The 30 Best Temur Creatures in Magic Ranked

Yasova Dragonclaw | Illustration by Winona Nelson

Temur () decks thrive on having more mana and casting bigger creatures than the opposition. Combining Simic () ramp with Gruul () beasts results in massive creatures and expensive spells, not to mention mechanics like ferocious, which literally say “play big guys”.

But some of these cards are based on Izzet () creativity mixed with green, branching into other interesting archetypes, like copying spells and energy counters. MTG has around 50 Temur creatures, and we are selecting the best ones today. Most of these are also legendary, so they make excellent commanders as well.

What are Temur Creatures in MTG?

Maelstrom Wanderer | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez

Temur () creatures are creatures with a green, blue, and red color identity. They can be gold creatures, hybrid creatures, or have all three colors by combining the casting cost and the mana used to activate their abilities.

Named after the Tarkir Temur clan, Temur creatures are big. This color combination often cares about X-spells, having 4 power creatures in play, and more. But, as often happens with Commander precons, they branch out to other themes like +1/+1 counter matters, energy counters, and more.

#30. Karakyk Guardian

Karakyk Guardian has good stats and relevant protection, plus flying, vigilance, and trample, warranting a place in lower-power dragon EDH decks. I’m just pointing out that this card is a Draft uncommon these days, with stats that could easily be on rare or mythic cards. Right Palladia-Mors, the Ruiner?

#29. Savage Knuckleblade

Savage Knuckleblade was once a very powerful Constructed playable card, and a reason to make a Temur deck. It’s very pushed as a 4/4 with lots of different abilities. But, given MTG’s recent power creep, it’s very clunky and often plays out as just a vanilla 4/4, with a lot of mana investment needed for it to be good. Its best use in Commander is to increase your density of 4-power or multicolor creautres.

#28. Yasova Dragonclaw

Yasova Dragonclaw gives you an awesome Act of Treason triggered ability every turn. You can build around effects that sacrifice a creature for profit, like Birthing Pod, Neoform, or Prime Speaker Vannifar. Blue’s polymorph effects are also fair game. 

#27. Vodalian Mindsinger

Vodalian Mindsinger acts as a Sower of Temptation of sorts, and you can invest extra mana to make it bigger and steal larger creatures. This card fits in diverse decks with themes like kicker to +1/+1 counters and theft.

#26. Eshki Dragonclaw

Eshki Dragonclaw has solid stats, and vigilance plus trample are excellent abilities for a creature that grows. The bad news is: This ability is somewhat hard to trigger, as it requires a specific set of cards and mana. The good news is, you don’t need to trigger that more than once to have an exceptional creature on the battlefield. 

#25. Loot, the Key to Everything

Loot, the Key to Everything provides an interesting build around effect, incentivizing you to have different card types. This allows you to cast cards from exile, and lately, Temur colors have been pushing into this direction. Cards like Laelia, the Blade Reforged and Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius play into this theme and strengthen your engine. When Loot gets going, it’s a nice card advantage engine, but sometimes you’ll be left with a tiny 1/2 creature that exiles one or two cards over the course of a game.

#24. Riku of Many Paths

Riku of Many Paths (or Riku of modal decks) is a sign of MTG’s design changing, as many of the better cards these days are modal spells. This card gives you a reason to build around powerful charms and commands, or even confluences. While Riku isn’t game-breaking, you get incremental value from Riku each time you cast a modal spell, which adds up in the long run.

#23. Kalamax, the Stormsire

Kalamax, the Stormsire provides you with a strong way to copy instant spells, provided you can tap it. Attacking is the natural route, but many mechanics can tap Kalamax, like convoke or waterbend. This is a unique Temur commander, leaning into the spellslinging and spell-copying route, but it takes work to extract its full potential.

#22. Omnath, Locus of the Roil

Omnath, Locus of the Roil is a strong midway point between having a lot of elementals in play and a lot of lands. Many elemental cards are in this design space, such as Risen Reef and Zendikar's Roil, or even Omnath, Locus of Rage as a heavy hitter. You can also add this card to other ramp commanders who care about lands or elementals.

#21. Surrak Dragonclaw

The best aspect of Surrak Dragonclaw is that, as a commander, it makes all your creatures uncounterable tramplers. But in the command zone, you lose the surprise of a big 6/6 flash for just 5 mana. Regardless, it’s a nice addition to a deck with big creatures, and if you’re building around it, you have another reason to play giant non-trample creatures.

