All 12 Frog Commanders in Magic Ranked - Draftsim (2024)

The Gitrog Monster | Illustration by Jeannie L Paske

Bloomburrow brought along a lot of new commanders to strengthen some creature types that needed love. Rabbits got Baylen, but what about our other favorite hoppers, frogs? If you played any Bloomburrow Draft or Sealed, you probably ran across a few and have your own opinions on how they stack up against existing frogs like Grolnok, the Omnivore.

Or maybe you’re a Frogger fanatic and want to channel that energy in your Magic games. If you’re looking to give your opponents a froggy evening, come explore this collection of (mostly) amphibian specimens!

What Are Frog Commanders in MTG?

Uurg, Spawn of Turg | Illustration by Nicholas Gregory

Frog commanders are legendary creatures that have “frog” either in their type line or as part of their rules text. There aren’t any planeswalkers as of Bloomburrow that can be your commander and have any frog-related abilities.

I’m evaluating these commanders both on their own merits and at the head of a frog-themed deck, but I’m weighing the frog theme a little more. Not a lot, more like a 60/40 favor.

#12. Yargle, Glutton of Urborg

Big frog is big. Yargle, Glutton of Urborg is a vanilla creature, but that 9 power encourages you to go the Voltron commander route with your best equipment and auras. Abilities like double strike, unblockable, and toxic are all relevant, and power buffs can also help you aim for that commander damage win condition. Not really worthwhile as a frog typal option, though.

#11. Uurg, Spawn of Turg

Uurg, Spawn of Turg’s Oracle text now instructs you to surveil 1 at the beginning of your upkeep. It doesn’t care about being your frog commander, instead caring about lands and your graveyard. Its activated ability cracks lands like they’re Food tokens, though gaining 2 rather than 3 life. You’ll want to make your Golgari commander () unblockable the later into the game you get.

#10. Clement, the Worrywort

Some commanders dip into the space of turning your creatures or tokens into mana rocks or mana dorks, and Clement, the Worrywort is the frog version of that. You can only use your frogs to cast more creatures, which isn’t so bad if you’re running a Commander deck that imitates Simic () Frogs in Bloomburrow Limited and all their bounciness. Which you will be, considering how Clement’s enters trigger bounces one of your creatures back to your hand. And given the 20 or so frogs with enters abilities, Clement included, you at least have a readymade suite of frogs to run.

Fun and flavorful, this is your Simic commander if you want to (pardon me) hop to it.

#9. Flubs, the Fool

After playing a few games of Commander, sometimes you want to hop into a “head empty, no thoughts” mode. As your commander, Flubs, the Fool allows you to do this by making a lot of your decisions for you as you pilot a deck that discards and draws a bunch. It’s not too hard to pack your deck with effects that let you play additional lands and some landfall abilites for a deck that’ll get you singing: “I’ve Been Everywhere.”

Flubs, the Fool can be powerful, but I’m knocking it down a peg for being a Buy-a-Box exclusive. I don’t mind a certain amount of artificial scarcity in a game like this, but I spat out the Kool-Aid in business school.

#8. Glarb, Calamity’s Augur

The text might point toward landfall or mid-to-big mana spells, but Glarb, Calamity's Augur is really interesting at the head of a frog deck. You can play a lot of the other frogs in the game, and surveilling is another way to put cards in the graveyard for Grolnok, the Omnivore to exile with its croak counters.

#7. Helga, Skittish Seer

There are enough frogs in Bant () that cost 4 or more mana that you could build a frog typal deck around Helga, Skittish Seer. To be fair, it’s all Simic and colorless frogs, and you’re using white just to access Selesnya’s () +1/+1 counters synergies.

This is a possible Bant commander for one of Twenty-Toed Toad’s alternate win conditions, probably the one tied to its counters rather than the cards in your hand. Twenty-Toed Toad doesn’t care about the kind of counters, so you can use keyword counters to supplement your strategy. These also work if you aren’t playing a deck that leans completely into frogs.

#6. Tatsunari, Toad Rider

Tatsunari, Toad Rider is the reason we need to carve out an exception for rules text. It’s a Sultai () enchantment commander that can bring in a legendary frog token (Keimi). If you’re running it while focusing on enchantments, you want a critical mass of them. You can include Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief if you plan on using a bunch of auras to essentially give you two Voltron-ed creatures.

Focusing on frogs cuts into the number of slots you have for enchantments, but you get to run bigger threats like Yargle and Multani to have more and better targets for your limited auras.

#5. The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride

Nearly any creature can saddle this mount from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, but the question is: Would any creature want to?

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride consumes its riders to give you card draw, then pulls some lands from your hand to the battlefield. It’s a really neat take on a stompy deck: Rather than flinging or attacking with your high-power creatures, you’re using them to draw cards and ramp. I’ve also seen some players use this printing of The Gitrog as a Rat Colony commander, and that sounds stupidly fun. I’d recommend running minimal frogs here to cut down on the cannibalism.

#4. Yargle and Multani

Three additional power is all you need to turn Yargle and Multani into an instant-kill. Naturally, Voltron strategies are a fit. This version of Yargle is superior to the mono-black one, since green gives you access to ramp for your 6-mana commander or for some pricier equipment, plus you get additional combat tricks like Giant Growth and green auras.

#3. Grolnok, the Omnivore

Grolnok, the Omnivore encourages both a self-milling strategy and a frog strategy, and it does so in such a way that you can adjust the balance on that to your personal playstyle. Bloomburrow really gave this commander a lot of help if you want to lean into frogs, which should also be the more budget-friendly version of most of these commanders’ decks.

#2. The Gitrog Monster

This lands commander’s abilities really are the epitome of two steps forward and one step back, but sometimes you get something really right on the first iteration. Yup! The Gitrog Monster was the first legendary frog we ever got, and it remains a strong Golgari () commander. Lands are the obvious lane, but you can turn up the sliders on general graveyard themes and sacrifice payoffs.

If you really want to get silly with it, you can pack your deck with creature lands with the intention to animate and sacrifice them.

#1. Thalia and The Gitrog Monster

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster from March of the Machine is our mashup of Thalia, Heretic Cathar and The Gitrog Monster. Abzan () is the perfect color identity for sacrificing both lands and creatures, and Thalia and The Gitrog Monster also gives you acceleration while slowing down your opponents.

Okay, so that ability might fizzle against some commanders like Archelos, Lagoon Mystic, but this is one of the most powerful Abzan commanders you can run.

The Necrobloom is a perfect support piece since dredge lets you easily bring the lands that you sacrifice and mill back.

Best Frog Commander Payoffs

In terms of flavor, you can never go wrong by using those classic Polymorphist's Jest / Frogify effects. Modern Horizons 3’s Amphibian Downpour offers that effect on storm-roids. Croaking Counterpart is another flavor pick that increases your frog count while copying a useful creature from an opponent’s side of the board.

Bloomburrow gave us Lilypad Village and Oakhollow Village to surveil and to add counters to frogs, among others.

Polliwallop is a powerful bite spell that’s easy to reduce to 1 mana, while Splash Portal is a flicker that cantrips in a frog deck.

The Bloomburrow Limited environment was full of that set’s frogs, including Long River Lurker and Valley Mightcaller. Simic Frogs as an archetype sought to bounce and flicker frogs to take advantage of their enters abilities.

While less a payoff for frogs and more a frog that’s a payoff for the format, Rampant Frogantua gets bigger and bigger as the game goes on. Whiffs when you’re the first one out, but an absolute menace in the late game.

Many frog commanders play in spaces that tie into having lands in your graveyard, whether you’re sacrificing them to The Gitrog Monster or milling / surveilling them with Grolnok, the Omnivore or Glarb, Calamity's Augur. Your best and favorite on-color landfall effects, land payoffs, and effects that allow you to play lands from your graveyard are important pieces in these decks.

Ribbiting Conclusion

Thalia and The Gitrog Monster | Illustration by Howard Lyon

And that’s our rundown on which frog commanders have legs and which ones are stuck in the muck. For a relatively small group, they cover a surprising number of color identities.

Which frog commander is your pick? Which among frogs, birds, or cats has better commander options for your witchy brews? Let me know in the comments below or, er, hop on over to the Draftsim Discord!

As for me, I’m still hoping for a Muppets Take Magic-hattan Secret Lair so we can get a Kermit card, or maybe Muppet-fied reprints of iconic cards. Take care!