Nath of the STAX-Leaf | cEDH | Primer

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Competitive Discard Multiplayer Stax Tokens

PartyJ

Land (30)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Forest
• 1x Forest
• 3x Forest
• 1x Gaea's CradleGC
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Volrath's Stronghold
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Discard (6)

• 1x Bottomless Pit
• 1x Chains of Mephistopheles
• 1x Liliana of the Veil
• 1x Necrogen Mists
• 1x Rankle, Master of Pranks
• 1x Sadistic Hypnotist

Support (5)

• 1x Destiny Spinner
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Waste Not

Ramp (18)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Chrome MoxGC
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana VaultGC
• 1x Mox DiamondGC
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Three Visits

Removal (9)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Assassin's Trophy *f-pre*
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Dismember
• 1x Fevered Convulsions
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x The Abyss
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Draw (6)

• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dark Tutelage
• 1x Mindblade Render
• 1x NecropotenceGC
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sylvan Library

Fodder (2)

• 1x Bitterblossom
• 1x Squirrel Nest

Commander (1)

Stax (15)

• 1x Contamination
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Death Cloud
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Mana Web
• 1x Nether Void
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Ravenous Slime
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Thorn of Amethyst
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Winter Orb

Tutor (8)

• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Crop RotationGC
• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Imperial SealGC
• 1x Vampiric TutorGC
• 1x Worldly TutorGC

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The Primer

Overview Show

Stax? What is all the fuss about?

Stax is a term used to describe a deck strategy that most of the time relies on resource denial, taxing effects, disruption, discard, and sacrifice enablers to potentially lock down opponents and make it difficult to cast spells, play creatures and/or have any kind of reliable board state.

The goal is to build your board state of denial as fast and efficiently as possible thus allowing you to set up your win cons unopposed. You will be playing cards that hinder everyone, but to a lesser extent to ourselves, thus gaining advantage. As an example; cards like Winter Orb will not affect us as hard as our opponents, since we have access to many ramp dedicated options. This allows us to play through these effects more efficiently than our opponents.

Reading this decklist

I made custom categories to give you the best view of how the deck has been assembled and balanced. Balance is essential when it comes to competitive play, a process that will never stop as new cards and sets see the light.

The following categories are currently present:

- Land : A well balanced amount of land, based on the amount of ramp and utility it needs to bring

- Draw : These cards help to find the extra Stax cards we need. Also getting extra cards to be able to complete the lock through a tutor card is very much needed.

- Ramp : Ramp is key in the opening turns of this deck. We need to find them to get a headstart, so that that we can deploy our game locks as soon as possible.

- Support : Great cards which have great synergy in this deck and which can be really important in many games.

- Removal : Great removal options which are usually needed to remove pesky threats which stall our game.

- Discard : A few of the bst possible discard effects which we benefit from when Nath is out on the battlefield. The production of tokens is depending on these.

- Fodder : Same as with Discard section; providing us with tokens to fuel our army and wincons.

- Tutor : A great set of cards which gives us the option to find game changing Stax cards to complete the lock or true finishers during the endgame.

- Stax : The foundation of this deck. These pieces are vital to lock our opponents out of the game.

Game Plan

This build has been optimized for an aggressive style of play, where Stax pieces should cripple the battlefield. Your opening hand should contain at least 1 or 2 ramp pieces in order to outpace your opponents. When you play your Stax pieces midgame and start the resource denial era, you should be just enough ahead not to be really bothered by this fact yourself.

After this you drag the game into a stalemate where everyone is heavily suffering, while you are building up token forces to slowly see people caving in due to damage or 'forfeit' as the situation became hopeless for them...*Inserts evil grinn...*

Overall deck strenghts:

- A consistant opening hand to outpace your opponents

- Access to brutal Stax effects which will deny resources boardwide

- Several tutor possibilities to find cards which can lock or end the game out of nowhere

Deck weaknesses

A few obvious weaknesses can be pointed out:

- The severe budget! Cards like Nether Void , Chains of Mephistopheles , Gaea's Cradle , The Abyss ... are all all-star cards in such a Stax build. Budget replacements can be made, but will still affect the overall effectiveness of this deck.

- When your locks gets broken with cards like an overload Cyclonic Rift or targeted removal, it will be hard to recover.

The Strategy Show

The Opening Hand

A good opening hand should contain the following breakdown of cards:

- Two lands giving access to both boths colors

- Two ramp cards, where one can be preferably cast on turn 1

- Two stax pieces

- One other card, that can be anything as long as it's not mana intense. A tutor would be nice!

This should give you the headstart you need to start building up tokens and applying your stax efects boardwide.

Winning the Game

Now that we have a clear presence on the board, a few Stax cards out and some tokens in the game, what are our winning conditions:

1.) Sadistic Hypnotist ...together with Nath you can let ALL your opponents discard their entire hand. Speaking of denial! For each discard, you sac a token and your opponent dicards two cards, giving you two tokens in return. This gives you the possibility to continue untill there are no cards in the opponents hands anymore. This is a really strong win condition.

2.) Squirrel Nest & Earthcraft ...making an infinite amount of squirrel tokens who can swing for lethal damage to all your opponents. Put the Nest on a BASIC land and tap the land for your first squirrel token. Then activate Earthcraft 's ability by tapping the squirrel token to untap the basic land which has been enchanted by the Nest . Keep repeating this until you have tokens. Make sure to do this during your opponents turn, otherwise your tokens are still affected by summoning sickness.

3.) Torment of Hailfire ... is an instant win condition when you achieved mana. Something which can be achieved using Squirrel Nest & Earthcraft during your opponents turn to create tokens. When your turn starts you can create mana using the infinite tokens to untap your basic land over and over again. Then cast and enjoy the look an their faces... Priceless! It requires a setup and is the least common finisher, but it sure is a great alternative.

Is this a deck fit for you?

- Are you active in a competitive meta with mature players?

- Do you oppose strong combo or Stax decks which are a dominant force?

- Do you like to play a control orientated game?

- Can you handle the pressure of becoming the MAIN target at your table?

- Do you like to play potentialy longer and more tactical orientated games?

If you answered all questions with a convincing YES, then this is something you should really try!

Card synergies

The following impactful card synergies are present in this deck:

- Mana Web & Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth : Your opponents tap a land, then they have to tap all lands.

- Bitterblossom & Contamination : A hard lockdown of most mana resources your opponents will have

Hall of Fame Show

Building a deck is a process of tweaking, testing, tweaking, testing yet again and having really interesting conversations with people face to face and on communities like these. The valuable talks and comments that have been posted here have been of tremendous help. Without this community I would have never came this far. In this section I want to honour you! You were and hopefully will remain a great inspiration to me:

Coinman1863 : Made a great primer, which inspired me to push this deck to the next level. Thanks the valuable comments.

Daedalus19876 : You certainly know why you deserve a place in here.

EndStepTop : His famous list made me choose this path, eventually.

enpc : Always been a great help and great guy to talk with. Great ideas emerged from it.

Everyones comments and opinions are always appreciated and perhaps once your exceptional contributions will lead to being named here... Keep up the great work everyone!

*My commander Nath of the Gilt-Leaf has been altered by Stanley from The Netherlands. Contact me for more information.*

Top Ranked	Achieved #17 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) 6 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Control 6 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Stax 6 years ago
Date added	9 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 58 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.06
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Faerie Rogue 1/1 B, Squirrel 1/1 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Neat, Commander, Inspirations, Nath/BG EDH ideas, Good decks, Comp EDH, Commander/EDH, Xmage, EDH, EDH