10 Best Commanders to Use from MTG Outlaws of Thunder Junction (2024)

Magic: The Gathering players are deep into Outlaws of Thunder Junction, and we have selected the 10 best Commanders to help you win.

Outlaws of Thunder Junction is the newest expansion in Magic: The Gathering. It introduces players to the theme of a twisted old west, and the new decks depart from previous releases like the Fallout collaboration. As more players dive into the new deck, many are looking to gain the upper hand against others with it. Fortunately, we have curated a list below of the ten best Commanders for players to use from the Outlaws of Thunder Junction decks in Magic: The Gathering.

The 10 Best Commanders to Use from Outlaws of Thunder Junction

Kellan, The Kid

• Cost:
  • 1 Green
  • 1 White
  • 1 Blue
• Creature: Human Faerie Rogue
• Keywords: Flying, lifelink
• Card Effect: Whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, you may cast a permanent spell with equal or less mana value from your hand without paying its mana cost. If you don’t, you may put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield.

Kellan, the Kid is great for various reasons. The first is it has a mana cost of 3, which is always a huge bonus in a commander, as you’ll almost always be able to get yours out first before your friends. Having flying and lifelink is a powerful combo as the chip damage and constant heals will grind out wins in long games. Easily, the strongest part of Kellan is his ability to cast an equal-cost permanent spell for free whenever you cast a spell from outside of your hand. Better yet, if you don’t have anything you want to play, you can play another land from hand, giving you the option each turn to get ahead on board or ramp.

Eris, Roar of the Storm

• Cost:
  • 8 Colorless
  • 1 Blue
  • 1 Red
• Creature: Elemental Warlock
• Keywords: Flying, Prowess
• Card Effect: This spell costs 2 less to cast for each different mana value among instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard. Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, create a 4/4 red Dragon Elemental creature token with flying and prowess.

Eris allows you to create a horde of Dragon Elementals. The high cost may seem daunting, but it can easily come down on turn four or five if you play on curve. The only caveat to that is that the commander tax will really start to add up in the late game, as there are only so many different mana values to give discounts to Eris. When you factor in Prowess on Eris, along with each dragon elemental you get on board, it means that tokens will be coming down as 6/6’s at the absolute minimum each turn. It’s a value engine that can get out of hand very quickly.

Roxanne, Starfall Savant

• Cost:
  • 3 Colorless
  • 1 Red
  • 1 Green
• Creature: Cat Druid
• Keywords: N/A
• Card Effect: Whenever Roxanne, Starfall Savant enters the battlefield or attacks, create a tapped colorless artifact token named Meteorite with “When Meteorite enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to any target” and “Tap: Add one mana of any color.” Whenever you tap an artifact token for mana, add one mana of any type that artifact token produced.

Roxanne is a ramp and sniping machine that can be built around some other fun keywords like double strike to give it so much value. Doing so can allow you to take down your friends’ commanders with ease while stacking mana to help build your board. Forget about commander tax with Roxanne because you’ll have more mana than you’ll ever need. It’s a commander that would really benefit from a lot of card draw to help you cycle into your win condition.

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds

• Cost:
  • 1 Colorless
  • 1 Blue
  • 1 Black
  • 1 Red
• Creature: Ogre Warlock
• Keywords: Menace
• Card Effect: Whenever Obeka, Splitter of Seconds deals combat damage to a player, you get that many additional upkeep steps after this phase.

Obeka is an incredibly strong and originally underrated commander causing waves in the community. There are just so many fun and creative ways to abuse the additional upkeep steps, not to mention how strong this can be. Cards like Descent into Avernus quickly become broken as it receives two counters on itself every upkeep, giving you X treasure tokens as well as hitting each player for X, where X is the number of counters on it. Or you could use As Foretold to help you cheat out some huge cost cards for free each turn. We strongly recommend playing around with Obeka, Splitter of Seconds to see what you can come up with.

Vraska, The Silencer

• Cost:
  • 1 Colorless
  • 1 Black
  • 1 Green
• Creature: Gorgon Assassin
• Keywords: Deathtouch
• Card Effect: Whenever a nontoken creature an opponent controls dies, you may pay 1. If you do, return that card to the battlefield tapped under your control. It’s a Treasure artifact with “Tap, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color,” and it loses all other card types.

