How to choose a commander: colors, play style and power level

Your commander is the one card you'll see every game. It sets your colors, suggests a plan, and is usually the card people remember your deck by. Picking well is the single biggest step toward a deck you'll keep playing, and it's worth a few minutes of thought before you spend money on the other 99 cards.

This guide walks through what a commander actually decides for you, what each color combination tends to do, and a set of questions that will point you toward a commander that fits how you like to play.

What your commander does for your deck

It sets your color identity

A card's color identity is every color in its mana cost plus every colored mana symbol in its rules text. Your deck can only contain cards whose color identity fits inside your commander's. A commander that costs green and blue lets you play green, blue, green-blue and colorless cards, and nothing with red, white or black anywhere in it.

That makes the commander your deck's most important deckbuilding decision. Its colors decide which removal, card draw and ramp you have access to, and which you don't.

It gives you a plan

Most commanders have an ability that rewards a certain kind of deck. Krenko, Mob Boss makes more Goblins the more Goblins you have. Tatyova, Benthic Druid draws a card every time a land enters under your control. Read the card and ask what it wants to happen; the answer is the backbone of your deck. Building your first Commander deck shows how to turn that answer into a card list.

It's always available

Your commander starts the game in the command zone, not in your library. You can cast it from there any time you could cast it normally, and if it would go to your graveyard, exile, your hand or your library, you can move it back to the command zone instead. Each time you cast it from the command zone, it costs an extra two generic mana for every previous time you've cast it from there (the commander tax).

In practice, this means your commander is the one card you can count on drawing. A deck whose engine is its commander plays out more consistently than a deck that needs to find a specific card in its library. The flip side is that opponents know your plan from turn one and will often aim their removal at it. How to play Commander covers these rules in full.

What the colors do

Each color has things it does well and things it struggles with. The combination you pick decides which gaps your deck has to live with.

• White: removal for every kind of permanent, board wipes, small creatures and tokens, protection. Historically weak at drawing cards.
• Blue: card draw, counterspells, bounce (returning permanents to their owner's hand), copying and stealing. Weak at removing permanents permanently.
• Black: creature removal, searching your library (tutors), bringing creatures back from the graveyard, drawing cards at the cost of life.
• Red: haste, direct damage, Treasure and temporary card draw (exiling cards you can play for a short time), artifact destruction. Weak at handling enchantments.
• Green: ramp, big creatures, artifact and enchantment removal. Its creature removal mostly relies on fighting, and it has few answers to flying creatures.

Color pairs and three-color groups

Players use shorthand names for every two- and three-color combination, taken from the guilds of Ravnica and the shards and clans of Alara and Tarkir. You'll see these names everywhere, including in deck lists and commander searches.

Name	Colors	What it tends to do well	Example commanders
Azorius	White, blue	Control, flyers, taxing opponents, removal plus card draw	Brago, King Eternal; Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
Dimir	Blue, black	Card draw, removal, graveyard tricks, sneaky evasive attackers	Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow; Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver
Rakdos	Black, red	Sacrifice, aggression, draining opponents' life	Judith, the Scourge Diva; Prosper, Tome-Bound
Gruul	Red, green	Ramp into big creatures, haste, combat	Omnath, Locus of Rage; Xenagos, God of Revels
Selesnya	Green, white	Tokens, enchantments, counters, going wide	Rhys the Redeemed; Sythis, Harvest's Hand
Orzhov	White, black	Sacrifice, lifegain and drain, tokens	Teysa Karlov; Kambal, Consul of Allocation
Izzet	Blue, red	Instants and sorceries, copying spells, artifacts	Mizzix of the Izmagnus; Niv-Mizzet, Parun
Golgari	Black, green	Graveyard recursion, sacrifice, counters	Meren of Clan Nel Toth; Lathril, Blade of the Elves
Boros	Red, white	Combat, equipment, tokens, aggressive starts	Wyleth, Soul of Steel; Feather, the Redeemed
Simic	Green, blue	Ramp plus card draw, landfall, +1/+1 counters	Tatyova, Benthic Druid; Ezuri, Claw of Progress
Bant	Green, white, blue	Creatures with protection, enchantments, value	Rafiq of the Many; Tuvasa the Sunlit
Esper	White, blue, black	Control, artifacts, enchantments, lifegain	Zur the Enchanter; Sharuum the Hegemon
Grixis	Blue, black, red	Spells, control, punishing opponents for drawing	Nekusar, the Mindrazer; Marchesa, the Black Rose
Jund	Black, red, green	Sacrifice, lands, big threats	Korvold, Fae-Cursed King; Lord Windgrace
Naya	Red, green, white	Big creatures, tokens, combat, Auras	Uril, the Miststalker; Kaust, Eyes of the Glade
Abzan	White, black, green	Counters, recursion, tokens	Karador, Ghost Chieftain; Ghave, Guru of Spores
Jeskai	Blue, red, white	Spells, tempo, taxing targeted spells	Hinata, Dawn-Crowned
Sultai	Black, green, blue	Graveyard value, enter-the-battlefield effects	Muldrotha, the Gravetide; Yarok, the Desecrated
Mardu	Red, white, black	Attacking, tokens, putting creatures in play	Edgar Markov; Isshin, Two Heavens as One
Temur	Green, blue, red	Big creatures, cascade, copying	Animar, Soul of Elements; Maelstrom Wanderer

These are tendencies, not rules. You can build almost any strategy in almost any colors; the table just tells you where the best tools are.

How many colors?

One color

Mono-color decks have the easiest mana: almost every land can be a basic, so you're rarely stuck holding a card you can't cast, and you can fill the rest with utility lands. They're also cheap to build. The cost is that you inherit your color's gaps with no way to cover them. Mono-red has to work for card draw; mono-green has trouble with flyers and enchantments that aren't easy to fight.

Good mono-color starting points: Krenko, Mob Boss (red Goblins), Talrand, Sky Summoner (blue spells), Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice (white Auras).

Two colors

Two colors is the sweet spot for most players. You get to cover one color's weaknesses with the other, and the mana is still simple: a mix of basics, a handful of dual lands and a few two-color mana rocks keeps you casting spells on time.

Three colors

Three colors open up a much bigger card pool and a lot of the format's most popular commanders. The mana gets harder. You'll want more lands that make two or more colors, more ramp that fixes colors, and you'll occasionally hold a card you can't cast. Taplands (lands that enter tapped) help on a budget but slow you down.

Four and five colors

Four- and five-color decks get almost every card in the game, which is exciting and also a trap: the more colors you add, the more of your deck has to be fixing, and the more often a hand has the wrong colors. A good mana base for these decks is expensive. Command Tower and Arcane Signet, which make any color in your commander's identity, help a lot, but they don't solve it alone.

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice and Breya, Etherium Shaper are well-known four-color commanders. Five-color commanders often lean on a theme to stay focused, like The Ur-Dragon for Dragons or Sliver Overlord for Slivers. Our mana base guide covers how many sources of each color you need as you add colors.

Questions to ask yourself

Before you fall for a card, run through these. The answers usually narrow a huge list down to a few candidates.

• How do you like to win? Big creatures attacking? A swarm of small ones? Draining everyone's life a point at a time? A combo that wins on the spot? Pick a commander whose ability points at the ending you enjoy.
• What do you like doing on other people's turns? If you like holding up counterspells and instant-speed tricks, look at blue. If you'd rather focus on your own board, green, white and red commanders tend to do their work on your own turn.
• How much interaction do you enjoy? Some decks spend half their cards answering threats; others ignore opponents and race. Neither is wrong, but know which you'd rather play.
• How long are your games? If your group plays quick games, a commander that costs seven mana may only be cast once. If games run long, card draw and recursion matter more.
• What's your budget? Two-color and mono-color decks are cheaper to build well. Four- and five-color decks need expensive lands to play smoothly.
• How complex do you want it? A deck with lots of triggers, stack tricks and decisions is rewarding but tiring. A straightforward deck is easier to pilot and easier for new opponents to understand.
• Do you love the card? You'll play this commander dozens of times. Flavor, art and character count. A commander you're excited about will get rebuilt and improved; one you picked because it's "strong" may not.

Build-around commanders vs. good-stuff commanders

Commanders fall loosely into two camps.

Build-around commanders have a narrow, specific ability that defines the whole deck. Krenko, Mob Boss wants Goblins. Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice wants Auras. Lathril, Blade of the Elves wants Elves. These decks have a clear identity, are easy to build because the commander tells you what to include, and play the same satisfying way each game. The downside is predictability: once opponents remove the commander a couple of times, the deck can stall.

Good-stuff commanders have flexible abilities or broad colors that support many plans. Kenrith, the Returned King can give haste, add counters, gain life, draw cards or reanimate, using whichever colors you can pay for. Prosper, Tome-Bound gives you extra cards and Treasure in any Rakdos deck. These decks let you play many of the strongest cards in their colors, and they survive losing the commander better. The downside is that they can feel samey from game to game, and they're easier to build into something unfocused.

If this is your first deck, a build-around commander is usually the better teacher: it gives you a clear reason to include or cut each card.

Partners and Backgrounds

Most decks have one commander, but a few mechanics let you have two:

• Partner: if two legendary creatures both have plain Partner, you can use both as your commanders. Tana, the Bloodsower and Thrasios, Triton Hero are examples.
• Partner with [name]: these pair only with the specific card named, such as Pir, Imaginative Rascal and Toothy, Imaginary Friend.
• Choose a Background: a legendary creature with this ability can be paired with a legendary enchantment that has the Background subtype, like Wilson, Refined Grizzly with Raised by Giants.
• Other variants, such as Friends forever and Doctor's companion, work the same way but only pair within their own group. Always read the reminder text on the card.

With two commanders, your deck's color identity is the combination of both. You still have 100 cards total, so a second commander takes up one of your 99 slots. Commander tax is tracked separately for each one, and so is commander damage: a player loses to 21 combat damage from a single one of your commanders, not the two added together.

Two commanders give you more colors and two engines in the command zone, which is powerful. They also make your deck a bit more complex to plan around.

Picking for your playgroup

The best commander for you also depends on who you play with. A commander that's perfectly fun at one table can be miserable at another. Before you build, think about how strong your group's decks are, and use the bracket system to describe what you're aiming for.

A few rules of thumb:

• If your group plays mostly precons or lightly upgraded decks, pick a commander that's fun first and strong second. A focused build-around will feel great.
• Some commanders win quickly or lock opponents out almost on their own. If the commander's ability alone can end games fast, expect it to draw attention and talk about it with your group before the game. Our guide to the pre-game conversation helps.
• If you're unsure, a modern preconstructed deck is a strong place to start. Upgrading a precon on a budget explains how to make one your own.

Trying commanders before you commit

Podtable has a page for each commander at /commanders and lists all 171 official precons, so you can see what a commander's deck looks like before you buy anything. When you start building, the deck builder shows the mana curve and price, and marks which cards you already own. You can also take a deck into the free online game and play four-player Commander against the AI to see if the commander is as fun as it looks on paper.

Next: see what your commander's plan might look like in Commander archetypes explained, then build it with Building your first Commander deck and get the colors right with the mana base guide.