Very true but it actually saves several card slots. I am thinking of dropping HD combo with sidisi because it takes up 8 slots and is fairly glass cannon for BUG. That leaves me with necrotic ooze and food chain, which both need ballista to work. I have a way to get it back from exile but unless I want to run a barebones package of labman deep analysis and memorys journey the deck can be broken if one card gets taken out. Vela is a dead card but I prefer one dead card to three mostly dead cards.

Labman is a suboptimal finisher for sidisi food chain and is graveyard dependent. There is tainted pact but I dislike the other 3 cards enough to avoid adding it. With vela and ballista I have a much better chance of ensuring one is in my hand if I am locked out of my graveyard so I can just 3 card with food chain and avoid the self mill altogether. I was sort of considering adding altar of dementia but this is way better

Quick PSA: Generally if a deck has an average CMC over 3, it's not an optimized/competitive list. It's one of the first things I look at when examining any deck list. A high curve means slow starts and lots of dead cards in hand. A lot of the decks I'm seeing linked have extremely high curves, which usually instantly rule them out for use.

That being said, that looks like a really solid decklist @_person_. Added!

So, working on an optimized Feldon and I think I've settled on two combos and would like to know if anyone had thoughts.

So considering Feldon is a reanimator I'm going to use mostly creature based combos.

1.) Kiki + Zealous. With Feldon's ability it's easy to just "during end step" zealous and steal a Ghostly Prison, then untap and activate Feldon for Kiki and go off. Requires setup but that's not as hard as it sounds due to the number of draw and discard effects.

2.) Dualcaster, dualcaster is good value in Feldon because you can reanimate it to counter a counter or copy something like Tooth and Nail to go off before someone else. Etc. the other part of the dualcaster combo is Twinflame and Heat Shimmer, these have to be in hand which is a bit of a bummer but with 2 it shouldn't be too hard. Target Feldon, animate dualcaster, infinite dualcasters.

To go along with these I plan on running Purphoros, God of the Forge and Altar of Dementia, you can Altar yourself early game to get the engines online and later you can Altar everyone out of the game if you can't attack with infinite guys.

Any thoughts on these?

I think Kiki Zealous might be more consistent to assemble since you would need to wait for twinflame or heat shimmer for dualcaster. Dualcaster itself isnt a bad choice by itself imo.

Can we get a comment reset every like 400 comments or so? just a thought.

I think i have an optimized but untested chainer deck to replace the one above. If someone can look it over for things I missed or better ways to optimize, that would be great. Thanks in advance. I don't have a primer yet.

Sleep tight

Commander / EDH* chaosumbreon87

13 VIEWS

I figured that twinflame and heatshimmer could be used without dualcaster as ways to copy things like Bedlam reveler and it can also be used to "untap" Feldon if you were willing to sac the original.

tw0handt0uch: I was thinking after I replied to you that it would be better to show you my thought process on the new deck instead of writing a reply. Since you were the original creator of food chain tazri, I would love your feedback. Here is the new prototype: Food chain+Nooze prototype

NarejED ok I revamped my Zedruu the Greathearted deck with cards I actually acquired. I am submitting it again for the tier 3 zedruu spot. Zedr(YOU), Zed(WHAT). (this deck is everything I own in paper)

Average CMC is 3.06. Relatively low for a zedruu deck. I could make it lower, but it takes out some key lock pieces I did get the suggestions you said earlier as well as some of the ones I already planned on inserting.

Like I said earlier. This deck has been tested against tier 1 and 2 decks as there are a few in my meta.

I know I am missing key lands (Arid Mesa, Scalding Tarn, Tundra, Volcanic Island.

Beyond that, I feel like it is complete. Any extra advice please let me know. Or PM me.

I put it up for voting.

Quick question: Why do decks like Tazri Food Chain not jam like Boonweaver combo, or Hermit Druid combo? Does it actually decrease the efficiency of the overall deck? I would think by having two combo options, the deck would improve its speed.