Having Deathtouch is a nice addition to Vraska, but it’s hardly the reason she’s one of the best Outlaws of Thunder Junction commanders. Her ability to turn each creature into Treasure artifacts upon death is what makes her a formidable Commander. The fact that you don’t even have to cause the creature’s death to have Vraska’s ability trigger is impressive. Just play Vraska, sit back, and start stacking mana as your opponents kill each other’s creatures. A hugely underrated note here is that Vraska can be defended really easily, as you’re very rarely going to be short of mana.

Akul the Unrepentant

• Cost:
  • 2 Black
  • 2 Red
• Creature: Scorpion Dragon Rogue
• Keywords: Flying, Trample
• Card Effect: Sacrifice three other creatures: You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. Activate only as a sorcery and only once each turn.

Akul is an immensely powerful card, but it requires a highly optimized deck to be built around it. You’ll obviously need it to center around tokens to give you plenty of fodder to sacrifice. However, you’ll also want to squeeze in some huge creatures to cheat out each turn. If your deck isn’t properly optimized, you’re gonna get stuck with a handful of eight drops or twenty creature tokens on board and no payoff. If you can get Akul to work, though, it’ll quickly spiral out of control with huge creatures able to hit the board from turn four or even earlier with some luck.

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride

• Cost:
  • 3 Colorless
  • 1 Black
  • 1 Green
• Creature: Frog Horror Mount
• Keywords: Trample, Haste, Saddle
• Card Effect: Whenever The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice a creature that saddled it this turn. If you do, draw X cards, then put up to X land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped, where X is the sacrificed creature’s power.

The first big positive of Gitrog as one of the Outlaws of Thunder Junction commanders is that its saddle cost is so low that you can saddle it with any creature for only one mana. The next part of Gitrog’s effect allows you to sacrifice the saddled creature to ramp and draw a lot. It’s an incredible commander who is very hard to stop returning from the command zone with how many lands it will bring down turn after turn. You’ll probably want some cards in the deck that give you no maximum hand size to avoid discarding half of your hand at the end of each turn.

Rakdos, the Muscle

• Cost:
  • 2 Colorless
  • 2 Black
  • 1 Red
• Creature: Demon Mercenary
• Keywords: Flying, Trample
• Card Effect: Whenever you sacrifice another creature, exile cards equal to its mana value from the top of target player’s library. Until your next end step, you may play those cards, and mana of any type can be spent to case those spells. Sacrifice another creature: Rakdos, the Muscle gains indestructible until end of turn. Tap it. Activate only once each turn.

Rakdos is a great Commander in Outlaws of Thunder Junction, especially if you are looking to build around a sacrifice deck. It’s almost impossible to kill, thanks to its ability to earn indestructible each turn after sacrificing another creature, although you’ll then be forced to tap Rakdos. The payoff is that you exile cards off the top of an opponent’s library equal to its mana cost and can play them until the end of your next turn. This is incredibly powerful in Commander, as you get immense value while milling your opponents as a nice little bonus.

Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds

• Cost:
  • 1 Red
  • 1 Green
  • 1 White
• Creature: Human Shaman
• Keywords: Haste
• Card Effect: Nontoken creatures you control have “Tap: Create a token that’s a copy of target token you control that entered the battlefield this turn.”

Ghired is one of the most absolute must-kill on-sight commanders in the Outlaws of Thunder Junction set. If you allow it to stay on board, it is going to go infinite, creating tokens of any creature you can think of. The fact that the text doesn’t only apply to itself but to EACH non-token creature is impressive. Ghired can build a board so blindingly fast that there will be little you can do to come back from it, save from a board wipe. That will only buy some time, though, as it has such a cheap base cost at three, it’s definitely coming back down next turn to start creating another sea of tokens. It is a great commander to build a deck around for any player who enjoys a token-based playstyle.

Stella Lee, Wild Card

• Cost:
  • 1 Colorless
  • 1 Blue
  • 1 Red
• Creature: Human Rogue
• Keywords: N/A
• Card Effect: Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, exile the top card of your library. Until the end of your next turn, you may play that card. Tap: Copy target instant or sorcery spell you control. You May choose new targets for the copy. Activate only if you’ve cast three or more spells this turn.

The Stella Lee Wild Card is just that, wild. It’s completely busted and easily one of the best commanders from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. The community has already found multiple ways to take Stella infinite. All you essentially need to do is tap Stella, play a card that un-taps Stella as your third spell, copy that card, rinse, and repeat. It makes for some fun plays that can ruin your friend’s day; we strongly recommend trying her out.

That is everything to know about the 10 best Commander cards to pick from Outlaws of Thunder Junction in Magic: The Gathering. For more Magic: The Gathering content, be sure to visit our Guide Hub.