Zendikar is one of our favorite Magic: the Gathering planes here at the Card Kingdom Blog, and this week we’re diving into five underrated Commanders that hail from Zendikar.
Last time we covered five underrated Commanders from Strixhaven, but when you go further back in time, there are fewer Legendary Creatures. So, this time, rather than looking at just one set, we’re looking at a few.
KAZA, ROIL CHASER
Izzet has a whole host of Commanders that reward you for spellslinging, and a lot of the more recent ones have focused on how many spells you cast each turn, and not how big those spells are. Kaza, Roil Chaser is a really cool Commander option from Zendikar Rising that I think you might enjoy if you like Will, Scion of Peace or Rowan, Scion of War.
Now, the obvious win con in a Kaza deck is a big, phat burn spell. Jaya’s Immolating Inferno or Crackle with Power spring to mind, but you can also pump that mana into spells like Mnemonic Deluge, Hit the Mother Lode and Mass Manipulation to have some fun in the mid game.
Clever Conjurer and Aphetto Alchemist are both wizards, which makes them all the more fun to include in a deck that wants you to untap Kaza for extra cost reduction and value. Don’t forget about instants like Turnabout, even though you will sometimes use them to untap lands and not creatures.
Getting plenty of Wizards into play is easy. Archmage of Echoes copies your Wizard spells, while the Myriad on Wizards of Thay can give you some serious cost reduction. Combined? Yeah, I’d love to see that!
There are plenty of fun on-theme cards to run, too. Flame of Anor wants you to control a Wizard for a very competitively costed effect, and cards like Ingenious Prodigy help us get Wizards in play that also top up our hand.
KIORA, SOVEREIGN OF THE DEEP
Arixmethes is old news. Sure, it’s still more popular, with Kenessos and Aesi more popular still, but Kiora is really quite good. Five mana initially is easy for Simic, and ward {3} is that thicc ward cost that ensures she sticks around. Getting to free-cast a spell that costs less than the sea monster you just cast from hand is serious card/mana advantage, making Kiora a semi-Sunbird’s Invocation. It also isn’t limited to just once per turn, which makes things interesting.
This is a deck where I want to be casting some of the powerful new MH3 cards for sure. Benthic Anomaly is still one of the most underrated but scary finishers in blue, and Kozilek’s Unsealing is such insane value in this deck. You’ll effectively get mana back and sometimes even cards for casting, allowing you to maybe have a double-spell cascade turn.
Speaking of finishers, Serpent of Yawning Depths can make your board unblockable, and Spawning Kraken can provide that board. I don’t want to use the term “snowball” here, because it’s more a… tsunami.
I’m generally not the biggest fan of topdeck manipulation in Commander, as it often feels like a waste of mana. I think Brainstorm can be quite good here, though, so knock yourself out.
I will use this as another opportunity to wax-lyrical on Irenicus’s Vile Duplication, though. I love this spell, and I think it’s seriously underplayed. Getting a ward {3} Serra Angel, basically, that doubles up Kiora triggers for you, by cloning Kiora? That’s just so much value. Makes me really want to run those topdeck tutors.
Friend and Moderator of my discord Mercury01 has a Kiora list you might find inspiration in: Seas the Day (haha).
AYLI, ETERNAL PILGRIM
One of my favorite Commanders, and one I keep coming back to, Ayli is a lot of fun, and opens some incredibly toolbox-y gameplay for Orzhov. The fact she turns into removal on a stick is great, but not something you should be building around. Instead, you want to take advantage of her ability to gain you a boatload of lifegain, and some of the weird stuff you can do with it.
The obvious synergy is with the life-triggered combo pieces. Ayli can generate the momentum for those triggers in the Command Zone while providing the right colors. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Sanguine Bond, Exquisite Blood, Vizkopa Guildmage, and more can help turn those triggers into a death by one-thousand cuts.
Other win conditions abound, with Aetherflux Reservoir being a shoe-in for this. If you want to get spicy, there are more things you can do, though. Tree of Perdition works wonderfully with Ayli, but the combo I like is Crackdown Construct and Lightning Greaves. Provided you can make an infinitely large Construct, you can set your life total to an arbitrary amount, and if a card like Vito is in play, people do tend to die.
Cards like Entomb and Buried Alive are key to success in an Ayli deck, along with cheap ways to re-animate your creatures. Big Beaters like Kokusho and Ashen Rider provide nice chunks of life and removal. Some of my favorite haymakers in this deck are Celestine and Tivash, Gloom Summoner. Both check how much life you gained at end of turn, and give you recursion or big flying Demon tokens.
One way to have a lot of fun with Ayli is to build her with Lurrus as her Companion. She’s one of the few Commanders that this is possible with, and you’ll have to be more creative with how the deck works. Friend of my discord Frost has a sweet little Ayli x Lurrus list for some inspiration here. It’s an aristocrat’s dream.
LINVALA, SHIELD OF SEA GATE
Linvala, Shield of Seagate from ZNR is protection in the Command Zone, which means that the only other thing you have to worry about is curving out and drawing cards. Thankfully, that’s quite easy to do in Azorius colors. Her “party” rider isn’t what makes the card good, but if you do perchance manage it sometime, then it can be a welcome boon.
Small flyers like Ledger Shredder and Faerie Mastermind will obviously draw you plenty of cards in this kind of deck, but it’s the chance to cast Thieving Skydiver that really excites me. It’s one of my favorite blue cards and ways to punish a Sol Ring start.
Of course, where Linvala goes, Gift of Immortality follows. Enabling soft-locks of having protection available is what keeps this deck ticking over, and there’s nothing better than a Linvala that just won’t die. Brought Back is a slam dunk, too, especially as it works with Lotus Field and Fetchlands so well.
Linvala can be built with Hatebears or with Flyers, if you want two directions – and with cards like other Linvala and Hushbringer, you can get you a Commander than can do both.
She’s a great home for Giada and Errant… and Giada. An angels build is well within the scope of the deck, too.
If you want to check out a spicy version of this deck, check out friend and fellow creator LennyWooley’s Sea Gate Air Force. I love the inclusion of Final-Word Phantom here.
MORAUG, FURY OF AKOUM
Moraug, Fury of Akoum is an extra combats Commander you should definitely check out. What makes Moraug interesting is the way the landfall trigger works. Because your creatures untap at the beginning of the extra combat that gets added, you can stack it, getting extra combats.
The obvious synergy here is fetchlands, and getting some on-color Fetches like Wooded Foothills or Bloodstained Mire, as well as the usual Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista is a great idea.
There are even more options in 2024, especially on a budget. Escape Tunnel is especially nice if you already have a good sequence lined up and want to make something unblockable for the whole turn before Moraug takes it out of range.
Speaking of power 2 or less creatures that Moraug wants, Reckless Pyrosurfer, Professional Face-Breaker and Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin all fit the bill.
Bear in mind that if you drop a land in your first main phase, your creatures won’t untap when you go to your actual, normal, state-sanctioned combat phase – so save them for main phase two.
Moraug wants to combine small utility creatures that help with extra land drops, like Walking Atlas and Alpine Guide, with big beaters and other extra combat spells.
Outlaws of Thunder Junction had some stellar pickups for Moraug, with Great Train Heist giving an extra combat with some added first strike and mana generation, and Return the Favor as not only a way to bounce removal away from us but also to copy our landfall triggers.
Two big picks here are Fury of the Horde which you can almost always cast for free in mono-red, and Rising of the Day, because you want to be having your creatures entering the battlefield ready to take names.
END STEP
I always love visiting Zendikar, and today we got to check in with five Underrated Commander options from across Zendikar’s history. Do you run any of them? Is there one we missed? Let us know.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.