Introduction
This is a cedh that focuses on denying resources and establishing stax locks. It uses Brago break the parity by untapping mana rocks or flickering permanents for value. It wins the game with Brago, King Eternal + Strionic Resonator
to produce infinte mana/etb triggers or Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace
DISCLAIMER: This deck is just the one I own, the deck can definitely be improved. Have a look at the acquireboard to see possible improvements
Gameplan
The first thing you should aim to do is get as many of your rocks down as possible, these allow you to accelerate out you important plays and keep you ahead while you have a stax piece or Brago. Because mana rocks are so good in Brago we run some of the bad ones like
Prismatic Lens
. If you have better rocks like
Mox Diamond
feel free to replace them. After you've assembled your mana rocks the other decks should be looking to win so you need to resolve a high impact stax piece as soon as possible. Since you should have more rocks than anyone else you should be at a slight advantage while the stax piece is out. Use this advantage to resolve Brago or more stax. With Brago and enough rocks and a couple stax pieces the game now is just grinding it out until you can assemble one of your combos to win. We don't run many counterspells so use them sparingly; when you need to resolve something or your opponents are close to winning.
Protecting Brago
Some metas (correctly) tend to target Brago a lot. Conveniently we have quite a few ways in the decks to deal with this. The obvious one is counterspells, we don't run many though so don't get too attached to protecting Brago with them.
Lightning Greaves
= Greaves is a surprisingly good card in this deck, often it enables Brago to attack the turn he comes down so the greaves normally pay for their mana cost and they have the added bonus if keeping him safe from targeted removal. Beware however that with the greaves equipped Brago's ability cannot target himself (for pseudo vigilance) This is normally only relevant with
Stasis
in play.
Ghost Quarter
+
Strip Mine
= Theses cards are not only brilliant for removing powerful lands like
Gaea's Cradle
they also allow us to circumvent
Maze of Ith
which can be a real problem for Brago. If you own a
Wasteland
run it.
Grand Abolisher
= This card is pretty nuts, frees us from counterspells and removal during our turn. Bear in mind, however, this does not stop lands so
Maze of Ith
can still get us.
Tricks
I'll start with a couple of simple ones. Brago can flicker mana rocks to untap them or can flicker cards like
Mystic Remora
to reset the upkeep cost.
Brago, King Eternal
+
Strionic Resonator
+ rocks = If you have rocks that produce 2 or more you can infinitely copy Brago's 'on damage' trigger and generate infinite mana/etb effects.
Rest in Peace
+
Helm of Obedience
= Mills one person out, since no cards go to the graveyard it will exile their entire library. You can then use brago's trigger to untap the helm or use a strionic resonator to copy the helms ability.
Stasis
+
Brago, King Eternal
= These two can provide a soft lock given you have a mana rock that produces blue mana. This also works with
Parallax Tide
(exile one of your lands that can produce blue, then flicker Tide to return the land untapped). Stasis can also combo with
Land Tax
for as long as you have Island's left in your deck.
Brago, King Eternal
+
Strionic Resonator
+
Parallax Tide
= This one is a little confusing but with these 3 cards you can permanently exile all opponents lands. I will detail how to do this in steps.
1) Deal damage with Brago, his trigger is on the stack.
2) Remove 2 counters targeting opponents lands.
3) Copy Brago's ability with Strionic Resonator (target Parallax Tide, Strionic Resonator)
4) Remove 3 counters targeting your lands.
5) First the Parallax Tide abilities will resolve exiling your lands. The copied Brago trigger will resolve returning your 3 lands untapped, then the Parallax Tide triggers will resolve exiling 2 of your opponents lands.
6) You are now left with the original Brago trigger on the stack. You can then start again from step 2. This is an infinite loop that will generate infinite mana in the combat step and exile all of your opponents lands.
Starting Hands
Your starting hands needs to, at minimum, have one stax piece and one piece of ramp. An ideal hand would be 2 Lands, 2 Stax Pieces, 2 Mana rocks, 1 Counterspell/Tutor.
If you are confident you are playing against slower decks you can attempt to keep a hand with one combo piece and tutor (and ideally a counterspell) and attempt to combo out rather than following the stax gameplan.
The mulligan change really hurt this deck so if you can convince people to play partial you will really see this deck flourish.
Notable Cards
Tezzeret the Seeker
= Planeswalkers!? in cedh!? nah it's just a 5 mana tutor. Seriously this card is never going to survive a turn cycle it's just an efficient repeatable (using Brago) tutor.
Oath of Jace
= This card may look weird but it is incredibly efficient and finding the pieces you need while filtering away everything you don't and with Brago it's a pure value train. Don't leave home without it.
Parallax Tide
= Although this card looks janky and confusing it can actually be incredibly useful and versatile. Aside from exiling all your opponents lands (explained above) this card also allows you to untap your own lands. If you are in a pinch it can also exile someone lands for a turn to stop them combo-ing off.
Venser, Shaper Savant
and
Altar of the Brood
= Both of these are wincons when have infinite flicker triggers from the Strionic combo. Venser is quite useful outside the combo and tutorable via
Recruiter of the Guard
whereas while Altar is less useful it can be tutored from one of our many artifact tutors. Because of these differences I believe they both deserve a slot in the deck.
Cursed Totem
= This card does more than you think, it shuts off mana dorks (which are usually good at avoiding our stax) and also shuts down powerful abilities like
Hermit Druid
or
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
.
Tsabo's Web
= Gives us card draw with Brago, and also shuts off problem lands, namely
Maze of Ith
. Not a great card but I wouldn't run the deck without it.
Mox Opal
and
Mox Diamond
= At first glance these rocks look bad, and in a lot of cases they are. They can't be flickered with Brago without disrupting ourselves. However they do enable us to empty our hand and get stax pieces down as early as turn one which can decide the game on the spot. The speed more than makes up for their anti-synergy with Brago.
Closing Thoughts
Although Brago is not a tier 1 cedh commander I think he has his place and is the best deck there is that is purely focused on stax. He has a good winrate against less tuned tier 1 decks and can even give optimised tier 1 decks a run for their money. As with all stax decks he can lose quite easily at lower power tables because he is optimised to beat the 1% not the 99% so make sure you know who you are playing against. If you enjoy the controlling stax gameplay I would massively recommend this deck.
