Jumpstart Foundations: The Best Commanders + Lists

Recently, besides Foundations, we also got a new Magic: The Gathering set, Jumpstart Foundations. Jumpstart sets include boosters that you can combine to create decks, and have always been popular, both because of their concept and because of their exclusive cards. There's also one every year, which is a great idea. In this set, there are also anime-style versions of legendary creatures (old and new) in every pack.

In today's article, we'll go through the best commanders in Jumpstart Foundations, and show you a few lists with them.

Taeko is an actual Ninja Turtle. It was clearly designed for decks that focus on Ninjas as an alternative to Satoru Umezawa and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow. Whenever one of your creatures leaves the battlefield without dying, that is, if it is exiled or returned to your hand, you'll Scry 1 and give a +1/+1 counter to Taeko. It will be great for strategies that reuse creatures or create disposable tokens.

Furthermore, during the attack, Taeko can make another attacker unblockable if you pay . This is perfect to deal direct damage, and, obviously, activate Ninjutsu.

If you prefer a creative approach, you can use cards like Ghostly Flicker to make creatures leave and enter the battlefield and trigger other effects besides Taeko's. You can even use Pauper's old engine, with cards like Archaeomancer, Cloud of Faeries, and Peregrine Drake, with Mulldrifter and Gray Merchant of Asphodel.

The fact Taeko focuses on interactions like blink, bounce, and has synergy with Ninja means we can create decks for this creature type that are very different from other Ninja commanders. Meanwhile, its attack ability is great for Ninjutsu and if you want to finish an opponent with commander damage with a huge Taeko.

General Kreat, the Boltbringer both repeatedly creates Goblins and deals damage to opponents whenever a creature you control enters, which is very similar to Impact Tremors's ability. By the way, you should use this enchantment alongside Kreat to have more redundancy.

It is ideal for Goblins and other types of swarm strategies, and, ideally, you want to make the most out of its second ability, which burns your opponents whenever your creatures enter. These creatures, consequently, will be very relevant for your strategy.

Is it vulnerable to mass removals, particularly the ones that remove tokens as well? Yeah, a lot. Does it rely on creatures entering the board to deal damage continuously? That too. However, above everything, it is extremely fun, and will be great to any red enthusiasts who play Commander.

Shroofus Sproutsire is the essence of Fungus and Saprolings that grow exponentially. Its basic game plan is to flood the board with Saproling tokens and use its ability to multiply them when you attack. If you deal combat damage, you'll create even more tokens, and, this way, you can keep creating more exponentially.

It might seem funny, at first. We're talking about a simple 1/1 with Trample, but, despite its tiny body, the fact it has Trample means any counter or upgrade you give to Shroofus may give you extra tokens whenever you deal combat damage with it. And this applies to not only Shroofus, but also your Saprolings. Whenever one of your Saprolings deals combat damage to a player, you'll create an equal amount of 1/1 Saproling tokens. This means you'll grow their numbers naturally and exponentially as the turns go on.

You can use cards like Tendershoot Dryad and Sporecrown Thallid to buff your Saprolings even more. Furthermore, because it's green, you will not be as vulnerable to global removals - after all, you can use cards like Heroic Intervention, Asceticism, and Wrap in Vigor.

Rev, Tithe Extractor encourages an aggressive, opportunistic approach. Its attacks create resources while it sabotages your opponent's game plan, as it steals cards from the top of their decks as a tax. You can then play these cards if you pay their original cost, and that's why this commander creates treasure tokens when you deal damage with it. If you plan your turn well (considering you're playing with 3 other players), you can exile 3 enemy cards and create 3 treasure tokens, as long as you deal damage to each opponent.

The fact it lets you give Deathtouch to a creature means you'll be able to use small creatures to take down big threats and force difficult combat decisions. In some cases, this can act as a sort of evasion.

We can use cards like Revel in Riches or Marionette Master as different finishers, either as an extra win condition or to deal more damage during matches when you sacrifice your treasures.

Hurska Sweet-Tooth balances lifegain, attacking, and explosive growth, which makes it ideal for a midrange style. With this card in play, you'll create synergy between lifegain and buffs, so you can be quite flexible with it and adopt different game styles. Furthermore, its first ability, which creates food tokens whenever you attack with it, will constantly give you resources.

Hurska's last ability, which lets you buff any creature you want through lifegain, is one of its main strengths.

Rosie Cotton of South Lane, Trail of Crumbs, Rhox Faithmender, and Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn are great options for this type of deck. Feed the Clan, Momentous Fall, and Beacon of Immortality, in turn, are great ways to gain a lot of life at once. Even a Swords to Plowshares could be a great way to finish an opponent if you use it on one of your creatures.

This card is a legendary version of Ajani's Pridemate that includes a few new features. It also features a direct synergy between buffs and lifegain, and scales well throughout the game. The more it grows as a creature, the more it supports all your other attackers.

Qala, Ajani's Pridemate is great for strategies that rely on the synergy between lifegain and the evasion a few creatures have, like Voice of the Blessed. This way, you'll be able to deal a lot of damage and gain life exponentially as the game goes on. Even small token armies are more threatening with this commander in play.

It seems to be a much more aggressive version of the aforementioned Hurska Sweet-Tooth. The fact it isn't green is also not a big deal, considering white has better card draw.

Overall, this is a simple commander that is easy to pilot and should even be easy to teach. If well-built, obviously, it will be a true headache, as well as an incredible deck.

Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder is a fantastic commander for sacrifice decks. After all, one of its abilities is a sac outlet: it lets you sacrifice creatures or artifacts to get counters. Its game style is quite opportunistic, as it grows constantly and can deal a lot of damage to your opponents when it dies. It is perfect to finish matches.

Building something for this commander with Aristocrats is also a very clear direction. Trying to build that without white support, like Teysa Karlov, for instance, is quite interesting, as it would exclude very obvious cards for this theme.

The only detail I didn't particularly enjoy was the fact you can only activate this commander's ability as a sorcery, unlike something like Viscera Seer, but it would be a monster if we could activate it at other speeds. It is very aggressive, can gain a lot of life when you activate its lifelink after you sacrifice treasures, and you can often keep it on your board as your only creature without much stress. You just have to give it evasion and lean into the Voltron aspect of this strategy!

Many players will fear Dionus, Elvish Archdruid at tables around the world. Its ability lets you untap your Elves when they're tapped for the first time that turn and gives them +1/+1 counters, which is a very fast, productive engine that turns simple actions into exponential growth. With it in play, a simple Llanowar Elves can create two mana and also grow as it does. Now, imagine what a Priest of Titania would do with it.

The same goes for combat because, with this commandeer in play, your Elves will have a formidable, pseudo-vigilance. You can attack with them and activate one of their abilities on the same turn, or save that advantage for another turn, block, tap them, and grow them so they survive combat.

Dionus, Elvish Archdruid is extremely efficient in Elf decks and can bring a very new, midrange approach for them.

In the end, Jumpstart Foundations is a great set, both for its intended format (sealed), and Commander. It gave us many new legendaries and incredible, upgraded illustrations for old legendaries. Not everyone enjoys eastern anime styles, but, if you do enjoy them, they're great.

What about you? What did you think of this set? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!