cPDH Discourse – The Viability of Stax in Competitive Pauper Commander

By Clay and FyndhornBrownie

Before we begin, repeat three times after me…
The Stax archetype IS NOT named for Smokestack the Magic: the Gathering Card.
The Stax archetype IS NOT named for Smokestack the Magic: the Gathering Card.
The Stax archetype IS NOT named for Smokestack the Magic: the Gathering Card.

Got it? If so, great! Let’s move on. If not, repeat the phrase and commit it to memory, then catch up with the rest of the class.

A History Lesson…

The nomenclature for the Stax archetype comes directly from the leet-speak, or hacker language translation, of an acronym for “The Four Thousand Dollar Solution,” aka $T4KS. Where the confusion lies, understandably, is that Smokestack has four mainboard copies in most Vintage Stax lists. In those lists, Smokestack serves the role of being one half of a board lock combo – and in a lesser known role, is a piece of removal for opposing game pieces, e.g. Humility. This is not to downplay its relevance for the deck and the archetype, because Smokestack IS important. However, the original creators of the list stress that Sphere of Resistance is the defining card for the list and the archetype. ^{[1, 2]} Long story longer, if you combine the unwillingness of the internet to repeatedly type $T4KS with the existence of Smokestack in the list, the shorthand of “Stax” will eventually be attributed to the card of similar name versus the original intended acronym. ^{[3, 4, 6, 7]}

With discussion on the term’s origin out of the way, there is some credence to exploring the context of the meta environment that the Vintage (then Type 1) Stax decks were created to combat. Prior to Gush being restricted in Vintage, the “Gro-A-Tog” lists were exploiting fast mana to create an overwhelming board presence via Psycatogs and Quirion Dryads. ^{[1, 2]} One downside to the Grow-A-Tog strategy is that those lists relied on a weaker mana base. And according to Menendian and Durand, the Stax archetype was developed to attack those manabases via a prison strategy with Sphere of Resistance and win the game with artifacts animated with Karn, Silver Golem.

Stax was so successful as an archetype that when Commander (then EDH) became an officially supported format, players flocked to internet forums to discover how the archetype strategy could be ported over to the 100-card singleton format. To accommodate for the disparity in the redundancy of 60-card formats, where up to four copies of an unrestricted card could be in a deck, Commander needed to expand the overall umbrella of the strategy from a mana denial, prison style archetype to an archetype that included resource denial, taxing effects, hate bears, disruption, discard, sacrifice enablers, and mass land destruction as potential tools. ^{[5, 8]} The goal here is not to suggest this shift isn’t correct, but rather to illustrate that Stax as a concept was freely morphed by players to fit the mold of the format it was being applied to. Broadly speaking, these concepts are still present in today’s heuristic of what Stax is: an aim “to deprive an opponent of resources…” which “…might include mana production, cards in hand (virtual or actual), or access to basic game actions like going to combat unfettered or putting spells on the stack.” ^[9]

The article “Inverse Advantage and Stax in Commander” ^[9] by Charles Zhuang (Twitter) contains a passage that I will quote as we pivot to what Stax looks like in Competitive Pauper Commander:

One of the biggest misconceptions about Stax decks is that they’re supposed to ‘lock’ players out of the game. While some Stax decks do behave in that manner, these strategies are more akin to combos than to Stax. The objective of Stax first and foremost is to control the game and eek (sic) out large incremental value, or win from an advantageous board state with either an eventual self-contained combo or through pure raw damage. Stax is the attrition/control player’s archetype in a 4-player setting.

What is clear from the above excerpt is that the concept of Stax is porous. The archetype has evolved from its initial iteration in Vintage all the way to modern EDH, where it has had to adjust its game pieces and play patterns to control not just one opponent but three. That brings us to “what Stax looks like” for Pauper Commander, a format that relies on commons and uncommons and therefore doesn’t have access to the higher rarity cards typically associated with Stax. Two assumptions need to be stated before moving forward:

1. While the concept of Stax has changed over the years, one thread appears to remain constant: that Stax is a form of control/disruption primarily based on permanents that are in play and seek to change the rules of what is allowed.
2. Stax, as a subset of control, disrupts the game in a way that is relevant to the metagame it inhabits. For example, Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a powerful Stax piece that causes creatures and non-basic lands to enter tapped. However, most non-basic lands in Pauper Commander enter tapped anyway. Thus, while this is a powerful Stax piece, making non-basic lands enter play tapped is not relevant to the Pauper Commander metagame. In order for Stax to be Stax, it needs to address the metagame within which it finds itself.

What is relevant to the Pauper Commander metagame?

Many of the most powerful combos in Pauper Commander involve creatures entering the battlefield repeatedly, either through flicker loops or persist loops. There are also storm decks which may rely on artifact creatures being cast repeatedly at low or no cost. Freed from the Real combo lines typically involve generating infinite mana and using that mana to repeatedly cast a draw spell to mill your opponents or a bounce effect to send your opponents’ whole board back to hand.
For aggro decks, those pilots want to begin pressuring life totals as early as possible by turn one if they can. Many want to end the game by turn five or six.
To address these threats with Stax decks, there needs to be a consideration of the following:

1. Cards that can punish creature ETBs
2. Cards that can restrict the number of spells or game actions played per turn
3. Cards that disrupt targeting a creature
4. Cards that fog attacks or diminish damage dealt/life lost

Which colors have these types of cards?

While these cards are not exclusive to a particular color in Magic, there are some colors that do this more often than others. For example, blue is typically understood as tempo/control because it disrupts an opponent’s game plan reactively by dealing with it on the stack through counters, bounce, etc. Some of this can be seen in red as well. Since early Magic, monoB control has been an archetype. What distinguishes this from Stax is that it typically leans into removal over rule-setting. Black doesn’t like rules and prefers to destroy whatever stands in its way. Green can set rules; at higher rarities, there are decks that could be described as “Stax” which include green hatebears. Unfortunately at the time of this writing we haven’t gotten many of those cards. Note well, green enthusiasts in Pauper Commander: I eagerly await you cracking the code on Ichneumon Druid as a monoG Stax deck.

This leaves white and white-x decks as strong contenders for Stax in Pauper Commander because its rule-setting cards are relevant to the metagame. Let’s talk briefly about some cards that fill the definition of Stax for Pauper Commander

Cards that Punish Creature ETBs

Most notable in this category is Suture Priest, which drains an opponent for one life each time a creature enters the battlefield. This significantly turns off flicker loops in decks like Abdel, Scholar of the Ages and any blue-x deck that wants to utilize Peregrine Drake/Archaeomancer/Ghostly Flicker Combos

Cards that Restrict the Number of Spells/Game Actions Per Turn

At this time, we find these effects primarily on commanders: Eidolon of Rhetoric and Phyrexian Censor. That said, at the common rarity we do get instant speed effects that restrict combat or types of spells that can be played. Cease-Fire stops an opponent from casting a creature spell on their turn. Notable here is that Stax decks in neighboring formats such as cEDH use cards like Silence to stop combo turns or to stop interaction on your own combo turn. Cease-Fire can do the same thing by stopping a combo outlet from being played. Cards like Moment of Silence and Festival restrict combat for one turn, which can also function as quasi-fog effects.

Cards that Disrupt The Targeting of a Creature

Since most combos/win conditions involve targeting a creature with a spell in order to begin a loop, a card that stops targeting can significantly disrupt an opponent’s win condition. This is one area where white really shines in the color pie in the use of one of its oldest mechanics: protection. Any monoW or white-x Stax deck doesn’t leave home without cards like Stave Off, Benevolent Blessing, Cho-Manno’s Blessing, or Pentarch Ward. These can not only protect your own boardstate but can be placed on your opponent’s creatures to stop a win attempt. If a Benevolent Blessing naming red is resolved on Zada, Hedron Grinder, for example, it is probably game ending for the Zada player.

Cards that Diminish Attacks or “Fog Effects”

Kami of False Hope, Prismatic Strands, and Pacifism effects stop your opponent’s creatures from being able to attack profitably. If we are also considering rule setting as a cornerstone of Stax in any format, we will as a community need to have a discussion of banding (yes, banding) as one of the oldest rule-setting mechanics. It is becoming increasingly relevant in an aggro- and midrange-heavy meta.

When you look at these cards, they are in no way similar to effects to Orbs and Spheres. But that’s the point: Orbs and Spheres in Vintage and cEDH were relevant to the metagame they found themselves in. In our format, a format which focuses heavily on creature-based interactions and creature beats, the above effects form a foundation for what could be considered Stax. That foundation is relevant to what gets played in the meta with the goal of stopping opponents from winning the game.

Now that we have outlined the history of the Stax archetype across multiple formats and provided some relevant examples, what are your impressions of the archetype’s existence and viability in Competitive Pauper Commander?

You can find Clay in all of the usual places. FyndhornBrownie can be found in the cPDH.guide discord under the same username or on Twitter.

References (Sorted Chronologically):
1) Stephen Menendian (Smmenen on The Mana Drain) and Matthieu Durand (Toad on The Mana Drain), 02JUL2003 “’$T4KS: The Four Thousand Dollar Solution’ To The Type One Metagame.”

2) Stephen Menendian 09AUG05 “The Many Flavors of $T4KS: Learning CronStax and Preparing for GenCon.”

3) Scott Lemenager (Lunar on MTG Salvation), 20SEP05 “STAX: the Four Thousand Dollar Solution” MTG Salvation Forum Thread.

4) Kraken B. Trippin, 17NOV10 “What is Stax?” MTG Salvation Forum Thread

5) Phil, 09JAN13 “The Stax Primer” MTG Salvation Forum Thread

6) Filobel, 2014 “What’s In A Name? r/magicTCG Subreddit Thread

7) JuicyToaster, 2015 “ELI5 What is Stax?” r/EDH Subreddit Thread

8) drmarkb, 2019 “The STAX Primer” MTG Nexus Forum Thread

9) Charles Zhuang, 01SEP20 “Charles Talks Inverse Advantage and Stax in Commander” Dice City Games

10) Kristen Gregory, 21FEB22 “Not Everything That Slows You Down Is Stax.” Card Kingdom