What are these tiers based on? So far I've played several games with my Kaalia EDH-Deck and because the speed Kaalia provides, I usually end up destroying everyone despite all the hate Kaalia gets while its on the battlefield. In my opinion Kaalia of the Vast is at least tier 1.5 if not better.

What you're missing is that you are most likely not playing against anything remotely competitive. Kaalia is well known to beat up casual decks but fall to anyone slightly prepared for her.

iAzire: Jeleva may not be great, but she provides card advantage, which is essential for a storm commander. I feel like she is way better than she is given credit for. She can end the game off one attack a good proportion of the time as storm does not require much to get going and her ability is free.

Carmelita: I suspect the decks you were playing against were casual edh decks. Kaalia is not considered competitively viable since she is in a somewhat weak color scheme, is commander centric (which is easily hated out) and relies upon many card (demons, angels, and dragons) that are unplayable outside her interaction. Dropping a turn 4 Iona feels impressive in many playgroups, but nearly every fast combo deck in cEDH are capable of ending the game before you even cast Kaalia. Lacking countermagic Kaalia would need to rely upon stax effects to slow down opponents enough to be relevant, and she is strictly worse as a stax commander than several other generals in her color scheme. She is a cool general that is great in a casual to competicasual environment, but she would be a non factor in a "tier 1 pod" unless the mix of opponents was perfect.

For example on the above, my Tazri FREQUENTLY (read 50%+) wins the game on turn 3 with no interaction from opponents. Turns 4-5 if that fails. This is against a whole table of players.

Btw these are the turns you are first playing Kaalia

As an Avid Kaalia player for about 4 years, let me chime in. I even used to play her @ GPs in the old Sunday commander pods they used to do. I won a few foil sheets with her as well, but she is showing her age badly.

I also used to think Kaalia was better than she was. Especially since people had 'Tier 1 and 2' Generals around me. I didn't understand Generals=/= decks quite yet. Competitive EDH didn't really become a thing until late 2014 early 2015, due to the ideology instilled into the format by it's creators. So in the beginning a well tuned Kaalia list felt very strong to chew through 120 life.

But as more people got into cEDH the vast amount of metadata and knowledge grew expensively. People starting playing Mana Crypt in everything.

Kaalia's weakness is you are playing a 4 mana 2/2 that has to make it to combat to win.

Even with the mass Land Destruction package (granted this can bet quite a few of the higher tiered decks, again giving her the illusion of feeling stronger) she still has to resolve and make it combat.

0 other Tier 1.5 Generals NEED to win(meaning the General has to make it to combat, not the rest of the deck.)2 Lightning Bolt's and she's done. She has fragility few other commanders do at that level.

Granted I still play Kaalia from time to time but she only gives you the illusion of power, not actual power.

Kaalia is the definition of a Timmy deck.

I play big things, cheating them out if I have to, then bash your face in.

i challenge the listed glissa deck with my own glissa deck

Would be pretty cool to have a link to compare though.

link (what I assume Million is referring to):

Glissa Won't Let you Do Anything (Current Paper)

Commander / EDH* MillionLittleE

SCORE: 3 | 1 COMMENT | 316 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS

I'm wondering what the purpose of walking ballista is here. doesnt combo with mike and trike is the outlet for nooze kill.

my own questions: why no LED, or nim deathmantle combos? I figure a sac loop might work and LED is just insane for a grave based deck. Also the fact that you can recur it makes LED or nim seem more attainable to me

shamelessly though, I wish for feedback as to the 2 taigam lists I left. the turns route didnt seem to help the deck-it actually hurt the deck. Narset would be my choice for turns at that rate.

So... question regarding the ixalan leaks.

I'm aware of the no discussing it rule, but wizards has recently started spoiling ixalan cards that were also in the leak... a tribal flag card in particular... where does that put the rest of the leak on in terms of discussion for commanders?

If it has been OFFICIALLY spoiled, you can discuss it. If not, I suggest staying away from the subject.

you should do one for budget decks or link budget decks because a lot of us don't have 2000 to spare if even 500. This would be very helpful. Maybe you could link some budget decks under some commanders per tier thanks

Jebanator - This list is intentionally bugdetless to reflect the optimal builds of different commanders. Check out this resource for budget options.

thanks

chaosumbreon87 walking ballista is a infinite mana kill. and is deathmantle an actual thing i thought it was just a cute combo that stomps casual pods. shows what i know. led should probably be in but so should city of traitors but i don't have those cards. also glissa doesn't trigger nearly as much as you think she does.

"But I don't have those cards" - this list is supposed to be budgetless to show off the absolute best of the best a commander could be.

Not having the cards shouldn't be a thing for any list here. If you want to submit a fully optimized list copy your current deck and tweak it to be limitless then resubmit

Ohthenoises While i did say i don't have those cards, there are other reasons to not run them. discarding your entire hand is a real cost that may sometimes not pay off, while being forced to sac a land could screw me. While i said i don't have those cards, i mean i cant test them, it may very well not end up making the cut.

n0bunga led just kinda feels bad without yawg will. and that card say i cant win the game that turn for me :/

and while i agree with you on the mindslaver lock, its only a lock on one person, which turns the game into a two v two. That alone isn't bad it just also feels bad when the person you control scoops. 2v1 are hard to win no matter what deck you are playing

n0bunga Haha ya storm is where led shines, but you can guess I'm not a storm deck. Either way LED is worth a test, I'm just not sure my deck can abuse it. And as for "YawgWin" (lol) all my combos are based on cards going into the graveyard, and if I'm casting Yawg Will nine times out of ten i need it to get my combos Started.

Also I didn't say Deathmantle combo was casual, i just didn't know it was top tier to be considered, if you think its worth the combo slot, what should i replace with it? Besides Mirrorworks, and I'll explain why. I'll agree Mirrorworks is a below average draw, it has a combo with it, that i have won with more than necrotic ooze combo. The combo is a bit clunky but has served me well in situations where i have milled my entire deck, which is by far the easiest way to set it up. It's four cards, which i know seems really really (the second really is to tell you i know 4 card combos are bad) bad, but the other three cards are just good cards on their own, or well cards that will never get taken out unless i switch from the artifact theme. Kci, Myr Retriever, Mirrorworks (obviously), and any one drop is infinite mana or Ichor Wellspring for card draw (which turns into the win). I know its not the best but i have won twice from milling out my entire library and doing this combo.

I agree with you on the two edict creatures. those can go. lol

sorry if this seems long, I'm just trying to explain my thought process to you.

glad you understand what im trying to say

Just out of curiosity, why is Azami, Lady of Scrolls not higher on the list (preferably Tier 1.5)?

AragornS im pretty sure theres already a discussion about her maybe 1/4 from the bottom/ 3/4 from the top

Azami is probably on the fringe of being a Tier 1.5 commander as is, but I think she needs more quality wizards to cement herself there. The new grixis wizards commander deck might do the trick.

After building a nowhere near tuned Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign deck just for fun and playing it, I was surprised at how good it was. I know it's kinda janky but digging 4 cards deep for 2 or 3 mana multiple times a turn is actually pretty effective. There's even an infinite mana sink sphinx in the form of Sphinx of Magosi. Not saying it's amazing, but I think it's better than tier 4. I can throw together an example list at some point this weekend. To avoid bias I won't say more I'll just put together a list to show. Just thought I'd bring it up for discussion.

your link to Sapling of Colfenor by PGleo86: Danksdaynow links to a different deck