Azusa, Lost No More

Commander / EDH Combo Eldrazi Mono-Green Ramp

Elevate

Land (47)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Blasted Landscape
• 1x Desert of the Indomitable
• 1x Deserted Temple
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 1x Dust Bowl
• 1x Eldrazi Temple
• 1x Eye of Ugin
• 16x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Khalni Garden
• 1x Lotus Vale
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mosswort Bridge
• 1x Mystifying Maze
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Scorched Ruins
• 1x Sea Gate Wreckage
• 1x Slippery Karst
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Thespian's Stage
• 1x Tranquil Thicket
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Card Draw (17)

• 1x Ancient Stirrings
• 1x Elvish Visionary
• 1x Garruk, Primal Hunter
• 1x Gift of the Gargantuan
• 1x Harmonize
• 1x Horn of Greed
• 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary
• 1x Mind's Eye
• 1x Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip
• 1x Oath of Nissa
• 1x Recycle
• 1x Regal Force
• 1x Smuggler's Copter
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Wall of Blossoms
• 1x Zendikar Resurgent

Tutors (7)

• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Summoner's Pact
• 1x Sylvan Scrying
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Utility (5)

• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Vedalken Orrery
• 1x Void Winnower

Removal (4)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x World Breaker

Commander (1)

Mana Technology (12)

• 1x Courser of Kruphix
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Crucible of Worlds
• 1x Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Magus of the Candelabra
• 1x Mana Reflection
• 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1x Ramunap Excavator
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Storm Cauldron
• 1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

Win Conditions (7)

• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Concordant Crossroads
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Genesis Wave
• 1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

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Introduction

"I do not miss Jukai Forest. It is not my home. My home is Zendikar, the Eldrazi my family. Wherever I set my pack, the blight surrounds me, and I am nourished."

This Commander deck has been in the making for nigh on a decade, and has evolved through many iterations, tunings, and complete overhauls until arriving at the force on display here. Azusa has finally made peace with her destiny. She is the Bringer of the Void, and the Hand of Annihilators.

The Strategy

• Phase I. Ramp and Draw: We want to get ahead as quickly as we can in the early game, so we can start assembling card advantage engines to tear through the deck.
• Phase II. Accrue massive card advantage: We are now looking for ways to exponentially grow our mana reserve and find kill conditions so that we can win in one explosive turn.
• Phase III. Annihilate: Play as many creatures as you can, pump them up to be huge and tramply, attack without remorse.

Land

This deck runs a large variety of utility land at little cost. The number of lands in this deck has fluctuated between 40 and 55, and in my playtesting and experience, 47 is a solid number to have. Not too often are you upset to draw a land, as a lot of the deck interacts with lands being played. Many more lands than 47 though and you run a higher risk of not seeing the interactive cards.

Gaea's Cradle is a staple of the deck, and if I didnt have on I probably wouldnt run Azusa as a commander. Growing Rites of Itlimoc is incomparable in this deck and you might have noticed that I dont run it. Growing Rites is far too slow for the deck, untutorable, and if it gets bounced or destroyed I lose a lot of value if I want to flip it again.On a related note, there are many lands that tap or more than one mana, all of which really amp up the potency of Mana Reflection and abilities that untap lands.

Beyond Gaeas Cradle, Eye of Ugin might be the second best card in the deck. Tutoring for an Eldrazi and casting it as a discounted cost in one turn is a very real thing that deck can do regularly, and being able to tutor removal in Ulamog and World Breaker is incredibly useful.

I run all four green fetches in this deck. They are overwhelmingly superior to Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds; bringing the Forests in untapped is a really big deal. When combined with Ramunap Excavator /Crucible of Worlds and Azusa, they net you six landfall triggers in a turn.

Mana Technology

Beyond obviously powerful cards such as Mana Reflection and Vorinclex, there are a few particular mana interactions I want to discuss.

Being able to make large number of land drops a turn really turns on things like Lotus Cobra, which will often surprise you at the number of things it allows you to do in the early game.

Having access to many lands that produce multiple amounts of mana turns Magus of the Candelabra into a superstar, and an early Green Sun's Zenith to find either him or the Cobra is often a fine play.

As mentioned earlier, Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds plus a fetchland can result in an absurd amount of landfall triggers, however these two cards also combine aggressively with Strip Mine to repeatedly blow up multiple lands, and can get back lands you sacrifice to various abilities or even cycling lands.

Before moving on I must talk about Storm Cauldron. On the face of it, the card seems like a generic stax piece that happens to interact nicely with the ability of Azusa, but its true power lies in allowing you the activate, bounce, and replay Gaeas Cradle multiple times in a turn, netting you ridiculous amounts of mana.

Card Draw

A big part of the deck is devoted to churning through as mana cards as possible. We need to find our threats, or tutors for those threats, as well as cycle through the large amount of land in the deck (another reason >50 lands inhibits the decks performance).

Card draw on creatures like Elvish Visionary is great to increase the creature count for Gaeas Cradle, and for another creature to attack with late game. Zendikar Resurgent is just gravy on top of that... delicious, card-flavoured gravy.

Ive been quietly impressed with Smuggler's Copter in this deck. Being able to drop it early and crew it with Azusa straight afterwards is a nice way to start getting ahead early.

