Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer Commander Deck Guide

Last updated on October 11, 2024

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer | Illustration by Alix Branwyn

I love toolbox decks. These decks use a suite of silver bullets to answer all manner of threats with a tutor package to find them at the perfect time. The strategy leads to diverse gameplay; the threats you’ll face change from game to game, so your tutor lines shift about.

Toolbox decks in Commander have a few prominent commanders. Jetmir, Nexus of Revels‘ anthem effect can be a solid option to turn your board of annoying dorks into a legitimate win condition. Karador, Ghost Chieftain offers powerful recursive elements and a reason to play tutors like Entomb. But I’ve always been partial to Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer since this great Naya card’s a tutor right in the command zone.

Let’s get cooking!

The Deck

Tangled Florahedron | Illustration by Randy Vargas

As a toolbox deck, this has a variety of answers. I focused on creatures. They provide pressure while slowing your opponents down and they work with Rocco. Green tutors excel at getting creatures right into play.

I cast a very wide net with the disruption package, but you can easily tune this list to your meta. For example, my only Rule of Law effect is Archon of Emeria, but, if there’s lots of Storm-esque combo at your LGS, you could get in Eidolon of Rhetoric and the original Rule of Law to expand that package. This deck’s flexibility is its glory.

For win conditions, I went hard on infinite combos. You have a variety of creature-based combos that win with combat damage or direct damage via Walking Ballista. You aren’t pulling your punches here – this build is high-powered. It’s not running nearly enough fast mana or free interaction to qualify as a cEDH deck, but you’re winning with infinite combos and tutoring up stax pieces. This fails every casual rule 0 on this planet and Mars.

The Commander: Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer holds everything together. Having Chord of Calling in the command zone of a deck focused on assembling silver bullet creatures is impeccable. Not only does your Naya commander find disruption, but this elf druid also functions as an infinite mana outlet for several combos using Dockside Extortionist. Rocco completes this list.

Tutors + Card Draw

This section includes the tutor suite and all the cards that provide card advantage in one form or another.

Wirewood Symbiote synergizes specifically with Rocco. It’s not uncommon for this green creature to be the first card you tutor with it. Bouncing Rocco to hand lets you cast it again and again without the commander tax. It’s important to note that returning Rocco to hand is the activation cost of the Wirewood Symbiote‘s ability. Once you announce that you’re using it, your opponents can’t respond by killing Rocco; they don’t get priority until Wirewood’s trigger is on the stack, which means you’ve paid the cost by returning Rocco to your hand.

Esper Sentinel lets this deck play something akin to Rhystic Study. As one of white's best card-draw spells, this artifact creature provides plenty of card advantage unless your opponents pay the one, in which case they’re playing off-curve. Both options benefit you.

Karmic Guide plays a role in your combos but also just gets a creature back into play. It does its best work when reanimating a disruption piece an opponent tried to remove.

Imperial Recruiter and Recruiter of the Guard find virtually every creature in the deck between the two of them. One of their best hits is Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to tutor up new cards every turn.

Ranger-Captain of Eos pulls double duty in this list, finding valuable 1-drops like Wirewood Symbiote and Esper Sentinel while shutting down an opponent on scary turns, plus protecting your combos from countermagic.

Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor help assemble most of your combos. All your combos use at least one creature; Enlightened Tutor finds both halves of the Heliod/Ballista combo plus interaction in Swift Reconfiguration and Spirit of the Labyrinth.

Eladamri's Call is practically Demonic Tutor for this list.

Green Sun's Zenith and Chord of Calling drop creatures right into play. Chord does tons of work, letting you find the perfect answer in response to a threat or even assembling an instant-speed combo win under the right circumstances. Finale of Devastation occupies a similar role while doubling as an infinite mana outlet.

Vivien on the Hunt primarily functions as a combo piece with Rocco and Kiki-Jiki but Birthing Pod stapled to a creature pulls plenty of weight in a deck like this, plus a few Rhino Warriors can go a long way to winning a game.

Natural Order Package

Natural Order counts as a tutor, but I want to highlight it separately as I added a handful of cards specifically to synergize with this green sorcery. Don’t be afraid to turn a mana dork into Manglehorn or something if the moment calls for it, but these options give the deck a bit of oomph at the top end of the curve. Or, you know, turn 3 or whenever you ramp into Natural Order.

Between Kogla, the Titan Ape and Woodfall Primus, you can answer nearly any threat your opponents throw at you. Both are also surprisingly resilient threats between indestructible and persist.

Ruric Thar, the Unbowed disrupts a narrow range of decks like Storm and spellslinger, but those decks simply can’t function until they remove this. It hurts early in the game when players are still developing their mana with rocks and Rampant Growth variants.

You should never name creature with Archon of Valor's Reach because that locks you out of the game, but you shouldn’t care much about the other options. This card does a great job shutting down various combo decks and decks that rely on a critical mass of one card type.

Craterhoof Behemoth is the classic Natural Order target. As the red mages say, the best interaction is player interaction. Craterhoof turns a bunch of dorks into a lethal mob faster than your opponents can say “good game.”

