Top 10 Zendikar Rising Cards for Commander

Honorable Mention 1: Spell Lands

Commander mana bases can be famously greedy and reliant on lands that can generate multiple colours of mana. But for those decks that might run only one or two colours, the new spell lands will be a hugely flexible and powerful addition.

Commander mana bases can be famously greedy and reliant on lands that can generate multiple colours of mana. But for those decks that might run only one or two colours, the new spell lands will be a hugely flexible and powerful addition.

The spell lands are a cycle of double faced cards that on one side function as simple lands that come into play tapped. However, if you draw them or hold them until later in the game when your manabase is already built and you need action to cast, they can be played on their alternate side as spells. This would be strong enough if these spells were lackluster in power simply because of the flexibility and protection from flood they offer. But in many cases, these are powerful rare and mythic spells that can add real utility even in a format like Commander with high card quality.

The pick of this cycle will be cards that offer a game-changing or rare effect in their colours. Agadeem’s Awakening in black for example offers the ability to resurrect a huge portion of your graveyard directly onto the battlefield. Ondu Inversion can destroy every nonland permanent on the board, while Valakut Awakening offers rare selective card draw in red, letting you redraw as many cards from your hand as you want, and at instant speed to boot.

If you can deal with the restrictions on your mana base, these cards will offer great utility and consistency in any Commander deck that can accommodate them.

Honorable Mention 2: Pathways

Continuing the theme of double-faced lands, the Pathways offer another type of dual land that will be hugely valuable in Commander mana bases.

Like the spell lands, as you play these lands in play you must choose which side to select. From that point, the card will function like a basic land of whichever coloured side you chose. Whilst that means you cannot use the land flexibly to produce both colours of mana once it’s in play, they crucially come into play untapped with no conditions and no life loss. For decks that rely on explosive starts, that makes them very valuable. Expect these to command a high price as they have all been printed at rare!

10. Cleansing Wildfire

Land destruction can be a little controversial in Commander depending on your playgroup, but this version offers a variant that looks both fair and powerful.

Cleansing Wildfire allows you to destroy a single land that might be causing you severe problems or generating unacceptable value, like an Ancient Tomb or a Reliquary Tower. Importantly, it does this without costing you a card, whilst also allowing your opponent to search out a basic to at least partially compensate them and ensure they can still generate some mana. Of course this card will be obnoxious if your opponent happens to have no basic lands in their deck, but then a manabase that greedy is surely begging to be punished!

The Wildfire even offers some strange emergency fixing in that you can destroy one of your own lands if you are missing a colour and search up a basic that generates what you need at no card disadvantage. Never the mode you want to use, but useful nonetheless.

9. Archon of Emeria

This is pure oppressiveness in creature form. A Rule of Law stapled to the best ability of Thalia, Heretic Cathar is unlikely to make you many friends in your home game, but its power in a multiplayer format that features so many explosive decks is hard to deny.

Nonbasic lands are everywhere in Commander, and having most of the lands your opponents play enter tapped will slow them down enormously while leaving you free to develop. You’ll need a deck with a plan that will function only casting a single spell each turn, but your opponents will face the same restriction too, and in many cases their deck just won’t be able to function until this is off the table.

8. Skyclave Relic

Mana rocks are king in EDH, and on the face of it Skyclave Relic might not look like it can fit in the illustrious company of cards like Chromatic Lantern at the same CMC. But this card’s indestructibility is actually very relevant in a world of Vandalblasts and Planar Cleansings, and can leave you ahead when an opponent wipes the board.

This card's real power comes if you’re able to generate six mana in a single turn and kick it. Three indestructible mana rocks generating any combination of colours every turn for the rest of the game is no joke in a format where ramp and fixing are both so important.

Expect this to see EDH play in decks that get benefit from artifacts or in ramp decks with the greediest of mana bases.

7. Moraug, Fury of Akoum

Moraug might not be the outright best card on this list, but he certainly offers the most potential to go off in a single turn.

A single fetch land allows Moraug to snag you a full three attack phases, each with your creatures more pumped than the last. If you can get the minotaur to his full potential with repeated landfall triggers in a single main phase, you could conceivably be looking at five, six or even seven attack phases, with your creatures growing more and more devastating each time. This card offers the potential to kill multiple opponents in a single turn, and simply has to be respected.

6. Ashaya, Soul of the Wild

Ashaya is a card whose full possibilities might not be obvious on first reading. In Commander, her first ability is clearly going to quickly make this a massive body in its own right. However, its real power comes from the fact that it makes every nontoken creature you control a Forest land. This has some really explosive implications.

Firstly, in mono-green, Ashaya will massively increase the power of ‘forests matter’ cards. Secondly, it lets every creature you control tap for 1 green, potentially generating huge amounts of extra mana every turn. These two abilities combined make her a particularly perfect partner for Nissa, Who Shakes the World. With Nissa in play, every nontoken creature you control will now instantly tap for two mana. And if you ever reach her ultimate, Nissa will make every land you control indestructible, which will now include all your creatures, including Ashaya herself!

Finally – and perhaps least intuively – Ashaya’s ability means that every future creature you play will trigger landfall type effects for cards like Avenger of Zendikar. In decks that can take advantage of all three upsides, Ashaya will generate enormous advantage and some really crazy turns.

5. Feed the Swarm

This card actually represents a real moment in Magic history – the advent of targeted enchantment removal in black. Some players will have strong views about what that does to the colour pie, but in EDH, where mono black essentially has no tools to deal with the powerful enchantments that exist in the format, its power is undeniable. That's especially true given that it also functions as unrestricted creature removal for only two mana.

It does of course come with the typically black downside of life loss based on the CMC of the destroyed card, but with the doubled life totals in Commander, this just makes the card even more attractive than it will be in other formats.

4. Scute Swarm

“Survival rule 782: There are always more scute bugs”

Never has flavour text been truer. If you do not respect this card, I promise it will overwhelm you. A callback to the classic Scute Mob, this card pushes the land-matters theme of the card infinitely further.

From your sixth land drop, this card copies itself each time, in turn generating an exponentially growing hoard of Scute Swarms. The upshot is that this unassuming 1/1 demands immediate targeted removal or a rapid wrath, or within a few land drops, it will generate dozens, hundreds or even thousands of bugs that will brutally gnaw players to death. You have been warned!

3. Lithoform Engine

This card makes the top three on its potential for fun as much as its raw power. While it can be slow to get going and relies on support from the rest of your hand, the Engine’s potential for shenanigans is huge.

This artifact is astonishingly flexible. For two mana, you can copy any triggered or activated ability you control. Ever fancied your Kozilek’s Annihalator 4 triggering twice? Well now it can. And this is the cheap ability!

For three mana, you can copy any instant or sorcery spell you have on the stack. For cheaper spells that cost is prohibitively expensive, but if you’re dealing with an expensive spell, particularly a modal one where you might want to select multiple modes like Merciless Eviction, the ability offers great value. What’s also neat, particularly in a single format, is that this actually offers a way around countermagic by targeting your countered spell while it is still on the stack.

Finally, for three mana this does something entirely new in Magic history, which is to copy a permanent spell while it is still on the stack, making the copy into a token. Again, with enough mana this allows you to ensure you to ensure your most powerful artifacts, enchantments, creatures and Planeswalkers will resolve even through countermagic. In a singleton format, it’s also a great way of doubling up on cards you would ordinarily never be able to duplicate. The possibilities are endless, and for that alone this card deserves a spot in our top three.

2. Ancient Greenwarden

This card plays like a Crucible of Worlds, strapped to a Panharmonicon, strapped to a 5/7 reach body. If that sounds very very good, that’s because it is.

Admittedly, the Panharmonicon trigger-doubling effect only applies where the triggered ability is caused by a land entering the battlefield, but in EDH that is far from a rare event. With this card in play, fetch lands like evolving wilds can become ridiculous value engines if coupled with any kind of landfall ability. Ancient Greenwarden allows you to play your fetch land for a double landfall trigger, then sac it and find another land for another double landfall trigger, then the next turn play the same fetch land from your graveyard and repeat the whole process for another four landfall triggers for as long as you have lands to search up.

Oh, and if you have any card in play that lets you play multiple lands per turn like Azusa, Lost But Seeking, you can potentially trigger landfall upwards of 12 times in a single turn.

1. Omnath, Locus of Creation

Topping our list is the soul of Zendikar himself, Omnath. A returning legendary elemental from previous visits to Zendikar, Omnath has always been a big, flashy creature with a focus on landfall, and this version clearly looks to be the strongest printed yet. His casting cost screams potential as a commander, and he will function exceptionally well leading a dedicated landfall deck.

While difficult to cast, Omnath’s power is extremely high for a four mana creature. He has what is very likely the most interesting and potentially powerful landfall trigger ever printed. His ability’s design rewards players that can trigger three landfall triggers in a single turn, which as we’ve seen earlier in this list can be turned on with surprising ease in Commander. If you’re able to snag the triple trigger, you’ll snag 4 points of lifegain, four mana across all four of your colours, and 4 damage directed at all of your opponents and all of your planeswalkers. That is some serious reward for simply developing your mana base!

Omnath even cantrips when he enters the battlefield, meaning that as a commander he will constantly generate card advantage on every recast from the command zone. He’s certainly a build-around, but one with huge potential.