I'm familiar with the list. It's good given how terrible Arcanis is even if I think some of the cards there are questionable. However, I disagree with not including tools that slow down the game. Arcanis actually has pretty decent end game if you get to a point where you can cast him and keep him out. The problem is that you're shit out of luck trying to crawl to turn 7 when literally every other deck you're facing has better tools than you. Brewstorm's list is essentially a rehash of existing Mono U strats. Although effective for what they are, they offer no reason for playing arcanis in the first place.

Even if this point isn't accepted by the community, I can improve that list in 10 min. That list has some greedy cards like Pemmin's Aura and the deck doesn't need Laboratory Maniac to win since you can stroke or zenith the board instead. I also think that even with the Back to Basics, the mana base can afford to be greedier.

TheDevicer

I think you're severely misinformed about Arcanis. No one is waiting til' turn 7 to effectively use Arcanis. In reality Arcanis comes down on turn 3 the majority of the time, no one is waiting til' turn 7 in cEDH to get 3 cards from Arcanis. If this were the case he'd be a much lower tier. Hell, Arcanis generally wins by turn 5 or 6 so I really don't know where you pulled that from. You say Brewstorm's list doesn't offer a reason to play Arcanis, but your list doesn't either. You claim that Arcanis benefits from the stax pieces even though you don't realize that it's the stax in your deck that are truly hindering you. You're playing stax with a general who is meant to sling spells and control through the stack. Brewstorm's list runs early interaction for the purpose of combating faster combo decks and protecting an early Arcanis. I believe I could improve your deck in 10 minutes too, you run plenty of sub optimal and meta dependent cards that it wouldn't be practical for me to write them all here. As for the points about Pemmin's and Lab Man, both cards that are amazing with Arcanis, I just think you're crazy for believing that Stroke and Zenith are more optimal choices.

Perhaps a little less personal attacks Human_Wizard? ("I just think you're crazy")

Not needed to convey a point.

Ohthenoises It wasn't my intent to "attack" anyone. I just believe that ranking 2 outdated wincons above Lab Man, who is arguably one of the most used and effective wincons in the format, is "crazy". My apologies if that came off as attacking, but I was enforcing the gravity of my point.

It's fine, I just wanted to try and nip hostility in the bud because it seemed to be brewing (har har pun intended)

@Human_Wizard - I'm just going to go ahead and ignore your blatantly confrontational tone and respond to the points you raise one at a time.'The first thing you wrote about was a response about the "turn 7" I mentioned. I apologize for not not being more clear about this before. What I should have said that I believe Arcanis really comes into his own in the later stages of the game. Unlike the common mono U options, Arcanis doesn't need the 99 to operate in specific ways when he comes out to generate insane value. Arcanis is greedy, but he's got inevitability. That's the reason you play him.

When I mentioned turn 7, I didn't mean this was the turn you could finally activate Arcanis. I'm familiar with how ramp works in the game. I brought that number up as a time you could legitimately look to start doing great things with Arcanis. The turn 7 here was used completely anecdotally and should not be taken as anything more than that.

As far as the stax goes, the deck only sports a light package. If you really wanted more opportunities to interact outside of those pieces, you could drop the orbs. The hate pieces don't actually turn off the deck in the manner that you imply, however. You can still combo out with Mana Maze on the field. Worst case scenario, you wait to Zenith someone on their upkeep. Cursed Totem is annoying at times, but it's not impossible to get rid of via things like Chain of Vapor, Transmute, Reshape, etc and its effect is strong enough to warrant inclusion. Finally, I think it's fundamentally wrong to criticize stax pieces as being meta-dependent. If you're making your own list to suit your group, you're surely going to take a look at all narrow cards in the list. Take Flusterstorm, for example. Great card, but it's feasible that it doesn't do enough work for you to want to include it in your meta. Given how limited mono-U's access to good stax pieces is, I included pieces here that work against a wide range of strategies in cEDH.

