Top 10 Most Powerful Commanders of 2023

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

The War Doctor works as I described it in the video: for effects that exile "until" you find something, each card is exiled separately. This means if you cast a spell with cascade and exile 30 to find a spell of lower mana value, The War Doctor gets 30 time counters, not 1. Yes, he really is that busted!

[@rosavanopheusden5211]

I'd be interested in an "overlooked 2023 cards/commanders" list!

[@Aleksander9813]

I second this!

[@zemineriver8043]

Absolutely agree!

[@TheDylls]

I don't wanna be the dick who says what we're all thinking, but, that would be even better 😂❤ Edit: Although I AM the type of dick that LITERALLY owns a Farseek signed by Richard, soooo.... 😂

[@abdus-samisiddique9221]

Great idea!

[@jls22147]

My vote would be the Gruul samut. My list has been doing work

[@salem326]

For anyone interested in Sauron, opposed to what Tomer says here, the optimal build for it is actually an Aristocrats -Combo/control build. Because of the way amass works, you can use your army token as incredible sac fodder. So with an orc army on the field, when an opponent casts a spell, with the trigger on the stack you sac your orc army, and then when the amass trigger resolves, make a new one. Plus, notably because of how Sauron's amass ability triggers on cast, he has protection from a lot of edict abilities, on top of the strong ward. Combine this with cards like Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Cruel Celebrant, Purphoros, Nadier's Nightblade, and more, you can easily drain all of your opponents, or with cards like Dictate of Erebos & Gravepact, lock up the game until you can combo off for the win.

[@1klakak]

That is what I did immediately. Constant sac fuel is awesome.

[@vampirica11]

I think Galadriel, Light of Valinor is missing from the list. She got released in that mini panorame LotR set, but is soo consistant and she does everything you need.

[@manwithnoname9580]

I'm a fan of a lot of the LOTR legendaries as commanders tbh.

[@vampirica11]

@@manwithnoname9580 Me too! I converted some of my decks to LotR commanders, Galadriel and Bilbo. Sauron is a new deck for me :)

[@manwithnoname9580]

@vampirica11 I have Bant Galadriel, Sauron The Dark Lord, and Aragorn Monarch built (still making updates to this one). The next deck I am building is Aragorn, Hornburg Hero, most likely.

[@scaredycat3146]

Too bad they completely botched her foiling though.

[@manwithnoname9580]

@scaredycat3146 in person, I think it looks good imo

[@brendans1983]

That Necropotence into Torment with Rowan is being slammed at casual tables everywhere

[@fehlbrandschwele]

Hey Tomer, fele from cardmarket here, I LOVE 😍😍😍 the Kaldra Compleat frame!!!

[@tomerabramovici32]

Danke Fele! Miss ya bud

[@willpanuska731]

You guys are seriously sleeping on Hakbal. Super consistent value engine, makes all your merfolk bigger and also draws/ ramps. I’ve been pubstomping with him since he came out.

[@jasonhart543]

New Narset is so good! She smooths out the usual prowess issues. And you get to play mill with a purpose. I had to take out the extra combat spells just to power her down to something fun at the table & not as consistent/linear a wincon.

[@Oso-Gaming]

I've absolutely loved building around Carmen, The Cruel Skymarcher. Not only getting value from Aristocrats theme, but recursion as well. Even when she is removed, she can rebuild very quickly and Roaming Throne just makes it that much easier double both of her triggered abilities.

[@mattpk1609]

Narset has a hidden Bonus: If you like Narset as character you now have a Narset Commander you can actually play without everybody hating you. My fav. commander - and maybe card - this year.

[@PitBossReplicant]

As someone who just started this year, glad I got my Etali in my 99 already.

[@manachamber]

I love the Magic card frame around your face lol

[@OGTahoe3]

The new Merfolk commander is way to good to not be here

[@discoviolenza1984]

Etali is my least favorite commander of the year followed by atraxa. Every time you see an Etali deck it plays the same ramp into Etali keep cloning it and casting four spells for free each time.

[@Onattamato]

Same. I try not to be a salty boy about commanders, but Etali just pisses me off. It should have either been on cast dig to a nonland card or on etb flip the top like old Etali.

[@discoviolenza1984]

@@Onattamato 100 percent agree with it being an on cast trigger or bricking when it hits lands like the original Etali. I turned my old Xenagos deck into an Etali deck played a few times and just watched the whole table sigh every time I cast and cloned Etali.

[@maxgrube4470]

I think that Ellivere should have made the list. She is one of the new kill on sight commanders.

