You enjoy playing the long game. Atraxa focuses on building value over time using stax to deny opponents resources while our planeswalkers allow us to build our resources up far more quickly than our opponents can. As a result, it can take a while to grind out a win.
You like games that involve a lot of thinking. This deck requires critical thinking and good threat assessment to determine what the best course of action is every turn. The slightest mistake can set you far back and may end up with a loss as a result of one slip up.
You enjoy playing control. This deck focuses on controlling what resources are available to everyone and runs a small removal and counter suite in order to prevent our opponents from recovering.
Reasons to not play Atraxa:
You prefer playing lots of creatures. The deck runs very few creatures because it has such a strong focus on resource denial and planeswalker protection.
You are impatient. The deck is designed to gain value over time while denying our opponents any viable way to win. Rushing to play pieces, removal, etc is a surefire way to get yourself in a position that won’t be easy to recover from.
You hate stax. This deck is very heavy on stax effects and stopping people from playing spells. The aim is to deny our opponents their win cons while building up our boardstate.
Other options for commanders:
Derevei, Empyrial Tactician: Strong stax option that has been made a bit weaker with the mulligan change. The big strength Atraxa has over Derevi is the addition of black, which gives a multitude of tutors, removal and planeswalkers. The other strength is our built in proliferate which helps with our value over time plan with planeswalkers
Brago, King Eternal: Again a very strong option for a stax build, but lacks in versatility, with the lack of black and green, when it comes to planeswalker options.
Dark Confidant: This card has been an absolute all-star. It nets you an extra card every turn and gets around Uba Mask. Extra card draw never hurts, especially when our commander all but negates the downside.
Aven Mindcensor: Shuts down tutors and land ramp that are present in virtually every deck in the format. A powerful one-sided effect with flying.
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician: A great creature that serves a dual purpose in this list. It enables locks and breaks parity at the same time.
Eternal Witness: A great piece of recursion that can be used to grab a planeswalker, removal, sweeper, stax piece, etc.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest: Turns opposing removal into card advantage and prevents opponents from reaping benefits from their card draw.
Brago, King Eternal: Phenomenal parity breaker that also resets planeswalkers if needed.
Astral Cornucopia: Part of our value over time strategy. Paying 3 mana for a rock that will eventually tap for 6 or more mana of any color is phenomenal.
Everflowing Chalice: Same as above for colorless mana. It’s main purpose is to pay for Chain Veil activations, also ramps hard after just a few turns.
Mana Crypt: Fast mana that enables us to play stax pieces as early as turn one with minimal other investment.
Mox Diamond: As with the rest of our rocks, it gets around Winter Orb effects and taps for any color.
Mox Opal: The deck runs quite a few artifacts so getting metalcraft is extremely easy to get. It can also be untapped with Brago, same as the rest of our rocks.
Cursed Totem: Shuts down a lot of creature based removal which protects Atraxa and our stax pieces and can shut down decks that rely heavily on a commander’s activated ability to function. Also shuts down mana dorks which severely slows down decks that rely heavily on them.
Fellwar Stone: This is a great rock considering we’re in four colors, it will almost always be able to tap for most, if not all of our colors.
Lightning Greaves: Protection for either Atraxa or our hate bears that also provides haste to our commander.
Pentad Prism: Key piece to maintaining a stasis lock. It also builds value over time with Atraxa.
Talisman of Dominance: Taps for two of our four colors or can tap for colorless if needed. The downside is negligible with our 4/4 lifelink commander. The talismans were chosen over signets since they don’t require input from another mana source to be used.
Torpor Orb: Completely shuts down decks that rely on enter the battlefield (ETB) effects like Meren. It also turns off ETB removal like Acidic Slime, Reclamation Sage and most importantly things like Fleshbag Marauder.
Winter Orb: One of the staples of stax decks for good reason. It slows the game down considerably for our opponents, but it’s effect on us is less significant since we have ways to break parity.
Crucible of Worlds: As a stax decks we run some mass land destruction (MLD) to keep opponents off of resources. As a result, this card is great since it allows to continue to operate in that constrained environment. It also provides a way to loop Strip Mine to spot remove lands and potentially keep our opponents off of a particular color.
Orb of Dreams: This enables a hard lock with Stasis. If our opponents have no removal when both are on the board there will be no breaking out of it.
