Braids Stax

[owerbart]

Decklist as of December 2015

4 Braids, Cabal Minion
4 Ophiomancer

2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
2 Bottled Cloister
2 Trading Post

4 Cavern of Souls
4 Ancient Tomb
4 City of Traitors
5 Swamp
1 God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai
4 Wasteland
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

3 Toxic Deluge

SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Helm of Obedience
7 Flex Slots


Braids Stax is a prison-oriented deck that aims to lock your opponent out of the game via disruptive artifacts such as Trinisphere and Chalice of The Void and pressure your opponents permanents through Stax effects in order to earn a concession. However, unlike other Stax decks that may recur to a stompy way of killing their opponents, that may get dealt with quickly or simply outclassed, Braids Stax plays a much more quiet role, not going for speed kills but grinding your opponents to the bone.



Chalice of The Void: Due to the low costs of spells in Legacy, Chalice of The Void set on 1 will blank tons of regular spells. Cantrips like Brainstorm or Ponder are shut down, same as Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Delver of Secrets, Dark Ritual, and so on. Also because you aren't running any CMC 1 spells you won't suffer a setback at all.

Trinisphere: Trini can really slow down other decks, specially because it will restrict them to one spell a turn for a long time. This, added to the Stax effects, can prove to be a deadly lock. Also it works as a pseudo-Defence Grid because people will need to leave 3 open mana in your turn to interact with your lockpieces.

Stax effects:



Smokestack: As you can read, Smokestack is a card that can get out of hand extremely quickly, and can clean boards in itself. A few activations can demolish an opponent running low on permanents, remember than ticking it up is optional, and you can stack both of it's abilities, so you can sacrifice 0 permanents, then add a counter. Depending on how your board + recursivity effects, knowing when to tick up or not is key. Also it dodges decay and not a lot of decks can take it out of the board G1.



Braids, Cabal Minion: A smokestack that hits for two, and the best card of the deck. Braids, although always staying on one permanent a turn, has the tremendous benefit that it starts to work as soon as you drop her, which means that your opponent won't be as prepared. However, Braids can get hit by Bolt and Swords to Plowshares, so be sure you have a lockpiece (Trini or Chalice) for those answers. Braids herself was a powerful demential Summoner from Otaria, but unlike other dementia summoners, she retained some degree of free-thinking, which helped her climb up in the Cabal hierarchy. Her cards represents what being close to Braids should feel like: Total pain for everybody.

However, you may ask, how are you gonna keep up with sacking permanents. This is where the recursivity engines appear. The main idea of the stax effects is that your opponent will eventually wear down and won't have permanents to sacrifice, while you can keep sacking the same stuff over and over again.

Crucible of Worlds: A staple in every Stax version. Crucible will allow you to bring sacrificed lands back to play, to keep sacrificing them. Also works wonders with Wasteland, as it will allow you to keep wasting a whole manabase.

Ophiomancer: This hidden commander gem works wonders in this deck. Just on its own, it can stop hordes of creatures creating Snake tokens, that mind you, have Deathtouch, which means that Tarmos, Anglers and Gooses won't be as effective. Also because it checks for the Snake in each upkeep, you can sac one to your Stax effect, get it back in your opponent's turn, block whatever they have, then get it back in your turn and sac it to the Stax again! Ophiomancer is also amazing as an attacker, because it provides two bodies hitting for 3.

Trading Post: A mini-planeswalker. You will indeed feel that you are in a market, getting the best bargain in each turn. It can feed your stax effects or make chump-blockers, it can also gain life, can recover itself previously destroyed/countered artifacts to the board, or can just "Recycle" a redundant artifact for a fresh new card!

To conclude the maindeck, a few other disruptive spells:

Toxic Deluge: A great sweeper to clear any board. Great against Pyromancer and Mentor decks.

Ensnaring Bridge: Some decks won't get past this card G1. It works great for you to hide behind it while you let your engine do the nasty work for you. Also gives you a decent matchup vs Eldrazi and Sneak and Show.

Bottled Cloister: An artifact that will net you an extra card each turn. Hiding your hand in your opponent's turn isn't that much of a drawback, since you don't play any instant-speed spells, and it has a beautiful synergy with Ensnaring Bridge, as you will have cards, but however, in your opponents turn, you will hide them away effectively "fooling the bridge" as having 0 cards in hand.

The Manabase:

Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors: Much needed Sol Lands. Will accelerate your mana so you can drop your stuff quicker.

Mox Diamond: Can get you Black mana, and will accelerate you too.

Swamp: Basic colored mana never hurts.

Wasteland: Destroying lands helps to the Stax effects, also great synergy with Crucible.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: Can fix your mana pretty smoothly, also make tombs tap without you getting hurt.

Cavern of Souls: Due to the only 2 creatures in your deck being Black and Human, you can bypass countermagic with them.

God's Eye, Gate to the Reikai: An amazing land for this kind of strategies. Even without a recursion engine, it will feed 2 turns of sacking itself, while also generating bodies. If you have a crucible out, you'll get insane value of it.


-------Sideboard / Matchups ------
------------Still in progress---------