Sramthing else

Commander / EDH* Artifact Hatebears Mono-White Multiplayer Primer Stax

boristormodor

Artifact (42)

• 1x Accorder's Shield
• 1x Basilisk Collar
• 1x Bone Saw
• 1x Cathar's Shield
• 1x Colossus Hammer
• 1x Commander's Plate
• 1x Conqueror's Flail
• 1x Cultivator's Caravan
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Flayer Husk
• 1x Golem-Skin Gauntlets
• 1x Heart of Kiran
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Kite Shield
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Masterwork of Ingenuity
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Nettlecyst
• 1x Paradise Mantle
• 1x Prying Blade
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Sigil of Distinction
• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship
• 1x Smokestack
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spidersilk Net
• 1x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 1x Sword of Fire and Ice
• 1x Sword of Light and Shadow
• 1x Sword of Sinew and Steel
• 1x Sword of the Animist
• 1x Tangle Wire
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Weatherlight
• 1x Winter Orb

Creature (22)

• 1x Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Ethersworn Canonist
• 1x Foundry Inspector
• 1x Giver of Runes
• 1x Grand Abolisher
• 1x Heavenly Blademaster
• 1x Hokori, Dust Drinker
• 1x Hushbringer
• 1x Leonin Arbiter
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Metalworker
• 1x Monastery Mentor
• 1x Mother of Runes
• 1x Puresteel Paladin
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Relic Seeker
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Starnheim Courser
• 1x Stoneforge Mystic

Enchantment (5)

• 1x All That Glitters
• 1x Darksteel Mutation
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x On Thin Ice
• 1x Smothering Tithe

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Cataclysm *list*
• 1x Fragmentize
• 1x Open the Armory
• 1x Steelshaper's Gift

Commander (1)

Land (28)

• 1x Ancient Den
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Eiganjo Castle
• 1x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mishra's Workshop
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 11x Snow-Covered Plains
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Urza's Saga
• 1x Windswept Heath

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Karn, Scion of Urza

Instant (1)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor

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Guide is outdated. I will rework it soon.

Introduction

Hi,

first of all I want to introduce myself. My name is Christian and I'm from Germany. I'm playing MtG for twelve years now and loved the EDH Format since the day it was born. My Playgroup is Semicompetitive. We optimize all of our decks, but exclude infinite combos.

This deck is build for Multiplayergames. If you like the Stax-Archtype, you will love this deck!

In the following sections I want to explain my card choices and offer you a general gameplan. Feel free to comment and suggest cards. But if you do please let me know, why you would recommend a card and which card should be cut for it.

Card Explanations

Lands Show

The average mana cost of this deck is 1,85 which is really low. We're playing a total of 45 cards producing mana or reducing casting costs. I divided those in the following land and mana artifact section to explain my choices.

Yes, I play only 28 lands. That's because you will cycle with Sram through your deck and don't want to have your hand full of unnecessary stuff.

14 lands produce white mana. 4 lands search for plains and ten lands produce colorless mana.

Ancient Den , Darksteel Citadel : Some cards like Mox Opal or Metalworker require artifacts to shine. So those lands are perfect inclusions for the deck. Darksteel Citadel will survive your masslanddestruction spells as well. So no complains here!

Ancient Tomb , City of Traitors : instead of is always good.

Arid Mesa , Flooded Strand , Marsh Flats , Windswept Heath : Those cards let you cycle through even faster.

Buried Ruin , Inventors' Fair : These are utility lands which allow you to search or resurrect an important artifact.

Eiganjo Castle : To be honest, this card will be a just a plains most of the times. But sometimes it can protect your important creature's out of nowhere.

Flagstones of Trokair : Gives you a plains after masslanddestruction, which brings you ahead.

Gemstone Caverns : You will never really care about getting instead of . But if you have it in your opening hand, this card get's rediculous.

Inkmoth Nexus : An 1/1 flying, infect creature can sometimes close out the game.

Scavenger Grounds : You always need graveyardhate in a deck. But if you don't need it right now, it produces mana instead. So it's far better than for example Rest in Peace .

Secluded Steppe : You don't care most of the time, if this comes in play tapped turn 1. But if you draw it later in the game, you can just cycle an otherwise useless land.

Strip Mine : This is great for smashing cards like Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers .

Zhalfirin Void : The scry is only slightly worse than a draw. I'm currently testing this one over playing Wasteland .

Plains : Honorable mention because you just need some lands producing which do not come into play tapped :P

Mana artifacts Show

Alternativ mana resources are especially efficient, because we often want to blow up all lands in play or want to lock them down. The artifacts will be untouched at those moments. That for we're playing 17 of those cards.

Cloud Key , Foundry Inspector : Those reduce the cost of 37 cards.

Crucible of Worlds : Not exactly a mana artifact but it let's you abuse your Fetchlands as well as for example Strip Mine .

Cultivator's Caravan , Dowsing Dagger  , Explorer's Scope Paradise Mantle , Prying Blade , Sword of Feast and Famine , Sword of the Animist : Those draw you cards out of your Commander and give you Mana afterwards.

Mana Crypt , Mana Vault , Mox Amber , Mox Diamond , Mox Opal , Sol Ring : The best Mana Rocks for this deck, because you need them to be low cost and efficient.

Metalworker : This one is just crazy...

Draw Show

Every good deck needs a good amount of draws as well as tutors. In Mono-White decks the resources are quite limited. But I found a solid solution, which I want to show you in these parts of my explanation.

Because we're playing Mono-White, we always have to combine cards to draw. But I have nine great answers in store!

Sram, Senior Edificer : He is in my opinion the best Mono-White Commander, because he is currently the only one with access to draw. And he does it incredibly good! In all my games with him he drew so many cards, that blue players could not even realize, what was going on :P But honestly: He adds an "Draw a card"-effect on a total of 30 cards in our deck. And the best thing is, he says: "Whenever you cast...". So you do not even care about counterspells, because you will draw anyways. This is rediculous.

Puresteel Paladin : He is better and worse than our Commander. The downside of only drawing out of 27 cards instead of 30 isn't that much. And his upside is huge. Equipping cost "0" is perfect for us! But remember, he says: "Whenever an equipment enters..." Just be aware of it. The greatest downside is, that he isn't legendary. So we can't play him in the command zone. So we will nearly always have to draw or tutor him. Him together with Sram, Senior Edificer will draw you an incredible amount of cards.

Skullclamp : This card is one of the best cards in the whole format and especially in our deck. 1. You draw out of it through Sram, Senior Edificer . 2. It only costs and equip . So you can feed it for example with the Germ-Token of Flayer Husk or with Recruiter of the Guard . But it really performs at it's best with Monastery Mentor or Retrofitter Foundry .

Treasure Map  : Scrying is great, but this card can do even more. After transforming into Treasure Cove you can draw one card per turn or have access to more mana. This card works obviously great with Prying Blade . Of course this synergy isn't as good as the ones above, but remember: You're playing white. So you need every good low costing Draw-Engine that you can get!

Skeleton Key , Smuggler's Copter , Sword of Fire and Ice : Those do all draw cards out of Sram, Senior Edificer . Of course Sword of Fire and Ice is the best of them, because it draws, deals two damage, get's your creature blocked harder AND offers protection. But don't think the other two are bad. Both are hard to block and discarding a useless land is often great. Always remember: You're playing Mono-White. Nothing more to say here...

Scroll Rack : Another great card! Just put your whole hand, which has no equipment spells left, aside and draw into new equipment spells to redraw your other important cards! Of course you need to combine it with Sram, Senior Edificer and/or Puresteel Paladin .

Karn, Scion of Urza : Because your're playing Stax, people will have a hard time killing him. It's also likely to play him turn 1 or 2 in this deck, which is... yeah I know I used this word often... REDICULOUS!

Tutors Show

The tutors we have access to, is limited. But I actually managed to play a total of six cards.

Enlightened Tutor : Obviously the card you think of, when you hear "white" and "tutor". Of course it's the best you can get.

Inventors' Fair : It gives you one life per turn in the early game and a combo piece in the mid game.

Recruiter of the Guard : She searches for every other creature in the deck!

Stoneforge Mystic , Open the Armory , Steelshaper's Gift : Searching for equipments can safe the day. Some of them are important combo pieces as well.

Ressurection Show

We only play three cards to get things out of our graveyard. But honestly: We don't need more.

Sword of Light and Shadow : It provides drawing out of Sram, Senior Edificer , lifegain, being hard to block, getting an important creature out of the graveyard AND protection. Sounds great to me!

Buried Ruin : The only way to get an artifact out of our graveyard. Is this enough? Yes, I think so. No card in our deck is so important that we really need it to win. But in a few cases it can be relevant to get a sword or a stax card back. This is why we play it.

Crucible of Worlds : I already explained the card.

Stax choices and similar cards Show

Those are the cards we really want to play. We want to prevent our opponents from playing cards or activating abilities.

Cursed Totem : It shuts down ALL activated abilities of creatures; even mana abilities!

Grafdigger's Cage : Great to prevent them from bringing creatures back to life or casting flashback spells. It also f*cks up their cascade triggers or cards like Birthing Pod .

Smokestack : The card which gave the Stax-Archtype its name. Note, that you can time the triggers in you favour. Just sacrifice the permanents an THEN put another soot counter on it. Just sacrifice your Accorder's Shield and watch them sacrificing their important stuff. Always play it turn 1 or 2, if it's possible.

Tangle Wire : Another great card. We just tap our cheap equipments, while they have to tap all their lands and can't do anything. Play it as early as possible. And again: Remember to time your upkeep triggers right. You can remove a fading counter before you tap stuff.

Winter Orb , Hokori, Dust Drinker : Only because of those two cards it's possible to build the deck as it is. We don't care if our lands are tapped. We have, like I mentioned above, 17 cards which can produce mana or reduce casting costs for us without being a land! Furthermore we do not have any cards in our deck, which cost more than four mana! Call me a sadist, but I love to lock the table :)

Ethersworn Canonist : We play 49 artifacts in our deck. Our opponents probably not. Do I have to say more?

Thalia, Heretic Cathar , Kismet : Those two shine with Winter Orb on the field. Also it's just great to the their fetchlands entering tapped and bringing basics instead of duels because they would enter tapped as well.

Aura of Silence : more for every artifact or enchantment is rediculous. And if their is an important threat on the table, you can just remove it as well... Way to powerful.

Humility : You might thinkt: "Why should you run this? It shuts down Sram!?" Yes, you're right. But this card comes in the midgame into play. We just puked out all of our equipments at this time. And our 1/1 creature get's all the nice equipments and will be strong, while our opponents creature's will not even trigger an "enter the battlefield" ability.

Armageddon , Ravages of War : Yea, I know... Everyone hates land destruction. I do not! They are legal cards in commander and they don't win on the spot. Why would you not play them? If an opponent is prepared, he can just counter them or play mana rocks or creaturea producing mana. They are not unfair at all. Remember to only play those two, if you're boardstate is ahead. If they have for example a gigantic eldrazi on the field. It's probably not good to destroy all lands ;)

Protection Show

What we need is protection for our commander and for our overhelming boardstate. Here are my choices.

Hammer of Nazahn : We're playing 27 equipments in the deck. This card provides not only a draw out of Sram, Senior Edificer and protection. It let's us equip for free, when equipments enter the battlefield. Exactly what we want.

Lightning Greaves , Swiftfoot Boots : And again I don't think I have to say anything on this matter.

Sword of Feast and Famine , Sword of Fire and Ice , Sword of Light and Shadow : I already talked about two of them, so I will only explain Sword of Feast and Famine now.

1. Draws out of our commander.
2. Hard to block.
3. Untap all our lands. Wait I have to talk about this a little. Normally it's just great to play some stuff in the first mainphase. Then go to combat. Untap all lands an play stuff again. But it's so much better in our deck than only this! Possible all the lands on the field remain tapped because of Winter Orb . But we actually have a way to avoid this, with our card:Sword of Feast and Femine! Great!
4. Opponent discards.
5. Protection. Whoop! Whoop! Amazing card!

Mana Tithe , Warping Wail : "Who plays those cards?" Yeah... I don't know why, but I seem to be the only one playing them... We do not really care about single target removal on our artifacts. There will always be another artifact going in instead.

We actually fear two things:

1. Single target removal on our commander. Wait... I just mentioned the protection for that.
2. Mass board wipes, which remove all of our artifacts.

And this is why I play those two. Which cards board wipe artifacts most of the time? Cards like card:Vandal Blast, Austere Command or Merciless Eviction . What do all of them have in common? They are sorceries. Oh wait! Warping Wail counters sorcery spells. That's why I play it. and even if you do not have to fear those wipes because your opponents don't play white or red. It has the option to exile a mana dork or give you the ounce of mana you need in your next turn. Furthermore the little eldrazi token can jump block or being sacrificed instead of Sram, Senior Edificer , when they play cards like Plaguecrafter .

Your opponents will hopefully not have access to much mana because of your stax effects. Well, that's why they want have the mana to pay for Mana Tithe ! Just simple as it is.

And trust me: My playgroup knows, that I play those two counterspells. But you still don't expect it from a mono-white deck. So they either cannot play around them, because of the stax effects or they totally forget about them. I hope you understand now, why I love these tiny little counterspells so much.

Accorder's Shield , Cathar's Shield , Kite Shield , etc.: Honorable mention: Just adding a little bit of toughness to our Sram, Senior Edificer let's him survive cards like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite .

Removal Show

Because we won't allow our opponents to play much, we do not need many removal spells. But even we need at least some of them.

Wrath of God : We play, our commander included, ten creatures in our deck. Our opponents will probably play more. So that's our answer next to Humility .

Swords to Plowshares : In my opinion the best single target removal in the game.

Darksteel Mutation : It draws out of our commander and locks one of the opponents commanders, making it absolutely useless.

Sword of Fire and Ice : Already talked about that one.

Exclusions Show

What is the first thing you do, when you build a new deck? You go on EDHREC of course. Here are some cards which are praised on EDHREC, which I did not include.

Hyena Umbra : It was in the deck for a long time. But it doesn't protect Sram, Senior Edificer from cards like Toxic Deluge . Sure Hammer of Nazahn doesn't do that as well, but the problem is that Hyena Umbra is not an artifact and cannot enchant him again. But feel free to play it.

Remorseful Cleric : There are just better cards... Grafdigger's Cage doesn't care about board wipes and Scavenger Grounds produces mana while you need it and exiles all graveyards afterwards. A 2/1 body doesn't do much. Still a good card!

Aetherflux Reservoir : Another great card, but honestly... We're playing multiplayer. You won't have the life to kill more than one opponent and losing so much life get's you wide open.

Sigarda's Aid : Of course I tried this one out as well. It just doesn't do anything. It doesn't draw out of your commander and Hammer of Nazahn and Puresteel Paladin are so much better! I don't recommend this card.

Path to Exile : As I mentioned above, we do not need too many removal spells. Swords to Plowshares is just better, because it offers life instead of a land.

Grand Abolisher , Conqueror's Flail :Those are good cards, don't get me wrong. But I don't think, that they are needed. Grand Abolisher doesn't do anything on the spot, when you play him. He costs , so you will not be able to play another white spell this turn. Nevertheless the protection he overs is not to massive, because you fear mass-artifact-removal, which will almost never be on instant speed. Conqueror's Flail is better in my opinion, because it draws out of Sram, Senior Edificer . I don't know yet, if I want to play it or not. the guys in my playgroup do not play too much blue, so it isn't needed for me at the moment. It can be very good in counterspell metas.

Mother of Runes : Great card! Was in the deck until the last changes. I would play her, if I had the space.

Sun Titan : I don't recommend him because he costs six cmc. We want to keep our deck lowcosting.

Second Sunrise , Teferi's Protection : I sure that I don't wan to play Teferi's Protection . That is, because you're things, including the stax effects, phase out and phase in on your turn again. The other players will not be affected by cards like Winter Orb at this time, which will be really bad for us. But I'm not sure if I would want to play Second Sunrise . It just seems hard to let three mana open in order for protection, while you have cards like Winter Orb out and still want to play other stuff... I'm absolutly not sure yet.

Flickering Ward : The card seems to be great in this deck, but you will always have to pay to draw another card, which is not too easy with our manabase... The protection it offer's is not too good as well, so I cut it out.

Nahiri, the Lithomancer : 5 cmc for not too much impact... I don't recommend her.

Gameplan

Starting hand Show

The starting hand is very important. Here are some advices:

1. You need two playable mana sources with at least one of them producing . So we do not care about, if those to sources are lands or a Plains and Sol Ring , etc... We do not even need lands at all if we have Mox Opal and for example Mana Crypt and Sol Ring .
2. We do not want to have only mana sources in our hand. Four lands in the starting hand are probably to much and we need to mulligan. In my playgroup we have one free mulligan and after that the "Vancouver Mulligan".

Early Game Show

It's obviously the plan to bring out Sram, Senior Edificer as fast as possible. But sometimes it's smarter to play something else first.

1. Two mana available: It's nearly always time to play Sram, Senior Edificer .
2. Three mana available: You always want to get the most value out of your cards. If you're starting for example with a land and Mana Crypt AND have a three-drop like Metalworker or Monastery Mentor in hand, put this one out first. Play Sram, Senior Edificer in turn 2.
3. Four mana available: Same as 2. Just play you're four-drop like Smokestack or Karn, Scion of Urza before you play Sram, Senior Edificer .

Furthermore don't just play your land for the turn, just because you can. Do it smart. For example:

You already have Sram, Senior Edificer on the battlefield and about two or three mana open. You start your next turn and could play a Plains from your hand. Instead play your cheap equipments. As long as you don't need the Plains to play something big, don't bring it to the battlefield. That's because you could draw a better land-drop. For example Ancient Tomb or a Fetchland to cycle through.

Mid- and Endgame Show

I don't have to say much to the midgame. Just draw, draw, draw and play you're stax stuff.

The question is, how do we end the game?

1. Just kill them slowly with commander damage, while they cannot do anything because they don't have any lands ( Armageddon says: "hi!").
2. Kill them with one attack of your commander. Cards like Duelist's Heritage and O-Naginata and some other equipments will help you. Funny thing is you can give your opponents' creatures double strike with Duelist's Heritage on their turn, when they attack someone else.
3. Use an alternate wincon like the last ability of Karn, Scion of Urza with about 20 artifacts on the field. Or just kill them with infect damage from your Inkmoth Nexus .

Pro

• Unique fun deck to play
• Games take quite a long time
• You will draw the most cards in the Game

Con

• Mono-colored: Only access to white and colorless cards
• Games take quite a long time
• Prone to mass-artifact-removal

New Primer Sramthing else

Prospective Primer...

Introduction

still in work

Why Sram?

still in work

Win Cons

still in work

General Gameplan

Mulligan

still in work

Early Game

still in work

Midgame

still in work

Endgame

still in work

Honorable Exclusions

still in work

Cards in Testing Phase

still in work

Pro/Con

still in work

Final Words

still in work

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	UBRG
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	19 - 0 Mythic Rares 48 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	105
Avg. CMC	1.91
Tokens	Construct 0/0 C, Monk 1/1 W, Phyrexian Germ 0/0 B, Plant 0/2 G, Treasure
Folders	Research