Stopping Power! *PRIMER*

Commander / EDH Casual Enchantment Multiplayer WB (Orzhov)

NV_1980

Enchantment (26)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Attrition
• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Dictate of Erebos
• 1x Exquisite Blood
• 1x Flickering Ward
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Greater Auramancy
• 1x Hallowed Haunting
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x No Mercy
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Sigil of the Empty Throne
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Smuggler's Share
• 1x Sphere of Safety
• 1x Starfield of Nyx
• 1x Trouble in Pairs
• 1x Underworld Dreams
• 1x Wound Reflection

Artifact (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Jet Medallion
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Pearl Medallion
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 8x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Serra's Sanctum
• 1x Shambling Vent
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Vault of the Archangel
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath

Instant (7)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Vanishing Verse

Commander (1)

Creature (16)

• 1x Aegis of the Gods
• 1x Ajani's Chosen
• 1x Archon of Sun's Grace
• 1x Athreos, God of Passage
• 1x Celestial Ancient
• 1x Doomwake Giant
• 1x Erebos, God of the Dead
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Fate Unraveler
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Grim Guardian
• 1x Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 1x Mesa Enchantress
• 1x Mondrak, Glory Dominus
• 1x Underworld Coinsmith
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Extinguish All Hope
• 1x Gift of Estates
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Replenish

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Welcome to Stopping Power! {W}{B}!

Hi there! Welcome to the primer of this Orzhov, enchantment, token-deck; commanded by Daxos the Returned. The air is thick with spells and he’s weaving a web of arcane energy around you like you wouldn’t believe; summoning ever greater quantities of weave-mesh to ensnare everything you hold dear (including your life). Once it’s ready, tied into a perfect knot that simply can’t be untangled, breached, broken or penetrated, our boy will use its twisted power as fuel for his spirit tokens. Get ready to be smacked by the force of righteous yet putrid energies, kicking you into the grave from the astral plane! This deck is meant to be played casually. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course anyone is welcome to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this primer; hope you will enjoy it!

Why Daxos?

He’s unique! One of the only commanders in existence that is so clearly supposed to interact with non-aura enchantments. It’s appropriate that Daxos is of the Orzhov guild. White and black arguably have the most powerful enchantments in MTG, so having these at one’s disposal has a positive impact on the deck’s power-level. This guy can create some pretty powerful tokens once the deck gets going, and he’s not expensive to (re)cast.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The following parameters have been used to determine the strength of the deck. For each, a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad) has been allocated; when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck.

• Mana: indicates the availability of mana sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates the measure in which the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 3

During turns, one aims to summon a token with Daxos, while simultaneously having enough mana left over to cast at least one other spell. Thus, it’s important to have decent mana available within this deck. It contains five rocks, two cheapeners and two enchantments that relinquish treasure tokens whenever opponents attempt to gain the upper hand.

Ramp: 2

The second most efficient color at ramping after green, is actually white. This means there are a decent number of options. Three of them have been included and all of them can only be used when at least one player controls more lands than this deck does.

Card Advantage: 4

It’s great to have lots of options during turns and that requires to draw cards often. Five cards feature in this as direct-draw resources and an additional five tutors. Also, two amazing filter-artifacts have been added.

Overall speed: 4

Lots of cheap resources, draw and inhibiting spells/enchantments allow this deck to kick-start itself with a very decent speed. During most games, the first, serious inhibitive actions can be undertaken before turn four.

Combo: 1

Not a very combo-oriented deck, but there are some nice synergies in here. A number of permanents benefit from the fact that Daxos doesn’t just generate spirits, but enchantment-spirits. This feeds into enchantment-ETB effects.

Army: 2

Most of this deck’s potential for combat damage relies on its token army. In terms of non-token creatures, the amount included can be considered below average. Their individual strengths aren’t really combat oriented either; most of them have been included for their inhibitive/supportive abilities or their synergy with the deck’s enchantments.

Commander: 4

The ability to generate (potentially) strong tokens is really quite useful in a deck that mostly relies on combat damage to finish off opponents. Daxos can do this quite well by himself, but redundancy has been added in abundance (five options), in case Daxos ever becomes unavailable to us. If the deck is deprived entirely of token generation options, it will still take one heck of a pounding before it goes down.

Interaction: 5 There’s a lot of stuff in this deck that makes sure the opposition is a lot less effective at doing things, than this deck’s wielder is. Amongst the twenty-three options to cause mayhem on the other side, are cards that exile stuff (five options), force others to sacrifice their permanents (four cards), drain life (three options), damage or destroy (four cards) and a smattering of other abilities.

Resilience: 5

This deck’s primary mode is not offensive but defensive. Orzhov happens to excel at that. This color-combination sports a wide variety of inhibition-, rebirth- and outright destructive options. The options chosen include ten cards (mostly enchantments) that slow down opponents or negate their advantage. These are supported by no less than fourteen removal options (eight specifically meant to get rid of opposing creatures). Last but not least, three cards have been included that can retrieve lost enchantments from the graveyard.

Spellpower: 5

In terms of high impact on the board, this deck really packs a wallop. This becomes particularly apparent when one’s allowed to create a board-state of more than a few enchantments at the same time. Options to hurt or impact the deck’s permanents becomes severely limited in such cases. At least twenty-one cards within the deck fall within this category.

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Total power score: 35

Ever since Daxos came out, this creation has evolved into a strong combination of cards that can counter most opposing threats, and this is reflected in the deck’s power score. It’s not particularly fast, but it’s quite hard to get rid of and becomes very dangerous once it gets going a few turns without losing enchantments. Its versatility and its ability to make an impact on the battlefield are both pretty awesome.

General strategy

This deck starts slow and adopts a defensive posture. A significant amount of casting is spent on barriers, taxation and other forms of inhibition while building up resources. While this goes on, Daxos is to make as early an appearance as possible. He will keep a low profile at first, just gain experience as turns go by and more enchantments are cast. This increases his chances of survival a bit and keeps potential recasts later a bit cheaper.

Once a decent measure of experience (4+ usually takes me between 6-8 turns) has been gained, the deck enters its mid-game phase during which Daxos hopefully creates at least one Spirit token a turn (more if possible). While doing that, the idea is to save enough resources to keep casting new enchantments and/or support cards that strengthen existing forces as well. This will also be the phase during which one starts to prod the enemy with an army. Unless opponents perform a wipe or (consistently) target Daxos and his enchantments, eventually one will be able to overwhelm the opposition with a token army between turns 12-16.

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a cheap-to-cast rock like Arcane Signet, Orzhov Signet, Fellwar Stone, Jet Medallion, Pearl Medallion or Sol Ring. This is a must; it’s recommended not to start a game without this hand (even if one has to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand would also contain some additional ramp and/or low-cost draw options or maybe a cheap inhibitor like Authority of the Consuls.

Early game

Before embarking on the offense, create a board-state from which it’s going to be (very) hard to get dislodged. This requires the casting of resources to be prioritized. Aside from the aforementioned cards in the ‘Starting Hand’ section, consider some slower options like Knight of the White Orchid, Land Tax, Scroll Rack, Smuggler's Share, Trouble in Pairs and Weathered Wayfarer. Now comes the task of making this deck the most unattractive target of attacks possible. Some very solid protection can be gained through the casting of cards like Aegis of the Gods, Athreos, God of Passage, Ghostly Prison, Grand Abolisher, Greater Auramancy and Karmic Justice. While putting up these barriers, Daxos the Returned needs to join the field early, so that he can start gaining experience from enchantment castings asap.

Mid-game

Once primary defenses are in place, start to use Daxos’s token generation abilities to create a spirit army. In an ideal situation, he is joined by token generators that are triggered by enchantment ETB’s to increase the army’s size even further: Ajani's Chosen and Archon of Sun's Grace. Having Anointed Procession around helps even more in such scenarios, doubling the amount of all token generation. Other cards one should not forget at this stage, involve bonuses triggered by enchantment casting (like Celestial Ancient, Doomwake Giant, Hallowed Haunting and Sigil of the Empty Throne).

