Stasis

Enchantment

Players skip their untap steps.

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Stasis unless you pay {U}.

Combos

• Phyrexian Altar + Stasis

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

RiotRunner789 on Ertai the Corrupted

21 hours ago

Side comment. You're calling this a control and stax deck but I don't see any traditional stax pieces.

If going that route think things like Stasis and Smothering Tithe, or the ubiquitous Winter Orb.

scottbaker91 on Zur the Enchanter Stax

4 weeks ago

Some of my favorite Zur Combos are: Teferi, Hero of Dominaria + Stasis // Solitary Confinement + Necropotence // Rest in Peace + Energy Field // Stasis + Azor's Elocutors // Basalt Monolith + Power Artifact // Winter Orb + Mind Over Matter

Sunder, Armageddon, Death Cloud will send your opponents back to the stone age while you fish out more enchants and punch them to death with Zur

Mana Breach, Mana Vortex, Oppression, Overburden are must have stax cards for Zur. The enchantments / creatures that keep your opponents from drawing or casting more than 1 spell per turn are really solid for stax ex: Arcane Laboratory, Spirit of the Labyrinth. Notion Thief + wheels will leave your opponent with 0 cards

Spellskite, Vanishing, Diplomatic Immunity, Steel of the Godhead, Mind Over Matter are all S tier for Zur

Approach of the Second Sun for another easy win con

Have fun crushing your opponents soul

DreadKhan on BBEG Deck Ideas

7 months ago

Out of curiosity, what did you find clunky about Kresh? it does require your opponents to have creatures, but most decks have at least a Commander out, and many have way more creatures. There is an endless number of ways to kill a bunch of creatures, and once Kresh has survived a few you can use almost any wipe that is -X/-X or deals damage, meaning he can swing vs a cleared board with some regularity. Jund has a lot of great wipes in it that can be one-sided, and even if all you give Kresh is Trample he's suddenly an actual threat, one that requires an answer or people will start losing. I've recently put together a list, so I'm curious for myself as well the issues you've identified. Is the 'Achilles Heel' that people just remove Kresh?

Queen Marchesa's tokens are useful, but I think Sauron's army will be a more impactful threat, the Assassins are mostly blockers in practice, the army can swing very hard, and Sauron is much stickier once he's out (both bigger and with that sweet, sweet Ward). I think Mardu has a lot of crazy effects that can make for a memorable game. There are few cards funnier for an Archenemy to use than stuff like Axis of Mortality, this not only can make the most dangerous threat the easiest to kill, it can also pump your own life total while tanking an opponent's, it's hilarious with stuff like Exquisite Blood or Sanguine Bond, since changing life totals counts as life gain or loss. White has some really great shenanigan cards for an Archenemy, though Blue offers fun surprises like Mass Diminish (which lasts until your next turn, which always struck me as absurd), so I think either could work well.

I just had a thought from thinking about how good both White and Blue can be for this, are ghosts iconic enough for you? One of the nastiest Commanders that has ever been printed is Brago, King Eternal, he's from the same setting as Marchesa I think. Brago is incredible with stuff like Meekstone, Static Orb, Stasis, etc etc, I'm not sure if that's too 'unfun', but since Brago can also run counters in Blue it's a very valid 'archenemy', representing a villain in the form of a monarch that refuses to give up power. Azorius conveniently is very good at not losing, but is also not very good at actually winning, meaning it can survive for awhile even with a lot of attention, and might kill off a player or two before they can beat him. I can think of very few decks that are better at forcing the table to work together to fight the archenemy than Brago, if they don't follow the plan to deal with him first he'll become a true menace, but if they gang up on him Brago should fold quickly enough.

treeforcorvus on Make this better

8 months ago

Cataclysm can work against you based on opponents' picks and though Enter the Infinite is impressive & works with Omniscience, I don't see Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac, nor do I see Grapeshot. Consider instead Boros Charm + Armageddon which most people will hate & sometimes outright scoop after.

Mana Vault is more of a risk than you might think without untap mechanics (See Derevi, last paragraph). Consider Thought Vessel or even Library of Leng.

Replace Lion's Eye Diamond with Land Tax. The latter also helps offset the pain from Need for Speed, which is a cool find.

Consider Smothering Tithe instead of Mystic Remora: Remora usually only nets a few cards at beginning, and will often slow you down more than it helps. The former performs MUCH more consistently, and will net you more mana to focus on spells and counters.

Concerning your SB: If you want to go maximum lock-stax, I'd recommend Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. Use Winter Orb, Static Orb & Stasis, use Kismet and Loxodon Gatekeeper, maybe even Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. Use fetches + basic lands, huge ramp, and Back to Basics just to spite opponents. NB: Mana Vault smacks with Derevi.

SaberTech on Atraxa Stax

8 months ago

I think that this deck list is still a bit unfocused. It is basically saying that it wants to stall things out and win with poison counters, and it has the Magistrate's Scepter + Coretapper + Atraxa, Praetors' Voice combo for infinite turns, but there are a number of cards included that will only do synergistic things some of the time that will water down your meaningful draws.

Some cards to consider to increase your potential to kill with poison counters include Evolution Sage, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, Inexorable Tide, and Phyresis Outbreak. I'm also kind of partial to Viral Drake. Tekuthal can act as an alternative to Coretapper for your Magistrate's Scepter combo.

