I am Melon-Lord | Building a Toph, the First Metalbender Commander Deck

Toph Beifong, the legendary and hilarious earthbender from Avatar: The Last Airbender, has smashed her way into Magic: The Gathering as a unique Commander. With her ability to turn your artifacts into lands and animate the ground itself, Toph embodies resilience, resourcefulness, and raw power. Let’s break down how to build around her and maximize her earthbending potential.

What Makes Her Unique – Lands, Artifacts, and Earthbending

Toph’s design is really unique. She makes your nontoken artifacts into lands in addition to their other types, opening up wild synergies with landfall and artifact strategies. On top of that, her earthbend 2 ability animates lands into creatures with haste and +1/+1 counters, then safely returns them when they die or are exiled.

What Makes Her Fun

She is constantly creating threats, letting you weaponize your mana base while still protecting it. Watching your lands rise up as creatures each end step feels flavorful and powerful, and the recursion ensures you’re never afraid to swing with them, including your new artifact land creatures.

Early Game Strategy – Ramp, Protect, Prepare

Toph needs a strong foundation. The early game is about ramping into her colors, setting up artifacts that will later double as lands, and preparing your board for her arrival.

The Setup

What to Focus On:

• Play mana rocks and utility artifacts that gain extra value as lands.

• Use ramp spells to ensure you can cast Toph quickly.

• Protect your board with cheap interaction until she’s online.

  
  

By the time Toph hits the battlefield, you’ll have artifacts ready to transform into lands and lands ready to animate.

Mid Game Strategy – Animate, Attack, Repeat

Once Toph is online, the mid game is where she shines. Her earthbend ability gives you a constant flow of creatures with haste, letting you pressure opponents while still keeping your mana base intact. You can also use cards like Mycosynth Lattice to turn all of your permanents into artifacts letting Toph go wild.

The Flow

What to Focus On:

• Animate lands each end step to build a steady army.

• Use artifact‑lands synergy to trigger landfall and artifact payoffs simultaneously.

• Lean into cards that reward you for lands entering or leaving the battlefield.

  
  

By now, Toph becomes a repeatable engine. Every turn, your lands rise up to fight, and even if they fall, they return tapped, ready to be bent again.

Late Game Strategy – Overwhelm and Recur

In the late game, Toph’s board presence becomes overwhelming. With multiple lands animated and counters stacking, she can close out games through sheer force.

The Win Condition

What to Focus On:

• Protect your animated lands with indestructible or hexproof effects.

• Use recursion to bring back key artifacts and lands if opponents wipe the board.

• Swing wide with an army of earthbent lands, forcing opponents to deal with constant pressure.

  
  

At this stage, Toph isn’t just bending the battlefield, she’s breaking it.

5 Must Include Cards

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild 

What it does: Ashaya turns all your nontoken creatures into Forest lands in addition to their other types. This makes your board synergize with landfall triggers and expands your mana base dramatically using your artifacts.

Why it fits: Toph already blurs the line between artifacts and lands. Ashaya pushes that theme further, ensuring every creature you play fuels land synergies and interacts with her earthbend ability in powerful ways. By default, the artifacts that are made lands do not tap for mana, Ashaya changes that.

Bristly Bill, Spine Sower

What it does: Bristly Bill adds +1/+1 counters whenever lands enter the battlefield under your control, steadily growing into a massive threat. It can also double the amount of +1/+1 counters on each creature.

Why it fits: Earthbend constantly animates lands and brings them back tapped when they die. Bristly Bill thrives in this environment, stacking counters every time your lands cycle through, making him a natural partner for Toph’s strategy.

Mindslaver

What it does: Mindslaver lets you control another player’s turn, dictating their plays and disrupting their strategy.

Why it fits: As an artifact, Mindslaver benefits from Toph’s ability to make nontoken artifacts into lands. This means it can interact with land synergies while still serving as a devastating control piece and comes back to the battlefield after you sacrifice it if it was earthbent. It’s flavorful too, Toph bending metal to dominate the battlefield.

Terrasymbiosis

What it does: Terrasymbiosis is a green card draw engine which are not super common.

Why it fits: Toph constantly animates lands with 2 +1/+1 counters. You get to draw 2 cards when this happens. You can even play this off of Bristly Bill when you aren't earthbending to take advantage of even more card draw.

Tezzeret, Cruel Captain

What it does: Tezzeret bridges the artifact and land strategy, offering abilities that manipulate artifacts while providing control and inevitability.

Why it fits: Counters are the strategy here. Your artifacts are lands, you make those lands creatures and use Tezzeret to buff them. With a lot of artifact play, Tezzeret should be gaining counters pretty steadily, making him hard to remove quickly.

Is a Toph, The First Metalbender Commander Deck a Fit?

A Toph, the First Metalbender Commander deck perfectly captures her character: tough, inventive, and unstoppable. By turning artifacts into lands and lands into creatures, she creates a deck that thrives on resilience and synergy.

If you want a build that feels flavorful, powerful, and uniquely interactive, Toph is ready to stomp her way into your Commander lineup.