If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you check out this episode: "Wizards Takes Over! The Future of Commander Is REVEALED! What are the new Power Brackets?" ruclips.net/video/0ZgoNUvR0D0/видео.html
Here's my issue... Gold Pan : A Level 1 Card when graded by itself... Include it with a Flicker Combo, and now you've got infinite mana Here's a better example... You graded Mystic Remora to be less powerful than Rhystic, but when I include it with Abdel Adrian and cast it later in the game, when I can flicker the fish's Age Counter off, then it's much more powerful than Rhystic because of the cost of it's trigger effect. ESPECIALLY when it's during my turn, and a large majority of the spells that will be cast, will be non-creature. (Ya, sure some creatures have flash, but I'm pointing out a majority of interaction, not the exception) -- Even through both of those arguments... You tell me which is more powerful? 30 Lands - 10 High Power Cards (Level 4) + 59 High Mana / Low Interaction and Non-Synergistic Tribal 30 Lands - 5 High Power Cards (Level 4) + 64 Premium Low Mana Control + Tuned Synergistically to the Commander's Effects + Multiple Combos The 2nd deck has fewer "Level 4" cards, but will be the stronger deck by far, because it's properly tuned.
Dont worry, they did say that they wont rate all of the cards. That implies that unranked cards are in a 0 bracket. They are also thinking about introducing a "5" for CEDH decks. That means we are just four more brackets from having enough brackets for my decks to be legitimately in bracket 7/10
And again, WotC stated that precons will be considered as level 1, although many precons contain cards of level 2 and higher. I don't know how they plan to deal with it.
Making precons that are labeled at 2 or above or maybe they where just using old precons as a baseline example of what general power level and cohesion to expect at level 1
Precons won't ever be perfectly balanced, but in their default states, very very few actually manage to perform higher than a 1. Their awful manabases mean they are almost impossible to run consistently, even if their card quality is better than average
I like my games around 1 and 2 honestly. People have blurred lines between 3 and 4 ranges and its usually worse experiences with things like thoracle or turn 4-5 wins or infinites out of nowhere
@@crazydeadperson Which is what it should be. All cards you buy should be playable for their respective formats - tournaments being the exception since they are a separate product.
The only cards that cEDH wants to ban is the cards the warp the format around that card. The issue most have with dockside ban is yes it warped the format around the card but in a good way. It warped the format to where it made a HUGE amount of cards playable in the format which most people enjoyed the diversity.
I'd honestly rather play against a deck with everything but these tier 3 cards than a deck with tier 3 and lower. The tier 4 stuff is only as strong as the strategy of the deck they are in, but the tier 3 stuff is always the most "ugh, great..." cards that hit the table.
I’m just going to tell people all my decks are level 3 with some level 4 cards in them. I find it’s honest to be open about what your deck wants to do especially when playing with strangers. People who obfuscate what their deck will try to do only get to play once with me.
@@Cocytus127 no dude, not all cards in a deck will be 4. Dont expect to build a deck with 100 lv 4, it'impossible. You are exactly the reason why rule 0 doesnt work
I like the list but I'd move T-Pro up to a 3 and Farewell up to a 2 or 3. I could see Blasphemous and Toxic as 2's as well. Curious to see if peoples "feelings" come into play, for example will counter spells be higher on the list because of the feel-bads? Will salt list stacks cards be higher level because of how people "feel" playing against them? How a card feels and it's actual power level are 2 different things. Also it will be interesting to see how the color pie comes into this, some colors can not answer specific threats or they rely on just a couple cards to play a specific role in the deck, so if those cards are put at a 2 or higher then it would be difficult to make a level 1 deck in that color.
It depends, rampant growth is a 1 : 2 mana to get a tapped basic. But nature'lore could be a 2 : 2 mana to get an untapped forest (wich can be a dual or triome) I think land tutor for basic or a 1 but land tutor for specific land could be 2
@theodorefruchart7058 I don't agree, if you keep the 2 mana ramps in level 1 green will dominate with early play and consistent starts. Think about Tiny Leaders that format was stale because it was too consistent with agro decks being too oppressive. Green will have all the tools they need in 1LvL and pubstomp the rest. Won't even let blue get a chance to counter their tutors.
Im afraid this bracket thing will effect the rarity of reprints, watch all rares in tier 4 magically become Mythics in a commander reprint product. Theyve already done this with cards like Rhystic and Force of Will. Power creep brings cards down but card price raises rarity is so fucking stupid
I think the craziest take here is the putting Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora and Smothering Tithe below the limited tutors. These are all significantly stronger and don't need any build-around to be degenerate. They should all be in t4 (1cmc instant tutors included) alongside Trouble in Pairs and The One Ring (other broken one-card draw engines). Esper Sentinel should probably be bumped up to 3, Windfall and Lightning Greaves up to 2. Mirari's Wake is probably down to a 1 (5 mana sorcery speed ramp that makes you archenemy) and Heroic Intervention / Teferi's Pro probably down to a 1 as well (they are super strong but going by the same argument as Swords or Sol Ring - I think is the kind of interaction WotC wants to push).
@GlassEater420 I never said they're weak - I said that they're gonna be tier 1 or 0 because WotC has been pushing for this type of interaction (ie. stuff that interacts with existing effects without removing or affecting the enemy's board/ability to play vs. stuff like traditional stax, removal or countermagic) - basically the same argument as Sol Ring in 0.
@GlassEater420heroic it's fine, Teferi's Protection is the card that whenever I see cast in no cedh games, just wins the game. Protecting your permanents and your life total from absolutely everything for one entire round is just wild.
I honestly like this system. Even with the disagreements in rankings and hearing how you are placing these cards. It’s already a more effective rule 0.
It doesn't really need to be more than a divide between combat win-cons, combo win-cons, fast mana, tutors, and free spells. Decks with combat win-cons and none of the rest are a level 1 and it gets more degenerate form there (or fun, depending on perspective).
@GlassEater420 no system will stop a pub stomper from pub stomping. Either using cards or skill. A good system will definitely reduce accidental pub stomping.
I feel like instantly making any deck with a good tutor a 4 is wild. A 3, yeah sure, but a 4? EDIT: I want to address the replies instead of trying to respond individually. Run more interaction, run more interaction, RUN MORE INTERACTION. If your game-plan can't handle someone attempting to use an answer against it, you need more interaction. If you aren't able to play against someone who has a win-con you'd need to either prepare for or answer at instant speed, you need more interaction. Casual doesn't mean you should only focus on your own game-plan and not try to do anything against others or to protect from others. Also, I'm not saying these tutors should be bracket 1, I'm saying they shouldn't be instantly bracket 4 and likely be bracket 3. A tutor is only as good as what it can find, so while these are more efficient and likely warranting a higher bracket, they aren't what will end a game or ruin it for the table. If I can search up a low mana cost combo like Thassa's Oracle to go with a Demonic Consultation in my hand, then I'm already in a bracket 4 or CEDH. If I'm searching up Omniscience to hard cast, that means I've gotten to 9 mana + the tutor and clearly should've been put in a position by my opponents where I'm forced to use that tutor to defend myself. I'm starting to think the issues people are bringing up are less of an issue with tutors existing and more of an issue with "I want my deck to be considered bracket 3 and not 1 or 2, so I don't want good tutors in bracket 3." Having a deck for bracket 1 and 2, just like I've seen in PlayEDH's battlecruiser and low, isn't a bad thing or less legitimate, it's just a lower bracket. They aren't skill rankings, they're power brackets.
I completely removed all tutors from my decks. It removes the point of a singlton card format. Tutors are effectively extra copies of a card in your deck. Makes everything too consistent.
its about disclosure at untrusted tables. it doesn't mean its a hard no never ever. it just means you now have to disclose these cards and check with your table before you run your deck.
Damn, I’ve got 4 tutors in my best deck. Not including the artifacts and creatures that also fetch other artifacts, sorceries and instants. Guess my deck is busted! 😂
Playing in a world where its expected every deck runs boros charm and every green deck runs heroic intervention feels much more competitive than “we are all running power 1 decks”
@prestonmitchell9135 Nadu isn't the only one that triggers with activated abilities. It was certainly the most egregious, but not the first to take advantage of 0 cost equipment triggers.
If swords to plowshares is a 1 all counter spells probably are a one. It’s a removal spell with timing restrictions. Beast-within chaos warp, and thing like this are the best removal
@@derrickpaulson3093 force of will is even worse than counter spell in commander. You are 2 for 1 with one player. So unless you have Many more resources then everyone else it’s a bad card. In 1v1 it’s a different story.
