Inspired by that recent thread on archetypes, I'm posting what I use for thinking about my own decks in terms of power level.
**** (4)—CEDH: This category includes most every deck folks play in serious competitive games. See this subreddit, for example.
***½ (3.5)—Almost Competitive: Here we have decks that include lots of cEDH elements but aren't quite powerful &/or consistent enough to qualify for the above category because of budget constraints, stylistic choices, builder's intention, &/or incompetence.
*** (3)—Tryhard: For the former, these decks approximately optimize a fundamentally dubious approach, such as draw-go control or land ramp. This tier also includes decks that whimsically pursue fundamentally sound approaches.
**½ (2.5)—Casually Cruel: Here we have essentially casual decks that feature one or more elements many consider mean: infinite combos, you-win cards, stax, prison, mass land destruction, etc. Decks focused on finite synergies that end the game in combo fashion but aren't remotely close to cEDH also fit into this category.
** (2)—Strong but Fair: These decks roughly resemble those played by the Rules Committee. They eschew infinite combos and elements that prevent opponents from playing but have potent synergies, effective answers, & threats that can end the game.
*½ (1.5)—Underpowered: This category covers a variety of decks that perform worse than Strong but Fair lists, whether for aesthetic considerations or what have you. Precons go here.
* (1)—Experience Only: For all practical purposes, these decks can't win against a table of Strong but Fair or better decks. The ranking covers pure theme decks, piles of vanilla creatures, joke decks, lists with extremely inconsistent mana, & so on.
I think it's weird that even at 2.5 there's still infinite combos, mass ld, etc. scale seems very top heavy or something.
I'd say most of my decks fit 2-3.5 as well, but very few involve those things (and if so, it's usually to prevent it from totally sucking, not to bump it to 3.5).
I think it's weird that even at 2.5 there's still infinite combos, mass ld, etc. scale seems very top heavy or something.
That in part comes from my experience. For example, in one case, after a local EDH tournament for prizes where some folks play full-on cEDH decks, we decided to switch to casual. I opted to play my short-lived Najeela, the Blade-Blossom list that in did include various combos but wasn't remotely close to competitive. I got lucky & comboed out on turn five or something. The person playing Kruphix, God of Horizons said they would have won the next turn with Grim Monolith plus Power Artifact.
Of course, focusing on whether a deck has those elements many think unfriendly doesn't necessarily tell you that much about its overall ability to win the game. You can throw an Armageddon into whatever deck with white in it without making the deck a powerhouse or even good, of course. (The very first game of EDH I ever played involved someone casting Armageddon for no particular reason.) I make that distinction for myself because I do know some people who dislike playing against such elements.
I'd say most of my decks fit 2-3.5 as well, but very few involve those things (and if so, it's usually to prevent it from totally sucking, not to bump it to 3.5).
I have trouble imagining an Almost Competitive list that doesn't involve win-on-the-spot combos. Even prison decks in cEDH like Blood Pod typically have some sort of combo finish.
I mean for me decks with intentional infinite combos who somewhat plan to look for them are never quite casual, they'd be beyond "casually cruel". For me that involves control, stax, heavy discard etc. But not that well-tuned, or built in such a way that maybe the pilot doesn't benefit as much as they probably should do, even if they are successful in making it a slog for opponents.
I think it's weird that even at 2.5 there's still infinite combos, mass ld, etc. scale seems very top heavy or something.
I'd say most of my decks fit 2-3.5 as well, but very few involve those things (and if so, it's usually to prevent it from totally sucking, not to bump it to 3.5).
It's easy to build infinite combos, even by accident*, and somebody somewhere is going to ***** about any control deck, even a *****ty one. (Or for that matter, about just having counterspells, individual LD, and discard, even "fixed" versions like Cancel, Craterize, and Mind Rot. I get the image "fixed" is used in the veterinary sense.)
*Ghave, Marath, and Prossh were all precon commanders, no?
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
...I build almost entirely casual-approach decks trying to in-flavor optimize really dumb ideas. So... most of my decks are at 2 - at best.
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X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
I'm not saying a deck at that level can't have combo/ld/etc, I just don't see why it would need to.
Quote from Incanur »
I have trouble imagining an Almost Competitive list that doesn't involve win-on-the-spot combos. Even prison decks in cEDH like Blood Pod typically have some sort of combo finish.
My Phelddagrif also wins without combos. I just make myself as immortal as I possibly can until everyone eventually draws out from all my Howling Mine type permanents and Prosperity type spells. Sure it's not reliable especially when a group already knows the ruse but it's certainly funny.
I'd say I'm 1.75. I just go with meme-y builds like dragons or homelands commander voltrons but the thing is I know what I'm doing with those builds.
I'm between 2.5 and 3.5 as a deck builder and around 1.5 skill as a player. Usually between my mild budget constraints and my deck's general menace, I end up a villain for the table to depose and that's kinda alright with me. I like that I've been able to provide some satisfying wins to other players through playing that part of the table's story, like they managed to blow up my death star or something (especially amusing when I lose in a 3v1 against absolute jank).
I prefer to see them in five tiers. Tier 1 is things like Zur, Yisan, and Kess. Tier 2 is where we have Ghave, Prossh, Animar (though arguably Animar is 1.5), Narset, Oona, and Edric: Competitive, e.g., you can go infinite very easily, but not busted on the level of "grab for Necropotence the first time your commander attacks". Tier 3 is mid-tier. Tier 4 is low-tier. Tier 5 is strictly casual.
Bear in mind, even Zur can be played casual: Just make sure all your enchantments are low-tier auras and basic things like Spear of Heliod and Phyrexian Arena. And any five-color Commander can be made into a Hermit Druid deck just when your opponents think it's safe to lighten up on gravehate; or Doomsday Zur can just as easily be Doomsday Halfdane or Doomsday Chromium, but Zur's abilities help more.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Shouldn’t the tier system be normalized around precons? So precons ~tier2.5 or something? Gives us space for wiggle room around pure theme/trainwreck to almost as good as a precon.
10 - CEDH. Within CEDH you have its own scale. If you fall in this point of the scale, you can win at least 20% of CEDH games with your deck. (25% being the average winrate at any given table.)
9 - High End EDH. Decks here can trade punches with CEDH, but on a full-on CEDH table, they're not expected to win. These are decks that are very well tuned, but may not be to the specifications that CEDH requires.
8 - Strong EDH. Even these decks CAN beat CEDH decks. They may not be favored, but they're either fast, resilient or stable enough to give them a good match. However, they're more likely to be tuned to a specific meta more than to CEDH, and as such may have flaws that CEDH can exploit.
7 - High end Casual EDH. These decks are expected to lose to CEDH, but should have no problem with starter decks and in fact will make it feel like a curbstomp. This is where "house acceptible" starts to play in - some houses allow MLD, others will want you to refrain from it, whatever. Decks are made with those constraints in mind.
6 - Most average EDH. This is where you'll find the bulk of decks. These are decks that have clear strategies in mind, that work with viable themes, but are still just mostly for fun. This I call the main average.
5 - Themed Casual EDH. This is where you'll find decks that can do fine in casual enviroments, but aren't expected to win as much because the premise of the deck is inherently flawed. The deck may still very much work, just that the build has too many base limitations to work with to be actually strong.
4 - Hyper Casual EDH. One tier above starter decks, this is mostly decks that are build either as an afterthought, a beginner-friendly deck, or really flawed themed decks built to their max. They can pull wins against better decks, but don't tend to be a player's main deck unless they're just beginning.
3 - Starter decks. Yup. With some modifications, but in their core, they're starter decks.
2 - Joke decks. These are decks just made to troll, do crazy stuff or be some crazy rube goldberg chicanery. If it works it's glorious, but usually it implodes in a beautiful train wreck.
1 - Decks where you're seriously wondering what its creator had been smoking and if you can meet up with whoever has been selling them that stuff. Decks so fundamentally flawed they simply don't work.
Ofcourse even within these tiers there's some variation, but yeah. I have decks ranging from 4 (Chandra Tribal) to 9.5 (Edgar Markov) and everything in between. It allows me to play with just about every group without issues.
If I were to rank my decks:
9.5 - Edgar Markov
8 - Arcades
7.5 - Prime Speaker Zegana
7 - Child of Alara, Zacama
6 - Pir & Toothy
4 - Chandra
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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.
