Hello and welcome to Daily Commander!

Today we are going to be talking about Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep!

Kiora is a five mana 4/5 with vigilance, ward 3, and whenever you cast a Kraken, Leviathan, Octopus, or Serpent spell from your hand you look at the top X cards of your library where X is that spell’s mana value and you may cast a spell with mana value less than X from among them without paying its mana cost and put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

Having multi typal support is very interesting because they often have some relation towards each other. With Kiora, the relationship is giant and often mana expensive creatures that are themed around the water, and there has been some interesting upgrades to those creature types as of late.

The plan is simple, we work our way to cast those creature types, cheaply if we can manage, and then get a sort of big spells matter sort of casting chain if we can manage it.

The first thing that we need to look for are Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents that we can cast for cheap.

Starwinder is great for this because while it would normally be a seven mana Leviathan that draws us cards equal to the amount of combat damage a creature does to a player, we can cheat it out for a turn by using it’s Warp ability for four mana, and since we cast it from our hand and its mana value is still seven, we get to look seven cards deep into our deck.

Speaking of ways to cheat out creatures, Tolarian Terror and Cryptic Serpent can be cast for one or two mana respectively since they happen to get cheaper for each instant and sorcery we control in the graveyard, and both also happen to be seven mana. Tolarian Terror also has the benefit of having ward 2 as a form of protection.

Another creature among our preferred creature types that we can use, if we also happen to be running some snow lands, is Icebreaker Kraken, which gets cheaper for each snow land we control, and when it enters it prevents our opponents artifacts and creatures from untapping for a turn, and we can return three snow lands we control to return Icebreaker Kraken to our hand for a repeatable way to keep our opponents from untapping.

Since a majority of our creature of the relevant creature type are going to be expensive to cast, we can make use of some specific mana dorks like Troyan, Gutsy Explorer who adds a green and a blue mana to cast spells with mana value five or greater or spells with X in their cost, while also being able to draw a card and discard a card for us.

We can also use some utility creatures like Tidal Terror who can be an unblockable creature if we happen to tap two untapped creatures we control, but also allows us to Islandcycle if we need to get and Island into our hand.

The next thing we need is some other support cards that benefit from us for casting these huge spells.

Monstrous Vortex is an additional way for us to get value from casting these big creatures, especially since it allows us to double dip with getting some free spells since whenever we cast a creature spell with power 5 or greater we discover X where X is the mana value of that spell, meaning additional value from Kiora’s free casting.

Fisher’s Talent is a card that is a bit of a slow build, but it does allow us to look at the top card of our library at the beginning of our upkeep and if its a land we can reveal it to make a 1/1 Fish token then draw a card, and if we level it up we can instead make a 3/3 Shark token and then when we max level it we make a 8/8 Octopus instead.

In Search of Greatness is a very situational card that can be very helpful if we have the right creatures in play because at the beginning of our upkeep we mat cast a permanent spell from our hand with mana value 1 plus the highest mana value among other permanents we control without paying its mana cost, and if we don’t then we can get a scry instead.

If we somehow manage to get an Omniscience into play, then we can get a massive wave of spells cast because Omniscience let’s us cast spells from our hand without paying their mana costs, and since there are some sea creatures we have access to that are expensive but also have an additional casting cost like Kicker, we can get that value at a much more discounted rate.

The last thing we need are our finishing sea creatures to help us close out the game.

Sin, Unending Cataclysm is a way for us to clear the board of a ton of counters since it removes all counters from any number of artifacts, creatures, and enchantments and then puts twice that many +1/+1 counters on it and when it dies we can transfer the counters to another creature we control, while also shuffling it back into the deck.

Brinelin, the Moon Kraken bounces a nonland permanent to its owners hand when it enters or whenever we cast a spell with mana value six or greater, Stormtide Leviathan makes all lands into Islands in addition to their other types and has Islandwalk and prevents creatures without flying or Islandwalk to attack, and Inkwell Leviathan being a massive 7/11 with Islandwalk, trample, and shroud.

Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep can be a way for us to make use of the previously mentioned Omniscience because it has a Kicker cost of two extra mana where if that Kicker was paid then we can return all creatures to their owner’s hands except for Merfolk, Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents.

Since we are casting these massive creature spells, we can make use of Kiora’s ability to cast a number of other spells like Whelming Wave, which bounces all creatures that aren’t Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses, and Serpents to their owners hands.

Rush of Knowledge to draw cards equal to the highest mana valued permanent we control, Traverse the Outlands to put X basic lands onto the battlefield tapped where X is the greatest power among creatures we control, and Rite of Replication to create a token copy of a creature but since we are casting it for free most of the time, we can spare five extra mana to Kick it to create five of those tokens instead.

Another thing to consider is that since we can only cast spells with mana value less than the mana value of the sea creature we cast, there are at least five extra turn spells that we can cast without any major restrictions, six if we include Karn’s Temporal Sundering which we can only cast if we control a legendary creature or Planeswalker, and seven if we include Seedtime, which we can only cast on our turn after an opponent has cast a blue spell.

Kiora is a value engine Commander, in that we can get a lot of value from her, but she needs to be in play in order for us to get the most value from her and if we are able to cast the spells we need in order to get that value.

That’s the hardest part since we need the mana to cast some of the bigger sea creatures we want, and while we are in green which does mitigate some of that, there isn’t always the guarantee that we can manage that much mana generation.

We also suffer from needing to make sure that Kiora stays in play in order for us to get that much value, and while we do have access to some protection, we need to be a bit sparing on it since we are also including a ton of high mana creatures that also need to be cast so we can get that value.

I still believe that Kiora can be a very fun deck to play since we have a decent assortment of creatures types to play around with, and once we get rolling then we can become very difficult to deal with.

Thank you for reading, see you tomorrow for the next Daily Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual