With the best cards for a Soldier deck, you can gather your troops and charge into battle. offers in Magic: The Gathering.
The Brothers’ War brought Soldiers to the forefront thanks to powerful, low-cost threats like Harbin, Vanguard Aviator, and Skystrike Officer. However, the Soldier creature type has a much longer history in Magic: The Gathering than most players know, and it doesn’t even involve the color blue.
Considering how well Soldiers did in The Brothers Wars’ Standard, it makes sense to think about what a Soldiers deck might look like outside of Magic’s current competitive format. So, here is a list of the best Soldiers cards for players who want to use Soldiers in other popular formats, such as Modern and Commander.
Brimaz, King Of Oreskos
Brimaz is a popular card in both Cat creature type decks and Soldier creature type decks, which is very rare. Brimaz is a Cat Soldier himself, and every time he attacks or blocks, he also makes a Cat Soldier token.
Brimaz is very good because he can make a lot of tokens and is tough enough to survive removal spells like Lightning Bolt. Also, the fact that the tokens he makes fight right away puts Brimaz in a league of his own when it comes to cards that make tokens.
Valiant Veteran
As you might guess, a good Soldier deck is meant to make a lot of Soldiers. But just putting a lot of Soldiers on the board isn’t enough. To successfully end a game, you need lord effects like the ones Valiant Veteran gives you.
Even cheap removal spells like Shock kill Veteran, but he does act as a sort of lightning rod for removal cards. This makes it possible for your more expensive threats to come out on your next turn. Veteran can also be put into exile, which means he can be useful even late in the game if needed.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Here’s an animal that shouldn’t need to be introduced. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben is strong enough to be played in Legacy, which is Magic’s oldest and hardest constructed format. That should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about why you should add this card to your Soldier deck.
Thalia’s tax effect might not seem like it does much, but it can end up stopping opponents from playing cards turn after turn. Even if an opponent kills Thalia right away, which is the best case scenario, she has already cost them one mana more than they planned to spend on their deck and probably slowed their curve by a turn.
Heroic Reinforcements
If you’ve ever drafted Core Set 2019 or Double Masters 2022, you know that this token generator is more important than most uncommon cards. This card’s +1/+1 anthem and haste keyword make for dangerous combat steps that will catch your opponent off guard.
Heroic Reinforcement works best when you already have a lot of creatures on the board, but you might be surprised to learn that it also does surprisingly well when the board is small or empty. Even in formats like Commander, hitting for four damage right away is a good chunk. We could go on and on about how well this magic works, but you really need to try it for yourself to get the full picture.
Bastion Of Remembrance
Bastion of Remembrance is another uncommon card that does a lot more than it should. In its draft form, it was a bomb. The fact that you lose life when a creature dies makes it much harder for your opponents to kill you, especially if you’re going wide with a lot of tokens.
Luckily, the Soldiers deck does exactly that. Commander players should keep in mind that this loss of life happens to each opponent as well.
Company Commander
Company Commander‘s stats aren’t great on their own, but the creature tokens he gives make up for it. But the real deal-breaker is that every time he goes into combat, he gives your whole board deathtouch.
This effect makes it almost impossible for opponents to block, unless they want to trade their expensive, tough creatures for one of your Soldier token attackers. All that said, Company Commander’s opponents can block him to stop future deathtouch board swings.
Even in this case, Commander gives you a good creature that your opponent controls in exchange for a lot of tokens.
Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
Why stop the token value at just creatures, enchantments, and sorcery spells? This is the version of Elspeth that put her on the map and made her a well-known planeswalker. Back in Standard, Sun’s Champion was the top card of many control decks because she could get rid of opposing creatures and make Soldier tokens that could be used to win.
She is a great card for a Soldier deck for the same reasons and more. As with all great planeswalkers, Elspeth’s ultimate will probably end Slope Game right there. As you can see, Elspeth became a popular character in Magic for more than just the way her story turned out.
Brutal Cathar
Brutal Cathar is another great part of Standard. Since it was first printed, it has been kicking butt and calling people names. White creatures that act as removal until they leave the battlefield are fairly common these days, but Cathar stands out because it uses daybound.
Thanks to daybound, smart players can send more than one enemy creature to the graveyard under their Brutal Cathar by changing the creature back and forth with their spells. When you use Brutal Cathar in this way, it doesn’t happen very often, but you’ll quickly understand why it’s so powerful.
Myrel, Shield Of Argive
We’ve already tried creature tokens for Cat Soldiers, so why not try Soldier artifacts as well? Myrel’s strength comes from the fact that she can cancel abilities and provide an attack trigger with a high ceiling.
In other words, Myrel makes more and more Soldier tokens based on how many Soldier tokens you already have in play. In a Soldier-only deck, it’s easy to imagine Myrel calling up to four Soldier tokens or more if she goes to combat even once. That’s not even taking into account the fact that most players won’t be able to stay alive if you manage to untap and swing twice with her.
Jirina Kudro
If you’ve been keeping track, the red, black, and white cards on this list are all the same color. So, we need a Mardu-colored (red, black, and white) Commander to go with it. Jirina Kudro is definitely the best choice right now, even though she doesn’t work well with all of the cards on this list.
Unfortunately, neither Myrel nor Brimaz’s Soldier tokens are Humans, so they don’t get to use her attack bonus. Still, most of the Soldier cards and tokens in this deck are, in fact, Humans.
Jirina’s “fake anthem” while she’s on the battlefield is the best help we can get from a Commander for a deck that wants to go as wide as possible. Setups for battle!