@GlassEater420 I don't think this should be judged on an individual-card power level basis. It's more like how likely a card is to spike the power level of your entire deck. Swords is super efficient (Deadly Rollick is even more efficient) - but it doesn't really power-up your deck significantly. You'll occasionally remove that one blocker or kill off a combo piece but those are highly situational. The t2+ cards will likely win games consistently when resolved and they're most likely tiered based on speed/mana cost.
100% Fetch Lands and Shock Lands for me are a 3. They are just the best Lands hands down. And its always the people running like 3 fetch, 3 shocks, 3 battle lands and 10 spells worth 50 dollar each or more that try to tell you fetches are no problem in casual pods 😂
@@questionyourself718 So your problem is that these cards cost...money? Not that they impact the game in such a way that might be unfair? I usually don't see someone complain that someone has a shock or fetch land in their deck... I honestly don't see a justification for lands being anything above a 1 without having some crazy good ability besides "go find a land" or "taps for a singular mana of some kind." If we want to talk about something like Gaea's Cradle, then yes. I think a land like that is a 3/4.
@@keatonkuuuun the Problem is the Culmination of all of this. A Precon where someone shoved two shocklands in wont be tier 4 all of a sudden. But Shocklands are just the best lands apart from fetchlands. So if you run multiple lets say in a three color deck, plus fetches plus powerfull spells your precon is considered heavily upgraded. Now we need to talk about context. Do all that to a weaker precon and you will probably still be fine playing with other precons or like real power 7 decks. But do that to some of the more powerfull precons like from MH3 and your deck could easily end up being a powerlevel 9. Because some of these Decks only lack an efficient mana base but bring almost anything else to absolutely stomp.
I have 16 Commander decks and I tried to evaluate their ranks and I got perfect 4 tiers with 4 decks each. And that's exactly how I played them, 4 cEDH, 4 super casual decks that are just made out of cards I have around, 4 strong decks but without any tutors or really expensive cards and 4 fun, casual but still curated decks.
they should do a public vote like how edhrec does for the salt list. let the community vote where cards belong. to me its just a easy and fair way of doing it.
@@Bgrant001 WotC did say in their live stream that the power bracket will still involve the community so hopefully they'll go with letting the community vote.
If you're playing the best version of an effect - even a simple mana dork - your deck on a whole is at least one level above the floor of what it would be by instead playing objectively worse (either by cost or target/zone limitations) versions of that same effect. It's about speed, efficiency, and synergy. If your deck calls for mana dorks, any of the variants that have some version of 1cmc=>tap for 1cmc are worlds better than something like a 3cmc dork that can only be used to cast specific card types. Same deal with many of the 3cmc mana rocks. Of course mana dorks/ramp is just one category, but if you're min/maxing that way within a category - and extrapolate that across other categories that make your deck function - you end up with a stronger deck. They make for a more reliable deck with more tempo, which generally coincides with strength in MTG. Tier 1 should basically be for cards used by players who haven't learned to ignore like 80% of the cards ever printed yet, but don't have the budget/interest/time/knowledge to seek out that 20% that offers the "best" versions of the effect they need. Just my opinion, but tier 4 should include infinite combos, tutors (any cost due to consistency it provides), land destruction, and the most extreme stax pieces. This tends to be where you have players who try to operate on the extremes of tempo in either direction (or are aspiring to) and most people either love that type of gameplay or they don't, so it seems like a pretty reasonable dividing line in terms of both deckbuilding goals and gameplay styles. It's more like a meta version of MTG that pits versions of "crash the game as fast as possible" versus "freeze the game so it can't crash," which is interesting as hell, but veeeeeerrrry different than the game being played by the bottom 3/4 of the population.
No system will be perfect. I would like to see this everything t0 (your t1 here) then you add up all the teir cards in your deck to get a scale for the power. This kind of adds a point value for power cards. So you can play many T1 cards or just a few T4+.
It seems to me that based on this tier ranking we have some guidelines that make sense to me. Tier 1 - expected cost to power ratio for effects that are standard withing their color spheres Tier 2 - expected cost to efficiency for effects pushing color spheres and slightly more efficient than average spells withing their color spheres Tier 3 - cards that push color boundaries with good cost to efficiency and cards that allow for explosive turns, mid efficient tutors Tier 4 - fast mana (aside from sol ring), efficient tutors, high powered free spells These seem like decent guidelines to go by making it relatively easy to break cards into categories. However I think there needs to be a corrective modifier based on average CMC and strategy since certain strategies are obviously less effective as others. Just because your giant tribal.deck runs tutors and fast mana doesn't make it a 4, it would likely be averaged down to a 2 or 3 at best
I agree with this list 99%, except for Mystic Remora, that should be a 3 or 4, not a 2. It's practically impossible to pay the tax for if it's cast on T1&T2. It's a 1 blue drop. Even in the rare event you didn't get a single card draw from it, the opportunity cost for casting it is miniscule.
@GlassEater420 Nah I agree with the video. Remora is OP in high power because everyone is playing tons of 1 and 0 cost spells. In casual games are MUCH slower and half the decks use tons of creatures. Remora only triggers on non-creatures. I actually took out Remora out of my casual decks because it just SUCKS. It draws nothing half the time and paying the upkeep also sucks.
If the official bracket list went this way it would make it pretty easy to come up with your “power level”. i like how bracket one has the chance to cover so many bases. The only ratings I’d disagree with are the ones you mentioned would cause some contention. Tefaris protection offers more protection that other cards listed in that bracket and same for toxic deluge and farewell. Overall, i enjoyed the list and shared thoughts!
Yes, having the most efficient mana rocks and removal in the lowest tiers makes every single person running 3 cost mana rocks and sub-optimal removal automatically less powerful than other decks doing the most efficient thing, meaning they are like 1- or 0+
For your ranking of the cards, i agree nearly 100%. My only changes would be like, reduce Miraris Wake to a 1 and upgrade Teferis Pro to a 3. But this would also mean that my Vaevictis Asmadi the Dire deck would be a 4, since i run a worldly tutor for the synergy with my commander. Otherwise the deck is not really all that competitive, since the commander has a mana value of 6, no build in protection or haste, and needs to attack to do it's thing. Yes if a deck runs a couple of these rank 2, 3 or 4 cards you can consider the deck as probably strong or very strong, but if you have like one of those in your deck, you will probably not even draw it. Or even if you drew it, you will probably still loose to a deck like your Jhoira deck. So my conclusion is that, one single card is not ideal to determine the powerranking of a deck.
I heavily agree with these choices for these 100 cards. Adding a few more to categories 2-4 would make for a great guideline to have on the edh website
There would be no need to make 4 different tiers if there are so few cards in tiers 2-3-4, they could be easily merged according to this tier list. Otherwise the tier 2-3-4 decks would be too similar to each other.
I think the Levels system needs to be tweaked a little. Chaff like Hill Giant should actually be Level 0 because they're worse than Swords to Plowshares already established at Level 1. So, anything that's a filler card, or worthless bulk would be Level 0. Sol Ring and any other "potentially unbanned cards" should actually be in Level 5, and decks should only be allowed one (1) Level 5 card to stay legal for Commander. This way it evens things out at the very top, and players aren't just paying to win!
Still love Command Quarters but I've learned how much I disagree with some card level analysis. This issue is going to simply divide playgroups in a BAD way. It's hardly ever that black and white.
An argument that Vampiric Tutor is 4, but the other instant speed-to-top tutors should be 3: information is very powerful, especially in high power. Vampiric Tutor allows you to take ANY card to the top. The others, while being at instant speed, still require you to reveal the card. This potentially gives a fair amount of information about your hand/lines of play at times; people see things coming. They are definitely borderline cards though. I would be tempted to put TImeless Lotus and similar effects at 2 simply because they are rarely played "fair". There is almost always something abusing untap effects to make these effects go infinite or make much more mana than just what is on the card.
I am sure people will disagree but...just make every card power level 1. Then cards like gaias cradle, mana crypt, the best rocks, jeweled lotus, lions eye diamond reserve list super cards power level 4. Now decent combo cards become power level 3 like oracle, searches, good commanders that are hard to deal with mox amber mox opal (mana rocks that only work after a commander is out) good rocks are here but not too good (or too* expensive). Feeling like lotus petal, mana vault should be here. Tier 2: feeling like this is extra turns and stacks. This will probably be the most comprehensive to filter out almost anything that could anger a table. 1 is everything else.
