MTG Salvation

I was inspired to build this deck by Phil (author of the Stax Primer thread) who is part of my local playgroup in Portland. I became interested for some of the reasons others have cited for turning to the dark side: interesting game states; deck building challenge; shaking up their meta.

This is the 3rd revision of Xira. Some of the development happened in the other Xira Arien Jund Stax thread, but I am going to pursue this separately, as it wasn't a primer.

Win-cons are a little minimal at the moment, but I think the engine works well.

Average CMC is ~ 3.0

Nice to see a list put up for your deck. Some things that I see that still might be of use to you:
Goblin Assault - decent token generation on a cmc of 3. Similar to Awakening Zone that you have in your list at the moment. Great for some early damage since they have haste, and goes great with the clamp. Only drawback that I see is that it might make your Krenko package kinda iffy since all goblins have to attack if able.

Along the dame roots of token gen Parallel Lives and or Doubling Season could crank out some tokens if you needed a doubler. Both in my opinion would be a solid input. Also Doubling Season could put double counters on pretty much anything you wanted it to.

Interesting pull of Grave Titan; just wondering your reasons behind it. Also Destructive Flow is a meta call, but your lands are right on 50/50 so it might come out depending on how your deck is running and or how bad it screws around with everyone land base.

Destructive Flow has completely shut out one player each time I've played it. There are a lot of fancy mana bases around here. With 8 rocks and 50% basics, I've had not problem keeping things running.

The engine seems to work well. Where I have had trouble is sealing the deal. I think I'll try Sarkhan Vol, and Liliana Vess alongside Vraska the Unseen and Garruk Relentless. That would shift my opinion on Doubling Season. I'm on the lookout for a Magus of the Moon.

Cuts for those cards might include tutors, a land or two, Krenko, Mob Boss (in exchange for Goblin Assault) and Dragon Broodmother. 6 mana has just been too much to ask for late game.

All that said, I am going to play with it a bit before making any more changes. Thanks for the feedback, as always. I'll post here with my experience.

Interesting choice of commander. Any reason for favoring it over Adun Oakenshield or other Jund commanders?

@Monkmiroku: I picked Xira Arien because I like the art, I like that she can be a minor draw engine in the early game and isn't very threatening. She's also a flying blocker on occasion. Perhaps most important, no one in my meta has played her (as far as I know) and there is something to be said for that. Most folks give me a chance to play my stax deck when they see her at the helm, perhaps because they've never seen her played. Novelty is a big part of EDH and I'm finding a lot of folks are tired of the same old ramp/graveyard control/etc. decks.

@ Phil: Good point about adding ways to sacrifice to exploit Vicious Shadows. And just focusing on ways to kill the tokens for the win. I need to get a Phyrexian Altar. Another option is adding Shivan Harvest back in. My question is, what else acts like Vicious Shadows and punishes whenever creatures die?

Quote from Phil

Also, phyrexian altar and ashnod's altar combined with vicious shadows and grave pact wins games.

Yes. Also Flesh-Eater Imp, Phyrexian Plaguelord, and Viscera Seer are some of my favorite creature based sac outlets. I use the Altars and the Seer at the moment.

Quote from robtheman »

Good point about adding ways to sacrifice to exploit Vicious Shadows. And just focusing on ways to kill the tokens for the win. I need to get a Phyrexian Altar. Another option is adding Shivan Harvest back in. My question is, what else acts like Vicious Shadows and punishes whenever creatures die?

And to answer you other question Rob Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble might fit in well. Otherwise Burning Sands... but im pretty sure that one might screw you.

Flesh Eater Imp sounds great for the way this deck plays out. I typically have Reassembling Skeleton, Squee and Bloodghast running by the time I lock down resources. I'm sure I could use it to knock one player out with two swings and second player out with the third swing. It would make me consider an infect/proliferate package to support the planeswalkers, smokestack, etc. That said, I think the deck would need an overhaul to fit make that work.

I suspect Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble would help me get out of the hole after the table punishes me for attacking lands. Another possible add is Sword of War and Peace. I'm not sure they would win me the game as quickly as I would like. Typically opponents can't play any creatures or would refuse to do so until Artist or Noble were dealt with. I'm looking for quick finishes in the late game.

I'm thinking of adding Thoughtpicker Witch but maybe Viscera Seer would be better as it lets me dig for finishers.

Quote from robtheman

@Monkmiroku: I picked Xira Arien because I like the art, I like that she can be a minor draw engine in the early game and isn't very threatening.

I played her at the helm of my Jund Stax deck too. Card draw in the command zone is always just cool. But, the even bigger reason why she beats Adun Oakenshield is that you have 9 creatures - 3 of which reanimate themselves. He would be bad.