Sword of Feast and Famine: This is a great card since our main strategy is to swing with Atraxa every opportunity we get. It provides her protection while giving us another way to break parity and provide hand disruption.
Tangle Wire: This is probably the single most important stax piece in this deck. The synergy with Atraxa cannot be overstated. Every game that I land a turn 3 Atraxa followed by Tangle Wire ends with a very quick table scoop. With Atraxa Tangle Wire will virtually always be at 5 on our opponents turns. We will only need to tap 4 cards often these end up being stax pieces that don’t require tapping to be used.
Smokestack: Another very synergistic card that can stop our opponents in their tracks. With Elspeth, Sun’s Champion or Crucible of Worlds we can recover fairly easily while simultaneously stifling our opponents.
The Chain Veil: No super friends deck would be complete without The Chain Veil. Using Teferi, Temporal Archmage or Tezzeret the Seeker with a rock that taps for 4+ mana, we can go for infinite planeswalker activations which will almost always win us the game.
Uba Mask: A phenomenal piece of hand disruption. Most of the time this ends up just exiling our opponents draws since we’re able to efficiently stop them from playing spells through resource denial.
Demonic Tutor: Tutor effects are powerful in this format as they essentially turn your deck into a toolbox where you pull the right piece for the job.
Nature’s Spiral: Allows recursion of planeswalkers and stax pieces.
Fabricate: Since most of our stax and ramp pieces are artifacts fabricate fits right in.
Idyllic Tutor: The rest of our stax pieces are enchantments so this is a great fit for the deck.
Toxic Deluge: One of the best board wipes in the format. It allows you to decide exactly what gets removed and what doesn’t.
Armageddon: Currently the only form of MLD in the deck. When played at the right time it usually wins the game almost on the spot. Our opponents will typically have a hard time recovering from this one.
Merciless Eviction: Another great sweeper, a bit on the expensive side, but it gives us flexibility as far as what gets picked off.
Pact of Negation: Allows us to tap out on our turn and still maintain protection for our boardstate. Counters are crucial to protecting our boardstate and preventing our opponents from recovering.
Enlightened Tutor: Great end of turn (EOT) tutor that can grab any stax or ramp piece we may need.
Nature’s Claim: Efficient removal that can deal with lots of different hate pieces that may be present in the meta. The biggest threats this will be looking for are Stony Silence, Null Rod, and Aura of Silence.
Spell Pierce: Prevents a variety of spells from resolving and with the right resource denial in place it ends up being a hard counter most of the time.
Swan Song: Stops our opponents from tutoring, removing or dropping hate pieces. The downside is negligible.
Swords to Plowshares: A piece of efficient creature removal with a negligible downside.
Vampiric Tutor: The best EOT tutor we can run. This can grab anything we need whether that be removal, stax, ramp, draw or a particular planeswalker.
Worldly Tutor: EOT tutor that can grab one of our hate bears for whatever may be going on in the game at that time.
Abrupt Decay: Uncounterable removal that deals with a variety of things, most importantly the aforementioned Stony Silence and company.
Cyclonic Rift: A one-sided boardwipe that typically puts your opponents so far behind that victory is all but assured.
Anguished Unmaking: Efficient removal that can deal with pretty much anything and has a negligible downside.
Beast Within: Versatile removal with a negligible downside.
Mana Bloom: Part of our value over time plan it also enables a lock with Stasis.
Bitterblossom: An efficient token producer that works well with Smokestack and Derevi to enable locks or break parity. The downside is negated through Atraxa.
Stasis: One of the most important lock pieces in the deck. Even if it only stays on board for one round it’s usually enough to put us way ahead of our opponents.
Sylvan Library: One of the best draw cards in the format. Uba Mask turns this into a draw three with no downside.
Druids’ Repository: Another piece of the value over time plan. It synergizes well not only with our commander’s built in proliferate, but with the fact that Atraxa will likely be attacking every turn.
Necropotence: The single best draw engine in the format. The loss of life is mitigated considerably by our commander.
Embargo: A very powerful lock piece with a manageable downside. Shuts off dorks and rocks, as well as, putting a damper on aggro strategies.
Dovin Baan: Shuts down activated abilities of creatures, draws cards, and, if left alone, nets us a one sided static orb.
Garruk Wildspeaker: Untaps lands, generates tokens and can be used to buff our commander in order to end the game faster and gain more life.
