RedLegendary Creature — Human Soldier WarriorLu Bu, Master-at-Arms
Mana value6Rank#24,214
The Commander
Haste; horsemanship (This creature can't be blocked except by creatures with horsemanship.)
Guide
Gameplan
Lu Bu is a mono-red Voltron commander: suit up an evasive beater with horsemanship (almost no deck runs horsemanship blockers) and equipment/auras, swing with haste, and reduce opponents from 40 to 0 through repeated unblockable hits. You ramp early, deploy and protect Lu Bu, and use extra-combat and double-strike effects to close fast.
Strengths
- Horsemanship is functionally unblockable in nearly every modern game—no chump blocking, no walls
- Built-in haste means he attacks the turn he lands or recasts
- Mono-red gives easy access to equipment, double strike, extra combats, and burn reach
- Cheap-ish commander tax recovery via efficient red ramp and rituals
Weaknesses
- Classic Voltron fragility—removal, bounce, and edicts blow you out and tax stacks fast
- Color-locked into red, so no real protection from counters, exile, or board wipes beyond red answers
- Damage doesn't carry through if he's removed mid-swing; all-in on one creature
- Struggles against lifegain and decks that race or go wide better than you
Key Cards
- Swiftfoot Boots — Hexproof keeps Lu Bu safe from targeted removal while adding redundant haste.
- Embercleave — Cheap, surprise double strike doubles your unblockable damage for explosive kills.
- Fireshrieker — Grants double strike, effectively doubling Lu Bu's combat damage every swing.
- Aggravated Assault — Repeatable extra combats let an unblockable Lu Bu kill a player in a single turn.
- Sword of Fire and Ice — Protection plus bonus damage and card draw on every connect, which is guaranteed via horsemanship.
- Berserk — Doubles power on an unblockable attacker for a one-shot kill at instant speed.
Upgrade Path
Prioritize cheap protection (Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Hammer of Nazahn) and equipment tutors (Stoneforge Mystic, Steelshaper's Gift, Open the Armory) to make the kill reliable. Add double-strike and extra-combat enablers (Embercleave, Aggravated Assault, Combat Celebrant) plus a one-shot pump like Berserk, and round out with fast red ramp (Sol Ring, ritual effects, Mana Crypt) and recursion to recover from removal.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Repeated unblockable combat damage, often boosted by double strike for 21+ commander damage
- ▸Extra-combat chains (Aggravated Assault, Combat Celebrant) for a single-turn kill
- ▸Pump spells like Berserk or Temur Battle Rage to one-shot a player
- ▸Burn and direct damage as backup reach when Lu Bu is answered
Archetypes
- Voltron — Horsemanship plus haste makes Lu Bu the perfect single target for equipment and auras.
- Equipment Aggro — Mono-red supports cheap equipment tutors and recursion to consistently arm Lu Bu.
- Extra Combats — Unblockable Lu Bu turns each extra combat step into another chunk of guaranteed damage.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (R), by popularity.
