This is another slightly older video about when and how to apply stax in your casual games without getting promptly kicked out. Stay safe. #mtg #magicthegathering #mtgcommunity
I'm so used to seeing Smothering Tithe and Esper Sentinel that I forgot they were able to be considered Stax and not just "Something in every White deck"
@@obliviouslich1722it’s funny because whenever 1 single busted white card comes out. Everyone’s like “mono white is broken now” what is broken in white is a budget option in green.
I don't even consider those cards to be stax pieces. When the tax can be ignored and you can still play your cards as you normally would, that's never been considered stax at our table.
Not sure if you are in on the full history, but the deck isn't actually named after Smokestack, though the original versions did play that card. The Vintage prison deck was originally titled "$T4KS" which was a shorthand for "The $4000 Solution." But that spelling is kind of dumb so it just became Stacks, which then became the catch-all term for prison decks/lock pieces.
"A common reason people choose to play casually is to focus in on a specific theme that might not be competitively viable, and their willingness to put up with your stax fuckery usually ends where that theme begins." Such an accurate quote to be honest. One of my friends plays basically nothing but stax, mill and self mill strategies and she always wonders why I don't like playing against those decks.
So basically, heavy stax is that one double Pramikon+Karn+Mycosynth combo some madlad commented about in the roast short that has been living in my mind rent free these past couple weeks
Mind you, I only ever did this once, but when the opportunity presented itself, I did the mycosynth vandalblast combo nuking literally everything I didn't own on the table. I also happened to be running a Reaper King flicker deck, with my commander on the board so I just blew up lands as they entered. The table scooped. Although this debauchery happened only once, 2 years ago, public apologies were given, and lawsuits handled outside of court, I still get flack for it. 100% worth it. 😂
@@scottdahneke1031I went one better in an espur deck. A friend just kept playing some flavour of mardu vampire deck for a few months so I did mycosynth with the weather light woman as the commander and just animated his entire mana base. Can't win if he can't cast spells
I'd probably add an extra step up on "No fun allowed" which I'd call the "You can't play anymore" where there are cards that are so stax that if they enter the field they just stop entire decks from playing. Examples would be Iona and Overwhelming Splendor.
I play overwhelming splendor in my trostani token deck just in case someone decides playing solitare while 3 other people watch is an okay thing to do.
I dont necessarily begrudge someone who wants to use stax as part of a control strategy, but if your deck was built purposefully to just be "youre gonna draw, play a land or discard to hand size and pass" for the whole game while the stax player gets to build his board? I have a problem with that kinda game. Because ive been on the other end of that and my game was "i play a land, you played another stax piece on your board tho so i cant afford to play any of my cards as my 1 drops now cost 5." And, i was just. Done after the 7th turn around where he managed to clone a few of his stax pieces to increase the taxes to the level of 8 mana for 2 drops. At that time i conceded and just walked away from the table.
Worse is when you are able to finally cast it... Then either have it countered or worse removed because they are black/white... Its like mocking you for having the audacity to even cast a damn spell....
As a longtime staxx player in competitive, and even in casual during the earlier days of the format blowing up (2011-2014), this brought me great joy. Thanks! I also feel obligated to mention stuff like Rule of Law effects, cast-prevention effects like Sanctum Prelate and Archon of Valor's Reach. Can't let people cast their preferred spells, after all. Loving the content, man.
Do you have any list you could share with me, or general tips to playing stax at least? I have an Eight-and-a-Half-Tails and Dauntless Dismantler that keep staring at me from my binder, but I don’t know the first thing about making a reasonable stax deck where I do something besides put in nothing but stax cards.
The key is having multiple ways to ask about tax collection. "Would you like to supersize that?", "The IRS is at the door again," "I am once again asking for you to pay the one," "That's a scary spell; may I draw a card in these trying times?" and similar go a lomg way to making it less hated.
@@Kerrmunism I play Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, and Esper Sentinel quite regularly, and I've probably asked that question more often than most drive-thru attendants.
