[Deck] Aluren

[Rath]

We have 4 proxy rule in our nonsanctioned tournaments (5€ fee) with pretty okay rewards in fetches, duals etc. 3 recs are enough. You never want them in your hand until you go off.

So what is your 4th proxy then? Nothing else in the deck is that expensive, I would have assumed you run Aluren and then proxy the 4 recruiters. BTW I disagree that you don't want to see them unless you combo. Using one to search for an answer is never a bad thing. Admittedly I would prefer to just combo off, but if you don't have it, you don't have it.

[swoop]

So what is your 4th proxy then? Nothing else in the deck is that expensive, I would have assumed you run Aluren and then proxy the 4 recruiters. BTW I disagree that you don't want to see them unless you combo. Using one to search for an answer is never a bad thing. Admittedly I would prefer to just combo off, but if you don't have it, you don't have it.

As I usually borrow duals from a friend, sometimes I need a one-off or something I couldn't borrow.
3 recs are enough in 90% of games. in the other 10% you win anyways :)

Without Aluren you don't want to play recruiter, or you can't afford to fetch for a dual with Red, because its really hard to play your A game then.

[kiblast]

So what is your 4th proxy then? Nothing else in the deck is that expensive, I would have assumed you run Aluren and then proxy the 4 recruiters. BTW I disagree that you don't want to see them unless you combo. Using one to search for an answer is never a bad thing. Admittedly I would prefer to just combo off, but if you don't have it, you don't have it.

Correct. For example, facing an aggro deck, casting Recruiter fetching Wall of Blossom, cantripping while having 2 chumpblockers is a neat play. Of course I'd do this only to prevent fatal damage.

[kiblast]

Anyone got to sell manowar dci foil?

I haz them :)

[swoop]

Cool. WE're gonna talk about it as well ;)

Kiblast, but you have to know is that in that case you need to have recruiter in your hand, red mana on table and use it for recruiter. Better play would be to have any other creatuer except harpy/recruiter in your hand and use it to win.

Better use your resources to win, instead of trying to survive.

[kiblast]

I know that our main goal is to combo off and win, but sometimes in order to do this I found myself in situation where I needed creatures chumpblocking, to give me enough time to dig for Aluren or something else I needed.
Red mana is not a big concern, since Recruiter build tend to play an high number of fetchlands (7-8) and so I often wait to pop a fetch until I need it, so eventually I can find R mana if I absolutely need it to hardcast Recs.

This is the same concept behind the choice of playing Wall of Blossoms: they let you survive, they answer a Nacatl or a Lackey, and they fit the philosophy of the deck by cantripping. Sure, casting Walls doesn't lead to victory, but buys enough time to find that damn Intuition (for non Rec builds) or Recruiter, or wathever, and go off.

[Nonex]

Yesterday I got the GP list together and lent it to a friend for a tournament, winning against UBG Landstill and UBG CounterTop, and losing to Affinity (I don't remember his last round). His main conclusions were that people tend to cast Mental Misstep on Gitaxian Probes, that they all got fooled by the NO-Prog side plan and ate their Krosan Grips, that the deck is mediocre because of the lack of tutors to find Aluren or NO, and that even with them he's not sure the list would actually improve by any reasonable margin. Neither he nor I changed our opinions about Recruiters, we still think there's a stellar deck for them somewhere, but it's just not Aluren.

[Rath]

Neither he nor I changed our opinions about Recruiters, we still think there's a stellar deck for them somewhere, but it's just not Aluren.

As the owner of a playset of Recruiters I can attest to the fact that there are stellar decks for them including:

• Painted Stone
• Imperial Painter (my Favorite deck!)

However, I have always found Aluren to be a great deck for him as well. With Aluren in play, all you need is to land one Recruiter to win (it even allows for finding a witness to get back previously used Recruiters / combo pieces). It also allows for a toolbox sideboard, which I appreciate. It does depend on your play style though.

[swoop]

I wish I had access to recruiters (I'd give up to 40$ a piece, but not more for such a niche card).
Wizards blew it with legalising Portal, and not "reprinting it with new frames/oracle".

Could have been a nice set.

[swoop]

played some decklist with probes/therapies. don't like em too much. they're good, they help you
but I'd rather have some meat and therapies in sb for pwning with intuitions.

Probe is nice, helps you see what is coming but still... something is missing there.

Had like 3-7 vs canadien trash (not hockey players, the deck) and 5-2 vs BUG landstill.
canadian trash pwned my therapies/probes/bstorms with mm and ocassional counter, but nothing I could battle had I normal version of the deck.

