Kaya is an underdog Spellslinger, never experiencing true dominance as a deck to beat. She is however, an excellent counter-meta choice as she can be flexibly built to take down any one deck that might be dominating the ladder thanks to her access to some of the best removal spells in black and white, as well as a self-contained card advantage engine in her passive. In this article I wanted to highlight two takes on Kaya that might prove to be effective in the current metagame.

Aggro Kaya

Here is a sample Kaya decklist constructed by Talaria

Kaya1

For the most part, Kaya feels most natural as an aggressive attacking deck. You can use efficient white creatures back by black removal spells to create a snowball effect. In the ideal game, your opponent will struggle to stem the bleeding from the ever replenishing swarm of cheap evasive threats. Aggro Kaya has most successfully shown up as a counter to linear combo decks like Labman Jace. In this current environment, it holds a similar metagame spot as Davriel, but without the ability to cheat out spells. Instead Kaya likes to abuse go-wide enhancers like Glorious Anthem and Scathing Glare

This deck uniquely leverages Persecutor Demon as a way to assist in completing missions, generating more spirits and rebuying cut downs to help you keep the enemy off balance. Consider adding Dark Confidant or Merchant of Secrets as an additional ways to create extra draws for miracle oppourtunities.

Control Kaya

Kaya2

While Kaya is mostly nototious for her aggro playstyle, she is also capable of embracing the high density of good removal in white and black to serve as an effective control option. In this way, she can function as a midway point between white board control decks like Serra and Teferi. Less reliance on traps and permission lets her develop a board alongside the opponent, slamming giant angels and demons to finish the game.

This is a deck built by t.tv/monman11 which is good when blue decks are weak in the metagame. Fiend Fanatic fishes out powerful demons from your deck like Griselbrand or Death’s Shadow, which you can use to turn the corner after you wipe the opponents board away with Day of Judgement. Second Sun’s Dawn provides inevitability and breaks up board stalls that can occur in games against midrange decks.

Thanks for exploring Kaya with me. Come back to mtg-ss.com periodically for interesting deck ideas and strategy articles.