Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 9
It's the Doomsday Grenzo, and while it can use a wee bit more streamlining, it only needs one turn unattended to run away with the game, while spending normal games just holding its own until it decides to win. Prime Speaker Zegana: 8
While resilient, it's not very fast off the mark, giving it some early game issues which hold it back. Once it gets rolling it's a monster as it can easily throw down multiple Eldrazis each turn. Rasputin Dreamweaver: 7
Dangerous, capable of controlling the game very well, but on the slow side and liable to the occasional mana screw. Could probably tune it up a bit more but I like it as it is. Olivia, Mobilized for War: 6.5
It used to be knight tribal but I've turned it into Dragonstorm/reanimator. Between Balthor and Dragonstorm it can end the game on a moment's notice, and it starts dropping bombs early on too. Not as high in card quality though. Child of Alara: 6
Despite being a pauper deck, it can be a terror to play against. That said, it's restrictions will always keep it from being even better, despite it's already ridiculous ability to draw out games and grind them out. Jori En, Ruin Diver: 4.5
It's controlling but slow. Liable to being overwhelmed in the face of poor draws. That said, the longer a game lasts the more dangerous it slowly becomes...but it'll never trade punches with the big guys. Chorus of the Conclave: 4
It's pretty one-dimensional, being what it is (Selesnya ramp-aggro) but it does that well. It can survive early games rather well but barring very specific draws, a simple wrath or fog-based deck can completely neuter the deck.
Starter decks: 3
This is my baseline for out-of-the-box starter decks, FWIW. The Lady of the Mountain: 2
If it wins, it's either because it drew into all it's ramp into early Inferno Titan and Magma Giant and all that, or it resolved Primal Surge. No other reason why this deck ever wins. But it's fun to throw against new players.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
This is a good thread, I've been attempting to rank my decks as well. I also prefer the 3 Tiers categorization like the poster above as it helps to discuss and agree on what decks to play with your group to maintain a decent balance. The ranking numbers might vary by about a point, most of my decks are mid-budget between $200 to $450 total value.
- Daretti, scrap savant: I don't play a lot of the most powerful (and expensive) mana rocks, and with a restriction on combos/stax, but id say its at around 7.5+ considering its pretty tuned, fast and resilient.
- Marchesa, the black rose: Around a 6 i would guess? it's pretty good and has a lot of synergies so it's very explosive. But it lacks some tuning. It usually places well at your average table. No infinites and no tutors drags it down as well.
- Narset, enlightened master: 4-ish, I could stretch it to 5-. It's a burn deck... so plays like a glass cannon with a hint of control. You can do 60+ damage in one turn if you hit some doublers off Narset, and Narset is pretty powerfull herself. so i'm a bit hesitant to put it at 4.
- Vela the night-clad: ninja/assasin/rogue themed. I'd say 3/4 in multiplayer and 5 in 1v1. A lot of spot removal, permission and discard makes it much better against one opponent than multiple.
- Ezuri, claw of progress: 4 (maybe approaching 5). It's a precon upgraded with around 10 cards. However ezuri is quite powerfull and the precon just needed some evasion and card advantage to be decent.
-Phenax, god of deception: semi retired but 7+. It's a dedicated mill combo deck, where the win condition is to assemble infinite or near infinite combos with counter backup. (depatable, as the original 3 eldrazi titans are soft banned in my local meta, and do not make mill impossible.)
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EDH decks:
RWUNarset, jeskai burn RUB Marchesa the black rose R Daretti, reanimator goodstuff BU Vela, ninja assasin UG Ezuri, woodland critters.
Autumn Willow: 1. It's a deck 100% composed of commons, except for the commander who's an uncommon (in my book). Not much card advantage at all, but hey, sometimes middle-aged lady voltron can go all the way.
Merieke ri Berit: 2. It's a deck composed 100% of Ice Age/Alliances cards, so it has a huge power handicap. Still, it can randomly draw it's Necropotence and do surprisingly well.
Endrek Sahr: 4.5. Has some sick synergies, but over-all a low powered deck built for thematic purposes. For example, it has Ebon Praetor in it. How well it performs is largely dependent on whether it gets the "low-profile" hate avoidance, since the deck falls apart if the commander is targeted by removal.
Zedruu the Greathearted: 6. It can definitely win, though I mostly just bring it out to have fun. I just edited a lot to take out my favorite Mana Flare/X spells win condition, which honestly didn't fit in the deck, so it might perform much more efficiently now.
Dakkon Blackblade: 7. This is my "board wipes, board wipes, and more board wipes" deck, which pretty much has Dakkon as it's only non-land permanent. Classic draw-go control, though also less than optimal since I use many cards just because I think they're "cool."
Azusa, Lost But Seeking: 8. This is probably my most powerful deck. It's far from optimal since I use old-bordeded cards as much as possible, but it has some rather expensive cards and can do some broken things, like locking mana down with Strip Mine/Crucible of Worlds/Azusa, or repeatedly generating a double-digit number of 4/4 Beast tokens in one turn.
It can be played competitively by being very fast at piecing together board locks and outright crippling opposing players. It's got all of the relevant tutors in WUG colors to help assemble a near unbreakable stasis effect, however it can easily play a very fun game of Magic too, by accelerating others, drawing people cards, and even tie the game with Divine Intervention.
I'm a little short on EDH decks at the moment but I'll run through the decks I did possess as well as what I currently have:
This is how I'm rating the decks:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher (6)- Altered from the precon but never truly fine-tuned as I would have liked: It was good enough to kill at least one person per game but far from winning the whole she-bang. Still it was threatening enough.
Memnarch (7)- Better than my Prossh deck and built from the ground up. Slow and still not as fine-tuned as other decks I made but could pull off some wicked combos, produce enough threats to overwhelm my opponents and could adapt to what was on the board. Again, the main problem was that it was very slow and if it didn't produce an good enough answer, fell to the wayside. Utterly devastating at it's peak but inconsistent.
Animar, Soul of Elements (8)- Probably my most cherished deck. Finely tuned and capable of really going off turn 4-5. Can infinite combo out but can also just overwhelm opponents with multiple threats.
Sharuum the Hegemon (9)- Spiritual successor to Memnarch. Faster, lots of tutors and infinite combos. Not as fast as Animar in the first few turns but capable of stalling opponents with multiple board clears that never really hurt it's own field. If it didn't combo out it would turn the game into a war of attrition it almost always won.
