Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List]

Commander / EDH* thegigibeast

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Bowngnawer I struggle to believe that the second list you posted was optimized I saw 5+ cards that were slow or just plain bad, however I could definitely be missing some sick combos there. Your hulk list on the other hand seems very good however I tested it for several games and it seemed inconsistent but it could just be bad hands and bad play. Additionally I'm aware that the list I have isn't completely optimal but in a week or 2 I will be doing a major overhaul to see if I can fit in several combos as well as streamlining the deck and giving it alternate routes to victory. In the meantime if they want to change lists to your flash hulk that is fine but I cannot at all justify using the other one.

August 14, 2017 11:23 p.m.

Gates88 says... #2

I was going to talk about something else, but since we're briefly talking about tier placement, I'll provide some quick thoughts before getting to the important stuff:

General Tazri - Fast, consistent, resilient - everything you'd want in a combo deck. Obviously tier 1.

Jeleva vs Kess - At first I thought that Kess was better by leaps and bounds since her ability is consistently stronger than Jeleva's in a vacuum. However, Magic is not played in a vacuum, and through discussion Jeleva's other strengths have been made manifest. For now we should keep them roughly equal until a really stand-out list for either one (most likely Kess since Jelva's been around for years now and is mostly solved) emerges to push one over the other.

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher - I tend to agree with lilbrudder and others who have said he should be moved down. He just can't interact as well as Sidisi or Tazri, Tazri has more tutors, and Sidisi has better backup lines. That said, moving him below tier 1.5 would be denying his raw strength, speed, and resiliency. He has access to the best 3-color manabase in the game and Food Chain augments it. This idea that he has limited access to interaction when every Prossh deck ever has run REB, Pyroblast, City of Solitude, Abrupt Decay, Nature's Claim, Vexing Shusher, Autumn's Veil, etc. is a gross overstatement. Prossh isn't the king of Food Chain anymore, but that doesn't mean he's not still a big threat.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage - Obviously complete garbage. 6 mana for a commander? How horrible. It also completely folds to Blood Pod and needs to run horrible cards like Expedition Map and Silent Arbiter to contend. It's a deck that really is limited by its color identity. It wants white for Humility, Enlightened Tutor, Rest In Peace, Supreme Verdict, etc.; it wants red for Goblin Welder, board wipes, wheel effects, etc.; it wants green for additional ramp and card draw; and it wants black for...well, anything really, but it can't run any of these colors and so you're stuck with a mediocre "adaptive combo" (whatever that means) deck. You'd have to be some kind of moron to play Teferi these days.

Thrasios, Triton Hero - Best infinite mana outlet in the game and Partner makes him very flexible. Obvious tier 1, possibly the best commander legal today. No other commander pushes other decks out of the meta like Thrasios does.

Tymna the Weaver - 6 months ago I would have been fully against placing Tymna anywhere above tier 3. I would have ranted and raved about how Thrasios carried her just like he carries all the other partners, and that getting a free Ambition's Cost every turn is a scenario that is too unlikely to actually happen. However, the success of Blood Pod has proven me wrong. Aside from Zur, she's easily the best WBx commander in the game for her ability to create value from very little and she absolutely deserves to be tier 1.

Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - If there is a consistent Yidris deck that's better than Thras+Smash, I haven't seen it. His effect and color identity are still strong enough to keep him out of tier 2, but not strong enough to keep him at the very top. He's a lot like Breya - fundamentally a UBx storm deck with a few build-around cards that is just barely outclassed by Zur, Jeleva, and now Kess.

Zur the Enchanter - As long as Necropotence is legal, Zur will be tier 1. Even if Necropotence gets banned, Zur would probably still be the best WUB general since tutoring for removal is more valuable than doing Sharuum loops or gaining 2 life a turn.

Animar, Soul of Elements - I feel like the reason why people are relatively harsh on Animar is because the deck hasn't really changed in many meaningful ways since Ancestral Statue was printed. They got Walking Ballista and Vizier of the Menagerie, but that's about it. The lack of black is a bit of an issue, but when the deck is mostly creatures your green tutors are all you really need. The disruption suite is small and sometimes greedy (if you count Ulamog), but for a combo deck you can only run so much disruption before it starts to encroach on ramp, card draw, and tutors. Animar has actually gotten stronger with the additional tools he's gotten over time, but the rest of the metagame has changed more drastically so he looks weaker by comparison. I think this evens him out relatively speaking and thus he should stay where he is.

Brago, King Eternal - Brago is kind of similar to Animar in that he gained new tools in Recruiter of the Guard and Sanctum Prelate (and Oath of Jace to a lesser extent) but the rest of the meta has evolved around him in such a way that he is no longer a strong choice for a commander. Both decks are also heavily reliant on their commanders and run combo finishes in colors that don't have access to the best tutors. The difference between the two is that although both are reliant on their commanders, Animar has access to better ramp, comes down earlier, and has protection from two common removal colors. Animar also has a big advantage in speed - a fast combo from Animar can catch players off-guard wheras fast leads from Brago don't really happen. Brago also has a severe case of summoning sickness while Animar doesn't. A better comparison would be Tymna, who is also the lead of a hatebear-focused deck, but can generate value the turn she hits the board as long as you have an attacker. Speaking of Blood Pod, Brago is also quite weak to Stony Silence and Null Rod because of his extreme reliance on mana rocks, and a fast reanimated Elesh Norn from an Abzan or Blood Pod deck can basically ruin his entire gameplan. What you end up with is a build-around stax deck that is weak to other stax decks, which doesn't make for a particularly strong deck. Tier 2 is a fine home for him.

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - I could talk about most of the same stuff I mentioned in Brago for why GAAIV isn't viable because most of it still applies. The weakness to Null Rod, the lack of tutoring limiting the win conditions, etc. it's all true. The big difference is that while Brago relies too heavily on its commander, GAAIV is kind of incendental to his own deck. On the one hand, this is a sort of weird advantage that allows GAAIV to run more creature hate than normal, with most lists typically running WoG, Supreme Verdict, Humility, Cursed Totem, and Torpor Orb at the very minimum. On the other hand, this also ends up being a sort of disadvantage since GAAIV will never really be anything more than a mana rock. If GAAIV gets killed at any point during the game, he'll probably never be cast again. This isn't really what you want out of a stax commander. I don't want to make a blanket statement and say that UW Stax isn't a competitive strategy anymore since they have really strong hate pieces like Humility, RiP, Aura of Silence, Back to Basics, etc., but it's hard not to look at Brago and GAAIV and not see how they're outclassed by Derevi. Tier 2 is a fine place, and that's almost entirely based on his color identity.

Karador, Ghost Chieftain - He's just outclassed by Tymna in every way, whether your pairing her with Thrasios or Tana. Even Tymna+Reyhan/Sidar Kondo/other BG partner would probably be better I could honestly see him dropping all the way down to tier 3, but that's probably too extreme.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded - I have been saying ever since this card was spoiled that if it does end up being good, it'll be because it's strong in the 99 and not on its strength as a commander. 8 mana and multiple creatures in play is just too much to ask for when other decks could be jamming Ad Nauseam 2 turns earlier. He's still better than most pubstomp decks, so tier 2.5 seems like a good place to have him. An optimized Razaketh deck would probably try to jam Ad Nauseam as soon as possible and only use Raz as a backup line. The problem with that is that there's already a very strong mono-black Ad Nauseam deck. It's very fast and very consistent and fairly resilient despite the color identity restrictions. It's headed by a certain commander who you may have heard of. She's pretty strong in her own right and could possibly even function reasonably well without Ad Nauseam. Her name, of course, is Gallowbraid.

Scion of the Ur-Dragon - In a post-partner, post-Ballista world, Hermit Druid decks no longer need 5 colors to have access to an infinite mana outlet and good tutors. Tier 2 seems like a reasonable home, but I could see him going lower.

Sidisi Brood Tyrant, The Gitrog Monster - These are the two big ones I could see moving up to tier 1. Their speed and consistency is excellent, they run plenty of interaction, and they've shown very good results over the past year. I don't think they're quite there yet, but we should definitely keep an eye out on them.

