This is my version of an Atraxa Stax with an Enchantress engine.
Most people go with the counters theme for Atraxa due to her powerful Proliferate ability. When I saw her, I thought, holy cow, that is the craziest Serra Angel ever! With this in mind, I wanted to recreate my favorite Serra Angle Stasis Type 1 deck from back in 1994 when Type 1 meant something, but this time in the Commander format, not Legacy.
Key aspects of what was essentially a Legacy UW Control deck were Stasis and Kismet for a tap out lock, Serra Angel for the win, and Counterspell, Mana Drain, and Power Sink to traffic cop the game, Swords to Plowshares, Wrath of God, Maze of Ith, and Icy Manipulator to control the board, Disenchant for Enchantment and Artifact hate, and Winter Orb as an alternate Stasis. It was straightforward, but allowed for complicated game play. If it made it to turn 4, it usually won. It was my most powerful deck, and was my second favorite behind my low land Manabarbs Vice Elves deck. Good times, limited card pool, and Fallen Empires was the latest disappointment.
Now, MTG is practically infinite. It is fun to try to return to one of my all time favorites with another 22 years of expanded card pool. Atraxa strongly reminded me of my old deck, but Atraxa as your commander is so much better than Serra Angel in this combo. You always start with it in your hand, it is a full CMC cheaper, it has Lifelink and Deathtouch, it can be recast with the small addition of the Commander Tax, and if it gets countered/destroyed/exiled, you can just recast it later. You are part way to the combo at the start of every game, and having it as your Commander is like having a never ending supply of Serra Angels in your deck!
The evolution of MTG since 1994 has brought us replacements for key cards like Stasis and Kismet in the form of Rising Waters and Frozen Aether. With the addition of Skybind and Words of Wind, you can hold the Kismet/Stasis lock indefinitely. Add in some Parallax Wave/Parallax Tide/Starfield of Nix shenanigans, and you get an infinite mana loop to fuel it.
My Serra Angel Stasis deck was UW, but Atraxa brings BUGW. This opens up G for ramp, B for Tutors, and keeps UW for strong control. The way I have it brewed here, it is mostly Bant control with a splash of B for tutors.
Seeing all the Enchantments in the combo, I decided to swing it toward an Enchantress theme. This gave an incredible draw engine, and gave me multiple Tutors for key pieces. It was also pretty easy to replace all the control and Stax components with Enchantments, and eliminate most Instant, Sorcery, Creature, and Artifact elements of the basic deck. After pushing the Enchantress engine, the only important parts of the Atraxa Proliferate ability were for mana fixing through Mana Bloom, Tendo Ice Bridges, Aether Hub, and Gemstone Mine, and the Parallax cards. This may seem strange for many Atraxa brewers, but in this deck, she is a role player. She plays a stronger Serra Angel. Her Proliferate is only optimized as long as it doesn't take away from the Stasis lock or the Enchantress shell. It doesn't need all the other counter stuff to make it the perfect fit for this deck.
After getting the basic shell, I added some strategic cards to combat common deck archetypes. A large number of Tax effects like Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety synergize well with mana denial to defend against agro, especially those decks going wide. Detention Sphere is great against token decks as well. Kor Haven, Maze of Ith, and Song of the Dryads are good against Voltron strategies. Rest in Peace and Wheel of Sun and Moon are very nice graveyard hate. Seals of Cleansing and Primordium and Aura of Silence give the Artifact and Enchantment hate. The Parallaxes and a lot of generic nonland permanent removal cards make the control pretty flexible. A single Muddle the Mixture can help to stop some combo and also grabs us some key combo pieces of our own, and when combined with all the ramp, tutoring, and card draw allows us to keep pace with a lot of combo. Alternate wincons in the form of Test of Endurance can allow us to sidestep most strong defense, City of Solitude and Greater Auramancy hoses a lot of control, and when combined with all the recursion in the deck, allows us to power through most control.
Key synergies in the deck are:
1. Atraxa, Stasis/Rising Waters, and Kismet/Frozen Aether. There are multiple ways to get this lock to stick indefinitely, and even if it doesn't, you can often stall the game long enough to get a stronger combo out.
2. Sterling Grove and Starfield of Nyx. Repeatable tutoring for most of the deck. Tutor for the Grove first, and use the Grove to get Starfield. Recur the Grove, get whatever you need. Most of the time, you go after combo #3.
3. Parallax Tide, Parallax Wave, and Starfield of Nyx. Starfield makes both Parallaxes creatures, which can be exiled by Wave, which then brings both back into play with a full 5 Fade counters. This can be used to create infinite mana. With proper stack manipulation you can completely and permanently deny the opponent any mana or creatures. When you get this, you have won.
4. Energy Field with either Rest in Peace or Wheel of Sun and Moon means you cannot lose life.
5. All of the enchantresses with Abundance and ramp means that the deck can spew huge amounts of cards each turn. Sooner or later, you run into a win.
6. Test of Endurance with Atraxa, Herald of the Pantheon, or Words of Worship and a couple of Enchantresses out and you can explode your life total quickly, often leading to a win.
One of the strange things I have noticed with this deck is how often I use black tutors for lands. It seems silly until you realize that if you don't have land, you often have combo pieces instead, and if you just had land, you could get your engine up and running. A Vampiric Tutor into a Savannah, into and enchantress engine, into all the green enchantment ramp, into a wincon is a common game. I could increase the land, but limiting land helps with the Enchantress engine, and the flexibility of tutors to be either land or combo pieces more than makes up for the awkwardness. When I realized this, I was more comfortable cutting all the green sorcery ramp.
Another surprising thing I have noticed is how often Replenish is a dead draw. It is basically an auto-include, but since I am often aiming at the Sterling Grove and Starfield of Nyx combo, I often recur all the necessary pieces with Starfield, and Replenish just sits in my hand. It is amazing for those times when someone pulls off the Enchantment boardwipe, but they happen surprisingly infrequently. I have thought about cutting Replenish on multiple occasions, but the fact that I can regain everything lost to a boardwipe keeps it in there. Replenish and Argivian Find are in there to recover Starfield, since Starfield is the center of a lot of this deck. It can win without it, but it becomes much harder.
All in all, I find the deck to be fun, it can capture some of the feeling of my old type 1 Serra Angel Stasis deck, and has multiple engines for big wins. It can be interactive early, and then explode almost without warning. It is also very different from every other Atraxa deck I have seen. Thanks for looking.
So I am a little confused as to where you are going with this deck: you are running "unfun" resource disruption cards in Stasis, Winter Orb, etc., as well as an expensive manabase/imperial seal, which makes me think that you are going towards a more competitive decklist. Then I realize that you run zero ramp and almost zero ways to interact with the stack meaning that almost any stereotypical competitive deck will run this deck over. What is your meta like that you allowed to play this but you don't get thrashed every game?
On a less macro note, I don't see how you are able to do so well with Stasis (or I guess any of the resource denial cards) out considering you can't break parity with it. Are you just trying to draw more lands and hope they produce blue while Atraxa beats down or is it purely as a speed bump? If it is just a speed bump then you might want to try something else as your opponents will get to untap before you do.
What do you do if Atraxa gets removed from the equation?
My meta is multiplayer, medium level competitive and not totally cutthroat, but anything goes. No one runs any serious land destruction or Stax, there is somewhat limited blue in the decks present, with mostly battle cruiser, token swarm, and sac-recur represented, with a few other pet decks. We figured that we needed a Stax deck in the meta to play against, just to test our decks against. We have been talking about someone making one for a while, and when I saw Atraxa, I decided to make a Stax-esque deck. Granted, this is not a traditional Stax deck by any stretch, but it does aim at resource denial and control, with a little pillow fort. I have a lot of older/expensive cards because I have been playing since 1994, so the mana base is what it is. It could be made significantly less expensive and still function, but I have the cards.
There is a fair amount of ramp in the deck, despite what it seems, but it is all enchantment ramp. There are 8 actual ramp cards (enchantments, with Burgeoning and Exploration being amazing ramp in this deck), Krosan Verge also ramps for 1, Serra’s Sanctum ramps amazingly in this deck, there are 3 deck filter cards to streamline my land drops, 1 pure fixer enchantment, 1 enchantment that allows untapping a land on opponents’ turns, and the 4 black tutors for extra fixing when needed. It has seemed to work out well enough, even if it is pretty unconventional.
As for interacting with the stack, I would like to add some more counterspell ability, without diluting the Enchantress shell too much. Blue is probably the least played color in my meta, so it hasn’t been as bad as it could be, but adding some more stack interaction would be nice. As it is, Stasis Snare, the Seals, and Parallax Wave can all function at instant speed. I have thought about adding Ertai, I have just not sought one out to test with yet. If I find that I an getting blown away at instant speed, I will add in Ertai.
Breaking parity with resource denial is actually not as hard as you think. The pillow fort cards quickly make attacking me the suboptimal play, and this means players decide between letting me continue to build and swimming upstream. Even if I am unable to maintain it indefinitely through Urban Burgeoning or Mana Bloom, the Stasis/Rising Waters resource denial can be made less painful with the enchantment ramp, Serra’s Sanctum, Enchantress combined with Burgeoning/Exploration, or even carefully used Parallax Wave with Starfield of Nyx or a Seal to remove it just prior to my turn. Even when I am just waiting to draw blue lands, with 3 deck filters, it works a fair amount of the time.
Taking Atraxa out of the equation is not a really as big of a deal as you seem to imply. Stasis lock without her usually ends up stalling me into a position that I can stop drawing cards (Words of Worship or Wheel of Sun and Moon), get off an infinite combo, win with Test of Endurance or Starfield of Nyx overrun, or get Atraxa back. Even if it doesn’t last forever, it can stall for quite a while, and this can get me into a better position anyway. Atraxa damage, Starfield of Nyx Opalescence type overrun, Test of Endurance, and even decking someone are all ways I have won with it. I do lose, but it often happens after I have become the Archenemy, and that is OK.
I guess I can open it up to you, if you have suggestions that could make it stronger. You have identified ramping speed, stack interaction, and wincons as problems you see for this deck. Given that I would like to maintain the colors and Commander, the resource denial and pillow fort type control, and the Enchantress shell, what would you do to make it better? Do you have anything that would change it with a couple of cards, or are you still struggling with the entire deck concept? As it stands, it functions, it can win, and I think it will probably end up evolving my meta to account for it as is.
Since you aren't playing in a competitive meta, this opens things up a fair bit. My biggest issue in trying to figure out how to comment on the deck was what you would be up against: your manabase/money cards said one thing, your card choices/strategies said another. So thanks for the feedback on that.
In regards to ramp, there is no Exploration, Burgeoning, Mana Bloom, or Urban Burgeoning (though UR isn't ramp) in the decklist above, so my comment about needing more still stands (additionally, there are two instances of Aura of Silence). Keep in mind that the above cards, while enchantments, aren't as effective at ramping as you might think. Sure, they can be great if you draw them turn one (though they can potentially prompt you to keep weaker hands), but they are rather inconsistent; you always know what will happen with a Sol Ring, Burgeoning and Exploration not so much. Also, Krosan Verge is so slow that I really cannot consider that ramp. Serra's Sanctum is not consistent ramp either as it does nothing on an empty board. If you want more ramp, but want them to be enchantments, I would suggest Fertile Ground and Abundant Growth.
Yea you want some form of counters and removal: you will thank me when someone casts Merciless Eviction naming enchantments or when someone zings a Blightsteel Colossus at you. With that in mind, you should take out City of Solitude as the only time that card is good is if you are up against a heavy counter deck or if you are looking to combo off. For the record, the majority of enchantment based removal is pretty awful: being able to remove the enchantment and get your car back is too big of a downside.
As for breaking resource denial, as I mentioned before, Urban Burgeoning and Mana Bloom are not in the list above, and even if they were, they aren't the best cards to use for that purpose, especially as they only break it with a single card in your deck (I removed them from my list ages ago). They are, however, the only way enchantment based way to break parity, which appears to be a trend. The whole deck seems to be more worried about maintaining a high enchantment density rather than the effectiveness of the cards being used/the strategy. Why else would you use Rising Waters over Winter Orb or Static Orb and why you would use Kismet and Frozen Aether over Tangle Wire. I would also place a little less dependence on your Enchantresses and play things like Necropotence and Rhystic Study. All of this is fine to do, I just want you to be aware of it and to be aware of it. Rule of thumb for stax decks, is that you want your average converted mana cost to be as close to 2 as possible.
