Budget Brago Stax

Commander / EDH* WU (Azorius)

pokepower116

Artifact (22)

• 1x Azorius Keyrune
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Fractured Powerstone
• 1x Hedron Archive
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Meekstone
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mishra's Helix
• 1x Prismatic Lens
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Static Orb
• 1x Strionic Resonator
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Tsabo's Web
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Winter Orb

Instant (8)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Capsize
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Whir of Invention

Creature (20)

• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Cloud of Faeries
• 1x Cloudblazer
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Lavinia of the Tenth
• 1x Man-o'-War
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Nevermaker
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Reflector Mage
• 1x Riftwing Cloudskate
• 1x Rishadan Cutpurse
• 1x Rishadan Footpad
• 1x Sage of Epityr
• 1x Sea Gate Oracle
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Trophy Mage

Land (33)

• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 18x Island
• 9x Plains
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Temple of the False God

Commander (1)

Enchantment (12)

• 1x Act of Authority
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Cloudform
• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Lightform
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Opposition
• 1x Parallax Tide
• 1x Parallax Wave
• 1x Reality Acid
• 1x Rising Waters
• 1x Stasis

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Windfall

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Frozen Aether
• 1x Gift of Immortality
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Kismet
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Pentarch Ward
• 1x Spreading Seas
• 1x Stupefying Touch

Creature (7)

• 1x Ephara, God of the Polis
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Rishadan Brigand
• 1x Sphinx of Uthuun
• 1x Thada Adel, Acquisitor

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Global Ruin
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Reshape
• 1x Rout
• 1x Windfall

Artifact (6)

• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Mana VaultGC
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 1x Prophetic Prism
• 1x Spine of Ish Sah
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Instant (2)

• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Unexpectedly Absent

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Hello and welcome to my budget Brago, King Eternal deck!

In all of my time playing magic, stax was (and pretty much still is) treated as a dirty word. Why play commander if you're not going to let anyone else play? I agree with this sentiment for fun & casual EDH but I love having decks that span across all power levels. I have decks that span from the jankiest of ideas (see Jolrael, Empress of Beasts ) to some pretty solid 75% style decks like Rhys the Redeemed , Roon of the Hidden Realm , and Daretti, Scrap Savant . One unifying theme that all of my decks have, however, is that they all enable a lot of room for counterplay. Allowing for counterplay and giving your opponents more options drastically hurts the win-rate of your deck, but I also find that it also drastically increases the fun of the game. In the same way that I have different power levels of decks to accommodate newer players and players with decks of all skill levels, I feel that I also need decks that can keep up (or slow others down) for opponents who won't give the same courtesy for me. And thus I decided to make my first venture into stax but have a "budget" restriction on it so that it doesn't get out of hand (in power level or for my wallet).

Now let's address the idea of budget. "Budget" really depends on each player's individual perspective. For some players, a deck isn't budget unless it's under $40 and for others a deck is budget as long as it's underneath $1000; the range varies greatly. My idea of budget is based around two things: the price of average stax decks and my own personal budget for experimentation. With the average price of popular stax decks ranging from around $700 on the low end to $3000 (or up to around $10,000 with foils and alphas etc.) on the high end, I had plenty of room in my definition of budget relative to other stax decks. However, I wanted to make this deck for the players who wanted to dabble in stax and just dip their toes in the water; this gets into my own personal mentality. Personally, I wouldn't want to spend $700 on an archetype I'm not sure if I would enjoy playing; I would even have a hard time spending $200. I decided that my own personal limit to try out a new archetype falls somewhere in the $100-$150 range, so getting my deck to that price range is what I'm aiming for.

This should go without saying, but please do keep in mind that this is a stax deck. Even though it is MUCH weaker in power due to the budget, those times where you do get your engine going it's not going to be fun for your opponents. This deck will likely not make you friends and doesn't lead to the massive exciting boardstates that EDH is known for. While this deck is nowhere near competitive, it is also not casual. I would 10000% not recommend bringing this deck out upon your first game of playing someone unless you don't want to play anymore or want to be hated out of the game for the rest of the night. If you're fine with all of that, then feel free to give this deck a try; I personally love all the interactions this deck has and find the "alternate win condition" of resource denial really interesting.

Aside from that, what more can I really say? It's a stax deck. Deny your opponents resources while untapping your mana rocks & lands so that you're able to keep playing. Since Brago is the absolute keystone of this deck, don't rush casting him and make sure you can keep him alive and attacking. Otherwise, you'll be left with a commander that costs 10 mana to cast and a very weak boardstate. Once your lock begins, hopefully your opponents will realize that they can't really win from their position and scoop; or you can just painfully win 2 damage at a time.

As always, looking for suggestions (especially ones to lower the price). However any suggestions that you feel like this deck NEEDS to have and is under $20 will be considered; but trying to keep it as budget as possible. Thanks for checking the deck out :)

Date added	8 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 23 - 0 Rares 30 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.93
Tokens	Manifest 2/2 C
Folders	Ideas, cEDH Stax, Budget irl