Chulane, Teller of Tales

We’re looking back at another Throne of Eldraine Brawl Commander with our Bant value engine, Chulane, Teller of Tales. A deck full of creatures and land turns into a huge toolbox of value with Chulane at the helm. This variation is filled with value and support to increase combo win consistency and defending your lines of play. Have a look and we’ll go through some cards and other options.

Synergies

Cloudstone Curio + Lotus Cobra: Each of these can pull off high value synergy plays with Chulane but the combination of the two is what brings the true power play. Cast a creature, draw and play a land, Lotus Cobra Landfall trigger adds 1 mana, Cloudstone Curio triggers bounce a land, creature enters the battlefield, Cloudstone Curio triggers, bounce a creature. With two low cost creatures to bounce back and forth to draw a ton of cards and generate a ton of mana. You won’t need to bounce your lands as you draw into more but this isn’t technically infinite as you’ll run out of cards. Hopefully you can find a way to win with with all the cards drawn.

Lavinia, Azorius Renegade: Just one of the many Hatebears you can run. It’s a great card to prevent the symmetrical effect of Aluren by countering what any opponents attempt to play. This can cause some awkward situations especially with mana rocks (looking at you Sol Ring). If you felt like it you could consider Knowledge Pool for a bit of a lockdown for your opponents. Since you’re running Teferi, Time Reveler, you could also throw in Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir if you felt like it.

Guardian Project: A backup or redundancy for Chulane as it will allow you to draw for every nontoken creature that enters the battlefield that doesn’t have the same name as another creature you control or is in your graveyard. Considering this is Commander, barring playing something like Persistent Petitioners, this should always draw you cards.

Combos

Chulane, Teller of Tales + Aluren + Shrieking Drake: The combo that seems to slot into many Chulane decks. Aluren allows everyone to cast creatures with converted mana cost 3 or less without paying their mana cost and as though they had Flash. Combine this with a creature that can bounce itself, and our Commander will proceed to draw out your deck. Shrieking Drake is the example as you are able to tutor for it with Ranger-Captain of Eos with the added bonus of then sacrificing it to prevent your opponents from rudely interrupting with any noncreature spells.

“You win the game” cards: It would take too many lines to list the number of ways to draw your deck in this version so we’re just going to point out the instant win enablers. Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, Laboratory Maniac, and Thassa’s Oracle will all win you the game if you get to the point that you can draw your whole deck. To go over the differences, Jace and Lab Man are replacement effects that turn your draw into winning the game, while Thassa’s Oracle is an enter the battlefield effect that checks your devotion. Lab Man and Thassa’s Oracle are creatures that work with Chulane and Aluren, but Jace is a draw engine on his own with his +1 Thought Scour. In the end, you can just run them all for redundancy, but depending on the style of your deck one might be better than the other for options.

Support Options

Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath: The Growth Spiral life gain titan from Theros: Beyond Death. Besides the ramp and life gain factor, you can bounce it back with Chulane before the sacrifice trigger resolves. Considering the minimal use of the graveyard in this deck, you’ll usually be able to fuel the Escape cost. On top of being one of the ways to gain life in this deck it also works great with Aluren and Cloudstone Curio.

God-Eternal Oketra and/or Oketra’s Monument: Since we’re casting all these creatures we may as well get even more value out of it. God-Eternal Oketra is a great 3/6 Double Strike creature with the War of the Sparks God recursion via death or exile to the third spot from the top. On top of that, by casting creature spells you generate 4/4 black Zombie Warriors with Vigilance which are hefty threats. To a lesser extent, you could use Oketra’s Monument. It generates 1/1 white Warriors with Vigilance instead which isn’t as strong but they make great Skullclamp targets and gives you a discount for your white creatures which works particularly well with Whitemane Lion.

Words of Wind: When you have enough draw and want to try to Sunder your opponents, look no further than Words of Wind! For 1 mana, replace your draw and everyone bounces a permanent. Now in conjunction with Chulane, that probably means bounce a creature and play a land or even just bounce a land and play a land.

Summary

While this variant is the toolbox value combo with Chulane, as always, there are always multiple ways to build a deck. Bant has a number of powerful Commander choices but Chulane is one of the top choices if you are a fan of drawing cards, dropping lands, and reusing creatures. Give it a shot and tell me some tales of crazy plays and synergies.