Tonberry
Creature — Salamander Horror
This creature enters tapped with a stun counter on it. (If it would become untapped, remove a stun counter from it instead.)
Chef's Knife — During your turn, this creature has first strike and deathtouch.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- B
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Final Fantasy
- Price
- $0.22
- EDHREC rank
- #12805
Tonberry enters with a creature-kill trigger that scales off the number of creatures that have died this game — the longer the game runs, the more threatening it becomes. At three mana in black, the cost is right, but this card belongs in decks that can reliably track and exploit that accumulating damage, and Sephiroth, Planet's Heir is the clearest home for it.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Sephiroth, Planet's Heir
Sephiroth, Planet's Heir rewards stacking Calamity counters and grinding through combat, and Tonberry's scaling damage trigger feeds that engine naturally — every creature that's died all game is suddenly a liability for your opponents.
Vincent Valentine
Vincent Valentine's transformation theme leans on creatures dying and damage accumulating, which means Tonberry's "everyone's grudge" effect is never a dead trigger — it's a clock that gets faster as Vincent does his thing.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Tonberry is a Commander card through and through — the damage trigger scales with game length, and 100-card singleton games with four players guarantee the creature count climbs high enough to make it lethal. In competitive 1v1 formats like Modern or Pioneer, opponents die too fast and boards reset too efficiently for Tonberry's slow-burn payoff to matter. Legacy and Vintage have the same problem compounded by the presence of far more efficient threats. Commander is the only format where the math works out, and even there Tonberry wants a dedicated shell rather than a generic goodstuff slot.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.22 bulk tier
At $0.22, Tonberry is firmly bulk — easy to pick up as a four-of or just to slot into a Final Fantasy Commander build without thinking twice about the cost. Bulk rares with narrow homes tend to stay cheap unless a breakout deck pushes demand, so don't expect the price to move unless Sephiroth, Planet's Heir decks spike in popularity.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
- Sephiroth, Planet's Heir
- Vincent Valentine
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.