MTG Wilds of Eldraine has plenty of great commanders to choose from. From fairytale heroes to wicked witches, there’s a flavorful fit for everyone – not to mention plenty of unique mechanics to enjoy in the EDH format. There’s lots to enjoy, from new build-around themes like tapping creatures, to new Adventure commanders that you can cast as an instant or sorcery.
Here we’ve brought you our views on eight of the very best MTG commanders in Wilds of Eldraine. We’ve looked at all 31 new legendary creatures in this MTG set to determine which are the most powerful or the most interesting to build a Commander deck around.
Imodane, the Pyrohammer
Imodane the Pyrohammer loves cards that bring the hammer down on one creature in particular. Typically you won’t play too much single target removal in Commander. Red decks usually want a handful of cards that they save for key threats – as trying to Lightning Bolt everything three or more opponents play is folly.
But Imodane makes the prospect a lot more attractive by also sending that damage to your foes’ faces. Now you can pack in all kinds of usually inefficient cards: Shivan Meteor won’t just (over)kill a creature, it’ll take off a grand total of 39 life from your enemies (in a four player game). Where Imodane gets really scary is when you build up the mana to cast big X cost spells like Electrodominance. She also pairs very nicely with damage doublers.
Hylda of the Icy Crown
Hylda of the Icy Crown is another fantastic commander, this time built around tapping down creatures – a mechanical theme that’s yet to really be explored to its fullest (would you believe there’s still new ground to cover?)
Like Imodane, Hylda is great because she enables all kinds of cards in the 99 that would normally have a snowball’s chance in hell of appearing in a Commander deck. Generic tappers are now important engine pieces.
Hylda herself does it all, from making large tokens, to drawing cards, to buffing your entire board. If you have the mana and can tap multiple creatures at once, you can get incredible value from her ability.
Hylda’s big weakness may be that she is such a central part of any deck you’re likely to build around her. Because there aren’t that many cards with synergy around tapping creatures, if you can’t keep Hylda on the board, your dream of winning? You’ll have to let it go.
Brenard, Ginger Sculptor
A sacrifice themed commander in about the last MTG color combination you’d expect, Brenard Ginger Sculptor encourages you to live the dream of commanding a horde of angry gingerbread people.
This guy’s got a lot going on, perhaps more than you’d expect of a man obsessed with gingerbread sculpting – and there’s plenty of ways to build a Brenard deck. You can focus on the food theme, the golems, or the ability to resurrect anything you sacrifice and double up all your ETB effects. In reality, you’ll probably do a little bit of all three, particularly leaning on the Splicer creatures, which create golems whenever they enter the battlefield
Agatha of the Vile Cauldron
Agatha of the Vile Cauldron is a Wilds of Eldraine commander that presents you with a couple of unique puzzles. How do you buff her power up to increase the discount she provides? And what absurd things can you do with activated abilities once you’ve done so? From generating unhealthy amounts of mana to going wide with Agatha’s own board-buffing powers, there’s lots of options to cook up for this deck.
Kellan, The Fae-blooded
A fairly straightforward aura or equipment commander, the real exciting part of Kellan is the adventure half, an MTG tutor that lets you search for whatever aura or equipment you’re interested in. If you have a pet equipment or enchantment card in these colors then Kellan lets you treat it as your commander (though a rather fragile one, that can’t go back to the command zone if it’s dealt with).
So you might choose to build a Kellan deck around the effect of one unique equipment, or go for a more standard Boros build and enjoy casting Birthright Boon a few times per game, to fetch up whatever the situation calls for. The fact Kellan wants you to focus all your equipment and auras on him to get the most from his anthem is also an intriguing detail worth bearing in mind. Plenty of options, plenty of power – just what we like to see in a commander.
Eriette of the Charmed Apple
Eriette of the Charmed Apple is a deceptively powerful commander, focused on auras. Not only does she grant you life drain – harming your opponents and healing you – for each aura you control, she also encourages you to enchant opposing creatures, since they can’t attack you if they’re enchanted by you. This gives you a lot of options – you might curse enemy creatures with effects that harm your opponents further, or choose to buff them up, and encourage your enemies to use them on eachother.
Whatever you choose, I think Eriette’s impressive life drain potential is going to close out games very quickly – you’ll definitely want to bring some life gain payoffs. The only difficulty you might have is there are a lot of blue aura cards that work well on opposing creatures which Eriette doesn’t have access to.
Beluna Grandsquall
Play all the best cards from 2019 Standard with Beluna’s adventure synergy! Beluna is pretty straightforward. Her adventure half is a great card draw spell, while the creature provides a cost reduction for any and all adventures you cram in your deck.
There’s something of Tom Bombadil to Beluna, an incredibly popular Lord of the Rings commander centred on a particular card type. Despite her stature, we don’t see Beluna quite reaching Tom’s heights – she’s only three colors and there are fewer Adventures than Sagas to play with after all – but for many fans this giantess is sure to impress.
Rowan, Scion of War
Like Agatha, we can see some absurd combo potential with Rowan, who also reduces costs. But the royal is far mightier than the warlock here, because Rowan makes all your spells cheaper based on how much damage you’ve taken in a turn.
That’s absurdly powerful, because Rakdos (and especially black) has loads of ways to pay life for valuable effects – from something as straightforward as Phyrexian Arena to absurd cards like Bolas’ Citadel or Necropotence. You can therefore combo off like crazy with Rowan, playing a stream of self destructive spells one after the other, often ending games with a bang. If any Wilds of Eldraine commander sees play in cEDH, we’d expect it to be Rowan.
If Commander is not your format, check out our picks for the best MTG Wilds of Eldraine cards for Standard. We’ve also got a list of great MTG Arena decks to try, and all of the MTG Arena codes, so you can get some free packs.