Kiora, Master of the Depths :Official Thread

Reaganstorme

Kiora's Tomb of Zombies

Creatures (1):
Prized Amalgam

Spells (5):
Catalog * (or Pore Over the Pages)
Talent of the Telepath
Gather the Pack
Mantle of Webs
Exert Influence

Supports (4):
Durable Handiwork
Strider Harness * (or Haunted Cloak)
Angel's Tomb
Fevered Visions * (utility slot)

This deck works by dumping a LOT of Prized Amalgam zombies into your graveyard with Gather the Pack, and then reanimating them all at once with huge bonuses! Durable Handiwork grants +1/+1 permanently to your non-token creatures on entering play, and Angel's Tomb grants +3/+3 and flying to a creature entering play until the start of your next turn. A single Gather the Pack dumps 4 copies of PA into the engine, and getting one out normally will make the whole stack rumble to life, becoming a 30/30 Flying Defender for a turn. If you have additional copies in the graveyard, well, it can get a bit ridiculous (ridiculously awesome that is!).

2/2 base creature, +1/+1 from DH perm, +3/+3 from AT temp. 6/6, multiplied by number of PA entering play....

I've had good effect with both Strider Harness and Haunted Cloak, using HC offensively on opponent's creatures too, but often seemed wasted in hand. Exert Influence is there because you have plenty of other creature slots available, 10 mana for their best creature essentially. Catalog allows you to churn your excess zombies or supports and find something more useful, and I've found Pore Over the Pages is too expensive to use immediately on a single match. Often I'll put a PA into the bottom card slot, use Talent to fetch a Catalog, then get the other two cards I saw as well. Save your Loyalty for Kiora's second ability to fetch and prime your trigger zombie.

Lastly, I've been rotating several cards through the utility slot, but nothing has really stood out so far. Fevered Visions is ok, Animist's Awakening helps fuel the initial setup, as does Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, though both become redundant once you're set up. Support destruction can also go here.

Thésée

This is the funniest zombie deck I've ever seen !
Oh great !

venomAA

Reaganstorme wrote:

Kiora's Tomb of Zombies

Creatures (1):
Prized Amalgam

Spells (5):
Catalog * (or Pore Over the Pages)
Talent of the Telepath
Gather the Pack
Mantle of Webs
Exert Influence

Supports (4):
Durable Handiwork
Strider Harness * (or Haunted Cloak)
Angel's Tomb
Fevered Visions * (utility slot)

This deck works by dumping a LOT of Prized Amalgam zombies into your graveyard with Gather the Pack, and then reanimating them all at once with huge bonuses! Durable Handiwork grants +1/+1 permanently to your non-token creatures on entering play, and Angel's Tomb grants +3/+3 and flying to a creature entering play until the start of your next turn. A single Gather the Pack dumps 4 copies of PA into the engine, and getting one out normally will make the whole stack rumble to life, becoming a 30/30 Flying Defender for a turn. If you have additional copies in the graveyard, well, it can get a bit ridiculous (ridiculously awesome that is!).

2/2 base creature, +1/+1 from DH perm, +3/+3 from AT temp. 6/6, multiplied by number of PA entering play....

I've had good effect with both Strider Harness and Haunted Cloak, using HC offensively on opponent's creatures too, but often seemed wasted in hand. Exert Influence is there because you have plenty of other creature slots available, 10 mana for their best creature essentially. Catalog allows you to churn your excess zombies or supports and find something more useful, and I've found Pore Over the Pages is too expensive to use immediately on a single match. Often I'll put a PA into the bottom card slot, use Talent to fetch a Catalog, then get the other two cards I saw as well. Save your Loyalty for Kiora's second ability to fetch and prime your trigger zombie.

Lastly, I've been rotating several cards through the utility slot, but nothing has really stood out so far. Fevered Visions is ok, Animist's Awakening helps fuel the initial setup, as does Shrine of the Forsaken Gods, though both become redundant once you're set up. Support destruction can also go here.

i would highly recommend adding Perfect Creation to your deck. It means it will allow you to drop your amalgams to the graveyard if the got tutored, it will return them from the graveyard plus give you a new hand.

