Hello and welcome to Commander Bites!

Ulasht is a four mana 0/0 that enters with a +1/+1 counter for each other red creature you control and a +1/+1 counter for each other green creature you control and for one mana and remove a +1/+1 counter from Ulasht you can either deal 1 damage to target creature or make a 1/1 green Saproling creature token.

Game Plan

Ulasht is a counters Commander that cares about the creatures you control in order to gain more counters. Notably an important piece of rules text to know is that if you control a creature that is red and green, then that means that Ulasht gets two +1/+1 counters.

This means we don’t need to get a bunch of creatures on board, but a good number of red and green creatures in play in order to get a good number of counters onto Ulasht, which we can then use for several potential strategies.

Support

Since we want a good number of creatures that are red and green, we can take advantage of the good number of dual colored utility creatures that exist.

For example, Burning Tree Emissary can be a solid way to get two potential creatures in play because when it enters we add a red and a green mana. We can then use that to cast something like a Goblin Anarchomancer which makes each spell we cast that’s red or green cost one mana less to cast.

Zhur-Taa Druid taps to add a green mana and whenever we do tap it for mana we deal 1 damage to each opponent, Radha, Heir to Keld adds two red mana when the attack and can tap for green mana, and Ruby, Daring Tracker can tap to add red or green mana immediately since she has haste or she can attack while getting a +2/+2 boost if we control a creature with power 4 or greater.

Xenagos, the Reveler can also help us because their +1 adds X mana in any combination or red and/or green where X is the number of creatures we control, their -6 can exile the top seven cards of our library and put any number of creatures or lands onto the battlefield, but most importantly their 0 ability can create a 2/2 red and green Satyr token with haste.

We can also use Grumgully, the Generous as a way to get even more counters on Ulasht because Grumgully has it so that each other non-Human creature we control enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. Add in a Hardened Scales to get an additional +1/+1 counter whenever a creature would get one or more +1/+1 counters and we are doing fairly well with counter generation.

Since Ulasht happens to make Saprolings, there are a couple of ways we can make use of that, either by focusing on making more Saprolings or using the Saprolings for some sort of other gain.

If we want to make a bunch of Saprolings, then Saproling Symbiosis is actually pretty good if we have a decently established board because we can make a Saproling token for each creature we control. Since we are also playing with counters, we can also use Ferrafor, Young Yew also can make a number of Saprolings equal to the number of counters target player controls while also being able to double the amount of counters on target creature.

We even have access to a three card combo with Ulasht using Death’s Presence and Utopia Mycon, which consists of making a Saproling with Ulasht, sacrificing that Saproling for one mana and to trigger Death’s Presence to put a +1/+1 counter onto Ulasht, rinse and repeat for an infinite amount of death triggers and enters triggers and add in an Impact Tremors so you can deal 1 damage to each opponent whenever a Saproling you control enters.

If you want access to a two card combo, then all you need is to have Ivy Lane Denizen and Goblin Bombardment to have it so that whenever a green creature enters the battlefield you put a +1/+1 counter on target creature and Goblin Bombardment to sacrifice a creature to deal 1 damage to any target.

Setbacks

Ulasht is very much an Commander that needs to be in play in order to be the most effective that they can be.

Removing Ulasht before getting any of the abilities to resolve is not ideal, and in fact can make it difficult to get the ball rolling if the board is completely cleared.

We do have access to some cheap protection in our colors, Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard being one of them, however that can only go so far, especially since only one of our colors can do protection really well.

I know I have talked about board wipes in plenty of other blogs, but it’s something that bears repeating, especially with a Commander that cares so much about the color of our creatures in play in order to gain counters. If our board gets wiped, we get no value from recasting Ulasht since they will enter the battlefield with no +1/+1 counters.

You need at least one creature in play in order to get a counter on Ulasht, and if your opponents are keeping you from getting any creatures in play, then UIasht gets worse and worse the more and more they are removed.

It also doesn’t help that if we are going for a combo variant of the deck, we need to make sure that we get the cards we need, either through some potentially expensive to cast card draw or ways to tutor what we need onto the battlefield, which while not hard in our colors for creatures, it does become a bit more challenging for some of the other card types.

Bracket Rating: 2

I think that Ulasht as a counter Commander is pretty interesting, especially since there is a capacity to potentially cause infinite loops. However, even with access to those loops, Ulasht will have a hard time being consistent with getting it’s game play loop working.

Getting counters on Ulasht is not difficult, almost trivial in our colors, but what the deck will struggle with is to make sure that all the pieces are in place in order to make the most out of Ulasht’s abilities.

That being said, as a go tall Commander that can produce a wide board, they can be pretty solid as a lower bracket Commander that can deal with the more limited interaction that is in lower brackets.

Thank you for reading, see you all tomorrow!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual