You mentioned how this is mainly a 1v1 deck--Iona, Shield of Emeria in a 1v1? That's just rude and no fun. Skullclamp is a little underwhelming, because the goal is to cheat in the big guys with Kaalia, not make small tokens. Consider Fervor, because it can be played before Kaalia, potentially. There are ways to protect your fragile flower, Kaalia, like with the hasteboots, and you have a lot of removal, but more protective cards are Emerge Unscathed, Mother of Runes, Silence. You have a pretty good CMC average for Kaalia (who is going to be higher, naturally).

Thanks for the input, Orpheus124! You're definitely right that Iona, Shield of Emeria is a jerk move 1v1, against this dude being a jerk will feel great! haha. I've begun transitioning the deck to multiplayer, really only Thoughtseize and Duress are for 1v1. I'll likely remove those soon as soon as I make this dude cry. Skullclamp is in mainly for card advantage, not token creation? Fervor is a great addition, I'll need to get one. I'll need to get a Silence, too. I have Earnest Fellowship in, but as I'm a beginner if I am having a hard time working around the fact that it affects everyone, I'll consider subbing in Emerge Unscathed. Thanks a ton for the ideas!

I love Kalia decks. Especialy that i started my adventure with EDH with this one. Love Your instant pick, You have all what You need here. Although i think that Kalia should have more combat phases in one turn. Seize the Day , Savage Beating Relentless Assault with Sword of Feast and Famine, World at War for the starters, and theres a lot more of those, since You have Hellkite Charger. And watching for Your instant base i couldn't notice that You don't have Sunforger. this thing fits here like a glove man.I'd cut a half of those mass removs You got there, surgical precision is better i think., And add Gisela, Blade of Goldnight - with Aurelia and some additional beatstick, she can make You 4th turn win against Your 1st opponent.

still, +1 for chose of at least few dozens of good cards, idea and running this one ;). In spare time, feel free to visit my profile and spend a minute to look at my decks :)

Hey Kaalia is my favorite. I aggre Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is awesome in this, Angel of Despair would be a good replacement for one of kill spells, I find myself digging for her often. Also Ob Nixilis, Unshackled is fun in commander and shuts down other peoples tutoring. And if your willing to pay for her Avacyn, Angel of Hope is the best and then paired with Platinum Angel can lock down games. One of the big things in commander is draw power. I would suggest Phyrexian Arena and Underworld Connections both are cheap extra draws, and Indulgent Tormentor and Bloodgift Demon are also great when paired with Kaalia. You deck looks mean though +1 from me, and check mine out and see what you think.

Dolmen Gate and Reconnaissance are good for keeping kaalia protected but still able to engage and drop fatties.

Card draw Necropotence is gonna be good (maybe more good than you are looking for) but Greed and Phyrexian Arena are auto includes for card draw in these colors. I have used Staff of Nin before too, but that really depends on your other cards and how you like to play. It's expensive but it's also nice to ping small creatures (may be better for multiplayer).

You're going to have a lot of fun with this deck, and you will soon become the number one target in any multiplayer game. Think about some grave recursion engines and how to get your creatures BACK. If you think dropping fatties for cheap is fun, wait til you see how much fun the board has with stealing those fatties and using them against you! Homeward Path will help prevent that.

good luck, have fun, crush them all!

Damn ,what They said up there are actualy wiseman-words, look up to them. Also Iroas, God of Victory would sit his sweet 4 legged ass here nicely. And his totle says most fo himself ;)

Yeah I meant to mention the hellkite charger attack cycle combo but ultimately they are right you should have a bunch of things that let you drop multiple creatures. Angel of despair, bloodgift demon, ANYTHING with a body and an ETB effect is totally abusable by Kaalia.

Since she is gonna be a big target you should probably have a backup plan. I see you have a bunch of mana rocks but you could throw in Land Tax if you want to be super competitive. Quicksilver Amulet gives you an alternate fattie dropping engine if Kaalia is too "visible" as well.

I ended up doing several major builds with this Commander, the first one... then three tribal builds (angel, demon, dragon), then a final build that was the best of the best. Gotta say that they were all fun to play for different reasons, but the ETB best of the best build I settled on quickly became the dominant deck at the table. All those flyers are just way too much to handle!

Also, Legion's Initiative is good for both defense and offense. Let's you avoid board wipes and resets the Aurelia attack cycle in a clinch ; )

oKais, Tigerhawk55, Forceofnature1 - Thanks a ton for all the great suggestions! It's a lot to take in! Everything makes sense for sure and it'll be hard to decide what comes out when I can acquire these cards. Totally appreciate it!

It definitely wouldn't hurt to add more combat phases. Aside from what I've already got, I can totally see how at least one of Seize the Day, Savage Beating, Relentless Assault and World at War would be beneficial. Sunforger seems like another tutor effect I need to get for sure. I have a Sword of Feast and Famine, I never thought about the implications of extra phases and effectively doubling mana for the turn, I'll have to figure out where to fit it in. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is totally gnarly, I have to get one asap. Angel of Despair is another on the buy list, trading her for a kill spell seems like a great idea. Avacyn, Angel of Hope is most definitely going in when I get her. Platinum Angel as well! I need to get a Phyrexian Arena, but I have a ton of Underworld Connections so maybe I should put one in as a placeholder till I get the Arena. Dolmen Gate and Homeward Path seem like auto includes, I need to get those. Reconnaissance - wow. Zero? That just seems unfair! Rad! Necropotence is in the mail, can't wait to put it in. Iroas, God of Victory makes total sense, letting Kaalia swing for the fences. Land Tax makes sense but I'm running almost no basic lands, should I take out some duals and run more basics? Quicksilver Amulet and Legion's Initiative are a nice addition, but as with all these cards, I'm a little at a loss to decide what to take out!

