MH1 Update

This is our update for Modern Horizons. Please note that these placements are preliminary and will be subject to change over time. Please continue commenting and giving us feedback as you play with these cards so we can re-evaluate their position on the list for future updates.

Why are Thrasios and Tymna above everything else?

Approximately 30 months have gone by since the release of Commander 2016, and it's high time that we say with confidence that Thrasios, Triton Hero paired with Tymna the Weaver are powerful enough to warrant their own tier. The raw power of the card advantage of the pair, the combo potential enabled by Thrasios as the single best infinite mana outlet on a Commander, and the vast card pool of four-color translate to the unparalleled ubiquity of T&T in the higher power levels of Commander play.

Here is a short summary of the reasoning behind this analysis:

• The general flexibility of having two draw engines in the Command Zone gives immense openness to the strategy one may play beneath them. Every strategy wishes to draw cards and desires the consistency that additional card advantage offers from the Command Zone. This pushes out diversity in higher power environments, as it eclipses the (often weaker) niche advantages a more narrow synergy commander might contribute to a deck or strategy.

• The Partner mechanic allowing for two commanders in the command zone offers additional advantage before the game begins with the Partner player starting with an additional card they have access to. For T&T, this means an extremely consistent early curve available, which enables flexible mulligan keeps and options for divergence, as well as early board presence to stifle combat aggro (and other Tymna players). With commander tax being treated as separate for both commanders, it is difficult to interact by removing either of the low-cost T&T pair, as the other will be in untaxed reserve to rebuild from removal; additionally, the second casts of both commanders are easy to achieve, especially if the first casts have accrued any value while on board. Tertiarily, two cards in the Command Zone means that their 98 card decks are slightly more consistent than a 99 card deck.

• Thrasios is, bar none, the strongest Command Zone infinite mana outlet in the format. Unlike many others, he only requires colorless mana to go infinite. His value-activation case coupled with his low cost is much stronger than his direct competition, as his activations bank the best of two cards, with the possibility of direct ramp (which snowballs his activation potential). He notably is a 1/3, which blocks Tymna (a centralizing interaction) and is two powerful, supported types being a Merfolk Wizard.

• Tymna is an exceedingly powerful draw engine, drawing between 1 and 3 cards a turn if one is able to connect with any opponents. She creates a centralizing mini-game centered around engaging with her mechanic in bids to prevent draws, quickly flooding the pilot with insurmountable advantage if left unchecked, while being a losing proposition to spend cards answering, as she's not vital to the win conditions of the decks that play her. She punishes the entire pod if any player is playing a creature-light strategy.

Overall, the pair has shown to have centralizing effect on metagames that contain multiple T&T decks, and cripple commander diversity -- both in the scope of what is viable to stand up against them, and in the deck-brewing process, in which the force of "why not T&T?" is a suffocating question to attempt to answer.

Their general power has exceeded the ability of counter-meta forces to balance out the strongest and most aggressive decks. Having both the tools to win the game quickly and efficiently (Thrasios, Hulk) and being the best picks to grind out of interaction and stax (Tymna & Thrasios draw) make them essentially the default picks for maximizing win rate.

This is all for now. We'll be back soon with another update.

"options for divergence" in a redless build? They're still constrained by colour identity. :^)

Addendum:

Pir, Imaginative Rascal & Toothy, Imaginary Friend have been moved from Mid Power to High Power. Pir & Toothy represents a powerful draw engine in a color combination suitable to utilize it to solid gain.

Pir Imagination

WELL SINCE NO ONE IS SAYING ANYTHING.

I fully agree with the tier movement. T&T as a pair is generally the strongest thing to be doing in a vacuum, and they offer so many different, extremely relevant advantages and benefits at generally null deck constraints or concessions.

It's less so that the deck cannot be innately beaten, and it's more that they simply offer more than other commanders and the comparison isn't close. It's created somewhat of an optimization singularity where many commanders/strategies either don't measure up, or just outright benefit from being led by T&T.

I think they have now overall severely limit cEDH deck building and brewing with regards to actually viable strategies, and the listed reasons entail the paradigm well.

I agree that T + T are extremely strong, but I also believe that their presence has narrowed down and really helped to optimize the decks and commanders that pull their own weight against them. The Tainted Shimmer Zur lists are downright devastating, as are the new Urza and Food Chain Sliver lists emerging right now. In several playgroups in my area (NYC), Tainted Shimmer Zur leads Razakats, Shuffle Hulk, and MAD Farm in terms of win-rates by a sizable margin. While I do agree that they can homogenize sometimes, I also think that their influence has helped to really push some of the other decks to the next level in order to keep up.

Alexdagreat

I agree with you that Thras and Tym absolutely optimized the decks for cEDH. I think the problem though was that they were OVER centralizing. A common sign that something should be banned or is overpowered (in any competitive scene) is that the counter to that overpowered tactic is to use that same tactic, or adding in cards/tactics that specifically answers that tactic.

A case study was generation 5 competitive battling in Pokemon (idk if you know Pokemon but it'll still support my point). The most overpowered tactic was using teams based around a certain weather. People who didn't want to run weather teams were forced to run a Pokemon that brought out weather JUST so they can keep weather teams in check. As a result, the meta, while technically balanced, was uninspiring and team building became very linear with very little room for creativity.

Part of what makes Commander so great is that we have 99 slots that we can customize. Yes, some options are better than others, but to me, Thras and Tym overly narrow that room for cards that are viable. And for me, an overly narrow/focused meta becomes boring and shallow. Obviously this is one side of the argument and your side is absolutely valid. It's just a case of what we, as a meta, are going for.

Absolutely, and I totally see your point. I get that they've centralized a lot of strategies, how that can be unhealthy, and how there has to be specific tech designed to combat them. However, I do think they've brought creatures back to the meta in a way that's pretty neat, and I like how they've caused several other strategies to 'adapt or die'. Specifically, Doomsday Zur became FAR better with the Tainted Builds eschewing the clunky pieces for a faster, more compact win and the Shimmer Myr lines, and even some fringe decks that were able to lay down blockers effectively (Jhoira, Godo, Baral etc.) suddenly had a chance in metas they never did before due to the pressure from Tymna specifically against the spell-based, creatureless combo decks. I totally how they've dominated a lot of strategies, but I definitely support how they caused a lot of the other decks to either pull their own weight, or become obsolete.

"Adapt or die"

That's basically the main crux of the issue Alexdagreat. Tymna Thras isn't unbeatable, in fact they even have some weaknesses to things like blood moons, cursed totem, and pyroclasm, but it goes a little beyond that.

From a deck building for power point of view they just simply make it so that it's hard to justify running other generals which do even remotely similar things. To give a somewhat controversial example that might make some people upset, consider the new Urza versus Tymna Thras scepter. Urza is not strictly outclassed by the twins and it's ability to break parity on its own stax pieces, and the fact that it can dodge blood moon, are both relevant. But are those two qualities worth more than access to three additional colors, the power those bring in tutors, interaction, and additional combos, and a cheaper draw engine in the command zone? Some might say yes, those extra abilities are worth it. I'd argue that they have to make those claims in front of the Tymna player's Ad Naus.

What Tymna Thras combo did was make decks which do specialized things like Kess and Zur even more specialized. They adapted. But for the rest of the meta, in terms of generals, not in terms of strategies, it put some serious constraints in place that have really proven hard to shake off. In terms of using the language of 'adapt or die', when you have so many different species going out like that, the comparison would be to a mass extinction event.

That said, for Urza pilots and players of other generals whom this comment might be triggering, I think it's still pretty important to keep refining and playing your lists. Especially if you enjoy them. Lists can still be refined, you can build in such a way that it takes Tymna Thras into account and can deal with them, and Tymna Thras isn't so oppressive that it achieves 100% win rates or anything crazy like that. Pilot skill is a real effect that will contribute to win percentages, and that is something that goes beyond just picking the "best general" because you have to consider what "best" means for you personally. End rant.

Very well put. I liked the use of language in that response, especially about the die-off of all the other decks. The mass extinction does make sense, as we literally watched over a dozen generals suddenly become obsolete. Zur, Kess, and Urza all hold their own because they're extremely powerful and do different things, but yes, I see how they became more specialized. I like Zur the most because of how consistent and resilient the deck is. However, I do agree about the constraints, as, unless the general is ultra-powerful like Zur or Urza, there isn't much of a reason not to just jam Thrasios and Tymna into a strategy.

I think we all agree that a ban on one of them would be a good thing for the meta right now.

Ban of Protean Hulk again... Take Breakfast Hulk out of the meta.

Animar, soul of elements should be bumped up to the top of the list. I win 90% of the games I play with it no matter the play group. It can consistently win turn 4 and is very resilient. You almost have to plan around stopping him.

The comment of Modern Horizon's update forgot to mention Urza being in the tier 1 slot.

That aside, T&T being tier 0 somehow doesn't surprise me. While I haven't seen it for myself, for all I heard about it, I can certainly see why their at tier 0. There may come a point in time where they'll have to take a small hit in power. We'll see for sure in the future though.

Would you guys consider placing the Mid Power and Casual Commanders in collapsible spoiler tags? Having an immense list of 400+ Commanders flooding the screen at all times makes navigating this page very cumbersome.

YutoTheXYZian - It's in there: Urza, Lord High Artificer - Maximum Power

The Blue card pool has proven to be quite strong in EDH, and Urza adds a very strong Commander option for it. We expect him to supersede Teferi as the prime Mono Blue Commander once his 99 is properly figured out.

DblBeast - Can that be done within a decklist? I thought it's only possible in the description.

LabManiac_Sigi Shoot, you're right. But, I suppose the Mid & Casual list could just be moved to the description. In the first paragraph of the description mentioning Mid Power & Casual Commanders, you can add that due to the sheer number of Mid Power & Casual Commanders that exist, they will be noted in a collapsible list below to avoid flooding the page.

Players can deduce where certain Commanders stand if they're not anywhere in the T&T to High Power tiers, and from the descriptions you gentlemen have provided for each tier.

The other thing with T&T is that they are so good that I run them in casual decks. The amount of draw and the fact that they draw is just so versatile that whenever I’m looking to build a multicolor foodstuff, control, or midrange casual deck, there’s just very few arguments to not run T&T. Not only does it suffocate cEDH but it suffocates regular EDH, though to a much lesser extent.

And if one of them were to get banned, I would say that Thrasios should get banned. He’s just too good an outlet for infinite mana only needing colorless mana. Tymna is really good, but doesn’t just win the game on the spot.

Which decklist is associated with Kraum, Ludevic's Opus moving to maximum power?

the_unseen89

Opus Thief

Love the change with adding competitive as a category between cedh decks and high power decks.

The link to the Ghave list should be updated.

This is the author's new thread.

I support collapsing mid power with casual and moving it into the description.

shouldnt Anafenza, the Foremost (Razakats) be at least high power?

Just commenting to show my support of the MH1 update. I was pretty blown away to see Urza taking the Tier 1 spot from Teferi, but I must admit that it's probably fairly reasonable to only have one Mono Blue spot in tier 1 and Urza does seem pretty busted. I'm currently building Yawgmoth (to go alongside Kess + Tasigur) and think he is right at home at Tier 3 even in the most optimal situation possible! Thanks for all the hard work guys :)

Hello all, I would like to provide a decklist for Aminatou, the fateshifter : http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/haiti-cherie/ She's a good engine into a consolation list/ad nauseam with strong hand sculpting and blink ability.

I don't think my list is perfect in anyway (meaning that I've budget restriction), but I also think that Aminatou could be upgraded from high tier to competitive list in a unlimited budget list. If any of you have any constructive suggestion to offer, I'll listen to perfect the list. Thanks in advance !