[Deck] Aluren

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Originally Posted by neckfire

moneymakermich can you post how you would sb with the white version? ive focused all my efforts on the bug version but i wouldnt mind putting your version on modo and trying it out.

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I admit that I haven't tried carpet and probably should because of all good feedback I read about it.

Storm: +2 elightened tutors, canonist, aegis, -decay
Big créatures (show n tell, darkdepth): +2 enlightened tutors, ensnaring bridge, -decay
Fair decks/creature (delver, elves, junk): +3 swords, -discard spells
Réclamation sage obviously when there are targets
Faerie macabre for graveyard combos
Golgari charm against enchantments or death and taxes
Etc...

I'm mostly happy with ensnaring bridges that can win games by themselves, great card and often unexpected.

Currently testing 2 collective brutality instead of thoughtseize. Looks very versatile

Any good news from the GP?? :) The lack of coverage is very annoying :-/

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by comix84

Any good news from the GP?? :) The lack of coverage is very annoying :-/

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

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unless aluren is in the "other" portion of the the metagame breakdown none made day 2.

http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...own-2017-01-08

"Of the 22 decks that fit into the "other" category, we saw a smattering of strategies, from Burn to Lands to Maverick to Storm to Enchantress to Eldrazi, with some truly rogue decks thrown in as well. That includes a Food Chain deck that went undefeated on Day One, a Canadian Threshold deck that looks like it was taken straight from 2010 (someone broke the Nimble Mongoose out of cold storage), a Big Red turbo Blood Moon deck, and rarely seen archetypes like Painter's Servant-Grindstone and Aluren."

So less than 2, more than 0 ;)


EDIT: but judging from this, I guess it's the recruiter version (unless they photographed a lower table day 1 which seems unlikely?)
https://twitter.com/magicprotour/sta...rc=twsrc%5Etfw

Pascal Maynard tweeted that he went 11-4 with Sultai Aluren, so at least one pro did reasonably well with it.

Pardon my noobish comment:

regarding the workings of the combo (cavern harpy and strix), when is the best window for an opponent to plow/decay your creatures to foil the combo and how do you guys play around it?

I would imagine once Aluren is in play, you will play the strix first, followed by harpy bouncing the strix with its ability resolving, cast strix again, pay 1 life to return harpy and the cycle continues, did i miss anything?

To avoid single removal the correct sequence is cast harpy with the bounce hability on stack retain priority, then cast the creature you want bounce, resolve creature hability, resolve harpy bounce hability return the value creature to hand, return harpy to hand and repeat the process.

This process can lead with single spell removal.

Enviado desde mi A0001 mediante Tapatalk

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Originally Posted by mike1987

Pardon my noobish comment:

regarding the workings of the combo (cavern harpy and strix), when is the best window for an opponent to plow/decay your creatures to foil the combo and how do you guys play around it?

I would imagine once Aluren is in play, you will play the strix first, followed by harpy bouncing the strix with its ability resolving, cast strix again, pay 1 life to return harpy and the cycle continues, did i miss anything?

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The best window to use removal is when there is a Cavern Harpy on the stack, otherwise each removal spell will be trading for 1 life, to put it simply.

If you have just Strix and Harpy, lead on the Harpy and respond to the ETB trigger with Strix, you don't get blown out then on a removal spell on the Strix.

I played in GP Louisville and finished 10-5 with no byes coming in. I played BUG with Imperial Recruiters and no red duals and played 2 Birds of Paradise as mana-dorks 5&6 which were great all weekend (also,won me games blocking a marit laige and an inkmoth in another to let me untap and win).

I had 2 bad losses to what was basically Mono Blue pauper faeiries where I mulliganed into oblivion all games and then against Belcher where my opponent bricked ok t1 Belcher activation and then drew one his three remaining LEDs to go off again the turn before I could go off.

I also lost to Elves on a topdecked Natural Order when I knew his hand was all lands from a Thoughtseize and I had the combo in hand if he missed.

Matches were-
Sneak and show - L
Lands- W
Blue Pauper Faeries- L
UW stoneforge - W
Infect- W
Belcher- L
Sneak and Show - W
Belcher- W
Eldrazi- W
Jund- W
Food Chain- L
Bant Truename/Stoneforge- W
Sneak and Show- W
Elves - L
Lands - W

I can post a list later if people are interested. I really liked my sideboard and the Birds of Paradise were great. Deck was super sweet to play and I got some cool wins at instant speed including against resolved show and tell and sneak attack activations.

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Originally Posted by Absolutflipz

I played in GP Louisville and finished 10-5 with no byes coming in. I played BUG with Imperial Recruiters and no red duals and played 2 Birds of Paradise as mana-dorks 5&6 which were great all weekend (also,won me games blocking a marit laige and an inkmoth in another to let me untap and win).

