Varolz is an amazing tiny leader but I've never seen him do anything special in EDH. I think his current tier is correct.

So i've been considering building a somewhat competitive Olivia Voldaren deck recently, and I see she's in the tier 4 list. I'm going to have to assume that's because she's only Black and Red and doesn't involve herself in any combo's that win the game.

Anyway, does anyone have any experience with her in EDH? Is it just a lost cause? Wasn't thinking of building vampire tribal, but i've never built Jund or Black/Red in EDH and it seems kinda interesting.

Why is Lazav in tier four? I realized you changed some stuff around, but the Dimir Mastermind is still pretty damn awesome. Especially in Multiplayer, and you explicitly have said that this latest version is for multiplayer games. Open to well constructed counterpoints, just wondering why he was one of the demoted

I play Olivia everyone in a while. She's fun, but losing to enchantments you can't do much about kinda sucks. Can't tell you how many times I've stared at a Mana Reflections or Mirari's Wake and just sighed.

She's also mana hungry. But luckily, your commander has huge target on her face so your other permanents usually live.

Lorderos23 Yea, figured as much. Might try my hand at mono-red with Purph instead, though I imagine that's gonna get the same reaction as if I had just walked up and slapped everyone in the face before sitting down.

@jackanukealty Lazav suffers from two primary weaknesses: His color identity, and his reliance upon the contents of other people's decks. It isn't too great to the Lazav player who's busily milling the creatureless control deck, or the clones deck, or the tribal deck, or the control deck with random utility creatures. Having Lazav become a Goblin Lackey, or a Clever Impersonator, or an Arbor Elf, or simply nothing at all isn't exactly what I would call a winning strategy. It's for much the same reason that cards like Bribery and Gilded Drake don't actually show up at competitive tables all that often. What's more, mill strategies can actively help certain commanders, such as Sedris, the Traitor King or Karador, Ghost Chieftain.

That would already be bad enough, but U/B, as a color identity, can't destroy artifacts and enchantments without relying on complete jank like Spine of Ish Sah or Scour from Existence, which is a very serious weakness in any sort of competitive meta. How exactly does Lazav recover from a Wheel of Sun and Moon, for example?

Now, there are obviously ways to mitigate these problems, but an optimized Lazav deck would have to devote too much of its resources to doing just that, leaving us with a deck whose strategy takes away more from its overall competitiveness than it actually gives. Phenax, God of Deception is simply the better mill commander, as the game plan he poses is simultaneously far more proactive and far more synergistic, especially when you consider how well he combos with certain cards, such as Eater of the Dead and Umbral Mantle.

That's about all there is to say about that.

Ruhan of the Fomori is much better of a commander than people give him credit for, generally people aren't scared of him because of his "Downside" which opens opportunities for you to make them scared of him. By the time they realize they should have been scared, its generally too late. Also Rafiq of the Many, aka good Ruhan of the Fomori, is at least tier two, seeing as the number of turn 4 wins he can crank out is genuinely frightening.

Lorderos23 that's why you use things like Oblivion Stone, Unstable Obelisk, or Scour from Existence.

Oblivion stone maybe, the rest are awful. Most of the time you are just better off politicizing the problem away.

@CanterlotGuardian Oblivion Stone and Karn Liberated are about the most efficient answers you'd have access to. That really isn't enough, in my book.

@Jace_the_Mind_Rapist A voltron commander that doesn't protect himself (like Uril) or do something broken when it attacks (like Bruna or Zur) doesn't belong above tier 3. He's powerful in casual settings but suffers in larger pods and/or against more competitive decks, so he is where he belongs.

Ruhan of the Fomori being ignored is part of the politics of the game, and a commander dependent on that is not a tier 1, or 2 commander.

Also how many players in the games where Rafiq of the Many closes out in 4 turns consistently? I have not seen a deck that does very well in multi player running him. They do ok, but generally fall short.

@thegigibeast: Yep. There might be a bit of movement between Tier 4 and 5, but dumping everything currently in Tier 6 back into 5 would cover most of it. I could do that later this weekend with the alternative method I proposed if you'd like.

Also, for changes:

Tier 2 Demotions:

What are the thoughts of moving Krenko, Mob Boss, Marchesa, the Black Rose, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, and Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir down to Tier 3? I'll post my reasoning below, but I'd like to hear opinions from everyone.

Krenko, Mob Boss.

Pros: He's capable of generating absurd board state over the course of a few turns, and can usually goldfish wins three turns after he's cast. Optimized builds run a heavy goblin tribal theme, which has a ton of available support. He's usually the archenemy at casual tables, and he can safely play certain degenerate cards like Blood Moon.