You just gave me a video that can justify some of my decks existences. Thank you for making a video that will help them realize my Thalia, smothering tithe, rustic buddy, and Grand arbiter are not the worst things I could put on the board 😂.
Surprised not to see a mention of cards like Loxodon Gatekeeper or Thalia, Heretic Cathar, AKA "Put the breaks on your turn, Mister or Missus. You can pop off next turn, thank you very much!"
I actually really like Blind Obedience/Authority of the Consuls/Kinjalli's Sunwing styles of stax. They can function as defensive and offensive tools while not preventing people from playing at all.
My favorite stax piece is Revenge of Ravens. If you're going to hit me, actually hit me. None of this "hehehe I can count to 20" nonsense. Come at me trying to kill, or don't come at me at all.
@@maldhound You are literally the joy that keeps me coming back to MTG instead of other games, even if I can only afford to play it in sims. Keep it up man, and thank you.
I like this breakdown of stax. Informal, but to the point. It also reminds me to feel more or less scummy depending on what kind of stax I have put there.
The first and second level are my favourite kind, being something that doesn't necessarily stop your opponent, but will make them think twice on every action they do.
I think people should get more comfortable with running cards like Collector Ouphe considering how powerful and how prevalent Treasures are. Most of these effects are in Green and White, which are both good at grabbing lands, albeit to different degrees, so you can afford to build your deck with fewer mana rocks to help circumvent its effect on your own gameplan.
It is quite silly that the only color that has access to consistent land and mana dork ramp is also the color that punishes the only other form of ramping via rocks. But still, my LGS has three Galazeth players and a handful of Breya decks so I’d be remiss to not be the bad guy every once in a while.
@@itsikpix5825 Ahem.... Eye of Singularity.^^ Stops ALL token nonsense and reapplies the old legend rule to anything that isn't a basic land. There can only be ONE of anything on the board.... not YOUR board.... the ENTIRE board. Particularly nasty if you're running this in a blink/clone deck.^^ Look it up, it's a world enchantment. And, yes, it's as old as that implies.^^
I love, love, love the fact the whole topic of the vid is "If you are going out of your way to play this, you are horrible and suck in every way imaginable" and at the end throws in a casual "But if it happens once or twice in a while, suck it up, butter cup!" :D
Back when I used to play a lot of cEDH, I found it funny how people really enjoyed playing with an GAAIV deck in the table, because it meant the games were more tactical and lasted a bit longer. I found it really weird how much the Casuals HATE the very same commander, that brough so much flavor and increased depth to cEDH games. Also stax doesn't even do much vs casuals. Turn 1 Manavault into Trinisphere only work in tables where people play less than 30 lands.
That’s why I love stax, it slows the game down and makes you think about the decisions you make. I do understand why someone might not like it if they’re on a time constraint but otherwise it’s a great way to make games more tense in my opinion
Ironically the name stacks refers to a card you have shown - Smokestack. Which was (afaik) like the "original" (at least original tournament viable?) deck doing stax things to win. Or as I prefer to refer to this: "The 104.3a plan" (Rule 104.3a is "A player can concede the game at any time." - something tells me the fact that I know this by heart says a lot more things about me than I'm comfortable revealing)
Where cedh starts slotting out less and less removal to just win the game, casual starts slotting out more and more removal to have fun with the game. Like a bell curve on both ends of the spectrum, it opens up a lot of possibilities for stax pieces to live seemingly forever until you get to high power right in the middle where everyone runs enough stuff to counter or kill everything you play
I usually break it down into two types. Tempo and stax. I might have some tempo cards like blind obediance or authority, to slow things a bit for my decks that move a bit slower like curses. Stax is when you have a ton of those effects and bogs everything down and grinds the game to a hault. effects
Stax ❌ Pillow Fort ✅ It's the more fun way to build it imo, watching the table work through the mental gymnastics of how the hell they're supposed to break through will never not be an amazing feeling Also, day 16 of asking for Tesholitare, Ancestor's Apostle!
