs for johnny combos for your spike deck.

Try dropping Sunblast Angel with her.

Go on, try it. It'll be fun!

Ghostly Possession for safety and then this works great.

M14 brings us Strionic Resonator, allowing Kaalia to throw out two creatures per attack!

@ DarthParallax...slow clap...

@ everyone else...

Kaalia is the climax of Spikey Timmy Vorthos deck building. As a Mayael player who likes to put my ducks in a row, I can safely say that Kaalia is the one threat on the table who takes the heat off of me. She wins games if not attended to.

BUT, she is also in three of the most wonderful colors that Magic has offer. There is little this little chicky can't do. So you have to run artifacts to ramp your mana...boo hoo hoo. Big creatures, direct damage and aggro. BOOM.

Hell, you could play combo with a Restoration Angel, Warstorm Surge and Kiki Jiki if you really wanted to...

Between her Art, her backstory, her power level and her overall deck function I give her a 5/5. This card was well designed to be a threat AND fit the overall mood of her color combination. So what if it's a little predictable.

@nolhavent:

Aurelia will not trigger her own ability if put into play using Kaalia's trigger, so you would have to hard-cast her, which, considering her mana cost, may not always be easily done on the fifth or sixth turns when it would be the most devastating:

"The creature card is already tapped and attacking as it's put onto the battlefield. Any abilities that trigger when a creature becomes tapped or when a creature attacks won't trigger for that card."

I understand that the "attacks an opponent" clause is so that it doesn't trigger when she attacks a planeswalker, but I will admit that it confused me at first. "Why does it specify 'an opponent'? How often do they expect I'm going to try and attack myself...?"

I played a guy running a Kaalia EDH deck ... first drop was Avacyn, next Aurelia ...

I just conceded.

Great Commander, yet expect hate from all over the board when and if she is able to come out of the command zone. you can use artifacts like, Helm of Kaldra or Lightning Greaves for a turn 5 equip if she is able to stay on board for a full rotation. Also I splash in Conspiracy Theory and name any of the 3, demon, dragon, or angel, and have that for added abilities like having archons. Blazing Archon and Vengeful Archon, and just for fun have a ninja,Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni for creature retrieval. just think of them as Archon and Rat demons or dragons for their subtype lol. also for an added kick, use swords!! Tatsumasa, The Dragon's Fang or any of the 5 rare/mythic swords from darksteel and scars of mirrodin.

Master of Cruelties + anything that guarantees he gets through & then any uncounterable damage spell / ability = Win....

Even though MoC's ability normally requires he attacks alone, Kaalia's proc gets around it.... due to the time old rule of Magic being card rule always superceding game rules & players retaining priority over how their own effects stack....

End result, attack with Kaalia & throw down this guy, this guy gets through opponent is at 1 life, hit them with anything to deal the final point & you win. In any decent Kaalia deck you should be able to pull a combo like that off T1 / T2 pretty regularly if you build your deck right.

Why no one put Aurelia, the Warleader

I know it's scary. ;)

Other commanders that will make everyone at the table kill you just as much:
...
Oh, wait, no, there are none.

I like including Kaalia in my Scion of the Ur-Dragon commander deck. It doesn't matter that I only run a couple angels/demons. It is inevitable that I will end up with dragons in my hand. And this allows me to admire the artwork without having to build around her.

Master of Cruelties and Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Free Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Platinum Emperion, Platinum Angel...or (insert name of high colorless mana cost dude...)

Kaalia calls aurelia,
we go round again,
Kaalia calls maelstrom archangel, who calls Maelstrom Wanderer, who casts Palinchron and fury of the horde,
we go round again,
Kaalia calls Hellkite Charger, play ability, maelstrom archangel calls Relentless assault,
We go round again,
etc.

@ MattLynn I noticed you spammed that stupid "combo" on all those pages, probably high out of your mind. Kaalia + Master of Cruelties is a 1-hit KO; Master brings their life down to 1 and Kaalia swings in for 2 more, killing them on the spot. No need to put dead card like Emrakul or Platinum Emperion in a Kaalia EDH deck when a Lightning Bolt or even Gut Shot would do the same job more effectively.

Aurelia wouldn't work to cause a second combat. If you read errata "any" triggers wouldn't stack with Kaalia's effect.

Oddly, it allows you to put Elder Land Wurm onto the battlefield attacking, despite it having defender. The same is true of Dragon Egg, though that's somewhat less useful.

She gets a lot of hate in 1v1 matches, which I can totally understand and relate with. I think what keeps her from being banned though is that she is considerably weakened in multiplayer, which is the typical format used in Official Commander tournaments, usually consisting of 4-man pods. Playing Kaalia in one of those matches will usually result in being instantly targeted by the other opponents, who will then work as a team to bring that player down.

So that's what it is folks, board politics are what keep this card from being banned, not power level, of which Kaalia has in spades.