AlcAtraxa

Commander / EDH Competitive Infect Stax

Antics_at_the_Armory

Land (31)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Spire of Industry
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Ravages of War
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Vindicate

Artifact (21)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Orb of Dreams
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Static Orb
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Talisman of Unity
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x The Chain Veil
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Winter Orb

Creature (11)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Brago, King Eternal
• 1x Crystalline Crawler
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Deepglow Skate
• 1x Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Ichor Rats
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
• 1x Zur the Enchanter

Planeswalker (5)

• 1x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
• 1x Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1x Tamiyo, Field Researcher
• 1x Teferi, Temporal Archmage
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Commander (1)

Instant (14)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Disenchant
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tainted Strike
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Contamination
• 1x Doubling Season
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Phyresis
• 1x Root Maze
• 1x Stasis
• 1x Sylvan Library

---

Introduction: Welcome to Alcatraxa. What's better than a typical Derevi Stax deck? A stax deck that can proliferate, be more reliable with spells that tutor for cards and have an alternate win-con with infect. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice provides the perfect colors for the listed and provides the proliferate ability ontop of a perfect blocker/infect attacker herself if you need to save time for building due to her deathtouch, lifelink, and flying. She's stupid when given cards like Tainted Strike or Phyresis. As a typical Atraxa deck, there are planeswalkers that help out the decks endgame such as Tamiyo, Field Researcher and Tezzeret the Seeker . Stax decks require a lot of testing in order to establish when is the right time to play what piece, with it being a multi-piece lock to the board. On top of establishing the lock, you also have to maintain the lock on the board. Atraxa also helps with beating down the opponents and gaining life lost from Necropotence due to her vigilance, and our planeswalkers with some help from Derevi, Empyrial Tactician and Brago, King Eternal allow us to play around our own lock while our opponents try to claw and dig their way to either play around the lock or disrupt it.

Card Choices by type.

Creatures

Dark Confidant: While Necropotence has us skip our draw per turn, Bob allows us to "draw" our card per turn with a low risk of losing a lot of life due to drawing a high CMC, while getting around cards like Eidolon of the Labyrinth and Uba Mask. Great with our commander who gains us life.

Aven Mindcensor: Shuts down other players tutors and fetches/ramp, landing this down early game could very well establish how the game will go for the board.

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician: Allows us to untap our lands/mana rocks during our lock to keep Stasis up upon ETB or attacking.

Eternal Witness: Recursion that is abusable with Venser, the Sojourner and Brago, King Eternal.

Ichor Rats: The ability to give each opponent and infect counter without attacking and being able to stall to win through proliferate is a lovely nail in the coffin.

Ramunap Excavator: Crucible of Worlds on a creature allows us to recur our own lands that we've blown up from Armageddon or Ravages of War while establishing a land lock with Strip Mine or Wasteland.

Brago, King Eternal: See Derevi, Empyrial tactician with the ability to flicker our creatures that attacked and tapped mana rocks.

Crystalline Crawler: A mana source that is able to be proliferated and gives mana without needing to be tapped in case you don't have a flicker ability or way to untap lands or mana rocks.

Zur the Enchanter: Allows you to tutor out a lock piece or card advantage like Sylvan Library.

Deepglow State: A must-have creature to have in atraxa decks that plays with counter synergies and planeswalkers.

Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon: Everyone's favorite infected dragon allows himself to regenerate on top of flying and the ability to give him haste for a quick 4 infect to target opponent without fliers.

Artifacts

Astral Cornucopia: A mana source that you can proliferate to access more mana per tap is amazing in a deck with Atraxa.

Mana Crypt: Fast mana source that enables our lock early without too much of any other investment, just gotta hope that the flip/roll is in your favor.

Mox Diamond: A mana source that gets around Winter Orb AND accesses us to any color that we might need.

Mox Opal: Gets around Winter Orb while also easily achieving metalcraft.

Sol Ring: See Mana Crypt.

Cursed Totem: Shuts down a lot of activated ability essential commanders and creatures, locks creatures out when played with Torpor Orb on the battlefield.

Fellwar Stone: An essential mana rock when considering we're playing with four colors of mana that are all needed and gets around Winter Orb.

Talisman of Dominance: Taps for two necessary colors for our deck with the life loss not being a major downside due to our commander.

Talisman of Progress: See Talisman of Dominance.

Talisman of Unity: See Talisman of Dominance.

Torpor Orb: Effectively shuts down ETB effects like Acidic Slime, Aura Shards or Fleshbag Marauder.

