Stax is always fun for the player playing it, it just won't t be fun for anyone else
This is not always true. I've found myself not enjoying plenty of games while piloting Stax and I've had some of my best games of EDH ever against overly oppressive Stax decks. I know I am not the only one who has had this experience.
Stax is my favorite strategy to play against regardless of my what deck I'm piloting myself. I prefer playing against control and Stax is my favorite control archetype.
My favorite game, however, remains chess.
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There are no divisions: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28
I was kinda upset about the banning of Braids, but I see the current trend of Commander. Ban out everything that ruins Sheldon's fun.
Honestly, I didn't even need Braids, Cabal Minion to win in the first place, but it sure helped in turn 2/3 scoops.
No one I've faced besides my friends can deal with the turn 2 Jin or Sire of Insanity.
I still run 2-3 Armageddon effects, but I transited to Midrange-Control because Stax took way too much effort.
It sucks, I was only a try-hard at card shops, and when I was at EDH night, Galspanic - the pressure was off. I didn't have to make the annoying players quit before turn 5 because I would have to play with them sometime in the future.
So I tried to make a kind of stax-ish deck with cards I own. Any help would be much appreciated.I know that Crucible of Worlds is amazing but I am on a budget so please suggest cards in the 10$ range.
Note that I play casually with the same group of friends and sometimes we play 2HG. We allow banned cards as well, unless one turns to be really annoying, like Staff of Domination. Cheers!
How do you think adding token producing spells would impact the deck?
Ditto for the combo.
What are your deck's current strengths? What weaknesses would you like to shore up with it? How have you been winning with it? Losing? What are your goals with the deck?
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There are no divisions: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28
How do you think adding token producing spells would impact the deck?
Ditto for the combo.
What are your deck's current strengths? What weaknesses would you like to shore up with it? How have you been winning with it? Losing? What are your goals with the deck?
I wanted to add token producing spells like cheap versions Bitterblossom in order to have more sac outlets for smokestack, plus I am planning to add Braids. At the moment I am a little torn regarding which direction to follow.
It's remarkable that I chose Zurgo as a general becaue I couldn't find any else, and honestly I did not expect to play him much, but I'd say that more than half times I win by putting zurgo online and blowing everything up at the next turn or locking down their lands and forcing them to forfeit because zurgo is on the field.
I usually lose either from mana screw (lands come too late) or by failing to assemble the pieces for a lockdown. Some cards that are in the deck, like Manabarbs or Sangromancer are there as fillers.
How do you think adding token producing spells would impact the deck?
Ditto for the combo.
What are your deck's current strengths? What weaknesses would you like to shore up with it? How have you been winning with it? Losing? What are your goals with the deck?
I wanted to add token producing spells like cheap versions Bitterblossom in order to have more sac outlets for smokestack, plus I am planning to add Braids. At the moment I am a little torn regarding which direction to follow.
It's remarkable that I chose Zurgo as a general becaue I couldn't find any else, and honestly I did not expect to play him much, but I'd say that more than half times I win by putting zurgo online and blowing everything up at the next turn or locking down their lands and forcing them to forfeit because zurgo is on the field.
I usually lose either from mana screw (lands come too late) or by failing to assemble the pieces for a lockdown. Some cards that are in the deck, like Manabarbs or Sangromancer are there as fillers.
Reading what you wrote, mate, I don't see any mention that the deck is losing due to a lack of tokens. You have many paths forward and that can be an exciting feeling when tweaking a new deck!
Two of your many paths are either strengthening the likelihood of the deck winning as it has, or addressing the ways it hasn't. Of course, there is the chance that doing one also does the other concurrently or, conversely, that the two paths are mutually exclusive.
What have you noticed in testing possible changes with proxies or playing online?
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There are no divisions: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. -Galatians 3:28
How do you think adding token producing spells would impact the deck?
Ditto for the combo.
What are your deck's current strengths? What weaknesses would you like to shore up with it? How have you been winning with it? Losing? What are your goals with the deck?
I wanted to add token producing spells like cheap versions Bitterblossom in order to have more sac outlets for smokestack, plus I am planning to add Braids. At the moment I am a little torn regarding which direction to follow.
