The 29 Best Simic Commanders Ranked

Last updated on March 14, 2024

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy | Illustration by Jason Rainville

I’ve been making the rounds here at Draftsim going over each 2-color combination in Magic and their top commanders. Picking a color or combo of colors is the first step in building any new deck, and it’s important to find one you like. Each color is different and their respective combinations each present unique play styles and strategies that no other does. Finding the right colors is critical to having fun in the format.

Today I’m going to go over Simic (). I'll give a little information as to why you may want to play with a Simic commander, rank some of the best ones, and include a super sweet sample decklist with Kruphix, God of Horizons.

Let’s get started!

Why Go with a Simic Commander?

Koma, Cosmos Serpent | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

Simic is a color pairing that’s superb at one strategy in particular: big mana. That isn’t to say it can’t support tokens, landfall, or any other specific strategy, but what Simic does best is generate huge amounts of mana and give you creative ways to spend it.

Simic has unique access to the big mana and big creatures of green while also being able to tap into the control and tempo aspects of blue. Combined you have the color best at creating more mana than you can spend and the color that can adequately deploy threats and control the pace of the game.

Blue and green support each other incredibly well and make up for their respective differences. Their end-game threats are some of the most powerful in Magic.

#29. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

Starting us off today is Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. Don’t worry, Uro isn’t the menace in Commander that it is in Legacy. It’s at the bottom of the list today for a reason. That said, it’s still good enough to appear on the list.

Uro is a strong land commander and can be a nice way to generate some card advantage and get extra landfall triggers. You don’t care if Uro stays on the battlefield or not, you’re just using it to get its enter-the-ability ability. Drawing cards is as important as having cards with landfall in play since losing out on landfall triggers is how these kinds of decks fail.

#28. Alaundo the Seer

Suspend is one of my favorite mechanics, and Alaundo the Seer gives it to all the spells in your deck. The first things you’ll want are spells worth casting for free. There’s a balance to find here; you’ll want a few things like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth as fantastic top-end cards, especially with haste. But don’t pack too many big win cons, or you won’t get to cast them. Cheaper extra turn spells are your friend here; Temporal Mastery and Time Warp buy you lots of extra time to get tapping.

Ways to untap Alaundo are vital. Seedborn Muse and Sting, the Glinting Dagger are good options to untap Alaundo on your opponents’ turns, but cards like Kiora's Follower, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, and Seeker of Skybreak help you untap Alaundo multiple times on your turn to chew through those suspend counters. Alaundo is a great commander to pair with the Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal combo to draw your entire deck in a single turn.

#27. Tawnos, the Toymaker

Tawnos, the Toymaker lets you copy every beast and bird you want to play with, and it turns out there are a bunch of good ones. Trigun Predator has been a Commander staple forever, Garruk's Packleader and Curiosity Crafter draw tons of cards, and doubling up on Rampaging Baloths and Craterhoof Behemoth is an excellent way to finish a game.

Since you’re leaning hard into tokens, you’ll want to use Simic’s token support. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, Doubling Season, and Parallel Lives give you the armies you need to dominate the local pod. Double Major and Irenicus's Vile Duplication are extra spicy as ways to make extra copies of Tawnos that each make more tokens of your beasts and birds.

#26. Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep

Who doesn’t love free value? Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep is one of the better commanders for the monsters of the depths, collecting all the deep-sea creatures for a cascade-adjacent ability. You’ll want to lean hard into the typal support. The bigger the monsters, the better. Spawning Kraken makes tokens once you get going, Scourge of Fleets is practically a 6/6 Cyclonic Rift, Serpent of Yawning Depths puts your opponents on a fast clock, and Hullbreaker Horror is just one of the best blue creatures.

You’ll want to back all of these up with tons of ramp. I’d lean hard into land-based ramp with spells like Three Visits, Cultivate, and Nature's Lore. It’s less disruptable than creature- or artifact-based ramp. You can exploit this by disrupting your opponents relying on mana rocks and cheap creatures, with spells like Collector Ouphe and Filter Out to slow things down until your deep-sea denizens can remind the table why the oceans are terrifying.

#25. Grolnok, the Omnivore

Grolnok, the Omnivore has the pleasure of following up Kiora in the rankings. Grolnok is a great mill commander since any card that goes into your graveyard gets a “croak counter.” These counters let you play them from your graveyard, which means any mill card is now a card-positive cantrip!

