Aphoticate other than Blood Pod and the Ezuri/Yuriko turns lists, the damage-based beatdown strategy you are speaking of doesn't exist in cEDH.

Unless you think an Ishai/Vial smasher turns list or stax list is not only plausibly powerful, but is a high-tiered strategy, in which case I would love to see it.

SynergyBuild. I don't disagree with you. I just mean if for some reason someone wanted to make a UWRx deck with partners, she seems like a decent option. If nothing else, she might be some neat anti-storm tech if you can stop them after they make her huge.

For that last one, you need to have a storm player, have that storm player go off before anyone wins the game or locks down the table under stax, have a way to interact with said storm player in such a way that they cast at least 20 spells (or less than that given your Ishai is already reasonably large), and also protect it from removal from the three other players.

That is correct, not impossible though. That's still a lot more than what Tana's saprolings bring to the table.

ishai is hardly useful, i partner her in a thrasios deck use her for colors. very few times i cast her before comboing, if anything shes a good flying blocker or a distraction, and i dont even consider my deck cEDH

Yeah I was also racking my brain to figure out why ishai was competitive! Also I've been playing cEDH for a while and I have literally never seen Circu, Dimir Lobotomist mentioned, can someone enlighten me on why it's competitive? I really can't figure it out!

It goes infinite easier with Isochron Scepter/Dramatic Reversal than an outlet like Tasigur, the Golden Fang/Thrasios, Triton Hero, because it only needs the loop to be mana neutral rather than mana positive.

OK interesting! Thanks for the info! I was confused by it because it's utility seems so questionable but it makes a lot more sense as a combo piece. Are there any builds other than dramatic scepter that are cEDH viable? If you happen to know a good decklist I'd be super curious!

I initially felt like Circu was a weird addition to competitive in this list when it was revised, but like SynergyBuild said, he wins with a mana neutral Dramatic Scepter combo which makes him really good by requiring such a small combo package to win. For that reason alone I feel like he deserves to be rated as competitive. I wish this list had a qualified Circu build in the competitive section, but I don't think anyone has actually nominated one yet.

As for Ishai, I have no clue why it's rated so highly.

Yeah I feel like Ishai has to be a mistake! Good to know! Yeah that would be an interesting build to see but I'm not that thrilled about another dramatic scepter fast combo deck when I feel like there is probably better commanders for that. It's pretty funny the only other time I had heard of Circu was when voidmage gamer ranked him as one of the WORST commanders haha!

DangoDaikazoku has made the perfect comment.

Slow, methodical clap.

But in all seriousness, the Circu list I have seen at my LGS is also part Labman Consultation, and Scepter is backup.

Also I found something claiming to be a cEDH Ishai, Tana build?? I haven't really looked at it, could be total trash but I'll post it anyway. Tana & Ishai Kiki-Twin cEDH

I believe I helped Dango out w his Circu list. It's p lit, also consult/doomsday.

As for Circu, we are working on a primer in the respective discord to cover the core cards and the possible ways to play him. This is for example my build:

Brain Fart Stax

Commander / EDH Winterblast

SCORE: 23 | 21 COMMENTS | 2119 VIEWS | IN 11 FOLDERS

Don't get carried away by the deck name, it's not stax but first of all a scepter combo deck. my alternative win con besides dramatic scepter is paradox engine because it wins with any instant and scepter or the deck can be drawn and looped (timetwister/codex shredder) with top/key while Circu exiles the libraries in the process. Praetor's grasp can be used to find a win con too. The deck can threaten a kill pretty fast and sometimes it feels like playing storm but if it doesn't win early the control plan kicks in.

Another possible way is to use Doomsday as an alternative way to win (also to assemble the scepter combo in the pile), like Bad_Dog does in this build, which is more on the storm side: Circu Storm 1

The Circu deck that was listed all the time here before it was deleted was this one: Assuming Direct Control

Personally I think that lab man wins are not really overlapping well with the scepter combo, but paradox engine and other "draw your deck" options are. Eventually you can always win with Circu if you can loop your deck.

For the past 2 years the maximum power decks have been running wild. The last 3 months though the only decks that have been winning have been max power sen tripletes that rush out arcane labortory or rule of law. I think the meta will shift to go against the tier 0 decks soon. Either flash hulk, doomsday, or food chain seem to be why most of those decks are good. But you cant win against decks that just shut u out with mana crypt land stax spell.

9hundred if there's 3 other people who want such stax pieces gone, it's realistic that someone will remove them eventually. On the other hand, if there are more stax decks at a table, the effectivenes of anti-storm cards is getting lower because more of everyone's opponents don't care about them. This is why stax decks also need a rather fast way to win and can't rely on just preventing everything forever. Having an effective win con will always be a reason for decks to be at the top in multiplayer, compared to everything that primarily wants to act as control deck.

Having the correct answer is also something that is a bit random. Let's say you keep that crypt, land, rule of law opening and use it. If you don't go first, one or more players might already have played multiple spells. And if you go first, you might get fucked by a t2/3 flash because you thought rule of law was a perfect start and instead you would have needed a grafdigger's cage. That's the risk of not playing something aggressive in a singleton format...opening hands might or might not have what is needed to answer early game kills.

I'd like to submit my Marwyn cEDH deck to move her to Competitive. Suggestions would also be wonderful.

To say esper in general won't have answers is just that. And if everyone on the table have answers in their deck then they should have answers to flash.

I think Borborygmos Enraged would fit better into 'High Power' than 'Mid Power' - it's a big-mana deck, has access to tooth and nail kiki combo, can kill people instantly through combos, card draw/recursion, or even infect, and can control the board pretty well with creature/artifact removal.

Here's my list: Bobo Enraged

It can struggle with control, but usually outpaces any aggro or creature-based combo decks (like elves). It generally wins around turns 6-8

Is there any deck of Jodah, Archmage Eternal for cEDH? I've talked with friends and none of us can come up with a strategy/deck that earns him a Tier 2 spot. The fact that he does nothing the turn he comes out is pretty brutal imo.

Meh, any 5 color list can be competitive, you just run goodstuff and call it a day.

I don't remember the interactions exactly, so I'm not sure if this combo was infinite or pseudo-infinite, but I can say that I have been personally piledrived by a Bobo/Loam combo piloted by my friend who has been working on tuning a deck around Bobo. However, it seems like it takes a while to get online from what I've seen. Not sure if it's deserving of high power placement, but I would keep it in consideration and would like to hear other opinions before I can get a reading on where it deserves to be. Again, I don't know enough about the combo to say much about the interactions, and for all I know there could have been another combo piece on the board too that I can't think of. All I remember is that once he started bolting my face it felt like it wouldn't end. I'm primarily a blue player so Gruul is a color combo I am not at all familiar with. The only thing I know about RG decks is that they ramp out big mana to make big creature fast.

Generally, those decks are weak Niv decks, using an effect like Keen Sense to be able to discard a land, to Lava Spike+draw. It isn't bad as a combo, just that you need some serious ramp, and the tutors in those colors aren't good for reaching the necessary consistency to even be tier 4, I don't see how it is better than an Atogatog list. Dang atogatog... It is probably better than most every tier 4 list though, so that might be an issue with him rather than Borb.

MStranger turn 6-8 average is a couple turns too slow, and really not fast enough to race well built combo decks. On top of that, you struggle against control so all in all your mu against every archetype is mediocre.

baea1996

There are some builds using Flash and Omni and Rector and Protean Hulk. And then generating tutor-lines to get to Seasons Past + Tutor + Tutor to play you whole deck. It's really cool since we get Imperial Requiter, Requiter of the Guard and Spellseeker.