There are around eighty legendary noncreature permanents. What if you could make one of them your commander? As I review them with that idea in mind, see if any of them might work for you or your group.

How Would This Work?

Why you would want to do this? Well, maybe you want to try something different. Maybe everyone keeps targeting your commander, whether a Voltron-style commander or a combo piece, and doing something out of the box would help you realign your reputation within the group. Maybe you’re tired of having your commander tucked and want one that isn’t going to be Condemned (a legendary land won’t even be Hindered). Maybe you like a weird legendary permanent on this list because it lets you build with a whole range of cards that don’t have a creature commander that makes any sense with them.

The drawback? It’s a biggie: You are highly unlikely to deal commander damage. A legendary permanent that is nigh-incapable of ending the game needs a lot going for it to overcome the drawback. There are several permanents that I think overcome it, but you’ll need to increase your deck’s damage output above normal considerations if your most frequently accessed card is an enchantment or a land.

But if that’s not putting you off the idea, let’s delve into some awesome possibilities. Taking out legends that either don’t make sense in the format or just aren’t quite powerful enough,¹ we have three enchantments, fourteen artifacts, and thirteen lands. Starting in color-wheel order for the permanents with a color identity, here goes.

White

Serra's Sanctum – Perhaps a commander to port Luminarch Ascension/Sigil of the Empty Throne shenanigans from sixty-card decks? Not that I like those decks, but Serra's Sanctum seems to be a strong build-around card if in the command zone. White control is often built around enchantments; Ghostly Prison, Prison Term, Rule of Law, and Faith's Fetters are all fine plays in Commander. Why not reward yourself with some mana about it? Go on; you deserve it.

Blue

Meishin, the Mind Cage – Costing without the ability to deal commander damage is probably too limiting, but I love this card in the Owling Mine kind of decks, and a lot of decks find it hard to beat for a while. You can be nastier with cards such as Noetic Scales to make it difficult for anyone to kill with creature combat, and at that point, blue has it made. You know from reading the card whether it’s for you, and I suspect many of you would like to try it.

Academy Ruins (and also Mindslaver) – The two cards go together like peas and pods. (It’s unknown whether there are birthing peas to go with Birthing Pods.) Some metagames are already divided into the people willing to run this combo and the people fighting those people. As a commander, Academy Ruins (there are few reasons to run Mindslaver as a commander over Academy Ruins other than color access) sets up all manner of recursion scenarios, from fair (Mycosynth Wellspring) to versatile (Phyrexian Metamorph) to possibly oppressive (Mindslaver). You’re probably a target initially regardless, but you can build around Academy Ruins to any point of cutthroatitude.

Black

Phyrexian Tower/Volrath's Stronghold – I confuse these cards a lot as it is, but they have similar potential as commanders: heavy combo pieces involving the death and return of many creatures. I’m pretty sure either one results eventually in the blah-blah-blah-GRAVE-PACT-ROXORZ!!! deck. It bores me, but you might like it—especially when a commander land gives you more opportunities to make it happen.

Green

Blue/Black/Red

Five-Color

Legacy Weapon – It’s slow but definitely powerful—an option for the players who love nothing more than to accumulate mana and win with whatever wants it. Mind you, unless your mana development is superb, you won’t activate your commander enough times in a game of more than three players—repeatable is difficult to come by in most situations. Chromatic Lantern joins Prismatic Omen as ways to make this work, but that might not be enough. If you think it is, go for it!

Other Artifacts

Grimoire of the Dead – Commander status gives the Grimoire a sort of slow inevitability it otherwise lacks, and that might make it high-quality. It takes a while to tick it back up, but there are only so many times people will be able to point removal at it, and continuing to bring it back from the command zone after removal (or a successful sacrifice) means your earlier work is not in vain. Grimoire of the Dead generally has been an inferior Liliana Vess in the multiplayer world, and fragility coupled with one-time use have brought the Grimoire down. In the command zone, this wouldn’t happen. That makes it intriguing enough to me at least.

Helm of Kaldra/Shield of Kaldra/Sword of Kaldra – Because it talks about the creature, I assume Helm’s the part you make the commander, but you’re building the same deck regardless. I guess this would be a Voltron deck by definition, but apart from Fabricate and tutoring, I don’t know what else goes here.

Krark's Thumb – Please, please, please, somebody out there make this a commander. It ought to be a cheap deck to build if nothing else. And it makes Skyclaw Thrash a total (by which I mean relative) house. Just look up every coin-flip card legal in Commander, and jam them in.

Mirari – The obvious build is in U/R, like with Krark's Thumb, but you could build in several directions. Most of what it would change in the abstract is increasing the utility of spot removal relative to other Commander lists. That might be interesting enough to go for a deck. Slave of Bolas, anyone?

Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho – These days, Wizards probably would have made a R/W legendary Samurai so a real Commander deck could exist around it. (With as much Equipment as Samurai like thanks to Godo, Bandit Warlord, Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer is a reasonable option for play if not flavor.) Oathkeeper as commander and no color-identity restriction would deal with the situation pleasantly. Oathkeeper isn’t overpowered—I have it in my sixty-card Samurai deck, and it’s good, not great—but it would enable enough to the point that I’d like to see it in the command zone.

Umezawa's Jitte – It’s good all the time in every format ever—and even better as a commander I’d wager. You’d probably surround the Jitte with creatures similar to Elbrus’s deck but with more color options than just black. A Boros-fueled, double-strike deck seems perfect.

Other Lands

Dark Depths – On the downside, the Marit Lage token isn’t a commander and is the wrong size to deal lethal commander damage anyway. On the upside, a 20/20 flyer still kills in two swings. Having the land as an option in the command zone after the initial sacrifice might give Dark Depths decks a resilience like Grimoire of the Dead’s. The main thing holding it back is that there are few counter-removal cards to work with. Vampire Hexmage is one, and Aether Snap is another (to boot, its effects are already sweet in the format), but it gets thin after that.

Eye of Ugin – This is probably the scariest option on this list. Every commander with repeatable tutoring is worth consideration, and when it’s an uncounterable 0-drop, it’s worth a lot of consideration. Were I building a deck around colorless cards, be they Eldrazi or artifact creatures, I’d want as my commander the thing that can tutor for all of them—rather than just one in particular—in the command zone. This should take as long to build into something frightening as it takes to kill people with it. It’s conveniently symmetrical like that.

Hall of the Bandit Lord – I’ve known this to see some Commander play. The life payment probably is too much to make it your most-frequently-accessed card, but you might be able to build around that. The main question is whether haste is an ability you want all the time.

Miren, the Moaning Well – This is for all those times you wanted to port Daru Spiritualist and Nomads en-Kor into Commander. If I’m being completely honest, I’ve probably had that time.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale – This is a powerful option and a way to show you have spare cash. Well, had spare cash.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth – Many decks have wanted to make everything Swamps, sometimes for Cabal Coffers and sometimes for other reasons. You could make the all-swampwalk deck. Sheoldred, Whispering One would like unblockability against everyone. I’m sure you really want to kill everybody simultaneously with Stern Judge, though. Forget power; embrace the jank! (If I had needed a column name, Embrace the Jank would have been a solid choice.)

Conclusion

Not every legendary permanent can make the jump to a commander, but that’s true of several existing options. I’d like to see some of these have decks built around them in open-minded playgroups. If anything jumps out at you from this list, comment on it, as I’m sure other people who read this far (or in my case, typed this far) would like to hear the ideas. If you try any of these as commanders, let the world know how it goes. Some of these ought to make for really fun decks, and that’s the whole point, so go be creative, and do cool things like that.

¹ These include:

• The Hondens;
• The legendary lands from Legends and from Champions of Kamigawa (the only good one for this is Karakas, and it’s banned in Commander);
• Tolarian Academy, Gleemax, and R&D's Secret Lair (for being banned);
• Flagstones of Trokair, Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai, and Thrumming Stone (for making no sense with a singleton format);
• Tenza, Godo's Maul, Teferi's Isle, Shell of the Last Kappa, Konda's Banner, Sword of the Chosen, Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper, Gemstone Caverns, and Rath's Edge (for not being good enough to want constant access to them); and
• Kor Haven, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds, Night of Souls' Betrayal, Tomb of Urami, Keldon Necropolis, Kher Keep, Shivan Gorge, Yavimaya Hollow, Mox Opal, Predator, Flagship, Skyship Weatherlight, and That Which Was Taken (for looking like they’d be underpowered as commanders, although each card is good enough to where you might be able to prove me wrong).