This list looks awesome. I haven't played it, but I have tried to play various stax decks, and I appreciate that finding exactly the right mix of lock pieces is tricky, and the right ratio of lock pieces to threats and answers. With that in mind, I wanted to get your opinions on other possible includes:

Meekstone : just not enough creatures to care about?

Frozen AEther : This seems awesome with Stasis and Winter Orb (and also Meekstone); also it seems like it'd be hard for a deck to storm out while this in play; and it stops a lot of random stuff like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, or Craterhoof Behemoth etc. Is it just too expensive for a stax piece? Or win-more?

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale : seems like a good tax effect, esp. with stasis / winter orb.

Nether Void : is this just too symmetrical?

Land Equilibrium : just seems great with Armageddon and other mass LD; also with your light land base in general. Is it just too expensive and comes down too late?

Also, what experiences have you had with Mana Vortex? Just never the right thing to grab with Zur?

@mmcgeach

Wow lol, sorry about the incredibly late reply to your comment, if you even see this at all. Your instincts on why I didn't include most of those cards in the list is pretty much spot on.

Meekstone is definitely potential sideboard material, but most competitive metas I have played in simply don't rely heavily enough on creatures to justify a consistent mainboard spot.

I have experimented with Frozen Aether, Land Equilibrium, and Mana Vortex but have removed them for various reasons. Aether and Equilibrium are both too expensive in my opinion - keeping mana up for counter spells and removal is incredibly important when facing faster combo decks. It's honestly not even so much about not being fetchable by Zur; 4 mana simply feels like a heck of a lot more than 3 mana when every single decision and every scrap of resource matters. Mana Vortex is definitely the card on your list that I go back and forth on having in the deck the most often. My land destruction suite is pretty light by stax standards, so a little extra boost would be nice. Honestly when I consider it theoretically it always seems like it should be in the deck but somehow whenever I end up with it in hand it just never seems right. I'm just beginning to play in a new meta though and will likely experiment again with having it in the deck!

As you guessed, I find Nether Void to be too symmetrical. In my previous meta at least, it would have always ended up hurting me more than anyone else - engine and fast combo decks are a lot better at putting together those big chunks of mana than I am.

Finally The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. To be completely honest with you that was simply a price decision. It's effect is very good but not essential at most tables. However I finally have the card!!! I've actually made a few decent tweaks since I wrote this, so I'll be trying to update it soon.

lonemaker,

heya. I didn't remember writing this, then I saw it was one year ago! Amazing!

Anyway, since then I've morphed to a more control build. I feel like stax elements in Zur are ok, if they're asymetrical and used sort of sparingly; mostly I rely on a large suite of counterspells and a few silver-bullet type stax cards.

You can see my list at Control Zur, it's been performing pretty well at our weekly Competitive EDH event.