The Best cEDH Commanders In MTG

Summary

• Start with the best cEDH commanders like Kinnan for efficient mana ramping and game advantage.
• Sisay offers flexibility in deck building with legend permanent tutoring and power scaling.
• Tivit provides defensive measures and combo potential with repeatable extra turns.

There is a lot to consider when you take the steps to build your first Magic: The Gathering cEDH deck, with the first of those choices being which commander you are going to play. There are hundreds of viable commanders to run, with strategies ranging from control to midrange to combo, each one shaping the flow and design of your deck.

With so many options out there to pick from, you might as well start with the best that the format has to offer and go from there. From format-warping mana manipulators to efficient draw engines, you can’t go wrong with any of these legendary creatures.

10

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy

Get All The Mana

Easily one of the most impressive commanders around, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is a bit of a value engine. Kinnan has a built-in mana ramping feature that is prominent in green and blue decks, a powerful ability to dump that mana into, and a cheap mana cost that lets you play a little looser than other commanders. From there you can catapult out ahead of your opponents, since your Sol Ring now taps for three mana while Basalt Monolith now creates infinite mana since you’re always up one mana every time you untap it.

Now that you have a ton of mana open to you, you can dump it all into Kinnan’s seven-mana activated ability. With it you can take a look a the top five cards of your deck, taking a non-Human creature from those cards and slapping it on the battlefield. That means that there’s a healthy number of absolutely wild creatures you can run with Kinnan like Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Void Winnower, and Tidespout Tyrant that can come out of nowhere against unsuspecting opponents.

9

Sisay, Weatherlight Captain

A Card For Any Situation

Commanders like Sisay, Weatherlight Captain are exceptionally flexible when it comes to building your deck. Sisay has a five-mana ability that lets you go searching your deck for a legendary permanent card and you get to put it directly onto the battlefield, so long as that card has a converted mana cost less than Sisay’s power. Sisay also scales in power for each color among other legendary permanents you control, giving her a max power of seven and getting you tutor up any legendary card that costs six mana or less.

Putting a card into play this way doesn’t let you get any casting triggers, so watch out for that.

Since you have access to all five colors in Magic, you effectively have access to all the best cards in the game at any given time. There’s not a single way you can build Sisay, since there are multiple combo lines you can go for that all will close a game in no time.

8

Tivit, Seller Of Secrets

Quite The Delimia

A bit more expensive than other high-powered cEDH commanders, Tivit, Seller of Secrets comes loaded with some strong defensive measures to keep the Sphinx safe late in the game, while also setting up a strong game-closing combo just by entering the battlefield.

When Tivit comes into play or when they deal combat damage to a player, you trigger their council’s dilemma ability, making all players vote on whether you get one Clue or Treasure token per player. Tivit also lets you vote an extra time, so you get a grand total of five of these artifact tokens in some combination.

That’s where Time Sieve comes in. This little artifact lets you sacrifice five artifacts to then take an extra turn. You can keep chaining turns by swinging with Tivit turn after turn until you win via commander damage since it’ll only take three hits to seal the deal.

Since Tivit is in white, blue, and black colors, you have access to the best control pieces as well as the ol’ reliable Thassa’s Oracle combo to close out a game when you need to.

7

Rograkh, Son Of Rohgahh

A zero mana commander seems odd at first, especially since it doesn’t have any power yet comes with three solid keywords. Fortunately, you don’t really need to worry about any of that since that’s not why you’re playing this little Kobold.

Rograkh is a tool you always have accessible from your Command Zone that you can pull out as needed. Do you need some bonus mana to cast an Ad Nauseam? Cast him for free and sacrifice him to Culling the Weak for four extra mana. Short on creatures to sacrifice to a Diabolic Intent? Bring out Rograkh to the sacrificial altar.

6

Kraum, Ludevic’s Opus

The blue part of the Blue Farm cEDH list, Kraum, Ludevc’s Opus often comes together with Tymna the Weaver to make one of the best decks in the format. Kraum lets you generate value as your opponents play cards since he lets you draw a card when your opponents cast their second spell each turn.

Much of Kruam’s appeal is simply that it gives you access to blue and red in your commander deck, letting you have access to practically all the best colors in the game (sorry green). While he doesn’t do a lot on his own, the extra card advantage is crucial and the access to win-condition cards like Underworld Breach is vital to closing out a game.

5

Najeela, The Blade-Blossom

An instant cEDH all-star, Najeela, the Blade-Blossom is an incredible creature that has a five-color identity despite only costing three mana. Getting access to all five colors means you quite literally have every combo piece at your disposal. While you have your usual win-conditions with Underworld Breach and Ad Nauseam, you also get a unique combo with Derevi, Empyral Tactician.

Derevi lets you tap or untap any permanent when a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, which is great for Najeela since she makes more creatures with every attack, and has that five mana extra combat ability. You need a bit of mana to get going with this route, but once it starts, there’s literally no stopping her.

4

Kenrith, The Returned King

Kenrith, the Returned King is there in the Command Zone for two reasons, a massive mana sink and giving you access to all the colors you could possibly need. While five mana is a bit high for cEDH, what makes Kenrith so good is that if the game gets drawn out you have a lot of options to work with to keep you in the game.

While the white ability, to gain five life for three mana, is the only irrelevant ability, and the rest are situationally good. If a mid-range approach isn’t your speed, you can always take a more control approach with Kenrith, stocking up on counter spells and some hatebears effects to control the board.

3

Silas Renn, Seeker Adept

The other half of the RogSi deck featuring the zero mana wonder of Rograkh, Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is really just there to add some much-needed win-conditions and tutoring power to your deck. The low casting cost on Silas might not be as low as Rograkh’s, but it does help keep the game plan on track.

With two cheap commanders in the Command Zone, you get to use Fierce Guardianship and Deflecting Swat for free, likely much sooner than your opponents, and much like Rograkh, you can offer up Silas to any cards that require a sacrifice to reap those rewards.

2

Thrasios, Triton Hero

Sink All That Mana

Commander 2016 brought with it a ton of incredibly powerful legendary creatures with the Partner ability, which lets you have two commanders so long as they both have partner. This lets you mix and match Thrasios, Triton Hero with whatever other partner creature and gives you a ton of flexibility with your deck building.

Thrasios is an exceptional creature thanks to its low cost and very strong ability. You can spend four generic mana to scry one and reveal the top card of your deck. So long as that card is a land, you can put it into play tapped. If it’s anything else, you get to draw a card.

Setting up infinite mana is easy enough in Commander. With Thrasios’ ability, you can burn through your entire deck until you find whatever combo or game-closing card you need at any given time.

1

Tymna The Weaver

She Goes With Everything

One of the premier commanders in cEDH, Tymna the Weaver is an extremely efficient creature that has long stood at the pinnacle of the format. This three-mana creature comes down quickly and gives you access to white and black while building your deck, and since it has partner, you can add another color or two to round out your list.

On your post-combat main phase, you can pay life equal to the number of players that were dealt combat damage this turn and draw that many cards. Being able to draw upwards of three cards in a turn at the expense of just three life means you will have plenty of opportunity to draw into some extra removal or combo pieces very quickly.