In a cruel twist of time, today marks the last day of Tarkir: Dragonstorm preview season. It seems like only yesterday when we were being teased with our first real look at the latest Magic: The Gathering set. Now, it’s before us in its entirety. This means it’s time to brew, and what better place to start than with the most popular MTG format? The following are our picks for the best new MTG Commanders in Tarkir: Dragonstorm.
Before we begin, a couple of caveats. First of all, this list will be featuring cards from the main set only. The face Commanders from the five precon decks are all designed for the format and, as such, will all be very good there. A list featuring five of those wouldn’t be particularly surprising or interesting, so main set it is. Second, this list will be focusing exclusively on legendary creatures you’d want to run as your Commander, not cards for the 99. We’ll have another list covering those later down the line.
5 | Sidisi, Regent Of The Mire
- Mana Value: 1B
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Creature – Zombie Snake Warlock
- Stats: 1/3
- Card Text: Tap, Sacrifice a creature you control with mana value X other than Sidisi: Return target creature card with mana value X plus 1 from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery.
Tarkir as a plane is all about the three-color Clans, and the vast majority of this list is made up of three-color legends as a result. That said, there are still some solid mono-colored options for those who prefer simplicity or are on a budget. Sidisi, Regent of the Mire is the very best of these, and one of the best Commanders in Tarkir: Dragonstorm overall.
Sidisi is a very simple legendary creature by modern standards. You can tap it and sacrifice another creature to bring a creature back from your ‘yard that costs one more. For many, this will give flashbacks to Birthing Pod, but Sidisi draws from a much more limited pool, so it’s a lot fairer.
Of course, Birthing Pod couldn’t start in your command zone, so Sidisi has the edge there. With enough self-mill effects, which black has in droves, you can quickly expand your pool of possible targets. Throw in some Aristocrats pieces like Zulaport Cutthroat and some value-on-death creatures like Shambling Ghast, and you have the recipe for a seriously powerful deck here. The fact that Sidisi is so cheap to cast is a huge draw, letting you get your engine online ASAP.
4 | Betor, Kin To All
- Mana Value: 2WBG
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Spirit Dragon
- Stats: 5/7
- Card Text: Flying.
At the beginning of your end step, if creatures you control have total toughness 10 or greater, draw a card. Then if creatures you control have total toughness 20 or greater, untap each creature you control. Then if creatures you control have total toughness 40 or greater, each opponent loses half their life, rounded up.
The Abzan Commander precon for this set has a heavy toughness-matters theme, and that bleeds through into the main set. Betor, Kin to All is almost like a self-contained mini-challenge: build up a high enough total toughness, and you’ll receive scaling rewards in turn.
Since Betor itself has seven toughness, it should be trivial to hit 10 and draw a card each turn with this. 20 is a lot more difficult but still doable. The payoff for hitting 20 isn’t too impressive, mind you, unless you’re running some particularly spicy activated abilities. Hit 40 toughness, and Betor takes away half the life of each of your opponents. That can be a ton of life loss, especially against lifegain decks.
For the most part, that 40 life ability should be treated like a planeswalker ultimate: extremely flashy and powerful, but pretty unlikely to actually happen in most games. That leaves you with a chunky Dragon that draws you a card each turn and can untap your entire board, which is plenty to build around honestly.
Get your creatures producing mana with Cryptolith Rite or Enduring Vitality, and you can hold up mana for interaction every single turn. Alternatively, just stock up on activated abilities and double down on their effects. Betor is much more flexible than it looks, provided you’re willing to run a few Walls to get the engine going.
3 | Kotis, The Fangkeeper
- Mana Value: 1BGU
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Zombie Warrior
- Stats: 2/1
- Card Text: Indestructible.
Whenever Kotis deals combat damage to a player, exile the top X cards of their library, where X is the amount of damage dealt. You may cast any number of spells with mana value X or less from among them without paying their mana costs.
From a legend that cares about toughness to one that cares about power, next in our list of the best Commanders in Tarkir: Dragonstorm is Kotis, the Fangkeeper. While it looks weak at first glance, I think Kotis could well be one of the most exciting Voltron Commanders we’ve seen in years.
To get the obvious out of the way: yes, four mana for a 2/1 is an atrocious rate. The fact that Kotis has Indestructible built in means it’s pretty likely to survive at least one turn cycle, however. Once that’s done, you can start loading it up with Auras and Equipment and go to town. A few that spring to mind immediately are Rancor for Trample, Curiosity for extra draw, and Slagwurm Armor for a huge toughness boost.
Once Kotis is suited up, it’s time to get swinging. The higher its power goes, the more cards you’ll get to steal (and cast immediately) with each attack. This is a great payoff for doing what Voltron decks want to be doing anyway. Kotis can definitely be vulnerable when it first hits play, but with blue countermagic on your side, it should be easy to get it going. Once that happens, it’ll likely be hard to stop.
2 | Neriv, Heart Of The Storm
- Mana Value: 1RWB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Spirit Dragon
- Stats: 4/5
- Card Text: Flying.
If a creature you control that entered this turn would deal damage, it deals twice that much damage instead.
We’ve looked at Abzan and Sultai, now it’s time for Mardu to get involved. Neriv, Heart of the Storm is an aggressive Commander with a very unique ability. It doubles the damage your creatures deal, but only if they entered play this turn. This presents a nice deckbuilding challenge, with huge potential rewards if you can solve it.
The most obvious application here is to double the power of your Haste creatures. All of the 1/1 Warriors Mardu are creating this set will hit twice as hard. On the other hand, so will big Dragons like Thundermaw Hellkite. Hellkite is a particularly good example, actually, since it also has a pseudo-board wipe effect on entry. You could easily build Neriv as a kind of ‘Haste Typal’ list if you so wished.
Alternatively, you could head on down to combo town. Creatures that ping each opponent when your other creatures enter, like General Kreat, the Boltbringer, are fantastic with Neriv. If you can drop one of those, followed by a big burst of tokens in one turn, you can end the game fast. Molten Gatekeeper is a particularly good choice here since it’s also a Haste creature that you can get back later in the game.
Whether you’re comboing off or playing it straight, Neriv is a fantastic Mardu Commander. It encourages a lot of lateral thinking in your deck construction, too, which is always a plus.
1 | Teval, Arbiter Of Virtue
- Mana Value: 2BGU
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Spirit Dragon
- Stats: 6/6
- Card Text: Flying, Lifelink.
Spells you cast have Delve. (Each card you exile from your graveyard while casting those spells pays for 1.)
Whenever you cast a spell, you lose life equal to its mana value.
There could really only be one choice for the top dog in our best Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commanders list. Teval, Arbiter of Virtue looks absolutely ridiculous for 60-card formats, bringing the ever-broken delve to all of your cards. In Commander, it’s actually even better since you have more life to soak up the loss from that second ability.
Commander also gives you access to the full gamut of busted self-mill effects, from Stitcher’s Supplier to Hermit Druid. It’s easy to leverage these effects to fuel big finishers early, like Protean Hulk or Craterhoof Behemoth. Alternatively, you can play a more controlling game, casting all of your card draw and disruption for cheap and just drowning the table in value.
Even with 40 life and Teval’s Lifelink, you will need some ways to keep yourself topped up if you’re running this deck. To that end, incidental lifegain pieces like Dredger’s Insight will go a long way. Once you’ve solved that little problem, you’re left with one of the biggest advantages a legendary creature could possibly grant you as your Commander. Use it wisely, and your victory is assured.
