Wincons with Atraxa
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Aug. 4, 2017, 5:50 p.m. by cloudsol
I want to secure win conditions for cards like Azor's Elocutors / Darksteel Reactor / Helix Pinnacle; all under Atraxa, Praetors' Voice command. I know of ways to double counters, and of course proliferate. But if opponents are running stax, combo, or spot removal/counter, what can I do to help get these wincons off?
I haven't bought these wincons yet, so I'm open to whatever right now.
I'm running Atraxa: Budget Tokens/Counters/Infect, but it's slow and has no wincons other than overwhelming with +1/+1 counters or infect.
I like the idea of stax, although I'll perhaps attempt to avoid mana taxing due to the inevitable hate. I will look into a few of those!
August 5, 2017 5:57 a.m.
Grand Abolisher + Sundial of the Infinite, almost like board-wide hexproof?
August 5, 2017 5:59 a.m.
Winterblast says... #5
Honestly I don't think you can avoid hate with Atraxa because that's a typical pubstomper commander...much value in the late game, even on a low budget, so it's wise to kill that player before he gets that far. The best way to deal with that imo is to be the one who dominates the game in the first place.
Your approach is like playing Zur and then not playing combo. People will focus on you nevertheless but you gave up the slightest chance of winning then
August 5, 2017 6:39 a.m.
Could you elaborate on the last part about Zur? Thanks.
August 5, 2017 7:44 a.m.
Winterblast says... #7
Zur is a great combo commander, for example for storm or doomsday strategies. If you see someone playing Zur you will expect a kill in the early game and try to prevent that. If that player happens to play a worse Zur build, he still gets the hate before anyone realizes that the deck won't kill on turn 3.
With Atraxa it is similar. People know that you might play a sort of superfriends stax that is hard to disrupt once it's running and thus you will get hit hard in the early game...even if it turns out that you play a worse Atraxa deck later.
August 5, 2017 8:14 a.m.
So, I have acquired a Tangle Wire. I plan on getting more stax.
I think have to remove cards enabling tokens, +1/+1 counters, and ETB effects if I want to make room for both stax and these wincons. This deck feels like a strange state of unfocused jank. I'm not sure.
August 6, 2017 6:59 p.m.
Winterblast says... #10
That's probably because you are currently not focused on one main strategy. Having a look at your deck, I think you have a lot of stuff that doesn't do much and is just there to fill slots. Especially among the instants/sorceries you have a lot of very situational cards that are completely useless until a very specific situation comes up.
Of course it depends on how much you want to spend on the deck and which cards you already have lying around at home now. The planeswalkers should be ones that can potentially end the game and have useful + abilities to get you there, for example Narset Transcendent, Tezzeret the Seeker , Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets...a planeswalker with Gilder Bairn should be a win option and not just a gimmick.
Some more of the good mana arttifacts would be great too. You should be able to get the three legal moxes and lotus petal for around 100$ and mana crypt and vault for under 50...voltaic key of course, but that costs nothing. If you are willing to invest a bit in the mana base, you can expect better results even with the current build. You have to consider that these cards won't lose their value and you can stuff them in every EDH deck you want to build.
Winterblast says... #2
Atraxa is great if you play stax yourself, that's how I use her. Don't like people trying to control you? Take control of the game yourself!
You can keep up Tangle Wire forever and double it with Gilder Bairn, make a massive impact with Smokestack (and lock the situation with Sundial of the Infinite in order to only get the positive upkeep effects you want and then end your turn)...you can easily remove all nonartifact mana sources as soon as you have some presence on the board and then just sit out the win. Mechanized Production also works well there, especially with the above mentioned cards and stuff like Sphere of Resistance.
If you want to have a look at my Atraxa list (in which you could insert your desired alternative wincons) it is Atraxa's super(un)friendly Stax
August 5, 2017 2:46 a.m.