@Ohthenoises: I might be able to do one better. I started working on Azami after it became clear that an optimized deck for her would not materialize. Here is what it looks like thus far.

MoxProxy: I would be interested in seeing your list

@ NarejED

The sheer arrogance of that statement is beyond me

gl hf with those "optimized" lists of yours then

Winther To be fair you said yours was in progress.......

That's like me getting mad that someone thinks my sidisi deck is a poor representation of competitive when it's intentionally built to be less competitive.

@Winther: ?

Okay then.... Thanks I guess?

I made the promised Edric, Spymaster of Trest list: Someone So Small.

Feedback? Lets pimp this thing out so that we have a list for every T1 general. Any help is appreciated.

I started working on Iname, Death Aspect recently because I had an idea, I know it might be better in 1vs1 but... Maybe he deserves a better place than tier 4? I think there are good enough spirits (Kuro, Pitlord, Horobi, Death's Wail and Kokusho, the Evening Star amongst others). It is far from the best black deck, but I think this is stronger than tier 4 when comparing with other mono-black commanders ranked tier 3.

He is a better Entomb for spirits, and with all the mass reanimation and tutoring available to black, it should not be that difficult to achieve the "combo".

For sure, graveyard hate is a thing, but I think this deck fits well with tier 3 description. Just my opinion though, would like to get some feedback on this before I start thinkering about some more competitive plans with him at the helm.

@thegigibeast usually I'm all for fun obscure-ish commanders, but no. he's not very good at all. spirits really limits his options and only 1 of the guys you mentioned is TRULY good. He fails the vanilla test, doesn't even have a keyword, and the number of other reanimator commanders is boundless. He should stay where he is, with the fun theme commanders that will never make it.

and what exactly makes him a better entomb for spirits? he costs more. 5 more. sorcery speed. I mean, I guess you can blink him but that's about all he has going for him.

ajacobik - while that may be true (and I'm not convinced it is), there is little to no reason to cut the third colour in doomsday. Jeleva, Zur, and Tasigur are all better options.

@DERPLINGSUPREME

I mean... I thaught he was a better Entomb for spirits because he is accessible from the command zone and he can put more than 1 spirit in the graveyard at once... Yes it is sorcery speed, but still...

My main idea was to put lots of spirits in the graveyard, then mass reanimate them. To generate fast mana, we have access to Crypt of Agadeem, Songs of the Damned to benefit from having many creatures in the graveyard. Then when we have Kuro, Pitlord and Horobi, Death's Wail in play at the same time, we can get rid of any creature at the cost of one life point, and we can ping our own Kokusho, the Evening Star to gain a bunch of life (15 in a 4-players pod) and continue reanimating him.

We can also access Yawgmoth's Will to cast back some creatures of the graveyard or simply cast back rituals and Songs of the Damned for even more mana...

For starters, Yawgmoth's Will won't help recast creatures from your graveyard if you require a loop to happen because after they are sacrificed again they will be exiled.

The combo condition you described there also has a problem related to this - it doesn't loop. Usually if you want to kill a table instead of just one person (which is the purpose of multiplayer commander), your win condition needs to be some sort of recursive loop. The only recursive loop like this in question is Chainer, Dementia Master+Soldevi Adnate+6 or higher CMC creature+Sac outlet+Haste. Already this is pretty unlikely, but assuming that you can get out all SIX pieces, you can generate infinite black mana and recur creatures from your graveyard indefinitely. Specifically this can be used to recur Kokusho, the Evening Star and/or Gray Merchant of Asphodel. However, if you have all these pieces together already, why would you need stuff like Kuro, Pitlord, or Horobi, Death's Wail? So the combo you've described doesn't loop and is inferior to an already existing, hard to assemble version that does loop.

There's also not much else you can do with Iname besides the combos you mentioned that it does better than any of the other tier 3 mono-black commanders. Crypt of Agadeem+Deserted Temple for a big Exsanguinate or Songs of the Damned+Yawgmoth's Will for TWO big Exsanguinates seem tempting, but Chainer, Geth, Xiahou-Dun, and especially Mike all have access to better, more resilient combos.

And obviously it kind of goes without saying that this strategy is vulnerable to graveyard hate. For other graveyard based decks like Meren and Karador this isn't much of an issue since they have access to so much removal to get rid of that hate, but since mono-black doesn't interact with enchantments well, there's not much that Iname can do about Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void.

In short, Iname isn't a garbage-tier commander, but it doesn't lend itself well to any combos or other advantages that are important in a multiplayer game. Having a six-mana Buried Alive in the command zone just isn't good enough compared to other options for mono-black commanders.

All that said, I am a little tempted to build Iname Ad Nauseam now. It'll be strictly worst than Sidisi, but it still seems like a cute deck.

While Iname has issues preventing it from being tier two, I think it has plenty of advantages making it better than tier four.

Well, that is what I am thinking. I know that some other commanders are far stronger than him, but my idea was not to ga all in spirits: only a few that are useful, and they could be used to distract oppponents while you prepare a huge Exsanguinate with big mana black has available, namely Cabal Coffers, Deserted Temple, Crypt of Agadeem, Songs of the Damned, and even maybe Crypt Ghast, since it is a spirit.

In this kind of deck, I would use a low count of spirits, but strong ones, so that I can keep the focus of opponents on dealing with them and hopefully bait counters and removal. And just to point it out, I don't need an hard to assemble infinite loop. The beauty with this is that let's say we have Soldevi Adnate on the field and a mass reanimation spell in hand, Living Death. I can cats Iname, Death Aspect, get required spirits in the graveyard (Kuro, Pitlord and Horobi, Death's Wail are used to get rid of any creatures my opponents may have after the reanimation, and then you can ping your own Kokusho, the Evening Star to gain some life and deal extra damage), then sacrifice the commander to Soldevi Adnate to cast Living Death. This would put my creatures on the battlefield and I would be the only one with creatures, and some good ones.

Then I would start attacking into defenseless opponents. For sure that would force boardwipes and removal, but the point is that I will run multiple reanimation effects, and that would actually help me reaching the true, hidden win condition: a huge Exsanguinate fueled by the creatures in my graveyard, that will still be useful if I manage to reanimte them, and big mana black already has access to.

I know the deck would be weak to graveyard hate, but I think it is the same thing for many tier 2 and 3 decks. I am not saying that this is tier 3: I am saying that if we manage to get a good list, it might do it. In fact, I started working on him and writing a primer, since I found some good resources to get myself starting. Iname, Death Aspect combo already was something in french commander, but the idea was only to reanimate a couple strong spirits and swing in your opponent's face to win. I am working on tweaking this for multiplayer EDH, and I think some good results might show up. Not the best deck ever, but still something more playable than tier 4 in my opinion. We will see.

I used Iname in my Karador to fetch Karmic Guide. (I had built it to emulate modern Birthing Pod so the high cmc was easier for me to deal with)

I found that Iname fetching Bloodghast with a skullclamp in play usually broke most games open when it got grindy. Food for thought.

I would argue that Vela the Night-Clad is better than tier 4. Definitely not tier 2 but I think tier 3. Her intimidate anthem is nice but I think the real benefit is the 2nd ability. When a creature leaves the battlefield opponents lose 1 life. This allows for both bounce and recursion combos to kill the whole table. I have a Vela deck list Vela the Night-Clad EDH Bounce Combo as an example. My list isn't maxed out but I think it's ok and can be competitive. I haven't actually built my list yet it's a work in progress so I could be missing something but I would be interested to hear other opinions on her.

I have a few suggestions about upgrading some commanders from tier 4 to tier 3.

I think that Mayael the Anima should be moved up to tier 3. I looked through the old discussions, and it was only moved to tier 4 when there were 6 tiers and was never moved back. I think it falls into the tier 3 description of "pushstomp" decks that have a reputation but aren't overpowering.

Ghoulcaller Gisa has had no discussion and should probably be a tier 3 because of cards like Phyrexian Devourer, Contamination, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Thornbite Staff, and Fallen Ideal that make token generation very easy. It also has synergy with many cards like Skullclamp and Grave Pact effects. I think this deck deserves tier 3.

My last suggestion from moving from tier 4 to tier 3 is just a suggestion, but I think Trostani, Selesnya's Voice might, just barely, be good enough for tier 3. She gains life, and that combos well with a lot of cards (namely Phyrexian Processor, Darien, King of Kjeldor, and Nacatl War-Pride and myriad effects). I think massive lifegain might be a good enough reason to make it powerful in addition to being able to copy tokens.

Everything I've said is up for debate. I own a Gisa and Trostani deck. I could see Trostani staying tier 4, but Gisa deserves tier 3, while Mayael is textbook tier 3 in my opinion.

I tend to agree with you, at the very least with Mayael the Anima, as I have no experience with the others and no time to look right now (at work on my phone).

Ghoulcaller Gisa has some combo potential also I think, and graveuard/sacrifice shenanigans available.

I second the notion that mayael and gisa should move up. not sure about trostani, but one of my friends has a very competitive mayael deck that doesn't always win but at least takes out a player or two and is terrifying when it starts to go off.

If we're doing Tier 3-4 movements, Yosei, the Morning Star, Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Ojutai, Soul of Winter, and Lu Xun, Scholar General can all be moved down to Tier 4.

General Tazri still needs to be bumped to at least Tier 2, possibly Tier 1 (she's currently arguably the best 5C deck in the format. I've played against her in several cEDH games. She constantly threatened to win throughout the game and ended up almost playing archenemy, despite a tuned Prossh list being in the pod.)

Also, I hate to say it, but it's time Arcum was moved out of Tier 1. It's simply no longer realistic to place him there any more.

I also second the moving down to tier 4 of all the mentioned generals and the moving up of tazri, but have no opinion on arcum.

When I look at Ghoulcaller Gisa and then I look at Glissa, the Traitor there is no way I could say GG is tier 3. She costs a lot of mana meaning in multiplayer games if you are taking heat from 2 other players you cannot both play your commander on curve and play other cards reliably to stave of those two opponents or match them in terms of board state. Those extra 2 lands you need for GG could have been 2 extra spells to help you stabilize with GtT.

What GG does for 5 mana isn't enough considering how much pressure can be applied to you before then. And all the fancy stax cards that she works with work equally well if not better in a Prossh or Shattergang Brothers deck.

About Arcum Dagsson... I could see him being Tier 2 maybe but it depends... in a 3 player game he is solidly T1 to me. His plan of attack is practically always the same but he's consistent enough at either popping off early or controlling that he is a formiddable opponent. When it comes to 4 player games though he just cannot compare to Tasigur and Scion IMO. Scion can combo faster and Tasigur has the liberty of killing things meaning if Dagsson wants to counter something scary he feels pressure knowing that Tasigur won't help him with counters. At the same tim Dagsson cannot just say "I'm not going to counter so Tasigur will have to deal with it heh heh heh" because Tasigur doesn't have to do anything in most cases unless a creature swings at him.

One of the golden rules of MTG is don't spend resources unless you have to. When it comes to decided whether or not to spend resources removing creatures the Tasigur player has the upper hand on Daggson.