Mono Red Commander Staples in 2025

Once you’ve picked the mono red commander to lead your deck, it’s time to fill out the remaining 99. Your exact choices will depend on your strategy, but there are certain staples that slide neatly into almost any build.

In this guide, I’ve highlighted the most popular red staples in Commander, grouped by the role they play. And while every card here is mono-red, they’ll also find a home in any deck with red in its color identity.

So if you’re building your first deck, or fine-tuning an existing one, you’ll find everything you need here – from burn spells and board wipes to card draw and explosive ramp.

Mono Red Damage & Burn

Red is famous for pointing damage wherever it wants – at creatures, planeswalkers, or straight at your opponents’ faces. In Commander, these effects might not always close a game outright, but they shine at controlling the board early and chipping away at opponents over time.

Lightning Bolt

Kicking off this list of mono red commander staples, we have arguably the most iconic spell in the color – Lightning Bolt. A card that needs no introduction, this spell deals 3 damage to any target at instant speed for just .

Lightning Bolt is perfect for taking early threats off the table or, even better, dealing the last bit of damage to drop an opponent’s health below zero. Simple but effective.

Abrade

Neatly slotting into two roles, Abrade offers the option of creature-focused damage or artifact removal. It’s slightly less flexible than Lightning Bolt as its damage is restricted to creatures only, and it has a higher casting cost a . However, its ability to remove an artifact gives you a way to deal with all kinds of nasty spells, from equipment that is preventing you from interacting with a creature like Lightning Greaves, to powerful creatures such as Esper Sentinel.

Impact Tremors

Impact Tremors is a classic ‘death by papercuts’ type card. It’s an enchantment, costing to cast. Once on the board, this spell deals 1 damage to each opponent for each creature entering the battlefield under your control.

While it doesn’t seem like much damage, in the right deck this can drain opponent’s life totals in no time. I run it in my Omnath, Locus of Rage deck which creates a moderate amount of tokens. But in a goblins deck with Krenko, Mob Boss churning out tokens, the pings would be astronomical.

Also, pairing this card with some of the damage adders / multipliers we will cover later helps Impact Tremors to pack even more of a punch.

Purphoros, God of the Forge

A similar, and in some ways, more potent version of the Impact Tremors effect comes from Purphoros, God of the Forge. What I always find most frustrating about this card (which makes a great mono red commander, by the way), is the fact that it spends most, if not all, of the game as an indestructible enchantment. This makes it annoyingly difficult to interact with. Often, decks that are built around it are done so in a way that deliberately keeps devotion to red less than five.

Aside from being a great commander, Purphoros is generally just a solid card to have in your 99, particularly if your deck creates a lot of tokens.

Mono Red Damage Amplifiers

Dealing damage is great and all, but do you know what’s even better? Dealing more damage! These cards amplify the damage output of red spells, meaning your Impact Tremors or Purphoros are going to smash your opponents to bits rather than just pinging them.

Torbran, Thane of Red Fell

Torbran takes every spark of red damage you deal and turns it into a blaze. For , this 2/4 dwarf noble adds +2 damage to every red source you control that hits an opponent or one of their permanents.

That means pings, tokens, and small burn spells suddenly become real threats. An Impact Tremors or Goblin Bombardment on the field with Torbran in play ramps up from chip damage to massive chunks of life loss. Even a single 1/1 goblin connecting in combat suddenly swings for three.

At four mana, Torbran comes down early enough to make an impact, and if left unchecked, he can quickly turn the tide of a game. He’s not just a great commander in his own right, but also a damage amplifier that slots easily into any red deck looking to end games through sheer burn.

Fiery Emancipation

If Torbran adds fuel to the fire, Fiery Emancipation pours on the gasoline. This six-mana enchantment triples the damage of any source you control, whether it’s combat damage, burn spells, or triggered effects like Impact Tremors.

The effect is absolutely game-warping. Suddenly a simple Lightning Bolt hits for nine, and token swarms that would normally ping for small amounts can wipe out whole pods in a single turn cycle. It’s the kind of card that paints a huge target on you the moment it lands – opponents know they can’t let it stick.

At , it’s a little pricey, but if you can resolve it and untap, the game usually doesn’t last much longer. Fiery Emancipation is the ultimate payoff for red’s damage-based strategies, and one of the scariest finishers you can drop onto the battlefield.