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Atraxa is awful. I know I said the same thing about Teferi earlier, but back there I was just joking around. I really mean it this time, Atraxa is horrible. She has been getting way too many free passes just because of her color identity, and in that color identity she's outclassed by Thrasios+Tymna. Oh wow, Atraxa gets one more card, big whoop. If any one of her colors were removed, everyone would easily dump her in tier 4 without a second thought, and the fact that people still haven't done so after almost a year is astounding. Tier 3 is more than she deserves, but it's probably where she belongs.

Azami, Lady of Scrolls - This is another commander to watch since she's peen posting good results lately. Don't think she should move up just yet though.

Mairsil, the Pretender - Tier 2 is way too generous. Are people forgetting about the "once per turn" clause? That severely hampers what he can do, to the point where you'd have to jump through a ton of hoops to make a combo with him actually work. You could just put him at the head of Grixis storm, but he's outclassed by Jeleva and Kess there.

Oona vs Dralnu - Personally, I think they're similar in terms of power level, with Oona only being just barely better. Both of them are in a somewhat limited color identity and both of them are directly outlclassed by other commanders. Oona is outclassed by Thrasios who only needs 2 colored mana to cast and combo off while Oona needs 6. Dralnu is now explicitly outclassed by Kess and before that was outclassed by JVP despite the color identity difference. So in reality, both are pretty bad. However, it's easier to make infinite mana than to play a 5 drop and protect him from Fire Covenant or Rolling Earthquake. So their current placement is probably the right place to put them. Nobody plays Blasphemous Act in CEDH btw.

Baral, Chief of Compliance - After more thinking, I think we can safely move Baral down to tier 3. For a while he was one of the top 5 High Tide commanders, but with Kess that's no longer the case. Additionally, he's pretty all-in on that strategy and accruing value over time with his passive ability is a lot harder to do in multiplayer.

Now that we got all that boring stuff nobody cares about out of the way, let's talk about the important issues: The Johnny, Combo Player decklist. As you know, I made a list about a month ago with Johnny as the commander entitled Johnny Magic. The win condition was to get infinite colorless mana, play Johnny, search up Stroke of Genius and Lotus Petal, deck the opponent, Timetwister, and repeat. It's a tried and true strategy that has been passed down the mono-blue family for generations.It also ran just about every good blue card in the format as well as some potential for Paradox Engine lines using things like Training Grounds and Heartstone to reduce Johnny's tutoring cost and chain rocks together to find combo pieces, similar to an Arcum deck. I also didn't see many other Johnny lists on Tappedout that weren't Un-legal decks or other gimmick decks. I was very surprised, then, when I saw that when this list was last updated that another Johnny player beat me to the punch. I try to keep an open mind about these things, so I looked into his list and found some interesting design decisions. I could go into detail into all the differences, but the gist of it is that the posted list is just generally built around having as many combos as possible, even bad or clunky ones, rather than actually making a good deck. It even includes Donate+Illusions of Grandeur, which is not a lethal combo in a 40 life format. The list is not completely without merit and there are good inclusions in it. Strip Mine is a good tech choice, Palinchron and Lab Maniac are great inclusions that should probably be in my list, Brain Freeze is a good alternate win condition with infinite storm even if Aetherflux Reservoir is better, and Evacuation is good creature hate. Otherwise, there are a lot of weird decisions in the deck. The most glaring ones I see are in the draw engine package. The deck lacks mono-blue card draw staples like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Mystic Remora, Impulse, JVP, Thirst for Knowledge, Timetwister, Memory Jar, Time Spiral, and Dig Through Time. The deck also lacks a tutoring package, omitting Mystical Tutor, Transmute Artifact, Muddle the Micture, Fabricate, Intuition, and Tezzeret the Seeker, let alone Reshape and Whir of Invention. It also lacks interaction in general, with no Chain of Vapor, Dispel, Flusterstorm, Mental Misstep, Repeal, Spell Pierce, Swan Song, Cyclonic Rift, Into the Roil, Mana Drain, or Negate. Instead, the deck jams as many infinite combos as possible in with no regard to how clunky they are, greedy draw spells, and board wipes, and tries to compensate by running redundant parts and about 6 more lands than necessary. It honestly seems less like an optimized list and more like a paper list, which is not what the purpose of providing a sample decklist on here is for. My only other guess besides that is that the deck creator plans to play a "value Johnny" and use him as the sole tutor for the deck to grab whatever pieces of various combos are missing from the opening hand. I believe it is much more effective to instead build a shell around 3 or 4 infinite mana combos that hopefully have multiple redundant pieces and use Johnny as an infinite mana sink to grab Stroke (and the rest of your deck). Also, the guy's running Mycosynth Lattice with no March of the Machines? Come on, man.

I don't believe that my list for Johnny is an optimized list, and considering how few people actually care there may never be an optimized list. However, I strongly hope that you take my list into further consideration instead of the list that is currently there.

August 14, 2017 11:57 p.m.

chaosumbreon87 says... #3

Ok this might sound crazy since this would be my like 15th deck (with 2 more in the brainstorming stage) that im trying for HT but hear me out. I think GAAIV might have some value as a HT commander in that- we get baral's reduction (and reduction to white whoopty doo [ actually relevant ]). However, the main thing that I believe threw everyone to stax was the third line of text. I would like to see if HT with a much smaller hate package (Humility, torpor orb, and the like) would be the long awaited answer. That force spike tax is actually more relevant IMO than thorn of amethyst effects so I want to try out that before demoting.

I disagree on the mairsil point only for the fact that both the deck I currently have above for review, and I believe she is more relevant than initially planned. I mean I'm already thinking about a splinter twin shell now that I realized shes a more redundant but effective necrotic ooze. Also, we have no data for her to work from. Moving her now with minimal data and theorycrafting seems bad to me. Tier 2 sounds good to me for now.

Next, I disagree as I will for razaketh if the arguement is about ad nauseam because people see the 8 cmc and flip out but they forgot: RAZAKETH IS NOT IN THE DECK SO YOUR AVERAGE CMC IS .08 LOWER OR MORE. This is already relevant and just makes the storm better. Does this mean this is the best storm out there for mono black? No, sidisi has a slight edge. However I dont think its t3 or t2.5 range. Hell, most of my goldfish wins, I didnt see nor tutor for ad naus since carnival of souls is just so much better.

Also just my opinion but I'd rather focus on the tier 1-3 decks before moving onto the un sets (we have a large chunk of the tier 3 decks left).

If a lengthy conversation is needed for explanations of my thoughts, feel free to chat on my wall. I'll check on it in the morning or so. Otherwise feel free to rebute.

August 15, 2017 12:47 a.m.

Ohthenoises says... #4

So, something just occurred to me. Is there any value to Mairsil with Heartless Hidetsugu?

The issue with heartless is that he needed more colors to tutor for a damage doubling effect and his high cmc. Mairsil could be a better Heartless with access to black for tutoring and U for disruption.

Build a better Heartless?

August 15, 2017 8:27 a.m.

Lilbrudder says... #5

Gates88: Well said. 100%

As far as SBT for tier 1: I am biased but my latest brew of SBT I made with Voidia, which is built around razaketh food chain and hulk is really powerful. Most the time when I play SBT she is good, but I always think well Thrasios is better by a fair margin. I am not convinced that is the case with Demon Tyrant. It feels almost on par with our overlord.

Gitrog is also really good. I was against moving him up in the past but its hard to deny that he is a force that transcends his color scheme

August 15, 2017 8:57 a.m. Edited.

Pinrohn says... #6

I think Baru, Fist of Krosa should be reevaluated, here is my deck list,


Baru Mono Green EDH

Commander / EDH Pinrohn

14 VIEWS


My deck is limited based on the cards I can afford but I feel like Baru has just as much consistency as many of the other Tier 3 mono green commanders.

August 15, 2017 10:01 a.m.

chaosumbreon87 says... #7

Pinrohn i would suggest copying your list and making it budgetless for a more effective evaluation. The decks here do not need to be physically owned so you can go as expensive as you wish.

