Is Azor's Elocutors a viable win-con in EDH?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 4, 2017, 10:01 p.m. by chaeburger
Has anyone out there made Azor's Elocutors a viable win-con for a UW control EDH deck? If so, how?
Cold_Pizza says... #3
7 power is the magic number for any Commander, and Gigantiform is my green auto-include.
April 5, 2017 4:14 p.m.
Not really. The timing and the drawback really kill it. For starters it tracks each instance of damage, so if someone hits you with 4 or more creatures you're back to square one. Super easy to do. Plus the win condition is only when the upkeep trigger resolves, so even if you proliferate to 5, your opponents still get their whole turns to do something about it. You can proliferate up to 4 before the trigger resolves in your upkeep, but in order to do that you need to start the turn with at least one counter, which your opponents will go out of their way to keep from happening (if they're smart).
If you're playing a grindy, staxy deck that can support a win-con like this, I suggest going with Darksteel Reactor instead. Yes, twenty is a lot, but it's much harder to set back or remove, and charge counters have additional support like Coretapper and Energy Chamber that can help on top of proliferate to close the gap. As an added bonus it doesn't matter when the twentieth counter is place on it, and there's no "if" clause in the ability, so removing the reactor in response won't keep you from winning the game.
Just don't forget that putting counters on it is a "may," which means you can miss it by drawing for your turn too quickly.
LordNazahn says... #2
I don't know if sole UW is best for that card, it actually might do good in an Atraxa, Praetors' Voice deck, where you can give it more counters to really put pressure down, possibly play it, protect it, and at the end of turn before your upkeep pump it to 4 counters and win?
April 5, 2017 2:22 a.m.