The 35 Best Boros Creatures in Magic Ranked

Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury | Illustration by Lucas Graciano

Boros () creatures are all about going fast, combining red’s impulsiveness with white’s structure and order, which leads to a great many soldiers and similar creatures. Boros is best known for being extremely aggressive since red and white are, among other things, known for cheap creatures.

The creatures reflect this with cheap costs and strong stat lines. Even the more expensive Boros creatures are fundamentally aggressive, except they work as finishers to push your cheap creatures over the finish line.

What Are Boros Creatures in MTG?

Aurelia, the Law Above | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Boros () creatures have a red and white color identity. This often comes from the mana cost, though mono-color creatures with activated abilities or creatures that transform into a multicolor or different colored creature are also eligible.

Aggression is the name of the game when talking about Boros creatures. This is Magic’s premiere aggro color combination, and the creatures reflect that. The list has many great, cheap threats plus aggressive top-end cards that work as finishers. Woven into the general desire for speed are subthemes like artifacts and equipment. If you like to turn creatures sideways, Boros is the color combination for you!

#35. Arcbound Shikari

Aggressive decks are often interested in pumping their team, so artifact creature decks should keep an eye out for Arcbound Shikari. This creature has an excellent rate; creatures that put +1/+1 counters on your entire team often cost 4 or 5 mana, not 3. It’s balanced by its restrictions, but if all your deck wants to do is to produce Thopters and Servos, do you even care?

#34. Duke Ulder Ravengard

Duke Ulder Ravengard offers myriad ways to end your opponents. Perhaps you make copies of massive threats like Ancient Copper Dragon and Bloodthirster, or you triple up on powerful enters abilities from Solitude and Seasoned Dungeoneer. However you go about it, this offers lovely value.

#33. Lightning, Army of One

Lightning, Army of One bundles a bunch of keywords with a decent damage doubling ability to produce a compact threat. The lack of haste or enters ability makes it dicey, but it produces lots of damage if you can protect it or fade the removal spell.

#32. Firesong and Sunspeaker

Firesong and Sunspeaker gives Boros a spellslinger spin. It focuses on playing multicolor instants and sorceries, which is pretty niche. Most burn commanders are relegated to mono-red, like Solphim, Mayhem Dominus, so it offers some diversity in the niche.

#31. Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp

Don’t be fooled by the colorless cost; those activated abilities make Zabaz, the Glimmerwasp a Boros creature. It takes advantage of the modular mechanic, made infamous by Arcbound Ravager. It’s a fine build around if you want to take your artifact deck down an especially synergistic route.

#30. Alibou, Ancient Witness

Aggro decks struggle in Commander because of how much life your opponents have. Alibou, Ancient Witness corrects this by acting as a space laser fueled by artifacts. This is pretty narrow since you need to be in artifact creatures exactly, but it does a great job converting a board of Thopters into a lethal strike force.

#29. Iroas, God of Victory

Iroas, God of Victory enables you to attack freely, without fear of your creatures dying. This creature works best as a combo with other cards; for example, creatures your opponents must block, like Jurin, Leading the Charge, or cards that only allow one creature to block, like Vorrac Battlehorns. The abilities are fine, though it’s a shame it doesn’t add additional power to the board.

#28. Goblin Legionnaire

Goblin Legionnaire works like a charm attached to a creature. Having these abilities stapled to a cheap creature provides plenty of options: You can attack or kill a problematic blocker or save a creature. The threat of activation is real here; how can your opponent commit to a double block or combat trick when you have Shock face up?

#27. Skyknight Vanguard

Skyknight Vanguard floods the board with tokens, which is perfect for Impact Tremors or sacrifice outlets like Goblin Bombardment. It plays especially well with Boros’s equipment synergies; the cheap flying body holds equipment well, as do any tokens it produces.

#26. Mabel, Heir to Cragflame

Mice might not be the most common creature type in Magic, but Mabel, Heir to Cragflame has plenty of utility beyond its creature type—namely its equipment, Cragflame. Cragflame offers excellent stats and keywords, especially considering it comes stapled to a 3/3. The combination of haste and trample is especially impactful.

#25. Aurelia, the Warleader

Aurelia, the Warleader ends conflicts almost at once via extra combats—which are nearly as good as extra turns in the right shell. This is your classic battlecruiser finisher: Spend seven turns to build up a powerful board, then drop Aurelia to finish it all. Power creep hasn’t been kind to this iteration of Aurelia—or most expensive creatures, to be honest—but it has its place.

#24. Bureau Headmaster

Bureau Headmaster offers fine support to equipment decks. These decks are often very mana hungry since you pay to cast and attach equipment, so any cost reduction is worth considering. Reducing both associated costs makes this a great glue card: You’ll never notice it, but it holds things together.

