The Best Elf Commanders In MTG

Summary

• Elves in Magic: The Gathering boost each other, providing power and bonuses for medium power decks.
• Different Elf commanders like Nath, Freyalise, and Ezuri offer unique synergies and playstyles.
• Commanders like Marwyn, Lathril, and Voja give players various win conditions and mana generation options.

There’s not a single more iconic creature type in Magic: The Gathering than the Elves that you can find on almost every plane. These creatures are incredibly synergistic, often giving each other huge boosts to power or working off of each other to get even more bonuses.

Between massive mana sinks, giant Wolves, and Elven royalty, there are tons of great picks to lead your next Commander deck. If you’re struggling to pick just one new commander, we broke down the best this kindred type has to offer to help you find your perfect new commander.

10

Nath Of The Gilt-Leaf

An Empty Hand But A Full Board

If there’s one tried and true Elf commander in Magic, that title would go to Nath of the Gilt-Leaf. This Lorwyn baddie lets you target down one opponent each turn, forcing them to discard a card at random. When any of your opponents discard a card, you get to make a 1/1 Elf Warrior token, encouraging you to keep ripping your opponent’s hands apart to keep your board full of tokens.

Nath gives you a different approach to your traditional kindred deck, with a bit of early to mid-game disruption to your opponent’s game plan. Discard effects won’t win you the game, generally, but if you can keep your opponents from keeping anything worthwhile in hand, it makes your creature strategy easier.

9

Elrond, Master Of Healing

See The Future Victory

Scrying is the goal with Elrond, Master of Healing and crafting the perfect hand to beat your opponents is easier than ever thanks to his abilities. Scrying with this Elrond out lets you put a +1/+1 on a number of creatures equal to the number of cards you looked at. So if you saw four cards, you get to pick four creatures. A pretty good exchange while you’re smoothing out your next draw.

Elrond can also extend his healing magic to your creatures, giving them an extra level of protection. If one of your creatures with a +1/+1 counter were to be targeted by something your opponent wanted to do, you would get to draw a card. There are plenty of green cards that have similar effects, letting you stack these triggers and deter your opponent from trying anything tricky from their side of the table.

8

Freyalise, Llanowar’s Fury

Planeswalker Power

There are few planeswalkers who can be your commander, and with Freyalise, Llanowar’s Fury, you can have an Elf engine right in the Command Zone. While a bit expensive at five mana, that isn’t hard to hit at all as early as turn three with just a few mana ramping creatures.

Freyalise has three loyalty abilities, each one giving you some reliable utility throughout the game. Freyalise can:

• +2: Make a 1/1 Elf Druid token that can tap for one green mana
• -2: Destroy an artifact or enchantment
• -6: Draw a card for each green creature you control.

That -6 ability will be partially good as green tends to suffer a bit from reliable sources to draw cards.

7

Galadriel, Elven-Queen

As Beautiful And Terrible As The Dawn

Voting is the name of the game with Galadriel, Elven-Queen. This blue and green iteration of the Noldor Elf is focused on voting, making every choose between dominion or guidance. If dominion wins, you are then tempted by the Ring and your Ring-bearer gets a +1/+1 counter.

Should guidance gets more votes, or if there’s a tie, you draw a card. It’s a win-win situation no matter what, making sure you are getting incremental value turn after turn. There are quite a few voting-based Elves in from the Tales of Middle-earth set, giving you multiple votes and triggers in a turn.

6

Ezuri, Renegade Leader

The Elf, The Myth, The Legend

There is a lot of mystique about what really happened with Ezuri, Renegade Leader, but whether he was a hero or traitor of the forces of Mirrodin is irrelevant, since he has such a powerful card. Ezuri has two main abilities. The first lets you regenerate any other Elf, while the second is an overrun you can repeatedly trigger.

Any Ezuri deck will do well in ramping up as much mana as you can possibly get, both to make sure you have enough to regenerate all your Elves at will, and to be able to use Ezuri’s second ability multiple times in a turn.

Ezuri is one of the most straightforward lists to run, and only gets better with the more kindred-based spells you include.

5

Tyvar The Bellicose

Back Up Those Boasts

Similar to Ezuri, Tyvar the Bellicose is a fantastic and fairly simplistic Elf commander that is great for smacking around your opponents with some synergistic cards. Tyvar has two main abilities, first which grants all your Elves deathtouch when they attack. The second lets you add +1/+1 counters to your creatures when they produce mana.

So if you have an Elven Archdruid out, and you make ten mana off of it, that creature gets ten +1/+1 counters, which is pretty darn good.

Because of this, you’ll want to run a few green cards that bump up your counter generation like Doubling Season and Primal Vigor. You also can run a higher density of mana-producing creatures, which are generally weaker but get stronger over the course of the game.

4

Galadriel, Light Of Valinor

A Tempest Within

A fantastic commander that has some absolutely wild potential, Galadriel, Light of Valinor is another five-mana legendary Elf that has a very strong alliance ability. Anytime another creature enters the battlefield you can either:

• Add three green mana
• Put a +1/+1 counter on all your creatures
• Scry 2 and then draw

You don’t need to build this Galadriel around a pure Elf kindred deck, you can instead go in a more blink-style deck, where you can maximize enter the battlefield triggers turn after turn for extra value.

3

Marwyn, The Nurturer

A Mana Sink

There are few commanders who can generate the amount of mana that Marwyn, the Nurturer can, nor nearly as quickly. Anytime another Elf comes into play under your control you get to put a +1/+1 counter on her. You can then tap Marwyn to add green mana equal to her power, so anything you can do to modify her power will in turn give you more mana.

All this is great since Elves has all sorts of lord effects to grant bonus +1/+1 to your Elves stats, letting you generate even more mana. Perhaps the best thing you can do with all that mana, besides dumping it into a massive Finale of Devastation, is to put all that mana into a Helix Pinnacle, which once you put 100 mana into it, you just win the game.

2

Voja, Jaws Of The Conclave

Make The Most Of Your Elves

Despite being a Wolf, Voja, Jaws of the Conclave quickly became a top-tier Elf commander thanks to its abilities. Attacking with Voja triggers one ability with two effects, adding +1/+1 counters to all your creature equal to the number of Elves you control, and then drawing a card for each Wolf you control.

You are going to distribute a massive amount of +1/+1 counters this way, so make sure you capitalize all of them with cards like Doubling Season and Branching Evolution. You can tack on a fun little extra burn with All Will Be One to deal damage as you, but those counters on.

1

Lathril, Blade Of The Elves

Multiple Win Conditions

Easily the best Elf commander around, Lathril, Blade of the Elves does two things exceptionally well. Dealing damage with Lathril makes that many 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens, so anything you can do to modify Lathril’s power from either lord effects or auras or enchantments will give you tons more tokens.

Then, you can tap Lathril and ten untapped Elves you control to make each opponent lose ten life and you gain ten life. This lets you pour your Elves into dealing damage without physically having to attack, letting you get around stalemates on the board.