cvarena21989 sadly, without a sacrifice outlet, your deck doesn't work at all. Food Chain doesn't let the creatures die, instead it exiles them. They actually have to hit the graveyard to 'die.'

So no, it isn't competitive or ever going to win turns 4-6 consistently, even if it could, 3-4 minimum should be the average win-turns for a fast combo deck.

Unless I am missing something? Do you have another way to getting the tokens?

Eternal Scourge/ squee are cast from exile for infinite Mana and tokens w/ haste. Then you can either swing lethal with tokens. Or assemble a different workup with Carnage Altar to draw deck and cast a massive walking Ballista or just sac creatures and use one if the purphoros effects I have in the deck. It's still new to me so the card names are eluding me.

Zulaport cutthroat, blood artist with Carnage Altar. impact tremors, pandamonium. For ping damage when tokens are created. Firey covenant or walking Ballista for infinite Mana dump.

No creatures die to trigger Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper, because Food Chain exiles them, not sacrifice/destroy/deal damage. Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat have the same problem. No tokens are made.

Updated for a better sac outlet.

Win conditions- fc, Sek'Kuar, squee, eternal Scourge, carrion feeder/ Carnage Altar.

Creates infinite tokens and Mana

Swing in with infinite tokens as each other as 3/1 hasty.

If pandamonium or impact tremors are in play run the loop x40.

If attacking isn't possible sac tokens with zulaport cutthroat/ blood artist in play. Cast massive walking Ballista, cast fire Covenant.

n0bunga I guess that's fair, again, I was just going off of what I was told, I don't play Yisan at all. Animar at least has some protection on it, and normally will only get removed by blue bounce effects, but Yisan, the Wanderer Bard will get hit by stuff like Swords to Plowshares, Dismember, etc. I do run Yisan in my Selvala list, but I know it is separate for the commander, so I'll take your word on it.

cvarena21989 now your deck only has a 3 card combo (CFE creature like Eternal Scourge, Food Chain, and outlet like Impact Tremors), that is very slow, I wouldn't call it cEDH competitive at all. On another note, how does Carrion Feeder, Eternal Scourge, Food Chain, and Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper go infinite? Like you need to be in magical christmas land to get them all, but I still don't know how you win from there, no creatures can die infinitely with it to trigger Sek'Kuar, because if you sacrifice Eternal Scourge to Carrion Feeder, you can't get it back, and if you sacrifice sek'kuar the deathkeeper to it, it won't trigger since it says 'whenever another nontoken creature dies'. Your deck doesn't even really work, let alone act competitively.

Using Blood Artist, or Zulaport Cutthroat with the combo requires it to be a 4 card combo that needs like 9 mana, and why do you bring up Fire Covenant, it doesn't do anything here unless you have infinite life, which you can only get from Blood Artist, or Zulaport Cutthroat, in which case you already won.

Look I am trying to help you out, but jesus man, you come in saying you have a competitive deck, and normally I am like "Oh, it works well, it is just a little fragile or slow," but your deck doesn't even work. Now that I think about it, Carnage Altar doesn't work either, since the infinite mana you have from Food Chain needs to be done on creatures, which the ability from Carnage Altar isn't.

You are correct, I got over zelous and didn't properly read everything. Good catch, only made myself look like a jackass to figure it out. Good catch!

Good catch!

cvarena21989 sorry if I went off on you, been pretty stressed out myself, good luck with the deck man!

SynergyBuild it's quite alright, I'm new to the MTG world started with rivals of ixalan and brand to the the cEDH scene. I thought I had something and got excited. Didn't fact check or verify before posting. It was my mistake. I deleted the deck already. I appreciate everyone shutting me down, fuels my desire to learn and try again.

@rivem v11. You make some good points but I'm still going to argue The Scarab God is at least on par with Sedris.

A) Sedris's dudes are sorcery speed and I'm unconvinced that 3mana at sorcery speed is better than 4 mana at instant speed. It's the simplicity of being able to hold 4 or 8 mana open until the end of your last opponents turn. In that time you have the luxury of using that mana in various ways. You can use a regular counter spell, you can use a cyclonic rift, whatever the situation call for and if it doesn't call for anything you then reanimate the target of your choice. It also makes exiling your graveyard less effective. If someone tries to you can respond and get something anyway. Even if someone removes the creature in response, with enough mana you can activate it a second time and that's totally worth doing if it means it's your last combo piece.

B) Sedris's dudes are exiled at the end of turn so his timing has to be more specific. There is a pretty big difference in the impact of a Jin-Git that goes through two or three turns and one that only survives your turn.

C) Not only is Scarab God a cheaper initial CMC, his bounce to hand ability makes him so much cheaper over the course of the game. It's pseudo commander tax evasion and that's not something you can take lightly.

D) I agree the scry and life loss is dependent on board state but it's still a really nice icing on the cake adding more overall value to Scarab God that Sedris simply doesn't have.

I'll grant you that sedris has access to red but that's not necessarily a deal breaker, if it was no one would ever play 1-2 colour decks. Kiki combo is really nice but it's not like Scarab doesn't have access to other combos.

Aphoticate okay, I'll give it to you straight. What do you recur using Buried Alive to instantly win the game in The Scarab God, in Sedris, I fetch Phyrexian Delver, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Pestermite/Deceiver Exarch, then I pay 3, recur the Phyrexian Delver, to recur Kiki-Jiki, tap him to copy the delver, recur Pestermite, and win.

Okay? Yes Scarab God has other combos, but each and every one I have seen hasn't been fully fetchable from a single card and goes off with one reanimation effect. No Buried Alive or Intuition line I have ever seen in Dimir is that powerful. Each one in requires double the setup, setting them about a turn or a turn and a half back in average speed, leading it to be a tier or more lower.

Yes, people run 1-2 color decks, but they don't run 1-2 color reanimation combo decks in cEDH, look at the best decks in the format, mono-green brostorm with Selvala or Yisan, high tide, Azami combo, and Chain Veil Teferi aren't reanimator lists, so of course they can run mono-colored. That isn't an applicable argument to claim your reanimator deck doesn't need to be in three colors because an unrelated deck isn't.

The Scarab God can be built to be a very powerful deck, but use it as a stax deck with good countermagic and removal, you know, like a dimir control-stax build, and work it from there. Use its abilities to scry with decent card selection and you'll do much better than reanimator. Without grixis, reanimator fails most of the time, with extreme minor exceptions.

@Synergy Build. I appreciate you giving it to me straight. If you want to argue it's a great Stax general then sure, my point is more that he deserves to be in a higher tier category. At least 2.5, if he can do that at Stax then I'm still happy.

That being said, how about the Necrotic ooze combo? Use buried alive to put Necrotic Ooze, Triskelion and Phyrexian Devourer into play. Just reanimate the Ooze and win. At instant speed might I add with the redundancy I mentioned before if someone tries to exile it in response.

Aphoticate Usually you need to provide a list and demonstrate its consistency instead of just asking for it to be in a higher tier. Second, tier level doesn't really matter other than as a reference for people trying to gauge where they want to start their cEDH journey, and what types of decks are possible. I think that Narset is underrated, but I don't really care where she is "rated" because I know the deck is good and I enjoy playing her. Having the deck in a higher tier isn't going to somehow make the deck that you are running "better."

