Seattle 27 (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Seattle 27

Commander / EDH BG (Golgari) Competitive Discard Pox Primer Stax

Knixx

Creature (24)

Land (28)

Enchantment (9)

Artifact (11)

Instant (14)

Sorcery (13)

Commander (1)

Sideboard

Instant (2)

Sorcery (3)

Maybeboard

Creature (30)

Planeswalker (6)

Land (19)

Enchantment (22)

Artifact (21)

Instant (23)

Sorcery (19)

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Discord

Feel free to join us, we're always looking for discussions.

Talk to me on Discord: ||Knixx#2403|| or reddit: ||Angelripper||

This deck is based on "Combo? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Combo" by Coinman1863.

Here's a link to their primer as well. It was written in 2017 but the base concepts still apply.

The name Seattle 27 is a homage to the Nath deck of early EDH, Death Cloud 9.

Stax is like traffic. Seattle has a lot of traffic.

Just imagine traffic in 2027. ha (It's not really supposed to make sense)

Things get swapped in and out all the time and as such, I may not necessarily write anything about new cards right away.

Nath Stax Primer Addendum 2020-21

Hello, thank you for reading.

Nath Stax is a classic stax deck that has gone through quite a few iterations. ["*Combo? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Combo*" by Coinman1863](https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/combo-where-were-going-we-dont-need-combo/) has  significance as a gold standard and a foundational piece to many lists.

As well, Coinman wrote a thorough primer with plenty of well-written information.
The primer holds the fundamentals of the Nath stax archtype within, please refer to those writings beforehand, and this addendum seeks to discuss Nath in 2020-21, the time of writing.

As stax is a very much a meta dependent archtype, please take a gander at the maybeboard for other card considerations. This list is meant to serve a general meta, as well as be a jumping off point for meta consideration swap-outs. I really do think a lot of cards are viable. This list isn't be-all-end-all, there's a few key strategies but then the rest is up to you.

The sideboard consists of cards that are my own personal deviations from the posted list.

Playing

Strategy

Nath's Stax's game plan is a true stax approach and the general methodology is to stax out and control the board through attrition.

Creature Anti-Counter

The card Nether Void is a backbreaking card when used correctly. Contextually, I would say it's similar to using Arcane Laboratory or Rule of Law but different in its approach.
Allosaurus Shepherd, Cavern of Souls, Destiny Spinner, and Veil of Summer (mana tax notwithstanding) have anti-countering clauses and since Nether Void is a global enchantment that counters all players' spells unless they pay the tax, we can skirt the payment by having Allosaurus Shepherd, Cavern of Souls, Destiny Spinner, and Veil of Summer negate Void’s countering trigger with their abilities.

Furthermore, this applies to Chalice of the Void.

Hapatra Yawgmoth

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Pay 1 life to Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, sacrifice another non-Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, draw a card, and put a -1/-1 token on any creature.
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons triggers, creating a 1/1 green snake token.
Pay 1 life to Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, sacrifice a snake, draw a card, and put a -1/-1 token on another creature.
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons triggers again, creating a new snake token.
Repeat this cycle until the board is clear of creatures, sufficient cards are drawn, and/or life totals reach a critical threshold.

Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons on her own does quite a bit of work as a 2/2 who generates tokens and can snipe dorks.

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician on his own is a value engine who turns fodder into cards and snipes.

Other Stax

~~Bottomless Pit: "At random?! How annoying."~~

Chains of Mephistopheles: Crazy good card that synergizes with Geier Reach Sanitarium, Nath, Rankle, Tergrid, Tinybones, and Waste Not. Please see flowchart for assistance.

Collector Ouphe: Shuts down artifact decks, as well as artifact ramp. This will be mitigation against decks that win via artifacts, possibly even halting them to a stop. Treasure tokens are the aim of the game in cEDH.

Damping Sphere: Anti-Ancient Tomb, anti-Gaea's Cradle, anti-storm, and anti most infinite mana combos.

Dauthi Voidwalker: An asymmetrical graveyard-hate piece that nets card advantage from opponents' exiled cards.

Oppression has added synergy with Nath, Tergrid, Tinybones, and Waste Not while being very oppresive.

