So Kaalia of the Vast. I've had the opportunity to play against Kaalia many times and honestly, I have to say I was rather unimpressed. Unfortunately, she didn't have Swiftfoot Boots accompanying her (or a good pilot.. ooh burn on you CJ). A general like this is obviously extremely aggressive, but how can you make it better? Kaalia is missing one very important thing. Haste. Throwing in equipment like Lightning Greaves and Helm of Kaldra make Kaalia really dangerous. Throwing in a Bogardan Hellkite, Angel of Despair, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Rune-Scarred Demon, or Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon tapped an attacking on turn 3-5 is just scratching the surface of Kaalia's potential. You could even throw in some Conspiracy shenanigans or use changelings to make Kaalia into a throwing uncounterable creatures at your face machine. Kaalia runs into a few problems, where she's a 4 mana 2/2, which makes her easily kill-able by burn or a pinging planeswalker, so protecting her becomes an issue. If she starts consistently dying, paying 2 mana after every death becomes taxing and almost unplayable when the game starts hitting turn 15+ and paying 8-10 mana for a 2/2 flyer won't cut it.
My recommendation for a deck like Kaalia would to play a lot of card draw, so hitting your opponent with a hasty Kaalia is always good. Cards like Promise of Power, Greed, Sign in Blood, Ancient Craving, and Wheel of Fortune become very strong in powering the Kaalia engine. Also, being able to tutor your powerful answers becomes very important in getting the right dragons, demons, or angels you want on the board. Stoneforge Mystic and Stonehewer Giant are very good for tutoring up your haste/shroud/indestructible equipment to give your Kaalia resilency so she's not repeatedly killed.
On to Riku of Two Reflections. I like this card a lot. He has a lot of versatility, allowing you to copy instants/sorceries and creatures. I mean, what creatures (that are not legendary) would you not want two of? How many turns do you want? I'd like to clarify that with Riku's triggered abilities, you can only make 1 copy, because a single creature card enters the battlefield 1 time. Same with instants/sorceries, those spells are cast only 1 time, so the trigger occurs once. Some people ran into problems with that not too long ago. Moving on, doubling spells like Time Stretch, Tooth and Nail, Act of Treason, and Harmonize just seem to win you the game. I don't see how your opponent's can win from all that carnage. Chandra the Firebrand seems to work pretty well with that strategy. You could also copy non legendary eldrazi creatures, creatures that untap your lands when they enter the battlefield (like Palinchron), or creatures that have strong 'enter the battlefield' triggers in general, like Mulldrifter or Acidic Slime. Copying creatures that make more creatures seems good too, like Emrakul's Hatcher.
Riku runs into the problem of dying to a lot of black spells that target nonblack creatures, like Shriekmaw, Doom Blade, and Bone Shredder, which are fairly common to see in Commander games. Also, since it's a 2/2, it's more easily kill-able, similar to Kalia. Riku needs protection from shroud or hexproof and needs an arsenal of creatures and spells to copy to end the game quickly. To get to the mana you'll need to start copying spells, you'll need a lot of early-mid game mana ramp and have the ability to draw a lot of cards, so you can fuel the late game with a barrage of copied spells. Riku will end games a bit quicker than say Kaalia would, but he needs a lot more of a setup to win.
This ends (our very late) Commander product review. I hope that you like the discussion behind all the generals. If you'd like to get our insight on the 5 enemy-colored generals, let us know in the comments. Until next time Magic players.
Interested in more Magic content? Check out every series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!
-David J.
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