#20. Eshki, Temur’s Roar

Eshki, Temur's Roar is very fragile, but if you can reliably cast a creature spell every turn, you get a lot of value. Casting expensive cards is one of the things that makes MTG great, and drawing cards while dealing damage is not only fun but effective.

#19. Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic

Temur has always been most connected with energy cards, and here’s a way to take advantage of all that energy. Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic allows us to cash in X energy to make an X/X flying vehicle. That feeds into its second ability of generating energy when you deal damage with artifact creatures.

#18. Temur Battlecrier

Temur Battlecrier is a solid 3-mana creatures that makes your spells at least 1 mana cheaper, without any specialization (e.g., artifacts or noncreatures). That’s already good on a 4/3, and as the game goes on, your spells can get even cheaper. Ramp decks and spellslinger decks alike love this card, as every kind of deck enjoys having a mana discount.

#17. Saheeli, Radiant Creator

Saheeli, Radiant Creator is an excellent enabler and payoff for energy decks in general, especially if you’re also into artifacts. Paying three energy for a 5/5 copy of a good artifact, even if it only lasts until the end step, is such as strong move. Now your Solemn Simulacrum can hit for 5, ramp, and draw a card in the same turn. This card works wonders with the powerful Gearhulks, doubling their enter triggers. Making copies of permanents that generate energy (like Whirler Virtuoso) doesn’t even tax your energy that much.

#16. Illuna, Apex of Wishes

Illuna, Apex of Wishes is already a massive flying trampler regardless of its other abilities. What makes this card excellent is that you can mutate it onto another creature, make it a 6/6 flier, and also get a nice mutate trigger, allowing you to cheat a nonland permanent into play. This card offers many possible routes, so play it in a deck with lots of expensive cards, or with other mutate cards as a mutate commander.

#15. Ureni of the Unwritten

The first Ureni on this list is Ureni of the Unwritten. The best aspect of this card is that in a dragon deck, you often get two dragons for one. And that’s on an enter or attack trigger, and a 7/7 flier will have no problem attacking every turn. To get the most out of this commander, fill your deck with giant, expensive dragons like Dragonlord Atarka or Ureni, the Song Unending.

#14. Ureni, the Song Unending

The second Ureni is, of course, Ureni, the Song Unending. It’s a massive 10/10 dragon with an impactful enter effect, similar to Dragonlord Atarka. Getting a damage-based sweeper is one of the best ways to stabilize the board, and one of the best reasons to invest mana into a big creature. Not to mention that, when you add this card to other ramp decks, you can cheat this into play, or cast this 8-mana spell way ahead of curve.

#13. The Swarmlord

The Swarmlord is, first and foremost, a big beatstick. It lets you draw cards when creatures with +1/+1 counters die, which is excellent with creatures that already enter with +1/+1 counters if they were to die or be sacrificed. This card only gets stronger as the game continues, but building around an expensive commander that wants to be cast time and time again can be very mana-consuming. 

#12. Riku of Two Reflections

Riku of Two Reflections is a classic Temur commander that copies spells after paying an additional cost. I like that this card can make some instants and sorceries much more powerful, and it works very well with creatures that want to be copied, like Biovisionary, or creatures with strong enter and leave triggers.

#11. Xyris, the Writhing Storm

Xyris, the Writhing Storm offers solid support for casting wheels. Cards like Windfall make everyone discard and draw cards, and you’ll make 1/1 tokens, so cards like Impact Tremors and Cavalcade of Calamity can win fast.

You can also play with buff effects common in go-wide decks. Xyris is an interesting card because when you hit someone for three, they’ll also draw three cards, so maybe they’ll want to get attacked.

#10. Averna, the Chaos Bloom

Cascade is an excellent mechanic. It’s all upside, and a big creature with cascade often brings another big friend along for the ride. But then we get Averna, the Chaos Bloom, which gives us more value each time we cascade. Averna would be stronger if it itself had cascade, but it would be really broken. If your commander deck is built around cascade, here’s an excellent card to add.