Root Maze: Hinders ramps and Treasure tokens. See also: Manglehorn

Tangle Wire: This card is inherently asymmetrical in our favor as it can tap to itself. As well, opponents have to face four fade counters while the controller only has to deal with a maximum of three due to trigger ordering. As Tangle Wire uses counters, you can proliferate with Yawgmoth and keep the stax perpetual. See also: Chalice of the Void

~~Thorn of Amethyst: Cheap and makes things difficult for speed and tempo decks. We wary of over staxing yourself and falling behind. Combining it with Carpet of Flowers is an awesome idea for trying to stay ahead or maintain pace.~~

Torpor Orb: Crazy little gadget that stops creature ETB effects entirely, including Thassa's Oracle. Phyrexian Revoker is not affected as its ability is an "as" and not a "when".

~~Winter Orb: The salt inducer, when it comes down, the game is coming to a halt. Use with caution such as during a choke point where you can maintain progression, mana, and card advantage for a turn or two longer while opponents get stuck tapped out.~~

Revoking

Phyrexian Revoker is an exceptionally powerful tool that is useful in many situations. Unlike Pithing Needle, Revoker can hit mana abilities as well as other activiated abilities. Many strategies in cEDH are activated ability based, to name a few:

As we can see, there is great importance in shutting off any particualar activated ability that may present itself.

If an opponent only has colored mana through a mana rock, you could revoke that rock and mana screw them for a bit; maybe hit the blue player's blue mana source to prevent counters.

Revoker is a great Fiend Artisan and Chord of Calling choice.

Toolboxing

Fiend Artisan is a toolbox card.

Stax is inherently a sluggish style, so it's likely that I'm durdling at some point or another, while still making weenie tokens, maybe in excess, in some fashion but it's like "big whoop?”

A little investment of a tutor into Fiend Artisan lets us start toolboxing the next couple of turns. If anything, we can start turning tokens into the remaining dorks and in 1-3 turns, we can set up a Sadistic Hypnotist.

Contamination locks (outdated) ARCHIVE

Contamination

Soft-locks are available using Contamination along with token generators, only black mana will be available. Bitterblossom and Nath of the Gilt-Leaf will be your most surefire sources while Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Waste Not are more unreliable.

Contamination can also be used somewhat as a tempo play, just to slow/stall down the board enough while it's out, with no intent on keeping it long-term.

Win Conditions

104.3a A player can concede the game at any time. A player who concedes leaves the game immediately. That player loses the game.

Sad Hippie

The signature combo of the deck is Sadistic Hypnotist combined with the commander to wipe everyone's hands while netting upwards of 20 tokens at times.

Source: Commander Spellbook

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf
Sadistic Hypnotist
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf makes an elf warrior at the begining of your upkeep by making an opponent discard a card
In main phase sacrifice the elf warrior making an opponent discard 2 cards, making two more elf warriors
Repeat this step until all opponents have no cards in hand

Opponents can only have cards in hand when it isn't your turn

Death Cloud

The card Death Cloud is the ultimate backbreaker for this list. It is a brutal card that can for concessions with ease. It takes a little set up and the best results are with Nath of the Gilt-Leaf or Tergrid, God of Fright out on the field as their triggers will activate and be available to be placed on the stack after the resolution of Death Cloud: effects generated by cards resolving go on the stack after the spell resolves.

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf and Tergrid, God of Fright can still die depending on creature availability and the amount X was casted for but their triggers will activate and remain (after the resolution of Death Cloud) despite them leaving the battlefield.

For example, if X = 4, you would need 4 other sacrificable creatures on the battlefield to prevent the sacrifice of Nath or Tergrid, otherwise you just get their activations after the resolution of Death Cloud which included their deaths.

Death Cloud uses "then" ordering so loss of life will occur before moving to the discard portion and so-forth.
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf will see discards and Tergrid, God of Fright will be able to see both discards and permanent sacrifices, but not including land sacrifices if she dies due to the creature sacrifice portion of Death Cloud as she would have left the battlefield by that point. If she lives because she wasn't sacrificed, then you are elligible to receive sacrificed lands.

With an empty gamestate, procede to elf beat or use the value you received from Tergrid, God of Fright .

Earthcraft is good here as it gets missed by Death Cloud and the elf tokens can be used for mana if you still have or draw into a basic land.

Tergrid, God of Fright is an impressive value piece and makes for brutal Death Clouds, further solidifying it as a wincon.

Waste Not + Death Cloud is the meme-dream.

With Jumpstart, there was an introduction to two more win conditions: Allosaurus Shepherd elf beats & Tinybones drain.

