Azami is not played as a pure control commander. It is played as a combo-control deck. Talrand is played as a pure control deck with little to no infinite combos. If Azami was a better pure control commander than Talrand, I do not think Talrand would be so popular as a commander. It is currently the most played mono-blue commander according to EDHREC. The reason Azami isn't as good in a pure-control deck is that playing azami requires you to devote too many slots to wizard creatures that wouldn't be considered in another pure control deck. Even if Talrand isn't the best control commander, that doesn't take away from the fact that it is a very good commander that can be played competitively.

Pure control struggles in multiplayer. It is much more viable in 1v1.

Pure control does not struggle in my opinion. Between countering and removing the threats, constantly refilling your hand, and wiping the board every once in a while, it is hard for any player to deal with your eventual win con, which in Talrand's case is an army of drakes. Besides, I've seen talrand win 4 man games too many times to think it is anything less than tier 2. It probably isn't tier one, as combo decks naturally have the upper hand in multiplayer, but tier 2 would be the right spot to put it in.

He is very susceptible to wipes which are frequent. I personally run him so I don't want to go too on about him. I know how he works, and in multi player against top tier decks he is lacking unless you are good at the politics game. Tier 3 is the perfect place for him. He does not fit the description of tier 2.

Regarding Talrand, The Sky Summoner:

He does indeed play best in a pure control shell, though there are High Tide storm-like variants. As Didgeridooda stated, hard control struggles at higher levels of play. It often has to trade 1 for 1 with threats, and without a reliable hand refilling method like Azami, Lady of Scrolls, Arcanis the Omnipotent, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage all possess, Talrand is more susceptible to running out of steam. He also does not offer a reliable win condition, unlike the current blue Tier 2 commanders with the exception of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, who is scheduled for a Tier demotion as soon as Gigi has time to update. Contrary to popular believe, a handful of 2/2's with flying aren't enough to close out games at a competitive level. Tier 3 seems the proper place for him.

I've got to agree with Didgeridooda here. Pure control is not even a thing in "competetive" multiplayer EDH. The reason the Teferi's are Tier 2 commanders is due to their insta win lockdown combos.

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir + Any spell that forces you to cast through alternate means, most famous being Knowledge Pool stops all opponents spells indefinitely, even including uncounterable spells and split second. It is in essence an instant win combo. It's made even better by the fact that teferi has flash and stops people from interacting with your combo with his sorcery restriction. EOT flash in teferi, untap, win the game.

Teferi, Temporal Archmage can keep Stasis in play indefinitely on his own. Play Teferi, untap lands, resolve Stasis. Your opponents will never untap a permanent again.

Compare this to Talrand who has to keep 3 opponents under control and has to maintain this control in order to not lose his win (He requires a board presence). The single fact that Talrand decks won't win if they don't have their commander in play for EXTENDED periods of time should be enough of a sign that no, this isn't viable in a super competetive meta.

Talrand is great in 1v1, because he avoids the inherent card disadvantage that comes with playing a control deck. He will draw 1 card for each 3 spells your opponents do. You will NOT be able to keep your opponents in check, not for long enough to kill people with 2/2 flyers.The only deck that stands a chance at doing this is Damia, and guess what, they choose to win through doing an infinite combo.

For the sake of civility, I'm going to assume that, by saying 'contrary to popular belief', you weren't insinuating anything regarding my statements.

Perhaps the definition of 'tier two' needs to be expanded, then. Assembling unbeatable board states or comboing off by turn six is, I would contend, not the be-all-end all of winning in competitive levels of play. The classic draw-go style of control which focuses on card advantage and threat-reactiveness, forcing the game into later turns than any other archetype, is a perfectly viable strategy in the format, and seems to be lacking the proper acknowledgement thereof.