Hd and boonweaver both take too many slots. So unless your deck is devoted to either plan, it is not worth it jamming in either one. One can bring the other sometimes

ceji3

Lets say you have 3x 2-card combos in your deck. There is some probablility you will have 1x card from combo A and 1x from combo C and you are holding both of them doing nothing. Now lets replace all cards from combos B and C with tutors. Now any of 2 of the 6 cards make a 2-card combo bc you can tutor the missing piece. Likewise if you only have 1 card of the 6, it would never be useful but if it is a tutor, you could tutor Toxic Deluge, or Timetwister, or C Rift or whatever to get back in the game. You balance this efficiency vs the risk of getting gone if your 2 pieces exiled. That is why most decks with only 1 primary combo will include Riftsweeper and/or Pull from eternity. Obviously this is simplified, but hopefully you take the point.

You could potentially add something like splinter twin to a combo like food chain tazri because it is relatively compact and FC and Twin share most of the same tutors. Ive done something similar with boonweaver and splinter twin and its not bad since you just need 2 card slots to have a really fast alternative win condition. However, given how many enablers Tazri has for FC it probably doesnt improve the deck much and it may make it worse since double red stretches the mana base badly.

I am very confused as to how sliver queen can be higher rank than overlord, since you can just tutor up queen with overlord :/

comment 113-119 above. (not archive)

@ZomBee_Hunt: I would recommend making a separate budget-less Zedruu list online that runs all of the powerful high-price cards you don't own in paper. While keeping an online deck that reflects what you play in paper is useful, it isn't a good fit as a deck claiming to be the gold standard for the represented Commander.

Sounds good. I will do that and submit it to you tomorrow. NarejED

Brassmoose: While its been mentioned before, the short of it is that having the commander in the command zone is better than being able to tutor for it. On top of that, while Overlord can tutor for Queen, you have to first play him and then tutor which is an additional 8 mana you wouldn't have to pay if you just straight cast Queen. Not to mention that other than Basal Sliver, you only really run a very small handful of slivers anyway.

NarejED. I made my additions to the zedruu deck without a budget like u said. Please take a look and offer any suggestions. Zedr(YOU), Zed(WHAT).

I will keep my actual paper deck separate. Thanks

Not to be rude to you, ZomBee_Hunt, but this list still includes a lot of sub optimal choices such as Possibility Storm, Cryptic Command, Form of the Dragon, etc. and the avg. CMC is still 3.08. I read your comment earlier about how Zedruu naturally runs a lot of high CMC spells, but surely there are better options than these for competitive. You should probably reconsider some choices if you want this list to be picked.

NarejED it looks like you switched your Tefearsome for Chain Veil Teferi. I didn't see any update about it. What caused this decision?

@JaysonSunshine: One reoccurring piece of feedback I got was that I was over-represented in the decklist section, so I've been making an effort to replace decks I've made with alternatives of the same caliber wherever possible. Teferi was one of the easiest, since there's a good amount of interest in in cEDH.

So, couple of thoughts on the most recent update of the list. Love the decklists and the detail involved in this page. As always, thank you to everyone involved for keeping it going.

That being said, I disagree with a few of the top tier picks.

- Edric, Spymaster of Trest
I've been saying this for a long time, a strategy based around attacking is not viable in this format. Yes, this is simic which allows magical christmas land to exist at least 30% of the time and once you build enough card advantage you draw into enough counterspells to stabilize and time walk your way to victory. But then there's the other times where someone boardwipes or plays a Lodestone Golem or Trinisphere type of effect and you just lose cause you can't play enough of your creatures. It's consistency is focused mainly on ripping through the deck but is easily disrupted and should be moved down to tier two.

- Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
This commander is problematic. On the face this looks like a great commander that fits the STAX mold perfectly. The problem is that there already is a commander on the tier one list that fits this role better. Arbiter fits better in the 99 of Brago, King Eternal.

- Thrasios, Triton Hero
I need to ask a question about this one. Is it primarily the linked deck or is it the idea of him as a partner? I disagree with the current set up in the same way I disagree with Arbiter. There are better tier one commanders that do more with Hermit Druid and don't need a forth color to accomplish the goal. Instead of overextending by animating Angel of Glory's Rise, you could simply do it with Lab man and just win. It's very win more in it's current state. In commander your deck can do a lot, but this is a classic case of decks trying to do too much.
I offer a better plan with Thrasios, although it still might be tier two with a lot of potential. I think partnering with Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix is the proper way to go. As I briefly mentioned earlier Green and Blue is the best color combination in this format and in it's purest form, the most consistent. The idea is with both Thrasios and Kydele in the command zone you have both a mana producer and an outlet that abuses absurd amounts of mana. This allows to only need to find Umbral Mantle and a Brainstorm type effect to go infinite and draw your entire deck. I haven't hammered out the logistics yet, but I believe it's something that if done right can lead to a great deck.

Overall, I believe tier one should be reserved for the best decks that are the absolute best at what they do. Also that it is a small list of commanders that are undeniably the best. Not every Hermit Druid or good combo deck is tier one material. As much as I love Brago and Tazri, there are inherent problems with both of them that I feel do not make them tier one. The same with Mimeoplasm and Scion. I think it should be separated into tier one and tier 1.5, a new tier that shows the best of tier two. Ones that could be mistaken for tier one.
Well this would call up to question who are the real tier one generals and guess what, I have a solution for that too. These are generals that I would consider the best of the best and in what form suits them best.

1. Animar, Soul of Elements - Ancestral Statue
2. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Bant STAX package
3. Leovold, Emissary of Trest - Hand denial
4. Prossh, Skyraider of Kher - Food chain
5. Tasigur, the Golden Fang - Tooth and Nail
6. Teferi, Temporal Archmage - STAX Control
7. Zur the Enchanter - Doomsday

Thanks for listening. Love to start hearing the discussions this causes :)

Watason723 Thrasios is tier one if paired with any black commander. The interaction with kydele is nice, but it is not worth losing access to black and another color since Thrasios has much better infinite mana combos than kydele that dont require you to cast a 4 drop mana dork with restrictions and summoning sickness before you try and combo off every game

I agree that going hermit druid with thrasios is not the best possible route. I firmly believe this to be significantly better. However, I have no issue with using someone elses list if it is better. I think an ideal list of thrasios is hard, since he can play multiple tier 1 strategies. If there is an optimal strategy given my testing of him with multiple builds, my money is on paradox engine as the core piece. It is simply incredible as a build around card. It often resembles a one card combo win condition and Thrasios with black/red has so many tools to abuse the card perfectly.

I strongly disagree with the premise that a 3 color commander does hermit druid better with labman than 4 color. It costs 3 mana to win, and you lose to any interaction whatsoever on the deep analysis step. My 4 color variant costs just 1 mana to win and it cannot be disrupted save a card like glen elendra archmage once angel of glory rise's trigger resolves. Honestly 3 color hermit druid with labman is really really bad. Its mana inefficient and risky. Adding white or red makes the combo a hundred times more resilient.

On another note I disagree that derevi, brago, and animar are among the best of tier 1. I view them as among the weakest commanders we have in tier 1 besides mimeoplasm. I tend to agree on Augustine

I also don't understand Grand Arbiter Augustin IV in tier one. Tazri seems to be easily in the top-5 decks, if not top-3.

On GAAIV: There was a debate earlier on whether Brago or GAAIV was better and it was split. There seems to be a flood of people

Among the ways GAAIV was considered to have advantages over Brago are:

• Less dependent on the commander, and the commander doesn't need to attack.
• Can play Humility easily whereas Brago has trouble making Humility work. And Humility is one of the best control cards in the format-- most decks simply can't win with it on the board.
• Taxing can be strong in certain metas.

Among reasons why Brago has advantages over GAAIV are:

• Easier to assemble a total asymmetrical lockdown, whereas GAAIV's lockdown is slightly more symmetric since you can't for example, flicker Mana Vault in GAAIV.
• Really hard for opponents to do anything once the lockdown begins (flickering Tangle Wire is no joke) whereas GAAIV has some gaps in its lockdown.

Overall it's pretty meta dependent. If everyone is running Karador and FC Tazri, I probably want GAAIV for things like Humility and Supreme Verdict. If the meta is more varied, I don't really need Humility (in fact one guy can win through it), and another guy plays a deck with literally zero things that can chump a flying creature, might consider Brago instead.