The 25 Best Mill Commanders in Magic Ranked

Last updated on March 29, 2025

Phenax, God of Deception | Illustration by Ryan Barger

Players love an alternate win condition, and one of the most popular alternate win conditions is milling out your opponents. A player loses the game if they don’t have cards in their library to draw. But is mill any good in a format like EDH with 100-card decks?

Fortunately the right commander can give you mill synergies or potentially your main mill strategy, and it can make the task that much easier. I'm covering mill with all the mill-related commanders you can think of. Which ones rank the best, and how can mill be a good tool in EDH?

Without further ado, let’s begin!

What Are Mill Commanders in MTG?

Sheoldred | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

Mill commanders are primarily legendary creatures that benefit from self-milling or milling their opponents. We’ll only look at the commanders that focus on milling opponents and work off opponents’ graveyards. These commanders win through graveyard strategies or by milling an opponent’s entire deck. Purely self-mill commanders deserve their own time to shine.

Commanders who want to remove opponents’ libraries can come in a few different flavors. They can include the word mill, put cards into the graveyard, exile cards from your opponents’ libraries, or similar variations. The wording doesn’t matter so much as long as you’re removing cards from libraries! We may even look at some “rad” strategies!

The name of the game for these commanders is to control the board, benefit from graveyard synergies, and slowly dwindle your opponents’ decks. Mill is clearly an easier strategy in the smaller deck-sized formats like Draft, Sealed, and Standard, but with the right builds, mill commanders can still get the job done.

#25. Ambassador Laquatus

Ambassador Laquatus has a way to convert infinite mana into a win condition by milling every player. The problem is that when you don’t have infinite mana, you’re left with a bad commander. There are better-suited commanders for milling or infinite combos.

#24. Circu, Dimir Lobotomist

The last ability on Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is null in EDH, so you’re left with a commander that exiles a card from a library each time you cast a spell, or two cards if you cast a Dimir spell.

It can go infinite if you have an engine that allows you to cast the same spell over and over, like Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter.

#23. Coram, the Undertaker

Coram, the Undertaker can take advantage of your mill abilities. Similarly to The Master, Transcendent, this card can help you to steal cards that have been milled this turn. By taking a land and casting a spell from graveyards each turn, it greatly expands the cards and interactions you can have in a single turn. It’ll feel great to throw a card like Titanoth Rex away to boost this commander’s power or steal an opponent’s valuable graveyard cards.

#22. Wrexial, the Risen Deep

Wrexial, the Risen Deep is a commander that rewards milling your foes by letting you cast an instant or sorcery from their graveyard for free when Wrexial hits them. It’s easier to hit blue or black players due to the islandwalk and swampwalk abilities, unless you also include a card like Dream Thrush. If mill doesn’t work, you can possibly take someone out via commander damage.

#21. Szadek, Lord of Secrets

Szadek, Lord of Secrets is in a weird spot to be a commander. It’s a 5/5 flier that gets bigger in the long run and alongside milling opponents. It starts as a 5/5, deals 5 damage to a player to mill five cards, and grows to a 10/10. Rinse and repeat.

The problem is that Szadek doesn’t do any of these jobs well. It’d benefit from combat-related keywords available in white, like vigilance, double strike, or myriad. The only other upside I might see is with proliferate, but even with that strategy, the mana value seems too expensive and curve-unfriendly.

#20. Sheoldred / The True Scriptures

The front side of Sheoldred provides removal as well as a big body. This can come in handy to deter aggro decks. You’ll need one of your opponents to have eight or more cards in their graveyard for you to transform it, so you’ll want to mill your opponents.

Once transformed, The True Scriptures is pure value. The saga allows you to destroy planeswalkers or creatures, make opponents discard, and for a great finale, reanimates all creatures from graveyards. It’s a little slow, but if you can survive against aggro commanders like Winota, Joiner of Forces, these are the added effects of a single card that can change a game.

#19. Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker

Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker mills players whenever it hits a player, and it’s got evasion to ease this task. You can expect to hit around 6-10 cards with each Mirko hit due to the four lands condition. It’s a good number of cards milled but not enough to win.

With a lucky hit that mills eight or more cards in a single hit, cards like Into the Story or Thieves' Guild Enforcer get a lot better.

#18. Tasha, the Witch Queen

I really like Tasha, the Witch Queen‘s playstyle as a commander, but it’s not a great mill commander without good support. With Tasha, each turn you’re drawing cards and exiling your opponents’ instants and sorceries.

The -3 ability lets you cast one of them for free. What’s more, you also get a free 3/3 Horror when you cast a spell your opponents own. Cards like Tinybones, Bauble Burglar and Halo Forager allow you to further cast spells from your opponents, while Siphon Insight and Xanathar, Guild Kingpin complement the spell-stealing strategy.

#17. The Ancient One

The Ancient One straddles both the self-mill and mill strategies. You want to fill your graveyard so that you can attack or block with this massive god. Also, it doesn’t hurt that this commander has an activated ability to mill opponents. The Ancient One isn’t the greatest mill commander, but with cards like Training Grounds and Aether Syphon you may be able to mill an opponent out.

#16. Zellix, Sanity Flayer

Zellix, Sanity Flayer is a defensive commander that gives you lots of 1/1 Horror tokens in a mill deck. You can buff your Horrors with typal effects and you can choose a background to add another color, be it green for ramping or black for extra mill effects.

With a black background and Syr Konrad, the Grim around, you can deal damage while making tokens.

#15. Lord Xander, the Collector

Lord Xander, the Collector interests us because just by attacking with it, you’ll mill a player for half their library. That can get to 100% with Bruvac the Grandiloquent. That said, it's expensive and doesn’t have any evasion.

Lord Xander's a powerful commander and can do a lot on entering the battlefield, but it requires some ramp and protection for it to be effective at milling opponents.

#14. Saruman of Many Colors

Saruman of Many Colors doesn’t aim to totally mill opponents, but rather fill their graveyards with enchantments, instants, and sorceries. This way, when you cast your second spell each turn you can steal those cards from your opponents’ graveyards. This strategy is all about casting a cheap spell and then an expensive one to capitalize on the big cards in graveyards. Build your deck accordingly, and do not elect the way of pain!

#13. The Master, Transcendent

Watch out, The Master, Transcendent may just steal your girl. Okay, probably not, but this card does aim to steal solid creatures from opponents. Surrounded by mill effect cards like Nuclear Fallout and Riverchurn Monument, this commander may have a solid choice of creatures to cast from graveyards. Add a card like Intruder Alarm and you may be stealing a ton of creatures!

#12. Lazav, Dimir Mastermind

Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is the kind of fun commander that you can do all kinds of tricks with. Each time you mill an opponent’s creature or kill it, you may have Lazav become a copy of that creature, and you can pull these tricks during combat.

Kill a giant creature, have Lazav become a copy of it, block, and profit. If one of your opponents is playing reanimator, that’s even better because they’re going to do the job of putting a good creature in their graveyard to help you.

#11. Syr Konrad, the Grim

Here’s a commander that’s a good mix of mill and damage. Syr Konrad, the Grim wants creature cards to be put into graveyards, and it doesn’t matter if they died or if you milled them. The important part is that for each creature put in a graveyard, Syr Konrad deals 1 damage to each opponent.

If everyone mills a creature off the activation, that's 4 damage to each opponent. On top of all the mill support you can get from your spells, you can win by generating a large amount of mana and activating Syr Konrad’s abilities. 

#10. The Mindskinner

A mind skinner… what a nightmare. The Mindskinner is a cheap blue commander that can provide you with your mill wincon. The first goal is to overwhelm your opponents with cards like Bruvac the Grandiloquent and Bonehoard and mill them out. And to protect this plan fill your decks with graveyard-stifling cards like Soulless Jailer. Not dealing damage seems counterintuitive, but with the right combos and cards this mill commander can burn through opponents’ decks.

#9. Umbris, Fear Manifest

Umbris, Fear Manifest is a commander that exiles cards from an opponent’s library whenever a nightmare or a horror enters the battlefield. I like that Umbris gives you a reason to play nightmares or horrors, and EDH players love the challenge of building around weird creature types.

Tasha's Hideous Laughter and Ashiok, Nightmare Muse are the kind of exile cards that fit an Umbris deck perfectly. If the mill plan goes south, you can win by attacking with a giant commander plus Rogue's Passage. Or something along those lines.

#8. The Wise Mothman

The Wise Mothman is a relatively cheap Sultai commander, costing . The rest of your deck will be centered around this flying insect mutant, milling your opponents’ cards and turning them into counters or damage. The number of rad counters a player has will force them to mill that many cards and take that much damage each turn. Not only are you milling opponents, but creating other strategies alongside the mill.

#7. Captain N'ghathrod

Captain N'ghathrod is a commander that provides value every turn if you’re milling opponents. You want to mill opponents to get access to their creatures or artifacts, and you can keep attacking people with horrors to mill even more cards. If the reanimator + value is hated, milling them out of the game can become a viable plan B.

#6. Oona, Queen of the Fae

Oona, Queen of the Fae is a nice leader for a faeries/flying token deck with a mill subtheme. You can exploit milling your mono-color opponents to produce more tokens, and you can even use cards like Painter's Servant to make more tokens or combo off with Grindstone.

Since you’re making that many Faerie Rogue tokens with flying, you can pump the tokens with rogue lords like Anowon, the Ruin Thief and Soaring Thought-Thief or cards like Gravitational Shift. And on top of that, you can take advantage of instant speed with Faerie Mastermind and High Fae Trickster. So many options and so much value.

#5. The Mimeoplasm

The Mimeoplasm is a classic Sultai commander that’s a stronger copy of a creature in a graveyard when you cast it. It’s a powerful commander, but it’s also a fun deck-building exercise because you’ll want creatures that are big and creatures that have nice abilities to add to The Mimeoplasm.

You’ll want to mill everyone so that you have access to better targets. Cycling strong creatures like Titanoth Rex or Waker of Waves early in the game makes sure that your commander is always big when it enters, and synergies with ETB effects or +1/+1 counters work great here. Take advantage of discarding strong cards like Sire of Seven Deaths, Koma, Cosmos Serpent, and Valgavoth, Terror Eater. If this commander dies, you’ll simply cast it again and obtain a better plasm combination.

#4. The Scarab God

The Scarab God‘s main power lies in being able to eternalize a creature from any graveyard at any time. Because of that, you’ll want to mill everyone around including you. You’ll pay to get a 4/4 Zombie token that’s a copy of a great creature, and you can do it at instant speed. Paired alongside cards like Zul Ashur, Lich Lord, it should give you a ton of damage capabilities.

Add the fact that this commander returns to your hand after it’s destroyed, so you get around commander tax. You don’t need to mill everyone for the win because each turn you’re making them lose life based on the number of zombies you control.

#3. Anowon, the Ruin Thief

Anowon, the Ruin Thief is one of the best rogue typal commanders, giving you a Mindcrank effect if you deal damage with rogues. Rogues are often related mechanically to mill, so you can have an aggressive/tempo build with rogues attacking every turn and have mill as a subproduct. The great thing about Anowon is that you can take advantage of its abilities in different ways.

You can have rogues that benefit from mill or you can use cards that care about the damage dealt and enjoy the extra cards. Zareth San, the Trickster exemplifies that versatility by being a rogue that deals 4 damage, mills four cards because of Anowon, and steals a creature from their graveyard.

#2. Phenax, God of Deception

On top of being a 4/7 indestructible with enough devotion, Phenax, God of Deception is an awesome tool to mill opponents out. You’ll fill your deck with high-toughness creature cards like 0/7 walls or something like the 0/17 Charix, the Raging Isle.

These creatures let you mill dozens of cards per turn, and they get better with untap effects like Unstoppable Plan. Phenax, God of Deception isn’t the most powerful commander, but it’s one of the better raw mill commanders.

#1. Bruvac the Grandiloquent

Bruvac the Grandiloquent makes a dedicated mill strategy more powerful. Whenever you mill a card, you mill twice that many cards.

