Who Is This Commander Even For?

[@S1L3NTDr460n]

The whole "where does this go?" sorta conundrum, of it being not good enough for cEDH but a little bit 'too much' for casual tables, is exactly where Slivers reside lol

[@poopboxsquad]

Slivers aren’t that bad anymore

[@Nephalem2002]

Slivers are fine if the player playing them isn’t going full Tilt.

[@MrJoshd109]

Slivers and my Light Paws deck. It's really good but just not quite cedh tier.

[@adrianlankford5765]

I would say Toxrill more so than slivers.

[@IIIHUSKIII]

Toxic Deluge tells your slivers to pound sand.

[@Cm91489]

It’s one of those commanders that demands feel-bads on one side of the table - either the eldrazi player gets to play and nobody else does when they have no permanents left, or the table has to focus the eldrazi player out and keep them from playing before they can do their thing.

[@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299]

LOL I had a game like that last FNM, buddy was playing Slivers and we thought we neutered them good, felt bad about it, but in a single turn they won from basically having no board ;p

[@DiabloTommaso]

Is this worse than a win with cratherhoof? In my opinion is similar. That said we can talk about a cratherhoof in the command zone but I think it s strong but you work for it.

[@Cm91489]

@@DiabloTommaso These aren’t alike at all. Hoof doesn’t create a situation where the table has to keep someone from playing before they’re kept from playing. Hoof just ends the game. It might be boring and there’s a convo to have about whether it’s a fun wincon or not in your meta, but I really don’t see the relevance or any similarity here.

[@thomasfleming8131]

​@@DiabloTommasoI think the problem is that a Craterhoof is a win con. You play and win, and if you didn't you probably have a problem. For 5 mana and some tokens, you get to use this ability turn after turn, grinding away at everyone's board states until you secure the win but that could be several turns of the other people at the table not actually playing the game.

[@altromonte15]

That's just how eldrazi play in general

[@thestralspirit]

It should only give Azlask the power and toughness buff. Way funnier to win by attacking your opponents with nothing but 0/1s and 1/1s with the most terrifying ability in the game. The way it's worded now means they'll likely be the size of things that have annihilator already

[@leopardbunny]

I wouldn't even mind the Indestructible. Annihilator 1 is just too far, though.

[@spartica7720]

As someone who started playing just before BFZ and Eldritch moon. I’m glad we finally got colored Eldrazi commanders, that being said I think 5 color is a boring way to take it. It’s the sliverfication of Eldrazi. It’s just there so someone can run all the best Eldrazi in a deck at once.

[@leopardbunny]

Personally, I'd really love to see a CR Eldrazi deck with that new Eldrazi Dragon that gives everything Emerge.

[@11epicnoob]

​@@leopardbunny wdym with "CR"?

[@newdarkcloud]

I suspect what will happen when you play the 5-color Eldrazi deck in Commander is that the other players will "correctly" gang up on you to ensure that you're dead before you even have the chance to untap with this thing on board.

[@ML-yn9yu]

Whelp let's hope we have an all is dust in hand

[@oom-3262]

thats just the average eldrazi experience tbh. Not much has changed.

[@ML-yn9yu]

@@oom-3262 fact's! I have to fight off most of the other players and pray to emrakul I get my board wipes or my commander plate

[@dakkenblah1450]

I would love another deck that pulls some of the hate away from my Slivers.

[@theabrandt6177]

You don't need to untap with it. You could make a deck with all the experience counter cards in it and proliferate, get like 30 experience counters. And then have a 3wubrg spell that gives all your creatures +30/+30

[@CircusQueen8]

"Its the front facing commander" proceeds to show box where its not the front facing commander

[@PleasantKenobi]

Well...

[@sambrown9475]

​@@PleasantKenobi I'm with kenobi on this. Ulalek is a lightning rod commander just asking to be removed Azlask costs 2 less and has a nutty activated ability

[@eewweeppkk]

@@sambrown9475 Its literally not the front facing commander though. Also they're both quite definitely lightning rod commanders. Ulalek is like a big splashy dream, but Azlask gives stuff annihilator and nobody wants annihilator.

[@johnathanreynolds1108]

​@@eewweeppkk this is where I say I want annihilator😂

[@sambrown9475]

@@eewweeppkk I'd much rather pay the tax on Azlask than Ulalek 🤷‍♂️ but yes you're right it's not technically the face commander. But it should be

[@johnsnow3938]

"all slivers you control have annihilator 1" is kind of terrifying

[@Rundvelt]

Except they're not slivers. They're 0/1 eldrazi spawn that are mana based. Run forced sac, save your removal for the commander exclusively and this deck will likely end in a whimper. I mean, unless MH3 is absurdly broken, which it may be, but then it's not the commander, it's everything else. :)

[@johnsnow3938]

@@Rundvelt you understand that cards like maskwood nexus exist? And that you can easily build this commander as a sliver deck?

[@francisserpa4465]

Maskwood Nexus was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thing. You could do mass Krenko goblins or elves that tap for the different mana colors you need. And then make them all annihilator spawn

[@johnsnow3938]

@@francisserpa4465 yeah could be any tribal and it works. Sliver was just the most evil I could think of

[@Hemlocker]

@@johnsnow3938 Rukarumel with Azlask is a terrifying thought...

[@nickd6303]

Both of the five color eldrazi scream I'm the archenemy.

[@DiabloTommaso]

More the 3 cmc one. Strong but you see the ability coming

[@oom-3262]

Eh, all eldrazi do that, honestly.

[@II-xv1hp]

As they should, they literally are the arch enemy

[@Chicken_PatPie]

It's abilities like these that give stax players the argument that it's "fair to play cursed Totem" in edh 😅

[@DiabloTommaso]

@@Chicken_PatPie cursed totem is fine wdum?

