Rankings for All 47 Modern Horizons 3 Commanders

Last updated on September 30, 2025

Nadu, Winged Wisdom | Illustration by Daren Bader

While Modern Horizons 3 may not have a wealth of legendary creatures like we just got in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, there are still quite a few commanders in this new Magic set. As a set focused on Modern, some of the new legendary creatures aren’t exactly designed to be run as commanders, but I’m sure some determined players will find a way to make them work.

For this ranking, I’ll consider not just a commander’s abilities but also their color identity, mana value, and creature types. I’ll be looking for the best of the best in every category, but that doesn’t mean some near the bottom of the list aren’t better for more niche deck ideas. For the most part, this list will be prioritizing commanders that are good in multiple ways when considering how they stack up against one another.

By the way: You'll find the majority of these if you draft Modern Horizons 3. The face commanders from the MH3 Precon decks, like Ulalek, Fused Atrocity, show up in Play Boosters. Check our Modern Horizons 3 Limited Set Review for more details.

So, let’s take a look at all of the MH3 commanders, both old and new, and see how they compare!

How Many Commanders Are There In Modern Horizons 3?

Junji, the Midnight Sky | Illustration by Chase Stone

In total, there are 47 commander cards in Modern Horizons 3. 28 of these cards are from the main set, while the remaining 19 are from the Modern Horizons 3 Commander preconstructed decks. In both the main set and the Commander supplement, these commanders are a mixture of new cards and reprints of existing legendary creatures.

#47. Skoa, Embermage

Even though this common card could go in your command zone, it’s very clear from its ability that Skoa, Embermage was not designed for Commander. Requiring you to have multiple copies in your deck to activate its grandeur ability leaves this red creature largely unplayable in singleton formats, especially at 6 mana.

#46. Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd allows you to cash in on ETB effects multiple times, or temporarily remove troublesome permanents from an opponent’s board. This white commander can also permanently exile powerful tokens like Marit Lage, making it relatively powerful in certain situations. Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd is also a very funny card to flash in the turn after an opponent plays Phage the Untouchable. That said, I personally see this card working better in the 99 than as its own commander.

#45. Junji, the Midnight Sky

Junji, the Midnight Sky is a good black card, but suffers as a commander for an obvious reason: its main effect only goes off when it dies. While it’s possible to build around this commander’s reanimation effect, and add other forms of reanimation or recursion to avoid constantly paying commander tax, you’re probably better off choosing a commander that does more and sticking Junji, the Midnight Sky in the 99 of a similarly-themed deck.

#44. Phlage, Titan of Fire’s Fury

Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury is the latest Therosian Titan to get a card. It has a very similar effect to Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, though Phlage’s ability offers less value. That said, there’s still the positive of getting around the commander tax using Phlage, Titan of Fire's Fury’s escape ability. In red, there’s also a good amount of looting effects that will allow you to fill your graveyard, making it easier for this commander to escape earlier in the game, giving you a big attacker that also deals direct damage.

#43. Laelia, the Blade Reforged

Laelia, the Blade Reforged makes use of red’s impulsive draw abilities, and it's great payoff for exiling cards. While this card is solid in the 99 of many decks, it’s a little lackluster in the command zone. You can certainly make it work, but this type of commander leads itself to frustration when, after stockpiling a bunch of counters, it’s easily removed and you have to start over.

#42. Izoni, Thousand-Eyed

Izoni, Thousand-Eyed can generate a lot of tokens when it enters the battlefield later in the game. This effect can be made even better by including self-milling effects like dredge to help fill your graveyard. Golgari is a good color combination for an aristocrats build, and Izoni, Thousand-Eyed has a decent activated ability for sacrificing creatures and getting value from them. The main drawback of this commander is its restrictive cost, and the fact that there are better options for cheaper and more effective Golgari commanders with similar themes.

#41. Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student / Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar

Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is the first of five new flip-walkers in Modern Horizons 3 with a unique new twist for Commander. Although Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student only has blue in its casting cost, Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar also has green in its color identity, making this a Simic commander even though it has no green pips on the face.

Tamiyo is also one of the very few cards in Magic with a payoff for drawing your third card.

As a commander, Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student is fine for generating some extra artifact tokens, and if you build around Clue tokens you’ll have a good amount of them to work with. You can easily flip into Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar with EDH staples like Sylvan Library or Brainstorm, giving you a chance to quickly get to their ultimate ability. Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar also offers some nice recursion, though at a somewhat steep loyalty price. You’ll need good ways to protect this commander in planeswalker form if you really want it to perform.

#40. Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor

Lifelink, enchantment support, and card draw all make Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor an appealing white mono-color commander. This fox advisor could be an interesting choice for a Voltron commander, as you’d be reliably drawing cards each time you put another aura on it, but I think it could also work well as a general aura commander or equipment commander.

#39. Kozilek, the Broken Reality

Like all of the new Eldrazi Titans, Kozilek, the Broken Reality has a cast trigger. While this Eldrazi commander’s trigger is the weakest of the three, it’s still pretty impactful. It’ll allow you to draw up to four cards, and manifest two. This gives you access to, at most, six new cards, two of which will spend time as colorless creatures that are also being buffed by Kozilek, the Broken Reality. This colorless commander will also buff any of the other creatures in your deck, but that said I think there are many better options.

#38. Rosheen, Roaring Prophet

Rosheen, Roaring Prophet works well for a deck revolving around X costs in general, or hydra decks. Even if you have just one or two cards with X in your hand, that’s a solid amount of extra mana you’ll be getting from this commander. If I had one complaint, it’s that Rosheen, Roaring Prophet is only a Gruul commander and not a Temur commander, so you miss out on some very powerful X cards, though this was likely done intentionally to keep this giant shaman from being too over-powered as a commander. This card could be a worthy inclusion in the 99 of decks for commanders like Magus Lucea Kane.

#37. Ral, Monsoon Mage / Ral, Leyline Prodigy

Ral, Monsoon Mage is great as a spellslinger commander or storm commander. Its low casting cost means you can get it out early, and it’s relatively easy to flip this card into Ral, Leyline Prodigy, though an element of luck is involved. Ral’s flip side will continue to reduce the cost of your spells while potentially giving you card draw, and eventually, some free spells if you can get off this Izzet commander‘s ultimate.

#36. Cayth, Famed Mechanist

Cayth, Famed Mechanist is an excellent fabricate card and offers some nice extra utility on top. Being able to choose whether to buff each creature that enters the battlefield under your control or get an extra creature from them gives you a few different directions you can take your build. It also means you can be flexible during the game, and choose whatever works best for a given situation. The same goes for their activated ability, which synergizes perfectly with either choice made with your fabricate effects.

#35. The Necrobloom

 The Necrobloom would be a decent land-based commander with just its landfall ability. It’s this Abzan card’s dredge ability that really makes this Abzan commander powerful and unique. This will allow you to reuse fetch lands, which will also help fuel its landfall ability. You can also get additional uses out of channel lands like Boseiju, Who Endures or sacrifice lands like Wasteland. Dredge can also help fill your graveyard if you’re working with reanimation themes or graveyard-matters cards in your The Necrobloom EDH deck.

#34. Six

Six offers you a lot of card advantage, as long as you’re able to consistently attack with it. This green commander also makes it more likely that you’re hitting your land drops each turn, and have additional lands to use for retrace abilities on cards. This is also one of my favorite MH3 cards from a flavor standpoint, as it’s the first time we’re seeing one of Wrenn’s former treefolk partners on its own. I think it’s an excellent choice to have it be mechanically similar to Wrenn and Six, showing what elements of the pair's powers came from Six.

#33. Genku, Future Shaper

Genku, Future Shaper offers some insurance for your nontoken permanents being removed. It also synergizes well with flicker effects and has the perfect color identity for utilizing them. This Azorius commander’s activated ability is a good way to turn a less-powerful token army into an effective fighting force as the game goes on.

#32. Imskir Iron-Eater

Imskir Iron-Eater is more expensive than I’d usually like in a commander, but its affinity for artifacts will easily offset this demon’s cost. This is doubly effective if those artifacts are also mana rocks, meaning it’s easy to get this commander out much sooner than one might expect for 8 mana.

Imskir Iron-Eater’s abilities are both very helpful. Its ETB effect makes it a little less of a loss when you have to recast this Rakdos commander since you know you’ll be getting some more cards, and its activated ability can do a lot of work if you include some high-cost artifacts like Chromatic Orrery that will both help get Imskir out, and also be able to do a lot of damage.

#31. Disa the Restless

Disa the Restless is the face commander of the Graveyard Overdrive Commander precon. Disa's ability to create a Tarmogoyf token can give you a big advantage in terms of controlling the board. It’s easy for most Jund commanders to fill graveyards, whether it's your own or your opponents, so the tokens will likely be pretty powerful. As of right now, there are around 10 lhurgoyf permanents you can include in this deck, including creatures and kindred permanents. This commander will only continue to get more powerful as more lhurgoyfs are printed into its color identity.

#30. Ajani, Nacatl Pariah / Ajani, Nacatl Avenger

Ajani, Nacatl Pariah is one of the easier flip-walkers to transform in this set, especially since it gives you a Cat Warrior token as soon as it enters the battlefield. Given how Ajani, Nacatl Avenger’s +2 ability also synergizes with cats, you’ll likely want a few others in your deck, giving you even more creatures that can potentially die to help transform this Boros commander.

Ajani, Nacatl Avenger offers a lot of value. If you’re going wide with cats or cat tokens, this commander’s +2 ability will give a significant buff to all your creatures. Its 0 ability creating a token is already good, and it can also do a lot of damage if you have a big board state. Ajani, Nacatl Avenger also has a relatively easy ultimate to get off. While it does allow your opponents to keep a significant amount of permanents safe, it can still significantly hurt any player’s strategy that relies on multiples of any one permanent type.

#29. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser

Grenzo, Havoc Raiser is a good red commander for disrupting your opponents’ plans. You can steal some of their cards, or goad them and force them to attack with creatures they usually wouldn’t. You’ll want to build a wide board state with this deck to ensure you’re getting past blockers. How much combat damage you’re doing is going to matter less than how many creatures you’re doing combat damage with.

#28. Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath

Does Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath really need an introduction at this point? One of Magic's best giants and overall one of the strongest Simic cards, Uro is basically an auto-include for any deck it can go into given the amount of value it gives you for its low cost. As a Simic commander means you’ll likely have enough lands in your hand to get the most out of its first trigger. Adding in cards that allow you to surveil or looting effects can help you fix the draws you’ll get off this commander, and also ensure you have a full graveyard to help it escape earlier in the game.

#27. Jyoti, Moag Ancient

Jyoti, Moag Ancient’s token creation both offsets its own commander tax, and gives you land creatures that’ll benefit from this card’s second ability. On top of that, it’s an ETB effect, meaning you can flicker this card to get some extra tokens. This becomes especially powerful later in the game if you’ve cast Jyoti, Moag Ancient several times, as flickering it will create a large number of token land creatures. Simic also has good ways to buff up this commander, and in turn, the tokens you create with it.

#26. Sorin of House Markov / Sorin, Ravenous Neonate

Sorin of House Markov’s extort ability and lifelink help you flip this Orzhov commander quickly. The flip side is definitely where you’ll want to be since Sorin, Ravenous Neonate still has extort, but also has some powerful effects. Food tokens will help synergize with lifegain abilities and have been getting more useful as a resource as more support is printed for them. Sorin’s -1 ability can do a lot of direct damage if you’re playing a deck focused on lifegain and/or extort abilities, creating a big life total swing in your favor. While this commander’s ultimate is a little underwhelming compared to some of the other flip-walkers in this set, it’s also relatively easy to get off, and can be very impactful depending on your opponents’ board states.

#25. Syr Konrad, the Grim

Syr Konrad, the Grim punishes your enemies for removing creatures and putting creatures in their own graveyard either through card effects or discarding. Syr Konrad is an excellent mill commander who will force your opponents to think very carefully about each move, as it may cost them too much life to do things like wipe the board.

Also notice that Syr Konrad, the Grim is a legendary uncommon, and thus can serve as a Pauper Commander.

#24. Omo, Queen of Vesuva

Omo, Queen of Vesuva’s hybrid mana cost makes this commander immediately stand out. It will allow you to cast Omo, Queen of Vesuva even if you only have access to one of your colors. As soon as the face commander of the Tricky Terrain MH3 Commander precon enters the battlefield, it will put an everything counter on one of your lands, immediately giving you access to the color you’re missing.

Everything counters go beyond just mana fixing. They also help bring cards like the Urza’s lands online, turn lands into gates to fuel a Maze's End alternative win condition or any other gate synergies, and any other effects that look for specific land types. These counters can also be used on creatures to help them benefit from specific kindred effects, making this card a potential commander for any shapeshifter or Simic kindred group as well.

#23. Herigast, Erupting Nullkite

Herigast, Erupting Nullkite’s static ability essentially turns all of your creatures into a mana investment for future bombs. This can help accelerate you toward big, game-winning creatures like Blightsteel Colossus or an Eldrazi Titan. Being both an Eldrazi and a Dragon also gives you several types of kindred support to choose from for this commander.

#22. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds works well in decks that are running large creatures. Not only will this commander help you draw extra cards, but it will also make it easier to cast big creatures faster. Each time you cast a new stronger creature, Selvala, Heart of the Wild will tap for more mana, making it easier to get that next bomb. Repeat that process and you’ll easily outpace your opponents, as long as this commander can survive.

#21. Grist, Voracious Larva / Grist, the Plague Swarm

Given the conditions it requires to flip, Grist, Voracious Larva is basically telling you that this Golgari commander is meant to be a good early-game blocker that you don’t have to worry about sending to the graveyard. If this is your commander, you’ll be running reanimation effects and recursion that will give you ways to bring it back as its more powerful form, Grist, the Plague Swarm. Of course, you don’t have to risk sending this insect to the graveyard, you could also rely on other good reanimating cards like Reassembling Skeleton to flip this planeswalker.

Once this commander becomes Grist, the Plague Swarm, it has a lot of great synergy with reanimation strategies. It’ll fill your graveyard, and potentially let you create copies of everything in it. It’ll also give you good tokens to block with so you’re more likely to get off your ultimate ability, and can easily destroy unnatural permanents.

#20. Ashling, Flame Dancer

Ashling, Flame Dancer gives you a consistent way to cycle through cards, deal damage, and save up mana. The more mana you can stockpile with their ability, the more likely it is you can continue to trigger each of Ashling’s abilities on your turn. Ashling, Flame Dancer could be a great mono-red spellslinger commander, or the head of a Dragon's Approach deck.

#19. Tatyova, Benthic Druid

I won’t pretend that Tatyova, Benthic Druid is a terribly exciting merfolk commander, but it does offer very consistent value in the form of card advantage. It also helps fuel its effects because more card draw means more chances you’ll get all your land drops. This is the kind of commander you use because it’ll reliably set up cool plays from your 99, not because it’ll do anything spectacular.

Like Syr Konrad, Tatyova, Benthic Druid is an uncommon and can work as a commander in Pauper.

#18. Satya, Aetherflux Genius

Satya, Aetherflux Genius’s consistent output of energy counters makes this a great Jeskai commander for an energy-themed deck. The energy commander of the Creative Energy MH3 Commander precon, Satya having menace and high toughness will make it a little easier to get off its attack trigger, and especially if you’re copying creatures your opponents would rather block instead. Making copies of creatures also means getting additional ETB effects and/or combat damage triggers from them.

#17. Grist, the Hunger Tide

While I like the new Grist, it doesn’t quite reach the same heights as the original Grist, the Hunger Tide. This multicolor planeswalker’s +1 ability can put a lot of resources into your graveyard, and will also give you sacrifice fodder for its -2 ability. It’s relatively easy to get off Grist, the Hunger Tide’s powerful ultimate ability, and it’s easy to recast this commander if it dies during the activation.

Just in case it's not obvious: Although Grist, the Hunger Tide is a planeswalker, it can be your commander since its first ability (being an insect creature) works before the game begins, during deck construction.

#16. Arna Kennerüd, Skycaptain

Arna Kennerüd, Skycaptain’s ability to double up equipment, auras, and counters means that any buff you put on a creature will only increase exponentially each turn. You can also move around the copied equipment, so you can create multiple copies of cards like Lightning Greaves that will protect your creatures. I may also be slightly biased toward this Esper commander because artist Cristi Balanescu created one of the cutest birds in all of Magic.

#15. Coram, the Undertaker

Coram, the Undertaker is an excellent commander for a graveyard-centric deck, from this card’s flavor to its multiple effects. It’ll fill your graveyard to use as a resource but will also give you access to some of your opponents’ cards. Being Jund, you’ll also have access to almost every dredge card in Magic, meaning you can easily fill your own graveyard, while knowing you’ll be able to play at least one land and one spell milled with the effect. Cards like Buried Alive can also help ensure that this commander starts much stronger than it should be for only 4 mana.

#14. Emrakul, the World Anew

While I think Emrakul, the World Anew is better suited to the 99, thanks to its madness cost, it can still be a formidable commander as Steve shows in his Emrakul EDH deck. Knowing you have it on hand gives you the option to steal any opponents’ creatures as soon as you have the mana for it. As a cast trigger, it’ll be difficult for an opponent to stop this Eldrazi’s ability from happening, and this commander could even discourage some players from dropping their best permanents.

#13. Shilgengar, Sire of Famine

By including the right vampires and angels, it won’t be hard for a Shilgengar, Sire of Famine deck to create six Blood tokens. Being able to flood the battlefield with every creature from your graveyard for only 3 mana and some Blood tokens can be a huge swing in your favor. You can also get around the finality counters with Solemnity or Hex Parasite, meaning you can potentially resurrect creatures multiple times, though you may not need to.

#12. Ulalek, Fused Atrocity

5-color commanders that can be cast with less than five colors have typically proven to be very powerful in Magic, and Ulalek, Fused Atrocity, the face commander from the Eldrazi Incursion MH3 Commander precon, is no exception. Colorless mana rocks can easily help you cast this card before turn 5, and you’ll be able to start copying your Eldrazi spells soon after. 2 extra mana isn’t much when it means getting massive creatures and their powerful abilities, especially when the mana in question can be easily generated by cards like Thran Dynamo or Sol Ring.

#11. Kudo, King Among Bears

Kudo, King Among Bears may seem silly at first, but a 2-mana Selesnya commander that equalizes the power and toughness of the entire board is incredibly powerful. Add the fact that Selesnya has great options for buffing your bears, and it's easy to depower your opponents’ boards while making yours more powerful. Or if you want to have a very wild time, include cards like Coat of Arms and just see how out of control things get.

#10. Azlask, the Swelling Scourge

Azlask, the Swelling Scourge is a dangerous Eldrazi commander, and perhaps the best annihilator card in the game. It can hit the battlefield early, allowing you to begin amassing experience counters. You can get more of these counters by sacrificing Eldrazi scion tokens, and they don’t go away even if Azlask, the Swelling Scourge is removed. This means its activated buff will likely get pretty big later in the game. Being in all five colors means you have plenty of cards like Maskwood Nexus and Arcane Adaptation to ensure all of your creatures get indestructible and Annihilator 1.

#9. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer offers a lot of flexibility in how you utilize your tokens. Need extra mana? You can turn them all into copies of a Treasure token. Alternatively, you can take a lot of easy-to-generate tokens and turn them into copies of a much more powerful creature token, flooding the board with dangerous creatures that you created for much less mana than it would normally take. There are a lot of ways to play around with this commander, especially as tokens become more common and easy to create.

#8. Ulamog, the Defiler

Ulamog, the Defiler’s cast trigger is what earns it such a high spot on this list. Even if this commander is countered, you still get to exile half of one of your opponents’ libraries. Having to recast it for just 2 more mana means doing the same to another opponent, and increasing the likelihood of hitting a high-mana card which will help Ulamog, the Defiler’s ETB effect. In Commander, you’ll likely have a good idea of which deck will be running high-cost cards, giving you a good chance of this commander having a massive annihilator number as well as being a very powerful attacker.

#7. Eladamri, Korvecdal

Eladamri, Korvecdal gives you card advantage and an inexpensive way to cheat out a creature from your hand or play it from the top of your deck. There’s not much more you could ask from a mono-green commander, which are usually best when supporting big stompy creatures. You can also tap creatures with summoning sickness, since it’s Eladamri, Korvecdal’s ability that taps them, meaning you can really surprise an opponent by dropping a small creature or two, then using this commander’s ability to drop a massive bomb early in the game.

#6. Ziatora, the Incinerator

Ziatora, the Incinerator’s fling ability is especially powerful, not only because it’s free, but also because it helps offset the loss of your creature by giving you three Treasure tokens. This can easily be a positive swing if you’re sacrificing low mana-value creatures or tokens, allowing you to stockpile a lot of mana each turn. Jund is also a great color combination both for sacrificing and for Treasure support.

#5. Morophon, the Boundless

Morophon, the Boundless is one of the most versatile commanders and one of MTG's best 5-color cards, essentially working well as a commander for any kindred deck. The more colors represented by a specific group of creatures, the better this commander is. For example, dragons come in all colors, and there are multiple 5-color dragons that are very powerful and much easier to play with Morophon, the Boundless as a dragon commander.

#4. K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is easily one of the best mono-black commanders in Magic, and it's one of the new-to-Modern cards that, thanks to MH3, are now Modern-legal.

Its lifelink ability helps you cast more spells using life, which in turn makes this commander even bigger, allowing you to gain even more life with it. This internal synergy coupled with the power of using life as mana makes this commander hard to top.

#3. Breya, Etherium Shaper

Breya, Etherium Shaper has remained one of Magic’s most popular artifact commanders, and also one of the best 4-color commanders: Its color identity allows you to use most of the game’s best artifacts and artifact support cards. Breya also gives your artifacts a lot of added utility for a low price, giving you plenty of options for how to utilize them throughout the game to best fit your situation.

#2. Kaalia of the Vast

One of Modern Horizons 3‘s reprints, Kaalia of the Vast allows you to cheat out some of Magic’s most powerful creature types early in the game. Kaalia of the Vast is one of the best Mardu commanders and best Mardu cards overall, excelling as dragon commander, angel commander, and arguably Magic's strongest demon commander. Even if Kaalia dies after one attack, it isn’t as big a deal when you’re dropping a massive creature like Avacyn, Angel of Hope or Vilis, Broker of Blood on your fourth or fifth turn.

#1. Nadu, Winged Wisdom

There are a lot of powerful commanders in this set, but I think none have created as much buzz as Nadu, Winged Wisdom, and for good reason: this may be one of the best new cards from Modern Horizons 3. The specific wording of this bird wizard‘s ability means that each creature you control gets two shots at the triggered ability each turn. If you have a 0-cost equip ability on something like Lightning Greaves, you can simply pass it around between all your creatures, drawing cards and putting lands on the battlefield untapped. If you hit enough lands to play another creature, you’ll get even more cards to work with. This commander can easily help you win the game with Thassa's Oracle or just give you a ton of value if you prefer not to use alternate wincons.

Wrap Up

Breya, Etherium Shaper | Illustration by Tiffany Turrill

Modern Horizons 3 has an excellent mixture of brand-new commanders and some old favorites. I can see commanders like Nadu, Winged Wisdom sticking around and usurping previously popular commanders in their color identity. I’m also excited to see what players do with more niche commanders like Rosheen, Roaring Prophet.

Which MH3commander are you most excited to build? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments or on Draftsim’s Twitter. Keep an eye on our blog in the coming weeks, as we’ll also be coming out with some deck guides for some of this set’s newest commanders.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing you on the next article!