Introduction
Thank you for stopping by to check out my list! The deck and primer are a constant work in progress. Please let me know your thoughts and forgive me for a less-than-perfect primer.
This deck bases itself around
Alela, Artful Provocateur
's core mechanic of getting more bang for your buck. Commander sees a whole host of powerful enchantments and artifacts that quickly warp the power of the game, but with our general we get even more for our mana investments. The high number of artifacts and enchantments allow for Alela to quickly outpace her opponents and swarm the board with vicious fliers, stacking damage that could get unmanageable if left unchecked. This deck specifically tries to establish a soft-stax state, using our general's token generation to break parity with the board we're slowing down.
Overview
Reading this decklist
I've decided to break this deck into custom categories in order to clearly convey each card's specific primary purpose. I've broken them down into the following categories:
Protection: Cards that are intended to keep the board set up in my favor.
Combo: The pieces that enable and facilitate combos that get me to the end of the game.
Removal: The things that interact with the threats on the board.
Ramp: The cards that allow me to stay caught up on mana and continue filling the board with threats.
Tutor: What cards let me search for what?
Stax: The core of the deck. The Stax pieces slow the game down to my pace, and also make up for my shortcomings, while fueling the token engine stapled onto my general.
Draw: Cards that allow me to keep my hand full of gas.
Counters: Similar to removal, the counterspell suite in this deck prevents my opponents from tempering my board state or playing game-winning threats.
Combat: With my build, Faeries can quickly flood the board. The combat category lies hard on anthem effects to make the little guys big and get in for a lot of damage quickly.
Deck strengths
The main perk to this deck is how low to the ground it can be. With a low curve, a healthy amount of mana rocks can let you establish a strong board state very early on, making you a veritable threat for good reason. As the deck gets most of its ability to break parity with the lock effects from Alela, I feel that it's best to play with a "protect the queen" mentality, judging threats and reacting accordingly with a firm counterspell and removal package. Over time, the your board will grow exponentially and let you swing in for tons of damage with little or no repercussion.
Deck weaknesses
While this deck does very well on paper, there are a few weaknesses to be aware of. First, the mana base is a little light on land. Because we're not playing green, we lose access to all of the strong mana dorks that represent a fast early game. While we play so many mana rocks in an attempt to make up for that, cards like
Stony Silence
or
Karn, the Great Creator
can hurt us and our ability to stay caught up if we start missing our land drops. The second issue this deck often runs into is an apparent difficulty with keeping our hand full. While the deck runs 11 card draw items, our hand can sometimes feel bare or out of gas. It poses an interesting challenge that certain stax pieces attempt to navigate around. Finally, while we can get quite a few token beaters out, their power/toughness ratio will almost always be unbalanced, leaving us with Faeries that could potentially be easily wiped. Cards like
Toxic Deluge
,
Fire Covenant
, or any
Pyroclasm
effect can ruin our day, no matter how easy it may to be rebuild.
The Strategy
General strategy
The whole deck revolves around your general. Alela provides an insane amount of additional value for playing your rocks that it makes sense to power her out as early as possible and then protect her as best you can. Locking the board down to a slower pace also helps you fly with her closer to the finish line, as you amass an army of flying tokens. I find that one of the challenges of stax decks is how much hate they receive in the form of combat. Our tokens can get very big and continually go 1-1 with our opponents, forming an artificial wall between us and those who want to take us down.
Early game
The early game follows a pretty straight line. You want to try and keep a hand that allows for a turn 2-3 Alela, which is not impossible. A significant portion of the deck consists of mana-rocks. You would ideally keep a hand with three colors if possible, but a fetchland and
Crucible of Worlds
is also a strong early play. In my playtesting, i've done better with getting Alela down early and then building a board, but it'll ultimately depend on who you're playing against and what they're playing.
Mid game
I feel like the midgame is where this deck really shines. With the proper stax package, the board slows down very quick, and your faeries should stack up impressively. From there you can use your tutor package with extreme versatility, finding combo pieces, counterspells, or further stax items to keep your opponents twisting.
