The 10 Most Overrated and Overplayed Commanders in Magic Ranked

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice | Illustration by Tom Roberts

Oh boy, here we go again. Not too long ago I reviewed Commander cards that I thought were overrated with the intention to give people context about when they should actually play those cards, and people reacted as though I was personally attacking them and their favorite cards. But overrated doesn’t necessarily equate to “bad”!

Think of it like a good ol’ American Thanksgiving dinner. If you think turkey is an overrated dish at Thanksgiving, it doesn’t necessarily mean you think that turkey is terrible and you’d never eat it. And you’re welcome to keep gobbling it down even if other people don’t appreciate it as much as you.

I’m here to weed out my own personal turkeys today, with a look at popular commanders that are often tossed around in conversation as “overrated” legends, and I’ll give my verdict on whether I think that’s true or not.

What Makes a Commander Overrated?

Krenko, Mob Boss | Illustration by Karl Kopinski

Overrated is a very misunderstood term in the context of Magic: The Gathering. When I call something overrated, I simply mean it’s not as good as the conversation surrounding it or individual play rates might suggest. Overrated does not mean bad, it just means less good than the standard opinion of something.

But what exactly does it mean to be an overrated commander, and how do you even begin researching that? My first thought was to scour EDHREC’s top 100-200 commanders and pull out the ones I personally thought were overrated. However, I found myself saying most of them deserved to be there, minus a few I pulled aside for this list.

Instead, I’ve turned my attention to other sources, and I’ve listed a bunch of commanders that come up in “overrated” conversations. Instead of simply punching down on commanders I personally don’t care for, I’m going to evaluate the ones that come up in EDH discourse a lot and give my opinion on whether I think they’re truly overrated or not.

Most of the legends I’ve actually deemed “overrated” boil down to being holdovers from a different era of Commander, and they either don’t hold up quite as well these days, or people haven’t adjusted to the fact that there are just better cards to play. A lot of them have a pedigree as a powerhouse commander from many years ago that people haven’t quite let go of, or still treat as top-tier.

I’m not here to crap on everyone’s favorite commanders, this is all solely based on personal experience. So if you disagree about something, or if you have suggestions for legends you think are overplayed, let me know in the comments! Final note: I’m not really considering cEDH here, and the numerical ranking below is mostly arbitrary. Alright, time to light the fire.

#10. Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice

2025 marked the first time Atraxa, Praetors' Voice was dethroned as the most popular commander on EDHREC, defeated by The Ur-Dragon and later that same year by Edgar Markov. Atraxa’s been known for almost a decade as one of the most versatile commanders, since it covers most of the colors and proliferate just works with everything.

My Verdict: Yes, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice is wildly overrated.

This is one of the biggest inspirations for doing this list in the first place. Atraxa, Praetors' Voice can absolutely crush an unprepared table, and it lends itself to so many different builds, from superfriends to infect to charge counters. But Commander is defined, even more so these days, by mana generation and card advantage, and Atraxa does neither of these. It technically can with the help of other cards (if it proliferates a Fathom Mage or Gyre Sage, for example), but commanders pull a lot of weight these days, and there are just so many self-sustaining legends that don’t need you to set your whole gameplan in motion first.

There’s also the gravitas Atraxa has earned itself as a scary commander to face down. People will target the Atraxa player no matter what it’s doing “because it’s Atraxa”, which is easy to do because it doesn’t protect itself (another knock against it). I’d argue Tidus, Yuna's Guardian is a scarier counters commander because it has card draw baked in, but people are still treating Atraxa like it’s the 2010s.

Back to defining overrated: Atraxa is still a solid contender and infinitely malleable as a commander. I don’t think it’s quite where it was just a few years ago, but you can still crush a table with it. That said, anyone who thinks this is still a shoe-in for “best commander of all time” should probably reevaluate.

#9. Krenko, Mob Boss

Krenko, Mob Boss will kill you dead if you so much as blink for too long, but it’s also a notoriously easy deck to shut down, either if you keep the commander itself in check or just pack a timely board wipe or two. It’s the type of commander you must respect, but you can plan for it with ease.

My Verdict: Yeah, Krenko, Mob Boss is overrated, but not by much. It’s not even that the card has weaknesses, it’s more a matter that it’s the fourth most-built commander. Period. I know typal decks are all the rage and always have been, but it still shocks me that Krenko’s in the top 50, let alone top 5. People love their goblins.

I also have a small personal gripe with Krenko. It seems like any time I play against a Krenko player, their only real wins come off the back of being very loud and complaining about “being targeted” enough to the point that opponents let them enact their [super obvious and one-note] gameplan out of pity. Seriously, you can beat a Krenko deck with a light sneeze, but that requires you to respect creature decks and come equipped with removal. A goblin deck can still do plenty without its commander, but Krenko is a sort of “firing on all cylinders or bust” card.

On the contrary, it’s incredibly popular, dirt cheap, beginner-friendly both in terms of gameplay and deckbuilding, and it can definitely snag games in a heartbeat, so while I consider it slightly overplayed, I still respect the card.

#8. Edgar Markov

Edgar Markov crept into the second place position for most popular commanders in 2025, proving once more that typal decks are hot and people love creature type synergies. Vampires aren’t as deep as some of MTG’s most popular types, but we have enough Innistrad sets and stray bloodsuckers to keep people’s enthusiasm for Edgar alive.

Plus, it can never be overstated just how broken the eminence ability is, regardless of what it does. The free uninteractable effect that you have access to every single game is the definition of broken, especially when you can build an entire deck around it.

My Verdict: No, Edgar Markov deserves the attention it gets. I won’t pretend that vampires are a top-tier strategy, even among typal decks, but Edgar is the ultimate tool for a swarm strategy. It avoids the Krenko weakness by never costing you tempo if an opponent board wipes, since you never had to invest mana or a turn to get the commander’s ability online. And it rebuilds immediately without ever exposing the commander to command tax. Imagine if Arcades, the Strategist gave the defender-attacking ability to your creatures from the command zone. That’s Edgar for vampires instead, and it acts as both enabler and payoff for its deck.

#7. The Ur-Dragon

#1 commander as of 2025, largely thanks to Tarkir: Dragonstorm bringing dragons back in the fold (as if they ever leave). The Ur-Dragon is another eminence commander, and people seem to be in two camps on this one: You’ve got those with Ur-Dragon decks on one side, and those who vehemently hate the commander on the other.

My Verdict: Not a chance, The Ur-Dragon is exceptional and it makes total sense that this would be the #1 commander. Dragons are cool, they have splashy Timmy effects, and they bring out the best parts of Commander. And if I didn’t convince you about how broken eminence was on Edgar Markov, The Ur-Dragon is just permanent cost reduction for the entire game, no questions asked, and there’s no way to shut it off. It’s basically like starting a game with an untouchable mox in play, and on some turns it acts like Sol Ring.

I don’t think The Ur-Dragon is the best dragon commander out there; that distinction goes to Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm. But it makes sense that Ur-Dragon would take the top spot since it’s five colors and lets you play any and every dragon you want in one deck, including all the other 5-color options.

#6. Fynn, the Fangbearer

Fynn, the Fangbearer is sort of like Krenko, Mob Boss in the sense that it’s a one-note, prescriptive commander. That doesn’t immediately mean bad, but it’s definitely narrow. I’ve always appreciated the way Fynn gives a home to trash-tier Limited cards like the many renditions of Sedge Scorpion, and it’s always fun to see an uncommon commander get so much love.

My Verdict: I think Fynn, the Fangbearer isn’t only overrated, but actively sort of bad. Feel free to chime in if you’re racking up Ws with your Fynn build, but I always feel like these decks flounder the moment an opponent interacts with them. The strategy hinges entirely on Fynn staying alive, which means playing a bunch of protection spells, which often translates to hands full of instants instead of deathtouchers. And if Fynn dies, a deck full of Ankle Biters ain’t gettin’ it done.

Fynn’s greatest strength is its ability to turbo out a win. A curve-out of 1-drop into Fynn into double deathtouchers on turn 3 is the dream, but it basically needs to happen for the deck to operate at all. There’s also the fact that people just hate poison with a passion, and showing up with Fynn gives away everything anyone needs to know about your intentions that game. If you’ve got some tech that really pushes your Fynn deck over the top, let me know!

#5. Zedruu the Greathearted

Zedruu the Greathearted is a commander I personally pulled for this list, because not once have I ever been impressed by this thing. There are two ways to play Zedruu, and neither are good. You either go full group hug and spend your time and mana to make other peoples’ decks play better (for minor payoff), or you get mean-spirited and try to donate homewreckers like Steel Golem. The first path is just a poor way to go about group hug, and the second just makes people want to smack you around, which they can probably do when you’re investing even more mana into an under-statted 4-drop with no immediate impact and no protection to speak of.

My Verdict: Overrated, unless you're playing it just for fun.

Pretty obvious from that description, but I’m not a fan of Zedruu, or this style of group hug in general. There are better ways to be both helpful and spiteful, and Zedruu’s a huge clunker no matter how you draw it up.

#4. Kaalia of the Vast

Kaalia of the Vast was an incredibly popular choice for early Commander, and the fact that it’s still #5 on EDHREC’s Top 100 list (which only accounts for the last two years’ worth of decklists) proves that people are still packing Kaalia decks to this day. It’s always been an extremely easy card to evaluate: It’s imminently killable and slow to get started, but explosive and game-changing if it ever gets even one attack in.

My Verdict: This is a tough one, but I think I have to say yes, Kaalia of the Vast is overrated. I wouldn’t have said that in the dark, but seeing it at #5 in the 2020s has me baffled.

I know the running joke is that people just don’t put interaction in their Commander decks, but that’s really the only way I see Kaalia consistently doing its thing. It’s a frail 4-mana creature with an attack trigger, in colors that aren’t guaranteed to have a piece of ramp in play to get it out a turn earlier. It basically lives or dies by your ability to give it haste, which really makes Lightning Greaves the commander of your deck.

I mean, it’s all jokes until you’re smacked around by a free, enormous dragon/angel/demon, but Kaalia folds to basically anything. Kaalia decks have a distinct advantage of being packed full of battlecruisers, so you can get to a point in the game when you’re just paying full price to slam giant threats down every turn, but this also means you’re susceptible to some unplayable opening hands if Kaalia dies right away.

#3. Rin and Seri, Inseparable

Rin and Seri, Inseparable was name-dropped a few times within the conversations I found, with most naysayers pointing towards the lack of urgency with the commander. A 4-mana 4/4 with no immediate impact is indeed on the weak side, and the activated ability is a bit costly, too. I can also harp on about the board wipe vs. typal deck dynamic, but I think that’s pretty well-established at this point.

My Verdict: Nah, rated just fine. Let the Rin and Seri, Inseparable players have their fun.

This isn’t a Krenko situation where the perceived opinion is that the card is both very popular and very powerful. I don’t think most people start to build a R&S deck thinking it’s going to be a powerhouse; it’s just fun to put a bunch of cats and dogs into one deck, and this commander pays you off for doing so. The fact that it’s so high on EDHREC’s list (#38 at the end of 2025) is just a testament to how many people love to build around creature types.

Rin and Seri is a sort of stand-in for any of these “tier-2 typal commanders”, like Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch, Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, or Be'lakor, the Dark Master. Their competitiveness is usually secondary to their uniqueness, and there’s nothing overrated about running a commander just because you think it’s cool.

#2. Meren of Clan Nel Toth

Meren of Clan Nel Toth was a breakout commander when Commander 2015 released, showcasing how powerful experience counters could be. It’s a perfect representation of what Golgari () does in EDH, encouraging graveyard interactions by sacrificing and reanimating creatures. It came up a few times in “the Big O” conversation, with a couple people calling it “power crept” a decade after its initial release.

My Verdict: No, I’d say Meren of Clan Nel Toth is still quite powerful, but maybe less popular due to the sheer number of other contenders. Notably, it’s still in the top 50 commanders of the last two years, which is proof that people are still toying with this 10-year old Golgari legend.

Meren is the type of commander that stands the test of time. There might be better options, but this will always be a good one to fall back on. It just promotes such a simple and adaptable gameplan that only gets better as more sacrifice, proliferate, and reanimation tools are printed. I just think its recent drop-off is due to competition, since Meren’s just kind of… old at this point. For example, I think Winter, Cynical Opportunist is much worse, but some number of people who would have or could have built Meren decks built around this newer Golgari commander instead, simply because it’s new. Put some respect on Meren’s name: It’s still quite strong.

#1. Jodah, the Unifier

I wanted one representative here for the “5-color soup” category, and The Ur-Dragon doesn’t quite fit. This could easily have been Kenrith, the Returned King instead, but that deck’s constructed in so many different ways it’s hard to have a single unified opinion about it. Jodah’s a bit more straightforward, in that you know a Jodah player is going to lean into legends-matter synergy one way or another.

Complaints lodged against Jodah include its kill-on-sight nature, its eye-rolling status as a 5-color slop commander, and its competition with similar options in this space, like Sisay, Weatherlight Captain and The Prismatic Bridge.

My Verdict: Hard for me to say Jodah, the Unifier is overrated when I lose to it constantly. People naturally gravitate towards powerful commanders, and Jodah is one such legend worth gravitating towards.

Yes, it’s kill-on-sight, but that’s usually a hallmark trait of a card that can get out of hand if not killed immediately. Unlike Kaalia of the Vast, a kill-on-sight commander that’s just easy to kill and leaves no value behind, Jodah often affects the board right away with its ridiculous overrun bonus to legendary creatures, and it’s large enough to dodge a lot of damage-based removal.

There’s also the fact that Jodah decks are largely comprised of legendary creatures, which tend to be strong in general, so these sorts of decks can operate just fine without the commander. Jodah can shift roles from a card advantage engine to a finisher that doesn’t come out of the command zone until the time is right, and the deck will function regardless of how you play it.

Some commentors also pointed out the weaknesses of 5-color mana bases, but I’m of the opinion that a 5-color mana base isn’t that hard to construct in Commander. It might be pricey, but it’s not difficult to make five colors work, so I’m not docking points from a 5-color commander for this reason.

Commanding Conclusion

Kaalia of the Vast | Illustration by Michael Komarck

I approached this task thinking I’d have a lot to say about a ton of different commanders, but that ended up not being the case. Many of the commanders other people pegged as overrated totally justify their popularity, and I was surprised to find out that there aren’t that many top-tier commanders that I’d personally call overplayed. It’s also not fair to dock “novelty commanders” like Rin and Seri, Inseparable, so I tried not to dig into those too much.

There’s also the fact that so many popular commanders are actually recent prints, and it doesn’t make sense to me to call a card that’s only been around for a year “overrated”. Get back to me in a few years and I’ll re-evaluate my opinion of commanders from Final Fantasy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and so on.

I’m sure I’ve already been tarred and feathered online for even mentioning some of these commanders, but I’d still love to hear what you think. What are some of the definitively overrated or overplayed commanders you play against just a bit too often? Let us know in the comments below or over in the Draftsim Discord.

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