Playing Aluren At Holland by Rinke Koopman
Format: Extended

 

A short introduction, my name is Rinke Koopman and Im from Holland . I lived in Jakarta a few months last year. Sadly, I don't speak much Indonesian, so this report will be in English. In Holland I'm playing the extended format quite regularly and some of my friends in Indonesia asked me to write a small report on it. As the format of extended is very fast and holds many cards, extended decks are fast and complicated. Therefore, this wont be a beginner article. I'm sorry for that.

Last Sunday, I played Aluren. So, here goes

 

This is the decklist :

//NAME: sakura Aluren

1 Eternal Witness

1 Auriok Champion

4 Brainstorm

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

4 Cabal Therapy

2 Vampiric Tutor

3 Intuition

4 Living Wish

4 Aluren

4 Birds of Paradise

1 Cloud of Faeries

3 Raven Familiar

3 Cavern Harpy

2 Swamp

2 Island

4 Yavimaya Coast

3 Polluted Delta

4 Havenwood Battleground

4 Forest

3 City of Brass

// Sideboard

Wish combo pieces

SB: 1 Maggot Carrier

SB: 1 Auriok Champion

SB: 1 Cavern Harpy

SB: 1 City of Brass

SB: 1 Raven Familiar

Wish solutions

SB: 1 Stern Proctor

SB: 1 Bone Shredder

SB: 1 blinkmoth well

other

SB: 1 Genesis

SB: 1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

SB: 2 Naturalize

SB: 3 Pernicious Deed

 

You can find the cards at http://gatherer.wizards.com/

For those unfamiliar with the deck, a small explanation: The goal is to play an aluren with a combination of creatures in your hand. Those combinations are the following

1) Cavern harpy and auriok champion.

As the harpy will return itself when played, u can gain an insane amount of life with the auriok champion

2) Cavern harpy and raven familiar

The raven familiar can be returned to your hand by the come into play ability of the harpy. The pay 1 life with the harpy and return the harpy to ur hand. U can repeat this as many times as you have life

3) Both combinations are pretty good together.

When u get an insane amount of life, you can draw your whole deck with the harpy and raven combination.

Now, you can win the game by doing the following:

get a cloud of faries. They can untap 2 lands, so you can cast a living wish. Wish for the maggot carrier. When that comes into play, each player will lose a life. As you still have a ridiculous high amount of life, for you it wont matter. Then, again using the harpy, return the maggot carrier. Repeat this for the total life of you opponent and you will win the game.

On the deck itself, most cards simply function to finding and getting out the aluren and its combo creatures as fast as possible. The sole exception on this goal is Cabal therapy. Cabal therapy is there to mess with the hands of opponents, in case they are holding a counterspell or some other cards that need to be dealt with

In the Sideboard you find some wish combo pieces, which simply can help you get the combo out. Some wish solutions to certain situations, such as an medling mage on aluren or a stern proctor with a rule of law. A techy solution to sceptre chant is the blinkmoth well.

Lastly, the other cards can deal with the Sideboard of your opponent. Many decks will Sideboard card that can be hard to deal with. Pernicious deed is a solve all kinda answer.

Genesis and meloku come in when your opponent plays heavy discard ( e.a. duress and cabal therapy) A single intuition can drop the meloku, genesis and eternal witness in your graveyard, from which you can try to keep the meloku in play and beat them up.

The deck is quite hard to play correctly, which in my opinion makes it even more fun to play. Making good therapy calls is quite important and you will need to plan a few turns ahead.

 

On to the tournament.

First round

Versus GU madness

Game 1.

This match is quite easy for you, as madness isn't really fast when they do not get the land, chrome mox, wild mongrel draw. Also, I won the dice, which helps a lot in extended. In the first game, my opponent mulligans. On turn 2, he plays a merfolk looter. That means I get a lot of time to find combo pieces. I do on turn 5. play a cabal therapy to make sure he can not circular logic. I play the aluren and get the harpy raven combination at 12 life. After a few repeated harpys, I find the auriok champion and gain a million life. My opponent concede

Sideboard.

Nothing. I just have to remember that he might sideboard naturalize in. That means you now have 2 targets for the therapies.

 

Game 2.

This time he plays a turn 2 mongrel. I solely have havenwood battleground and a swamp. He attacks and pumps his mongrel with an arrogant wurm, tapping out. As he has no island for a possible daze, I can safely play a vampiric tutor for the aluren, harpy and auriok champion combo. He cant beat a million life and concedes

1-0

Second round

Versus GB Rock

This match can get pretty hard, if they have cranial extraction and/or haunting echoes. If they Cranial extraction the alurens, you will have to win with the meloku plan B. And that is not always easy.

Game 1.

I keep a hand with 4 lands, living wish, sakura tribe elder and a brainstorm. Not the best hand, but when the brainstorm can find some combo parts you will be fine. Sadly, it found me nothing but more lands. The sakura shuffled the cards I put on top of my library away, but still I couldn't draw anything but land. Therefore, I wished for genesis, hoping to keep off the treetop that tried to beat me down. He was played and did his role as a wall…..pretty bad.

Still, my opponent could not find anything better than Pernicious deed and ravenous baloths. The baloths were blocked a few times, after which genesis would return himself to my hand and into play. By the time Im finding spells, I have as much as 10 lands out. Still, he hasn't found a vampiric tutor or a cranial extraction, meaning I can still win. I keep adding cards to my hand, until I find a intuition to search out the last combo pieces. As the aluren hits play, he can stop me from winning at that turn ( blowing his deed ), but he can not prevent me gaining a million life. With the help of the genesis in the graveyard, I recollect the combo pieces ( witness for aluren) and win a few turns later. This game takes about 40 minutes and there is no time left to start game 2.

2-0

Third round.

Versus RDW

This is also a tough matchup. If they get enough wastelands, rishadan ports and pillage, they can kill you before you ever reach the needed 4 mana.

Game 1.

I win another dice roll and start. As my opponent does not tap my havenwood on turn 3, I hit 4 mana on turn 3 and aluren harpy/raven for the win. The stack is quite important here, as you can prevent your opponent to burn away a raven. Play like this:

1) Play aluren

2) Play cavern harpy, put its come into play on the stack

3) Then return harpy, paying 1 life

4) Then play raven familiar, put its come into play on the stack

now, if your opponent decides to deal 2 damage to the raven, play the harpy again. Resolve its come into play to return the raven and fizzle the damage spell.

5) If they do not play attempt to kill the raven, resolve the come into play ability of the harpy (see 2) and the raven is safely in your hand to repeat the process.

Eventually, you will find the fairy and living wish to get the auriok champion or simply draw the champion to go to a million life.

Game 2.

This game was quite odd. I play a sakura tribe elder on turn 2. Usually, he blocks or is burned getting you a land. This opponent though did not and just passed the turn. I played a second elder on turn 3. My opponent never attacked again in the following turns, allowing me the time to simply draw lands and combo pieces. I won the game around turn 6, without ever sacking the an elder.

3-0

Fourth round

RDW again

Game 1:

In this match, things start going wrong. Again, I keep a hand with 2 elder, brainstorm and lands. Sadly, the brainstorm only finds land. I do draw a living wish after a few turns and try to sneak in a meloku. Sadly, he draws the 4 th land he needs to use a grim lavamancer and cursed scroll to kill it.

Game 2:

This game is possibly even less exciting. He draws 3 wastelands and destroys every land I play. I never got to 2 mana and have a chance to play the elder hiding in my hand.

3-1

Fifth Round

Goblins

This match up is not extremely hard in testing. We had not tested with a goblin vial version, which ended up making the difference

Game 1:

He gets out a turn 1 vial. And follows that up with some small goblins and 2 rishadan ports. As he keeps dropping goblins with the vials, he can use his ports to keep my lands tapped.

As the ports keep me from reaching 4 mana, I can never get to the point of playing the aluren and die to the army of little red men.

Game 2:

Sadly, game one repeats itself. Even when I get out a pernicious deed, to whipe out most of his little friends and vials, he can run me over thanks to a warchief and a mogg flunkies in his hand for the exact last 5 damage, In both games, I would have gotten the aluren out in the following turn.

3-2

This puts me out of contention for top 8,

Sixth Round

Minds desire

In testing, this match seemed hard. Mostly because it can win a little faster then you. The key are the therapy calls.

Game 1:

He starts fast. Plays a sapphire medallion on turn 1 with the help of a chrome mox. On the second turn he brainstorms, plays a land and a merchant scroll for intuition. This makes the therapy choice quite easy. I hit the intuition and he never draws anything else then lands or medaillons.

Game 2:

He plays a turn 2 medaillon. Again I aim a therapy at his hand, calling intuition. It hits again, how lucky ;-). A bird is sacrificed to get a cunning wish, putting him in top deck mode. HE never gets anything and I win a few turns later.

4-2

11 th out of 56 players

Aluren is a pretty good deck, although you really need some time to learn all its tricks.

Hope you guys enjoyed this report. If anyone has any Questions remarks or anything else, please let me know.

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