Cards like Riverchurn Monument, Traumatize, or Maddening Cacophony can empty a player’s library straight away, and all your little mill effects are also more powerful and consistent. Bruvac is an advisor, so decks that rely on Persistent Petitioners are much better because you can also tap Bruvac, and you’ll mill 24 cards per activation instead of 12.

Best Mill Commander Payoffs

So you’re milling your opponents through your commander’s abilities or some sweet mill spells. Let’s see how to get the most benefit from it.

Cards that mill consistently, like Sphinx's Tutelage, Patient Rebuilding, and Teferi's Tutelage are a fine addition for mill commanders, no matter if you’re milling yourself or others. Also, never forget the power of cheap cards like Ruin Crab to help your strategy along.

When your opponents have full graveyards, mass-reanimate cards like Rise of the Dark Realms or Breach the Multiverse are more valuable since you’ll get lots of your opponents’ goodies, with more choices too!

Cards that get beefier the more cards in players’ graveyards are a fine choice. Consuming Aberration, Urborg Lhurgoyf, or even Tarmogoyf are nice. Consuming Aberration even helps with milling when you cast spells.

Win conditions like Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Thassa's Oracle, and Laboratory Maniac win you the game if you’re milling yourself.

Sets like Throne of Eldraine and Zendikar Rising have cards that care about the number of cards in your opponents’ graveyards, and they get better once your opponent reaches a certain number of cards in the yard. Look out for cards like Soaring Thought-Thief, Vantress Gargoyle, and Drown in the Loch to play in mill Commander decks. And the Universes Beyond Fallout crossover added rad counters to the milling fun.

Graveyard recursion is king when you have a mill commander, especially if you’re milling everyone. Cards like Eternal Witness, Tamiyo, Collector of Tales, or Wrenn and Realmbreaker are effective tutors for you.

Mindcrank is a way to transform milling into damage. Instead of milling 100 cards, you’ll need to mill 40 to kill a player. It even goes infinite with cards like Duskmantle Guildmage.

Is Mill a Viable Strategy in Commander?

Yes! With the right builds, mill is a viable strategy in Commander .

Mill’s main problem in EDH is that you have more opponents (usually three instead of one, and they have more cards in their decks. Most cards that mill only target a single opponent, like Tome Scour. The design of mill cards is scaled for 60-card deck formats, so if WotC prints something like “target opponent mills 30 cards” for EDH, it’ll be broken in Standard or Modern. Eldrazi creatures like Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre undo all your hard work if they’re milled.  

Mill can also be a risky strategy because there are good commanders that benefit from having their graveyards filled, so by milling them you’re actively helping them in their own strategy. You’ll usually not want to mill a Muldrotha, the Gravetide opponent. That risk can be reduced by exiling cards from their library instead of putting the cards into their graveyards.

You’ll usually win by milling with infinite combos, using Altar of the Brood for example, and some interaction that produces infinite ETB/LTB effects. You’re looking for mill-related cards like Mesmeric Orb or Mindcrank which can affect everyone instead of “target opponent mill X cards.” You may need very specific combos like Fleet Swallower with Bruvac the Grandiloquent, which mills all of a certain player’s cards.

It may not be the choice for casual or even ultra-competitive players, but it does have value. For a mill deck to be viable in Commander, it has to target all opponents and turn mill into damage or some other benefit, and you should aim for big/infinite combos when possible.

Wrap Up

Bruvac the Grandiloquent | Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

It’s hard to win in EDH with a dedicated mill deck since you’ll need to mill around 240-250 cards between three opponents, and usually one opponent at a time. There are few mill cards that affect everyone, and they’re quite expensive to acquire and put into your decks.

On the bright side, WotC is always finding new ways to make mill more viable in EDH. It’s easier to build a deck that mills everyone to use their resources in their graveyards, and aside from infinite combos that’s usually how mill decks operate, especially if we’re talking about low-level EDH decks.

What do you think about milling in Commander? Does your playgroup rely a lot on milling to win? Let me know in the comments section below. Or leave a tweet on Draftsim’s Twitter.

Thanks for reading, and stay safe folks!