The 30 Best Stax Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 8, 2024

Winota, Joiner of Forces | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

Stax decks are powerful, disruptive decks that seek to impede your opponents’ game plans by throwing up lots of roadblocks. Some cards limit the number of spells your opponents can cast each turn, while others make all their spells cost a little more. Individual stax pieces rarely win you the game, they just make it harder for your opponents to do so.

With a concept that more or less annoys your opponent to death, it’s easy to see why stax decks have a bad rap. But I think they’re pretty cool. It can be an interesting challenge to navigate winning through various pieces meant to slow you down, and it’s a good litmus test to see if your deck has enough interactive elements.

So if you want to build a stax deck and make your next Commander game night into a puzzle room of torment, who’s the best commander?

What Are Stax Commanders in Magic?

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV | Illustration by Zoltan Boros & Gabor Szikszai

The term “stax” comes from old Magic decks utilizing Smokestack to eat away their opponents’ resources. These days, the term has grown to encompass all kinds of disruptive decks whose primary goals are to make life difficult for your opponents and to slow the game until the stax player can comfortably win. Stax decks often include white and green.

Hatebear-style stax is one of the most common builds, which you often see in Death & Taxes decks in Legacy. These decks leverage small creatures with disruptive abilities like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Leonin Arbiter to impede your opponents and prevent them from playing optimally. Many hatebears are symmetrical, so the stax player has to be careful about building their decks to minimize the impact of these symmetrical pieces; you don’t put Thalia in your storm deck.

Artifact– and enchantment-based stax decks tend to disrupt the opponent with static effects. These can feel a lot like the classic Smokestack decks, especially once you get cards like Winter Orb and Static Orb in the mix.

Often, stax decks play a mixture of hatebears, enchantments, and artifacts. The exact ratios depend heavily on your commander and playgroup. Stax decks can be highly customizable to disrupt your opponents; for example, if you know your entire pod plays mono-colored decks, Magus of the Moon and Back to Basics become far less appealing stax pieces.

Something to think about when selecting your stax commander is what kind of stax you want to play. How do you intend to disrupt the opponent? Do you want to play a ton of artifacts or flood the board with creatures? Not every stax commander is a stax piece itself, but some support a particular stax theme, like Urza, Lord High Artificer.

#30. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

One of the classic hatebears, always having Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in your opening hand is a great boon for many decks. It’s incredible against spell-based decks but might fall flat if your opponents focus on creature beats. Making Thalia the commander for your mono-white stax deck is a meta call that can pay dividends.

#29. Lavinia, Azorius Renegade

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade does a ton of work at some tables while feeling nonexistent at others. It’s great against players doing unfair things with infinite mana and X spells, forcing them to play at a fairer rate. It punishes players relying on interaction like Force of Will and Deflecting Swat since they need to pay mana. Lavinia’s not as powerful at lower-powered tables where you won’t encounter these strategies.

#28. Sigarda, Font of Blessings

Many powerful stax pieces are humans and angels, like both Thalias, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and Esper Sentinel. If you build around these two types, Sigarda, Font of Blessings offers a powerful Future Sight commander with hexproof for your other creatures. You can still run cards like Collector Ouphe or Spirit of the Labyrinth, though you’ll need to keep non-human or angel creatures to a minimum.

#27. Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward + Agent of the Iron Throne

Something stax decks can struggle with is closing the game out after slowing everybody down. 40 life is a lot of life to attack through with your 2/1s and 3/2s. Pairing Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward with Agent of the Iron Throne helps assemble a winning combo. Abdel goes infinite with Animate Dead or Necromancy to create infinite 1/1s and infinite death triggers to go with this background. An a + b combo in the commander zone offers a stax deck great lethality.

#26. Drana and Linvala

Drana and Linvala offers a powerful hatebear piece right in the command zone. This can be especially devastating against green decks that rely on mana dorks like Birds of Paradise and Bloom Tender for acceleration. A Cursed Totem on your commander is plenty intriguing before you get to steal your opponents’ abilities, making this and incredibly versatile and dangerous threat.

#25. Adeline, Resplendent Cathar

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar isn’t a stax piece itself, but it supports the hatebears strategy by offering a powerful clock. This commander floods the board with aggressive tokens you can easily enhance with white enchantments like Honor of the Pure and Anointed Procession for a clock your opponents will struggle to keep up with around the stax pieces.

#24. Queen Kayla bin-Kroog

Many stax cards are cheap by necessity, so Queen Kayla bin-Kroog has no shortage of disruptive pieces to get back with its activated ability. Four mana is a lot, but you get to see a ton of fresh cards while putting up to 6 mana worth of permanents into play. Since you’re not casting the spells, this circumvents Rule of Law effects, letting you load your deck up with as many variants of that stax piece as you can.

#23. Shorikai, Genesis Engine

Shorikai, Genesis Engine is a powerful combo engine in the command zone, letting you draw your deck and win with Thassa's Oracle pretty easily once you generate infinite mana. It requires careful deckbuilding; you can’t disrupt artifacts too badly without shutting off your commander. Certain infinite mana combos, like Isochron Scepter plus Dramatic Reversal, require casting spells over and over, so Rule of Law effects are also off the table.

#22. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

Abzan () is an excellent color combination to access most of the best stax pieces in the game. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster offers a ton of disruptive value, plus card draw and a commander that basically can’t be interacted with in combat thanks to deathtouch and first strike. This pairs well with stax decks that want to leverage taboo cards like Armageddon alongside Crucible of Worlds since the extra land drops let you rebuild faster than your opponents.

#21. Gaddock Tegg

Gaddock Teeg is a classic hatebear. It shuts down spellslinger strategies harder, as they often want to leverage at least a few expensive spells. Some decks can’t function with this guy around. It’s weaker against creature-heavy decks, but even the greenest of decks plays spells like Skyshroud Claim or Turntimber Symbiosis that Teeg shuts down.

#20. Anafenza, the Foremost

Anafenza, the Foremost is an over-stated commander that disrupts lots of strategies. Exiling the graveyard is one of the easiest ways to shut some decks out of the game, and it’s easy to play Anafenza on turn 2 with mana dorks. It works incredibly well with +1/+1 counter synergies, alongside cards like Kami of Whispered Hopes and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider to put a serious clock on your opponents as they struggle to function beneath your stax pieces.

#19. Hokori, Dust Drinker

Winter Orb in the command zone is a strong start to a stax deck. To play Hokori, Dust Drinker, you need a plan to break the symmetry of the card so you’re playing a deck and not just being obnoxious. This typically means stuffing your deck with tons of mana rocks so you’re not dependent on lands, then using cards like Karn, the Great Creator to stop your opponents from relying on their artifact mana.

#18. Go-Shintai of Life’s Origin

Go-Shintai of Life's Origin is a great commander for players looking to build their first stax deck, as the list begins with all the other Shrines in Magic. From there, you’ll surround them with a bunch of powerful enchantments that shut other players down, like Stony Silence, Rhystic Study, and Deafening Silence.

#17. Liesa, Shroud of Dusk

Liesa, Shroud of Dusk is excellent design. This is a great way to circumvent commander tax without being blatantly unfair, like commander ninjutsu. It’s also a great way to tax your opponents. You can pair it with spells like Rug of Smothering to damage your opponents even more.

#16. Urza, Chief Artificer

Urza, Chief Artificer supports artifact stax not as a stax element, but as a clock. Once you litter the board with cards like Cursed Totem, Grafdigger's Cage, and Esper Sentinel, you can close the game out with massive Construct tokens. Throw in a few pieces like Losheel, Clockwork Scholar and Archangel of Tithes to make blocking even harder, and you’ll win in no time.

#15. Shalai and Hallar

Naya () is a fine color combination for stax. Red doesn’t have a ton of stax pieces outside of cards like Blood Moon to punish greedy mana bases or Harsh Mentor style effects to tax activated abilities, but it offers some power and utility at ending the game. Shalai and Hallar benefits from infinite wins with The Red Terror or All Will Be One, providing you with a commander that ends the game quickly with abilities that are rarely taxed by your stax effects.

