Commander has become one of the most popular Magic: The Gathering formats with players. With every product release, players swarm over the legendary creatures, looking for their next commander to build a deck around. Not all legendary creatures make great commanders, though. Only a select few are designed to take the top spot in terms of power.
2022 has a little bit of everything for players looking for a new commander. There are combo commanders, graveyard-based strategies, control synergies, and more. Let’s take a look at some of the best commanders released in 2022 and see how they rank up.
10 Myrkul, Lord Of Bones
A new take on Gods in Magic, this Dungeons & Dragons god refuses to let your creatures die. If a creature you control would die, you can choose to exile it instead of sending it to the graveyard. If you do, you create an enchantment token version of the creature instead.
This token loses its creature characteristics, allowing you to do some fun shenanigans. Consider playing Myrkul with creatures that have persist, like Devoted Druid and Cinderhaze Wretch. As an enchantment version of the creature, adding -1/-1 counters to it to untap it does nothing, allowing you to go infinite with just a few cards.
9 Trazyn The Infinite
Speaking of going infinite, Trazyn the Infinite has the potential to do just that since it gains all the abilities of artifacts in your graveyard. Keep tossing more unique artifacts in your graveyard, and you’ll load up Trazyn with tons of powerful effects.
A really goofy combo involves having Phyrexian Devourer and Walking Balista in your graveyard. Trazyn copies the Devourer’s ability to exile the top card of your library, putting +1/+1 counters on Trazyn equal to that card's mana value, and then use Walking Balista’s ability to remove counters to start pinging your opponents.
8 Hinata, Dawn-Crowned
If you’re looking to cast your spells faster while taxing your opponents, look no further than Hinata, Dawn-Crowned. Typically at the head of hard control Commander decks, Hinata, Dawn-Crowned makes everything you so much more efficient.
A funny thing with Hinata, Dawn-Crowned is that the mana reduction ability also works on spells with X in the casting cost, like Indomitable Creativity or Fireball. This allows you to choose a higher value for the X portion of the casting cost but still reduces the total cost by one mana.
7 Abaddon The Despoiler
Giving all your cards cascade is good, as it turns out! Abaddon the Despoiler gives the cards in your hand cascade if their mana value is less than or equal to the amount of damage that has been dealt to all your opponents during your turn.
There are tons of fun cards that will deal damage to your opponents over time, like Descent into Avernus, which will also ramp you up in mana by producing Treasure tokens to help you cast your higher-cost spells.
6 Jodah, The Unifier
If you’re looking for an effect similar to Abaddon but in all colors of mana, how about Jodah, The Unifier? Every time you cast a legendary spell from your hand, you get to functionally cascade through your deck until you find another legendary spell with a mana value less than your first spell, then you get to cast it.
On top of that, Jodah provides a huge power boost to your legendary creatures, giving them extra power equal to the number of legendary creatures you control.
5 Shorikai, Genesis Engine
If you’ve ever wanted to pilot your own giant robot that Shorikai, Genesis Engine is the commander for you. Building Shorikai, Genesis Engine as a straight-up vehicle Commander deck is certainly a way to go. But if you’re looking to maximize its ability to create tokens and draw cards, then an Intruder Alarm combo deck is the way to go.
Intruder Alarm untaps all creatures when another creature enters the battlefield, letting you untap and tap Shorikai to keep producing tokens. So long as you have some sort of way to generate mana, like with Ashnod’s Altar or Gold Myr, you can keep activating Shorikai until you either draw your deck and win through Laboratory Maniac or until you find some other combo to win with.
4 Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph
All Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph wants to do is cast tons of spells and have fun doing it. That, and watching your opponents have their life total slowly chipped away with every spell you cast. Ghyrson Starn is a cheap commander at only three mana and is hard to remove with its ward 2 ability making it an ideal commander for spellslinger-styled decks.
Be careful not to load up on too many cards that deal just one damage, like Prodigal Sorcerer, which requires it to tap to deal damage. Instead, you should keep an eye out for creatures like Firebrand Archer that deal damage with every spell you cast.
3 Greasefang, Okiba Boss
Another Vehicle commander, Greasefang, Okiba Boss allows you to return your destroyed Vehicles to the battlefield for a second chance to attack. There are tons of great Vehicles to throw out Greasefang to pilot, including Smuggler’s Copter to help pitch larger vehicles, Weatherlight to find more historic cards to fill your hand with, and the classic Parhelion II as a high-power win condition.
Greasefang is a commander that requires a lot of protection since casting it will put a huge target on you, so make sure you come up with plenty of combat tricks to help Greasefang stay on the battlefield.
2 Marneus Calgar
At five mana, Marneus is pushing the mana value of your commander up a little high. But once it resolves, there are plenty of ways to quickly take over the game. Every time you create one or more tokens, you get to draw a card, and then for six mana, you can create two 2/2 Astartes Warrior creature tokens.
Similar to Shorikai, the built-in engine of drawing cards and creating tokens allows you to easily combo off and draw tons of cards with only a little bit of setup.
1 Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm
Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is easily one of the best Dragon-based commanders to come out in years, and it’s easy to see why. Every Dragon creature that enters the battlefield under your control gets a token copy of it, turning your high-power creatures into two-for-ones.
Even better, if you cast a legendary Dragon creature, the token loses its legendary supertype and becomes a regular creature token. Need to ramp up to some more mana? Try casting a Goldspan Dragon and double up on your Treasure tokens. With all that mana, you can cast a Lathliss, Dragon Queen, get a nonlegendary copy, and swarm the board with tons of Dragon tokens.