Nekusar, the Mindrazer: Lich Lord of Stax (EDH / Commander)

"I don't know why people say a double-edged sword is bad. It's a sword. With two edges."
—Kamahl, pit fighter
=== P L E A S E _ N O T E ===

I disassembled this deck in February 2020.

=== E V A L U A T I O N ===

Since I like commanders with unique abilities, I was pondering about building a deck led by Nekusar, the Mindrazer for years, without being sure about the approach. Giving your opponents extra draws is a dangerous thing, even if they have to pay some life. Stuffing the 99 with Windfall effects to deal massive amounts of damage in a very short time is one way to use Nekusar; but I feared that this strategy would get old soon, for me as well as for my playgroup. So I decided to take a very different route - denying my opponents resources in order to prevent them from playing their extra cards efficiently, and using noncreature damage sources to grind out a victory.
The result is a creatureless "soft stax" deck with artifact synergies. Nekusar supports the overall strategy, but is not the only win condition.

=== S T R A T E G Y ===

Game plan:
a) Play low CMC mana rocks.
b) Start dropping prison/stax artifacts and enchantments turn three.
c) Remove any creatures played by my opponents.
d) Let the other players kill themselves just by drawing cards, playing/tapping lands and/or casting spells.

Win conditions:

1. Noncombat damage. There is no real plan B. Okay, I may animate some land and have a few weak token creatures, but that's it.

=== C O N C L U S I O N ===

The deck is difficult but fun to pilot. I'm still tweaking it quite often though, since I encountered unexpected problems during recent games. For example, a powerful lifelinking creature played by an opponent a while ago gained him a sigificant amount of life before I could get rid of it, resulting in a game loss for me.
The most recent modifications should deal with these issues. I added Tainted Remedy and Repay in Kind to my list in order to negate any lifegain. I also added more spells that deal direct damage to my opponents or cause them to lose life, and replaced each "kill everything" boardwipe by more precise removal so Nekusar is more likely to stay on the board. Wound Reflection will double all kinds of life loss for my opponents and is a deadly combo with Havoc Festival, which the newly added Vampiric Tutor will help me enable.