It doesn't matter if Nahiri makes a white deck better, that deck would still get owned into the sun by a Freyalise deck. It also doesn't matter if most EDH decks aren't optimized, we're looking for the best possible lists and the commanders that helm them.

As for Dralnu, his ability is powerful but the drawback is crippling and having a huge drawback that your opponents know is coming puts a ceiling on how good he can be. And sure, blue has counterspells, but the best decks in the format don't need to use counterspells to protect their general from both dying and making all their permanents die.

Sidisi is where she is because BUG is probably the best color combination in Commander and she can contribute to graveyard shenanigans. Just because most people build tier 4 lists with her doesn't mean she's tier 4 power level.

Karador is absolutely tier one and Teneb isn't that far behind, dismissing both commanders is a bit silly. That deck is extremely powerful.

Atogatog doesn't belong in any conversation with Scion, let's be real. One general tutors for backup win conditions, one either helms a godawful tribal deck or sits in your command zone not doing anything ever. I don' really get the point of the comparison, especially backed up by anecdotal evidence that "most scion lists I've seen are dragon decks and not HD". It doesn't matter what you've seen or not seen, Scion is the better general for the deck because it does something.

@himetic: You're right in some regards. By default, any Sultai, Grixis, Esper, Abzan or 5C commander deck can reach at least tier 2 power levels regardless of the commander. However, we're assuming 100% optimization here. Nobody is going to play Dakkon Blackblade in Esper Storm when Zur the Enchanter exists. It's illogical. Thus, both to reflect that simple fact and keep the tier lists relatively clean and manageable, we limit the representation of each deck color + strategy to no more than the two commanders that best aid the deck. For example, Abzan Boonweaver Giant combo is a powerhouse no matter which commander helms it. However, Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Teneb, the Harvester are the best commanders for it because they help assemble the combo on field while also providing superb utility. By the same token, the credit to 5C combo goes to Scion (tutor) and Sliver Queen (infinite mana outlet) because they're simply the best commanders for the deck.

It's not a perfect system by any means. There are two ends of the spectrum, neither of which are viable. Listing only commanders by their build-around power doesn't work, because at that point we're left with Edric and handful of other commanders. Listing decks purely by the power of their color identities don't work either, because it becomes either an unreadable mess, or a simple tool to rank different identities, neither of which is useful. Thus we're forced to compromise and use the current hybrid system.

If you have any suggestions for improving how the Tiers are organized, I'm all ears. Complaining alone doesn't aid the process though.

As for Dralnu.... He has an amazing ability, true. He also has a backbreakingly horrifying drawback akin in nature and effect to Reverse Annihilator. He also costs a whopping five mana.

I think the best way to look at him is to compare him to Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip; a similar commander.

Cost: JVP costs 2 mana. He comes down turn 1-2. His low cost makes many opponents reluctant to target him with removal, because killing a 2-drop with a 3-drop Beast Within is typically regarded as a bad play. Dralnu costs 5. He comes down turn 2-5. His high cost and obvious effect make him an excellent target for removal, or better yet, Lightning Bolt.

Abilities: Their main effect (flashback) is identical. Jace flips roughly the same turn Dralnu comes down on average, giving him a 1-turn clock advantage in that regard since Walkers can activate the turn they enter. In addition, Jace is more relevant in the early game, digging and filtering cards. Meanwhile, Dralnu again has that second absolutely crippling ability. Favor: Jace by a mile.

Color identity: Dralnu obviously wins here. He gains access to all the great black win conditions and power cards.

The gap between JVP and Dralnu is AT LEAST a tier and a half. Jace is up near the top end of Tier 2. That puts Dralnu somewhere at the upper end of Tier 4/lower end of Tier 3. His placement isn't terribly innacurate.

@yavimaya_eldred

Freyalise has a natural advantage vs nahiri because her -2 is a good answer to Nahiri's most powerful card (humility), as well as tying up her loyalty counters by forcing her to return equipment so she can't do better stuff, so a straight up freyalise vs nahiri isn't a good matchup for nahiri. Plus freyalise is one of the very few commanders who don't get cleared by the infinite boardwipes nahiri will be running. That said, I still think Nahiri is the better card and the better deck against the meta at large. Most people are not equipped to handle the tools Nahiri uses. Which isn't true in top-tier competitive tables, but let's be honest, both of them are garbage in that setting anyway. You're free to disagree.

