New Modern Horizons 3 Face Commanders Officially Revealed!

Despite the name of Magic’s hit 2024 set being Modern Horizons 3, this MTG set isn’t just for the Modern format. Everyone loves powerful cards that they can play, and that cannot be more true for Commander players as well. While the obvious pandering to the Commander format as well as Modern has caused some controversy, it also led to the creation of some new Commander decks releasing alongside Modern Horizons 3.

Ulalek, Fused Atrocity

Ulalek, Fused Atrocity, sadly, was one of the many cards leaked ahead of Modern Horizon 3’s official spoiler season. Despite this detail, Ulalek is still well worth getting excited about. As the face Commander of the Eldrazi Incursion Commander deck, Ulalek is the first five-colored Eldrazi to exist in Magic’s history.

This Eldrazi can get seriously silly alongside some other powerful cards. Before we get to those exciting synergies, however, there are a few things to note. For starters, we’ve never seen mandatory colorless and colored hybrid mana before. While you can pay five colorless mana for Ulalek, this also allows you to run all five colors in your deck if Ulalek is the Commander.

One thing that many players were quick to point out with Ulalek is how absurd it gets when combined with Zhulodok, Void Gorger. Casting an Eldrazi with mana value seven or greater and paying two mana to Ulalek will allow you to Cascade four times! You get an extra copy of that Eldrazi to boot!

As if that wasn’t good enough, Ulalek also gets to go absolutely bonkers alongside the recent official spoiler Echoes of Eternity. This already copies your colorless spells and triggered abilities, which can essentially allow you to copy activated abilities of other colorless cards three times, as well as colorless spells being cast when Ulalek and Echoes of Eternity are in play.

All in all, it is very easy to get a ton of value out of this Commander in a colorless and Eldrazi-themed strategy.

Azlask, the Swelling Scourge

Azlask is the secondary Commander for the Eldrazi Incursion deck. This also has a five-colored identity for Commander purposes while remaining colorless otherwise. Azlask brings back the Experience Counter, a surprisingly powerful mechanic introduced in Commander 2015.

This Commander really cares about the Eldrazi’s potential to ‘go wide’ by creating a legion of Scion and Spawn tokens. Even without many Experience Counters, simply giving these cards Annihilator can wipe one player’s board state off the map. In the right deck, this ability threatens to be incredibly powerful, however, it remains to be seen which game plan Eldrazi Incursion favors.

Omo, Queen of Vesuva

During the Debut Livestream for Modern Horizons 3, it was commonly mentioned that the Tricky Terrain deck was the strangest one of the bunch. Omo, Queen of Vesuva messes with lands, turning them into every land type. This can create all kinds of wacky strategies that many players may not even be able to conceive fully.

While we’ve not seen the full decklist yet, the sneak peek we’ve been given for Tricky Terrain is utterly bonkers. Looking at one of the deck’s tokens alone, we can see Marit Large on one side and a Sand Warrior on the other. Given both of these rarely-seen tokens are being crammed into one deck, it’s safe to say that Tricky Terrain has a lot going on.

On top of being bizarre, the Tricky Terrain deck focuses on the idea of making Modern strategies feel at home in the Commander format. If manipulating your lands in weird ways is something you’re interested in doing, consider giving Omo a chance. It seems like the Commander for you.

Jyoti, Moag Ancient

Jyoti appears to be the secondary Commander for the Tricky Terrain Commander deck. This Commander is a lot more straightforward than Omo, as you just have to cast it a bunch of times. Succeed in doing this and you’ll create a ton of land tokens and can attack for a ton of damage.

Unsurprisingly, other cards that create a ton of land creatures like Awaken the Woods will synergize quite well with Jyoti. While we’ve yet to see them in action, Jyoti seems like a very well-rounded Commander. Since the tokens they create give you more mana, you should be able to keep recasting them over and over again. Ideally, this should allow them to spiral out of control rather quickly.

Satya, Aetherflux Genius

Satya is a powerful Commander whether you want Energy or not. This is obviously the Commander intended for the Creative Energy deck, but Satya doesn’t even need Energy to function well. That said, if you’re looking for a payoff to spend all your energy on, Satya offers that too!

As long as Satya is attacking with other creatures, they’re able to copy of one those creatures for free. On its own, this ability is already incredibly useful in the right deck, however, Satya gets even better. If you have enough energy to spend, you can keep the copied creature around for future turns.

Given the theme of the Creative Energy deck, obviously, you’ll be interested in acquiring Energy. Even if you can’t manage this effectively, however, Satya’s ability works wonders with ETB effects and can generate immense value. Ultimately, Satya, Aetherflux Genius just looks like a good Commander card, regardless of whether they’re in an Energy-focused deck or not.

Cayth, Famed Mechanist

Cayth, Famed Mechanist is the other Commander option in the Creative Energy deck. Unlike Satya, Cayth doesn’t interact with Energy much, which is odd given the deck’s theme. Sure, you can Proliferate, but Cayth appears to be much better at creating value via Populate.

By granting each of your creatures Fabricate 1, while also having it themselves, Cayth can make an army of Servos rather quickly. With the right build, this could make Cayth an incredible go-wide Artifact Commander option, if you’ve been wanting such a thing. In Creative Energy, Cayth is likely just going to be a good source of value and bodies, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have potential.

Disa the Restless

Last, but certainly not least, we have the Graveyard Incursion deck. While we knew that graveyard strategies were important for Disa, we had no idea that this was actually a Llyurgoyf Typal Commander deck! To prove this point, Disa creates Tarmogoyf tokens!

One of the most iconic cards in competitive Magic history, nothing makes Commander feel more like Modern than creating an entire deck around Tarmogoyfs. As if that wasn’t enough Goyf for you, other Lhyrgoyfs get to join the party too. These new Lhrgoyfs get to enter the battlefield from your graveyard when put there from anywhere other than the battlefield itself. This means discarding or milling your Lhurgoyfs will just put them directly into play!

Disa is, by far, the most unique Commander of the bunch, and has elicited big reactions from the community. Eldrazi Incursion still has more hype behind it, but what players thought was a generic graveyard synergy deck may be some immortalization of the best card from the “Jund em’ out” times.

Coram, the Undertaker

If Lhurgoyfs aren’t your cup of tea, Coram, the Undertaker may be the alternate Commander option for you. This Graveyard Incursion legend likes you to fill your grave by milling cards. As long as you’re getting cards into your grave from your deck, Coram will allow you to play a land and cast a creature from among those cards, barring that you put them there this turn.

Beyond helping fuel the theme of Graveyard Incursion and enable all kinds of shenanigans, Coram also gets quite scary themselves. By scaling off the greatest power among creatures in your graveyard, Coram could quickly become absolutely massive. While Disa the Restless may make our Lhurgoyf dreams come true, Coram might steal the show on more than one occasion.

More Spoilers are on the Way!

Now that we know the Face Commanders as well as the alternate Commander options for each of the four Modern Horizons 3 Commander decks, players should have a better idea of what’s coming their way in each strategy. We’ve already had some other cards confirmed for each deck that can hint at just how powerful these decks will be.

Take Aether Refinery, for example. This should appear in the Creative Energy deck, and doubles the amount of Energy you gather from each source! You also get to turn that Energy into a massive creature token if other payoffs are not available.

Even though this set may be named Modern Horizons 3, many players are already beginning to call it Commander Horizons. Even Wizards themselves can see the resemblance. Regardless of whether you’re a fan of Commander, Modern, or Legacy, Modern Horizons 3 should have powerful cards for everyone.