I think you mean the five tier system is simply better than the six tier system, and you haven't seen any good arguments to prove otherwise. xD

sonnet666 That list of cards isn't based on their own power, rather their power compared to other Tier 4 commanders. For instance:

General Tazri does not make a more powerful commander deck than Sliver Legion. Yes, he tutors, but the Legion gives a more powerful permanent boost, is a 7/7 to being with, and generally speaking Slivers are a more powerful tribe than Allies. Slivers also have plenty of infinite combos, so that's not a problem. And yet, they are in two different tiers.

Jalira, Master Polymorphist I feel is very close to Feldon, actually. They both are mono-colored, both have a tap ability, and both require a set up to use that ability well. However, while Jalira is blue, Feldon is quicker and doesn't rely on chance to use his ability. They feel like very much around the same level, yet are separated by a tier.

Geth, Lord of the Vault can be fairly compared to something like Erebos, God of the Dead. They both have outlets for lots of mana, but Geth relies on other people's decks to do well (which is not a great strategy most of the time), costs more, isn't indestructible, and doesn't have the added bonus of shutting down Oloro or things like that. He may mill, but I think we can agree that's not a great strategy in EDH either.

Karametra, God of Harvests is one of the stronger ones I named, but even here, she doesn't necessarily seem much better than Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger or others. The multi-color helps, of course, but...

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker is very similar to Feldon. You already pointed that out, I don't see why their tiers should differ.

Yes, Horde of Notions can recur Avenger of Zendikar and one or two other decent elementals. But if you're playing him for the colors, he shouldn't be anywhere near Tier 3. What you're describing sounds much more like Tiers 4 or 5 to me.

Mishra, Artificer Prodigy does make some fun combos... but you have to get those cards. And without that, he's more or less vanilla.

All of this to point out that there is a very small difference between Tier 3 and 4. In fact, looking at the cards in Tier 4, it just looks like all the cards were borderline between 3 and 5 and that people just didn't want to sort. I mean, are we really putting Ashling the Pilgrim and Blind Seer in the same tiers as Feldon and Dragonlord Dromoka (which is basically a GW version of Sen Triplets, and should probably be moved up too)?

Dragonlord Dromoka is not at all a GW version of Sen Triplets. If you're seriously comparing 'your opponents can't cast spells during your turn ' to 'At the beginning of your upkeep, choose target opponent. This turn, that player can't cast spells or activate abilities and plays with his or her hand revealed. You may play cards from that player's hand this turn', then saying that you're drastically oversimplifying things would be a gross understatement. That said, while she certainly isn't Gaddock Teeg, she's still much better than most of the mediocrity to be found in tier four. Perhaps she's worthy of a tier three placement, then, but I wouldn't exactly say that she'd be dominating the rest of the competition, in that regard.

I mean, competitively, the strength of the Triplets is shutting down any form of interaction during your turn. Dromoka does that for everyone. The cast from your hand effect isn't so great, so what really makes them a bit better than Dromoka is the color combination. Dromoka does have a big body though, which certainly helps.

I'm pretty sure it's also worth noting that they additionally makes the chosen opponent unable to activate abilities and also makes them play with their hands revealed. Sure, being able to play cards with from their hand isn't much from a competitive standpoint, but it's an upside that you can't just ignore.

Of course. But I would estimate that Dromoka makes up for that by hitting everyone and having a solid body (not being countered can also be relevant). The point is that they're very comparable and should probably be in the same Tier, even though the color combination of the Triplets might make them a bit better.

FAMOUSWATERMELON: I'm so confused by that last comment... I'm not even sure where to begin.

"General Tazri does not make a more powerful commander deck than Sliver Legion." That's just... wrong. Sliver legion is in T4 because it's the worst sliver commander. It's the win-more of slivers. The only thing it does is pump your army... when you already have an army. If you're losing it's just an 8/8. Seriously, if you can't see how an ETB tutor in a tribe that loves blink effects is better than an anthem in a tribe already filled with anthems, then I just don't know what more I can tell you.

Also Tazri is female, fyi.

Feldon and Jalira are close, but there is no way that Feldon is better. Without the double colored mana cost, Jalira will often come down a turn earlier than Feldon; the tap ability is so much more in your favor in blue than in red, since blue has much, much better spells that are worth holding mana open until the end of your opponent's turn then red does; and seriously, what part of a turn 5 eternal Blightsteel Colossus every single game failed to impress you? You can even sacrifice Blightsteel Colossus to Jalira, just to get back Blightsteel Colossus (great for Swords to Plowshares). Also, I don't see how comparing is an argument for either of them to be lower than T3.

Playing off of your opponent's libraries is only a bad strategy when it costs you cards to do so. For example, if your deck is mostly Clone effects, and you go up against a creatureless deck or a deck that only plays creatures that help itself (e.g. Purphoros, God of the Forge), then your deck if full of a bunch of dead cards and you have a problem. Here's where Geth turns that issue of it's head: he doesn't need any extra cards focused on stealing your opponent's stuff. If you run into a situation where he's not useful, you still have 99 other cards to work with, and he's usually going to be useful. Also he just wins the game if you make infinite mana, which, as we can see from Oona, Tasigur, and Memnarch, would be enough of reason by itself to put him in T2, if he were in a better color identity. There is absolutely no reason he should be moved lower than T3.

Karametra, God of Harvests vs. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: Another bad comparison. Vorinclex comes down way too late in the game to be worthwhile. Mono-green already ramps super hard and has great closers. If you have eight mana you should be able to win the game outright, not be casting your commander so you can get more mana. Karametra has way more impact on the game just by virtue of coming down sooner.

I'm saying Kiki and Feldon should both be T3, what are you saying?

"Horde of Notions can recur Avenger of Zendikar and one or two other decent elementals." I just did a gatherer search and found 24 commander-playable elementals other than Avenger of Zendikar that would be worth recurring in a Horde of Notions deck. Even if you're putting 5-color goodstuff cards in your deck, that's a lot more than just playing him for his colors.

Mishra is a actually quite consistent. There are like ten different cards that can use his ability to break symmetry, and he can be tuned to goldfish wins in the first six turns of the game. See for yourself: Mishra EDH Storm Combo.

Lastly, about Dromoka, I could maybe see her moved up to T3, but it's not fair to compare her with Sen Triplets, since the whole point of Sen Triplets is to keep the comtrol player from doing anything the turn that you combo off and win. Green/white is a lot less combo centric color identity than Esper (barring Saffi, where your commander is part of the combo). What would you even be doing in a Dromoka deck to combo off? Also Sen Triplets shuts down activated abilities too, which hits a lot of the non-blue control decks out there.

@FAMOUSWATERMELON Fair enough, I suppose. I support your idea that she should be moved to tier three.

sonnet666 Well let me enlighten you :)

Yes, Sliver Legion is the worst Sliver commander. But that doesn't make him/her/it that bad either. I know that there are plenty of sliver anthems out there, however, having a permanently accessible Coat of Arms stapled to a 7/7 is quite overwhelming, and definitely better than Tazri's boost. The tutor is definitely strong too, I'm just estimating that the Legion at least partially makes up for that by brute force.

A T5 Blightsteel Colossus is fun, how about annihilating you every turn from T4 on with Pathrazer of Ulamog? But they're very comparable, I'll get to that later.

Ditto for Geth and Erebos, as far as I can tell.

Karametra and Vorinclex is a bit of a stretch, I admit. But I think that even here my point stands.

Kiki and Feldon we agree on.

Horde of Notions is discussable, I suppose. Though I am a bit confused, as you're first saying that you don't have to play tribal, but then insinuating that playing tribal is the only way to make him worthwhile.

I think that you're misunderstanding my point here. I'm honestly not sure at this point whether Kiki or Tazri is Tier 3 or 4 or whatnot. My point is that basically every pair I discussed are pretty close to the same level... so it makes no sense that they're in different tiers. Now which Tier each pair should go in will depend on the definition of the Tiers in question. I just think that a very clear and concise meaning for each tier should be established (notably Tier 4, as that's really the source of our debate), as right now, those definitions are very sketchy, or at how they're enforced is at the very least questionable. But whatever the case, I think a bit of a rehaul needs to be done.

Why is Xenagod not on the list?? I fought a pretty strong Xenagod EDH earlier today, and I believe he should at least be considered as EDh worthy.

@Stargreen99 Xenagos is on the list. Tier three.

Psst, Stargreen99. He's listed under Tier 3. The list is alphabetical, so he's stashed right near the bottom of the Tier. Just CTRL-F "Xenagos, god of revels" and find the top result if you don't believe me.

Sorrehh. I completely missed him. I was searching for him for a while because I saw how powerful he was tonight and I just overlooked him. My bad

Haha no problem ;)

Also for the 6 tiers system we have now. I would just say I am for it, because I think this is what will allow us to sort properly what tier 3 was before, because it was clear that the old tier 3 was divided in two. I know it changed the list a lot, but we will work togheter to make it as perfect as possible!!!

"A very clear and concise meaning for each tier should be established"

Ok, here you go: Tier 3 is for casual commanders that have strong synergies that quickly swing the board state in your favor when left unchecked. Tier 4 is for all the casual commanders who don't have such synergies available to them.

Clear enough? I thought that was what we were all going by anyway...

I can see your point about commanders of the same power level needing to be in the same tier. It was just that in your other post it seemed like you were arguing for all those commanders to be moved down, rather than that they were comparable to something else.

Also, while I can see Feldon = Jalira, or Feldon = Kiki, I'm still not agreeing on Geth and Erebos. I have a lot of experience playing with both, and Erebos is definitely the weaker of the two. In Erebos practically a third of the cards your drawing off of him are dedicated to recouping all the life he's draining from you. With Geth you can just hold up lots of board control while you take your opponent's best stuff and work on getting infinite mana. He has way more potential.

And as for Horde, there's a world of difference between playing a tribal elemental deck and playing 10 to 20 elementals that are good cards in and of themselves (Maelstrom Wanderer, for example). A tribal deck is one where the members of the tribe boost each other or grant you bonuses based off of how many creatures you have of that type. Elemental tribal doesn't really exist at the moment, the closest thing we have is Omnath, Locus of Rage, and his deck doesn't really need to run too many elementals. I was just saying that there are enough commander playable elementals for Horde of Notions to bring something unique and worthwhile to what would otherwise just be 5 color goodstuff.

Well it's obviously not clear enough, because Tier 4 is a bit of a mess :) Or maybe it's just that those rules are not being respected when placing the cards. Whatever.

"practically a third of the cards your drawing off of him are dedicated to recouping all the life he's draining from you"

Um, aren't Necropotence and Sylvan Library some of the most powerful EDH cards? People don't run life gaining to counter that, life is a resource. Additionally, he provides an outlet for plenty of mana, is indestructible, kills Oloro bad... I already wrote all of this, you can just look at it. From where I see it, you could make the exact same 99, and 90% of the time, Erebos would just be a better commander to go through those.

Horde I can't place because of the problem highlighted above, so let's just drop it.

Also, I hate to bring it up again, but seen Tier 4 right now, I figure it should remain an option: what was so wrong with 5 tiers? Tier 1: Competitive. Tier 2: Semi-Competitive. Tier 3: Casually strong, rarely competitive. Tier 4: Strictly casual. Tier 5: Vanilla or otherwise unplayable. Done. Easy to manage and sort out. If we can find a way to make Tier 4 work, I'm all for that, but I figure that the 5 tier system should be kept under consideration.

