All 11 Lizard Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on December 10, 2025

Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

Bloomburrow brought us many lizards that share a theme in red and black, and they thrive when your opponents lose life. Naturally, that leads to wondering about lizards in Commander, and the best legends to command a deck full of them.

Looking for a mighty lizard commander to lead your scaly armies? I’ve gathered all the best ones MTG has to offer.

What Are Lizard Commanders in MTG?

Kylox, Visionary Inventor | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Lizard commanders are the intersection between lizards and legendary creatures, mostly concentrated in red and black. With one or two exceptions, you could make interesting Commander decks around these legends in different themes. After viashino creatures were errata’d to lizards, we have four more lizards commanders to consider, including the popular dragon commander Rivaz of the Claw.

#Unranked: Ignacio of Myra’s Marvels

Ignacio of Myra's Marvels cares about what’s in the art of your cards. Yes, it’s an Un-set card from Unfinity. If your playgroup allows it, you can build a “fiery art”-matters deck pretty easily, and if you do, whenever you play a red card with fire in the art, you’ll get two Treasures. It's also a partner commander, and the possibilities are quite interesting – build a black and red deck around blood in the art, or a red/blue deck based around water/aquatic creatures.

#11. Hivis of the Scale

First among our tournament-legal lizard commanders is Hivis of the Scale. This old legend from Mirage allows you to steal one dragon from your opponents while it’s tapped, so it’s situational and… it’s a 3/4 for 5 mana without haste, so not exactly the scariest red commander out there.

There’s actually an engine where you play Draconic Destiny on your opponent’s creature. It becomes a dragon, then you steal it, sacrifice it, and return Draconic Destiny to your hand – well, better put this engine in another red sac deck.

#10. Kylox, Visionary Inventor

Kylox, Visionary Inventor, like Narset, Enlightened Master, thrives on casting free spells while attacking. It trades Narset’s white color and hexproof for haste, but you actually have to sacrifice other creatures for it to work. The best bet here is to build Kylox as a storm commander, where you’ll cast some cheap spells that make tokens before attacking. And when you attack, you hope to hit a giant spell or a storm spell to keep the engine going.

#9. Zirilan of the Claw

Zirilan of the Claw is a weird lizard commander. It’s clearly a weak creature, but if you can untap and activate its ability, you’ll put any dragon from your library onto the battlefield tapped and attacking. It’ll have to be a red or colorless dragon due to color identity, but you can get heavy hitters like Hellkite Tyrant or Ancient Copper Dragon, just to name a couple that benefit you when they deal damage.

#8. Lizard, Connor's Curse

A lizard commander named Lizard, nice. A 5/5 trampler for 2 is pretty good, but Lizard's ability is its best asset. It's reminiscent of disruptive cards like Kenrith's Transformation with a notable difference: The creature whose abilities and stats you shut off remains shut off even if Lizard leaves the battlefield.

Stuck in a playgroup that plays cards like Grand Abolisher? Sick of getting hosed by Hullbreaker Horror? Lizard is here to save the day.

#7. Madame Vastra

Madame Vastra can easily create some Clues and Food tokens by dealing damage to other smaller creatures, especially with fight and bite effects. You can also attack with this Simic commander while having a combat trick around and take someone down. Paired with its “partner with” commander, Jenny Flint, they work as a Temur commander pairing with Jenny adding to the Clue/Food strategy, making sure you get something else when sacrificing those.

#6. Yurlok of Scorch Thrash

Yurlok of Scorch Thrash is a warping Jund commander simply because it reintroduces mana burn to the game. You can give 3 mana to all players, and if they can’t use it, they’ll lose 3 life. A common way to build around this lizard shaman is to get many enchantments in play that double the amount of mana produced, and your opponents lose a lot of life just by playing normal Magic.

#5. Laughing Jasper Flint

Laughing Jasper Flint from Outlaws of Thunder Junction is a mixture of a “crime commander,” an outlaw commander, and an excellent theft commander.

This Rakdos commander commits at least one crime per turn, and you’ll steal many creatures from your opponents, which allows you to play a theft-style deck. A card like Bitterblossom can give you many outlaws (Rogue tokens), while a card like Hellspur Posse Boss does that and boosts your outlaws. In a deck that’s trying to do so many different things, At Knifepoint can be a glue, giving you outlaws and giving them first strike.

#4. Ognis, the Dragon’s Lash

Ognis, the Dragon's Lash is a haste-matters commander, and you can fill your deck with haste creatures or put in cards like Fires of Yavimaya or Urabrask the Hidden and many token generators.  Once you’re creating that many Treasures, you shouldn’t have problems closing the game with Mayhem Devil or Disciple of the Vault, or casting big X spells. As a note, stealing creatures from your opponent with cards like Act of Treason gives you a Treasure because you’re attacking with a haste creature.

#3. Gev, Scaled Scorch

I’m ranking Gev, Scaled Scorch highly because it’s the only lizard commander that actually cares about lizards. Bloomburrow lizards want you to deal damage to your opponent, and Gev not only does that each time you cast a lizard, but it buffs your creatures with +1/+1 counters for doing so. Ward will make them lose life if they try to remove your lizard commander, and that’s not that big of an issue because you can recast it so many times. This commander comes down early on turn 2, and you can already get benefits by casting a 3-drop lizard the following turn.

#2. Rivaz of the Claw

Rivaz of the Claw generates 2 mana for you to cast dragons, and you can even cast them from your graveyard. Rivaz allows you to have a 6-drop on turn 4, and there’s plenty of powerful dragons at that mana value already. Casting dragons from your graveyard means that looting and rummaging is fair game with this lizard commander. Entomb effects are optimal too, and you should use them to tutor whichever dragon works best on a given spot.

#1. Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar

Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar is a flexible and powerful partner, allowing you to focus your efforts on hitting a single player and extend this damage across the table. That combines naturally with Voltron commanders – though you won't rebound commander damage to other players. One interesting partner is pirate commander Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator, seeing as its Treasure-making abilities are amplified.

Kediss is an uncommon, too, making it a great Pauper commander.

Best Lizard Commander Payoffs

The best reason for grouping lizards in a Commander deck is Gev, Scaled Scorch. Gev not only buffs all your lizards, but it also deals damage to your opponents when you cast lizards, thus triggering many of your lizard synergies.

Bloomburrow brought us a few typal incentives for when your opponents lose life:

• Fireglass Mentor
• Flamecache Gecko
• Valley Flamecaller

The lizard theme of dealing damage and damage matters has plenty of support:

• Impact Tremors
• Hissing Iguanar
• Dagger Caster
• Theater of Horrors

You can also dial up the damage dealt to our foes:

• Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might
• Bloodletter of Aclazotz

Regarding lands, these lands go well with the lizardfolk:

• Cavern of Souls
• Mudflat Village
• Rockface Village
• Three Tree City

If you're running lizard typal, chances are you'll need a way to buff their stats. Lizards are not known for having big power, but these excellent colorless options can help get you there.

Wrap Up

Gev, Scaled Scorch | Illustration by Mark Zug

And that concludes our analysis on lizard commanders, folks. We have some Jund () action here, seeing as lizards are typically red in MTG and viashino are usually aligned with the Jund shard. Outside of Gev, Scaled Scorch, a lizards-matter commander that you should try to build if you have Bloomburrow lizards, there’s not a unified theme, so we have dragon commanders, treasure commanders, food commanders, clue commanders, and the list goes on.

What do you think about lizard commanders? Are you building any of these suggested decks? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s take it to Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading and stay safe!