Mill is a strategy that doesn’t have much interaction since the main way to beat it is to just kill the person playing it. It’s also cheap since it’s underplayed which makes it a great strategy in casual pods where your opponents aren’t winning on turn 4. Just make sure you have enough recursion, especially since you won’t have access to black for Reanimate or Necromancy.

#24. Slogurk, the Overslime

Following Grolnok, the Omnivore is another slimy swampy individual, Slogurk, the Overslime. This is another lands-matter commander (there are a few of those on this list) that turns lands entering the graveyard into +1/+1 counters. You can remove these counters to then bring lands back from your graveyard to your hand, which in turn gives you even more landfall triggers.

Slogurk is a great budget commander because it effectively replaces Crucible of Worlds and fetch lands, which severely run up the price of a deck. All it needs is some alternative way to get lands into the graveyard in the first place.

This can be done with Springbloom Druid, Elvish Reclaimer, and turning your lands into creatures with cards like Rampaging Baloths. You get guaranteed value with Slogurk too because it returns three lands from the graveyard to your hand when it dies.

#23. Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief

Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief is a unique commander who doubles spells targeting your other creatures. It plays incredibly well with mutate; you’ll copy something like Migratory Greathorn or Gemrazer and get two mutate triggers plus a bunch of extra power on board. Copying auras is another way to get great value; multiple copies of cards like Ancestral Mask or Combat Research spiral out of control quickly. Make sure to include some defensive auras with totem armor like Snake Umbra and Eel Umbra.

As for creatures other than Ivy to target, how about more Ivy? Spark Double and Irenicus's Vile Duplication let you make nonlegendary copies of Ivy that each trigger. Some hexproof creatures like Invisible Stalker and Silhana Ledgewalker work nicely here to avoid blowouts, but there are some creatures that like getting targeted, like Stormchaser Drake and Venerated Rotpriest, that deserve a slot.

#22. Inga and Esika

Inga and Esika ask you to play creatures, and you’re happy to oblige. Your goal with this commander is to use their mana ability and card draw to churn through your deck and outvalue your opponents. Thousand-Year Elixir and Concordant Crossroads is vital to use the mana from your creatures and cards like Augur of Autumn, Vivien, Monsters' Advocate, and Elven Chorus help you keep the chain going by drawing cards of the top.

This commander also breaks Intruder Alarm. Any old creature lets you get a lot of mana to keep churning through your deck, but Venser, Shaper Savant and Man-o'-War go truly infinite. You bounce them back to your hand after the Intruder Alarm trigger untaps your creatures, then tap them again to replay it. This combo gets infinite mana that can cast creatures and lets you draw your deck – provided you have four or five creatures. To help hit that critical mass, I’d look to cards like Scute Swarm, Hornet Queen, and Avenger of Zendikar.

#21. Lonis, Genetics Expert

The ability to get multiple investigations going with Lonis, Genetics Expert is really cool when Simic has no problem adding several +1/+1 counters turn after turn, or in one big sewing. Either way, the color identity on Lonis often leads to plenty of mana, plenty of additional cards, and you toss in a clue payoff to make this detective pump more of your creatures.

#20. Prime Speaker Zegana

Prime Speaker Zegana is the first (but not the last) Prime Speaker to appear on today’s rankings. Zegana is a hybrid +1/+1 counters and card-draw commander that perfectly uses green’s support for creatures with blue’s theme of tempo and card draw. Truly a Simic commander.

I’d use Zegana in a generic Simic value deck since it doesn’t specialize enough with +1/+1 counters enough to warrant going all the way. Big mana and big creatures suit it much better and you’re better off going down that road.

At the end of the day this card is no worse than your biggest creature and is always card neutral.

#19. Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle

Next is Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle, literally an entire island. It’s a 12/12 for , and yes there’s a catch.

Arixmethes enters with five slumber counters which make it a nonland creature as long as at least one is present. The good part is that you can remove one of these any time you cast a spell. In the meantime it’s a mediocre Simic Growth Chamber.

Slumbering Isle is another big-mana big-creature commander that works best in casual pods and for newer players. The game plan is the same no matter how you end up building your deck: ramp out on turns one through four and then wreak havoc. Arixmethes works more as an upcoming threat than any kind of engine, so treat it as such.

#18. The Goose Mother

The subtypes bird and hydra are very telling for this great representative of Simic commanders, large creatures that can draw you cards. The Goose Mother probably won't land on our ranking of best moms, but it can bring in eggs by the carton, as in food, and there are so many other ways to create food it's almost unfair that blue gets this much access to lifegain. If you eat your food in Magic, you might not be doing it right, there are almost as many ways to spend food as there are mother goose fairy tales.

Look to The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth for some great food payoffs, then reserve a slot for Night of the Sweets' Revenge, Shimmer Dragon, and Feasting Troll King. There are also a plethora of ways to play with +1/+1 counters, and rarely do commanders come out of the zone with as much mana as you can spend.

#17. Vannifar, Evolved Enigma

The power on Vannifar, Evolved Enigma is through the roof with a free cloak, or permanent anthem for your colorless creatures. Both are an appproximate mana value of on each of your combats.

Where the value shoots way way up is if you cloak a big creature facedown, then send it on a flicker journey to exile and back, returning it faceup, but only having to pay for a spell like Ghostly Flicker or Essence Flux.

#16. Edric, Spymaster of Trest

Edric, Spymaster of Trest is an O.G. Simic commander and was once one of the best around. Power creep has unfortunately crept up on it and it shows. Edric is a very simple commander that generates card advantage early, which is best used to help big-mana decks get off the ground after keeping a hand full of mana dorks or mana rocks.

Any Edric, Spymaster of Trest Commander deck is very creature heavy. I can’t emphasize enough how important early dorks are. They have the ability to draw cards off opponents with weak board states which makes them incredibly valuable.

#15. Lonis, Cryptozoologist

Lonis, Cryptozoologist is perfect for the player looking to embrace their inner Sherlock Holmes. To get the most from this commander, you’ll want tons of ways to create Clue tokens, like Academy Manufactor, Tireless Tracker, and Waveshifter. A few ways to increase token production like Adrix and Nev, Twincasters or Erdwal Illuminator are also incredibly welcome.

#14. Hakbal of the Surging Soul

You could say ramp and card draw are the most important keys to victory and Hakbal of the Surging Soul gives you access to both, maybe not in the same turn, but both is more than most color combinations can say.

You cannot ignore the crowd of merfolk that are great for spreading out across your board like beachgoers. Very few cards in Magic give you the power of exploration at this magnitude, and it can all come from your commander.

#13. Ezuri, Claw of Progress

Simic +1/+1 counters is an archetype with a long and rich history of support, and Ezuri, Claw of Progress does an excellent job leading the charge. Experience counters are a strong mechanic since your opponents can’t really interact with them unless they play Solemnity on curve. All your small creatures, like Blighted Agent, Cold-Eyed Selkie, and Herald of Secret Streams, trigger Ezuri before becoming monsters.

Proliferate is insane in this deck. You get to add extra +1/+1 counters, but more experience counters that produce more counters, and so on. Cards like Thrummingbird, Inexorable Tide, and even Unnatural Restoration and Serum Snare send you tumbling out of control. You’ll also get tons of mana from creatures like Gyre Sage and Kami of Whispered Hopes since the amount of mana they produce scales with their power. Throw in a Simic Ascendancy as an alternate win condition, and your opponents have a hell of a deck to contend with.

#12. Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty

Next up is Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty, the first and only commander on today’s rankings with cascade! Cascade is a fun creature-based mechanic that works wonders in casual pods, especially ones where your opponents are falling behind. It also introduces a unique style of deckbuilding where you can build a creature base that chains creatures so a single cascade trigger pulls out multiple cards.

Imoti gives cascade to spells with mana value six or greater, which is especially powerful in Commander where you have access to efficient mana acceleration. It isn’t just creatures either; powerful instants and sorceries are back on the menu!

I’d recommend looking at Mnemonic Deluge, Verdant Mastery, Mental Journey, and Dig Through Time in particular. Aside from that just pick your favorite expensive spells and call it a day.

#11. Kruphix, God of Horizons

Kruphix, God of Horizons is the Simic god from the original Theros block, and it ranks well here today. Kruphix lets you preserve mana through phases and turns, keeping it colorless for as long as it stays on the battlefield. This has great synergy with colorless spells, like Eldrazi or spells with X in the casting cost like Mass Manipulation.

Eldrazi tribal is the way to go with God of Horizons. The mana-preserving ability lets you ramp out huge Eldrazi titans as early as turn five or six, and that’s something that other players usually aren’t ready to deal with so early. Especially if they don’t have a Path to Exile ready for those indestructible titans.

#10. Prime Speaker Vannifar

Prime Speaker Vannifar is a pod commander that’s a Birthing Pod on a stick. Pod decks are very fun and interactive. When it comes to building your deck you want it to work as a toolbox to deal with threats while also having threats of your own later down the chain.

You also want more than a few 1- and 2-drops to make sure you can get your chain going. Mana dorks are perfect for this. Any generic elf like Elvish Mystic and Llanowar Elves are good for mana value one, and Bloom Tender, Coiling Oracle, and Seeker of Skybreak for the two mana value spots.

#9. Tatyova, Benthic Druid

I'm getting into the best of the best with Tatyova, Benthic Druid, a landfall commander that gains you life and, more importantly, draws you cards! Card draw is always welcome in Commander, especially in landfall decks where you’re constantly in need of more blue and green lands to play.

Crucible of Worlds and Ramunap Excavator are the most important cards in your deck in combination with fetch lands. They keep your landfall triggers consistent which is the most common way to stumble when piloting a lands deck.

#8. Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca

Here you have Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, a 2/4 merfolk shaman that taps merfolk to become unblockable, draw cards, and distribute +1/+1 counters to every merfolk in your control. If it wasn’t clear enough, this is a merfolk tribal commander all the way.

Tribal decks are super easy to build in Commander. Just include however many lords you can of a given creature type and some artifacts that beef up your entire team. In this case you want Herald of Secret Streams, Murkfiend Liege, Vanquisher's Banner, Door of Destinies, Icon of Ancestry, and Coat of Arms. Get any one or two of these into play and you’re good to go.

#7. Esix, Fractal Bloom

Esix, Fractal Bloom Esix is a tokens commander, letting you make tokens of specific creatures instead of whatever kind you’d otherwise make. Imagine using a Hornet Queen to make four copies of Terastodon or End-Raze Forerunners. Quite frankly I’d concede out of respect if my opponent pulled something like that off.

It’s best to opt for cards that make a lot of tokens over cards that make strong tokens since your commander makes your tokens into whatever you want. This won’t change up your deckbuilding too much, it just means you’re more excited to play cards like Paradox Zone and Awakening Zone.

#6. Rashmi, Eternities Crafter

I’ve seen Rashmi, Eternities Crafter absolutely tear up pods at my local game store. It’s no joke. Rashmi’s ability is really powerful, letting you cast nonland cards off the top of your library for free when you cast your first spell each turn if its mana value is less than the card being cast. As you might imagine this can get out of hand pretty fast.

I’ll tell you right away that Seedborn Muse is the best card you could play with Eternities Crafter. It lets you untap every single turn which in turn gives you the ability to use Rashmi every single turn. This is classic Simic Value and a super fun strategy once you get it online.

#5. Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait starts off our top five as one of the strongest lands-matter creatures in Magic! Aesi draws you a card whenever you have lands enter the battlefield and lets you play one extra land per turn.

The card advantage generated by landfall triggers are a big help to any lands deck. One of the ways lands decks stumble is not having enough things to do after its landfall creatures are killed, so having card advantage in the command zone is welcomed.

The more lands you can play per turn the more important fetch lands are. There are seven fetches available in Simic colors and I recommend you play as many as you can along with Crucible of Worlds. These two together can get you a lot of landfall triggers per turn, even more when combined with Azusa, Lost but Seeking.

#4. Volo, Guide to Monsters

In the #4 spot is Volo, Guide to Monsters. Volo’s ability duplicates the creatures that enter the battlefield if they don’t share a creature type with a creature in your graveyard or in your control. Since this ability demands a diverse creature base, a Birthing Pod or creature-based strategy works great.

Here’s a brief list of excellent creatures at mana values 1 through 8 that can work as a good primer for your deckbuilding adventure:

• Mana Value 1: Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, Arbor Elf, Allosaurus Shepherd.
• Mana Value 2: Collector Ouphe, Prosperous Innkeeper, Phantasmal Image, Sylvan Caryatid, Wall of Blossoms, Ice-Fang Coatl.
• Mana Value 3: Scute Swarm, Eternal Witness, Spellseeker, Shardless Agent.
• Mana Value 4: Phyrexian Metamorph, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, Timeless Witness.
• Mana Value 5: Elder Gargaroth, Mind Flayer, Loyal Guardian.
• Mana Value 6: Consecrated Sphinx, Progenitor Mimic, Esix, Fractal Bloom.
• Mana Value 7: Avenger of Zendikar, Myr Battlesphere, Hornet Queen.
• Mana Value 8: Woodfall Primus, Terastodon, Craterhoof Behemoth.

#3. Adrix and Nev, Twincasters

Adrix and Nev, Twincasters are up next in the #3 spot. This is a token commander all the way thanks to its ability to duplicate the number of tokens you create. Token duplication is an incredible mechanic to see in Magic. It’s usually only seen on Doubling Season and Parallel Lives, which are popular reprints.

The most important aspect of any token deck, aside from having the previously mentioned token doublers, is having plenty of ways to buff your creatures. This can be done with plenty of +1/+1 counters thanks to enchantments like Primal Vigor and Primal Empathy, or board-wide buffs from cards like Beastmaster Ascension. Once you’ve got those effects underway you’re all set to start killing.

#2. Koma, Cosmos Serpent

In second place is a commander that I’ve found to be particularly underrated, Koma, Cosmos Serpent. Koma has an exceptional ability to lock opponents out with its activated ability, which can shut down permanents in addition to protecting itself.

Cosmos Serpent doesn’t have any major theme or strategy that dominates most of its decks. A generic Simic big-mana strategy works great since it has token and big-creature subthemes worked in. These work great with Koma and are super fun to play.

Cards that duplicate your Serpent tokens are great too since your commander’s activated ability requires serpents to sacrifice. Throw in a Helm of the Host for more Komas, or Doubling Season if you can afford it.

#1. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy

Finally, we’ve come to the #1 spot, where I’ve decided Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy deserved to be sat. Kinnan is one of the most popular Simic commanders, and for good reason. Its first ability doubles the mana output of your nonland permanents, which includes all your mana rocks and dorks like Midnight Clock and Llanowar Elves.

The payoff for having such ridiculous amounts of mana later in the game is Bonder Prodigy’s second ability, which lets you look at the top five cards of your library and put any non-human creature onto the battlefield for . This is pretty great and an excellent outlet to spend your excess mana. Combine that with Seedborn Muse and your opponents will be praying for a board wipe.

Decklist: Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty in EDH

Simic decks can be convoluted, but this is a perfect introductory deck for players who want to dip their toes in the waters of Simic decks. Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty asks you to play big spells for cascade value, and you do. This deck looks to win by outnumbering your opponents in cards and mana. When every spell you cast becomes two spells, it’s hard to keep up.

The early game is all about ramping. You want to power out Imoti and your big spells as soon as possible, so you’ve got a fleet of cheap ramp like Nature's Lore, Birds of Paradise, and Cultivate for early acceleration. You also have a few pieces to slow your opponents down, namely Collector Ouphe and Back to Basics. This deck is all about generating a massive mana advantage.

Once you’ve landed Imoti, you have plenty of haymakers to close the game. Hullbreaker Horror and Tidespout Tyrant are devastating in a normal game, let alone when every spell has cascade. Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger both extend your mana advantages further. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time provide you with card advantage to back up all this extra mana while triggering Imoti, even though you’ll rarely pay more than two mana for either. A couple of extra turn spells, like Nexus of Fate and Temporal Mastery tie everything together so you can win with the incredible board you’ll amass.

Commanding Conclusion

Adrix and Nev, Twincasters | Illustration by Andrew Mar

That wraps up everything I have for you today! I hope you enjoyed my rankings and were left desperately wanting to play Kruphix Eldrazi like I was. I’ll never forget how that deck won the pod by doing absolutely nothing for five turns and then coming out of nowhere with three eldrazi titans.

What do you think about my rankings? Were there any commanders you think should be placed higher, or maybe lower on the list? Let me know down in the comments or over in the official Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, stay safe and stay healthy!