Every commander with a CMC over 4 took at least a small hit, particularly those that didn't have green in their identities (Narset, Sharuum, etc). Devoted combo decks that rely on multiple pieces were also hit heavily (Prossh, Sharuum again, etc. I've heard more stax-oriented Sharuum engine builds have started becoming more popular since the devoted combo version was hit so hard.)

The decks affected the least were those that had low-CMC commanders that can win on their own without support. Yisan, Sisay, Zur, and Arcum came out the least-scathed when everything was said and done.

Kaalia was actually OK wit the new rule so far. She has preformed better across the board. I'm almost to the point of adding Grim Tutor back, because she feels tier
1.5 again in the local meta. Ad long ad AzamI and Zur don't show up, she rapes.

By the way, I think that someone may have said this before, but a Xenagod or Kaalia deck would be decently competitive if built right. You'd have to build them into a stax archetype, and know your meta well, but if you build Xenagod as a bunch of dorks, Null Rod, Torpor Orb, and Root Maze, you would destroy my Brago deck. This is why I think that Hybrid is the best archetype right now, as a deck like Yisan can get a fast combo or beatdown, but can also counter decks with Phyrexian Revoker and Bane of Progress.

@Jazzyboy I run overlord because I can win turn 2 with him, if I get some artifact mana shenanigans going on. Queen you have to be SUPER lucky, because there arent many combo pieces, and not enough tutor spells to make her more viable than Overlord.

But its an opinion. Ahem andwaymorepeoplerunOverlordbecausehesstronger

Queen is Tier 2 because she's somewhat useful to some 5C combo decks. She has multiple methods of generating infinite mana. Sliver Overlord is Tier 3 because he's really only useful for Sliver Tribal, which is a Tier 3 deck. We've had this conversation on here multiple times before.

I've questioned this before, but is Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord really tier 2 quality? He's hard to cast, his ability is expensive, and while green/ black isn't weak it is hardly a dominant color scheme. I know he can kill the board with a sufficiently big Lord of Extinction, but is that a combo that can consistently win by turn 5-6? He seems outclassed by the other tier 2 commanders. What do the rest of you think?

Jarad is for sure Tier 2. Not only does he have a two-card combo with Phyrexian Devourer that kills the entire table, he supports the usual BG graveyard shenanigans.

He's by no means as strong as Meren, but he's up there. Check out Razzlox's Jarad primer over on MTGSalvation for a more in-depth description and nearly optimized list Link

sliver hivelord should've stay tier 2. it is a great deck that i think everyone sees as a threat. if im wrong could somebody explain why it's tier 3?

@ MasterXandar: Slivers are primarily a mid-combo deck. They win by overrunning the board with strong synergistic creatures that all buff one another. The problem is, it takes a while to assemble a winning Sliver boardstate-- I believe the average for optimized decks in Turn 6. This is already a bit slow for combo builds that run very few answers (the typical mark for Tier 2 is 5 turns or less for combo builds). From there, Slivers further suffer because they're extremely fragile to certain things, namely board wipes and other mass creature hate like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. They also fair poorly against stax strategies since they're usually tapping out nearly every turn to tutor and dump more slivers into play.

Overall, the deck plays too slowly for what it does, and is too weak to hate, to beat most of the Tier 2 decks. They get absolutely run over by fast combo decks, and fair nearly as poorly against midrange and all forms of control. Sliver Tribal's power level is much more consistent with that of Tier 3 decks.

@MasterXandar

Sliver Hivelord while powerful is not nearly as powerful as Sliver Overlord or Sliver Queen.

Sliver Hivelord suffers from the same issues that Sliver Overlord does in that it requires a tribal build. ANY tribal deck for the most part cannot (by default) be "competitive". That doesn't mean it can't be a totally awesome, fun and powerful deck. What it means is that you are limited in the cards you can use (cards within the tribe). To truly make it tribal you have to forgo a multitude of cards that would otherwise be perfect. Or you have to add cards to force it to be tribal (cards that change creature types Hivestone) which in a 100 card singleton format is not guaranteed to occur and easy to disrupt. Further hivelord can be shut down by cards like Sudden Spoiling and there's nothing you can do about it (it gets around Crystalline Sliver). Suddenly your indestructible wall can be blocked by 1/1 tokens and die. This, not to mention Merciless Eviction and the other exile wraths also circumvent any protection garnered by hivelord. By comparison Sliver Overlord can simply tutor for hivelord and cast it. While very powerful, there is no way that hivelord can compare to a tutor on a stick like overlord.

