The 10 Saltiest Commanders in Magic
Tergird, God of Fright by Richard Luong
Listen, with literal decades' worth of Magic cards out in the wild, it's almost guaranteed there's one or two out there that really makes you mad. You probably even have one of these salty Commanders in your regular pod, a menace to you and your good time. You've begged and pleaded with your friend to please, please find another deck to play, to no avail. They're locked into playing Tergrid, God of Fright, and you'll just have to run more removal to deal with it.
If this sounds like you, I want you to know I can relate! Many of my close friends engage in a salt-based diet when it comes to Commander. This is their intervention (or yours). There are quite a few Commanders that score high on EDHrec's Salt Score. Here, I've provided a list of some top contenders to that list, as well as some other mouth-puckeringly salty commanders we may have forgotten about as a community.
While I'm compiling this list out of the goodness of my heart, I do expect some nefarious do-badders to use this list to construct their new battle box of EDH salt, and to them I say, you're valid, I hear you, I see you, you're probably great at parties.
#10 Yarok, the Desecrated
I tell this story a lot, but when I returned to Magic after a brief break, I dove into Commander in 2019 with Yarok, the Desecrated. It was after my second game with Yarok, where I assembled infinite mana in barely any time with Deadeye Navigator/Peregrine Drake and cast Villainous Wealth for X = 1,000,000, that my friend observed: "Wow, it's almost like getting two triggers for every enters-the-battlefield effect is broken." And they were right!
Yarok may not be the saltiest commander on this list, and it definitely has builds that are much "fairer" than the typical Yarok, but powering down a Panharmonicon in your command zone is still an uphill battle. With something like 2000 Sultai-aligned cards with ETB effects, there's more than enough sub-optimal choices to choose the weaker versions of Mulldrifter and omit Lotus Cobra, but you'll still struggle to not out-value the pod by simply playing the game.
#9 Toxrill, the Corrosive
People seem to hate Toxrill, the Corrosive for much the same reason we hate Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Both of these salty commanders obliterate decks with lots of little creatures almost immediately when they hit the board. With a handful of proliferate effects, Toxrill can shut down the board easily.
Where Toxrill dunks on Elesh Norn is its built-in draw mechanic: where Elesh on her own will see you running out of options eventually, Toxrill's got no such limitation. Each dead creature creates another Slug token for Toxrill to eat up and turn into card draw.
#8 Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
This might seem unfair, especially when the new Atraxa is such a value-bomb, but you'd be surprised at how much people hate Atraxa, Praetors' Voice. I suspect it's mostly due to the very easy poison counter wins Atraxa can pull off, but really, does she deserve the hate? Are Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa and Vishgraz, the Doomhive really that much better?
It's definitely the access to blue that makes Atraxa stand above the rest of the infect commanders. Blue gets us access to counterspells, making interaction and removal versus the Atraxa players difficult to say the least, and impossible at its best.
#7 Sen Triplets
Sen Triplets is a great way to get your cards shuffled into your opponent's library. Most players hate when they can't cast their spells, and hate it even more when you cast their spells for them. While not a true Mindslaver effect, Sen Triplets is still a pain to play around and forces you to make some unfavorable plays to deny your opponents access to your spells. "Great, now I've got to drop my Blood Artist before my Ghave combo is set up, or else the Triplets player will just take it and I'll have no out," and, "Awesome, I've got to cast my boardwipe now or else the Triplets will take it from me next turn, even though I was saving it for after XYZ happens," are both thoughts that have entered my mind unabated when playing against Sen Triplets.
#6 Numot, the Devastator
Oh, how quickly we forget! Back in the early 2010s, when the burgeoning Commander format was in its infancy, our choices for three-color commanders were few and far between. One of the best cycles for getting access to the wedge colors were the planeshifted primeval Dragons from Planar Chaos. Numot, the Devastator was one of our only options for a Jeskai-aligned commander before the Khans of Tarkir block, and he packed a salt level you only saw in land destruction decks.
Numot, the Devastator alone isn't that salty: it's a six-mana 6/6 with flying and a triggered ability that reads like an activated ability (meaning we can't even copy it with Illusionist's Bracers). It's the deck I often see built around Numot that brings the salt. Land Destruction themes are... playable but not often effective for actually winning the game. Sticking a 6/6 flyer and then casting Armageddon might be enough in 60-card Constructed, but in Commander that'll mean several turns of uninterrupted swinging, but probably no actual player removal before the pod catches up, or destroys Numot.
#5 Hokori, Dust Drinker
Do you feel like your Commander games are going by too quick? Tired of trying to squeeze more than one game into your Friday nights? Boy, do I have the commander for you!
Ugh. If Numot, the Devastator land destruction decks are a pain to play against, I can only imagine what playing against Hokori, Dust Drinker feels like. Dragging the game down to an almost unmanageable pace, Hokori decks are the worst kind of stax imaginable. Even though most Commander decks run some amount of artifact-based ramp, Hokori's ability to shut down lands just drags the game down to a halt while they set up with their Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse and Leyline of Sanctity, and then sit back on their laurels and don't win the game.
#4 Nadu, Winged Wisdom
I'm feeling confident enough to call it. In casual circles, Nadu, Winged Wisdom will be an absolute pain to play against. To say nothing of the cEDH builds sprouting up around it, Nadu can turn your board of relatively nonthreatening creatures into a value engine that'll be nearly impossible to stop. Even targeted removal will trigger their abilities from Nadu, digging through their library and ramping aggressively while pulling exactly the cards they need to win.
Nadu works best with any cards that can target a creature for free, so Equipment like Shuko and Lightning Greaves are must-haves.
There are a ton of blue and green cards that can target your entire board, like Sway of Illusion or Sea Kings' Blessing, triggering your entire board at once and most likely ramping into more creatures and more spells to target them with. Slap a couple Landfall triggers in there and you're off to the races. Scute Swarm and Field of the Dead can help you go wide, while a Bristly Bill, Spine Sower goes tall. Or just draw your whole deck and Thassa's Oracle it. There's no reason you won't have access to most of your library with Nadu and a few triggering effects on the field.
#3 Urza, Lord High Artificer
Urza, Lord High Artificer is very clearly a card designed for Modern. He's a value engine of incomparable proportions. It's almost impossible to build a powered-down version of this Urza deck, save just ignoring any possible artifact inclusions.
Mostly, Urza is a problem when built around a stax artifacts deck running cards like Winter Orb and Static Orb. Using Urza's five-mana activated ability to spin the wheel is just icing on the cake, honestly, as most Urza decks should see a decisive victory within a turn or two after playing Urza.
#2 Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant
Well, at least you know your first instant/sorcery/artifact spell each turn will be countered by Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant. You'll still have to play around this, and baiting out that first counter each turn can feel really bad when you're wasting your mana rock just so you can actually hit Jin-Gitaxias with your Path to Exile.
The only thing holding Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant back from being uncompromisingly brutal is that seven-mana casting cost. At that cost, you probably won't be able to start blowing up on the same turn he hits the field, unless you're got a Chrome Mox up your sleeve.
Jin-Gitaxias, Progress Tyrant lets you lean into creature, planeswalker, and enchantment counters for your actual deck list, freeing up what would normally be counters focused on general spells or specifically instants/sorceries. This means a Jin-Gitaxias deck has space for threats and other oppressive printings of the blue Praetor.
Along these same lines, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner is also a pain to deal with, but still dies to that first board wipe it sees.
#1. Tergrid, God of Fright
So bad she got mentioned in the introduction, Tergrid, God of Fright is a salt-packed commander that demands instant removal when she hits the field. You know how It That Betrays is 12 mana? What if we gave you that effect on a five-mana commander, and it hits discarded permanents, as well? And she's got a 4/5 body with menace just for good measure?
Tergrid is basically an auto-remove once she's on the field. Otherwise, you'll be staring down Smallpoxs, Dark Deals, and Syphon Minds and an entire board of your permanents.
There are just so many easy ways to force your opponents to discard their hands or sacrifice their creatures, like with Fleshbag Marauder, Accursed Marauder, Chainer's Edict, Plaguecrafter... the list goes on. A Tergrid deck doesn't really need any other fancy cards to win with: their opponent's rares will be valuable enough.
Tergrid's total salt score as an individual card is 2.52/4: on the heavier end, and definitely more salty if she's in your command zone. Our one saving grace against Tergrid decks is they're locked into mono-black, meaning you can safely shoot her with a Murder and won't worry about a Counterspell to save her. Keep an eye out for those Scam cards, like Malakir Rebirth, though.
Wrap Up
Commander is a format with a social contract; we're all here (allegedly) to have fun, play our cards, and not worry about the hellworld outside the LGS. We've gone so far as to professionally design a salt system for determining which cards have too many "feel bad" moments, or which are just too much of a pain to play against. These salty commanders are the McDonald's diet of Commander decks: savory and satisfying in the moment, but also full of microplastics that'll slowly kill you as you age. Also they're more expensive inside the city limits for some reason. Okay, wait, the metaphor is falling apart now.
Ultimately, though, the enjoyment you get out of Commander is up to you! If one of these salty commanders interests you, feel free to build it! Liberate yourselves from the Rule 0 discussions and just build something stupid and obnoxious! Live a little! Order the McDouble that is Yarok, the Desecrated!
This list is far from exhaustive; tons of players find salt across thousands of different cards and commanders. Let me know some of your least favorite commanders in the comments! What are some commanders you love to play against instead (something I'm workshopping calling the "pepperiest" commanders)? And hop in there to defend your honor as a Hokori, Dust Drinker apologist!
Thanks for reading, be sure to check your sodium intake regularly!
