When I ordered all four of the Modern Horizons 3 commander decks I didn't have a real plan for what to do with the Eldrazi one. I knew I didn't like playing creatures with annihilator, and I knew that some of the new Eldrazi titans, which do not come in the precons, feel rather pushed in power. Beyond that I didn't have a solid plan.

After doing a rebuild of two of the other precons, I eventually turned my attention to Eldrazi Incursion and was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the commanders cared about Scion and Spawn tokens. For a few years I had a Golgari Grismold, the Dreadsower deck with a heavy focus on Eldrazi Scion and Spawn tokens so I was excited to explore this deckbuilding space with a new commander that would give me access to all five colors!

The face commander for the Eldrazi Incursion deck is Ulalek, Fused Atrocity, but Azlask, the Swelling Scourge is a second five color legendary Eldrazi that can also lead the precon if you feel like trying something different. Morophon, the Boundless is a third 5/c option Wizards included as an alternate commander. Morophon is a legendary Shapeshifter who has been an option for under-supported tribes since it first showed up in Modern Horizons back in 2019.

None of those other two options were as interesting to me as Azlask.

This three mana 2/2 Eldrazi is a rare legendary creature that cares about experience counters, a mechanic first introduced in 2015. Since then there have been a handful of cards that work with them. Each has its own way to gain experience counters and a benefit you get from them. Azlask will have me gain an experience counter each time it or another colorless creature I control dies. Spawn and Scion tokens get sacrificed to generate mana, so they are really a perfect fit for Azlask.

The payoff for having experience counters is simple enough. I can pay five and creatures I control get +X/+X until end of turn, where X is the number of experience counters I have. In addition, Scions and Spawns I control will gain indestructible and annihilator 1 until end of turn. Annihilator is like Ward in that it stacks, so multiple activations will increase your annihilator attack trigger.

Azlask puts us in five colors so I could theoretically run all of the legendary creatures that care about experience counters in this list. The only problem with that approach is that it might take away from the focus of the deck. I'm not including any them in today's deck, but I could see adding in Ezuri, Claw of Progress or Meren of Clan Nel Toth, as they are both quite powerful.

There are two basic approaches that could work to make this deck very dangerous. One would be to sacrifice a few colorless creatures so I get a few experience counters. Then if I can make huge amounts of mana I can get a huge +X/+X and I can give my Scions and Spawn tokens enough annihilator triggers to make a single attack wipe out anyone I decided to point those tokens at.

The other option is to set up a loop of some sort where I can generate a huge number of colorless creature death triggers so I get a huge number of experience counters. At that point all I need to do is be able to generate WUBRG mana once and my attackers will be big enough to kill anyone if I can get at least one of them to hit each of my tablemates. I just won't have as much of a threat with annihilator triggers from my Spawns and Scions.

In the end I decided to go with the latter option. Making infinite mana is easy enough in EDH, but it can then be funneled into a wide range of wincons, few of which have anything to do with Eldrazi. My preference, at least in my first draft of a build, is usually to lean heavily into strategies that synergize with what my commander brings to the party. Today is no exception.

Of Spawns and Scions

Eldrazi Spawn were first printed in 2010 in the Rise of the Eldrazi set. Eldrazi Scions first showed up in Magic in 2015 in Battle for Zendikar. Spawn and Scions can both be sacrificed to add one colorless mana to your mana pool. The big difference is that Eldrazi Spawn are zero power, one toughness creatures and Scions are one power, one toughness creatures.

The precon has over a half dozen ways to create Spawn and Scion creature tokens, but when reviewing the list I kept thinking of cards that had been left out.

To start with, there are plenty of big Eldrazi that create tokens when they enter the battlefield. Emrakul's Hatcher makes three Spawn tokens, Brood Monitor makes three Scion tokens, and Drowner of Hope makes two Scion tokens.

The reason for these token generators being left out becomes clear when you realize that Eldrazi Displacer is in the deck. For three mana, at least one of which must be colorless, this Eldrazi can flicker target creature.

With any Eldrazi that makes three Scions upon entering the battlefield, that allows you to flicker your token generator at will and generate any number of experience counters. If you add in a token doubler, you can even go wild with Drowner of Hope, which normally just creates two tokens. If you were to add in an Ashnod's Altar, you can sacrifice a token for two mana instead of one mana. The right combination of these cards will let you make an arbitrary amount of colorless mana and an arbitrarily large army of tokens.

The fact that Spawn tokens have zero power might end up mattering, but if you can generate mana you'll be able to use your commander to pump them so they are an actual threat.

Backup Plans

If my Displacer plan doesn't show up, and it may not - I'm not running much in the way of tutors - I have a second combo that could load me up with experience counters. Azlask cares about colorless creatures dying, not specifically Eldrazi, so there are a couple of artifact creature token generators that can help me advance my game plan.

Pentavus is an artifact creature that enters with five +1/+1 counters. For one mana I can remove a counter and create a 1/1 colorless Pentavite token. For another mana I can sacrifice a Pentavite and put a +1/+1 counter back on Pentavus.

Thopter Squadron is very similar. It costs less and comes into play with only three +1/+1 counters. Functionally the rest is the same except that it makes Thopters instead of Pentavites.

Both of these creatures provide an easy way to gain experience counters with extra mana I happen to have available. Neither can combo on their own, but with Ashnod's and a token doubler I can create an extra token and then sacrifice it for two mana to pay for both of the activations that constitute a loop.

