MTG Salvation

My stax journey
Since the dawn of EDH one deck type has been my favorite, the tabooed stax deck. No other archtype has been more fun for me to play and given me as many stories than stax. However I always seemed to have the same issue with the deck. The colors just seems off.
Nicol bolas- gave me cards like Land Equilibrium and plenty of token makers but not enough wipes for me to work.
Nath of the gilt-leaf- Naturally makes tokens and has plenty of ways to deny opponents but didn't feel like my type of deck.
Teysa, Orzhov Scion- I thought for the longest time it was my stax deck. Offered white cards to blow up problems and plenty of stax effects. Issue I had was I didn't feel like I had 99 cards worth playing in stax. Do I add red, green, or blue?
Tariel, reckoner of souls- Adding red to teysa make me able to play some of my favorite cards from my Nicol bolas deck (Goblin weilder, Wheel of fortune, Devastation)

Then I went to esper.
Blue because card draw is important to insure games are in my favor and plus I miss playing without Land equilibrium
White because it's the best at blowing up lands and tax effects (Linvala, keeper of silence/Hokori, dust drinker
Black because it's a jerk color (Braids, cabal minion,Contamination) and offers insane draw and tutor.

Sharrum/Sydri allow great artifact decks but not many of the cards I wanted to use have synergy with them
Zur is boring.
So....Oloro!
Oloro balances out the life loss from great cards like Necropotence/Bitterblossom and keeps me alive longer to piss people off.

Needs Vedalken Mastermind to bounce things before they trigger for you. Seems odd not to see Winter Orb.

I figure pooping out tokens will be better than bouncing things just to replay them.

Winter orb should probably be on the list.

Edit: Phryexian Metamorph/Sculpting steel should too

eww..... this is a dirty dirty deck...... I love it. What is the most common win condition i must ask?

Quote from naimeyers »

eww..... this is a dirty dirty deck...... I love it. What is the most common win condition i must ask?

It's still in testing so I haven't played that many games

Land Equilibrium + Mass LD means opponents cant play lands. That's pretty much win

Braids, cabal minion/Smokestack + Token makers. I have permanents, opponents don't

Humility + Equipment. I have a 5/5 Vigilence lifelink while opponents have nothing.



Usually I have something like a reassembling skeleton + Sword of Fire and Ice and two lands beats opponents with nothing on the board.



So far all my wins have been via scooping. No lethal damage so far

Well im glad its working for you. I kept my Oloro deck pretty close to the original idea because in my group we try to avoid stasis type decks and it is just hilarious seeing this 28/28 primordial hydra try to take away the 9 million health i have... and then getting doom bladed. After the attack goes through of course. lol. Did you see the new card thats Polymorphist's Jest? it isnt a permanent but it might help if you are in a tight spot and you dont have Humility.

I prefer Sudden spoiling over that simply because it can't be countered.

I have tons of ways of searching for humility so I'm not too concerned about different means for the same effect. Besides, I don't have many blockers in this deck that can survive a hit from anything

You might want to add Sundial of the Infinite. It's a win condition (prevents you from decking) once a hard lock is established, and it combos with Smokestack, Braids, Cabal Minion, and Contamination as well as any other type of negative trigger in a Stax shell.

Gideon, Champion of Justice might not be a bad win condition. In Multiplayer I'm assuming the +Loyalty can get huge, then exile all permanents except for itself.

Mirror-Sigil Sergeant is a great token producer.

With all the fast mana rocks and especially with Academy Rector, you might want Omniscience. Being able to cast spells after you cast Armageddon seems powerful.

Sargent seems like a fun card but the cmc is a bit high for my taste.
My issue with Gideon and Omniscience is that it I can lock out already with the cards I have I don't think I actually need them. I will put them on my test list for later but not sure if they'll do the work I want. I also have a strong disdain for that version of Gideon >.<

-Sword of light and shadow- Life gain is irrelevant and I don't run enough creatures to care
-Mana vortex- Usually there aren't any lands on board anyway
-Contamination- See above


+Sword of feast and famine- Helps with land tapping cards
+Winter orb- Stops opponents
+Hokori, dust drinker- See above


Trying new things out for a while to see how I feel about them and if they make opponents miserable enough

Rising Waters is another Winter Orb effect you could replace Braids with after the ban.

Yeah it's most likely a card I want to put in to replace Hokori since I want to move to a creatureless stax deck in the near future.

Braids was banned.
How about Cursed Totem or Torpor Orb? What are your feelings on Utter End?

Torpor orb and too a lesser extent Hushwing gryff are cards I want to test out in the future.
Utter end will probably get included as a second vindicate when it comes out as I remove more creatures for enchantment lock out

Small change with the ban today

-Braids, cabal minion- Le banned
-Graveborn muse- Upgraded
-Grave titan- Not needed since I never get life totals down to 0

+Erebos, god of the dead- Better draw engine than graveborn
+Replenish- Finisher and offers protection for enchantments
+Karmic justice- Punishes players for hurting my cards

Unless you like the indestructibility, I would play Greed over Erebos as card draw. It's cheaper to activate.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

Unless you like the indestructibility, I would play Greed over Erebos as card draw. It's cheaper to activate.

or you need to deter lifegain. (in my case because keep stealing Eternity Vessel with Dack Fayden)

I like that it stops other Oloro and potential life gain from opponents. The mana cost isn't that big of a deal to me since I'm not getting too greedy with card draw anyway. Also the indestructable makes it survive the tons of wrath effects in my meta.

I went with Thassa, God of the Sea and Erebos, God of the Dead as the sole creatures in my Stax list. Makes using Spreading Plague a no-brainer for me.

Plague seems good but hurts my token makers a lot

Guess it would help to mention I'm not running Smokestack either huh? It hurts my tokens also, but it can lead to getting Elspeth, Knight-Errant Emblem quicker, as there is usually little opposition. Just a suggestion

It's defiantly something to consider but last night I won by smokestack and copying it 3 times. Next turn sunder+cyclonic rift into lawls.
I love smokestack a little too much to cut it but I think removing some token makers would be decent since braids is gone

Yeah all those cards would be useful but I'm not sure what I'd cut for any of them

I tend to follow your decks above most, because you've got the same sensibilities as me. I've got a creagureless Oloro Stax deck and a Roon deck (ours are nearly identical).

Spreading Plague is non-token creatures. I like Catastrophe because of its flexibility. I like Liliana of the Veil as a resource denial machine over Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas incrimental advantage. Night of Souls' Betrayal + Humility is a thing, the hype is real.

Stax decks in my experience are better at just presenting more threats then suitable for finding answers. My list is counterless. I've got no combos to protect, and I would rather draw the 1-for-1 and have another "must counter" card to back it up. Eventually they'll run out of answers.

I really like spreading plague but since I run so much token making it may not work.
Catastrophe is sweet but a lot of mana, don't have much issue blowing stuff up so far.
Veil should be in the list but it's not as good in multiplayer as it in 1v1, agent of bolas seems better there.

The question I'm having, is what to remove for these other fun cards?