Sidisi also gets all cards into hand, by milling the library, getting a bunch of zombies, Dread Returning Eternal Witness, returning all cards from graveyard to hand. This includes land, something Tasigur can't do. I think Sidisi seems strong in a graveyard-based midrange combo deck, similar to Jarad. I haven't had much time to test it, but it seems pretty strong.

Wait, why can't Tasigur play e-wit to get the precious lands too? And casting three specific colors of mana after an infinite combo doesn't happen too often, where as needing one black to start Tas is simple. Sidisi seems good for a dredge style deck with some chance of going infinite, but if you want to aim for infinite, Tasigur does all that and more.

I am a bit confused. If a general can check all the boxes for tier 1 why is it not tier 1? I understand if you doubt my claims, but to the best of my knowledge noone has built Sidisi in this way before. I'll admit Tasigur is better for a traditional control build and his end game is stronger, but Sidisi has many advantages over him as well. Moreover getting rid of every permanent on the board but your own is gg.

MagicalHacker: There is more than 1 infinite combo with Sidisi. She can also use Ghostly Flicker with mana untap cards (ex. Peregrine Drake) and recursion cards (ex. Eternal Witness). Both combos have multiple redundant parts that fit perfectly within the theme of the deck and are useful in all phases of the game. I am tinkering with also potentially adding Aphetto Alchemist + Mesmeric Orb for a 3rd way to mill into Dread Return for victory but I honestly doubt a 3rd combo is necessary since the combos I have outlined are so easy to assemble and resilient due to redundancy.

MagicalHacker Now you're confusing me. We were talking about the Palinchron + DEN combo, as you said here:

Lilbrudder, while Sidisi and Tasigur both benefit from Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron, they don't benefit equally.

If we use DEN and Palinchron, we get infinite colored mana. Costing a single black isn't important when you have an arbitrarily large amount of mana.

And casting three specific colors of mana after an infinite combo doesn't happen too often

DEN + Palinchron gets you mana of any color (provided you have the lands), so "three specific colors of mana" aren't too important. And it's not like Tas can't run E-Wit to get lands as well, it's just that Sidisi runs it to get all cards back (like Tasigur can). It's not just "a chance of going infinite," it's the same as any other combo.

Sorry if I came off as aggressive again, it's just that I feel MagicalHacker is being obtuse in his description of Sidisi.

Im starting to feel Bug is just tier one. In general tasigur combos through instants, and Sidisi through creatures. I feel reality shift is really strong, but have yet to play against the t1 Sidisi proposal so I dont know if she is actually more reliable or durable

The benefiting discrepancy has to do with how many extra cards in the deck that Sidisi needs compared to Tasigur. With all those extra moving parts, the deck is more fragile. As for the second part, I was referring to limitations on what combos you can use, as Sidisi needs all three to be cast while Tasigur needs one of two sets of two colors (yay for options).

I don't really know how Sidisi makes the infinite combo strategy any better, so it seems kinda weird even to say they're equal-ish.

To go infinite in every color you need 2 lands that tap for blue, one that taps for black and one that taps for green. Assuming we are talking optimized land bases with original duals and fetchlands this is almost never a problem by turn 3 or 4. Even in a non combo Sidisi deck I would play Terastodon Massacre Wurm, Dread Return, Ghostly Flicker, Eternal Witness and the other combo pieces because they are good cards OUTSIDE the combo. The deck also has 15+ reanimation or recursion cards so fragile is not really accurate either. The only advantage Tasigur has is that Sidisi's combo requires a sorcery speed spell or two before everyone dies after you have gone infinite. In maybe 1 out of 20 games will this difference be relevant as most people will kill your combo before you go infinite. Outside that tasigurs "political plays" are great as long as your willing to hold up 5 to 6 mana every turn for a crappy ability and hope to the goodwill of your opponents. Outside of these narrow scenario's Sidisi is a more useful general with more relevant abilities.

