[Competitive] 10-0 with Arlinn (600 pts)

[Unhinged Manchild]

Originally Posted by Khamul

Funny that you ask, because I played three games against that Sorin-Army today, and... lost all three. However, my opponent and me agreed that all of those losses were due to sheer bad luck.

Game 1 Arlinn got cornered by the Eldrazi and I tried to burst it down with a Stroke-boosted Prophet and Firecat and a boosted Arlinn, all of these with height advantage. Missed the kill by one point, then at the Eldrazi's turn Corpse Lunge + Lifelink + First Strike, and my army was devastated, with Eldrazi at full health again x(

Game 2 I got an opening on Sorin, with the 2 hasters and Groundswell on Arlinn. Did 3 damage in the haste attacks, and then Arlinn completely whiffed. After that, the Eldrazi laid waste to my army.

Game 2 I finally managed to mow down Sorin with the Kessig Rangers (Twinflame + Snare the skies) But this should still not be a win: After the Eldrazi survived the hasters (again...), it rolled SIX SWORDS on Arlinn, with her of course getting no shields... Elrazi died soon after but Avacyn killed the rest of my army.

What I learned from these games? I love that Arlinn build. No Planeswalker is safe with all the burst damage she can dish out. I'm still a bit salty about my losses against Sorin & the Auto-Wounders... That Army definitely is a deal.
I've already figured that targeting the Eldrazi is useless as long as Sorin's alive. So sniping down Sorin should be top priority.
Any additional advice?

Anyways, I love that build and I'll definitely try to master it. It seems like a real blast to play
Thanks for sharing the list.

Interesting, I've both used an Arlinn build very similar to OP and even watched other players go at it, and in 5 games I've not seen this Arlinn build lose against Sorin + heroes. Perhaps we don't know how to use Sorin to combat Arlinn, idk. 100% agree that Arlinn should look to gun down Sorin if he comes anywhere near. My favorite Arlinn build, personally:

Arlinn Kord, Goldnight Outcast [340]
Kessig Rangers [90]
Blazing Firecats [100]
Mad Prophet [70]

600 pts

Deck:
Overrun [25]
Leaf Arrow [20]
Bountiful Harvest [15]
Titanic Growth [10]
Groundswell [10]
Snare the Skies [10]
Stubborn Resilience [30] (or Firebreathing [30])
Senseless Rage [20]
Power of Fire [20]
Stoke of Flames [15] (or Paths Revealed [15])
Twinflame [15]
Seize the Day [10]
200 pts

The primary wincon is Twinflame, stupid OP card. Twinflame + Titanic Growth + Kessig double attack, although it's generally fine to just go Twinflame + Kessig double attack as long as your Kessig is tossing 5+ dice (high ground, snare the skies, power of fire, stoke the flames, overrun, power glyph, power counters from Arlinn howl.) Another easy wincon is Firecats + Twinflame + Seize the Day + (2 additional power.) It mimics what the Kessigs do, although it's usually easier with Kessigs due to range. Basically, everything here is for stacking squad power and nuking the enemy Planeswalker with high move/high range creatures.

Most armies just lose to the onslaught of attack dice here. There are way too many high probability opportunities here for killing anyone that gets remotely close to your walker.

Sorin (assuming ruiner + avacyn build) pretty much has to remain far away until your squads are destroyed, and/or until he can confirm Twinflame and maybe even Titanic Growth have been used or destroyed via his black spells like Liliana's Caress or Barter in Blood (no technical access to Duress and Mental Agony, since those are enchant squads and this Sorin build has no squads,) but he's not going to pull that off with any reasonable consistency. IMO Sorin should probably toss Avacyn out early, due to her high mobility, which allows him to hang further back. Perhaps Avacyn can attempt to force Arlinn's hand in expending powerful spells (especially in hoping to bait out sorceries like Twinflame, Titanic Growth, and Overrun.) But, Firecats and Prophet exist for Arlinn, granting her a potentially powerful turn against a nearby Avacyn, even without playing a spell. If Avacyn is unable to make the necessary impact (kill at least one whole squad and/or bait Twinflame/Titanic Growth,) and I'd hazard a guess that she often does not, the game is probably nearly lost at that point.

Ruiner is likely too slow to do much, although if Sorin is running Harrowing Journey I think there is potential to specifically rush Ruiner at Arlinn and kill her, or at least force her to blow powerful wincons to kill him instead of using those on Sorin. Again, Ruiner really needs to apply some major pressure and/or make Arlinn use spells, so that Sorin can cleanup. After Ruiner dies, Twinflame needs to be gone, the haste creatures need to be out of Arlinn's reserve, and/or nearly all of Arlinn's squads dead, otherwise Sorin's chances of winning are probably slim. It's still not pretty because the 1v1 matchup of Arlinn-wolf versus Sorin is almost even; their stats are nearly identical. I'd give a slight nudge to Arlinn due to higher move (7 vs 6) and green's Bountiful Harvest spell healing 3 damage from PW compared to white's Near-death Experience healing 2 damage from PW.

Anyway, big analysis over, I personally think Super Jace (Beleren, not the ****ty Innistrad one) is the one that has the greatest consistency against Arlinn, thanks to things like unsummon, lantern geists, aetherspouts, psychic rebuttal, scatter arc, and misdirection, all often significantly delaying or outright terminating her attempts to kill him. His figure stats are also dummy high for some reason, which tends to help. Although I'd bet Arlinn still wins ~60% of those games.