Warhammer 40K Commander Deck reviews

Magic: The Gathering’s latest entry into the Universes beyond has landed. This time we are traversing the Multiverse to a distant and hostile future where factions wage war to vie for dominance of the universe.

There are 4 pre-constructed Commander decks, each with incredible new art for each card, including reprints, so they are held entirely within the Warhammer 40k Universe. Each deck focuses on a Faction; which faction is right for you will largely depend on the style of play you want to bring to the table.

Let’s get into it!

The Imperium of Man: the empire of mankind, with its armies, will search for battle and glory. This faction is represented in the “Forces of the Imperium” deck.

Forces of the Imperium is an esper (White, Blue and Black colour identity) token maker strategy. The face commander, Inquisitor Greyfax, is a legendary 3/3 Human Inquisitor with Vigilance for 1 and Esper. She gives our creatures some extra power and Vigilance, meaning we can protect ourselves from any crack back from our opponents. She can also tap a problematic creature from an opponent’s board, preventing it from attacking us.

She will be great for playing the political game. We can make deals not to tap a creature down if our opponents don’t attack us with their big nasty, giving us time to find a more permanent way to deal with the problem. Not to mention that the Clue tokens can provide us with card draw when we are in a pinch.

Deny the Witch is possibly one of my favourite cards in this deck. A Hard counter spell for 1 colourless and esper, which hits any spell, ability or triggered ability. Its controller also loses life equal to the number of creatures you control. Being able to not only protect your board from the likes of Cyclonic Rift or even Ugin the Spirit Dragon but also punishes your opponent for trying is excellent value.

Speaking of Value, who doesn’t love casting free spells? Epistolary Librarian is a 3/4 Astartes wizard for 2 colourless, a white and a blue that lets us cast a spell with mana value X, where X is the number of attacking creatures.

The Flesh is Weak is this deck’s version of Elesh Norn Grand Cenobite.

For 2 generic mana and esper, we get an enchantment that buffs our creatures, turns them into Artifact creatures, and weakens all non-artifact creatures. This can be absolutely back-breaking for our opponents.

We can make this pre-con deck even better by swapping some cards for these beauties.

Intangible Virtue is an enchantment for 1 generic mana and a white that gives all our token’s Vigilance and +1/+1. Great for making all of our little guys not so little.

Elas-il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, is a 2/2 Legendary Phyrexian Kor Cleric for a white and black with deathtouch.

When a creature enters the battlefield, we gain a life; when one we control dies, each opponent loses a life.

This deck wants us to go wide, and our creatures will inevitably die. Being able to profit from that is going to gain us so much value.

Cathar’s Crusade is another enchantment that, if left unchecked in this deck, can get seriously out of hand.

Every time a creature enters the battlefield under our control, each creature gets a +1/+1 counter on it. This see’s every creature enter the battlefield – perfect for pairing up with the Squad mechanic.

Raise your unstoppable army and crush your opponents for the emperor’s glory.

Necrons: an ancient super-race who once ruled the universe. Millions of years ago, they transferred their consciousness into android bodies to become immortal and are now awakening from their deep slumber.

This mono-black deck is an artifact recursion deck. We can do some pretty broken stuff in a deck based around artifacts. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; there are some incredible cards already in this deck we need to talk about.

We have some excellent reprints for the format in this deck, Darkness was only printed in Legends and Time Spiral Remastered. Mystic Forge is another quite expensive card that is incredible in this deck, and Living Death is a classic mono-black win-con for EDH.

There are 5 possible commanders for this deck. The face commander is Szarekh, the Silent King. A 3/4 Necron with Flying, who lets us mill 3 cards and put an artifact creature or vehicle card from among the milled cards into our hand.

A commander that gives us additional value for attacking is excellent, but I actually think we have a better candidate for our commander.

Trazyn the Infinite is a 4/6 Legendary Artifact Creature Necron, with deathtouch, for 4 and 2 black. As long as Trazyn is on the battlefield, he has the activated abilities of all artifacts in our graveyard.

Oh boy, we can break that pretty easily. I mean, it’s right in the name.

In this deck, let’s add Chromatic Orrery, Basalt Monolith and Torment of Hailfire for another win-con.

When we get Chromatic Orrery and Basalt Monolith in our graveyard. We can turn our commander into an infinite mana and card draw engine. This can be really easy to do in this deck, because it has so many ways to fill our graveyard.

We can then sink all that mana into Torment of Hailfire for the win out of nowhere. Our opponents won’t know what hit em.

Tyranids: a never-ending wave of insectoid Aliens who share a psychic connection with one another. Giving each other support, bolstering one another into a swarm of unstoppable killing machines.

