The 32 Best Centaurs in Magic

Last updated on February 18, 2024

Nikya of the Old Ways | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

Magic has a lot of different creature types. Some, like elves and humans, are more prevalent, while others are a little more obscure and restricted to just a few planes. Centaurs are one of the creature types that don’t appear as often in Magic. While there aren’t as many of them, there are still some pretty good centaur cards that you can include in your decks.

Most centaur cards appear in green, but they also appear in a few other colors. Their abilities also seem to work better with decks that include green since they're primarily focused on creature support, lifegain, and enchantment support. A lot of centaurs also work well with aggressive strategies, making them good inclusions in Gruul () decks.

While you likely aren’t going to be running a deck of all centaurs, a lot of centaur cards would make a good addition to your other decks. Let's get into it!

What Are Centaurs in Magic?

Pheres-Band Raiders | Illustration by Ryan Barger

Centaurs are a specific creature type in Magic. A lot of these cards come from blocks based on the plane of Theros or Ravnica, but there are some from all over the multiverse.

These cards are largely green or multicolored featuring green in their color identity, but there are a couple in white and black as well.

#32. Nylea’s Huntmaster

Nylea's Huntmaster can make quite the impact in a mono green deck. It isn’t as great when played early, but it gives a big buff to one of your creatures later in the game. Targeting a creature with trample with Nylea's Huntmaster for a good way to do a lot of damage to an opponent.

#31. Pheres-Band Raiders

The nice thing about Pheres-Band Raiders is that it gives you a way to put your unused mana to good use. You likely want to attack with a big creature like this one, giving you a chance each turn to try and create a token with it.

If you’re low on cards or just have more lands than you need, Pheres-Band Raiders’ ability allows you to get an extra creature out of your unused mana.

#30. Seton’s Scout

Seton's Scout offers a good amount of value for its mana cost. While it isn’t the most effective blocker early on, it becomes decently strong for two mana once you have seven cards in your graveyard.

#29. Loaming Shaman

Loaming Shaman’s best quality is its versatility. You can use this card to put cards from your graveyard back into your deck if you need them back. But it also takes away some of your opponent's resources if they're using their graveyard to their advantage by putting any of their powerful cards back in their deck.

#28. Pheres-Band Tromper

Pheres-Band Tromper is a bit behind on power and toughness when it first enters, but it gets progressively stronger by attacking with it a few times. The more times you untap this card, the harder it will be for your opponents to deal with.

This is also a great inclusion for decks running convoke abilities because you can safely tap it without worrying about blockers.

#27. Forcemage Advocate

Forcemage Advocate is helpful to buff your own creatures, but returning your opponent’s cards to their hands can sometimes be a better advantage for them than a +1/+1 counter is for you. That said this card is still a great way to shut down certain graveyard effects at instant speed.

If your opponent is going to reanimate a powerful creature or cast a spell from their graveyard, you can return it to their hand before they get the chance.

#26. Gaea’s Courser

Gaea's Courser is a good source of card draw later in the game. It’s decently tough, but it’s a little too slow to get more than one card off of without some form of protection.

It’s still a pretty good way to keep your hand full if you’re able to give this card indestructible or protection, though.

#25. Centaur Nurturer

Centaur Nurturer is good for mana fixing, and it’s a great addition for any lifegain deck. But it’s a little expensive, making it slightly less effective as a form of mana ramp.

#24. Lineprancers

Lineprancers uses stickers, so I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to deal with that. But this card is pretty effective if you don’t mind them. Giving a creature a power and toughness sticker can provide a big buff, and its activated ability helps you remove some of your opponent’s creatures.

That said, this card loses some points since you need to buy a few packs of Unfinity to get sticker sheets.

#23. Lagonna-Band Trailblazer

Lagonna-Band Trailblazer is a decent blocker early in the game. It can also become more powerful over time thanks to its heroic ability.

White is a good color for heroic cards since there are plenty of instants, sorceries, and enchantments that you target your own cards with.

#22. Pheres-Band Thunderhoof

Pheres-Band Thunderhoof is a little expensive, but it scales pretty quickly. This card’s heroic ability also makes any combat tricks you play on it extra effective.

Green is a good color for combat tricks, so you get good use out of it in slower formats like Commander.

#21. Centaur Omenreader

Centaur Omenreader is a decent card on its own. Its cost reduction helps you get pretty far ahead in a game if you’re consistently able to tap it. It’s a good inclusion for Simic () snow decks since it's a snow card.

You also likely have the option to include cards that keeps this one tapped permanently if you’re running blue, making its cost reduction more permanent.

#20. Battlefield Scrounger

Battlefield Scrounger is a great way to make sure you aren’t losing any of the cards you really need to win the game. It’s also a good way to slow down opposing mill decks since you can consistently fill your library back up.

This card’s main downside is its low power and toughness, but it’s more helpful for its ability than as an attacker anyway.

#19. Lagonna-Band Storyteller

Lagonna-Band Storyteller works really well in enchantment decks. Not only can it get you important cards back from your graveyard, but it keeps you alive a little longer thanks to its lifegain ability.

#18. Leaf Dancer

Forestwalk makes Leaf Dancer a decent threat. You can get through a lot of damage without your opponents being able to stop you if you want to buff it up.

Like any card with forestwalk this works well with Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth since you’re able to attack any of your opponents without worrying about blockers.

#17. Selesnya Eulogist

Selesnya Eulogist can be a great tool in decks that make copies of creatures, especially if the copies aren’t legendary.

For example, this card uses populate to copy your powerful Dragon tokens in a Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm deck. Its ability is also relatively cheap and repeatable, so it has a bigger impact in the right situations.

#16. Centaur of Attention

Centaur of Attention is an interesting Un-card because it works well even separate from the mechanics of the set it’s from. Being able to buff itself up to +5/+5 is a pretty powerful ability.

But this centaur works even better when combined with dice rolling payoff cards since you can reroll up to five die each turn.

#15. Nyx Herald

Nyx Herald is a good way to add a quick buff to some of your creatures. This is an okay buff early in the game, and its ability to grant trample is very helpful later on.

This can be especially helpful in a Voltron build that's looking to buff a single creature with different enchantments.

#14. Stonehoof Chieftain

Stonehoof Chieftain is an expensive card to cast, but it helps you out a lot once it’s on the field. Being able to attack with all of your creatures and not worrying about them being destroyed allows you deal damage and cash in on attack triggers.

You make your own attacks even more effective by giving these creatures trample.

#12. Centaur Chieftain

Centaur Chieftain provides you with a significant advantage later in the game. While it won’t buff your creatures the way a card like a Craterhoof Behemoth would, it’s a decent finisher card if you just need to get through blockers.

This card is also very powerful in token decks because a +1/+1 buff adds up significantly if you have a lot of creatures.

#11. Fanatic of Xenagos

Aggressive Gruul decks can make good use of Fanatic of Xenagos. It still attacks once as a 4/4 when it enters even if tribute isn’t paid for it. A 3/3 with trample is still pretty good value for only three mana.

#10. Skyshooter

Skyshooter is a great inclusion in green decks that don’t have a lot of ways to deal with fliers. It’s slightly better than including just a reach creature or a card like Broken Wings because it's more versatile.

It’s also a nice deterrent for players not to attack you with their fliers in multiplayer formats, but it also isn’t powerful enough to be a big target for removal.

#9. Seton, Krosan Protector

If you’re looking to build a druid tribal deck, Seton, Krosan Protector is a pretty good option for a commander. Seton basically turns all your druids into mana dorks as well, making them very versatile.

You also don’t need to wait until your druids are over their summoning sickness thanks to the wording of Seton’s ability, so you can tap creatures for mana as soon as they're played.

#8. Burning-Tree Shaman

Burning-Tree Shaman works really well with Gruul cards that deal damage to your enemies over time. Combining it with cards like Cindervines supplies you with consistent damage to your opponents. It whittles away at their health and make your aggressive strategy even more threatening.

This also works well with red spectacle cards like Light Up the Stage.

#7. Conclave Mentor

Conclave Mentor is very powerful in decks that use +1/+1 counters, as well as Selesnya () lifegain decks. If you’re able to add counters to Conclave Mentor itself it also gains you a lot of life when it dies, which helps you stay alive and activate abilities that require you to pay life.

#6. Centaur Vinecrasher

Centaur Vinecrasher enters the battlefield with a lot of extra counters on it in the right deck. Though it might not be super powerful when you first play it, that isn’t as big of a deal since you can always return it to your hand later in the game.

This gives you the chance to use Vinecrasher as a blocker earlier on and then drop it in a more effective form once you’ve filled your graveyard with more lands.

#5. Herald of the Pantheon

Herald of the Pantheon is a great piece of utility in an enchantment deck. It helps you stay ahead of your opponents’ thanks to its cost reduction, and its lifegain ability offers you a bit of a cushion to keep yourself alive longer.

#4. Courser of Kruphix

Courser of Kruphix is very helpful to help get through your deck a little quicker, cutting down on dead draws. It’s also helpful to know what the next card on top of your deck is so that you can plan out your next moves ahead of time.

#3. Stonebrow, Krosan Hero

Stonebrow, Krosan Hero can be a great addition to an aggro deck, even an interesting Gruul commander. You get more out of your creatures for their mana value and are able to output more damage quicker by buffing all of your creatures with trample.

#2. Nikya of the Old Ways

Playing Nikya of the Old Ways puts some serious restrictions on you, but this card is very powerful if you’ve built your deck around it. Nikya really speeds up your game and helps you to cast powerful creatures a lot faster than you normally could.

This is a fun commander in a creature-heavy deck, but make sure you include creatures whose abilities make up for your lack of other spells.

#1. Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador, Ghost Chieftain is a very fun commander. It's in a good color combination to use your graveyard and fill it up quickly to reduce Karador’s cost.

This also happens to include most of the colors that centaur cards are in, so this is a decent commander if you’re interested in building a centaur tribal deck.

Best Centaur Payoffs in Magic

There aren’t that many specific payoffs for the tribe since centaurs aren’t that big of a tribe in Magic. It isn’t super impactful, but Pheres-Band Warchief can give all your centaurs a nice buff.

Other than that you need to be looking at generic tribal support like Coat of Arms if you want to have a good payoff to playing a lot of centaurs.

Wrap Up

Centaur of Attention | Illustration by Leonardo Santanna

Centaurs aren’t the biggest tribe in Magic, but they do have some interesting cards. Centaurs have a lot to offer your other decks even though the tribe probably isn't the best to play on its own. A couple of them also make great commanders.

Which centaurs do you use the most? Did I miss any centaurs you think should have been included? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to seeing you on the next one!