Magic: The Gathering – The Best Azorius Commanders

Summary

• Azorius color pairing excels in control potential with counterspells, draw abilities, and unique effects.
• Top Azorius commanders like Bruna, Lavinia, and Urza offer powerful strategies for control and reanimation.
• Azorius commanders like Ranar, Kwain, and Zethi provide unique abilities for card advantage, group hug, and spellcasting.

Synonymous with control strategies, the blue and white color pairing of Azorius has long been a staple of nearly every format of Magic: The Gathering. Whether you're countering spells, drawing cards, or taxing the rest of a Commander table, few color combinations can match Azorius commanders in the realm of control potential.

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In the spirit of Azorius, we're going to talk about the best of the best when it comes to blue and white in Commander. Some of the best cards in Magic come in this color pairing, so don't be surprised if you're running out to brew your deck after this.

Updated on April 22, 2025, by Ryan Hay: Control is the name of the game with the perfect color duo of white and blue, also known as Azorius to many players. Between all the counterspells flying around, instant speed effects, and unique kindred effects to enjoy, there's a ton of power in this color combination. This time around we're adding three more commanders to the list, with Mendicant Core, Guidelight, Kastral, the Windcrested, and Faramir, Prince of Ithilien all being great options to build around.

21 Bruna, Light Of Alabaster

Aura's A Plenty

An excellent option for an aura-based 'Voltron' commander, Bruna, Light of Alabaster is an Angel who specializes in circumventing the costs of auras. The ability to reduce and cheat the costs of spells is paramount in Commander, and few commanders can do so with aura spells quite like Bruna.

Upon attacking with Bruna, you are able to put any number of auras onto her from your hand and graveyard. In one attack, Bruna can be suited up with numerous high-costed enchantments with no additional investment of mana. When paired with self-milling abilities that put numerous auras directly into your graveyard, Bruna can have access to many more enchantments than what would otherwise be available.

20 Lavinia, Azorius Renegade

Done By The Books

A very powerful and effective action to be performed in Commander is to reduce spells and cheat out cards for little to no mana. In any game of Commander, it's often expected to see huge threats produced for free due to the abilities of respective commanders and other cards.

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For only two mana, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade is a commander that restricts cost reduction and manipulation of opponents. Lavinia prevents opponents from playing noncreature spells with converted mana costs greater than the number of lands that player controls, essentially shutting off high value mana manipulation entirely. As if this weren't enough, if a card cast by an opponent would be cast without paying any mana, Lavinia immediately counters that spell outright.

19 Errant And Giada

Everything Happens At Your Speed

The duo of Errant and Giada from March of the Machine brings together two of New Capenna's coolest characters in a Human and Angel team up. The two together have both flash and flying and let you look at the top card of your deck at any time.

You can cast cards from the top of your deck that have either one of those keywords, effectively giving you a free card in your hand at all times, assuming the top of your deck works with you a bit. This deck wants to be able to manipulate the top card of your deck at all times, so cards like Sensei's Diving Top and any way to shuffle your library for free are essential.

18 Tameshi, Reality Architect

Nothing Stays Gone Forever

Tameshi is a great commander for anyone who's interested in the prominent bounce theme among the Azorius color pair. Bouncing is a term that refers to returning a permanent from play to its owner's hand. Tameshi provides an added incentive for playing bounce spells as she allows you to draw a card once per turn as long as something is bounced.

On top of that, Tameshi can also be used to return both artifacts and enchantments from your graveyard to the battlefield. While reanimation effects are normally reserved only for creatures, this commander allows you to bend the rules a bit and craft a distinctly different reanimation strategy.

17 Urza, Prince Of Kroog

Urza In His Prime

Throughout The Brothers' War set, Urza got several cards, most of which are very powerful in formats like Commander. Urza, Prince of Kroog features Urza in the midst of the war with his brother, where he is fully dedicated to creating an overwhelming army.

