The classic approach towards Tier-Levels is to divide the commanders into groups based on their Powerlevel. A classic grading in cEDH has Tier 1 for the most successfull and most played Commanders in Tournament play (winning most of the tournaments), Tier 1.5 for viable Commanders for Tournament play, but which are less favourite and often not in the list of the top 4 winner-Decklists, Tier 2 for underperforming Commanders in tournament play (experimental Decks, outdated, etc.) and Tier 3 for Commanders which are not likely to win a cEDH tournament / or simply nor suited to build such a deck around. [Hint: Check MTGTop8 for Tournament results]

The grading is directly connected to the Commanders abilities, its colors (and which cards can be played with these  colors) and the banned list for the format – therefore as our rules and banned-Lists are different from cEDH, the Tier-Lists can’t be transferred to Teamcommander.

But actually there is even more than this: the individual approach refers to the player behind the Deck. So when someone puts a „Prossh“ Deck on the table, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this player plays a tournament style Prosh Deck. Maybe he doesn’t own (or proxies) the key cards ? Or even, maybe he isn’t into combos, doesn’t know them, or he enjoys other styles of gameplay and deckguilding and just puts his Dragon-tribal on the table ?! (Sometimes) You can’t (or shouldn’t) judge a deck just by its commander ! So, people who just say: „Animar“ is always a highest-powerlevel Commander just doesn’t know what rules the Deck applies to (e.g. in Teamcommander Ancestral Statue and Palinchron are banned, so Animar Decks are by FAR not that powerful or infinite combo clinging than in cEDH. Is it still a top-tier-Deck-Commander ? Maybe. We don’t like to judge about that- maybe as described before the owner of such a deck is a „Commander“-Style lover, and builds an Animar Deck with much flavour towards the commander, e.g. puts all creature cards into this deck which he owns and which synergize with Animar, though he could build a „better“ and „more successfull“ Deck by not doing 100% so, but instead including Tutors, counterspells and other „tournament“-Staple acrds. Who knows ? Maybe he included even some cc-heavier cards or unusual cards he just wants to see hit the table. There are even famous player-types named Timmy, Johnny and Spike, whereas Spike is more the competetive player who wants to win and Timmy is more of a social funplayer.

cEDH Players may argue that this is of course possible but unlikely, as in a tournament environment everybody wants just to win and build a „perfect“ Deck. Okay, this might be true, but then again besides not everyone playing Teamcommander being a Spike there is the component of playing as a team. Mostly the teams are randomly matched after chosing a Deck, so you will never know if the Deck you are teamed up with synergizes with your Deck. Or if your oppenents Decks do synergize ? Or does the matchup favour your Deck ? In a Teamplay environment there are many more factors, so that it is harder to tell which Decks are „Tier 1“, and therefore we don’t like these categories that much, though of course we admit that certain Decks do perform better than others.

And then there is a monetary approach. If Magic has a drawback, then that of it being quite costy – some might even say it has a pay-to-win character: The more money you spent, the better cards you will have and the more often you will win. Hmm, this might not always be true, sometimes a cheap Red-Deck-Wins Burndeck can win over a deck which is full of expansive cards. But yes, the more good, expansive cards you have gathered, the better options you will have for building the „ideal“ Deck. Sometimes players therefore allow proxies (especially if a player has a single copy of expansive c ard x – he could also unsleeve the card and then put it in Deck 2  but this is very time consuming). Or they introduce a rather desperate system like „no card over 5$“ or „just 3 rares“ – but these systems mostly fail, too. So, sometimes there are also players who just want to play own original cards and build decks with what options their existing cards can provide – and these options may be limited and far from the competetive perfect Deck.

So, can certain Commanders be undoubtly be divided into defined Power-Level Tiers ? We would say: No.

Is this the answer you wanted ? Nope.

Is this a cheesy answer ? Yes, sure.

Is there no other hint we can give you ? …. okay, if you insist, we would give you the following advice: