I was thinking that if I ever end up making a Stax deck, I'd likely go with Nath as the general. Green offers ramp and some good removal, black offers... well, everything black offers, from tutors on downward. Toss in the ability to force discard and create tokens at the same time and it seems Nath would be pretty good for Stax. One could always include Glissa as a means of recurring core stax artifacts.
I agree, and I've been occasionally putting some work in on a list of my own that I'll try on cockatrice someday.
Personally I think he's the best possible commander for an aggressive (non-pillowfort) stax deck. Sure, you don't have access to any of the things white can do for you, but I honestly don't think you need it. With all the artifacts, discard, and anti-symmetry in token generation that you get out of GB not to mention how powerful Nath is with his effects, you get a lot of mileage out of a deck like that.
Since we're talking generals, I want to do a tier list for the primer on want generals and colors fit the stax strategy best.
So lets do a little discussion on that.
For me, I think B/W/x is the best, yet oddly, I feel glissa is probably thee S tier stax general. Her with the salvaging station package is a pretty brutal combination. Plus greens token production is unmatched.
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The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Since we're talking generals, I want to do a tier list for the primer on want generals and colors fit the stax strategy best.
So lets do a little discussion on that.
For me, I think B/W/x is the best, yet oddly, I feel glissa is probably thee S tier stax general. Her with the salvaging station package is a pretty brutal combination. Plus greens token production is unmatched.
A straight-up BW deck with a general that supports a stax strategy in the way Nath and Glissa do would probably be a better deck than both of them. Unfortunately, no such creature exists and the best we have is Ghost Dad, and all of the BW legends are fairly sub-par for a stax strategy unless you go way out of the way to build around them for it.
S Tier is Nath and Glissa for sure, A Tier would include GAAIV, Zur, and other generals like them that really contribute to lockdown but aren't quite as potent. B Tier would be less effective generals in good color combinations, along with great generals in worse color combinations like Hokori. It's definitely a list worth making, I think.
A straight-up BW deck with a general that supports a stax strategy in the way Nath and Glissa do would probably be a better deck than both of them. Unfortunately, no such creature exists and the best we have is Ghost Dad, and all of the BW legends are fairly sub-par for a stax strategy unless you go way out of the way to build around them for it.
S Tier is Nath and Glissa for sure, A Tier would include GAAIV, Zur, and other generals like them that really contribute to lockdown but aren't quite as potent. B Tier would be less effective generals in good color combinations, along with great generals in worse color combinations like Hokori. It's definitely a list worth making, I think.
You pretty much summoned up my thoughts pretty well except I'd put hatori in A tier. If you've every played against a tuned hatori stax deck you know that deck is brutal. In a tuck, removal heavy meta it sort of looses a lot of its sting, but still will impact the game. Left alone, it will win every time.
I'm holding my breath for dragon maze or whatever it's called. I'm hoping it's a multi color dream land and we get some new generals for stax.
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The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
I'm sort of scarily getting into the idea of this sort of deck. Using things like Unwinding Clock and Seedborn Muse - both great cards on their own - to get around the restrictions imposed by Static Orb...
Yeah, I'm starting to see the appeal.
Edit/Add:
And heck, a quick look through my boxes of stuff reveals that I already have a ton of the good cards for this. Winter Orb, Torpor Orb, Tangle Wire, Lodestone Golem, Static Orb, Smokestack, Bitterblossom, Myr Turbine... those are all just sitting around, waiting for something to do.
I'm trying massacre wurm + tombstone stairwell out as a win con and as a way to safely let smokestack accumulate (since I can stack triggers so they sac before they get tokens, and then vice versa for my turn).
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"I think EDH would be more fun for the majority of participants if players just showed eachother their decks rather than actually playing games out."
I'm sort of scarily getting into the idea of this sort of deck. Using things like Unwinding Clock and Seedborn Muse - both great cards on their own - to get around the restrictions imposed by Static Orb...
Yeah, I'm starting to see the appeal.
Edit/Add:
And heck, a quick look through my boxes of stuff reveals that I already have a ton of the good cards for this. Winter Orb, Torpor Orb, Tangle Wire, Lodestone Golem, Static Orb, Smokestack, Bitterblossom, Myr Turbine... those are all just sitting around, waiting for something to do.
It's a really fun alternative strategy. And you definitely have the core cards to build around. Give it a spin and see how it's fits.
Edit: what kind of decks do you usually like to run? Maybe I can give you some tips on a build that would complement your normal play style.
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The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
It's a really fun alternative strategy. And you definitely have the core cards to build around. Give it a spin and see how it's fits.
Edit: what kind of decks do you usually like to run? Maybe I can give you some tips on a build that would complement your normal play style.
Really, I like playing all sorts of stuff. My current EDH decks - I have 16 active ones - range from Marrow-Gnawer rat tribal, Karona ally tribal and Borborygmos big-stompy-creatures to Geth discard/reanimator and Ertai, the Corrupted/Shirei recursion/control. Jor Kadeen infect, Mayael, Rubinia Soulsinger "copy and steal everything", Geist Voltron... I play a lot of different things to keep my opponents on their toes and keep me from getting bored.
The Ertai deck actually has some fairly stax elements to it already, as I run lots of sac effects along with Martyr's Bond, Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir, plus easy-to-recur stuff like Reassembling Skeleton and recur-for-value token generators like Marsh Flitter. I typically use Pestilence, edicts and white targeted removal to keep the board fairly clear until I've got enough mana and the needed pieces to establish a control state, then use Ertai + tokens + stuff to untap Ertai to counter anything that might threaten my board state or straight-out kill me. Then I just keep anyone else from having significant creatures while I beat face with lots of little tokens and utility creatures. It isn't the most explosive deck ever, but if I get out some stuff like Ghostly Prison, Koskun Falls and Propaganda early on, I can usually to keep people away from me long enough for me to get my engines going.
An opponent's actual quote from a recent game - "So, I just got beaten to death by Hanna, Ship's Navigator and a bunch of goblin rogue tokens. Maybe I should go back to Pokemon."
My Glissa deck - which includes a Salvaging Station package - also has a somewhat staxish element to it, since I use edicts and forced sac effects to power her artifact recursion and the Salvaging Station, killing off my opponents' creatures while I build up card advantage momentum.
Really, the biggest problem I'd have with some stax builds is that my meta strongly frowns upon mass LD. However, nobody has a problem with targeted LD. B and G both have some of that, plus I've got Strip Mine, other land-hate lands and a Crucible of Worlds I'm not currently using, so I should be okay without the mass LD, especially if I can get something like Winter Orb or Static Orb to stick. Earlier discussions and this primer have demonstrated how you can do stax without the mass LD, so right there I've gotten a ton of value out of this.
Again, Phil, most appreciated. I think you may have successfully converted me to the dark side, or at least convinced me to take a little excursion in that direction. Whether some of the guys I play with will be happy remains to be seen.
All this talk about Glissa, the Traitor has me thinking about playing her for my first stax deck. Nath is tempting too but I think Glissa may be easier for a first stax deck, what with built in recursion and all. Plus I wouldn't have to invest so much in a mana base, I realized I didn't have as good of an Esper base as I thought are there any Glissa stax decks in the database?
I'd love to see a rat stax deck. Post your list and we can evil it up a bit.
About your group hating mass LD. The reason people hate it is because people don't understand how it to play it properly. When you have your win cons up you rock all the lands so you get there with out disruption. Or you use it to take the guy way ahead back down to everyone else's level. You don't just play it because you stuck a crucible or "hahaha Trollolol".
Also would love to see your glissa list, seems like it's 5-10 cards away from being a strong stax deck (just glissa and salvaging station means you're Already at the finish line)
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The EDH stax primer When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
S Tier is Nath and Glissa for sure, A Tier would include GAAIV, Zur, and other generals like them that really contribute to lockdown but aren't quite as potent. B Tier would be less effective generals in good color combinations, along with great generals in worse color combinations like Hokori. It's definitely a list worth making, I think.
It's interesting (at least to me) that you tend to see less dedicated G/B stax decks, and perhaps the most mono-white ones out of any given color and/or color combination. Perhaps it's that G/W offers people more archetype options in the competitive realm, whereas if you want to compete with mono-white, one of your only real options is stax.
I'd love to see a rat stax deck. Post your list and we can evil it up a bit.
