Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIERSephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER | Art by Tetsuya Nomura

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIERSephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER, a remarkable mono-black commander from the bestselling Final Fantasy set, has taken the top-ranked mono-black commander spot on EDHREC.

This comes after quite a few weeks of attempting to wrestle K'rrik, Son of YawgmothK'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth for this prestigious mantle. Most of us knew this was only a matter of time, but now it's clear! However, for those of you less in the know asking how it happened, read on, and we'll tackle the answers for you!

What Does Sephiroth Do?

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIERSephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is a stellar commander for Aristocrats strategies (meaning decks that sacrifice resources for incremental gain). His ability suite allows his controller to sacrifice creatures to draw cards, draining one point of life from an opponent in the process. However, when four or more creatures are sacrificed in a single turn, no matter their controller, Sephiroth flips into his One-Winged Angel side. This grants his controller an emblem that simply says:

"Whenever a creature dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life."

The back side of the card also allows its controller to sacrifice any number of creatures to draw that many cards when Sephiroth attacks. This also fuels the emblems you're inevitably accumulating over time with this commander.

We can see some players scratching their heads at this last part. However, nothing is stopping players from making multiple emblems by repeatedly transforming Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER. Many decks led by him even make this a key point in their strategy (including my own Bracket 4 deck, listed below). To do so, players will often use One-Winged Angel as a chump blocker or sacrifice fodder. After this, they'll typically recast Fabled SOLDIER as soon as possible.

My Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER Deck List

Hallmarks of Aristocracy

As many experienced Aristocrats players can likely see, this list has many hallmarks of that kind of deck. It has multiple means of mutualmutual sacrificesacrifice, a whole slew of redundant lifelife draindrain-centric permanentspermanents, and more than its share of mono-blackmono-black combocombo piecespieces.

In fact, there's enough redundancy among these overarching types of cards that the deck can be crafted with just these types of cards and the necessary land/mana packages. It's how I started out when building the deck, and it's been effective throughout its tenure in my collection.

Why K'rrik Lost His Crown

K'rrik, Son of YawgmothK'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth was the previous #1-ranked mono-black commander. Ultimately, there are a few reasons why Sephiroth outclasses him. For one, K'rrik tends to facilitate a self-destructive gameplay strategy known as Suicide Black. (As a sidebar, I really don't like that name for the strategy. That said, it's the common terminology, so I'm beat.) It focuses on getting its pilot's life total very dangerously low for incremental value. Cards like NecropotenceNecropotence are key here, as is the act of simply taking non-lethal damage. Then, when the player's life is low enough, they'll often find a way to swap it with an opponent's life total.

This strategy is often seen as extremely volatile and, as the name suggests, figuratively suicidal. Black decks from the days of yore were, of course, meant to be self-destructive for value. However, times have changed for the betterment of the color's key archetypes. Perhaps this is a big reason why Sephiroth's life-padding strategy is now somewhat more popular than K'rrik's extremely risky business.

The Ramifications of a Paradigm Shift

Overall, this difference has a few windows that allowed the Final Fantasy VII antagonist to overtake the Son of Yawgmoth. For one, K'rrik's strategy relies on cards that are antiquated in strategy. As a result, many of the associated cards are pretty old (as loath as I am to admit that). There are obviously some outliers, including reprints, though they're few and far between.

Overall, Wizards of the Coast's design philosophies have largely stymied cards with negative effects for the caster. This sort of design paradigm is what stops K'rrik from ascending further on our ranked list and what gave rise to Sephiroth. This all happened in one fell swoop.

Nevertheless, Sephiroth has now outdone K'rrik, perhaps ending a once-very concrete tenet of Magic's philosophies of old. Is this a negative thing in itself? It's hard to tell. Black still isn't the strongest color in Commander, but it's got room to grow. Once it does, we may see another, revitalized "Black Summer" or similar phenomenon.

I'm not sure if I'm hyperbolizing that, but I personally welcome it.

Conclusion

In the end, Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is now the top mono-black commander. It carries a legacy of really cool, strong legends from 2025 doing exceptionally well in the ranks on EDHREC. Pretty soon thereafter, it also seems likely that he'll break into the Top 50 Commanders overall!

So now, we'd like to open the floor to you, dear readers. Are you pleased to see Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER getting more exposure as a popular commander? Do you have either a deck for him or for K'rrik (perhaps both)? How do you feel about these commanders and their playstyles? Sound off in the comments below!