stax is dead in cedh
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2023
- Well this is a big statment. In this video we are talking about the cEDH metagame and what to do and what bot to do.
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Great vid. With Filter Out being a new bounce spell on the scene I would argue noncreature stax is even more dead! You essentially have a second cyclonic rift that will also bounce your own fast mana to your hand so you can net positive for a storm turn.
I agree with this take. I am a little sad to see the format just be focused on speed. It takes a lot of commanders and decks out of the meta because they are a turn or 2 too slow and stax often helped with that. I think it makes the meta feel less diverse. It’s all just different flavors of the same thing (turbo, especially turbo Naus). Turbo also makes games feel more luck dependent because it is so reliant on openers and has less interaction and decision points than even slightly slower games.
Don't get me wrong I don't like this. I want stax to be good. It is fun. But it is not working like it used to do.
I always love hearing your take, Mons. And I think you hit this one spot on!
your takes on the format are always so interesting and I completely agree in this case
Sad. I like the stax gameplan. But time to leave it.
@@cedhtvI know you love stax
@@cedhtvdon't leave it! Find the new way to stax well
Excellent video Mans! Thank you.
I would love to see maybe a break down of effective stax decks in the current meta. I've seen Tayam putting up decent numbers lately due to it's ability to get around it's extensive use of stax piece and use it's stax pieces on the stack.
Very controversial topic there Måns! I do not agree that stax is dead, but I do agree that stax have a hard time to lock down all strategies around the table before it's to late.
The draw engines hits turn 1 or turn 2, and players are to greedy to not play around those.
If player 1 plays land remora and passed, everyone else is free to play land > pass without being left beind in speed. But there is always the weasel of the table going ”land, rock, rock, commander” to stay ahead.
All these things said, mana rocks are the true evil of the format. I personally don't want them removed, but they truly is what shapes the format. Rhystic, remora and sentinel would decrease in value if it werent for those. Same is true for dockside.
I'd say stax is a perfectly fine strategy as far as you know what to target and in what order.
Collector Ouphe / Null Rod is devastating for all decks, yours included (most oftenly).
Follow that up with Torpor Orb / Hushbringer and you also shut down Rocco and similar strategies.
A friend of mine is currently running Thrasios / Tymna artifactless creature stax. He's on like 80% win rate with that deck. Each card that hits shuts something fundamental off and he keeps drawing cards through tymna.
More often than not Elesh Norn is what seals the deal.
The deck aims to win late game, without loosing value grind speed.
Another big reason for why stax in on a current decline (to this I agree) is that tournament rules (in terms of round time limit prevents stax from being a consideration for many.
This in turns leads to less good tournament results / placements for this archetype.
That leads to people not wanting to play stax, because it is seemingly not winning anything 🤷♂️
This is actually true. But I do agree on tournaments having time limits. It is just a necessary evil.
You make some good points here, but I think Rule of Law effects are a conspicuous counterexample. There are tons of them, they can reliably be online T1/T2, and there are very few strats that can win through them.
I actully have played a lot of games now with these rules of law effects in play and I often go up vs decks that can win even tho I have one in play.
@@cedhtv Out of curiosity, can you give examples (beyond Najeela and Godo)?
Rocco, (close to all naya decks), Krrik actually has some lines, kaalia, well other rule of law decks like sisay and winota, yuriko plays a decent game honestly,
Those are a few. There are more but those where the ones on top of my head.
Awesome video, super interesting. Thanks!
Thank you.
Turn one 0 mana Chalice of the void cuts down all damn 0 mana moxes and rocks
It was always like that. In my personal experience, I don't remember any moment when stax decks were one of the best options or one of the most desirable archetypes, not even during the flash hulk era. Stax is always a struggle, a puzzle that in some games just doesn't have a solution, so you just lose and it's just part of playing full commit stax. You play stax for passion, not because it wins you the most, you trade some winrate % for the reward of the gameplay. Again, just my bubble and opinion, I just always though stax sucked but I play it anyway
It has been a good option in some metas. There was a time when my thalia killed everyone. HA!
I have actually won a tournament back in 2016 when I had null rod an blood moon in play. None of my opponent could do ANYTHING!