Dralnu plays black with nearly every available tutor, thanks to his insane synergy with them. If the man needs a lightning greaves, he gets himself a lightning greaves. Most decks don't use damage to kill creatures anyway, since most damage-based removal sucks, and lightning-bolt size stuff is a drag but won't necessarily stop him from winning the following turn. And let me reiterate - if he untaps, he wins the game. That is not tier 4, even if once in a blue moon you get wrecked by some random earthquake or whatever.

@NarejED

"we're assuming 100% optimization here"

No, you aren't. Whatever imaginary list you're using for atogatog, it's definitely not "100% optimized". If you're only building a fully optimized decklist including commander, then logically you can't even PLAY atogatog. It can't even exist on this list, because you'd always optimize to a better commander if you're 100% optimizing. For that matter, you'd presumably always replace teneb with karador (assuming he's actually the better commander for that combo deck, I don't actually know or care). If you're 100% optimizing including commander, then 97% of the commanders wouldn't even be on the list, because you can't have an optimized list with them in it. And if you're 100% optimizing excluding commanders, then all 5c decklists look the same and the list is boring. Clearly neither of those things is currently happening.

Personally I think the most interesting list is "how powerful is the commander as a card?" Are they powerful when built around, i.e. purphoros? Or are they powerful because they don't need any support, i.e. damia? Not the "this commander is pretty mediocre, but they're the best option for this stupid combo deck therefore they're the best commander ever" list. So that's what I would do if it were my list. But if you want to include the combo decks, I'd list them separately. I feel like I already said that - either rank the commanders on their own merits, or include combo decks as their own entries. I'm not sure why you think I'm just complaining, I've already offered several suggestions, but now I guess I've just offered them again.

Comparing Jace to Dralnu is ridiculous. Jace does not win when he untaps. Jace has access to far fewer tutors and can't activate his ability more than once or twice, barring extreme circumstances. It's like comparing voltron rafiq to voltron isamuru. Sure, isamaru is cheaper, less likely to bait removal, and he sort of does the same thing, But rafiq does it infinitely better, and has better colors. Besides that, we're still presumably playing with the broken multiplayer banlist, which means dralnu can come out turn 3 a pretty hefty percentage of the time - I think one of at least 6 cards enables him coming out on turn 3 - not counting single-shot stuff like dark rit or multiple card combinations that get 5 mana on turn 3. I'm honestly baffled how anyone can fail to see that he's minimum tier 2 - if he untaps, HE WINS THE GAME. Sometimes he doesn't even need to untap to win the game. How many other commanders does that describe? Not "if he untaps he gives you a significant advantage", he literally wins the game with any single one of many, many, many cards in hand or even in the grave. I like jace, he's cool and cute and fun, but he does not literally require removal to avoid instantly losing.

I could maybe accept tier 3 if you played in some bizzarro universe where everyone plays lightning axes and whatnot, but tier 4 is insanity. He's below volrath the fallen. What the hell? Volrath costs more, kills one person at a time, has worse colors, requires pretty specific cards and board state to kill even one person AND is card disadvantage when you do. Dralnu has "T: win the game". Am I going insane? How can that possibly be tier 4?

addendum - just finished reading the jace primer. Jace looks pretty strong. He's no isamaru. And he does actually contribute to his deck, albeit not as crucially as dralnu. That said, dralnu is more resilient than jace imo, who I can't see winning if he can't find high tide. Dralnu does have weakness to some burn spells, almost none of which get played, but he can win with any single one of a huge number of cards. Personally I'd put them in the same tier - tier 2.

Kaalia of the Vast is definitely tier1

The versatility in Freyalise's abilities far outways Nahiri's. Nahiri is too focused on equipment and best case scenario drops a Batterskull or other large equipment with her when she comes down. Freyalise worst case makes a mana dork. Best case destroys a key permanent in play. Nahiri worst case makes a vanilla 1/1. Nahiri may have a higher ceiling in regular EDH, but the Naturalize Freyalise has is so much better in cEDH. Nahiri is just too narrow of a card to be better. She has almost no versatility on her own, and relies heavily on other cards to be good.

Just for consideration, I feel Geist of Saint Traft should be reevaluated from Tier Five. While he may not be Tier One material, I definitely feel like 5 is incredibly low considering his power for aggro and personal protection as a naturally low cost hexproof commander in strong color options.

IMO he definitely does not belong in a tier with Ur-Drago and Tymaret, the Murder King, considering some of the options in Tiers 4 and 3 above him.

For example, [FoilMTG] Geist Enchanted EDH.

