Freyalise is leagues stronger than Nahiri. -2 destroy artifact/enchantment is so much better than an equipment drop, and Freyalise's tokens can actually do something other than hold a sword. Mono G is better than mono W anyway. Ramp is so much easier and Freyalise does a pretty good job of dominating the board. Nahiri is really cool, but not the same tier as Freyalise.

Indeed. The best build for 5C currently is Hermit Druid, which wins by reanimating Necrotic Ooze while Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius and any infinite mana pair (usually Devoted Druid and Morselhoarder) are in the GY. Scion can also win via Niv by entombing him and Worldgorger Dragon, then casting Necromancy or either of the other two reanimator enchantments (generates infinite mana). It's essentially a one-card combo with three interchangeable pieces. Additionally, he can one-hit an opponent with Skithyrix + Moltensteel and do a bit of toolboxing with Dragon Mage, Teneb, or other utility dragons as needed. For those reasons, he's miles better than any 5C commander.

The difference here is that Scion can serve as a tutor for backup combos (namely Worldgorger Dragon) while Sliver Queen is merely a finisher for a combo once you have infinite mana. She is technically part of a combo with Mana Echoes but she doesn't tutor for it. Sliver Overlord is really the only Sliver commander worth considering going up a tier since he can tutor for game-winning combos involving Slivers, which there are.

None of them are as good for Hermit Druid as Scion though simply because of "easy" (3WUBRG plus the cost of Animate Dead/Dance of the Dead/Necromancy to do it without Entomb) access to a backup win condition with Worldgorger Dragon. The other 5 color commanders don't have this, which makes them inferior even though you could run a similar strategy with them.

If you wanted to, you could trivialize a lot of top tier generals by saying "they're only good for their colors and a minor other feature". For example, how often do Jeleva Storm players actually cast their general? Rarely. Does this make her better than other generals in her colors, like Sedris and Marchesa? Yes, because Storm is generally considered to be the best Grixis playstyle and those two do very little to help that strategy. Although you will rarely cast Jeleva, when you do she yields better results for your given gameplan than other Grixis generals do. You could talk similarly about Zur - people only really cast him when they have nothing better to do but grab Necropotence. Does this make him better than Oloro? Yes, because grabbing Necropotence is better than gaining life. I should note that I'm not comparing Zur to Sharuum here because Sharuum and Zur's optimal deck configurations rarely overlap in function unless you decide to build them both as Esper stax decks, in which case Zur would probably be slightly better since he's cheaper and he can grab stuff like Solitary Confinement. You could do the same for Karador and Tasigur since Karador is functionally just a reanimation spell and Tasigur is just an infinite combo outlet (and rarely a draw engine).

Why don't we trivialize them this way? Because the purpose of this list is to rank decks that are in an optimized state. If a deck relies on its colors more than its commanders, then the commander that has a beneficial effect, no matter how insignificant it may seem, will be a better commander than other commanders in those same colors. That's why Scion is considered top tier for Hermit Druid combo decks and the rest aren't.

I've gone on long enough, but I'll just finish by talking more about slivers. I can't believe Hivelord is above Legion. Legion is basically if Craterhoof Behemoth were a sliver. If anyone can explain to me how that's worse than making your slivers hard to remove, I'd love to hear it. And don't bring up symmetry - the advantages your opponents gain from you having Legion in play are nearly insignificant compared to the advantage you have. The only case where that wouldn't be true would be in a match where multiple players are playing sliver decks, in which case the whole game would be a hot mess anyway even before the generals hit the field.

any1 see any speculation on where new emra-cruel stands in CEDH? I want to say tier 3 but karn is slightly better to me in most scenarios. Thoughts?

Sorry if this isnt the place to post this but i wanna ask around on thoughts on its CEDH place.

It's too early to say for sure, but unless something big is revealed in EMN that colorless decks can really abuse, Emrakul the Promised End is most likely Tier 4. Both Kozileks and Karn are better than him for colorless generals, and, speaking from experience, colorless EDH decks are generally not that good. The Mindslaver effect is marginally useful, you could even take out a few opponents with it if you know what you're doing and how to pilot their decks, but it depends too much on the decks you're facing to be consistent. The body and evasion aren't anything special since killing with commander damage rarely ever happens in competitive EDH. It's not indestructible and it's now vulnerable to sorceries. Also it can be countered. Any one of these individually would make it slightly worse than original Emrakul, but all of them together make it drastically inferior. I can't even see it being used in the 99 of most competitive EDH decks, let alone as a commander.

