Ok, Now that all the new commanders have been spoiled and added to the site, let's put in some work. Here are tenative tier placements for all the new commanders:

Breya, Etherium Shaper -- Tier 2 -- Right off the bat we have sac loop shenanigans and artifact synergy. People have been calling her "Sharuum plus," and with a 4 color identity she has no shortage of possible combos. I think T2 is a good starting point. (Note that any colored infinite mana combo that involves a sac outlet is just as good as looping Breya herself.)

Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder -- Tier 1 -- Now, before you jump down my throat about it, let me say that I am against having new commanders start in T1 as precedent. However, in this case the similarities to an already established T1 deck, Grixis Storm, are so extreme that I think we can make an exception to that rule without affecting future tier decisions. That, coupled with the fact that Grixis Storm was already a deck that didn't actually need its commander to win, make Yidris, a commander with an actually useful effect for storm, pretty much a shoe-in for T1.

Saskia the Unyielding -- Tier 3 -- Very underwhelming. I can't think of any applications besides doubling up on "when this creature deals damage" triggers, which are few and far between. Obviously she is much better in Duel. I'm going to tentatively put this in T3, as I think any commander with a four-color identity and a non-detrimental ability deserves a chance to see what people come up with, but if she doesn't prove herself I think we could safely move her to T4. (Although, I will admit that this is a very well designed card from a flavor perspective. Like, it feels sans-blue.)

Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis -- Tier 5 -- Remember what I said about Saskia having a "non-detrimental" ability? Yeah... This guy is pretty squarely in detrimental. Giving your opponents (And not yourself!) extra lands, and then giving them extra cards as a consolation prize for not having enough lands, is nobody's idea of a good time. (Yeah, I know it's somebody's idea of a good time, but we're not gonna talk about them, ok?)

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice -- Tier 3 -- Super cool. Obvious Superfriends/Infect/Experience/counters synergy. A flying vigilance deathtouch lifelink 4/4 for 4 is actually nothing to scoff at. I'm not sure there's anything competitive that can be done with her (him? it?), but there's definitely enough synergy to make at least a T3 deck, with definite potential to move up just on color merits.

NOTE: For the time being I'm just going to evaluate each of the partner commanders strictly on their own (i.e. as if they didn't have partner). I have an idea on how to tackle ranking each partner combo, but it's going to wait until a future post.

Silas Renn, Seeker Adept -- Tier 3 -- On his own Silas lends himself to an artifact recursion deck very similar to Glissa, the Traitor with less degenerate synergies because of his reliance on the combat step. He's also very similar to Gisa and Geralf, another T3 general, but with a more supported card type. Interesting things you can do with him include Mindslaver locking players, repeated Oblivion Stone or Nevinyrral's Disking with Darksteel Plate, or just gaining incremental value with stuff like Wayfarer's Bauble. There's also the possibility of him having potential as a stax deck that plays similarly to Brago, which would probably bump him up a tier, but I have doubts about whether that can get off the ground.

Vial Smasher the Fierce -- Tier 4 -- Random damage to opponents is only really good if you can get it to happen a lot. With the first spell a turn stipulation, Vial Smasher is really only giving you two options to aggro players out with: Play a spell on each of your opponents turns (which / isn't very well equipped to do), or play very large spells. A solo Vial Smasher deck will probably have a lot of Earthquake effects. (She does get better if partnered into green and blue.)

Tana, the Bloodsower -- Tier 3 -- I like this girl a lot. Like, a lot. I used to think that Pollenbright Wings was an over costed card, until I realized just how powerful making an army of bodies every turn was. Now here's a commander with the same ability, none of the drawbacks that come with an aura, and trample thrown in as a bonus. A typical Tana will probably consist of being a little voltron-y to boost her up quick with stuff like Empyrial Plate and Hero's Blade, along with green/red's most effective anthems like Beastmaster Ascension and Mrton Stromgald to swing for lethal. It's also worth noting that since she's both aggressive and makes fodder, she plays super well into stax (Shivan Harvest anyone?). Playing through a Static Orb is no big deal if you're getting a bunch of beefed up, untapped saprolings to attack with every turn. I can definitely see a stax version of that's partnered into better colors making it into tier 2, even if the partner is just for show like Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker.

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa -- Tier 4 -- Not totally sure where to place this guy just yet. I was going to go with T3, but after a quick gatherer search there are only 5 creatures in his colors with power two or less and relevant combat damage triggers. It's neat that he makes your opponents not able to block each other, but only to a point. I think T4 is a good starting place for him. He does pair very nicely with Silas though, and pretty well with Tymna.

Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker -- Tier 5 -- This might get big fast... if he came down on turn 2. As it is he's voltron, with almost no relevant abilities, in the same colors as Bruna, Light of Alabaster. T5 sounds about right.

Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder -- Tier 4 -- It's nice that he has an ETB and attack trigger, so you can continuously get value out of him, but just like Sidar, there aren't really enough combat damage triggers to farm with him, and his ability isn't big enough to make or break dangerous levels of aggro.

Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix -- Tier 3 -- A mana dork that scales to your card draw. Really wish she said "of any color." Her color identity is what's boosting her up to T3. Great partner though.

Ravos, Soultender -- Tier 3 -- Palace Siege isn't typically a card I'd consider playing in EDH, but I could see how it would be fun to have it in the command zone.

Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist -- Tier 5 -- Group hug is bad. This is slightly better than Kynaios and Tiro since it doesn't give your opponents more of a bonus than you, but it's still not good. Plus his pillow fort aspect doesn't even work since you're opponents only have to send one of their creature at someone other than you to get the bonus.

Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper -- Tier 4 -- Lifegain is meh, this card is meh, Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is a better lifegain commander anyway. (Speaking of which, we need to bump Trostani up to T3, Aetherflux Reservoir really gave that deck an adrenaline shot.)

Akiri, Line-Slinger -- Tier 4 -- This guy is not terrible in terms of R/W voltron, but R/W voltron already wasn't too great.

Thrasios, Triton Hero -- Tier 2 -- When your commander is an infinite mana sink that wins you the game and has decent utility in the early game, your path to victory is pretty obvious. Also, if there's anything that building Edric has taught me, it's that G/U is just a super strong color identity.

Tymna the Weaver -- Tier 3 -- This is one I think a lot of people are undervaluing. A 3-drop in the command zone that is at least a Phyrexian Arena for aggressive decks is pretty good. I think a typical Tymna deck is going to look a lot like a W/B Edric deck, and we all know how that goes. She lacks the ability to counter spells or take extra turns though, which is the only reason she didn't make it to T2. (A.k.a. Any partnering that adds blue to her color identity will likely be T2.)

Kraum, Ludevic's Opus -- Tier 3 -- Reminds me a lot of Jori En, Ruin Diver, except it also makes your opponents slow down their turns (or give you gas). It's also a little more likely to net you cards if you're playing with the kind of people who don't do all in their power to play around Rhystic Study. It really just points to R/U goodstuff though, and 5 CMC is a too expensive for anything higher than a T3 general if that general doesn't do anything fantastic.

Reyhan, Last of the Abzan -- Tier 3 -- I'm not totally sure what it is yet, but there's definitely some sort of counter/sac-loop combo to found here. And while you search for it you can accrue +1/+1 counter value. I don't know, she might move up or down depending on what people come up with.

I agree heartily with that assessment. The only thing I have a qualm about is Atraxa. I feel whatever finalized deck that's brought forward for her will likely be mid tier 2, be it devoted stax, Boonweaver, or something not yet tested. Being conservative never hurt though.

Addendum: I'd also probably rate Reyhan lower. +1/+1 counter shenanigans can be good (see Ghave, Guru of Spores), but I don't see any possible ways to abuse Reyhan's abilities. At first I thought Undying loops like Mike & Trike might be possible, but generally those loops require any +1/+1 counters to be removed, rendering her ability useless.

My first thought for her was duel commander and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. If they send Briar to the command zone she will see his counters and get bigger but he still keeps his counters

The only thing I don't like about oracle-not-oracle is that he can't win via LabMan on his own unless my rules knowledge is rusty if you don't have any cards in your library his ability does nothing. On the flip side drawing your whole deck and NOT having a cantrip seems out of touch but meh.

Just thought I'd mention that Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis does allow you to put a land into play, although it's of less use to you than your opponents as you're getting it at eot. The whole point of these guys is that you get a land drop + a card if you have a land in hand (or draw one), whereas opponents only get one or the other (although they get to choose). Still pretty low down on the tiers.

Also who would ever want to play group hug is beyond me.

I agree with NarejED that Atraxia is tier 2 material. She has some amazing tools to work with in the stax and combo department and that body is nothing to scoff at since she can generate life for adnaus and necro. Otherwise I think sonnet666 has the right of it. The group hug guys are probably tier 4 since they somewhat break parity. I have hopes for breya to crack tier 1 but she will probably fall short.

Im thinking out of the 125 or so possible combinations maybe 5 partners will produce competitive decks so maybe just rank the best pairs for now like double simic and thrasios with 2 other good colors for a pure combo deck.

I put that Mimeoplasm deck together:

Mimeo Test

Commander / EDH* enpc

1 VIEW

Thank you to everyone who provided feedback - it was really helpful in cutting down the cards to a deck of 100. I also realised that using Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon instead of Thornling meant that the deck could run Death's Shadow giving an infect combat damage backup win condition for one more card slot.

