[Article] Innovator Aluren: Quite Possibly the Most Powerful Deck in Legacy

[Anusien]

At Grand Prix: Columbus, the world and his wife were gunning for Flash. Now that particular bugbear has been banished from the format, the search is on for the next defining Legacy deck. Today, Patrick "The Innovator" Chapin brings us the deck that he claims is the strongest, most resilient Legacy deck in the format today.

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/14363.html

The American side of Team Meandeck gives us another look at Aluren in Legacy. I have to say, I am a little bit disappointed since it seems like they started from scratch with this one instead of building off Toad's earlier work.

...
By the way, count the fetchlands.

Land
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

Control
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
1 Chain of Vapor

Critters
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Man-o'-War
1 Etched Oracle
2 Eternal Witness
4 Wall of Roots
1 Dream Stalker
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Spike Feeder

Spells & Draw
4 Aluren
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
2 Deep Analysis

Sideboard
3 Duress
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Etched Oracle
1 Tinder Wall
1 Cabal Therapy
3 Divert
1 Goblin Pyromancer

[Nightmare]

New rule - No one is allowed to turn these article discussions into "Why paying for Premium sucks." Either pay for the articles (which is rediculously cheap for a full year of writing), or don't, but the griping does not belong here.

[Happy Gilmore]

New rule - No one is allowed to turn these article discussions into "Why paying for Premium sucks." Either pay for the articles (which is rediculously cheap for a full year of writing), or don't, but the griping does not belong here.

Team Meandeck is not the first one to think up Imperial Recruiter in Aluren. Day two at GP: Philly I was searching all over the place for him because someone told me he was blue and not red. When I finally found someone who had some I was a little disappointed. The problem with him is cost...$280 for a play set of uncommons is insane.

[Machinus]

We've known about Aluren for a while now. It's not that good, and I don't appreciate this kind of hype.

Recruiter is good, but is it necessary? That's the question.

Aluren players, what do you say?

[Nightmare]

Regarding Imperial Recruiter, I find this card bad in Aluren, and I've already expressed my opinion on it earlier in this thread. Some players like it, I dont. Its bad draw if you are 3C, and I like 7 basics and 7 Fetchlands more than Taigas against Goblins.

Confusion in the ranks?

[Smmenen]

We've known about Aluren for a while now. It's not that good, and I don't appreciate this kind of hype.


I pretty much flat disagree with you. Aluren isn't just good, it's incredibly good.

We all purchased our Recruiters in April thinking that our whole team was going to play this deck, and then Flash happened.

I'm extremely excited to pilot this deck at the Legacy Championship, possibly more excited about the Legacy champs than the Vintage champs.

[Machinus]

Aluren isn't just good, it's incredibly good.

It has a lot of strengths, but it's not the "strongest, most resilient deck" in Legacy. There are no results to support this conclusion, and claiming it is purely hype and speculation. This kind of behaviour isn't appropriate.

The only relevant performance of this deck in the US was a few months ago and it was a completely different list.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

It seems entirely unnecessary. I'm actually going to go with Toad on this one. Rarely when I've been digging for cards have I specifically wanted a creature rather than Aluren or a Therapy or Land or such. I'd rather splash white for Court Hussar.

[UrDraco]

Is there any way we could get a decklist? Seems pretty pointless to discuss something when a lot of people can't even see it/test it. I want to say that Alluren is too slow and can be beat quite easily but I don't know for sure because all I see is a title boasting "Quite Possibly the Most Powerful Deck in Legacy". I just think that they titled that article the way they did to try to get new Legacy n00bs to buy a subscription to SCG's premium site. If it really were the most powerful it would be all over every forum in existence, like say, that one good deck we all remember called HulkFlash...

[Peter_Rotten]

Would I be wrong to assume that CRET Belcher probably slaps Aluren around?

[georgjorge]

You would be wrong. 4 Force + 3 Therapies + a fast enough kill to be able to ignore ETW most of the time, as well as 3 Deed + 3 Duress after boarding, is usually more than enough.

So...what's up with the 4 Etched Oracle between main- and sideboard ? Am I missing something ?

[Peter_Rotten]

You would be wrong. 4 Force + 3 Therapies + a fast enough kill to be able to ignore ETW most of the time, as well as 3 Deed + 3 Duress after boarding, is usually more than enough.

Oh, my bad. I originally didn't see the FoWs in that cluttered decklist in the original post. Someone should clean that up. :wink:

[Zach Tartell]

Etched Oracle? Do you mean coiling oracle? 'Cause he's a good way to replace Familiar, on account of he gets you land to use therapies with. But if you're going infinite then force x the number of blue cards in your deck is probably a better choice. I recall running one in my version a while ago.

