The 39 Best Assassin’s Creed Cards Ranked

Last updated on October 4, 2024

Haystack | Illustration by Xabi Gaztelua

There are a bunch of reprints in Assassin's Creed, headlined for me by Onslaught‘s Cover of Darkness, Exodus reprint Reconnaissance, and of course, Black Market Connections. I’m also curious if Propaganda becoming new-to-Modern will do something “fun” for control decks, since it's one of the best can't attack effects.

But even though there are some other great pieces of interaction, I’m going to focus on new cards from this Universes Beyond MTG set, as that’s what you’ll be buying these booster packs for.

Honorable Mention: Templar Knight

Templar Knight seems like it can’t possibly work. But if there’s a build that does, well, you love to see it.

#39. Kassandra, Eagle Bearer + The Spear of Leonidas

If you’re doing the Puresteel Paladin equipment deck thing, Kassandra, Eagle Bearer is fine. Tutoring The Spear of Leonidas is fine. Probably both are nice includes if you can find room in one of your existing Boros () equipment decks, but it’s hard to see this combo taking over.

#38. Edward Kenway

Another good card advantage Grixis () pirate legend. Edward Kenway looks pretty boring to me, but it’s undeniably powerful.

#37. Ratonhnhaké꞉ton

Finally, a good equipment commander in Esper (). Is that a thing we wanted? And is that worth messing up the databases of MTG websites with that colon in the Ratonhnhaké꞉ton name?

#36. Jackdaw

Definitely every pirate assassin in this set wants to roll into port helming the Jackdaw. This seems as realistic a plan as the plots of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but pass the rum and let’s do this thing!

#35. Shaun & Rebecca, Agents + The Animus

The Animus is kind of good as a piece of focused graveyard hate that also yoinks things for your own use. But it can whiff in an EDH game without enough legends. Is running Shaun & Rebecca, Agents worth it to enable you tutoring it up?

Sort of. A lot of good legends have ETBs, like Loran of the Third Path, which this doesn’t capture. But getting an Old Gnawbone attack trigger is bank. A Bant () mill deck that wants to attack and hopes no one removes the key artifact seems fragile but fun to me.

#34. Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh

Cleopatra, Exiled Pharaoh is a nice addition to a multicolor legends deck, adding a touch of card draw. There’s also a space for legends and +1/+1 counters this might be a good Golgari commander for, including cards like Reyhan, Last of the Abzan, Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager, Polukranos, Unchained, Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Kodama of the West Tree, Renata, Called to the Hunt, and plenty of others.

#33. Apple of Eden, Isu Relic

I don’t entirely understand how this card is supposed to be used effectively, although someone is going to put it in their Karnboard. I imagine copying Apple of Eden, Isu Relic with Mishra, Eminent One will be infuriating to play against, so I’m in.

#32. Excalibur, Sword of Eden

All that talk about swords being power crept, and WotC was like, okay, hold my… beverage! Excalibur, Sword of Eden is the dumbest thing printed since Mechtitan Core, and now the Mechtitan needs to swap out its frankly mid giant sword for Excalibur and games will surely be won from there, right?

Right?

#31. Caduceus, Staff of Hermes

Caduceus, Staff of Hermes seems more likely to help win games, but, again, probably likely in Commander. No one gets to 30 life in Modern who hasn’t already won.

#30. Loyal Inventor

Artifact tutors are always good, and Loyal Inventor will, in the right deck, not be clunky.

#29. Shao Jun

All I want to do this summer is run Shao Jun as an Izzet commander and find a way to win the game with Blinkmoth Infusion. Is that a good idea? Nope. Is it wicked awesome? Yes. Yes, it is.

#28. Haytham Kenway

Haytham Kenway is a super knight lord, which is valuable in any of those decks that run white and blue. It’s hard to see losing black in a knights deck, but this Azorius commander is a bit like Lagrella, the Magpie. A removal spell in the command zone, even if only a temporary one, is better than you think it’ll be.

#27. Monastery Raid

Monastery Raid is going straight in my The Thirteenth Doctor deck. Or my Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival deck. Or my Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald deck.

#26. Havi, the All-Father

You need a sacrifice outlet and Saffi Eriksdotter and you can start doing some cool loops with Havi, the All-Father. There are plenty of other cards to add to the janky fun.

