Heavenly Inferno precon upgrade guide

Eighteen white sources, ten lands that always enter tapped and twelve spells that want {W}{W}: the mana is what holds Heavenly Inferno back, not the curve.

Kaalia of the Vast attacks and, whenever she attacks an opponent, you may put an Angel, Demon or Dragon creature card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped and attacking that opponent. Of the 28 other creature cards in the box, 21 qualify: 11 Angels, 6 Dragons and 5 Demons, with Malfegor counted in two of those. The plan is to hold the biggest creature you own, attack with a 2/2 flyer, and not pay for it.

That makes a high curve a feature, and the numbers agree: 22 of the 61 spells cost five or more and the average mana value is 4.15, which I'm happy with. What I'm not happy with is how the deck gets to Kaalia. Ramp is 5 pieces, card draw is 2, and the three colors share 38 lands of which ten always enter tapped. My thirteen swaps cost $44.72 and most of that is two cards. The rest is under $10 for mana, draw and removal.

What are the best Heavenly Inferno upgrades?

Mana first, because the box is short of it in all three colors. Then the threats Kaalia wants to find. Prices are October 2026 market prices at the cheapest released printing, which can be a promo.

1. Caves of Koilos ($0.33), Battlefield Forge ($0.21) and Sulfurous Springs ($0.42). Three painlands that make two of the deck's colors and never enter tapped. They replace three of the ten lands that always do.
2. Arcane Signet ($0.34), Talisman of Hierarchy ($0.40) and Talisman of Conviction ($0.35). Ramp goes from 5 pieces to 8, and the two Talismans make white, the color the box has fewest sources of.
3. Terror of the Peaks ($25.96). Whenever another creature enters under your control it deals damage equal to that creature's power to any target, so every Angel Kaalia drops in is also a bolt. It's $25.96 of the $44.72 total.
4. Bloodgift Demon ($0.44) and Phyrexian Arena ($2.57). The box has almost no way to draw cards. These two draw one at the beginning of your upkeep.
5. Hellkite Charger ($1.08) and Goldspan Dragon ($11.18). Two flying haste Dragons, which take the Dragon count from 6 to 9 and give Kaalia more targets and you more to cast without her.
6. Kolaghan's Command ($0.37) and Swords to Plowshares ($1.07). A flexible two-for-one and a second one-mana exile beside Path to Exile.

Thirteen cards leave, argued below. No card on either side of the swaps is a Game Changer, so the checker's floor stays at Bracket 1.

Ten lands that tap for nothing the turn they land, and 18 white sources

Ten of the box's 38 lands always enter tapped. That wouldn't matter much in a deck with a curve that sits at two and three, but this one casts {W}{W} on turn three in just 51.5% of games on the play, {R}{R} 58.0% and {B}{B} 61.0% of the time, with 21 black, 20 red and 18 white sources behind them. Twelve spells in the box want {W}{W}, 13 want {R}{R} and nine want {B}{B}.

Three tapped lands leave: Bojuka Bog (a tapped black land that exiles a graveyard when it enters, which this deck has no use for), Rupture Spire (tapped, and you sacrifice it unless you pay {1}) and Akoum Refuge (a tapped black-red land that gains 1 life). In their place go the three painlands. Each taps for {C} or for one of two colors, costing you 1 damage when you pick a color: Caves of Koilos for white or black, Battlefield Forge for red or white, Sulfurous Springs for black or red. I took painlands over Clifftop Retreat, Isolated Chapel and Dragonskull Summit ($0.22, $0.22 and $0.43) because the checklands still enter tapped whenever the lands you control are the wrong types, which is common in the first two turns of a three-color deck. They're the next buy if the damage bothers you.

The seven that stay tapped are mostly doing a second job. Boros Garrison, Orzhov Basilica and Rakdos Carnarium each make two mana and return a land to your hand as they enter, so they're ramp as much as lands. Barren Moor, Forgotten Cave and Secluded Steppe cycle for one colored mana, which matters in a deck that otherwise draws almost nothing. Vivid Meadow makes white and, twice, any color.

With the signet and Talisman swaps included, all three colors land on 22 sources: white from 18, black from 21, red from 20. The double-pip odds on turn three become 63.9% for each color. It's an improvement of 12.4 points for white and 5.9 for red, and it's still not good, because the calculator asks for 36 sources of a color to reach 90% on turn three, which no 38-land deck can supply for three colors at once. Red gets slightly worse in one respect: Terror of the Peaks, Goldspan Dragon and Hellkite Charger all want {R}{R}, so red double-pip spells go from 13 to 15 as black goes from 9 to 11. White goes from 12 to 10 when Righteous Cause and Return to Dust leave.

Draw is the other hole: 2 pieces against a typical 8 to 12, and 3 after the swaps. Bloodgift Demon is a 5/4 flying Demon for {3}{B}{B}, so Kaalia can drop it, and at your upkeep it has a player draw a card and lose 1 life. Phyrexian Arena draws you a card at your upkeep for 1 life. Both want {B}{B}, so with black at 63.9% on turn three neither is a turn-three play.

Thirteen out: three lands, an Aura trio and seven loose ends

Avatar of Slaughter is an 8-mana Avatar, so Kaalia can't drop it, and it gives every creature double strike and forces all of them to attack. Razorjaw Oni stops black creatures blocking, and twelve creatures in the box are black, Kaalia among them. Oni of Wild Places is a haste 6/5 whose upkeep trigger returns a red creature you control to your hand every turn, and when it is the only red creature on your side that creature is itself. Righteous Cause gains you 1 life whenever any creature attacks, which is {3}{W}{W} for a trickle.

Three Auras go together: Vow of Duty, Vow of Lightning and Vow of Malice each give +2/+2 and a keyword (vigilance, first strike, intimidate) and stop the enchanted creature attacking you. Kaalia is a 2/2 that dies to any removal spell, and an Aura goes with her when she does. Congregate gains 2 life per creature on the battlefield, which is a lot of life in a big pod and nothing a Kaalia deck wins with.

Return to Dust and Orim's Thunder are the artifact and enchantment answers that go. Return to Dust is {2}{W}{W} for an exile, and Orim's Thunder is a destroy that only becomes a creature kill when kicked with {R}. The deck keeps Mortify, Akroma's Vengeance, Angel of Despair and Duergar Hedge-Mage for the job, and Kolaghan's Command comes in with a destroy-artifact mode that can also return a dead creature to your hand.

Lightning Greaves stays because Kaalia has no haste. She costs {1}{R}{W}{B}, and with Greaves equipped for {0} she can attack the turn she lands, with shroud as protection. Mother of Runes is the same job at the other end of the curve: protection from a color of your choice on Kaalia for {T}, and it costs {W}. Syphon Flesh costs five, but it makes each other player sacrifice a creature and gives you a 2/2 Zombie for each, which is a board swing in a three-opponent pod. Dread Cacodemon is argued in the next section.

The last four slots go to cards that do their job without Kaalia. Kolaghan's Command picks two of: get a dead creature back into your hand, make a player discard, destroy an artifact, or deal 2 damage to any target. Swords to Plowshares exiles a creature for {W} and gives its controller life equal to its power. Hellkite Charger ({4}{R}{R}, 5/5 flying haste) and Goldspan Dragon ({3}{R}{R}, 4/4 flying haste) are Dragons, so Kaalia can drop them too, but both are real cards when cast.

What Kaalia skips, and what she doesn't

Twenty-one of the 28 other creature cards are an Angel, a Demon or a Dragon (Malfegor is two of them). Those are Kaalia's targets, and she puts them onto the battlefield tapped and attacking without casting them. The seven that aren't eligible are Anger, Avatar of Slaughter, Boros Guildmage, Duergar Hedge-Mage, Gwyllion Hedge-Mage, Mother of Runes and Orzhov Guildmage. After the swaps it's 23 of 29.

"Without casting" matters for two of them. Dread Cacodemon and Reiver Demon destroy creatures when they enter, but only if you cast them from your hand, and the rulings for the first say that putting it onto the battlefield from your hand with Kaalia doesn't trigger it. So the two Demons that look like they should empty the board do it only the slow way, for {7}{B}{B}{B} and {4}{B}{B}{B}{B}. With Kaalia they're an 8/8 and a 6/6 that attack for free. I'm leaving both in the deck, because a 10-mana 8/8 is exactly the card Kaalia is for, and I'd cast Reiver Demon by hand only when it helps, since it destroys every nonartifact, nonblack creature, your white and red ones included. Dread Cacodemon is kinder: it destroys only your opponents' creatures and then taps your own.

