Kalamax, Storm Siren (EDH / Commander)

7 April 2020 - I made an excursion to the forums to toss ideas around but all the forum hero's could focus on was my sub-optimal land count. Oh well, here is a new write-up for today's revision.

Kalamax the Stormsire is a versatile new Commander from CMDR20 that can copy Instants and grow very large insanely quickly, even at the end of the Declare Blockers step of combat. I want to dive into spell copying, a big beater that can kill outside of combat, and I need a Temur (URG) deck for my deck challenge. I will split this walk-though up into: "kick-starts", flash enablers, copy loops, and payoffs.

-"Kick-starts":
Quicken, Opt, Brainstorm, and Mystical Tutor are the simplest examples of our "kick-start" cards. They are instant-speed spells that provide a target for our copy loops. It is important that each card provides it's own value and use for our deck, but the fact that it can "kick-start" our loops raises their value significantly. Instant kick-starts will also come from our Ramp spells (Harrow, Sprouting Vines, Growth Spiral), Recursion spells (Reap), and any other instant spell that does not require anything to already be on the stack (Snap, etc.). Our Instant spells with Storm can kick-start us and have the additional benefit of creating copies that grow our Kalamax.

-Flash Enablers:
Casting our Sorcery spells at instant speed is going to be very important to maximizing our shenanigans later on by making all of our Sorcery spells kick-starts as well. We can get this effect via Hypersonic Dragon, Vedalken Orrery, and Leyline of Anticipation. Quicken is already a kick-start for 1 U mana and can help us kick off additional loops without Kalamax on the battlefield.

-Copy Loops:
Expansion, Reverberate, Repeated Reverberation, Increasing Vengeance, and Fork can all copy a spell that is already on the stack. If, for example, we let a copy of Expansion target Expansion, then we can repeat that as many times as wek need. These loops can kill by triggering Ral, Storm Conduit and can enable a kill by adding counters to Kalamax. Doublecast, Narset's Reversal, Ral, Storm Conduit, and Thousand-Year Storm can all enable or expand these loops.

-Payoffs:
Our first payoff has already been mentioned. Ral, Storm conduit can ping for 1 each time we copy a spell. If we grow Kalamax exceptionally large we can attack normally or through Slip Through Space. Slip's additional benefit is that we can cast it to make Kalamax unblock-able, and then execute a copy-loop at instant speed during combat to make him large enough for a kill. Soul's Fire can be a great backup kill. Is an opponent Fog-ing to make a deal? Fling your giant Kalamax to remove the problem. The cream of our crop is Chandra's Ignition, take everyone out at once.