Last updated on October 24, 2024
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle | Illustration by Even Amundsen
Dominaria was the birthplace of the historic term, which groups all legendary cards, artifact cards, and saga cards in the same basket. Few Magic sets have cared about historic permanents as a mechanical theme, but the Commander format is perfect for building around historic. All EDH decks have at least a legendary creature in their command zone, and plenty of mana rocks, Treasure-generating cards, and equipment, which are all historic as well.
Today we’re taking a look at the best commanders that explicitly mention historic in their rules text, ones that want us to fill our decks full of historic cards. Some of these commanders are not the stuff of legends, so to speak, but there are plenty of good historic commanders if you want to go down that route.
Before we begin, there are lots of legendary characters from the Universes Beyond crossovers Assassin’s Creed and Doctor Who here, because these MTG sets have historic-themed Commander decks. I’m evaluating only the individual cards, but maybe one of these is a favorite character of yours and you want to build around them, so there’s that.
What Are Historic Commanders in MTG?
Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain | Illustration by Brad Rigney
Historic commanders are legendary creatures that care about historic permanents, whether by helping you cast them, or benefitting from them being in various zones. They’ve been a theme of various Universes Beyond sets like Assassin’s Creed and Doctor Who.
Historic permanents are legendaries (of any card type), artifacts, and sagas, so there’s overlap between historic commanders and ones that care about those categories of cards, like say, Tom Bombadil or Urza, Chief Artificer, one of Magic's best affinity commanders.
Rule #1 for this ranking: I’m gonna focus on the historic part, so I’m considering only commanders that specifically mention “historic” in their text box.
Honorable Mention: Gandalf the White
I didn’t add Gandalf the White to the list because I didn’t want to break my #1 rule – Gandalf doesn't mention “historic” in its rules text.
That said, this white commander cares about legendaries and artifacts, so we’re only missing sagas for the whole historic category. Gandalf is a nice incentive for running historic permanents, allowing you to cast them with flash and double their ETB triggers, so it’s a very interesting commander and one worth building around for sure.
#25. Rona, Disciple of Gix
Rona, Disciple of Gix is a card I’d rather add to the 99 of a historic-matters deck, or an artifact-themed one. You can do a Emry, Lurker of the Loch impression with Rona and cast a cheap spell that was in your graveyard with their ETB, and there’s a blink angle here in a more value-oriented deck, but that’s about it.
#24. Layla Hassan
I made a Scryfall search on mono-white and colorless assassins to play with Layla Hassan and there is… one: this card (not counting changelings of course). Layla Hassan plays well with other assassins in a multicolored assassins deck, and you can try to set up some combos blinking it.
#23. Aya of Alexandria
Aya of Alexandria is an interesting legendary assassin, but not enough to build a deck with Aya as its Boros commander. I’d rank this as a good value creature to put in an artifact deck, legends-matter deck, or in an assassin’s deck. Maybe we’d be talking if this could get more value with the assassin tokens they create.
#22. Bayek of Siwa
Like many entries on this list, Bayek of Siwa offers an interesting effect, but not something I’d consider building a Commander deck around. Giving double strike to all your historic creatures can be a pseudo wincon, and it’s also nice with extra combat commanders.
#21. Peri Brown
Peri Brown is a nice Doctor's companion to The Sixth Doctor, as that Doc wants to cast expensive historic spells and Peri offers cost reduction via convoke. You can even cast The Sixth Doctor for cheaper by convoking if you have Peri Brown in play, and you add white to an already good color combination in Simic . I’d look to build a Peri deck if all historic spells had convoke (yes, it would be totally broken, but still…).
#20. Surtr, Fiery Jötun
I was quick to dismiss Surtr, Fiery Jötun, but then I saw that it doesn’t have the “only once per turn” restriction. That changes things significantly, and with enough cheap artifacts (the cheapest historic spells available), Surtr can do some work. Still, I’d rather have this as a historic payoff than a red commander, given the color restriction and the high mana value.
#19. Jamie McCrimmon
Another Doctor's companion, Jamie McCrimmon cares about the beatdowns, so you can play a historic permanent and hit with a stronger Jamie that same turn. It’s an interesting way to get instant value from cards like sagas, planeswalkers, or expensive, durdly artifacts. I’d pair them with The Tenth Doctor since it wants to attack, or with The Sixth Doctor that wants to copy expensive spells, thus making Jamie’s bonus bigger.
#18. Jo Grant
Jo Grant allows you to cycle historic permanents, so suddenly all your mana rocks and Ancient Dens of this world also have cycling, not to mention cards like sagas and planeswalkers. is a hefty price to pay for all that cycling you’re doing, and white will only get you so far with payoffs. You can pair this with a green and blue Doctor for some card draw or +1/+1 counter payoffs, or with an Izzet commander to make a Jeskai cycling-matters deck with cards like Astral Slide.
#17. The Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor has an ability similar to Moira and Teshar, and that ability triggers once every turn. I think of this creature more as a value card than as a commander, and this Doctor fits a blink-style deck very well. You can blink the historic cards the Doctor cast from your graveyard so you won't lose them, or you can blink the Doctor themself and get extra value.
#16. Sarah Jane Smith
Being able to investigate once per turn if you cast a historic spell is nice, and that increases the total number of historic permanents on the battlefield, while also giving you some card draw. Sarah Jane Smith’s best role is as a Doctor’s companion, especially for higher mana value Doctors, and when you cast a Doctor later in the game, you’ll also investigate as a one-two punch.
#15. Arbaaz Mir
Arbaaz Mir does little things well enough that you can build interesting synergy stuff around this Boros commander. You can trigger a lot of cards that want to deal direct damage to your opponents or cards that care about consistent lifegain, and it can be a win condition if you set up an infinite combo. It’s Impact Tremors for historic permanents after all, and I kinda wish it was a Mardu commander to play some black cards like aristocrats or some lifegain/lifedrain payoffs.
#14. Glóin, Dwarf Emissary
Lord of the Rings’ Glóin, Dwarf Emissary is a very interesting Treasure-related commander, allowing us to sacrifice Treasures to goad creatures. It’s as if they were being bribed somehow to attack our opponents!
You’ll create some Treasure tokens along the way by casting historic spells, so you should play cards like Magda, Brazen Outlaw which can benefit from the Treasure created.
#13. Tegan Jovanka
Although Tegan Jovanka explicitly mentions historic in their rules text, their ability works only with historic creatures. So, that rules out sagas and ordinary artifacts as something we could be interested in. Their best ability is attacking as a 3/3 indestructible by themself, and this can be a nice beater with some equipment and auras. You can give this bonus to a Doctor commander if Tegan’s a Doctor’s companion, or just smash face with a powerful white legend or artifact creature.
#12. Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog can be a competent Voltron commander as a 7/7 creature for only 4 mana. With this commander, you’ll fill your deck with historic permanents to avoid the downside of not being able to untap Traxos. You can have interesting equipment pieces that are also historic spells and go very well with Traxos, like Excalibur, Sword of Eden and Blackblade Reforged. You can also untap your commander with cards like Voltaic Key or Voltaic Servant when needed. Be prepared to play only colorless cards, though.
#11. The Capitoline Triad
The Capitoline Triad is a very fun colorless commander that wants you to play expensive historic cards, and that screams affinity at first glance. You’ll want some cheap artifacts and artifact lands, as many of the affinity artifacts and colorless payoffs you can get, and throw in some Eldrazi for good measure. You’ll also want myr tokens and Eldrazi scions to turn into 9/9s once you have the emblem.
#10. Alistair, the Brigadier
Finally, a nice payoff for casting historic spells, and without once-per-turn restrictions!
As a Bant commander, Alistair, the Brigadier has the perfect color identity for going wide, with access to the best payoffs for playing tokens. You can have Alistair be a finisher for a soldier army, too. Another interesting aspect is that mana rocks are also historic spells, so you’re building your army and your mana production in favor of your commander's 8-mana ultimate.
#9. Basim Ibn Ishaq
Basim Ibn Ishaq wants to go on the offense, and has the tools for it. It’s a cheap Dimir commander () that can be cast on turn 2 and start attacking on turn 3 (or earlier if you have 0-mana accelerants). It’s also a commander that wants to be played alongside cheap mana rocks like Chrome Mox and the like. Equipment fits this commander perfectly since you want to cast a historic permanent, equip to Basim, attack, and deal as much commander damage as possible.
#8. Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage
Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage allows you to play all historic spells as though they had flash. So you can cast sagas, legendary creatures, artifacts, and even legendary sorceries with flash, and you can play cards that reward you for casting spells on opponents’ turns. This opens the door for playing a control deck filled with counterspells, so if you don’t have anything interesting to counter, you can just play a mana rock, a saga, or what have you instead.
#7. Moira and Teshar
Moira and Teshar amplifies the recursion ability from Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle, allowing you to return any permanent from the graveyard to the battlefield until the end of the turn. You can then build a mill engine to fill your graveyard, return key cards to the battlefield, and blink them with cards like Cloudshift so they can stay. If you don’t have a blink engine at the ready, focus on cards like Archon of Cruelty that provide value when entering and attacking.
#6. The Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor has a very powerful ability to copy the first historic spell you cast each turn. Since you can do this only once per turn, it’s best to cast expensive legends. That being said, you have a 6-mana commander that’s only a 3/3, and you’ll often need to untap with it to make something good. Fortunately, there are some Doctor’s companions who can fill in the curve and add some synergies to historic spells to compensate.
#5. The Fourth Doctor
The Fourth Doctor, in comparison with The Sixth Doctor, has a little bit less downside. It’s also the de facto leader of the Doctor Who Blast from the Past precon, so most of those cards are already historic permanents or cards that care about historic, such as many of the other Doctors and their companions. Being able to play cards from top of your library is a nice incentive to build a deck around, and you get that Mystic Forge ability online from the command zone. Adding a companion like Sarah Jane Smith gets you access to white and plenty of investigating.
#4. Havi, the All-Father
Now that’s a historic-matters commander I can get behind!
Havi, the All-Father is expensive, but it has life insurance, at least. This Naya commander cares about having a stacked graveyard, so you can play cards like sagas, eggs, and cheap legends, which end up in the graveyard naturally. There are even some legends like Boromir, Warden of the Tower and Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard that can sacrifice themselves, so they fill the graveyard for Havi as well as trigger Havi’s Sage Project ability.
#3. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
One of Magic's best artifact commanders, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain gives you one of the best payoffs for following a certain linear strategy: drawing cards when you cast a historic spell. There are plenty of artifacts you can play that cost 0 or 1, or eggs that you can sacrifice to draw more cards and see a good chunk of your deck each game. There’s plenty of combo potential with Jhoira, or you can just deploy a sizeable force of cantripping artifacts and constructs onto the battlefield.
#2. Samwise Gamgee
As one of the best Food cards in the game, Samwise Gamgee naturally makes Food tokens over the course of the game, which was one of Lord of the Rings’ main themes. This leads to a lifegain-matters strategy or a token-making strategy. You have plenty of creatures that make Food when they enter or when you make a token, and you can play cards like Academy Manufactor to double these. Having the ability to cash three Food tokens for a card in your graveyard is what boosts this strategy, and you can exploit this even further with forage cards, or cards that reward you for sacrificing tokens.
#1. Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle is the most combo-y commander from the list. Most other entries in this ranking have a once-per-turn restriction, but not Teshar!
That opens up the infinite combo route quite nicely. Even if you’re not comboing off, getting a 3 mana value card (or less) from your graveyard each time you cast a historic spell gives you quite the upside, either drawing cards with a reanimated Inspiring Overseer or getting something back with Extraction Specialist.
Best Historic Commander Payoffs
Since we’re playing many historic cards, we’ll obviously want as many cards that reward us for having those historic cards – not just our commander.
Here are some cards that have historic synergy, and are historic permanents themselves:
- Excalibur, Sword of Eden
- Jhoira's Familiar
- Weatherlight
- Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass
- Abstergo Entertainment
Here are some cards that are not historic, but add to the overall theme:
If you’re playing a lot of artifacts with your historic-matters commander, you may want to take a look at affinity for artifacts and metalcraft:
Naturally, since historic also applies for legends and sagas, you can have saga payoffs and legends payoffs, depending on the route in which you’re leading your deck. The nice thing about historic is that you can play whatever you want, so you can have a more artifact-focused approach or a more saga-driven one.
Commanding Conclusion
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog | Illustration by Lius Lasahido
Commander is one of the most historic-friendly formats in MTG, even moreso than actual Historic! You get to play with cards all over MTG’s existence, and you get to add many artifacts, legends, and some good sagas here and there. Even if you’re not building a historic-matters deck, plenty of decks are already pretty historic themselves. And WotC loves to push some new legends for us to play with.
What are your favorite historic-matters commanders? Or would you prefer a more restrictive Commander theme, like a sagas commander or legends-only commander?
Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over on Draftsim Discord. Stay safe folks, and may you always draw the cards you need.
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