Hello, everybody. My name is Alex Barnett, and I've been playing Aluren quite a bit. I am currently on this list http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckd...p?DeckID=91756 though I am still bouncing between sideboard cards and the maindeck Diabolic Intent. I would love to discuss the list, but do not know where to start, so please, give opinions and critiques.
I was at that IQ and watched you play the end of a couple rounds whilst walking around the tables after my rounds were over.Originally Posted by yoshipwnz
Congrats on the top 8!
Diabolic Intent seems sweet, I used to play it in Nic-Fit as a way to keep the Gravy Trains and Thragtusks coming although I'd imagine your tutor targets are more game-ending (Aluren etc.) or silver bullet SB cards right? (Plaguebearer OP! haha)
Thanks! Yeah the Diabolic Intent is great at what it does (it is in there to find the Aluren, of course) but the main reason that I chose it over the possibility of another Dig or some better card is that it allows Aluren + Harpy + Shardless to win since you will eventually hit the Intent, and in some MUs it is super important to win once Aluren hits play g1, as quick as possible. I am still debating its slot in particular, not sure if it is worth it. There is no shortage of creatures to sacrifice, but oftentimes I find it to be dead in my hand. I am almost certain that the slot should be a way to find Aluren, but I am not sure exactly which card that would be optimal.
Yeah but your faster going to find a Baleful Strix that way and drawing 8-15 cards will find you the the other part you need either Strix or Imp Recruiter or you just going to value them out of the game regardless of the combo. Diabolic Intent is super sick with Veteran Explorer though.
I'd rather have FoW than Toughtseize
PTT (Formerly of MTT) - We make Champion
The numbers of Force of Will and Thoughtseize are something that I wasn't sure about going into the event, as I had previously been on 2-4 Forces main with anywhere from 0-2 Thoughtseize. Having Seize allows your Agents to be more consistent at finding disruption and gives you another thing to do with mana on turn 1. The addition of the set of Thoughtseize also greatly increases the potential of Therapy to just give free wins. The problems that I encountered with the Forces were that I didn't have enough blue cards a fair amount of the time, so it wound up dead or pitching itself too much for my liking, as well as 2 for 1'ing yourself throwing away the card advantage that the deck is built to produce. It is only worth it to Force a card if that card is worth more than "1 card", and I can't think of any cards that I am both afraid of and are present among the best decks in the format.
GerryT also shared an article on his SCG's column with your decklist, Alex.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...To-Cedric.html
TEAM MtG Berlin
"Dredge isn't a deck, it's public masturbation with graveyard triggers."
tournament report please alex :)
Hi Alex,
Adrian from the Gerry T thread here. Have you tried / tested the Intuitions? I've long thought about cutting them but they've saved my butt to many times,
I have tested the Intuitions, and their big problem for me were them being glacially slow. Yes the find the Aluren or a super value Therapy EWit pile, but it commits mana to not affecting the board or interacting with the opponent. You already have enough card advantage built into the deck that the Value piles are not necessary, and if the only goal is to find Aluren I would rather have a Dig as it is cheaper and infinitely more versatile.
I have finished a tournament report (it isn't the best, but whatever). May I post it here or do I have to make a separate thread? I am not intimately familiar with the regulations of this site.
You can post it either in this thread or here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/f...nament-Reports (where it will get more attention).
Greetings,
Kathal
Tournament Report for Aluren SCG PIQ Milwaukee (2nd Place)
Overall, the tournament's meta was incredibly Miracle-light, and for some reason there were many Rock decks, but as expected, BURG/Grixis Delver and OmniTell were the most common decks.
All matches are as I remember them, not necessarily how they each happened exactly.
r1: Burn: I lost the roll, and my opponent leads with t1 fetch Basic Mountain Goblin Guide. Shit. I have found Burn to be possibly Aluren's worst MU since it cannot combo off through Eidelon (pretty much) and they kill on t3/4 so grinding is a suboptimal plan. He rolled me over g1 with a t3 kill through Deathrite. G2 he would have done the same thing, but I t3'd him first with Therapies to help secure the path, but I got t3'd g3 after I mulled to 5.