Sliver Overlord (6)- Not a bad deck and had some decent cards. But slivers weakness of board clears and their NEED to have certain slivers made everything feel real inconsistent. The deck just never felt like it 'clicked' to me and I never smoothed it out.
Scion of the Ur-Dragon (9)- Dangerous, versatile and surprisingly fast. Able to dish out tons of damage with Scion and cheat out multiple other dragons and creatures. Made my Animar deck cry...
In terms of pure competitiveness, most of these are lacking due to the absence of fast mana rocks like Sol ring, which I refuse to run. Also all the tutors the decks run are conditional in some fashion, either in what they can find or requirements to cast them.
Numbers in brackets are my evaluations followed by flatmates evaluations.
Prossh(9, 9): Can easily land Prossh on turns 3/4 and follow it up with an overrun in the subsequent turn to kill whomever most likely runs the boardwipes at the table. It can use Mazerik, Kraul Death Priest and Murderous Redcap as an infinite win condition if needed. It follows the french banned list currently.
Tasigur, the golden fang(7, 7): A reanimation list inspired by Dies_to_doom_blade's, however is missing key pieces of power, like survival of the fitest and a combo based win condition. It often proves a persistent threat throughout the game.
Noyan Dar(7.5, 6): Draw Go control almost at it's finest. The later the game goes, the stronger the deck is, and it can happily operate on reasonably small amounts of mana with the curve ending at 4 outside of a couple of boardwipes. Inkmoth also provides a convincing endgame to deal with anyone.
Zurgo(7, -): This deck is like a juggernaut. It builds up slowly, but once it hits a point it is unstoppable. Its a token deck that can be increadilby explosive. It has not been uncommon for people ask if I can deal with one problematic permenant at the table, so they can deal with others, and instead removing the player in question much to the tables surprise. The deck at the moment has issues with its mana base, as it uses a mixture of tapped lands for fixing, and requires mana rocks to get to the late game mana it wants.
Karametra(6, 5): My durdle fest deck. It will sit back and swamp you with landfall triggers. Backed up by an Avacyn or Iona if people are being rude, and I feel like playing an Eye for an Eye.
Nicol Bolas: 8.5, Tier 2
This deck is just a massive pile of discard synergy and Grixis-flavored hate. It's very hard to pilot, but can take on even the most degenerate decks with a great chance to win. It has more answers than you have threats, and it doesn't care what you're piloting, only what will break first. Your spirit? Or your life total? My favorite deck of all time.
Oona, Queen of the Fae: 9.3, Tier 1.5
Speed is power. My only deck with a reliable T3-4 kill. Lots of money invested in this one, but it's my one dedicated cEDH deck. Very high win rate overall, and a good win rate at even the major cut-throat tables. This one only comes out when the right people are playing.
Jolrael, Empress of Beasts: 6.0, Tier 4.5
A new project, built for casual tables. Big mana, kinda slow, and wins by turning things sideways and using a few cheap tricks. Extremely fun to play, however.
Cromat: 7.5, Tier 3.5
A giant 5c control deck that blows up the board over and over Oloro-style, before recurring a bunch of Phoenixes from the graveyard to beat down with. Runs multiple unusual lock pieces like Ice Cave with Arcane Laboratory and no tutors cuz they'd make it (more) boring. Has a good win record, but games take ages to finish. I play this one the least.
Archangel Avacyn: 5.0 (work in progress)
An EDH "weeniegeddon" deck. Lots of lands, cheap creatures, cheap sweepers, and mass land destruction. More of an experiment in Boros than a deck built to win. Needs more monetary investment to be decent and absolutely everyone hates it. Fun for 1v1 though, and might become my new Duel Commander deck.
Marrow-Gnawer: 7.5 Tier 3.5
It's Krenko with black mana doublers and tutors. What's not to love? Current record: 2,003 rats without using combo. My only true aggro deck. Usually loses to any real good deck running blue, but still wins a fair share of games.
Liliana, Heretical Healer / Liliana, Defiant Necromancer: 8.0, Tier 3.0
The sleeper. Ults a planeswalker in 80% of games. If it isn't heavily, and I mean heavily, disrupted, it goes from 0 to 60 on the threat'o'meter at about turn 7 and just takes over the entire board. Way too good for how little it cost me to build, and people always underestimate it. Fun to play, too.
Of all my decks, only two really get mentioned by the other people in my meta: Bolas and Oona. Oona gets groans when she comes out, along with various promises to kill me as fast as possible. I'd say they rate her pretty high. Bolas sees fear in the table's eyes when he unzips his pants. Its Archenemy from turn 1, and they all know it.
Tough to say, My old arcum deck i would say 9. As while it was horrible 1v1, in 2v1 and 3v1 i would never lose.
My Purphy deck I would say 8 As it is very fast and very agressive. But once someone starts controlling my broad or gets rid of purphy the power drops immensely.
My Mizzix deck, i would say 8 as well. He draws nothing but hate so it is tough to get rolling but one I do, chances are I have won, ifact most game with him are "Concede now or lose next turn"
Sidisi is the definition of bad. It was build as a heavy zombie tribal deck that went form UB to BUG. Chances are I will dismantle it soon and convert it to mono black Ghouldcaller Gisa.
Sedris 8.5 (Lacks Mana Crypt)
Radha 5 (It's casual, it can boom you with pump effects on Radha, but being constrained to core sets + Chronicles limits it)
Rayne, Academy Chancellor - 1. It basically just durdles forever.
I'll do my friends though.
Ben:
Momir Vig - 9 (He's lacking Mana Drain) You will lose within two turns if you don't stop him.
Dralnu "Depression" - 7.5 It's called "Depression" because it never goes away and slowly kills you.
Kaho - 9.5 - High Tide deck. Again, manage it within two turns or die.
Ken:
Pope - 9.5-10. Completely pimped out and you will lose if you don't hit him early and fast.
Angus McKenzie - 6.5 - 7.0 More on the casual end of things.
Arcum - 10 - Completely tuned, but he can "untune" by playing big Eldrazi instead of the Monolith/Power Artifact or Disk/Forge/Lattice.
Robert:
Tasigur - 9.0 - I think he lacks Mana Crypt, but he might have it. It can be quite explosive and locks you down near-instantly.
Purpohoros - 6.0 - It's casual
That's our usual table of four. Our other regulars are on the 6.0 - 8.0 scales. Most of our decks can kill on turns 1-4, but if we're like "Hey dudes, totes casual today" we'll drag the game our for two to three hours.
TLDR above: Our group is either a knife to your throat, act quick! Or it's let's veg on our chairs and do nothing until store closes.
Tbh I very highly doubt that any of the decks in your playgroup can kill on turn 1 or 2 with any reliability whatsoever..
Ephara, God of the Polis: 6/10, blink deck focused on drawing cards and building a control shell while nibbling away at your life with weenies, flyers, and equipment. Very fun to play, even if it's not the strongest deck.
I try to build all of my decks as competitively as possible. While not all reach '10' due to the natural limitations of the color identity and/or commander, I would like to think all of them are at the upper end of the spectrum. For example, Ad Nauseam Zur is obviously a 10, but my midrange Marath build is probably closer to an 8 or 8.5.
I'll do a quit breakdown of some of my person favorites. Links can be found to all of them in my signature for those interested.
Ad Nuaseam Zur: 10. Essentially the strongest deck in the format after the Vancouver mulligan change. Multiple lines of victory and consistent turn 4 wins put the deck right at the top of the list.
Boonweaver Karador: 10. Another wickedly powerful deck. It utilizes slowing elements of stax and hatebears to control the game, though it's signature combo can be assembled as early as turn 1 with a decent starting hand.
Derevi Prison: 9.5. Derevi suffered a lot from the mulligan change, having to drop many glass-cannon lokpieces in favor of more midrange tools. However, she's still undeniably one of the commanders decks in the format.
Food Chain Prossh: 9.5. Speedy wins and several lines of victory make Prossh both powerful and resilient.
Mimeoplasm Midrange: 9.5. Arguably the best devoted reanimator deck in the format, Mimeoplasm excels at comboing off quickly and consistently. Being in the best tri-color combination in the format, it has the tools to deal with nearly any situation and the explosiveness to outrace nearly any deck.
Brago Stax: 9.5. A powerful stax deck that excels at locking the board quickly and assembling its main win condition: Strionic Resonator combo.
Imperial Animar: 9.5. An extremely fast deck that can combo out by turn 4, or simply win via massive attrition. It's essentially 'creature storm', able to play through large chunks of the deck in a single turn until an infinite combo is hit.
Arcum Dagsson Stax: 9. A powerful mono-blue stax deck that can either lock down the board, or win quickly via an infinite artifact combo. Both can be accomplished simultaneously thanks to the deck's extremely low reliance on mana.
Teferi Stax: 9. Another powerful mono blue stax deck.
Yisan Midrange: 9. A quickly rising all-star in competitive metas. He gets shut down by a multitude of things, but his insane consistency and multiple paths to victory make Yisan a deck to be reckoned with.
Glass Cannon Narset: 9. Fallen pretty far since the Mulligan change.
"Instead of building a fast car to win the race, you fill the race track with manure and drive your tractor to victory.
That is stax."
~cmv_lawyer, 2016
Tasigur Reanimator: 9. Pretty much evolved along similar lines to the one we all know. Lacks mana crypt, drain, bazaar and force but has pretty much everything else.
The Gitrog Monster: 8.5. Hyper-ramp. Doesn't combo quickly like tier 1 combo lists but is a pretty solid tier 1.5 due to having the drawpower and removal to stop combo and how it literally outgrinds an entire table very consistenly, and with some draws even can place fast pressure on opponents. Is capable of hitting 15 mana by the end of turn 5 on some draws.
Xenagos, God of Revels: 7. Quite optimized, but the linear strategy in itself carries severe limitations just by its nature. Nonetheless, if not respected, it can kill out of nowhere very quickly.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: 6. Mono-black control, but geared for noncompetitive metas. Not entirely optimized. Generally wins with general damage.
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper. JANK (rating = 4). Intended to kill players with gigantic unblockable islands or a Griffin Canyon for my own amusement rather than using a better winning strategy. If I win a multiplayer game with it, I would be very thoroughly surprised.
I think I would rate my own decks, at least the ones that I build with the goal of being competitive, as 8s. I build decks to be the absolute best they can be, but I have to make a few omissions for the sake of budget and I can't play 3-color in good conscience because I don't have access to a full set of fetches or OG duals. Depending on how others consider optimization, omissions due to budget would place my decks lower than that. That said, most of my omissions are from the mana base and I play Yisan and two-color decks, so I don't feel that it decreases the power level of those decks that considerably, it just limits what I can play.
I feel constantly that the metas that I play in are wildly different than I read about on here, so in terms of where I play it is a game to win first so efficiency and answers are key.
I am however known as the Combo guy who uses cards the others need to have explained once.
So while I would put them up there competitively where I play they don't use proxies and budget holds back some more extravegant things.
8-9 to most of what I make. The longer I play Commander I find it harder to turn off that part of my brain when making decks, while still sneaking in obscure 5 part combo machines.
I stopped playing Brago and just play Azami now. I don't have allll the busted blue cards but quite a lot. That being said, I still think Azami is just crazy fun and powerful.
This thread is very interesting. A deck's rank or tier is arbitrary because its always in comparison to an unknown quantity of decks.
I believe that if you are a user of this forum and you are researching cards, decks, and strategies, your deck should be more optimized than the average player (and maybe less unique, but that is a different discussion). You should have a better knowledge of commander theory and therefor have a better working list. For instance in my group, decks never change week to week. Tuning never happens and I never see new cards. Therefor I feel like my decks are on average more powerful than theirs.
Things are totally different if you compare your builds to other decks on the forum. I'm constantly finding new cards and commanders. I learn a lot here and I think that before I tune my decks and read up, that my decks are on average weaker than decks here. But that statement is arbitrary as well! Its based on my feelings and I very rarely get to play against the decks posted here. I haven't had the time to play cockatrice in about 2 years and even when I did, I rarely ran into lists I recognized.
Then theres a whole notha level. The 'experience played building a top tier general' level.
^^ See those generals? I'm sure I've missed cards that should go on a list like that but its just an example. My decks would look bad next to those because I started by picking a commander based on if I like the commander or not. Not on how powerful it could be. So I would rank my decks very low against 'top tier' decks.
Sliver Overlord - 9 - My first deck, built to be purely Sliver tribal (with the exception of Sun Quan, Lord of Wu for fun), unlike most decklists I've seen with a ton of 'goodstuff' included. The deck is very resilient with the exception of graveyard hate. Once I start to get my graveyard filled, there is plenty of reason to worry. Can also easily win through conventional swarming tactics.
Thada Adel, Acquisitor - 7 - Built to copy and/or steal anything and everything. With the ability to have multiple Quicksilver Fountains, I can also throw quite a wrench into most strategies. Taking artifacts out of other decks is enjoyable as well.
Toshiro Umezawa - 6 - Just your typical 'kill everything with instants' build, but not too sure how I'd like it to win in general.
Experiment Kraj - 7 - Built as a combo deck revolving around Kraj, with either infinite mill or +1/+1 counters. Can work well if I come across my combo early or later in the game where I can put everything down and go off in the same turn.
Gabriel Angelfire - 3 - Mostly gimmicky, intended win condition involves Gabriel Angelfire, a creature with banding, a source of trample and a Lure effect. Can win through simple damage and Beastmaster Ascension if necessary. Nothing special, I consider it to be near the level of a precon even with the synergy.
The Gitrog Monster - 4 - Newly built, still really trying to figure out how I really want it to play.
These rankings are based on my playgroup alone. I think our group is probably more casual than if I went to an LGS, so I don't really know how they would stack up in that environment.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher - 9, I think. It's Food Chain Prossh, so it's pretty cutthroat, but I find myself taking cards out of it a lot to put in other decks. It's the most competitive deck I've got, and I don't play it often.
Chainer, Dementia Master - 8, maybe, This is my favorite deck, and my signiture deck, and it can definitely hold it's own. It's designed for long, drawn out multiplayer games, so the faster the game, the weaker it gets. This deck specializes in Planechase games, where it has never lost (out of like, maybe, 4 games, so not a real impressive feat).
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - 7. Also a combo deck, but it relies on rummaging to get to its combo pieces. Still wins a good number of games.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster - 6. Bruna can absolutely own games, but I've made no effort to maximize what she can do. A pretty casual deck.
Rhys the Redeemed - 6. This is a relatively new deck, so I don't have a real good grasp on how good it is. At it's best, it's very good, but it's kind of an unknown entity to me right now.
Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas - 5. It is literally just the precon right now. I actually love the giant theme this deck has, so the idea is to keep that, and upgrade here and there (particularly the mana base), but it will never be a competitive deck, I don't think. Not on purpose anyway.
Sedris 8.5 (Lacks Mana Crypt)
Radha 5 (It's casual, it can boom you with pump effects on Radha, but being constrained to core sets + Chronicles limits it)
Rayne, Academy Chancellor - 1. It basically just durdles forever.
I'll do my friends though.
Ben:
Momir Vig - 9 (He's lacking Mana Drain) You will lose within two turns if you don't stop him.
Dralnu "Depression" - 7.5 It's called "Depression" because it never goes away and slowly kills you.
Kaho - 9.5 - High Tide deck. Again, manage it within two turns or die.
Ken:
Pope - 9.5-10. Completely pimped out and you will lose if you don't hit him early and fast.
Angus McKenzie - 6.5 - 7.0 More on the casual end of things.
Arcum - 10 - Completely tuned, but he can "untune" by playing big Eldrazi instead of the Monolith/Power Artifact or Disk/Forge/Lattice.
Robert:
Tasigur - 9.0 - I think he lacks Mana Crypt, but he might have it. It can be quite explosive and locks you down near-instantly.
Purpohoros - 6.0 - It's casual
That's our usual table of four. Our other regulars are on the 6.0 - 8.0 scales. Most of our decks can kill on turns 1-4, but if we're like "Hey dudes, totes casual today" we'll drag the game our for two to three hours.
TLDR above: Our group is either a knife to your throat, act quick! Or it's let's veg on our chairs and do nothing until store closes.
Tbh I very highly doubt that any of the decks in your playgroup can kill on turn 1 or 2 with any reliability whatsoever..
They can. One guy's Nin deck routinely got Monolith/Power Artifact then Goblin Cannon.
Memnarch gets Workshop/Mana Crypt etc. going quickly.
Tuned Ad Naus can get there.
Remember, every player (except myself until recently and one other or two) are playing with: Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith (+ Power Artifact), Mox Diamond (at times), Mana Drain, Force of Will/Pact of Negation, Mishra's Worshop. etc. etc. We have to ask ourselves to slow down the game to play because we're quite capable of explosive starts.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I think it does depend on the playgroup. If 10 is a combo based Tier 1 kill in 3 turns deck, then my strongest is probably a 6/6.5. It's fair, and there's probably room for some upgrades and it would still be "fair", but I like my fungi subtheme more than I would another tutor.
My weakest deck is probably a 3 or 4 right now, but it's mostly spare parts. I try to keep my decks somewhere between 4 to 6. One day I might build a spiky 8 or 9 (likely my Nekusar), but I doubt I would have much fun with it. I only have one infinite combo in my main two decks, and I just put those in so I am testing them out. (And neither are instawin.)
A few self-handicaps also prevent me from making my decks ultra competitive: I don't use unrevealed tutors, and I don't place more than one of any card in any of my current decks except for basic lands. (These rules help a) keep games fresh, b) help me ensure I mix up my colors and c) help me keep my budget relatively affordable, as I can only afford to keep two or so decks somewhat competitive.)
For reference:
Ghave - 6.5 - Starts off slow with lots of ramp, but by turn 8 or 9 can do some crazy things, like drop Cathar's Crusade and Avenger of Zendikar. I have one infinite loop in here (Doubling Season/Ashnod's Altar/Ghave.) This decks power curve is like a parabola.
Nekusar - 5.5 - It's only this high because it's hard to make a weak Nekusar. Mostly a pile of wheels, draw and some zombie tribal. The only deck I will ever use Jin Gitaxias in.
Ephara- 5 - Blink shenanigans. Could easily make Brago the commander, but I like the easy card draw. Usually slows the game down and wins off the butts of big flyers.
Shu Yun - ? - Just built but I project it in the 6 range. Going for a Last Airbender theme (elemental monk kung fu! Yah!). Going with a few creatures for now but might one day make it pure Voltron. (In which case it transitions to an 80s action flick deck)
Melek - 4 - This is like a poor man's version of Mizzix. I just tweaked it to be a "top card matters" deck, with Melek, Galvanoth, and a few other cards, with some scry to manipulate. The goal is to copy all the big sorceries, so not many X spells (besides Epic Experiment and Fireball for flavor and/or Izzet theme reasons.) I'm not too worried about how sucky this is, since it's very likely getting wiped out when they spoil a legendary RU artifacts matter commander in Kaladesh.
