Archwizard I play (or maybe I should say played) Jhoira myself and tried to improve the deck as much as possible but eventually the problems you adress can't be overcome. In fact, the most successful games were those in which I simply cast a Tidespout Tyrant from a mana drain without even attempting any suspend action. Recently I only kept rebuilding the deck but never actually played it because I felt like I wouldn't win anyway. Tier 3 is ok I guess.

I also missed Xiahou Dun, he is the head of a mono black storm deck, which is a proven archtype. He let's you fetch something back from the grave to recast it, which can lead to some other combos in the storm with reanimate and him or let's you recast a countered yawgmoth's will, etc. Probably needs tier 2.5 with possibility of moving higher after more testing.

Xira does not need to be above where she is. Tier 2.5 is accurate for her. She has a superb weakness to blue-heavy pods, but she is much better than your 75% meta, so she's like a really low-level competitive storm deck, or a decent pub stomper.

Let's remember what Tier 2 is: "Tier 2: Less powerful than the tier 1 decks, but still quite strong, these can definitely hold their own against tier 1 decks. They are usually a turn slower than tier 1 decks, or they have consistency problems."

Also important in this discussion: "Tier 1: These decks are the most powerful decks in the format. The combo decks can go off on turns 3-5, the stax decks get a lock on turns 3-4, and hybrid decks get a disruption engine by turn 2-4. They will commonly be seen at competitive tables, and players should know how to combat them. They are resilient, pack protection and backup plans, and take dedicated hate to truly counter. Never underestimate these decks, as they are the strongest in the format."

Absolutely nothing should be moved into Tier 1 or 1.5 without significant results. The same is true of Tier 2. I do not see how Xira or Xiahou Dun could be proven to hang with Tier 1 decks with consistency. Xira does not come close to the 25% win rate expected of a deck of similar power level to competitive decks in comp pods. She's between 15-20% most likely, and that is far from consistent. Xiahou Dun also has no test results. If we're just going to speculate that decks could be good, we could bump everything up.

All that is true, but tier 2.5 are the decks that are clearly better than pubstomp tier 3 but not ready or proven enough for tier 2.

Which is exactly where Xira belongs.

viperfang4 do we have a list for rashmi that sounds like fun

Yeah the bar for tier 1.5 and 1 is super high, especially with fast combo decks being so consistently fast these days. To suggest something for tier 1.5 even needs some serious evidence to back it up.

Even from a testing perspective, if it is a fast combo deck how fast is it? The fastest combo deck in the format right now averages a turn 2.88 win over 100 goldfishes (breakfast hulk) with undead sidisi (3.09-3.19), grenzo (3.08), SBT (3.20-3.22), and other variants of Thras all going sub 3.3. Many of the "tier 1" versions can do this while also devoting 12-15 slots to good interaction spells (Thras and SBT) and get value from the command zone. All I am saying is it is unwise to suggest a deck can compete with this level of degeneracy without success in competitive pods and actual testing data. If you think your deck can hang, then get on trice or play edh and play some computer based or paper magic online.

Yeah, i suggested the sliver overlord deck for tier 1.5 because it is 5 color breakfast hulk that plays similar to thrasios tymna and a main wincon like tazri. It has more and better wincons than the bomberman glory's rise deck that was our tier 1 listing for him. I think it does what that deck was doing better. It runs like 2 tier 1 decks combined. I don't see how when it is a little under 90 of a tier 1 deck in similar cards, took ideas from another for a better plan a, and added some red pieces and others to make the cards smoother that it can't go in tier 1.5 with likely tier 1 in its future. Move it to tier 2 if you want, it will work its way up anyways. Thanks for posting the breakfast hulk numbers it helps my point.

This list of decks is designed to inform newer players of decks that are potentially viable, and I do not think it prudent to submit decklists to high tiers without confirmed test results. If you think it's powerful, excellent. Provide a track record.

