Two-Color Combination Tier List | Commander Clash Podcast 175

[@lobo-xs6kd]

I feel like Crim was basically the only one regularly talking about actual gold cards rather than two mono colors mashed together.

[@enso8379]

Hitting the nail on the head right here. Like talk about archetypes and synergy plays rather than Three Visits, Farewell, and T-Pro being the most important cards in the format and if you can't play those then your deck is just hot garbage.

[@AncientHydraGaming]

100% agree that Crim was only one accounting for 2 color cards NOT counting the potential commanders themselves (whether they are used as the commander or as a backup effect). There are several pairs where their 2 color cards vastly increase their potential but Idk how much that would change their overall ranking. If anything I think it'd make most of the C's into B's and Izzet low A.

[@beandip9824]

Well the list was about two color paring so

[@SilvanOrion]

Crim is always the villan at the table, and apparently he's also the only person looking at combos a more than "but is it green"

[@arieleraso5734]

Really love how Crim has shifted to not being the villain anymore

[@jamesc.7216]

I'm with Crim. Judging color pairs should include commander synergies, archetype support, and gold cards. Judging based entirely on staples would imply that every deck is only a 'good stuff' pile.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

That's how they build decks apparently.

[@jamesc.7216]

@MakeVarahHappen Yeah, when you build a bunch of decks over a short period of time things tend to get standardized. To be fair, I think that Richard and Tomer build decks that way. They take a framework and build it out to fit the theme. Seth seems like he builds a goofy deck first and then trys to stuff the 'good stuff' in the gaps. Crim's decks all look like he had a plan going in and, like Seth, put in as much support as he could fit it.

[@RafikiafReKo]

For me, I feel like the problem is how they assume casual is played. Sure, if every deck is a midrange deck, then sure Simic is the best. But if you allow aggro, combo and control, simic is one of the weaker pairings since people can actually play architypes that are strong against simic.

[@Blarg-vj3tk]

@@RafikiafReKo it really depends on your scene, some places are really angry about you playing anything other than a midrange valuetown deck in casual. I agree that there should be more acceptance of more aggressive/controlling strategies.

[@Shawn-f3x]

You might get that acceptance in a pod of friends, but you will *never* see 51% of the LGS play-spaces friendly to stuff like optimized Tax/Fort or Dedicated Stacks. If anything, things are going in the opposite direction, with LGS pods growing (at least in my experience of late) less and less tolerant of non-optimized lists helmed by strong cEDH Commanders. If you put more than 10$ into a Yuriko list, you won’t get a 2nd game at my LGS, for example. Right now, people are pushing out Kinnan. Anything that causes a game to both A) Run long, and B) Keeps the same player ahead due to disruption-type permanents being dropped one after another by said ahead-player just isn’t going to experience widespread acceptance at the LGS. I get 3 & 1/2 hours to play 1/week. If you *tell* me your deck is liable to cause a 75-80 min game, I’m finding another pod. If you don’t, I’m going to be *much* more inquisitive about what you’re on forever after.

[@30teracyte]

Crim and Richard are almost answering different questions here: Crim is ranking based on the deck archetypes present in each colour pair, while Richard is focused on the best staples that each pair can play. Neither of those is necessarily the wrong approach, but it led to pretty incompatible lists between the two of them.

[@arieleraso5734]

I hope this i comment of the week, would love for them tohave this discussion

[@NateFinch]

Yeah I totally see this disparity. To me, Selesnya is pretty bad because it doesn't have a lot of good deck archetypes. It's like +1/+1 counters and life gain and tokens. Which are fine but just kinda boring. Versus Gruul which, sure, red is worse than white, but Gruul does stompy and landfall and attack triggers and ramp and modified/equipment .... There's a pretty big variety. I think the problem with Selesnya is that white and green overlap too much. Lotta creatures? Both. Non-creature removal? Both. Ramp? Both (sorta, white is way behind but it's better than any other non-green color). Graveyard recursion? Both sorta. The only thing white really brings is board wipes and targeted creature removal. Which are both good, but then the color pair just falls down from not enough diversity. Compare to red and green. Red brings damage doublers and direct damage payoffs for creatures (warstorm surge etc), it brings big fliers that green doesn't have. It has a couple decent board wipes (not sure what people have against Chain Reaction). It adds chaos warp. Green gives red card draw and ramp. Gruul creatures are usually busted cheap and powerful. So you can't just say "white is better than red because white has T Pro". I don't play $30 cards. Some people do, but not most of the people I play against. Sure mono white is better than mono red, but we're not talking mono anything.

[@darkseid121]

Yea they really needed to define how they ranked the color pairings better, they needed criteria. This is one of the rare times I actually agreed with Crim that the pod criminally underrates black. Universal tutors like demonic, vampiric, seal, are basically 3 extra copies of whatever the best card in your deck is or whatever card you need.

[@thebobbybabbitt7703]

Lol 100% true. Richard is only mentioning combining two mono-colored piles. And Seth a little bit. I think Crim is the only one mentioning two colored cards

[@Suppaichu]

@@thebobbybabbitt7703 Yeah, if the ranking is by considering stuff you can uniquely do while using cards from both colors at the same time is one thing, if the ranking is based off what's the best non cedh deck i can muster with the legal (and accepted) card pool, the ranking is something else entirely. Like, there are so many staples now that you can build most of a deck with staples only and decide on any win con which basically doesn't matter, i think that's where richard is at. You put lands and green ramp in you XG deck and 70% of the deck is built, the remaining 30% comprising of tef's prot, cleve concealment, farewell, smothering tithe, trouble in pair, akroma's will etc + whatever your deck says it's trying to do makes it a strong deck. (also disregards budget, Gruul and Izzet are VERY strong budget pairings)

[@HugoSousa-kd2lp]

I'd love to see a color revenge arc episode where each player takes the color combo they think got disrespected the most and show how busted those color combos are.

[@MrNurse88]

+1

[@Hpborges]

This is a really good idea

[@pantheratigris4777]

100% agree.

[@SilvanOrion]

Crim does this most weeks already with all the Dimir disrespect

[@ubertuna1]

Crim needs to roll up with Gyruda and teach the guys a thing

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

Crim feels like the only one who read the briefing for this episode.

[@pauldyson8098]

Crim is the only one who read the assignment. I think there should be a reboot of this episode.

[@MosBaked]

I'm with Seth's original stance on Dimir, Its only mediocre because you've rule 0'd all its good cards away

[@NeilBFormy]

The same thing could be said about red and white’s land destruction.

[@krackergrit]

If it's legal I run it

[@krackergrit]

Armageddon in play it

[@thefantasticfiend]

Crim was super locked in this episode and I agree with all of his takes here.

[@DylanHunter64]

Crim fighting for Dimir's life against three C's is hilarious 😂

[@TwolfS3041]

But then immediately after with Izzet B yet claims that "it's better than what dimir is doing"...

[@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai]

@@TwolfS3041I think he knows Izzet is stronger just because of spellslinger/storm. But he’s also rating off of deck diversity, which no one else was really doing. Dimir has mill, flash, Faeries, artifacts, Yuriko, theft, evasion-heavy aggro, reanimator, control, Zombies, spellslinger, a ton of combos, and a bunch of weird one-offs like Jon Irenicus and Runo sea monsters. Izzet has mainly spellslinger and storm and some of the better artifact stuff. And then if you want to count chaos and coin flips, it’s got that. And Locust God.

[@Shimatzu95]

Taking one offs into consideration in this context is like saying black is great at enchantmentremoval because it has like 3 cards that can do it. Both things exist but are rarely relevant in practice.

[@Shimatzu95]

Crim: i am in a room with dimir haters Me: do you have any idea how little that narrows it down? Either you love dimir or you hate it, there is no in between.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@Shimatzu95 The ubiquity of almost every effect being printed in colorless cards means you shouldn't judge a color by what it's bad at, but instead what it's GOOD at.

[@darushkii]

Crim is the voice of reason among a bunch of maniacs in this episode.

[@alexmarinescu1506]

This comment should be the thumbnail of the episode

[@mightyone3737]

For reals, what copium are they huffing to be so high on Selesnya?!

[@Jrizzle7426]

​@mightyone3737 for real. Gruul is better than selesnya in my experience. It absolutely smashes things. Red on its own might not be crazy but as an extra color, it's phenomenal. My group has quite a bit of gruul in it, and they do quite well in all categories.

