Have you ever wondered what would happen if the most popular commanders on EDHREC appeared in a normal limited set? Well, about half of them already have, but what about the rest? Let's have a look, shall we?

Giada, Font of Hope

We're starting off with an easy one, seeing as Giada was in a regular Standard sets. She was pretty good in her Limited format. Not a bomb or anything, but since Streets of New Capenna had angels at every rarity, she did get to "do the thing" from time-to-time. Otherwise, a 2/2 flying vigilance creature for two would be very good in any Limited format, even if the rest of the text was irrelevant.

Kenrith, the Returned King

King Kennny was a Commander card in original Eldraine, but he did appear in March of the Machines, where 17lands gave him a solid B-. He does a little bit of everything, and even if you can't splash of all his abilities, the ones you can manage are probably worth the effort. The Green, Blue and Black abilities are best in Limited, but the White and Red ones are still decent in the right situation.

Lathril, Blade of the Elves

Lathril appeared in Foundations and quickly became a beloved leader for a beloved tribe in commander. In Limited, though, things weren't so rosy. He had a sub-50% win rate among 17lands users, and a quick look at the set list shows you why: there simply wasn't the critical mass of elves available for this kind of thing. The combat damage ability could have been good if it wasn't attached to a four-mana 2/3. Even with menace, that's way below rate in modern Limited. The tap ability was basically flavour text. You can imagine a world (Lorwyn, for example) where maybe Lathril would be at least playable, but it would need a lot of help.

Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow

Another one that appeared on a bonus sheet, this time in Final Fantasy. Another one that wasn't great. This is basically Lathril all over again, but replace "elves" with "ninjas." You can easily imagine a Kamigawa set where Yuriko would be very good.

Sauron, the Dark Lord

Now we're talking. B+ is impressive for a three-colour card in Limited, but that's where the 61.7% win rate puts him on 17lands data. Clearly the juice was worth the squeeze on your mana base and it's not hard to see what makes this bad guy so good. The ward cost is incredible for starters, but opponents will happily to pay it if they can, because if Sauron sticks around, it only gets worse for them. Amass 1 whenever opponent cast a spell is nuts and being able to draw four cards a turn, potentially, is beyond nuts. Then there's the ring tempting, which quickly snowballs out of hand. A hard-to-answer threat that takes over any game.

Pantlaza, Sun-Favored

All right, finally, a commander-only creature. This one looks like your typical three-colour bomb: requires a bit of a work, but absolutely dominates if you can get there. Just imagine untapping with this in an Ixalan set and casting... well, any dinosaur really. Colossal Dreadmaw suddenly becomes less of a meme when it brings along a buddy for free. A hard-to-cast 4/4 for five is a hard sell, but in the right environment I could see this being at least a B.

Kaalia of the Vast

This is an odd one. Kaalia has appeared in a few sets that did have drafts available, but not always on Arena. When she showed up in Modern Horizons 3, she was an F, played so rarely that 17lands doesn't even provide a win rate. A three-colour 2/2 is awful, and her text box is usually blank. She wouldn't even be good on Capenna, where she is the wrong type of three-colour card to play nicely with the other angels. It would take quite an unusual format for Kaalia to come good, but maybe she could make her way to Tarkir and help the Mardu? Being able to put creature types that are typically expensive into play for free is appealing, but too much has to go right for that to actually work out.

Krenko, Mob Boss

This guy has been around the block, appearing most recently in Foundations where he was fine. At 55.1% win rate when drawn, he was about as good as Serra Angel. Krenko quickly gets out of hand if left alone, and he does encourage you to shoot the moon. What keeps him from being top tier is that he's a four-mana 3/3 that needs to survive to the next turn. Not an impossible task by any means, but enough of a downside to keep him from truly bossing the format.

Atraxa, Praetors' Voice

Surely a four-coloured creature with an end step ability that is often irrelevant couldn't be good in Limited right? Apparently it could. When she re-appeared on the MOM bonus sheet this was a B+ card with 60.4% win rate. Was that keyword soup really worth the absurd mana cost? I'm at a loss, because I don't remember seeing this in play ever. Maybe proliferating your opponent's battles was more than just cute or maybe pumping your own incubate tokens was more powerful than I'm giving it credit for. Am I just forgetting that there was loads of fixing and therefore the mana cost wasn't a big deal? I don't get it, but Atraxa was pretty solid.

Edgar Markov

Another one that has never been in a normal draft. The floor here is 4/4 for six, but three different colours of mana, with first strike and haste. Not amazing. However, it also spits out 1/1 and pumps all your vampires, including himself. If we assume this would go in an Innistrad set, with other vampires, that's pretty solid. If you get a profitable attack in, I think this dying to a Murder on your opponent's turn an okay trade. You still got a 2/2 out of the deal and likely pumped at least a few other creatures. If you spend 6 mana and Edgar ends can't get an attack in, that's a big setback. In a lot of ways, this card reminds me of Krenko above, and while haste is is good it's not enough to make me want to pick it highly.

The Ur-Dragon

Ending with back-to-back commander-only cards is nice in terms of my goals for this article, but oh boy is this a stinker. First of all, nine-drops are almost never playable in modern Limited. is less of a downside, because if you're in a position to have 9 mana, you likely ramped and/or fixed in the process. Unfortunately, this isn't even that good if you can get it into play. Yeah, if you turbo ramped it out, a 10/10 flier is going to be extremely hard to race, but the rest of the text on this card ranges from "win-more" to "irrelevant." This eminence ability is way worse than Edgar's. The command zone is meaningless in either case, but at least Edgar's eminence ability actually does something when he's in play. Even if we put The Ur-Dragon in a set with lots of lower rarity dragons like Tarkir, reducing the cost of things when you're already at 9 mana is comical. Granted, in that environment, the ability to draw cards is good but if you're attacking with multiple dragons, how many extra cards are you likely to need? And again, putting stuff into play for free sounds better than it is at that stage. I can see why this is a popular commander: it's really cool when all the text is relevant. But if if this ever appears on a bonus sheet in a Limited format, you should probably ignore it unless ramp is really good.