Edit: Perhaps Etched oracle is a way to get your opponent to deck himself. Move the spike feeder tokens onto him, deck opponent.

[greyareabeyond]

...Edit: Perhaps Etched oracle is a way to get your opponent to deck himself. Move the spike feeder tokens onto him, deck opponent.

That is exactly the kill mentioned in the article. He points it out as a way to win the turn you play Aluren, while avoiding Worship, etc.

[Peter_Rotten]

There seems to be a lot of superflous critters in this version of an Aluren deck. For me, one of the hardest tenets to accept with an Aluren deck, was "no unneeded creatures." I don't see how Meandeck's critters base is better than the more traditional one similar to this:

4 Wall of Roots
3-4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Cavern Harpies
4 Raven Familiars
2-3 Eternal Witness
2-4 Man o' War
1 Spike Feeder

Their critters seem weaker without Aluren and they spread the manabase into a fourth color. Once you are going off, how is their critter base significantly better? What problems can it solve that the original base can't? Does it matter if they can win the same turn that they play Alruen? I think that for all intents and purposes, the original critter-base, which will provide infinite life, massive counters, massive discard, and critters that can be bounced if they need to be saved, facilitates a more stable deck. Am I wrong about this?


That is exactly the kill mentioned in the article. He points it out as a way to win the turn you play Aluren, while avoiding Worship, etc.

Couldn't the original list handle Worship just as easily, too? Bounce all of their critters. Or find CoV and bounce Worship. Counter anything that they try to replay. I'd hate to put a rather crappy card in my deck, for little to no actual advantage.

[kirdape3]

Etched Oracle also is really strong against B/w, which is a really not good matchup for Aluren. 4/4s that Ancestral Recall for BGRU1 are going to be pretty good there.

[Peter_Rotten]

Etched Oracle also is really strong against B/w, which is a really not good matchup for Aluren. 4/4s that Ancestral Recall for BGRU1 are going to be pretty good there.

But getting BGRU against a deck running Sinkhole, Vindicate, and Wasteland doesn't sound pretty good there. Of course the Deep Anal will help the Bw match a bit, but why not simply run more Deep Anals instead of a sub-par critter that you may never get a chance to cast?

[kirdape3]

You can also use Spike Feeders and the like to boost up a not-Ancestral enabled Oracle. Oracle's a lot better than he looks in that matchup. B/w is by far the hardest matchup there is for Aluren though, even with four Ancestrals on 4/4 bodies.

[Anusien]

You can also use Spike Feeders and the like to boost up a not-Ancestral enabled Oracle. Oracle's a lot better than he looks in that matchup. B/w is by far the hardest matchup there is for Aluren though, even with four Ancestrals on 4/4 bodies.
Wouldn't basic lands make this matchup better? I'd think Intuition into Deeps with lots of basic lands would be better than Etched Oracle. You can also run Wall of Blossoms which seems really good there.

[kirdape3]

He's got 3, but with all those fetchlands those 3 might as well be 15. The article also says that Badlands is liable to get cut for another basic.

[hi-val]

Also to note, the Team never settled on one list. I didn't like Patrick's teched out list; I, like PR, thought that a lot of the dudes were really superfluous. At one point, Living Wish was disappointingly in there.

You consistently land Etched Oracle against BW. You have a bunch of Fetchlands and you don't have to bust them really until you use them. Here's another reason-- BW is mostly a binary deck. It is either attacking your hand or attacking your lands. It cannot effectively do both in the critical turns. If it attacks your lands, you can eventually land Wall of Roots and just ride that out with fetchlands. If they're attacking your hand, then you make land drops until you draw into a Recruiter, then Recruit up Etched Oracle and play it. Either way, you eventually win, but it happens on like turn 26 sometimes. The match is really weird.

Etched Oracle to fight BW looks wonky on paper but works well in execution.

[MattH]

Is it really better than, say, Phantom Centaur or Blastoderm?

[kirdape3]

Blastoderm absolutely isn't good enough since he, well, dies. Nice 15 you got there. Phattie Centaur's pretty good, but Oracle's also really insane because you fight their hand disruption when and if they successfully manage to destroy them, reloading for your next shot at them.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

How is it v. Red Death or Sui?

[Di]

How is that any better than say...Dark Confidant? At 4cc and sunburst, I honestly don't believe how you ever expect to be drawing cards with Etched Oracle when you're playing against a deck running so much land destruction. Hell, by the time you get to 4 mana, chances are they've already made you discard it out of your hand. Dark Confidant on the other hand is much easier to cast at 2cc and is pretty much guaranteed to draw you more cards than Etched Oracle. Sure you lose the body, but the odds that thing was going to be a 4/4 are slim against a land destruction deck. Plus, Dark Confidant is busty in the control matchup.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Why are you guys still testing against BW? That's a serious question.