Second, there is currently a UB Ooze Combo version of The Scorpion God listed as the decklist for him, which is probably the best combo he's going to be able to run, and it has been deemed to be a Tier 3 list. You are going to have to articulate why that list is on par with the Tier 2.5 lists. Since Sedris is reanimator as well, and is demonstrably better, I'd say that Tier 3 is accurate for The Scarab God as it pertains to reanimator. All Synergy suggested is that he would make a good use of his entire ability suite if he were in a UB Stax shell. That doesn't mean it would be better than its Tier 3 combo power, especially since such a list hasn't been presented here. Again, tier level doesn't really matter, as it will always have some level of subjectivity to it, but you need to show that not only is a UB Stax version of the deck and "optimal" build for The Scarab God, but that that build raises its power level enough to bump it to the next tier. So, you need to provide a UB Stax list helmed by The Scarab God, and then you need to show that it is on par with Anafenza hate bears, which is the most comparable "stax" list that currently resides in Tier 2.5.

@Aphoticate Sorry I didn't respond fast, I didn't see it in my notifications for some reason until RivenVII commented just now.

Thanks for bringing up Devourer/Nooze.

That one is both one of my favorites and least favorites, and I'll explain exactly as to why I don't think it is all that great, to start, many reanimator decks only have an average cmc of around 1.8, and that means around 180 damage, which would be fine if many of those weren't the Devourer and Triskelion. I honestly couldn't say that considering you have dug through your deck at this point, even around a 4th of your deck (possibly more considering the use of cantrips and tutors only fetching non-lands) I'd estimate the average win to be almost exactly 120 damage. This will win, but if the game doesn't go exactly average, if it goes a little off, it won't win, unless you stack your deck with high-cmc spells, which will slow it down.

Another issue is if you need to effectively exile your deck to win, many spells like a good Deep Analysis or large enough Stroke of Genius will kill you, unlike the Kiki-Combo. Also, hexproof-like effects shut off Triskelion as a win-con but not Kiki-Combo. These issues aren't game-breaking individually, but together I can't say they are nearly as powerful as a Sedris deck.

Also, I never meant to say that the Scarab God is a great stax commander, only better at stax than combo. I can make nearly any commander decent at stax. I can make a 99 card colorless stax deck that doesn't need a commander and toss any commander on top and it will be semi-decent, so I don't think that makes it deserve a better tier.

RivenVII honestly I think a Scarab God stax varient deserves tier 3 to 2.5, I can write up a list later and post it here if you want, but I don't think it used the commander enough to be put here sadly.

I would like to entertain the suggestion gdm1989 made a couple days ago about bumping Toshiro Umezawa up to tier 3 from tier 4. The tier descriptions are clear as to what makes up each tier, but I would have to say that Toshiro Umezawa tends to fall on the cusp between each of these tiers. I have been piloting a Toshiro EDH deck for quite some time now, and while it is my favorite commander deck flavorwise, the deck as well as the commander itself have some definite weaknesses. Toshiro is weak to removal, although in my experience not having him on the board isn't necessarily a major detriment to the overall gameplan. From what I have seen, Toshiro decks have about three prominent archetypes and all of which have a considerably fragile win condition.

The three major playstyles of Toshiro decks are control, reanimator, and voltron. Control Toshiro is something I am all too familiar with, as my deck is built around this archetype and plays the equalizer role in playgroups. While the deck is capable of holding its own against higher tier commanders by packing itself with heavy removal, the primary win conditions are easily counterable since it is almost reliant on a well timed Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire to either cripple or finish your opponents. This win condition usually works on those who are not very familiar with your deck and will probably work the first time you use it on a new group of players, but after that you can expect to be countered next time you try to pull it off because just about every blue player in existence is going to hold onto a counterspell for you. Reanimator Toshiro is the next playstyle I would like to discuss. Toshiro as a Reanimator deck is probably the most powerful of the three; however, from what I have seen there is no definite go-to win condition that makes or breaks the match. It has a strong core and shares many similarities with Control Toshiro since the playstyle involves killing opponents' creatures and then reanimating them to pose a threat to the board, but I can't help but feel as if Toshiro is extremely outclassed by other mono-black reanimator commanders and doesn't offer any actual direct support to the playstyle. If anything, I personally viewed reanimator as a type of support and fallback plan for Control Toshiro decks to utilize if the Plan A win condition doesn't work out. Finally, Voltron Toshiro is potentially the weakest variation of the commander's playstyle since... it just isn't very powerful at all. As I mentioned earlier, Toshiro is frail. He is a 2/2 body with Bushido which means he is weak to any and all cheaper than cheap removal. Sure you could pump him up with equipment and give him indestructible and hexproof, but initially right out of the gates he is so very susceptible to removal and I don't see really any value in investing into Toshiro as a Voltron commander.