Yeah, I'm still having some difficulty deciding just where to draw the lines between Tiers 3, 4, and 5. Three is casual-strong. Four is casual-weak. Five is... something. Casual-extra weak? Currently there's very little distinguishable power difference between any of the Tiers below 3. For example, Baron Sengir and Akroma, Angel of Wrath are two tiers apart, but they're about equally unplayable. I'll just keep my suggestions to the top three until a more defined system is worked out for the bottom half.

I have defined my decks based on who the playgroup is.

Tier3: a competent enough playgroup to stop a T1/T2 supercombo deck from winning over again (requires resiliency, disruption, and an element of surprise - and good piloting / politics to avoid the hate-out)

Tier4: a group trying out new decks or budget decks - or one that shun-hates out all T1 commanders and a random laundry list of other particular cards and keywords

Tier5: Total beginners making decks out of rejected piles of commons - or a group that needs to learn that someone is better because it's them and not their cards therefore commanding deference bordering on worship and awe (sufficient objective "unplayability" is needed to make a point like this - and while I have never pulled it off, I have seen others do it)

A T1 commander is "unplayable" in a T4+ group unless you are trying to compensate for something.

These are all multiplayer considerations. To me, 1v1 is totally different.

I would say that players, not commanders, win games and there is great variety between playgroups.

Ok, ok, I am considering to switch back to 5 tiers... just need to reclass the commanders in tier 6 to tier 5 I suppose?

I think that if that were to happen, Tiers 2 and 1 remain basically the same. Tier 3 would probably remain similar, Tier 5 wouldn't change that badly either. The real work would be Tier 4, as some cards could go to Tier 3, and some back down to Tier 5.

If we are going back to 5 tiers than the following should go back to tier 3:

Feldon of the Third Path. I'm biased, so other people can argue on this, but the reanimation ability can be devastating with a turn 3 Pathrazer of Ulamog (i've done it and my build isn't completely optimized).

Arjun, the Shifting Flame. The amount of draw in this deck is insane.

Kaseto, Orochi Archmage. This has built in evasion, for anything. I think it can be strong.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion is able to refill your hand with some occasional countering. He seems playable at tier 3.

Thromok the Insatiable. This card seems awesome, but I have no idea how disruptable it is.

Trostani, Selesnya's Voice. Life gain, but slow token generation. The life gain opens some serious combos (Phyrexian Processor) but I'm also biased on this one so other people can debate it.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger seems like a card that could be powerful in multiplayer EDH.

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is a pretty decent voltron commander. Do not underestimate her.

@Lanzo493 I support the five-tier system, but I don't advocate any of your moves aside from Feldon and possibly Arjun (mostly based on potential, I haven't seen an optimized list yet). Going to five tiers basically means the vanilla tier joins the rest of the unplayables in tier 5, the other tiers should be unaffected. There are maybe a couple generals in tier 5 that could go to four, but tier three is mostly locked in at this point.

What about having 5 tiers and then a separate tier for all the vanilla commanders?

Tier 1: Obvious. Best of the Best.

Tier 2: Can hold their own against Tier 1 but maybe is a turn slower.

Tier 3: Best of the Casual commanders. Can survive with favorable politics and a strong opening.

Tier 4: Decent Casual commanders. Not that strong, kind of just hanging out and wins only by being ignored and then rushing the winner.

Tier 5: Worst of the casual. Doesn't do much and doesn't do that well against anyone. Almost impossible to win.

Vanilla: Exactly that. All the vanilla commanders that you use just for their colors.

That's what we have now, and it doesn't work. It's overly complex, and the lines between the tiers are too blurred for placements to be made.

I would say Varolz should be a tier higher, although I am biased with a deck on him. Is there any specific reason that he is lower that my play group doesn't understand? Because if I play that deck Sen Triplets, Meren, and Niv Mizzet target me immediately.