Cons: He is, at heart, an aggro Commander, albeit one with tons of synergies. He runs out of steam easily. A few well-placed counterspells or a single board wipe set him miles back, and he very limited tools for avoiding such effects. That leads to his next deficiency: Color identity. Mono-red is notoriously bad in EDH, having poor access to card advantage, tutors, and certain forms of removal. By itself, his color identity is not enough to demote him, but it's certainly a hefty factor.

Marchesa, the Black Rose. This is one of those Commanders that I haven't had a ton of experience with, since Jeleva and Nekusar are usually the go-to Grixis commanders that I end seeing the most.

Pros: Her ability certainly seems powerful, allowing her to safely play around most board wipes and combat shenanigans in a relatively creature-heavy build, while also utilizing non-infinite combos and loops like Fleshbag Marauder recursion. She also obviously has a strong color identity.

Cons: Being too reliant on the combat step is always a minor downside. I would also imagine she has a small amount of difficulty closing out games. She has access to Kiki-Jiki and Mike'n'Trike combos, but she doesn't really lend herself to their assemblage unlike typical reanimator commanders like Sedris.

Nekusar, the Mindrazer.

Pros: He's in a solid color identity, and he's capable of killing off the entire table at once with a good chain of spells. If Waste Not is on the field, it's often a same-turn win.

Cons: He's slow. Much slower than I had originally believed, especially post-Paris mulligan rule change. He seems to average 6.5 turn wins. It takes him on average three turns after resolution to kill. In the interim, he's giving his opponents the tools they need to deal with him by "forcefeeding" them card advantage. Giving opponents answers is never a good thing, and while turn one Timetwisters can be extremely devastating, even game-winning, turn four Timetwisters are purely beneficial to most opponents.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.

Pros: Solid colors. He's an excellent hatebear against many decks, and an equally useful flash enabler for his own build. He combos with Knowledge Pool and a few other similar cards to create locks in which opponents cannot cast spells

Cons: His ability and color identity lend themselves to combo-control, yet he has lacks one powerful tool that all other mono-blue Tier 1 and 2 commanders possess: Card advantage. Azami, Arcanis, Teferi Walker, and Memnarch are all able to generate value simply by being on the field, the former drawing cards while the latter steals key permanents from opponents. Teferi is incapable of doing either, instead simply shutting off opponents' counterspells and shenanigans until he's removed.

Tier 2 Promotions:

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden.

His color identity isn't amazing, but he's able to combo out with Doomsday fairly consistently by turn 5. Turn 3 wins are possible, and turn 2 wins can happen with god hands. His ability is also surprisingly relevant outside of the combo. He can pull scried creatures off the bottom of the library, or simply dig randomly in tough situations. He lends himself quite nicely to a reanimator subtheme.

I mostly agree with your suggestions concerning tier promotions/demotions, Narej, with the exception of Marchesa, the Black Rose. If her only weakness that you could think of was that she relies on the combat step, then I'd say that she's still perfectly fine being tier two.

Oh, and, on the subject of tier promotions, I'd also like the discuss the competitive potential of Daxos the Returned. Now, I'm of the opinion that we've yet to see an optimized build of him, perhaps due, in part, to the fact that he represents an archetype that was entirely unheard-of up until he was released--Orzhov Enchantress (sans most of the enchantresses).

Of course, I'm not sure quite where you'd go with this, but it seems like a deck that can proactively benefit from cards such as Chains of Mephistopheles, The Abyss, Nether Void, Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, and Rule of Law could be quite powerful. I'd almost say that it's somewhat akin to Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, in terms of the stax potential. I'm going to be messing around with this, myself--let me know what you guys think.

I also mentioned that (I imagine) she has trouble actually finishing games. I feel like she'd be quite good in a stax/control build though. I'll have to search more for an optimized Marchesa build and/or tinker around with her myself.

As for Daxos 2.0, I really don't see any any possible way he could be built to be higher than Tier 3. But yeah, I agree that he's yet to be optimized.

Ah, yes. Well, I'm not too familiar with that aspect of how she plays, but I wouldn't exactly call running a simple Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead combo (or whatever) too non-competitive for a tier two general.

I'll try working on a Daxos list, myself--I'll present it some time in the next week, hopefully once I'm finished.

I was helping someone play test a Blaxos (Daxos 2.0) List earlier today using the above mentioned enchantments. Kaalia and Uril had little issue with him, Animar and Vela the Nightclad ran over him. Uril was a bit awkward but nothing horrible. His list was having issues "Having things to do". He played probably a bit too much spot removal. Also these were 3 player games so not a 'full pod"

To his credit he doesnnt like to proxy cards he doesn't have so Grim tutor wasn't in his list, and I blew up Null Profusion every time it hit the field fairly quickly.

I feel like a fully optimized list could be top tier 3 ish, 2 would be a stretch. The fact that he only has Mesa Enchantress is an issue and tutoring for that feels bad. The Enlightened Tutor was never stellar as we had hoped. Rule. + Pool happened a couple of times but he just got punched to death before it mattered.

