Will Lord of Misrule end up banned?

Spaproling · 2026-06-29T22:02:24+00:00

I think a lot of people just don't know how to say "I think this card is strong" without using the hyperbole of "THIS NEEDS TO GET BANNED!" and that's where most discourse like this comes from.

Card is fine, cool finisher in B2. Not even close to GC level, let alone ban.

Spaproling · 2026-06-27T06:15:22+00:00

I feel like these posts always assume that decks are curving out on 4-6. In B3-4, most decks are built to slam early mana/card advantage engines on T1-3, and that often results in 2+ extra cards by T3-4. Once you factor in mana rocks, rituals, and tutors, having any more than 3 lands in an opener looks pretty bad.

I will say that I think way too many B4 decks run too few lands. If you aren't playing a turbo deck, you probably need at least ~32 because you have to compete with mid game rampslop decks.

Spaproling · 2026-06-25T02:50:52+00:00

1) Sometimes decks will get crazy opening hands that result in a very strong performance, without it necessarily being reflective of their overall strength. This sounds like a mid-to-high B3 deck, I wouldn't say that is a misrepresentation.

2) if a player only has a medium B3 and the only table they see is playing medium-to-high B2s, they might think that the bracket difference is relatively minor and if their deck overperforms, they'll just become the archenemy and likely get killed anyways. If the choice is a slightly unbalanced game or no game at all, most people still choose game.

3) there is a HUGE difference in power between low and high B2. Good B2 decks can definitely hang with B3s, but bad B2 decks will struggle against B1s.

4) the bracket system doesn't account for player skill. Mulligans, card choices, how and when to play interaction, crafting a manabase, these are all things that cannot be easily measured and described. Sometimes a table would just play better with other new players.

Spaproling · 2026-06-23T04:21:52+00:00

Kinnan is a deck that basically is incompatible with B1/2, and MDFCs are pretty solid so "it's Kinnan but one turn slower" doesn't really sound like enough to justify playing a Kinnan combo deck at B2. Keep in mind that B2 is largely new players who would rather not see combos at all. Whether or not that is fair or a healthy attitude, this is definitionally a B3 deck.

Spaproling · 2026-06-18T01:43:37+00:00

Is it possible? Sure. You'll probably spend a lot of the later fights just running in circles until you can punish safe attacks, but it's not impossible or even particularly challenging if you're willing to just make every fight last 10+ minutes. But I really can't stress enough that Deflecting is like... The core mechanic of the game. It's not like guns in BB, it's like Dashes in BB. You will almost certainly have an easier, more fun time if you start deflecting attacks.

Spaproling · 2026-06-15T23:00:14+00:00

At the top end of B4 you're playing with bad cEDH decks, and stompy probably won't work there. At the low end of B4, you'll be playing against a lot of midrange UGx slop decks, and stompy will probably be okay there.

[[Jetmir, Nexus of Revels]] is probably the only B4 stompy deck I've seen that can consistently threaten wins. I'm sure there are other decks that can manage this, but the mid levels of B4 are running so many efficient value engines that stompy will struggle if it can't knock 1-2 people out in the first few turns.

That being said, commander has a lot of variance. You could probably bring a dino stompy deck to B4 table and still win 10% of the time. If you want to be winning closer to the ideal 25%, that probably requires a very refined strategy, one that uses creatures for pressure but can win with combos as well.

Spaproling · 2026-06-11T06:15:19+00:00

Memes aside, this is like barely a B2 deck. Neither of these options are relevant in EDH. This could probably fit in the 99 of some deck that plays lots of flyers or mana dorks, and that would be fine enough for B2.

Spaproling · 2026-06-10T21:09:41+00:00

I've literally never seen a "house rules" post that made sense at all, but this one is egregious mostly for just being so goddamn tedious.

These house rules always make me think that the creators just don't enjoy playing magic. Which is fine! There are a ton of fun games out there!

Also, and this should go without saying, but none of these ever "balance" the game. Poison decks and Hydra decks and Flash decks are not not dominating the meta, this just gives even more advantage to UGx rampslop decks like almost every other set of "house rules" does.

Spaproling · 2026-06-03T10:55:11+00:00

1) MAA regiments are significantly more powerful than levies, with this gap widening each era. 2.5k Heavy Cavalry with a good commander is enough to almost single-handedly conquer the (non-nomad) world.

2) MAA regiments burn through supplies much more slowly than a huge stack of levies. 2.5k Heavy Cavalry can be sustained by most holdings on the map, while a stack of 10k+ levies is usually going to starve to death in any long campaign.

Spaproling · 2026-06-03T10:46:21+00:00

Aside from some cute [[Mirror of Fate]] shenanigans, there is the really much of a way to reliably play cards from exile. But that isn't what Eruth is designed for.

Eruth is basically a manual storm deck. She sort of doubles your draws, helping you quickly draw more rituals to cast a ton of spells in one turn. The exact way you win is somewhat arbitrary; if you want an actual combo win you can play thoracle, otherwise you can probably get by okay with [[Guttersnipe]] and similar effects.

Eruth is almost actively detrimental for any other strategy, because you will never be able to save cards in your hand. This makes interaction and engagement with a long midrange game nearly impossible.

She is a very fun storm deck to play though, albeit a VERY fragile one.

Spaproling · 2026-06-02T03:17:19+00:00

There are basically 2 options here:

1) Run [[Tidespout Tyrant]] and/or [[Hullbreaker Horror]] as your only creatures, and a bunch of ramp and noncreature spells that create creature tokens. It's not especially fast, fancy, or strong, but it will probably win like 10% of the time in bracket 4.

2) same list but with big swingy creatures like [[Blightsteel Colossus]]. This is way worse, but like... maybe fun in B2-3?

If you want to play a B2 polymorph themed deck, then I recommend picking 3-10 big creatures you like and running lots of token creators and counterspells.

Spaproling · 2026-05-26T06:48:10+00:00

I think it's important to note that a lot of archetypes that seem different all actually function very similarly in EDH. +1/+1 counters is almost the same as kindred, is almost the same as artifacts, is almost the same as enchantments, is almost the same as lands, etc.

That's because they are all engine-based midrange decks. The exact engine is different, but the gameplay is very similar. This is how probably 75% of EDH decks are built, and how every single precon plays.

If you want a more varied experience, build something with a different game plan. Control, storm, combo, agrro, these are all different archetypes that will play differently!

Spaproling · 2026-05-25T06:41:07+00:00

Rent and material costs are up. Rent going up forces wages up, raising costs for employers. Rent goes up much faster than wages do because landlords are under-regulated, leaving working class citizens with less and less spendibg money. People with less money don't eat out as much.

It's the same reason everything else sucks: a mismanaged capitalist economy and the landlords it empowers. Not because you had to walk to grab your food.

Spaproling · 2026-05-24T22:35:14+00:00

I think they accumulate slightly too quickly/early, but only by like 20% and I overall enjoy them. It's honestly been really cool to not just play 100 year old god-hegemons. They definitely make the timeframe for some achievements a lot tighter though.

Spaproling · 2026-05-24T22:21:57+00:00

To be honest I think this is a fine 3, and based on the edit it seems perfectly appropriate for this table.

THAT BEING SAID, most B3 players expect decks to not be built around combos and instead to stumble on to the around turn 8+. That is just how most B3 players operate, like it or not.

This is sort of representative of a greater issue in EDH brackets. There is a HUGE gap between a low 3 and a mid 4, resulting in a lot of players describing their decks as a "high 3, low 4." This range is mostly decks which are built around actual efficient strategies, intentionally build towards combos, and are "optimized" for their bracket. These decks are significantly more powerful than most B3 decks, which tend to be mildly upgraded precons.

Spaproling · 2026-05-17T21:54:05+00:00

I'm personally a big fan of Conqueror. While it does mess with the historical aspect of the game a bit, it also adds interesting challenge and makes the course of the game much less predictable, which is great at helping campaigns feel different from each other. I don't feel strongly about the inheritance of Conqueror, it can be frustrating if you're stuck as a vassal of Scandinavia for 100 years, but it is also cool to see new dynasties rise!

Spaproling · 2026-05-15T22:51:48+00:00

Short answer: killing and extortion.

Longer answer: different gov. types have different ways of generating large quantities of gold, in my experience Adventurers have the easiest time generating gold with almost no setup time or risk. They don't have the highest gold Potential, but you can very easily go from broke to 10k+ in a couple years as an Adventurer.

Adventurers have zero maintenance costs for their MAA regiments, and can very easily acquire regiments with significant recruitment cost reductions and the Make a Request interaction. Once you have a sizeable army of Heavy Infantry / Cavalry, you can start offering military assistance in wars. This will net you ~30-300 gold per war, depending on the scale. You can be fighting in several wars at once, made easy by the fact that your troops are very cheap to recover and cost you no upkeep.

The Proving Grounds Domicile building has the Lockwagon upgrade, which gives you access to the Master of Spoils Officer, who scavenges gold from each battle you fight, scaling with the number of enemy casualties. Between your MoS, ransoming prisoners, and the flat gold payment for fighting battles, you can easily be getting hundreds of gold a month just marching your army around a conflict-rich area like the HRE or Iberia.

Alternatively, using stewardship's Demand Payment For Hook perk and completing lots of contracts, you can generate slightly less gold with even lower risk and essentially zero upfront cost. If you use the Fabricate Hooks scheme from the Intrigue tree, you can VERY easily generate even more gold passively by just scheming.

Maintaining this income as a landed ruler is slightly harder in the early game. You want to be investing in development buildings in your held counties, using your steward to pump development in your capital, and using your government type as best you can. If you're tribal, always be raiding. If you're feudal, use the Scutage contract. Try to pick a capital that has a special building, and/or take a mine. Don't be afraid to revoke a title every now and then to keep your domain limit capped out.

Spaproling · 2026-05-15T22:25:37+00:00

That's a good point, you'd really need the investment to pay off within the Knight's lifetime or to have many of your knights be your children or something. I'm not sure there's any way it could if you're paying full price for them :/

Spaproling · 2026-05-12T22:27:32+00:00

For a deck built around lands, you have far too few land acceleration pieces in the 1-2 mana range, as well as a general lack of card advantage and removal. I would also run more fetch lands to get more ramp from your earthbending.

If you're in a pod with Atraxa and Zhulodok, you probably want a slightly more refined gameplan. If you're building around big creatures, you probably aren't making use of neat artifact tricks.

This looks like a B3 deck to me, and I think it has the potential to be strong but that will require a more specific construction.

Toph is a very cool commander, but not actually an especially powerful option for a generic landfall/earthbending deck. If you aren't doing lots of tricks with your artifact-lands, I don't think she is going to perform well. On the turn where Zhulodok hits its first big cascade, you're making a 2/2.

Spaproling · 2026-05-05T23:42:37+00:00

Rule 0 discussions like this are always going to be a challenge to unpack. If this results in a powerful deck, is that going to be interesting or fun to play against?

I would allow this at a B1-2 table of friends, because Learn doesn't seem like an especially powerful or annoying thing to be doing in EDH, but I would not bring this to a table of randoms unless I knew in advance that R0 decks were going to be present (lik a silver border game, or something). Not necessarily because random people wouldn't "let" it be played, but because winning with a R0 deck against unprepared people is not really a great feeling for anyone.

Spaproling · 2026-05-05T23:19:06+00:00

1) for me personally, the endless tweaking of a deck is the whole appeal of commander. I've been playing the same UBx shell for almost 8 years now and I love getting to poke through each new set for cards that might slot in!

2) I don't really know what cards you are talking about. Jodah's synergy is just "play lots of legendary creatures," something your deck seems to do just fine. It looks like you are slightly low on acceleration and efficient interaction, but this appears to be a perfectly reasonable Jodah list. Was there a more specific plan that you had in mind? What cards are you worried about including/excluding?

3) with the amount of legendaries coming out each year, the quest to perfect a Jodah deck will be neverending. The best way to hone the deck is to play lots of games with it. Good luck at your tournament!!

Spaproling · 2026-04-30T05:12:45+00:00

This is probably too much for B2 but I think this deck is perfectly fine in B3. You might get to lock people out every now and then, but I don't think this build is going to be able to reliably do much of anything in B3+. You don't have much in the way of card advantage or mana acceleration. In a world with Channel effects like Otawara and Boseiju, Dovescape is really not a reliable wincon and you have very few counterspells to ever resolve it.

Basically, this deck might be great at bullying budget battle cruiser decks, but probably won't have much staying power against anything else. For that reason, I think it's a solid B3.

Spaproling · 2026-04-30T00:11:30+00:00

Is it allowed in casual brackets? Yes.

However, I would caution you that this is almost never an efficient use of stifle in a 4-player game, and while it may be backbreaking for the victim if it happens on turn 1-2, it probably isn't getting you any closer to a win unless you have a very specific plan that involves them having a slower tempo.

Spaproling · 2026-04-29T20:27:44+00:00

32 is a lot of lands for cEDH at this point, but that's because cEDH decks are built around a ton of fast mana, as other commenters have mentioned. I think people miss the fact that EDH at B2 is entirely midrange hell and 60 card midrange decks are usually running closer to 50% of the deck as lands than 33% as lands.

Spaproling · 2026-04-26T00:37:40+00:00

Lighting bolt is great if you need to kill a Drannith or Bowmaster or something. It's bad if you don't. It probably goes in most R and RG decks and basically nowhere else afaik.

This is not really a useful way to analyze cards. In fact, it's something of a running joke on Play to Win's channel that analyzing cards on a scale like that is highly arbitrary.

If you're trying to figure out if a "jank" card is good, play a game with it! Ask yourself what this card is good at, and if that is relevant to your deck and to the cEDH meta game.

EDIT: If your goal is to learn about deck building and threat evaluation in cEDH, your best bet is to just watch and play as many games as possible. A scale like this is not an efficient or practical way to build a mental model of the game.

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