Nice list, couples of change I would make: 4- Downgrade: Fierce Guardienship to 3, I personally think they will state something as from tier 3 and up player should expect free interaction. Upgrade: Smothering Tithe. This card is for me the white equivalent of dockside, if you have acess to it, it goes in every white deck. Your opponent will never pay (and they would be correct 90+% of time). 3- Downgrade to 2 Rhystic study. The differnence between Smothering tithe and Study is enormous IMO, paying the 1 is always the way to play around it, therefore its a 1 mana stax effect and they highlight Thalia in their video in Lvl 2. Upgrade: Mystic remora. Kinda of the same reasoning as paying here is never a good option making it a better draw engine then Rhystic. 2- Downgrade to 1 Swan song, Offer you cant refuse, mirrari wake, reanimate. For the 2 counterspell, its kinda like Swords to plowshares, the best at what its doing sure, but its still interaction for 1 mana. I dont think that a 5 mana enchantment that requires you to have more pieces is in contention for lvl 2 really. For Reanimate, im with you, its really hard to fit, but since you need other pieces to make it broken (entomb is probably a 3) I think its gonna be a 1, but I would not be surprise for a 2
It's probably going to be a point system where each card has a value 0 through 4. Where it'll take the total number and that will be your decks power level
The idea that the standard for a mana rock is “costs 2 taps for 2 mana” is a fairly new idea, typically mana rocks were always 3 mana, taps for 1, with a slight upside
So what's the online tool gonna feature exactly? Collecting data from various sources is a typical thing companies do. I would imagine the tool is an all-in-one plug-and-play tool. Upload your deck(s). Friends do the same. Run the practice game with the desired decks. Click auto-play. The system auto-plays your decks against each other 10 or 100 times whatever the option is. The system then puts up what it discovered. Tells whose deck was superior, and who won more often. What the averages were and conclude where your deck falls on the said tier list or if the decks were a good match with each other or not.
Each card should have a 1-4 rating, and then you add each rating together and divide by the number of rated cards to get your decks ratings. Moxfield and others can build the ratings into each cards profile and give you an auto rating.
I don't think 1 T4 card warrants a whole deck to be T4. You can have a deck full of T3 & T2 cards that synergize well and wipe the floor with that T4 deck that may have a bunch of T1 cards in it. Yeah it's rare for someone to have/put a T4 card in a T1 or T2 deck but ranking a whole deck based on 1 card is wildly misleading/dishonest and unfair.
@@Designer-Brandon then take out the tutor. It's not like a tutor has any thematic value in the deck. It is not so difficult to understand, if a very powerful card does not make a deck very powerful, then match the power level of every card in your deck instead of having a random tier S card in a precon level deck.
So you either take out the card, or you *gasp* talk to the people at your table and explain exactly as you did here. "My deck is a 4, but if I remove [card], it's a 1. Shall we play a game?"
@@alexanderhenderson5583 Yeah, basically. You have to explain why it's a T4 deck when you shouldn't have to. That's what I would do. It's fine to say it this way.
@@Designer-Brandon I still don't understand the whole "when I don't have to!" aspect of your argument. Commander is a social, casual game. You should *always* be talking to your table about what deck you are playing in order to ensure that everyone is coming to the table with the same expectations. The whole idea of these brackets (which, for the record, I am skeptical about, but willing to see how it plays out) is that they give you a place to **start** the conversation. But you definitely *should* be having this conversation.
The only cards i dont agree with on this list have to be deluge and farewell. Sure theyre sorcery speed but they get around things like indestructible and regeneration with little downside to them. 3 mana wipe is pretty powerful and the life loss is negligible at best id vote for T2 at the lowest for deluge and i think farewell is just a solid T2. Exile everything wipe. Plain and simple just good. B-act i can agree is just a T1 cuz theres plenty that it wouldnt effect.
Looking at cards in a vacuum is one thing, but when you combine them with the potential for their synergy with other cards, it may change the bracket they belong in. The system is too complicated and I don’t think it will work.
I almost feel the want to add up the power bracket number of each card in my deck. Example after counter up all 100 bracket numbers my decks power is 334 or 278 so on and so forth. Making it as accurate as possible
Dont love the idea of the ranking system, but if theyre doing it, I got rystic study + smothering tithe in 4. Esper sentinel + mystic ramora + farewell + tefferis pro in atleast 3. Wheels probably in 2, possibly 3
I think the problem is that it's always subjective to each person point of view, i think better then scale all together it would be better to divide between categories (tutor/rocks/draw engines) and then inside those you would do a scaling. because vandalblast i think would be a t2 or t3 because is oneside, meaning the caster gets all the benefits and specially decks that dont have green , meaning most of their ramp comes from artifacts get so much behind i would even prefer that it had been a rift because at least the cards would be in my hand to cast again. And for exemple Rystic study and garruk uprising in the same tier, because all depends on the decks their are on.
I have no idea why they don’t just assign each card a numeric value and have players add up the value of their deck. You can even use the tiers to assign the value. It wouldn’t be difficult at all, and would provide players a literal value of their deck strength.
Removal is all in PL 1….. unless it’s in blue and then it’s a 2. That’s what I’m hearing from this. Like why is Swan Song “better” than path/fatal push/swords/lightning bolt? There is lots of 2-3 mana removal just like there’s lots of 2-3 mana counter spells. swan Song is 1 mana removal in blue, so is Offer You Can’t Refuse. Cyclonic Rift definitely deserves the higher power differential for sure, but I’m genuinely confused about the 1 mana counter spells.
It's hard to look at cards in a vacuum and put it in a Tier... Reanimate is a T2 in a vacuum, but when played it is played in T3 /T4 decks... Its going to be tough anyway you do it.
Lightning Greaves I believe should be a higher tier because it breaks the basic rules of equipment, which is pay to equip. Equipment that get a free equip on ETB also should be separated from the “fair” equipment.
What they should do is you take all cards that appear on the bracket, add up the values and take the median. Then you uave an average value. If you have all bracket 1 cards and 1 vampiric tutor, your median is going to be 1.03... thats not a bracket 4 power deck obviously.
I think there needs to be a conversation about if the rank changes if the card is your comander or in the 99 because my braids deck is easily a 4 with her in the command zone but if i put the flip lilliana in the command zone its only a three due to lack of a consistant engine
I think its dumb that 1 mana instant speed removal has become the norm. Somehow 1 mana retrictive counterspells that give your opponents treasures goes into tier 2 but swords is just perfectly okay?
Swords is 1 white, so not all decks can run it. The way I see it (this is not official of anything, just imo) white gets 1 mana removal, blue gets 2 mana Counterspells (which are better than creature removal because they're more versatile, they prevent ETB triggers and can disrupt win-cons), green gets its 2-3 mana ramp spells. No idea what black & red get though under this line of thinking.
@@MrZanvineunder that line of thinking black gets tutors than can grab anything and red gets cheap burn that can target creatures, players, and planeswalkers.
Lightning Greaves is at least a 2 and similar equips. Mystic is a 3 it can draw a ton of cards. I'd put the limited tutors at 3 and the anything Tutors at 4.. I'd call Reanimate a 3... board wipes which can be one sided i think warrant a 2 .. cyc is a 3
Tutors are 3's. 4 should be the realm of ban-able cards like primeval titan, emrakul, and fast mana. There really only needs to be 3 tiers unless t4 is just for those really obnoxious cards just so they can be technically playable in some format.
I would personally prefer if the efficient tutors were in bracket 3 just due to the fact there are far too many cards to account for that can easily just cause a player to run away with a game. Efficient tutors allow for readily available answers at a reasonable mana rate instead of the game ending because players could only draw the wrong type of removal. But we will see what wotc's end product looks like and just have to remember that the brackets aren't hard set rules, just a suggestion guide for pregame conversations.
True, but many in the community have said they can't do a decent rule zero talk and needed help. In reality, this bracket system breaks it down like many of us already do in our rule zero talks. "Do you have fast mana?" "Are you trying to win by combat or a combo?" "Do you have free spells or tutors?" "How long do you think a game should last?" etc.
Its adding centtalized knowledge. The rule 0 talk was useless depending on who you were playing with, because some people thought swords to plowshares was a busted tier 3 card and some people considered rhystic study to be a tier 1 staple. We desparatley needed a centeral touchstone like this to facilitate USEFUL rule 0 discussions at a GP or LGS setting where you dont already know the playgroup or are playing with lots of tables in a day
I hate this bracket system. Whenever new cards come out, there's no way this system will keep up. Handling each card on a micro-scale is way too much work for so little. Instead, they should be using blanket statements about cards. For example, they can say any tutor that searched for any card should be level 3-4. Tutors that search only for land should be 1-2. This way, people aren't second guessing or looking up specific cards to doublecheck a deck's bracket level.
