Stasis

A mono-blue prison deck that locks the opponent under Stasis while you keep untapping with Forsaken City. Once the lock is established, nothing untaps — their lands, their creatures, their artifacts. The game is effectively over.

Stasis costs 1U and says “players skip their untap steps.” You pay its upkeep by tapping and untapping Forsaken City — exile a card from your hand to untap it, then tap it for mana to pay Stasis. As long as you have cards in hand, the lock holds.

Black Vise is the kill condition. With Stasis in play, the opponent draws a card every turn but can’t cast anything. Their hand grows to 8, 9, 10 cards — and Black Vise deals 1 damage for each card over 4. That’s 3-6 damage per turn from a locked board.

Gush is critical — it returns two Islands to your hand (fuel for Forsaken City) and draws two cards, all for free. Impulse digs four deep for missing combo pieces.

Counterspell, Daze, and Thwart protect the lock. Daze is free when you bounce an Island. Thwart is free when you bounce three Islands — and bouncing Islands is upside in this deck because they feed Forsaken City and Gush.

Chain of Vapor handles permanents that slip through — bounce their threat, or bounce your own Stasis if you need to untap for a turn and re-deploy. Annul counters the enchantment removal they’ll inevitably try.

Arcane Denial is a hard counter that draws the opponent a card — normally a downside, but under Stasis those extra cards just fuel Black Vise damage. Cursed Totem shuts down mana dorks that could break the lock.

Stasis is the most polarizing deck in Premodern. When the lock works, the opponent literally cannot play Magic. When it doesn’t come together, you’re a blue deck with no creatures and a terrible Plan B.