Atraxa, the beautiful nightmare
This deck is a prototype for an atraxa deck that is versatile and flexible.
(I am currently working on revising the mana base for this deck)
stompy
protection
Atraxa should protected fast and easy. For this I use
Aspect of Mongoose
and
Alpha Authority
.
Aspect comes back to my hand if there is a board wipe or a sacrifice effect.
Alpha is there for redundancy.
These are why I choose to play
Winds of Rath
.
sagas
arena rector
Arena Rector
is a wonderfully fun card. This lets you poop out a Planeswalker quick.
Arena Rector
can work well coupled with
Nevinyrral's Disk
to wipe the whole board then add a planeswalker, or
Deathsprout
to remove an opponents creature then search for both land and a planeswalker, or really any other destroy effect or board wipe.
searching for enchantments
The enchantments in this deck are very important. Protection for Atraxa, proliferating more with
Inexorable Tide
, playing anything with
Omniscience
, stopping your opponents graveyard shenanigans with
Ground Seal
, abusing the superfriends with oath of tefiri, or stopping another atraxa player with
Eidolon of Obstruction
.
There are a few key cards to look at here.
Next I have to talk about
Vampire Hexmage
and
Suncleanser
. These two remove counters. Sounds weird at first but is very useful against a planeswalker or a creature with a lot of +1 counters. Then you add in
Lost Auramancers
to immediately remove all time counters forcing a sacrifice and searching for an enchantment. This combo is perfect in the opening hand. I'm pretty much running
Serum Powder
just to increase the odds of starting with these.
Removal
Some removal in this deck is a trade off (
Putrefy
/
Unravel the Aether
/
Broken Bond
/
Spread the Sickness
) however others are more impactful (board wipes) or repeatable (planeswalkers)
Board Wipe
-
Duneblast
allows me to keep Atraxa in play while blowing up my wolves with
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman
and all of my opponents creatures.
-
Casualties of War
is targeted but trades off one card for up to six, the opportunity to remove one of each type of permanent is too good to pass this one up.
-
Winds of Rath
is great for preserving my commander considering the hexproof enchantments and various ways to search for them.
-
The Elderspell
is a potentially game altering card. This will let you destroy opponents planeswalkers (or maybe even your own) to ultimate something powerful such as the game winning vraskas(this is a win condition i will get to in the next section) or
Jace, Architect of Thought
to play some big, potentially game winning cards.
-
Nevinyrral's Disk
is a board wipe that hits everything. well, everything except planeswalkers and land of course. This goes well in almost any deck, but is especially nice for preserving the walkers that you have pumped up all game.
Planeswalkers
-
Vraska the Unseen
is removal on all levels. First she has that +1 ability that lets her be a martyr for the creature (or creatures) that dare take a swing at her. Next she has the -3 ability to destroy a nonland permanent, this coupled with proliferation allows for constant destruction. Finally her Ultimate creates removal tokens, that is they remove players from the game.
Vraska the Unseen
is a very nice win condition/removal peice all in one. This takes me to the next removal/wincon.
-
Vraska, Scheming Gorgon
is another win condition and removal peice. Her +2 ability makes the stompy creatures or wolves from
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman
more threatening. Her -3 is great to keep creatures off of the battlefield. Once again, Her Ultimate is player removal, but this time she allows you to use any creature you want,
Thrummingbird
if you can get through with flying or
Voracious Hydra
/
Vigor
If you need to get through with trample.
-
Garruk, Cursed Huntsman
makes little wolf buddies!! He also has creature removal with card draw built in. His Ultimate ability is mostly for show in this deck Since the vraska cards and stompy creatures are more threatening, but if he gets doubled a few times or proliferated enough then why not? getting his emblem at least once should help close out games. his real claim to fame however is definitely his ability to provide blockers and repeat creature removal with card advantage.
-
Ob Nixilis Reignited
is a good card. He gives you cards when you don't need to remove creatures. he removes creatures pretty well. his Ultimate lowers life totals fairly fast. He is fairly versatile and puts a clock on the game fairly quick.
-
Dovin Baan
gets a special mention here for being an incredible stax piece. without the means to play creatures there is no need for removal!!
This is currently a work in progress.
This deck is not meant to be competitive.
Edit: Removed
Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
for
Karn, the Great Creator
To improve on my stax plays and annoy my friends.