Though red is often lauded as one of the fastest and most aggressive colors in Magic: The Gathering, the 40-life nature of the commander format tends to throw a wrench into the viability of many of red’s traditional plans.
Despite this, there are still numerous commanders that allow red to pull ahead and successfully carry out its regular schemes due to the sheer value that these commanders provide. So today we’re going to discuss the best that red has to offer in the Commander format!
Updated August 29, 2022, by Paul DiSalvo: While red is most often regarded for its speed, aggression, and ability to deal direct damage, the color has developed over time, recently becoming synonymous with mechanics such as the ability to create treasure tokens and the mechanic of “impulsive draw.”
With such a robust range of abilities, it should be no shock that red is home to a litany of potent commanders, each bringing something unique and distinct to the table. Whether a red commander can accrue value through efficient damage or the ability to access a significant number of cards in a single turn, red commanders come in all shapes and sizes.
19 Delina, Wild Mage
Appearing in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Delina, Wild Mage is an underrated commander that makes use of dice rolling and can allow for potentially explosive turns if the dice are on your side. Whenever this 3/2 for four mana attacks, you roll 1d20. On a 1-14 you create a tapped and attacking copy of a creature under your turn that isn’t legendary and must be exiled at the end of combat.
However, if a 15-20 is rolled, this process is repeated. Not only can this allow you to make temporary tokens of highly impactful legendary tokens, but if you’re particularly lucky, this effect can provide several of these tokens, leading to particularly explosive turns. While this commander isn’t for everyone, for those who find adding an element of chance to Commander to be fun, Delina may be worth considering.
18 Karlach, Fury Of Avernus
One of the commanders printed in Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate that can be paired with a background, Karlach, Fury of Avernus is a highly offense-driven mono-red commander perfect for those who enjoy making the most out of combat. A 5/4 for five mana, whenever Karlach attacks for the first time each turn, you can untap each creature you control, gaining an additional combat step, effectively doubling the value of your offensive options.
While this effect is quite strong the fact that it can be paired with a wide variety of background options makes it quite flexible and a great choice for players looking to experiment with deck construction. We recommend options such as Guild Artisan that further incentivize attacking your opponents.
17 Laelia, The Blade Reforged
For the reasonable cost of three mana, Laelia, the Blade Reforged is a commander that blends aggression and red’s impulse draw mechanic. A 2/2 with haste, whenever Laelia attacks, you exile the top card of your library, gaining the ability to play that card this turn.
In addition to this providing card advantage, whenever you exile a card from your library, Laelia gains a +1/+1 counter. This means that not only does this commander provide consistent access to an additional card to play each turn, but if it’s paired with additional impulse-drawing effects, it continues to grow progressively larger and more dangerous for your opponents.
16 Jeska, Thrice Reborn
A mono-red planeswalker with partner, rather than having a set loyalty, Jeska enters the battlefield with an amount of loyalty equal to the number of times you’ve cast a commander in this game. While Jeska’s -X can be used to flexibly deal X damage to three targets simultaneously, the primary appeal of this commander is its zero ability.
Upon activating Jeska’s zero ability, target creatures deal three times as much combat damage to your opponents as they would otherwise. When paired with already sizable creatures with access to evasion, this ability can potentially deal lethal damage to opponents out of seemingly nowhere! Factor in additional deckbuilding potential due to Jeska’s Partner ability and you have a great red commander option.
15 Lathliss, Dragon Queen
Dragons are one of the most iconic creature types in Magic: The Gathering and they’ve appeared in every color in the game. However, many of the best dragons are found in the color of aggression, emotion, and passion: red.
Lathliss, Dragon Queen is a commander that rewards its controller each time they cast a dragon, by giving them a bonus in the form of a 5/5 flying dragon token. Once a Lathliss player has established a sizable brood of dragons, they can activate her second ability to increase the power of all dragons they control!
14 Heartless Hidetsugu
As a color that cares greatly about dealing large sums of damage at any cost, Heartless Hidetsugu is a commander that is mono-red at its core. Heartless Hidetsugu possesses the ability to tap, causing each player’s life total to be cut in half.
This has the capability of shortening the length of games and the amount of damage each player must deal to each other to become victorious. Being a red commander, decks built around Heartless Hidetsugu can be constructed to be incredibly fast, capable of taking out other players quickly and taking advantage of lower life totals.
13 Zada, Hedron Grinder
A common trend across many of the strongest commanders is their ability to create large sums of additional value out of cards you’d already wish to be playing. Zada, Hedron Grinder is just such a commander.
It totes the ability to copy spells that target Zada and apply them to each other legal target you control. This allows a player to utilize spells that would normally seem lackluster, and bolster them into massive army-boosting buffs.
12 Muxus, Goblin Grandee
A solid choice for a commander of a Goblin tribal deck, Muxus, Goblin Grandee is a 4/4 Goblin Noble for six mana that is capable of cheating several Goblins into play without requiring its controller to pay their mana costs. Upon entering the battlefield, Muxus allows its controller to look at the top six cards of their library, putting all Goblins with a mana value of five or less from among them directly into play, potentially allowing Muxus to create a notable board-state the moment it’s cast.
Muxus can even become a notable threat in its own right, getting +1/+1 for each other Goblin under its owner’s control whenever it attacks. For those looking to focus on the quality of their Goblins rather than the quantity, Muxus is an excellent commander choice.
11 Rionya, Fire Dancer
Introduced in the Prismari preconstructed Commander deck released earlier this year, Rionya, Fire Dancer is a commander that can make great use of enter the battlefield triggers as well as highly aggressive creatures.
This is because, at the beginning of combat on its owner’s turn, that player chooses a creature they control and creates a number of copies of that creature equal to the number of instants and sorceries that player cast that turn, with the tokens gaining haste. While these tokens are exiled at the beginning of the next turn’s end step, this can lead to massive amounts of damage and triggers if the copied creatures have applicable abilities.
