Summary
Picking a commander for your Bracket 2Magic: The GatheringCommander deck doesn’t have to be a hard pick. All you really have to do is avoid anything with global land destruction, no repeatable extra turns, don’t intentionally get any 2-card infinite combos, and you can’t have any game changer cards.
All that means you might have to get a little creative with your commanders. While you can use basically any card as your commander still (except for a few choice powerhouses), some are going to be a bit more fun than others. If you want some neat choices, you can’t go wrong with these options.
10Kasla, The Broken Halo
Everyone Helps Out
A bit of a neat twist on themes that feel very kindred-like, Kasla, the Broken Halo is a very neat card that instead of following a creature type instead rewards you for playing a specific mechanic, convoke. Kasla makes it so anytime you cast another spell that has convoke, you get to scry two and then draw a card.
There are around 60 cards in Magic in blue, red, and white that have convoke, giving you a healthy selection of cards to pick from to fill out your deck. If you need a bit more of a push to maximize your convoke triggers, you can play the Invasion of Segovia, which, when it flips to Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia (a very impressive name for a 3/3 creature), it gives all your noncreature spells convoke, letting you bust out some combat tricks when you’re normally tapped out.
9Rosheen Meanderer
Rosheen Gon' Give It To Ya
A commander with a built-in restriction to your deck building, Rosheen Meanderer has just one ability, though it is a very strong mana one. you may tap Rosheen to add four generic mana to your mana pool, though you can only use it on spells and abilities with X in the cost.
An X-themed deck lends itself to a lot of neat card choices, since restrictions can be the basis of innovation. Sure, you’re able to go in a Hydra kindred direction, which is probably the most straightforward way to go, but you can also go for a big burn spell deck or a ramp deck. Crackle With Power is a particularly fun card you can ramp up into, with it dealing five times the amount you can pay into the triple X cost of the spell to up to X targets, making for a flashy finishing spell.
8Volo, Guide To Monsters
Open A Good Book
If you’re looking for something a little more unique from your Commander, you might want to check out Volo, Guide to Monsters. This blue and green legendary creature might not be as crucial to your game plan as other commanders, but it makes everything twice as good while out.
Casting a creature spell with Volo out gives you a token copy of that card so long as you don’t already have a creature that shares a creature type of that card out or in the graveyard. All that really means is you have to verify you don’t have any duplicate copies of creatures in your deck, or at least you don’t have very many. Since green is here you may dodge a lot of the more powerful blue game changers by adding a few cards that let you draw cards when you have creatures come into play.
7Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief
Double The Spells
Another Simic commander to try, Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief is a truly unique commander that can cause a lot of problems for your opponents. Targeting one of your creatures with a spell lets you make a copy of that spell that targets Ivy while she’s on the battlefield.
The interesting thing comes when you start targeting your other creatures with auras and even mutate creatures. Mutating a creature onto Ivy turns it into a token copy, giving you all sorts of potential for shenanigans, especially if you play a few copy spells and choose to make Ivy nonlengendary by placing the mutate creature on top of Ivy.
6Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant
Blow Out Your Candles
There is a lot going on with Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant, making for a very commander-centric deck. Gaining life with Bilbo lets you gain one extra point of life, which is vital for using his main ability.
For five mana you can exile Bilbo to search your library for any number of creature cards and put them all on the battlefield. Sure, you need to have 111 or more life to activate it, but it should be relatively easy to pull off in Commander even with avoiding two-card combos. Then just combo off with all the creatures in your deck, just make sure that they have strong enter the battlefield triggers or other effects to take out all your opponents in a single turn.
5Ayula, Queen Among Bears
Kindred Queen
Kindred decks already start off fairly casualso keeping a Bear deck relatively low-powered but still efficient is pretty easy to pull off, all while being an absolute blast to play. While going the Kindred route is easy, pulling a Voltron approach might be even better.
Since Ayula loads up on +1/+1 counters, you can power her up past what your opponents can handle, all while slapping on a few Mirran swords and hexproof auras to verify your opponent’s can’t interact with her at all. A few swings of Commander Damage later and you’ll have yourself a victory in hand.
4Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist
I Forsee Your Victory
There’s a lot going on with Edgin, Larcenous Lutenist, between all the foretell triggers going off and goading going around, you get to control the battlefield while forcing combat on your opponents. All your nonland cards in your hand gain foretell with Edgin out, letting you pay two generic mana to exile that card from your hand and letting you cast it later for two generic mana less.
Casting a second spell in a turn lets you goad one of your opponent’s creatures, forcing them to attack someone other than you. So long as you keep foretelling cards and keeping your hand full so you’re able to get that goad trigger, you’ll have yourself a hectic battlefield on your hands.
3Nikya Of The Old Ways
Straight Forward Smackdown
Sometimes you don’t want to bother with all the hustle and bustle of complicated blue spells or worrying about what piece of the puzzle you’re missing to win. Nikya of the Old Ways helps you stay on track to victory by just letting you play big creatures to smash faces in.
With Nikya, you can’t play noncreature spells, but in exchange, your lands tap for double the amount of mana. You’ll still want to play some noncreature spells, since Nikya will likely not be in play all the time, but it does let you go wild with big X spells since you’re generating a ton of mana.
2Arcades, The Strategist
The Best Offense Is A Good Defense
Defender decks have long held a warm place in plenty of Magic fan’s hearts, and Arcades, the Strategist is one of the more popular ones to run since he does so much. You get to draw a card when a creature with defender comes into play, which is already a goodreplacement for plenty of blue game changer cards.
Then, you can have those defender creatures start swinging in, dealing damage based on their toughness instead of power, which is good since they generally don’t have much power in the first place.
1Esika, God Of The Tree // The Prismatic Bridge
Get Those Free Spells
The commander you’re playing is The Prismatic Bridge and not Esika, and that’s for a very good reason,the legendary enchantmentis so powerful that it can catapult you ahead of your opponents after a turn or two.
The Prismatic Bridge has you reveal cards from the top of your deck until you find a creature or planeswalker, putting that card onto the battlefield under your control. This gives you a free card every turn, and though you’re able to’t really control what you get, if you load your deck with powerful spells you’re bound to hit gold more often than not.