I will ask my playgroup what they think. Most of their decks are casual too. A few come by with tuned decks, but we try to teach him we don't have to win every game to have fun. He doesn't quite get it yet..
* This is the expected rating I would assign the deck, based on past experience with similar builds, but do not have sufficient information from actual play to yet accurately assess its strength.
I have an actual question of concern about my play groups power level when it comes to decks.
At first I would rate my decks mid level, maybe slllliiiightly higher. I'd say my skill level was a bigger issue then the cards, although again the decks were mid. But as we started playing with more experienced players, deck building had to increase to probably... Just a smudge less then complete cutthroat. Like t2-t3 koz/Ulamog evil. Now some of our group wants to build better to beat that.
I need to reduce that. I just sent for the rest of the cards for a lazav deck and rebuilt my Mizzix deck. Hopefully after just losing a while the others will build down too out of potty. Edh for me was supposed to be fairly casual and "zaney"... We...we became monsters.
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It's the Doomsday Grenzo, and while it can use a wee bit more streamlining, it only needs one turn unattended to run away with the game, while spending normal games just holding its own until it decides to win.
Prime Speaker Zegana: 8
While resilient, it's not very fast off the mark, giving it some early game issues which hold it back. Once it gets rolling it's a monster as it can easily throw down multiple Eldrazis each turn.
Rasputin Dreamweaver: 7
Dangerous, capable of controlling the game very well, but on the slow side and liable to the occasional mana screw. Could probably tune it up a bit more but I like it as it is.
Olivia, Mobilized for War: 6.5
It used to be knight tribal but I've turned it into Dragonstorm/reanimator. Between Balthor and Dragonstorm it can end the game on a moment's notice, and it starts dropping bombs early on too. Not as high in card quality though.
Child of Alara: 6
Despite being a pauper deck, it can be a terror to play against. That said, it's restrictions will always keep it from being even better, despite it's already ridiculous ability to draw out games and grind them out.
Jori En, Ruin Diver: 4.5
It's controlling but slow. Liable to being overwhelmed in the face of poor draws. That said, the longer a game lasts the more dangerous it slowly becomes...but it'll never trade punches with the big guys.
Chorus of the Conclave: 4
It's pretty one-dimensional, being what it is (Selesnya ramp-aggro) but it does that well. It can survive early games rather well but barring very specific draws, a simple wrath or fog-based deck can completely neuter the deck.
Starter decks: 3
This is my baseline for out-of-the-box starter decks, FWIW.
The Lady of the Mountain: 2
If it wins, it's either because it drew into all it's ramp into early Inferno Titan and Magma Giant and all that, or it resolved Primal Surge. No other reason why this deck ever wins. But it's fun to throw against new players.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Top tier - (8-9)
Braids, Conjurer Adept - draw everything infinite turn combo
Krenko, Mob Boss - tribal goblins - infinite goblins
Teneb, the Harvester - kill things, reanimate things, etc
Kothophed, Soul Hoarder - kill everything, gain tons of life
Omnath, Locus of Mana - mana in the hundreds
Animar, Soul of Elements - surprise infinite creatures
Mid-tier - (6-7)
Sliver Legion - aggro-ish tribal slivers
Kumano, Master Yamabushi - big red things + artifact hate
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant - vigilance themed
Rith, the Awakener - token swarm
Ertai, the Corrupted - tribal wizards - combo wins
Prime Speaker Zegana - +1/+1 counters and bouncing
Low-tier - (4-5)
Xira Arien - infect themed
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - tirbal zombies w/no wheels
Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker - mill themed
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight - aggro - <$100 initial build cap
Ruric Thar, the Unbowed - 60-ish creature build
Rubinia Soulsinger - steal stuff
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - tribal rats - 25 Relentless Rats
Tier 1 (8+)
Animar, Soul of Elements combo
Hokori, Dust Drinker artifact/hatebear stax
Tier 2 (6-7)
Marath, Will of the Wild control/combo
Edric, Spymaster of Trest elf tribal aggro
Athreos, God of Passage control/sacrifice theme
Tier 3 (4-5)
Marchesa, the Black Rose wizard tribal control
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper spellslinger control
Intet, the Dreamer dragon tribal midrange
Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas midrange
Grimgrin, Corpse-born zombie tribal midrange
Karona, False God enchantress pillowfort midrange
- Daretti, scrap savant: I don't play a lot of the most powerful (and expensive) mana rocks, and with a restriction on combos/stax, but id say its at around 7.5+ considering its pretty tuned, fast and resilient.
- Marchesa, the black rose: Around a 6 i would guess? it's pretty good and has a lot of synergies so it's very explosive. But it lacks some tuning. It usually places well at your average table. No infinites and no tutors drags it down as well.
- Narset, enlightened master: 4-ish, I could stretch it to 5-. It's a burn deck... so plays like a glass cannon with a hint of control. You can do 60+ damage in one turn if you hit some doublers off Narset, and Narset is pretty powerfull herself. so i'm a bit hesitant to put it at 4.
- Vela the night-clad: ninja/assasin/rogue themed. I'd say 3/4 in multiplayer and 5 in 1v1. A lot of spot removal, permission and discard makes it much better against one opponent than multiple.
- Ezuri, claw of progress: 4 (maybe approaching 5). It's a precon upgraded with around 10 cards. However ezuri is quite powerfull and the precon just needed some evasion and card advantage to be decent.
-Phenax, god of deception: semi retired but 7+. It's a dedicated mill combo deck, where the win condition is to assemble infinite or near infinite combos with counter backup. (depatable, as the original 3 eldrazi titans are soft banned in my local meta, and do not make mill impossible.)
RWU Narset, jeskai burn
RUB Marchesa the black rose
R Daretti, reanimator goodstuff
BU Vela, ninja assasin
UG Ezuri, woodland critters.
Merieke ri Berit: 2. It's a deck composed 100% of Ice Age/Alliances cards, so it has a huge power handicap. Still, it can randomly draw it's Necropotence and do surprisingly well.
Endrek Sahr: 4.5. Has some sick synergies, but over-all a low powered deck built for thematic purposes. For example, it has Ebon Praetor in it. How well it performs is largely dependent on whether it gets the "low-profile" hate avoidance, since the deck falls apart if the commander is targeted by removal.
Zedruu the Greathearted: 6. It can definitely win, though I mostly just bring it out to have fun. I just edited a lot to take out my favorite Mana Flare/X spells win condition, which honestly didn't fit in the deck, so it might perform much more efficiently now.
Dakkon Blackblade: 7. This is my "board wipes, board wipes, and more board wipes" deck, which pretty much has Dakkon as it's only non-land permanent. Classic draw-go control, though also less than optimal since I use many cards just because I think they're "cool."
Azusa, Lost But Seeking: 8. This is probably my most powerful deck. It's far from optimal since I use old-bordeded cards as much as possible, but it has some rather expensive cards and can do some broken things, like locking mana down with Strip Mine/Crucible of Worlds/Azusa, or repeatedly generating a double-digit number of 4/4 Beast tokens in one turn.
Corrupt Control B | Burn R | UG Turbofog UG | White Weenie W | GW Tethmos WG | BG Cycling Combo BG
Enchantress GBW | Colorless Tron C | Red Deck Wins R | UG Madness UG | Mono-G Tron G | UR Puzzlehorns UR
Rhystic Tron WU| WU Prowess WU | BR Reanimator BR | Mono-R Control R | Stompy G | Temur Tron URG
Mardu Infinite Priest WBR | 85-Card Dredge BRG | Elves GU | Boros Bully RW | Jeskai Familiars RWU
It can be played competitively by being very fast at piecing together board locks and outright crippling opposing players. It's got all of the relevant tutors in WUG colors to help assemble a near unbreakable stasis effect, however it can easily play a very fun game of Magic too, by accelerating others, drawing people cards, and even tie the game with Divine Intervention.
This is how I'm rating the decks:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher (6)- Altered from the precon but never truly fine-tuned as I would have liked: It was good enough to kill at least one person per game but far from winning the whole she-bang. Still it was threatening enough.
Memnarch (7)- Better than my Prossh deck and built from the ground up. Slow and still not as fine-tuned as other decks I made but could pull off some wicked combos, produce enough threats to overwhelm my opponents and could adapt to what was on the board. Again, the main problem was that it was very slow and if it didn't produce an good enough answer, fell to the wayside. Utterly devastating at it's peak but inconsistent.
Animar, Soul of Elements (8)- Probably my most cherished deck. Finely tuned and capable of really going off turn 4-5. Can infinite combo out but can also just overwhelm opponents with multiple threats.
Sharuum the Hegemon (9)- Spiritual successor to Memnarch. Faster, lots of tutors and infinite combos. Not as fast as Animar in the first few turns but capable of stalling opponents with multiple board clears that never really hurt it's own field. If it didn't combo out it would turn the game into a war of attrition it almost always won.
Sliver Overlord (6)- Not a bad deck and had some decent cards. But slivers weakness of board clears and their NEED to have certain slivers made everything feel real inconsistent. The deck just never felt like it 'clicked' to me and I never smoothed it out.
Scion of the Ur-Dragon (9)- Dangerous, versatile and surprisingly fast. Able to dish out tons of damage with Scion and cheat out multiple other dragons and creatures. Made my Animar deck cry...
Tasigur, the Golden Fang (N/A)- Still being put together.
BK'rrik Goodstuff
GWSythis Enchantress
URYusri Coin Flip
BRGKorvold Tokens
BGUYarok Lands Matter
WUBRaffine Looter
Numbers in brackets are my evaluations followed by flatmates evaluations.
Prossh(9, 9): Can easily land Prossh on turns 3/4 and follow it up with an overrun in the subsequent turn to kill whomever most likely runs the boardwipes at the table. It can use Mazerik, Kraul Death Priest and Murderous Redcap as an infinite win condition if needed. It follows the french banned list currently.
Tasigur, the golden fang(7, 7): A reanimation list inspired by Dies_to_doom_blade's, however is missing key pieces of power, like survival of the fitest and a combo based win condition. It often proves a persistent threat throughout the game.
Noyan Dar(7.5, 6): Draw Go control almost at it's finest. The later the game goes, the stronger the deck is, and it can happily operate on reasonably small amounts of mana with the curve ending at 4 outside of a couple of boardwipes. Inkmoth also provides a convincing endgame to deal with anyone.
Zurgo(7, -): This deck is like a juggernaut. It builds up slowly, but once it hits a point it is unstoppable. Its a token deck that can be increadilby explosive. It has not been uncommon for people ask if I can deal with one problematic permenant at the table, so they can deal with others, and instead removing the player in question much to the tables surprise. The deck at the moment has issues with its mana base, as it uses a mixture of tapped lands for fixing, and requires mana rocks to get to the late game mana it wants.
Karametra(6, 5): My durdle fest deck. It will sit back and swamp you with landfall triggers. Backed up by an Avacyn or Iona if people are being rude, and I feel like playing an Eye for an Eye.
This deck is just a massive pile of discard synergy and Grixis-flavored hate. It's very hard to pilot, but can take on even the most degenerate decks with a great chance to win. It has more answers than you have threats, and it doesn't care what you're piloting, only what will break first. Your spirit? Or your life total? My favorite deck of all time.
Oona, Queen of the Fae: 9.3, Tier 1.5
Speed is power. My only deck with a reliable T3-4 kill. Lots of money invested in this one, but it's my one dedicated cEDH deck. Very high win rate overall, and a good win rate at even the major cut-throat tables. This one only comes out when the right people are playing.
Jolrael, Empress of Beasts: 6.0, Tier 4.5
A new project, built for casual tables. Big mana, kinda slow, and wins by turning things sideways and using a few cheap tricks. Extremely fun to play, however.
Cromat: 7.5, Tier 3.5
A giant 5c control deck that blows up the board over and over Oloro-style, before recurring a bunch of Phoenixes from the graveyard to beat down with. Runs multiple unusual lock pieces like Ice Cave with Arcane Laboratory and no tutors cuz they'd make it (more) boring. Has a good win record, but games take ages to finish. I play this one the least.
Archangel Avacyn: 5.0 (work in progress)
An EDH "weeniegeddon" deck. Lots of lands, cheap creatures, cheap sweepers, and mass land destruction. More of an experiment in Boros than a deck built to win. Needs more monetary investment to be decent and absolutely everyone hates it. Fun for 1v1 though, and might become my new Duel Commander deck.
Marrow-Gnawer: 7.5 Tier 3.5
It's Krenko with black mana doublers and tutors. What's not to love? Current record: 2,003 rats without using combo. My only true aggro deck. Usually loses to any real good deck running blue, but still wins a fair share of games.