@himetic The problem with claiming Nahiri decks are stronger than Freyalise decks is that you're claiming a mono white deck is better than a mono green deck. I don't even see what Humility has to do with anything, plenty of decks can either win through it, counter it, remove it, or do all of the above. Any white deck can run Humility, and mono white still sucks. Nahiri is more interesting and build-around, sure, but definitely not better.

And yes, we are talking about 100% optimized lists with the commander as a consideration. Sure, Karador is better than Teneb most of the time, but Teneb does have advantages over Karador that might be relevant in certain metas (his ability gets around counterspells whereas Karador's doesn't). On balance, Karador will be better, but not strictly better. The general is part of the equation, even if the don't often contribute to the deck's gameplan (Jeleva being the primary example). Again, the problem with the Atogatog comparison is Atogatog would simply be a placeholder in the command zone with no abilities that contribute to the deck, and that goes against the spirit of the list (it used to say no strictly placeholder commanders in the tiers description, thegigibeast should probably add it again to reduce confusion). Scion has a dragon toolbox of sorts and backup kill conditions, Sliver Queen has an infinite mana combo, AtogAtog just does nothing. For an optimized 5 color deck that actually utilizes Atogatog's ability, you have to add some extremely bad cards, and then you're talking about a pretty bad deck.

@Pwnographic Kaalia is the epitome of tier three. As per the tier description;

These decks are somewhat weak. They can't usually compete against tier 1 decks, but might do fine with tier 2 decks. They usually have "the Aggro Problem," or they are wildly inconsistent. Most of the "pubstomp" decks that dominate casual metas (Kaalia, Uril) go in here. They may have a bad reputation, but that doesnt' make them tier 1.

@USNVox Geist has been discussed on this thread before, and sadly he is painfully bad in multiplayer. Voltron aggro is the worst archetype by far, and Geist doesn't have the benefits of Bruna (evasion+tutor) or Uril/Rafiq (additional color and bonus for auras/attacking). In a multiplayer game Geist is generally going to function as an occasional Exquisite Firecraft and little else, and at best will kill one opponent, unless everyone else at the table is playing jank decks of their own.

That's an awkward typo. It discusses Kaalia being in Tier 3, but she's actually Tier 2.

Honestly I think naturalize in the command zone - or almost any "answer" ability - is pretty overrated. Everyone knows you have it. No one is playing a key artifact/enchantment when they know you can remove it. Sure, forcing them to play around it can be powerful, but I would never expect her to come down and remove anything great, unless that "great" thing is really bait for something more important.

Mono-white is definitely a weak identity, but a not-insignificant part of that is most playgroups abstain from its most powerful tools - mass LD, stax, irresponsible numbers of board wipes - whereas basically all of green's tools are acceptable.

Honestly talking about Nahiri OR freyalise in terms of competitive EDH is ridiculous though. Neither even approaches the top-tier lists.

I'll stop arguing freyalise vs nahiri since I've only played the precon version of freyalise, so I'm definitely conjecturing. But I will say that I think nahiri should be tier 3. As someone who's played optimized Aurelia, Ojutai (2.0, 1.0 is garbage), geth, glissa, kozilek, krenko, kurkesh, merieke, triplets, talrand, teysa, uril, Vish Kal, wort, XHD, zedruu, zirilan, and zurgo, I would say she fit pretty squarely in the middle, even upper middle, of the "tier 3" decks I've played. better than aurelia, kozilek, krenko, kurkesh, merieke, triplets, uril, vish kal, wort, zirilan, and zurgo, at least for my decklists. Mine were probably not 100% optimized, but not too far off - I do have access to every card, and I've been building EDH decks for 7 years, so I can brew up pretty decent lists imo.

That's my educated opinion, do with it what you will.

on atogatog:

I would bet you could replace dragons with atogs in HD and still have it be better than just about any mono-red decklist. But let's talk about Cromat instead. Cromat doesn't really have any major synergy that forces subpar picks for the deck according to this "no placeholder" rule, so he's free to be optimized into a HD combo deck that's at least tier 2 or so. Yet he's still tier 5. So what's this theoretical "optimized decklist" that's still leaving him in tier 5?

What do you guys think of Mayael the Anima power level?

Cromat should be tier 4. It can win on turn 1 with very favorable hand, if nobody has Force of Will and through Force of Will with it's own Force of Will or Misdirection and blue card, if hand is lucky enough to have those.

That's a weird comment. Cromat should be tier 4 because it can maybe win turn 1? That sounds better than tier 4 to me.

