Oloro, Ageless Agitator 📝 Deck Tech 📝

Oloro, Ageless Agitator 100 cards 1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic ✨Judge Foil Commander 1 Academy Ruins ✨ Modern Masters 1 Ancient Tomb ✨ From the Vault: Realms 1 Bojuka Bog ✨ Worldwake 1 Celestial Colonnade ✨✒️Buy-a-Box Promo 1 Command Tower ✨ Judge Foil 1 Creeping Tar Pit ✨✒️ Worldwake 1 Flagstones of Trokair ✨ Time Spiral 1 Flooded Strand ✨ Khans of Tarkir 1 Godless Shrine ✨ Gatecrash 1 Hallowed Fountain ✨ Return to Ravnica 6 Island ✨ Zendikar (Full Art) 1 Kor Haven ✨ Nemesis 1 Marsh Flats ✨ Zendikar 1 Maze of Ith ✨ From the Vault: Realms 6 Plains ✨ Zendikar (Full Art) 1 Polluted Delta ✨ Khans of Tarkir 1 Scrubland 🚫 1 Serra's Sanctum 🚫 1 Strip Mine ✨ From the Vault: Exiled 4 Swamp ✨ Zendikar (Full Art) 1 Tundra 🚫 1 Underground Sea 🚫 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth ✨✒️ From the Vault: Realms 1 Watery Grave ✨ Gatecrash 37 lands 1 Erebos, God of the Dead ✨ Theros 1 Sun Titan ✨✒️  Magic 2011 Prerelease 1 Thassa, God of the Sea ✨ Theros 3 creatures 1 Azorius Signet ✨ Dissension 1 Chromatic Lantern ✨✒️🇯🇵 Return to Ravnica 1 Coalition Relic ✨ Future Sight 1 Crucible of Worlds ✨ Judge Foil 1 Cursed Totem 🚫 1 Dimir Signet ✨ Ravnica: City of Guilds 1 Mana Vault 🚫✒️ 1 Nihil Spellbomb ✨ Scars of Mirrodin 1 Orzhov Signet ✨ Guildpact 1 Sensei's Divining Top ✨ From the Vault: Exiled 1 Sol Ring ✨✒️ Judge Foil 1 Talisman of Dominance ✨ Mirrodin 1 Talisman of Progress ✨ Mirrodin 1 Torpor Orb ✨ New Phyrexia 1 Trading Post ✨ Magic 2013 15 artifacts 1 Aura of Silence ✨ Friday Night Magic 1 Bitterblossom ✨✒️ Morningtide 1 Ghostly Prison ✨ Friday Night Magic 1 Humility 🚫 1 In the Eye of Chaos 🚫 1 Karmic Justice ✨ Odyssey 1 Land Equilibrium 🚫 1 Land Tax ✨ Judge Foil 1 Leyline of the Void ✨ ✒️Magic 2011 1 Mana Vortex 🚫✒️ 1 Moat 🚫 1 Mystic Remora 🚫✒️ 1 Nether Void 🚫 1 Overburden ✨ Prophecy 1 Painful Quandary ✨ Scars of Mirrodin 1 Phyrexian Arena ✨ 9th Edition 1 Propaganda 🚫✒️ 1 Rhystic Study ✨ Commander's Arsenal 1 Seal of Cleansing ✨ Friday Night Magic 1 Sphere of Safety ✨ Return to Ravnica 1 Tainted Æther ✨ Seventh Edition 1 Vile Consumption ✨ Invasion 22 enchantments 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant ✨ Duel Deck Series 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor ✨ From the Vault: Twenty 1 Liliana of the Veil ✨✒️ Innistrad 1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad ✨ Duel Deck Series 1 Tezzeret the Seeker ✨ Duel Deck Series 5 planeswalkers 1 Armageddon ✨✒️ From the Vault: Annihilation 1 Cataclysm ✨ From the Vault: Annihilation ✒️ 1 Catastrophe 🚫✒️ 1 Cyclonic Rift ✨✒️🇯🇵 Return to Ravnica 1 Demonic Tutor ✨✒️ Judge Foil 1 Enlightened Tutor ✨ Arena Foil 1 Ill-Gotten Gains ✨ Conspiracy 1 Lim-Dûl's Vault 🚫 1 Merciless Eviction ✨ Gatecrash 1 Path to Exile ✨ WPN Foil 1 Replenish ✨ Urza's Destiny 1 Swords to Plowshares ✨ From the Vault: Twenty 1 Terminus ✨ From the Vault: Annihilation 1 Utter End ✨ Khans of Tarkir Game Day Extended Art 1 Vampiric Tutor 1 Vindicate ✨ Judge Foil 2013 1 Wrath of God ✨✒️ Player Rewards 17 other spells ✨ Denotes Foil 🚫 Denotes No Foil Version ✒️ Denotes Signed 🎨 Denotes Altered 📝 Deck Tech ⚠️ Updates and Revisions Storage: KMC Perfect Fits, KMC Hyper MAT (White). Leifkicker Skull Themed Deck Box

Before getting too far into this, this is heavily borrowed from StyxOfTolaria deck on MTGSalvation with some more recent changes.

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Oloro,Ageless Ascetic (Stax)
The Stax archetype is the fun killer archetype of Commander. Its goal is simple: make it impossible to be swung at, and grind your opponents into a lengthy battle of attrition. This deck is not for the thin-skinned or weak willed, you will be hated for running it. Unless you are in a very mature meta that enjoy playing very difficult, high level decks; I don't recommend this. The point of Commander is to have fun, and this can turn you into an archenemy where you find yourself battling the entire table, picking your cards up off the ground and/or having everyone drop after the first wipe. In a more mature setting Stax decks actually make opponents have to think about their moves, plan around yours and build more meta decks to combat it with. This deck is very difficult to pilot and requires some really timely decision making and accurate analysis of board-states. The reward of playing Stax will be finding yourself having a large edge above other popular strategies. It pacifies Voltron decks with pillowforts. Renders Combo decks and their greedy manabase ineffective with land destruction, tax effects. It taxes Swarm/Token decks to near uselessness. It even has something in store for Reanimator, graveyard hate and some exile spells. Without much more, lets jump into the cards and what their use is.

Stax & Tax
• Aura of Silence
The card is pretty self-explanatory. Its a powerhouse in the Tax department. It is reusable artifact/enchantment removal with Sun Titan, it makes Sol Ring and opponent mana rocks much less useful. A+

• Cursed Totem
What is there not to like about this? It locks out any creature based combos, like the ones employed by Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Deadeye Navigator. Aggressively cost and pretty much stays relevant throughout the game.

• Humility
This + Night of Souls' Betrayal = No creatures on the field, permanently. The ultimate board lockdown.This is more or less when opponents begin to consider scooping or berating you.

• In the Eye of Chaos
Whenever a player casts an instant spell, counter it unless that player pays X, where X is its converted mana cost. Basically you've gotta pay twice if you want that counterspell to connect. The amount of Instants in this deck is pretty low (7), and of those spells they don't cost all much anyway, and runs no counters itself. The only drawback is it will be destroyed by Nethervoid (World Enchantment rule). If you ask me - that's a good problem to have.

• Land Equilibrium
With enough manarocks on the battlefield, and no lands of your own, this is another soft lock. Opponents are basically just holding onto cards they can't play.

• Mana Vortex
Aggressive cost land destroyer. Its usefulness is evident, its frustration is unparalleled, its the perfect kind of card for this deck. It comes in early, sets opponents back greatly, and works with Sun Titan.

• Nether Void
The most devastating card in the entire deck probably is Nether Void. Whenever a simple Naturalize costs 5 mana, removing Nether Void can be a daunting challenge. Its essentially game over if you manage to Armageddon.  It even slows down Planeswalkers, traditionally a weakness of Stax decks. The card is very expensive, but if you truly enjoy playing with supremely powerful cards, and are looking for an investment that is unlikely to EVER lose any value (it is on the reserve list, never to be reprinted in paper again). It is a backbreaking card to hit the field, and it changes the dynamics pretty much instantly.

• Night of Souls' Betrayal
Night is a small pillowfort effect in that it lessens the amount of damage taken overall, sometimes enough to deter attackers. Night is a part of locking creatures out of the game completely when combined with Humility. Gone are the days of you losing life through combat damage! Even without Humility, the effect that Night grants, a universal -1/-1 to all creatures, can pick off utility and small token creatures all game long.

• Painful Quandary
This holds up the ol' "KILL THAT GUY" neon flashing sign up. It also makes my opponents have to think about everything they're doing or risk discarding answers. It puts them in a horrible bind, and puts me in a place I'm comfortable being. Every spell they cast is a 2-for-1 or Lava Axe. I like my chances of winning those games where this sticks.

• Overburden
One of the great early pressure cards in this deck. If it comes down it pressures creature decks to calculate more carefully. If it comes down late it sort of whiffs. But part of the subtly of this deck is that it provides more threats for my opponents then similar control decks. I don't run counters, because I find that counters only provide temporary solutions to bigger problems, but if I keep pushing out problems then they'll run out of answers. In multiplayer, answers are limited, but threats can be forever. I would prefer my opponents go 1-for-1 with my threats then the other way around. Overburden is one of those threats and a real great early card that punishes creature based decks.
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• Tainted Æther
Extremely good in a creatureless build and naturally works with Overburden. I really like this card, not thrilled by the double Black cost, sometimes you cannot have it all.

• Torpor Orb
The worst card to see hit the battlefield for a creature heavy deck. Over the past few years, Wizards has unleashed a torrent of powerful Enter the Battlefield creatures. Hell, I even built a whole deck around the concept! One stop answer to anything that can effect you under certain boardstates. Recommended tutor target if you're not too sure who you'll be facing.

Pillowfort
• Ghostly Prison
• Propaganda
Identical cards that become even better when together. The peanut butter and jelly of the deck. Both get recursion with Sun Titan and Replenish. The main goal in a pillowfort deck is to get people to stop attacking you, or slow them down. These cards do both.

• Karmic Justice
The Magic equivalent of bringing a gun to a knife fight. You destroy my artifact? I destroy your planeswalker/land/ect. Makes people really think twice about destroying any non-creatures of yours huh? It wants to punish Aura Shards.

• Moat
I have one from years ago, so I threw it into this build. Probably not nearly worth buying one unless you've already got it, or enjoy collecting. Magus of the Moat is a more suitable budget alternative. It is a very powerful card, but not worth $400+

• Sphere of Safety
I'm running 24 total Enchantments. Odds are pretty good that I'll have a few in play when this drops. It's an evolving Propaganda/Ghostly Prison that protects my Planeswalkers also. I'm going to move on past explaining this obvious inclusion.

Drawing
• Erebos, God of the Dead
A cheap, indestructible draw engine who's activation cost is offset by Oloro in the command zone. He can even swing in for some damage and has a little bonus of shutting off other life gain decks.

• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
The most powerful Planeswalker ever still manages to find his way into any deck playing blue. You'd be silly not to include him, unless of course you cannot afford it. Part of the subtle beauty of this format is you only need 1.

• Lim-Dûl's Vault
Card requires some explaining:
Step 1: Look at the top five cards of your library.
Step 2: If you like them, proceed to step 3a. If you don't like them, proceed to step 3b.
Step 3a: Shuffle the rest of your library, then put those five cards back on top of your library in the order you want. The spell has finished resolving.
Step 3b: Put those five cards on the bottom of your library in the order you want. Pay 1 life. Return to step 1

How would you like to sculpt your next 5 turns, or look through your whole deck for 2 mana and a couple of life? Cards like Oloro make running Lim-Dûl's Vault a no brainer. I'm pretty surprised how few decks run this.

• Mystic Remora
Quick way to draw a few cards. Cumulative upkeep does suck, but you only really need to make it around the table 2 or 3 times before letting it die. It's super cheap at 1 CMC, so it's worth it. tax is HUGE for opponents, even late in the game. It's impossible to justify paying for it early, which makes this card perhaps better then Rhystic Study, I'd even be so bold as suggesting its "strictly" better, but it doesn't pop on creatures.

• Phyrexian Arena
Arguably better then Dark Confidant. It's in mostly every single deck running black. It's fun drawing cards, and this does it.

• Rhystic Study
Adds insult to injury most often. With high powered resource denile strategies like Stax, it's difficult to justify spending mana to stop you from drawing a card. It's a great enchantment and never outlives it's usefulness.

• Sensei's Divining Top
Top has been discussed ad nauseam. It's a benefittial card and worth including into almost any deck. It's likely the single most powerful draw engine for any color. 

• Thassa, God of the Sea
Thassa is an interesting include. The powerful scry ability every turn is amazing at getting you out of being flooded, finding answers and others. It can also deal some damage, has a low cost and amazingly gets recursion with Sun Titan and Replenish. Dodges Aura Shards also.

Recursion
• Crucible of Worlds
Any deck that focuses on land destruction ought to have a way to play their lands again. Crucible does some great stuff by bringing back Strip Mine, manlands or Flagstones of Trokair.

• Ill-Gotten Gains
Allows a fast recovery after a board wipe. The symmetrical hand discard combined with Leyline of the Void is just silly. My opponents do get back 3 cards under normal circumstances, but it's unlikely they'll have anything as cool as Replenish in their hand.

• Replenish
Return all of my useful cards back onto the battlefield for 4 mana? Where do I sign up? It's usefullness has weaved it's way through a lot of my card write ups. It's only ever not useful when you've got too many good cards already on the battlefield.

• Sun Titan
The Titan is a one stop shop for mostly every card in my deck. He's a Crucible of Worlds stapled to a mini-Replenish inside of a 6/6 body. He hits a whopping 66 cards in this deck (67% of the deck, not including Oloro and Himself).

Token Generators
• Bitterblossom
The 1 life lost is a wash because of Oloro. It sets up an extremely early board state that could allow you to outright win. Originally this card was included as a perfect compliment to Smokestack. You'd just sack one of your new faeries. This list no longer uses Smokestack, so if you cannot afford a Bitterblossom - it's easy enough to get rid of.

• Elspeth, Knight-Errant
Every single one of Elspeth's abilities are useful. Every single one. It cannot be overstated how AWESOME she is for this or any deck. She can make blockers, make those tokens stronger and her ultimate? It might as well just say "this is for stax decks". Get one ASAP. I have not included Elspeth, Sun's Champion because of her high converted mana cost, the 3 tokens would make sense if I were running Smokestack, the -1 ability is super cool and worth a look, but overall isn't as useful.

• Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
If Elspeth was the #1 Planeswalker for Stax decks, Sorin is #1b. The tokens are better then Elspeth, because the lifelink is relevant to regain some lost life from various sources. The emblem? Bonkers. It makes you creatures powerful enough to attack through Humility. Only thing keeping him from a perfect score is his ultimate, doesn't do all that much.

• Trading Post
It is the Commander equivalent to a Swiss-Army Knife. It's just useful for many situations, and can get you out of plenty tough spots. Tezzeret the Seeker can toggle this bad boy pretty well!

Spot/Mass Removal
• Armageddon
No deck can truly call themselves Stax without copious amounts of land destruction. Land destruction is one of the most frustrating parts of playing Magic the Gathering. Since mana is a resource, having that all taken away from you results in plenty of hurt butts. This deck sets up a ton of Mana rocks to survive Armageddon and continue to play spells. A bit of strategy I like to employ is using Armageddon as early as turn 4. The reason is, most opponents keep and sculpt their hands around curving, so they're more apt to take a 3-lander while holding some high CMC cards in hopes of hitting their land drops until they can play them. Destroying all of those lands before they can curve out is a gigantic tempo play, the kind some decks may never recover from.

• Cataclysm
This is a more symmetrical Armageddon that certainly has it's advantages are some of the following
1) It asks you to sacrifice those permanents. Which gets around indestructibility.
2) You do not keep your precious planeswalker. Which is invaluable for a deck that is weak against Planeswalkers.
3) My enchantments are better then yours. Just ask your girlfriend
4) Tempo. Another Armageddon

• Catastrophe
Hybrid of the two original sweepers from Alpha: Wrath of God and Armageddon. Modal spells are powerful in Commander because they provide options. Creatures destroyed this way can't be regenerated is relevant sometimes also. It is a worthy inclusion.

• Liliana of the Veil
Lilly is pushed hard toward Stax players because she acts as a resource denial machine. The +1 is symmetrical, the -2 is deadly because they sacrifice (getting around Hexproof and Indestrucible) and the -6 is quite achievable. The ultimate is powerful, because you can separate the creatures into lands/permanents and creatures. Based on which pile they take you can cast Armageddon for their lands keep or Wrath of God for the creature keep. Pretty dirty move.

• Path to Exile
Exiling is strong in this format. Cheap efficient removal is strong in every format. Path gives up a slight bit of tempo, but it gains you some back if you want to use it on your own tokens to get a land. Exiling an opponents General is especially strong since they now have to pay the tax on it.

• Seal of Cleansing
Seal deals with troublesome enchantments and artifacts in a similar way to Aura of Silence. Sun Titan also provides recursion for this,

• Swords to Plowshares
Probably the best removal spell ever printed. It exiles, it's cheap, it's instant speed and you can use it on your own token if you fall behind.

• Utter End🆕
One of the best cards against this deck is Aura Shards, which must be dealt with accordingly. As stated previously, Exiling is super powerful and important in this format, since recursion is such a common theme. This deck also runs few Planeswalker answers, since it runs so few creatures. A great way to deal with indestructible non-land permanents and planeswalkers is exile

• Vindicate
Quite possible one of the best cards printed for this format that isn't banned (yet). For a mere 3 mana you get to hit ANYTHING (creature, enchantment, artifact, land, or planeswalker). Worth splashing black in your white deck and vice versa just to access this one card. The Sorcery speed is hardly a drawback considering you get a Heroes Downfall that can blow up Gaea's Cradle if you haven't hit your Strip Mine yet. This deck is weak to planeswalkers because it runs so few creatures, Vindicate lets you deal with them without having to go deep. Also, Planeswalkers are opponents problems too, don't let them fool you!

Mana Rocks
  Azorius Signet, Chromatic Lantern, Coalition Relic, Dimir Signet, Mana Vault, Orzhov Signet, Sol Ring, Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Progress

Board sweepers
  Catastrophe, Cyclonic Rift, Merciless Eviction, Terminus, Wrath of God

Tutors
  Demonic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Land Tax, Tezzeret the Seeker, Vampiric Tutor

Graveyard Hate
  Bojuka Bog Leyline of the Void, Nihil Spellbomb

Top 5
5. Nether Void
4. Replenish
3. Land Equilibrium
2. Cataclysm
1. Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Updates and Revisions
➖Gideon Jura ➕Painful Quandary
Gideon is a win condition, and I will probably regret losing him. He's on the short list to jump back in if Painful Quandary proves to make me too much of a target.

➖Dark Confidant ➕Overburden
I love card advantage as much as the next person. I want to experiment with other cards, and he's usually always killed or hurts me fairly badly. So I'm testing without him. I'm also running Erebos, God of the Dead, who draws me cards and can swing in for damage. Spreading Plague makes Dark Confidant disposable.

