Universes Beyond is Magic: the Gathering’s massive endeavor to bring characters and worlds from other video games, comic books, and more to the card game. Sometimes a Universes Beyond could be in the form of a Secret Lair, an independent set, or Commander decks.
Because many of the other universes focus on iconic characters, Universes Beyond products are a great place to find powerful Commanders. With unique abilities created based on the character’s lore and powers, these are some of the most unique Commanders to ever be printed
10 Optimus Prime, Hero // Optimus Prime, Autobot Leader
The leader of the Autobots himself, Optimus Prime excels in raising the weakest of your creatures to join the fight. With his bolster ability, he adds counters to a creature with the lowest toughness among creatures you control. Optimus Prime is difficult to deal with, as killing him only brings him back to the battlefield transformed into his semi-truck form.
9 Eleven, The Mage
Perfectly on theme, Eleven, the Mage raises the maximum number of cards you can have in your hand to eleven. She fuels her ability, drawing you a card whenever you attack. Once you have a full eleven cards in hand, you can start casting cards for free. As a card with friends forever, you can partner Eleven with one of the other kids from Stranger Things for a deck powered up by friendship.
8 Magus Lucea Kane
From the grimdark future of Warhammer 40,000 comes Magus Lucea Kane. A Tyranid Genestealer who works to undermine the Imperium of Man for the Tyranids. Every turn you get to power up a creature, giving it a +1/+1 counter at the start of combat on your turn.
You then get to ramp up two generic mana, and if that mana is used for a spell or ability with X in its casting cost, you get to copy it instead.
7 Abaddon the Despoiler
It doesn’t take long to see how quickly Abaddon the Despoiler can spin a game out of control. This Grixis Commander is a member of the Chaos faction from Warhammer 40,000, and as such, it relishes in the unknown of the cascade ability. Every card you cast becomes a 2-for-1, quickly generating card value with overwhelming power. Abaddon requires a bit of setup to get its engine going, but once it does, it's hard to stop.
6 Glenn, The Voice Of Calm
Drawing cards is one of the most effective ways to pull ahead of your opponents in Commander. With Glenn, the Voice of Calm in play, it’s easier than ever to skulk in and get that combat trigger to draw cards. Load him up with a few powerful pieces of equipment or give him some type of evasion, and Glenn will refill your hand every turn.
5 Chun-Li, Countless Kicks
Three mana for a 3/3 might not be great, but if you wait for a few turns, cast a few spells, and land Chun-Li’s multikicker ability a few times, you’ll have an incredibly hard to beat engine with Chun-Li in play. Every time you kick Chun-Li, you exile an instant card from your graveyard. With a little setup, you can have any number of utility spells to control the game.
The best part of Chun-Li is that the cards you exile with her don’t disappear when she leaves the battlefield. Cast her again next turn to still have access to all cards with a kick counter on them.
4 Mike, The Dungeon Master
In green and white there are very few ways to bring back creatures to the battlefield after they die. Generally, they’re either very expensive to cast or have additional clauses attached to them so they are more difficult to cast. Not with Mike, the Dungeon Master in play. Mike is a repeatable engine to bring back any creature that entered the graveyard this turn. It doesn’t take much setup to produce infinite sacrifice and mana play lines with this DM on your side.
3 Daryl, Hunter Of Walkers
This Walking Dead Commander doesn’t seem all that special at first, on the surface, it might even seem bad. Giving an opponent three 2/2 zombies at the start of your turn isn’t great, especially when you can only tap Daryl once to deal two damage to one of them. But throw in a few small board wipes like Pyroclasm or Pyrohemia to take all the Walkers out at once, and you’ll start drawing tons of cards.
2 Marneus Calgar
Not enough can be said about how good of a card Marneus Calgar is. This Esper Commander generates tokens, draws cards, and if all else fails, goes to combat swinging twice with double strike. Combine Marneus with any number of infinite mana combos and a Nadir Kraken to draw your whole deck. Being in Esper colors you can easily protect Marneus from removal and take down your opponent’s creatures too.
1 Trazyn The Infinite
Infinite is the name of the game with Trazyn the Infinite. Trazyn cares about getting artifacts into your graveyard and using their abilities to your advantage. An easy combo you can execute with Trazyn is by having Staff of Domination and Grim Monolith in your graveyard. You just have to tap Trazyn for three mana off of Grim Monolith’s ability, using one mana to untap it from Staff of Domination, and you have infinite mana with just three cards.