We’re onto the last half of commanders that don’t see a lot of play, and in my opinion, these are some cool cards that I just haven’t seen. If you’re a player that runs these as your commander, feel free to comment on how they work!

Sisters of Stone Death

This is a commander I honestly wish I owned. When I started playing about 3 years ago, this was maybe the second deck I ever tried to build, and with the limited card pool I had, it was pretty tough to do. Sisters has a lot of options going for it; the one problem is that it’s incredibly weak to Pithing Needle if you don’t have other options available in your deck. On paper, this deck looks like an absolute beast; access to green for land tutoring, and black for mana doubling? With a power of 7, your opponent is dead in three turns if they don’t give you things to steal. Something that I feel players don’t know about is that Sisters of Stone Death has better card memory than you think. It doesn’t matter when Sisters of Stone Death removed a card, you can bring it back no matter how many times it has left the field since then. If someone doesn’t believe you, pull up the official rulings, it’s the only rule for the card. 3 mana to remove any pesky utility creature from your opponent’s side of the field? I dig it.

Halfdane

Old cards are infamously terrible for their high cost and terrible abilities, but some of them do manage to sneak away with something fairly useful. Halfdane isn’t the best, which I’ll explain why in a moment, but I think it has a neat ability! Making your commander just as big as one of your opponent’s creatures can be a scary thing. Sure, if Halfdane copies something like Vorinclex, it won’t have the same nasty ability, but it will have that beefy body. The biggest problem with Halfdane is that your opponent will have to have something worth copying, but the upside is that Halfdane is most likely something your opponents will have never seen before. Seeing Esper colors across the table without having any idea of what it would be running will make them scared, which can come in handy!

Garza

Haste is a very powerful keyword on a Commander. It means that the ball is always in your court; there’s no waiting an extra turn, where your opponents can cast a board wipe, a blocker, or kill spell, you always get to immediately attack. Haste Commanders can pack a punch, but Garza has one more keyword: Flying. The combination of these two keywords makes it so that Garza Zol needs to be dealt with quickly. She can become a threat almost immediately after hitting the board, because whenever she swings, one of three things can happen: Either she dies, gets bigger, or draws you a card. Garza is a very combat-heavy commander, but fortunately it has access to red, a color that can grant you additional combats. Acting like such an aggressive beast, it’s a wonder to me why I don’t see more of her.

Ruhan

The reoccurring theme of ‘I didn’t hit you on purpose, you shouldn’t hit me’ is one that I don’t particularly like. The problem I find with Ruhan is not that it’s a bad commander in game, but that it’s a bad commander etiquette wise. There’s not a plethora of randomly-attacks creatures, but there’s a lot that simulates it. Have you ever played against someone who rolls a die to determine who they swing at? How about this, have they ever gotten mad when you swing back? Randomness, whether it be intentionally put into the game or not, can bring a lot of bad manners to the table. Of all of the commanders on this list, Ruhan is the only one that I would never consider building.

Zurgo Helmsmasher

Zurgo, unfortunately, falls into the same trap as Ruhan does. Being able to say ‘Hey, I had to attack someone’ is a weak defense for when your opponent comes right back at you. While Zurgo is a little bit better since he doesn’t have to be random, I feel like there are players that would opt to randomize it themselves and fall behind that pseudo argument. If you cause a player to lose something; either a turn, a permanent, a spell, or life, they have every right to come back at you. It’s just the nature of the game. People say EDH is a political game, and that’s part of the politics. You can’t nuke someone’s field and expect them to be hunky-dory with it. Whenever you cast a spell, you need to be prepared to face the consequences of that action.

That wraps it up for the second part of underplayed commanders. I hope this encourages you to try out someone new, even if it does happen to be Ruhan. Just make sure that no matter who you play to stay positive and mind your P’s and Q’s.