The Most Toxic MTG Cards in Commander, Ranked

If you’ve played Commander enough, you’ll start running into MTG cards that make you want to quit the game. We’ve all played against people who don’t really want anyone else to play Magic, or who use the same boring, broken combos that can’t compete outside extreme circumstances.

Whether you want to annoy a friend or just want to see what we think, these are the most toxic MTG cards in Commander, in our opinion, at least. Maybe this will help justify your hate for these cards, too.

7 | Free Countermagic

Free Countermagic personally doesn’t make me salty, but a fair few players at my pod have gotten steamed by an ill-timed Force of Will Force of Will You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.
Counter target spell. or Fierce Guardianship Fierce Guardianship If you control a commander, you may cast this spell without paying its mana cost.
Counter target noncreature spell. . No, I’m not usually the one playing the free counterspells either, unless we’re clearly playing Bracket 4.

Anyway, it is easy to understand why MTG players can get so upset about these effects. A big part of playing around countermagic is waiting for your opponent to tap out before casting your big spell, but these cards remove that counterplay completely.

This also lets the blue player develop a bunch of resources without holding up mana to protect them. In my mind, this is just powerful, but for some, it’s too much.

In the case of Fierce Guardianship, a lot of players think that the entire Ikoria free spell Commander cycle was a mistake, and I’m inclined to agree. These cards (not you, Obscuring Haze Obscuring Haze If you control a commander, you may cast this spell without paying its mana cost.
Prevent all damage that would be dealt this turn by creatures your opponents control. ) arguably just upgrade every Commander deck they’re in, and it’s strictly wrong not to play them. That is bad game design.

6 | Card Draw Denial

This is another type of card that doesn’t really make me salty, but these cards are definitely Game Changers for a reason. The likes of Notion Thief Notion Thief Flash
If an opponent would draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead that player skips that draw and you draw a card. , Orcish Bowmasters Orcish Bowmasters Flash
When this creature enters and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, this creature deals 1 damage to any target. Then amass Orcs 1. , and Narset, Parter of Veils Narset, Parter of Veils Each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn.
−2: Look at the top four cards of your library. You may reveal a noncreature, nonland card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. can completely shut down games of Commander, turning off entire strategies.

Things get worse, though, when players pair these cards with Wheel effects. Whether it’s Windfall Windfall Each player discards their hand, then draws cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way. , Wheel of Fortune Wheel of Fortune Each player discards their hand, then draws seven cards. , or Timetwister Timetwister Each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library, then draws seven cards. (Then put Timetwister into its owner's graveyard.) , resolving one of these spells with Narset or Notion Thief in play completely strips your opponent’s hands, preventing them from playing Magic.

Cards and combos that stop players from playing MTG will be a common theme on this list, and card draw deniers can definitely do that well. We all came out to play cards, after all, not watch one person play solitaire for 20 minutes.

5 | Thassa’s Oracle

While there are fair ways to win with Thassa’s Oracle Thassa’s Oracle When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.) , many MTG players see this infamous Commander win condition as being just plain boring. As one of the format’s strongest alternate win conditions, Thassa’s Oracle shows up in Commander decks a lot, and some players are just sick of it.

The salty part of Thassa’s Oracle comes from the Demonic Consultation Demonic Consultation Choose a card name. Exile the top six cards of your library, then reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a card with the chosen name. Put that card into your hand and exile all other cards revealed this way. and Tainted Pact Tainted Pact Exile the top card of your library. You may put that card into your hand unless it has the same name as another card exiled this way. Repeat this process until you put a card into your hand or you exile two cards with the same name, whichever comes first. two-card combos this card enables. With fast mana, it’s easy to win with either card as early as turn one, making these combos both obscenely powerful and incredibly groan-inducing.

Once again, this stuff doesn’t personally make me salty, but there’s a time and place for it. If someone rolls up with this combo in their “Bracket 3” Commander deck and pulls this off, I’ll be a little disappointed, as would anyone else.

4 | Drannith Magistrate

Drannith Magistrate Drannith Magistrate Your opponents can't cast spells from anywhere other than their hands. annoys me and many other MTG players because it goes against the ethos of Commander. The whole point of playing this format is to build a deck around a cool legendary creature, and Drannith Magistrate prevents you from playing that creature entirely.

