Why is hope of ghiraphur tier 4?

A colorless general is severely limited in its options when it is not also a game-ending threat, so Hope cannot rise above 4. However, it is a very disruptive element for spell-based decks, making it relevant enough to merit non-Tier 5 status. Considering that you can cast it repeatedly, it will be somewhat relevant in any game.

Wait, so what youre saying is just cuz it isnt a bomb in itself, it cant be above tier 4? Cuz a stax build is very helpful with hope, especially with the low cast cost. I know it isnt nearly optimal but ive tried a stax build with it, and the sacrifice ability is usually used. Hopeful Stax

anyone building a Bontu the Glorified deck?

Im still thinking of a proper combo for bontu but when ive figured out the last pieces i can decide between nin deathmantle combos, nooze combos, and some combination involving bitter ordeal

chaosumbreon87 what I have been finding and researching looks like a lot of fun. One combo I saw was with Dread Summons , Army of the Damned, and Throne of the God-Pharaoh. And with Cabal Coffers, Crypt of Agadeem and all the tutors in black and all the sacs with Bontu it could do a lot of damage. Also powering up bontu with artifacts since she has menace you could go for lethal commander damage. especially if there are artifacts that could giver her trample and double strike, which I assume there are.

the problem with many of the options you just mentioned is high CMC low payoff for the cEDH environment. throne sounds good and both cabal coffers and crypt of agadeem sound good but voltron is not really a good win con. If I could think of a decent reanimator build ill test it out but as it sounds now, it might nooze reanimator

chaosumbreon87 I would have a decent amount of mana rocks and also artifacts that reduce the manna cost down. thats just one combo I thought looked fun.

So I guess I am biased because I play Gaddock Teeg, and here's the obligatory, "I feel like my deck should be higher than tier 3," statement for you.

So basically here's my argument, with Gaddock Teeg in the command zone, it is implied that we're going to be playing a game with mostly lower-costed noncreature spells. Right at the get-go, I'm perfectly happy playing a creature deck against wraths, especially most of that garbage in my neighboring "tier 3" play. The only wraths that honestly pose a threat are Cyclonic Rift and Toxic Deluge, both of which I can play around with Sanctum Prelate, and in Toxic Deluge's case specifically, Angel of Jubilation. I think that perhaps the strongest card against me is Ixidron, which is absent in most tier 1-1.5 lists.

I know pitting two decks against eachother in 1v1 is a horrible metric for pod quality, but I've 1v1'd Teferi, Temporal Archmage and held a positive win-ratio against it over the course of many games. I've gone 1v1 against Yidris Storm and absolutely stomped it with a 90% winrate. I generally go 50/50 against Tazri. Before Leovold was banned, I was hashing out at least 50%+ winrate. These lists I'm playing against are very close to the tier one lists posted up top.

The rest of the tier 1 list is about 40/60 at worst. Generally, against top tier combo, I stand my own against the field, since I have a hate card for all of them, and most of them seriously hate teeg and his friends. Against stax, I'm not feeling great, but I'm also not feeling terrible. The Blood Moon can sometimes be a bit hairy to play around, but not entirely too difficult. I'm not saying Teeg is tier 1. But I can say for certain it's not tier 3. I would dominate a tier 3 metagame as it stands here.

I'll leave my personal list out of the comments. I'm curious how threatening a Gaddock Teeg hatebear combo deck sounds to you guys? Protean hulk has been helpful, as it has with other decks too obviously. I've had combo wins as early as turn 2. Opinions?

n0bunga i think i understand where you are coming from, i just still think at least tier 3.5 would be best placed for hope. But i may just be a little biased, who knows? tier 4 just seems too low for its potential, not really sure how to explain why

@Athraithe The decklists provided show what Hope has to compete against in tier 3, not to mention higher tiers. Colorless is bad, voltron is bad except for Bruna stax, and any super-refined list sporting at least one color is going to have access to some degenerate shit that a colorless deck can't deal with. If Hope is good in your playgroup that's fine, but this is a cEDH tier list.

Re: Gaddock Teeg: It's way worse than Captain Sisay and cEDH doesn't have that many 4+ CMC noncreature spells.

Anyway, has anyone ever tried to build a competitive/refined Mayael? I think I have one, but looking through TappedOut and failing to find Survival/Loyal Retainers lists or Blood Moon lists makes me think I might have a monopoly on good Mayael lists haha. Mayael Pubstomp

p0megranates You're totally right. The following list is just a short list of maybe 3 or 4 completely irrelevant cards, and having a way to stop all of them every game insistently in the command zone just seems terrible.