Hello, I am a long time lurker and even longer time Momir Vig, Simic Visionary player and with the banning of prophet I was curious as to his viability, I have been playing a non-optimized combo version of him and over the course of 32 goldfishes he has averaged to turn 5.53 and I believe if I continued optimizing I may be able to get down to turn 4.5ish but I was curious if this was the was the way to go as I see the utility lists that claim to be optimized and wonder if they truly are.

So I just realized that Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix, Thrasios, Triton Hero, and Retreat to Coralhelm can get out of hand really fast (via untapping Kydele everytime a land enters)- especially if you wheel beforehand or have Training Grounds, Heartstone, or Lotus Cobra. It's not tier one but it's still pretty cool.

sonnet666 - I agree with most of what you propose, but, like you mentioned would happen, I would like to jump down your throat. I think we should do with Yidris what we did with Leovold, and put it in upper Tier 2 on the (very) fast track to Tier 1. While I am not a long time poster on this 'thread' (moreso a lurker), I believe that I would be correct to assume that no one would want to set the starting T1 precedent (My apologies if I misrepresent(ed) anyone). Maybe a 2-3 week probationary period before bumping to T1?

This is still just my opinion, so I would love to discuss it further with anyone and everyone.

Additionally (and a bit tangentially), while your reasoning about Grixis Storm not needing its commander is true, Jeleva's kickstart after a shutdown is more relevant than ever (there are two Leovold decks among my playgroups). I have had to cast Jeleva twice in my last 10 games, something that I have never had to do before. Admittedly, one of them was because I was unable to convince my opponents to counter a lockpiece (when Leovold was not in play) and the Leovold player forced through Leovold with Savage Summoning.

So I think I should stick with my Teferi list.

I ended up zoning out when I was creating my doomsday pile in Leovold, mis stacked my pile, and ended up losing to temple bell as I had no cards in my library and lab man was on the stack.

Had a good laugh about it but damn was that embarrassing. Maybe I'll check out some of the leovold storm lists instead..

Yeah, Doomsday is easily one of the hardest combos to navigate. If you're doing the super basic pile, it's not too bad, but if any of your main cards are missing, or you need a special stack tailored to the board state, everything goes to crap really fast.

There are some combos in Ghave that are also incredibly complex as well (in point of fact why I stopped playing Ghave)

Weaving counters in and about and seeing all lines of play is extremely difficult.

I've had a lethal boardstate but didn't see it till 2-3 turns after I achieved it.

sepaking of difficult combos does anyone thing the boomweaver coimbo for karador is hard to do at first go since its a multiple step combo

Yeah, the first time I encountered Boonweaver, I had to read back through the original combo explanation several times before I got it. There's a lot that goes into it.

Dunadain, potatopotatopotato, Momir being out of date is a question that comes up a lot, and the general consensus is that, even though Prophet was the best card in the deck, the changes to the deck from it's banning are actually minimal (no other card in there needs Prophet to function).

If you look at the TappedOut profile of the creator of that deck, Jebus4054, you can see that he has an updated version of the deck where he just swapped out Prophet of Kruphix for Altered Ego.

The reason we still have the MTGSalvation link up is that it's just nicer to link new players to a detailed primer, even if it's out of date, than a collection of 100 cards with no context.

enpc, That deck you made looks great. Usually Nooze focused decks have this tendency to devolve into a lot of combo pieces that don't really do anything on their own, but you kept this one really tight and organized, so good job.

As far as possible improvements, all I can think of is adding Sylvan Tutor and Muddle the Mixture for extra ways to grab HD, Chrome Mox for more acceleration, and maybe Mesmeric Orb to fill up your graveyard in games where you're having trouble finding HD.

Another interesting thing I noticed, which is actually a bit surprising, is that you don't actually need Thornwind Faeries in order to win the game. Sure, dealing infinite damage is super simple, but keep in mind that you have infinite mana, and Nooze has the activated abilities of everything in your graveyard. Which include:

• Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
• Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip & Magus of the Bazaar
• Deathrite Shaman

So you can activate Yisan's ability with Nooze as many times as you want, pulling any creatures you want onto the battlefield from your library. Only problem is that you don't have a library... Oh wait, Memory's Journey. So now you can put Laboratory Maniac and Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord into play, and have the option of either drawing to win the game with Jace or Magus, or just saccing Nooze for lethal life loss on all your opponents. And even if none of that appeals to you, you can make infinite by tapping Nooze as Birds of Paradise or Bloom Tender, and use Deathrite Shaman repeatedly to exile all the instants and sorceries in your graveyard for about 60 life lost for each of your opponents.

