Help being a monster

Commander Deck Help forum

Posted on June 12, 2017, 10:34 p.m. by magicarp03

I'm tired of losing to Atraxa and garbage like foil fetchlands, so I want to show people you can kick counter decks collective asses with a relatively cheap deck, so give me the most monstrous cards in the jeskai wedge, and I'll make a Narset, Enlightened Master Stax deck. We're talking blue, red, and white equivalents of The Abyss.

shaftdiggity says... #2

World Queller and Invoke Prejudice come to mind. Maybe toss in some Eldrazi Displacer and Rishadan Cutpurse

June 12, 2017 10:46 p.m.

RazortoothMtg says... #3

Note: I'm just listing cards off the top of my head to give you ideas, I might be remembering a card a lot cheaper than it is so if i accidentally list a few expensive cards dont kill me.

Oh o, no Rishadan Cutpurse here. Why not go for Rishadan Brigand? Invoke Prejudice is about the meanest blue card i can think of, but $100, well, umm. For white cards, go to modern and find hatebear list. Some are a bit pricy, but some are cheap, things like Thalia are a bit expensive but makes control decks lives difficult. If your struggle is counter decks, as in Counter control decks, then I'd go green for City of Solitude and Dosan the Falling Leaf. In white theres Grand Abolisher, and blue has Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir (which I know is like $15, so a bit pricy but jsut sooo much value).

Actually, if your biggest problem is Counter control decks, why not just make Surrak Dragonclaw or maybe Dragonlord Dromoka your commander? Both make all the control players sad unless they have a good removal suite.

June 12, 2017 11:20 p.m.

Errast says... #4

If you're looking for Cheap stax decks, I'd recommend Derevi, Empyrial Tactician over Narset personally, but I'll throw up a list here just in case.

Really, any card that screws with the landbase are good with commanders like Narset, and Zur. Anyway, Sorry for the long list, and good luck with your deck.

June 12, 2017 11:34 p.m.

MoonTurtle7 says... #5

Honestly sir I believe you could run reanimate sac based deck that forces them to get rid of their creatures and Vampire Hexmage to help with the rest especially if you can use her more than once. At least counterwise. Thought you didn't ask for that.

With narset you have to be very careful using creatures, and dealing with opponents whom abuse Grave Pact style things. Try to use as much Scry and top deck manipulation as you can to make sure that when Narset goes off it's more impactful.

Though with Atraxa one of the biggest keys could be a douchey "land destruction choke" seeing as Atraxa can be a little tricky with that extra colour. Once Narset hits your mana becomes a little less relevant so it doesnt hurt you so much. Because land destruction is considered pretty taboo it actually tends to be cheap. That is if you're comfortable with that

Outside of that, but keeping with that kind of theme, Blood Moon is something that stops Atraxa dead in her tracks (you don't really use mana anywho, and you can play mana rocks for free) Although it's price is pretty ridiculous. Authority of the Consuls Aura of Silence Blind Obedience Ghostly Prison Propaganda Sphere of Safety Are all pretty standard for slowing down the creature based Atraxa, silence leaning towards stopping things like Death's Presence and Durable Handicraft Helix Pinnacle it atleast slows her down (the helix turn 1 is scary real fast)

Darksteel Mutation and Imprisoned in the Moon both just make Atraxa dead weight.

Anything that lets you take extra turns without being a creature is broken. (thought they tend to be expensive)

If you can make narset indestructible boardwipes are awesome most of the time.

Strionic Resonator lets you double up on her ability.

removal is free if you get her going, bonus points if it has flashback, or buyback

A good place to look might be towards things Zur the Enchanter would use. He tends to lean a lot towards stax and pillowfort which may help.

June 12, 2017 11:55 p.m.

Ska4Life1989 says... #6

Off your colour choice, but Hex Parasite is an auto include for me if running Black.

June 13, 2017 4:28 a.m.

OmegaAura113 says... #7

Lol when I first saw the title, I thought to myself "I'm going to recommend Narset to him." Funniest thing is seeing that's already the route you're going, so that saves me some explaining!

In my Narset deck (which I just finished IRL two days ago), I run the extra turn route - Enter the Infinite, Omniscience, and every extra turn spell available in EDH except for Temporal Manipulation. With that and mana rocks, you can basically win the game turn 4-5...well, I mean turn 4-5 for the opponent. For me/you it's more like, turn 9 or something xD

June 13, 2017 7:45 a.m.

Arvail says... #8

Building decks out of salt is a terrible idea. In all honesty, if you're losing to Atraxa decks in shops, it's quite likely you're either running poor decks or can't pilot the good decks you have.

June 13, 2017 8:26 a.m.

magicarp03 says... #9

Mr. Devicer, my friends and I have enough money to throw about 20$ tops every month, except for the atraxa player. He spends about 50$ a month on that deck. I have a 5-color allies deck, a Brimaz, King of Oreskos token deck that is in pieces, and the narset deck, which at this moment is a 50$ voltron build. I've also really wanted to build stax for a while, and I just held off for a while as it wasn't needed. Then Atraxa went over the 300$ mark with Teferi, Temporal Archmage and I figured now was a good time.

June 13, 2017 9:41 a.m.

