Alright, after much ado, here it is: Trying Too Hard to Make a Bad Deck Good. I consulted my own list, Shirei is Love, Shirei is Life, and the suggestions people have previously made to me on this page.

The deck runs a lot of fast mana, only 15 Shirei-synergy creatures, more flat stax pieces, a cheaper combo than Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood , more tutors, more draw effects, better utility, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale for good measure. What the deck does is described in, well, the deck's description--and speaking of which, again, I think this is about as good as I can possibly make a Shirei deck, anyway. Except for maybe the exact details of the deck's finisher, I don't really think I can improve on any of the card choices in the deck. As such, if that deck doesn't make Shirei worthy of tier 3, then I suppose I'll finally have to concede that Shirei simply isn't tier 3. You be the judge, I suppose.

Submitting this Teneb list for High Power and seeing what you peeps think about it :P

Tenebu's Gravedigging Tendencies | Primer

Commander / EDH hkhssweiss

SCORE: 84 | 143 COMMENTS | 14426 VIEWS | IN 28 FOLDERS

Thank ya~

hkhssweiss But he's already in High Power :O

I meant submitting as a deck list not for a reason to be high power :p

I noticed there isn't many deck list available for people who want to see sample deck lists on here~

They just see the power level and that's it! I wish he could be competitive but there are better options and as refined as I made Tenebu, other commanders can outclass him. Still doesn't stop him from being infamous on stomping cEDH pods in my meta though xD

That decklist looks fine for High. The only card i’d disagree with is Krosan Grip but thats nitpicking really. I’ll talk to the team and see if we can get it listed at high.

tw0handt0uch Why do you disagree with Krosan Grip? Isn't it an effective way to shut down resolved infinite combo's, especially ones that are able to ignore removal by going infinite in response?

tw0handt0uch, I don't know if you looked, but a couple weeks ago I had posted my Oona list (non-storm option) for consideration. I don't know if you looked at it.

My Oona

I stated before that I don't know if having a non-storm option is necessary for the list, but the deck definitely performs well.

Thanks in advance!

Aphoticate - in general, the problematic things must be dealt with the turn they come down i.e. isochron scepter, paradox engine, food chain. Holding up 3 mana turn after turn after turn is going to stall development and be worse over the long term relative to the decks you face which are holding up chain of vapor, nature’s claim, swords, etc. Maybe for high power its acceptable... but for cedh in general you take [speed/low cmc + limitations/card disadvantage] vs [slow/high cmc + perks]. If you look at the top lists you will see of lot of stuff like lotus petal, spirit guides, deluge over damnation, etc. the cost of spot removal in cedh is 1... occasionally 2. The cost of wipes and total blowouts is 3 (deluge, fire cov, blood moon, etc).

@tw0handt0uch

Krosan Grip is more of a meta call currently, we have a lot of Paradox Scepter combo users, so it's more to stop them as the split second is fairly relevant. Otherwise I would swap to either Natural State , Fragmentize , or even Seeds of Innocence . It's pretty much my flex spot. Also thanks for taking a look, appreciate it :)

All the decks I have reflect my IRL collection :P

tw0handt0uch Fair enough. In something like Tasigur where you're likely holding mana up for a counterspell anyway do you like it more, or is 3cmc still too much in your opinion?

@ Aphoticate If your holding up mana for a counterspell, you would still run another counterspell over K-Grip. Resolving and letting a card hit the field is still worse than just hard-countering one.

Just imo :P

Yes, State or Seeds would likely be better. But honestpy I’m not sure if you need more spot removal... you already have decay, trophy, claim, caterpillar, and swords. With all the tutors in those colors you may want to choose something else for that slot.

tw0handt0uch: Given that you don't like Krosan Grip , are your thoughts the same on Beast Within , especially in the case of not having access to black?

Mono green decks it’s fine. Every other color has better options

@ tw0handt0uch

I been consider re-adding back Leonin Relic-Warder as another combo piece line when I don't have something accessible, it's either that or a Praetor's Grasp , Orim's Chant , or Grim Tutor (I don't have one available to me atm, but it bears consideration...albeit 3 for a tutor sucks...).

