The 10 Best Elemental Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 22, 2025

Omnath, Locus of the Roil | Illustration by Lius Lasahido

Magic offers the opportunity to deploy all kinds of powerful creatures. From filling the skies with fearsome dragons and angels to enacting rituals to summon the dead and darker forces from beyond, you have plenty of options. But the scariest may be the elementals, manifestations of the world itself that have risen to destroy your foes with wind, fire, ice, and more.

If you want to bring these powerful manifestations to your local Commander table, you need a powerful elemental commander that rewards you for playing, well, elementals. There are a handful of good elemental commanders, some of which aren't even elementals themselves.

Let's check them out!

What Are Elemental Commanders in MTG?

Kaheera, the Orphanguard | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

Elemental commanders are legendary creatures that encourage you to fill your deck with elementals, cards that care about them, and cards that create elementals. Elemental commanders don't need to be elementals themselves, though your typal commander sharing your primary creature type always helps.

While Magic has a long, storied history of elementals, with many creatures sharing the type, elemental-centric decks tend to care about one of two things: landfall and enters abilities.

One core mechanic that elementals use is evoke, which primarily focuses on enters (and occasionally leaves the battlefield) triggered abilities. Quite a few elementals care about landfall or having a bunch of lands, so that's another decent angle to take. This list contains both commanders that directly care about elementals and legendary elementals that support ETB or landfall strategies.

#10. Kaheera, the Orphanguard

Kaheera, the Orphanguard looks like an ideal elemental commander as a cheap typal lord that adds vigilance, but the color identity is an issue. Most elemental synergies live in the Temur colors. We don't have a strong reason to restrict ourselves to a Selesnya commander, which means we don't have a strong reason to play Kaheera in the command zone. We should certainly look to companion it, however.

#9. Tatyova, Steward of Tides

Tatyova, Steward of Tides may look slightly out of place, but we must remember that most cards that animate lands—including but not limited to Liege of the Tangle, the green planeswalker Nissa, Who Shakes the World, and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa–turn the animated lands into elementals. This Simic commander supports a hyper-specific form of the elemental archetype, but one that at least warrants acknowledgment.

#8. Jyoti, Moag Ancient

At a glance, Jyoti, Moag Ancient works well with the landfall aspect of elementals, giving you plenty of triggers for cards like Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer and Avenger of Zendikar, but it works well with the ETB side of the archetype too. A powerful enters ability like Jyoti's encourages both Panharmonicon style effects and plenty of flicker spells, which work beautifully with evoke creatures like Mulldrifter, Wavesifter, and Foundation Breaker.

#7. Nissa, Resurgent Animist

Having Nissa, Resurgent Animist in the command zone gives you a powerful ramp piece every game that also draws cards! Between fetch lands, Rampant Growth effects, and Exploration effects, green decks have no issue making two land drops a turn. If you focus on big, impactful elementals like Ancient Greenwarden, Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar, and Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, you'll have all the impactful plays you could desire to spend that mana on.

#6. Titania, Nature's Force

To really make Titania, Nature's Force sing, we should take a few cues from Standard decks, namely those using Aftermath Analyst and Blossoming Tortoise to funnel lands from the graveyard to the battlefield.

We can fill that graveyard with powerful self-mill cards like Winding Way and Altar of Dementia. This deck focuses on creating elementals and working with landfall more so than playing a bunch of them in the 99 (though cards like Ancient Greenwarden and Blanchwood Prowler certainly belong here).

#5. Omnath, Locus of Rage

Omnath, Locus of Rage smashes face with massive Elemental tokens that deal damage whether they connect in combat or die, which leaves your opponents trapped between a fire and a lava flow. If that wasn't enough, this Gruul commander can set up a couple of infinite combos that generate infinite elementals or even burn your opponents to death on the spot.

#4. Yarok, the Desecrated

Yarok, the Desecrated hits the sweet spot between the enters elementals and the landfall elementals because it doubles the triggers of both. Adding black to the mix lets this horror commander scam our opponents by pairing cards like Malakir Rebirth and Undying Malice with evoke elementals like Mournwhelk and Nevermaker.

#3. Horde of Notions

The OG elemental commander, Horde of Notions was designed to work with the evoke elementals. It does a fantastic job of it! You can get Mulldrifter and Solitude into the graveyard for cheap, then get them back.

This 5-color commander also works as a ramp piece of sorts for expensive elementals like Nyxbloom Ancient and Nulldrifter if you can get them in the graveyard cheaply. Perhaps a handy Entomb?

#2. Omnath, Locus of Creation

One of the best landfall commanders of all time, Omnath, Locus of Creation doesn't really miss black as you really care about the Temur colors. White lends a few nice cards like Cavalier of Dawn, plus Ephemerate for scams. This 4-color commander wants to zero in on landfall elementals like Titania, Nature's Force and Avenger of Zendikar for the most value.

#1. Omnath, Locus of the Roil

The most elemental-themed Omnath of them all, Omnath, Locus of the Roil hits all the notes we could want.

Temur commander? Check.

Landfall synergy? Check.

An enters ability that encourages flicker effects and Panharmonicon? It checks every box you could want while retaining more focus than some of the other options. Omnath, Locus of the Roil only works as an elemental commander, but does so in style.

Best Elemental Commander Payoffs

First and foremost, you want all the elemental synergies. The best of these is likely Risen Reef, one of the least reasonable card advantage and ramp engines in the game.

You also have cards like Flamekin Harbinger and Brighthearth Banneret. This archetype plays particularly well with typal support cards like Roaming Throne and Reflections of Littjara.

The kind of elemental deck you play—ETB or landfall—determines the kind of support you want. If you go in on landfall, you need plenty of ways to play extra land drops, like Exploration and Nature's Lore.

If you go for ETB value, focus on ways to double your triggers like Panharmonicon and Roaming Throne. We can't overlook the scam value of pairing evoke with cards like Malakir Rebirth and Essence Flux to get two triggers and keep the card around.

Commanding Conclusion

Omnath, Locus of Creation | Illustration by Chris Rahn

If you want to take the power of the elementals into the palm of your hand and use them to raze your foes, these elemental commanders are your best bet. From ETB-based strategies that focus on evoking spells to landfall strategies that gather the strength of your mana base itself, you can do plenty well at the table with these cards.

What's your favorite elemental commander? Would you choose to build around enters abilities or landfall? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and thanks for reading!