Welcome back ya big beautiful nerds, to my obscene glorious end. I am the teller of tales, so sit back while I spin you a yarn about Chulane, Teller of Tales. First, I'm not convinced that the Chu was entirely tested for EDH, I can imagine he was put through his paces for standard and brawl due to such a small card pool to sample from, but in EDH he's just pure engine of ramp and card advantage, and totally abusable.
Firstly, whenever we CAST a creature, we get to draw a card. Okay, that's pretty cool but I mean we have to CAST the creature to get that. Also, we get to play a land from our hand. Hold up, that's really good. A one CMC mana dork can not only net us a card, it can also potentially RAMP us? Oh and did I mention that for three mana, Chu can bounce any creature, at instant speed no less, back to our hand so we can replay it and get those bonuses all over again? I'm sold, I'm IN!
After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends.
Look, this version isn't as cEDH as I would like as we are missing Mana Drain, Force of Will and some other cEDH staples however, we do have the infinite super gross combo of Aluren and Food Chain and will likely still CRUSH OUR OPPONENTS SKULLS. You see, we can play Eternal Scourge with Food Chain on the field so that we have unlimited mana. Exile the Scourge to the Food Chain for four mana of any colour, replay it for three of the four, repeat until you have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 mana. Sure, this is sort of gross and not my usual style, but this deck was engineered exclusively for Magic Fest Brisbane, and it was both very disgusting and very fun to play. The amount of times I killed whole tables, not actually from this combo, was exciting because it proved I didn't NEED this combo at all.
Intruder Alarm. What? Don't look at me like that. It's for the broken grossness of our mana dorks. Intruder Alarm is just one of the truly gross combos in the deck because if you have Intruder Alarm and Chu out and not summoning sick, a single mana dork and Aluren on the field, you can tap the Chu and then bounce the dork then play said mana dork for free thanks to Aluren, drawing a card and maybe playing a land and untapping all creatures thanks to Intruder Alarm. Keep repeating until you run out of mana or CMC three or less creatures to play for free. Add in God-Eternal Oketra to the mix and your opponents are going to be swamped with 4/4 Zombies in no time flat.)
Our ramp isn't what I usually play as ramp and likely needs a little tweaking, but we have Rampant Growth to grab any basic land and Farseek to grab any non forest basic land we might need. No wait, I'm not done yet. We also have a troupe of elves to assist in shenanigans, Birds of Paradise, Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves, Incubation Druid, Devoted Druid, Priest of Titania and Rishkar, Peema Renegade all help us by providing early ramp or late game cheap combo pieces to eventually go off with Intruder Alarm because we untap all our creatures when we play a creature. Yes, you can draw your entire deck fairly easily.. Also, considering we SHOULD be netting all those land drops, it makes sense to chuck in Lotus Cobra.
TIGGERS LOVE TA BOUNCE!
Chulane isn't JUST a pretty face, he can give you multiple uses out of your utility creatures as well so you can use Coiling Oracle every turn for mass land drops, save Devoted Druid from death to -1-1 counters, keep up Mystic Snake to ensure you always have a counterspell, Reclamation Sage multiple targets, Reflector Mage lock a certain threat, Eternal Witness back multiple cards, stack hack Mangara of Corondor (because of the colon, the true cost is just tapping them!) more +1+1 counters from Rishkar, Peema Renegade, Sun Titan triggers, multiple Venser, Shaper Savant uses, and Reveillark triggers because it LEAVES the battlefield and the list seems pretty unlimited for options on how to net even more value from what is already the best commander of 2019.
The things that make me different are the things that make me, me.
Its amazing how many times I have to ask myself “is x creature good enough to justify running?”, and that creature is usually Spellseeker as she has some fairly decent but rather niche applications, being able to fetch any spell with CMC 2 or less. Usually she gets passed over in my decks for more impactful three drops, however in Chu, she is a star. All of her targets either offer us some form of protections, or tutoring. Enlightened Tutor searches out either Food Chain or Aluren, Worldly Tutor, Eladamri's Call, Green Sun's Zenith and Finale of Devastation all tutor for threats or combo creatures where as Dovin's Veto, Arcane Denial and Veil of Summer all offer us some sort of protection from our opponents on a certain level.
Comboing off with Chulane is pretty cool, but what if we upped the card draw to include a faster Laboratory Maniac win? Guardian Project and Beast Whisperer both allow us to draw a card when a creature enters the battlefield or is cast respectively. This means that every Intruder Alarm turn you have goes from pretty cool, to STRAP YOURSELF IN, LIGHTSPEED!
Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there someday.
Okay, so we know the Lab Man combo is in the deck as more of a last resort, so how else can we win out of nowhere? Green Sun's Zenith can go grab us either a Craterhoof Behemoth or God-Eternal Rhonas to pump our team of dorks and toolbox creatures for sure, or after you combo off with Aluren plus Food Chain, you can cast Finale of Devastation x=10 or more for either the Hoof or Rhonas to close out the game in style with +X+X hasted wieners smashing face. But I digress, we are indeed playing white. That means we are obligated to play Approach of the Second Sun as a backup plan, just to make sure we can win. There is nothing like having a bunch of mana dorks ready, Intruder Alarm, Aluren with Chulane, Teller of Tales out to combo off and draw straight back into Approach for the sneaky win.
In closing, this deck is dirty, this deck is not a fun deck for your opponents when the combo hits and you sure won't be making any friends. But by gummy, the deck is a powerhouse of card draw and power. -Chesh.
2 Comments
Quirion Ranger approves of this deck.
If the deck wasn't tri colour I would absolutely agree :)