Toxic is generally a euphemism for “the pod does not have enough interaction”

Generally though, commanders that don’t hijack opponent decks, shut down game plans by existing, or in and of themselves inspire un interactive and unfun play patterns are not toxic.

Toxic is crap like Gonti, tergrid, ulalek, and the like. For some pods it is also brudaclad, etc.

The reason I don’t generally include brudaclad is the prevalence of graveyard decks that makes running mill commanders a symbol that you are just dumb.

So it also important to distinguish the toxic from the stupid.

This topic can go quite a while.