Hello awesome folks! Today I have something special for you! We have 10 Phyrexian Praetors that have been printed and an 11th previewed already in the next Standard-legal set in 2023. That means we have 11, and I do this thing called a Top Ten list so just one more. Let's analyze them as potential Commanders for people in Commander.

Ready?

Honorable Mention #1 - Urabrask the Hidden

This five-mana 4/4 gives your team haste, plus himself. Nice. Then it also forces your opposing creatures to enter tapped so they cannot block, tap, or attack with haste, they just take the turn off. That's pretty strong, but pretty weak compared to the rest of the team. As a Commander you can run things that care about haste like tappers or high-power stuff. It takes a while to get to a Commander Damage kill, but this is also one of the cheapest Commanders, which helps push forward a force of Commander nature. I adore this with Feldon of the Third Path and Jaxis, the Troublemaker that could use haste to tap as soon as they arrive.

In addition to tappers, run flying Dragons like Knollspine Dragon. It's very powerful with token makers that put a lot of power and toughness on the battlefield for their cost like Hordeling Outburst's 3 for three mana. As well as power pumpers. A haste enabler on a creature is also very powerful in Type Four since you don't have to take a turn off to cast a Fires of Yavimaya or similar card, and haste is very strong there. But a haste enabler in the Command Zone is pretty generic compared to the rest of the team. Enjoy!

#10. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur

This ten-drop 5/4 with flash will draw you 7 in your end step and then force your foes to discard to zero. It's considered one of the nastiest cards to resolve in Commander, but it does require a massive 10 mana the first time, and then 12 the next, and not in the colors of ramp (Black, Cabal Coffers; Green, Cultivate). It basically a Hail Mary pass. Do you get to 10 mana? Then you'll win, but any ten-drop should win the game anyway, right? It's always been discussed as a what if. Sure, if you get to ten mana is one of the best cards to play...but that's a big nasty "if."

Also note that this can be answered by normally played lands and mana rocks that don't require you to discard like Reliquary Tower, Thought Vessel and Decanter of Endless Water. Then it swings and misses, and it's easy to add them to your deck if your metagame has this in their queue. It's the second-worst of the 11 to run as a Commander. Get it?

#9. Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

Seven mana for a smaller 4/7 with just vigilance is fine. It pumps your dorks with a double boost of +2/+2 and reduces your foes size by that amount as well. That will kill anything from Mulldrifter to Flametongue Kavu to Esper Sentinel. The stats here are a bit small for a 7-drop in the Command Zone in a creature loving color. But it's very easy to build around. Tokens will love it, as will aggro. One secret one I like is Mono-White Hate Bears. You are running cheap dorks to mess with things, and this does that while pumping your small fry like Aven Mindcensor and the aforementioned Esper Sentinel. Love this thing's synergy loads, but it is a harder to cast and smaller dork, and not as powerful an ability for that mana cost, hence it hitting #9 overall.

#8. Urabrask, Heretic Praetor

The first charting new leader is this that also costs five, rocks a 4/4 body, has haste, and then gives you card flow in the Command Zone. The first ability lets you exile and cast from your exile zone, so you are getting one extra card per turn if you cast it. Then your foes are impulse drawing their first card each turn rather than card draw, so it hurts them if they impulse drew something like Counterspell or Swan Song. That's very build around-able as a leader, with cards on your end that are fine getting played on your turn and cheap while your foes won't have built around it. Nice!

It's still just a 4/4 for five, takes a lot of combat damage to kill, and then offers card flow over time which you can cast, but it's buildable quite ably. Since it costs five, I wouldn't run anything that costs more, so you can reliably drop it with your mana free impulsive draw. Nice stuff for the win!

#7. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

This is our penultimate scoring old cycle Praetor. When you tap your lands for mana, add another mana. And then when your foes tap land for mana, it skips an untap step. Note that won't work on something like Academy Ruins being tapped for reloading an artifact off of mana rocks or a Maze of Ith tapping to prevent combat damage, just lands that were tapped for mana. This is a massive 8 mana to drop, but it's in the color of ramp. Nice stuff!

And you get an extra mana boost from your lands that tap for mana, so not only is this gettable fast in this color, it's also abusive with that land-based ramp as well since now you get more mana, hence it being my second-best initial Praetor set. It's very easy to build around, just mono-Green ramp with extra mana payoffs like X spells such as Hydra like Benevolent Hydra that you can just brake after this arrives. With trample and a 7 power this can crash over potential defenders to hit for Commander Damage, but also add in Whispersilk Cloak style effects to ensure it hits.

#6. Sheoldred, Whispering One

This seven mana 6/6 with Swampwalk is our top hitting New Phyrexia Praetor. This is in the color of Cabal Coffers and similar ramp, so 7 mana reliably is doable, as well as again with Commander Tax. This is our top scoring card outside of the Top Five proper. In your upkeep you get a free Zombify from your graveyard to the battlefield. Then in your foe's upkeep, they sacrifice a dork, so it's The Abyss for them and reanimation for you.

I used to run this as the leader of my real life Commander Shadow deck built around Nether Shadow, Ashen Ghoul, and other self-recursive dorks that were sacrificed and brought back for value. I then replaced it with Bontu the Glorified after it was printed. Love it loads!

That's a key way to build around this: sacrifices and Aristocrats. By the by, I also love it as a leader of midrange, which might be out there. The idea here is to bring back dorks with ETB removal abilities like Ravenous Chupacabra, card flow like Phyrexian Rager, and discard like Liliana's Specter. Nice right? And then mono-black control can lean on it with all their Caged Sun effects and such making your big mana plays like Exsanguinate that also force their foes to sacrifice each turn to Sheoldred, Whispering One.

All five cards that made my Top Five are newer ones, but which ones and where? That's the fun of lists like this!

#5. Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider

The first reprinted Praetor was this much cheaper 6-mana 6/6 with both trample and haste, compared to the massively pricier first version with just trample. It's a modern size with two great keywords for swinging and Commander Damage and is massively faster as a clock even with the power reduction. Then you can double your counters you place on a permanent or player. Loyalty counters on planeswalkers? +1/+1 counters on Triskelion? Poison counters on foes? That's loads of different builds you could unearth and build around. And then when your foes do that, they put half, so that hurts those three builds and acts as a defense against poisoning win cons by your foes.

This thing is a great, easy to build around, cheaper than other options but not as strong in the anti-opponent game unless they came with a Planeswalker deck. This is also playable in Type Four where any haste and trample are good enough, and it's good just with keywords and size, but you'll rarely double anything unless you draw the rare planeswalker like Ugin.

#4. Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines

This 5-drop 4/7 is pretty cheap compared to the older one. She rocks vigilance to swing at open players and then keep back to block attackers. She has a cool ability - when your stuff enters the battlefield and causes a triggered ability to happen, copy it. That means that you can get double from all sorts of things. Then when your opponents' stuff enters the battlefield, no triggers happen. So, it's a Torpor Orb in the Command Zone. The obvious place to run this is with midrange since all of your Karmic Guide effects for recursion, and Loran of the Third Path for removal, and Wall of Omens for card flow. Then you can also run this in mono-white landfall since your lands will double trigger lands entering the battlefield like Emeria Angel, Felidar Retreat and Emeria Shepherd. I also like this in Soul Sisters style life gain decks alongside Soul Warden effects. Life gain is the second most popular Commander Archetype according to EDHREC.com). I also love this in blink where you can get double blink triggers from your blink effects. (blink is 26th; landfall is 25th)

#3. Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant

This 5/5 for 7 mana is our third highest-scoring card and top non-Black card. Good job! It's a bit small for its cost, with no keywords to make up for it, but way cheaper than the earlier card. When you cast your first artifact, instant or sorcery on any turn, copy it. That means that in a multiple player format like Commander you can get free copies on all opposing turns and could, in theory, get four copies in a four-player game with cheap instants. Then your foe's first one cast of those is countered. That's just nasty.

I think this works very well in a Spellslinger brew with cheap instants and sorceries and things to trigger like Talrand, Sky Summoner and the magecraft that will trigger on your copies as well like Archmage Emeritus that will draw a potential 8 cards each round of turns in a four-person game. Deekah will make 8 tokens and 6 of them at instant speed and with a 7 cost Commander you likely have the mana for three 2s and one 1 each round after you have resolved it.

I also love this in a Cantrips brew that wins around things like Thassa's Oracle and Psychosis Crawler. That's the 20th most popular archetype. Don't sleep on that artifact copy either. Blue is the color that cares about artifacts the most and getting a free copy each turn is pretty strong. (artifact is the top archetype and equipment is 4th). I love this with artifact flash enablers like Shimmer Myr where you can cast more than one in opposing turns to get multiple copies each round. I also really like it as a super-secret Mono-Blue Vehicle deck since you'll copy your Vees.

Also, don't sleep on that last ability either. It's very strong at shutting down removal as most people have been pulling their Ravenous Chupacabras for Murders, so you have to cast two to answer it barring answers in the creature or planeswalker base like Karn Liberated. This is also the most powerful Phyrexian Praetor in Type Four where you have infinite mana so you can drop this turn one, but only one spell per turn, so this is a massive counter there. It's shuts down most ways to interact with it from bounce (Cyclonic Rift, Capsize) to targeted removal (Vindicate, Path to Exile) to sweeping removal (Wrath of God, Planar Collapse). It's rough there.

#2. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

This on-curve 4/5 with deathtouch is breaking Standard right now. When you draw a card? Gain a pair of life! When your foes draw? They lose two life! So, this is a slow win con over time in a multiplayer game like Commander. It's the second cheapest Phyrexian Praetor, so it's pretty easy to drop turn 3 with a second-turn mana rock like Charcoal Diamond or Mind Stone.

I think there are a few ways to build around this dork. The first is to play with the second half of the first ability, a mono-black life gain deck. We have loads of life gain into opposing losses like Sanguine Bond that will kill your folks even faster than normal. As we looked at earlier, that is a very powerful archetype. Let's build around the first half of the first ability and draw a ton of cards, for life loss like Ancient Craving that now net 3 life instead of losing you three. Just run tons of life loss now life gain in this color and run a control deck. Another way to build this deck is around the latter ability. Run cards that cause a targeted player to lose life and draw cards, like the X spell Damnable Pact. That draws X cards and loses X life, so your foe will lose three times X! That's a very strong way to build your deck around as well. You could also just run Group Hug with things like Howling Mine and Font of Mythos forcing all your foes to draw and lose life while you gain more and more life. Good card to hit my #2 spot!

Ready for #1?

#1. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor

This three-drop 3/3 with two abilities is my top scoring Phyrexian Praetor from the Command Zone. There are a few reasons for this. The first is the cost. He is the cheapest at just three mana and can easily be played multiple times across multiple Command Taxes. The first triggered ability is another reason he's here. Whenever a dork deals combat damage to a player's face, they draw a card and lose a life. That's card flow in the Command Zone, and your foes will attack each other all day long to net that card draw ability.

They might even let each other hit in order to draw cards and the little combat damage here and there plus the life loss for the card flow is sau-some. It's going to really add up over time, and you'll always draw for anyone else you punish. So basically, it's a mono-Black version of Edric, Spymaster of Trest that's a powerhouse that also forces them to lose life to the cards drawn, which they won't mind doing. Edric has Green for ramp and removal like Beast Within and Blue has counters like Negate, and card draw like Fact or Fiction. But many Edric decks run a bunch of one-drops have evasion and power and them swing and draw two or three cards on the turn they drop Edric.

I think that you can do a similar thing here with Gix. Grab bunches of cheap dorks with evasion, like flying and menace and intimidate and fear and swing away. There one drops like Battlefly Swarm, Eyetwitch, Nightshade Stinger, Pilfering Imp, and Dreadmalkin or Prickly Boggart that have evasion. I also like this with tokens since you can make a bunch of tokens and then swing too many to block and draw three or four cards each combat step. Also run some life gaining things to keep yourself from dying to your own massively triggered Gix, like lifelink attackers such as Vampire Nighthawk or Nullpriest of Oblivion. Just on curve and power of the first ability, it's my top card...

But check out that second ability! Spend 7 mana, and you can discard any number of cards from your hand, and exile that many cards from an opponent's library and then you can play them without paying their mana cost, so that's free spells from your Command Zone. It's great when you draw a bunch and are about to discard. As we've discussed before, with Cabal Coffers and its BFF Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth plus other rampings, that 7 mana is pretty doable, and you are in the color of tutors to grab them plus Expedition Map is colorless. Nasty trilogy of early pushing around the battlefield your way and late game power. It's just such a good card!

And there we are! I hope that you enjoyed this fun ol' thing!