@Lilbrudder: Both Tesastodon and Massacre Wurm are are bad in cEDH. They're overcosted to hard cast, and not worth the trouble of cheating into play. There are better targets for the latter like Jin-Gitiaxias. They're not worth playing in any optimized decklist.

I feel like a nice analogy would be this: Yisan to Zur. Zur is probably stronger, but Yisan can get some great games as well. Yisan lends itself to a very specific strategy (creature-based combo!), and won't do great outside of it and Zur can go into a bunch of strats and do well. Yisan runs a lot of cards designed to abuse the commander (Quirion Ranger and friends) and Zur is more of a backup plan/mid-late game engine. This isn't saying that either Yisan or Zur is bad; just that they're different generals to use.

Similarly, Sidisi and Tasigur are different decks. Tasigur might be stronger, but Sidisi can get some great games as well. Sidisi lends itself to a very specific strategy (graveyard-based combo) and won't do great outside of it and Tas can go into a bunch of strats and do well. Sidisi runs a lot of cards designed to abuse the commander (graveyard stuff like Dread Return) and Tas is more of a backup plan/mid-late game engine. Again, neither general is bad or even worse, but it's hard to compare them as one.

I never cast them. I birthing pod them and reanimate them. For 1-4 mana is Terastodon a good card? If your whole deck is designed around cheating cards into play those cards become very good because it can be done so easily

Leinahtan made some fantastic points, so is Sidisi good enough for tier one? Is Tasigur?

Tasigur combo is absolutely good enough for t1, and again, the reality shift slam is super efficient, not to mention he recurs things by himself. the question is only the first, honestly: is Sidisi BT good enough to be t1. Is her slightly more creature driven win con too fragile to be in commander? or is the speed and momentum she brings great enough to power through explicit hate?

those are the main questions that need to be answered.

Basically we are asking if her ability to generate tokens outweighs tasigur's regrowth ability.

Chances are if you have infinite mana both abilities are pretty much on par.

Without infinite mana, however, I feel like sidisi can be stronger. With just 2 dredge effects hitting a creature you can Dread Return immediately provided you can Entomb it and something useful to reanimate. I believe this only due to the discussion before stating that you are never going to really be using Tasigur's ability without infinite mana because it's pretty overcosted and inefficient.

Thoughts?

Her ability to make tokens really isn't that powerful however. And mainly only works to make dread return broken, but serves little purpose other than that and helping her stay afloat after stax comes online.

It also works with other Dread Return esque cards like Victimize and lets you use Diabolic Intent but I understand your point.

Again, at least she HAS some utility outside of infinite mana. Tasigur's ability doesn't really come into play much at all if there isn't infinite mana involved.

@Lilbrudder: "...And not worth the trouble of cheating into play." Gotta read the full sentence. :)

And no, 1-4 mana Terastodon isn't really that great when Jin, Sheoldred, and Void Winnower are all available in your colors.

I personally think she is one of the strongest t2 generals. She just hasn't been played with a truly competitive shell enough to really know.

But I do again admit she is very strong for many of the same reasons as tasi, just too reliant on dread return and to an extent birthing pod

NarejED: Oh I read the sentence I just don't agree :-). I included all the above mentioned but sheoldred, but I have been considering her as in include. One of my strongest control plays is turn 1 Sol Ring 2 Flash + Terastodon blow up 3 permanents then Reanimate or Animate Dead Terastodon that same turn. 6 lands/mana rocks/enchantments for 4 mana is good value and it can be done quite easily. Then just sweep those lesky tokens away with a Toxic Deluge. I can also copy the effects easily enough with Phantasmal Image and Phyrexian Metamorph. In this deck every etb effect can be copied or abused multiple times a turn, which is why it is so consistent. Outside an ETB themed shell I agree these cards aren't good, but when you can copy them or play them for cheap every game they can win the game for you long before you combo off. Massacre Wurm is admittedly less good but its in here against mana dorks and creature based combo like elfball. I have found flipping my opponents creatures with Ixidron and then Birthing Pod into Massacre Wurm to also be a strong play. Again its all the function of the deck. Another bad card is Kederekt Leviathan. But a turn 2 Flash + Kederekt Leviathan followed by instant speed Necromancy every now and again can be quite effective as a way to ensure noone keeps a board position. Either way it is quite encouraging that I can get good results with so many cards that don't belong in cEDH. For the sake of argument. If I agree and say they suck Venser, Shaper Savant wins with the aformentioned sidisi combo too and it only takes up only one slot. Alright sorry for being so argumentative. I'll shut up about Sidisi :p

