1+, love the reference. I'd write a longer comment, but those f***ing guards are after m-OH, here they are!

Vanish

Sprint

Roses are red, that elf is gliding.... Wait, that's an illusion! What are you hiding?!

Roses are red, and sometimes they're white. And when I'm in Suramar... Somethings not quite right.

Roses are red, ancient mana is low, bought 20 new withered...here's Leystalker Dro... (implying elesh on others )

Roses are red, the raids are in season;YOU FACE JARAXXUS, EREDAR LORD OF THE BURNING LEGION !!!

Roses are red, Violets are blue. In soviet Suramar...Mobs come find YOU...

(aggro's entire suramar, you won't be casting a spell today sir ) Who goes there ?

I might have missed it, but Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is great with Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.

Hi C--8CLARK8--D ,

First of all Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is a really really bad card ; look at it's mana cost, then look at what you need to have in play with it as well ... then look at the cost you need to pay per land ... and it's second ability is so trash that i won't even consider this a real threat , if you are looking to do this i would suggest playing either the cheaper (in price) placeholder Nature's Revolt or the real deal Living Plane, as they are easy to spit out and also synergize well with elesh but also Linvala, Keeper of Silence

Not to bash your idea, and yes i spew out more mana than most decks early on but it's just too gimmick and casual, so for me it's not worth it to even consider this dude as a test ...

Hope i explained my thoughts on him and and my personal feeling, but honestly doubt you would find a counter argument to this, but you can try ;)

Sorry, didn't even look at the deck but giving you a +1 for the reference! Ahahahahahahah!

I'd like to know what your experiences are with other Stax decks, if you have faced any so far...

I currently play Augustin's $t4ks (4000$ Solution/Stax) and I have the most problems, when someone is able to resolve noncreature mana sources right in the beginning, before the first taxing stuff hits the board. Being dependent on creatures entering play and attacking can be a problem, because there is a lot that prevents creatures from doing what they should do. We have a derevi deck here but I've only seen it win against rather casual decks, so I'd like to know what you think would be your chances against my own Stax.

i have faced some staxy decks like:

(card links are broken atm in preview on tapped out so sorry about that if it doesn't get get linked ... Thanks tapped out <3)

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed : it doesn't really stop you but it swarms creatures as well while being able to deal with artifacts and bolt away things... an early meekstone or an explosive start should do pretty well against Ruric.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage : which tries to go off while controlling + using stax... artifact hate deals well with Teferi though. mostly things to look out for here are ; being able to deal with The Chain Veil and Power Artifact combos... apart from that he doesn't that much...

Brago, King Eternal : blink boy over here also plays a lot of artifacts and most of the same stax effect creatures as derevi, thing is derevi can block brago for days and will mostly be in play earlier than him... one little thing you have to look out for though is Strionic Resonator , because with a rock that taps for 3 or more he can loop the "exile" and generate an absurd amount of mana...

Arcum Dagsson : Artifact hate as early as possible and mulligan for it ! linvala also does the trick.

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic : Esper ... this comes with board wipes, control and a mix of enchantments and artifacts. Dealing with oloro is easy if you explode early as he might gain his cool life, he doesn't have any blockers mostly and can give you a free pass to an early lock...

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician : Like Playing Riven vs Riven, the one that masters the fastcombo , the 1% crit rng luck or if one takes advantages from the other derevi players mistakes and explodes faster usually wins... Derevi is not easy to pilot and there are a few ways to build her towards a certain meta. At the moment i have the most geared and finished deck in our meta , But there is always a chance someone can deal well under your current stax and luck out a card that deals with you ... because usually the entire table will piledrive you when setting up locks :) it's your task to do this faster and earlier... read their commander and mulligan for it...

About your problem with early noncreature mana sources in brago; Null Rod, Kataki, War's Wage and Stony Silence could help you out , i am still missing some of the crucial mana rocks, but derevi usually hits the board turn 2 every game. i think your deck lacks some crucial counters though and the curve is a bit odd... the only thing i'de fear is " The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale " because it's just that stupid ;), Artifact hate and a resolved Gaddock Teeg shuts down 55% of your deck if not more...Although i can't really say who'd win between us, i do feel like this list would hurt me more really by BigLupu : My cockatrice list for GAAIV

@ Winterblast Haven't faced a Grand Arbiter Augustin IV before so i just have a general idea and some clues and info on what it does so by that i'd need playtesting to see the difference in power level. i think GAAIV has a slight edge though if built properly.

