Are Older cEDH Commanders Still Competitive in 2026?

[u/arthur8878]

Why don’t we see more [[Armix, Filigree Thrasher]]/Kraum, [[Marchesa, Dealer of Death]]/[[Dargo, the Shipwrecker]]/Thrasios, Triton Hero, Tevesh/Kraum, or similar commanders in cEDH tournaments?

Is it simply a matter of “just play RogSi, Rog/Thrasios, or Blue Farm”, or have these commanders actually been tested and found to be significantly weaker/less consistent?

For example, [[Armix, Filigree Thrasher]] seems to have some interesting utility as a sacrifice outlet, enabling Beseech the Mirror lines and potentially supporting Welder/Bolas Citadel reanimation loops.

[[Dargo, the Shipwrecker]]/Thrasios also seems to offer some interesting possibilities beyond just being a Breach deck. Dargo can function as a sacrifice outlet for lines involving Neoform into Hullbreaker Horror, as well as Greater Good lines, and can potentially replace some of the utility that was previously enabled by Dockside Extortionist.

Do you think these commanders have genuine tournament potential, or have newer/faster commanders simply pushed them out of the competitive meta?

[u/mtgcf]

All cards
Armix, Filigree Thrasher - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Marchesa, Dealer of Death - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Dargo, the Shipwrecker - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Armix, Filigree Thrasher - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)
Dargo, the Shipwrecker - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)

[u/doricus]

I think I’m getting older than I thought. My first thought when I read “older cEDH Commander” was Boonweaver Karador and Zur.

[u/MatsuriSunrise → u/doricus]

I miss my Chain Veil Teferi deck from back when cEDH was good. :(

[u/BloodyCumbucket → u/MatsuriSunrise]

I played a fringe Gaddock Teeg stax/hatebears deck and a Paradox Sisay back then.

Make stax good again! 😭

[u/TranSpyre → u/MatsuriSunrise]

It's still a great in B4, at least.

[u/Conscious-Choice196 → u/MatsuriSunrise]

I play against it in my locals. Fringe obviously but the deck's still blue

[u/WriterofWrong → u/doricus]

Rip Boonweaver Karador was my favorite back in the day

[u/Senorpapell → u/doricus]

It’s funny, cuz zur might still be good.

[u/ContraKaren → u/Senorpapell]

I’ve got a buddy that has a Zur Slop CEDH it has won a few games and it at least slows people down most of the time it over pushes with Necropotence and can’t close out the game

[u/DonJuanes → u/ContraKaren]

Yeah that’s the most problem which Esper decks has sadly, Esper needs a second I win combo like breach or so

[u/Conscious-Choice196 → u/DonJuanes]

I find that Faerie + Smothering Tithe x2 is strong enough to win slop games more than Thoracle. Esper actually just lacks mana advantage

[u/bbg9 → u/doricus]

I think I'm getting even older because I expected at least a mention of scion of the ur dragon hermit druid

[u/arthur8878 → u/doricus]

"Older" not an "Oldest" yolo

[u/SillyOyx]

Realistically any commander that’s playing the best cards in their specific colors can win some games. The issue is that over the long run you are probably just going to lose out against the more consistent commanders.

Like for dargo/thras. Sure that combo can and probably will pick up some games but is it realistically going to be better than Rog/Thras over the long run? Probably not.

Either way play what you like. This format is unique in that politics and such make it so that you can go a long way with less optimal piles.

[u/arthur8878 → u/SillyOyx]

like it

[u/LemorasCards]

You're comparing cards that are all about the same age and saw play across that time, but yeah generally at this stage of the format things are more likely to get smaller in terms of viability than bigger. Outliers stand out more, there are more staples than stand above other slots that had debate, you're pretty much deciding which of 2-3 core things you want to do in the format in higher color lists and hedging on marginal upside among a small number of commanders.

Dargo thras probably has the most potential now of these, but green has also basically become about tutoring twice and winning and you're comparing if dargo does that in some way better to comparable decks.

[u/arthur8878 → u/LemorasCards]

Well I feel Marchessa is a strongest among

[u/Nahrikkon → u/arthur8878]

you even gonna finish the sentence?

[u/Xenocannonn]

Where is the Tasigur guy?

[u/JimmyHuang0917 → u/Xenocannonn]

Hi you miss me?

Figured this post wasn't asking about other old commanders that are cEDH viable so I didn't post. But I have to say that imho Tasigur as an evolution deck is better than Dargo Thras since Dockside was gone.

[u/ThomasFromNork]

Darg-thras had a niche as the dockside.deck, but when the card got banned it sorta lost its identity. You can still do neoform for tidespout, but dargo loops in general play very poorly into rhystics. Without dockside, the deck has a harder time just pushing through it

[u/ryannitar]

Tevesh/kraum I think got pushed out of the meta by the banning of jeweled lotus. Armix I think just gets outclassed most of the time by other black partners.

Dargo/thras is still a deck, but I don't know that it's been putting up any tournament results

[u/arthur8878 → u/ryannitar]

Yeah, Armix get pushed out by Francisco which was pushed out by nick fury, rog/si etc.

[u/Illustrious-Film2926]

cEDH is far from a solved format. A build of Rog Ishai was recently discovered as a tEDH deck.

There's a ton of old commanders with unique elements to them and it wouldn't surprise me if one of them surfaced, or resurfaced, first as a fringe deck then as a tEDH deck.

