Care Bear Stare (Karador, Ghost Chieftain)

Commander / EDH BGW (Abzan, Junk) Competitive Infinite Combo Midrange Multiplayer Rock

Incubi

Creature (36)

• 1x Academy Rector
• 1x Acidic Slime
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Avenger of Zendikar
• 1x Blood Artist
• 1x Cataclysmic Gearhulk
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1x Dimir House Guard
• 1x Eldrazi Displacer
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Farhaven Elf
• 1x Fauna Shaman
• 1x Fierce Empath
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kataki, War's Wage
• 1x Knight of the Reliquary
• 1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
• 1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
• 1x Protean Hulk
• 1x Qasali Pridemage
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Restoration Angel
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Saffi Eriksdotter
• 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Viscera Seer
• 1x Wickerbough Elder
• 1x Wood Elves
• 1x Woodfall Primus
• 1x Woodland Bellower
• 1x Yavimaya Dryad

Land (40)

• 1x Bayou
• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Cabal Coffers
• 1x Canopy Vista
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Fetid Heath
• 5x Forest
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Isolated Chapel
• 1x Krosan Verge
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Murmuring Bosk
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 2x Plains
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Sunpetal Grove
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Tainted Field
• 1x Tainted Wood
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Winding Canyons
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Bastion
• 1x Woodland Cemetery
• 1x Yavimaya Hollow

Commander (1)

Instant (10)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Anguished Unmaking
• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Krosan Grip
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Putrefy
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vampiric TutorGC

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Akroma's Vengeance
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Rout
• 1x Tooth and Nail
• 1x Toxic Deluge

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Greater Good
• 1x Pernicious Deed
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Survival of the FittestGC
• 1x Sylvan Library

Artifact (1)

• 1x Birthing Pod

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This is a 75% Karador, Ghost Chieftain build (it is not a 100% all in combo deck). Meaning that it can hang and perform with the cEDH crowd, yet also play with the more casual groups as well. The goals of the deck are: 1) be resiliant and 2) interact and disrupt other combo decks. EDH/commander is intended to be a fun and relaxing format, yet I don't think that means that games should last over an hour (looking at you stax lists). I have been tweaking and refining this list for many years and I have found that it can sit down against almost any play group/style and hold it's own, and even better, win a good majority of those games. The key I find is to not rush for the combo, but rather get an engine that accrues value over time and to not make a big threat at the table until it's time to finish the game.

Engines

Sacrifice Outlets

There are 3 sacrifice outlets within this deck. Viscera Seer, Dimir House Guard, and Greater Good.

Greater Good is a fantastic draw engine. Even discarding creature cards is still effectively like having them in hand with Karador, Ghost Chieftain's ability to cast creatures from the graveyard. Greater Good can also go infinite when used with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. We can draw cards and once we are getting low on cards in our library, we can discard Kozilek to shuffle everything back, allowing us to rinse and repeat.

Dimir House Guard has benefit of also being a tutor. Transmute is limited and we are only able to find cards with 4 CMC with him. However, being able to tutor up answers like Damnation or Wickerbough Elder, ramp with Solemn Simulacrum, or other engine pieces like Birthing Pod (the usual go to) or Greater Good is pretty effective. Then later in the game we can cast him from our graveyard with Karador or bring him back with Reveillark!

Tutoring

There are several different tutors in the deck. Demonic Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith, Tooth and Nail, Vampiric Tutor, Chord of Calling, Survival of the Fittest, Birthing Pod, Fauna Shaman, Fierce Empath, Academy Rector, Dimir House Guard, Woodland Bellower, Rune-Scarred Demon, Knight of the Reliquary.

We have your typical tutoring spells and effects seen in this color wedge. However there is a lot of synergy with Birthing Pod. The deck has basically morphed itself around this particular card because of how powerful it can be as toolbox strategy. Birthing Pod is usually the first or second card I tutor for when playing. It enables us to accrue so much value over time while answering our opponents threats, ramping, or scaling up to a bigger and more impressive board state. This engine pairs exceptionally well with Karador, Ghost Chieftain and fills our graveyard with creatures without being dependent on the high variability of dredge. Arguably the best card in the deck.

One of the best creature tutoring effects in the game, Survival of the Fittest. Go find any creature and we can still cast the discarded creature out of our graveyard? Need I say more. Sold.

The enchantments that Academy Rector is able to get include: Sylvan Library, Survival of the Fittest (perhaps the best out of them all), Phyrexian Arena, Journey to Eternity  , Pernicious Deed, and Greater Good.

Woodland Bellower is a card that is often overlooked. With the Birthing Pod strategy this gives us two different creatures to pod out of next turn. When it enters the battlefield we are able to find a much needed removal creature like Caustic Caterpillar, Qasali Pridemage, and Reclamation Sage, or perhaps we can go find a ramp creature like Farhaven Elf or Wood Elves; or maybe even grab a utility creature like Knight of the Reliquary or Fierce Empath.

Speaking of Knight of the Reliquary, this card has been taken out and put back in to this list more than any other card. She has a lot of value in tracking down lands that we need to progress our board. But her ability is often too slow to have any major impact on the game immediately. If we can get her to stick however, we are able to trade in our forests or plains for utility lands such as Winding Canyons, Vault of the Archangel, Krosan Verge, Maze of Ith, Yavimaya Hollow, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, and let's not forget assembling Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers for maximum ramping.

Ramp

There aren't any mana rocks in the deck because we have access to green and therefore creature ramp! Sakura-Tribe Elder, Farhaven Elf, Wood Elves, Yavimaya Dryad, Solemn Simulacrum, and Krosan Verge.

These creatures aren't as good at ramping as say Sol Ring or cards like Kodama's Reach and Skyshroud Claim. But what they lack in extra ramp they make up for in synergy. We are able to cast these creatures out of our graveyard, reanimate them with our various effects/creatures, flicker them using Eldrazi Displacer, fetch them if need be with Woodland Bellower, and most importantly; pod them away with Birthing Pod! Wood Elves and Yavimaya Dryad are able to grab us dual lands which very handy when color fixing.

Of course we also have Cabal Coffers paired with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth which ramps us immensely when we have 5+ lands. Krosan Verge is also effective because we can bring it back with Sun Titan and search it up with Knight of the Reliquary. An important thing about Krosan Verge is it's ability to grab a Forest and a Plains, which allows us to grab our dual lands. Because they are going to come in to play tapped, we should grab lands that will normally come in to play tapped such as: Murmuring Bosk, Overgrown Tomb, Godless Shrine, Temple Garden, and Canopy Vista.

Card Draw

There are a few card draw engines and effects but they aren't anything over the top. Sylvan Library, Phyrexian Arena, Greater Good, and I guess Kozilek, Butcher of Truth counts as one too.

As stated in the Sacrifice Outlets section Greater Good enables us to draw a lot of cards from our deck. There are a few creature pairings that combo together to create a loop where we can draw through our deck and potentially even win. These combos will be explained in detail in the Combo section.

Greater Good Creature Pairing Combos/Engines

• Sun Titan + Saffi Eriksdotter + Greater Good
• Reveillark + Saffi Eriksdotter + Greater Good
• Reveillark + Karmic Guide + Greater Good
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Wickerbough Elder + Greater Good
• Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Woodfall Primus + Greater Good

Combos

Protean Hulk

The easiest win possible. Just need to destroy or sacrifice Protean Hulk then proceed through combo. This can be done different ways depending on if there are different pieces missing. The idea is to loop creatures infinitely from the graveyard to the battlefield.

Protean Hulk + Viscera Seer + Karmic Guide + Reveillark + Saffi Eriksdotter + Blood Artist

1. Upon the first Protean Hulk death triggered ability, find Viscera Seer and Karmic Guide. Use Karmic Guide to return Protean Hulk back to the battlefield.
2. Using Viscera Seer sacrifice the Protean Hulk and then find Reveillark. Sacrifice Karmic Guide and then sacrifice Reveillark. With Reveillark's leave the battlefield ability return Karmic Guide which will then return Protean Hulk.
3. Sacrifice the Protean Hulk again and search for Saffi Eriksdotter and Blood Artist. We will have 2 CMC leftover which we can use to find something else if we want but it isn't required for the loop. Activate Saffi Eriksdotter's ability targeting Karmic Guide.
4. Sacrifice Karmic Guide which will then cause Saffi Eriksdotter's ability to trigger, bringing Karmic Guide from the graveyard back to the battlefield. When Karmic Guide returns to play, bring back Reveillark.
5. Sacrifice Karmic Guide. Then sacrifice Reveillark, when Reveillark leaves play bring back Saffi Eriksdotter and Karmic Guide back to the battlefield. Karmic Guide will enter and then bring back Reveillark.
6. Now at this point we have a loop. This loop consists of activating Saffi Eriksdotter's ability to bring back Reveillark when it dies. Then sacrificing Karmic Guide then Reveillark which will bring back the Karmic Guide and Saffi Eriksdotter, and then Karmic Guide can bring back any other creature from our graveyard to play (like Protean Hulk which will then allow us to find all of the creatures in our deck with CMC<6). However, because we have Blood Artist in play we can just loop Reveillark and Karmic Guides infinite amount of times in order to kill our opponents.

There are other ways of performing this, will fill in later.

Thanks!

Thank you for checking out this Karador, Ghost Chieftain primer! Please let me know what you think of the deck and if you have any suggestions! I'm currently still filling out the description for the deck and should have it finished soon.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	6 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	21 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 8 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.83
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Plant 0/1 G
Folders	EDH Inspiration