Winter Orb: Denial of resources is important in any stax deck so if you're able to land this early game you're golden with the right mana rocks.

Crucible of Worlds: See Ramunap Excavator.

Orb of Dreams: Establishes a hard lock with stasis, preventing your opponents from interacting with the board state after the lock is established.

Sword of Feast and Famine: Allows us to untap our lands while limiting an opponents hand works wonders in this kind of deck while also protecting whatever creature is equipped with it.

Tangle Wire: The synergy with Atraxa is top-tier. Having our opponents tap down 5 of their permanents while we only tap down 4 that aren't necessary to be tapped normally leads to an early scoop.

The Chain Veil: An important piece for any planeswalker centric deck. Paired with Teferi, Temporal Archmage and enough mana to activate it leads to potentially endless planeswalker triggers.

Sorceries

Demonic Tutor: Tutor effects are powerful in commander as they allow you to find the right card for the right moment or for long-term planning.

Diabolic Intent: Demonic tutor with sacrificing a token or creature that isn't needed at the time.

Regrowth: See Eternal Witness.

Toxic Deluge: One of the best sweepers in the format as you decide what creatures stay what doesn't. Also gets around indestructible.

Armageddon: Resource denial is an important part of this deck, and mass land destruction (MLD) gives us just that. Useful if we're behind or if our opponents are getting around the lock.

Ravages of War: See Armageddon.

Instants

Enlightened Tutor: End of turn tutor that allows us to search for a stax piece needed to either start the lock or enhance it.

Nature's Claim: Artifact/Enchantment removal while giving your opponents life being not important.

Noxious Revival: See Eternal Witness.

Spell Pierce: Early game protection of our Stax pieces/denial of opponent's board with it being good late game with our lock.

Swan Song: Protection of our Stax pieces/denial of an opponent's board with a negligible downside.

Swords to Plowshares: Removal of an unwanted creature with a negligible downside.

Tainted Strike: Infect granter that allows us to start/further our infect win.

Vampiric Tutor: End of Turn tutor that allows us to search for any card with a negligible downside.

Abrupt Decay Removal that cannot be countered matters when getting rid of mana rocks, or important 3 or less drops.

Disenchant: Nature's Claim without the lifegain.

Anguished Unmaking: Removal of nearly anything with a negligible downside.

Beast Within: Removal of anything with a negligible downside.

Muddle the Mixture: Counterspell while also being a potential tutor for a two-drop for our lock or a necessary card.

Force of Will: A counterspell that allows us to tap out with a downside of exiling one of our cards.

Enchantment

Carpet of Flowers: Access to any amount of color of one mana for early mana or additional mana during our lock.

Root Maze: See Orb of Dreams.

Bitterblossom: Access to token creatures with a negligible downside.

Phyresis: An infect granting enchantment that allows us to win faster.

Stasis: One of the most important lock pieces for us to get onto the battlefield. Even for one round it normally puts us ahead of our opponents.

Sylvan Library: Card advantage with a semi-negligible downside.

Contamination: Locks certain decks out of the game with a negligible downside due to our token producers.

Necropotence: Our best card engine with the loss of life being controlled by our Commander.

Planeswalkers

Elspeth, Knight-Errant: Token generator, pumps our commander/infect creature, and can protect our permanents from our own MLD and opponents' wraths with her emblem.

Garruk Wildspeaker: Untaps lands, produces tokens, and can pump our commander/infect creatures for a faster clock.

Tamiyo, Field Researcher: Card advantage, can keep threats in check, and allows us to cast cards during our lock without worrying about tapping out.

Tezzeret the Seeker : Untaps our mana rocks, tutors for our mana rocks or stax pieces, and can potentially end the game with his ultimate.

venser, the soujourner: An efficient blinker with his +2, his -1 is good for getting in damage if the opponents have a wave of blockers, and his ultimate being a game ender being able to hit our opponents lands and mana rocks.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage: Untaps our permanents during our lock, provides card advantage, haven't found a need to ult him yet but allowing our planeswalkers to activate at instant speed can change many interactions.

Deck History

This is the 5th iteration of Atraxa that I've created and built, and so far this is the one I've enjoyed the most. I've tried super friends (as we all have, twice), prison friends, counters matter/infect and this one. The consistency is amazing and can allow you to differ how spiked of gameplay you can play at. Other variations were either too inconsistent, or couldn't bounce back after removal, whereas this one normally can. I play in a monthly commander league and use this to either bring my points up or to get someone else to take 1st from someone.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	R
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	30 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.51
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Emblem Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Emblem Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Soldier 1/1 W
Folders	Interesting