I sideboarded out the Intent, Dig, and 4 Thoughtseize for 4 Decay, 1 Plaguebearer, and 1 RecSage. I felt that I didn't have time to be digging or having a creature live for Intent to do anything, and Decay is a better answer than Seize against Burn (I think, still not positive) since Decay can hit their permanent source of damage and can be used to just buy some time. TSeize can as well, but if you only hit what you want to (Pillar, Eidelion, Vortex) you wind up taking the same amount of damage either way, and I feel that the mana conservation was worse than the possibility of just spiking a creature and possibly buying another turn.
0-1
r2: Grixis Delver: Won the roll, he crumbled to t1 Thoughtseize t2 Terapy, taking his only threats. Nothing else notable happened g1 except for him swinging his Insectile Aberration into a Baleful Strix because he forgot that it flies. Eventually I found Aluren and killed him. g2 he mulled to 6, then Needled Harpy on t1. I had a Deathrite, then he had a Pyromancer, so I Therapied and Strix for Therapy away his hand. He topdecked Ponder, went Cantripping a bit then Bolted my Deathrite, leaving him nearly just dead to my Staticaster. He Dug, found a Delver and an Angler, but got buried under card advantage from Shardless, Strix, and Recruiter for SCooze to prevent his future Delves.
I sideboarded out the combo and Intent like I always do vs. Delver, taking in the Decays and a smorgasbord of 1 ofs.
1-1
r3: Grixis Delver: Won the roll, he mulled to 5. My t1 Deathrite got Bolted, then BS'ed into Therapy naming Pyromancer, hit. He did nothing for a while and lost. g2 he mulled to 5 again, super tilted, Bolted my face in response to t1 Therapy so I hhad nothing to hit. He drew and played a Delver, and I had a Strix. After not flipping Delver and passing, I Decayed his Delver, and promptly valued him out of the match.
2-1
r4: Mono-W D&T: Lost the roll, he t1'd a Vial off of plains, so I Therapied a Thalia out of his hand. He then Stoneforged for Batterskull, and I Strix-Therapied a Vryn Wingmares out of his hand. He had a Mom pass, intending Batterskull to hit the board. I Shardlessed into a Deathrite, so he put a Batterskull in play. I just took it, he Swords'd Deathrite, and died to an Aluren. He attempted to Flickerwisp in response to my Shardless--> Thoughtseize, so I Recruited him to death with it on the stack. g2 he mulled to 6, with a t1 Mom into t2 Thalia, t3 Wingmare, and a Flickerwisp. Unfortunately I had a t1 Dread of Night so he did nothing for 5 turns and died.
I sideboarded out Thoughtseizes, Therapies, Dig, and Intent (I boarded Intent out almost every match I think. The card sucks) for 4 Decay, 2 DoN, 2 Rec Sage, Plaguebearer, and a Staticaster. The hand-disruption package came out because vs D&T it is far more important to deal with what they have in play rather than try to disrupt their hand; if the primary game plan becomes to just grind them out, Thoughtseizes become atrocious. Since literally anything that I care about Seizing or Therapy'ing can also be hit by Decay (I guess Crusader can't, but it is not a huge deal), and each creature to flashback Therapy also is super good vs them, they no longer hold their weight.
3-1
r5: UG 12 Post: This MU is super easy. They cannot interact with you on any axis g1, are much slower than you, and can be very soft to hand disruption. He led with just fetching for Trops turns 1-3, so I put him on some super bad RUG Delver draw at first, then decided that his deck must do nothing since he didn't cast anything for the first 3 turns, so I Seized and Therapied his hand away (it was a bunch of crap like Intuition, Glimmerpost, and a Crap Map that he didn't want to play to disguise his deck, I guess). This happened on my t3 (I was on the draw) as I was avoiding cracking fetches to play around Stifle since I am more than okay with just durdling around doing nothing vs. any opponent with Trops. After he had no hand, I just Dug into the combo and killed him. g2 He had a Cloudpost t1 and copied it t2 with Vesuva. I had a Deathrite, then attacked his hand with a Therapy after BS'ing naming Prime time, hitting 3. He was super salty, played a Candlestick and a Trop, and passed. Shardless into Deathrite was my turn. He cast a PrimeTime that he drew, finding Eye and Cloudpost, ready to go off next turn. I drew, Dug Through Time, and combo'd him. He claimed that he could have had Krosan Grip to stop me dead, how lucky I was to have drawn the combo, etc. to which I chuckled.
I sideboarded out 1 SCooze 3 Strix for 2 Sage, 1 Decay, and 1 Magus of the Moon. It probably should have been 2 Decays 1 Sage, but it doesn't really matter since the MU is a cakewalk.