Narset Transcendent: Draws cards, rebounds tutors/removal and can shut off spellslinger and storm decks pretty definitively.
Tamiyo, Field Researcher: One of my favorite planeswalkers, she generates card advantage taps opponents resources, and gives an irremovable omniscience effect. What’s not to like?
Tezzeret the Seeker: Untaps our rocks and tutors for stax pieces. I’ve never used his last ability, however the ability to pull tangle wire directly onto the battlefield the moment he resolves should not be underestimated.
Venser, the Sojourner: Can be used to blink Eternal Witness or walkers and his emblem is great for removing opponents rocks and lands.
Vraska the Unseen: Protects herself, provides another efficient removal option and generates tokens that can outright kill your opponents, which will be fairly easy since they’ll be tapped down.
Elspeth, Sun’s Champion: Generates tokens very quickly, has a built in boardwipe and gives us a permanent buff/flying which is great when used alongside our assassin tokens.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage: Breaks parity like no other, provides card advantage, and allows us to activate loyalty abilities on our opponents’ turns.
Karn Liberated: Gives us some great removal and hand disruption and is fairly difficult to deal with.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: Gives us a bolt, boardwipe and can generate a ton of value with his -10. Ugin is absolutely phenomenal.
Grim Tutor: Due to budget restrictions I’ve not included this card in the list. That being said it’s a great replacement for Fabricate or Idyllic Tutor since it can grab anything for the same converted mana cost (CMC).
Imperial Seal: Great tutor that could replace either Fabricate or Idyllic Tutor.
Ravages of War: More MLD never hurts and it’s the same cost as Armageddon. Could potentially replace Merciless Eviction.
Chains of Mephistopheles: A phenomenal piece of hand disruption that would fit right in in a list like this. This would probably replace Uba Mask since it runs at half of the cmc.
Nether Void: With all the resource denial we run, Nether Void would essentially turn off virtually any deck we manage to stick it against. Excellent replacement for smokestack.
Deck History
The deck started with a much heavier focus on infect as a win condition and less on the planeswalker and stax plan. After playing this iteration of it and being thoroughly disappointed by the results, I decided to shift the plan to focus on a hard stax lock and dropped nearly all the infect cards in the deck minus Ichor Rats and Inkmoth Nexus. Doing this freed up more slots than I had anticipated so I added some more planeswalkers that would synergize with the strategy. Over the span of a few weeks I trimmed the list down to what it is now. It has put up incredible results, establishing hard locks as early as turn 3-4 depending on opening hand.
Strategy
The idea behind the deck is to lock our opponents out early while getting set up to play through the constrained environment we intend to create. This requires us to be aware of what are opponents intend to do at each stage of the game and then devise a plan to prevent them from ever reaching that stage.
Advantages: The deck is designed with stax in mind so we have plenty of ways to break parity. We also have many options for grabbing specific pieces of removal and hate as needed throughout the game. All of these factors lend themselves to give us great consistency throughout the game and allow us to stifle our opponents while operating relatively unhindered.
Disadvantages: The deck is fairly challenging to pilot, without adequate threat assessment and an ability to think ahead of your opponents you’ll be likely to misplay and end up hurting yourself more than your opponents. Removal and boardwipes can make keeping our value engine going somewhat difficult. We run as much protection as we can and a small counter suite to help offset this particular weakness. The ramp package also helps to mitigate the effect that the commander tax has on our ability to cast Atraxa consistently. The deck relies heavily on colored mana not only for our commander, but for a few of our hate bears and stax pieces. We run lots of rocks that tap for multiple colors as well as lands that can produce multiple colors of mana.
Draw and Mulligan
Opening draws will determine how fast we can set up a lock. You’ll want to mulligan until you have a hand with 1-2 lands and some cheap ramp pieces. Ideally, this hand should include Tangle Wire or some other lock piece or at the very least a way to tutor for a lock piece. The pieces you want to see in your opening hand will depend heavily on what you expect to see in your meta. If there are lots of mana dorks and commanders that rely on activated abilities Cursed Totem should be a big early target. If you deal with a ton of ETB creatures Torpor Orb will go a great way to hindering their strategy.
Early Game
The goal for Turn 1-3ish should be to ramp into Atraxa and ideally drop Tezzeret the Seeker or tutor for Tangle Wire or a lock piece depending on what you have on hand and what plays you expect from your opponents. The key early on is to be able to protect your commander and set up the value engine and prepare to establish the lock.
