Probably due to the fact he's likely to win once he's out.

Updated! Thanks a lot randomone, I really appreciate it!

Ok, so I think sonnet666 brought two cards to the discussion: Teysa, Orzhov Scion and Melek, Izzet Paragon.

For Melek, Izzet Paragon, I think it should stay in tier two. All the decks I have played against were erally strong. From what I have seen, a good idea is to have a couple burn spells to get rid of early creatures while you set up to cast your commander (either through artifacts or lands), and then the broken stuff goes on. My favorite combo in the deck is by far Epic Experiment for a lot of mana (in the decks I have seen, generally 10-12 by turn 5-6) copied from library with Reverberate, Twincast and the likes. Many times I have seen this combo and lost to it with my Daretti, Scrap Savant deck. Also, cards like Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack are insane in a Melek, Izzet Paragon deck to be able to place the good spell on top. I think he should stay tier 2.

For Teysa, Orzhov Scion, I will need your help guyz. I have actually never seen her in action. I searched on the internet and found some cool looking combo and reanimator decks with her, but I don't want to pronounce myself on a commander that I have never seen in action. NarejED Didgeridooda your thoughts on this?

Just from what I know about Teysa off the top of my head, she's Tier 3+, no less.

I'm very biased towards decks like Teysa though, so I'd personally have her at 2+.

Teysa is generally used an infinite combo deck- with one of the stations and the card that makes every creature black, it's name escapes me right now.

It is usually pretty consistent, and since she is an integral part, I think she should be tier 2.

thegigibeast,
I agree that Melek, Izzet Paragon can be really strong, but what you just typed sounds much more like Tier 3 ("These decks rarely manage to win before turn 6") than Tier 2 ("They can usually close out matches or set up unbeatable board states by turn 5").

That's totally true ;)

moving Melek, Izzet Paragon to tier 3 and Teysa, Orzhov Scion to tier 2.

Here's the combo: Teysa, Orzhov Scion + Blasting Station + Darkest Hour is an infinite damage combo that can be assembled by turn 3- any deck with a consistent turn 4 or 5 win should be tier 2. She doesn't have blue, so she's not quite tier 1.

I'm breaking rule 1, but: Money Can Buy Me Souls

You can play a lot of different ways with her, since she combines infinite combo, token aggro, and good board control. Part of the reason I like her so much.

The main combo Kryzis was thinking of is Darkest Hour and a sac outlet, but you can also use Painter's Servant in duel, and there are a heap of other combos that hide in cards that are just good functionality on their own: Teysa + Nether Traitor + Phyrexian Altar, Teysa + Nim Deathmantle + Ashnod's Altar.

She also Contamination locks really well.

Seriously though, will someone explain to me how Numot, the Devastator, Teneb, the Harvester, and Progenitus made it to tier 2?

Meloku, the Clouded Mirror, Phelddagriff, and Mirko Vosk should be moved from tier 5 to 4.

I can see Phelddagrif, but why the other two?

Blue doesn't have enough token support for Meloku to be cost effective, and mill is awful in commander.

sonnet666 Numot and Teneb each are in relevant color combinations, and each have a powerful, repeatable ability that their respective decks can utilize. They may not be the most powerful generals one each of their colors, but that also helps the pilot of the deck to not become a target.

Progenitus is one of the few 5 color commanders, and can be in some very powerful voltron builds utilizing Fist of Suns.

Is anybody with me on moving Pharika, God of Affliction from Tier 5 to Tier 4? I'm not saying she's remotely competitive, but anytime I've ever played against her she's seemed decent. And she certainly brings something to the table: A little graveyard hate and a bunch of frazzin' deathtouch sneks.

Karn, Silver Golem Tier 3? That deck can turn one win. I've also done a turn 2 Mycosynth Lattice Turn 3 Karn, Silver Golem and Turn 4 "Oh look, none of you have lands, weird." Yes, there's some mass artifact removal that can wreck the deck, but the deck has plenty of ways to tutor up Darksteel Forge, then manage to get one of the two Platinum creatures on board and force your opponents to come up with an answer while you beat them with your 9/9 indestructible beatstick. This general has the potential to blow up quick, completely lock down the board, and swing with a massive amount of beatsticks.

Kryzis

But if five color commanders get a pass just for being 5 color, how come Karona, False God is in tier 4? Lots of people run her just for the color access for 5-color goodstuff...

Also I've played Teneb before and I can say that he's really, really slow just when you compare him to all the great reanimation effects black, green, and white have access to already. I'd bump him down to tier 3.

