Alena // Halana (Gruulfriends Forever) [Primer]

Commander / EDH* Burn Fight Infinite Combo RG (Gruul) Stompy

brandonplaysmagic

Creature (27)

• 1x Augur of Autumn
• 1x Ball Lightning
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Brash Taunter
• 1x Elder Gargaroth
• 1x Elmar, Ulvenwald Informant
• 1x Elvish Piper
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Flameblast Dragon
• 1x Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
• 1x Ghalta, Primal Hunger
• 1x Goblin Anarchomancer
• 1x Guardian Augmenter
• 1x Hornet Nest
• 1x Inferno of the Star Mounts
• 1x Kogla, the Titan Ape
• 1x Leyline Tyrant
• 1x Malignus
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Savage Ventmaw
• 1x Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
• 1x Stuffy Doll
• 1x Temur Sabertooth
• 1x Terror of the Peaks
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x Toralf, God of Fury  ^Flip
• 1x Xenagos, God of Revels *f-etch*

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Colossal Majesty
• 1x Garruk's Uprising
• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Instill Energy
• 1x Kenrith's Transformation
• 1x Repercussion
• 1x Rhythm of the Wild
• 1x Sylvan Library

Land (36)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Endures
• 1x Cinder Glade
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Cragcrown Pathway  ^Flip
• 1x Dryad Arbor
• 10x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Grove of the Burnwillows
• 1x Kessig Wolf Run
• 7x Mountain
• 1x Raging Ravine
• 1x Rockfall Vale
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Rootbound Crag
• 1x Spire Garden
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Temple of Abandon
• 1x Tyrite Sanctum
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Crackle with Power
• 1x Ezuri's Predation
• 1x Fade from History
• 1x Jaya's Immolating Inferno
• 1x Mishra's Command
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Three Visits

Artifact (4)

• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x The Great Henge

Commanders (2)

Instant (11)

• 2x Beast Within
• 1x Berserk
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Fatal Frenzy
• 1x Heroic Intervention
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Rites of Initiation
• 1x Snakeskin Veil
• 1x Veil of Summer

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Domri, Anarch of Bolas
• 1x Vivien, Monsters' Advocate

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Alena and Hal: Partners in Work and in Life

"Halana and Alena are trackers, hunters, and protectors who live in the depths of the dark woods that border the edges of Kessig province—the woods known as the Ulvenwald. Innistrad's ancient forest is their domain, and they have long stood as a bulwark between the horrors within and the innocence without...

Hal looked to Alena. Communication between them required no words. They both knew that the Warins' farm was situated at the edge of town. They both knew it abutted the woods of the Ulvenwald. And they both knew what beasts had, of late, made a fateful resurgence in their forest... The Ulvenwald was Alena's and Hal's domain, and they would not let its dark horrors leak out to harm the innocent."

- Under the Silver Moon by Kimberly J. Kreines

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The Premise of the Deck

Welcome to my favorite EDH deck I currently own! Featuring the long overdue Commander Legends partnering of Hal and Alena - an underrated and canonically LGBT partnering (we stan). This deck utilizes the abilities of both commanders in a way that both rewards the player for big creatures while allowing for interaction amongst the table.

The premise in short: Play lower CMC big creatures to then trigger Alena's activated ability to allow bigger and better creatures to come in and wipe the board (using Halana's activated ability).

Benefits of this pair:

• In my time of playing these two, they are often overlooked and are often assumed to be commanding a weaker deck.
• This deck offers a few infinite combos (under the right circumstances)
• The flexibility of gameplay

Both commanders allow you to play into the strengths of big creatures, but with different routes to victory!

Side Note: I use proxies in my mana base because I haven't been playing the game for 20+ years and cannot afford true dual lands, Gaea's Cradles, etc. This is how I've been able to keep the budget for this deck relatively in line. I'm a public school teacher in America so I'm used to making do with what I can. *that's all.

