Is Tooth and Nail good in Commander?

Tooth and Nail in Commander — Combos, Decks & Price

Tooth and Nail with entwine puts two creatures from your library directly into play for nine mana — that's a two-card combo assembled at instant-free sorcery speed, and the game usually ends on the spot. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds can generate enough mana to cast it on turn four or five, which is exactly why it shows up in 40% of Selvala lists.

Format Analysis

Where it lives, where it can’t

Format	Verdict
commander	legal
legacy	legal
modern	legal
pioneer	not legal
standard	not legal
vintage	legal
pauper	not legal
oathbreaker	banned

Tooth and Nail is legal in Legacy, Modern, Vintage, and Commander, but it's banned in Oathbreaker — the 20-life starting total and lower-power signature spell framework make a nine-mana tutor-plus-cheat effect too consistent a one-card win condition at that table. Commander gives it a pass because 40 life and a singleton deck mean you need to actually build toward the mana, which is a real constraint. In Modern and Legacy it's technically legal but sees almost no play; the formats move too fast for a nine-mana sorcery to matter. Commander is where Tooth and Nail lives, and where it's genuinely one of the strongest top-end cards available in green.

Best Commanders

Commanders with the highest synergy

01

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds

40.3% of decks · synergy 0.35

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds can produce absurd amounts of green mana off a single large creature, and Tooth and Nail is the natural payoff — drop a fatty to spike Selvala's ability, then cash that mana in to put Xenagos, God of Revels and Ghalta, Primal Hunger into play on the same turn.

02

Belbe, Corrupted Observer

22.7% of decks · synergy 0.22

Belbe, Corrupted Observer incentivizes dealing damage to opponents in order to generate massive bursts of colorless mana, and Tooth and Nail is the cleanest way to spend nine mana in a single explosive turn — fetch whatever two-creature package closes the game and you're done.

03

Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss

19.0% of decks · synergy 0.17

Raggadragga, Goreguts Boss builds around creatures with tap abilities that produce multiple mana, and that engine naturally threatens the nine-mana threshold early; Tooth and Nail lets the deck skip the combat math and just tutor the winning pair directly into play.

04

Marwyn, the Nurturer

20.8% of decks · synergy 0.16

Marwyn, the Nurturer scales her power off elf ETBs and can hit double-digit mana output with a full board; Tooth and Nail is the clean kill-switch that converts that mana into two specific creatures rather than hoping a combat step gets there.

05

Mayael the Anima

17.5% of decks · synergy 0.16

Mayael the Anima decks stock the library with enormous creatures by design, making Tooth and Nail a guaranteed hit — when Mayael's tap ability misses or you need a specific pair rather than a random five-power creature, Tooth and Nail finds exactly what you need.

Key Combos

Combo lines featuring this card

Price Context

Current price

$3.07 cheap tier

At $3.07, Tooth and Nail sits in the cheap tier for a card that effectively ends Commander games the turn it resolves. It's a high-demand staple at a low price point, so don't expect it to get cheaper — pick it up if you're running green big-mana and haven't yet.