August 15, 2017 12:25 p.m.

pokejerk20 says... #8

Can I get a primer for blood pod?

August 15, 2017 5 p.m.

Lilbrudder says... #9

August 15, 2017 5:06 p.m.

i think that the daxos the retuned decklist of thegigibeast can go tier 2.5

August 15, 2017 6:06 p.m.

Lorderos23 says... #11

So I've been seeing a lot of people playing Blood pod decks in paper recently (I tried it and it wasn't my style of game play).

I am not discounting the deck is good but it's not nearly tier 1.

I've crushed it with Food Chain Prossh and Kaalia. It could be the pilots, they weren't the best however, the deck just lacks pressure sometimes. Also everyone can see the Kiki/twin coming.

The deck seems to do better against storm and ad naus decks. But personally I don't see tier 1 potential right now.
I think people overvalue Stax decks(save Derevi, that deck is broke). They do nothing too often and have floating non-bo's in the deck. They feel like a deck only meant to try and hate out the top decks but that doesn't always work.

I kind of agree Prossh isn't the best food chain deck anymore. But Tazri also has to exile one of the CFE cards first so basically it requires the same amount of cards to win. It's just the amount of Mana needed, but Prossh plays hella more dorks so I think they are par there. It's just Tazri's 5c Identity that gives her an slight edge. But the line of tutoring for tutors more often than not gets you killed.

August 15, 2017 7:53 p.m.

Lorderos23 says... #12

Sorry for the double post but I thought of this too late to edit.

Can anyone link a Ramos, Dragon Engine primer. I want to play this guy so bad(he's doesn't look amazing, but he looks hella fun). I just want in on the discussion.

August 15, 2017 8:42 p.m.

It might just be me but I don't think that Balan, Wandering Knight is included in any tier. I would say he's probably tier 4 considering I can't think of many great combos with him. Maybe tier 3 if there's something I'm not thinking of, but mono-white seems to make me think tier 4. Just wanted to let you know.

August 15, 2017 10:48 p.m.

Lilbrudder says... #14

Derevi is decent, and cEDH viable, but hardly broke. Tymna is vastly superior as a stax commander. Even if people are on the fence about blood pod (which is admittedly pilot dependent, perhaps more than most lists) Tymna is also the key piece to sans red midrange decks that utilize stax peices and win via hulk, bombermann, or raz combo's. Having extensively tested those decks, I can say she is easily tier 1. Its not even close.

While Prossh is still tier 1.5. The gap between Prossh and Tazri is rather substantial. Prossh actually has a slightly lower concentration of turn 1 dorks, significantly worse removal, a less efficient combo (meaning he is more resource hungry), worse card advantage etc. Prossh is also worse than SBT (which I can now say with confidence) so tier 1 is not justified anymore. Its a classic case of other decks improving more than Prossh. What meaningful tech has FC Prossh gotten lately?

August 15, 2017 11:02 p.m. Edited.

Dredge4life says... #15

I think we should assume that the best possible player is piloting each list when deciding which general goes in what tier. From my limited knowledge of CEDH, blood pod seems extremely powerful when played correctly.

August 15, 2017 11:16 p.m.

Athraithe says... #16

I have finally finished my rough draft of Kruphix, god of horizons. Link is here Kruphix, god of manaz

August 16, 2017 1:25 a.m.

merrowMania says... #17

Penguin is correct. We are missing Balan. Tier 4 was the agreed-upon Tier.

August 16, 2017 1:31 a.m.

Athraithe i believe you were going in a fine direction... then lost the point of cEDH. This curve is a little bit high and I dont see a clear wincon (eldrazi dont do a whole lot outside of infinites, and eldrazi are not cEDH material, along with veggies, cultivate, etc). When I saw kruphix I already saw 2 routes that sounded good: elfball (holy crap green mana battery. sure) or High Tide (I can store mana from previous turns for use when going off? wheres the downside?) What is ascetitism or telepathy going to do, much less the aforementioned veggies, cultivate, thran dynamo, doubling cube, gilded lotus. You dont have much setup time for cEDH so tapping out is really horrible unless youre going to win immediately or next turn. For example, what is aetherflux reservoir used for outside of paradox scepter?

August 16, 2017 2:52 a.m.

sonnet666 says... #19

Penguin_Gamer_1, You are completely correct.

All the other 2017 pre-cons had only 3 legends, and he was the only mono-color, so I guess he just slipped my mind.

I wouldn't say he's completely comboless, since I think he's probably the best commander for the old Darksteel Plate + Worldslayer lock. However that's not really cEDH worthy, so T4 is correct as well. I'll add him in.


Lilbrudder, We've listed enough reasons for demoting Prossh and enough people have agreed that I'm comfortable demoting him to T1.5. I'll put up that Blood Pod deck as well.


Gates88, If you're going to write us what is essentially a small essay, can you at least do us the courtesy of fact checking it like it's one?

  • Mairsil, the Pretender, The combo for Mairsil has already been figured out. Simply get Mirror-Mad Phantasm (or Razaketh) caged and you have an "I win" button for 5 mana or less. Since you're already running LabMan and cantrips Doomsday makes a fine plan B. Tier 2 is accurate for that strategy.

  • Razaketh, the Foulblooded, The deck I made for him goes off on turn 3 or 4 every game, and I haven't even improved it in over a month. If you think that Sidisi is going off 2 turns earlier than that you're insane.

  • Teferi, Temporal Archmage, I think a deck who's main combo wants you to run as many 2+ rocks as possible can get away with having a 6 mana commander, especially when that commander is going to refund you that mana the turn you play him. If anything, Teferi's gotten an upgrade recently, because Paradox Engine and Dramatic Scepter can be run excellently alongside his main strategy (so can HT+Candelabra, for that matter). The decklist we have up doesn't reflect this, while somehow having time for trash like Manifold Insights, so maybe it's time for us to get a new one. If the meta really has been stacked against Teferi strategically recently then we can consider demoting him, but I'm not demoting him just because he's unpopular right now, and I don't think he should be dropped below T1.5 if we do.

  • Karador, Ghost Chieftain, This is a 3 color, commander tax resistant commander, that turns your graveyard into your hand, generates value with any creature that puts itself in the graveyard, and has multiple win-on-the-spot combos that can be kicked off for as little as 3 mana. I'M NOT PUTTING HIM IN TIER 3.

Aside from all that, could you also try not to make statements don't bring anything new to the discussion?

"General Tazri - Fast, consistent, resilient - everything you'd want in a combo deck. Obviously tier 1."

Ok, sure, but no one has even been contesting that, so why did you need to bring it up? Almost half of your comments in that post are to say that a commander should stay right where it is, when there hasn't even been any talk of moving it down. Why bother telling us? It just distracts from anything interesting you might be saying.

I don't take an issue with you making a very long post, or with you sharing your opinion, but in the future, please try your best to make sure that everything you're saying is really worth saying, and that the comment you make is the best one you're able to make, before hitting send. Because reading all that as it was was annoying.

You did make some good points in all that, so let me give you a response to them:

  • Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, There's been some talk of moving him down. I will consider it. But after all the talk about sticking him and swinging the next turn in the KessVsJeleva discussion, I can't help feeling like we're missing an easier way to go off with him on the same turn. Adding Concordant Crossroads and Need for Speed to the deck might be worthwhile. JimWolfie's deck also doesn't run Hurkyl's Recall or Retract, both of which seem really good with the cascade trigger. Another solid plan might be to cut Lotus Bloom. Since mana is usually easier to generate than cards, you'd be certain without it in there that your first cascade trigger would give you gas, which makes trying to storm into a hasty Yidris much more reliable.

  • Brago, King Eternal & Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, You had pretty solid reasoning for moving these guys down. A new deck like Blood Pod being a tough match-up is a good meta reason for demoting a commander. (For anyone wondering, "X new commander in Y color identity plays Z strategy better!" is a BAD meta reason, because it doesn't actually make the old commander any worse.) I would be willing to move them down to T2, but I'd like to get a consensus before doing so.