Mid Game
Turns 4-6 you’ll be looking to land a lock, hopefully with some counter or removal back up. This is usually accomplished by grabbing Tangle Wire and keeping it at 5 the rest of the game. With Tangle Wire down adding in Root Maze, Stasis, or something like Winter Orb will make it virtually impossible for your opponents to recover. If you can’t grab Tangle Wire the next best option is to use Stasis with Root Maze or Orb of Dreams to stop your opponents from getting untapped lands. This route is only really viable if you have Pentad Prism, Mana Bloom, Druids’ Repository, Tezzeret, Teferi or Garruk in order to be able to keep a constant supply of blue mana to maintain stasis.
Late Game
If there are any players who still haven’t scooped by turn 7-8, we switch gears from trying to establish a lock to simply maintaining it while we beat down on our opponents with hate bears and Atraxa. During this stage, we also look to either crank down on the lock or simply blow past our opponents using planeswalker ults such as Dovin Baan, Narset, or Tamiyo. This will make closing out the game relatively easy to do, since a lock should already exist.
Tips and Tricks
Tangle Wire in conjuction with either Winter Orb or Dovin Baan’s ult usually stops pretty much any progress our opponents might hope to make and is almost always the first lock you should look for since it’s the easiest to establish and only requires Atraxa to be on the field. This also works well if you get Derevi early as you can increase the number of opposing resources tied up by Winter Orb or Embargo. If Atraxa is out and you’re confident you can protect her, your first tutor target should always be Tangle Wire especially early in the game.
If you have any questions or critiques regarding the list or write up please let me know I’ll be more than happy to address them.
- Merciless Eviction + Pernicious Deed Pernicious Deed is cheaper and can hit a wide variety of targets while keeping our walkers in tact.
- Elspeth, Sun's Champion + Elspeth, Knight-Errant Knight-Errant is cheaper and has more relevant abilities. Her second +1 puts opponents on a 3 turn clock.
- Nature's Spiral + Treasured Find Treasured find can grab anything from tutors to wipes which gives us more versatility in our recursion package.
- Pact of Negation + Arcane Denial Pact is a bit risky since it can literally cost us the game. Arcane is easy to cast and replaces itself.
- Spell Pierce + Muddle the Mixture Muddle has fewer available targets is more expensive but it tutors for several key pieces and is a hard counter to removal and sweeps.
- Everflowing Chalice + Bloom Tender Bloom Tender is a phenomenal ramp piece that produces colored mana. After a few games I realized colorless ramp isn't super helpful in a list with such heavy color requirements, everflowing chalice ended up cut as a result.
- Mana Crypt + Birds of Paradise Same situation as chalice plus the fact that it deals damage to us.
- Uba Mask + Static Orb Uba Mask helps in control match ups but overall Static Orb can just completely shut down opponents or buy us time to establish a hard lock.
- The Chain Veil + Grafdigger's Cage After playing some matches I realized there was 0 graveyard hate in the deck. Cage shuts down not only graveyard interactions but it stops things like Chord of Calling as well.
- Druids' Repository + Crystalline Crawler Crawler is amazing! It produces colored, can ramp itself and be untapped with Tezzeret and Teferi, and is almost always entering as a 5/5.
- Embargo + Ichor Rats Ichor Rats lets us poison all our opponents simultaneously. Once a lock is achieved it's just a matter of time before we win once we land the rats.
- Treasured Find + Reap An instant speed recursion spell that is easier to cast, doesn't exile itself and can hit more than one thing. This is just a much better version of Treasured Find
- Worldly Tutor. + Doubling Season. Worldly is rarely actually relevant, doubling speeds up the planeswalkers ults and allows to not have to rely on Atraxa for the win.
- Mana Bloom. + Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. Mana Bloom is useful for the stasis lock, but outside of that does very little without Atraxa. Tamiyo can help us keep our opponents down and her emblem is pretty amazing for what we are trying to accomplish.
-Fellwar Stone. + Deathrite Shaman. Deathrite gives all our colors and provides graveyatd hate for half the cost of fellwar stone.
-Brago, King Eternal. +[C]Three Visits[\c]. Brago is nice but requires dmg to do anything. Three visits helps since we're running so few lands and four colors.
