Just a quick report. Can type up more later if requested.
Played in an SCG IQ last night with the same list I've been running with the following changes:
-1 Maelstrom pulse
-1 Intuition
Sideboard:
-2 Swan Song
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Abrupt Decay
36 players (I think)
6 Rounds, cut to Top 8.
Round 1 vs. BG Pox
Vision made me able to recover from all the discard.
1-0 (2-0)
Round 2 vs. Manaless Dredge
Game 1 I win off a Topdecked Recruiter after he Therapies me for FoW, sees 2 Alurens and passes the turn with another Therapy in his graveyard. He had lethal on board for next turn, but the mistake cost him.
Games 2 and 3 I don't see a single Leyline but I win game 3 due to him having a bad opening hand and bad draws.
2-0 (4-1)
Round 3 vs. Belcher
Game 1: I played 2 lands
Game 2: Land, Thoughtseize on the play. I see the following:
Elvish Spirit Guide
Simian Spirit Guide
Lion's Eye Diamond
Seething Song
Seething Song
Empty the Warrens
Goblin Charbelcher
I take the Belcher, and manage to not draw another land (or Deed or Charm).
2-1 (4-3)
Round 4 vs. Death and Taxes
Game 1 I Force Mirran Crusader then combo out shortly after.
Game 2: He has Stoneforge (Jitte), MoM and a Revoker out. I play out a Jace and Brainstorm to find a 5th land. He attacks and kills Jace. On my turn I play Deed and wipe the board. I combo shortly after but had to do it again because Fiend Hunter screwed me when I played things in the wrong order. Got there anyways.
3-1 (6-3)
Round 5 vs. ANT
Game 1: I win with silly Grizzly Bears and Scryb Sprites.
Game 2: He starts to combo off on turn 2 and screws up realizing he didn't have red mana. He essentially wiped out all but 1 card in his hand for nothing. A couple turns later he activates LED to discard PiF which I Force. I proceed to win.
4-1 (8-3)
Round 6 - ID
4-1-1 (8-3-1)
Cut to top 8 and I'm the 5th seed.
Quarterfinals vs. BG Pox
I thought he was on Miracles at first, but I found out I was wrong quickly.
Ancestral Vision and Jace >>>>> Liliana and discard.
In game 2 he got out Night of Souls' Betrayal but conceded to Jace about to ultimate when I had Alchemist + Shardless in hand.
5-1-1 (10-3-1)
Semifinals vs Miracles
Game 1 went for over an hour. I nearly killed him with a lone Baleful Strix as he wasn't drawing removal. The game was back and forth a lot with both of us removing the other's threats (Deed for Entreat). The game came down to us both at 1 life, me with 0 cards in library (Stronghold in play tapped, planning to use on upkeep) and he Vensers it. Great game and everyone watching enjoyed it. One thing worth noting was him not realizing he could cast his Clique for free - something most players tend to overlook (though to be fair, mine are also in Japanese).
Game 2 he drew what he needed when he needed it and got there with a semi-early Entreat.
5-2-1 (10-5-1 overall)
Miracles ended up losing to Jund in the finals and I finished 3rd/4th.
Overall, I'm very happy with the Jace addition as it's extra card draw in addition to an alternate win condition. Ancestral Vision is still amazing. I also received multiple complements on the deck by people that saw it in action. I feel completely comfortable with the main deck at this point, but I'm going to do some changes to the sideboard again (likely 2-3 cards). I'll be playing this next week at the Seattle Open, so hopefully I'll manage to get a feature match and give the deck some time in the spotlight.
Also, one of my favourite things about Aluren is when people try to get you to tap mana for creature spells.
I'm actually quite curious to see your decklist. :)
Originally Posted by Whippoorwill
I edited in the changes mentioned above.
I've gotta say, that list looks pretty ... weird. Not negatively or anything, just ... weird and interesting. How is that Jace really working out for you? Have you used its -1 ability on one of your own creatures pre-Aluren?Or did you often just straight went for its ulti?