#14. Meria, Scholar of Antiquity

Some may say Meria, Scholar of Antiquity is just Wish Urza, Lord High Artificer, but this commander can do some powerful stuff. Getting to tap your artifacts naturally leads you to Winter Orb and Static Orb. Red enhances this well with Blood Moon and Ruination alongside Collector Ouphe to go directly after your opponent's mana while your commander ramps you into massive plays and draws you cards.

#13. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

One sub-archetype of stax is prison decks that seek to establish a lock that stops your opponents from playing the game. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir has great prison potential. If it’s in play with Knowledge Pool or Omen Machine, your opponents simply can’t play spells. Blue is also great at accelerating into colorless spells so you can include other locks like the classic Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice.

#12. Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Kambal, Consul of Allocation comes down early and does a surprising amount of work. It doesn’t look like much, but this commander can easily deal 20 damage in a game if left unchecked. It’s not as good against creature decks, but you can also make use of powerful lifegain synergies like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Sanguine Bond to make up for this.

#11. Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Heliod, Sun-Crowned is a fantastic mono-white stax commander because of the a + b combo of this card plus Walking Ballista to win the game on the spot. The combo also works with Triskelion. You can utilize some lifegain synergies that other mono-white commanders don’t care about for additional flexibility and staying power against other creature-based decks.

#10. Belbe, Corrupted Observer

You can do a lot with Belbe, Corrupted Observer, but playing it with stax pieces is my favorite. You need to land something like Mardu Shadowspear or Pulse Tracker early to maximize its ability, but you can have access to 6 colorless mana as soon as turn 2. You can use this to deploy stax pieces like God-Pharaoh's Statue, Ward of Bones, and Trinisphere well before your opponents can hope to deal with them. Once you get these down, closing the game is as simple as ramping into Eldrazi.

#9. Zur the Enchanter

Zur the Enchanter is a classic stax commander. Its peak may have passed, but this is still plenty powerful. Loads of good stax enchantments cost 3 or less. Among them, there’s Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, Deafening Silence, Rhystic Study, and Overburden, as well as basically every Oblivion Ring variant ever printed for easy access to removal. Zur is a kill-on-sight commander, for good reason.

#8. Sen Triplets

What better way to disrupt your opponent’s game plan than by casting all their removal on their own cards? Sen Triplets was a boogieman of the format for a while. This functions more as top-end for an artifact stax deck than a stax piece itself, but it can lock down an opponent you’re worried will disrupt you and “draw” a bunch of cards.

#7. Yasharn, Implacable Earth

Preventing your opponents from sacrificing permanents to pay costs doesn’t seem like it’s too disruptive against non-Rakdos () decks, but this just so happens to kill Treasure decks and stop fetch lands. It’s incredibly disruptive while being fairly-statted and drawing two cards on ETB. Dropping a sizeable creature that some decks need to remove while ensuring you make land drops is all you could want from a Selesnya () stax commander.

#6. Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer is a personal favorite of mine. Chord of Calling on a stick is a powerful effect in the command zone. It lets you find all your silver bullets at the right time without worrying about whether you’ll draw into them. Rocco also facilitates a bunch of powerful combos, setting up a Vivien on the Hunt line to find Kiki combo or serving as a mana outlet for various infinite combos with Dockside Extortionist.

#5. Alela, Artful Provocateur

Most artifact and enchantment stax commanders ask you to choose one, but Alela, Artful Provocateur doesn’t care what you use to annoy your opponents to death. It brings an army of Faerie tokens, which have seen some new typal support in Wilds of Eldraine. It’ll take over a game quickly with its armies to give you a clean win condition for your stax deck.

#4. Urza, Lord High Artificer

Urza, Lord High Artificer is the commander to pair with Winter Orb shenanigans, but it can do a lot more. I’m partial to playing it alongside Polymorph with Tidespout Tyrant as the only other creature, letting you leverage effects like Overburden while its mana production abilities minimize the impact of Mana Vortex on your mana base.

#3. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

Sphere of Resistance in the command zone would be plenty for a stax commander, but Grand Arbiter Augustin IV is also your on-color medallions. This commander messes up a lot of game plans, especially since you can comfortably play Sphere of Resistance and Thorn of Amethyst without as much negative impact since your cards are already cheaper. Despite being in Azorius (), this is a powerful ramping Azorius commander that produces tons of mana.

#2. Derevi, Empyreal Tactician

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician works with Winter Orb, has a great color combination, and cheats the commander tax. These traits make it a powerful commander before you factor in the ramp potential of tapping and untapping cards like Bloom Tender. This isn’t a super specific stax commander, just an incredible value engine with excellent colors and synergies with stax pieces.

#1. Winota, Joiner of Forces

Winota, Joiner of Forces is one of the few commanders that's just too powerful to build casually. This commander offers insane mana advantages with all the free creatures you get. It’s easy to build this as a stax commander with cards like Drannith Magistrate, all the Thalias, and Magus of the Moon that come into play for free. There are plenty of non-human stax cards to trigger Winota, including Soulless Jailer, Spirit of the Labyrinth, and Hushbringer.

Best Stax Commander Payoffs

Stax pieces fall under two broad umbrellas: symmetrical and asymmetrical stax pieces. The best example of these two classifications is Spirit of the Labyrinth versus Narset, Parter of Veils. Any of these commanders are happy to load up on asymmetrical stax pieces, like Esper Sentinel and Opposition Agent, but the challenge (and fun) of building a stax deck comes from choosing which symmetrical stax pieces you want to play.

The easiest way to do this is to start with your win condition and work backwards. Let’s say you’re building Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer and your primary win condition is to assemble variations of Kiki Combo or infinite mana through Dockside Extortionist. These require the use of artifacts and ETB triggers.

With this in mind, you’ll skip out on any Torpor Orb effects so you never find yourself in a situation where you’re ready to win but locked out by your pieces. Since your commander is Chord of Calling in the command zone, Leonin Arbiter is another no-go.

But, since you’ll be doing so much tutoring, you can rely on tutors instead of raw card draw, giving you the opportunity to run Spirit of the Labyrinth effects. You probably won’t need to cast multiple spells in a turn, so Archon of Emeria and other Rule of Law effects can come in.

It’s easy to toss a bunch of stax pieces into a deck and discover a ton of anti-synergies, like trying to use Skyclave Apparition for removal in a deck with Torpor Orb, Strict Proctor, and Hushbringer. You should consider what you’re interested in playing as a win condition and decide what you’re willing to forgo. You have to make deckbuilding concessions to yourself as a stax player, but your advantage comes from planning to play around effects like Thorn of Amethyst while your opponents get caught off guard.

Another important part of playing stax is doing so in a fun, responsible manner. This means having a game plan for your stax pieces so your deck is challenging and fun and not the horrid play experience many players make stax out to be. For example, Winter Orb in your Urza, Lord High Artificer deck is a game plan. The synergy there is obvious: You have access to all your mana while your opponents don’t. Chucking the Orb into a Rocco deck without any way to break the symmetry or any other support slows the game to an unbearable pace until somebody finds their Nature's Claim. It’s not fun, and you’re not likely to win those kinds of games yourself.

Commanding Conclusion

Yasharn, Implacable Earth | Illustration by G-host Lee

Stax decks have a poor reputation, but I think they’re over-hated. Stax decks often lead to incredibly interactive games of Magic. After all, most stax pieces are interactive; they just interact on a different axis than spot removal or countermagic.

There’s also a ton of variety in the stax decks you can play. They can focus on creatures, enchantments, artifacts, or some combination thereof. Some commanders lend themselves to hyper-specific stax shells, while others extract value from a long game.

Do you like playing stax in Commander? Which of these commanders would you build? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and keep locking your opponents down!