The Best Non-Meta cEDH Commanders For MTG

Summary

• Tatyova’s lands provide late-game advantage without casting spells or stax worries.
• Emry’s affinity for artifacts allows for cost reduction and powerful combos.
• Aragorn’s Food Chain combo with red spell abilities makes for a potent deck.

There are quite a few very strong cEDH commanders out in the greater Magic: The Gathering community. You’ve got your options of combo enablers, combat specialists, and midrange engines when you’re looking to build your next deck.

Not every deck has to follow a tried-and-true strategy though, sometimes you want to do something a little different. While they often fill in the same roles as more popular commanders, an underappreciated commander can take your opponents by surprise. If you’re looking for a more unique approach to your next cEDH deck, you might want to consider one of these off-meta commanders.

7

Tatyova, Benthic Druid

Turns From The Deep

An interesting midrange deck that has drifted off in recent years, Tatyova, Benthic Druid provides you a way to gain some incredible advantage late in the game without casting any spells. Much of the value in this deck comes from your lands, since your land drops turn into sustainability and card advantage thanks to Tatyova’s ability.

The really nice thing about Tatyova is that she dodges many of the more restrictive stax pieces that you might normally have to watch out for. Your win-condition is going to come from a mix of making infinite loops, with either mana, card draw, or turns being your primary focus.

A pretty simple and easy to set up combo involves three cards:

• Trade Routes
• Mystic Sanctuary
• Time Warp

With these three cards you can cast Time Warp to take an extra turn, either play or bounce Mystic Sanctuary back to your hand with Trade Routes, get Time Warp back, repeat every turn until you draw your win condition. With Tatyova out too, you can draw more cards and gain a little life with each Mystic Sanctuary drop.

6

Emry, Lurker Of The Loch

Artifact Wombo Combo

There is already an all-star mono-blue artifact-based cEDH commander out there in Urza, Lord High Artificer, but if you want something a little different, Emry is your Merfolk. This three-mana creature has affinity for artifacts, which reduces her cost by one for each artifact you have in play. This little effect also reduces your commander tax, so with enough artifacts out she’ll never cost you more than just one blue mana.

Her power comes from her tap ability, which lets you take an artifact from your graveyard and cast it this turn. The obvious choices for this style deck is any artifact that costs zero mana, like Lotus Petal, Mishra’s Bauble, and Lion’s Eye Diamond. All you need then is a way to repeatedly untap Emry, like Mirran Spy, and you have yourself tons of mana, draw power, or a massive storm count to combo off with.

5

Abaddon The Despoiler

Crafted Chaos

Straight from a time of terror and war in the universe, Abaddon the Despoiler from the Universes Beyond Warhammer 40,000 set might not be the first pick in a Grixis deck, but is certainly a fun one. At five mana Abaddon is a fairly expensive cEDH commander, but not the worst you can find. Not to mention, he gives you access to three of the stronger colors in cEDH which lets you offset his middling ability with powerful cards.

Abaddon comes with a strong ability to give your spells cascade thanks to his Mark of Chaos Ascendant ability. Your spells cast from your hand have cascade so long as they have a mana value equal to the amount of life lost by your opponents this turn, which might take some set up but can be very strong.

The most common way you’re going to be winning will likely be due to some sort of Doomsday combo. You’ll win by setting up five cards to get you the win with Thassa’s Oracle, one of the more popular ways to close out a game on command.

4

The First Sliver

Not A Kindred Deck

Everyone’s first thought when they see a Sliver deck is that it’s going to be a pile of kindred effects and one of the most glass cannon creature types in the game. That’s not the case with The First Sliver, which oftentimes doesn’t even run another Sliver creature in the deck.

Really this deck is a Food Chain combo, a green enchantment that lets you exile a creature to get mana equal to one plus that exiled creature’s mana value, though you can only use that mana to cast creature spells.

The three main creatures you’re going to be exiling now are:

• Eternal Scourge
• Misthollow Griffitn
• Squee, the Immortal

All three of these creatures let you cast them from exile, and since you’re always netting one more mana per activation, you can set yourself up with infinite mana.

You can then cast The First Sliver to get that cascade trigger, just to exile it with Food Chain to put it back into the command zone, only to cast it again. From there work through your deck for some way to either remove your deck with a card like Tainted Pact, or mill yourself with Brain Freeze and win off a Laboratory Maniac.

3

Raffine, Scheming Seer

A Conniving Commander

Esper commander get access to all sorts of fun tools to keep the game in their favor and Raffine, Scheming Seer gives you a little boost to your combat along the way. Anytime you attack one of your attacking creatures connives for the number of attacking creatures.

Connive lets you draw X cards and then discard X cards, putting a +1/+1 counter on that creature for each nonland card you discard.

This ability lets you loot cards through your deck until you find whatever combo or win condition you need. The looting effect also contributes to a reliable reanimation strategy, or to set up a future Yawgmoth’s Will to maximum effect.

Easily one of the stronger approaches you can take is to go with another Doomsday pile ending in a Thassa’s Oracle, since Raffine has a draw trigger on them, letting you get through those final five cards faster.

2

Aragorn The Uniter

Bringing Them All Together

Another Food Chain-based deck, Aragorn the Uniter is an absolute powerhouse, especially since you get access to every color but black. This might mean you’re losing out on the better tutors, but isn’t really a concern most of the time.

The Food Chain combo comes from the red element of Aragorn’s four abilities, which lets you deal three damage to one of your opponents anytime you cast a red spell. From there, you just need to get Squee, the Immortal out in play and start chaining castings while generating mana. You can also use Misthollow Griffin to scry through your deck, two cards at a time, until you find some missing combo piece you might need to secure the game.

1

Roxanne, Starfall Savant

Incremental Value

There’s a surprising amount of value to get out of this rather unique commander. The main power behind Roxanne, Starfall Savant comes from the her silly ability to make a Meteorite token when she comes into play or attacks.

Meteorite deals two damage to any target when it comes into play and taps to add one mana of any color. That number goes up to two mana with Roxanne in play, since she upgrades the amount of mana you make from artifact tokens.

Two damage might not seem like a lot, but it is often enough to deal with the most problematic stax creatures in the game. Once you get going with one of many infinite mana combos, you can recast Roxanne over and over again to deal two damage to each opponent unti you win.