Now if you want to leave the zombie flavor you can add scrapheap scrounger (the new colorless rare creature that returns from the graveyard) or replace PA with it. I add it and it can get really crazy if you add imprisoned in the moon and recycle sacrificing your perfect creation/prized amalgam to it to get back your bunch of scrounger. Plus, anything short of hixus totally neutralizes removal from the opponent since if you put more scrounger directly into the graveyard they will return if they kill any of your creatures.

exosect

I've never come across this deck, in the forums or the game, but I've found it surprisingly effective

Creatures

Desolation Twins

Spells

Exert influence
Seek the wilds
Stratus walk
Talent of the telepath
Anchor to the ether

Supports

Nissa's pilgrimage
Fertile thicket
Brawlers plate
Yavimaya coast

The point is to stack Desolation twins using kiora's second ability and seek the wilds to get them, and obviously the gem changers for the mana ramp to play them. The rest is all indirect creature control and since the twins only give you 2 creatures the influence is also handy to fill the third slot. Try it out, would love to hear opinions/improvements.

Alex_-91-_

What do you think about my deck? I was thinking about adding 1 mana draining card like "sphinx tutelage"

Creatures
-ishkanah, grefwidow
-harbinger of the tides

Spells:
-season past
-helm of gods
-talent of the telepath

Supports:
-zendikar resurgent
-mirrorpool
-thopter spy network
-part of waterviel
-shrine of the forsaken gods

Tilwin90

Not that amazed by Kiora though I do not have premium mythics like Day's Undoing or Nissa's Revelation so that might be the reason too. Ideas regarding mythics and rares are more than welcome since some of them I might have in my collection.

That being said, here is my build. I still find it quite slow and maybe trying to push into two different directions - one more midrange like, and the other one controlish.

Creatures (2)
Heron's Grace Champion - recent addition to the deck. I needed some form of lifegain and it didn't disappoint so far. Can occasionally lifelink Sage as well.
Sage of Ancient Lore - grows big pretty fast with all the card draw offered by Tamiyo's Journal and itself. Main beater in the deck, a bit disappointing due to its initial size (found it get eaten by Berserkers pretty often)

Spells (3)
Seasons Past - I underestimated it for being so overly expensive. Leads to impressive cascades, though I still see it as a worse Deploy the Gatewatch. Casting it into another copy of itself is pretty neat. It's a shame the resulting 5 card matches do not give you an extra turn.
Turn to Frog - Very good removal and cheapest we can get for blue I guess.
Scour from Existence (to be replaced with Imprisoned in the Moon)

Supports (5)
Part the Waterveil - I recently got it and decided to give it a shot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. It's a bit of a combo with Seasons Past too as the 5-matches generate attackers and loads of mana. But sometimes it's just a bad card.
Sphinx's Tutelage - More on a control side, I felt it justified by all the card draw. It's not as good as in my Jace deck so it can probably be replaced with something better.
Tamiyo's Journal - Very good card draw, I have to admit it. I prefer it to Tezzeret's Ambition for offering a more constant card flow. Corrupted Graftstone - Second to Yavimaya's Coast. To be replaced by Lumbering Falls. Or would [card=http://beta.mtgpq.info/#/cards/433]Nissa's Pilgrimage[/card] simply be better?
Yavimaya Coast - What can I say? Cheap and ramps into the right colors. Can't complain much about it.

I love her abilities, especially her first one, though second one getting me a full charged Grace Champion is not so bad either. Ramp and quality cards.
On the other hand I still end up with weird openings where I have only supports which although are nice, make for really really slow plays. This is one reason why I would replace Sphinx's Tutelage with something else. Is Dubious Challenge a bad idea?
I also played a bit with The Great Aurora but more often it hurt me than help me.

exosect

Sorry I don't know how to add your post to mine like I see others do lol
Anyway tilwin90, my thoughts would be to keep sphinx's tutelage, it has a nice synergy with sage of the ancient lore, instead I'd try and push the card draw a little more, with anchor to the ether and maybe Stratus walk
The anchor adds creature control and Stratus would give your creatures flying, and both have you draw a card, triggering sphinx and tutelage, as well as helping get to cards you need. With running only 2 creatures, unless you are using kiora's third ability a lot you have a creature slot open, I'd consider ulvenwald mysteries, it gives you a 1/1 human every time you play a support, and when a non-token creature dies investigate, since it counts clues as supports it pairs well with journal investigating every turn, and they are human for champions ability. Alternatively Exert influence could be good as well, letting you permanently take an opponents creature, doubling as board control. Lastly I've always preferred Nissa's pilgrimage, it gives basically the same effect, but it's cheaper cost let's you cast it even on a non primary color match. Dunno if any of this would speed up the deck, but it would add some synergy to it which generally improves performance.

exosect

Alex 91....I'd say sphinx's tutelage should work well there, zandikar resurgent giving you a card for each thopter dropped by spy network would completely lock down pretty much any deck.

