Warhammer 40,0000 is home to all kind of terrible creatures, chief among them man. The Imperium is humanity's empire which spans 1,000,000 settled worlds across the galaxy. It is led by the Emperor: a husk of a man who is barely kept alive by impressive life support systems attached to his golden throne. Thousands of human souls are sacrificed each day to sustain the Emperor's psychic powers, but the empire of man survives despite the terrible threats of space thanks to their sheer numbers, and their unified reverence of the Emperor as god-king.
The cult-like religious service of the Imperium is a natural fit for the Esper (blue/black/white) colors in Magic: The Gathering which represents ultimate purpose and control, no matter how high the cost. Here are the best cards in the Forces of the Imperium Commander deck.
10 Birth Of The Imperium
This is a great equally punishing Saga to play against your opponents. Cards like this are especially nice in Commander, because it affecting everyone also means no one else feels like they're being targeted by you. 6/6 in stats over three bodies for five mana is a good deal all on its own.
Add on top of that forcing your opponents to sacrifice a creature and the possibility to draw up to six cards, and you've got the makings of a great card. It's unlikely that you will draw too many cards off of this Saga very often, but that's okay. Really, the third chapter is just the icing on an already delicious card cake.
9 Reaver Titan
This Vehicle might appear underwhelming at first glance due to its high power and toughness and the fact that it's notably missing trample, but its other abilities more than make up for this. Void shields blank a large number of removal spells that would normally take care of this card including both artifact destruction and removal spells. Furthermore, the fact that it's a Vehicle means it will dodge just about all board wipes.
Meanwhile, gattling blaster makes certain that this vehicle will apply pressure to your opponents every time you take it into combat. Five damage to every player is a hefty chunk of life, and that's assuming that your opponents are able to block this Titan's gigantic body.
8 Zephyrim
Miracle has always been an impressive mechanic, albeit a bit clunky. Coupling miracle with the new squad mechanic from these Commander decks makes it even better. Granted, you won't be happy about playing this card if you don't cast it for its miracle cost, but that has always been the case with miracle cards.
Playing a bunch of two mana value flying, vigilance 3/3 creatures will provide you with a formidable board for both defense and offense, and all for the cost of a single card. This is a great creature for forcing board wipes out of your opponents' hands and opening up the battlefield for your true bombs.
7 Ultramarines Honour Guard
Speaking of the squad mechanic, Ultramarines makes it look ridiculous assuming you manage to pay its squad cost a single time. Lords (creatures that give your other creatures +1/+1) can turn a board of meaningless tokens into a formidable fighting force when you've only got one of them, let alone multiple.
One of the biggest weaknesses of lords is that a single removal spell will turn your board back into chumps, so it's nice to see that Ultramarines provides some insurance against that. This may be an expensive creature to cast for the value you want coming in at a total of six mana, but Commander games are already well-known for their extensive length and large mana pools.
6 Celestine, The Living Saint
Celestine is a great creature for a couple of reasons. Firstly, her reanimate ability can trigger on the same turn that you play her, assuming you have some other source of lifegain such as a lifelink creature. Second, she enables herself, seeing as she has both flying for evasion and lifelink to trigger her own ability.
Cards that enable themselves are usually quite good, and there's no difference in this case. It's especially notable that there's no limit to the mana value of the creature you return from your graveyard besides the amount of life you've gained. In other words, a deck chock-full of lifegain sources could bring back just about any creature it plays using Celestine.
5 Marneus Calgar
Marneus is yet another creature that enables itself, though for a much greater cost than Celestine. Ideally, you're drawing cards off of Marneus using some other token generator, but it's still nice to have the chapter master option as backup.
Also like Celestine, Marneus' ability can be triggered the turn he enters the battlefield assuming you have some kind of creature token generator on the battlefield. Double strike makes Marneus especially effective at attacking into deathtouch or low toughness creatures, which is a nice added boon. Lastly, Marneus could serve as a good Esper Commander in a token-themed deck.
4 Vanguard Suppressor
Creatures that draw a card when they deal damage are already good, but they become a lot better when you tack flying onto them. Like the other squad cards, Vanguard Suppressor isn't especially effective unless you take advantage of the squad cost for additional token copies of the creature.
However, this squad card does potentially have the biggest payoff for using its squad ability. Two, three, or four flyers capable of drawing a card every time they deal damage is a serious threat for your opponents to deal with. Suppressor is even better in Commander thanks to the fact that you have multiple opponents to attack, at least one of which is unlikely to have a defense against flying attackers.
3 Exterminatus
This is another board wipe to add to the large pile of board wipes already available in Commander. However, it is notable for both removing indestructible from creatures and destroying all nonland permanents.
Most board wipes focus solely on eliminating creatures, but that's really not enough in Commander games. Your opponents are likely to have all kinds of artifacts and enchantments in play as well, so a real board wipe needs to handle everything. Exterminatus delivers exactly that.
2 Vexilus Praetor
Many Commander decks rely on putting their Commander onto the battlefield and leveraging its abilities with deck synergies to win the game. The problem is that decks relying on this strategy will often see their Commander become a lightning rod for opposing removal spells.
Vexilus Praetor provides some help against the onslaught of removal by granting your Commander protection from everything. Even better is it also has flash, meaning it can be played in response to an opponent targeting your Commander with removal. Bonus points if you shout "The Emperor is eternal!" while flashing Vexilus Praetor into the battlefield.
1 The Golden Throne
As the most notable single object in all of Warhammer 40,000 lore, you would expect that the Golden Throne is something incredible to behold. Thankfully, its Magic card rendition delivers on this expectation. This relatively cheap four mana value artifact gives you insurance against death by saving you from defeat whenever your life total is reduced to zero.
Beyond that, it also makes for a great mana accelerant assuming you have creatures to power it. Three mana for a creature each turn is a deal any deck generating creature tokens can get behind, especially when the mana can come in any combination of colors. While The Golden Throne is obviously a great addition to Magic mechanically speaking, our favorite thing about it is that its mechanics perfectly embody the lore of the item in the Warhammer universe. After all, the best Magic cards are almost always a result of where mechanics parallel flavor.