[Discussion] Most broken Commander?

[Amon Amarth]

I've been playing Commander pretty frequently over the last few months and I've built a lot of different decks of varying power levels, some are over 9000 and others are more casual. My playgroups aren't very competitive/experienced so I've never been able to play against tuned, powerful decks. From what I've read there are a handful Tier 1 Commanders- Azami, Sharuum, Zur, Azusa, Jhoira, Arcum, and maybe Scion. Then there are quite a few slower but equally formidable Tier 2 Commanders like Skithyrix and Uril. I've only played with Azusa and Skittles but they feel roughly equal to me.

What other legendary creatures should be on my radar? Are all these Commanders equally powerful or is there one that's truly broken?

[boneclub24]

I wouldn't say there is a 'most broken' commander. They all sort of balance each other out.

If you want the most powerful general in a vacuum, I would say Sharuum. Artifacts have millions of combos.

However, these are balanced out by some of the other generals and what their 'broken-ness' does.

[Purgatory]

Second Sharuum, she is a beast.

Also, I think The Mimeoplasm deserves a mention as well, his colours give you everything you need to ramp into a combo, backed up by solid control in both countermagic, spotremoval and sweepers (Deed, Damnation et al). He is also capable of some powerful combos, Skittles + anything with power 6+ will kill an opponent for 2UBBG, which is quite powerful in EDH.

[Bignasty197]

Sharuum and Zur are probably the best ones when you look at what they can do. If you build it right, Vorosh, The Hunter is pretty boss. While not Combo-licious like Zur and Sharuum, he gives you what I think are the best colors in EDH.

[Malchar]

Vendilion clique is pretty strong in 1v1. You just run a ton of counterspells and then tunnel vision the opponent.

[kombatkiwi]

In 1v1 you really can't go past counterspell.dec

Vendilion Clique is the most popular but I've been trying to test a UB version (Probably Dralnu) to see if it can be just as strong and have a bit more variety.

When you go Mono U you become basically stone cold to Thrun which is something I would like to avoid.

In multiplayer you want a deck that can combo everybody off or lock them out of the game ASAP.

So either
Arcum (Usually combo)
Sharuum (Combo)
Zur (Lock)
Azami (Bit of Both)

SurvivalGoodstuff can also work well in multiplayer as GUx or GBx

You basically start moving along a continuum of Slower to More Resilient in terms of deck choice.

So I'm sure some people would disagree but I would rank them like this, probably

[Fast, More glass cannon]
-Sharuum
-Arcum
-Zur
-SurvivalGoodstuff
-Azusa
-Azami
[Slower, More Resilient]

That said, the blue combo decks do have counterspells etc so it's not so cut and dried
I don't even rate azusa as a deck, TBH

[Glo]

I second Zur, Sharuum, Uril and Azami. But whenever I bring out Numot, the Devastator, I get a big fat bullseye on me. I keep forgetting how much people hate land destruction

[Amon Amarth]

Ah yeah, I forgot about Mimeoplasm. He's pretty brutal. Being able to use all the best tutors (GY/Hand) and a super fast combo kill make for a potent threat.

I was mostly trying to figure out multiplayer since 1v1 doesn't really feel like Commander to me (no political aspect, much faster games, increased impact of bombs, etc) but I do play it occasionally.

Do you guys find that your playgroups are too fast for some of the slower Commanders or are the slower decks able to hate out and/or effectively attack the weak points of the faster decks like Sharrum e.g. artifact hate or GY hate?

[Offler]

Child of Alara

In sacrifice/reanimate deck. Crucial parts are High Market and Volrath's Stronghold and similar cards and other reanimation/sacrifice.

Rest of deck does not interact with the general as well, but good balance between card drawing in playing agro/midrange will usualy cut most decks based on permanents in play.

Most of the broken generals were already mentioned.

Most annoying in multiplayer. When dies, goes to the grave, when exiled can be cast again.

[kicks_422]

Well, for what the commander actually does, Damia, Sage of Stone is probably the best one. It's also in the three best colors for EDH.

[Scordata]

No love for Oona?
Everytime I cast her it's GG.

[TheArchitect]

Sharuum, mimoplasm, azusa, child of alara and monoblue counterspells.dec are probably the strongest.

I think zur, uril and arcum can't quite make the top tier. I play with and against all 3 of them alot and they can be very hit or miss since you are relying very heavily on your general. If they counter/remove zur/arcum/uril, it really sets you back and by the time you can cast them again your opponents will be in a better position because they aren't relying on a general as their engine.

[Kuma]

My playgroup is completely cut-throat, and the two decks that have had the most success are Oona, Queen of the Fae and Sharuum the Hegemon. Oona, Queen of the Fae has won 52% of its games (3 player group) and Sharuum the Hegemon has won 41%. Next best decks are The Mimeoplasm at 34% and Arcum Dagsson at 33%.

I keep a spreadsheet with the results from our games and also who got a Mana Crypt or Sol Ring, what turn they cast it, and if they won the game.

IMO, the top tier generals are:

Oona, Queen of the Fae
Sharuum the Hegemon
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
The Mimeoplasm
Arcum Dagsson
Some five-color general with Hermit Druid combo.

A step below are:

Jhoira of the Ghitu
Memnarch (he's pretty much mono-colored Oona, Queen of the Fae)
Pretty much any x general.

Another step below we have:
Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Zur the Enchanter
Pretty much any x general
Pretty much any general

I think Zur the Enchanter and Azusa, Lost but Seeking are very overrated. We've had several Zur the Enchanter decks in our playgroup, and they've never had much success. They play out in very predictable patterns, and it's pretty easy to disrupt when you know it's coming. Without the general, the deck isn't very good.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking seems fine in theory, but in my group she's only won 27% of her games. It's probably her reliance on creatures and the lack of good tutors.

[phonics]

It depends on 1v1 or multiplayer

1v1:
s+
clique
a
zur
sharuum
azami
oona
arcum
mimeoplasm

multiplayer
I think 5c hermit druid is the fastest most consistent followed by sharuum, zur and oona. combo is way stronger than tempo here.

[andrewlb]

I honestly think Animar is worth mentioning, you are a race deck and pretty consistent at what you are doing, I've gone 3-3 with competitive Oona and I'm still tuning but I'd say it is up there among decks, maybe not tier 1, but close, also you benefit from less variance than sol ring/crypt dependent draws.

[Aggro_zombies]

I agree with Kuma about Azusa being overrated. She can regularly dismantle casual decks and compete with good Tier One decks with her best draws, but green just doesn't have enough good card drawing or tutors to keep her sustained. After the first +5 lands or so, her ability really doesn't matter, and then the deck is mostly just hoping to peel bombs off the top.

I've beat her with a semi-competitive Saffi deck pretty easily simply because I can end the game in one turn, outside of combat.

I had a mostly-competitive Oona deck for a while (hampered by a lack of Imperial Seal, Grim Tutor, and Time Twister). The nice thing about Oona is that she's very flexible. You can build a control deck that uses infinite mana and Oona to finish people, you can build a storm deck that's just using Oona for the colors, or you can do what I did and build a hybrid. I had Doomsday to set up either a stack to generate near-infinite storm or infinite mana for Oona and it was pretty good.

I'd like to see a 5c Hermit Druid deck. I've been tinkering with one for a while and it hasn't quite worked out the way I hoped. Not being able to find or activate Hermit Druid makes the deck much worse, though it may be a function of me not having a good general (get there Atogatog!).

[boneclub24]

On Mimeoplasm vs Damia:

Mimeoplasm lets you get a combo kill with easy set-up that doesn't rely on the general living more than a round. It also is graveyard hate in a pinch.

[Aggro_zombies]

On Mimeoplasm vs Damia:

Mimeoplasm lets you get a combo kill with easy set-up that doesn't rely on the general living more than a round. It also is graveyard hate in a pinch.

Mimeoplasm is far better than Damia. Damia lends herself to a control deck and control is generally bad in competitive EDH because of the number of low-investment infinite combos that exist. You're better off running a general that can kill people out of nowhere with poison than one that costs a lot more and has to survive for a turn before she does anything.

I'm not even sure Damia is Tier Two. Vorosh is probably better in a pure control build because he kills so quickly.

[kombatkiwi]

The problem with an analysis like this is that in edh theres much more variance in deck construction than in other formats (especially because many top decks are so tutor based), so while you can say 'arcum deck' or 'zur deck' everyone here probably has a different idea of what that entails.

The other thing is that in edh (where i am, at least) you normally only ever see a particular general played by one or two people so playskill plays a bigger part than it does in other formats too, in terms of trying to evaluate the best deck.

Finally, there isnt an established tournament scene so it's hard to objectively say that one deck is better than the other.

[Aggro_zombies]

The problem with an analysis like this is that in edh theres much more variance in deck construction than in other formats (especially because many top decks are so tutor based), so while you can say 'arcum deck' or 'zur deck' everyone here probably has a different idea of what that entails.

The other thing is that in edh (where i am, at least) you normally only ever see a particular general played by one or two people so playskill plays a bigger part than it does in other formats too, in terms of trying to evaluate the best deck.

Finally, there isnt an established tournament scene so it's hard to objectively say that one deck is better than the other.

Eh, not really. Some generals - like Zur - are linear enough that most people can agree on an optimal list to within a small number of flexible slots, and many of the other generals considered Tier One have mostly obvious best implementations.

I think it's interesting to think about these things if you're going to, say, play in EDH side events at a GP or other large tournament. The decks that tend to win those pods are usually tuned versions of tier generals; you could - in theory - see a Tariel deck take down a pod, but you're more likely to see a Zur or a Sharuum or something of that nature win. Playskill certainly plays a part in it, but that's not a confounding factor limited to EDH.

While the title of "most broken" is up in the air, I think people can agree on a fairly small pool of candidates for it.