-Idyllic Tutor. +Tithe. Idyllic Tutor is a so so tutor for sonething we don't run a whole lot of. Tithe once again helps with fixing the land/color situation at instant speed.
-Pentad Prism. +Sensei's Divining Top. Prism is a crucial piece to the stasis lock but requires Atraxa to be of any real use. Top let's us fix our draws and adds to the consistency of the deck while simultaneously decreasing our reliance on our commander.
-Vraska, the Unseen. +Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon. Vraska is slow and not nearly as useful as Skittles which serves to decrease our reliance on Atraxa.
-Muddle the Mixture. +Counterspell. Muddle is narrow and serves as a slow tutor whereas counterspell is a hard counter to anything.
-Eternal Witness. +Chromatic Lantern. Witness is awesome but not very easy to abuse in this list so I decided to move for more consistency in the ramp department.
-Grafdigger'a Cage. +Scavenging Ooze. Cage stops reanimator but not recursion. Ooze gives us solid yard hate without hindering our own efforts at recursion.
-Skithyrix the Blight Dragon +Zur the Enchanter Zur can tutor up a lot of our lock pieces and can aslo give us a ton of card advantage. Skithyriz is slow and a huge target that mostly doesn't accomplish nearly as much as we'd like him to.
-Narset Transcendent +Contamination Narset's ult is good but her other abilities are rarely relevant in the game. Contamination can provide an alternate lock to stasis and we still have ways to play around it.
This is the most up to date list for this deck. It was a ton of changes so I won't be going through each individual card drop/add, but overall the plan was to shore up consistency by adding locks/win cons that don't rely on Atraxa to work. A suite of hatebears and dorks to help early disruption and ramp efforts combined with some more tutors should help out a ton. The big addition was the Boonweaver Giant combo, but I've also added some Living Plane locks and Humility + Night of Souls' Betrayal as an additional lock to allow our planeswalkers to ult a lot more easily. I haven't had a chance to play since updating the list but I have a feeling it's going to be a bit more consistent, especially with the completion of the fetchland cycle which the list was previously missing. Any ideas to help improve upon the list further would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you guys think.
The deck has remained pretty much the same. I'm currently testing out bloom tender and crystalline crawler. I don't wanna change the list until I determine whether or not those will stay in the list.
I pulled embargo and everflowing chalice. If I was gonna add doubling season I'd probably pull mana crypt or some colorless ramp source.
I plan on adding JTMS once I get a copy. I'm not a huge fan of architect of thought though so I probably won't be using him at all. His abilities don't seem impactful enough to warrant inclusion.
Pentad Prism is necessary for the hard lock. I wouldn't remove it necessarily, however, I think (considering you have walkers that also work) you only need either prism or bloom, not both. Also, considering how few creatures you run, I don't see Druid's Repository as necessary either.
I would probably drop worldly tutor, it has only one real target a majority of the time and we have other ways of grabbing the rats. Pentad prism, repository and bloom are all redundant pieces for the stasis lock. Repository is nice because it gains value everytime we attack with Atraxa which is one of the main goals of the deck anyway. The parallax enchantments would be ok if I was running more proliferate cards as it stands they really wouldn't add anything to the deck. Skittles is nice but not necessary, the increased speed of the infect kill is ok but he'd immediately become a huge target. Deepglow and doubling aeason are both too slow and situational imo. Neither really adds much to the decks ability to establish a lock and they're fairly expensive.
Prism, repository, and bloom are redundant pieces for the stasis lock, however, so is Teferi, Garruk, Tezzeret, and somewhat Venser. I think you have too much redundancy especially as there is far less redundancy for Stasis itself; Winter Orb, Static Orb, and Tangle Wire sorta count but not to the same extent as people can still play through them.
I can understand Deepglow because of Torpor Orb, but doubling season too slow? You play Karn, Ugin, Elspeth and Eviction, and yet you call a card which creates two card combos with most of your walkers, a pseudo stasis with Tangle wire, and a ridiculous explosion with Smokestack too slow? Out of Curiosity, what is the average cmc of the deck?
Stasis has been relatively easy to pull every game, though I prefer to grab tangle wire first to stave off any potential removal/counter that might be waiting for stasis. The redundancy has been great overall because I rarely find myself tutoring for a way out of the lock which allows me to focus on maintaining the lcok and protecting Atraxa.
The thing about doubling season and deepglow skate is that they aren't particularly necessary for the deck to operate smoothly. I'd rather miss out on both of those and maintain the locks I have as well as the redundancy I have. They just feel win more to me. The avg cmc right now is 2.72.
I strongly considered including it, the added recursion for stax pieces is nice. The problem is it only makes colorless mana which is an issue if you draw this early since it increases the turns you need to get Atraxa down. Inkmoth is worth it because the built in flying infect can put pressure on our opponents early. So all in all, I really like the card but it probably won't make the cut. Noxious revival however is a different story. It can hit anything basically for free at instant speed, so that may be a good option over ruins.
I guess. Was trying to find ways of repeatable return to avoid counters. I run temple of the false god and will change it out then. I never have issues getting atraxa out. Dropping mummering bosk might be a good idea. I replaced it with a filter land to avoid "come into play tapped" issues. Noxious revival is amazing. How have I never heard of it....
Link? The creator of this deck should be given kudos to the control this deck has. No one expects it. The lock down is key to getting our forces online. So many misplays are made to stop us or just trying to get one crappy spell off from opponents. Can your deck protect the plains walkers as good as Joseph can? The deck is hard to pilot but with patience and practice, you can kick butt. I used to play fairies in modern and this deck fits my play style.
Ya I really like revival just an issue of finding a slot for it. I actually swapped bosk with gemstone mine. That was a great decision sinc eit comes in untapped and hits all our colors without dealing damage.
Joseph, can you update the threads deck list? Let's keep this thread alive.
Rkjounior, I tried super friends, it worked, but consistency of wins was dependent on how well I survived heavy creature decks. Wraths are great but mass recursion is killer lately. Lock down is were its at. You need more wraths
Old Elspeth? I like suns champion for getting out of tangle wires grasp. The wrath is nice to.
I like ichor rats, but skittles is hard to beat with regen.
Still use worldly tutor?
Muddle the mixture?
Arcane denial is cool over pact of negation. Mana cost at upkeep makes sense.
Druids repository needs to go. It's situational and not needed. Put doubling season in. It wins hard. Poison, elspeth tokens, and artifact tokens of various forms just make it a lot faster.
Why astral cornucopia over chromatic lantern or coalition relic?
I've never had issues playing around tangle wire even when Elspeth wasn't on the field. Old Elspeth buffs Atraxa or generates tokens if need be. The wipe on the new one takes out Atraxa which is onw of our big win cons and engine pieces. Overall new Elspeth is just better.
I'm using rats over skittles for a couple of reasons. The main one being there's very little you can do to stop his trigger on enter. Also it helps keep our curve low. Skittles speeds things along a bit but once the lock is established and everyone is poisoned we win anyway.
Currently still running worldly tutor just for EOT tutoring for either rats or a specific hate bear.
Muddle has been decent, though not sure if it's gonna stick around. The tutoring is nice since it can grab several orbs, recursion pieces, and draw engines.
Arcane denial has been great so far, I'm definitely very happy with that particular swap.
I thought I removed it from the list already I'll make that change. I'm really not a fan of doubling season in this deck. I've tested and it is just underwhelming. It takes away from the strategy more than it adds. The deck functions great without it. The card is just win more in this deck.
Overall I'm happy with the changes I've made the deck has been playing smoothly. I'll be adding the ally fetches as soon as they come in to try and smooth out the mana situation.
Just for differences, I am running doubling season. It has blown the opprnants out of the water fast. It hits, I win. One difference between us is good anyway.
Missing mana crypt might hurt me though. Never drew it anyway in all games I played, thus I don't know yet for sure.
Birds is good. I agree.
Can we can't out astro cornucopia, it's not as good as chromatic lantern?
Switching to ichor rats, why not. It just makes sense after your point.
Merciless eviction is a great pull as I never really want to do it.
Elspeth points are sound.
Jace the mind sculptor is in the place of worldly tutor. It helps me to get what I need in lock down and bounces dudes to keep tangle wire a lock on lands.
Reasons to not play Atraxa:
0 Adarkar Wastes
0 Aether Hub
0 Breeding Pool
0 Brushland
0 Caves of Koilos
0 Command Tower
0 Drowned Catacomb
0 Forest
0 Gemstone Mine
0 Glacial Fortress
0 Godless Shrine
0 Hallowed Fountain
0 Hinterland Harbor
0 Inkmoth Nexus
0 Island
0 Isolated Chapel
0 Llanowar Wastes
0 Mana Confluence
0 Mirrodin's core
0 Overgrown Tomb
0 Plains
0 Strip Mine
0 Swamp
0 Temple Garden
0 Tendo Ice Bridge
0 Underground River
0 Uborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
0 Watery Grave
0 Woodland Cemetery
0 Yavimaya Coast
Creatures
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Bloom Tender
2 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
3 Ichor Rats
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
4 Crystalline Crawler
4 Zur the Enchanter
0 Astral Cornucopia
0 Mox Diamond
0 Mox Opal
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
2 Cursed Totem
2 Fellwar Stone
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Swiftfoot Boots
2 Talisman of Dominance
2 Talisman of Progress
2 Talisman of Unity
2 Torpor Orb
2 Winter Orb
3 Chromatic Lantern
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Orb of Dreams
3 Static Orb
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Tangle Wire
4 Smokestack
Sorceries
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Regrowth
2 Three Visits
3 Cruel Tutor
3 Fabricate
3 Toxic Deluge
4 Armageddon
Instants
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Nature's Claim
1 Swan Song
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Tithe
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Arcane Denial
2 Counterspell
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Reap
3 Anguished Unmaking
3 Beast Within
1 Root Maze
2 Bitterblossom
2 Stasis
2 Sylvan Library
3 Conatmination
3 Necropotence
3 Pernicious Deed
5 Doubling Season
Planeswalkers
4 Dovin Baan
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
5 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
5 Tezzeret the Seeker
5 Venser, the Sojourner
6 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
7 Karn Liberated
8 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Card Choices by Type
Advantages: The deck is designed with stax in mind so we have plenty of ways to break parity. We also have many options for grabbing specific pieces of removal and hate as needed throughout the game. All of these factors lend themselves to give us great consistency throughout the game and allow us to stifle our opponents while operating relatively unhindered.
Disadvantages: The deck is fairly challenging to pilot, without adequate threat assessment and an ability to think ahead of your opponents you’ll be likely to misplay and end up hurting yourself more than your opponents. Removal and boardwipes can make keeping our value engine going somewhat difficult. We run as much protection as we can and a small counter suite to help offset this particular weakness. The ramp package also helps to mitigate the effect that the commander tax has on our ability to cast Atraxa consistently. The deck relies heavily on colored mana not only for our commander, but for a few of our hate bears and stax pieces. We run lots of rocks that tap for multiple colors as well as lands that can produce multiple colors of mana.
The goal for Turn 1-3ish should be to ramp into Atraxa and ideally drop Tezzeret the Seeker or tutor for Tangle Wire or a lock piece depending on what you have on hand and what plays you expect from your opponents. The key early on is to be able to protect your commander and set up the value engine and prepare to establish the lock.
If you have any questions or critiques regarding the list or write up please let me know I’ll be more than happy to address them.
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Viscera Seer
2 Bloom Tender
2 Containment Priest
2 Dark Confidant
2 Fauna Shaman
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Priest of Titania
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Eidolon of Rhetoric
3 Eternal Witness
3 Fiend Hunter
3 Hushwing Gryff
3 Peacekeeper
3 Academy Rector
4 Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
4 Crystalline Crawler
4 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
5 Karmic Guide
5 Reveillark
6 Massacre Wurm
6 Sun Titan
7 Boonweaver Giant
Artifacts (5)
0 Chrome Mox
0 Mana Crypt
0 Mox Diamond
2 Winter Orb
3 Tangle Wire
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Reanimate
2 Altar of Bone
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
3 Eldritch Evolution
3 Toxic Deluge
Instants (11)
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Spell Pierce
1 Swan Song
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Counterspell
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Disenchant
2 Eladamri's Call
2 Negate
3 Beast Within
Enchantments (10)
1 Root Maze
2 Cryptolith Rite
2 Stasis
2 Survival of the Fittest
2 Sylvan Library
3 Dark Tutelage
4 Humility
4 Living Plane
4 Night of Souls' Betrayal
4 Pattern of Rebirth
Planeswalkers (6)
4 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
5 Tezzeret the Seeker
6 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Breeding Pool
1 Brushland
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Watery Grave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
This is the most up to date list for this deck. It was a ton of changes so I won't be going through each individual card drop/add, but overall the plan was to shore up consistency by adding locks/win cons that don't rely on Atraxa to work. A suite of hatebears and dorks to help early disruption and ramp efforts combined with some more tutors should help out a ton. The big addition was the Boonweaver Giant combo, but I've also added some Living Plane locks and Humility + Night of Souls' Betrayal as an additional lock to allow our planeswalkers to ult a lot more easily. I haven't had a chance to play since updating the list but I have a feeling it's going to be a bit more consistent, especially with the completion of the fetchland cycle which the list was previously missing. Any ideas to help improve upon the list further would be greatly appreciated. Let me know what you guys think.
