Would run Delay over Arcane Denial 10x over. Btw, Swan Song, Spell Pierce, etc are great to disrupt opponents.

Why no Gitaxian Probe?

SynergyBuild So I'm really trying to focus mainly on hard stax resource denial in here. I'm not sure how I feel entirely about Arcane Denial, but I'm really open to opinions on everything haha. Delay looks really good in here, and so does Swan Song and Spell Pierce. As for Gitaxian Probe, I used your list initially, added a bunch of stuff, then cut it down to fit 100 cards. I like it a lot, but I'm trying to be as cutthroat as possible with my picks by having a heavy focus on resource denial, ramp, and other debilitating effects and I must've just dropped Probe to test other things out.

I think I got the list to a point that I am really liking. I want lots of responsive plays, so that's why I'm running instant tutors so I can respond at the end of someone's turn to put something on the top of my deck, as well as flash creatures in to respond to an ability or effect I don't want resolving. Being responsive like that is incredibly useful when I have effects like Arcane Laboratory, Rule of Law, or even Damping Sphere in play. The deck feels nasty, which I really really like. Let me know what you think about it, and thank you for all the inspiration and tips!

I am glad you liked my base. It was very rough.

I would normally say to drop Mana Drain, the double blue is a lot, but right now I am acting like it is half a ritual too, since like almost half of your cards can be cast with no colored mana, and your run cards like Sphere of Resistance taht make colorless mana even more useful.

Digging the combo of Aminatou, the Fateshifter and Stasis. Just blink a tapped land to keep it going for a very large, finite amount of time. Just a couple of things I want to point out:

Reality Acid destroys literally anything and keeps doing it.

Card draw is good, and Baleful Strix does it pretty well.

I can say that Terminus is decent, but not incredible. I see it in your maybeboard so I thought I would say something about it. In a pod with lots of creature decks like Yisan or Momir Vig, it's pretty good. But outside of that it's nearly always dead.

Hope this helps!

IAmTheWraith Thanks for your input! I added Terminus to my maybeboard last night because I was thinking that it has good synergy with Aminatou's +1 since I could put it on top of my library and set up a one mana boardwipe on the next turn. The thing is that I would have to probably cut one of my other boardwipes to make room for it, but the most appealing and comparable one to cut in here would be Austere Command except the versatility that comes with it is telling me not to cut it. I've been iffy about making the transition, so I may drop it because it's a tough call to make.

Reality Acid is pretty sweet removal, but I think I would have to focus on more blink effects to really maximize and profit from it because Aminatou is also needed to blink lands, walkers, mana rocks, and stax pieces just to keep us functioning through our own lock. We need to give her a little bit of a break and +1 her often enough to keep her from outright dying, but it's still worth testing because I really have three turns to blink it which feels like plenty of time.

I'm running a really low creature count as is, so I'm not sure if Baleful Strix is quite worth the slot. Four of my five creatures operate as Stax pieces, three of which have Flash which allows me to be responsive on other players' turns: Hushwing Gryff to combat an ETB trigger, Aven Mindcensor to keep someone from tutoring for a card or fetching a land, and Containment Priest to prevent Reanimator or some other means of cheating in a creature outside of hard casting it. Hex Parasite is an exception to my Stax creature rule because other planeswalker decks, such Atraxa Superfriends, Chain Veil Teferi, and Daretti Artifacts, all appear to be considerably resilient to this deck. Parasite effectively kills all of these strategies by removing loyalty counters from walkers and I consider it to be an asset in the deck for that reason because other walker decks show up often in my meta. I said in a previous post that I am trying to be as cutthroat as possible with this deck, and I don't think Strix achieves this mentality since card advantage is something that I am not in very high demand for since I'm running Ensnaring Bridge and discard effects.

The only thing that I see a problem with is multiple ways to abuse all of Aminatou's abilities. There are 0 creatures in this deck that benefit off of her abilities. There are also minimal other effects in the deck that benefit off of her -1 besides just to ramp. Is this by design? Are you purposefully just using Aminatou for her +1 and using her -1 to ramp?

IAmTheWraith The short answer is, well, kind of.

Essentially I've opted not to run any blink oriented combo because I have a few pieces that shut down anything with an ETB trigger (i.e. Humility, Hushwing Gryff, and Torpor Orb) which makes stuff like Felidar Guardian useless when any of these effects are on the field. Aminatou was chosen to helm this deck due to her resilience to the Stax effects and pairs quite nicely with many of them by breaking parity through otherwise debilitating effects. Her -1 isn't just for ramp either, because she can also blink lands to pay for Stasis like you mentioned, as well as reset Tangle Wire and loyalty on other walkers. She can also blink Helm of Obedience to expedite this win con by milling another opponent in one turn when an effect like Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void is in play.

I'm not aiming for this to be a combo deck to abuse her abilities as much as I am using her to compliment the deck as a whole. Oloro could helm this deck, and after a bit of tweaking and changes it would run just fine, but he is just a very passive commander and I would likely never actually cast him. Aminatou is always going to be resourceful throughout the game and she's not hit by Humility either which is nice because any other Stax creature commander is as good as dead to it. If I were to build this around combo, the deck would look completely different and maximize on ETB effects, but too much of that strategy conflicts with what I am aiming to do here. I hope that all makes sense. If you have any other questions or concerns let me know. I'm just not very willing to add in combo-centric strategies if I know they conflict with the rest of the deck when Stax is the name of the game here and my own Stax effects on the field shut down a myriad of the combos I have access to.

XD I forgot to upvote!

Did that, now I actually love this deck. After looking over your meta, only Teferi Chain Veil seems to be the unfavorable matchup, assuming it is the Highest tiered varient, and I still think you have good outs to that deck (Hex Parasite).

24 of your 27 matchups are favorable, 2 of them are balanced, and 1 is unfavorable. That is insane overall.

If this deck doesn't force other players to make major changes to their decks, have them outright ban you and your shenanigans, I think you can expect a lot of wins handed to you, given this deck mulligans well.

A couple suggestions, given you want to spend the money, I have found Liliana of the Veil to have good potential for discard as an engine, and can remove threatening creatures your hate cannot deal with.

Other walkers could help, but overall you have the 4 major ones, with Aminatou being the best ;)

I still feel like other control/stax lists will fall to your ability to crush opposing players mana and hand apart. Painful Quandary is a very clunky card, so I wouldn't run it, but Cunning Lethemancer isn't much better, really hampered by the fact that you run cards like Humility, Necrogen Mists might be the best option for another discard enchantment, but I would prefer something better than that.

I really think just a few cards like Smallpox or Pox could work, really making discard come from nowhere, I think Aminatou might have some good synergy with Words of Waste, but you still go back a card, because Aminatou forces you to put back a card, unless you are empty handed. Liliana Vess forces discard, but it targets the player, is clunky on mana, and is probably better as a tutor.

What do you think. Any more cards like Oppression or Bottomless Pit you think we could run?

So I think I may have a new shell for Turbo-Stasis

Aminatou, the Fateshifter, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage.

DangoDaikazoku: Yeah I totally get it. I was having problems getting the whole Hushwing Gryff and Torpor Orb nombo. But the list does seem very solid. I do think it needs more discard, as mentioned before, LotV seems really good, as SynergyBuild stated.

Cheers, and best of luck!

Yeah, but DangoDaikazoku is on a budget, and even with the reprint, $78 ain't cheap for a card that is only okay. Necrogen Mists can be a budget replacement, but might be outclassed by Words of Waste, it depends on how you use it.

SynergyBuild IAmTheWraith I happen to have picked up Liliana of the Veil from back when I thought I wanted to play Jund in Modern years ago, but flaked out after I realized it was going to be too expensive to build with the price of Tarmogoyf at the time haha! I love Lili and I'll see if I can fit her in without cutting something incredibly important to the strategy. Words of Waste can be an incredibly effective supplement that feels synergistic with Aminatou's draw effect and I might like to try and fit it in as well. You guys are totally right about adding more discard effects to the deck too, because I'd like to keep any sort of responses from players at bay if I can. Thanks for the suggestions! I love them!

Also, SynergyBuild, do you think I could potentially nominate this for a tier shift from High Power to Competitive? I know I don't have the most favorable matchups against Food Chain lists like Tazri or Prossh, but I intentionally left that sort of coverage out due to my meta and I think the list could be tweaked accordingly to become favorable or balanced in that respect. I know my list can use more fine tuning, and could include more budgetless oppressive effects like Nether Void and Chains of Mephistopheles for example, but I think this list conceptually could be in the running for Competitive tier placement given proper changes. What do you think?

Chains is totally a non-budget upgrade, probably over E-Bridge.

Also, yes, this deck is Teferi's well-rounded, less loved brother, in more colors, but is smaller and so is overlooked.

It could be tier 1 given a few more cards come out, considering that Yisan is also tier 1 by some placements. This deck could easily be equal to that midrange list, however I would personally make a few major changes.

