Magic: The Gathering’sCommander format lets you pick any of literally thousands of cards, and build an entire deck around them. While picking your commander can be tricky, knowing exactly what is on the menu could help you cut down your choices.

Don’t get caught trying to shuffle up an illegal commander at your table. Or, if you’re already confident in your deckbuilding abilities, why not try running something other than a creature to surprise your pod?

Magic The Gathering Grist the Hunger Tide by Yongjae Choi

Legendary Creatures

First and foremost, just aboutany legendary creaturecan be your commander. The vast, vast majority of legendary creatures fromevery black-border Magic setare legal, meaning there are over 2500 legal creatures who can be your commander.

The card only needs to be a legendary creatureon its front faceto be a legal commander. This means cards like Kytheon, Hero of Akros or Extus, Oriq Overlord can be your commander despite having non-creature back faces.

There are a few exceptions, but it’s only cards that arealready not legal in the format. This means these legendary creaturescan’t be your commander:

You also can’t play any card with asilver border oracorn stampas your commander.

Planeswalkers

While it is clear-cut that creatures can be your commander, Planeswalkers are a bit more confusing. This is because they arelegal on a case-by-case basis, rather than a blanket allowance or ban.

For a Planeswalker to be your commander, it needs toexplicitly say so on the card. There are 20 of these cards:

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools

Will Kenrith

There is one other planeswalker that can be your commander, despite not explicitly saying so. This isGrist, the Hunger Tide, a Planeswalker that counts as a creature when it’s anywhere other than on the battlefield. In the command zone, it is a legendary creature, and is therefore legal for your deck.

Whether or not all planeswalkers should be allowed as commanders has been a longstanding discussion in the community. They do not have a massive impact on the Brawl format, where they are already legal, and soa change to the rules to allow anywould likely not shake the game up too much.

Legendary Vehicles And Spacecraft

The final permanents that can be your commanders are legendary Vehicles and Spacecraft, the latter of which was introduced in2025’s Edge of Eternities.

However, like Planeswalkers, there is a caveat to this. For a Vehicle or a Spacecraft to be a valid commander, itmust have a power and toughness box. As a result, cards likeThe Eternity Elevatorcan’t be your commander.

Out of all of the types of commanders, these are likelythe weakest. This means they could be greatlower-bracket commanders, but likely won’t be good enough to hang at a table with some of the best legendary creatures in the format.