SeditiousCanary

exosect wrote:

Alex 91....I'd say sphinx's tutelage should work well there, zandikar resurgent giving you a card for each thopter dropped by spy network would completely lock down pretty much any deck.

I can attest to the bananas nature of Decoction Module in conjunction with Thopter Spy Network. I can totally see Sphinx's Tutelage, Thopter Spy Network, and Zendikar Resurgent.

Tilwin90

exosect wrote:

Sorry I don't know how to add your post to mine like I see others do lol
Anyway tilwin90, my thoughts would be to keep sphinx's tutelage, it has a nice synergy with sage of the ancient lore, instead I'd try and push the card draw a little more, with anchor to the ether and maybe Stratus walk
The anchor adds creature control and Stratus would give your creatures flying, and both have you draw a card, triggering sphinx and tutelage, as well as helping get to cards you need. With running only 2 creatures, unless you are using kiora's third ability a lot you have a creature slot open, I'd consider ulvenwald mysteries, it gives you a 1/1 human every time you play a support, and when a non-token creature dies investigate, since it counts clues as supports it pairs well with journal investigating every turn, and they are human for champions ability. Alternatively Exert influence could be good as well, letting you permanently take an opponents creature, doubling as board control. Lastly I've always preferred Nissa's pilgrimage, it gives basically the same effect, but it's cheaper cost let's you cast it even on a non primary color match. Dunno if any of this would speed up the deck, but it would add some synergy to it which generally improves performance.

Click on the quote image on top of the post you want to reply to.

Thanks for the great tips they are shaping things up and give me a direction.
I replaced tutelage with mysteries and truth be told I don't regret it that much. Not very happy with how fragile it is though and how often it ends up out of the board. But the synergy with the lifelink from Champion is there so great suggestion.

Ran back to nissa's pilgrimage and indeed it is easier on my mana.

Exert influence would be the dream card to replace scour from existence. Doesn't seem to appear though. Same with thopter spy network... Would be better than the silly part the water veil.

But now I have an improvement so thank you for that. It's surprising how many uncommon I have yet I do not use...

exosect

Tilwin90 wrote:

exosect wrote:

Sorry I don't know how to add your post to mine like I see others do lol
Anyway tilwin90, my thoughts would be to keep sphinx's tutelage, it has a nice synergy with sage of the ancient lore, instead I'd try and push the card draw a little more, with anchor to the ether and maybe Stratus walk
The anchor adds creature control and Stratus would give your creatures flying, and both have you draw a card, triggering sphinx and tutelage, as well as helping get to cards you need. With running only 2 creatures, unless you are using kiora's third ability a lot you have a creature slot open, I'd consider ulvenwald mysteries, it gives you a 1/1 human every time you play a support, and when a non-token creature dies investigate, since it counts clues as supports it pairs well with journal investigating every turn, and they are human for champions ability. Alternatively Exert influence could be good as well, letting you permanently take an opponents creature, doubling as board control. Lastly I've always preferred Nissa's pilgrimage, it gives basically the same effect, but it's cheaper cost let's you cast it even on a non primary color match. Dunno if any of this would speed up the deck, but it would add some synergy to it which generally improves performance.

Click on the quote image on top of the post you want to reply to.

Thanks for the great tips they are shaping things up and give me a direction.
I replaced tutelage with mysteries and truth be told I don't regret it that much. Not very happy with how fragile it is though and how often it ends up out of the board. But the synergy with the lifelink from Champion is there so great suggestion.

Ran back to nissa's pilgrimage and indeed it is easier on my mana.

Exert influence would be the dream card to replace scour from existence. Doesn't seem to appear though. Same with thopter spy network... Would be better than the silly part the water veil.

But now I have an improvement so thank you for that. It's surprising how many uncommon I have yet I do not use...

Awesome, thanks for the quoting tip. Glad my suggestions helped yeah I've had that problem with ulvenwald mysteries too, but when it works it really works lol. Sadly, most uncommons, or at least a lot of them, are still just not useful or flat out bad. It's a problem for those of us with few rares and mythics.

Iridium

If I could get some help on my deck, it would be much appreciated!