[@altromonte15]

I feel like the play pattern is going to be a lot like Jetmir: they build a board, and either you wrath every single turn or they drop the commander a bunch of creatures on board and you're dead. it warps the game around itself. I would have liked it better if it said something like "if you have 3 or more XP counters they also get annihilator" or something like that. Something you need to work for.

[@tonysmith9905]

So keeping a board presence isn't some thing to work for? While 3 other people are gonna be gunning you down? Oh and you need to sac and let die a bunch of things before hand to make that 5c activation lethal? Yeah no sorry but it's work.

[@altromonte15]

@@tonysmith9905 going wide with eldrazi spawns is really easy and not really a big investment, and you don't have to sac much of anything since once you have a bunch the annihilator alone will take out a player, even if you have 0 experience counters

[@tonysmith9905]

@@altromonte15 Good luck keeping your commander out and a swarm!

[@altromonte15]

@@tonysmith9905 you don't need to keep your commander out. You play it only when you already have a board, and even if they remove it right away they can't stop you from activating it.

[@tonysmith9905]

@@altromonte15 Good luck keeping your commander out AND A SWARM!!!!!

[@cannibalskitchen8421]

While I understand what you are saying about Commander players being babied, I don't see how to play around this besides never letting the eldrazi player untap with their commander. It's like slivers or Korvold where once they get off the ground stopping them becomes a Herculean task.

[@cherry9787]

Farewell lmfao

[@adedamolayusuff5995]

​@@cherry9787 I mean, but Farewell answers almost everything in the game except Planeswalkers, which don't see that much play in EDH anyway.

[@Hapkins-le6xf]

Yeah, you never let them untap. How is that a problem? This is a "I'm the enemy" card. I'm cool with those existing. If the player playing this ends up feeling bad, that's on them.

[@JakesFavorites]

Any exile removal will work. The question is, how many of the experience cards will they be running on top? If you can deal with a Meren you can deal with this.

[@aclevername7613]

Pretty much anyone playing eldrazi is among the strats that make you the target and honestly you need to expect and deal with being the arch enemy and being targeted down. You bothered by it? Then play less toxic bs. If not well no moaning when your targeted down so nobody wants to keep losing thier stuff to annihilator bs.

[@grandogrando6505]

I think the worst part is the annihilator has absolutely nothing to do with the experience counters, so you can just not play your commander and just create scions until you get 8 mana and then basically treat it as a sorcery instead of a creature.

[@aegisgamingofficial2178]

Underrated comment right here. Very poor card design.

[@SSolemn]

Like Jetmir

[@Damn_Cat]

Right?! What a weird choice. Had it said something along the lines of generating tokens based on experience or giving ONE CREATURE annihilator based on experience by removing the counters as a cost, it would make sense. But no, the counters don't have any real meaning past 1.

[@Rundvelt]

Puts effect on the stack, killed by removal. Tempo lost. Anyone who reads the card will prep for it. Also this deck will lose to actual token decks.

[@m1gr3nA]

indestructibility is large part of the problem. it means all the tokens will survive for next attack. without it defending players could sac non-blockers, block and kill the tokens. there would be real cost attached to the attack. they could have made it buff only itself with that ability. indestructible commander with anihilator x and power buff is scary but more interactable than swath of tokens. they could have even made it gain the ability granting tokens anihilator so it works like anthem and making it interactable. but they made this. i'm expecting to have a lot of "fun" when multiple people show up with this precon and almost every pod have one. i guess i will dust off my blue moon deck and make them suffer for their atrocious 5c manabase.

[@xchrisyxd5203]

You can pull your punches a little bit, because it doesnt say the magic words "activate only as a sorcery" - so if you dont want to annihilate the table, you can always activate the abilitie after you declared your attackers, which means the annihilator 1 on every attacking Spawn/Scion wont trigger anymore though they all get the buff and indestructible.

[@alexanderchipman9571]

Yes, but that's not how people are going to WANT to use it.

[@dyne313]

The Eldrazi are destroying fortification? There are 2 fortification cards in the game.

[@PleasantKenobi]

You got me.

[@dyne313]

@@PleasantKenobi I thought it was funny you mentioned the least printed of all card subtypes

[@DaijDjan]

​@@dyne313 Technically there are several creature types only featured on a single card, so they'd be even rarer - like Giant Oyster being the only oyster ;) (Your general remark still stands, though^^)

[@DaisyEdwards-md7jl]

I'm surprised it didn't come with a restriction of "if x is equal to 10 then you get annihilator 1" I think that would have good flavour

[@ninjablade2]

That's actually a solid idea... Gives you something to work towards through the game and stops it from going wild through too many early game means

[@superspen97]

If they wanted a 5c eldrazi commander, they could have just written "you can play eldrazi cards and cards with devoid as though their color identity were colorless". Holy shit, 5c activated abilities on colorless to 2 color commanders are not the move

[@oom-3262]

I actually like it for a change. Drones get into draft chaff quality rather fast if you lock yourself into a couple of colors. This was a neccesary concession to make them playable to begin with. I've been trying to brew scion+spawn+drone since battle for zendikar and they just suck ass if you dont use them to ramp into the same old three big guys.

[@tonysmith9905]

What you just proposed actually doesn't allow you to play 5c eldrazi though...it's just eldrazi. Which is not what they intended.

[@wademiller2376]

​@@tonysmith9905maybe he didn't say it exactly like the rules manager would have too but you knew what he was talking about. Wotc always acts like they can't just make the rules... I mean they do make the rules and make amendments all the time

[@tonysmith9905]

@@wademiller2376 Yeah, he wants to make an eldrazi deck without all the colors, which is not what Wotc wanted to do. It's two different ideas.

[@miguelfreitas5343]

And here I was, thinking Ulalek was the Eldrazi precon commander... xD

[@Tyke-Myson]

I wanna say me because I really like experience counters as a gimmick, but dear lord man, this thing is a mistake.

[@DiabloTommaso]

Nahhhh it s cratherhoof that people see coming and you have to work for it.

[@markbradshaw3066]

Yeah. I've been wanting to make an experience deck and this commander would allow that but I'd have to make it clear to my opponents that I have no spawn or scions.

[@Tyke-Myson]

@markbradshaw3066 I've been running Ravos, Soultender + Tana the Bloodsower to facilitate a big mana/exp counter deck up to now, and I think I'm just gonna stick to that lol.

[@magicalmadness]

​@@markbradshaw3066 mate ima tell you now. No one is going to believe you it's going up there with tergrid and aatraxa. Like yeah it may not be that version, but commander players are paranoid

[@jyomi7506]

Yup, I was thinking the same thing... I just wanted to slap all the XP counter creatures into a deck together with some Eldrazi spawn but that annihilator 1 is gonna get me jumped in the parking lot at my LGS lol...

[@MechAleXtreme]

What really sucks is that you can cast this card, if it doesn't get countered, then any removal attempt that player can just sac the spawns and scion in response, netting them the experience counters anyway, and then having the mana from the spawns and scions to be able to cast it again

[@tonysmith9905]

Yeah sure, cuz ya know, we're all gonna be destroying him and your swarm with our wraths during your turn. We're totally gonna swords it on your turn so you can just do what you said!

[@warcraftkid22]

Leyline of anticipation ​@@tonysmith9905

[@boringmonkey6958]

​@tonysmith9905 If the eldrazi player is all tapped out, then sure, waiting for the turn to pass to you before destroying Azlask would be a smart play. But if the Eldrazi player waits to cast this until they have the mana to activate it the same turn they cast it (which is always going to be the smarter play), leaving this thing on the board when you have the ability to instantly remove it is hardly a smart play.

[@tonysmith9905]

@@boringmonkey6958 If they have the mana to activate it's ability then it doesn't matter, you're gonna have a buncha annihilating spawn coming your way unless you got counterspells. It's an instant speed effect so they're just gonna activate in response. Most of the time it won't be in your favor to kill it right away.

[@ecureuilADN]

I would have preferred an "Ingest" and "return exiled card to graveyard" focus than exp and annihilator. It would be really interesting to have a weird counter for all of these "exile cards to play them" and give some love for all these "terrible" eldrazis that work with returning exiled cards to graveyard to activate their effects. But of course find a way to gain advantage from this process

[@snakeman830]

I put a number of Processors into my Scarab God deck. It's great getting to re-use the best creatures in my opponents' graveyards.

[@ecureuilADN]

@@snakeman830 What a great idea, thought some of them would be good for Rocco street chef to only let your opponent cast stuff that you don't mind but never thought of using them elsewhere

[@SorcererTim45]

"whenever one or more nonland cards leave exile (??), create a spawn/scion", or something like that?

[@Hakaze]

Yeah, letting you cast cards from exile, when ingesting, would have been a lot more fun than this

[@ecureuilADN]

@@SorcererTim45 Maybe something like this ? Colorless creatures you control have ingest CCC: colorless creatures you control gain +1/+1 until end of the turn and you may play cards exiled by colorless creatures this turn. If a spell card was exiled by a Scion or Spawn this way, it costs WBURG less to cast Or something like that, it could be seriously better (Spell card like not a land, don't remember how to phrase it) Edit : didn't add the "return from exile" part... hm maybe add something like "at the beginning of each end step, if a card own by your opponent left exile, create a 0/1 eldrazi token etc." ? Anyway, it's not what we have, so that's sad

[@Kahadi]

What I find funny is that, outside of the Precon, people probably won't even be using it as an Eldrazi Commander. It gives everything +X/+X, there are other ways of getting experience counters, and since Spawn and Scion are creature types, that means Changelings also get Indestructible and Annihilator 1, and you can give it to everything using effects that alter creature types. Slap down Arcane Adaptation or Xenograft and now everything is a Spawn or a Scion. All of the Elves made by Lathril or Goblins made by Krenko, whatever. Toss him into a Tribal Tribal or All Tribes deck and you can get thousands of tokens incredibly fast, make them all Scions or Spawns, and everything just wrecks the board while also being Indestructible. You don't even need to worry about the Experience Counters if that's the kind of play you're going for, just nuking the board when you attack, especially when Tribal Tribal can use Lords to pump everything as well. I would not be surprised if most people buy the deck just to put him in a better deck.

[@ertai222]

You're probably right.

[@traycarrot]

It is crazy to me that your idea of a "better deck" is this bizarre mash of tribal synergies that are blank without your commander and require their own support, some random changelings to hopefully trigger on death, and tribal altering effects 😂

[@Greg501-]

It would have been interesting if these came with a clause like "While [name] is your commander, your deck can only include colorless cards (lands and cards with devoid are colorless, most cards that don't cost colored mana to cast are colorless)" or something like that to make them more than just another 5c that you put all the good cards in

[@TyrWolf88]

Honestly glad we finally can play the small Eldrazi together with a kindred commander. Annihilator is an attack trigger. If you want to play nice, you have 2 options: play 5-color XP with no Scions (Azlask will still +X), or only activate after declaring attacks, so you don't get annihilator triggers.

[@ODIRGO]

Third option for your tribal commander to play nice: avoid using eldrazis.

[@leopardbunny]

@@ODIRGO Nah, the local dino decks have had it too good for too long.