It's remarkable that I chose Zurgo as a general becaue I couldn't find any else, and honestly I did not expect to play him much, but I'd say that more than half times I win by putting zurgo online and blowing everything up at the next turn or locking down their lands and forcing them to forfeit because zurgo is on the field.
I usually lose either from mana screw (lands come too late) or by failing to assemble the pieces for a lockdown. Some cards that are in the deck, like Manabarbs or Sangromancer are there as fillers.
Reading what you wrote, mate, I don't see any mention that the deck is losing due to a lack of tokens. You have many paths forward and that can be an exciting feeling when tweaking a new deck!
Two of your many paths are either strengthening the likelihood of the deck winning as it has, or addressing the ways it hasn't. Of course, there is the chance that doing one also does the other concurrently or, conversely, that the two paths are mutually exclusive.
What have you noticed in testing possible changes with proxies or playing online?
Wow it feels like I am being tested by the Kenobi of the topic
I do not play online and I haven't tested extensively. I guess the dilemma is whether I enhance the aggro aspect of the deck or its lockdown. I still play the same list, but your suggestions are welcome.
Not to jump on the bandwagon from some pages back in this topic, but I'm a little surprised no one has mentioned Damia as a Stax general - while her mana cost can be a little prohibitive, with the requisite artifact/regular old ramp you can stick her pretty fast, and she has such HORRENDOUS synergy with descent into madness that it's really absurd. she can also abuse manabond+storm cauldron, as well as a ridiculous plethora of excellent stax choices.
However, while I trumpet her potential I haven't actually built the deck myself... has anyone? and if so, could they post a list? I'm intrigued at the possibilities she can offer.
All of the rules allow for your general to be moved to the command zone when he gets put into a place that would be tough to get him back from, GY, Exile, etc. I am sure one day the rules will change and include tuck effects.
I built Damia as stax during the period shortly after release of the Commander products. I played it online a lot. One of those decks that just always, always won in public games via concessions, but rarely won in my playgroup. For the mana-denial elements, it was pretty basic. Heavily leaning on Sunder and Contamination. The finisher was basically group discard via Mindslicer type cards. You need to be able to plan on sticking the General by using Exploration effects, rituals, and good timing.
Regarding the fashionability of Stax, as one of Gal's regular crew, I think a few factors combined to put Stax into legendary status. To begin with, I've been told and can conclude that there were a TON of resource greedy UGx decks being played in PDX about the time I moved here. I think to a large degree still, that is the kind of deck that polarizes the actual EDH metagame, more even than Combo. Either you love that kind of deck, or you despise that kind of deck. If you despise that kind of deck, such as some players I could name, you play Stax for no other reason than it attacks passive resource accumulation. It could have a great game plan to close out, or it could have absolutely no game plan to close out, that player will still play it. And if you are in the camp that just loves UGx resource-hoard, you absolutely despise Stax. There is no ignoring it, playing around it, or taking your lumps, because all it does is affect your ability to play your deck. So in the end, it's not so much of a strategic balance for the format as it is an artistic conflict between how two types of players express themselves on the playmat.
If I were to venture an opinion on what the gravitational force of strategy actually is in this format, I would have to say Combo. You are either a passive, Control-first deck with a more mana-intensive combo finish, or you are a tutor-packed speedball combo deck, or you are no kind of combo deck and you can only win after the combo decks have already lost. It's only the speedy, goldfishy type of combo decks that have win cons mana efficient enough that they would consider mana denial, and all of those are graveyard combo decks. Of course, those get responded to very easily with graveyard exile, which I've seen run more extensively by the PDX group than I've seen anywhere else. So it is possible that the theoretical metagame in equillibrium has no resource denial, it just has narrow hate cards, counterspells, and lean combos. Not sure if that's any more or less fun than the Stax-Goodstuff dynamic.
On Braids, I am not in the camp of conspiracy theorists that say the RC hates Stax. I think the RC hates everything equally. And I also don't think that an examination of the strategy, rather than the expression, would have Braids as a main offender. Because as has been reaffirmed in a lot of places in this thread, it takes a metric ton of tax effects drawn in the right order before sacrificing a land each turn becomes restrictive. It's a tempo play that is very bad late game. Stuff like Stoneshaker Shaman-Winter Orb, Geddon Land Equilibrium, Derevi Stasis, etc, will keep the lock strategy alive, where Braids was mainly used with Tax to annoy players without cheap removal. I would rather have her banned than Hokori, Dust Drinker.
