This is a mad under-rated EDH channel. Your commentary gets the wheels turning upstairs, and I always feel like I learn something new, or a new perspective to consider. As a noob, I've benefitted a ton from watching.
This is an understated take! Your point on stax is spot on. Deck builders have been throwing around “Tempo” as a way to describe card advantage, but stax are simply tempo-turn pieces - instead of card advantage (traditional “tempo” definition) stax slow down tempo for opponents. More people should put stax packages in their decks.
In my opinion, blockers are a better answer to aggressive decks than staxi effects. The thing about stax is that it almost always can only be used defensively. If you instead play creatures or some planeswalkers or suture priest type of „stax“ you see good results in your decks performance without making the table salty
That's true. THe problem with stax is also that at any competent table you immediately become the problem. If you're slowing down 3 decks with 1 card, people are going to make sure you don't have 2 or more of those into play. I know I'm doing everything in my power to remove the player and guiding every piece of removal towards that player. Having blockers, creatures with abilities and other synergies on board to block and attack has much more impact than trying to stop others from having fun.
Well... that's simply a matter of proper deck design. I mean, if I'm playing with Meekstone, Stasis, Winter Orb, Storm Cauldron, etc. then you can bet MY deck is going to work fine under those constraints! YOURS is going to be helpless, and that's just too bad! Honestly, I am not super worried about what people think if I play a PROPER control deck like that. I mean, you plays, you takes your chances, you kinda gotta plan for stuff!
@@todharter5195in my comment, i wanted to point out that if you find yourself slotting softstax pieces in your aggro builds to gain more control over the speed of the table, try decent value creatures instead. If you are building a control deck, it might be different.
@@Sami-ix7hx I don't know. I think something like a Storm Cauldron can produce a LOT of value. Granted, it is a 5 mana piece, so it will not fit in every mana curve by any means. I've heavily considered putting Meekstone in my Lathril deck, for instance, as it has very few 3+ power creatures in it, and I'm always looking for a way to survive the "I just tapped all my elves" scenario. People REALLY gun for you! Drop a stone and then maybe fog the next attack, you are good to go!
One of my favorite budget and card slot friendly cards in most GB decks is Find//Finality. One side is a super efficient regrowth for creatures, the other is a decent mid level board wipe that can leave on of your creatures alive. One more great grind engine in midrange/control decks is Seasons Past + any tutor. One if my favorite GB tutor choices is Dig Up, early game land smoothing, mid/late game tutor. My Blex deck is a super budget GB Rock deck that leverages his back half. Both of those grind options are all stars in the deck. Find allows me to loop Search for Blex and a regrowth creature. Seasons Past + Dig Up allows me to overwhelm the table in the late game while Dig Up, as mentioned, is keepable in an opening hand. Sorry for the ramble :P
Commander is not a dual lane game like normal magic. There are up to four lanes, and usually people develop more than one lane to win. So, you need to prepare for everything or assume you are not and prepare for the worst things, general or from your group meta, that can happen to your deck. Very nice video.
I think it mostly depends on the weakness of the deck that could cause it to reach a grind state. The video talks about aggro decks, which will often get shut down when other decks use the entirety of their curve, a better card draw engine, or some responsible removal spells. Those are all attacks that stax pieces can handle pretty well. Other decks with different weaknesses will have different “grind pieces” for themselves. A midrange voltron deck would want some protection for their voltron threat and some evasion to attack through full boards. Combo decks that use a small handful of combos to win should still have backup plans for if their combo gets counterspelled or otherwise picked apart. No creature-based deck should plan on completely emptying their hand by turn 5 and getting blown out by the first board wipe of the game with no resources left to rebuild. Even within the realm of stax there’s generally a huge social difference between the blue-white “make every game action impossible then counter whatever gets through” and a deck using urabrask or authority of the consuls to get a few more attacks in before blockers get built up. Allosaurus shepherd restricts opponents game actions but only the bluest of blue players would blame a green stompy deck for including it and protecting their creatures from getting countered
Stax/tax and occaisional pillowfort effects that work in your theme are pretty good, but I think when playing aggro especially, the things that help the most in grindy games are aggressive card draw, intentional graveyard utility even if not playing a graveyard strategy and recurrable or 3 for 1 removal options. You wanna dig, you wanna have cards with utility even if they get pitched, and at best avoid going 1 for 1 with someone so your resources don't get stretched. Lifegain is definitely underrated, it's pretty easy to get down to below half over the course of a game and seem like youre killing yourself and jump straight back to 50 because a Whip of Erebos came into play.