➖Nihil Spellbomb ➕Bojuka Bog
I am adding 2 black cards. Might as well add another black source that is uncounterable graveyard hate. I am running Leyline of the Void, Tormod's Crypt and now Bojuka Bog. That makes Nihil redundant. I also have Crucible of Worlds

➖No Mercy ➕Spreading Plague
Spreading Plague is so damn cool. I'm worried about it being over 4 mana, because those types of spells are difficult to cast if I haven't yet put out all of my mana rocks. But it is more splashible then No Mercy and I am having a REALLY tough go at finding stuff to cut. They're all my little foily babies

9/20/14
➖Return to Dust ➕Utter End
I lose the potential 2 for 1 to gain an edge against Planeswalkers and creatures. The exile with no downside is so clutch because it gets around indestructibility. It misses lands, unlike Vindicate it does cost 8 with In the Eye of Chaos, but so did Return to Dust.

10/4/14
➖Tormod's Crypt ➕Nihil Spellbomb
Spellbomb lets me draw a card if my opponents aren't playing with their graveyards. Cost is higher, but I can cycle it.

10/28/14
➖Night of Souls' Betrayal ➕Vile Consumption
Little experiment in seeing which is more useful, taxing creatures or giving them -1/-1. With Humility on board Night is clearly better, but if the combo isn't assembled then its not quite as good as Vile.

11/12/14
➖Spreading Plague ➕Tainted Æther
Tainted Æther just kind of naturally combos with Overburden better. Spreading Plague may be more of a political card, almost like a group hug gift to the table to wipe out enemies by prozy. I just prefer the lower cost (but double black, yuck)

Playtesting
Council's Judgment
Dark Confidant
Gideon Jura
Greater Auramancy
Heliod, God of the Sun
Night of Soul's Betrayal
No Mercy
Spreading Plague
Skullclamp
Tormod's Crypt

I like Spreading Plague, but I think No Mercy still deserves a spot here.

I like Spreading Plague, but I think No Mercy still deserves a spot here.

I agree, but what should I cut? It's a hard decision. I like all of my Pillowfort effects, they're all equally valuable to me. I might just cut my newly added Overburden...

What's the price tag on this deck?  Or do I even want to know...

What's the price tag on this deck?  Or do I even want to know...

I don't have iMtG anymore, so I dunno what the app says it's worth. My best estimate: A couple thousand? It's probably doubled since I put it together. I know what I paid for Underground Sea, and that is up triple. Even Liliana of the Veil is double what I paid. Stupid little things like Mystic Gate are about 7x what I paid for it. Ect. ect. But yeah, conservative estimate about $3000.

Quote from: Anoobass on August 16, 2014, 12:51:29 AM

What's the price tag on this deck?  Or do I even want to know...

I don't have iMtG anymore, so I dunno what the app says it's worth. My best estimate: A couple thousand? It's probably doubled since I put it together. I know what I paid for Underground Sea, and that is up triple. Even Liliana of the Veil is double what I paid. Stupid little things like Mystic Gate are about 7x what I paid for it. Ect. ect. But yeah, conservative estimate about $3000.

Please get these sleeves.

www.abugames.....-(80ct).html

That's pretty funny. I don't like flaunting the deck like that. Some of the more mature guys like seeing the cards and the commitment. Some younger people think it's paying to win (which it doesn't always). Magic is different things to different people, I like playing powerful cards, and I enjoy seeing rare and strong cards. I enjoy seeing misprintx alters and anything unusual. The other haters can hate.

I just think that after u get into the $k's those sleeves are pretty funny.

Finished my deck tech finally while watching 2014 World Magic Cup Qualifier stream. Suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Maybe when I'm completely finished, that wouldn't be a bad idea.

Pictures came out pretty bad. No real good ways for me to photograph them and have them appear foil.
Oloro Part 1
Oloro Part 2

So pimp. Lol but thts awesome.

So pimp. Lol but thts awesome.

Thank you.

Do you think the FTV foiling is better this time around?

It's the same foil it's been for every From the Vault, no? I can't tell the difference. That Cataclysm was totally worth it though.They kind of curled the second I took them out of the wrapper, which I will be sending Wizards a nasty email about shortly.