The 26 Best Horse Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on October 16, 2026

Troop of Ponies | Illustration by Christina Kraus

Horsin’ Around is filmed before a live studio audience.

Horses are probably one of the most iconic animals, and you can absolutely find people who will argue that horses are better than dogs. In physics, we measure the rate at which work is done in “horsepower”. Heck, Ford even named a car after feral Mustangs. You can play a round of H-O-R-S-E on the basketball court (or in Tony Hawk games). Oh, and you’ve probably seen a horse mask if you’ve existed on the internet anytime in the last decade.

But horses are also incredibly difficult to keep alive. Anyone who’s a regular at their local racetrack can probably attest to that, as will your local large animal veterinarian.

Magic’s horses may not come in large numbers or have a lot of typal support, but you’ll definitely want to take a tour of this ranch. Saddle up!

What Are Horses in MTG?

Guardian Sunmare | Illustration by Christina Kraus

Horse is a creature type in MTG that’s been around since Alpha. The original Magic horse Nightmare was a staple of core sets up until the 2017 Welcome Deck. Despite the fact that they’ve been around forever, they don’t really have much card representation, used more as a filler world-building creature type than something with a core mechanical identity.

I’m guessing the lack of horses comes from them taking a back seat to whatever happens to be riding them, despite how they’re kind of essential to fantasy storytelling. They’re in a bunch of card art, just not as much card art for actual horses. I mean, Gandalf got five cards, while Shadowfax got one plus a cameo on Gandalf, White Rider’s art. Need I go on?

One important detail about creature types in Magic is that they have nothing to do with real-world biology or mythology. Horses, pegasi, unicorns, and centaurs may all be related in fantasy, but in Magic they’re completely separate creature types, with no mechanical connection to each other.

#26. Temur Charger

Temur Charger is a cheap morph creature to combo off with Yedora, Grave Gardener and a sac outlet Altar (Ashnod's Altar, Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar). Its morph cost is only revealing a green card from your hand, which you can easily do over and over unless someone can force you to discard it.

#25. Ostrich-Horse

Avatar: The Last Airbender‘s Ostrich-Horse combines self-mill, +1/+1 counters, and a bit of card advantage. None of those effects is particularly powerful, and 3 mana for a 3/1 isn’t super exciting, but Ostrich-Horse is a decent package for lower-rarity self-mill or land-recursion decks.

#24. Plague Mare

Plague Mare is a 3-mana nightmare horse that gives all opposing creatures -1/-1 when it enters. That’s enough to wipe out a bunch of tokens and small utility creatures while leaving your own board untouched. And shrinking effects work around indestructible.

The effect is a bit modest by Commander standards, but it becomes considerably more interesting alongside commanders like Maha, Its Feathers Night. If your horse deck needs a bit of board control, you may want to give Plague Mare a chance!

#23. Nightmare

The chaos gremlin in me wants Magic designers to give us a Night Mayor or a Knight Mayor or something. Nightmare was a core set staple since Alpha, and it’s probably better in mono-color decks and in environments that let you run multiples. For Commander, this is both slow and restricted. If the nightmare/horror commander isn’t clamoring for it, that’s a sign.

#22. Shield Mare

One member of a cycle of horses from Core Set 2019, Shield Mare gives you 3 life when it enters, and another 3 whenever an opponent targets it with a spell or ability. The lifegain part is the main attraction in Commander, particularly with cards like Crested Sunmare.

Shield Mare also can’t be blocked by red creatures; a bit niche, but definitely not nothing!

#21. Breaching Hippocamp

Look. I like the flavor of Theros. And I like creature type mashups like a horse with a fish. So I’m glad that Prime Speaker Vannifar has given Breaching Hippocamp a good home in Commander. Its ETB can untap Vannifar, and its mana value of 4 is a decent number for your commander’s activated ability. This is notably strictly worse than Giant-Sized Flying Ant, but Vannifar decks might want the redundant copy.

#20. Akroan Horse

Akroan Horse offers some interesting deckbuilding possibilities, but its performance is also highly variable. It introduces opponents to the word “arbitrage”, as in deciding whether to keep a free 0/4 blocker or somehow killing it to avoid giving the rest of the board tokens. This is one gift horse you probably should look in the mouth.

Akroan Horse is more of a role-player than a strategic card. Unless, of course, you’re running a chaos theme with Blim, Comedic Genius or Zedruu the Greathearted. And I guess you could run it with Kaervek, the Spiteful and a metric ton of creature death payoffs.

#19. Cosmos Charger

Why aren’t more Magic horses designed to be fast like this? Cosmos Charger cheapens the cards you foretell and lets you do it on your opponents’ turns. This really needs a return visit to Kaldheim or another set full of foretell cards to really pop off.

#18. Diamond Mare

Diamond Mare gives you lifegain in a mono-color deck. It’s the type of card you’ll trim as you improve a deck over time, but it won’t hurt your deck more than taking up a 2-mana slot.

#17. Workhorse

The mana value is a little high, but Workhorse can be a decent mana generator for you. Its power and toughness let you have infinite ETB/LTB triggers when you pair it with Grenzo, Dungeon Warden and Epitaph Golem. I’d rather pair this horse with a unicorn for the same effect: Workhorse, meet Emiel the Blessed.

#16. Loch Mare

Lorwyn Eclipsed‘s Loch Mare is a pretty unusual horse (and serpent!). It costs just for a 4/5 body, but enters with three -1/-1 counters, making it initially a rather unimpressive 1/2. But then you can remove those counters by paying to draw a card, growing it into a full 4/5 creature while drawing you three additional cards.

Alternatively, you can remove two counters and pay to tap a creature and put a stun counter on it. It’s the type of effect that tippy-tappy commanders like Hylda of the Icy Crown may welcome.

#15. Colorstorm Stallion

Izzet loves spellslinging, and this Izzet horse is ready to run wild!

Secrets of Strixhaven‘s Colorstorm Stallion starts as a 3/3 with haste, ward , and pseudo-prowess. But that’s just the beginning: Go big and spend 5+ on an instant or sorcery, and you also create a token copy of the Stallion. Those copies have the same ability, so every time you cast a big spell you double the size of your herd.

Keep in mind that Colorstorm Stallion cares about how much mana you actually spent, not the spell’s mana value. Discounts and free spells may actually harm you here!

#14. Gilded Ghoda

One of the mounts from Aetherdrift, Gilded Ghoda is a pretty simple horse: Two mana for a 2/2 that creates a Treasure whenever it attacks while saddled. And since it has saddle 1, almost any other creature can help it trigger. It works well with mount commanders like Kolodin, Triumph Caster, and any red deck in the market for Treasures.

#13. Wavebreak Hippocamp

Wavebreak Hippocamp is such a strong card. It refills your hand as you react to your opponents’ plays, and you can surround it with other cards that pay you off for your first spell. Payoffs like this also makes casting instants and spells with flash on your opponents’ turns that much better.

#12. Shadowfax, Lord of Horses

I’ve got all the time in the world for haste enablers. Skipping summoning sickness, even if it’s specific to one creature type, is good stuff for aggro. Obviously, you’re going to run a bunch of horses if you have Shadowfax, Lord of Horses as your commander, but red-white is also a good color pair for humans. Legends-matter is another home to consider for your Shadowfax if you don’t care about horses.

#11. Motivated Pony

Motivated Pony is right at home with its fellow Lord of the Rings food cards, even if it’s just a 3/3 with trample and haste that gives all your attacking creatures (including itself) +1/+1. If a food permanent entered under your control that turn, you also untap your attackers and give them another +2/+2, potentially turning a modest attack into a pretty devastating swing.

#10. Thundering Mightmare

Thundering Mightmare’s soulbond is a great way to get more out of creatures with abilities based on the number of +1/+1 counters on them or with triggered abilities that deal damage based on their power. You get more ways to put counters onto something like Mowu, Loyal Companion or Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. Kosei, Penitent Warlord is also content to be soulbound to this horse.

#9. Keleth, Sunmane Familiar

Keleth, Sunmane Familiar is a partner commander that can give itself and its partner counters when they attack. I kind of want to make a deck with Keleth and Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful just for the mental image of a dog riding a horse into battle.

#8. Phantom Steed

Phantom Steed is one of those cards that’s really fun to try to break. Pairing it with Port Razer gets you infinite combat steps if an opponent can’t block you, while Archaeomancer and Time Warp can get you infinite turns.

#7. Excava, the Risen Past

Secrets of Strixhaven Commander gave us Excava, the Risen Past, a legendary spirit horse that combines flying, haste, and reanimation.

The repeatable reanimation is a pretty sweet effect for 4 mana, especially in Boros decks that sacrifice cheap permanents or want to reuse ETB triggers. The finality counter prevents the returned permanent from going back to your graveyard when it dies, though, which limits graveyard loops.

#6. Bill the Pony

Is Voltron a viable strategy for Bill the Pony? Maybe a bunch of equipment and a Flickerform? Perhaps a Far Traveler background? I don’t hate the Voltron idea, but I think I’d lean more toward blinking Bill to stuff myself with Food tokens and pull ahead on life. Mono-white can run the Felidar Guardian + Restoration Angel infinite loop, and it gets even sillier with Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines to double those ETBs and bring Bill along for the ride.

And don’t forget Bill’s second ability: Sacrificing a Food lets one of your creatures assign combat damage using its toughness rather than its power, which gives Bill some interesting synergies with high-toughness creatures and cards like Stoneskin.

#5. Guardian Sunmare

Now we’re getting to the really powerful horses!

Guardian Sunmare‘s main attraction is its attack trigger: Whenever attacking while saddled, this white horse lets you search your library for a nonland permanent with mana value 3 or less and put it directly onto the battlefield. You could get a Sol Ring for extra mana, Esper Sentinel for card advantage, Skullclamp for an additional draw engine, or any number of other useful permanents. And you get to repeat the process every time Guardian Sunmare attacks while saddled.

Saddle 4 is definitely a drawback here; you also have to keep Guardian Sunmare alive long enough to attack, although ward helps a little. But once it gets moving, Guardian Sunmare can generate tons of value.

#4. Caustic Bronco

Caustic Bronco is one of the few standout horses we got in Outlaws of Thunder Junction. It’s basically an aggressive version of Dark Confidant, only your opponents are losing life if you saddle it!

And even without saddle, an additional card every time you attack is powerful, and black has plenty of ways to compensate for the life loss. Once you can consistently saddle it, the Bronco becomes both a source of card advantage and a potentially significant damage engine.

#3. Troop of Ponies

The Hobbit gave us one of the most useful horses in Magic, and it’s not even particularly interested in attacking! Troop of Ponies is a 2-mana colorless 2/1 that you tap and can sacrifice for another to search your library for up to two basic lands. One goes onto the battlefield tapped, and the other into your hand. That’s a pretty cool deal: The combination of land ramp, your next land drop, and being colorless means that these ponies fit into virtually any Commander deck. Ffficient colorless ramp that’s useful across a huge range of Commander decks is hard to beat

The obvious comparison is Burnished Hart, another colorless creature that sacrifices itself to fetch basic lands. The elk puts two lands onto the battlefield rather than one, but it costs 3 mana to cast and another 3 to activate. Troop of Ponies is considerably cheaper, even if one of the lands goes into your hand instead.

#2. Crested Sunmare

Crested Sunmare is one of the few cards in Magic that explicitly rewards you for playing horses. Giving all your other horses indestructible is already pretty good, but its second ability is where things get interesting: Gaining life on any turn will reward you with a 5/5 horse on the end step.

Each end step, not just yours, so instant-speed lifegain can potentially give you four indestructible horses per turn cycle! Trostani, Selesnya's Voice also loves to have those 5/5 tokens enter the battlefield, while cards like Thurid, Mare of Destiny give you even more reasons to build around horses.

#1. Calamity, Galloping Inferno

Six mana is a hefty investment, but Calamity, Galloping Inferno does some really nasty things when it hits the battlefield. One of the problems with mounts is that most of their best abilities require them to attack while saddled, which can be a bit slow. And since you have to tap other creatures to saddle them, those creatures generally won’t be attacking or blocking. Calamity, Galloping Inferno solves the first problem with haste, and partially solves the second by creating two tapped and attacking copies of a creature that saddled it that turn.

You can even saddle Calamity with multiple creatures and choose different ones to copy!

Best Horse Payoffs

Shadowfax, Lord of Horses lives up to its name as an equine haste enabler. A fair number of other horses have lower power than Shadowfax, so it should be great at cheating out some extra attackers.

Crested Sunmare gives you indestructible horses and pumps out horse tokens at the end of any turn during which you’ve gained life. Now if only I knew a horse or a pony or something that gave you avenues to gain life….

Bill Ferny, Bree Swindler has a modal trigger when it’s blocked that can trade one of your horses for three Treasure tokens. Its color identity isn’t great for running as your commander despite the Hippocamps and the surprising number of artifact horses, and I don’t know if there’s many other homes for a Treasure/horse card. Either way, boo Tolkien for writing a story that features both Bill Ferny and Bill the Pony. You’re telling me a fantasy writer can’t come up with better names?

Thurid, Mare of Destiny is not a horse, but this legendary pegasus does affect horses (and pegasi, and unicorns), giving you an additional token creature and buffing your equine crew. That makes Troop of Ponies twice as good, and two copies of Crested Sunmare can produce an absolutely ridiculous number of indestructible horses. Thurid also has lifelink, which helps to trigger Crested Sunmare’s ability.

Kolodin, Triumph Caster doesn’t have direct synergy with horses, but some of the best horses are mounts. Kolodin gives them haste and automatically saddles them when they enter, basically solving mounts’ two biggest problems, though Calamity, Galloping Inferno still needs a nonlegendary creature to saddle it before it can make copies.

If you do want to make sure all your horses are indeed mounts, look no further than Jandor, Fortuned Traveler from Mystery Booster Commander Edition. Each of your horses (and beasts, camels, elephants, and wolves… although sadly not your pegasi or unicorns) becomes a mount, gets saddle 2, and provides card draw and a Food token when attacking.

Off Into the Sunset

Bill the Pony | Illustration by Christina Kraus

They may not often get the spotlight, but horses are important to good fantasy storytelling. Magic has given us some interesting ones to run with over the years, but it was Lord of the Rings that finally brought in some cards that care specifically about the horse type. It’s nice that Shadowfax and Bill the Pony have gotten some decent card representation.

Which is your favorite horse in Magic? What do you want to see from horses in future sets? Drop a comment below or over on the Draftsim Discord! And check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.

Thank you for indulging in my Horsegirl era! For now, it’s time to hit the hay.