Most Underrated cEDH Commanders

You’ve likely heard the term EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander) used for Commander, but what about cEDH? This is competitive EDH, a format for players on the spikier side who still enjoy singleton deckbuilding.

In this format, most people default to using a strong commander widely played in the metagame. However, have you thought about trying a more underrated cEDH commander instead?

Playing an underrated cEDH commander means trying to win in fun ways that other players have potentially never even considered. All these underrated cEDH commanders were chosen based on their lower popularity as commanders, not necessarily a low power ceiling.

Let’s talk about 10 of the most underrated cEDH commanders in Magic!

10. Alela, Artful Provocateur

Alela, Artful Provocateur can get to cEDH territory when you have plenty of 0-drop artifacts to trigger its ability to create Faerie tokens. I’m not just talking about weird cheerios, either. At the top end, you’ve got the likes of Mox Amber and Mana Crypt and easy card draw from cards such as Mishra’s Bauble. Mox Opal would be great too since you can activate its Metalcraft ability no problem. You can even play Spellbook with no maximum hand size, which is always handy.

To utilize Alela in the endgame, I like to go with Bolas’s Citadel as we’ll easily hit the 10 permanent minimum to get an activation in multiple times per turn with the right amount of setup. Any untap effect like Voltaic key can get us to 20+ damage to each player easily, and since you’ll have that many creatures in play, your opponents will already be chipped at.

For consistency’s sake, Esper has access to the best practical tutors for this combo. Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, and all the counterspell backup you could want are all available to you.

9. Tuvasa the Sunlit

Tuvasa the Sunlit can become a commander damage bomb in a cEDH game when you have some powerful aura cards in your hand. Ancestral Mask can be the aura that pumps Tuvasa the quickest based on how many other auras are attached. Other pumping staples based on the number of auras you control, like All That Glitters and Ethereal Armor, are a low mana value way to get your legendary creature ready to one-shot an opponent with commander damage.

Alpha Status could be a substantial addition if you want to take the deck down a merfolk route to get the +2/+2 pump for each one you control. You can easily give Tuvasa trample with Audacity to finish the job, even through blockers. All in all, we’re relying on a high volume of aura enchantments so that we have a consistent first few turns with Tuvasa coming out swinging as strong as possible, as quickly as possible.

8. Xira Arien

Xira Arien is a Tier-3 cEDH commander originally printed in Legends, and its most recent reprint is in Dominaria Remastered. There’s a sweet combo if you manage to get infinite colored mana, haste, and an untap outlet out. Argothian Elder and Wirewood Lodge can get your infinite mana quota filled easily, and Temur Sabertooth can get Xira in and out of play as long as you have some kind of haste-enabler out as well.

Put it all together and you can mill out each player one-by-one. You can make up for the multi-piece combo by utilizing the many tutors available in black and green and things like Gamble in red. Is it underrated and janky? Yes. But that’s what we’re here for after all!.

7. Karumonix, the Rat King

Karumonix, the Rat King turns its rat army into an infectious disease that can spread to your opponents if they aren’t careful of the toxic 1 ability. Overwhelm your opponents by filling your creature base with as many copies of Rat Colony as possible, as fast as possible.

You can ramp with mana dorks like Magus of the Coffers, Bog Witch, and Leaden Myr to grow your Rat Colony army quicker. Marrow-Gnawer can grow your rat army and give them fear to make them essentially unblockable if your opponents are not playing black or do not control an artifact creature. Hence, the rats with toxic 1 can quickly accumulate poison counters on your opponents for you to take the win. Never underestimate what a bunch of small creatures can do against combo decks that take too long.

6. Shalai and Hallar

Shalai and Hallar is a great example of a Commander that can quickly get out of control if it gets the opportunity. Numerous one-card combos go infinite, like The Red Terror or Heliod, the Sun-Crowned, and I bet you that most people you play with aren’t aware of them ahead of time! On top of that, you’ve got access to great staples in Naya to accelerate your game plan while parrying your opponents' attempts at winning. Not only is that just about every single great mana dork and ramp spell, but also white’s interaction and hatebears. This commander has a lot of flexibility, which makes it a great choice given how rare it is to see it in play.

5. Zaxara, the Exemplary

Zaxara, the Exemplary capitalizes on X spells to create Hydra tokens. Being a deathtouch mana dork itself, it can already get the ball rolling on casting X spells at higher numbers to produce more powerful Hydra tokens.

Mana dorks are especially valuable here for casting X spells with increasingly higher numbers earlier on in the game. Incubation Druid, Llanowar Tribe, and Bloom Tender are some of the most valuable ones worth including.

