Salt Miner (Rule of Law cEDH)

Commander / EDH* DreadKhan

SCORE: 24 | 3 COMMENTS | 6014 VIEWS | IN 5 FOLDERS

Moderation in All Things, Except Good Cards in MH2 —June 10, 2021

Moderation seems interesting with a Rule of Law theme going on, but it sounds especially good with a decent number of counterspells, because even with Spirit of the Labyrinth you can keep drawing. It also would be a nice option with Second Chance, when I can't afford to use Necropotence anymore, this would still net me cards to ensure victory if the combo is set up. I feel like you'd want at least 6 counters with this, leaving some room for instant speed removal, but the package would have to shrink, and we'd be a bit weaker in certain matchups. On the plus side though, a Rule of Law and Moderation with a few counters in hand will make it shockingly difficult for other decks to win, and other pieces like Wandering Archaic  ^Flip can make it sturdier. This deck doesn't mind Rule of Law generally, and can combo around it, but most decks cannot.

I would probably put in Dauthi Voidwalker if I had a copy kicking around, but at this price I'll probably wait and see if it gets banned elsewhere, which could tank the price if I'm lucky, Esper Sentinel would also be fine, but if I don't feel eager to throw in Mystic Remora, maybe this wouldn't be good enough either. It'd work nicely with Heliod in really slow games, which this deck can force. I do think Urza's Saga is a super-good fit, but I want to find another thing for it to grab, and I don't think Mana Crypt makes much sense if I am also considering Second Chance, and I need to have a stable low life total, maybe Chrome MoxGC? I don't usually have spare cards though, since I don't draw a lot, so there is a reason I haven't bothered with it yet.

So many great things from MH2, but most of it spiked really fast, I honestly wonder if they'll have to ban some of it, they had to ban stuff from MH1, so that could impact prices.

Cursed Totem might be fun with Rule of Law, offering very, very few ways to win through my stax. On the downside, it blocks my Ballista, and it would suck to pay for it with Energy Flux until quite late (turn 7 or 8 it might not matter anymore, I'll have spare mana by then if the game went long), but it's a pretty nasty piece of stax, and if it's out, I have time to do whatever else I need to win. Thus, I feel it's certainly worthy of consideration, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet. I may try to playtest it a bit, to see if it's a relevant enough effect, but I feel like turning off mana dorks alone will be a big asset.

I've also been thinking about Glen Elendra Archmage and Solemnity as a barrier to other players. I can be immune to attacks fairly easily, and this would make it hard to resolve a non-creature spell. I doubt they'll ban Teferi's Puzzle Box, as it doesn't see much play, but if they did, I could switch to that combo for another 4 mana card. Wouldn't be an artifact I suppose, so not quite as good. I feel like having both Puzzle Lock and Glen Elendra Lock in the same deck would be silly, but tbh someone could swing it to have 2 seriously brutal options to set up. I am way too sold on Transmute, but it being so hard to interact with seems helpful in higher level play, where nobody uses Transmute.

Edit: I couldn't think of what I could possibly cut for Second Chance when it occurred to me that with Zur, this is a combo that cannot be countered, because I don't cast the land or Second Chance, I just Zur it out. Huh. I might need to rework my deck around this specific combo, because that looks mighty interesting, though it does require NecropotenceGC to be out, which is also fetchable at least. If you've got some infinite hand effects in the deck, you'll probably be able to keep the big pile of Necro'd cards, which would be super-important to win off of the infinite turns if all you've got is small hatebears or Zur, but the deck could also run a lot of removal spells/effects to use after getting infinite turns. It's slow, but it's infinite, and the only thing you can counter is Zur it looks like. Welp, I've got some work to do I think! I feel like you'd need to have a way to remove Necropotence after you've set up the combo, or have another way to draw cards without paying life, which is doable, especially since you should have Necro'd for a ton of cards. Fetching the land might necessitate adding Expedition Map, and consider taking out my 4 mana combos, which sounds crazy, yet infinite turns that cannot be countered is infinitely better than Puzzle Lock, which was my best non-instant win. Heliod, Sun-Crowned would probably still fit, since Ballista is found with Tolaria West, and that can be my typical combo win after setting up. As long as I can draw cards, I can either use Zur to put out Second Chance (assuming I can swing at someone, but he has 1 power, very helpful!) or draw and hard cast it, which is open to counters, but I may have set up things to deal with that if I've got infinite turns, IE draw into Grand Abolisher/Wandering Archaic, hold up counter magic, it's not like I'll be short of mana by then. Not sure if I still need all the same stax pieces, but Rule of Law still fits in I think, since the combo isn't casting any spells, I could even set up a harsher lock perhaps. This might be the shake up this deck didn't really need, but will enjoy all the same. I might keep this Zur as is, and post a new deck for this idea, it's different enough to justify it I think, might even change up the lands, and the deck would need land recursion of some kind, and I still like the idea of this deck. Extra infinite turns that can't be countered is also pretty salty though? I mean, I can still cast spells while that's all going on, the hard part will be finding Hall of Heliod's Generosity, but there is always Vampiric TutorGC I guess? Profane Tutor even? That one makes me sad I think, but it's not as easy finding lands in Esper, and I can't trigger white's ability very often because I run a ton of lands for cEDH, even if I don't ramp any out I tend to hit every drop relatively late. Funny how both of the combos of the deck would be Heliod based...