@@cedhtv I have many examples like that myself too, but I think the kind of player who goes online and netdeck the best option available never went for full stax, that's what I mean.
I agree today playing stax is even worse cause the format is much more diverse, the strategy isn't anymore to lock everyone out and have them just resign, best you can do is slowing down the right player at the right moment and cross fingers.
Even in 2018, having both blood moon and null rod wasn't as effective against Godo imho
@@cedhtvThis highlights it perfectly. You pretty much need a full lock to stop turbo and midrange from slipping through a win. And it's hard to full lock 3 opponents!
Maybe RoL+Knowledge Pool under Silence is the answer, but that's basically a 3-card combo
I've been noticing way less stax decks in the metagame in favor of higher counterspell count and more removal in order to play more proactively, rather than just using your counterspells to protect wins or stop an opponent's win. I notice a lot of stuff getting countered when it sometimes wouldnt. I still see stax decks but it's just harder to play and brew them, even if you're preparing for a tournament metagame
I actually think torpor orb is super useful for hitting every deck effectively - the problem is you have to build around it yourself but it's super universal against dockside, thoracle and creature stax decks
Karn, the Great Curator is another one but a even more auto include if you have fast mana to get 4 mana turn 1 or something since he deactivates all of your opponents artifacts activated abilities. So you pretty much got rid of their mana base if you somehow dodged the counter spells as be sure 0 cost ones will aim for ya since first turn of the game it's too good as it drastically slows them and not you
Idk if I agree.
I just won a CEDH tournament. 59 people.
5 rounds cut to 16 then top 4.
I was playing najeela stacks.
Deck did Incredible well.
Fair enough, I just play inalla turbo anyways so it is what it is. If I meet stax I lose but the feeling of spellseeking on t2 is just so nice
I love that the format is becoming more diverse. It's a great thing. But yeah it hurts stax.
I think the main thing is that if you're wanting to run stax it has to be in a very specific way that your deck can work under with little or no loss of momentum whatsoever and there are just very few of those. Winota, Tayam, Jetmir maybe, Tymna Kamahl. I can't think of any others. If you're not on those you're really just slowing yourself down at the same time as the table and thats just not going to get you there imo.
I agree and a diversity of decks is good but losing stax is a reduction of diversity in archetypes which is a significantly worse trade off. I mean having 1000 viable commanders all with the same game plan isn't diversity especially when you consider aggro and control are not well represented. The need to break parity when playing stax is something that has always been crucial but I do disagree somewhat with Mons in the range of viable stax options in a diverse format. For example virtually every deck that blues UB will be running thoracle, the same is true for decks with R and breach lines. If you hit graveyards to take care of breach you also hit a good number of other lines, if you hit ETB to same is true. It's about playing the odds and combo lines typically use universal principles which can be still be hosed. As I said if the meta is all turbo decks then cards like rule of law which hit a large number of combos should still be very impactful, especially if you are building your deck to break parity with it.
What about grand arbiter augustin
@@tony_1 gaaiv is tough. You're not in good colors for efficient win cons, your commander costs 4 and has no tangible draw on it. I think you struggle with that these days. If you're running stax you have to be able to break parity quite emphatically.
Interesting video, very fun to think about. I do think there are more (nearly) universal stax pieces than you're giving credit for here. The biggest one I'll mention is Root Maze. As long as your threshold for stax isn't that it needs to be "winconless" and establish a hard lock there are plenty of cards that will slow down enough decks that in any given pod you can mulligan or tutor to get one. Also, there have been some newly printed commanders with stax potential that could help the archetype; I think Shalai and Hallar will be a tournament viable stax deck and I'm hopeful that Thalia and the Gitriog Monster will also have an impact.
Thank you! I'm gonna try a cedh tournament as a high power casual and these videos are really helping me catch up to speed... Can I ask you a question about ad nauseam decks... In general how much life do they need? Is getting them to lose life a good way to try and slow that deck down? Something like Serra Ascendant... Could make them lose 12 life by T3 is that enough of a dent? I'm also interested Ankh of Mishra because with Fetches and Shocks that can be quite a bit of life loss if T1 it... Any help would be greatly appreciated or you could make a video. Tournament is in a month and doing everything I can to try and get ready
Viridian Revel is an interesting value piece
I think the statement is ~highly~ meta dependant. People are incredibly driven to play what content creators play and the tournament winning decks are, and if one looks at these things they are becoming very homogenized because of a vicious cycle. Take blue farm for example - it is the most successful deck in any blind meta usually, but it's likely got the most successes because it has by far the most people piloting it. This in turn makes more people play the deck which adds to both numbers even further.
While some decks outside the main 'meta-decks' see play, and some channels like yours do promote thinking outside the box, the vast majority of the rest are streamlining into the same mould which makes for pretty boring games and results in new players coming into the format and all picking up the same thing.
As far as if stax is dead, it really isn't, but the speed of the decks need to change to keep up with things where the majority of true stax decks are absurdly slow. Zero Game Actions is a great example of going outside the box and even Esika can be turned into an adaptive Midrange-Stax list that is obnoxiously quick for what it is.
Unfortunately the way we are going everyone will be playing the same thing in the same way.
you have to have a massive creature advantage engine to win with staX, another issue is mutually assured destruction. people just make spiteful choices against players that turn off their cards
I totally agree. I like playing stax but I rather have a diverse format with many strong decks and different win cons where everyone can find a deck they like
Magic is incredible. While in standard midrange is the dominant playstyle, in cEDH is turbo. Every format has their own speed and are always changing with new releases.
Ehh midrange is quite good and dominant in cedh currently
Midrange is kinda good everywhere tbh lol
Midrange is king in cedh rn. I really think the addition of spells like march of swirling mist, boseiju, otawara, etc have really pushed more decks to the midrange with protected wins
i agree on Yasharn =)
I agree with each point.
Yup, I've been trying to optimize wide-hitting stax pieces that I can land T1. A top pick is Blind Obedience. Playing it T1 is possible, it slows down opponents' Docksides, board development, and more.
A stax piece or a few in a deck doesnt hurt too much like collector ouphe, oposition agent or dauthi voidwalker in my Gitrog deck
no they don't but they have to be few and really good.
Agree with a lot of your take. While I wouldn't go as far as dead, if you're in an insulated environment IE: your local game store where you have a pulse on the META, midrange stax can still be great.
Oddly enough, I find the HARD stax decks (not hard lock, those are borderline dead imo, but something that go's extremely deep with its hatebears and wins with beats instead of a combo) to be "better" within the current meta. Problem with those "winconless" decks however, is how unforgiving they are to play. Stax requires consistent threat assesment, winconless requires almost PERFECT threat assesment. Jetmir can do some work, as can _[Insert Jank Mono W Commander if played by Charles]!_
Of course one could simply play Winota and have a turbo stax deck.
I think mayhem devil is an underplayed stax piece
Mayham devil is a good combo fininshed but also a decent stax card. Yeah.
The minute they printed dress down I put down my stax deck lol
Also, the decline of stax decks makes them worse- trying to stax 3 turbo decks just sucks, or even worse, staxing 2 turbo decks and then losing to the midrange deck
To be entirely honest, when I first starting watching this channel I was hesitant, I disagreed with a lot of your opinions, however, as time goes on I honestly really enjoy how much knowledge of the format you have, including fringe and other type decks. The main issue I have with other cEDH channels is that it's very clear they're playing in a very set meta, and by that I'm meaning they aren't playing against the full variety of meta decks, or even other, off meta decks that are still perfectly viable. So often those channels have some poor view of anything that isn't naus.
You clearly have a strong knowledge of cEDH as a whole and I really enjoy the topics you bring, and your takes on them.
Wow thank you. Yeah we play a lot of different decks and over time we have found a pattern of what works. We run some statistics for our own gameplays and storm has the better winrate currently.
I don't think I am correct on everything in the world. But I say what I learn from the games I play.
I actually make some card review videos now and then and say that some commanders seams awsome. Then play them and make a update video where I say. I was wrong.
I have played cEDH Winota for a few years and have definitely seen it grow less effective. A lot of decks can just play creatures that threaten combo kills while getting on board ahead of Winota.
I remember in a recent tournament Rocco ruined my career multiple times just by nature of being creature-based combo, and Selvala/Marwyn/Sisay would've done the same thing.
I also built Polymorph Shorikai, and I'm hoping that Humility might be the answer I've been looking for. Even the Ad Naus decks might have to work a lot harder to win without Dockside or Thassa's.
Captain Sisay, yasharn with card advantage
I made my slicer deck a stax deck with value peices like all of the equipments that give me lands/ treasure/ cards. 🤔 It's very low on other interactions tho because I just added every low mana ritual.
Honestly. I think that is correct! Go for speed. Having interactio is good but in mono red it is hard.
@@cedhtv thank you would love to see more slicer action on the channel too haha
So stax must have blue? I'm asking this as someone that plays tanna,tymna blood pod. Does this mean that this deck currently has no place in the format, like a relic of the past.
I would say it is a relic of the past. There are a lot of different commanders that are relics of the past now.
my local meta is turbo Grixis. I plan to play stax pieces to slow down those decks and then win with Food Chain OR win first with my turbo Grixis combo. Thalia is good, Collector Ouphe is good. Humility is great!!
If you only play vs grixis deck then stax is great. I said this in the video. But a big problem now is that you have soo much more then grixis to control.
hence lately i've been playing Rograkh//Tevesh, the turbo stax version...with wincon and card advantage in the command zone
They should print a land called "The Catacombs of Pendrell Vale" that makes people pay extra mana or sacrifice permanents for each spell they cast in a turn
I mean, it's *fine* that The Tabernacle doesn't do anything in the format.
I was never going to buy one anyway.
I'm probably never going to purchase a full cedh list
I mostly feel that stax can help your opponents more than it helps you, especially the once that increases mana cost. Been in many games when someone uses the opponents mana increase stax cards as an abolisher against his opponents when the other two players both interactions against that player but couldn't cast them because of the extra cost.
I really like the stax cards that are one sided like Oppo agent or Dauthi voidwalker. But also been in a game when its my turn, the player after me has a ranger captain and will win on his turn and player 3 has an oppo agant. I have a tutor to search a toxic deluge but because of the oppo agent I can't so we lost.
If not used correctly then Stax is a trap imo ☺️ learning when to play stax is hard for most players, that's a reason why I don't recommend newer players to try stax 🙂
Personally I win a lot with stax and I’m bored to see cedh become a poker game, if i play against a combo deck that have an interaction for the stax is more fun for me and I think is more fun also for the turbo player in my personal opinion. Then yes is a fast format but the number of interactions will hurt a combo deck as well as mine, and I can capitalize on that. Jetmir, winota, timna tana, yasharn but also tavesh-rog can and will win a lot o games based on the consistency, not the luck. You got a point but I think is better to play a deck that always makes something in every match rather than a deck that draws a lot of cards for you opponent and then pray for not being countered. Love to see different opinions!
MONS, COME THRU AND CATCH MY MIDRANGE STAX HANDS! But also, yeah, the meta is def different and occasionally I come into weird matchups where my stax somehow helps SOMEBODY.
With stax getting worse and worse how come winota continues to stay in the metah? Is it because the amount you can push out while advancing your game plan?
Winota is actually a good example. She is also moving more and more away from stax and more into turbo snowball boroos combo.
We can say it's not dead. But certainly it needs more cards that affects all opponents in a relatively decent mana cost. Also value and interaction is stax too, not only permanent cards. When you have a variety of interaction or mass removals, you are "staxing" the board until you reach your wincon
No mention of Aven Mindcensor?
It is a bit to weak now. Sure it is also kinda good and you can play it. But power creep. And it actually dosen't stop people from searching.
As a midrange Kinnan player "look at what they need to mimic a fraction of our power"
Facts
I feel like the current muligan rules are the biggest factor for making turbo more successful
Considering how aware Wotc are of commander, I wonder whether they are also thinking of the direction of Stax.
WotC aims mainly at casual Commander, they do not even consider Stax as a thing anymore. You might see new Staxy things that are printed as safety valves in Modern sets, or sometimes in standard like Deafening Silence.
I mean, this isn't surprising considering every piece of fast mana besides the dedicated Mox's are unbanned in CEDH. Stax has always been about stunning opponent's and draining them over time. But it can't keep up and never was meant to. Hence why multi-faceted cards like Opposition Agent are super popular for one way or another because they are diverse in shutting down entire strategies (Intuition lines for opposing Grixis cores, Rocco's ETC etc) but also act as a body and potential advantage as it hits the field.
It doesn't help you are the arch enemy by just playing stax pieces
Jesus, who wants to play a turn 2 format
Stax isn’t dead. It’s just had to evolve and cut what I call the fat and cute cards.
teh amount of mana you can make early on in cedh is just absurd. cards like dockside and jeska's will are just crazy along with the jeweled lotus. turn 1 etali's aint no joke.
Wotc has been slept on edh banlist for way too long. And it looks like they don't care about how players play at all.
I prefer playing edh on Conquest banlist without banning dual lands and fetchlands. (just to make everyone feel easier to quick fix their decks and join the playgroup.)
It's
WOTC don't run the EDH banlist though, but if you mean they should - hey, I'm all for that! :) I agree that the Conquest banlist makes so much more sense since it at least is focused on what is actually strong, rather than the "spirit of the format" argument.
I really like conquest.
Hi dude! Is stax still dead? Did you change your mind in 9 months?
nope still dead or even more dead today.
@@cedhtv sadness 😔
Yeah I will agree. I like stax.
It’s hilarious. All these turbo players hate stax. The more midrange stax in their pods the less likely they win. If 3 midrange stax decks and 1 turbo deck at cedh table turbo deck isn’t winning games. Legit that deck folded the second it sat down.
So in otherwords Stax either just has to wait for the right cards or get more creative, done
yeah. I think the current answer is to mull tl rhystic study and plat lots of free to cast interactions.
Winota still should be good choice, cause she has not only one angle of attack. Stax is fine, but make some frags of combat damage is still best option)
Someone tell my playgroup that lmao
hi 🐐
Stax is still good, but as more and more decks gain viability, you cant rely on one kind of stax piece to beat most of the decks you are going to see. In the end, cedh is about winning, not trying to stop everyone else from winning.
I like what you said there. I think a lot of stax decks just forgers that part and never win themselves.
I personally think that stax is leaning more towards winconless decks. You're right though Mons the format is way too diverse to properly assess.
SPELLCHECK!
There's a lot of complaining about turbo, yet the best decks in the meta are Najeela, Blue Farm, Dawnwaker, Tivit and RogSi... Only one turbo in all of these. Yes stax sucks, but midrange, especially 4c and 5c are king right now.
I can say I really hate Stax strats, that's why I never played Stax.😂
Then show this video to anyone that plays stax.
What is stax?
the word comes from smokestack. an MTG card. and everything that is trying to shut people down. Like cards that prevent people from playing cards falls into the stax category.
@@cedhtv thank you my friend. Also, do stax decks make people hate you ? 😂 I feel like all the control makes players dislike you
Ah, yes divers format! The decks these days stay underwater for prolonged periods of time! /s
I think this is no good for the. format. Everything being turbo is really boring. I also partly disagree. Rule of law effects are almost universal in a meta dominated by turbo decks. You can't be turbo when you cast 1 spell a turn.
Good. Stax is dumb. CEDH is wayyy more fun without stax !!
R.i.p you will not be missed hahaha
Sounds like cEDH is becoming more of a coin flip format, where everyone is just trying to win faster and hope others stumble.
Maybe this will make many of my friends realize it's not fun in the long term.
I doubt we'll see more cards like Opposition Agent and Drannith Magistrate, safety valves like Drannith are printed for 60 card formats, Opposition Agent is much like his ilk, Hullbreache, surprised people don't want it ban, many say it's too oppressive vs casuals, for Oppo cares not about your tutoring for combo pieces or using an evolving wilds to fix your mana.
This is definatly a discussion I would like to have. I might agree somewhat regarding speed and such.
It was always a coin flip and it will always will be as long as you have "oops I win" one or two card combos.
Stop playing stax problem solved
Common Mons L
sideboard cards.dec, aka stax
Seems to me that it was Thassa's Oracle that really made this into a divers' format...
I'm here all week ladies and gentlemen.
🥁🧫