ForsakenxEDHx I never said you could put Ana at the head of another abzan deck, I said the opposite. You could take Ana's 99 hate bears and put another commander like Tymna at the helm and you would have a better deck.

I would never argue the opposite because I find Ana to be too situational. She's just one tool in the toolbox. She's not worth helming a deck because she's not always the tool you need. At the helm of a toolbox deck you want something to help you grab the tool for the job at hand.

That being said, Synergy build makes a good argument that she is actually the tool you need more often than not, but even still I think I would rather use Tymna so my commander isn't useless against the 30% or so decks that aren't affected. To each his own I suppose, but the question is whether she's "competitive". I think her situational abilities bar her from being "competitive " but I'm now convinced she probably deserves to be "high power".

Aphoticate

My wordage is bad I suppose...but I do realize you were saying the opposite. I was addressing that. Tymna would be fine in the CZ but the other Partner cuts a good card from the 99 essentially leaving you 99 cards and a dead one in the CZ. So yeah I'm still going to say Ana is at least equal to a partner pairing. Vs a deck that uses the yard (a large percent of cEDH) Ana available in the CZ outweighs having to draw into hate pieces and relies on more moving parts example successful combat, hitting multiple opponents, an adequate board presence to land hits, ect....Ana is clearly viable in the CZ.

Tymna Stax is too inconsistent without Tana to back it up to make it easily comparable. Any other partner with Tymna in Abzan is outclassed by Anafenza by far. Tana/Tymna I think is a better deck than Anafenza though, because of the added Stranglehold, Kiki-Jiki, and some other cards here and there dependent on the list and metagame. Really though, Anfenza is only slightly worse. Very comparable.

DangoDaikazoku, I think you and I use the term "synergy" differently. I don't consider 2 cards that do the same kind of thing to be a synergy. For example, I don't consider Anafenza and another hatebear like say Teeg or Mindcensor to have synergy with each other. I do however consider Ana and say Abzan Falconer to have synergy with each other because her ability enables his. I also don't consider 2 token producers to have synergy but I do consider a token producer and a card that pumps all creatures to have synergy because the more creatures you have, the more value the mass pump has.

At any rate, I will def concede that you guys have made me appreciate Ana more and I do think that Mid power is too low. I now think she should be high.

That is fair. Again, Not Competitive, that would imply that Anafenza is on par with Blood Pod (It isn't), yet mid power makes me just so very sad.

I strongly agree with Hi-Power. It does create sadness that Ana could be associated with so many decks that require an advanced board state with a main goal of turn stuff sideways (very representative of casual geared). Ana requires almost nothing for a board state and needs no turning sideways (more representative of competitive geared). Hopefully this will get squared away.

Aphoticate you're twisting my words a bit. I'm not at all saying in my comparison of Ana with Leyline of the Void that they are synergistic? They have rendundancies to similar graveyard hate mechanics, and quite the opposite to synergy. She's synergistic in the sense that she provides added hate to the deck by providing something that the rest of the deck doesn't. I agree that she synergizes with Abzan Falconer, but synergy is more than just enablers you know...

DangoDaikazoku, I'm not trying to twist your words but I still think we use the term synergy differently. By differently I mean I don't use it as broadly. If you use it in a larger sense that's fine, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just trying to explain why I don't consider Ana to have much synergy with the 99. I don't consider a card that adds something unique to the deck to have synergy. When I use the term I really am just talking about things that enable or things that get enabled.

More specifically, my earlier point was that swapping Ana for something else like Tymna isn't going to decrease the value of a bunch of cards in the same way that swapping Prossh out of my Prossh deck is going to decrease the value of things like Purpheros or Xenagos.

Without Ana, the rest of the deck still functions the exact same way. That's why I have no problem looking at her on her own outside of the 99. If she had interactions with the 99 I wouldn't look at her on her own.

Regardless, I have been convinced that she's better than I thought. She may not interact with her 99 much if at all but she is a strong goodstuff stand alone card that stops a lot of shenanigans.

Still looking at the lower tiers (Mid and casual), I think maybe they should just be dropped entirely, because the distinction between these lists seems rather arbitrary and inconsistent.

Question, and this is open for discussion entirely of course, but I can't help but wonder what people are thinking about Najeela's placement in Maximum-Power. I'm not saying that she isn't deserving of that placement, but looking at others who are in the same category have been around for quite a while when Najeela was just recently released what feels like a few relevant sets ago. I understand that the criteria in the description that mentions even in several meta shifts doesn't mean they have to undergo them, but I just feel like she's such a new card that she sticks out from the rest in this category who actually have adapted and persevered throughout many metagames. I don't know what you guys think about this, but I was just curious as to what defining factor pushed her out on top above the Competitive commanders because I think there's a minor discrepancy between the two category descriptions. Thoughts?

Also, take for example oh I don't know, Brago or Arcum? Is that fair to say that if this list was adapted to its current format several months ago, that these two commanders could have likely been placed in Maximum-Power? I think if I remember correctly they were listed in the highest tier for a time on this former list, so what caused them to be cut? I'm almost wanting to say that Maximum-Power is a category moreso regarding the relevancy of these commanders in the current metagame, and there isn't much else besides that bit of subjectivity to differentiate them from the Competitive category.

Najeela is placed so highly because she is easily the best non-Food Chain 5C option thanks to having access to several 1-card win conditions (Druid's Repository, Nature's Will, etc.). On top of having these compact win conditions, she is able to create a relevant board state just by herself as a Commander that can often come down on turn 2.

Honestly, Arcum, Brago, and many other Commanders were severely misplaced on the former list, as that one was maintained by people who have been out of touch with EDH for a long time. Furthermore, I don't recommend trying to draw direct lines of comparison between the old system and this new one; the intent and principles that went into constructing the lists are very different from each other.

LabManiac_Sigi Thank you for the clarification! I have to agree with Najeela's placement based on that logic. I'll be careful not to compare the two lists in the future as well. I was aware of misplacements in the older iteration, but figured they had to have been relevant enough to earn such a high ranking at one point in previous metagames and thought the correlation was viable based on that. My apologies.

I'll probably be absent from discussion on this list for the next week or so due to some medical complications and I'm slammed at college because of midterm exams this next week and a half. Cheers all.

Curious as to how partner commanders are split into this?

I see my bad lol

Do you guys think Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord should he a bit higher? He has some pretty fast wins with stuff like Phyrexian Devourer, Wall of Blood, Hatred and Lord of Extinction.

I don't really care, I just thought it kinda odd and was wondering what others think. Does he deserve at least High Power status?

Aphoticate Nah, for and a specific 3-6 mana creature/spell onto another creature, I'd rather just run Tooth and Nail, which is trash in cEDH but better than Jarad.

I guess Jarad can helm a decent list, but it would just be for the colors, not really ever use him.

SynergyBuild, Fair Enough. Maybe he is too slow for that level. I don't quite agree with that assessment because you get to spread that 8 over 2 turns which is a lot faster and the second half is uncounterable. But overall you're probably right.

I only ask because I'm looking for a golgari deck that doesn't require heavy utilitlzation of the GY, otherwise I'll just use The Gitrog Monster. I won't consider him any further. Thx man.

No Problem. If you don't want to use the yard, but would still want Golgari, Nath Stax, Slimefloot Combo, and Ishkanah Food Chain are a blast to pilot, but aren't that interesting to build.

Nath caught my eye too but 5cmc seems so high for a stax general. What are the main Win Cons? I didn't see any that really grabbed my attention when I started designing a decklist a couple days ago. Eventually I decided to abandon the list to look at Jarad but I would actually love it if someone could talk me into making Nath because Discard has always been one of my favourite deck archetypes.

Slimefoot and Ish don't really interest me at all. What is it about Ish you like? She looks way worse than Jarad to me but I'm open minded. Is there enough good saproling generators to make a decent slimefoot deck? I remember trying to make a slimefoot decklist back when he was spoiled but I wasn't feeling it so I never pursued it further.

I freely admit to not being the most EDH-focused player, but it seems to me like the Tier 5: Casual list could be split up. I'm not going to suggest moving any of them up to a higher tier, but even the most casual player (performed here by me) can envision a deck for, say, Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner or Daghatar the Adamant much more easily than Shimatsu the Bloodcloaked or Torsten Von Ursus. I'm going to guess the tier rankings are deeply ingrained in the PlayEDH Discord conversation, but there is an objective difference between "casual" and "unplayable trash", and I submit that right now, there's a much greater spread in power level within Tier 5 alone than between Tiers 1 and 2, or between 2 and 3. Is there any space for a Tier 6?

Nath is a popular discard-stax commander, that uses Necrogen Mists, Sadistic Hypnotist, Oppression, and Bottomless Pit along with a lot of general value cards like Root Maze, Manglehorn, Chains of Mephistopheles, Nether Void, The Abyss, Magus of the Abyss, green ramp like Birds of Paradise along with colorless rocks to pump its commander and other colorless stax options out onto the field.

The list can break parity with tap/stay-tapped effects using its massive tokens swarms and Earthcraft when under the effect of its own Winter Orb, Root Maze, Static Orb, etc.

Because the deck attempts to make each player discard lots of cards, Sylvan Library, Dark Confidant, Phyrexian Altar, Library of Leng, and other effects can synergies well to break parity.

Otherwise, the deck runs a normal Golgari-Stax deck, running black-tutors to fetch the colorless silver bullets like Sphere of Resistance against non-Prossh Food Chain lists like Tazri and green to make enough mana to still win.

Other notable cards sometimes run in this strategy are Mind Slash, Cryptolith Rite, Chord of Calling (with tokens it ends up decently), fast mana to cast Nath like Mana Vault, Lotus Petal, Grim Monolith, etc.

Ishkanah is the best golgari Food Chain list in the format, with Demonic Tutor, Grim Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, etc. to fetch the Chain, and to fetch Eternal Scourge there are a ton of green and black tutors.

With Delirium so easy to get between fetchlands, instants, sorceries, and Lotus Petals, Commune with the Gods and other self-mill cards milling over creatures and artifacts, etc. You can reasonably make infinite spiders with Food Chain, and if you can pay Ishkanah's cost you win.

Maybe I'll continue working on Nath then. Outside of Nath himself, like let's say his tokens get removed somehow and everyone's hands are too empty to make more, what are the best alternate win cons? Grinding it out with Shrieking Affliction? Or do we just do something cliche like Protean Hulk?

Earthcraft has enough synergy with the deck that Squirrel Nest is a win with it. Altar of the Brood is also pretty good. Forgot to mention Smokestack and Tangle Wire with the tokens.

Other outlets include Altar of the Brood, Phyrexian Altar, or other similar effects, when discussing other ways to win.