What is the role of phrase "as many as" in "... as many as five commands ..."?

I have a sentence as follows:

You may need as many as five commands to draw a simple triangle when using the basic layer.

My question is:

Is the phrase "as many as" crucial ? Will the meaning change if I remove it from the sentence?

Does the phrase mean "at most"?

I believe it means "at most," with an emphasis being that the number is undesirably large.

If your intention is to convey how much effort it takes to draw a simple triangle, there's no better phrase than "as many as".

However, if you want to imply how short & straightforward the task is, then you may use:

You need no more than five commands to draw a simple triangle when using the basic layer.

As answered by Claudiu & Steve, "at most" is valid in the second case and "up to" is valid in both cases.