Five-ColorLegendary Creature — EldraziAzlask, the Swelling Scourge
Mana value3Rank#5,607
The Commander
Whenever Azlask or another colorless creature you control dies, you get an experience counter.
: Creatures you control get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of experience counters you have. Scions and Spawns you control gain indestructible and annihilator 1 until end of turn.
Guide
Gameplan
Flood the board with cheap colorless Scion and Spawn tokens, sacrifice them freely to ramp and to stack experience counters, then fire Azlask's WUBRG ability to give your whole team a massive +X/+X with indestructible, annihilator-1 Scions for an alpha strike. Early turns are about token engines and mana fixing; the midgame builds counters through deaths; the endgame is one big pump that ends the table.
Strengths
- Five-color identity means access to the entire card pool for ramp, removal, and tutors.
- Tokens double as mana (Eldrazi Scions/Spawns sacrifice for mana) and as fuel for experience counters.
- Experience counters persist through commander death, so removing Azlask doesn't reset your scaling payoff.
- Annihilator 1 across a wide board can blow up opponents' permanents during the finishing swing.
Weaknesses
- Three-mana commander but the activated ability costs all five colors plus is mana-intensive, demanding excellent fixing.
- Without enough experience counters the payoff is weak, so it has a slow ramp-up.
- Board wipes that exile or hit before you activate (instant-speed) can undo a turn of setup.
- Reliant on having creatures to pump—if your board is empty the ability does nothing.
Key Cards
- Skullclamp — Turns your endless 0/0-relevant Scions and dying colorless tokens into a card-draw engine while generating experience counters.
- Brood Monitor — Drops three Eldrazi Spawn at once to fuel both mana ramp and Azlask's death triggers.
- Ashnod's Altar — Free sacrifice outlet that converts colorless creatures into mana for the WUBRG activation while banking experience counters.
- Skittering Invasion — Makes five Spawn tokens, instantly building a board to pump and sacrifice.
- Pitiless Plunderer — Each token death makes Treasure, helping pay the demanding five-color activation cost.
- Grand Abolisher — Protects your alpha-strike turn from instant-speed interaction so the pump resolves.
Upgrade Path
Improve mana fixing with fast rocks (Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox, fetch/dual lands) so the WUBRG cost is reliable, and add free sacrifice outlets plus token doublers (Anointed Procession, Parallel Lives) to snowball counters faster. Layer in death payoffs like Bastion of Remembrance and tutors (Demonic Tutor, Eldritch Evolution) to find your engine pieces, and consider Craterhoof Behemoth or Pathbreaker Ibex as redundant finishers alongside the commander's pump.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Activate Azlask with a high experience count to give a wide token board lethal +X/+X and swing in.
- ▸Annihilator 1 across many Scions strips opponents' boards while connecting for damage.
- ▸Aristocrats drain via Blood Artist / Zulaport Cutthroat as tokens die en masse.
- ▸Go-wide overrun finishes backed by anthem and trample effects like Craterhoof Behemoth.
Archetypes
- Aristocrats — Colorless creature deaths directly generate experience counters, rewarding sacrifice loops and altars.
- Tokens — Eldrazi Scion and Spawn generators build a wide board that the +X/+X ability turns lethal.
- Ramp / Big Mana — Spawn and Scion tokens sacrifice for colorless mana, accelerating into big Eldrazi and the WUBRG activation.
- Combo — Free sacrifice outlets plus token recursion can loop deaths to spike experience counters explosively.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (BGRUW), by popularity.