Really, I prefer Cromat as tier 5 because he's a garbage card, but I was mostly using him to prove my point that a list using "100% optimized decks" is kind of boring. Comparing the power level of the commanders themselves is way more interesting. Otherwise it becomes mostly about color identity for most commanders. Yawn.

The 5c General thing has been discussed before. Sure, all of them CAN be a HD deck, but Scion is the best bad option for said deck. That's why he is counted for HD and none of the other ones are. Short of literally putting HD into the tier list, this is the best way of showing that.

Ok so....put HD into the tier list, because that's the ACTUAL best way of showing it. What I've been saying all along.

Seriously, though, if the claim for the list is "100% optimized"...wtf is Cromat's list that puts him in tier 5? I'f it's not HD, then what would his optimized list be?

Part of the " optimized lists" here that I think is being missed is that certain commanders are rarely ever not used for particular builds.

Sliver overlord for example, is ALWAYS a sliver tribal deck where Sliver Queen is always a combo deck.

Cromat is almost always 5c superfriends and atogatog is almost always tribal atog with changelings.

"Optimization" means that we take the deck that a commander is best suited to pilot and then tune that.

Another example is Krenko/Kiki. You would rarely see a Krenko list that wasn't tribal goblins but Kiki is more value so it's likely that deck wouldn't be purely goblins.

@NarejED I'm pretty sure Kaalia was slated for a downgrade to tier 3 at some point, and that discussion probably got lost in one of the comment resets. She does fit the tier 3 description almost perfectly.

Sliver Overlord isn't always sliver tribal deck. It can also be used as a commander for tutor deck or for Mirror Entity combo deck. Hypergenesis Cromat is tier 4 deck, so it should be used instead of superfriends Cromat. "Tier 4 These decks are weak. They have trouble winning in competitive metas, but may do well in casual games. They need a very favorable meta and a very lucky hand to win against decks like Zur." Hypergenesis has trouble winning in competitive metas, does well in casual games and need very favorable meta (less than 23 opponents with Force of Will) and very lucky hand (combo) to do win against decks like Zur. Deck casts it's commander about as often as Jeleva, who is considered tier 1, so it shouldn't be a reason to use superfriends deck instead of Hypergenesis when evaluating Cromat.

My two cents:

• If there is a card that is in the 99 but is actually the most important card for the deck, I believe that card should go on this list. So for example, superfriends can be represented by The Chain Veil, HD can be represented by Hermit Druid (duh), and so forth. So what do the commanders represent? The 100% most optimized list that needs the commander at some point. If the commander literally can't be built around, like Cromat, then there is no such thing as 100% optimized that makes any sense because since there is no direction provided for the deck, the most optimized list has no plan to cast a pointless commander.

• Kaalia is tier 2, because it's easily stopped in cEDH. What's more likely actually is that someone wins before she gets to be cast the second time after she definitely gets removed the first time. Mayael the Anima is like her, but worse because you have to pay 6 to cheat something in for free. I don't like that kind of free. Probably tier four? I'd be alright seeing her at tier 3 though.

• We have so many cards now that colorless decks can be really powerful and optimized decks. Based on that, any monocolored deck can literally play all colorless cards and be at least that powerful. As a Nahiri player, she rarely comes down, but when she does, something gross is getting recurred. And all this "but she's mono-white" garbage is BS. I draw more cards, ramp more, tutor more, and control the board more than any mono deck (except monoblack). How about we talk about lists rather than color identity, because decks are more than just their colors. (#StopTheRacism) Each color can do so much that it's tempting for us to instead focus on what it can't do, but colorless can do almost everything (even though it's more expensive), so there aren't big holes in any mono-color anymore.

• Geist of Saint Traft is a decent voltron commander. In fact, I'd choose him over Bruna for voltron cause 3 mana vs. 6 mana leads me to a no-brainier decision. Sure Bruna does stuff, but dies to like every removal spell ever in response. Geist into totem armors into buffs seems at the very least a tier three strategy.

@yavimaya_eldred: It was suggested she be moved down, but the people who supported that idea were outvoted. Whoever rewrote the Tier description most recently must have been one of the supporters of the move.

I agree with himetic and MagicalHacker, that adding cards like Hermit Druid or Doomsday to the list is best idea to inlcude them, because that way it doesn't cause confusion like scion reanimator or zur stax being tier 1 deck. It also frees up corresponding commanders from being placeholders for combo decks and people would see what tier is deck, that actually uses them.

If deck doesn't try to use it's commander, there's another card, which represents deck better than it's commander. That card should be used for such a deck. Every creature commander can be played as voltron. If commander doesn't have better decks than optimized voltron, that commander is voltron commander and optimized voltron deck should be used for evaluating commander's tier.

I'm against using cards as commander placeholders. Here's some reasons.

Let's say I'm a new player. "Oh cool! Here's a tierlist that's updated frequently!" They look at the tiers. Okay, there's Animar, Brago, Derevi... Doomsday? What list is that? It might be Zur Doomsday, but it could be Grenzo Doomsday, or Haakon Doomsday! They could look at the lists, but it would be confusing.

UXx Storm's wincon is usually stuff like Ignite Memories, Tendrils, Brain Freeze, Grapeshot, etc. This would be confusing to see multiple copies of a card in a tier, or copies of a card in different tiers. Which one is better? For example, Dralnu Combo, Grenzo Doomsday, and Zur Doomsday would all be Doomsday decks that have vastly different playstyles. It's a confusing and complicated system.

Finally, there are many decks with multiple wincons. For example, Zur can win through Doomsday, but wins through Ad Nauseam or Necropotence-powered storm as well. GB Midrange can win through Necrotic Ooze combos, but can win through Buried Alive + Victimize, or a big Lord of Extinction sacrificed to Jarad. Which card should be put up there? How would you differentiate between similar-but-different decks like Meren/Jarad or Mizzix/Melek?

Anyway, I really don't think the "use cards as the commander" idea is good. Any other thoughts?

I'm against using cards as commander placeholders. Here's some reasons.

Let's say I'm a new player. "Oh cool! Here's a tierlist that's updated frequently!" They look at the tiers. Okay, there's Animar, Brago, Derevi... Doomsday? What list is that? It might be Zur Doomsday, but it could be Grenzo Doomsday, or Haakon Doomsday! They could look at the lists, but it would be confusing.

UXx Storm's wincon is usually stuff like Ignite Memories, Tendrils, Brain Freeze, Grapeshot, etc. This would be confusing to see multiple copies of a card in a tier, or copies of a card in different tiers. Which one is better? For example, Dralnu Combo, Grenzo Doomsday, and Zur Doomsday would all be Doomsday decks that have vastly different playstyles. It's a confusing and complicated system.

Finally, there are many decks with multiple wincons. For example, Zur can win through Doomsday, but wins through Ad Nauseam or Necropotence-powered storm as well. GB Midrange can win through Necrotic Ooze combos, but can win through Buried Alive + Victimize, or a big Lord of Extinction sacrificed to Jarad. Which card should be put up there? How would you differentiate between similar-but-different decks like Meren/Jarad or Mizzix/Melek?

Anyway, I really don't think the "use cards as the commander" idea is good. Any other thoughts?

Honestly my first choice would be to ignore decks like HD entirely and rate i.e. scion as a tribal reanimator commander, or whatever the "most scion-y" deck is. Basically, the card itself's power level. He's still pretty decent, but definitely not tier 1 in that list.

Adding combo decks as their own entries to the list could definitely be confusing, and absolutely if you start adding garbage like "chain veil" to the list it would turn into a cluster****. That said, unless you're assuming players are reading the actual decklists, putting scion or karador as tier 1 is misleading too, because most scion/karador lists out there are pretty far from tier 1, even if they're optimized around using the commander's ability, which seems to be the assumption behind the other, lower-ranking commanders. I think probably the only totally consistent solution is the "rate them on their power as cards" approach rather than on their decks' power levels, but if you absolutely gotta have HD on the list then that's not really an option.

Cromat:

I'm pretty sure even if you're arbitrarily deciding that Cromat is superfriends (what? why? I made hivelord as superfriends because he survives my boardwipes better than cromat) he'd still be at LEAST tier 4. He'd still definitely be better than a volrath deck imo. But also, that's not mentioned ANYWHERE and, as someone who piloted non-cromat superfriends AND has a friend who used to play non-superfriends cromat, I never would have guessed that he was being ranked as "the superfriends deck". When you start assuming decklists for commanders that aren't REALLY explicit about what kind of deck they want (i.e. krenko) the list really stops making sense.

I feel like there's 2 ways to deal with cromat. Either put him at rank 2-3, because obviously any remotely-optimized list for 5c will be at minimum tier 3, or keep him rank 4-5 because you're ranking his power level as a card, and he's a piece of poop. But then you kinda need to put karador, scion, etc on lower tiers as well.