[@thatguyintherain3168]

I think the 5 colour ability is in a way there to nerf it. If it was 5 generic, it could be reduced by training ground effects. If it was 5 wastes, it would be easy to activate. Having to jump through the hoops of getting 5 colours is maybe just how they decided to slow down the ability. The average casual player might have trouble activating it more than once per turn

[@happymaster19]

So then you just set up recursion loops to stack up to infinite experience counters so you only need to activate it once. Maybe bring in a Cryptolith Rite or something similar. You may not get multiple iterations of Annihilator but a board full of inifinite powered creatures shpuld yield a similar effecf.

[@posadistpossum]

Yup, for casual EDH it's a 5 color activation ability which will be hard to do. For more competitive games it's a 2/2 with no built in protection that does nothing on ETB or cast.

[@eewweeppkk]

@@happymaster19 Nobody cares about the big creatures, they're worried about stacking multiple annihilator triggers onto a bunch of little spawns and making the game a miserable slog. By all fucking means - spend a turn or two of set up and require a stick with a 3 cmc commander into a very restricted 5 color activated ability - I HOPE you would win the game off of that and we can do another one. I'm not worried about someone winning a game with those hoops, you can win the game already with thoracle consultation no problem way earlier with no set up. I'm worried about having to sack down my lands on turn 5 before I have relevant threats or someone with only 3-4 experience counters being able to annihilator 2 everyone with a bunch of creatures.

[@traycarrot]

​@@eewweeppkk ...what? You're literally groaning about the play style you just said you didn't mind?

[@eewweeppkk]

@treycuret No? I'm saying I'm fine with pumping up creatures and swinging out. I'm complaining about an ability making me sacrifice half my things and making the game a slow grindfest.grind fest. The person I replied to implied that the ability is annoying because you can make an infinite and win with it. You can make an infinite and win in a thousand different ways, I don't care about that - I care about when it doesn't win outright and promotes a slow grindy play pattern.

[@MoonBeast5]

I mean... considering the sorts of things we as commander players do to each other on a regular basis (making half of or your ENTIRE library disappear, intentionally milling you out of land drops, swinging for lethal on turn 4 or 5, stealing all of your lands, etc), is this really that bad?

[@gordong8064]

"intentionally milling you out of land drops" ...I don't think that that's possible?

[@MoonBeast5]

@@gordong8064 Smeagol, Helpful Guide. Hate him SO much. Won't make you miss EVERY land drop, but if you're already having a bad start, it hurts.

[@simplyprism5854]

Your clearly a blue player and nobody likes you for that

[@Thoughtmage100]

As broken as Azlask is, I agree that Commander has evolved to a point where this is kind of the norm. So much so that when I first saw Azlask spoiled, my first thought was "finally a good reason to stockpile your Scions and Spawns." It's the Zerg Swarm of Eldrazi commanders.

[@hoodiegal]

your commander table sounds deeply unfun to play at

[@ivernedit]

Isn’t ulakek the front facing commander ? But yeah, he’s wack. You can play an eldrazi aggro deck built around scion makers. Sure everyone is gonna hate it but it’s different. Don’t need big eldrazi.

[@MrMartinSchou]

I'm guessing they went with WUBRG as the activation cost, because that's generally a more difficult cost to pay than 5 and sometimes even 10. Urza Lands gets you 7 already. You're playing Sol Ring, so you're already at 10 by turn 4. Even without Urza's Mine, Power Plant and Tower, you still have a lot of ways to get to 10 mana by turn 4. Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Eldrazi Temple and Ugin's Labyrinth gets you to 10 by turn 4 with Sol Ring as well. I think they really just painted themselves into a corner. They came up with this card and loved the idea, but it was too powerful. So they powered it down by making it a 2/2. But still too powerful, so they had to somehow nerf the activation cost.

[@kazuyananahara]

They went with wubrg cost because they need it to have all 5 color identity to be the alternative commander of the precon. They could have done the same thing they did with Ulalek but that would have made it a bit less special.

[@traycarrot]

Sure, if you're hitting natural Tron + Sol Ring + Sol Lands then the card is good, but that's about every card in existence...

[@Agrus_Kadeen]

15:30 you could activate after you declare attackers and it would be too late for annihilator to trigger

[@dj66800]

It's for me, because I want to make a deck around the 'endless mindless swarm' token side of eldrazi instead of the huge fucking bungus stuff.

[@drakegrandx5914]

Allright but you don't need something that goes "all your mindless swarm gets Annihilator" to do that. Go-Wide commanders have existed since forever.

[@ty_sylicus]

Has everyone forgotten about the Archenemy format? Commanders like this could work in that.

[@earthflame]

I've had a plan in my back pocket for a Spawn/Scion focused Eldrazi deck for a while, Azlask finally gave me a perfect Commander for it. So at least for me it's ideal, although I imagine the build I go for won't be the usual one.

[@zatchimo5177]

Same

[@AlessandroAltosoleChannel]

Similar, even if given the price of the deck it's something i'm gonna toy around with on a deck builder but never actually buy

[@spoopyboi1882]

"Who is this for?" it me, for me. I love the devoid eldrazi, especially the green ones. And i like graveyard strategies like Aristocrats. Tho idc much for the activated ability, it is something that helps close out the game instead of just durdling around

[@scaredycat3146]

I'd argue scion/spawn producers are mostly overcosted/bad compared to the other token decks we have in the format. Azlask is for lower eldrazi what Urtet was for myr, a pushed commander to make an otherwise terrible tribe/strategy playable. And just like Urtet I think it's not a good fit as it will result in the deck taking more heat from the table than what it is able to handle.

[@TheSlogs]

Would have been sick if the activated ability gave the commander itself annihilator x, where x is the number of scions and spawns you control. Would make it feel more like one big eldrazi coming in and causing devastation. Also would force the commander to attack

[@PalPlays]

Then it takes one player out of the game by default. This allows the Eldrazi player to spread the love.

[@al8188]

Commander's identity as a casual, "community-administered (lol)" format is really challenged by WotC fully supporting the format. So I get the question - "this seems like it's aimed at casuals, but will probably only piss those tables off" - but, there is absolutely a guy in one of my pods who will buy this. He buys every product, he builds like 50% of the decks he sees on commander gameplay YT channels, he scrubs out first 90% of the time and he jams fast mana even in low-power games. That is who this is for. Its an eldrazi commander product. It's for the whales.

[@benjaminloyd6056]

It's for the guys in my pod who load their decks with infinite combos/value engines, then either win on turn 4, or twiddle their thumbs all game because they are too greedy to put enough land in their deck.

[@dragonlorddc16]

What if I just really like eldrazi and can finally play with them as a tribe that's not all just grey and titans

[@cread13]

I plan on building a deck for both the 5 color eldrazi commanders. Honestly the Annihilator it gives is pure overkill in a deck thats about swarming you with tokens. Blockers or not your getting hit for a ton by a huge wave of eldrich horror monsters. Itll be fun building both decks since ill be running all ten pain lands in each deck as tri lands. Always wanted to build an eldrazi deck but never had an interest in colorless decks that end up being pseudo artifact decks instead of eldrazi decks.

[@ElScizor]

Tbf the pin point removal can now be pointed at the Annihilator Enabler for all the Scions/Spawns aka the Sewlly Boi. But i see the point since removing a 3 mana commander doesnt stop the plan as much, as removing a big boi commander

[@hallorette5059]

I like that card. Azkask is very cool. It’s interesting because it incentivizes doing the other thing eldrazis do which is going wide with spawns and scions. It gets more and more experience counters whenever you sacrifice an eldrazi token, letting you get mass pump on the other tokens to win the game. I also realized that you could build this card another way; it’s a five color creature that gets experience counters, so you could put in every card that works off experience counters. Ezuri, Claw of Progress seems especially good in such a deck, because the eldrazi spawn tokens trigger Ezuri, when they enter play, and they also trigger Azlask when they die.

[@Boyahda]

I'm just shocked they brought annihilator back at all. I thought it was pretty high up on the storm scale.

[@romangagg5328]

I don't think wizards gives a f*** about the storm scale anymore, both fallout and modern horizons 3 have printed literal storm cards

[@scaredycat3146]

The storm scale only applies to standard sets. And even then it's more a guideline and not a hard rule.

[@SyntheticNuclear]

Only applies to standard sets and its also high a bit since its mostly Eldrazi Mechanic(No Eldrazi, almost certainly no annihilator)

[@eewweeppkk]

Its been said in this very reply thread so many times but I think it really necessitates beating to death, storm scale has nothing to do with commander or commander products or really anything at all outside of standard. It definitely makes sense to reprint old mechanics in sets that skip over standard to give those mechanics something new and fun and to keep up with the power creep of new mechanics. For non-standard formats it can be seen more as "this is stuff the design team doesn't like that much" scale.

[@boringmonkey6958]

​@@scaredycat3146 Exaxtly that, a guideline and not a hard rule. Even in standard, they recently brought back Phasing and Poison (albeit with a rework on how Poison was dealt, but cards like rotpriest prove that it was hardly a more balanced version). They don't really seem to care too much about what mechanics they bring back lol. Now that Annihilator has been reprinted I wonder what else they will bring back.

[@Shoyro]

Azlask has inspired me to make its own deck. I got a Worldslayer deck, but I want this as a deck that's feared. Thanks for the vindication, Kenobi!

[@markbradshaw3066]

I feel like Azlask's ability should only be as a sorcery so you can't activate it in response to targeted removal. It also can just act as a protection spell for boardwipes

[@bryceneedham1860]

I built this as soon as it leaked. I think it’s for me Vince.

[@zackfro]

You are very good at giving well thought out criticisms.

[@chrs-wltrs]

I'll be honest, I'm planning on Rule 0-ing this at my table by exchanging the annihilator for trample

[@leopardbunny]

You can just choose not to use the Annihilator by activating the ability after attacks are declared, thus bypassing Annihilator's attack trigger window.

[@viceverse11]

Hater

[@hatonyou7099]

I am building this as a deck that tries to focus on the Experience counters and runs all of those cards, plus a bit of aristocrats. Intentionally activating the pump ability of Azlask after attacks might be a way of limiting the feel bads at a table.

[@KregisAurelius]

I've had an Eldrazi-crats list since Morophon in MH2 and seeing all the Eldrazi token spawners I was like sweet! Upgrades! Then I saw the commander and it's like this would be the most beautiful commander if it wasn't absolutely kill on sight. Im still debating between Az and Uzalek but thankfully the deck was always built as the commander is a bonus and not necessary

[@DerpHerper]

Tergrid and this thing can hang out in the corner of the party. We don't want them to hang out with us.

[@Russian_engineer_bmstu]

It can be activated several times. For some reason

[@thatguyintherain3168]

Which means it can be stacked...

[@oom-3262]

oh, come on, if yu got wubrg twice _and_ a board the game is usually over either way.

[@Russian_engineer_bmstu]

@@oom-3262 jegantha exists, you can easily get wubrgx2 by turn 5

[@eewweeppkk]

@@oom-3262 That's the problem. Just activating it twice doesn't win you the game, it just ends it for your opponents. If they don't have enough spawns on board or experience counters to do a combat damage win (and they don't get trample so for the sake of playing optimally you'll sack lands before blockers) then you just have to sacrifice your ability to play the game and wait for them to durdle around until next turn while you can't do anything. Nobody gives a shit that it can pump their stuff up, they care about losing all of their stuff *and still not losing to it*.

