Hanna, Ship's Navigator - Prison Break

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

Hanna, Ship's Navigator

Hanna, Ship's Navigator
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Deck Philosophy

Eventually, as playgroups evolve and people start getting more tuned with their creations, ramp and combo can start to run a bit wild. It is my personal opinion that it is important that at least the threat of a heavier stax/prison style deck is needed to prey upon these sorts of things once they reach a certain level for a healthy playgroup.

This is clearly a stax/prison deck. It could be far scarier but this is not something to drop into a casual game or in any random pick up game. This deck could be a bit rough if your playgroup does not run a decent amount of removal.

I made this deck years ago with the idea of it being a "fair" and "reasonable" stax deck but obviously this is a matter of opinion. With the exception of everyone's favorite card, this deck does not mess with people's mana production too severely so people are hampered by various effects but usually not completely crippled until you are ready to close things out. Cards like Winter Orb and Static Orb could be used with various tapping artifact tricks to really slow down the game for people, but I've opted to not go that route and I think it is a bit more of an enjoyable experience (relatively speaking) as a result.

This deck could run more reactive elements instead of going with a pro-active prison construction, but you really do want a high concentration of prison elements overall. I think it is more enjoyable to try to assemble a puzzle/prison that people need to figure out how to escape than to try to react. If people manage to escape, they have earned their win.

There is a good chance you will be putting yourself into an archenemy situation by choosing to play a deck like this, especially when people have played against it previously. You need to accept and embrace this or this sort of deck just will not be for you.

How to Play the Deck

There are two main components to a deck like this, slowing/locking the table down, and then actually having a way to win the game. The problem a lot of people who try to play prison style decks run into is that they do not include reasonable win conditions and that makes things pretty awful usually.

Once people have played against this deck enough, they can usually judge a locked board state and know if they will have any reasonable chance of dealing with it based upon what they have in play and could draw, and they know you have a number of win conditions present within the deck that you will inevitably get. At this point, if they have no real hope, people can usually concede to speed up the game ending (not that you are relying on scooping as a win condition, but this just gets another game going).

Hanna, Ship's Navigator is the commander but the deck does not rely upon her being in play. She is wonderful as a command zone based recursion piece, but you should not feel pressure to play her immediately or try to keep her in play. You can do some pretty cool things with her and enough mana of course, such as being able to replay Lunar Force or the more expensive Decree of Silence every turn, or even return Decree to your hand every turn and then cycle it for a practically uncounterable counterspell. This sort of stuff is rather mana intensive, but it is good to have as an option.

Win Conditions
It is important to have a few ways to win in a deck like this. Below are the primary ways to win:

Iron Maiden and/or Viseling: With people slowed down, their hands do not tend to empty quickly. Even if you don't have a full lock going, these can chip away at the table. With various copy effects you can have multiples of these on the table to speed things up.

Karma + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: As long as you have more life than the rest of the table, or you have less lands (you will have to do some rough math here depending on how the game is going), this combo will do some decent work. Remember, you are the last player at the table taking damage from this combo, which doesn't matter if everyone else dies. Solitary Confinement, or Delaying Shield will stop you from being damaged. If there are players already playing some black decks, you won't even need to drop Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth to get damage going.

Mechanized Production: This deck is playing for the long game anyway. There a few decent artifacts to choose with this and a few cards that can copy this so it doesn't actually take 8 turns to work. Darksteel Citadel is a hard artifact to remove and ramps you every turn so it is a pretty good choice. Iron Maiden and/or Viseling can speed up actual damage production and if this route of just getting 8 copies into play is disrupted, you will have a good damage source going. Don't discount the effect that putting multiples of artifacts like Null Rod, Cursed Totem, or Meekstone into play either; requiring multiple removal spells or a sweeper can be tough for some opponents to overcome.

Enchantment Beats: Starfield of Nyx and Dance of the Manse can give you another angle of attack. I don't generally go for this as it carries risks since your enchantments will be vulnerable to creature removal, but depending on how locked up you have things it can work.

Angel Beats: Luminarch Ascension or Court of Grace can get you an army of fliers to just start swinging.

All of these win conditions, except for the Mechanized Production angle, are damage based so they combine with each other fairly well to speed things up.



Locks
To actually have a chance of your win conditions working, you are generally going to need to have the board locked up to some degree. A number of cards on their own are pretty effective at slowing things down, whether it is the political aspect of cards like Hesitation making people reluctant to try to develop their board state, or any of the damage preventing cards like Energy Field. Beyond Hanna herself, there are a number of other enchantment recursion effects to hopefully help these sorts of things stick around.

You will probably notice that the list I play does not currently have any Ghostly Prison effects. These can be effective, and if you expect a higher amount of aggro they might be good, but in my experience it is usually better to just stop damage to yourself entirely if possible since if an opponent can pay the tax on an attack with a big scary creature you can be in trouble.

Below are some of the combos used to slow or lock things up:

Planar Collapse + Hall of Heliod's Generosity: Being to able to repeatedly put Planar Collapse back in play can stall out people's ability to develop a creature based board state. This isn't a hard lock since it can be played around but it can stall things fairly well. Starfield of Nyx can be used for this lock instead of Hall of Heliod's Generosity but be super careful about your current amount of enchantments or you might wipe your own board.

Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory, or Eidolon of Rhetoric + Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: If you manage to get Jace's Ultimate ability off, combined with any of the other three cards, this will make it so that the first spell each opponent plays each turn is countered and they are only allowed to play one spell. This is generally a hard lock and almost impossible for opponents to break, however if opponents have a good creature based board state they may be able to break it by just swinging at you until you die.

Starfield of Nyx + Decree of Silence: With this in place, it can be tough for opponents to get spells through since the Decree can return every upkeep.

Solemnity + Decree of Silence: With this in place, every spell your opponents play will be countered. This is another hard lock and almost impossible for opponents to break except by just killing you with what they already have in play.

Solemnity + Delaying Shield: With this in place you are immune to damage. Note, this does not stop life loss effects.

Solemnity + Glacial Chasm: With this in place you are immune to damage. Note, this does not stop life loss effects.

Solitary Confinement + Sun Titan: With this you can fail to pay the upkeep and then just keep returning Solitary Confinement to play each turn when Sun Titan attacks (assuming it is safe for it to attack), keeping you immune to damage.

Pendrell Mists + "Copy Effects": Pendrell Mists on its own can be tough for creature based decks to keep a board state which can buy you a lot of time. When you have multiples in play, it gets far more difficult for your opponents. Occasionally this can backfire since it is a free sac outlet for your opponents, but overall it is still very strong.


Stasis Combos
Having Stasis around generally cuts off your opponents options if you play it at the right time. If you drop Stasis without having a way to actually close the game out, this is going to be a miserable slog and you can't guarantee you will actually win, so generally you will want one of the above win conditions set up before even considering it. I wouldn't even call Stasis the main way to lock things down, but since it is in the deck it is important to recognize what components of your deck have synergy with it and to learn to know when to drop it. You definitely don't want to just drop this card on the table with no game plan.

Sun Titan - As long as there is a player to swing safely at, Sun Titan can repeatedly return Stasis to play and you won't have to worry about paying the upkeep. Sun Titan has vigilance so it can swing freely under Stasis, and depending on board states it may just end up being your win condition.

Starfield of Nyx - Much like Sun Titan, this repeatedly returns Stasis to play when you fail to pay the upkeep, but it only works every other turn. This is not super reliable but it might be enough.

Smothering Tithe - Since your opponents will most likely not be able to afford the tax on Smothering Tithe, you will probably get at least one treasure per go around the table and that will pay for Stasis.

Frozen Aether - If you have a way to keep Stasis around, that's great but if opponent's lands are coming in untapped then they will be able to break free of Stasis. This card can be crucial.

Treachery + Estrid's Invocation - Statis may remove your untap step, but with this combo in place you will be untapping five lands every turn.


Further Notes

It is important to note that with a deck like this, you really need to adjust your deck based on your own personal playgroup/meta, and will probably have to tinker with the deck as trends shift and change. At various points in time you may need more anti-creature aspects, or you may need more anti-spell slinger aspects, etc.,. I have definitely changed this deck up quite a bit over the years, and there are plenty of fun enchantments or artifacts out there that can fit in this deck.

