@Perfect_Phyrexia It has actually been a long time since anyone in my group was willing to play against said Elf deck, so I do not remember what form of EDH it had been banned in. However, being further ago my group was also more naive about the infinite turns thing, and thusly learned our lessen the hard way about allowing someone to use Emrakul period.

EndStepTop, This is an awesome deck, it even inspired me to make a stax deck of my own (albeit a little more on budget) do you think you could check it out and give me any pointers on things to change if there are any? Deck is Meren plays jenga

Hi EndStepTop. My meta for EDH includes the improved 2016 Daxos Deck, improved 2014 Ob Nixilis Deck, Improved 2014 Daretti Deck, A super control Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and a world police tasigur deck. I'm considering playing stax for my EDH and this could be the deck. With a few edits this deck could work. But is there a way to lower the budget down a lot? Lol

If you want a list of budget stax options I would say check out the edh stax card list [LIST] EDH STAX Cards or my stax primer Perfection (EDH Stax Primer) which EndStepTop gave me some pointers on. Both have many budget options for all 5 colors.

IsThisWolfe I like your deck, however I feel theres some fat you can trim. Cards like Killing wave or Viridian Zealot which are unable to guarantee a boardwipe and have cheaper versions in your deck already respectively. Temple of the False god, Hissing Quagmire, Gilt-Leaf Palace and Jungle Hollow are way too slow and should be replaced by Fetchlands ideally. Asylum Visitor, Nath and Sadistic Hypnotist all seem slow and clunky and the latter two are too costly for their effects( Nath as a commander gaurentees that Saddy is a 5 mana Mind Twist for every other player, whereas the combo is way too difficult to assemble w/o 100% access to nath). Blood Artist seems out of place w/o a combo to turn it into a wincon. Wall of Roots, Entomb, Damnation and Mana Vault/Crypt while not all Budget friendly can help.

Mr_Sausage Stax seems fine in that Meta. Nullrod shuts down the ramp of 3/5 of those decks hard, and is still relevant against the other 2. Contamination will be quirky to use properly due to the oversaturation of black in the meta, but you still have cards like winter orb or Possessed Portal to play with. cutting the Chains/Abyss/Nether void Crucible and fetches/dual land reduces the cost of the deck a ton. My LGS had a league where I first tested this deck, and I was playing a version that cost under 1/10th of it's current TCG mid, the basic shell isn't terribly expensive, and the expensive cards aren't terribly vital.

EndStepTop, I agree, the only cards i Don't want to cut are Blood artist and Nath as Blood artist negates lifeloss from Bitterblossom and hurts the opponents for playing removal (it's even saved me a game) and Nath has been great in a playgroup as I can hurt the control player and block the aggro deck all while providing fodder.

Other then that what do you think about me switching:

Killing Wave -> Pernicious Deed

Viridian Zealot -> Natural State/Go for the Throat

Asylum Visitor -> Night's Whisper

Sadistic Hypnotist -> Bottomless Pit/Mind Slash

With all those budget cuts, what would I replace the fetches and all that good stuff with? Especially the fetches @EndStepTop

Also, my meta now has a crazy laboratory, enter the infinite combo with Kruphix as the commander. Would stax still work well against this deck?

EndStepTop, Disregard my previous comment, I completely forgot I have cards to trade/sell, so I will be able to get Damnation, mana crypt, lands and other better cards. I've updated my deck-list and put in these cards, also what could I cut to add in more ramp (blood artist? Discard enchantment?) and do you feel the updated list is stronger?

Mr_SausageStax is great against combo and control archetypes in particular as they only devote essential resources to play, so turning off their lands with contamination or making their high tides/counterspells cost 1 more with lodestone goes a long way. While the strongest lands, Fetches are also the easiest to cut since filling their slots with basics isn't the worst thing.

IsThisWolfe I'd cut blood artist,Nath, sheoldred and the discard enchants. Artist being irrelevant, nath and sheoldred being slow for what they'll do and the enchantments aren't great when your commander doesn't turn them into triple bitterblossom.

