You phrase your question “Why would any well-adjusted, relatively social person do X”, and you are surprised that people come to its defense rather than take the question at face value?
I don't see where I am surprised, I posed the question exactly as such because I wanted people to explain to me why my view is wrong.
I view Stax as a playstyle that attempts to deny other players the ability to engage with and play the game. Given that EDH is a multiplayer designed, casually balanced format, and is based on encouraging socializing and interaction between players, Stax is then, by definition, antisocial.
Interesting! I find stax very social in multiplayer. It encourages players to form temporary alliances against a common enemy (e.g. stax permanent hindering two or more players).
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Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
Portal could be used as a lock card with the New B/U Taigam, or Necropotence, or Braids, Conjurer Adept or just Daretti.
Cant blanket statement these things, just because a couple people made it "un-fun".
Yes Stax tends to be part of the more competitive play groups, but its very effective for multiple opponents.
Maybe us stax players find it in fun when we sit down to play a social game and a combo player goes off on their turn for ten minutes.
Come prepared to play against it. Bring artifact and enchantment hate. I would never show up without creature removal because decks that turn sideways will stop being fun. Sounds like your playgroup is not prepared for stax.
I would argue that stax is one of most interactive things you can do in EDH. Every single stax tool is an interactive card, if you chose to not run answers for these cards that's on you not the stax player, these answers being using ramp/draw and removal for artifacts and enchantments, all things you should be doing anyway.
I play stax for the same reason I play combo, I enjoy putting people in difficult positions where they really have to work to win, my greatest fun is seeing someone come back from the brink of defeat to grab victory.
They think it's fun and either play in a group that accepts this or they don't care about the fun the opponents have.
That last thing is quite important and something I always ask myself: Will the opponent be annoyed playing agains this?
Because I know that if I upset players too much with cut-throat decks they won't play against me and I want to avoid that.
With Stax the answer, like often, lies in the middle.
Die-hard stax is just mean and shouldn't be brought along unless the group knows and accepts this.
On the other hand you also shouldn't just play 5/5's in the deck without anything else.
I've seen players losing hard just because they hardly had removal or wipes; they thought it was a good idea to just play 'cool' creatures. With that attitude you will lose.
The thing about Stax as an archetype is that it is a natural predator of all-in combo decks and draw-go control decks. I see Stax (or more generally speaking, resource denial or prison decks) to be an important part of balancing a competitive metagame. In cEDH, Stax decks don't play as anywhere near as consistently as they do in Vintage, so there is still a window where control decks can set up and have answers, aggro decks can deploy a few quick threats, and all-in combo might be able to deploy enough resources to blank what the prison deck is doing, and I think that is a very appropriate (and fairly interesting) part of the metagame for 1v1.
In multiplayer or more casual environments, I can see where resource denial becomes a huge burden on the table. You have much less all-in combo, draw-go control, or all-out aggro, so Prison decks have time to set up before anyone really can get their decks really going. If these decks are synergy-based, tribal, themed, or other sort of mid-range deck, they will almost always lose to a prison/resource denial deck. A lot of people would rather play with the gentlemen's agreement that locking people out of their mana isn't allowed so that synergy decks and decks that seek to win through incremental advantages can actually exist.
I think that a very appropriate middle ground is what I call "board control" decks; decks that play the control role without relying on counterspells to shut-down the opposition, but are interested in keeping opposing non-land permanents off the battlefield. A lot of people classify these as "stax" decks as they play a lot of cards like Smokestack, Grave Pact, lots of sweepers, etc. in order to keep the board fairly clear, but they don't specifically attack opposing players mana. My Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder deck is a good example of this; I don't play Contamination or Infernal Darkness, I recently pulled Smokestack (although I used to play it and Braids, Cabal Minion), and I'm not playing mass-LD, Possessed Portal, Herald of Leshrac, Helldozer, Winter Orb, Sphere of Resistance, etc., so I'm mostly letting people play their stuff... I just blow it up once it hits the board. It may not be quite as effective as locking up everyone's mana, but it makes for a much more interesting game in my opinion.