Revenge of Ravens is fun on its own. I despise aggro in general, but the worst offenders are weenie wavers. I don't care how many scute swarms you have. The ravens will eat them all.
I have a very mild amount of stax in my light paws tech. Aura curses and some synergies with them, and a limited amount of restriction, damping sphere and attack taxing mostly, though theres also a curse of exhaustion+knowledge pool combo
I love my kamahl and tymna apostrophe tribal. “Can’t, don’t, and shouldn’t” that last one is not really printed on the card but it’s heavily implied with a 4 power esper sentinel
I like some weird symmetrical taxes or odd bonuses that helps keep things fresh. I have a Slogurk deck running AEther Barrier that forces a tax of one on creatures or sac something where I'm perfectly happy to sac my lands. Excavation is a bonus where everyone can dumpster lands for cards, but I'm the most likely one to want to do it. It runs the risk of going too far on my own resources as well, so it's not as if it's riskless which other players can take advantage of if they have the line.
Hey MaldHound do you have any link to the treasure cruise treasure pile deck list? Me and my friends want to play it but none of us are pack openers, traders, or collectors (the only cards we own are in decks) so we would need to buy it. PS love the content excited to see where this goes.
Grand Aribiter Augustine IV is a fine stax piece if it's your only stax piece. I used to use it in my flier deck because everyone else was faster than me.
I'm currently building stax because I bought the Fallout secret lair for the Grand Arbiter alt art for an azorius voltron deck. Since I have the insane stax artifacts, someone in my playgroup thought it might be funny to see what I can do. I have the feeling that its going to be awful for all parties concerned(I typically avoid trying to slow down boards)
I had two mono-colored (Blue and White) Stax decks brought to game night on the night I told everyone I was gonna play Yoshimaru. That Dog card nearly became their headstones.
I wonder if there could be a semi-stax deck strategy, where the goal is to slow the game down in a way that results in more fun for all players rather than less. Rein in the player in the lead so the other casual decks have a better chance to do their thing. Maybe running stuff like Fall of the Thran?
not me over here with thalia and the gitrog turbo stax that nearly got me knocked out lol. turn 1 sol ring into winter orb followed by kismet the next turn. i won that particular game, but it cost me some friends lol
Reminds me of the time where I had the misfortune of going up against a heliod deck that I thought was lifegain, but was in actuality 95% stax until he could find walking ballista. When he lead with spirit of the labyrinth to keep people from drawing cards, I knew we were in for an awful slog.
For people like these I really feel they shouldn’t play commander in the first place. There are 60 card formats that are built for this kind of stuff if you just wanna combo and is acceptable in a competitive environment, not a casual one like EDH.
When you have that one friend who uses all of these types in almost every deck they own and say "im just trying to have fun and get more games in" At your expense...
This video is basically describing my Kambal deck, which does all of the above (it also doesn't get a lot of play because it's power level 9 and makes the table hate me, but be unable to do anything about it). That deck is so toxic, as it taxes basically anything anybody does, and stacks passive triggers, so it is not the standard noncreature hate midrange deck that everybody expects. For example, it runs: 1) Passive drain: Kambal, Sheoldred, Polluted Bonds, Revenge of Ravens etc 2) 3/4 black and white shrines (drain X, discard X and gain 2X life) 3) "Would you like to pay?" cards: Tithe, Ghostly Prison, Sentinel Painful Quandry (this card is broken but rarely played), Norn's Annex, Elesh Norn, etc 4) Speed bumps: Authority of the Consuls, Blind Obedience, Kismet, Kinjala Sunwing, etc 5) Nope cards: Stony Silence, Ashes of the Abhorrent, Ensnaring Bridge, Sphere of Safety, Torpor Orb, etc 6) Taxes: God Pharaoh Statue, Suppression Field, etc. It also has finishers with Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond/Vito for infinite drain and Torment of Hailfire. Given how many artifacts and enchantments are put in the deck, it also runs Replenish effects, just in case somebody has a wrath for them. Each of these enchantments is irritating on its own, but can be broken in combination. For example, if I have out Exquisite Blood + Painful Quandary, every spell that an opponent plays requires them to discard or lose 5 life and have me gain 5 life. Stack this on top of Sanctum of Stone Fangs and I'm already passively draining 1 from each opponent every turn, dealing 1 to everybody and gaining 4 life. Add in Honden of Night's Reach and I'm dealing 2 per turn to each opponent, gaining 8 life, and forcing 2 discards.
Playing tax is like playing tax is really similar to group hug except where in group hug you're the one playing animal crossing while everyone try to play total war in Star you force everyone to play animal crossing while they watch you build your basement into a murder factory.
One of my favorite stax card has to be meekstone It's a cool playaround 1 mana artifact that really says "look what if you had one shot, one opportunity to seize everything you ever wanted" to all those big ass creatures no one likes
For casual fully agreed, however at a competitive level stax becomes the main way to keep the fastest deck at the table from winning every game. A Deafening Silence is a surefire way to make sure the Speed Reader Codie deck doesn't just say, "I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all outta bubblegum" every game. Gumming up the works is a job not many are willing to do, but it's a job that needs to be done and I'll always be there to tell the Inala player no, your Spellseeker is sad and you've tried it so many times today that I'm taking away your Demonic Consultation for the rest of the game.
Friendly reminder that stax is just as important in commander as board wipes and removal. If you aren't using removal on the Golgari player's graveyard, they will always have a way to rebuild
Levels of stax in descending order of horribleness: 1. Cards that outright forbid game actions 2. Cards that restrict resources 3. Cards with symmetrical combined up and downside 4. Cards that tax an optional game action 5. Cards that present the player with a choice of multiple penalties Honourable mention goes to any stax card that you can try and manipulate or evade in an interesting way besides just removing it. Like forcing an ensnaring bridge player to draw cards or using proliferate on chalice of the void.
I started on TikTok making videos like a year and half ago, started the magic stuff about a year ago, been posting regularly to RU-vid for a few months
I have a Zo-Zu EDH deck that I call "permissive stax." There's very few cards that actually stop you from doing anything, it's just that everything hurts a lot. Leads to pretty short games and people realizing that their decks might have too much ramp.
for those interested, the name stax comes from $T4KS or "the four thousand dollar solution", referring to the first (very expensive) stax deck which was considered the best solution to the stagnant meta at the time.
This is a common answer I've heard, but if I'm not mistaken that name was a backronym, a forced way of making the name that already existed nto an acronym. The name was originally just because of the key piece in the deck, SmokeSTACKS.
I played a collector Ouphe in a game of casual commander not realizing how strong it is or what stax was. One player straight up conceeded as it was cast
Is my deck considered a stax deck if i slowly introduce my opponents to road bumpps little by little (IE: dranith, hushbringer, rystic, smothering, among other thins) as well as blowing up problem things on the board sometimes the board itself (not the lands im not a monster). While i look for my win con. Asking cause people i play with call my deck a stax deck when i built it to be a tool box with a tool for most problems and a way for me to survive until the end game.
As someone who plays heavy stax such as angel of jubilation,grand abolisher,drana and linvala, silence and ghostly prison in my Kaalia (yes Mald I play stax on top of Kaalia.) And an entire deck of stax I think it's safe to say I'm a hated player...
Stacks is the most optimal way to play the game from an interactive viewpoint. It's also the only way to keep Solitaire players in line. If you don't pack removal for rule of law, Aven mindcensor, or any of my other " Fourth Geneva Convention" tactics then you don't deserve the w. I've played with too many deadeyed drakes, cool Kikis, and walking poopflingers to care about people's feelings when I pull a Steffon and 3-ball on t1. This is just an over-exaggeration please don't get upset by reading this. I want people to have a good time when I sit down and play with them. I just think people get a little too flustered when you Stony silence on turn one.
My stax deck is about one thing only. Everyone only get to play one spell each turn. its a mono white deck, that way i don't need to bother much with carddraw as we're all going slow
