Stylus - Stax

Commander / EDH Artifact Competitive Control Hatebears Stax WUB (Esper)

G0ht

Land (30)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 3x Island
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 3x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Watery Grave

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Arcane Laboratory
• 1x Artificer's Intuition
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Contamination
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Rule of Law
• 1x Solemnity
• 1x Zur's Weirding

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Windfall

Artifact (23)

• 1x Aether Spellbomb
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Meekstone
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Nihil Spellbomb
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Smokestack
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sword of the Meek
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Thopter Foundry
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Winter Orb

Instant (12)

• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Entomb
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Whir of Invention

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Liliana of the Veil
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Commanders (2)

Creature (17)

• 1x Arcbound Ravager
• 1x Auriok Salvagers
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Chief Engineer
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Ethersworn Canonist
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Herald of Anguish
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Lodestone Golem
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Shimmer Myr
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Walking Ballista

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Esper stax list heavy based on Reaver - Silas/Tymna Stax

The general goal is to make the game unplayable for your opponents while playing under your own lock; the general Stax mantra

Game Plan

Mission Statement:
The main goal of the deck is to hose our opponents plan, or at least degrade it enough to close out the game. Winning is done by delivering the beats with your good dudes or getting to a combo.

In the CMDR Zone:
Esper is probably my favorite colour combination. It has access to sweet control pieces and niche hosers for the choosing, and also has solid support for artifacts and removal; the deck can be tweaked in a lot of ways to fit your meta!
Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is a scary graveyard boi. His bad touch means that lots of CMDRs won't want to get in the way, letting you get his sweet sweet trigger, as well as being a nasty blocker in the situation calls for it.
Tymna the Weaver is strong strong and sassy CMDR who leads from the front. Low to the ground and draws cards is the tits in the stax archetype, even more so when beating your opponents up with a good dudes package gets the draw; basically an off-brand Edric, Spymaster of Trest . The lifelink may seem unimportant but when you're burning the life bar at both ends with this deck (as often happens) +2 a turn is worth noting.

Opening Hands

The opening hand for stax is super important. Must have useful hate to play, ways to play it, and ways to break parity (not get dunked by your own stuff). Typically I like to see some form of 3 lands, a rock, and a piece of useful hate (however I'm also notorious for keeping greedy hands or half dead ones because no more shuffling).
What it means to be "useful hate" is that the piece will actually do damage on the board:

• Against green decks which rely on dorks and such, Cursed Totem is basically Stasis , but cards like Winter Orb won't get there elfy mana dudes.
• Torpor Orb or Solemnity VS Animar, Soul of Elements is pretty cash money, but Sphere of Resistance ...isn't
• Tangle Wire is a beauty. It can be good against lots of stuff as it slows down the game to a crawl. Let's you pace better with stormy decks.

Early Game

The goal here is simple; establish your alpha status over the beta players at the table. No really. The first 4 turns are crucial for us here, we need a plan. Going first in the match is a massive advantage, as it means you can play the best piece for their setup on T2 - T3. Stax will play differently depending on what's sitting across from you; Storm != Creatures != Stax. Pay attention to the CMDRs and what they do, as this will determine everything from your opening hand choice to tutors. I find it best to play wide range hate first if able. Cards that hard stop a variety of plays are generally the best way to push to mid game. Always play it safe, progress your own plan after slowing theirs down, as we want to get into that mid game where we can take control of the board. Once a safe space has been established, playing our CMDRs and good stuff can take focus.

Mid Game

Once our opposition is behind some nice tight legislature, we can start to progress our own board state. Getting out our CMDR(s) is usually the first thing I try to do. More often than not it's Tymna time. Creatures aren't the most common thing at the cEDH table, and typically the early dudes are mana dorks. Getting our draw queen down with some fighters gives us an extra couple cards a turn like a Phyrexian Arena in the CMDR zone. This get's us to our other lock pieces, answers, and combo parts. If your hand was what some would call, #blessed, den silas ya artifact boi gotchu. This man does the nuts; recurring Lotus Petal , spell bombs, with a sac outlet he can break parity from Winter Orb and Tangle Wire . Being able to play him ASAP has won games the hardest for me, or let me recover from early hate pieces like the dreaded Nature's Claim .

