All 2 Raccoon Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 2, 2025

Muerra, Trash Tactician | Illustration by Taro Yamazaki

Bloomburrow was kind to the fuzzier denizens of the Magic multiverse, putting woodland critters front and center and kicking the humans to the curb. While already-established typal groups like birds, squirrels, and rats burrowed deeper than ever before, this MTG set was really the opening act for less popular creature types like rabbits, otters, and everyone’s favorite (read: my favorite), the adorable masked trash-panda raccoons.

Raccoons existed before (with like, two cards), but Bloomburrow bolstered their numbers and gave them a unified mechanical identity. A raccoon Commander deck, though? That’s a bit of a stretch, but we know someone’s trying to make it work, so let’s at least acknowledge the Raccoonmanders we got.

What Are Raccoon Commanders in MTG?

Bakersbane Duo | Illustration by Raluca Marinescu

A raccoon commander is a legendary creature that you’ll play at the forefront of a typal deck centered around raccoon creatures. Since raccoons have been basically wedged into the red-green color pair, any raccoon commanders that exist are Gruul commanders.

Raccoons are also linked to Bloomburrow’s expend mechanic. You don’t really have to build a deck with expend in mind since it rewards you for just playing the game normally. But it does mean you’ll incidentally have a bunch of expend payoffs in a raccoon deck, which makes sequencing your spells a relevant part of your strategy.

#2. Bello, Bard of the Brambles

Let’s be clear: I believe Bello, Bard of the Brambles, the face commander from the Animated Army Commander precon, is a stronger card in general – but Muerra’s definitely the better “raccoon commander” if you focus on typal synergy. Bello’s simply a “strong commander than happens to be a raccoon,” and there’s no reason to fill a Bello deck with other creatures of its ilk.

That said, there’s something satisfying about attacking with a Gratuitous Violence that’s also doubling its own damage, or playing a Warstorm Surge that triggers off itself when it enters. It’s really cool design space and plays around with artifacts and enchantments in an uncommon way, especially in Gruul (). The only downside is that much like the New York Giants, Bello does absolute diddly on defense. Maybe that’s just the Gruul way.

#1. Muerra, Trash Tactician

If you want to stuff all the raccoons together in one deck, Muerra, Trash Tactician’s the way to go. It has a pretty strong typal payoff and is generically good if your other dumpster-diving critters do not pull their weight. It produces mana and draws cards, the two most important things in Commander, and it passively gains life, which is more crucial in faster EDH metas.

The problem, is that the raccoon count in MTG is pretty meager, less than 30 after Bloomburrow’s squad. If you want Muerra to work as a raccoon commander, that means you’re submitting a deck with cards like Bakersbane Duo and Junkblade Bruiser in it. It is bracket 1 or 2 fun for sure, but you need to pad out the deck with potent wincons, like an Overwhelming Stampede or Beastmaster Ascension.

I love Muerra's design, and it’ll only get better over time as more raccoons are released. You can bet if Bloomburrow 2 ever happens (coming to Play boosters near you in 2045!), Muerra will skyrocket in popularity.

Best Raccoon Payoffs

Bloomburrow introduced a number of other raccoon-specific cards, but there are a few more cards here and there that really play well with nature's ninja.

Brambleguard Veteran is a stat-beast with a pretty consistent mass-pump effect, though it’s still not the type of card you see in EDH very often. Here, it’s one of the better raccoons you can play. Spider-Ham, Peter Porker pops in quite a few payoffs sections because it supports 18 other creature types. This leads us to Diligent Zookeeper which is relevant because raccoons are a less common subtype that are mixed with other non-human subtypes to ensure a solid anthem boost with the exception of Coati Scavenger.

Oakhollow Village and Rockface Village are typal lands associated with the green and red Bloomburrow creature pairings, respectively. They provide pretty minor bonuses and come with the downside of not producing colored mana for non-creature spells. Honestly, it’s debatable if something like Oakhollow is even better than Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, but that’s your call.

There’s also Valley Flamecaller and Valley Mightcaller, two non-raccoon creatures with some minor raccoon synergy tacked on. You could take them or leave them for a Muerra deck.

Of course, you can pad your raccoon count with changelings, something we see often in typal strategies with a low creature count. Masked Vandal, Taurean Mauler, Realmwalker, and Chameleon Colossus are the best red/green changelings to add to this strategy.

Since raccoons are so interwoven with the expend mechanic, you’ll want to build in ways to make sure you can always hit expend 8 each turn. Impulse-draw effects like Reckless Impulse can go a long way here, since they let you spend mana to dig for other cards that can get you up to 8 mana’s worth of spells in a turn. A personal favorite is Ignite the Future, which is exactly what you want on the front end, but also hits expend 8 on its own with flashback. Let's not forget that Avatar: The Last Airbender brought us Firebending Student and firebending which makes expend much easier to attain as long as you have an instant worth spending mana on during combat.

Commanding Conclusion

Bark-Knuckle Boxer | Illustration by Filip Burburan

I really wish I had more here, but sadly there are only two legendary raccoons at the time of writing. They were shafted a little by Hugs, Grisly Guardian using up a mythic slot on a legendary badger, but that’s another creature type that needed a good leader anyway.

Of course, you could just jam Xenagos, God of Revels or Nikya of the Old Ways and stuff a bunch of raccoons into the deck, but that’s just not how most people like to build their typal decks. At the very least, Muerra is an excellent typal commander; its type just needs some more love.

Have you had success with raccoons in Commander yet? Did it feel like a top-tier Limited deck, or did it hold its own with more established EDH decks? Let me know in the comments or over in the Draftsim Discord.

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