As much as I think the term is somewhat derogatory, most of my decks probably fit into Tryhard, pushing on Almost competitive. I prefer to call it 'gaming hard'; I don't pull punches, and I'll give you the best run for your money I can but I mostly stop short of combo.
My theme decks are probably underpowered to Strong but Fair - but success is a different metric when you're building with Vorthos.
I like the metric above from LouCypher more in that it's a little more descriptive and allows a little more variance.
Shouldn’t the tier system be normalized around precons? So precons ~tier2.5 or something? Gives us space for wiggle room around pure theme/trainwreck to almost as good as a precon.
Something like that.
You'd think so, but first, precons are far from optimized. Secondly, there's a lot of disparity between Animar (Tier 1.5) and Kalemne (Tier 3~3.5).
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
That's a fair point, although is Kalemne really the best of the precons? I figured it was atraxa or meren or something.
Realistically, the vast majority of decks I've played against are precon level or above. Not sure if that's everyone's experience, but probably? There's theoretical decks like the all-chairs deck or worst-cards-ever deck, but very few people are doing that stuff. So putting precons in the middle probably reduces the usefulness of the system since almost everyone will be compressed into that top half.
On the other hand, it's kind of nicely objective to have 0 be literally unplayable (99 mountain iroas for example) and 5 (or 10, or 4, whatever your scale is) be the best deck in the format, whatever that may be. But then on the other hand you'd have to get like 70% up the scale before you had decks that made any sense whatsoever, so that's probably a bad idea.
I guess for utility's sake, I'd put most precons at something like a 3-4 out of 10, personally. With 0 being something like chairs or 99 mountain ashling, the worst deck anyone is actually likely to play. With apologies to whatever angels are out there making those decks with break open and great wall and wood elemental. I guess their decks are somewhere in the negatives.
That's a fair point, although is Kalemne really the best of the precons? I figured it was atraxa or meren or something.
Realistically, the vast majority of decks I've played against are precon level or above. Not sure if that's everyone's experience, but probably? There's theoretical decks like the all-chairs deck or worst-cards-ever deck, but very few people are doing that stuff. So putting precons in the middle probably reduces the usefulness of the system since almost everyone will be compressed into that top half.
On the other hand, it's kind of nicely objective to have 0 be literally unplayable (99 mountain iroas for example) and 5 (or 10, or 4, whatever your scale is) be the best deck in the format, whatever that may be. But then on the other hand you'd have to get like 70% up the scale before you had decks that made any sense whatsoever, so that's probably a bad idea.
I guess for utility's sake, I'd put most precons at something like a 3-4 out of 10, personally. With 0 being something like chairs or 99 mountain ashling, the worst deck anyone is actually likely to play. With apologies to whatever angels are out there making those decks with break open and great wall and wood elemental. I guess their decks are somewhere in the negatives.
well, short of introducing a -log-scale or something to "squish" the tiers down (so tier 1-2 is considerably 'thinner' than tiers 4-5), i guess putting precons (unmodified) on the lower half of the scale would make sense.
Unfortunately, i HAVE played against decks that i'd consider to be weaker than the precons (it was a "draft-chaff-tribal"-level deck), but it is definitely few and far between. There are many that are on-par with the precons though.
By the way. What's the general consensus here; having tier 1 as the best/tier 5 worst and how large should this scale be? i imagined that 1-5 is more than enough, since being too pedantic about details means that a deck's power really lies between multiple tiers.
1-5 doesn't give enough space, IMO, thats why I use a 10-point-scale. And even then I often find myself going "This is the high end of 7" or "This is barely a 5".
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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.
That's a fair point, although is Kalemne really the best of the precons? I figured it was atraxa or meren or something.
She isn't. That was my point. Animar can win with something like Purphoros, God of the Forge or storm or repeatedly bouncing Keldon Champion or a free Eldrazi or Blightsteel Colossus or a practically free hydra (and being in the colors of Wonder, Brawn, Anger, and Genesis helps greatly). Animar can knock a player out with a huge Shrine of Burning Rage as well. Animar can hit a player with one poison counter and then use Inexorable Tide to do the rest. (But why do that, when you're in the colors for boosting power, granting double strike, and doubling damage?) You can even give Animar trample (again, Brawn) and just swing once Animar's big enough. The simplest Animar combos involve Aluren and either Cloudstone Curio or Horned Kavu and friends.
Kalemne doesn't know if she wants to be standard Boros midrange or Voltron, and Anya doesn't want to be either, or, really, much of anything.
So, basically, I was ranking tiers as 1 (again, Zur) to 5 (I don't know, Sivitri Scarzam or something)
Realistically, the vast majority of decks I've played against are precon level or above. Not sure if that's everyone's experience, but probably? There's theoretical decks like the all-chairs deck or worst-cards-ever deck, but very few people are doing that stuff. So putting precons in the middle probably reduces the usefulness of the system since almost everyone will be compressed into that top half.
Essentially. Even the precon commanders (which as I said are all over the map), as soon as you saw them, you were dropping Iona, Shield of Emeria, Yosei, the Morning Star and Linvala, Keeper of Silence into Kaalia, right? Or rearranging Animar into a storm deck? Dropping death triggers into Ghave? (We would have to wait for Innistrad for Falkenrath Noble to be printed and make death triggers into a win condition.) Finding wonderful gifts for Zedruu to give. And finding power-matters cards for The Mimeoplasm. (As I recall infect and Death's Shadow was a popular pair.)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
1-5 doesn't give enough space, IMO, thats why I use a 10-point-scale. And even then I often find myself going "This is the high end of 7" or "This is barely a 5".
Sure, but the problem with that is that there are so many variables that makes classifying decks quite 'fuzzy'. This means that on a good day, a deck can be tier 7, and some days, tier 5. It could be dependant upon the meta, or the pilot, or even a card or two in variation. If we're going to place decks in such a specific tier system, it'd give the impression that its performance range is a lot narrower than it really is.
To be honest, i was quite tempted to narrow it down to even a 3-tier system:
1: tryhard/competitive (maybe can be defined as having less than 10% of the deck that needs fine-tuning)
2: developed (beats precons 80 games of 100, but is not as well-tuned as tryhards)
3: true casual (everything else)
That being said, i can see what you mean, moreso for the higher-end decks. the difference between a deck featuring timetwister and time spiral vs one or the other seems small in lower tiers, but can make a world of difference on higher tiers.
**** (4)—CEDH: This category includes most every deck folks play in serious competitive games. See this subreddit, for example.
***½ (3.5)—Almost Competitive: Here we have decks that include lots of cEDH elements but aren't quite powerful &/or consistent enough to qualify for the above category because of budget constraints, stylistic choices, builder's intention, &/or incompetence.
*** (3)—Tryhard: For the former, these decks approximately optimize a fundamentally dubious approach, such as draw-go control or land ramp. This tier also includes decks that whimsically pursue fundamentally sound approaches.
**½ (2.5)—Casually Cruel: Here we have essentially casual decks that feature one or more elements many consider mean: infinite combos, you-win cards, stax, prison, mass land destruction, etc. Decks focused on finite synergies that end the game in combo fashion but aren't remotely close to cEDH also fit into this category.
** (2)—Strong but Fair: These decks roughly resemble those played by the Rules Committee. They eschew infinite combos and elements that prevent opponents from playing but have potent synergies, effective answers, & threats that can end the game.
*½ (1.5)—Underpowered: This category covers a variety of decks that perform worse than Strong but Fair lists, whether for aesthetic considerations or what have you. Precons go here.
* (1)—Experience Only: For all practical purposes, these decks can't win against a table of Strong but Fair or better decks. The ranking covers pure theme decks, piles of vanilla creatures, joke decks, lists with extremely inconsistent mana, & so on.
My decks range from 2 to 3.5 in this system.
4: cedh
3: powerful
2: commander products
1: pure fun
I'd say most of my decks fit 2-3.5 as well, but very few involve those things (and if so, it's usually to prevent it from totally sucking, not to bump it to 3.5).
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Maximum Power
Competitive
High Power
Mid Power
Casual
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
That in part comes from my experience. For example, in one case, after a local EDH tournament for prizes where some folks play full-on cEDH decks, we decided to switch to casual. I opted to play my short-lived Najeela, the Blade-Blossom list that in did include various combos but wasn't remotely close to competitive. I got lucky & comboed out on turn five or something. The person playing Kruphix, God of Horizons said they would have won the next turn with Grim Monolith plus Power Artifact.
