Hello Folks! Commander is fun because you get to play against a bunch of people who are often your close friends. Because it leans multiplayer already, it plays into the roots of the format, and many cards that were great at the kitchen table, chaos Magic where it’s everyone for themselves, have often been all-stars at the Commander tables as well.

But that hasn’t always been the case. Some cards do not make the transition well. And if Commander is all you’ve known, you may not even be aware of the power of some of these highlights in the format. So let’s set out to change that!

The reason for making this list is simple. For those that have been making the cross from Commander’s specific iteration of multiplayer to more general multiplayer formats without the quirks of Commander, there is a need to know what the change in rules leads to.

And the major keys to Commander are deck size, only having one of each card, and starting with 40 life instead of 20.

Multiplayer existed for a long time outside of Commander, and it still does. It had developed an all-star slate of cards that you knew had a lot of value there, and many of those made the transition to Commander without any change in status. Cards like Syphon Mind or Rhystic Study are just as good in Commander as they are in any game, dialing it up against multiple foes. There are no surprises there.

And there are certainly some cards that have some obvious gain from removing the singleton requirement.

Here, for one example, is Llanowar Sentinel . . . 

Llanowar Sentinel is no world beater, but you get the idea, I’m sure.

All right, so, given that basic understanding, let’s take a look at cards that really bring their “A” game in multiplayer . . . 

Honorable Mention – The Wishes

The value of the Wishing effect dropped considerably after Wizards of the Coast changed the language of the games zones, and did not change the mechanics of the Wishes to make them continue to have the same effect. (Originally, you could pull a card from the “Removed from the Game” zone, because that was, by definition, outside of the game. When they changed it to “Exile Zone”, the language for the Wishes was not updated, so you could no longer get back something Exiled.) That was a key use for the Wishes, but they are still good at being a strong swiss army knife. Take Living Wish as the best example. What board situation are you facing right now? Then get some creature or land or solve it. Fix your mana. Grab a Nekrataal to kill a creature or Acidic Slime. You get the idea. They have tremendous value as a sort of both-weaker-and-stronger Tutor effect. They are stronger in formats where you can build around Wishes more than Commander.

10. Firestorm and the Dreams

We’re going to talk later on, at #3, about the sheer value of card advantage in multiplayer generally, and Commander specifically. By running a lot of cards that get you card advantage, you can build up a lead in terms of card count, and then put yourself in a good position to beat multiple opponents. Which is why it may seem a little off to have Firestorm and the Dreams Cycle here in our list. Each of them is card disadvantage. The Dreams or Firestorm itself are disadvantage. Cast Restless Dreams, discard three cards, recur three creatures, and you’re down a card. This is why these cards are typically underplayed in Commander. But they have a few things going for them elsewhere. Now, Turbulent Dreams sucks, and Devastating Dreams has to have the right deck to work, but the rest of them are all stars.

1. These are all cheap. You can cast them early or later for big effects cheaply. Don’t sleep on a Firestorm for 1 mana right before dropping a Wheel of Fortune or right after popping a Memory Jar with what you have left while still doing things. Don’t sleep on Nostalgic Dreams or Restless Dreams bringing back multiple cards and then you casting them the same turn.
2. These are the effects that your card advantage can turn to blow out a table. I have used Vengeful Dreams countless times to exile four or five creatures that were attacking me and denuded my opponent of creatures, and then swung in and won.
3. All of the good ones have abilities that sculpt and shape the table or your position and strengthen it. The most powerful of the Dreams is Insidious Dreams. Wouldn’t you want to discard most, or all, of your hand to tutor for the maximum amount of cards?

The combination of raw power, cheap value, and using your built-up card advantage well is very important, and these are key cards at multiplayer tables to use and dominate your foes. Get your Dreams on Firestorm style!

9. Browbeat

Browbeat used to be an automatic “Draw Three Cards” effect in multiplayer. No one wanted to pay 5 life in a sort of gambler’s choice, and so you’d always draw three cards. Here let me give you a typical situation:

It’s turn six at five-person multiplayer game. You cast Browbeat. Everyone has lost life save for Steve, who is at 20, and the lowest life total is currently 12 among your foes, and you are at 16 life. Now, Steve has the most life. But he doesn’t want to lose 25% of his starting life just to keep you from casting Harmonize. The player at 12 isn’t going to 7. You are getting your cards. In a duel, Browbeat sucks. In a multiplayer game, it’s a cheaper Concentrate. In Commander, it’s an odd Lava Axe.

8. Enters-the-Battlefield Life Gainers — Temple Acolyte andFriends

One of the best ways to keep yourself alive in multiplayer is to play early creatures that gift you a little life while playing well in the battlefield. We’re not talking about running junk like Venerable Monk, but instead a card like Temple Acolyte and Arashin Cleric do a great job early doing something while building up your defenses and creating a solid roadblock for others to overcome. And you are gaining life at the same time. I have run cards like Staunch Defenders and Radiant's Dragoons in my general multilayer decks for a long time now. They still have a lot of value. I also included the modern take on Filigree Familiar above as a great card that plays into this space nicely, and then when it dies, you get a card as well. And there are cards all up and down the block that will play into this space, from beaters like Obstinate Baloth or Pelakka Wurm to Kitchen Finks and Lone Missionary. So get that life gain on while not stopping what you are doing!

