Is The First Tyrannic War good in Commander?

The First Tyrannic War

Enchantment — Saga

(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — You may put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. If its mana cost contains , it enters with a number of +1/+1 counters on it equal to the number of lands you control.
II, III — Double the number of each kind of counter on target creature you control.

CMC: 5
Mana cost
Color identity: GRU
Rarity: rare
Set: Warhammer 40,000 Commander
Price: $0.61
EDHREC rank: #10507

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The First Tyrannic War drops three saga chapters that tutor a Tyranid, proliferate your counters, and then flood the board with tokens — all for five mana in a Simic shell that wants every single one of those effects. Terra, Magical Adept // Esper Terra and The Swarmlord both treat it as an engine piece rather than a value spell, and that's exactly the right read.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

The Swarmlord

67.5% of decks · synergy 0.64

The Swarmlord turns every Tyranid entering the battlefield into a counter event, so The First Tyrannic War's tutor, proliferate, and token chapters all feed the engine directly — the third chapter in particular can dump multiple bodies onto the battlefield and trigger a cascade of +1/+1 counter placements in one shot.

Magus Lucea Kane

39.6% of decks · synergy 0.37

Magus Lucea Kane rewards running expensive, splashy spells with built-in token copies, and The First Tyrannic War's five-mana cost sits squarely in the range where the deck wants to be spending its resources — the proliferate chapter also plays well with the X-spell counters that Lucea Kane strategies accumulate throughout the game.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

Format	Verdict
commander	legal
legacy	legal
modern	not legal
pioneer	not legal
standard	not legal
vintage	legal
pauper	not legal
oathbreaker	legal

The First Tyrannic War is a Commander card through and through — the saga's three-turn arc, tribal tutoring, and token flood are all calibrated for a 100-card singleton format where incremental value compounds over a long game. It's technically legal in Legacy and Vintage, but no competitive deck in either format wants a five-mana enchantment that doesn't win the game on resolution. Oathbreaker is the only other format where it might see genuine play, specifically in a Tyranid-themed shell that can leverage the tutor and proliferate chapters as soon as turn three with the right acceleration.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

20 decks