TLDR
Every Commander player should try cards that teach the format: ramp, interaction, card draw, protection, mana fixing, graveyard hate, and clean win conditions.
Start with staples like Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Swords to Plowshares, Beast Within, Counterspell, Blasphemous Act, Swiftfoot Boots, Command Tower, Skullclamp, and Heroic Intervention.
Then test splashier cards like Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe, Cyclonic Rift, Toxic Deluge, Craterhoof Behemoth, Torment of Hailfire, and Teferi’s Protection to learn what higher-impact Commander cards feel like.
Proxy expensive cards before buying them if your group allows proxies. Commander is a better format when players can test ideas before spending serious money.
Intro
Some Commander cards are famous because they are powerful. Others are famous because they teach you something about the format the first time you play them.
That is the best way to answer the question: What MTG Cards Should Every Commander Player Try? The answer is not “jam every expensive staple into every deck.” That gets boring fast. The better answer is to try the cards that help you understand how Commander games actually work: mana development, timing, table politics, protection, card advantage, and closing the game.
Commander is a 100-card singleton multiplayer format built around a commander and color identity. That structure changes how cards play. A cheap removal spell can matter more than a flashy mythic. A humble mana rock can do more work than a seven-mana dragon. And a card that looks “fair” in a two-player format can get absurd when three opponents are feeding it triggers.
So this list is not just a pile of staples. It is a practical testing guide. Try these cards to learn what your decks need, what your playgroup enjoys, and what is worth buying for real.
Start With The Cards That Make Commander Work
Before testing flashy cards, every Commander player should understand the boring cards.
And yes, “boring” is doing a lot of work there.
Commander decks need mana, card draw, removal, and a way to survive long enough to do their thing. If you skip those pieces, your deck may look exciting but play like a hand of seven-drops and regret.
The first cards to try are the foundation cards:
- Sol Ring
- Arcane Signet
- Command Tower
- Fellwar Stone
- Swords to Plowshares
- Counterspell
- Beast Within
- Chaos Warp
- Blasphemous Act
- Swiftfoot Boots
- Skullclamp
- Reliquary Tower
You will not run all of these in every deck. Some are color-specific. Some are better in certain metas. But each one teaches a useful Commander lesson.
Sol Ring teaches acceleration. Swords to Plowshares teaches efficient answers. Skullclamp teaches how small creatures become real card advantage. Blasphemous Act teaches why board wipes are not optional in creature-heavy pods.
These are the cards that make the rest of the deck function.
Ramp Cards Every Commander Player Should Try
Commander games are often won by the player who spends the most mana over the course of the game. Not always. But often enough that ignoring ramp is a mistake.
Sol Ring
Sol Ring is the classic Commander mana rock. It is legal, widely played, and sometimes a little silly. A turn-one Sol Ring can make a normal hand feel explosive.
Every Commander player should try it because it shows how much tempo matters. It also teaches a social lesson: fast starts attract attention.
Arcane Signet
Arcane Signet is less dramatic than Sol Ring, but it is one of the cleanest mana rocks in the format. It taps for any color in your commander’s color identity, which makes it easy to slot into most multicolor decks.
Try it in two-color, three-color, and five-color decks. You will quickly see why fixing matters.
Fellwar Stone
Fellwar Stone is a little more interesting than it looks. In multiplayer Commander, at least one opponent usually has a color you need. It is not perfect, but it is often efficient.
It teaches you to think about the table, not just your own board.
Nature’s Lore And Farseek
Green decks should try Nature’s Lore and Farseek because they find lands instead of artifacts. That makes them harder to remove than mana rocks and better in decks that care about landfall, domain, or shock lands.
Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach are still useful, especially for slower casual decks, but two-mana ramp often feels much smoother.
Smothering Tithe
Smothering Tithe is one of the first higher-impact white cards many Commander players test. It can create a huge amount of Treasure in multiplayer, especially when opponents draw extra cards.
It is strong. It is also a table-politics card because everyone gets tired of answering “Do you pay the two?” after a while.
Try it if your pod is comfortable with higher-power staples.
Removal Cards Every Commander Player Should Try
Removal teaches humility. Your giant board state is never as safe as you think it is.
A good Commander deck needs answers to creatures, artifacts, enchantments, graveyards, and sometimes lands. The exact mix depends on your colors, but every player should test efficient removal early.
Swords To Plowshares
Swords to Plowshares is one of the best creature removal spells ever printed. One mana. Exile target creature. The life gain usually does not matter much in Commander unless you remove something small for no reason.