Is Atraxa really the best Commander for this deck? I ask because, other than being a good beater (although Breya eats her all day if you don't have shroud), as it currently stands, she interacts with all of 2 non-land cards (both Wave and Tide). If you change nothing, then you might be better off going with Thrasios (Serra's Sanctum could draw you a lot of cards with him) and then Tymna just because.
I have a ton more to say, but I want to hear back on the above first. Keep in mind that yes, your deck may function and can win, however, you wouldn't have posted it here if you didn't want to make it better.
Thanks for the feedback. I edited my list. I have no idea how it ended up like that. It was a copy paste, but I rearranged things, so obviously I left off the ramp and stuff. It should be better now.
As you can see from my edited list, it does have Fertile Ground, along with a couple of other actual ramp cards. I took out Abundant Growth, being on the fence about it for some time. It fixes and draw another card, but most of the time it was less useful than Burgeoning or Exploration. I had originally wanted Natures Lore, Three Visits, Farseek, Into the North and Snow Basics, Sol Ring, Chromatic Lantern, and Green Sun's Zenith with Dryad Arbor. That is my ramp package that comes out of my Damia deck that I mostly stole from to make this. I decided to trade almost one-for-one with enchantment ramp. Maybe I will see how it runs with the sorcery ramp, taking out some enchantments.
I have found that my Enchantresses are a little saturated. I skipped the Necropotence due to wanting to keep black at just a splash, but the manabase supports it, so I don't really know why it bothered me. Rhystic Study is a very nice Tax, though. I may try out both. I could also bring in Tangle Wire and Winter Orb given their efficiency and Tangle Wire's interaction with Atraxa.
I also tried Bear Umbra and Sword of Feast and Famine as ways to break parity with the Stasis/Winter Orb resource denial, but removed them as things tilted toward the Enchantress shell, and away from Stax some.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll spend some time exploring.
Hello! What changes would you make to this to make it viable for 1v1 online? I love this deck idea but I can't play it against my local people, they would complain a lot and give me the "social contract" lectures...
In 1v1 I think this could have trouble assembling the lock fast enough. How many turns does it generally take you?
Thanks!
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Most people go with the counters theme for Atraxa due to her powerful Proliferate ability. When I saw her, I thought, holy cow, that is the craziest Serra Angel ever! With this in mind, I wanted to recreate my favorite Serra Angle Stasis Type 1 deck from back in 1994 when Type 1 meant something, but this time in the Commander format, not Legacy.
Key aspects of what was essentially a Legacy UW Control deck were Stasis and Kismet for a tap out lock, Serra Angel for the win, and Counterspell, Mana Drain, and Power Sink to traffic cop the game, Swords to Plowshares, Wrath of God, Maze of Ith, and Icy Manipulator to control the board, Disenchant for Enchantment and Artifact hate, and Winter Orb as an alternate Stasis. It was straightforward, but allowed for complicated game play. If it made it to turn 4, it usually won. It was my most powerful deck, and was my second favorite behind my low land Manabarbs Vice Elves deck. Good times, limited card pool, and Fallen Empires was the latest disappointment.
Now, MTG is practically infinite. It is fun to try to return to one of my all time favorites with another 22 years of expanded card pool. Atraxa strongly reminded me of my old deck, but Atraxa as your commander is so much better than Serra Angel in this combo. You always start with it in your hand, it is a full CMC cheaper, it has Lifelink and Deathtouch, it can be recast with the small addition of the Commander Tax, and if it gets countered/destroyed/exiled, you can just recast it later. You are part way to the combo at the start of every game, and having it as your Commander is like having a never ending supply of Serra Angels in your deck!
The evolution of MTG since 1994 has brought us replacements for key cards like Stasis and Kismet in the form of Rising Waters and Frozen Aether. With the addition of Skybind and Words of Wind, you can hold the Kismet/Stasis lock indefinitely. Add in some Parallax Wave/Parallax Tide/Starfield of Nix shenanigans, and you get an infinite mana loop to fuel it.
My Serra Angel Stasis deck was UW, but Atraxa brings BUGW. This opens up G for ramp, B for Tutors, and keeps UW for strong control. The way I have it brewed here, it is mostly Bant control with a splash of B for tutors.
