Show me what's not a 7.

[Bonethousand]

For example, I'd consider my Morophon deck a 7 because of it's explosive potential (despite being typically slow to get going, which might make it a 6), but I'd also consider my Esix deck a 7 (maybe an 8, but that feels too high, even though this deck almost always wins at the table) because of it's resiliency and ability to consistently overwhelm the board. I'd love to see what people's opinions are on these ratings, but even I am not sure. I mean, maybe they're both 6's...

Edit: I realize now that I did the exact opposite of the prompt, and gave you "7's." So let's just go with what I put in parentheses and say I think Morophon is a 6 and Esix is an 8.

https://deckstats.net/decks/158324/1785048-morophon-fire-sale-


https://deckstats.net/decks/158324/2043696-esix-gon-give-it-to-you

[CleanBelwas]

I don't care if that's bird tribal (you still around Belwas?)

Hey guys.

Picked a good day to log back in it seems. Hope you're all doing alright.

I can safely say that I don't have single deck that would be considered a 7. Or, I don't think so at least. Truth is I don't have a clue what any of my decks would register on a power scale. All I know is if they're doing too well in my meta, I take them apart (or just stop playing them if I don't have the heart to take them apart. Sorry Yuriko). I don't know what turn any of my decks are supposed to win on, if they even have a dedicated way to win other than "eh, I might get lucky".

I mostly just play shit with a dumb theme or a weird plan. My most recent deck that I've just built now I have a little more time for hobbies again revolves around repeatedly casting Polymorph on Kefnet the Mindful. It's stupid.

Slyvester12 wants decks that aren't 7s. Ask and ye shall receive.

=====

The aforementioned bird deck:

The eventual idea is to only have cards that are birds, bird themed or have birds in the art. My wife loves birds and I was hoping this would get her into Magic.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1510627-birds-of-war

=====

Grixis dragon tribal reanimator - old frame only:

I love the old frame, and some of the old dragons are weird and cool.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1743842-og-bolas-old-frame-dragon-rean

=====

Minigame Tribal (a personal favourite):

This whole deck revolves around effects that do things like splitting cards into piles, blind naming cards, that kind of thing. Fun for the whole table.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1566723-minigame-tribal

=====

The deck with the biggest disparity between how shit it is vs. the effort I put in to making it.

I've spent SOOO freakin long on this deck. If you're interested in it, click through to see all the descriptions. They all cover what each card represents and why it was included.

A deck based on Dante's Inferno:

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1512602-dante-s-inferno

=====

Just traps:

This deck worked surprisingly well. It was terrible, but I thought it would be even worse than it was. Some of the traps are kind of OK.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1730334-maybe-the-dumbest-deck-i-ve-ev

=====

Whatever the fuck this is:

I just find this kind of card hilarious.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1800926-nominative-determinism

=====

All of these are deck's I've actually sleeved up and taken to game night, sat down at a table with my friends, shuffled up, and attempted to pilot with a straight face. Holy crap are some of them awful, but I have so much fun with these janky brews.

Looking forward to brewing a bunch more now I'll have a bit more availability again. Hopefully some premium jank has been released in the last few sets I've missed.

Edit: edited just to add some context to each deck.

[Slyvester12]

So I have a question for everyone. What are you using as a baseline to determine your decks' power level?

I based mine on the A to E scale that I made and just treated power 10/9 as A-rank, 8/7 as B-rank and so on. I then gauged that if it was a stronger C-rank deck I call it a 6 and a weaker one is a 5, and so one for each deck. I think that another part of this is that I've seen the upper limit. I've seen what decks at power 10 can do. I know that my decks are not that (despite how often other players say they are).

So that's my system, and it seems like it lined up with the way The Golgari Guy and Potato Chop rated their decks, but I'm having trouble understanding the other ones. When you say your deck is an 8 or 7, what makes you pick that number? What makes you say that your deck is above average, instead of just being average.

And while I'm asking questions, do you Slyvester12, have any decks that you can say aren't a 7?

When I'm considering a deck's power level, I usually look at the things most decks want to do and how the strategy is supported. If a deck has enough ramp, draw, interaction, an average CMC around 3-3.4, and a reasonable win condition, I would consider that a 6 or a 7. I think your scale Morganator bunches lower power decks a bit and has more room for upper levels. I think a lot of people do the opposite. I'm not sure what a good baseline is, though maybe having a 1-10 scale for casual and a 10.x scale for competitive would make sense.

Regardless, as requested, here are a few of my decks that I would not rank 7s.

Ezuri Elfball - 8
What? The deck that I spent hundreds of hours working on and wrote a primer for isn't a 7? I know, shocking. I would call this an 8, or maybe a 9 if we use the 1-10 and 10.x scale I mentioned before. If someone says "My deck is a 7," this deck wins. Every time. If an entire table of people say they're playing 7s, I'll often still win even in an archenemy scenario. Only very heavy removal or stax keep this deck from going off.
https://deckstats.net/decks/132279/1577597-ezuri-elfball-combo-primer

Scion Toolbox - 8
The other primer I wrote. Again, against a "7" or a table of "7s," this deck essentially always wins. It's weaker than Ezuri, but mostly because it's slower and a little less resilient. Even with the 10.x scale, I would still call this an 8.
https://deckstats.net/decks/132279/1497031-scion-dragon-combo-primer

Now for the other end of things.

Worse than Infect - 5
This is a mostly jank deck built around making other people lose with Phage the Untouchables' etb and Endless Whispers. Alternatively, doing something just as janky with Tree of Perdition and Triskaidekaphobia. Liliana's Contract is in there because it turned into pseudo demon tribal, but I've literally never won with it. This deck is honestly probably a 4, but it has enough ramp and interaction to hang in there, and enough of a big black mana strategy to play stompy if need be.
https://deckstats.net/decks/132279/1350696-worse-than-infect

Finally, the deck I play against precons.
Angry Omnath's Lands - 3
This is just a landfall deck with no interaction and big mana costs. It goes even against precons (maybe a bit better than even, depending on which precons), but that's about the best I can say for it. If it gets the chance to Boundless Realms into Scapeshift into Splendid Reclamation with Omnath out, I tend to win. It's happened before, but very rarely. This deck struggles against everything, takes forever to get going, and has no answers. It's all about just getting Omnath and pumping out elementals with Warstorm Surge or Where Ancients Tread out. It's really just a step above jank, but it functions properly and can do explosive things.
https://deckstats.net/decks/132279/1332884-omnath-locus-of-landfall

[Aetherium Slinky]

My scale goes like this: most precons are 2-3. Some are better than others so I give the best precons a free pass and call them 4. An upgraded precon (swap 10-20 cards, fix mana base) is anywhere between 4 and 6. This leaves us with decks that consistently lose to precons to rank 1. Weird jank on par with a precon is likely 2-4. A fully tuned jank deck might score 5 but is ultimately limited by their strategy or choice of commander. Here's something that, on my scale, scores somewhere around 5:
https://deckstats.net/decks/93006/1536141-mommy-my-hand-hurts-kami-of-th
It forces group draws so everyone has answers but it has some defensive firepower in the form of bounces and counterspells. It beats precons but it loses to an average deck most of the time.

Higher end goes like this: tier 1 and tier 1.5 cEDH are 10. Tier 2 and some fringe high power decks are 9. Most high power decks are 8. Strong casual decks are 7. The average casual deck should score something between a tuned up precon (5) and a strong casual deck (7).

