Synergybuild. Imo Anafenza is meh. She only turns of GY but doesn't do enough against non GY decks. And she isn't even amazing at turning off GY decks as anything put into the GY before she comes out is fair game. I can just entomb in response to her being cast and still reanimate on my turn.

Against my Prossh deck she doesn't do much of anything.

Just my 2 cents

Aphoticate, Prossh isn't entirely the tier 1 list Anafenza affects, that is why a deck is their to support it, does Gaddock Teeg affect your Prossh deck?'

Well, in comparison, Hermit Druid, Breakfast Hulk, Kess Twin, and many many other lists can't handle the turn two Anafenza+MoR/Sylvan Safekeeper.

Synergy Build. Teeg actually does affect my Prossh deck a bit. Can't cast Xenagos, Chord of Calling, Green sun's Zenith, Tooth and Nail, Dictate of Erebos, Vicious Shadows etc.

Sure Ana is really good against some decks. Completely screws them. My point isn't just based on Prossh. It's about any non GY deck. Even then it's only GY decks that care about creatures. Kess may not be able to reanimate a twin piece but can still flashback the tutors for answers or new combo pieces.

Wait sorry, I can still cast Xenagos lol.

Aphoticate I agree that Ana may appear less inherently powerful as a card than Teeg is as far as their abilities go, but as a commander her Abzan colors really make her stand out and grant a bit of an edge over Teeg so I feel as if you're underselling her by a large margin by neglecting to mention how her deck actually plays. She shuts down creature-based graveyard strategies single-handedly, and graveyard hate is something that Teeg really doesn't run much of aside from Rest in Peace. The thing is though, her toolbox has other answers to a myriad of deck strategies and you seem to be analyzing her as a singleton instead of talking about what a deck built around her has to offer. Her Hatebear lists are honestly nearly identical to that of Teeg's, and much more consistent than Teeg simply due to the added tutor support. On top of that you get access to other spicy hateful and taxing cards such as Athreos, God of Passage, Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Deathrite Shaman, and I often see cards like Meren of Clan Nel Toth for additional recursion, redundancies with Ana in Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and even Ob Nixilis, Unshackled to further punish opponents who want to search for answers. It just feels like an all around improved version of a Teeg deck and all this talk about Anafenza, the Foremost makes me want to build my own deck around her now haha.

You should, you can use Anafenza for pod lines, boonweaver, and beatdown strategies as wincons, reminiscent of tana/tymna blood pod lists, and still have enough tutors and stax to build a well-tuned and extremely powerful deck ALONG WITH a very personalized take. Red and tana requires some level of beatdown, a lot of fixing for 4 colors, and stretches your deck to be unable to personalized, and Gaddock Teeg is too few colors and tutors to personalize well and tune as easily to a specific meta.

DangoDaikazoku I don't think I'm being unfair looking at Anafenza alone outside of her 99. The thing is she herself doesn't actually have much synergy. She doesn't really trigger other things or have other things trigger her. So the question is, could you just just take the exact same 99, throw a different general at the helm and end up with a better overall deck? Honesty I think you can. I think Tymna + pick any abzan partner and you would have a better deck. Her giving a +1/+1 counter to something is negligible but even if I'm wrong and it's actually really inportant, I bet Reyhan plays with counters better.

Aphoticate

Yeah, cut Karador who does not curve into a Pod win...add Ana at the Helm...deck is stronger. Pretty simple...I'd take hosing several high tier decks over garbage reanimation 1 per turn...When I win with Ana I almost have nothing in the GY worth recurring during early wins...late wins Karador is useless as the whole deck reanimates and is recurrable without wasting more mana on Karador than needed.

The other viable option is Tymna/Sidar. But I never turn stuff sideways so Tymna seems a little lackluster in the CZ here. Ana doesn't care about anything except hosing opposing similar strats which is pretty relevant, and chaining into Birthing Pod.

Yeah, while Tymna/Sidar has the benefit of minor card advantage, it also has the downside of having no general interaction against the fast combo decks like Breakfast Hulk, yes, if Ana shut down every deck in the format, it would be better, but Teeg has less worth than Ana against most matchups, better colors, and was rated really lowly here.

Stating that she herself doesn't have any synergy with the rest of the deck is again, underselling Anafenza, the Foremost. I understand that her first ability doesn't do much outside of squeezing a little more mana out of Devoted Druid, but you're still not mentioning her graveyard hate ability at all, something that Teeg decks struggle with assembling. I think that's enough synergy with the deck alone. I mean, I wish she affected all opponent's cards like Leyline of the Void does, but it's not a bad ability considering that it shuts down every creature based graveyard combo in the meta, which happens to be a h*ckin' lot. Oh yeah, one sided boardwipes with Living Death is also pretty fun.

By the way, I don't think I agree with the counterpoint of putting Ana at the helm of a Karador deck at all because that's not really the strategy in question here? We were comparing Ana's Hatebear strategy with Teeg's, and I don't think you can slap any Abzan commander at the helm of her Hatebear deck and have it make more sense than Ana. Karador does nothing for the strategy, certainly neither does Ghave, and Teneb? Nope. Daghatar is bad for the same reason Ghave is bad for the archetype, and I don't have anything to say about Doran... Partner commanders like Tymna and Sidar wouldn't be bad, just not the ideal fit for the strategy.

Ana is certainly a hateful commander and I think she fulfills her role extremely well by fitting into the archetype, and I think she is better than Gaddock Teeg for this as well. I feel like I'm getting nowhere with my point by arguing any further. I'm simply stating that she's up there with Teeg, and doesn't belong in Mid-Power. I think I'm being very reasonable for suggesting High-Power, but people are fighting me like I'm pushing for Maximum-Power lol. I'm not biased in any way, I've just seen Ana Hatebears in action and it seems a lot more potent than Teeg.

5/9 Tier 1 lists need to remove Ana before comboing out, 2/9 need to remove Teeg before comboing out, that isn't a close difference. One has 3 colors, one has 2. One affects your opponents, the other affects everyone. One affect is out of bolt range, the other dies to shock. One Wins if it is sacrificed to Pod, the other can't. YET ONE IS MID POWER, AND THE OTHER IS HIGH POWER.

ForsakenxEDHx, I totally agree that Karador is not what what you want, that's what I specifically named the also 3cmc Tymna.

Tymna is good card advantage that is good in every matchup, not just against one archetype (creature reanimation). In a creature based stax deck running things like Aven Mindcensor, there is no reason for why you can't be swinging for some really nice CA. Especially if you pick Sidar as the partner (as you mentioned) for some helpful evasion to get those hatebears through.

I could be convinced that Ana is as Good as or even better than Teeg when you look at the deck as a whole but imo that just means Teeg is too high.

Nah, Anafenza is good against more than just Reanimation of Creatures, think The Gitrog Monster, it uses Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to repeatedly recycle its deck, and with Anafenza, it can't do that. It also can't recur cards like discard outlets and dredge cards. Protean Hulk gets shut off by Anafenza because it doesn't 'die', since it gets exiled instead. Academy Rector and Pattern of Rebirth also don't trigger. This is the use of Anafenza, not reanimator (but reanimator hate is good too.)

Do any of the Maximum Power / Competitive decks still use the Pattern of Rebirth + Boonweaver Giant combo? I thought that Boonweaver decks like Karador, Ghost Chieftain saw a drop in their competitive ranking when Protean Hulk was unbanned because the Flash Hulk and Breakfast Hulk lines were faster and more consistent.

DangoDaikazoku

I was addressing Apothicate's point of putting Ana at the head of another Abzan deck and equaling its power level. Ana indeed can go right to the head of Karador ReAnimator, with IMO the result of a better deck without the need to touch the 99. As I've stated earlier the Yard hate is relevant, and more importantly it chains into wins from Pod...both are things Karador cannot do from the CZ. These two points far outweigh 1 per turn recursion, and a mana cost that is likely to not get reduced by much with all the Yard hate in the format...

You guys are attacking on the Hate bear front which also is a valid argument, but also not the one I am making. With what you guys are saying and what I am saying only further serves to prove the Mods of this list are definitely not looking at all of the placements properly, especially Ana.

Should she be in the Competitive or higher tier? Not quite, but I definitely believe she is every bit as good in some cases better than most Generals on the Hi-Power list. Ana has turn 1 wins via Reanimator, and by turn 3 is generally fully capable of going off with ease even from sub-par hands.

There really is no argument left to be had. The placement is way off and for this list to be taken seriously will need to see several adjustments....for example Jhoira of the Ghitu is placed too high, also not as powerful as Ana, but that is a different arguement.

I'd also put forth Lazav, the Multi as being higher tier than current ranking. Again that is a different argument to be addressed at a later time.

ForsakenxEDHx yeah, I agree with you, Anafenza is better than Karador in cEDH, while some lists are dredge or reanimator, those aren't the best varients, which are Hulkweaver and not really a deck that is using Karador.

SynergyBuild

I run P. Hulk, Boonweaver, and Pod as my fast combo lines for Ana.

Last I knew Kardor was running Hulk lines and some both Hulk and Boonweaver....I find that keeping Boonweaver lines has been a solid back-up plan and seeing how there are only 5 cards at cmc 5 or greater in my list Boonweaver has plenty of room to comfortably sit in the 99.

Also with you concurring Ana is arguably better than Karador for cEDH only furthers my belief that the placement of several commander's need to be re-evaluated.

Anafenza is sorely underrated, really because it isn't splashy, and yet still is only a great card not on its own merit, but because of how the metagame is built, using creatures in the yard is just something that is super popular, like why no one was as excited as I was when Tocatli Honor Guard was spoiled for Ixalan. It is a perfect hatebear next to Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff, yet since it is the least splashy, it won't be very popular despite it being the cheapest, most tutorable option.

Other than Flash, the CMC is certianly better as well as the stats. I would agree Honor Guard is slightly underrated.

ForsakenxEDHx I never said you could put Ana at the head of another abzan deck, I said the opposite. You could take Ana's 99 hate bears and put another commander like Tymna at the helm and you would have a better deck.

I would never argue the opposite because I find Ana to be too situational. She's just one tool in the toolbox. She's not worth helming a deck because she's not always the tool you need. At the helm of a toolbox deck you want something to help you grab the tool for the job at hand.

That being said, Synergy build makes a good argument that she is actually the tool you need more often than not, but even still I think I would rather use Tymna so my commander isn't useless against the 30% or so decks that aren't affected. To each his own I suppose, but the question is whether she's "competitive". I think her situational abilities bar her from being "competitive " but I'm now convinced she probably deserves to be "high power".

Aphoticate

My wordage is bad I suppose...but I do realize you were saying the opposite. I was addressing that. Tymna would be fine in the CZ but the other Partner cuts a good card from the 99 essentially leaving you 99 cards and a dead one in the CZ. So yeah I'm still going to say Ana is at least equal to a partner pairing. Vs a deck that uses the yard (a large percent of cEDH) Ana available in the CZ outweighs having to draw into hate pieces and relies on more moving parts example successful combat, hitting multiple opponents, an adequate board presence to land hits, ect....Ana is clearly viable in the CZ.

Tymna Stax is too inconsistent without Tana to back it up to make it easily comparable. Any other partner with Tymna in Abzan is outclassed by Anafenza by far. Tana/Tymna I think is a better deck than Anafenza though, because of the added Stranglehold, Kiki-Jiki, and some other cards here and there dependent on the list and metagame. Really though, Anfenza is only slightly worse. Very comparable.

DangoDaikazoku, I think you and I use the term "synergy" differently. I don't consider 2 cards that do the same kind of thing to be a synergy. For example, I don't consider Anafenza and another hatebear like say Teeg or Mindcensor to have synergy with each other. I do however consider Ana and say Abzan Falconer to have synergy with each other because her ability enables his. I also don't consider 2 token producers to have synergy but I do consider a token producer and a card that pumps all creatures to have synergy because the more creatures you have, the more value the mass pump has.

At any rate, I will def concede that you guys have made me appreciate Ana more and I do think that Mid power is too low. I now think she should be high.

That is fair. Again, Not Competitive, that would imply that Anafenza is on par with Blood Pod (It isn't), yet mid power makes me just so very sad.