Esper Sentinel and Remora should likely be in the 3rd tier. cEDH or not, these cards are often times accumulating value similar to ancestral recall haha
I feel those card "CAN MAKE" a tier 3 or 4 deck but if all tutors are in that bracket that throws alot of decks into a tier they are not made for. i use alot of the tier 2-4 cards in that list and loose to precons often. my chandra story deck which uses none of the cards listed is the only deck i win with. and im not rebuilding decks to be in a "lower tier" when those teirs already beat my decks 19/20 times.
My difficulty with the argument of "non-creature permanents(exclude lands) are harder to remove." Is that I completely disagree. We all know that people run Rhystic, Ramora, etc. So why not dedicate 5 or so slots to Artifact/Enchantment removal. It is cheap, and often gives you some life or a token in exchange for the 3 mana you invest into the spell. I often run into players that get salty with me for destroying their D.Season or P. Lives or what have you, the turn it is dropped. It is just called threat assessment. I dedicate 20 slots in each of my decks for spot removal and wraths. This sets the game up for a slower play style and immediately halts any B.S. from my opponents. I also dont run any card that costs more than 5 mana to invest in. Most of my decks have a 1/2/3/4 curve. This ensures me playing on curve, and stops me from being overzealous with cards. If you dont want to draw hate to your board, stop making big ass plays that use all your mana in one shot. Run more cards that mana sink for late game plays. Stop investing in cards with little to no pay off. You know Rhystic is in most blue decks, so just make room in your deck for ways to interact with it. Drawing is powerful, if not the most powerful thing you can do in EDH. So just dont let players draw more than 1 card a turn. It is a simple equation. And, I'm not standing on any sort of high ground here. I am just simply saying build your decks with these things in mind. Example; you know token decks use P. Lives, D. Season, Anointed, and the lot. You have 2 options to deal with it. Dont let your opponents make tokens, or just blow up their token producers and doublers. This example works for basically everything. Players are drawing too many cards? Restrict them or just out right deny them that resource. I also dont like counterspells. They ruin the concept of the game, imo. I make all of my "wincons" unstoppable. Just dont let players play spells on your turn. Run cards that stop them. I have gotten more hate from players for playing "antimeta" cards. Why are they so salty? Because the view the game as, "it is only fun if I win all the time." My philosophy is, "I have fun ruining your fun." Another way I enjoy punishing greedy players is by taking their stuff and using it against them. They can only blame themselves for it. Dont run that card and I wont see it as an immediate threat and I wont take it or remove it. I am also the guy who will absolutely target your ramp pieces. Arcane signet on turn 2? 4 mana general on turn 3? Nonsense. Slow down, and play at the same speed as me. I also have no problems targeting a single land, especially if that land is giving you access to a color you need and dont have the basic to cover it. Command Tower is a prime target for my land destruction. I love cards that say, "your opponents cannot play spells that cost more than the number of lands they have in play." Love that. Bottom line here is, be more conservative with your plays and be more creative with your deck building. Why am I the bad guy for telling players to chill out? I also dont run many cards that remain on the board to become a threat. A 1 and done kinda guy. Players get real salty when you dont allow them to run away with the game by turn 5. Why does it make me the arch enemy when I stop you from becoming the arch enemy? It is just stupid to me.
Sorry for the paragraphs. If you took the time to read, feel free to comment back and start a discussion with me. My favorite deck is Thrunn. Only green players can interact with my troll. Then I just C. Damage you all out. My removal spells are all about fighting. My special tech is Wild Defiance: When creature is targeted, it gets +3/+3 until EoT. This with fight spells is great. It is the one 5 drop in my deck other than Thrunn himself. And, because it is not an immediate threat, most folks let it stick around because they dont see how powerful it really is. Magic is a very dumb game. 😂😂
Overall I agree with almost all of these ratings. The board wipes that were at 2 i think were easily at 2. How did The One Ring not make it here? My take on Power 4 are that they are the most optimal way of doing things and these would be extremely ubiquitous, often are not easily accessible, or change the nature game (someone castes a spell and everybody thinks “so it’s going to be one of THOSE games huh”). They also are the strongest signals that one the strongest strategies is being utilized.
I think I only disagree with Farewell. It is a very "salty" card and might not be in the spirit of 1 or 2 decks. I would have put it at 3. It can also ruin artifact decks with its exile effects. Kind of how Armageddon is tier 4 because it is just salty.
i feel like esper sentinel and rystic should be put higher tbh. card draw engines that dominate the format that often just feed your opponents the win. even playing responsible around them they are stax pieces. what other cards would you say are better at drawing cards consistently then these? I feel like they are the best in that category.😅
I've been saying they should do this for a while. Pokemon does it and it works great, theirs are based on usage, I'm not sure if that translates well to magic, but yeah
the whole point of ranking your deck before, while yes partly based on powerful cards in the 99, was based on your Commander. Thats why edhrec has top 100 commanders. Cause when you play a deck around your commander, thats what determines how strong it is in a lot of cases. So ranking it only on cards in the 99 just doesn't work in my opinion.
I think nitpicking cards in a legacy format beyond banned and the rule 0 discussion is going to get ridiculous and take too long. "Bracketing" cards is a lot harder to keep track of than a banlist. Just think 4 tiers with specific cards in each of them, banned list, and rule 0... i just can't every single time i go to play a game of commander. This seems like it's only viable in a digital setting, so you can filter all the cards.
Deluge and Farewell a T2, bc they get around indestructible unlike the rest at T1. Reanimate T2, when its played against you its more of a "oh crap" not a "really, you play that?" reaction.
Deflecting swat has won me so many games. It's more powerful than fierce guardianship. Cyclonic rift and mana drain should be tier 4. The non-blqck tutors should be tier 3.
If you haven't seen it yet, make sure you check out this episode: "Wizards Takes Over! The Future of Commander Is REVEALED! What are the new Power Brackets?"
ruclips.net/video/0ZgoNUvR0D0/видео.html
Here's my issue...
Gold Pan : A Level 1 Card when graded by itself...
Include it with a Flicker Combo, and now you've got infinite mana
Here's a better example...
You graded Mystic Remora to be less powerful than Rhystic, but when I include it with Abdel Adrian and cast it later in the game, when I can flicker the fish's Age Counter off, then it's much more powerful than Rhystic because of the cost of it's trigger effect. ESPECIALLY when it's during my turn, and a large majority of the spells that will be cast, will be non-creature. (Ya, sure some creatures have flash, but I'm pointing out a majority of interaction, not the exception)
-- Even through both of those arguments...
You tell me which is more powerful?
30 Lands - 10 High Power Cards (Level 4) + 59 High Mana / Low Interaction and Non-Synergistic Tribal
30 Lands - 5 High Power Cards (Level 4) + 64 Premium Low Mana Control + Tuned Synergistically to the Commander's Effects + Multiple Combos
The 2nd deck has fewer "Level 4" cards, but will be the stronger deck by far, because it's properly tuned.
... my deck is still a 7.
everyone's deck is a 7 now
Everyone thinks their deck is a 7 lol
Dont worry, they did say that they wont rate all of the cards. That implies that unranked cards are in a 0 bracket. They are also thinking about introducing a "5" for CEDH decks. That means we are just four more brackets from having enough brackets for my decks to be legitimately in bracket 7/10
@@shaedeymamlas5496 well i only play cedh so i guess im a 5 lol
Always has been
And again, WotC stated that precons will be considered as level 1, although many precons contain cards of level 2 and higher. I don't know how they plan to deal with it.
Making precons that are labeled at 2 or above or maybe they where just using old precons as a baseline example of what general power level and cohesion to expect at level 1
Dockside was in a precons this damn bracket thing does not make any sense. How are Dihada and.....any Red White precons on the same level that's crazy
Precons won't ever be perfectly balanced, but in their default states, very very few actually manage to perform higher than a 1. Their awful manabases mean they are almost impossible to run consistently, even if their card quality is better than average
@@FearTheCaboose1337 Last year or two precons are well balanced for playing at 1 lvl
I like my games around 1 and 2 honestly. People have blurred lines between 3 and 4 ranges and its usually worse experiences with things like thoracle or turn 4-5 wins or infinites out of nowhere
If they are going to hold to this tier structure then any ban list is dumb.
It makes the banlist effectively only mean anything for cEDH. It definitely puts it into a weird almost tier 5 where people who want that can play it
A Ban list isn't dumb. Some cards are just too OP even for cEDH.
@@crazydeadperson Which is what it should be. All cards you buy should be playable for their respective formats - tournaments being the exception since they are a separate product.
The only cards that cEDH wants to ban is the cards the warp the format around that card. The issue most have with dockside ban is yes it warped the format around the card but in a good way. It warped the format to where it made a HUGE amount of cards playable in the format which most people enjoyed the diversity.
@@wchenful I cant say I understand what you mean.