4-1
r6: Storm (ANT): We got deckchecked and started talking to each other, he was a good guy. I believe his name was Caleb Scherer, I had recognized his name from SCG coverage, but couldn't remember why. He plays Storm, I won the roll, and both of us were fine on the deckchecks. I led with t1 Thoughtseize, saw Petal Ponder BS LED InfernalTutor DarkRit CabalRit. Took Petal, but he skill drew basic Island and Pondered. T2 I cast Strix, he cantripped, and t3 I could have cast a Recruiter but elected to do nothing instead, hoping to make him fear countermagic. My hand at that point was lands, Alurenx2 and a Recruiter, so I could beat a Duress but not a super lucky Therapy. He tanked, elected to Therapy naming Force, and was flabbergasted at my hand, asking if he was dead. We both knew that he could have killed me if he had Dark Rit'd first, but he figured that he would have another turn since Shardless BUG can't kill the opp ever. I agree with his play, but mentioned that he was infuriated by the situation and at his play. g2 he kept a loose hand with a single cantrip, therapy, and rituals. His cantrip bricked, so he did nothing the entire game and died on t3 or t4. He t1 Cantripped and I was able to BS the combo away from his Therapy.
I sideboarded out 4 Strix, in 1 Nihil Spellbomb, 2 Rec Sage 1 Decay
5-1
r7: Solidarity: Last match of Swiss. He was running Quicken and Day's Undoing in addition to the standard Solidarity things, I believe that he cut Impulse and I am not sure what else. g1 I kept mulled to 6 and kept a hand with a t4 kill. He kept cantripping and passing for the first few turns, while I seized him t2 to find Cunning Wishes, Snapcasters, and a High Tide. Took High Tide, felt pretty good about my position. I bricked on my 4th land for 3 turns, giving him near infinite mana in play, but was able to Therapy Strix Therapy to slow him down too. I cast Aluren, and he responded with High Tide stuff ending in Quicken Days Undoing. I drew the other 3 Alurens, Deathrite, and lands off of it, so I lost. We had 25 mins on the clock for g2, and I kept a strong hand. Leading with Deathrite into BS Therapy, I chose to blind-name Cunning Wish as most Solidarity lists run 3 of the important stuff so that they can Wish for a copy, and the blind Therapy you have to name either what you are afraid of that can kill you before you Therapy again or simply card quantity, what they most likely have in their hand regardless of how threatening it is. He tanked in response, so I knew that he had a Brainstorm, but he chose not to cast it. This told me that he would be very very weak if I named the correct card, but didn't think that I would name it. Since I named High Tide the previous game, he thought that I would just name it again. I instead was afraid of a Cunning Wish (to find the High Tide) so I named that. I got 3.I was unable to find the combo until like t5 or t6 after Shardless Agent'ing for a couple f turns, and he was fairly confused as to how it actually worked. I half-went off on his EoT in order to prevent his Brain Freeze from having enough storm to hit all of my tutor targets, then had to finish in my upkeep so that he would be unable to Reset and Blue Sun's Zenith me. He wound up being able to Freeze my entire library away, but not before I had the combo, so I killed him in my upkeep with 0 cards in library. He contemplated how Snap interacted with the combo, and eventually came to the realization that it did literally nothing. He came to time before the 3rd game, and he was a gentleman and scooped since he was 4-1-1 and unlikely to top 8 if he won, whereas I was guaranteed to.
I sideboarded nothing, since I believed that nothing in the SB did anything at all. I may have traded out 1 Baleful Strix for the Spellbomb, but I do not believe so.
6-1
Top 8
Quarters: Omni-Tell: At last. This matchup is really easy, since your hand disruption pressures them to kill you early and you are also paying 4 Omniscience of your own, so you can kill them after the S&T with an Omniscience in play. g1 I think that I just tore his hand apart, had the kill in hand, but didn't cast it since it would allow him to Force the Aluren, when his literal only win-con is allowing me to put Aluren in play. He eventually S&T'd and cast Emrakul, so I responded by Shardless into Therapy, then killed him. g2 was pretty much the same; there was nothing interesting about this match.
I sideboarded out a couple of Strix for 2 Rec Sages. I board out Strix a lot vs many combo decks since it slows down the deck making you just cycle "For value" but the 1/1 body is remarkably irrelevant, at best sac’ing to Therapy. Also they interrupt Shardless into Disruption spell, but are of course incredibly good in almost every match up.
Semis: UWR Stoneblade: This guy didn't really know how my deck worked at all. These games always result in a great grind fest, with h im able to Dig multiple times with a Jace out and still lose to valuevilliage.dec. Eventually I drew the combo and killed him while he had Jace and Batterskull, with Bolts in hand. g2 was actually fascinating to me as he boarded out both his True-names and Jaces because he thought that they were slow (!) and boarded in Flusterstorms and REBs (!). He thought that I was a committed combo deck I guess with 0 back up plan. g2 went into a super huge grindfest that resulted in me killing him over 9 turns with a Dream Stalker beat down joined with a Parasitic Strix later. The only interesting interaction g2 was my responding to a fetch by cracking a Nihil Spellbomb, as he didn't have the full mana to Dig (he needed the land that he fetched for), stranding him for a couple of turns.
I sideboarded out 4 Thoughtseize since these matches always go to turn 18 and he has Digs, which leave my Thoughtseizes pretty bad to topdeck. I also boarded out Intent since he had counterspells, and getting an Intent countered is the worst feeling in this deck. This allowed me to bring in 2 Rec. Sages, 1 Spellbomb, and 2 Abrupt Decays.
Finals: Elves: We split the cash in the finals, since he didn't know how good this match up is for him. Elves is much faster than Aluren and has a grinding game pretty much as good. g1 he was on the play with a Nettle Sentinel, and I Blind Therapied naming Glimpse. I saw 2 NOs, Cradle, Sentinel, and lands, maybe a Visionary or something was in there as well, I am unsure. He then drew Heritage Druid and t2 Hoofed me for about 16 and I scooped. g2 a very similar thing happened, but I believe that he killed me on t3 through Thoughtseize.
I sideboarded in Cage and Staticaster for SCooze and Intent (god this card sucks). Boarding out the SCooze was my choice because with Staticaster, I felt that I didn't need a huge dude since I could just lock him out of the game.
@yoshipwnz
Only one thing really bothers me about your list. Why is there only 1 dream stalker? By running 2 you can avoid 1 piece of spot removal breaking up the combo. Do you simply believe in your discard package that much?
Otherwise, great job. Seems you have been doing better than me trying to cram collected company into the deck somehow...
The reason that I am unafraid of only running 1 Dream Stalker is that the only piece of removal that stops the combo is Swords or Decay (Bolt will not do it) and then only if they are smart with their removal. Most people are under full belief that you kill the Stalker with its trigger on the stack, which is 100% wrong. If you suspect them to have removal, you can either just not combo in the face of it, or just not care at all about it, since you still generate almost unrecoverable advantage from having the Aluren in play. In addition to this, any deck that runs Decay or Swords is not one that I am afraid of and feel that I need to rely on the combo to win. Those decks (Shardless, Miracles, Stoneblade, D&T, and BUG Delver) tend to have difficulty beating the inherent card advantage of the deck, so combo'ing off is not a necessity. The downside to running a 2nd Dream Stalker is that the card sucks. Yes it has its uses (blocking Goyf and Batterskull mostly), but it is too severely overcosted to ever realistically want to hardcast. The easiest way to determine this is when it is in your hand and you Brainstorm, how often do you put it back? I am probably at 85% of the time at least, only having lands 6-7 be put back before it, possibly Cavern Harpy as well. The only situation where I am happy to be playing the card consistently is with an Aluren in play, and I feel that relying too heavily on the combo takes away one of the deck's biggest strengths: just playing a super-value game. I have compared it to Splinter Twin in Modern to some of my friends, how the combo is super good, can win out of nowhere, and isn't necessary to win. The combination of those factors: 1) them not having a piece of removal; 2) them not playing the removal properly; 3) the ability to play around removal either through hand disruption or waiting; 4) it being bad without the combo; 5) already being strong vs. the decks with removal that actually deals with a Dream Stalker; are the reasons why I choose to only play 1. Now, if you were to have more ways of cheating it in play such as CoCo, it certainly would get much better, but I still feel as though it doesn't do enough.
Speaking of Collected Company , I do believe that it should now be at least a consideration now that Dig Through Time is banned, but my problem with it is that it only has ~18 good targets at the most. The list off the top of my head that is good to hit is: 1 Parasitic Strix, 1 Cavern Harpy, 1-2 Dream Stalker, 4 Imperial Recruiter, 4 Baleful Strix, 4 [cards]Deathrite Shaman[cards], 1-2 other tutor targets. According to Frank Karsten's mathematical analysis of CoCo (seen here http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...ons-of-tarkir/ ) it is approximately going to hit 1.5ish creatures each time, which I feel is not strong enough to justify paying 4 mana in Legacy.
To wrap up the 2nd Dream Stalker argument, I would actually rather have a Sedraxis Alchemist as it would be able to bail you out of a variety of situations such as Revoker, Needle, even just bouncing a Jace or something. The versatility of the 1st Alchemist I imagine is greater than the redundancy of the 2nd Dream Stalker, as it would get the opponent if they play removal poorly (I should note that approximately 95% of players that I have spoken with or played against have used removal poorly. I know that this is merely anecdotal evidence, but still), as well as giving another piece that basically outright wins with a Cavern Harpy , and the fact that I am happier hardcasting a Sedraxis Alchemist over a Dream Stalker most of the time, leads me to believe that it should be played over the Dream Stalker.
In light of the DTT banning what sort of changes are we looking at for aluren? Starting with a replacement for the one off DTT
Played a few games with yoshipwnz's list, replacing DTT and Intent with 2x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. So far he seems decent, although not exciting.
I don't think jace VP is the direction we want to be taking with this deck. We probably want something that functions on a similar scale to DTT. Alex rightly pointed out that collected company is a card worth considering, but with the number of creatures we run we're hitting an average of 1.5 creatures which doesn't cut it.
I however like the idea of sedraxis alchemist as a second dream stalker. I'd like to try a list replacing DTT with that instead. Moving forward I'd like to see what the new post DTT meta would throw up, that way we can decide with more certainty what we want for our flex slots. Scavenging ooze no longer has as much value as it used to be there to stop digs.
@yoshipwnz
What's your take on the expected post dig environment and how it will affect aluren going forward? Also it would be cool if you accepted my Facebook friend request so I can more conveniently bounce ideas off you :)
Edit: read through your report. I think what sets it apart from others is that you tell us how you sideboard. It's not the easiest thing to do with this deck after cutting baleful strix (usually the first to go)
I believe that Dig going away will hurt Aluren slightly. Obviously we need to cut our copy, but that isn't a huge deal, since we only run 1 and do not rely on it. The largest issue that arises is is that almost every single deck that relied on Dig, or at least ran it, was at the very least an even match up, if not significantly favourable. It also may trigger a resurgence of Elves, which is not a particularly strong match up from my experience due to their speed and ability to grind at the same level as us. I am not aware how the Shardless match up is, but I imagine that it is very very close, but I suppose that we will find out since the deck is now playable again. Other decks may also arise such as Jund or some other midrange strategy that Dig was oppressing, but I do not believe that those will significantly rise up. The worst part about Dig leaving is that OmniShow will go with it, being replaced with SneakShow probably, which is a slightly worse match up, but still heavily favourable.
As for the changes to Aluren itself, I have cut Dig and Diabolic Intent (Intent because it just super sucks). Since both of these things are ways to find Aluren or produce card advantage, I believe that the replacements should fulfill those roles as there are no significant aspects that I feel Aluren is lacking. The replacements that I am considering have been bouncing between, by category: CARD ADVANTAGE: BBE, Sylvan Library, Living Wish, Intuition; INTERACTION (allowing the game to progress to the point where the natural card advantage takes over): Mesmeric Fiend, Hymn to Tourach, Abrupt Decay main; MISCELLANEOUS: Birds of Paradise or some other similar accelerant (allowing for less constraints on the mana and speeding into a t3 Aluren when necessary, value Recruiters, Harpies, Stalkers etc), RecSage main, Sedraxis Alchemist.
Currently I am trying am very much liking the Sylvan Library, and am testing out the Mesmeric Fiend. I have been okay with its performance, but believe that a Bird may be better, still unsure. I will post once I have come to a conclusion.
I have considered the new Jace, but my gut told me that he is too bad to play. I do not have any testing to back this up (I plan on testing it soon) but it seems as though it is too slow, which is a common theme amongst potential Aluren candidates.. The deck isn't particularly looking for ways to win eventually, since we already have a bunch of those. The only cards we can flashback are discard and Brainstorm, and by the time he flips the discard is probably irrelevant, leaving 4 cards to flashback in total, while his + is embarrassingly bad. Those are my thoughts on it.
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