If you go online and search for the best Commanders in Magic: the Gathering, we can guarantee you’ll find loads of resources. Everyone wants the best of the best. Most people don’t set out to make something mediocre or horrible when they begin building a deck.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not kind of intriguing to look at the opposite end of the spectrum. Good things are much better when they are juxtaposed with the bad for the sake of comparison. That’s why we thought we’d have a little Magic-themed fun again and discuss the worst legendary creatures in MTG.
Keep in mind that, as usual, we’re not in any way sponsored or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast. This is fan-made content, and this article especially is a matter of opinion.
How We Determined What’s the “Worst”
When we say, “worst legendary creatures,” we’re referring to creatures that are largely useless in most formats. There may be some specific niche situations where a creature on this list could be beneficial to you, but for the most part, these creatures are duds.
We chose specifically to ignore cards from the Legends set. Legends is already notorious for having legendary creatures that are just awful. Choosing cards from this set would simply be low-hanging fruit.
Maybe it will be the subject of its own post in the future? We’ll have to see.
Worst Legendary Creatures in MTG
Daughter of Autumn
Daughter of Autumn is one of the cards we included in our list of cards with lovably bad art. It’s not terrible in the way that you can’t tell what it is, but she definitely looks like a teacher you probably had in elementary school.
In terms of mechanics, she’s just…not good. There isn’t much use for her ability, which allows her to absorb a single point of damage that otherwise a white creature would endure.
We’ve found several Commander decks made with her. People who use her seem to simply follow the traditional Selesnya (green-white) motif and go with a token-centric strategy.
The Prismatic Piper
The Prismatic Piper is a strange one that left many players confused when it came out. Unfortunately, it didn’t come to be played a lot, and it’s ranked as one of the least-used Commanders in the game.
Its use is so incredibly niche, that it’s generally just not helpful. The only time we can imagine it being even moderately useful is if you were drafting Commander Legends, and needed your Commander to be a particular color, but had no other options.
In a preconstructed format, though? Virtually useless.
Veldrane of Sengir
For what you’re paying to cast him, Veldrane of Sengir really should do something better. Unfortunately, he’s just a 5/5 that you can pay three total mana into to give him forestwalk…and a -3 to his power.
We guess pinging someone for two isn’t the worst thing in the world, but the fact that he’s actively reducing his usefulness to get there is absurd. As the icing on the cake, the art is, well, pretty interesting, too.
Yukora, the Prisoner
How about a card that blows up all non-ogres you control whenever it leaves the battlefield? That’s exactly what Yukora, the Prisoner does.
Back in the day, it was used in Kamigawa decks that were built around red and black ogres. The problem is, ogre tribal isn’t really a thing these days. In fact, there are only 95 total ogres in all of Magic: the Gathering.
Needless to say, ogre tribal doesn’t have much synergy. This makes demons like Yukora, which punish you for not having ogres, largely worthless.
Ishi-Ishi, Akki Crackshot
Ishi-Ishi, Akki Crackshot isn’t the worst card on this list by a longshot…but it’s still pretty bad. The reason we threw it on here is that its uses are so narrow, it’s not likely to do much for you in your deck.
Goblins are normally a fun tribe to go with thematically. But Ishi-Ishi would only benefit you if you were playing against a spirit tribal deck or someone using a lot of arcane spells. Needless to say, neither of those are super common strategies these days.
Read Next: Best MTG Sets for Goblins
General Jarkeld
General Jarkeld is an interesting and complicated one. We know it’s worded extremely confusingly, but here’s the gist of it: he basically allows you to take two creatures blocking attackers and swap them so they are blocking each other’s attackers. If A is blocking B and C is blocking D, you could use him to make it so A is blocking D and C is blocking B.
This isn’t absolutely worthless. There are some situations where you might actually want to swap blockers around, such as when it would result in the destruction of an opponent’s creature. The issue we have with him is that this is such a niche ability.
Considering that you’re paying a converted mana cost of four for him and he’s a legend, he should just do something better than this.
Crovax the Cursed
Here we have Crovax the Cursed, a card with a fitting name. He comes in with 4/4 for four mana – a little above curve at the time he was released and even, to some degree, now.
The problem is, you have to sacrifice something to keep him as a 4/4, otherwise he keeps losing power and toughness each turn. Sure, he gets a little bigger with each sacrifice you make, but the point is it will continually cost you creatures just to keep him on the battlefield.
As added insult to injury, you have to pay one to give him flying. Honestly, it’s just better to play a vanilla 4/4 for four mana than it is to play Crovax the Cursed. And if you’re looking to make sacrificing creatures part of your strategy, there are way better sac outlets available.
Blind Seer
You’re probably noticing a trend with the cards on this list. We chose many of them, including Blind Seer, because their abilities are so narrowly focused, they simply aren’t going to be useful in most decks.
Color hate is an outdated concept in Magic nowadays, but used to be way more common, which is why cards like Blind Seer even exist. However, in modern deck-building, you never know what deck you’ll be facing, so it’s very difficult to incorporate color hate successfully. Thus, things that care about color to the point where Blind Seer would be useful, are few and far between.
There are some famous combos with Blind Seer, such as using him alongside Blue Elemental Blast. When he does work, though, he’s just a one-trick pony.
Atalya, Samite Master
History has proven in Magic: the Gathering that life gain and preventing damage aren’t necessarily very strong abilities. Even if you were paying at a 1/1 ratio, where you paid a single mana to prevent a single point of damage, it’s honestly just not as viable as other options out there. This is why we had to put Atalya, Samite Master on the list.
Plus, you can only spend white mana on her. If you happen to have colorless mana from a mana rock or you’re playing a multicolor deck and don’t have any white mana open, you can’t even activate her ability.
Iwamori of the Open Fist
Iwamori’s a pretty buff guy. Maybe we should have put Iwamori of the Open Fist on our list MTG cards with handsome men on them?
Jokes aside, this a pretty strong (or weak, depending on how you look at it) card to end the list on. If you removed his second ability, he’d at least be okay. Unfortunately, when you put him on the battlefield, all of your opponents get to put a free legendary creature on the battlefield from their hands, too.
And who knows what they might have in their hands? You could potentially be allowing an opponent to cheat something crazy onto the battlefield at no cost.
Wrap Up
What do you think of the cards we included on this list? Do you think we missed any or do you think some of these cards are actually strong? At any rate, don’t just take our word for it. If you have some time, try and build Commander decks out of them. You can even check out our detailed guide to building a Commander deck for our advice.