[@seanedgar164]

I'd put Ob Nix in there. Card advantage, flample and +1/+1 counters is lethal as

[@forrestcarlson4391]

I'd like to add that building Sauron as a graveyard deck is also flavorful because he is a necromancer!

[@danielcurren2119]

With pantlaza, you can buff their toughness with opal palace, buffing it every time you cast it from the command zone, then use the flash enchantment stoneskin to buff it (or any other dinosaur) to get huge toughness to boost the extent of discover

[@RPGFanboy14]

Atraxa is also just generically good even when not built around. I'm building her as a Golem tribal deck with a Phyrexian subtheme and it seems like it will be sweet. Currently adjusting it again and I need to cut 25 more cards. Gets hard after a while lol

[@Cero-xp3nx]

Death ran a cEDH Pantlaza Food Chain list on cEDHTV Gameplay two weeks ago and won the game turn 3. The combo kill turn was nice. Perhaps the B Power Ceiling rating should come with the caveat of being linked to dinosaur tribal.

[@changminsong]

Ob Nixilis made it on your honorable mention but is actually probably stronger than anything on this list. Can generate massive card advantage and wins out of nowhere. Atraxa is powerful but much slower to play, despite having access to more colors as opposed to just Rakdos.

[@changminsong]

Also Talion probably belongs on this list as well, probably behind Atraxa and ahead of Sauron. Just my opinion.

[@tomerabramovici32]

Ob kills much faster but is also much more fragile. If the table is throwing removal at Ob then the deck does nothing. Meanwhile Atraxa is far more consistent, removing her does little to stop the deck.

[@michaelcornell5138]

Ovika, Enigma Goliath is pretty strong even on a budget. All your spells make goblins and sometimes you use those goblins to cast spells (alters, convoke)

[@middeterminist]

I thought the war doctor would only get one counter when you exile a bunch to an effect

[@tomerabramovici32]

It depends how you exile the cards. If you exile one card at a time, like cascade or any "exile until you hit X," then it adds a counter for each card exiled. If a card says "exile 5 cards" all at once, you get one time counter.

[@retributin2849]

@@tomerabramovici32 No it shouldn't, the game counts cascade and exile until X type effects as 1 trigger, you should get only one time counter

[@as95ms98]

​@@retributin2849That's not how it works. Cascade counts each card as 1 time counter. If you watch the Shuffle Up and Play episode of Doctor Who, Gavin plays The War Doctor and explains how it interacts with Cascade.

[@tubeofglue8117]

It counts each card as a seperate exile because the game must temporarily stop exiling after every card to see if the criteria was met to stop exiling.

[@munsulight721]

@@retributin2849 Since it need to check every card one by one, it does put a counter for each card exiled. It is the same for Laelia the Blade Reforged. It even have been asked to Matt Tabak and Jess Dunks (two WotC rules employees) and they answered the same

[@moxcardboardtv8797]

I would love if you guys did another video on the Commander banlist

[@OMNIDC13]

Pantlaza is a nutty Blink commander. I dont even run dinosaurs just a bunch of enter the battlefield creatures and blink spells.

[@ManiacalMan]

lol I think I understood what you were saying but I dont think Ive ever seen a floor getting a higher score than the ceiling

[@yeshayahzaner6960]

As "that" atraxa player, her mana cost is deceptive. I legitimately run 50+ total lands and acceleration/ramp, play her, and refill my hand, blink win

[@dominiquereed2217]

Would you ever do a list of precons for the year? Great vid by the way I appreciate explanations to the rankings.

[@PHub-jw8so]

Yeah, a precon ranking would be really cool

[@obadijahparks]

Better than just the top ten commander cards anyway.

[@Royyboyy09]

Smeagol is such a sleeper commander. Once you have enough lands you dont even need him anymore. I have a few eldrazi and green stompies to close out my games.

[@williamprudhomme91]

Thanks for the great content, cEDH wise the top are Ellivere, Atraxa and Talion atm, but there's a ton of viable options! :)

[@andytheindividual3862]

Hakbal too! Don't sleep on him!

[@hermodnitter3902]

Samut, Vizier of Naktamun is probably the most underplayed commander from this year. Insane value engine...

[@Breakdown10000X]

Vexilus Praetor actually gives your commander pro everything', which will include counters, causing all of the time counters to fall off the war doc

[@Summer_Snows]

Not related to edh at all, but looking at Thalia and The Gitrog Monster made me realize I completely forgot that card was Standard legal. Can you imagine going back 5 years from now and telling people that?

[@faerie7dragon]

I wanna build The War Doctor so bad, it must be so much fun to see people all knowing one is about to lose the game, so who is it going to be?

[@lastdracon]

I built it, using Decktechs for Decks version... I dome people hard and always keep an eye out on my board for key pieces. He is fun, powerful, but has a glass jaw. I'm thinking of dropping Sue and replace with K-9 for a powered down Blink style. Tomers rating is accurate, once they know what your deck does they keep eye open for them.

[@david191cm]

Would it put five counters? It looks to me like one card per x cards exiles at once?

[@austintroyer5826]

I think Ojer Anoxil should be in this list. Make it a go wide burn deck and if it’s equip with protection then it does work.

[@orpheos9]

I would personally bump ob nixilis captive kingpin into the top 10. He is an amazing engine and the flample with how fast he grows just makes him a super effective voltron without even trying.

[@manwithnoname9580]

He said casual. Pretty sure Ob falls under cEDH.

[@munsulight721]

@@manwithnoname9580 Atraxa still fall under cEDH , same of the Jeskai Narset that still got results in cEDH tournaments

[@orpheos9]

Idk Ive played against multiple people running casual decks with him. It appeals to casuals because it has a strong theme of "ping people" and exile synergies to build towards. And just building around that synergy gets you a pretty strong deck as a baseline. certainly stronger than some of the lower picks on this list.

[@manwithnoname9580]

@@munsulight721 yeah I guess that's valid

[@tomerabramovici32]

I put him as honorable mention. Ob moves towards 1-shotting people pretty fast, but runs a ton of bad cards to do so, and the deck is highly reliant on him sticking and he has no built-in resiliency, so his consistency is low. War Doctor does what he's doing just more well-rounded imo.

[@lobbynotlob]

Id rate Etali's ceiling even higher, if you can make infinite mana with something like dockside/sabretooth or food chain, etali is a wincon for that sitting in the command zone.

[@Emiljantzen]

I think the wording on war doctor is:... one or more exiled -> put one time counter. I would think you can't stack like that.

[@Kestral287]

That is the wording, but the way Cascade and similar effects work is you exile one card, check it, then exile the next. Because of that, War Doctor does actually see and count each individual card despite his wording. It's extremely stupid, and I very much wish that the card was either more carefully written so it didn't work this way or just more plainly written so that this confusion didn't exist, because it very much feels like cheating when you have to explain it to someone and that confusion is - for obvious reasons - very common. But this is what the developers decided they wanted - it's no accident that the War Doctor's own saga works this way with him.

[@TheDylls]

Sauron + 99 lands... I'm gonna proxy that as a funny deck to play at the kitchen table

[@Djmorton-go5mt]

Looking back on this, its definitely easy to see that Sidar was the only wrong ranking. He is definitely much higher due to his eminence alone.

[@swbonk]

I have a 95 land deck with the war doctor and Ryan Sinclair and it’s my favourite “meme” deck

[@as95ms98]

Okay now I'm curious. What are the other 3 cards?

[@swbonk]

@@as95ms98 pretty boring it’s Sol ring, lightning greaves, and Swiftfoot boots, just because I don’t expect the commanders to stay on the field long, I have thought about swapping out Sol ring for my ozolith but it’s mostly a joke deck, that I have unsleeved so I don’t want to put anything too pricey in it

[@TheDylls]

Sidar Humans splashing Knights seems like it could be quite good

[@rquer7913]

i'm missing Galadriel, Light of Valinor, and Zimone and Dina. At least top 8 both of them...

[@pedroms720]

Love you Tomeeeeer ❤

[@kaiwilken5330]

I feel like Urabrask/The Great Work is sorely missing from this list. Then again, it's almost been 400 new Commanders, so who can blame you for not thinking of every single one?

[@dannil9878]

Tomer could be my commander any day

[@AMageOldAsDirt]

I would personally give Pantlaza an A for power ceiling. As you said the way to optimize him is to run a blink subtheme. The way to really optimize him is to ditch dinosaurs completely and focus entirely on blinking pantlaza and casting from exile. Cards like Cabaretti Confluence and Molten Echoes can create chains of tons of Pantlaza triggers, which in turn can burst down opponents incredibly quickly with Purphoros and Impact Tremors. It's also incredibly resistant to removal, as you can just recast Pantlaza for an instant board refill. In games with my Pantlaza deck I can consistently cast almost every spell in my deck while running basically 0 card draw. Absolutely broken commander

[@tomerabramovici32]

I think you're right, I underestimated Pantlaza Blink a bit, it's probably A Power Ceiling.

[@OpticF3ARNGT]

Would love to see a deck list if you have one

[@ryzlei]

Play rest in peace = Huge War Doctor

[@price69420]

Talion needs to be on this list. It's much better than Rowan because she's so telegraphed whereas Talion keeps your grip full and drains opponents.

[@packer7915]

Ok, hear me out. The War Doctor, Ryan Sinclair, 98 lands.

[@Sandovian]

Here to say that Smeagol slaps and has been cEDH viable. People just miss it because of the low power Nazgul builds with lots of ring tempt shit cards. Folks, you don't need to run bad cards to trigger Smeagol. Sacrifice in Golgari good stuff does it super well, I assure you.

[@pauldyson8098]

Yeah, but Gylwain is the 2023 commander most likely to give you a hat!

[@CutShadows]

Just wanted to note that new Narset isnt as good with Extra Combats as Old Narset. New Narset exiles and casts for free WHEN she attacks which makes most extra combat spells do nothing as they have to be cast during a main phase to get the extra combat. Old Narset let you cast whatever you exiled at any point after she attacked so there may be some confusion there. World at War and Savage Beating work great tho! And you can cast recursion spells to get back extra combat spells to use on Main Phase 2 so definitely still great!

[@seanedgar164]

Etali is a cedh deck, the floor is you slam big mana stuff and can one shot people with infect. The ceiling is all the creature tutors for Sabertooth infinite loops with dockside. Thalia and gitrog are probably one of the weakest here, not a proactive commander. Elenda and Azor are insanely frustrating to deal with and I could see Toxrill being on here

[@GagleDan]

Definitely doesn't deserve to be here because the floor is pretty low for him but man when optimized talion the kindly lord doesn't mess around.

[@Zenboras]

Can't really say that Atraxa doesn't deserve that #1 spot but. She's so boring! It's just "ramp into success," I prefer when commanders have themes

[@TeeHomer]

Oh, wow would've never guessed your Top 1! For me, Atraxa is not even in the Top 20. For 7 mana she only really draws a bunch of cards, not even mentioning that she restricts those draws by card type. Her winning strategy of just being cast for 7, then survive a turn and then attack for the next three turns the same player to eliminate even one player is soooooo slow. Even a simple mass draw spell in blue draws more cards than her.

[@MareczqZglos]

Ther is a reason she is nr.1 commander in cEDH ;)

[@Arctanis-vt3hl]

One mass spell draws more cards? She can blink a few times and get more cards. This is a house.

[@Sandovian]

I also am not an Atraxa gamer, but this is a bad take. She's best in competitive and casual for a reason.

[@zacharymangen754]

etali and atraxa where the only two decks i built this year they gotta be some of the most fun ive had playing magic in a long time

[@HenkRobbemondt]

No love for the Bant Galadriel?

[@PaulMerizationXL]

Ob nixis, captive kingpin was best rakdos commander of the year . Horrible not mention cuz it has even won cedh tournaments

[@jeffe2267]

33:51 tomer talks about Sauron's enormous clock

[@Uranylhydroxid]

u forgott edgar markov.

[@seldomplaystcg]

I believe for the war doctor, if you exiled x cards from your deck from 1 effect, it would still only get 1 time counter, because he doesnt instruct you to add "that many" time counters on him

[@CoconutSphinx]

"Exile until" effects like cascade count each card exiled as a single event, as the game "checks" to see if the card exiled meets the criteria. Laelia works the same way.

[@GigaLordShinyMudkip1]

Top 10 Worst Commanders of 2023 when?

[@MrFome]

I'm guessing Tomer doesn't know the..other... popular meaning of the word "dome" as a verb. That or his commander games are way more interesting than mine.

[@godspeedhero3671]

They really need to just release a set that has no legendaries.

[@amarauk9687]

Ob nixilis only an honorable mention sounds kinda sus

[@crawdaddy1234]

I still don’t understand why a seven-power flying creature has deathtouch. 😂

[@Dragon_Fyre]

It just has the same abilities as the 4/4 version where deathtouch was far more relevant.

[@crawdaddy1234]

@@Dragon_Fyre I understand the continuity, but there are plenty of recurring characters that don’t have the same keyword abilities on every card.

[@Kestral287]

Why not? It has almost no bearing on her power, so adding that sort of ribbon text that also gets to be neat flavor is pretty free.

[@Pinfeldorf]

Not a single 2023 commander got an ASS rating. Tomer will never be the memelord Crim is.

[@jozefkeresturi2139]

I agree only with narset. All the other ones i dislike. Especially the knight commander and Eminence

[@CaryKingdom]

Bill Ferny was robbed.

[@Shimatzu95]

Atraxa and etali are peak bad/boring value design. Strong yes, but in the least interesting way possible.

[@jessievohsen6686]

Second

[@HZRT_lgd]

First?

[@Malik1378]

I'm gonna watch this video until his lists a Universes Beyond card. Weird the videos only a minute and a half long 🤔