MTG: It’s Only Natural – Top Five Elemental Commanders
Careful walking outside during bad weather in the MTG Universe. Sometimes, even the storms themselves are enemies.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our ongoing series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander.
Elementals are one of my favorite creature types in MTG, and they make incredible Commanders. When the forces of nature itself rise up to do battle, you know it’s going to be an epic fight. Elementals usually bring extra pieces to the battle, like evasion, self-boost, or direct damage, and they can overrun your opponent with surprising speed. If you want to unleash the eldritch forces of nature on your opponents, check out these five monsters.
For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering. You use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory. EDHRec.com is an excellent source for Commander info and can give you ideas on how to build your next Commander deck or tune an existing one.
Horde of Notions
When you want to throw nature at your opponent, you might as well throw ALL of it. The Horde of Notions is a collective force of all the spirits of nature, united with deadly intent against your opponents. They are a 5/5 for one of each color with a nice suite of vigilance, trample, and haste, giving you power right away.
However, the best part about the Horde is its ability to bring back an Elemental from your graveyard for one mana of each color. A lot of Elementals have an Evoke ability, meaning they hit the field and then immediately die. Horde lets you get their Evoke trigger, then bring them back for another run. Plus, since you’re in all five colors, there’s no limit to the pain train you can assemble.
Omnath, Locus of the Roil
You’re going to see some version of Omnath a lot on this list, so strap in. His Temur offering is one of my favorites, dishing out quick damage and giving you a boost and card advantage. As most of his incarnations are, he’s all about landfall, so make sure you have a deck that can recur lands or bounce them to your hand. If you can get a land wheel going, you can make a nasty army of angry storms to overwhelm your enemies.
Omnath, Locus of All
Here’s an Omnath that DOESN’T care about Landfall, but I guess completion will do that to you. He turns all your unspent mana into Black mana, allowing you to stock up a massive pile. He also lets you generate mana off cards from the top of your library and ALSO gives you a card advantage. Pack his deck with multicolored and X-cost cards and unleash the mana storm on your enemies.
Omnath, Locus of Rage
This is probably the Omnath people fear most, and for good reason. Whenever a land hits the battlefield, you get a chunky 5/5 Elemental, and whenever an Elemental dies, you deal 3 damage to whatever you want. But if only there was a way to turn your lands into Elementals…oh wait, there is. Unleash your land creatures on your enemies and make them suffer for stopping you.
Animar, Soul of Elements
A solid Commander in any deck, Animar thrives with his fellow Elementals. The bigger he gets, the cheaper they are, which means you can play more, and make him even bigger. Slap trample or fly on this monster and watch the ferns fly.
What do you think of these Commanders?
