Video Gamer is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Prices subject to change. Learn more
Commander is a format that has captured the hearts of the Magic: the Gathering player base since it’s inception. What started as a grassroots format has turned into the game’s most popular way to play. There’s many different kinds of decks that you could build, and a near infinite number of ways to build them. Some decks rise up above many others both in power and popularity, so picking the best one can be hard. So we’re going to talk about our picks for the top Commander Decks in MTG.
What are the best Commander Decks in MTG?
Since deciding what the “best” deck is truly a subjective matter, our criteria is going to be based on our knowledge of the format and our personal experiences with each of these decks whether we’ve played with them or against them. If you’re just getting into the format though, then check out our guide on the best precon Commander decks so you can avoid the hassle of deck-building. But with that aside, let’s jump into our list.
11. Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver
Using the best Black Creatures to centralise my decks around always yields dark results. The Wilhelt, The Rotcleaver Commander Deck just so happens to be one of these. Zombie-type cards also happen to be a personal favourite, mostly due to the near-endless barrage of Zombie tokens produced by Wilhelt.
Alongside that, its secondary ability to draw cards means that the Commander runs the show pretty competently.
If you’re building a Wilhelt, The Rotcleaver Commander Deck, you’re going to want to pad your horder with Hordewing Skaab, the Midnight Reaper, and a Cleaver Skaab. After that, Wilhelt will do the rest.
10. Brago, King Eternal
Kicking us off, is Brago, King Eternal. This is a deck that is all about abusing blink effects and enters and leaves the battlefield triggered abilities. While we have to connect with an attack from Brago, it has Flying right off the bat. Plus we play a few ways to make sure he isn’t targeted by removal. We also play ways for us to double up on our enters the battlefield triggers. This puts us in a powerful position once we get set up.
Some all-star cards of this deck include Lavinia of the Tenth, Agent of Treachery, Momentary Blink, and Panharmonicon, among many others. On top of that with cards like Stonehorn Dignitary, we can often times stop our opponents from playing all together. We round out our deck with various control spells such as Venser, Shaper Savant, Mana Drain, and Counterspell to stop our opponents from interacting with our cards.
9. Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Next up, we have Niv-Mizzet, Parun. This deck is all about drawing a ton of cards and leveraging our Commander’s ability to keep control of the creatures on the board, or chipping away at our opponent’s life total if everything is manageable.
Our deck wants some strong control elements, such as Cyclonic Rift, Mana Drain and Reality Shift as ways to keep our opponent’s spells under control. We also will want as many “wheel” effects as we can fit into our deck. These include Echo of Eons, Winds of Change, and Windfall to name a few. At the end of the day, we’ll have so many cards and options in our hand, that we’ll bury our opponents in a huge amount of advantage to win the game.
8. Kaalia of the Vast
Number eight on our list is Kaalia of the Vast. Kaalia is all about dragons, demons and angels, and cheating them into play for some massive damage. Kaalia has a very special place in my heart as it was my first commander deck. Though this deck does quickly make you a target for everyone, so you’ll have to be ready for that.
Some key targets for Kaalia’s ability includes hits like Master of Cruelties, which can set an opponent’s life total to one if it isn’t blocked, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight which gives you double damage, and Avacyn, Angel of Hope, making your permanents indestructible. Just from these three creatures alone, it’s easy to see how you’d become public enemy number one. But we have means to keep ourselves alive, like Teferi’s Protection, Ghostly Prison and Ruinous Ultimatum. If you like going way over the top of your opponents, then Kaalia may be the deck for you.
7. Isshin, Two Heavens as One
Number seven on our list of best MTG Commander decks is Ishin, Two Heavens as One. Isshin is all about attack triggers, and doubling up on them for some insane value. You build up quietly, and end up with a very powerful position very quickly with the right plays.
Some incredible attacking triggers we’ll want to abuse include Aurelia, the Warleader, Goldspan Dragon, and Grave Titan (and the other Titans for that matter). One way to keep ourselves alive while building this insurmountable board state is through the Goad mechanic. This makes our opponents creatures attack on their turns if able, and they can’t attack us. Since Wizards of the Coast have printed more Goad cards, we can have a relative amount of consistency with finding them. I built Isshin recently, and it’s one of my favorite decks to play, because the doubling up of attack triggers can create some incredible wins.
6. Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge
Esika, God of the Tree is a very powerful five color ramp deck. You’re never actually casting Esika on her creature side if you can avoid it. Instead, you aim to get all five colors of mana and cast her flipped side, The Prismatic Bridge. This will cheat a creature of Planeswalker into play at the beginning of your turn.
Ideally, most of your ramp cards are instants and sorceries, such as Growth Spiral and Explore, so that you have better odds of hitting a haymaker on your Prismatic Bridge triggers. You also play some taxing spells like Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study. Your pay off cards can be things like the God cards, such as Keranos, God of Storms, or busted Planeswalkers like Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh. Round things out with a Doubling Season and you’re in for a great time.
5. Muldrotha, the Gravetide
Number five on our best MTG Decks list is Muldrotha, the Gravetide. Muldrotha is a graveyard focused deck that lets you play a land or permanent spell of each type from your graveyard every turn. You effectively have an extended hand with Muldrotha in play. You will run into graveyard hate on occasion, but the deck has ways to deal with that and rebuild.
While we interact with the graveyard, we don’t have to flood our graveyard with cards. We could play cards that end up in the graveyard due to their effects so we can abuse them later, like Spore Frog and Seal of Primordium. That’s not to say that we can’t have a reanimation package in there, or an alternate win condition like Hermit Druid and Thassa’s Oracle. This deck has a lot of toolbox and good stuff cards. It wants to grind out your opponents by having access to more cards so give this deck a shot if that’s your style.
4. Urza, Lord High Artificer
Next up is Urza, Lord High Artificer. Historically, blue based artifact decks have been some of the most powerful decks in the game, and Urza is the perfect Commander to helm a deck like this. Let’s face it, artifacts are insanely powerful. If you have a deck full of them along side some of the color’s most powerful control spells, that’s a winning recipe.
This deck has a lot of different play avenues. It has access to various Isochron Scepter combos, like Counterspell or Dramatic Reversal. The deck also has access to artifact mana and some big hitters like Blightsteel Colossus. It also has an instant win with the combination of Foundry Inspector / Helm of Awakening / Etherium Sculptor, Sensei’s Divining Top, and Mystic Forge / The Reality Chip. This allows you to draw your entire deck for free. From there you can win with Thassa’s Oracle, Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Not to mention that Urza’s abilities can generate you a ton of mana and free spells, which makes this deck a true combo threat.
3. Edgar Markov
Kicking off our top 3 of the best MTG commander decks, we have one of the most powerful aggressive decks out there, Edgar Markov. His Eminence ability is so powerful for this deck, that it made Vampires one of the top tribal decks in the game.
There isn’t much to say about this deck other than play vampires and attack. We will be play cards like Coat of Arms and Door of Destinies to beef up our Vampire creatures, and good removal spells in our colors to clear the way. We’ll have a high density of Vampires so we should always have a way to rebuild a board if things go wrong. It might seem a little understated here, but this deck gets off the ground insanely quickly and doesn’t let up off the gas until the job is done.
2. The Ur-Dragon
Speaking of powerful creature types that also have the Eminence ability, our number two deck is The Ur-Dragon. Who doesn’t love having a field of massive, flying, fire breathing dragons? Once again, The Ur-Dragon’s Eminence ability is insane for this kind of deck, making our dragons cheaper to cast.
Since our dragons are pretty expensive to play, even with the Ur-Dragon’s ability, we will want to play some ramp spells to help fix our color production. We’ll also want to play cards like Concordant Crossroads and Temur Ascendancy to give our creatures haste right away. One absolutely mandatory artifact that we need in this deck will be Fist of Suns. This allows us to pay WUBRG instead of the actual casting cost for our spells, which can help out a ton. We round out everything with some big scary dragons like Old Gnawbone, Ancient Copper Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant and any other big dragons we want.
1. Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice
We’ve reached the end and our number one best MTG commander deck belongs to Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice. Her text box is very simple, but her ability is very powerful. Proliferating at the end of your turn has so many ways it can be utilized, but the main way that we’ll be abusing this ability is through Planeswalkers, and poison counters.
Now you may be thinking that you need to play every single Planeswalker under the sun in these colors. Well there’s over 50 Planeswalkers in these colors so we’re not going to do that. We will play a fair amount, but not that many. Some critical ones include Jace, Architect of Thought, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, and most importantly, Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting. We’re going to combo these Planeswalkers with Doubling Season and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider. This will double the number of loyalty counters a Planeswalker will enter the battlefield with, often times allowing them to use their ultimate ability right away.
With Atraxa in play, if we cast Vraska, Betrayal’s Sting with either Doubling Season or Vorinclex in play, we will win the game. We’ll ultimate Vraska, putting ideally nine poison counters on our opponents. Vorinclex would double up those counters which could kill our opponent outright, and if we have Doubling Season, we end our turn and proliferate the tenth poison counter to win the game.
We can round the deck out with a bunch of creatures with Toxic and Infect to slowly increase the poison counters, or we can play a more control style that relies more on our Planeswalkers to get that combo finish. Either way, the power behind this deck is incredible, and more than likely, you’ll only be able to play this deck once with your group before they get too upset with how strong you are.
And that is our list folks! If you enjoyed our list and are looking for some other Commander ideas, definitely check out our best MTG cards for Commander guide, as well as our best Wilds of Eldraine Commanders guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the most powerful Commander in MTG?
Tymna the Weaver is widely considered one of the most powerful Commanders in MTG.