Solphim, Mayhem Dominus

If Fiery Emancipation is overkill, Solphim is the more efficient option. For just , this Phyrexian Horror doubles all noncombat damage your sources deal to opponents or their permanents. That means burn spells, pingers, and triggered effects like Impact Tremors or Purphoros, God of the Forge suddenly hit twice as hard.

What makes Solphim especially strong is its built-in resilience. By paying and two red Phyrexian mana and discarding two cards, you can give it an indestructible counter. That makes it much harder to remove compared to other damage amplifiers, ensuring your engine keeps running.

In decks that lean heavily on noncombat damage, Solphim is one of the most efficient ways to scale up your output. At four mana, it comes down early, warps the table quickly, and demands an answer – often before your opponents have one.

Mono Red Board Wipes

Red’s board wipes don’t exile or destroy outright. They deal damage. That means they’re great at clearing out small and mid-sized creatures, while the biggest threats might survive the blast. The upside is that these wipes are usually cheap and explosive.

Blasphemous Act

In a format like Commander, Blasphemous Act is a cheap way to remove all but the largest creatures from the board. It scales with the size of board, costing less to cast for each creature on the battlefield. Very often I find myself casting this card for , making it fantastic value for mana.

When it resolves, it deals 13 damage to each creature. This won’t really help you too much if your opponent has a huge 28/28 out on the board, but it will certainly put an opponent playing a token deck back in their box. This card works particularly well if you have a card such as Eldrazi Monument on the board as your creatures will be protected by indestructible, leaving you free to wreak havoc once this board is clear.

Chain Reaction

Another mono red board wipe that scales with the table is Chain Reaction. However, unlike Blasphemous Act, the number of creatures doesn’t reduce its casting cost. Instead, this card deals damage to each creature, where is the number of creatures on the board.

It’s pretty useless if your opponents only have a couple of big beaters each. However, if you’re up against an army of tokens, the sheer number of creatures is just what you need to remove all creature from the board – small and large.

Star of Extinction

Although Star of Extinction has a colossal mana cost of , the impact it makes on the board more than justifies it. It deals a fixed 20 damage to each creature on the board and, unlike other board wipes on this list, each planeswalker.

Flavorfully, it also allows you destroy a target land. So if your opponent has an awkward non-basic , you can get rid of that too!

Starstorm

Perhaps not the most popular of red board wipes, I still think it’s worth considering for a mono red EDH deck. Starstorm is an board wipe that is only limited by the amount of mana you can pump into it.

Red has access to many rituals and similar effects that help you to generate mana, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to push the spell high enough to take down sizable creatures. However, one of the best parts of Starstorm is that you can scale it depending on your opponents’ creatures. If you have a few big creatures on the board, but your opponent has a huge mass of 1/1 soldiers, you can cast it for ‘X = 1’. This removes the threat from the table while leaving your creatures intact.

Mono Red Removal

Red doesn’t usually get clean, unconditional removal. What it does have is flexible, disruptive, and often chaotic. Between single-target answers that can hit any permanent, and sweepers that punish artifact-heavy boards, red’s removal staples give you tools to deal with problems the color normally struggles against. They may not always be predictable, but they’re efficient, wide-reaching, and keep your opponents’ scariest pieces in check.

Chaos Warp

A prominent theme in red’s colour identity is chaos, and this card fully embodies it (as the name would suggest!)

The best part about this spell is that it can remove any type of permanent, not just a creature, so you can use it to get rid of creatures, artificats, enchanments (something that red struggles to deal with), or even a land.

However, a word of warning: the chaotic aspect of this spell can sometimes mean you remove one threat from the board only for your opponent to end up with something much scarier on the battlefield. Ideally, you want them to reveal an instant or sorcery as these won’t go onto the battlefield.

Wild Magic Surge

If Chaos Warp embodies red’s chaotic removal, Wild Magic Surge takes it one step further. For , you can destroy any permanent an opponent controls – something red almost never gets to do. The catch is that they flip through their library until they hit another permanent of the same type, which enters the battlefield right away.

It’s unpredictable, but that’s part of its charm. Sometimes you’ll turn a scary threat into something harmless. Other times, your opponent will end up with something even scarier on the battlefield than the permanent you just destroyed.

However, the key aspect is that it gives red a way to interact with anything: creatures, enchantments, planeswalkers, even problem lands. In a color not known for versatile removal, that flexibility makes Wild Magic Surge a strong addition to any red deck.

Vandalblast

Vandalblast is a multifunctional artifact removal spell that scales with the game. In the early game, it can be cast for to remove a single, problematic artifact that an opponent controls.

