Note to readers: This thread has been necro'd several times over the years by people looking for updates, so I'd like to clearly state that this decklist has been mostly retired. I may occasionally update it now and then just for fun but I'm no longer playing Nath as frequently as I used to. For the reasoning behind the retirement, please see the posts.
As represented in the eponymous Lorwyn block, the plane of Lorwyn is a world dominated by tribal factions. Some of these tribes, like faeries and kithkin, were relatively newly-explored in the history of magic--while other tribes, like goblins and elves, reach back all the way to the beginning of Magic: The Gathering.
The Gilt-Leaf clan of elves was the strongest and most influential of elf clans on Lorwyn. Their capital stronghold was called Lys Alana. The tribe was known for its masterful hunters, which not only functioned as hunters in the traditional sense but also as the Gilt-Leaf's military force. The tribe was also known more darkly for its extreme obsession with beauty; while all elf cultures value art and beauty to some extent, the Gilt-Leaf clan went so far as to develop a caste system based solely on the beauty of each being on Lorwyn: at the top were Perfects, elves whose beauty was unparalleled and who functioned as aristocrats and courtiers, and at the bottom were Eyeblights, foul (i.e. non-elf) races or disfigured elves who were deemed so ugly as to be persecuted and killed. Elves are traditionally associated with G mana for their connections to nature, but the ruthless and elitist ethos of the Gilt-Leaf tribe leads to the addition of B mana, as represented in Gilt-Leaf Palace.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf was a taercenn, a superior commander of the Gilt-Leaf hunters, the highest possible rank achievable. By the in-lore time period that was the setting of Lorwyn block, Nath's natural beauty had already faded because of his advanced age, and so he had begun using a powerful, undetectable enchantment to hide his wizened features and to preserve his rank and status. Nath was known for his utter ruthlessness, killing on the spot any of his subordinates who failed him and orchestrating raids even on peaceful Eyeblight tribes. One day, during one of Nath's raids on a goblin settlement, the goblins began to overpower the elves. One of Nath's subordinate generals, Rhys, in a desperate attempt to save the raid force from crushing defeat, tapped into powerful, forbidden magicks, and the ensuing explosion of energy wiped out both armies. Only Nath, Gryffid (another general), and Rhys survived; however, Rhys's proximity to the blast left him grievously wounded. Following this disaster, Rhys fled into the wilderness of Lorwyn, knowing that he would face persecution for both his usage of forbidden magic and for his disfigurement should he return to Lys Alana.
Nath, deeming Rhys an Eyeblight and kin-slayer, vowed to hunt down and kill him. A series of cat-and-mouse conflicts led to a final one-on-one showdown: Nath badly wounded Rhys, but the renegade ultimately prevailed and killed Nath. Gryffid found Nath's corpse and became the only elf to ever look upon his true, wizened face, as Nath's beautifying aura fizzled when he died. Gryffid, still faithful to his deceased superior, quickly burned Nath's corpse so as to forevermore preserve the secret of the taercenn's true appearance.
In-game, Nath's two abilities are reflective of his colors more than his lore: B, which has associations with discard effects, and G, which has associations with token-producing effects.
==The Quest for the Ultimate Stax== ==or, "Why Nath?"==
Anyone who's played stax in EDH before knows that there are countless commanders in a rainbow of colors who can support the archetype, ranging from mono-W and mono-B through complete WUBRG.
Indeed, as a wise man once said:
Quote from A Wise Man »
Almost any deck, build just so, can be a stax deck.
This is certainly exemplified here on the forums. Just scrolling through Multiplayer Commander Decklists section will hint at the wide variety of available stax commanders, and every once in a while a thread will crop up in the Commander general forum inquiring "Which colors are best for stax?" or "Which commander is best for stax?"
My goal with this deck, however, was not to design "any deck, built just so." For me, that simply doesn't cut it. I revel in the challenge of optimization, of creating the best deck for the job, one that beats the meta, one that you can take to a tournament and achieve victory. Even though some will call my deck "mean" or "unfun," I will have considered my work a success insofar that I have engineered greatness, a veritable paragon, or at least something close to it.
After a lengthy decision process, including drafting several different stax lists and trying them all out, I settled on Nath to be the frontman for my project. Here's why, in my humble opinion, Nath is the most fitting candidate for a competitively-optimized stax deck, and why he shows all those other stax commanders who's boss:
Nath's colors are superior:G provides the best tokens. land ramp, and creature tutors in the game (remember, many of our stax cards are creatures, like Braids, Cabal Minion and Magus of the Abyss); and B provides the best general-purpose tutors, card advantage, and stax effects in the game to capitalize on those tokens. Additionally, green removes our dependency on artifact ramp, which will be addressed in the next bullet. Mono-B stax like Anowon, the Ruin Sage lack efficient token producers; mono-W (Hokori) , WU (GAAIV), WB (Teysa) and others have fewer token troubles but can't ramp as fast as we can without relying heavily on artifacts and nonbasics.
Nath is simply bicolored: By this point I'm sure many of you are saying, "But what about white?" Yes, we don't run white. But that's because we don't need white. I'm going to make a bold claim here (which I encourage you to challenge me on) and say that for almost anything important that white can give us, we already have it in black and green. Forget Mobilization; we've got Awakening Zone. Forget Wrath of God; we've got Damnation. Forget Armageddon; we've got Contamination and Desolation. And here's the kicker: being bicolored means we have a straightforward mana base. We don't need mana-fixing artifacts or countless nonbasics like those Esper-, Jund-, Grixis-, or Rock-colored stax decks like Sharuum stax, Sek'kuar, Thrax, or Ghave stax, respectively. Thus we can punish the meta with a brutal Contamination + Null Rod mana lock that other stax decks can't run (and besides that, we're nigh immune to Blood Moon and Ruination from pesky red splashers).
Both of Nath's abilities are directly relevant to stax: Nath is himself a fodder generator, as his ability produces an elf token on each of your upkeeps, assuming at least one of your opponents has a card in hand. But most importantly--and this is where he is unique from other typical stax commanders--he greatly rewards hand disruption effects, namely discard. With a multiplayer discard effect like Bottomless Pit, Nath can generate 3+ tokens before your next upkeep as early as turn 5, allowing you to easily and consistently sustain utterly backbreaking stax locks, like The Abyss + Grave Pact + Call to the Grave on the field at the same time, or like a Smokestack set to 3, 4 or even 5+ counters--all while disrupting your opponents' hands at the same time, all before T6. No other commander offers abilities that directly and easily facilitate stax gameplan in such a significant manner, even within GB (compare the more difficult-to-use Savra and the more limited Glissa).
Nath is an elf: He and the tokens he produces possess one of the most synergistic creature types in the game, which means he receives the full benefit from tribal cards like Imperious Perfect, and aggro is well within his reach as a backup plan to stax. Moreover, even outside of competitive stax, he's perfectly viable in more casual metas as a G/b elf tribal commander. Nath's access to B provides potent removal, tutor, and card draw options, areas in which his mono-G elf brethren like Ezuri, Renegade Leader tend to flounder.
If you're still on the fence about playing Nath, or if that list was a little too verbose for you, here's a more compacted version of his pros and cons in the format you'll find in other primers.
You may enjoy Nath if:
you enjoy stax as an archetype.
you enjoy discard as an archetype.
you like a commander that can be built in more than one way.
you want to freshen up your competitive meta with a nonblue deck.
you keep a TI calculator, smartphone, or laptop handy when you play MTG (will be explained :))
You may not enjoy Nath if:
you like infinite combo victories.
you don't like denying your opponents resources so they can't play.
you or your playgroup forbids discard as an "unfun" strategy.
you don't want to deal with inconvenience of RNG access.
you like longer games (10+ turns). This deck is built to secure a very strong softlock fast (t5-8), even against 3+ opponents.
The good and bad news for me as I attempt to build the ultimate stax is that my playgroup is competitive. We intentionally advertise ourselves as a competitive playgroup, and we enjoy hosting tournaments with prizes on the line to encourage people to build their best decks and get their game on.
In recent months, my metagame has grown highly stagnant with mono-blue or blue-based combo decks--naturally people trend toward the tried-and-true, proven-strong commanders I call the "fearsome five": alphabetically, Arcum Dagsson, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Hermit Druid, Sharuum the Hegemon, and Zur the Enchanter, with more-than-occasional appearances from other combo stars Animar, Ghave, and Riku.
Therefore, the side-objective of my quest is to promote the health and diversity of my metagame while still maintaining the competitive mindset that we very much enjoy. I've been trying to introduce new, viable archetypes into the competitive lineup that don't require U, including stax. In fact, as of a few weeks ago at the time I write this I even managed to convince my playgroup to socially "unban" Braids, Cabal Minion. My concern with Braids at this point in time, however, is that she's still on the official banlist, and so I fear that the more budget-minded players in my group wouldn't build her even though she is legal knowing that they couldn't take their Braids deck anywhere but to our playgroup--so for the purposes of my quest, I'm restricting myself to legal commanders.
