What is this tier list about?

This is an overview over the strongest cPDH decks (competitive Pauper Commander) we have found so far, together with a collection of example decklists.
We want to give easy access to our accumulated knowledge in order to make the format accessable, understandable and inspire everybody to break the format.
The baseline for evaluating these decks is 4 player free-for-аll multiplayer. Note that games with a different number of players tend to play out quite differently, so these tiers are not applicable for e.g. 1v1 cPDH.
The example decklists, while not necessarily perfect, should give you a good idea of what that archetype is able to do and what you should expect of these decks power level wise.
We follow the official PDH banlist, which currently features Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study as the only cards banned for power level reasons.

Why does a commander not appear on the tier list?

This tier list is made for competitive environments. There are countless other possible commanders to play in casual PDH games, but it's neither possible nor particularly useful to rank all of them in a tier list. A commander not appearing here does not mean that it might not be good in your local play group, nor that it can't be a lot of fun or worth brewing around.
Another reason you might not see a commander on this list, is that its archetype is already represented by a better commander. For example Kiora's Follower would probably make the cut power level wise, but we don't see a reason to play it over Lore Weaver + Ley Weaver, nor is the deck list significantly different from Weavers, so we decided to only rank the most powerful instance of any given archetype.

Where can I find out more?

If you have a decklist to contribute, think that we missed a competitive deck that belongs on the tier list or have questions or feedback of any kind you can reach us on the PDH Home Base discord. In the #competitive-PDH chаnnel we are happy to talk about everything relating to this tier list and on the discord you can find plenty of other resources relating to PDH in general.

Tier 1

Decks without clear weaknesses, can kill the whole table quickly even through disruption, while having good disruption themselves.

Tier 2

Decks that are a threat to the whole table, while being able to interact with their opponents combos/engines, but might have some weak spots or are less consistent or slower than Tier 1 decks.

Tier 3

Decks that are strong situationally and a threat to the whole table if unchecked, but have clear weak spots.

last updated 7/7/2022