When I wrote about Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest to help a few other Gathering Magic writers spoil the card, I also wrote about something I dubbed “The Rafiq Problem.” Put simply, while it’s possible to build a 75% Rafiq Commander deck, maybe you shouldn’t bother since, when people see Rafiq on your mat, their snap-responses will be to murder you. Sure, if you play with a regular playgroup every week, they will know what’s up, but if you have a regular group in mind, tune to the group, not to the 75% principles. I’ve dismissed a few commanders for the series because I feel that they suffer from The Rafiq Problem, and that’s helped me stay within my comfort zone.

Wizards announced From the Vaults: Angels, which could provide a Kaalia reprinting. That doesn’t seem all that likely given Kaalia’s non-Angel creature type as well as its two printings and high price. Could FTV: Angels bring down a $100 Kaalia the way the last one brought down $200 Rolling Earthquake? Who knows? What we do know is that FTV: Angels has everyone talking about Angels this week, and I’ve picked up the bug for myself. It didn’t help when I saw a reddit post asking if 75% Kaalia was possible.

Is it possible? Surely. But does Kaalia suffer from The Rafiq Problem or can it overcome through sheer card advantage? Are we doing ourselves a disservice by not swinging for the fences? Is there more we’re not considering? The more I think about Kaalia specifically, the more I think that Kaalia may scale to the playgroups naturally. A weaker, more casual playgroup may overestimate the extent to which you’re a threat and be more likely to gang up on you, whereas a tougher group may just want to do its thing. I think a 75% Kaalia deck looks a lot like a 100% one in this regard as long as we make a few modifications. So what would we end up with?

Kaalia of the Vast ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (24)
• 1 Admonition Angel
• 1 Angel of Despair
• 1 Angelic Arbiter
• 1 Archangel of Thune
• 1 Balefire Dragon
• 1 Baneslayer Angel
• 1 Bloodgift Demon
• 1 Bogardan Hellkite
• 1 Dragon Mage
• 1 Hellkite Tyrant
• 1 Indulgent Tormentor
• 1 Karmic Guide
• 1 Knollspine Dragon
• 1 Lord of the Void
• 1 Sire of Insanity
• 1 Thundermaw Hellkite
• 1 Twilight Shepherd
• 1 Utvara Hellkite
• 1 Platinum Angel
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Aurelia, the Warleader
• 1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
• 1 Ob Nixilis, Unshackled

• Spells (36)
• 1 Boros Charm
• 1 Chaos Warp
• 1 Cloudshift
• 1 Dead // Gone
• 1 Ghostway
• 1 Mortify
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Terminate
• 1 Unexpectedly Absent
• 1 Austere Command
• 1 Catastrophe
• 1 Council's Judgment
• 1 Earthquake
• 1 Hide // Seek
• 1 Living Death
• 1 Living End
• 1 Merciless Eviction
• 1 Patriarch's Bidding
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Vindicate
• 1 Animate Dead
• 1 Fervor
• 1 Legion's Initiative
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Spirit Mantle
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 Boros Signet
• 1 Darksteel Plate
• 1 Fellwar Stone
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1 Orzhov Signet
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sunforger
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (39)
• 6 Mountain
• 6 Plains
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Cavern of Souls
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Godless Shrine
• 1 Homeward Path
• 1 Isolated Chapel
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Nomad Outpost
• 1 Reflecting Pool
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Slayers' Stronghold
• 1 Spinerock Knoll
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck

I decided that if we’re going to take a ton of heat, we should have a robust commander. I included a lot of ways to try to protect Kaalia. I was feeling saucy, and since I’m on such a Sunforger kick lately, I decided to include a Sunforger package that can help protect Kaalia from almost anything with spells like Ghostway tutorable. Sunforger broadcasts that you have business to go find, so it’s not the same as a bunch of face-down tutors, something I didn’t include. I have plenty of Arena effects, and I may slot a Greed or something in, but I even excluded Rune-Scarred Demon, which is practically an auto-include. If you are skewing too far from consistency, feel free to jam that back in first when you’re tuning up.

There is quite a bit of double strike action going on, which is really solid with big creatures. Sunforger plus Boros Charm on just about any creature is going to deal a significant amount of damage, and Aurelia, the Warleader can help you finish someone off. You may even get there with commander damage if you manage to buff Kaalia at all, but I wouldn’t count on it. Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion was too much fun not to violate my I-don’t-care-about-your-mana-base policy. Based on feedback from last week, I put a little more time into the mana base, but those are just suggestions. If you want Volrath's Stronghold, Phyrexian Tower, fetches, or whatever, jam it. But seriously, Sunhome is too much fun.

You want Kaalia hard to remove—as opposed to the only spell played by default. You want your hand full of gas from loading the deck up rather than running a ton of tutors. You want a Sunforger package that fetches powerful, useful spells rather than tutors like Gamble that are very broad. This may be a “fair” way to play Kaalia, but our axiom about punishing opponents for playing things rather than preventing them prevails here. Set your opponents up to overextend, and then either reload with a hasty Kaalia out of the command zone or a Ghostway for infinite value. You run plenty of board wipes, and you want to use them to punish your opponents and leave them with few cards in hand. Leave them their lands. It will be the rope with which they hang themselves as they walk into a Merciless Eviction or Austere Command.

So what do we think? Did removing the “unfair” aspects like the tutors and mass land destruction leave us under-equipped? Can we make a case for including Rune-Scarred Demon? Am I regretting leaving it out even though I’m still writing and it’s technically not too late for me to jam it in there, erase any reference to excluding it, and pretend I was always aware it was too good not to include? Are you going to take a look at the list, roll your eyes, and say, “Yeah, Rune-Scarred Demon is going in there”? It’s your party! Maybe FTV: Angels will give us some saucy new art on some sweet-looking Angels, bring the cost of a foil Kaalia down, or remind us that sweet Angels like Akroma, Angel of Fury exist. In any case, we’ll be back next week with another simple solution to a problem I’ve built up in my mind to be intractable. Until then!