[Deck] Aluren

I guess I don't see the reason you have to play a 4 color base with Recruiter. Sure it's a dead card per-combo, but having a 2 card combo instead of 3 should more than make up for it. And with the recruiter builds all you need to do is get Dreamstalker, return Recruiter, get Harpy, return stalker and recruiter, Recruiter to get strix and win. It's a lot simpler and more efficient than having to play Oracle/Raven/Strix to draw your deck, and you still have that as a backup plan if necessary.

Playing 4 colors allows you to cast Recruiter, but it's not like you have to bend over backwards, I'dplay maybe 1-2 red sources max, you typically don't wanna burn half your combo to get a draw spell. If I were to play Recruiter I'd do something like this:

4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
1 Wooded Foothills
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Volcanic Island
2 Forest
3 Island

4 Aluren
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
4 Intuition
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Cavern Harpy
1 Dreamstalker
2 Parasitic Strix
1 Man O' War
3 Wall of Roots
2 Raven Familiar

It may be terrible, but I think it could work.

Still working on Shardless list. Previously I said you cannot consistently cascade into Living wish. That is true but who cares? Shardless Agent is simply better than Raven Familiar if you build your list properly. Why? Third turn is often last time when you can cast something relevant. Familiar dig only a little and chump blocks. Agent can do much more.

Imagine first game of match on play. Typical Alurens game looks like: First turn fetch + Brainstorm opponent EOT (against fast aggro). Second turn Baleful Strix/other two drop. Turn three is your game edge. Aside from chump block Shardless Agent allow you to:
- cast Therapy to protect your turn four Aluren
- cast Living Wish to grab combo piece/hate
- cast two drop value blocker (Baleful Strix idealy)
- dig with Brainstorm (hello Familiar)
- cast Harpy to return your Baleful Strix

Side efect: Send random number of card to bottom. I play 22 one or two drops, 9 cards are cantrips so digging is bit deeper than Familiar in average.

Strategy: Go off as fast as possible if you playing against aggro. Resolve Intuition for Therapies against control. Therapy your opponent (flashback needed) and go off asap against combo. Shardless Agent support your goals better than Familiar aside from one thing: he send your Alurens and Intuitions to bottom. You often don't mind. Value for the win. You don't have to be fast if your opponent don't have anything in hand.

With Sharless Agent you get one bonus. You have about 28.5% to win from spot via Aluren + Agent (cascading into Harpy/Wish, not counting Brainstorm).

List:

4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Force of Will
3 Living Wish

4 Baleful Strix
1 Eternal Witness
4 Shardless Agent
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Wall of Roots
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage

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

SB: 1 Parasitic Strix
SB: 1 Cavern Harpy
SB: 1 Spore Frog
SB: 1 City of Brass
SB: 1 Raven Familiar
SB: 3 Pernicious Deed
SB: 4 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Krosan Grip


I'm satisfied with main deck. Possible change is 1 Wall of Blossoms + 1 Wall of Roots for 2 Coiling Oracle, if you don't expect lots of Goblins. I recommended to left some Wall of Roots main deck. It allow you to cast Living Wish when you go off and have it in hand/accidently draw it via Baleful Strix etc.

I definitely need better sideboard targets for Living Wish. My main idea was Wish into combo piece/something to buy time but it is not enought. I need some good combo hate at least. Also i will kick Faerie Macabre out (maybe 1 will stay for wish) for some better graveyard hate.

Tried this list at tournament (33 participants, 3:3 result)
2:1 Omniscience with white (going off thanks to Show and tell is sweet)
0:2 Dredge (faeries were not enought)
2:1 UR delver burn (Pernicious deed shined)
1:2 UR Know and tell (Bad luck Brian. Have Aluren game three but nothing else to cast)
0:2 mono B Pox (discard me out and bob ftw. Never saw Brainstorm these games)
2:1 ANT (discard him out, counter his Surgical Extraction to save intuitioned Aluren and win)

Your insight is welcomed.

Someone please make shardless aluren a good deck. I love aluren and I usually play coiling oracle/chain of vapor control with 3 hains to help stall the board and combo off without harpy.

Played two games other night against Nic Fit or whatever's that deck name.

2:0 clean.

Played my standard Recruiter version with oracles, therapies and 2 chain/int on some pages back.
I like this shardless agent version though, gonna try it out soon.

who knows... maybe it'll be fun to play if nothing else

Quote:

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Originally Posted by theBloody

4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Force of Will
3 Living Wish

4 Baleful Strix
1 Eternal Witness
4 Shardless Agent
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Wall of Roots
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage

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

SB: 1 Parasitic Strix
SB: 1 Cavern Harpy
SB: 1 Spore Frog
SB: 1 City of Brass
SB: 1 Raven Familiar
SB: 3 Pernicious Deed
SB: 4 Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 2 Krosan Grip

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1. i hate living wishes, they're just nuisance in the deck, except in case when some1 doesn't have recs but then they still suck. bad choice but still needed i guess
2. Strix < Oracle. Oracle gets you a card, chumps and most important it accelerates you. It doesn't kill a goyf or KOTR or huge Ooze but gets you mana you need to ramp up to a kill
3. Agents are cool and fun way to include em, and to play em. Should use them more probably.

