All 13 Ooze Commanders in Magic Ranked

Aeve, Progenitor Ooze | Illustration by Andrew Mar

Oozes are an underrated threat when it comes to horror, fantasy, and science fiction. Ghosts, vampires, and beasts of all shapes get a lot of the spotlight, but I love the tension that oozes bring to horror.

And I especially appreciate that we have legendary oozes in Magic to fit the two main stories we get. Whether it’s an amorphous blob that consumes everything in its path, or a sentient and sophisticated shapeshifter, these commanders simple ooze potential to inspire dreadful awe.

Stick close!

What Are Ooze Commanders in MTG?

Felix Five-Boots | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Magic’s ooze commanders are made up of all the legendary creatures with ooze in their type line. As of Reality Fracture, there’s no vehicles, spacecraft, or other eligible commanders that reference oozes in any way. All ooze commanders so far stick with a Sultai color identity or less (any combination of , , and/or .)

Oozes are in an odd place as a creature type. Some oozes don’t play well with others because their abilities revolve around copying other creatures. Others want to go wide and tall with a combination of tokens and counters, which also limits the number of ooze creature cards you’ll want to run. There’s still some ways to go full-bore on the creature type, though.

Honorable Mention: It Came from Planet Glurg

Stephan, known to the rest of the Magic universe as It Came from Planet Glurg, riffs on how some oozes let you mix and match other creatures’ text boxes, except it addseverything together. Anything on the battlefield, too. It cranks up the silliest thing that oozes do to such a level it just needs an acorn stamp. I don’t even want to try to figure out the total power and toughness of a “Scion of the Wild/Tarmogoyf”, and that barely scratches the surface of the complexity this creates.

#13. Terrian, World Tyrant

If you’re going to run Terrian, World Tyrant as a commander, Voltron is the way to do it. A 9/7 for 5 mana doesn’t need much power to reach lethal commander damage: Maybe a slight buff with double strike and evasive abilities like trample, flying, and unblockable to get through blockers. There are better beaters that are cheaper, or give you actual abilities, but the raw stats here almost make up for a vanilla creature in the command zone.

#12. Mutagen Man, Living Ooze

Mutagen Man, Living Ooze does solid work in support of other commanders. If you don’t care about Mutagens, you can drop it for just to get cost reduction when you activate your Clues and Foods, among others. Mono-green utility artifact tokens doesn’t have the support and payoffs I’d want in a deck built around this set of abilities, though. Gimme some red so I can burn my opponents with Reckless Fireweaver variants and I’m infinitely more interested.

#11. Slurrk, All-Ingesting

Slurrk, All-Ingesting partners up most often with Reyhan, Last of the Abzan for a Golgari () counters/aristocrats deck. I appreciate an ability that’s like a budget version of The Ozolith, but Slurrk only impacts the game once your board is established and your engine is ready to go.

#10. Umori, the Collector

As a commander, Umori, the Collector just offers you cost reduction. It’s not the most exciting ability for an ooze to have, though it’s very viable with Slime Against Humanity.

#9. Slogurk, the Overslime

Props for doing something weird and sticking to it. Simic () counters, lands, and self-mill are a fairly standard combination, though there’s much more powerful, less complex options in the space than Slogurk, the Overslime. It’s got its charms, but it feels like the kind of deck that’s doing too many disparate things to maximize stuff like landfall triggers.

#8. Experiment Kraj

While copying activated abilities opens up paths to a variety of combos that’ll only keep growing as Wizards prints more creatures, I prefer the idea of an Experiment Kraj deck that spreads counters onto opponents’ creatures. A low-power group hug deck of sorts, though you’re missing many of the stax pieces that white offers.

#7. Vannifar, Evolved Enigma

Both the cloak mode and the colorless creature pump point Vannifar, Evolved Enigma firmly towards a morph deck, or any of its variant mechanics. Blue has access to blink spells if you want to cheat on a big creature’s mana cost. And it can support the infinite combo in the Jump Scare! precon, so there’s that.

To me, this is the platonic ideal of a Bracket 2 commander (Bracket 3 if you stuff it with Game Changers). It’s got fair counting stats ( 3/4). Its abilities explore underused space. And it points you in a direction, but it lets you brew around with it.

#6. Prime Speaker Vannifar

Prime Speaker Vannifar’s activated ability forces you into a Birthing Pod space, but there’s no real room to go anywhere else. I recognize the combo potential. I just don’t care for it much.

#5. Mimeoplasm, Revered One

Mimeoplasm, Revered One puts a modern spin on the original by splitting its ability between an enters trigger that plunders your graveyard and an activated ability that lets this ooze shapeshift. You’ll need discard, surveil, or self-mill to stock up your graveyard and ramp to pump into the X in your commander’s mana cost, but the right hits can turn your exile zone into a toolbox.

Let’s say you cast Mimeoplasm for X=3, which exiles three creatures from your graveyard. Mimeoplasm enters as a 9/9. Next turn, that same 6 mana lets you change your commander three times. It lets you shift between an attacker with vigilance and an imposing blocker, or something smaller with an activated ability. You can switch from a Mist-Cloaked Herald to a saboteur or an infect creature between when blockers are declared and damage is dealt. There’s even the option for some janky Pili-Pala infinite mana combos.

#4. Felix Five-Boots

Saboteurs get their very own trigger doubler thanks to Felix Five-Boots, and it’s a very fun theme to build around. Double cards from Toski, Bearer of Secrets. Or how about getting both modes off Bejeweled Warg, or the same mode twice? Felix’s home precon had a theft theme going, plus many ninjutsu and sneak cards take advantage of the doubled triggers.

#3. Uugguu, the Omniplasm

Mystery Booster Commander Edition gave us Uugguu, the Omniplasm, a card whose name has incredibly flavorful mouthfeel. There’s lots of oozes like Acidic Slime and Hecteyes that have good enters triggers, but you can also use clone variants to double up on whatever utility or threat you need. Sultai colors have access to sacrifice outlets and reanimation, including Bloodline Bidding to reanimate all your oozes at once, and Cauldron of Essence as both wrapped into a reusable package. Token doublers become even more ridiculous here since Uugguu strips your creatures of the legendary supertype.

#2. Aeve, Progenitor Ooze

The uniqueness with Aeve, Progenitor Ooze comes from its storm ability, a truly bizarre thing to see on a green legendary creature. Each token enters with a lot of counters on them if you already have a bunch of oozes out, which makes it another of the better options to run as a Slime Against Humanity commander.

#1. The Mimeoplasm

I may be overrating an older card, but The Mimeoplasm is a blast to build around. You can fuel the enters trigger with anyone’s graveyard, so whose are you trying to fill, and how?

There’s a controlling build that loads up on removal, edicts, mill, discard, counterspells, whatever. In that deck, you’re preventing your opponents from getting their own gameplan going while stocking their graveyards to build your best Frankenstein’s monster, but it can backfire if your opponents want to fill their graveyards, or if they’re running a deck that’s light on impactful creatures.

So the more consistent route is to focus on your own dastardly designs with a mix of self-mill and reanimator; anything that you don’t exile to make The Mimeoplasm into something weird and big is a threat you can bring back onto the battlefield.

Commanding Conclusion

The Mimeoplasm | Illustration by Mark Tedin

Ooze commanders may not all be the most explosive, but that’s very fitting for the threat that oozes cause. They creep and grow over time until they overwhelm you, or they crank up the subterfuge and replace your friends, adding layers to the psychic damage you take.

Which of these commanders do you run? How would you design a legendary ooze with red or white in its color identity? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord. For more from us in video form, check out our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep, including our very own MTG podcast!

Until next time, stay safe! And watch your step….