I still don't think Imperial Recruiter is worth going up to four colors in this deck. I realize how powerful it is with Aluren, but I can hardly remember a time when I lost because I couldn't piece together Familiar + Harpy. That just isn't a real weakness of the deck.

Having to achieve :2::g::g: sort of is, though, and having access to a more stable manabase helps that an awful lot.

This is coming from the perspective of someone who has wanted to play Etched Oracle in a constructed format since I saw the card. I'm just skeptical that my dream has come true now that someone has come up with a way to make the card cost :2::r: more than it already did.

Deep Analysis looks like a good idea, though, especially against black decks. I may try that out (Dark Confidant isn't bad, either, Di).

[Parcher]

I'm sorry, I don't see how this list is better. It might not even prove viable.

The main reason is the manabase of course. Goblins is not an easy match with the two-color list running 7 basics. They would have a field day with this, and the most difficult card for Aluren to get in hand is land. The deck is set up this way. Alix added a 21st land to Toad's list which I have finally succumbed to as a neccessity. The idea of "sitting on Fetchlands" against decks with LD is ludicrous. Even if theoretically you were able to on turn four produce 4 different colors of mana, and cast Etched Oracle, it doesn't win the game on it's own. The fact is, if you have played out the game in this way, it is most likely that they have easily amassed enough damage on the board, and dealt enough damage due to your inactivity that you will lose within the next two turns unless you go infinite.

The other exclusion that really speaks to me as to a faulty execution of the deck is Wall of Blossoms. First, it is needed against Aggro, period. Knowing you are facing say, Goblins, forces a mulligan into a hand with a Wall, and a basic. This version will have problems with either. Second, Wall of Blossoms wins the control matchups. In conjunction with Cabal Therapy, he is card advantage that they cannot possibly compete with in time to stop your combo. Third, and certainly less common, is that you can often combo out with Wall of Blossoms if forced to. With a combination of Wall of Blossoms, Cabal Therapy, and an Eternal Witness, Chain of Vapor has drawn through enough of the deck to get enough to get me the win without starting with a single Man-o'-War, Cavern Harpy or Raven Familiar. This deck wins in increments more often than not, and Blossoms invaluable against Aggro. But also once you know all of the ways to continue the combo in situations when you are being forced to struggle either through disruption, or pressure, his ablilty in combination with the other enablers in the deck allows you to win with cards no one expects would allow it.

[Ewokslayer]

I pretty much flat disagree with you. Aluren isn't just good, it's incredibly good.

We all purchased our Recruiters in April thinking that our whole team was going to play this deck, and then Flash happened.

I'm extremely excited to pilot this deck at the Legacy Championship, possibly more excited about the Legacy champs than the Vintage champs.

I am confused. I thought you had said in a previous article how powerful Iggy Pop was and how you were going to play that before Flash happened.

[hi-val]

How is that any better than say...Dark Confidant? At 4cc and sunburst, I honestly don't believe how you ever expect to be drawing cards with Etched Oracle when you're playing against a deck running so much land destruction. Hell, by the time you get to 4 mana, chances are they've already made you discard it out of your hand. Dark Confidant on the other hand is much easier to cast at 2cc and is pretty much guaranteed to draw you more cards than Etched Oracle. Sure you lose the body, but the odds that thing was going to be a 4/4 are slim against a land destruction deck. Plus, Dark Confidant is busty in the control matchup.

I'm kind of loathe to use the "test it" line, because it gets misused, but we tested this deck against Goblins and BW specifically and rigorously for two months. Give the strategies a try, since they can be counter-intuitive. It's quite easy to hit 4 lands against BW if you have infinite fetchlands like this deck. It's a matter of good mulliganing decisions; a hand with 4 land and wall of roots and nothing else spectacular will probably carry the day against disruption strategies, while a risky but explosive hand will probably lose.

Against BW/Red Death/Sui, you board in Diverts and then possibly a quantity of Oracles. The threat of Divert is incredible versus those decks, and without a Duress, they either risk walking into one or slowing down. If they slow down, you get more lands out and play more cards. If you Divert something, you get this enormous boost.

In the BW Match, you'd sometimes end up in the humongous topdecking wars where both players are pretty stalled. Drawing a Recruiter will put you into Oracle, which turns into a win condition that eats or trades with everything in BW other than Shade (sometimes). Confidant, while being a neat enabler, wouldn't allow such solid Plan B action in beating in. Some games I tested would be well into 15 turns and you'd have blown Oracle once, then gotten Eternal Witness to bring it back, sometimes doing this several times. It gives an out to Extirpate as well.

As far as the control matchup went, I found that Cabal Therapy combined with the possibility of Intuition is such a ridiculous blowout, I can't even come up with an ending to this sentence. Players will often let Intuition go through and think they'll just counter the Alurens that they're supposed to be getting. Instead, you rip them apart with four Therapies and it's game.

EDIT:


The idea of "sitting on Fetchlands" against decks with LD is ludicrous. Even if theoretically you were able to on turn four produce 4 different colors of mana, and cast Etched Oracle, it doesn't win the game on it's own. The fact is, if you have played out the game in this way, it is most likely that they have easily amassed enough damage on the board, and dealt enough damage due to your inactivity that you will lose within the next two turns unless you go infinite.

I am having a really hard time understanding this through the hyperbole. "Theoretically" being able to produce four colors of mana? The deck can actually MAKE four colors of mana. Check this out: fetchland for Volcanic Island, play the Underground Sea in hand, fetchland for Island and play Wall of Roots. That isn't "ludicrous" at all. It's very achievable. Since you don't actually have to cast anything versus LD strategies until you play Aluren, you can sit on fetchlands.

Etched Oracle doesn't win the game? It's a 4/4 that Ancestral Recalls and comes back with Eternal Witness and invalidates the (very rare these days) BW strategy. Do you know that creatures can attack for damage? Creatures that attack for four damage can actually present significant threats.

I would love to find a disruption deck that can destroy my hand and lands and play out enough creatures so that I can't just play Aluren on turn 6 and win. After extensive testing against several different forms of disruption decks, I can say that I don't think that they exist in the form you think that they do. They're a fundamentally binary kind of deck that can either successfully disrupt the hand or lands, but not both in early turns.

"most likely" that they will have amassed enough damage so that I will die in two turns unless I go infinite? You sound very precise here. Do you mind giving me the source of your "two turns" rule? Do you have examples to back it up?

EDIT #2 (yay!!!)

I dug up some of my old testing notes and they reminded me how really wonky the BW/Aluren match was. The following is from early in the testing and is unedited, so remember that sometimes turns go by and a player topdecks Duress, for example. I think this is also when I made the shift to just planning on winning with Oracles and Diverts, instead of trying to force Aluren through. Hopefully this will help illustrate what I'm saying:


G3:
I can lead with trop divert up, or bayou tinder wall. I do the latter because I would lose my trop to wasteland and I'd at least like some dude out. I can hold up Divert for their next plays. Pikula goes Scrubland, go. I draw Divert #2! They Hymn, I Divert, making them discard hyppie and bob. An attempted Vindicate on my Trop sends it back onto Pikula's scrubland. Pikula Duresses away my Intuition. I play Spike Feeder and pass. I draw Recruiter #2, so I go get Oracle and beat in. Pikula Sinkholes a trop. I play wall of roots and bash in for 7. Pikula goes land, go, and now they're drawing blanks.

I won this off Oracle and Divert, which was nuts there. We need to remember that we can just Recruit up Oracles if we need to, and maybe board more in.

G4: Pikula goes first, goes Dark Rit, Duress, Hymn off my mull to 6. : ( I have my Alurens Extirpated. It's a close game though when I Recruit for Oracle and beat in with that, racing 2 Specters.

G5: Aluren leads. Aluren Diverts Hymn on turn 2. Intuition gets Duressed away. Aluren plays Tinder Wall. I can drop Aluren here but I hold it in hand, as I only have Harpy and Witness in hand. Probably would have been smart to play it anyway. Pikula Vindicates my Tinder Wall and Duresses out Aluren and Extirpates the rest of them. I play Witness to get back a land. BW goes land-go. I play Imperial Recruiter for Etched Oracle and beat in. Pikula land-goes. I play Oracle. BW plays Grunt. I land-go. Pikula beats, I take the damage. I draw Dream Stalker. I beat in for 7, play Dream Stalker returning Witness, play Witness returning Brainstorm and Brainstorm into Harpy and Spike Feeder. Note that at this point, I can use Harpy and Stalker to form an awkward combo to return Feeder or Witness to my hand over and over. I don't need to, however, because Grunt goes away and I can crash in for the win.

[Whit3 Ghost]

Why are you guys still testing against BW? That's a serious question.

Deadguy has been popular in the midwest, where the Meandeck Opens are held.

Also, Rsaunder, the only one playing the deck in the northeast (basically) has had some decent finishes (two top16s in the last two tournaments he's been to).

[UrDraco]

I am glad that people are finally seeing the beauty of Divert. In a fast deck like this one it simply owns. People tend to write off Divert because of the option to pay, but when you are putting on pressure they have to play things before they have to two extra mana. If they play around divert then they have given you enough time to win.

With that said, all of my praise if for Divert, not the deck. Yes Alluren is a fast combo deck, but definitely not the most powerful ever. It does have Force and Therapy but why does that make this deck reliant against options that are already out there. This deck HAS to stop Engineered Plague, Swords to Plowshares, any Disenchant (including the split second Krosan Grip) in order to win. You can't say that a loan Chain of Vapor is going to help against Plague either. Yes the deck is good, yes the deck is fun, but no it isn't good enough to break legacy.

Even if this deck were to become the next hot thing it is ridiculously easy to hate out. The manabase is disgusting. One Blood moon, Suppression Field, or Back to Basics and it looses. I know those are all a little obscure but you can't forget about the very very played wasteland. Hell, even ghost quarter owns this deck.

Lastly, is this thread a discussion of the deck or of the fact that it was in an article. I am a little confused that it is in the community board? To me that means we are here to talk about the fact that team meandeck thinks they broke legacy, not the development of the deck. There is a lot of potential but if we want to talk about development then why aren't we in that forum?

[C.P.]

To me that means we are here to talk about the fact that team meandeck thinks they broke legacy, (...)

About the deck, I can't help but thinking that they are making exaggerated claims. Recruiter Aluren have existed for a long time, and while the deck does have some techs like Etched Oracle, I doubt if this deck has to be count as team meandeck's creation. I also doubt the claim that this is the DTB.
I also doubt that the BW (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5147) matchup is positive even with Oracles.

Oracle is darn good if he hits, though. I'll give you that.

The flaming is unneccessary. ~ Nightmare

[Nihil Credo]

I am having a really hard time understanding this through the hyperbole. "Theoretically" being able to produce four colors of mana? The deck can actually MAKE four colors of mana. Check this out: fetchland for Volcanic Island, play the Underground Sea in hand, fetchland for Island and play Wall of Roots. That isn't "ludicrous" at all. It's very achievable.
Well, casting Wall of Roots without green mana IS quite ludicrous :wink:

[hi-val]

Well, casting Wall of Roots without green mana IS quite ludicrous :wink:

Mike Long does it all the time!

[Caboose]

Deadguy has been popular in the midwest, where the Meandeck Opens are held.

Spencer Hayes and Randy Wright are the only two people I've ever seen play Deadguy. And Randy doesn't even play at the Meandecks. He's strictly a Type 2 player who jumped on the Legacy bandwagon for the GP. So the statement "Deadguy has been popular in the midwest" is a straight up lie. Nobody plays that shaz anymore.

[kirdape3]

We expected it at the Grand Prix level since, well, it managed to Top 2 the last American Legacy GP. And you know what? 2 black decks made the Top 8 of this one. They might not have been Pikula's exact list, but the need for resiliency against the form of disruption was made apparent and it was the only pre-Flash deck with a positive matchup against Aluren.

[emidln]

We expected it at the Grand Prix level since, well, it managed to Top 2 the last American Legacy GP. And you know what? 2 black decks made the Top 8 of this one. They might not have been Pikula's exact list, but the need for resiliency against the form of disruption was made apparent and it was the only pre-Flash deck with a positive matchup against Aluren.

Except TES, Stax, Red Death, and anything with Krosan Grip right?

[kirdape3]

We expected the numbers of those decks to be extremely limited in the field (please note that this is all before Flash occurred and made the format very simple) and simply discounted them. Krosan Grip would've been pretty annoying if you ripped one the exact turn that Aluren tried to combo (and if the Aluren player knew it was there/liable to be there they'd Therapy for it), but it's nowhere near as good against Aluren as one would think. Certainly not as good as Needle on Harpy is.

[Parcher]

"Theoretically" being able to produce four colors of mana? The deck can actually MAKE four colors of mana. Check this out: fetchland for Volcanic Island, play the Underground Sea in hand, fetchland for Island and play Wall of Roots. That isn't "ludicrous" at all. It's very achievable. Since you don't actually have to cast anything versus LD strategies until you play Aluren, you can sit on fetchlands.

I would ignore the simple mistake regarding no Green mana, but it illustrates my point. Against both Goblins, Red Death, and Deadguy, you will need to protect your manabase. While I admit that it is "thoretically" possible to have access to four different colors of mana at the same time against these decks, to do so you will need to sit on Fetchlands. Even with a few basics in the deck, the odds of having the proper Fetch for the needed Basic, and being able to keep it useable in the face of Sinkhole, Port, and/or Vindicate are slim. Even in the case that this can be accomplished, you will not be able to cast what you need to stave off their offence until this point if you choose protect your lands to do so.


Etched Oracle doesn't win the game? It's a 4/4 that Ancestral Recalls and comes back with Eternal Witness and invalidates the (very rare these days) BW strategy. Do you know that creatures can attack for damage? Creatures that attack for four damage can actually present significant threats.

No, against the decks previously referred to Etched Oracle is not a threat in and of itself. StP, Vindicate, Negator, Shade, Bolt+Chain Lightning, Incinerator, most Goblins, all easily deal with or race Oracle considering it would be your only threat.


I would love to find a disruption deck that can destroy my hand and lands and play out enough creatures so that I can't just play Aluren on turn 6 and win. After extensive testing against several different forms of disruption decks, I can say that I don't think that they exist in the form you think that they do. They're a fundamentally binary kind of deck that can either successfully disrupt the hand or lands, but not both in early turns.

Even without a presence of Red Death or Deadguy, Goblins has proven in every possible scenario that it can easily disrupt lands, and kill decks like this by turn six. The weaker manabase of this version makes it a prime target for it.

In more specific regards to the more limited Aggro-disruption decks, the presence of Dark Ritual makes it very possible for them to play a first turn Shade, Negator, or Hyppie. While this is not assured of course, it is as likely as any of the proposed scenarios. If this does happen, you will have to deal with it, and cannot sit on Fetchlands. And even with the three-color version of Aluren, an opening like this means they will have plenty of opportunity to cast all of their Land and Hand-disruption, as they have a fast clock that will win the game alone versus Aluren if left unimpeded.


"most likely" that they will have amassed enough damage so that I will die in two turns unless I go infinite? You sound very precise here. Do you mind giving me the source of your "two turns" rule? Do you have examples to back it up?

These decks will usually land some form of land destruction, but you have Wall of Roots. This means on a generally good draw, you will have four mana available on turn four. Lets even say four different colored mana, as this would be the prerequisite for casting a 4/4 Etched Oracle that you referred to. Now, these decks like this will goldfish by turn six, and we have already determined that we will not be casting anything until then besides a possible Wall of Roots, if drawn, to insure our ability to cast a 4/4 Oracle through their LD, it is fair to assume that they have been dealing damage in that time. It is also fair to assume that since they have had no creatures to deal with from you until that time(Shade, Hyppie and Negator trump Wall of Roots), they will have some form of removal for the Oracle, and will be able to continue their attack. 4 turns before Oracle + 2 turns after Oracle(the two I was referring to)= 6. This is the turn you claim to win against these decks with Aluren. Now in my example, I am only assuming them having an attacker in this time, and they still win on turn six. In the highly likely event they are able to destroy a land, or discard a needed combo piece, it doesn't seem like the odds are going to be good that you will be able to complete the combo by then, and will die to damage.


You are WAY out of line. The ad hominem adds nothing to your argument, and has no place here. Infraction issued.

~ Nightmare

[Whit3 Ghost]

Spencer Hayes and Randy Wright are the only two people I've ever seen play Deadguy. And Randy doesn't even play at the Meandecks. He's strictly a Type 2 player who jumped on the Legacy bandwagon for the GP. So the statement "Deadguy has been popular in the midwest" is a straight up lie. Nobody plays that shaz anymore.
Eh, just skimming the standings, I remember it Top8ing once or twice and reports of 2-4 people playing it semi-regularly.
I don't live out there, you do, so I'm apparently wrong, I'm just going from what I've seen.
Also, deadguy doesn't suck, which was more of the point I was trying to make.

[Caboose]

Eh, just skimming the standings, I remember it Top8ing once or twice and reports of 2-4 people playing it semi-regularly.
I don't live out there, you do, so I'm apparently wrong, I'm just going from what I've seen.
Also, deadguy doesn't suck, which was more of the point I was trying to make.

A lot of people played shitty MBC at some of the Meandecks. Maybe that's what you were thinking of. The mono-black decks weren't even the GP versions with Ebon Hand and shit. They were Pox :frown:

Don't worry though. You are forgiven for your wrongness.

[Maximus04]

The deck is over hyped, it can do some very good things quickly but I find TES and CRET far more consistent and faster.

I'd like the deck to go to a decent sized tournament and perform as consistently as Chaplin made it seem. Performance > Theoretical.

If not, then do some online Apprentice Tournaments.

Just my thoughts...but wait, all I play is MUC, so don't listen to me, haha.

[hi-val]

Maximus04, the advantage of Aluren over storm combo decks it that although it's slower than straight storm combo, it's better at facing control strategies because you don't commit everything in one chance to go off. For example, my article last week on CRET Belcher vs. Fish highlights the problems with sacrificing resiliency for speed. If you're not interested in making the gambit of putting everything in one combo attempt and want to be able to reload quickly (for example, you're playing against a lot of controlling decks) then Aluren is a fine choice. If we wanted sheer speed in any deck we played, everyone would be on Belcher : )

EDIT: a note on titles like "the best Legacy deck EV AR" in articles is a result of the fact that it's an article and may not actually reflect completely the author's feelings. We want articles to be read, to excite and inflame readers so that they keep coming back. It's a little sales thing. I wouldn't take a title that says "this is the best deck in a format" at face value as their legitimate opinion carte blanche because it could be a move by the author or editor to generate hype for the actual article itself and can come off a little ego-y.

Responding to inflammatory post is not as bad as making them, but it's close. You're on thin ice with this one. ~ Nightmare

[greenmage]

I played against a very similar list twice (with recruiter), and it seemed like a pretty good deck.
However, I've won more against it than lost.
1:2
2:0
Of course, my rogue deck is really strong and maybe not the best matchup (combo deck with faster clock & redundancy).

[TheRock]

This decklist does provide a LOT of new ideas to throw into the mix. The innovation included in that list (or lists, whichever is the case) is worthy of applause, but I have a few questions about it as it stands.

* Do you consider Etched Oracle, the ones in the sideboard in particular, to be a "Recruit-able" and offensive replacement of Fact or Fiction in your list?

* Has Meddling Mage naming Recruiter become a problem? Naming Aluren obviously isn't the right play...if naming Aluren even qualifies as a play.

* The article mentions cutting a Badlands for another basic. Has the Underground Sea carried that much more weight than the Badlands anyway?

[Parcher]

You're total clown shoes. Did you read the sample games I posted from testing? Talk all the theory in the world you want, slugger. You're not worth my time.

This may be true. At least I have not had to resort to inflammatory remarks.

You did. In fact, you began the inflammatory remarks.

I made two simple points. This version will have a far greater difficulty against decks with mana disruption due to it's fragile mana base. And, that Wall of Blossoms is a worthy inclusion, and that some of the cards replacing it in this version would prove inferior in certain match-ups.

The only response to the several explanations and examples for this reasoning I recieved was "DID YOU READ WHAT I WROTE!!!". Of course I did. The only reason I would refer to any of this was that I read what was written about this version of Aluren. I can post sample games where Solidarity beat Threshold on turn three that are perfectly valid. If promoting Solidarity as a new deck however, it would not be the impression I would attempt to foist as commonplace.

I am glad to see that you will not bother replying again. There is no point in attempting to promote a deck when you can't defend it's vulnerabilities. Since none of the obvious problems I detailed have been addressed, I can only assume that is because either I am correct, or that you are unable to. I have tested Aluren with a Red splash for Imperial Recruiter, running 9 Fetchlands. I know that against Goblins, Red Death, and Deadguy it has mana problems. I have not commented on Imperial Recruiter in general, as I have not tested him in this version.

[kirdape3]

What the deck does is trade raw power for a fourth color in the manabase. Patrick Chapin gets around that vulnerability by well, knowing exactly how to maximize his fetchlands. His manabase is stable because he is adept enough to sit on his fetchlands until he absolutely has to cast spells. 3 (or 4, if he offs Badlands for another one) basic lands is plenty given that your mana needs are G/U/b/(red, barely).

I am much more willing to trust the testing of someone who has three Pro Tour Top 8s as to whether or not a deck is good. His testing partners? EDT, Flores, Brian Demars, and others at RIW Hobbies, along with Meandeckers online. This version of Aluren is a lot more difficult to maximize than the Durand list is, but the payoff is that rather than having to really work for the combo and having a whole bunch of terrible cards like Cavern Harpy and Raven Familiar in your deck.

That all being said, it's beyond my capabilities to play this version of the deck correctly. How many games are you punting simply because you fetched the wrong land, or you had to set up a weird Recruiter chain before you finally got there and couldn't set it up? If you're capable of minimizing those kinds of subtle errors, I recommend the Chapin list over the Durand list. The Durand list has a much lower bar to be competent with because it's a lot simpler to play, but don't tell me that you've not had hands where you're sitting on a pair of Cavern Harpies and just feel the need to vomit intensely at how terrible that is.

