We’ve gotten used to every new Magic set being stuffed to the gills with Commander goodies in recent times. Both Bloomburrow and Thunder Junction had a ton of cards clearly designed with the format in mind. Interestingly, Duskmourn seems to be pulling back on that trend a bit, with fewer legendary creatures and some cards that explicitly don’t work well in Commander. That said, there are still plenty of new options for the format here. Looking for a new legend to build around? Read on for my picks for the best Commanders in MTG Duskmourn.
5 | Norin, Swift Survivalist
- Mana Value: R
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Stats: 2/1
- Card Text: Norin, Swift Survivalist can’t block. Whenever a creature you control becomes blocked, you may exile it. You may play that card from exile this turn.
Mono-color Commanders are always great budget picks, and MTG Duskmourn adds one of the best we’ve seen in a while. New Norin is similar to his original incarnation, Norin the Wary, in that it plays best in a deck that can capitalize on creatures entering and leaving play. Cards like Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge are great picks here. Unlike the original Norin, this one also has synergy with casting from exile, which has become a fairly common mechanic recently.
If you pack your deck full of cheap creatures you can easily recast them every turn with Norin’s ability, provided your opponents block them of course. You can guarantee this with Invasion Plans, then discount your creatures with Ruby Medallion to play a few each turn. Throw in Passionate Archaeologist and Terror of the Peaks, and you have a seriously aggressive brew that should be able to steal wins out from under your opponents.
It may be a bit of a flavor fail that the cowardly Norin plays best at the head of an all-in Aggro deck, but it looks like great fun regardless. It won’t break the bank either, since you’ll largely only need Mountains to build your mana base.
4 | Victor, Valgavoth’s Seneschal
- Mana Value: 1WB
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 3/3
- Card Text: Eerie — Whenever an enchantment you control enters and whenever you fully unlock a Room, Surveil 2 if this is the first time this ability has resolved this turn. If it’s the second time, each opponent discards a card. If it’s the third time, put a creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.
Jumping over from the heroes to the villains, Valgavoth’s right-hand man is another great Commander pick from this set. His sequential abilities bring to mind cards like Omnath, Locus of Creation and Nissa, Resurgent Animist, both of which are now classics in the format. Granted, playing enchantments isn’t as easy as making land drops, but the principle remains the same.
Surveiling 2 every turn isn’t particularly exciting, so you really need to be playing two or more enchantments a turn to make this guy worthwhile. Thankfully, that’s very much doable. Cards like Soaring Lightbringer bring in multiple enchantments a turn alone. Black and white also both excel at recursion, so you can rebuy cheap utility enchantments like Hopeless Nightmare to get multiple triggers in the late game.
Hitting the second effect here feels great, the third even more so. Forcing the table to discard increases the likelihood of a good reanimation target being in the yard, which means this will rarely miss. You can also just play a reanimator shell yourself, and drop beefy legends like Razaketh, the Foulblooded into the bin via Surveil, then bring them back via Victor. Overall, Victor is a fun, flexible new take on an Enchantress Commander, and one with plenty of powerful lines available.
3 | Winter, Misanthropic Guide
- Mana Value: 1BRG
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 3/4
- Card Text: Ward 2. At the beginning of your upkeep, each player draws two cards. Delirium — As long as there are four or more card types among cards in your graveyard, each opponent’s maximum hand size is equal to seven minus the number of those card types.
I mentioned above that Duskmourn marks a reduction in the number of ‘for Commander’ cards in mainline Magic sets. It by no means marks the end of them, however. Winter is a great example of a card that’s very unlikely to see Standard play but is a slam dunk in Commander. Group Hug is a well-established archetype in the format, and this brings it to colors that don’t normally get to enjoy it.
Letting everyone draw two cards on your upkeep is a pretty major downside when you work out the math. Sure you’re drawing two and using them first, but your opponents collectively are drawing six. If you can build up seven card types in your graveyard your opponents may have to discard all of those extra cards, but they’ll still have a whole turn to play them. For that reason, you really need to build around these abilities to make them work.
Cards like Underworld Dreams and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse are great picks here, as are Waste Not and Megrim. With engines like this, Winter plays like a more enjoyable version of Nekusar, the Mindrazer. He’ll punish your opponents for drawing and force them to ditch their hands, but he’ll also give them two more cards to work with each turn. The fact that he has Ward is actually quite ironic since most tables will likely leave Winter alive most of the time out of greed.
2 | Marina Vendrell
- Mana Value: WUBRG
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 3/5
- Card Text: When Marina Vendrell enters, reveal the top seven cards of your library. Put all enchantment cards from among them into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. Tap: Lock or unlock a door of target Room you control. Activate only as a sorcery.
If there’s one thing Commander players love, it’s a good five-color legend. While Marina probably shouldn’t be all five colors flavor-wise, the fact that she is makes her infinitely more playable. Both as a Commander for Room decks and for enchantment decks in general.
Going through her abilities, tapping to unlock a Room is pretty great. Some Rooms cost upwards of seven mana to unlock, so you can make some great savings with this. Re-locking Rooms is less useful but can work well with some of the cheaper ones like Roaring Furnace. The best part about Marina is that you can actually totally ignore both of those effects, however. Her etb effect is good enough to carry the card on its own.
Drawing up to seven enchantments on entry is absurd, even if in reality you’ll probably end up with three to four. This makes Marina an extremely efficient draw engine, on par with Atraxa, Grand Unifier in the right shell. You can even reset her via Bottomless Pool if you need to dig deeper. Thanks to this ability, Marina will be a viable choice as a Shrines Commander, or just a five-color Enchantress good stuff Commander. Leaning into the Rooms theme is entirely optional, though certainly the more flavorful way to play the card.
1 | Valgavoth, Terror Eater
- Mana Value: 6BBB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Stats: 9/9
- Card Text: Flying, Lifelink. Ward—Sacrifice three nonland permanents. If a card you didn’t control would be put into an opponent’s graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. During your turn, you may play cards exiled with Valgavoth. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to its mana value rather than pay its mana cost.
It wouldn’t be a list of the best Commanders in MTG Duskmourn without the set’s big bad himself. While Valgavoth’s slimmer Rakdos incarnation is stealing a lot of the spotlight right now, the full-fat version is not a Demon to be trifled with. Not only does Terror Eater act as a one-sided Rest in Peace, shutting down your opponents’ graveyard shenanigans while leaving yours intact, but it also turns the cards exiled into a second hand for you.
You can cast the exiled cards with life instead of mana, which can lead to some pretty wild tempo swings if Valgavoth lives for even a single turn cycle. Thanks to that obscene Ward cost, that’s more likely than you think. Even if an opponent can remove it, they’ll lose three permanents in the process, which will be exiled by Valgavoth’s ability before it leaves play.
To address the huge winged elephant in the room: yes, Valgavoth is very expensive to cast. You’ll also have no access to green ramp if you run it as your Commander. That said, there are still plenty of ways to power it out in Mono-Black, including ritual spells and generic mana ramp like Ancient Tomb and Mana Vault. Overall, Valgavoth is just as scary in play as it is in the lore, and will prove very difficult to deal with once it hits the table.
Read More: MTG Best Duskmourn Commander Cards
