I'm still new to Legacy, but I've been playing red Aluren on mtgo and white in paper.
Red is no doubt better as the game 1 deck, because Dream Stalker is better than Arctic Merfolk. Merfolk does have some advantages, but Dream Stalker being able to bounce any permanent, survive a bolt and block Thought-Knot Seers and goyfs is pretty huge.
Where white has an advantage, and it could be a big one, is the sideboard options. I think Aluren is already good against goyf decks and Eldrazi, so losing a little there for much better sideboard options for your tougher match-ups, could well be worth it.
White gives you access to Thalia, Meddling Mage, Containment Priest and various other cards for the match-ups that are actually tough: faster combo decks than us.
Last edited by adreena; 10-22-2016 at 05:29 PM.
Hi everyone,
I have a very old (circa 2007...) decklist sleeved up :
// Lands
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
1 [P3] Island (1)
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [R] Bayou
4 [R] Tropical Island
5 [OV] Forest
// Creatures
3 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
1 [FD] Eternal Witness
1 [SH] Spike Feeder
3 [PS] Cavern Harpy
3 [VI] Man-o'-War
4 [UL] Raven Familiar
4 [MI] Wall of Roots
// Spells
4 [TE] Aluren
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
2 [ON] Chain of Vapor
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
SB: 1 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 2 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 [TE] Eladamri's Vineyard
SB: 2 [4E] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 [OV] Hydroblast
SB: 1 [DIS] Loaming Shaman
I've always liked the deck and would like to dust it off. After reading some of the last pages, I see that the current main changes / options are :
- The dig engine has changed, revolving around BS+Ponder, Baleful Strix, Agent instead of BS, Intuition, Wall of Blossoms and Raven Familiar.
- Adding a fourth color (either W or R) for Recruiters, or staying BUG
- Playing Veteran Explorer or not
- Parasitic loop has replaced Spike Feeder loop.
TTX's list seems to be a good starting point for a White Recuiter + VetEx option.
Cartesian's list gives an example of a non-Recruiter, non VetEx build.
I have some question, the answer of which I have not found in the ~10 pages i've dug or so, probably because these matters have been resolved too long ago, so please let me say I'm sorry about that. I'd appreciate it if you could enlighten me on any of them, or even just point me to existing answers.
1) Can you explain the main advantages of the new dig engine compared to the old one, and what have historically been the reasons to change it ?
2) What is the main draw to play Recruiters ? I get that they allow you to tutor both bounce critters and Harpy. But getting to 4c instead of 3c is not a neutral decision (even though we do also get more SB options).Are there other less obvious consequences (both good or bad) to this approach ?
3) In the lists posted I tend to see either Recruiter + VetEx or none at all. Are other combinations (recruiters wo VetEx, or VetEx wo recruiter) not as potent and if so, why ?
4) Lists with Recruiter (+ VetEx) lose FoW in the MD. Hasn't that been an issue ?
5) Lists without Recruiters (well, Cartesian's one at least) have lost Therapy MD and the Eternal Witness recursion engine. Hasn't that been an issue ? Does the new kill, being more diffcult to disrupt, makes the FoW/CT recursion through EW less useful ?
5) On the other hand, the new Parasitic kill seems obviously much better than the old one (instant speed kill, no need to to go in the red zone). Just to be sure, are there any other upsides to note that I would be missing ?
I guess these are my main questions, trying to understand the evolutionary changes the game has gone through in the last (gosh, almost 10) years, and how do these new building options fare against each other and against "classic" decklists.
Thanks a lot for your help.
Last edited by ParkerLewis; 10-22-2016 at 06:23 PM.
Originally Posted by cdr
Again, I'm new to Legacy, so my knowledge is limited at this point.
For the dig engine, in some cases it's just better cards replacing older ones. Baleful Strix is a huge upgrade over Wall of Blossoms. Raven Familiar digs deeper than Shardless, but Shardless casts the card for free and doesn't have an echo cost to pay. It seems the current version of the deck focuses less on the combo and more on a suite of creatures that can apply more pressure on their own. You don't rely on the combo to win with Aluren, just the chip damage from Deathrite Shaman and the pressure Shardless can put on your opponent can be enough.
Recruiters give you a 2 card kill. Cast Aluren, cast Recruiter for free and then probably win. Without it, you need to do some digging until you get your 2 card combo. Recruiter also lets you tutor up creatures for certain match-ups, such as Reclamation Sage and the various sideboard options. Splashing the 4th colour isn't really a problem, thanks to Deathrite Shaman.