BUG Landstill pretty much had only Force/counterspell and spell pierce and bunch of removal that I don't care about.

Going probe/therapy/oracle rarely works, and more often than not it leaves you with less cards and fuel than your opponent.

[honz]

probe is an interesting card that fits decently into this deck. When you have turn 1 probe + therapy, and neither gets forced, dazed, missteped, brainstormed around, or avoided another way, then things tend to pan out well. However, the vast majority of the time, you either won't have both at the same time, or your opponent will play around it. Although that isnt so much a problem with probe or therapy, as with this deck in general.

I must say i don't like repeal much. It puts too much pressure on therapy, whos main purpose is to make way for the combo. The cantrip is nice, but matching the cc isnt. at the very least i would run a mix of repeal, echoing truth, chain of vapor, and probably less than 4 in total.

the recruiter debate has been beaten to death, but i dislike them every time i try them. the synergies that exist in the recruiterless version is one of the main reason i played this deck, and without them your playing a 4cc two card combo deck with alot of extra trash. I don't see any reason to play the recruiter version over any of the other (better) blue based combo decks: show and tell/sneak attack, hive mind, ceph breakfast, painter, natural order, dream halls...etc. show and tell being the most comparable, is much more consistent (as it has 8 of each combo piece), better protected (as it has more room for counters/disruption that aluren wastes on harpy, stalker, stix, witness, walls, oracle...etc), and faster (as less colors and less color intensive cc cards allows for more excel/sol lands).

i do love this deck, and will continue to play it, but if your trying to find the best control/combo deck, this just isn't it anymore. but if you do play it, i would put probe in it and not recruiters or repeal (but rather man-o-war and chain of vapor).

[swoop]

Recs are a card that wins on its own, but my deck with it looks more and more like a silver bullet deck, rather than a strong, meaty deck with integrity.

Its far more easily disrupted, it breaks far easier, especially when I draw some card i don't need in "set up" phase, i.e. strix, witness, whatever.

I'd chose probes/therapies in heavy control meta, in rest I'd go with standard non-rec build.

[cyberjar]

[deck=""]4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
3 Forest
3 Island

//-
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Intuition
2 Chain of Vapor
4 Aluren


//-
3 Cavern Harpy
2 Man-O-War
2 Eternal Witness
4 Coiling Oracle
3 Raven Familiar
1 Selkie Hedge-Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Kitchen Finks

//Sideboard:
1 Loaming Shaman
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Krosan Grip
4 Spell Pierce
3 Seeds of Innocence
1 Selkie
1 Kitchen Finks

[/deck]

Played this list today, 6/34, 4-2, won against black deck2-1, Elfcombo2-1(first turn Therapy on Llanowar Elve rules), High Tide2-0(without resolving a Aluren in the entire match) and ANT2-1, lost against Dredge1-2(tournament winner) and Merfolk1-2(he played a strange Sideboard and boarded 12 cards against me o_O )
About the Sideboard:
Selkie&Finks should be Disfigure and im thinking of replacing Spell Pierces with Flusterstorm, could probably cut the Grips for more Disfigure

[azador]

Hello all, I've been trying out aluren lately, only need 2 more recruiters to be 100% done. This is the list I played a bunch of games with today, and I would love to hear some input on it.

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

4 Force of Will
4 Repeal
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Aluren

4 Coiling Oracle
3 Wall of Blossoms
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness

Sideboard
----------------
4 Natural Order
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Progenitus
3 Duress
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Go For The Throat
1 Doom Blade
1 Snuff Out
1 Ghastly Demise
1 Dismember

The crazy removal in the sideboard is due to the fact that people seem to be loving meddling mage again. Plus, I've always had a soft spot for 1-ofs. From what I understand, the hymns are a very odd choice, but they've been doing good things for me in the short time I've been testing. Don't get me wrong, cabal therapy is an all-star, but hymn is one of my favorite cards ever, and therefore want to play it as much as is feasible. Has anyone else tried hymn out extensively at all? What were your findings with it?

Any thoughts, feedback, etc. would be awesome. Thanks for reading.

[dameus]

@azador

20 lands is on the light side, even tho you have a bunch of cantrips.
Recommend playing some sort of tutor: LDV or Intuition.
CoV and Echoing Truth are better than Repeal, but still 4x is too much.
Chuck the creature hate in SB; Bone Shredder fits this deck better for that purpose.

[worsel]

cyberjar,

How come you don't run a Strix? How do you kill? By playing out a Clique and Ravens, passing the turn, bouncing their creatures if they play any, etc.? Isn't this risky in case they happen to draw more removal than you have Cavern Harpys? Would it not just be quicker, easier, and safer to run a Parasitic Strix?

Thank-you, in advance, for explaining.

[kiblast]

The crazy removal in the sideboard is due to the fact that people seem to be loving meddling mage again. Plus, I've always had a soft spot for 1-ofs. From what I understand, the hymns are a very odd choice, but they've been doing good things for me in the short time I've been testing. Don't get me wrong, cabal therapy is an all-star, but hymn is one of my favorite cards ever, and therefore want to play it as much as is feasible. Has anyone else tried hymn out extensively at all? What were your findings with it?

Any thoughts, feedback, etc. would be awesome. Thanks for reading.

I dislike Hymn in Aluren. The fact is that playing them forces you to get BB, and if you want BB turn 2 while having the possibility of casting Aluren turn 4, I think you should play more Bayou, and less Seas. Probably -1 Sea +1 Bayou. It's difficult for Aluren to run smoothly if you play only 20 lands with 9 cards (not counting Fow) that need double specific mana to be cast. That said, as much as you like Tourach, Cabal Therapy is 100 times better in Aluren.

Also Witness is so good I'd play it as a 2 of, probably cutting a Ponder. I've tried Repeal and it's a very good spell but to play it at its maximum you need more lands, in fact it is really good in decks like Stoneblade or Landstill, since they play 22-24 lands. Chain of Vapor does some sick tricks in Aluren and is overall a more efficient and versatile bounce spell. For example you can double bounce 2 of your cantripping creatures in late game in response to chumpblocking, netting you 2 more blockers and 2 more cards. Or bounces a JaceTMS without going under Spell Pierce or Daze. It's also useful if for some reason you are unable to go for the Recruiter route and have to manually find the Strix by Harpy/ Coiling/ Wall of Blossom digging. 4 Is definitely too much, but I would not go below 2 anyway.

One last thing: play 1 Taiga, and try to go up to 21 lands.

[cyberjar]

cyberjar,

How come you don't run a Strix? How do you kill? By playing out a Clique and Ravens, passing the turn, bouncing their creatures if they play any, etc.? Isn't this risky in case they happen to draw more removal than you have Cavern Harpys? Would it not just be quicker, easier, and safer to run a Parasitic Strix?

Thank-you, in advance, for explaining.

How should they draw that much removal when i replay Clique several Times? When i have Harpy+Raven i can draw all my library, so i have 4 Force of will, with Manowar-Witness-Harpy-Loop i can reuse the Forces and i dont know any deck wich plays that much removal so i cant beat him. If my oponent ahs that much removal, he could play it in my comboturn and hindering me from going off. There are only few situations in wich the Strix rly helps.
Every time i play a list with Strix, when i start to modify the list i want to put more things in it(still dont know why people play less than 2 Witness in Reclessaluren for exampel) and when i need to cut cards, i cut cards that dont help to get in the combo and arent rly necessary for the combo, Strix is exact this. Selkie/Finks do a better Job stallin me into the combo and i won matches by bouncing my own creatures with the Selkie.

[swoop]

1 strix is a must. 2 card kill. why include it yea? -.-

Recless versions do not need more than 1-2 witnesses as they have many many more 4offs and hardly ever do they need to recure something from the graveyard in comparison to Recruiter lists which have many silver bullets and usually when you lose something you can't get it back unless with witnesses.

Which you again don't need too many off since you can get them via recruiter, as a, you know, silver bullets.

not including strix is just nonsense and utter madness. :D

[cyberjar]

reminder: everything i write refers to the reclessversion(just sayin, dont want missunderstandings from this side)

1 strix is a must. 2 card kill. why include it yea? -.-

Yeah, why?
I know that this 2 cards kill, but this is not an argument.
Thats what the card does, i'm able of reading cards, it kills, but why does the deck need this?
What problems the deck has without this card does the Strix solve?
Thats how you have to think, now tell me.

Recless versions do not need more than 1-2 witnesses as they have many many more 4offs and hardly ever do they need to recure something from the graveyard in comparison to Recruiter lists which have many silver bullets and usually when you lose something you can't get it back unless with witnesses.

Dont know how you play this deck, i'm using witnesses all the time. The aditional bounceeffect with Therapy is just a little bonus, she brings back Forces you used to slow down your oponent so you can use them as protection, she makes Intuition that much better, she gets back a fetchland when you're stuck on 3 mana. I also only run 2 because they cant do that much on their own, but i saw lists with only 1, what makes Intuition much weaker, because if something needed is in your grave you cant play intuition and include Witness, and i also saw lists with no Witness and THATS madness.