Into the Arena: Kasmina Gets an Upgrade

It’s the dog days of summer, and most competitive formats are pretty quiet right now. Standard has had Streets of New Capenna for some time now, and won’t be getting any new cards for a few months still. Historic and Alchemy are both very steady right now, and don’t have many decks rising or falling. For that reason I have been getting into Historic Brawl as my format of choice this summer. Last week I brewed up a deck based on a New Capenna commander, but this week I’m going to be going back to an old favourite!

My Kasmina, Enigma Sage Brawl deck is one of the first ones I ever brewed, but to this day it is still my most powerful by far. I wrote an article on it last summer when I first finalized the list, but since then there have been a lot of new cards to try! Plus, playing with the deck for nearly a year has of course led me to some different card choices. Below I’ll dive into all the upgrades I’ve made to the deck and provide the updated list. This deck has been performing really well, delivering a win percentage of about 75% (in a non-competitive setting, albeit). Whether or not you plan on building this deck yourself, diving into the tuning of this deck should provide a good look at how to make improvements on a singleton deck.

For reference, here is the decklist from last summer:

Since then, some sweet new cards have come out that fit perfectly in this deck, so let’s start by looking at some of those.

The first change I made was relatively minor, swapping out Opt for Fading Hope. Cantrips like Opt don’t actually play into this deck’s strategy very much, and I am already able to scry a lot thanks to Kasmina. However, slowing down aggressive opponents in order to protect all my planeswalkers is very important, so Fading Hope is a great addition.

Sadly, Ugin was banned from Historic Brawl because he was too powerful as a commander. Luckily, another very powerful planeswalker was printed around the same time. While Wrenn and Seven can’t control the board as well as Ugin could, they can still win games by ramping, drawing cards, and making very large tokens.

Next up, the very powerful card Storm the Festival was released in Midnight Hunt and I absolutely had to include it. Not only can it often provide two planeswalkers for just one card and six mana, it is also an excellent target for Kasmina’s ultimate. I decided to cut Body of Research for it, since it was a card that folded to any removal or bounce spell. It was fun to make 80/80 tokens, but not overly powerful.

Since this deck isn’t really in the market for a five-mana counterspell, I eventually decided that it was time for Pact of Negation to go. However, this deck is very much in the market for a five-mana planeswalker, and when Tamiyo, Compleated Sage was released I immediately included her. The Simic planeswalker can ressurect other planeswalkers that died, and help control opponent’s attackers and mana rocks.

Luxior is one of the few cards on Arena that is designed specifically to synergize with planeswalkers, and it is a lot of fun! While it can make them more vulnerable to removal, getting to use your planeswalkers as attackers is super fun. It is also really cheap, and so sometimes you can even start attacking with Kasmina before your opponent has their defenses up. I cut Heroic Intervention for Luxior since there weren’t very many instances where Heroic Intervention was very useful.

There were also a few cuts I made that were unrelated to new cards coming out.

Leyline of Anticipation was actually quite bad in this deck. I included it because I thought it would be fun, but since most planeswalkers can only use their loyalty abilities as a sorcery there isn’t much point in being able to cast them as an instant. Meanwhile River’s Rebuke is an excellent card in Brawl, as it can singlehandedly let you come back against an opponent with a massive board full of creatures, artifacts, planeswalkers, or whatever! Plus it can be cast by Kasmina’s ultimate, which I often find myself doing.

Alrund’s Epiphany was nerfed for Alchemy, which sadly also effects it in Historic and Historic Brawl. It doesn’t make birds now unless its foretold, which means it is just a Time Walk when cast off of Kasmina’s ultimate. Since I already have two other time walk effects in the deck, I am taking out the overpriced Alrund’s Epiphany for now. In its place I have Mind’s Desire, which could lead to some very explosive turns if I am able to cast a few spells and then cast Mind’s Desire from Kasmina’s ultimate ability. This is the change that I am most unsure of, and I could see myself changing it back if Mind’s Desire never pans out.

Lastly, I switched out four of the basic lands for these new and improved options! Dreamroot Cascade is just a great new Dual. Boseiju and Otawara provide a lot of extra utility at no extra cost! Sea Gate Restoration provides a potential extra spell for the late game but can mostly still just be used as a land. Overall, the mana base for this deck is pretty great.

Here is the updated version of the decklist:

The deck has come a long way, and runs as smooth as ever now. I am pretty proud of how streamlined and explosive it is turning out to be. More than anything, however, I am just excited to see what new options are released next!