Finally Breaking My Premodern Pet Deck: ALUREN!!!

[@IPlayMagic]

I love aluren and youre totally spot on about it always getting dead cards stuck in hand, I really like your build and could definitely see it becoming the go to version.

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thank you! This deck is way too cool to not see any play, it just needed a little bit of thinking outside the box and a quick revamp to see go where it deserves to be!

[@IPlayMagic]

@@fpawluszmtg I love the infinite loops with cutpurse and spike feeder. Ive never thought of that before but they seem great

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@IPlayMagic It's a lot of clicks on MTGO, but I think this kill is exponentially better than the other ones Aluren decks have focused on playing before.

[@IPlayMagic]

@@fpawluszmtg definitely especially as it lets you play fewer copies of the meh combo creatures that don’t do much on their own

[@mtgbast]

You're not only a great deck builder but also a great player. Love to see it!

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thank you so much for the kind words!

[@ricardobarros4051]

This is a very creative build. Just lost to it irl, so it’s already making waves

[@ArtyGarciaArceo]

Yes, dude! That was so sick!

[@fpawluszmtg]

I am pleasantly surprised, not gonna lie!

[@Thorandor44]

U can play a hurricane ...when u have enough live u can do that much mana to kill ure opponent with a huge hurricane!!

[@fpawluszmtg]

Also Brain Freeze is a win condition that some people like to use, but I feel like the Spike Feeder wincon is by far the best cause it's the most compact package and the most effective.

[@deteresaFlamenco]

Awesome stuff, great job man! 11 year old me was so confused by Aluren when I opened it in the Tempest precon deck :P

[@fpawluszmtg]

HAHAHAHAHA You have to be kidding me that Aluren was in a precon xD I didn't know this, goddamn they were bad at building precons back in the day 😅

[@deteresaFlamenco]

@@fpawluszmtg hahaha yeah, it actually had a sick combo with Aluren + Recycle (the two rares) and a bunch of small creatures :D

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@deteresaFlamenco Somehow cool and awful at the same time. Bravo Tempest development team :P

[@MG-yp1zw]

I bought that precon deck! Aluren with recycle was so fun. I was drawing so many cards

[@nachoacdc1]

Just build your list on paper magic. Very cool and fun deck! Can’t wait to try it out

[@fpawluszmtg]

Have fun! Deck's a blast!

[@CallMekwech]

Ok there’s a lot to like here. Survival and Library both had really cool deck synergy by filtering you from getting your unneeded combo pieces stuck in your hand. I also like the enchantment overload for your opponents enchantment removal compared to stock lists. The only thing that I don’t like is if you end up with your combo pieces in the yard you may get softlocked? I’d have to play with it to see if that’s an issue. Great take!

[@fpawluszmtg]

Didn't run into that issue in this video, but that was the reason behind running Genesis and/or Unearth in previous iterations I tried, and the reason why I am playing 2 of every combo piece in this specific list, as I explained in the deck tech at the beginning. I found myself in a spot in the last match where I had used my first Spike Feeder, so I couldn't use the 2nd one I had in hand, which was awkward, but it can more often than not be solved by careful planning ahead.

[@CallMekwech]

@@fpawluszmtg yeah that last match was the only spot I saw a hint of an issue, was definitely looking out for it. Maybe something Pit Rack might be an issue matchup? Whatever the case, really cool to see a new take on the deck ALONG with good results lol

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@CallMekwech No idea about Pit Rack, though every time I have played against that deck with Survival and/or Library in my deck I have managed to win. I don't respect that deck too much, tbh, I don't think it's very good.

[@ChadZeluff]

Love this shell, looks like I will put Survivals ahead of Diamonds in my Premodern cards to pickup :)

[@fpawluszmtg]

Survival is my favorite card in Premodern by a lot, you can do so much with it and build such radically different decks! It's endless fun! If you are into Gold Bordered cards you can also save a lot of money in them!

[@marczwander893]

Beautiful deck and beautiful games man, good stuff!

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thank you!

[@CarloGoiff666]

Props to rishadan cuturse for allowing a safe sideboard space for every match.

[@fpawluszmtg]

Hahahaha, cutpurse is there for combo and heavy control decks, the ones that we can combo and gain infinite life and they can just shrug and either combo back at us or simply wipe our board and deck us. We didn't play against any of those, we simply faced a bunch of decks that cannot beat infinite life.

[@portland573]

Great improvements on classic build

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thanks!

[@AutumnReel4444]

Hey, this guy's pretty good at building decks.

[@fpawluszmtg]

Hahaha, thank you

[@I_LOVE_AZORIUS]

I am impressed by the beat down plan to beat hate. I wonder if we should lean into that as a postboard strategy! Can you cast Exalted Angel as a morph off Aluren?

[@fpawluszmtg]

Yes, that was the main idea of building the deck in this fashion, and I am very happy that it worked out well! Unfortunately you cannot do that with Exalted Angel, but nevertheless I don't think it's a bad sideboard card to run, tbh! Either that or Call of the Herd.

[@I_LOVE_AZORIUS]

@@fpawluszmtg I think you want a creature for that kinda slot bc of survival. I suppose this is kinda Genesis' role but I want something bigger tbh. Terravore? Regardless, sweet deck and congrats on the result!

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@I_LOVE_AZORIUS If I were to play a 1 of "midrangy" creature I think that you can't do better than Angel here, but yeah, that was the idea for Genesis. I haven't figured out the sb mapping and all that stuff, so we may want a card for that situation, but I'm not sure yet.

[@seanstone-ashe8667]

Awesome video! I think Legacy Aluren needs a similar reworking by opting to play better overall cards. Thanks for the content!

[@fpawluszmtg]

If only Survival were legal in Legacy (which it probably should...)

[@dhauberg]

Awsome video! Question: is the Wirewood Savage not somehow redundant with the Raven Familiar doing the same work of finding Spike Feeder? I know it draws for free, but why not play a 3rd Feeder instead to maximize finding it? Love your videos. Best premodern content! 🙏🏻

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thank you! Savage costs no life, so you can combo while you're at 1 when you survival for it, which is otherwise very unlikely. I am closer to cut Cutpurse than Savage, I think.

[@dhauberg]

@@fpawluszmtg Well if you have Survival in play you might as well go get Feeder? But I guess there are situations where you need to draw other pieces as well.

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@dhauberg Savage means you only need Aluren and Harpy to go infinite. Familiar + Feeder only allows you to draw from the top 12 cards. Still, I would be down to trying it out since Feeder is a much better card than Savage to draw naturally.

[@dhauberg]

@@fpawluszmtg have you testet Anger or thought of it? Maybe over Cutpurse?

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@dhauberg Anger requires a mountain to do what you want it to do, and that's a deal breaker.

[@suntzu6122]

Premodern, the format where EVERY deck is sweet / a pet deck / probably a deck youve played before. Prob the best format straight up.

[@fpawluszmtg]

Straight up the best constructed format, and it isn't close!

[@suntzu6122]

@@fpawluszmtg u dont wanna play vs grief into 1 drop that bring back grief again?? Why not? Lololololol idk what they are thinking sometimes. Funny part is they could ban 1 mana grief enablers but it would be a silly looking ban.

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@suntzu6122 I have given up on current Magic and accepted that it's not for me and don't want to engage with it regularly. A league every 3 months or something like that is probably all I'm interested in doing, just for a change of pace, if even that...

[@suntzu6122]

@@fpawluszmtg Hasbro sucking the life out of this game SMH. Half baked greed ruins everything I swear. I have no desire to spend $$$ on MTG anymore. IDK why I got into arena. I guess its nice hasbro let my brother and i share an account in diff locations but honestly it would be flat out insane if they didnt. Lol. So at least he can use it but I havent spent money on MTG in over a year probs. Im at the point Im prob going to just start buying black-backed proxies from china and just have decks to play with for home magic. And pick out whatever card pics I want. Hasbro ruined it for me. Honestly magic IMO peaked when it was Odyssey block. Downhill ever since. Growing up with 4 fact or fiction, 4 counterspell, things like fire / ice, vindicate.. pernicious deed. UB tog decks, UG madness.. so much fun. Now its just JAM DUDES. JAM MORE DUDES JAM DUDES. IMO MTG is best when spells are slightly better than creatures. Creatures provide too much straight forward synergy from a design standpoint. They have a clock. Any creature + any creature is already essentially perfect synergy. If you dont want to play creatures.deck its just going to be a bad time.

[@tomasvlcek4476]

Fantastic! Well played.

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thanks! It is such a fun deck!

[@tomasvlcek4476]

@@fpawluszmtg I played it myself but the mana was atrocious. Shame I only have one Survival. It shouldn't be this unavailable.

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@tomasvlcek4476 You can get Gold Bordered Survivals on the cheap, or simply grab a Sharpie and a basic land and voila! You can test the deck with your friends to see if you actually find it worth it to spend money on real Survis.

[@tomasvlcek4476]

@@fpawluszmtg I want to watch some more! ;)

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@tomasvlcek4476 Me too, haha!

