The 10 Best Vorthos Commanders
Vorthos, Steward of Myth by Carolina Gariba
Perhaps one of the best parts of engaging with Magic: The Gathering is the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the wonderful fantasy settings and characters the game has to offer. Players with a particular affinity for the flavor and story of Magic are known as "Vorthos" by R&D. These players find beauty in the flavor text, names, and art on cards; they love when a card's mechanics match its place in the story, and they especially love when a single card can tell a story by itself.
Today, we're taking a look at how to build a Vorthos Commander deck! What commanders can tell a story, and how do we build around them so the deck is still playable? Let's dig in!
What Are Vorthos Commanders?
Defining the perfect Vorthos commander is nearly impossible, since each player will tend to care about different characters or plot points from Magic's setting. To that end, this list looks to compile the best general choices to lead your Vorthos deck, characters that'll lend themselves to interacting with other famous Magic characters, or cards that can tell an entire story by themselves. Many will have a WUBRG color identity so we can include all the cards we need to tell our story, and many will interact with legendary permanents in some way or another.
Honorable Mention: Vorthos, Steward of Myth
Of course, we couldn't talk about the best Vorthos Commander decks without mentioning Vorthos, Steward of Myth itself. This Unfinity legend completed the cycle of player archetypes (except for Mel, who I hope to see soon!).
Vorthos captures the concept of a flavor-based deck perfectly. With a five-color identity, Vorthos lets you choose any character from Magic's history and build a deck entirely around them. Popular choices for characters include Nicol Bolas, due to the high number of expensive Bolas planeswalker cards that Vorthos helps you cast, and, based on their EDHrec page, The Doctor from Doctor Who. Maybe you're looking for something sillier, though: how about a Vorthos deck that tells the story of Fblthp, the Lost, or maybe a deck featuring only the characters from Conspiracy's plane, Fiora, or even a deck that shows the fall of Jeska, Warrior Adept into Phage the Untouchable?
#10 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain is the most basic commander for a Vorthos Commander deck. Jhoira's effect is simple: whenever you cast a historic spell, draw a card. Many of the most important characters in Magic's history have received one or more legendary creature cards to represent them, and Jhoira's one of the best ways to dig them out consistently.
Because she's Izzet, Jhoira's a little more limited as to which characters/plots she can build around. There are at least 33 cards in red/blue that reference Jhoira in the art or flavor text, meaning you could easily build an entire deck around Jhoira and her trials, from being the first captain of the Weatherlight to serving as a New Coalition leader during the events of Dominaria United.
#9 Urza, Chief Artificer
The Brother's War Commander precons introduced two new incarnations of Magic's favorite siblings: Urza and Mishra. Referenced on countless cards, Urza, Chief Artificer makes an excellent leader for a deck that wants to tell the story of Urza and Mishra from Urza's perspective. Cast various artifacts from the brothers' history, like Ornithopter and The Mightstone and Weakstone to generate value for Urza's 0/0 Constructs, and gradually advance the timeline as Urza apprentices with Tocasia, then makes war on Mishra, eventually discovering the Phyrexian threat and coming into conflict with Yawgmoth. Be sure to include the Urza lands for maximum flavor!
#8 Mishra, Eminent One
Mishra, Eminent One is Urza's brother and possibly greatest rival. Mishra's BRC precon card creates a 4/4 creature token copy of any artifact you control, creating a Splinter Twin-situation for your artifacts. A flavorful Mishra can be built as the inverse to the Urza deck: where Urza amasses a menagerie of artifacts and constructs, Mishra uses them as fodder for his Warform.
#7 Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
Nicol Bolas, the Ravager has been at the head of Bolas-themed Vorthos Commander decks for years now, ever since its release in Core Set 2019. Finally, we had a playable Bolas (sorry, Nicol Bolas I still love you) we could stick in the command zone to lead our deck entirely composed of Bolas planeswalkers.
Building a Nicol Bolas Commander deck is the ultimate villain deck. Magic's biggest baddie has a strong theme of punishing hand disruption, sacrifice effects, and, in the case of Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, a final loyalty ability that can end the game. Nicol Bolas decks also play well with a number of proliferate effects (to maximize their number of loyalty counters) and with superfriends staples, like The Chain Veil.
#6 Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact
Ravnica's gotta be one of my favorite concepts to emerge from Magic's IP. The cityscape plane feels so unique when compared to the rest of the generic fantasy setting of Dominaria. It kicks the hell out of Coruscant as far as planets entirely covered in urban sprawl go.
Niv-Mizzet, Guildpact is your best option for building a Vorthos Commander deck around the plane Ravnica. This Niv-Mizzet rewards you for playing a lot of two-color permanents. With such a huge list of two-color cards from Ravnica to choose from, this Vorthos commander has a lot of play. Many Ravnica cards use hybrid mana, making them easy to cast off of a five-color mana base, so a deck focused entirely around the various Guildmage cycles could work. Alternatively, you could run a deck built around all of the guild masters and maze runners, past and present.
Be sure to include lots of cards that care about your creatures' colors! This is the perfect opportunity to make the Radiance cards from Ravnica: City of Guilds playable! Suddenly Bathe in Light and Rally the Righteous have value when they can hit an entire board of powerful legends!
#5 Dihada, Binder of Wills
In a similar vein to Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, Dihada, Binder of Wills lends itself to a Commander deck full of Magic's biggest villains. Dihada's Mardu alignment means you can include antagonists like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. Dihada lets you dig through your deck for any legendary permanent, too, meaning it can grab planeswalkers off the top of your library as well as it can grab Bolas's Citadel.
In my personal Dihada deck, I run a mix of Magic's evil planeswalkers and creatures: Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Vraska, Betrayal's Sting help tick Dihada up to four loyalty counters so I can generate advantage over and over with her second ability, all while mitigating incoming damage with a lifelinked Traxos, Scourge of Kroog or Orca, Siege Demon.
#4 Tom Bombadil
Saga enchantments are one of the best ways we, as players, can get a glimpse of the Magic storyline without actually having to read a story article or navigate the mtgwiki. While Tom Bombadil isn't from the Magic-verse, it's still the best option we have for building a deck around the various Sagas depicting famous moments from Magic's history.
For a Tom Bombadil Vorthos deck, which Sagas you include will be entirely up to you! Some are quite obviously better than others: Kiora Bests the Sea God will always be a bomb when compared to The Modern Age. Don't forget the backsides of the newest incarnation of the Praetor cycle have Sagas on their backside, too! These are some of the strongest Sagas in the game, so you can rest assured you'll have the smug aura of victory about you as you describe why each Chapter represents which plot point.
#3 Karona, False God
Karona, False God is the legendary avatar that formed from the congealed souls of Akroma, Jeska, and Zagorka. Karona was powered by the belief of her followers and led a devastating conquest across Otaria before she was slain by the Mirari Sword.
Karona, False God deck lets you build a Vorthos Commander deck around any creature type you'd like, and her WUBRG color identity means you'll have access to every creature of that type, plus you get to play the fun politics game of trading Karona around the board, like Xantcha, Sleeper Agent. Karona makes an excellent leader for telling the story of any particular creature type without a great Commander of its own; Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor has way less variety than a Karona deck.
#2 Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
Sisay, Weatherlight Captain makes the perfect commander for anyone looking to tell the story of the Weatherlight crew. Sisay's activated ability to tutor up any of her friends from that saga is both a useful storytelling mechanic and a powerful ability. Play Sisay like a toolbox commander and tutor up Ertai Resurrected when you need a quick counterspell, or grab Yargle and Multani to slip a big beater into play.
#1 The Flip 'Walkers
The number one choice for a Vorthos Commander deck has to be any of the cycle of flip 'walkers. These cards start as the pre-Sparked creature versions of their appropriate planeswalker. After fulfilling a (relatively easy) requirement of some kind, they flip into planeswalker permanents.
Five planeswalkers were given flip cards in Magic Origins, with Nicol Bolas, the Ravager arriving in Core Set 2019. One each appeared in Strixhaven and Kaldheim, but most notably, another cycle of five flip 'walkers is coming with Modern Horizons 3. The possible flip 'walker commanders are:
- Magic Origins:
- Core Set 2019:
- Kaldheim:
- Strixhaven:
- Modern Horizons 3:
These 13 legendary creatures are the best choice for building a Commander deck around one of these specific characters. Most will have a color identity that allows you to run every planeswalker with their type (sorry, Nissa, you can't take Nissa, Steward of Elements). Best of all, each is a huge flavor-win with regards to their flip ability. Of course you want to build a spellslingy burn deck with Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh; her name is basically synonymous with burn!
Best Vorthos Commander Payoffs
Mechanic "payoffs" for running a Vorthos Commander deck are few and far between, but there are more than a few Un- cards that make fun additions, if your play group allows them. Ineffable Blessing rewards you for playing a lot of cards with flavor text, while the two different versions of Sly Spy could let you build a deck around cards only facing one direction.
Wrap Up
Players who identify as a Vorthos may be a dwindling population, but we're undeniably still here! We're building those weird decks that have barely any mechanical purpose for existing besides allowing us to go on a long rant about why Urza is actually a war criminal and shouldn't be venerated as much as he is in the lore.
Whatever your favorite flavor of Magic character, I hope this list has sparked ideas for your Vorthos Commander deck. Let me know what sort of fun and lore-friendly decks you've built in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
