trobaldo: It's optimized in that it outperforms every other iteration of the deck. Currently no other publicly available Meren list puts up the same results, at least none that I, or anyone else who contributes to this Tier List, has been able to find. Cost isn't a factor for deck building here. This Tier list is more or less asking "If every commander could be built without a budget, which ones would be the strongest?" That's why you'll frequently see cards like Imperial Seal, Mishra's Workshop, and Timetwister -- cards that you'd rarely find in a paper EDH deck due to their absurd monetary cost-- used in optimized lists on here.

Addressing some of your specific concerns about my Meren build: The ramp is run for redundancy. We want to be able to consistently ramp hard and fast into the late game. The sooner we hit 3 mana, the sooner Buried Alive and other game-winning cards start coming online, and the sooner we close out the game. Ramp is a key part of any well-built EDH deck. It allows you to play your combo/lockpiece/engine that much sooner. In Meren, having such a high count coupled with a low land count makes her extremely resilient to land hate like Winter Orb and Armageddon, and it allows her to hard cast Tooth and Nail and other game-winning curve toppers that much sooner if needed.

Carpet of Flowers is an excellent in any meta that has at least one blue-splashed deck (read: all of them). Depending on turn order, it can already be generating 1 mana of any color on turn 1. It actually has an edge over Sol Ring in some decks and situations.

Meren makes up an integral part of the deck. She allows for the incluson of cards like Smokestack, Awakening Zone, and Fleshbag Marauder, all of which would not be worth running were she not the commander.

The deck runs a low concentration of combos (Mike and Trike, Mike and Primus, and Nooze being the primary ones) because a high density of non-overlapping combos actually weakens the deck. It leads to the running of sub-optimal cards. Often in such decks, you'll find yourself holding 1, 2, or even 3 different dead combo pieces in hand. Not a good place to be .

@trobaldo Hate to break it to you, but NarejED's Meren list is much more competetive than the lists you posted. The three decks you posted are more casual and play some pretty bad and/or clunky cards. The NarejED list is full of early lock pieces and infinite combos, all of which can be tutored easily. The ramp is necessary for mana-intensive utility cards like Evolutionary Leap, Skullclamp, Survival of the Fittest, and most importantly Tooth and Nail, which can win on the spot if it resolves. Recurring a random fatty like Abhorrent Overlord is cool and all, but recurring a cheap lock effect like Augur of Skulls or Mindslicer is quicker, more reliable, and just as effective at effectively ending the game. Not to mention that two of the lists you referenced don't even run Entomb.

Carpet of Flowers is so specialized anti-blue

made a personal attack to the top 3 meren decks

retarded

optimized means does the most for the least ... one of the most expensive

meren could do a black stax more efficient than kharador. Contamination anybody

Running a tribal gives it versatility allowing it to reanimate and have awesome synergies

Hahahahahaha.

Is this is joke? Like, a practical joke? Where someone paid 5 dollars to tappedout for the privilege of trolling everyone with a colored name?

@trobaldo It is my opinion that it is fact that it is everyone else's opinion that your opinion is fundamentally wrong.

Guys y'all need to ease up a bit m'kay? People may not agree with opinions, but just becuase you're sitting behind a computer screen doesn't mean you can be a prick about it. And moreso, it doen't make you more right. Just makes you look like a tool.

Ok ok ok. It seems like something happened while I was sleeping... I just read through all of the stuff all of you guyz have written. There is stuff I like, there is stuff I don't. There is stuff I agree with, there is stuff I don't.

I will just start by quoting one of the rules (number 2 actually): Please guyz, no hate. I did not brought back this list for it to become a warzone. What I wanted was only to be involved into cEDH community.

Also, this is cEDH, nowhere near casual 20$ decks. I know some people might be insulted when said their decks are subpar or there would be better ways to build them, but that is a fact. I totally agree with what NarejED said up there. As another comparison, I would like to give the exemple of another deck: Sleazebag's Mikaeus, Extreme Sub $20 Budget EDH. Just look at it. Currently, 1519 upvotes (the most popular EDH deck here?), counting mine. I myself built the deck because I found it a good idea, and had some money to spend ;) But I think even the creator of it would agree: it is nowhere near optimized. Yet it is highly populoar. I think that is the best proof we can get that the upvote count or the popularity of a deck is not relevant for the tier placement.

Next, I would like to give my opinion on Yisan (as I am the one you updates the list...). He is crazy. I have been playing mono-green since a long time now, I think I passed all the available commanders and strategies. I moved from it sonce nothing was really suiting what I really wanted to play. You had big creatures, big mana, but consistency was a problem. My main commander in that time was the old Omnath. Then, I started trying to be more competitive. I moved on to a Sliver deck, running Sliver Overlord as the commander. What does it have to do with Yisan??? The ability. I know, sliver decks are fragile and not the best at all, but we must all agree that when the Overlord starts tutoring, well it goes off really quickly. Yisan's tutor ability is different, but does the same thing: it goes off really fast.

There are several ways, as stated above, to get Yisan into play turn 2 (and it also is possible to get it turn 1). This will often make it so that you have your commander in play before everyone else, when the game is still at casting mana rocks and ramp spells. You can start tutoring cards that will put you miles ahead from the other players. You can get so many protection and disruption with Yisan, it is so crazy. Yisan can be adapted to any meta: wrath protection, spot removal protection, MLD protection, stax protection... I mean, he can adapt to any strategy!

Also, as said before, green is the second best color in EDH. It has access to everything it needs to run smoothly all by itself. Also, Yisan covers some of green weaknesses, like to counterspells. What sucks more than having your big fatty counterspelled and not being able to get it on the battlefield??? Yisan's ability lets you get your creatures into play. Without the possibility for them to be counterspelled. Sure, cards like Trickbind exist, but seriously...

I could continue on and on, but I will just say that: I think Yisan is worth of tier 1 placement. I know it is strange, a mono-green commander in tier 1, but I personnally think it is strong enough. I know some people will disagree, and as I said many times before, this list is to reflect the opinion of the community.

So, after finishing this comment, I will move Yisan tier 1. But nothing is definitive: you guyz can still convince me that he is not worth the place. But it will be an hard task. And for you complaining about money involved in cEDH, Yisan probably is the cheapest deck to build. Look that up. Another upside for that little mono-green outsider.

Think we could also get a comments reset? There is a lot to scroll through here and a lot of these comments are within violation of the rules as you pointed out, thegigibeast.

Yep, totally true. I will just copy and paste my last one so everyone can see it.

Ok ok ok. It seems like something happened while I was sleeping... I just read through all of the stuff all of you guyz have written. There is stuff I like, there is stuff I don't. There is stuff I agree with, there is stuff I don't.

I will just start by quoting one of the rules (number 2 actually): Please guyz, no hate. I did not brought back this list for it to become a warzone. What I wanted was only to be involved into cEDH community.

Also, this is cEDH, nowhere near casual 20$ decks. I know some people might be insulted when said their decks are subpar or there would be better ways to build them, but that is a fact. I totally agree with what NarejED said up there. As another comparison, I would like to give the exemple of another deck: Sleazebag's Mikaeus, Extreme Sub $20 Budget EDH. Just look at it. Currently, 1519 upvotes (the most popular EDH deck here?), counting mine. I myself built the deck because I found it a good idea, and had some money to spend ;) But I think even the creator of it would agree: it is nowhere near optimized. Yet it is highly populoar. I think that is the best proof we can get that the upvote count or the popularity of a deck is not relevant for the tier placement.

Next, I would like to give my opinion on Yisan (as I am the one you updates the list...). He is crazy. I have been playing mono-green since a long time now, I think I passed all the available commanders and strategies. I moved from it sonce nothing was really suiting what I really wanted to play. You had big creatures, big mana, but consistency was a problem. My main commander in that time was the old Omnath. Then, I started trying to be more competitive. I moved on to a Sliver deck, running Sliver Overlord as the commander. What does it have to do with Yisan??? The ability. I know, sliver decks are fragile and not the best at all, but we must all agree that when the Overlord starts tutoring, well it goes off really quickly. Yisan's tutor ability is different, but does the same thing: it goes off really fast.

There are several ways, as stated above, to get Yisan into play turn 2 (and it also is possible to get it turn 1). This will often make it so that you have your commander in play before everyone else, when the game is still at casting mana rocks and ramp spells. You can start tutoring cards that will put you miles ahead from the other players. You can get so many protection and disruption with Yisan, it is so crazy. Yisan can be adapted to any meta: wrath protection, spot removal protection, MLD protection, stax protection... I mean, he can adapt to any strategy!

Also, as said before, green is the second best color in EDH. It has access to everything it needs to run smoothly all by itself. Also, Yisan covers some of green weaknesses, like to counterspells. What sucks more than having your big fatty counterspelled and not being able to get it on the battlefield??? Yisan's ability lets you get your creatures into play. Without the possibility for them to be counterspelled. Sure, cards like Trickbind exist, but seriously...

I could continue on and on, but I will just say that: I think Yisan is worth of tier 1 placement. I know it is strange, a mono-green commander in tier 1, but I personnally think it is strong enough. I know some people will disagree, and as I said many times before, this list is to reflect the opinion of the community.

So, after finishing this comment, I will move Yisan tier 1. But nothing is definitive: you guyz can still convince me that he is not worth the place. But it will be an hard task. And for you complaining about money involved in cEDH, Yisan probably is the cheapest deck to build. Look that up. Another upside for that little mono-green outsider.

Gotta say I agree with Yisan being a Tier 1 commander. I've played several competetive level EDH games against Yisan and it is always a threat. You have to stop it before the ball starts rolling, because once it starts there's not much you can do to stop it, and the ball starts rolling from turn 3 at the slowest (after one activation, you're not going to kill Yisan easily).

As for my Mikaeus deck, it is ridiculously far from optimization, but I would say it is as optimized as possible for the price!

Guys, I am not so sure about this whole Yisan thing. I think he fits the tier 2 description really well --left unchecked, he can easily win the game. But it takes some very simple hate cards (Containment Priest, Torpor Orb, Phyrexian Revoker, Linvala, Keeper of Silence) that are very accessible to tier 1 decks to shut Yisan down completely. Yisan is also completely outpaced (if only barely) by dedicated combo decks (like Storm, as mentioned).

That said, I believe Yisan is near the top of tier 2 -- versatile, resilient, fast, but ultimately, dies to Derevi Stax, dies to Humility, dies to selective hate cards, dies to pure combo -- not uncommon situations in cEDH

Kind of a small thing, but Yisan actually has a very favorable matchup against stax. His low dependence on mana after turn 2 makes him extremely resistant to most standard forms of resource denial. If he can get to 4 verse counters before Derevi manages to tutor out Aven Mindcensor or Linvala AND lock the board with mana denial effects (which is very easy for Yisan to do), he wins.

Yisan is primary a midrange commander. Midrange naturally has a favorable matuchup against stax/control, which in turn has a good matchup against combo. It's EDH's version of most formats' Control-Midrange-Aggro.

Thats totes truesies. I like him as Tier1, I'm just having a hard time accepting it.

I vote for moving Ruric Thar, the Unbowed to tier 2 in light of the recent cEDH tournament where Ruric Thar did alright.

@illumfolly lol, nope.

seriously, Ruric thar isn't very good, and a single tournament where he did "alright" is not enough to warrant moving him up.

the is that he paints a target on you, even if he does apply pressure, b/c everyone wants their spells. Not to mention that b/c he is forced to attack the aggro will provoke people and possibly force him to attack into death.

overall, much better commanders, but even not considering that he's still pretty meh.

The only problem that I see with Ruric is that he'll do amazing in a competitive meta (as seen) but not so well in a casual meta. Cards like Meltdown, Ground Seal, and Blood Moon are amazing against the decks that rely on shaky combos, but not so well on decks that like to durdle for the first few turns then cast dragons and angels. I believe I posted an anti-meta deck a while back that was rejected as we were basing the tiers off of individual decklists. Maybe times have changed, but we should put a disclaimer that this deck is specifically anti-meta.

My attempts to build a $400 Mayael the Anima deck, and lesser decks for Thraximundar, Purphoros, God of the Forge and Anafenza, the Foremost have all failed to win a MP pod. Naturally, I'm looking elsewhere, starting with this list. Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge sounds like it could be fun to build around, but one of the other players in my meta is building her, and I'm avoiding mirror matches. Now maybe a little discussion?

Pretext: I can't afford or build any Tier 1 decks, so I'm forced to look into T2 and beyond.

• Alesha, Who Smiles at Death: I play her as an aggro deck in tiny leaders, so I guess I can't imagine her as a Tier 2 commander with a stax archetype around her? I don't play stax, so maybe I'm too nubile, but don't you want stax affects to stay on board and not swing into their inevitable deaths?

• My other grixis option is Sedris, the Traitor King, who sounds fun since I developed a strong love for reanimator during the Theros block. However, you linked a $4,500 deck. Srsly? Now I gotta google Sedris decks for people not named Bill Gates.

• I want to be sold on Yisan, Wanderer Bard due to his mono-colored nature, but in multiplayer there's so much removal that there's almost no way I'd ever be tutoring for more than a Reclamation Sage. I may not be well versed in green cards thru the history of magic, but I feel like a mono-green deck would lack answers with 3+ other players building bigger boards than your own. Having never played him, it's improper to say he's not Tier 1, but as I'm typing, I just can't fathom it.

• Cheers.

I can say with certaintly that if you play with yisan you will almost always have the biggest board. I would encourage you to play some solitaire with a good yisan deck on tapped out before you dismiss him. He make himself immune to most spot removal by turn 3 every single game and green has tons of effectively costed answers to everything but creatures. The lack of creature removal is rarely an issue tbh since competitive edh is usually creature light and you will almost always have more creatures than anyone else on the board

Just a sidenote: I feel like 90% of the Yisan hate is due to ignorance. He looks like he would suck if you have never seen him in action and most people labor under the misconception that green "lacks answers" so people assume he must suck.

thewyzman: Some responses:

• Jeleva isn't usually built around; she's a placeholder (most off the time) for Grixis Storm.

• Alesha is also played as a placeholder about 60% of the time, it's just that the other Mardu generals are bad.

• The amazing thing about Yisan is that you can build him to your meta. For example, my meta is artifact/enchantment heavy, so I run a bunch of cards that might be dead in other groups: Natural State, Nature's Claim, Deglamer. You may want to run anti-removal cards: Sylvan Safekeeper, Oak Street Innkeeper, maybe Soul of New Phyrexia. Play a few games with placeholder cards, then get the anti-meta cards.

But, yeah, Tier 2 Ruric Thar... it'd be funny

@thewyzman: If you're looking for budget Sedris, I can recommend a few cost reducing replacements. The core of the deck (Splinter Twin combo and a strong foundation of wheels, tutors, and control elements) is relatively cheap. The main cost comes from cards like Imperial Seal: cards that aren't extremely important to the function. Just give a price to work with and I can easily whip a list up.

Also, if you want a budget competitive commander, Yisan is one of your best bets. Here is a link to a short write up of budget Yisan with several deck links.

So... wait.. okay, I get that he is anti-meta, but then you have Gaddock Teeg. Is the teegmonster not an anti-competitive card? He does pretty horrible in casual as well, but hoses a lot of competitive decks.

Teeg actually isn't all that bad in most casual games, because there's always someone trying to cast big dumb spells like Nissa's Rev or Evangelize and cheap spot removal is usually eschewed for splashy wraths or Insurrection effects. People can still cast spells (albeit painfully) through Thar, but with Teeg in play they just can't.

NarejED, more than anything I'm looking to make aSedris deck with the several hundred grixis cards I have, but if I had to throw down a budget, I'd say $200 (ignoring land base) and worthy of taking down a Narset and/or karador deck

I hate to stir up the mono-green honey pot again so soon after the Yisan discussion, but Seton, Krosan Protector to Tier 2? It's been the general consensus recently over on r/cEDH that he's currently the second strong mono green commander after Yisan, essentially playing 'druid storm' and comboing out most games by turn 4 at the latest.

Also, @thewyzman: Here's a budget version of Sedris I was able to whip up. Sedris Budget. The maybeboard consists of cards that were excluded for budget reasons, but are at the top of the list of cards to add if possible.