All 25 Leviathans in Magic Ranked

Last updated on October 24, 2025

Trench Gorger | Illustration by Hideaki Takamura

As with many kids around my age, the first time I heard the word “leviathan” was from Milo Thatch in Atlantis: The Lost Empire. And boy, did the leviathan in that movie set a devastating precedent. Not to spoil a 20-year-old movie, but it’s responsible for a lot of death and destruction. In a “kid movie,” no less.

Leviathans in Magic are often just as impactful, though some of the earlier ones hurt you more than they hurt your opponents. One thing’s for sure: You might not want to swim in the open ocean after this.

What Are Leviathans in MTG?

Simic Sky Swallower | Illustration by rk post

Leviathans in Magic are creature cards that have “leviathan” in their type line. There are 25 leviathans as of Final Fantasy, and they’re mostly mono-blue creatures. The Dark’s Leviathan was the first creature to have the type naturally, though Segovian Leviathan eventually received errata to become a leviathan, too.

Leviathans tend to be massive battlecruisers: They have high power, high toughness, and/or big mana values in addition to imposing abilities like mass bounce or mass tap that your opponents must answer or else they’ll lose the game.

These rankings primarily consider these leviathans’ applications in Commander.

#25. Thing from the Deep

I like the leviathan art on this one, but I’ve gotta say, the perspective feels a bit wonky. The more I look at it, the more my brain hurts. Where the heck is the surface, and how are we seeing both this leviathan in profile and the ship in the top-right corner? I digress.

Thing from the Deep comes to us from a nearly 30-year-old design philosophy, but Magic has sped up a lot since then. Feels like I could beat this in a 200-meter freestyle, even if this thing is close to 200-meters long itself.

#24. Segovian Leviathan

Segovian Leviathan is indeed a leviathan, and it’s also old enough that its flavor text is an actual Bible verse. These days, this would probably be a 3-mana 5/5 rather than a 5-mana 3/3.

#23. Leviathan

Look, any time you rank all of a specific creature type, there’s going to be some old cards that just don’t fit the modern Magic landscape. Leviathan costs a lot of mana, and then it punishes your mana base if you want to, you know, use it.

#22. Jokulmorder

I really don’t like these earlier leviathan creatures that hurt your mana base. Forget mana rocks for a second. If you cast Jokulmorder on turn 7, it nukes your land base back down to 2. No thank you.

But hey, at least I’ve now learned that jokul is an Icelandic word for an ice- and snow-covered mountain. So I guess this is an ice-mountain eater? I wish I’d learned that from a land rather than a creature card.

#21. Sky Swallower

All? All? I wouldn’t even run Sky Swallower in a Zedruu the Greathearted deck. The only thing I can think of is a troll deck to play against Kotis, the Fangkeeper and other decks that want to steal stuff from my library.

#20. Trench Gorger

You have to exile seven or more lands from your library when Trench Gorger enters for its ability to make sense, but I can see some niche applications. In a Satoru Umezawa Duel Commander deck, or if you’re facing your final opponent in a regular Commander match, you close out the game with Trench Gorger by replacing an unblockable creature like Triton Shorestalker and digging through your deck to make it as big as you can.

#19. Grozoth

Now that’s what I call a narrow tutor. Grozoth only grabs other 9-mana cards out of your library, whether you use its enters ability or its transmute ability. Big mana decks, especially those that can give your spells alternative costs, can consider playing a Grozoth, and I guess the ability is designed to fetch other Grozoths.

#18. Kiora’s Dambreaker

Kiora's Dambreaker is a bit of an odd duck among leviathans, but it makes more sense when you remember that it comes from War of the Spark. That set is full of planeswalkers without positive loyalty abilites, so cards like this have proliferate to keep your ‘walkers around a lil longer. You can use it in other decks that want to proliferate; this leviathan goes infinite with Myojin of Cryptic Dreams, for example.

#17. Pearl Lake Ancient

Prowess and a Jeskai () watermark? Must be a Tarkir block card. Pearl Lake Ancient is the kind of card I’d only run if I’m looking to fill the last slots of my deck, I already have one sitting around, and I don’t feel like shelling out money for a Serpent of Yawning Depths or something. I don’t even think there’s a landfall deck that wants this to refill its hand with lands this way.

#16. Nimbus Swimmer

You can certainly pick a worse leviathan than Nimbus Swimmer. It’s an X-spell that deals in +1/+1 counters, a very Simic () thing to do in some sets. But at its worst, it’s a 3-mana 1/1 flier that dies to spot removal, flicker effects, or a non-morbid Tragic Slip.

#15. Eater of Days

The Beamtown Bullies or bust.

Eater of Days only belongs in decks that want you to give away your own cards, but you have to do it in a way to trigger the enters ability to make your opponent skip two turns.

#14. Breaching Leviathan

If you’re wondering why a single copy of Breaching Leviathan costs about $10, it was only printed once in a Commander precon over 10 years ago. It’s got that mass tap-down ability that a lot of sea creatures have, but you only get it if you cast it from your hand.

#13. Kederekt Leviathan

Feels weird to call a 5/5 “small,” but Kederekt Leviathan is on the small end for a leviathan. Its enters ability is another mass bounce effect, and it also has unearth, so it’s a little more resilient to counterspells. Not bad at all.

#12. Archipelagore

Mutate decks use Archipelagore to tap down opposing threats so that you can attack worry free. I like that utility, though it’s the kind of ability that doesn’t do much if you trigger it more than once per turn. But does that really matter if you’re using this leviathan for a final push?

#11. Simic Sky Swallower

Does Simic Sky Swallower improve on the simple Sky Swallower? Yes, yes it does. You aren’t giving away your mana base to your opponent when it enters, so that’s a good start. Flying and trample are a good combination for a big-mana, endgame threat, and shroud makes it that much harder for your opponents to remove it.

#10. Aethersquall Ancient

Aethersquall Ancient is a leviathan that finds homes in energy decks, and pretty much nowhere else. Its upkeep trigger is a steady source of energy, and it does have some mass bounce as an activated ability. My problems with it are that it has a high mana value, so that upkeep trigger won’t always be all that impactful, and the activated ability also hits your own creatures.

#9. Sin, Spira’s Punishment

Sultai () lands and reanimator is the name of the game with Sin, Spira's Punishment. You’ll want extra land drop effects like Exploration and replacement effects like Archelos, Lagoon Mystic or Spelunking to ensure your lands enter untapped.

There’s also Yarok, the Desecrated as a trigger doubler, and you’re in the right colors for other lands-matter cards like Teval, the Balanced Scale and The Gitrog Monster. Toss in token doublers and landfall triggers, and you’ve got a picture of what this leviathan can enable.

#8. Summon: Leviathan

In a perfect world, I’m only ever going to reach the first chapter of Summon: Leviathan. If I find one in my Final Fantasy boosters, it’ll instantly find a home in my Runo Stromkirk deck. That first chapter is basically an overloaded Cyclonic Rift, which should set up a huge, final attack.

Note that Summon: Leviathan is one of the sea creature payoffs that include merfolk, though not all sea creature payoffs do.

#7. Sin, Unending Cataclysm

Sin, Unending Cataclysm has some really fun and interesting applications. It’s really punishing against any kind of counters deck; +1/+1 counters are obvious, but I’d hate to see this on the other side of the table if I’ve already cast Kathril, Aspect Warper. If you don’t care about interacting with your opponents’ stuff, you can also use Sin, Unending Cataclysm to reset your sagas to the prologue, remove finality or -1/-1 counters, and all kinds of other things. At 7 mana, I see it more as a support piece than a commander, but I can see a lot of potential homes for it.

#6. Inkwell Leviathan

One of the refreshing things about Inkwell Leviathan is that its rules text only includes keywords. It’s another big creature that you can cast for 4 mana with Satoru Umezawa, though other decks like Braids, Conjurer Adept can cheat it into play to give you a big, evasive threat with shroud.

#5. Nemesis of Reason

Dimir and mill go hand in hand.

Nemesis of Reason also has horror typing, and it was reprinted in the CLB Mind Flayarrrs precon. Both commanders from that deck can use it, and it works nicely in a Phenax, God of Deception deck too. Sometimes, you’ll attack with it to make your opponents mill 10 cards. Other times, you’ll hold it back because it’ll probably die in combat, in which case Phenax allows you to tap it to mill seven. Solid.

#4. Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep

Oh look! Another leviathan with a mass bounce ability.

Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep has it as part of a kicker ability, although you’re committing a whopping 10 mana to get there without cost reducers and other help.

#3. Xyris, the Writhing Storm

Xyris, the Writhing Storm provides its own forced draw engine that helps to widen your board, and you can surround it with a lot of wheels and other forced card draw. It’s a really powerful and really popular Temur commander, and you can tweak it based on your meta and personal play style.

#2. Charix, the Raging Isle

It’s a little clichéd to bring up Sir Mix-Aa-Lot when you’re discussing creatures with big butts, but it’s a cliché because it’s effective.

Charix, the Raging Isle is just such a fun card. It can soak up a lot of damage, and you can activate its ability if you want it to attack or take something out when it blocks. Sea creature decks love it, but so do toughness-matters decks like Arcades, the Strategist, The Pride of Hull Clade, Phenax, God of Deception, and Plagon, Lord of the Beach, to name a few.

#1. Stormtide Leviathan

I hated this card as a newer player who was getting a handle on the game, especially when my opponent combined it with Archetype of Imagination.

Stormtide Leviathan’s impact comes from turning all lands into islands, which enables its own islandwalk ability. It’s one of the few cards that keeps landwalk abilities relevant, and you can even use it in a flying-matters deck if you’re looking for something on the top end.

Best Leviathan Payoffs

Your best leviathan payoffs are also your best sea creature payoffs, especially those that call out KLOS creatures (krakens, leviathans, octopuses, and serpents).

Serpent of Yawning Depths is my pick for the best overall payoff, as an unblockable enabler for all of your sea creatures. One-sided mass bounce effects like Summon: Leviathan also help you to reach the end game when you’re running leviathans and other sea creatures, and Quest for Ula's Temple gives you some giant sea creatures for free if you can reveal a couple creatures off the top of your deck.

There are a few sea creature commanders that want to leverage all of your KLOS creatures, including Runo Stromkirk, Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep, and Kenessos, Priest of Thassa. You can also use leviathans in decks that care about some of their common attributes. They usually have a lot of blue pips for devotion decks, and they often have high mana values, high toughness, and high power, so decks that take advantage of any of those stats can consider including some leviathans.

Leviathans with abilities that tap your opponents creatures also fit into very specific tap-down decks, alongside cards from Wilds of Eldraine like Hylda of the Icy Crown, Sharae of Numbing Depths, Solitary Sanctuary, and Icewrought Sentry.

Wrap Up

Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep | Illustration by Grzegorz Rutkowski

And there we are! All the leviathans that haunt a mariner’s dreams on the planes of Dominaria, Theros, and beyond. There’s pretty clear lines between the ones you’ll want to play and the ones that’ll live in your bulk boxes, but you can’t deny that Magic designers have figured out how to balance big, imposing, costly creatures since the first Leviathan.

Which leviathans do you run? In which decks, and which formats? Do you have any “out of left field” uses for your leviathans? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.

Happy fishing!