The Best MTG Commanders

With almost 2,000 unique legendary creatures in Magic: The Gathering and more appearing with every set release, finding the best mtg commanders is not a simple task. Thankfully, however, for those looking to jump straight with one of MTG’s best commander decks, some of these legends stand head and shoulders above the others.

Commanders matter because not only do they dictate your deck’s colours and therefore the cards you can include in your deck, but much like the super-powerful ‘companion’ mechanic, they are a card you always have access to. In a format of 100 card singleton, it’s crucial for helping tie your deck’s game plan together. Which commander you pick to lead your army depends on you: what colours do you want to play, which strategy do you prefer, and how cruel to your opponent do you want to be?

What makes a good Commander?

Before we get to the cards, it’s worth thinking about what makes the best MTG commanders, and some of the qualities our top 10 legendary creatures below share.

• Modality – while not a quality shared by all top commanders, what can be a major strength for many is their versatility, enabling you to do whatever the situation requires. These can be options printed on the card (e.g. ‘choose one of the following’), or the ability to find specific answers from you deck or graveyard. The more options a commander gives you, the better
• Inevitability – Commanders are often cast when it’s time to close the game. The commander may be a game-ending threat by itself or provide the ability to snowball fast via the advantage they can generate. Either way, you want your general to be devastating if left unchecked
• Engines – synergy focused decks look to their commanders to tie the room together, making cards more than the sum of their parts that harmonise into something much bigger. Whether it’s a combo, tribal payoffs, or other general synergies, having a crucial game piece always available in the command zone is essential in the best decks. Gone are the days people would run commanders just because they were the colours they wanted access to
• Card advantage – every top commander provides card advantage in some way, whether it’s literally drawing cards, card selection via scrying or similar, bringing cards back from the graveyard, tutoring, or even producing permanents such as tokens. Card advantage comes in many forms, and the best commanders almost always have it
• Cost and colour identity – some commanders are strong because they are relatively cheap and can come down early, while for others it’s about colours they unlock via their identity, enabling you to play the best cards and overcome any weaknesses mono or two-colour decks can face

The Best MTG Commanders

This list could easily be three times as long, but it’s been refined to just 10 of the best commanders MTG has to offer.

Krenko, Mob Boss

If goblins or red aggression are your thing, Krenko, Mob Boss is a fine choice. At four mana, he can sit at the top of your mana curve, and if you manage to drop a haste enabler such as Goblin Warchief, you can start doubling your goblins straight away (which then also have haste to attack the turn they enter). Creating as many goblins as you can to fuel Krenko is key, from Dragon Fodder to Mogg War Marshal, combined with haste enablers, and effects to make sure they connect (like the flavourfully named Goblin War Drums). Then if you want to get fancy, you can use untap effects like Thousand Year Elixir to use Krenko Twice a turn! Add to the mixture cards like Purphoros, God of the Forge and Impact Temors, and you don’t even have to attack for the win! As the only, mono-coloured commander on this list, Krenko lets you run a super smooth (and affordable) mana base of almost purely mountains.

Kaalia, of the Vast

Angels, Dragons and Demons are among the most popular creature types in the game. If you’re unsure which of the three to build, Kaalia, of the Vast gives you a reason to be greedy and go for all three. Kaalia is has been among MTG’s best commander decks for a long time because cheating mana costs is almost always broken, so with Kaalia you want the biggest, baddest creatures of the types you can find, like Avacyn, Angel of Hope or Vilis, Broker of Blood. Kaalia already has flying, so you can be confident she can attack safely, but the Mardu colours are full of removal options to be sure there will be no blockers and she hangs around. It’s also worth noting that Kaalia only needs to attack to get the effect (not deal damage) so it’s not hard to trigger, plus the creature she drops into play also come in attacking, which can easily end the game on the spot.

Breya, Etherium Shaper

If you’re looking for an artifact based Commander, Breya, Etherium Shaper is a fine choice, and being four colours gives you access to almost endless options across blue, red, white, black and colourless cards. Breya provides you with lots of modality – to kill creatures or Planewalkers, gain life to survive, or even deal damage to players when it’s hard to get through with combat. There are also key synergies tokens, and my favourite, ‘artifact aristocrats’, getting the most out of cards like Skullclamp or Ichor Wellspring. She also works well with blinking effects, with Ephemerate serving both as a protection spell and a way to generate more Thopters. And if you want to go super over-the-top, then there are numerous combo loops to provide infinite mana or just win on the spot.

The Scarab God

A card some may remember from taking over Standard when it was legal, The Scarab God is also one of MTG’s best commanders; a recurring threat that dodges commander tax, provides card selection, and can amass an army on its own while providing bonus graveyard disruption. You can use it alongside self-mill and reanimation to bring your own creatures back, or when milling the opponent with the likes of Mindcrank and Dreamborn Muse to steal their threats, or just for value. It also works perfectly as a commander of a Zombie-based army – arguably the best, in fact. Not only does it create Zombies, but the more you have, the more you scry to find what you need, while also draining the opponent for even more inevitability. Cards like Diregraf Captain, Lord of the Accursed and Death Baron make your Zombie horde even stronger.