But at least new Emrakul isn't as bad as Ulrich.

The new Emrakul is awful. Even Tier 4 is a stretch for her. Not much else to say.

Hey, I don't think this card will be competitive at all but what's everyone's thoughts on the new werewolf commander?

Link for those who haven't seen ithttp://mythicspoiler.com/emn/cards/ulrichofthekrallenhorde.html

I hate Ulrich. boring. worthless.

decent in standard, great in limited, boring crap everywhere else.

I won't disagree with you, horrible overall. Not a competive commander in any way.

Interesting concept though: Gruul politics? Oh you want that creature dead, any way you can go a turn without a spell?

Another idea I have for him is just Voltron (again I don't think he will be competive). A deck of instants to buff him to murder a creature or punch in enough for a kill?

Even though he is a weak card over all, he does offer an interesting playstyle. He is kind of useless though if he flips to a human on someone else's turn...

I know this is a place for competive builds and he isn't. However, I feel like he has potential as an interesting commander or at least fun one. And I was wondering if you guys can think of anything, any cards, really, that adheres to being useful with him. I think the biggest mistake people are making with him is that they want to run a werewolf tribal, which in my opinion is not the way a deck around him wants to be built.

Apologies about the formatting in my other post =/

Comparing scion as HD combo and atogatog as...what, atog tribal? is kind of comparing apples to oranges. If the list is "what's the most optimized possible list for any given commander?" then obviously the 5c commanders would dominate the list, even if they're functionally useless, because they have access to the best cards and combos. On the other hand, if the list is "what are the best decklists assuming we're trying to build around the commander's ability?" then scion probably isn't tier 1.

Right now the list is a sort of hybrid where it's assuming the most optimized decklists for a few commanders but the "build around the commander" decklists for the rest. I guess it's useful to have both types of decks in the same list, but it seems a little weird to assume that scion is playing HD whereas atogatog isn't. Frankly I'd be more worried about atogatog if I sat down next to him, NO ONE plays atogatog as a tribal commander and it's almost definitely some degenerate nonsense, whereas most scion lists I've seen are dragon decks and not HD.

In my experience, most people are playing a build-around-the-commander list that falls mostly into the tiers listed, and a very small number are playing one of the netdecked fast combo lists. Certainly they come up occasionally, but if I was making the list, I'd maybe have 2 entries for any given combo commander - one for the more typical build-around-me list, and one that's specifically for the combo list. Just because one guy plays a Karador combo list (which still doesn't look tier 1 to me, but whatever) doesn't mean that Karador is a particularly powerful commander, or that you need to freak out and kill him ASAP when he sits down next to you. And just because someone is playing Atogatog definitely doesn't mean you're safe to ignore them.

The "best possible deck" list is boring because 99% of commanders contribute almost nothing to their optimized decklist and tiers are really flat. The "build around the commander deck" list is necessarily non-competitive because that's usually not the most powerful deck for that commander. But calling this a competitive ranking and then assuming atogatog is playing atog tribal or something is kind of a contradiction. I think the only way to "have it all" is to label the combo lists as their own lists, including the commander if you prefer, but separating out the more typical build for that commander into a lower tier. The list can't be a "competitive" ranking without being boring and flat with a lot of very repetitive combo decklists and commanders that have no synergy with their own deck.

In other news - Freyalise doesn't really do anything interesting. Sure, mono-green is better than mono-white and her abilities are fine, but in her own deck she doesn't really do anything that can't be done better with other cards. Nahiri synergizes perfectly with the best things mono-white has to offer, and makes her deck powerful in a way it can't be without her. Mono white is kind of awful, but Nahiri can actually make it pretty powerful. Freyalise could be replaced with practically any other decent mono-green commander without missing much, she only looks good because she's supported by better cards. She takes silver and makes gold. Nahiri takes lead and makes gold. Personally I'd say she's the better alchemist.

Also - lots of decks straight-up cannot answer Humility, and Nahiri plays it better than any other commander. Humility into land-wipe never fails to force a table scoop.

All of this is way less important than figuring out why the hell Dralnu is tier though 4 o_O

It doesn't matter if Nahiri makes a white deck better, that deck would still get owned into the sun by a Freyalise deck. It also doesn't matter if most EDH decks aren't optimized, we're looking for the best possible lists and the commanders that helm them.

As for Dralnu, his ability is powerful but the drawback is crippling and having a huge drawback that your opponents know is coming puts a ceiling on how good he can be. And sure, blue has counterspells, but the best decks in the format don't need to use counterspells to protect their general from both dying and making all their permanents die.

