cEDH Derevi stax

Commander / EDH GWU (Bant)

Niallo

Land (29)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Plains
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Waterlogged Grove
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Yavimaya Coast

Cards (9)

• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Thrasios, Triton Hero
• 1x Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Verity Circle
• 1x Oakhame Adversary

Stax (15)

• 1x Deafening Silence
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Spirit of the Labyrinth
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1x Thorn of Amethyst
• 1x Winter Orb
• 1x Archon of Emeria
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Vryn Wingmare
• 1x Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Disruption (13)

• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Combo (3)

• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Freed from the Real
• 1x Emiel the Blessed

Other (2)

• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Phantasmal Image

Regrowth (2)

• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Eternal Witness

Commander (1)

Tutors (14)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Neoform
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Captain Sisay

Mana (12)

• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Wild Growth
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Faeburrow Elder

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Let's Slow Things Down

Here's my stab at Derevi Stax. The deck's main strategy is to slow down the entire table until no one except you can set up a win.

You'll like Derevi stax if you enjoy heavily slowing down your opponents while being able to maneuver yourself into a position where you can either combo win, or just beatdown with your plentiful hate bears (with the help of Elesh Norn, ideally).

You won't enjoy this deck if you prefer not to look at your opponents boards and instead just speed your way into a combo.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

Derevi, imperial tactician is an incredible card when it comes to getting around stax. Do not undervalue the fact that you can activate its ability to put it into play at instant speed, without casting it. This gets around commander tax, timing restrictions, Drannith Magistrate, and cost increasers like Sphere of Resistance. Of course, Derevi's effect is also powerful, and the primary uses are to get ahead on mana and break parity on stax.

The rest of the deck can tutor and lay down layer upon layer of relevant stax pieces, buying you precious time to find your own wincons.

Weaknesses

The biggest, most glaring weakness of the deck is that it doesn't have {B} or {R}. These colours are sorely missed since they contain the best tutors, wincons, and value cards like Dockside Extortionist and, of course, Ad Nauseam. Luckily, there are still plenty of fun and powerful cards in the Bant colours.

Additionally, the deck focuses heavily on hate bears, and as such has fewer slots for things like card draw and counterspell interaction. Derevi herself also doesn't provide the card draw that a tymna/thrasios deck would provide Instead the deck aims to lock out players through on-board stax to bring your opponents decks down.

Card choices

Stax

There are several anti-storm cards to contend with the storm and Underworld Breach decks in my playgroup. These include Trinisphere, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben effects, and Archon of Emeria effects, among others.

Next we have Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Verity Circle to punish strategies like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.

There are other specific silver bullets against certain strategies such as Spirit of the Labyrinth, as well as more general stax pieces like Drannith Magistrate.

Winter Orb and Hokori, Dust Drinker get their own section as Derevi interacts extremely well with these by untapping your lands and tapping your opponents, lightening your burden while simultaneously increasing your opponent's suffering.

Combos

Emiel the Blessed is a combo machine, and in this deck the combo is to flicker Derevi, Empirical Tactician to untap either Gaea's Cradle or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx for infinite mana. In the former case you need 4 creatures in play, and in the latter your devotion must be at least 6. from infinite mana you can pour that into flickering Derevi more, untapping all your permanents (including lands) and tapping all your opponents at instant speed. If you have any creature with an ETB effect or a permanent with a tap ability you can also do that an arbitrary number of times.

A good way to get this combo together is by playing Captain Sisay. First you activate it to find Gaea's Cradle, play it as your land for turn, and then go to combat with Derevi. With the trigger, untap Sisay and then find Emeria and cast it. Then activate it with 3 mana to produce infinite mana and be able to tutor any legend from your deck, including Thrasios, Triton Hero.

Alternately, you can get infinite non-blue mana through Bloom Tender or Faeburrow Elder and try to win from there.

Card Draw

This section is fairly self explanatory; I have included the best draw enchantments in the Bant colours. Additionally, Oakhame Adversary makes the cut because it not only draws a card, but also triggers Derevi when it deals damage. Verity Circle is also uniquely suited for Derevi as she can tap a creature whenever she deals damage.

Disruption

I found myself cutting more and more counterspells from the deck because, simply put, that is not this deck's job. Instead of countering something, the goal is to stop a player before they can even cast it through stax. Of course there are still a few counterspells to stop big problems.

The rest of these cards are meant to deal with problem permanents that either break parity or are otherwise rocketing a player toward a victory.

Changelog:

-Tezzeret the Seeker, -Quirion Ranger, +Thrasios, Triton Hero, +Spirit of the Labyrinth

-Force of Will, +Freed from the Real

Cards to add: Spectral Sailor, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, Natural Order, Rule of Law

Cards to remove: Birthing Pod, Beast Within, Force of Will, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Oakhame Adversary

Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 63 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.11
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Elk 3/3 G, Food