This was posted on TheManaDrain yesterday evening, but I might as well post that here, people might be interested in the deck. Two of my testing partners took the deck to GP Lille and both made Top32 after a 7-1-1 record Day 1.

1. INTRODUCTION AND EARLY DECKLIST

Aluren is probably my favourite deck ever. I played It in Extended before the last rotation with good success. When the two Legacy Grand Prix were announced by WOTC, I decided to start working actively on Legacy with some good friends. Two of these were also Aluren addicts, so Aluren soon became one of our primary focuses. We browsed MTGTheSource forums for a while looking for interesting ideas, but all the builds we could found were extremely bad, mainly based around the Extended core (that means, Living Wish, Cloud of Faeries, Maggot Carrier and Auriok Champion), but with terrible cards like Lotus Petal or Elvish Spirit Guide. In Legacy, playing a true Combo deck based on a 4CC card is strictly impossible, because of cards like Aether Vial, Goblin Lackey, Force of Will and Daze. That means the deck has to be turned into a Control-Combo deck (and not the other way around) in order to be competitive in Legacy. Raven Familiar and Cavern Harpy being blue, the deck can easily support Force of Will. Counterspell is obviously not a solution here, but with Intuitions and plenty creatures, you get to run the best black card in the format, Cabal Therapy. Against Aggro decks, Walls are your primary Control component.

I started to actively discuss on Aluren in August with Sylvain Lauriol and Kevin Desprez, with Pierre Canali and Wilfried Ranque joining the group later on. Our primary testings with ports from decklists played in 2002 gave us really strong results against most of the so-called Legacy best decks, Goblins, Landstill and High Tide. Back then, Landstill was still heavily played, and the fact that It was a complete bye for Aluren decided us to keep working on it. Back then, our list still had Extended stuff such as Living Wish, but these got cut soon after, because we didn't want to bastardize our sideboard with poor cards. Also, Living Wish's speed is a liability when facing Goblins, since you hardly want to waste your turn 2 doing nothing but a Living Wish while being smashed by a Goblin Lackey.

// Aluren
// Pre Ravnica and Pre GP Philadelphia decklist
// Mana Base
1 Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
// Combo cards
2 Spike Feeder
3 Man-o'-War
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Raven Familiar
4 Aluren
// Control
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
4 Force of Will
// Draw and Tutors
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Wall of Blossoms
SB: 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
SB: 2 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Hydroblast
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 Eladamri's Vineyard
SB: 3 Elephant Grass

I won a couple of tournaments with this decklist. Sideboard is heavily oriented against Aggro decks, with some versatile cards to bring against Combo and Control too. More testings shown us that Cavern Harpy was by far the worst card in the deck. Basically, you never want to see one in your opening hand, you just want to dig into one while Comboing off, through repeated Raven Familiar and Man'O-War abuse. Ravnica gave us an interesting card to work with, Chord of Calling. The 4th Cavern Harpy was quickly cut for a singleton Chord of Calling, which gives you more Raven Familiars and can be used to get a Cavern Harpy too.

Then came GP Philadephia, and an overwhelming Threshold showing. Because of Threshold's fast clock backed up with disruption (Meddling Mage) and countermagic, we decided to maindeck the 4th Wal of Blossoms and a second Chain of Vapor.

2. GP LILLE DECKLIST

In the end, Pierre Canali and Wilfried Ranque decided to pick Aluren for GP Lille, and ended up both Top32 after a 7-1-1 record during Day 1 (with Wilfried's only loss funily being to Pierre). Kevin Desprez and myself were judging, and Sylvain Lauriol opted for UGr Threshold at the last minute for some reason. Both played slightly different versions of the deck, the most important being Ranque's maindeck Eladamri's Vineyards (Canali had them in the sideboard only). The mana bases were also slightly different. I'm not really sold on the maindeck Vineyards, and I think 3 Cavern Harpies are needed in the deck because of Intuition and Force of Will. Here is what I would have played at the GP. It's basically a mix of both decklists. I dislike the City of Traitors, but It has Its uses in some matchups.

// Aluren
// Suggested Decklist post GP Lille
// Mana Base
1 Island
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
5 Forest
// Combo cards
1 Eternal Witness
1 Spike Feeder
2 Man-o'-War
3 Cavern Harpy
4 Raven Familiar
4 Aluren
// Control
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wall of Roots
// Draw and Tutors
1 Chord of Calling
3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
// Sideboard
SB: 1 Cabal Therapy
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Mystic Remora
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 Eladamri's Vineyard
SB: 3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Hydroblast

3. HOW DO YOU PLAY THE DECK?

Aluren is probably one of the most difficult decks to play perfectly in Magic, and for sure the hardest deck to play in Legacy. It has dozens of tricks and non obvious card interactions that It gives you fast headaches if you don't have some automatisms with it, since there are plenty plays to do in response to each other and controlling the stack is sometimes tricky. As a reward, the good thing is that your opponent will hardly know when to play his hate cards properly, and that will win you many games. The main Combo is divided in 6 steps.

1. Use Raven Familiars and Cavern Harpies to dig into the deck to find a Man'O-War and the Spike Feeder.
2. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Spike Feeder loop to get a large amount of life.
3. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Wall of Roots loop to get a large amount of Green mana.
4. Use a Cavern Harpy, Man'O-War and Spike Feeder loop to turn your creatures into big monsters.
5. Recur all your Force of Wills and Cabal Therapies with an Eternal Witness loop and pass the turn.
6. Attack on the next turn for the win.

4. QUICK CARD BY CARD ANALYSIS

* 3 Cavern Harpies : the worst card in the deck, but needed for the Combo. 3 is enough, especially with Chord of Calling and Man'O-Wars.
* 2 Chains of Vapor : deals with problematic permanents before going off (Mages and Needles), and acts as a pseudo Harpy when going off. Incredibly strong and versatile.
* 1 Chord of Calling : Better than Cavern Harpy and usually free when going off. A strong addition.
* 3 Force of Will : 4th one is hardly needed, so thrown in the sideboard for Combo and Threshold matchups.
* 1 Eternal Witness : versatile utility and strong card when going off.

5. RANDOM MATCHUPS ANALYSIS

* Goblins
Game 1 is easy when on the play because of the 8 Walls to block Goblin Lackey. On the draw a first turn Lackey is obviously a serious threat but can still be managed with good Wall draws or Chain of Vapor for tempo. You goldfish faster than them anyways. You got 6 answers to Lackey game 2, and still 8 Walls to stop the rush. Their only threat is Red Elemental Blast, but It's rather easy to play around. Overall a slightly favourable matchup if you know what you are doing perfectly. Otherwise, they wreck you.

* Landstill
An easy matchup. Just play draw-wall-go until you get the Combo in hand, wreck them with a Cabal Therapy and win. Landstill has to be the Aggro deck in the matchup, and 4-6 manlands will hardly make it, especially since they run billions of dead cards against you (Swords to Plowshares, Akroma's Vengeance, Wrath of God, Nevinyral's Disk...). Post sideboard, Pernicious Deed takes care of Arcane Laboratories and Meddling Mages all day long.

* Mono White Control
You cant lose to first turn Plains, EOT cycle Secluded Steppe. A complete bye. Their only problematic card is Humility, which is extremely slow. And they can't stop your Chain of Vapor anyways. Oh, and Pernicious Deed.

* RW Lightning Rift
A bit harder than MWC because turn 2 Rift is a decent clock, but still a very easy matchup. Post board BEB allows you to go into late game, and you always win if you manage to do so.

* BW Suicide
A nightmare matchup. You can hardly expcet to win more than 1 game out of 4. Luckily, the deck is bad, so that's hardly a concern.

* UGw Threshold
Meddling Mage is annoying but can be dealt with thanks for Chain of Vapor or Man'O-War backed up with Force of Will or Cabal Therapy. The 8 Walls buy a lot of turns in this matchup, which means you are almost Daze proof. Post sideboard Pernicious Deed destroys them and Mystic Remora is huge. They have to bring in Swords to Plowshares to get rid of your Walls, which is a good thing. Mystic Enforcer is a serious threat though. Slightly favourable overall.

* UGr Threshold
Lightning Bolt and Fire/Ice make that you can hide behind your Walls forever. Luckily, they don't have Meddling Mage to disrupt you and a single Cabal Therapy is usually enough to go off without problems. Post sideboard Red Blasts are annoying, but Pernicious Deed and Remora are awesome too. I'd say the matchup is even.

* Affinity
The only way they can win is with double Disciple of the Vault or a very fast Cranial Plating on a flying dude. If they don't, you should win most of the games without too many problems. It's overall a good matchup.

* UWg(r/b) Confinement / Life from the Loam
We didn't playtest the matchup a lot and we didnt expected the deck to be heavily played anyways. If they get Confinement out, It becomes extremely hard to win because you can't back up your Chain of Vapor with Cabal Therapies. Otherwise, It's a good matchup. I'd say Confinement has the edge in the matchup, but only by a small margin. Post sideboard Pernicious Deeds are good, as are more Force of Wills and Cabal Therapies.

* Non Blue Confinement / Life From the Loam decks (CAL variants)
Confinement is not a threat because of Chain of Vapor. A very fast Assault is annoying, which is why you'll bring the Blue Blast post board. If Assault doesnt stay on the board, they have no way to kill you, and you'll always wreck them in the late game.