The 12 Best Wizard Lords in Magic Ranked

Naban, Dean of Iteration | Illustration by Ryan Alexander Lee

Wizards are a pretty well-supported creature type, with many MTG sets like Dominaria and Zendikar Rising that explicitly make wizards a draftable archetype, or a good Standard deck during its time that gave us access to Counterspell and Lightning Bolt Wizard's Lightning and Wizard's Retort. But wizards are often reliant on instants and sorceries to become a little more than 1/1s or 2/2s, which leads naturally to spellslinger decks.

Today, we take a look at the best ways to buff your wizards in combat through lords – creatures that naturally enhance your wizards should they enter the red zone. Wizards are tricky, though, so these aren’t your typical creature lords.

Let’s dive in and see what we’ll find!

What Are Wizard Lords in MTG?

Adeliz, the Cinder Wind | Illustration by Zezhou Chen

Wizard lords are cards, usually creature cards, that make your wizards stronger, be it with a power and toughness boost or by granting them relevant abilities. Although wizards are a pretty well-supported creature type, they’re not well-known for their physical prowess, so many of these typal bonuses are tied to a condition: They trigger when your wizards enter the battlefield or when you cast an instant or sorcery spell. As such, wizard decks tend to be very explosive.

The lords don’t need to be wizards themselves, but they must give abilities to wizards specifically, or else we’re in generic typal territory. And for the record, cards like Morophon, the Boundless and Roaming Throne can be excellent “wizard lords”.

Honorable Mentions

Cards like Voidmage Prodigy and Azami, Lady of Scrolls add powerful and very relevant abilities to wizards, and they can be almost considered wizard lords. But I’m restricting lords to combat-related abilities with a touch of cost reduction, so I'll pass on these.

#12. Summon: Esper Ramuh

Summon: Esper Ramuh isn’t even a permanent buff and you need to wait a turn to get it, but it lasts for two turns, during which you get a +1/+0 bonus to all your wizards. This creature can also do a nice Flametongue Kavu impression if you’re doing the spellslinger thing.

#11. Sage of Fables

Sage of Fables helps all wizards that enter after it, so you can consider it a kind of wizard anthem. This card goes well with other cards that produce wizard tokens, like the Final Fantasy ones that create 0/1 black mages or Docent of Perfection. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist can also benefit from the buff with the tokens it creates.

#10. Stonybrook Banneret

Stonybrook Banneret is a strong support for wizard creatures that makes them cost less. This directly helps decks that have a lot of card draw or synergies based on casting wizard spells. In particular, Naban, Dean of Iteration can have an explosive turn with many wizards that enter at the same time.

#9. Naban, Dean of Iteration

Naban, Dean of Iteration, like Sage of Fables, helps all wizards that come after it when it doubles their enters abilities. Especially good for cards like Dualcaster Mage or Snapcaster Mage that thrive on the entering aspect. Getting to flashback two spells with old Snappy is very good, indeed. Cards like Viashino Pyromancer deal an insane 4 damage, too. 

#8. Harmonic Prodigy

Harmonic Prodigy doubles every wizard trigger, including but not limited to enters triggers, which is quite sufficient to rank it above Naban, Dean of Iteration. The flexibility here is strong too; this lord extends the double triggers to shamans (Guttersnipe) and allows you to double on important wizard triggers like Vivi Ornitier or Talrand, Sky Summoner.

#7. Docent of Perfection / Final Iteration

Docent of Perfection is a clunky wizard lord, as you need to go through steps, but it’s a lord nevertheless. I find it amusing that once you transform it into Final Iteration, it “turns” your 1/1 wizards into 3/2 flying ones, which is the same thing that happens when you transform a Delver of Secrets (also a wizard). Besides, this card is already a good “dragon-sized flier” that creates 1/1 wizards when you cast spells.

#6. Kuja, Genome Sorcerer / Trance Kuja, Fate Defied

Similarly, Kuja, Genome Sorcerer creates aggressive Final Fantasy wizard tokens every turn, which already contribute to the spellslinger strategy. Once you control four or more wizards, you get to flip Kuja into Trance Kuja, Fate Defied and double all the damage caused by your wizards. Kuja is also a wizard, so it counts towards the 4-wizard threshold and benefits from its own bonus. When all your 0/1 wizards deal 2 damage per spell cast, you’re in business.

#5. Adeliz, the Cinder Wind

Adeliz, the Cinder Wind is a simple uncommon and the perfect explosive card for a spellslinger deck; it gives wizards you control a prowess-like effect. If you chain cantrip after cantrip, you can buff your entire wizard team for +2/+2 or +3/+3. This card sees a good amount of play in rarity-restricted formats. 

#4. Naru Meha, Master Wizard

Naru Meha, Master Wizard is a classic lord that gives the good old +1/+1 to every wizard you control. It’s very thematic that wizards are very tricky, often changing their stats mid-combat with prowess and the like, and this lets you flash a lord in and copy a spell for free. As Gandalf would say, “she arrives precisely when needed.”

#3. Archmage of Echoes

Archmage of Echoes works on a different axis than other wizard lords, but it basically clones all your wizard (permanent) spells. Why get double the triggers when you can get double the creatures, straight away?

#2. Seasoned Dungeoneer

Even if you set aside the fact that the initiative is a strong mechanic, the ability Seasoned Dungeoneer provides is top-notch. Protection provides unblockability, so your wizards can connect at will, and it helps saboteur abilities immensely. Unlike Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, the white color is a bit off here, so it’s hard to fit into a traditional wizard deck unless you build around the party mechanic within the color identity.

#1. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is the top reason to build around wizards in EDH, and EDHREC shows that with almost 10k lists. Its eminence ability supports wizards so well, and it compounds with other cards like Harmonic Prodigy on the battlefield. The kicker to your wizard spells is strong, and the card doesn’t even need to be on the battlefield. Inalla is in the right color combination as well, seeing as wizards are mostly blue and red with a bit of a black splash.

Wrap Up

Naru Meha, Master Wizard | Illustration by Matt Stewart

There aren’t that many wizard lords in MTG, so you can always rely on “generic typal”. It turns out that the best incentive to have wizards around is usually instants and sorceries, since cards like Flame of Anor get better when you control a wizard, and Constructed staples like Snapcaster Mage and Dreadhorde Arcanist are famous for re-casting instants and sorceries.

It’s a good flavor win that wizards are tricky, and so are their lords. Which ones are your favorites? Are there any cards we could also consider wizard lords that aren’t in this list? Let me know in the comments section below or leave us a message at Draftsim Twitter/X.

Thanks for reading guys, and stay safe out there!