About your group hating mass LD. The reason people hate it is because people don't understand how it to play it properly. When you have your win cons up you rock all the lands so you get there with out disruption. Or you use it to take the guy way ahead back down to everyone else's level. You don't just play it because you stuck a crucible or "hahaha Trollolol".
Also would love to see your glissa list, seems like it's 5-10 cards away from being a strong stax deck (just glissa and salvaging station means you're Already at the finish line)
Unfortunately, the people who have played mass land hate in the meta - as well as things like Jokulhaups - have usually been the troll sorts of players who do it not because this will let them win unopposed (in fact, they usually end up being killed off right after they pull those stunts), but essentially just to be dicks. So, they've rather poisoned the well.
I'll write up my rat and Glissa lists and post them sometime this weekend if I get a chance. Right now the rat deck has a strong discard sub-theme, plus things like Painful Quandry, so some stax might fit in there pretty well. I didn't want it to be just another Relentless Rats deck, though it does run some Relentless Rats.
Who else knows the secret tech of Lethal Vapors + Pithing Needle combo.
Just remember to play the Pithing Needle first, so that every single creature dies as soon as it comes into play.
I used that tech combo in my old Thrax Stax deck for a long time. Another card that works well in creature-light Stax list is [Card]Tainted Aether[]/Card] is one of the best mass creature swarm deterrence plus it's not blue which makes it fair.
These cards make man-lands and Planeswalker really shine.
How many games have been won with Mishra's Factory in our playgroup Phil? Too many too count.
Who else knows the secret tech of Lethal Vapors + Pithing Needle combo.
Just remember to play the Pithing Needle first, so that every single creature dies as soon as it comes into play.
That is brutal. If only I had known that in my old Nath deck; its a shame that it shuts off tokens for Smokestack fuel.
It's pretty sweet, it was an old trick my friends from high school told me about and I realized that they were absolutely correct.
I just recently started using that lock-out combo 3 years ago or so. That's some real super secret tech (Well not anymore).
Could wipe field and drop Phyrexian Revoker and Vapors to try and win off a beat down. Of course that would be my meta for stax... like getting hit from a 0/1 sheep token holding a sword till your dead.
Could wipe field and drop Phyrexian Revoker and Vapors to try and win off a beat down. Of course that would be my meta for stax... like getting hit from a 0/1 sheep token holding a sword till your dead.
That sounds like our games, but its Trinket Mages, Dark Confidant, Bitterblossom faeries, Goblin Assault goblins, Elspeth's Knights', and various man lands. We have a blast!
For some reason Solemn survives a long time, he gets there for at least 4 damage in every game I've seen. It shows how good he is!
4 colour mana for land ramp, card draw, and 4 damage.
Who else knows the secret tech of Lethal Vapors + Pithing Needle combo.
Just remember to play the Pithing Needle first, so that every single creature dies as soon as it comes into play.
Wow. Wish I had known about this one before (or been smart enough to look at the two cards and figure it out)! Will certainly be including it in future lists. Thanks!
That is so tech. Golgari super tech right there, Styx. Great hidden gem discover.
He is overshadowed by Savra, Jarad, and Glissa. He has less synergy than the other generals by far, and people would assume you are playing a generic G/B control list with amazing cards. A stax list is far from expected from that general.
So you guys like that tech play Tainated Aether + Pithing Needle? I'm glad you appreciate it another lock out combo that I've discovered over the years.
What do you guys think of the new RW enchantment they just spoiled? It seems like it would pair with Smokestack nicely. Scalable token production and they have haste? I guess the fact that it costs 5 mana might be a strike against it.
I agree, and I've been occasionally putting some work in on a list of my own that I'll try on cockatrice someday.
Personally I think he's the best possible commander for an aggressive (non-pillowfort) stax deck. Sure, you don't have access to any of the things white can do for you, but I honestly don't think you need it. With all the artifacts, discard, and anti-symmetry in token generation that you get out of GB not to mention how powerful Nath is with his effects, you get a lot of mileage out of a deck like that.
So lets do a little discussion on that.