Creatures
Decimator of Provinces (game ender)
Soulblade Djinn (flex slot, not sure what to put here)

Spells
Gather the Pack (fetches creatures)
Scour from Existence (spot removal, will be replaced with Turn to Frog or Imprisoned in the Moon when lady luck finds me)
Anchor to Aether (removal, card draw)
Sylvan Scrying (ramp, flex slot)

Supports
Fertile Thicket (ramp)
Nissa's Pilgrimage (ramp)
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods (more ramp)
Jace's Sanctum (slow opponent's tempo)

Here are my card choices

SeditiousCanary

Iridium wrote:

If I could get some help on my deck, it would be much appreciated!

Creatures
Decimator of Provinces (game ender)
Soulblade Djinn (flex slot, not sure what to put here)

Spells
Gather the Pack (fetches creatures)
Scour from Existence (spot removal, will be replaced with Turn to Frog or Imprisoned in the Moon when lady luck finds me)
Anchor to Aether (removal, card draw)
Sylvan Scrying (ramp, flex slot)

Supports
Fertile Thicket (ramp)
Nissa's Pilgrimage (ramp)
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods (more ramp)
Jace's Sanctum (slow opponent's tempo)

Here are my card choices

Loose Gather the Pack right now. Kiora's second ability is so much better because it pays up to 16 mana (at level 60) for whatever you fetch. Gather the Pack may give you a choice, but you're only running two creatures, both of which are expensive. Agro Bacon is better when it only costs you 5 mana.
I'd also focus more on either bounce, and mama draining effects (which oddly play well into Soulblade Djinn, and Brain in a Jar). You can pay for a lot of that with ramp EDIT: SUPPORTS like you have here, but I'd aim for spells which convert gems to your color instead of supports to trigger Soulblade Djinn, and Brain in a Jar. Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper is strictly better, but costs more, which is rendered moot with Kiora's second ability. I find Sylvan Scrying is weaker here because cards like Natural Connection, Attune with Aether, and Animist's Awakening can all be cast with Kiora's first ability, and "parked" as your first spells to pay for the other cards in hand to get played this turn of any matches which are made off the conversions, and subsequent cascades. Then its match, cast, bounce, attack.

hapines75

Gisa&Geralf Lockdown : Kiora Version

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=56860#p636641

Dynavolt Tower -> Animist's Awakening
Fragmentize -> Root Out

https://youtu.be/XyI25ChoJFQ

Tyrannicide

I believe that the deck I just created is a thing of pure evil genious, all based around the wonderful Kiora.
Creatures
Undergrowth Champion
Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Bristling Hydra

Supports
Prism Array
Gonti's Aether Heart
Nissa's Pilgrimage
Fertile Thicket

Spells
Animist's Awakening
Attune with Aether
Natural Connection

I began a turn and had to force myself to find matches that wouldn't overload 3 and give me more swaps. At one point I had 34 swaps remaining, this deck is beyond broken, once the trio come together at once (bristling hydra, prism array, and gonti's aether heart) the deck becomes unstoppable, undergrowth champion, and rishkar are easily replaceable. I wouldn't recommend anymore energize unless you plan on forfeiting the match because you can't end your turn.

Grenade110

Devastation Tides
Kiora, Master of the Depths, Level 60

Creatures (2):
Drowner of Hope
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Spells (4):
Adverse Conditions
Scour from Existence
Mantle of Webs
Call the Scions

Supports (4):
Zendikar Resurgent
From Beyond
Sphinx's Tutelage
Drownyard Temple

Drowner of Hope is critical to lockdown defenses and shutout attacks indefinitely with From Beyond.

Ulamog essentially locks the opponents mana production.

Adverse Conditions only temporarily deals with a threat but it will also give me a Scion to trigger Drowner.

Call the Scions will provide defenses and trigger Drowner.

Scour From Existence is threat removal and it may help Ulamog on the ingesting.

Mantle of Webs will help the Scions hold off fliers that drop before I'm in lockdown mode or if they have haste. It can also bolster Drowner of Hope or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger if need be.

From Beyond combines with Drowner of Hope to lock the opponent down and even without Drowner around the defender every turn is hard to deal with.

Zendikar Resurgent ramps and feeds off of From Beyond to give a extra card draw.

Sphinx's Tutelage is a must have with the draws from ZR.

Drownyard Temple speeds the deck and it can comeback if it gets destroyed.

Tilwin90

It seems Kiora with Baral is simply ridiculous. Not having Saheeli, the next blue planeswalker that made sense for the madness was Kiora. And boy is she powerful with the right spells (not that many choices really).

Creatures (2):
Baral, Chief of Compliance
Niblis of Frost

Spells (8):
Ornamental Courage
Natural Connection
Scatter to the Winds
Rush of Ice
Coastal Discovery
Stratus Walk
Haunted Cloak
Shard of Broken Glass

Deck tech
Pretty straightforward. Assemble Baral and Niblis onto the battlefield and let the madness begin. I've tweaked the spells a bit to suit my needs and this is the optimal approach. Basically you want only spells with mana cost 3 or less so they are free to cast thanks to Baral and that will pump Niblis (plus disable an opposing creature).

Do note that this combo does not go infinite as it is limited by your hand size. And since you have 2 creatures in the deck, it is inevitable that at some point you will end up with only creatures, moment when the combo ends. We want to make sure that happens the latest moment possible, but it does rely on a bit of luck too.

- Card draw helps tremendously here. If you draw cards, drawing a creature from Baral during combo doesn't hurt that much - you would need to be unlucky and draw consecutive creatures. Stratus Walk and Coastal Discovery are here to ensure just that.
- Kiora is green, and its crucial because we can use this to our advantage. Storming into Natural Connection can help cast some of your creatures from your hand (since they are so cheap to begin with). Multiple Natural Connections ensure this can happen multiple times. So this card is actually vital to maximizing the combo!
- The faster we combo, the better. To pump Niblis I included Shard of Broken Glass and Ornamental Courage. You can use Ghostly Wings as well though to be honest I don't want too many of these spells. I want to be able to disrupt my opponent a bit too.

Naturally you want Haunted Cloak so that your combo can go off immediately when you have Niblis onto the battlefield (removal of summoning sickness). The trample helps get over defenders though with so much disable, you don't have to worry about that. The vigilance can actually hurt you if you are not able to end in one turn but we have solutions to that.

Ultimately, it is possible that you won't be able to combo fully against a high life opponent (I'm looking at your Tezzeret). Here is where the last pieces of the puzzle (no pun intended) help:
- Scatter to the Winds slows our opponent down. Quite a bit really. I succeeded to keep opponents at bay with this especially when they want to cast a spell. The awaken can also help (see below).
- Rush of Ice is a neat card, and I used it particularly if the opponent gets to establish a board. It slows them down significantly. Without it I would've lost to Tezzeret. There is a twist to it though, in that it needs an opposing creature... or an awakened island. I actually won turn two this way by having an awakened island from Scatter to the Winds without my opponent having anything on the board. If you are confident you can win in one turn, you can replace this with Ghostly Wings.

And there you have it, storm madness going insane. Sometimes it works, sometimes indeed it backfires, and it does take a lot (not in terms of number of turns but actual playtime).

p2dr

Tilwin90 wrote:

It seems Kiora with Baral is simply ridiculous. Not having Saheeli, the next blue planeswalker that made sense for the madness was Kiora. And boy is she powerful with the right spells (not that many choices really).

Creatures (2):
Baral, Chief of Compliance
Niblis of Frost

Spells (8):
Ornamental Courage
Natural Connection
Scatter to the Winds
Rush of Ice
Coastal Discovery
Stratus Walk
Haunted Cloak
Shard of Broken Glass

Deck tech
Pretty straightforward. Assemble Baral and Niblis onto the battlefield and let the madness begin. I've tweaked the spells a bit to suit my needs and this is the optimal approach. Basically you want only spells with mana cost 3 or less so they are free to cast thanks to Baral and that will pump Niblis (plus disable an opposing creature).

Do note that this combo does not go infinite as it is limited by your hand size. And since you have 2 creatures in the deck, it is inevitable that at some point you will end up with only creatures, moment when the combo ends. We want to make sure that happens the latest moment possible, but it does rely on a bit of luck too.

- Card draw helps tremendously here. If you draw cards, drawing a creature from Baral during combo doesn't hurt that much - you would need to be unlucky and draw consecutive creatures. Stratus Walk and Coastal Discovery are here to ensure just that.
- Kiora is green, and its crucial because we can use this to our advantage. Storming into Natural Connection can help cast some of your creatures from your hand (since they are so cheap to begin with). Multiple Natural Connections ensure this can happen multiple times. So this card is actually vital to maximizing the combo!
- The faster we combo, the better. To pump Niblis I included Shard of Broken Glass and Ornamental Courage. You can use Ghostly Wings as well though to be honest I don't want too many of these spells. I want to be able to disrupt my opponent a bit too.

