Top 10 Eldrazi for Commander

Top 10 Eldrazi for Commander

The Eldrazi. A race of vast, inscrutable abominations from beyond reality, these mysterious beings provoke a thousand questions. What are their true origins? Do they know anything beyond ceaseless hunger? Will they consume reality itself? And of course, the most important question of all: which ones are best for your EDH deck?


Desolation Twin

10. Desolation Twin

What’s better than one gigantic Eldrazi? Why two gigantic Eldrazi of course! And with Desolation Twin, two 10/10s is potentially just the beginning. In the right shell with some ability to proliferate or populate tokens, Desolation Twin can flood your board with 10/10s and win games in short order.

Try pairing the twin with populating commanders like Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice, or Ghired, Conclave Exile. Commanders that improve tokens can work well here too – Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun can make the 10/10 token an unblocakble 11/11, and Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer can give it haste and turn all your other tokens into 10/10s. And of course, things can get really silly with a dedicated token enchantment like Doubling Season in play.


Conduit of Ruin

9. Conduit of Ruin

Conduit of Ruin tutors for the perfect colorless creature for your situation, and makes it cheaper into the bargain. Whether it’s another powerful Eldrazi, a Platinum Angel to get you out of an otherwise unwinnable situation, or a good old-fashioned Blightsteel Colossus, you can be sure you’ll be getting maximum bang for your buck.

Conduit of Ruin is at its best in decks with a colourless commander where you’ll have an incentive to load your deck with powerful colorless creatures, but it certainly has its place elsewhere too, particularly in decks heavy on ramp that like to deploy big finishers.

 


Kozilek, the Great Distortion

8. Kozilek, the Great Distortion

If the Eldrazi are indeed gods, then Kozilek is the god of value. On casting, you’ll draw up to seven cards to go with your 12/12 menace body. Even better, with Kozilek in play, those cards all immediately become potential counterspells, with each one discardable to counter a spell of equal CMC. This can give unmatched control of a game, and make Kozilek extremely difficult for your opponents to deal with.

Kozilek’s Eldrazi mana cost means he requires a more dedicated build than some other Eldrazi on this list that can find homes in a wider variety of decks, usually requiring a list hat includes some number of Wastes or has access to cards like Thran Dynamo or Hedron Archive to generate that Eldrazi mana. For that reason, he’s most often played in a deck with a colorless commander, or as a colorless commander himself. But don’t despair at the restriction– that kind of build offers access to devastating one-sided wraths like All is Dust, or an extremely one-sided board wipe from Ugin the Spirit Dragon. And what could be more fun than boasting a hand full of countermagic in a deck without a single blue source?


Emrakul, the Promised End

7. Emrakul, The Promised End

Emrakul, the Promised End is a being is so powerful she once destroyed Standard itself. But while she was banished to the banned list there, in EDH you can still use her to ruin your opponents’ fun to your heart’s content!

Whilst stealing a player’s turn is slightly less game-breaking in a multiplayer format, Emrakul will still end many an EDH match-up. Load your deck with a variety of card types and combine her with powerful self-mill effects like Hermit Druid and Mulch, along with some recursion like Eternal Witness to retrieve her from the yard, and before you know it you’ll be controlling other people’s turns and swinging with a 13/13 flying trampler for as little as 6 mana.

Emrakul can be even more game-breaking with commanders like Jhoira of the Ghitu that let you cast cards without paying their 


6. It That Betrays

This is truly cruel card design. It That Betrays is one of the most expensive Eldrazi in existence, and for very good reason. Sacrificing multiple permanents each turn to Annihilator triggers is back-breaking at the best of times, but with It That Betrays in play, you get the added misery of knowing those permanents will immediately be used against you. Even if you’re sacrificing less impactful permanents like lands or mana rocks, what deck can use mana sources better than an Eldrazi one that relies on big mana and couldn’t care less about the colour pie?

This beast carries Annihilator 2 itself, but any sacrifice made to Eldrazi annihilator effects will trigger it as soon as it’s in play, even those from Eldrazi you’ve played previously and are ready to attack as soon as this enters play. Even worse for your opponents, the ability will trigger in response to any sacrifice effect of any kind, and as a result will completely hose sacrifice-themed decks. Even something as simple as cracking a fetch-land will fuel this monster’s hunger. We’re not sure any card captures the sense of despair and inevitability of facing the Eldrazi quite as well as It That Betrays.