Well, they can be very effective. To me they seem like a semi-competitive play. In a game of fully optimized decks they are not as effective. You can not use turn one sol ring in examples for how a decks runs. She is in BUG, and that is so strong even without a commander.

Please remember that this is the reason that we encourage people not to promote their commanders. Almost everyone (myself included) is bias, and will rank them higher then maybe they should be.

Remember that tier placement is not an insult to anyone's deck, or their choice in commander. It is a measurement of their power in a fully optimized setting.

Thats fair and I am not insulted. While I have played an extremely unoptimized version of Sidisi a long time ago she is not my general anymore. I rarely even play EDH anymore due to life responsibilities and instead just brew decks and test them for fun. This proposal if you want to call it that is nothing more than my discovery that it is possible to do some things with Sidisi that I believe few people were aware of and wanted to see what the community thought. I like to argue/debate so I apologize if I came across as zealous. I am currently trying an all in version that ignores the creature based control elements I mentioned before to see if I can get the average goldfished wincon under 4 on average.

Oh I agree, in fact, I think all my current commanders are tier 3 or 4. Maybe an optimized talrand could be tier 2, but I'm not running that many counterspells.

Some of my opinions:

Why is Tasigur Tier 1? He seems pretty casual, but then again, I am not a very good judge on cards.

Personally, I think that Teferi, Temporal Archmage should be replaced by Daretti. He is just waaay too powerful (in my opinion) and Teferi is mainly a supporter in most of my blue decks.

Jeleva is a very bad card. I tried playtesting her and she was even less than sub-par. Honestly, I think that she should be Tier 3 at the most.

You definitely aren't a good judge of cards. Simply look at the lists and try to understand. They are t1 for a definite reason.

@Wee_Dragonaut:

Tasigur is currently being debated. As it stands, he's heavily played in competitve EDH (indeed, most players regard him as the strongest BUG commander). He offers good resilience in the form of political recursion, and can be built in multiple archetypes and still be viable. He's just a good all around finisher, slotting into a variety of combos to win the game at instant speed. With the Partial Paris mulligan change, he was made better than Damia, who, with her high CMC, became far more difficult to cast.

Teferi is amazing when placed in the command zone and built around. On top of enabling an extremely powerful stax deck and offering card draw, he has an easily assembled infinite combo with The Chain Veil that allows him to produce infinite mana and draw his entire deck all in one sitting. There's a decklist for him in the description under 'Tier 1 decks'. He's a bit better than Daretti partially because his abilities are overall slightly more powerful even taking into account their CMC difference, and partially because he's in a much stronger color identity.

Jeleva herself is not a good commander to build around, true. However, she's far and away the best commander to head Grixis Storm, which is unquestionably a Tier 1 deck. Again, decklist in description.

Couple things that should be fixed:

• Some of the decklists, like Arcum and Sisay, don't have a list. Either give them one, or update their description to say "List needed."

• In my tier descriptions, it still says "// Dang, when are we going to fix tier 2?" By now we've mostly addressed most of my past concerns with tier 2, so that can be removed.

• We could use Glix's old list on 5c Omni-Rector as a placeholder until someone gets a more recent deck. http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/217065-five-color-omni

Just a couple minor things.