The plan is to get group stax/discard effects up and running quickly enough to thwart combo decks like Sharuum, Arcum, Azami, et al. before they get rolling. That means I'm usually on a T8 clock at absolute latest, and certain cards that would normally be OK in Nath like Myojin of Night's Reach, Painful Laundry, and so forth just won't cut it here.
I also made a banner, because I make amateur banners in my spare time, and because I've always wanted to crop out the llama thing from Nath of the Gilt-Leaf's art and have Nath be riding on Sadistic Hypnotist instead.
Without further ado, here's my decklist as it currently stands:
(The colors of the steps correspond with the color of the arrows in the image above.)
Step 1: For the opening turns, tutor for and ramp into a stax piece, ideally Smokestack, ideally before T4.
Step 2: Resolve fodder producers, ideally including Nath, to balance the immediate reciprocal impact of your stax piece.
Step 3: Lock down the game. Use discard support to drain your opponents' hands while providing fuel (via Nath's ability) to crank up stax to crazy levels. Denial cards like Null Rod, Chains of Mephistopheles, and Nether Void help to tighten softlocks into hardlocks and to secure a victory.
Please note that these steps indicate a list of priorities, and while they'll often be performed in chronological order, they need not necessarily be so. For example, if your meta is replete with 5c decks or explosive combo decks (ex: Arcum Dagsson, Sharuum the Hegemon), both of which usually rely heavily on mana rocks and artifacts to accelerate and fix their mana, it will certainly be a more debilitating play to tutor into and drop down Null Rod as a first priority.
In a vacuum, Nath of the Gilt-Leaf spits out a token on your upkeep, just like Bitterblossom or Awakening Zone or Creakwood Liege. He can support a single stax effect all by himself. For his price of 3BG, though, he better do something more than just that; thankfully, he does indeed live up to his price. The reason he's so strong is twofold:
His own discard ability is random discard.
He turns all discard effects into permanent generation.
In order to really understand how to play Nath, it's important to understand both of these concepts. For those of you who are unfamiliar with random discard or the stax archetype (of which cheap permanent generation is a critical component), I strongly advise you to read the spoiler'd sections below prior to moving on to the rest of the primer. The rest of you who are already familiar with these concepts may skip the following two sections and proceed directly to the in-depth strategy.
Understanding Random Discard
Newer players to Magic might be wholly unfamiliar with random discard. It was reasonably common in the early days of Magic, but in the last few years it's appeared on only a handful of cards. This is an intentional endeavor on the part of Wizards R&D:
Quote from MaRo »
This style of discard has fallen out of favor in R&D. While we still make them every once in a while, they're rather rare. Why? Because experience showed us that random discard tended to really annoy players. Players actually preferred losing a card of their opponent's choice than losing one to the whim of fate. The opponent might mess up, but you can't fool fate. (Well maybe for a little while, but as the “Twilight Zone” has taught us, never for very long.) Anyway, R&D realized that it annoyed players so we consciously chose to dial it back. [source]
Put in other words, people felt that random discard was too "unfun," leading players on the receiving end to feel like they lost their game due to chance and not to skill.
As MaRo implies, however, the unpredictability of random discard is exactly what makes it so powerful: "you can't fool fate." Take a look at traditional discard effects like Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, and even the extremely-powerful Thoughtseize; observe that these effects all have restrictions on what card can be chosen, including most commonly the restriction that only nonland cards may be chosen.
Now take a look at random discard effects like Hymn to Tourach, Mind Twist, and Hypnotic Specter. Notice the difference? There's no restrictions. Random discard can hit any card in an opponent's hand, even their lands. A good Hymn or Twist can therefore turn a playable hand into a completely unplayable hand, utterly ruining the target's earlygame.
Granted, in multiplayer, single-target discard isn't nearly as powerful as it is in the 20 life formats, as you can only pick one opponent to screw over. As a result, most of the random discard cards you'll find in my deck are actually in the sideboard, to be switched in when you happen to be playing in a one-on-one. That said, Nath's ability is random discard, and Bottomless Pit is great multiplayer random discard (and should always be run mainboard), so you should still be familiar with why random discard is so powerful.
You also have to be familiar with how to achieve random discard in game. Consider three methods which I've seen used in the past and try to figure out which one is correct:
The target shuffles his hand, lays the cards face down without looking at them, and chooses which ones to discard.
You shuffle your target's hand without looking at it and you choose which cards to discard.
Your target lays his hand face down, closes his eyes, lays his finger on the table, and that card is discarded.
Could you guess which one? It's a trick question. In fact, all of these three options are flawed. Even if you or your target shuffles his hand, you or he might still be able to remember which cards were in which spot, and your choice might not be actually random. As a general rule of thumb, if either you or your opponent are choosing cards at any time, whether they're face-down, shuffled, whatever, your system probably actually isn't random.
So how DO you ensure randomness? You need to number the cards in the target's hand and then use an RNG, a device or program that generates truly unbiased, random numbers (or pretty close to random). If you're a student, your TI calculator comes equipped with one in the [RandInt(x,y,z)] command; otherwise, there's innumerable online sources or smartphone apps which do the job just as well. When the hand size is 6 or fewer, you can roll a die; when the hand size is 2, you can flip a coin.
So if you target me with Hymn to Tourach and I had 7 cards in my hand, I'd lay my hand face-down on the table and number the cards one to seven. I'd then use an RNG to generate two random integers between 1 and 7 (if I were using the RandInt command on a TI calculator, my entry would be [RandInt(1,7,2)] ), and the cards to which those generated integers corresponded would be revealed and discarded per Hymn's effect.
This is why I mentioned above that it's helpful to have an RNG device like a TI calculator with you when you're playing Nath, as you'll have to be using it at least once on each of your upkeeps while your commander is on the field, and at least once on every upkeep when Bottomless Pit is out.
Understanding Stax
What is stax?
Put simply, stax is a deck archetype (like combo, aggro, or pillowfort) that aims to lock its opponents out of the game by draining their resources in play while simultaneously restricting their ability to generate new resources. The eponymous card of the archetype, Smokestack, is the quintessential example of the first part, as it steadily drains all players' permanents. Nether Void is an excellent example of the second part, as it places a heavy burden on casting new spells to generate more permanents.
Of course, stax cards like Smokestack and Nether Void also affect us, the stax players ourselves. However, we are able to negate the reciprocal effect by playing cheap and efficient permanent generators like Bitterblossom, Crucible of Worlds, and Nath himself; these cards produce a fixed amount of fodder each turn that we can sacrifice. Thus, as a stax player, we find ourselves constantly trying to maintain a balance between our permanent drain and our permanent generation, and in order to play stax to its fullest, most brutal capacity, you'll need to develop a mastery of this balance.
Here's a helpful tip. When you're playing stax, at all times of the game you want to keep track of two numbers in your head:
Your "stax value," the number of permanents you (and your opponents) will sacrifice next turn.
Your "fodder value," the number of fodder permanents (almost always tokens) you'll produce next turn.
When your stax value and fodder value are equal, you'll suffer no reciprocal harm from your stax effects (though of course if you're using Crucible of Worlds as a fodder generator, you're forfeiting your land drop). When your stax value is higher than your fodder value, you're in an unsustainable position--not that that's inherently a bad thing, since you can keep playing cards from your hand to survive in the short run, it's simply that after a few turns you'll be in a sticky spot unless you raise your fodder value to restore balance.
With these two terms defined, you can now think of every card in the deck as carrying its own stax value or fodder value. For example, The Abyss, Call to the Grave, and Braids, Cabal Minion each add one to your stax value (of course this simplified rubric doesn't consider that certain stax effects demand certain types of permanents be sacrificed, like The Abyss demands creatures only--but that's easy for you to figure out on your own). Smokestack adds +X to your stax value, where X is the number of counters on it. Similarly, Bitterblossom and Awakening Zone each add +1 to your fodder value. Reassembling Skeleton adds +1 to your fodder value so long as you keep spending 1B on your upkeep to pay for his ability.
Looking at the deck in this manner, the power of our commander becomes more obvious (I'll reiterate this later, but while we're on the topic I'll say it here also). Nath of the Gilt-Leaf's second ability spits out a token whenever an opponent discards a card. While he's in play, therefore, Necrogen Mists and Cunning Lethemancer, which would normally have zero fodder value, now provide +X fodder value, where X is the number of opponents at the table who have cards in their hand. This is a huge bonus on top of these cards' already-strong discard effects, and the insane fodder values you can achieve through this method (especially at larger tables) allows you to easily maintain large stax values of 4 or more.
Step 1: Tutor + ramp into a stax piece
Stax is all about tempo. As the game advances, your opponents have more resources available (e.g. more lands, more mana rocks, etc.), and so it becomes progressively more difficult to "reel in" these resources and to keep your opponents under a softlock. This is why throwing down Braids, Cabal Minion on T3 is deadly, but throwing down Braids on T6 is only mildly threatening, particularly in a competitive meta where most decks are already assembling an infinite combo by T6.
