A huge percentage of the MTG community loves playing Commander, and really, who can blame them. Commander is one of the most entertaining ways to play with a group of players. The format can be as casual or as competitive as your playgroup decides. From casting enormous haymakers to executing a wide variety of cool combos, there’s something for everyone.
Part of the appeal to Commander is also the fact that players can utilize cards that otherwise may not have had their opportunities in the spotlight in various competitive Constructed formats. There is a wide range of cards that are extra strong in Commander by comparison. Today, we are going to look at the absolute best cards available in Commander.
As you’ll likely notice, each of these cards either appears on the recently updated Game Changer list, interact very strongly with cards on the Game Changers list, is forbidden in lower-tier bracket gameplay, or is otherwise very similar to one of the previous criteria.
11 | Rhystic Study/Smothering Tithe/Mystic Remora
These cards are grouped together because they all have a very similar effect. Each of these cards provides a major benefit to you unless your opponents are willing to spend a bunch of mana. Rhystic Study is a classic card that forces opponents to pay extra mana for every spell they cast or allow you to draw extra cards. Part of what makes effects like this one so effective is that, in a game with multiple opponents, you have the potential to draw way more cards than normal. This card puts opponents in an awkward bind, where they don’t want you to gain an enormous advantage, but they also want to be able to develop their boards without falling too far behind. All it takes is one opponent not paying the one mana for Rhystic Study for other opponents to follow suit, and you reap the rewards.
Mystic Remora is cheaper and costs significantly more mana from the opponent to prevent you from drawing cards, but only affects non-Creature spells and requires you to invest mana during your upkeep to keep around.
In a similar fashion, Smothering Tithe forces players to pay mana when they draw cards or allow you to create Treasure tokens. Notably, Smothering Tithe even affects your opponents when they draw their first card during their draw step, making it quite likely that you will end up amassing a large collection of Treasures in short order. Couple this effect with cards like Wheel of Fortune that make everyone draw a bunch of cards at once, and you’re in business. Add Underworld Breach into the mix, and you can keep casting Wheel of Fortune over and over, netting tons of Treasures in the process.
10 | Powerful Stax
Mostly forbidden in lower tier Commander bracket games under the guise of mass land denial, this group of cards further disrupt the ability of your opponents to properly play the game. Stasis and Winter Orb prevent Lands for all players from untapping like normal. Trinisphere makes everyone pay at least three mana to cast their spells. Both of which can make it difficult for players to cast multiple spells during the same turn. In some instances, Trinisphere can lock players from casting spells at all if they don’t have enough Lands to begin with.
If you’re playing these controversial cards, your goal with these cards is to break the symmetry in some way. If you are ahead on board, these cards can help you cross the finish line as the opponents stumble.
Interestingly, in the case of Winter Orb and Trinisphere, the effect only applies when the Artifact in question is untapped. This means that pairing them with Commanders like Urza, Lord High Artificer that can tap these Artifacts right before taking your turn can be quite an effective strategy.
Do note, however, that if you decide to play these cards, they are rather unpopular in casual settings. It’s not fun to watch other players play Magic while you’re stuck or locked out. Make sure your playgroup is interested in having more competitive games before you bring these cards.
9 | Drannith Magistrate
Drannith Magistrate is a simple card, but a very strong one at that. For only two mana, Magistrate makes it so that your opponents can’t play cards from anywhere other than their hands. The most important thing this does, and why the card is so powerful, is that it prevents your opponents from casting their Commanders for as long as Magistrate remains on the battlefield.
In addition, Drannith Magistrate stops a lot of other powerful cards in Commander. Besides stopping any decks that want to do Cascade or Suspend shenanigans, this completely shuts down Underworld Breach combos. This card will always be infamous for stopping Commanders, but Drannith Magistrate is just a good card.
8 | Fast Mana Lands
As the top of our list will attest, fast mana is one of the most powerful things to do in any format, and Commander is no different. When people think of fast mana, they generally refer to artifacts, but specific lands are also capable of getting you ahead of your mana curve. All of the cards pictured above are on the Commander Game Changers list.
Ancient Tomb, referred to as a Sol Land, is the best land in Commander in a vacuum. The card offers two mana for just a little life. The Urza’s Saga lands, on the other hand, can all offer a ton of mana if you play within their confines. In focused strategies, these lands can easily generate five or more mana per activation. Tolarian College, the most powerful card in this cycle, is even banned in Commander.
7 | Wheels
Wheels are effects that, basically, allow you to discard your hand and draw a new one. Despite being largely regarded as one of the most powerful things to be doing in Commander, these currently do not appear on the Game Changers list, but that could easily change. The cards that appear on the Game Changer list are instead the draw hate that breaks these.
Wheels are generally fine in a vacuum, but it’s very easy to abuse these and create disgusting advantages. Cards like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse can drain your opponent for a bunch of life in conjunction with a wheel, while Smothering Tithe can generate a ton of Treasures for you. Cards like Narset, Parter of Veils, and Notion Thief are extra brutal, making Wheel of Fortune and Timetwister as one-sided as possible.
6 | Ad Nauseum
Rightfully added to the Game Changers list in its most recent update, Ad Nauseum is a premier combo piece in Commander that primarily sees play in cEDH. The goal, in many cases, is to try to use Ad Nauseum to draw your whole deck. This can be done in conjunction with cards like Angel’s Grace or even the new Doctor Who card Everybody Lives! that would prevent you from losing too much life. From there, Thassa’s Oracle can win you the game on the spot.
In cEDH, however, Ad Nauseum is generally just used as a gigantic draw spell. Even drawing ten cards in a format that powerful is enough advantage to end the game, but Ad Nauseum decks are generally capable of drawing even more cards before they need to watch their life total. It is very hard to beat a resolved Ad Nauseum in Commander.
Read More: The 13 Best Enchantments In Commander
5 | Force of Will/Fierce Guardianship
Two more occupants on the Game Changer list, Force of Will and Fierce Guardianship, again, function in a very similar way. Both force of Will and Fierce Guardianship are pieces of interaction that don’t cost mana to use. Whether you want to protect your own win condition, or stop your opponent from resolving theirs, both of these cards can swing a game in your favor without you needing to hold up any mana.
As far as comparing the two go, they have their own charms. Fierce Guardianship doesn’t ask for an extra card to use, but can only counter noncreature spells and is only free when your Commander is in play. Force of Will, on the other hand, can counter any card type for the low cost of one blue card and a single life.
If you’re playing a blue Commander deck, your deck will only be better if you add these into it.
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4 | Major Tutors
One of the things that makes Commander so unique is that the format adheres to a strict Singleton model. Only copies of Basic Lands can appear more than once in a Commander deck, which can make it a bit difficult for you to find your most powerful cards consistently. Tutors help a lot in that department.
Vampiric and Demonic Tutor are the two best options for Commander, since they have no restrictions on what you find. While this gives the player more options, it also means you don’t have to reveal what you found, which is a big deal at more competitive tables. As you may expect, both of these cards appear as Game Changers.
That said, there are plenty of other powerful tutors in other colors that can find specific types of cards. Mystical Tutor, Worldly Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, Personal Tutor, and Enlightened Tutor are all one-mana tutor options that can find specific types of cards. Gamble is another tutor option, but it has a rather risky downside of randomly discarding a card from your hand, including potentially the card you search for.
Many of the cards mentioned here appear on the Commander Game Changer list, and even for those that don’t, tutors are limited at lower levels of play. Even slower tutors like Grim Tutor can make Commander decks far more consistent than their peers.
3 | Underworld Breach
Underworld Breach is an elite combo card in Commander. We already mentioned the synergy with Smothering Tithe and Wheel of Fortune, but there are dozens of powerful combos to be had with Underworld Breach. You can use Lion’s Eye Diamond alongside Brain Freeze to mill everyone’s libraries, ultimately causing your opponents to lose via decking first. You can also use Wheel of Fortune in combination with Jeska’s Will to net a ton of red mana while repeatedly casting Wheel of Fortune.
Really, resolving an Underworld Breach allows you to win any number of ways. At absolute worst, this card should be able to refill your hand for subsequent turns. For just two mana, Underworld Breach is so powerful, it’s problematic.
2 | Thassa’s Oracle
As we’ve discussed, Thassa’s Oracle serves a very important singular purpose in Commander: to act as a combo win condition. The end goal is almost always the same. You try to mill or exile your entire library, then cast Thassa’s Oracle and win the game via its enters-the-battlefield effect. There are tons of ways to accomplish this goal. Ad Nauseum and Underworld Breach can certainly help get the job done, but the easiest and most efficient way to win the game with Thassa’s Oracle is to use Demonic consultation.
Demonic Consultation is a one-mana way to exile your library. The card was designed as a strange tutor, allowing you to choose a card name, exile the top six cards of your library, then exile cards from your library until you reveal the named card and put it into your hand. The thing is, you can actually name a card that is not in your deck, resulting in you exiling your entire library! Throw in some of the tutors and free Counterspells mentioned above, and you’ve got a solid gameplan.
1 | Sol Ring
This card being at the top of the list should come as no surprise to players who play Commander. The reality is that fast mana cards are so good that they are banned or restricted almost everywhere else. In fact, many pieces of fast mana were controversially banned in Commander recently.
Having to only spend one mana to have a card that puts you two mana ahead for the rest of the game until removed is absurd. Unlike some of the other cards on this list, there is no setup cost required. Sol Ring is elite in essentially any deck.
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