Personally I think Prime Speaker Vannifar should be tier 2 because I built one here Vannifar CEDH and it is probably sub-optimal. As for testing, it is currently 7 wins 0 losses on untap.in and has beat Teferi, Temporal Archmage 3 times. (Which, admittedly, 2 times my opponent didn’t know how to pilot the deck). Anyway, you don’t have to take my advice but I just figured I would give it. (Also any advice on that decklist would be very appreciated).

Arjun, the Shifting Flame belongs in high power. He can win the game with dramatic reversal, high tide shenanigans, Laboratory maniac, and/or aetherflux reservoir. There is too much versatility and raw power with his ability for the mid power category. Arjun himself combos with Aetherflux Reservoir , Paradox Engine , and Alhammarret's Archive which are all EDH staples anyway.

I mean, if we're going to have Bruna, Light of Alabaster and Damia, Sage of Stone in tier 3, I don't really see why not. People really like to argue for the status quo around here, though--if Arjun were already tier 3 and Damia wasn't, they could come up with a million reasons why Damia shouldn't be tier 3 and never really consider the opposite perspective logically.

HezTheGod I think that if the tier list maintainers were shown a comprehensive list depicting your reasoning, it would definitely be examined. They did the same with mine and I myself would love to see your Arjun, the Shifting Flame list be expanded upon. Dissect every facet of your deck, explain your reasoning for it, and you'll definitely paint that picture. Sick list btw, upvoted & saved.

Can someone explain why The Gitrog Monster is tier 1? sure he draws cards and fill your graveyard but he can easily be hated out by graveyard hate and such. Is there an infinite combo I'm not seeing?

He is hard to interact with due to one of the infinite combos uses state based action to win.

A great question, BelugaWhale217. Why is Gitrog so good?

Recently KCI got banned in modern, as it abused mana abilities and was not healthy for the format.

Gitrog is a deck that not only abuses mana abilities of Skirge Familiar , abuses rules such as the cleanup step discard outlet, but hoses most decks with it's consistent use of a small variety of fast paced win conditions that are usually counterproof and are resilient to most stax.

But Grafdigger's Cage ! You might be thinking. Or Rest in Peace ! Unfortunately, leyline of the void & cursed totem are the harshest pieces against this deck. But those that run them usually have them by the time Gitrog has the combo pieces ready (or the engine to find them) AND removal for the stax pieces.

I'd recommend reading a deck's primer before asking, as it's more detailed than most people will be.

I'm sure this has been brought up before at some point, but maybe Inalla, Archmage Ritualist deserved a place in tier 2 for her combo with Wanderwine Prophets . Sure, it takes a lot of mana, but with a god hand of fast mana, it can win the game on turn 1 without even having to cast Inalla. In fact, the deck literally never has to cast Inalla--prophets is literally a 1-card combo. Before you cry Force of Will , every combo deck in the format is weak to free countermagic.

Turn 1 wins are pretty rare in cEDH. Constantly threatening to win every turn after 1 is also pretty rare, frankly. There is literally not a single way for your opponents to get rid of Inalla apart from Mindslaver , and nobody ever does that, anyway (if you didn't know, you can choose where someone's commander goes if you're in control of their turn--that's basically the only way to permanently exile a commander, for instance).

Hey there, I've been play testing a Prime Speaker Vannifar Hulk cEDH deck. I find it relevant and consistent at turn 3. I think she could definitely make a spot in tier 1. I run her to an efficient spellseeker/body double to get summoner's pact and flash to hulk that way into the known Ezuri+Sage+4 free cost creatures. The deck can run it a bunch of different ways tho and when testing it against my shimmer zur and paradox sisay lists, it seems to be just as relevant/explosive.

Hi there, I've been playing this original jhoira list since it was spoiled. I have it tuned pretty well and have won multiple cedh tournaments with it. Please consider adding this deck to your list and let me know of any suggestions.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/10-04-18-jhoira-storm/?cb=1549143355