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Traxos - he's not a man, HE'S A MACHINE!

Commander / EDH

3drinks

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Artifact (39)

Land (37)

Instant (4)

Planeswalker (2)

Sorcery (1)

Commander (1)

Commander: Traxos, Scourge of Kroog

Creature (16)

So, those of you whom know me, know I'm an avid pro wrestling fan/historian. If you follow the independent scene of that, you'll know that reference is to "the machine" Brian Cage. And even if you don't get into it hardcorre and just casually enjoy that show on Monday or Tuesday night, I urge you to do some searches for Cage. He's truly a freak of an athlete and there's no logical conclusion that can even try to explain how a man of his stature can do half of what he does. Well, except that rules of man don't apply to him...because he's a machine haha!

Why did I decide to build this? So, you know I'm the "Shrine to Mardu" guy, the Kaalia guy, the Alesha guy, and the Tibalt fanboy. Traxos, more specifically colourless, is none of these things. Well, this has always been a hobby of mine, this fascination with colourless only. Yes, I could have done Karn but I believe that's a little too comboriffic and as I already have Kaalia, I didn't want another combo deck. I could have done Kozilek, and while knowing I have a draw4 in the CZ at all times is powerful, I didn't want to be the guy showing up to a table with the annihilator deck. That's a real bad look. It also didn't help that until recently, you had a manabase that was thoroughly routed by Back to Basics and Dwarven Miner and would lose sharply to a Price of Progress with no response from you. All of these things forced this idea on the back burner. Still more, the idea of having no colour to me, bred the challenge to build into it and just see what I could maximize without going to the brainless "Karn or Null Rod + Lattice your lands lolz" route.

Then we got Wastes. This was a huge point of traction to the deck's coming alive point, but what really put me over the top was the printing of Traxos himself in Dominaria. Let's look at him. He boasts of SEVEN power for just four mana, with in-built evasion (trample). He does have a drawback, but in a dedicated deck that is nothing to untap him effortlessly, giving him a sort of pseudo vigilance. He kills in three hits, but can kill in two hits in a number of ways to bring that up to a 2 turn kill (hi, Batterskull).

Now, what are our strengths? We don't get but a couple of instants and sorceries, and our draw plus removal is typically overcosted to pay for the premium of not being colour related. A lot of our cards are straight forward because of this. Not to worry though, because the one constant we get (and it's a big one), is mana production. And there's some really good mana production at that. And tutours. You'd be surprised to learn there's quite a few tutours available (and I'm not talking about Eye of Ugin )...they're just high mana. This makes them typically unplayable for most decks, but in a deck that specializes in big mana like none other? Well, what better of a payoff could you possibly ask for, than universal, unrestricted, non-revealing tutours!

There's also quite the suite of mass removal to work with, and a number of great planeswalkers with which to split your assault on forked fronts, and hey, token generation too! Don't believe me? Then look below.

Note: I don't like Oblivion Stone . Hate. Hate is a better word. It's expensive to use, it's bad versus Stifle, it hits our own walkers, and it's harder to abuse. I have one (the new art even), I just can't stand it. Prove me wrong that it actually does belong in here. Do not suggest Mycosynth Lattice . It doesn't do anything except combo in the same way as any other colourless deck, Sharuum deck, or Dagsson deck, and I won't turn this into one of those. It's bad outside the obvious combo. I won't do it. Last note, yes, I play card:Sword of Dungeons and Dragons. If you can't accept that as a reasonable card (and yes, it is far worse than the other Swords), then I'm glad I don't play in your cEDH pod. Let's not forget this is still an unsanctioned format with nothing on the line, and even if that ever changed, there are far, far worse things you can do than create a 4/4 flyer with a 5% chance (1/20) of creating another 4/4 flyer.

edit: First revision. I think it's more cohesive from the first list, and I'm trying Brittle Effigy .

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