Closing out the game

After we've gotten the mongrels under control we can focus on the easy part; winning. After setting up an ungodly board state preventing them from playing MTG in a fun way, aim to prevent them from playing at all. Winning here is the easy part because we only do it in two ways. The first is beat down; preventing your opponents from doing anything meaningful, or anything at all, let's you just beat them up with the good dudes. Is it slow? Yes. Does it work? Also yes. Typically once you get to a certain point most people just give up. The other way of doing it is with a combo. These are much more explosive and can happen early in a lock or 20 turns in because RNG. DO NOT RUSH TO COMBO UNLESS JESUS HAS THE FUCKING WHEEL. For real, I've lost several games by pushing into combo to get blown out. When stax does it, it's really obvious and we're just not meant to go that fast. It's much better to slow roll the entire game and draw into it by accident, or at least enough pieces to bang out the missing part and capitalize.

Some Archetype Match-ups

WORKING ON IT.

Deck Breakdown

With the rise of Tana and Tymna Blood Pod - Primer stax has regained power in the format; and the modern stax looks quite different. It's creator's have put out an excellent analysis of what's changed so I won't get into too much detail here; see link below
Stax in cEDH
If I am to sum it up, it's that classic style of stacking pieces just doesn't work when decks are getting faster and faster. Answers have to be wide and hard spankmewaitwhat. Trying to "nickle and dime" mana costs with +1s and tapping lands isn't fast enough, as it requires a lot of cards to do it. Strong effects on good dudes, and game changing cards like Rule of Law take the wheel.

Selecting the stax pieces for your deck depends on a few things. Firstly, the deck is a bit money hungry. Good rocks are good, and a good land base is need for three colours of pain. The next factor is the core engine of the deck. For this case, artifacts is de way. Tutorable, recurable, synergistic mud. There are a few auto includes that just go in almost all stax types. The last thing is the meta. What your typically play against needs to be considered. Compensating for this will be the hardest part as it requires you to have a strong understanding of a lot of deck types, and what cards hit widest best. This section will go over the pieces in the current build; What was needed, what was meta, and what I liked.

The Good (Auto Includes)

• Winter Orb : Screws lands hard, combo's well with Tangle Wire to keep all the things tapped, one of my favorite cards. Not as effective against a board with dorks out but can still hit dorky decks if you can catch them with lands tapped and no on board dudes.

• Arcane Laboratory Rule of Law Eidolon of Rhetoric : This cards are really solid choices, and some combination of them should be added if able. Prevents decks from exploding, slows the game down so much it basically always get's to the mid-game where we can be shiny.

• Cursed Totem Linvala, Keeper of Silence : GOOD NIGHT DORKS. Just shuts these decks down hard. Stops other strong abilities on dudes; Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , Azami, Lady of Scrolls , breya, ehterium shaper, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  , and so much more. Hurts self a little so be weary but for sure worth, just be careful.

• Rhystic Study Mystic Remora : They either slow their plan down or speed yours up a lot. Card advantage FTW.

• Aven Mindcensor : Stops tutors. Can be used to hurt their fetch lands too. Flying dork to draw off Tymna.

• Trinisphere : Stronger than other tax effects because it jacks up everything from Mana Crypt to Impulse . Three mana for a Sol Ring sucks.

• Aura of Silence : Makes rocks and win cons like Power Artifact slower which is good. Can sack as removal.

• Grand Abolisher : Don't get countered and don't get meme'd on by flash stuff. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is real. No Notion Thief .

• Containment Priest : Stops a lot of creature tutor stuff, mostly in green but other stuff as well like grave yard tricks

• Notion Thief : Steal they're god damn draw at flash speed this is so good. Stops a lot of stuff.

The Bad (Meta Choices)

• Back to Basics : This is often an auto include too. Even if it hurts yourself, you have rocks to break it. Stomps on 2+ colour decks, and on colour dependent decks like Animar, Soul of Elements can just be a silver bullet.

• Liliana of the Veil : Not often thought of as a stax pieces but hand hate is strong as hell. Hurts early CMDRs with the sacrifice effect. Can recast discarded stuff with our CMDR so it's pretty worth

• Torpor Orb : Creature meta killer, stops stuff like Reclamation Sage and Manglehorn . Stops Kiki combos.

• Meekstone : Medium+ creatures stop working. Reactive piece but it's useful

• Solemnity : Stops a lot of strategies and combos and stuff. Animar, Soul of Elements again.

The Ugly (Niche Stuff)

• Zur's Weirding : Once in a winning state, this can lock out a game. No draw at all. Works well with Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry to keep up life gain. Not often seen, but it shines here because we can recast stuff from GY with our CMDR

• Lodestone Golem : Could be a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben but I dig it. Tax effect, doesn't hurt most of us, and is a big dude to fight opponents and draw cards with our CMDR

• Smokestack : Classic piece that's slowly been pushed to a back burner spot. It's really good if you can break parity with stuff like thopter tokens, recurring an artifact dude with our CMDR and slowly take their board down. I have let it get to 3 counters to be more aggressive but dangerous.

• Herald of Anguish : Testing it out here and has been effective. Landing this fatty with Winter Orb out has just forced GGs from impatient players. Good hand hate is hard to find, and even though this guy is costly, he can land fast thanks to his ability, kill little dudes with artifacts that we can get back, and give the beats.

• Contamination : Screws land bases hard, including ours so have some rocks. Keep it alive with tokens and artifacts dudes from the bin. Locks out some decks all on its own!

• Ethersworn Canonist : See rule of law; doesn't hurt us as much.

• Tangle Wire : Like Smokestack it's a classic but doesn't often find a place now. Play if you can keep it coming back; sac outlet + CMDR means you don't feel it but they do. Best friends with Winter Orb

• Blind Obedience : ETB tapped stuff is kinda slow, and not always effective. None the less it stops a lot of explosions, stops Kiki combos, and most importantly is a win con with two of our combos so has a solid place in the list.

Combo Out

There are a lot of options for combos in these colours. It's best to focus on cards that can complement the rest of deck outside of just being a combo usually. For the current list I use the following:

Krark-Clan Ironworks + Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry

• This has to be one of my all time favorite combos. All the life, all the mana, all the dudes. This combo is really tutorable in the deck. Thopter Foundry Is a good sac outlet to make blockers and gain life back with. Lets us dump stax pieces to GY and get them back with Silas Renn, Seeker Adept to break lock parity. Krark-Clan Ironworks can do the same stuff, but for mana; no activation cost so there is that. Sword of the meek isn't great on it's own, but it's a resilient piece as it recurs itself nicely and can sac for mana or a lots of dudes depending on which other combo part is on board.
  

Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter

• Combine with some sort of mana outlet like Walking Ballista , Sensei's Divining Top (stack draws, use deck as ammo)
• Can replace Krark-Clan Ironworks in the first combo
• Can win using extort trigger off Blind Obedience
• These parts basically don't fit at all. Sometimes Scepter + Mystical Tutor , Vampiric Tutor , or Enlightened Tutor is good stuff but mostly...meh. However this is a combo that's super easy to walk into or tutor a piece for since there's not a lot working behind the scenes here. Lots of mana rocks in the deck to get untapped.

Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond

• Combine wit Aether Spellbomb or Nihil Spellbomb to draw stuff or bounce creatures or kill graveyards... a lot. Walking Ballista again.
• Can replace Krark-Clan Ironworks in the first combo
• Can win using extort trigger off Blind Obedience
• Bomber man combo. It's expensive but after some collection consolidation I got one. Easy to assemble, infinite mana so it needs something to do with it. It's resilient because it works with LED or spell bombs in the bin. Can tutor out the a lot of pieces with Artificer's Intuition , chain discard LED and bombs.

This description will get better over time I swear

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Key combos	Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond Krark-Clan Ironworks + Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 7 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.29
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Thopter 1/1 U
Folders	Current