Arguably the most important part of the match for us, therefore, is actually the earliest phase of the game, our opening four turns. As a rule of thumb, try to get a stax effect in your hand prior to T4, because T4 is the latest we want to play that effect. It is vitally important to mulligan properly in order to make this happen. In my decklist, I run the full assortment of ≤3 CMC, B tutors, even the more obscure ones like Grim Tutor and Cruel Tutor. While many of these tutors are highly expensive $$$-wise, I encourage you to run as many as you can afford in your own decklist, because they really do drastically increase the number of keepable opening hands.
You'll notice, however, that even the cheapest of the stax effects we run cost 4 mana, and some even cost 5 mana. How can we reliably cast a stax effect on or before T4, then? Stax decks in all formats have grappled with this problem. In Vintage and Legacy, stax decks employ cards like Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, and Sphere of Resistance to slow down opponents' mana curves in the opening turns. But in Nath, we have G at our disposal--so instead of slowing down our opponents' curves, we instead use mana ramp to speed up our own curve.
The mana ramp we use can easily be segregated into three categories based on their CMC:
1 CMC ramp spells, which facilitate 3+ mana on turn 2
2 CMC ramp spells, which facilitate 4+ mana on turn 3
3 CMC ramp spells, which facilitate 5+ mana on turn 4
Each of these ramp spells allow you to reach the next level of your curve one turn faster. For example, playing Birds of Paradise T1 allows you to play Grim Tutor on T2 instead of on T3 when you'd normally play it. Now, any of you who are familiar with land ramp--which I presume is just about all of you--will be saying "Well that's obvious!" Yes, that part is obvious; the point, though, is that with a T2 Grim Tutor, you can play a T3 Smokestack, which means you'll sacrifice one permanent on T4 and two permanents on T5. Casting Nath will cover the first 'Stack counter, but will you have a token producer or discard effect ready to keep up with your growing 'Stack? Or will you take a hit to your lands? Where will your opponents be at that time? Due to the fact that our opening turns are entirely about setting ourselves up for our powerful midgame, from as early as T0 you constantly have to be thinking ahead in all of your plays. That's the take-home message from this past discourse.
OK, so you get the picture: you're ramping up into a stax effect ASAP, but...which stax effect do you tutor out first? After all, not all stax effects are created equal: The Abyss hits only non-artifact, targetable creatures; Braids, Cabal Minion hits only artifacts, creatures, and lands; Smokestack hits everything but takes a full turn to come online.
The fact of the matter is that all stax effects are powerful in their own way, and actually certain stax effects are stronger against certain archetypes or commanders (more on this later in the "Card-by-Card Analysis" section). For this reason, as the game progresses you'll actually want to mix up the varieties of stax on the table. However, for your initial tutor, it's almost always best to fetch the eponymous Smokestack, particularly if you're confident you can cast it on T3 or T4. Smokestack is unique among stax cards in that it can be "cranked up" on each of your upkeeps by adding another counter, which is particularly outstanding for us since our token production will usually escalate rapidly as we move into the midgame. Indeed, we can often pump out 3, 4, or even 5 fodder permanents by the time T5 or T6 rolls around, which is simply bonkers, and we want to take the most advantage as possible of that fact.
Of course now we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, talking about the midgame in the earlygame section of the primer. But, then, that's what we're supposed to be doing--always thinking ahead, always keeping our eye on the midgame. That's stax for you.
Anyway, enough semantics; let's address the midgame more directly in Steps 2 and 3.
Step 2: Resolve fodder producers (including Nath)
"Why resolve token producers after our stax effects?" you might ask. "If we play stax effects before our token producers, won't that hurt us?" While it might seem more intuitive to start pumping tokens prior to playing stax cards in order to be fully protected against reciprocal damage, the opposite is actually true. Again, the earlier you play a stax effect, the better--and so it's almost always better to take a small hit to your mana base or your permanents by playing your stax cards before your fodder producers (and then catching up on fodder later) rather than wasting valuable time plopping down the fodder producers first.
Similar to our stax effects, not all fodder producers are created equal. Some, like Bitterblossom, churn out a token automatically (and compulsorily) every upkeep; others, like Reassembling Skeleton, require some manipulation or even a mana deductible. I'll discuss in-depth the strengths and weaknesses of each of these fodder producers in the "Card-by-Card Analysis" section later on.
As it turns out, though, our commander is also a fodder producer, and in fact our commander is the most important fodder producer in the deck. He's always available to us since he sits in our Command Zone; he's easily ramped into thanks to the 3 in his cost; he can be made immune to countermagic with Cavern of Souls; and most importantly, he synergizes extremely well--sometimes even infinitely--with any discard effect. Even if you have several token producers on the field already, it's almost always a good play to resolve Nath, because he's a critical stepping stone toward developing a strong softlock (a "firmlock," if you will :)).
Step 3: Lock down the game
Now we're in the midgame, around T4 or T5. You should have at least 1 stax effect online, most likely Smokestack, at least one fodder producer online, most likely Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, and plenty of mana to throw around.
TO BE CONTINUED!!?!
==Elf Tribal Variant==
I don't play this variant decklist as often as the decklist above since this one's too casual for my meta, but to fully do justice to Nath I had to theorycraft, playtest, and post it here anyway as an example of the taercenn as an elf tribal commander, since he's easily one of the most popular choices for the job besides Ezuri, Renegade Leader. Whereas keeping Ezuri in the Command Zone allows you to more quickly develop the dreaded "elfball" to swing for victory, Nath provides access to B, which gives you the best tutors, card advantage, and removal in the game--all areas in which mono-G normally struggles. The end result is a deck that's significantly more consistent, if slightly slower, in its victories compared to Ezuri.
Just throwing this decklist here for now with a few quick notes. It's currently very early in the morning where I live and I'm nodding off as I type this, so I'll beautify and expand this thread later tomorrow when I have the time.
My budget is not to be considered (my group allows proxies), nor is "meanness," my playgroup is competitive and we play mean like it's going out of style.
Contamination is in the sideboard. Some matchups a contamination lock ends the game immediately, other games a contamination lock doesn't actually faze anyone because, for example, they already have mana rocks to fix to their other colors or something.
oppression is mean and stings response decks, and you can even get fun little tricks out of it, like casting animate dead in order to bring back the card you discard to it.
I think your core is pretty strong though. There's a primer I believe called "Death Cloud 9" on here that's probably better for general purposes (Mines built for drazi's) It's less gimicky than mine, so be sure to look at that one too.
Not sure if your building this for multiplayer or single player, but I have a Nath deck I built to play Eldrazis, I suggest you take a look at it
OK, this is my fault for posting a deck early in the morning when I was too tired to say anything about it and the kind of help I'm looking for. I'm sorry about that. Today I had the time to revisit this thread and fix the OP to be more reflective of my situation. I'll still respond to your comments, though.
I think your main weakness here is your targeted discard; it's cute, but ultimately less effective than group squeeze/discard.
In my meta games never go past T9-T10 and almost all the decks are combo, who only need to play a limited number of spells to win anyway (or they'll gladly pay all the life they need to on their combo turn since they'll be winning on the spot). I'm not sold on the targeted discard, either, but the way I'm reasoning it out right now, I'd rather screw the leading player's hand with a single-target spell than screw nobody's hand with Oppression, Quandary, etc.
The ideal discard is like Bottomless Pit; it hits everyone, it keeps on working, and it's random--but alas, there can be only one.
oppression is mean and stings response decks, and you can even get fun little tricks out of it, like casting animate dead in order to bring back the card you discard to it.
Since your running a discard deck, your going to be playing the graveyard too
Reanimation and discard normally go hand-in-hand, I agree, but in competitive combo metas, there's usually not much to reanimate unless you plan on reanimating your own stuff (ie Iona choosing U). Usually the cards I'll be trying to get my opponents to dump will be lands and combo pieces...artifacts, enchantments, and spells; but not creatures.
They are all good cards, yes, and I run myojin and the grimoire in my tuned-down Nath deck. But I cut them from this list specifically because I just know they'll be too slow or inconsistent.
I think your core is pretty strong though. There's a primer I believe called "Death Cloud 9" on here that's probably better for general purposes (Mines built for drazi's) It's less gimicky than mine, so be sure to look at that one too.
Again, I'm not trying to bash your suggestions. Thanks sincerely for your help. It's my bad for putting up my OP at 3:00 AM and being too tired to do anything but leave it without any description of what I'm looking for.
Your pretty much right, if your meta is just combos, it makes sense to respond with targeted discards against them. My meta's more response and tactical, so we have a bit slower but more build up early on. But if you are going to go stax, there are way better commanders for a "competitive" meta, like Hanna, Ship's Navigator or Gaddock Teeg
Firstly, wtf, I guess someone mini-necro'd my thread when I wasn't even looking. I guess I should really sit down and finish it sometime. I dunno if I'll develop it and apply for a primer or what, I guess it really depends if Nath takes off in my playgroup and I get really passionate about it or not.
Gaddock Teeg isn't really stax either, though he does make a solid anti-combo choice for his abilities alone.
And neither of them can focus on such aggressive hand disruption as much as Nath does (while still keeping up intense board disruption), and since the combo meta is all about tutors, draw, and hand sculpting, it's the hand disruption, particularly early game, that really gives Nath the edge as a stax commander.
For all the complicated text on the card, all it basically says is that players can't draw cards beyond the first card during their draw step (if they do, they discard; if they can't discard, they mill). It punishes decks that play lots of draw spells and doesn't affect any other kind of deck.
I'm not convinced that it's worth a mainboard slot so I guess I'll have to playtest it some.
Personally I LOVE Possessed Portal. It practically has its own section in my Arcum Dagsson primer. It's a super outstanding card.
The reason it works in Arcum, though, is because he cheats it into play on T5. In Nath we'd have to hardcast it, which just isn't feasible most of the time, especially in competitive play where everyone's on a low clock.
Most of the creatures we have to tutor for are CMC 4 (eg Braids, Creakwood Liege) or CMC 5 (eg Sadistic Hypnotist), and most of our creatures actually end up sacrificed and are therefore unable to be tapped to reduce Chord's cost.
You're right, I coulda sworn I had Pox in there at one point when the deck was still in its conceptual stages. I dunno where it went. I'll have to investigate it again, thanks for reminding me.
Death Cloud I definitely threw in there but ultimately cut because I found it was too mana intensive relative to other stax effects. Paying 1BBB to Smallpox ain't cool man. If I were running more mana rocks and fast ramp it'd be viable, but I actually tried to refrain from running a ton of rocks in this deck so I could make the best use out of Null Rod in the competitive meta.
For all the complicated text on the card, all it basically says is that players can't draw cards beyond the first card during their draw step (if they do, they discard; if they can't discard, they mill). It punishes decks that play lots of draw spells and doesn't affect any other kind of deck.
And that's A Good Thing (tm). Do you have trouble against decks that aren't drawing multiple cards per turn? Probably not. And with stuff like Sylvan Library (which you aren't running btw, why not? Too slow) it's easy to get around the drawback yourself. It can break some combo's, and at worse it'll give you more tokens.
Finally got around to sort of fleshing this one out halfway, inspired by a revelation I had after my playgroup unbanned Braids, Cabal Minion as a commander. Even though I'd be more than happy to do a write-up on Braids, I don't think the MTGS community would benefit very much, since I assume the majority of playgroups would simply scoff at the idea of permitting her.
Also several decklist changes. Chains of Mephistopheles turned out to be even more outstanding than I initially thought and was wholly worth the buy.
Before I saw this thread I was working on a similar deck with Glissa, The Traitor as the commander with nath+sadistic in the deck. I figure smokestack will cause a lot of triggers for glissa so we can use her to break the symmetry of the stax effects while protecting the pieces. Also since she costs a lot less than Nath we can put out pressure quicker. We can start beating on somebody with a sword or jitte while they are held down by smokestack. I think she has a lot less midgame power than Nath though. The Elf tribal synergy is also kind of cool.
Before I saw this thread I was working on a similar deck with Glissa, The Traitor as the commander with nath+sadistic in the deck. I figure smokestack will cause a lot of triggers for glissa so we can use her to break the symmetry of the stax effects while protecting the pieces. Also since she costs a lot less than Nath we can put out pressure quicker. We can start beating on somebody with a sword or jitte while they are held down by smokestack. I think she has a lot less midgame power than Nath though. The Elf tribal synergy is also kind of cool.
Woooooooahhhh someone bumped my thread again. Well maybe now that I've finished with my Clerics primer over in the casual boards I'll look into finishing up this one since it's already about halfway finished.
Although Glissa has an appealing BGG cost, my beef with her is that she only triggers on creatures, specifically only on your opponent's creatures. When your opponents don't have any creatures on the field, she won't do anything, so if you're relying on her for fuel, your opponents can simply refrain from playing creatures until you burn yourself out. Not to mention several of our stax effects (The Abyss and its Magus, Anowon, Call to the Grave, etc.) affect creatures exclusively, which means unless they're playing tokens they'll already be creature-drained as part of our normal gameplan. And then you throw in on top of it that many competitive decks like Sharuum the Hegemon or Zur the Enchanter don't even really play more than two or three creatures over the course of the whole game anyway.
I really am convinced that Nath is the "strongest" choice if there ever was one for a competitive stax deck--or maybe I'll say 90% convinced; I'm constantly re-evaluating whether the inclusion of W for the extra stax power would be worth being unable to use the godly Null Rod (since I myself would become more dependent on mana rocks for 3-color ramp and fixing).
Although Glissa has an appealing BGG cost, my beef with her is that she only triggers on creatures, specifically only on your opponent's creatures. When your opponents don't have any creatures on the field, she won't do anything, so if you're relying on her for fuel, your opponents can simply refrain from playing creatures until you burn yourself out.
You are correct, but I'm not unhappy when my opponents don't play creatures: I'll just bash their head in with Glissa. I don't think that Glissa fits the stax archetype though, she's better with cheap artifacts: you get them in your hand, and replaying high CMC cards is a drain on your resources.
Speaking of cheap artifacts, you could consider Hex Parasite. It's a card with unparalleled utility, and you could use it to manage soot counters on Smokestack.
While I can see your point on reanimation, I think you could consider Necrotic Ooze. It does double duty with several of your creatures (well, the only one you're caring for is the hypnotoad I assume), but I've found it's particularly good with creatures your opponents play in a lot of situations. And with "particularly good" I mean that it leads to complicated and fun board states. I can see why you wouldn't play it, but I'd put it in the same pile as Geth, Lord of the Vault.
I run Skyshroud CLaim and its phenomenal. I would highly recommend running it. I know it costs four, but getting your Bayou and Overgrown Tomb at the same time is awesome.
I run Skyshroud CLaim and its phenomenal. I would highly recommend running it. I know it costs four, but getting your Bayou and Overgrown Tomb at the same time is awesome.
Between all the fetchlands I run, plus Farseek, Nature's Lore, and Three Visits, I can easily get both Overgrown Tomb and Bayou on the field every single game already.
Not to mention many of our stax pieces (Smokestack, Braids, Abyss, Magus, Void, etc.) are 4 CMC and Skyshroud Claim competes with them for a 4-drop.
Still, in budget lists that can't afford all the fetchlands that I run, it might be advisable to run a few extra forest-fetching stuff like Skyshroud Claim, because then I could understand that it would be more difficult to reliably get your duals out.
Wow, I check this thread again after so many years and it's apparently been bumped without my knowing? Whodathunkit.
Maybe I will update the list again for posterity, but for the time being as an informative note to anyone who may come across this thread later on, I've pretty much retired this decklist. Back in March 2013, Nath was OK--I wouldn't have put him on par with other format-dominators of the time, but he wasn't all that bad imo.
Since then a lot has changed. The way I played Nath, using our cheap G creature tutor spells to fetch an early opening Braids was one of this deck's strongest plays, and so losing braids with the controversial abolition of the "banned as commander" list was a really, really big hit to my Nath. Additionally, with more recent sets, the EDH meta overall has become faster over the last 3 years alongside the rise of powerful competitive <=4cmc commanders like Brago, Derevi, Daretti, Yisan, and others. Nath meanwhile has noticeably fallen victim to that dreaded power creep, as his formerly-nifty ability now comes out with a resounding "meh" at 5cmc compared to what nasty and game-winning tricks his peers can do for the same CMC or even less.
Nath is still a "good" commander, I wouldn't throw him in the jank bin, and he's still one of the only commanders to make efficient and thematic use of random discard. Furthermore he did get several new toys, Waste Not most significantly among them. But it just wasn't enough in my opinion to keep up with the power creep.
Indeed, the power creep has been so conspicuous of late that even Braids, Cabal Minion, arguably the poster-child stax commander (who makes Nath stax look like child's play), isn't even as intimidatingly game-breaking as she used to be many years ago (as evidenced by her full unbanning in 1v1 French). My playgroup even decided to house-unban Braids in multiplayer commander, so for me personally the effort I put into this list has instead been redirected toward maintaining my (technically illegal) Braids list, with the hope that one day the mtgcommander.net RC may change its mind in the way the 1v1 French folks did and legalize her.
In the meantime, if you really love Nath then I encourage you to play him and do what you enjoy, because that's what MTG is all about (having fun)--but in terms of competitiveness, which was what I originally built this list for, I wouldn't take this deck to a table in June 2016 with other format-dominating commanders and expect to win. Nath just doesn't have the juice for it right now as he might have had back in March 2013.
the reason she is unbanned is she aint that monster without sol ring. (note that braids was legal in french along time ago too)french edh is a complete other beast. (i guess you dont play french?)
Not to hijack this into a Braids discussion thread, but I wasn't using Braids's unbanning in French to prove that she should be unbanned in regular multiplayer commander, I was just using it as an example of the way overall format power creep has made cards that used to be considered "overpowered" (like braids) to no longer be so, and cards that were considered "good" (like Nath) to simply become kinda meh.
You're absolutely right that French is a different format because there's no Sol Ring, Crypt, or other broken mana rocks, and that Braids is not as strong without them. But if that were the only reason, then Braids would have been unbanned a long time ago, because those rocks have been banned in French for years.
The other and in my opinion more relevant reason they unbanned braids is that "the format gave birth to a lot of powerful decks" over the time that she's been banned (quote from the rules announcement post here), or in other words, power creep has made her not as game-breaking as she used to be.