I know I kind of just ripped apart one of my favorite commanders by exclusively talking about its major flaws, but he's still a strong commander and can shut down lots of commander strategies, but tends to struggle against other reanimator and control archetypes and a favorable meta is a nice bonus to its overall success. I just wanted to open discussion for this potential tier shift since I didn't notice anyone else talk about this. I might also like to nominate my Toshiro deck, although I think there are more powerful variations of it out there so I will not link it here quite yet unless there is a general consensus about bringing Toshiro up to tier 3. Thank you and I hope to hear back about this, cheers!

DangoDaikazoku if you could link a list, it would go leaps and bounds more than talking. I see a bit of what youre saying though. A big negative to toshiro is needing to recast the commander and theres not a whole bunch of times when hes going to trigger. But id have to see what list youre talking about first.... im sure others might want to see a list linked before further discussion.

Here's my list. I have been doing pretty well with it in competitive metas, but I will admit it is not nearly as competitive as it could be because I mostly just aimed for some flavor wins with it haha. Let me know what you think because I'm very open for discussion about this and I want to know if others think Toshiro should be bumped up a tier, thanks again!

Invincible Under the Sun 天下無双

Commander / EDH DangoDaikazoku

SCORE: 80 | 41 COMMENTS | 4143 VIEWS | IN 19 FOLDERS

Another really good list is PhotogenicParasympathetic's list who I accredited on my deck's page and shared a link to on there as well. My deck is very heavily influenced by his, and he took more time into listing the card choices with a nice primer, so if you would also take a look at his list perhaps his choices will be better explained on his page than on mine because I haven't quite gotten around to writing out a primer for Toshiro Umezawa yet. You can find his primer here.

Although our decklists are very similar, mine has been updated recently while his hasn't been updated for several months. The differences between our decks really came down to preference and mine may be slightly more fresher and refined due to recent updates, but they both play very similarly regardless.

Comment clear with no updates?

it happens a lot buildingadeck

I'd like to add an Aurelia, the Warleader decklist to her entry. Not sure if it'll change her tier position at all but it'll fill out the list some more :)

MAGA (Make Aggro Great Again)

ChibiNature: Your list is sporting some pretty high cost cards which I feel are a bit lackluster. And with boros not known well for its ramp, I think th edeck is going to struggle to play them in a timely manner. You're also running cards like Reforge the Soul which are in general much worse than Wheel of Fortune.

I posted a list here about a week ago (which got lost in the comments me thinks):

Bed Hair: cEDH Edition

Commander / EDH* enpc

33 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

which might give you some ideas.

I'll look over you list enpc thanks :D and yeah the high mana was indeed a concern (having an average of 3+) which is why I included more mana rocks than I'm used to. And I actually had both Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul in the planning phase and I guess I cut the wrong one :p

There are a couple of really odd choices in your deck imo tho. I feel Prismatic Lens is a bit of unnecessary filtering, and could be used for a better rock. And cards like Mana Tithe really easy to work around in EDH.

All in all I think your decklist has a lot of stax effects instead of aggro cards which isn't what I'm looking for in an Aurelia, the Warleader :) Thank you for reminding my to include Combat Celebrant, don't know how I forgot him lol :p

Ramp is essential for decks even with low curves. For example, my storm deck has a curve of 1.60 with 27 lands and runs 25 pieces of ramp. You really should work on getting that curve below 2.5