Naturally you want Haunted Cloak so that your combo can go off immediately when you have Niblis onto the battlefield (removal of summoning sickness). The trample helps get over defenders though with so much disable, you don't have to worry about that. The vigilance can actually hurt you if you are not able to end in one turn but we have solutions to that.

Ultimately, it is possible that you won't be able to combo fully against a high life opponent (I'm looking at your Tezzeret). Here is where the last pieces of the puzzle (no pun intended) help:
- Scatter to the Winds slows our opponent down. Quite a bit really. I succeeded to keep opponents at bay with this especially when they want to cast a spell. The awaken can also help (see below).
- Rush of Ice is a neat card, and I used it particularly if the opponent gets to establish a board. It slows them down significantly. Without it I would've lost to Tezzeret. There is a twist to it though, in that it needs an opposing creature... or an awakened island. I actually won turn two this way by having an awakened island from Scatter to the Winds without my opponent having anything on the board. If you are confident you can win in one turn, you can replace this with Ghostly Wings.

And there you have it, storm madness going insane. Sometimes it works, sometimes indeed it backfires, and it does take a lot (not in terms of number of turns but actual playtime).

I have played a few times against a Baral/Niblis deck and its a instant quitthegame for me. The first games I played against it, ofcourse i have tried to win, and even have, but its just so annoying to wait for, and OP as f*ck (like most (semi-)infinite combo's) But I guess it wins a lot of games I wonder if it's fun to play, as you are just watching the combo go off and thats it.

Tilwin90

p2dr wrote:

I have played a few times against a Baral/Niblis deck and its a instant quitthegame for me. The first games I played against it, ofcourse i have tried to win, and even have, but its just so annoying to wait for, and OP as f*ck (like most (semi-)infinite combo's) But I guess it wins a lot of games I wonder if it's fun to play, as you are just watching the combo go off and thats it.

Gets really boring after a while. Reason why I don't play it this often anymore. It also is extremely volatile - I defeated the **** angel only in 9 rounds instead of 7 during the current event.
I get much more satisfaction from Dovin, Nahiri and Sorin, all playing slightly different deck styles but pulling in a control-ish direciton.
- Dovin: Mostly disable opponent creatures while deploying a solid board position and winning with powerful creatures.
- Sorin: Disrupt opponent via creature destruction and hand discard before winning with a lifelinking army powered by the ultimate.
- Nahiri: Disrupt opponent via creature and support destruction. Fast deck that usually wins the deck with a voltron Geier Reach Bandit that's usually transformed, double-striked and pumped like crazy via the ultimate. (I once did 160 damage in one turn this way)

But coming back to Kiora, the Baral shenanigans while fun get boring after a while. And people... move on. I see no reason why it should be balanced or anything. It's definitely a card that can be dealt with, and the AI most often has no freaking idea what it's doing.

Robheaded

Tilwin90 wrote:

p2dr wrote:

I have played a few times against a Baral/Niblis deck and its a instant quitthegame for me. The first games I played against it, ofcourse i have tried to win, and even have, but its just so annoying to wait for, and OP as f*ck (like most (semi-)infinite combo's) But I guess it wins a lot of games I wonder if it's fun to play, as you are just watching the combo go off and thats it.

Gets really boring after a while. Reason why I don't play it this often anymore. It also is extremely volatile - I defeated the tinykitty angel only in 9 rounds instead of 7 during the current event.
I get much more satisfaction from Dovin, Nahiri and Sorin, all playing slightly different deck styles but pulling in a control-ish direciton.
- Dovin: Mostly disable opponent creatures while deploying a solid board position and winning with powerful creatures.
- Sorin: Disrupt opponent via creature destruction and hand discard before winning with a lifelinking army powered by the ultimate.
- Nahiri: Disrupt opponent via creature and support destruction. Fast deck that usually wins the deck with a voltron Geier Reach Bandit that's usually transformed, double-striked and pumped like crazy via the ultimate. (I once did 160 damage in one turn this way)

But coming back to Kiora, the Baral shenanigans while fun get boring after a while. And people... move on. I see no reason why it should be balanced or anything. It's definitely a card that can be dealt with, and the AI most often has no freaking idea what it's doing.

This deck does get super boring fast.. It is funny to play for a bit.. Only thing more funny is running kambal, consoul of allocation and getting it out against a baral deck.. And sitting back and watching all the damage it can do.