[Deck] Aluren

At the Worlds 2007, Jelger Wiegersma played his own version of Aluren with Imperial Recruiter. His deck can be found here:

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=12287

He did very well and I think this is an excellent build. Stable manabase, enough land and a nice wish sideboard. I really like this deck. I agree that the Recruiter build is better after reading the discussion in this tread about Imperial Recruiter vs Cavern Harpy builds. I have only tried other ALuren versions on MWS, with different engines. I like Jelger's deck most because you could play more agressive (due to use of discard) and the use of City of Traitors and Living Wish, which in my opinion make the deck more consistent. I would really like to give this deck a try but can't afford the Imperial Recuiters. Therefore I tried to use the Cavern Harpy engine in his deck:

Lands

3 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Island
3 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
3 Windswept Heath
3 Wooded Foothills
3 City of Traitors

Creatures

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

Spells

4 Aluren
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Intuition
4 Living Wish
3 Thoughtseize
2 Chain of Vapor

Sideboard

1 City of Traitors
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Eternal Witness
1 Man-o'-War
1 Raven Familiar
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Stern Proctor
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Bone Shredder
4 Leyline of the Void

Of course this deck is much weaker and slower. Not to forgot the problems with Pitching Needles naming Harpy :rolleyes: After reading this thread, my questions are:

1) Does this deck stand a chance?

2) What are the best things to do against a Pitching Needle on Cavern Harpy
or Spike Feeder? (apart from using Chain of Vapor)

3) What are the funniest plays you have had when playing Aluren?

4) What advice can you give to a person trying out Aluren for the first time? (After playing Legacy for quite a while, I would like to try a new deck. Before I have been playing Welder Survival and FEB)

Thanx!

1) It doesn't seem to be tier 1, but IMHO it's still good enough.

2) Ignore Pithing Needle until you're prepared to drop Aluren, especially if it's naming Spike Feeder. Your list can get rid of it when necessary by Living Wish for Stern Proctor and it also has Engineered Explosives post-sideboard. I run Pernicious Deed maindeck, which is valid as well.

3) After getting infinite life and infinite +1/+1 counters, Man-o'-War targets one of my opponent's creatures and Cavern Harpy returns it to my hand in response to its own ability. I repeat this process until the stack is full of triggered abilities targeting my opponent's creatures. In response I play Chain of Vapor on Aluren, so the targeted creatures will return to the hand after Aluren leaves play. This gets the board rid of chumpblockers since my creatures don't have trample.

Chain of Vapor is great when I haven't found Cavern Harpy yet. I bounce a Raven Familiar, sacrifice a land, make the copy target another creature (Wall of Blossoms, for example) and I replay the Raven Familiar in response to the copy. The copy bounces Wall of Blossoms, I sacrifice a land, the new copy targets Raven Familiar and I replay Wall of Blossoms in response, and so on.

I remember a game against a strage Doran Rock with Extirpates maindeck that removed my Man-o'-Wars from the game (I don't run Living Wish). My graveyard was full of creatures, I had an Aluren, seven lands and a 2/6 Wall of Blossoms (it had two +1/+1 counters from a dead Spike Feeder to block his 5/6 Tarmogoyf) in play, and only a Chain of Vapor and a Cavern Harpy in my hand. I drew Brainstorm, so I played it and I found the second Eternal Witness (I run two). I played it and returned the other Witness from the graveyard, which returned the Spike Feeder (I was at 5 life). Then I sacrificed the Feeder (+4 life) and I started recurring both Witnesses this way. When I ran out of lands, my hand had only an Eternal Witness, while in play there were the Aluren, the 2/6 Wall of Blossoms, a 0/4 one, two Walls of Roots, two 5/6 Tarmogoyfs, the other Eternal Witness, a Raven Familiar and the Cavern Harpy from my hand, and I was at 13 life.

I'm currently trying Gilded Drake. It's cool as a weapon without Aluren in play when you have Cavern Harpy and Man-o'-War to recover the Drake. I've managed to steal a Serra Avenger, a Gaddock Teeg and a Tarmogoyf from another Doran Rock deck this way. It should probably be a sideboard card though.

4) The Imperial Recruiter version is faster, but the non-Recruiter one is stronger. The combo is always safer when Cavern Harpy is the first one to enter play because you play the Raven Familiar in response to the Harpy's triggered ability and then let it resolve; if your opponent tries to kill the Raven you just pay 1 life and replay the Harpy so he or she needs another removal spell. The Recruiter version rarely does this because it usually starts by playing Recruiters and blue creatures that bounce them so Cavern Harpy is the last one to come. You've probably read this already in the thread though.

If you're playing against aggro, your primary goal is to stop early pressure with Walls (1-2 should be enough), then search Aluren with Brainstorm or Intuition. Against control you don't have to hurry up, you can sculpt your hand and reach mid-late game where your discard spells will be the key to get rid of Counterspells and such. Against aggro-control I find that Pernicious Deed wins me the game unless that deck runs Counterbalance and/or Phyrexian Dreadnought. These are very general ideas so Toad's article should help you more than this. You should run 3-4 Tarmogoyf by the way.

Unfortunately I can't answer your questions, but I want to link you to this build which recently (yesterday apprently) made place 1 on a large event. Without Recruiters.
I'm always glad to see (kinda rogue!?) creaturebased combo decks like Aluren, Welder Survival and FEB. Seems like we have the same playstyle :-)
Is someone still working on ATS, btw?

Btw: Isn't Trinisphere a bigger issue against Aluren than Needle?

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Originally Posted by Nonex

I'm currently trying Gilded Drake. It's cool as a weapon without Aluren in play when you have Cavern Harpy and Man-o'-War to recover the Drake. I've managed to steal a Serra Avenger, a Gaddock Teeg and a Tarmogoyf from another Doran Rock deck this way. It should probably be a sideboard card though.

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Without Aluren, Harpy can't recover your Drake because it bounces only creatures you control.

However, the Harpy can recover the Man-o'-War that has just recovered the Drake from your opponent's control. Actually you just need Man-o'-War, the Harpy is necessary only to repeat the process.

@ TheLion's link: a fairly standard non-recruiter build, with 2 small changes, and an interesting board. His maindeck runs auriok champion over spike feeder, with a feeder in the board. I can only assume this is used to trick people into playing chalice at 2. Honestly, i think its a poor choice. He also opts to play a 3rd CoV instead of the traditional 3rd man-o-war. I have done the same myself, off and on. Basically it is a meta choice.

A very aggresive SB, clearly aimed at speeding up the deck if needed. I don't agree with the feeder or wall in the board, but the other choices are very solid.

To be honest, i just don't think this deck is competative. In order to win, you have to get the right match-ups and the right draws. My big problem with the deck is that it doesn't have alot of 50-50 match ups, and it just doesn't recover from a poor start. Most the time you will either win big, or loose horribly. That's just my $.02

Sorry for not reading the whole thread...I'm currently trying to build a version of Aluren that basically only has Aluren + Recruiter as the combo (with two Dream Stalkers instead of Man-O-War to protect against removal), cutting most of the other creatures for dig and protection. The combo package would only be

4 Aluren
4 Recruiter
2 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Spike Feeder
1 Harmonic Sliver
1 Eternal Witness (I'd play this one anyway)

You still have a two-card four-mana combo, which is better than Painter (and harder to disrupt), and better than Breakfast as well. Combo-control with Walls is a valid direction, but a build that can consistently find and resolve its combo by turn three or four can often disregard creatures on the other side of the board. Some-one wrote on a previous page

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And if you want to play a Combo deck, why bother with a 2GG Enchantment when you could play a 2BB Storm Sorcery instead?

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but the answer would be that it doesn't autolose to CBalance/Chalice/Trinisphere, and that you don't need to fill up your deck with Rituals, LEDs and Petals in order to use Aluren.

I'd fill up with something like

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Thoughtseize/Duress
4 Force
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Lim-Duls Vault
2-3 Impulse, or maybe Spell Snares

If you think that exact build has already been discussed before, just point me to the appropriate post or page please.

Just a minor suggestion; the less things passing through the stack, the better. Since you don't want to have a control side you don't care about Dream Stalker's P/T, right? If that's the case I suggest Arctic Merfolk instead.

@georgjorge: provided you aren't overly concerned about Chalice or eating a StP, Essence Warden is much better than Feeder because you can then go [partially] off with just Harpy or Stalker/MoW/whatever.

@Nonex: Are we talking about a Recruiter version? If not, please don't take this seriously. The Merfolk kicker issue is nice, but IMHO we are improving nothing, because it won't help against counters or stifles.
If they have to counter something, it will be Aluren. If they don't, maybe the first recruiter. No clever opponent will let you go off until the point that you get the first blue bouncer.
If they want to stop you using Stifle, they will stifle the first recruiter, and if they wait until you get blue bouncer, they can stop the Dreamstalker's ability, but not the merfolk's, BUT then you have to play one of your recruiters again, so they will cast Stifle right then.
From my point of view, although Arctic Merfolk has this kicker cost, I don't see the point in playing them.

@Direlemming: You can win infinite life from Warden, but you win that turn if you get the Feeder. Pre-Aluren Warden can win you a couple of life points, and then be targeted by StP, so your win condition gets removed...
Feeder can be sacrificed to avoid StP, and once you have Aluren, and go off, both can be saved, but only of them pumps your critters...

Just my opinion...

To use the pumping ability you need another piece (Wall of Roots) while georgjorge wants a minimal version. And if you want a kill-now mechanism it probably makes more sense to run Ghitu Slinger since you are already red for Recruiter or even Brainfreeze.

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Originally Posted by DireLemming

To use the pumping ability you need another piece (Wall of Roots) while georgjorge wants a minimal version. And if you want a kill-now mechanism it probably makes more sense to run Ghitu Slinger since you are already red for Recruiter or even Brainfreeze.

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Totally agree (I pack only 1 Wall of Roots and 4 Tarmogoyf instead of the typical 8x wall config, it takes too many slots and sometimes you can't go off with every card available).

Another issue that worries Georgjorge is playing Pernicious Deeds MD instead of SB, and replacing Walls with these Deeds. Maybe it works great against some decks, but I feel comfortable with a 2nd turn drop like a wall or goyf. Deed will be played 3rd turn or later, and an opponent who opens Mountain, Lackey can give you some headache. This is just some thought, anyway I'd try the Deeds MD too!
So if anyone has any results or experience, please share them!

Speaking of kill-now, Conflux has a lovely present for us:

Parasitic Strix 2u
Common
Artifact Creature - Bird
Flying
When Parasitic Strix comes into play, if you control a black permanent, target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.
2/2

The only downside compared to Essence Warden is you effectively need Harpy to go off, but than again, Harpy is also the only thing you need. I will be testing a build that eschews Man-o'-War for a playset of Harpies and Essence Warden for this.

Wow...a Tendrils of Agony for Aluren. That looks like it just made the build a lot simpler. It almost makes me want to play this again...

Pce,

--DC

My initial impression is that the card is complete garbage unless you are willing to run more than one of it because it could then serve as a FoW target at that point. It is a terrible creature on its own because it doesn't even impact the board like Ghitu Slinger (and that card is already bad), Essence Warden (which could give you the turn you need to survive EtW), or Spike Feeder (which can win an Aluren mirror all by itself or block and give you 4 life).

It doesn't help georgjorge's build unless he doesn't have anything in his graveyard, and it still doesn't prevent a non-Recruiter build from being a 3-card combo. Right now, I just don't see it being useful.

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Originally Posted by TheRock

My initial impression is that the card is complete garbage unless you are willing to run more than one of it because it could then serve as a FoW target at that point. It is a terrible creature on its own because it doesn't even impact the board like Ghitu Slinger (and that card is already bad), Essence Warden (which could give you the turn you need to survive EtW), or Spike Feeder (which can win an Aluren mirror all by itself or block and give you 4 life).

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Slinger is bad because it's off-colour and effectively adds another piece to the combo (since you can't count on always being on >10 life). Strix solves both of these problems and as a bonus makes Harpy better by being a gating target.

True, Warden is good against EtW but since EtW is not played anymore that's not much of a plus.

An optimal build with Strix would probably run some black permanents (I'm currently trying Dark Confidants in place of Wall of Blossoms), making it's ability useful even before going off and further reducing the benefits of the options you outlined.

A mute point but since you brought up Aluren mirror, Strix is actually very good as it flies and survives altercation with Raven (making your bears bigger then theirs is the reason why Feeder advantage is key).

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An optimal build with Strix would probably run some black permanents (I'm currently trying Dark Confidants in place of Wall of Blossoms

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Yes, dark confidant goes great in a control type deck that revolves around aluren (4cc), and is supported by force of will (5cc). Better yet, lets remove 1/3 of the anti-creature cards in the entire deck (walls) to make room for confidant.

On a less sarcastic note, confidant does not belong in a deck running FoW and revolving around a 4cc enchantment. Strix, on the other hand, is interesting. I think TheRock is probably right, it would be pretty bad unless you are running 3-4 harpy and 3-4 strix.

Regardless, this deck cannot consistantly win in the current meta, and strix does nothing to change that.

3 harpies is probably the optimal number and is what many decks run. Strix would give the deck another win con of a different type and really would not be needed as more than a 1-of to add that flavor and potential versatility to the deck. The obvious thing that strix gets around is damage prevention.

All of that said, you still have the problem that honz brought up which is that the problem with Aluren is not that it can't combo off at some point fairly reliably, the problem with Aluren is that it just doesn't do that quickly enough and it's control subset is too weak to maintain the game against tier 1 decks until it's ready to go off.

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Originally Posted by honz

Yes, dark confidant goes great in a control type deck that revolves around aluren (4cc), and is supported by force of will (5cc). Better yet, lets remove 1/3 of the anti-creature cards in the entire deck (walls) to make room for confidant.

On a less sarcastic note, confidant does not belong in a deck running FoW and revolving around a 4cc enchantment.

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Pity Sadin didn't get that memo when he build his GP-winning deck. But I concede, it wasn't built around a 4cc enchantment, it was build around a 7cc creature, clearly a much more reasonable proposition.

Parasitic Strix is interesting because, like Spike Feeder, it can be used both to gain infinite life and to kill the opponent. This alone sets it apart from suboptimal cards like Ghitu Slinger and Essence Warden.

However, I'm not sure that Strix is better than Feeder. The latter seems like a much better card to draw before Aluren resolves, and you don't have to protect it from Swords to Plowshares (since it can always kill itself).

It's also worth mentioning that Strix' trigger targets, so a Runed Halo or Solitary Confinement stops it. With Spike Feeder, these cards are largely irrelevant (Halo almost completely so) once Aluren lands, because you can gain life, draw your deck, and remove them at your leisure. However, with Strix, an untargetable opponent will prevent you from gaining life, which limits your ability to dig for (and protect) your removal for the enchantments.


There are some important potential benefits to running Parasitic Strix, though. The obvious one is that Aluren, Cavern Harpy, and Strix combine to win immediately, without needing any Raven Familiars, Man-o-Wars, or Walls of Roots. Thus, you can occasionally win games by just drawing that combination of cards, when drawing Spike Feeder instead might do nothing.

The other big advantage to Strix is that Wall of Roots and Man-o-War don't have to be in the deck at all. I'm not saying that cutting either of them is necessarily correct, but I have tested builds of the deck with only a single copy of Wall, and that single copy was only there because it had to be for Spike Feeder to work.