BlackLegendary Artifact — Equipment // Legendary Creature — DemonElbrus, the Binding Blade // Withengar Unbound
Mana value7Rank#9,491
The Commander
Equipped creature gets +1/+0.
When equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, unattach Elbrus, then transform it.
Equip 
Flying, intimidate, trample (A creature with intimidate can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or creatures that share a color with it.)
Whenever a player loses the game, put thirteen +1/+1 counters on Withengar Unbound.
Guide
Gameplan
Equip Elbrus cheaply, connect once with an evasive carrier, and flip it into Withengar Unbound, a 13/13 flying, intimidating trampler that ends games fast. The deck is mono-black aggression backed by removal and reanimation, looking to push commander damage or simply overwhelm a player. Withengar also snowballs absurdly off any opponent dying, gaining thirteen more counters each time.
Strengths
- Withengar is a 13/13 flying intimidate trample that one-shots most players via commander damage in two hits, or one with a small boost
- Cheap equip cost lets you flip it quickly given an evasive equipped creature
- Mono-black has the format's deepest tutor, removal, and reanimation suites to enable and protect the plan
- Snowballs out of control if any opponent loses while it's on the field
Weaknesses
- Two-card combo reliance: you need a creature to carry Elbrus and must connect in combat
- Vulnerable to removal—killing Withengar in response wastes your whole turn and resets you to a 7-mana artifact
- Flips to a single huge creature that's easy to chump-block, edict, or sacrifice you into
- No card advantage or interaction baked into the commander itself
Key Cards
- Whispersilk Cloak — Grants the carrier unblockable plus shroud, guaranteeing the combat hit that flips Elbrus while protecting the creature.
- Rogue's Passage — Makes any equipped attacker unblockable to reliably trigger the transform.
- Sword of Feast and Famine — Adds evasion-enabling protection and untaps your lands, and stacking equipment makes the hit lethal faster.
- Reconnaissance — Lets you attack, trigger the flip, then pull back—and is excellent for pushing damage safely.
- Grim Tutor — Black's tutors fetch whichever half of the plan you're missing—carrier, evasion, or protection.
- Swiftfoot Boots — Hexproof keeps your equipped carrier alive long enough to connect.
Upgrade Path
Lean into evasion and protection that guarantee the flip—Whispersilk Cloak, Rogue's Passage, Swiftfoot Boots—plus a tutor package (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor) to assemble pieces. Add reanimation and cheat effects to deploy Elbrus or its carriers ahead of curve, and consider double-strike or pump (Grafted Exoskeleton, Berserkers' Onslaught) so a single connection threatens lethal. Round out with strong mono-black interaction and recursion so a removal spell on Withengar doesn't end your game.
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
- ▸Commander damage from a 13/13 (or boosted) flying, intimidating Withengar
- ▸Killing one opponent to balloon Withengar to 26/26 and trample over the table
- ▸General beatdown backed by evasion equipment and pump effects
- ▸Edicts or sacrifice-payoffs that make opponents lose, feeding Withengar's counters
Archetypes
- Voltron — Withengar's massive evasive body makes commander-damage kills the core strategy.
- Aristocrats — Forcing or capitalizing on opponents losing piles thirteen counters onto Withengar each death.
- Reanimator — Mono-black can cheat the 7-mana artifact or recur lost carriers and flip it ahead of schedule.
- Mono-Black Midrange — Removal, tutors, and recursion support a grindy plan that protects the single threat.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
