Iroh, Tea Master
TLA · rare · Released 2025-11-21
Power
Tier shown as baseline → best-case (in its ideal shell).
Derived from the 7 atoms below.
on rate
minor value alone
needs a shell
can take over a game
multiple modes
situational
easily answered
Commander Bracket
Archetypes
Roles
Risks
Mechanics
Typal
—
Structural
Rationale
Iroh is a group-hug–adjacent political engine: ETB creates a Food token, then each combat you may gift a permanent to an opponent to generate an Ally token that scales in size with the number of permanents you've given away (or otherwise donated). This "political gifting" strategy synergizes with sacrifice outlets (donate a permanent then sacrifice the Ally), aristocrats, and group-hug shells, but actively conflicts with voltron (you'd be giving away your own equipment/auras) and stax-prison (you're empowering opponents). In 1v1 Brawl the donation trigger loses most of its scaling value without multiple opponents to gift to.
Learnings (3)
The Ally token's +1/+1 counter count scales with ALL permanents you own that opponents control — repeated gifting (over multiple turns) or mass-donate strategies (Zedruu the Greathearted style) can create very large tokens.
tagging · claude-sonnet-4-6
Iroh's combat trigger is optional, so you can skip the donation on turns when you have nothing useful to give, making the political element fully under your control.
tagging · claude-sonnet-4-6
Sacrificing the donated permanent in response before your opponent gains control does NOT trigger the token/counter clause — the 'when you do' rider requires the opponent to actually gain control.
tagging · claude-sonnet-4-6
Popularity
- EDHREC rank: #11,195