[Deck] Aluren

This friday there will be a legacy tournament with 4 proxy rules. If I attend I will play this list:

3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Delta
3 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
4 Aluren
2 Chain of Vapor

4 Imperial Recruiter
3 Raven Familiar
2 Man-o-war
1 Eternal Wittnes
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
4 Cavern Harpy
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Coiling Oracle

SB:
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 NO
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Progenitus
1 Harmonic Sliver
3 Xantid Swarm

I dont like the Idea of playing the deck without Therapys and only 1 Witness.
Therapy+Witness is like an aditional Man-O-War, Witness recycles Chumpblocker, is good against Enchantmentremoval(play Aluren, play Witness and go of in response), without it you dont have the FoW-loop anymore, so Intuition for 2 cards+Witness weaker(this should not be an argument cause of the Recruiter). This is sure a bit subjectiv(does this word exist in english?^^), but i cant think of an moment when i would not have likes drawn a Witness and i played Therapys throu Chalices@1 just to have a sacoutlet for Witness.

When you play recruiter, wouldnt it be an idea playing 1 Dream Stalker? So you are Removal-safe, especialy since you list doesnt have Therapys to discard the Removals. Could imagine to cut 1 Harpy in your List. The Dreamstalker is a good wall against aggrodecks.

I like the idea of playing the deck so it can go off without Recruiter, but still playing Recruiter. But, cant this be a problem? You dont have any way to cast Recruiter without Aluren, it doesnt Pitch to FoW, when you dont have Aluren its useless, multiples are useless. Would like it if you share your experiences about this!

btw, no strix, i like :)

Lol i forgot the strix.

shit,

-1 intuition
+1 strix.

Also, I've put in 1 bayou (only available as 1) and 1 volcanic island.
So I cut to 2 forest and 2 swamps.

I played a version with this gameplan in mind (running Recruiters as support pieces rather than combo enablers) before cutting Recruiters completely, although 2 were enough in my experience.

-1 Harpy +1 Raven looks better to me.

I highly doubt you'll need the second Swamp given all those black duals and the number of black cards to cast with them, I'd stay with 1 and 3 Forests.

And Harmonic Sliver looks bad, you can't hardcast it or cheat its mana cost with anything other than Aluren (unless you plan to Natural Order into it). Stern Proctor and Sylvok Replica are closer to what you want.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swoop

Lol i forgot the strix.

shit,

-1 intuition
+1 strix.

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dont do that!

Quote:

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Also, I've put in 1 bayou (only available as 1) and 1 volcanic island.
So I cut to 2 forest and 2 swamps.

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You'll never need 2 Swamps, i play only 1 U-sea+1Bayou+1 Swamp as black Sources, if you wanna play more, play more duals but not more basic Swamps, they cant pay for most spells in your deck.

Strix is awesome, and you need swamps for hardcasted harpies.
They win games. :D too bad they can't chump as in old combat phase..

Why isn't harmonic sliver able to be hardcasted? I'll put stern proctor then..

Well, Harmonic Sliver is partially white and I don't see any white mana sources, that's all. It doesn't mean it can't be changed, but looks like an unnecessary splash. It's up to you anyway.

oh fuck. I've been playing it for years as a 1GU. loool :D

Looks like you're right. my bad. Stern proctor it is.

A one off bone shreder?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by swoop

oh fuck. I've been playing it for years as a 1GU. loool :D

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lol^^

Quote:

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Looks like you're right. my bad. Stern proctor it is.

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I dont have to much experience about that(school is taking a lot of time in the last months :/ ), but is a Sedraxis Alchemist better or worse? The Alchemist can Bounce Creatures to, so it defends you against Creatures(probably not to relevant in the matchups in wich you'd bring him in, apart from counterbalance) and can help you to combo off. Do i miss something?

Quote:

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A one off bone shreder?

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The only real use i see is against Canonists, maybe against Teeg. Could be nice, but if i think only in sideboard.

For now i will go with the list as it is now:

3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Delta
3 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
4 Aluren
2 Chain of Vapor

3 Imperial Recruiter
4 Raven Familiar
2 Man-o-war
1 Eternal Wittnes
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
4 Cavern Harpy
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Parasitic Strix
4 Coiling Oracle

SB:
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 NO
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Progenitus
1 Stern Proctor
3 Xantid Swarm

on the other note: a friend and I were thinking of adding GSZ instead of Imperial Recruiter. 1 less color, with dryad arbor in t3 I could have up to 4 lands (coiling oracle) and avoid t2 2cc spells getting smashed via Daze.

Also could fetch any piece I need - or put in play any card I need to combo off, or protect myself.
with ti, I could play EG - dosan the faling leaf in SB as protection, or something like that.

any thoughts? I think GSZ is a really good addition (too bad its not instant :p )

nice idea, the most important card it does not find is harpy, dosan seems a nice idea.
The problem i see with GSZ is that its a dead card in the combo.
The best cards are the cards that are good before AND in the combo, thats why BoP, Strix and some more cards are not good enough for the deck and i think GSZ could have the same problem.
That more i think about GSZ thet worse it seems to me. With Driad Abror you have Birds, what else can GSZ tutor? 3-Mana Coiling Oracles are Snareproof, but i prefer my op wasting snares on them then on harpys, 4 Mana Witness and 4Mana Selkie/Finks dont look so good neither.
Chord of Calling is a similar card, wich you can use in the combo because it costs only tapping creatures, what is nice with selkies. Chord for the Manacosts of GSZ would be nice, but so i think both cards are a bit to bad for the deck.