Sidisi is where she is because BUG is probably the best color combination in Commander and she can contribute to graveyard shenanigans. Just because most people build tier 4 lists with her doesn't mean she's tier 4 power level.

Karador is absolutely tier one and Teneb isn't that far behind, dismissing both commanders is a bit silly. That deck is extremely powerful.

Atogatog doesn't belong in any conversation with Scion, let's be real. One general tutors for backup win conditions, one either helms a godawful tribal deck or sits in your command zone not doing anything ever. I don' really get the point of the comparison, especially backed up by anecdotal evidence that "most scion lists I've seen are dragon decks and not HD". It doesn't matter what you've seen or not seen, Scion is the better general for the deck because it does something.

@himetic: You're right in some regards. By default, any Sultai, Grixis, Esper, Abzan or 5C commander deck can reach at least tier 2 power levels regardless of the commander. However, we're assuming 100% optimization here. Nobody is going to play Dakkon Blackblade in Esper Storm when Zur the Enchanter exists. It's illogical. Thus, both to reflect that simple fact and keep the tier lists relatively clean and manageable, we limit the representation of each deck color + strategy to no more than the two commanders that best aid the deck. For example, Abzan Boonweaver Giant combo is a powerhouse no matter which commander helms it. However, Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Teneb, the Harvester are the best commanders for it because they help assemble the combo on field while also providing superb utility. By the same token, the credit to 5C combo goes to Scion (tutor) and Sliver Queen (infinite mana outlet) because they're simply the best commanders for the deck.

It's not a perfect system by any means. There are two ends of the spectrum, neither of which are viable. Listing only commanders by their build-around power doesn't work, because at that point we're left with Edric and handful of other commanders. Listing decks purely by the power of their color identities don't work either, because it becomes either an unreadable mess, or a simple tool to rank different identities, neither of which is useful. Thus we're forced to compromise and use the current hybrid system.

If you have any suggestions for improving how the Tiers are organized, I'm all ears. Complaining alone doesn't aid the process though.

As for Dralnu.... He has an amazing ability, true. He also has a backbreakingly horrifying drawback akin in nature and effect to Reverse Annihilator. He also costs a whopping five mana.

I think the best way to look at him is to compare him to Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip; a similar commander.

Cost: JVP costs 2 mana. He comes down turn 1-2. His low cost makes many opponents reluctant to target him with removal, because killing a 2-drop with a 3-drop Beast Within is typically regarded as a bad play. Dralnu costs 5. He comes down turn 2-5. His high cost and obvious effect make him an excellent target for removal, or better yet, Lightning Bolt.

Abilities: Their main effect (flashback) is identical. Jace flips roughly the same turn Dralnu comes down on average, giving him a 1-turn clock advantage in that regard since Walkers can activate the turn they enter. In addition, Jace is more relevant in the early game, digging and filtering cards. Meanwhile, Dralnu again has that second absolutely crippling ability. Favor: Jace by a mile.

Color identity: Dralnu obviously wins here. He gains access to all the great black win conditions and power cards.

The gap between JVP and Dralnu is AT LEAST a tier and a half. Jace is up near the top end of Tier 2. That puts Dralnu somewhere at the upper end of Tier 4/lower end of Tier 3. His placement isn't terribly innacurate.

@yavimaya_eldred

Freyalise has a natural advantage vs nahiri because her -2 is a good answer to Nahiri's most powerful card (humility), as well as tying up her loyalty counters by forcing her to return equipment so she can't do better stuff, so a straight up freyalise vs nahiri isn't a good matchup for nahiri. Plus freyalise is one of the very few commanders who don't get cleared by the infinite boardwipes nahiri will be running. That said, I still think Nahiri is the better card and the better deck against the meta at large. Most people are not equipped to handle the tools Nahiri uses. Which isn't true in top-tier competitive tables, but let's be honest, both of them are garbage in that setting anyway. You're free to disagree.

Dralnu plays black with nearly every available tutor, thanks to his insane synergy with them. If the man needs a lightning greaves, he gets himself a lightning greaves. Most decks don't use damage to kill creatures anyway, since most damage-based removal sucks, and lightning-bolt size stuff is a drag but won't necessarily stop him from winning the following turn. And let me reiterate - if he untaps, he wins the game. That is not tier 4, even if once in a blue moon you get wrecked by some random earthquake or whatever.