Although I advocate for greedy Arcanis lists, I think Pemmin's Aura goes too far. It's just not reasonable to expect to be able to play a 6-mana general, enchant it using a 3-mana enchantment, and then start sinking even more mana into the guy to draw cards. This is also dead in hand if you can't get to a position to use Arcanis. Minamo, School at Water's Edge does this fine with very little downside.

As for Laboratory Maniac, if you can draw your deck, you can get the pieces to kill the board anyway. What's the purpose behind Lab Man? I'll be honest with you, if I'm just playing the game, I'd rather be staring at Zenith than Lab Man in my hand.

Finally, if you can make improvements on any list, be it mine or someone else's, you totally should! I think it would be awesome to have a more open discourse about cEDH. I'll be honest, I'm not in love with a prevailing attitude here and on cEDH where people seem to accept grandfathered ideas as the best options.

I know that most of the discussion on the list will be about the top tiers because everyone likes to win. But as a casual player, can anyone explain why Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker is rated tier 5? One of the other commanders in the group Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" is surely at least a tier worse? I would have thought that Mirko was decent enough to build around, possibly tier 3?

Mirko vosk reliws on combat damage to a player, thats why he isnt very viable. Also, theres nothing worse than tier 5 so the sleeping dragon belongs where he is

Hey there all, Brewstorm here. I'm the author of the other Arcanis list in question. I just wanted to voice my thoughts on TheDevicer's points. I actually didn't quite want to bring up this discussion just yet, but the topic of the current Arcanis list on here came up, and there's been a little discourse about it, so I thought I'd chime in.

To start, any competitive list worth its salt is capable of winning from turns 4 through 6. Thus, claiming that Arcanis is better 'late game' is essentially a moot point. There is no real 'late game' in true cEDH, so maybe as opposed to slowing down the game and potentially yourself (especially with a commander that's six mana), you should work on speeding up your game plan, or perhaps working on your early game answers.

Personally, I'm not a fan of stax in almost any format. Maybe it's my current meta, but it's very easily disruptable with well-placed removal or counterspells, and seems very meta-dependant. Again, just my opinion, but I feel that the stax package, no matter how small, is somewhat weak in comparison to having answers.

I do agree, Pemmin's Aura is greedy, but calling it 'too greedy' when it can be a wincon on its own with the right mana, and at the same time running the (in my opinion) extremely greedy Basalt Monolith/Rings/Zenith or Stroke combo--I just find it a bit hypocritical is all. That particular combo takes at least eleven mana to get working (or nine for Stroke, still a bit high) which makes it just about as viable as Pemmin's Aura. And if the combo is disrupted, say, a destroyed Rings or a countered Zenith, what're you left with? Mana that empties out after that phase. And unless you have some way to filter it into blue, or already have something like Staff of Domination, it's useless. With Pemmin's, while it isn't an instant win, it is a) protection for Arcanis, and b) a very easy way to draw additional cards. I do find it a little ironic that you mention a dislike for "grandfathered ideas as the best options" while at the same time using a very common, expensive, and easily disruptable combo.

Lab Man is just the quintessential way to win with Paradox Engine or Iso/Dramatic combo. I don't quite understand why someone would deck themselves with these pieces and not have him in? Maybe I'm missing something, but if you're not running him, what is the point of the other combos? If your main goal is to deck the table, why deck yourself first? I am legitimately curious, not just criticizing here. You fill your hand, and then what? That's why Lab Man is in here, so when I do deck myself around turn 4-6, I win immediately as opposed to having to work towards another combo.

I appreciate your criticism of my list, though I don't quite understand your logic for a lot of your ideas. I do find it funny that you yourself called your own deck "utterly terrible" in your own comment and yet it's been submitted as the end-all-be-all of competitive Arcanis lists. Not to sound confrontational or anything, but I would like to contest this and submit my own list as the tier list's example. I've worked on this deck for over 2 years now, have over a full year of documented changes, and the deck itself is extremely tuned. If you search TO for decks with Arcanis as commander, and sort by highest rated, mine is the first deck to pop up. It's clear the ability and popularity of my deck far surpasses the current one at the present time. That's why I'd like to formally request that my deck be considered for the tier list.

Thanks a lot for your time and I'd appreciate anyone and everyone's thoughts on all this.

