[Deck] Aluren

[Bahamuth]

I agree with you on Wirewood Savage but Dream Stalker is just a bad Man-o-War (MoW). Why would you want to run a card that is worse than another? MoW can return any creature, Meddling Mage is just one exsample of what you can bounce.

Dream Stalker isn't targeted, so your opponent can't respond with an StP on the creature you just targeted. You could go Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Raven and win from there easily, without targeting a single creature, ever.

[Nihil Credo]

Rishadan Cutpurse can get rid of humility

I respectfully disagree, sir.

[Wallace]

Dream Stalker isn't targeted, so your opponent can't respond with an StP on the creature you just targeted. You could go Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Recruiter --> Dream Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Harpy (Bounce Stalker) --> Stalker (Bounce Recruiter) --> Recruiter --> Raven and win from there easily, without targeting a single creature, ever.

Good point, didn't see that, just last night I lost to a STP in resp. to my Man-o-War. I will have to give Stalker a try...

[Nastaboi]

Blocking Tarmogoyf and living is just so much better than bouncing one to hand to be replayed. Being able to dodge targeted removal is also nice.

[Wallace]

So I want to play Aluren this weekend at the GAGG event. What does the current, non-recruiter list look like?

[Nastaboi]

This is what I'd play:

4 Aluren

4 Wall of Roots
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Dream Stalker
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Intuition

4 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Chain of Vapor

4 Polluted Delta
4 Foothills/Heath
4 Tropical Island
3 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
1 Undergroung Sea

SB: Diverts for discard
Tinder Walls for aggro
Explosives and Deeds for Threshold
Thoughtseizes and Extirpates for combo

[Wallace]

@ Nastaboi

Looks good, you forgot one thing though, Coiling Oracle is awsome!!! I am going to play a version that looks more like:


4 Wall of Roots
3 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
2 Dream Stalker
1 Spike Feeder
2 Eternal Witness
3 Coiling Oracle

4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Intuition

4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Chain of Vapor

4 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Island
1 Undergroung Sea

I will post results after the event, including the SB and exsact list I played.

[Nastaboi]

Looks good, you forgot one thing though, Coiling Oracle is awsome!!!

No I didn't and it is not. Creature that just cantrips and chumps once really is not cutting it, even if it accelerates mana 1/3 of time.

I am convinced that running less than four Ponders is a serious mistake. The card is better than Brainstorm in the deck, unless you are facing heavy discard. Nevertheless, you should be running four of each.

Four Raven Familiars are equally important. You can start going off without Harpy, but without Raven your other creatures do nothing. You don't even have to find Harpy right away, because you draw into Dream Stalkers, other Familiars and cantrips, and one Chain of Vapor will guarantee you what you need. Coiling Oracle won't do you much good when going off.

I suggest that you read Toad's old primer from SCG, it really hasn't aged any.

[Happy Gilmore]

No I didn't and it is not. Creature that just cantrips and chumps once really is not cutting it, even if it accelerates mana 1/3 of time.

I am convinced that running less than four Ponders is a serious mistake. The card is better than Brainstorm in the deck, unless you are facing heavy discard. Nevertheless, you should be running four of each.

Four Raven Familiars are equally important. You can start going off without Harpy, but without Raven your other creatures do nothing. You don't even have to find Harpy right away, because you draw into Dream Stalkers, other Familiars and cantrips, and one Chain of Vapor will guarantee you what you need. Coiling Oracle won't do you much good when going off.

I suggest that you read Toad's old primer from SCG, it really hasn't aged any.

Coiling Oracle is stupid good when going off. I remember doing so with two oracles and a Chain of Vapor. I was able to draw cards and sack lands as I put them into play with Oracles, tapping them first to play Brainstorms and eventually an Intuition.

I do however agree with the need for 4 Harpy.

[Nastaboi]

You mean 4 Familiar not Harpy right? Harpy does nothing before going off. If you have at least one Familiar, then any other creature is better draw than Oracle. And if you draw Chain of Vapor with Raven, you have won. Rare situation of having two Oracles with Chain and no other ways to start combo is hardly a basis of running often less optimal card.

[arsenalpow]

I've got an idea that I don't think has been addressed in this thread, I looked through it and read nothing concerning the c/b top package in Aluren.

What is the absolute rock solid minimums necessary to function at a control oriented pace...I'm talking about a normal aluren list that wants to set up its board position, strip threats from an opponents hand, and counter relevent threats.

This is what I'm thinking are absolute necessities (non-recruiter version)

4 Aluren
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o-War
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

My idea is to try and put the counterbalance/top shell into this deck which would allow the player to set up early board control then finish off the opponent with the aluren combo, here is my preliminary list

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Aluren
4 Raven Familiar
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o-War
3 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Wall of Roots
3 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Spike Feeder
1 Eternal Witness

4 Tropical Island
4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
2 Polluted Delta
4 Forest
2 Island

You might be thinking Where's Counterbalance, I replaced the wall of blossoms x3 with sensei's top x3, but i'm not sure where to start cutting for the 3 counterbalances

my first thought was to cut 1 combo piece; either a man-o-war or a harpy, then cut 1 chain of vapor and 1 wall of roots....any thoughts?

[romain7]

Why should you not run wirewood savage? ALlowing yourself to draw up any combo is priceless.

Also, rishidan cutpurse can be quite valuable at times.

[alebronwebb]

Wirewood Savage is only useful when going off, even at that point Raven/Recruiter simply out-class since they dig and filter so much better.

[Toad]

It is nice to see there are still players who are not sold on the Imperial Recruiter builds... I do not really have much time for MTG right now, but I still try to keep my Aluren builds up to date in case I can attend to some tournament. I'm obviously still running a Recruiter-free build, with a straight Bug mana base.

From what I could see lately by reading various Legacy boards, the metagame has shifted towards Tarmogoyf-based Aggro-Control decks, Control decks (mostly board Control ones) such as Landstill, fast Empty the Warrens Combo decks and the good ol' Goblins. This shift has forced me to change a few things to my original build, the one which got played at GP Lille and discussed in the aforementioned SCG article.

1. Combo decks are faster than before. Ill Gotten Gains based decks had a critical turn 3, High Tide was slower. Now Empty the Warrens allows Combo to go off by turn 1, which means Cabal Therapy does not provide an efficient disruption against them on the play.

2. Tarmogoyf is bigger than Werebear, and grows faster. Werebear was a lesser threat because it would usually be 1/1 stopped by your 8 Walls for the first 3 turns, and still handled by Wall of Roots when Threshold'ed. Tarmogoyf can blow your Wall of Blossoms on turn 3. Nimble Mongoose is still a minor annoyance overall.

3. Brain Freeze and Auriok Salvagers have completely disappeared from Legacy, and I cannot think of any deck which can beat infinite life.

This lead me to the following deck list, with a bigger emphasis on the Aggro side of the build than for the previous lists, which were mainly Control-Combo. This one is truly Aggro-Control-Combo.

1 Island
2 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Polluted Delta
3 Bayou
4 Tropical Island
6 Forest

1 Essence Warden
1 Eternal Witness
2 Cavern Harpy
3 Man-o'-War
4 Wall of Blossoms + Wall of Roots
4 Raven Familiar
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Aluren

2 Chain of Vapor
3 Intuition
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm

. Tarmogoyfs. Hm, yeah! A great great Control element, better than the regular Walls, which allows a more efficient Aggro mode. Tarmogoyf greatly improves the Aggro matchup - including Goblins - and the Threshold matchup. It is also better against Control because it forces their interaction. They will deal with your Tarmogoyf, but the ressources they will invest for this will not be used for stopping your Aluren. Do not fight over Tarmogoyfs against Control, if they use Force of Will on these, great.

. Essence Warden is the new life component over Spike Feeder. Dropping it first turn on the play against Empty the Warrens gives you a Time Walk, and it is easier to "go off" afterwards since you can achieve infinite life with Man-o'-War alone. Man-o'-War is better than Dream Stalker as it is another Aggro-Control element (unlike Dream Stalker, which is purely Control-Combo) and has a nice synergy with Cabal Therapy, a trick you will use much more often because of the Tarmogoyfs. This makes Cavern Harpy less important for the deck - that is good, Cavern Harpy was terrible anyways - and going down to 2 is fine. In metagames where Chalice of the Void is rampant, Spike Feeder seems better than Essence Warden though.

. The Wall package. This is a tough call. With Tarmogoyfs in there, you either have to sacrifice a Green mana or a card. A 2 / 2 split is clearly incorrect. Wall of Roots is better against Goblins and their Rishadan Ports, but Wall of Blossoms is better against pretty much anything else. I'm more sold on 4 Wall of Blossoms, as keeping a good card draw is nice and helps all your 3 game plans.

. No "win condition". When you have infinite life and access to Force of Will recursion, and when your opponent has no creature on the board, winning should not be a concern. Tarmogoyf is fine.

The sideboard is vastly open, the deck can take plenty approaches post board depending on the metagame, either Aggro oriented (works great against B/W Confident for example) or Control oriented. I suggest running a good package of Pernicious Deeds as usual, as well as the 4th Cabal Therapy.

Nastaboi - I'm interested in reading your thoughts about Ponder here. I have never considered this, it is an interesting idea.

[Nightmare]

Toad - Have you tested at all with Coiling Oracle in the slots occupied by some number of Familiars and Wall of Blossoms? In my brief experiences with the deck, Oracle is fairly insane, as it provides additional mana/accelleration as well as card draw. He basically never misses. The tradeoff of dig vs. accel, or a bigger ass vs. pitching to FoW seems like the largest detractor to the card, but if you haven't yet, see if you can find room for him.

[Wallace]

@ Toad

Have you looked at Coiling Oracle over Wall of Blossoms...yeah it's only a 1/1 and won't live through any blocking assinment but the added bonus of dropping a revealed land into play is amazing. I figure Oracle has the same CC as the Wall and still draw a card, With more decks useing Tarmogoyf as there kill, both the wall of blossoms and Coiling Oracle will die when blocking...

EDIT: Also Read above, Nightmare can post faster than me...

[alebronwebb]

This might be the most foolish thing I've said on these boards, but here it goes. I'm actually considering replacing black with white, pretty much for Meddling Mage, to have an answer to Krosan Grip. Cabal Therapy can pick it away too, but MM could be more reliable at it (but, yeah, he can be killed). Has anyone tried MM in the deck, please tell me I'm wrong to worry so much about Grip.

[arsenalpow]

I've never tried to jam white into the deck but i know MM is more pertinent of a threat than grip has been for me. Playing against a White thresh build is a pain because they can drop MM on aluren and plow your walls to push through the beats

I tried jamming 3 tops and 3 counterbalance into the deck but it just didn't feel right. I think a goyf plan seems like a good idea but im still a little leary of using essence warden. I never end up dropping the feeder until aluren is out so the casting cost of feeder or warden is irrelevant to me because its going to be 0.

[Toad]

I tested Coiling Oracle when a french player suggested it quite long ago on our french Legacy boards. I went back to Wall of Blossoms after a few games, mostly for two reasons :

. Coiling Oracle is an awful Control element. Wall of Blossoms can hold a Goblin or Nimble Mongoose forever. This is very important for the main deck strategy.

. Coiling Oracle forces Tropical Island on turn 2, when you always want two Forests on turn 2 in order to have a safe turn 3 Intuition or Wall + Brainstorm. Oracle will only accelerate you 33% of the time, and in a lot of matchups I'd rather have that Tropical Island in hand drawn from Wall of Blossoms than in play to cast Coiling Oracle, because of Intuition vs. Wasteland.

Regarding the Threshold comment above, UGr is a far worst matchup than UGw. Meddling Mage is barely a threat when you have man-o'-war and Chain of Vapor, and Wall of Blossoms will hold that forever. OTOH UGr Threshold has a good amount of burn - which means your Control elements are less efficient - and nasty Red Elemental Blasts in the SB. Relying on Disenchant effect is also not the best plan in order to beat Aluren (especially if you are a true Control deck, Control beats Aluren by going Aggro or Aggro-Control), because the deck is Control (or Aggro-Control) before Combo. Krosan Grip is 3CC, so quite easy to read in your opponent's hand. Krosan Grip will also often force your opponent to slow play his hands, because he has to triple Rishadan Port himself.

Hardcasting Spike Feeder and Essence Warden occurs pretty often in actual games. Spike Feeder is better here since it is immune to Swords to Plowshares.

Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top are good. Nevertheless, that does not mean one should try to fit them in every single deck, even if that does not require a splash.
Counter Top is not Tarmogoyf ;)

[Roldaice]

For the moment, I prefer 3 wall of roots / 1 wall of blossoms in your Tarmogoyf version.