For me, I think B/W/x is the best, yet oddly, I feel glissa is probably thee S tier stax general. Her with the salvaging station package is a pretty brutal combination. Plus greens token production is unmatched.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
A straight-up BW deck with a general that supports a stax strategy in the way Nath and Glissa do would probably be a better deck than both of them. Unfortunately, no such creature exists and the best we have is Ghost Dad, and all of the BW legends are fairly sub-par for a stax strategy unless you go way out of the way to build around them for it.
S Tier is Nath and Glissa for sure, A Tier would include GAAIV, Zur, and other generals like them that really contribute to lockdown but aren't quite as potent. B Tier would be less effective generals in good color combinations, along with great generals in worse color combinations like Hokori. It's definitely a list worth making, I think.
You pretty much summoned up my thoughts pretty well except I'd put hatori in A tier. If you've every played against a tuned hatori stax deck you know that deck is brutal. In a tuck, removal heavy meta it sort of looses a lot of its sting, but still will impact the game. Left alone, it will win every time.
I'm holding my breath for dragon maze or whatever it's called. I'm hoping it's a multi color dream land and we get some new generals for stax.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Yeah, I'm starting to see the appeal.
Edit/Add:
And heck, a quick look through my boxes of stuff reveals that I already have a ton of the good cards for this. Winter Orb, Torpor Orb, Tangle Wire, Lodestone Golem, Static Orb, Smokestack, Bitterblossom, Myr Turbine... those are all just sitting around, waiting for something to do.
It's a really fun alternative strategy. And you definitely have the core cards to build around. Give it a spin and see how it's fits.
Edit: what kind of decks do you usually like to run? Maybe I can give you some tips on a build that would complement your normal play style.
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
Really, I like playing all sorts of stuff. My current EDH decks - I have 16 active ones - range from Marrow-Gnawer rat tribal, Karona ally tribal and Borborygmos big-stompy-creatures to Geth discard/reanimator and Ertai, the Corrupted/Shirei recursion/control. Jor Kadeen infect, Mayael, Rubinia Soulsinger "copy and steal everything", Geist Voltron... I play a lot of different things to keep my opponents on their toes and keep me from getting bored.
The Ertai deck actually has some fairly stax elements to it already, as I run lots of sac effects along with Martyr's Bond, Grave Pact and Butcher of Malakir, plus easy-to-recur stuff like Reassembling Skeleton and recur-for-value token generators like Marsh Flitter. I typically use Pestilence, edicts and white targeted removal to keep the board fairly clear until I've got enough mana and the needed pieces to establish a control state, then use Ertai + tokens + stuff to untap Ertai to counter anything that might threaten my board state or straight-out kill me. Then I just keep anyone else from having significant creatures while I beat face with lots of little tokens and utility creatures. It isn't the most explosive deck ever, but if I get out some stuff like Ghostly Prison, Koskun Falls and Propaganda early on, I can usually to keep people away from me long enough for me to get my engines going.
An opponent's actual quote from a recent game - "So, I just got beaten to death by Hanna, Ship's Navigator and a bunch of goblin rogue tokens. Maybe I should go back to Pokemon."
My Glissa deck - which includes a Salvaging Station package - also has a somewhat staxish element to it, since I use edicts and forced sac effects to power her artifact recursion and the Salvaging Station, killing off my opponents' creatures while I build up card advantage momentum.
Really, the biggest problem I'd have with some stax builds is that my meta strongly frowns upon mass LD. However, nobody has a problem with targeted LD. B and G both have some of that, plus I've got Strip Mine, other land-hate lands and a Crucible of Worlds I'm not currently using, so I should be okay without the mass LD, especially if I can get something like Winter Orb or Static Orb to stick. Earlier discussions and this primer have demonstrated how you can do stax without the mass LD, so right there I've gotten a ton of value out of this.
Again, Phil, most appreciated. I think you may have successfully converted me to the dark side, or at least convinced me to take a little excursion in that direction. Whether some of the guys I play with will be happy remains to be seen.
amazingly epic sig courtesy of DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Planes.
About your group hating mass LD. The reason people hate it is because people don't understand how it to play it properly. When you have your win cons up you rock all the lands so you get there with out disruption. Or you use it to take the guy way ahead back down to everyone else's level. You don't just play it because you stuck a crucible or "hahaha Trollolol".
Also would love to see your glissa list, seems like it's 5-10 cards away from being a strong stax deck (just glissa and salvaging station means you're Already at the finish line)
The EDH stax primer
When you absolutely, positively got to kill every permanent in the room, accept no substitutes.
It's interesting (at least to me) that you tend to see less dedicated G/B stax decks, and perhaps the most mono-white ones out of any given color and/or color combination. Perhaps it's that G/W offers people more archetype options in the competitive realm, whereas if you want to compete with mono-white, one of your only real options is stax.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Unfortunately, the people who have played mass land hate in the meta - as well as things like Jokulhaups - have usually been the troll sorts of players who do it not because this will let them win unopposed (in fact, they usually end up being killed off right after they pull those stunts), but essentially just to be dicks. So, they've rather poisoned the well.
I'll write up my rat and Glissa lists and post them sometime this weekend if I get a chance. Right now the rat deck has a strong discard sub-theme, plus things like Painful Quandry, so some stax might fit in there pretty well. I didn't want it to be just another Relentless Rats deck, though it does run some Relentless Rats.
Nissa, Nath, Hokori, and Hanna are my choices for top stax commanders! I had forgotten glissastation x.x
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Just remember to play the Pithing Needle first, so that every single creature dies as soon as it comes into play.
I used that tech combo in my old Thrax Stax deck for a long time. Another card that works well in creature-light Stax list is [Card]Tainted Aether[]/Card] is one of the best mass creature swarm deterrence plus it's not blue which makes it fair.
These cards make man-lands and Planeswalker really shine.
How many games have been won with Mishra's Factory in our playgroup Phil? Too many too count.
EDH
BWG Doran Suicide Tempo BWG
BUW Sharuum Midrange Control BUW
That is brutal. If only I had known that in my old Nath deck; its a shame that it shuts off tokens for Smokestack fuel.
Signature made by Rivenor at Miraculous Recovery Signatures
EDH
[Primer] - BRG Adun Oakenshield: Jund Stax/Recycle Bin GRB
BRG Shatterbros Shenanigans GRB
It's pretty sweet, it was an old trick my friends from high school told me about and I realized that they were absolutely correct.
I just recently started using that lock-out combo 3 years ago or so. That's some real super secret tech (Well not anymore).
EDH
BWG Doran Suicide Tempo BWG
BUW Sharuum Midrange Control BUW
Could wipe field and drop Phyrexian Revoker and Vapors to try and win off a beat down. Of course that would be my meta for stax... like getting hit from a 0/1 sheep token holding a sword till your dead.
Signature made by Rivenor at Miraculous Recovery Signatures
EDH
[Primer] - BRG Adun Oakenshield: Jund Stax/Recycle Bin GRB
BRG Shatterbros Shenanigans GRB
That sounds like our games, but its Trinket Mages, Dark Confidant, Bitterblossom faeries, Goblin Assault goblins, Elspeth's Knights', and various man lands. We have a blast!
For some reason Solemn survives a long time, he gets there for at least 4 damage in every game I've seen. It shows how good he is!
4 colour mana for land ramp, card draw, and 4 damage.
EDH
BWG Doran Suicide Tempo BWG
BUW Sharuum Midrange Control BUW
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
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R Márton Stromgald
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{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Wow. Wish I had known about this one before (or been smart enough to look at the two cards and figure it out)! Will certainly be including it in future lists. Thanks!
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
[Primer] WUB Dromar, the Banisher Stax [SOON TO BE OLORO]
there are a lot more I am forgetting at the moment.
ooo baconoftheark nath'd me pretty hard, have to work harder at this!
where is defense grid
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That is so tech. Golgari super tech right there, Styx. Great hidden gem discover.
He is overshadowed by Savra, Jarad, and Glissa. He has less synergy than the other generals by far, and people would assume you are playing a generic G/B control list with amazing cards. A stax list is far from expected from that general.
So you guys like that tech play Tainated Aether + Pithing Needle? I'm glad you appreciate it another lock out combo that I've discovered over the years.
EDH
BWG Doran Suicide Tempo BWG
BUW Sharuum Midrange Control BUW
Rafiq | Jeleva | Zedruu
Brion | Vela
Talrand | Erebos
Otherworld Atlas Collection
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