And there is also something to be said about having a board-control deck like this that helps reign-in runaway resource accumulation. The heavy hitters having Annihilator go a long way helping with that, and its a way to knock them down a peg without punishing the mana of everyone. I know a lot of people don't like the Eldrazi, but I find them indispensable for making sure that ramp decks don't get our of hand. Go ahead and Genesis Wave for six, but no way am I going to let you G-Wave for fifteen. Again, I'm not specifically attacking a player's mana, but if all they are going to do is ramp lands onto the battlefield then I am going to try and close the gap. People can still play Magic, but I get to try and take control of what happens on the battlefield.
Playing the game is not social or antisocial, how you behave and interact with the group of people you are playing with is what defines that.
And the way you interact with those people is partially defined by the deck you choose to play, since the deck literally defines the MTG experience you'll have.
I think that a very appropriate middle ground is what I call "board control" decks; decks that play the control role without relying on counterspells to shut-down the opposition, but are interested in keeping opposing non-land permanents off the battlefield.
I don't get why anyone singles out counterspells. They're inherent card disadvantage in a multiplayer format, so they're certainly not unfairly powerful. And they're very useful (and in some cases, the only way) for stopping certain combos.
Case in point - played a game over the weekend against a deck running primal surge with no instants/sorceries that would have won on the spot had it resolved.
Stax is an active form of control, where the player actively stops threats from being able to come online. As opposed to pure countermagic which is a reactive form of control, opponent cast something which the player doesn't like? Throw out a counterspell. Some players just don't like the reactive playstyle of countermagic, they rather play from a vantage point where they can narrow down the options made available to their opponents.
Imo, stax is one of the few strategies that is a good natural counter to heavy ramp. Ramp always go out of control when players have the weird notion that one should never ever attack their opponent's mana resources. It makes the game so skewed.
Although I don't really mind facing Stax, I can feel how others would feel when Stax keeps their boards clean and drop their hands. Want a slightly friendlier type of active control, going for Prison + Tax is better. At the very least it gives the 'illusion' that the players can still do something with their resources.
I think that a very appropriate middle ground is what I call "board control" decks; decks that play the control role without relying on counterspells to shut-down the opposition, but are interested in keeping opposing non-land permanents off the battlefield.
I don't get why anyone singles out counterspells. They're inherent card disadvantage in a multiplayer format, so they're certainly not unfairly powerful. And they're very useful (and in some cases, the only way) for stopping certain combos.
Case in point - played a game over the weekend against a deck running primal surge with no instants/sorceries that would have won on the spot had it resolved.
I wasn't trying to say that counterspells were inherently over-powered or evil, but that most "board control" decks are differentiated from "draw-go" style control decks as to whether they run counterspells or not. If you are in blue, then you absolutely should be running some number of counterspells. You can even have blue in a board-control style deck, but most board control decks I have seen are mono-black, black-white, or black-green.
Anyway, if you are loaded up on counterspells playing "draw-go" style control, then you are very likely not playing stax elements in your deck. You are probably playing bounce spells, a few sweepers, or mass-bounce to help clean up anything that gets through your counter wall, but everything else is card draw and your win conditions. Board control decks without blue often have to generate card advantage by making sure they play cards that can neutralize multiple cards from the opponent per spell, and that's where cards like Smokestack, Grave Pact, Wrath effects etc. can really shine.
So it wasn't about singling out counterspells; it was more about showing that Stax deck need not be so concerned about resource denial.
You phrase your question “Why would any well-adjusted, relatively social person do X”, and you are surprised that people come to its defense rather than take the question at face value?
I don't see where I am surprised, I posed the question exactly as such because I wanted people to explain to me why my view is wrong.
I view Stax as a playstyle that attempts to deny other players the ability to engage with and play the game. Given that EDH is a multiplayer designed, casually balanced format, and is based on encouraging socializing and interaction between players, Stax is then, by definition, antisocial.
This is some impressive double-think: "people that don't play the way I want are antisocial."
Well, for me I don't like to play against or with cutthroat stax, and neither does my playgroup. I had a Tariel deck with nothing but sweepers, recursion, and ramp. It lost once in seven games, and I disbanded it for being unfun for others (and two hour games).