Seeing all the Enchantments in the combo, I decided to swing it toward an Enchantress theme. This gave an incredible draw engine, and gave me multiple Tutors for key pieces. It was also pretty easy to replace all the control and Stax components with Enchantments, and eliminate most Instant, Sorcery, Creature, and Artifact elements of the basic deck. After pushing the Enchantress engine, the only important parts of the Atraxa Proliferate ability were for mana fixing through Mana Bloom, Tendo Ice Bridges, Aether Hub, and Gemstone Mine, and the Parallax cards. This may seem strange for many Atraxa brewers, but in this deck, she is a role player. She plays a stronger Serra Angel. Her Proliferate is only optimized as long as it doesn't take away from the Stasis lock or the Enchantress shell. It doesn't need all the other counter stuff to make it the perfect fit for this deck.
After getting the basic shell, I added some strategic cards to combat common deck archetypes. A large number of Tax effects like Ghostly Prison and Sphere of Safety synergize well with mana denial to defend against agro, especially those decks going wide. Detention Sphere is great against token decks as well. Kor Haven, Maze of Ith, and Song of the Dryads are good against Voltron strategies. Rest in Peace and Wheel of Sun and Moon are very nice graveyard hate. Seals of Cleansing and Primordium and Aura of Silence give the Artifact and Enchantment hate. The Parallaxes and a lot of generic nonland permanent removal cards make the control pretty flexible. A single Muddle the Mixture can help to stop some combo and also grabs us some key combo pieces of our own, and when combined with all the ramp, tutoring, and card draw allows us to keep pace with a lot of combo. Alternate wincons in the form of Test of Endurance can allow us to sidestep most strong defense, City of Solitude and Greater Auramancy hoses a lot of control, and when combined with all the recursion in the deck, allows us to power through most control.
Key synergies in the deck are:
1. Atraxa, Stasis/Rising Waters, and Kismet/Frozen Aether. There are multiple ways to get this lock to stick indefinitely, and even if it doesn't, you can often stall the game long enough to get a stronger combo out.
2. Sterling Grove and Starfield of Nyx. Repeatable tutoring for most of the deck. Tutor for the Grove first, and use the Grove to get Starfield. Recur the Grove, get whatever you need. Most of the time, you go after combo #3.
3. Parallax Tide, Parallax Wave, and Starfield of Nyx. Starfield makes both Parallaxes creatures, which can be exiled by Wave, which then brings both back into play with a full 5 Fade counters. This can be used to create infinite mana. With proper stack manipulation you can completely and permanently deny the opponent any mana or creatures. When you get this, you have won.
4. Energy Field with either Rest in Peace or Wheel of Sun and Moon means you cannot lose life.
5. All of the enchantresses with Abundance and ramp means that the deck can spew huge amounts of cards each turn. Sooner or later, you run into a win.
6. Test of Endurance with Atraxa, Herald of the Pantheon, or Words of Worship and a couple of Enchantresses out and you can explode your life total quickly, often leading to a win.
One of the strange things I have noticed with this deck is how often I use black tutors for lands. It seems silly until you realize that if you don't have land, you often have combo pieces instead, and if you just had land, you could get your engine up and running. A Vampiric Tutor into a Savannah, into and enchantress engine, into all the green enchantment ramp, into a wincon is a common game. I could increase the land, but limiting land helps with the Enchantress engine, and the flexibility of tutors to be either land or combo pieces more than makes up for the awkwardness. When I realized this, I was more comfortable cutting all the green sorcery ramp.
Another surprising thing I have noticed is how often Replenish is a dead draw. It is basically an auto-include, but since I am often aiming at the Sterling Grove and Starfield of Nyx combo, I often recur all the necessary pieces with Starfield, and Replenish just sits in my hand. It is amazing for those times when someone pulls off the Enchantment boardwipe, but they happen surprisingly infrequently. I have thought about cutting Replenish on multiple occasions, but the fact that I can regain everything lost to a boardwipe keeps it in there. Replenish and Argivian Find are in there to recover Starfield, since Starfield is the center of a lot of this deck. It can win without it, but it becomes much harder.
All in all, I find the deck to be fun, it can capture some of the feeling of my old type 1 Serra Angel Stasis deck, and has multiple engines for big wins. It can be interactive early, and then explode almost without warning. It is also very different from every other Atraxa deck I have seen. Thanks for looking.