[@primovictorian]

I'm watching the Dimir part now and couldn't agree with you more

[@noahfriedrich4686]

You guys have got to play a no staples week so you can see these colors how they really are. This seems to be more of a "which mono colors have the best staples"

[@captianbacon]

And i can't stand them saying white has good ramp are you kidding white is litterly the worst color for ramp it doesn't have like anything besides smothering tithes and normal artifacts.

[@ChristopherSmithGPlus]

@@captianbacon White has a lot of catch up ramp, which works pretty well when you have a meta doing stupid simic stuff. ;-) I don't like catch up ramp because you can't double up with it, but it is nice for ensuring you have the second best land count at a table where one side is going to just run away with lands.

[@captianbacon]

@ChristopherSmithGPlus catch up ramp doesn't count. It doesn't ramp you ahead.

[@ChristopherSmithGPlus]

@@captianbacon I mentioned that (though technically some catch up ramp can put you ahead). It's a matter of perspective. It won't get you ahead of the biggest ramper, but it will ensure you are never behind them, which usually means you'll be ahead of two other players.

[@EdBurke37]

Richard: "Simic isn't S tier because it lacks single target interaction." Also Richard: "Don't play swords to Plowshares." I can tell you, Richard, that my days of not taking you seriously have definitely come to a middle.

[@peewee0224]

Also simic has generous gift (beast within) his literal favorite removal spell

[@Kestral287]

It's also just... wildly wrong. Pongify, Rapid Hybridize, Reality Shift, Resculpt, etc. These cards are cracked.

[@CristopherKiri]

He has the biggest L's on this channel. His reasoning is so bleak and single-minded. He doesn't deserve any audience.

[@HollowdTV]

I feel like Richard plays a completely different game but thinks that everyone plays the same game he does

[@Shimatzu95]

He isn't talking srictly target removal (cause why would HE do that) but also boardwipes and when you are simic there are slim pickings outside of symetrical mass bounce.

[@benjaminmccrum9206]

Grading a color combo by only the best $20+ cards feels a little out of touch with how the color combos actually play out at casual tables

[@yoshitheonly]

100%. Love creators takes but they're often out of touch assuming most blue players run Cyclonic Rift. Like I am NOT spending 30 for a card bud, that can build a whole other deck.

[@Laserbeams]

Alternate Title: Two-Color Combination Ramp Tier List

[@japplek]

😂 Truth

[@robyngwendolynshiloh5277]

Yeah, I kinda skimmed through, and all I heard them talk about was Ramp... like... is that all that matters? Izzet is strong af cause of cantrips, removal, storm, triggered abilities, etc. And they put it in mid tier?

[@itsthatguyarc7186]

I also find funny how they constantly said how green/white's paired color wasn't doing anything for the pair, meanwhile Izzet is one of the strongest examples of the colors being greater than the sum of their parts. Izzet is everything about monoblue supercharged and most importantly given red's ability to actually win the game, but apparently the ability to dome someone for dozens of unpreventable damage from an empty board just loses to Sythis and Mulldrifter I guess.

[@robyngwendolynshiloh5277]

​@itsthatguyarc7186 EXACTLY!! And I've seen people talk about how Izzet doesn't have diversity, when GW decks have so little diversity, that every GW deck is weak to elesh norn and other reverse anthem effects, and basically can't play the game after that, and have no alternate win cons

[@fetroch373]

as far as my interaction with the commander format goes ramp is one if not the most important part of the game, couse if you remove the politics which could help you to survive 1-2 players in the end it is a 1v1v1v1, which means you need enough value in your plays that every turn adds to your board/goal. While red at the moment is one of the strongest colors in 1v1 couse dealing 20 dmg in 3-4 turns is possible it sucks when it has to deal 3x40 same goes for control blue you might drop 1 counterspell per turn if there are 3 players its worth goes down a lot. Green and white bouth love to build wide boards which makes it harder to attack you without you getting in the crossairs of other players with high interaction amount. And even new cards go into those existing "archtypes" so getting ramp in black or red semse unlickly. And having realy powerfull commanders is a clear sign for the combination being weak on its own. My last point is you can probably make any color combination in a strong or weak deck, but you will have more options in simic as in Dimir.

[@AxillaryPower2]

Selesnya is so awkward; conceptually it's so good, but the pool of commanders is the shallowest of all color pairs and there's a lot of overlap between them. We need a Strixhaven treatment for the other 5 color pairs, i.e., a hard mixup on what they traditionally try to do.

[@pauldyson8098]

Strong agree, and I'm a lifelong Selesnya player.

[@marshallscot]

Definitely agree. Super strong pairing but it's not thought of as that strong because they haven't printed many busted Selesnya commanders other than Sithis.

[@faerie7dragon]

There is no reason to play GW nowadays. You can do better tokens in Boros and better counters in Simic, who have way more busted stuff and can also lean into other fun subthemes. GW is a dead-end that only works if you play stax or people no longer believe in interaction.

[@hatchell18]

@@faerie7dragonI love my Sigarda angels and humans GW deck. Hexproof and indestructible on all my stuff, a lot of life gain, plus I can summon massive angles like avacyn due to having access to ramp.

[@faerie7dragon]

@@hatchell18 That sounds fun and fair, but in my experience in most playgroups, it will fold to combo, repeatable removal and other non-sense that greatly outpaces playing creatures and attacking with them.

[@lawlietkafka]

what i heard is: orzhov is kinda mid, it just has the best removal, and second best ramp, and it does literally everything, best protection, really good card advantage and it has combo potential, and it . . .

[@PalPlays]

Good cards, weak synergies.

[@noahfriedrich4686]

The problem is how do you win or do something interesting with all that

[@Trikzilla]

They didn’t even bring up graveyard lol

[@DustyRoberson]

Life gain + life drain with vampires and angels is pretty nasty IMHO.

[@DieJG]

@@DustyRoberson Yeah, Aristocrats is always powerful and Orzhov does it quite well.

[@lotrloreman]

I think the disparity of opinions on Dimir is a differerence in playstyle. The Goldfish crew plays more of a big splashy game with high ramp and very light interaction. Crim (and my friend group) play more of a high interaction game and dimir is super strong in that.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

The color combo with the widest variety of interaction and most synergy between their interaction pieces, yeah Dimir is quite good. I do still think Dimir is probably the weakest two color combination though. The best Azorius deck is a Dimir deck with graveyard hate.

[@punahougirl84]

Nothing was funnier than when I pulled a Valgavoth Terror Eater and stuck it in my Satoru Umezawa deck LOL!

[@JoeyJoJoJr17]

Richard mentions that black isn't adding anything to Golgari. I'd say that black shores up some of green's biggest weaknesses, and green shores up some of black's greatest weaknesses. Green, great for ramp. Black awful for ramp except for coffers or mana doublers like Nirkana Revenant. Good thing Crop Rotation and such exists to find that coffers/urborg. Green, great for artifact/enchantment removal. Black awful for artifact/enchantment removal. Black, great for creature removal/boardwipes. Green awful for creature removal (yes fight spells exist, but it can fizzle on the stack if the creature fighting is removed in response, so it's not unconditional). Green and Black are both great at draw (which unlike White/Green for ramp where one wants you behind another wants you ahead), actually complements each other well, because you get great options for drawing a mass amount of cards, or drawing the best card amongst the top X cards of the library (milling the rest), or tutoring the best thing in your deck through generic black tutors or creature tutors via green, along with having the best generic selection in the graveyard as a second hand. No other color combination is better at consistently getting one card into play from the 99 whether deck/hand/graveyard on a more consistent game-to-game basis. Even considering its weakness to graveyard removal, the most common graveyard control is enchantments/artifacts, which green is able to answer. The primary thing "holding back" Golgari is the sameyness of the decks, like Izzet being primarily spellslingery and caring more about the spells in the 99. Some Golgari decks will be more drain focused (Dina, Soul Steeper), or more lands focused (Gitrog Monster), or reanimator (Meren of Clan Nel Toth), so outside of Elfball tribal, the cards generally just wants stuff dying/sacrificing/graveyard in some way. So it can feel dull when trying to theorycraft a new golgari deck since primarily the function and cards will be similar.

[@TheTexasDice]

Golgari is better than Simic in my opinion. You get the best ramp (green) and the best draw (black) while making use of everything. Green allows black to efficiently kill enchantments and artifacts. Black allows green to do something worthwhile with all the mana by providing endless ways to kill, draw and resurrect things. You also get hands down the best lands-synergies, because you can run both Yavimaya and Urborg in an on-color deck.