This iteration of Urza gives all your artifact creatures a huge +2/+2 boost, catapulting them over your opponent's creatures. Then, you can spend six mana, a kinda steep but not too terrible price, to make a token copy of any artifact you control, except that token is a 1/1 Soldier creature in addition to its other types. You can start converting your stationary artifacts into creatures, just remember that if they have any tap abilities you can't use them the turn they come out thanks to summoning sickness.

16 The Council Of Four

What You Do, I Do

One of the stranger commanders on this list, The Council of Four is a very passive commander, one that has you sitting back and letting your opponents do their own things while you incrementally accrue more and more value.

If a player would draw their second card in a turn, you get to draw as well, and then if a player casts a second spell, you make a 2/2 Knight token. It's not a huge amount of value, but when you consider the fact that you have three opponents, plus anything you do, you can draw upwards of four cards and make four tokens by the time your turn comes back around. Combine that with any other taxing effects or control spells, and you'll be the one pulling the strings.

15 Will, Scion Of Peace

Negotiations Broke Down

If you want to cast spells with a massive mana commitment but want a cheap way to cheat them out, look no further than Will, Scion of Peace. This Wilds of Eldraine commander sees the former planeswalker growing up a bit and leading his people in times of turmoil. He does so by reward your life gain with cheaper spells.

When you tap Will, you get to reduce your white and blue spells by X generic mana, with X equalling the amount of life you've gained this turn. You can only activate this ability at sorcery speed, which is a bit of a bummer. The nice part of Will is that he reduces the cost of spells with X in their casting cost too, letting you commit extra mana to those spells without actually having to have the mana for it.

14 Heliod, The Radiant Dawn

The Corrupted God

Flip commanders are always a fun challenge to build around. You get one card, but have two versions of them, often times with new abilities and more power on the back, at the cost of a somewhat situational flip condition. Heliod, the Radiant Dawn is a very straightforward commander in this way, costing a fairly cheap four mana to transform him, or three mana and two life, to compleat the poor god, turning him into a twisted, Phyrexianized version of himself.

This Heliod's front side only lets you return a non-God enchantment from your graveyard back to your hand, but once flipped, he gives all your spells flash, a huge upgrade to their casting speed. That's not all though, he also lets you pay one generic less to cast those spells for each card your opponents have drawn this turn. You can even play a pseudo-group hug deck with Heliod, letting your opponents draw cards like Temple Bell, only to cast high-cost sorcery spells at instant speed to punish them.

13 Ranar The Ever-Watchful

I Foretell Your Demise

Printed as the commander of the Phantom Premonition preconstructed deck, Ranar the Ever-Watchful is an Azorius commander that can make great use of the Foretell mechanic as well as exile-based effects. A 2/3 Spirit Warrior with flying and vigilance for four mana, Ranar allows the first card you foretell each turn to be foretold for free.

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As the foretell mechanic allows you to exile a card for two mana, allowing it to be cast later in a game for a reduced rate, Ranar reduces the rate of such spells even further. Additionally, Ranar rewards you for foretelling cards and using White's exile-based removal, creating a 1/1 Spirit token with flying whenever you exile a card from your hand or from the battlefield.

12 Elminster

This Planeswalker Can See The Future

Elminster is a powerful commander option printed within Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur's Gate, serving as a Planeswalker that can be used as your commander. Based around scrying and casting high value instants and sorceries, Elminster's static ability reduces the mana cost of the next instant or sorcery you would cast by the number of cards you looked at the last time you scried. This works out quite well, as Elminster's +2 allows you top draw a card and scry two, reliably allowing access to this cost reduction.

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Once you've scried, Elminster is adept at allowing you to make the most out of the cards you've placed atop your library. This is because Elminster's -3 ability allows you to exile the top card of your library, creating a number of 1/1 flying Faerie Dragon tokens equal to the exiled card's mana value. This means that through scrying, you can ensure the top card of your library has a sizable mana cost in order to receive the most optimal number of Faerie Dragons. Few Planeswalkers possess as cohesive a suite of abilities as Elminster, making it an excellent commander option.