Agree. Melt Banana obviously isn't the best Yidris ;) ;D

Are we allowed to talk about spoilers yet?

Lecrayen buildingadeck budlaorf Najeela already is in the list, but wrongly listed under Ramos. The deck was already in t2 with a commander that didn't do anything for the deck and now there's everything tuned with Najeela actively helping the gameplan...

is MythicSpoiler considered an official spoiler site?

I duuno but scryfall only does official ones.

https://scryfall.com/

Where do you guys think Varina, Lich Queen deserves to go? Putting things in the GY can be a crazy powerful ability to have in the zone but triggering it requires a bit of a song and dance.

Aphoticate I'd say tier 3 for Varina. Other zombie tribal commanders are there and I think the tribe itself is strong enough that it just goes into that tier. Even The Scarab God which is quite strong is stuck in 3 and I don't think the addition of to a zombie deck does enough to jump a tier.

The problem is they aren't built as tribal, so your reasoning isn't great. I do agree tier 3 though, she's just a stax deck with none of the things that stax decks need in the current meta (see: blood pod)

I wonder if the addition of white does actually put her above Scarab God. The addition of Red put Sedris above him due to access to more combo pieces. Are there any well established white, white blue or white black combos that would he applicable? Something that would benefit from a commander that could potentially throw the pieces in the GY to be reanimated later?

Red has Kiki Jiki. Varina just has a stax shell where she helps refuel. Tymna already does this better, and Tana/Tymna is in more colors with a strong combo kill (Kiki again!) Varina has none of that, I couldn't imagine her being above tier 2.5

Varina isn't even good enough on her own merit to be tier 3. I'd say tier 3.5 given you are actually going to ever cast her, tier 3 if you are just going to run her as a random esper commander helming a decent Iso/Reversal Combo list, stax shell, or permission list. The token generation is too weak to take over a game in stax considering the tokens cost mana unlike Tana or Sidisi or something, and so hurts when you already need to be extremely mana efficient to get around your own mana-disruption stax. Varina's lifegain isn't useful, and because very zombies are good enough to be run in the deck (maybe Cryptbreaker because it can draw a few cards), the loot ability is basically only going to ever be her, and then your are paying 4 mana for a loot one per turn, which is utter trash.

TLDR; Varina kinda sucks.

Yeah, um, new staple got spoiled...

It'll be run to oblivion, yeah, but I highly doubt it'll shake up the format merrowMania.

Of course it won't shake up the format, but that won't stop it from being a staple :)

There's probably still no update in sight, but I've done some work in the meantime and finished a large part of a primer for Najeela:

Najeela's Hulk Pod Project

Commander / EDH Winterblast

SCORE: 91 | 85 COMMENTS | 15624 VIEWS | IN 39 FOLDERS

The deck is still listed above as Ramos. The primer now offers a rather detailed argumentation for why playing 5c is a reasonable choice and why it makes sense in exactly this combination of colours, commander and strategy.

Why keep posting here if it'll never be updated?

buildingadeck good question. Perhaps some of the active competitive players should do a new list?

People are still following this thread and I guess with the popularity this list has despite not being updated it's rather complicated to promote a new list as the place to go for information. It would also be copied from here in big parts because no one wants to take the time and analyse all the tier 3 and lower for possible better builds when the discussions were mostly about the higher tiers anyway.

Time for my usual thing (though I'm a few days behind :P)

- T2.5. While it does go infinite like Firemind and draw off of opponents' spells, that mana cost is extremely prohibitive. Definitely lower than Firemind and higher than Dracogenius.

- T3. I'm looking at this and thinking Stax or bad GW Selvala combined with Saffi. Makes fodder like Tana, but not at as good of a rate. Makes infinite tokens with infinite mana and Umbral Mantle. Cute with Glare of Subdual. VERY cute with Quest for Renewal. Maybe I'm overestimating the card, but T3 seems appropriate enough for the interim.

- T3. Technically an infinite mana sync with something like Reassembling Skeleton, but I don't see it being much better of an outlet than Ishkanah, who is also T3, needs only infinite black, and does not need another card to sac it or whatnot. The upside of Izoni is that the outlet can be used for value throughout the game. The mana cost is a bit annoying, but at least you get a few duders out of the EtB. Could climb to T2.5, but I am skeptical, since it can't sac itself.

- T5. If it granted haste, maybe T4, but it is just a beater as it is.

- T4? I completely admit I am pulling a tier out of my ass. I do not see Lazav as being breakable, but it definitely is not garbage. Feel free to add your own thoughts on what to do with it.

- T4. Not bad, but doesn't do anything special.

I could see lazav a little higher, as he can add redundancy to necrotic ooze combos and ub has lots of tutors to find Buried Alive so it has a chance.

The trostani goes infinite with Ashnod's Altar and Nim Deathmantle, but probably still tier 4

Also Quasiduplicate has combo potential with Naru Meha, Master Wizard

A cute combo you can do with new Lazav is Blighted Agent + Wall of Blood . Don't know how good that is, but it's something.

Lazav, the Multifarious has grossly insane combo potential with redundancies to Necrotic Ooze packages as well as an interesting Invisible Stalker + Phage the Untouchable combo. You can also try to go a Laboratory Maniac route and effectively mill yourself, although it doesn't appear to be favorable compared to other things you can do with it. I'm working on drafting up a list right now, and if you all don't mind I can post it in here for review later. Regardless, I think it goes without saying that Lazav is incredibly versatile and I think he should be a somewhat high tier commander, maybe not tier one, but tier two or three seems reasonable.

I'm in a similar camp to the rest of these folks, Lazav should be T3 maybe even 2.5. Lazav lists I've seen look very similar to Mairsil lists and Mairsil is a T2. Now Mairsil has some ridiculous things about him like not being able to get rid of the things he cages where as Lazav needs his graveyard nicely packed with creatures. But some silly interactions have already been listed above that I think show he can be abused. The only real problem will be needing to pay for the ability...

lazav imo is wat i want out of mairsil but with way cheaper cost. playing it turn 1 or 2 frees it to noozing turn 3 pretty consistently. in other news it works with training grounds for cheapening out tricks. but if thats too cute, it can copy notion thief or jin at EOT. wheeling or just reanimating a fattie seems pretty ok but tier 2.5 seems where i draw the line. might be able to peak 2 but not much more for now. perhaps too early to say though.