MTG: Top Five EDH – Colorless Commanders
Who needs colored spells and creatures when you have MACHINES? Let’s talk EDH Colorless/Artifact Commanders.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our ongoing series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander. For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering, where you use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory. EDHRec.com is a great source for Commander info and can give you ideas to build your next Commander deck, tune an existing one, or build up your first library from scratch.
Colorless and Artifact Commanders fill an interesting role in the EDH world. Since they require no color, mana of any type can (usually) be spent to play them. These creatures and spells can get around colored protection and cards that care about your Commander’s color identity either plummet or skyrocket in value. Commander’s Plate especially is an insane card for Colorless Commanders, giving them protection from EVERY color and making them much harder to remove. If you want to try something unique, give these four greyscale generals a try.
1. Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Unsurprisingly, the most popular colorless Commander is one of the big three Eldrazi. The Eldrazi are cosmic, world-ending monstrosities, and all three can do monumental amounts of damage. This iteration of Kozilek is probably one of the more tame, but don’t let that fool you. A 12/12 with menace for ten is already pretty good, but he lets you refill your hand every time you cast him. On top of that, you can discard pieces from your hand to stop your opponent’s spells. Kozilek proves you don’t need Blue to draw and counter or Green to smash faces.
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog
Next on the list, we have the scariest Dragon Engine in Magic, Traxos. This behemoth is a 7/7 with trample for four, which is pretty awesome until you note that he enters the battlefield taps and then doesn’t untap. However, Traxos loves history, and whenever you cast a historic spell (artifacts, Sagas, and legendaries) Traxos untaps.
That’s more than just a fix, though; if you can cast at instant speed, you can untap him during your opponent’s turn. That way, you can always have a toothy wall to stand in front of your enemies. Since Traxos is Colorless, your deck will be full of artifacts, so you’ll always have your Engine primed and ready to fire.
Liberator, Urza’s Battlethopter
Switching teams in the Brother’s War, we have Liberator, Urza’s Battlethopter, one of the most powerful living weapons in Urza’s arsenal. Liberator is an amazing artifact, Commander, giving all your colorless and artifact spells flash and grow larger as you cast them. With flash himself, he’ll hit your battlefield right when you need him. He grows off high-level spells, so X cards like Walking Ballista or Riptide Replicator are perfect for him.
Zhulodok, Void Gorger
Another Eldrazi graces the colorless top tier, and while this one is a little weaker in battle, its effect might make it a bit better. Zhulodok is a 7/4 for six, which isn’t bad, but it also gives all your high-cost colorless spells double cascade. That means whenever you cast a big spell, you’ll get to cast two more of lower cost for free. Eldrazi are expensive, but this makes saving up for the giant cast totally worth it. Best part of this guy is you can pick him up in a precon.
Graaz, Unstoppable Juggernaut
Rounding out the machine team, we have a nasty living engine from New Phyrexia. Graaz loves Juggernaut typal, so much so that he makes EVERYTHING you have into Juggernauts and buffs them up to 5/3. He also makes them attack every turn, which might not be the best option. However, if you can produce cheap, numerous tokens like Thopters or Myr, you can make an unstoppable force of world-eating monsters. Just watch out for the crack back.