Allosaurus Shepherd (& Destiny Spinner)

As mentioned prior, Allosaurus Shepherd has an ability that lets us take advantage of our numerous Elf Warrior tokens by turning them sideways as dinosaurs.
The difference between killing everyone's hands and netting a bunch of 5/5s as opposed to 1/1s cannot be understated.
As a side note, if we have a decent amount of enchantments on the battlefield, Destiny Spinner can aid in the beats strategy by enabling our lands like a mini-Allosaurus Shepherd.

Tinybones

Tinybones, Trinket Thief is great as a value piece but once you have taken out everyone's hands, particularly with the Sad Hippie combo (see above). He can close out the game over the course of a few turns while among a proper stax'd out boardstate through his mana sink.

With Commander Legends, stealing win conditions was delved further into.

Opposition Agent and Preator's Grasp

Opposition Agent is truly an insane card.
The utility of Praetor's Grasp, at instant speed, in a nicely bundled package.

Not only does it hinder your opponents from wanting to use ANY tutor (even fetches) but also, you can snipe their own tutor and use it for your own advantage, getting cards from the opponents' decks and seeing their hand as you control them for the duration of the tutoring.

716.4. If information about an object in the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible to both that player and the controller of the player. If information about cards outside the game would be visible to the player being controlled, it’s visible only to that player, not the controller of the player.

Example: The controller of a player can see that player’s hand and the face of any face-down creatures they control.

Praetor's Grasp can be used to extract value and win conditions. This card does not fix mana like Opposition Agent so that has to be accounted for (e.g., needing double blue for a Thassa's Oracle).

The optimal target is Thassa's Oracle to use with our Tainted Pact.

Underworld Breach may be a good grab if you're hellbent.

As well, be on the look out for Chain of Smogs and Witherbloom Apprentices (not unlike using our Tainted Pacts for stolen Thassa's Oracles).

SS combo (outdated) ARCHIVE

As such, with insanity aside, Opposition Agent can be used in conjunction with Scheming Symmetry for a "double" Praetor's Grasp of sorts.

Primarily, it will often represent a two-card wincon enabler.
The simplest method would be to grab a Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact/Leveler (?!?) from Opponent A and a Thassa's Oracle or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries from Opponent B.

Optimally, cast Agent during an opponent’s attempted-tutor, just before your next turn.
If not, just flash him in before your turn. Cast Symmetry during your turn and proceed from there, ideally with something like Veil of Summer or your stax setup as initial protection.
If we have our own Tainted Pact in hand, we can opt for something like Silence or a counterspell instead.
To really play it safe during risky situations, target yourself with one-half of the Symmetry effect.

This is a pod-dependent win condition, but there are possibilities in any pod.

Combo in hand? Grab a counterspell during someone's endstep Vampiric Tutor.
Take a Dockside Extortionist; heck, even two of them, it's that good.
Steal a Narset, Parter of Veils and a Wheel of Fortune/Windfall to ruin the game for everyone else.
Neuter other decks by taking their win conditions and maybe even use them against their owners. Why would I use my own Food Chain when I can use yours?
Clone/treason effect (with a Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator on the battlefield) + Glint-Horn Buccaneer

I understand the skepticism of the Agent Symmetry combo but it honestly does work, it’s fairly compact, most pods will have a winning combo amongst itself, and it’s really a hoot to pull off. However, I do acknowledge the danger, finesse, and proper timing required to use the tutor as just a tutor. Pleadingly, if a lacking-card sometimes represents a win condition, it is no-different than a Thassa's Oracle, Squirrel Nest, Temur Sabertooth, Twinflame, or Aetherflux Reservoir, otherwise unnecessary cards that win the game when combined with playable cards.

Alternatively, Wishclaw Talisman can be used instead for a more set-up/restrained value-based approach.

With Strixhaven, Nath received a 2 card infinite combo.

Chain of Smog

Witherbloom Apprentice + Chain of Smog

Simply target yourself with Chain of Smog while Witherbloom Apprentice is on the battlefield until you drain the table.

Be wary of interaction. Thoughtseize, Veil of Summer, Yavimaya Hollow is handy here.

On its own, Chain of Smog could potentially have decent value with Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, Tergrid, God of Fright , and Waste Not. The opponent is placed in a situation of taking revenge and giving you back Smog, letting it fizzle and discarding two cards, or using it on another player. A tricky situation that could just keep giving you value through one of the three prior mentioned cards.