#9. Flubs, the Fool

Flubs, the Fool can be very hard to play with, but it’s a powerful creature nonetheless. You can play extra lands, which already screams ramp and value, but the key here is the delicate balance between discarding, drawing, and keeping your hand hellbent. Blue and red already profit from discarding cards and drawing two cards a turn, and those payoffs will trigger all the time here. This mighty frog can fill your graveyard pretty quickly, and there are plenty of exploitable graveyard shenanigans in these colors.  

#8. Magus Lucea Kane

Magus Lucea Kane is an excellent build around for X-spells, synergizing very well with the ravenous mechanic from its Commander precon. You’ll get mana and copy a spell, so it’s all upside. Plus, in a deck filled with creatures that get +1/+1 counters, extra counters aren’t bad at all. Getting to double spells like Hydroid Krasis or Goldvein Hydra is massive. The only downside is that 1/1 for 4 mana without haste is very fragile—even though Lucea can turn itself into a 2/2. Better have a combat trick or a Lightning Greaves at the ready.

#7. Borborygmos and Fblthp

Borborygmos and Fblthp offer a lot of value for just 5 mana. You get a decent creature, a draw effect, and even the opportunity to transform excess land into removal. If your creature would be removed, you can even protect it by sending it back to your library. This creature has nice synergy with cards like Life from the Loam, where you get three lands back from your graveyard only to discard them again for 6 damage and repeat the whole cycle.

#6. Songcrafter Mage

Songcrafter Mage is Snapcaster Mage in Temur colors, allowing us to harmonize instants or sorceries. We get a better body, too. It’s a nice addition to spellslinger decks, and it’s popped up in Standard control decks. The fact that you can cast it and tap it immediately to reduce from the spell’s cost is very distinct from old Snappy, which excels with low-cost spells.

#5. Storm, Force of Nature

The storm mechanic is very powerful, but the cards that have storm are usually on the safe side. What Storm, Force of Nature allows us to do is to give storm to spells that don’t have it in the first place, similar to how cards like Thousand-Year Storm work. As a commander, this card enables interesting combos, like chaining an Opt into two Rampant Growths, into three Manamorphoses, and so on. Things start to get interesting when we add storm to Game Changers like Jeska's Will, a copy card like Fork, or when we introduce the magecraft mechanic.

#4. Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm

MTG players love dragons, so why not build around a card that gives you twice that many dragons, in the form of dragon tokens? Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm already sits on top of the dragon commanders, and it’s one of the most popular commanders overall. And if you’re making dragon tokens, why not make double the tokens with Doubling Season and Parallel Lives while you're at it? Or draw plenty of cards with Elemental Bond?   

#3. Loot, the Pathfinder

Look, it’s hard to hate a creature that has draws three cards. Loot, the Pathfinder is pure upside, and all modes are relevant. You can ritual into three more mana, draw cards, Lightning Bolt something. And it’s also a 2/4 double striker. With all these abilities, I’d be happy with a simple 2/2 body, but that’s how modern MTG works these days.

#2. Maelstrom Wanderer

Like Animar, Soul of Elements, WotC hit the nail on the head when they designed Maelstrom Wanderer. If you like decks with explosive plays and big creatures, this card has you covered. It’s a 7/5 haste that cascades twice, giving you an excellent chance of finding a 4-mana creature or bigger. If it gets countered or destroyed, you still gained value from the double cascade. And if it dies, it goes into the command zone, so you cast it again. Your whole game plan revolves around casting this card as many times as you can.

#1. Animar, Soul of Elements

Animar, Soul of Elements is the classic Temur commander from the first Commander precons. It’s a creature that ramps your other creatures and that gets bigger whenever you cast more creatures. No downside whatsoever. In fact, they got this design so right that, to this day, a 2012-13 card is still playable and popular. Another interesting thing is that dumping +1/+1 counters onto Animar turns it into a good beatstick. Animar works very well with colorless creatures since you can cast them for free most of the time.

Wrap Up

Surrak Dragonclaw | Illustration by Jaime Jones

And that’s about it for the best Temur creatures. As we expect from MTG these days, most three-color creatures are legendary and thus Commander build-around cards. It’s nice that Temur gets some diversity, with boring big creatures, dragons, cards that care about instants, energy, copying effects, and more.

Do you often play Temur Commander decks? Which is your favorite creature? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over Draftsim Discord.

Until next time, stay safe!