Hello everybody we're back for another article from CommandBeacon.com and this time we're looking at the legendary creatures from the Throne of Eldraine Brawl decks. Chulane, Teller of Tales the Bant draw, ramp, bounce engine, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, the Jund value dragon, Alela, Artful Provocateur, the Esper faerie swarm, and Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale, the Mardu knight.
While these decks were popular for several reasons, the Brawl format was sunset and these Commanders were able to flourish in our lovely 100 card format. The four decks we have for you today are each meant to synergize and demonstrate the strengths of each Commander. While some have found there archetype there are plenty of creative plays that can be done with each so let's have ourselves a look.
Chulane, Teller of Tales
The Druid with the draw power and ramp, Chulane, Teller of Tales. We're starting off strong as Chulane is the one with the most competitive potential out of the four. The deck uses Chulane as a draw engine to dig for combo pieces and win the game with creatures like Thassa's Oracle and Laboratory Maniac. While I did make some different choices than many competitive players would make at its core it has the pieces and consistency to go for the win.
The main part Aluren, an enchantment that will let you cast creatures with converted mana cost 3 or less at instant speed and for free. Combining this with a creature that can return itself to your hand and a draw engine such as Chulane or Guardian Project will allow you to draw as many as you'd like. With a mix of defence and disruption supporting it the deck is dangerous and knowing how to break the combo when facing this deck is key. There are plenty of other interactions that go on in this deck even if the combo plan doesn't work out. Chulane allows you to jump ahead in cards and land with his ability and the interactions with Cloudstone Curio are plenty. If you want a very creature focused Bant deck then Chulane will be happy to let you play all you want and help keep your hand full.
Korvold, Fae-Cursed King
Our Dragon Noble Commander made a good show in Standard by turning all the sacrifices into fuel to keep things going. This is Commander though and we have significantly more options to feed to Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. Artifacts, enchantments, creatures, tokens, and lands, just feed him everything you have! There is an alternative variant posted in his article with a Jund Lands Matters theme but since the theme is so prominent with other Commanders I'd like to go over less of a land focused list and more of one to feed the Fae-Cursed King.
Playing into Korvold is fairly straightforward but the timing is the difficult part. Notably if they remove him before the triggers have resolved without proper fodder you may end up losing in a two for one play. So the early game is set up to assist, creating tokens and playing things you'd sacrifice and consider acceptable losses. It's also a Jund deck so there's just a bunch of removal and destruction options to keep your opponent's at bay while you set up. By triggering on any sort of permanent sacrifices you do Korvold makes up for the colour combinations weakness in draw power. While his other enter the battlefield and combat ability is typically detrimental as a sacrifice outlet you can do some fun plays, where else am I ever running Ugin's Nexus?
Alela, Artful Provocateur
The most versatile of the four Throne of Eldraine Brawl deck Commanders is Alela, Artful Provocateur. A wall of abilities which can support multiple themes and deck styles. I had to pick one to build so I opted to make a very artifact value-focused version of the deck. With her abilities though the themes that stand our besides artifacts are enchantments, flyers, tokens, faeries, or just Esper value/combos. That's a lot to choose from and even more work to try and balance the contents. Take a look at her article on Command Beacon because the alternative themes section became much longer than expected.
Enough about problems let's go over the important part which is the deck. The artifact version I have built is heavy on the mana rocks and lower on offensive creatures. Most of them are utility options with more reliance on Alela to provide the bodies for offence and defence. Due to the amount of mana rocks it's likely you'll accelerate ahead and end up becoming a threat so the deck is meant to embrace that role and overwhelm opponents with pure value. It's definitely a deck that will keep you involved in a multiplayer game and with the right tempo it really goes off. If artifacts is the variant style you're looking to build with her try it to and let me know if there's anything you'd change.
Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashdale
Last but not least is our most tribal Commander of the lot, Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashdale. Recent sets even prior to Throne of Eldraine pushed a lot of knights and brought some attention to some older knight tribal cards. Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashdale gives these knights access to a three colour Commander that comes with huge synergy abilities that push the knight and equipment strategy. While the equipment motif is not a new strategy it definitely shines here with Syr Gwyn's ability to give equipments an equip for 0 ability to knights.
Knights are strong and vigilant with high combat potential especially when given arms. This variation of the deck is actually less knight tribal than it could be with several tribal support knights not making the list in favour of balancing the equipment and support. While there are many options you can pick from this list went with aggressive value choices over a swarm of knights as there are only so many equipment to go around. With several draw engines to make up for the colours usual lack of card advantage and the options to go wide with creatures or all in with one fully equipped creatures this deck will have many lines of play and decisions to be made depending on your opponents. There's also a couple of combo options, because sometimes a game goes on too long and you need it to end.
Well there you have it, the Throne of Eldraine set may have come and gone and Brawl might not see as much play but the Commanders that the decks brought will have a place in this format. While I would have liked to see more options we seem to be moving towards full Commander decks along side of sets so we'll have to see what those bring. As usual you can check out the breakdown of the respective decks for Chulane, Korvold, Alela, and Syr Gwyn on Command Beacon. Feel free to let me know if you have comments or questions, I'd be happy to hear about any others strategies and plays you may have with these decks. Until next time good luck, have fun, and keep shuffling.