Please do a future video on cheap efficient cards to add to your decks. I’d like to add a lot of the cards you talked about here to my decks too….but I can’t afford to be purchasing cards over $5 individually.
@ my playgroup is against most card proxies, including myself. We like to encourage more creativity by limiting ourselves to what we have access to in our collections. Of course we all upgrade and buy a couple new cards every now and then in the inevitable arms race. But luckily no one is buying cards that are over $10. We allow proxies for those valuable cards you own but would rather keep stashed safe over using them. And we allow any new/guest players to play their proxies if they’d like.
@ yeah I think it really depends on the pod and format you play… removal wins games and I think the more competitive the playgroup or format you play the more you need. That’s what I’ve learned in the last 20 years playing.
Hey man! No doubt these strategies can be effective, but whenever you add these cards in an "aggro" deck, you're taking out "aggro" type cards, or, other engine pieces. It does slow your strategy down. Not saying this is a bad idea, but it makes the deck no longer "aggro" by definition. Not hating! Just my 2 cents. Love the videos!
Board wipes and walls from other players also slow you down. If you are completely shut down early, you'll need at least some way of getting back into it. Also, at the highest level, Something like winnota or jetmir play active stax pieces like this in order to unevenly shut the table down to effectively execute their own gameplan. The example used in the video are just examples, and there are so many other inclusions you can make to aggro decks.
I would say a card like Thalia, Heretic Cathar is definitely good card in an aggro deck. Because it’s both a body with some combat utility and has a useful effect for getting in. I do not think Blind Obedience is as naturally suited toward aggro strategies being that extort is mana intensive and a non creature. But you can absolutely play more staxy/pillowforty cards in a creature based strategy. I just think it’s not an aggro deck at that point, winning with creature damage does not an aggro deck make.
Crazy how many people in the comments totally don't get what you're saying. Having an aggressive board state and slowing down your opponents to prevent them from wiping you out makes games FASTER, not slower. This is not playing full on stax with no way to win. This is playing beatdown with "stop your opponents from stopping you" stapled onto it. The control player wiping the board every turn is what slows games down to a crawl. That's why one of my favorite grind pieces has to be Reidane, God of the Worthy. Opponents noncreature spells with MV 4 or greater cost 2 more. Preventing Boardwipes for 2 turns while being great at carrying equipment.
Are you a fellow Jetmir player?? Aggro in commander is so fun! I barely run removal because I slammed so much protection in the deck and I've got maybe a 75% winrate in my playgroup.
@simonblanchard2676 I'm the archenemy for now. I take out my best friend, the control player, first, and if I can't then he politics his way into a win usually. Him and I taught everyone, and playing with 2 well-built decks teaches that to them. We haven't played in months and I've helped everyone power up their decks a little bit. I appreciate the concern but rest assured, everyone has fun! It'll become far less skewed as time goes on.
I made a satya voltron list that attacks Very consistent my secret commander is silent arbiter making satya attack freely while making copies of creatures of converted mana cost of 2 or less such as soul sisters and goblin welder/engineer to gain life with etb and grab key artifacts to equip or big artifacts creatures such as mycosynth golem. Slam blight steel colossus from hand than satya will copy blight steal and now you effectively have KO on any opponent by combat
Although it's somewhat of a contentious topic, the Orzhov pip is in the reminder text of extort, so it doesn't count towards the card's colour identity for the purposes of commander
I would add some mana sinks to the list, most likely (but not necessarily) on lands, anything to do with mana when you can't cast spells for any reason
7:40 to 7:50 " Suggests 16 to 20 Removal spells/grind " Me, who is just about done brewing a new deck: looks through it, best I can do is 4 boss, 6 if we count board wipes.
