The Lost Caverns Of Ixalan returns to Magic: The Gathering’s Ixalan plane. There are plenty of returning characters from previous Ixalan sets as well as new faces, including entirely new creature types that were previously missing.
With so many characters on the plane, there are a lot of legendary creatures in the set. This is big for the Commander format, which requires your deck to be led with a legendary creature and all the cards in the rest of your deck to be the same color as that commander. Lost Cavern Of Ixalan has many strong options to choose from when it comes to a commander.
10 Nicanzil, Current Conductor
Explore And Find Ramp
Exploring has seen a lot of support over the years, and Nicanzil, Current Conductor is a payoff for all of those cards that you can keep in the command zone. Normally, when you explore and reveal a land card it just goes to your hand, but Nicanzil lets you put it onto the battlefield instead.
This can lead to a lot of ramp early on, especially since Nicanzil only costs two mana to play. Since a lot of cards that let you explore are easy to cast, this makes the payoff with Nicanzil hit almost right away.
9 Saheeli, The Sun’s Brilliance
Everything’s An Artifact
There is no shortage of creatures with powerful effects when they enter the battlefield. As such, Saheeli, The Sun’s Brilliance makes for a very powerful commander as she can easily double up on these enter-the-battlefield effects.
For just two mana you get a token copy of any creature or artifact for a turn, which is very easy to accomplish – especially in Commander where you have a lot of ramp. Even if Saheeli ever gets removed, it does not cost much mana to recast from the command zone to continue using its effect.
8 Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
Ghalta Leads A Stampede
Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant is a giant bomb whenever it hits the battlefield. It lets you cheat out all the creatures in your hand, and since you’re in green, you have plenty of powerful options. Even though Ghalta costs eight mana to cast, green has so much ramp this is easily accomplished.
Although Ghalta requires creatures in your hand to get a good payoff, green can easily tutor out creatures directly from the deck and draw plenty of cards as well. Even if Ghalta ever gets removed, that’s generally a good thing as it lets you use its effect once again.
7 The Mycotyrant
Mill, mill, mill!
Self-milling is a solid strategy in Commander, and The Mycotyrant can enable that strategy quite well. If you are putting a lot of permanents into your graveyard, this can translate to flooding the battlefield with Fungus tokens. Although these are just 1/1s, when you are making multiple of them, this can get out of hand very quickly.
These tokens fuel The Mycotyrant’s own power and toughness. There are plenty of Saprolings that have self-mill support to make them fit right into a Mycotyrant deck. The Mycotyrant is the perfect color for the strategy too, with Golgari (black/green) having the most support for self-mill.
6 Inti, Seneschal Of The Sun
Explosive Card Advantage
Mono-Red in Commander can struggle with card draw, and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun is a way to solve that problem. Its effect triggers whenever you attack, so you do not have to put Inti into harm’s way in order to trigger it.
You can discard a dead card in your hand to exile one from your deck as a replacement that can be used right away. The effect of exile doesn’t trigger only from Inti’s ability, but any discard. Red has plenty of cards that draw and discard, so this is a way to push card advantage in Mono-Red.
5 Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might
Burn With Godlike Power
Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might is a phenomenal burn commander that can deal devastating amounts of damage in just one turn. It is not impossible to completely wipe everyone out of the game in just one turn with how many low-mana spells there are that do one burn damage – something that Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might will make do four burn damage.
Even if Ojer Axonil ever dies, rather than putting it into the command zone you can transform it into a land. Since you’d likely be in a burn deck, being able to transform it back to Ojer Axonil is rather easy to accomplish so you never have to worry about commander tax.
4 Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation
So Many Tokens
There are plenty of powerful token generators in Commander, especially in white. As such, Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation is a phenomenal commander when it comes to token strategies. Unlike most, Ojer Taq triples the number of tokens you create, and when mixed with other token doublers this can get out of hand very quickly.
If it dies you can turn it into a land, which is very easy to flip back into Ojer Taq since the requirement to attack with three creatures is easily doable in a token deck. Ojer Taq is very resilient and gives you a massive boost to your token strategies.
3 Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar
Stop All Interaction
Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar is a fantastic commander that makes it so you never have to worry about instant speed interaction. Once it hits the battlefield, you never have to worry about counterspells since they will be impossible to cast thanks to Kutzil’s static effect.
While this effect would make Kutzil fantastic on its own, it has the added bonus of giving you a card draw if a creature with higher power than its base power deals damage to a player. This only triggers once per opponent that takes the combat damage, however.
2 Abuelo, Ancestral Echo
Rapid Blinks
Azorious (white/blue) is a color that is very good at blinking – exiling a creature(s) you control and returning them to the battlefield. Abuelo, Ancestral Echo lets you do just that and have a constant source of it in your command zone.
Abuelo doesn’t need to tap to use its ability, so as long as you have the mana, you can do it as many times as you want, potentially blinking your entire battlefield. As an added bonus, Abuelo, Ancestral Echo has ward two to give it an extra layer of protection to keep it resilient once it hits the battlefield.
1 Sovereign Okinec Ahau
Permanent Power Boost
Sovereign Okinec Ahau makes it so any temporary stat boost turns permanent. When it attacks, all creatures with stats that aren’t their base power and toughness will gain counters to make their stats permanently equal to what they were boosted by.
In Selesnya (white/green), there are plenty of effects that will provide a static stat boost. This ensures that Sovereign Okinec Ahau’s effect will always go off, and once it triggers it will always trigger. It even comes with ward two to keep it safe from removal and since it counts itself for its effect, can make it incredibly hard for it to be removed by combat.