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Top Ten Vehicles for Commander

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Hello happy people! This week is Vehicle Week in my articles. I built a Five Color Vehicle deck around Kyodai, Soul of Kamigawa earlier!

Today I want to look at my choices for the best vehicles that have been printed for Commander. Vehicles aren't the strongest type for Commander to build around with 40 life and 3 foes, so your 2 mana 3/3 with flying and crew 1 won't be as impactful with 40 life on one foe and 120 life on three as a single 20 life duel. And the mana reduction isn't worth the crew hoops to jump through.

Now even the vehicle Commander deck just published doesn't have vehicles that scale up in power vs multiplayer. For example, you could have printed these vehicles in the Commander brew:

Myriad Vehicle - 3 mana, 4/4 flying, crew 1, which Myriad Vehicle attacks an opponent or a planeswalker they control create a token copy of this attacking each other opponent. Sacrifice it at the end of combat.

Myriad is a powerful way to ramp up from one attack to many, and that plays very well with multiplayer and Commander and Myriad Vehicle is a good way to deal with that.

Counter Vehicle - 3 mana, 3/3, flying, crew 1, when this enters the battlefield, place a +1/+1 counter on it for each opponent you have.

In a four-player game this is a powerful 6/6 crew 1 for just 3 mana, and in duels it's just one +1/+1 and one more mana than already printed Vehicles.

Power Double Vehicle - 4 mana with a Red included, 3/3 Menace, crew 1, when this deals combat damage to a player, double it.

This has an evasive ability, doubles its power, is limited to Red, and is a quick clock even in a 40 life format.

Obviously, the numbers would be changed with playtesting. But instead, we got a mono-Blue bad Clone and a ramper in mono-White and a Commandeer that's pretty good but two colors.

Until enough vehicles are pushed in cost, ability, and equip to the level of top equipment, they will always feel third fiddle to equipment and enchantment builds. They are vulnerable to removal of crew, or artifacts, and they don't come back easily from board wipes, unlike the mass card flow of Enchantresses or the versatility of equipment. It'll be fun and ideal for lower powered kitchen tables, but it's hard to see modern Commander having a place for it.

After Neon Dynasty I feel we now have enough vehicles to have a top ten list.

Ready for my Top Ten with three Honorable Mentions?

Honorable Mention #1. Heart of Kiran

Heart of Kiran

Hitting it at #13 on my list is Heart of Kiran! This card dominated Standard. This 4/4 with flying and vigilance has a bigger crew of 3 but can be crewed by loyalty counters. You can crew to swing and then crew again to block with a 4/4 flyer for removing another loyalty counter. Because of its loyalty counter I find it more useful in planeswalker brews than vehicle ones and it's the only card in my top 13 that didn't make the cut in my Five Color Vehicle brew earlier this week. I run it in my real life 5 Color planeswalker brew that needs blockers, attackers and creatures that won't die to my mass removal. Good stuff!

Honorable Mention #2. Mechtitan Core

Mechtitan Core

I adore this literal "Voltron." For two mana you get a 2 crew 2/4 that can spend 5 mana to self-exile, as well as four other vehicles or artifact dorks and then you make a nasty 10/10 legendary Mechtitan Construct that has an epic amount of abilities. Swing with haste. That will kill in 4 hits in Commander if someone has their starting life of 40. And when the Construct is answered you can get back everything else you exiled (tapped) save for the Core itself. This is just so much fun, and isn't that what this game is supposed to be about?

Honorable Mention #3. Parhelion II

Parhelion II

Ah yes, the most expensive vehicle ever printed, but boy, it wins games! As you can see, this 8-drop 5/5 flying, first strike and vigilance dork has a bigger crew of 4. When it swings, it makes, not one, but two attacking 4/4 Angel tokens with flying and vigilance and all of them will stand back and you can crew it on defense as well, which is pretty useful. Even with 40 life, this wins games quickly and it can crew itself after one activation. It's very powerful at winning the game and I adore it loads. But its cost keeps it out of my list.

Now let's move to the Top Ten proper.

#10. Raiders' Karve

Raiders' Karve

Our only charting common is this 3-drop, 3 crew 4/4 that will ramp the top land of your library to the battlefield tapped, which is good advantage over time and adds mana ramping to non-Green decks since the Karve is colorless. If the top card is not a land, you'll still get a chance to see it, so that you get cool information, and if it sucks, you can shuffle with a Terramorphic Expanse. You can also reorganize it with things like Brainstorm, Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top. Good stuff!

#9. Cultivator's Caravan

Cultivator's Caravan

The Caravan is a Manalith variant, in this case to crew 3 for a 5/5 beater. It's not the most powerful Vehicle, but it arguably has the best opportunity cost as you can remove any Manalith variant in your build without pushing out vehicles and it's pretty solid. It can easily be the only Vehicle in your deck. It punches hard and fair and powerfully. I run it in a lot of my builds.

