crstisalie, why don't you test it against other decks and record the data and post it here once you've got enough? You're the one pushing it, you should be the one backing it up, not us.

Exactly my point. I'm not saying it isn't viable, because it definitely is and is entirely plausible as a control deck. Except there wasn't any factual evidence presented at the time of their claims and that's what bothered me the most. In my testing it hasn't proved to be as effective as these other tier 1 Zur lists and they're trying to make control Zur comparable to them. The win cons may otherwise seem laughable to most, but I tried to be open minded. I alreadly am not the hugest fan of RIP Helm, and voltron in cEDH is almost unheard of, but they're win conditions that get through the control-ly playstyle so I tried to be mindful of that. I just can't help but feel as if Zur is better off playing combo because control Zur has appeared to fizzle and not be as efficient as Doomsday or Shimmer lists. It can probably work for your meta, but it doesn't feel like tier 1 material to me.

But what do I know. Obviously I'm suffering from cognitive dissonance so my opinion shouldn't even matter.

Definitely just cognitive dissonance. Goddammit, Cal, we've been over this. Stop dissing all the secret tier 0 tech.

SynergyBuild Okay, well, you absolutely started it, but, fine, whatever. I stand by my deck, I think it's pretty good for what it is, though it could maybe do with a few small adjustments (trust me, I've combed through Gatherer for every 1-power black/artifact creature in the game several times, I used to play cards like Abyssal Gatekeeper and Nezumi Bone-Reader but cut them because the list was getting pretty tight, and I've considered the ramp package quite a bit).

I don't really care about this any more, honestly. If you really want to say that Nath of the Gilt-Leaf and Karametra, God of Harvests are better than Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker , and that Shirei is on par with Alexi, Zephyr Mage , be my guest. I still think he's tier 3, though.

NoOneOfConsequence

But didn't you tell us not to ignore your deck, I was the only one who did what you asked. Now I started it? You asked for us to look at your deck.

(Also, Alexi, Karametra, and Nath are better than Shirei, Nath is actually pretty powerful in a stax deck, and the others are just better colors, so can do more work w/o the commander involved.)

~Shadowborn Shirei with Thrumming Stone shenanigans is best Shirei~

Haha no. Shirei is a super fun commander to play though. I have yet to see a deck with Shirei at the helm that is tier 3 material, but I mean it could be possible? I'd be interested to see what a fully competitive budgetless Shirei deck could do. The thing about mono-black, and even mono-colored decks in general that I found to be a common issue is that they need to be part of a really synergistic shell in conjunction with the commander itself. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is rated so highly because it can tutor from the command zone and with enough fast mana it can close out a game rather quickly and consistently. Razaketh is similar in a way, but it isn't quite as potent as Sidisi. Erebos and Liliana are typically seen helming Stax shells, while Skrillex the Blight Dragon kind of does the thing with infect and I assume Maga is just a big mana dump in the zone (admittedly I haven't seen much gameplay of those last two).

What I'm trying to get at with this is that outside of these higher tier commanders, mono-black tends to have a common theme of reanimator or big mana Exsanguinate and Torment of Hailfire win conditions, which isn't incredibly effective in more competitive environments since big mana wins are easily disruptable and reanimator in mono-black seems diluted to the turn sideways to win gameplan and is not ideal by any means. They're good for casual and battlecruiser type metas, but you can't expect much success in a more competitive meta with a commander that only recurs creatures with 1 power at the end of the turn.

I want to be optimistic though. I'd like to think a well tuned tier 4 or 5 deck can be capable of equating to the power level of a tier 3 deck. You're not arguing for tier 1 or 2 obviously, but I am inclined to believe that the list you provided is not quite tier 3 material. The win conditions feel really awkward to me, but I do appreciate that you tried to include your commander's ability as an enabler. I can see Mindslaver as a decent win condition if you weren't playing multiplayer, but it looks like you need an initial 6 mana to cast it, 4 additional mana to sac it, then you want to cast a Myr Retriever for 2 mana, have some outside source like Viscera Seer to sac the Retriever, getting back Mindslaver and casting it for 6 again, spend another 4 mana to sac it and then the combo ends? You can get Retriever back at the end of your turn with Shirei, but you're ending your turn, so you can't loop this again. At the end of the combo turn, assuming you cast the outlets all this turn, it's a three piece combo (Mindslaver, Retriever, and Seer), it costs a minimum of 23 mana to pull off in a color where infinite mana isn't really common outside of Monolith/Rings, and you only end up controlling two players as a result of it? Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's how I followed it. That just feels really clunky and not a very powerful strategy. I don't mean any disrespect, and I'm not trying to trash on your deck at all. I just don't consider a combo like that to be eligible for a tier 3 placement since it doesn't outright win.