Helm of Obedience is a weak wincon in cEDH, not bad in your meta, but in cEDH I would swap it out easily, as it alone is a dead draw. Nether Void seems a little bad to me, 4 mana is a lot, but it shuts out decks like Trinisphere, expect has less ability to have a broken parity. It could be good, I am unsure.

Food Chain lists are two-fold, Tazri which dies to Sphere of Resistance, and Prossh which you need to stop their outlets, like Blood Artist. Humility will stop all of the creature-outlets, but an infinitely large Walking Ballista swinging in for combat damage. Seems rough, but Tazri I think you can stop. Perhaps you want to run a Pithing Needle, Sorcerous Spyglass to name Food Chain? That should work.

Also, I was thinking over if you could run a Chalice of the Void, it might be worth it? CMC=1 stops Chain of Vapor, Nature's Claim, Natural State, By Force, Vandalblast, Shattering Spree, etc. It hits 14 of your cards, but still might be worth running, and it stops Prossh/Teferi at CM=6, but you aren't realistically ever gonna get there xD.

SynergyBuild I think I'll draft a budgetless list for this deck eventually, but I can't imagine it will be far off from this one lol. I realized after posting that Chains of Mephistopheles kind of nombos with Aminatou's +1 ability poorly. I also think you're right about Nether Void because I think my deck would be too hindered by it and breaking parity would be difficult to manage through it. If I drop Helm of Obedience, what else would be a viable win con to consider? I imagine I could just durdle until I win by inevitability, but that doesn't feel very surefire haha. I really like Pithing Needle to combat Food Chain lists, and Sorcerous Spyglass also feels pretty good since it allows me to peek at a player's hand as well. Chalice of the Void would be really effective in here too due to its versatility. But god do I wish I picked some up back in the day when they were less than $20, I didn't realize they spiked so much.

Chalice and needle are meh, Spyglass is top notch though.

Chains isn't awful even with the nonbo, I'd have to test it out. Brainstorm would have to go though.

DangoDaikazoku: How has 30 lands been working for you? To me it seems like you mana stall in the midgame. I get that slots are tight, but do you think that the move to 32 lands would make the mana work just a bit better?

I think more rocks is the answer, not lands, 29 lands has worked for me, but I run a ton of 0-2 mana rocks to compensate, this leads to explosive starts for emptying my hand, hopefully we drop an engine, then can win from there.

Yep that makes total sense now that I think about it. Just when you look at the deck and play games where you don't keep a hand with acceleration, the mana seems really tight. When you accelerate, it seems more than alright.

IAmTheWraith I have been playtesting this deck more, and 29 has worked fine against the decks I am facing. I run Death Cloud, Armageddon and even big daddy, Ravages of War, so I try to minimize my reliance on lands as mana production. Aminatou, the Fateshifter is a ramp spell most often, flickering the best rocks like Mana Vault or something to untap them for more mana to break parity on a lot, and so is very useful for stopping this lack of mana.

Thankfully the deck mulligans really well haha. Lots of times I find myself dumping out all of my rocks and ramp into an Armageddon to screw over everyone else and get ahead by the time they start missing their land drops.

XD I love it!

So off of your lists, I came up with a layered combo/stax varient:

Aminatou Turbo-Stasis

Commander / EDH IAmTheWraith

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Very interesting build. I also have aminatou stax deck but i’m using less resource denial and focused mainly on ETB effects and board control. This looks a bit too grindy for me but an awesome list nonetheless. You have my upvote.

Megalomania I'm glad you like my deck! Admittedly, yes my deck is a bit grindy as I veered away from the ETB combos with the presence of cards like Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff, and Humility. Considering those cards shut off all of the creature-based combos with Aminatou, I opted to go all-in with hard Stax instead. The deck tends to durdle under Stasis locks, but it feels very resilient to otherwise debilitating effects while most of my meta struggles against them and I absolutely love that.

I actually stumbled upon your deck while I was doing research in finding Stax strategies for Aminatou at the helm, and your list helped out quite a bit despite the apparent differences between our decks, so thank you for your primer! I picked up a Humility months back in a trade though, and I've always wanted to do something with it because it's such a cool card. I tried out Oloro at first, liked it, but wasn't a fan of him being such a passive commander for the archetype I was building around. Aminatou is much more interactive and synergistic in my opinion.

Good job on the deck! You are doing great work tuning this.

SynergyBuild couldn't have done it without you dad :')