I just want to say, Braids being banned in the 99 is even bigger a deathblow for stax decks as an archetype than I originally anticipated. There's really nothing as good as she was, essentially a creature version of Smokestack fixed at one counter, she meant immediate pressure and came out early and fast even in the 99 because of the plethora of creature tutors in typical stax colors. Without her I've had to fall back to the next best thing for an early creature-based stax piece and that's what, Magus of the Abyss? And he's not nearly as good.
Only reason I bring it up is because it's been really noticeable for me in recent months, I had this dream of adding some variance to my mostly-combo meta by bringing in stax (pure stax, not stax/combo or stax/reanimator or just "mana denial," I already have Possessed Portal in my Arcum deck if I wanted to play a hybrid strat) and I've basically had to put that dream on the shelf for now, at least until we decide whether we're going to house-overrule the September 2014 decision or not.
It's really quite amazing to me exactly how much weaker the entire archetype of stax (again, in the pure sense of reciprocally sacrificing permanents together with mana denial, not stax-as-support or just mana denial by itself) has become with the absence of just a single card.
I just want to say, Braids being banned in the 99 is even bigger a deathblow for stax decks as an archetype than I originally anticipated. There's really nothing as good as she was, essentially a creature version of Smokestack fixed at one counter, she meant immediate pressure and came out early and fast even in the 99 because of the plethora of creature tutors in typical stax colors. Without her I've had to fall back to the next best thing for an early creature-based stax piece and that's what, Magus of the Abyss? And he's not nearly as good.
Only reason I bring it up is because it's been really noticeable for me in recent months, I had this dream of adding some variance to my mostly-combo meta by bringing in stax (pure stax, not stax/combo or stax/reanimator or just "mana denial," I already have Possessed Portal in my Arcum deck if I wanted to play a hybrid strat) and I've basically had to put that dream on the shelf for now, at least until we decide whether we're going to house-overrule the September 2014 decision or not.
It's really quite amazing to me exactly how much weaker the entire archetype of stax (again, in the pure sense of reciprocally sacrificing permanents together with mana denial, not stax-as-support or just mana denial by itself) has become with the absence of just a single card.
Well, it seems like you're just defining Stax as "reciprocally sacrificing permanents". That's an argument by definition, painting the idea into a corner. So of course, banning a permanent that does that one thing is going to impact your ability to play cards that do that one thing. My experience though is that this one thing isn't necessary, or even good a lot of the time.
of course, banning a permanent that does that one thing is going to impact your ability to play cards that do that one thing.
Semantically speaking yes, my personal definition of the word "stax" as I'm using it in this thread is more limited. In my mind "stax decks" employ Smokestack and similar cards as the mainstay of their prison strategy, like the original Vintage and Legacy stax decks do. I call stuff like Sphere of Resistance "tax effects" and stuff like Tangle Wire "mana denial," which often show up alongside stax effects but regardless are distinguishable mechanics that can see different deployment. For example, a typical GAAIV EDH deck will use tax effects (including GAAIV himself) as part of a broader prison/control strategy but wouldn't generally play Smokestack or related cards, so I wouldn't call GAAIV a "stax deck" in the classic sense, more of a tax-based control deck.
Semantics aside, the point I'm driving at is that the loss of Braids is really playing out to be even more significant than I anticipated in my attempts to build an EDH "stax deck" in the classic sense, because it's not just that she was a permanent who did "that one thing" of reciprocally sacrificing stuff, it's that she was the only permanent in the game who did that one thing with that level of speed and consistency.
Agreed. Braids was so wonderful because of the speed at which she enabled your stax. Putting out a smokestack (while awesome), takes a full turn to get online. Braids came down and forced the next player in line to deal with her or start losing value. What's also cool was that being a creature, she can easily be fetched and put into play with a Yisan or POD engine. Kind of sucks that the RC banned her.