#23. Riders of Rohan

Riders of Rohan adds an incredible amount of power to the board. The dash ability is especially useful: The tokens stick around, so you can dash this a few times and build a board that demands a board wipe… after which this knight is still safe in your hand, ready to help you rebuild. It also plays well with red’s clones and white’s flicker effects.

#22. Sami, Wildcat Captain

Magic’s history is littered with broken cards and design mistakes and infamous mechanics. One such mechanic is affinity, which forgets that spells have casting costs for a reason. Sami, Wildcat Captain gives all your spells that broken mechanic! That includes artifacts, which can become free to make other artifacts free until you’re spilling cards from your deck straight to the table. The 6-mana cost keeps it from being an irresponsible card design, but it’s still an enticing creature to try and break.

#21. Merry, Esquire of Rohan

If you ever whip up a legend-based aggro deck, Merry, Esquire of Rohan should be one of your first additions. A hasty Grizzly Bears provides fine pressure, but the combination of pressure and card draw is great: Card draw gives you resources to keep applying the pressure started by your hasty creature. Merry might be narrow, but it shines in the right deck.

#20. Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon

Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon works best in Commander, where you have time to scale it up with cards like Luminarch Aspirant and every player isn’t running 30 cheap removal spells. It summons an army via its attack trigger, so it’s the perfect place to exploit Impact Tremors and similar cards. Tokens and counters are common Boros themes that Anim Pakal brings together perfectly.

#19. Arabella, Abandoned Doll

Despite being an uncommon commander, Arabella, Abandoned Doll is a top-tier choice for an aggressive commander or signpost card in your Cube. For EDH, burning all three of your opponents provides an invaluable source of damage to handle the high life totals. In Cube, it’s a cheap threat that pushes fast aggression. It’s great on turn 2 and fine later in the game since the lifegain throws races in your favor.

#18. Archangel Avacyn / Avacyn, the Purifier

Archangel Avacyn is just so annoying under so many circumstances. When indestructible blows out your board wipe or removal, when it flashes into play to eat your attacking creature or throw off your lethal attack, or as a surprise threat to secure lethal for your own opponent… Serra Angel with flash has many applications. The transformation into Avacyn, the Purifier ices the cake. Between the large body, burn, and board wipe, it often closes the game in a few turns.

#17. Araña, Heart of the Spider

Araña, Heart of the Spider provides excellent support to decks with modified creatures, which Boros does quite well. Impulse draws are Boros’s most common means of card draw, so you can pack additional support like Kami of Celebration with this creature to build a synergistic draw engine that supports many Boros archetypes.

#16. Blade Historian

How do you turn a fleet of attacking creatures into a lethal force? The easy answer is anthems and mass pump spells, but Blade Historian has merit. Double strike makes it easy to attack since blocking becomes a nightmare and saboteur effects like Araña, Heart of the Spider benefit from dealing combat damage twice. We should also note the incredible devotion offered by this 4-drop.

#15. Éowyn, Fearless Knight

Éowyn, Fearless Knight is a sleek two-for-one that’s perfect in aggressive decks. It clears aside a problematic blocker and potentially enables a team-wide swing with protection. But you don’t need other legends to make Éowyn impactful; a hasty creature that exiles something is ideal in nearly any Boros deck.

#14. General Ferrous Rokiric

You rarely see General Ferrous Rokiric in strictly Boros builds because its multicolor-matters ability gets better as you add more colors to increase your multicolor spell count, but it deserves a highlight nonetheless. Spewing 4/4s is a great reward for doing anything in Magic, but casting spells especially. Yes, I’d like my Boros Charm to save the General and grow my board!

#13. The Jolly Balloon Man

The Jolly Balloon Man puts a cheap spin on Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, using size reduction and a mana cost on the activated ability to justify it’s mana value of 3. And it’s pretty cool! Kiki-Jiki but cheaper lets you pump out copy value sooner, and the additional color makes it a better commander, even if you miss out on all the two-card combos KJMB offers.

#12. Aurelia, the Law Above

Wizards has given red and white greater access to card draw over the past few years, with a common template being attack with two creatures to draw a card. Aurelia, the Law Above gives Firemane Commando a serious glow-up by adding damage. Notably for the Commander players, these abilities trigger when any player attacks with multiple creatures, so it’s a great card alongside goad.

#11. Ragost, Deft Gastronaut

A good chef can turn even the most meager pile of scraps into a feast, and Ragost, Deft Gastronaut takes that even further by making artifacts flavorful. While I’ll pass on the buffet, the card is a fantastic, unique artifact commander. Boros’s artifact cards generally care about artifact creatures or equipment, which makes Ragost a cool choice for players interested in doing something different.

#10. Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival

A major source of card draw in red are impulse draws that exile cards for you to play, which need payoffs. Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival is a great one because it’s super cheap and impactful. A fleet of Thopters ends the game quickly, especially when you consider impulse draw is just card advantage, so you get a lot from a mere 2-mana play.

#9. Boros Reckoner + Spitemare

Boros Reckoner and Spitemare are nightmares for creature decks. Against decks with small creatures, this generally kills two if it trades in combat; against bigger creatures, they still punch above their weight class to trade with larger, more expensive threats. Aggro decks love these because they put your opponents in a tough spot when they attack: Do you block and take damage or not block and… take damage? If that weren’t enough, these cards even work as a combo with big red board wipes like Blasphemous Act to send all that damage straight at your opponents’ face.

#8. Figure of Destiny

Figure of Destiny is one of the greatest Cube cards of all time. It’s the perfect 1-drop for aggro decks. It lets you use all your mana turn 2 if you have another 1-drop, it can attack for 2 damage on turn 2, and it gives you a mana sink to mitigate flood and just stress your opponent’s removal as a 1-drop that will win the game given enough time. It’s still a premium card in Vintage Cube, even with the rise of Ragavan and Tamiyo and other super pushed cards, which speaks to its enduring legacy.

#7. Feather, the Redeemed

One of the most popular Boros commanders, Feather, the Redeemed gives players a reason to run combat tricks outside of Limited, which happens very rarely (with the notable exception of Monstrous Rage). It has an awesome design because centering your card advantage engine around the combat step is very Boros, and few cards work like this. It carves a unique niche in the color pair.

#6. Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard

Token decks need effects that boost the power of their 1/1s so they can win the game, and double strike is a perfect because it stacks very well with anthems. If you have Warleader's Call in play, your tokens deal 1 extra damage. Neyali, Suns' Vanguard effectively doubles this because it deals that 1 extra damage twice, so closing out games becomes super easy. Toss in free card draw, and you have a winner.

#5. Otharri, Suns’ Glory

Otharri, Suns' Glory often appears in Cube as a powerful top-end threat that pairs beautifully with mana accelerants like Mana Vault and Grim Monolith. Between haste and the tokens, it ends games incredibly fast. Its resurrection ability demands exile-based removal or it keeps coming back for more. All that adds up to an annoying, fast finisher.

#4. Zirda, the Dawnwaker

Most companions are a little broken, but Zirda, the Dawnwaker is very broken because of the infinite combos. Pair its cost reduction with Grim Monolith and/or Basalt Monolith and you have infinite colorless mana. The companion restriction doesn’t really matter on Zirda since most busted artifacts are busted because they tap for mana, like the Monoliths or Mox Opal. It’s the strongest Training Grounds variant because it isn’t limited to creatures.

#3. Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury

Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury reminds us once more that recursive threats are nasty. It isn’t as format-warping as Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, but a 6/6 that fires off a free Lightning Helix when it enters or attacks and converts fetch lands into a threat is busted. Think of Phlage like a removal spell that becomes an Inferno Titan.

#2. Winota, Joiner of Forces

If you want to break a Magic card, make it either produce ludicrous amounts of mana or cheat on mana costs in some way. Wizards took the latter route with Winota, Joiner of Forces, an aggro powerhouse that has been banned in a handful of formats and stands among the most infamous cEDH commanders. It’s fundamentally unfair to put creatures into play for no mana, especially when they stick around and come in tapped and attacking. Few cards drop as much pressure as Winota.

#1. Ajani, Nacatl Pariah / Ajani, Nacatl Avenger

Modern Horizons 3 printed some busted Magic cards, and near the top of that list is Ajani, Nacatl Pariah. It leaves your opponent in a terrible spot: They need to remove Ajani because it threatens to become a powerful planeswalker, but then they need to deal with the cat token—which will attack and can’t be traded with profitably until Ajani is dead. If you can kill the cat yourself, maybe with a Skullclamp, it gets even better. Ajani is a thought experiment: How many abilities can Wizards put on a 2-mana creature before players stop engaging with Modern?

Wrap Up

Bureau Headmaster | Illustration by Thanh Tuan

Boros () loves nothing more than attacking. Whether it includes equipment, tokens, or +1/+1 counters, red-white decks just want to get into the red zone. The creatures reflect this, from 1-drops like Figure of Destiny to top-end like Aurelia, the Warleader; the color’s designs are incredibly concise.

What’s your favorite Boros creature? Is Boros your favorite color pair, or do you prefer another one? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!