So when you look at all that going on, Thornwind Faeries seems a little unnecessary. I'd replace it with Krosan Reclamation for a second copy of Memory's Journey, allowing you to play though two counterspells after activating HD.

Other cards I think you can safely cut to make space without affecting deck performance are Stifle, Frantic Search, and maybe one land.

merrowMania, I still think he should be T1, and I don't think it will set precedent.

Think about it, if Wizards came out with a functional reprint of Zur the Enchanter, except it cost and also had hexproof and indestructible, would there be any question of what tier it belonged in? Would we really need a probationary period?

Now, that's not going to happen, but what just did happen was very similar, in that Grixis Storm was already a proven T1 deck, and Yidris is basically a strict upgrade.

Good to know about Jeleva being useful though.

(Also, as far as complicated combos go? I can't playtest Storm for the life of me. I always end up messing up and generally giving myself a headache.)

Lastly, I made this thing:

Partner Pairs Listing

Unknown* sonnet666

1 VIEW

It's all 105 possible combinations of partner commanders. Yay!

Hopefully we'll eventually be able to have a tier ranking for each combination and a little blurb about how they work together. When it's finished it could be added to this list as another dropdown spoiler in the description.

If any of you have ideas about the merits of any of the pairings, feel free to message me about it, comment on the decklist, or just comment here, and I'll do my best to add it by that partner pair.

sonnet666 Beware using Necrotic Ooze to activate Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip

The trigger will actually permanently exile the ooze.

I think this is evidence that Leo is good for the format. He slows down fast combo so well that grixis storm has to actually cast its commander.

Ohthenoises, Are you sure? I thought it just returned it to the battlefield untransformed. I'll look it up.

Either way you have Magus of the Bazaar and should be winning the game at that point in any case.

Also, about what you said concerning Thrasios, Triton Hero earlier, I'm pretty sure that if you activate him with an empty library, it will cause you to attempt to draw a card. The "otherwise" clause is checking to see whether you revealed a land, and if there wasn't a top card of your library the answer will always be no. I'll check on that as well.

sonnet666 it was a change from SoI

Link

If you can't reveal the top card of your library though? Missing a pretty large chunk of what the ability is checking for but either way.

Edit: Just saw that there was a period between the scry, reveal and land part and the otherwise. Disregard, that works.

Yeah, I was still thinking with the old rules.

Couldn't find anything in comp. on Thrasios, but I asked on magicjudge.tumblr.com and I'm pretty sure it works. Non-targeted effects tend to do as much as they can in any situation.

The period makes it work. An ability will attempt to resolve as much as it can of an ability. Periods denote separate parts.

sonnet666: Cheers for the feedback :D

Yeah, I noticed the DRS thing as another outlet for the win condition and I really like it as an out.

Krosan Reclamation looks really cool, I'll add it to the maybeboard. I'm a little reluctant to cut Faeries since it is a really clean win, however it is better to have less cards that don't overlap. I'll give this one some thought but ultimately I think you're right there.

I really like Muddle the Mixture, I'm going to replace Counterspell with it.

I thought Frantic Search was a good way of pitching combo pieces if they ended up in your hand (same logic for Brainstorm). Do you reckon its not worth it?

I'll also add Sylvan Tutor and Chrome Mox to the maybeboard. I'm on the fence about Orb, but I'll add it too.

Thanks again for the feedback, its really helpful to get peoples' thoughts, especially when it comes to combos.

I'm just gonna leave this right here....

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/thrasios-and-his-1/

Undefeated in competitive pods on trice thus far but with small sample size (~5 pods). Everyone knows how good the "fast bug" shell is (it's the same shell that powers General Tazri). The question is about how reliably we can assemble the combos and I've found it quite easy. I dunno where exactly to slot Thrasios but its Tier 2 at least.

Thrasos with a white/black date appears to be a strictly better Tasigur. Its a 2 mana commander that has the best possible color scheme for fast combo and control and can win with any infinite mana combo on the spot. Thrasos isn't dependent on the graveyard or politics to be effective and as soon as you get infinite colorless mana you draw your deck and have all cards needed to counterspell any resistance and then gitaxian probe with labman for the win. Being able to use colorless mana means you have tons more options at your disposal than than bannana man. And it ramps or draws at your end step if you dont spend your mana each turn. It will definitely end up tier 1 and might be even stronger than the ogre mage :-()

PS. if you add tymna the weaver you can also potentially generate 2 extra cards a turn just by turning sideways against spellslinging decks. Literally there is no downside to this commander in relation to Tasigur. If you dont want to strain your mana base use silas renn and you have free artifact recursion. Or if you want red go vial smasher.

I just thought of something funny. Vial smasher with infinite turns is hilarious. Cast Time Stretch deal 10, Archeomancer + Ghostly Flicker, repeat.