i think it’s kind of funny how the types of gays are categorized. lesbians are on a masculinity-femininity scale, while gay men are just ranked by weight class
Tiers for commander decks is interesting but only if they can really follow through with it. It's like a weight class for martial arts.
If every card in a commander deck except basic lands had a number, it would add up in the end. Consider deckbuilding websites where you can type in all the cards, then shuffle it up and play without an opponent just to see how your opening hand and draws would work. Those databases already keep track of a lot.
So let's say you had a numerical value to the cards in the deck and criteria for those values. Basic lands are zero points, so the deck with 35 basic lands would theoretically have 64 points minimum if each remaining card had a value of 1, not including the commander.
Of course not all cards would have a value of 1. Let's take Staff of Domination, a card that has been on the chopping list at my local game store from ten years ago. If you had that card in your deck, they would build decks just to destroy your combo and never play staff of Domination. Various Pithing Needle effects would name that card even if it wasn't on the board or in the deck because if someone, ANYONE had that card, they were going to abuse it.
Let's give Staff of Domination a rating of 7. Now, it's a combo card, but it's requiring an infinite mana source to "win" the game.
Let's add a creature that taps for an indefinite amount of mana.
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. As a single card, it's a good card. Get something with high enough power and Staff of Domination goes infinite for mana. Selvala is a 9 inside the deck, but now let's talk interactive ratings.
If Selvala is in the deck, that number is 9. If Selvala is the commander, that number is much higher. Oh, right, we only covered the 99.
Selvala as a commander could add an additional point for each card rated higher than a 5, because of the combos.
Or, combo cards above a certain rating gain numbers the more combo cards are in the deck. That gets messy, but perhaps doable. Certain search engines allow for similar card effects and pairings for combos.
Staff of Domination means any "taps for X mana" creatures get a +2 to their card value, though I feel like it could be splitting things very thin.
And by the end of it, having a deck list uploaded would be easy to see your commander decks "Weight Class" and players could see the listing and the number before deciding what type of deck they could build in that class, even save up to make a deck with a higher weight class later on. Players would do well to keep decks of varying weight class so they could play more games with newer players. Something lile this could do away with formats so long as the card rating system stayed fairly easy to do.
Okay. Bannings tho.
Well, maybe instead of banning a card, your increase the card rating. It's punching in a higher class. The deck just went up forty points because of that one card, it's in another class now.
Mana Crypt in a Kemba, Kha Regent deck is still under 300 points for the deck.
Mana Crypt in with Kozilek is a deck with 800 points.
That's a huge difference in power level. Maybe a schrodinger's cat reference? Anyway.
Just an idea for keeping track of deck power levels. The rules committee would be keeping track of card ratings and interactions ratings, but every deckbuilder database could reflect it
