Atalya, Samite Master - Now I know what you are thinking: "Aren't there plenty of other good life gain legends out there?"   Sure, but Atalya is versatile.  She can protect a creature you control, as well as gain you life.  This is actually pretty nice, as sometimes you want to make sure that your Adarkar Valkyrie sticks around after a Hurricane.  On top of that, you can gain a ton of life in the late game.  A good legend for a mono-White control deck, as repeatable life gain is nothing to be sneezed at.

On a side note I met Rebecca Guay at Comic con a while ago, and have to say she was very nice.  She had a lot of prints for sale and I'm sad that I didn't buy one.  I'm going to have to get one this year.

Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile - Now Brigid may be short, but she has a bow that gives her extra reach.  She is a good legend to put equipment on that give her deathtouch or lifelink, and can wipe out all of an opponent's creatures in one fell swoop.  Or at least all of them that attack or block.  The best part is that they don't even have to be attacking you!  And even without equipment she is good at dealing with token swarms, or just softening up larger creatures.

She also has first strike, which is nice when you have equipment on her with an open field.

Celestial Kirin - I'm sure that I'm not the only person who has seen this card and thought about making a decking with it.  First, it is an evasive beater with stats that are decent for its casting cost.  That isn't bad at all.  However, on top of that it has a limited form of Pernicious Deed attached to it.  Although everyone knows that the Arcane cards out there aren't the best, there are still plenty of spirits available to play, even in just mono-White.  Off the top of my head there is Patron of the Kitsune, Windborn Muse and Spirit of the Hearth.  Being able to destroy stuff is awesome.

Commander Greven Il-Vec - Now, Greven was one of the original big bads in the Magic story lines.  He has a huge amount of power, being a 3 hit Commander without any sort of help.  That isn't bad at all.  Throw in the fact that he has Fear, and you got yourself a good beater.

The sacrifice that you have to make to get him into play isn't horrible at all.  Black has Bloodghast, Reassembling Skeleton, and Nether Shadow, along with Solemn Simulacrum.

Plus, having a Commander with Commander in his name is just plain cool. 

Empress Galina - Don't you want to steal your opponents' Commanders and bash them with it?  That's fun, right?  You can also steal their legendary lands, like Academy Ruins, or their legendary artifacts, like Akroma's Memorial!  On top of that, the Empress does not have to remain tapped to keep control of the permanent.  As such, you can steal multiple Commanders and have control of them at the same time. 

The best part of her ability is that you keep control of the permanent even if the Empress dies!  So you don't have the same type of worries you would if you were playing with Sower of Temptation.  Seriously, someone give her a shot.

Eron the Relentless - Eron gets no love for some reason.  But there is something to be said for having a hasty Commander that can regenerate.  Haste is underrated on a Commander.  It means that people have to keep their defenses up, even when your Commander isn't in play.  He has a fairly high amount of power which can easily be increased with something like Gauntlet of Might.  There are also a lot of sweepers out there now that don't have the "cannot regenerate" clause in them.  I know that a lot of people just starting out are running Day of Judgment as it is more accessible.

Ertai, the Corrupted - The Esper color combination is pretty powerful already, so there has to be a way to make this guy useable.  There are plenty of ways to make creature tokens for sacrificial fodder for this guy, and there are also enchantments that return to your hand after they go to the graveyard like Spirit Loop.  Include a couple of untap effects like Thousand-Year Elixir and Puppet Strings, and you are essentially telling people that you can counter anything they play.  This drastically effects your opponents' game play decisions and can lead to interesting tensions in game play.  Include Decree of Silence to be extra mean.

Ertai, Wizard Adept - On the plus side, you don't have to sacrifice anything to counter stuff with the original Ertai.  However the mana cost to use his ability is higher and you don't get the extra support colors.  Still, having the ability to threaten a counter is something that really affects the game.  I know that people have played with Venser, Shaper Savant as their Commander, why not give this guy a shot?

Hakim, Loreweaver - Hakim has an interesting ability that just screams for someone to try and break.  Although you only have Blue enchantments available to you (and Eldrazi Conscription), there are still some good ones out there.  While most of the powerful Blue auras are theft effects, you still have Curiosity, some Totem armors and Pemmin's Aura.  I know there isn't a lot, but there should be enough to make this guy useful.

Kaho, Minamo Historian - I know that people have tried to break this card without success.  However, you can use it as a limited tutor instead of a combo piece.  Just off the top of my head, she can grab Capsize, Spin into Myth, Fact or Fiction, Cryptic Command, Evacuation and Time Stop.  If you include some stuff that can give her haste, like Lightning Greaves or Thousand-Year Elixir you won't even have to worry about losing the cards that you search up.  Plus, you don't have to search up more than one card at a time if you don't want to.  Add a bunch of mana acceleration to help with powering out some of these bigger spells.  And if you can bounce her with something like Crystal Shard you can do it all over again.

Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet - All right, he admittedly costs a ton of mana and has no form of evasion.  However mono-Black never has had a problem producing gobs of mana, from Cabal Coffers to Nirkana Revenant to Doubling Cube.  So that shouldn't really be a reason to stop you from playing him.

He is an awesome form of removal and can play to a vampire tribal theme very easily.  Including a couple of the untap effects like Puppet Strings will help his viability.  Just killing the biggest thing on the board will leave you with a bunch of huge vampire tokens.  Add a Door of Destinies and possibly a Coat of Arms, and you have yourself a nice deck with a controlling Commander.

Kongming, Sleeping Dragon - I know you're thinking "why wouldn't I just play with White Crovax?"  It's because Kongming pumps all of your critters.  This means that all of your little artifact guys from your Thopter Foundry, all those little pests from your Nuisance Engine, even your Solemn Simulacrum will be pumped as well.  This may seem minor, but there are tons of ways to produce a bunch of artifact creature tokens.

Plus, his nickname is cool.  He may be sleeping, but you definitely don't want to wake him up!  Unfortunately his artwork makes him look like a benevolent old grandfather, so that's not necessarily the imagery you want, but you can't have everything I guess.

Livonya Silone - Livonya has a couple of things going for her.  First, her legendary landwalk ability will come in very handy in this environment.  People love playing with their Academy Ruins, Volrath's Strongholds and Gaea's Cradles, and having Livonya out there may make people thing twice before dropping those powerful lands.

On top of that, she has first strike, a pretty relevant combat ability.  Putting a Sword or Loxodon Warhammer on her will make her 4/4 body even more impressive.  In addition her colors lead her toward beatdown, which is perfect for what she is trying to accomplish.

Finally she comes with some cool RKF art.  I've always loved this guy's artwork, as it was one of the first things that drew me to Magic cards.  Although her artwork in particular looks a little bit washed out, you can still see her wielding a sword in each hand slicing through her adversaries.  Not bad at all.

Lovisa Coldeyes - This is a legend I can't believe that I have not played against as a Commander.  Seems that although the available barbarians and berserkers aren't all that great, there are plenty of decent warriors out there.  Giving them a boost and haste would be pretty sweet for those little guys.

I just love the art on this card.  She looks like she could kick your ass without blinking an eye.  She reminds me of a girl I dated a while back who was really into exercise and nutrition.  She played college soccer for a well known Division 1 school, and even though she was only 5 foot 5, I'm pretty sure she could have completely worked me over in just about any physical activity.  I used to tease her about having bigger guns than me (I was in pretty good shape at the time myself) and she hated that.  I have a feeling Lovisa wouldn't have even acknowledged the comment, and would have treated it as a fact that she had known all along.

Lu Bu, Master-at-Arms - So horsemanship is a mechanic that came online during MED3 with a bunch of critters from the Portal:  Three Kingdoms expansion.  Horsemanship was that sets version of flying, in that only creatures with horsemanship could block each other.  Even flyers cannot block a guy with horsemanship.  As the only set where horsemanship appeared was P3K, the mechanic is extremely rare.

Horsemanship on a Commander essentially makes the creature unblockable, and that's great in a format like ours where Commander damage halves the amount needed to take someone out.  As such, horsemanship is a criminally underused mechanic in Commander.  Combine that unblockability with haste, and you have a pretty sweet Commander in Lu Bu.  He admittedly costs a ton of mana for the amount of damage he can dish out, but that's what equipment is for.

Lu Meng, Wu General - Another horsemanship general, but in an admittedly better color.  Even though Lu Meng is in mono-Blue, you can take extra turns with Temporal Manipulation and perform other Blue shenanigans.  Plus he costs slightly less than Lu Bu.  Unfortunately for Lu Meng, he is outclassed a little by another legend we will cover later in the article.  But that doesn't mean that he shouldn't get his chance to shine in the sun.

On a random note, my 4 year old daughter has recently expressed an interest in horse riding.  Do you guys know how expensive that is?  Holy crap, I couldn't believe the cost!  She's also interested in soccer, and I'm trying to steer her in that direction, since a horse costs more than a car.

Maraxus of Keld - First of all, just look at that guy.  I have no idea what he was like in the storyline or the books, but he just looks like a supreme ass kicker.  He wears a cool mask and is basically using what looks like a short sword for a dagger.  And he has to put some serious time in the gym.

I think that a token generating strategy would work really well with this guy.  Unfortunately to get the most out of him you cannot really do anything pre-combat, and in order to make him as large as possible you would have to only attack with him, or give all your creatures vigilance (which is tough in mono-Red).  But it would be worth it to be the one to send this guy into the red zone to smash some face.

Marton Stromgald - Another red guy that could really benefit from a token strategy, or even a fast weenie strategy.  Marton essentially gives a Coat of Arms for all your creatures when he attacks with them.  Unfortunately Marton himself doesn't get the bonus.  Therefore you would want to put stuff in your deck that either makes him unblockable or indestructible.  Dolmen Gate would be really handy as well.

In exchange, you get a Commander who makes all your little dudes HUGE.  That seems like a pretty big bonus to me.  Plus, you get the bonus points for using a cool guy with a metric butt load of text in his card.  He could go well with a mess of goblins.

I remembered where I saw this guy:  From one of Dr. Cat's old articles, found HERE.  You could always use that as a basis of a deck.  Good stuff.

Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker - Pretty much the ultimate in defensive legends, Michiko is a great way to make sure that no one bothers you for a while, at least in the early game.  She is basically a Karmic Justice variant, and that's a great thing to have on your side.  People would rather attack other opponents and keep their permanents than attack you with her out.  That gives you time to set up more offense or defense as the situation indicates.  She is fairly cheap so she should be able to come out early.  She absolutely hoses token decks as well.

Palladia-Mors - One of the original Elder Dragons that the EDH format was named after, Mr. Mors isn't bad at all.  He comes in aggressive Naya colors, flies and tramples!  All this for a measly 8 mana, with a 3 mana upkeep.  I have seen more people use Chromium than Palladia-Mors, and that's just sad.  Why not get on the horse and use one of the original bad boys as your flagship to bash face with?  I know that he would appreciate it.  After all, he is one of only 5 creatures in Magic with the printed creature type "Elder" in it, and you know you are supposed to respect those guys.

Purraj of Urborg - I originally thought that Purraj flew based upon her art, but I guess that's not correct.  Even without the flying, she still isn't bad.  First strike is always nice, but her triggered ability can make her pretty big very quickly.  If you have ever played with Sol'Kanar, you know just how often people play Black spells.  It's often enough for decks that use Green to include Compost in their decks.  Essentially growing each time you play a spell I think she could be pretty useful.  All you would need to do is figure out how to fix her left arm.

Ramses Overdark - Ramses is a pretty sweet assassin.  So you can either go with an assassin theme, or you can use auras that return to your hand after they go to the graveyard for Ramses to continue his killing.  This includes cards like Fallen Ideal, Sleeper's Guile, Launch and Fool's Demise.  There are a bunch of defensive Blue auras that you can stick on opponents' creatures as well.  You can even include Crystal Chimes and other auras to make sure that you get all of them back.  Ramses is pretty sweet, and should not be taken lightly.

Sakiko, Mother of Summer - Let's say that you like to play mono-Green and like making crap tons of mana, but you are tired of using Azusa and Sasaya.  And what you really like to do is mix it up in the red zone with big beasts.  Sakiko seems like she should be worth a shot.  After combat you should have a ton of mana at your disposal.  Might as well bust out the Krosan Cloudscrapers and random Eldrazi for this deck!  Bellowing Tanglewurm seems like it would be a perfect fit for such a deck also. 

Sun Quan, Lord of Wu - So there was a player a while back who was running Sun Quan, but I haven't seen him in a while and I haven't seen anyone else ever play with this guy.  But just look at him:  He basically makes your entire team unblockable!  Granted, most of the better Blue creatures usually have flying, but Sun Quan works on your artifact and colorless creatures as well.  Plus he gets the bonus himself, so strap a Strata Scythe on him and go to town!  You don't have to be all controlling, you could even try and go for a mono-Blue beatdown strategy.  That would definitely be something to see.

Taniwha - Someone just try this guy, please?  I know he's horrible, but he works great with artifact mana and Sunder.  And that's practically the only combo I can think of with him.  Someone?  Anyone?  Bueller?