I've thought about adding Ancestral Vision as well. It's absolutely awesome Cascading into it, but if not, did it work for you? It takes 4 turns for it to actually do anything for you which might be a little slow for this particular deck, since it's not really a gigantic threat pre-combo.
You didn't miss any acceleration or ramping via Coiling Oracle and/-or Deathrite Shaman?
I've wanted to add Pernicious Deed as well, but felt it was a tad slow.
It's definitely different, but it's been working out great for me. I decided to try Jace mainly for the card draw, but also as an additional win condition. And yes, I did end up bouncing my own Shardless at least once during the night (think it was against the Pox deck in the Quarterfinals).
I've suspended it quite a bit actually, and the 4 turns usually go by pretty fast. It shines best against the slower decks (discard strategies) since you know you're going to have the turns to unsuspend it and you can keep dropping threats during that time.
I haven't missed Oracle at all. Strix is infinitely better due to the threat it poses to your opponent's creatures. Oracle is nothing more than just hoping to ramp/draw a card. Deathrite I kinda miss, but not for the mana acceleration. I really think mana acceleration is overrated in this deck. The only decks that have been fast enough (or potentially) to beat me are those that would beat me before turn 3 anyways which would be the soonest you could play Aluren off Oracle/Deathrite.
Deed is slow, but it also buys you time against a lot of decks. It was very important when I played against Miracles since it allowed me to get rid of Counterbalance and his Angel tokens. Against Death and Taxes it wiped his board and against BG Pox I was able to kill a Mox Diamond and Mishra's Factory that was attacking me (he kept killing my creatures with various spells/Liliana, so it was a legit threat at the time).
Well dunno guys.
Until this deck does something outside our kitchen, its all down to personal preferences.. right?
Can't attend local monthly legacy, first saturday off in two months -.-
PTT (Formerly of MTT) - We make Champion
Martin Goldman-Kirst placed 15th with the traditional list he runs:
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckd...eckshow.php?&t[C1]=3&start_date=2013-10-20&end_date=2013-10-20&start=1&finish=16&city=Seattle
I ended up going 3-4 drop yesterday at SCG Seattle. Changes made:
-3 Therapy
-1 Windswept Heath
+3 Thoughtseize
+1 Volcanic Island
Sideboard:
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Thorns of Amethyst
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Plague Spitter
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Surgical Extraction
I added the 4 Thorns due to the Belcher match I had the previous week and it also double as hate against Dredge (especially manaless)
Changing the Heath to a Volcanic was a mistake that ended up costing me.
Round 1 vs Punishing Jund
Both games she gets strong draws/plays and has a fast enough clock to kill me before I can really do anything. Multiple Bloodbraids tend to do that so I don't worry about it to much.
0-1 (0-2)
Round 2 vs Shardless BUG
Game 1: Pretty sure I had the combo in hand, but couldn't find a 2nd green source to cast Aluren before I died.
Game 2 I mull to 5 then manage to pull get back in the game thanks to Vision. I eventually get Aluren out and start comboing with Harpy + Shardless. He eventually responds when I have Strix on the stack and he concedes when I cast Recruiter.
Game 3: He Thoughtseizes me when I have Jace + Aluren in hand and takes the Jace. I draw a Recruiter and cast Aluren then combo out.
1-1 (2-3)
Round 3 vs UWR Delver
Game 1 I cracked a fetchland and he Stifled it, so I Forced back. He Forced that so I Forced it again. I didn't really draw any more lands anyways.
Game 2: I never drew more than the 2 lands I started with.
1-2 (2-5)
Round 4 vs Goblins
His deck was almost completely Korean with APAC Mountains which was nice to see.
Game 1: He's on the play: Mountain, Chrome Mox, Piledriver. T2: Goblin Chieftan. T3: Something. T4: Kill me. I had the combo pieces in hand ready to kill him on my turn 4. This was the first time where mana ramp would have helped me.
