Hello happy people! I hope that your day is going incredibly well today! Today I have something fun for you! I think that the horsemanship mechanic just doesn't get the play that it should at the kitchen table. They are very strong in multiplayer formats, Type Four, Five Color, Highlander and Commander so I will be looking at dorks with horsemanship or effects that give it in today's countdown. Since horsemanship dorks can only be blocked by horsemanship, but it was just in one hard to get set, there aren't a lot of cards, thus making these closer to actual proper unblockable in many metagames. Note that many of these are pretty pricey on the secondary market, but I'd rather spend that cash on a weird P3K Commander than on your typical Cyclonic Rift or the Ancient Dragon Cycle or other cards that will retain its rare value, and some were reprinted and have cheaper versions now. Ready?

Honorable Mention #1 (#13 Overall) - Zhang He, Wei General

Check out this five-drop 4/2 with horsemanship that also swings and gives your (other) attackers a power boost of one. Note that this is legendary for Command Zone purposes. Unlike many attack abilities to pump a team, this can safely attack without worrying about your foe blocking and killing it. So that makes this strong as a leader of a Mono-Black Aggro or Tokens deck that are swinging all out. It also has the same synergies as my #10 cards below. I also like this in the 99 of brews that play into Going Wide themes that include Black, like Orzhov Tokens while also pushing people's life total down with the swings.

Honorable Mention #2 (#12 Overall) - Cao Ren, Wei Commander

Check out this awesome Hill Giant in Black with horsemanship, but you lose three life on arrival to the battlefield. This is the most on-curve option that we have in horsemanship, a 3/3 for right around that mana, but you have the disadvantage to losing life. In a 40-life format like Commander, they won't care. This is also a legendary dork for your Commander consideration. It could very easily run an Aggro Mono-Black deck or get added to a lifeloss deck. It's very strong in many places around the block. Because it's on-curve and with horsemanship, this is also nice as a backup beater in a Voltron brew, or with equipment that shares the color.

Honorable Mention #3 (#11 Overall) - Guan Yu, Sainted Warrior

This is our top card outside of the Top Ten proper. This mono-White creature costs five for a legendary 3/5 with horsemanship and when it dies, you can shuffle it into your deck. It's a may, so it can come back from your graveyard with recursion if you have it. It's fine as a Commander since you can get that horsemanship fun thing happening, but better in the 99 of other decks or formats where you can redraw it later after a shuffle. It's also a mana-free way to shuffle your library. It's fun stuff!

#10. Lady Zhurong, Warrior Queen AND Lu Meng, Wu General

Check out this pair! Both are Air Elementals for their colors on legendary stuff. Note that the first is in a color without unblockable evasion, hence it being my first card, and the second has a better toughness at 4, hence it making it here, but being my second card. Each of these brings something unusual to the Commander game. An unblockable four power in the Command Zone. Even without any adjustments, that's a 5 turn Commander Damage kill. Then we have how you build around them. I see each building in similar ways - with equipment, auras, +1/+1 counters and in other Voltron ways. Since you don't need to waste slots on evasion you can just bring it with game-winning equipment like Blackblade Reforged or spells like Might of Oaks. They are a very powerful twosome. I love what they bring, and like I mentioned above in my first honorable mention with Zheng He, he is also a four power unblockable clock for five mana. Nasty game winner in the Command Zone. Also like Cao Ren, they are great backup win-cons in case it was answered. Good stuff! Note that I got Lady Zhurong in a random Commander challenge and have already built a deck around her and her husband Meng Huo here.

#9. Wei Night Raiders

This four-drop 2/2 uncommon rocks both horsemanship and when you deal damage to an opponent they discard. So, it's basically Abyssal Specter with 2 toughness but better evasion. I run this in my multiplayer Abe's Deck of Happiness and Joy and just tossed in into my Gix Commander build for you; check it out here. It's very strong at the kitchen table since it twins card advantage (in this case discard) with an unblockable beater on one card. It's very strong there. An Abyssal Specter may not get played because every deck can block it. But this? Who can stop it? Right? It's that good!

#8. Lu Xun, Scholar General

Hitting at #8 is this fun Thieving Magpie. I built a Commander Budget Deck around him spending a little more than $35 which you can check out here. The reprint is super cheap. As you can see based on Wei Night Raiders this is also a four drop with a card advantage combat damage trigger, this time raw card draw rather than discard. This may have a smaller power, but is clearly the better card. We'd all rather draw in most situations than force discards. Right? So would I pleasant readers, so would I.

#7. Zhang Fei, Fierce Warrior

In the books, Zhang Fei was led by his emotions, which were his weak part and he should be Red. Anyways, this is a six-drop 4/4 with vigilance and horsemanship. It hits around halfway in my chart. It's pretty simple why it's here. In multiplayer, vigilance has enhanced value since you can attack the open player without getting attacked yourself. Here? You'll never be blocked and you'll never open yourself up to counter attacks. Nasty. It's just one more than the 4/4 and 4/3 ones that hit a few slots above at #10 and it's worth the extra mana. It's a lot of fun to build around, and would be a great deck building challenge! Imagine this leading a Voltron deck with a giant 15/15 unblockable body that also keeps people from attacking you. Right? This is our highest scoring White card.

#6. Lu Bu, Master-at-Arms

Wizards of the Coast knew how good Lu Bu would be, so they made him the prerelease tournament attendance prize. Pretty cool right? This fun guy rocks haste and horsemanship on a 4/3 body and six mana. Attacking from nowhere with haste is very strong since your folks haven't planned on getting attacked by a horsemanship guy out of nowhere. Just like vigilance is enhanced in multiplayer, so too is haste. How many decks are featuring resetting stuff like Wrath of God or Blasphemous Act or Cyclonic Rift? Exactly! With haste you can get in a hit before the answer happens. With haste you are also the first to smash after a mass removal spell as well. And...don't forget that this is on a legendary dork, so he's eligible as a Commander too. Nice little combo. And all the Voltron synergy that you have mentioned above works here with our first Red entry into the list. Right?

#5. Sun Ce, Young Conquerer

This fun thing is so good that I have a MTGO Commander deck built around it since it's very cheap there on the secondary market. Anyways, this five-drop features a solid 3/3 with horsemanship and an enters-the-battlefield trigger to bounce, so it's a Man-o'-War. It's also legendary. Basically, pull one power and toughness from Lu Meng and then give the ability to immediately impact the board. It's a good swap. If it's your Commander, ideally you'll want to bounce a blocker, horsemanship is cheap online, and then equip with a haste giving piece of equipment like Lightning Greaves, and then swing.

I also love it leading a Mono-Blue blink deck since you'll feature an ETB ability to abuse as well as things like Mulldrifter and Cavalier of Gales and Draining Whelk. I also love it leading a midrange deck that has a lot of value over time from it, ETB creatures, planeswalkers like Karn Liberated, and more. It's also another candidate for Voltron'ing. It's also very strong in the support of another deck like a blinking Commander in Azorius like Brago, King Eternal. It's very powerful.

#4. Yuan Shao, the Indecisive

This is a bit smaller on the mana cost to power and toughness at just 2/3 for five mana. But...you get a lot. Horsemanship, sure, but your dorks cannot be blocked by more than one defender. That means that menace dorks are now unblockable, and this is a great combo with Goblin War Drums. This is brilliant for leading a Commander deck! It also works for him so he gets the boost as well as your other creatures, so he has double evasion. It's very strong with going wide like Mono-Red Aggro, Mono-Red Tokens, or alongside those themes not just as a Commander like Boros Aggro or Tokens. I also like this alongside red Commanders with menace like Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale or Greven, Predator Captain. It's very strong...did you know that this awesome thing even existed? This is also our highest scoring Red card.

And then there were three!

#3. Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed

This 3/2 four-drop is our top scoring Black card. This thing was printed as a Judge's foil since it was so highly demanded in Commander due to how powerful it is there. It has 120 decks over on EDHREC.com despite its price. Prior to your attack, you can sacrifice this to Regrowth any black card to your hand. Demonic Tutor? It's a Mono-Black Reanimation beloved leader since you can bring back that Reanimate you just cast for another dork as well as the Buried Alive or Entomb you just cast to load up. It's a combo with Corpse Dance bringing it back for 5 mana, and then sacrificing for a key card over and over again.

Mono-Black can make a ton of mana, so you can easily pay its Commander Tax a few times to get multiple sacrifices, and he just cost's four initially. One key way to make infinite mana is with 11 dorks in your graveyard with Songs of the Damned and Corpse Dance, both of which are playable here. It's very strong and breaks things in half in the Commander format as the leader of a deck. The judge promo is around 75 dollars cheaper.

#2. Riding the Dilu Horse

Our penultimate card is this three-mana sorcery. Why is it here? It gives a creature +2/+2 and horsemanship. Nice right? Unblockable and a power and toughness boost in on card. Did you notice what words were missing from this sorcery? "Until the end of the turn." This is a permanent boost to your targeted dork. And note that unlike Auras or Equipment it cannot be answered with Krosan Grip effects! It's amazing in any Green Commander deck where you turn your leader into a Command Damage threat. Typically, green has access to one of the worst evasion abilities in trample. You'd rather have flying, shadow, protection, or even intimate than this. Menace is sometimes better and sometimes worse. But now you can give the most powerful evasive ability ever printed for the color that lacks it. You are going to love giving something horsemanship out of nowhere with the size pumping and it's unanswerable save by counters. And Time Stop. But everything is answerable by Time Stop. It's very strong for the Commander and multiplayer game, love its power loads!

#1. Sun Quan, Lord of Wu

This has been reprinted and it's worth around $60, around the same as a key Commander essential. For that cost you get a 4/4 six-drop that gives your entire team horsemanship. Again, giving your entire team unblockable is very powerful from a potential Commander. Compare this to Archetype of Imagination. Same cost, plus evasion for the team. The Archetype removes flying from your foes' things so they cannot block you with flying, but Sun Quan can be blocked by horsemanship which no one is running. The Archetype is 3/2, so Sun Quan is bigger, and then those things can be blocked by reachers, but there are no common keywords that will block horsemanship, so this is clearly the better class of card. It's also legendary for Command Zone purposes.

I love this in a Mono-Blue Aggro leader or with creature-based tempo elements. It's also good in places like game winning with creature heavy brews like Hate Bears, Blink, and Midrange that have loads of bodies. It's a fun outside the box winning condition there. Ready to unleash Sun Quan on the world?

And there we go! I hope that you enjoyed my look at ten forgotten horsemanship cards with three honorable mentions. Enjoy!