[@traycarrot]

​​@@eewweeppkkYes, it ends the game. If your opponents are sitting their waiting to be repeatedly Annihilatored after 10+ mana is sunk into a board of 10+ creatures, that's on them. "I sac ten permanents to annihilator and block what I can." "Cool, your turn." "I draw and have ZERO PERMANENTS. I pass." "Cool, attack again." This seems like the most painless way to die. Much better than a Tatyova or other ACTUALLY durdling decks that don't care about their board, aren't deterministic, and have no win condition.

[@jrRabet]

This would be a fun commander to build with some heavy restrictions. If I built it I'd only use colorless lands and rely on artifacts for fixing. It'd be a colorless deck with an occasional exception for flavorful eldrazi cards. TLDR it might be fun as a vorthos deck that's only optimization is for flavor.

[@TehWinged]

I hate Azlask for the same reason I hate Urtet. It's not a WUBRG ability. It's WUBRG so you can go to scryfall and type in o:Spawn, add all the cards, type in o:Scion, add all the cards. Its lazy.

[@otterfire4712]

I'd say for Urtet there wasn't really a WUBRG commander for Myrs. There were several good artifact commanders that could utilize Myrs but you wouldn't be able to use all the mana Myrs. Urtet is still far more reasonable than this thing.

[@SyntheticNuclear]

You want 11 Spawn token generators? Or over a 100? Since if it was pure C it would be unplayable

[@JakesFavorites]

The first ability is more important.

[@EineChillkroete]

I like that it is a spawn tribal commander, but thats about it.

[@SkyFire2112]

My girlfriend is so excited for this Eldrazi deck. There is two things she wants in this game: 5-colour and Eldrazi. This is her best of both worlds. I’ve been All Is Dust-ed so many times I’m numb to it

[@sgjuxta]

I *love* this card as a five-color commander for an "experience counters" matters deck. It's cool that there's now a commander where you can jam Meren, Otharra, Ezuri, and all the other Experience Counter legends and have a commander that actually synergizes with the counters. I'm not as big a fan of the second ability tho, but the first part is super cool.

[@bjarnivalur6330]

I think in this case, replacing Annihilator with Ingest could make this card a lot more fun.

[@mrknarf4438]

I do not mind an Eldrazi strategy focused on Scions instead of big threats - kind of a neat idea actually, representing the early invasion. I also like experience counters in general, and gaining them by sacc'ing Spawns fits well. But boy do I dislike generic 5 mana abilities slapped on to make it a penta commander, and generic pumps... Damn it, this card was so close to being awesome! I miss big dummy things like Spawnsire of Ulamog: so weak it was almost unplayable, but it felt threatening, and unique, and massive!

[@radicard5193]

I think I will defend this card a little bit. 1. I think they wanted a strong wincon since this is both a 5 color deck and a colorless deck. So fhey needed to balance that out. 2. Azlask doesnt create the spawns and scions itself, so you would need other cards to get that Annihilator online. 3. In conjunction with point 2, the spawns and scions need to die to get the counters, which means less of them are actually on board. 4. As someone who was afraid of Marneus Calgar (I called him token Korvold), I realized later on that creating tokens consistently is harder than I thought.

[@NPelham]

My play group has a set of Eldrazi decks. Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, and Zhulodok, the Void Gorger. My play group probably wants this at that table for a different way to play Eldrazi.

[@SorcererTim45]

Ive started buying some stifle effects for all my blue decks in anticipation for the influx of eldrazi cast effects. Defabricate is one of my favorites. Disallow, repudiate//replicate for big creature strategies, and tale's end all go hard. Ertai, nimble obstructionist, sister of silence and tishana's tidebinder for creature answers

[@De_Gazoomba]

I love this little guy, I don’t use the annihilator but it’s finally a five colour commander that supports experience!!

[@WCD_Media]

I love it because I've been waiting for an affordable budget commander for my eldrazi commander deck since Oath of The Gatewatch.

[@matthewcrowther890]

For a ‘5 colour’ eldrazi commander I’d love them to do something like devoid tribal- the commander is colourless but any devoid card is a legal include, and they’d have something like being able to use colourless mana as mana of any colour for devoid cards and their abilities. You’d get some of the feel of 5 colour, but only the eldrazi devoid stuff of it.

[@EnordAreven]

I feel like the eldeazi commanders should be colorless and have "you may put cards with Devoid into your deck as if this commanders was all colours" or something so you dont get the strong cards in those colours ans have to rely on newer eldrazi tech too

[@mstieler8480]

I want to build Azlask as an Experience deck instead of the "make tokens & annihilator", since Azlask will allow you to run the other 8 Experience cards, and they either work well with Azlask, or become super beefy from the XP counters.

[@alexliang1040]

Meren, ezuri, mintharra and othari seem like a good soup Kalemne not so much

[@sensei470]

@@alexliang1040 Ezuri is not really a thing. the other 3 tho are nice

[@wandering.albatross]

Same. Proliferate theme to get even more experience.

[@mstieler8480]

@@alexliang1040 So, I don't know how frequently Kalemne will be granting counters, but getting +X/+X Double Striking Vigilance creature feels like a good "yeah, may as well" option. But yeah, Ezuri would basically only be there for the +1/+1 counters, honestly.

[@TAthey]

Thanks for the video and thoughts! On first look, I was excited about building this commander but now fully thinking through the "Annihilator 1" I don't think i could stomach being the fun killer at the table. Also, with no trample or evasion, it's not a guaranteed game ender. It's basically mass land destruction... gross.