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EDH:ShatterStax, Only The Strong Survive
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
What of it? It's still around. Nice card, but it has some noticeable drawbacks as a stax piece:
It's an enchantment, hardest type to tutor up and deploy early, which is when it hurts the most;
It's U, which means many stax decks (Abzan/Jund) can't even use it;
It only hits lands, which by itself doesn't get the job done in a format where everyone and their mother loads their deck to the brim with mana-producing dorks and rocks (especially rocks!).
Ultimately it's a supporting piece at best, I wouldn't consider it a go-to stax engine like Smokestack or what Braids used to be.
I haven't seen it run in many stax deck. Rather, I've seen competitive Zur players use it after getting out a T2/T3 Zur to keep opponents off of ways to deal with him.
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EDH:ShatterStax, Only The Strong Survive
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
I haven't seen it run in many stax deck. Rather, I've seen competitive Zur players use it after getting out a T2/T3 Zur to keep opponents off of ways to deal with him.
I admit in my meta the only time I ever see Mana Vortex mainboarded 100% of the time is in Zur, but I don't really consider him stax as much as enchantment combo, after all that's what Contamination + Bitterblossom and Necropotence + SoCon and Helm + RIP really amount to.
Oh, that's what I meant lol. The Zur I've seen wasn't really stax as much as enchantment combo. Haven't seen Zur stax, but yea Jusstice, I'd assume it's pretty brutal lol
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EDH:ShatterStax, Only The Strong Survive
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
I've been trying to pare down a huge list of cards to go into a Stax list. I've had the idea of using Zur to cheat various enchantments into play, but as I look at it, between the cards I've got in a stack for the deck, and the cards in a TCG player cart I've been working on for a few weeks, I realize that I've got very few black cards. Makes me think that Grand Arbiter Augustin IV might be a better choice. The things I've got set aside for the deck so far seem to be more about taxing and tapping versus sacrificing, so maybe black is largely superfluous.
Most of my decks use black in some capacity, so giving that up seems tough to me. I'll lose Phyrexian Arena, other draw, and some tutors, but I'll gain a tax effect out of the command zone and a much simplified mana base.
I'm new to Commander, being more into Modern. My wife insisted we try Commander and we got the 2014 precons, and after a while just playing against one another with those, I kind of get the idea of the hundred card singleton aspect of the game. There are two playgroups here, neither of which I know anything about, that I could start playing with. I built a Varolz deck, and this will be my second deck, so I'll have options if Stax is extremely frowned upon. I'm also worried that simply by showing Zur in the beginning of the game, I'll be a target, even though this deck isn't the Voltron idea that everyone hates Zur for.
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Zur is a known quantity, one-trick pony. The main thing is that it's extremely boring and demands few decisions from the player. You play Zur, he either lives or he doesn't, you fetch Bitterblossom-Contamination, it either sticks or it doesn't. It basically doesn't matter how you build the rest of your deck, and so people usually go 15+ counterspell, 8+ graveyard hate, then 2-3 auras to get Zur between 7 and 11 power for general damage. I don't know if it counts as Stax, or what it really counts as. It's just fetching one soft-lock and trying to outpace the table's answers for it.
I think Brago, King Eternal is better than GAAIV for Stax. The route to go is mana rocks, Stasis, Embargo, Static Orb, Winter Orb, Rising Waters, optional Imi Statue. Find the open player, connect with combat damage, blink your stuff in untapped. GAAIV tends to become less relevant later in the game, or when you fail to connect with an Armageddon.
Missing out on the Black tutors isn't as bad because Blue has transmutes and 3-4x artifact tutors that work superbly.
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My favorite game, however, remains chess.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Honestly, I didn't even need Braids, Cabal Minion to win in the first place, but it sure helped in turn 2/3 scoops.
No one I've faced besides my friends can deal with the turn 2 Jin or Sire of Insanity.
I still run 2-3 Armageddon effects, but I transited to Midrange-Control because Stax took way too much effort.
It sucks, I was only a try-hard at card shops, and when I was at EDH night, Galspanic - the pressure was off. I didn't have to make the annoying players quit before turn 5 because I would have to play with them sometime in the future.
Note that I play casually with the same group of friends and sometimes we play 2HG. We allow banned cards as well, unless one turns to be really annoying, like Staff of Domination. Cheers!