The core version of the deck is Martin Goldman-Kirst's version, played here by Sam Pardee:
http://www.channelfireball.com/video...legacy-aluren/
But this was before Recruiter of the Guard came out. You can just swap the Recruiters, the dual land and Arctic Merfolk for Dream Stalker to have essentially the same deck. But white definitely gives you some extra sideboard options. I think Veteran Explorer is fairly new and increases the potential speed of the combo.
The BUG version played here: http://www.channelfireball.com/video...y-blue-aluren/
has been putting up very good results on mtgo the past couple of months. I think it's decent, but the Recruiter versions feels a lot more powerful to me.
Losing main deck Force of Wills could be a problem for certain metas. But on mtgo, the top 5 most popular decks are Miracles, Grixis Delver, Eldrazi, Shardless BUG and Storm. You only really want Force against one of those decks. If your meta is more combo orientated, having Force main deck would be a good idea.
Aluren has definitely become more popular in recent months, partly thanks to the printing of Recruiter of the Guard. It's worse match-ups are faster combo decks, but does pretty well against anything else.
The main role of Wall of Roots and Wall of Blossoms was to block the format's most promiment threats, which at its time were Goblin Lackey, Nimble Mongoose and Werebear. It all changed with Tarmogoyf, which became ubiquitious and starts small but then grows until your Walls can't contain it anymore. The first adaptation was to add Tarmogoyf yourself, which was good as a Wall and as an alternative finisher.
Then Delver of Secrets replaced Tarmogoyf as the mainstream threat, which Baleful Strix answers. And then came Deathrite Shaman, which works as a finisher just like Tarmogoyf, but also serves as a mana accelerator and fixer (taking Wall of Roots' role) and provides some maindeck graveyard hate. Since Deathrite Shaman is here to stay (very ubiquitous too), graveyard shenanigans aren't as reliable anymore, which makes Intuition subpar, Eternal Witness much less hot, and singletons like Volrath's Stronghold undesirable. Unless you play in a meta where people play little to no Deathrite Shamans, you shouldn't count on your graveyard as a resource.
Shardless Agent can dig into the library deeper than Raven Familiar and forces people to confront cards now that shouldn't have come until much later. The board presence is generally larger and stronger and your creatures don't suddenly die for no reason. You lose the flying part, which is a bummer with so many Delvers around, but generally it compensates. The synergy with Sensei's Divining Top is also notorious. That doesn't mean Raven Familiar is 100% outclassed in every list conceivable, but on most of them it would be included as Shardless Agent 5-8 at most, which is rarely the case.
When Imperial Recruiter got legalized, Aluren got a kind of a stigma. People saw that on paper Aluren + Recruiter = win, so they didn't look any further. But since Imperial Recruiter was (and is) so expensive, most people didn't try any list with Recruiters because they couldn't afford them. They also saw no point in testing it with proxies, because "why test a deck I'll never be able to play at tournaments?", which has its logic. Thus, the stigma: everyone thought of Recruiter as better than anything else and thus essential in Aluren, but no one had any actual evidence to back it up. As a result, no one played Aluren without Recruiters, because "obviously", those lists were worse. So the few results Aluren got these years were all Recruiter lists from the few players who had them.
With Recruiter of the Guard being a functional copy at a decent price, the deck is getting played quite a bit more, but the stigma largely remains. In fact, it got arguably stronger because now "there's no excuse" to play without Recruiters.
(+) With Aluren, Recruiter alone = win
(-) Forces a fourth color
(-) Almost forces Deathrite Shaman (though Deathrite Shaman is good)
(-) Recruiter itself is lackluster without Aluren
(-) Forces Dream Stalker, Arctic Merfolk or similar creatures, all of them outright bad without Aluren
Except for the Deathrite Shaman part, I found these cons by getting a playset of Imperial Recruiters years ago and trying all variations I could think of. You talk about these cons to people and they mostly ignore them by saying "but it's a two-card combo" or call them irrelevant. It sounds exaggerated, but no one, either on forums or in real life, has ever refuted them to me yet.
That said, Imperial Recruiter is red and red sideboard options are rather limited, according to my experience. Recruiter of the Guard being white opens a new world of possibilities, and that's something I haven't tried yet. Perhaps Recruiter of the Guard isn't that underwhelming by itself thanks to these options. But Legacy literally died in my area and my job gets in the way, so I can't really advance my position.
I think people are simply trying different variations to see what works and what doesn't. No specific configuration is blatantly stronger than others yet. The deck is kind of awakening after years of hibernation and has found a world it barely recognizes.
With the release of Abrupt Decay and in conjunction with Cabal Therapy, you can take care of everything that could deserve a FoW from your part. This is true regardless of how you build the deck. Which is a good thing overall, since you've never really wanted to exile anything to FoW.
I partly answered this before, but the reason you can't rely on your graveyard anymore is Deathrite Shaman. Though to me that's no excuse to stop running Cabal Therapy, I still run the full playset maindeck and never regretted it. You can certainly renounce to graveyard recursion, even if it's just out of necessity.
Actually, instant speed kill and no combat required are irrelevant, though people adopted Parasitic Strix the moment it was printed because they thought it's better. Quick analysis:
Spike Feeder:
(+) Useful by itself with life gain and shenanigans with +1/+1 counters
(+) Immune to Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile
(+) Killable on demand, useful niche against Dredge to exile copies of Bridge from Below
(+) Reusable outside the combo with Eternal Witness and bounce
(-) Requires Wall of Roots and creatures with bounce abilities to combo
(-) Graveyard shenanigans aren't safe anymore
Parasitic Strix:
(+) Doesn't need anything other than itself and Cavern Harpy to combo
(-) No utility without Aluren
(-) Vulnerable to all forms of removal
Spike Feeder is way better by itself, to the point of never being a dead card. However, Parasitic Strix's upside is enormous, because it allows much more freedom when building lists, and Spike Feeder's pieces fell out of the meta quite a while ago anyway, so Parasitic Strix is the winner in the current circumstances. Also, if you run Shardless Agent, you have a Strix equivalent in Kalastria Healer to cascade directly into it, so Harpy + Agent = win.
Nonex: Interesting history lesson, thanks. I did not play Aluren back then.
Aside from the fact that Kalastria Healer is almost a dead draw without Aluren, this kill is practically impossible on Magic Online because there is no shortcutting, so there will be serious time issues and risk of mouse damage with this solution.
Securing the kill with Harpy + Agent is one the main challenges with "my" version, because sometimes cascading into cantrips alone doesn't get the job done. Generally you want to keep the deck's total number of dead cascade targets as low as possible (that is why I am reluctant to include more than 1-2 Cabal Therapies, because it is dead when comboing). The solution needs to be 2cc, and not be useless without Aluren.
Possible solutions that I have considered, and many of them tested, presented here for your amusement and as a tribute to the depths of Legacy:
Shrine of Piercing Vision
Kalastria Healer
Grapeshot
Qarsi Sadist
Plunge into Darkness
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Diabolic Intent
Living Wish
Whirlpool Rider
Contraband Kingpin
Glint-Nest Crane
Traverse the Ulvenwald
They all have their pros and cons. The first three are not practical on Magic Online.
If there are other options that I have overlooked, please share.
Last edited by Cartesian; 12-12-2016 at 04:21 AM.
Thanks a lot for you detailed and thoughtful answers. They are tremendously helpful and interesting.
Good point : I totally get how it isn't reliable anymore to count on EW to get back a card that would have been sitting sevral turns in the yard. Still, when Aluren is out, our shenanigans (typically recurring FoW and CT to ensure protection) are instant speed, so an opposing DRS shouldn't matter *at this point* (?). Isn't that aspect alone enough to justify EW anymore ?
I think I'm missing something about Agent. Looking, for example, at Cartesian's decklist (maybe it's a bad decklist, I have no idea) :
If you're looking for Aluren : Agent might very well just get a 1-card opprtunity (from Oracle, Baleful Strix), or even 0 (if you get DRS). Best you can *hope* for with Agent is cascading into a BS/ponder, thus really getting only 3 (or 4 with Ponder) opportunities to find Aluren instead of a systematic 4 with RF. This is strictly (far) worse than RF at digging, unless I am missing something.
If you're looking for Parasitic Strix : same thing.
If you're looking for Cavern Harpy : well, at least you might cascade directly into it, but on average it seems like RF would still do a much better job ?
edit :
That's exactly what I was fearing and was trying to express above. Bascially I don't see why Agent is more desirable than RF ? Ok, you get to cast the card for free and on the spot (if you're looking for Harpy, otherwise and at best you'll still only get into hand). But RF seems so much better (to me) at actually giving the card I do want that it seems better to me ?
This is also a good description of what I feel like :)
That's a point I wanted to discuss. Isn't CT less reliable now if DRS is so ubiquitous in the format (going back to the first point you made) ? If you can't reliably count on flashbacking (at the time you would have chosen to do so, not only as forced reaction to a DRS trigger on the stack), it loses a lot of its merits ?
IIRC, until you have at least Aluren + Harpy + a bouncer and can recur it for infinite life, it's still completely useless. Well ok you can use it once as a blocker once (and gain 4 life from it), but any other creature could also chumpblock ?
You're right it can kill itself to evade being rfg'ed, but that only applies before the combo is out (when it's out, you can do that anyway with any creature), and playing SF before the combo is out seems like asking for trouble anyway (especially since as you pointed out, even sending it to the GY isn't safe anymore due to DRS).
Don't take me wrong, I like the little guy. Also, basically what I liked about the deck is that it was not a combo deck, but rather a control deck (with a potent combo finish). Compared to the old lists, I wonder if new lists haven't shifted more on being combo decks rather than control decks (typically losing FoW or CT). I have no idea if this is simply a natural evolution due to meta etc and it simply is better in today's metagame, or if the initial justification and strength of the deck is being lost this way.
Shardless Agent, as opposed to any of the Recruiters, is just a very powerful card on its own - cascading into Baleful Strix or Abrupt Decay can win games.
Raven Familiar is somewhere in between Agent and Recruiter, not a real tutor, and not totally useless as a creature either, although the echo cost really is a pain in my experience.
Ok, I think I see your point. Maybe I was the one thinking too much about the combo when favoring RF over SA. As a control deck, it's not a big deal if it takes a little time to assemble the combo. Hence, it's not a big deal if SA is less powerful than RF at directly finding pieces. SA's advantage however, is its average better impact on the board, thanks notably to the possibility of getting another additional creature (thus giving us more time). No echo cost also means it's easier to reuse (or keep as a future blocker) if you don't already have a Harpy to bounce SA/RF. As emphasized earlier, we are a control deck, so these advantages are more important than being worse at finding the combo pieces in a vacuum, and the consensus has generally shifted from RF to SA. Is that the point being made ? Have I correctly summed up what you meant ?
This probably also was what Nonex was referring to, thanks for helping me connecting the dots.
The Aluren history/summary on this and the last page is excellent. I played around with Recruiter-less Aluren a year ago, but there was very little interest in the deck at all back then, and especially the pure BUG lists.
A few things jump out at me about the BUG list. First of all, the Dimir Infiltrators look really underwhelming. They do grab two of the three pieces of the combo in an uncounterable fashion, but at sorcery speed, and they look completely useless outside of the combo. Second, the three Parasitic Strix in the maindeck seem pretty bad.
What about taking that list and going -3 Parasitic Strix, -2 Dimir Infiltrator, +4 Living Wish (and -1 Cavern Harpy)? The sideboard would then get one of each combo piece, Cavern Harpy, Coiling Oracle, and Parasitic Strix, as well as a few answers, Reclamation Sage, Bone Shredder, and Eternal Witness. Finally, the Living Wishes give you a bit of extra game-one help against Eldrazi, Miracles, and grindy decks in the form of Glissa, the Traitor and Creeping Tar Pit.
Moving to Living Wishes in the maindeck frees up a few extra slots. I'd propose filling them with 2 Vendilion Clique. Clique works as disruption, improves the grindy non-combo option, and serves as a combo piece if you have one extra card in hand.
Proposed List:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Cavern Harpy
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Living Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Aluren
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
3 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
-----Sideboard-----
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Bone Shredder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Meddling Mage
3 Force of Will
Running a Savannah in the maindeck allows us to run Meddling Mage in the sideboard both as a Living Wish target and to board in against Storm and Sneak and Show. You could also run a silver bullet for Show and Tell, if you so desired.
Finally, I'm tempted to play with the Ponder slots. Adding 3 Coiling Oracles and a 21st land in place of these four slots increases the number bodies for Cabal Therapy, increases the number of cards that serve as a combo piece (although the deck already has 4 Strix, 4 Shardless Agent, and 2 Cliques for this role), and is synergistic with Cavern Harpy without Aluren. It also offers some buffer against opposing Liliana of the Veil, which is very relevant against us. The downside, of course, is that the deck is rather heavy in the 2-CC slot.
One last thought: If we run 3 Coiling Oracles, the weakest link are the four copies of Aluren. There are a couple of cards that could fill a similar role in the deck. The most obvious is Jace, the Mind Sculptor. This deck is particularly well set up to protect a Jace while he either digs to assemble the combo or fateseals the opponent. On a crazier approach, there's another deck floating around that uses Opposition with some success; that could also fill the roll as pseudo-Aluren number 5.
Last edited by AngryTroll; 10-23-2016 at 07:46 PM.
InfoNinjas
2 copies of Aluren in the top 8 at SCG today including the winner!
Both Recruiters are represented as well (each build is running one or the other).
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...num=0&limit=16
Edit: Just looked at the bracket and they played each other in the quarterfinals.
Yeah I played vs him final round of Swiss then in QFs as well. He was pretty new to the deck and made a few mistakes that I capitalized on
Hi guys, I'm new to posting. Though have lurked for maybe 6 or so months. I've tried all bug lists before aluren reprint while saving for imperial recruiters, then white recruiter came out, and am currently using that. I came to a similar conclusion, and have tried both 2 copies of Jace, and Opposition after seeing the same deck list you are referring to. Opposition to me felt way more powerful. That being said I am playing the new Tamiyo in it's slot, and have been enjoying it.
Unsure weather I like it more than opposition, but it does do something when no creatures are on the field.
Congrats on the win! Wish they would have had video coverage for the top 8, the meta seemed quite diverse based on the top 16 decklists.
I've been working with Cartesian's lists lately and I've started to feel like 20 lands is too many. Flood is the most common reason I'm dropping games, and with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder, and 4 Coiling Oracle as well as additional basics (I've tried as many as 5 and didn't have problems) I feel like the deck can get away with going down to 19 lands.
I'm planning on testing Whirlpool Rider, Vendilion Clique, Glint-Nest Crane, and Kalastria Healer in thr slot. Thoughts?
Hey man. Congrats on the win. Would you mind posting your sideboard plan for the deck? How was Blood Braid Elf and what was it for?
Currently playing: BUG Nic Fit (combo /or control version)
If you mean a full sideboarding guide, then I can probably get one up by/during Thanksgiving. If you mean a tournamnet report including the actual sideboarding that I did, I will have one up next week at some point. As for BBE, he's for any grinding matchup (obviously). Shardless, Miracles, Stoneblade, Jund, and whatever other random control matchups that you run into is where it shines because oftentimes the opponents fear Aluren too much and will leave up a way to interact with it and then get BBE'd. It can, of course, come in for other matchups when you have too many cards to come out, but it is there primarily for Shardless and Miracles. Its other uses include matchups where you believe that you will just be attacking them to death rather than combo'ing because you understand your opponent's skill level and how much interaction they have with Aluren itself. It has been very good at what it does, and I plan on continuing to run it.
In the white version: would tidehollow sculler be a good card for disruption as not only does it protect the combo, it also combos with Aluren and strix to remove the opponents hand from the game at instant speed.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
I like the highlander sideboard, but why no force of will?
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
I really like yoshipwnz's sideboard too. I agree on removing the FoW, since it's inconsistent to even have the ability to 2-for-1 yourself.
The mainboard 3 Thoughtseizes is very strong against the fast combo matchups anyway, I.
I really like Skylasher, it always catches people off guard.
Hey guys, i'm very interested in the BUG list talks going on lately since i have been working on the deck for a while. Not sure if it is better than recruiter versions, but pure BUG lists are funnier to combo out with!
This is my latest list, has some nice synergies and is fun to play since you have a lot of possibilities with all the tutoring and the 3 distincts game plans (aluren combo ~50%, aggro/crl ~35%, depths combo ~15%). I'm having very decent results on MTGO with it and i can tell i'm far from playing it perfectly.
Some remarks :
- deck is built to flood out as little as possible (18 lands) but between with deathrite, explorer, traverse, wish and 7 basics it has a very stable manabase (wasteland and bloodmoon are no problem)
- there is a lot of synergy going on when comboing, i rarely whiff when comboing out (FE therapy to sacrifice strix/agent put 2 types in graveyard to activate delirium, you can get mana during your combo by cascading into therapy and/or explorer, allowing you to cast your brainstorm/traverse/wish when you start your combo with no mana, ...)
- dark depths is a cool plan C againt some type of disruption (canonist, chalice, etc ..). I stole quite a few game against eldrazi with it
- deck is somehow budget friendly (only 2 duals, no underground no fow)
Let me know if you want me to explain anything, i would love to see some of you try it and return me some advices :)
-----Deck-----
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness
4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
4 Traverse The Ulvenwald
4 Living Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
3 Forest
2 Island
2 Swamp
-----Sideboard-----
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Bone Shredder
1 Eternal Witness
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Thoughtseize
1 Null Rod
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