Lorwyn Eclipsed isn’t out quite yet, but Elemental fans already know that there’s a lot to look forward to. In addition to getting some powerful spoilers for the creature type, there’s an entire five-color Elemental precon on its way! Thanks to this, excitement for Elementals in Commander is at an all-time high. Fortunately, the creature type hosts some powerful abilities that are perfect for building around and abusing.
Whether you’re trying to reanimate all of your lands infinitely or cast gigantic Eldrazi Titans for free, Elemental MTG creatures have the answers that you’re looking for.
Honorable Mention | Evoke Elementals
In a constructed setting, the five Evoke Elementals are the best Elemental cards in all of Magic, bar none. All five of these elementals are capable of turning a game on its head thanks to their free Evoke effects, removing a card from the game for no mana.
While these are amazing in constructed, they’re a lot worse in Commander. All five Evoke elementals only affect one player, meaning that you’re trading two of your cards for one dangerous threat from your opponent most of the time. The other two players aren’t impacted by this at all, putting them each two cards ahead of you for using one of these.
That said, specific Evoke Elementals like Solitude and Fury can still be good in an emergency. They can do good work when synergizing with other enters effects found on this list, and their downsides are mitigated when you can Blink them at instant speed. These cards can be surprisingly effective in Commander, but not nearly as much as their constructed pedigree suggests.
10 | Omnath, Locus of the Roil
Omnath, Locus of the Roil is an incredible tool in Elemental Typal decks, but it can uniquely do work outside of them. In Landfall decks, as soon as you’ve passed eight lands, Omnath turns into a ridiculous card advantage generator. Commander games tend to go long, so passing eight lands before the game ends should be trivial, especially in a ramp deck.
In Elemental Typal, Omnath can do a little bit more. It acts as a removal spell on entry, as long as you have a board state to capitalize on, and can strengthen your board considerably. Don’t be fooled, though. This card’s main strength is the land-based card advantage it provides, making it a great addition to any deck that can abuse it.
9 | Roil Elemental
Roil Elemental is a nasty creature that will put a target on your back as soon as it enters play. This creature can quickly snatch up your opponent’s Commanders in a Landfall-focused strategy, but even in a big blue deck that just wants to cheat things into play, Roil Elemental can seriously impede your opponent’s progress. In late-game scenarios, this Elemental can even become a win condition.
The big flaw to this plan, however, is that all of your work with Roil Elemental is undone with one removal spell. Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile make this creature look like a fool, putting your six mana down the drain in exchange for a one-mana removal spell. If it weren’t for this flaw, Roil Elemental would be ranked much higher.
8 | Maelstrom Wanderer
Most players who see a Maelstrom Wanderer enter play on an opponent’s board die quickly after. This creature offers three spells in one and grants all of your creatures Haste. This allows any creatures that Maelstrom Wanderer Cascades into play the ability to attack right off the bat.
Decks that include Maelstrom Wanderer commonly have massive creatures for it to Cascade into, swinging the game on impact. This card is great in any deck that has the mana to cast it consistently, but it excels further in a deck playing a bunch of gigantic haymakers.
7 | Forgotten Ancient
Forgotten Ancient feels a bit different than the rest of the cards on this list. While a majority of Elementals are either massive haymakers, Typal powerhouses, or are breaking Landfall decks in some way, Forgotten Ancient wants to create big creatures by taking advantage of the four-player nature of Commander.
Between four turns per round, a lot of spells are being cast. This will pump up Forgotten Ancient, who can then move your counters to a creature that can use them better. Forgotten Ancient works best in decks that either cast a ton of spells, have +1/+1 counter strategies, or otherwise benefit from having massive stats. The card is a lot more generic than many of the Elementals on our list and has a higher chance of being seen at any Commander table.
6 | Omnath, Locus of Creation
Omnath, Locus of Creation is one of the most effective Landfall Commanders in the game. This card grants a ridiculous amount of value when you start dropping multiple lands per turn. Combined with Flicker effects, Omnath can string together some gigantic turns.
The Flicker will refresh Omnath’s triggered Landfall abilities, allowing it to continually build mana with its second ability. Use this mana to Flicker Omnath repetitively and deploy more extra land drops to accrue some ridiculous value. Even if you end up stalling on lands, Omnath replaces itself on entry, making sure that you’re never a card behind for using this Elemental.
Omnath really only goes in land decks, and is strictly worse in that deck type than some cards higher on this list. Despite its raw power, Omnath, Locus of Creation ranks rather low because of this.
5 | Lumra, Bellow of the Woods
In terms of raw power, Lumra, Bellow of the Woods would rank at the top of this list. This card, in the right shell, is capable of blisteringly fast infinite combos alongside Scapeshift and land untappers like Amulet of Vigor. It’s a rather popular cEDH Commander as a result.
Outside of cEDH, Lumra really only fits into Landfall decks that want to recur lands from the graveyard. The effect this Bear grants is otherwise not very useful. This prevents Lumra from ranking higher on our list, but if you see a Lumra in the Command Zone, you may not even have a chance to make that player the archenemy before you’re dead to a combo that you can’t even make sense of.
4 | Yarok, the Desecrated
While Yarok, the Desecrated does synergize with the long list of ETB elementals, Yarok, the Desecrated is just a Panharmonicon on a stick. As you may imagine, this is a particularly powerful effect to have in the Command Zone, essentially doubling the value of every card you cast.
In addition to making an excellent Commander, any other Commander deck that uses a lot of ETB effects will also benefit from adding Yarok to its arsenal. The card appears in over 20,000 decks according to EDHREC, in every archetype under the sun. Due to Yarok’s generic value that can be used across different archetypes, it ranks as one of the best Elementals in Commander.
3 | Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Creating value with Muldrotha, the Gravetide is extremely easy. Even outside of graveyard strategies, cards get removed from play all the time in Commander. Recasting threats, Fetch Lands, and sacrificial cantrips like Mishra’s Bauble for repeatable value is something that almost any Commander deck can employ. Unless your gimmick is focusing on instants and sorceries, any Commander deck will be happy to have Muldrotha, the Gravetide as part of it.
The general weaknesses of this card are how slow it is, but casual Commander is inherently a slow format, allowing you to deploy the big guy consistently.
2 | Animar, Soul of Elements
If you find someone wielding Animar, Soul of the Elements across your Commander table, you should be a little worried. This card is infamous for infinite combo shenanigans that eventually lead to the player powering out a bunch of free, gigantic Eldrazi Titans to close out the game. Once you have a few counters on Animar, Soul of Elements, getting into infinite loops abusing cards like Cloudstone Curio and Ancestral Statue is a trivial way to end the game.
While this is the most effective way to use Animar, Soul of Elements, the Commander can also play well as an alternative Voltron deck, as a +1/+1 counter deck, or, most infamously, as a Morph Commander. In all cases, Animar is an extremely powerful Commander at a casual table, earning it a high spot on this list.
1 | Nyxbloom Ancient
Commander is commonly about pulling off the most ridiculous shenanigans you possibly can. A lot of said shenanigans require a ton of mana, and Nyxbloom Ancient is one of the most effective mana generators in the game. Instantly tripling your mana, if you cast this card fair and square, Nyxbloom Ancient will grant you 21 mana to use if you manage to untap with it. More often than not, however, you’ll be able to resolve this creature and get to work immediately with any extra mana you have.
This card is truly a Commander staple, seeing play in over 100,000 Commander decks according to EDHREC. Nyxbloom Ancient is one of the more expensive cards on our list, but $20 is well worth what this card is capable of pulling off.