#25. Roshan, Hidden Magister

A Maskwood Nexus effect on a body is always interesting. Although it’s unclear what exact function Roshan, Hidden Magister will have overall, it does seem to be particularly good in a disguise/morph build in an assassins deck so you can get assassin attacking triggers for those face-down creatures.

#24. Desmond Miles

Roshan’s buddy and combo enabler Desmond Miles is about the most efficient card in the assassins deck.

#23. Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad

Roshan is also quite helpful in providing bodies for Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad. Clearly one of the best cards in the 99 for a 5-color assassins deck helmed by a card we’ll see in a minute, but time will tell if this is reliable enough as a Mardu commander itself.

#22. Become Anonymous

You can save a creature with this and then make a kind of three card monte game. That’s cool. But it can also convert your 1-drop into three 2/2s at instant speed, which isn’t nothing. I love Become Anonymous. This is the kind of flexibility I like, and it’ll be a key card in decks like Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer.

#21. Senu, Keen-Eyed Protector

Before Orcish Bowmasters, if Senu, Keen-Eyed Protector had been printed, I might have suggested it was the most Modern playable card in this set, as unlikely as that might have been. But now?

But in a Commander birds deck, always stronger than you think they’ll be, this card is pretty sweet.

#20. Mjölnir, Storm Hammer

Mjölnir, Storm Hammer, to me! This card is a nice alternate wincon for legends decks, putting the Hammer down on everyone.

#19. Hunter’s Bow

Hunter's Bow is a blinkable, copyable bite spell on an artifact that snaps on for reach and ward 2. That’s pretty pushed.

#18. Viewpoint Synchronization

A deck that does commander damage makes Viewpoint Synchronization awesome ramp often easier to manage the conditions of in green than a card like Nissa's Pilgrimage.

#17. Sokrates, Athenian Teacher

The flavor here of infinitely delaying an aggressor with questions is awesome. Sokrates, Athenian Teacher is a wall that makes you enter a dialogue with yourself, as well, so extra flavor win. Does Sokrates disincentivize opponents from attacking? Or does it incentivize them to be the first to do so to try to gain the cards?

#16. Desynchronization

An instant speed board wipe is always welcome, even one as limited as Desynchronization, which could actually whiff in an EDH game with the proliferating number of legendary creatures out there! It’s effective as a defense against wide decks, which is important in Commander.

#15. Leonardo da Vinci

Some of you read this Leonardo da Vinci card and immediately thought of some Omen Hawker and Training Grounds, and Agatha's Soul Cauldron nonsense. Twinsies! Unfortunately for us, I think Papa Leo here is Commander-only. But Leonardo decks can be quite fun!

#14. Chain Assassination + Distract the Guards + Eagle Vision + Petty Larceny + Restart Sequence

Each of these cards, if you can get them down for the 2-mana freerunning cost, is way above rate. Eagle Vision is just gross. Restart Sequence and Chain Assassination are solid. Distract the Guards is insane, but the 2 white in an assassin deck is kind of impossible. And Petty Larceny seems awesome in decks that reward that kind of exile. Since freerunning works on commander damage, these will have many EDH homes.

#13. Escape Detection

A free instant Run Away Together that draws you a card is astonishing. It seems impossible to play the classic blue tempo deck in Modern these days, but a deck full of Hookblade Veteran and other cheap assassins in blue running Escape Detection, Flare of Denial and other cheap interaction cards seems tempting if probably futile.

#12. What Must Be Done

Modular spells are awesome. What Must Be Done isn’t quite Farewell, but it answers a lot of problems. And otherwise it gets something back. This kicks a few cards out of some of my decks that run white board wipes.

#11. Staff of Eden, Vault’s Key

A colorless Reanimate without life loss is probably not enough for 6 mana, but if I copy it I still get the effect as it legend-rules itself. So in that space and in a blink deck, Staff of Eden, Vault's Key seems fun.

#10. Yggdrasil, Rebirth Engine

All it takes is one piece of artifact hate to ruin your Yggdrasil, Rebirth Engine party. See this as a 7-mana reanimation with haste in colorless or yet something else to do with Sensei's Divining Top, and it may be one use only when the table sees what it does. But if you really need access to colorless graveyard recursion, here’s your card.

#9. The Capitoline Triad

The Capitoline Triad is trivial to get down for free in a sagas deck, a legends deck or even an artifact deck, so maybe I’ll adjust my feeling for Papa Leo, as turning all those Thopters into flying Colossus of Sardias sounds awesome. A creature that can dish an emblem like that is not to be underestimated!

#8. Mary Read and Anne Bonny

Mary Read and Anne Bonny plus wheel effects is a swashbuckling good time. It makes me wish there were more support for Izzet () madness decks, as some of the blue madness cards are sweet (and I’ll always argue that blue is a better flavor fit for madness than black). At the very least, this is a lovely addition to the 99 in the sorts of Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator decks that want to win with Glint-Horn Buccaneer.

#7. Assassin Gauntlet

This is the cheapest card we have that generates this effect. Assassin Gauntlet is also an artifact, so it’s nicely tutorable, easy to recur, and blinkable. Is this enough to get the blue-based affinity decks over the top? Maybe not, but boy does it begin to look like it.

#6. Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass

In a deck full of artifact lands, Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass does a really good impression of Mystic Forge for colored artifact decks. There’s a combo in here if you can lift the weight of the 2 blue mana.

#5. Abstergo Entertainment

Graveyard hate is great in Commander. So is mana fixing. So is recursion. Abstergo Entertainment is a below rate version of all of those things, so of course it’s probably a new EDH staple.

#4. Ezio Auditore da Firenze

I’m already annoyed at the idea of facing Ezio Auditore da Firenze as a 5-color commander: it's among the best commanders from Assassin's Creed, and specifically the strongest assassin commander. Freerunning Callidus Assassin or either version of Massacre Girl, among the various other cards that make assassin typal a thing, does sound kind of cool. Freerunning isn’t as busted as it might seem, but it’s pretty powerful, and an Ezio EDH deck potentially has access to every assassin in the game.

#3. Smoke Bomb

The most video-game-y of cards in the Assassin's Creed set is also the most abusable. You can use a Stifle effect on Smoke Bomb, or blink or phasing to keep it around an extra turn. There are a few ways to copy it at instant speed to get another one for another turn. And there’s always Eon Hub.

How good is that, given that it’s first of all symmetrical, and second, in a world of proliferating EDH board wipes? Good enough to save your Voltron commander and then make it unblockable next turn.

Oh, you can also drop this to fizzle an aura or anything the Nadu, Winged Wisdom deck is trying to do. This is fiddly, but powerful, and it’s likely a Commander staple.

#2. Haystack

A repeatable way to Slip Out the Back is reasonably nutty. I’m unconvinced that Azorius () will be the affinity deck of the future in Modern, but if it is, Haystack seems like it has an outside shot at play.

This is going to be bonkers in Commander, though, protecting things from board wipes, poofing Voltron attackers, blanking blockers. And in a deck like Shorikai, Genesis Engine, which already is playing as many artifact untappers as you can squeeze in, this is an absolute yes.

#1. Tax Collector

If we’re doing the Ephemerate thing anyway, you can stack Tax Collector’s effects. My biggest miss in the list of best cards from Modern Horizons 3 was Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, which turns out to be pretty nice in an aggro shell, and this card may very well go in that deck. Ridiculously, this is the top of the list because it has more of a chance of seeing Modern play than most of the Assassin's Creed cards. Even if the assassins deck is playable in Modern, which seems really questionable on rate, Tax Collector has the largest variety of potential homes.

Wrap Up

Ezio Auditore da Firenze | Illustration by Fajareka Setiawan

After close study of the cards in Assassin's Creed, I find myself shocked at three things.

First, many more of these cards than I thought are going to be good in EDH decks without an assassin focus.

Second, this MTG set has a relatively small number of cards that have a prayer in Modern, even though the set is legal in that Magic format.

Third, Assassin's Creed gets us one step closer to the perfect triumvirate of powerful Shauns in MTG by adding Shaun & Rebecca, Agents to Shaun, Father of Synths. All we need is the Shaun of the Dead Secret Lair and we’re living our best lives!

Especially on the heels of the super-powerful Modern Horizons 3, this set will be a letdown to Modern players, a joy to fans of the franchise, and a pleasant surprise to casual Commander players. So if you are a skeptic, I hope this list helped you find the gems for your Commander builds.

But did I leave anything out you are really looking forward to? Let me know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord.

Happy brewing, friends!