All 30 Backgrounds in Magic Ranked

Last updated on November 14, 2025

Cultist of the Absolute | Illustration by Artur Treffner

Enchantments are pervasive in Magic: The Gathering as permanents that consistently give you extra benefits when they stay on the battlefield. This card type received an interesting upgrade in a Magic set released in 2022. Now, select enchantments can act as a… second commander?

Yep, you heard that right!

Let's first review the mechanics behind background enchantments in Magic. Then, we rank all 30 backgrounds from worst to best to get inspiration for your next Commander deck!

What Are Backgrounds in MTG?

Passionate Archaeologist | Illustration by Nino Is

Backgrounds are an enchantment subtype that debuted during Commander Legends: Battles for Baldur’s Gate in June 2022. A special ability allows them to be utilized as a second commander as long as the legendary creature that you select as your other commander lets you can choose a background.

If Jaheira, Friend of the Forest is your commander, you may also designate any background enchantment as your second commander.

There are 32 qualifying legendary creatures that can choose a background as your second commander. This lets you add any color you're passionate about to your deck's color identity and open up your strategy to more EDH staples.

If you run a commander that doesn’t allow a background as a second commander, you can still play background enchantments in your 99. This can be a good strategy if you have an enchantment matters deck or if you want to keep your commander and get the additional effects of the background.

#30. Faceless One

Faceless One is a unique background in that it can be any color you need. However, without other effects, it’s a pretty useless commander.

#29. Veteran Soldier

Veteran Soldier gets better the more opponents you’re up against, so playing against four or more players is important. As long as your opponents have less life than the player you’re attacking, you can bulk up your field with additional creature tokens that are tapped and attacking. Commanders that allow additional combat steps like Karlach, Fury of Avernus make good use of this white enchantment in the command zone while commanders like Aurelia, the Warleader welcome it in their 99.

#28. Sword Coast Sailor

Sword Coast Sailor allows your commander to become unblockable as long as your other opponents have less life than the player you’re attacking. Voltron commanders benefit from this blue enchantment as it can make your creature more formidable to possibly lock in a win. It’s most popularly utilized as a background for Wyll, Blade of Frontiers for an Izzet commander color identity, but other non-background commanders like The Pride of Hull Clade and Obeka, Splitter of Seconds can benefit from it, too.

#27. Agent of the Shadow Thieves

Agent of the Shadow Thieves is best for decks with an aggressive strategy involving additional combat steps or an overall Voltron strategy. The contingency of opponents having less life in the player you’re attacking can get in the way, but if the game circumstances create a valid trigger, this black enchantment gives your commander deathtouch and indestructible until end of turn.

#26. Shameless Charlatan

Shameless Charlatan can turn your commander into a copy of any target creature on the battlefield, including one of your opponent’s. You can take advantage of an opponent’s best creature and copy it for your own benefit or copy one of your own creatures to double up on beneficial triggers.

#25. Guild Artisan

As long as you’re attacking your opponent with the highest life total, you can benefit during the attack step by netting two treasure tokens. This red enchantment is especially effective in a Voltron deck that relies on constant attacking. Treasure commanders like Ganax, Astral Hunter can be better with Guild Artisan as the background or as a regular enchantment. 

#24. Hardy Outlander

Hardy Outlander bulks up your creatures when you need to land that last bit of combat damage to take out an opponent. However, it’s more effective in the late game as long as the opponents being attacked have lower life totals. You can include this as background for a deck with a succinct Voltron strategy looking to reduce life totals by combat damage like Alora, Merry Thief or Gut, True Soul Zealot.

#23. Noble Heritage

Noble Heritage allows opponents to choose if they want to add counters to creatures during your upkeep as long as your commander(s) is on the battlefield or if it enters. While this is beneficial for opponents to increase the power of their creatures, it comes at the cost of you being protected from them until the end of the turn. This means the opponent who put counters on their creature can’t deal damage to you in any way until your next turn.

#22. Candlekeep Sage

Candlekeep Sage is most effective in a blink deck with staples like Thassa, Deep-Dwelling in the 99 that can blink your commander and incur the card draw trigger. Card draw staples like Teferi's Ageless Insight can draw two cards off of each Candlekeep Sage trigger instead of just one. This is a synergistic background for a Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward so that you can blink the commander and create creature tokens in return for the nonland permanents you exiled as the commander entered.

#21. Clan Crafter

Clan Crafter can be essential in the 99 for Simic commanders where +1/+1 counters matters like for Lonis, Genetics Expert and The Goose Mother. The most popular commander pairing for Clan Crafter is usually Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer, itself one of the best goad commanders in the game. Most of all, Clan Crafter works well in artifact token decks to bulk up a chosen creature and draw a card for more in-game resources.

#20. Cloakwood Hermit

Watch out for the horde of Squirrel tokens that come with Chatterfang, Squirrel General as the commander and Cloakwood Hermit in the 99. As long as a creature card hits the graveyard on your turn, you can generate four total squirrel tokens on your end step instead of the original two thanks to Chatterfang’s replacement effect.

#19. Acolyte of Bahamut

Acolyte of Bahamut is a situational background that is best if you’re running a dragon typal deck. With the effect only reducing your first dragon spell per turn by 2 colorless mana as long as your commander is on the battlefield, it's still useful to run this green enchantment as your background.

#18. Master Chef

An unsual case of a common card that can go in your command zone, it’s best to get Master Chef on the battlefield then bring out your commander so that it receives a +1/+1 counter. This background could be supportive as a second commander to a Wyll, Blade of Frontiers dice roll deck or a Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant sacrifice outlet deck that bulks your entire army with +1/+1 counters. Even having Master Chef as the background for a Lae'zel, Vlaakith's Champion counters matters deck would be effective.

Running Master Chef is a bit of a slow strategy for bulking your army to swing in for combat damage, but the buff can be expedited with supporting cards. Take advantage of this card’s ability by including Branching Evolution and/or Doubling Season to double up on counters.

#17. Street Urchin

For a creature token or artifact-matters deck (i.e. a Treasure token build), Street Urchin would be most effective as a background for Ellyn Harbreeze, Busybody, the pair functioning as a Boros commander. You can include an infinite mana outlet like The Reaver Cleaver and Aggravated Assault and an infinite combo to damage right to all your opponents’ face at once to explosively win the game.

#16. Folk Hero

Folk Hero is great for typal decks featuring white to get some extra card draw as we all know that white has the weakest card draw. If you lack enough creatures with the proper creature type, you can utilize changelings like Irregular Cohort to get the card draw trigger.

#15. Criminal Past

Black decks have no trouble filling the graveyard, so Criminal Past gives your commander the buff it needs to go for the kill through commander damage! Alongside a graveyard-matters Golgari commander, Underrealm Lich and Altar of Dementia can get many cards into your graveyard quickly for the commander to be exponentially buffed with menace!

#14. Far Traveler

Far Traveler is another background perfect for blink decks. After you've attacked, you can exile and return a tapped creature to the battlefield on your end step with this background so it's ready to block on opponents’ turns.

This can be a synergistic background for Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward or as a member of the 99 for commanders with ETB effects. Popular commanders where Far Traveler is in the 99 include Preston, the Vanisher and Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines.

#13. Tavern Brawler

Play from exile decks benefit from Tavern Brawler not only exiling your top card but also buffing your commander’s power. It's popularly played in the 99 of a Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might build as playing from exile themes can incur a lot of noncombat damage that synergize with its ability.

#12. Scion of Halaster

Scion of Halaster is a crucial proponent for reanimation strategies and graveyard-matters decks. Manipulating the top of your deck to choose which one of the two cards goes into the graveyard and which one is returned to the top of the library is essential for strategizing your future turns. It can be a background for a Erinis, Gloom Stalker or a Viconia, Drow Apostate deck.

#11. Dungeon Delver

Fans of Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, assemble! Dungeon Delver is great if you’re running a dungeons-matters deck as this background doubles the value from each room your enter. This can be the background for Imoen, Mystic Trickster or in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, or Pauper deck with many dungeons to get through.

#10. Flaming Fist

Flaming Fist’s ability to give your commanders double strike until the end of your turn when attacking is great for partner decks! It's a great include for a Voltron deck as you get your commanders stronger with the best equipment, auras, and anthem effects because double strike can be the icing on the cake to winning by commander damage.

#9. Inspiring Leader

Inspiring Leader is one of my personal favorites because it bulks up creature tokens, one of my favorite strategies. If you’re trying to flood the board and generate as many tokens as possible with the creature token tripler, Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, Inspiring Leader can strengthen your 1/1s to 3/3s to become a more formidable board state.

#8. Dragon Cultist

Dragon creatures are particularly beefy with a power of 4 to 7 or sometimes higher. That's where Dragon Cultist comes in. As long as you hit with a big dragon or find a source to deal enough noncombat damage for the background’s trigger, then you get a Dragon token on each of your end steps.

This background is most popular in dragon typal decks with Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm as their Dragon commander, or as the background for a Ganax, Astral Hunter deck.

#7. Popular Entertainer

As long as your commander is on the field, Popular Entertainer goads an opponent’s creature as long as you have dealt combat damage to them. It’s a great background for a Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer Commander deck or in the 99 with Kaima, the Fractured Calm or Marisi, Breaker of the Coil as the commander.

#6. Raised by Giants

Raised by Giants has a pretty high mana cost, but once it’s out, your opponents will have to deal with a beefy 10/10 commander. Flying commanders like Ganax, Astral Hunter and Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant only need a few swings for you to win via combat damage with Raised by Giants as their background.

#5. Agent of the Iron Throne

Aristocrat decks benefit from the inclusion of Agent of the Iron Throne. Adding other aristocrat staples like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Blood Artist can drain your opponents’ life totals more expeditiously as more of your creatures die through sacrifice outlets and during combat.

Agent of the Iron Throne is mostly utilized as a background for Gut, True Soul Zealot. Otherwise, it's in the 99 of graveyard matters commander decks like Teysa, Opulent Oligarch or sacrifice outlet decks like Jan Jansen, Chaos Crafter.

#4. Feywild Visitor

Creature-based decks with a creature token sub theme are the perfect home for Feywild Visitor. It's most popularly included in the 99 of faerie typal decks as it's easiest to generate more tokens via attacking with flying creatures. The thematic flavor of more faeries on the board makes it that much sweeter.

Alela, Cunning Conqueror, Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor, and Alela, Artful Provocateur are the most popular faerie commanders featuring Feywild Visitor in the 99.

It's also popular as Ganax, Astral Hunter‘s background since the tokens are dragons, too.

#3. Passionate Archaeologist

Passionate Archaeologist is best as a background for a Durnan of the Yawning Portal deck or in the 99 of popular play from exile commanders like Laelia, the Blade Reforged and Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald. Damage doublers like Angrath's Marauders or Furnace of Rath or even a damage tripler like City on Fire can increase how much damage your commander deals.

#2. Haunted One

Haunted One is great for typal decks to bulk creatures up and give them undying as long as they share a creature type. Creatures having undying is crucial to protect them in combat or against board wipes.

The contingency to get this trigger is to tap your commander somehow, whether via attack or a tap ability. You can keep the engine going with ways to give those creatures that came back with the +1/+1 counter a -1/-1 so that they can keep coming back to the battlefield if they happen to die.

#1. Cultist of the Absolute

Cultist of the Absolute turns your commander into a powerhouse with a substantial buff in power and toughness as well as key evasive abilities to increase the possibility of landing combat and commander damage. Ward makes your commander quite hard to remove.

Best Background Payoffs

The backgrounds care about commanders being in play. That sounds a lot like lieutenants! So if you can keep your commander in play you get benefits from your backgrounds, plus the powerful effects from cards like Skyhunter Strike Force for a massive melee, Tyrant's Familiar to burn off creatures, and Thunderfoot Baloth to finish opponents with a permanent, only slightly smaller Overrun.

Best Commander + Background Pairs

The pair of Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward + Candlekeep Sage make blink commanders bomb with ETBs and LTBs for days.

Ganax, Astral Hunter + Feywild Visitor bring your dragons treasure and your flying creatures feed you more faerie dragons.

The ever popular Wilson, Refined Grizzly +Cultist of the Absolute one-two punch give you quite the angle on commander damage and Rancor gets your power to 7, while Scute Swarm, or Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia keep you well stocked with easy sacrifice fodder.

Wrap Up

Inspiring Leader | Illustration by Stephen Stark

Backgrounds are an interesting addition to the 99 in any Commander deck as they synergize well and cause good bonuses as long as you have your Commander on the board. If you like partners with commanders, and are inspired to try more flavor combinations, build a Commander deck with one of the 32 legendary creatures that allow you to choose a background, then you can pick from one of the 30 backgrounds to act as your second Commander.

What do you think of this card subtype in Commander? Do you want them with more colors? Did you like them in Commander Draft? Check out the Draftsim blog to learn more about all of Magic’s card types. You can stay updated on all of our content by following the Draftsim Facebook page.

Until next time, don't stay in the background and keep on deck building!