5 Zurgo Helmsmasher
Sorcery
8 Obliterate
8 Decree of Pain
6 Jokulhaups
6 Life's Finale
5 Global Ruin
5 Increasing Ambition
4 Thoughts of Ruin
4 Diabolic Tutor
3 Read the Bones
3 Death Cloud
2 Sign in Blood
2 Exsanguinate
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Dreadbore
Enchantment
6 Havoc Festival
5 Spreading Plague
5 Burning Sands
5 Sphere of Safety
3 Hand to hand
4 Stranglehold
4 War's Toll
4 Koskun Falls
4 Manabarbs
3 Rule of Law
3 Desolation
3 Aura of Silence
3 Banishing Light
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
5 Gilded Lotus
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Trading Post
4 Smokestack
4 Dingus Egg
3 Storage Matrix
3 Mana Web
2 Mind Stone
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Sundial of the Infinite
2 Winter Orb
2 Orzhov Signet
2 Charcoal Diamond
2 Fire Diamond
2 Marble Diamond
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Sol Ring
0 Tormod's Crypt
Creatures
6 Sun Titan
4 Sangromancer
3 Ophiomancer
3 Hushwing Gryff
3 Eidolon of Rhetoric
3 Glowrider
3 Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
2 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Aegis of the Gods
2 Nyx-Fleece Ram
2 Grand Arbiter
1 Tenacious Dead
5 Murderous Cut
3 Orim's Thunder
3 Crackling Doom
2 Ultimate Price
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Dark Ritual
Lands
7 Plains
8 Swamp
5 Mountain
1 Tainted Peak
1 Tainted Field
1 Kher Keep
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Temple of the False God
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Orzhov Guildgate
1 Nomad Outpost
1 Jund Panorama
1 Phyrexia's Core
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Scoured Barren
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
You think addiNg token generators would Help? Also, how about the Delaying shield and phyrexian unlife combo?
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Ditto for the combo.
What are your deck's current strengths? What weaknesses would you like to shore up with it? How have you been winning with it? Losing? What are your goals with the deck?
I wanted to add token producing spells like cheap versions Bitterblossom in order to have more sac outlets for smokestack, plus I am planning to add Braids. At the moment I am a little torn regarding which direction to follow.
It's remarkable that I chose Zurgo as a general becaue I couldn't find any else, and honestly I did not expect to play him much, but I'd say that more than half times I win by putting zurgo online and blowing everything up at the next turn or locking down their lands and forcing them to forfeit because zurgo is on the field.
I usually lose either from mana screw (lands come too late) or by failing to assemble the pieces for a lockdown. Some cards that are in the deck, like Manabarbs or Sangromancer are there as fillers.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Two of your many paths are either strengthening the likelihood of the deck winning as it has, or addressing the ways it hasn't. Of course, there is the chance that doing one also does the other concurrently or, conversely, that the two paths are mutually exclusive.
What have you noticed in testing possible changes with proxies or playing online?
Wow it feels like I am being tested by the Kenobi of the topic
I do not play online and I haven't tested extensively. I guess the dilemma is whether I enhance the aggro aspect of the deck or its lockdown. I still play the same list, but your suggestions are welcome.
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
However, while I trumpet her potential I haven't actually built the deck myself... has anyone? and if so, could they post a list? I'm intrigued at the possibilities she can offer.
Regarding the fashionability of Stax, as one of Gal's regular crew, I think a few factors combined to put Stax into legendary status. To begin with, I've been told and can conclude that there were a TON of resource greedy UGx decks being played in PDX about the time I moved here. I think to a large degree still, that is the kind of deck that polarizes the actual EDH metagame, more even than Combo. Either you love that kind of deck, or you despise that kind of deck. If you despise that kind of deck, such as some players I could name, you play Stax for no other reason than it attacks passive resource accumulation. It could have a great game plan to close out, or it could have absolutely no game plan to close out, that player will still play it. And if you are in the camp that just loves UGx resource-hoard, you absolutely despise Stax. There is no ignoring it, playing around it, or taking your lumps, because all it does is affect your ability to play your deck. So in the end, it's not so much of a strategic balance for the format as it is an artistic conflict between how two types of players express themselves on the playmat.