To drive the point home Sliver Queen and Mana Echoes is an infinite combo which can give you an infinite army on turn 5 (and there are other infinite combos with her as well). Hivelord, while powerful, once again cannot compare to this..

NarejED: Thank you for the link. It was an informative read. I was not aware Phyrexian Devourer worked that way. I see now why he is tier 2 quality.

@NarejED and @irisfibers. i meant to say sliver overlord sorry. i completly understand hivelord.

sonnet666: Sorry, I didn't see your post. This deck is generally accepted as one of the best Jace lists, though I modified mine slightly. If you want it, I'll upload to tappedout and give you a link.

NarejED: I think that Jarad is stronger than Meren. While Paramount may disagree with me, Jarad is probably the strongest midrange combo deck out there. It's a 2-card combo with Devourer, it runs the Nooze combos as well as a strong midrange suite, and can really play the long game. I haven't been able to playtest Meren yet, but I feel that the strength of Jarad is not to be underestimated.

Also, a series of changes that I feel should be made:

Selvala: Tier 2 to Tier 1. Selvala is a combo deck that uses stax elements to slow down the rest of the table. Your commander is an amazing dork and draw engine, and great redundancy allows you to combo off with Wirewood Channeler/Elvish Archdruid/Priest of Titania and Umbral Mantle/Sword of the Paruns/Staff of Domination. Here's Rienuaa's list.

Jelava: Tier 2 to Tier 1. Jelava is probably the best commander for Grixis Storm, a great deck that can't be ignored. Here's Moxnix's list, which is pretty good. Note: the commander usually isn't played.

Oloro: Tier 1 to Tier 2. Oloro isn't that great of a general. The archetypes that he wants to be played in, Ad Naus and Combo-Control, are just better with Zur. Zur is miles ahead of any Esper and UB general, as he generally reads Necropotence: Suspend 1WUB. If there's a situation where Oloro would be better than Zur, aside from the gain 1 or 2 extra cards off Ad Naus, then tell me. (I also think that a new tier should be created for Zur, but that's just me.)

Alesha: Tier 3 to Tier 2. Alesha is a solid stax general, and while not the best, can certainly hold her own at competitive tables. I haven't played much of the deck myself, but here's Angelforge's list, which is highly tuned.

Arcum: Tier 1 to Tier 2. Arcum is slow, easy to stop, and forced to run a bunch of mediocre cards (Silver Myr, Manakin) to allow the deck to function. Any stax deck will immediately tutor up Cursed Totem and any midrange deck will find Null Rod. When his Turbine is destroyed or he can't tutor, he has a hard time winning.

Saffi: Tier 3 to Tier 2. Saffi is a great combo general, 2-card comboing with Loyal Retainers and being able to run the Boonweaver Combo in it. It was in the finals of a /r/competitiveedh tourney, and can be really fast. It's definitely a general to consider.

Other notes:

• Certain generals will do well at competitive tables, but do poorly at casual ones. The prime example of this is Thada Adel, as certain lists can easily kill a deck's gameplan. For example, Thada can hit Brago's Resonator, Arcum's anything, Animar's Statue, Jace's Candelabra, and many more. However, it dies quickly to casual decks, as they don't have a specific gameplan that can be removed.

• New Omnath is suprisingly good, probably Tier 2, but at least Tier 3. It needs further testing.

Thanks for reading!

@irisfibers: Uh, just figured I'd point out that tribal decks certainly can be competitive.

In fact, two tribal leaders are in tier two, i.e. Krenko, Mob Boss and Ezuri, Renegade Leader.

And the same weaknesses that you cited for slivers could just as easily be applied to Goblins and Elves. In fact, Sudden Spoiling and exiling boardwipes hit pretty much any deck that relies on creatures hard, not just tribal decks so that's a bit of a weird point to make.

woo thanks

You know... I've always felt there was potential in a Sliver Hivelord deck that aimed to just cast SHL and follow it up with a Jokulhaups next turn. You do have access to five colors worth of tutors, and it would come as a huge surprise to everyone that wrote you off as a typical stompy sliver tribal deck.

Leinahtan, a few things:

First, we had a decent length discussion about both Saffi and Alesha before the comment sweep, and they're probably staying where they are. I'm not going to reiterate it all here, but it pretty much boiled down to color identity holding them both back. Also, many T3 commanders can "certainly hold [their] own at competitive tables," that's actually part of the T3 description.