However, later in the game, you can overload it for to destroy all artifacts you don’t control. This one-sided board wipe strips your opponents of all of their mana rocks, treasure tokens, and any other artifacts, leaving yours untouched. Perfect for limiting your opponents’ ability to gain too much momentum.

By Force

If Vandalblast is red’s one-sided artifact wipe, By Force is its flexible cousin. For just , you can destroy X target artifacts – scaling it up or down depending on how many problems need answering.

It doesn’t have the overload mode that clears everything at once, but the advantage here is control. You can pick off a single mana rock in the early game, or wipe out an entire treasure pile later on. Being cheap, efficient, and versatile makes By Force a strong staple for any red deck that wants artifact hate without committing to a full board wipe.

Mono Red Mana, Ramp and Cost Reducers

Red might not have the land-based ramp of green, but it makes up for it with explosive rituals, treasure generation, and cost-reduction artifacts. These staples let you power out big plays ahead of curve, fuel storm-style turns, and keep up momentum in the mid-game.

Ruby Medallion

A super simple artifact that will help your mono red commander deck shift through the gears even quicker – the ruby medallion reduces the cost of red spells you cast by . Red is already notorious for being a fast color, so reducing the cost of your spells even by one can make a huge impact across the course of a game.

The Fire Crystal

The Fire Crystal is a more recent addition to the format from the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set. It’s proven itself to be a popular inclusion in mono red decks so far. And it’s not hard to see why.

It offers the same mana cost reduction as Ruby Medallion – and then some. For a higher mana cost of (which Ruby Medallion will reduce if you have it on the battlefield), you get Ruby Medallion attached to Fervor, with an activated ability that allows you to create a token of a creature you control.

There’s a lot to love with this card, making it easy to slot into pretty much any mono red EDH deck.

Jeska’s Will

Jeska’s Will is a card created specifically for the Commander format. It either creates you a whole heap of mana, exiles the top three cards of your library for you to play this turn, or, if you have your commander on the battlefield, both.

With such potent effects, this is understandably a pricier card. However, anytime you play it, you’re almost guaranteed to get some solid value out of it.

Mana Geyser

Mana Geyser gives you for each tapped land your opponents control. In a two-player format, this is unlikely to generate much value – especially considering its casting cost is .

However, in a four-player format like Commander, this card is going to provide a solid return on your five mana investment. This is especially true later in the game. With this card, you’re going to want to wait until your opponents are mostly tapped out to get the best from it.

Seething Song

Next, we move onto a few cards that all share the same principle: you put mana in, you get more mana out. These types of cards are generally referred to a rituals, following in the footsteps of Dark Ritual. Red’s rituals aren’t quite as potent as their mono-black cousin, but… free mana is free mana, right?

The first of these is Seething Song which gives you for a casting cost of .

Pyretic Ritual

Pyretic Ritual delivers a similar, but less impressive effect. For a casting cost of , you create . Lower investment, lower output. Still extremely useful.

Desperate Ritual

Providing an identical effect to Pyretic Ritual is Desperate Ritual. in, out. However, this card has an additional little trick in the form of Splice, which lets you pay an additional when you cast another spell to splice Desperate Ritual’s effect onto it.

When you do this, Desperate Ritual stays in your hand meaning you can reuse the effect over and over again. Also, if you were to copy a spell that you have spliced Desperate Ritual onto, you would get an additional trigger of Desperate Ritual’s effect, doubling the mana it produces. As you can imagine, for all the ritual cards we’ve covered, copying the spell is highly recommended.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

At its worst, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is a mountain that enters the battlefield tapped. At its best, it’s a red-mana-producing land that delivers a free Lightning Bolt each time you play a mountain.

This can be perfect as a free way to take down smaller creatures, or as a way to steadily chip away at your opponents by sending the three damage directly at their face.

Arena of Glory

Another popular mono red land is Arena of Glory. It enters tapped unless you control a mountain, so not suitable as a turn 1 land drop. However, the main benefit of this card is its Exert ability. By paying and exerting Arena of Glory, you gain . If you spend this mana to cast a creature spell, that creature gains haste until the end of the turn.

There’s no mana benefit to doing this. You need to spend two mana to use this ability (one for the cost, and the other is the mana you lose by tapping Arena of Glory for its ability rather than mana). In fact, you actually lose mana, as Arena of Glory won’t untap the turn after it has been exerted. However, if you want to instantly swing with the big creature you just dropped, this land has got you covered.

Mono Red Card Draw and Card Advantage

Card draw has always been red’s weak spot, but in Commander the color has carved out its own tools to keep the momentum going. Instead of simply drawing cards, red tends to rummage (draw and discard), exile cards temporarily through “impulse draw,” or wheel entire hands into new ones. It might be less reliable than blue’s steady draw engines, but these effects are cheap and fast.

Faithless Looting

If you ever wondered why ‘draw a card then discard a card’ effects are referred to as ‘looting’, this card is the reason. While Faithless Looting doesn’t give you any real card advantage, as you ultimately end up with the same amount of cards in your hand as you started with, it does let you drop less useful cards in place of (hopefully) more useful cards.

Even if you end up discarding the two cards you drew, that’s still a positive as you’re clearing the chaff from the top of your deck, making way for something more useful on your next draw step.

Thrill of Possibility & Tormenting Voice

I’ve decided to combine these two spells as they’re essentially the same card, except one’s an instant and the other is a sorcery. Both Thrill of Possibility and Tormenting Voice allow you to draw two cards for a mana cost of and an additional cost of discarding a card.

While this can force you to make some tricky decisions when it comes to the discarding cost, particularly if you have a smaller hand, it does result in a net increase in cards in your hand which is always good.

Cathartic Reunion

If you’re looking for one of the best “rummage” spells in red, Cathartic Reunion is it. This card is like the older brother of the previous two cards – for just , you discard two cards as an additional cost and then draw three. That’s a net gain of one card in hand, which isn’t bad at all for red.

The downside, of course, is that you need to have two cards in hand to discard in the first place – which can feel rough in the late game. But the upside is massive if your deck uses the graveyard as a resource. In my Olivia, Crimson Bride deck I love this card, because I get to put two (hopefully) huge creatures in the graveyard, and draw three brand new cards. It’s a win-win.

Demand Answers

Demand Answers works much like Thrill of Possibility or Cathartic Reunion: pay , give something up, and draw into fresh cards. The twist here is that instead of always discarding, you can choose to sacrifice an artifact.

That flexibility makes it surprisingly strong in Commander. In treasure-heavy decks or lists that churn out clue, food, or blood tokens, sacrificing an expendable artifact is often far less painful than tossing away a card from hand.

It might not dig as deep as Cathartic Reunion or offer the instant-speed of Thrill of Possibility, but the ability to turn extra artifacts into new cards makes this one of the more reliable red draw spells.

Big Score & Unexpected Windfall

If you’ve liked the rummage effects we’ve covered so far, Big Score is the upgraded version. For , you discard a card, then draw two – but you also create two Treasure tokens. Those Treasures make a world of difference in Commander, where the extra mana can help you immediately cast the cards you just drew.It’s pricier than Thrill of Possibility or Tormenting Voice, but the fact that it pays you back in mana means it often plays more like a tempo card than pure draw. Whether you’re fueling a big turn, stockpiling resources for a damage amplifier, or just keeping your hand moving, Big Score is one of the best ways to convert excess cards into both advantage and ramp.

Unexpected Windfall is, for all intents and purposes, Big Score’s twin. The only real difference is its cost – instead of . You still discard a card as an additional cost, draw two, and create two Treasure tokens.

Reckless Impulse & Wrenn’s Resolve

Where other colors refill their hand, red often takes a different approach to card advantage: impulse draw. Both Reckless Impulse and Wrenn’s Resolve do exactly that. They exile the top two cards of your library, and give you until the end of your next turn to play them.

It might not technically increase the number of cards in your hand, but it does give you access to extra options you wouldn’t normally see. In many ways, this fits red’s personality perfectly – it’s bold, it’s temporary, and it pushes you to act now rather than wait.

The “until the end of your next turn” clause is what makes these playable in Commander. You don’t have to fire everything off immediately; you get a full rotation of the table to decide how to use the cards. Cheap, efficient, and very on-theme, these are among the best budget-friendly ways red decks can keep the momentum up.

And if you like this style of effect, there’s one card that takes it up a notch.

Light Up The Stage

Thanks to spectacle, Light Up the Stage often costs just a single red mana – a steal for exiling two cards you can play until the end of your next turn. That makes it one of the most mana-efficient card advantage tools in mono-red.

Because you’ll usually cast it post-combat after connecting for damage, it naturally fits into aggressive decks where your creatures are already swinging. In Commander, that efficiency really shines: one mana for access to two extra cards gives you the ability to cast what you find right away, or hold them until your next turn.

Valakut Awakening

This is one of those deceptively powerful double-faced cards that earns a slot in almost any red deck. On the spell side, Valakut Awakening lets you put any number of cards from your hand on the bottom of your library, then draw that many plus one. At instant speed, that can completely reshape a clunky hand – letting you ditch lands you don’t need, cycle away dead cards, or just dig deeper for an answer.

What makes it so good in Commander is its flexibility. If you don’t need the spell, you can just play it as Valakut Stoneforge, a tapped red source. There’s almost no downside to running it. It’s either a mana fixer when you’re short on lands, or a powerful way to refresh your hand if you have nothing of use.

I run it in my Arjun, the Shifting Flame deck, so I very rarely play it as a land, but it’s nice to know I have the option if I need it.

Gamble

True to its name, Gamble is as risky as it is powerful. For just , you can search your library for any card and put it into your hand – one of the cheapest tutor effects in the format. However, as is usually the case with mono red card draw, there’s a catch. You then discard a card at random, which could very well be the one you just fetched.

In practice, Gamble is often worth the risk. If your hand is nearly empty, the odds are in your favor, and even if you do discard the card, it can be a win if your deck has ways to use the graveyard. Commanders Feldon of the Third Path or Chainer, Nightmare Adept, who have ways to cast things from the graveyard, can turn that downside into a bonus.

Mono Red Control and Interaction

When people think of control, they often think of blue. But red has its own disruptive tools, such as redirecting spells, countering with chaos, or locking down lands. These staples don’t just defend your position, they throw opponents off-balance and keep the game unpredictable.

Deflecting Swat

One of the most powerful protection spells in red, Deflecting Swat is part of the free spell cycle from Commander 2020. If you control your commander, you can cast it for free – and in this format, you’re likely to have your commander out more often than not

Being able to retarget any spell or ability is an extremely potent effect. If you’re opponent is throwing an x=12 Fireball at various targets, you can deflecting swat it and redistribute the damage as you see fit. You can turn a counterspell back on your opponent, or stop your key threat from being removed.

Being such a strong card that is often free to cast means that it’s not a budget option. But if you can get hold of one, Deflecting Swat is one of the best ways to keep your most important permanents safe while also giving you the chance to swing the tide of a game.

Bolt Bend

Think of Bolt Bend as the budget cousin of Deflecting Swat. On the surface it costs , but if you control a creature with power 4 or greater – which most red decks can manage easily – it costs just .

Like Swat, it lets you change the target of any spell or ability with a single target. That means you can save your commander from removal, fizzle an opponent’s counterspell by pointing it back at their own card, or even steal the payoff from a massive draw or burn spell.

While it doesn’t hit quite as broadly as Deflecting Swat and isn’t free, the fact that it’s so cheap to cast in most games makes it a staple in its own right. If you want protection and interaction without the high price tag, Bolt Bend is one of the best options red has.

Untimely Malfunction

Untimely Malfunction is a newer option in red’s interaction toolkit, and what makes it stand out is its flexibility. For just , you can pick from three useful modes: destroy an artifact, redirect a targeted spell or ability, or make up to two creatures unable to block this turn.

That kind of versatility is rare in red removal. Sometimes it’s a clean answer to a key artifact, sometimes it’s a protection spell in the style of Bolt Bend, and other times it just helps you push through combat damage. None of the modes are game-breaking on their own, but having multiple options packed into one cheap instant makes this a surprisingly handy staple to round out your interaction package.

Tibalt’s Trickery

Red doesn’t get traditional counterspells, but Tibalt’s Trickery is its chaotic exception. For , you can counter any spell – which is generally unheard of for a red card. Of course, the trick is in what happens next: the controller mills 1–3 cards at random, then flips cards off the top of their library until they hit a different nonland card, which they get to cast for free.

That means you’re rarely just shutting something down; you’re trading one threat for another, and you won’t know what’s coming. Sometimes they’ll flip into something harmless, other times into something far scarier than what you countered.

Because of that, Trickery isn’t a staple for every red deck – but in metas that embrace chaos, or in builds that just want a splash of disruption in a color that usually can’t interact with spells on the stack, it’s a fun and unpredictable tool.

Blood Moon

There aren’t many cards that are as iconic (or hated) as Blood Moon. For , this enchantment turns all nonbasic lands into Mountains. In Commander, where greedy mana bases and multicolor decks are everywhere, that can completely lock players out of their strategies.

The power of Blood Moon is in how one-sided it usually is. Mono-red (or even two-color) decks can run enough basics to shrug it off, while opponents trying to juggle three, four, or five colors suddenly find themselves unable to cast their spells. It doesn’t destroy lands, it just quietly shuts them off – and it’s often more than enough.

Blood Moon isn’t for every playgroup; some see it as too oppressive. But if your table is fine with it, this is one of the strongest disruption tools red has, and a staple for anyone looking to slow down more ambitious mana bases.

Red Elemental Blast & Pyroblast

These two cards are nearly twins, and among the most efficient pieces of interaction red has access to. For just , they let you either counter a blue spell or destroy a blue permanent – making them devastatingly effective against a color that shows up at almost every Commander table.

The only real difference is that Pyroblast can technically target anything, while Red Elemental Blast can only target blue. In practice, they play the same way: cheap answers that can stop a big draw spell, remove a key commander, or derail a combo before it takes off.

Neither card does much against non-blue decks, so you need to make a judgement call on whether it’s worth running these cards in your pod’s meta. If your playgroup leans heavily into blue, few cards give you as much bang for your buck as these classic blasts.

Mono Red Creatures

Creatures are a tricky category when it comes to staples. Mono-red has plenty of popular creatures, but many of them shine only in specific builds – goblins being the classic example. Instead of covering every tribal piece, this section focuses on the universally useful red creatures that bring value to almost any deck, regardless of theme.

Anger

Anger is one of those creatures that’s almost more useful in the graveyard than on the battlefield. For you get a 2/2 with haste (which is pretty poor by modern Magic standards), but its real value comes from its ability: as long as Anger is in your graveyard and you control a Mountain, all your creatures have haste.

Getting it into the graveyard is easy in red, thanks to rummage spells like Thrill of Possibility or Faithless Looting. Once it’s there, you don’t have to think about it again (as long as none of your opponents have a Bojuka Bog to hand, that is!) Your threats will keep coming down ready to attack, giving your strategy a speed boost.

Kiki-Jiki Mirror Breaker

Kiki-Jiki is one of the most famous red creatures in Commander (fabled, some might say), and for good reason. For , you get a 2/2 goblin shaman with haste that can tap to make a token copy of any nonlegendary creature you control. That token also has haste, and you sacrifice it at the end of the turn.

As you can imagine, this opens the door to all kinds of shenanigans. It can be used fairly, doubling up on creatures with strong enter-the-battlefield effects – serving up a double helping of Combustible Gearhulk, for example. Or it can be used to assemble infinite combos with cards like Zealous Conscripts. Either way, the flexibility to copy your best creature every turn is what makes Kiki-Jiki a staple.

He’s mana-intensive and draws plenty of attention, but if you untap with him on the field, Kiki-Jiki can take over a game almost single-handedly.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

For just , Ragavan offers one of the best value engines red has ever seen. Whenever this cheeky Monkey Pirate connects in combat, you make a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player’s library, with the option to cast it until end of turn. That’s mana ramp and card advantage rolled into a one-mana creature.

The dash ability gives Ragavan even more flexibility. For , you can send him in with haste, get his trigger, then bounce him safely back to your hand at the end of the turn. That keeps him out of harm’s way and lets you keep chipping away at opponents whenever the coast is clear.

Simian Spirit Guide

Sometimes you just need a burst of mana, and Simian Spirit Guide provides exactly that. Instead of casting it as a 2/2 for , you can exile it from your hand to add .

It’s a one-shot effect, but in Commander that surprise red mana can be the difference between setting up a combo, casting your commander a turn early, or holding up an unexpected piece of interaction. It won’t generate long-term advantage, but for decks that value speed and surprise, Simian Spirit Guide is a neat utility piece that can give you the jump on your opponents.

Magus of the Wheel

Magus of the Wheel gives mono-red one of its most reliable ways to reload on cards. For , you get a 3/3 creature that can be sacrificed for and a tap to make everyone discard their hands and draw seven new cards.

This “wheel” effect is a red classic (originating from the iconic Wheel of Fortune), and while it helps your opponents too, the key is timing. You get to choose when to activate it – ideally when your hand is empty and your opponents are sitting on plenty of cards. That way you come out ahead while disrupting their plans.

Conclusion

Mono-red staples are all about speed, damage, and doing a little bit more with a little bit less. Some of them slot into almost any red deck, while others shine brightest in the right build. Hopefully this list gives you a few ideas to try out – whether you’re pulling together your first red commander deck or just looking for some upgrades, there’s plenty here to keep the fire burning.