I'm not saying your deck is trash garbage, but I think it could be improved is all. If you're able to generate that much mana though, you're better off dumping it into a Torment of Hailfire in my opinion.

MightyDarknut The deck you describe would never need Shirei and would be better as a Sidisi shell. Trying to involve Shirei means that one of 3 main stategies come into play:

1 - Go for a reanimator style list, with minor control elements. Abuse Apprentice Necromancer to the maximum, and have Shirei as a minor value pieces with some combo lines with Razaketh, the Foulblooded sacrificing creatures that trigger Shirei, so if the combo is disrupted, you have some board state to go off on your next turn. It could be a good mono-black combo list, as good as mono-black combo lists are in general, and can even have some very limited use for Shirei.

2 - Go for a stax list, abusing Shirei about as much as competitively viable as possible, trying to get good cards (think Bone Shredder ) that have innate value without Shirei and also a lot with, maybe 10-15 of these good useful creatures exist that work with Shirei and also aren't dead without like Heap Doll . Then run cards like Contamination , Smokestack , etc. and maybe even some hate pieces like Lethal Vapors if you are feeling... 'Out there.' Finish the deck off with a various amount of non-shirei based stax pieces like Sphere of Resistance , Thorn of Amethyst , Damping Matrix , Oppression , Bottomless Pit , Leyline of the Void , Chalice of the Void etc. and a large amount of instant speed interaction to hopefully survive the early game like Fatal Push , Dismember , Warping Wail , etc.

3 - Go with a Midrange combo list. Try to find some value-oriented creatures and a mix of interaction, maybe a few minor stax pieces that don't affect you, and then a bunch of tutors to find some hyper-card-efficient combo that may or may not interact with Shirei. Try some Ad Nauseam storm maybe, maybe a Buried Alive combo, who knows. Make it survive the early game a get their turns 4-5 for the midgame win, with a decent controlling backbone to lie on when you can't combo out as early as you would want, due to a stax piece you need removed or whatever.

I was saying that he tried to incorporate the commander as an enabler, but in reality Shirei was not relevant at all to the combo. If anything it just serves as insurance to get the Mindslaver back on the next turn, but that still doesn't feel great. I know the list I was describing would never need Shirei, because I was in fact, describing the provided list's combo.

You also made excellent suggestions for ways to utilize Shirei. If I were to build a deck around that commander I would be leaning towards reanimator personally, but stax and midrange certainly sound like viable archetypes for Shirei to helm as you described.

None were the list that NoOneOfConsequence described, yet they said theirs was the best possible list for Shirei, that was why I was going over the absurdity of their deck. I am glad you understand MightyDarknut

SynergyBuild Uhhh, yes, you started by being a complete asshole and rude af. That's what I was referring to, not my suggestion for people to look at my list.

Also, I am, in fact, capable of generating that much mana, as I run cabal-tron, black market, and a bunch of other things. Exsanguinate often ends up being a more viable wincon, and I can easily tutor that up, of course.

As for the Mindslaver wincon, yeah, it's not great in multiplayer if there are still 3 other players at the table. You don't necessarily have to do the whole recursion gambit every time in order to find a way to win with it, though. Even a couple Mindslaver recursions can be pretty devastating to your opponents, and you don't necessarily have to draw every one of them out--you can sometimes kill them with their own Toxic Deluge or something (if they die to it, the spell leaves the stack).

As for the three strategies you described above, I'd say my deck is not that far off from the second one, but, fair enough, I do run a lot of cards that are completely dependent upon having Shirei. That's why I run my protection suite, and Command Beacon , and so on. Maybe that's worse than not relying on him so much--after all, cards like Nevermore do exist. I actually want to play a Shirei deck, though, as you said, that basically means I'd be better off playing some other commander for such a strategy. In any case, can we move Shirei up to tier 3, then?

I mean if it works for you I shouldn't be one to knock it. However, if you wanted to take your deck to more of a competitive multiplayer level I would suggest dropping the Mindslaver combo because as cool and flavorful as it may be to control players during their turns, the setup for it seems to be excessive for little payoff.

NoOneOfConsequence Yeah, Shirei can put up some... probably decent mono-black stax results. Your's wouldn't be the best version of a tier 5 list as the thing is set up right now tho.

You really have a thing for hyperbole. At any rate, whatever, I think everything that needs to be said has been said. I don't really have much else to discuss at the moment, though--except...

I don't know if the deck even does what it's supposed to--I've never even tested it--and pretty much all of these cards would be better off in some other deck, but I'll let you be the judge of it. If it's worthwhile, it might make Daxos the Returned worthy of tier 3: Staxos, The Neglected.

Nope. This deck is pretty dead to combo, running really little good interaction and a bunch of dead cards or overpriced cards like Call to the Grave , Damnation , and Wrath of God . Also, wincons like Sigil of the Empty Throne are weak and overpriced. I am not a fan of Sanguine Blood combo, however it isn't the worst, but your commander doesn't happen to synergize well with the deck, so it feels really clunky.

BTW when your ramp isn't immediate, doesn't fix colors, and is 5 mana and requires you to sacrifice creatures or hope to god an opponent runs them, your deck isn't tuned ( Black Market for my cEDH friends who don't know of this card, don't worry, it is jank tech to the extreme!)

Yeah, whatever. There are probably better wincons than Sigil to put in the deck at this point, but I don't really care enough about it to tune it.

Also, Black Market isn't jank. It might be in this deck, but please stop acting like you're part of some special uppercrust of 'elite' cEDH players.

Oh, and, the deck is already running Toxic Deluge , so, by all means, do find me some cheaper boardwipes than Wrath of God and Damnation to complete the playset. I'd happily use them.

Also, if by 'little good interaction' you means that it lacks counterspells and more removal, that's a pretty blinkered view of things. The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale doesn't go on the stack, after all, but I digress.

I'm beginning to think you're just really bad at evaluating decks and don't actually play that much EDH. You see one bad card and think a deck is just worthless.

I like Black Market in something like Chainer, Dementia Master stax. Its slow for sure but it gives you oodles of mana to reanimate lots of stuff.

NoOneOfConsequence, you don't need more than Toxic Deluge, and Black Market IS bad.

NoOneOfConsequence I actually did playtest your deck once (I know, it isn't a great sample size by any means), yet many cards are an issue. I apologize, I really want to like a deck you post, just to not make this a dramafest, but I can't say a bad deck is good. Damnation and Wrath don't need to be put into the deck at all.

Here is a full list of cards that are particularly overpriced, and where each card I think is bad or could be better fits, if you truely believe that I can't evaluate it fairly:

Call to the Grave A slow, grindy, 5 mana variant of Porphyry Nodes .

Erebos, God of the Dead - A card that is indestructible, yet a worse Greed , a card that is too slow for even grindy stax lists in cEDH most of the time. Tutor for Greed is better than this.

Doomwake Giant - Interesting repeatable board wipe, a meta-dependent inclusion though, not good for the average cEDH meta, but does have a place in some lists. I'd drop, but could imagine many arguments for it's inclusion.

Ghostly Prison - anti-attacks, which just rarely comes into play outside of kiki-lines and the sort, a strange meta-dependent inclusion, but I coudl much less justify this one.

Karmic Justice - Cool card, but often enchantment removal comes in the form of bounce or exile, and so this effect feels very off.

Kismet - again kiki-hate, so I wonder if you go against that often. It is a relatively bad card in Stasis lists, which this is not, easy drop

Vindicate - 3 mana remove 1 thing is a lot of wasted mana, easy drop.

No Mercy - Really a lot of attack-hate, strange for a stax list with a commander that generates blockers. Easy drop at a 4 mana do nothing enchantment.

Knowledge Pool - I get the Eidolon of Rhetoric / Rule of Law combo with it, but many decks have better value engines than Daxos, or can respond by killing one of the pieces, or can kill Daxos. These make this combo rarely an easy way to finish the game, requiring a ton of setup/backup that survives the lock. I think better options exist.

Sigil of the Empty Throne - A slow, 5 mana do nothing enchantment, it takes forever to get this going, easy drop.