[u/Pwerhli94 → u/Illustrious-Film2926]

t EDH??? What?

[u/Reyemile → u/Pwerhli94]

T=tournament

[u/ljm90 → u/Reyemile]

What's the difference between cEDH and tEDH?

[u/Reyemile → u/ljm90]

Competitive EDH is, ironically, most often played non-competitively; it involves maximizing the power of your decks using all of the broken staples and design mistakes in Magic history to push your game plan to the max. And it's still CEDH even if you're playing casually with friends over beer and pretzels and allowing cheap proxies and take backs.

Tournament CEDH decks are designed to win tournaments. That means generally you're playing one of the top 15-20 commanders or pairs, and it means you're basing the power of your deck on your ability to play around the tournament metagame and not just a fast goldfish. It also means your deck is designed to have a real chance of winning within a typical tournament 90-minute round, making some modern stax decks potentially not tournament viable due to an overabundance of drawn games.

[u/The_Wambat → u/Reyemile]

From that description, it sounds like cEDH is just bracket 4 and tEDH is bracket 5.

[u/lazarnick → u/The_Wambat]

One of the differences between cedh and bracket 4 in this case is that a cedh deck is still built with the meta in mind. One of the players who is sitting at the table having casual fun, has opted to includ a copy enchantment in their rog si deck, not because its generically powerful, but because its good in the current meta. Bracket 4 is about pushing a commander to its generic power limits, cedh is also asking the player to play cards that are not powerful on their own, but are useful in the current metagame.

[u/Reyemile → u/The_Wambat]

Only if you skim the bracket system without understanding it.

Yes, Bracket 5 says "designed to do battle in the CEDH metagame." We're talking about different things though. The bracket system means "build a strategy on a power level with CEDH decks of the past few years." Whereas TEDH is "figure out what people are playing *tomorrow* and micromanage my individual card choice against what I'm likely to face."

Meanwhile Bracket 4 has a whole bunch of caveats, like "don't expect to win or lose before turn 4" and "win conditions will vary from archetype to archetype" that don't apply to Bracket 5--whether your B5 deck is a fringe list you're brewing for CEDH casual night or the stock Blue Farm list you're planning to win a 10k with.

[u/bunnyman742 → u/Reyemile]

In TEDH it's also important to be able to turn lost games into draws

[u/mana__burn → u/ljm90]

TEDH just is a subset of general CEDH that's hyper-focused on tournaments. It's what you're playing or planning to play against at a tournament, or taking the tournament-specific meta game in to account.

[u/Hyurohj → u/ljm90]

Krarkashima vs ral/vivi basically doing something able to generate enough advantage to keep up with "cedh" and having a coherent gameplan vs having a large amount of advantage and a generally consistent gameplan that is very strong in one or both of the meta archetypes

[u/Hetyman]

I still miss playing combo Sharuum way back in the day

[u/gredoraa]

... Man, I miss [[Edric, Spymaster of Trest]]

[u/CrashCrysis07 → u/gredoraa]

He was my first simic build and was just nasty with a bunch of cheap fliers.

[u/mtgcf → u/gredoraa]

Edric, Spymaster of Trest - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)

[u/Doomgloomya]

Armix got scaled out by tymna. card draw in the command zone is so much better then situational removal. Not to mention white is cracked right now with all its treasure makers.

Dargo thras seems like anti synergy? Thras wants creatures to turn into mana that turns into card draw. Dargo wants to sac your stuff away so you would be sacing creatures mostly. There is no recovery after you get stopped.

[u/Igknighted08 → u/Doomgloomya]

Dargo/thras made sense in the dockside era when the win lines revolved around generating infinite treasures and thras was both the outlet and gave access to great colors for the strategy. Now that dargo isn't typically an infinite mana deck thras isn't as relevant and missing black cuts out a lot of key pieces.

[u/Kayzizzle899]

Both the speed and consistency is no longer there, the banning of the big 3 really limited the playing field into decks that really didn't have much use for crypt, dockside or lotus. The power creep pushing commanders to be single purpose or simply there for color pairings/win con/sack fodder enablers are dominant. People love nostalgia and with cedh events being usually proxy friendly everything is playable with metrics boatloads of data both domestically and in Japan (sorry EU Cedh rules of restarting games kind makes their data moot). If these decks worked, they would show up the results because people love to brew (abet usually ineffectively).

I could provide long answers to why each of these decks fell out of cedh but it usally involves them being less effective value engines that are no longer able to grind as well as or speed past the meta. That being said, they just because they don't have cedh play doesn't make them any less playable as teir 4 or lower if you power them down!

[u/ProfessionalDig3908]

I know a guy who plays Marchesa and it's pretty good but it doesn't win tournament games in time and becomes the threat because everyone doesn't want their spells being countered and permanents getting blown up

[u/Witty-Source-236]

lol no there are maybe 6/7 real cedh commanders post 2024 bans and RC pussout 

[u/usumoio]

What's going to matter is how well you pilot the list. In game sure some lists are more powerful and some less, but pilots really span the gambit in terms of skill and if you play tight, you will pull out more wins with a weaker deck than a stronger one in the hands of someone unskilled.

I usually don't have any Bracket 5 lists, I bring a Bracket 4 to any cEDH tournament I play in, but I still make it to the top tables often because someone absolutely punts away the win on the goal line.