it might make slightly more sense to have multiple tier-ratings. if we hypothetically say that there are 3 'competitiveness' tiers, it would make sense to also have a 'archetypeness' rating too eg:
Chisei, Heart of Oceans i would consider to be a tier 3 on the competitiveness scale but a 'Johnny' or 'combo' on the archetypal rating. mayael the animar i would consider to be a tier 2 competitive and 'timmy' or aggro on the archetype rating.
the thing is, many of these generals could be built in different archetypes, and from what i've seen anyways, their different builds leads to their competitiveness to go up or down quite significantly. for example, karona, false god in a control shell is quite good, in a tribal-aggro build slightly better, but in a voltron build, shes nuts. but she leads people to build her in those ways quite easily.
having said that, in terms of the competitiveness scale, its probably easiest to just have 2 or 3 tiers.
tier 1 - competitive; usually quick to assemble, leads to combos easily, difficult to disrupt via 'normal' axes of interaction, can usually run a lot of disruption themselves without hindering their own gameplan, can run redundant pieces easily/has an inbuilt tutor (eg sharuum the hegemon, jhoira of the ghitu, zur the enchanter)
tier 2 - can give tier 1 a run for their money, but usually struggles. strategies revolving around these generals are strong, but are usually too slow/requires a lot of pieces to work properly/doesn't revolve around killing the whole table in one fell-swoop, usually doesn't lead to a very focused gameplan/strategy for winning, could be semi-suicidal in its gameplan/glass cannons (eg mayael the animar, zo-zu the punisher, rakdos the defiler)
tier 3 - untested/tried and truly rubbish; the generals where you win not 'cuz of the general him/herself, but by the force of character that comes from them; no easily discernible strategy evident from looking at the general itself; you know, the ones that worked as 'filler' cards which filled kamigawa and legends. them. (eg Tor Wauki, Orim, Samite Healer, brothers yamazaki)
that being said, the differences between tiers 1 and 2 are still quite blurry. in my attempt to delineate the 2 tiers, i came to realise that mostly what separates these two tiers is their inherent reliance on the generals themselves. most tier 2 generals aren't necessarily general specific - deckbuilding doesn't necessarily get warped around the general (eg if mayael isn't available, the mayael player can still cast 5+ power dudes if necessary); whereas many tier 1s seem to completely warp the deckbuilding process (good luck to the sharuum player trying to combo off without sharuum). is that a semi-absolute way of differentiating them? as far as i can think of, it seems to kinda work.
I don't know how we should go about it but typically tier lists have a goal to accomplish. Is the best deck one that stands the best chance aginst a side event other compeirge decks? How do you account for meta game do you hand balence the archetypes at your testing table? Do you cycle between differnt combinations? When you test the decks who pilots them ? The same person across all deck lists or the best qualified fir each list? How do you extract bias from player skill something I find decides more games than a deck list. How broad are the archetypes do they even need commanders? Is green black reanimate the same category as 5cc or bug reanimate? Are we even looking at entire decklists or just comparing the shells assuming the control slots ebb and flow with meta game? What's a large enough sample size fir games played? Do we try to breakdown each game with a smaller sample with a large enough sample size you could lesson the impact of god hands and winning the dice roll. Any way you slice it I feel this is a daunting task with no easy answers in a multiplayer format with limitless variables.
Another problem I see about possible tiers based on play tests is that the nature of competitive multiplayer makes win/loss stats difficult to judge......
So, do you think testing is needed? Are tier lists based on opinion anything more than popularity contests? I'm curious what your stance is.
I agree with Mox that a clear statement of intent is needed. Following that you've got to define your criteria, but I guess that's the intent of this thread?
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EDH playing competitive Magic cast away
Current Decks GTitania midrange RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
Angelforge has been working on a 'tier list' using more of a graph like scale with two axis. I'll go harass him about posting what he's got so far.
It judges decks more on where they fall in their respective categories with 'bad' decks being towards the middle of the graph and good decks being at the edges (best decks being corners).
Having been invited to this thread, as I don't venture out too far from actual EDH decklists, I have found this thread to be very stimulating, intellectually speaking. I like most of the arguments made here and would offer my own thoughts as well.
Moxnix touched on a good point of having nearly infinite ways to try and categorize or "tier" EDH. From different strategies between players to different strategies for single generals, there is a lot of variability that is not easy to quantify. However, Moxnix touched on something that I think is worth expanding on:
He talked about having good players test many decks or having an established authority on a particular strategy playtest against as part of the variability of EDH. I agree that playtesting is crucial. But why not combine the two ideas? Have many good players test different decklists of the many, many EDH decks there are and their varied strategies and also invite an "authority" to have several games against the gamut. The way to establish an authority, I think, would be looking at Primers, the activity of said Primers, the depth of discussion on said Primer, and an evaluation of game reports (if any) on those Primers. That way, there is someone who is well-established and well-versed on how to play a specific strategy contributing to the data set IN ADDITION to having experienced, seasoned players pick up a deck and roll with it and add their findings to the data set. There would prolly want to be two/three coordinators of testing so that there isn't too much data spread out across too many players. I think that if there were a set number of games that each archetype/strategy was required to play against than it would also be easier to say "Oh, Dies_to_Doom_Blade's Mimeoplasm really is tier 1 because he's played 70 games against [LIST OF STRONGER DECKLISTS/STRATEGIES] and he consistently takes [BLANK] percent of those games." I also think it will be easier to establish a few "standards" to consistently play against. Perhaps 5 or so decklists that a majority of people can agree on as being top tier. Some ideas there are Sharuum, Hermit Druid, Jarad/Mimeoplasm Reanimator, Azami, Damia, Momir Vig (mostly because of Prophet of Kruphix...), Animar Combo, and others.
I like the idea of this thread. It would be good for the format, I think, to have a few set deck standards to test against so that way you can gauge how effective your deck is. That is true of other formats, so why not here?
So, do you think testing is needed? Are tier lists based on opinion anything more than popularity contests? I'm curious what your stance is.
I agree with Mox that a clear statement of intent is needed. Following that you've got to define your criteria, but I guess that's the intent of this thread?
The reason I created this thread is to discuss how to make a tier list in competitive multiplayer EDH. So far there has a lot of differing opinions expressed on the subject. Eventually I'd like to transition to making a tier list but the method needs to be discussed first.
As for testing I am not against testing but the method has great potential for being flawed. Do you test the decks in their most popular or most powerful form, do you allow them to tune themselves to hate on each other and how do you decide which decks to test against one another in specific pods?
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"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered,
those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.
Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
Angelforge has been working on a 'tier list' using more of a graph like scale with two axis. I'll go harass him about posting what he's got so far.
It judges decks more on where they fall in their respective categories with 'bad' decks being towards the middle of the graph and good decks being at the edges (best decks being corners).
The idea here is that there are two axis: Fast/Slow and Reactive/Proactive (I'm not very happy with these labels but I'm not sure what else to put for it). There are omissions and guesses in this because there are a number of decks I haven't played against. I don't think this is anywhere near done, but I'm posting it as requested.
Edit: MTGSalvation forums ate my whitespace. If you quote my post, you can see the list in all it's glory. This is what I get for using a text editor to make a chart.
I think that the biggest issue you are going to run up against is that you are attempting to build a tier list of multiplayer decks based off of 1v1 playtest data. Trying to playtest multiplayer games will give you a better idea of how a deck functions in an actual multiplayer meta, and if you are optimizing decks for combo-control, prison, or agro-combo then you can make politics somewhat irrelevant (as long as the playtesters keep politics irrelevant so as to not skew results), but testing multiplayer games will be horribly time consuming and I'm unsure how you would balance decks/archetypes within a pod to give meaningful results. I guess that either way, if you test 1v1 or 4-player, the results of playtesting will still be up for a lot of interpretation.
