The addition of blue in your Magic: the Gathering Commander decks typically means you’re moving into a control-based strategy, or perhaps something involving a lot of artifacts. Drawing cards, bouncing permanents back to your opponent’s hand, and potentially mill strategies all are options for players to explore in their Commander deck building.

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In the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks, blue cards are more concerned with stealing abilities, drawing cards, and protecting your creatures with unique abilities. While there are not many blue cards here, the inclusion of a fancy new promo card makes up the difference.

10 Aetherize - Tyranid Swarm

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Aetherize

If you’re looking for a way to protect yourself from an all-out attack from another player, there are few better cards than Aetherize. Particularly effective against token-based creature decks, Aetherize returns all attacking creatures to their owner’s hands. Aetherize can be used to protect yourself from death or to save an ally if you’ve been making alliances in your game.

9 Genestealer Locus - Tyranid Swarm

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Genestealer Locus

This neat little creature pulls double duty when in play, protecting you and your board while encouraging your opponents to attack each other. Genestealer Locus is a great political card to get your opponents to question if they want to risk attacking you or if it’s worth going after another opponent. Get a couple of clone effects on Genestealer Locus and your opponents won’t have a choice on who they want to attack.

8 Vanguard Suppressor - Forces Of The Imperium

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Vanguard Suppressor

Vanguard Suppressor features a mechanic new to the Warhammer 40,000 decks, squad and it is similar to multikicker. When you cast a card with squad you can pay an additional two generic mana any number of times to create that many tokens that are a copy of Vanguard Suppressor.

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With multiple copies in play, Vanguard Suppressor’s Suppressing Fire ability can ensure you’re drawing a few cards when it deals damage to an opponent.

7 Heralds of Tzeentch - The Ruinous Powers

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Heralds of Tzeentch

Any card with cascade is almost automatically good, effectively giving you a two-for-one play thanks to the free card cast from your library.

At a total of five mana, the Heralds of Tzeentch will have you reveal the top cards of their library until you find a card that costs four mana or less and cast it if you choose. While a 3/3 flying creature isn’t anything to brag about, the blue demon can still deal some damage or block in a pinch.

6 Sister of Silence - Forces Of The Imperium

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Sister of Silence

Counterspells are a blue player’s bread and butter. Few plays can frustrate your opponents more than countering a game-winning play.

Sister of Silence can stop just about anything your opponents want to play.With its Psychic Abomination ability, the Sister of Silence can counter any instant or sorcery spell, or it can counter an activated or triggered ability.

5 Genestealer Patriarch - Tyranid Swarm

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Genestealer Patriarch

This five-mana creature has two complementary abilities to single-handedly take over a board. Genestealer Patriarch’s first ability is Genestealer’s Kiss and adds an infection token on a creature an opponent controls whenever it attacks.

Then, whenever a creature with an infection dies you get a token that is a copy of that creature. While not too powerful as a 4/4 creature, there are plenty of ways of giving creatures unblockable or landwalk, or even flying if you want to maximize this card’s effects.

4 Reconnaissance Mission - Forces Of The Imperium

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Reconnaissance Mission

Reconnaissance Mission is an enchantment that once it is in play it will consistently give you value throughout the rest of the game. Every time a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent you get to draw a card. In a Commander game, where there are three opponents with varying board states, your odds of sneaking in a few easy attacks for some extra cards are pretty high.

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As a nice little bonus, Reconnaissance Mission also has cycling for two generic mana, giving you the choice to try and dig for an extra land early on in a game or possibly a late-game bomb to get you out of a sticky situation.

3 Brainstorm - The Ruinous Powers

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Brainstorm

Brainstorm is an instant speed draw spell that has tons of functionality. Need to trigger an effect that happens when you draw a card? Why not draw three for one blue mana.

Your opponent is making you discard a powerful card? Tuck it away on top of your library and get rid of another card instead. Need to dig for something powerful but don’t like your options? Resolve your Brainstorm and crack a fetch land to get rid of them and try and find something better.

2 Lord of Change - The Ruinous Powers

Magic the Gathering Warhammer 40000 Best Blue Cards Lord of Change

A solid creature with some solid abilities, Lord of Change is a pretty good creature for players needing some aerial combatants.

With flying and ward 3, Lord of Change has two types of evasion, only being able to be blocked by other creatures with flying or those with reach, and forcing opponents to pay an extra three generic mana if they want to target it with a spell or ability.On top of that, when Lord of Change enters the battlefield its Architect of Deception ability draws you three cards.

1 Fabricate - Promo

Image of the Fabricate card in Magic: The Gathering, with art by Warren Mahy

This promo Fabricate is a card that can be played in any deck that has blue in its commander color identity and has at least one good artifact.

You could search for a combo piece, some way to ramp up mana, or any other artifact that you might need at the time. Even if you grab an artifact you can’t cast, there are plenty of cards like Jhoira, Ageless Innovator to help get it for free.

Next: MTG: The Best Reprints From The Warhammer 40,000 Commander Decks