And while French and Multiplayer are different, the power creep is very real in both, and coming back on topic it's that power creep that's led me to retire Nath (in addition to braids banned as commander taking away one of his strongest 99 cards). I think we're in agreement on that.
Hey TheTrueNub -- not sure if you'll see this, but I've really enjoyed this list and have been building a Nath stax deck with your list as heavy influence steadily for quite a while now (not having access to all of the super-expensive cards has made this a long-term endeavor). I know you say in the comment above that you have sort of set Nath aside, but I do have a couple questions you might have opinions on I'd love to hear.
Firstly, in your mind, how would have the shift from Partial Paris mulligan rules to Vancouver mulligan rules in EDH adjusted this list? In the playgroup I play with most, we have chosen to maintain partials as a houserule for our casual play, but we have tried out the new, "official" rule when things get a bit more serious. I've been looking at your mana dork count and 3cmc-or-less ramp count to gauge how reliable my starts have to be, and I was a bit surprised to see only Llanowar and Birds for dorks. Would you recommend Elves of Deep Shadow, considering how frequently a crucial piece of stax needs to come out the next turn and asks for 2-3 black sources/generally how black is most important to have early? In general, it looks like the safest way to combat the new mulligan rule is to invest a bit more heavily in mana dork/tutor density in the deck.
Next, one of the main reasons I was very inspired by your list is because it is a fairly nontraditional approach and general for stax of today's meta -- generals like Brago and Derevi are running around rampant and rely on super-overpowered artifacts for proactive control, mana fixing, and mana acceleration. What your deck actually does is set itself apart from that reliance on artifacts because of its green identity and the inclusion of Null Rod. I think Null Rod is an incredibly powerful and unique card that seems underappreciated in EDH (or at least in my experience), and I love the fact that this deck uses it. With that in mind, what is your opinion on how this card is positioned in the EDH format right now? What sort of deck do you think it shines best in? If I'm honest, your confession that you had sort of retired this deck was slightly disheartening to me since I've thrown so much time, thought, and money at my deck already, but I also don't really envision me ever truly going 100% mode with this deck (having the capital to actually buy cards like Imperial Seal, Chains of Mephistopheles, and The Abyss)--with that in mind, would you recommend keeping at this deck idea for a "pretty powerful" stax-strategy deck, since I do truly enjoy it so much? My intent with this deck is to have fun and be able to wreck tables every once in a while, so the exclusion of these most-expensive cards is admissible by me, but do you still think it's worth my time, honestly?
Thanks so much!
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The Gilt-Leaf clan of elves was the strongest and most influential of elf clans on Lorwyn. Their capital stronghold was called Lys Alana. The tribe was known for its masterful hunters, which not only functioned as hunters in the traditional sense but also as the Gilt-Leaf's military force. The tribe was also known more darkly for its extreme obsession with beauty; while all elf cultures value art and beauty to some extent, the Gilt-Leaf clan went so far as to develop a caste system based solely on the beauty of each being on Lorwyn: at the top were Perfects, elves whose beauty was unparalleled and who functioned as aristocrats and courtiers, and at the bottom were Eyeblights, foul (i.e. non-elf) races or disfigured elves who were deemed so ugly as to be persecuted and killed. Elves are traditionally associated with G mana for their connections to nature, but the ruthless and elitist ethos of the Gilt-Leaf tribe leads to the addition of B mana, as represented in Gilt-Leaf Palace.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf was a taercenn, a superior commander of the Gilt-Leaf hunters, the highest possible rank achievable. By the in-lore time period that was the setting of Lorwyn block, Nath's natural beauty had already faded because of his advanced age, and so he had begun using a powerful, undetectable enchantment to hide his wizened features and to preserve his rank and status. Nath was known for his utter ruthlessness, killing on the spot any of his subordinates who failed him and orchestrating raids even on peaceful Eyeblight tribes. One day, during one of Nath's raids on a goblin settlement, the goblins began to overpower the elves. One of Nath's subordinate generals, Rhys, in a desperate attempt to save the raid force from crushing defeat, tapped into powerful, forbidden magicks, and the ensuing explosion of energy wiped out both armies. Only Nath, Gryffid (another general), and Rhys survived; however, Rhys's proximity to the blast left him grievously wounded. Following this disaster, Rhys fled into the wilderness of Lorwyn, knowing that he would face persecution for both his usage of forbidden magic and for his disfigurement should he return to Lys Alana.
Nath, deeming Rhys an Eyeblight and kin-slayer, vowed to hunt down and kill him. A series of cat-and-mouse conflicts led to a final one-on-one showdown: Nath badly wounded Rhys, but the renegade ultimately prevailed and killed Nath. Gryffid found Nath's corpse and became the only elf to ever look upon his true, wizened face, as Nath's beautifying aura fizzled when he died. Gryffid, still faithful to his deceased superior, quickly burned Nath's corpse so as to forevermore preserve the secret of the taercenn's true appearance.
In-game, Nath's two abilities are reflective of his colors more than his lore: B, which has associations with discard effects, and G, which has associations with token-producing effects.
==or, "Why Nath?"==
Anyone who's played stax in EDH before knows that there are countless commanders in a rainbow of colors who can support the archetype, ranging from mono-W and mono-B through complete WUBRG.
Indeed, as a wise man once said:
This is certainly exemplified here on the forums. Just scrolling through Multiplayer Commander Decklists section will hint at the wide variety of available stax commanders, and every once in a while a thread will crop up in the Commander general forum inquiring "Which colors are best for stax?" or "Which commander is best for stax?"
My goal with this deck, however, was not to design "any deck, built just so." For me, that simply doesn't cut it. I revel in the challenge of optimization, of creating the best deck for the job, one that beats the meta, one that you can take to a tournament and achieve victory. Even though some will call my deck "mean" or "unfun," I will have considered my work a success insofar that I have engineered greatness, a veritable paragon, or at least something close to it.
After a lengthy decision process, including drafting several different stax lists and trying them all out, I settled on Nath to be the frontman for my project. Here's why, in my humble opinion, Nath is the most fitting candidate for a competitively-optimized stax deck, and why he shows all those other stax commanders who's boss:
If you're still on the fence about playing Nath, or if that list was a little too verbose for you, here's a more compacted version of his pros and cons in the format you'll find in other primers.
You may enjoy Nath if:
You may not enjoy Nath if:
In recent months, my metagame has grown highly stagnant with mono-blue or blue-based combo decks--naturally people trend toward the tried-and-true, proven-strong commanders I call the "fearsome five": alphabetically, Arcum Dagsson, Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Hermit Druid, Sharuum the Hegemon, and Zur the Enchanter, with more-than-occasional appearances from other combo stars Animar, Ghave, and Riku.
Therefore, the side-objective of my quest is to promote the health and diversity of my metagame while still maintaining the competitive mindset that we very much enjoy. I've been trying to introduce new, viable archetypes into the competitive lineup that don't require U, including stax. In fact, as of a few weeks ago at the time I write this I even managed to convince my playgroup to socially "unban" Braids, Cabal Minion. My concern with Braids at this point in time, however, is that she's still on the official banlist, and so I fear that the more budget-minded players in my group wouldn't build her even though she is legal knowing that they couldn't take their Braids deck anywhere but to our playgroup--so for the purposes of my quest, I'm restricting myself to legal commanders.
The plan is to get group stax/discard effects up and running quickly enough to thwart combo decks like Sharuum, Arcum, Azami, et al. before they get rolling. That means I'm usually on a T8 clock at absolute latest, and certain cards that would normally be OK in Nath like Myojin of Night's Reach, Painful Laundry, and so forth just won't cut it here.
I also made a banner, because I make amateur banners in my spare time, and because I've always wanted to crop out the llama thing from Nath of the Gilt-Leaf's art and have Nath be riding on Sadistic Hypnotist instead.
Without further ado, here's my decklist as it currently stands:
1x Brainspoil
1x Cruel Tutor
1x Cultivate
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Farseek
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Grim Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Jarad's Orders
1x Kodama's Reach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Nature's Lore
1x Night's Whisper
1x Pox
1x Syphon Mind
1x Three Visits
Creature (15)
1x Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Creakwood Liege
1x Cunning Lethemancer
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fleshbag Marauder
1x Genesis
1x Graveborn Muse
1x Imperious Perfect
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Magus of the Abyss
1x Reassembling Skeleton
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
Instants (4)
1x Entomb
1x Krosan Grip
1x Putrefy
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
Artifacts (9)
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Golgari Signet
1x Jet Medallion
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Null Rod
1x Skullclamp
1x Smokestack
1x Sol Ring
1x Awakening Zone
1x Bitterblossom
1x Bottomless Pit
1x Call to the Grave
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
1x Contamination
1x Desolation
1x Grave Pact
1x Mind Slash
1x Necrogen Mists
1x Necropotence
1x Nether Void
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Sylvan Library
1x The Abyss
Lands (38)
1x Barren Moor
1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Buried Ruin
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Dryad Arbor
6x Forest
1x Khalni Garden
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Polluted Delta
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Strip Mine
10x Swamp
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Twilight Mire
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Vesuva
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Woodland Cemetery
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Mind Twist
1x Mind Shatter
1x Braids, Cabal Minion
==TL;DR: 3 steps to victory (w/ Roadmap)==
Step 1: For the opening turns, tutor for and ramp into a stax piece, ideally Smokestack, ideally before T4.
