Last updated on April 29, 2024
Ebony Fly | Illustration by Jarel Threat
As a fan of ramp decks, I’ve always enjoyed the Eldrazi, so imagine my excitement when I saw that WotC would finally be printing an Eldrazi Commander deck!
It’s priced and built to be a premium version of your everyday Commander precon. But I think you can take it to the next level and beyond without totally breaking the bank.
Today, I’m going to go over a list of upgrades I’d recommend to improve this awesome new precon!
Deck Overview
Eldrazi Unbound is one of the four preconstructed decks released alongside the Commander Masters set. It’s a first for Magic as the first all colorless preconstructed deck that has been printed. The deck is a mix of different styles, but it primarily looks to ramp into big Eldrazi spells to win the game with.
The face commander from Commander Masters is Zhulodok, Void Gorger, a card I’m very excited to play. It gives all your big ramp payoffs a double cascade. I absolutely love cascade as a mechanic, and I find it really fun, so I’m naturally drawn to this deck. With Zhulodok as your commander, you clearly want to be casting as many cards that cost 7 mana or more, so you’ll want to gear your deck towards that.
The deck’s main backup commander is Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate, a card that I’m not particularly fond of but it can clearly do some work. I don’t think it looks like a very interesting commander itself, but it’s still powerful enough that I’m happy with it in the main deck.
- POWERFUL RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX—Take your Commander game to the next level with a high-powered, ready-to-play deck
- PLAY WITH COMMANDER’S GREATEST HITS—Turn heads with a deck stacked with reprints of some of the greatest cards to grace Magic’s most popular format
- INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—Each Commander deck also introduces 10 never-before-seen Magic: The Gathering cards
- COLORLESS COMMANDER DECK—get the Eldrazi Unbound Commander Deck, a Colorless 100-card deck containing 2 Foil Legendary cards and 98 nonfoil cards, and battle your friends in epic, multiplayer games
- COLLECT SPECIAL TREATMENT CARDS—Each deck comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack containing 2 special treatment cards from the Commander Masters set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare
Strengths and Weaknesses
The obvious strength of this deck is the big, powerful plays it can make. New spells like Rise of the Eldrazi and Desecrate Reality should be absolutely devastating to play against. Ramp decks need powerful payoffs, and this deck should absolutely have those in spades.
Generally, the weakness of this deck is always that when restricted to only colorless cards, you lack a lot of the tools that make Commander decks good. You have very few interactive spells available, which means you’re forced into playing the few that you can. That said, you can get a little bit creative with your inclusions to help you make up for that.
Honorable Mention: The Eldrazi Titans
Any of the legal versions of Kozilek, Ulamog, and Emrakul would naturally be great in this deck, but only Kozilek, the Great Distortion is actually in it. When I upgrade this myself, I’ll likely put them all in. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how silly these cards are, so put in whichever ones you like and/or have access to.
Manifold Key
Suggest Cut: Suspicious Bookcase
While you might be interested in making your large creatures unblockable, you don’t need to play bad cards to do it. Manifold Key can act as a mana rock if you have anything out that taps for multiple mana, so that’s something you want a lot more than a pointless wall.
Ebony Fly
Suggest Cut: Crashing Drawbridge
Crashing Drawbridge is another weak card that I don’t think you need, so upgrading it to another mana rock sounds like a plan. You want to accelerate your mana early, then later on you can animate Ebony Fly and give one of your big Eldrazi flying for a turn. Pretty good, I’d say.
Planar Atlas
Suggest Cut: Fireshrieker
I don’t get why Fireshrieker is here in the first place, so let’s swap it out for another mana rock. Planar Atlas is a cool card which can help to find you a land for the following turn if you need it. You also have a couple of combinations of lands that you want to assemble, which might become a little easier to do.
Expedition Map
Suggest Cut: Endless Atlas
This deck has a few good cards that draw cards, so you don’t need a weaker one like Endless Atlas, plus you’re going to cut some of the Wastes. Expedition Map is going to help you not just to find mana, but to assemble some land combinations.
Basalt Monolith
Suggest Cut: Unstable Obelisk
If you’re spending 3 mana on a mana rock, it might as well be one that gets you to 7 mana a lot earlier. You even have Manifold Key to untap it more easily, so this seems like a no-brainer.
