[Deck] Aluren

Haha, love the quotes. Think I got 3 recruiters for roughly 150$ or a bit more in 2013 or something when they printed judge foils. Didn't get third in time so i'm paying 120 for it now. Three is fine anyways tho. I loved the non-recruiter version as it used "brute force" in comboing instead of silver bulleting with recruiters. I still think they're way too expensive, but their prices comes out of obscurity.

Mind you, in 2010 only recs available were the portal ones that costed $300+ or so.
Reclamation sage is interesting addition, what did it show to take out the most? swords? batterskulls?
Also love the return of witness + volrath's stronghold "mini combo"

I love playing and comboing around "threats" people have and toying with them. I believe this is my pet deck since 2006-7 or earlier even.

I'm interested to the deck, because I have 4 copies of Imperial Recruiter from my RW Imperial Painter.
We need an updated topic for the deck with sideboarding strategies. Can anybody help me with sideboarding?

I have an 18 page document about sideboarding with my Aluren list from a month or so ago. I do not know how to properly get this on a thread or anything due to word count, but if you PM me or something I send it to you. It isn't the best and is slightly outdated, but it talks about the MUs and what the game plan is versus each one, even if the specific card changes are not the same.

18 pages? Wow. Would be great to get that up somewhere for sure.

He took a long time to work on it (I requested him to do it because I'm really into playing this and needed a starting point). Its his call if he wants to make it public.

Also, deck has evolved a bit and those who are active can agree that abrupt decay pulls its weight. previously we were more discard heavy.

Long are the days of therapy and probing.


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therapy still works, but i don't think we have the space for probe.

My suggestion is to give this deck a spin. Take it to your weekly event. Give it a chance, it will surprise you.

I love how many times a simple harpy/clique beat down won me games.

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What do you sideboard against Miracles with the Martin Goldman-Kirst's decklist?

I had to look up Goldman Kirst's list just for you.

Not a list that I play, but with his list I would board minimally going -2 thoughtseize -1 dream stalker (i was never a fan of a 2nd dream stalker) and +1 abrupt decay +1 null rod +1 krosangrip.

Do not board out baleful strixes they are better than they look.

Now I have an interview with Goldman Sachs tmr for operations analyst (I'm in my senior year so i'm job hunting), so hopefully searching for goldman kirsts list will give me some luck on getting into another goldman.

Why not add the Force of Will, the third Thoughseize and the two copies of Swan Song? They are all good cards against Miracles.

not a fan of force of will in this deck, not even the sb actually, but if you wanted to bring it in I would only do so against explosive combo decks that win early. swan song is good if they aren't on the mentor plan, but most miracles are now playing the mentor version. These 2 cards were meant to fight other combo decks, not miracles.

Phil scho just wrote an article on aluren here:
http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/...look-at-aluren

What do you will sideboard against Infect with the Martin's decklist? I see a lot of cards in the sideboards, it is very difficult to know the best choices.

I would keep it simple and go -1 Eternal witness -1 dream stalker, +1 Decay +1 bone shredder

Martin Goldman-Kirst wrote an article about Aluren, very interesting to hear some of his ideas and sideboarding.

I'm testing the deck and I love it even more. I'm happy to see the sideboarding strategies, Martin said me that he doesn't had time to write them. I'm not sure about the sideboarding against Miracles, maybe are better some counters instead of Carpet of Flowers.

So I lent a slightly sub-optimal list (martin's -2 misty +2 polluted, -1 FoW +1 swan song sb) to a friend for the mocs prelim, and he ended up going 4-2, which I thought was amazing.

This guy is a good limited player from my local shop, but he was going into this tournament completely cold to the metagame and how most decks operate, 0 practice. I gave him the deck 1 day before, he practiced with it a couple times, and then got a promo grisel, with both losses coming in the 3rd game of the match. He even beat Chi Hoi Yim of SCG fame 2-0.

Anyways, I guess where I was going with this is that I think this deck is quite a bit more powerful than people give it credit for. Contrary to popular belief you can actually just pick it up and do well, albeit on modo which remembers all of your triggers for you, but still. I look forward to continuing to work on this deck.

I took first at a small local event with a slightly tweaked version of Martin's list:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
1 Cavern Harpy
2 Dream Stalker
1 Eternal Witness
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Reclamation Sage
4 Shardless Agent

4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay

1 Sylvan Library
4 Aluren

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volrath's Stronghold

Sideboard
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Null Rod
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Krosan Grip
1 Bone Shredder
1 Minister of Pain
2 Toxic Deluge

I beat Storm in 3, Sneak and Show in 2, and Miracles in a very close 3 after I managed to punt a very winnable game 2. The deck felt very strong and streamlined, much better than any of the old Aluren lists I played. Lack of Force was scary at times but also led to much more fluid gameplay. Without the card-disadvantage of Force this deck is very well set up to grind out attrition decks. Also the bombardment of discard was excellent against Storm. I boarded the carpets in a lot and they were very good. I might be playing this deck more in the near future as it was super fun to play.

Do you think that discard cards are good against Death & Taxes or must be sided out?