After looking over your list it certainly has potential. That is a neat use of sliver overlord. However, its much worse at bomberman than Thrasios/Tymna. If you nuke your hand in T & T you can recover with the CA both generals provide. Also you have way too many combo peices and need to cut back (less combos or more compact versions of those combos) as without CA in the command zone you are going to get a ton of hands that are not playable which is horrible if you can't replenish on the fly. Sidisi can run many combos because her peices are useful for other combos and she actually facilitates a couple of them and produces CA of a sort (Demon Tyrant). T & T can do it because they are both cheap and powerful at what they do. So while Sliver Overlord has potential, its a long ways from breakfast hulk.

As an example of what I am talking about I will share a deck that has been tested in competitive pods and has done very well. It goldfishes very fast (3.22 avg win turn over 100 games) and has the interaction to play the long game. It uses SBT as a FC outlet as well as a combo facilitator to reanimate Raz. Dead cards are minimized and it does not fold to any one peice of hate.

Demon Tyrant

Commander / EDH* Lilbrudder

SCORE: 21 | 31 COMMENTS | 2723 VIEWS | IN 10 FOLDERS

The thrasios deck has 2 combo lines with protean hulk in the devoted druid and cephalid breakfast lines, I have 2 in cephalid breakfast and haste hermit. I have the Labman win, while thrasios relies almost solely on labman and if something happens to it is generally screwed while i still have a main wincon that works like tazri's. I have the breakfast hulk combo, it cannot be said it's a long way from breakfast hulk if it's there in the same colors and running it the same. All my lines require from 2-4 mana and 2 cards in hand to win, with about 6-7 lines total that use mostly the same cards. I put way too many cards in the wincon category that belong in other categories. It is not worse at bomberman that T+T at all. They run the same amount of combos, that is not an argument when they all end on one card in most T+T decks.

Remarks on Rashmi moving up is less my opinion and more the cEDH discord's opinion. A few days ago, there was a conversation about the best control decks, by the end it was settled that tasigur was first, rashmi was second, and GAAIV was third. When GAAIV is tier 1.5, one of 2 things has happened: GAAIV has gotten worse or Rashmi has proven itself as a new commander. I am inclined to believe the latter.

The Scientific Method: a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

It's interesting how even scientists aren't so full of themselves to assume that they know what will happen based on theory without "measurement and experiment." Looking at a decklist and saying, "this should do alright" is different from making a decklist, testing it, tweaking it to make it the best it can be, and then coming in with test results that confirm that it is, indeed, alright.

GAAIV has gotten worse. You can ask BigLupu about that. Also, I told you the exact same things lilbrudder told you about that list, viper. Until you test it (like, 50+ games), you will not be able to prove us wrong.

I still swear HT with GAAIV might be the way to go for it but I'll need to build it later.

The thing I wanted an opinion on was for Tiehana: which build do you all think would be most consistent and most optimal? Elfball Hulk, FC hulk, or elfball FC? I'm fairly certain HT is not the way to go since it doesn't synnergise with the commander. But idk, your thoughts?

GAAIV storm has been attempted and it failed. I would imagine that Food Chain would be best for her, since she's close to Zegana as an outlet (only better cuz she's a Regal Force and not Zegana), but it's yet to be confirmed which build is best. High Tide is likely to not be good, correct, but elfball could be decent as well as Food Chain.

Breakfast hulk has more than labman (ballista). Having more than 2 outlets is suboptimal unless its FC Tazri. My assessment of too many combo peices was not based on your categories. I simply make layered combo decks all the time and have learned that for layered combo to work, bulky combo packages must be streamlined. Bomberman is risky due to nuking your hand. Sliver Overlord auto folds to that combo being disrupted as it cannot recover except via topdecking. T & T recovers quite well. They are way better at the combo. It's not close. Card advantage is king. Its been that way since I played magic 20 years ago and its still true. Cut your extra fat and unnecessary redundancy, pay tribute to the God of CA and you may well produce a competitively viable deck. I dont mean to be insulting, you have a good idea, but it needs to be refined.

Lol. I still don't see why we're submitting untested decklists to a tier list. Dralnu was forgotten. I made a list that tested positively, and many in the competitive meta can attest to its success in a variety of different pods over the past month and a half.

"If you cannot see how decks ought to perform by observing a decklist, that's on you." For reference, this is where the first stone was thrown. Sorry, I stopped reading after the top part of your message (where you relinked the decklist). But as I stated before, Dralnu was was forgotten about until a decklist was made and played to success.

As for this list being for people other than newcomers, I don't see any reason that competitive players would need to look here for a glance at the meta. Most comp players play in diverse metas where they already see a plethora of good decks, or they're on reddit/discord where new information circles very quickly. This list wouldn't do much to inform them. However, it would do a lot to inform newcomers, who have no idea what is good and what isn't.

2.5 is less of a stretch.

n0bunga: When I see a mono black list my eyes cross. I know that the pile of garbage that mono black storm uses results in a good deck, but tbh, I am more of a BUG man. The important factor for mono black is its goldfish speed as it has to race. If you can get it below 4.0 avg then tier 2.5 is reasonable, but without some numbers I cannot offer much in the way of critique other than if it does not facilitate a turn 3-5 win it has to go.

That was the most gentlemanly flame war, I have ever read

Well done, chaps.

I have already expressed my concern with the "Flavor of the week" being really popular in cEDH lately. I know the meta is shifting due to banning and unbannings/ new decks are being discovered. But some many people are just jumping on bandwagons before doing actually playing these decks in diverse metas.

I feel that detracted from the fact that a bunch of the list does need to be modified. To fit the unbannings, the new cards from commander 2017 that just got released, and the fact that a bit of what defines this list according to the definition given, is based off of how likely you are to see these decks in a competitive commander game.

But a lot of that did bring up an interesting point for me: Playing these decks in diverse metas.

What places are you going to frequent to play cEDH? What are the best places to do so? Do some of these hold more weight then others when it comes to the tier list? and most importantly how much research had gone into this list based on what is actually played at these places? If a lot of research has been done where are the numbers and objective facts at?

At least from where I sit that seems to be the real problem here, we have a list that hasn't come up with a solid/objective/scientific way to define where things sit on the list. Or how they got there.

If this is all based on what is played, shouldn't some kind of system be put in place to show how things got there? Shouldn't we be compiling data on cEDH decks? and if we have reached this point, hasn't the list become bigger then what it used to be? as in this likely needs to be more then a three person project?

I'm not say that all the work put into this is wrong/bad or even not worth it. This list is awesome. and I am very thankful for everything everyone has done to get it where it is now. I'm just saying that I hear people talk about using objective facts and numbers and think that really should be where this list is at now. cEDH is has become it's own thing, almost it's own format. It has evolved way beyond where the format was when this list first started. Perhaps it is time to reflect that somehow?

Alright that is my two cents for now. I'm sure I am wrong about something in there somewhere. but I thought if nothing else it was worth sharing because that seemed to be where some of the conflict in this most gentlemenly flame war came from, at least from where I am sitting. and I thought it was worth thinking about, if their is a way to make this list more objective, somehow. It is worth a Brainstorm at least.

As previously mentioned I am updating this deck so if there are people that are interested in helping me with the optimization let me know as I am still rather busy, I believe a couple people were interested in Momir a little bit earlier if they want to work on it with me that'd be helpful. But regardless it may take longer than advertised.

I'd like to jump in on the xiahou dun topic. As a SUV player I have swapped in xiahou dun at times, especially against more counter heavy metas. The results are good. While SUV is the clear winner, dun is no slouch. Black has the tutors to back him up an make the deck consistent, even without a tutor in the zone. So yes, I think tier 2 is a possibility for him. We should of course test him more, but he's very good.

For your Mikaeus, the Unhallowed slot