I dare to say it, MTG’s Propaganda & Ghostly Prison suck. Don’t believe me? Let me prove it to you, and if by the end you still don’t believe me, then keep running it. Just keep what I said in mind if you start seeing the card’s faults.
Iconic as they are, MTG’s propaganda and ghostly prison suck because they fail to stop what they actually want to do; stop combat players.
Table of Contents
What is the Goal of Propaganda/ Ghostly Prison in MTG?
To first prove to you that Ghostly Prison and Propaganda suck in MTG, we need to discuss what their goals are.
Ghostly Prison and Propaganda’s goal is to stop your opponents from swinging at you to stop them from winning.
To break that down further, these two cards are designed to stop combat players from going to combat.
And yes, against you it definitely stops players from attacking you…. At least at first glance.
The thing is Commander is broken into three stages: (1) Developing, (2) maintaining, and (3) winning. Let’s take a look at the actual effect is when you play a propaganda in MTG.
DEVELOPING: When a combat deck is developing they are not swinging creatures at players except for value. A propaganda effect does not stop them from swinging for value, just makes them less to swing value at YOU. After all, there are 2 other players not affected by a ghostly prison.
MAINTAINING: When a combat deck is maintaining their board, they are accruing value that develops a winning board by swinging stuff like Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor. Again this does not stop them from hitting the other 2 players. Moreover, your board can still be hit if they want to pay the mana or they can just use removal spells like Generous Gift to stop your board.
WINNING: At this point, a combat deck either has an army of creatures able to swing wide or a big creature to kill players. A ghostly prison incentivizes a go-wide strategy against the other two players first, but if they have a big creature then your ghostly prison does nothing. Even in the case of a go-wide strategy, if the combat player has a form of removal for your ghostly prison, then the card still does nothing, and they most likely had 4+ turns to find an answer. Meaning, you lose and the combat player wins.
What does Ghostly Prison/ Propaganda in MTG Actually Do
Stops incremental damage. That is what these two cards do, and incremental damage does not matter in most cases.
Let me prove it to you. If you have 40+ life, you are still alive and can win. If you have 1 life, what can you still do? You can still win.
Incremental damage, even if it is 39 points of damage, might as well be no damage at all in denying you the chance to win the game. 1 life does not stop you from comboing off, swinging wide yourself, or casting a board wipe. The only thing it does is make people nervous.
Therefore, propaganda and ghostly prison suck in most cases. That said, there is one strategy where ghostly prison does not suck… let’s talk about it now.
When MTG’s Propaganda does not suck.
Propaganda does not suck in only one instance, where incremental damage is relevant. Now, some of you might be thinking I just spent the last x sentences talking about how these cards suck and incremental damage does not matter.
In most cases that is true. The reason being is that it does not stop you from winning. But there are a few game strategies, where incremental damage does stop you from winning. This is when you have a deck that cares about life totals.
In the case of life totals, aetherflux reservoir, ad nausuem, and fellidar sovereign are all cards that care about your life total being above a certain number. So, by deterring incremental damage, it helps protect your win cons. Much like destiny spinner prevents cards from being countered.
Now, just because these can work here, does not mean these should be used. After all, a counterspell, stax piece, removal, or even just a big creature can all do the same job as propaganda can in mtg. These can all stop threats that would hurt you. So, even in these cases, you should determine how relevant that card actually is for your deck.
Common Arguments rebutted
Now, that we have addressed when propaganda in mtg does not suck. Let’s go over some common rebuttals that do not work. Tymna, & Enchantress decks.
Tymna Decks
Stopping tymna from drawing a card is huge. 1 card turns into 2 cards which turns into 6 cards. So denying them an attack option is relevant. But, it is not as consequential as you think.
The reason being the other ways to stop tymna, removal, creatures, or out-pacing the tymna player can make tymna’s card draw irrelevant. Throw in the option of notion thief and other similar cards and those cards will do a better job at stopping tymna draws than ghostly prison will ever do.
Meaning there are just more impactful cards than a propaganda effect in mtg. So those should be run over a ghostly prison effect. Especially when you consider you are putting this card in to stop 1 commander when you could put a card that stops all commanders instead.
Enchantress
Enchantress does not play a lot of creatures and is thus susceptible to damage. Moreover, propaganda in mtg has synergy with enchantress and will allow me to draw cards. This may seem relevant but let’s go over when propaganda is good.
These effects cost 3 mana and will draw you one card. Meanwhile, you could play something like Settesan Champion, which can block and draw you more cards. Or some other control piece like cast out, and still stop the main threat from hurting you.
The only card like propaganda that enchantress should consider running are solitary confinement and maybe sphere of resistance. These do a much better job than the other 2 effects and are much more relevant.
What To Do To Stop Go Wide Strategies?
Truth is a late-game propaganda does nothing to stop a combat player. At this point, a player has a developed board, their win-con online, and are able to present that to players. If no one has an answer to stop it, then that player wins.
And, despite protests, MTG’s propaganda and ghostly prison is not an answer. It is a delayer. A ghostly prison does not stop that person from swinging out and killing the other two players. It does not stop them from having enough mana to swing their biggest creatures at you to kill you, and it definitely does not stop them from getting value from combat through creatures like toski.
All ghostly prison and propaganda do in mtg are let the opponent kill the other 2 first then kill you last, or use a piece of removal to hit you.
Making the goal of these cards, completely negated.
Then what should I do to stop combat players? There are two solutions to stop combat players: (1) Take propaganda out and put in a better from of removal/stax, or (2) outrace the combat player.
If you do either one of these two solutions, you will find that your deck will not only function better, but you will win more games too.
Conclusion
As you can see, ghostly prison and propaganda in MTG fail to do what they are designed to do. Because of this, this card usually becomes a useless card in a majority of scenarios. Therefore, this should only be considered when you have a strategy that incremental damage ruins. Because of this, life loss strategies are the only time when mtg’s propaganda does not suck.
I hope you all have a wonderful day and look forward to seeing your replacements!