@Stargreen99 Xenagos is on the list. Tier three.

Psst, Stargreen99. He's listed under Tier 3. The list is alphabetical, so he's stashed right near the bottom of the Tier. Just CTRL-F "Xenagos, god of revels" and find the top result if you don't believe me.

Sorrehh. I completely missed him. I was searching for him for a while because I saw how powerful he was tonight and I just overlooked him. My bad

Haha no problem ;)

Also for the 6 tiers system we have now. I would just say I am for it, because I think this is what will allow us to sort properly what tier 3 was before, because it was clear that the old tier 3 was divided in two. I know it changed the list a lot, but we will work togheter to make it as perfect as possible!!!

"A very clear and concise meaning for each tier should be established"

Ok, here you go: Tier 3 is for casual commanders that have strong synergies that quickly swing the board state in your favor when left unchecked. Tier 4 is for all the casual commanders who don't have such synergies available to them.

Clear enough? I thought that was what we were all going by anyway...

I can see your point about commanders of the same power level needing to be in the same tier. It was just that in your other post it seemed like you were arguing for all those commanders to be moved down, rather than that they were comparable to something else.

Also, while I can see Feldon = Jalira, or Feldon = Kiki, I'm still not agreeing on Geth and Erebos. I have a lot of experience playing with both, and Erebos is definitely the weaker of the two. In Erebos practically a third of the cards your drawing off of him are dedicated to recouping all the life he's draining from you. With Geth you can just hold up lots of board control while you take your opponent's best stuff and work on getting infinite mana. He has way more potential.

And as for Horde, there's a world of difference between playing a tribal elemental deck and playing 10 to 20 elementals that are good cards in and of themselves (Maelstrom Wanderer, for example). A tribal deck is one where the members of the tribe boost each other or grant you bonuses based off of how many creatures you have of that type. Elemental tribal doesn't really exist at the moment, the closest thing we have is Omnath, Locus of Rage, and his deck doesn't really need to run too many elementals. I was just saying that there are enough commander playable elementals for Horde of Notions to bring something unique and worthwhile to what would otherwise just be 5 color goodstuff.

Well it's obviously not clear enough, because Tier 4 is a bit of a mess :) Or maybe it's just that those rules are not being respected when placing the cards. Whatever.

"practically a third of the cards your drawing off of him are dedicated to recouping all the life he's draining from you"

Um, aren't Necropotence and Sylvan Library some of the most powerful EDH cards? People don't run life gaining to counter that, life is a resource. Additionally, he provides an outlet for plenty of mana, is indestructible, kills Oloro bad... I already wrote all of this, you can just look at it. From where I see it, you could make the exact same 99, and 90% of the time, Erebos would just be a better commander to go through those.

Horde I can't place because of the problem highlighted above, so let's just drop it.

Also, I hate to bring it up again, but seen Tier 4 right now, I figure it should remain an option: what was so wrong with 5 tiers? Tier 1: Competitive. Tier 2: Semi-Competitive. Tier 3: Casually strong, rarely competitive. Tier 4: Strictly casual. Tier 5: Vanilla or otherwise unplayable. Done. Easy to manage and sort out. If we can find a way to make Tier 4 work, I'm all for that, but I figure that the 5 tier system should be kept under consideration.

Yeah, I'm still having some difficulty deciding just where to draw the lines between Tiers 3, 4, and 5. Three is casual-strong. Four is casual-weak. Five is... something. Casual-extra weak? Currently there's very little distinguishable power difference between any of the Tiers below 3. For example, Baron Sengir and Akroma, Angel of Wrath are two tiers apart, but they're about equally unplayable. I'll just keep my suggestions to the top three until a more defined system is worked out for the bottom half.

I have defined my decks based on who the playgroup is.

Tier3: a competent enough playgroup to stop a T1/T2 supercombo deck from winning over again (requires resiliency, disruption, and an element of surprise - and good piloting / politics to avoid the hate-out)

Tier4: a group trying out new decks or budget decks - or one that shun-hates out all T1 commanders and a random laundry list of other particular cards and keywords

Tier5: Total beginners making decks out of rejected piles of commons - or a group that needs to learn that someone is better because it's them and not their cards therefore commanding deference bordering on worship and awe (sufficient objective "unplayability" is needed to make a point like this - and while I have never pulled it off, I have seen others do it)

A T1 commander is "unplayable" in a T4+ group unless you are trying to compensate for something.

These are all multiplayer considerations. To me, 1v1 is totally different.

I would say that players, not commanders, win games and there is great variety between playgroups.

Ok, ok, I am considering to switch back to 5 tiers... just need to reclass the commanders in tier 6 to tier 5 I suppose?

I think that if that were to happen, Tiers 2 and 1 remain basically the same. Tier 3 would probably remain similar, Tier 5 wouldn't change that badly either. The real work would be Tier 4, as some cards could go to Tier 3, and some back down to Tier 5.

If we are going back to 5 tiers than the following should go back to tier 3:

Feldon of the Third Path. I'm biased, so other people can argue on this, but the reanimation ability can be devastating with a turn 3 Pathrazer of Ulamog (i've done it and my build isn't completely optimized).

Arjun, the Shifting Flame. The amount of draw in this deck is insane.

Kaseto, Orochi Archmage. This has built in evasion, for anything. I think it can be strong.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion is able to refill your hand with some occasional countering. He seems playable at tier 3.

Thromok the Insatiable. This card seems awesome, but I have no idea how disruptable it is.

Trostani, Selesnya's Voice. Life gain, but slow token generation. The life gain opens some serious combos (Phyrexian Processor) but I'm also biased on this one so other people can debate it.

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger seems like a card that could be powerful in multiplayer EDH.

Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is a pretty decent voltron commander. Do not underestimate her.

@Lanzo493 I support the five-tier system, but I don't advocate any of your moves aside from Feldon and possibly Arjun (mostly based on potential, I haven't seen an optimized list yet). Going to five tiers basically means the vanilla tier joins the rest of the unplayables in tier 5, the other tiers should be unaffected. There are maybe a couple generals in tier 5 that could go to four, but tier three is mostly locked in at this point.

What about having 5 tiers and then a separate tier for all the vanilla commanders?

Tier 1: Obvious. Best of the Best.

Tier 2: Can hold their own against Tier 1 but maybe is a turn slower.

Tier 3: Best of the Casual commanders. Can survive with favorable politics and a strong opening.

Tier 4: Decent Casual commanders. Not that strong, kind of just hanging out and wins only by being ignored and then rushing the winner.

Tier 5: Worst of the casual. Doesn't do much and doesn't do that well against anyone. Almost impossible to win.

Vanilla: Exactly that. All the vanilla commanders that you use just for their colors.

That's what we have now, and it doesn't work. It's overly complex, and the lines between the tiers are too blurred for placements to be made.

I would say Varolz should be a tier higher, although I am biased with a deck on him. Is there any specific reason that he is lower that my play group doesn't understand? Because if I play that deck Sen Triplets, Meren, and Niv Mizzet target me immediately.

Varolz is an amazing tiny leader but I've never seen him do anything special in EDH. I think his current tier is correct.

So i've been considering building a somewhat competitive Olivia Voldaren deck recently, and I see she's in the tier 4 list. I'm going to have to assume that's because she's only Black and Red and doesn't involve herself in any combo's that win the game.

Anyway, does anyone have any experience with her in EDH? Is it just a lost cause? Wasn't thinking of building vampire tribal, but i've never built Jund or Black/Red in EDH and it seems kinda interesting.

Why is Lazav in tier four? I realized you changed some stuff around, but the Dimir Mastermind is still pretty damn awesome. Especially in Multiplayer, and you explicitly have said that this latest version is for multiplayer games. Open to well constructed counterpoints, just wondering why he was one of the demoted

I play Olivia everyone in a while. She's fun, but losing to enchantments you can't do much about kinda sucks. Can't tell you how many times I've stared at a Mana Reflections or Mirari's Wake and just sighed.

She's also mana hungry. But luckily, your commander has huge target on her face so your other permanents usually live.

Lorderos23 Yea, figured as much. Might try my hand at mono-red with Purph instead, though I imagine that's gonna get the same reaction as if I had just walked up and slapped everyone in the face before sitting down.

@jackanukealty Lazav suffers from two primary weaknesses: His color identity, and his reliance upon the contents of other people's decks. It isn't too great to the Lazav player who's busily milling the creatureless control deck, or the clones deck, or the tribal deck, or the control deck with random utility creatures. Having Lazav become a Goblin Lackey, or a Clever Impersonator, or an Arbor Elf, or simply nothing at all isn't exactly what I would call a winning strategy. It's for much the same reason that cards like Bribery and Gilded Drake don't actually show up at competitive tables all that often. What's more, mill strategies can actively help certain commanders, such as Sedris, the Traitor King or Karador, Ghost Chieftain.

That would already be bad enough, but U/B, as a color identity, can't destroy artifacts and enchantments without relying on complete jank like Spine of Ish Sah or Scour from Existence, which is a very serious weakness in any sort of competitive meta. How exactly does Lazav recover from a Wheel of Sun and Moon, for example?

Now, there are obviously ways to mitigate these problems, but an optimized Lazav deck would have to devote too much of its resources to doing just that, leaving us with a deck whose strategy takes away more from its overall competitiveness than it actually gives. Phenax, God of Deception is simply the better mill commander, as the game plan he poses is simultaneously far more proactive and far more synergistic, especially when you consider how well he combos with certain cards, such as Eater of the Dead and Umbral Mantle.

That's about all there is to say about that.

Ruhan of the Fomori is much better of a commander than people give him credit for, generally people aren't scared of him because of his "Downside" which opens opportunities for you to make them scared of him. By the time they realize they should have been scared, its generally too late. Also Rafiq of the Many, aka good Ruhan of the Fomori, is at least tier two, seeing as the number of turn 4 wins he can crank out is genuinely frightening.

Lorderos23 that's why you use things like Oblivion Stone, Unstable Obelisk, or Scour from Existence.

Oblivion stone maybe, the rest are awful. Most of the time you are just better off politicizing the problem away.

@CanterlotGuardian Oblivion Stone and Karn Liberated are about the most efficient answers you'd have access to. That really isn't enough, in my book.