Summary
Magic: The Gathering’sCommander format has some boogeymen. Commanders that are so powerful, so combo-enabling, or just so annoying to play against that the only thing you can do when they enter play is get rid of them as soon as possible.
If your friend rocks up with their new deck, and it’s one of these commanders, ensure to mulligan for removal and interaction, or else you’re risking having a very bad time.
10Slicer, Hired Muscle
Yes, The Transformer
From the Transformers Universes Beyond set that launched alongside The Brothers' War, Slicer is the only card from the mini-set to now see regular play in Commander. In particular, it’s a powerful cEDH commander that can wipe out boards in a matter of turns if you aren’t careful.
Once Slicer starts being passed around the board, it’s hard to get rid of. It can’t be sacrificed, and any attempt to destroy it as a creature can be scuppered by converting into a Vehicle instead of a Creature. From there, it snowballs out of control until your opponents are hitting each other with an ever-growing creature that can’t even attack you.
9Krenko, Mob Boss
Goblin Up Those Removal Spells
Another mono-red commander, but instead of facing down one ever-growing Transformer, Krenko can build upa huge board of Goblinsready to wreak havoc. Out of all three Krenkos, Mob Boss is the scariest thanks to his ability being a simple tap.
Played fairly, you’re looking at an exponential growth of Gobbos each turn. Played how every Commander player ever does, with cards like Ashnod’s Altar, Umbral Mantal, and Thornbite Staff, and you’ve got an infinite hoard ready to end the game in only a few turns.
8Veyran, Voice Of Duality
Twelve Hours Later
Veyran, Voice of Duality is one of the go-to storm commanders, wanting you to cast as many instants and sorceries as possible and build up obscene amounts of value from the doubled magecraft triggers you get as a result.
The problem with Veyran is that it’s the sort of commander that sits and does very little for most of the game, until you suddenly hit an obnoxiously long turn and outright win. There’s little chance for people to respond to it, and so your table is sad watching you play solitaire for half an hour before shuffling up and starting a new game.
It’s almost impossible to build Veyran in a way that doesn’t do this, so spare yourself the trouble and just kill it as soon as it hits the battlefield.
7Tergrid, God Of Fright
Cool, Now Nobody Can Play
Tergrid’s ability sounds really cool: whenever an opponent sacrifices or discards a permanent, you get to put it onto the battlefield under your control. But she’s also one of the most miserable commanders you can ever find yourself stuck playing against.
People generally don’t like other people stealing their cards to play with, and taking from all players at once can cause issues if you’re not careful about which card came from which deck. More importantly, endlessly discarding cards means nobody else has the cards in hand to play, turning it into a one-sided slog as Tergrid finds the righty way to win.
6Jodah, The Unifier
Big Piles Of Legends
Five-colour piles of cards can be easily to build and frighteningly powerful, but Jodah in particularly can be a big threat on the board if you let it last too long.
Jodah decks like to run as many legendary cards as they can, before farting them all out into play with Jodah’s ability. Every scary legendary card can pop up in Jodah, be it Urza’s Ruinous Blast, Chulane, Teller of Tales; Ratadrabik of Urborg, or the go-to WUBRG toolbox, Kenrith, the Returned King.
Jodah can spiral out of control very fast, and the more it does, the bigger their other legendary creatures get. An unsurmountable board state is just a few turns away whenever Jodah’s out, and it can rebuild the board just as easily after a board wipe.
5Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow
Pay Your Taxes
When even the card’s designer admits that a commander is a mistake, you know you’ve got a kill-on-sight commander. Yurko, the Tiger’s Shadow was originally meant to just be a chill commander for the ninjutsu mechanic, but it quickly became apparent just how terrifying she is.
A big part of the problem is that her ninjutsu abilities circumvents commander tax with ease. Once she’s out, she provides huge amounts of value via card draw, and with the right strategy can wipe out a whole table just by flipping cards off the top of the deck.
4Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice
One Aura Turns Into A Billion
If anybody ever says their Light-Paws deck “isn’t like other Light-Paws decks”, they’re lying. It’s simply not possible to build thismono-white Aura commanderwithout it being a fast, hard-hitting commander that can be a royal pain to remove from play if left unchecked.
A big part of the issue with Light-Paws is that, while she’s covering herself in as many Auras as she can find, she’s also searching through your deck for ways to deal with your opponents. Reprobation, Ossification, Ossification, Planar Disruption, and more can all just be cast for free when other players would need to spend valuable resources to get rid of threats.
Light-Paws can easily take players out on turn three, or maybe even turn two. Don’t let her build up the Auras, but be quick – she quickly gains indestructible and hexproof to make your job harder.
3Najeela, The Blade Blossom
Infinite Combat Shouldn’t Be This Easy
You don’t need to spend long looking at Najeela to realise why getting rid of her is so important. Like Jodah, Najeela gives you access to all five colours, but she also has a scary way of easily getting infinite combat phases.
So on top of the usual WUBRG threats like Thassa’s Oracle and Drannith Magistrate, you also have to worry about her activated ability which can combo with a ham sandwich.
Got a Sword of Feast and Famine and the land to pay five colours? That’s infinite combat. Chromatic Orrery can turn your Savage Ventmaw, Druid’s Repository, or Grand Warlord Radha into combo-enabling nightmares as well.
With a Brutal Hoardchief or any other sort of evasion, it’s simple to get Najeela through unblocked for commander damage wins as well. And the big problem is that Najeela can pick the softest target to attack, while throwing the bigger beaters at the other opponents to take out the board all at once.
2Urza, Lord High Artificer
Mono Decks Can Be Terrifying
People who say mono-colour Commander decks are weak hasn’t encountered Urza, Lord High Artificer yet. Everyone else shudders the second someone whips out their Urza deck.
Urza does everything a mono-blue commander would need. It’s highly synergistic with artifacts, and can even turn them into blue mana for a counterspell or, more likely whatever devious combo strategy it’s brewing up. You can even funnel that mana into the activated ability to play a card for free, no matter what it is, and that’s where kill-on-sightability of Urza comes into focus.
Acommon combowith Urza is using Isochron Scepter imprinted with Dramatic Reversal to untap all your permanents. As long as you can produce three mana, you can do it as many times as you like to get infinite mana and play every nonland card in your deck for free in a single turn. There aren’t many commanders who can do that as easily as Urza.
1Winota, Joiner Of Forces
Oh, The Humanity
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths introduced a lot of broken mechanics, like companion and mutate. It gave us Lurrus of the Dream-den and Drannith Magistrate. It also gave us Winota, Joiner of Forces.
Winota’s ability lets you take a Human from the top six cards of your library and put it into play tapped, attacking, and indestructible, all for the low, low cost of attacking with a non-Human creature. Humans are already a powerful creature type in Magic, and Winota gives you a way to cheat dozens of them into play at the same time.
Note that Winota doesn’t say ‘whenever one or more non-Human creatures attack’. It says “whenever a non-Human creature attacks”. If you attack with seven Goblins, which is easily done, you’ll be looking through the top six cards of your deck seven times and picking the best Humans from among them.
Drannith Magistrate, Mother of Runes, Dauntless Dismantler, Esper Sentinel; Thalia, Guardian of Thraben; and Grand Abolisher can all come out in just one turn and tie your opponents up for the rest of the game. Do not let Winota go to combat, or you will probably lose.