That doesn't answer the question, though. I played it because it was effective, because it was a strategy I didn't have in my line up, and because I liked the idea to begin with.
Nowadays, I play a very friendly Atraxa for a "stax" deck. Like others have said, it depends at the end of the day on how the your playgroup feels about it.
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60 Card Casual Multiplayer: B Dark Ides Life DrainR Rekindle Skies Phoenix TribalWB Veil Oath Tokens BR Brutal Scourge Eldrazi TribalRW Edge Worthy Mid-Range AggroGU Wisp Away Combo GWU Vigorous Flow Energy
Commander / EDH: RFeldon of the Third Path GURashmi, Eternities Crafter RWBMathas, Fiend Hunter GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice
Congrats, MTGS. OP is clearly a troll (OP's question has clearly antagonistic rhetoric and an obvious lack of objectivity, responses confirm as much). This is like the 8th time this month a deviation of these "format bogeyman" discussions has happened, with equally "enlightening" forum engagement subsequent.
Well this comes up every once and a while. There is nothing wrong with playing the game with the cards that are part of the game. If I'm playing chess and you think that my double knight board lock is "unfun", would you want to "ban" knights or think I am anti social? I agree that some groups have house bans on mld and other cards for power level purposes, but if you have access to "Arcum combo" then how is that more "fun" then Nath stax? I think immaturity and not a set of cards are the root of your problem.
Well this comes up every once and a while. There is nothing wrong with playing the game with the cards that are part of the game. If I'm playing chess and you think that my double knight board lock is "unfun", would you want to "ban" knights or think I am anti social?
In chess however, everyone starts out with the same set of pieces every game so the analogy doesn't really work. I liken it more to a situation where you and your friends decide to have a 5-on-5 game of tackle football at the park and one guy decides to show up with a helmet and shoulderpads... we follow all sorts of unwritten rules and expectations when engaged in friendly competitions and I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect that for EDH.
I agree that some groups have house bans on mld and other cards for power level purposes, but if you have access to "Arcum combo" then how is that more "fun" then Nath stax? I think immaturity and not a set of cards are the root of your problem.
On the flip side, I wholeheartedly agree with this. This pretty much sums up this thread.
Resource denial is one method of controlling the board. It's also a more efficient method of controlling multiple opponents simultaneously than, say, counterspells.
So you might as well ask "why do people play control?"
For me this is the main question. When a group gets too control heavy in blue denial strategies I will start to move to a stax plan. Casting control spells and playing king maker requires resources (mana) so I remove that or force them to answer me and that will free up the table. I rarely play stax in a non-control group of players.
Ps - it you hate stax play tokens and mana dorks and swarm them.
I could go on, if you want. But these are proactive answers, instead of reactive answers like removal or counterspells (which players also whinge about...)
tl;dr: A meta without Stax is actually worse for aggro/midrange players than a meta with Stax because games last until Johnny Funsucker combolols off.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I wonder what the OPs thoughts are on aggro as a strategy? I mean, the entire point of aggro is to stop the opponent(s) from playing their spells (by killing them first), so does playing that make someone who plays that poorly adjusted and antisocial?
I like to say my Stax decks' answers have answers. "You're playing storm? Awesome bro, just make sure your first spell gets rid of my Rule of Law." (And let's be honest, 90% of competitive decks, you get the gist of what the deck's about very quickly.)
Control is the most interactive strategy in the game. And that's what the game is about right?
Let's remind everyone, the meta is roughly:
control > combo > midrange > aggro > control
The Commander meta is slightly more complicated, and aggro suffers from the 40-life multiplayer format (Thank the gods WotC has found ways to fix that. Well, one god in particular...) to an extent, but the basic premise remains the same, for those four deck archetypes.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
stax will always be on the extreme side of hate or love
i personally enjoy adding additional conditions to a game and piloting a deck specifically designed to play around them. Its an extreme form of environment sculpting which all decks do to win a game; in stax case sculpting the environment for favorable conditions just happens to interact with every one in a negative way. other cases like storm simply sculpt their hand and look for an opportunity to storm when they will meet minimal resistance.
First off, any action that effects all players (especially equally) is social. Whether the action is good or bad does not matter, it is still social. Terrorism is a social action.
That being said, especially in multiplayer, there are ways to deal with lockdowns and terrorism. Think back into history or even other games: the final boss has set up some Thing that cuts off your reinforcements, take it out. There is a monster running after that 12 year old girl, take it out before it kills her! Sigma Six was a game that had you start with six team members at the beginning of the game and they didn't respawn if they died throughout the whole game.
Games like age of empires and clash of clans and command and conquer have the interval effect of sending troops/spells/missiles to not just finally kill the opponent but to slow down their military and resource production. In these games you are considered a "bad player" if you are not destroying poorly guarded structures that will benefit your opponent in the long run.
We can all agree that group hug is liked more as a whole than attrition (the concept, not just attrition) but at least there is at least the illusion of players no with others with stacks.
Infinite turns more often than not ends the game with a sour taste in opponents mouths because the game ended for them the moment the combo started, not several turns later when the win condition finally occurs. Stax removes permanents, inifinite turns removes all other players. Choosing to play alone in a multiplayer game is far more antisocial than oppressing others.
Yep. Aura Shards can pretty effectively screw over a Stax deck, if you're in GW.
But there really is no answer for infinite turns unless you've hit them with Curse of the Pierced Heart or something and they're really bad at this.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Because without archetypes like stax the game becomes a blue-green rampfest where each player just twiddles with their board state until they can avengerhoof (or gets outraced by the combo deck).
Its important to be able to cut back your opponents, otherwise the player with the luckiest hand/draws will always win and whats the point? The game is just luck. That's why people play removal. Removal is universally accepted as important, and it fills the exact same function as stax (shutting down power plays).
My best guess is that people see removal as ephemeral. Wrath of God is over once the spell resolves. Winter Orb is the entire game, until its removed. That creates a sense of oppression, even when *** is truly more permanent (in non-reanimator). Despite that sense of oppression, nearly every stax card can be broken by a plethora of low cmc green/red/white spells.
Its just another way of saying "No, you can't do X". In effect they're no more obnoxious than Avacyn saying "No you can't destroy my things" or counterspell saying "No you can't cast that". I see nothing wrong with stax.
Interesting! I find stax very social in multiplayer. It encourages players to form temporary alliances against a common enemy (e.g. stax permanent hindering two or more players).
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
Cant blanket statement these things, just because a couple people made it "un-fun".
Yes Stax tends to be part of the more competitive play groups, but its very effective for multiple opponents.
Come prepared to play against it. Bring artifact and enchantment hate. I would never show up without creature removal because decks that turn sideways will stop being fun. Sounds like your playgroup is not prepared for stax.
I play stax for the same reason I play combo, I enjoy putting people in difficult positions where they really have to work to win, my greatest fun is seeing someone come back from the brink of defeat to grab victory.
That last thing is quite important and something I always ask myself: Will the opponent be annoyed playing agains this?
Because I know that if I upset players too much with cut-throat decks they won't play against me and I want to avoid that.
With Stax the answer, like often, lies in the middle.
Die-hard stax is just mean and shouldn't be brought along unless the group knows and accepts this.
On the other hand you also shouldn't just play 5/5's in the deck without anything else.
I've seen players losing hard just because they hardly had removal or wipes; they thought it was a good idea to just play 'cool' creatures. With that attitude you will lose.
In multiplayer or more casual environments, I can see where resource denial becomes a huge burden on the table. You have much less all-in combo, draw-go control, or all-out aggro, so Prison decks have time to set up before anyone really can get their decks really going. If these decks are synergy-based, tribal, themed, or other sort of mid-range deck, they will almost always lose to a prison/resource denial deck. A lot of people would rather play with the gentlemen's agreement that locking people out of their mana isn't allowed so that synergy decks and decks that seek to win through incremental advantages can actually exist.