While I'm all for grinding it out and having good recursion (a big part of why I love graveyard decks or anything with black) I'm not really a big fan of "Soft Stax" when in actual play. If you play blind obedience or other pieces like it, I will almost always swing at you when I have damage open and someone else isn't the main threat. I would rather have resilient decks with protection more than stax-y decks that aren't as fun to play against
To be fair, creatures usually will have summoning sickness anyways, it really just allows a player to make sure you can't block when it gets back to them. And the rare case you really want hasty creatures, enchantment removal should be something run often.
@deckdriverMTG That's the trouble if you're running Mono-Black, not a lot of enchantment removal available... Honestly you're right though those type of effects aren't game ending at all especially if you don't have a lot of hasty creatures, I honestly just find it annoying though, which is why we are fighting until it's removed
I like your discussion and the way you present your points, but so many of the cards you're talking about get the table to group up against you. There's an art in staying in second place in commander, and a lot of these make people go after you or at the very least, make you the villain.
ok. ngl. you made me check the upload date of the video. it is *not* April 1st... so you are earnesrly producing a video *in good faith* about how to make everyome hate playing against you. so firstly, based. i respect that conviction. my *one criticism* is that you are promoting strategies that annoy other players without immidieatly winning the game. to me this is a tactical error, as annoying players get targeted more, because their stuff is constantly affecting the other players actions. in a pod of 4 you have 2 patsies to pawn off any attack upon. damage and spells and interaction your opponent uses against another opponent is the best kind: free resourses that depleat your opponents. this is done not by being constantly annoying with grindy stax, but by being *precicely* annoying only when your boardstate is directly threatened, and to be liberal with boardwipes. that is being specific and purposfully annoying as to disrupt instead of generally and always so. other than that literal opposition to your whole thesis, kudos!
Could you be anymore condescending😭😭😭. Playing cards that are "annoying" does not change the fact they are optimal in aggressive strategies. In lower power to casual commander they might be a bit more taboo, I don't play these cards in those settings. When playing at the highest power levels with Jetmir and Winota, it is really the only way to get out ahead. Slow down the table so my aggressive strategy can win over the top of counters and wipes. I play the political game, I barter and make deals, and I don't care about being "annoying". If you play an aggressive strategy, of course you'll get Targeted, but if you get targeted because what you do is "annoying" then I don't think those players are playing optimally. I apologize for the energy I'm bringing to this comment, but your comment was sooo disrespectful and condescending, I'm not gonna stand for that.
@@deckdriverMTG oh. oops. so my bad. i honestly and genuenly did not mean to be condecending. hmmm.... yeah. my bad. i ment this in a more neutral or positive way. like... you cant please everyone, but like just because i disagree (badly, oops) doest mean i didnt also like the video, and engage with it, twice! honesty wish yiu the best and much success~♡
This is a mad under-rated EDH channel. Your commentary gets the wheels turning upstairs, and I always feel like I learn something new, or a new perspective to consider. As a noob, I've benefitted a ton from watching.
This is an understated take!
Your point on stax is spot on. Deck builders have been throwing around “Tempo” as a way to describe card advantage, but stax are simply tempo-turn pieces - instead of card advantage (traditional “tempo” definition) stax slow down tempo for opponents. More people should put stax packages in their decks.
In my opinion, blockers are a better answer to aggressive decks than staxi effects.
The thing about stax is that it almost always can only be used defensively.
If you instead play creatures or some planeswalkers or suture priest type of „stax“ you see good results in your decks performance without making the table salty
That's true. THe problem with stax is also that at any competent table you immediately become the problem.
If you're slowing down 3 decks with 1 card, people are going to make sure you don't have 2 or more of those into play. I know I'm doing everything in my power to remove the player and guiding every piece of removal towards that player.
Having blockers, creatures with abilities and other synergies on board to block and attack has much more impact than trying to stop others from having fun.
Well... that's simply a matter of proper deck design. I mean, if I'm playing with Meekstone, Stasis, Winter Orb, Storm Cauldron, etc. then you can bet MY deck is going to work fine under those constraints! YOURS is going to be helpless, and that's just too bad! Honestly, I am not super worried about what people think if I play a PROPER control deck like that. I mean, you plays, you takes your chances, you kinda gotta plan for stuff!
@@todharter5195in my comment, i wanted to point out that if you find yourself slotting softstax pieces in your aggro builds to gain more control over the speed of the table, try decent value creatures instead.
If you are building a control deck, it might be different.
@@Sami-ix7hx I don't know. I think something like a Storm Cauldron can produce a LOT of value. Granted, it is a 5 mana piece, so it will not fit in every mana curve by any means. I've heavily considered putting Meekstone in my Lathril deck, for instance, as it has very few 3+ power creatures in it, and I'm always looking for a way to survive the "I just tapped all my elves" scenario. People REALLY gun for you! Drop a stone and then maybe fog the next attack, you are good to go!
@@todharter5195 may i get your lathril decklist and then show you creatures that might fit better than meekstone?
One of my favorite budget and card slot friendly cards in most GB decks is Find//Finality. One side is a super efficient regrowth for creatures, the other is a decent mid level board wipe that can leave on of your creatures alive.
One more great grind engine in midrange/control decks is Seasons Past + any tutor. One if my favorite GB tutor choices is Dig Up, early game land smoothing, mid/late game tutor.
My Blex deck is a super budget GB Rock deck that leverages his back half. Both of those grind options are all stars in the deck. Find allows me to loop Search for Blex and a regrowth creature. Seasons Past + Dig Up allows me to overwhelm the table in the late game while Dig Up, as mentioned, is keepable in an opening hand.
Sorry for the ramble :P
Commander is not a dual lane game like normal magic. There are up to four lanes, and usually people develop more than one lane to win. So, you need to prepare for everything or assume you are not and prepare for the worst things, general or from your group meta, that can happen to your deck.
Very nice video.
Soooo....stax?
Not even
@@wouldntyouliketoknow230, and yet...
I think it mostly depends on the weakness of the deck that could cause it to reach a grind state. The video talks about aggro decks, which will often get shut down when other decks use the entirety of their curve, a better card draw engine, or some responsible removal spells. Those are all attacks that stax pieces can handle pretty well. Other decks with different weaknesses will have different “grind pieces” for themselves. A midrange voltron deck would want some protection for their voltron threat and some evasion to attack through full boards. Combo decks that use a small handful of combos to win should still have backup plans for if their combo gets counterspelled or otherwise picked apart. No creature-based deck should plan on completely emptying their hand by turn 5 and getting blown out by the first board wipe of the game with no resources left to rebuild. Even within the realm of stax there’s generally a huge social difference between the blue-white “make every game action impossible then counter whatever gets through” and a deck using urabrask or authority of the consuls to get a few more attacks in before blockers get built up. Allosaurus shepherd restricts opponents game actions but only the bluest of blue players would blame a green stompy deck for including it and protecting their creatures from getting countered
When in doubt stax it out
Stax/tax and occaisional pillowfort effects that work in your theme are pretty good, but I think when playing aggro especially, the things that help the most in grindy games are aggressive card draw, intentional graveyard utility even if not playing a graveyard strategy and recurrable or 3 for 1 removal options. You wanna dig, you wanna have cards with utility even if they get pitched, and at best avoid going 1 for 1 with someone so your resources don't get stretched.
Lifegain is definitely underrated, it's pretty easy to get down to below half over the course of a game and seem like youre killing yourself and jump straight back to 50 because a Whip of Erebos came into play.
Good video, 16-20 is what I usually run but I count lands that are removal as well
Please do a future video on cheap efficient cards to add to your decks. I’d like to add a lot of the cards you talked about here to my decks too….but I can’t afford to be purchasing cards over $5 individually.
Just proxy if you not playing in tournaments
@ my playgroup is against most card proxies, including myself. We like to encourage more creativity by limiting ourselves to what we have access to in our collections. Of course we all upgrade and buy a couple new cards every now and then in the inevitable arms race. But luckily no one is buying cards that are over $10.
We allow proxies for those valuable cards you own but would rather keep stashed safe over using them. And we allow any new/guest players to play their proxies if they’d like.
16-20 is more of a control set up… average typical aggro deck is probably 10-12 unless you’re in cEDH.
Agreed, for aggro I go much less typically, maybe a 10-2 or 11-1 split between the few pieces I decided to add
@ yeah I think it really depends on the pod and format you play… removal wins games and I think the more competitive the playgroup or format you play the more you need. That’s what I’ve learned in the last 20 years playing.
Hey man! No doubt these strategies can be effective, but whenever you add these cards in an "aggro" deck, you're taking out "aggro" type cards, or, other engine pieces. It does slow your strategy down. Not saying this is a bad idea, but it makes the deck no longer "aggro" by definition. Not hating! Just my 2 cents. Love the videos!
Board wipes and walls from other players also slow you down. If you are completely shut down early, you'll need at least some way of getting back into it. Also, at the highest level, Something like winnota or jetmir play active stax pieces like this in order to unevenly shut the table down to effectively execute their own gameplan. The example used in the video are just examples, and there are so many other inclusions you can make to aggro decks.
I would say a card like Thalia, Heretic Cathar is definitely good card in an aggro deck. Because it’s both a body with some combat utility and has a useful effect for getting in. I do not think Blind Obedience is as naturally suited toward aggro strategies being that extort is mana intensive and a non creature.
But you can absolutely play more staxy/pillowforty cards in a creature based strategy. I just think it’s not an aggro deck at that point, winning with creature damage does not an aggro deck make.
It also feels really good to read aloud Blind Obedience's flavor text.
Crazy how many people in the comments totally don't get what you're saying.
Having an aggressive board state and slowing down your opponents to prevent them from wiping you out makes games FASTER, not slower. This is not playing full on stax with no way to win. This is playing beatdown with "stop your opponents from stopping you" stapled onto it.
The control player wiping the board every turn is what slows games down to a crawl. That's why one of my favorite grind pieces has to be Reidane, God of the Worthy. Opponents noncreature spells with MV 4 or greater cost 2 more. Preventing Boardwipes for 2 turns while being great at carrying equipment.
Crackdown is my fav “grind” piece as you called it.
Are you a fellow Jetmir player?? Aggro in commander is so fun! I barely run removal because I slammed so much protection in the deck and I've got maybe a 75% winrate in my playgroup.
A commander deck shouldn’t win much more often that %25 of the time, I would reconsider your decks place in your pod
@simonblanchard2676 I'm the archenemy for now. I take out my best friend, the control player, first, and if I can't then he politics his way into a win usually. Him and I taught everyone, and playing with 2 well-built decks teaches that to them. We haven't played in months and I've helped everyone power up their decks a little bit. I appreciate the concern but rest assured, everyone has fun! It'll become far less skewed as time goes on.
I made a satya voltron list that attacks Very consistent my secret commander is silent arbiter making satya attack freely while making copies of creatures of converted mana cost of 2 or less such as soul sisters and goblin welder/engineer to gain life with etb and grab key artifacts to equip or big artifacts creatures such as mycosynth golem. Slam blight steel colossus from hand than satya will copy blight steal and now you effectively have KO on any opponent by combat
Am I trippin? I thought because blind obedience has the orzhov pip in its text it couldn’t be played in a storvald deck?
Although it's somewhat of a contentious topic, the Orzhov pip is in the reminder text of extort, so it doesn't count towards the card's colour identity for the purposes of commander
"Board wipes" 😊👍
my lord windgrace grinds well :D
has burn, life gain, a lot of ramp, landfall, token game play, drain, aristocrat and big spells :)
I would add some mana sinks to the list, most likely (but not necessarily) on lands, anything to do with mana when you can't cast spells for any reason
7:40 to 7:50 " Suggests 16 to 20 Removal spells/grind "
Me, who is just about done brewing a new deck: looks through it, best I can do is 4 boss, 6 if we count board wipes.
While I'm all for grinding it out and having good recursion (a big part of why I love graveyard decks or anything with black) I'm not really a big fan of "Soft Stax" when in actual play. If you play blind obedience or other pieces like it, I will almost always swing at you when I have damage open and someone else isn't the main threat. I would rather have resilient decks with protection more than stax-y decks that aren't as fun to play against
To be fair, creatures usually will have summoning sickness anyways, it really just allows a player to make sure you can't block when it gets back to them. And the rare case you really want hasty creatures, enchantment removal should be something run often.
@deckdriverMTG That's the trouble if you're running Mono-Black, not a lot of enchantment removal available... Honestly you're right though those type of effects aren't game ending at all especially if you don't have a lot of hasty creatures, I honestly just find it annoying though, which is why we are fighting until it's removed
I like your discussion and the way you present your points, but so many of the cards you're talking about get the table to group up against you. There's an art in staying in second place in commander, and a lot of these make people go after you or at the very least, make you the villain.
I've recently joined the church of "we play all the Entry-tappers we can in white", extremely underrated.
ok. ngl. you made me check the upload date of the video. it is *not* April 1st... so you are earnesrly producing a video *in good faith* about how to make everyome hate playing against you. so firstly, based. i respect that conviction. my *one criticism* is that you are promoting strategies that annoy other players without immidieatly winning the game. to me this is a tactical error, as annoying players get targeted more, because their stuff is constantly affecting the other players actions. in a pod of 4 you have 2 patsies to pawn off any attack upon. damage and spells and interaction your opponent uses against another opponent is the best kind: free resourses that depleat your opponents. this is done not by being constantly annoying with grindy stax, but by being *precicely* annoying only when your boardstate is directly threatened, and to be liberal with boardwipes. that is being specific and purposfully annoying as to disrupt instead of generally and always so.
other than that literal opposition to your whole thesis, kudos!
Could you be anymore condescending😭😭😭.
Playing cards that are "annoying" does not change the fact they are optimal in aggressive strategies. In lower power to casual commander they might be a bit more taboo, I don't play these cards in those settings. When playing at the highest power levels with Jetmir and Winota, it is really the only way to get out ahead. Slow down the table so my aggressive strategy can win over the top of counters and wipes. I play the political game, I barter and make deals, and I don't care about being "annoying". If you play an aggressive strategy, of course you'll get Targeted, but if you get targeted because what you do is "annoying" then I don't think those players are playing optimally. I apologize for the energy I'm bringing to this comment, but your comment was sooo disrespectful and condescending, I'm not gonna stand for that.
@@deckdriverMTG oh. oops. so my bad. i honestly and genuenly did not mean to be condecending. hmmm.... yeah. my bad. i ment this in a more neutral or positive way. like... you cant please everyone, but like just because i disagree (badly, oops) doest mean i didnt also like the video, and engage with it, twice! honesty wish yiu the best and much success~♡
Never heard a more desperate attempt to defend stax pieces
These are the most fair stax pieces you can play and if you complain about them you are simply bad
decks can have strengths and weaknesses. Stax/tax isn't grindiness. It just slows down the game. It's boring for others.
Aggro player in commander. Instantly stopped watching. Clown mentality