[@RayearthIX]

I honestly love it and might use it as the commander of my Eldrazi deck. It’s not a deck focused on tokens, but the idea of having a way to make my Eldrazi tokens super powerful absolutely appeals to me as a possibility in the command zone. I’d still rather cast Emrakul, but this seems fun.

[@jamesriemer6160]

I like how it's experience tribal and mask wood nexus fuel

[@bunnydango]

it's an experience deck craterhoof! i know my gfs sisay exp counters deck would absolutely adore tutoring this guy as a finisher :)

[@happymaster19]

Super hype to loop Junk Diver and Myr Retriever to set up the lethal board wipe. I don't even play EDH. 😐

[@coryledwitch6492]

It was made WUBRG because older Eldrazi decks that were solely colorless simply folded to artifact board wipes. Artifacts were/are the biggest way to get to heavy colorless mana costs. Not a lot of ramp in colorless outside of them. WUBRG allows for you to stay in the game, basically.

[@JakesFavorites]

Its for the people who wanted a five-color experience counter tribal, and i think it's pretty good. Like a sort of colorless Najeela. Lends itself to a weird mishmash of reanimation that doesn't necessarily need Eldrazis.

[@FirstNameLastName-gh9iw]

15:31 your commander not being useful if you don’t annihilate reminds me of how my friend accidentally forgot to put mountains in his new multi color deck and so he just couldn’t play his commander

[@TheCommunistGamerTV]

Gotta agree. I was hyped for Scion and Spawn tribal, but pulling this out will just make you the bad guy from the word go. You either win or everyone else feels bad, and so you do too, or you lose. Couldn't even bring myself to put together a list.

[@SamsungGalaxyFlagship]

@ 12:00 (In response): "What is best in life?" Conan : "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

[@anthonyboehmer6313]

Im excited. I've always wanted to build an Eldrazi spawn/scion 5 color commander deck. Never felt right using Morophon.

[@Reluxthelegend]

I think it is fine. There is just so muich treasure, blood, clue etc tokens in commander nowadays that anihilator is not that impactful anymore.

[@amphetamean66X]

I'm literally a Sadist and also me. Yes I want this. I love the spawns more than actual big eldrzi because tokens are cool. I WANT THIS!

[@kitsung03]

I do want to build this commander... but as an Experience commander. There are currently 8 other commanders with the Experience mechanic. Each commander use the same experience counters so it would be fun to build the deck in that each commander could activate with 5-10 counters!

[@marc-andreleysaht910]

My Problem with Azlask is that it has nothing to do with Eldrazi. It's basically a Reaper King. I've counted 16 cards with mana value 2 or less that are either changelings or make scions/spawns without further interaction, potentially coming down from your opening hand before you even play Azlask. From there on you can just go ahead and activate the ability since the annihilator isn't related to the experience counters in any way

[@tylergraham8200]

i have played in too many non-games against decks that have little interaction available to take any grief for annihilator. personally i love token go wide strategies, but they fall into the issue of having a hard time closing games. You are either so far ahead that you just win or get wiped back to zero - this cmdr gives some protection and a realistic way of closing the game. Additionally, and this cannot be underscored- it focuses on non-dummy thick eldrazi! a fresh taste for a mostly tasteless deck

[@Aigis31]

Perhaps the idea behind Azlask is showing that even meager Spawns and Scions eventually can become massive behemoths? The idea being that all Eldrazi must be eradicated before they become an issue? I'm unsure. But this is hilarious and will make so many players so mad lmao Also, thanks for reminding me about Azlask! I might brew a deck around them since my old playgroup has Stax players and similarly "unfun" things. It could be my revenge commander haha

[@Aigis31]

Perhaps it is a 5 color ability due to the Eldrazi harnessing the power of colored mana? Maybe it's a showcase of what Eldrazi COULD do with colored mana if given the ability. Idk, I'm spitballing.

[@zer0323]

Is this fun? Yes. Who wants this? People like me who played with scions and spawns but never had enough legal options to make a viable deck. What is this? A payoff for really weak draft cards that made a medium powered casual deck. Now it can make a medium powered commander deck… The fact that sacking spawns and scions to get experience counters will leave players with less anniahlator 1 triggers you hate and instead it’ll be 20/20 ulamogs swinging for anniahlator x

[@jebadie7366]

If not five color then what color combos work for a scion/spawn deck that doesn’t give you token doublers? Would it have enough token generation as a colorless deck? If you don’t want to use the annihilator can you use it as a combat trick after swinging?

[@Tybonel13]

"I sure wish there was a five color experience counter commander" *Monkey's Paw curls*

[@christopherpatterson7360]

I think this could be a decent CEDH deck, you get all 5 colors and instead of needing a winning combo you need to just make a hand full of scions and then activate once and wipe the board but then you get to do that every turn for free. it can kind of lock out the table and with a stax plan the deck could be really consistent. Definitely a deck I'm going to look at brewing up.

[@W0lfguard1997]

Me. It's for me and my experience deck. If it works out like I'm hoping the annihilator part will be the least of everyone's worries. When you've already stacked some experience and attack with otharri at the same time, suddenly you create an army of buffed rebels. Why does Azlask's ability cost WUBRG? That way you can actually play enough token creators and it's a restriction for more serious formats. The fun thing is, if you really hate the idea running over other players with annihilator, you can build a thopter/servo deck. They get the X/X buff and just need a bit more work to sacrifice them for experience.

[@Banana-senpai]

They could have used other rules to bend the color identity, for example like prismatic piper In this case: If bloopbleepblup is your comander, cards in your deck with devoid have colorless identity instead of their color identity. Something like that. And now you can make the ability colorless and remove all utility enchantments, token doublers, etc

[@sensei470]

planning on building Azlask as an aristocrats deck, with him being an alternate wincon only. things like mirkwood bats are insane with spawns and scions.