I don't love that these creatures pull me away from Eldrazi. I love that they work well with Azlask and they utilize token doublers and Ashnod's Altar, both of which are already in the deck. Those tokens have flying, which might come in handy if I'm looking for ways to get pumped-up creatures through blockers to try to kill my tablemates.

When All Else Fails

The basic plan for this deck isn't to combo. If that were my primary goal I'd be running a bunch of tutors. I expect a lot of my games will see me just using my Spawn and Scion tokens for mana as I attempt to dig through my deck, build my board, and eventually try to swing as much of an alpha strike as I can muster. That might only be +8/+8 for all of my creatures, but that's still a significant amount of pump. The trick is that I'd love to keep my little Eldrazi around to attack with, but I'll also want to sacrifice them for mana. I expect I'll need to play the deck to really get a feel for when I want to start saving up my Spawn and Scion tokens and when I should be sacrificing them for mana.

It's worth noting that I resisted the urge to load up my precon rebuild with staples. Normally I'd throw in all the good stuff because it really does make games easier. Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Heroic Intervention, Chaos Warp, and more staples tend to find their way into my columns and my decks with alarming frequency. Instead of doing that, I sometimes like to lean into a theme way too much for the first draft just to really test it out. That's very much what I did this time around with way more Spawn and Scion token generators than any deck should probably run.

Azlask EDH | Commander | Stephen Johson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Azlask, the Swelling Scourge

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Angelic Aberration
• 1 Benthic Anomaly
• 1 Birthing Hulk
• 1 Brood Monitor
• 1 Catacomb Sifter
• 1 Chittering Dispatcher
• 1 Deepfathom Skulker
• 1 Drowner of Hope
• 1 Drownyard Lurker
• 1 Eldrazi Displacer
• 1 Eldrazi Repurposer
• 1 Emrakul's Hatcher
• 1 Endbringer
• 1 Flayer Drone
• 1 Glaring Fleshraker
• 1 Hideous Taskmaster
• 1 Mentor of the Meek
• 1 Morophon, the Boundless
• 1 Pentavus
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Propagator Drone
• 1 Rapacious One
• 1 Sifter of Skulls
• 1 Sire of Stagnation
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 Spawnbed Protector
• 1 Thopter Squadron
• 1 Ulalek, Fused Atrocity
• 1 Vile Redeemer
• 1 World Breaker
• 1 Writhing Chrysalis

• Instants (7)
• 1 Abstruse Appropriation
• 1 Eldrazi Confluence
• 1 Eldritch Immunity
• 1 Kindred Summons
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Second Harvest
• 1 Warping Wail

• Sorceries (5)
• 1 All is Dust
• 1 Rishkar's Expertise
• 1 Selective Obliteration
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Skittering Invasion

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Anointed Procession
• 1 Awakening Zone
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Parallel Lives
• 1 Path of Annihilation

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Forsaken Monument
• 1 Hedron Archive
• 1 Idol of Oblivion
• 1 Kaleidostone
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Thran Dynamo
• 1 Urza's Incubator

• Lands (37)
• 7 Forest
• 6 Wastes
• 3 Island
• 3 Mountain
• 3 Plains
• 3 Swamp
• 1 Bonders' Enclave
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Eldrazi Temple
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Secluded Courtyard
• 1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
• 1 Spawning Bed
• 1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
• 1 Unclaimed Territory

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If you wanted to tune this up, I'd definitely focus on the combo and add in some tutors. You might want to add in Cathars' Crusade, as you're having a lot of creatures enter the battlefield, but some players don't like trying to keep track of that many +1/+1 counters. I don't think this commander has cEDH potential, but if you loaded up with enough interaction and drove hard at those combos you could probably play at high power with some success.

To tone down this list I think you might just drop out the combos entirely and play it straight. You'll still be able to get a lot of experience counters, and you might have some fun playing with some of the other experience counter commanders without pushing your power level back up too much. Not all of them synergize well with Azlask, but in lower power metas you may not be all that worried about synergy.

If this list were viewed as the first draft that it is - or second draft if you want to count the precon as the first - I expect your next step after playing the deck would be to drop out cards that don't feel like they perform well enough and to add in more interaction. That's really where I cut the most corners when adding all of those token generators.

Final Thoughts

I was able to get a few games in with this list and while it hasn't notched a win, I've felt like I was doing stuff and had a shot in all of them. This many Spawn and Scion token generators really do give you the chance to pile up a half dozen or more experience counters. Even a small squad of creatures can turn a +6/+6 or greater pump into a big chunk of damage if you can get them through to hit a player.

This list was built with cards I had on hand, and the other night I got my hands on a Spawn-Gang Commander. It's like Siege-Gang Commander but it makes Eldrazi Spawn instead of Goblins, and its trigger is on cast instead of on entering the battlefield. That means it doesn't combo with Displacer, but it's still going to go into my list before the next time I play the deck.

I decided to lean away from running cards with annihilator outside of Azlask's own abilities, and I didn't aim for a combo plan that would make infinite mana, but those are both effective ways to build this deck. They might be more effective than what I came up with, but I don't love the feeling of attacking someone with a bunch of annihilator triggers. Not everyone minds such things, but it can sometimes sour the mood of a play session.

That's all I've got for today. If you do your own Eldrazi Incursion precon rebuild and you decide to build around Azlask, I hope you found something in today's column to help with your build.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!