NarejED thegigibeast

Not going to argue my position further since it's obvious I'm drastic opposition. Pulling my list down. Anyway, I'll leave you with what I believe to be some things that'll help you.

I for one like having fresh ideas. I really wish this conversation had turned out differently...

Experimentation is always good and breaking the norm is good.

All that being said, I'm not an Arcanis player but I do have to say that Pemmins seems like a LOT of U mana in a color without a lot of colored ramp to use it more than a few times in a turn. (If you have infinite mana you've won already so I'm not counting that.) Maybe I'm just used to my artifact ramp but I've always found that U mana was at a premium when I was playing Azami. (A similar commander/strategy)

@Athraithe thanks for the reply. I guess my real question then is, why is combat damage "not viable"?

benw mirko vosk is a 2/4. He doesnt have hexproof, indes, or shroud. Dreadbore, Terminate, Go for the Throat, Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Decimate, Wing Snare, Pongify, all of these kill him. Most before he could deal damage. the only evasion he has is flying, in which green snipes him down all day too.

Most cedh decks run at least 31 lands. 31/4 is roughly 8. Thats 5-8 times you need to hit a SINGLE player to mill them out. And many players run some sort of graveyard shuffle, like blue with Timetwister. And this is multiplayer cEDH. Which means you have 2 other opponents besides the one you just hit. And getting in even 5 hits with him? well hes a 5 drop. Say you get him out turn 3. By then, zur and teferi have usually set up most of the lock if not all. then youre talking another 5 turns to kill 1 person off milling. Thats turn 8, and by then someone else probably won. Even if you want to add in all those other fun things like Glimpse the Unthinkable and Archive Trap, they wont bring you much further. Maybe speed up everything by 2-3 turns for 1 player. But mirko still wont be able to win quickly without Helm of Obedience and Leyline of the Void. By the time you get them out if you had to hardcast leyline? turn 3 activation, which someone can stop pretty simply too. Its hard to explain all the fine details but this is the best i can do on lack of sleep lol

Those are all great reasons why he's not tier 2 or less, but don't address why he's not tier 3 or, more reasonably, tier 4.

I think its fairly self explanatory based on what i said why he isnt tier 3. Combat damage is easily stopped, way too easily stopped. How often do you see a tier 1-2.5 deck win through commander damage? You dont, they combo out for a win. Mirko has no combo's that revolve around him that can win the game, nor does he have protection or any way to actually help you win. His text says to reveal then place in grave, so it cant even combo with leyline. even in tier 3 "pubstomp" decks they can kill you with damage by turn 5-6 (omnath, locus of rage being the prime example). Sure you have major tutor power, but tutors can only get you so far with a commander that cant further the game plan.

Speaking of mill what do people think of Undead Alchemist + Altar of the Brood in a more creature-centric meta? (yisans and Selvalas etc) Think it's a decent combo to add into something like Phenax, God of Deception? (For reference we are largely ignoring his first set of text and caring about the bottom half.)

Will this be updated with the release of the 2017 Commanders?

sure

I don't see Circu, Dimir Lobotomist on here, what gives?

He's in Tier 5.

Didn't we have a conversation a whole ago about possibly bumping him up to T3 just because of Dramatic Scepter? Perfect colors for it and it's pretty easy to set up.

Yes but noone who has any control over the list is doing anything with it. Without extensive work that is somewhat organized and informed of the current meta and frequent updates the list will become more and more obsolete.

I mean, paradox engine, instant speed cantrips, dramatic reversal, isochron scepter, medium counter package, heavy artifact ramp package, tutors (all of them including Transmute artifact), lands.

Boom, done

May as well run a Stroke/USZ backup plan

No one made a list, so it just kind of faded.

Also, check out the leaked cards! There's even a Magus of the Crucible!

Abrade is also great!

I'm currently deciding whether or not HT storm is worthit for circu but if no one else has started, ill make an attempt at a list. Not that anyone will pay any attention to it Insert tsundere voice not like I wanted to, alright. I just had extra time left over.end tsundere voice

Ill post mine here later today if no one else has anything