The 32 Best Power-Matters Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on September 18, 2026

Kresh the Bloodbraided | Illustration by Raymond Swanland

Many cards in MTG specifically care about their comrades’ power stats, especially in red and green. Those can be powerful commanders in the right deck, and between +1/+1 counters, auras, and combat tricks, there’s no shortage of ways to increase a creature’s power in MTG. Some commanders hit harder when you have other powerful creatures around, while others sacrifice big guys for great benefits.

Today, we’re looking at the best power-matters commanders in MTG and some specific synergies you can lean on. Let’s dive in!

What Are Power-Matters Commanders in MTG?

Ziatora, the Incinerator | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Power-matters commanders in MTG are legendary creatures with abilities related to the power of creatures you control, or their own power. Some of these abilities care about having the greatest power among creatures, while others trigger when a creature with power 2 or less enters.

Commanders that care about high power benefit from anthem effects and buffing combat tricks, while commanders that care about lower power can take advantage of token creation and go-wide effects.

I don’t care about the highest power a legendary creature can have, like Yargle and Multani, although many of these cards would like an 18-power creature in their builds. I prefer commanders that are popular and powerful, or that lend themselves to various deck-building possibilities.

#32. Mayael the Anima

Mayael the Anima is a classic Naya () legend, and it wants you to have creatures with power 5 or greater in your deck, referencing the Shards of Alara theme. The thing is, WotC lowered the power requirement to 4 or greater in more modern sets with ferocious and similar abilities, and no one’s that thrilled to pay 6 mana for an activated ability. But sometimes, you can cheat a really big creature into play, so 6 mana for a 12-MV creature feels cheap.

#31. Zilortha, Strength Incarnate

Zilortha, Strength Incarnate is the only card that makes the power of your creatures matter for toughness and “hit points”, the exact opposite of what a card like Doran, the Siege Tower does. Zilortha itself is a 7/3, but you can consider it a 7/7 for most cases outside -X/-X effets. Red in particular has a greater discrepancy of power to toughness in its creatures, so it’s common to find 4/1 and 5/2 glass cannons that are much better in a deck like this.

#30. Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient

Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient is a nice dragon commander that cares about the power of creatures attacking, which it'll turn into extra mana. That mana's limited to spells only, so be sure to have red impulse draw cards, X-spells, or big green sorceries. Players usually build around dragons with Klauth, considering that you’ll need some dragon ramp anyway to cast your big, expensive spells, and dragons usually have haste and high power, so they’re perfect for this type of deck.

#29. Prime Speaker Zegana

Prime Speaker Zegana is also an EDH classic: It’s just a 6-mana draw-a-lot-of-cards commander, and it also has +1/+1 counter synergies. Just having a 3/3 in play and casting your commander nets you four cards, and the ceiling is much higher.

#28. Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer

Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer isn’t that powerful of a commander, but it’s funny. You’ll goad all creatures that have power lower than this card’s power, so your first task is to pump it up, ideally using equipment and other permanent modifications. I find it amusing when a commander gets to goad your opponents' creatures, but if you’re commanderless, their cannons can and will turn toward you, so beware.

#27. Delney, Streetwise Lookout

Delney, Streetwise Lookout is part of an attempt to consolidate Mardu colors () into low-power matters. With Delney, you can make your smaller creatures unblockable, as well as double their triggered abilities. This bodes well with small enter-the-battlefield cards, like Spirited Companion, or powerful staples like Esper Sentinel. Hare Apparent is already a meme thing in “go-wide” white decks, and here, each rebbit generates double the number of tokens. It’s also interesting that white has all the tools to support this small power strategy, with cards like Raise the Past and Dusk // Dawn.

#26. Tifa Lockhart

Tifa Lockhart is kind of a stretch as a power-matters commander, but my reasoning is that the higher its power is, the bigger it gets when you double it. Here, you want to enchant Tifa and target it with combat tricks, ideally those that also grant protection or haste, and hit for a ton early. Fetch lands and ramp cards support those landfall triggers beautifully, so you can play something like Evolving Wilds or Rampant Growth and use them as power buffs.

#25. Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin

Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin isn’t as famous a commander as Krenko, Mob Boss. To take advantage of this Krenko, you need to boost its power and attack at the same time. You’ll usually buff it through goblin typal bonuses, plus ideally haste.

#24. Kresh the Bloodbraided

Kresh the Bloodbraided is a classic Jund commander () that gets bigger when creatures go to the graveyard. The stronger the creature that died, the bigger Kresh gets. The interesting part is that it’s not just your creatures. While Kresh is pretty vanilla, it can get big fast, and your black and red removal can accelerate this.

