Monored is one of the most popular color identities in Commander, with its focus on Dragons, Goblins, and all-out attack attracting many Magic: The Gathering players. While it can sometimes be a bit restrictive to build in, monored is still home to some incredibly powerful spells.

Related: The Strongest Mono-Red Commanders In Magic: The Gathering

Despite great showings in all card types, monored excels in the creature department. From stellar one-drops to huge game-winning threats, red's lineup of creatures is diverse and uniquely powerful. Here are the very best of this awesome library of creatures.

10 Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei

Goro-goro, Disciple of Ryusei Card Art

Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei is a great new legendary Goblin Samurai that fits perfectly in just about any creature-based red deck. While it's certainly one of the best Red cards from the new Kamigawa set, it doesn't pack quite enough punch to go into the command zone. It does work very nicely in the 99 however, giving haste to newly cast creatures for just one red mana.

Its second ability isn't much to write home about, but it can still be used to put some extra power on the table if you're looking for somewhere to dump some excess mana.

9 Wrathful Red Dragon

Wrathful Red Dragon Card Art

The newest card on this list, Wrathful Red Dragon flew under the radar during the Battle For Baldur's Gate preview season. Despite its great power, it was overshadowed by many of the multicolored legendary Dragons that it shared a set with.

It's in these new legendary Dragon decks that Wrathful Red Dragon does best, with its ability punishing opponents for daring to damage your field of Dragons. Its simple effect and relatively cheap casting cost makes it an easy include in any Dragon tribal deck.

8 Brash Taunter

Brash Taunter Card Art

Brash Taunter is one of the rare cards that made a splash in both Standard and Commander. While a five mana 1/1 doesn't seem worth it on the surface, its ability makes it a potentially game-ending threat.

By paying three mana and tapping it, Brash Taunter will fight any other creature, then deal the damage it takes to a target opponent. The typical way to use Brash Taunter is to build up another one of your creature's power to absurd levels, then activate Brash Taunter's ability and target the buffed creature. Brash Taunter will then fight your buffed creature, and deal a huge amount of damage to your opponent. This was almost always game-winning in Standard, and is only barely weaker in Commander.

7 Terror of The Peaks

Terror of the Peaks Card Art

Terror of the Peaks is another card that tormented the 2020 Standard format, by way of its second passive ability. By dealing damage to any target every time another creature enters your battlefield, Terror of the Peaks was the best way to put pressure on your opponents without even attacking.

Related: MTG - The Best Creatures In Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur's Gate

It serves the same function in Commander, acting as an excellent inclusion in any deck that plans on playing a lot of creatures. It's even better in an Izzet (blue/red) or Boros (red/white) deck that plans on blinking creatures, as you can blink your largest creatures to repeatedly trigger Terror's second ability.

6 Anger

Anger Card Art

Anger is an auto-inclusion in any deck that has a focus on the graveyard, and should still be considered even in decks that don't. Its ability is as follows: as long as Anger is in your graveyard and you control a Mountain, creatures you control have haste.

This is a ridiculously strong effect if you can willingly put this in the graveyard, since you can permanently haste your entire board for the rest of the game — assuming there's no graveyard hate at the table.

5 Imperial Recruiter

Imperial Recruiter Card Art

It's easy to see why Imperial Recruiter is played so much. A three mana enter-the-battlefield tutor is an incredibly powerful effect, especially if you have a way to trigger it multiple times. While its restriction to only collecting low-power creatures can be awkward, you'd typically include Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker alongside Imperial Recruiter, to trigger Recruiter's ability many more times.

Other great creatures that are fetchable with Imperial Recruiter include Acidic Slime, Dockside Extortionist and Opposition Agent. If you can keep Imperial Recruiter alive long enough, it's incredibly easy to create a winning board state just through this one card and a way to recur it.

4 Hellkite Tyrant

Hellkite Tyrant Card Art

Hellkite Tyrant is a classic card in Dragon tribal decks, thanks to its universally excellent effect. Any time Hellkite Tyrant deals combat damage to a player, you gain control of all of their artifacts. As well as completely shutting down artifact decks, Tyrant also uses this to feed into its admittedly-niche second ability, an alternate win condition that triggers if you control 20 or more artifacts.

Related: The Best Infinite Mana Combos In Magic: The Gathering

While having to actually deal combat damage to trigger an effect could be a restriction for some creatures, Hellkite Tyrant has both flying and trample, which all but guarantees that its swing gets through to an opponent.

3 Etali, Primal Storm

Image of the Etali, Primal Storm Card card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Raymond Swanland

Despite being one of the strongest Dinosaur cards ever printed, you won't often find Etali in the command zone. Etali's monored color identity means that it works best in the 99, a supposed drawback that actually finds it a home in many non-Dinosaur tribal red decks.

Etali's effect is a simple one, exiling the top card of each opponent's library whenever Etali attacks. You can then cast any of the cards exiled this way for the rest of the game, regardless of whether Etali is still on the board. While there are lots of cards that do similar exile-then-steal effects nowadays, Etali is still one of the best to ever do it, and is certainly the best monored option for anyone hoping to pull this strategy off.

2 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Kiki-jiki, Mirror Breaker Card Art

While this list is mostly dedicated to non-legendary red creatures, it wouldn't be complete without mentioning Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Whether you put him in the command zone or in your main deck, Kiki-Jiki is a terrifying combo piece that can pair with just about anything.

Pairing it with Zealous Conscript creates an infinitely large army of 3/3 creatures with haste, pairing it with Worldgorger Dragon gives you infinite mana and infinite enter-the-battlefield triggers, and pairing him with Combat Celebrant gives you infinite combat phases. These are just a few of the possibilities that Kiki-Jiki opens up to you if you're interested in 'degenerate' infinite combos — which you definitely should be.

1 Dockside Extortionist

Image of the Dockside Extortionist card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Lie Setiawan

Anyone who's played against a high-powered red deck knew that Dockside Extortionist was going to take the top spot. For two mana, Dockside Extortionist gives you one Treasure token for every artifact or enchantment that your opponents control. In a four-player game of Commander, this is usually at least eight tokens.

Dockside Extortionist is the best one-time ramp card in the format, essentially exploding your mana base jut by hitting the field. It gets even stronger in decks that have blue or white in their color identity, as you can blink Dockside Extortionist to and from the battlefield to create an absurd amount of value. There's a reason that everyone has been paying the $45 price tag all this time. Hopefully Dockside Extortionist's reprint in Double Masters 2 will bring down that cost a bit.

Next: MTG: The Best Black Creatures For Commander, Ranked