Daretti, Stax Savant

Commander / EDH Mono-Red

CanEx

Artifact (42)

• 1x Alhammarret's Archive
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Candelabra of Tawnos
• 1x Chalice of the Void
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Contagion Engine
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Ensnaring Bridge
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Flayer Husk
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x God-Pharaoh's Statue
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Grim MonolithGC
• 1x Grinding Station
• 1x Krark-Clan Ironworks
• 1x Lion's Eye DiamondGC
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana VaultGC
• 1x Manifold Key
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Mesmeric Orb
• 1x Mox DiamondGC
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Possessed Portal
• 1x Pyrite Spellbomb
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Salvaging Station
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Static Orb
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Thorn of Amethyst
• 1x Thran Dynamo
• 1x TrinisphereGC
• 1x Uba Mask
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Winter Orb

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bazaar of Baghdad
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Dark Depths
• 1x Darksteel Citadel
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 11x Mountain
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Urza's Mine
• 1x Urza's Power Plant
• 1x Urza's Tower
• 1x Wasteland
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Creature (10)

• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Goblin Engineer
• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Lodestone Golem
• 1x Metalworker
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Scrap Trawler
• 1x Squee, Goblin Nabob
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine

Commander (1)

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Anger of the Gods
• 1x Burning Inquiry
• 1x Cathartic Reunion
• 1x Control of the Court
• 1x Faithless Looting
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Goblin Lore
• 1x Jokulhaups
• 1x Obliterate
• 1x Scrap Mastery
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Wildfire

Planeswalker (3)

• 1x Karn, Scion of Urza
• 1x Ugin, the Ineffable
• 1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Ghirapur AEther Grid
• 1x Stranglehold
• 1x Underworld BreachGC

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Vandalblast

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Daretti Stax wins by grinding the game to a halt before either grinding out advantage faster than anyone else or performing a combo kill. This strategy is done in 4 stages.

STAGE 1: SLOWING THE GAME

The first part of Daretti's strategy is making sure combo decks can't pull off their early turn kills. This can be done either by playing smaller stax pieces like Sphere of Resistance and Tangle Wire, or powering out a really big stax piece / wipe early, either through ramp or through cheating one out via Daretti. We also play several silver bullet hate pieces like Cursed Totem and Torpor Orb, but these we need to dig for, so we can only get them after slow the game down with smaller stax layers. Daretti really needs to read the table to figure out which of these early strategies to pursue for the best chance of winning.

STAGE 2: STOPPING THE GAME

This part is a lot easier. Between our Obliteration effects, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, and Possessed Portal, we can pretty easily lock the game completely once we get up to enough mana. This part of the strategy is more of a formality, but a necessary one to include. One of the ways Stax can lose is to give someone enough time to wiggle through all their little stax pieces. We need a final nail in the coffin.

This is also where we give a special shoutout to Uba Mask. Uba stax lists are some of the best at performing this part of the plan because, once Uba Mask is out, it becomes incredibly hard/impossible for someone to mount one of those comebacks mentioned previously.

STAGE 3: VAAAAAALUUUUUUUUE

So, normally once you execute stage 2, most faster decks will concede. For everyone else, we need to outperform them in the post-wipe buildup. We have a leg up, however, considering that we tend to have at least one planeswalker, if not more, to start out. We can do this either with our cards that give us incremental advantage like Squee, Goblin Nabob, Crucible of Worlds, and Scrap Trawler, or by dumping out our stronger stax layers like God-Pharaoh's Statue and Trinisphere. We also have all of our card filter effects like Goblin Lore. With Daretti's trash from treasure ability, these aren't so much bad card filtering as actual gobs of cards, sometimes with the benefit of generating mana through Daretti.

Okay, so the combo decks are down at a crawl, and the value decks are getting outmaneuvered. How do we kill people?

STAGE 4: #WINNING

Daretti can win in 3 main ways.

First, there's the boring route. If no one is doing anything, then our planeswalkers and fatties will eventually just punch people to death.

Similarly, we can also perform a lock with Possessed Portal and Scrap Trawler to just sacrifice and replay 4 things per turn cycle while no one else does anything while slowly beating down with dorks. This is mostly commonly done with a Daretti emblem.

Then we have our combos:

Krark-Clan Ironworks, Myr Retriever, Scrap Trawler, a 1-mana artifact, and a 0-mana artifact can provide infinite mana similarly to the old Modern KCI decks. Basically announce a small activated ability or a cheap artifact (generally another 1-mana artifact), overpay with KCI, let Trawler get back everything but the Retriever while the Retriever gets back the Trawler, and recast everything. With Sensei's Divining Top or Codex Shredder we can draw our deck before casting Staff of Domination, a creature, and ghirapur aethergrid to deal infinite damage. Or mill everyone with Codex Shredder. Or you can set up a Possessed Portal lock from the previous section. Heck, I've even considered adding Liquimetal Coating to infinitely cast and kill Ugin to bolt people to death.

Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith = infinite mana. Add Staff of Domination to draw your deck.

Staff of Domination + Metalworker = draw your deck

Underworld Breach + Grinding Station + 1 or 0 mana mana rock = lots of mana and mill your deck, resulting in one of the other combos.

Salvaging Station + Flayer Husk + sac outlet = infinite uses of the sac outlet.

You can also generate infinite mana with Metalworker or Rings of Brighthearth and Basalt Monolith with Staff of Domination. You can then use the Staff to draw your deck, leading to the previous kills. You can perform a similar combo with Underworld Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond and Wheel of Fortune. Basically, no matter what you win the game by casting your entire deck as many times as you want.

Enjoy! Comments and advice always welcome.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.80
Tokens	Construct 0/0 C, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant, Marit Lage, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Spirit 2/2 C, Treasure, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink