by Johnny Cycles, April 21st, 2026
Secrets of Strixhaven offers Commander players some exciting new cards for the 99, many new commanders to build decks around, and even the chance to cast some of the power 9! In this article, I’m going to highlight the cards I’m most excited to play and which decks they’ll go in to. I don’t like categorizing cards for Commander in a top 10, because every deck is different. What I consider a top 5 card, you may not even play, and vice versa.
However, I do think there are some cards that will see a ton of play in Commander. You can see which ones here. Otherwise, I’ve grouped the cards I’m excited about by the decks I have that they’ll go in.
Bant Blink with Roon of the Hidden Realm
Enters and blink shenanigans is what this deck is about.
Emeritus of Ideation – a lot of Blue decks will play this hot new mythic just because it has Ancestral Recall on it. And if 6 mana only gets you a 5/5 flying ward that draws you three cards, you’ll be happy. But ours is a deck that can reset this Human Wizard every turn without ever having to attack. That’s a lot of Ancestral Recalls. And that’s a must-answer threat.
Azorius Flash with Ephara, God of the Polis
This deck wants to play creatures on our opponent’s turn as often as on our own to maximize our card draw from Ephara, God of the Polis.
Skycoach Conductor – this Bird Pilot is a strict upgrade to Restoration Angel, since we are able to reset it if we can blink it.
Emeritus of Ideation – we have the tools to reset this card without having to attack.
Rakdos Aristocrats with Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin
This deck wants to deal exactly 1 damage to our opponent over and over again until our commander can swing in for lethal.
Emeritus of Woe – I honestly don’t know if this card is worth including, but we should be able to prepare it nearly every turn we untap with it, so I’m going to give it a shot.
Arnyn, Deathbloom Botanist – draining our opponent for 2 is a nonbo with our commander, but we play a ton of 1/1 creatures in our budget build that can Shock our opponent with this card out. And synergies aside, dead is dead, and this Vampire Druid can increase our clock considerably.
Rabid Attack – I love this card! I think it’s flexibility makes it a powerful support card for any go-wide strategy. In this deck, it gives us some insulation against sweepers, but it also gives us a way of refilling our hand as we sac our own creatures for value. So. Sweet.
G/W Lifegain with Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn
This budget deck wants to gain a ton of life and grow its creatures with counters shenanigans in the process.
Dig Site Inventory – two cards for the price of, well, two cards, this budget-friendly 1-mana sorcery with flashback gives us a ton of value on a budget. Sometimes, we just want to get the counters party started and this will do the job nicely. Other times, we can use this unassuming sorcery to exile two of our opponent’s best nonland permanents with Constable of the Realm.
Practiced Offense – everything about this card synergizes with our strategy. Without flashback, though, I’d be on the fence about including it. With it, I think this new rare is an auto-include in nearly every counters-matter deck that plays .
Emil, Vastlands Roamer – there’s nothing worse than growing your team to epic proportions only to have them chump blocked by lowly 1/1s. We have quite a few options for this effect, even on a budget, but I like the added bonus we get with this Elf Druid’s activated ability.
Follow the Lumarets – getting two creatures for 2 mana makes this a powerful late-game draw. In our opening 7, it can let us keep a land-light hand.
Thornfist Striker – triggering infusion should be pretty easy for our deck. The +1/+0 boost we get before combat is what makes this card intriguing over something that just gives trample to creatures with counters.
Comforting Counsel – I like the inevitability this 2-mana enchantment gives our deck. We are playing a bunch of underpowered creatures and not just because we’re on a budget. This gives us a way to turn the corner if our opponent can’t answer it.
Gruul Haste with Samut, Vizier of Naktamun
We want to deal damage every turn with a newly resolved creature to draw as many cards as possible with this Gruul deck full of hasty beaters.
Choreographed Sparks – I like the flexibility this card brings, but since we can only copy spells we control, this 2-mana instant is more of a late-game card that may be too greedy to play.
Maelstrom Artisan – haste is the keyword for our deck, so this Minotaur Sorcerer checks that box. Being two spells in one is where this card really shines.
Breaking the Color Pie – Mono White Card Draw
White drawing cards feels more and more like a secondary trait, though it technically remains tertiary. This deck is built to draw cards. Sometimes it even wins.
Rapier Wit – 2 mana to draw a card is about as much as we want to pay for our cantrips. Durdling, I mean, stopping our opponent from killing us, is an important aspect of our gameplan.
Elite Interceptor – I like that we get a body for . I like that we can also choose to untap a creature. And, of course, it has the required text, “Draw a card.” I don’t like that it’s sorcery speed.
Jeskai Spell Slinger with Narset, Enlightened Exile
This deck wants to make a bunch of creatures, then grow them to massive proportions with cheap cantrips.
Emeritus of Conflict – I was on the fence about this card at first. Why jump through all those hoops just to get a Lightning Bolt? I think that’s a fair critique for Modern, but in our Commander deck, we want to chain together as many spells as possible. Having access to another 1-mana spell, possibly more than once in a turn, is super powerful.
Harmonized Trio – ditto here. We make enough token creatures that we can easily use this Merfolk Bard Wizard’s activated ability to help set up our draw when we’re ready to combo off.
Flashback – this card is amazing and will see play in every format it’s legal in. For us, it does nearly everything we want (if only it drew us a card…).
Erode – yes, this could go in any of the decks above that have , but I’m not sure it will. Here, though, it gives us a cheap answer that can trigger prowess and get rid of a problematic blocker on the turn we want to swing out.
Flow State – it shouldn’t be too hard to get two cards out of this 2-mana sorcery. I really like that there is no restriction as to which card we can keep, making this a legitimate turn 2 play to dig for lands. This will allow us to keep some otherwise risky keeps.
Mono Black Burn with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
This deck’s goal is to ensure no one ever wants to play with us again…er, I mean, to burn our opponents out via a variety of taxing effects.
Decorum Dissertation – the mythics with paradigm are all super powerful once they’re online, but this one is the most playable of the five, in my opinion. Obviously, it costs the least amount of mana of the bunch, but I think it also gives us the most powerful effect. In this deck, it will either refill our hand while actually gaining us life, or it will kill our opponent.
Scheming Silvertongue – this Vampire Warlock is tailor-made for our deck. We’ll gain 2 life on our draw step with our commander out, ensuring we can draw another two cards and gain another 2 life every turn until our opponent stops us.
Withering Curse – I love this card. Against go-wide strategies, casting it on turn 3 will often reset the board in our favor. Later, we should have no problem gaining life before wiping the board completely.
Leech Collector – another cheap way to repeatedly drain our opponent. I’m not sure the deck needs this kind of effect on a creature, but I want to test it out. It’s also a great budget option, should you want to make a budget version of this deck.
Izzet Card Draw with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
Our first Commander Clinic deck, we want to burn our opponent out by drawing a lot of cards.
Splatter Technique – 5 mana is quite a lot, but with our commander out, we effectively get to choose both options with this sorcery. I can’t resist that power!
Traumatic Critique – we want plenty of cheap ways to draw cards in the early and the late game. This instant does just that as a 2-mana draw 2, discard 1. That we can also deal damage to any target for each additional mana we spend makes this card really powerful in this deck.
Prismari Charm – flexibility is key for any deck, and this instant does two things we really want. Sculpting our draw early, while filling our graveyard is one. Bouncing a problematic permanent like, say, Leyline of Sanctity, is two.
Steal the Show – the original parameters of the deck included no more than three wheel effects. This doesn’t really count as a wheel effect, but it can be, which is one reason I’d consider playing it. But I also like that we can kill a problematic permanent if necessary, even before our commander is out.
Emeritus of Ideation – I really don’t think this card will turn out to be less than it’s hyped to be…and that’s saying a lot. Think about all the 5- and 6-mana finishers Control decks have used over the years and tell me this one doesn’t belong up there with the best of them. For us, we’re very happy to have an evasive beater that synergizes with our commander. We are also quite good at filling our graveyard, so we ought to be able to prepare this Human Wizard at least once the fair way.
Mana Sculpt – Niv-Mizzet just so happens to be a Wizard. If you’ve never played Mana Drain, then just trust me when I say that it can singlehandedly win you the game. Sure, you probably won’t win the next turn, but it can put you so far ahead of everyone else that it’ll be just a matter of time. In this deck, given the mana restrictions of our commander, it’s unlikely we’ll cast an early Niv with it, but we have plenty of other powerful support pieces (The Locust God) and draw spells (Silver Scrutiny) that can put us well ahead of our opponent.
Hydra Tribal with Zaxara, the Exemplary
Hydras are one of the most fun and powerful creature types in the game. Our deck wants to use spells to their maximum on our way to amassing a huge, many-headed Hydra army.
Pensive Professor – every Hydra deck needs a Human Wizard… Uh, well… Sigh. The tribal synergy isn’t here, but the power is. It may prove to be win more, since we already have cheap cantrips and Terrasymbiosis, but I want to test this new rare out as another card-draw engine.
Geometer’s Arthropod – if we’re breaking tribal synergies, we may as well get some serious value out of it! Of the two above cards, this one is probably the better card-draw engine, as it should give us massive card selection.
Golgari Elves with Tyvar the Bellicose
This deck wants to grow its mana dorks to massive proportions and either swing out or resolve a lethal Drain Life.
Dina’s Guidance – yes, we have access to cards like Demonic Tutor, but I don’t like playing the same card in every deck that can run it just because it’s the best at what it does. I like that this is an instant and that it can get us one of our combo pieces.
Cauldron of Essence – I really like this card as a repeatable means of recursion for any deck that plays a lot of tokens or dorks. We should have enough fodder to sacrifice to get back one of our key combo pieces.
Topiary Lecturer – no Elf player will want to play this Druid fairly. No, we’re going to pump it with Lord effects and double its counters from our commander with Doubling Season and such so that when we tap it, we get far, far more than just .
An Army of Clues with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
We want to flood the board with Clues, then turn them all into big creatures with cards like Tangletrove Kelp and Rise and Shine.
Mana Sculpt – this 3-mana counter spell will find a home in just about every X/U deck that wants this kind of interaction. Given that Tamiyo is a Wizard and only costs , we ought to get the extra value from this spell. What will we do with all that colorless mana? There’s the powerful, but mundane option (Kuldotha Forgemaster); and then there’s the janky, synergistic option (Tamiyo’s Journal), for example.
4-Color Landfall with Omnath, Locus of Creation
In both my budget and nonbudget builds, this deck wants to make multiple land drops in a turn to gain incremental value and to win outright.
Tam, Observant Sequencer – untapping with this Gorgon Wizard should lead to a massive amount of card advantage for us.
Mono Green Elves with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Like any self-respecting Elf deck, we’re looking to go wide and go big and 1-shot our opponent as often as possible.
Topiary Lecturer – not as good as Marwyn, the Nurturer, but we don’t need it to be.
Emil, Vastlands Roamer – I like this new legendary Elf for my budget build. It might could find a home in the non-budget one, too.
Mono Blue Control with Urza, Lord High Artificer
One of my more powerful decks, this bracket 4 build combines elements of a traditional Control deck with that of an Aggro build. It’s super fun and powerful.
Emeritus of Ideation – yes, this card is good enough to go in just about any Blue deck, even one like ours, which doesn’t need any more finishers.
Generically Good
This set is full of cards that will find homes in decks that can take advantage of them. Click here to see my top card from each color.
Grave Researcher – most decks run enough creatures to take advantage of this Troll Warlock. Reanimator decks and heavy creature strategies will play this. I do have a Muldrotha, the Gravetide deck that could take advantage of this being a Reanimate attached to a permanent we can recast from the graveyard.
The Paradigm cycle – these are all very powerful cards that are worth the mana investment once you’ve untapped at least once. Given how much Duel Commander I play, anything over 6 mana better be game ending, so I doubt I’ll play many of these. In regular Commander, I think they will be played more heavily.
Any card that can be prepared – having two spells on one card is obvious card advantage, making any card that comes down prepared worth looking at. The ones that can be used repeatedly will be all-stars for the decks that want to play them.
Overrated/Not Worth It
There are several cards that may wow you on the surface, but which are not worth playing upon further inspection.
Emeritus of Truce – a 3-mana 3/3 that brings a 1/1 flier with it isn’t bad, but it’s not mythic-level good. But there are more things wrong with this card than just that. First, it doesn’t come down prepared. It should. Second, it can’t become prepared repeatedly without blinking it. Third, the decks that want this kind of card will likely have more creatures than their opponents. Don’t spend your money on this one.
Emeritus of Abundance – this card is better than its counterpart solely because it enters prepared. However, since it has to attack and then survive combat before we can cast Regrowth, don’t count on this getting you more than one card from the yard. Not sure why it’s a mythic.
Echocasting Symposium – I’m confident there are decks out there that will combo off with this card, but outside of those decks, this is the one paradigm card that feels overcosted and underpowered. When I first read the card, I thought it could copy any creature. Alas, it’s only a creature we control. So, much like Germination Practicum, if we have an empty board, this is a dead card.
My Sleeper Pick
Diary of Dreams – I’m intrigued by this card. Spell Slinger decks have a ton of cantrips, but could easily turn this into a free card draw engine. Control decks will pretty quickly do the same. At , I think it’s costed correctly to have a chance to make an impact on the format.
Commander to Build Around
The legendary creature I’ve chosen to build around from this set is Silverquill, the Disputant. I love tokens and I love Dragons! Stay tuned for the decklist and write-up!
Honorable Mention
Mica, Reader of Ruins – I have a lot of Mono Red decks, but I am intrigued by the combo of artifacts, spells, and Mono Red.
Lorehold, the Historian – I also already have a Boros deck with the original, Velomachus Lorehold, which is one reason I’m not building a deck around this version. However, I think its miracle-granting is very intriguing. By the way, I’ll eventually write about the Velomachus Lorehold deck, but it’s a hateful thing that wants to chain combats together, or cast 1-sided boardwipes, or blow up everyone’s lands. Good times.