Game 2: I return the favor and kill him on my turn 4. He attempts to use Scrapper to kill Strix, but I have Cavern Harpy to save it. He used Stingscourger on Harpy as well, maybe to just get it in play.
Game 3: I kept a hand I shouldn't have and he just overruns me with threats, even after I Deed away the board.
1-3 (3-7)
Round 5 vs UW Helm/Miracles
Game 1: I Thoughtseize and see RiP, Humility and some lands. I take the Humility. He then kills me a few turns later with an E.Tutored Helm.
Game 2: I Seize again and this take take his Top to slow him down. It works and I eventually get the combo off.
Game 3: I go with the aggro plan and he eventually gets out RiP+Energy Field. I Decay the RiP and resume my clock. He eventually gets Jace out and uses to to Brainstorm. He has Counterbalance out and I know he has a Detention Sphere floating around (he used it to counter my Sedraxis Alchemist) so I play a Jace of my own and start fatesealing him while continuing to apply pressure (choosing to ignore his Jace). He casts Pithing needle on Cavern Harpy which I'm always fine with. I eventually resolve Aluren but don't cast anything because of the Sphere. I get my Jace up to 13 with him at 5 life and he casts Entreat on his turn for 3 Angels followed by Detention Sphere to remove both Jaces. I make my move and cast Recruiter which resolves so I chain them all out then get Witness to get back Alchemist and bounce Needle to kill him on the spot.
2-3 (5-8)
Round 6 vs Rock
Game 1: Can't remember, but I might not have drawn many lands. He beat me down with Batterskull.
Game 2: Full disclosure: I only won this because my Pernicious Deeds are foreign. He had 2x Knight, Deathrite and Liliana on board and I Deed on his upkeep when he had 2 Golgari Charms in hand. He used his Knights in response to fetch lands to make future knights bigger then went to put his board in the graveyard. I did inform him that it didn't kill Liliana, but I neglected to tell him that he could have regenerated his creatures. I combo out a couple turns after that.
Game 3: Semi-long game that came down to both of us in top deck mode. He gets out a Cannonist which was slightly annoying, but I was on the aggro plan for the most part. Cannonist also saved one of my creatures by preventing him from casting StP after he had cast another spell. I end up getting there, I think with Aluren.
3-3 (7-9)
Round 7 vs Jund (non-Punishing)
I'm paired against a friend who is borrowing the deck from me. Always fun.
Game 1: Jund stuff.
Game 2: I kill him with the aggro plan. (I intentionally boarded out combo pieces since he knows what I'm playing and has Slaughter Games in the board)
Game 3: He keeps a light hand but recovers somewhat and has 2 5/6 Goyfs staring me down. I take a hit from both choosing not to block either then Deed away the board shortly after. From there I just overload him with creatures and manage to kill him.
4-3 (9-10)
There were still 2 more rounds and since the friend is planning on going to GP DC I gave him the win so he could still be in the running and get more practice with the deck since he was considering it as an option. I then dropped.
Final official result was 3-4.
I feel comfortable against the slower decks, but the faster decks like Jund (Bloodbraid having haste being one of the main issues) I'm not terribly sure about. It's still possible to win those, but having Strix die before it gets a chance to block the larger threats is one of the main issues. And as always, not drawing lands sucks.
Whip,
do you still feel Deathrite is out of the question? The common theme I see in the match-ups is that you were mana-screwed plenty of times. Am I correct? Do you feel DS could have possibly changed all that?
This is the reason why I switched from Strix to Oracle. Just kill them asap.
Against the decks I played, not really. The Miracle Helm deck was the only one light on removal, in every other match my opponents seemed to have plenty of removal. if anything I would rather have 1-2 more lands, and at that point Oracle would be the better option for ramping.
They're still likely going to kill the Oracle in order to push their damage through (unless the creature would deal less damage than the removal spell), so I feel that Oracle would only be better if it flipped a land to ramp.
