The 13 Best Nazgûl Commanders in Magic Ranked

Nazgûl | Illustration by Nino Is

Of all the iconic villains printed into Magic to support Universes Beyond, few have such a hold on fantasy as the Nazgûl, nine men who fell to temptation and serve Sauron as his Ringwraiths, hunting Frodo and the Fellowship across Middle-earth.

Such iconic characters demanded cards when The Lord of the Rings met Magic, and we were granted a powerful 3-mana threat that lets you break deckbuilding restrictions. But if you want to harness the Black Riders in Commander, which commanders should you choose?

What Are Nazgûl Commanders in MTG?

Nazgûl | Illustration by Igor Krstic

Nazgûl commanders are legendary creatures, spacecraft, or vehicles (or cards with “this can be your commander” text) that offer some synergy with the card Nazgûl from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth.

That might be because they synergize with the Ring tempts you mechanic, deathtouch commanders, +1/+1 counters, or wraith/knight creatures. As a baseline, these commanders must contain black in their color identity.

Can You Have More Than One Nazgûl Card in Commander?

Yes! Nazgûl has a special rule that allows a player to run up to nine copies of Nazgûl in their deck, and this special rule supersedes the singleton restriction of the Commander format.

Is Nazgûl Banned in Commander?

No, Nazgûl isn’t banned in Commander. You can run anywhere from 0-9 copies in a deck with a black color identity.

#13. Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh

Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh plays well with the Ring tempts you because it makes your Nazgûl legendary and stacks them with counters, so sacrificing them draws an unreasonable number of cards. Golgari () has plenty of other effects that want you to sacrifice your big creatures, like Rite of Consumption and Tom, Bert, and William, so you aren’t hurting for synergy or sacrifice outlets.

#12. Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn / Isilu, Carrier of Twilight

This is only the first of several commanders that turn the Nazgûl into a combo engine. With this transforming commander, you care about Isilu, Carrier of Twilight more than Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn. Since Nazgûl enter and put a +1/+1 counter on themselves, you can sacrifice them infinitely since they persist into play, then cancel out the -1/-1 counter. It’s a pretty expensive route since you need to cast then transform Eirdu, but perfectly viable.

#11. The Master, Formed Anew

The Master, Formed Anew is as close as you get to a Nazgûl in the command zone. But the main reason to run this commander is access to blue. Why stick to nine Nazgûl when you can clone them forever? Rite of Replication looks particularly tempting.

#10. Black Widow, Deadly Hunter

Black Widow, Deadly Hunter provides a tantalizing reward for connecting with your Nazgûl: card advantage! Supplement them with evasive deathtouchers like Vampire Nighthawk and equipment that grant trample (Loxodon Warhammer) and double strike (Fireshrieker) and enjoy a constant stream of cards to whittle your opponents down with.

#9. Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit + Sam, Loyal Attendant

Okay, nine Nazgûl helping Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal Attendant is a massive flavor fail. But Frodo enables the Ring tempts you mechanic better than most commanders, and the Nazgûl are one of the better payoffs for doing it. Giving your card advantage engine an aggressive threat to back it up is a great way to close a game.

#8. Ratadrabik of Urborg

Ratadrabik of Urborg is another combo commander. This works by sacrificing a Nazgûl that’s your Ring-bearer, so it’s a legendary creature. That triggers Ratadrabik, which creates a non-legendary token… then the Ring tempts you, so you make the token legendary. This provides another source of infinite sacrifice fodder, which Orzhov () easily converts into a win.

#7. Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir

Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir works with the Nazgûl as a knight-typal commander that’s happy to have nine extremely aggressive bodies to enable its eminence ability. If you want to go deep on Nazgûl, these are great flicker colors, so you could pick one Nazgûl to repeatedly flicker so the others grow fiercer.

#6. Aveline de Grandpré

Aveline de Grandpré might be the best option for an aggressive Nazgûl shell because green is such a great support color. You get counters doublers like Hardened Scales and Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger to make them grow twice as fast plus access to plenty of trample enablers to enable the trample-deathtouch interaction.

#5. Witch-king, Sky Scourge

Witch-king, Sky Scourge also wants your Nazgûl to attack but provides card advantage as the payoff. On its own, this commander impulse draws five cards each time it attacks, but the Nazgûl can easily exceed 5 power. Toss in cast-from-exile synergies like Passionate Archaeologist and modified payoffs like Akki Battle Squad and watch your opponents fall.

#4. Marchesa, the Black Rose

Marchesa, the Black Rose has many great play patterns with Nazgûl. They’re basically unkillable while you control it, for one. For another, you can sacrifice all of them and make them return to play for a ton of enters triggers, whether that’s their own or to trigger something like Kindred Discovery on wraith.

#3. Lord of the Nazgûl

I like to think of Lord of the Nazgûl as a leveled-up Talrand, Sky Summoner: You get similar value, but the tokens are better and you have a big creature. The lesser Nazgûl work as lords for this one’s tokens, as they put counters on all wraiths you control, not just Nazgûl. This is the only commander the nine support instead of receiving support from the command zone.

#2. Sméagol, Helpful Guide

Sméagol, Helpful Guide typically leans towards being a landfall commander because it fetches so many lands. Ramping is certainly one of the stronger payoffs for when your Nazgûl make the Ring tempt you. It encourages a sacrifice theme to make that happen even more often, which circles back to some of those previously mentioned Golgari sacrifice cards.

#1. Sauron, the Dark Lord

While other legends have solid payoffs for the Ring tempts you mechanic, none are better than that of Sauron, the Dark Lord—which is quite fitting. Playing Nazgûl lets you rip through your deck, drawing cards and enabling any discard synergies like Cool but Rude you want to include. You’re also in excellent colors to make lots of Nazgûl between clones and cards like Reflections of Littjara.

Example Decklist: Ratadrabik of Urborg in Commander

Ratadrabik of Urborg | Illustration by Anna Pavleeva

This deck zeros in on Ratadrabik of Urborg’s combo potential with Nazgûl, though it also has a handful of other outlets like Boromir, Warden of the Tower in addition to non-commander combos like Isilu, Carrier of Twilight. All of the combos, whether they use Nazgûl or not, focus on creating infinite sacrifice loops to kill the table with cards like Blood Artist.

These combos are backed by a bunch of powerful tutors, card draw, and fast mana, with enough cheap combos and Game Changers to make it solidly Bracket 4. It’s a bit too much of a glass cannon for Bracket 5/cEDH, though. Focus on proactive hands that go for a quick combo.

You’ll have a surprisingly easy time if you want to adapt this to Brawl. Many of the more busted cards aren’t on Arena, but the core Ratadrabik combos are. Go for more of a midrange angle, dropping the fast mana and tutors for lots of cheap interaction and disruption like Swords to Plowshares and Thoughtseize, and look to take control of the game before winning with a combo.

Why Is Nazgûl so Expensive?

Nazgûl is expensive for a few reasons. Firstly, there’s high demand: Since any deck with Nazgûl wants nine, players want more than average, especially for Commander. This is true of all “play as many as you want” cards, like Hare Apparent and Rat Colony. Additionally, Wizards printed nine unique Nazgûl arts in LTR, so there’s a different angle of demand as players want to complete the set.

A lack of reprints in The Hobbit (which makes sense given that the Nazgûl don’t show up in that book) also means that supply is unlikely to go up anytime soon.

Commanding Conclusion

Nazgûl | Illustration by Miklós Ligeti

The nine Nazgûl are incredibly iconic, and creatures that break deckbuilding restrictions are always fun to fiddle with. Pairing both makes for an extremely interesting Commander build-around. I appreciate the cap on nine because it makes them a prominent part of the deck but leaves much more room for innovation than 30 Hare Apparent.

Which Nazgûl commander do you want to build? Do you want to see more cards like these in the future? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord! For more from Draftsim in video form, check out our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep.

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!