Update: (11/30/21)

I've struggled a lot with this deck recently as the new Halana and Alena, Partners card was recently released. While I love this deck and this pairing, the partner cards are challenging in metas with heavy commander removal (like the one I typically play in). This led to me changing the deck entirely and hating what it became. I've recently completely updated the deck, moving closer to what the deck's original intention was - big creatures, stop hitting yourself, and stompy wins.

The Creatures

All in all, the creatures are the heart of this deck. As a Timmy at heart, I've cycled through so many iterations of different combinations of critters and I'm happy with the lineup I currently have. Here's a little more information as to why we have who we have.

• Augur of Autumn: Replacement for Courser of Kruphix . I like this better for this deck as the element of surprise combos can help maintain your position in the game. The added coven mechanic is redundant with Vivien.
• Beast Whisperer: Card draw
• Birds of Paradise: Mana fixing.
• Brash Taunter: Target for Halana's ability.
• Elder Gargaroth: Card draw, value off Alena's tap ability.
• Elvish Piper: Cheat creatures into play.
• Eternal Witness: Recursion.
• Feldon of the Third Path: Recursion and helps with ETB triggers for both commanders.
• Flameblast Dragon: Good finisher and an outlet to dump {R} generated from Alena.
• Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge: Low to the ground CMC value engine for Alena which also rewards you for Halana's trigger (generating treasure).
• Ghalta, Primal Hunger: Ultimate value engine in this deck - flings massive damage at creatures (or players through Toralf, God of Fury  ) and generate 12 {R}.
• Goblin Anarchomancer: Cost reduction.
• Guardian Augmenter: Protection for costly commanders.
• Hornet Nest: My favorite card in the deck. Outlet for damage from either Halana's triggered ability or through the burn spells in the deck. Recur with Feldon for an army of hornets.
• Inferno of the Star Mounts: Pumps itself for massive flinging damage (with a lot of help with Xenagos) or pump to get more mana from Alena.
• Klothys, God of Destiny: Graveyard hate, ramp, and group slug.
• Kogla, the Titan Ape: Generates more mana than was used to cast him, helps to clear the board (creatures AND artifacts/enchantments). He also helps protect our commanders by bouncing them back to hand (worst case scenario).
• Leyline Tyrant: Helps store excess mana created by Alena for later or to use politically to help bomb a player out of the game.
• Lotus Cobra: ramp
• Malignus: ultra value mid-game with Alena, tap for insane mana. Creature removal when paired with Halana.
• Savage Ventmaw: added mana value to replace itself with a second main phase creature casting.
• Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: Super important to help generate {G} mana when lacking. Having a red mana dork is nice and essential for the deck, but correcting the color balance is really, really nice here.
• Stuffy Doll: Another outlet for Halana's ability.
• Temur Sabertooth: Big combo piece (detailed below) and all around good value engine.
• Terror of the Peaks: Helps in flinging damage from big creatures to players directly (as Halana is indirect through creatures).
• Tireless Tracker: Card draw engine.
• Toralf, God of Fury  : Allows excess non-combat damage (which is dealt through Halana's ability) to be re-directed where needed - either to another creature or to a player's face.
• Xenagos, God of Revels: I would consider Xenagos a third commander as he pumps creatures for value and for damage. He also plays a key part in the main combo win of the deck.

Good Stuff and Combos

As I've passed this deck around, some people have struggled in optimizing the combos I've built into this deck and piloting its general strategies. Let me clarify that my meta is more casual so, therefore, these interactions/combos take more time to set up and to follow through. If you're looking for a turn 3 or 4 win, this is not the best strategy. If you can get these set up, these are some really fun ways that I've seen this deck interact with itself and so I thought I'd share.

Good Stuff Interaction:

Repeatable Recursion:

Feldon of the Third Path is our recursion engine for the deck. This deck thrives on ETBs and creatures living on the battlefield. Having this repeatable recursion is essential for the deck to play through the mid-game.

Flinging Damage

Another fun (albeit very rare) interaction and possible wincon is through Halana's ability and slinging excess noncombat damage through Toralf at a bunch of different creatures. For this shenanigans to work, you would need Selvala, Heart of the Wilds on the board alongside Halana, Kessig Ranger and Toralf, God of Fury   and Temur Sabertooth and Staff of Domination and Ghalta, Primal Hunger. I know this is very circumstantial, but hear me out here. Also, Fiery Emancipation helps speed this along by a lot, but again, just laying this out so you can see the interaction because it's funny as hell.