Yes, I guess you're right.
GSZ is to narrow card for this deck as it only fetches arbor/oracle.
Perhaps if it was time to play gatling Horned Kavu (GR) + grapeshot combo.. it could be better in a green/red aluren. but still.. too narrow i guess.

Dosan can be played as 1 off in this build tho, can be fetched by recruiter as protection if needed or even hardcasted.

That's my point, Aluren needs new blood in the form of a blue Recruiter or a new Harpy in other colors, whichever is more probable to happen.

Back to the list, the extra tutor of choice should be Chord of Calling, we can't adapt the deck to Green Sun's Zenith because creatures like Cavern Harpy and Raven Familiar just can't be replaced. The question is if there are enough green creatures to help convoking it. For example, the last list I play from time to time maximizes green to abuse Chord to its full extent, and there are 2 and a total of 14 green creatures, 4 of which are Walls of Roots.

The best thing Chord of Calling does is tutoring a Cavern harpy the turn you played aluren if you have 5 creatures, maybe tutoring Selkie with 6 creatures on the board. If you arent tapped out Intuition alway does the job better, if you allready have Harpy and Oracle/Familiar you should be able to combo of without chord. It costs a ton of Mana, so most time you cant play it precombo in such a wastelandheavy format. Chord is not a really good card for this deck.

It all depends, if we go [card]Horned Kavu[/card] or something like it, or even that white Nishoba.

We have infinite life combo with it bouncing + soul warden in white + wall of omens etc.

infinte life, but not infinte draw, so Painter still wins and time is more against you, especialy when you lost the first game. Beside that you dont have the CQ that blue gives you with Familiars and Brainstorms. Nice idea, but would need much more support, wich doesnt exist

white nishoba=Fleetfoot Panther?

In theory, yes. But still UGB version is still the best.

There are lots of possibilites, but harpy is the best.

White also gives you academy rector to find aluren (which can be searched up with a spare recruiter) but leaving you with such a fragile manabase that I am not aware of anyone running this any more. I'm only mentioning it, not advocating this as a good idea!

I have toyed with the addition of grim tutor as, say, a two-of but haven't had time to test it (or own any!). Anyone had any experience with that? The double black seems tricky, and might lend itself to a slightly 'blacker' discard / pernicious deed shell, rather than the common (and good) very blue build.

Would need much more black sources, so you'll need more Duals cause you still want to be able to play blue and green cards, your Manabase becomes weaker and a weak Manabase in a deck with a cc4-keycard cant really be good(i'm playing 7 basics, wouldnt be possible with the tutor)
And the tutor does nothing in the combo. Sure, before he's really nice, but you allready play 4 of them(intuition)+Brainstorm+creatures+4 aluren themselve, finding Aluren usually should not be a problem.

3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Delta
3 Forest
2 Island
1 Swamp

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
2 Aluren
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Lim dul's Vault

3 Imperial Recruiter
4 Raven Familiar
2 Man-o-war
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
1 Parasitic Strix
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Coiling Oracle

SB:
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Pernicious Deed
3 NO
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Progenitus
1 Echoing Truth (goodluckcharm)
3 Xantid Swarm

Game 1: Raffinity

I lose the dice, he mulls to 6, land go.

Land, brainstorm, puts land on, second turn oracle, land, third turn aluren I win.
1:0

He plays abit, I force Master of Etherium to show him I mean business and proceed to
nuke the shit out of him on t4 or t5.
2:0

Game 2: Team America

I go first, he mulls, wasteland pokes me, I poke him with oracles, he doesn't know what I play so he stiffles and forces wrong targets.
Then he god a force off Dark confidant, and continues to pain himself down, and I BEAT HIM DOWN.
1:0
I board in NO GAME.
Second game he goes 3 wasteland, 3 hymn, and I had actually a good hand, but couldn't get 2nd forest/green mana for NO since he had krosan grip in hand (had aluren+rimp as well).
Goyf eats me alive.
1:1
Game three, we go playing, I have aluren, and even mana, but can't find suitable game plan off Lim Dul's Vault so I pain myself to 2, with 2 fetches down left to find green mana. He kills me easy next turn.

1:1
Game three - some monoB discard/nuiscance deck

I'm first, land, go. (1 harpy, oracle, recruiter, lands, brainstorm)
He goes card that discards creature od pwalker - i hide harpy and recruiter, discards other harpy and surgicaly extracts me all 4 harpies.
I put down oracle, manowar, raven and when i got to aluren, he was already beat down.
1:0

Second game I battle abit, but manage to t3 aluren with recruiter.
2:1

Game 4: against archnemesis with PT Junk (publius_auelius from forums)

Game 1, wasteland, vindicate, vindicate, wasteland, vindicate, dures, hymn. </3
Game 2, don't really remember what we did, but I played around aluren, had a hand that
went pretty well and managed to pull off a win.

Game 3, he draws lands, no wasteland thank god, plays Phy Revoker on harpy, I let i be alive.
I hit kotr with therapy I boarded in, he's got 0 cards.
I play aluren, raven into raven, oracle i had in hand, oracle, another raven, get recruiter, find 3 more recruiters, get manowar, bounce rec, gets another recruiter etc...

finally i had brainstorm + force to counter revoker when he wanted to play it, and just won by strix/harpy easily. Best game i had in a long time.

3-1 total, got a scalding tarn (no one wanted to trade it for mystic rainf) :(