10 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is among the most efficient commanders in the entirety of the Commander format. For a single red mana, this 2/1 Monkey Pirate can reliably cast the first turn of every game.
Upon dealing combat damage to a player, Ragavan creates a Treasure token and exiles the top card of the defending player’s library, allowing Ragavan’s controller to cast that spell until the end of the turn. This means that not only can Ragavan provide mana ramp for a single mana, but it also provides card advantage!
9 Zo-Zu, The Punisher
Though the destruction and alteration of opponents’ lands are generally considered to be poor commander etiquette, Zo-Zu, The Punisher is a perfect commander for those seeking to enter that taboo wheelhouse. Causing players to take damage for playing lands, Zo-Zu punishes players who attempt to ramp out additional lands into play.
When paired with land destruction and other effects that dissuade the use of lands, players’ mana bases will quickly turn from resources into minefields. Luckily, the Zo-Zu player can preemptively prepare for this effect by having numerous non-land sources at their disposal.
8 Feldon Of The Third Path
Red is full of numerous creatures that create large amounts of value in short bursts, but lose their utility after their initial use. Feldon of the Third Path is a very unique commander that allows for creatures to be copied from the graveyard, though with the clause that they’ll be sacrificed at the end of the turn. This allows for the aforementioned single-use creatures such as Solemn Simulacrum and Molten Primordial to be used repeatedly.
7 Neheb, The Eternal
Neheb, the Eternal is a commander that truly hones in on the aggressive tendencies of red. Capable of creating huge quantities of mana, Neheb adds an amount of red mana to its controller’s mana pool during their second main phase each turn equal to the amount of damage that player had inflicted on their opponents.
In Commander, one of the most powerful and worthwhile things a player can do is to create large sums of mana and accelerate their strategies. While mana ramping abilities are usually relegated to Green, Neheb can do so in a characteristically red way.
6 Daretti, Scrap Savant
One of red’s often underlooked characteristics is its synergies and capabilities involving artifacts. By and large one of the strongest artifact-based commanders in the entire format is Daretti, Scrap Savant. As his title may suggest, Daretti is a commander capable of making treasure out of your trash.
Daretti is a planeswalker with multiple abilities that each synergize around the idea of putting artifacts into your graveyard, and recurring them for value. Daretti can draw you cards at the expense of cards currently in your hand, replace an artifact you control with one currently in your graveyard, or even create an unparalleled artifact engine that allows you to repeatedly return artifacts from your graveyard to play.
5 Birgi, God Of Storytelling
Birgi, God of Storytelling is an excellent double-faced modal commander introduced in Kaldheim. When played as Birgi, this card is a 3/3 God for three mana that causes its controller to add a red mana to their mana pool whenever its controller casts a spell. This allows Birgi’s controller to more easily chain several spells together in a single turn, enabling strategies like storm.
When cast as Harnfel, Horn of Bounty, this five-mana artifact allows its controller to discard a card to exile the top two cards of its controller’s library, allowing those cards to be cast until the end of the turn. This means that depending on a player’s needs for their deck, Birgi can either produce mana or card advantage!
4 Magda, Brazen Outlaw
Magda, Brazen Outlaw is an efficiently cost mono-red commander for two mana that has a lot going for it. Functioning as a Dwarf tribal commander, while Magda provides all other Dwarves with +1/+0, Magda more notably creates a Treasure token whenever a Dwarf is tapped. This allows Magda to quickly mana ramp when paired with many Dwarves.
While this is excellent in its own right, Magda even provides an additional use for Treasures, allowing five Treasures to be sacrificed to allow its controller to search their library for a Dragon or an artifact, putting the chosen card directly into play. This can be used to cheat out potentially game-winning cards like a Blightsteel Colossus.
3 Krenko, Mob Boss
While Krenko, Mob Boss may appear to be a linear and narrow commander, few accumulate as many tokens as quickly and efficiently as the iconic Goblin. Krenko only possesses one ability, but its potency is apparent to inexperienced players and veterans alike. By tapping Krenko, he is capable of putting an amount of 1/1 Goblin tokens into play equal to the number of Goblins you already control.
This effectively allows a Krenko player to double their board state accumulatively each turn. Even after repeated “board wipes,” Krenko decks can quickly reestablish their Goblin hordes faster than any other deck.
2 Purphoros, God Of The Forge
Though a commander like Krenko is capable of creating massive amounts of tokens, you’d be hard-pressed to find a commander who can convert a high quantity of creatures into direct damage better than Purphoros, God of the Forge.
As one of the original Gods of Theros, Purphoros is incredibly hard to remove due to his indestructibility. More importantly, Purphoros, God of the Forge deals two damage to each of your opponents whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control. This means that as long as you have easy and consistent means of generating creatures, you can quickly deal massive amounts of damage to each player without even attacking.
1 Torbran, Thane Of Red Fell
Due to the high life totals in the Commander format, it was long thought that burn strategies were simply not viable in the multiplayer format. Not only would the amount of damage a burn player would need to deal be higher, but that damage would also need to be dealt to numerous players. However, after the release of Throne of Eldraine in the fall, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell has been making many players burn dreams come true.
Making every red source you control deal an initial two damage, Torbran puts the pedal to the metal in regards to dealing damage and raising the viability of various burn spells. Ever wanted to deal five damage with a single Lightning Bolt? Torbran can make that happen for you. Additionally, Torbran is a very versatile commander who is not only relegated to burn strategies, but the wording of his ability also raises the damage you deal from sources such as creatures and enchantments!
NEXT: Magic: The Gathering - The Best Cards For A Mono-Red Commander Deck, Ranked