I know the Augustin list you've linked at the bottom but I don't like that reactive playing style for Stax. I think Stax should work like your approach, preventing that anyone can play at all, although my plan is not tapping but sacrificing/bouncing the lands. Of course my build is tuned towards the most problematic decks in my playgroup, which are at the moment Arcum Dagsson, Hermit Druid, Norin the Wary (yes indeed, I think this one has a 90% win rate because it's so chaotic and unpredictable), elves aggro and Infect with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice.

I can play the commander in turns 1-3 and usually do so unless there's something better available. At best, the cost increases prevent other player's from playing at all, until the sacrificing and bouncing effects are in place. At worse, someone rushes ahead and is able to play around the spheres and upkeep effects - for these scenarios I have the few rather expensive reset buttons. I've just recently included Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon because I often lacked power in the late game when I somehow missed the chance for an early lock and because I sometimes have ridiculous amounts of mana in the early game with mana rocks and Voltaic Key.

I think I probably should add Propaganda or Ghostly Prison again, because the main goal of the deck is to have everyone at few to no lands. I am not really a fan of counterspells and targeted removal for single use in stax, but I may be wrong - It just hasn't helped me much whenever I tried it. Also, I wouldn't know which ones are really worth playing. Is it rather something like Mental Misstep, Spell Pierce, Swan Song (and are they really having enough Impact), or Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Pongify...sometimes it feels like a targeted removal would be fine, but in multiplayer games it's often just card advantage for all other players because you lose a card in your hand and someone else loses a single permanent and everyone else profits.

@Winterblast

i can get behind the idea , but grand arbiter lacks green to do what derevi does. in which the sac/bounce lands is an "okay" approach of yours where Parallax Tide instantly pops to mind if you can abuse it but still it's not my cup of tea... ofc you tune towards your meta and are free to run w/e you feel is needed to battle others strategies, but i feel like the Arbiter needs the control and removal to stop someone from going of, even though if it might mean giving up card advantage... i still strongly stand on my point that the Arbiter i linked surpasses yours in power. the only thing it requires is threat assessment and dealing with what deals with you... Knowing Why, When and what to stop is crucial for a staxmander like arbiter

Also i feel like Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon are utter trash in your deck, if by any chance your enemies are that bad and you get to ult a Karn Liberated you were already winning so why waste that spot to a shitty planeswalker like that...

About Propaganda or Ghostly Prison , These cards are mediocre and casual at best it might be funny and all when they have no lands etc or when you play a low skill group, but people will play around this and easily deal with these cards...

Mental Misstep for example helps you deal with rocks as early as turn 0 , and you have no idea how much turn one plays try to brainstorm, sol ring, mana crypt, and endless amount of dorks etc etc etc and even stops most tutors... all i can really say is the one i linked is the most tuned and geared arbiter i know of... But perhaps you could ask the arbiter player he "should" know this better than i do !!!

I don't get what you mean with the lack of green, because speed is definitely not the problem in an artifact deck like Stax. Being able to use mostly colorless mana means having access to Mishra's Workshop, Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors and Crystal Vein and the accelerating mana rocks get better as well. It's not quite as reliable as in Vintage with 4 Workshops in only 60 cards, but it's still a lot faster than having to use mostly colored mana.

As for Propaganda, I have cut and added that card numerous times, always thought I don't need it for the same reasons you stated. Can't protect planeswalkers, people will find a way to pay or destroy it...that's all correct and it works without it, until there's a need to slow down aggro, for example stuff like Kaalia of the Vast, which ignores the Moat and mostly also Ensnaring Bridge or when elves are on the table. I always felt it was unnecessary to make someone pay 2 for attacking but it brings aggro to a full stop after Armageddon and with The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or Pendrell Mists it's the same, because it's easy to pay the upkeep alone, but not upkeep and attacking. It feels weak but it has always worked, both with White Stax in legacy and in commander. The classic Stax builds in vintage and legacy always had a better matchup against Combo and control (Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst, and Lodestone Golem are a threat to storm on their own for example) while having to protect extremely well against aggro. Having 40 life available is a good reason for not needing 3 or 4 Ghostly Prison like in Legacy, but it should still be at least possible to stop creatures with a land wipe imo.

I will try Spell Snare, Mental Misstep and Swords to Plowshares tomorrow. I'm not so sure about Karn Liberated because his removal ability is a minus, so he's not the late game saviour I might need. restarting the game is interesting, when you can hold for like 2 or 3 more turns but see that the system will be going down then. It's too situational and a 1 mana counter is probably better in his slot. However, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon can take out single targets with plus and clear the board with minus, while leaving most stax pieces intact and he's colorless, which means it's rather easy to cast him early.