Still not sold on Numot either.

Burgdawg

Do tell how Karn can turn 1 win.

Anyway, I think the biggest strike against him is the colorlessness. It's hard to consistently do oppressive things if your only tutors are Kuldotha Forgemaster and Ring of Three Wishes.

Turn 1 win

Also the colorlessness allows him certain cards to go from being just good, to being game winners, most specifically All Is Dust and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

I don't have time now to analyse Progenitus and his two dragon friends, gonna do it later today/tomorrow. We will find the perfect home for them!

Yeah, Melek should be tier 3 in my opinion. Yes, a competitive Melek deck can win before turn 5 with a lot of luck... but that requires a lot of luck. Melek usually only starts firing off after turn 6, and I can't see him creating an unbeatable board state.

Also, why are Sharuum the Hegemon, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Damia, Sage of Stone tier 1? Is there some ultra consistent combo with each of them that I'm missing? Otherwise, they are all easily answerable, so they don't meet the criteria for being 'incredibly resilient to hate'.

Rakdos, Lord of Riots should be at least tier 2.

Xira Arien seems unplayable as a commander to me.

Saffi Eriksdotter combos with a lot of cards, and those combos are exceptionally hard to disrupt so she should be at least tier 2, if not tier 1.

Why is Teferi, Temporal Archmage tier 2? I haven't seen many builds for him, but can someone explain how he sets up unbeatable board states? He doesn't seem that powerful as a commander to me.

Athreos, God of Passage deserves at least tier 3. A well-built Athreos deck can reset the board numerous times and still have a strong field presence.

Burgdawg Well I can certainly imagine what you tutor for with Planar Portal at the end there. God, why did they ever unban Metalworker?

Problem is though, that's a God hand. You can't evaluate a commander deck on what it can do if it gets lucky. The key to being a tier 1 or 2 deck is consistency. In a deck that has access to black, white or green you can jam pack your deck with tutors so you'll always get the cards you need (we are talking competitive after all), but with colorless decks you mostly lose that option. For instance, I once built a Heartless Hidetsugu deck that had the ability to kill all my opponents on turn 2, but I never once got that to happen because it just wasn't consistent enough with red's abysmal tutoring.

Speaking of colorless though, maybe we should take another look at what tier Kozilek should be in? I came across a deck on here once that could consistently ramp into him by turn 3 or 4. Then it would just beat face with him and cast more ramp off of the four cards he drew you to play him again when he was inevitably destroyed or exiled.

@Jazzyboy:

Momir Vig's tutor power makes him incredibly consistent and he's in two of the best colors in the game; Sharuum sets up some very powerful combos with her ETB; and Oloro and Damia are just very resilient and give you oodles of card advantage to set up combos with. They're all T1 worthy.

Rakdos, Lord of Riots is good, but his mana requirement are very color restrictive, you have to build around his cast restriction, and he's incredibly vulnerable to fieldwipes. I like him, but he's definitely T3.

Xira Arien is guaranteed card advantage in colors that prefer not to focus on it. She's quite good for an older legend.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage ramps better than most green cards, and has an "I win" infinite combo with The Chain Veil, while also being in the color of artifact tutors. He's T2 worthy. (Also, he's blue. Honestly any blue commander can be built up to be competitive. That's just what blue does. The fact that we're rating them just means we have to take into account what they add to the deck, and Teferi adds a lot.)

I kinda agree with you on Saffi Eriksdotter. I could see her being T2.

Athreos, God of Passage: No, just no. If this guy's working for you it means the people in your playgroup suck at the game. You never want to give your opponents choices in commander. Ever.

I'm voting to move Mikaeus, the Unhallowed up to tier 2. He only needs 2 other combo pieces to win; a card that comes back indefinitely from undying and a sacrifice outlet. With there being over 10 options for cards that come back and even more options for cards that can sacrifice it's easy to assemble a combo. There's also the fact his infinite combos work at instant speed so the only way to stop it is counter the commander or kill the combo pieces, except for the fact there are too many combo pieces to kill individually.

I also think Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge should go down to tier 3. Without haste all of your opponents have an entire turn to kill her. There's also the fact that she requires luck to exile a good instant or sorcery to cast with her attack ability.

I think Teferi, Temporal Archmage should be tier 2. He's very great at lockdown strategies because his -1 lets you untap 4 permanents. You can keep Stasis and Winter Orb up as long as you want.

Yeah!

You guys are pretty righ about Melek, Izzet Paragon. He is very slow (as I mentioned before), but I also understand (and agree with) the point of view of thegigibeast.

With Melek, Izzet Paragon out you have crazy card advantage. Good and consistent Melek, Izzet Paragon EDH deck wins, usually, next turn he enters the battlefield, or even on the same turn.

So, I understand the point of view of both of you. For me both of you are right, he could be both Tier 2 or Tier 3. Now, I am more inclined to Tier 3, to be honest.

Please I just want to ask your attention for the next point: "even if the deck can win on turn 1, 2 or 3 it doent guarantee consistency of winning with your commander on" and also the true "role of commander if he is on the field". I mean, one player from my playgroup using Sliver Queen as a commander, his deck is bonkers and he is winning more than everyone by playing Omniscience. Mostly of times he never lay his commander to the table. Does this makes Sliver Queen great in that deck (or great in general)? I guess not so much.

As well as I think we need also consider how dificult to disturb the deck comboing off or even keeping him alive. For exemple Animar, Soul of Elements is crazy and when he is off, good luck to get rid of him when he got so much protection and when he is blue (counters) as well.

In order:

to answer sonnet666's questions about Numot, Teneb, and Progenitus:

Numot and Progenitus are relics of the previous tier list. Adnittedly Numot can be quite powerful in French, but no, I agree he's not quite tier 2. Probably the same for Progenitus. However, Teneb is extremely worthy of his place.

Teneb is, for all intents and purposes, a marginally weaker version of Karador. Their one and only defining difference is Teneb's reliance on combat damage. Karador is one of the defining decks of Tier 1, able to consistently combo off by turn 4 with Boonweaver Giant combo while also being quite oppressive in the mid-game and resilient to hate outside of graveyard disruption. Teneb can be used to helm a literally identical deck and not have it suffer any extremely noticeable power difference. In one aspect, he's actually stronger, since he can reanimate Boonweaver for 3 vs Karador's 7, and his ability puts it directly onto the field instead of casting. I know Teneb isn't played much as a commander, so the confusion is understandable. My advice is to take a top-notch Karador deck (cobblepott's famous deck Karador Multiplayer Boonweaver Combo/Control or my Karadora the Graveyard Explorer come to mind), copy it, replace Karador with Teneb, and do a bit of playtesting with the deck. It should beimmediately apparent once you get the hang of the deck just why Teneb is Tier 2.

I agree with all of your tier changes. Good eye. I personally feel Teysa, Orzhov Scion is more of a tier 3 commander. She usually requires quite a sizable creature generator / recursion engine for her ability to be potent, and sadly, her color identity doesn't lend much footing. I personally haven't had a huge amount of experience with her, never having built her myself and only seeing two decks for her in action, but from little I saw, Tier 3 seems proper. The stronger iteration that I saw was capable of doing fairly well in a casual 5 player free for all filled with other decks currently on our Tier 3 and 2 list (I believe there was a Kalemne, Nahiri, budget Joira, along with my own as of then straight-out-of-the-box Mizzix), but was no-where near the dominant deck at the table, which is more or less the definition of Tier 3. Her only strong combo requires 3 cards to assemble.

Melek is Tier 2 thanks to his ability to "storm" through his deck and the win the turn after he resolves with fair consistency. Turn 3 melek into turn 4 Mystical Tutor into Time Warp or something similar is not only possible play, but an extremely common one that almost always leads to a winning combo chain. Typically both iterations of the deck (Narset-style bonus turns and the 1v1-oriented cantrip pile that wins via Grapeshot) are both quite viable.

Sadly, I don't personally know the name or location of the optimized deck lists for him that I've met on Cockatrice, else I'd link for an example. When I find one, I'll post it here.

@Burgdawg: Nearly any deck in the format can be streamlined into a glass cannon combo that has a .001% potential to win on turn 1. It does not automatically imply that a commander a Commander is Tier 1. By that logic, Ambassador Laquatus is insanely competitive because it can win in much the same way with infinite mana on turn 1, which is obviously ludicrous.

Karn has a cool ability that can be devastating when assembled with something that turns lands into creatures, but he folds too easily to artifact hate, has very little removal or other interactions, and is (usually) significantly slower than a lot of the defining combo builds.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage is tier 2 because his control game almost as oppressive as Azami's. They play a very similar shell, albeit Teferi has less early-game draw power and less of a Wizard Tribal sub-theme. Their only major difference is how they win. While Azami can combo out with Mind Over Matter into Lab Man, Teferi plays stax. Stasis, Static Orb, Embargo, Winter Orb, Meekstone, and other similar tools make up the backbone of the deck, allowing him to oppress opponents and win via either beaters or another infinite combo like Chain Veil as Lanzo said. He's particularly devastating in smaller match ups where he can use Frost Titan to brutally oppress one opponent for multiple turns.

Sharuum is Tier 1 because her well-known Sculpting Steel + Disciple of the Vault is both consistent due to having multiple redundant combo pieces, and fast, able to come online fairly consistently by turn 5 with a proper setup. There are a dozen other infinite interactions in the premiere decks that help her win at a moment's notice. Like all Esper commanders, she also has the ability to play a very mean early-game control suite.

Oloro is tier 1 because he's the best commander for Esper Ad Nauseam: one of the most powerful decks in EDH. His lifegain ability both helps him stay secure until combo can come online, and provides a sizable life padding in cas the full combo isn't already assembled in hand and he has to dig for Angel's Grace. He can also play an extremely mean pillow fort with board wipes, either as a stand-alone strategy or as a tool to keep everyone else locked down until he can combo off.

Momir Vig is Tier 1 due to his incredibly powerful elfball combo / shenanigans. A good setup allows him to a drop a large chunk of his library onto the battlefield as early as turn 3 with Prophet of Kruphix. I believe the premiere Momir list (Paramount's deck from TopCommander) wins via a Sage of Hours infinite loop, much like Ezuri. Paramount managed to win on turn 3 with it twice in a row when he played it in a 4-player Cockatrice match, even after he became the primary target in game two.

If you're not sure why Damia is Tier 1, I highly recommend taking a look at Epochalyptik's deck: Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition, the unequivocal premier Damia deck.. Damia is capable playing incredibly powerful control early-game and quickly comboing out via Deadeye or another infinite combo fairly early. There are also some slightly stronger variations of the deck that run a heavier reanimator package and win via Buried Alive Mike and Trike into Victimize or Living Death. Whatever variation, Damia control is incredibly powerful and resilient.

I disagree with Rakdos, Lord of Riots being Tier 2. The mana cost and damage restriction prevents him from consistently hitting the board before turn 3, with turn 4 being the unfortunate norm. After that, his ability to drop Eldrazi and othe rmassive creatures for free is incredibly strong, but only if he's allowed to survive. RB has very few ways to protect their creatures. Often he ends up being Path fodder, or never even being allowed to resolve due to the damage restriction in higher levels of play. I don't feel he has the consistency to be placed above Tier 3.

@ lanzo: Jeleva is currently Tier 2 because she's the premiere commander for Grixis storm (look up Moxnix's Grixis Jeleva Storm deck sometime), as well as Grixis Doomsday. She's one of the commanders like Scion of the Ur-Dragon that isn't herself incredibly powerful, but is used to head a high-tier deck that only relies on her as a backup win condition. Jeleva herself is only cast and swung with if the deck somehow runs out of steam. Her ability can often restart the Storm combo if it sputters out, or hit a tutor / other important piece to dig out Doomsday and win the following turn.

I could see Mikaeus being moved up. My only qualm is his color identity. Mono black is notoriously slow and has very poor interactions with artifacts and enchantments. Admittedly, Mikaeus plays almost strict combo, so he doesn't need to worry about it most of the time. Having to to Nevermore when it resolves is always crippling though. It makes him very borderline between Tier 2 and 3 in my eyes.

Lanzo493,
I play Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge so please take my comments with a pound of salt. I agree she's normally Tier 3, but check out Moxnix's build, Jeleva's Pile of Broken over at MTGSalation. Based on that, I think she's Tier 2. Or maybe "Tier 2 with an asterisk"

sonnet666 and NarejED- Yes it's true that that's a God-hand and yes it's true that you can technically hone any deck you want into a glass-cannon build, but Karn, Silver Golem has lots and lots of different ways to set up unbeatable board states, prisons, stop people from playing anything whether via mana denial or just stopping permanents with Ward of Bones and creatures with Portcullis. Also, people rant and rave about the control with Cyclonic Rift, well this deck one ups it with All Is Dust, Nevinyrral's Disk + Darksteel Forge or Soul of New Phyrexia, and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. This deck can do very nasty things very fast, tutor up whatever it needs, and attack the board lots of different ways depending on the current board state. I'm not arguing that it's necessarily a Tier 1, just that maybe it belongs in Tier 2, but def not in Tier 3.