Tymna Thrasios Squirrelcraft

Commander / EDH* Competitive GWUB Stax

p0megranates

Land (31)

Artifact (9)

Creature (26)

Instant (11)

Sorcery (3)

Commanders (2)

Enchantment (18)

Sideboard

Enchantment (1)

1x Metamorphic Alteration

Maybeboard

Creature (16)

Enchantment (11)

Artifact (1)

1x Null Rod

Instant (6)

Land (3)

Sorcery (2)

Tymna Thrasios Squirrelcraft

This is a creature-based, midrange-stax competitive EDH deck that plays a grindy game, using both Tymna the Weaver and Thrasios, Triton Hero as draw engines to out-value opponents. Although a lot of decks using these two commanders use them as either generic goodstuff commanders for the colors, or using Thrasios as an infinite draw outlet, both commanders are integral parts of the deck's value-generating gameplan. This deck mainly wins by seeing more cards than other players will while drawing removal and dropping stax pieces along the way.

Aside from the deck's eponymous combo, Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest (which is often easily disrupted without stax pieces out and the deck runs no ways to recur it) the deck does not have "proper" cEDH win conditions. Your secondary win condition is infinite mana with Freed from the Real (either with Bloom Tender or Earthcraft + a basic that taps for Ux), which draws your whole deck to hard lock the table for a turn before winning. Your tertiary win condition is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Living Plane (or Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Zealous Persecution ). But most often you'll just be winning in the combat step with finite damage while your opponents are unable to do anything.

This deck is pretty bad into tables with (any variant of) Najeela, the Blade-Blossom or (control) Zur the Enchanter . It's viable into most other tables, and it truly excels at adaptive gameplay at diverse tables, where you have enough time to slow down one or two fast combo players while also not feeling pressured to grind out more than one other midrange player.

Like Derevi, But Better

Some people call this archetype "Derevi Black," which I'm not a huge fan of because it sounds silly and because the title misleads people into thinking that Derevi is a key piece to the deck. (The deck functions well without Derevi on the battlefield.) However, the style of play is akin to what Derevi is trying to do, so the deck doesn't entirely belie that nickname.

And frankly, it does that Derevi-esque thing much better than actual Derevi.

Adding black gives you access to 10 new sweet cards in the 99: Abrupt Decay , Assassin's Trophy , Dark Confidant , Demonic Tutor , Diabolic Intent , Imperial Seal , Vampiric Tutor , Deathrite Shaman , Elves of Deep Shadow , and Zur the Enchanter .

The commanders are also better. The issue with Derevi is when you fizzle, you have no way back into the game. If you're fizzling with Tymna and Thrasios, you can draw your way back in with (you guessed it) either Tymna or Thrasios! Drawing into more stax pieces and tutors is better than a pseudo stax piece in the command zone. Missing out on Derevi twiddling things isn't really a big deal because you don't often need Derevi to twiddle things: Winter Orb does its job fine without Derevi in the command zone to tap down opponents' lands or to untap yours.

Super-fans of Derevi and critics of the homogenization of the format around Tymna and Thrasios may dislike the idea behind this deck, but there's no denying it's better than Derevi. Sorry. You can either continue to play your lousy Derevi deck that rarely wins competitive games, or come join the dark side (pun intended) of adding black and switching to Tymna Thrasios and drawing tons of cards.

Come to the dark side, we have card draw!

Core stax pieces

I'm dividing up the stax pieces into two sections. Before I begin let me just stress that "core" does not mean "better!" ( Aven Mindcensor is better than Derevi, Empyrial Tactician in most scenarios and I think it's overall a much better card, but Derevi is core and Aven Mindcensor is supplemental.) The core refers to the deck's gameplan of tapping things down and denying mana, and these pieces all synergize with each other in achieving that goal.

Core stax pieces fall into the following categories. Note that stax pieces are listed in order of how good I think they are from best to worst. Some stax pieces are not included in the decklist because I don't think they make the cut for the final 98 but can certainly be sideboard cards.

A. Tap down:
- Opposition
- Tangle Wire
- Derevi, Empyrial Tactician ✝
- Root Maze
- Glare of Subdual *

B. Stick:
- Winter Orb
- Static Orb
- Hokori, Dust Drinker *
- Stasis *

C. Untap
- Seedborn Muse
- Quest for Renewal
- Quirion Ranger - Wilderness Reclamation *
- Scryb Ranger *

D. Spheres:
- Sphere of Resistance
- Trinisphere
- Thalia, Guardian of Thraben *
- Grand Arbiter Augustin IV *
- Thorn of Amethyst *

E. Non-tap mana generation:
- Carpet of Flowers - Smothering Tithe *
- Frontier Siege *

✝ Derevi technically also untaps, but I feel like it's more of a tapper.

What makes these "core" is how they work together. You want something that taps down your opponents' things (A), something that keeps those things tapped down so they hardly untap (B), a way to break parity so you untap more than your opponents do (C), and a way to keep them from casting cards for the few permanents they ever do get to untap (D). If you can't break parity on untapping your things, making mana from non-tap sources will break parity (E).

For example, Opposition (A), Static Orb (B), Seedborn Muse (C), and Trinisphere (D) plus enough creatures is an almost-hard lock that can only be broken out of with permanents that produce 2+ mana or Elvish Spirit Guide . Back this up with Swan Song or dig hard for a real win-con and you'll almost never lose from this position. This might sound like a Christmasland scenario, but it's not-- the nice thing about how stax works is that playing stax pieces buy you time to play more stax pieces. Resolve a Trinisphere and the game slows down enough to hit the Opposition , which in turn buys you time to play the Static Orb .

Supplemental stax pieces

Supplemental stax pieces are permanent cards that prevent players, especially opponents, from doing things (i.e. they're stax pieces) and are played because they're just good as opposed to assisting in the tap-down strategy (i.e. they're supplemental). Some of these tend to be alternative ways to reduce mana production (e.g. denying artifacts or creatures from tapping for mana) and others just stop people from winning (like Ethersworn Canonist). They're just really sweet and you should run them!

Opposition

Opposition is one of the best cards in the deck, and I end up winning the vast majority of games (probably over 80% of games) that I resolve this card. Most people on "tap stax" decks aren't convinced that this card is good or worth running in multiplayer, but it is! Those players are wrong. Opposition is the best stax piece in the deck.

I've had cEDH players tell me that they wish Sheldon would ban Opposition because it's "so annoying" when played in my deck. Seriously. It's good. This card does multiple things to make it "annoying":

It shuts down mana before the main phase to keep your opponents off sorceries. This is the main use of the card and why it's a vintage cube + legacy cube archetype.
It protects your other stax pieces from counterspells so you can resolve stax spells in your second main. You have multiple points during which you can tap things down: upkeep, draw step, first main, and each combat step (begin, attackers, blockers, combat, end), for a total of 8 steps before your second main. Spreading out your taps matters sometimes, for example if your opponent has a Grim Monolith (so you can permanently tap it down without letting them float mana and use it for other purposes), or if they're holding open an instant they wouldn't mind casting like Lim-Dul's Vault .
It lets you tap down your own Static Orb or Winter Orb immediately before your untap step (it can also tap down your own Trinisphere if need be but that's pretty niche). Critically, this means Opposition is both a mana denial card and a parity breaking card with some of your other mana denial cards.
Tapping things down selectively can be an upside if done correctly in many games. You're less likely to need to tap down a person who is clearly far away from winning or impacting your board, for example-- giving this person their mana might even help you if it keeps them on interaction for what other people are doing.
It becomes absolutely back-breaking once you get a Quest for Renewal or Seedborn Muse out.
It synergizes with Squirrel Nest outside the combo and makes Tendershoot Dryad really sweet. Plus generally speaking, it just gives a use to creatures that aren't attacking. (The downside here is that it turns off creatures from attacking if you'd like to attack).

I think part of the reason people underrate this is because it's a 4 mana card and it doesn't look particularly good in multiplayer without an untapper (it's fine without an untapper, but whatever). It's also a bit hard to use-- you need to read the game and take guesses on which players are most likely to win. Lastly, it admittedly folds to instant speed wins (Gitrog and Flash Hulk are the main problems here). These aren't good reasons to avoid playing this card, IMO.

Win Conditions

Squirrel Nest + Earthcraft

Instructions: Enchant Squirrel Nest to a basic land. Have Earthcraft out. Create a squirrel, then use the squirrel to untap the enchanted land. You'll make infinite squirrels. With Quest for Renewal or Seedborn Muse , or an untapped Gaea's Cradle this combo also creates infinite mana (the latter at sorcery speed; the others at instant speed only). See the Winning with Infinite Mana subsections below for more about what to do there.

Why it's in the deck: It plays friendly with all of our stax. Zur can tutor it by himself. There are very, very, very few effects that actually see play in cEDH that disrupt this line in a convenient way: your opponents need to wipe the board of all your creatures plus one of the two enchantments. It's slow (takes passing the turn to win without the infinite mana shenanigans), but the stax in our deck enables that. You can win with a target on your back if your opponents don't have guns.

Other notes: Earthcraft can also create infinite 4/4 angels with a live Luminarch Ascension and either a basic plains with Wild Growth or a basic forest with Utopia Sprawl naming white.

Living Plane Locks with either Elesh Norn or Linvala

Instructions: With either Elesh Norn or Linvala, cast Living Plane. When it resolves, opponents lands will either become -1/-1 creatures (via Elesh Norn) or be unable to activate their mana abilities (via Linvala). Mana dorks will be either dead (via Elesh Norn) or inactive (via Linvala) Add a Stony Silence or Null Rod to the mix and they'll be really boned-- basically all mana sources except Carpet of Flowers will be offline.

Why it's in the deck: It's just one extra slot for a two-card combo, basically. This deck doesn't always just go for straight wins, so it likes drawing into win cons incidentally instead of always tutoring for them, which means we like playing these two-card combos that already synergize with cards we'd otherwise play.

Other notes: I've actually lost once to 1/1 land beats with this lock. Be careful out there.

Freed from the Real Infinite Mana Generation

Instructions: There are three ways to do this. The first and most common way is to attach Freed from the Real to Bloom Tender , then tap for (at least) UG and untap using the U. By itself, this produces infinite green mana. (See the Winning with Infinite Mana* subsections below for more about what to do with infinite mana.) The second approach is to have a basic Island with Wild Growth on it, or a basic forest with Utopia Sprawl on it naming blue, can produce infinite green with Earthcraft . The third approach is an enchanted forest that taps for U and Arbor Elf . For all approaches, be careful if you tap out of blue mana while the untap activated ability is on the stack-- your creature can be killed in response.

Why it's in the deck: Similar to the above: one extra slot for a two-card combo (well, three cards, but you don't need to tutor for Thrasios!). Note that the Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl + Earthcraft combo is completely incidental.

Additional notes: Freed from the Real is tutorable with Zur the Enchanter . The entire 3-card combo with FttR, Earthcraft, and WG/US is tutorable with Zur, too (not including the basic forest or island). If you can help it, when tutoring this off Zur, try to have Thrasios out already so you can draw your deck in response to someone killing the enchanted creature while still in combat.

Trinisphere + Tap-Down Locks

Instructions: If your opponents can't untap more than 2 mana sources (e.g. Static Orb ), Opposition keeps them off 3 mana before they get to play a land, and all spells cost 3 mana with Trinisphere , then you've effectively won unless they have Elvish Spirit Guide or they have a land that taps for 2+ mana out.

Why it's in the deck: ...It's a stax deck.

Additional notes: This is basically the roll safe meme: "I don't need a wincon if my opponents are staxed out of the game!" It's a bit of a meme, but sometimes that's what happens with this deck. Note that you need to distinguish between "I've almost won with stax" and "I've actually won with stax." Any stax lock that can die to Nature's Claim or Chain of Vapor and your opponent playing a single land from hand is not a hard lock. You absolutely must use the time your opponents are stax-locked out of the game to draw cards. Don't durdle. Play to the board and dig for your win condition.

Beats

Instructions: Enter the "combat phase" and turn your creatures sideways. This is usually done with Luminarch Ascension , Tendershoot Dryad , or random creatures + Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite . You can also just do it without any of this stuff if the game is really dragging on long enough.

Why it's in the deck: Well technically speaking the combat phase is part of the game. But the real question is why the 4/4 angel factory and saproling factory are both in the deck. The angel factory is in because it's a compact win con that costs little mana upfront and becomes insanely good in slow games. The saproling factory is a bit more of an upfront investment and dies to creature removal, but damn it is really sweet with Opposition and Aura Shards and Tymna the Weaver and Chord of Calling .

