The 31 Best Spirit Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on June 5, 2026

King of the Oathbreakers | Illustration by Tatiana Veryayskaya

Ghost movies are, for me, the scariest subgenre of horror. At the same time, ghosts are the least scary import from horror into the fantasy genre of all the monsters. Maybe it’s because a haunting is most scary when you’re alone, and that can’t really happen in the grand scale of heroic fantasy, making the ghost army in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King more quirky than frightening.

Perhaps that’s why I find spirits in MTG so interesting: They don’t quite fit the world. It often seems like the thing MTG spirits do best is durdle around. Well, hey, that’s me! Not quite awesome enough for heroism, and loves to durdle in EDH most of all!

Let’s see if I can help you conjure up some interest in spirit commanders for EDH.

What Are Spirit Commanders in MTG?

Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

There are over 100 legendary spirits in Magic, and those are the spirit commanders. Although there are some non-spirit commanders used in some spirit typal decks, most notably Quintorius, Loremaster and Hofri Ghostforge, those decks aren’t my focus here.

Like a lot of original Kamigawa block cards, they play best with the somewhat parasitic mechanics of those sets. Recently, we got some pretty powerful spirit dragons commanders in Tarkir: Dragonstorm. The best spirit commanders are multicolored, which makes sense for Commander, but there are also some interesting mono-color builds.

#31. Kami of the Crescent Moon

Kami of the Crescent Moon is a strange EDH deck. There are group hug vibes, but the endgame is usually milling folks out while also prepping your Thassa's Oracle style wincons. I’m not sure this deck counts as fun, but we’re talking mono-blue here. Fun is certainly a relative concept.

#30. Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor

Why choose Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor over Omnath, Locus of Creation? I’m not entirely sure, but it allows you to build to your Sylvan Awakening types of payoffs without becoming archenemy out of the gate for having a broken commander? Only in comparison to Omnath does this commander seem underwhelming. There’s a good deck here.

#29. Timin, Youthful Geist

Partnered with Rhoda, Geist Avenger, Timin, Youthful Geist can create a wide-reaching Shacklegeist experience, with loads of other effects that tap down opponents’ creatures and payoffs like Verity Circle. This is mostly an EDH meme build, but what other deck are you playing Borrowing 100,000 Arrows in?

#28. Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker

I love the challenge of building around a commander like Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker. Life loss effects like Serrated Scorpion? Discard effects like Virus Beetle? Of course you want Blood Artist and cards like Cadaver Imp. Good times!

#27. Horobi, Death's Wail

This is a fun deck that folds pretty hard to creatureless strategies. Horobi, Death's Wail can machine gun down creatures if you run a bunch of multi-targeting effects. Repeatable effects like Liquimetal Torque are also premium. You win with Rise of the Dark Realms or the typical mono-black wincons. If you win.

#26. Kokusho, the Evening Star

This is a mono-black version of a Yargle and Multani sac-your-commander-for-profit deck. What you get in the trade is that Feign Death effects feel better because Kokusho, the Evening Star has a death trigger that hits all and can be amplified by cards like Drivnod, Carnage Dominus. The downside of losing green ramp and muting the effectiveness of spells like Essence Harvest and Disciple of Bolas is a real cost, though.

#25. Hokori, Dust Drinker

Hokori, Dust Drinker is a decent mono-white stax commander, but leaving off blue for a commander like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV or even black with Drana and Linvala leaves some options out of the deck. If you’re gonna risk everyone hating you by bringing stax, at least this card’s Stasis vibes feel like a puzzle to solve, which maybe means a slight chance someone will have fun.

#24. Laelia, the Blade Reforged

Laelia, the Blade Reforged is a reasonable aggro card in Constructed formats like Historic, but in Commander, the idea is exile-focused with cards like Wild-Magic Sorcerer and a bunch of red impulse draw. When your best exile payoffs and enablers are cards like Kami of Celebration and Nalfeshnee you have to wonder, but the cast-from-exile archetype is ever-expanding.

#23. Kodama of the East Tree

Eastern Kodama is a powerful partner for any commander looking to do generally unfair things. Even the “fair” use of Kodama of the East Tree results in dumping extra permanents into play when you do just about anything. The “unfair” treatment usually involves a bounce land like Simic Growth Chamber and some landfall payoffs. It's a self-contained powerhouse before you even factor in your partner of choice.

#22. Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier

Agrus Kos, Eternal Soldier is Zada, Hedron Grinder but for abilities! There’s lots of good ones to spread around, from backup to mentor to planeswalker buffs. There are also some powerful cards in Boros to consider, including Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink, Duke Ulder Ravengard, Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder, and many others. Mother of Runes style effects are especially powerful here, as are copy effects like the combo-ready Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

#21. Moira and Teshar

This is a touchy build-around that I think has the potential to make Orzhov artifacts a decent deck. Some eggs, some powerful ETBs like Portal to Phyrexia, and some finishers like Bolas's Citadel, and I think there’s something here.

#20. O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami

Five-color spirits needs O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami as a commander, but I’m not sure it’s enough value as a commander to explore into 5-color. Are good spirits outside of Azorius colors like Lifespinner, Atsushi, the Blazing Sky, and Infernal Kirin worth it? Maybe…?

#19. Karlov of the Ghost Council

A really inexpensive commander with a removal ability, Karlov of the Ghost Council is decent Orzhov lifegain commander who lets you run your Soul Sisters with the Sanguine Bond + Exquisite Blood nonsense you love.

#18. Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness

Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness offers wide buffs to all your white and black legends, and it snowballs very quickly. WB has many cards that care about legends and low-powered creatures, and those are also low-cost legends that care about legends, to the point that a card like Arvad the Cursed is the top of your curve. The result? A surprisingly good aggro commander.

#17. Kodama of the West Tree

Another decent green spirit commander. For a Hardened Scales type of deck, Kodama of the West Tree is a sleeper compared to the more obviously powerful Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, but it can really take over a game with its trample ability and its ramp.

#16. Ranar the Ever-Watchful

I get that Brago, King Eternal is likely a better pure blink commander, and Vega, the Watcher is probably better if you are building around foretell cards. But I’d rather toss both into the 99 for Ranar the Ever-Watchful and play a more flexible game. This is my blink commander.

#15. Vega, the Watcher

The card draw has no limit, so Vega, the Watcher is a much more propulsive commander than Ranar, who’s a bit more of a value engine. Obviously great with foretell and adventure cards, Vega is also great with topdeck stuff like The Reality Chip and Magus of the Future. There’s some interesting ground to explore between pairing Errant and Giada and Cosmos Charger in this deck, as well.

#14. King of the Oathbreakers

King of the Oathbreakers is a very exciting spirit commander. It's a 3/3 flier for that has itself and other spirits you control phase out whenever they become the target of a spell. It also has a triggered ability that creates a tapped 1/1 flier whenever a spirit you control phases back in. Token generation, built-in protection, and a decent card on rate? I'm in!

#13. Yargle and Multani

Yargle and Multani wants you to throw it at opponents’ faces, then repeat. How good is that? Well, it’s more resilient to disruption than you’d think, except counterspells. It’s weaker to go-wide strategies than you might hope. That feels like if opposing decks are midrangey, you’re good. And a lot of the most popular commanders in EDH are the Commander version of midrange.

#12. Wan Shi Tong, Librarian

Wan Shi Tong, Librarian offers a way to benefit from all the tutoring and fetching that usually happens in a Commander game. When that happens, your flier will get stronger, and you’ll draw more cards. And if they don’t do any of that, the game slows down, which also benefits you. Cards like Demolition Field that make your opponents search for basic lands are extra good here.

#11. Neriv, Heart of the Storm

Neriv, Heart of the Storm takes advantage of all the hasty creatures the Horde tribe is known to have, considering mechanics like mobilize and dash. It’s an aggressive commander that doubles all the damage dealt by hasty creatures. You can also mix in blitz creatures or temporary tokens from abilities like myriad.

#10. Millicent, Restless Revenant

Meet your spirits typal commander of choice: Millicent, Restless Revenant! It’s too much value and too easy to cast to be dethroned any time soon.

#9. Karador, Ghost Chieftain

Karador, Ghost Chieftain is a really nice reanimator commander because its Abzan colors give you flexibility and it’s one of a handful of commanders that can reduce their own cost. Add broken cards like Karmic Guide and entomb effects like Buried Alive, then you can just keep recurring Spore Frog once you get a reanimation engine going and prevent combat damage thanks to its fog effect, among other annoying things you can do.