• Force of Will
• Ad Nauseum
• JTMS
• Aetherflux Reservoir
• Fact or Fiction
• Tezzeret the Seeker
• Thran Dynamo
• Gilded Lotus
• Memory Jar
• Time Spiral
• Dig Through Time
• Treasure Cruise
• Dread Return
• Green Sun's Zenith
• Past in Flames
• Ill-Gotten Gains
• Dark Petition
• Gush
• Whir of Invention
• Paradox Engine
• Myr Turbine
• Citanul Flute
• Reshape
• Splinter Twin
• Parallax Wave
• Living Plane
• Armageddon
• Time Warp
• Temporal Manipulation
• Capture of Jingzhou
• Wrath of God
• Humility
• Narset Transcendent
• Supreme Verdict
• Helm of Obedience
• Future Sight
• Birthing Pod
• Natural Order
• Greater Good
• Tooth and Nail

That's a list generated from the mainboards of the tier 1-1.5 lists up top. Didn't touch tier 2 or maybeboards. I played against Captain Sisay a few times. I found it rather predictable, really easy to interact with and completely hose.

@-Logician half of those cards are exclusively played in like 3 different lists. (Selvala, Teferi, Edric.)

Sisay is good if you're playing against a refined Sisay list by a competent pilot. (I can't speak to what you played against.) The advantage of Sisay is that you can more easily accumulate redundancy in hatebears so you don't immediately lose the second someone casts Chain of Vapors.

Gaddock Teeg isn't a particularly good hatebear. It's good enough to play in the 99 of Sisay, but it's underwhelming generally so long as there's like at least one Doomsday or Food Chain list at the table (now Flash Hulk too!). Play against a diverse competitive meta and you'll see what I mean. Also, losing steam easily isn't a good look for a stax deck.

Athraithe, "tier 3.5" Dude, no. Pls, no. There is no T3.5. There's not going to be a T3.5. Don't bring up T3.5. Stop.

sonnet666 no

u mihgt wanna play sum lands

p0megranates I've been playing Gaddock Teeg for a while now. I can say that Sisay, while being able to tutor stuff and has that redundancy, lacks the ability to tutor the full spectrum of hatebears necessary for the array of situations in tier 1-1.5. It doesn't tutor Aven Mindcensor. It doesn't tutor Sanctum Prelate. It doesn't tutor Eidolon of Rhetoric or Ethersworn Canonist. Now, GW has plenty of creature tutor power, and so that isn't a big issue. I've considered playing Sisay in my 99, but I evaluated that it just doesn't have an impact when it comes into play without haste. On the following turn, if he's still around, I can tutor a card, but it's probably not going to be the card I really need. It only gets legendary cards, which can't solve any problem. In order to leverage the power of this ability to the fullest, I would have to change my creature base to a higher-curved package with what feels like slower impact and response time. My deck is already just a liiiiiittle bit slow. To add a Sisay or to even consider playing Sisay as my commander would make me even slower.

Your argument regarding Chain of Vapor is a bit invalid here, as it is mostly equally as strong against both Teeg and Sisay. It gets rid of the card that is stopping them from winning, except if we have a Sylvan Safekeeper in play or an active Mother of Runes. Turns out though, in fact, that Chain of Vapor hits Sisay pretty hard, since without haste, it has to be around for a cycle to become relevant. You can actually set Sisay back a whole turn with that one blue mana. And that turn that a Sisay player is cut off from is such a crutial turn. It's not something that they can just come back from. Teeg is immediately impactful and doesn't have to overcome summon sickness to be effective.

"Half of those cards are exclusively played in three decks."

Hermit druid is a common top tier strategy. It plays Dread Return. I stop dread return. Outside of a lucky turn 1 or 2 win, they have to kill my commander to win, which often sets their clock 1 turn back, increasing their overall vulnerability. I've seen plenty of combo decks rely on Aetherflux Reservoir and/or Paradox Engine to win. I cut off both of those too. You won't be able to beat me with Nauseam either. Don't expect to be able to rely on Force of Will either. And keep in mind, we're just talking about my commander. I'm still a hatebear deck. Just because I don't have Sisay doesn't mean that I can't get access to an early Linvala if I need it. Green and white have plenty of tutoring for creatures. The redundancy is there. The selection is there. I can tutor for answers to a large portion of the rest of the field. Perhaps my hardest matchup is food chain due to it being difficult to interact with, but even that is beatable.

I'm also not saying Teeg needs to be bumped up to tier 1. Definitely not. Not even 1.5. But looking at the tier descriptions, I think tier 2 fits perfectly.

