The 25 Best Wizard Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 24, 2025

Alania, Divergent Storm | Illustration by Joshua Raphael

Wizard has always struck me as a strange creature type in Magic, mostly because my assumption is that pretty much anything that can cast a spell counts as a wizard. Obviously that’s not the case, and “wizard” is used more specifically for spellcasters of a more arcane persuasion.

But wizard commanders… now that’s an easy one to define. Is it a wizard? Can it be your commander? Abra Cadabra, it’s a wizard commander! Hey, maybe I’m the magical one here….

What Are Wizard Commanders in MTG?

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist | Illustration by Yongjae Choi

We’re defining wizard commanders as legendary creatures with the wizard creature type. I was originally going to pose this as legends that cared about wizards specifically, but that’s a much less interesting list, so we’re focusing on the type line here.

While the wizard creature type is often associated with spellcasting of some sort, like casting instants and sorceries, it’s a broad enough creature type that’s regularly used just to assign a class to a creature. Does this otter know how to conjure lightning bolts? Otter wizard. Bird says the word “sorcery” somewhere in its rules text? Bird wizard. You get the point.

Dishonorable Mention

I feel like we could just make a fart noise, move on, and everyone would kind of get it. 

Nadu, Winged Wisdom is just a blunder, and I really do question what people were trying to achieve when they pulled this out in casual games. Combos aside, Nadu just produces absurd amounts of value with basically anything that can repeatedly target, like Lightning Greaves or Shuko. Triggering off targeted effects from your opponents is just entering silly design territory, and it earned Nadu a much-deserved spot on the Commander ban list.

#25. Plagon, Lord of the Beach

Full disclosure: I haven’t really seen Plagon, Lord of the Beach in action, but there’s a lot of buzz surrounding this… starfish wizard? It’s not quite a defenders commander, but it does turn high-toughness creatures into lethal threats while also refilling your hand on ETB. You’re looking for a lot of the same support you’d want in a Phenax, God of Deception or Doran, the Siege Tower deck: things like Nyx-Fleece Ram or Caelorna, Coral Tyrant.

Could be that Plagon deserves to be higher, but I have it at the bottom until I see how it actually performs.

#24. Krark, the Thumbless

No thumbs, no problems! Krark, the Thumbless is a partner commander that gets up to some nasty business with spellcasting payoffs like Guttersnipe and Fiery Inscription. The key is to cast cheap spells that you just don’t really care all that much about. You’ll either get free copies or bounce the spells back, where you can recast them to trigger your payoffs again. It sounds like a 50/50 coin flip, but you usually come out on top either way.

#23. Azami, Lady of Scrolls

Frail or not, Azami, Lady of Scrolls is a payoff for running a bunch of cheap wizards in your deck. It’s not quite good enough on its own unless you’re doing Mind Over Matter combos, but don’t let the 0/2 stat line fool you; Azami’s all about card draw, not board presence.

#22. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist

I used to fear Inalla, Archmage Ritualist since most people played it as a one-card combo with Wanderwine Prophets. There’s enough counterplay to stop that these days, and Inalla’s not nearly as popular as they once were. It still has the word eminence written on it, so I’m not letting my guard down if it ever makes a resurgence.

#21. Eruth, Tormented Prophet

There were a few “draw your deck” commanders in Izzet, with Rielle, the Everwise coming in quite close to Eruth, Tormented Prophet. The reason I like Eruth so much is that it plays so well with cast from exile payoffs like Passionate Archaeologist and Memory Worm. Eruth just rattles off spells, even if it leaves you empty-handed most games.

#20. Zimone, Paradox Sculptor

This one goes out to all those Vorel of the Hull Clade players. Bad news: That card has never been very good. Worse news: It’s all but obsolete now that Zimone, Paradox Sculptor exists. There’s some minor advantages to Vorel, but Zimone’s ability to stack its own +1/+1 counters and double counters on two permanents per turn is just absurd. If I knew math made you this powerful, I probably wouldn’t have chosen to be an English major.

#19. Kykar, Wind’s Fury

I still think Kykar, Wind's Fury looks like a RoboRosewater creation. The weird combination of Spirit token creation, spellslinger payoff, and ritual-like sacrifice ability just looks funky, but Kykar’s a powerhouse in practice. You can either go wide and beat down with fliers or channel all those spirits into a huge X spell of some sort. Imagine Talrand, Sky Summoner, but you can cash in the flying tokens for mana.

#18. Sefris of the Hidden Ways

You’re more than welcome to play other venture cards to turbo towards Sefris of the Hidden Ways’s reanimation ability, but you can do all the dungeon-exploring you need completely independent of those cards. As long as you can keep getting creatures in the bin, Sefris will keep venturing, and therefore completing dungeons, each time returning one of your valuable creatures to play. This is a rare instance where it’s probably strategically correct to ignore the other support cards that play into the card’s main mechanic and just opt for some sort of looter/self-mill strategy.

#17. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is just a huge nuisance. Its activated ability operates at instant speed and ignores commander tax, leading to a whole generation of Commander players who roll their eyes at the sight of this bird wizard. There are a lot of directions you can take, too, from tap/untap shenanigans to stax manipulation with cards like Winter Orb.

#16. Glarb, Calamity’s Augur

Glarb, Calamity's Augur has a nice collection of abilities. Surveil 2 on a tap ability is already way more useful than it sounds, ensuring you hit a steady stream of action or lands, whichever you need. But the surveil goes on to set up the Future Sight effect, which lets you filter expensive spells off the top of your library. That’s just straight card selection and card advantage all tied to a respectable deathtouch body.

#15. Veyran, Voice of Duality

Veyran, Voice of Duality is one of the rare wizard commanders that’ll just straight-up dome you with commander damage. It’s an ability doubler for abilities that trigger from casting spells, which includes prowess, magecraft, and anything else that says “when you cast an instant/sorcery….” I like that this plays an aggressive game plan but still feels very much Izzet, leaning into prowess and spellcasting to get the game over with.

#14. Niv-Mizzet, Visionary

Niv-Mizzet, Visionary bucked the trend of most other Nivs just enough to stand apart from the rest. Instead of reworking the “draw cards = deal damage” paradigm, this Foundations Niv reverses the formula and turns direct damage into card draw. You just can’t ignore a commander that turns Boltwave into a draw-9 or Fiery Confluence into a draw-18.

#13. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

Parallel Lives in the command zone, with ward to boot! A token doubler is a strong effect to have access to game-in, game-out, and token decks tend to be strong enough that the deck operates fine even without Adrix and Nev, Twincasters in play.

#12. Rionya, Fire Dancer

Rionya, Fire Dancer wants a deckbuilding split of mostly cheap spells and rituals, rounded out with some absolute haymakers worth copying. You can go the value route with something like Combustible Gearhulk, the combat route with Combat Celebrant and Fear of Missing Out, or the “get everyone dead” route with a damage-based ETB creature like Overlord of the Boilerbilges or Inferno Titan.

#11. Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder

The only thing standing between Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder and a turn full of free spells is the combat step. Trample helps a lot here, and a single point of combat damage with Yidris is enough to get the value train rolling. This ogre wizard doesn’t point players in any particular direction, so it’s totally up to your how degenerate you want to build your deck. “Free” suspend spells like Wheel of Fate and Ancestral Vision usually round out some pretty powerful turns with Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder.

#10. Balmor, Battlemage Captain

Simple and Clean! Or whatever they said in Kingdom Hearts. 

Balmor, Battlemage Captain gets right down to business by promoting token generation and then absolutely smashing with a flurry of spells. This commander benefits immensely from “spellified” creatures, like Dragon Fodder or Rally at the Hornburg. Dump a few of those, then fire off some cantrips and burn spells for a massive overrun finish.

#9. Niv-Mizzet, Parun

Restrictive casting cost aside, Niv-Mizzet, Parun stands tall as one of Magic’s best spellslinger commanders. If it doesn’t die right away, it usually wreaks havoc on the board, pinging on every draw and drawing on every instant or sorcery cast. If it does die right away, that’ll usually be to an instant or sorcery, so you’ll often get your card back. Six mana is a lot, and is fierce, but this Niv’s an incredible source of card draw and damage to have sitting in play.

#8. Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student / Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar

Oh Modern Horizons sets, when will you learn? Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is just an unreasonable card to play on turn 1, which you can do every single time with this flipwalker as your commander. It might not lead to immediate Mox Opal/Grinding Station wins like it does in Modern, but a Clue a turn for almost no investment can lead to so much, whether that’s raw card draw or fueling an artifact payoff like Radiant Lotus. Oh, and there’s also Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar, which makes this a Simic commander () and adds an extra layer of value on an already powerful 1-mana commander.

#7. Kess, Dissident Mage

You might also consider Lier, Disciple of the Drowned here, but I like the Grixis () coverage on Kess, Dissident Mage. This was once (and might still be?) a popular cEDH commander, but it also makes for a strong casual spellslinger commander. An extra spell each turn is strong, even if it’s locked to just your own turns.

#6. Thrasios, Triton Hero

Thrasios, Triton Hero is an easy card to evaluate, with its greatest strength being the opportunity to bestow its abilities onto some other partner commander and always have access to Simic colors and a late-game mana sink. This is just value incarnate and a great filter for infinite mana, which leads people to partner it even if it’s not a central part of their strategy.

#5. Alania, Divergent Storm

Never trust a wizard with “storm” in its name. Alania, Divergent Storm looks like a cute, cuddly otter commander, but it’s kind of just an insane value engine if it lives for a turn. Note that you get to copy one each of instants, sorceries, and otters each turn, so that’s up to three copies a turn if you’re willing to “gift” the card draw. It’s tempting, and honestly probably optimal to lean into extra turn spells with Alania, Divergent Storm.

#4. Marchesa, the Black Rose

Marchesa, the Black Rose feels so cheesy once all the pieces are set in motion. This Grixis commander can cycle through creatures with +1/+1 counters on them once each turn, which is baseline great and borderline busted with undying creatures like Murderous Redcap. Dethrone also makes it much easier to enable the +1/+1 counter distribution, though you’ll find yourself on the throne quite often with this commander.

#3. Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist

Hashaton, Scarab's Fist is impressive, to say the least. It’s part discard commander, part reanimator commander, and it plays so well with other reanimation spells since it doesn’t exile anything it copies. “Eternalizing” a creature as a 4/4 often makes it smaller than you’d like, but is a small price to pay for an Archon of Cruelty, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, or whatever your reanimation target of choice may be.

#2. Rowan, Scion of War

My experience with Rowan, Scion of War is that if it lives for a turn, the game is over. With a timely haste enabler, there might not even be another turn. Cards like Wall of Blood let you drain as much of your life as you’d like, and you can syphon all the cost reduction into an X spell like Exsanguinate or Jaya's Immolating Inferno. I’d be scared if I were Will, Scion of Peace, because it’s clear sis here is the better twin.

#1. Jodah, the Unifier

There are 5-color commanders with a bit of nuance and finesse, and then there’s Jodah, the Unifier. “Legendary cascade” is already a strong enough selling point to want to build around this, but why did it also need to give such a massive buff to your legends? Not only are you just burying your opponents in legendary spells already, but they’re all just getting a static +5/+5 or more most of the time, too.

Best Wizard Commander Payoffs

Not all wizard commanders care about actual wizards, but there are quite a few typal commanders that work well with the creature type.

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist gives you temporary copies of your wizards, Azami, Lady of Scrolls turns them all into extra card draw, and Kaza, Roil Chaser gives you cost reduction based on the number of wizzies you control.

Some lesser wizard commanders include Adeliz, the Cinder Wind, Aegar, the Freezing Flame, and Naban, Dean of Iteration. There’s also Naru Meha, Master Wizard, a typical lord that’s used most often as an infinite combo piece with copy spells.

Wizard is one of the primary party creature types, and some party legends already count as wizards. Nalia de'Arnise and Burakos, Party Leader both count as wizards and pay you off for diversifying your party types.

Wizards also tend to play around in the spellcasting space, as evidenced by all the wizards that are Izzet commanders. Many, many wizards care about casting spells, which makes them best friends with cheap cantrips like Ponder and Brainstorm.

Simply having a powerful wizard in your command zone might be enough to consider running Riptide Laboratory in your mana base for a bit of protection. Flame of Anor is also an incredible modal card if you’ll consistently have a wizard in play.

Commanding Conclusion

Kess, Dissident Mage | Illustration by Izzy

Hmm, not nearly as many pointy hats as I would’ve liked. Frolicking Familiar gets the idea, but alas, it’s not legendary. Guess we’ll settle for the strange menagerie of bird wizards, zombie wizards, ogre wizards, and starfish wizards in MTG.

Wizard is such a broad creature type that I surely left off some fan favorites here. If I’m underrating a powerful wizard commander, or if you think I’m giving too much credit to something actually on the list, let me know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord.

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