[@issmoul931]

Congrats! I know that you love Sylvan library. What is the reason here to don't play 4 of them? Same for wall of blossom. I saw a list of a premodern tournament in France with 4 wall 4 Sylvan 4 survival

[@fpawluszmtg]

Survival decks need a critical mass of creatures in order to get the engine running, and if you have too many non-creatures is easy to get to a point where you have the Ferrari, but you don't have the key to actually start the car (something that actually happened in this very video, can't remember which match it was). That's the only reason, honestly. I think Library is spectacular and would want to play more, just don't have room for it.

[@issmoul931]

@@fpawluszmtg how many creatures you think? It's funny that in the rock you are saying that we don't need birds because it's useless in mid or lategame, but here it's mandatory... the list of the guy below (only 15 creatures but the deck looks fine) 23 LANDS 3 Caves of Koilos 1 City of Brass 4 Forest 1 Llanowar Wastes 1 Mountain 1 Plains 3 Sulfurous Springs 1 Undiscovered Paradise 4 Windswept Heath 4 Wooded Foothills 15 CREATURES 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Bone Shredder 1 Genesis 1 Monk Realist 4 Ravenous Baloth 1 Squee, Goblin Nabob 4 Wall of Blossoms 2 Weathered Wayfarer 10 INSTANTS and SORC. 4 Lightning Bolt 1 Naturalize 1 Skeletal Scrying 4 Swords to Plowshares 12 OTHER SPELLS 4 Pernicious Deed 4 Survival of the Fittest 4 Sylvan Library SIDEBOARD 4 Cabal Therapy 3 Naturalize 3 Phyrexian Furnace 2 Pyroblast 2 Red Elemental Blast 1 Thornscape Battlemage

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@issmoul931 I said SURVIVAL decks need a critical mass of creatures, not every deck. You are comparing apples and oranges here, obviously what matters in one deck won't necessarily matter on the other, and yes, Birds suck in The Rock because the deck is not playing Survival and is trying to achieve a completely different thing than this deck I played. And I have no idea about the deck you posted, but it looks quite all over the place to me, so I wouldn't use it as a point of comparison.

[@Androxys]

​​@@issmoul931that list is a completely different strategy to the one shown in the video. And to be honest, it looks like just a pile of cards. How did it perform in that tournament?

[@issmoul931]

@@Androxys I haven't seen the report just the sideboard guide. 5 rounds 3 win/1draw/1 loss

[@micheleb.00]

Let's talk about time/concede. We have a non written agreement about concession when the combo show off? Because sometimes i avoid to play some decks that could lose to time when they already won in play. Also deck like GW Life. What do you think?

[@fpawluszmtg]

There's no agreement, my opponents were scholars and gentlemen and simply chose to concede after I demonstrated the infinite loop, but they didn't have to. It's up to each opponent (in my previous Aluren video I had somebody who didn't concede and simply let me time out, which was shitty but it is what it is). Play at your own risk. I knew what I was getting into but I was so excited about playing this deck that I decided to go for it anyway, and it paid off!

[@micheleb.00]

@@fpawluszmtg i'll post one little suggestion cause i love Aluren but is a deck that nobody plays anymore so ... when u combo as first play Cavern Harpy, then pay 1 life with ability on the stack and bounce her back. Then play familiar. This way u still have 1 bounce on the stack AND the Harpy in hand, so you could respond one more time to bolts, removal etc :)

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@micheleb.00 Didn't I explain this interaction in the video? I honestly forgot at this point and I may be wrong, haha, but yeah, assuming your opp doesn't just scoop (what happened here basically every time) this is the correct way to go about comboing!

[@micheleb.00]

@@fpawluszmtg i was sure you were a man of culture 😎 maybe i missed something during the video

[@micheleb.00]

First like, then watch!

[@fpawluszmtg]

I like that!

[@micheleb.00]

Now i'm here to watch all the video ❤

[@carlosorellana_1986]

Have you tested FEB Fran ? In FEB you only need 1 card, Survival, to usually win in the following turn, while in this one you also need Aluren. I understand that Survival is not mandatory to win but helps a lot in the Aluren shell and the deck is more toolboxy and resourceful compared to FEB. Maybe 1x Academy rector to find the Aluren with Survival online? Deck seems powerful and fun to play, well done!

[@fpawluszmtg]

I tried FEB, and in fact my previous list to this one (which was BUG) was based on how good I thought Unearth was in the FEB shell so I tried to replicate it within Aluren. I love FEB, but for some reason Aluren is just a deck that REALLY speaks to me and hits me just in the nostalgia. Rector is really bad when you cannot sacrifice it, unfortunately.

[@jaromirvyb]

I was about to ask a similar question. What would you pitch as an advantage compared to Feb or other survival based combo? Great run, btw. And congrats.

[@carlosorellana_1986]

@@fpawluszmtg yes, also manabase gets better without black and you have Swords, Meddling mage and other goodies, totally understand that. Deck is sweet for sure, the infinite combos you have there running are very nice, plus are creatures that do stuff outside just comboing off. In order to make use of Rector you would need black again, so that's a no-go. Keep thrm coming, nice brews!!

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@jaromirvyb Not using the graveyard is a big advantage, and your creatures actually doing something is another one: in FEB your deck is littered with Akromas and Palinchrons and things like that which you have literally no hope of ever casting and will rot in your hand until you find a Survival to combo off. Here we saw multiple games where my Man'o'Wars, Spike Feeders and Raven Familiars all did work towards either helping me find the combo by buying time/drawing cards or straight up win the game through good ol' beating down.

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@carlosorellana_1986 For sure, many months of thinking, testing and trial and error happened before I arrived at the list you see in this video, which is by far the best this deck has ever performed for me (and I imagine for most folks, since I haven't really seen Aluren do well at all with the exception of Caleb top 8ing a Misty event over a year ago).

[@suntzu6122]

IDK about trevas ruins when you are trying to race to 4 mana. Id be worried it would set me back or be clunky.

[@fpawluszmtg]

That's why there's exactly 1 copy and no more. It was awkward more than once in my testing, but as I said, basically I lost every game where I drew 2 City of Brass, so I needed to split the difference some way (and the way this deck is built Gemstone Mine is actually much worse than Treva's)

[@suntzu6122]

@@fpawluszmtg maybe just jam a buncha pain lands. Or is there a aluren creature that help mana fix? You got the bird.. Alternate is to just try to be faster and run 4 city and just be faster hopefully.

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@suntzu6122 I explained this in the video, but all of these things you are suggesting I already tried, and you'd end up simply taking too much damage and just dying. As you saw in the video, with proper planning and sequencing you can work around Paradise's and Treva's downside. Yes, you will every now and then die to them putting you behind a land drop, but you will lose to taking a bunch of damage from your mana way more often (I know I did, at least)

[@suntzu6122]

@@fpawluszmtg Ah I see. Yea I dont really play this deck. One of the decks in premodern Ive not really tried. What about a ETB lifegain creature you could loop somehow? IDK just brainstorming.

[@fpawluszmtg]

@@suntzu6122 I already have an infinite life loop, and with a creature that has other uses (like also giving me the infinite power loop as well), so I think I'd play more Feeders before an etb lifegain creature.

[@SedgeHermit]

Holy crap

[@fpawluszmtg]

My thoughts exactly

[@gabrielesquaratti5709]

i wonder what an arcane laboratory or pyrostatic pillar would do xD

[@fpawluszmtg]

Or Cursed Totem, or Sphere of Resistance, or Sulfuric Vortex, or.... There are a bunch of ways of stopping the combo, but the deck also has a bunch of ways of finding answers to the answers to the combo as well.

[@jiaan100]

Green enchantment tribal

[@fpawluszmtg]

Hahaha I approve of this deck name

[@chaucansk8]

bro, make a wizards deck pleaseee

[@fpawluszmtg]

There are unfortunately not enough playable Wizards in the Premodern card pool... Same reason why I haven't tried something like Merfolk yet either, there isn't that much support. One of my projects is Slivers, though, and I have a couple of lists that I have ran in the past and may revisit in the future.

[@WatchThatFast]

First !

[@fpawluszmtg]

Thank you!

[@mircodurrbaum9064]

imagine anyone thinking he cracked a closed format .....napoleon genetic XD

[@fpawluszmtg]

I didn't say I cracked the format, I simply say I cracked the Aluren code cause every list before this one was pretty bad. On another note, the format is closed but not solved, and a new top deck has emerged multiple times since I started playing a year and a half ago, and 2 decks that at different points were considered "the best deck in the format" (Landstill and Elves) are today relegated to being tier 2.

[@reeosva]

In order to play aluren you must use therapy and intuition shell IMO. Living wish is welcome as well

[@joshuaedelstein8017]

Did you watch the video? He addresses why he isn't running those cards in the first couple of minutes.

[@fpawluszmtg]

I personally think that's precisely why we have never seen Aluren do well before: everybody has this belief that the deck must be built in such a way, when in reality that is precisely the reason why it cannot get past being a medium tier 3 or less deck (and that's being generous).