#8. Surgehacker Mech

Surgehacker Mech

Four mana, 5/5 with menace, crew 4 is a bit high. But on arrival will shoot an opposing dork or planeswalker for at least 2 damage, probably more in a dedicated Vehicles deck, that makes this sort of a Flametongue Kavu of vehicles. It can kill a lot of 2 or 1 toughness commonly played dorks. Mother of Runes cannot tap and prevent it. Soul Warden and friends. Blood Artist and Zulaport Cutthroat. Karmic Guide and Mulldrifter and Cloudblazer and Eternal Witness and Flametongue Kavu proper. Good stuff and removal in your vehicles is a nice way to push them forward. Good stuff for the win-tuff.

#7. Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel

Cosima, God of the Voyage // the Omenkeel

This is the first leader printed that could lead a mono-Blue vehicle deck out of your Command Zone. The front side is a 2/4 God for three mana that can head to the exile zone and landfalls voyage counter which, when he returns from a landfall, he'll draw cards for, and get bigger. Then the back side is why it's here though. Two mana for a 3/3 crew one is on-curve.

Then as your vehicles deal combat damage to your foes, you exile that many cards from their library and you can play them, although there is no mana-washing here, so in a mono-Blue deck you might find it rough to cast non-Blue, non-colorless cards. But there is no evasion here, so you'll have to provide your own Rogue's Passage or Access Tunnel. That's massive potential card advantage in Commander. Love them a lot here, and you'll do well with this duo.

#6. Shorikai, Genesis Engine

Shorikai, Genesis Engine

Even though Shorikai is not the Commander leader from the Commander deck he debuted in, it is leading an amazing 2,102 decks over at EDHREC.com. It's already the third-most common Azorius combo after Brago, King Eternal at #1 and Ranar the Ever-Watchful at the two-spot. This 4-drop 8/8 crew 8 vehicle is a legal Commander, and loads of folks are pretty happy. You can tap this for a mana and draw two, discard one, and make a 1/1 that's a 3/1 for piloting - good card flow and Pilot making.

The problem with vehicles is them getting swept or answered since it requires two forms of permanents to function, the crew and the vehicle. With a Commander eligible vee that makes its own crew you have solved both issues. If your vee is answered with a mass or targeted removal spell like Vandalblast, then you can just send it to your Command Zone and recast it for two more mana. If your crew are killed in a Day of Judgment effect just tap in your precombat phase, make a 3/1, and crew up a vee that has a 3 or smaller crew requirement and swing. It plays nicely to both forms of removal. Good card.

Top Five Time!

#5. Reckoner Bankbuster

Reckoner Bankbuster

This Standard powerhouse is a 2-drop 4/4 crew three that arrives with three charge counters. Tap it for two mana and pull off a counter and draw a card, and that's eventually 3 for 1 card advantage. When you pull off the last charge counter you make a Treasure and get a 1/1 Pilot that counts as a 3/1 for crewing, enough to crew the Bankbuster! Card flow is hard to find with the vehicle tag so this really helps with that, and you can spread the cards drawn and mana spent over several turns and it's good early or top-decked later. Good card!

#4. Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

This is a powerful 6/5 flying crew 3 vehicle that's evasive and costs 5 mana. On arrival to the battlefield, you Bolt a dork or planeswalker which is good for establishing a board presence. And then when it attacks you also Bolt again, which can provide virtual card over time as you kill more and more things. One of the 1/1 Pilot tokens from Neon Dynasty like the ones make by the above two vehicles can crew this alone and deal a whole lot of damage. Good stuff for the win.

#3. Aerial Surveyor

Aerial Surveyor

Our final vehicle with a color is the Surveyor. Three mana for a 3/4 flying crew 2 is a bit behind the curve, but this has a nice extra boost. Whenever this evasive rock swings at a foe that has more lands than you, you can ramp out a basic Plains from your deck to the battlefield tapped. That's great card flow over time and will keep the vehicle brew up with the ramp builds. It's a ramp card in a swinger slot. I can see this getting played in decks that don't care about vehicles but have loads of early dorks to crew out and swing a lot for blocking like Boros and Mono-White Aggro or token that need to keep up ramp-wise with the Joneses. The color identity means this card could not exist as created in just colorless, so it's more powerful, (compare it to the Karve above) but the white identity in the least played color also drops it down a bit. What's next?

#2. Smuggler's Copter

Smuggler's Copter

Ah yes, the vehicle so powerful that it was banned in Standard. Two mana, 3/3, flying, crew just 1 and evasive. When you swing you draw and discard, so you get a free loot in any color, on curve, and powerfully. There are 14,128 Copters registered over at EDHREC.com which is a ton. Its card flow is better than red's discard to draw, and it works very well in shells like Aggro, Tokens, Reanimation (discarding what you want to reanimate), Madness, and many more. It's very strong and you should get great fun from it! Copter away, my friends, Copter away! It often gets played by itself.

#1. Weatherlight

Weatherlight

Four mana, 4/5 flyer and when it punches face you dig down 5 cards and draw a historic card (artifacts, sagas, legendaries). Great card flow and it works well in various builds like Esper Artifacts; 5 Color Legendary Matters (it's legendary as well) under Sisay, Weatherlight Captain; Neon Dynasty's Tameshi, Reality Sculptor; any vehicle deck; Izzet's historic matters under Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain; and many more! It's very powerful in a lot of builds. Love it loads!!!

And there we go! So...what did you think of my list? Anything I missed or got in the wrong order? Just let me know in the comments below!

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