Late game
Late game strategy is very similar to your midgame strategy. Try to keep more mana up for counterspells and removal. Beat face. It's more effective to home in on one opponent and systematically remove them from the equation.
Contingency plan
The deck has a few contingency plans. I've included a suite of recursion items inclusive of
Yawgmoth's Will
,
Academy Ruins
, and
Hall of Heliod's Generosity
to recover most anything that gets taken out. Alela provides a unique contingency effect in her token generation ability, allowing you to quickly re-establish your board should it get wiped.
Combos and synergies
Alela synergizes with our entire ramp, stax, and most of our draw packages, making her the ultimate player with the deck. It's incredibly important that she stays on board to give you the added value on top of all of your normal hate pieces. That being said, I've tried to tune the deck to focus primarily combat and have included many notable anthem effects to put serious pressure on our opponents with all of our incidental fliers. I think it's very strong that our lords also create more attackers, and my test runs have shown that the board can get out of hand with even one of them on board.
Additionally, I believe in the notion that every deck needs an "emergency combo" that can take the game from an otherwise unfortunate state. As such, I've included the classic consultation package with
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
/
Laboratory Maniac
and
Demonic Consultation
. I like how the combo just ends the game and I can use it when the shields are down. I'm still considering other combos, namely the Whirza combo. I just need to find space.
Another notable combo/synergy is that of
Windfall
with
Narset, Parter of Veils
,
Notion Thief
, and
Spirit of the Labyrinth
. Any of these with the wheel empty our opponents' hands and gain us some significant card advantage, save for
Spirit of the Labyrinth
. I wouldn't necessarily advocate for going windfall+spirit, as you draw nothing, but sometimes you need to answer a threatening hand.
Spirit of the Labyrinth
is in the deck namely to make up for our sometimes lackluster card draw by keeping everyone on our pace as it is, it's just another potential lock.
Other Information
Event record
I play in a semi-weekly commander league every Tuesday and Sunday. I'll be posting the stats as I go.
10/6/2019: 1-2. Lost the first game to a Zur Lockout after killing the Teferi player. Second game was a loss to K'rrik Thanks to a misplay on my end. Third game had me hit Consulatation and Jace on turn 6.
-The deck is VERY good at slowing the game down. None of my games were quick runs, which is ultimately a good thing. However, there were more times than not where I could not outpace the hate the deck/play state drew, and I need to work on card draw and potential lifegain. I also found myself failing to find counterspells when I needed them, so I may need to update the counter package.
Notable Exceptions
Talisman of Hierarchy
and
Orzhov Signet
: I've found most of my color issues stem from lack of blue. I've cut the black-white rocks both for spacial reasons and for a reduced need for the colors they provide.
Bident of Thassa
: Really effective card for my strategy. Is represents explosive card draw, which is terrific but represents a huge removal target. Additionally, because of our counter package, I try to keep mana open when possible. It hurts to tap for a 4-drop when it doesn't severely impact the board right then and there.
Anointed Procession
: While the deck tries to overwhelm with tokens, I feel like procession is kind of win-more. It's really good and super strong, but I'd rather play multiple 2 and 3 drop lords than one 4-drop doubler.
Grand Architect
: I've seen a lot of people mention him when brewing Alela. I don't entirely understand why and will be looking into it more, but from what I see so far I don't think it's necessary and I'm not sold.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
and
Gravitational Shift
: These cards are a bit too expensive in mana for what I would like them to do. Sure, they're crippling to our opponents and very strong for us, it just feels like I can get comparable value for a lesser mana investment.
Time Sieve
and
Thopter Assembly
: I like this combo but I hate extra turn mechanics. I may try to jam this depending on how competitive I want the deck to be, but the 6 mana on assembly scares me a bit.
Divine Visitation
: See Anointed Procession. Good card, but too costly and feels too much like a win-more.
Serra the Benevolent
: I like her, but the fact that her +2 isn't a persistent effect until your next turn (which would be NUTS) makes me question why i'd run her over a cheaper anthem. Her -6 is also intriguing but i'm not sure that's a reason to force her in.
The coding for this primer was developed by
Epochalyptik here.