Is there a reason why you don't play the cheap or free counterspells in your deck, although you have blue available? You probably have too little blue for Force of Will but Daze, Spell Snare, Flusterstorm, Swan Song or Mental Misstep would be fine I guess.

@Winterblast Bant has the fastest most efficient mana acceleration of all color combinations, therefore its speed is beyond that of any other deck and races out a prison before anyone else could... I didn't really want to bash on your speed or idea though, but you play too many redundant artifacts that could easily be swapped out for any of the counters/removal or anything better seen in the other arbiter. The likes of Crystal Vein is garbage if you don't run combo and you also play a lot of unnecessary non-basics... I could go step by step on each card you run that is clunky or doesn't fit your deck in my opinion... I wouldn't treat commander like legacy or vintage... I am still not convinced by the land destruction, while your idea is to have mana left from all the rocks you use... a comeback Null Rod, Stony Silence or Kataki, War's Wage would turn that game around without costing that much mana at all, or if they are in play already you are boned... There are 42 cards you won't be able to use in your deck under a Gaddock Teeg and one of these artifact haters... but still, if you like to play it like that do so and experiment further !!! just try and filter for better cards...

take for example Ghostly Prison , Propaganda, Collective Restraint with all 5 basics and Sphere of Safety in play ; That's 13 mana for one attack if i am not mistaken... Add Reverence on top of it if you will, and let us add a card that is actually good; Meekstone to back it up ...... With just these anyone in this format will eventually still be able to combo out on you, ignoring all these meh pillow fort effects, or pay the mana for a one hit kill ... these cards do not contribute towards stax in any way...yes it might slow down the game, but your opponents are amassing spells in their hand while doing so as well... (not talking about meekstone here)

As for the reason, derevi doesn't need counters or removal most of the time is because you don't need counterspells when nobody can play spells, And why is this not the same for Arbiter? Well Derevi shits out a ton of critters that do what they have to do and tap down opponent's lands... Having them untap 1 land each turn with an orb effect and a sphere effect in play requires them to have two mana to interact again, add a Trinisphere and it's game over most of the time, Whilst my deck is built to run under this kind of pressure...

Although in a 1v1 setup or certain matchups an Arcane Denial , Beast Within , Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile really do the job when dealing with resolved stuff as it doesn't give your opponent's card advantage if they are unable to do anything after that...

The only two good planeswalkers you run are tezzy and jayce... still strongly suggest you toss the others, anyway, i hope i can be of any help with my advice...Also, will add a very competitive friend of mine who is also a judge to back up my statements and perhaps get some more ideas and insight to help you out... @Pray4Valor

As I've played vintage and legacy before I got into commander, I have a different view on redundancy in Stax. It's for a reason that several of the most powerful Stax pieces are restricted in vintage, for example Trinisphere, Lodestone Golem and Chalice of the Void...of course you want as many equal pieces as possible of the good stuff and only because of a restriction you will move to other cards with a (probably a bit weaker but) similar effect. I don't know exactly what you mean by unnecessary redundancy I have, because most of the effects are cummulative or it's great to draw them constantly in a pile of 100 cards without having to tutor for them. I mean you have those similar pieces as well, because you want certain effects to appear more often, although they are not cummulative.

I also never had a problem to deal with combo at all, it's always plain and stupid aggro that bothers me when I think I can remove stuff like Propaganda from the deck. That's also one of the reasons why I have Umezawa's Jitte and Elspeth, Knight-Errant...besides being able to pump an Inkmoth Nexus and to operate well under Humility.

I have thought about replacing some of the lands with basics, but even with only two colours in the deck I always preferred the lands that can make ANY colour, also to have more than two colours available for Engineered Explosives. most of our decks are mono coloured, so nonbasic land hate is not THAT dominant that I would cut too many of these multicolour lands. It's worth consideration though, if the other guys start packing more nonbasic hate. apart from an occasional Blood Moon or Ruination (and I blast all lands myself anyway) there's not much to be seen because against many decks it's a wasted slot. I think everyone has at least one or two mono coloured decks, so chances that nonbasic hate hits less than a colour specific hate card are high. On the other hand, Null Rod or Kataki, War's Wage would destroy a lot of decks because they are so artifact heavy, so I have a very low risk of seeing them on someone else's side of the table.

I think the biggest problem is to handle the other competetive decks in the meta while not losing frequently whenver some Pub-stomper deck joins the table. I hope we have some tournament here again soon, but even in a 1 vs 1 setting you can't ignore these completely when you know they are going to be present for sure. Is your list tuned for duels or multiplayer games or would you play any type of game with this build?

