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All aboard the Chu-Chulane

Commander / EDH Combo Control GWU (Bant) Stax

Poly_raptor

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Lands (37)

Utility (6)

Value creatures (12)

When you cast a creature (11)

Protection (8)

Win Con (5)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Chulane, Teller of Tales

Ramp (11)

Bounce creatures (9)

Right, so since Chulane, Teller of Tales was previewed, I have wanted to try and build a deck around him. He is everything I love in a commander. He gives me access to card draw, he speeds up my game and he gives me access to my favourite colours (and white). He offers a ridiculous value engine that can spiral off into several win conditions. I have looked through many great builds around this guy, some stax, some storm, some CEDH as inspiration and the below is the list I have come up with. There are a few cards I am unsure about adding / cutting in but on a whole I am happy with this list
The deck is built to interact with other decks throughout the game. I don’t particularly like the idea of going off turn 3 or 4, but with the right opening hand it definitely could. There are a few different ways that we can win. We can win with big creatures, alternative win cons and by simply casting creatures. These will be covered in full below. Due to the colours we have access to with chulane, this does have a control feel to it, but only in terms of protecting ourselves.
I’m trying to run a fast enough mana base, without running any lands that straight up enter tapped. The pain lands are very good for budget, followed by the shock lands and the filter lands, these are about as pricey as I will go, as I already own some buying 1 or 2 more of these won’t break the bank. I’m also running a few decently priced lands that tap for 1 of any colour.
Chulane is ramp on a stick so the ramp category is pretty slim.
We’re running a few rocks to help accelerate our early game. -Sol Ring is a staple in EDH deck and rightfully has its place in this deck. -Arcane Signet is another very powerful rock for the early drop but that’s all we’re running in the list for artifact ramp.
Instead of running Kodama's Reach Cultivate etc, I chose to run creatures that do similar things so that we could benefit from Chulane if he’s in play, we can also reuse these creatures at any point when they get returned to hand Treefolk Harbinger, Ainok Guide, Loam Lava & Sylvan Ranger will fetch lands for us to drop the following turn or later that turn with another creature & Oreskos Explorer could fetch up to 3 lands on turn 2, all of them being two drops or less is very handy.
The remaining ramp slots are filled with dorks that can ramp us out even more. Running Llanowar Elves for Avacyn's Pilgrim for & Birds of Paradise for any of the 3 colours we need. Cryptolith Rite will turn all our creatures into dorks.
I’m a control player, always have been always will be, son! We want to control the game by reacting to things that will only threaten us. Usually this would be done with instants but because of Chulane we’re going to use creatures.
Some of the creatures we are running have flash. So we can cast then at instant speed, use their ETB’s to counter or do certain things, some of the creatures don’t have flash, so to give them flash we are running. 1. Leyline of Anticipation

  1. Aluren

  2. Alchemist's Refuge

I figured 3 slots in this category would be enough. We’ll definitely draw into one of them with the amount of card advantage we can create in the early game.

Imagine if Counterspell read “Counter target spell, then draw a card and put a land from your hand into play”.... Say hello to:

  1. Frilled Mystic

  2. Mystic Snake

  3. Voidmage Husher

  4. Plaxmanta

  5. Silumgar Sorcerer

All of these can be excellent cards to have in hand or on the battlefield, as we can ramp out quickly we can easily have a minimum of 5 untapped mana, if someone sends a threatening spell out way we could just Chulane and pay to bounce Plaxmanta back to our hand and then cast it using the remaining two mana have available. This is an AMAZING political tool, once you have done it once, people will be a lot more likely to target other things on your opponents board because they’d be wasting a spell by doing it to you. You can also threaten to counter certain things that could affect the whole board as a way of talking people out of making bigger plays.

Using the same strategy listed above I also added in a few great options to help slow down threats on the battlefield, running a few options that will untap all creatures we control or tap all creatures target player controls. A personal favourite here is Portal Mage, someone swings are you with anything too nasty then just flash him in and divert at someone else. “Sorry buddy, I didn’t attack you with that Blightsteel colosus, that was him”.

Another very important card in this section is Leyline of Lifeforce, yes it will benefit everyone at the table but it makes our combos in the late game very hard to stop.

There are a few other notable combos in this deck to help us grind out a win.

-Equilibrium & Overburden will allow us to slow down our opponents whilst we get ahead. Paired with the commander Overburden won’t bother us, and if we get both out we could do the following play:

Cast Llanowar Elves for triggering Chulane, Teller of Tales & Equilibrium. Let the Chulane, Teller of Tales trigger resolve first, putting a land into play, then let the Equilibrium trigger resolve, pay the needed with the land we’ve just played to bounce an opponents creature back to their hand and then Overburden will resolve bouncing one of our tapped lands back to our hand for us to then put back into play with Chulane, Teller of Tales

For a strong board state we can cast Dovescape + Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite turning all of our opponents spells into birds that will die instantly.

I think this is a pretty funny interaction and would be pretty difficult to stop, especially if we cast Dovescape first.

We’re running Aura Shards as a solid bit of removal, great for removing people’s pillow forts, mana rocks, token doublers etc. I wouldn’t use this ability whenever we cast a creature as we don’t want too much hate coming our way, but if it’s a case of getting rid of Doubling Season or Winter Orb then don’t even think about it.

Curse of the Swine can get rid of a few threats we could face too

Karmic Justice is a solid card in this list, if anyone wants to hit our valuable pieces we get to destroy something of there’s. The main reason it is included is to act as a deterrent for targeting our permanents or as a shield, taking away someone’s removal spell.

Generous Gift & Beast Within & Swords to Plowshares are all sold removal at instant speed.

Abundance is arguably the best card we run in terms of draw, paired with Chulane we will never miss a land drop.

Guardian Project will draw an extra card when we cast creatures, along with the commander, with Beast Whisperer & The Great Henge we could be drawing a total of 4 cards per creature we cast.

With this value engine we can then get whatever we need with Abundance or Cream of the Crop if we don’t have abundance to at least filter for us slightly.

Now we’ve established our board state and have full control of the board, we’re ready to close out the win. This deck has a few avenues to go down.
Most people who have brewed Chulane have added Aluren to their lists, and rightly so. It’s a game winner. With Aluren in play we can cast Whitemane Lion for free, bounce any creature we have back to our hand and then cast Faerie Impostor bouncing the lion and then repeat this until we deck ourselves with Chulane. Once this combo is running with Leyline of Lifeforce ∨ Dovescape it can’t be stopped. Now we’ve established the winning combo, I’ll explain the ways we use this to win.
I’m running Bontu's Monument which essentially acts as a blood artist but for entering not dying, it’s a very black card, but we can run it in this deck as it has no colour identity. Oketra's Monument is also in the deck, this doesn’t out right act as a win con, it will hum up the board for us very quickly.
We’re running Aetherflux Reservoir as a “giant laser”, we storm off with Aluren, if cast each creature as little as 11 times, that would gain us 240 life, plenty to kill everyone straight away. I am also running Hunting Pack to use with Altar of Dementia or Brain Freeze to mill everyone out.
The final option we have is to draw the entire deck using the Aluren combo, which doesn’t need Chulane, Teller of Tales to go off as long as have access to any one of the draw options in the deck. This paired with Psychosis Crawler should be enough to drain everyone out, with Laboratory Maniac in the deck, which we would inevitably draw into and then cast for the win.
If we can’t win with the combos above then we can win the old fashioned way by just smashing through with big nasties. -Juniper Order Ranger & Good-Fortune Unicorn will pump up our guys, with the ranger becoming a serious threat on his own. The Great Henge will also pump up our guys when they enter. If we get all 3 out then we could cast a simple mana dork that would enter as a 4/4

anafenza, Kim-Tree spirit pumps up our creatures to get a powerful board.

Using the combo with Aluren we could cast 2 of the bounce creatures indefinitely, which would pump up all the other creatures on the board, then cast Hunting Pack to create a bagillion 4/4 beasts and smash through with solid power. We could this on the end step of the opponent that goes before we do, essentially giving them all haste.

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95% Casual

Competitive

Revision 9 See all

(4 years ago)

Date added 5 years
Last updated 4 years
Key combos
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

6 - 0 Mythic Rares

36 - 0 Rares

33 - 0 Uncommons

13 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.03
Tokens 1/1 WU Token Creature Bird, Beast 3/3 G, Beast 4/4 G, Boar 2/2 G, Elephant 3/3 G, Spirit 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance
Folders EDH Decks
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