Top New Strixhaven Commanders from Commander 2021

5. Breena, the Demagogue

Breena is a classic politicking card, something that fits the manipulative and corrupt flavour of Orzhov very well. We really enjoy these designs that encourage opponents to bash away at each other instead of you, and they can be surprisingly effective at their job. 

Breena’s ability gives your opponent a card every time they attack whichever of your opponents has the highest life total, and that is a trigger any Commander player worth their salt will be very interested in indeed. For that reason, Breena is likely to be a very low-priority target for removal, and even if removed she is pretty cheap to replace. 

Yes you’re handing out card advantage on each attack step, but every time that attack trigger goes off, not only have you avoided an attack that could have been aimed at you, you are picking up +1/+1 counters that can go straight onto the evasive Breena to threaten large chunks of evasive commander damage, or onto creatures with +1/+1 counter synergies, which of course will fill any deck commanded by Breena. 

She’s not the highest power level commander we’ve ever seen, but she’s guaranteed to be fun to play and to strongly tempt your opponents into making decisions that benefit you.

4. Willowdusk, Essence Seer

Another commander that cares about +1/+1 counters, Willowdusk is in better colours for that archetype as a Golgari commander. That colour pairing has probably the most +1/+1 counter support in Magic, and can leverage the card’s ability the best. 

This card is an interesting direct comparison with Breena. They have some similarities in that both add a bunch of +1/+1 counters, and both discourage your opponents from attacking you – with Willowdusk that’s because every point of damage you take can translate into a +1/+1 counter on one of your creatures. On the one hand, Willowdusk has some serious drawbacks in that its ability requires you to have another creature in play, meaning sometimes it will do nothing at all and doesn’t work as a ‘Voltron’ commander-damage strategy. It also requires you to hold up mana as well as tapping the card to activate, meaning it only discourages a single attack per round. However, it has a big upside in that it doesn’t dole out card advantage to your opponents, and also that it triggers not just on life loss but on life gain as well. That allows you to pile a lot of lifegain synergies into your deck to allow you to absorb damage, trigger other lifegain-matters cards and grow your board all at the same time. Cards that offer massive lifegain like Exquisite Blood can create a huge threat out of nowhere, as can cards that let you lose life at will like Bolas's Citadel.

This is another Commander that will enable some really unique builds, but certainly isn’t top-tier.

3. Zaffai, Thunder Conductor

Zaffai showcases the new Magecraft keyword from Strixhaven, and we expect there will be plenty of cards in the set that care about other cards with Magecraft. All of these abilities are ‘spells-matters’ abilities, which of course have their most natural home in Izzet spells decks. Zaffai’s magecraft ability at its most basic level isn’t particularly inspiring – a simple scry 1 for each spell cast – but what he really cares about are expensive spells – the more expensive the better. For every 5-CMC plus spell you cast with Zaffai out, you’ll get a 4/4 blue and red elemental, which is some pretty solid value on top of the spell’s effect. But the real fun starts if you can get all the way up to 10 CMC spells, at which point Zaffai starts randomly nuking your opponents for 10 damage at a time. Even in a high life-total format, that’s an amount of damage to be respectd, and let’s face it by the stage of the game you’re able to cast 10 CMC spells, life totals are not going to be at 40!

This card is big, loud and spectacular which really fits the flavour of the design well. The problem of course will be making it work to good effect. While there are plenty of meaningful instants and sorceries at 5 or greater CMC, there are very few indeed that naturally hit 10 CMC even in the huge pool of cards available to Commander players. That means the most realistic way to trigger that final Magecraft ability will be with X spells like Bonfire of the Damned or Banefire, which pair well with the “I burn your face off” strategy this card encourages. The problem in Izzet will be getting to 10 mana in the first place – cards that cut the cost of instants and sorceries like Goblin Electromancer will be key here.

This is another Commander that’s likely to be more fun than it is effective, particularly given its random targeting but it does offer a pretty unique and fun gameplan for Izzet spells-matters collections alongside some very solid card selection, all of which bumps it up to third spot on our list.

2. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

The first of our pre-con commanders that really hits high-tier power level, Adrix and Nev will catch the attention of token decks everywhere. This is repeatable Doubling Season on a stick in your command zone, and looks set to see play in all kinds of Simic token decks. It even has some inbuilt protection from removal via another new Strixhaven mechanic, Ward, which demands an extra two mana of any spell or ability targeting this card. That’s not a massive amount, but it still makes the card much less efficient to remove and adds to the pain of whichever of your opponents gets the job of removing it.

If the twins do stay in play, the implications will be familiar to anyone who has ever faced a token doubling deck. Two hexproof octopuses from Thassa Bests the Sea God, three ten tens from Desolation Twin, massive armies of tokens from Avenger of Zendikar – the list goes on. 

The value of having reliable access to this effect in the command zone is hard to overstate, and may well make this the premier commander for Simic tokens strategies.

1. Osgir, the Reconstructor

Having raved about Adrix and Nev, what you might be thinking could possible top it on this list? Well there is one more card from the pre-con decks that offers arguably just as much power with an effect that is also really unique and interesting – Osgir the Reconstructor. 

Osgir is such a powerful and interesting design, one that practically begs to be built around. He has cheap, instant speed artifact sacrifice which can be used to pump another creature or himself, which works well with his Viligilance. But this is really just the enabler for his second ability, which can not only return a token copy of any artifact in your graveyard to the battlefield, but brings with it another copy to boot! The amount of value this can generate is massive and remains relevant at all stages of the game. 

Early on, you can just be bringing back two copies of cantrip artifacts like Aether Spellbomb, or cloning mana ramp artifacts like Sol Ring to further power the ability in the late game. In the late game, the ability gets really crazy, potentially duplicating cards like Wurmcoil Engine, Blightsteel Colossus if you discard them with Carthartic Reunion style effects.  

It’s hard to imagine a stronger artifact-matters commander for Boros, and we’re excited to see what this card can do sitting on top of the right pile of artifacts.