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EDH: Brimaz, King of Stax (PRIMER)

Commander / EDH* Jank Mono-White Multiplayer Primer Stax

bimjowen


Maybeboard



Why Mono-White?

I'll start off by being forthcoming: mono-white doesn't have much going for it. It's got terrible card draw, bad tutors and mediocre commander options. However, my first EDH deck back in 2011 was mono-white, and you might say I have a bit of a soft spot for the color. It's been a goal of mine to construct a powerful white EDH deck ever since. So while I'm painfully aware mono-white isn't considered even remotely powerful, damnit, I'm still trying!

Why Stax?

I play paper EDH in a store that ranges from high-powered decks to true no-holds-barred competitive EDH decks. In most high-powered and cEDH metas it's not uncommon for decks to threaten wins by turn 3. Thus, this deck was built on the premise that we need to punish greedy opponents aiming to quickly combo their way to victory. Ideally, we want to bring the game to a crawl and win the long game through grindy value engines. This idea is not dissimilar from the premise the popular deck "Blood Pod" was built upon. Mono-white is admittedly a much weaker deck than Pod because it lacks both black tutors and a true combo finish. However, building a strong mono-white deck is a pet project I have been working on for many years and I think this is the closest I've come to creating something decent.

Why Brimaz?

Brimaz, King of Oreskos has several things going for him as a stax general. First and foremost, his converted mana cost (CMC) is very low. This means he will be reliably castable through effects such as Sphere of Resistance. Additionally, he is a lot of value for 3 CMC. He is a 3/4 body with vigilance which is already a decent deal. Moreover, he creates vigilant 1/1 tokens each time he attacks or blocks. Vigilance is important in a stax deck because several of our worldly effects don't allow us to untap permanents. Thus, Brimaz and his tokens get around this. Also, free token production helps us push ahead when no one at the table is able to cast spells. We can then use these tokens to further break parity with cards like Skullclamp and Smokestack. The other small but noteworthy thing about playing a white deck -- we're definitely the least threatening person at the table! Many times opponents will eschew using removal on our card advantage engines simply because we're perceived as less scary than everyone else. This, of course, goes out the window once Smokestack hits the battlefield!

Why Not Use X As the Commander?

In most cases, the answer is simply that they all cost too much mana or don't provide incremental value. Nahiri, the Lithomancer is the only other white general that breaks parity over the course of several turns through a soft-locked board via token production and a Skullclamp, but she costs 2 more mana to cast than Brimaz and her abilities essentially beg us to dilute our deck with equipment. This leaves less room for stax pieces and answers to our opponents' threats. Unfortunately, Wizards hasn't printed enough stellar equipment cards to make Nahiri's -2 anything back-breaking, and her +2 cheating equip costs isn't anything to write home about either. Combine the above points with the fact her -10 Stoneforged Blade doesn't count as general damage and you've got a recipe for... nothing great.

What's the game plan?

White can't reliably win with combos nor through sheer card advantage so we must play to our strengths if we want to have a chance. These strengths include low CMC stax effects and disruptive hatebears. This deck has a low average CMC of 2.45 so we can thrive in the sluggish environment we've created. Our goal is to slow things down and force our opponents to play a "fair game of EDH."

Strip Lock Package

After we deploy mass land destruction via Cataclysm we can continue to kick our opponents while they're down. We have several of these effects which can be repeatably used with either Crucible of Worlds and/or Sun Titan:

Of course, these lands are also just generically useful for dealing with major threats such as Gaea's Cradle or punching through defenses such as Maze of Ith. Bonus points: Flagstones of Trokair + Dust Bowl is a good way to lose friends.

Ranger of Eos Package

Our ranger friend can fetch us some notable creatures, providing utility and much-needed card selection in the process:

Card Advantage Pieces

White is notoriously terrible at drawing cards. Our options are extremely limited so we have to get creative. Our critical card advantage engines are:

  • Brimaz / Elspeth tokens + Skullclamp. This is the bread and butter draw engine our deck has. We run 6 ways to tutor for the Clamp. We also have several ways to get it back if it dies. If our Clamp gets exiled... well... there's always next game?
  • Mentor of the Meek + our ~20 creatures with 2 or less power. This is reasonable draw power at a modest cost, and is generally affordable even under our stax effects.
  • Brimaz tokens / Elspeth tokens + Mentor of the Meek: see above.
  • Scroll Rack + Land Tax or Weathered Wayfarer: this is generally considered the premier mono-white card advantage engine in EDH. Fetch 3 plains with Land Tax, then activate Scroll Rack to "draw" 3+X new cards, where X is the number of cards you had in hand before the Land Tax trigger. We don't have many ways to tutor this out, but it feels great when it's online.
  • Smacking people with a creature equipped with Mask of Memory or Sword of Fire and Ice. Pretty simple, and pretty effective.
  • Emeria, The Sky Ruin + creatures from our graveyard. Pseudo-card advantage for the late stages of the game.
  • Bygone Bishop + casting Brimaz or the ~20 creatures in the deck that cost 3 or less. This helps us in two ways: it gives us Clue tokens to tap down for Tangle Wire or sacrifice to Smokestack, and of course we can sac them to draw cards.
  • Avarice Amulet + Brimaz. This is the clunkiest and most costly draw engine we have, but white is very desperate for card draw. The upside is twofold, though:

    1) once equipped we won't have to spend additional mana on it and we gain a new card each turn, and

    2) an opponent does not gain control of the Amulet if our cat king dies and is put into our command zone.

What If Our Stax Pieces Are Destroyed?

We can recur Stax pieces via:

How Do We Close Out the Game?

Our grindy win conditions after we've deployed our myriad of stax effects include:

  • Smokestack + Brimaz tokens / Elspeth tokens: if opponents don't answer our Smokestack or Brimaz quickly they often will be rendered unable to recover and from there we can kill them in a leisurely fashion.
  • Cataclysm + Teferi's Protection is pretty back-breaking.
  • Smacking opponents with Serra Ascendant and Sun Titan: this damage adds up quickly; it's important to prioritize attacks on folks most likely to utilize their life total as a resource.
  • Murdering opponents with our Luminarch Ascension angel tokens. Seems reasonable.
  • Smacking opponents with Brimaz tokens / Elspeth tokens pumped up with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite provides a very scary clock.
  • And finally, simply beating the faces of our opponents with general damage from Brimaz, King of Oreskos + equipment can knock out an opponent or two in really long games!

Notable Exclusions

  • Armageddon / Ravages of War: these actually don't help as much as I initially thought they would. Frequently, opponents with green mana dorks or more artifact ramp than us can stabilize quicker than we can, even if our board state is superior when we cast these.

Thanks For Reading!

I appreciate your taking the time to take a look at this deck. I have really put a lot of time and effort into it. If you have any suggestions or comments please post them below. Don't forget to click +1 if you enjoyed this mono-white primer! Thanks again!

-bimjowen

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Revision 6 See all

(2 years ago)

Top Ranked
  • Achieved #38 position overall 5 years ago
Date added 5 years
Last updated 2 years
Exclude colors UBRG
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

20 - 0 Mythic Rares

37 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

1 - 0 Commons

Cards 98
Avg. CMC 2.42
Tokens Angel 4/4 W, Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Cat Soldier 1/1 W, Emblem Elspeth, Knight-Errant, Soldier 1/1 W
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