I don't believe it's possible to ignore a moderator, for the very simple reason that our posts sometimes carry instructions with the force and effect of the forum rules behind them. If you were able to ignore us, you might end up "ambushed" by the repercussions of instructions or rules hidden from your sight.
Hey,
I like grindy style of decks with lots of interaction but also creatures since I like attacking with creatures so Miracles is not an option(I also like aggro decks but well aggro is not where you want to be in Legacy for the most part) and I don't like combo and I want competitive deck.
Basically I'm deciding between Grixis Delver and Shardless BUG but can't decide since I like both of them although some may say Shardless BUG is the way to go because I play Jund in Modern which is my favourite deck in format. My metagame changes quite frequently but there is always one UB Reanimator, Deathblade, Grixis or 4 color Delver or Control, one Miracles, recently there was an upstick of Eldrazi (my metagame is small, there are usually somewhere around 20 players and at the last tournament there were 3 Eldrazi decks), usually Death and Taxes, 1-2 Elves or one of them being Infect and then some random decks such as Merfolk, Lands, 12 Post, Show and Tell, Storm (although it's on the side line with all the Eldrazi now), Jund, Nic Fit, Maverick and similar stuff and not all of these random decks are always present.
I don't know which one would perform better in this metagame (I know it's very diverse for such a small one and none of decks I mentioned has good game against all of these) but hopefully someone can help me with this since I'll most likely go with this one (as I said I can't decide which one I prefer).
I think both would be fine in your meta, with a slight preference for Shardless since it is strong vs Eldrazi.
My recommendation is to go with Shardless BUG. It plays to your favourite style of gameplay and gives you the ability to play with more of the "only in legacy" cards that you don't get to experience in Modern (Brainstorm, Hymn to Tourach, Shardless Agent, DRS, FoW, JTMS). While I don't think that the latter reason is specifically a defining reason to go with the deck, I do think that you'll enjoy experiencing another dimension added to something that you already enjoy and know well.
Yeah, most of the non-U duals aren't going to see a price hike anytime soon.
You say that now. Just wait until enchantress rises from its ashes and starts cleaning up.
I'm willing to admit it won't actually happen (maybe if Earthcraft gets unbanned), but I'll always have a soft spot for that deck. It was my first legacy deck many years ago. Windswept Heaths for it were my first fetches and Taiga was my first dual, so I could run the Words of War kill. I can blame enchantress for starting me down the path to my current collection.
<3 Enchantress
That deck was similarly to blame for my own trajectory. It got me into Legacy and I still keep it built for the odd tournament here and there.
@MikePemulis: Yeah, I'm no longer active in it, but I harbour great affection for the cube community here. They're probably the most helpful and constructive community with whom I have interacted on the internet.
i heard miralce is a hard deck to play and i might not be able to play it often like 1-2 times a month can i still put up some result with it?
I think it depends. Like, Legacy is a format where all people really get to know their decks. You will be at a bit of a disadvantage in the format as a novice no matter what you play. That's okay though. I do think that it has higher barrier to initial entry than Delver (in terms of deck familiarity) though. One last point: Would you be playing 1-2 events a month or 1-2 times including even just friendly pick-up games? I would recommend enough practice to at least get the instinct down on "hold on, flip counterbalance" over "yeah, it resolves", so if you think you can get that then Miracles is fine; if not, WeaponX's suggestion of UR Delver is better
Hey everyone, I'm looking to build a second Legacy deck. I want to put something quirky and a little odd together. I'm considering Food Chain Combo and Aluren. Is either one better than the other? Thanks!
Aluren typically dominates the match-up between the two, but I wouldn't say either deck is straight better than the other. I have generally preferred Aluren because I find the deck inherently more versatile, but both decks have a lot of play to them and a lot of room for tuning to specific contexts and metas.
Been a while since I've posted in this thread, but I've still been actively playing and am trying to figure out my sideboard for a 1k this weekend. My usual meta has basically no Miracles and is a mix of Lands and fair decks (Maverick, D&T, Deathblade), plus a number of less common decks like Moggcatcher.
I think I would cut Yixlid Jailor and the Thunder. Yixlid doesn't seem to hit enough in your described meta and thunder is at its best versus miracles, which is dead there. Magus of the Moon comes down to your personal experience and preference with it -- if you're iffy on it, I'd cut it too; if you're liking it, I'd say to feel free to keep it.
I think you want to add in either Dread of Night or E. Plague. They really increase your efficacy verses D&T (not just for killing their X/1s, but perhaps more importantly letting your staticaster and minister go for the full board). Between the two, I lean towards e. plague, but I would be happy with either.
Carpet of Flowers is great if you expect more fair blue decks, but it sounded like Delver may have been hated out by Lands in your meta? If you fear delver and infect, run it. If not, take a pass.
I have really been liking Bone Shredder recently as a versatile card that fights eldrazi well while being relevant in other match-ups.
So I'd add Shredder and one of the black enchantments and then consider magus your flex spot if you desire further tweaking.
I think you'll struggle with just three duals in delver. The blue deck best suited to going that light on duals is probably Miracles. Straight UW with 2-3 Tundra and back to basics, or UWr with 2 tundra, 1 volcanic island, and a basic mountain are each manageable (in fact, I know people who have topped events with Miracles even including budget land replacements - such as prairie stream for any tundras that they were short on beyond the first)
I've been playing LED-Dredge (and Storm variants) for the past year and looking for another deck.
Got pretty consistent results with Dredge (27 wins, 11 losses, 2 draws in Competitive REL) - which is cool - but I think I've pretty much reached a "glass ceiling" where my results depend merely on whether my opponents finds their hate, which disappoints me.
This was my first year in Legacy, and playing the deck helped me to find out what my strengths and weaknesses are.
I'm looking for a good deck (Tiers 1 to 2.5) that fits my playstyle and allows me to really play Magic more often than not (which is not the case with Dredge or Storm in the current metagame). No "budget" issue, just eager to find something fitting with most of the points below.
What I'm good at :
Executing a correct succession of actions (kinda akin to Storm where you're basically executing a chain of spells into Tendrils of Agony).
Guessing what is in my opponent's hand (decent at blindly casting Cabal Therapy, for example)
Keeping mentally track of a lot of things at the same time (triggers, mana, storm count, cards in my opponent's hand, etc.)
Knowing precisely the Legacy metagame
Knowing the Comprehensive Rules and the Infraction Procedure Guide quite in-depth (for what it's worth)
What I'm bad at :
Taking a lot of small decisions (Sensei's Divining Top in Miracles being a good example)
Staying focused, not doing any mistake, over a long period of time
Playing lengthy games that take a lot of mental energy
Playing fast when few time is left in the round (but I think I could fix this with practice, which I could have time and motivation for if needed)
Thanks for reading !
I'll make a small plug for Aluren:
Case in favour:
-Two divergent gameplans means that you're unlikely to hit match-ups where you're just kolded by an opponent's deck or SB.
-Diverse play means that you're unlikely to hit the skill-ceiling. You're also less likely to get bored.
-HUGE range of options for tweaking -- greatly rewards format knowledge.
-Greatly capitalizes on your Cabal Therapy skills, but takes them a step further, since you're more likely to make contextualized calls instead of blanket calls (Not as many situations of "I just need to take their counter")
-Very rules knowledge-intensive for how the stack works
-Requires you to juggle lots of things at once and in non-standard conceptualizations
-Has been doing well in the metagame but is still fringe
Difficulties:
-It's unclear if this falls under lots small decisions
-The fair gameplan does trend towards long games
For further information, I've put an example decklist in spoilers below (actually my own), and you can also read a recent tournament report here.
R1: UB Reanimator (2-0)
My opponent is scrambling to assemble his deck as he sits down and I get flashed a couple binder pages of Reanimator cards along with a Tidespout Tyrant sitting on top of his sideboard. I try to mull into DRS or FoW in G1, give up at 5 cards after he keeps on 6 and still combo him out at turn 4 or 5 after therapying him off of a Reanimate. Goddamn this deck mulls well. Game 2 I mull into another stinker on 6, keep anyway, and scry the second land to the top. I get a recruiter Forced as I try to set up, but therapy is sweet and DRS shows up by t3. He's still a bit frazzled by the rush to assemble his deck and so misses the DRS when he goes for an exhume on Blazing Archon. I have a FoW in hand, but instead eat the archon with DRS and let exhume resolve, netting me a free recruiter (which promptly fetches Edric). Edric does what edric does and the lethargic beats go all the way as I stock my hand with infinite interaction.
R2: 4C Loam (2-1)
I'm on a weak hand in G1 and get locked into a spot where I need to topdeck two things while a Liliana is messing with me. Bad times ensue and Bob Maher goes all the way in the red zone. G2 sees me beat his own weak hand with the beautiful 1/1 beatdown brigade. G3 my opponent makes two fumbles that open up a window for me to combo. He accidentally boarded out the Dryad Arbor and has to sheepishly fail to find on his Turn 1 Green Sun's Zenith. This lets me ramp faster than him. The second key point is that he played a land prior to casting loam on a crucial turn, locking him out of wastelanding me with the proceeds of the Loam. I kill him with the combo on my next turn.
(Note on the above match: I'm actually a bit sketchy as to the order of G1 and G2. They might have been reversed)
R3: BUG Delver (2-1)
I lose a tight game 1 to classic beatdown plus Liliana. I win two tight SB games. Engineered plague (naming Wizard) does great work locking him out of Dark Confidants and Delvers as my therapies do dirty things.
R4: Shardless BUG (2-0)
My opponent mulls hard and leads on two verdant catacombss. I have a nutty lead with coiling oracle flipping the land for cabal therapy on turn 2 while my hand is stacked. My opponent scoops in response. I have no idea if my opponent is fair, reanimator, or storm. I decide to hedge in all directions. I bring in Scavenging Ooze, Bone Shredder, Faerie Macabre, and Reclamation Sage. My opponent turns out to be on shardless and proceeds repeatedly duress me and to surgical my decays. He goes for a surgical on an aluren, but I macabre-pitch to counter. I stabilize at near-death by using scavenging ooze to gain life, counter DRS, and shrink his goyfs. Eventually my 10/10 ooze goes into Abyss mode forcing him to chump with Leovold, goyfs, and DRSes. The ooze goes the distance before he finds an abrupt decay.
R5: Miracles (2-1)
FINALLY. I've not played this match in more than 3 tournaments. I kill him in G1 with a very aggressive Aluren after doing mean things with many cabal therapies. I'm on track to win G2, but he manages to get a end-step entreat with exact mana for FoW on my witness'd Pernicious Deed on the next turn. G3 we go into beat-down mode and he needs to have terminus 3 times in 3 consecutive turns. He didn't have it.
R6: Imperial Painter (ID)
This is the only other undefeated in the room. I'd rather not face Painter and it looks like a double draw is locked for T8.
R7: Storm, presumably ANT (ID)
We can now see that X-1-1 is locked for T8. I can play to dreamcrush and still be locked, but I choose to go eat. It's a pity too, I would have loved to face storm.
TOP EIGHT
There's an offer to split, but for once I'm the guy to turn it down. I would rather try for Top 4 and split there. Besides, if we split here, the shop will close and there's no more legacy for the day. I'm tied with Imperial Painter for top seed, but breakers put me in second.
Quarters: Burn
My deck's amazing resiliency to mulligans always seems to falter in the top 8. I blame deck check voodoo. My opponent has some eccentric budget swaps (Cinder Glade as a "taiga" to splash Destructive Revelry), but is still mostly stock. I lose a tight G1 to his topdecked exact damage 4-damage PoP as I'm just about to stabilize. I get a clean combo in G2 after dealing with an Eidolon and Pyrostatic Pillar on a very mana-starved hand. G3 I just weep silently as I eat 2 goblin guides and a swiftspear on T2 with no action forthcoming even after having drawn 3 lands off Guide in 2 turns. Death greets me quickly.
All in all, it was a great run. The deck felt great and I'm really liking Bone Shredder in place of Ophiomancer. It was also cool to hear banter around the tournament as I overheard multiple people identify Aluren as their pick for the best deck in the format.
I'm also not sure why you think I need black perms to combo with the Cavern Harpy (I assume that's what you meant by Strix...). All I care about is bouncing the Strix, Merfolk, or Coiling Oracle... why would I need a specifically black perm?
You're exactly right. On an unrelated note, for multiplayer purposes I would strongly consider or advise one maindeck Sedraxis Alchemist.
For the utility of the other poster, here's the breakdown I give on the Imperial build's kill. The white version is essentially the same (sub recruiter for recruiter, and arctic merfolk in for dream stalker).
Notice how the deck naturally assembles Cavern Harpy + Parasitic Strix and that cavern harpy serves as the black card for strix. Additionally, Cavern Harpy with either Coiling Oracle or Baleful Strix (and to a lesser extent, Shardless Agent) allows the deck to go into Yawgmoth's Bargain mode and just directly convert life to card draw.
I've seen Aluren in duels - but not in MP before with this sort of combo build.
How resilient is it? Can it take down the whole table quickly?
It's a slower but more reliable combo deck that fields a significantly higher % of cards "that matter" relative to most combo builds. After all, you're legitimately deploying blockers and most of creatures combo together to create card advantage engines. That being said you're extremely soft to enchantment removal and this is true even though the deck can win at instant-speed. You can't actually sit back and play a "fair game of Magic" and still expect to win so you kind of have to "go for it" at some point. You'll rarely have more than 1 counterspell as backup but assuming that you manage to dodge key interaction spells that you can beat spot removal. It's not a tier 1 combo deck in that sense but it's easily tier 2.
Enchantment removal is less of a problem because you can normally resolve aluren and then wait to pounce on the open window when they make their move.
In 1v1 scenarios, the deck wins a LOT of its games by fair beatdown. In multiplayer, you may be right that comboing is more necessary. I have no idea what you're even talking about with "Tier" in casual
If you mean legacy, by all means come by the forum and we can discuss it in the proper context (rather than derailing this thread)
As for your question on meddling mage: I would expect her to have some familiarity with most decks at the table or be able to predict what hate cards they likely run. In such a case, meddling mage allows playing through hate. With Aluren in play, either they respond and you respond to them with the kill, or they don't respond and you kill them. Meddling Mage also can preemptively come down without issue.
I don't think that you really need more than one Cavern Harpy. One has been quite fine in my experience (I play the imperial recruiter version in legacy).
If your casual group doesn't run things like wasteland, I would consider one Overgrown Tomb and then a set of Deathrite Shaman.
Also, if you're on a shardless package with minimal black splash, I'd consider Meddling Mage as a replacement for the more traditional Cabal Therapy.
In the spoilers below are two lists from the Legacy thread that might give you additional ideas for card inclusions or build directions. The white list was spitballing. The red list is fairly well tuned for that format.
Something similar to what I posted I ran today. I played against UWR Miracles rounds 1 and 2 (1-2, then 2-1) then Punishing Fire, Nahiri, and Dak Fayden Miracles [which got 1st place] that beat me without me having a shot. I then played a really fun match up against Alluren which beat me in a super close game 3. Really have no idea how to beat that Punishing Fire Miracles with any deck to be honest.
I was your Punishing Miracles opponent. I wrote a mini-recap here, in the punishing miracles thread, but from your account, I may have misremembered the order of my second and third matches.
I don't really know how to attack the deck from a fair angle -- more so than normal miracles, the punishing build might just be inherently good against this kind of strategy. One way that you might be able to work it if you're trying to metagame against it would be Thrun, the last troll, Troll Ascetic, or Dungrove Elder. Anything without hexproof is going to be pretty vulnerable unless you hit ~5 toughness (and even then, you need to dodge Nahiri and JTMS). Geist of Saint Traft is probably too greedy since it walks into the pile of pyroblasts that that deck runs. Thrun would essentially allow you to fight over terminus and ignore all else -- which seems like a good position to be in. Other than that, I could see Stirring Wildwood or Lumbering Falls doing work against me
I ran a slightly off version today in a local 4-rounder. I wasn't able to arrange to borrow the two volcanic island that I was short, so I ran with 2 steam vents. Otherwise it was exactly the list I have in the OP. As always, this is to the best of my recollection, so there may be details that are slightly off.
R1: GBw HexDepths (LOSS 1-2)
My opponent and I have a kinda strange match. I lose a tight game 1, assemble a lock under humility in G2 with JTMS and punishing fire bringing the game to a close, then brick on interaction in G3 as he risks a kill on something like turn 6 in the face of unknown interaction.
R2: Bant Exalted (WIN 2-0)
He's got meddling mages, sanctum prelates, cold-eyed selkies, stoneforge mystics, mainboard meddling mage,2 etc.
I'm able to play around the prelates pretty well -- he just can't hit enough relevant CMCs, and even with prelate on 2, I'm still able to pitch and regrow punishing fires for dack/nahiri card advantage. He brings in a bunch of stuff to answer me, but nothing really is able to line up just right. As an example: he sticks a Spellskite to blank punishing fire, and that works, for a turn. But then Dack fayden steals it and I spend the rest of the game trying to defend my new spellskite.
R3: Aluren (WIN 2-1)
This is a local player borrowing my deck. He combos off in Game 1 through interaction and with force back-up (I love how absurd that deck is). I fight through and stabilize in G2 and 3. G3 culminated with me ultimating Nahiri to fetch emrakul with humility out, then casting a second nahiri to exile my own humility and killing him as time was called.
R4: Legend Miracles (WIN 2-0)
Game one I develop planeswalker superiority as he asserts countertop dominance. This asymmetrical warfare comes to a close when my T3 dack fayden finally ultimates on like turn 10 or 11 (he had chipped away with I think two snapcaster hits). I hardcast force of will towards the end there prior to the ultimate. After the ultimate, I immediately pyroblast his counterbalance and run away with the game. This game was interesting, because my opponent flooded super hard on white cards, but I think that our draw quality wasn't actually so different -- instead I think the crucial factor was just how absurd dack fayden was at churning through the deck and how good punishing fire was at testing counterbalance (I stuck a jtms on a turn that he tapped out too, but JTMS was a poor "also ran" in comparison to Dack Fayden's raw power). Somewhere in there was super cool turn where he bluffed me into running double pyroblast into counterbalance (I responded to him tapping top with the second pyro, but he had a top on top all along D: ), but dack fayden was just too good.
Game 2 saw us kinda jockey for position with me shocking myself on turn one to hold up pyroblast. He appears to hold back, and bluffs playing around it by not playing counterbalance on t2 (in reality though, he was just mana screwed). I pyroblast something unimportant (might have been a force on counterbalance?); he sticks a turn4 back to basics and I pyroblast that to destroy it a turn later. After the Back to Basics, he's on the back foot for the rest of the game and I close it out with triple planeswalker on board.
After the first round, at least two (but I think all three) of my matches were pair-ups, including R4 when my opponent was the only undefeated in the room. This resulted in me stealing first place on the second breakers.
All in all, the deck felt pretty good. I don't have any changes that I would recommend from this tournament. The MB felt amazing, and the SB generally supplied what I needed.
Build Aluren. It's a fun deck and I think the MTGO meta is alright for it from what I hear. Miracles isn't too bad a matchup because of all the 2-for-1s, there's enough variety in CMC to dodge the chalices out of eldrazi, and there's not very much DnT to prey on the ridiculous manabase (which still fits in 4 basics, despite being 3 colors splashing another). There's a pretty good number of triggers, but the combo kill only takes 8-10 casts of Parasitic Strix most of the time. There are better decks out there, but I haven't enjoyed playing any of them as much yet. Recruiters are a lot more affordable online, too.
Alternatively, just go straight to the dark side and buy into miracles. Get good at the mirror and you can clean up with that one.
I think that if you really want the flyer, the choice is sadly Shrieking Drake, not Quickling ("sadly" because it can't trade unassisted with Delver). That targeting clause is just too brutal on your resiliency (also, 2-for-1s are bad).[EDIT: Huh, I'd been misremembering quickling. It's not as bad as I remembered. I might be able to get behind it for versions that skip shardless] I also could easily be talked into a mainboard stonecloaker in most white versions.
Mainboard TNN is also totally reasonable (and probably correct).
I dunno though, it's all just so much more tight on space (your value package necessitates more slots, you have less room for stuff like decay, etc) and with worse mana to boot (compared to Imperial). And even after dozens of spitballed builds I'm still not seeing a guardian list I like.
I still don't like Quickling, but it's definitely not as bad as something that targets. You could do a lot worse than that, and I think the flash and larger body are probably enough upside to put it over the Drake. I almost said something about trimming Shardless, but I feel like you want all of the advantage you can get if you're moving more midrange with SFM. That kind of thing is where this keeps falling apart for me. Guardian (as built so far) plays a better midrange game at the cost of being less disruptive and I think that's a net loss for the deck. I'm still planning on tinkering with it some (I'm kind of curious about what a junk build would look like, despite being reasonably sure it's worse than a base blue list) and I'm a big fan of the new Recruiter. There just isn't anything really pushing me towards that build over Imperial, even in a rough form.
Even then, I'm down with more people being able to play the deck in some form. Guardian should still be entertaining and Aluren seems to come up as a deck that people would try if they had the Recruiters on a pretty regular basis. I also want to play around with a more straightforward Bant midrange or Maverick list with all of the three drop love in the last couple months, but that's for another thread.
Yeah, I'm just seeing that where the Imperial version's game plans seemed to synergize with eachother, the Guardian version seems to have them at odds where they are parasitic towards eachother.
And yeah, I'm thrilled that more people can mess around with Aluren. I have no doubt that there is a viable white varient, and I get that our position as already-enfranchised Imperial players is quite a bit different from those eyeing the deck for the first time, since our choice of one build verses the other doesn't come with a $700-$800 difference on a single card choice.
My recommendation is to go with Shardless BUG. It plays to your favourite style of gameplay and gives you the ability to play with more of the "only in legacy" cards that you don't get to experience in Modern (Brainstorm, Hymn to Tourach, Shardless Agent, DRS, FoW, JTMS). While I don't think that the latter reason is specifically a defining reason to go with the deck, I do think that you'll enjoy experiencing another dimension added to something that you already enjoy and know well.
That deck was similarly to blame for my own trajectory. It got me into Legacy and I still keep it built for the odd tournament here and there.
@MikePemulis: Yeah, I'm no longer active in it, but I harbour great affection for the cube community here. They're probably the most helpful and constructive community with whom I have interacted on the internet.
Also, is your meta weighted in any particular direction? (Low incidence of chalice decks and beatdown decks, high amount of combo, perhaps?)
I think you want to add in either Dread of Night or E. Plague. They really increase your efficacy verses D&T (not just for killing their X/1s, but perhaps more importantly letting your staticaster and minister go for the full board). Between the two, I lean towards e. plague, but I would be happy with either.
Carpet of Flowers is great if you expect more fair blue decks, but it sounded like Delver may have been hated out by Lands in your meta? If you fear delver and infect, run it. If not, take a pass.
I have really been liking Bone Shredder recently as a versatile card that fights eldrazi well while being relevant in other match-ups.
So I'd add Shredder and one of the black enchantments and then consider magus your flex spot if you desire further tweaking.
Case in favour:
-Two divergent gameplans means that you're unlikely to hit match-ups where you're just kolded by an opponent's deck or SB.
-Diverse play means that you're unlikely to hit the skill-ceiling. You're also less likely to get bored.
-HUGE range of options for tweaking -- greatly rewards format knowledge.
-Greatly capitalizes on your Cabal Therapy skills, but takes them a step further, since you're more likely to make contextualized calls instead of blanket calls (Not as many situations of "I just need to take their counter")
-Very rules knowledge-intensive for how the stack works
-Requires you to juggle lots of things at once and in non-standard conceptualizations
-Has been doing well in the metagame but is still fringe
Difficulties:
-It's unclear if this falls under lots small decisions
-The fair gameplan does trend towards long games
For further information, I've put an example decklist in spoilers below (actually my own), and you can also read a recent tournament report here.
3 Coiling Oracle
2 Baleful Strix
2 Shardless Agent
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Force of Will
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Plague
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Null Rod
1 Tsabo's Web
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Minister of Pain
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Fire Imp
1 Bone Shredder
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Faerie Macabre
3 Coiling Oracle
2 Baleful Strix
2 Shardless Agent
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
4 Aluren
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
2 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Force of Will
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Plague
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Null Rod
1 Tsabo's Web
1 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Minister of Pain
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Fire Imp
1 Bone Shredder
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Faerie Macabre
R1: UB Reanimator (2-0)
My opponent is scrambling to assemble his deck as he sits down and I get flashed a couple binder pages of Reanimator cards along with a Tidespout Tyrant sitting on top of his sideboard. I try to mull into DRS or FoW in G1, give up at 5 cards after he keeps on 6 and still combo him out at turn 4 or 5 after therapying him off of a Reanimate. Goddamn this deck mulls well. Game 2 I mull into another stinker on 6, keep anyway, and scry the second land to the top. I get a recruiter Forced as I try to set up, but therapy is sweet and DRS shows up by t3. He's still a bit frazzled by the rush to assemble his deck and so misses the DRS when he goes for an exhume on Blazing Archon. I have a FoW in hand, but instead eat the archon with DRS and let exhume resolve, netting me a free recruiter (which promptly fetches Edric). Edric does what edric does and the lethargic beats go all the way as I stock my hand with infinite interaction.
R2: 4C Loam (2-1)
I'm on a weak hand in G1 and get locked into a spot where I need to topdeck two things while a Liliana is messing with me. Bad times ensue and Bob Maher goes all the way in the red zone. G2 sees me beat his own weak hand with the beautiful 1/1 beatdown brigade. G3 my opponent makes two fumbles that open up a window for me to combo. He accidentally boarded out the Dryad Arbor and has to sheepishly fail to find on his Turn 1 Green Sun's Zenith. This lets me ramp faster than him. The second key point is that he played a land prior to casting loam on a crucial turn, locking him out of wastelanding me with the proceeds of the Loam. I kill him with the combo on my next turn.
(Note on the above match: I'm actually a bit sketchy as to the order of G1 and G2. They might have been reversed)
R3: BUG Delver (2-1)
I lose a tight game 1 to classic beatdown plus Liliana. I win two tight SB games. Engineered plague (naming Wizard) does great work locking him out of Dark Confidants and Delvers as my therapies do dirty things.
R4: Shardless BUG (2-0)
My opponent mulls hard and leads on two verdant catacombss. I have a nutty lead with coiling oracle flipping the land for cabal therapy on turn 2 while my hand is stacked. My opponent scoops in response. I have no idea if my opponent is fair, reanimator, or storm. I decide to hedge in all directions. I bring in Scavenging Ooze, Bone Shredder, Faerie Macabre, and Reclamation Sage. My opponent turns out to be on shardless and proceeds repeatedly duress me and to surgical my decays. He goes for a surgical on an aluren, but I macabre-pitch to counter. I stabilize at near-death by using scavenging ooze to gain life, counter DRS, and shrink his goyfs. Eventually my 10/10 ooze goes into Abyss mode forcing him to chump with Leovold, goyfs, and DRSes. The ooze goes the distance before he finds an abrupt decay.
R5: Miracles (2-1)
FINALLY. I've not played this match in more than 3 tournaments. I kill him in G1 with a very aggressive Aluren after doing mean things with many cabal therapies. I'm on track to win G2, but he manages to get a end-step entreat with exact mana for FoW on my witness'd Pernicious Deed on the next turn. G3 we go into beat-down mode and he needs to have terminus 3 times in 3 consecutive turns. He didn't have it.
R6: Imperial Painter (ID)
This is the only other undefeated in the room. I'd rather not face Painter and it looks like a double draw is locked for T8.
R7: Storm, presumably ANT (ID)
We can now see that X-1-1 is locked for T8. I can play to dreamcrush and still be locked, but I choose to go eat. It's a pity too, I would have loved to face storm.
TOP EIGHT
There's an offer to split, but for once I'm the guy to turn it down. I would rather try for Top 4 and split there. Besides, if we split here, the shop will close and there's no more legacy for the day. I'm tied with Imperial Painter for top seed, but breakers put me in second.
Quarters: Burn
My deck's amazing resiliency to mulligans always seems to falter in the top 8. I blame deck check voodoo. My opponent has some eccentric budget swaps (Cinder Glade as a "taiga" to splash Destructive Revelry), but is still mostly stock. I lose a tight G1 to his topdecked exact damage 4-damage PoP as I'm just about to stabilize. I get a clean combo in G2 after dealing with an Eidolon and Pyrostatic Pillar on a very mana-starved hand. G3 I just weep silently as I eat 2 goblin guides and a swiftspear on T2 with no action forthcoming even after having drawn 3 lands off Guide in 2 turns. Death greets me quickly.
All in all, it was a great run. The deck felt great and I'm really liking Bone Shredder in place of Ophiomancer. It was also cool to hear banter around the tournament as I overheard multiple people identify Aluren as their pick for the best deck in the format.
For the utility of the other poster, here's the breakdown I give on the Imperial build's kill. The white version is essentially the same (sub recruiter for recruiter, and arctic merfolk in for dream stalker).
The "typical" combo goes like this:
Start: Aluren in play, Imperial Recruiter in hand.
Cast Imperial Recruiter, fetch Imperial Recruiter.
Repeat two or three times. You now have 3-4 Imperial Recruiter in play.
The final Imperial Recruiter trigger should fetch Dream Stalker.
If you have any Cabal Therapies in the grave and you're not forced to be going off at instant speed, you may want to doubly confirm here that you're not walking into Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast or something similar here. (this is specific to the context of Legacy)
Cast Dream Stalker, bounce Imperial Recruiter. Note that the multiple Imperial Recruiters in play mean that you are protected against most all common removal that isn't Pyrokinesis or Terminus because Dream Stalker doesn't target. (this is less important in the white version because Arctic Merfolk's bounce is a cost)
Cast Imperial Recruiter, fetch Dream Stalker.
Cast Dream Stalker, bounce Imperial Recruiter.
Cast Imperial Recruiter, fetch Cavern Harpy.
Cast Cavern Harpy, bounce Dream Stalker.
Cast Dream Stalker, bounce Imperial Recruiter.
Cast Imperial Recruiter, fetch Parasitic Strix.
Depending on your life total here, you may use Cavern Harpy to bounce your two Dream Stalkers to hand to provide extra protection.
Stack one or more Cavern Harpy bounce triggers (you can stack multiple by paying one life to bounce it in response to its trigger and then cast it again with the trigger still on the stack). Leave Cavern Harpy in play with those trigger(s) on the stack.
Cast Parasitic Strix. Let the drain trigger resolve. Let a Cavern Harpy trigger resolve to bounce Parasitic Strix.
Repeat as necessary. Note that you're able to pay one life to bounce Cavern Harpy and recast it to save anything on the board at any time. This is even more true if you're able to stock your Dream Stalkers in hand, since they represent additional bounce back-up.
Notice how the deck naturally assembles Cavern Harpy + Parasitic Strix and that cavern harpy serves as the black card for strix. Additionally, Cavern Harpy with either Coiling Oracle or Baleful Strix (and to a lesser extent, Shardless Agent) allows the deck to go into Yawgmoth's Bargain mode and just directly convert life to card draw.
[/quote]Enchantment removal is less of a problem because you can normally resolve aluren and then wait to pounce on the open window when they make their move.
In 1v1 scenarios, the deck wins a LOT of its games by fair beatdown. In multiplayer, you may be right that comboing is more necessary. I have no idea what you're even talking about with "Tier" in casual
If you mean legacy, by all means come by the forum and we can discuss it in the proper context (rather than derailing this thread)
As for your question on meddling mage: I would expect her to have some familiarity with most decks at the table or be able to predict what hate cards they likely run. In such a case, meddling mage allows playing through hate. With Aluren in play, either they respond and you respond to them with the kill, or they don't respond and you kill them. Meddling Mage also can preemptively come down without issue.
If your casual group doesn't run things like wasteland, I would consider one Overgrown Tomb and then a set of Deathrite Shaman.
Also, if you're on a shardless package with minimal black splash, I'd consider Meddling Mage as a replacement for the more traditional Cabal Therapy.
Lastly, you should consider Edric, Spymaster of Trest as a silver bullet to tutor for.
In the spoilers below are two lists from the Legacy thread that might give you additional ideas for card inclusions or build directions. The white list was spitballing. The red list is fairly well tuned for that format.
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Coiling Oracle
2 Baleful Strix
2 Shardless Agent
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Dream Stalker
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Eternal Witness
Enchantment: 4
4 Aluren
Spells: 14
4 Brainstorm
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Force of Will
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Volcanic Island
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Force of Will
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Plague
1 Carpet of Flowers
1 Null Rod
1 Tsabo's Web
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Minister of Pain
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Fire Imp
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Bone Shredder
1 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Coiling Oracle
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Recruiter of the Guard
4 Shardless Agent
2 Arctic Merfolk
1 Cavern Harpy
1 Parasitic Strix
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Batterskull
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
2 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Orzhov Pontiff
1 Wasteland Strangler
1 Karakas
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Tamiyo, Field Researcher
2 True Name Nemesis
1 Tsabo's Web
1 Pithing Needle
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Engineered Plague
0 Meddling Mage
0 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
0 Phyrexian Revoker
0 Containment Priest
I don't really know how to attack the deck from a fair angle -- more so than normal miracles, the punishing build might just be inherently good against this kind of strategy. One way that you might be able to work it if you're trying to metagame against it would be Thrun, the last troll, Troll Ascetic, or Dungrove Elder. Anything without hexproof is going to be pretty vulnerable unless you hit ~5 toughness (and even then, you need to dodge Nahiri and JTMS). Geist of Saint Traft is probably too greedy since it walks into the pile of pyroblasts that that deck runs. Thrun would essentially allow you to fight over terminus and ignore all else -- which seems like a good position to be in. Other than that, I could see Stirring Wildwood or Lumbering Falls doing work against me
I ran a slightly off version today in a local 4-rounder. I wasn't able to arrange to borrow the two volcanic island that I was short, so I ran with 2 steam vents. Otherwise it was exactly the list I have in the OP. As always, this is to the best of my recollection, so there may be details that are slightly off.
R1: GBw HexDepths (LOSS 1-2)
My opponent and I have a kinda strange match. I lose a tight game 1, assemble a lock under humility in G2 with JTMS and punishing fire bringing the game to a close, then brick on interaction in G3 as he risks a kill on something like turn 6 in the face of unknown interaction.
R2: Bant Exalted (WIN 2-0)
He's got meddling mages, sanctum prelates, cold-eyed selkies, stoneforge mystics, mainboard meddling mage,2 etc.
I'm able to play around the prelates pretty well -- he just can't hit enough relevant CMCs, and even with prelate on 2, I'm still able to pitch and regrow punishing fires for dack/nahiri card advantage. He brings in a bunch of stuff to answer me, but nothing really is able to line up just right. As an example: he sticks a Spellskite to blank punishing fire, and that works, for a turn. But then Dack fayden steals it and I spend the rest of the game trying to defend my new spellskite.
R3: Aluren (WIN 2-1)
This is a local player borrowing my deck. He combos off in Game 1 through interaction and with force back-up (I love how absurd that deck is). I fight through and stabilize in G2 and 3. G3 culminated with me ultimating Nahiri to fetch emrakul with humility out, then casting a second nahiri to exile my own humility and killing him as time was called.
R4: Legend Miracles (WIN 2-0)
Game one I develop planeswalker superiority as he asserts countertop dominance. This asymmetrical warfare comes to a close when my T3 dack fayden finally ultimates on like turn 10 or 11 (he had chipped away with I think two snapcaster hits). I hardcast force of will towards the end there prior to the ultimate. After the ultimate, I immediately pyroblast his counterbalance and run away with the game. This game was interesting, because my opponent flooded super hard on white cards, but I think that our draw quality wasn't actually so different -- instead I think the crucial factor was just how absurd dack fayden was at churning through the deck and how good punishing fire was at testing counterbalance (I stuck a jtms on a turn that he tapped out too, but JTMS was a poor "also ran" in comparison to Dack Fayden's raw power). Somewhere in there was super cool turn where he bluffed me into running double pyroblast into counterbalance (I responded to him tapping top with the second pyro, but he had a top on top all along D: ), but dack fayden was just too good.
Game 2 saw us kinda jockey for position with me shocking myself on turn one to hold up pyroblast. He appears to hold back, and bluffs playing around it by not playing counterbalance on t2 (in reality though, he was just mana screwed). I pyroblast something unimportant (might have been a force on counterbalance?); he sticks a turn4 back to basics and I pyroblast that to destroy it a turn later. After the Back to Basics, he's on the back foot for the rest of the game and I close it out with triple planeswalker on board.
After the first round, at least two (but I think all three) of my matches were pair-ups, including R4 when my opponent was the only undefeated in the room. This resulted in me stealing first place on the second breakers.
All in all, the deck felt pretty good. I don't have any changes that I would recommend from this tournament. The MB felt amazing, and the SB generally supplied what I needed.
It's the deck's best match-up
And yeah, I'm thrilled that more people can mess around with Aluren. I have no doubt that there is a viable white varient, and I get that our position as already-enfranchised Imperial players is quite a bit different from those eyeing the deck for the first time, since our choice of one build verses the other doesn't come with a $700-$800 difference on a single card choice.