While building up the deck’s force, move to strengthen defenses even further. Especially tax and stax pieces should be appearing in this stage, like Blind Obedience, Dictate of Erebos, No Mercy, Sphere of Safety and Underworld Dreams. Non-combat related strategies, that are still capable of dealing overall damage or other inconvenience, can be disrupted with Heliod's Intervention, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares and Vanishing Verse to get rid of their key components.

End-game

Once a board-state has been created that’s very hard to get rid of, tokens will move in for the kill. They can be strengthened through the use of Cathars' Crusade or can be given a clean sweep by removing all non-enchantment creatures from the field with Extinguish All Hope.

Card Choices

Lands

Reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Ancient Tomb: major colorless mana for a small price in life-points; excellent land to start games with.
• Arid Mesa/Bloodstained Mire/Flooded Strand/Marsh Flats/Polluted Delta/Verdant Catacombs/Windswept Heath: the lands used to filter through the deck, which enables to find the cards that matter to strategy quicker.
• Command Tower/Exotic Orchard/Mana Confluence/Reflecting Pool: great all-color mana lands that have very few disadvantages in their use.
• Caves of Koilos, Fetid Heath/Godless Shrine/Isolated Chapel/Shambling Vent/Tainted Field/Temple of Silence: lands that provide Orzhov mana, that depending in circumstances enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. The best MTG has to offer on this front has been incorporated, except for the original dual lands which are outside most players’ price-range.
• Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: very useful mana battery in a permanent-rich deck; especially when said permanents are hard to get rid of.
• Reliquary Tower: because it’s stupid to discard if it’s not necessary.
• Serra's Sanctum: an enchantment-fueled land in an enchantment-rich land.
• Vault of the Archangel: very powerful, though temporary, bonuses for Daxos’ spirit tokens.

Mana and ramp

The cards used to accelerate mana-availability:

• Arcane Signet: cheap-to-cast, doesn’t come into play tapped and grants any Orzhov mana whenever tapped.
• Gift of Estates: sort of a one-shot Land Tax but for Plains only; still nice!
• Fellwar Stone: useful mana source that in 4-person play groups almost always allows the generation of white or black mana.
• Jet Medallion: cheapens all black spells; score!
• Land Tax: arguably the best non-green land-fetching device that was ever created.
• Orzhov Signet: can’t have two Arcane Signets, so let’s include this instead.
• Pearl Medallion: cheapens all white spells; score!
• Smothering Tithe: pay taxes for drawing! You don’t want to? Thank you for the mana!
• Sol Ring: are there EDH decks without this card?
• Thought Vessel: a cheap mana generator that allows an unlimited hand-size.
• Weathered Wayfarer: fetches any land, not just basics, provided someone else currently controls more.

Card Advantage

The mechanisms that provide with card advantage:

• Demonic Tutor/Vampiric Tutor: the perfect cards to find whatever is needed.
• Enlightened Tutor/Idyllic Tutor: some enchantments and artifacts are just too good not to tutor for.
• Erebos, God of the Dead: life for draw; quite often a nice trade-off.
• Esper Sentinel: a draw unless you pay spell-casting tax; most decide not to pay.
• Mesa Enchantress: casting enchantments allows draw!
• Phyrexian Arena: one of the standard black enchantments for additional draw.
• Scroll Rack/Sensei's Divining Top: awesome filter- and draw mechanisms for hardly any cost.
• Smuggler's Share: more cards and more mana, if others gained a bit too much advantage this turn first.
• Trouble in Pairs either slows opponents down or yields some draw; both great alternatives.

Damage, Removal and Stax

Cards to atomize, banish, destroy or vaporize the opponents’ stuff.

• Attrition: altar upon which one can sacrifice critters to kill yours.
• Dictate of Erebos: kill these creatures in combat and everyone gets to sac as many.
• Doomwake Giant: superb creature removal; especially when one can get multiple enchantments to enter the battlefield in a single turn.
• Extinguish All Hope: perfect wipe when enough Daxos tokens have been summoned.
• Fate Unraveler/Underworld Dreams: drawing is going to be painful, … for you!
• Grasp of Fate: getting rid of key permanents from each opponent can be instrumental to victory.
• Heliod's Intervention: gives a choice to kill off a bunch of enchantments and artifacts; or just gain a whole lot of life.
• Karmic Justice: bit of a stax piece that protects enchantments (for the most part).
• Leyline of the Void: not exactly removal, but does send stuff into oblivion instead of the graveyard, from which it’s much harder to return.
• No Mercy: any non-indestructible creature damaging this deck is dead. Just, .. dead.
• Path to Exile/Swords to Plowshares: cheap exile in exchange for minor opposing benefit.
• Wound Reflection: ANY damage opponents receive is doubled; youch! That includes the damage this deck didn’t deal.

