Sisay Primer (Stax-Combo) (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Sisay Primer (Stax-Combo)

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive GW (Selesnya) Multiplayer Primer Stax

SynergyBuild

Creature (31)

Enchantment (4)

Land (30)

Instant (9)

Commander (1)

Artifact (22)

Sorcery (3)

Maybeboard

Creature (21)

Land (12)

Artifact (5)

Instant (6)

Enchantment (5)

Sorcery (4)

What is the deck?

This deck is a Tier 1.5 list based around a Paradox Engine combo, that only requires the commander (Captain Sisay) and ~5 mana. The rest of the deck is stax pieces to hopefully shut down the opponents, ramp to combo out or counteract our own stax, and we run plenty of cards for protecting our combo too.

Is this the deck for you?

You should play this deck if you:

Like playing a deck that can race with fast combo decks.
Like playing a deck that is very consistent.
Like always having an out to nearly any situation in the Command Zone.
Dislike having long and drawn out "Combo Turns"
Like playing stax and locking out the opponent.

You should not play this deck if you:

Dislike combo decks, and would rather play beatdown, or reanimator, etc.
Like having long "Combo Turns".
Dislike stax decks, and would rather not lock the opponents out.
Like longer games, with a ton of answers and card draw.
Like variety in games, and don't want a lot of consistency.

The Combo

Now to explain the actual combo, it is a quite simple combo, that takes one turn/tutor/cast after you fetch Paradox Engine from Captain Sisay and takes at the slowest 3 turns on a normal curve to win after turn 4. (you win by turn 6 then).

Cool, now here is the combo.

Cast Captain Sisay, pass the turn, or give it haste with Lightning Greaves or something.

Fetch Paradox Engine, cast it that same turn hopefully. Then pass the turn, or untap Captain Sisay by casting a spell.

Untapped Captain Sisay + Paradox Engine = Win:

Tap Sisay, Fetch Mox Amber, cast it, untapping Sisay.

Tap both, Floating , and finding Mox Opal, cast it, untapping the other mox and Sisay.

Tap both Mox, floating , and fetch Seton, Krosan Protector, then cast it.

Tap out for , fetch Dosan the Falling Leaf, and cast it, floating nothing. Untap.

Tap out for , fetch Bow of Nylea, and cast it, floating nothing. Untap.

Tap out for , fetch Bontu's Monument, cast it, floating nothing and untap.

Tap out for , fetch Mikaeus, the Lunarch, and cast it.

You now can drop Mikaeus, the Lunarch with no counters so it dies, Bow of Nylea it back into the deck, and fetch it out again, infinite times. Bontu's Monument will drain for win.

Single Card Explanation

Stax Pieces

Armageddon/Ravages of War - Captain Sisay can fetch many lands, and we run plenty of non-land mana sources, so it makes these cards an automatic include. Trust me on this, if you can combo out or cast one of these, and combo out the next turn, cast one of these. If it gets countered, so would the combo, if it doesn't, they will spend their resources rebuilding somewhat, and you definitely won't get the combo countered the next turn.

Aura of Silence - This doubles as a tax effect (a meta dependent one, but very powerful), or as an overpriced Seal of Cleansing. It can be used as a sorcery speed Disenchant, but think of it more of as a threat, if multiple of your opponents want to cast an artifact or enchantment, not only is it harder to cast, but they also have the take into account that it might just be destroyed, and it might just slow them down a lot. That alone may in turn set you up to win the game.

Aven Mindcensor - A very powerful "three-sided" effect that can greatly hurt our opponent's cracking fetchlands, and obviously tutors.

Containment Priest - Shuts down reanimator, flicker effects, Flash-hulk combo, etc.

Dust Bowl - Great land, hits the lands your opponents need, if they are sitting on only one source of a color, blow it up, etc.

Gaddock Teeg - Shuts down Blue Sun's Zenith wins, Force of Will, Ad Nauseam, and a hundred other valuable cards, it does hit Paradox Engine, but fetching The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale should do the trick to remove it on the turn you want to combo out.

