I think it is still a strong strategy but I think that other decks that are in tier 1 are equally powerful. Some people seem to think that this is the most powerful strategy in the game. I would say it's one of them, but these strategies can get disrupted quite easily. Sometimes they run out of juice early because they run so many rocks that their opening hand is flooded with mana. This of course can happen to any deck, but I wanted to give an example of how this stile of play is not as untouchable as some like to say.

I am interested in joining the cEDH discord server and was wondering if anyone could send me an invite.

fair enough arguments against merging 4 and 5 but if were worried about Commanders of different power levels getting in the same tier than we should have a tier for each general... just saying.

maybe we could just make a placement list for all generals in tier 1 & 2? or would creating that list start too many arguments?

Not really.... Here's the problem I have with the tier system in general, the problem I have is that it's not really about the general but the combo people use. It's like they don't even consider the general and say this gets me food chain and access to a few food chain targets and soon enough it's not about the general at all but the combo itself. I could make arguments about how Child of Alara should be tier 1 because I could doomsday/hermit druid people over the head with her. It's really always been about combo city, even Pheldagriff makes a fine prison deck, and I've done it while hiding behind hugs and things like shieldmage advocates. Then it turns into a bear and strangles people to death before people can respond to me. Casting Show and Tell into Teferi and casting Knowledge Pool locks the game into me winning in a fairly subtle way.

The only generals it seems people actually use happens to be Yisan, Leovold, Animar, Edric, and a handful of others... But the rest of the decks are centered around resolving Lab Man uncontested, Ad Naus, or other things like that... But not actually about how powerful the general actually is.

Breya and Atraxa are powerhouses, but why are they used for the cards that has nothing to do with the generals? What it should be called, is, Tier 1 strategies. And what's the actual power level of the general? I've seen Purphoros as a general kill on turn 2 or 3 on a number of occasions, it's really gross.

how did purph kill on turn 2 or 3? I would love to see the deck list as a purph player

You can always build around the general, but with few exceptions (a general like yisan), that strategy will be weaker than someone who built the most powerful deck possible within a color scheme or strategy, with the general only playing a small role such as (infinite mana outlet or necropotence in the command zone). This is essentially vintage singleton. We dont get style points for building a unique deck. What matters in cEDH is whether or not the deck is effective.

DD is by by no means the only way to win in the top tiers. Also only a few top tier generals can actually use the card well.

The child of alara comparison is misleading. Yes you could make a 5 color combo.deck with child as the figure head, but child does nothing for the strategy, whereas proshh SBT, and Tazri make food chain a great combo that can win the game faster than most decks and is relatively easy to protect. With 4 color generals 5 color combo decks are a bit obsolete. They offer almost no advantages over 4 color decks with decent generals

A assume lots of rituals/ramp into a Empty the Warrens could accomplish it. I could also imagine a panharmonicon ramped out early with rituals could get there as well. Unsure on timing but it's conceivable.

kayakenobi Combo's take a lot of skill to utilise effectively. You need to know when to go for it, how to respond to disruption, and what cards you have access to at any given time. Setting up a Breya kill with Purphmonicon may be flashier, but saying that it takes a "stronger" player to win without a combo is simply not true in cEDH. Combos do not imply lack of skill.

Dunadain - The player played a mountain, mox diamond, mana crypt, wheel of fortune into a sol ring and mana vault. Next turn he gambles for a panharmonicon and plays both it and Purphoros following it up with token generation for the kill on turn 3.

Dredge4life - Maybe, I should have said lack of style... There used to be a few doomsday players here and they'd continually change the deck around in subtle ways always playing the same combo over and over. There's other players like myself that knows how the combo works and I tell a control player itching to counter a spell when to counter and when to respond. Making the other players who get preyed upon better players so they understand how certain combos actually work. And if the player sitting across from me is a combo player, I make sure I mull into a turn 1 or 2 play that ruins their entire day. Or I just play Gaddock Teeg, which doesn't affect creature based strategies but shuts down every other combo.

So I guess I should probably start by disclaiming that I run Yasova Dragonclaw. That being said, I can objectively say that I strongly believe that she is definitely tier 3 rather than tier 4 where she is currently placed. On the face of her, she is cheap, easy to cast, and has strong aggressive stats with a powerful ability in stealing creatures with less power than her, a criminally underrated effect especially in her colours.

Green has some of the best sac outlets in the game for all the creatures you steal so you don't end up giving them back. Red has almost a monopoly on temporary creature steal effects to take anything with a power/toughness your opponents dare to cast. Blue carries the other end of creature steal as well as counters and other excellent utility.

My build for her, I Sacrifice., is themed around stealing my opponent's creatures and sacrificing them for massive value or ensuring I just keep them indefinitely and Yasova herself is no small part.

Hell, she can even steal half the commanders which are more highly rated than her.

I do hope that the rest of you see things my way after observing her clear and true potential in my deck. Please check out my list and vote for her to be rated as a tier 3. If you all happen to agree, Id also very much like my decklist for her to be on the tier 3 decks list. Thank you for your consideration.