7. Grinning Totem

This is a solid card at grabbing any card from a foe’s library, and potentially playing it. Now, for a long time, Commander wouldn’t let you tap your lands for colors outside of your color identity so this was often a miss. If you played this in an Izzet deck, unless the card was colorless, Blue, or Red, you weren’t playing it. Even today it’s hard, because cards like Command Tower or Temple of Abandon aren’t doing much outside of your colors. You would have to run enough effects like City of Brass to make it work. Thus, the Totem was forgotten by a generation of Commander players. Outside of Commander, where it’s color identity issues are (mostly) a thing of the past, it’s a powerful card. Sacrifice your Totem, and go Tutor someone’s library for something awesome and cast it!

6. Grizzly Fate

At its best, Grizzly Fate in Commander is a nice adjunct for two very specific purposes. It’s still good in token decks that expect to have threshold reliably enough to make this a 5-mana four 2/2 Bear card on the front, with the promise of more Bears to come. We all can see that is a solid investment for your mana in Commander, a 40 life format. But perhaps more than pretty much any other card, the life total impact of Grizzly Fate in a 20 life format make the card so much more powerful that it has been downright ubiquitous at times at the kitchen table. And for good reason. On the front end, you get eight power of creatures for five mana. They are spread out over four bodies, which helps against Maze of Ith or defending creatures. It’s an amazing play post-sweeping removal when you are reliably seeing threshold. It plays amazingly well with haste-enablers like Fires of Yavimaya. It’s just a game-ending amount of creatures for one card. And you may not realize just how awesome it is in any 20 life format without having played it. So get your Grizzly Fate on!

5. Bringer of the X Dawn

Ah yes, the Bringer Cycle. What keeps the Bringer cycle from getting more play in Commander land is color identity. The rules of the format prevent Bringer of the Green Dawn from being played in any deck which is not all five colors, even though the card is clearly just Green, it’s not any other color mixed it. But because of an alternate casting cost, the Bringer of the Green Dawn is prevented in Green decks due to a rules quirk that makes no sense in this case. The Bringers have been mostly a non-starter at Commander tables because of that, even though, in this case, the rule gets in the way.

But to most people, rules are rules, even when the rule gets its way. I’m fine with you playing a Bringer outside of a five-color deck, but most aren’t, because that’s not the rule.

It’s the classic tension between the reason a rule exists and the rule itself. For example, take driving. The reason that you are required to turn on your blinker on your car before you turn to indicate which way you are going is for safety to other cars, pedestrians, etc. But if you are driving during the day in a flat landscape with no people or cars that can be seen anywhere, are you still using your blinker to turn? If you do, that’s fine, it’s the rule. Although that example is tame, because the rule to protect safety isn’t actually keeping people from being safe. In the Bringers’ case, the rule to keep you from only using cards in your color identity actually prevents you from using cards in your color identity. Annoying I know, but you can use that to your advantage the next non-Commander multiplayer game by bringing down a Bringer! I still think the Blue Dawn one is the best.

4. Ivory Tower

As we all know, there was a time when Ivory Tower was considered so good that it was restricted in Vintage. It was too good. It’s hard to deal with a life total that quickly spirals out of control. Today, in duels, Ivory Tower is powerful in multiples, but not the most powerful card in multiplayer unless you can run a few. And in a 40 life Commander the Tower has little value beyond a relic of past times in most decks. But outside of Commander, where you can run four Towers and have just 20 life? This is downright powerful, edging out turn after turn of life-gaining awesomeness. Oh, and don’t forget to combine it with cards like improvise or affinity to do something proactive as well as gain life with the early drops!

3. Squadron Hawk and Friends

Winning multiplayer is often about little bits of card advantage here and there that collectively bury your foes in cards. Most long-term Commander enthusiasts have seen this as well. And there are number of cards that self-reference themselves for card advantage that you can abuse in multiplayer that is not Singleton in nature. You can see a number of these cards with things like Squadron Hawk and Myr Servitor. By allowing you to four copies of Myr Servitor, you have a lot of options moving forward as well in a similar vein that tap into multiple copies of cards having value. Oh, and a special shout-out to Mishra, Artificer Prodigy

Thanks Mishra!

2. Player Killers aka Mortivore, Lhurgoyf, Etcetera

There are a body of creatures that I have collectively called Player Killers, or PKs, for a long time. These are creatures that often have a high enough power to kill someone in one hit. It includes a few wonky exceptions like Guiltfeeder and Phage the Untouchable. These creatures will often kill in one hit, and they were played heavily outside of Commander because the amount of life to be a PK is considerably less. If a creature like Mortivore wound up as a 9/9 or a 14/14 Ancient Ooze, you’d still kill in two hits very quickly. But as you can see, with 40 life, and in a metagame that often hazes the things these need to swell, these cards are not as valuable. You don’t often seeMortivore or Hamletback Goliath. Only a handful of PKs that were probably made with Commander in mind get played, like Lord of Extinction.

But nothing stops you from swinging and winning!

1. Congregate

Congregate has the be the #1 card on this list, or else you are all fired. It was so epically good that I cannot imagine another card topping this list. In Commander, it’s fine in certain contexts or deck-builds, but not as versatile or as heavily played as outside of it. If you have never played constructed multiplayer outside of Commander, then you may not understand just how Congregate deserves to be here as an instant life gain spell. That’s all it does, gain life, right? Sure. But it gains so much life, so cheaply, at instant speed, that it changed the metagame of multiplayer. I ran False Cure to kill someone who played it. You can play it in response to a game-sweeping effect when there are 8 or 10 creatures out to maximize your life gain. Any life gain can be truly special when packaged this ably.

So grab your False Cures!

And that’s it! A bunch of cards that are quality in multiplayer games outside of the Commander format, but which just aren’t nearly as strong in it. From classics such as Congregate to entire categories of cards, there are a ton of powerhouses in this article for you to consider. Trying out a normal, 60-card multiplayer game? Without the color identity or singleton restrictions of the format? Then check these out!