Regarding finishing a game, Pemmin’s Aura and Freed from the Real are both one-card combos producing infinite colored mana with Zaxara. You can use just about any outlet in Sultai to get the job done, whether that’s Curse of the Swine and a haste enabler or something like Walking Ballista.

4. Abomination of Llanowar

Abomination of Llanowar can turn into a high-powered creature quickly with one key card that fills your library in an instant… but at sorcery speed: Morality Shift. This will only work if the bulk of your army are elves, so Abomination of Llanowar can be as powerful as possible once you cast Morality Shift.

Glowspore Shaman, Skull Prophet, and other Golgari creatures can start to fill your graveyard early in the game. Sands of Delirium and Mindwrack Harpy can mill your library more expeditiously to prepare for the big finish. Elves are great mana dork rompers, so throw in Circle of Dreams Druid, Wirewood Channeler, and Marwyn, the Nurturer for the most substantial ramp to cast Morality Shift earlier on. Find a way to give Abomination of Llanowar trample, like by enchanting it with Setessan Training or equipping it with Hero’s Heirloom, to one-shot each of your opponents over the next few turns.

Alternatively, if you don’t get Morality Shift or a tutor to find it, you can achieve infinite self-mill with Millikin, Voltaic Construct, and Heartstone. You can stop the loop when Abomination of Llanowar is large enough to one-shot an opponent with commander damage. Obviously, there’s always the ever-popular Sanguine Blood and Exquisite Blood infinite life loss combo around the table that can drain everyone’s life total and gain you infinite life. You’ll just need a way to gain life once both cards are on the table to start the infinite loop.

3. Dina, Soul Steeper

Dina, Soul Steeper is a Golgari aristocratic menace that’s only ranked as the ## 90 most built Commander on EDHREC. It’s one of the many underrated cEDH commanders that’s sometimes overlooked.

Dina’s ability to ping each opponent whenever you gain life is begging to be combod with the likes of Exquisite Blood. The rest of your deck can be tailored to actually getting that card into your hand, cards to initiate the combo through gaining life, and then disruption. Green can provide sweet artifact hate to shut down aggressive combo decks while black offers excellent tutors, hand disruption, and removal.

2. Queza, Augur of Agonies

At the time of writing, Queza, Augur of Agonies is ranked as the 123rd most constructed Commander deck on EDHREC, so it’s not really a metagame choice. There are a few great ways to achieve infinite card draw to drain an opponent’s life total in a cEDH game with this commander.

Try one of these infinite card draw combos that can be easily started and stopped so that you can drain each of your opponent’s life totals without completely milling yourself out:

Lich’s Mastery: A great one-card combo with Queza that gives you infinite draw, triggers, lifegain, and more than enough life-loss., Drogskol Reaver also does this, which gives you some redundancy.

Cloud Key, Mystic Forge, and Sensei’s Divining Top. As long as you choose “artifact” when casting Cloud Key. Replacing Foundry Inspector in Cloud Key’s place to achieve the same effect as the above combo.

As for deckbuilding, you’ll just want to include a strong base of counterspells, removal, and card advantage engines to keep your gas coming. As long as your deck can stifle and combat turn 2 or 3 wins, it’ll naturally draw into these combos or tutors.

1. Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist + Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh

Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh and Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist are a dynamic Boros partner duo that can get pretty janky in a cEDH build because of all the equipment and auras you’d need. But, with the right cards, you can win the game through an explosive start. Auras like Idolized, Ethereal Armor, and All That Glitters offer substantial pumps to Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh, which already has great abilities like first strike and menace. Artifact equipment like Thran Power Suit, Lizard Blades, and Masterwork of Ingenuity (to copy your best equipment spell) will make Rograkh more formidable.

Ardenn will expedite how quickly you can get Rograkh equipped since the legendary creature essentially lets you attach all your equipment for free to a chosen creature. Raiyuu, Storm's Edge and Karlach, Fury of Avernus can give you the additional combat steps you need to wipe out your opponents, possibly in one turn. The key to this deck is redundancy. So many powerful, cheap auras can be stuck on our free legendary creature, which means that we’ll have more acceptable opening hands with fewer mulligans. That also means that you should be more demanding of your opponent's hands, as too slow of a start will likely result in your doom due to the natural lack of proactive interaction. Our proactive interaction is killing our opponents.

What’s Your Favorite Underrated cEDH Commander?

Commander is a very personally tailored Magic format with thousands of possibilities for a deck build. Start the conversation in the comments and discuss your favorite underrated cEDH commander from this list. Or, maybe play another cEDH commander that’s not listed and have a great story to tell! Until next time, get as competitive as you want in a Commander game because no matter what, it’s all good fun!