@NarejED

"we're assuming 100% optimization here"

No, you aren't. Whatever imaginary list you're using for atogatog, it's definitely not "100% optimized". If you're only building a fully optimized decklist including commander, then logically you can't even PLAY atogatog. It can't even exist on this list, because you'd always optimize to a better commander if you're 100% optimizing. For that matter, you'd presumably always replace teneb with karador (assuming he's actually the better commander for that combo deck, I don't actually know or care). If you're 100% optimizing including commander, then 97% of the commanders wouldn't even be on the list, because you can't have an optimized list with them in it. And if you're 100% optimizing excluding commanders, then all 5c decklists look the same and the list is boring. Clearly neither of those things is currently happening.

Personally I think the most interesting list is "how powerful is the commander as a card?" Are they powerful when built around, i.e. purphoros? Or are they powerful because they don't need any support, i.e. damia? Not the "this commander is pretty mediocre, but they're the best option for this stupid combo deck therefore they're the best commander ever" list. So that's what I would do if it were my list. But if you want to include the combo decks, I'd list them separately. I feel like I already said that - either rank the commanders on their own merits, or include combo decks as their own entries. I'm not sure why you think I'm just complaining, I've already offered several suggestions, but now I guess I've just offered them again.

Comparing Jace to Dralnu is ridiculous. Jace does not win when he untaps. Jace has access to far fewer tutors and can't activate his ability more than once or twice, barring extreme circumstances. It's like comparing voltron rafiq to voltron isamuru. Sure, isamaru is cheaper, less likely to bait removal, and he sort of does the same thing, But rafiq does it infinitely better, and has better colors. Besides that, we're still presumably playing with the broken multiplayer banlist, which means dralnu can come out turn 3 a pretty hefty percentage of the time - I think one of at least 6 cards enables him coming out on turn 3 - not counting single-shot stuff like dark rit or multiple card combinations that get 5 mana on turn 3. I'm honestly baffled how anyone can fail to see that he's minimum tier 2 - if he untaps, HE WINS THE GAME. Sometimes he doesn't even need to untap to win the game. How many other commanders does that describe? Not "if he untaps he gives you a significant advantage", he literally wins the game with any single one of many, many, many cards in hand or even in the grave. I like jace, he's cool and cute and fun, but he does not literally require removal to avoid instantly losing.

I could maybe accept tier 3 if you played in some bizzarro universe where everyone plays lightning axes and whatnot, but tier 4 is insanity. He's below volrath the fallen. What the hell? Volrath costs more, kills one person at a time, has worse colors, requires pretty specific cards and board state to kill even one person AND is card disadvantage when you do. Dralnu has "T: win the game". Am I going insane? How can that possibly be tier 4?

addendum - just finished reading the jace primer. Jace looks pretty strong. He's no isamaru. And he does actually contribute to his deck, albeit not as crucially as dralnu. That said, dralnu is more resilient than jace imo, who I can't see winning if he can't find high tide. Dralnu does have weakness to some burn spells, almost none of which get played, but he can win with any single one of a huge number of cards. Personally I'd put them in the same tier - tier 2.

Kaalia of the Vast is definitely tier1

The versatility in Freyalise's abilities far outways Nahiri's. Nahiri is too focused on equipment and best case scenario drops a Batterskull or other large equipment with her when she comes down. Freyalise worst case makes a mana dork. Best case destroys a key permanent in play. Nahiri worst case makes a vanilla 1/1. Nahiri may have a higher ceiling in regular EDH, but the Naturalize Freyalise has is so much better in cEDH. Nahiri is just too narrow of a card to be better. She has almost no versatility on her own, and relies heavily on other cards to be good.

Just for consideration, I feel Geist of Saint Traft should be reevaluated from Tier Five. While he may not be Tier One material, I definitely feel like 5 is incredibly low considering his power for aggro and personal protection as a naturally low cost hexproof commander in strong color options.

IMO he definitely does not belong in a tier with Ur-Drago and Tymaret, the Murder King, considering some of the options in Tiers 4 and 3 above him.

For example, [FoilMTG] Geist Enchanted EDH.

@himetic The problem with claiming Nahiri decks are stronger than Freyalise decks is that you're claiming a mono white deck is better than a mono green deck. I don't even see what Humility has to do with anything, plenty of decks can either win through it, counter it, remove it, or do all of the above. Any white deck can run Humility, and mono white still sucks. Nahiri is more interesting and build-around, sure, but definitely not better.

And yes, we are talking about 100% optimized lists with the commander as a consideration. Sure, Karador is better than Teneb most of the time, but Teneb does have advantages over Karador that might be relevant in certain metas (his ability gets around counterspells whereas Karador's doesn't). On balance, Karador will be better, but not strictly better. The general is part of the equation, even if the don't often contribute to the deck's gameplan (Jeleva being the primary example). Again, the problem with the Atogatog comparison is Atogatog would simply be a placeholder in the command zone with no abilities that contribute to the deck, and that goes against the spirit of the list (it used to say no strictly placeholder commanders in the tiers description, thegigibeast should probably add it again to reduce confusion). Scion has a dragon toolbox of sorts and backup kill conditions, Sliver Queen has an infinite mana combo, AtogAtog just does nothing. For an optimized 5 color deck that actually utilizes Atogatog's ability, you have to add some extremely bad cards, and then you're talking about a pretty bad deck.

@Pwnographic Kaalia is the epitome of tier three. As per the tier description;

These decks are somewhat weak. They can't usually compete against tier 1 decks, but might do fine with tier 2 decks. They usually have "the Aggro Problem," or they are wildly inconsistent. Most of the "pubstomp" decks that dominate casual metas (Kaalia, Uril) go in here. They may have a bad reputation, but that doesnt' make them tier 1.

@USNVox Geist has been discussed on this thread before, and sadly he is painfully bad in multiplayer. Voltron aggro is the worst archetype by far, and Geist doesn't have the benefits of Bruna (evasion+tutor) or Uril/Rafiq (additional color and bonus for auras/attacking). In a multiplayer game Geist is generally going to function as an occasional Exquisite Firecraft and little else, and at best will kill one opponent, unless everyone else at the table is playing jank decks of their own.

That's an awkward typo. It discusses Kaalia being in Tier 3, but she's actually Tier 2.

Honestly I think naturalize in the command zone - or almost any "answer" ability - is pretty overrated. Everyone knows you have it. No one is playing a key artifact/enchantment when they know you can remove it. Sure, forcing them to play around it can be powerful, but I would never expect her to come down and remove anything great, unless that "great" thing is really bait for something more important.

Mono-white is definitely a weak identity, but a not-insignificant part of that is most playgroups abstain from its most powerful tools - mass LD, stax, irresponsible numbers of board wipes - whereas basically all of green's tools are acceptable.

Honestly talking about Nahiri OR freyalise in terms of competitive EDH is ridiculous though. Neither even approaches the top-tier lists.

I'll stop arguing freyalise vs nahiri since I've only played the precon version of freyalise, so I'm definitely conjecturing. But I will say that I think nahiri should be tier 3. As someone who's played optimized Aurelia, Ojutai (2.0, 1.0 is garbage), geth, glissa, kozilek, krenko, kurkesh, merieke, triplets, talrand, teysa, uril, Vish Kal, wort, XHD, zedruu, zirilan, and zurgo, I would say she fit pretty squarely in the middle, even upper middle, of the "tier 3" decks I've played. better than aurelia, kozilek, krenko, kurkesh, merieke, triplets, uril, vish kal, wort, zirilan, and zurgo, at least for my decklists. Mine were probably not 100% optimized, but not too far off - I do have access to every card, and I've been building EDH decks for 7 years, so I can brew up pretty decent lists imo.

That's my educated opinion, do with it what you will.

on atogatog:

I would bet you could replace dragons with atogs in HD and still have it be better than just about any mono-red decklist. But let's talk about Cromat instead. Cromat doesn't really have any major synergy that forces subpar picks for the deck according to this "no placeholder" rule, so he's free to be optimized into a HD combo deck that's at least tier 2 or so. Yet he's still tier 5. So what's this theoretical "optimized decklist" that's still leaving him in tier 5?

What do you guys think of Mayael the Anima power level?

Cromat should be tier 4. It can win on turn 1 with very favorable hand, if nobody has Force of Will and through Force of Will with it's own Force of Will or Misdirection and blue card, if hand is lucky enough to have those.

That's a weird comment. Cromat should be tier 4 because it can maybe win turn 1? That sounds better than tier 4 to me.

Really, I prefer Cromat as tier 5 because he's a garbage card, but I was mostly using him to prove my point that a list using "100% optimized decks" is kind of boring. Comparing the power level of the commanders themselves is way more interesting. Otherwise it becomes mostly about color identity for most commanders. Yawn.

The 5c General thing has been discussed before. Sure, all of them CAN be a HD deck, but Scion is the best bad option for said deck. That's why he is counted for HD and none of the other ones are. Short of literally putting HD into the tier list, this is the best way of showing that.