Considering that many Commander decks are rightfully designed to maximize their repeatable spell from the command zone, Drannith Magistrate can just outright shut down a lot of decks. If you happen to be a graveyard or exile-based deck, then Magistrate shuts down a lot more than just your Commander, too.

Now, honestly, any decently constructed Commander deck should be able to remove Drannith Magistrate with something like Swords to Plowshares Swords to Plowshares Exile target creature. Its controller gains life equal to its power. or Lightning Bolt Lightning Bolt Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to any target. , but that’s not really the point. This card stops the thing that makes Commander unique to play, which many players hate.

3 | Smothering Tithe

Smothering Tithe Smothering Tithe Whenever an opponent draws a card, that player may pay {2}. If the player doesn't, you create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.") is the type of MTG card that everyone hates except for the person playing it. Getting constantly asked ‘do you pay the two?’ is incredibly annoying, but the player who’s playing it is probably having a grand old time annoying the rest of the table.

Unfortunately, Smothering Tithe is also one of the best cards in Commander, generating an absurd amount of mana in an average game. The card goes particularly hard in token-doubling or Howling Mine Howling Mine At the beginning of each player's draw step, if this artifact is untapped, that player draws an additional card. decks, taking over the game with the amount of Treasures you produce. Don’t get me started with Wheel effects.

While Smothering Tithe is certainly powerful enough to warrant a bit of salt, it’s the constant pestering of your opponents that makes this card hated. I’m the guilty party here, as I play Smothering Tithe in an unhealthy number of my Bracket 3 decks as a Game Changer.

2 | Rhystic Study

Why is Rhystic Study Rhystic Study Whenever an opponent casts a spell, you may draw a card unless that player pays {1}. more annoying than Smothering Tithe? Because Study triggers way more than the other, caring about spells cast instead of cards drawn. Rhystic Study is also the older MTG card of the two, so it’s been annoying people for far longer than its successor.

If you’ve played Commander at all, there’s a fair chance you’ve been asked to ‘pay the one.’ The first time it’s kind of novel, but that quickly turns into the twentieth time, and then it stops being fun. Get Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe in play together, and you’re in for a special kind of Commander.

This gets particularly confusing when a counterspell war erupts, since each new card goes on top of the Rhystic Study trigger, which makes things hard to remember. Then, the player who owns the Study draws way too many cards and takes over the game, all while being insufferable.

Honestly, though, what really annoys me about Rhystic Study is when other people forget to trigger it. Yeah, me being the guy who needs to remind everyone of their triggers is definitely part of the problem, but I find this is a much bigger issue with Study than Tithe.

Maybe I should just let people miss their triggers, but I can’t do it in good conscience. Regardless of my ramblings, players definitely hate Rhystic Study at all Commander levels. And no, unlike Tithe, I don’t play very many copies of this card.

1 | Land Destruction / Mass Land Denial

This section is a bit messy since it covers a ton of cards, but if I didn’t do this, Stax pieces and land destruction would have just been the entire list.

Mass land denial, in all its forms, are the most hated cards in all of Commander because they stop MTG players from… well, playing MTG. By destroying a player’s lands, or preventing them from untapping, they won’t have mana to cast their spells, meaning that they won’t be able to play MTG at all.

This includes the obvious offenders, like Armageddon Armageddon Destroy all lands. and Jokulhaups Jokulhaups Destroy all artifacts, creatures, and lands. They can't be regenerated. that outright blow your lands up, but there’s far more under this umbrella. Mass land denial, as defined by the Bracket 3 restrictions, also includes cards like Blood Moon Blood Moon Nonbasic lands are Mountains. or Back to Basics Back to Basics Nonbasic lands don't untap during their controllers' untap steps. that shut entire manabases down.

That said, the absolute worst cards in this umbrella are the infamous Stax pieces like Winter Orb Winter Orb As long as this artifact is untapped, players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps. and Stasis Stasis Players skip their untap steps.
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this enchantment unless you pay {U}. . While Armageddon just resets the game to zero, Stasis can stop players from playing MTG for the entire game.

Unlike combos, which end the game immediately, these land-denial effects force players to twiddle their thumbs and do nothing, watching the player who put these cards in their deck slowly win. Whether you use Stax, land denial, or land destruction, the end result is basically the same.

Even if you are playing Bracket 4 and above, these MTG cards won’t be for every table, so play them with caution. That said, if there’s a Commander player in your pod who really deserves whatever’s coming, you could always throw all of these cards into one deck and have the most miserable game of Commander anyone’s ever played.

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