That was my point. Even if they kill Oracle it still can help you. Drawing a card isn't such a big deal if you are one land drop away from win.
Hey guys,
I am building an Aluren Wish version and want your opinion on the list,
First of all I am not running Imperial Recruiter, in part because I can't afford it, and because I think it adds more death cards to the deck. I will try it in a couple of weeks since my LGS lets us use 12 proxies once a month to test things out.
Here is my list:
Land (20)
1x Bayou
1x Dryad Arbor
2x Forest
3x Havenwood Battleground
1x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Swamp
2x Tropical Island
1x Underground Sea
4x Verdant Catacombs
Enchantment (4)
4x Aluren
Creature (14)
2x Cavern Harpy
1x Cloud of Faeries
4x Coiling Oracle
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Parasitic Strix
2x Raven Familiar
Sorcery (12)
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Gitaxian Probe
1x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Living Wish
Instant (10)
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
2x Lim-Dul's Vault
Dryad Arbor : I wanted a way to accelerate in case of GSZ in hand first turn, didn't come up yet so can't really say how it has been.
Havenwood Battleground : Really not sure how I feel about this card. It has been great in some explosive draws, but it also under-preformed some times.
Raven Familiar : This card has been great for me. Since I don't run Imperial Recruiter I can go through my deck to find my combo much quicker with Aluren+Cavern Harpy out. Also great food for Cabal Therapy.
Green Sun's Zenith : Great for finding the lost pieces, acts like my 4th Living Wish.
Lim-Dul's Vault : I still can't quite make this card work, but I believe is for lack of practice with it.
Sideboard:
1x Cavern Harpy
1x Raven Familiar
1x Parasitic Strix
1x Eternal Witness
1x Bone Shredder
1x Sedraxis Alchemist
(Meta LGS Calls from here down)
1x Yixlid Jailer
1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
2x Go for the Throat
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Swan Song
2x Abrupt Decay
Really not sure about the Raven Familiar in the sideboard and not shure if I shoud be running the Eternal Witness in my main.
I still didn't test both Shardless Agent and Baleful Strix. Although Strix sounds marvelous I only imagine me taking the Oracles out. Shardless Agent doesn't sound that good to me but since so many people are using it I will also give it a try.
Feel free to comment away, Wednesday will be champion this sweetie to the win.
First off, I'm not really seeing the point of Green Sun's Zenith, because I don't really see a source for 'missing green creature' in the combo? Am I missing something? Are you comboing out purely via Coiling Oracle? Since it's basically the only combo piece you can look for with it in your deck, since you don't run Shardless Agent. If you run Coiling Oracle only as the main combo piece with Harpy, do realize you're setting a pretty hefty clock on yourself, since you need to bounce it at least a few times to get 2 land drops after dropping Aluren in the same turn and then hope to run into a Wish or that 1 Strix you run main. The upside to Shardless Agent is that you can combo out with Harpy quite a bit more easily since cascading into a Wish or Lim Dul's Vault pretty much means 'win'.
If you run a Wish-build, I would just highly suggest running 1 Recruiter in the SB and running 1 Man-o'-War or Dream Stalker main. That just combo's you out, since you can then look for a Harpy and then bounce the Man-o'-War / Dream Stalker with the Harpy to bounce the Recruiter with them and then look for the Strix, which is GG.