[@peewee0224]

@@TheTexasDice”the best card draw (black)” lmfao you lost all credibility with that one sentence. Blue and green are both better card draw colors it’s not even close. Blacks card draw is 3rd and is definitely better than red and white but it’s not even close to green or blue

[@totakekeslider3835]

Nailed it. Green Black is the most well rounded and satisfying color pair to play. Golgari Swarm for life

[@Shimatzu95]

If you go all in in synergy over efficiency, then golgari has the best card advantage, ramp and recursion.

[@peewee0224]

@@Shimatzu95 card advantage and card draw are two different things

[@lobo-xs6kd]

Richard on Simic: You won’t actually have double your opponents mana. Richard on Dimir: By endgame you’ll have 6 mana while the Simic player has 20.

[@cablefeed3738]

That's because everyone's playing colors that can actually ramp, unless you're playing Demir, Izzet, or Rakdos.

[@Greatestnesss]

Definitely a normal Richard take 😂

[@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai]

Crim’s face as everyone started lowering their ratings of Dimir from B to C was PRICELESS. It was like his son’s football coach walked up to him and said “We found this tortoise that can balance a football on its back, so we’re kicking your son off the team.”

[@joshuajordan6632]

Only one person mentioned the raw power of pure tutoring for any cards in black.

[@Sandovian]

They did black dirty in general, its a very biased list

[@xxXDrManhattanXxx]

if we consider edh with every powerlevel, then every black color combination that is not orzov should be s or a tier

[@Awes0m3n3s5]

is tutoring considered taboo on Goldfish?

[@bfrie8262]

@@Awes0m3n3s5 yes, which is why they all think black is bad. if your not allowed to use its primary strength, it seems awful

[@wdeborde]

Richard hating Black confused me at first but then I remembered he doesn't believe in removal.

[@loganshaw4527]

I am still confused why crim hates green so much?

[@blue9393]

I think the new "so good its bad" theory in commander clash crew is "if you die first because the entire team had to group on you it sucks". If the entire table has to group up to respond to something, then its a threat. its a major threat. and if something doesn't succeed after the entire table teams up against it, that doesn't mean its bad. I'd say that's pretty understandable.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

That's always been Richard's playstyle. Be the weakest at the table to snap up an easy win by doing nothing for the rest of the game.

[@spilledpizza]

I think the difference is if everyone gangs up on a simic/selesnya deck(azorius folds imo) there’s a solid chance it can keep up. Meanwhile most of the time donor can find the answers, but is 1 for 1ing most things and doesn’t have the card advantage to keep up.

[@jackalvonstone250]

So we get Tri-Color Shards Tiers next week?

[@MakeVarahHappen]

At that point it becomes just soup. Not much to add.

[@Shimatzu95]

I want naya in S tier just to show dimir whats up 😎

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@MakeVarahHappen Each three color combination has a fairly unique identity still. It's the 4 color combinations that are soup. For example, the differences between Abzan, Sultai, and Jund are significantly more noticeable than their commonalities.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

@dontmisunderstand6041 I just disagree. It's still pretty samey.

[@GustavoFBarros-ib2cd]

​@@MakeVarahHappen the differences between combinations are more interesting and relevant in 3 colors than 2 colora

[@scottb5928]

Seth saying that blue is one of the worst colors for card draw is certainly one of the takes of all time.

[@godlyMike127]

If you genuinely stack up mono blue to all the other mono colors it has legitimately been outshined, as far as casual commander goes. If I am playing a mono white, mono black, or mono green deck, I assure you on average I am drawing more cards than my mono blue friend. The only exception is mono red, of course. And once you pair any two of those three colors I mentioned together, forget it. Magic is at a point where blue genuinely needs help from the other colors to draw ludicrous cards and actually keep up. Usually when people think of blue having insane card draw they are thinking of Simic, Izzet, or some NON-mono-blue option. I'm not saying you CAN'T get insane card draw in mono blue of course, I'm just saying it isn't nearly as consistent as the others. All the colors other than red can stand completely on their own for insane card draw.

[@Jrizzle7426]

​@godlyMike127 you are smoking some good shit. Green is the only one even close to blue and green is conditional. If your behind in green with an empty board you aren't drawing anything. Blue can blast huge x draw spells, double draws, and draw multiple cards for cheaper with no restrictions better than any other color. Plus rhystic study & con sphinx are insane.

[@OuterCraft]

​@@Jrizzle7426 It isn't 2018 anymore. Card advantage is just stapled to so many already good cards nowadays that you don't need to run many pure card draw spells when everything replaces itself. Rhystic Study is obv good, but past that you need to be in simic to take advantage of the huge pure card draw spells

[@Jrizzle7426]

​@OuterCraft I have 2 mono blue commanders and I draw insane cards. Jin gitaxis progress tyrant and braids. Jin it's easy to draw nutty cards. Braids relies on the good ol stuff from back in the day, but it works very well. Brainstorm, braingeyser, stroke of genius plus all the combat draw stuff like bident of thassa etc. It's still king of card draw in mono colors. Blue has the value stuff too. Drawing for casting instants and sorcereries is becoming a fairly common effect and blue plays alot of said card types.

[@d.a.d.-ohgosh]

@@scottb5928 I categorize card draw/advantage and rank them like this (in order of strongest to weakest). 1. Ultra Staples (Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, Trouble in Pairs, etc.) This is referring to cards you can just windmill slam into any deck. 2. Synergy (drawing cards by doing what the deck does like with Tatyova) 3. Burst card draw. Usually 3 mana=3 cards like Painful Truths or Secrets of the Golden City but other stuff could count like Stinging Study. Often card for card. 4. "Technically" card advantage. Often synergy but not necessarily. Like Village Rites is technically a 2 for 2 but the sac could generate more advantage or Eternal Witness which doesn't draw and only gets you 1 card. 5. Mass card draw. I consider it the worst because you're usually only getting away with it in Simic/Simic style decks. But yeah. Draw a ton of cards at once like 7+. Also makes you a target if you can't immediately back it up. If you compile what each color is capable of consistently and has good options for, you end up with Blue actually being very good. Blue kinda lacks synergy card draw but not by a lot. It lacks in the "technically" card advantage category quite a bit. But it's actually phenomenal in the other 3. Even having the greater sum of ultra staples. Also seriously don't underestimate burst card draw. It's extremely good. My Mono Blue Octavia deck never even comes close to starving for cards. Like having 5 cards in hand at 1 time is low for that deck. Edit: Just adding that Blue is the best at card selection for card draw. Cards like Dig Through Time and Narset, Parter of Veils. A sizable amount of these card selection card draw spells aren't great, but there are some true bangers.

[@hpts8095]

People have to stop sleeping on Gruul! I think it is the most diverse color combo (excluding grixis and 5c, of course) as far as archetypes you can play. Like creatures? It's got commander for typal decks, token decks, weenies, big stompy hasty beaters, voltron, "abilities matter", "power matters", "exile matters", "oops all creatures", extra combats, fight club, counters, and hatebears. Like enchantments? Bello and Wildsear are interesting decks. Like artifacts? Roxanne, Meria, Jolene, and even Svella are great. It goes without saying that it's got great land and landfall-based commanders like Omnath. Like spellslinger decks? Wort, the Raidmother and the Howling Abomination are cool takes. Like equipment and auras? Chishiro and Stangg.

[@punahougirl84]

Gruil is my son's favorite and he is really good at building it. I hate facing his Godzilla deck LOL!

[@MathisGries]

Yeah these people are insane. Gruul is insanely strong and versatile, the only thing it lacks is instant speed interaction.

[@SladeWeston]

Richard: is bad because it only has one or two good interaction spells. Also Richard: Swords to plowshares is bad because you should let other people play the interaction spells.

[@davidstar2686]

For these videos can we PLEASE get the missing members ratings. I would love to hear phils opinions on this even if its just a short note with a grading.

[@6ixpool520]

YES! We barely hear from Phil coz he doesn't like being on the theorycrafting podcasts lol. But I feel like he has really based takes.

[@andyspendlove1019]

Simic’s main strength is the thing Richard doesn’t believe in: TEMPO. Like Crim and Tomer were saying, you don’t need interaction when you constantly ARE the threat and have a bajillion cards, lands, and life all game. Richard just hates being the threat which is why that doesn’t appeal to him, instead preferring to durdle, gaslight, and fly under the radar.

[@atk9989]

Yep, Phil runs Simic the most and is always the biggest threat and archenemy. The always archenemy deck can't be the weakest color pair.

[@NeostormXLMAX]

But thats dumb, it draws all attention to you in a four player game that makes you the target for everyone

[@Julian-bv8ql]

I main simic, its only limitations is it's hard to close the game. Which is the last thing it needs to officially be considered totally OP. If ramp, card draw, and interaction are the top things needed to win in any game. Blue covers greens weaknesses and vice versa.

