Following a shock banning by the Commander Rules Committee, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim is out. While the reasoning made sense – it was just too flexible, reduced the Commander tax for itself with its enter trigger, and was way too easy to cast due to being colourless – it was still the most popular Commander in the entire format.
If you're now scrambling to find a new Commander to replace Golos in your favourite decks, here are a few five-colour creatures who might just bit the bill.
5 Morophon, the Boundless
Although Golos was banned because of its self-ramping and quick win potential, its ability to fit into almost any kind of deck made it a very flexible any-colour creature-type tribal commander. Fortunately, the Commander actually designed for those under-represented creature types is still here, with Morophon the Boundless.
When Morophon enters the battlefield, you choose a creature type. Every creature you then cast of that type is reduced by WUBRG (one white, one blue, one black, one red, and one green mana), while also buffing that creature type by +1/+1. With Morophon, your weird Pangolin Tribal deck is just as valid as your opponent's elves or dragons, and that's why it's so good.
Morophon was made specifically for tribal decks who don't have their own Commander, yet people still often opted to use Golos instead because of the additional ramp and cost-cheating capabilities. Now Golos is banned, maybe it's time to go back to good, clean, horrific-elk-thing Morophon?
4 Garth One-Eye
Introduced in Modern Horizons 2, Garth One-Eye is a really weird card that plays up to the game's history. His ability literally creates a copy of six of Magic's most famous cards for you to cast for their usual mana cost:
- Disenchant (one generic and one white: destroy an artifact or enchantment)
- Braingeyser (X generic, two blue: target player draws X cards)
- Terror (one generic and one black: destroy target nonartifact, nonblack creature. It can't be regenerated)
- Shivan Dragon (four generic and two red: a flying 5/5 red dragon that can get +1/+0 until the end of the turn for one red mana)
- Regrowth (one generic and one green: return a target card from your graveyard to your hand)
- Black Lotus (zero cost: tap and sacrifice it to add three mana of any one colour to your mana pool)
Garth is a decent replacement for Golos because of his versatility. While it isn't exactly casting spells for free, having the choice of five very different cards available to you at any time is terrific. With a haste enabler like Crashing Drawbridge, he can even offset his own Commander tax by producing a Black Lotus, something not even Golos can do.
3 Kenrith, the Returned King
Throne of Eldraine's Kenrith, the Returned King is the Commander Rules Committee's suggestion for a good Golos replacement. While it makes sense in the context of how the Rules Committee envisions Commander, it isn't necessarily the best one you can pick.
On his own, Kenrith can do lots of things, from giving creatures trample and haste until the end of the turn for one red to putting a creature card in a graveyard back onto the battlefield for four generic and one black. Versatile and political (seeing as you can give the benefits to other players), it is currently the most popular five-colour Commander on EDHRec, especially for "good stuff" decks, where the best cards in each colour are put together.
The reason Kenrith isn't higher on this list, despite technically being the new number one five-colour Commander, is that it doesn't really fill the same space Golos did. Part of Golos' appeal was the ability to cheat out cards for cheaper or even free, but Kenrith simply doesn't do that. It does a lot without being as horrifically overpowered as Golos, but it doesn't scratch the same itch.
2 Jodah, Archmage Eternal
Dominaria's Jodah, Archmage Eternal, much like Golos, is a great tool for cheating out expensive spells. His ability simply says you can pay WUBRG instead of the usual mana cost of spells you cast. No other input needed, it's available to you the same turn that Jodah enters, making it a potent threat once it hits the board.
For cheaper spells this isn't worth it, but for bigger game-winning pieces like Omniscience, Enter the Infinite or Approach of the Second Sun, being able to cheat the cost down to just five is fantastic.
It's even better when you have a mana-fixing artifact like Chromatic Lantern or Chromatic Orrery, as then you don't have to worry about keeping one of each colour open for it.
1 Sissay, Weatherlight Captain
While being limited to only Legendary spells, Sissay's ability is still incredibly good, and similar enough to Golos to be appealing. Pay WUBRG, and you can search your library for a Legendary permanent with a mana value less than Sissay's power, and then put it straight onto the battlefield.
For each Legendary permanent you control, Sissay gets an additional +1/+1, letting you bring out bigger and bigger things with ease. If you're not running Leyline of Singularity in a Sissay deck, you are severely missing out.
Although Sissay is limited to only bringing out legendary permanents, she beats out Jodah for the top spot because she allows you to search your deck for exactly what you need. With both Golos and Jodah, you're still bound by the luck of the draw, while Sissay can set up everything you need. Efficient, versatile, and still a bit scary, she is as Golos-y as Commander wants there to be right now.