Energy Field + Rest in Peace is another great protective combo but I am not a fan of shutting my own graveyard off in a deck like this so I have opted to leave Rest in Peace out.

Dovescape + Guile is another good combo choice for this deck that I've run previously. I believe you generally will want to include a few more counterspells to take advantage of Guile if you go this route.

This deck can easily support the Opalescence + Parallax Wave combo, but if you add in Parallax Tide once those other two cards are in play then you will also be exiling all lands opponents control permanently at instant speed. This is a pretty vicious lock that is tough to escape once in place.

Humility is another card that can work great in this deck due to the low creature count, and low reliance on those creatures. However, be very careful you don't set yourself up with a situation with it and either Opalescence or Starfield of Nyx in play, not only due to having to be very familiar with some of the more obscure layers aspects of the game, but because it effectively blanks all of your enchantments. You could end up with a situation where a Replenish would otherwise lock the game down for you or at least keep you in the game but instead does nothing. The deck can support all of these things, but just be wary.

Frozen Aether + Stasis + Chronatog is an old but fairly effective combo. The first two cards are already in the deck but I don't feel that Chronatog really does enough on its own, there isn't really a way to search for it, and it isn't easy to protect, so it is a bit difficult to include.

Court of Grace is a new addition to this deck and I haven't actually had a chance to play the deck with it. Based on using it in other decks I am sure it is going to be a fantastic addition. It adds card draw and gives you blockers and/or attackers without having to use any resources of your own. With various copy effects, this could be a pretty big threat I think.
Last edited by Ruiner 3 years ago, edited 5 times in total.

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capitacommunist
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Post by capitacommunist » 3 years ago

I really like your deck and the depth of your write-up, thanks for posting it!
Have you tried Back to Basics? It's one of the strongest hate cards and your list can support it quite well I think. If you do add it, I would cut Prahv, Spires of Order, Arcane Lighthouse, and Temple of Enlightenment for additional basics. On the mana taxing path you could also consider Archon of Emeria and Kismet (the original Frozen Aether). For Kismet it's worthwhile to note that the oracle text was changed a couple of years ago to be identical to Frozen Aether, thereby making it much more playable.
Have you considered Faith Healer? I could imagine it generating some interesting plays with Hanna to recur artifacts anytime.
It's a bit of a pet card for me, but I've found Unbender Tine to have a lot of utility as a somewhat slow mana rock, whilst also being able to untap Hanna or your powerful utility lands.
Last edited by capitacommunist 3 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

Glad you like the list!!

I've definitely considered making room for Kismet since it is a double of that effect. I really like Archon of Emeria and have it in a number of other decks, I've considered it in this deck too but being a creature makes it easier to interact with. I think Kismet is definitely going to be added in soon and then if a third effect was needed maybe the Archon.

Back to Basics is a card I've meant to try for a while but I just honestly keep forgetting to track down a copy after all these years. This is a deck I like but don't play super often so sometimes that just slips my mind.

Faith Healer might not be bad "anti-exile" tech. I've tried Claws of Gix and while it is okay the requirement of actually spending mana isn't always great.

umtiger
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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

I have played Humility in a Hanna deck before since I rarely had to play Hanna.

Search for Azcanta is also a nice filtering enchantment for the early game

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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 3 years ago

Yeah, Humility is definitely great in this deck, I've played it before. It doesn't affect the win conditions I use at all for the most part.

I don't recall exactly why I took it out a few years back, might have been when I was messing with Opalescence or when Starfield of Nyx was released and I didn't want to risk even accidentally having Humility with one of those two in play (such as with Replenish).

I'd totally support people including it in this sort of deck.

Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin definitely seems like it could find a home in this deck.

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RowanKeltizar
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 1 year ago

Ruiner wrote:
3 years ago
Eventually, as playgroups evolve and people start getting more tuned with their creations, ramp and combo can start to run a bit wild. It is my personal opinion that it is important that at least the threat of a heavier stax/prison style deck is needed to prey upon these sorts of things once they reach a certain level for a healthy playgroup.
This is a very interesting deck and you articulate exactly the reason I started looking at stax effects for my playgroup.