Liliana, Heretical Healer / Liliana, Defiant Necromancer: 8.0, Tier 3.0
The sleeper. Ults a planeswalker in 80% of games. If it isn't heavily, and I mean heavily, disrupted, it goes from 0 to 60 on the threat'o'meter at about turn 7 and just takes over the entire board. Way too good for how little it cost me to build, and people always underestimate it. Fun to play, too.
Of all my decks, only two really get mentioned by the other people in my meta: Bolas and Oona. Oona gets groans when she comes out, along with various promises to kill me as fast as possible. I'd say they rate her pretty high. Bolas sees fear in the table's eyes when he unzips his pants. Its Archenemy from turn 1, and they all know it.
Nicol Bolas Dragon Dick
Hanna, Ship's Navigator Heart-attack Stax
Oona, Queen of the Fae Fairy Dance
Vhati Il-Dal Tree of Woe
Scion of the Ur-Dragon Durgensturm
Jolrael, Empress of Beasts Jamuraa's Army
Liliana, Heretical Healer Rise from your Graves and Proliferate
Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Angelic Judgment [
My Purphy deck I would say 8 As it is very fast and very agressive. But once someone starts controlling my broad or gets rid of purphy the power drops immensely.
My Mizzix deck, i would say 8 as well. He draws nothing but hate so it is tough to get rolling but one I do, chances are I have won, ifact most game with him are "Concede now or lose next turn"
Sidisi is the definition of bad. It was build as a heavy zombie tribal deck that went form UB to BUG. Chances are I will dismantle it soon and convert it to mono black Ghouldcaller Gisa.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Tbh I very highly doubt that any of the decks in your playgroup can kill on turn 1 or 2 with any reliability whatsoever..
Xenagos, God of Revels: 7/10, the plan: Ramp -> Xenagos -> fatties. It's pretty satisfying to one-shot an opponent with Malignus or Putrefax.
Teysa, Orzhov Scion: 8/10, combo deck loaded with tutors and reanimator effects.
I'll do a quit breakdown of some of my person favorites. Links can be found to all of them in my signature for those interested.
Ad Nuaseam Zur: 10. Essentially the strongest deck in the format after the Vancouver mulligan change. Multiple lines of victory and consistent turn 4 wins put the deck right at the top of the list.
Boonweaver Karador: 10. Another wickedly powerful deck. It utilizes slowing elements of stax and hatebears to control the game, though it's signature combo can be assembled as early as turn 1 with a decent starting hand.
Derevi Prison: 9.5. Derevi suffered a lot from the mulligan change, having to drop many glass-cannon lokpieces in favor of more midrange tools. However, she's still undeniably one of the commanders decks in the format.
Food Chain Prossh: 9.5. Speedy wins and several lines of victory make Prossh both powerful and resilient.
Mimeoplasm Midrange: 9.5. Arguably the best devoted reanimator deck in the format, Mimeoplasm excels at comboing off quickly and consistently. Being in the best tri-color combination in the format, it has the tools to deal with nearly any situation and the explosiveness to outrace nearly any deck.
Brago Stax: 9.5. A powerful stax deck that excels at locking the board quickly and assembling its main win condition: Strionic Resonator combo.
Imperial Animar: 9.5. An extremely fast deck that can combo out by turn 4, or simply win via massive attrition. It's essentially 'creature storm', able to play through large chunks of the deck in a single turn until an infinite combo is hit.
Arcum Dagsson Stax: 9. A powerful mono-blue stax deck that can either lock down the board, or win quickly via an infinite artifact combo. Both can be accomplished simultaneously thanks to the deck's extremely low reliance on mana.
Teferi Stax: 9. Another powerful mono blue stax deck.
Yisan Midrange: 9. A quickly rising all-star in competitive metas. He gets shut down by a multitude of things, but his insane consistency and multiple paths to victory make Yisan a deck to be reckoned with.
Glass Cannon Narset: 9. Fallen pretty far since the Mulligan change.
Sisay Stax: 8.5
Meren Midrange: 8.5
Marath Midrange: 8
Kaalia Stax: 7.5
Shattergang Stax: 7.5
Splinter Twin Sedris: 7.5
Grenzo Doomsday: 7.5
That is stax."
~cmv_lawyer, 2016
WUI Don't Mean to Brago, But... RWBI'll Kaalia Back Later GBWKaradora the Graveyard Explorer BRGLive Long and Prosshper
BGUMuscle Plasm URGImperial Animarch BGLemon Meren Pie GWStop Being Such a Sisay UTefearsome RGWMarath of the Titans
UBRNow Watch me Trai Trai RWBAleshstax GWUPrison Can Roon Your Life BRGrenzo: Your Doom UArcum's Asylum of Stax
BGFeel the Ground Croak GThe All New 2016 Yisan Wanderer URFo Rizzle Mah Mizzle UBRA Game of Marchess
The Gitrog Monster: 8.5. Hyper-ramp. Doesn't combo quickly like tier 1 combo lists but is a pretty solid tier 1.5 due to having the drawpower and removal to stop combo and how it literally outgrinds an entire table very consistenly, and with some draws even can place fast pressure on opponents. Is capable of hitting 15 mana by the end of turn 5 on some draws.
Xenagos, God of Revels: 7. Quite optimized, but the linear strategy in itself carries severe limitations just by its nature. Nonetheless, if not respected, it can kill out of nowhere very quickly.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: 6. Mono-black control, but geared for noncompetitive metas. Not entirely optimized. Generally wins with general damage.
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper. JANK (rating = 4). Intended to kill players with gigantic unblockable islands or a Griffin Canyon for my own amusement rather than using a better winning strategy. If I win a multiplayer game with it, I would be very thoroughly surprised.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Draft my Peasant Cube.
I am however known as the Combo guy who uses cards the others need to have explained once.
So while I would put them up there competitively where I play they don't use proxies and budget holds back some more extravegant things.
8-9 to most of what I make. The longer I play Commander I find it harder to turn off that part of my brain when making decks, while still sneaking in obscure 5 part combo machines.
I believe that if you are a user of this forum and you are researching cards, decks, and strategies, your deck should be more optimized than the average player (and maybe less unique, but that is a different discussion). You should have a better knowledge of commander theory and therefor have a better working list. For instance in my group, decks never change week to week. Tuning never happens and I never see new cards. Therefor I feel like my decks are on average more powerful than theirs.
Things are totally different if you compare your builds to other decks on the forum. I'm constantly finding new cards and commanders. I learn a lot here and I think that before I tune my decks and read up, that my decks are on average weaker than decks here. But that statement is arbitrary as well! Its based on my feelings and I very rarely get to play against the decks posted here. I haven't had the time to play cockatrice in about 2 years and even when I did, I rarely ran into lists I recognized.