The other piece to consider is that you are going to have to build each deck with the entire meta in consideration, then balance the answer/hate cards appropriately for each deck. You may want to consider enacting the 10-card sideboard rule just to make sure that slight variations in deck composition don't skew the results just because you can't fit all the popular answer cards into the representative decklist. Conversely, you don't want to take up valuable deckspace packing all the popular answer cards only to draw too many useless cards in a particular matchup.
The last thing I suggest is that you rotate players playing each deck to help eliminate player skill bias. This will take some added effort on the part of the playtesters to learn how to play each deck in the field, but its the only way to make sure that you are getting accurate results.
Either way, good luck. This seems like a massive endeavor and I hope for the best.
Hey guys. Reading this thread I realized that as much as we discuss, there's no way to get measurable results without actual data, and, sadly, we don't have that the way we do with Legacy. So, with that in mind, I launched this project with the idea of creating that data. Check it out!
It's probably too much work to do conceivably, but the thing that had always bothered me the most about setting up EDH tier lists is that they simply list the general and archetype they used with no other descriptions.
If someone is going to undertake a tier list as a project, I'd like to see them list the data with their choices (why is this general in this tier, how many times was it tested, what was the list that was used for testing, what was the test environment like, changelog for the list, are any of the cards used meta dependant, consistency, resiliency, etc.)
I'm aware of just how much that is asking of volunteers but it drives me nuts when I see a tier list with no public data. I doubt you'd need everything I list (or even close for that matter, I'm picky), but those are things to consider.
I understand what you are doing here and I commend your for taking a stab at catagorizing EDH decks. However doing it in a multiplayer format is going to be a bit hard to nail down. 1v1 would be easier IMO. There is sort of a loose understanding already in place. I think 3-4 tiers is good. Top tier im assuming would be filled mostly with broken combo decks, stuff we all mostly can agree on being tried and true. IDK man good luck.
It's probably too much work to do conceivably, but the thing that had always bothered me the most about setting up EDH tier lists is that they simply list the general and archetype they used with no other descriptions.
If someone is going to undertake a tier list as a project, I'd like to see them list the data with their choices (why is this general in this tier, how many times was it tested, what was the list that was used for testing, what was the test environment like, changelog for the list, are any of the cards used meta dependant, consistency, resiliency, etc.)
I'm aware of just how much that is asking of volunteers but it drives me nuts when I see a tier list with no public data. I doubt you'd need everything I list (or even close for that matter, I'm picky), but those are things to consider.
This is asking even more of the volunteers, but I think it would be useful to append to game result reports just a few-sentence summary of how they felt the game went. Just something like "I couldn't get off the ground before X deck went off," or "Everyone was focusing on X deck, so I was really able to fly under the radar," or "X and Y are super vulnerable to Stax, so I won easily," or "Even though everyone was targeting me, I was still able to go off and clear the table." I think that having footnotes of sorts on games potentially goes a long way in mitigating the issues that come with counting wins in multiplayer, and actually takes some pressure off of the playtesters, because it's not their responsibility to continually jump in to say "Yes, my believed-high-tier-deck totally flamed out against those lower-tier decks, but it's because both times I got stuck on two lands," because "X got stuck on two lands" will be in the game reports.
This is sort of operating under the assumption that we'll be working with a less-than-ideal number of data points. If it's actually plausible to get tons and tons of data for each deck, this is both less important and less practical.
It's probably too much work to do conceivably, but the thing that had always bothered me the most about setting up EDH tier lists is that they simply list the general and archetype they used with no other descriptions.
If someone is going to undertake a tier list as a project, I'd like to see them list the data with their choices (why is this general in this tier, how many times was it tested, what was the list that was used for testing, what was the test environment like, changelog for the list, are any of the cards used meta dependant, consistency, resiliency, etc.)