I'd honestly rather play against a deck with everything but these tier 3 cards than a deck with tier 3 and lower. The tier 4 stuff is only as strong as the strategy of the deck they are in, but the tier 3 stuff is always the most "ugh, great..." cards that hit the table.
I’m just going to tell people all my decks are level 3 with some level 4 cards in them. I find it’s honest to be open about what your deck wants to do especially when playing with strangers. People who obfuscate what their deck will try to do only get to play once with me.
For real be honest with your friends
@Cocytus127 every card needs a rating then you can give your deck an average based on the combined cards ratings in your deck.
So your deck is a 4
@@paolodecesaris169 Except it isn't. Neat how that works.
@@Cocytus127 no dude, not all cards in a deck will be 4. Dont expect to build a deck with 100 lv 4, it'impossible. You are exactly the reason why rule 0 doesnt work
I like the list but I'd move T-Pro up to a 3 and Farewell up to a 2 or 3. I could see Blasphemous and Toxic as 2's as well. Curious to see if peoples "feelings" come into play, for example will counter spells be higher on the list because of the feel-bads? Will salt list stacks cards be higher level because of how people "feel" playing against them? How a card feels and it's actual power level are 2 different things. Also it will be interesting to see how the color pie comes into this, some colors can not answer specific threats or they rely on just a couple cards to play a specific role in the deck, so if those cards are put at a 2 or higher then it would be difficult to make a level 1 deck in that color.
Land tutors need to be separated, 2 mana should be 2 and 3 mana would be 1. Same as the mana separation with counter spells.
It depends, rampant growth is a 1 : 2 mana to get a tapped basic.
But nature'lore could be a 2 : 2 mana to get an untapped forest (wich can be a dual or triome)
I think land tutor for basic or a 1 but land tutor for specific land could be 2
@theodorefruchart7058 I don't agree, if you keep the 2 mana ramps in level 1 green will dominate with early play and consistent starts. Think about Tiny Leaders that format was stale because it was too consistent with agro decks being too oppressive. Green will have all the tools they need in 1LvL and pubstomp the rest. Won't even let blue get a chance to counter their tutors.
Storm Crow is a 5
na it is a 7
Im afraid this bracket thing will effect the rarity of reprints, watch all rares in tier 4 magically become Mythics in a commander reprint product. Theyve already done this with cards like Rhystic and Force of Will. Power creep brings cards down but card price raises rarity is so fucking stupid
I think the craziest take here is the putting Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora and Smothering Tithe below the limited tutors. These are all significantly stronger and don't need any build-around to be degenerate. They should all be in t4 (1cmc instant tutors included) alongside Trouble in Pairs and The One Ring (other broken one-card draw engines). Esper Sentinel should probably be bumped up to 3, Windfall and Lightning Greaves up to 2. Mirari's Wake is probably down to a 1 (5 mana sorcery speed ramp that makes you archenemy) and Heroic Intervention / Teferi's Pro probably down to a 1 as well (they are super strong but going by the same argument as Swords or Sol Ring - I think is the kind of interaction WotC wants to push).
@GlassEater420 I never said they're weak - I said that they're gonna be tier 1 or 0 because WotC has been pushing for this type of interaction (ie. stuff that interacts with existing effects without removing or affecting the enemy's board/ability to play vs. stuff like traditional stax, removal or countermagic) - basically the same argument as Sol Ring in 0.
@GlassEater420heroic it's fine, Teferi's Protection is the card that whenever I see cast in no cedh games, just wins the game. Protecting your permanents and your life total from absolutely everything for one entire round is just wild.
And mystic remora at tier 2 is just crazy, totally a tier 4 debatably 3 card
Remora is arguably better than rhystic in a lot of situations. You can't pay the tax 99% of the time
exactly
I honestly like this system. Even with the disagreements in rankings and hearing how you are placing these cards. It’s already a more effective rule 0.
It doesn't really need to be more than a divide between combat win-cons, combo win-cons, fast mana, tutors, and free spells. Decks with combat win-cons and none of the rest are a level 1 and it gets more degenerate form there (or fun, depending on perspective).
@GlassEater420 no system will stop a pub stomper from pub stomping. Either using cards or skill. A good system will definitely reduce accidental pub stomping.
@@derrickpaulson3093 though I agree in premise. Pointing to specific cards seems much more effective than vague concepts.
no, it's convoluted bullsh*t
I feel like instantly making any deck with a good tutor a 4 is wild. A 3, yeah sure, but a 4?
EDIT: I want to address the replies instead of trying to respond individually. Run more interaction, run more interaction, RUN MORE INTERACTION. If your game-plan can't handle someone attempting to use an answer against it, you need more interaction. If you aren't able to play against someone who has a win-con you'd need to either prepare for or answer at instant speed, you need more interaction. Casual doesn't mean you should only focus on your own game-plan and not try to do anything against others or to protect from others.
Also, I'm not saying these tutors should be bracket 1, I'm saying they shouldn't be instantly bracket 4 and likely be bracket 3. A tutor is only as good as what it can find, so while these are more efficient and likely warranting a higher bracket, they aren't what will end a game or ruin it for the table. If I can search up a low mana cost combo like Thassa's Oracle to go with a Demonic Consultation in my hand, then I'm already in a bracket 4 or CEDH. If I'm searching up Omniscience to hard cast, that means I've gotten to 9 mana + the tutor and clearly should've been put in a position by my opponents where I'm forced to use that tutor to defend myself.
I'm starting to think the issues people are bringing up are less of an issue with tutors existing and more of an issue with "I want my deck to be considered bracket 3 and not 1 or 2, so I don't want good tutors in bracket 3." Having a deck for bracket 1 and 2, just like I've seen in PlayEDH's battlecruiser and low, isn't a bad thing or less legitimate, it's just a lower bracket. They aren't skill rankings, they're power brackets.
I completely removed all tutors from my decks. It removes the point of a singlton card format. Tutors are effectively extra copies of a card in your deck. Makes everything too consistent.
@@herpderp66 The only tutors i use are for my Boros equipment deck.
its about disclosure at untrusted tables. it doesn't mean its a hard no never ever. it just means you now have to disclose these cards and check with your table before you run your deck.
@@herpderp66 I agree strongly. I wanted to see a tutor tax of 2 additional more mana for each tutor effect in commander.
Damn, I’ve got 4 tutors in my best deck. Not including the artifacts and creatures that also fetch other artifacts, sorceries and instants. Guess my deck is busted! 😂
Playing in a world where its expected every deck runs boros charm and every green deck runs heroic intervention feels much more competitive than “we are all running power 1 decks”
WOTC cant say an Eldrazi MH3 precon is on same power level as a Gisa & Geralf precon. How do they deal with the inconsistency? 🤣🤦♂️
VERY TRUE !!!!
not all precondition are created equal !!
There are several precondition with tier 3 and 4 cards in them !
IMHO, I feel like lightning Greaves should be a 2 because of the combo capacity with a targeted activated ability of 0.
It's alright my friend nadu can't hurt you anymore, my PTSD is strong too lol
@prestonmitchell9135 Nadu isn't the only one that triggers with activated abilities. It was certainly the most egregious, but not the first to take advantage of 0 cost equipment triggers.
@devon4301 i was just trying to be funny my friend i know lol
If swords to plowshares is a 1 all counter spells probably are a one. It’s a removal spell with timing restrictions. Beast-within chaos warp, and thing like this are the best removal
Nah counterspells are far more powerful. They prevent ETBs and instant speed win cons.
Nice try but no …. Counterspells literally say no to a card played no anything but you still pay mana
I think free cards will be mostly higher ranked. Force of will and counterspell are not the same
@@derrickpaulson3093 force of will is even worse than counter spell in commander. You are 2 for 1 with one player. So unless you have Many more resources then everyone else it’s a bad card. In 1v1 it’s a different story.
@GlassEater420 I don't think this should be judged on an individual-card power level basis. It's more like how likely a card is to spike the power level of your entire deck. Swords is super efficient (Deadly Rollick is even more efficient) - but it doesn't really power-up your deck significantly. You'll occasionally remove that one blocker or kill off a combo piece but those are highly situational.
The t2+ cards will likely win games consistently when resolved and they're most likely tiered based on speed/mana cost.
Fetch lands should be a 3 just for how anoying they are.
Standard/modern is so much easier to shuffle.
100% Fetch Lands and Shock Lands for me are a 3. They are just the best Lands hands down. And its always the people running like 3 fetch, 3 shocks, 3 battle lands and 10 spells worth 50 dollar each or more that try to tell you fetches are no problem in casual pods 😂
That’s dumb
@@questionyourself718 So your problem is that these cards cost...money? Not that they impact the game in such a way that might be unfair? I usually don't see someone complain that someone has a shock or fetch land in their deck... I honestly don't see a justification for lands being anything above a 1 without having some crazy good ability besides "go find a land" or "taps for a singular mana of some kind." If we want to talk about something like Gaea's Cradle, then yes. I think a land like that is a 3/4.
@@keatonkuuuun the Problem is the Culmination of all of this. A Precon where someone shoved two shocklands in wont be tier 4 all of a sudden. But Shocklands are just the best lands apart from fetchlands. So if you run multiple lets say in a three color deck, plus fetches plus powerfull spells your precon is considered heavily upgraded. Now we need to talk about context. Do all that to a weaker precon and you will probably still be fine playing with other precons or like real power 7 decks. But do that to some of the more powerfull precons like from MH3 and your deck could easily end up being a powerlevel 9. Because some of these Decks only lack an efficient mana base but bring almost anything else to absolutely stomp.
I have 16 Commander decks and I tried to evaluate their ranks and I got perfect 4 tiers with 4 decks each. And that's exactly how I played them, 4 cEDH, 4 super casual decks that are just made out of cards I have around, 4 strong decks but without any tutors or really expensive cards and 4 fun, casual but still curated decks.
Watching this made me realize that there really should be 3 tiers instead of 4. Tier 2 and 3 can probably be combined into one tier.
What they should do imo is rare every cards between 1-x and then we can take those numbers add and then divide by 99 there's your power level
they should do a public vote like how edhrec does for the salt list. let the community vote where cards belong. to me its just a easy and fair way of doing it.
@@Bgrant001 WotC did say in their live stream that the power bracket will still involve the community so hopefully they'll go with letting the community vote.
These are the top 100 cards ….. really ?!?!??
Wow lame
Lmao this 4 tier power bracket system makes no sense. 99.99% would just be in 1 the point if the 9 system was for distinction.
If you're playing the best version of an effect - even a simple mana dork - your deck on a whole is at least one level above the floor of what it would be by instead playing objectively worse (either by cost or target/zone limitations) versions of that same effect. It's about speed, efficiency, and synergy. If your deck calls for mana dorks, any of the variants that have some version of 1cmc=>tap for 1cmc are worlds better than something like a 3cmc dork that can only be used to cast specific card types. Same deal with many of the 3cmc mana rocks.
Of course mana dorks/ramp is just one category, but if you're min/maxing that way within a category - and extrapolate that across other categories that make your deck function - you end up with a stronger deck. They make for a more reliable deck with more tempo, which generally coincides with strength in MTG.
Tier 1 should basically be for cards used by players who haven't learned to ignore like 80% of the cards ever printed yet, but don't have the budget/interest/time/knowledge to seek out that 20% that offers the "best" versions of the effect they need. Just my opinion, but tier 4 should include infinite combos, tutors (any cost due to consistency it provides), land destruction, and the most extreme stax pieces. This tends to be where you have players who try to operate on the extremes of tempo in either direction (or are aspiring to) and most people either love that type of gameplay or they don't, so it seems like a pretty reasonable dividing line in terms of both deckbuilding goals and gameplay styles. It's more like a meta version of MTG that pits versions of "crash the game as fast as possible" versus "freeze the game so it can't crash," which is interesting as hell, but veeeeeerrrry different than the game being played by the bottom 3/4 of the population.
No system will be perfect. I would like to see this everything t0 (your t1 here) then you add up all the teir cards in your deck to get a scale for the power. This kind of adds a point value for power cards. So you can play many T1 cards or just a few T4+.
It seems to me that based on this tier ranking we have some guidelines that make sense to me.
Tier 1 - expected cost to power ratio for effects that are standard withing their color spheres
Tier 2 - expected cost to efficiency for effects pushing color spheres and slightly more efficient than average spells withing their color spheres
Tier 3 - cards that push color boundaries with good cost to efficiency and cards that allow for explosive turns, mid efficient tutors
Tier 4 - fast mana (aside from sol ring), efficient tutors, high powered free spells
These seem like decent guidelines to go by making it relatively easy to break cards into categories.
However I think there needs to be a corrective modifier based on average CMC and strategy since certain strategies are obviously less effective as others. Just because your giant tribal.deck runs tutors and fast mana doesn't make it a 4, it would likely be averaged down to a 2 or 3 at best
If Thalia is 2 boardwipes are 2-3
I agree with this list 99%, except for Mystic Remora, that should be a 3 or 4, not a 2. It's practically impossible to pay the tax for if it's cast on T1&T2. It's a 1 blue drop. Even in the rare event you didn't get a single card draw from it, the opportunity cost for casting it is miniscule.
@GlassEater420 Nah I agree with the video. Remora is OP in high power because everyone is playing tons of 1 and 0 cost spells. In casual games are MUCH slower and half the decks use tons of creatures. Remora only triggers on non-creatures. I actually took out Remora out of my casual decks because it just SUCKS. It draws nothing half the time and paying the upkeep also sucks.
its odd seeing white in teir 3/4 but they did print those cards to make white more playable.
If the official bracket list went this way it would make it pretty easy to come up with your “power level”. i like how bracket one has the chance to cover so many bases. The only ratings I’d disagree with are the ones you mentioned would cause some contention. Tefaris protection offers more protection that other cards listed in that bracket and same for toxic deluge and farewell. Overall, i enjoyed the list and shared thoughts!
I feel like this list shows we need a level below precon cards
Yes, having the most efficient mana rocks and removal in the lowest tiers makes every single person running 3 cost mana rocks and sub-optimal removal automatically less powerful than other decks doing the most efficient thing, meaning they are like 1- or 0+
For your ranking of the cards, i agree nearly 100%. My only changes would be like, reduce Miraris Wake to a 1 and upgrade Teferis Pro to a 3.
But this would also mean that my Vaevictis Asmadi the Dire deck would be a 4, since i run a worldly tutor for the synergy with my commander. Otherwise the deck is not really all that competitive, since the commander has a mana value of 6, no build in protection or haste, and needs to attack to do it's thing.
Yes if a deck runs a couple of these rank 2, 3 or 4 cards you can consider the deck as probably strong or very strong, but if you have like one of those in your deck, you will probably not even draw it. Or even if you drew it, you will probably still loose to a deck like your Jhoira deck.
So my conclusion is that, one single card is not ideal to determine the powerranking of a deck.
I heavily agree with these choices for these 100 cards.
Adding a few more to categories 2-4 would make for a great guideline to have on the edh website
This man really just put some of the strongest cards in the format at 2 and 3, some of which he blatantly said were played at high power tables
Haven't finished the video, but Reanimate is definitely PL 3. Hitting any graveyard is ridiculously powerful.
There would be no need to make 4 different tiers if there are so few cards in tiers 2-3-4, they could be easily merged according to this tier list. Otherwise the tier 2-3-4 decks would be too similar to each other.
I think the Levels system needs to be tweaked a little. Chaff like Hill Giant should actually be Level 0 because they're worse than Swords to Plowshares already established at Level 1. So, anything that's a filler card, or worthless bulk would be Level 0. Sol Ring and any other "potentially unbanned cards" should actually be in Level 5, and decks should only be allowed one (1) Level 5 card to stay legal for Commander. This way it evens things out at the very top, and players aren't just paying to win!
Still love Command Quarters but I've learned how much I disagree with some card level analysis. This issue is going to simply divide playgroups in a BAD way. It's hardly ever that black and white.
An argument that Vampiric Tutor is 4, but the other instant speed-to-top tutors should be 3: information is very powerful, especially in high power. Vampiric Tutor allows you to take ANY card to the top. The others, while being at instant speed, still require you to reveal the card. This potentially gives a fair amount of information about your hand/lines of play at times; people see things coming. They are definitely borderline cards though.
I would be tempted to put TImeless Lotus and similar effects at 2 simply because they are rarely played "fair". There is almost always something abusing untap effects to make these effects go infinite or make much more mana than just what is on the card.
I am sure people will disagree but...just make every card power level 1. Then cards like gaias cradle, mana crypt, the best rocks, jeweled lotus, lions eye diamond reserve list super cards power level 4.
Now decent combo cards become power level 3 like oracle, searches, good commanders that are hard to deal with mox amber mox opal (mana rocks that only work after a commander is out) good rocks are here but not too good (or too* expensive). Feeling like lotus petal, mana vault should be here.
Tier 2: feeling like this is extra turns and stacks. This will probably be the most comprehensive to filter out almost anything that could anger a table.
1 is everything else.
I never thought of rhystic as a stax piece. Good point
Nice list, couples of change I would make:
4- Downgrade: Fierce Guardienship to 3, I personally think they will state something as from tier 3 and up player should expect free interaction.
Upgrade: Smothering Tithe. This card is for me the white equivalent of dockside, if you have acess to it, it goes in every white deck. Your opponent will never pay (and they would be correct 90+% of time).
3- Downgrade to 2 Rhystic study. The differnence between Smothering tithe and Study is enormous IMO, paying the 1 is always the way to play around it, therefore its a 1 mana stax effect and they highlight Thalia in their video in Lvl 2.
Upgrade: Mystic remora. Kinda of the same reasoning as paying here is never a good option making it a better draw engine then Rhystic.
2- Downgrade to 1 Swan song, Offer you cant refuse, mirrari wake, reanimate. For the 2 counterspell, its kinda like Swords to plowshares, the best at what its doing sure, but its still interaction for 1 mana. I dont think that a 5 mana enchantment that requires you to have more pieces is in contention for lvl 2 really. For Reanimate, im with you, its really hard to fit, but since you need other pieces to make it broken (entomb is probably a 3) I think its gonna be a 1, but I would not be surprise for a 2
It's probably going to be a point system where each card has a value 0 through 4. Where it'll take the total number and that will be your decks power level
Decent list! I would say farwell should be a 2, teferi's protection a 3, mystic remora a 3, smothering tithe and rhystic studies 4
The issue with 4 point scales, there's always going to be cards that fit nicely in-between the 4 points.
The idea that the standard for a mana rock is “costs 2 taps for 2 mana” is a fairly new idea, typically mana rocks were always 3 mana, taps for 1, with a slight upside
Highly disagree that mana dorks are a tier 1 card. The efficiency they provide is good enough to go up a tier in my eyes.
So what's the online tool gonna feature exactly?
Collecting data from various sources is a typical thing companies do. I would imagine the tool is an all-in-one plug-and-play tool.
Upload your deck(s). Friends do the same. Run the practice game with the desired decks. Click auto-play. The system auto-plays your decks against each other 10 or 100 times whatever the option is. The system then puts up what it discovered. Tells whose deck was superior, and who won more often. What the averages were and conclude where your deck falls on the said tier list or if the decks were a good match with each other or not.
Tutors are next on the chopping block, I use them but would actually be ok with that decision.
Each card should have a 1-4 rating, and then you add each rating together and divide by the number of rated cards to get your decks ratings. Moxfield and others can build the ratings into each cards profile and give you an auto rating.
Toxic deluge is obviously a two due to it one killing multiple creatures. Two it has an added ability that helps something specific.
I don't think 1 T4 card warrants a whole deck to be T4. You can have a deck full of T3 & T2 cards that synergize well and wipe the floor with that T4 deck that may have a bunch of T1 cards in it. Yeah it's rare for someone to have/put a T4 card in a T1 or T2 deck but ranking a whole deck based on 1 card is wildly misleading/dishonest and unfair.
If I have 1 T4 card (tutor) but 99% of my deck is T1 and T2 cards, that deck is honestly a T2 deck, not a T4 deck. Players know this, why won't WOTC?
@@Designer-Brandon then take out the tutor. It's not like a tutor has any thematic value in the deck. It is not so difficult to understand, if a very powerful card does not make a deck very powerful, then match the power level of every card in your deck instead of having a random tier S card in a precon level deck.
So you either take out the card, or you *gasp* talk to the people at your table and explain exactly as you did here. "My deck is a 4, but if I remove [card], it's a 1. Shall we play a game?"
@@alexanderhenderson5583 Yeah, basically. You have to explain why it's a T4 deck when you shouldn't have to. That's what I would do. It's fine to say it this way.
@@Designer-Brandon I still don't understand the whole "when I don't have to!" aspect of your argument. Commander is a social, casual game. You should *always* be talking to your table about what deck you are playing in order to ensure that everyone is coming to the table with the same expectations. The whole idea of these brackets (which, for the record, I am skeptical about, but willing to see how it plays out) is that they give you a place to **start** the conversation. But you definitely *should* be having this conversation.
The only cards i dont agree with on this list have to be deluge and farewell. Sure theyre sorcery speed but they get around things like indestructible and regeneration with little downside to them. 3 mana wipe is pretty powerful and the life loss is negligible at best id vote for T2 at the lowest for deluge and i think farewell is just a solid T2. Exile everything wipe. Plain and simple just good. B-act i can agree is just a T1 cuz theres plenty that it wouldnt effect.
Looking at cards in a vacuum is one thing, but when you combine them with the potential for their synergy with other cards, it may change the bracket they belong in. The system is too complicated and I don’t think it will work.
I almost feel the want to add up the power bracket number of each card in my deck. Example after counter up all 100 bracket numbers my decks power is 334 or 278 so on and so forth. Making it as accurate as possible
Dont love the idea of the ranking system, but if theyre doing it, I got rystic study + smothering tithe in 4. Esper sentinel + mystic ramora + farewell + tefferis pro in atleast 3. Wheels probably in 2, possibly 3
I think the problem is that it's always subjective to each person point of view, i think better then scale all together it would be better to divide between categories (tutor/rocks/draw engines) and then inside those you would do a scaling. because vandalblast i think would be a t2 or t3 because is oneside, meaning the caster gets all the benefits and specially decks that dont have green , meaning most of their ramp comes from artifacts get so much behind i would even prefer that it had been a rift because at least the cards would be in my hand to cast again. And for exemple Rystic study and garruk uprising in the same tier, because all depends on the decks their are on.
I have no idea why they don’t just assign each card a numeric value and have players add up the value of their deck. You can even use the tiers to assign the value. It wouldn’t be difficult at all, and would provide players a literal value of their deck strength.
Removal is all in PL 1….. unless it’s in blue and then it’s a 2. That’s what I’m hearing from this. Like why is Swan Song “better” than path/fatal push/swords/lightning bolt? There is lots of 2-3 mana removal just like there’s lots of 2-3 mana counter spells. swan Song is 1 mana removal in blue, so is Offer You Can’t Refuse. Cyclonic Rift definitely deserves the higher power differential for sure, but I’m genuinely confused about the 1 mana counter spells.
It's hard to look at cards in a vacuum and put it in a Tier... Reanimate is a T2 in a vacuum, but when played it is played in T3 /T4 decks... Its going to be tough anyway you do it.
Lightning Greaves I believe should be a higher tier because it breaks the basic rules of equipment, which is pay to equip.
Equipment that get a free equip on ETB also should be separated from the “fair” equipment.
Toxic deluge and farewell are tier 2 because they also go around indestructible and so on, so no heroic intervention.
What they should do is you take all cards that appear on the bracket, add up the values and take the median. Then you uave an average value. If you have all bracket 1 cards and 1 vampiric tutor, your median is going to be 1.03... thats not a bracket 4 power deck obviously.
I feel like a good barrier to consider to see if a card should be out of the 1 bracket is, could this card be in a precon? If so, it’s possibly a 2.
Assassin's trophy hits most things though. I think the lack of restrictions make it tier 2 at least.
I think there needs to be a conversation about if the rank changes if the card is your comander or in the 99 because my braids deck is easily a 4 with her in the command zone but if i put the flip lilliana in the command zone its only a three due to lack of a consistant engine
I have a bad feeling that it's just going to be more confusing than a 1-10 power level, and that's saying something
The better board wipes are 2s imo. There's a stark difference between Wrath of God the OG generic wipe and Farwell TD and Bact.
I think its dumb that 1 mana instant speed removal has become the norm. Somehow 1 mana retrictive counterspells that give your opponents treasures goes into tier 2 but swords is just perfectly okay?
Yes. Swords do not prevent most high end win cons (Thoracle, Breach, Food Chain etc.)
Swords is 1 white, so not all decks can run it. The way I see it (this is not official of anything, just imo) white gets 1 mana removal, blue gets 2 mana Counterspells (which are better than creature removal because they're more versatile, they prevent ETB triggers and can disrupt win-cons), green gets its 2-3 mana ramp spells. No idea what black & red get though under this line of thinking.
@@wchenful what does high level combos have to do with any of what I said? I'm talking about cards in tier 1 not 4
@@MrZanvineunder that line of thinking black gets tutors than can grab anything and red gets cheap burn that can target creatures, players, and planeswalkers.
@@crazydeadpersonhis point is 1 mana removal is a long standing thing in white and its only really super impact full at low power
Lightning Greaves is at least a 2 and similar equips. Mystic is a 3 it can draw a ton of cards. I'd put the limited tutors at 3 and the anything Tutors at 4.. I'd call Reanimate a 3... board wipes which can be one sided i think warrant a 2 .. cyc is a 3
Tutors are 3's. 4 should be the realm of ban-able cards like primeval titan, emrakul, and fast mana.