Here's my example of an 8. I've doscussed this deck extensively with both the cEDH community and the fringe cEDH community and we're all fairly certain it's somewhere between 7.5 and 8.5.
https://deckstats.net/decks/93006/2053346-merieke-ri-berit-high-power-un
It's a pure combo deck with almost no dead cards and some high end staples. It's mostly limites by the fact that its combos require 3 pieces (but there's redundancy and a buttload of tutors to find them) and depending on the line I'm going for some parts must last a full rotation on the table. It has protection, redundancy and recursion so it's fairly resilient.

[Bonethor]

I'd love to see what people's opinions are on these ratings, but even I am not sure. I mean, maybe they're both 6's...

From one bone person to the next, I'll bite

I get the feeling that both decks "suffer" from Timmyism; I'd say the Morophon deck is 5-6, probably bump it to six due to it being able to explode a bit as you said. If Morophon or your board gets got it seems like recovery is a bit slow and you're most of the time relying on getting through a turn cycle somewhat unscathed.

Esix I'd say is a 7 again if you don't have your haste enabler after going off you're still mainly relying on making it through a turn cycle, but even if your board gets messed with you've probably gained enough value to keep rebuilding and grind out the game. There's good synergy there too. Both decks are good for their purpose!

If you wanted to raise the power level (not upgrade) I'd say you'd have to focus your wincons and more consistent ways to get to those wincons but of course that's going more into the combo territory and decks that play the same may tend to get stale.

[BlackFox0117]

Literally any of my decks, all of which are in my "Active Decks" folder. Going by Morganator 2.0's scale, I'd say all of my decks range from E Rank to C Rank.

[Bonethousand]

I'd love to see what people's opinions are on these ratings, but even I am not sure. I mean, maybe they're both 6's...

From one bone person to the next, I'll bite

I get the feeling that both decks "suffer" from Timmyism

First, may I say, excellent choice of name. Second, nailed it. EDH has such Timmy potential, that it's hard for me to justify optimization for straight up winning. Born a Timmy, and I'll die a Timmy. "Just wait till I get my Leviathan" as my epitaph.

[BlackFox0117]

I don't care if that's bird tribal (you still around Belwas?)

Hey guys.

Picked a good day to log back in it seems. Hope you're all doing alright.

I can safely say that I don't have single deck that would be considered a 7. Or, I don't think so at least. Truth is I don't have a clue what any of my decks would register on a power scale. All I know is if they're doing too well in my meta, I take them apart (or just stop playing them if I don't have the heart to take them apart. Sorry Yuriko). I don't know what turn any of my decks are supposed to win on, if they even have a dedicated way to win other than "eh, I might get lucky".

I mostly just play shit with a dumb theme or a weird plan. My most recent deck that I've just built now I have a little more time for hobbies again revolves around repeatedly casting Polymorph on Kefnet the Mindful. It's stupid.

Slyvester12 wants decks that aren't 7s. Ask and ye shall receive.

=====

The aforementioned bird deck:

The eventual idea is to only have cards that are birds, bird themed or have birds in the art. My wife loves birds and I was hoping this would get her into Magic.

https://deckstats.net/decks/132604/1510627-birds-of-war

Did the bird deck get your wife into the game, though?

[CleanBelwas]

Did the bird deck get your wife into the game, though?

Unfortunately not so much. She loved the effort and appreciated it, but it's just not for her. She used to like playing kitchen table 60 card on occasion, but EDH is just not her thing at all. She's not into all the extra rules and complications, higher starting life totals, longer games, multiplayer and political aspects etc. She only really used to play because she knew I liked it, but it was a lot easier for her to stomach in small doses and game of EDH is too long.

[BlackFox0117]

Did the bird deck get your wife into the game, though?

Unfortunately not so much. She loved the effort and appreciated it, but it's just not for her. She used to like playing kitchen table 60 card on occasion, but EDH is just not her thing at all. She's not into all the extra rules and complications, higher starting life totals, longer games, multiplayer and political aspects etc. She only really used to play because she knew I liked it, but it was a lot easier for her to stomach in small doses and game of EDH is too long.

That's understandable. Shout out to you for trying!

[Diskret]

Before each game, you randomly choose your commander from the selection. No plan. No strategy. No interaction. Not a single card that will do what you want every time. Enjoy a beautiful, solid 2 or 3. As far as good times with friends go, though, this is a pure 10/10, and that’s why I play Magic.
[... chaos deck ...]
TL;DR: This deck is so chaotic that it puts you at an immediate and mathematical advantage.

F me it's a 30€ deck I'm building this.

On topic:
https://deckstats.net/decks/185502/2296160-commander-djo-ra
Call Jhoira, , profit!
Slow & weird, 100% awesome & cheap AF.

[BlackFox0117]

Literally any of my decks, all of which are in my "Active Decks" folder. Going by Morganator 2.0's scale, I'd say all of my decks range from E Rank to C Rank.

Though, to be fair, none of them are optimized, only functional. The "sideboards" are the cards I plan on eventually adding to help optimize, so feel free to factor those in and tell me how they'd be rated!

[Slyvester12]

Literally any of my decks, all of which are in my "Active Decks" folder. Going by Morganator 2.0's scale, I'd say all of my decks range from E Rank to C Rank.

Though, to be fair, none of them are optimized, only functional. The "sideboards" are the cards I plan on eventually adding to help optimize, so feel free to factor those in and tell me how they'd be rated!

It would help if you picked a few you'd like people to look at and linked them here. You can just copy/paste the url from the deck page into a comment and deckstats will automatically display the deck.

[anjinsan]

Ha. Well, we all know the "everything is a 7" joke, but I'm starting to think that all of my decks are 7s.

This isn't actually that ridiculous; I don't build for cEDH and generally stay away from combo wins (or just anything I find boring), so I struggle to justify 8+ for anything. In fact they frequently don't have much plan in the way of wincons. However I do play powerful cards (I play online, all those decks are literally budgetless - i.e. I don't spend any money!) and often fast mana, etc. I recently played in a "6-7" room where one guy quit right away because two of us go good hands and ramped quickly. To be fair, they could have been 8s, but mine was a jank joke stax deck that actually won that one but has failed to do anything three times out of four.

I have also been accused of playing cEDH decks, even with some of my lower-powered decks!

Yet, there's clearly a difference between my more powerful decks and, say, my Archelos Mutant Ninja Turtles deck (heck, I have another Archelos deck which is just straight-up better). OK, possibly my Lord Windgrace/Umori deck is sub-7 because it has no mana rocks or instant-speed removal (because, you know, Umori). Yet everything else... seems to be a 7?

[Slyvester12]

Ha. Well, we all know the "everything is a 7" joke, but I'm starting to think that all of my decks are 7s.

This isn't actually that ridiculous; I don't build for cEDH and generally stay away from combo wins (or just anything I find boring), so I struggle to justify 8+ for anything. In fact they frequently don't have much plan in the way of wincons. However I do play powerful cards (I play online, all those decks are literally budgetless - i.e. I don't spend any money!) and often fast mana, etc. I recently played in a "6-7" room where one guy quit right away because two of us go good hands and ramped quickly. To be fair, they could have been 8s, but mine was a jank joke stax deck that actually won that one but has failed to do anything three times out of four.

I have also been accused of playing cEDH decks, even with some of my lower-powered decks!

Yet, there's clearly a difference between my more powerful decks and, say, my Archelos Mutant Ninja Turtles deck (heck, I have another Archelos deck which is just straight-up better). OK, possibly my Lord Windgrace/Umori deck is sub-7 because it has no mana rocks or instant-speed removal (because, you know, Umori). Yet everything else... seems to be a 7?

Maybe link a couple of the ones you think are borderline? Even made properly, a lot of strategies should struggle to get to 7 unless they make extensive use of staples. I'm not sure it's possible to make Spider Tribal a 7, for example. Are you just playing relatively strong archetypes?