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For many, the term Stax brings terror to Magic: The Gathering players. Stax decks are far and away the slowest kind of deck you can be playing in Commander. If you thought a Control deck was slow, Stax decks make Control look like an Aggro deck. This kind of deck is not for everyone, but for those who don’t mind being the public enemy right out of the gate, it’s perfect for you. After all, no one likes their decks not working! But if you like being the “problem,” then see how to play Stax in this guide.
What Is Stax?
The Stax archetype refers to one where you’re stalling out all your opponents. Permanents that prevent certain abilities from triggering, making spells more expensive, and making it harder to get attacked are all cornerstones of the archetype. A “Stax piece” refers to a card that does something to make it harder for your opponents to do much of anything. Some Stax pieces are universal and affect you too, while others only affect your opponents.
What Color Are Stax Decks In?\
Although there are different kinds of Stax pieces in different colors, White is the most common. Generally speaking, each color shines at a different part of Stax. White makes it harder to play spells, Green stops abilities, Black can stall, Blue makes it harder to untap permanents, and Red has land denial. You can find good Stax pieces in all colors that are worth bringing along. A lot of staples are colorless, letting you have variety in commander options so you aren’t locked into just one.
Stax Archetype Staples
All commander archetypes come with staples attached to them. When it comes to Stax, there are a lot of different options out there. Sometimes, they lean into Control, while other times, they’ll lean into full stall.
One Spell A Turn Cards
These cards are ones that make it harder for players to do much of anything. Generally, this comes in the form of making it so only one spell can be cast each turn. One of the easiest to cast is Deafening Silence, as it’s easy to cast on the first turn of the game. Archon of Emeria has an identical effect, but comes with the added bonus of nonbasic lands entering tapped. In Commander, nonbasic lands are very common, making it a great stall card.Eidolon of Rhetoric and Rule of Law are other cards with the same kind of effect, albeit more costly and slightly weaker (but still great).
Permanents Entering Tapped
Another staple of Stax is making your opponents’ permanents enter tapped. This prevents cards with haste from getting value and prevents abilities that require a tap from having to wait a turn. This also gives you a chance to remove these cards before your opponents even have a chance to use them. Blind Obedience can act as a win condition of sorts, as the extort can help to drain life totals (albeit very slowly). For creatures and nonbasic lands, Thalia, Heretic Cathar has your back. Manglehorn makes artifacts enter tapped while taking one out when it enters. Likewise, Dauntless Dismantler makes artifacts enter tapped and can be used to wipe artifacts of a certain mana value. To gain some extra life, Authority of the Consuls gives you a life whenever a creature enters, which is great against token decks.
Ability Negation
Another popular kind of effect are permanents that prevent abilities from being activated. Collector Ouphe shuts down all activated abilities of artifacts, and Yasharn, Implacable Earth prevents life or sacrifice costs from being paid. For creature abilities, Drana and Linvala turn off their activated abilities while stealing them for itself, while Linvala, Keeper of Silence shuts down the creatures but nothing else. Cursed Totem stops creature abilities while Torpor Orb negates triggered abilities from creatures entering.
Tax Effects
Cards that make opponents pay more mana to cast spells are common in Stax. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Thorn of Amethyst make all noncreature spells cost an extra mana, and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV discounts your spells while making your opponents have to pay an extra mana. Sphere of Resistance adds an extra tax for everyone.
Untap Prevention
Many Stax decks want to shut down everyone’s ability to untap properly. This slows everyone down while you assemble your win conditions. Winter Orb prevents anyone from untapping more than one land, and Winter Moon stops more than one nonbasic land from untapping, and Back to Basics prevents them from untapping at all. Not just lands, but Static Orb prevents more than any two permanents from untapping. You can get rid of everyone’s untap phase entirely with Stasis, with the low cost of just one blue mana every turn to keep it around.
General Gameplay
Stax is a deck that is all about stalling. You’re constantly playing cards that make it harder for everyone to play the game. If an opponent can cast a spell without any kind of hiccups, you’re not playing Stax properly.
Shutting things down in the early game with cards such as Stony Silence, Smoke, and Authority of the Consuls is vital. Once your opponents know you’re on Stax, you’re instantly going to be public enemy. So, you need to be prepared early on to make sure your opponents are struggling from the get-go.
Winning the game with Stax is the hard part. It’s easy to stall the game, but it’s hard to actually win. You’re often having to deal with your own Stax effects. It’s about leveling the slowness and slowly building advantage over your opponents. Generally, you close out games slowly but surely with burn effects from cards like Blind Obedience, Kambal, Consul of Allocation, and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.
Stax Archetype Commanders
To help you see how a Stax deck is built, we’ll go over three different possible Stax commanders. There will be three separate color combinations as well to show off all the kinds of things Stax can do.
Thalia and The Gitrog Monster
Thalia and the Gitrog Monster is a commander that comes with a Stax effect on itself. Thanks to having first strike and deathtouch, it makes for a great defender. Other ways to make permanents come in tapped include Authority of the Consuls, Blind Obedience, and Thalia, Heretic Cathar.
This deck has a sub-theme in landfall with how many lands you can play. The Necrobloom can create tokens, Scute Swarm can eventually make increasing copies of itself, and Icetill Explorer mills cards while letting you play lands out from your graveyard. There are a lot of ways to get extra land drops every turn, so you can trigger these effects a ton of times in one turn.
You do need to sacrifice your lands, so you want ways to play lands from your graveyard. Crucible of Worlds lets you play lands from the graveyard. Conduit of Worlds does too, but also lets you cast a nonland permanent from there too by tapping it. With Undergrowth Recon, you don’t even have to do anything to bring a land back. The only downside is that it enters tapped (but it doesn’t take up your land drop).
A sample decklist can be viewed below. This deck wins through amassing tokens with landfall, while shutting down your opponents from doing anything.
Commander
Creatures (29)
Instants (10)
Sorceries (7)
Artifacts (11)
Enchantments (9)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$474.14
Like the idea of Landfall? Good news, you can learn all about Landfall in our Landfall overview to learn all the tenets of the archetype!
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician leans very heavily on the stall side of Stax. A benefit of Derevi is that you never have to worry about your commander tax. You can always just put it onto the battlefield from the command zone directly. Its trigger to tap or untap a permanent is the main attraction, as it helps you to get around effects that prevent you from untapping permanents. So, you can untap more permanents when cards like Static Orb and Winter Orb are on the battlefield.
You might struggle with mana sometimes, so you have cards to help you out. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy makes all your nonland permanents tap for an extra mana, letting you make a lot of mana when your lands aren’t available. While it doesn’t untap your lands, Unstoppable Plan untaps everything else. For your lands, you have Wilderness Reclamation to untap them at your end step. Seedborn Muse lets you untap your permanents during your opponents’ untap steps, giving you access to all your permanents back.
You want to be loaded up with counterspells to make sure your Stax pieces stick around. Cheap counters like An Offer You Can't Refuse and Swan Song are great for cases when you don’t have access to too much mana. And when you do, Counterspell, Dovin's Veto, and Negate can stop any problematic card from resolving.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is a heavy Stax deck, so if you want the full Stax experience, look no further than Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Commander
Creatures (27)
Instants (12)
Sorceries (6)
Artifacts (10)
Enchantments (11)
Lands (34)
100 Cards
$423.74
Ultron, Artificial Malevolence
This Stax deck is one that is much more unique than the rest. Ultron, Artificial Malevolence turns your Stax pieces into creatures as well. In some cases, such as with Defense Grid and Sphere of Resistance, you can stack up these effects to double their effectiveness. It makes your opponents have to remove two copies instead of just one, all the while the copy can deal damage.
There are going to be a lot of artifact creatures, so you have ways to take advantage of that. Iron Spider, Stark Upgrade and Steel Overseer spread +1/+1 counters to all of your artifact creatures. You can have your artifacts generate a ton of mana with Karn, Legacy Reforged. Since your lands are colorless, Ultima, Origin of Oblivion taps for double the mana for extra ramping.
Your entire deck is colorless, which has a ton of support cards for it. Ugin, the Ineffable discounts them by two mana, and Forsaken Monument gives them all a stat boost and give you extra colorless mana when generating them. This helps to go infinite with Basalt Monolith, which can be used to play out your whole hand while creating token copies of them with your commander.
A sample decklist can be viewed below. Unlike other Stax decks, it can get aggro with all the token copies you make of your artifacts. Nearly the entire deck is made out of artifacts, so there will almost never be a time you can’t trigger your commander if you have the mana for it.
Commander
Creatures (22)
Sorceries (1)
Artifacts (42)
Enchantments (1)
Lands (32)
100 Cards
$590.13
In Conclusion
Stax is a very unique archetype that really only exists in Commander. It slows everyone down and locks your opponents from being able to play the game. Others might not enjoy playing against it, but if you have fun shutting down opponents, then Stax is for you! The person playing Stax is often seen as the “villain,” so you’ll be the public enemy early. However, if you like the challenge of fighting off against the entire pod, Stax is a surefire way to put you into that role.
Stax is very much not for everyone, and some of the staples for the archetype can be pricey. So, you should only invest in Stax if it’s something you know you’ll enjoy the playstyle of. It’s often more aligned with higher power tables, as Stax isn’t really an archetype for the lower bracket levels. But if you don’t mind being the “bad guy,” the price, and having to play at higher power, Stax is perfect for you! Get out there and start stopping your opponents from playing!
If you want to play something similar to Stax, but still let your opponents have a fair chance, Pillowfort is a similar archetype. You can learn all about Pillowfort decks with our overview of the archetype.