  • Sidisi, Brood Tyrant & The Gitrog Monster, I could see these two moving up as well, but I'm a bit more hesitant about The Gitrog Monster. The reliability of the combo can't be denied, but like Sidisi, Undead Vizier, it's a bit difficult for it to play through counterspells. There are only like 3 or 4 effective ways to stop people from messing with your spells, and a lot of Gitrog lines rely on specific cards, so it's easy to know what to counter.

  • Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Finally, a demotion I can get behind. I feel like the only reason she was placed so high to begin with was people sort of expected proliferate.dec to have better synergies come out of it. At this point all we really need to do is figure out how low she should actually get dropped and what strategy is really best for her.

  • Oona, Queen of the Fae & Dralnu, Lich Lord, You're saying these should stay, and my opinion on Dralnu is already out there, so I'm not going to get too into this, but as a general statement I'd just like to say that it's worthwhile to think of the .5 tiers as a section for commanders that are around the same power level as the tier above them, but have weakness or drawbacks in their strategy compared to those commanders. Dralnu is about the same power level as many T2 commanders, but has an obvious drawback that weighs him down a little. Same could be said for most of T1.5 and T2.5. However, all of that was a tangent, because what I started writing this to say was I disagree with your estimation of their color identity as "restricted." Dimir is actually one of the best color pairs right now for infinite combo decks, since it has Dramatic Scepter, PE, HT, the best control cards, great draw, all the general tutors, AND all the artifact tutors. Losing green hurts your ramp a little bit, but all the extra rocks you're including for your combos go a long way towards making it up, and creature tutors are all but unnecessary. Blue/Black is just awesome right now, all I'm saying.

  • Baral, Chief of Compliance, This is interesting. Has he not been as effective as people were thinking, or did HT just fall out of favor? I'm open to the idea. What does everybody else think of demoting him?

  • I'll swap to your Johnny, Combo Player list. I didn't really bother checking the last one that thoroughly since it's Un-set. Your's seems better.


To everybody else, I'm reviewing the decks that have been posted. I'll put up the ones that look good, and comment if I think something needs to be changed. Stay posted.

August 16, 2017 4:04 a.m.

Bowngnawer says... #20

potatopotatopotato

Thank you for your answer. Yes I was aware that some cards were bad in that list ,but it seemed better at first glance (I did not goldfish it so that might explain that). And I am aware that my Flash Hulk list can be inconsistent at times, but I did manage to adress some of those problems and I admit the lines tend to be really complicated.After some upgrades I either win through Flash Hulk immediately or the turn after I drop Momir. Currently (I did not keep track of it but it feels like it) it goldfishes turn four kills on average.

As for your own deck, if you upgrade it, I highly recommend Vizier of the Menagerie since it is the closest you can get to a Glimpse on a stick.

August 16, 2017 10:01 a.m.

I will definitely try it in the upcoming upgrade, I have hesitated on cards like that because it needs momir to win and he isn't exactly cheap to play but it probably works wonderfully in the all in eyeball variants, I will test but I suspect it won't be nearly as good if I do not go full elfball which may be just as well.

August 16, 2017 10:15 a.m.

If Sram, Senior Edificer is tier 3, Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero is definitely as well. The better decks are hatebear combo decks that utilize Lin as a small CA toolbox that enables the more unfair cards like Skullclamp, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and Aetherflux Reservoir. My list is a good example:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/white-rebel-motorcycle-club/

August 16, 2017 1:06 p.m.

My phone auto corrected elfball to eyeball, a hilarious oversight on my part.

August 16, 2017 1:42 p.m.

sonnet666 says... #24

michaelvlevine, I don't buy it. Sram is a combo engine that storms through your entire deck. Lin Sivvi tutors up one combo that doesn't win the game, and you still need a land tutor to complete it. Mono-white is the worst color identity in cEDH right now, and Lin doesn't do enough to mitigate that.

August 16, 2017 4:45 p.m.

sonnet666 says... #25

n0bunga, I sort of like [[]]'s Mairsil list more, as the curve's lower, and it seems faster w/ more lines of play. Also, you can't put stuff in for flavor on an optimized decklist...

I like your Kess list, and no one else's been posting. I'll put it up.

August 16, 2017 5:50 p.m.

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