But Kruphix seems to ramp up colorless mana pretty fast. My friend ramps it up, then he casts Everflowing Chalice and a Chalice of the Void. He always pays 2 so it screws over Null Rod. With his colorless mana ramped, he tends to cast a big beefy creature or casts his combo. Also, instead of basics, could I use the slow fetches? I forgot the cards but they enter the battlefield tapped and do the same thing.

I wouldn't, coming in tapped is a huge downside and really you need a good reason to do otherwise. Big ramp decks are annoying, but far from the worst thing to play against. and early sphere effect keeps their ramp from hitting the table and a well timed pox, death cloud, Possessed portal can wreck their cookies.

Thanks EndStepTop, I made the last few changes to the deck and feel it's stronger, but before I acquire the last few cards I would like to know which of the following 3 versions of the deck do you think is the strongest/most consistent/fastest/cutthroat deck.

Meren plays jenga (Original)

Meren: Testing area (Even more so modified)

Ghave, guru of Stax (Different commander for the added bonus of white)

Thanks for taking your time to help! :)

is braids actually legal because i want to use it but is says it's illegal

She is legal in Duel Commander but not Multiplayer EDH beastyboya. Having a Smokestack as your commander was a bit too much haha.

As you pointed out, Krenko decks pose a serious problem for us. I have an extremely competitive Krenko player in my playground (and Ezuri). My immediate thought is running Pernicious Deed and Gaze of Granite, but with our low curve as well, it threatens destroying our board as well (Sylvan Library, Mana Rocks, etc). Do you think it's worth destroying our board at the cost of our opponent's? Ultimately, if I can get the Krenko player to topdeck, I should eventually be in a commanding position to win...what are your thoughts?

Teching massacre wurm is something I've tried. Going discard->cradle+tutor or chord for it can be a hell of a blow out. Cursed totem shuts down krenko, and sometimes that's all you need. Finding room for a copy of snuff out or any that piece of removal for krenko is also great. Engineered plague or golgari charm can also be applicable. I've lucked out and not had one in my meta for a long time.

Great, thanks so much for the response! So, to be clear, you wouldn't recommend Pernicious Deed? I'm thinking about running it with something like Praetor's Counsel.

I may run Massacre Wurm, but Demon of Dark Schemes looks awfully good as well, for similar cost/effect. Thoughts? I will agree that Cursed Totem is a beast. Also, thinking of running Bloodchief Ascension, because if my reading of the card is correct, when he sacrifices his Goblins to Goblin Bombardment (or something similar) I will be able to blow him out of the game before he kills me on the stack. What are your thoughts on Bloodchief? Life seems to be a consistent problem against other aggro decks, I've found.

I tried to force deed for a long time. But when I needed it, I needed to preserve my mana rocks or lock pieces, I ended up not liking it. If you have the choice between Demon and Wurm, I'd go with Wurm. Not hitting your own tokens and mana dorks is a HUGE upside. Ascension seems meh. Most of the time the opponent is saccing tokens, which don't trigger it, and by the time they have a boardstate like that you're probably losing anyway.

Is Crucible of Worlds viable if I'm running Strip, Desolation, Glacial Chasm? Budget concerns over Chains and the other high-cost Stax cards. Wondering if I should save up for Gaea's Cradle instead. Thoughts on Koskun Falls?

Crucible is pretty clunky and kinda win more. Koskun falls isn't awful if your meta is aggro heavy. Cradle, while not essential is incredibly strong and should be of somewhat priority to aquire.

I was very interested in this deck as i was a noob. I still am, but recently buying all the 2016 commanders had made me think. Do you think it would be good for me to build a cascade stax from the maelstrom commander? If so, could you just give me a list of priority cards?

Is there a reason you are playing Dark Tutelage over Phyrexian Arena?

Card Draw VS add to hand is relevant with Chains and Portal, Also less color intesive, so I can cast it on T2 with 1 of each basic + LLanowar Elf or one of it's clones.

Good points, thank you for the answer.