I'm aware of just how much that is asking of volunteers but it drives me nuts when I see a tier list with no public data. I doubt you'd need everything I list (or even close for that matter, I'm picky), but those are things to consider.
I think we should have lists to several decklists, and whenever there are new trials, tests, tournaments, etc., we make sure to post and link to the lists involved. Maybe I should learn Ruby so I can do some scoeri magic and database all the competitive lists we record. Then we can compile a deck "core" of all the cards that overlap or are prevalent in a majority of the lists. An example would be:
I only listed the main win conditions there, but it could be 30-50 cards long to be more comprehensive. That would give any competitive player a solid understanding of the deck, and a place to start and make their own card choices without just net-decking. It's basically the Statistical Average for Each Commander but for competitive decks that have been tested and have play data.
What about a tier list based on points? Use cumulative point totals taken from various categories to index the list into a tier. As an example efficiency: say 10 points for a one card win condition, 5 points for a 2 card win condition, 2 points for a 3 card win condition. Another example speed/mana required for critical mass: 10 points for 3 or less, 5 points for 4-5, 2 points for 6 or more. Other potential categories are resiliency, hate (how it stops other decks from getting there), and avg cmc
I never understand EDH Players. You guys invent a format for casuals, then spend 10x the amount a standard deck costs foiling out every single card, or having alters done, or getting the one with the right art... Then you go on to theorycraft which EDH decks are top tier?
Time for a new casual format I guess.
Anyone for Mono Color, Pauper, 200 card singleton?
I never understand EDH Players. You guys invent a format for casuals, then spend 10x the amount a standard deck costs foiling out every single card, or having alters done, or getting the one with the right art... Then you go on to theorycraft which EDH decks are top tier?
Time for a new casual format I guess.
Anyone for Mono Color, Pauper, 200 card singleton?
Nearly everyone invested in making this list is a composite player (or just curious to see the results, like myself). I don't see any reason to make those kinds of removals towards people who aren't likely to play casual EDH as their main format anyways.
The more casual crowd likely won't be using these kinds of tier lists, so there's no reason to worry.
I never understand EDH Players. You guys invent a format for casuals, then spend 10x the amount a standard deck costs foiling out every single card, or having alters done, or getting the one with the right art... Then you go on to theorycraft which EDH decks are top tier?
Time for a new casual format I guess.
Anyone for Mono Color, Pauper, 200 card singleton?
EDH is not a format designed to be casual, it is designed to be social. It's probably the best multiplayer format in Magic, the deckbuilding constraints are very interesting, and the political aspect of the game makes for fun stories. There are groups in my area wants to play with every card that is legal and make powerful decks - Wouldn't I be going against the 'social contract' by not playing a powerful deck myself? (I hope) Most of the players here aren't going to bring their heavy hitter decks against weaker playgroups, it is very obvious when a game is one-sided and that's not very fun - that's why I have multiple decks, so I can play with multiple playgroups.
I don't see what pimping a deck has to do with anything, I know players with terrible but shiny decks, and I know players with really powerful and horrible-condition decks. I think the players who pimp out their EDH decks also would pimp out their legacy; modern. Full disclosure: I pimp my EDH decks and did not pimp my deck when I played Modern. When I get back into 60/15 card formats I plan on pimping those decks. It's part of the fun of collecting cards, either that or I'm a bird who likes shiny things.
The discussion of 'top tier' is interesting and I hope no one changes their decks just because their deck is 'low tier'. I play this game for fun so I'm going to keep on playing my decks no matter where they fall on the tier list. Tier 2 decks can often be 'predator' decks better then tier 1 decks can as well - Inbred metas can fold very hard to well-designed hate decks. And like I said earlier... you probably shouldn't bring an optimized 'tier one' deck against a meta that wants to play at a weaker power level, so this discussion doesn't really affect people who play this as a "casual" format.
The problem is that perceived tier is so subjective. I think that you are generally correct that any results we have will be fuzzy, but less fuzzy than perceived tiers. I do believe with enough data the fuzziness will start to clear - the question is can we get enough data.
I think a tier list is a cool idea in theory, but it seems like there is way too much going on in EDH to boil things down into a neat little list. for example, I am assuming these tiers are to be made out of commander centric decks? that is, decks that are using/abusing their commander as much as possible to get to victory. I don't know how to quantify this, but I play with a number of people who use their commander simply for color identity and rarely, if ever, cast it. are these kinds of decks 'not competitive' under this assumed umbrella of commander based decks I think you all are talking about? 5c hermit druid has been mentioned (and brushed aside by some) but I think one could say with some confidence that there are plenty of decks out there in every combination of colors ranging from goodstuff to combo to control to tokens to stax to grouphug to pillowfort to whatever that aren't reliant on their commanders but are strong decks in their own right.
if there is no way to accommodate these 'commanderless' decks into these proposed tiers (and I suspect there is not), I don't think we can really move forward very far with developing tiers.
my other issue with this is that there is lots of room for interpretation in the design of a competitive list. I like digitalfire's idea of using a core of cards to define an archetype, but there are commanders out there with many archetypes that are all fairly viable. how are those going to be treated here?
I hate to sound so pessimistic because I think it would be really cool to develop these ideas further, but there just seems to be way too many variables to take into account. I hope you can make some kind of progress because I've been tuned in to this and the other thread for awhile now and I like the discussion so far. I tried to be constructive instead of getting infracted for saying something snarky, it was difficult.
I am assuming these tiers are to be made out of commander centric decks? that is, decks that are using/abusing their commander as much as possible to get to victory.
I don't really know where you got this impression. Perhaps it was the disconnect between this and the Solving the Format thread, where it is generally agreed that:
Chisei, Heart of Oceans i would consider to be a tier 3 on the competitiveness scale but a 'Johnny' or 'combo' on the archetypal rating.
mayael the animar i would consider to be a tier 2 competitive and 'timmy' or aggro on the archetype rating.
the thing is, many of these generals could be built in different archetypes, and from what i've seen anyways, their different builds leads to their competitiveness to go up or down quite significantly. for example, karona, false god in a control shell is quite good, in a tribal-aggro build slightly better, but in a voltron build, shes nuts. but she leads people to build her in those ways quite easily.
having said that, in terms of the competitiveness scale, its probably easiest to just have 2 or 3 tiers.
tier 1 - competitive; usually quick to assemble, leads to combos easily, difficult to disrupt via 'normal' axes of interaction, can usually run a lot of disruption themselves without hindering their own gameplan, can run redundant pieces easily/has an inbuilt tutor (eg sharuum the hegemon, jhoira of the ghitu, zur the enchanter)
tier 2 - can give tier 1 a run for their money, but usually struggles. strategies revolving around these generals are strong, but are usually too slow/requires a lot of pieces to work properly/doesn't revolve around killing the whole table in one fell-swoop, usually doesn't lead to a very focused gameplan/strategy for winning, could be semi-suicidal in its gameplan/glass cannons (eg mayael the animar, zo-zu the punisher, rakdos the defiler)
tier 3 - untested/tried and truly rubbish; the generals where you win not 'cuz of the general him/herself, but by the force of character that comes from them; no easily discernible strategy evident from looking at the general itself; you know, the ones that worked as 'filler' cards which filled kamigawa and legends. them. (eg Tor Wauki, Orim, Samite Healer, brothers yamazaki)
that being said, the differences between tiers 1 and 2 are still quite blurry. in my attempt to delineate the 2 tiers, i came to realise that mostly what separates these two tiers is their inherent reliance on the generals themselves. most tier 2 generals aren't necessarily general specific - deckbuilding doesn't necessarily get warped around the general (eg if mayael isn't available, the mayael player can still cast 5+ power dudes if necessary); whereas many tier 1s seem to completely warp the deckbuilding process (good luck to the sharuum player trying to combo off without sharuum). is that a semi-absolute way of differentiating them? as far as i can think of, it seems to kinda work.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
So, do you think testing is needed? Are tier lists based on opinion anything more than popularity contests? I'm curious what your stance is.