Segemoor Witch

Another potential combo piece is Sedgemoor Witch with Chain of Smog.

Yes, you will be hellbent but given the nature of this deck, that's a common occurance anyway.

Repeatedly target yourself with Chain of Smog to activate her Magecraft ability and generate as many 1/1 Pest tokens as you would like.

Wait a turn and swing, hope you don't run into removal or interaction. Worst case scenario is going to be something like Rakdos Charm. Next would be Cyclonic Rift. Afterwards, getting towards more general wrath territory, they'll take out the tokens but you'll gain an immense amount of life from the Pest token death triggers, so losing by beats is mitigated a bit.

Since your hand is already nuked, you can end the combo by sending Chain of Smog to an opponent. They won't have a way to get revenge on you so they can either just discard 2 cards or send it to a further opponent, perpetuating the chain even more and all the better for you.

This is a great time to use Emergence Zone. Note that Crop Rotation is an instant.

3+ Card Combos/Synergies

===center There are a few ways to make this a bit more zazzy with other cards. We're getting out of 2-card combo territory so this is the back-up to the back-up.

===endcenter

Use Necropotence and hope for the best to last until the next turn.

Crop Rotation is an instant so grabbing Emergence Zone and flash casting Chain of Smog before your next turn costs 4 mana (, (not from Emergence Zone), ). You still get to have 1 card in hand from draw step and your Pests are over their summoning sickness. Add to that 4 mana if you want to hold cast Segemoor Witch as well, increasing the total cost to 7 mana.

Sedgemoor Witch + Chain of Smog + Yawgmoth, Thran Physician =A nuked board, stable health, and potential to draw whole library. Birthing Pod is a possible way to get to Yawgmoth, Thran Physician from podding-out Sedgemoor Witch.

Opening Hand

What should I look for in an opening hand?

An ideal opening hand would have a solid start to the game plan elements such as mana production methods, stax pieces, and card advantage. These types of opening hands are a necessity because the deck is contingent on starting out fast, while slowing down the pace for everyone else and delaying the extremely fast decks such as a Naus list. Once a stax lockdown has been set up and the opponents are generally annoyed and disgruntled, start looking for additional stax cards to further stop your opponents outright, even more so, or move on the win-condition phase of your gameplan.

The ideal opening hand contains the following themes: * Two Lands for access to both colors. As the average CMC of the deck is below 2, this amount of lands wil generally allow for at least one or two spells cast within the opening hand. * One to two ramp pieces for progression purposes. This could take form of a dork, rock, and/or ritual. * One to two stax pieces. Laying down stax to prevent your opponents from quick starts and high value accrual is the name of the game. * At least one sort of card advantage source such as Sylvan Library, Dark Confindant, or tutors.

Update log

These 3 sections were initially the differences of Seattle 27 to "Combo? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Combo" by Coinman1863 but has since morphed into a card in-and-out log of sorts.

What is New

What is new?

*Information as of Innistrad 3

Removed: 🤯

Added: 🤯

Various Single Card Discussion

• Ad Nauseam / Dark Deal / Peer in the Abyss: I recommend choosing one form of mass card advantage, depending on your play style, deck construction, and meta.

• Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt essentially has little downside with a decent amount of upside. With all the resource disadvtange the deck can generate, sometimes the pilot gets hit too and this card can help recoup during the mid to late game. The worst case scenario is paying 3 (once) for a Swamp.

• Cavern of Souls: Elf or Human are good types to name.

• City of Brass just for another rainbow land. This land gets past Yasharn, Implacable Earth over Mana Confluence.

• Culling Ritual: A large portion of the format is 2MV and below while "free" spells are usually quite good, this is a very awesome creation.

• ~~Compost is a value engine off board wipes, black creatures dying, any black mana tutor, combo loops, or discard.~~

• Endurance: Anti Thassa's Oracle and Underworld Breach tech, but also works against many graveyard strategies as well. This card can be used to recycle your graveyard and you can align the evoke trigger to shuffle Endurance back into your deck.

• ~~Force of Vigor allows for the removal of artifacts and enchantments in general while also allowing a "free" cast, useful for removing our own stax before a power turn. Also useful for knocking out Blood Moon and Back to Basics.~~

• ~~Oakhame Adversary is an evasive elf warrior that draws cards and has synergy with Mindblade Render and Allosaurus Shepherd. This helps us progress the game plan and the card is generally available for its cheaper alternate cost.~~

• Rankle, Master of Pranks: A 3/3 flyer with haste at 4 CMC that can go toe-to-toe with Tymna and serve as a draw, hand disruption, and/or edict engine.

• ~~Sedgemoor Witch: A 3/2 with Menace that can match-up well to many of the meta creatures in combat. She makes Pest tokens that heal you just for playing the game, very cool. Potential combo piece with Chain of Smog for infinite tokens at the cost of your entire hand.~~

• Shizo, Death's Storehouse: Notably, I want ways for Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Rankle, Master of Pranks to get through enemy lines. A six turn clock with Nath of the Gilt-Leaf or a four turn clock while using Allosaurus Shepherd in addition.

• Cabal Ritual, Culling the Weak, Dark Ritual were added to diversify ramp and to have some explosive play potential.

• Veil of Summer is a hyper efficient cantrip capable as acting as a anti-counter which combined with its hexproof grant and card draw makes it a truly valuable 1 drop. See also: Autumn's Veil

• ~~Westvale Abbey adds a token generator mana sink and a big-dumb creature for closing out the game.~~ This is the flex-land spot, please see the maybeboard for other considerations such as Geier Reach Sanitarium most notably. Use Geier Reach Sanitarium to take out an unsuspecting Thassa's Oracle player.

• Yavimaya Hollow helps protects high profile targers such as Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, Tergrid, God of Fright , Sadistic Hypnotist, and Witherbloom Apprentice

(Notable) Exclusions

Why were those cards removed?

• Boreal Druid was just an extra dork for the sake of dorks. The Llanowar Elves effect has three iterations so I personally thought that diversifying the ramp styles would be a good idea.

• Bitterblossom: Slow and doesn't do much on its own; a bit of a relic.

• Contamination: Heavily dependent on token producers. Black is one of the most popular colors in the format and this enables Ad Nauseam if anything. Doesn't mitigate fast mana/rocks, rituals, and Treasure token meta. A bit of a relic (see Bitterblossom).

• Cursed Totem is a great card but the deck relies heavily on its own mana dorks as well. Phyrexian Revoker takes the spot instead, as a meta call against activated abilities. Totem is still viable if your meta is heavily acivated ability based.

• Golgari Signet while a classic type of card is outdated by faster rocks currently available.

• Mana Web is a fun card and quite the head scratcher but its quirkiness will only take us so far.

• Null Rod is 1:1 replaced by Collector Ouphe

• Liliana of the Veil was another tough cut but the Nath discord has felt that she may be too slow nowadays for the midrange/medium meta. She is a flex spot so there's plenty of opportunities for testing new cards for specific metas.

• Sphere of Resistance was replaced by Damping Sphere since they occupy similar stax design space yet Sphere has anti-Underworld Breach tech and that is a major cEDH wincon at the moment.

• A common critique of land-hate lands is noting their power but also noting how much they set you back after the activation, especially in a 4 player pod. Coinman's list was running both Strip Mine and Wasteland but consolidating down ~~to just Strip Mine was the option taken~~ to neither was ultimately what happened. Losing color, a land, and pace in a very fast format was unneeded.

• Thorn of Amethyst gets hosed by the incredible amounts of modern cDEH mana productivity. With the advent of Smog Storm, Wishclaw Talisman took the two-drop spot for further speed towards comboing.

• Torment of Hailfire required too much mana investment in the X cost to be anything other than a finisher and it's ability to finish was somewhat lacking.

• Trinisphere was replaced by Oppression.

• Winter Orb doesn't really stop the dorks, fast mana, ritual, and Treasure token meta. Root Maze was the replacement.

Other Curated Lists to Check Out

• Gilt-Leaf Tyranny & Raza-Nath by Toglerog

• Nath Maximus by Sliver_Boi21 of Casually Competitive

Suggestions

Updates Add

Image View Timeline

Card Odds v1 Draw hand

Add to folder Copy

Download / Export / Embed Code

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Comment:

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Date added	4 years
Last updated	2 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	20 - 1 Mythic Rares 51 - 4 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.92
Tokens	Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Snake 1/1 G, Snake 1/1 G w/ Deathtouch, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	CEDH
Votes
Ignored suggestions
Shared with
Based on	Combo? Where We're Going, We Don't Need Combo Coinman1863 EDH
Views

Magic the Gathering, FNM is TM and copyright Wizards of the Coast, Inc, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This site is unaffiliated. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site.