We're back for another mythic ranking list, and this week we've got one of the most interesting sets in all of Magic: The Gathering: Alara Reborn. Capping off the heavily multicolored-focused Shards of Alara block, Alara Reborn takes this theming to its absolute extreme, with every single card being multicolored. This made things truly wild and led to some interesting designs, despite it happening in a smaller set. Let's dive in and see which ones are the best of the best!

10. Defiler of Souls and 9. Lord of Extinction

Normally, I'd talk about these cards separately, but I think discussing them together allows me to better showcase why Defiler of Souls is as low as it is. In reality, Lord of Extinction is extremely overrated. It's more or less just a giant vanilla creature that gets chump blocked all day - especially in Commander. In spite of that, though, it's achieved some kind of iconic status simply due to how truly massive it can get. As such, it highly appeals to the Timmys and Tammys of the world, and it has some great art to boot. It just oozes charm despite being pretty unexciting when you actually get to play with it.

In fact, Lord of Extinction was originally my number 10 spot because of how weak it is in most situations. It's mostly mystic because it has that "mythic" feel to it, and I think it's deserved. I look at most of this list and I feel all these cards are well represented in various formats and have some degree of icon status to them. But then there's Defiler of Souls. I think this card is pretty cool, and is certainly more playable than Lord of Extinction. So why is it lower on my list?

The simple fact is the card is just forgettable. A big flying demon that kills creatures every turn? Yeah, that rocks, actually. But can you name the last time you saw this card at your table, Commander or otherwise? I know I can't. In fact, I forgot it even exists if I'm being honest. It looks like a much more enjoyable card on paper, but in practice it ends up being forgettable. No one thinks about random big demon #7390. They do, however, remember that time a 75/75 hit the board because graveyards were that big.

8. Jenara, Asura of War

Jenara is better than either of the first two cards on this list in terms of playability. That isn't saying much, though, and it's only an efficiently-costed, evasive French vanilla creature. As such, it's generally unexciting, but then you'll find yourself absolutely beaten down by it game after game and gain a little more respect for it. It's not super memorable, hence the low placement here, but it still is well worth checking out for your Bant Commander decks.

7. Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund

You simply haven't lived until a player does something to change creature types and drop a Karrthus. The card reads innocuously on its own. Stealing opposing dragons isn't going to happen that often, and beyond that line of text, the rest of this design is pretty unexciting - even for a big beater, right? Well, in games of Commander, dragons are way more prevalent given the format's more casual appeal. On top of that, you can use it in tandem with cards like Unnatural Selection and Artificial Evolution when put into lists such as Scion of the Ur-Dragon to do some gross things. And beyond all that: it's still a monstrous beater that untaps all your dragons and gives them haste. Who doesn't love that?

6. Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Sphinx of the Steel Wind often feels like one of the most boring playable mythics ever. It's super strong and sees a fairly reasonable amount of play in its own right, but it's hard to see it as anything but dull as a mythic. There's nothing super interesting about what it's doing, and instead it reads more like Akroma, Angel of Wrath, but in artifact form. Turns out that's enough, though, and it's frequently a staple of both Reanimator and Artifact-based strategies across multiple formats. It may be unexciting as far as mythic designs go, but it's certainly among the most playable of this set.

5. Dragon Broodmother

There was once a time when Verdant Force was one of the biggest and baddest things you could be doing in Magic: The Gathering. It was a huge beater that also made tons of little tokens every turn. It was expensive, sure, but that meant little if you were playing a dedicated Reanimator or Ramp strategy. Dragon Broodmother is Verdant Force on steroids. You lose a lot of the punch of that card, with this only being a 4/4 to Verdant Force's 7/7, but you make up for that by making flying tokens rather than bland 1/1 ground tokens. Also, when you start getting a lot of tokens on the board, you can devour them with the new tokens, making for even bigger creatures in the process. It may not see quite as much love as it used to, but Dragon Broodmother is still an absolute icon of the game.

4. Thraximundar

Thraximundar is a huge beater that comes out swinging, takes a creature with him, and gets even bigger as a result. It's not hard to see how this one legend became such a beloved icon in early Commander, as it provided both a fun and strong multicolored option that also wasn't downright oppressive. These days, the card is awfully outclassed by the sheer diversity of options we've gotten for the color combination over the years, but it's hard not to look back fondly at this awesome early commander.

3. Uril, the Miststalker

Everyone has that one Commander they simply can't stand. Maybe it's that the card is too ubiquitous in play groups, is a bit too strong, or is just too difficult to deal with. In the case of Uril, it's a bit of the latter two rolled firmly into one card. Uril having hexproof makes it wildly difficult to interact with, and given how he gets buffs from auras, it makes Uril perfect as a Bogles-style commander. Bogles is often disliked in competitive 60 card formats due to the difficulty in interacting with it, and that just gets compounded with Commander. Suiting Uril up gets out of hand fast, especially when you can turbo it out using mana ramp, making it a formidable foe that will have all your opponents hating you when you play it.

2. Sen Triplets

If Uril is annoying to deal with, Sen Triplets is downright infuriating. It makes certain players completely unable to play the game and lets you steal their whole strategy instead. So, while Uril is merely difficult to interact with, Sen Triplets actively removes your ability to deal with it while also barring you from playing the game. Period. The fact that it lets you do this, however, makes it incredibly strong and wholly unique. So, while it may lack the fun factor that so many cards have, there's a certain degree of infamy to Sen Triplets that's hard to match even today. If you play this card in a modern game of Commander, you're going to be met with so many groans, and it's worse in the Spelltable era as well. Still, it's a potent and iconic card, well deserving of high placing on this list.

1. Maelstrom Nexus

You know what's cool? Cascading. You know what's REALLY cool, though? Getting to cascade every single turn! That's what makes Maelstrom Nexus such an awesome and iconic casual card. Your opportunities to actually get to play with the card are going to be minimal at best, because you're limited more or less to playing it exclusively in five-color Commander decks. Occasionally you'll see it in someone's free-for-all casual 60-card deck, or maybe in a Cube, but generally that's it. Still, it's a card that everyone finds themselves wanting to play at one point or another, and for my money, that makes it a winner in the top mythics of Alara Reborn.