MTG Salvation

I recently put together a deck with Teysa, Orzhov Scion at the helm and I'm looking to make it a bit better. In the few times I played it I managed to establish a good lock and beat down with tokens and planeswalkers, however a few times I ended up dead in the water. I haven't played it enough to make any definitive statements about its viability, but I assume it could always be a little better. This is my first EDH stax deck, although I do have a lot of experience with Armageddon-Stax in Legacy.



I think my first question is: how much card draw and smoothing should I run? I am an avid supporter of Night's Whisper and similar, but I found that I was casting those spells to find stax pieces and making my lock too slowly.

I know I should be running more fetches in place of Terramorphic Expanse/Evolving Wilds. I will add those in once I get them.

How useful is Land Tax in a stax deck? I noticed I was usually the one with the most lands when I was winning and when I didn't have the most lands I was probably losing or in a bad position anyway.

My deck does not have any hand control outside Pox; I'm mostly focused on board control and mana denial. Is it necessary to include some hand control as well?


Any other advice would be welcome. Thanks.

From what I can gleam from your list above, your deck seems overextended in terms of the stax mechanic. You have lots of good cards but no real way for them to really shine with your commander. Teysa, Orzhov Scion needs consistent fodder of tokens to be powerful but there are no cheap token producing cards in the deck, really. Best case scenario, you either naturally draw and play Elspeth, Sun's Champion and can consistently use your commander's exile ability or you're kind of stuck. You have to maintain an abundance of sac targets to break the symmetry of stax effects. secure the wastes seems like an excellent pick for your deck because it's instant speed and immediate ability to utilize Teysa, Orzhov Scion. Martial Coup might also be quite a nice choice. I'm sure there's some janky combos that can be pulled off with cards like darkest hour and Celestial Dawn to a certain extent. Perhaps, intangible virtue + heartless summoning and an infinite recursion loop. Like I said, janky, but could work.

There's a much easier combo involving Reveillark+ karmic guide that would give you infinite tokens in conjunction with darkest hour.

Quote from wbrooksga »

From what I can gleam from your list above, your deck seems overextended in terms of the stax mechanic. You have lots of good cards but no real way for them to really shine with your commander. Teysa, Orzhov Scion needs consistent fodder of tokens to be powerful but there are no cheap token producing cards in the deck, really. Best case scenario, you either naturally draw and play Elspeth, Sun's Champion and can consistently use your commander's exile ability or you're kind of stuck. You have to maintain an abundance of sac targets to break the symmetry of stax effects. secure the wastes seems like an excellent pick for your deck because it's instant speed and immediate ability to utilize Teysa, Orzhov Scion. Martial Coup might also be quite a nice choice. I'm sure there's some janky combos that can be pulled off with cards like darkest hour and Celestial Dawn to a certain extent. Perhaps, intangible virtue + heartless summoning and an infinite recursion loop. Like I said, janky, but could work.

My plan was to primarily use Teysa's black creatures spawn white creatures mechanic as a way to break symmetry. So I have Bitterblossom, two Sorins, Ophiomancer, Bloodghast, and Reassembling Skeleton for this. I chose to forego Darkest Hour because it shuts off my removal ability and I don't want a dead card outside of the combo, although I may end up adding it in the future.

Quote from elfric »

land tax isnt as good here as in blue control decks.
there is nothing completely wrong with your deck.
its just alot of tiny things one CAN but doesnt need to do. alot of cards can be replaced with staples but overdoing that can remove a certain decks flavor.
upgrading the manabase isnt as easy in orzhov but no other archetype suffers more from a suboptimal build than a stax deck.
not necessary the holy grail mana crypt but atleast vampiric tutor should be played. demonic consultation can add consistency as gemstone caverns adds speed.

I was thinking about adding Diabolic Intent and Vampiric. In my experience with Gemstone Caverns, it is inconsistent at best. I might run Chrome Mox, but I have a lot of colorless.

Quote from elfric »

odd cards in your list:
gate to phyrexia - you play white so this isnt needed (even if recurrable)
sorin, Solemn Visitor - doesnt add to the deck
Blasting Station - you do not play darkest hour so it just is a durdle synergy card. but not providing to the lockplan.

Gate to Phyrexia has been an allstar. It allows me to surgically remove mana rocks and has been a big player in the gmaes I've won (almost as good as Aura of Silence/Sun Titan). Sorin, Solemn Visitor is one that I'm on the fence about. What originally drew me to this was the one-sided The Abyss after only 2 turns. However my only experience with him so far is as an anthem. I might replace it with Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Blasting Station was a last minute addition. I found I was a little light on sac outlets and I thought I'd try it out, if I don't end up throwing in a Darkest Hour I will most likely replace this with an Ashnod's Altar.

Quote from elfric »

if you want to streamline even further you can cut the top heavy cards (good if you can cut off mana pretty often)
sun titan and else are good cards no question but do they do enough here OR can you resolve them reliable?
for example in my alesha, who smiles at death (a near orzhov list) the curve includes one 5, one 6 and one 7 mana card but only because i can reanimate them for less often. otherwise the cards manacost stops at 4.the lower your curve and the better the manabase (optimal lands and rocks) the more efiicient you can attack your opponents.
brimaz (the legend) is one mana cheaper than hero of bladehold but fullfills the same role...

The average mana cost is 2.8, that seems okay. I am thinking about removing World Queller to lower this a bit, but 6 mana does not seem unreasonable with my 15 mana rocks. I have Elspeth, Sun's Champion/Sun Titan at 6 and Tragic Arrogance/World Queller/Nahiri, the Lithomancer at 5.

Quote from elfric »

do you face combo decks?
if not path to exile might be not good as it gives mana.
do you face green creature decks?
run perish to swing the board into your favor.

Most of the decks I see are white or green, this is a good idea. Not many combo decks in my meta, which is why I also decided to leave Thalia out for now.

Quote from elfric »

catastrophe is another good wipe as you choose lands if you'r ahead and creatures if behind

if you have time and mana to use mikokoro you probably do not move into winning postition or are already there.
drownyard temple is a good new card.

I do like Catastrophe, but I was thinking that wrath effects at 6 mana was too much. In any case, I would definitely want to cut out some of the other high drops.

Quote from elfric »

number of lands seems ok
number of mana rocks seems ok
you have no taxers - is it intentional? they help finishing a lock or slow down the game.

I have Kismet and Aura of Silence. Although I realize I should be playing Lodestone Golem. As I mentioned above, a lot of my meta is creature heavy, so Thalia is less useful than something like Torpor Orb for slowing things down.




Thanks for the advice.

Made some changes:

-1 Blasting Station
-1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
-1 Tragic Arrogance
-1 Kismet

+1 Drownyard Temple
+1 Lingering Souls
+1 Vampiric Tutor
+1 Lodestone Golem