There really only needs to be 3 tiers unless t4 is just for those really obnoxious cards just so they can be technically playable in some format.
I would personally prefer if the efficient tutors were in bracket 3 just due to the fact there are far too many cards to account for that can easily just cause a player to run away with a game. Efficient tutors allow for readily available answers at a reasonable mana rate instead of the game ending because players could only draw the wrong type of removal.
But we will see what wotc's end product looks like and just have to remember that the brackets aren't hard set rules, just a suggestion guide for pregame conversations.
Any card that only needs one additional card to be a devastating effect like Rowan Sion of war and toxic deluge, it should be more than a 1.
Why are mana rocks and mana dorks in the top 100 ?!?!?!?!?!??!!?? 🤷♂️🙄
Off this I'd have two 4s (one is a Yargel Voltron which that being a 4 is hilarious), krenko at a 3, then three 2s.
That said, I think all six are 7s
tbh this is just adding extra steps to just the 'rule 0' talk.
True, but many in the community have said they can't do a decent rule zero talk and needed help. In reality, this bracket system breaks it down like many of us already do in our rule zero talks. "Do you have fast mana?" "Are you trying to win by combat or a combo?" "Do you have free spells or tutors?" "How long do you think a game should last?" etc.
Its adding centtalized knowledge. The rule 0 talk was useless depending on who you were playing with, because some people thought swords to plowshares was a busted tier 3 card and some people considered rhystic study to be a tier 1 staple. We desparatley needed a centeral touchstone like this to facilitate USEFUL rule 0 discussions at a GP or LGS setting where you dont already know the playgroup or are playing with lots of tables in a day
Completely agree with this list. Would really look forward to not seeing any T2+ ever again lol.
gonna go and say any land ramp that costs 2 is gonna be tier 2, ramp on creatures and artifacts will be 1
All boardwipes should be 2 the value for potentially resetting the game or winning is an advantage but not overpowering
Time for a new one of these.
Phage the untouchable as a commander automatically lowers the level of the deck. I love running it unless I run into torpor orb.
I hate this bracket system. Whenever new cards come out, there's no way this system will keep up. Handling each card on a micro-scale is way too much work for so little. Instead, they should be using blanket statements about cards. For example, they can say any tutor that searched for any card should be level 3-4. Tutors that search only for land should be 1-2. This way, people aren't second guessing or looking up specific cards to doublecheck a deck's bracket level.
Esper Sentinel and Remora should likely be in the 3rd tier. cEDH or not, these cards are often times accumulating value similar to ancestral recall haha
I feel those card "CAN MAKE" a tier 3 or 4 deck but if all tutors are in that bracket that throws alot of decks into a tier they are not made for. i use alot of the tier 2-4 cards in that list and loose to precons often. my chandra story deck which uses none of the cards listed is the only deck i win with. and im not rebuilding decks to be in a "lower tier" when those teirs already beat my decks 19/20 times.
Toxic Deluge is definitely gonna be a 2. Great flexibility and ignores indestructible.
My difficulty with the argument of "non-creature permanents(exclude lands) are harder to remove."
Is that I completely disagree. We all know that people run Rhystic, Ramora, etc. So why not dedicate 5 or so slots to Artifact/Enchantment removal. It is cheap, and often gives you some life or a token in exchange for the 3 mana you invest into the spell. I often run into players that get salty with me for destroying their D.Season or P. Lives or what have you, the turn it is dropped. It is just called threat assessment. I dedicate 20 slots in each of my decks for spot removal and wraths. This sets the game up for a slower play style and immediately halts any B.S. from my opponents. I also dont run any card that costs more than 5 mana to invest in. Most of my decks have a 1/2/3/4 curve. This ensures me playing on curve, and stops me from being overzealous with cards.
If you dont want to draw hate to your board, stop making big ass plays that use all your mana in one shot. Run more cards that mana sink for late game plays. Stop investing in cards with little to no pay off. You know Rhystic is in most blue decks, so just make room in your deck for ways to interact with it. Drawing is powerful, if not the most powerful thing you can do in EDH. So just dont let players draw more than 1 card a turn. It is a simple equation. And, I'm not standing on any sort of high ground here. I am just simply saying build your decks with these things in mind.
Example; you know token decks use P. Lives, D. Season, Anointed, and the lot. You have 2 options to deal with it. Dont let your opponents make tokens, or just blow up their token producers and doublers. This example works for basically everything. Players are drawing too many cards? Restrict them or just out right deny them that resource.
I also dont like counterspells. They ruin the concept of the game, imo. I make all of my "wincons" unstoppable. Just dont let players play spells on your turn. Run cards that stop them. I have gotten more hate from players for playing "antimeta" cards. Why are they so salty? Because the view the game as, "it is only fun if I win all the time."
My philosophy is, "I have fun ruining your fun." Another way I enjoy punishing greedy players is by taking their stuff and using it against them. They can only blame themselves for it. Dont run that card and I wont see it as an immediate threat and I wont take it or remove it. I am also the guy who will absolutely target your ramp pieces. Arcane signet on turn 2? 4 mana general on turn 3? Nonsense. Slow down, and play at the same speed as me. I also have no problems targeting a single land, especially if that land is giving you access to a color you need and dont have the basic to cover it. Command Tower is a prime target for my land destruction. I love cards that say, "your opponents cannot play spells that cost more than the number of lands they have in play." Love that. Bottom line here is, be more conservative with your plays and be more creative with your deck building. Why am I the bad guy for telling players to chill out? I also dont run many cards that remain on the board to become a threat. A 1 and done kinda guy. Players get real salty when you dont allow them to run away with the game by turn 5. Why does it make me the arch enemy when I stop you from becoming the arch enemy? It is just stupid to me.
Sorry for the paragraphs. If you took the time to read, feel free to comment back and start a discussion with me.
My favorite deck is Thrunn. Only green players can interact with my troll. Then I just C. Damage you all out. My removal spells are all about fighting. My special tech is Wild Defiance: When creature is targeted, it gets +3/+3 until EoT. This with fight spells is great. It is the one 5 drop in my deck other than Thrunn himself. And, because it is not an immediate threat, most folks let it stick around because they dont see how powerful it really is. Magic is a very dumb game. 😂😂
Rhystic Study should be a 4.
Smothering Tithe should be a 4.
Dark Ritual should be a 4.
I think return of the wildspeaker should be a two. Between instant speed and versatility i think thats deserving
I’m kinda cool with like 95% of this list in terms of power ranking
Overall I agree with almost all of these ratings. The board wipes that were at 2 i think were easily at 2.
How did The One Ring not make it here?
My take on Power 4 are that they are the most optimal way of doing things and these would be extremely ubiquitous, often are not easily accessible, or change the nature game (someone castes a spell and everybody thinks “so it’s going to be one of THOSE games huh”). They also are the strongest signals that one the strongest strategies is being utilized.
This is a ranking of the top 100 most played cards in commander, not most powerful or anything.
I think I only disagree with Farewell. It is a very "salty" card and might not be in the spirit of 1 or 2 decks. I would have put it at 3. It can also ruin artifact decks with its exile effects. Kind of how Armageddon is tier 4 because it is just salty.
i feel like esper sentinel and rystic should be put higher tbh. card draw engines that dominate the format that often just feed your opponents the win. even playing responsible around them they are stax pieces. what other cards would you say are better at drawing cards consistently then these? I feel like they are the best in that category.😅
I've been saying they should do this for a while. Pokemon does it and it works great, theirs are based on usage, I'm not sure if that translates well to magic, but yeah
the whole point of ranking your deck before, while yes partly based on powerful cards in the 99, was based on your Commander. Thats why edhrec has top 100 commanders. Cause when you play a deck around your commander, thats what determines how strong it is in a lot of cases. So ranking it only on cards in the 99 just doesn't work in my opinion.
Do … mana dorks are B2 in my view. Certainly elves more so than other because there are so many crazy tribal synergies with elves. My two cents.
I think nitpicking cards in a legacy format beyond banned and the rule 0 discussion is going to get ridiculous and take too long. "Bracketing" cards is a lot harder to keep track of than a banlist. Just think 4 tiers with specific cards in each of them, banned list, and rule 0... i just can't every single time i go to play a game of commander. This seems like it's only viable in a digital setting, so you can filter all the cards.
Deluge and Farewell a T2, bc they get around indestructible unlike the rest at T1.
Reanimate T2, when its played against you its more of a "oh crap" not a "really, you play that?" reaction.
Deflecting swat has won me so many games. It's more powerful than fierce guardianship. Cyclonic rift and mana drain should be tier 4. The non-blqck tutors should be tier 3.
I would like see the actual list like this