work in progress

-= HELLBENT STAX =-

Daretti cEDH Primer

Feel free to comment. I'd really like to hear your thoughts. Also feel free to join the Daretti discord: https://discord.gg/qhBSDP6

>Intro

This is my version of a competitive mono red stax deck. It combines disruptive stax pieces with aggressive and disadvantageous ramp and card filtering. Going Hellbent quickly means you can play cards that profit from an empty hand like Anje's Ravager, Experimental Frenzy, Null Brooch or Sandstone Oracle.

The deck is meant to play in competitive pods. Unless the classic stax builds that aim to denie resources by tax effects and by attacking lands and mana sources to grind the game to a halt, this deck tries to hinder spell casting more that other builds with cards like Chalice of the Void, Nullstone Gargoyle and Possibility Storm.

Daretti Hellbent Stax - to play or not to play?
Not everyone likes to play heavy control or mono red. Being on mono red means playing with restrictions. Compared to other lists, the following cards usually don't see much play and characterize the Hellbent Stax build:

• Chalice of the Void
• Nullstone Gargoyle
• Possibility Storm
• Anje's Ravager
• Semblance Anvil
• Mesmeric Orb

The build (and Daretti as a Commander) will suit your playstyle if you

• like disruptive control and stax
• like nonlinear play patterns
• want to draw more cards than other Daretti builds
• take risks by discarding cards or your hand
• like artifacts
• want to play a graveyard centric strategy
• want to play mono red in cEDH but not Godo

This build (and Daretti) is probably nothing for you if

• want to play a top tier cEDH control deck
• can't decide what card to discard
• have trouble discarding your entire hand
• want a combo piece in the command zone
• Null Rod, Colletor Ouphe and Stony Silences see much play in your meta

Modified casting costs
The casting costs of some cards are changed to the effective cost, like Chalice of the Void from cmc0 to (at least) cmc2. On the other hand, the cost of cards that aren't meant cast but to be welded in, like Possessed Portal, are reduced to zero. This reveals the effective mana curve and allows to calculate the amount lands.

List of modificated casting costs

• Chalice of the Void set to cc2
• Rolling Earthquake set to cc2
• Walking Ballista set to cc2
• Anje's Ravager set to cc2
• God-Pharaoh's Statue set to zero
• Nullstone Gargoyle set to zero
• Possessed Portal set to zero
• Alhammarret's Archive set to zero
• Memory Jar set to zero
• Sandstone Oracle set to zero
• Squee, Goblin Nabob set to zero

Sideboard and Maybeboard
Sideboard used as maybeboard for this build. Maybeboard used to gather all cards that are (remotely) playable in a Daretti deck, no matter what gameplan.

>The Gameplan

This is a competitive deck. We play to win - by any means necessary. The deck does what mono red singleton decks can do best - slow down the game to prevent faster decks from winning.

Stax means to disrupt your opponents gameplan. Therefore we have to get our stax pieces out quickly. Artifact ramp and lands that tap for more than one mana help us to be faster than our opponents.

In comparison to other competitive Daretti builds this one tries to ramp more aggressively and play more disadvantageous cards to dig deeper into the library. The list is a stax deck for sure, but in the spectrum between combo and control it's more combo oriented than other list.

Once your opponents winning lines are (temporarily) interrupted you start to grind and assemble your combo pieces.

>Early game (T1 - T4)

Hellbent Stax plays like almost all cEDH decks. You build up a board state during the first turns. The list contains many cards that provide fast mana. There is a notable chance to produce two or three mana on turn one. This can be used for stax pieces like Chalice of the Void (X=1), Cursed Totem or Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon. Another common play pattern is to discard a cmc-wise expensive card like God-Pharaoh's Statue, Nullstone Gargoyle or Alhammaret's Archive to weld it in next turn with Daretti.

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>Midgame (T5 - T8)

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>Lategame (T9+)

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>Stax the game

The classic stax strategy is to win through card advantage and attrition. Even though it's possible to grind an EDH game to a halt by denying your opponents all their resources and win by drawing more and losing less cards than your opponents, that strategy is not strong enough to compete in the current meta. It's not possible to effectively attack all three major mana sources (lands, artifacts and creatures) at the same time. Not to mention enchantments like Carpet of Flowers. Therefore this build tries to (temporarily) interrupt winning lines.

What cards you need to successfully do that strongly depends on the decks you play against. Playing stax requires you - probably more than other archetypes - to build accordingly to our meta. To a certain degree stax is anti meta magic.

Mono red - your stax is on fire
This strategy fits well for a mono red deck, because red has can't keep up it in EDH when it comes to instants and sorceries. On the other hand red has access to one of the most powerful stax effect ever printed: Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon. Both cards can win games on their own and the Hellbent Stax build can drop either of them as early as turn one.

The cards meant to control the game can roughly be devided in two categories: cards that disrupt or prevent your opponents from casting spells and activating or triggering abilities on one side and cards that deal with what is coming through on the other. Nonbasic land hate, taxation and abilities that counter spells fall in the first category of disruption. Mass and spot removal and spells that counter spells belong in the second category of reaction.

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> Grind the game

The idea of Hellbent Stax is to dig faster and deeper into your library to find what you need and discard everything you don't need. The ongoing process of drawing and discarding (or vice versa) works better when you to play more permanent - most of them artifacts - and less cards that depend on the circumstances (like spells that need a target). Discarding artifacts is no downside, because the deck has easy access to the graveyard with Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Welder and the other recursion effects.

With the graveyard being an active zone for artifacts, you generate card advantage by discard artifacts in exchange for carddraw.

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>Win the game

There are different ways to win the game. Most combos are rather engines that once assembled will find the card(s) to actually finish the game with. A combo that let's you draw your deck will lead more often to victory than a combo that just produces infinte mana. A common pattern for a winning line of three steps would be to assemble a combo that let's you draw your library, which allows you to assemble a second combo, that generates enough mana to play a spell that burns all your opponents.

Stax pieces are ment to stop combos. Therefore it's important to be aware of what stax pieces you need against the opponents you are playing against and which combo can be executed with those pieces in play.

Another way to win the game is to lock down all your oppents indefinitely. This is a different form of combo. Instead of maximizing your chance of winning the game, a lockdown minimizes your opponents chances of winning. Technically you don't win on the spot, but over the course of the game you will. If you aim for a lockdown, beatdown is a viable wincon. For example turning Mycosynth Lattice into a creature with Karn, the Great Creator.

>Combos

This subsection lists the main combos and gives a short description of how to execute them.

Sensei's Loops (draw deck)

• Sensei's Divining Top
• Mystic Forge or Experimental Frenzy
• Semblance Anvil (or Cloud Key,... )

With all three pieces in play you can tap Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card and put it on top of your library. Mystic Forge or Experimental Frenzy let you cast Sensei's Divining Top from there for free because of the cost reduction by Semblance Anvil. You can now draw all cards from your library.

Metal Domination (infinte mana, life & draw deck)

• Staff of Domination
• Metalworker
• Three or more artifacts in hand

Metalworker can produce large amounts of colorless mana. Staff of Domination can untap a creature and itself for 4 generic mana. With three (or more) artifacts in hand Metalworker taps for 6 (or more) mana. You are now infinte and can use the mana to draw your library or gain life. The life isn't very useful unless you have to use Rolling Earthquake to finish the game.

Wheel Loops ("draw" deck)

• Underworld Breach
• Lion's Eye Diamond
• Wheel of Fortune

With Underworld Breach on the battlefield and the LED plus Wheel in your hand and/or graveyard you can start to cast Wheel over and over again to fill your graveyard with the cards you need to finish the game. Wheel let's you the six cards you need to escape LED and Wheel plus an additional one card that fills the graveyard. LED produces three red mana which pay for Wheel's mana cost. A typical winning line would be resolving Breach midgame or late game with a decent amount of cards on your graveyard. Depending on the amount of cards in your graveyard and library you should be able to resolve at least one spell like Scrap Mastery to return an artifact only wincon like Basalt, Rings, Key and Codex Shredder.

Mesmeric Monolith ("draw" deck)

• Mesmeric Orb
• Basalt Monolith
• Recursion

Basalt Monolith can be tapped for three colorless mana and be untapped for three generic mana. With Mesmeric Orb triggering during that process you can mill any number of cards for free. This is pseudo draw if you have access to Daretti, Scrap Savant or recursion effects. This can be very powerful with Underworld Breach or Scrap Mastery. Both can be returned with Codex Shredder. A winning line could be to mill yourself, weld in Shredder, sac it to return Breach, cast Breach, get Rings, go infinte, cast Ballista and burn face. Mill is also top deck manipulation which is useful with Mystic Forge or Experimental Frenzy.

Basalt Rings (infinte mana)

• Rings of Brighthearth
• Basalt Monolith
• Two generic mana

With both cards in play and enough mana to start the process you generate infinte colorless mana. The idea is to copy the activated ability to untap Basalt Monolith, which costs three generic mana, with Rings of Brighthearth for only two generic mana. Being untapped twice for a total of five mana, Basalt Monolith can produce six colorless mana. But you need to invest some mana before you net mana. With Basalt Monolith untapped you can tap it producing three colorless. You can use that mana to activate the untap ability. You now need to invest two mana from other sources to pay for Rings to copy the ability while it's on the stack. After the resolution of the first untap ability (the copied one) but before resolution of the you tap Basalt Monolith for three colorless. After the resolution of the the second untap ability you are back to the starting point, but with additional three colorless mana in your mana pool. You can use that mana for Rings during the next cycle.

>Finisher

The combos in the subsection above need one of the following cards or combination of of cards to win the game.

Burn

• Walking Ballista
• Rolling Earthquake

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Mill

• Codex Shredder
• Voltaic Key
• Rings of Brighthearth

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>Lockdown

The Portal Grind

• Possessed Portal
• Daretti, Scrap Savant Emblem

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Mycosynth Karn currently not played

• Mycosynth Lattice
• Karn, the Great Creator

You presumably have heard about this one. It recently got banned in Modern. Mycosynth Lattice turns all permanents into artifacts and Karn, the Great Creator acts as a one-sided Null Rod preventing your opponents from activating activated abilities of artifacts including mana abilities. On top of that Karn, the Great Creator can turn Mycosynth Lattice into a 6/6 creature that can block for Karn or attack for the win.

>Notably strong synergies

There are card interactions that I wouldn't use the term combo for. But those strong synergies are be very useful to advance the game plan by creating a reasonable advantage.

Possibility Sphere

• Possibility Storm
• Trinisphere or God-Pharaoh's Gift

Tax effect like Trinisphere or God-Pharaoh's Gift (or Sphere of Resistance, Damping Sphere or Thorn of Amethyst) will affect each spell that is cast. This means the spell exiled with Possibility Storm and the random spell that can be cast without paying it's mana cost will cost more.

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>Why u play?

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>Why u no play?

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>Change log

9. May 2020

Out:

• Shenanigans

In:

• Deflecting Swat

I'm not sure whether this is the correct cut, but I want to make room for Deflecting Swat. I don't see Null Rod very often in my current meta and there aren't a lot of other problematic artifacts too.

30. April 2020

Out:

• Ghirapur Orrery

In:

• Mesmeric Orb

It has turned out that it's too hard to trigger Ghirapur Orrery's ability constantly.

Mesmeric Orb costs less and mills hugh amounts of cards. Since the deck has easy access to the graveyard, milling is card advantage. Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith let you mill cards until you find what you need. Mesmeric Orb stops top-deck tutors like Imperial Seal and it can by chance mill your opponents wincon.