That was the initial impetus to build my artifacts only stax Atraxa list. In practice though I felt like I lacked many of the cards to make it successful. Namely, recursion and consistency plus the interaction necessary to protect my stax pieces. They ended up hurting me just as much as anyone else at the table, other than things like Lodestone Golem or Ethersworn Canonist of course. Crawlspace and Ensnaring Bridge remain in the deck though.

I tried cards like Storage Matrix and Iron Maiden but they didn't seem to be doing enough for me. Though, I can see how multiple Iron Maiden effects can stack up and actually be threatening. Then again, I don't think I have enough ways to slow down cards being cast, at least to the consistency where hands start becoming full again.

Smokestack and Tangle Wire were cards I really wanted to make work, especially with Atraxa's proliferate mechanic.

I haven't completely given up on my artifacts only stax dreams, but lately I've been leaning toward other cards that just seem good in the deck like Agent's Toolkit.

I also started brewing an enchantments only stax list here: viewtopic.php?t=35471 never came to fruition because I felt like it would just never work.

Interesting how your list includes a lot of cards I had considered in both lists. Your list looks like mine would if I were really serious about building a stax deck that actually worked!

I would appreciate any ideas you have on my either list of mine.

EDIT: I do have more specific thoughts or questions about your list too. Still looking it over. Does Portcullis mean that only 2 creatures can be in play at any given time?
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Ruiner
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Post by Ruiner » 1 year ago

RowanKeltizar wrote:
1 year ago
That was the initial impetus to build my artifacts only stax Atraxa list. In practice though I felt like I lacked many of the cards to make it successful. Namely, recursion and consistency plus the interaction necessary to protect my stax pieces. They ended up hurting me just as much as anyone else at the table, other than things like Lodestone Golem or Ethersworn Canonist of course. Crawlspace and Ensnaring Bridge remain in the deck though.

I tried cards like Storage Matrix and Iron Maiden but they didn't seem to be doing enough for me. Though, I can see how multiple Iron Maiden effects can stack up and actually be threatening. Then again, I don't think I have enough ways to slow down cards being cast, at least to the consistency where hands start becoming full again.

Smokestack and Tangle Wire were cards I really wanted to make work, especially with Atraxa's proliferate mechanic.
One thing you have to be careful of when playing a prison type deck is that you don't imprison yourself. You have to either not care about a prison effect (such as not using ETBs and running Torpor Orb effects), or be able to break symmetry or otherwise come out ahead. Atraxa's proliferate works great with cards like Smokestack and Tanglewire but you need to have a way to pull ahead by having your own engines of sacrificial permanents (either token generation or recursion), and then you need to actually have a way to pull ahead by advancing some winning state like with Iron Maiden effects or Mechanized Production or some other combo.

I haven't completely given up on my artifacts only stax dreams, but lately I've been leaning toward other cards that just seem good in the deck like Agent's Toolkit.

I also started brewing an enchantments only stax list here: viewtopic.php?t=35471 never came to fruition because I felt like it would just never work.

Interesting how your list includes a lot of cards I had considered in both lists. Your list looks like mine would if I were really serious about building a stax deck that actually worked!

I would appreciate any ideas you have on my either list of mine.
I'll try to take a look at those soon. I totally support trying to build decks with constraints, but I have to imagine building a hardcore stax/prison style deck with self imposed restrictions like "all artifacts" makes it challenging, since you really need some specific things to make those strategies viable in general and limiting your card pool makes that a bit tougher. I am totally cool with a challenge though, it can be fun.

EDIT: I do have more specific thoughts or questions about your list too. Still looking it over. Does Portcullis mean that only 2 creatures can be in play at any given time?
Basically that is the case although if you play Portcullis and there are, lets say 7 creatures already in play, then those 7 creatures will still remain in play and any further creatures entering the battlefield will end up in exile instead. It is important to note however, that any new creature someone makes enter the battlefield at this point does actually still enter the battlefield and then get exiled. So people can still have creature based ETB's trigger if you haven't shut that off with some other locking piece.

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