It teaches a simple lesson: cheap interaction lets you keep playing your own game while still answering a threat.
Path To Exile
Path to Exile is similar, but the opponent gets a basic land. That downside matters more early than late. It is still excellent, especially when you need a creature gone for good.
Beast Within
Beast Within answers almost anything. Giving someone a 3/3 Beast is usually a fine trade when the target is a combo piece, planeswalker, problem enchantment, or giant creature.
This is one of the best cards for teaching flexible removal.
Chaos Warp
Red needs Chaos Warp. It is one of red’s cleanest answers to enchantments and other permanent types red traditionally struggles with. The random reveal can backfire, but usually you are trading a known problem for an unknown card.
That is often good enough.
Feed The Swarm
Feed the Swarm gives black a way to answer enchantments. That matters. Black has plenty of creature removal, but enchantments can be a serious problem.
Try it in mono-black or black-heavy decks, especially if your group plays Ghostly Prison effects, Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe, or combo enchantments.
Board Wipes Worth Trying
Single-target removal is not enough. Sometimes the board gets out of hand. Sometimes the token player has 44 creatures. Sometimes someone says “I promise this is not lethal,” and you know it absolutely is.
Try these board wipes:
- Blasphemous Act
- Austere Command
- Toxic Deluge
- Farewell
- Cyclonic Rift
- Vandalblast
- Living Death
- Damnation
- Supreme Verdict
- Vanquish the Horde
Blasphemous Act
Blasphemous Act is the classic red board wipe because it gets cheaper as the board fills up. In Commander, that happens constantly. It is efficient, simple, and often exactly what red decks need.
Austere Command
Austere Command teaches choice. It can remove large creatures, small creatures, artifacts, enchantments, or some combination. That flexibility makes it better than it first looks.
Toxic Deluge
Toxic Deluge is efficient and gets around indestructible by giving creatures negative toughness. The life payment matters, but Commander starts at 40 life. You can often afford it.
Cyclonic Rift
Cyclonic Rift is powerful enough that you should talk about it in lower-power pods. Overloaded Cyclonic Rift can reset everyone else and leave your board untouched. It often ends games.
Try it at least once so you understand why people respect it, and sometimes hate it.
Card Draw And Card Advantage Cards To Try
Commander players underrate card draw at first. Then they lose to someone who drew 14 extra cards and pretend it was luck.
It was not luck.
Card advantage is how decks keep functioning after the first few turns.
Rhystic Study
Rhystic Study is one of the format’s most famous blue enchantments. It either draws cards or taxes opponents. In practice, it usually does both.
It also teaches table patience. Some groups find it funny. Some find it tiring. Know your pod.
Mystic Remora
Mystic Remora is cheaper than Rhystic Study and can draw a pile of cards early. The cumulative upkeep means it will not stay forever, but it does not need to.
Try it in blue decks that want to refill early.
Esper Sentinel
Esper Sentinel is a strong white card advantage piece, especially in decks that can buff it. It punishes opponents for casting noncreature spells without paying extra mana.
It is also a good reminder that white card draw has improved a lot over the years.
Skullclamp
Skullclamp is absurd in decks with small creatures, tokens, sacrifice fodder, or creatures that naturally die. It turns tiny bodies into real cards.
Do not put it in a deck with only big creatures and expect magic. It needs support.
Black Market Connections
Black Market Connections is one of the cleanest black value engines. It can create Treasure, cards, and creatures at the cost of life. In Commander, life is a resource, and this card teaches that lesson quickly.
Guardian Project And Beast Whisperer
Green creature decks should try Guardian Project and Beast Whisperer. They reward you for doing what your deck already wants to do: cast creatures.
These cards are not flashy, but they keep creature decks from running out of gas.
Protection Cards Every Commander Player Should Try
Commander is full of removal. If your deck depends on its commander or one key creature, you need protection.
Lightning Greaves
Lightning Greaves gives haste and shroud for zero equip cost. It is excellent, but shroud can be awkward because you cannot target your own creature either.
That small downside teaches a real rules lesson.
Swiftfoot Boots
Swiftfoot Boots costs one to equip but gives hexproof instead of shroud. That means you can still target your own creature with auras, equipment, counters, and protection spells.
Many players prefer Boots in decks that need to keep modifying their commander.
Heroic Intervention
Heroic Intervention is one of green’s best protection spells. It can save your board from a wipe, protect key permanents, and punish opponents for assuming their removal will resolve cleanly.
Teferi’s Protection
Teferi’s Protection is one of the strongest defensive cards in Commander. It can save you from lethal attacks, board wipes, combo turns, and bad decisions you made two turns earlier.
