The best red planeswalkers

Chandra, Dressed to Kill is the perfect compliment to a burn strategy. Her +1 ability is a repeatable source of damage that also makes mana, meaning any deck with a lot of one mana threats can drop one onto the board to protect her on turn three. Her second +1 ability lets a mono-red deck impulse-draw a card, and her -7 is a huge push of damage and a permanent buff that is sure to end the game.

The mono-red aggro deck is notoriously fast, but it does have some issues in the long game. Chandra is a great solution – her first +1 to refund some mana the turn you play her ensures you can keep the pressure up with a burn spell or threat, and her other two abilities make her a ticking clock that your opponent will have to deal with before she closes out the game.

Chandra’s starred in many of the best red planeswalker cards in history, so you’ll be seeing a lot of her on this list. Torch of Defiance has two +1 abilities, one that makes mana, another that lets you exile and then play a card from your library. If you hit a dud off your impulse draw, you can leave it in exile and instead do two damage.

Unlike Dressed to Kill, this red planeswalker has a powerful removal ability in her -3, which deals four damage to a creature, and her -7 makes an emblem that’s sure to quickly end the game.

While Chandra is a little outshone these days by her three mana counterpart, she’s still a formidable threat in slower midrange decks in Pioneer. But as decks have gotten faster, her -3 ability has become more and more underwhelming, meaning that you’ll want a removal spell to cast off her second +1 ability to keep her safe the turn she gets played.

Jeska is very different to most of the red planeswalkers on this list. She’s playable as a commander and has the keyword Partner, meaning you can play her alongside another partner commander. But unlike most planeswalkers, she has no way to regain loyalty without dying and being replayed.

Jeska might not look powerful from the start, but when combined with other pieces she can be incredibly strong. Many commander decks pair Jeska with fast-growing creatures, as her 0 ability to triple a creature’s combat damage quickly turns them into lethal threats.

Her -X ability deals X damage to each of three targets. If you have a way to make infinite mana, you can trade all of her loyalty for damage and recast her over and over, finishing off all your opponents. Although she’s far from the one-woman army that you might expect from a commander, Jeska is exceptionally formidable when placed in the right deck.

Beyond burn decks, red is well-known for its powerful artifact strategies in commander, so it’s no surprise that there’s a red planeswalker for this kind of deck. Daretti’s +2 allows you to dig deep in your deck for synergy pieces and discard big artifacts which you can then return from the graveyard with his -2. Get to his -10 and you’ll be able to infinitely recur those artifacts.

Daretti’s a self-propelling value engine. You +2 to filter your deck and place big artifacts in the graveyard, play cheap artifacts, then cheat the big stuff into play with your -2. Many commander players, myself included, have been on the receiving end of a 10 or 11 mana artifact coming into play on turn 4 or 5, and the card is even powerful enough to pull this off in one of Magic’s most powerful environments, the Vintage Cube.

However, Daretti can end up as a one-trick pony – once players see you put something big in the graveyard, Daretti makes himself a huge target, compounded by his lack of any ability to protect himself.

Although most red planeswalkers slot nicely into aggressive decks, Chandra, Hope’s beacon is a formidable finisher for a slower red deck. Her +2 ability allows her to make two mana of any colors, and her +1 digs five cards deep for an instant or sorcery to cast, with her third ability letting her remove any amount of loyalty for that much damage.

Chandra’s true power is in her passive ability – doubling all instant and sorceries cast while she’s in play. Although she doesn’t have a great way to control the board, Chandra’s mana generation combined with her passive ability means it’s easy to protect her by casting a doubled removal spell on the turn you play her.

Once she’s in play, she’s a great finisher for a ramp deck – these strategies can often struggle with finding good payoffs, so looking at five cards to find a powerful spell is invaluable. In Standard and Pioneer, Chandra is usually paired with blue cards, as in Yutaro Morimoto’s Temur Calamity deck from the recent 2024 Pro Tour.