Disruption

Before we get too deep, I want to clarify the difference between the disruption section and the interaction section. The disruption spells are your stax pieces that slow your opponents’ gameplan, either by inhibiting them by making spells cost more or flat preventing them from taking game actions. The interaction cards in the next section destroy or exile resolved threats. You can think of these spells as proactive interaction and the following spells as reactive interaction.

Allosaurus Shepherd ensures most of your spells resolve. It doesn’t protect everything, but you care about the green ones the most anyway.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben throws a subtle but noticeable wrench into your opponents’ plans. It’s not uncommon for players to keep a hand reliant on playing a turn 2 Signet or Talisman that goes off the rails when you drop Thalia.

Dauntless Dismantler was only released in The Lost Caverns of Ixalan but has made a big splash. Infinite Treasure combos fall flat against this artificer, as do combos that rely on Sensei's Divining Top. It’s not just an anti-combo card though; decks relying on mana rocks to curve out are easily thrown off curve when their Talismans and Signets come into play tapped.

Grand Abolisher primarily protects you during your turn so your opponents can’t interact with your spells, which punishes holding up interaction and lets you combo cleanly.

Drannith Magistrate might be the most hated card on this list by the player base, but it does the work to warrant it. It doesn’t just prevent your opponents from playing their commanders; it stops nonsense with Bolas's Citadel, kills cascade decks, and shuts down the million impulse draws available these days.

Since your card advantage focuses heavily on tutors, you can get away with Spirit of the Labyrinth to punish opponents going crazy with The One Ring and other card-draw engines.

Aven Mindcensor prevents your opponents from tutoring; even if they don’t fail to find they won’t hit what they want. This dish is best served in response to a fetch land.

Archon of Emeria brings the pace of the game down to a caterer’s pace. Preventing your opponents from curving out or playing multiple spells screws over a lot of decks. As for you, you can comfortably play under this. Temur Sabertooth doesn’t work as a combo piece with Archon in play but you can execute all your other combos by casting one or fewer spells.

Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines might be the most expensive disruptive piece, but it deserves its spot as the only Torpor Orb variant you can play. Too many of your combos, not to mention Rocco, rely on ETBs to play Hushbringer or Strict Proctor.

Interaction

You have a hefty focus on creature-based interaction because of your commander and tutor package, but I still found room for Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and March of Otherworldly Light to handle threats your creatures can’t. Though Swift Reconfiguration made the cut as a combo piece, it can stop creatures in a pinch.

You also have quite a few noncreature cards that protect your board. You need to be hyper-vigilant about board wipes, so Clever Concealment and Flawless Maneuver protect the board for no mana while Teferi's Protection handles board wipes and threats. Selfless Spirit gives you a protective spell that your tutors find. Deflecting Swat protects a single card.

Loran of the Third Path and Reclamation Sage destroy problematic artifacts and get rid of enchantments. Manglehorn straddles the line between disruption and interaction, blowing up an artifact on ETB and messing with them for the rest of the game.

Skyclave Apparition serves as a catch-all for cheap threats while Solitude handles any creature at any time, even when you’re tapped out.

Endurance rounds things out by getting rid of scary graveyards.

The Mana Base

The first part of the mana base is the acceleration. It’s all mana dorks, no Rampant Growths or mana rocks to be found. You have the usual assortment of 1-mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, Delighted Halfling, and Avacyn's Pilgrim.

Dockside Extortionist and Devoted Druid provide big bursts of mana while serving as combo pieces.

Bloom Tender and Faeburrow Elder are must-includes in multicolor decks because they tap for so much mana. Gwenna, Eyes of Gaea and Orcish Lumberjack provide huge bursts of mana as well, with the former growing into a threat as the game progresses.

Gemstone Caverns and Ancient Tomb get your lands in on the ramp as well. Dryad Arbor occupies a similar position thanks to Green Sun's Zenith (or Rocco if you’re really desperate for mana).

Boseiju, Who Endures and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire let your lands interact with your opponents.

The last value land is Command Beacon. The command tax adds up faster on Rocco than most commanders because of its X cost, making a way to mitigate that value important. It also gets around stuff like Drannith Magistrate.

The Strategy

Understanding your opponents' decks is key to piloting this deck well. Finding the right answers at the right time does all the work of a toolbox deck. For example, if you’re facing a spellslinger commander, look for cards like Grand Abolisher and Archon of Emeria that restrict the timing and number of spells that can be cast or cards like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben that tax those spells.

Manglehorn and Dauntless Dismantler are better tutor targets when your opponents are playing artifact commanders, especially with cards like Prosper, Tome-Bound or Rashmi and Ragavan that pump out Treasure.

Knowing how to knock your opponents off-kilter solves half the equation with this deck. The other half comes from tutoring up combos that win while your opponents are unbalanced. This deck has quite a few combo lines to familiarize yourself with, though many of them only require two cards.

Combos and Interactions

This deck has a hefty combo package, though most of them revolve around Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Dockside Extortionist. Let’s start with the simplest ones:

Devoted Druid + Swift Reconfiguration

For this combo, you need Devoted Druid in play. Enchant it with Swift Reconfiguration. This turns it into an artifact. You can then tap it for , then untap it. Because it doesn’t have power or toughness, you can repeat this to generate infinite green mana.

The best outlets for the infinite green are Walking Ballista and Finale of Devastation.

Dockside Extortionist + Temur Sabertooth

You need both permanents in play and for Dockside’s trigger to create at least five Treasure tokens for this combo.

Activate Temur Sabertooth’s ability and return Dockside Extortionist to your hand with two Treasure, then use another two to replay it. Repeat to net one Treasure each time for infinite mana of all colors.

Dockside Extortionist + Emiel the Blessed

This combo requires both creatures in play and Dockside’s trigger to create at least four Treasure.

Activate Emiel the Blessed’s ability to flicker Dockside. That’s it. It nets infinite Treasure like the above combo.

Once you have infinite Treasure with one of these combos, you can win with Rocco. Either bounce it to hand with Temur Sabertooth or flicker it and let it go to the command zone with Emiel the Blessed, then recast it to put each creature in your deck into play. 

Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista

For this combo, you need both permanents in play and for Ballista to have at least two +1/+1 counters.

Activate Heliod’s ability to give Ballista lifelink. Then remove a counter from Walking Ballista to deal 1 damage to an opponent. This gains life, triggering Heliod; you’ll put another counter on Ballista. Repeat for infinite damage.

Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Felidar Guardian

This combo requires both creatures in play.

Tap Kiki-Jiki to make a token copy of Felidar Guardian with haste. Use Felidar’s ETB trigger to flicker Kiki-Jiki, putting it in play untapped. Repeat for infinite hasty Felidars to end the game.

Imperial Recruiter helps assemble this combo; if you have Recruiter, you can find Kiki-Jiki, then use Kiki-Jiki to copy Recruiter to tutor for Felidar. It’s pretty mana-intensive but assembles the win.

Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer + Vivien on the Hunt + Karmic Guide + Felidar Guardian + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

This one’s a lot of fun. It requires Rocco and Vivien in play and all other cards in your library.

Sacrifice Rocco to Vivien on the Hunt’s first ability. Search for Felidar Guardian and put it into play.

When Felidar enters, use its trigger to flicker Vivien. Now that it’s a new instance of Vivien, you can activate its ability again; sacrifice the Felidar Guardian.

Put Karmic Guide into play with Vivien’s ability and make it reanimate Felidar Guardian. When Guardian comes into play, flicker Viven again.

Sacrifice Felidar to Vivien once more, this time tutoring Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker into play. Use Kiki-Jiki’s activated ability to copy Karmic Guide, returning Felidar Guardian to play. Have Felidar flicker Kiki-Jiki, then proceed with the Kiki-Felidar combo to win.

Rules 0 Violations Check

This is a high-power deck that violates most rule 0s. Tutoring up combo pieces and stax cards falls well outside the realm of casual Commander.

Budget Options

The first place to make budget cuts in most decks is the mana base. You can remove utility lands and expensive dual lands for basic lands and budget lands like Gates and gain lands. You can save a staggering amount of money that way.

Dockside Extortionist stands heads and tails above the price of any cards in the deck, but it’s crucial to your combo lines. But you can use other ones! You can cut Dockside, Temur Sabertooth, and Emiel the Blessed for Food Chain, Squee, the Immortal, and Eternal Scourge for a different combo package that costs less than Dockside alone.

Finale of Devastation can be replaced with Shared Summons for another tutor.

Walking Ballista serves as an infinite mana outlet and combo piece with Heliod. You could cut it for either Triskelion to combo with Heliod or Flamewave Invoker as a mana outlet—if you do the latter, you can also cut Heliod for another disruptive piece that’s cheaper.

Esper Sentinel’s status as a multiformat staple keeps its price high. It’s rather irreplaceable but Mother of Runes could be a starting point for extra protection.

Teferi's Protection could easily become Heroic Intervention or Make a Stand.

Allosaurus Shepherd has easy replacements in Destiny Spinner or Prowling Serpopard for more mana.

Other Builds

You could power this deck way down, making it friendlier for casual play and cheaper. The best starting place would be ditching the combos for more conventional wins centered on combat damage. Jetmir, Nexus of Revels and Aurelia, the Warleader are excellent starting points to turn a board of creatures into a lethal threat.

If you wanted to stray from the toolbox strategy, Rocco would be a fine elfball commander that ensures you always have the staples like Priest of Titania, Circle of Dreams Druid, and Elvish Archdruid at your fingertips.

Commanding Conclusion

Esper Sentinel | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

I love toolbox strategies. Having access to an assortment of silver bullets I can pull out at just the right time feels impactful. I know I’ve always got the answer if I have the right time and resources. Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer must have been designed with this strategy in mind and is one of the best toolbox commanders.

Do you enjoy stax and toolbox strategies? What commander would you play? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and thanks for reading!