The 11 Best Delirium Commanders in Magic Ranked

Atraxa, Grand Unifier | Illustration by Anato Finnstark

Hello planeswalkers! The whirlwind of collecting Magic cards, building decks, and grinding out matches can sometimes feel quite delirious. Well, I’m here to hopefully help break up your restless mind with some delirium commanders. Delirium and similar effects aren’t well known or often played, but we might just change that today!

So what exactly are delirium commanders, and what strategies do they demand? Is this a new powerhouse mechanic or even just an intriguing addition to MTG to play around with? You have questions and we have answers!

What Are Delirium Commanders in MTG?

Hurkyl, Master Wizard | Illustration by Randy Vargas

Delirium commanders either have the delirium mechanic or can use or benefit from a build based on combining different card types. Delirium is a mechanic introduced in Shadows over Innistrad that tweaks the threshold mechanic.

Threshold gives benefits to creatures and spells if you have seven or more cards in your graveyard, whereas delirium gives benefits if you control four or more different card types in your graveyard. Supertypes like legendary and subtypes like equipment aren’t included in the number of different card types in your graveyard, so you have nine different card types to build into your deck and get into your graveyard:

• Artifact
• Battle
• Creature
• Enchantment
• Instant
• Kindred (formerly Tribal)
• Land
• Planeswalker
• Sorcery

This focus on building the right deck with a variety of card types is why we’ll have commanders with the delirium mechanic, and some that don’t that still fit this dedicated strategy.

#11. Korvold, Gleeful Glutton

By having a variety of card types in your Commander deck, you can benefit in two ways with Korvold, Gleeful Glutton. You can reduce the casting cost of this Jund commander () by the number of different card types you’ve sacrificed this turn, and when this commander deals combat damage to a player, you will benefit based on the number of different card types in your graveyard. The flying, trample, and haste should help you draw many cards, but I feel that even with a reduction this commander is just too expensive to be consistently strong.

#10. Winter, Misanthropic Guide

I’ll go on the record that even if some cards and strategies can pull it off, I don’t like cards that give symmetric draw or advantages. Winter, Misanthropic Guide gives each player an additional two cards on each of your turns, with a delirium effect that makes sure that opponents can’t keep so many cards in their hand each turn. The strategy with Winter as a commander is to force players into bad situations with discard payoffs like Waste Not or card-draw hate like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. These strategies can work in the right builds, but be careful not to enrich your opponents’ hands and spell your own demise.

#9. Hurkyl, Master Wizard

Hurkyl, Master Wizard is your blue commander for noncreature builds. For each card type among noncreature spells you cast in a turn, you can take a card with the same card type from the top five cards of your deck. With a heavy dose of cantrips and storm cards you should be able to top-deck several extra cards each turn. Some key cards for diversifying your noncreature spells are cards like Brainstorm, Mystic Remora, or Gitaxian Probe.

#8. The Swarmweaver

The Swarmweaver isn’t quite as good for spiders as Ishkanah, Grafwidow, but this Golgari commander () can help you go wide. The Swarmweaver helps to create insects, and it’ll pump your insects and spiders once the delirium requirement is satisfied. This can be quite effective alongside cards like Grist, the Hunger Tide and Scute Swarm. The deathtouch also adds an interesting aspect to fend off attack-heavy opponents.

#7. Winter, Cynical Opportunist

Winter, Cynical Opportunist represents the only character with multiple cards with delirium, so they're the only one to show up twice. With this commander, you can attack and fill up your graveyard and exile four or more card types to return a permanent to the battlefield. This Golgari card has a huge reanimation upside and an inherent stability of finding the cards you want. Exiling lands, creatures, and instants after they’ve served their purposes to get a card like Demolisher Spawn is stellar! 

#6. Rendmaw, Creaking Nest

Rendmaw, Creaking Nest doesn’t focus on how many card types you control on the battlefield or graveyard. Rather, it asks if you can play cards with at least two different card types. This can be quite easy in Commander with artifact lands, artifact creatures, and enchantment creatures. There are a ton of options to help you symmetrically create Bird tokens that’ll be goaded into attacking your opponents.

#5. Loot, the Key to Everything

Loot, the Key to Everything is, well, the key to everything you want in a Temur commander () . The cheap mana value ensures you can get Loot on the battlefield often, and the card advantage that it provides is unreal. If you can control the game even a little bit, you can outpace many of your opponents. To really benefit from this commander, you’ll need a variety of card types on the battlefield. Ornithopter of Paradise is the perfect example of a great 2-drop for this deck.

#4. Baba Lysaga, Night Witch

Baba Lysaga, Night Witch aims to sacrifice up to three permanents with different card types to give you three great benefits. Siphoning life and drawing three cards can be a killer strategy if you can reliably sacrifice permanents of different card types on several turns.

This Golgari commander needs multiple card-type permanents like Blinkmoth Nexus and Gloomshrieker to maximize its potential upside.

#3. Ishkanah, Grafwidow

Ishkanah, Grafwidow is a spider commander through and through. If your delirium requirement is satisfied when this creature enters, you can create three Spider tokens to add to your army of spiders. The strategy is to get as many spiders on the battlefield and then pound your opponents with this card’s activated ability. Blinking Ishkanah, Grafwidow, rostering cards like Twitching Doll, and filling your graveyard with cards like Nyx Weaver should trap a good number of victories in your web.

#2. Emrakul, the Promised End

Emrakul, the Promised End is a massive colorless commander that can deal over half the required commander damage to win in one swing. With this Eldrazi commander, you may feel somewhat limited by the color and massive MV. However, with different card types in your graveyard, you can reduce the casting cost with your normal curve plays. The keywords are amazing, taking an opponent’s turn is killer, and you can easily support your Emrakul with the vast mana ramp in colorless like Thran Dynamo. This card can be a great commander that benefits from a variety of card types.

#1. Atraxa, Grand Unifier

Atraxa, Grand Unifier has great keywords and the number of colors to be a useful commander. This 4-color commander benefits you immensely if you have a diversity of card types in your deck. The more cards you can get into your hand, the more likely your opponents will be finished. Load your deck with bomb cards in many different card types like Displacer Kitten, Silence, Smothering Tithe, and Culling Ritual. I prefer this card in my deck or hand rather than the command zone for reanimation and other cheat abilities, but Atraxa's still a rock-solid commander.

Commanding Conclusion

Baba Lysaga, Night Witch | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

As MTG fans, I know we all love the variety of card types, so why not include as many as you can in a single deck? Gaining benefits from the cards you control or have used is the added value that can make a deck strong. This list isn’t long, but hopefully, it's full of commanders that may pique your interest in trying something new.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you check out all the other wonderful articles on the Draftsim blog. If you want to stay engaged, feel free to leave a comment below, follow us on X, and join the official Discord server.

As monotony and delirium set in, stay focused and get that victory!