Yarok, the Desecrated

Yarok, the Desecrated is a value machine, doubling your enter the battlefield triggers – and remember it’s any permanent, not just creatures, so abilities like Landfall will trigger an additional time too. In fact, Landfall is one of the most popular builds of Yarok, providing value ramp to ensure you can keep replaying the Elemental Horror even if they deal with it. Lotus Cobra generates a silly amount of mana, Tatyova, Benthic Druid draws a crazy amount of cards, and Avenger of Zendikar becomes an instant game-ender. You can also go down the ‘pod’ or toolbox route, finding permanents with powerful enter the battlefield abilities for any situation, whether it’s Eternal Witness, Noxious Gearhulk or Aether Channeler to name but three. Add in more Yarok, effects like Panharmonicon and you can double your doubling! Being Sultai colours opens many powerful options, being arguably the best three colours in Commander.

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain is a legends-matter commander, and she is only getting stronger with the vast amount of new legendary cards printed each year. Being all five colours means she can search out any legendary permanent in the game (so long as it costs less than her power), including lands and Planeswalkers as well as creatures. You can find pretty much every effect on a legend, with cards like Ertai, Ressurected and Loran of the Third Path providing a huge amount of options, together with other legends-matter synergies like Reki, the History of Kamigawa. She’s not going to be the most popular among your opponents with the constant shuffling and repetitive/combo-enabling gameplay that tutoring allows, but that’s what makes her one of the best mtg commanders. Ensuring you can soon hit all five colours among other permanents, with cards like Jodah, the Unifier, turns her into a monstrous 7/7 too, that’s Lord of the Pit stats! One of the best things about Sisay is her five colours make her super versatile; you can go in almost any direction with every spell legal in the format at your disposal. No doubt one of the best commanders MTG has ever seen.

Muldrotha, the Gravetide

Nothing stays dead long with Muldrotha, the Gravetide around. The powerful elemental rewards you for playing a good spread of permanent types and works well with self-mill (turning your graveyard into you hand), self-sacrifice, or simply as a Sultai value commander. Remember it’s ‘play’ and not ‘cast’, meaning you can bring back lands too, including the dreaded Strip Mine or Wasteland combo. These are prime examples of what works best with Muldrotha – effects on permanents that put themselves into the graveyard, allowing you to replay them again and again. Spore Frog to ‘fog’ every turn, Seal of Primordium to keep wiping out artifacts and enchantments, Pernicious Deed to keep board wiping, Plaguecrafter to keep them sacrificing creatures or Planeswalkers… it’s strong stuff when it gets going.

Edgar Markov

Edgar Markov is the go-to vampire Commander, with the certainly-broken Eminence ability (shared by another one of MTG’s best commanders who just missed out on the list, The Ur-Dragon), allowing it to generate endless vampire tokens without ever even being cast and in a way that can’t be interacted with. He may be pricey at six mana, but you don’t need to cast him most of the time, and when you do it’s to give your whole army a permanent boost even if they take him out. His abilities synchronise perfectly – play vampires and get extra vampires, and, when the time is right, cast him, attack with haste, and make your whole army grow. He’s obviously great with other vampires – the cheaper the better to get as many triggers as you can, as well as lord/pump effects, and token doublers like Anointed Procession. His Mardu colour identity is important too, allowing the deck to break outside of the usual Rakdos colours for vampires and include all the white vampires that have been printed in recent times, as well as providing access to enchantment removal which historically black and red have struggled with.

Omnath, Locus of Creation

Players may remember Omnath, Locus of Creation impact on Standard – or not, he didn’t hang around long before being banned. Omnath, it turns out, is also among the best Commander cards mtg has, granting access to four of the five colours. Omnath really loves lands, so team them up with anything that lets you play extra lands, plus other permanents with Landfall triggers, and it’s not hard to go-off, gaining an insurmountable value and mana advantage. Arguably the best ‘lands matter’ commander out there thanks to its colour-identity options, although my friend The Gitrog Monster would put up a good fight! You can also push for some on-theme elemental synergies with the likes of Risen Reef and Ashaya, Soul of the Wild and Phylath, World Sculptor. Blinking can get pretty nasty too – not only drawing you a card from their enter the battlefield trigger but resetting the landfall abilities back to zero to do all over again.

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King

Last, but certainly not least, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King is one of my all-time favourites. The ultimate Jund sacrifice engine, this powerful dragon gets bigger with every permanent you sacrifice while netting you a card. And while he may only enable you to sacrifice one permanent per turn, team him with sacrifice engines like Viscera Seer, tokens or recurring permanents (like Bloodghast or the ‘cat oven’ combo of Witch’s Oven and Cauldron Familiar) to sacrifice, and drainers like Blood Artist and Mayhem Devil, and things snowball very fast. Korvold is best played once you’ve got your engine set up, so you can instantly start drawing cards, even with an opponent’s removal spell on the stack. Plus, he just looks awesome. Korvold is a great choice for anyone that wants to sacrifice their own stuff, and for me, is one of the best commander cards mtg has to offer for aristocrats lovers. Being a dragon provides other synergies too – for example using Crux of Fate for a one-sided board wipe. Contact us for all of your Magic: The Gathering Needs