How good is cascade in commander, and should you devote yourself to its chaos?
Article at a Glance
Cascade is one of the most entertaining mechanics in Magic, and also one of the more recently adjusted ones. It allows you to cast seemingly random spells for free, and that’s a hard thing to resist.
How good is it in Commander though, and should you lean into a deck built around cascade, or just splash it into your favorite decks? Actually, it’s great, and you can do both, let’s just talk about good cards instead.
The best cascade cards in Commander
Maelstrom Wanderer is the first of our three top picks. This eight-mana blue, red, and green 7/5 grants all of your creatures haste, which is already pretty decent, but most importantly, it comes with two instances of cascade. This means that it’ll come out alongside potentially two other creatures, and then they’ll all have haste. It’s a one-card board state a lot of the time.
Etherium-Horn Sorcerer is a six-mana blue and red 3/6 with only one instance of cascade, but it also has an ability that costs three mana that lets you put it back in your hand. While this may seem odd, essentially this means you can get multiple cascade triggers off of it if you can play it for cheap or just have a lot of mana.
Finally, we have Apex Devastator, which is a ten-mana green 10/10 with four instances of cascade. It’s one of those cards that shows you can, in fact, both go big and go home.
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder is our first pick for the support cards, because it’s a blue, black, red, and green 5/4 with trample that reads, “Whenever Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder deals combat damage to a player, as you cast spells from your hand this turn, they gain cascade.” In essence, Yidris is the ultimate cascade commander.
Maelstrom Nexus is an excellent spell that should be in most five-color decks. It’s an enchantment that gives the first spell you cast each turn cascade. If the spell already has cascade, you get an extra trigger on that. Wild-Magic Sorcerer is another excellent support card because it gives the first spell you cast from exile cascade, which helps more cascade triggers start mounting up really quickly.
Finally, anything that costs such as [Crashing Footfalls is a must-have in a cascade deck. It just means you get some of the most absurdly strong spells in the game that are normally tricky to cast, but with no downside. Cascade is a powerhouse mechanic in general, but in Commander, it really shines thanks to the plethora of cards on offer. That’s to say nothing of an all-cascade deck either, which is pure chaos in the best kind of way.