It is powerful. It is also expensive. This is a perfect card to proxy-test before buying.
Malakir Rebirth
Malakir Rebirth is a small card that plays much better than it looks. It can save an important creature and doubles as a land when needed.
Try it in black creature decks, aristocrats decks, and commander-focused decks.
Lands Every Commander Player Should Try
Mana bases decide more games than people admit. A deck full of strong spells will still feel bad if the lands do not cast them on time.
Start with these:
- Command Tower
- Exotic Orchard
- Path of Ancestry
- Bojuka Bog
- Reliquary Tower
- Rogue’s Passage
- War Room
- Myriad Landscape
- Fabled Passage
- Ash Barrens
Command Tower
Command Tower is the cleanest Commander land. It taps for any color in your commander’s color identity and enters untapped. It belongs in most multicolor Commander decks.
Bojuka Bog
Bojuka Bog teaches graveyard respect. Many Commander decks use the graveyard as a second hand. Exiling one player’s graveyard on a land slot is valuable.
It does enter tapped, so it is not free. But it is often worth trying.
Reliquary Tower
Reliquary Tower removes your maximum hand size. It is best in decks that draw a lot of cards. Do not put it in every deck by habit. A colorless land has a real cost in color-hungry lists.
Rogue’s Passage
Rogue’s Passage gives one creature unblockable. That can matter in Voltron decks, commander damage decks, and big creature decks that need to close.
It is slow, but it wins real games.
Win Conditions Every Commander Player Should Try
A lot of Commander decks can survive. Fewer can actually end the game cleanly.
That matters. A deck with no win condition makes the table sit through 90 minutes of “almost.”
Try a few cards that teach closing power.
Craterhoof Behemoth
Craterhoof Behemoth is the classic green creature finisher. It rewards you for building a wide board and often ends the game immediately.
It is not subtle. But it teaches what a real finisher looks like.
Torment Of Hailfire
Torment of Hailfire is a black mana sink that scales into the late game. With enough mana, it forces opponents to lose life, discard cards, or sacrifice permanents repeatedly.
It is a strong finisher in big-mana black decks.
Finale Of Devastation
Finale of Devastation can tutor a creature early or win the game late when X is large enough. That flexibility makes it one of the better green spells to test.
Purphoros, God Of The Forge
Purphoros rewards creature-heavy decks and token strategies. If your deck makes lots of creatures, Purphoros can burn the table down without attacking.
It also teaches a key Commander lesson: damage does not always come from combat.
Approach Of The Second Sun
Approach of the Second Sun is a simple alternate win condition. Cast it once, survive, draw back to it, cast it again.
It is slow enough for casual tables but focused enough to give a deck a clear plan.
Expensive Cards Worth Proxy-Testing First
Some Commander cards are worth trying, but not worth buying blind.
This is where proxies make sense, as long as your playgroup is fine with them. A proxy lets you test whether a card actually belongs in your deck before you spend real money. It also lets you protect expensive originals and try higher-power lists without turning Commander into a budget contest.
Cards worth proxy-testing first include:
- Rhystic Study
- Smothering Tithe
- Esper Sentinel
- Teferi’s Protection
- Fierce Guardianship
- Deflecting Swat
- Mana Drain
- The Great Henge
- Craterhoof Behemoth
- Ancient Tomb
- Gaea’s Cradle
- Fetch lands
- Shock lands
- Premium triomes
- Cyclonic Rift
- Toxic Deluge
For casual proxy orders, you can check out https://proxymtg.com
Just be clear with your table. Proxies should not be used to trick anyone, pass as authentic cards, or sneak a power-level jump into a casual game. They are best for playtesting, casual Commander, cube, and protecting expensive real cards.
Cards To Try Carefully
Some cards are worth trying once because they teach you about Commander power levels. They can also annoy people if used carelessly.
Try these only with the right pod:
- Thassa’s Oracle
- Demonic Consultation
- Expropriate
- Winter Orb
- Drannith Magistrate
- Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
- Armageddon
- Jokulhaups
- Stasis
- Opposition Agent
- Narset, Parter of Veils
- Notion Thief
- Extra turn loops
These cards are not automatically wrong. Commander has many different power levels. But they change the type of game being played.
A casual dragon deck and a Thassa’s Oracle combo deck are not trying to have the same night. That is fine. Just say it before shuffling.
A Simple “Try These First” Commander Package
If a newer Commander player asked for a simple testing package, I would suggest starting with cards like these:
Colorless And Lands
- Sol Ring
- Arcane Signet
- Fellwar Stone
- Swiftfoot Boots
- Command Tower
- Exotic Orchard
- Bojuka Bog
- Reliquary Tower
White
- Swords to Plowshares
- Path to Exile
- Generous Gift
- Esper Sentinel
- Teferi’s Protection
- Austere Command
Blue
- Counterspell
- Arcane Denial
- Mystic Remora
- Rhystic Study
- Cyclonic Rift
- Pongify
Black
- Feed the Swarm
- Toxic Deluge
- Black Market Connections
- Reanimate
- Victimize
- Torment of Hailfire
Red
- Chaos Warp
- Blasphemous Act
- Vandalblast
- Jeska’s Will
- Impact Tremors
- Deflecting Swat
Green
- Nature’s Lore
- Farseek
- Beast Within
- Heroic Intervention
- Guardian Project
- Craterhoof Behemoth
This is not a universal decklist. It is a testing menu. Try the cards that fit your colors and strategy, then keep the ones that make your deck better without making your games worse.
What Not To Do
Do not copy every staple list blindly.
Commander is a social format. A card can be legal, powerful, and still wrong for your table. A casual precon pod probably does not need free counterspells, fast combo, and multiple tutors. A higher-power pod may expect exactly that.
Also, check legality before ordering cards. Commander bans change over time. Cards like Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus, Dockside Extortionist, and Nadu, Winged Wisdom are currently not legal in Commander. They are famous Commander cards, but famous does not mean playable.
That is especially important when using old decklists, old Reddit threads, or old YouTube videos. Commander advice gets stale.
Conclusion
What MTG Cards Should Every Commander Player Try? Start with the cards that teach the format.
Try efficient ramp so your deck actually functions. Try cheap removal so you understand timing. Try board wipes so you can recover from losing positions. Try card draw so you stop topdecking and calling it “variance.” Try protection so your commander survives. Try real win conditions so your deck can end the game.
Then test the expensive stuff with proxies before buying. Some staples really are worth owning. Others look better on paper than they feel in your deck.
The point is not to own every famous card. The point is to learn what each type of card does for your games. Once you understand that, your Commander decks get cleaner, stronger, and a lot more fun to play.
FAQs
What MTG Cards Should Every Commander Player Try First?
Every Commander player should try Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Command Tower, Swords to Plowshares, Beast Within, Counterspell, Blasphemous Act, Skullclamp, Swiftfoot Boots, and a few strong card draw engines in their colors.
Should Every Commander Deck Run Sol Ring?
Most Commander decks can run Sol Ring, and many do. It is not required, but it is one of the most common and efficient mana rocks in the format.
Are Expensive Commander Staples Always Worth Buying?
No. Expensive Commander staples are not always worth buying for every deck. Proxy-test cards like Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe, Teferi’s Protection, Craterhoof Behemoth, and fetch lands before committing to real copies.
Are Proxies Okay In Commander?
Proxies are often accepted in casual Commander when the playgroup agrees. They are not something to assume in stores, leagues, or sanctioned events. Always ask before the game.
What Cards Should Casual Commander Players Avoid?
Casual players should be careful with fast combo, mass land destruction, hard stax pieces, repeated extra turns, and cards that prevent opponents from playing. Those cards can be fine in the right pod, but they need a clear pregame conversation.
How Many Staples Should I Put In A Commander Deck?
Use enough staples to make your deck work, but do not let staples erase the deck’s identity. A good Commander deck usually has ramp, draw, removal, protection, and win conditions, then uses the remaining slots for theme and synergy.
References
- Wizards of the Coast: MTG Commander Format
- Wizards of the Coast: Banned and Restricted List
- Wizards of the Coast: On Proxies, Policy, and Communication
- EDHREC: Top Commander Cards
- ProxyMTG: Magic: The Gathering Proxies
- ProxyMTG: Print MTG Proxies
- Scryfall: Magic Card Database
Intent Sentence
This post helps Commander players decide which MTG cards to test by explaining the most useful staples, role players, finishers, lands, and proxy-testing candidates, so they can build stronger decks without buying expensive cards blindly.
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What MTG Cards Should Every Commander Player Try?
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What MTG Cards Should Every Commander Player Try?
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What MTG Cards Should Every Commander Player Try? Start with ramp, removal, draw, protection, finishers, lands, and proxy-tested staples.
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Not every Commander staple belongs in every deck. Here are the MTG cards every Commander player should try to better understand ramp, removal, card draw, protection, and win conditions.
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