"Vintage" and "Legacy" are non-factor compared to "commander" and have nothing to do with it what so ever, it plays out on a totally different level. I've always been a control/combo/stax kind of player whichever screws the meta most, but like any other store we have some rather casual non-factor players here and there as well, but I am afraid if aggro is a thing in your meta for multiplayer it is quite the casual playgroup and just not really competitive as I thought you were up against...

But this decks and it's description I researched for shows enough reason that I know what, why, when and how to stax. all the in's and outs after playing this deck a million times form my commander and how she is built at the moment... and I feel like "arbiter" is just a card that requires control to do what it should do. control/stax is a scary thing if they get to cast something under stax and it still can't get it into play...

But about "combo", People tend to combo out on their first 4 turns and as soon as turn 1, I feel like your deck would not stop any of them in our meta at the moment and at best stall a turn of inevitable defeat...

the arbiter I linked has a super clean land base and would suggest you follow it!

This List is only for multiplayer with 3 or 4 players. it also has been playtested to great success and destroyed a lot of plebs in 2HG ;... ( check 2Headed giant section) i have a 2Headed giant tournament coming up this Friday and will probably win, the results and the partner will be up by the end of the weekend...I do have a different derevi on my profile which I am still fine tuning for 1v1 and support for double derevi... It is far from finished though but I play Marchesa for 1v1 duel as derevi is banned as commander...

But honestly if you feel like you are right please do with your deck whatever you want, I mean no offense but I play the format at least 3-4 days a week and join every tourney i can. And feel like i gave my advice, now it's up to you to do something with it or not...

Adding the counterspells helped a lot indeed, speeded up everything and closeed the gaps between the taxing spheres. I've also realized that the week we were talking about stax matchups I had been playing against a table dominated by illogical and emotional decisions, which enabled inferior decks to win several times in a row. I put cards in the deck especially to deal with that kind of play because it felt like a legitimate threat but I went back to using the help/rip combo again and it's of course better against both competetive, casual and mixed tables.

Your advice on the lands also helped in removing unnecessary nonbasics but I have yet to see how many more I could replace. My biggest problem with testing is that there's only one date per week when I can be sure to find EDH players at our shop and while we have some competitive players, it's not sure that all of them are there every week and that they play the decks I'd like to test against. For example I haven't seen the hermit druid combo deck for a month or so because the owner of that deck preferred to play other decks instead. A tournament would be nice again but the shop has loaded their schedule with modern and standard and it's probably up to us to organize a private event on the weekly EDH regular's table.

Really glad it's working out for you!!! Why not try and travel to other shops though? My current playgroup does and intends to do a lot more of that... you get to play against commanders you might have never seen before or used in that way. I know some stores have a degenerate amount of modern and standard players that are of no use to us as they have a completely different mindset and mostly are blind or stubborn and see commander as a casual format because of their lack of card knowledge outside of their formats xD (all formats are what you make of it be it casual or competitive, I also play modern and other formats so I am versatile enough to back up that statement..)

Our shop is quite commander heavy, so most of the time we don't have to move they eventually come to us... but yesterday we went to play elsewhere with our best players to attract others to come to our commander meta and show them another level of commander... also we organise a lot of commander events so it's good to invite new faces and get them to have fun as well while also helping them understand certain thins in magic they didn't know if needed...

As far as I know we already are the best place for commander because we even have a commander table every week while I don't know that there would be such an institution in the next bigger city. Looks like the only option is to get more people coming to us but as you said, the regular modern and standard players aren't interested because they view commander as a too expensive fun format and tournaments aren't going to happen because there aren't a lot of players who think they could possibly win.

Hello!

Have you considered Quicksilver Amulet?

Hi there , DrValium

My sideboard has a Elvish Piper which does the same but better... if you are looking to use it with creature tutors like "survival of the fittest" and get you an early elesh or jin it could work xD

Wouldn't recommend using it though but if you need it i'd suggest the creature version , not the artifact ones ;)

Schoon! Ben trots op je!

Gokusamaiso thnx jonge man <3

That Gaddock Teeg alter literally made me orgasm.

Yea it is indeed an awesome alter... I should start altering some more cards in here

i have some here but haven't had time to do some for myself :

http://kiyomei.tumblr.com/tagged/alter

Alms Collector

Ashes of the Abhorrent

Kinjalli's Sunwing

Card links broken , anyone knows how to fix this, it has been like more than a month, pretty sad :s