I also don't think that 1 Cloud of Faeries really warants a spot on the list. It's just too random in my opinion. I would perhaps just drop the GSZ and if you want to play with Probe, drop 1 Probe for 1 more Living Wish. I used to run Probe as well, but I felt this deck needed other cards. I love Probe in other decks, but was never really super happy to draw it in Aluren.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday I attended the Legacy Grand Prix Side Event in Antwerp, Belgium and played this:
[20] Lands:
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Bayou
1 Savannah
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
[16] Creatures:
3 Deathrite Shaman
3 Coiling Oracle
3 Shardless Agent
3 Baleful Strix
2 Cavern Harpy
1 Man-o'-War
1 Parasitic Strix
[20] Instants / Sorceries:
4 Living Wish
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Diabolic Intent
[4] Enchantments:
4 Aluren
[15] Sideboard:
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Meddling Mage
1 Sedraxis Alchemist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
3 Surgical Extraction
I went 3-3 after a while. We were with 5 guys and me and a friend of mine were the only ones left after the third round, so he and I decided to keep on going. We both went 3-3 (he played RUG Delver) and while we technically didn't need to drop, we decided to not keep the other guys waiting and just dropped after we both went 3-3 (ironically sitting right next to eachother when that happened, haha).
Aluren performed well in the current meta due to the surprise factor and a lot of player-mistakes my opponents made, like trying to bolt a Harpy or bolt something else on the field with them knowing I just returned a Harpy to my hand at the end of my turn. Bolt Deathrite Shaman. Okay, in response play Harpy, return DS, Bolt fizzles and at the end of his turn, both of them get dropped again. Or them outright trying to Swords or Bolt a Harpy, with me in response paying 1 life to just return it to my hand.
I had some fun match-ups, like the first match vs. Miracle Control where a Blood Moon dropped when Aluren was out and me just drawing basic lands with a Harpy and Deathrite Shaman out and him just having a Clique out. Chump blocking Clique with Harpy, returning it and bashing the next turn with the Harpy and DS with a basic Swamp, haha. Kept a Forest in hand and eventually drew Living Wish. Dropped the forest, LW, Recruiter and that was the end of that. He was just flabbergasted, since he didn't really knew what to do after I killed his Jace, played Oracles + Cabal Therapy and me just FoWing his first-turn Top. He didn't draw any solutions to Aluren and was just taking his time thinking what he should do. Probably one of the longest matches I've ever played and during the last match, we were one of the few that we're still at it with loads of people surrounding us, checking out what I was doing, explaining it to their friends. After the 2-0 win some guy walked up to me and congratulated me on the interesting game and commended me on playing Aluren and playing it quite well. So, that was fun!
The one thing I noticed was that I didn't use Diabolic Intent ONCE. I never was super happy drawing it, since the meta is filled with removal, so each creature counts. Having to sac some to Cabal is enough and I can't use any more saccing. So, those are gonna go out of the deck right away. The current meta is also filled with Wasteland, even more than I feared. So, what I might swap the two Diabolic Intent for are;
2 Sylvan Library
or
2 Life from the Loam
Both are Cascade targets, both are early drops and both are Green, which is definitely our base color. Sylvan Library can give card filtering with Fetches or just card advantage when we really see the opening for it. LftL can play around Wastelands and can recycle lands when we really need that last land or two. I think both can fit quite well.
Dunno why, was playing with GSZ tutoring for any creature. Dumb me is dumb. Thanks for the tips. How is shardless agent being for you?
Hi there, first off, nice to meet you!
Second, about my play here. I have only a vague picture of how the Aluren combo plays out. I was fumbling around just to see if I had a way to interact at the moment. Also to try and get a better understanding if I could be better prepared to interact game three. My verdict was, nope. So I just had to race.
"If magic is your crutch, cast it aside and learn to walk without it." —Teferi
Shardless is one of the core pieces of the deck and synergises well with the Cascade targets, like Living Wish and Lim-Dul's Vault. It's basically always a 2-for-one. Even if they counter the Shardless, you still get to Cascade, making it virtually always hit the board, since no one counters the Shardless, instead just opts to wait for the actual Cascaded spell. After that it isn't much of a threat to anyone, but it is however one of our combo pieces, a decent beater and gives some board presence. You can't hit Aluren while Cascading, of course, but basically anything else is a great Cascade target, besides Brainstorm, since you'd rather just opt to play it from your hand whenever you need to (like with in reponse to discard and Fetches). I don't think the deck would work that well without Shardless, really, especially if you don't run a Recruiter or multiple ones.