#23. Ghalta and Mavren

You can build Ghalta and Mavren as a high-power matters commander, and you’re already starting with a 12/12 trampler for 7 mana. The idea here is to attack with a 5/5 and immediately make a 5/5 trampling dinosaur token that’s tapped and attacking, and we can throw some additional dinosaur synergies into the mix. Just attacking with this guy and making a 12/12 token for free isn’t out of the question, just a lot harder. You can also go wide with a lot of tokens, but that's outside our focus today.

#22. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma is a pretty simple commander to build around. Your big creatures will all have a 2-mana discount, and they get even bigger and trample over your foes when Goreclaw attacks. When you can cast your 7-drops for 5 mana, or you can cast two 5-MV cards in a turn, you’re in good shape.

#21. Elenda, the Dusk Rose

Elenda, the Dusk Rose creates X 1/1 tokens when it dies based on its power. The thing is, it starts as a 1/1 for 4 mana, and if it dies immediately, you’re not that happy about getting only a 1/1 for your investment. To build around this card, you’ll want some cheap equipment, some vampire typal cards, and free sacrifice outlets. In the end, you want destroying your commander to be an unappealing option. Blade of the Bloodchief is perfect for this deck, as it doubles your commander’s ability to grow and keeps it relevant on the board for a while longer.

#20. Agatha of the Vile Cauldron

Agatha of the Vile Cauldron can reduce the cost of your activated abilities by its current power. Considering that this warlock starts as a 1/1, reducing the cost of abilities by 1 isn’t great, but you can pile a bunch of +1/+1 counters or auras onto Agatha. Cards like the Zendikar Invokers become absurd when you’re not paying for their abilities anymore, not to mention other abilities like level up, monstrosity, and more.

#19. Alesha, Who Smiles at Death

In a time when there weren’t any good Mardu () commander options, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death was a great highlight. The card has synergies with good, and at times expensive creatures that have power 2 or less, like Master of Cruelties or Ravenous Chupacabra. You can go the more aggressive route with aristocrats, or a more controlling one with cards that have good enter effects and lower power.

#18. Grenzo, Dungeon Warden

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden lets you put creatures from the bottom of library into your graveyard, kind of a reverse surveil. But if their power is lower than Grenzo’s power, you can actually put them into play. That opens up many possibilities, similar to Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Plus, Grenzo actually costs X to cast, so you can have a really big creature that’ll put out 5/5 and 6/6s in the late game for a small 2-mana investment.

#17. Narset, Enlightened Exile

Giving creatures you control prowess ensures that every noncreature spell is actually a team-wide buff. But Narset, Enlightened Exile has a pretty good reason to care about its own power: Depending on the game state, you can cast a copy of a really expensive spell for free. Having spells that create tokens can be a very interesting build, or you can focus on a mill build to try to steal your opponents’ best spells.

#16. Arabella, Abandoned Doll

Arabella, Abandoned Doll has a few things going on for it in Commander. First, it can deal damage to all opponents in one attack. You don’t even need to Voltron it or deal combat damage, just a bunch of tokens and token makers. As such, it’s one of the most popular commanders overall on EDHREC, and the fact that you can one-hit kill players with just one attack is part of it. With MTG getting more powerful and more token-oriented in the 1-4 MV slot, this card will continue to be relevant.

#15. Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is a classic power payoff. You’re playing a 12/12 trampler for usually 4-5 mana in the right deck, and even if your giant commander is killed, you’ll get to cast it later with a discount. Nothing special other than a green 12/12 trampler that can get some attacks and commander damage across the table. You can also profit from cards that care about the mana value of spells you’re casting; with Dancing from Dark to Dawn in play, you’ll put twelve +1/+1 counters onto another creature for cheap.

#14. Brion Stoutarm

Brion Stoutarm is a classic red and white commander, and the main idea here is that you can fling targets with its ability while gaining life because Brion has lifelink. Being red gives you access to great flingable creatures, and good old Act of Treason cards. Since you can gain a lot of life in this deck, cards like Serra Avatar are perfect because they’re giant targets to fling or to have sitting in play. And don’t forget the red cards that can double the amount of damage dealt.

#13. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is an enabler and a payoff to the big power strategy. You’ll want to have the highest power among creatures so that you can keep drawing cards while denying your opponents the card draw. Also, you’ll generate mana equal to the greatest power, which gets out of hand the second you land something with 4+ power. And yes, you can combo with Phyrexian Dreadnought to generate ridiculous amounts of mana.

#12. Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate

Alesha, Who Laughs at Fate is a good reanimator card, provided that your deck is aggressive and that Alesha has enough power. It’s nice that each time Alesha attacks, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on it, so it’s already a 3/3 first striker that can bring a 3-MV creature back, and that just goes up. Or, you can accelerate the process with a well-timed combat trick.

#11. Tifa, Martial Artist

Tifa, Martial Artist is a powerful extra turns commander. Just by attacking everybody in a Commander game, the melee ability naturally turns Tifa into a 7/7, and 7 power is the magical number to unlock extra combat steps. What makes this card so interesting is that you can get one additional combat step per player damaged by a 7-power creature. Plus, you’re untapping your creatures, and you can benefit from more tap abilities like mana dorks.

#10. Marwyn, the Nurturer

Marwyn, the Nurturer can generate mana equal to its power, but its starting power is 1, so it starts off very slow. The solution is to cast a bunch of elves to stack up +1/+1 counters on Marwyn. What makes this card so popular as an elf commander is that you can snowball and combo very quickly, and with a lot of common and uncommon elf cards.

#9. Coram, the Undertaker

Coram, the Undertaker is a strange card because it cares about the greatest power of creatures in all graveyards. You want to mill every player, and while doing so, you can get card advantage straight from opposing graveyards, which opens up a lot of possibilities. Theft, creatures leaving the graveyard, you name it. And with more creatures in graveyards, you’ll have a 7- or 8-power commander in no time to bash in, so it’s a mix of a value engine and a big beater.

#8. The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride is already solid as a 6/5 with trample and haste. But as a mount, you can saddle it and attack to sacrifice a huge creature and draw that many cards. Of course, you won’t always want to sacrifice something large, but a 3/1 is good enough. And when you’re in the market to draw a lot of cards, there’s always options like Yargle, Glutton of Urborg.

#7. Tom, Bert, and William

Tom, Bert, and William’s main ability, like most green and black power-matters commanders, is to sacrifice a creature and draw cards based on its power. You can do that anytime, no questions asked; just pay and that’s it. So it’s interesting as a sacrifice outlet, as well as a discard outlet. Plus, when it dies, you get another version of it as an artifact with the same abilities, so it’s got some solid resistance against removal.

#6. Helga, Skittish Seer

Helga, Skittish Seer is a very popular Bant () commander, and here you’re rewarded for casting 4+ mana spells, not just 4-power creatures. It can be anything, really, even affinity or delve creatures. Helga can also generate mana based on its power, which increases with the more expensive spells you cast. Giant Growth on this card becomes a ritual, and you can include tap/untap shenanigans to generate more mana and cast more expensive spells.

#5. Eshki, Temur’s Roar

Eshki, Temur's Roar is a Commander precon leader built around high-powered creatures. You have benefits for playing creatures that have 4 or greater power, and then 6 or greater power. First, you’ll have to play some smaller creatures to boost Eshki. Ideally, you’ll want all your creatures to have at least 4 power so you keep drawing cards, but the real fun starts when you cast a 6/6, draw a card, and deal like 7-8 damage to each player.

#4. Xenagos, God of Revels

Xenagos, God of Revels is a classic RG competitive card. It’s indestructible and grants a huge bonus to other creatures right away. If you have Xenagos in play and cast a 6/6, you can use it right away to attack as a 12/12. This card is excellent with big creatures that don’t have haste and need to attack once to get a decent payoff. And considering that you get this bonus every turn, you might as well play extra combat spells.

#3. Dina, Essence Brewer

Golgari () has no shortage of big creatures, and Dina, Essence Brewer is an excellent way to take advantage of them. You’ll want big, cheap creatures with huge drawbacks, like Rotting Regisaur or Daemogoth Titan, and by sacrificing them, you can turn a mere 1/1 on board into a monster. You can also use this ability to gain huge chunks of life and profit from that with cards like Sanguine Bond.

#2. Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might / Temple of Power

Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might is basically a way to make all your creatures that deal 1 damage consistently to your opponents deal 4 damage per ping instead. Think about cards like Agate Instigator and Impact Tremors. Casting a spell that makes tokens and you can kill players. Adding any sort of way to increase Ojer Axonil’s power is devastating in the right context.

#1. Vivi Ornitier

Vivi Ornitier is just an absurd card across many formats, including EDH and cEDH. Whenever you cast noncreature spells, Vivi gets +1/+1 counters, and you can generate mana equal to its power for free, once each turn. If you cast a 1-mana spell that gives Vivi +3/+0, it’s now a 4/4 that can generate a load of mana for free, and that’s in any combination of Izzet colors. Naturally, you can use this mana to cast more spells, make your Vivi bigger, and deal a lot of damage to your opponents. Cards that are enablers and payoffs for strong strategies are very dangerous, but apparently WotC hasn’t learned that lesson yet.

Commanding Conclusion

Rhonas the Indomitable | Illustration by Jack Wang

Power can mean a lot of things when we’re looking at power-matters decks. There are certainly powerful creatures, creatures that care about their buddies’ power, and some nasty 12/12 tramplers that carry their own weight. And many of these are indeed powerful and popular commanders, at least judging from lists posted online.

What are your favorite power-matters commanders? Have you ever built around any of these? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over in the Draftsim Discord. And for more on MTG and Commander, do check out our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep.

Until next time, stay safe!