[@silentwatcher5134]

Golos is the legendary Solemn Simulacrum, this thing is the legendary Mirror Entity

[@Titanreaver616]

I am legit very excited about this. I want to rush to activating this ability with 5 or 6 critters as soon as I can. I will probably play smokestack along side it and all my other favorite cards. I want to get a perfect victory in a commander game. Yeah I'll probably be targeted and arch enemy from turn 0 but that is what I love for. Honestly this might be the thing I am most excited for.

[@zer0323]

Sacrificing the tokens to get enough experience built up will cost development. This makes the anniahlator trigger less. The deck was designed with a push/pull of trying to sac the spawns/scions to cast something big. So that your future spawns can also get anniahlator while your whole board gets +5/+5. How fast do you think you can make 7+ scions/spawns in this deck? It takes a while.

[@AspenForsythia]

I really like him, gives me a reason to use all the spawn/scion creators in Commander 😄

[@Alakarin]

Me and my friends love play toxic decks with each other all the time in our commander. Infect, Stax, Land destruction, Wheel-Narcet decks are all common archetypes in my play group. My OG Jin-Gitaxious deck is my favorite creation that playing with them. Its almost a contest at this point to see who can make the most unfun game for the rest of the players the fastest. They are really excited with this new release of these this new comander. 😅 They are are already getting their decks ready.

[@ertai222]

😂

[@spartan316kaos]

So the reason it's 5 color, is because there are only 10 colorless cards that create spawns or scions and only 4 of those being repeatable effects, and aside from green which has the mentioned Awakening Zone and From Beyond creating the tokens at every upkeep and black having Pawn of Ulamog and Sifter of Skulls generating the tokens on creatures you control dieing, there aren't enough cards in any one color to support it any other way. As for your other concerns about it being inevitable from the command zone and being on a 3 of any color commander, those are valid criticism that I agree with, and I even feel that it costing {c}{c}{c} would still not be restrictive enough when Chromatic Lantern and Chromatic Orrery exist along side Yavimaya Cradle of Growth and Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth color fixing your wastes or even pain lands and corrupted lands existing. I say this salivating at the thought of building a pushed version of this deck and having an incredibly tuned infect deck, because that's what's needed to pay against a few players in my pod

[@spartan316kaos]

Also, you missed in taking about token doublers you can also play any of the other experience gaining commanders, of which at least 2 would be absolutely nutty in this, Ezuri and Meren, and adding in Otharri and Kalemne to synergize even more, it looks so fun...

[@Areinu]

They didn't even give this ability tap symbol, so with 8 mana you can just dish it out and activate the ability. No need to have experience counters, just get your 0/1 tokens annihilator one, and swing at one player to send them back to stone age. Secretly this Eldrazi commander is meant to make other Eldrazi commanders look more appealing for your opponents :D Next thing we need is sliver commander with "All Slivers get Annihilator 2"

[@JimmythePyro]

This guy exists for my friend's Eskia experience matters 5 colour experience deck. That's it. It's for him and him alone in the 99.

[@nightmarebananaful]

I am not understanding how Commander is a casual format but also has a problem with babying. It's a casual format, what are they being babied from/to if there is no strict goal for how the game needs to be played or won?

[@richardmason2116]

Idunno, everything has it's place in the game. I 1000% get where you're coming from because Azlask definitely won't be for every pod, but for example my LGS is very pro Eldrazi in casual and there's never been anybody that's complained about annihilator since I've gone there. We all just decide what kinda game we're feeling and do the whoke pre-game discussion thing and it's always worked out pretty well. It looks fun but it's definitely one of those decks where you wanna check in with the table before you just play it, which is fine, I'm definitely gonna be responsible about it.

[@khathecleric]

Suddenly the dinosaur that pings everything for 1 each attack is value. On a serious note, I'd make this like a Jetmir, summon up an army of scions then resolve commander with UBURG ready to go

[@sambrown9475]

Uuuuh me? Definitely me. I've been waiting for an eldrazi commander that synergies with scions and spawns, and boy, does it do work

[@oom-3262]

Exactly! The commander needs to be pushed because they fucking suck without the titans lol

[@sambrown9475]

@@oom-3262 I've made a list for azlask and don't have the titans in it 🤷‍♂️

[@oom-3262]

@@sambrown9475 reread my comment lol

[@spikysmoothness]

I think they made it 5c to 'balance' it's ability (And also to just give the deck access to everythikg because why should R&D have to deliver a functioning deck when they can just let it use all colours so the players can do it for them.) If the ability had just been 5colorless it'd be too easy to activate, at least with wubrg they NEED 1 of each source to pull it off? I don't think they thought it through much but thats why I think they did it wubrg

[@tymenvanessen3119]

i completely agree with the 5 color thing. i would rather have seen some 3 color devoid commander options. like a bant one. or a jund or sultai one instead of having to go '6' colors

[@Nyronus]

A few counterpoints, Vince: 1) The Eldrazi precon kind of sucks 2) It sucks even worse for V-man here, because it has almost no cards which make Scions/Spawn 3) V-man is in an awkward space where instead of Doing the Thing and Rewarding you for Doing The Thing, he instead rewards you for two diametrically opposed things (Sacrificing spawn/scion and HAVING spawn/scion). He literally wants to eat his cake and have it too. Overall, it feels like a cute attempt to make the Spawn/Scion cards relevant in Commander, but ultimately he needs an extremely specific deck and a bit of magical christmasland to pull off the scenario you're describing. I don't think it's gonna be a problem, at least not for precon vs precon games.

[@DDDHunter]

It that way because what the deck is really saying is go buy MH3 packs. Look at the deck again with all the new uncommon and rare eldarzi in it (ignore the mythics, they are completely overkill)