5. Void Winnower

Is Void Winnower fun to play against? Absolutely not. Is it fun to play with? Absolutely!

The Winnower does a great job of capturing the weirdness that is such a big part of Eldrazi design, with its strange ability to essentially ignore even-costed spells and creatures. The fact that it makes every even-costed creature unable to block (which incidentally includes all creature tokens, since a CMC of zero still counts as even) can be instantly game-ending, and this is made so much worse by the fact that half of all the removal that might actually be capable of killing it is immediately made completely worthless by its ability to make all cards with an even CMC completely uncastable.

Void Winnower is at its most oppressive in Commander, where the inability to cast even-costed spells applies to all your opponents at once. Note as well that the inability to block with creatures with an even CMC applies at all times, not just against your own attacks. This can suddenly make your opponents tempting targets for each other to pick off, helping to mitigate at least some of the hate this card will inevitably draw in your direction!

 


4. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Ulamog’s cast trigger is among the strongest of all the Eldrazi titans, offering a colorless deck not one but two targeted exile-based removal effects that can deal with card types that colourless decks struggle to remove. That includes artifacts, enchantments, and even particularly troublesome lands like Maze of Ith that can cause problems for Eldrazi decks that rely on single large attackers.

Whilst the on-attack trigger exiling 20 cards from a player’s library is less effective in commander due its much larger library sizes, this still attacks your opponents on a second axis, and represents a serious clock even against decks that can chump Ulamog effectively. It is especially dangerous for decks that deliberately fuel their graveyards, and can be lethal in a couple of swings if an opponent has aready milled the majority of their own library.  

Worse still for your opponents, Ulamog is indestructible, making most removal worthless and meaning no amount of blockers will trade with the titan. He demands very specific answers like Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares, and if your opponents don’t have them, their life totals and their libraries can only hold out for so long.

 


3. Ulamog the Infinite Gyre

So strong he appears twice in our top five, Ulamog is back at number three, this time in the form of Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre.

This Ulamog packs the same enormous 10/10 body that is again exceptionally hard to deal with because of his signature indestructability. On top of the destruction of any  permanent of your choice in play on casting, if your opponents can’t find the right narrow set of removal spells to handle him, they will quickly find themselves having to sacrifice a back-breaking four permanents every single attack step.  

Unlike his alternate version, even if this Ulamog is countered before he reaches the battlefield, he will simply will return immediately to your library along with your entire graveyard, potentially to be tutored up and cast yet again in a deck with the right support. 

 


2. Artisan of Kozilek

Perhaps surprisingly, the number two slot on our list does not go to one of the Eldrazi titans themselves, but to one of their greatest servants. 

The Artisan of Kozilek is another massive Eldrazi with the always-powerful annihilator effect. Yet this card’s main purpose is its even stronger cast trigger, which in a deck with the ability to put huge Eldrazi into the graveyard can instantly dump some of the most devastating creatures in Magic onto the battlefield, regardless of their converted mana cost. With the right accompanying cards, that means cheating into play cards at 10, 11, 12 or even 13 CMC, or, in a deck with the right colour suppor, circumventing an exceptionally difficult casting cost like that of Polucrinos.  

Admittedly, all this still requires you to reach 9 mana, but the effect is absurdly powerful given that, unlike a simple reanimation spell, this comes attached to a formidable body in its own right. It is also almost unique in offering this type of reanimation effect without the need for any colored mana, making it a particular boon in colorless decks. 


1. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Following on from his Artisan, Kozilek himself returns to top our list, this time in his form as the Butcher of Truth.  

Like his alternate version, the Great Distortion, this Kozilek delivers great value, with an automatic and uncounterable four-card draw just for putting him on the stack. If he does resolve, Kozilek packs a towering 12/12 body, along with the same terrifying annihilator 4 as his brother, Ulamog, The Infinite Gyre.  

Whilst arguably not as powerful or oppressive as his Great Distortion form, the Butcher of Truth gets pushed to the top of our list in part because this version requires no Eldrazi mana to cast, meaning he can be used in every single Commander deck. He offers extra value too for those decks who can use tutors like Demonic Tutor to take advantage of his shuffle effect, which is particularly valuable in a singleton format.

Because of his mighty triggered ability on attack and his lack of Ulamog’s indestructability, Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are ideal for Kozilek as they will offer vital protection and the chance to use haste to swing in with your beloved eldritch horror before your opponents can react.


Jonathan Widnall

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  • Jon Widnall
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