[@andyspendlove1019]

@@Julian-bv8ql Simic is great at finishing the game. Tons of infinite combos for tokens or cards, and/or overrun effects, and/or infinite turns, and/or theft effects, etc etc

[@KaldarisX]

I can't believe the guy that loves artifacts is so medium on Izzet as a color. The only color combo that can run a legal version of Tolarian Academy.

[@emtee2925]

I feel like any artifact deck is hurt by not having access to Open the Vaults and Brilliant Restoration in white, amongst some nice synergy pieces white has. Azorius feels more artifact synergy to me overall.

[@KaldarisX]

@@emtee2925 Ah, but blue/red has all the untappers, still has access to effects like Goblin Welder, Trash for Treasure, and gets access to things like Whir of Invention, Sai Master Thopterist, and all the blue artifact synergies as well. Having the artifact pingers like Reckless Fireweaver and the primary colour of treasure creation doesn't hurt either. It just sounds like you want more recursion. Which means you're a big baby that can't handle having his toys broken. It's okay, sometimes your toys break, you just go fetch newer, bigger, and better toys to break yourself. (I am not serious, I do not think you are a big baby, I am just making a funny.)

[@alexliang1040]

​@@emtee2925 Scrap Mastery exists

[@thetrinketmage]

Orzhov can do reanimator, aristocrats, life gain, control, blink, voltron, tokens, and life swap! With great commander options for each! And the best removal, plus card draw. Easily top tier right?

[@Thoughtmage100]

It can even do theft if your Commander is Athreos the Shroud-Veiled

[@dalol90]

I like Orzhov. My first commander was an Orzhov one (Breena the demagogue) and I developed those two colors hard during my time with magic. I will never put it below A and Im willing to be wrong on this, but thats my hill to die on.

[@JulioDRai]

Not as strong as Simic but I do think it's at least better than Golgari and Selesnya. I actually think Orzhov is the best Reanimator color.

[@theepicarcher4580]

@@JulioDRai I agree with Selesnya, but Golgari does some crazy silly stuff that I don't think Orzhov can keep up with easily

[@brendans1983]

Came to say a similar thing; it's only "boring" because, initially, it's the most exciting. For everyone. So everyone builds Orzhov, which means you see it everywhere. Everyone playing it, and playing against it, means we all come to know the key pieces and potential lines. Leading to "boring". Having an Anguished Unmaking in hand is almost as comforting as a Teferi's Protection.

[@enzokhatamian]

No comment of the week 😭

[@akilianl.8313]

Let's make this the top comment for shame inducing purposes.

[@andrewbrock3675]

They all sucked that's why. People need to leave better comments.

[@enzokhatamian]

Ain't no way the week they pick to not do a comment was the week I got the most likes

[@aydjent]

They did say why not like 5 minutes in lol, due to scheduling

[@imaginarymatter]

They literally Farewelled the comment of the week.

[@covfefe5842]

In Gruul’s defense: absolutely no other two-color combo ramps as hard. Gruul gets the best land ramp as well as the Mana Geysers, Jeska’s Wills, and other red rituals to dump huge mana in one turn. Gruul also has easy access to haste, which is great for dorks, especially Selvala types that produce a ton at once. Haste is also great with any attacking plan. Gruul also has the best non creature recursion. All the staple green cards like Ewit and Noxious Revival, but also Underworld Breach, Mizzix’s Mastery, Past in Flames, etc. Gruul is sneakily perhaps the best color pair for storm shenanigans because of this.

[@yugioh395]

I play Wort the Raidmother as a storm/spellslinger deck and it is super fun, and a bit too strong for my playgroup lol. Totally agree with your points here. I highly recommend trying Wort if you haven't! (Also, don't forget how insanely cracked storm-kiln artist is. )

[@Brian-ey4xt]

Before the pandemic I tracked about 6 years of commander games in my playgroup (about 250 games). When I analyzed it, I only broke things down to best performing single color decks and then out of all multicolor decks, which colors correlated most strongly with winning. Blue, followed by green were by far the strongest stand alone colors, but white was the color that most strongly correlated with winning if in a multicolor deck. This doesn't necessarily mean those decks did the absolute most powerful things since we weren't playing cEDH, but they did have the tools to win in casual settings. My personal hypothesis is that white allowed enough control, versatility, and politics to stay in the perpetual 2nd most threatening spot where you weren't targeted and could go for the win after the archenemy is dealt with.

[@marshallscot]

I think red is generally slept on in commander because aggro is a weaker archetype in commander (mostly for arbitrary social contract reasons), but putting that aside they are seriously discounting the strength of damage doublers, theft, treasures, and extra combats.

[@OuterCraft]

Red can be very good, but it does have to work harder and is more inconsistent than the other colors imo

[@joshuapulliam7085]

Honestly, aggro is good in commander at this point. Winota, Najeela, Voja, Adeline, Jetmir, Zada etc. and they all have tools to survive wipes easily. The issue is playing aggro well often isn’t fun for your opponents.

[@davidrosenberg9615]

It's weaker because beating 3 folks to death is hard. Treasures are in all colors, and damage doublers/ extra combats are only good when you already have the ability to take advantage of them.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

As a general rule, everything Red is good at, Green does better. That majorly hinders Red as a color, as the other colors all have something they do better than someone else.

[@joshuapulliam7085]

@@dontmisunderstand6041 You think? Burn? Spellslinger? Artifacts?

[@TheBraxton17]

I feel like Richard rates decks or colors on how easily he can put 80 staples into it then put 19 other cards that work with the commander. Not every white deck needs TPro and farewell, same way you don't put force of will into every blue deck.

[@gabrielseller6434]

Hot take?: I thknk black's biggest benefit to removal in multicolour decks is the access to multicolour spells (like Anguished Unmaking or Assassin's Trophy), not the actual mono black cards. The only things it really brings to the table are Oubliette and edicts. White has better sweepers and its single target hits anything (plus easier exile removal), along with Darksteel Mutation as a second Oubliette. Blue keeps things off the stack and outpaces black on creature removal with Rapid Hybridization effects. Imprisoned in the Moon is another Oubliette backup. Bounce effects handle anything that hits the board in a pinch Red is the only place black removal can shine, because red removal is just so bad (except for artifacts), though neither hit enchanments anywhere near satisfactorily. Green matches white with artifact and enchantment removal, and the Golgari spells are just more flexible kill spells.

[@TheTexasDice]

I always feel like if you have a pairing with Black, Black always becomes the support color. But on it's own in mono-color, Black is the strongest individual color. Black can do everything every other color can do, but you have to pay life. The problem is that all the black ramp only makes Black mana and the really good cards (like Necropotence or Meathook) are *heavy* in Black symbols.

[@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai]

I am not an edict believer in the slightest (except for the ones that hit multiple creatures or the biggest creature, but those are rare enough). So I’d say it’s really only got Oubliette lol

[@davidrosenberg9615]

Deadly Rollick may be even better that Swords to Plowshares. Black's best sweepers are better than White's best sweepers. I can't think of a white board wipe I'd run over toxic deluge, and Blasphemous Edict is next up. Sure, the *average* white board wipe is probably better, bit there's so much chaff and you run so few that it's irrelevant. White has nothing better than Deluge and Edict. At this point we're looking at Farewell and Vanquish the Hordes, which are expensive or narrow.

[@sanfranfan53]

I’m in the camp with Crim on Dimir. It is consistently underestimated in games. Aside from having a mean-as-advertised archetype like Mill or Theft, (which is a very powerful archetype), the threat assessment against Dimir plays the same: Players don’t pay too much attention to you, because you’re slowly setting up your board, you can control enough of the table to keep enough opponents from running away. When your opponents realize that you’re suddenly becoming a threat, most of the time it is too late and you’re able to have the explosive turns to finish out the game. I think Dimir is one of the best color combos to go under the radar.

[@spookighost7663]

The flipside of their argument is that Dimir is completely capable of winning a game at 7-8 mana while the other colors need 10+, indicating dimir card quality must be high

[@jackalvonstone250]

Why do they keep saying that losing White's catch up ramp is a bad thing whenever you pair it with green? You don't have to put in catch up ramp cards in your deck. You can just ramp like normal and that's 10x better. Just don't put it in catch up ramp cards. You made space for your gameplan and cut down easily to 100

[@Chilipotamus]

It's wild that they talk up white as one of the most potent colors in commander yet misunderstand it on such a fundamental level. "All it does is enchant, ramp, and go wide with small creatures" like what? White has a great suite of protection and removal that green typically lacks.

[@jackalvonstone250]

​@@ChilipotamusI'm a big fan of the podcast, but sometimes they just get lost in the sauce

[@Chilipotamus]

@@jackalvonstone250 I mean, most commander players fall into a similar trap of only playing the colors they're most familiar with, so I can excuse some bad takes here and there, but it's very clear that nobody on the podcast has made/played a Selesnya deck in a while if that's the general opinion they reached. Green and white got a suite of great cards in Foundations as well. Oh well, I'll happily be underestimated at pretty much every LGS table I sit down at, let the rest of the players have a pissing match and waste removal while they ignore my rapidly growing board

[@Shimatzu95]

I mean the wording was weird but "loosing" one of whites strong points in catchupramo is a fair statement as it still is the 2nd best ramp color.

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

The point I was trying to make is that even though green and white are the two strongest mono-colors in Commander (imo), when you mash them together they are weaker than the sum of their parts because one of the main reasons white is good is catchup ramp and you won't play any of the catchup ramp in a GW deck since you get green ramp.. Basically, one of whites biggest strengths isn't really a strength in GW.

[@vaporeon344]

I do think an important thing to mention is that Izzet is the colour of storm, which is also notable in terms of powerful decks. I feel like spellslinger is a very generic term. Spell copying, storm, and prowess are all unified under spellslinger, but end up looking VERY different.

[@noahfriedrich4686]

I think this went ignored. If Spellslinger is one archetype, Aggro is also one archetype, even if that includes equipment, extra combats, etc.

[@danielsniff6405]

Does the card need to say storm to be considered storm? Everything I play against an izzet "spellslinger" deck, it always turns into a game of when can they cast 10 spells in a turn. Prowess, spellslinger, storm: they all mechanically boil down to playing a billion spells in a turn. The only difference, in my experience, is what is killing you.

[@vaporeon344]

@@danielsniff6405 The payoffs that lead to a deck killing you matter significantly when it comes to differentiating them, because they have different counterplay altogether. Dealing with guttersnipes, firebrand archers, and damage doublers is different from dealing with Monastery mentor tokens. They inherently link to other strategies. They may use some of the same few spells, but the deck’s identity comes from what they use to finish the game, not the cantrips alone, otherwise every green deck would be considered a “lands” deck if built optimally.

[@JulioDRai]

Storm bumps Izzet right above Azorious but if we don't count storm it still has very powerful artifact decks so it should honestly be at least above Golgari imo

[@christophewhit]

I think they excluded any archetypes that are not consider casual. Cause we can also talk about how dimir is good at infinite combo, gruul at land destruction, or Azorius at stax.

[@AngryTotodile]

Power to Crim looking at it all as a pair!

[@Gingerbreadley]

It’s going to be interesting to see how their opinions have changed in the last few years now that Boros for example actually has card draw.

[@DarthChocolate15]

I need to watch more commander clash and evaluate their meta choices (and staple cards) apparently, because their evaluations continue to feel alien to me.

[@KingL1nk101]

I feel exactly the same😅

[@AxillaryPower2]

The Command Zone's episode on Playing Red does a good job at explaining what Red adds to a color pair; it's great at *ending the game*. I have three decks that include Red and in none of them is it the primary color, but when I look at what cards I'm running, it's the win cons. Chandra's ignition, extra combat, Crackle with Power, damage multipliers. Seth even said it, when he sees mana geyser the game ends. That's doesn't sound like a bad color to me, sounds like a best supporting actor award to me.

[@user-et3xn2jm1u]

Yeah their point about "green is already so big you don't need to double it", no, that just means you're taking out two players instead of one, if not the whole table. Izzet does similar, not the fastest to get going but once it does it can be hard to stop.

[@Sandovian]

It depends on how much you prefer value based ramp and spike/ritual based mana. The latter is superior as it's fast and wins the game.. which is what black and red do (they didn't even mention black rituals which is a crime). they're just biased because Commander Clash doesn't do that kind of play intentionally, so they skew value vs just fucking winning.

[@Kryptnyt]

I think for these kinds of videos, instead of trying to eyeball where the thing goes on the list, you could each give yourself a vote of 1-4 points and have the tiers be 16-13, 12-9 etc.

[@Budgie_DH]

Crim is the only guy on the panel who has a full picture of all the pairings. Complaining about Gruul “just hitting players hard in the face” when that’s literally the number one way games are ever won. That’s ironic.

[@gully041]

As an Abzan enjoyer, this ranking went a lot better than I thought it would.

[@cablefeed3738]

I agree, it went better than expected, but I think Golgari should've been in S tier as well.

[@Shawn-f3x]

I feel like Selesnya gets the same kind of bad rap that Golgari does. White and Black can accomplish pretty much exactly the same things for Green that the other color can. I’m not saying that Golgari isn’t the stronger Identity, but many of the same strengths and shoring up of weaknesses apply as much to Selesnya as they do to Golgari.

[@richardalan5064]

A + A = S

[@siltygaming5067]

- Create a meta where nobody plays mana rocks - “If you’re not green or white you’re trash” In the wild dimir and izzet are extremely solid and powerful combos. The more powerful level you play at the stronger those two get.

[@EmbeJuicemazzopazzo]

idk what's up with the crew, in my experience dimir decks roll the table 80% of the times. I have a Marvo deck which lost 1 game out of 8 since I built it... Show dimir respect

[@mightyone3737]