Glowrider/Sphere of Resistance/Thalia, Guardian of Thraben/Thorn of Amethyst/Vryn Wingmare - Slows traditional storm builds tremendously, taxes tons of other cards, and most "free cast" cards like Force of Will take a huge hit.

Hokori, Dust Drinker - Fetchable Winter Orb on legs, valuable card in our arsenal.

Hushwing Gryff - Hits Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker/Pestermite combo, Ancestral Statue/Animar, Soul of Elements, General Tazri, Breya, Etherium Shaper, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds's draw trigger, Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Mairsil, the Pretender, Reaper King, Sharuum the Hegemon, Riftsweeper, all of the allies, Phyrexian Delver, Trinket Mage/Trophy Mage, Recruiter of the Guard/Imperial Recruiter/Spellseeker, Snapcaster Mage, and so many more cards that I constantly face.

Kataki, War's Wage - Yes we run a number of artifacts, and yes this hurts them, but we only drop it against decks like Arcum Dagsson, or Breya, Etherium Shaper, and the like, or the guy with the insane opener of artifacts everywhere.

Linvala, Keeper of Silence - Shuts down dorks, other Captain Sisays, Thrasios, Triton Hero, Arcum Dagsson, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher's sacrifice, Breya, Etherium Sculptor, etc.

Sanctum Prelate - A bit of a strange card, but very versatile, can shut off Teferi, Temporal Archmage, hitting 0 can stop a Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder from storming off, and 1 hits a lot of cantrips, also, if you know the wincons of your opponents decks, it can shut them off too, remember to keep in mind you can always fetch The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale if you need to remove it to cast a Paradox Engine or something.

Spirit of the Labyrinth - This card shuts down so many comboes, Azami, Lady of Scrolls hates it, Thrasios, Triton Hero sucks with it, and Tymna the Weaver isn't any better. Brainstorm is awful with it, and so is pretty much any other cantrip.

Static Orb - Ooh this is good, yes, it slows us down quite a bit, but it slows other decks down a lot too., It feels like a more global Winter Orb.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale - Shuts off more creature heavy decks and dorks pretty easily, noted it can be used as a sacrifice outlet.

Trinisphere - Hits free spells like a bag of rocks, and most spells in cEDH get hit by at least 1 mana, if not 2 or three. Sacrifice to Kataki, War's Wage before combo-ing out unless you have 2+ nonland mana sources additional.

Tangle Wire - Gets progressively less powerful over time, but is incredibly good nonetheless. I like it much more than Smokestack.

Winter Orb - This is pretty much the best Stax card in the game. It terms of being colorless and having an incredibly cheap mana cost, it is very good.

World Queller - Naming land is always good, I mean with a Crucible of Worlds it is insane, but it hits a lot of other things too, always keep it in mind as mass edict.

Ramp Package

Arbor Elf/Avacyn's Pilgrim/Birds of Paradise/Boreal Druid/Elvish Mystic/Fyndhorn Elves/Llanowar Elves - These are the dorks, they get us mana fast and efficiently, and they do it all for one mana. Dropping a land and one of these is one of our best and most common openers.

Green Sun's Zenith - Count this as another dork most of the time. By casting it x=0, you can fetch Dryad Arbor, so in turn it is a 1 mana land-creature, or a mana dork.

Chrome Mox/Mox Diamond - These are the moxen, that for the effect of very fast mana, cost some cards in your hand. This is almost always is great opening hand to the point of causing insanely fast wins, but they can be decent even udner stax, if you need a couple more non-land sources to go off.

Mana Crypt/Mana Vault/Sol Ring/Grim Monolith - These are our colorless fast-mana. They give us ritual-like mana the turn we play them, and are even better the next turn. Insane in opening hand, and good otherwise.

Carpet of Flowers - A very powerful piece of ramp, especially because of the number of Underground Seas and Volcanic Islands it counts for too. Read the full text, because it can be activated only once per turn, but on either main phase so you can use it the turn you drop it if you move to the second main phase.

Candelabra of Tawnos - This can turn colorless mana into colored mana, unused Mana Vault/Grim Monolith mana back into lands that might not untap anyway (Winter Orb/Static Orb), and it can ramp us very easily with an Ancient Tomb or Gaea's Cradle and a couple creatures on the field.

Crucible of Worlds/Ramunap Excavator - Insane synergy with fetchlands, Dust Bowl, Wasteland, Strip Mine, World Queller, Armageddon/Ravages of War and is good in the mirror against other stax decks.

Mox Amber/Mox Opal/Seton, Krosan Protector - These are the fetchable pieces of ramp we used to combo out. You can use them earlier, but if they get wiped or anything, remember so you know you need more non-land sources before combo-ing out.

Combo Protection

Autumn's Veil - This is nearly a Silence, except it doesn't stop everything, and has the major upside of being able to be cast in response to removal or a counterspell.

Dosan the Falling Leaf - Great card in this deck, it is a worse Grand Abolisher, yes, but since it is legendary, we can use it as a fetchable one. This card is the main reason we don't run more effects like it.

Grand Abolisher - He is basically a one-sided Dosan the Falling Leaf that affects multiple permanents abilities too.

Silence - If we cast this before we combo out, yes it can be countered, but normally that counterspell that is now used up woudl be the only one countering the combo, and so there is nothing to fear. Very powerful, note it doesn't counter spells your opponents have already played, and while it is on the stack your opponents can still respond.

Mother of Runes - This protects Captain Sisay or any other creature like no other. Considered Devoted Caretaker for protecting Paradox Engine or Bow of Nylea or something, but can't find a spot.

Card Advantage (Tutors/Draw)

Captain Sisay - Yes, our commander is the best draw we have access to, and we always have access to it, and with something like 20+ legendary cards in our deck, we have a wide array of answers to find.

Eladamri's Call - This creature tutor at instant speed and to hand is greatly powerful, and was reprinted recently, so is a lot cheaper. This card is usually used to find something like a Hushwing Gryff or something so you shut off your opponents plan. We run 15+ really good silver bullets this can find. A whole sideboard worth of answers.

Green Sun's Zenith - This card can be used as ramp by fetching a Dryad Arbor, but can easily find a Gaddock Teeg or whatever you need to shut off your opponents' gameplan.

Sensei's Divining Top - This is a very powerful card, and though there are combos with it and good synergy (Counterbalance/Future Sight/Magus of the Future), we run it for the card advantage, it isn't an incredibly powerful card in terms of the normal understanding of "card advantage", but we run enough fetchlands and so much shuffling that it can be even better than a Ponder or Brainstorm would be.

Worldly Tutor - Its an instant speed tutor any creature to top. Useful to do on teh endstep before your turn, or upkeep of it. It is good to do it right before drawing a card so they have little time to think about it.

Yisan, the Wanderer Bard - This is a very powerful piece of card advantage, step one fetching a Mother of Runes, next time a Spirit of the Labyrinth, or a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, then fetch an Aven Mindcensor or Vryn Wingmare or Sanctum Prelate or something, etc. For the grindy game against another stax deck, he wins games so well. Also tutorable by Captain Sisay.

Removal

Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile - These are the white OG's, I mean they are one mana to remove whatever creature you don't want to exist. I mean occasionally you target your own Sanctum Prelate or Gaddock Teeg or Containment Priest if you realize they hurt you the most.

Nature's Claim - Staple in green for good reason. It hits so many high-priority permanents.

Unexpectedly Absent - Two white is the normal cost we use for this. It puts any non-land permanent on the top of it's owner's library. Do it in reponse to cracking a fetchland and they will cry.

Grasp of Fate - 3 mana for 1-3 high-priority non-land permanents is a great deal. Remember it is a may for each player, so use it as a Banishing Light or two if you don't want to mess with the guy with removal.

Mangara of Corondor - No, we don't run a combo with it, but it is our catch all removal spell on demand with Captain Sisay. Its like a Vindicate on steroids that our commander can fetch us.

Recursion

Eternal Witness - This is commonly used to recur a dead combo-piece, and is tutorable by all of our creature tutors, and very slowly by our commander by fetching Yisan, the Wanderer Bard and upticking him 3 turns, it can also be used to recur some stax.

Bow of Nylea - This is a combo card, but also is a tutorable piece of recursion to the bottom. This is almost always used mid-combo to return more combo pieces unless you can just straight up combo out.

Noxious Revival - This is a free spell for Paradox Engine, but is great at getting back a card we need. free and an instant makes it a good card.

How to Play the Deck

Okay, so you know the basis of the deck, you got the combo down, and the stax game is real.

How do you play it though?

Judging Your Hand and Mulligans

So lets say your hand looks like Wooded Foothills, Bow of Nylea, Forest, Vryn Wingmare, Sylvan Library, Grand Abolisher, Green Sun's Zenith.

There are normally just a few questions I have about any hand:

Can we race with this hand?

We have 3 lands opening hand, and Dryad Arbor is basically tapped.

We have Green Sun's Zenith which can hit Dryad Arbor unless we draw it.

Chances are we can't race with this hand. Lets look at the next question.

Can we stax out our opponents?

Barely

With the Green Sun's Zenith we can fetch a Gaddock Teeg or something, and Vryn Wingmare we might be able to do something, Sylvan Library can also give us some card draw to hopefully dig. Dependent on our opponents, the turn 2 Vryn Wingmare, and a turn 3 Captain Sisay may work, but I don't really think it is worth it.

Should we ship the hand?

Yes

It isn't the worst hand, but since we get a free mulligan, I'd ship it.

Now the next hand: Green Sun's Zenith, Eternal Witness, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Tangle Wire, Plains, Yavimaya Hollow, Mox Diamond

Lets go over our questions now:

Can we race with this hand?

Yes

Weirdly, the turn one Mox Diamond, discarding Yavimaya Hollow and playing Plains, then cast Green Sun's Zenith x=0 or 1, finding a Dryad Arbor, or a Birds of Paradise for the turn two Captain Sisay if we draw land makes this hand very good for racing. A potential turn 3-4 win.

Can we stax out our opponents with this hand?

Maybe

I mean, is we ramp the turn two Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Tangle Wire (Or both by turn 3) leads me to believe many decks would crumble underneath the stax, but a few might not. I mean countering either of the stax leads us to an Eternal Witness to recur them, and unless they have two counters and an artifact-based ramp plan they probably will still hurt, not to mention we could easily draw into some more stax, or cast Captain Sisay, and fetch a Kataki, War's Wage against artifacts. It really depends on the opponents, but I like the stax route here.

Should we ship the hand?

It can race, and has decent stax, I'd say it is worth it.

So we've decided on the hand. This is the method I use to decide on hands in this deck. I so far has worked every time.

How do we play out our hand?

The hand we kept looks like Green Sun's Zenith, Eternal Witness, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Tangle Wire, Plains, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Mox Diamond, and we start the game.

We draw is Temple Garden. This does a lot for us. It lets us turn two Captain Sisay or Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and leads us to be able to decide either to lower out threat assessment levels. This is because since it is a green source, we can cast Green Sun's Zenith turn one without casting Mox Diamond turn one. Since we don't need the extra mana this turn, we can hold off from it, so we don't unnecessarily make ourselves a target. We don't have any protection other than Eternal Witness, so this works out in our favor.

Turn one for us should lean into the combo. Play Temple Garden (Pay 2 Life so it enters untapped), tap Temple Garden for , cast Green Sun's Zenith x=0, to search for Dryad Arbor, and pass the turn, with Eternal Witness, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Tangle Wire, Plains, Yavimaya Hollow, Mox Diamond left in hand.

Going for the Combo

The next turn, we untap, draw a Flooded Strand. This means we have the lands to cast Paradox Engine next turn. We cast Mox Diamond, discarding a Yavimaya Hollow, play Plains, tap all of our mana sources for to cast Captain Sisay from the Command Zone. This will raise our threat levels, but as we haven't shown a threat other than our commander, we probably are safe from being countered yet. Swords to Plowshares may soon be pointed in out direction though.

With a hand looking like Eternal Witness, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Tangle Wire, Flooded Stand, we pass, with 4 mana, and a Captain Sisay on the field.

The next turn (for sake of example, nothing messed with us yet), we untap, draw, and find a Chrome Mox. This means we have a spell to cast if we resolve a Paradox Engine. We tap Captain Sisay, fetch Paradox Engine to hand, and we cast it after playing a Flooded Strand, cracking it to fetch a Savannah. If it resolves (Along with the rest of our combo), we win that turn. A turn 3 win isn't bad.

If it gets countered, Eternal Witness is our backup, and hopefully we can win the next turn.

Having to go Stax

Lets say Paradox Engine was countered. That is okay, we still have Eternal Witness, but if we can't do that (Because it is too slow, and we would lose before then), we still have the backup plan of staxing this game out. We spent all of our mana, and though we could drop Chrome Mox, it doesn't do us any good. Best to let it seem we are all out of options for now.

We pass. With Eternal Witness, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Tangle Wire, and Chrome Mox in hand, mana on the battlefield, and a tapped Captain Sisay, we pass onto turn 4, and untap.

We draw a Trinisphere, and have no lands in hand. We can play Chrome Mox for a 6th mana.

What do we do? I'd play out a Chrome Mox, exiling Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and tap out for mana. I'd cast Tangle Wire, then a Trinisphere, and call it a turn. With a sole Eternal Witness in hand, and a Tangle Wire with 4 fading counters on it.

Turn 5 we untap, upkeep, I'd tap down the Tangle Wire, and two lands. We'd have mana up, and Eternal Witness in hand. we draw a Dust Bowl, which means we can make if we play it, but I'd rather keep it in hand for now, pretending we drew something worth keeping, and I'd fetch a Thalia, Heretic Cathar, and cast it for three mana, and pass the turn. Depending on the situation, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Gaddock Teeg, Kataki, War's Wage, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale could all be better stax options.

We can pass, with Dust Bowl and Eternal Witness in hand, 6 mana on field, a Tangle Wire on three counters, a Trinisphere in play, and a Thalia, Heretic Cathar on the battlefield.

Turn 6 we untap, upkeep tap down Tangle Wire and Trinisphere to Tangle Wire's upkeep trigger.

We draw a Mana Crypt, and we can cast it for 0 with us having tapped down Trinisphere earlier. We can play Dust Bowl, with mana up. Cast Eternal Witness, returning Paradox Engine, cast it ( left in mana), and tap Captain Sisay, fetching Mox Amber to start comboing out. The downside to winning in this method is Trinishere will be untapped by Paradox Engine. This can make out spells cost up to 3 mana more than normal in the combo, but since we have 4 extra mana in terms of non-land sources, so we are perfectly fine to pay for Trinisphere. We can combo out with this, and win the game turn 6.

A turn 6 win may be unimpressive, but we had dropped a lot of disruptive stax throughout that game, and could have won turn 3 if not for a counterspell.

In conclusion

This is a powerful hybrid stax-combo list, that has a commander who fetches out the full 8-card combo in amatter of two turns, which leads us to be able to race for the win, and a deck that allows us to fetch out or find a lot of disruption to slow the opponents down.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to run this list, I will be setting up budget versions of it in the near future.

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Any cards you think I could drop for the maybeboard?

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Casual

96% Competitive

Revision 3 See all

(5 years ago)

+1	Forest	main
+1	Kor Haven	maybe
+1	Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx	maybe

Top Ranked	Achieved #39 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Exclude colors	UBR
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 58 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.06
Folders	Commander, interesting ideas, Sisay, EDH, multi to check, Decks, Lewd Collection, Other's EDH Decks, Primers only, EDH
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