Then theres a whole notha level. The 'experience played building a top tier general' level.
^^ See those generals? I'm sure I've missed cards that should go on a list like that but its just an example. My decks would look bad next to those because I started by picking a commander based on if I like the commander or not. Not on how powerful it could be. So I would rank my decks very low against 'top tier' decks.
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
Thada Adel, Acquisitor - 7 - Built to copy and/or steal anything and everything. With the ability to have multiple Quicksilver Fountains, I can also throw quite a wrench into most strategies. Taking artifacts out of other decks is enjoyable as well.
Toshiro Umezawa - 6 - Just your typical 'kill everything with instants' build, but not too sure how I'd like it to win in general.
Experiment Kraj - 7 - Built as a combo deck revolving around Kraj, with either infinite mill or +1/+1 counters. Can work well if I come across my combo early or later in the game where I can put everything down and go off in the same turn.
Gabriel Angelfire - 3 - Mostly gimmicky, intended win condition involves Gabriel Angelfire, a creature with banding, a source of trample and a Lure effect. Can win through simple damage and Beastmaster Ascension if necessary. Nothing special, I consider it to be near the level of a precon even with the synergy.
The Gitrog Monster - 4 - Newly built, still really trying to figure out how I really want it to play.
I'll be building Zedruu the Greathearted which should be fun and definitely different.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher - 9, I think. It's Food Chain Prossh, so it's pretty cutthroat, but I find myself taking cards out of it a lot to put in other decks. It's the most competitive deck I've got, and I don't play it often.
Chainer, Dementia Master - 8, maybe, This is my favorite deck, and my signiture deck, and it can definitely hold it's own. It's designed for long, drawn out multiplayer games, so the faster the game, the weaker it gets. This deck specializes in Planechase games, where it has never lost (out of like, maybe, 4 games, so not a real impressive feat).
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - 7. Also a combo deck, but it relies on rummaging to get to its combo pieces. Still wins a good number of games.
Bruna, Light of Alabaster - 6. Bruna can absolutely own games, but I've made no effort to maximize what she can do. A pretty casual deck.
Rhys the Redeemed - 6. This is a relatively new deck, so I don't have a real good grasp on how good it is. At it's best, it's very good, but it's kind of an unknown entity to me right now.
Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas - 5. It is literally just the precon right now. I actually love the giant theme this deck has, so the idea is to keep that, and upgrade here and there (particularly the mana base), but it will never be a competitive deck, I don't think. Not on purpose anyway.
WU Bruna UW | R Kiki-Jiki R | RB New Chainer BR
Legacy - Burn | Pauper - Reanimator | Aristocrats | Burn
@votechainer2016
They can. One guy's Nin deck routinely got Monolith/Power Artifact then Goblin Cannon.
Memnarch gets Workshop/Mana Crypt etc. going quickly.
Tuned Ad Naus can get there.
Remember, every player (except myself until recently and one other or two) are playing with: Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Grim Monolith (+ Power Artifact), Mox Diamond (at times), Mana Drain, Force of Will/Pact of Negation, Mishra's Worshop. etc. etc. We have to ask ourselves to slow down the game to play because we're quite capable of explosive starts.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
My weakest deck is probably a 3 or 4 right now, but it's mostly spare parts. I try to keep my decks somewhere between 4 to 6. One day I might build a spiky 8 or 9 (likely my Nekusar), but I doubt I would have much fun with it. I only have one infinite combo in my main two decks, and I just put those in so I am testing them out. (And neither are instawin.)
A few self-handicaps also prevent me from making my decks ultra competitive: I don't use unrevealed tutors, and I don't place more than one of any card in any of my current decks except for basic lands. (These rules help a) keep games fresh, b) help me ensure I mix up my colors and c) help me keep my budget relatively affordable, as I can only afford to keep two or so decks somewhat competitive.)
For reference:
Ghave - 6.5 - Starts off slow with lots of ramp, but by turn 8 or 9 can do some crazy things, like drop Cathar's Crusade and Avenger of Zendikar. I have one infinite loop in here (Doubling Season/Ashnod's Altar/Ghave.) This decks power curve is like a parabola.
Nekusar - 5.5 - It's only this high because it's hard to make a weak Nekusar. Mostly a pile of wheels, draw and some zombie tribal. The only deck I will ever use Jin Gitaxias in.
Ephara- 5 - Blink shenanigans. Could easily make Brago the commander, but I like the easy card draw. Usually slows the game down and wins off the butts of big flyers.
Shu Yun - ? - Just built but I project it in the 6 range. Going for a Last Airbender theme (elemental monk kung fu! Yah!). Going with a few creatures for now but might one day make it pure Voltron. (In which case it transitions to an 80s action flick deck)
Melek - 4 - This is like a poor man's version of Mizzix. I just tweaked it to be a "top card matters" deck, with Melek, Galvanoth, and a few other cards, with some scry to manipulate. The goal is to copy all the big sorceries, so not many X spells (besides Epic Experiment and Fireball for flavor and/or Izzet theme reasons.) I'm not too worried about how sucky this is, since it's very likely getting wiped out when they spoil a legendary RU artifacts matter commander in Kaladesh.
I will ask my playgroup what they think. Most of their decks are casual too. A few come by with tuned decks, but we try to teach him we don't have to win every game to have fun. He doesn't quite get it yet..
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
3-4: Commander preconstructed decks
9-10: High-tier competative builds (dedicated Hermit Druid, Ad Nauseam, and the like)
7: Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
8: Karador, Ghost Chieftain
9: Glissa, the Traitor*
* This is the expected rating I would assign the deck, based on past experience with similar builds, but do not have sufficient information from actual play to yet accurately assess its strength.
A Dying Wish
To Rise Again
Chainer, Dementia Master
Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
At first I would rate my decks mid level, maybe slllliiiightly higher. I'd say my skill level was a bigger issue then the cards, although again the decks were mid. But as we started playing with more experienced players, deck building had to increase to probably... Just a smudge less then complete cutthroat. Like t2-t3 koz/Ulamog evil. Now some of our group wants to build better to beat that.
I need to reduce that. I just sent for the rest of the cards for a lazav deck and rebuilt my Mizzix deck. Hopefully after just losing a while the others will build down too out of potty. Edh for me was supposed to be fairly casual and "zaney"... We...we became monsters.