Rule of Law
Enchantment
Each player can't cast more than one spell each turn.
- CMC
- 3
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Tenth Edition
- Price
- $1.20
- EDHREC rank
- #3376
Rule of Law shuts down storm, combo chains, and spell-heavy engines by capping each player at one spell per turn — the board impact is immediate and asymmetric in favor of whoever needs fewer spells to win. At three mana in white it's cheap enough to land before the threats it stops, and pairing it with Knowledge Pool creates a hard lock that many tables can't escape.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade already punishes players for casting spells without paying their mana costs, and Rule of Law removes the option to chain spells around her entirely — together they form one of the most suffocating soft-lock packages in the format.
Zur the Enchanter
Zur the Enchanter tutors Rule of Law directly onto the battlefield the turn he attacks, making it a reliable stax piece in a commander that already wants to slow the game to a crawl while he assembles a winning line.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV taxes everything opponents cast, and Rule of Law ensures they can only pay that tax once per turn — the two effects compound into a resource stranglehold that grinds most spell-dependent strategies to a halt.
Heliod, Sun-Crowned
Heliod, Sun-Crowned wins through incremental lifegain triggers and a specific two-card combo, neither of which requires multiple spells in a turn, so Rule of Law costs Heliod almost nothing while disrupting faster decks that need to chain actions.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Rule of Law is a staple stax piece — it's legal and heavily played, showing up most in white-based control and prison strategies that win on a single threat rather than a spell chain. In Legacy and Vintage, it sees fringe sideboard play against storm and combo but rarely maindeck space, since those formats have faster and more targeted hate options. Modern and Pioneer treat it similarly: legal in both, occasionally sideboarded against Underworld Breach or Grapeshot strategies, but not a format staple. Oathbreaker is where it punches hard again for the same reason as Commander — one spell per turn is a real constraint when your signature spell is your primary engine.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Knowledge PoolRule of Law
Exile all spells players cast from their hand; Players can only cast one spell per turn; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗
Possibility StormRule of Law
Players can't cast spells from their hand; Lock
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
$1.20 cheap tier
At $1.20, Rule of Law sits comfortably in the cheap tier with no reason to expect movement — it's been widely reprinted and supply is deep. It's a buy-without-thinking inclusion for any white stax build.
Explore
Sources
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.