In other words, I disagree with your statement that pure control struggles in multiplayer. If it does, then, at the very least, Azami should not be considered a tier one commander for the purposes of multiplayer EDH, lest we be upholding a double standard--and, no, I don't accept the notion that Azami is significantly more reliable in maintaining 'steam' merely due to the fact that she can consistently draw cards--any properly tuned mono-blue deck in this format can consistently draw cards without risking too significant of an opening in its control of the game. What's more, I would argue that Azami herself is similarly weak to wipes, and does not, herself, offer a reliable win condition, either. By the logic herein presented and collated, both Azami and Talrand should be tier two generals .

My two cents.

MTGTCG, popularity is not necessarily tied to competitiveness. Also by your definition then Talrand is control-aggro....so I fail to see your point. You talk about boardwipes, what actual boardwipes does monoblue have?

Azami IN NO WAY needs to have Wizards to work. Several decks I've seen have less than 10 creatures. The card advantage engine in counter control is CRUCIAL because you counter a spell: You lose a card, they lose a card and your two other opponents don't lose anything. This is NOT favorable.

An army of drakes? How many drakes do you need to be threatening? Normal damage is super hard to finish with because you have 120 life to chew through.

NoOneOfConsequence, how is losing one (recastable) card to a boardwipe make it vulnerable to boardwipes? By that logic every deck is vulnerable to boardwipes.

I'd also like to know what "pure control" is exactly. I mean if we're saying that Azami control with a combo kill isn't control (sorry "pure" control) then I don't know what control is supposed to mean then.

You're acting like commander is a 3v1 format. It's neither realistic nor necessary for a Talrand deck to have counter every would-be threat in order to win.

By that logic, then, yes, Azami isn't weak to wraths. However, by that very same logic, neither is Talrand. All talrand does is give you virtual card advantage over your opponents when you do what a control deck already does naturally. Them wrathing the board doesn't actually net them card advantage over the Talrand player in any real way--a slight loss of tempo from having to recast talrand, but all rebuilding thereafter will be incredibly simple, just as the initial building was to begin with. All wiping a Talrand player does is buy you time and slow your clock, but control decks care very little about letting the game go on longer.

Who ever said that 'Azami control with a combo kill' isn't pure control? All control decks need win conditions. A permission deck with no win condition is nothing but a game stall for the other decks at the table, doing little besides disabling combo players and enabling aggro players.

People are honestly comparing commanders like Azami and Talrand as if they were remotely close in powerlevel.

Just FYI, most other lists put Azami in Tier 2(or 1.5), and have a way higher threshold for Tier 1 than this list does. So I agree with putting Azami in tier 2, but NOT for the braindead reasons you guys suggested. The fact that you even IMPLY the tempo loss of having to recast your commander over and over again is no big deal shows that you honestly have zero credibility at all in discussing this. Sorry, but no, you aren't qualified to make an opinion on the matter if you believe needing to have your commander stick on the board is no big deal.

First off, Azami IS a combo control. Azami draws your entire deck with Mind Over Matter. It doesn't give two shits about combat. In fact, it - like every single other tier 1 deck - does NOT require a large boardstate to win the game. You need those two cards in play and you win, instantly. The rest of the deck is dedicated to digging for combo and staying alive until combo.

On the topic of Tier 1 commanders, I'm being generous here with the ones in the list above, but I feel these don't really belong in tier 1:

Azami

Brago (Honestly he might be tier 1, but I err on the side of caution with this one as he tries to do the same as Derevi, except he does it WAY worse)

Edric (Broken as all hell in 1v1, not in multiplayer.)

Momir (Used to be the big-bad in creature combo, but we have Animar now. Nobody cares about Momir. He is super reliable though, definitely above almost all tier 2 commanders)

Prossh (Insanely powerful, but costs too much mana. It's unique in the way it wins so it might still be argued to be tier 1, especially considering its resilience to counters. Its closest comparisons would be Maelstrom Wanderer and Narset, in their aggressive "just cast my commander to win" approach, but the other commanders have access to blue...)

These are mostly put in the "used to be Tier 1" list, above tier 2 but not able to compete at the same level as the current Tier 1 decks.

Honestly, I believe this would best be solved by having a tier 0 list.

Put the retard strong commanders there that just obselete all the others (Animar, 5c-combo (Hermit Druid, Splinter Twin, Omni-rector, ad-nauseam), Narset, Derevi etc, then open the tier 1 to decks that are really good but just aren't broken.

Here's the thing.

Talrand doesn't further his gameplan by controlling the board unless he is IN play, as he is NOT coming closer to victory if he isn't. Your opponents are aware of this. They will make sure Talrand doesn't stick, as you will not even be worth a second thought without him on the board.

Azami furthers her gameplan by controlling the board regardless of her current position on the board. If she is in play, she draws additional answers a an alarming rate (something Talrand does NOT) while furthering her gameplan of drawing/tutoring into "oops I win". If she is NOT in play, the Azami player doesn't need to do ANYTHING. They can just sit there and wait, making sure they don't die, and progress towards their gameplan.

Essentially, Talrand has to be PROACTIVE, Azami is REACTIVE.

The difference in this mentality is HUGE. Talrand has to spend more resources to maintain his proactive boardstate and keep control of it in order to win, which will be resisted by all three opponents due to his imminent threat. Azami can sit back and chill until she draws what she needs to win, not needing to waste resources on defending her position on the board as she barely has one, but instead focusing on stopping key spells from your opponent.

This is why there is a world of difference between Talrand and Azami.

NoOneOfConsequence, there's only one problem. Talrand is going to be depending on those drakes to win. Azami you drop her with Mind Over Matter and it's pretty much game over.

I mean seriously, there's a huge difference between just having your commander + a card and winning and hurr durr I need to cast 5+ spells with my commander on board for all of them AND deal normal combat damage to win.

NoOneOfConsequence also, "commander isn't a 3v1 format" Yes, yes it is. It's 3 other players trying to win vs you. And even then that's besides the point. The point is that playing 1 for 1 removal is highly disadvantageous in multiplayer and if your deck is full of it you're constantly fighting it. Add a lack of CA engines AND boardwipes and you're out of cards in hand quickly. Worse so because you have to act WHEN they cast their combos/threats not after they've used it on other players (per "politics").

The whole reason combo is so favored over combat damage is because combo doesn't give care at all if some player has 3849848969 life. Whereas Talrand is shitting himself.

1. Azami is not played as a pure control strategy. It is played as a combo-control strategy where you are looking to Combo off as fast as possible and use counterspells to protect your Combo.
2. Pure control is where you are utilizing counterspells and board wipes and delaying the game in order to reach a state where you get your win con out and win the game. Combo-control tends to be more proactive and tends to use up more slots for to get their win-con out in a timely manner, while control plays reactively, delaying until it has gained enough resources to play their win con and win with it.
3. Talrand is not an aggro-control general. The deck does not want to win quickly and aggressively. It wants to drop talrand when it feels if has enough mana to do so and to have a counter spell open. Then it wants to sit on talrand, blocking with the drakes when it needs to and other wise growing its Drake army and attacking with it when blocking is not a priority. In fact, most Talrand decks end up winning with a Drake polymorphed in to a much more powerful creature, than with drakes. Instead, drakes are mostly used as chump blockers. Talrand is a pure control deck.
4. Self casted Board wipes shouldn't affect pure control decks very much as board wiping is done before a win-con has been deployed. If self casted board wipes do affect the effectivity of a deck, then the deck is not pure control. Self casted Board wipes do not affect talrand decks much more than traditional pure control decks(other than the fact that youll have to recast talrand) because any time youd cast a board wipe and kill your drakes, your drakes would've died by you blocking with them even if you didn't have the board wipe. Self cast Board wipes do effect Azami decks because not only do you have to recast azami, you also have to recast all those wizards that came back to your hand. Therefore, in my opinion, a reason has been established why azami is not a pure control deck.
5. Talrand running out of steam? You clearly have not played talrand as a pure control deck before? Pure control decks have cards that replace them selfs and cards that provide hilarious card advantage like overwhelming intellect and consecrated sphinx.
6. Not only can any talrand deck be a solid pure control deck to its mono-blue nature, Talrand itself provides the deck with lots of pseudo card advantage as it makes evers instant and sorcery spell put a Drake on the battlefield in addition to its other effects. These drakes have uses in most Talrand decks other than attacking and blocking, they can be polymorphed into powerhouses like jin-gitaxis, diluvian primordial e.t.c.

I give up. If you're gonna keep repeating the same points then I'm out.

"Azami requires bunches of Wizards" lawl

So I guess Azami can't play cantrips in addition to the inheret CA engine either..../thread

'So I agree with putting Azami in tier 2, but NOT for the braindead reasons you guys suggested. The fact that you even IMPLY the tempo loss of having to recast your commander over and over again is no big deal shows that you honestly have zero credibility at all in discussing this. Sorry, but no, you aren't qualified to make an opinion on the matter if you believe needing to have your commander stick on the board is no big deal.'

Okay, fine. I suppose civility is overrated, anyway.

Recasting my commander 'over and over again' wasn't what I either myself or anyone else was theorizing about. Recasting him after one wrath was the point of contention. If we just assume that an opponent can wrath the board every single turn without counterspells being able to stop or even delay him, then, by all means, we're losing significant amounts of tempo. I'm sure you'll agree that this scenario sounds rather unrealistic, however.

MTGTCG: "Then it wants to sit on talrand, blocking with the drakes when it needs to and other wise growing its Drake army and attacking with it when blocking is not a priority"

How do you block Hermit Druid combo? How do you block all your permanents never untapping? How do you block infinite damage/targeted draw? How do you block infinite turns?

Nobody cares about your drake army. You will sit there building up over a dozen turns while the rest of the players will be waiting for a SINGLE moment to combo off, and even then, a single cycled Decree of Pain and you are back to square one, with zero progress gained.

But hey, that's not even the most egregious part of the paragraph. Let's skip to the part BEFORE that.

"The deck does not want to win quickly and aggressively. It wants to drop talrand when it feels if has enough mana to do so and to have a counter spell open"

Guess what, your opponent has the same plan, except instead of dropping Talrand and building up to become a threat over a dozen turns, they plan on WINNING that turn or the following.

NoOneOfConsequence: I'm not sure how many times we have to tell this to you, but THIS IS MULTIPLAYER, NOT 1v1.

One player wrathing every turn won't happen. Unfortunately for you, that leaves TWO more players. And guess what, Talrand doesn't only die to wraths. There's single targeted removal, lockdown, counterspell effects, even simple edicts. Boardwipes are just a hazard that will happen from time to time in ADDITION to everything else.

Sorry for not sugarcoating it.

There's quite a hefty different between sugarcoating it and shitcoating it, as you've so kindly demonstrated.

You aren't sure how many times you should tell me that because the correct amount would have been zero. Screaming it certainly isn't helping.

You know, at this point, is just sounds like you're listing card varieties that every deck in this format is weak to. Talrand is a creature. Creatures die to removal. That's their weakness. You know who else shares that weakness? Almost every commander in this format, due to the nature of the fact that they're almost always creatures. Those that can consistently shrug it off, such as Narset, or Animar? Fine, sure thing. Tier one. I never suggested that Talrand was tier one, however.

NoOneOfConsequence: Wow, looks like you figured it out!

Know who is among the bottom tiers? Almost every commander in this format! It's as if the less you have to focus on them sticking around, the higher tier they are!

Of course, how big an impact they have plays a large part. For example Damia is the exact opposite of above scenario. Expensive AND has no protection. In return the reward for having her survive is unparalleled control.

Also, this is a text conversation, where do you get the screaming from?

Your obnoxious utilization of the caps lock, if you must know.

'Among the bottom tiers' you say? Awfully unspecific. It's almost as if you wished to specifically avoid saying the words 'tier two'.

I'm going to go have to argue the fact that, once again, commander isn't a 3v1 format. Oh, sure, as has been pointed out, there are three other players in the pod who want to win in place of you. But here's the thing: Each of them has to deal with the fact that the other three players also want to win in their place, yourself included. You're analyzing these predispositions in a rather vacuous and parochial way, frankly, for it fails to take into account this complete truism.