Sphere of Safety - This much creature-attack hate? How much do you need? 1 card is often too much with Daxos in the CZ, but you run... including sweepers... like 11? Wow. Your meta must be all Edric and Blood Pod, maybe 1 Kess Twin, nah, just all Edric decks.

Damnation / Wrath of God - Too expensive for a Sweeper, honestly Toxic was all you needed with Humility as well.

Pestilence - 5 mana to get a worse Electrickery , 6 mana to get a worse Pyroclasm , Sweltering Suns without cycling for 7 mana. Just really slow and weak, easy drop.

Black Market - maybe in a meta with 50 Edric decks. Outside of that, easy drop.

Coalition Relic / Worn Powerstone - just slow ramp spells, not bad cards, but Fellwar Stone / Everflowing Chalice comes first.

Infernal Tribute - Cool jank, not useful next to cards like Dark Confidant that is excluded.

Academy Rector - Just no great targets like Pattern of Rebirth in color, great card, just not here.

Grim Tutor / Idyllic Tutor - Just a bit too slow at 3 mana for a tutor. Love them, just gotta leave them. Hard drop.

Land Tax - should run the Geddon/Ravages package or leave this out.

Replenish / Open the Vaults - This deck doesn't run enough ways to sacrifice/ Entomb enchantments to make me want to include the cards.

Mesa Enchantress - Slow card draw on a weak creature is just removal bait, this deck has better cards for the slot. Harder drop.

Phyrexian Arena - A lot of math goes into why this card is generally pretty bad. Inefficient and weak in most circumstances, and needs almost 5 unimpeded turns to get enough value to be okay. Better cards for the slot.

Cabal Coffers - big mana, not worth it outside of ANS.

Vesuva - copying a land to enter tapped leaves you in a lack of mana. Weak card.

Command Beacon - easy drop, weak card.

Deserted Temple - Easy drop, weak card.

Strip Mine - Good card, not here.

Wasteland - Same as Strip Mine but worse.

Temple of Silence - scry is weak when you lose due to not having mana, easy drop

Kor Haven - Easy Drop, never gonna use that ability

Plains x4 - Not great at Fixing

Swamp x6 - Same as Plains

New inclusions (Total drops are at 42)

Base inclusions: Fellwar Stone , Prismatic Lens , Thought Vessel , Everflowing Chalice , Caves of Koilos , Command Tower , City of Brass , Mana Confluence , Exotic Orchard , Cavern of Souls , Gemstone Caverns , Gemstone Mine , and Tarnished Citadel

Total real cards left to put in: 29

Thorn of Amethyst , Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Trinisphere , Tangle Wire , Sphere of Safety , Damping Sphere , Fragmentize , Aura of Silence , Dismember , Lotus Petal , Dark Ritual , Kataki, War's Wage , Crucible of Worlds , Bottomless Pit , Oppression , Liliana of the Veil , Static Orb , Linvala, Keeper of Silence , Ethersworn Canonist , Aven Mindcensor , Torpor Orb , Planar Void , Grafdigger's Cage , Ensnaring Bridge (just for your meta), Dark Confidant , Containment Priest , Chalice of the Void , Sanctum Prelate , Alms Collector

That would be the deck.

I mean, Strip Mine and Wasteland are staple inclusions in pretty much any deck, but if you really think the manabase is that weak then fair enough.

I suppose the deck really does run too many pillow-fort effects, but, yes, I tend to play in metas with lots of creatures, so I tend to think that having a wipe suite (unless you're playing mono-green or something) is effectively a necessity.

Land Tax isn't terrible when you also have Scroll Rack , but I suppose it could be dropped.

Also, what's wrong with Command Beacon, exactly? I suppose if you're just really looking for lands to axe, fine, but it's not a weak card in and of itself--at least when your commander is better than Daxos.

And you want to put in Crucible of Worlds , but take out Strip Mine ? Alright, I guess, but I have to say that that's a little disappointing.

I also completely forgot that Porphyry Nodes was a card, honestly. Otherwise, it'd be in there.

Your full list of replacements would make it to where we're playing a lot fewer enchantments, but I suppose Daxos isn't that great anyway, so, whatever. I'm honestly not sure if making that deck would qualify Daxos for tier 3, frankly, as it's more the deck than the commander or any synergy he has with it that's any good, but, whatever. I'm at least proud of how the mana curve in that deck is basically perfect, which is something your suggestions mess with slightly, but I suppose that doesn't really matter.

I just built that deck as an experiment, so I don't really care about it too much. Here, on the other hand, is a deck I've actually played extensively and have been tuning ever since I first made it:

Begin The Hymns. It's a Seton, Krosan Protector deck, and when I originally made it and shared it here, he was a very rogue af commander who was tier 4 or 5, but he got moved up to tier 3 after that point. The deck hasn't changed much since then, and I don't think I'm arguing for it to be moved up to tier 2 (the only mono-green commander in tier 2 is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds , and I'm assuming that's because she's draw in addition to ramp), but I would like to point out that Seton is perhaps the fastest mono-green ramp commander in the format. His ability effectively gives every druid in the deck haste (though, many of them have better abilities of their own), making him much faster than Azusa, Lost but Seeking , Omnath, Locus of Mana , and even Selvala (though she's probably still better).

At times, it's practically a storm deck--I've played some very interesting lines with it before. One time, my last opponent almost had me hard-locked by being able to recur Pernicious Deed and Liliana of the Veil with Doubling Season on the board thanks to Muldrotha, the Gravetide , and I believe what happened was I drew and played Green Sun's Zenith , got Eternal Witness , she got back Natural Order , I cast Natural Order getting Grave Sifter to get back all of the druids he'd previously wiped, then, with my remaining mana, I cast Aluren , then went off and killed him that turn (I had Zendikar Resurgent on the battlefield, hence why I had the mana for all that in the first place). I've cast Genesis Wave for 55 on turn 6 before thanks to Gaea's Cradle , Voyaging Satyr , Argothian Elder , and Vitalize . Yes, the deck dies to boardwipes (especially instant-speed ones) and counterspells, but it's surprisingly resilient, and also quite redundant, provided my opponents don't follow up by slamming some stax effect (which they probably would).

NoOneOfConsequence, Strip Mine and co. are by no means auto includes, but I can see strip mine. Command Beacon is shit. Also Marwyn should be tier 2 as well but welcome to this list.

I mean, Aluren has won me games before, especially considering that I can combo with it, and I keep the land count high because I really like getting Seton out on turn 2 to get out underneath people, but, fair enough, maybe I could axe cards like Ring of Three Wishes . I'd actually prefer Sylvan Tutor over Summoner's Pact , though I suppose I could easily play both.

And I've had great success with Akroma's Memorial many times before--it's literally just a better Concordant Crossroads once I'm going off (the extra 6 mana makes no difference), and having two such effects can be important to doing so. Coat of Arms Has also won me games on the spot, but I guess you could call that anecdotal.

Soren841 Are you just one of those people that says everything is shit?

It's a land that taps for 1 colorless and sacrifices itself as an activated ability to give you your commander and so let you avoid commander tax.

I'm guessing you must play nothing but Derevi and Oloro, then.

You very obviously do not actually play cEDH if you think it's a good card. Not to mention like half of your other card choices.

NoOneOfConsequence I honestly don't think that the mine, wasteland, or command beacon are good cards.

The Mine/Wasteland are for very different reasons than the beacon however, but one issue is with all of these colorless lands. Your deck wants to cast cards like Necropotence and double-devotion cards like Grasp of Fate . A colorless land does nothing but the 1 mana on the Grasp, and nothing on Necro. Since your landbase didn't even run Command Tower or much fixing at all, it would be relatively often you get a hand like Temple of Silence , Wasteland , and Swamp , with Necro or Grasp you couldn't cast either. Running the maximal amount of fixing, especially for the high-devotion deck you put together is key.

Wasteland/Mine's abilities are also really weak, to a 1v1 they are amazing, but in 4 player, you use 1 card to get rid of 1 card, and 2 opponents suddenly have advantage over you. It is card disadvantage, and that along with your deck's reliance on having good mana makes those cards nearly impossible to justify.

Command Beacon is only good in decks when it is using its commander as a key piece that can easily be removed and if it is it cannot easily come back. Think Prossh, Skyraider of Kher , where you cast and sacrifice it infinitely to get infinite mana, but if your outlet to win is countered, and you have to pass, it will never be able to be gotten back again, Beacon doesn't help a ton, as going infinite is nearly impossible at that point with Prossh, but it does make about 13 extra mana with Food Chain, to be spent trying to find another wincon.