Chulane iCameo (cEDH Primer)

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive GWU (Bant) Infinite Combo Multiplayer Primer

Joking101

Creature (28)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Boreal Druid
• 1x Brazen Borrower
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Destiny Spinner
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Faeburrow Elder
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Joraga Treespeaker
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Lotus Cobra
• 1x Noble Hierarch
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Ranger-Captain of Eos
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Shrieking Drake
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Whitemane Lion

Enchantment (12)

• 1x Aluren
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Deafening Silence
• 1x Earthcraft
• 1x Intruder Alarm
• 1x Mana Breach
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Overburden
• 1x Rest in Peace
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Stony Silence
• 1x Sylvan Library

Land (31)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Grove
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 3x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Homeward Path
• 3x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
• 1x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Artifact (4)

• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Sol Ring

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns

Commander (1)

Instant (19)

• 1x Chord of Calling
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Eladamri's Call
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Negate
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Veil of Summer
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Sorcery (4)

• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Finale of Devastation
• 1x Sylvan Tutor
• 1x Timetwister

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Welcome to the Chulane, Teller of Tales iCameo primer.

This primer is formed of two main pieces. This primer has a suggested 99 cards, and the companion piece is a Google Document with all the card choices explained in more detail. You can use this primer as a baseline and build from here, or you can read parts of the Google document to help construct your own decklist! The document is also located under the "card choices" menu.

For assistance and questions, reach out on the Chulane cEDH discord here!

iCameo?

We have six main win conditions in this deck:

Intruder Alarm

Cloudstone Curio

Aluren

Mana Breach

Earthcraft

Overburden

Introduction

What is Chulane?

Chulane is a midrange creature combo deck based primarily around a resolved Chulane. This deck has the ability to grind very well into the late game, keeping up with other high value commanders while also being able to threaten games at any point with Chulane in play.

How does Chulane play?

The early game is primarily dominated by ramp and soft stax pieces like Deafening Silence and Collector Ouphe. It's important to get these pieces online early in order to curb the faster decks in your pod.

The middle game should be where our value engines come online. Abusing Chulane's creature casting trigger to do the best two things in EDH. Draw cards and play lands. Since this deck can win by assembling one of many different combo lines, at any point from the mid to late game you may be able to transform your value engine into a combo.

Why should I play Chulane?

Chulane is a deck that runs almost zero dead combo cards. In decks that run Demonic Consultation+Thassa's Oracle win condition, both cards do nothing by themselves. In our deck, all of our six combo cards will be used to generate value. There are no cards that we have to dedicate to "combo slots", giving us a very high density of win conditions and value engines.

KumaTheBear in the Chulane Discord said this about Chulane:

"That game I was talking about, the Hulk player had to convince the Kess player to Red Blast my turn one Mana Breach because he was the only one in the pod who knew what Chulane tries to do.

And the greatest part of all this is even with perfect information about what we're trying to do, it's still often wrong to counter us. Do you want to use your only counterspell on a Chulane when the other decks in the pod can win from no board state?

We're like Malcolm Reynolds. "Listen, you don’t know me, son, so I’m gonna say this once: if I ever kill you, you’ll be awake, you’ll be facing me, and you’ll be armed." If we're going to win, they'll see it coming (but it will be hard for them to stop us with all our mana and extra cards). Since everyone else is on Oracle, their wins sneak up on you."

If this appeals to you, you might like our deck.

What are the downsides of Chulane?

This deck is almost entirely dependent on a 5 mana commander. Many people draw comparisons to The Gitrog Monster in this aspect. If people make an active effort to keep Chulane off the table, we will frequently be spinning our wheels doing nothing without much recourse. Some cards like Rhystic Study and Oakhame Adversary can help maintain card advantage without a Chulane, but a big part of this deck is timing Chulane such that it resolves and sticks around.

Who am I?

I've been playing magic for about 12 years now, jumping into Commander (at the time just called EDH) in 2010. From there, my love of commander grew until I eventually sold my cards in early 2015 (a mistake). I started buying back in in mid 2018, swept some modern FNMs, but it wasn't itching the competition I was looking for. That's when I started getting into cEDH. Chulane is a passion project for me, as I mostly don't play any other cEDH decks. I've put hundreds of hours into Chulane, and my experience with the deck and with magic as a whole is what educates this primer.

Pronounciation Guide (Chulane is not pronounced Chew-Lane)

Chulane originates from an Irish mythical demigod called Cú Chulainn. For the card, Wizards of the Coast reduced it to simply "Chulane", the second half of his name. The pronounciation of the opening "Ch" is a voiceless velar fricative, but for those of us who have no idea what that means, here is an authentic Irish person speaking the name. For most English speakers this sound is a challenge, so some people in my playgroup have started calling it "Hullen" to simplify. Some also decided that as free people they could mispronounce it Chew-lane if they wanted to. Do what you want :)

Combos

Intruder Alarm

Requirements: Chulane on the battlefield.

Shrieking Drake+any creature that taps for blue

Whitemane Lion+creatures that tap for a total of

How to run the lines:

1. Cast Drake/Lion with the appropriate mana dorks.
2. Chulane trigger, draw a card play a land if you can.
3. Drake/Lion enters the battlefield, Intruder Alarm triggers and untaps the mana dorks.
4. Return Drake/Lion to your hand with its trigger.
5. Repeat

Result:

This line will allow you to put all your lands onto the battlefield. This should allow you to cast Lotus Cobra, Earthcraft, or any other mana positive effect to generate enough mana to win the game. See "Finishing the Game".

Cloudstone Curio

Requirements:

Chulane on the battlefield. Two creatures costing either , , or , and two land producing the respective colour. As long as one creature and land of each is in your hand, you can start the combo.

How to run the line:

1. Cast a one mana dork.
2. Put the land into play with Chulane.
3. Use Cloudstone Curio to return a one mana dork and land to your hand.
4. Cast the one mana dork with the land you put into play with Chulane in step 2.
5. Repeat

Result:

This line can abuse Gaea's Cradle to generate mana, then cast Earthcraft or Lotus Cobra to generate enough mana to end the game. You can also use Mana Crypt or Mox Diamond to assist in generating mana.

Aluren

Requirements: Chulane on the battlefield

Aluren+Shrieking Drake

Aluren+Whitemane Lion

How to run the line:

1. Cast Drake/Lion for free
2. Chulane trigger, draw a card play a land if you can.
3. Return Drake/Lion to your hand with its own ability.
4. Repeat

Result:

This line will put all your lands onto the battlefield and draw your library. See "Finishing the Game".

Mana Breach/Overburden

Requirements: Chulane on the battlefield and a land that produces .

Mana Breach+Shrieking Drake

OR

Overburden+Shrieking Drake

How to run the lines:

Mana Breach: 1. Cast Shrieking Drake. 2. Chulane and Mana Breach trigger, let the Mana Breach trigger resolve first, returning your blue land to your hand. 3. Let Chulane Trigger resolve, putting that blue land into play. 4. Return Drake to your hand with its trigger. 5. Repeat.

Overburden: 1. Cast Shrieking Drake. 2. Chulane trigger, draw a card and put a land into play. 3. Drake enters, Overburden returns your blue land to your hand. 4. Return Drake to your hand with its trigger. 5. Repeat.

Result: These are the hardest lines to resolve. There are a few ways you can start generating mana with them.

If you have ahead of time, just cast Lotus Cobra or Earthcraft to start generating mana.

You can use Mana Crypt and Mox Diamond to cast Cobra/Craft

Worst case scenario if you have two creatures you can use Gaea's Cradle to tap for at least two mana to put Earthcraft into play, use the two creatures to untap a Basic Island and Basic Forest, and now you can repeat the line except generate mana with the Drake casts. Since we run Crop Rotation, as long as Gaea's Cradle and Crop Rotation aren't the two bottom cards in our library, this line cannot fail.

Once you can start generating mana, see "Finishing the Game".

Earthcraft

Requirements: Chulane on the battlefield Earthcraft+Shrieking Drake+Island

How to run the line: 1. Cast Drake, 2. Chulane trigger, draw a card play a land if you can. 3. Drake enters the battlefield and targets itself 4. In response to the Drake trigger, tap it with Earthcraft to untap an island. 5. Let Drake trigger resolve and return it to hand. 6. Repeat.

Result: Draw your library and put all your lands onto the battlefield. See "Finishing the Game"

Misc Combos

Requirements: Chulane on the battlefield Lotus Cobra+Shrieking Drake+Oboro, Palace in the Clouds

How to run the line: 1. Cast Drake, 2. Chulane trigger, draw a card put Oboro, Palace in the Clouds onto the battlefield 3. Lotus Cobra triggers and adds to our mana pool. 4. Drake enters the battlefield and targets itself 5. Tap Oboro to pay the cost to return it to our hand. 6. Use the floating mana from Lotus Cobra to pay for Drake 7. Repeat

Result: Draw your library.

Eventually you need to put Gaea's Cradle/Mana Crypt/Mox Diamond into play to generate mana and pivot into another combo line. See "Finishing the Game"

Finishing the Game

If you've successfully resolved one of the combo lines, you can now move onto winning the game.

There's two ways to win the game. If you're involved in a loop that creates mana on repetition, you can typically create enough mana (~80) and win, but I often find it simpler to do the second:

The second way involves creating one of many non-Chulane infinite combos to generate infinite mana. There are many that exist, but a few simple ones are:

Intruder Alarm+Aluren+Drake/Whitemane+Any dork

Intruder Alarm+Cloudstone Curio+Dorks on board that tap for 2+mana

Earthcraft+Aluren+Drake/Whitemane

You can use Chulane to bounce itself to prevent decking for win conditions 1 and 3, then move onto any of the four core win conditions.

Finale of Devastation

Noxious Revival + Eternal Witness loops

Timetwister + Eternal Witness loops

Destiny Spinner

Finale of Devastation

Finale is an easy win, just cast a bunch of creatures, cast a finale X=big, attack with a large number of hasting big/big's

Noxious Revival/Timetwister + Eternal Witness Loops

NR+EW loops are slightly more complicated. This loop requires Chulane, but it's simple once you understand how it works. You should generate infinite mana before this step using one of the other combos, then re-cast Chulane.

1. CAST Silence. Make sure nobody can interact with you just to be absolutely safe.
2. Draw until you have no cards left in your library.
3. Use any of Swords to Plowshares/Nature's Claim/Strip Mine so they end up in your graveyard.
4. Cast Noxious Revival, return any of the three to the top of your library.
5. Cast Eternal Witness, Chulane trigger to draw the card you Noxious Revival'd (if Strip Mine, put into play with Chulane trigger). Return Noxious Revival to your hand. Use Cloudstone Curio to return Chulane to your hand from EWit trigger.
6. Cast Chulane and return Eternal Witness to your hand with Cloudstone Curio.
7. Repeat this process until all permanents controlled by our opponents are removed. Additionally, you can use Swan Song to create an infinite number of 2/2 Birds by countering spells we cast.

Now you can win however you want. Combat damage on your next turn is usually good enough. Make sure to use Noxious Revival to make sure you don't accidentally deck yourself.

Timetwister Loops function the same way, except you need to have a combo on board that allows you to re-draw your library once you cast Timetwister. I typically use Curio/Intruder Alarm+Chulane so I can bounce something with Chulane in case I don't draw a creature.

Destiny Spinner

Destiny Spinner gives haste to all our lands, so you can put every land onto the battlefield and be able to attack with it.

Generate infinite mana with any of the infinite combinations. Then, you can use Crop Rotation with Noxious+EWit loops to untap every land. Hopefully otherwise all your untapped lands will be enough to win. Cast all your enchantments and swing with ~30 Trampling 11/11s.

Card Choices

Here is a link to my Chulane primer Google Document. Please take a few moments to read the introductory page so you understand how best to use the document and how I've rated cards. This will hugely educate so my ratings make sense.

Sample Hands

I've put together a few sample hands so people have a good sense of what I'm looking for and what I'd keep and reject from the deck. Use the table on the left side of the Google Document to skip ahead to "Sample Hands"

Decklist Updates

April 20th, 2020 update

Flash has been banned, and as a result I've made few changes to our hate/stax.

+Rest in Peace

+Linvala, Keeper of Silence

-Grafdigger's Cage

-Containment Priest

Since we no longer need Cage or Priest to stop Flash, we can substitute Rest in Peace to better hose all decks using the graveyard. This will fill in for the gaps lost from Priest and Cage without needing to dedicate hate to Flash Hulk.

Linvala is being subbed in to shore up the matchup against midrange decks featuring lots of dorks, as I expect the meta to lean into less fast combo and more midrange and stax builds.

Top Ranked	Achieved #3 position in Commander / EDH Primer 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 50 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.99
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Elk 3/3 G, Food, On an Adventure, Spirit 1/1 C
Folders	Primers