I think that a very appropriate middle ground is what I call "board control" decks; decks that play the control role without relying on counterspells to shut-down the opposition, but are interested in keeping opposing non-land permanents off the battlefield. A lot of people classify these as "stax" decks as they play a lot of cards like Smokestack, Grave Pact, lots of sweepers, etc. in order to keep the board fairly clear, but they don't specifically attack opposing players mana. My Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder deck is a good example of this; I don't play Contamination or Infernal Darkness, I recently pulled Smokestack (although I used to play it and Braids, Cabal Minion), and I'm not playing mass-LD, Possessed Portal, Herald of Leshrac, Helldozer, Winter Orb, Sphere of Resistance, etc., so I'm mostly letting people play their stuff... I just blow it up once it hits the board. It may not be quite as effective as locking up everyone's mana, but it makes for a much more interesting game in my opinion.
And there is also something to be said about having a board-control deck like this that helps reign-in runaway resource accumulation. The heavy hitters having Annihilator go a long way helping with that, and its a way to knock them down a peg without punishing the mana of everyone. I know a lot of people don't like the Eldrazi, but I find them indispensable for making sure that ramp decks don't get our of hand. Go ahead and Genesis Wave for six, but no way am I going to let you G-Wave for fifteen. Again, I'm not specifically attacking a player's mana, but if all they are going to do is ramp lands onto the battlefield then I am going to try and close the gap. People can still play Magic, but I get to try and take control of what happens on the battlefield.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
And the way you interact with those people is partially defined by the deck you choose to play, since the deck literally defines the MTG experience you'll have.
Padeem, Consul of Innovation - Artifact value/combo.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - Sultai zombie reanimator.
Case in point - played a game over the weekend against a deck running primal surge with no instants/sorceries that would have won on the spot had it resolved.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Imo, stax is one of the few strategies that is a good natural counter to heavy ramp. Ramp always go out of control when players have the weird notion that one should never ever attack their opponent's mana resources. It makes the game so skewed.
Although I don't really mind facing Stax, I can feel how others would feel when Stax keeps their boards clean and drop their hands. Want a slightly friendlier type of active control, going for Prison + Tax is better. At the very least it gives the 'illusion' that the players can still do something with their resources.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
I wasn't trying to say that counterspells were inherently over-powered or evil, but that most "board control" decks are differentiated from "draw-go" style control decks as to whether they run counterspells or not. If you are in blue, then you absolutely should be running some number of counterspells. You can even have blue in a board-control style deck, but most board control decks I have seen are mono-black, black-white, or black-green.
Anyway, if you are loaded up on counterspells playing "draw-go" style control, then you are very likely not playing stax elements in your deck. You are probably playing bounce spells, a few sweepers, or mass-bounce to help clean up anything that gets through your counter wall, but everything else is card draw and your win conditions. Board control decks without blue often have to generate card advantage by making sure they play cards that can neutralize multiple cards from the opponent per spell, and that's where cards like Smokestack, Grave Pact, Wrath effects etc. can really shine.
So it wasn't about singling out counterspells; it was more about showing that Stax deck need not be so concerned about resource denial.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
This is some impressive double-think: "people that don't play the way I want are antisocial."
That doesn't answer the question, though. I played it because it was effective, because it was a strategy I didn't have in my line up, and because I liked the idea to begin with.
Nowadays, I play a very friendly Atraxa for a "stax" deck. Like others have said, it depends at the end of the day on how the your playgroup feels about it.
B Dark Ides Life DrainR Rekindle Skies Phoenix TribalWB Veil Oath Tokens
BR Brutal Scourge Eldrazi TribalRW Edge Worthy Mid-Range AggroGU Wisp Away Combo
GWU Vigorous Flow Energy
Commander / EDH:
RFeldon of the Third Path
GURashmi, Eternities Crafter
RWBMathas, Fiend Hunter
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice
Congrats, MTGS. OP is clearly a troll (OP's question has clearly antagonistic rhetoric and an obvious lack of objectivity, responses confirm as much). This is like the 8th time this month a deviation of these "format bogeyman" discussions has happened, with equally "enlightening" forum engagement subsequent.
Seems like you all just love this tasty b8, m8s.
Also if you're going to build an equally degenerate tax or combo deck then why should your friend not?
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
In chess however, everyone starts out with the same set of pieces every game so the analogy doesn't really work. I liken it more to a situation where you and your friends decide to have a 5-on-5 game of tackle football at the park and one guy decides to show up with a helmet and shoulderpads... we follow all sorts of unwritten rules and expectations when engaged in friendly competitions and I don't think that it is unreasonable to expect that for EDH.
On the flip side, I wholeheartedly agree with this. This pretty much sums up this thread.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
For me this is the main question. When a group gets too control heavy in blue denial strategies I will start to move to a stax plan. Casting control spells and playing king maker requires resources (mana) so I remove that or force them to answer me and that will free up the table. I rarely play stax in a non-control group of players.
Ps - it you hate stax play tokens and mana dorks and swarm them.
criminalscombo players in check. Look at it this way:Food Chain Prossh: Rule of Law or Torpor Orb (arguably also Blood Seeker or Suture Priest or Painful Quandary or Forced Fruition)
Hermit Druid: Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void or Grafdigger's Cage or Banisher Priest or...
Kiki-Jiki: Torpor Orb
I could go on, if you want. But these are proactive answers, instead of reactive answers like removal or counterspells (which players also whinge about...)
tl;dr: A meta without Stax is actually worse for aggro/midrange players than a meta with Stax because games last until Johnny Funsucker combolols off.
On phasing:
Control is the most interactive strategy in the game. And that's what the game is about right?
Let's remind everyone, the meta is roughly:
control > combo > midrange > aggro > control
The Commander meta is slightly more complicated, and aggro suffers from the 40-life multiplayer format (Thank the gods WotC has found ways to fix that. Well, one god in particular...) to an extent, but the basic premise remains the same, for those four deck archetypes.
On phasing:
i personally enjoy adding additional conditions to a game and piloting a deck specifically designed to play around them. Its an extreme form of environment sculpting which all decks do to win a game; in stax case sculpting the environment for favorable conditions just happens to interact with every one in a negative way. other cases like storm simply sculpt their hand and look for an opportunity to storm when they will meet minimal resistance.
That being said, especially in multiplayer, there are ways to deal with lockdowns and terrorism. Think back into history or even other games: the final boss has set up some Thing that cuts off your reinforcements, take it out. There is a monster running after that 12 year old girl, take it out before it kills her! Sigma Six was a game that had you start with six team members at the beginning of the game and they didn't respawn if they died throughout the whole game.
Games like age of empires and clash of clans and command and conquer have the interval effect of sending troops/spells/missiles to not just finally kill the opponent but to slow down their military and resource production. In these games you are considered a "bad player" if you are not destroying poorly guarded structures that will benefit your opponent in the long run.
We can all agree that group hug is liked more as a whole than attrition (the concept, not just attrition) but at least there is at least the illusion of players no with others with stacks.
Infinite turns more often than not ends the game with a sour taste in opponents mouths because the game ended for them the moment the combo started, not several turns later when the win condition finally occurs. Stax removes permanents, inifinite turns removes all other players. Choosing to play alone in a multiplayer game is far more antisocial than oppressing others.
But there really is no answer for infinite turns unless you've hit them with Curse of the Pierced Heart or something and they're really bad at this.
On phasing:
Its important to be able to cut back your opponents, otherwise the player with the luckiest hand/draws will always win and whats the point? The game is just luck. That's why people play removal. Removal is universally accepted as important, and it fills the exact same function as stax (shutting down power plays).
My best guess is that people see removal as ephemeral. Wrath of God is over once the spell resolves. Winter Orb is the entire game, until its removed. That creates a sense of oppression, even when *** is truly more permanent (in non-reanimator). Despite that sense of oppression, nearly every stax card can be broken by a plethora of low cmc green/red/white spells.
Its just another way of saying "No, you can't do X". In effect they're no more obnoxious than Avacyn saying "No you can't destroy my things" or counterspell saying "No you can't cast that". I see nothing wrong with stax.