All Secrets of Strixhaven Secondary Precon Commanders Ranked

Last updated on April 13, 2026

Muddle, the Ever Changing | Illustration by Andrew Mar

Secrets of Strixhaven dropped so many exciting cycles of commanders, like the elder dragons and the precon face commanders, but the secondary commanders from the SOS Commander Decks haven’t gotten the love they deserve. These are all cool cards that could lead your next brew!

#5. Excava, the Risen Past

Excava, the Risen Past is a fantastic enabler for Lorehold’s leave the graveyard archetype, plus its attack trigger synergizes well with red’s extra combats. I wish it could reanimate larger permanents, but perhaps I’m underrating what players can do with trinkets and cheap creatures, especially with a Solemnity or something to cheat the finality counters.

#4. Scriv, the Obligator

Scriv, the Obligator pits your opponents against each other. It doesn’t use goad, but rather punishes your opponents for attacking you while buffing their creatures when they attack someone else. The Contracts take an interesting stab at correcting one of goad’s greatest weaknesses: In the 1v1, it does nothing. But a Contract’s life loss provides an advantage when racing another player. It has potential as an aggro commander, though it would be more impressive if it forced creatures to attack.

#3. Primo, the Unbounded

Primo, the Unbounded pairs surprisingly well with hydras considering it doesn’t have the creature type or interact with X-spells itself.

Most hydras worth playing are 0/0s already, and they have strong synergy overlaps with Primo: Both want +1/+1 counter payoffs, lots of ramp, x-spell cards like Nexos and Unbound Flourishing. They naturally go together, then Primo makes your board better by spitting out up to three tokens each combat. The biggest thing holding this back is a lack of flexibility; where else does this commander go?

#2. Gorma, the Gullet

The first thing I thought of when I saw Gorma, the Gullet were the infinite combos. Any creature with persist plus a free sacrifice outlet goes infinite while Gorma is in play. Persist loops are hardly new, but having one of the three necessary combo pieces in the command zone makes assembling them far easier.

Plus, you always have the option to play Gorma fairly. Gorma becomes a significant threat, as do other creatures. Imagine pairing it off with cards that make Eldrazi Scions and Spawn to ramp into battlecruisers!

#1. Muddle, the Ever-Changing

Muddle, the Ever-Changing might be the most interesting of these five commanders with its unique copy effect. Casting instants or sorceries lets Muddle clone a creature, but it gets myriad. That could be great for abusing powerful enters ability on cards like Mulldrifter.

Izzet () capitalizes on adding tokens to the board with blue’s Coastal Piracy effects and Impact Tremors from red. Of course, the spellslinger commander demands balancing those creatures with instants and sorceries, which is always a good time.

Lots of creatures also benefit from appearing in multiples. For example, three Professional Face-Breakerss create an obscene amount of treasure, triple Starwinder draws an equally absurd number of cards, and three Bloodthirsters ought to wrap a game up nicely.