Card Spotlight
Demonic Tutor
Two mana, one of it black: search your library for any card and put it into your hand. It was printed in Alpha in 1993, and every other tutor is still measured against it.
Commander Spotlight
Demonic Tutor ↗
Two mana, one of it black: search your library for any card and put it into your hand. It was printed in Alpha in 1993, and every other tutor is still measured against it.
See Demonic Tutor's full stats and printings →
Strategies it goes well with
- Combo decks. Finding the missing half of a two-card combo on demand is close to Demonic Tutor's ideal job.
- Control and reactive decks. A two-mana tutor for any card can find the specific answer a game state calls for, whether that is a board wipe, a piece of removal, or a counterspell.
- Any deck with a single best card. A deck built around one specific bomb (a wincon, a lock piece) gets far more consistent the moment it can fetch that card on demand.
How it does in Commander
As the commander
It's a sorcery, never a commander. It sits in the 99 of a black deck and makes that deck more consistent.
In the 99
About as close to an automatic include as black gets. It is cheap, unconditional, and useful in any deck shape, from aggro to control to dedicated combo.
Formats it's strong in
- cEDH and combo-focused decks. Consistency is everything at that speed, and finding the missing combo piece on curve is often the difference between winning turn three or not winning at all.
- Any black deck. It improves every black archetype, because it makes any deck more consistent rather than supporting one strategy.
Formats it's weak in
- Decks with no single best target. A tutor is only as good as what it finds, and a deck with no bomb worth fetching gets less from it than one built around a specific plan.
- Very low-power or precon-level pods. Unconditional tutoring can accelerate a deck well past the table's expectations, which is again a Rule 0 conversation worth having.
Synergistic cards
Vampiric Tutor ↗
The instant-speed sibling, for finding an answer at the moment it's needed rather than on your own turn.
Thassa's Oracle ↗
A classic Demonic Tutor target the moment a library-emptying combo is one card away from completion.
Sheoldred, the Apocalypse ↗
One of the most commonly fetched black bombs. It swings a game on its own once it resolves.
Any combo piece ↗
Demonic Tutor's real synergy is with whatever your deck's single most important card is, whatever that happens to be.
Is it worth the price?
Demonic Tutor's age and limited reprint history have kept it an expensive staple. It's worth the investment in a combo or control shell that depends on consistency, and a luxury upgrade in a more casual, less tuned list.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Demonic Tutor considered the best tutor in Magic?
It finds any card in the deck, with no restriction on type or category, for two mana. It's a sorcery, but it costs almost nothing. No other unconditional tutor matches its efficiency, which is why every card that does something similar (Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Tutor) is described relative to it.
What should I tutor for with Demonic Tutor?
Whatever wins the game fastest or answers the biggest problem on the battlefield: a combo piece if one's missing, a board wipe if you're behind, a specific answer to a stuck permanent. The right target changes every game, and that flexibility is why you run it.
Is Demonic Tutor legal in every Commander bracket?
It's legal in Commander, but it is on the Game Changers list, so the brackets limit it. Brackets 1 and 2 allow no Game Changers, Bracket 3 allows up to three, and Brackets 4 and 5 have no limit. Vampiric Tutor is on the list as well.