MTG Salvation

I figured I'd make a real post about the Brago deck I'm just finishing up. This deck has been a blast to pilot and hoses pretty much everything in my meta. The pleasure of watching a storm/ad nauseam player try to win under Thorn of Amethyst is now one of the most satisfying experiences I've had playing this game.

This Brago Yakety Stax.



It does exactly what you think it does.

Standard ridiculously overpowered mana rock package, check.

Standard cheeky STAX package, check.

Local Meta hate, check.

Full-art lands, check.

Strionic "GG" Resonator, check.



That's the deck. Now onto the specifics.

It's tuned for multiplayer with some specific hate for my meta. Here are some cards I've found interesting:

Lavinia of the Tenth is great against decks that run a lot of mana dorks or mana rocks, (which my meta has plenty of), as well as great against the Marath player in my playgroup.

Cursed Totem - Also hits mana dorks and Marath. Notably shuts off Necrotic Ooze and Mike&Trike combo (Unfortunately I'm the only Jarad player in my playgroup though).

Rest in Peace - Speaking of shutting down graveyard decks - this gives the Sharuum deck in my meta hell. That and it just blanks all your opponent's recursion cards. E-witness, Deathrite Shaman, and Snapcaster are now worthless.

Aven Mindcensor - Too many people run combo, I'm punishing them and ******* over the people who bought those expensive fetch/dual lands.

Parallax Wave - If your deck relies on creatures in any way you're ****ed. Creature combo happens too often and there are a few aggro decks (Omnath, Locus of Rage is surprisingly good, so is One-Punch-Man Xenagos), that can give you hell if they build up any kind of board presence before you can lock them down. I might actually throw Reflector Mage or Man o' War into here to help with that. Anyway it's an amazing stabilizer, can almost seem like a permanent board wipe that doesn't kill Brago. If nothing else, it makes Elvish Mystic & co worthless.

Act of Authority has the potential for the same devastating effect as Aura Shards does in Bant/Selesnya, I have artifacts.deck and Karona mana-doubler-storm in my playgroup, so it's quite effective and way better than Oblivion Ring/D-sphere most of the time.

Aura of Silence - worth it as hate against the aforementioned artifact/enchantment decks.

Sphinx of Uthuun is another card I've been dying to try out - there are often times when this deck kind of just plays out its hand of stax/rocks and has to pray it can complete a lock before someone else can get enough spells through. Sphinx seems like an incredible topdeck and also a wonderful source of repeatable card draw. Slithermuse has also been suggested to me, and could be worth testing.

Prophetic Prism - Speaking of amazing repeatable card draw, this card is absolutely ridiculous. 2 Mana Phyrexian Arena that color fixes you (I seriously can't stress how relevant color fixing is in this deck) is pretty good. I've actually found myself tutoring for this card. The other option you have is Tsabo's Web, but nobody in my meta runs Maze of Ith, so the color fixing makes Prism better.

Pithing Needle - Trinket Mag is already insane even without this card. Shuts off planeswalkers and a ton of utility cards.

Sun Titan - Yes it's a nonbo with RIP but it's a great way to come back from getting slapped with artifact removal, and it does insane things with Strip Mine.

More testing soon to come!

Mishras workshop should be in for sure if you own/ can afford one and ocne your running that cards like coaliton relic seems pretty good, also mana drain and while were on the vintage kick chalice of the void lodestone golem and phyrexian metamorph all seems pretty good to me. If you have trouble finishing a game since your running rip and artifact tutors helm of obedience seems pretty good. even if you cannot afford workshop ancient tomb seems really good here.

I'd consider Hall of the Bandit Lord and Gemstone Caverns. Sandstone Oracle should be Slithermuse. Mulldrifter is fairly expensive Sea Gate Oracle perhaps?

I have Lodestone Golem and Metamorph, but I feel like a lot of the time Lodestone Golem is just a worse Sphere of Resistance and Metamorph is a bad Copy Artifact.

Helm of Obedience actually sounds pretty good though, I might try to fit that in.