If I were to venture an opinion on what the gravitational force of strategy actually is in this format, I would have to say Combo. You are either a passive, Control-first deck with a more mana-intensive combo finish, or you are a tutor-packed speedball combo deck, or you are no kind of combo deck and you can only win after the combo decks have already lost. It's only the speedy, goldfishy type of combo decks that have win cons mana efficient enough that they would consider mana denial, and all of those are graveyard combo decks. Of course, those get responded to very easily with graveyard exile, which I've seen run more extensively by the PDX group than I've seen anywhere else. So it is possible that the theoretical metagame in equillibrium has no resource denial, it just has narrow hate cards, counterspells, and lean combos. Not sure if that's any more or less fun than the Stax-Goodstuff dynamic.
On Braids, I am not in the camp of conspiracy theorists that say the RC hates Stax. I think the RC hates everything equally. And I also don't think that an examination of the strategy, rather than the expression, would have Braids as a main offender. Because as has been reaffirmed in a lot of places in this thread, it takes a metric ton of tax effects drawn in the right order before sacrificing a land each turn becomes restrictive. It's a tempo play that is very bad late game. Stuff like Stoneshaker Shaman-Winter Orb, Geddon Land Equilibrium, Derevi Stasis, etc, will keep the lock strategy alive, where Braids was mainly used with Tax to annoy players without cheap removal. I would rather have her banned than Hokori, Dust Drinker.
Only reason I bring it up is because it's been really noticeable for me in recent months, I had this dream of adding some variance to my mostly-combo meta by bringing in stax (pure stax, not stax/combo or stax/reanimator or just "mana denial," I already have Possessed Portal in my Arcum deck if I wanted to play a hybrid strat) and I've basically had to put that dream on the shelf for now, at least until we decide whether we're going to house-overrule the September 2014 decision or not.
It's really quite amazing to me exactly how much weaker the entire archetype of stax (again, in the pure sense of reciprocally sacrificing permanents together with mana denial, not stax-as-support or just mana denial by itself) has become with the absence of just a single card.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Well, it seems like you're just defining Stax as "reciprocally sacrificing permanents". That's an argument by definition, painting the idea into a corner. So of course, banning a permanent that does that one thing is going to impact your ability to play cards that do that one thing. My experience though is that this one thing isn't necessary, or even good a lot of the time.
Semantics aside, the point I'm driving at is that the loss of Braids is really playing out to be even more significant than I anticipated in my attempts to build an EDH "stax deck" in the classic sense, because it's not just that she was a permanent who did "that one thing" of reciprocally sacrificing stuff, it's that she was the only permanent in the game who did that one thing with that level of speed and consistency.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
Modern: Fish, JUND/Junk
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RIP Twin
Ultimately it's a supporting piece at best, I wouldn't consider it a go-to stax engine like Smokestack or what Braids used to be.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
Modern: Fish, JUND/Junk
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RIP Twin
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir Mono-U Control
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath
Sen Triplets
Mizzix of the Izmagnus
Derevi Stax
VolThrun
Marchesa, The Black Rose
Olivia Voldaren, Vampire Tribal
Modern: Fish, JUND/Junk
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RIP Twin
Most of my decks use black in some capacity, so giving that up seems tough to me. I'll lose Phyrexian Arena, other draw, and some tutors, but I'll gain a tax effect out of the command zone and a much simplified mana base.
I'm new to Commander, being more into Modern. My wife insisted we try Commander and we got the 2014 precons, and after a while just playing against one another with those, I kind of get the idea of the hundred card singleton aspect of the game. There are two playgroups here, neither of which I know anything about, that I could start playing with. I built a Varolz deck, and this will be my second deck, so I'll have options if Stax is extremely frowned upon. I'm also worried that simply by showing Zur in the beginning of the game, I'll be a target, even though this deck isn't the Voltron idea that everyone hates Zur for.
So, thoughts on Zur vs Grand Arbiter Augustin IV are appreciated.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
I think Brago, King Eternal is better than GAAIV for Stax. The route to go is mana rocks, Stasis, Embargo, Static Orb, Winter Orb, Rising Waters, optional Imi Statue. Find the open player, connect with combat damage, blink your stuff in untapped. GAAIV tends to become less relevant later in the game, or when you fail to connect with an Armageddon.
Missing out on the Black tutors isn't as bad because Blue has transmutes and 3-4x artifact tutors that work superbly.