Noctem they didnt want to jump the gun before they found the best shell for him. i think he should go up, since he seems to be on the power level of tasigur.

also, kaho can function as a decent control deck without the commander being out

Hotcake_Gotsyrup that's fair. Plenty of time to see how he performs in the coming weeks.

@Hotcake_Gotsyrup exile a Time Walk effect. Kaho lock.

What instant speed Time Walk effect is there outside of red?

Wouldn't Kaho change the timing of the exiled spell?

oh nm it's JUST instants that you remove from the game. Then yeah, that doesn't work.

Also, even if there was a instant Time Walk effect in blue, that's not a lock. When you cast a spell from exile with Kaho's ability, it moves from exile to the stack and proceeds to resolve the same as any other spell, ending up in your graveyard.

As for giving her (the card art looks female to me, and she's not a kami) protection / haste, you then need enough mana to cast her and a spell you exiled with her in the same turn, and you'll still lose the other two spells you exiled if anyone boardwipes.

Essentially having Kaho as you commander means that if anyone disrupts your strategy it's effectively like you just Jester's Cap'ed yourself for your three best instants.

Lastly, and this has been brought up here time and again, but I'll reiterate, any blue commander can can function as a decent control deck without the commander being out. We can move up every blue commander just because blue is good color, especially if that commander doesn't directly contribute to a control strategy. (Maybe this is something that should be added to the FAQ or common misconceptions Leinahtan?)

agreed on the adding to the FAQ suggestion.

I'll write something on it when I get home. It's like the time when people wanted Cromat moved up.

What was the argument presented?

Just that you could make a 5c combo list with him just fine. Sure, it's true, but it'll be better with Scion.

I don't disagree with those higher tiers (not do I ever want to see or play those decks featured xD) but I do raise my eyebrows at some of the inclusions in either categories 3 and 4.

For example: Here are some commanders in T3 that I'm skeptical of their utility and reasons why:

• Volrath the Fallen - Mono black and high cost, no protection, just some voltron-y discard ability. He's a very expensive reanimator engine so I just don't see where his value over some of the T4 generals could be coming from.
• Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed - an unblockable 3/2 is the main use of this guy I'm sure because his other ability is pretty bad. I'm guessing this guy is on here just because of Hatred? I just don't see it aside from that one interaction that everyone would see coming and it would only kill one player at best.
• Bruna, the Fading Light - I'm definitely not seeing what's going on here. Is this on here strictly because her ability is uncounterable?
• Chainer, Dementia Master - He's also so expensive to get running and requires all black mana to be useful. His combo potential is also limited because of his loss of life and exile clause. I'd need to see a list before I believed this one.
• Crosis, the Purger - He's very expensive and you'd have to get around to your turn again with him alive for him to do anything. And even then you aren't even guaranteed to get that many cards from your opponent. I could see Thraximundar being better for a grixis goodstuff deck. And what does R give you over other decks anyway? There are plenty of T4 blue and black generals that could probably have more effective lists than this guy's
• Daxos of Meletis - I'm actually not surprised at all by this I'm just curious to see an effective list that runs him because I have never before.
• Dromar, the Banisher - Now this one I really don't understand. Half the time he hits someone he'll be bouncing himself and something else on your board to your hand! Angus Mackenzie and Jenara, Asura of War & Rubinia Soulsinger seem way better to me.
• Kemba, Kha Regent - This is one of the most inconsistent, commander dependent, and antisynergistic commanders I can think of. Now I don't mind her, in fact I like her and I even tried to build her but I just couldn't deal with those above three complaints. She demands equipments to utilize her ability and her ability is a token ability so those equipments won't really be helping them out, she requires low cost and low equip cost equipment in order to get even more than just one token reliably, and all this maneuvering is basically just to get a voltron commander with no inherent protection, evasion, etc and some cat tokens. It's crazy to me that Odric, Lunarch Marshal is lower on this list to me because when I built them both the latter was way superior. Kataki, War's Wage, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Mangara of Corondor, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Yosei, the Morning Star all seem better to me.
• Nath of the Gilt-Leaf - how is this guy any better than Varolz, the Scar-Striped, Rhys the Exiled, or Skullbriar, the Walking Grave?Numot, the Devastator - what advantage does this guy have over Ruhan of the Fomori? I'm just really not seeing this T3 dragons man help me to understand!Queen Marchesa - Has someone already built a really good commander list with her or something? Is she just here because she's playable in her colors? She can get a few hits in no problem but that monarchy token is probably going to be handing your opponents cards pretty reliably as well so she ends up being a little like the Kami of the Crescent Moon. She's interesting because she's so new but how have you already determined she's at the same level as Zurgo Helmsmasher?

Also there's a lot of things up with the T4 list as well. Why are borderline useless commanders like Maga, Traitor to Mortals, Tibor and Lumia Garza Zol, Plague Queen mixed in with actually useful ones like Sygg, River Cutthroat & Keranos, God of Storms? I feel like the vast disparity between these two levels of play warrants another tier level distinction. I also feel like some of the T5 generals probably deserve to be set aside from the trash that is basically vanilla commanders. If there was another tier in between 5 and 4 then you could probably justify moving commanders like Cromat, Council of Orzhova, Tymaret, the Murder King, and Llawan, Cephalid Empress (this bitch in basically a Blue goodstuff deck alone can take on a lot of higher tier decks I'm sure), et al, this would at least distinguish them from the commanders that basically do nothing.

I just have quite a few questions about this list and I don't doubt that it's methodical but none of that process is outlined in the description for inquiring people like myself. Who is in charge of making and maintaining this list and who does that person consult with?

Also how do you feel about this point? It looks to me like this list is built from the top down. The most useful part of this list is in detailing the top 2 tiers of decks which are basically "solved" and predictably good mostly because of the 99 and not often because of the commanders themselves. What I mean by that is that most of the cards in these decklists are functionally the same because they are the cards with the highest power levels. These top decks are more "controlled" because there are less variables changing between them therefore it's easier to judge the independent variable of the commander with them. For example the decklists for most Teferi, Temporal Archmage and Arcum Dagsson lists are probably pretty similar so it's easy to see that, for those cards, Teferi is the better commander. The same is true for Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Teneb, the Harvester. This approach works at the most competitive levels but it breaks down in sense and applicability the further you go down in the tier the list.

The reason I think this breaks down is because I'm assuming that what you're doing with T3 and lower, is that you're looking at them and asking yourself how they would perform when piloting the most competitive cards possible like the upper tier lists. I think that this makes the list lose its value because it's absurd to assume that the people with lower-tiered generals are playing with higher tiered, more constant 99 as well.

But my point is that if the people running these decks had those higher tier cards and sought to be optimally competitive they would likely have purchased one of the higher tier commanders to go along with them. Basically what I'm trying to get at is that the list is less valuable to actual EDH players regarding those tiers because, and I'm assuming you would admit this yourself, you put cards like Crosis, the Purger higher in the tier list more for just the access to the colors and due to the commander being a slightly more marginal benefit to the ultracompetitive 99 over, say Thraximundar whos function is more redundant due to the fact that ultracompetitive decks don't run as many creatures or that the Grixis 99 is already capable of handling creatures super well and doesn't do Voltron well or something.

People who would be actually playing with these commanders would likely be doing so with less of a budget to spare for the 99 (or with just a particular preference to play with less powerful decks) and hence it would remove all capacity to judge commanders from the "top-down," from the competitive to the noncompetitive because the card base "meta" would cease to be a "control" like it is for the higher tiers. For T3 and lower I just think that it would be more valuable for the commanders to be judged more on their own merit and "value" (by that I mean their cmc to power/utility ratio) because the 99 is entirely too diverse at their level of play to make "meta" judgments about them and if not that then I think this list would be improved by at least offering a disclaimer that says you're judging cards from the point of view of which commanders provide the most benefit to the most expensive and powerful cards a person is running (so it's basically like judging Norin the Wary with how he does with a $2000 deck vs other $2000 dollar decks instead of how he does against the $100-$200 dollar decks he might actually run in to).

They told me adderall would help me focus on my work.They were so wrong lol.

• heya guy, i think i can sort a couple of these out
• volrath the fallen can discard at instant speed during combat, this is a super easy way to both get good cmndr dmg in, and fill your grave.
• xaihou dun, the one eyed : im pretty sure he is monoblack storm or doomsday which is a decent strat. plus he can get back your yawgy will.
• bruna, fading light: you can use her to fetch pieces i guess. i think she is better in the 99 to get back another piece in karador, while also pulling a body. also you cant counter it, kek.
• chainer can assemble mike trike from the grave, and a couple other creature based combos
• khemba is good because even if she dies, you just strap up any ol dude and he gets swole, it isnt the best. also she essentially blends going wide and tall in the fairest way possible
• dromar bounced my answer. no clue. (there is a neat trick you can do to bounce all lands)
• crosis hand peeks in grixis and forces discards to clear the way for combos and stuff.
• daxos of meletis is just a decent voltron general in good colors, and has a better effect than geist.
• nath hand disruption is #bonkers and in bg he can use those tokens either to push through stax or just use as fodder for effects
• q marchesa, prison is bullshit
• ruhan vs numot: one sided mld is better than randomly swinging with a 7/7 with no protection.
• skullbriar voltrons really slow
• rhys gains you life with a tiny body,
• varolz: exiling creatures from your own grave is bad news bears. see pharika.
• we don't use specific metas when judging, no budget, no unnecessary themes or gimmicks. the fact that people could buy those better commanders makes the the worse ones, well, worse. a 5k norin list will be worse than a 5k daretti list. again it isn't about the people playing, or their budgets, it is about the maximum application of a commander with the cards available to you. (too lazy to format this well)

Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed's second ability is why he is good. Remember that Black doesn't have Eternal Witness. A great ability at the helm of splashy mono-black control / combo. But, not as fast, as useful, or as resilient as other commanders, so tier 3.

Chainer, Dementia Master -- mono black has a ton of black mana and lots of life gain. You can sacrifice things to avoid exile, that's kindof the whole point. Consider Gray Merchant of Asphodel as a great target when combined with Phyrexian Altar.

Crosis, the Purger -- powerful ability but I agree.

Dromar, the Banisher -- I am also confused

Nath of the Gilt-Leaf is a savage stax commander. When opponents discard cards, you get tokens. That's the main advantage over generals without that ability and with the same colors

Queen Marchesa -- I think just there for a placeholder

Numot, the Devastator -- main advantage is that he destroys target lands... That ability is very strong, especially with access to a wide range of 'blow up / sacrifice' lands in those colors.

Maga, Traitor to Mortals is a dump for infinite mana in mono black control that eliminates one opponent. Not useless.. but not great.

"I just have quite a few questions about this list and I don't doubt that it's methodical but none of that process is outlined in the description for inquiring people like myself."

Yeah, we have already discussed how none of this makes any sense and have already "decided as a community" that we will not try to identify sensible features of each commander by which to classify or an organic number of clusters. Don't worry about it m8.

That weakness in the system acknowledged, this is purely a competitive list... so ....

"The reason I think this breaks down is because I'm assuming that what you're doing with T3 and lower, is that you're looking at them and asking yourself how they would perform when piloting the most competitive cards possible like the upper tier lists. I think that this makes the list lose its value because it's absurd to assume that the people with lower-tiered generals are playing with higher tiered, more constant 99 as well..."

doesn't make sense in that context. This isn't supposed to be the list for all types of game, just for competitive games, where people absolutely are running the best cards possible.

I'd like to see a Tier 1.5 list added. There are fringe T1 decks (like Narset) that are better than most all of the T2 decks, even if they aren't quite T1 any longer. I think this would better stratify the decks, especially with the clear differences that exist even within the top 60 cards that comprise T1 and T2 on this list.

There is a lot of ambiguity without a list like this and it would also enable some legends that are currently listed in Tier 3 (because they are too far from comparable to the T2 legends that really should be in T1.5) to be properly categorized in Tier 2.

By re-categorizing the (probably) 6-10 generals currently in T2 that should be in T1.5, I believe that this would be a better tool for clearly defining the format. There is a large difference between the Top and the Bottom of T2 and it would be be beneficial for players to be able to identify that Narset is far more potent than Sekuar, because at the moment, that would be difficult to do without specialized knowledge. If the intent of this tier list is to give straightforward information regarding aggregate/average power levels associated with certain decks, then a T1.5 makes a world of sense, especially when downgrading incredibly powerful decks from T1 when they don't really belong in T2 either. This also allows for burgeoning competitive decks to not be stuck in T2 when they are better than the majority of the other legends there as well.

or do 6 tiers to avoid a gross looking 1.5

if it isnt tier 1, and it isnt tier 3 4 or 5, it is tier 2. no need for another arbitrary tier imho

THERE WILL BE 5 TIERS! THAT IS FINAL! waves hands

There has to be some standard that is being used to determine what goes in each tier. I think actually calling it Tier 1.5 displays the borderline nature of the cards, otherwise it would be fine to call it Tier 2. It's like getting an S rating in a game and having a few cards be AAA. The other Tier 2 cards are all "A tier" and the Tier 1.5 cards are "AAA" level, but can't be in Tier 1 because those are "S tier" cards. I'm probably not explaining this well, but there is no indication within Tier 2 that several of the cards in it are very borderline not tier 1, which is probably the most crucial point on the tier list. Legends that are "Tier 1" okay, those are the best. And there are maybe 8 or 10 in Tier 2 that are close-ish to being Tier 1, but they are lumped in with 35 other legends that aren't that close to being Tier 1.

Since this is a competitive list, this sort of stratification doesn't matter worth a damn for Tiers 3, 4, 5, etc., but there is a pretty stark philosophical and perceived difference between what is Tier 2 and what is Tier 1 in terms of what is actually viable in a competitive environment (think Modern decks that aren't Jund, Abzan, Affinity, Bant Company, etc., but can still win a tournament like Elves or RG Breach are Tier 1.5). The results aren't as consistent, but they are powerful enough to win against the best an acceptable portion of the time.

A Tier 1.5 list would more clearly define the competitive metagame, which is the purpose of this list. I don't see a real reason that the clarification would be a bad thing, especially to delineate between the top decks that aren't quite the Top 13 Tier 1 lists.

There has to be some standard that is being used to determine what goes in each tier. I think actually calling it Tier 1.5 displays the borderline nature of the cards, otherwise it would be fine to call it Tier 2. It's like getting an S rating in a game and having a few cards be AAA. The other Tier 2 cards are all "A tier" and the Tier 1.5 cards are "AAA" level, but can't be in Tier 1 because those are "S tier" cards. I'm probably not explaining this well, but there is no indication within Tier 2 that several of the cards in it are very borderline not tier 1, which is probably the most crucial point on the tier list. Legends that are "Tier 1" okay, those are the best. And there are maybe 8 or 10 in Tier 2 that are close-ish to being Tier 1, but they are lumped in with 35 other legends that aren't that close to being Tier 1.

Since this is a competitive list, this sort of stratification doesn't matter worth a damn for Tiers 3, 4, 5, etc., but there is a pretty stark philosophical and perceived difference between what is Tier 2 and what is Tier 1 in terms of what is actually viable in a competitive environment (think Modern decks that aren't Jund, Abzan, Affinity, Bant Company, etc., but can still win a tournament like Elves or RG Breach are Tier 1.5). The results aren't as consistent, but they are powerful enough to win against the best an acceptable portion of the time.

A Tier 1.5 list would more clearly define the competitive metagame, which is the purpose of this list. I don't see a real reason that the clarification would be a bad thing, especially to delineate between the top decks that aren't quite the Top 13 Tier 1 lists.

Apologies for the double post. And now I can't delete it.

@Hotcake

Well okay I can see these a little better now.

And your last point doesn't really address my main concern with this list and its lower tiers which is just to say that it's basically useless to say that a $$$$ daretti list will stomp a $$$$ Norin because there's pm no one that plays a $$$$ Norin, but a $$ Norin list can perform just as well at a lower $ tier. It would be more valuable if the tiers were ranked according to this standard instead. The top tier commanders can play just as well at all $ levels but people like Norin get outscaled as the decks distance themselves from their commanders and their unique identities and the command zone becomes window dressing on a competitive $$$$ 99.

I ain't saying it's wrong to play competitive EDH (it's just not my cup of tea). I'm just saying that it's not actually valuable to anyone to compare $, $$, and maybe even $$$ tier commanders with $$$$ budgets.

I guess my real point is that these tiers don't correspond to their $ levels. For example a T3 commander Maga, Traitor to Mortals may be better than other "tier 3" commanders when he has a $$$$ budget but when he only has a $ or $$ budget he's suddenly trash to the other commanders and can easily get trashed by some of your "tier 4" commanders reliably.

My qualm with this endeavor is just that your "tier" lists are going to completely change depending on the $ standard they are being judged on. And this list, by actually including commanders that are less than $$$$ tier, passes a judgment on them that isn't accurate. Basically in my eyes it's not even worth mentioning $, $$, and $$$ commanders in this list because they're just in a totally different ball park and it would be better to just re-do the current tier list using just the current tier 1 and tier 2 decks and judge them (that way the "competitive" players with the $$$$ budgets can get a more detailed evaluation).

So I agree emphatically with this"A Tier 1.5 list would more clearly define the competitive metagame, which is the purpose of this list. I don't see a real reason that the clarification would be a bad thing, especially to delineate between the top decks that aren't quite the Top 13 Tier 1 lists."

Except I think you could just get rid of all current T3,T4, and T5 commanders on your lists and then distribute the current T2 and T1 commanders among the new 5 tiers of "competitive" commanders.

Then that would perhaps open up the door for a commander tier list for the "75% project," which is basically the $$$ tier, which would include the most competitive commanders as well but just in different ranks but it would exclude commanders of tiers clearly below $$$. That would then open the door for a tier list for $$ commanders following the same principle. Then people could make more informed decisions according to the budget "tier" that they're actually in etc.

See what I mean?

@illumfolly

"doesn't make sense in that context. This isn't supposed to be the list for all types of game, just for competitive games, where people absolutely are running the best cards possible."

Well see I'm going to disagree with your disagreement here because my point was that this list is good for the first two "competitive" tiers but it's basically useless for this list to even address the other tiers the way it currently is. I'd have no problem with it if it didn't audaciously to try to grade each and every commander. I don't have a problem with competitive lists, I just think it's absurd for a competitive list mentality to be applied to clearly noncompetitive commanders.

And btw I totally overlooked Xiahou Dun's ability as just getting back a creature because that's what I'm so used to black getting. Ok I can definitely see how he'd be a good add-in for competitive lists.

Also can one of you guys list one of these Kemba lists that are so competitive? I've browsed here for the most upvoted Kemba decks on this site and they didn't really convince me of their power at all. I'm actually genuinely interested in this xP Also what's Marchesa prison?

Tl;dr:

T3-T5 is basically just clutter here and that it would actually be more helpful for competitive players looking at this to stratify the current tiers 1 and 2 across the current 5 tiers.

Idk to me it's like why even bother arguing about the place of commanders in either T5 or T4 (like the Cromat debate I've seen mentioned on here) when that's clearly just not even the point of this list.

It gives people with $-$$$ budgets the idea that their commander is better in their environment because it has the potential to win really fast with a $$$$ list which to me is a disservice to them (misleading) and a disservice to the game itself because it invites $$$$ level lack of diversity to tables that could have more variation, creativity, and fun than they do now (can't tell you how many half-assed Karador decks I've destroyed).

@NewHorizons This list assumes every list is 100% optimized. For the purposes of these rankings, every deck can afford Timetwister and Imperial Recruiter. So it doesn't matter if a $2,000 Norin list could hypothetically beat a $50 Daretti deck, because that's not what the list is looking at (the budget Yisan list could beat most optimized tier 3 or lower decks easily, but that's besides the point). This list only weighs a $2,000 Norin deck against a $2,000 Daretti deck.

As for the sixth tier, we've already beaten that argument to death, and we should probably put something in the description about it. The lower tiers could probably still use some maintenance, but the experiment with an actual sixth tier failed (the attempt to further separate lower tiers didn't help) and adding "tier 1.5" is pretty unnecessary (tier 1 is well defined, Narset and the like are now tier 2 for good reason). The list is far from perfect, but I really don't think adding tiers answers any problems.