Thada Adel can grab everyone's Sol Ring at casual tables and drop a Blightsteel Colossus. I think it would be more accurate to say that certain decks built for competitive tables will do poorly a casual tables. We're ranking commanders here, but it's really the 99 of every deck that determines it's effectiveness.

I seriously doubt Selvala is T1. Yes, she makes a mean stax deck, but there are still commanders that can play through stax effects (see: other stax commanders), and those decks are probably going to outpace you if you're giving them a free draw.

Lastly, Omnath is already in T3.

For your other suggestions I think NarejED is more qualified than I am to weigh in on the differences between T1 and T2.

Oh, and thanks for the primer. It was a little more detailed than what I found when I Googled, so Jace is starting to make a little more sense to me.

Jazzyboy, Elves and Goblins are pretty much the best two tribes there are, and have had support since the earliest days of magic. They're not really accurate examples of "tribal decks" as a whole. (Plus, it's pretty much an open secret that Krenko is a combo deck in disguise.)

We've discussed Alesha to death--it's not happening, I assure you.

Arcum? To tier two? There's a reason Tinker is fucking banned, you know.

Jeleva's color identity is worse than you might think.

Just because Zur is better for one thing than Oloro doesn't meant that Oloro isn't plenty competitive enough for other things.

We've also discussed Saffi before--she's not nearly as consistent a combo general as some would have us believe.

Ho-hum.

NoOneOfConsequence, You know you can say things politely, right?

Oftentimes, people really appreciate it.

Not to cause any salt but out of curiosity how much was Ghoulcaller Gisa discussed? I've seen stax decks with her at the helm do disgusting things with Contamination. Having zombies to feed to smokestack is dirty.

Ohthenoises, I don't think she was very much at all.

Mono-black has a bit of color disadvantage that keeps it out the competitive tiers mostly, but she could be moved up to T3 maybe. Do you have a decklist as an example?

I just realized that, "Mono-black has a bit of color disadvantage that keeps it out the competitive tiers mostly," sounds really racist anywhere outside of a Magic forum.

Oh well...

sonnet666: Sorry, didn't see that other discussion. I'll check it out. I guess Thada might not be as competitive as I thought. 'Twas just a thought.

NoOneOfConsequence: I don't know about Arcum. I've done some goldfishing, and usually Arcum comes down turn 3, sometimes turn 2, and rarely turn 1. From then, you usually get Myr Turbine, and then next turn Clock of Omens to untap Turbine, making another Myr. On the following turn, Lattice, make a myr, activate Dagsson, untap Dagsson, get Disk, activate, get Forge, untap Disk, blow up board. While it's definitely consistent, it dies if your Turbine gets exiled, or if you get Trickbound or one piece of the combo gets killed. The deck seems general-centric, and if you can't find protection for Arcum, then it seems hard to combo off. I might need to test more.

I think Jelava Storm is tier 1 or at least 2, around as good as Jace, and probably better.

Out of curiosity, I'd like to see a list where Zur is worse than Oloro as a genera. I might be wrong, but getting Necro, and possibly Detention Sphere and O-Ring seems stronger than anything a 6-mana general can do.

Again, I'll read the past comments and see the discussion.

I have my own list which is pretty un-tuned but I'll send it to your wall so as to not advertise. (Made that mistake earlier.)

Alright, since everyone else has been posting their favorite commanders, time for mine: Yisan!

Yisan is the head of a midrange combo deck. The deck utilizes Yisan's combo chains, and despite being general reliant, you can add Oak Street Inkeeper, tutor up Sylvan Safekeeper first, there's just so many options for the deck. While Green doesn't give the deck a lot of artifact tutors, the deck has the solid backup plan of Avenger of Zendikar into Craterhoof, usually killing the table. The deck can usually tutor up specific hate against certain decks. Control player casting a Wrath of God? Soul of New Phyrexia. Arcum player about to untap? Phyrexian Revoker. Daretti player about to cast Magistrate's Scepter? Bane of Progress. Random enchantment ruining your day? Terastodon.

The deck is resilient. An opponent once cast Cyclonic Rift on their main phase, and on my turn, I rebuilt my entire boardstate and comboed off with Illusionist's Bracers. The deck is fast. I've had turn 3 or 4 wins with the deck, and the deck is ridiculously consistent. The deck can hose metas. The deck can build a stax package. The deck is so versatile, that it seems to me that it needs at least a tier 3 inclusion, but it's not tier 1.

This is probably super biased, but I love the deck too much not to give my opinion on it.