10 Fun Vehicle Commanders You Should Try!

Benjamin Levin • February 1, 2025

Breya, Etherium Shaper | Illustrated by Tiffany Turrill
Ghalta, Primal Hunger | Illustrated by Chase Stone
Brenard, Ginger Sculptor | Illustrated by Marta Nael
Clown Car | Illustrated by Ralph Horsley

Hey, nerds! With the release of Aetherdrift speeding towards us, I wanted to explore one of the key card types of the set: Vehicles. We've had some dedicated Vehicle commanders in the past, such as Shorikai, Genesis Engine, which is actually a Vehicle. Miriam, Herd Whisperer from Outlaws of Thunder Junction and Greasefang, Okiba Boss from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. I do not doubt that these commanders are great, but if you're looking for the best, DougY wrote an article on the top 10 Vehicle commanders last month on EDHREC. I want to try to break the mold, so I won't be using any of the commanders mentioned in the top 10 of his article. Still, I highly suggest you check it out after reading this one. Without further ado, let's jump, or should I say speed, into it.


Breya, Etherium Shaper

The first commander on my list is none other than the infamous Breya, Etherium Shaper. She is a well-known artifact commander who can combo with just about anything. Generally, I find commanders like this boring as they become good stuff decks, filled with a heap of powerful cards, and lacking a theme. But we can take these open-ended behemoths and turn them into a powerful value engine for more niche decks. I don't think Vehicles will be niche after this set, but you get the point. Her abilities, while generically powerful, work great with Vehicles.

Key cards to include: Optimus Prime, Hero, el]Megatron, Tyrant[/el], Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer, Clown Car, and Smuggler's Copter.


Magda, Brazen Outlaw

Next is the mono-red Dwarf, Magda, Brazen Outlaw. Magda has this neat ability that gives you Treasure when you tap Dwarves, and to crew Vehicles, we need to tap creatures, which means we have an easy outlet to make these Treasure tokens. On top of that, we can sacrifice these Treasures to tutor artifacts, such as Vehicles, directly from the deck. I still want to include additional Treasure generation into the deck as a way to ramp into big Vehicles if Magda gets removed, and despite being mono-red, we still have 75 Vehicles to fill up our garage, I mean deck.

Some key cards to include: Seven Dwarves, Reckless Fireweaver, Glóin, Dwarf Emissary, Xorn, and Hoard Hauler.


Rip, Spawn Hunter

Survival is a weird mechanic from Duskmourn: House of Horror that requires the creature to be tapped on your second main phase. This can be cumbersome to do if you don't have good attacks unless your deck is meant to tap creatures. Rip is a great value engine thanks to its ability to find Vehicles, allowing us to dig through our deck in no time. Another similar commander is Emmara, Soul of the Accord, which makes tokens when we tap her.

Key cards to include: Reluctant Role Model, Unidentified Hovership, Drumbellower, Quest for Renewal, and Stonybrook Schoolmaster.


Sanwell, Avenger Ace

Speaking of becoming tapped, Sanwell, Avenger Ace is like Rip but instead of checking for power, it just exiles six cards. We still have to pay mana to cast the spell from the top, but if we miss or don't want to cast anything, we can simply put them on the bottom. Mono-white Vehicles might seem like a weird choice, but there are several white reanimation spells for artifacts and plenty of cheap creatures we can crew.

Key cards to include: Losheel, Clockwork Scholar, Ratchet, Field Medic, Refurbish, Parhelion II, and Thousand Moons Smithy.


King Macar, the Gold-Cursed

I know mono-black Vehicles might seem too out there, but hear me out. King Macar has Inspired, which means we can exile a creature whenever he becomes untapped, and if we do, make a gold token, so we get to ramp and remove blockers so our Vehicles can crash into our opponents' faces. We can also exile the token creatures we make from our Vehicles. Much like Magda, I'd want to add an artifact sub-theme to help support our Gold and Vehicles.

Key cards to include: Disciple of the Vault, Sting, the Glinting Dagger, Servant of Tymaret, Pain Seer, and Necron Overlord.


Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Since the introduction of Vehicles, there have been jokes about creatures like Emrakul, the Promised End driving Clown Car, or some such, and to keep the joke going, why not build mono-green Vehicles and use wild beasts and dinos to crew them? I know this might seem weird, but I think it's surprisingly good. Since you have to crew Vehicles, they are usually above the rate for stats. Just look at Smuggler's Copter or Reckoner Bankbuster. And despite my immersion being broken, crewed Vehicles can crew other Vehicles, allowing us to chain crew Vehicles and turbo out Ghalta.

Key cards to include: Consulate Dreadnought, Heart of Kiran, Smuggler's Copter, Cultivator's Caravan, and Ovalchase Dragster.


Dionus, Elvish Archdruid

Dionus' ability is meant to untap mana dorks, like Llanowar Elves, and give Elves pseudo-vigilance while growing their power. With Vehicles, we can use this ability to grow Elves that might not tap themselves. If you didn't know, when you crew a Vehicle, you can tap one or more creatures so long as their total power is at least the crew cost, so if we wanted to crew Surgehacker Mech, we could tap one creature with four power or four creatures with one power, but if we have a board of ten creatures with two power each, we can use all of them to crew. This means a single Clown Car can grow our entire board.

Key cards to include: Hedge Shredder, Rolling Hamsphere, Viridian Joiner, Hardened Scales, and Luxurious Locomotive.


Mishra, Eminent One

What if we didn't have to crew Vehicles, but instead they were self-driving? Mishra does replace the power and toughness of the Vehicle he makes a copy of, so you Tangle Tumbler will just be a 4/4. But it isn't all bad, because what if we used the token Vehicles to crew their original counterparts? We can crew at instant speed, so the beginning of combat trigger isn't an issue. Plus, we can combine this ability with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer to turn any spare tokens we have into more Vehicles. Since Mishra renames the token copy, you can copy legendary Vehicles with this ability without the legend rule blowing one of them up.

Key cards to include: Luxurious Locomotive, Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, The Belligerent, RMS Titanic, and Jackdaw.


Alibou, Ancient Witness

As I've mentioned a few times, Vehicles are great at tapping creatures, so when looking for Vehicle commanders, Alibou, Ancient Witness felt like a no-brainer for this list. Not only do they give Vehicles haste, but we get to dome something for a ton of damage while getting card selection. Artifact decks have no issues making cheap tokens we can use as fodder to crew our Vehicles. Like Dionus, we can use every artifact creature in play to crew one Vehicle. You might want to have Unwinding Clock or Drumbellower in play before you do that, though.

Key cards to include: Parhelion II, Losheel, Clockwork Scholar, Depala, Pilot Exemplar, Veteran Motorist, and Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon.


Brenard, Ginger Sculptor

Why not turn our Vehicles into some delicious gingerbread? Instead of animating the Vehicles in the traditional ways, we can use Brenard to bake them into living Food. Like Mishra, the Vehicles we reanimate will be only 1/1s, but there is no shortage of ways to buff artifact creatures. They still get to keep their keywords and abilities, so Parhelion II will still make Angels, and Nautiloid Ship will exile a graveyard. And we can still get our artifacts back from exile using Karn, the Great Creator. Also, if we can turn Karn into a creature, and then sacrifice him, we will have a creature with loyalty abilities that can't be attacked.

Key cards to include: Ashnod's Altar, Mirage Mirror, Thunderhawk Gunship, Esika's Chariot, and Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer.


I'd love to hear who you think is a great Vehicle commander and make sure to check out my article last week where I showcase three Simic commanders you should try!

 


Ben has been playing Magic since 2012 and started creating Magic the Gathering content in October of 2022 on YouTube under the name BathroomBrewsMTG (YouTube.com/@BRBMTG). Primarily focusing on budget EDH content. When he isn't thinking or talking about MTG, he is usually playing video games, spending time with his wife or playing with his two cats. You can find him on Twitter @BathroomMTG.