All 15 Common Legendary Creatures and Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 22, 2025

Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

There’s not much of a reason to put a common card in your command zone. Maybe you like the character and just want it to be your commander, or you’re intentionally knee-capping yourself for some sort of deckbuilding stipulation, but you’re going to have a tough time leveraging common commanders if everyone else at the table isn’t doing the same.

But the true sickos amongst you are probably here for a reason, or at least a challenge, so I present to you all of the viable commanders printed at common rarity. And I use the term viable optimistically.

What Are Common Commanders?

The Prismatic Piper | Illustration by Seb McKinnon

Common commanders are legendary creatures, or other cards with rules text that allows them to be put in your command zone (like backgrounds), with either the common rarity, or the special rarity. Special rarity cards are still considered commons.

For example, The Prismatic Piper is one of the special rarity cards (see the S in the bottom left corner) that’s also considered a common legendary creature.

#15. The Prismatic Piper + Faceless One

The Prismatic Piper and Faceless One are both from Commander Draft environments, Commander Legends and Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate, respectively. They were more or less clever answers to a question about how a Commander Draft would work: “What if you don’t draft any commanders?”

The solution was to include these cards, which were passively available to players who failed to pick up a commander or background needed for their color identity.

These are pretty much useless outside of Limited, though! You should always have a better partner commander or background to pair with than these, even if you’re totally budget-restricted. Five mana for a vanilla 3/3 wouldn’t even be a good rate for Beta MTG, let alone 2020s MTG.

#14. Chandler + Joven

Speaking of 5-mana 3/3s, how about Chandler and Joven?

These odd red creatures are a scrappy pair of thieves from the “beloved” Homelands expansion. They can both blow up different kinds of artifacts for you, albeit at a steep cost of . Joven is also known for his collection of ferrets (Joven's Ferrets), which counts for something.

If you’re trying to win, you obviously aren’t going anywhere near these guys. But winning is nothing compared to winning with cards from Homelands, so I respect you for attempting either of these jokers in Commander. You could even try to Rule 0 them as partners for all your artifact-destroying needs.

#13. Skoa, Embermage

Skoa, Embermage was a friend of mine in Modern Horizons 3 Limited, and it’s was easily the best common commander printed before 2025. As a red commander, it really does not have much going for it; grandeur is of course out of question in a singleton format, so the Fireblast mode is sharpied out. What you end up getting is a Flametongue Kavu of sorts in the command zone, one that also forces you to play mono-red. Given how tall of a task playing mono-red is in Commander, I can’t recommend this one at all.

Stick to 40-card formats, Skoa!

#12. Vanillas from Legends and Homelands

Hoo boy, here we go!

Here's the old guard in terms of common legends. You’ll tend to only find them in old sets, and they’re usually vanilla creatures. Based on stats and color pairing, I’d rank them as follows (from worst to best):

• Barktooth Warbeard (great name, bad stats!)
• Lady Orca
• Jedit Ojanen
• Sivitri Scarzam
• Sir Shandlar of Eberyn
• Torsten Von Ursus
• The Lady of the Mountain
• Jerrard of the Closed Fist
• Tobias Andrion

Tobias Andrion is the best by virtue of being the only one to cost less than 6, while having close enough vanilla stats to the others.

If we’re ranking them by flavor, that’s ultimately subjective. I’d probably pick Sivitri Scarzam, Barktooth Warbeard, and Jedit Ojanen as the best ones. I particularly like Jedit Ojanen for feeling nothing like an Azorius card should.

The only reason to play any of these cards as your commander is simple: You want access to a certain 2c pair without the needless advantage of having anything useful in the command zone. This could be a great way to handicap yourself when playing versus less experienced friends. Think of it like picking Pichu in Smash Bros Melee, or Dan Hibiki in (older) Street Fighter games.

#11. Ramirez DePietro

Dimir creatures () had first strike in 1994, apparently! Of all the vanilla 2c commanders from Homelands and Legends, Ramirez DePietro is my pick for the winner by virtue of at least having something going for it. It’s obviously not much as a Dimir commander (especially for a 6-drop), but hey, that flavor text is still pretty solid even 30 years later. Ramirez and Jedit Ojanen were also beloved enough by fans to get two remakes each.

#10. Swarm, Being of Bees

Pretty much all of the Spider-Man legends that qualify for this list outrank everything else before them, because they actually do something, even if it’s just a small something.

Mayhem just doesn’t work on commanders, and this card wouldn’t be good even if you could cast it for free. Whacky flavor text aside, Swarm, Being of Bees offers nothing from the command zone, and very little in the 99.

#9. Spider-Rex, Daring Dino

Colossal Dreadmaw with more keywords is something we get in almost every set now, and at no point has anyone really wanted one for the command zone. If you’ve been dying for a dinosaur–spider hybrid legend, here’s one of heroic proportions.

#8. Stegron the Dinosaur Man

As a commander, Stegron the Dinosaur Man is basically a French vanilla menace beater. The bloodrush-like discard ability doesn’t work from the command zone, unless you’re jumping through hoops just to get a telegraphed +3/+1 bonus. Turning the target into a dinosaur is cute, but also rather pointless.

#7. Beetle, Legacy Criminal

Beetle, Legacy Criminal lets you put Phantom Monster in your command zone. Everything else is so marginal that, yeah, this might as well just be Phantom Monster. It’s nice that the graveyard ability lets you put it back in the command zone, so you don’t miss out, but you also don’t get very much out of the deal anyway.

#6. Venom, Evil Unleashed

Debatable that this is even better than Beetle, Legacy Criminal. This version of Venom just screams Limited card, and not much else. Nerfed Scream Puff with a clunky graveyard ability isn’t really what I’m looking for, and I’d have to be playing some serious Bracket 1 Magic before I consider running Venom, Evil Unleashed as my commander.

#5. Starling, Aerial Ally

They really are hitting the notes of “card that already exists, but legendary”. Here we’ve got your standard Pegasus Courser, but with buffed stats and at almost twice the cost. Unless you’re forcing yourself to play with a low-rarity commander, just compare this to Gwaihir, Greatest of the Eagles, and that should sell you on why Starling’s a dud of a commander.

#4. Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist

Doc Ock, Sinister Scientist should get better over time as more Marvel sets flood the game with more villain creatures. As it stands, you’re stuck with a paltry helping of Spider-Man villains, and not nearly enough in mono-blue to ensure Doc Ock stays protected. The reward of a big vanilla 8/8 isn’t all the enticing to begin with.

#3. Spider-Man, Web-Slinger

Spider-Man, Web-Slinger is the most deadpan average looking card I’ve ever seen. Web-slinging can reset a card with a valuable ETB, but what are you doing after that? Beating down with your discounted 3/3? This Spider-Man’s a one-trick pony, and the first trick isn’t all that impressive.

#2. Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit

You ever look at Reckless Racer and think “wow, I really want that to be my commander!” Me neither.

Spider-Gwen, Free Spirit is basically a palette swap of the Racer with reach instead of first strike. Nothing mind-blowing, though rummaging is useful, and you can at least use Spider-Gwen as an enabler for madness, mayhem, or some infinite twiddle combos.

#1. Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary

Web-slinging’s interesting enough that Spider-Man, Brooklyn Visionary might do some cool stuff. Rebuying a valuable ETB creature while ramping with your 4/3 sounds cool, though that’s where the benefits end. It also sounds amazing to cast this on turn 2 off a turn-1 Llanowar Elves, but that’s just replacing one form of ramp with another, so it's not as impressive as it sounds.

Backgrounds as Commanders

While the above covers all legendary creatures, there are five more commons that you can legally have in your commander slot: The common backgrounds from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate.

“Choose a background” works like the partner ability. If your commander has the choose a background ability, then you can also have a legendary background enchantment in your command zone.

One difference with the partner ability is that backgrounds can't be your commander unless you have also designated a commander with “choose a background,” and all of those are uncommons.

Flaming Fist

Flaming Fist is a combat-centric background that can turn your commander into a potent one-shot engine. Unfortunately, that’s all it does, and it only does this with lots of other support. It pairs best with a Voltron commander like Wilson, Refined Grizzly.

Candlekeep Sage

Candlekeep Sage is a flicker-adjacent card that wants your commander to enter/leave the battlefield as much as possible. Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward is easily the best partner for this one, as you can pair it with this blue enchantment, ETB value cards, and flicker effects like Cloudshift and Ephemerate. This is a different take on Azorius () flicker if you’re bored of Brago, King Eternal by this point.

Scion of Halaster

Scion of Halaster is a somewhat underwhelming value card that helps improve your draws and fill your graveyard. Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy, Erinis, Gloom Stalker, and Viconia, Drow Apostate are all good choices to pair with this black enchantment, as each can get some extra value out of binning cards.

Tavern Brawler

Tavern Brawler provides a nice mix of combat boosts and card advantage. It works decently with scry/surveil effects, and with large spells in general which will give a bigger +X boost. Good commanders to pair with this red enchantment are Wilson, Refined Grizzly and Durnan of the Yawning Portal.

Master Chef

Master Chef serves as a nice support card for a +1/+1 counter theme. Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion loves this green enchantment and is the clear best partner for it due to its synergy with counters. Volo, Itinerant Scholar, Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar, and Karlach, Fury of Avernus are also acceptable pairings if you’d rather build for a different color pair.

Can I Play Commander with Only Commons?

You can do whatever you like and no one here’s going to stop you. Now, I’d highly recommend not playing a Commander deck entirely made of commons, unless you’re in a pod of like-minded individuals doing the same thing, but there’s no rarity restriction on any cards in regular Commander games.

That said, if you’re playing the Pauper Commander variant, you must play with all commons. The commander(s) can be uncommon, but the remaining 98/99 must consist of cards that have been printed at common at least once. Pauper Commander adds a deckbuilding restriction to the rules of EDH, but outside EDH alternatives like this, you’re free to play as many or as few commons as you wish.

Commanding Conclusion

Beetle, Legacy Criminal | Illustration by Carlos Dattoli

Spider-Man really bolstered the number of playable common commanders, and maybe that means future Universes Beyond sets have even more coming, due to their high number of legendary creatures. However, the Spidey set didn’t impact the quality of these low-rarity legends. You have more options, and the new stuff’s certainly better than all those old, overcosted Legends vanillas, but the newest wave of common commanders is still incredibly lackluster. I mean, what are you expecting from a common?

If you choose to burden yourself challenge yourself with a common commander, or you’re imposing a deckbuilding stipulation on your Commander pod, I hope you at least have fun with it. Power level and fun are rarely equivalent, and a common legend might be just the spice you need to freshen up and lose your next round of EDH.

Have you ever run a common commander in Commander? Did you end up winning with it, or was it a bloodbath? Let me know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord.

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