All 27 Giant Commanders in Magic Ranked

Bonny Pall, Clearcutter | Illustration by Bryan Sola

Hello Planeswalkers! From my friends from Jotunheim to Gaia’s children, how are my giants doing? Giants have marveled and terrified humans for centuries, if not millennia. The thought of human-like creatures that have unbelievable stature and strength creates intriguing stories. MTG, of course, had to take these well-known beasts of myth and incorporate them into its universe.

There are over 200 giants in MTG so far. All of them have some story, abilities, and strength to add to decks. So, how do these titanic leaders fare as commanders, and should you consider them for your next build? Let’s find out!

What Are Giant Commanders in MTG?

Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl | Illustration by Campbell White

Giant Commanders are legendary creatures with the subtype giant that can legally be your commander in EDH. These commanders can have other subtypes, but all the cards below are at least giants. The legendary giant creatures come in all colors, but lean slightly towards red, with a connection to mountains.

There are a few notes and distinctions to consider for these rankings. A few of the older cards, like The Lady of the Mountain, had the Summon Legend card type and have been retroactively changed to legendary giants. I will include these cards. Cards that won’t be included are ones that can change a commander’s creature type, like Raised by Giants, and shapeshifters such as Morophon, the Boundless.

Brawl Commanders

These commanders aren’t legal in official Commander format matches, but you can use these legendary giants as Brawl commanders on Arena, or with your friends if they have no problems with it.

Mitotic Ultimus

What could be more terrifying than an ooze giant? Mitotic Ultimus is an expensive Brawl commander that gets cheaper by having powerful creatures. This nesting doll of a creature can be a deadly attacker, and when it dies, it breaks down into smaller and smaller slime creatures.

Oyaminartok, Polar Werebear

Oyaminartok, Polar Werebear is an interesting “I’m going to turn Food tokens into other resources” engine. You can make food tokens when this giant deals combat damage to a player, or by other means, and sacrifice them to draft blue marine creatures from Stinging Lionfish to Nezahal, Primal Tide. What a great fisherman!

Thorna and Twigtooth

Showing a little bit of love to the secondary creature types of Lorwyn Eclipsed, Thorna and Twigtooth slaps a treefolk and giant together on the same card. It plays into the blight theme of the main set, and pushes quite a bit of damage for a 4-drop.

#27. The Lady of the Mountain

Let’s start with a giant commander with no text or real strategies: The Lady of the Mountain. This Gruul beauty gives you a 5/5 creature for 6-mana with no other abilities. That’s it. So enjoy the vintage art, and let’s move on.

#26. Axelrod Gunnarson

Axelrod Gunnarson is an expensive and inefficient way to deal extra siphon damage. Eight mana for a 5/5 is nuts! Vintage Magic cards just don’t compare to what we’re spoiled with now. The only benefit of this card is the extra damage it does when attacking each turn.

#25. Bartel Runeaxe

The best of the older and retconned legendary giants is probably Bartel Runeaxe. It’s a low bar, but giants used to cost a ton of mana. At least you get vigilance and some protection with this card. It doesn’t provide any overall strategy, but it is a big, vigilant creature.

#24. Zalto, Fire Giant Duke

Zalto, Fire Giant Duke is a mono-red giant commander to build around the venture into the dungeon mechanic. If damage is done to this commander, you can venture into one of the three dungeons. You can pump this giant’s toughness, give it indestructible, or even do mass damage with a card like Volcanic Fallout to gain all of the benefits from dungeon cards.

#23. Ruhan of the Fomori

We can’t have an article about giants without some element of chaos. Ruhan of the Fomori is a ultra-cheap 7/7 creature that attacks out of your control. This giant must attack a random opponent each turn. This isn’t a great strategy, but when paired with cards like Boldwyr Aggressor or Realm-Cloaked Giant, it can do alright.

#22. Bre of Clan Stoutarm

Bre of Clan Stoutarm is an interesting Boros () impulse draw commander. This card’s strategy breaks down to gaining life to impulse draw and hopefully play a great card for free. Getting to cast a spell or at least draw a card just for gaining life makes Bre a pretty stout and flexible lifegain commander, if that’s your thing.

#21. Aegar, the Freezing Flame

Aegar, the Freezing Flame has some great card draw potential. The unfortunate thing is that it has stipulations to the upside. You only draw cards if you deal excess damage with specific, albeit easy to build around sources. This giant commander definitely needs cards like Calamity Bearer and Inferno Titan to be successful.

#20. Gorm the Great

Gorm the Great and Virtus the Veiled work in tandem to make combat difficult for opponents. Grom works as the distraction by forcing opponents to block with multiple creatures, and Virtus comes in for the deadly strike on opponents. It may take several turns to set up a deadly combat, but with cards like Lure and Bloodletter of Aclazotz, it can be quite lethal. Both of these cards can be your commander because they partner with each other, and open up your deck to Golgari cards.

#19. Rosheen, Roaring Prophet

Both versions of Rosheen provide huge support for cards with X in their casting costs. Rosheen, Roaring Prophet requires more luck or ways to ensure you get certain cards in your hand than Rosheen Meanderer, but still provides a ton of mana support. This commander can reveal X-spells to add a bunch of mana (including revealing the card you want to cast, which seems almost like cheating!). This can be huge when you cast a card like Animist's Awakening, and then roll into a card like Goldvein Hydra.

#18. Kroxa and Kunoros

Kroxa and Kunoros is a combination of two great underworld forces. Firstly, you get a great creature with solid keyword abilities. More importantly, when this Mardu commander () enters or attacks, you can essentially give a creature in your graveyard escape with no extra casting cost except exiling five cards from your graveyard. This fits well into a Mardu strategy of being aggressive with creatures. Having a commander with ETB and attacking triggers should assure multiple chances at returning creatures to the battlefield.

#17. Beluna Grandsquall

Adventures have so much value by virtue of being a spell and a creature in the same card. Beluna Grandsquall reduces the costs of the permanent sides of cards with adventure. Seek Thrills is more expensive than Beluna, and it may be worth it to wait to cast the solid instant first. In a deck full of cards like Beanstalk Giant, Bonecrusher Giant, and Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy, you can get adventures into your hand quickly and play the permanent sides cheaper.

#16. Vogar, Necropolis Tyrant

Vogar, Necropolis Tyrant is a black removal lover’s dream commander. This giant gets a +1/+1 counter whenever any creature dies during your turn. This is perfect for aristocrats and applies when removing opponents’ creatures. And whenever your opponents get sick of this commander and destroy it, you have a potential windfall of card draw. An all-around solid mono-black commander.

#15. Rosheen Meanderer

If X-spells are your thing, you need mana support to make them competitive. Rosheen Meanderer provides a ton of mana for casting spells with X in their casting cost. Gruul is the perfect color pair for this strategy, as you can play creatures like Mawloc, removal cards like Pest Infestation, and direct damage cards like Crackle with Power.

#14. Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury

The first of three titans with escape, Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury works like a repeatable Lightning Helix. The thought is to play this commander cheaply as great removal, and then keep it in your graveyard to bring it back to the battlefield. The attack trigger can be amazing, but overall, this commander doesn’t compare to the similar Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath or Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, even if it's a powerhouse outside of EDH.

#13. Jareth, Leonine Titan

When you think of commanders, you don’t often think about defense. Jareth, Leonine Titan provides a giant defense as a commander, with a sneaky counterattack. This commander reeks of Voltron, equipment, and aura upside. You can defend yourself with this commander paired with a card like Entangler, and then swing past your opponents’ defenses with the color protection activated ability and boosted by a card like Blackblade Reforged.

#12. Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl

Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl is our only Bant () giant commander, and it's a combat giant for sure. It protects your creatures while making one of them massive and greatly minimizing one of your opponent’s creatures. Can you imagine turning your Wild Beastmaster into a 7/7 and an opponent’s Charix, the Raging Isle into a 1/1? The mana value is high, but Bant has plenty of ramp, and this giant commander provides huge combat advantages.

#11. Brion Stoutarm

Brion Stoutarm is the quintessential commander for turning creatures into cannon fodder. For 1 mana and a tap, you can deal a ton of damage with lifelink. The goal is to get high-power creatures onto the battlefield cheaply and blast your opponents each turn. Creatures like Serra Avatar, Ball Lightning, and Anticausal Vestige are perfect targets to yeet.

#10. Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig

Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig can be a killer early-play commander in mono-green creature decks. At 3 mana, this card is cheap, strong, and gets much stronger. If you can follow Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig with cards like Rampaging Baloths and Invigorating Surge, you should be rolling over opponents. You also have to love cheap commanders whose commander tax can keep up with your curve.

#9. Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas

This disciple is ready to be their own leader! Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas is a killer creature with ways of becoming even stronger. Double strike and vigilance make this a formidable attacker and a prime target for Voltron-style decks. Add to that a chance to give it +1/+1 counters, and the commander damage wincon becomes quite attainable.

#8. Osgir, the Reconstructor

Osgir, the Reconstructor is a killer artifact commander. It can tap to exile an artifact from your graveyard based on its MV and create two single-turn copies. This can have huge impacts after many normal game interactions or alongside a discard theme. Creating two copies of a card like Combustible Gearhulk, Myr Battlesphere, or Ichor Wellspring, even for a single turn, can be a game-changer.

#7. Dargo, the Shipwrecker

A mono-color commander for 7 mana? There’s no way that can be in the top 10 of any list. Wrong!

Dargo, the Shipwrecker reduces its own casting cost and provides a huge upside with the partner mechanic. Many cards can reduce casting costs by sacrificing something as well, but the fact that you can sacrifice a treasure token for mana to essentially get a reduction of 3 mana is incredible. There isn’t much need to worry about the MV. You gain a ton of upside when you partner this giant with other commanders like Tymna the Weaver or Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator.

#6. Surtr, Fiery Jötun

One of the easiest triggers to roll with is historic spells. Surtr, Fiery Jötun creates a solid direct damage trigger for any of your historic spells cast. With artifact cards, you can be dealing a ton of damage each turn to remove creatures or take out opponents. Mono-red limits some of the upside, but with plenty of red sagas, legendary cards, and tons of colorless artifacts, you can do real damage with this giant commander.

#5. Kroxa, Titan of Death’s Hunger

Let’s call Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger our nightmarish version of Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. This Rakdos commander () has so much value when played early and not returned to the command zone, but rather played from the graveyard. Kroxa works quite well with other discard and aristocrat effects, so if this giant is your commander, load up on cards that take advantage of these effects. Cards like Waste Not and Chainer, Nightmare Adept will suit you well.

#4. Thryx, the Sudden Storm

Thryx, the Sudden Storm may not be the biggest or most synergistic giant commander, but it is wildly efficient. A commander with flash allows you to leave mana open for instant responses and create quick advantages between players’ turns. Thryx then reduces the casting cost of your large spells, which opens the way for great cards like Wan Shi Tong, Librarian, Scourge of Fleets, or Rush of Knowledge. Mono-blue is limiting in Commander, but this efficient giant provides a ton of upside and fun with enough creativity.

#3. Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

As Oloro, Ageless Ascetic chills on its giant throne, you dominate with lifegain and card draw. This Esper commander () provides reliable lifegain, whether on the battlefield or in your command zone, and ways to take advantage of that all in a single card. Oloro is one of those commanders that, in the right build alongside cards like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Alhammarret's Archive, can dominate with all of its advantages.

#2. Bonny Pall, Clearcutter

Two Simic () giant commanders at the top of the list? When they are this good, of course! Bonny Pall, Clearcutter provides late-game ramp, card draw, and power when it's probably most important. There’s so much to love with the ETB and attack triggers here. You get two large creatures and all the ramp you could want in the late game. It also doesn’t hurt that Simic has wonderful early game ramp to get you to this 6-mana play ahead of the curve.

#1. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

If a card is banned in several formats, you probably know it's pretty darn good. Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is a ramp machine with interesting Commander interactions. This giant commander gains you life, gives you card draw, and provides land ramp opportunities in the early game. When you sacrifice Uro, you don’t have to return it to your command zone, giving you more opportunities of playing it from your graveyard. This stellar commander works incredibly well with landfall, self-mill, and Simic ramp decks.

Commanding Conclusion

Zalto, Fire Giant Duke | Illustration by Zezhou Chen

What a giant joy we just had together. These massive creatures make for fun and interesting commanders. The giant creature type will definitely have new additions in the future, and let's hope some of them are wonderful new commanders.

Thank you for reading this article, and I hope you add your own flavor with some engagement. Leave comments below describing giant commander decks you’ve made, or any of your other favorite commanders. If you want even more engagement, follow us on X or join the official Discord server.

Stay safe and keep your eyes out for some magic beans!