2 Intuitions are pretty okay i guess, maybe 3, 4 is overkills but with em i should play volrath's + witness + loam for late game.

dunno, this deck is shitty until they reprint rec

Shardless Agent is intriguing... it immediately reminds me of the RUG lists with Bloodbraid Elf cascading into Ancestral Vision for mega card advantage. But in our case, Agent costs 3, so it comes out quicker, which seems good in theory. However, Visions is a little bit of a dud draw otherwise.

I'll test it and see how it goes. On Cockatrice, that is. And I'll try and trade for some Agents this week to test in real life!

I gave Coiling Oracle a chance thanks to swoop's sugestion. I didn't like them mainly because they speed us up only with brainstorm so I tried a build with Sage of Epityr as their support. I can't say Sages are awesome, but besides helping Oracles they also provide T2 sacrifice outlet for Therapy and something to return with Cavern Harpy so you get nice chump blocker in return. Sage is Sensei's divining top on legs without card draw ability. I recomend to test them out at least. Also Sedraxis Alchemist was nice Living Wish target.

Tried build in tournament. I lost two matches only due to my mistakes. Went 2 : 3 : 1.
UG Turbo-Eldrazi - 1:2 lose (can win g2)
Mono U Merfolks - 2:1 win (therapy hit two Lord of atlantis)
Mono brown stax - 1:1 tie (sphere of resistance was super annoying)
Mono G elves - 2:0 win
GBw Rock - 0:2 lose (thalia was annoying, but mass hand discard was way worse)
Burn - 0:2 lose (can win g2)

EDIT: Currently I'm also playing one Shardless Agent in SB, so Living Wish have always some nice target.

Just destroyed Nic Fit 4:0 without "coming close" to losing basically.

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

4 Coiling Oracle
1 Eternal Witness
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Man'o'war
1 Dream Stalker
3 Shardless Agent
3 Cavern Harpy
3 Wall of Roots
1 Wall of Blossoms
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
1 Vendillion clique (or 2 even)

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

This should be cool. Loved the build might up to 2 Chain of Vapor and 2 Clique i would like to test GSZ also

You will hate fizzling Agent into GSZ.

Yeah, I've figured its either gsz or agent..

Anyways, when testing and fiddling around I always tend to add/remove cards on feeling, but this is somehow a base to work on

Has Aluren ever had a "pirates" sub theme?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lavafrogg

Someone please make shardless aluren a good deck. I love aluren and I usually play coiling oracle/chain of vapor control with 3 hains to help stall the board and combo off without harpy.

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I hear a rumor Meandeck was messing with Shardless Aluren, but can neither confirm, nor deny it.

To my mind the deck is quite good with shardless. But probably not as good as a well-built shardless bug list.

hope gatecrash brings us something good

http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto...02389893_n.jpg

Is nice

As long as the Imperial Recruiter promo settles around 100$-120$ I'll be happy. I can play my 4 favorite decks then. Aluren, Lands, Storm, and CounterTop. Life is complete.

Nice. Around 100$ will be affordable.

I love the idea of shardless agent in aluren. I love the cascade idea even tho recruiter aluren is probably just flat out better.
I tried to keep the total CC of the deck over 2. brain freeze decks your opponent if you somehow dont have a way to
find parasitic strix which could easily happen.

Cascade Aluren

4x architects of will
4x cavern harpy
4x dream stalker
2x parasitic strix
4x raven familiar
2x selkie hedge-mage
4x shardless agent
2x court hussar

4x aluren

4x force of will
2x intuition
2x misdirection
1x brain freeze

4x ancient tomb
2x bayou
4x tropical island
4x misty rainforest
2x verdant catacombs
2x polluted delta
2x forest
1x island

I have no SB yet and i have been currently gold fishing the deck.

like i said above i tried to keep everything above CC 2. This deck looks horrible and probably is, but its fun to fiddle around with. it may not win any huge legacy events but it will be fun at the local store for the 5 round tourneys.

I personally like architects of will because court hussar and raven familiar are easily cast-able to dig for aluren or other pieces. architects is my 1 CC baddie cantrip.

What's the point of Shardless Agent if it barely cascades into anything?

This is what I'm testing right now:

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

4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cavern Harpy
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Shardless Agent
4 Selkie Hedge-Mage
1 Parasitic Strix

4 Aluren
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Diabolic Intent

Look at all the things you can cascade into and how Top lets you manipulate it to your advantage. Also, Harpy - Agent loops eventually bring you some other creature and an Intent to sacrifice it and get Strix.

I can't provide a decent sideboard yet. Sorry.

How is cascading into Explorer?