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List of EDH Political Cards

Commander / EDH* Aikido Casual Group Hug Multiplayer Pillow Fort

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"You know what I learnt losing that duel? I learnt that I'll never win. Not that way. That's their game, their rules. I'm not going to fight them: I'm going to ---- them. That's what I know, that's what I am, and only by admitting what we are can we get what we want." - Petyr Baelish

I always love playing political decks in EDH because the skill level is a lot higher. It requires building up a board-state that channels incentive where you want it to go and heavily penalizes people for moving against the flow of your game. And piloting it requires actually interacting with people and using their motives to predict their actions rather than just comboing out with a control deck or aggressively beating down with a Voltron commander. I have decks like that, and I love them to death. But sometimes, I want to live on the edge. Sometimes, I want to give other players a good time, I want to watch at the edge of the action, subtly sculpting the ever-fluctuating battlefield like an artist, expertly navigating the tumultuous sea of incentive, and using my wits to turn my enemies against one another, and then destroy them all when they least expect it.

I'm mostly drawing cards with a political philosophy in mind that draws from a couple discrete categories. Read these and my additions will make more sense to you. There are basically six categories of cards I can include that I believe encompass over-the-table play in magic. They are as follows:

  1. Cards that make your opponents more appealing to hurt. These include Pain Magnification , Crown of Doom , Edric, Spymaster of Trest, and Gahiji, The Honored One that can make your opponents more appealing to attack to each other than yourself.

  2. Things that make you less appealing to hurt. Cards like Propaganda which give you a really strong political position. Combined with 1, these cards can construct what I like to call a flow of incentive that catches players in a zero sum-game where, if they are attacking you, they're leaving themselves vulnerable to their opponents, who you've incentivized to attack anyway.

  3. Advertised "threats" that make other players avoid the consequences of doing things you don't like. I'm using the Seal cycle and other advertised consequence cards because I've noted, especially with spot removal in EDH, having things known to your opponent is incredibly advantageous. When a person that has True Conviction on the field is thinking about attacking you, that Seal of Primordium can be real dissuasive. For the same reason, I actually prefer all the colorless artifact mass removal out there like Oblivion Stone because the person with the huge board state knows the price of swinging at me. This results in their stuff, in a sense, working for me by killing other players that cards like Wrath of God or an Evacuation don't allow. Advertising consequences can have an immensely political effect and I don't really see a whole lot of EDH lists doing that.

  4. Bargaining Chips. At first glance, cards in category 4 are going to seem a lot like those in category 2 (I even put some in both). But the cards in category 2 are things like No Mercy and Propaganda which penalize your opponent for doing hostile things to you. Cards from category 4, are a lot more likely to give you some kind of reward based on your opponents actions. These "boon" cards are most interesting in that they can be used as "bargaining chips." For example, Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs and Revielle Squad can let you make deals to your opponents like: "If you attack me with X 1/1 creatures, untapping all of my guys with Revielle Squad and giving me X 3/3 Dudes, I'll give you

  5. Targeted Group Hug Cards. Cards which you can consciously use politically rather than things like Howling Mine that affect everyone universally. It's very important to me that the group hug cards I'm using are able to be targeted because giving players power is only constructive to your ends if you can predict what they are going to do with it. That's why Chain of Vapor is in here as a Group-Hug card and Howling Mine is not. When an opponent is being attacked by a 20/20 creature controlled by your opponent you can use Chain of Vapor on something totally unrelated and know that they'll probably pick the 20/20. Also, the group hug cards I'm allowing you can use to turn other players against each other because everytime someone targets you you can "punish" him by rewarding his opponent (i.e. Sheltering Ancient and the Advocate Cycle. The advocate cycle does double-duty here as they can often act as making you less appealing to hurt (2) and giving people back answers to situations that you want them to use such as you giving them back a Wrath while an opponent is oppressing both of you with an awful board state or giving them back a threat that you find easy to deal with such as giving them back a White Sun's Zenith while you have a Propaganda on the field. You'll notice that I put a lot of enchantments like Disappear and Blessing of Leeches in here. I did that because when you enchant an opponents creature you still control the enchantment so the capacity to give or take a boon to an opponents creature is still completely under your control.

  6. Cards that make your opponents reveal information. If people don't know what you have, you obviously have a political advantage. And if you're smart, then you should know what they'll be up to in their turns. This also has the benefit of allowing players free reign to cast their 40 damage fireballs at certain players if they know they don't have a counterspell or a damage preventer in-hand. And also attack into them without fear. So, in a way, these kind of blend over into the 1st category. Telepathy is obviously an all-star in this deal. Running these decks is a lot easier if you can predict your opponents.

Another category of cards I was thinking of including was cards that restrict your opponents options towards you like priveleged position , Teferi's Moat , and Blazing Archon but since there's a lot of cards like that and they don't influence actions as much as restrict (and therefore aren't political according to this list) I won't include them here. Instead I will just leave you with a tip. Cards like Island Sanctuary and Runed Halo help you to "answer" threats while still keeping them on the battlefield. Which means that either your other opponents will get wrecked by them or that they will be forced to spend their own removal on them. This lets opponents still have their fun and it brings you closer to your inevitable victory...Mwahahaha (seriously though if everyone played more political answers battlecruiser magic wouldn't take nearly as long and be twice as fun as it already is)!

Well that just about does it! Am I missing any other degrees of "over-the-table" play? Do you have any suggestions on the 6 categories of political cards mentioned above? If so, add them in the comments below and explain which category you're arguing for. Also, keep in mind that, for this list, as long as it satisfies the above qualities, a card will be added regardless of its actual utility. Provoke is not as broadly useful in incentizing people to attack your opponents as Wound Reflection. But nonethless it still is capable. I will however not be including cards that are basically useless (i.e. I've excluded Tempt with Glory from the list even though all the other ones were included. If you want any explanation on why I added a certain card in, feel free to ask in the comments.

If you liked this list please check out my other list of EDH graveyard hate!

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List of EDH Graveyard Hate

Commander / EDH* NewHorizons

SCORE: 26 | 8 COMMENTS | 8902 VIEWS | IN 21 FOLDERS

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Commander 2016 Update — Oct. 30, 2016
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Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa - is a good option to get opponents to attack one another.

Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist - I want to not include this on here for reasons of crumminess but I'll do it just because if someone wants to make a purely political partner deck.

Benefactor's Draught - this is pure targeted group hug.

Duelist's Heritage - same as above. I really like this option.

Goblin Spymaster - an interesting choice. I'll add it to cat 4 even though the goblins are more of a downside it goes along pretty well with the general group hug strategy.

Faerie Artisans - cat 4.

Orzhov Advokist - group hug that helps you.

Evolutionary Escalation - Great card. classic example of targeted hug. these guys even look like they're about to hug.

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Revision 32 See all

(3 years ago)

Top Ranked
Date added 9 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

14 - 0 Mythic Rares

102 - 0 Rares

67 - 0 Uncommons

26 - 0 Commons
Cards 209
Avg. CMC 3.47
Tokens 1/1 G Creature Hippo, Centaur 3/3 G w/ Pro Black, Copy Clone, Dragon 5/5 R, Elemental 1/1 R w/ Haste, Elf Warrior 1/1 G, Faerie 1/1 U, Goblin 1/1 R, Horror 4/4 B, Knight 2/2 W w/ First Strike, Ogre 3/3 R, Ogre 4/4 R, Spirit 1/1 C, Spirit 1/1 W, Survivor 1/1 R, The Monarch, Treefolk X/X G, Wurm 6/6 G, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders template, Silly Cards, Idea Decks, decks to check out, Edh decks, commander, political cards, Others, Ideas, Decks for Inspiration
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