The other enter-the-battlefield effects do work. Angel of Despair destroys a target permanent, Bladewing the Risen returns a Dragon permanent card from your graveyard, Archangel of Strife asks each player to choose war or peace, and Malfegor discards your hand and makes each opponent sacrifice a creature per card discarded. That last one is the reason to attack with Kaalia while you're holding a full hand, not an empty one. What doesn't work is an attack trigger. Kaalia's creature enters attacking but was never declared as an attacker, so Hellkite Charger's extra combat and Goldspan Dragon's Treasure never happen for a dropped copy. Those two are cards you cast yourself, and a Kaalia drop is the bonus.

Terror of the Peaks goes the other way. Its damage trigger fires on any creature entering under your control, and Kaalia's drops enter, so a dropped Akroma, Angel of Fury is six damage to any target on top of the attack. It has to be on the battlefield before Kaalia attacks, and spells your opponents cast that target it cost them 3 extra life.

The lands and Angels I priced and passed on

Sacred Foundry ($10.03), Godless Shrine ($8.47) and Blood Crypt ($9.22) would be better lands than the painlands, since they're untapped for 2 life and have basic types. They also cost $27.72 for the three against $0.96, and all three are reprinted in the Star Trek set on 13 November 2026, so their prices may fall. Aurelia, the Warleader ($2.68) is the wrong card for Kaalia: her attack trigger needs her to be declared as an attacker, and Kaalia puts her in without declaring. Resplendent Angel ($8.04) makes 4/4 Angels only if you gain five life in a turn, which would mean building the deck around it. None of them is a Game Changer.

What the thirteen swaps change

The deck stays at 38 lands, 24 of them basic, and the average mana value drops from 4.15 to 4.00. Always-tapped lands go from 10 to 7. Sources of black, red and white go to 22, 22 and 22. Ramp goes from 5 to 8 and the creature count from 29 to 30 counting Kaalia, with flying creatures going from 19 to 23. The market total of the singles rises from a floor of $110.60 to a floor of $149.31, because a few copies, Dragon Whelp among them, have no current price, so both totals are floors.

The upgraded decklist

Kaalia and the 99 with all thirteen swaps made, sorted by card type. Hovering any name shows the card.

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FAQ

Which of the three colors is the box shortest of?

White. The box has 18 white sources against 21 black and 20 red, and a {W}{W} spell is castable on turn three in 51.5% of games on the play. The swaps take all three colors to 22 sources, and white's double-pip odds to 63.9%. Twelve spells in the box want {W}{W} before the swaps and ten after.

What does Kaalia of the Vast actually skip when she drops a creature?

Casting it, and any trigger that needs the creature to be declared as an attacker. Dread Cacodemon and Reiver Demon only destroy the board if you cast them from your hand, so Kaalia's drop gives you an 8/8 and a 6/6 and no wipe. Hellkite Charger's extra combat and Goldspan Dragon's Treasure don't happen either. Enter-the-battlefield abilities that don't care how the creature arrived do work, such as Angel of Despair's destroy and Malfegor's sacrifice effect. Kaalia's own ability also doesn't trigger if she attacks a planeswalker.

How much does the cheap version of this upgrade cost?

Without Terror of the Peaks ($25.96) and Goldspan Dragon ($11.18), the other eleven swaps cost $7.58. That version still takes ramp from 5 pieces to 8, ends three tapped lands and adds both draw cards. The full list is $44.72.

Are painlands or shocklands better for Heavenly Inferno?

Shocklands, slightly, because they enter untapped for 2 life and have basic land types. Sacred Foundry, Godless Shrine and Blood Crypt cost $10.03, $8.47 and $9.22 today, against $0.96 for Caves of Koilos, Battlefield Forge and Sulfurous Springs. All three shocklands are reprinted in the Star Trek set on 13 November 2026, so I'd buy the painlands now and swap later if the prices fall.

Why isn't Aurelia, the Warleader in the list?

Her extra combat triggers when she attacks for the first time each turn, and a creature Kaalia drops in enters attacking without ever being declared as an attacker. Aurelia has haste, so casting her works, but at {2}{R}{R}{W}{W} she competes for a slot with the Dragons the deck already runs. She costs $2.68.

Can Dread Cacodemon be cast, or does it only come from Kaalia?

It can be cast for {7}{B}{B}{B}, and doing so is the only way its ability destroys your opponents' creatures. That is a very late turn, so in practice Cacodemon is an 8/8 that Kaalia delivers. Reiver Demon is the realistic one to cast by hand, at {4}{B}{B}{B}{B}, but it destroys your own nonblack creatures as well.