Tyranid Swarm is a Temur (Green, Red and Blue) deck that cares about big X spells and +1/+1 Counters. The face Commander The Swarmlord is a 5/5 legendary Tyranid for 2 and Temur. The Swarmlord gets 2 +1/+1 counter’s on it for each time it has been cast from the command Zone. It also lets us draw a card if a creature with a +1/+1 counter dies if that isn’t enough.

Winged Hive Tyrant is a 4/4 Tyranid with flying and Haste for 3 generic, a red and a blue. If a creature we control has any counter, it gets flying and Haste. Our opponents will be taking a tonne of damage out of nowhere with this card.

Speaking of counters, Tyranid Prime is a 0/4 Tyranid for 1 generic, a green and a blue. It also has the ability Evolve, which means it gets a +1/+1 counter on it if a creature with more power enters the battlefield.

What’s that? You want more? It also gives all our creatures evolve. Which can really get out of hand with all the big beasts that are pouring onto the battlefield.

A lot of these creatures are pretty pricey. Thankfully Shadow in the Warp is here to help. It’s an enchantment for 1 generic, a green and a red, which reduces the cost of the first creature spell we cast by 2 generic mana. That’s not all! It also damages our opponents when they cast their first creature spell each turn.

With all these counter synergies going on, we can take advantage of The Ozolith, an artifact for a single mana that will hold onto our counters when a creature dies.

Rhythm of the wild is an enchantment for 1 generic a green and a red that stops all our creatures from being countered and gives them the ability Riot. Riot says that we can choose to give our creatures Haste or a +1/+1 counter when it enters the battlefield. Pairs perfectly with Winged Hive Tyrant.

Kodama of the West Tree is a 3/3 Legendary Spirit with reach. It also gives our Modified creatures trample (a creature is modified if it is equipped, enchanted or has a counter on it). If a Modified creature deals combat damage, we can search our library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. This will help fuel some of the more expensive spells we have going on in this deck, and the trample will make sure we connect.

Your unstoppable monster army will swarm and devour your opponents with all this power.

Chaos: Individuals exposed to the chaos gods’ influence reward their dark servants with gifts such as psychic powers or mighty equipment. So they can strike down their opponents in the name of the chaos deities. Still, incredible power comes at an incredible cost.

The Ruinous Powers deck is a Grixis deck (Blue, Black and Red) all about casting big, explosive spells and then using those spells to generate value.

Abaddon the Despoiler is a 5/5 legendary Astartes Warrior with trample that costs 2 and Grixis. During our turn, spells we cast with mana value X or less have cascade, where X equals the total amount of life our opponents have lost.

With all these spells we are casting, we want to get as much out of them as possible. Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch is a 2/4 demon for 2 a blue and red who returns a random instant or sorcery card to our hand on our upkeep. Whenever we cast an instant or sorcery, it pings our opponents for 1, feeding into our commander’s ability. Don’t forget, cascade is a cast ability, so if we can chain our spells properly, we can do some serious damage.

Magnus the Red is a 4/5 legendary Demon Primarch, with flying for 3 a blue and a red. He reduces our instant and sorcery spells by 1 for each creature we control, which with our commander out, will always be at least 2. But that’s not all. When he deals combat damage to a player, we create a 3/3 red spawn creature token.

Drach’Nyen is a legendary artifact Equipment for 4 generic, a black and a red. When it enters the battlefield, we can exile any creature. Then our equipped creature gets menace and +x/+0, where X is the exiled creature’s power. This is great for removing problem creatures and using their power to our commanders. Very spicy.

Passionate Archaeologist is a background card from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s gate, which costs 1 and a Red. When we cast a card from exile, we can damage an opponent equal to its mana value. This can really help fuel our Commanders strategy.

Loyal Subordinate is a 3/1 Zombie for 2 and a black. It will deal 3 damage to each opponent at the beginning of combat so long as we have our commander, which then lets us cascade for 9. We can hit so many things with that sort of damage.

But it needn’t be just instant and sorcery spells that can benefit from this. Rakdos, Lord of Riots, is a 6/6 legendary demon that costs 2 black and 2 red. It cannot be cast if our opponents haven’t lost life this turn, but he reduces the cost of our creatures by 1 for each 1 life our opponents have lost, and because Abbadon just says spells, this can include our big creatures.

Let chaos reign on the battlefield, and slaughter your opponents with the gifts from your chaos overlords.

Choose your faction and battle for control of the universe. Who will you swear your allegiance to? Who will be victorious? Be sure to check out the full set here: Universes Beyond: Warhammer 40,000!