Not only does he shut down one opponent entirely on your turn (which is a great way of preventing a player with a hand full of control spells from scuppering your plans), but he can steal your opponents' cards right from the top of their deck
This isnt to say that stax lists cant win or that the archetype is somehow flawed Ill be piloting my favourite deck, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, at the Tavern of Souls 2k this weekend, but it is a recognition that as opposed to simply asking how do I win stax players must first ask themselves how do I not lose
There's also Pitiless Plunderer and Morbid Opportunist here which I thought would hint at a Sacrifice subtheme here but nope, there's 1 sac outlet in the entire deck (Shadow, Mysterious Assassin) and like two or three cards that sacrifice themselves (Priest of Fell Rites) so maybe these are either random "hope for value" inclusions or maybe the remnants of a previous version of the deck that focused more on Sacrifice, who knows
Houndstone 066/132 Loading
Swarm Culler (Common) A solid engine for this deck
However, other ink combos are still very viable, and this doesnt hit at the core of gameplay of Steel which is winning through strength by putting up a huge wall of characters and outputting high damage