Step 2: Resolve fodder producers, ideally including Nath, to balance the immediate reciprocal impact of your stax piece.
Step 3: Lock down the game. Use discard support to drain your opponents' hands while providing fuel (via Nath's ability) to crank up stax to crazy levels. Denial cards like Null Rod, Chains of Mephistopheles, and Nether Void help to tighten softlocks into hardlocks and to secure a victory.
Please note that these steps indicate a list of priorities, and while they'll often be performed in chronological order, they need not necessarily be so. For example, if your meta is replete with 5c decks or explosive combo decks (ex: Arcum Dagsson, Sharuum the Hegemon), both of which usually rely heavily on mana rocks and artifacts to accelerate and fix their mana, it will certainly be a more debilitating play to tutor into and drop down Null Rod as a first priority.
In order to really understand how to play Nath, it's important to understand both of these concepts. For those of you who are unfamiliar with random discard or the stax archetype (of which cheap permanent generation is a critical component), I strongly advise you to read the spoiler'd sections below prior to moving on to the rest of the primer. The rest of you who are already familiar with these concepts may skip the following two sections and proceed directly to the in-depth strategy.
Newer players to Magic might be wholly unfamiliar with random discard. It was reasonably common in the early days of Magic, but in the last few years it's appeared on only a handful of cards. This is an intentional endeavor on the part of Wizards R&D:
Put in other words, people felt that random discard was too "unfun," leading players on the receiving end to feel like they lost their game due to chance and not to skill.
As MaRo implies, however, the unpredictability of random discard is exactly what makes it so powerful: "you can't fool fate." Take a look at traditional discard effects like Duress, Inquisition of Kozilek, and even the extremely-powerful Thoughtseize; observe that these effects all have restrictions on what card can be chosen, including most commonly the restriction that only nonland cards may be chosen.
Now take a look at random discard effects like Hymn to Tourach, Mind Twist, and Hypnotic Specter. Notice the difference? There's no restrictions. Random discard can hit any card in an opponent's hand, even their lands. A good Hymn or Twist can therefore turn a playable hand into a completely unplayable hand, utterly ruining the target's earlygame.
Granted, in multiplayer, single-target discard isn't nearly as powerful as it is in the 20 life formats, as you can only pick one opponent to screw over. As a result, most of the random discard cards you'll find in my deck are actually in the sideboard, to be switched in when you happen to be playing in a one-on-one. That said, Nath's ability is random discard, and Bottomless Pit is great multiplayer random discard (and should always be run mainboard), so you should still be familiar with why random discard is so powerful.
You also have to be familiar with how to achieve random discard in game. Consider three methods which I've seen used in the past and try to figure out which one is correct:
Could you guess which one? It's a trick question. In fact, all of these three options are flawed. Even if you or your target shuffles his hand, you or he might still be able to remember which cards were in which spot, and your choice might not be actually random. As a general rule of thumb, if either you or your opponent are choosing cards at any time, whether they're face-down, shuffled, whatever, your system probably actually isn't random.
So how DO you ensure randomness? You need to number the cards in the target's hand and then use an RNG, a device or program that generates truly unbiased, random numbers (or pretty close to random). If you're a student, your TI calculator comes equipped with one in the [RandInt(x,y,z)] command; otherwise, there's innumerable online sources or smartphone apps which do the job just as well. When the hand size is 6 or fewer, you can roll a die; when the hand size is 2, you can flip a coin.
So if you target me with Hymn to Tourach and I had 7 cards in my hand, I'd lay my hand face-down on the table and number the cards one to seven. I'd then use an RNG to generate two random integers between 1 and 7 (if I were using the RandInt command on a TI calculator, my entry would be [RandInt(1,7,2)] ), and the cards to which those generated integers corresponded would be revealed and discarded per Hymn's effect.
This is why I mentioned above that it's helpful to have an RNG device like a TI calculator with you when you're playing Nath, as you'll have to be using it at least once on each of your upkeeps while your commander is on the field, and at least once on every upkeep when Bottomless Pit is out.
What is stax?
Put simply, stax is a deck archetype (like combo, aggro, or pillowfort) that aims to lock its opponents out of the game by draining their resources in play while simultaneously restricting their ability to generate new resources. The eponymous card of the archetype, Smokestack, is the quintessential example of the first part, as it steadily drains all players' permanents. Nether Void is an excellent example of the second part, as it places a heavy burden on casting new spells to generate more permanents.
Of course, stax cards like Smokestack and Nether Void also affect us, the stax players ourselves. However, we are able to negate the reciprocal effect by playing cheap and efficient permanent generators like Bitterblossom, Crucible of Worlds, and Nath himself; these cards produce a fixed amount of fodder each turn that we can sacrifice. Thus, as a stax player, we find ourselves constantly trying to maintain a balance between our permanent drain and our permanent generation, and in order to play stax to its fullest, most brutal capacity, you'll need to develop a mastery of this balance.
Here's a helpful tip. When you're playing stax, at all times of the game you want to keep track of two numbers in your head:
When your stax value and fodder value are equal, you'll suffer no reciprocal harm from your stax effects (though of course if you're using Crucible of Worlds as a fodder generator, you're forfeiting your land drop). When your stax value is higher than your fodder value, you're in an unsustainable position--not that that's inherently a bad thing, since you can keep playing cards from your hand to survive in the short run, it's simply that after a few turns you'll be in a sticky spot unless you raise your fodder value to restore balance.
With these two terms defined, you can now think of every card in the deck as carrying its own stax value or fodder value. For example, The Abyss, Call to the Grave, and Braids, Cabal Minion each add one to your stax value (of course this simplified rubric doesn't consider that certain stax effects demand certain types of permanents be sacrificed, like The Abyss demands creatures only--but that's easy for you to figure out on your own). Smokestack adds +X to your stax value, where X is the number of counters on it. Similarly, Bitterblossom and Awakening Zone each add +1 to your fodder value. Reassembling Skeleton adds +1 to your fodder value so long as you keep spending 1B on your upkeep to pay for his ability.
Looking at the deck in this manner, the power of our commander becomes more obvious (I'll reiterate this later, but while we're on the topic I'll say it here also). Nath of the Gilt-Leaf's second ability spits out a token whenever an opponent discards a card. While he's in play, therefore, Necrogen Mists and Cunning Lethemancer, which would normally have zero fodder value, now provide +X fodder value, where X is the number of opponents at the table who have cards in their hand. This is a huge bonus on top of these cards' already-strong discard effects, and the insane fodder values you can achieve through this method (especially at larger tables) allows you to easily maintain large stax values of 4 or more.
Stax is all about tempo. As the game advances, your opponents have more resources available (e.g. more lands, more mana rocks, etc.), and so it becomes progressively more difficult to "reel in" these resources and to keep your opponents under a softlock. This is why throwing down Braids, Cabal Minion on T3 is deadly, but throwing down Braids on T6 is only mildly threatening, particularly in a competitive meta where most decks are already assembling an infinite combo by T6.
Arguably the most important part of the match for us, therefore, is actually the earliest phase of the game, our opening four turns. As a rule of thumb, try to get a stax effect in your hand prior to T4, because T4 is the latest we want to play that effect. It is vitally important to mulligan properly in order to make this happen. In my decklist, I run the full assortment of ≤3 CMC, B tutors, even the more obscure ones like Grim Tutor and Cruel Tutor. While many of these tutors are highly expensive $$$-wise, I encourage you to run as many as you can afford in your own decklist, because they really do drastically increase the number of keepable opening hands.
You'll notice, however, that even the cheapest of the stax effects we run cost 4 mana, and some even cost 5 mana. How can we reliably cast a stax effect on or before T4, then? Stax decks in all formats have grappled with this problem. In Vintage and Legacy, stax decks employ cards like Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, and Sphere of Resistance to slow down opponents' mana curves in the opening turns. But in Nath, we have G at our disposal--so instead of slowing down our opponents' curves, we instead use mana ramp to speed up our own curve.
The mana ramp we use can easily be segregated into three categories based on their CMC:
1 CMC
2 CMC
3 CMC
OK, so you get the picture: you're ramping up into a stax effect ASAP, but...which stax effect do you tutor out first? After all, not all stax effects are created equal: The Abyss hits only non-artifact, targetable creatures; Braids, Cabal Minion hits only artifacts, creatures, and lands; Smokestack hits everything but takes a full turn to come online.
The fact of the matter is that all stax effects are powerful in their own way, and actually certain stax effects are stronger against certain archetypes or commanders (more on this later in the "Card-by-Card Analysis" section). For this reason, as the game progresses you'll actually want to mix up the varieties of stax on the table. However, for your initial tutor, it's almost always best to fetch the eponymous Smokestack, particularly if you're confident you can cast it on T3 or T4. Smokestack is unique among stax cards in that it can be "cranked up" on each of your upkeeps by adding another counter, which is particularly outstanding for us since our token production will usually escalate rapidly as we move into the midgame. Indeed, we can often pump out 3, 4, or even 5 fodder permanents by the time T5 or T6 rolls around, which is simply bonkers, and we want to take the most advantage as possible of that fact.
Of course now we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, talking about the midgame in the earlygame section of the primer. But, then, that's what we're supposed to be doing--always thinking ahead, always keeping our eye on the midgame. That's stax for you.
Anyway, enough semantics; let's address the midgame more directly in Steps 2 and 3.
"Why resolve token producers after our stax effects?" you might ask. "If we play stax effects before our token producers, won't that hurt us?" While it might seem more intuitive to start pumping tokens prior to playing stax cards in order to be fully protected against reciprocal damage, the opposite is actually true. Again, the earlier you play a stax effect, the better--and so it's almost always better to take a small hit to your mana base or your permanents by playing your stax cards before your fodder producers (and then catching up on fodder later) rather than wasting valuable time plopping down the fodder producers first.
Similar to our stax effects, not all fodder producers are created equal. Some, like Bitterblossom, churn out a token automatically (and compulsorily) every upkeep; others, like Reassembling Skeleton, require some manipulation or even a mana deductible. I'll discuss in-depth the strengths and weaknesses of each of these fodder producers in the "Card-by-Card Analysis" section later on.
As it turns out, though, our commander is also a fodder producer, and in fact our commander is the most important fodder producer in the deck. He's always available to us since he sits in our Command Zone; he's easily ramped into thanks to the 3 in his cost; he can be made immune to countermagic with Cavern of Souls; and most importantly, he synergizes extremely well--sometimes even infinitely--with any discard effect. Even if you have several token producers on the field already, it's almost always a good play to resolve Nath, because he's a critical stepping stone toward developing a strong softlock (a "firmlock," if you will :)).
Now we're in the midgame, around T4 or T5. You should have at least 1 stax effect online, most likely Smokestack, at least one fodder producer online, most likely Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, and plenty of mana to throw around.
TO BE CONTINUED!!?!
I don't play this variant decklist as often as the decklist above since this one's too casual for my meta, but to fully do justice to Nath I had to theorycraft, playtest, and post it here anyway as an example of the taercenn as an elf tribal commander, since he's easily one of the most popular choices for the job besides Ezuri, Renegade Leader. Whereas keeping Ezuri in the Command Zone allows you to more quickly develop the dreaded "elfball" to swing for victory, Nath provides access to B, which gives you the best tutors, card advantage, and removal in the game--all areas in which mono-G normally struggles. The end result is a deck that's significantly more consistent, if slightly slower, in its victories compared to Ezuri.
1x Bramblewood Paragon
1x Caller of the Claw
1x Drove of Elves
1x Eladamri, Lord of Leaves
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Elvish Archdruid
1x Elvish Champion
1x Elvish Harbinger
1x Elvish Herder
1x Elvish Scrapper
1x Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1x Farhaven Elf
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Gaea's Herald
1x Glissa Sunseeker
1x Heedless One
1x Immaculate Magistrate
1x Imperious Perfect
1x Joraga Warcaller
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Lys Alana Huntmaster
1x Nullmage Shepherd
1x Priest of Titania
1x Rhys the Exiled
1x Skyshroud Poacher
1x Sylvan Messenger
1x Viridian Shaman
1x Wellwisher
1x Wren's Run Vanquisher
1x Chromatic Lantern
1x Coalition Relic
1x Coat of Arms
1x Door of Destinies
1x Golgari Signet
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Sol Ring
1x Staff of Domination
Sorcery (14)
1x Ambition's Cost
1x Ancient Craving
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Diabolic Tutor
1x Elvish Promenade
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Grim Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Night's Whisper
1x Profane Command
1x Sign in Blood
1x Sylvan Tutor
Enchantment (4)
1x Elvish Guidance
1x Necropotence
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Barren Moor
1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Buried Ruin
1x Cavern of Souls
8x Forest
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Polluted Delta
1x Strip Mine
10x Swamp
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Twilight Mire
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wirewood Lodge
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Woodland Cemetery
Instant (6)
1x Diabolic Edict
1x Dismember
1x Eyeblight's Ending
1x Go for the Throat
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
Main Decklist Changelog:
(List is comprehensive as of thread's original posting)
-Stupor, +Mind Slash, dunno why I didn't think of this earlier
-Thoughtseize, +Three Visits
-Forest, +Dryad Arbor
-Nether Traitor, +Chains of Mephistopheles
-Coldsteel Heart, +Sylvan Library
-Mind Twist, +Entomb
-Hymn to Tourach, +Liliana of the Veil
+Single-target random discard stuff to the board
-Contamination to mainboard for shutdown with Null Rod; Chromatic Lantern out to compensate, Jet Medallion in
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Not sure if your building this for multiplayer or single player, but I have a Nath deck I built to play Eldrazis, I suggest you take a look at it
http://www.mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/ViewDeck/484402
I think your main weakness here is your targeted discard; it's cute, but ultimately less effective than group squeeze/discard.
For example, mind shatter and mind twist could be replaced with oppression and painful quandary
oppression is mean and stings response decks, and you can even get fun little tricks out of it, like casting animate dead in order to bring back the card you discard to it.
mindslicer and myojin of night's reach are must haves, and geth's grimoire is a good card for discard
Mana creatures (birds of paradise, llanowar elves tend to be fragile, so be careful with those. Joraga, Treespeaker is a slightly better card if you like elves
Since your running a discard deck, your going to be playing the graveyard too, so you'll need
a) Graveyard Shenanigans
b) Insane draw
some fun cards for a) include:
b) is a bit more obvious
I think your core is pretty strong though. There's a primer I believe called "Death Cloud 9" on here that's probably better for general purposes (Mines built for drazi's) It's less gimicky than mine, so be sure to look at that one too.
OK, this is my fault for posting a deck early in the morning when I was too tired to say anything about it and the kind of help I'm looking for. I'm sorry about that. Today I had the time to revisit this thread and fix the OP to be more reflective of my situation. I'll still respond to your comments, though.
In my meta games never go past T9-T10 and almost all the decks are combo, who only need to play a limited number of spells to win anyway (or they'll gladly pay all the life they need to on their combo turn since they'll be winning on the spot). I'm not sold on the targeted discard, either, but the way I'm reasoning it out right now, I'd rather screw the leading player's hand with a single-target spell than screw nobody's hand with Oppression, Quandary, etc.
The ideal discard is like Bottomless Pit; it hits everyone, it keeps on working, and it's random--but alas, there can be only one.
Reanimation and discard normally go hand-in-hand, I agree, but in competitive combo metas, there's usually not much to reanimate unless you plan on reanimating your own stuff (ie Iona choosing U). Usually the cards I'll be trying to get my opponents to dump will be lands and combo pieces...artifacts, enchantments, and spells; but not creatures.
They are all good cards, yes, and I run myojin and the grimoire in my tuned-down Nath deck. But I cut them from this list specifically because I just know they'll be too slow or inconsistent.
Death Cloud Nath takes advantage of longer games. My games will not be long. I need T3 Smokestack, not T8 Death Cloud/Tooth and Nail.
Again, I'm not trying to bash your suggestions. Thanks sincerely for your help. It's my bad for putting up my OP at 3:00 AM and being too tired to do anything but leave it without any description of what I'm looking for.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf has been able to generate enough permanents to fuel Possessed Portal from time to time.
I run Life from the Loam, Abundance and Words of Waste as other options to replace my draws to get around Possessed Portal and Uba Mask.
BRGKarrthus, Tyrant of Jund
UTeferi, Mage of Zhalfir
UBWZur the Enchanter
WUBRGChild of Alara
WUBRGSliver Queen
In the meantime I'll respond to some stuff...
Not necessarily.
First of all, Hanna, Ship's Navigator isn't really "stax" as much as she is prison. She doesn't run real stax effects like Braids, Cabal Minion and Smokestack, she tries to stall the board to a standstill with tax effects like Winter Orb, Ghostly Prison/Propaganda, Stasis, yaddy yadda.
Gaddock Teeg isn't really stax either, though he does make a solid anti-combo choice for his abilities alone.
And neither of them can focus on such aggressive hand disruption as much as Nath does (while still keeping up intense board disruption), and since the combo meta is all about tutors, draw, and hand sculpting, it's the hand disruption, particularly early game, that really gives Nath the edge as a stax commander.
For all the complicated text on the card, all it basically says is that players can't draw cards beyond the first card during their draw step (if they do, they discard; if they can't discard, they mill). It punishes decks that play lots of draw spells and doesn't affect any other kind of deck.
I'm not convinced that it's worth a mainboard slot so I guess I'll have to playtest it some.
Personally I LOVE Possessed Portal. It practically has its own section in my Arcum Dagsson primer. It's a super outstanding card.
The reason it works in Arcum, though, is because he cheats it into play on T5. In Nath we'd have to hardcast it, which just isn't feasible most of the time, especially in competitive play where everyone's on a low clock.
Most of the creatures we have to tutor for are CMC 4 (eg Braids, Creakwood Liege) or CMC 5 (eg Sadistic Hypnotist), and most of our creatures actually end up sacrificed and are therefore unable to be tapped to reduce Chord's cost.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
You're right, I coulda sworn I had Pox in there at one point when the deck was still in its conceptual stages. I dunno where it went. I'll have to investigate it again, thanks for reminding me.
Death Cloud I definitely threw in there but ultimately cut because I found it was too mana intensive relative to other stax effects. Paying 1BBB to Smallpox ain't cool man. If I were running more mana rocks and fast ramp it'd be viable, but I actually tried to refrain from running a ton of rocks in this deck so I could make the best use out of Null Rod in the competitive meta.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
And that's A Good Thing (tm). Do you have trouble against decks that aren't drawing multiple cards per turn? Probably not. And with stuff like Sylvan Library (which you aren't running btw, why not? Too slow) it's easy to get around the drawback yourself. It can break some combo's, and at worse it'll give you more tokens.
Maaaaaaaaybe.
Ok, fine, point. It's in.
One of those obvious oversights.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Finally got around to sort of fleshing this one out halfway, inspired by a revelation I had after my playgroup unbanned Braids, Cabal Minion as a commander. Even though I'd be more than happy to do a write-up on Braids, I don't think the MTGS community would benefit very much, since I assume the majority of playgroups would simply scoff at the idea of permitting her.
Also several decklist changes. Chains of Mephistopheles turned out to be even more outstanding than I initially thought and was wholly worth the buy.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Woooooooahhhh someone bumped my thread again. Well maybe now that I've finished with my Clerics primer over in the casual boards I'll look into finishing up this one since it's already about halfway finished.
Although Glissa has an appealing BGG cost, my beef with her is that she only triggers on creatures, specifically only on your opponent's creatures. When your opponents don't have any creatures on the field, she won't do anything, so if you're relying on her for fuel, your opponents can simply refrain from playing creatures until you burn yourself out. Not to mention several of our stax effects (The Abyss and its Magus, Anowon, Call to the Grave, etc.) affect creatures exclusively, which means unless they're playing tokens they'll already be creature-drained as part of our normal gameplan. And then you throw in on top of it that many competitive decks like Sharuum the Hegemon or Zur the Enchanter don't even really play more than two or three creatures over the course of the whole game anyway.
I really am convinced that Nath is the "strongest" choice if there ever was one for a competitive stax deck--or maybe I'll say 90% convinced; I'm constantly re-evaluating whether the inclusion of W for the extra stax power would be worth being unable to use the godly Null Rod (since I myself would become more dependent on mana rocks for 3-color ramp and fixing).
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
You are correct, but I'm not unhappy when my opponents don't play creatures: I'll just bash their head in with Glissa. I don't think that Glissa fits the stax archetype though, she's better with cheap artifacts: you get them in your hand, and replaying high CMC cards is a drain on your resources.
Speaking of cheap artifacts, you could consider Hex Parasite. It's a card with unparalleled utility, and you could use it to manage soot counters on Smokestack.
While I can see your point on reanimation, I think you could consider Necrotic Ooze. It does double duty with several of your creatures (well, the only one you're caring for is the hypnotoad I assume), but I've found it's particularly good with creatures your opponents play in a lot of situations. And with "particularly good" I mean that it leads to complicated and fun board states. I can see why you wouldn't play it, but I'd put it in the same pile as Geth, Lord of the Vault.
I'm glad you like Chains.
Between all the fetchlands I run, plus Farseek, Nature's Lore, and Three Visits, I can easily get both Overgrown Tomb and Bayou on the field every single game already.
Not to mention many of our stax pieces (Smokestack, Braids, Abyss, Magus, Void, etc.) are 4 CMC and Skyshroud Claim competes with them for a 4-drop.
Still, in budget lists that can't afford all the fetchlands that I run, it might be advisable to run a few extra forest-fetching stuff like Skyshroud Claim, because then I could understand that it would be more difficult to reliably get your duals out.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Maybe I will update the list again for posterity, but for the time being as an informative note to anyone who may come across this thread later on, I've pretty much retired this decklist. Back in March 2013, Nath was OK--I wouldn't have put him on par with other format-dominators of the time, but he wasn't all that bad imo.
Since then a lot has changed. The way I played Nath, using our cheap G creature tutor spells to fetch an early opening Braids was one of this deck's strongest plays, and so losing braids with the controversial abolition of the "banned as commander" list was a really, really big hit to my Nath. Additionally, with more recent sets, the EDH meta overall has become faster over the last 3 years alongside the rise of powerful competitive <=4cmc commanders like Brago, Derevi, Daretti, Yisan, and others. Nath meanwhile has noticeably fallen victim to that dreaded power creep, as his formerly-nifty ability now comes out with a resounding "meh" at 5cmc compared to what nasty and game-winning tricks his peers can do for the same CMC or even less.
Nath is still a "good" commander, I wouldn't throw him in the jank bin, and he's still one of the only commanders to make efficient and thematic use of random discard. Furthermore he did get several new toys, Waste Not most significantly among them. But it just wasn't enough in my opinion to keep up with the power creep.
Indeed, the power creep has been so conspicuous of late that even Braids, Cabal Minion, arguably the poster-child stax commander (who makes Nath stax look like child's play), isn't even as intimidatingly game-breaking as she used to be many years ago (as evidenced by her full unbanning in 1v1 French). My playgroup even decided to house-unban Braids in multiplayer commander, so for me personally the effort I put into this list has instead been redirected toward maintaining my (technically illegal) Braids list, with the hope that one day the mtgcommander.net RC may change its mind in the way the 1v1 French folks did and legalize her.
In the meantime, if you really love Nath then I encourage you to play him and do what you enjoy, because that's what MTG is all about (having fun)--but in terms of competitiveness, which was what I originally built this list for, I wouldn't take this deck to a table in June 2016 with other format-dominating commanders and expect to win. Nath just doesn't have the juice for it right now as he might have had back in March 2013.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Not to hijack this into a Braids discussion thread, but I wasn't using Braids's unbanning in French to prove that she should be unbanned in regular multiplayer commander, I was just using it as an example of the way overall format power creep has made cards that used to be considered "overpowered" (like braids) to no longer be so, and cards that were considered "good" (like Nath) to simply become kinda meh.
You're absolutely right that French is a different format because there's no Sol Ring, Crypt, or other broken mana rocks, and that Braids is not as strong without them. But if that were the only reason, then Braids would have been unbanned a long time ago, because those rocks have been banned in French for years.
The other and in my opinion more relevant reason they unbanned braids is that "the format gave birth to a lot of powerful decks" over the time that she's been banned (quote from the rules announcement post here), or in other words, power creep has made her not as game-breaking as she used to be.
And while French and Multiplayer are different, the power creep is very real in both, and coming back on topic it's that power creep that's led me to retire Nath (in addition to braids banned as commander taking away one of his strongest 99 cards). I think we're in agreement on that.
Legacy: GWR Enchantress <--That's my banner! (lol tinypic removed it)
Casual: WB [[Primer]]Clerics Tribal; BU Affinity
EDH: ...U [[Primer]]Arcum Dagsson; BG Legal Stax; B Illegal Stax
Proxy: .WX TriniStax
Other stuff: [[Official]]Shuffling, Truth + Maths
Firstly, in your mind, how would have the shift from Partial Paris mulligan rules to Vancouver mulligan rules in EDH adjusted this list? In the playgroup I play with most, we have chosen to maintain partials as a houserule for our casual play, but we have tried out the new, "official" rule when things get a bit more serious. I've been looking at your mana dork count and 3cmc-or-less ramp count to gauge how reliable my starts have to be, and I was a bit surprised to see only Llanowar and Birds for dorks. Would you recommend Elves of Deep Shadow, considering how frequently a crucial piece of stax needs to come out the next turn and asks for 2-3 black sources/generally how black is most important to have early? In general, it looks like the safest way to combat the new mulligan rule is to invest a bit more heavily in mana dork/tutor density in the deck.
Next, one of the main reasons I was very inspired by your list is because it is a fairly nontraditional approach and general for stax of today's meta -- generals like Brago and Derevi are running around rampant and rely on super-overpowered artifacts for proactive control, mana fixing, and mana acceleration. What your deck actually does is set itself apart from that reliance on artifacts because of its green identity and the inclusion of Null Rod. I think Null Rod is an incredibly powerful and unique card that seems underappreciated in EDH (or at least in my experience), and I love the fact that this deck uses it. With that in mind, what is your opinion on how this card is positioned in the EDH format right now? What sort of deck do you think it shines best in? If I'm honest, your confession that you had sort of retired this deck was slightly disheartening to me since I've thrown so much time, thought, and money at my deck already, but I also don't really envision me ever truly going 100% mode with this deck (having the capital to actually buy cards like Imperial Seal, Chains of Mephistopheles, and The Abyss)--with that in mind, would you recommend keeping at this deck idea for a "pretty powerful" stax-strategy deck, since I do truly enjoy it so much? My intent with this deck is to have fun and be able to wreck tables every once in a while, so the exclusion of these most-expensive cards is admissible by me, but do you still think it's worth my time, honestly?
Thanks so much!