I agree with Mox that a clear statement of intent is needed. Following that you've got to define your criteria, but I guess that's the intent of this thread?
Current Decks
GTitania midrange
RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal
GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron
U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher
RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
It judges decks more on where they fall in their respective categories with 'bad' decks being towards the middle of the graph and good decks being at the edges (best decks being corners).
Moxnix touched on a good point of having nearly infinite ways to try and categorize or "tier" EDH. From different strategies between players to different strategies for single generals, there is a lot of variability that is not easy to quantify. However, Moxnix touched on something that I think is worth expanding on:
He talked about having good players test many decks or having an established authority on a particular strategy playtest against as part of the variability of EDH. I agree that playtesting is crucial. But why not combine the two ideas? Have many good players test different decklists of the many, many EDH decks there are and their varied strategies and also invite an "authority" to have several games against the gamut. The way to establish an authority, I think, would be looking at Primers, the activity of said Primers, the depth of discussion on said Primer, and an evaluation of game reports (if any) on those Primers. That way, there is someone who is well-established and well-versed on how to play a specific strategy contributing to the data set IN ADDITION to having experienced, seasoned players pick up a deck and roll with it and add their findings to the data set. There would prolly want to be two/three coordinators of testing so that there isn't too much data spread out across too many players. I think that if there were a set number of games that each archetype/strategy was required to play against than it would also be easier to say "Oh, Dies_to_Doom_Blade's Mimeoplasm really is tier 1 because he's played 70 games against [LIST OF STRONGER DECKLISTS/STRATEGIES] and he consistently takes [BLANK] percent of those games." I also think it will be easier to establish a few "standards" to consistently play against. Perhaps 5 or so decklists that a majority of people can agree on as being top tier. Some ideas there are Sharuum, Hermit Druid, Jarad/Mimeoplasm Reanimator, Azami, Damia, Momir Vig (mostly because of Prophet of Kruphix...), Animar Combo, and others.
I like the idea of this thread. It would be good for the format, I think, to have a few set deck standards to test against so that way you can gauge how effective your deck is. That is true of other formats, so why not here?
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
The reason I created this thread is to discuss how to make a tier list in competitive multiplayer EDH. So far there has a lot of differing opinions expressed on the subject. Eventually I'd like to transition to making a tier list but the method needs to be discussed first.
As for testing I am not against testing but the method has great potential for being flawed. Do you test the decks in their most popular or most powerful form, do you allow them to tune themselves to hate on each other and how do you decide which decks to test against one another in specific pods?
those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.
Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
The idea here is that there are two axis: Fast/Slow and Reactive/Proactive (I'm not very happy with these labels but I'm not sure what else to put for it). There are omissions and guesses in this because there are a number of decks I haven't played against. I don't think this is anywhere near done, but I'm posting it as requested.
Edit: MTGSalvation forums ate my whitespace. If you quote my post, you can see the list in all it's glory. This is what I get for using a text editor to make a chart.
Relaxed EDH: BROlivia VampiresRB
#FreeBraids
The other piece to consider is that you are going to have to build each deck with the entire meta in consideration, then balance the answer/hate cards appropriately for each deck. You may want to consider enacting the 10-card sideboard rule just to make sure that slight variations in deck composition don't skew the results just because you can't fit all the popular answer cards into the representative decklist. Conversely, you don't want to take up valuable deckspace packing all the popular answer cards only to draw too many useless cards in a particular matchup.
The last thing I suggest is that you rotate players playing each deck to help eliminate player skill bias. This will take some added effort on the part of the playtesters to learn how to play each deck in the field, but its the only way to make sure that you are getting accurate results.