Protection and Recursion

Good luck trying to harm this deck!

• Aegis of the Gods: engage shield against opposing spells!
• Athreos, God of Passage: this creature will be kept, or you get pinged!
• Authority of the Consuls/Blind Obedience: slows down some opponents’ permanents.
• Exquisite Blood: build up a nice life-point buffer from opposing pain.
• Flickering Ward: great enchantment to use for triggering ETB effects.
• Ghostly Prison/Sphere of Safety: puts a tax-gate around this side of the battlefield.
• Grand Abolisher: you’re responding with a counterspell? Now? Nope.
• Greater Auramancy: yay, all (other) enchantments have spell protection!
• Replenish: you’ve just destroyed all enchantments? No big deal :)
• Teferi's Protection: just a second, we’ll be right back!

Benefits, Bonuses and Pain

When enchantments ETB/are cast, opponents are in for some additional pain

• Ajani's Chosen: a cat for every enchantment this deck places on the battlefield, which can be multiple enchantments a turn.
• Anointed Procession: doubling Daxos’ spirit-token output has been instrumental to victory a number of times, and other types of token copies are great too.
• Archon of Sun's Grace: a recent addition to the deck that has proven to be powerful.
• Cathars' Crusade: a boost that’s so much more fun when combined with token generation.
• Celestial Ancient: provides this (token) army with nice boosts when some more enchantments are woven into being.
• Grim Guardian: every opponent is going to be hurting when enchantments enter the battlefield; that includes Daxos’ spirit tokens entering.
• Hallowed Haunting: such a superb synergy with Daxos’ abilities; upgrades his spirit tokens AND can generate tokens by itself that actually benefit from the amount of Daxos tokens!
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned: this deck’s got a nice number of ways to gain life, so this God’s bonus comes in handy.
• Luminarch Ascension: in a deck that makes it very hard for opponents to harm its wielder, it kinda makes sense to add this beauty. Potentially an excellent generator of Angel squadrons.
• Mondrak, Glory Dominus: exceptionally powerful token-generator and excellent combatant to boot.
• Sigil of the Empty Throne: casting enchantments is what this deck does; this lovely thing adds a little Angel cherry on top to make the perfect sundae.
• Starfield of Nyx: acts as a doomsday device (the Weave, IT’S … ALIIIIVE!) and has a very useful recursion element as well.
• Underworld Coinsmith: love the life-gain, but love the drain even more!

Notable exclusions

• Academy Rector: it’s been tried and tested in this deck but in the end has proven less effective than hoped for. She has to die before she can be used, and there’s only so much one can do to bring that about. In all, slightly too expensive and ungainly for its own good.
• Crystal Chimes: can be put in as a redundancy next to Replenish, depending on the meta one’s facing.
• Heartstone: makes the creation of Daxos-tokens cheaper, but this isn't really necessary as by the mid-game, one can easily create enough tokens per turn
• Serra's Sanctum: best land ever for this deck, but too expensive.
• Spirit of the Labyrinth: don't want to hurt this deck’s own draw capabilities.
• Twilight Drover and Drogskol Cavalry: fits the Spirit theme, but this has never been too much of a focus for this deck.

Thank you for reading!

Appreciate the time you took to read this primer. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	7 years
Last updated	1 week
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	15 - 0 Mythic Rares 54 - 0 Rares 13 - 0 Uncommons 5 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.92
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Cat 2/2 W, Enchantment Spirit */* WB, Experience Token, Pegasus 2/2 W, Spirit Cleric */* W, Treasure
Folders	Dax decks, Reference Decks, Deck Inspiration