I mean, look, it's not like the EDH ban list is specifically constructed with cEDH in mind--a lot of is just dedicated to banning really expensive cards that wouldn't break the format but would give no one any reason to play anything else ( Ancestral Recall ), or annoying pubstomp cards people wouldn't stop playing in casual that aren't actually that great ( Sylvan Primordial , Primeval Titan ). Cards like Yawgmoth's Will and Hermit Druid are way better in the format, obviously, but no one seems to care.

That being said, following that logic, why not ban cards like Rhystic Study and Cyclonic Rift ? Rhystic is the format's real Ancestral Recall (if Recall had the added effect of recurring itself on your upkeep unless any player paid 1), and it's not like it's ever been even remotely fun to play against in casual. It's not like the game could really function without staples--just because every white deck (in casual) plays Wrath of God doesn't mean that card is overpowered, but, come on, if you can ban Upheaval , you can ban Cyclonic Rift (it's honestly harder to win with upheaval than with cyclonic rift, and, besides, Obliterate isn't banned, is it)?

No cards need banning. If anything, more cards should come off the banned list.

Upheaval is ridiculous. The reason it's banned is because of situations where the caster dumps all their rocks (after casting Upheaval, they float a bunch of mana to do it), and then cast their stax pieces, locking everyone out of the game, except themselves. Fun stuff! I'm fine with Upheaval being unbanned, but the card is pretty bonkers. Cyclonic Rift is nowhere near as busted, when Upheaval is played correctly.

Unfortunately, this isn't the place to talk about unbanning cards. Though Cyclonic Rift looks like a one-sided board wipe, the card isn't played as much in cEDH - although it is a bounce spell - most decks would rather use other options ie: lower cost ( Chain of Vapor ) or with the option to also draw cards ( Into the Roil / Blink of an Eye ).

Cyclonic Rift is a very powerful card in casual edh. I would likely only run it in baral, but to each their own. Some staxier decks run it. Upheaval on the other hand is quite unbalanced - and if fastbond was also unbanned - I'm sure that we would see tatyova decks & Gitrog decks on the rise. However - Upheaval is quite rightfully banned (as it's stupid).

Sheldon is the overseer of the list, but it's likely that with all of the new members of the committee for edh that we will see some unbannings, new ideas etc.

CyborgAeon: Yeah, you might be wrong on that one. Sigi's Chain Veil Teferi deck runs it and in one of the videos he wins because of it and that is arguably one of the most broken decks in the cEDH format, but you might be right on the Chain of Vapor though, however I've never seen the other two see play in every cEDH deck I've encountered.

I think that Lazav, Dimir Mastermind should be placed in the High Power section. I saw some sick plays with him. I also use him, and he is a blast to play mostly.

I guess I in a way I am questioning the criteria for Teysa Karlov being a mid power commander. A tuned Teysa Karlov deck can run pretty strong without her even on the board. and then when she is summoned it is like hitting a turbo button. while I will say she is not CEDH by no means. At my LGS she has shown that with a stable mana base and tuned responses to turn out so dynamic wins. just curious. about your views on her

I guess I in a way I am questioning the criteria for Teysa Karlov being a mid power commander. A tuned Teysa Karlov deck can run pretty strong without her even on the board. and then when she is summoned it is like hitting a turbo button. while I will say she is not CEDH by no means. At my LGS she has shown that with a stable mana base and tuned responses to turn out so dynamic wins. just curious. about your views on her

Inkmoth_ you are right. Cyclonic rift works in some games of cEDH; but what I neglected to mention was: some decks need this. CVT is a good example. Mass removal & win cons that work through multiple stax pieces are two things that the deck has few of.

Example 1: Laboratory Maniac . One of the most common win cons besides Aetherflux Reservoir & Flash with Protean Hulk . These win conditions generally only need to remove 0-2 stax pieces in order to win. Whether that's using Smelt on Null Rod or Chain of Vapor on Trinisphere . These win conditions are more prevalent in the format & need answers far greater than rift. Rift is a 2 mana bounce spell. Which is usually what it's used for.

