Ahead of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty's physical release, Magic: The Gathering has posted all of its spoilers for both the Standard-legal draft set and its Commander deck companions, allowing for strategizing over which are the best Commanders. While the set and draft format are both available on Magic Arena, Commander players will need to wait until the 18th to begin seriously deck brewing with the set. For players looking for new inspiration for new decks and new players trying to get into the game, there's many new legendary creatures to build decks around, from Go-Shintai of Life's Origin to Kotori, Pilot's Prodigy.
Unlike some of the best legendary creatures in Standard, Modern, or even Pioneer, commanders are usually graded based on how strong their theme is supported and how unique and powerful their build-around nature is for the 100-card Magic Commander format. A commander might have a lower power level, but be fun to build around like Aminatou, the Fateshifter or Admiral Beckett Brass. Wizards of the Coast has been designing more legendary creatures as of late in order to provide players with more options for commanders, meaning that there's a lot more cards to analyze and customize decks with.
In the main set, there are a few legendary creatures that seem built for Commander - there's a cycle of three color commanders as well as a few two-colored and mono-colored commanders. While Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty has dropped the legendary focus of its predecessor's block, it's still full of great cards for the Commander format. In both the main set and the specific Commander set, there are cards that play to Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty's lore and historic gameplay style.
Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful Is A Fun New Aggressive Partner in Kamigawa
In the era of goodest boys, it's great that every commander with Magic's Partner mechanic can now have a dog companion. Yoshimaru's art shows the Wanderer's friend sitting respectfully in his throne, waiting for her to come home, but the play pattern with Yoshimaru will often be that it enters the battlefield turn one and begins hitting opponents for massive damage. His ability triggers on any legendary creature and permanent, meaning that even before his partner comes down he'll do a great job of attacking and defending alike.
Partner is inherently powerful - the ability to start with two commanders in the command zone allows players to essentially start with nine cards in hand. Yoshimaru also cares about legendary permanents entering the battlefield, meaning that legendary lands, artifacts, enchantments, and more often found in Magic: The Gathering's Secret Lairs and elsewhere will all trigger its ability, growing him to massive sizes. A more aggressive build with Vial Smasher the Fierce or a blink build with Thrasios, Triton Hero will be able to take advantage of Yoshimaru's ability the best.
Go-Shintai Of Life's Origin Is The Magic: The Gathering Shrine Commander Players Have Waited For
In Magic's Core Set 2021, a card called Sanctum of All was released along with an updated version of the Shrine cycle. The original Shrines all gave bonuses based on how many Shrines that player controlled. Since each one was in a different color deckbuilding around them was near impossible in Magic's Standard 60-card format, but now that there's more shrines to play with they've become a fun build-around in Commander. Sanctum of All lets players search their library for the Shrine that's the most useful, allowing them to easily assemble multiples to win the game with.
Go-Shintai not only rewards players for playing Shrines, it helps players protect them if they go to the graveyard. The activated ability returns them to the battlefield and the triggered ability protects its owner while setting up their wall of enchantments. Supporting the commander with cards like Idyllic Tutor, Ghostly Prison, and other enchantment payoffs will most likely be the way to build this deck.
Isshin, Two Heavens As One Is A New Take On Aggressive Magic Commanders
Commander decks often don't focus on attacking because the amount of crazy shenanigans that can happen in combat is much less impressive than the combos with powerful creatures or instants and sorceries like in Strixhaven's Mystical Archive. Isshin plans to change this with a doubling mechanic similar to Panharmonicon and Teysa Karlov before him. This card requires interesting deckbuilding choices and plays quite differently from other aggressive commanders that often focus on equipment and extra combat steps.
Cards like Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Goldspan Dragon, and Triumphant Adventurer are all cards currently in Standard that can be used to establish board presence early and take a commanding lead. Strangely, Isshin doesn't care about who controls the attacking creatures, so his ability can also be used defensively with Revenge of Ravens from the much-maligned MTG set Throne of Eldraine and Search the Premises from Modern Horizons 2. The ability was written with different strategies in mind, so although it may seem like an aggressive deck, there's actually many angles to discover.
Satoru Umezawa Is A Sneaky Ninjutsu Magic Commander
Ninjutsu is a mechanic from the first Kamigawa block that made its return in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and Satoru Umezawa is the card which best takes advantage of the keyword. By letting any creature in a player's hand have Ninjutsu, some terrifying targets can be put onto the battlefield way before someone could cast them. Cards like Ulamog, The Ceaseless Hunger; Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant; and Sheoldred, Whispering One all greatly swing the advantage towards their controllers if they are able to get them down due to Satoru's ability.
Satoru Umezawa's Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Minjutsu ability does need both small evasive creatures and large threats, so making sure that the deck has an even spread of both will be a top priority. Along with the aforementioned large plays, Satoru Umezawa can make use of creatures with enters-the-battlefield effects like Mulldrifter and evasive creature generators like Bitterblossom in order to have threats guaranteed to go unblocked. Playing large creatures early with cards like Reanimate and Sneak Attack is already a strategy in Commander, so having a commander that can do the same with a unique mechanic is exciting.
Beyond the legendary creatures, there are cards like Boseiju, Goro-Goro, Mirror Box, and Takenuma which are all bound to find homes in Commander decks. The cyberpunk-themed Magic set seems high powered enough that even if someone uses the less expensive cards in Magic: The Gathering's Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, they'll still find their deck is improved. The set seems to provide opportunities for creativity in all aspects of deckbuilding, from choosing a theme to exploring powerful synergies. Along with this, there are many alternate art versions of these commanders, allowing each player to build a deck that fits their preferred theme and playstyle.