‘Tis the season for friends and family to come together, enjoy the festivities, and play some Commander. Wizards have made this easier than ever this year, thanks to the Commander Bracket system, which makes matching decks simpler. The only real question left to answer is: what Commander do you play?
Given that Wizards of the Coast made 484 brand new Commanders in 2025, there are certainly a lot of options. No matter what colors or archetype you want to build around, chances are Wizards made something for you this year. Thankfully, even if Wizards didn’t, there’s nothing stopping you from playing with older Commanders.
If this still somehow isn’t enough for you, technically, Wizards does have a solution. Back in 2023, Wizards created a card for its employees that allowed any creature to be your Commander. As MTG players have been rediscovering recently, this opens up a whole lot of possibilities for fun, flavorful, and downright broken shenanigans.
MTG Wizard from Beyond
Like all Heroes of the Realm cards, Wizard from Beyond was given out to employees at Wizards to celebrate a momentous milestone. In particular, as the name somewhat suggests, Wizards from Beyond was specifically given to employees on the D&D Beyond team. Leaning into this team’s accomplishments, the card flavorfully lets anyone become an adventurer.
Not only does Wizard from Beyond make your Commander a Cleric, Rogue, Warrior, and Wizard, but it lets anything be your Commander. Any one of the 13,929 nonlegendary creatures in MTG can fill this role, so you’ve got plenty of options there. As if that somehow wasn’t enough already, Wizard of Beyond also doubles triggers when you’ve got a full Party. You’ll even get a WURBG color identity, too, so everything is at your disposal.
Admittedly, while this card is incredibly useful, Wizard from Beyond isn’t technically meant to be played in Commander. Currently, the rules surrounding Heroes of the Realm cards only allow the person whose name is on the card to play it in Commander. This means that even if you bought one of these cards, which aren’t cheap, it’d just be a collectible.
Thanks to the almighty power of Rule Zero and proxies, however, playing with Wizards of Beyond is a possibility. You’ll have to run it by your table first, of course, but that shouldn’t be too bad if you’re being sensible. The only real question at this point is which creature do you want to turn into a Commander?
Countless Choices
If you really want to win with Wizard from Beyond, putting something like Thassa’s Oracle in the Command Zone makes that trivial. In fact, putting any elite combo engine in this position can easily threaten turn two wins with enough support. If you’re doing this, however, getting the all-important Rule Zero green light may be rather difficult.
Due to this, you may have to tone down your ambitions slightly, but there’s still plenty of potential for shenanigans. Putting any creature that can already double triggers, for instance, can get very silly very quickly. Sadly, most of the creatures that do this are legendary already, but Traveling Chocobo, Starfield Vocalist, and Roaming Throne are great options.
Alternatively, leaning into cards that excel when their triggers are doubled can be exceptionally powerful. Putting something like Scute Swarm into the Command Zone and doubling its triggers, for instance, creates one hell of a snowball. Realistically, since Wizard from Beyond’s trigger doubling is universal, anything with a strong triggered ability is a strong Commander option.
While there are countless ways to maximize Wizard from Beyond and break the card, that’s not exactly the point. Like all Heroes of the Realm cards, this is just meant to be a fun card for more casual play. This is exactly what players like TomasVader want to use the card for when discussing it on Reddit.
Using Wizard from Beyond makes building around a pet card like Octomancer a breeze. Whether you want to go in the direction of Cute Critter Typal or focus on the card’s ability, anything is possible. That said, if you do want to go down this route, it’s possible you don’t even need Wizard from Beyond.
Rule Zero to the Rescue
Realistically, if you want to play a card like Octomancer in the Command Zone, Rule Zero makes this easy. Since the card is far from broken, too, there’s a good chance most tables will be fine with this. You could even ask to use one of the actual Commander legal Backgrounds, too, to expand its color identity.
Considering that Wizard from Beyond is a Heroes of the Realm card, a regular Rule Zero conversation is definitely your best bet. Without proxying this card, you’ll likely have to spend upwards of $20,000, and that’s if you can even find one. Since these cards are just given out to Wizards employees, there aren’t many in existence, and owners aren’t fond of parting with them.
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