Hmmm. Grim Tutor isn't exactly a high-priority tutor, as far as I'm concerned. Sure, pure, unconditional tutoring is actually more rare of an effect than people give it credit for, but if deck space was tight, I'd be pretty happy with just Vampiric, Demonic, and Imperial.

Also, Null Profusion? Seriously? Someone please explain the power of a card like that to me outside of infinite mana combos.

I don't know. This needs more testing.

My two cents:

Marchesa, the Black Rose is tier two, possibly tier one commander. She can abuse ETB like no other commander. In my meta, someone runs a newish deck (in terms of budget investment) with her as the commander and it is crazy how fast he can lock out the game. I've seen him lock out the game by turn 5, 6ish. And sure she grants counters through combat but she is nowhere near reliant on the combat phase. The only time I see this guy attack with her is in the early stages of the game when everyone's life is still 40. Between graft people and other creatures that grant counters he has no problem giving his creatures counters. In my opinion she really only needs three pieces before she has a near unbreakable board state. Marchesa, the Black Rose, something that grants counters (graft guy, or there is a black enchantment that you can pay three life to give something a +1/+1 counter with), and a sac outlet. In a game with 4 end steps (4-player game) she can trigger something like Mulldrifter 4 times. Mikuas and her make an army that will never die. Her biggest weakness comes from exile, but that is a weakness all graveyard decks suffer. Even if I try to spot exile something, if the deck is working, the player can just sac the creature I'm trying to exile before it resolves. She is a powerful commander. Instead of a demotion, I'd say promote her. If not keep her at two. I haven't seen an optimized build of her yet otherwise I'd post a link

In terms of finishers she has cards like Warstorm Surge, any creature based combos in those colors (she can protect them well),or simply beating your face in.

Sorry for the double post but I'd figure I'd try and explain how Marchesa, the Black Rose can lock out the game. Things like gravepact, things that burn, and control creatures.

Unrelated. I'm not questioning the strength of Oloro, but could someone explain to me how he is tier one? What build is the tier one version? Ad Nausum? Or Combo/control? Or pillow fort? I've even seen a voltron version of him. I'm just curious as to which lands him a tier one spot.

For Oloro, it is indeed Ad Nauseam combo that makes him Tier 1. Aside from Zur the Enchanter, he's the best Esper commander to head the combo, having a built in life cushion to dig deeper for Angel's Grace.

This is a fine list but I must disagree with Zurgo Helmsmasher as a tier 4 general. He is competitive if not overpowering in a multiplayer format if you run an equipment/control shell. Hes extremely competitive if you mix in mass land destruction. Even without mass LD he's tier 3 since he immediately puts people on a 3 turn clock and survives his own board wipes. Just because his best strategy is unpalatable to most players doesn't mean hes not very good at what he does. In 1v1 he is the general for at least 2 top 8 decks in dual commander tournaments. Hes way better than the other tier 4 generals on your list and I think he deserves tier 3 status.

Also if Omnath, Locus of Mana is tier 3 then so should Yisan, Wanderer Bard. In most green builds he's a clearly superior general than omnath since he gives card advantage every turn and once you get him to 2 verse counters you can activate his ability multiple times a turn. He's a freaking Birthing Pod on a stick without the sacrafice downside and he can also protect himself with the utility creatures he puts into play.

I just noticed I need to disclose that I run a Zurgo deck (why I should read carefully before I post), but I stand by my points about him. What do the rest of you think?

I run both of the green commanders you talk about wagnerr2. I love them both, but Omnath is the better commander. The double duty given to your mana pool is huge. Yisan is much more vulnerable to wipes, and spot removal since the deck is more creature centered.

NarejED I do agree with all of those commanders being moved to tier 3. One thing though, I have found Krenko to be most effective when built around his ability rather then tribal. With goblins being a utility side theme. My deck is a super budget form of the deck, but a friend of mine optimized that version. Tier 3, but I find it a better form then tribal.

Mono color is hard pressed to see a commander in the top 2 tiers. I know many want some to be up there, but there is a few I would bump down.

Does mono red really belong in tier 2?

I could see both Yisan and Zurgo being moved back to Tier 3. I believe they both were there when we still had the 5-tier system, and simply got bumped down in the shuffle. Zurgo is for sure Tier 3 thanks to the aforementioned synergies with board wipes, as well as his rather hilarious interaction with Worldslayer.

Yisan actually received a hefty buff with the rules change. Since has ha CMC of 3, and doesn't require anything but himself to win, he received almost no noticeable setbacks while nearly every other deck in the format took hefty blows. I'd say he's solid upper Tier 3 now, comparable to a smaller, weaker Captain Sisay.