I'm excited to start playing the deck and seeing what works best. Again, I really appreciate the comments, stoked to try a lot of those cards out!

I have a Kaalia deck of my own and, from my understanding, Containment Priest would be a terrible creature in this deck. You're shooting yourself in the foot with that one since you aren't casting your free big guys, but instead putting them into play. I get that it's probably there to counter other decks that work like yours, but you're taking a big gamble by having it in. And, even if you do play it against a deck that would hate it, you're still hurting yourself until it goes away. Point is, definitely suggest you find a different card to take its place. Mother of Runes would be a way better pick if you wanted to replace the priest with a similar low mana creature.

Good point, AngryChewie. I definitely included her to flash her in and stop another deck from doing what I'm doing, but getting rid of her in a timely manner after the fact might be a problem. I dropped her and added an Utvara Hellkite. Thanks!

Also, been thinking about Electropotence. Especially together with Strionic Resonator, since I won't be spending mana to hard cast creatures. Thoughts everyone?

Warstorm Surge is better

See, this is why I love posting on here. Because I'm a noob, and only really consistently know cards from the current standard and whatever random cards I got in ebay lots. Thanks, Forceofnature1.

No problem! If you are looking for cards to take out I would suggest taking out the mass land destruction suite you're running as well as crucible of worlds. This deck has enough going for it that the land bombs seem a bit overkill. Not a bad mechanic, but if you are looking to swap something out then that would be my suggestion. Then you could include quicksilver amulet easy (and it is VERY necessary) and start thinking of "how will this deck run if I DON'T have Kaalia" then you'll notice your gameplay smooth out a lot.

Three colored decks are hard up for mana, so if you feel comfortable with your base then stick with it. Land Tax works best when you are playing mana rampers and are having trouble keeping up. Not a lot of mana acceleration in these colors but the deck makes up for it with all the ways it cheats big creatures in.

@Forceofnature1 I'd take out any mass land destruction besides Armageddon and Cataclysm. Cataclysm can level the board if your opponents are outpacing you (which I've seen happen quite a few times while playing Kaalia) and if Kaalia is out then she can be spared along with an artifact that can give her protection of some sort from your opponents should they recover. Armageddon is plain dirty in a Kaalia deck. Get Avacyn on the field or have a Boros Charm handy and suddenly all land is gone except for yours. I've ended games pretty damn fast once my opponents had no mana and I was swinging in with free big guys and plenty of extra mana left open.

Since you're only running one of each basic, you might want to consider Tainted Pact

So basically Tainted Pact is a 2 mana draw spell? I mean it could be used to filter stuff out like excess lands, but they are being removed from the game and not going to the graveyard. Don't think that's worth a card slot if its mainly being used as a 2 mana draw spell with the small case of being an "oh shit I'm being land flooded" spell. Much better to just have a tutor imo.

Fun! I'm glad your deck came up as a similar suggestion. Thanks for going into so much detail on each card choice - I had several moments where I was like yep, that's exactly why I run that too. I'm gonna have to come back and re-read your notes and add a few things to my maybes.

Have you considered running Terror of the Peaks instead of or in addition to Warstorm Surge? Extremely similar effect (caveat being that the source is Terror instead of the creature in question so the damage would always be red). Terror has a slightly lower CMC, and as a dragon has nice synergies with the Kaalias.

aquillathepun Thanks for the comment and upvote! I actually changed a few things out seemingly around the time you upvoted it, and among them I dropped Emeria Shepherd to add TotP already! I think 2 Warstorm Surges are better than 1 for sure, and probably a bit more useful than recursion. The only creature I'm ever really trying to recur is Avacyn anyway.

While you're here, what are your thoughts on Ruinous Ultimatum? Seems like an auto include but I can't figure what to take out. I've been on the fence with Armageddon being too mean, maybe I should take out that and Crucible of Worlds to make it a bit nicer and add Ruinous and something else instead... or maybe those cards are fine being mean as they are, and you see something else to remove. Thoughts?

This deck is sick, I've been building a Kaalia deck recently, and although I don't have a high budget at the moment I'm going pretty well with the cards I'm getting from boxes.

I think a good one to add in future for your deck would be Piru, the Volatile . I know you said you aren't running boardwipes, but this one is rather unique, because its plastered onto a nice 7/7 dragon with lifelink, meaning that each creature it deals 7 damage to when it dies will gain you 7 life. Besides, a lot of your angels and some demons and dragons will probably be legendary, which means it won't effect you as much and definitely won't remove your Kaalia.

With my deck, I've been thinking about adding Imperial Recruiter , so I can tutor for my Stoneforge Mystic , Grand Abolisher or Mother of Runes . I personally think its worth it, but I haven't been playing cEHD for very long so tell me what you think :)