1x Test of Endurance
1x Frozen AEther
1x Kismet
1x Parallax Tide
1x Parallax Wave
1x Rising Waters
1x Skybind
1x Stasis
1x Words of Wind
1x Argothian Enchantress
1x Eidolon of Blossoms
1x Enchantress's Presence
1x Herald of the Pantheon
1x Mesa Enchantress
1x Verduran Enchantress
1x Burgeoning
1x Exploration
1x Fertile Ground
1x Mana Bloom
1x Prismatic Omen
1x Sheltered Aerie
1x Urban Burgeoning
1x Utopia Sprawl
1x Weirding Wood
1x Wild Growth
1x Collective Restraint
1x Ghostly Prison
1x Propaganda
1x Sphere of Safety
1x Aura of Silence
1x Banishing Light
1x Detention Sphere
1x Grasp of Fate
1x Oath of Liliana
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Seal of Cleansing
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Song of the Dryads
1x Stasis Snare
1x Greater Auramancy
1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Rest in Peace
1x Solitary Confinement
1x Stony Silence
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
1x Words of Worship
1x Abundance
1x Archmage Ascension
1x Argivian Find
1x Cruel Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Idyllic Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Mirri's Guile
1x Muddle the Mixture
1x Plea for Guidance
1x Replenish
1x Starfield of Nyx
1x Sterling Grove
1x Sylvan Library
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
1x Tropical Island
1x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Breeding Pool
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Temple Garden
1x Watery Grave
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Flooded Strand
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Aether Hub
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Mana Confluence
1x Opal Palace
1x Reflecting Pool
1x Tendo Ice Bridge
1x Kor Haven
1x Krosan Verge
1x Maze of Ith
1x Serra's Sanctum
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
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On a less macro note, I don't see how you are able to do so well with Stasis (or I guess any of the resource denial cards) out considering you can't break parity with it. Are you just trying to draw more lands and hope they produce blue while Atraxa beats down or is it purely as a speed bump? If it is just a speed bump then you might want to try something else as your opponents will get to untap before you do.
What do you do if Atraxa gets removed from the equation?
There is a fair amount of ramp in the deck, despite what it seems, but it is all enchantment ramp. There are 8 actual ramp cards (enchantments, with Burgeoning and Exploration being amazing ramp in this deck), Krosan Verge also ramps for 1, Serra’s Sanctum ramps amazingly in this deck, there are 3 deck filter cards to streamline my land drops, 1 pure fixer enchantment, 1 enchantment that allows untapping a land on opponents’ turns, and the 4 black tutors for extra fixing when needed. It has seemed to work out well enough, even if it is pretty unconventional.
As for interacting with the stack, I would like to add some more counterspell ability, without diluting the Enchantress shell too much. Blue is probably the least played color in my meta, so it hasn’t been as bad as it could be, but adding some more stack interaction would be nice. As it is, Stasis Snare, the Seals, and Parallax Wave can all function at instant speed. I have thought about adding Ertai, I have just not sought one out to test with yet. If I find that I an getting blown away at instant speed, I will add in Ertai.
Breaking parity with resource denial is actually not as hard as you think. The pillow fort cards quickly make attacking me the suboptimal play, and this means players decide between letting me continue to build and swimming upstream. Even if I am unable to maintain it indefinitely through Urban Burgeoning or Mana Bloom, the Stasis/Rising Waters resource denial can be made less painful with the enchantment ramp, Serra’s Sanctum, Enchantress combined with Burgeoning/Exploration, or even carefully used Parallax Wave with Starfield of Nyx or a Seal to remove it just prior to my turn. Even when I am just waiting to draw blue lands, with 3 deck filters, it works a fair amount of the time.
Taking Atraxa out of the equation is not a really as big of a deal as you seem to imply. Stasis lock without her usually ends up stalling me into a position that I can stop drawing cards (Words of Worship or Wheel of Sun and Moon), get off an infinite combo, win with Test of Endurance or Starfield of Nyx overrun, or get Atraxa back. Even if it doesn’t last forever, it can stall for quite a while, and this can get me into a better position anyway. Atraxa damage, Starfield of Nyx Opalescence type overrun, Test of Endurance, and even decking someone are all ways I have won with it. I do lose, but it often happens after I have become the Archenemy, and that is OK.
I guess I can open it up to you, if you have suggestions that could make it stronger. You have identified ramping speed, stack interaction, and wincons as problems you see for this deck. Given that I would like to maintain the colors and Commander, the resource denial and pillow fort type control, and the Enchantress shell, what would you do to make it better? Do you have anything that would change it with a couple of cards, or are you still struggling with the entire deck concept? As it stands, it functions, it can win, and I think it will probably end up evolving my meta to account for it as is.
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In regards to ramp, there is no Exploration, Burgeoning, Mana Bloom, or Urban Burgeoning (though UR isn't ramp) in the decklist above, so my comment about needing more still stands (additionally, there are two instances of Aura of Silence). Keep in mind that the above cards, while enchantments, aren't as effective at ramping as you might think. Sure, they can be great if you draw them turn one (though they can potentially prompt you to keep weaker hands), but they are rather inconsistent; you always know what will happen with a Sol Ring, Burgeoning and Exploration not so much. Also, Krosan Verge is so slow that I really cannot consider that ramp. Serra's Sanctum is not consistent ramp either as it does nothing on an empty board. If you want more ramp, but want them to be enchantments, I would suggest Fertile Ground and Abundant Growth.
Yea you want some form of counters and removal: you will thank me when someone casts Merciless Eviction naming enchantments or when someone zings a Blightsteel Colossus at you. With that in mind, you should take out City of Solitude as the only time that card is good is if you are up against a heavy counter deck or if you are looking to combo off. For the record, the majority of enchantment based removal is pretty awful: being able to remove the enchantment and get your car back is too big of a downside.
As for breaking resource denial, as I mentioned before, Urban Burgeoning and Mana Bloom are not in the list above, and even if they were, they aren't the best cards to use for that purpose, especially as they only break it with a single card in your deck (I removed them from my list ages ago). They are, however, the only way enchantment based way to break parity, which appears to be a trend. The whole deck seems to be more worried about maintaining a high enchantment density rather than the effectiveness of the cards being used/the strategy. Why else would you use Rising Waters over Winter Orb or Static Orb and why you would use Kismet and Frozen Aether over Tangle Wire. I would also place a little less dependence on your Enchantresses and play things like Necropotence and Rhystic Study. All of this is fine to do, I just want you to be aware of it and to be aware of it. Rule of thumb for stax decks, is that you want your average converted mana cost to be as close to 2 as possible.
Is Atraxa really the best Commander for this deck? I ask because, other than being a good beater (although Breya eats her all day if you don't have shroud), as it currently stands, she interacts with all of 2 non-land cards (both Wave and Tide). If you change nothing, then you might be better off going with Thrasios (Serra's Sanctum could draw you a lot of cards with him) and then Tymna just because.
I have a ton more to say, but I want to hear back on the above first. Keep in mind that yes, your deck may function and can win, however, you wouldn't have posted it here if you didn't want to make it better.
As you can see from my edited list, it does have Fertile Ground, along with a couple of other actual ramp cards. I took out Abundant Growth, being on the fence about it for some time. It fixes and draw another card, but most of the time it was less useful than Burgeoning or Exploration. I had originally wanted Natures Lore, Three Visits, Farseek, Into the North and Snow Basics, Sol Ring, Chromatic Lantern, and Green Sun's Zenith with Dryad Arbor. That is my ramp package that comes out of my Damia deck that I mostly stole from to make this. I decided to trade almost one-for-one with enchantment ramp. Maybe I will see how it runs with the sorcery ramp, taking out some enchantments.
I have found that my Enchantresses are a little saturated. I skipped the Necropotence due to wanting to keep black at just a splash, but the manabase supports it, so I don't really know why it bothered me. Rhystic Study is a very nice Tax, though. I may try out both. I could also bring in Tangle Wire and Winter Orb given their efficiency and Tangle Wire's interaction with Atraxa.
I also tried Bear Umbra and Sword of Feast and Famine as ways to break parity with the Stasis/Winter Orb resource denial, but removed them as things tilted toward the Enchantress shell, and away from Stax some.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll spend some time exploring.
WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!
In 1v1 I think this could have trouble assembling the lock fast enough. How many turns does it generally take you?
Thanks!