I'm not sure if this is the thread to post this but the interaction between Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder and the new Expertise cards seems absurd. A single Yidris trigger means an Expertise is essentially 4 spells. Seems quite powerful in Storm variants.

@AzamiLadyofScrolls: Here you go. Invite to the cEDH Discord Channel

@thegigibeast and Lilbrudder: I've been hesitant to add half tiers in the past, but I've rethought my stance. I also spent a few minutes making a preliminary list of what I think Tier 1-2 would look like if we did pursue that route. Link. Note tier 2.5 is not included, at least not yet.

Jenara is definitely tier 3 if not tier 2 and I'm surprised she would be rated so low as she is one of the most popular commanders in mtgtop8 of 2016. Granted I know 1v1 is very different than multi-player, but her simplicity is her strength, she is good at all phases of the game and draws little hate until it's too late for them. She is in strong colors and after deveri. Roon is too slow, I have plenty of powerful value engines like eldrazi displacer and deadeye navigator that make him unnecessary. Rafiq lacks natural evasion and is liner to play. Jenara self pumps and let's us play more combo and value cards.

Jenara suffers from being slow and predictable. She does well in 1v1 but in multiplayer she suffers from what I refer to as the snowball effect.

Once the snowball gets big enough it's tough to stop but the problem lies in getting that big. On the way there your plan is exceedingly transparent and easy to stop.

Due to this she actually does draw a lot of hate (someone in my meta played Jenara for a while and was frustrated at how often she got picked off) because people aren't usually fooled by "oh it's only a X/X" and she eats removal.

I'm in favor of splitting up the top of the list. I would have been against it at first, but seeing lists makes the change feel fairly obvious to me.

So, might sound wierd but what general do you think will punish the competitive decks while leaving the less competitive decks alone, I have a few jerks in my meta... THINKING Ruiric thar, thoughts?

NarejED: I agree with all of your proposed rankings. I suggest we make your thought experiment our default rankings effective immediately. We can always fine tune from there, if people think a particular placement is somewhat innacurate (i.e. is Brago tier 1.5 instead of tier 1?; Is Azami tier 1.5 with all her recent upgrades?), but I think every placement is fair given my understanding of cEDH.

thegigibeast: I do like the idea of tier 2.5 as it is fairly fun to further refine between generals that can compete to those 1-2 cards outside relevance. I think that will take more time.

Time is not an issue, I want this list to be as perfect as it possibly can.

Selvala heart of memes should definitely be t2. Her potential speed is great, but she relies on getting a right balance of cards in her opener. Not only that, being mono green hurts her potential to tutor for non creature based stuff thats needed to go off. She's also fairly commander-centric, which is never a good thing. Finally, her combos are fairly complex, reguire lots of moving pieces, and have lots of points of interaction.

I believe selvala lacks the type of consistency that's required for the tier. She reminds me of bogles in modern in that the deck can just lose it its opening hand doesnt have the proper balance of cards. Once your strategy is disrupted, you're left with with a library full of cards that have very little inherent value.

Mind you, this opinion is based on spending 2 hours with my group on discord exploring her and trying to break her. All of this is simply based on observing the cards in the deck, goldfishing, and discussing various avenues for her.

While I tend to agree comparing Selvala to Bogles hurts me as a Selvala player and probably offends bogles players, totally different decks, weaknesses, playstyles, not to mention format.

Still no opinions on a good deck mto low down competitive decks while virtually leaving the casual ones alone.

The comparison was just an observation about how the two decks share a common trait in being susceptible to hands that don't do much if they don't have a proper balance of certain cards. I didn't mean offense to anyone, but if it hits people on the nose, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

It may be a better comparison to my Cheerios deck since you're talking about combo pieces. You can use that instead if you want :P

I was joking not offended in the least

Disclaimer: I'm biased

I wouldn't rage if selvala was called tier 2 but let me correct a couple things.

Not all the combos are complex. Many are extremely compact. For example, [any 6 power fatty + Staff of domination] is a win with Selvala. Likewise, [Dreadnought + T&N] and [Dreadnought + Weird Harvest] are 2 card combos with your commander. Something as simple as Dreadnought + Genwave will also win the game most of the time, as will [Any fatty + Umbral Mantle] which gives infinite mana and infinite power to Selvala and any other dorks.

I've been tracking games on cockatrice for about 100 games. Selvala has a very high win %. And thats not just me playing - often it's me playing against it. It's a myth thats it's not consistent. It turn 3's around 40-50%.

Lastly, there are entirely creature based combos that you can tutor for. Generally they involve great oak guardian and either wirewood symbiote or temur sabretooth. Yes it is susceptible to removal, but it forces you to have a turn 3 answer ready (or turn 2 if you're not on the play). In a meta where more than 1 pilot are ready to go off around turn 3/4 you cant afford to just focus on selvala. That's where she gets wins.