Gleeock says... #10

I have taken Atraxa's milk shake then socked her straight in her stupid mouth with Sram voltron + Mass Destruction spells. I have also done the same with Captain Sisay. Those are good options for just spaying her BEFORE all those counters are able to build up.

June 13, 2017 10:35 a.m.

ArchangelAlchemist says... #11

I wish you the best of luck with Stax Narset, it's not my specialty so I can't really input on that part of things but I do have one observation and a couple of questions. First; black gives you access to Hex Parasite, AEther Snap, Vampire Hexmage, and Thief of Blood. Second; the commander format is definitely supposed to be a fun one for all players, is the rest of your playgroup also having issues? Have you talked to this person about their deck? I personally have an incredibly competitive Ghave, Guru of Spores deck that I almost never play because even though I almost always win its not fun for everyone else. Maybe they world be willing to build another deck and only break out Atraxa with warning to the playgroup.

June 13, 2017 10:42 a.m.

magicarp03 says... #12

Oh this man is a spike. He claims to enjoy his deck, but he always sighs and has his head in his hands while playing. We also do commander tournaments, and he has won all of them so far. I think we are gonna start imposing price restrictions on cards.

June 13, 2017 10:55 a.m.

Arvail says... #13

Trust me, I get it. I'm that spike. I understand that frustration you're going through. Still, what you're doing isn't going to work.

The thing with Stax as an archetype is that it requires you to do something called breaking parity. What this concept boils down to is being able to do more than your opponents when you land cards that have symmetrical effects. For instance, when that Winter Orb is on the table, the Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck might seek to break parity by using Derevi's ability to untap Gaea's Cradle. Another way stax decks go about doing this is by making sure they actually get to cast their spells even when they have nothing crazy going on for them. This means keeping a low average converted mana cost.

All of that is super hard to do on budget. Also, keep in mind that stax fucks over the entire table. It makes it much harder for the rest of the table to team up to fight that one problematic player. I don't care how good your deck is, it's really hard to 1v3 the table. That's whhy you should look to politics first and foremost to address these types of issues.

I recommend players in this type of situation to play a proactive strategy with a healthy dose of interaction thrown in. Think of something like Roon of the Hidden Realm. That guy can be fairly cheap to build. He becomes ok at a shop level once you have $100 in that deck and an actual threat if you're not careful once you go past $150. Moreover, he can pressure you with his value-based gameplan or threaten to combo you out of the game. The best thing about your combo pieces is that they double up as value cards too. In addition, you have access to tons of different answers that you can buy on the cheap. Oh, and when you're done building this deck, it's actually something you can play liberally against most decks without issue AND it's chuck full of staples so even if you end up desleeving the thing, you'll have your money back through trades.

I'm telling you, OP, you're going about this the wrong way. A stax deck isn't something that's appreciated a ton by most players, it won't be as effective as you think it will be, and you'll end up with tons of cards that don't readily fit into other strategies. If you're only capable of putting in some minor cash into the game every once in a while, you want to be smart about your purchases and get cards that serve many purposes for your deck.

If I were you, I'd look for generals with some combination of green, blue, black, and white. Make sure you have a solid and threatening main gameplan, and that you have interaction (counterspells, artifact+enchantment break, boardwipes, etc.).

I don't want to sound condescending, but Atraxa really isn't all that great once you weigh in all the most competitive things you can do in the format. If your buddy is playing a $300 build, his deck likely isn't even that good. If you concentrated on improving your builds, you'll have an ok time, I guarantee it.

Oh, and last piece of advice: talk to the guy. If he's regularly making your entire group feel like shit by walking all over you guys, bring it up and make sure not to accuse him of anything. Phrase it like this: I feel like I'm being forced to build decks I would otherwise never play because of how good your deck is. It's making me have less fun.

June 13, 2017 12:15 p.m.

magicarp03 says... #14

thanks devicerman. I think im gonna make a buncha tokens now.

June 13, 2017 1:11 p.m.

Gleeock says... #15

Well, certainly, if you want to make a Narset deck make one. From experience putting the beatdown on Atraxa though, stax & high CMC commanders don't seem to always cut it. Usually Atraxa decks involve so many self-contained, self-growing permanents that parallel effects are actually more likely to hinder other players relative to Atraxa, decreasing the likelihood that other players will slow her down, & as the game wears along she tends to gain momentum. In my experience I have won out against Atraxa with hyper-aggressive low CMC commanders, hence why I mentioned a equipment/aura heavy Sram, Senior Edificer build (quite budget friendly & easy to make...@ $20 a month you can slowly accumulate the swords of asskicking if you choose to add them), Atraxa plays into the long game so aggressive commanders can be pretty nice at kicking that in the teeth. Another aggressive, low budget monster, surprisingly, is: Karlov of the Ghost Council, once you start accumulating multiple life gain effects his ability is surprisingly easy to reach. Otherwise, Karlov itself has the commander damage option...I'd say low CMC commander, tell your other players to "Frig off" for a bit while you handle Atraxa... Even if either of those commanders are blocked by Atraxa & you have a 'dead for dead' exchange your commander is now only taxed at 4 CMC instead of his 6 & in the case of Sram you still have his equipment on the field.

June 13, 2017 10:49 p.m.

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