[bladewing019]

This deck looks a lot weaker than some older versions of alluren. Man-o'-war and Chain of Vapor let you do a lot of the decks best tricks and you had raven familiar to dig for combo pieces. They also ran wall of blossoms and sometimes tinder wall to dig/accelerate while holding off goblins. Force is your only answer to lackey when they are on the play, you have basically no blockers and most of the time you won't be able to race goblins since you don't have mana accel to get alluren out before turn 4. Unless I'm really missing something you need to combo out before goblins can win, but you only have wall of roots too hold them off and no mana accel to drop alluren sooner, and really only have intuition/deep analysis/brainstorm ; which can't be reused via man o war, CoV, or harpy; to dig for it. And what is Pyromancer doing in the board? If you can IR into it unless you played the IR via alluren your not going to be playing it that turn. And one turn is plenty too kill you with for goblins, espescially when the defense you leave behind is IR and maybe 1 wall of roots.

And can this deck even beat TES, CRET belcher or other (fast) storm combo? I understand trying to get people to read your article but you went a little too far with most powerful.

[thepchapin]

This is an -imperial recruiter deck-
not an aluren deck
the card choices are to maximize the value of the recruiter
raven + cavern harpy + aluren = win the game
recruiter + aluren = win the game
is it really so hard to understand the strategic superiority of the recruiter?
raven is a 3 mana bad impulse that gives you a storm crow with echo
recruiter is a 3 mana eldamari's call that gives you a mons goblin raider
the recruiter is a better monster, as not having echo is better than a toughness and flying
eldamari's call is more powerful than impulse for 3.
the recruiter is better both with and without aluren.
fetch lands > basic lands.
fetch land fights wasteland just as well as forest, but trumps ports or sinkholes.
4 colors? hell this deck could be 5 without a problem.
the reason many don't understand this deck is because they compare it to Toad's excellent aluren deck. His deck is very strong. However, it opperates with a very different strategy. His cards chain together almost like a storm deck. My deck is a rock deck that runs a trix kill.
To anyone "offended by the hype" generated by this deck, don't buy into it, lol, make up your own mind. you can either test it or not, whatever. If you don't, then I guess it comes down to your intuition and whether I am a credible source. I would like to think that I have established a fairly solid reputation, though I will certainly acknowledge that not all of my ideas are good.
I have a pretty good feeling about this one though, heh.
Patrick Chapin

[Nightmare]

Everyone seriously needs to chill the fuck out.

Pat - Welcome to the Source.

[thepchapin]

Hi, thanks, some friends have recommended it as a solid place to discuss ideas.
I would love it if the Legacy community helped push the format forward. It should be the most diverse format, due to its card pool (type 1 actually has a far smaller set of playables due to the broken cards).
the thing is, the format needs to be pushed to the breaking point so that the problem cards are removed, and cards like land tax are possibly brought back.
it is inexcusable for goblins to dominate for years
imp-aluren is 3 dimensional deck, playing the combo role with a donate-illusions that costs 4 instead of 7 (unlike raven which is a enduring renewel/goblin bombardment/shield sphere for 4).
it can also play the control role, with force of will, walls, card advantage.
it can also play the mid-range rock style with cabal therapy, eternal witness, imp recrutier to etched oracle, intuition for DI, etc
so many decks that people promote in this format are so narrow, that they may be better in some contexts, but in the wide open field that is legacy they do not have the versatility or adaptability.
there are enough powerful cards and concepts that do not require your full 60 and enough amazing role players that decks should evolve to not just do plan A, but also B and C.
This is an aluren deck with a 2 card combo that wins the game, sure (and typically a 3rd combo piece lets you play around plow or whatever, which is not asking too much, as the raven version needs a 3rd combo piece every time, and is still vulnerable to a plow-sorta).
This is a Recruiter deck that uses it as a sort of survival, as it gets etched oracle or eternal witness or ghitu slinger or whatever. heck, you may want to try academy rector.
This is an Intuition deck. Not only can it tutor either half of your combo, it can get anything with 2 witnesses. It can get 3 of your 5 flashback cards. It can get 3 fetch lands.
This is a sophisticated deck that cannot be directly compared to another deck that simply shares the card aluren.
Meandeck Gifts and Pitch Long shared many cards.
They were very different decks.
Toad has acknowledged that this strategy has merit, he just feels the advantages of his version outweigh the disadvantages.
He may be right. His list is the sickness.
Personally, I prefer mine, both theoritically and in practice, but that is just me. I am sure he will agree that it is a mistake to consider this the same deck as his. They are cousins, but not two builds of the same deck.
I cannot stress it enough. Strategically, it can clearly be seen that this deck needs only 2 cards to win. Raven needs 3. That is huge.
Fetchlands when played right are better than basics, in general. The mana works in this deck, in my opinion.
This is far from a pure combo deck, and everything must be evaluated within the context of a rock deck that happens to have a 2 card combo better than channel fireball.
Anyways, it is a pleasure to be here and I look forward to the feedback on ideas. :-)