Your example of Sigi's overloaded rift into a win is fair. However, my argument isn't that it's bad. Just that it's used in fewer decks BECAUSE it is too narrow & the upside doesn't get used enough that one could justifiably run it in any cEDH brew that includes blue.

Example 2: storm likes to play lots of spells. Currently in the top tiers we have 5 (I think) storm lists which are all multicoloured and which use more efficient answers ie: Nature's Claim , Winds of Rebuke . Still not saying rift is bad. Just that top tier decks don't necessarily run it.

On the contrary: stax decks like GAAIV, CVT etc are quite likely to run it! As the mass bounce is more likely to be readily available. My point was that it's not enough of a prevalent card for people to talk about banning it. Though I do agree that it is strong & works in some decks.

I must say I conpeketeky disagree with the najeela list, that list is far inferior to flash hulk najeela which also can do the combat ways to win via repository or derevi etc

Please checkout winterblasts list for najeela as it is actually amazing

I apologise for my bad spelling

I was wondering what is keeping Krav, the Unredeemed from being high power? Is it simply his higher mana cost? He seems like some really pushed card draw to me, and while Regna, the Redeemer isn't exactly a great card by any means its still a partnership able to take advantage of the benefits of having 2 creatures in the zone. Thoughts? Im personally considering swapping my Karlov deck over to them because currently I have Karlov/Regna in the 99 of my Karlov deck but whenever I play one and fetch the other they just seem to do so much work for me.

no offence, but where the fuck is toothy

Connorav I imagine Toothy is supposed to be in mid along with Pir since they're sort of a package deal.

Boy, there has been a lot of clamoring about moving various commanders up to High Power lately. It kinda makes sense that it'd be one of the most contested tiers, but the problem here is that tier 3 should really just be split up into two tiers--whoever it was that suggested that idea some time ago, I agree. The old fogeys who are generally always in favor of the status quo look at tier 3 and see Azami, Lady of Scrolls , Kaalia of the Vast , and Atraxa, Praetors' Voice and say that Teysa Karlov and Krav, the Unredeemed and Niv-Mizzet, Parun and Anafenza, the Foremost and ahem Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker aren't worthy of high power, but neglect all the other commanders in high power ( Nath of the Gilt-Leaf , Kestia, the Cultivator , Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper , Thada Adel, Acquisitor , etc.) who aren't quite so good as the previous examples.

Basically, if it provides an easy win condition for a control/stax deck or is a dumb cumpster for some colorless infinite mana combo, the consensus is that it's at least tier 3, but apart from that, the criteria seem to be a little vaguely applied as far as said tier goes. I think it'd be easiest to just make a tier 3.5 and adjust the criteria definitions rather than move a whole bunch of commanders up and some commanders down, but that's just me.

I personally think Chainer is the best mono B non-tutor general.

You aren't giving Nath enough credit at all. As a stax list, he is incredibly powerful. A Sadistic Hypnotist hitting the board with Nath on the field is hard to recover from if it sticks early enough because it can keep gas out of your hand. He's also one of the few commanders who can break parity with Smokestack and do it well. Stax really earned its namesake because of Smokestack, and the degeneracy it has with Nath makes him incredibly potent. He is one of the OG Stax commanders, and he is still quite powerful in most metas.

The problem with your suggestions, as well as what this list struggles with is just the widely apparent level of subjectivity. Which, to an extent is fine because there's no way to gauge tier rankings precisely without some level of subjectivity. However, the criteria for tiers needs to be expanded upon and defined better (Tier changes by 0.5 increments would be great).

On top of all of this, the authors would need to be more actively involved rather than pop in maybe like two or three notable times a year. This list is dead and completely meaningless to me. Prior to the discussions that started popping last night, nobody posted here in five days. This list was bumped completely off my notifactions for a few days, and that just hasn't ever happened before. I hardly stop by and visit this list anymore because I have no reason to do so. I don't feel welcome to actively participate in discussions anymore either and I'm just over the whole thing.

