A Guide to Toolbox Decks in EDH | How to Build a Toolbox Commander Deck  

"It's only true for..." Yes, thank you, exactly. We always have the power to design the deck so that Demonic Tutor is your flex card, not the 2nd copy of Tainted Pact or Thoracle. The end makes the deck linear, not the means.

I love playing Sunforger in Jeskai decks because there are a number of multicolor counterspells you can grab with it and really surprise people.

I've been watching you for a few months now and you've easily become my utmost favorite Commander theory content creator. I love your takes on the broader end of commander theory, and not making brain-dead clickbait content other creators make. You really know what you're talking about and give many well-thought examples of the point you're trying to make. Your editing makes digesting the content very simple and enjoyable to watch Your video about not focusing/relying solely on your commander is still my favorite video to date, and a first thing that I think about whenever I start trying to brew any commander deck.

I never knew how to explain my favorite kind of deck! This video is awesome!!!

I've recently been interested in more decks that break the serialized "made for commander do the thing" archetype, so this is really cool

Any video featuring my favorite toolbox commander, Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer, gets a like. Fun thing that my play group forgets is that Rocco triggers off of panharmonicon. Opens up a lot of fun combos. Rocco + Goblin Engineer is always fun if it's early.

Finally someone that points that tutors are just the means. I love toolbox decks so much it's unreal.

Graveyard strategies can be toolbox as well. Meren, Muldrotha, or even good ol' Karador are all great since they have access to Green.

Sefris Esper reanimator is my toolbox deck of choice. Absolutely love bringing back creatures that deal with specific problems. It has some infinite venture and drain win cons sure, but can just reanimate a big fatty and go the combat route if needed. Great to be able to cater to your groups power level on the fly without pulling the deck apart. Definitely recommend!

2:25 Temur sabertooth is a beast but Rocco really loves Wirewood Sumbiote. Temur and getting Rocco back is 9 mana and Wirewood is 4 mana and you even untaps a creature. Edit: If you go and find Fierce empath next turn you can also bounce that one and use that as your new toolbox!

My Baby, Mimeoplasm, and my upgraded Henzie precon have become birthing pod toolboxes.

In commander, all deck’s should be some level of toolbox. And you don’t need tutors for a toolbox deck to function properly, redundancy works as well.

Great video!

My toolbox deck is my sliver deck with sliver overlord. It is so versatile in what it can deal with. I can destory permanents, draw cards, win with combat damage, poison or burn. I can even take control of my opponents creatures. Also, I can recure most of it from the graveyard. I really like the deck for its versatility. (I don't play any infinite combos). Even though i do not tutor often (because of the mana cost) , being able to essentially get to anything if I invest the mana makes the deck quite interessting to play for me since it feels like there is always a way.

Run a instant/sorcery toolbox in a “shipwreck dowser tribal” deck: rummage to fill the yard then grab what you need from there with the ETBs. Only running 2 transmutes as tutors though - prefer having to think on my feet with whatever ive managed to mill

I played a Magda tool box deck where I could stop just about everything with enough treasures When the deck goes off it’s absolutely amazing

A good thing I found my idea of a Kellan Sunforger alone before the video, so now I can still feel original despite you having suggesting it. It will be my first toolbox commander deck, and the first deck I allow myself to run tutors. My first idea is to not have winning combos, but maybe only Deflecting palm effects, because I fear the combo wincon with a repeatable tutor will make the deck very boring to play. I do not know yet, will see after I finish my Karador Reanimator Good video, have a nice day

You def got me and I’ve got an idea for one that’s an uncommon I really have been playing with the idea of lagamos

My longest running EDH deck is a Momir big toolbox deck. It's almost 20 years old. Sadly he's gotten a reputation as a sweaty cedh combo general, so most people I play don't let him hang around long enough to do his toolbox thing. My other toolbox deck is Chainer dementia master focusing on the graveyard instead of library. Unfortunately similar to Momir people are to afraid of a combo win to let me use him as reliable recursion.

I have a toolbox, esper flash control deck with chromium as cmd, it is powerful and fun but I removed tutor and free spell to fit my table power level, there are times when I go I have the perfect counter for the board state, other time would just whiff and die. Either way, I would agree that it is indeed a fun playstyle to have!

I love when someone says they are a toolbox deck, while I have a aven mind sensor/ position agent in hand.

I always wanted a sunforger deck, and Salubrious Snail finally convinced me to convert my Izzet Vadrok storm deck into a Boros Vadrok storm deck with an infinite turns combo powered by Sunforger. I am also still deciding if I should include sunforger in my sans-black deck, but I still do not really know what I want to do with that deck.

For anyone looking to brew Rocco, I heavily suggest including Wirewood Symbiote. If you build your deck to always ramp on turn 2, then you can grab the Symbiote on turn 3 and immediately bounce Rocco back to hand. Considering it's a green deck and will be running mana dorks anyway, it's not a bad inclusion. That being said, there's at least 2 toolbox commanders I want to build myself, one being OG Sisay themed around legends, meanwhile the other is new Sisay themed around Food.

My problem with tutors is not making the game repetitive. They are just expensive.

Before I type this out I just wanted to say, I really enjoy a lot of your content actually and your perspective has been amazing in approaching some of my new jankier decks and making sure they can contest with powerful strategies so keep up the good work! But I wanted to get this out so maybe you can understand why people actually dislike tutors, cause I feel like tutors are fine in a vacuum. They seem like the best way to get answers to a current board state or, if you are running high power combos, a way to find the missing piece or protection spell. But that as a whole is why I think so many people dislike tutors. In a singleton format people expect games to feel different. Yes the landfall deck will be ramping and playing lands, but what those lands will create or cause will be different most games. Tutors aren’t affected by the singleton format, they are the perfect card draw. They’re your board wipe, your graveyard hate, your value piece, your Ulamog late game or your best ramp piece early game. Yes, you don’t tutor for the same thing every game, but when you would only realistically tutor for 7/100 cards in your deck in every given game it feels like it’s the same thing every game. Which is honestly more of a problem with the format having such strong answers or win cons than tutors being an issue. To sum it up, the better you make a deck, the more powerful tutors get and the less variance your tutors have. It’s “No way I drew my wincon and have a protection piece this game, finally time to test this out” versus “Oh, they have a problematic artifact with protection, tutor for farewell and stop you without second thought”.

What toolbox lacks Black and Blue? With Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer you can only include Red, Green, and White cards. With Omnath, Locus of All as your commander, you have all five colors and get to draw an extra card at the start of each main phase of your turn. Or for a five-color commander who's a one-man toolbox himself, try Kenrith, the Returned King.

Great showcase of toolbox commanders - shame it isn't a category on EDHREC for easy filtering. I was looking into making a Dragon deck, but like the toolbox idea so instead of going with the Ur Dragon I'll be going with Scion of the Ur-Dragon or Tiamat and stuffing my deck with utility on big lizard boys

Is Oswald good with this strat? Im not familiar that much on artifacts

If you include dockside into that list doesn’t it completely negate the whole point of the deck? Because the easiest way to “deal” with anything would be to tutor dockside, have infinite mana and win on the spot instead of tutoring an answer

do you guys think its bad to build a deck on someone elses decklist or to look up a dekclist and only make slight tweaks? my deck i built for edh is not doing well and im frustrated and feel like maybe im too beginner to build something powerful enough

While I understand that tutors are not always the same I feel like they remove a very core part of EDH and that is randomness, the 100 card singleton was made for that. I know some people run multiple of the same effect but most of the time why work a little different from each other like city on fire VS dictate of the twin gods VS Solphim. Personally I have way more fun when I am franticly digging for the card I need as I know it will only take one or two turns before they run away with the game and that feeling is something you can never get with a tutors. I just feels less fun Idk if that even matters to most people and I know its a hyper illogical argument but when ever I see a Demonic tutor I just groan as I know either some one if getting locked out of the game or that player will just win from hand, blue combos IN particular, most of the time will have protection and even with removal in hand it wont be able to stop it

But just for a sec, bro you do not cease to be a fountain of hot takes. As a genuine question creator to creator, Are these genuine or not? Cuz its baffling to me lol.

I think I can’t really build decks cause I keep trying to shove small toolboxes in them..

what about henzie?!

Its been quite some time sense I have commented here still fucx with your content btw. But in general I think the hate of toolbox commanders comes from the feeling that they have an answer for every problem and the fact that most toolbox commanders have 3+ colours. Take Kenrith for example or like Golos pre0ban, while these commanders aernt op (Free my boy Golos BTW) they are just the most aggravating value pile shlock that a player can come up with and in a game of chance it is easy to feel robbed of time when everything you can do is responded to via "Erm I tutor for my card that i had just to bend you over and blow your back out." in the most annoying voice imaginable. It also doesn't help that most toolbox abilities are instant speed so there is nothing you really can do about it seeing as black and blue are often always in said commanders identities so they get into a counter/removal war with you and when they loose they spend 1 mana to just like idk play reanimate or something. Regardless of turoring, its just a mega feels bad for a lot of players when you just get out valued by the toolbox guy just touching himself mid game while touching his cards because toolbox decks OFTEN (but not always) take the longest turns known to man. TLDR Mono Red Aggro for life all my homies hate value piles.

Ah yes, tutoring for stax pieces sure is a great play pattern

You've just listed salt inducing cards with a salt inducing commander. This is why it's not recognized as an archetype. It's not fun to play against even if you enjoy playing it. And this is from a person playing a Fae Sunforger deck, I rarely get to play it now.