Toph, the First Metalbender
WRGLegendary Creature — Human Warrior Ally

Toph, the First Metalbender

Mana value4EDHREC#3,721

The Commander

Nontoken artifacts you control are lands in addition to their other types. (They don't gain the ability to {T} for mana.)

At the beginning of your end step, earthbend 2. (Target land you control becomes a 0/0 creature with haste that's still a land. Put two +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies or is exiled, return it to the battlefield tapped.)

Guide

Gameplan

Toph turns your whole artifact suite into lands, then every end step earthbends a land into a hasty 2/2-and-growing creature that keeps recurring whenever it dies. You ramp on artifacts and mana rocks, snowball a board of animated lands, and crash in with a wide, recursive team that's nearly impossible to grind down because earthbended permanents return tapped instead of staying dead.

Strengths

  • Built-in resilience: earthbend's death/exile clause returns animated lands tapped, making your threats and even your mana base very hard to permanently remove.
  • Artifacts-as-lands turns mana rocks, Treasures, and equipment into attackers and into fodder/targets for land-matters effects.
  • Naya colors give access to elite ramp, removal, and equipment to weaponize your growing manlands.
  • Generates inevitability through repeated end-step earthbends that steadily build a board without spending cards.

Weaknesses

  • Slow clock—earthbend only animates one land per turn, so you need extra payoffs to close fast.
  • Animated lands are 0/0 base and die to sweepers and -X effects; losing them mid-combat can blow you out before the recur trigger matters.
  • Mass land destruction and 'destroy target land' effects hit your artifacts too, and you can fall behind if rebuilding the mana base.
  • Heavily creature-board dependent for damage, so it folds to fogs, edicts, and stax that tax attacking.

Key Cards

  • Crucible of WorldsReplays sacrificed lands and fetches every turn, fueling landfall and giving endless earthbend fodder.
  • Ancient GreenwardenDoubles landfall and lets you replay lands from the graveyard, supercharging your ramp engine.
  • EmbercleaveTurns a swarm of earthbended lands into a lethal alpha strike out of nowhere.
  • Avenger of ZendikarFloods the board with Plant tokens that earthbend and landfall payoffs can scale into a finish.
  • Nissa, Who Shakes the WorldPumps your animated lands and ramps hard, amplifying both Toph's combat plan and your mana.
  • Scute SwarmWith artifacts counting as lands, each play snowballs into an exponential token army.
  • Strip MineRepeatable land destruction with Crucible pressures opponents while your own returns via earthbend.

Upgrade Path

Add efficient ramp and recursion (Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, Three Visits, Nature's Lore) plus landfall doublers like Ancient Greenwarden to make every earthbend snowball. Lean into a closing package—Embercleave, Craterhoof Behemoth, or a strong equipment suite—so your slow, resilient board can actually end games. Tighten removal and protection (Heroic Intervention, Teferi's Protection) to survive sweepers that punish your creature-dependent plan.

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

  • Wide combat with a recurring board of earthbended lands and tokens backed by anthems.
  • Voltron kill—pump one earthbended land with counters and equipment like Embercleave or Colossus Hammer.
  • Landfall payoffs (Avenger of Zendikar, Scute Swarm) overwhelming the table with creatures.
  • Grinding opponents out with repeated land destruction while your own lands recur.

Archetypes

  • LandsToph weaponizes the land base directly, turning ramp into a recurring creature army with landfall payoffs.
  • VoltronEarthbend a single land into a counter-stacked attacker and pile on Naya equipment for one-shot kills.
  • Aggro/TokensCombine earthbended manlands with token producers and anthems for a wide, resilient beatdown.
  • ArtifactsMana rocks and artifact lands double as creatures and recursion fodder under Toph's first ability.

Combos

No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.

Related Commanders

Same color identity (GRW), by popularity.

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