I'm unsubscribing to this list for a number of reasons. I'm primarily doing so because I don't feel as if I can voice my thoughts and opinions here and feel as if my voice has been heard and taken into account by the authors. I have been pushing for Anafenza, the Foremost to be bumped up to High Power, and there have been several discussions about her since that unanimously have come to the conclusion that she belongs in tier 3. I've been making that case ever since the authors made a this huge overhaul last summer, yet I have never once received a single thought from any of the authors about her placement. The Anafenza discussion and notion for a higher tier gets brought up quite a lot too, so I can't imagine that the authors haven't seen it brought up before. Honestly, some actual feedback and thoughts on the subject matter would be nice, but it hasn't received a single ounce of recognition for several months now and I think we and Anafenza deserve at least some sort of consideration.

I have lost a lot of respect for this list, and this no longer feels like a welcome and active community hub like it used to be. Cheers.

I agree with DiverDown. The mod(s) of this list before and since it changed hands aren't engaged enough to meet the needs of the community that follows along.

I know many of the mods are very active in the cedh community at large and doing really great work there.

Perhaps part of the problem is that the cedh community at large shuns the idea of tier lists holding much value. Yet, there must be at least 1 knowledgeable and respected member who sees the value of engaging in thoughtful debate and discussion on cedh deckbuilding theory within this forum.

thegigibeast,LabManiac_Sigi,ShaperSavant,tw0handt0uch, please consider recruiting someone who is interested in engaging with this community more frequently. I know many of you are doing great work elsewhere, and I think his place has more potential than is currently being realized.

Yeah, I posted a deck of mine for consideration a few times, and I know for a fact a mod saw it, but never even so much as responded to me (even though I literally watched the person comment, and respond to others who posted their lists for consideration around the same time I posted mine).

I'm not mad, but it's kinda rude, but whatever.

Diver Down You know who else plays Sadistic Hypnotist and breaks the symmetry of Smokestack ? Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker . Hell, if you're way ahead, you can put as many counters on that damn thing as you want, and you sacrifice dozens of creatures to Hypnotist. Also, he was printed before Nath of the Gilt-Leaf , so Nath can suck my chode!

(Okay, in all seriousness, he actually does something relevant even without additional dudes on the field, and also gives you access to some great green stax effects, but I digress)

As for this list being dead? Well, yeah, basically. People have been suggesting all sorts of changes for a while now that simply haven't been implemented, whether they've been largely agreed with or not.

I wouldn't know what else the authors of this list are doing in the 'cedh community' because I'm not giving my phone number to the cEDH Discord, which I assume they're a part of. Look, I get it's a stupidly big server, but you're never getting my phone number just because I'm a cEDH player.

Some of them are active on Discord, so they contribute that way.

The expectation cannot be that every post gets a response. The mods of this list are mods on the reddit sub, main cedh discord, many of the deck specific discords, maintain primers, organize tournaments, make podcast and video content, and most have full time jobs on top of that. I check this thread about once every day or 2. When things come up about this list, we chat chat about them in (yet another) discord channel. Responding to every request would take allllll day. The purpose of us coming over was not necessarily to debate every placement on a realtime basis, and spend hours discussing card selection in certain decks. It was to establish a list that reflected more accurately the high level decks that we see everyday in leagues and tournaments and ranked comp play and in the large communities that we all play in. New commanders will be added, placements will occasionally be shuffled, but this isnt a deck help thread or a rate-my-pet-deck thread. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but it’s reality.

And I agree that it shouldn't be any of those things, but when you have an introduction that clearly states "If you would like to provide suggestions, please leave a comment (and ideally a link to a decklist)", it kind of invites at least some of the behaviors that you are saying this thread doesn't cater to.

Okay, I think that about tears it, honestly. You don't have time to actually make this list something more useful than what effectively amounts to a mirror for a small coterie of cEDH players to stare into on occasion, even though the description of it makes it sound like something entirely different? Fine. I don't have time to keep bothering with it, then. It's one thing to say that not every post needs a response, and another thing entirely to clearly outline all of the reasons why you shouldn't even be maintaining a list like this, then condescendingly explain why you're doing so anyway.

Everyone, go check out Soren841 and SynergyBuild's tier list--I guess they don't organize enough tournaments and make enough podcast and video content to be able to neglect actually maintaining a functional tier list that keeps up with the pace of the game.

What should be unbanned? : https://goo.gl/forms/m7ywipBjM5msjzRl1