I had 2 bad losses to what was basically Mono Blue pauper faeiries where I mulliganed into oblivion all games and then against Belcher where my opponent bricked ok t1 Belcher activation and then drew one his three remaining LEDs to go off again the turn before I could go off.

I also lost to Elves on a topdecked Natural Order when I knew his hand was all lands from a Thoughtseize and I had the combo in hand if he missed.

Matches were-
Sneak and show - L
Lands- W
Blue Pauper Faeries- L
UW stoneforge - W
Infect- W
Belcher- L
Sneak and Show - W
Belcher- W
Eldrazi- W
Jund- W
Food Chain- L
Bant Truename/Stoneforge- W
Sneak and Show- W
Elves - L
Lands - W

I can post a list later if people are interested. I really liked my sideboard and the Birds of Paradise were great. Deck was super sweet to play and I got some cool wins at instant speed including against resolved show and tell and sneak attack activations.

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Happy to see the list and congrats for the good result! :D

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Originally Posted by comix84

Happy to see the list and congrats for the good result! :D

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Decklist-
4 Deathrite
2 BoP
4 Baleful Strix
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
3 Shardless Agent
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness

4 Aluren

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald (was solid in all modes, incl added shuffle for brainstorms)
4 Brainstorm

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

SB-
3 Force of Will
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Thoughtseize
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Bone Shredder
1 Sylvan Library
1 Disfigure
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Dread of Night

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Absolutflipz

Decklist-
4 Deathrite
2 BoP
4 Baleful Strix
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
3 Shardless Agent
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
4 Imperial Recruiter
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness

4 Aluren

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald (was solid in all modes, incl added shuffle for brainstorms)

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

SB-
3 Force of Will
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Thoughtseize
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Bone Shredder
1 Sylvan Library
1 Disfigure
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Dread of Night

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Missing 4x Brainstorm right? ;-p

Would you change anything from your list after the GP? :)

Ha yes, how could I forget the 4x Brainstorm.

I would not change the main-- and I like the sideboard, but that's obviously always in flux and dependent on online vs paper (online metagame a lot more streamlined and trackable than paper).

The only thing I'd like to try is the ponder/FoW main builds (still keeping recruiter and bop) but I liked the way the mana works out better (and being better against wasteland) when playing the therapies. You're able to fetch mainly green and black (including basics) for your early turn plays better than with ponder involved. I'm curious to test it in actual play to see the difference though.

Surgical, FoW, and Needle were my best SB cards fwiw in the 15 matches I played.

Congrats! But some questions:

Never missed a red dual land? Any reason to not play one?

Birds is great I've tested it also, except againt miracles and their board sweepers. I've noticed you did not play against it in GP. Experience against that deck?

In which matchup do you side in the sylvan library?

Thx :-)

I've been considering buying into this deck for a while and trophy mage has got me really interested. What do you guys think about adding it to the deck to tutor shardless when we dont have the combo and bird when we do?

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Originally Posted by Moneymakermich

Congrats! But some questions:

Never missed a red dual land? Any reason to not play one?

Birds is great I've tested it also, except againt miracles and their board sweepers. I've noticed you did not play against it in GP. Experience against that deck?

In which matchup do you side in the sylvan library?

Thx :-)

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The deck is a very color-intensive BUG deck and there's no need to make yourself worse against wasteland and harder to cast decay/strix etc by playing a red dual. You've got 6 mana dorks to cast Recruiter and a lot of the time you want Recruiter in your hand anyway to instantly go off with Aluren.

Miracles is a fine matchup - not exceptional, not bad. Aluren the card is great against them and you play not to lose
to terminus - so just pressure them some and don't overcommit and then they have to answer your small clocks one terminus at a time.
Sylvan is for any grindy matchup- it's a great card advantage card and the last card I wanted in the main but decided to lean a little more combo in the main since the deck already has lots of card advantage built-in.

I played the following list at the GP and went 3-3, my meta choice of main board Minister of Pain came in handy a couple times, Mesmeric Fiend too

Main:
4 Brainstorm
2 Dreamstalker
1 Parasitic Strix
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Duress
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Minister of Pain
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Aluren
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Sylvan Library
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Baleful Strix
1 Cavern Harpy
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest

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

Side:
1 Bone Shredder
1 Duress
1 Mesmeric Fiend
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Krosan Grip
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Null Rod
1 Tsabo's Web


Round 1: 2-0 Miracles
Game 1: Flash back Therapy on his FoW turn 7 or 8 and jam Aluren/win, Leovold is a wonderful card!
Game 2: He ends up playing a Blood Moon with 1 basic Island in Play and 1 Basic Plains... I rec Sage his Counterbalance and he can't use his Counterspell due to the Moon. I end up killing him a couple turns later when I draw the Recruiter for my jammed Aluren.

Round 2: 0-2 UR Delver
Game 1: Cast Minister twice in the same turn to kill a flipped Delver and a Swiftspear by sacing a Baleful, Dreamstalker it back, then recast killing the Stalker... He top decks a second PoP to match the one a couple turns earlier for the last 4 life he needed for the win. I had the win next turn (wouldn't have known it, but the Sylvan Library I had in play had the Aluren as the 3rd card down and the Recruiter was already in hand from the previous turn).
Game 2: He just gets a few really good draws in a row after I wreak his hand with Duress, Mesmeric Fiend, and a Therapy (Flashed back too).

Round 3: 2-1 ANT
Game 1: Discard does a lot of excellent work here and that's pretty much the story and I combo ^_^
Game 2: He gets me on turn 3, I don't really do too much other than discard an Infernal and he draws a Grim Tutor to go along with his couple Dark Rituals.
Game 3: I get a Duress turn one to take his main board Tendrils ^_^ end up comboing on turn 3 off a Carpet of flowers turn two and double DRS in main phase 2.

Round 4: 1-2 BUG Control
Game 1: He gets a Goyf turn 2 and I don't end up stopping it in time when he also adds in the usual suspects.
Game 2: I just get him on the ropes with a few early Baleful Strix and 2 DRS drain him down to oblivion.
Game 3: He has discard, double DRS like I did the previous game, and the removal to keep my blockers away.

Round 5: 2-0 ANT
Game 1: I'm beating him down a bunch with a Leovold and a couple Stix, there was a Duress thrown in there too... First time in a long time where I've been drained 16 life and still lived long enough to blow up my opponent, removed the Tendrils at the end of his turn via DRS, continue beats for a couple more turns and win.
Game 2: I make him discard everything with my opening hand that had Duress, Therapy, Therapy, DRS, and a Library. Well, he never had enough cards to do anything other than get killed.

Round 6: 0-2 Belcher
Game 1: I win the die roll and Duress away an EtW, but he has Wish in hand and combos for 12 gobos, I don't get my meta call Minister in the next two turns and die a truly gruesome death.
Game 2: I Therapy away the Empty, hit one, but he has Belcher in hand with being shy 1 mana to combo out... His turn he top decks the mana source, and the singleton Taiga is much too far down for it to matter and get turn 1ed

At this point being 3-3, I don't want to bullshit day two (D2 will always be 7-2 or better in my book :wink:) so I drop and do some trading in and selling for some goodies that I've had my eyes on for a little while.

I could go into a little more detail, at little perhaps, but I wasn't really keeping much track of how each game went, gave a briefer blurp on my local MTG page that I referenced here.

Mesmeric Fiend got a lot of weird looks, but having an instant discard via Aluren is wonderful.

Leovold is an all star as everyone now knows.

Having Duress instead of Thoughtseize is what kept be alive that extra little bit to survive game when last desperation Trendrils drained me for 16. I like it mainly because the decks where you want to have a lot of discard is primarily against combo decks and blue decks, not being able to hit a creature is an extreme rarity when it matters, not losing that 2 life matters more often than the critter bit.

Minister of Pain was a meta call and it saved me for a couple turns anyway in round 2 game 1. In testing it's been a house against D&T variants and it loves killing Young Peezy/tokens... Not to mention crippling Mentor tokens.

Reclamation Sage is a staple for me, it blows up S&T stuff like Dream Halls, Omniscience, Sneak Attack, AEther Vial, Equipment, and other random things like Sylvan Library and Canonist.

Eternal Witness can be slow, but it's fantastic when you can get back wonderful things like Aluren :smile:

I can explain any of my other choices if desired

I played in side events (for a variety of reasons) with my version of Aluren.

4 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Arctic Merfolk
1 Parasitic Strix
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Quickling
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Academy Rector

4 Aluren
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
2 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Phyrexian Tower

SB: 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 1 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Bone Shredder
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Glissa, the Traitor

I've seen several lists around where people are playing a single Dream Stalker/Arctic Merfolk/Quickling. Are you gambling on your opponent not having removal/not knowing when to interrupt you?
Because a well time StP or Abrupt Decay can break up the combo. Anyway, for the white version, 1 Merfolk 1 Quickling is the best way to play it in my opinion.

Win 2-1 vs. RG Lands
Win 2-1 vs. UWr Miracles
Loss 0-2 vs. Turbo Depths
Loss 0-2 vs. BR Reanimator
Win 2-0 vs. White Aluren
Tie 1-1-1 vs. Elves!
Win 2-0 vs. UW Miracles
Loss 1-2 vs. Eldrazi Stompy

Eldrazi Stompy was very close, and I almost stabilized in G3, but double Reality Smasher was just enough.
BR Reanimator treated me to T1 Sire of Insanity both games.
Turbo Eldrazi gave the turn 3 Marit Lage game 1 and 2 with Sejiri Step both games to get through Strix and Harpy each a
turn before I was laying an Aluren.
Elves is not a great Matchup, but Leovold is fantastic against Glimpse, Visionary, and Sylvan Library.
Let me know if you have any questions about this list. I think it's a great list, but not in the current meta with so much super fast combo flying around.
I have switched to Grixis Tezzerator recently because it shits on Reanimator and Miracles alike.
Cheers.

