The restrictions imposed byMagic: The Gathering’s five-color system are the bedrock of not just the game’s deckbuilding experience, but its core gameplay experience as well. If you want to include a wide range of effects in your deck, you’ll need to splash out into more colors, thus sacrificing consistency. Unless you’re playing Commander, of course.
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Magic’s most popular format makes a mockery of color restriction rules, by virtue of featuring so many lands and mana rocks that tap for any color you wish that they may as well not exist. Commander Masters embraces this facet of the format by including a huge suite of multicolored cards, many of which are powerful staples that will serve you well in the wars to come.
10Jukai Naturalist
No matter which card game you’re playing, effects that reduce the resource costs of the cards you play are always worth a second look, as they typically enable broken combos or synergies at some point. Magic is no exception, and while Jukai Naturalist won’t be splitting Commander in two anytime soon, it’s an incredibly solid addition to any kind of Enchantress or Voltron deck in the format.
Acting like a Medallion for enchantments, Naturalist can net you upwards of three mana a turn in the form of discounts on your spells. He also comes with lifelink, which makes him a good backup target for Auras ifyour main Voltron creaturegets removed.
Throw in a highly affordable two-mana cost, and you have a Natural inclusion in many green/white builds.
9Xantcha, Sleeper Agent
One of the most unique, flavorful creatures Magic has seen, Xantcha breaks many fundamental rules of the game to dazzling effect. Rather than come into play under your control, Xantcha infiltrates the ranks of one of your opponents, before proceeding to wreak havoc on the battlefield.
She’s an excellent card for politically-oriented decks since she can shore up the defenses of a weaker player in exchange for favors, and the fact that she can’t attack you prevents any shocking betrayals down the line. Finally, her activated ability creates an outlet for anyone with infinite mana to take a player out of the game in one swoop, making her great as a combo piece and a disruptive threat.
8Mirari’s Wake
A real Commander classic, Mirari’s Wake provides two powerful effects in one spherical package: an Anthem effect for all of your creatures, and a mana-doubling effect for all of your lands. The former is great in token decks, of which there’s no shortage in green/white, but the latter is what really puts this card on the map.
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There are a few different cards that can double your mana in the modern game, but they tend to be fragile creatures. This gives Mirari’s Wake, an enchantment, an edge.
Jumping from five mana on turn five to 12 mana on turn six is huge, and can have you dropping Eldrazi while everyone else is pottering about with Colossal Dreadmaws and the like.
7Culling Ritual
Mana rocks, such as Sol Ring and Mind Stone, are so ubiquitous in Commander that many are considered auto-includes regardless of deck type. A lot of these cards also cost two or fewer mana, making them prime targets for a tactically-timed Culling Ritual.
As a board wipe, Culling Ritual can’t deal with creatures as well as its peers (unless they’re tokens), but the extra utility that the ‘nonland’ clause brings more than makes up for it.
Not only can it wipe out aggressive early boards andmost mana rocks, but it also gives you color-filtered mana for doing so, effectively making the card free, or a ramp piece, in many situations. It may not look too impressive at first glance, but Culling Ritual is incredibly well-suited to Commander.
6Judith, The Scourge Diva
This Standard all-star found a new stage to shine on in the Commander format, and the cheers haven’t ceased since. Judith’s two abilities, a power-based Anthem for all of your creatures and a ping effect when your creatures die, work just as well in Commander thanks to the prevalence of aggressive token decks and Aristocrats strategies in the format.
She’s a solid addition to many builds, with her ping ability able to control the board or apply pressure as needed, and she can even enable instant-win combos with the right sacrifice loop setup. With Judith on your side, your Commander games will end just as her shows do: with you standing alone on a table brilliant with blood.
5Sliver Gravemother
Magic’s Sliver type has hadno shortage of supportover the years, the majority of which has been reprinted in Commander Masters, but Sliver Gravemother is undoubtedly one of the highlights. Making great use of the encore mechanic, she lets you create a one-turn copy of a Sliver in your graveyard for each opponent you have, and grant them haste to boot.
When you consider how many Slivers with Anthem effects there are, this becomes more than a little scary, and Gravemother can even use encore itself once she hits the graveyard. This makes her best suited for a role in your command zone since she can return there from exile after an encore, but she plays great in the 99 as well.
4Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow
Yuriko is consistently one of the most popular, highly-rated commanders in the format, and you don’t need to look any further than her first line of text to see why. Commander ninjutsu allows you to cheat her out for two mana by swapping out an unblocked attacker in play, thus dodging commander tax and enabling her obscene triggered ability in one fell swoop.
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When she’s not committing tax evasion, Yuriko plays fantastically alongside Ninjas withevasion, drawing you a card and burning the table for damage equal to its cost each time one of her stealthy subordinates connects with an opponent’s fragile face. Since she can remain cheap throughout a game, you’re able to expect to see this powerful ability trigger on the majority of your turns.
3Commodore Guff
Truly the planeswalker’s planeswalker, Commodore Guff is a slam-dunk forthe many Superfriends decksthat exist in the Commander format. His passive ability lets you boost a fellow ‘walker’s loyalty once per turn, and both of his own loyalty abilities support your planeswalkers in other ways.
His +1 creates color-shifted Llanowar Elves for planeswalkers, 1/1 Wizards that produce red mana for all your Chandra-or-Jaya casting needs, while his -3 hits every opponent for damage and draws you a full hand of cards, provided you have a sizable planeswalker posse in play, of course. Throw in a relatively cheap casting cost and high starting loyalty, and Guff is poised to become an archetype staple until the end of time.
2Decimate
Subtlety has never been one of the calling cards of the Gruul Clans, Ravnica’s red/green aligned guild, but Decimate is an exception to this rule. It takes out one artifact, one creature, one enchantment, and one land, which lets you not only address any given problem in a game but also split up your destruction across players to avoid drawing too much ire on yourself.
Taking out one problem permanent per player is the fairest approach, and will often leave you in a neutral position favor-wise once you’ve done it, but sometimes you’re able to use Decimate to completely kneecap a specific target as well if they’ve gotten a little too far ahead in the game. This flexibility is not very Gruul, but it is very powerful.
1Hanna, Ship’s Navigator
One of the legendary heroes from Magic’s Weatherlight arc, Hanna is probably the most playable member of her cardboard crew. Coming down for just three mana, she lets you pay that much again to salvage an artifact or enchantment from your graveyard, opening up the doors to a range of strategies, from Control to Combo.
Whether you’re bringing back a Mindslaver to lock a troublesome opponent out of the game, or reclaimingone of your key Aurasin a Voltron build, it’s almost harder to find a deck where Hanna doesn’t work well than one where she does.