I'm using cEDH as baselines for these comparisons, you can use most cEDH staples without razing any eyebrows. Orzhov is weirdly weak for a guild that has Black in it, but the reason it's so bad is that White in particular has huge overlaps with Black, and if you build Aristocrats white adds what exactly, life gain?? Black is doing the heavy lifting if you're going to win. Probably a C, I've never built an WB list and I'm not eager to do so. Azorius is definitely the best White guild, it's also the most interactive colour pair, with White being the best at protecting it's stuff, and Blue being the best at interfering with opponents. You can play WU without being pretty obnoxious, it's big problem is it has terrible Commanders by and large, the best ones being Shorikai, Grand Arbiter, and Brago, only Shorikai sees any cEDH play, hinting at a generic evergreen problem. I think Dimir plays so much better in cEDH specifically because you've got the best tutoring AND the best win con, while Azorius is very meh at tutoring, and has awful combos. I think Azorius is probably an A, or maybe a B+, it's among the better colour pairs at cEDH, especially when steered by a skilled pilot. Simic is probably an A, it's weakness is that it ONLY has Blue interaction, Green adds almost nothing to the most important sphere of competitive play. Green's ramp is better now that before, but the problem Simic has is that there are only two ways Simic wins, and that's by either going infinite really early or going incredibly huge and just swamping the board with value, Simic suffers a lot from losing it's ability to hold up mana, a thing Azorius loves to do, Simic is very mana hungry and often has to tap out. Simic is a LOT worse than Dimir, but it has a higher ceiling than Golgari, even if Golgari is infinitely better at tutoring. I'd say for pairs the the best ramping is BG > RG > UG > WG > BR > UB > WB > UR > WR > WU, there can be no other order (I do not stand by my order, but I think it's roughly correct). Catch up ramp is playable, but you can't argue it has as high of a ceiling as Izzet's explosive Spellslinger stuff! Dimir is a funny animal, it's got an incredible ceiling, but if you're 'not allowed to play combo' then the pair sucks. It's downright bad at too many things if it can't cheat! Dimir dodges the Orzhov 'overlap' problem of having no synergy with itself, Blue has endless ways to win, it just needs to draw it's entire deck to find them, Dimir can win very low to the ground, even if you can't play Thoracle. Richard, it's strength IS WINNING THE DAMN GAME. Dimir has some of the very best Commanders, and NO, not all colour pairs have the same level of pushed options. Dimir is better than Azorius for big ramp via High Tide and Coffers lines, both are very strong, and you've also got Dramatic Scepter. Oh, you can also do Rack/Discard/Stax decks in Dimir, the colours really synergize in this area. Fwiw it's pretty hard for low skill players to win with Dimir, maybe Crim is just better at Magic and can work around Dimir's weakness', and/or enhance it's strengths? At this point Dimir has at least 3 playable Artifact removal effects (without going into weird stuff like Xenic Poltergeist), and at least 2 playable Enchantment removal; yes it sucks that you have to run separate artifact and enchantment hate, but both can kill creatures so who cares? FFS guys, Dimir is fine at ramping, the tiers for ramp go G > B > W > R > U, this is for casual, in cEDH R is ahead of G. Dimir is a C if you're not on combos, it's an S if you are allowed to use infinite combos, because it's nowhere near 'just Thoracle', even at cEDH level there are other great combos as backups (or primary if you don't want Thoracle). Izzet is a rampy spellsinger colour, but if you try to do anything else with it it's awful. Izzet is better than Orzhov, but not vertically, just horizontally. Izzet is 100% an Artifact colour, but it's even more supported as spellslinger. The reason Izzet is better than Boros is that Blue can tutor Artifacts, very key! Izzet is a C, but it's a swingy C, meaning it'll have incredible games now and then, but it'll have lots of bad stuff in between. Boros is probably the weakest pair, but that doesn't mean it's a BAD pair, I built a Weenie/Stax/Voltron deck, it's pretty sweet IMHO, and while most games I only care about my Commander, other games I go wide. Boros is a D, but you can make it work with effort. There SHOULD be synergy between Red and White, but they don't print anything decent in Boros, Rakdos gets Mayhem Devil, Boros got what, the Elephant guy that clone stuff?? Whoa, combo off my guy, ignore that Rakdos won the game 6 turns ago and everyone is just pretending to save your feelings. I think Tomer put it well, Boros is fun to play (and often very exciting), but it's not a strong pair, where is the Boros removal, just burn that gains you life? Yikes. Selesnya is the most boring colour pair, it has so few Archetypes, the problem with WG is that White wants to go wide with weenies if it's on aggro, while Green wants to go tall and play huge spells. I agree with Seth, WG is just boring UG that's less pushed. Ironically Golgari is REALLY REALLY good at ramping, easily the best pair, yet here you guys are arguing SELESNYA is the best?? Just crazy IMHO, especially since none of White's ramp works with Green's, it's a bad pair that should FEEL bad (I kid)! I want to give WG a C, but it's definitely at least a B. Gruul is a strong pair if you build it right; you've got lots of pushed ramp (Gruul is probably second best at ramping in general, Blue adds nothing, at least Red adds a ton of synergy for Green's ramp), and you can just drop the most massive creatures to have them stomp on everything, Gruul even has 'can't be countered' stuff, Gruul is brute force and is summed by Kessig Wolf Run being perhaps the actual best of it's cycle, I run it as a win con in any deck with Gruul! Easily an B, maybe even an A. Gruul actually has interaction, it's not a Blue deck but it can fiddle with the stack and really surprise you. Rakdos is a mixed bag, if you're allowed to be anti-social it's incredible, but if you're stuck playing nice it's like trying to chew jerky without teeth; it's just not how you're supposed to do it! Rakdos needs you to play stuff like Dwarven Miner and hobble whomever is ahead so everyone else can swarm them. Then, you do the next player in, until it's 1v1 and BAM! You hit than with your 5 power Commander and win! Easy A if you can play fun cards, D if not. Golgari is the undisputed King of Ramp, it has the best graveyard synergies, and it has the best tutoring alongside Black's suite of win cons. Golgari isn't good at stack interaction, a thing that means nothing in Casual IMHO, so you've just got a diesel that can just run over everyone else as they run out of resources. If you think Golgari isn't strong just play vs a good Meren player (and Meren is a deck that people aren't high on anymore). Ah yes Richard, I'll just E-Wit my Razaketh, so that I can pay a total of 11 (with some fixing requirements) mana instead of just, you know REANIMATIG him for B. Yikes. Golgari is easily an A, might be an S in Casual in particular, which is offset by it's lackluster competitive showings.

[@radiantburrito]

Every time I hear someone say you can't "play" cards I wanna tear my hair out. Using the idea that it's a social contract yadda yadda to say you can't play an archetype completely counteracts the idea from EDH being a social format in the first place. Talk to the people you play with. My playgroup is open to just about anything because we express what we want to play and we like to play powerful magic. Then, if I take that deck to the shop I just ask and 9 times out of 10 people are super chill with it. Believe it or not, most people are chill with playing some strong commander/against archetypes you are quick to villainize. It's social so just... be social about it and stop assuming lol.

[@christophewhit]

I can agree to some extent, but I would argue that most people are definitly not chill with some archetypes like storm, extra turn, land destruction, heavy stax, etc. in a casual set up. The social aspect also imply that you have to respect certain social etiquette. People value their time, and how much they get to do stuff during that time. I have a hard time to believe that 90% of people are just chill with you monopolizing the game and their time with those archetypes, specially since they lack answers because those specific archetypes are not typically use in the casual sphere.

[@brendans1983]

​@@christophewhitit's your type of gatekeeping that makes this format so difficult to navigate. Initial comment suggested you actually talk with players, and you will find most people actually don't have any problems with anything. As long as it is honestly mentioned pre-game. It's people who just make a blanket statement for a group of people they don't even know that creates the friction. And then newer players see/hear these comments and decide to jump on the bandwagon. Instead of embracing the format for all it is.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

@@christophewhit I agree with your point, but I would argue that those scenarios almost never happen in the first place. Extra turns, solitaire combos, land destruction, and heavy stax are not common archetypes at all. And even then... all you have to do is say "hey I have a land destruction deck I want to play, is that ok? I have other options if it's not". Insert name of the villainous archetype where appropriate, the same template works. Like... I love playing a taxation deck, but I also know that some people hate playing against that kind of deck. All it takes is asking them if they're ok. And that's the point being made, if you can't talk to people, then how do you expect to play a game with them?

[@danielbakumenko8711]

This listing feels like it was made with battlecruiser magic in mind. Disregarding the miss of most of the hosts actually ranking the colours on their merits and not generic staples, the list is not representative of mid to high power, because when you talk about fogs as some of the best cards you havent been comboed or burned out enough, which is what alot of tables are doing.

[@nachogames6562]

Richard argued things in theory. Crim argued how things work in practice. A color combo is more than the sum of its parts.

[@neco-arc]

I find it’s very difficult to make izzet decks that aren’t completely broken at casual tables. Even with a $50 budget I feel like my izzet decks I test just win on turn 5 or earlier. I feel like you have to go out of your way to build an izzet deck that isn’t broken

[@akilianl.8313]

Completely agree, otherwise izzet would be my favorite.

[@WolfonMars1]

That quick draw precon is so indictive of this. It's busted out of the box. Izzet is my favorite color pair but I can't justify playing it because it always feels like pub stomping

[@emtee2925]

Izzet feels broken in casual games because it wins mostly from hand and a 1-2 good board pieces. In games where people run enough stack interaction, it can be picked apart at key moments, just like other pairs. But yes, for a budget in less competitive groups, it overperforms. Clash meta seems to be mostly board and not much combo or storm, so sweepers do it. Izzet generally doesn't care too much if the creatures are wiped, often enough it's happy.

[@Chilipotamus]

Yeah, I built a deck around Stella Lee, purposely loaded it with mid tier spells to try and not shit on my group, but she is just wildly explosive even if you're not using meta spells. Izzet is definitely one of the most potent color pairs, no doubt.

[@jakem4648]

As an Izzet lover, I've had success just... not including anything broken. You're going to draw a ton of cards and have the potential to combo off, unless you choose build the deck such that you don't. If you play a heap of value creatures and magecraft-style synergies but don't include an infinite-bait commander like Niv, or Niv, or Niv, or Stella, you can play a pretty low-mid power game behind Izzet. Sure you're building "suboptimally" but so is everyone else unless you're at a cEDH table.

[@WorldsGreatestVidiot]

S - Simic A - Azorius, Orzhov, Golgari B - Izzet, Gruul, Dimir C - Rakdos, Selesnya, Boros For me personally

[@loganshaw4527]

I would counter S Simic, Selesnya A Azorius, Golgari B Orzhov, Borus, Izzet, gruul C Rakdos, Dimir For me personally

[@givemebeans8519]

Simic has plenty good removal options besides counter spells: Cyber conversion Reality shift Beast within Song of the dryads Imprisoned in the moon Amphibian downpour (insane card) Kenriths transformation The list goes on

[@dashkatae]

Cyclonic Rift that you can cast on like turn 4 cause you ramped into it. The other removal they didn't talk about was blues ability to just throw things back into the library which is probably the best kind of removal.

[@Azeria]

1:00 in and Tomer is already based

[@gsumbreon]

Can confirm Crim's stance on Hylda. If the Hylda player resolves an Opposition, Junk Winder, or Court Street Denizen you will never have a combat step again. My wife's Hylda deck now gets focused down at our LGS if any player in the pod has seen her play it before.

[@_claymore]

On Simic: Richard: but neither colour has good spot removal! Everyone else: lists good blue spot removal Richard: yeah but that's spot removal and spot removal sucks! .. you just can't argue with takes like these man.. I sometimes really struggle to understand wtf Richard is thinking with his arguments.

[@BigOlAnkles]

He never mentions spot removal, he says interaction. Blue and green are the worst sweeper colors with the one exception being cyc rift, which still dosen't permanently remove stuff. not saying i agree with him but the rest of the cast mentioned spot removal when he just mentions interaction, and spot removal can never be the whole of you're interaction. Seth's argument about counterspells is a much better answer to Richards concerns but it got a little disconnected from the whole argument.

[@bloodex91]

Honestly the more I hear his reasoning and thought process, the more I think he just is a really bad player.

[@cablefeed3738]

​@@bloodex91 if you think he's a bad player, boy, are you gonna be surprised when you see an actual bad player

[@_claymore]

@@BigOlAnkles true, he does say interaction. and then when Tomer points out some of the interaction - creature & artifact spot removal - he waves it aside (because the man just hates spot removal) and says "but what about enchantments". Tomer then immediately points out that green is really strong at that, even sweeping with Bane of Progress, to which Richard replies "but now you require multiple cards", which is just a braindead argument. Richard just moves the goal post from "where's the interaction" to "but what about this card type" to "but that's multiple cards" and that's the end of his thought process. if a colour (pair) cannot sweep literally every permanent with one single busted card, Richard will always say it is bad. they didn't even mention that Simic is probably the best colour pair to ramp out lands, which includes Richard's beloved Glacial Chasm & Maze of Ith + the copy lands. there you go, even more interaction that Richard said is the pinnacle in EDH. the point is this: Richard is extremely inconsistent with his takes, to the point where he keeps moving goal posts and often contradicts himself directly. he is very unwilling to see arguments that aren't aligned with his own view of the game and it shows how warped his view of the format is because of playing years with the same 4 dudes.

[@elbowremovalservice]

@@BigOlAnkles Wouldn't Red be a worse sweeper than BG? Nothing is really coming to mind outside of Chain Reaction, Blasphemous Act, etc.

[@willcardwell1203]

I already know this is going to make me mad

[@daemonarchon6609]

They talk about not being able to play catch up ramp as a downside in selesnya? That’s the whole point! You play all green ramp and then play good white removal and wipes, maybe some of the green artifact/enchantment removal.

[@TheWoelrat]

I think it's a valid reason. Besides enchantress decks and the few OP staple white cards, what else does white get to offer that other color pairs with green don't? Golgari has the whole graveyard as an extra playing field. Gruul has haste which is really valuable for big scary green creatures.

[@jackalvonstone250]

​@@TheWoelrat Board wipes, Teferi's protection. You only need these two, but there are more.

[@brekynking4190]

I would have liked to see a "grading template" that everyone fills out for each color, just so that 'ramp' and 'draw' can't single-handedly carry all green and blue color combos. Categories would include Draw, Ramp, Removal/Interaction, and fun-to-play where they each give 5 points maximum and include Phil so that each color combo could have a max of 100 points!

[@tobiaskrieger9481]

Boros is best at land destruction 😂 that's a s for me❤

[@MTGBrewery]

While I have many opinions on this episode, I think in summary, its important to highlight how strong these color pairs can be with the most budget of cards. Personally I think Simic and Golgari are somewhat the best color combinations for this reason: They both let you do very powerful things in commander at their lowest power and/or monetary value. Golgari lets you recur simple cards and grind the game out where other colors can't keep up, and simic does a similar action through card advantage and ramp. You can play a 50$ Meren deck and still put in work against your opponents playing decks with intricate combos and expensive cards. Sometimes all it takes though is looping a Fleshbag Marauder a couple of times, and you've put more pressure on your opponents than any 50+ dollar card could.

[@katieladd3074]

i feel this was intentionally made to create interaction because these takes are honestly psychotic, and now i take everyone but crim way less seriously

[@Thoughtmage100]

Crim, you made me very proud when you acknowledged the existence of Marvo. He's hands-down my favorite Commander. 🥰

[@iangoldstein4556]

Wow this might be the most I've ever disagreed with them. They are way too obsessed with green ramp. It completely skews everything they do

[@lloydnoid6506]

Why are we pretending blue isn't good at drawing cards here? Yeah, other colors have been getting better at that... but wdym blue isn't still the best? And "lack of ramp" is not that big of a deal when mana rocks are extremely good And you can't use all the busted cards in white when you explicitly said we're not talking about cedh. No one's playing teferis protection in casual tables.

[@jordan853]

A good reminder that "best two-card color combination" is subjective and very much dependant on how much you like that colour.

[@markos50100]

And what cards they allow to be played.

[@gabrielkopp9248]

Seth’s Commander commentary always has the vibe of someone whose whole view on the format comes from perusing the top 50 lists on EDHREC. He always name checks the most popular, overplayed cards in each color and he seems to engage in a lot of first-order thinking about each topic. If a precon was a person, it would be Seth

[@Balderdashes]

So much of the commander clash meta is completely skewed because they don't have a combo player at the table

[@patches.742]

Part of their meta is building for content and combo can be kinda boring to watch

[@Balderdashes]

Not even like, cedh tier combos. Just a good old fashioned Dark Ritual into Entomb + Reanimate would smash most of what selesnya is up to.

[@TargetSniper365]

Combo players are zzzzzzzz

[@loganshy2570]

I can't believe you did crim so dirty on this episode.

[@ColdSake00]

Richard every commander clash: the green player is ramping to the moon. Look how much mana they have! Richard on the podcast: simic you won't always have 10x mana

[@WarriorFromV4LH4LL4]

Interesting how low they value gruul. I don't play my Xenagos too often because I always completely smash my pods with it.

[@midnalight6419]

Boros has moved up in the world. Nelly Borca, carrying the color combo on her back.

[@PalPlays]

Winota?

[@ryunocore]

I think you mispelled "Bruenor Battlehammer" there.

[@R.Truth20]

Just bought a blame game precon, it's so lit!

[@fabiogliosci8305]

Poor crim, you tried man. I think the others just thought about ramp and card draw, which is fair but still

[@benjaminmccrum9206]

Ah yes the Richard special, Azorious, the color combo so good it's bad

[@nathanieldewalt1707]

Id love to see a commander clash where they make two color decks where every card is two color

[@twhite9615]

Its hard to compare color combos. I would say that it needs two different discussions. One for average play and one for competitive play. The crew keep bringing up top tier commanders in this episode when these commanders are usually a strange exception to how the color pairing usually functions.

[@midnalight6419]

They discussed in the episode that they aren't talking competitive play. None of the commanders brought up, save maybe yuriko, are cedh playables.

[@Murdrad]

I can't believe Orzov is above Dimir. Ninjas alone make dimir great. This is an outrage, the Archenemy council will hear of this.

[@Poetristi]

Hot take is that black sucs. Removal is not what it used to be. I actualy like blue removal better as wierd as that sounds. The only thing saving it are its mdfcs. It doesn't do anything great outside of reanimaton. I don't play tutors because I think they are not fun in casual though and I think black ramp is bad outside of monoB.

[@colinbrown74]

As a 12 year Magic player, my tier list would be: S- Simic, Golgari A- Azorius, Izzet, Selesnya B- Dimir, Rakdos, Gruul, Orzhov C- Boros Simic and Golgari are the kings to me as Simic is the best color combination at shrugging of interaction through abundance and Golgari is the best at shrugging off interaction through resilience. Simic patches up its weaknesses by having so much. It may only be able to bounce, counter, and fight without a few key color pieces breaks, but when it has a dozen of those effects happening constantly it doesn’t matter. And Golgari is just so incredibly hard to stop once it gets going unless you use specific tech cards due to its ability to still gain plenty of resources but also effortlessly interact with the graveyard. And it also has actual efficient interaction unlike Simic. The rest are a rough estimate, with the standout to me still being Boros as the weakest. White has gotten a ton of tools that help it in longer, more drawn out games as time has gone on, and Boros takes advantage of that not at all. Its gotten marginally better as time has went on, but its still the notably weakest of the ten to me as its two colors still focus on the aspects of the game that are at their weakest in EDH by nature.

[@thomasschlectic5675]

I think Dimir is by far the most flexible combination it isn’t the best at anything and is terrible at ramping but is great in everything else.

[@Sicktoid]

My problem with Dimir has always been the Commander selection. So many Dimir legends are dedicated to some random and inefficient graveyard or mill strategies. Only very recently has the selection gotten better.

[@thomasschlectic5675]

I’d easily argue that dimir actually has the most variety of all color parings

[@elbowremovalservice]

Part of what makes Dimir crazy is how niche you can build it. I have 4 different Dimir decks built around the same 2 Dimir commanders and they function significantly differently.

[@dragonmaster47]

31:30 Red ramp has more than two ramp cards. It has Ancient Copper Goldspan Dragon, Alchemist Talent, Professional facebreaker, Urbrask, Birgi, Stormkiln Artist, Crime Novelist, Chandra, Runaway steamkin, Magda, Cavern-Hoard Dragon, Reaver Cleaver, Neheb, and Curse of Opulence. Tell me ones i missed.

[@sandydelrosario6748]

Orzhov at heart. Dimir at the table

[@akilianl.8313]

Go Dimir!

[@cablefeed3738]

Give in to your true self become the esper player you were destined to be.

[@aprilkeese7184]

Hi guys. Awesome episode. I have one argument though. I've only been playing for about 2 years but my first deck was a mono black deck with Braids, Arisen Nightmare as my commander. My Braids deck can ramp as well as any green deck. I can easily get 16 mana available on turn 3. All of that ramp can be used in any 2 color deck with black. Once you get into 3 color it's not as good but black can keep up with green on ramp in any 2 color for certain.

[@Chilipotamus]

Lol who looks at Selesnya and just thinks "redundant ramp?" Its clear y'all dont play the colors often if thats all you think the color pair is about. White protection goes hard on some big green stompy creatures, counter abuse can make your wide board of tokens suddenly a gathered army, rather than a mass of chump blockers. I love playing against people like this at my LGS, keep underestimating my board while y'all sling spells at eachother thinking I'm missing my win con 😂

[@marshallscot]

I think if you ignore "social contract" every color combo has the potential for A tier, with simic maybe being S tier from shear value.

[@thatepicwizardguy]

Mono-color > Dual-color > Tri-color > not playing magic > Five-color > having a bad day > Four-color EDIT: also, Simic is so strong that Phil intentionally depowers his decks on clash CONSTANTLY so he won't blow out the table and feel like he's cheating... like come on lol

[@JustAChickn]

Four-color > No-color

[@EmbeJuicemazzopazzo]

most based comment ever written

[@FFGamer_1986]

They should do a commander game where each player picks the 2-color combination they think is best. Let's see which color combination is the strongest!

[@michaelcollins4534]

Of all the caps richard has said, him claiming red has good ramp is the biggest cap of them all. Could've been in thunder junction because that's a ten gallon hat level cap 🤠😂

[@marshallscot]

Treasure is ramp, and red has some of the best treasure options. I play a mono-red pirates deck that goes nuts on treasure and aggro.

[@cygnusinfinity5126]

I personally tend to look at a color combination's diversity of options and one color's ability to cover for the other's weaknesses. With this in mind my ranking puts the majority of the 'enemy' color pairs above the allied pairs. I would say you're significantly underestimating the diversity of options for what Boros can do. Especially with the Jolly Balloon Man / Hofri Ghostforge / Cadric, Soul Kindler clones decks which can do a surprisingly good imitation of Simic. On the allied colors side of things, I'd put Rakdos up higher, probably even the top of it's group of 5. There's consistent value engines in the command zone as well as build arounds. Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin makes for a pretty mean pingers deck. Judith, Carnage Connisseur and Magar of the Magic Strings both play spells decks in interesting ways. Judith as a payoff for cheap card filteration and impulse draw spells, with black tutors to grab the black interaction when it's needed more readily. Magar, on the other hand, gets to turn the many extremly powerful sorceries in the two colors into repeatable threats. You mentioned The Lord of Pain already, but I'd also say Rakdos is the best theft deck colors. Prosper, Laughing Jasper Flint, The Infamous Cruelclaw, and Rakdos, the Muscle all play well into that strategy. And I've said all of this without even mentioning sacrifice. Perhaps I don't give Azorius or Selesnya enough credit, but I personally put them with Gruul and Dimir in having 2 colors that don't really support each other that well. This could because their actual multi color options tend to be much more linear in design.

[@niclasigerot9262]

Preparing to lower the volume for when Crim starts screaming about simic.

[@STS-qi1qy]

'If it's bad why do you always have to kill me first?' - Preach it Crim. They always talk against colors and tactics then fall over themselves in fear once those tactics hit the actual table.

[@emtee2925]

In my experience, the colour pair which ends up winning tends to be Azorius. They aren't the splashiest, but they go a long ways into the game by slipping under with card draw, stax and longevity.

[@Sicktoid]

Two of my decks with the best win% happen to be Azorius (Elminster and Urza, Prince of Kroog). I wouldn't say they are my most powerful decks by any means, but one thing they both have in common is that they tend to look pretty innocent during the early game and then suddenly explode onto the board with dozens of tokens. By the time people catch on and realize I'm a threat I can usually fight their attempts at wiping the board with countermagics. Some other color combinations might have more raw power than Azorius does, but I think many Azorius strategies are pretty good at maybe flying under the radar a little bit and looking less dangerous than they actually are.

[@dontmisunderstand6041]

I like how this tier list also pretty succinctly answers the exact same question about 3 color combinations. Bant on top, followed distantly by Abzan, then Sultai and Jeskai, then Temur, then Esper, then Naya and Jund, then Mardu, with Grixis at the bottom. It's also interesting how this pretty clearly ranks individual colors as well. Green, White, and Blue are all effectively dead even WAY far ahead of the rest, with Black having a marginal lead over Red. Honestly I'd be pretty curious to see this video for the three color combinations and single colors just to compare how well those lists align with this one.

[@Veganton]

Selesnya has only Sythis as a good Commander?! Ever heard of Emiel. Selesnya Blink is waaaay stronger tha Arzourius. It can easily switch between ETB Ramp, card draw or Removal. Insane strong. I would say even better than enchantress. And than we still didn't talk about go wide token decks.

[@davidrosenberg9615]

Selesnya Blink is in no world better than Azorius blink. Emiel *is* strong, but you literally have half as many enablers available meaning you lose tons of consistency when Emiel isn't on the table. Azorius is the uncontested king of blink and it's not a discussion. Brago and Yorion and the new Niko are soooooo good.

[@ryuken3585]

Has Richard heard of gold cards or commanders?

[@trenchaus]

God the amount of trash talking in this episode is off charts . Black bad at ramping ? Best rituals in the game .

[@Sandovian]

Its a crime that they never once mentioned black rituals - especially since they brought up red rituals when discussing Izzet. Cognitive dissonance

[@yugioh395]

I'd like to start discourse about my favorite black removal spell Font of Agonies: B (1 mana!) : "Whenever you pay life, put that many blood counters on Font of Agonies. {1}{B}, Remove four blood counters from Font of Agonies: Destroy target creature." I personally believe it is one of the strongest removal spells in all of commander, if built around. My argument is that the life paying build-around can be ~100% satisfied within the mana base. Fetch into a shock is 3/4 of a creature removal. Mana confluence or the pain lands from MH1(?) are 1/4 of a creature removal EVERY TURN!! All of the untapped MDFCs are 3/4 of a creature removal. If you're in white, play weathered wayfarer (the best 1 mana white drop??) and you can tutor up the aforementioned lands for a silly amount of value. Hell, thin your deck to 98 cards with Street Wraith for more consistency! While it is true that Font of Agonies is 3 mana kill 1 creature, 5 mana kill 2, ... etc, there are no (sticky non-creature) cards that I can think of that provide a game-warping, continual source of creature removal for such minimal investment. I also imagine some will be worried by the life loss; if you don't draw or tutor for the font, there is no real cost here. No need to aggressively fetch + shock. If you do have font, I have never been concerned because it is hard to lose when you can kill any creature threatening you life total. You can also politic to preserve life (i.e. "don't swing at me or I'll getcha with the font!"). While not necessary IMHO, you can also of course fall back on lifegain either in the command zone (in which case what are you waiting for?!?!) or in the 99. So, what do you all think? Am I crazy? Why does no one talk about this card? I think it is so good I completely warp all black decks to abuse it (again, commander agnostic). P.S - Outside of the Weathered Wayfarer lands combo I mentioned earlier, my favorite Font of Agonies combo (that is commander agnostic) is Street Wraith + phyrexian reclamation + Font of Agonies. It is a bit mana intensive, and very life intensive, but it's never ending removal!! And you actually draw cards!!

[@Turbosnake89]

Cmon don’t air this out, usually it goes under the radar. You start getting people hip to it and I won’t be able to run it anymore.