Yeah, the hybrid system currently in use leaves a lot to be desired. Currently the rule of thumb is something like this: The best two commanders for a given deck (color identity and strategy) are both accredited for the deck, with the stronger commander generally being placed higher (see Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Teneb, the Harvester for Abzan Boonweaver). It was reached as a compromise both to try to give recognition to playable commanders like Riku and Oloro without completely flooding the top two tiers with BUG and five-color generals. The issue with the current system is it's clunky, and somewhat counter-intuitive. It leaves a lot up to interpretation, which may or may not be for the best.

Thoughts on Melek, Izzet Paragon? Anyone have a viable list?

For Melek I'd say go find Mizzix and then go 1/2 a tier back for Melek. I'd think the 99 are quite similar.

So why is Narset, Enlightened Master Tier 2?

With the (relatively) recent changes to the mulligan rules by the RC, it is extremely difficult to get to the necessary mana for Narset early enough to compete in a Tier 1 environment. The same thing happened to Sharuum. Both are still powerful decks and are considered the top of Tier 2, but we felt that they were no longer consistent enough to remain in Tier 1. This may change as new things are printed (more likely for Sharuum, as Narset can only really benefit from new fast mana that WotC will never print).

Faceless_Being, bear in mind Narset is still competitive as hell, especially if other decks you're facing are not fully tuned (most aren't, even at events, because many of these cards are stupid expensive or hard to get in paper) or other players are playing decks that require more attention. While Narset still draws "hate" from a lot of players, she doesn't draw the same fear in competitive circles that she once did. When players have to stop the Zur or the Tazri or the Leovold player from going off, it opens the door for you.

Narset being "top of Tier 2" also means that players are less likely to include silver bullets in their lists to deal with her, especially if those silver bullets don't do well against other Tier 1 decks, which can improve your matchups in some situations.

Honestly, Narset being widely publicized as less powerful than she used to be and no longer Tier 1, even if technically true, is one of the best things that could happen to her.

Of course, in more casual circles, you should ignore this list because any tuned Narset deck will take a giant dump on just about anything not in Tier 1 and they can't really do a thing about it.

The only casual deck that I've seen that can go toe to toe with tuned narset is a mostly jokey edicts.dec Meren build. From T2 on edicts were threatened and the only way narset won was to get Elspeth, Sun's Champion in play and then play narset after having some tokens.

I played in a game where meren took out narset, kaalia, and azami using edicts and artifact hate. all of the decks were beyond tuned exept for the meren deck. the narset deck had everything it needed to be top of the line including capture of jingzhou and every other money card you could jam in there. meren seems to be one of the best commanders against decks that need their general to function.

The funny thing with Narset is that the money Time Magic cards like Capture of Jingzhao aren't even necessary. It's the fast mana, land base, haste outlets, and enough cheap interaction that actually let you win the game. Capture is probably the absolute last card I would add to the deck because there are enough extra turn/combat spells out there that you don't need it. You're never paying the mana cost for the spell anyway so it being only 5 mana doesn't mean much even if it is "preferable" for the rare occasion it would matter.

That said Meren is probably the worst matchup for Narset in terms of just hard countering her as she tends to run the most edict type effects naturally, which is the worst thing for Narset to try and play through. Other decks don't tend to run them at all. If Thraximundar were less than 7 mana, he'd concern me too, but he's too slow.

I would like to petition for Dralnu, Lich Lord to be promoted to tier three.

Gosh, 5 mana Thrax would be awesome. Not significantly better overall, but awesome.

Seconded. Originally I opposed Dralnu moving up due to his massive downsides, but enough people have petitioned or questioned his current status to make me reconsider. Plus he does technically lend himself to Doomsday and general UB storm more than any other, despite the risk of scooping to Bolt and other direct damage effects. Tier 3 does make more sense.

NarejED You sir, just inspired me to make a janky storm list with Dralnu.

I was actually working on a Doomsday deck with dralnu, but I ended up changing it to Sidisi, Undead Vizier to help with consistency.

Here's a list of changes that I think should be made:

• Grand Arbiter Augustin IV up from t2 to t1: There was a discussion on /r/cEDH where most people agreed that GAAIV is better than Brago right now and I tend to agree. Yidris makes GAAIV better than ever since these decks don't like the taxing. Breya can't do Salvagares+LED combo with this out. GAAIV can play Humility, which just shuts down so many popular things.

• Brago, King Eternal down from t1 to t2: See above; outclassed by GAAIV.

• Breya, Etherium Shaper up from t2 to t1: I'm never going to let go of this one. I think this deck is disgusting. I'm seeing a guy at my LGS win with this a lot-- consistently beating other things like Tazri food chain, Brago stax, etc.

• Selvala, Heart of the Wilds up from t3 to t2: People have been doing a good job with building explosive versions of this commander. It's a bit inconsistent, but when it goes off it really goes off.

• Dralnu, Lich Lord up from t4 to t3: I agree with the discussions above; Dralnu can do some crazy stuff, and the downside isn't typically a liability although when it is (e.g. against Marath).... good game. Dralnu isn't as good as other UBx storm/DD commanders but he can still support the archetype really well.

• Zada, Hedron Grinder up from t4 to t3: I don't think Zada is tier 4 terrible. Sure he's not as good as Daretti, he's not as consistent as Poruphoros storm, and he's not as flexible as Krenko. Nevertheless, Zada can really do some crazy things. Zada is weak as hell to spot removal since the commander is so build-around-me, but he can certainly explode and steal games at the level of other tier 3 commanders.

• Gaddock Teeg down from t2 to t3: I feel like tier 2 has too many GW commanders (I see four), and they mostly all run the same general package of Blasting Station or Boonweaver combos, and Sisay lists also run Linvala/Elesh Norn + Living Plane. Does anyone else think a GW commander needs to be knocked down a peg? It was discussed before that lots of commanders are in lower tiers just to keep certain colors from being too saturated, e.g. the 5c Sliver commanders could just be played in 5c goodstuff. GW has that problem right now in tier 2. I'm thinking that Teeg is probably the worst of them to run as a commander in competitive metas. At so many tables, the one card you're really worried about that Teeg stops is Ad Nauseum and that's it, and if I want to hit that then then I can just fetch with Captain Sisay or the variety of other things that green has to tutor.

I fully agree with all the changes pom mentioned (except maybe breya but I havent seen enough of her). I've never been scared across from Brago... GAAIV is a big problem - the only commander hard wired to neef both bomberman and (more importantly) food chain combos. Also one of the only decks that can run Humility which is backbreaking for 80% of the decks out there. Selvala can sit in any pod and win 25% minimum. I'm biased (wrote the primer) but I have tons of cockatrice replays from cedh pods of Selvala crushing it. Teeg has been dead since they printed toxic deluge - still great in the 99 though. Zada is just like Selvala except 1 turn slower and less consistent - but a true comp edh deck capable of winning games on a good draw. T3 seems appropriate but Selvala is better.

What is it about GAAIV that allows him to run humility?

I agree with all the suggested changes, but I would also reiterate that Thrasios is definitely deserving of tier 1 as well. I really don't understand why he is perpetually overlooked? He does so many combo builds better than what is already out there, namely Hermit Druid and Boonweaver Giant. He also does Bomberman better than Breya, since Angel of Glory's Rise facilitates all three combos so well and allows you to more easily get Grand Abolisher into play with the other combo pieces, and is already an autoinclude for whatever combo build (HD or Boon) you choose.

GAAIV can run humility because the general is a stax piece, not a win con, and azorius does have any other preferred compact creature-based combos as win cons. So slamming humility and losing access to arbiter is a lot better than losing access to brago, or yidris, or whoever. Typical wincons are helm+rip , monolith combo + USG, future top.

I definitely disagree about the Brago-Arbiter bit. Having played and played against both, I've never once felt that Brago did not have a significant power advantage over GAAIV. The latter lacks a solid win condition (Brago has Strionic Resonator), doesn't break parity nearly as effectively, and generates less value when built around. Arbiter is slightly more effective against certain spell-slinger decks, true, but he has a worse matchup against midrange decks and other builds that struggle more with tap/untap effects like Stasis. Arbiter makes a nice hatebear in a lot of decks, Brago included, but as a commander, he just doesn't have the all around advantages Brago does.

Gaddock Teeg is hatebears, and plays entirely differently than the other G/W commanders in T2. Moving him down would be a detriment to the list.

I could get behind Zada and Dralnu in T3.

I will now retreat back into finals week induced T/O hibernation.

Other GW decks focus on hatebears as their primary interaction-- it's really all GW has to combat faster decks. Captain Sisay is a hatebears deck at its heart; Saffi is the most all-in GW combo deck but it's still usually running things like Linvala and Teeg; same goes for GW Selvala, which is a aggro elfball deck. The GW interaction package is pretty set in stone and a lot of it involves hatebears. So I'm not really convinced Gaddock Teeg is still tier 2. You can still get Teeg out by t3 in Sisay if you're playing good ramp and you need Teeg, but Sisay is just way better against a wide areay of threats.

As a note, the only board wipes I'm seeing in my competitive meta outside of WU stax decks are Cyclonic Rift and Toxic Deluge, and that was before I even started shifting more toward Sisay and Karador as my regular go-to commanders. If I search my library for a creature with Eladamri's Call I'm usually going to opt for Sanctum Prelate over Teeg if that's an effect I need. So why would I play him as a commander?

I'm becoming increasingly fascinated with both Storm and Doomsday in EDH. Are there any commanders that can reasonably run a storm strategy with Doomsday as an alternative wincon or would that clog the deck up too much?

YamiMajinEsper storm (typically headed by zur) and grixis storm (typically headed by Jeleva) both use Doomsday and are consensus Tier 1 decks. Lists are well established and should be easy to find (probably in the Tier 1 lists shown in this post).

I, for one, am torn on the Brago/GAIV front. I see arguments on both sides.

you don't have a Yidris tier 1