Our Favorite Cards of 2024

If you've ever wanted to know your favorite author's favorite Magic card printed in 2024, we've put together this little article for you. We'd love to know what your picks were, so please let us know down in the comment section!
Arnaud Gompez
This has been a hard one. There are a lot of legendaries in Outlaws of Thunder Junction that have struck my eye to the point of building a deck out of them. In the end, though, the toad takes the win. I love how that saddle mechanic has been embedded, and it opens the way to playing cards deemed either rubbish or too weird to be played elsewhere.
I mean, I finally found a home for Daemogoth Titan
This may come as a surprise, but as card design goes, this is chef's kiss. This card's creator has managed to make what comes down to the perfect blue Scute Swarm
Beth, Queen of Cardboard
Soldiers have historically been primarily mono-white, but this year there were two shake-ups with Commander Mustard
If you're looking to play Soldier kindred, Caesar really makes you consider whether or not you need Darien in the command zone or if he'd be better off sitting in the 99. Caesar leans into making a lot of little creatures fast taking advantage of Anim Pakal, Myrel, and tried and true Darien and really showcases on black's desire for sacrifice and red's need for Burn. I don't think there's a better showcasing for a Mardu commander printed last year.
It's been my personal goal to showcase just how powerful white can be since the release of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate and I first laid on cards like Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant
Not only does this card work perfectly for my favorite commander, Caesar, and my other favorite Mardu man, Negan, the Cold-Blooded, but it also overcomes my least favorite wincons, those that ping your life total outside of combat.
While this card is great, I've been finding more joy in the design process of the cards printed this year, especially the often overlooked flavor text. Flare of Fortitude's flavor text reads, "I call on a power greater than myself." which for me has a special meaning because I'm constantly surrounded by the community that helps lift me up and guides me even in the most difficult of times.
Ciel Collins
My personal Commander pick for the year is Eris, Roar of the Storm
Spellslingers can run the problem of lacking a wincon, but Eris being a beater who makes beaters helps us in no short supply. Her cost-reduction mechanic also ensures players don't homogenize the builds too quickly, which is fantastic. Also, Foundations just brought out a few new cards which help tie dragons and spellslinger, which has given me the urge to rebuild Eris as a full-on dragon deck.
My favorite non-Commander card of the year is Dazzling Theater // Prop Room
Second, this card in particular is so cool. This gives white a unique ramp option beyond the "catch-up" ramp, and I'm excited to put it into a ton of decks. Convoke is such a white way to power out spells, and the untapping helps keep you from going shields down. (There are some crazy W/x options for Commander that make use of Flash, as well.)
Harvey McGuinness
Easily my favourite commander this year - and tied for my favourite commander of all time - is Duskmourn: House of Horrors' very own The Master of Keys
My personal favourite? The fast and flexible build, complete with Hedron Crab
As far as non-commanders go, my favourite card from the year overall is Psychic Frog
I'm sorry it broke Legacy, but boy, oh boy, am I grateful for the incremental boost my not-so-niche cEDH deck received.
Jeff Girten
My 2025 commander of the year is Duskana, the Rage Mother
She wants us to control creatures with base power and toughness of two, but leaves the rest up to you: you could build a Bears kindred deck, a stax-y hate bears version, lean into morph, go completely creatureless like I did, or even have her helm a Slivers brew. There's simply so much room to explore with Duskana, the Rage Mother
Shadowy Backstreet
Surveil seems similar to scry on its surface, but rewards you for running cards that care about the graveyard. Because the surveil lands have basic land types, you can grab them with fetch lands or cards like Claim Jumper
They do so many little things that all add up to an amazing cycle of lands that I'm looking forward to playing for years to come.
Josh Nelson
I've quite enjoyed piloting my Coram, the Undertaker
Beyond that, I don't often play Jund decks, so playing using Coram is a nice way to dredge up many cool cards not often utilized from my collection (in more ways than one). Granted, Reanimator strategies are very firmly in my wheelhouse, so in many ways, the deck is also extremely forgiving for someone who isn't well-versed in aggressive strategies.
One of my favorite things to do with my list is mill myself to the point where a card like Lord of Extinction
As an important final point, I'm known in my local metagames as a player who often broadcasts very little until I can get a win from behind. My poker face isn't too shabby, I suppose. Coram allows me to be way more direct in my approach to victory, like the Jund color-pie philosophy often implies. It's not an approach I often take, but when I do, I only get better and better at the art of not needing subtlety. For all the reasons listed above, Coram, the Undertaker is my top Commander pick for 2024.
Landon Crispens
My choice for the best 2024 commander is Universes Beyond: Fallout's Dogmeat, Ever Loyal
Dogmeat, Ever Loyal's tri-color identity and abilities make it an ideal choice to lead Aura- and Equipment-themed Commander decks. You can include amazing Aura cards, like Mantle of the Ancients
The best Commander-playable card printed in 2024 is arguably Untimely Malfunction
Besides saving a creature from targeted removal, switching the target player of Time Warp
Michael Celani
Did it finally happen? Did Magic finally jump the shark? Well, like saying OJ is guilty, nobody can prove it, but most people are pretty sure.
I'm not losing hope, though. Thankfully, I actually *like* detectives, cowboys, assassins, haunted houses, mutants, and furries, especially if they're all in the same place at the same time. But we're not here to talk about my quinceañera; we're here to talk about my favorite card from 2024, which is unequivocally Untimely Malfunction
Red is meant to be a proactive color, but the problem is that making waves is heavily discouraged in a format with three opponents. You need to chew through one hundred and twenty life before you can claim victory, and to do that, you'll have to struggle through thrice the removal. The two ways around this are to either be so fast and so dominant that you overwhelm the table before anyone can mount a response -- an inconsistent strategy at best -- or you fill your deck with enough protection and recursion that you can survive long enough to exploit an opening.
The real reason red has long felt like an incomplete color in Commander is that it never really had many tools if you wanted to travel that second route. It's why you don't often see grindy mono-red value engines, like Anep, Vizier of Hazoret
To elaborate, red's removal is tied for the worst with green (who struggles slightly more with creatures but can handle enchantments), their protection is limited in scope, and their advantage states are often ephemeral bursts of power instead of game-spanning engines. If you want to win with red, you have to win fast, and ideally out of nowhere.
To fix this problem without betraying the color's principals, red needs to have more options for reactive plays on the stack. Those reactive cards need to have proactive elements, so that there's a real decision you can make instead of feeling like you're being forced to wait (which would be very un-red).
Untimely Malfunction
Reactivity doesn't necessarily mean preparation: you can frame it as opportunistic, in the way that more villains should just be shot while monologuing. Untimely Malfunction
Mike Carrozza
I have built a few more commanders this year than I normally do and I'm eying more. So many legends were incredibly cool with fresh takes on themes I'd already implemented or simply a twist on a thing I already have built and love playing. With Fallout and a bunch of surprises in-universe, I feel inspired!
While Shilly and Rak presented new challenges for me while leaning into sacrifice strategies (I know who I am and what I love), Teysa has been the most versatile and challenging to pilot. It's very satisfying to build an engine for Teysa to call shots from. Not to mention, as someone who was invested in the story of Murders at Karlov Manor, seeing one of my favorite characters return was pretty hype. I look forward to her next card, most likely as a Spirit.
I have been extremely vocal about Phyrexian Altar
This has been a great year for Magic. Plenty of inspiring cards. Some extremely power crept, but others just cool and interesting in a new way. All in all, I have never felt so engaged with the game and I think that's sweet! I hope you feel the same!
Nick Wolf
According to Scryfall, there were 321 new legendary creatures printed in 2024. That's a lot by any metric, but it's not the most in a calendar year. Both 2022 and 2023 had more.
That's not to say this choice was any easier than it was in those years. Even out of the 1,071 legendary creatures printed between 2022 and 2024, they still haven't given me a Jund -1/-1 counters commander, so Wizards of the Coast and I are no longer on speaking terms.
Anyway, here's my pick for favorite, after combing through the many, many Scryfall pages:
I'm a Timmy at heart, so any creature that has a power and toughness equating to 20 is an automatic hit. Normally, I'd avoid blue, but despite Koma's overall wetness, it's a green creature through and through. It's simple, and it does what it says on the tin. Hit hard, make ribbons. It's a strict upgrade over the original version from Kaldheim, in the sense that it's probably a worse card but it's way cooler. Isn't that all we really care about?
As for the favorite noncommander card, it's this:
I'm on record as loving Sunbird's Invocation
Powerbalance checks off all the relevant boxes for me: it's a callback to an awesome card from years past, it forces interaction (in other words, makes me have to pay attention to the game), it gives you free stuff, and it allows for fun top-deck manipulation. I haven't quite found the perfect home for it yet. Maybe Johann, Apprentice Sorcerer
Travis Stanley
I may be a bit biased for picking Olivia, Opulent Outlaw
Not only that, she gives another option for those tired of seeing Edgar Markov
Seeing the creature that I picked it should be fairly obvious why I chose Banner of Kinship
Even if your deck doesn't go wide usually, this can still provide a solid buff, mix that in with any proliferate effects and now you're cooking with gas. Another reason I love this card is because both arts for it are absolutely gorgeous, and would make a fine edition to any collection. I know I am going to get multiple copies of this for my myriad of kindred decks.
Tyler Bucks
Laughing Jasper Flint
While the creature types that make up the outlaw posse may seem random, it really is filled with conniving and backstabbing style creatures, which just so happens to play to my strengths as a pilot. Then you put Jasper at the helm of the deck, and now your creatures are part of the gang! I just adore the variance that my outlaw deck brings to the table.
Whether I'm stealing my opponents giant Dinosaurs and telling them "welcome to the crew big guy, you're a mercenary now!" Or stealing my partner's Vraska, Golgari Queen
For anyone who has been reading my article series Bulk Up!, you would know how much I love this spell. Not only because it's a great budget option, but it also has a lot of synergy with black strategies. Stargaze allows you to dig incredibly deep into your deck, and because of this, it can shift the game in your favor. When you're behind in a game and just need to find more ammunition, this spell can help ensure you find the right cards to fight your way back!
If you're already ahead, Stargaze can still be put to good use by smoothing out the top of your deck, or even finding a game-winning Overrun
Oh, and final thing: the art is beautiful and makes me wish I was a little bat staring at the sky right now...
Unsummoned Skull
2024 saw a tremendous influx of cards into Magic: The Gathering, with some sets adding amazing locales to Magic's existing IP, like Bloomburrow, some sets expanding the IPs in Magic, like Fallout, and some blending the two, like Duskmourn: House of Horror. Magic's gone from the ridiculous complexity of Modern Horizons 3 to the return to comfort and fundamentals in Foundations. I've written about a variety of commanders, such as an ode to my favorite novel series growing up, Redwall, several Rube Goldberg combo commanders, and even "an Unsummon-loving waifu". In terms of my favorite card and commander of the year, however, they tend to be overlooked.
My card of the year is an Overabundance on a stick, Barbflare Gremlin
This card is going to fuel Fireballs in my Rosheen Meanderer deck, increase Targ Nar, Demon-Fang Gnoll's power and toughness exponentially, and pour even more mana into Zacama, Primal Calamity
I don't think I've ever built a deck as quickly as I built The Mindskinner
The deck uses Voltron Equipment to add to The Mindskinner's already incredible power, haste-enablers to get it to hit the ground running, and Unsummons, the late addition, to protect the commander from removal and ourselves from attacks. In terms of the Poke Alter? That would be Veluza, with the deck being called "Psychic Fangs".