The 28 Best Dual-Tribal Commanders in Magic Ranked

Kaalia of the Vast | Illustration by Justyna Dura

Something, something… Hannah Montana… Best of both worlds….

I love a commander that supports more than one archetype. Aside from commanders that spin tried-and-true themes, commanders that let you build in multiple directions get my creative juices flowing. I love Alela, Artful Provocateur because you can go as general or as niche as you want between all the artifact types and enchantment types out there, but what happens when we get into commanders that support multiple creature types?

Sometimes it means you’re focusing on one over the other, and other times it means that you’re picking and choosing the best from both creature types in your color identity. But many of these are among the most fun and open-ended commanders that you can bring to EDH night.

What Are Dual-Tribal Commanders in MTG?

Rin and Seri, Inseparable | Illustration by Leesha Hannigan

Dual tribal commanders, or dual typal, multi-typal, etc., are any legal commander that supports multiple creature types. For our purposes, I mostly want commanders that explicitly support them, though I’ll made a few choice exceptions.

While some commanders seem like they support multiple creature types, their rules text can be misleading. Take Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second, for example. It has a replacement effect that pumps out cat or dog tokens instead of whatever you were making. Suddenly your Treasure, Food, or Mutagen tokens become board presence. But it doesn’t reward you for playing a specific creature type, even other cats and dogs. I’ve left it off for these reasons.

Honorable Mentions

If I were to expand my definition to accept artifact and enchantment subtypes like vehicles, auras, and equipment, I could open up the floor to commanders like Danitha, New Benalia's Light, Chishiro, the Shattered Blade, or Dogmeat, Ever Loyal. You could also make an argument for Jenny Flint, which cares about sacrificing both Food and Clue artifacts, or any vehicle + mount commander like Kolodin, Triumph Caster.

Another honorable mention goes to Wick, the Whorled Mind. It cares about both rats and snails, but there’s only one nontoken snail you can play with it.

Savra, Queen of the Golgari is another potential multi-typal commander if you brew it that way. It’s in perfect colors for pest tokens, but you can also make black and green insect, spider, and elf knight tokens. Baylen, the Haymaker is in Naya (), which has space for elf, human, rabbit, goblin, angel, and all kinds of other creature tokens.

You could build Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy as a Volo, Guide to Monsters but for artifact creature tokens. And I’m sure there’s some clone effects that make artifact tokens of your creatures out there, too.

#28. Raiyuu, Storm’s Edge

There’s a particular theme among samurai creatures for boosting creatures that attack alone, though Raiyuu, Storm's Edge bundles in warriors for some extra oomph. Raiyuu’s particular boon is extra combats, which helps to accelerate decks that want to attack with just one creature at a time, and you can slot in Akki Battle Squad for another on-type extra combat card. You might think that samurai and equipment cards are all you need, but warriors like Akiri, Fearless Voyager and Bruenor Battlehammer synergize nicely here, too.

#27. Thurid, Mare of Destiny

You might not think much of Thurid, Mare of Destiny at first glance, but remember that unicorn and pegasus creatures often have abilities that care about or generate lifegain. Mono-white doesn’t get much creature copying, so Thurid makes up for a gap in white. Don’t sleep on this one.

#26. Burakos, Party Leader + Folk Hero

This pairing shows off Folk Hero, which pays you off with card draw when you stick to types that match your commander. It comes from Nalia de'Arnise’s deck in Battle for Baldur’s Gate and is designed to play with Burakos, Party Leader to turn the first party member you cast each turn into a cantrip. Burakos itself drains life as it attacks and acts as a type fixer for your party; remember that Burakos and shapeshifters only count for one party slot each.

#25. Heroes in a Half Shell

We love mocking the 5-color commander that comes out with almost every set these days, and with good reason. They do the job they’re intended to, I suppose: I know someone whose first Commander deck is Miles Morales, specifically to play as many Spider-Man characters as possible, so there’s a niche for commanders like Heroes in a Half Shell; I’ve done it myself with Ezio.

I haven’t looked at a mutant build with this commander post-Marvel Super Heroes, but it has to have some interesting tech with all those X-Men. If we get a dedicated X-Men set, expect this one to climb the ranks.

#24. Brallin, Skyshark Rider + Shabraz, the Skyshark

Once upon a time, Shabraz, the Skyshark was pretty much the only shark you wanted to pump with Brallin, Skyshark Rider, but that’s no longer the case. You can totally tune your Brallin and Shabraz deck now to include a mix of sharks and humans, though you’re missing out on other creatures that draw cards.

#23. Aegar, the Freezing Flame

Aegar, the Freezing Flame is all about excess damage, whether it’s from your spells, your giants, or your wizards. We constantly get new Izzet () wizard creatures, but Lorwyn Eclipsed has contributed Boldwyr Aggressor and Goliath Daydreamer. Aegar isn’t the most explosive, but if you want a mix of dual typal and spellslinger, it fits the bill.

#22. Aphelia, Viper Whisperer

Players that want to run deathtouch as a theme have a typal angle thanks to this Foundations Jumpstart commander. If only snakes and gorgons had more number and support, Aphelia, Viper Whisperer could rank a lot better. I mean, look at that activated ability. If you can go wide enough that your opponents can’t block you, that’s a win condition. Snakeball isn’t really a thing yet, though, despite what a certain species of python may have you think.

#21. Tovolar, Dire Overlord / Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge

While Tovolar, Dire Overlord supports both wolves and werewolves, you’re usually going to run mainly lycanthropes, with a soupçon of Canis lupus. Immerwolf, Hollowhenge Overlord, that kind of stuff. The backside provides lots of card draw and a second copy of Kessig Wolf Run.

But let’s be honest with each other: Tovolar’s EDHREC rankings are inflated by how superior it is to all other werewolf options. We need to go back to Innistrad. I’m dying.

#20. Raphael, Fiendish Savior

While Raphael, Fiendish Savior lords over a number of hellish creature types, its end step trigger doesn’t care about types. Which is why you can cycle a Street Wraith for both card draw and board presence. Thanks to lifelink, the devil tokens also pump you up when they die, and you can use them as chump blockers that ping mana dorks or what have you on their way out. Gross.

Demons can be very punishing creatures, but they’re also mana hungry. Hat tip to Rakdos, the Showstopper, which acts as a chaotic sweeper here but doesn’t do what you want out of the command zone.

#19. Kenessos, Priest of Thassa

Kenessos, Priest of Thassa pays you off when you scry, but the repeatable activated ability is where the power lies. Imagine, if you will, that you activate Kenessos for thanks to Training Grounds. If the top card of your library is a sea creature, you can put it on the battlefield for free. “Put”, not “cast without paying its mana value”, so your opponents can’t interact with it without a stifle.

Oh, and it’s instant speed, too, so you can do it at the end of your opponent’s turn and attack next turn. Two words: Summon: Leviathan.

#18. Saruman, the White Hand

Saruman, the White Hand is the perfect home for all those amass cards from War of the Spark and Lord of the Rings, and upcoming ones from The Hobbit. You don’t even care if they amass zombies or goblins instead of orcs: Saruman’s cast trigger resolves before the spell itself, so you should have an orc army to amass onto and turn into a zombie orc army. The goblin protection is almost incidental here, but you’re protecting your Guttersnipe. Bolg of the North suggests that we may have a few more cards that amass goblins in The Hobbit, so this may become instantly outdated.

#17. Runo Stromkirk / Krothuss, Lord of the Deep

Runo Stromkirk is one of the more popular sea creature commanders, at least for now. Its enters ability sets up the upkeep trigger so you can flip it into Krothuss, Lord of the Deep. We like commanders that copy our best creatures, especially on offense. Two new copies of Scourge of Fleets will clear away problematic blockers, or you could go for extra card draw from Starwinder, redundancy for your Stormtide Leviathan, or just whatever beater you happen to catch in your net draw that day.

Nauctis: The Sunken Realm could blow all of these sea creature commanders out of the water, depending on how that set is constructed. But an underwater set without new KLOS support? Don’t do that to me, Wizards.

#16. Olivia, Opulent Outlaw

Olivia, Opulent Outlaw is nothing busted; you’re topped out two Treasures from the combat damage trigger, and that’s only if you have a double striker. The mass pump is costed just right for the face of a precon, which is to say, more than I’d like but not too much more. Many of the types lumped into outlaws want to deal combat damage anyway like assassins, rogues, and pirates, so your commander naturally supports the creatures it wants you to play. Textbook stuff here.

#15. Gisa, the Hellraiser

What’s more aggressive than an engine that pumps out 2/2 zombie tokens? How about one that’s also a +1/+1 anthem and a menace enabler? Skeletons are mentioned on Gisa, the Hellraiser incidentally, which lets you run some self-recursive non-zombies like Cult Conscript, and you could play some Tinybones cards if you’d like.

The crime text encourages instant speed cards and activated abilities that target your opponents’ stuff so you can trigger it on everyone’s turns; Attrition is a perfect outlet for your sac fodder in this deck.

#14. Sigarda, Font of Blessings

You’d expect there to be more dual type commanders for humans and angels, but Sigarda, Font of Blessings soars above the rest. A flying Realmwalker that also gives your other permanents hexproof is just really, really good. White angels are already powerful, but green adds ramp and +1/+1 counters synergies.

#13. The Mycotyrant

Saproling and fungus lords often care about both creatures (Brightcap Badger, Life and Limb, Sporecrown Thallid), and The Mycotyrant draws on them for its power and toughness. As a deck, you can focus on self-mill or sacrifice; you’re in the perfect colors for both. Just keep in mind that descend cares about permanent cards, so you can’t sacrifice tokens to pump up your commander’s end step trigger. But you can run persist and other reanimator loops.

#12. Vihaan, Goldwaker

The outlaw lord ability on Vihaan, Goldwaker primarily synergizes with the Treasure tokens you animate. There’s still a fair number of outlaws that interact in Treasure in Mardu (), including many Rakdos () pirates and Kellogg, Dangerous Mind, so you can lean more typal with only a few non-outlaw incidental Treasure payoffs.

#11. Volo, Guide to Monsters

Multi-typal? How about anarcho-typal? Volo, Itinerant Scholar rewards you for building a toolbox of creatures with different types. Creature spells like Hornet Queen that represent multiple bodies are fun to copy, though you can do some fun stuff with copy abilities, too.

Say you’ve established a board of maybe 10 or so creatures, then you use Loki, Lord of Misrule to turn them all into copies of Volo before you cast any creatures. Stack those Volo triggers, and you’ll get 10 Mulldrifters. Or perhaps 10 Craterhoofs?

#10. Rin and Seri, Inseparable

Cats and dogs are made to get along to make a deck where Rin and Seri, Inseparable’s activated ability represents a huge life swing. Token doublers and Maskwood Nexus help a lot here, too.

Lucky the Pizza Dog makes sure the food bowls are never empty, though I’m skeptical about how popular it’ll be on its own in the command zone.

#9. Dr. Eggman

Who doesn’t like free chonky artifacts? Dr. Eggman lets you build around robots, constructs, and vehicles, a theme that can only expand with more Universes Beyond and sci-fi sets. It has some help from Doctor Who’s The Valeyard, but I wonder when we’ll see other cards that impact voting and villainous choice cards.

#8. Kibo, Uktabi Prince

Jumpstart mythics should be studied in a lab. Kibo, Uktabi Prince has abilities that all tie into each other. Tap Kibo to give everyone Bananas, but your monkeys and apes grow if your opponents crack them. You also benefit from opposing Treasure decks, and Vandalblast can be a mass pump spell in this deck. The meanest version of this deck uses land destruction to force your opponents to eat their Bananas for mana.

The real question is, are we ever going to get an official Banana token? Or should we just keep running customs and proxies because it’s more fun?

#7. Winota, Joiner of Forces

Winota, Joiner of Forces doesn’t call out two specific types, but human and non-human is broad enough that you could focus on one type to pair with humans if you want. Boros () has occasionally had typal themes and subthemes in Draft sets, like giants, mice, dwarves, moogles, and more, so you could tell your own story here.

This is one of my picks for a Shepherd, Paragon of Synthesis card in the Mass Effect Source Material bonus sheet. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has taught me that if I mention something enough, it’ll happen.

#6. Blech, Loafing Pest

The successor to Blex, Vexing Pest is a far superior commander. Every instance of lifegain spreads +1/+1 counters across a bunch of critters, so you’re incentivized to find incremental gains rather than massive swings. Bats already have a bloodsucky lifegain thing going, and Pest tokens all have one trigger or another that gains you life, so that’s a good starting place if you want to focus on just two creatures with Blech, Loafing Pest.

#5. Edward Kenway

Edward Kenway earns its keep where assassins, pirates, and vehicles meet. Its end step trigger goes infinite with Time Sieve as long as you can make five Treasures each turn; you don’t even need to attack because it’s merely a tap clause. If nobody can answer, you can use your infinite turns to draw cards and build up Treasures until you find Revel in Riches.

#4. Voja, Jaws of the Conclave

After so many legendary tokens made by Tolsimir cards, Voja, Jaws of the Conclave finally got its own card. The attack trigger is weighted to depend on your elves and wolves; since Voja attacks, you’ll always draw at least one card. The mass pump element makes it better to have a higher number of elves than wolves. It gets out of hand fast; five elves adds five +1/+1 counters to all your creatures, Voja included.

#3. Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Magda, Brazen Outlaw supports dwarves and lets you trade their Treasure tokens to summon a dragon. Simple enough. There’re many impactful dragons to tutor for, like Ancient Brass Dragon, Terror of the Peaks, or Hellkite Tyrant. To fill out the ranks, there’s dwarves like Storm-Kiln Artist and Glóin, Dwarf Emissary. There’s also a ton of older 1-mana red dwarves like Bloodfire Dwarf and Spark Mage that balance the curve.

Magda wants vehicles in the deck to easily tap your dwarves, and I especially like how they work with your 1-drops and Goldspan Dragon. Sac a Treasure for 2 mana, cast two 1-mana dwarves, then tap them to crew a vehicle and get your Treasure back thanks to your commander.

There’s a lot of things here to play around with, and The Hobbit is sure to give use more to consider.

#2. Maralen, Fae Ascendant

Maralen, Fae Ascendant exploded out of the gate when it was released in Lorwyn Eclipsed; about six months later, EDHREC was already tracking over 19.5 thousand decks. It’s really a testament to the flexibility of multi-typal commanders: You can build Maralen as just elves, just faeries, or a mix of both, so the same player might wind up coming up with multiple digital drafts before they commit to a physical build.

That’s probably part of the reason that many of these multi-typal commanders are so popular. You might find the same player that has multiple different iterations of the same commander, whether it be for power level or some other reasons.

#1. Kaalia of the Vast

Kaalia of the Vast has the advantage of age over many of these other multi-typal commanders: We’ve had over a decade to brew around angels, demons, and/or dragons, which means also about a decade of power creep among the best of those creatures. Even just Neon Dynasty‘s introduction of Isshin, Two Heavens as One gave this deck a little jolt. Kaalia isn’t as powerful as it was years ago, but it remains fun to build around, a good commander to just throw some cards at to see what sticks.

Best Multi-Tribal Payoffs

A fair number of cards care about creatures that share a type. Folk Hero, Shared Animosity, Pyre of Heroes, and Heirloom Blade can count multiple creature types.

Path of Ancestry remains consistent fixing if your creature base still shares its types with your commander; it’s better with Maralen, Fae Ascendant than with Raphael, Fiendish Savior, for example, because Maralen is both an elf and a faerie, but Raphael isn’t all the types it supports.

Cards that change your creatures’ types like Maskwood Nexus and Conspiracy ensure your payoffs work for all your creatures. The Nexus and Black Market Connections both offer shapeshifter tokens for additional, type-fixed board presence.

You can still use typal payoffs like Kindred Discovery, Kindred Dominance, Raise the Palisade, Herald's Horn, or Vanquisher's Banner if your deck leans in one direction over another.

You’re usually going to wind up with a creature-focused deck, so generalized creature payoffs can provide more steady support than type-based ones. Impact Tremors and Beastmaster Ascension are awesome when you go wide with tokens. Springleaf Parade and friends still give token decks ramp by turning your creatures into mana dorks.

Commanding Conclusion

Volo, Guide to Monsters | Illustration by Zoltan Boros

Depending on their abilities, commanders that support multiple creature types can let you build a deck in multiple ways, kind of like those 3-in-1 LEGO Creator sets. Their multiple types can also mean that there’s more chances for new cards to improve the build or open up completely new avenues. There’s a reason Kaalia of the Vast is still a popular commander 15 years post-release.

Which of these commanders do you run, and which direction did you take it? Which of the commanders that didn’t make it do you play? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord, and don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, The Daily Upkeep.

Happy brewing!