Either way, good luck. This seems like a massive endeavor and I hope for the best.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
If someone is going to undertake a tier list as a project, I'd like to see them list the data with their choices (why is this general in this tier, how many times was it tested, what was the list that was used for testing, what was the test environment like, changelog for the list, are any of the cards used meta dependant, consistency, resiliency, etc.)
I'm aware of just how much that is asking of volunteers but it drives me nuts when I see a tier list with no public data. I doubt you'd need everything I list (or even close for that matter, I'm picky), but those are things to consider.
My Helpdesk
[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
This is sort of operating under the assumption that we'll be working with a less-than-ideal number of data points. If it's actually plausible to get tons and tons of data for each deck, this is both less important and less practical.
Commander: Animar Soul of Elements
Archetype: Combo
Deck Core:
1 Ancestral Statue
1 Peregrine Drake
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Glimpse of Nature
I only listed the main win conditions there, but it could be 30-50 cards long to be more comprehensive. That would give any competitive player a solid understanding of the deck, and a place to start and make their own card choices without just net-decking. It's basically the Statistical Average for Each Commander but for competitive decks that have been tested and have play data.
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
BRGrenzo, Dungeon Warden EDH
GAzusa, Always in a Rush EDH
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Warlord EDH
Trade thread on MOTL
Time for a new casual format I guess.
Anyone for Mono Color, Pauper, 200 card singleton?
BEEEES!
Rabble Red
Modern
Burn
Infect
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
Current Decks
GTitania midrange
RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal
GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron
U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher
RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
The more casual crowd likely won't be using these kinds of tier lists, so there's no reason to worry.
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[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
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Rabble Red
Modern
Burn
Infect
EDH is not a format designed to be casual, it is designed to be social. It's probably the best multiplayer format in Magic, the deckbuilding constraints are very interesting, and the political aspect of the game makes for fun stories. There are groups in my area wants to play with every card that is legal and make powerful decks - Wouldn't I be going against the 'social contract' by not playing a powerful deck myself? (I hope) Most of the players here aren't going to bring their heavy hitter decks against weaker playgroups, it is very obvious when a game is one-sided and that's not very fun - that's why I have multiple decks, so I can play with multiple playgroups.
I don't see what pimping a deck has to do with anything, I know players with terrible but shiny decks, and I know players with really powerful and horrible-condition decks. I think the players who pimp out their EDH decks also would pimp out their legacy; modern. Full disclosure: I pimp my EDH decks and did not pimp my deck when I played Modern. When I get back into 60/15 card formats I plan on pimping those decks. It's part of the fun of collecting cards, either that or I'm a bird who likes shiny things.
The discussion of 'top tier' is interesting and I hope no one changes their decks just because their deck is 'low tier'. I play this game for fun so I'm going to keep on playing my decks no matter where they fall on the tier list. Tier 2 decks can often be 'predator' decks better then tier 1 decks can as well - Inbred metas can fold very hard to well-designed hate decks. And like I said earlier... you probably shouldn't bring an optimized 'tier one' deck against a meta that wants to play at a weaker power level, so this discussion doesn't really affect people who play this as a "casual" format.
Relaxed EDH: BROlivia VampiresRB
#FreeBraids
I got two now.
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Rabble Red
Modern
Burn
Infect
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
if there is no way to accommodate these 'commanderless' decks into these proposed tiers (and I suspect there is not), I don't think we can really move forward very far with developing tiers.
my other issue with this is that there is lots of room for interpretation in the design of a competitive list. I like digitalfire's idea of using a core of cards to define an archetype, but there are commanders out there with many archetypes that are all fairly viable. how are those going to be treated here?
I hate to sound so pessimistic because I think it would be really cool to develop these ideas further, but there just seems to be way too many variables to take into account. I hope you can make some kind of progress because I've been tuned in to this and the other thread for awhile now and I like the discussion so far. I tried to be constructive instead of getting infracted for saying something snarky, it was difficult.
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]