Flipping Nissa   is really easy to do with this deck, and the payoff is definitely noticeable. A side note here: if you have something like Oracle of Mul Daya out with land on top of your library, play the lands using your special actions before activating Nissas +1. She will always at least draw you a card, but the Oracle only gets lands.

Recent additions in Ancient Stirrings and Oath of Nissa have performed well. Ancient Stirrings will find you land, Eldrazi, and even artifacts, and Oath of Nissa functions like a green Preordain. The second ability rarely comes up, but I have cast a Garruk Wildspeaker off a Scorched Ruins before, which was pretty neat.

The real players in the deck though are Horn of Greed and Recycle. The ability to draw cards off multiple land drops a turn is incredibly powerful, and playing a Reliquary Tower after Recycle feels like you won the lottery.

Tutors

A small but necessary tutor package in this deck helps you find the right tools for each situation. Land tutors like Crop Rotation will often be looking for Gaeas Cradle, but if you already have the Cradle searching up a Deserted Temple is a good way to go.

With the creature tutors, it really depends on what stage of the game youre in and what youre trying to achieve. Early game, finding ramp creatures like Magus of the Candelabra and Oracle of Mul Daya is definitely not wasteful. If youve ramped a decent amount and want to start setting up a favourable board state, an Eldrazi or Avenger of Zendikar will do the trick. If youve run out of gas, search up a Regal Force. If youre trying to win the game, go get that Craterhoof Behemoth or Kamahl.

Removal

Removal pieces in this deck are few and far between, so you have to be careful when selecting targets for that removal. Beast Within is the premier card here, getting rid of any permanent you want.

Reclamation Sage and World Breaker are both great in this deck, both being able to be found with our tutors, and with World Breaker being found additionally by Eye of Ugin. Not much else to say here really.

Win Conditions

Weve accrued huge amounts of mana and churned through the deck now its time to power out and crush everybody in a brutal turn or two. Combat is how youre going to be winning the game, so big creatures and mass-pump effects are the final step of our plan.

Eldrazi are definitely my favourite creature type, and this is the perfect deck to abuse them. The titans are obviously incredibly strong, but a hidden gem of these eldritch beasts is Void Winnower. I never get tired of the audible sighs of frustration that emanate from my opponents when it hits the table; it just turns off huge portions of peoples decks.

With a bunch of small creatures accrued along the way and perhaps an Avenger of Zendikar, making your board huge via Craterhoof Behemoth and Kamahl, Fist of Krosa is going to seal the deal. Ive put Concordant Crossroads in this category because playing an Avenger and a Craterhoof in the same turn is a common thing youll want to do and Crossroads lets you go all out in one huge turn. You do not want to play the Crossroads until the moment you are ready to attack and win.

On the Chopping Block

Vedalken Orrery: Ive realised that this deck uses special actions in aid of creating explosive turns and situations where you want to attack immediately, and you just dont get the same sort of value at instant speed on opponents end steps. The deck is just too proactive for such a reactive card to be useful in my experience, so the orrery is definitely on its way out.

Notable Omissions

• Sorcery-based ramp spells: Cards like Skyshroud Claim and Cultivate were once a part of the deck, but felt far too slow versus straight-up card draw. With plenty of other ways in the deck to generate mana and give extra land drops, these spells were becoming dead weight.
• Stone-Seeder Hierophant: Very powerful once online. However, keeping it around for a turn cycle to be useful proved difficult a 1/1 for 4 mana just turned out to be too poor a deal despite her abilities.
• Burgeoning: This deck often finds itself with a low number of lands in its hand at end of turn. Plus, playing lands on our own turn is often more beneficial.
• Exploration: Seems in line with the premise of the deck, but this is really only good when its in your opening hand, and its usefulness declines quickly with every passing turn after turn 1. A horrible late game draw.
• Woodfall Primus: Too expensive for a piece of removal that doesnt even get creatures. Yes, you get a 6/6 that can get another permanent when it dies, but the body is usually irrelevant by that point. You want to be spending 8 mana on things that will win you the game.
• Terastodon: Similar to the Primus, I want a more proactive effect when dropping 8 mana. However, getting three targets makes it a lot more effective, and I could definitely see this card coming back in one day.
• Ezuri's Predation: Ah yes, the mono-green Wrath of God. Im on the fence about this card. When it works, it works really well. However, a lot of the time it just sits in my hand while I wish it was something proactive. This deck is successful because it does more things than my opponents, and reactive cards slow that process down and offset its strengths.
• Other Eldrazi: Yes, I love Eldrazi, and they are certainly powerful, but I learned pretty fast that cramming too many into the deck is going to ruin your early game.

Epilogue

This deck has a very special place in my heart: Azusa was the first commander I ever built around, and she has been with me for a very long time now. Despite being somewhat vulnerable to interruption, the deck is an absolute blast to play, and the fact that the deck goes incredibly large without actually going infinite feels very satisfying to me.

If you like the deck feel free to upvote it, and I would love to talk more about the deck so please leave any comments or suggestions you might have! Thanks for reading!

Date added	7 years
Last updated	6 years
Exclude colors	WUBR
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.75
Tokens	Ashaya, the Awoken World, Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Plant 0/1 G, Wurm 6/6 G