Raven Familiar is just worse, really.
You cast Aluren, you're tapped out ... Shardless and Harpy can continue to give you casted cards, for 1 life. With Coiling Oracle you need to get 2 landdrops to play Living Wish and you probably hit cards you don't want to draw, like a FoW, another Aluren, anything that's above CMC2 basically and doesn't net you any advantage to your comboing out. Coiling Oracle is a great ramper, a sacrifice for Cabal Therapy, a chump blocker and a last-resort combo-piece (like Baleful Strix). Raven Familiar basically gives you the exact same problem as the one Oracle; you're tapped out and get to look at extra cards, draw one, drop the rest. You then STILL need a Coiling Oracle for extra land drops, since drawing that one Parasitic Strix in your deck is a pretty long shot with just a Raven and a Harpy, and then look for a Living Wish or Lim-Dul's Vault to actually get the Strix. So, basically a bunch of extra hassle.
Shardless skips a bunch of stuff that doesn't really matter when comboing out (though it is always a matter of luck!) and makes sure you get to cast them right away. Most of the time you hit Baleful Strixes, Oracles, etc, which then allow you to hit more additional draws. It's the reason why I now play Man-o'-War instead of Dream Stalker since pre-Aluren, getting a Dream Stalker on the field is pretty shitty since if it gets shot off, your Recruiter basically becomes quite useless if he's the starter of the chain. Besides, Man-o'-War let's you bounce your opponents' creatures as well.
Hey guys, I'm just getting into legacy and my friend told me I should go here to get help! I'll post my list and thoughts and maybe you guys could help with getting started?
4 Aluren
(4 Enchantment)
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Thoughtseize
(9 Sorcery)
4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
3 Intuition
(10 Instant)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Coiling Oracle
2 Dream Stalker
1 Eternal Witness
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Cavern Harpy
(17 Creature)
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Wooded Foothills
(20 Land)
Life from the Loam
Force of Will
Scavenging Ooze
Bone Shredder
Phantasmal Image
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Abrupt Decay
Phyrexian Revoker
Krosan Grip
Eternal Witness
2 Thoughtseize
Sedraxis Alchemist
(15 Sideboard)
I'm looking for advice
After testing, I realize the Coiling Oracle's should probably be Baleful Strix's.
I just changed birds of paradise to deathrite shaman and it's been amazing. You can just win the game without comboing sometimes, especially if your opponent turn 1 deathrites, t2 thoughtseize exile cavern harpy with the deathrite shaman. You are still in the game
I believe I should swap Volcanic Island for Tropical Island as I should only need 1 red land (9 fetches to get it) and 4 Deathrites seems good for colour-fixing.
I'm playing 3 Force of Wills main instead of 4 because I believe the split of Force of Wills and Thoughtseize to be slightly better and cover more bases. You can always side out one or the other for it's counterpart. Thoughtseizes main also lets you cut a probe and hit more often on Cabal Therapy.
For my sideboard, having lots of tutorable answers along with bringing in the second witness means I can intuition for witness/witness/card I want, and ensure that I hit something.
Lemme know what you guys think I should do!
Last edited by Hexar; 10-30-2013 at 07:45 PM.
I'd take out thoughtseizes and put in one more harpy and one more FOW.
Out with 3 probes 1 intuition in with 4 Shardless Agents.
Or instead Thoughtseizes put 2 lands.. are 20 enough for you with deathrite shamans? haven't tested em
PTT (Formerly of MTT) - We make Champion
Hello boys that version to play now for that I me her am considering to mount and not that configuration is the ideal
I'm probably playing alluren in next week's LGS tourney. I expect five rounds to go, no top 8.
I'll probably go with DRM version, also just for the lulz been thinking a version with magus of the vineyard and t2 kill :D That would be sweet
PTT (Formerly of MTT) - We make Champion
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote