The Commander
Flying
Shauku can't attack if there's another creature on the battlefield.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 3 life.
: Exile target creature and put a +1/+1 counter on Shauku.
Guide
Gameplan
Use Shauku's tap ability as a repeatable, unconditional exile to grind every other creature off the battlefield, then swing in the air for huge commander damage once the board is empty. The 3-life-per-turn drain pushes you toward a lifegain/recursion package so you can keep tapping Shauku every turn. You're a controlling mono-black deck that turns the game into a slow attrition war you're built to win.
Strengths
- Repeatable unconditional exile that ignores indestructible, regeneration, and protection
- Becomes an evasive Voltron threat that grows with every activation
- Mono-black gives access to the best tutors, removal, and recursion in the format
- Strong against go-wide token, voltron, and reanimator strategies by exiling threats one per turn
Weaknesses
- Sorcery-speed exile (taps on your turn) only removes one creature per turn, so it can be outpaced by wide boards
- Constant 3 life loss can race you to death without lifegain support
- Can't attack while any other creature exists, making it slow to actually close games
- Seven mana and high color/removal dependence make it vulnerable to commander hate and to being unable to clear protected blockers via combat
- No card advantage built in beyond board control
Key Cards
- Thousand-Year Elixir — Lets Shauku tap the turn it enters and untaps it to exile a second creature, doubling your removal output.
- Magus of the Coffers — Generates explosive mana in mono-black to recast Shauku and power your draw and lifegain engines.
- Whip of Erebos — Grants lifelink so Shauku's attacks offset the upkeep drain and stabilize your life total.
- Crypt Ghast — Doubles Swamp mana, accelerating Shauku out and fueling X-spells and mana sinks.
- Erebos, God of the Dead — Provides repeatable card draw by paying life, turning your sacrificed life total into resources.
- Cabal Coffers — The premier mono-black ramp engine to consistently afford a seven-drop commander you may need to recast.
Upgrade Path
Add untap enablers like Thousand-Year Elixir and Magewright's Stone plus lifegain such as Whip of Erebos and Gray Merchant of Asphodel to neutralize the drawbacks. Build a strong mono-black ramp base (Cabal Coffers, Crypt Ghast, Nykthos) and tutors (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor) to find your enablers, then close faster with Exsanguinate or a protected Shauku carrying haste and protection from Lightning Greaves and Whispersilk Cloak.
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
- ▸Beating down with an enlarged, evasive Shauku after exiling all other creatures
- ▸Lab Maniac / Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or Exsanguinate-style drain finishers in mono-black
- ▸Grinding the table out of creatures and resources until they concede or deck out
Archetypes
- Control — Shauku's repeatable exile lets you methodically dismantle every opposing board while mono-black handles noncreature threats.
- Voltron — Once the board is clear Shauku is a growing evasive flyer that ends games with commander damage.
- Stax — Pairing the exile with sacrifice and resource denial chokes the table into a position only you can win from.
- Lifegain — You need to offset the 3-life upkeep, so a lifegain shell turns the drawback into a sustainable engine.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (B), by popularity.
