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Brago, Stasis Eternal | Primer*

Commander / EDH Competitive Control Stax WU (Azorius)

darkark12

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Land (30)

Tutor (11)

Filter (2)

Ramp (17)

Draw (11)

Removal (6)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Brago, King Eternal

Stax (14)

Control (6)

Finisher (2)

Maybeboard

Protection (1)

Stax (1)

brago

May His Reign Be Eternal

Our benevolent king, in all of his infinite wisdom and glory, has deemed thou worthy of his attention. He has declared that he shall assist thou in thy struggles, and hinder those who would stand in thy path to glory. Scorning this glorious gift will result in eternal confinement in the darkest and deepest pit. A cold, lifeless, and solitary doom.

How to Play

Brago is a special kind of evil. His game plan is to lock out other players by assembling stax locks, then garner massive advantage by slowly chipping away at his opponents life total. His early game consists of playing mana rocks to power the king into play. After that, you need to get some kind of advantage engine going. This can be in the form of tutor creatures (Recruiter of the Guard, Rishadan Cutpurse, etc.) or a draw effect (Tsabo's Web) that can generate value off of Brago's hits. Once this is accomplished, Brago then wants to jam in problem cards like Winter Orb, or Tangle Wire to slow down the progression of your opponents and limit thier ability to play the game. Ideally, you would then win with a combo with Strionic Resonator, but more likely than not you will just hard lock your opponents out of the game with a bunch of stax pieces, then kill your opponents 2 points at a time.

Stax

The key to getting to a winning board position for Brago, is to assemble a series of permanents that take away your opponent's ability to play the game (hereby referred to as stax pieces). These cards are divided into 3 distinct categories: Taxing, Tapping, & Elimination.

(Cards Marked with a * are part of the deck's core and should be considered as a staple)

Taxing

Taxing effects are some of the best tools you have to maintain or break parody for your opponents. Not only do they come down early, but they also allow for hard locks. The artifacts (Sphere of Resistance, Thorn of Amethyst & Trinisphere) that do this are generally the best for this as they are cheaper and tutorable by multiple cards. After that, Mystic Remora & Rhystic Study draw steady amounts of cards with little to no downside.

Tapping

In order to lock down the game, you need to have some form of restriction on how much magic your opponents can play every turn. Denying your opponents an untap phase is the best way to do this. Cards like Winter Orb & Back to Basics severely hamper your opponents lands, while only slightly inconveniencing you. The big daddy of these effects are Stasis, and to a lesser/further extent Static Orb as they hamper the ability to untap All permanents.

Elimination

Finally, the last part of the Stax package are the elimination cards. The Rishadan tax creatures give good utility and furthur deny your opponents of resources. Aven Mindcensor is the only universal hate card of EDH as it limits all tutors. After that all others on this list can be great, but need to be tested in the meta in which they play.

Control

In order to assemble your game plan, you need some interaction to deal with your opponents. It is imperative (in fact I cant overstate it) that you play a healthy amount of control cards. Too much will impair your ability to play actual cards, too little will allow your opponents to interact with your game.

(Cards Marked with a * are part of the deck's core and should be considered as a staple)

Countermagic

When it comes to countermagic, every Brago player has his preference. Most people will play 4 or 5 off this list, and some will opt for just the Force of Will and maybe a Mana Drain. Personally I think that the safe bet is to run Force of Will, Daze, Mana Drain, and maybe one or two others off this list (as for which one, I can't say for certain which is best). This density of countermagic gives you roughly a 1/3 chance of having a counterspell in the first three turns, where people will either try to win, or screw with your gameplan.

Removal

When it comes to removal, Brago needs to be highly efficient. Since the nature of the deck draws in a bunch of hate, your opponents are likely to play anything that can screw you up. The upside of this is that they will probably not be able to play multiple of those cards in a single turn, so cheap removal can be very effective. Swords to Plowshares is the go to creature removal for this deck as it kills most problem creatures, and does so without much a downside. Your next best options are Chain of Vapor, Cyclonic Rift, and Path to Exile, but these come with their share of problems. Chain can remove your stax pieces and make your day difficult, and path gives your opponent lands, which in more competitive metas is unacceptable. Rift is very good, but will often be cast for 2 instead of being overloaded, but that is fine. Finally, Venser, Shaper Savant and Oblivion Ring clones cover your basis for tutorable removal (but I would play no more than 1/2 of the clones).

Miscellaneous

Silence effects can neuter certain matchups with very little investment. Stifle also can act as a catch 22 for the decks running Aetherflux Reservoir or any other activated/triggered ability that can screw your day.

Finishers & Locks

Once you have gained an upper hand in the game, you then need to proceed to either win the game, or make everyone else loose the game. To do this, there are a few combos, boss creatures, and hard locks that need to be explored.

Locks

Tangle Wire + Stasis/Static Orb + A Tax Effect

This lock is great as it is entirely tutorable with Trophy Mage. It can be assembled with muliple pieces and and almost impossible to break out of. The only problem with this lock is that it is vulnerable to instant speed removal like Nature's Claim or Beast Within if the opponent has enough mana rocks.

Stasis + Kismet + Any rock that can tap for

Like the lock above, this lock is almost impossible to break out of, however most of these pieces cannot be tutored for and can be bad by themselves. Kismet effects in particular have been historically bad and expensive.

Combos

Strionic Resonator + Mana Rocks + ETB Abilities

Brago has a unique combo in the form of Resonator. As long as you control enough rocks to tap for 2 mana (and they aren't moxes) you can infinitely blink your board. This in turn can make infinite ETB triggers off of your permanents.

Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience

This is one of the more popular backup combos of the Brago franchise, but can be clunky. Rest in Peace can be devastating to some decks (Like Meren of Clan Nel Toth), but can also be a do nothing card. Helm is even worse as it is completely useless without the RIP.

Other Win Conditions

This section has very little in the way of originality. Brago is great a multiplying ETB triggers to make tokens, and can kill people with an army of smaller soldiers. However, it is often slow and inefficient without a lock in place. However, once you have a lock, just swinging with Brago will usually be enough to get the game. It is worth mentioning that the rogue can beat the mirror match with unblockable, but really that's it.

Consistency & Weaknesses

Consistancy

STAX can be a very confusing deck for those who are inexperienced playing it. However, even the most seasoned veteran cannot overcome the inherent inconsistancy of the deck. STAX decks have to assemble lock cards, mana ramp, card advantage, utility, and win conditions on the same board before they can ever even think about winning the game. To this extent, you need to run the best tutors out there to ensure that you see the peices that are needed.

(Cards Marked with a * are part of the deck's core and should be considered as a staple)

The 1-Mana card draw spells can be great for early card filtering, but runing too many can lead to more problems then they solve. Brainstorm, Ponder & Impulse all dig far enough into the deck to usually find a card worth playing, but can be near uncastable at times. The hard tutors that find specific things are versatile, but outside of tutoring for atifacts this deck try's not to play that many, as your ability to cast spells might also be inhibited by your STAX pieces.

Weaknesses

As with all decks, Brago has his fair share of weaknesses. The biggest ones being Maze of Ith, and a flipped card:Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy, as they both stop Brago from ever connecting. To combat this, some decks run Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker and Strip Mine/MLD (Ravages of War) to either lock out or entirely eliminate the threat.

Problem Cards (Updated Sept/17)

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Date added 8 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

47 - 0 Rares

19 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.23
Tokens Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B
Folders Cedh
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