“What it’s brought out in me, can’t begin to retrieve.“
Stax, love it or hate it, well, I think we can all agree that most people Hate Stax, it is prevalent within the format and is something that you and your playgroup will absolutely encounter throughout your time playing EDH, while it draws a lot of attention and hate Stax is very good at controlling games and really disrupting the overall flow of the game. Today, we want to focus on 10 awesome stax pieces within the game. Some of these are extremely popular, and some of them are not as popular but still fulfill the Stax element. Without further ado, let’s get it!
This list is in no particular order and just features ten awesome stax pieces that don’t get enough love.
10. Earnest Fellowship
This is a card that is often not seen as a Stax piece, but in a Stax deck, this can do a lot of work, and with the additional restrictions that you put on getting attacked with cards like Propaganda
or Ghostly Prison
you can really shake up combat and force opponents to take a lot of additional damage. This card is very underrated and is quite strong. It also really disrupts decks that are heavy on removal; if you play a five-color commander, it has protection from all colors; this is a wild one and a very cool one.
#9: Hall of Gemstone
Hall of Gemstone is a very interesting card that really puts a tax on opponents who are playing multi-color decks, forcing them to be one-dimensional is very good and can disrupt their gameplan entirely, I find this working best in a bant strategy, where we can happily be one-dimensional since we are slowing down the game so much. I like this card a lot and think it’s very underrated.
#8:Equipose
A pseudo board-wipe that causes a lot of trouble for our opponents, while this isn’t amazing in a traditional Azorius stax deck, this works really well with commanders like Yasharn, Implacable Earth
, which is a deck that is super easy to stack up lands and creatures, this card can really disrupt creature decks and absolutely dominate games.
#7: Smoke
This is a card that is criminally underplayed in my opinion, since it is in red it is perfect for a spellslinger-focused deck that doesn’t care about untapping their creatures and just want to cast spells, this is one of those Stax pieces that can really devastate creature-heavy strategies while barely affecting our strategy, a cheap enchantment that is very good.
#6: Brand of Ill Omen
While this doesn’t affect the whole board, it can really devastate a deck that is trying to go wide and just getting going. While cumulative upkeep will always make our turns a little bit worse, if we can stop an opponent from popping off on the board, it is absolutely worth it. This card is quite valuable to us in the early game and can be quite effective in the mid-game as well.
#5: Mindlock Orb
This is a card that keeps getting better and better, with more tutors in the format and tutors being attached to creatures, enchantments, and spells this card is very strong and can disrupt spellslinger decks a lot, turning off fetches, or even effects like Sakura-Tribe Elder
is very powerful, this is a great card that only keeps getting better.
#4: Tainted Aether
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but this card is very strong against creature decks. Being able to force them to sacrifice their creatures anytime they play a new one is very strong and can devastate any creature deck. This one is also quite underplayed, so I don’t think any opponents will expect this one to come down.
#3: Land Equilibrium
Stompy decks better watch out, while this affects a ton of decks our opponents who love to ramp need to be careful because if they start ramping too hard and get more lands than we have then they are going to start sacrificing them, there is so much ramp within the format that this card gets better and better.
#2: Shimmer
This card is actually insane and one that I almost never have anyone ever talk about, being able to effectively stop an opponent with a mono-color deck, while this card is a little pricey mana-cost wise no matter what time of the game you drop it is quite effective, this card is very strong.
#1: Portcullis
One of the most criminally underplayed cards within the format, all it takes is two creatures on the field, and then all the future creatures get sent underneath the portcullis, if you play this in a deck with counterspells and ways to protect the portcullis this can cause havoc on the game for a really long time and just sow chaos, especially on decks that are focused on creatures. This is one of the most underrated commander cards, in my opinion, and can slow down a good majority of the creature decks within the format.
Conclusion:
I hope you all enjoyed this one! I also hope there was at least one card in this list that you’ve never heard of before; a lot of these cards are super underplayed and deserve to be played much more in the format, while all of these cards are Stax-oriented many of them can work very well within a variety of decks. Stay tuned and tap in!