Get your board set up with Halana, Toralf, Selvala, Temur Sabertooth, and your staff. Cast your Ghalta, Primal Hunger and let it resolve (at this point it should only cost {G}{G}. Use Halana's ability to deal 12 damage to target creature. Toralf will allow excess non-combat damage to be dealt to any target, so we will choose target player, dealing X damage to them. Use a {G} to activate Selvala, floating 12 {G} and then use that mana to activate Temur Sabertooth and bounce Ghalta back to your hand as well as untap the Staff of Domination and Selvala. Upon repeats, this nets 3 {G} each time. This was a stupid paragraph but I had fun nonetheless.

My last favorite bit of interaction in this deck before I move on is with my favorite Magic! card of all time: Hornet Nest. If it's out alongside Halana, Kessig Ranger you can pay 2 into Halana's activated ability to send damage to your nest and create a bunch of 1/1 flying insects with deathtouch. You could also do this by casting Blasphemous Act while it's on the board which is always really fun. I did this on MTGMuddstah's channel and the groaning I heard from everyone let me know I was the man of the hour. But I digress...

Combos:

There is a primary combo of this deck which you can kind of play with and use differently depending on how the game is playing out. But in essence you will need the following pieces:

Alena, Kessig Trapper

Staff of Domination

Any creature with power {5} or greater

Essentially, you have Alena + Staff of Domination on the battlefield and cast a creature with power 5 or greater. Tap Alena for 5 {R}. Floating that mana, use 3 to activate Staff of Domination's ability to untap Alena, then an addition 1 to untap Staff of Domination. This nets 1 {R} which, after infinite repeats, gives you infinite {R} and then infinite card draw.

If you do not have a creature in hand to start this chain event, you can use Xenagos, God of Revels to pump Alena to an 8/7, which will allow her to tap for 8 {R} which is enough to start the chain. *Note that Rhythm of the Wild or Vexing Shusher do a great job in protecting this combo while you play it out.

Closing out the game

What's fun about this deck is that you have a few ways of going about closing the game from this point, depending on what your board state looks like going into this turn. Here are some suggestions:

Infinite Damage:

• Jaya's Immolating Inferno
OR
• Banefire

Infinite Rage Bomb:

1. Cast Leyline Tyrant
2. Cast Halana, Kessig Ranger if not already out.
3. Cast any creature with power 4 or greater
4. Trigger Halana's ability, killing Leyline Tyrant.
5. Pay enough {R} to knock out your opponents.

Featured Gameplay

Featured on MTGMuddstah on 7/12/21:

Featured on MTGMuddstah on 4/22/21:

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Revisions

Revision Date: 9/13/21

In:

• Birds of Paradise
• Rockfall Vale
• Outland Liberator  
• Augur of Autumn
• Rampaging Baloths
• Tireless Tracker
• Unnatural Growth

Out:

• Manamorphose
• Reclamation Sage
• Courser of Kruphix
• Brash Taunter
• Crash Through
• Ohran Frostfang
• Forest

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Revision Date: 7/31/21

In:

• Terror of the Peaks
• Inferno of the Star Mounts

Out:

• Blightsteel Colossus
• Omnath, Locus of Rage

New alter sleeves for the girls designed by the truly incredible TheDinkelist!

If you like what I've put together, feel free to upvote OR leave a comment! Any helpful recommendations or suggestions are always welcome. Also feel free check out my other decks and give them a little love.

Top Ranked	Achieved #16 position overall 3 years ago Achieved #10 position in Commander / EDH 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Burn 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Forest 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 45 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.58
Tokens	Bear 2/2 G, Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch, Phyrexian Beast 4/4 G, Treasure
Folders	Ideas (courtesy of others), Decks, Gruul, Awesome EDH, Commanders, EDH Decks, Possible Future Builds, Edh