The 28 Best Archers in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 26, 2024

Finneas, Ace Archer | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

Longbow Archer is a pretty evocative Magic card, back when white had reach creatures and more evocative art and creatures in general. You get it right away just by looking at the art: It’s an archer, it’s aiming at a flying dragon, and it can shoot the dragon first, so first strike. It can’t fly, but it’s got the upper hand against fliers, and it can block them if necessary.

Archers are like that in MTG, very defensive and reactive by nature. Most of them block fliers, and they can have activated abilities as well – you need to ready their bows and shoot arrows.

More than 100 archers have been printed in MTG so far, and we’re ranking the best ones.

What Are Archers in MTG?

Thornweald Archer | Illustration by Dave Kendall

Archers in MTG are a creature type well-equipped to deal with opposing creatures at a distance. Because of their long-range weapons, they present a menace to enemy fliers, often having reach or an activated ability that deals direct damage to fliers. Archers are mostly green since it’s the primary color that hates fliers, and we have some archers in white and red as well.

Many archers are defensive, and that’s reflected in their low power and high toughness and their ability to block enemy fliers from the ground.

#28. Bassara Tower Archer

Bassara Tower Archer can be a good green creature in aura or green devotion decks due to its hexproof ability. The sum of all these little aspects makes it a playable creature in some green decks.

#27. Reverent Hunter

By itself, Reverent Hunter is a 2/2 for 3 mana, and with a little devotion going on, you can have a big beatstick. This Hunter can easily be a 5/5 or 6/6 for 3 mana, and in +1/+1 counter synergy decks it can be a lot better.

#26. Scattershot Archer

Scattershot Archer is almost a sideboard card, in the sense that it’s not going to impact the board if your opponents don’t have fliers around. It's a very powerful creature if they do have 1/1 and 2/1 fliers.

#25. Thornweald Archer

Thornweald Archer is a poor man’s Baleful Strix that doesn’t draw you a card. It’s an interesting elf if you need more defense against flying creatures or big creatures in general.

#24. Jagged-Scar Archers

Jagged-Scar Archers is at its best in elf decks and decks that swarm the board with elves or elf tokens. With some typal support, this elf archer can snipe dragons, angels, demons, and what have you.

#23. Hallar, the Firefletcher

Hallar, the Firefletcher is a kicker-matters card, and that’s about it. It’s a good Gruul () archer if you’re constantly kicking spells, which pays off in the long run since kicked spells tend to be more expensive.

#22. Daybreak Ranger

Daybreak Ranger isn’t making the cut in as many decks as it did in MTG’s past, and its color identity doesn’t help either. I’d play it in werewolf typal decks since that creature type needs some support. Nightfall Predator is interesting, as you can pay a red and tap it to fight an enemy target, but even then, you’ll be at the mercy of the old version of the day/night mechanic.

#21. Stalking Leonin

Stalking Leonin offers an interesting bluff opportunity. You’ll secretly choose an opponent, and if said opponent attacks you, this cat archer gives you a free removal spell. Attacking you becomes a risk, and you can sit on said advantage – or they’ll only attack you with small creatures.

#20. Arcus Acolyte

Arcus Acolyte gives outlast to creatures you control, allowing them to tap and pay 1 mana to put a +1/+1 counter on themselves.

Arcus can be a great support for many +1/+1 counters commanders, and works well with effects that double the number of counters or otherwise put those counters to good use.

#19. Ruthless Sniper

Ruthless Sniper becomes a machine gun if paired with cards that cycle or discard. It doesn’t care if you’re playing with or against wheel decks; either one triggers this human archer just the same. Ruthless Sniper works very well with proliferate commanders or those that care about -1/-1 counters.

#18. Halana, Kessig Ranger

Halana, Kessig Ranger demands mana for you to constantly pay the . If you have mana around, each creature enters and bites something.

Since Halana is a partner commander, you can build all sorts of multicolored Halana decks, especially with Alena, Kessig Trapper since both care about creature power.

#17. Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile

Although not the strongest creature, dealing 2 damage to each attacking or blocking creature can wreak havoc on fights and combat math. Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile is the token terror, and it works very well if you’re attacking with trample creatures due to the 2 extra trample damage each creature will deal.

#16. Greatbow Doyen

Hey, here’s an archer lord. Greatbow Doyen is interesting as archer support because when your archers deal damage to creatures, they also deal damage to their creature’s controller, so blocking your archers becomes a losing proposition for your opponents. If archers become a viable typal deck, this elf archer will be more valuable.

#15. Daryl, Hunter of Walkers / Hansk, Slayer Zealot

Hansk, Slayer Zealot is an interesting creature. You’ll give three zombies to one of your opponents during your upkeep, and each turn you can tap Hansk to kill one of them and draw a card. And yes, the Walkers on the Walking Dead version count as zombies.

When the board becomes flooded with zombies, a damage-based sweeper like Pyroclasm draws you a bunch of cards, and your opponents will think twice before using their zombies in combat while Hansk is around.

#14. Legolas, Counter of Kills

Legolas, Counter of Kills profits from every creature’s death. You can have a pretty big Legolas quickly, and when it’s small you can leave it on defense due to its reach ability. You can also set up an engine where you’re tapping this elf archer to do something and scrying to untap it – it’s a particularly good combo with the obscure card Witches' Eye.

#13. Firebrand Archer

Firebrand Archer sees play in plenty of spellslinger decks. Dealing 1 damage to each player based on noncreature spells you cast is very versatile and can fit many different decks.

#12. Tor Wauki the Younger

Tor Wauki the Younger has an interesting combination of reach and lifelink, but its best ability is to strengthen damage-based effects. If you cast an instant or sorcery you’ll deal 2 damage to any target, and that can hit players and creatures. A card like Guttersnipe now deals 3 damage on its own, while Tor Wauki deals another 2 on top. That effect can scale quickly, so you can have a very effective control deck built around this Rakdos () human archer.

#11. Poison-Tip Archer

Poison-Tip Archer holds its ground very well as a 2/3 with reach and deathtouch. It’s also a very good aristocrat card, making opponents lose life when you sacrifice creatures. Decks like Golgari () sacrifice or elves can benefit a lot from this elf archer.

#10. Palazzo Archers

Palazzo Archers is a sky fortress. Just having this on the battlefield means that you won’t be attacked by X/1 or X/2 fliers. Your opponents could have an army of flying spirits or birds, and you’ll be protected.

#9. Ohabi Caleria

Ohabi Caleria isn’t a great archer by itself, but it's an excellent incentive to build around, and it gets better the more archers you have around. The untap ability makes archers with tap abilities so much better, as you can use them every other turn and sometimes even draw cards.

#8. Legolas Greenleaf

Legolas Greenleaf is awesome in legends-matter decks, so rather than building an EDH deck with Legolas as its green commander, I’d rather add this elf archer to a legends build like Jodah, the Unifier.

Legolas Greenleaf becomes increasingly harder to block, and opponents have to choose: Do they risk losing a big creature by blocking, or do they let you draw a card whenever Legolas deals combat damage to them?

#7. Catti-brie of Mithral Hall

Catti-brie of Mithral Hall can attack as a huge Voltron commander by adding good equipment to it, then snipe a creature on another turn by removing the counters. It’s also a strong defender because of its first strike and reach. 

#6. Wildborn Preserver

Wildborn Preserver is a great 2-drop with flash that manages to stay relevant over the course of the game due to its “pseudo-evolve ability.” It’s not hard to cast nonhumans to grow this archer, and it even works with tokens. Its best place is at elf typal decks, and it can benefit from the buffs that type provides.

#5. Scrapshooter

Bloomburrow‘s Scrapshooter already has a good rate as a 3-mana 4/4 with reach. Gifting a card to someone in EDH is much better than in 1v1, so this raccoon archer is well-suited for the format. You can snipe an artifact or enchantment from a player and gift another player with a card.

#4. Finneas, Ace Archer

Finneas, Ace Archer excels in go-wide decks, and it can put a counter on rabbits and tokens to grow your massive army. The only problem is that a 2/2 that needs to attack is a little fragile, so it’s better to have good combat tricks or equipment by your side.

#3. Legolas, Master Archer

Legolas, Master Archer works very well with auras, fight effects, or both (like Cartouche of Strength). Each time you cast a fight or bite spell, you’ll get something extra out of your master archer, and you can even hit two creatures with one spell. You can fit this Legolas in decks like RG or BG that have plenty of targeted removal spells to help Legolas do double work.

#2. Robber of the Rich

Robber of the Rich sees plenty of play in formats like Pioneer and Explorer, in red aggro decks or rogue-matters decks. Hitting with a hasted 2/2 is very good, and sometimes you’ll get a card from your opponent. It can be brutal when you get a late-game card from them or a removal spell and use their weapons against them.

#1. Orcish Bowmasters

Lord of the Rings‘ Orcish Bowmasters is one of the most powerful cards printed in recent Magic sets, and it’s had one of the greatest impacts on Eternal formats. It single-handedly invalidates creatures with 1 toughness: It’s brutal to cast a card like Dark Confidant only to be pinged by the Bowmasters. It’s a natural two-for-one in most cases, even if you get two 1/1 creatures.

The fact that you can flash it in response to a card draw spell like Brainstorm is also very strong.

Best Archer Payoffs

Unfortunately, archers aren’t a well-supported creature type.

We have Greatbow Doyen as an archer lord with relevant abilities to buff the damage dealt by your archers, and Ohabi Caleria single-handedly gives you a direction to build an archer deck around it. If you were to build an Ohabi deck, think of archers that have tap abilities, use powerful equipment that requires them to tap, or simply give them all pseudo-vigilance. Some archers from MTG’s early days have tap abilities to prevent damage or to generate mana, so these can benefit from Ohabi as well. You can slap an aura on Freewind Equenaut, attack, untap it, and have the ability ready on defense.

If you’re relying on tap abilities, a card like Well Rested is interesting, allowing you to put two +1/+1 counters when untapping the enchanted archer.

You could also always consider Morophon, the Boundless, which offers the best possibility to play all your favorite archers and have some generic typal support.

Since archers have reach and many of them have less power than toughness, you can try them out in toughness-matters decks. Doran, the Siege Tower could be an interesting commander, but I'd avoid Arcades, the Strategist, since most archers don't actually have defender.

Wrap Up

Robber of the Rich | Illustration by Paul Scott Canavan

And that’s all there is to know about archers, folks.

Archers remind me of minotaurs pre-Theros when Didgeridoo was the only incentive to play them, and people would play really bad cards like Hurloon Minotaur. There are some reasons to play archers, but not enough support. That can change on a whim should WotC print a Commander precon with an archer commander, or if they’re well represented in a Standard set.

Still, there are some good archers to include in your decks as well as Orcish Bowmasters, which is a broken MTG card.

What are your favorite archers? Have you ever built an all-in archers deck? Let me know in the comments below, or leave us a message on Draftsim Twitter.

Stay sharp foes, and keep your bows ready with arrows.