The 25 Best Hero Commanders in Magic Ranked

Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings | Illustration by Carissa Susilo

If you’ve been holding out for a hero to lead your Commander deck, the wait is finally over as Universes Beyond has opened the floodgate, unleashing enough heroes into Magic to lead a deck in virtually any color.

Let’s check out the greatest heroes to see which are worthy to lead your next brew!

What Is a Hero Commander in MTG?

Thor, God of Thunder | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

Hero commanders are legendary creatures with the hero subtype—as of yet, vehicles and spacecraft don’t have creature types, so they aren’t currently eligible. Hero is an extremely broad creature type without much of a cohesive mechanical identity, and they can be in any colors, though black is the least common.

All heroes in Magic are currently from Universes Beyond, specifically the Marvel crossover sets: Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel Super Heroes. There are also a few cards from Final Fantasy that create hero tokens, but no creature cards got the official type.

#25. Jennifer Walters / The Sensational She-Hulk

Jennifer Walters is very interesting in high-powered matchups as a cheap disruption card that protects your combos. You can play it as early as turn 1 so you can ignore opposing countermagic. The Sensational She-Hulk works as a payoff for fight spells plus it’s a solid threat, though its relevance only goes up for more casual builds.

#24. The Fantastic Four

You could call it tacky to make The Fantastic Four literally care about the number 4, but I find it amusing and an interesting deckbuilding challenge. How much of your deck can you realistically build around triggering them? A 99 that’s only lands and cards that triggers The Fantastic Four sounds like a fun novelty.

#23. Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is currently the only dedicated 5-color hero commander. You could even build around equipment and vehicles if you like, though those are likely better as support. This isn’t a busted commander, but if you want fewer restrictions than Captain America, Team Leader, it’s a fine choice.

#22. T’Challa, the Black Panther

Selesnya () doesn’t often dabble with artifacts, which makes T'Challa, the Black Panther fairly unique—the only other competitor, Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith, builds around equipment, which is niche enough not to count.

T’Challa keeps the green-white vibes though, because it cares about ramping into big artifacts with the primary payoff of stacking +1/+1 counters. It also makes Vibranium tokens, so token doublers like Elspeth, Storm Slayer play a role here.

#21. Eddie Brock / Venom, Lethal Protector

With this transforming card, you really care about Venom, Lethal Protector. Trading big creatures in for cards and more permanents snowballs quickly, especially once reanimation spells come into play.

#20. Thor, God of Thunder

Thor, God of Thunder is an excellent spellslinger commander thanks to its ample burn. It’s kind of like Terror of the Peaks for spellslinger decks, or Grapeshot in the command zone—I can’t stop comparing this to powerful spells, so it must be good, right?

#19. Captain America, Team Leader

Captain America, Team Leader is the perfect hero commander for typal decks: You get haste, vigilance, and a power boost that make this an incredibly aggressive commander. It’s easy to push that further with heroes that care about combat and white’s many +1/+1 counter synergies.

#18. Astonishing Spider-Man

Red discard decks get more support every set, and Astonishing Spider-Man is only the latest commander for the archetype. The ceiling on the eightieth iteration of Peter Parker in Magic is quite high. Wheel once, and you effectively get to do it again, or discard cards to effects like Cool but Rude to no loss.

#17. Black Panther, Wakandan King

Shuffling +1/+1 counters between your lands and creatures is the perfect way for Black Panther, Wakandan King to mechanically mimic mining. It’s also quite strong; you can pair this with creature lands and land animation or focus on shuffling counters between your permanents, which works amazingly with counter doublers like Pir, Imaginative Rascal.

#16. Iron Man, Bleeding Edge

Iron Man, Bleeding Edge doubles up on your best artifacts, which causes problems for your opponents when your best artifacts are nonsense like Portal to Phyrexia and Cybermen Squadron. Since you’re blue, you have access to all the protection you need plus some of the strongest artifact payoffs like Urza, Lord High Artificer.

#15. The Scarlet Witch

The Scarlet Witch provides an immense mana advantage. If you play this when you have 3 mana, then next turn you can play two 4-mana spells for a mana generation of 4. That number skyrockets with pump spells like Wild Ride, which become a Dark Ritual that applies to all your spells that turn.

#14. Gwen Stacy / Ghost-Spider

Gwen Stacy is a fine 2-mana creature that replaces itself, but the Commander potential is in Ghost-Spider. You draw half a card when you play a spell from exile, which spirals into long turns that maximize cast-from-exile cards like Passionate Archaeologist. You can also toss in counter doublers to make every spell you play effectively cantrip… wait, is this a storm commander?

#13. Miles Morales / Ultimate Spider-Man

Miles Morales / Ultimate Spider-Man can only get better as Wizards' focus on Universes Beyond introduces more and more legendary creatures. Naya () counters is already well-supported, but every time we get a card that transcribes a non-legendary creature onto a legend (think Grand Abolisher/Jennifer Walters), the stock of Miles and all other legendary-matters cards rises.

#12. King T’Challa / Black Panther, Hope Enduring

King T'Challa is a Faerie Mastermind in the command zone, except it also triggers when you draw your second card, so it’s an even stronger card advantage engine. That makes it a great tempo card, and it scales with the game by flipping into Black Panther, Hope Enduring. In general, if you want to build a deck with this in the command zone, consider it less of a build-around and more of a consistent support card.

#11. Captain America, First Avenger

Captain America, First Avenger was the first Cap card in Magic, so it got to be the blunt one that expresses his trademark shield-throwing. It’s a great equipment commander since you get repeatable removal at a fairly low cost, or a way to burn your opponents out. The addition of blue to a traditionally Boros () archetype makes it much easier to play the high-cost equipment Cap needs to shine.

#10. Invisible Woman

Invisible Woman is one of the 4-color Fantastic Four commanders, and it’s among the more interesting ones. But-Black (a.k.a. Ink-Treader ) is the perfect color combination to take advantage of making a wall token each combat: Red brings the extra combats, white and green have token/toughness synergies, and blue protects everything else. Many 4-color commanders end up as good-stuff soup, so Invisible Woman is a breath of fresh air.

#9. Mister Fantastic

Mister Fantastic is an amazing value-slop 4-color commander. Drawing an extra card each turn (maybe two with extra combats) gives you ample cards to take advantage of the powerful activated ability. Though I wonder if there’s a world where you simply play this as a draw spell that gives you access to four colors’ worth of combos?

#8. Crystal, Inhuman Princess

Crystal, Inhuman Princess has great potential as a competitive hero commander because of its triggered ability. Pair it with a Curiosity for card advantage, Sigil of Sleep for removal, or an infinite combo like Banishing Knack/Sewer-veillance Cam or Isochron Scepter/Dramatic Reversal for a quick win.

#7. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl has a decent shot at being the most popular commander from Marvel Super Heroes, and it has the power to back it up. The activated ability gives casual squirrel decks excellent scaling with the option of enabling a bunch of infinite combos that drown your opponents in fuzzy cuteness.

#6. Bruce Banner / The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk was one of the first MSH cards spoiled, and it caught the community’s eye straight away for easy infinite combats, usually fueled with Caltrops. Even without infinite combos, giving a fantastic Gruul () Stompy commander access to blue so it can protect itself seems messed up.

#5. Tony Stark / The Invincible Iron Man

Every viable Iron Man commander cares about artifacts, and The Invincible Iron Man is no exception. It is, however, the most potentially unfair because it puts artifacts into play for free. If that’s just random equipment, that’s whatever. But once you start to get into the territory of cards like The Ten Rings and Krang, Utrom Warlord, you start to win.

#4. Iron Man, Titan of Innovation

Iron Man, Titan of Innovation gives artifacts a powerful Birthing Pod effect in the command zone. Since Iron Man makes a Treasure, you don’t even need another artifact to begin—you can snag a Sol Ring, then keep going. Though you’ll more realistically pod a Talisman or something into a Basalt Monolith, and then the fun really starts.

#3. Peter Parker / Amazing Spider-Man

Amazing Spider-Man will surely amaze your opponents… up until they throw you out of the game store for a 3-mana Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Giving your legends web-slinging is amazing because you get so many steep discounts. Pro tip: Lean on ramp like Gene Pollinator that taps itself and another creature so you have two creatures to bounce with web-slinging.

#2. Storm, Force of Nature

Storm, Force of Nature took the character’s name literally, tacking one of Magic’s strongest keywords to one of Marvel’s most iconic characters. Running Storm makes combo kills much easier because you don’t need to run normal storm cards like Brain Freeze; enough iteration, and you can make a reasonable interaction spell like Lightning Bolt your win condition, which streamlines your deck with more flexible slots.

#1. Deadpool, Trading Card

Deadpool, Trading Card reads like a meme but plays out like a beast. It’s good enough to crack cEDH, and it often leads powerful chaos decks at lower Brackets. This is also an amazing interactive tool because the switching of text boxes is permanent, which makes this a commander that answers enemy commanders extremely well; how is the Birgi player supposed to storm off when they stop making mana?

Best Hero Commander Payoffs

Because hero is such a broad creature type (there are nearly 300 heroes despite only two sets featuring the type) there’s little mechanical unity. However, Marvel Super Heroes introduced some dedicated support cards.

The trifecta of Captain America, Team Leader, Director Nick Fury, and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. are the best commanders for hero typal decks because they have lots of colors and strong abilities. There are other eligible commanders, but none of them have the ceiling to be exciting.

Lots of hero support focuses on buffing heroes. Captain America, Wings of Freedom, Cid, Timeless Artificer, and Agent Phil Coulson are great anthems, though none of them have anything on Avengers Assemble!.

Hyperion, Supreme Hero, Captain America, Super-Soldier, and Captain America, Unbowed all offer great hero-themed protection.

Daredevil, Man Without Fear, Jarvis, Earth's Mightiest Butler, and The Scarlet Witch throw in some card advantage to make games flow easier.

Bonus: Hero Commander Decklist

Captain America, Team Leader | Illustration by Mark Spears

This is a simple typal deck for Bracket 2 helmed by Captain America, Team Leader, my hero commander of choice because it’s pretty strong; haste and vigilance helps to keep you aggressive and +1/+1 counters add interesting synergies.

The goal is simple: Throw down some heroes and slap your opponents around. The curve is fairly low to account for the more aggressive gameplan, though I haven’t skimped on ramp or card draw. If any good came from the absurd legend count in MSH, it’s the range of abilities stapled to heroes.

In addition to hero support, I leaned a little into +1/+1 counter synergies. The commander means most of the creatures we play are modified, so Akki Battle Squad, Araña, Heart of the Spider, and Biorganic Carapace are super useful. Danny Pink isn’t a hero, but you draw two cards the first time you trigger Captain America each turn, which doesn’t feel like something I could pass on.

Commanding Conclusion

Spider-Man, Miles Morales | Illustration by InHyuk Lee

The hero type has erupted over the past year; there are now more heroes than faeries, treefolk, or giants in Magic, even though the other creature types have been around for far longer. Universes Beyond has made a significant stamp here, and I’m curious to see how future Marvel sets develop it—another set like MSH, and we could have more heroes than elves.

Are you looking forward to running any of these commanders? Do you plan to build a Marvel-themed hero deck? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord! If you want more Marvel coverage, check out Draftsim’s YouTube and newsletter, both called The Daily Upkeep.

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!