Additional notes: Beating in your opponents' faces is never a replacement for either interacting with them or actually winning. Winning with beats is cool but don't get carried away in thinking that this is going to happen on its own. Think of the beats plan as a way to speed up the clock when the stax plan is going well.

Winning with Infinite Mana (at sorcery speed)

This deck doesn't actually literally win with infinite mana the turn you get it. You'll have to pass the turn. Fear not, though, because in almost all situations, your opponents will have zero lands, zero artifacts, zero enchantments. All artifacts and creatures will be unable to tap for mana, all spells will cost at minimum 3 mana, all graveyards will be gone, and you'll have infinite 1/1's. So unless an opponent has Inkwell Leviathan and you're in lethal range, there are very very few situations where your opponents can actually win once you do all this.

If it wasn't clear, the infinite mana outlet for this deck is Thrasios. You sink all the mana into Thrasios, and generally speaking for the sorcery speed version you want to just scry over all nonbasic lands as a cushion so you don't lose at your next draw step.

The Bloom Tender and Gaea's Cradle infinite mana lines produce infinite green, which is sufficient for an almost literally unbreakable lock to be set up at sorcery speed. The reason why is simple: activating Thrasios puts your basic lands into play, and green mana casts both Earthcraft and various green mana dorks. Green mana dorks can be immediately tapped with Earthcraft to produce other non-green colors off the basics that Thrasios put out. By my counts, you need 7 white mana (and therefore 7 green creatures) to create an effectively impossible-to-break lock.

To get the real lock going, most of the costs are actually green or colorless: Earthcraft , Squirrel Nest , Trinisphere , Seedborn Muse , Null Rod , Root Maze . Then add Aura Shards to turn the squirrels into artifact/enchantment destroyers. Add Linvala, Keeper of Silence and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite to remove creatures and make them unable to activate abilities. Turn off graveyards with Rest in Peace (so far, this is 6 white mana). Then second to last, while floating a 7th white mana, add Living Plane to destroy all lands. (IMPORTANT NOTE: if you cast Living Plane early before producing enough white mana, the lands that enter the battlefield fresh from Thrasios won't be able to tap for mana.) Then last, add Rule of Law to the mix, just to be safe.

Winning with Infinite Mana (at instant speed)

Instant speed infinite mana lines occur when you're able to untap all the squirrels during someone else's untap step. As long as you have Thrasios out and basic lands in your deck, this is sufficient to produce all your colors, but it can only cast instants. If you've already cast a Brainstorm (or, frankly, even if you have), be careful that you don't accidentally draw a creature you'd want to flash in with Chord of Calling . The way to best ensure this doesn't happen is to not scry away cards with Thrasios, until you see a creature you'd want to cast at instant speed, then scry that one particular creature to the bottom. If you use the scry before this, you might accidentally draw the creature.

Unfortunately, there's no way to get a really solid lock on your opponents at instant speed. Between Swan Song , Swords to Plowshares , Abrupt Decay , Assassin's Trophy , Mental Misstep , Containment Priest , Aven Mindcensor , and Chord of Calling , plus whatever stax pieces you already have out, the hope is that you should be able to hold off opponents for just one more turn. And usually, this is in fact what happens.

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Feb. 27, 2021

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Cuts Diabolic Intent Quiron Ranger Plague Engineer Assassin's Trophy

Adds Fierce Guardianship Archon of Emeria Opposition Agent Deadly Rollick

Need to find space Hullbreacher

Modern Horizons - Halfway update — May 21, 2019

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Revision 14 See all

(3 years ago)

+1	Archon of Emeria	main
+1	Deadly Rollick	main
-1	Diabolic Intent	main
+1	Fierce Guardianship	main
+1	Opposition Agent	main
-1	Quirion Ranger	main

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Key combos	Earthcraft + Squirrel Nest Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Living Plane
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 61 - 1 Rares 10 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.12
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Bird 2/2 U, City's Blessing, Saproling 1/1 G, Squirrel 1/1 G
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Based on	Tymna 4c Hulkweaver p0megranates EDH
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