I'm planning on running merfolk with Ulamog. Might not be good but guys, lore wise it would be funny af

Yes, a short but in depth video about why a specific card is good! I keep looking around at MTG creators to try learning the game, but everyone seems to want to make 1 hour videos

Let this be definitive proof that Hamhocks indeed touches grass.

The creation of Avacyn is my favorite way to play Ulamog, pay 3 mana, 10 life, and minimum 2 turns with ulamog revealed, into an annihilator 10, 17/17 ulamog. It’s such a fun 2 card combo

4:00 Not to mention some of the adventures are mana ramps so they play to both sides e.g. Beanstalk Giant is 7CMC with a rampant growth adventure, Beanstalk Wurm is 5 CMC with a 2 CMC play an additional land as adventure.

Can’t wait to play with this

This is by no means a problematic card in commander. It's 2024 and we have a vast amount of data to judge objectively cards and their converted winrate in EDH. We have never been this close in the history of the game to stop the argument that something is good or not because "it dies to removal". Let's see a couple of months in MH3 and observe then which is the actual impact of this card. I would always be much more afraid to see a Peer into the Abyss resolved, or an entwined Tooth and Nail, for less mana. Not to mention what you can achieve with even less mana and setup. What this Ulamog really is, it's an ideal revenge commander to punish always the same player everytime you cast it, if he or she pissed you off last game.

I’m trying to build a obeka and xanathar deck specifically geared against this type of chicanery

I need to put this card into my Neheb, the Eternal list and cast him from hand on turn 4

That a green screen?

ULAMOG sees itself in exile, it comes in as a 17/17

I’m fine with it. Then again I play theft effects in most my decks

Let's not forget that the Annihilator value is equal to "the number of +1/+1 counters on it". Meaning this effect isn't limited by the largest card in exile. This is an effect that still has the potential to get increasingly bigger and bigger. And with Green having countless cards that add or double counters? Commander is now a dead format, and Ulamog killed it.

My first thought when I saw this card was Greater Gargadon. That may not be the most strategic thought, but that's what my brain said to me.

Yeah I am already running Kozilek the Great Distortion as commander. If you can answer game ending threats every turn after 4 someone is not going to be happy

Honestly... I think he's Junds best friend. Impulsedraw from Red getting stuff into exile, Green to put up the big counters on him (I believe 2 or 3 would be enough tbh) and before... simply reanimate him... You really don't care about him being cast something like or even worse.. t1 forest, deathrite shaman, t2 dark ritual, buried alive, fetch ulamog and big creatures like... Ancient Stone Idol... tap green, remove ASI, Turn 3 - Reanimate (or if you don't want to be hurt Necromancy)... woop there you go, Ulamog with 17/17 Annihilator 10

Ulamog the Defiler. The name kinda suggests what those tentacles are for.

I did a pre release today. Ulamog got +32/+32. Still lost but holy fuck

I'll be honest, even the part about having to count the number of cards left in my library, then having to count half of them again to exile, puts me off in a 100 card paper format. :P

play a token deck with removal and not worry at all. plenty of counters to it out there

lol could be fun in animar

In our casual play I can get him out potentially on turn 2. It doesn't matter it will be banned.

Is Ulamog, The Defiler powerful? yes. you know what else is powerful? Force of Will Force of Negation Counterspell Mana Drain Access Denied Absorb Mana Leak Memory Drain Mindstatic Mystic Confluence Mystic Denial (Insert a bunch of other Wrath spells here) (Insert a bunch of exile effects here) Ulamog may be a powerful creature, but certainly isn't too powerful to deal with. Especially if someone at the table is playing control, enchantress, or any other type of deck with resource denial. Besides, unless you're playing cEDH, in my experience it isn't too uncommon to see multiple players achieve a sizable board presence by the time something like this would hit the board. Sacrificing 2 permanents may not feel great, but if it would put you in a position that you couldn't game politics your way out of getting beaten, you likely weren't getting out of that to start with.

This, and cards like this, are why I don't want to play EDH in a tournament setting. I was invited to a local LGS for an upcoming tournament, and, along with timing issues on multiple fonts, I don't want to have decks that play like that. Difficult to deal with? Sure. Absolutely oppressive? No way. Don't play decks in edh that you wouldn't want used on you.

Ulamog the ceaseless hunger is still way better.

My playgroup house-banned Annihilator a long time ago and we are better for it. Ham said it best, knock a player out without killing them feels bad.

I wouldn't even say you need to go through the hoops of cloning that creature spell cost reduction 4:45, I have som Eldrazi creatures in my Animar deck, usually just to trigger creature cast/etb effects, but I know some people just right off the bat play Animar as a Eldrazicommander. If you have a strong explosive start in animar with a bop, it hasn't been unlikely for me to pop off and win with animar at round 4-5, so getting the 10 mana Eldrazi spell it's def not that difficult. A friend of mine played a kozilek deck once I remember I was still on my turn two and hit me with a blightsteel colossus with lightning greaves, so with colorless ramp I'd say it's also not that hard to get to that point. All in all, I hate the Eldrazi mechanic with a passion. I love the lovecraftian lore, cosmic horror, etc, so I was so excited when it was first announced, but the annihilator mechanic is just so boring and devastating. Because, as you said, it's so targeted it's giving off a really bad gameplay energy where one player is now playing with half of their limbs but you don't even kill them. Even with infect, also a mechanic I really dislike, at least I'm dead and don't have to think about anything but with something like annihilator it's just "half your permanents go, you're basically set back 6 turns, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, go". The fact that most of them just trigger on cast instead of ETBs make them so less likely to even be able to target with counterspells even. I get that the lore is that "their prescence alone terrifies us!!" but it's just such a bad way of executing it in terms of gameplay. A part of me is surprised that they resurrected annihilator as a mechanic as is, because I feel like wotc did change a lot things mechanically for the better: red didn't get card drawal, but got more impulse draw, white got card drawal if they're creating creature tokens & more land fix, but it's so weird that they didn't do anything about annihilator that's just straight up a mechanic that is absolute dogshit. While I don't think they "fixed" infect, you could at least give them credit for wanting to change infect from "hit one person out of the game on turn 3", to "you get things if more opponents have 3 infect counters", meaning infect would at least be more pushed towards killing all opponents closer to each other than one person sitting and waiting for 45 minutes. As someone said in the comments here as well, my old playgroup actually housebanned the annihilator mechanic; as in, play all the Eldrazis you want but the annihilator won't do anything.

Yea the eldrazi should not of gotten all the support they did. Ulamog is just insanely stupid and the other one that steals a persons entire field with no chance of getting it back is just as bad. Honestly eldrazi never are good for the game and i will admit if I got my deck sliced in half and then had to sac most if not all my board even if I still lived I am scooping. No reason to keep going. Prefer to scoop then sitting there unable to play the game or do anything but be hit and be a punching bag for the other players. Would of been nice for wolves, centaurs, scarecrows and other cool and forgotten tribes to get solid support for once instead of eldrazi.

TL; DW: BAN IT