The 20 Most Stunning Art Pieces from Commander Masters

Last updated on April 23, 2024

Vandalblast | Illustration by Dermot Power

One of the things that has always set Magic apart from other card games is the commitment to interesting art. And one of our hopes every time a reprint set like Commander Masters comes around is that some old favorites get a shifted setting, an updated look, or a different concept.

Commander Masters doesn’t disappoint. There’s exceptional new art on many cards, including some amazing borderless compositions and some new profiles, which is a welcome addition to Magic’s style. Many will go into my rotation of desktop wallpaper.

Have a gander at my top 20!

#20. Reality Shift

Reality Shift | Illustration by Warren Mahy

Howard Lyon’s oft-reprinted bubble concept of Reality Shift, with or without Ugin gets a nice update with Warren Mahy’s fun take. Is our kitsune turning into pixels or cards?

#19. Sakiko, Mother of Summer

Sakiko, Mother of Summer | Illustration by Livia Prima

This new Sakiko, Mother of Summer is a whimsical update by Livia Prima of a card long without a reprint. The original’s heaving bosoms have been overdue for an exit.

#18. Path of Ancestry

Path of Ancestry | Illustration by Mark Poole

Mark Poole’s borderless Path of Ancestry is a lovely piece with a strange, ominous feel. It’s evocative and creepy, and the concept feels like I just came around the corner in an RPG and have to figure out what to do next. Is this one of Poole’s many best lands for MTG?

#17. Storm-Kiln Artist

Storm-Kiln Artist | Illustration by Chuck Lukacs

I tend to associate Chuck Lukacs with his Theros Hero’s Path style, revisited on the borderless Calix, Destiny's Hand. So many of his pieces seem to emphasize the environment over the people. That’s why his borderless Storm-Kiln Artist is so striking to me. There’s a lot of emotion in the face and the hands-on this Commander staple.

#16. Treasure Nabber

Treasure Nabber | Illustration by Pete Venters

There has been so much strong goblin art over the years, but I’m one of many whose first favorite piece of goblin art was Pete Venters’s Goblin Hero from Fifth Edition. He just looks like a badass…. 2/2 for three?

This borderless Treasure Nabber is a significantly better card, but it has that just perfect goblin vibe like the Hero. This is Venters’s first crack at a blue Ixalan goblin, and I love it. At its best, Venters’ art has a comic book energy that reminds me of what first drew me to comic books as a kid. I think of Carnophage, an old fave. But I like the Nabber even better!

#15. Sentinel Sliver

Sentinel Sliver | Illustration by Lucas Graciano

Slivers have had a few different vibes over the years, but I love this version of Sentinel Sliver. It has a great old-school slivery essence with a kind of secretary-bird attitude as it looks about for nefarious shenanigans. The light from the right has a lovely sunrise or sunset feel in this piece by Lucas Graciano that almost makes me feel like it would break into song if it had a mouth.

#14. Thran Dynamo

Thran Dynamo | Illustration by Chuck Lukacs

I always liked Ron Spears’s original Thran Dynamo art and its wacky submarine pressure valve vibe, but this new art by Chuck Lukacs hits home with its 1960s sci-fi paperback vibes. If you don’t have a shelf of those lying around like I do, check out this version of Robert Sheckley’s Journey Beyond Tomorrow and Isaac Asimov’s Nine Tomorrows for context.

More crisply rendered than ‘60s pulp, this piece gives us that otherworldly abstraction of curvilinear machines at a completely baffling purpose so much of the lava lamp aesthetics of the ‘60s pulp covers were aiming towards.

#13. Tatyova, Benthic Druid

Tatyova, Benthic Druid | Illustration by Bell Oyino

With an unfortunately misprinted name on their first Magic card, Boell Oyino’s Tatyova, Benthic Druid, with some beautiful light and shadow, is a welcome new version of the popular Simic commander. This sort of character design style art on these borderless profile cards has received mixed reaction in the MTG community, but this Tatyova has an attitude, which pops. The thumb on the chin, the facial expression… it’s like she’s ready for the groans when you reveal her at the Commander table, and she’s come prepared for the shade.

#12. Vandalblast

Vandalblast | Illustration by Dermot Power

Dermot Power’s signature deep shadows have most often been used on iconic character-centered pieces like the Tempest Gravedigger or one of my old favorites, Umbilicus. To see that style applied to a building makes this Vandalblast my new favorite version of the card. I love the way the borderless image, decentered and initially confusing, interacts with the flavor text to draw you in and make the concept feel alive.

#11. Vronos, Masked Inquisitor

Vronos, Masked Inquisitor | Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

Ekaterina Burmak’s previous Magic pieces have been mostly exquisitely detailed baroque character studies dripping with emotion, from the new Frodo Baggins to the supercilious Bruvac the Grandiloquent to the shattering death of Jaya in Extinguish the Light to my personal favorite Eruth, Tormented Prophet. Vronos, Masked Inquisitor is a fantastic exploration of how to build that emotional resonance on a piece with a covered face. I can feel it. Can you?

#10. Personal Tutor

Personal Tutor | Illustration by Julie Dillon

Personal Tutor has two new great pieces of art, but I really love Julie Dillon’s version. Dillon’s style always reminds me of Diego Rivera’s murals, which is likely why she was contracted for so many Streets of New Capenna cards that explicitly call back to that style, like the special border Evelyn, the Covetous. Here, that effect takes a “personal” moment and elevates it to iconic status, representing a classic educational moment here in Strixhaven. As a professor who loves owlin, I’m surely biased toward this card, but come on, isn’t it cool?

#9. Flayer of Loyalties

Flayer of Loyalties | Illustration by John Tedrick

If you’re rendering an Eldrazi, you have a challenge. How do you make something that should remind us of the Lovecraftian idea that the shape alone is impossible to grok without the cliffs of your sanity beginning to slough off into the waters of the abyss while still being a recognizable figure on a Magic card? The animal-vegetable vibes in shifting light of John Tedrick’s Flayer of Loyalties is one of the most successfully executed Eldrazi ever laid down on a Magic card, for my money.

#8. Tooth and Nail

Tooth and Nail | Illustration by Eric Velhagen

Eric Velhagen’s Magic pieces tend to prioritize light and shadow over detail, giving a kind of expressionist sense of energy and movement in pieces like his borderless Monastery Swiftspear. His Tooth and Nail is now my favorite version of that card. The style fits the idea of the card because this treefolk and rhino pop out seemingly from nowhere, ready to kick ass. I love that the rhino is transparent enough to see the hedron behind it as if we’re seeing the manifestation before our very eyes.

#7. Sliver Gravemother

Sliver Gravemother | Illustration by Chris Rahn

This almost surrealist fantasy from Chris Rahn, complete with Daliesque ruins in front of a sunset, is another excellent piece from the artist behind so many of Magic’s key cards. The sort of cobra pose adopted by Sliver Gravemother’s head and serpentine body is a fun riff on the idea of whatever the heck a sliver is.

#6. Anikthea, Hand of Erebos

Anikthea, Hand of Erebos | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

Magalli Villeneuve’s Magic work trends toward highlighted figures looming out of a slightly abstracted background. I think of Behold the Multiverse and Druid of the Cowl, for example. Anikthea, Hand of Erebos may be my new favorite in her extensive oeuvre. I love the way the enchantment creature starfield motif in the tendrils of Anikthea’s skirt tie it all together.

#5. Morophon, the Boundless

Morophon, the Boundless | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

I also like Jack Hughes’s emotive Selvala, Heart of the Wilds profile, but this Morophon, the Boundless is super sweet. Morophon’s original art by Victor Adame Minguez for Modern Horizons is awesome, but Hughes really uses the close-up profile to give a real hint of an almost Cthulhu-like monstrousness to the popular 5-color all-star.

#4. Grave Pact

Grave Pact | Illustration by Kev Walker

Grave Pact has been through a lot of different art concepts over the years, but this new one by Kev Walker is my favorite. With almost 500 pieces of Magic art, we expect good things from Walker, but the central tableau, using arches for balance in a cheeky reference to Jacque-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii, is so striking I didn’t even notice the hooded figures in the background until I read the flavor text!

#3. Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed | Illustration by Benjamin Ee

This crackerjack piece by Benjamin Ee is my absolute favorite of the borderless profile cards. I’m a well-known zombie aficionado, so, of course, I love this Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, and I probably would regardless. But to have the undead creature being the only profile character to be turning his head to raise his bloodied jaws to the card viewer? Come on! It doesn’t get better!

#2. Jaya’s Phoenix

Jaya's Phoenix | Illustration by Justyna Dura

Listen, I can see the edges of my biases.

Jaya Ballard’s flavor texts were some of the things that really hooked me on Magic in the beginning, especially the totally wacky Panic from Ice Age. Losing Jaya in Dominaria United was a blow, and Jaya's Phoenix got to me a bit.

I had some feelings.

It’s been a tough couple of years in the world, folks, and I want to thank artist Justyna Dura for this card.

#1. Fierce Guardianship

Fierce Guardianship | Illustration by Randy Gallegos

This borderless masterpiece by Randy Gallegos is everything. I love all his work… except maybe for the mohawk in Congregation at Dawn, am I right?

This Fierce Guardianship just viscerally captures Narset doing what magic users have done in Dungeons and Dragons parties since the beginning, throwing up a spell to protect the party from the fires of the enemy. I mean, that’s what magic users should be doing, not hiding behind the pillar at the back lobbing Eldritch blasts, eh?

The unexpected angle on this art feels just like the surprise of a free spell like this one, and it’s immediately unique in MTG art. It’s my favorite art in a set filled with strong art.

Commanding Conclusion

Azusa, Lost but Seeking | Illustration by Benjamin Ee

The best reason for a reprint set is to reduce the cost of key staples for play. But I think getting to see older cards with new takes on the artwork is a close second for me.

I like decks that are thematic in all sorts of ways, and I usually choose art that fits the deck if I can (Opt, I’m looking at you!), and I love having some new choices, as well as a new field of play for some really talented artists to flex their creativity!

Did I miss one of your favorite art from Commander Masters? Let me know in the comments or over on Discord!

Until next time, stay safe!