Of course, focusing on whether a deck has those elements many think unfriendly doesn't necessarily tell you that much about its overall ability to win the game. You can throw an Armageddon into whatever deck with white in it without making the deck a powerhouse or even good, of course. (The very first game of EDH I ever played involved someone casting Armageddon for no particular reason.) I make that distinction for myself because I do know some people who dislike playing against such elements.
I have trouble imagining an Almost Competitive list that doesn't involve win-on-the-spot combos. Even prison decks in cEDH like Blood Pod typically have some sort of combo finish.
I mean for me decks with intentional infinite combos who somewhat plan to look for them are never quite casual, they'd be beyond "casually cruel". For me that involves control, stax, heavy discard etc. But not that well-tuned, or built in such a way that maybe the pilot doesn't benefit as much as they probably should do, even if they are successful in making it a slog for opponents.
It's easy to build infinite combos, even by accident*, and somebody somewhere is going to ***** about any control deck, even a *****ty one. (Or for that matter, about just having counterspells, individual LD, and discard, even "fixed" versions like Cancel, Craterize, and Mind Rot. I get the image "fixed" is used in the veterinary sense.)
*Ghave, Marath, and Prossh were all precon commanders, no?
On phasing:
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'd say I'm 1.75. I just go with meme-y builds like dragons or homelands commander voltrons but the thing is I know what I'm doing with those builds.
Bear in mind, even Zur can be played casual: Just make sure all your enchantments are low-tier auras and basic things like Spear of Heliod and Phyrexian Arena. And any five-color Commander can be made into a Hermit Druid deck just when your opponents think it's safe to lighten up on gravehate; or Doomsday Zur can just as easily be Doomsday Halfdane or Doomsday Chromium, but Zur's abilities help more.
On phasing:
Something like that.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
10 - CEDH. Within CEDH you have its own scale. If you fall in this point of the scale, you can win at least 20% of CEDH games with your deck. (25% being the average winrate at any given table.)
9 - High End EDH. Decks here can trade punches with CEDH, but on a full-on CEDH table, they're not expected to win. These are decks that are very well tuned, but may not be to the specifications that CEDH requires.
8 - Strong EDH. Even these decks CAN beat CEDH decks. They may not be favored, but they're either fast, resilient or stable enough to give them a good match. However, they're more likely to be tuned to a specific meta more than to CEDH, and as such may have flaws that CEDH can exploit.
7 - High end Casual EDH. These decks are expected to lose to CEDH, but should have no problem with starter decks and in fact will make it feel like a curbstomp. This is where "house acceptible" starts to play in - some houses allow MLD, others will want you to refrain from it, whatever. Decks are made with those constraints in mind.
6 - Most average EDH. This is where you'll find the bulk of decks. These are decks that have clear strategies in mind, that work with viable themes, but are still just mostly for fun. This I call the main average.
5 - Themed Casual EDH. This is where you'll find decks that can do fine in casual enviroments, but aren't expected to win as much because the premise of the deck is inherently flawed. The deck may still very much work, just that the build has too many base limitations to work with to be actually strong.
4 - Hyper Casual EDH. One tier above starter decks, this is mostly decks that are build either as an afterthought, a beginner-friendly deck, or really flawed themed decks built to their max. They can pull wins against better decks, but don't tend to be a player's main deck unless they're just beginning.
3 - Starter decks. Yup. With some modifications, but in their core, they're starter decks.
2 - Joke decks. These are decks just made to troll, do crazy stuff or be some crazy rube goldberg chicanery. If it works it's glorious, but usually it implodes in a beautiful train wreck.
1 - Decks where you're seriously wondering what its creator had been smoking and if you can meet up with whoever has been selling them that stuff. Decks so fundamentally flawed they simply don't work.
Ofcourse even within these tiers there's some variation, but yeah. I have decks ranging from 4 (Chandra Tribal) to 9.5 (Edgar Markov) and everything in between. It allows me to play with just about every group without issues.
If I were to rank my decks:
9.5 - Edgar Markov
8 - Arcades
7.5 - Prime Speaker Zegana
7 - Child of Alara, Zacama
6 - Pir & Toothy
4 - Chandra
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.
My theme decks are probably underpowered to Strong but Fair - but success is a different metric when you're building with Vorthos.
I like the metric above from LouCypher more in that it's a little more descriptive and allows a little more variance.
You'd think so, but first, precons are far from optimized. Secondly, there's a lot of disparity between Animar (Tier 1.5) and Kalemne (Tier 3~3.5).
On phasing:
Realistically, the vast majority of decks I've played against are precon level or above. Not sure if that's everyone's experience, but probably? There's theoretical decks like the all-chairs deck or worst-cards-ever deck, but very few people are doing that stuff. So putting precons in the middle probably reduces the usefulness of the system since almost everyone will be compressed into that top half.
On the other hand, it's kind of nicely objective to have 0 be literally unplayable (99 mountain iroas for example) and 5 (or 10, or 4, whatever your scale is) be the best deck in the format, whatever that may be. But then on the other hand you'd have to get like 70% up the scale before you had decks that made any sense whatsoever, so that's probably a bad idea.
I guess for utility's sake, I'd put most precons at something like a 3-4 out of 10, personally. With 0 being something like chairs or 99 mountain ashling, the worst deck anyone is actually likely to play. With apologies to whatever angels are out there making those decks with break open and great wall and wood elemental. I guess their decks are somewhere in the negatives.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
well, short of introducing a -log-scale or something to "squish" the tiers down (so tier 1-2 is considerably 'thinner' than tiers 4-5), i guess putting precons (unmodified) on the lower half of the scale would make sense.
Unfortunately, i HAVE played against decks that i'd consider to be weaker than the precons (it was a "draft-chaff-tribal"-level deck), but it is definitely few and far between. There are many that are on-par with the precons though.
By the way. What's the general consensus here; having tier 1 as the best/tier 5 worst and how large should this scale be? i imagined that 1-5 is more than enough, since being too pedantic about details means that a deck's power really lies between multiple tiers.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
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.
She isn't. That was my point. Animar can win with something like Purphoros, God of the Forge or storm or repeatedly bouncing Keldon Champion or a free Eldrazi or Blightsteel Colossus or a practically free hydra (and being in the colors of Wonder, Brawn, Anger, and Genesis helps greatly). Animar can knock a player out with a huge Shrine of Burning Rage as well. Animar can hit a player with one poison counter and then use Inexorable Tide to do the rest. (But why do that, when you're in the colors for boosting power, granting double strike, and doubling damage?) You can even give Animar trample (again, Brawn) and just swing once Animar's big enough. The simplest Animar combos involve Aluren and either Cloudstone Curio or Horned Kavu and friends.
Kalemne doesn't know if she wants to be standard Boros midrange or Voltron, and Anya doesn't want to be either, or, really, much of anything.
So, basically, I was ranking tiers as 1 (again, Zur) to 5 (I don't know, Sivitri Scarzam or something)
Essentially. Even the precon commanders (which as I said are all over the map), as soon as you saw them, you were dropping Iona, Shield of Emeria, Yosei, the Morning Star and Linvala, Keeper of Silence into Kaalia, right? Or rearranging Animar into a storm deck? Dropping death triggers into Ghave? (We would have to wait for Innistrad for Falkenrath Noble to be printed and make death triggers into a win condition.) Finding wonderful gifts for Zedruu to give. And finding power-matters cards for The Mimeoplasm. (As I recall infect and Death's Shadow was a popular pair.)
On phasing:
I am curious where you would place what I play.
I am also curious the location you most often play now.
A Dying Wish
To Rise Again
Chainer, Dementia Master
Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
Normal (Casual)
Hard (Semi-Competitive)
Nightmare (Competitive)
Sure, but the problem with that is that there are so many variables that makes classifying decks quite 'fuzzy'. This means that on a good day, a deck can be tier 7, and some days, tier 5. It could be dependant upon the meta, or the pilot, or even a card or two in variation. If we're going to place decks in such a specific tier system, it'd give the impression that its performance range is a lot narrower than it really is.
To be honest, i was quite tempted to narrow it down to even a 3-tier system:
1: tryhard/competitive (maybe can be defined as having less than 10% of the deck that needs fine-tuning)
2: developed (beats precons 80 games of 100, but is not as well-tuned as tryhards)
3: true casual (everything else)
That being said, i can see what you mean, moreso for the higher-end decks. the difference between a deck featuring timetwister and time spiral vs one or the other seems small in lower tiers, but can make a world of difference on higher tiers.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom