The Surprising Success of Atraxa in cEDH
Atraxa, Grand Unifier by Marta Nael
Launching onto the scene in early 2023, Atraxa, Grand Unifier immediately started making top results in cEDH tournaments. ChristopherKClaw piloted this list to a 10th place finish in the Ka0s Treasure Series only eight days after the release of Phyrexia: All Will Be One. In the next month, ChristopherKClaw top-16'd Mox Masters February, Blackcoffee84 made the finals of Ka0s 7 with this version, and it didn't take long for it to grow from there. ChristopherKClaw took it to the next level in April, bringing a victory to the deck in April at the Ka0s Treasure Series 2. Through April and May, the deck continued its stellar results with another top-16 at Ka0s Treasure Series 3 and at Mox Masters May.
This is unusual, to say the least. Most commanders take weeks or months to brew to success, and here we see a deck seeing results within weeks of release, and rather than a flash-in-the-pan success with an off-meta brew, the deck is continuing its consistent trend as a threat in the 4c space. What makes Atraxa so good? Why do people play Atraxa instead of the cEDH staple pairing of Tymna and Thrasios? Where do we go from here?
The Problem with Tymna/Thrasios
Yes, I know this is an article about Atraxa, but we have to lay some foundation on the sans-R colour space in cEDH before we can really dive into what makes Atraxa so potent in the current cEDH landscape. Since the dawn of time (about 2016), Tymna/Thrasios has been the governing body of what makes for the best cEDH deck in the format. With the release of THB's Underworld Breach and C19's infamous Dockside Extortionist, RBx turbo Naus decks brewed themselves into the format boogeyman we know them today. Some old cEDH hats will remember the 'good ol' days' where Thrasios and Tymna ruled supreme, but in 2023 cEDH, they haven't kept up.
Tymna/Thrasios's core problem is focus ambiguity. Of the four lists available on the cEDH Decklist Database, they sit between 20 and 35 cards different between builds. More telling, however, is that the win conditions fundamentally differ between decks. One list is all-in on Hermit Druid, another on Protean Hulk+Breakfast. Further still, the last two lists are dedicated to infinite mana combos, one using Iso+Rev and Auriok+LED and the other using Devoted Druid+Swift Reconfiguration. Even among the experts of Tymna/Thrasios, there is further diversity with builds including turbo-Naus, the nearly sans-W Sacred Guide, and turbo mana variants including Kinnan+Basalt Monolith.
In a deck that doesn't tell you where to go, it's unclear where to focus your brewing and tuning. Comparing Tymna/Thrasios for a second to a deck like Tymna/Kraum, which offers a fundamental baseline in the Ad Nauseam+Breach strategy, you are not pushed in any one direction within sans-R. This leads to brewing efforts being split. Where the whole sans-G community is focused on fine-tuning the final 20 flex slots in Tymna/Kraum, the sans-R community is split between the 20 slots dedicated to any given Tymna/Thrasios strategy. Brewing effort is dispersed, and without any evidence as to the strongest variant, players continue to pilot their specific brews to middling success.
The Atraxan Core
Atraxa has no such problem. I created the Unified Atraxa Discord server on March 29th, 2023, and the 'core 80' emerged almost immediately. For purposes of providing an evaluative baseline, I created a list titled "Atraxa Good Cards" (AGC). I wanted to build a deck that essentially represented the highest hypothetical card quality available in the sans-R card pool with which to compare against various other Atraxa strategies.
Evaluating the six lists from the introduction, we find a startling conclusion. Even including the two new toys Atraxa gets from the LOTR set featured in AGC, the maximum amount of card differential between any of the tournament lists and my own is 23 cards, seven of which are lands. In fact, when we do some decklist analysis, 65 cards appear in all six tournament decklists, and a staggering 88 cards appear in at least 4 of the 6 decklists. Part of this is, of course, due to the same pilots playing the same cards, but more I feel this is a testament to the fact that Atraxa pushes you towards a specific strategy in a way that Tymna/Thrasios simply doesn't.
In cEDH, commanders often ask you to make card quality concessions in favour of commander synergy. Winota, for example, plays many cards that are downright terrible outside of the context of Winota's triggered ability, such as Ornithopter or Gingerbrute. Partners and generic value commanders tend to escape this conundrum, although Thrasios's Seedborn Muse, Tymna's Loyal Apprentice, and Malcolm's Glint-Horn Buccaneer certainly take up a few slots in their respective decklists.
Atraxa's dedicated 'commander cards' are an astonishingly small list for a non-Partner deck. I would make the argument that there are six cards in the listed 'tournament core' that exist solely because of Atraxa, which are Displacer Kitten, Cavern of Souls, Jeweled Lotus, and the Food Chain package of Eternal Scourge, Misthollow Griffin, and Food Chain. The most up-to-date versions of Atraxa are dropping Eternal Scourge, and some lists exclude Food Chain entirely in favour of other strategies. The rest of our 94 cards are dedicated to being the 'best in slot' cards for any given purpose.
Atraxa's Strategy
Atraxa offers something to sans-R that Tymna/Thrasios doesn't: explosiveness. An infamous trait of Tymna/Kraum is that it can happily keep hands filled with nothing but mana. The deck's card quality and astounding grind capability allows it to easily draw into the necessary pieces to participate in any game. Tymna/Thrasios does not have the same luxury. Cards like Jeweled Lotus and Mana Vault do not get you ahead in Tymna/Thrasios like they do in Tymna/Kraum. Atraxa gladly sucks up hands filled to the brim with fast mana and converts it to cards in a very explosive fashion, drawing between three and seven cards upon resolution. In fact, you can calculate just how many cards you expect to see using the Atraxa Flip Calculator I made. (AGC expects to draw 4.82 cards per flip)
Unlike Tymna/Thrasios, which strongly incentivizes creating a powerful board of value-based creatures, Atraxa can get away with dumping rocks and dorks into an early Culling Ritual and immediately paying that off with Atraxa. A card like Smothering Tithe doesn't justify itself in the Tymna/Thrasios world. Tymna doesn't demand mana to draw cards, and Thrasios does so at an extremely poor rate. Smothering Tithe delivers Atraxa on the following turn, again offering us the seven mana to five cards rate. Tithe also provides mana on the turn cycle following an Atraxa deployment, allowing you to hold up interaction even after tapping out.
Cards like Sylvan Library and Necropotence have a core downside of nuking your own life total, but again Atraxa allows us to play a more greedy and aggressive game than Tymna/Thrasios can. There are very few cards able to continue to apply life total pressure once the 7/7 with flying, vigilance, and lifelink hits the board.
Combat-based stax decks can really struggle into Atraxa. We present a three-turn clock into almost any board state, and unless you have an abundance of fliers, you can and will die to the Voice of the Praetors from above. If people can die to Kraum's six-turn clock in very grindy games, you can easily imagine how quickly Atraxa takes players out of the game. Vigilance also allows us to deny most combat-based value engines, Tymna included.
At its core, Atraxa leverages very simple win conditions. Oracle+Consult, a mainstay in cEDH, obviously forms the backbone of our strategy. Most lists also include Food Chain+Misthollow Griffin, a simple A+B that provides a full library draw. Misthollow is chosen over Scourge as it can be pitched to Force of Will, Force of Negation, and Chrome Mox. Food Chain can also be used manually with a few creatures to cast and recast Atraxa three or four times in a turn, often resulting in a manual storm win. The inclusion of Praetor's Grasp and Mnemonic Betrayal offer secondary win outlets, and some lists include Noxious Revival+Timetwister to loop your library after going infinite.
Speaking of manual storm lines, though, it's time to talk about Displacer Kitten.
One-Card Win Condition
For the cEDH veterans, Displacer Kitten hearkens back to Paradox Engine, a card able to create intensely complex manual storm wins with rocks, dorks, and a draw engine. Displacer Kitten, in comparison, is a neutered version of the same effect. With Atraxa, however, it nearly always represents an immediate win. The ability to look ten deep with each flicker usually delivers another spell to cast, creating another flicker effect and digging another ten. Creature tutors, a core strength available in the green colour pie, give us plenty of ways to find our extremely compact win line.
Displacer Kitten also provides us an excuse to play Teferi, Time Raveler. Teferi, like Ranger-Captain of Eos, is a three-mana Silence effect. Attached to it, however, is a removal spell, allowing us to deploy both a Silence and removal for a Rule of Law or other pesky stax piece in a single spell. Its combo with Kitten and any mana-positive rock provides us another well-layered win condition for our deck.
Atraxa Variants
I've spent a good amount of time talking about all the cards that are similar between lists, but I want to take a few to talk about the ways Atraxa can be customized. A deck with so many core cards can feel like there's little room to brew, but Atraxa offers a ton of unique options.
The Eight-Drops
Given that our core game plan is to resolve a seven-mana commander, Neoform and Eldritch Evolution both offer an easy way to find an eight-drop. Strong options include Tidespout Tyrant, a one-card win condition with two mana-positive rocks (assuming you can make the necessary colours for Atraxa). The more common include is the new Hoarding Broodlord+Saw in Half combo. Saw in Half, by itself, is also an excellent card to point at Atraxa, representing a three-mana scry 20 draw 10.
The Flicker Build
Most modern Atraxa lists include a one-of Ephemerate. One mana to draw five is obviously a much better Ancestral Recall, and the fact that on your next turn, you draw another five is absolutely absurd. Going deeper down the list, you can include Cloudshift and/or Essence Flux, providing even more draw power off your one mana instants. A neat benefit of Cloudshift specifically is that it can flicker a Gilded Drake that you've received as it returns the card to your control, not to its owner's control. Most Atraxa lists also enjoy the enchantment removal of Touch the Spirit Realm, which also represents an Atraxa flicker in addition to uncounterable creature interaction.
While not a flicker effect in technicality, both Phyrexian Metamorph and Phantasmal Image have incredible utility here. These are strong cards in and of themselves, especially as a way to leverage an opposing Dockside, but in Atraxa they also have the floor of "2 mana draw 5" and "3 mana draw 5" respectively. Both being creatures means that Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, and Worldly Tutor can find another Atraxa trigger.
Sans Food Chain
Atraxa is not a Food Chain deck, in the way that Ukkima/Cazur or The First Sliver are. Atraxa is a deck that plays Food Chain, and thus, it's absolutely cuttable. As mentioned previously, most modern lists drop Eternal Scourge in favor of increased card quality. While it is possible to optimize Atraxa for Food Chain, using Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact to find Food Chain is an incidental upside, rather than a core game plan. UFC and TFS both enjoy this luxury as dedicated Food Chain decks, but we have enough other options that this line of play is only for the gamblers among you.
Ad Nauseam
Cards that work well with Atraxa also tend to work well with Ad Nauseam. Dark Ritual and Mana Vault are Atraxa mainstays, and Culling Ritual often delivers enough mana to not only cast Ad Naus, but also to cast a Demonic Tutor to find your Naus if necessary. Unlike most Naus decks, Atraxa can easily climb upwards of 50 life after a few combat steps. Naus becomes a stronger gameplan as the game continues, rather than decreasing in potency as you reach the late game.
Wheels
Smothering Tithe is a house in Atraxa for the earlier stated reasons, but it also offers us some incentive to push towards wheels. The new Orcish Bowmasters from LOTR and an easy inclusion of Notion Thief would give us a nice wheel package if we so desire. Once again, Atraxa's core desire to play explosive cards allows us to more easily leverage the card velocity of wheels than Tymna/Thrasios.
Dream Halls
Dream Halls reads "discard a non-colourless card, draw five cards." Dream Halls can be a very risky play by enabling all the interaction in an otherwise tapped out opponent, but its ability to cast Atraxa and dig to additional triggers makes it feel similar to main-phase Ad Naus in our deck. The more flicker effects you play, the better Dream Halls will be, but even as a risky manual storm option, it can lead to some incredibly cheeky wins.
Building Atraxa
If after all this I've successfully convinced you that maybe you should try out Atraxa, then you're in luck! I've put together a collection of resources here for you to look at and try out!
Discord
Atraxa Flip Calculator
Atraxa Core
Some Moxfield Decklists:
