Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List]
Commander / EDH*
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Awesomeone916 says... #2
I noticed that Azami, Lady of Scrolls is listed at tier 3 instead of 2. I guess I really don't see how that can be. I would like to cite the decklist "Fried Salami by ARCHWIZARD" as a shining example of what this commander can do. I feel like the power level of this deck far exceeds its fellow tier 3 decks and some of the tier 2 decks as well. I'm open to having a discussion/debate about this topic, but I don't agree with the decks position on this list.
October 26, 2018 2:23 a.m.
Azami p much is just too reliant on the commander imo, and not fast or resilient enough to make up for it (e.g. Sissy, Gitrog, G Selvala)
October 26, 2018 6:31 a.m.
Penguin_Gamer_1 says... #4
Hey I commented a while back on Demonlord Belzenlok's viability and how his combo potential should be enough to put him in mid power and I got a response in favor of it but it never got changed. Not scolding anyone or anything just wanted to put the discussion back on the table.
October 26, 2018 1:25 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #6
So recently 'The Command Zone' did a couple videos on an information gathering project they did. In this project they gathered statistics from 300-ish commander games.
I'll note at this point for the stats they have to be truly useful they need to look at more like 3000 games but I think we can look at what they got and see the beginnings of trends.
In this data they say decks costing between 200-700 dollars have the highest win percentage. Since competitive players often have decks costing in the $1000s I am curious what you guys think of this. Do you come up against $500 decks able to compete with your $1000+? Have you played without your really expensive cards and actually seen a considerable difference in performance?
October 26, 2018 3:23 p.m.
Some of the more expensive ones are optimization (cradle) but going without them would only make it worse..
October 26, 2018 3:30 p.m.
DrukenReaps Do they say how many decks were in each "value tier"? If half or more of the decks were in that range, then it would be difficult to reach any other outcome, simply from the sheer number of decks. To extend my point to its extreme, if you have 50 $200-700 decks, 5 $1-200 decks, and 5 $700+ decks, that's going to lead to that category having a very high win rate, without necessarily containing the best decks.
October 26, 2018 10:15 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #9
legendofa I don't recall if they do or not actually but now that you mention it that does seem like a rather important detail...
October 26, 2018 10:49 p.m.
Too many Statistics classes FTW!
The $200-700 range to me seems A. very inclusive and B. around what most power-casual decks would cost. I'd be surprised if it didn't have a good chunk of the win column.
October 26, 2018 11:14 p.m.
Did they mention if the $700+ decks were actually good (cEDH) or just jamming expensive cards?
October 27, 2018 7:31 a.m.
I didn't watch the whole video yet, but on every instances someone quoted their data and conclusions to me it seemed lacking at best and blatantly misleadig at worst.
This whole thing imo is on the "Orrery is op and a staple" level of wrong.
October 27, 2018 8:32 a.m.
I don't know how I feel about the conclusions they made. It seems as if the $200-$700 range specified takes up a very vast majority of the data they used. They used data from over a thousand decks, but still that's a wide range of deck prices and it appears to me just by briefly skimming through the data that the price range of $200-$700 is prominent within the data, while the more expensive decks don't match in quantity so I'm not sure if these statistics can make an accurate assumption.
I'm not a huge fan of The Command Zone, I've seen a few of their gameplay videos and think they have good production quality, but I get annoyed with a lot of their cuts, edits, and commentary because to me it distracts from the gameplay. However, I did like the discussion in this video and you can tell that they did put a lot of work into it. I think when it comes to the budget discussion, the best thing to take away from it is when DJ said "I'm a big proponent of tuned decks, not throwing money at decks though". Essentially what he means by this statement is that a well-tuned and synergistic budget deck can be more effective than an expensive list with lots of expensive staple cards thrown into it, so an increased price doesn't necessarily yield better results. Although, I do have to believe that a lot of tuning can be relevant by using more expensive cards, as long as they have synergy with the deck.
The raw data set used for the video can be found here.
October 27, 2018 9:29 a.m.
Ah, a much needed update! It is better without the tiers. I also like that you are providing links to decklists.
It would be nice if we could get a page with "the most optimal" (in terms of power level) decklist for each commander.
Many of the low power commanders would share the same 99s, so they can share a decklist. That would require figuring out what the best 99-highlander-deck that runs without useful commander for each color is.
October 27, 2018 12:21 p.m.
Except that hits the "every commander is competitive" argument which is completely irrelevant for the purpose of this list
October 27, 2018 4:57 p.m.
@Soren841 I wasn't saying that it should be done on this page right here, just that it would be useful to have something like it.
October 28, 2018 1:42 a.m.
tw0handt0uch says... #19
All you need to look at is the cmc column in that spreadsheet. Not one deck below 2.0...many above 3. In reality, most of the strongest decks are hanging out below 2.0 and there are very very few, if any, above 3.0. They did a cool analysis of the type of decks they see often. But it provides no insight into what sort of decks are truly the most powerful in a no-budget, no restraints meta.
October 28, 2018 9:20 a.m.
Carrion-Rack says... #20
So quick question about circu dimir lobotomist. Is his 99 a storm list? Or is he a staxx/control shell?
October 28, 2018 9:27 a.m.
Carrion-Rack says... #22
Oh for certain just that is a very small win package what does his list do.
October 28, 2018 9:35 a.m.
Not sure. I would assume his list assembles that or some other source of infinite storm
October 28, 2018 9:37 a.m.
Mr9Loganja says... #24
Id imagine a cedh circu list has all the tutors, counters, bouncers, murders, etc. Id compare it to rashmi. Has 1 "win button" and the rest is protection and control.
October 28, 2018 9:48 a.m.
tw0handt0uch says... #25
You can set Circu up with a Doomsday backup plan (more basics in your lands) or Tainted Pact / Labman backup where you would need a singleton land base. There are also versions that fool around with Lantern Control style pieces in the 99.
Madmatt222 says... #1
Rather than just complain about initially not liking the "Maximum Power" above "Competitive" structure, I'd also like to thank you guys for what must have been alot of work to make this. I'll get used to the category names and "Soren841" makes a good point. I'll also be referring to this often so, again, thanks! This is awesome!
October 26, 2018 12:08 a.m.