I am building your deck. Atraxa is not easy to build. Your build seems the best. Have you made any changes?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
Why No Jace, the Mind Sculptor or Jace, Architect of Thought?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
I plan on adding JTMS once I get a copy. I'm not a huge fan of architect of thought though so I probably won't be using him at all. His abilities don't seem impactful enough to warrant inclusion.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
4 cards to consider...
Anything better than Pentad Prism? Signet? Charcoal Diamond? Chromatic Lantern?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
I can understand Deepglow because of Torpor Orb, but doubling season too slow? You play Karn, Ugin, Elspeth and Eviction, and yet you call a card which creates two card combos with most of your walkers, a pseudo stasis with Tangle wire, and a ridiculous explosion with Smokestack too slow? Out of Curiosity, what is the average cmc of the deck?
Finally, did you get my message?
The thing about doubling season and deepglow skate is that they aren't particularly necessary for the deck to operate smoothly. I'd rather miss out on both of those and maintain the locks I have as well as the redundancy I have. They just feel win more to me. The avg cmc right now is 2.72.
And yes I just replied.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
GWUBAtraxa and Her Superfriends
WUB Oloro, the Life Drain Train
URG Animar, Soul of Elements
WBR Kaalia of the Vast
BWTeysa Karlov, Scion of Orzhov
R Purphoros, Goblins of Pain ($100 Budget Challenge)
U Talrand, Fun Police (Needs updating)
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
GWUBAtraxa and Her Superfriends
WUB Oloro, the Life Drain Train
URG Animar, Soul of Elements
WBR Kaalia of the Vast
BWTeysa Karlov, Scion of Orzhov
R Purphoros, Goblins of Pain ($100 Budget Challenge)
U Talrand, Fun Police (Needs updating)
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
Rkjounior, I tried super friends, it worked, but consistency of wins was dependent on how well I survived heavy creature decks. Wraths are great but mass recursion is killer lately. Lock down is were its at. You need more wraths
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
I like ichor rats, but skittles is hard to beat with regen.
Still use worldly tutor?
Muddle the mixture?
Arcane denial is cool over pact of negation. Mana cost at upkeep makes sense.
Druids repository needs to go. It's situational and not needed. Put doubling season in. It wins hard. Poison, elspeth tokens, and artifact tokens of various forms just make it a lot faster.
Why astral cornucopia over chromatic lantern or coalition relic?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
I'm using rats over skittles for a couple of reasons. The main one being there's very little you can do to stop his trigger on enter. Also it helps keep our curve low. Skittles speeds things along a bit but once the lock is established and everyone is poisoned we win anyway.
Currently still running worldly tutor just for EOT tutoring for either rats or a specific hate bear.
Muddle has been decent, though not sure if it's gonna stick around. The tutoring is nice since it can grab several orbs, recursion pieces, and draw engines.
Arcane denial has been great so far, I'm definitely very happy with that particular swap.
I thought I removed it from the list already I'll make that change. I'm really not a fan of doubling season in this deck. I've tested and it is just underwhelming. It takes away from the strategy more than it adds. The deck functions great without it. The card is just win more in this deck.
Overall I'm happy with the changes I've made the deck has been playing smoothly. I'll be adding the ally fetches as soon as they come in to try and smooth out the mana situation.
Missing mana crypt might hurt me though. Never drew it anyway in all games I played, thus I don't know yet for sure.
Birds is good. I agree.
Can we can't out astro cornucopia, it's not as good as chromatic lantern?
Switching to ichor rats, why not. It just makes sense after your point.
Merciless eviction is a great pull as I never really want to do it.
Elspeth points are sound.
Jace the mind sculptor is in the place of worldly tutor. It helps me to get what I need in lock down and bounces dudes to keep tangle wire a lock on lands.
How has static orb worked out so far?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!