4-4-1 at the GP with BUG Aluren. I picked up a draw in round 3 from a shitty Miracles player who refused to concede to my lethal attack (with counterspell backup) if he just passed the goddamn turn.

I forgot Meekstones for my sideboard at home and so I got wrecked by giant Goyfs all day.

On a lark, later in the day against yet another Miracles player in the draw bracket I brought in Karakas to protect Leovold. It turns out to have been pretty good and I will definitely test that sideboard plan going forward.

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Originally Posted by TTX

I played in side events (for a variety of reasons) with my version of Aluren.

4 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Arctic Merfolk
1 Parasitic Strix
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Quickling
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Academy Rector

4 Aluren
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library
2 Green Sun's Zenith

1 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Veteran Explorer
1 Phyrexian Tower

SB: 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 1 Orzhov Pontiff
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Bone Shredder
SB: 2 Carpet of Flowers
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Containment Priest
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Scavenging Ooze
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Glissa, the Traitor

I've seen several lists around where people are playing a single Dream Stalker/Arctic Merfolk/Quickling. Are you gambling on your opponent not having removal/not knowing when to interrupt you?
Because a well time StP or Abrupt Decay can break up the combo. Anyway, for the white version, 1 Merfolk 1 Quickling is the best way to play it in my opinion.

Win 2-1 vs. RG Lands
Win 2-1 vs. UWr Miracles
Loss 0-2 vs. Turbo Depths
Loss 0-2 vs. BR Reanimator
Win 2-0 vs. White Aluren
Tie 1-1-1 vs. Elves!
Win 2-0 vs. UW Miracles
Loss 1-2 vs. Eldrazi Stompy

Eldrazi Stompy was very close, and I almost stabilized in G3, but double Reality Smasher was just enough.
BR Reanimator treated me to T1 Sire of Insanity both games.
Turbo Eldrazi gave the turn 3 Marit Lage game 1 and 2 with Sejiri Step both games to get through Strix and Harpy each a
turn before I was laying an Aluren.
Elves is not a great Matchup, but Leovold is fantastic against Glimpse, Visionary, and Sylvan Library.
Let me know if you have any questions about this list. I think it's a great list, but not in the current meta with so much super fast combo flying around.
I have switched to Grixis Tezzerator recently because it shits on Reanimator and Miracles alike.
Cheers.

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I played in the main and side events with a very similar list. Maindeck was a few cards off above:

2 Arctic Merfolk (not the split)
2 Veteran Explorer
0 Dryad Arbor
1 Tundra

Sideboard was 1 card different of:
-1 Glissa
+1 Revoker

The main event saw me get some awful variance and terrible matchups until I dropped:

Rnd 1 - iPainter
2 Mulls to five coupled with 4 blood moon effects saw me lose this very quickly. Didn't have a chance. I think the matchup should actually be good (particularly if you're running veteran explorers), but mulling to 5 is not.

Rnd 2 - OmniTell
Won game 1 off of his show and tell putting in aluren. Lost the second game, and won the third with some excellent therapy snipes.

Rnd 3 - Dredge
This was actually someone staying with me. Bummer. He won the die roll, and therefore the match. I wrecked him game 2, but he had good dredges turn 1 both game 1 and 3 off of faithless looting which allowed him to tear apart my hand with Therapies. Tried to mull to a hateful hand game 3, but ended up with a 5 card deathrite scooze hand that was just too slow. I didn't stand a chance, particularly considering he knew what I was playing.

Rnd 4 - Burn
I always struggle with this matchup. It was very very close - I've learned a lot of things over the past couple months of playing that helped. But he won the die roll, and I was 1/2 turn off from killing him game 1 and 3. Thems the breakers.

Rnd 5 - Elves
This isn't an awful matchup, but it's not stellar either. Therapy hit 4 Natural Orders, 3 Glimpse of Natures, and a Wirewood Symbiote over the course of the match. I proceeded to just draw land after land and die. Seemed like just variance to me. At one point in game 3, I only had 6 lands left in my library, and still drew another. It was pretty unreal.

Then I dropped because that was frustrating, and proceeded to 4-0 a Legacy side event with the same list. I think the list is great, but bad luck got me in the main. I was hoping for more death and taxes, delver, shardless, etc. Got none of that. Thats the stuff I faced in the side (as well as 12-post). I needed to be playing against the Tier 1 decks. Oh well.

It did let me play Vintage on Sunday, so worked out just fine. ;)