Tier 2:

• Less powerful than the tier 1 decks (I agree here. Tier 1 is very exclusive), but still quite strong (Yeah. I hold my own.), these can definitely hold their own against tier 1 decks (Exactly my stance. Not quite on a perfectly level playing field as tier 1, but I can hold my own.). They are usually a turn slower than tier 1 decks, or they have consistency problems (Guilty on the turn slower. I'm pretty consistent though.).

Tier 3:

• This is the middle tier. They can't usually compete against tier 1 decks (This doesn't seem to describe me accurately), but might do fine with tier 2 decks (I do well against tier 2 decks, seeing as we are in the same tier.). They usually have "the Aggro Problem," or they are wildly inconsistent (Green/White isn't inconsistent if you play all the tutors.). Most of the "pubstomp" decks that dominate casual meta go in here. They may have a bad reputation, but that doesnt' make them tier 1.

It's pretty clear that you haven't played against a tuned Teeg list, nor any Teeg list I imagine. That's not meant to be insulting. I'm sure most people haven't. He's certainly a bit under the radar, but that doesn't mean he's not strong. Really looking for some other opinions here.

To be honest I'm pretty sure Hope of Ghirapur should be tier 5 not tier 4. It's in colorless which makes it worse than mono white (which is the worst color a deck can be in edh), and it doesn't actually do anything. It can't actually stop an opponent from combining off as it has to deal combat damage to them...and it's not like a colorless deck has any real combo potential anyway. Sure, you've got basalt/grim monolith + rings + staff of dom to gain infinite life and draw your deck...but that still doesn't actually win. Are there any actual purely colorless combo's that win the game?

Edit: I guess you could use cloudstone curio, alter of the brood, and an infinite mana combo to win once you've gone infinite with staff of dom...

Why is this thing in the tier 4 list in the first place? I'm suggesting it get downgraded to t5.

I'm having problems seeing how Gaddock Teeg stops decks. Most decks run multiple win conditions and non creatures above 4 CMC seems fairly bad.

I haven't personally played against one, I'm just having problems seeing how the ability is relevant. I don't expect you're going to sit on a Force of Will when somebody tries to cast Teeg. I expect that is a fairly good time to cast it.

I just really don't see what makes it Tier 2. Looking at Tier 1 and Tier 2 Commanders, Teeg seems fairly useless?

I believe this argument applies to many people: If you play your favorite deck a lot, you're probably much more proficient than your casual EDH opponent (or even competitive opponent with newish deck), as p0megranates pointed out. Furthermore, if you're very enthusiastic about your deck, your list is probably also much more optimized. These are enormous sources of bias. That's why arguing that you regularly crush all your opponents' tier 1/2 decks is completely insubstantial.

On a different note, cherry-picking specific cards or matchups that your deck beats is also pointless. Unless you want to examine every single card and matchup (no one has time for that), it's better to argue more broadly. Gaddock Teeg certainly isn't an obscure commander, and it could fall in tier 2.5 or 3. But it seems strictly worse than Selvala, Explorer Returned, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip, and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death (all tier 2) at stax.

Regardless, you might have an amazing Teeg deck to add to the list. Since there isn't one available, maybe you should nominate yours? The only way to (eventually) settle these biases would be thorough playtesting by competent pilots using only optimized lists.

Apparently, facts, reasons, statistics, and examples are invisible here. The fact is that if I am able to stop a tier 1-1.5 combo deck from comboing off, I have essentially defeated them until they can answer my hatebear (be it Teeg or something else like Linvala), which I can aim to protect. Please remember that Teeg isn't my only hatebear. He aims to protect my boardstate from 4 CMC+ wraths, armageddon, and to cut off common upper-end win conditions like Ad Nauseum, Reservoir, Paradox Engine, tooth and nail etc. Again, he's not my only hatebear. He has a certain job and function. I like the security he offers. Other GW decks will lose to Armageddon and won't be fast enough to stop Reservoir etc. That's why Teeg stands out here. He's the glue.

Whether or not I can throw my hate-blanket over your deck and keep it held translates to whether or not I win the game. If it sticks, I win. If it doesn't, oh well. I can make similar statements about other tier 2 decks. Take Maelstrom Wanderer for example. If you can ramp up to a lot of mana and set up your cascades simultaneously, then cast your commander, you're likely in the lead. If not, you're probably going to lose. In basically whatever combo shell you're doing, if you don't run into a counterspell for your tutor or your relevant combo piece, nor do you run into basically any kind of interaction, you probably win. If you do run into basically any sort of interaction and you're not prepared for it, you're probably out of the game. It just so happens that my axis is hatebears, and I can still potentially combo off on turns 2-4 if I have a good start. Playing hatebears in any other shell, like Sisay or Saffi, just means that you're more dedicated to a combo that probably isn't fast enough on its own, which is why they aren't tier 1. The real better shell for this deck rather than Teeg isn't Sisay or Saffi. It's Karador. That's why Karador is deserving of tier 1.5. He's a faster teeg/sisay/saffi deck with better sac outlets and more tutors and redundancy. He is clearly superior, yet even he is still behind the game against tier 1.

