Best Commanders in EDH [Tier List] Part 1

Commander / EDH* smilodex

SCORE: 301 | 329 COMMENTS | 265811 VIEWS | IN 125 FOLDERS


i dont agree with some commanders you have in the lower tiers but i like what youve done

August 19, 2020 11:16 p.m.

smilodex says... #2

@ casual_competitive: Thanks for your comment :) Can you be a bit more specific? Which commanders do you mean?

August 20, 2020 2:47 a.m.

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is a land hate deck, turnings your lands and killing them or stealing them. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose dude combos off with 1 other card and is in black meaning all the tutors you need. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger i never played against it but that ability is pretty good. Arcum Dagsson literally a tutor on a stick, not only does it tutor but it puts the card on the bettlefield. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker goes infinite. Krenko, Mob Boss built right and can be very competitive. The Locust God infinite plus is very difficult to remove. Narset, Enlightened Master she wins turn like 2-3. some commanders need to be de-ranked and i feel there should be more tiers.

August 20, 2020 3:23 a.m.

smilodex says... #4

I agree with most of your suggestions. Please read the new added description, most of the commanders you mentioned are already in the high power category, which means that the commanders named there are already very strong.

Kikki and Krenko can be built fringe competitively, but mono red has very limited access to tutors and because of that, there are just better commanders.

Kamahl, Fist of Krosa & Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger can be good, but are very expensive... In monogreen (or gruul), there are just a lot better commanders who can do what they can do, but better.

Somehow The Locust God was in the wrong category, thanks for the suggestion.

August 21, 2020 9:01 p.m.

SynergyBuild says... #5

Hey, building a similar variation on this myself for a big project (All About EDH), want to work together?

My list doesn't rank the non-cEDH lists, and isn't as up to date, however here it is:


cEDH Tier List

Commander / EDH* SynergyBuild

SCORE: 1 | 4 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER


As long as you keep this up to date, I'm down to reference it as well if you'd rather not work together, as that makes sense and is perfectly fine!

I haven't been deckcycling or advertising my list as it isn't complete, and one of those reasons is because I am looking to complete a decklist for each of the high-tiered lists. Are you planning on doing the same?

August 24, 2020 2:38 a.m.

smilodex says... #6

@SynergyBuild I wrote a comment on your wall.

August 24, 2020 5:29 a.m.

pokejerk20 says... #7

Awesome list

September 1, 2020 7:45 p.m.

vasarto77 says... #8

Obuun is casual, how? His ability and colors are amazing!

September 28, 2020 12:34 a.m.

smilodex says... #9

@vasarto77: He's a funny landfall commander, but the card has no card draw or any other form of value printed on it. Also Naya colors is not a good colorcombination (besides some good exceptions). You're also lacking Blue and Black which are important colors to play on a high power level.

September 29, 2020 8:34 a.m.

vasarto77 says... #10

There is no way in hell Zilortha is a casual commander. It's high powered easily. It's just that everyone builds the deck completely wrong. My Zilortha, or God Zilla deck which I still need to update on here sometime-wrecks everything it goes against in a 1v1 matchup with ease. The last game I won by turn 5 and had it locked in at turn 3. There are plenty of ways to protect him and keep your opponents from countering or using removal so it's almost never an issue. Out of the 7 games I have played with it so far, no one has destroyed, countered or exiled him despite the other decks being filled with the stuff. Zilortha, strength incarnate "godzilla" is really powerful Voltron commander and even in the commander decks I have seen online that use it as their commander, they are still doing it wrong. People keep adding all of these Green and Red creatures that have "this creature gets THIS when it has an equipment on it" which IMO is a total waste of of a card slot.

If the creature I am using doesn't fetch land, or has an ETB trigger that pumps Godzilla, I threw that card out for another equipment. My deck is fast, and fucking wrecks anyone 1v1 by turn 5-6 at the latest. Sometimes in multiplayer where I get mana jacked and there are other players doing even faster more impressive things that make the others forget I exist, I still win. Because when the commander game gets down to turn 7 or so, which regardless of how much you might pretend that your brainwashing that you have convinced yourself that your deck can win on turn 2 consistently 9/10....it absolutely doesn't work like that and in multiplayer games this commander gets ignored way too late and by then I have a hexproof, trample, protection from black, red, green etc unstoppable, unblockable indestructable terror monster that is swinging out doing lethal commander damage.

Just today I had eldrazi conscripts and a whispersilk cloak on him by turn 5 or 6 or so and the game was over in about 10 minutes at that point. The whole deck is built on nothing but three things. Keeping Godzilla safe, Running shoes so I can sprint my way to victory and literally all of the best most powerful and broken equipment cards I could find. All of the swords ofs', mage slayer, blackblade....ALL the good ones. Maybe I am missing some but I got a lot of great stuff in it! I don't NEED other creatures to make threats to attach shit too. I literally only need Godzilla and my playgroup knows it!

October 17, 2020 11:38 p.m.

smilodex says... #11

Thanks for your comment, but the list is for multiplayer commanders, not 1vs1 Duel Commander.

The way you portray it, you seem to be playing him as a Voltron Commander, but Zilortha, Strength Incarnate unfortunately has 0 value, 0 protection and 0 evasion printed on itself and is in principle "only" a 5 mana 7/3 with trample and with a small upside if you build your deck around ...

I would spontaneously think of 5+ stronger Voltron commanders (Sigarda, Host of Herons, Geist of Saint Traft, Uril, the Miststalker, Rafiq of the Many...), who are better suited for the voltron plan than Zilo. I have no doubt that he is quick to box players out, but even 7 games say very little. It also depends on what and who you have played against and whether it is 1vs1 games or multiplayer games. Voltron is a valid strategy in 1vs1 matches (frenchban / duel commander), but voltron decks have the problem that they often run out of gas. You can easily kill 1-2 opponents and are then often stopped because you are extremely susceptible to removal, counterspells, bounce effects, mass ench/artifact removal, boardwipes, sac effects, deathtouch and cards like Moat, Peacekeeper & Maze of Ith (which is why Volotron commander should preferably have either Hexproof or Indestructible). But you can convince me of the opposite by sending me your deck list, although as I said, I can't think of anything relevant that Zilo does better than the commanders mentioned above.

October 18, 2020 7:30 p.m.

vasarto77 says... #12

0 value? You and I have GREATLY different definitions of what the world "value" means then. But, whatever.

November 2, 2020 11:12 p.m.

pokejerk20 says... #13

https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/comments/jo6y4q/krarkrograkh_ruby_storm/ This list seems to prove that Rograkh belongs where he is.

November 5, 2020 11:48 a.m.

smilodex says... #14

@vasarto77: With value I mean card advantage, card draw etc.

@pokejerk20: Cool, thanks for sharing that list, looks like a lot of fun to play! But the reason why Rograkh is ranked that high and maybe will climb ever higher, are the TurboNaus decks for example, this gem here: with Silas Renn... https://www.moxfield.com/decks/NaeuNge3oEOKcfauJ5e84w There are other partner parings with him, like Mad/Mardu Farm with Tymna and Temur-Thrasios Polytyrant but so far the Grixis- Turbo AdNauseum deck is really powerfull and insanely fast.

November 5, 2020 9:16 p.m.

pokejerk20 says... #15

Oh, that's actually very interesting thank you. Appreciate the passion and time put into this list btw.

November 5, 2020 10:05 p.m.

vasarto77 if a deck relys on combat damage its most likly casual

November 5, 2020 10:19 p.m.

yurixquest says... #17

where are Liesa, Shroud of Dusk???

November 12, 2020 9:35 a.m.

smilodex says... #18

Thank you very much yurixquest. I added her to the list

November 15, 2020 12:47 p.m.

darkpower1496 says... #19

Why do you guys think Aesi is tier 1.5 instead of 1? I think it's an upgraded version of tatyova

November 19, 2020 5:37 a.m.

i dont think any commander that costs 6 or more should be in the competitive tier

November 19, 2020 9:49 a.m.

smilodex says... #21

@darkpower1496: In casual games, Aesi seems like an better version of Tatyova but the 1 mana difference can actually be pretty significant in competetive EDH. Like casual_competitive said, a commander who costs more than 5 mana is often to slow, to compede in the higher Tiers of the competetive metagame.

November 19, 2020 10:09 a.m.

Fallerup says... #22

interesting new list. Its good someone took up the charge of making a new list since the lab maniacs don't seem to have time to update theirs anymore. by the way, Dargo, the Shipwrecker + Jeska, Thrice Reborn makes for a very strong mono red deck, that can kill the table very quickly. not sure if you have discused this partner pairing when considering where to place them in the list.

November 20, 2020 1:49 p.m.

smilodex says... #23

@Fallerup: Yes that was my thought process, too. Since their list is no longer updated, I've decided to continue the list from now on with two friends, but we would be happy if the community would support us (like you, so thank you very much for your comment), because now there so many possible new pairings, commanders, combos and new synergies... There have been so many new ones that you can quickly lose track of things. Some time has to pass before we can find out which cards are good and which are not. Therefore it's important for us to get as much input as possible from the community (so please share/show this list to your friends and leave your thoughts!), as we all have full-time jobs and thanks to the pandemic, we can only play games via discord now and then. We're familiar with various combos with Dargo and Jeska, but sadly we haven't yet played against such a deck, so I cannot say how fast or how reliant the deck is. It's also very difficult to classify partner commanders here, as you have to evaluate them both in certain pairings, as well as an individual character / commander and therefore we agreed that Dargo is strong, but weaker compared to Jeska. Dargo can shine in certain decks, but Jeska is the real new red star of EDH.

November 21, 2020 7:44 a.m.

Fallerup says... #24

@ smilodex How it works. have Phyrexian Altar on the board and so sac fodder of some kind, cast Dargo, the Shipwrecker and sac him to the altar for a red. you can now sac Dargo over and over and over and over infinitely. then you cast Jeska, Thrice Reborn and -X her to kill the table because she enters with X loyalty counters for each time you cast your commander this game. possible Turn 2 kill, if you have 0 cost mana rocks to get out Phyrexian altar and stuff like that turn 1.you only need 3 creatures or artifacts to sac once and the loop in infinite.

November 21, 2020 3 p.m.

smilodex says... #25

@Fallerup: I already knew that combo, but it's very much christmas wonderland to resolve it turn 2 and sadly there aren't that much tutors in mono-red to make it consistent enough. But with the right partner he'll definitely find it's place.

November 22, 2020 7:02 p.m.

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