I'm Losing to a Bird!

Commander / EDH Enchantment RUW (Jeskai, America) Silver Bullet Stax

LapperMedic

Land (36)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Axgard Armory
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Cascade Bluffs
• 1x Cascading Cataracts
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 2x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Ondu Skyruins  ^Flip
• 1x Petrified Field
• 1x Plains
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Sea Gate, Reborn  ^Flip
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Sejiri Glacier  ^Flip
• 1x Serra's Sanctum
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Sunbaked Canyon
• 1x Tolaria West
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Volcanic Island

Enchantment (27)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Confounding Conundrum
• 1x Curse of Exhaustion
• 1x Darksteel Mutation
• 1x Decree of Silence
• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Estrid's Invocation
• 1x Gift of Immortality
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Imprisoned in the Moon
• 1x Karmic Justice
• 1x Kindred Discovery
• 1x Leyline of Anticipation
• 1x Mana Echoes
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Nevermore
• 1x Overwhelming Splendor
• 1x Psychic Possession
• 1x Rest in Peace
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Solemnity
• 1x Stranglehold
• 1x Vanishing
• 1x War's Toll
• 1x Whirlwind of Thought
• 1x Wild Research

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Austere Command
• 1x Council's Judgment
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Play of the Game
• 1x Replenish

Creature (2)

• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Containment Priest

Commander (1)

Artifact (15)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Ashnod's Altar
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mindslaver
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x The Immortal Sun
• 1x Torpor Orb

Instant (14)

• 1x Angel's Grace
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Forbid
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Sphinx's Revelation
• 1x Sudden Substitution
• 1x Teferi's Protection

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Maybeboard

Land (8)

• 1x Fiery Islet
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Mystic Gate
• 1x Ominous Cemetery
• 1x Otawara, Soaring City
• 1x Rivendell
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance

Creature (1)

• 1x Faithbound Judge  ^Flip

Instant (5)

• 1x Drown in Dreams
• 1x Everybody Lives!
• 1x Press the Enemy
• 1x Release to Memory
• 1x Reverse the Polarity

Artifact (4)

• 1x Immovable Rod
• 1x Strixhaven Stadium
• 1x The Pandorica
• 1x Weathered Runestone

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Banishment
• 1x Curse of Obsession
• 1x Curse of Silence
• 1x Phyrexian Unlife

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Farewell
• 1x Shared Discovery

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Listen to this deck tech! https://anchor.fm/thesocialcontractedh/episodes/Ep--32-Im-Losing-to-a-Bird-e11nuir

This is a toolbox control deck revolving around silver bullet stax, hatebears, and spot removal, designed to hate out individual problem players while allowing the table to enjoy normal play. Your victim is slowly and steadily denied resources and constricted out of the game until you can assemble the coup de grâce, Mindslaver lock.

Before the game starts, look around the table, identifying any deck or opponent you know to be particularly oppressive or spiky. Once you've chosen your target, start working the politics angle right away. Make sure the table knows what their commander is and what their deck does, and that you intend to try to stop them from going off. We're going rabid dog style on this one, not engaging any other opponents if possible, and not relenting until our target is dead or completely locked out.

The framework of this deck is getting steady value from our spells with Kykar, Wind's Fury. Except for the bare minimum of what we need, roughly the entire deck is noncreature spells. Casting these nets us flying spirits which protect us and can be sacrificed for mana to keep the hate coming. We can make this more fly and more spirited with token generators like Anointed Procession and ramp like Mana Echoes. To keep up with this Phyrexian Altar on a stick, we have lots of card draw like Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, Dig Through Time, and Whirlwind of Thought.

Start assembling silver bullets as early as possible. What is a silver bullet? It's an answer for which there is only one question. Which cards to include in this package depend heavily on your local meta, so take the time to identify the oppressive decks you see in your pods and find stax pieces that counter them. In the meantime, my package should serve you well as a starting point. Let's go over what kinds of decks we can hate out.

• All: Nevermore (name their commander)
• Alt. wincon: Angel's Grace
• Blink: Torpor Orb
• Cheat: Containment Priest
• Combo: Stranglehold
• Control: War's Toll
• Counters: Solemnity
• Creature: Overwhelming Splendor
• Draw: Psychic Possession
• Graveyard: Rest in Peace, Scavenger Grounds
• Lands: Confounding Conundrum
• Planeswalker: The Immortal Sun
• Storm: Curse of Exhaustion
• Token: Detention Sphere
• Turns: Stranglehold

To get to our hate pieces, we'll need tutors and lots of them. Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, and Academy Rector can find our enchantments, along with Wild Research which is like a Jeskai Gamble. Axgard Armory finds an aura and an equipment, while Expedition Map and Tolaria West can find our lands. As it's in our best interest to be able to cast hate pieces when our opponents least expect them, we have Leyline of Anticipation.

We want to keep the hate coming and stop our opponents from assembling any part of their plan, so spot removal is plentiful. For creatures we have Darksteel Mutation and Path to Exile (which we can hit our own token with to ramp), while Chaos Warp, Council's Judgment, Detention Sphere, Imprisoned in the Moon, Generous Gift, and Grasp of Fate can hit whatever we need. Darksteel Mutation and Imprisoned in the Moon notably do not exile or destroy their target, so these are perfect for shutting down creature and planeswalker commanders alike.

Stax is a control type, and we'll want counterspells to deal with what can't be left alone. Mana Drain is our go-to, with Forbid being recurable, and Render Silent shutting down any dirty combo and storm decks on their big turn. Sudden Substitution can either steal a spell for the low cost of one of our tokens, or give up a spell and steal their creature, and Muddle the Mixture halts instants and sorceries or lets us tutor anything CMC 2, like Cyclonic Rift.

We have to protect what's ours. Karmic Justice discourages opponents from removing our stuff, while Vanishing and Gift of Immortality can protect Kykar or another important creature from nearly any threat. In an emergency, Teferi's Protection is our trump card.

This is EDH, and the board can easily get beyond our control. In case of emergency, Austere Command, Cyclonic Rift, and Ondu Inversion   can hit what we need, with Play of the Game being our true reset button that you may even be able to cast at a discount.

Did an important spell of ours get countered or blown up? Time to get it out of the yard. Academy Ruins gets back our important artifacts, and Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Replenish retrieve enchantments. Since Academy Ruins in particular is so integral to our wincon, Petrified Field can get it back in case someone gets clever.

After a long and arduous game, it's finally down to you and one last opponent. How do we close it out? Get 13 mana on board and find the last two cards you'll play before they scoop: Mindslaver and Academy Ruins. Then see my Emrakul deck description for some ideas on how to make their life miserable. Unless... they managed to hit our Mindslaver with a Return to Dust or took a Karn Liberated to the Academy Ruins? No problem, we can take the nuclear option and go for a hard lock. Solemnity will be reprising its role as a card that completely breaks other cards, and introducing Decree of Silence!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 60 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.11
Tokens	Elephant 3/3 G, Spirit 1/1 W, Treasure
Folders	good x3, edh