Commander, known to some as Elder Dragon Highlander or EDH, is meant to be the people’s format of Magic: The Gathering. Anyone is able to play with their favorite cards, from any set in Magic’s 26 year history, and use them in a deck themed around their chosen legendary creature, their commander.

Commander is hugely popular, with Wizards of the Coast informally recognizing it as the most common way Magic is played in 2020. Outside of competitive tournament play, it is dominant, with a focus on fun and storytelling which makes for perfect casual play. There’s a great emphasis on creativity and deckbuilding, and every Commander player loves to bust out “the perfect card” which nobody at the table has seen before!

But these days, powerful new Commander cards like Smothering Tithe come out with huge hype around them, and quickly become old hat. So what’s the best way to find unique tech for your deck? Look for undiscovered old cards! Mythic Markets’ current fractional investment offering, #MTG94BOX, features sealed booster boxes preserved from every set released in Magic’s breakout year of 1994. How many cards can we find from that year which can power up your Commander deck, that very few people have even considered? You would be surprised...

#10 - DANCE OF MANY - THE DARK

The Dark may be one of the less famously powerful sets of 1994, but this is among the more powerful cards for EDH released in that time. I’ve actually seen a few Commander experts name this as one of their favorite deep cuts, but since it’s currently listed in less than 0.45% of all Commander decks registered on the EDHREC database, I’m going to assume that it’s still news to most players. And this is the MOST played card on today’s list! Any deck that cares about tokens needs to get on Dance of the Many quickly, but it’s strong enough to fit into anything blue on face value.

#9 - WILLOW SATYR - LEGENDS

Willow Satyr is another card whose incredibly Commander-relevant effect has garnered it some small amount of attention despite its very obscure status. Still, it’s not even in the top 100 most played Commander cards from 1994! What a travesty. Green players, have you been jealous of blue and red players who steal control of your commander? Now you can turn the tables on them, thanks to a card designed by D&D players who had no idea what the color pie was!

#8 - PRIEST OF YAWGMOTH - ANTIQUITIES

This card has so much to offer, but I’d probably play it just for the amazing vintage Phyrexian artwork alone. Is this early Yawgmoth worshipper showing his devotion by wearing “the Sign of the Nut”? Robo-vicar aesthetic aside, this card can do some extremely heavy mana generation for a mere two-drop, and any black deck with a decent artifact count should consider it. Remember, many expensive artifacts are actually artifact creatures, which means black can reanimate them for a fraction of the mana the Priest makes by sacrificing them. Use this to go infinite or cast huge Torment of Hailfire bombs at your leisure.

#7 - ARBORIA - LEGENDS

Another rough gem from the green section of Legends, Arboria presents a potential upgrade to the famous Moat, so long as its owner is capable of meeting the requirements. But consider how open these “restrictions” are! You’re allowed to create tokens and activate abilities all you like without turning off Arboria’s protective shield, and you can do all the spellcasting you like if you do it at instant speed on opponent’s turns! If you happen to have a Yeva, Nature’s Herald deck, this is your new favourite card - you’re welcome!

#6 - HOMARID SPAWNING BED - FALLEN EMPIRES

Even this famous flop of a set can contribute an underplayed bomb for your next Commander deck! Continuing support for the rarely-seen theme of “blue token-producing enchantments”, the Spawning Bed is useful and efficient at a lean UU mana cost. Once it’s in play, you can repeatedly sacrifice any blue creature to produce an instant army of 1/1 Camarid tokens. Experienced players will already know how many ways an ability like this can get you ahead - from cashing in a creature which is about to die anyway, to quickly amassing an army with the help of a creature which comes back to life, to rapidly creating a ton of triggers for Decoction Module. You’ll always be glad to have the crabs on your team.

#5 - ALL HALLOW’S EVE - LEGENDS

This is by far the cheapest mass reanimation effect available in all of Magic - and what great Christopher Rush artwork to match! We recommend spending the two countdown turns chanting your favourite spooky Halloween songs at opponents as you quickly fill up your graveyard with giant undead creatures. While this does allow opponents to bring back their creatures as well, black decks will usually be the ones most able to take advantage. Remember you can sacrifice any creatures you have in play when Halloween arrives, only to have them refunded immediately free of charge!

#4 - ANGRY MOB - THE DARK

This is a terrific example of the kind of card which would probably fly under the radar of anyone who isn’t familiar with the things that are already popular in Commander. Once you consider that in most Commander games you’ll have three or more opponents, and that one of the most common lands in the format is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - which makes every single land in play count as a Swamp - you’ll realize how big a threat Angry Mob can be, especially by white’s standards. The best part is that it’s totally legal to play Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in your white deck - it’s actually a colorless land, and features no black mana symbols which would rule it out. Get angry!

#3 - MARTYR’S CRY - THE DARK

And people love to go on about how white decks don’t get any card draw! Okay, so it’s possible that back in 1994 this card was designed as a powerful targeted countermeasure against other white creature decks - the grim and gothic storyline of The Dark was all about the different colors of Magic turning against white and the church-y ideals it represents. But to the eyes of a modern player, who is familiar with how efficiently white decks in Commander can pump out 1/1 white token creatures? This is probably the most powerful white draw spell ever printed, no hyperbole. And almost nobody plays it. Let’s change that.

#2 - SIREN’S CALL - REVISED

We were torn about putting cards from Revised on this list. On the one hand, almost all the cards in this 1994 edition of Magic’s “core set” had previously appeared in the 1993 printings: Alpha, Beta, and Unlimited. On the other hand, Siren’s Call is currently played in exactly 38 out of 188,776 decks registered on EDHREC - so I think it definitely qualifies as underplayed. This card is incredibly powerful one-mana interaction, and can allow blue to destroy creatures en masse with just a little extra trickery. If the default mode of forcing combat wasn’t disruptive enough, try casting this while you have Propaganda or Collective Restraint in play, or after your opponent has tapped their mana creatures to pay for something!

#1 - KNOWLEDGE VAULT - LEGENDS

Coming in at a whopping six decks featuring it, Knowledge Vault is one of the least played cards of all time - only four more than Karakas, a card which is literally banned in Commander. Ouch. Look, Knowledge Vault may not be the best card-drawing artifact, but it is still very competitive in that field. It essentially allows you to draw cards for two mana a pop, but delays actually getting the cards until you choose to discard your hand and replace it with the Knowledge Vault draws. This seems like a drawback, but players aware of how Lion’s Eye Diamond decks work will know that having cards hidden away under this artifact can be a decided advantage. Certainly a cool bit of tech deserving greater attention from the community - as are the rest of the cards on this list!

As you can see, even the least-recognizable cards from the 1994 archives can be powerful, unique and vibrant tools that stack up well against the entire 26 year Magic card pool. What’s more, these spells often represent the first cards of their kind, vital experiments which the designers of Magic would use to define their direction for the next several decades. To have such a complete collection of pristine, sealed booster packs as #MTG94BOX be available in 2020 is rare, and to have it be open to investment for as little as $27.50 per share is truly unique. You can find out more about the collection and buy your piece of MTG history on our offering page.

10 Powerful Commander Cards from 1994 You Should Be Playing