[SCD] Aluren

[OCPunisher]

Hey all,

Wanted to get some discussion going on the card Aluren. I know it's old and expensive so it might not be very popular, but I was thinking about it in an Abzan deck with a lot of small, expendable creatures.

My questions:
1. How many qualified creatures would you need to run this?
2. What sort of combo potential is there?
3. How scary would this be on your opponent's board?

Thanks in advance for the discussion!

[pokken]

I just don't think it's a very good card as goodstuff. You're better off playing ramp spells if you're not trying to combo because that's basically what it is is a ramp spell that sadly also can let your opponent blow you out.

Someone played Aluren into my Ephara, God of the Polis deck one time and they got annihilated with the Recruiter of the Guard chain from hell.

If you're trying to combo, however, it is dope as hell.

To answer your starter questions.

1. I'd aim for 20 alurenable creatures unless you are playing a combo chain. Cards like Imperial Recruiter are bananas.

2. There ton of combos with it, the simplest being the legacy combo of Cavern Harpy + Parasitic Strix. I can't remember the rest offhand but I am sure there are some that start with either recruiter.

3. It depends, but most of my decks have a lot of cheap creatures and so you're taking your life in your hands casting it. I used to have it in a Momir Vig, Simic Visionary deck that would combo using momir and chain all the UG creatures out of the deck.

It's virtually guaranteed at any given table that Aluren can bite you right in the butt. I got gotten a bunch of times when I was playing it.

Overall I do not think it's a particularly great card but it can create some really funny scenarios, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

[Ruiner]

Whitemane Lion is another one of the easiest to go infinite with since it returns itself to your hand and gets played for free repeatedly with Aluren so any other ETB effects you have can go crazy. If you had red, Purphoros, God of the Forge or something similar that's a fairly easy kill. Any of the green "when a creature ETB's draw a card" effects like Guardian Project could draw your whole deck, hopefully making the win trivial at that point.

It's a bit trickier in a 100 card singleton format when compared to Legacy to assemble a proper combo kill I would think. You'd want a deck that doesn't utterly rely on it I would think since it would take one exile effect to cripple you (even a destroy enchantment effect is rough while you try to dig for recovery pieces). You also have to have a fairly reliable way to tutor for all of your pieces.

I haven't run Aluren myself, although I'm heavily considering trying it for non-combo purposes in my Abomination of Llanowar deck, but that's a strange deck that currently has 56 creatures so hopefully I'd take advantage of it more than opponents while holding off on playing it if I sense opponents could better utilize it.

I actually posted this post on this same card a few days ago in this section of the forum. Browsing that may give some further ideas since people were suggesting ways to break the symmetry.

[Sinis]

1. Probably some minimal number as a combo piece. Even a single one would make it worth it. As a value piece, 20-30+, it could shine in specific decks (see below).
2. Lots. Whitemane Lion, Shrieking Drake, etc. Anything that bounces itself plus a card with one other card that grants a cast or ETB trigger (Recycle, Pandemonium, Amonkhet Monuments, God-Eternal Oketra, etc.). Cloudstone Curio is also a piece here, though Whitemane Lion and friends are more self-contained.
3. That player or Aluren leaves the game first.

Basically it's a combo piece IMO, and I treat it as such (either disrupt the piece or eliminate the player).

I think as a tempo value piece, it's probably not all that exciting. So you cast free low-end creatures... unless you're doing something in line with the pieces I mentioned in 2, you're just up a bunch of free small creatures which might not add up to much. I could see it working in a Shadowborn Apostle, Persistent Petitioners or Relentless Rats deck. Each of these creatures enjoys being cast for free, and it could really give them a leg up considering you would want to play dozens of them.

[schweinefett]

I play aluren in a GW saffi edh deck and in legacy. I can tell you right now, that as long as your meta isn't super competitive/low to the curve, you can def get away with it.
That being said, it's def a combo piece. You don't wanna actually land aluren until you have your opening combo piece in hand, and you wanna wait (counter-intuitive, I know) for your opponent to make their first move, and then you go off in response (tying up whatever mana/leaving their combo on the stack). It's also useful to have multiple bounce creatures to abuse (one of the better ones being cavern harpy, and another good one being Arctic merfolk).

Abzan is WBG? I'm not entirely convinced it's the best colour combination. Sure you get enlightened tutor, but you don't then have the better bounce creatures, and not even stuff like baleful strix nor uro (the Titan) to get a value payoff.

[Outcryqq]

I used to play kitchen table combo with Aluren, Enduring Renewal, and creatures that sacrifice themselves, though a sac outlet would work as well. This combo is in your colors, though in singleton drawing two random enchantments out of your deck is hard, and if you're tutoring these, you're not running Aluren for value, but as a dedicated combo deck.

But assuming you wanted to do this, all you would need to add to those two enchantments and a sac outlet would be something like Blood Artist or one of its many versions to drain the table. Cast a small dude for free with Aluren, sac it to sac outlet (or better yet, use a creature that sacrifices itself for free), trigger Blood Artist effect, then return that creature to your hand from Enduring Renewal's effect. Repeat until you reach desired results (kill the table).

[hyalopterouslemur]

Every allied pair has at least one gating creature that qualifies, Horned Kavu being the simplest. You can just use Pandemonium, Hour of Devastation monuments (white, black, and green win the game, red and blue let you find something to win the game), Purphoros, God of the Forge, Cathars' Crusade, appropriate members of the New Phyerexia shrine cycle from there.

Cloudstone Curio opens up a lot of options as well.