I think that a lot of your STAX stuff will often feel lackluster since you aren't running any support to help you break parity on them. To get the most out of Winter Orb and Stasis it helps to have cards such as Nature's Will or Sword of Feast and Famine. There are also cards that tap down permanents/artifacts that you can use to tap down the Orbs at the end of your opponent's turn so that you can untap all your lands on your turn.

Cards that drain life like Scheming Aspirant and Bloodchief Ascension probably aren't worth it if you are trying to kill with poison counters. The life gain that you get off them is also pretty negligible. Although, if you had Mindcrank to combo with the Ascension it could function as a backup win condition.

You don't actually run that many cards that put counters on themselves or other cards you control, so Power Conduit and Soul Diviner look pretty lackluster on the basis of them not likely being consistent value when you draw into them.

I don't know what your commander meta is like, but in general there isn't a lot of targeted land destruction in casual games. Tomik, Distinguished Advokist will rarely be of any worth in most casual groups unless you regularly play against someone who uses cards like Crucible of Worlds to net value off of fetch lands and utility lands.

You have very few artifacts that send themselves to the graveyard. I think there is an argument to be made that you will rarely get much value out of Glissa, the Traitor's ability, even taking into consideration the possibility of getting back artifacts that opponents destroy. Still a decent blocker I guess. A more general effect like Eternal Witness in that slot may provide more consistent value though.

Those are just a few suggestions. I could think of more once I have a better idea of how you are looking to develop the deck further.

FormOverFunction on Favorite mtg art

9 months ago

I’m the biggest sucker for the old paintings, like the original (I don’t know how to link the specific one) Will-o'-the-Wisp. Also the more conceptual ones like Stasis. And basically anything Margaret Organ-Kean did. I really love the border-framing she put in many of her pieces; Spore Flower being a great example. A lot of that old art didn’t seem to try to distract me with wild costumes or elaborate character poses... it really leveraged my imagination into both what the card’s mechanics were and (maybe) how the artist -felt- about it. NOTE: it’s likely the artist didn’t always know what card they were representing or what it did, but that only makes what WotC did with the art even better. It really was a wild time back then. I do miss it. A more recent card that gave me some of that feel was Deliver Unto Evil, which was really close, but still fell prey to the “screenshot from the official movie” syndrome. I’m not going to get into my pet peeves again, so I’ll end with how refreshing Seb’s art was. Thanks, Seb!

FormOverFunction on What was the last iconic …

9 months ago

I think there’s also a personal “these are the first few cards I’ve seen that imprinted the game in my mind” iconic to be considered. Cards like Stasis and Twiddle seem iconic to me, both because their mechanics were original and their art is very cryptic and original, but also because they were what I saw first. When you grew up with straightforward art like what was drawn on a He-Man package, something like the original Terror was WILD. I feel like the newer MtG products are better polished, which has some upsides... but lacks that iconic Will-o'-the-Wisp feel. (if I had more skill/time I would link the original arts rather than whatever is about to come up with them - sorry all)

DreadKhan on Need help ruining a combo players day

10 months ago

Thorn of Amethyst, Glowrider, Sphere of Resistance, Vryn Wingmare, and Eidolon of Rhetoric all exist, but I'm guessing they didn't make the cut?

Retribution of the Meek might be a reasonable wipe with so many smaller creatures, ditto Elspeth, Sun's Champion. If a wipe is one sided it's not just resetting the board, not sure how many of these you're willing to run. Elspeth makes a small army, much better at blocking than the Samurai from Wanderer fwiw, but Wanderer is really strong too. Smothering Tithe is great with Stasis out, Brago, King Eternal might be fun too. If people are running obnoxious stuff, you could run Enlightened Tutor to find your Stasis/Tithe cards as needed, Muddle the Mixture can find both Stasis or Brave the Sands, while also being a counterspell. If you like Stasis, you could also try Static Orb, Meekstone, Crackdown or even Winter Orb/Rising Waters, not sure how hostile you want to be but Stasis is harsher than these. How often do you cast Approach of the Second Sun in here? I ask because there are a lot of tax effects, but if it's not trouble have you thought about running some tutors to find it? The best ones I can think of are Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, and Solve the Equation, they can also find other cards as needed, handy if you need removal, a wipe or a counter.

As for alternatives that can do similar things, you might look at either Zur the Enchanter or Hinata, Dawn-Crowned as alternatives that offer more offensive punch while still offering a solid route to shutting the table down. Zur can dig out enchantments like Rule of Law, Stasis (and Black Market Connections) and various ways to fairly quickly win the game, all while being able to hold up lots of mana for interaction, be it counters or removal. Hinata is another tax effect, but you get access to Red as well, and Red has some interesting additions to the Stax department, you'd definitely want Grand Arbiter in your Hinata deck, and you'd run most of the same cards, but you also have the option of running a bunch of cards that care about Hinata's discount, Hinata makes interaction better, especially if it has multiple targets, the annoying thing for both is that they're much harder to cast than Grand Arbiter, so you'd have to raise your budget to have the same consistency. The big problem with Zur is protecting him. If there are literally specific players you know are a problem you can run either Baral, Chief of Compliance or Talrand, Sky Summoner, Baral is better at playing 'Counter Everything' but Talrand can be just offensively good vs a specific player since he also is generating evasive bodies while interacting with that player's win attempts. The nice thing about he mono-Blue approach is you can just brutalize a player or two while letting the others play a smaller (but more normal) game.

Oh, if those players run specific colours (and nobody else likes them as much) there are old school colour hosers, cards like Karma can make life extremely hard. They exist for all colours, and they were so staggeringly unpopular that the developer stopped printing cards like it.