Treasure Map
Suggest Cut: Endless One
Endless One isn’t all that impressive anymore, so let’s turn it into more mana ramp. Treasure Map fixes your draws for a few turns before accelerating you with three Treasures and an extra land, which you’re very happy to get.
Karn, Scion of Urza
Suggest Cut: Myriad Construct
Myriad Construct is just bad, I don’t get why it’s here. On the other hand, Karn, Scion of Urza is a phenomenal planeswalker, giving you your choice of extra cards or the Urza/Karn Construct tokens, both of which should be good in different situations.
Thought-Knot Seer
Suggest Cut: Scaretiller
I’m not sure just how effective Coercion effects are in Commander, but I like how Thought-Knot Seer can steal a card from one player and then give the extra card to someone else when it dies.
Sandstone Oracle
Suggest Cut: Geode Golem
With the extra mana you’re adding, I don’t think you really need a card like Geode Golem. But what you do need is extra cards, which is exactly what Sandstone Oracle gives you. Not only does it refill your hand in an instant, but it’s also a 7-drop to trigger Zhulodok’s cascade triggers.
Spine of Ish Sah
Suggest Cut: Soul of New Phyrexia
Removal is something that you generally lack in this deck, so Spine of Ish Sah should be a perfect inclusion. By comparison, Soul of New Phyrexia is just too weak. It has a desirable ability, but it costs a lot of mana to be using turn after turn.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Suggest Cut: Bane of Bala Ged
You only have a couple of board wipes available to you, so you need another one. Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is one of the most powerful board wipes in the game and one that won’t affect any of your own cards, so it’s a surefire pick here.
Portal to Phyrexia
Suggest Cut: Burnished Hart
I’m not much of a fan of Burnished Hart. It’s not going to fix your colors, so it seems a little too expensive in this case. Portal to Phyrexia is absurdly powerful in this deck. In a 4-player Commander game, it can kill up to nine total creatures when it enters and then gives you a free reanimated creature every turn.
Cloudpost and Glimmerpost
Suggest Cuts: Two Wastes
In a colorless deck, you want some number of Wastes, but you can trim a few in favor of better lands. Cloudpost and Glimmerpost are simple colorless lands that give you a little extra mana when combined. Moreso, if you can make copies of Cloudpost, the amount of mana you have gets exponentially bigger.
Urza’s Workshop
Suggest Cut: Wastes
Since there are three Urzatron lands in the deck, Urza's Workshop is perfect. Metalcraft should be trivial to get, allowing it to tap for multiple mana really easily. All four Urza’s lands together give 11 mana, but even just this along with one other lets it tap for 2 mana, so it should be pure upside over a simple Wastes.
Vesuva and Thespian’s Stage
Suggest Cut: Two Wastes
Vesuva and Thespian's Stage really bring the last few upgrades together. They can copy any of the lands that I’ve added that give multiple mana at a time. Copying an Urza's Workshop or a Cloudpost ramps you up very quickly. Even just copying something like Eldrazi Temple is a fast way to get ahead on mana.
Eye of Ugin
Suggest Cut: Wastes
How is Eye of Ugin not in the deck already? I get that this deck isn’t entirely focused on Eldrazi, but this card is absurdly good and perfectly designed for this deck that I can’t imagine not wanting it.
Commanding Conclusion
Thespian's Stage | Illustration by John Avon
Are you excited for this deck? How are you upgrading it? Let me know in the comments!
If you liked this article, please follow us on Twitter and join our Discord server too. Share the article with your friends and help drive the conversation further.
Until next time, take care of yourselves!
Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, you’ll help Draftsim continue to provide awesome free articles and apps.
Follow Draftsim for awesome articles and set updates:
6 Comments
yooooooooooo! what about adding ulamog, the ceaseless hunger borderless i got? the art is awesome and the skill is DEADLY! when it attacks, defending player exiles top twenty cards of their library.
It’s a little expensive ($$) so we were hesitant to add that into the upgrades. However, if you’ve pulled it, I’d 100% add that to the list somewhere. It’s too good!!
I did pull it! It was one of the two extra cards I obtained in the deck! What would you suggest as a replacement?
what would you recommend to replace for ulamog, the ceaseless hunger ?
A hard choice to be sure, but I’d go with anything big and powerful that you can afford. Something like Triplicate Titan.
that’s not what i mean. i removed fireshrieker to add ulamog.
Add Comment