Magic: The Gathering has tons of cards, and plenty of them have the myriad mechanic. Myriad cards with myriad, you might say. It’s a top-tier Commander ability, allowing you to split damage across all opponents instead of focusing down just one player in combat.
As a mechanic that released in a Conspiracy set designed for multiplayer, myriad has absolutely no utility in one-on-one games. It just doesn’t work if you only have one opponent, which makes this a rare instance of a mechanic that can be pushed for Commander without any unexpected fallout on constructed formats.
10 Elturel Survivors
Peasants With An Agenda
Elturel Survivors is one of the simpler myriad cards. It’s a baseline beater that exists just to dole out damage to each opponent, which to be fair is kind of the whole conceit of myriad. No flashy enter-the-battlefield effects or exile triggers, just good ol’ fashioned trample damage.
Interestingly, each copy is a disproportionate threat tied to each opponents’ land count, and it especially punishes players who rely on land ramp as their source of acceleration, sometimes smashing as a 10/4 or greater. The only thing missing is haste and some more relevant creature types.
You probably don’t care what happens to the myriad tokens in combat, so make sure the real copy is attacking the player least likely to effectively block it.
9 Blade Of Selves
Like A Mirror, But Sharper
It’s easy to look at a card and think: “Wow, this would be great if it had myriad!” Well, turns out there are a couple ways to make that happen. Blade of Selves was the first, and for a long time only, way to grant myriad to any creature.
Gifting myriad to another target lets you copy the enters- and leaves-the-battlefield triggers of anything you want, and baseline makes sure you’re pressuring all opponents at once. The Blade used to be a somewhat expensive underrated gem, but a reprint in Battle for Baldur’s Gate made it more accessible.
8 Duke Ulder Ravengard
Myriad And Aggro – Name A Better Pair
There’s a long-running joke that every red-white deck in Commander is an aggro deck without deviation. That’s changed in recent years with new directions for red decks, white decks, and decks of both colors. But Duke Ulder Ravengard? Not breaking the mold.
The Duke gives you the Blade of Selves ability without the additional mana investment, which means they’re all aggro all the time. Typical ‘Boros guild antics’, as they say. However, myriad helps solve one of red-white aggro’s usual problems: chewing through the collective 120 life shared by three opponents in a game of Commander.
7 Legion Loyalty
All Together, All At Once
Such a simple, but deadly textbox. Legion Loyalty copies anything from tokens to legendary creatures. It’s a white finisher through-and-through, so long as you have a reasonable number of creatures in play.
It’s not quite as effective of a finisher as something like Moonshaker Cavalry at the same cost, and there are fewer ways to search it up or get it back from your graveyard, but it’s also a third of the price in paper.
On second thought, why not play them together? Attacking with three copies of Moonshaker – now that’s a way to wrap up a game.
Wincons like this make you a huge target if you don’t win with them right away. Save it for a turn where it’ll have an immediate impact.
6 Firbolg Flutist
A Deceptively Powerful Tune
Threaten effects, or abilities that take a creature for a turn, don’t really make the cut in Commander due to being low impact, but Firbolg Flutist makes sure the stolen creature impacts all your opponents at once.
Even with myriad you’re still only getting a temporary advantage, so you should make sure you either borrow something that’s going to leave a mark, or lean on sacrifice effects to circumvent giving the creature back. Flutist is also a Giant, a type with some niche but interesting support cards.
5 Cybermen Squadron
Beep. Boop. Boom!
Artifact decks aren’t hurting for finishers, though Cybermen Squadron gives many of the traditional wincons a run for their money. You need to emphasize artifact creatures during deckbuilding, the payoff being something akin to a seven-mana colorless Craterhoof Behemoth.
The Squadron doesn’t have to engage in combat for the ability to work, which means it can have an immediate impact the turn it hits the board, and it does copy itself whenever it declares an attack. Notably multiple instances of myriad stack, so using this with other myriad artifact creatures triggers the copy ability multiple times.
4 Wizards Of Thay
Thay Know How To Party
Wizards of Thay’s abilities impact the game even if myriad never comes into play. And when it does, you get thrice the cost reduction for your spells during combat. It incentivizes you to cast your best spells while attacking, which can be an opportune time to fire off a cheap draw spell.
You could sit back and enjoy the sorcery promotion without ever attacking, and you still get a small spell discount outside of combat. The Alchemy version, Thayan Evokers, ditches most of this design altogether for something entirely different, though double team does a fine myriad impression.
Try out Sundial of the Infinite in decks with myriad cards. Ending your turn before the myriad tokens exile means they’ll stick around permanently!
3 The Master, Multiplied
But First He Added And Subtracted
The Master, Multiplied doesn’t come right out and say it, but this is as close to a ‘myriad lord’ as you can get. It has myriad itself, which makes it multiply on attack, after which those tokens stick around and each split off into more copies during your next combat step.
There are more applications for this card beyond its self-synergy with myriad. It was designed to work with temporary clone effects like Splinter Twin and Flameshadow Conjuring, which makes for a unique and powerful commander, though one that’s balanced out by being a measly 4/3 for six mana.
2 Auton Soldier
Doctor Who’s It Gonna Be?
Auton Soldier is your typical Clone+, a creature that enters as a copy of another with some sort of bonus ability, in this case myriad. Though most clones cost around four mana, myriad is enough to justify the premium on its casting cost, at least in a casual setting.
Clones nearly always leave you with the best creature in play, or at least in control of a duplicate of the actual best creature. Myriad lets you triple up on the action each combat step, netting additional triggers of any relevant ETBs from the creature you copied.
The myriad tokens from Auton Soldier will enter as copies of whatever you originally chose. They won’t be able to switch to a different creature.
1 Battle Angels Of Tyr
Here To Tyr Your Opponents Down
Battle Angels of Tyr showcases the best use of myriad in Magic. It’s designed to play catch-up on all axes – card advantage, life, and mana — and hitting each opponent at once means you never have to choose which resource you’re going after.
It has evasion and great stats for its cost, as well as two popular creature types for those respective typal decks. As with many myriad creatures, your opponents won’t be happy getting hit even if you’re not explicitly targeting them, so the entire table might band together to take this down.