"...non creatures above 4 CMC seems fairly bad."

• it's 4 or more. Not above 4. And the list isn't that bad. While it doesn't stop absolutely everything (that would be too broken obviously), it does stop a list of 40 cards represented in the mainboards of tier 1-1.5 decks. That complete list is in a comment of mine above. While not all cards on that list are crazy ridiculous power cards, some of them are. It's definitely not just a list of bad cards.

I'll be back in either a couple of hours or tomorrow to continue responding. But I will ignore responses that don't seem to have very much effort.

If you look at the tier 1 deck lists here, many play Toxic Deluge, Cyclonic Rift, and Fire Covenant, and precisely zero copies of board wipes CMC >= 4. Most expensive spells are too slow to play in cEDH. If your Teeg list is helping you against board wipes, that's another indicator that your opponents might not be optimal.

Please don't take it personally. None of us have complete information, which is why these things require open debate and playtesting, and not just one person's experience. And it's certainly not your fault if you're much more proficient than your opponents.

-Logician: Chain of Vapor is harder to stop against Sisay because the deck doesn't just run out of steam and can consistently play more than 1 relevant hatebear.

I agree with everyone else here re: Teeg vs Sisay, as well as the possibility your meta might not be optimal. I'd also add that Sisay lists these days also just play Paradox Engine as a win, which makes Sisay both a fast (albeit fragile) combo deck and a stax deck at the same time, whereas Teeg doesn't have that advantage.

I took a look at your list; it seems pretty good for the most part, but the lack of Carpet of Flowers, Null Rod, Root Maze, Stony Silence, Chrome Mox, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Ethersworn Canonist, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Tormod's Crypt, Grafdigger's Cage, Containment Priest, or Rest in Peace is suspicious to me and makes me wonder if you're actually playing in a cEDH meta or if you're just stomping pubs. (Especially the Eidolon/Ethersworn honestly). I'm not saying play all of those cards-- e.g. Chrome Mox doesn't synergize with Null Rod obviously, Loyal Retainers can't do anything with RIP/Cage out-- but in a hatebears list with few artifacts and few ways to recur the GY it seems like you should be playing some of those? Because specific hatebears are sometimes useless (Hushwing sucks vs Zur for example), so can be turned into fast mana with Chrome Mox, or you can limit artifacts and go for Stony Silence. But either one or the other makes sense. (Heads up: I play both in my Thrasios Tymna Hulk list!)

I don't think your list is bad and I've seen lists very similar to it, you just have some interesting exclusions that don't really make sense to not run in a competitive meta. I think your deck would be very good at most LGSs and I think it can win sometimes at competitive groups, but lack of Rule of Law type effects would mean you have no real way to stop things like Food Chain Tazri. I see some of the cards are in your sideboard but in cEDH those are mainboard cards. And if Food Chain combos aren't a thing in your groups such that you don't need to mainboard them... might indicate something...

But if you think your list is that good and everyone else is wrong, go prove people wrong in the next cEDH Cockatrice tournament.

The thing is, your deck is mostly fine except not mainboarding Rule of Law effects, creature-cheating hate and mass artifact hate but... honestly the single best way I see that deck being upgraded for a more competitive meta would be to make Captain Sisay the commander. Lol.

I'd like to point out that this is exactly why we say don't discuss your own personal commanders.

There is a lot of "I can" and "My commander" and "My deck" involved your statements meaning that personal bias is skewing your thought process.

People have explained why Sisay is better than Teeg. You have refused to listen and thrown it back in their faces. You use the word "fact" liberally when we just have your word on it. The fact is I've beaten Tier 1 HD combo and Terferi Stax simultaneously with Feldon fatty reanimator for christ's sake. It doesn't mean Feldon is auto-magically Tier 0. You have to look at the counterargments that are being presented and not brush them off as people ignoring your "facts".

As a counterpoint, I never thought the arguement here was that Gaddock Teeg is better than Captain Sisay. I thought the argument was that Teeg is currently listed as tier 3 and -Logician is stating that it should be ranked higher (thougth I have skimmed through some of the conversation so I could be wrong). So the fact that it's being compared to FCT and Zur decks is a side point.

I think the more important question is, does Gaddock Teeg seem at home amongst tier 2.5 (or even tier 2) decks? if everyone at hte table were running a tier 2.5 commander, how well would he go on average?