Woah hey there buddy slow down! There's enough magic for everybody at the table!
Listen... I'll skip all my turns for the rest of the game and you guys can have all the fun while I watch, cool?
...Whaddya mean untap step?
Inspired by the LEGENDARY
Zur's Vacation.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/zurs-vacation/
AND the OG- Brago's vacation.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bragos-vacation/
Presenting...
TURTLES IN TIME!
Now master splinter please, let me Meditate under Magosi, the Waterveil and calmly, serenely enjoy the sounds around me.
Life is not a race.
Turtle Stax control, orb tribal, very light on artifact Mana rocks so we can play Null Rod, Collector Ouphe and Damping Matrix while still having enough artifacts to play Urza, Lord High Artificer and tap said Stax pieces for Mana using his ability. Yey for Winter Orb.
We're going for the slow and steady approach using land ramp tutors as they all enter untapped with our commander out, provide card advantage in the case of Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, chain into themselves nicely, and we get to run cute stuff like Back to Basics.
Eventually we can play a bounce land work as a 2 Mana ritual that goes back to our hand and gets around those effects with our commander or Amulet of Vigor, if we combine this with Exploration or Azuza, Lost but Seeking we can make big bursts of mana every turn.
Bodacious dude!
Slow your opponents down to a crawl with your commander and various lock pieces such as Orb of Dreams, Damping Matrix, Frozen Aether and Root Maze, during our turn the majority of these cards will not affect us, as we can simply choose our commander's untapped replacement effect instead.
Then after attacking, our opponents will be stuck underneath these negative conditions that will slow them down giving us enough time to assemble rather silly combo pieces, or lands that help us along the way.
Tutor up important lands like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or Glacial Chasm or a Mystic Sanctuary (that will always get it's effect even with 0 islands with our commander untapped) at the last second with Elvish Reclaimer and Crop Rotation.
That's cool and all, but makes THIS deck different to every other sultai stax pile of cards?
...
Well...
...
You can skip all your turns by holding priority and activating Lethal Vapors 1,000,000 times and then silently drop a Stasis with your tapped commander and watch them cry.
All of their permanents enter TAPPED.
They skip their untap step.
You NEVER have to pay for Stasis on upkeep... Because you skip all of your turns.
You will laugh.
Maniacally.
Tears streaming down your face as droplets of silver, glistening across your burning red cheeks like moonlight.
Cackling as if some kind of strange and delirious mad scientist was emploring thunder to strike down, and bring to life his magnum opus.
Your friends will be vindictive, salty, angry.
They might even want to throw something at you.
Hard.
Something heavy like a fancy wooden deck box aimed straight at your noggin.
Or their legacy cube.
Or a board game they just purchased.
Honestly...
You deserve it.
You horrible, horrible person you.
Scene 1 Big Apple 3AM
Ideally we will have something like Mana Vortex or Smokestack with at least one soot counter on it when this all happens, and being able to skip all of our turns ensures we will NEVER have to sacrifice things ourself
giggle
making this a true lock.
Your opponent's will eventually draw all the cards in their deck and either find an answer (if there is even one to draw) or just die to milling out by drawing from empty library's.
There are a few occasional situations where this combo landing will not win you the game-
Either playing against The Gitrog Monster they may have access to a Dakmor Salvage combo win as this requires little to no starting Mana, (but quite unlikely as their frog requires feeding every upkeep). Or much more frequently an opponent will draw a Force of Vigor or a Deadly Rollick and they have their commander already out before a stasis lock.
This also doesn't prevent consultation oracle wins as that also requires a minimal Mana investment (3!!!). But with all of their permanents coming into play tapped, skipping their untap steps and you not being able to take any damage at all because of Glacial Chasm in the rare case one of your opponents have a creature with vigilance already out on board, they'll be extremely hard pressed to actually find a way to remove any of your pieces.
It's a pretty hard lock outside of free interaction/using the remaining lands you have to consult the oracle.
I could genuinely only think of something like Deadly Rollick, Force of Vigor, Fireblast or Submerge to get out of the lock, or drawing Elvish Spirit Guide and a Nature's Claim. Other common free spells likeSlaughter Pact and Snuff Out only kill non-black creatures.
But if you can think of anything else please let me know.
Or keep it to yourself. Let me live the dream.
In the case where our opponents are running one of those very specific cards, if we manage to hold onto at least one free counterspell Force of Will, Force of Negation, Fierce Guardianship or Pact of Negation we can usually save it for this situation, after letting everybody know we'll be skipping all our turns, leave the store, chow down on a nice large pizza, return to our seats and win the game.
Turtle power!
We were running the decidedly shoddy but equally hilarious pickles combo to skip our opponents untap steps!
Brine Elemental and Vesuvan Shapeshifter.
In retrospect this combo is super cool but not great and has two very dead cards.
However I did find a cool use for Magosi, the Waterveil instead, besides simply being used in combination with Seedborn Muse as a repeatable skip your next turn effect with a Smokestackor similiar in play to wreck our opponents board....
we can also go infinite with it.
Make mine a pepperoni
We are now however playing Reshape the Earth a ridiculous 9 mana sorcery that gives us infinite turns if we can cast it with our commander in play. Bear in mind all these lands also enter the battlefield untapped.
If we grab Magosi, the Waterveil, Karn's Bastion, Nesting Grounds, Deserted Temple, Cabal Coffers, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Thespian's Stage and Vesuva your other lands should just tap for anything that provides blue Mana.
Have your Vesuva enter as a copy of Deserted Temple, the Cabal Coffers with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth should give you enough mana to activate Karn's Bastion and Nesting Grounds enough times.
Let's Kick Shell!
-
Tap your cabal coffers for loads of Mana.
-
You tap magosi to skip your next turn and get an eon counter.
-
Then you use Karn's Bastion to proliferate, making another eon counter.
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Nesting Grounds is used to move one of those eon counters onto another permanent.
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Use Deserted Temple to untap the Magosi, the Waterveil.
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Activate magosi taking an extra turn bouncing it to your hand, then play it as your land for turn. It enters the battlefield untapped as long as archellos is still untapped.
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Use your OTHER Vesuva copy of deserted temple to untap Nesting Grounds moving over your proliferated eon counter BACK onto the magosi. Then tap magosi to take a 2nd extra turn.
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If you have enough Mana you can also opt to turn your Thespian's Stage into something like a magosi, or another deserted temple or another cabal coffers, or another nesting grounds. Whatever you need to continue making lots of eon counters and saving them up like a child with lunch money.
OR not taking an extra turn and instead untapping Karn's Bastion one last time to proliferate both sets of eon counters, giving you enough to start taking infinite turns comfortably.
2 extra turns minus skipping 1 turn = infinite turns!
I believe this requires approximately 12-16ish Mana to pull off (and praying to the gods that it resolves or you don't get Opposition Agent'd jesus christ.)
It also requires you to have a land drop but you SHOULD have about enough Mana to do this every turn, putting 10 lands into play your coffers provides plenty.
Having an Exploration or Azusa, Lost but Seeking effect in play makes this a lot easier on the brain too but is not essential to making the combo work.
From here on out what happens is that for every additional turn you have, you'll use Karn's Bastion to make another eon counter and then use Nesting Grounds to move a counter back onto Magosi, the Waterveil untapping lands with both of your deserted temples as appropriate.
If you're in a pinch for Mana you can use the deserted temples on cabal coffers to make lots and lots of Mana. Which you can sink into a Tergrid's Lantern activation or whatever you need to win the game.
Because Archelos and Amulet of Vigor makes Magosi, the Waterveil come into play untapped you don't actually need Deserted Temple other than looking at that first stage to mitigate having to wait some turns.
These leads to skipping one or two turns initially but ending in infinite turns.
Just like the inevitably fallen leaves from the tree, we must learn from Seasons Past. Repeat the cycle, or better yet, break it.
There's other cool synergies to not skipping your turns too like never having to pay for a Pact of Negation and getting things back with Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Seedborn Muse.
This deck is really really weird.
It's not great. It barely runs.
But it's fun as heck.
Cowabunga dude.
SIDENOTE: if your opponents know about the lethal vapors trick of holding priority and skipping turns, they CAN TECHNICALLY add more abilities than you to the stack when they have priority.
Will link to this thread providing sufficient rules interactions
TLDR: If something has no net change to game actions the ACTIVE PLAYER (most likely you) needs to do something different/stop activating first.
But tbh you've went off and they should honestly just stop being big cry babies and scoop it up.
You COULD also put a split second trigger on the stack with something like Krosan Grip Wipe Away or Extirpate which I've decided to not run but could definitely be included.
This way you get to retain priority, activate lethal vapors 1,000,000 times and then using the split second your opponent's cannot respond to your large stack of triggers with their own set.
Haha get wrecked.
Alternatively you can use Chronatog once on every opponents turn skipping turns as long as it stays on the battlefield which it very well could do providing they don't draw their deadly rolick or draw a simian/Elvish Spirit Guide and a one Mana removal spell (But who wants to actually play this out? Like really? Just say you win with your sick combo and shuffle up and play again you big turtle haters)
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/magic-rulings-archives/537211-activating-lethal-vapors-repeatedly
PSSSTTTTTTTT. PROXY TABERNACLE...
