No Lightning Greaves?

Nah, the Greaves actually prevent Brago from targeting himself with his own ability; usually something I don't want. Having the ability to make Brago untap himself is huge when I'm running Stasis, Static Orb, and Embargo.

I run Whispersilk Cloak because I feel the unblockable aspect makes up for the loss of self-exiling, but since stax matches often stretch on for an extended time, the tradeoff of haste isn't worthwhile on the Greaves. I may end up adding back in Swiftfoot Boots though. Unquestioned Authority and Steel of the Godhead are also high on my list of possible future additions if any of the current list ends up not being up to snuff. I've only had the chance to test the deck in a handful of 1v1 and 3 player free-for-all matches, so I'm still cutting and adding cards.

Cloudform and/or Lightform, for sure. Makes my Brago deck so dank.

I considered running Lightform at one point in the deck. However, it didn't bring enough value to be worth running. This is a highly competitive list that focuses on creating entirely one-sided board locks via stax tools. The card advantage and free casts from Light and Cloud are nice, but they just don't quite make the cut for this list. Thanks for the input, though!

I mean, the forms allow you to make full use of stax since you bounce them and get free shit. With Strionic Resonator combo, your whole deck is on the table. GG.

This decklist is great. I'm trying to build a competitive list myself to fight my competitive meta (mainly turn 3-5 combo decks) and this list looks perfect for what I want to be doing. So my question is this, as someone who is transitioning their deck from casual to competitive what are some of the best expensive cards ($20+) to buy first? I'm going to proxy this list and see how it plays with my LGS's competitive group, hopefully that will help with buying cards but I would love to hear your thoughts.

TL;DR: Of the cards that cost $20+ which ones should I buy fist?

The two most important cards in the deck whose TCG cost is between $20 and $100 are Grim Monolith and Mox Opal, followed by Transmute Artifact. The first two obviously accelerate the deck into midgame and help make up the backbone of the deck's extensive ramp shell. TA is just an extremely useful tutor that almost always has a use.

Nothing in the $100+ range is terrible critical to the deck's goals save for Ravages of War. Tundra, Mishra's Workshop, and Timetwister are all obviously powerful, but they can be substituted for cheaper variants. Even Ravages can be substituted with Rising Waters if absolutely necessary.

TLDR: Grim Monolith > Mox Opal > Transmute Artifact > Ravages of War.

After that, I would say Cavern of Souls is the next most critical, since anyone playing blue will try to counter Brago as hard as they can in game 2 (it's also when Grand Abolisher, and possible Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir get sided in). After that, it's a tossup for most critical. It's hard to compare the impact of having Timetwister vs, say, Scalding Tarn in the deck because they have such wildly different functions and criteria.

Dude, some of these alters are insane! Did you have all these commissioned for your deck? Or are they just images you found around the web? Hard to pick a favourite but Enlightened Tutor, Armageddon and Sun Titan are all off-the-charts gorgeous.

But 7th Edition Meekstone and Static Orb?!?! Ewww :P

That Teferi art is great.

Awesome deck.

Is Stonehorn Dignitary not included because it doesn't hit the whole table?

In part. The main reason for its lack of inclusion is that it doesn't really have a use. It's quintessentially a pillow fort card, and pillow fort isn't terribly useful in competitive EDH, where most wins are achieved via a combo of some sort. It's too niche to have a place here sadly.

can I get an opinion on Altar of the Brood for this deck as an alternate win condition?

AotB is a bit slow as a non-infinite outlet-- usually you'll be milling around 7 cards per turn. It's pretty useful when combined with Strionic Resonator, but so are half of the other cards in a Brago deck. What's more, it gets shut down by the Edrazi Titans and any other cards that shuffle back into their library.

TLDR: Altar of the Brood doesn't do enough to be worth including.

ok. I guess arguements can be made for ancient den, tezzeret and seat of the synod for toolboxing but love the list. At some point ill +1

Synod and Den are definitely solid options. I ran them at one point, but cut them when I added Back to Basics main board. My reasoning was that they're too easily hated out to make up for their advantages. They get hit by Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Ruination, Vandalblast, and and many other things that basic lands fly under.

only other suggestions would be jace (planeswalkers) for card advantage, or blue suns zenith for self card advantage or eliminating opponents with your infinite mana/card draw engines. all in all still love stax.

Link to where I can print out your proxies? I want all of the Tundra proxies...

They're not mine I'm afraid. The majority of the proxies I use were found on the internet. For example Here is the page I pulled that particular Tundra art off of. There's no one site that has more than a handful of the proxies I use on them, thought you can find slightly lower res versions of the majority of them here on my Proxy list. Link

I did make a handful of the cards myself using existing art and GIMP, Skycloud Expanse being one of them.

Thanks! Also, now I feel obliged to help you with your deck :p Have you considered Stonehorn Dignitary? He seems SUPER STAXy.

I did consider Stonehorn Dignitary at one point. When I was first building the deck, I looked at a lot of other lists for inspiration. Many of them contained Stonehorn. The problem is, in competitive metas, many decks do not rely on the combat step to win. He often ended up being a dead card, which is simply not acceptable for a 4-drop creature.

Sorry to bother again, but could you try Maze of Ith? Swing with Brago, get the trigger, maze him and he's pseudo invincible (I'm trying to build Brago EDH so that's why I'm pestering).

I wish I could, but Brago triggers on combat, which Maze prevents. Usually Brago having flying is enough to allow him to connect on at least one opponent, which is all he needs to get his engines and stax pieces into play. That, combined with the fact that Ith can't tap for mana makes it nearly unplayable in the deck.

Combat damage* sorry. He has to connect with an enemy player for his blink ability to trigger.

Why Loxodon Gatekeeper over cards like Frozen Aether and Kismet? To diversify your threats?

The only real reason I'm using Gatekeeper over his enchantment counterparts currently is for the synergy with Mentor of the Meek.