#8. Hinata, Dawn-Crowned

A unique commander who’s a blast to play, Hinata, Dawn-Crowned lets you break otherwise fair cards like Curse of the Swine and Heliod's Intervention with mana savings.

#7. Betor, Kin to All

Betor, Kin to All is an interesting toughness-matters commander. Betor itself already has 7 toughness, and you need at least 10 toughness to reap the benefits. MTG has no shortage of cheap, common 0/4 and 0/5 creatures, so it’s fairly easy to trigger this card. If you have more than 20 or 40 toughness among your creatures, things start to get really interesting. A card like Chelonian Tackle does a lot of work here, and the pain becomes real when we add classics like Doran, the Siege Tower.

#6. Betor, Ancestor’s Voice

Betor, Ancestor's Voice is a unique commander that cares about the amount of life you gained and lost this turn. Many white and black creatures trigger when you gain or lose life, regardless of the amount. Here, you’ll place +1/+1 counters equal to the amount of life gained, and you’ll reanimate a target based on the life you lost. The easiest way to fit these requirements is to attack with Betor and play black spells that allow you to draw cards and lose life.

#5. Hei Bai, Forest Guardian

Hei Bai, Forest Guardian is a nice 5-color shrine commander that gives you a shrine for sure each time it enters. That ties nicely with the second ability, which creates a 1/1 for each legendary enchantment you control (all shrines, basically). Just blinking Hei Bai and getting more shrines already gives you a lot of resource advantages because most shrines are better in multiples.

#4. Ureni of the Unwritten

Ureni of the Unwritten is a heavily-played dragon commander. Getting to put a dragon into play for free from your library is usually a 5- to 7-mana advantage, and red has many ways to give Ureni haste so you can trigger it twice in a turn. If your opponents snipe Ureni with a removal spell, you get to cast it again and keep getting dragons, or just use the dragons you already obtained. Once you get to 7+ mana, it’s hard to deal with Ureni outside of countering it or neutralizing its abilities on the battlefield.

#3. Brago, King Eternal

The most popular blink commander, Brago, King Eternal does require combat to trigger, which is a bit different than its competitors, but the value here is undeniable.

#2. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm

One of the best Temur commanders and strongest Temur cards overall, Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm is so good it competes with 5-color dragon commanders like The Ur-Dragon. What do I get for ditching the Orzhov colors and going Temur with Miirym in my deck? Double dragons, for all your retro video game referencing needs! Also double those ETBs, which is just punishing for dragons like Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, and a whole pile of awesome dragons.

#1. Teval, the Balanced Scale

Teval, the Balanced Scale is almost a top 10 commander on EDHREC, and with good reason. The card is, in fact, unbalanced. When Teval attacks, you mill three cards and ramp, and when cards leave your graveyard, you make a 2/2. The first thing to note here is the Gravecrawler combo with a sacrifice outlet to produce infinite 2/2 Zombie Druid tokens. There are many mechanics to trigger Teval’s ability fairly and many ways to profit from it, be it reanimation, flashback, or cards like Life from the Loam. Throw in some zombie lords, and you can even win by beating down with zombie tokens.

Best Spirit Commander Payoffs

Spirit commanders aren’t a unified idea, and many MTG sets treated spirits in different ways. Some big dragons are spirits on Tarkir, while Kamigawa has weird spirits that don’t even fly. But most do, so flying-matters cards usually fit a spirit deck. Kangee's Lieutenant and Empyrean Eagle shine here.

Many spirit decks make spirit tokens, so consider cards like Intangible Virtue. Others like Kykar, Wind's Fury and Quintorius, Loremaster make spirit tokens as well, so they can be a great fit.

Cards like Spectral Procession and Clarion Spirit pump out flying spirit tokens, and that helps with cards that require spirits in numbers.

Wrap Up

Yargle and Multani | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

I'm always on the lookout for new spirits, both in gameplay and for lore reasons! A lot of favorite legends are presumed dead. Maybe it’s time for a little ghostly fun in the sets to come?

As Shaggy and Scooby would say, zoinks!

Did we leave off your favorite legendary spirit? Let us now in the comments or the Discord. I look forward to a spirited discussion! And check out The Daily Upkeep newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest MTG news.