[SCG 5K Dallas] 13th with Aggro Loam

[Aggro_zombies]

I wasn't sure I would write this up, since it's not Top 8 and therefore not very interesting, but my last round apparently caused an uproar in the chat, so I figured, why not?

After my disastrous appearance in LA playing the cute but gimmicky Roflthopter port I’d been working on loosely in conjunction with a few other Sourcers, I decided to play a real deck in Dallas before heading back to the graduate school grind. In my case, the real deck is Aggro Loam – no surprises to people who know me or follow my posting habits here. I’d received some information ahead of time that led me to believe the meta would be highly favorable to the deck, and it was…just not at the top tables. Despite that, I still managed to do well. Almost got there dot deck.

I’ll preface the meat of the report with a few remarks. First, there’s no sideboarding information here because I didn’t write it down and don’t have preformed sideboarding plans. When I design my sideboard, I try to identify common matchups and what cards would be most dead there, and then set a corresponding number of slots in my sideboard for that. However, in-game I usually just side out whatever cards don’t feel like they’re pulling their weight and bring in whatever seems good. Loose, sure, but it’s worked for me and I’ve never lived anywhere with enough of a community to get the testing hours needed to come up with strict sideboarding plans (if anyone would be interested in online testing, I would love you to death).

So anyway: my list is here. A few comments: I like the single Witness and prefer it to a single Terravore in a deck full of such powerful cards. I still don’t like Dreams against blue but felt before the tournament that there would be enough non-blue decks to justify running it at least for the land destruction effect, which was relevant a few times. The Worm Harvest was supposed to be for control but ended up as a benchwarmer since I never saw any such decks. The mana is rock-solid and I would highly recommend the four basics configuration to others interested in the deck.

My route to the tournament was a bit circuitous since I went from the San Francisco Bay Area (my family home) back to my apartment in Tucson, then to Dallas the next day where I was picked up by Don (AngryTroll). The flights were uneventful, but my suitcase was lost during my connecting flight in Los Angeles and didn’t get to me until mere minutes before I left for Dallas. Consequently, I had no time to repack to a smaller amount of clothes and ended up bringing tons of winter clothes and stuff from my family residence along with me.
Nothing interesting happened prior to the start of the tournament. It was literally freezing cold outside, but that was about it.

Round 1: Opponent with ANT
I lost my round one notes, but I do remember a few things. I lost game one quite handily but took the next two games. In game two, I got a turn one Tarmogoyf thanks to a Mox, then beat him to fifteen over the next two turns (playing a topdecked Mox without pitching a land to grow Goyf). My opponent decides to put a stop to it and taps out to play Ad Nauseum on his turn, floating nothing. He flips a Lotus Petal and odd assortment of one-mana spells, including both a Ponder and Mystical Tutor. Assuming he got the artifacts and Rituals, he could kill me on the spot. However, no mana is forthcoming, and he flips a second Ad Nauseum while at nine life. Now at four, he has no choice but to keep going – he fizzles otherwise and dies to Goyf. He flips a Polluted Delta and…Tendrils of Agony. I am a lucksack.

Game three sees me start off by Wasting his land and then playing Chalice at zero, followed two turns later by a Chalice at one and a Tarmogoyf. Turn five, I Dreams for two to blow up his remaining lands and he scoops.

1-0

Round 2: Robert with Breakfast
Unfortunately, this is not the sort of Breakfast I want right now (I don’t like the texture of cephalopods). I win the die roll and land an early Tarmogoyf while my opponent plays a series of odd-looking lands (“What the hell is he playing…?”) and cantrips. He eventually plays a Cephalid Illusionist, but has no counter for my Seismic Assault on my next turn. He tries to follow Illusionist on his next turn with a Nomads en-Kor, but I assault the Illusionist and then proceed to Assault my opponent with my massive stockpile of lands. My opponent goes from 14 to zero in two turns.

Game two proceeds much the same way, except my Assault is even faster and harder this time. Feels good man.

2-0

Round 3: Fred with Enchantress, red splash
My recollections of these games are fuzzy and my notes are limited to life totals and die rolls (I won). My opponent mulligans to five game one and dies to fast Tarmogoyf beats while Dark Confidant rips through my deck for me. Game two is about as slow and grinding as a blowout can get – I eventually scoop to a Karmic Justice, Solitary Confinement, Elephant Grass, and Sacred Mesa on the other side of the table.

Game three, however, was memorable. My opponent keeps a hand with Sacred Ground but no draw spells because I hammered him repeatedly in games one and two with Armaged…I mean, Devastating Dreams, and he didn’t want to lose to it again. Unfortunately, I have Pulses and Grips now and I take out his early Elephant Grass and beat with two enormous Tarmogoyfs, taking him from 18 to 8 in one swing. He lands Sacred Mesa and has an untapped Serra’s Sanctum with enough enchantments to stop my Tarmogoyf assault, but all I have is Pulse and I’m not sure if he’ll stabilize if I spend the time to Pulse the Mesa and crush the resulting ponies in combat. Worried, I untap, announce my upkeep, announce my draw…and rip EE. EE at zero joins the fray and I swing in. My opponent makes two ponies, but I’m the active player and blow them away before he can declare them as blockers. Oops.

3-0

Round 4: Kevin Ambler with Merfolk, green splash
This guy eventually makes Top 8.

My memories for this matchup were also fuzzy, but my notes say “MANA SCREW” in caps lock pointing to both (short) games. I remember being stuck on three lands both games and losing to a never-ending stream of lords. Sometimes you have it, and sometimes…

3-1

Round 5: Cody with Merfolk, no splash
This guy had been a few tables down from me and knew what I was playing. His deck was gorgeous, though – those promo Japanese MPwhatever Islands from Time Spiral, FNM and foil cards all over the place. Unfortunately, Aggro Loam is favored against him, and I pound him into submission in game one with Crushers and game two he mulligans and then scoops as soon as it’s clear that I sided in Firespouts (turn three). It was mostly one-sided and he seemed unhappy with his deck choice, dropping immediately after the round and wandering off to chat with his friends. We were done in less than twenty and nothing of interest happened. I got lunch, though.

4-1

Round 6: Jason with Canadian Thresh
His list had two Cliques, I believe.

Game one is fairly close for a while, with two Tarmogoyfs staring each other down across the field of battle. Two Geese show up but EE at one keeps them on the bench. I start rooting around for gas with Loam, but just as I’m about to switch to the offensive with a second Tarmogoyf my opponent Cliques me and removes my Maelstrom Pulse (his other option was Loam). I don’t find an answer to Clique before it gouges big chunks out of my life total, and burn spells get there.

Game two sees a resolved turn one Chalice at one (my first all day!). He can’t really do anything about it and dies to savage beats while I have most of the game to do whatever I want.

Game three, my Chalice doesn’t stick this time, but Bob on turn two does, and I eventually find enough quality that the next Chalice at one connects. I’ve got a 2/1 to his 1/1 Goose, which is completely fine by me as I play a Crusher. My Crusher gets very big, very fast, and my opponent chumps. Things are looking grim; he can’t search for outs and Crusher will crush him in three turns. He decides to go for broke and Submerges my Crusher…

…except he can’t. He has three lands and I have two basic Mountains, one basic Swamp, and two Mox Diamond. He realizes that Submerge requires Forests just a moment too late and takes the damage, but the game is now mine to lose and I don’t.

5-1

At this point I’m in seventh with weak tiebreakers. All of the other X-1s are playing and there are several that can conceivably bump me down from Top 8 contention. My opponent is in 5th and offers an I.D., but I’ve got nothing to lose by playing and turn him down. This is the apparently infamous feature match where I punted game two and saw no lands game three. To answer some questions:

I double blocked the land because I knew killing it would put us even on creatures. Contrary to the chat peanut gallery’s belief, I’m not retarded and moved Crusher in front of Cursecatcher only because I had the cycling land. At that point, he can’t profitably attack into my guys and all I have to do is let Crusher get big enough to kill him one go, forcing him to block, right?

…except I didn’t quite work it out that way. I need to review the video, but I think I punted when I started attacking. In my defense, the judge was telling us both to play faster and threatening slow play warnings against both of us, so I probably caved in and swung into the red erroneously while under the dangerous combination of external suggestion, fatigue, and autopiloting.

I used the Mox to crack his Standstill because I had a hand full of powerful stuff (Crusher, Pulse, and EE among others) and felt that I could power through a couple counters and stabilize from my disastrous swings. Unfortunately, he explained to me afterwards that he was quite ready to break his own Standstill to play a Merfolk, tap Crusher, and kill me. Regardless, I was in a tight spot and made what I think was the best play given my prior screwup and the information I knew at the time.

Game three was just bad beats. It is also a perfect illustration of why I don’t play Jund in Standard (or any other deck in Standard, for that matter). It shouldn’t have come to a game three to begin with, but game two was once again mine to lose, and this time I did.

Contrary to what Stephen Menendian might think, Aggro Loam is basically a pile of good stuff and is therefore very difficult to hate. It has redundant card advantage elements and a large concentration of threatening cards, making it both extremely powerful and extremely consistent. I don’t know what happened to the other Aggro Loam players, but the high concentration of Enchantress and Ichorid in the top tables in the middle of the tournament may have kept them out of the running. Regardless, I think the deck will prove to be a strong competitor as the season goes on.

Props:
- My opponents, for at least pretending to laugh at my jokes all day
- Don (AngryTroll), for being generally awesome
- Volt and frogboy, for telling me to run the fourth Loam
- Texas, for being an interesting departure from both Arizona and California

Slops:
- ROUND SEVENNNNNNNNNN
- Texas, for being freezing fucking cold

[Xero]

It was a good report, except:

- Texas, for being freezing fucking cold

Don't give me any of this.

[Forbiddian]

Nice job cashing out!

I thought the Thopter deck you were working on would have seen another dustoff. If you don't mind me asking: Why didn't you play it again?

Obviously the switch worked out for you, but you were working on that deck a lot and believed in it like two weeks before, so what changed?

[Aggro_zombies]

Nice job cashing out!

I thought the Thopter deck you were working on would have seen another dustoff. If you don't mind me asking: Why didn't you play it again?

Obviously the switch worked out for you, but you were working on that deck a lot and believed in it like two weeks before, so what changed?

I didn't have the hours behind it to pilot it well. Control decks are only playable in this format if the pilot has more experience with his deck than his opponents have with theirs, and MWS proved to be a poor proxy for the real-life thrashing I got in LA. Furthermore, something like six slots were still unoptimized, which is awful beyond belief.

In other words, the deck needs months of work to be anywhere close to playable, and I don't have the support group to do it. So I went with something I both know extremely well and enjoy playing.

Also, Texas is literally freezing right now. I'm from California, okay? It doesn't get below freezing in California! [/QQmoar]

[wolfstorm]

Yea.. it is actually freezing here atm.. and god does it suck.

[dearleader]

Hey, congrats dude. I was disappointed when I didn't see thopter-foundry in the top 16 though.

[Anusien]

Congrats, man. And condolences. I saw you near the top tables all day, and while I was surprised as hell you were playing Aggro Loam, it looked like you were going to do it.

[Jak]

How'd you like your list? The Dreams seems random. Would it hurt to trim the Dreams, a Loam, and a Pulse for 3 Burning Wish? It is slow and I think I have read that you have said that in the past, but it does provide some utility.

[Aggro_zombies]

How'd you like your list? The Dreams seems random. Would it hurt to trim the Dreams, a Loam, and a Pulse for 3 Burning Wish? It is slow and I think I have read that you have said that in the past, but it does provide some utility.

The only time all day that I regretted not having Wish was against Enchantress, because then Wishing for Reverent Silence would have made my life much easier. I don't think Wish would have been better than just having really compelling draws, and Maelstrom Pulse is able to emulate a number of Wishboard slots pretty well. I also like having a real sideboard.

EDIT: I love my list and have had this list (within a couple cards) for months.

[Volt]

How'd you like your list? The Dreams seems random. Would it hurt to trim the Dreams, a Loam, and a Pulse for 3 Burning Wish? It is slow and I think I have read that you have said that in the past, but it does provide some utility.

I played a Wishless version of Aggro-Loam (McGregor's list from the St. Louis SCG5k, to be exact) at Mirkwood this weekend, and made T2 split with it. Never missed the Wishes. Pulse was terrific.

[dahcmai]

and then proceed to Assault my opponent

I had to chuckle.

[Anusien]

Reverent Silence is so awful against Enchantress because they blow you out with either Karmic Justice or Replenish. Try Harmonic Convergence instead.

Harmonic Convergence {2G} |Instant| Put all enchantments on top of their owners' libraries.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Harmonic Convergence {2G} |Instant| Put all enchantments on top of their owners' libraries.

Who choses the order? Or is it random?

[Otter]

Who choses the order? Or is it random?

Opponent's choice, since it doesn't specify and it's their library (like Plow Under).

[Soldar]

Reverent Silence is so awful against Enchantress because they blow you out with either Karmic Justice or Replenish. Try Harmonic Convergence instead.

Harmonic Convergence {2G} |Instant| Put all enchantments on top of their owners' libraries.

Reverent Silence is the choice card because it's a sorcery for the Wishboard. But I'll have to write that one down for later.

[Aggro_zombies]

Reverent Silence is the choice card because it's a sorcery for the Wishboard. But I'll have to write that one down for later.

I don't run Wishes, so this would be preferred. Anusien also has a point about Replenish, which I'd forgotten about. I don't remember my opponent having it, but he did have Karmic Justice in game two.

All you want is a small window of time to beat the opponent down unmolested. It also helps that Convergence followed by DD is probably GG in most cases.

[Illissius]

Harmonic Convergence isn't perfect either against a deck with, er, Enchantress effects. Isn't there anything which RFGs?

[Aggro_zombies]

Harmonic Convergence isn't perfect either against a deck with, er, Enchantress effects. Isn't there anything which RFGs?

Only in white, it seems.

Harmonic is okay. Basically, you Harmonic them EOT, attack on your turn, and they spend a turn and a bunch of mana trying to get set up again. You probably end up with two turns to attack before the board is back to what it was; you've got more time if the Enchantress effects are all enchantments or if there's no Sanctum. Dreams also nukes lands to set the other deck too far behind to cope.

Convergence is better in lists without Wish in some ways, but let's face it:

- Enchantress is uncommon at best
- Justice and Replenish are 1-2-ofs in the deck
- You can always Pulse/Grip Justice and then play Reverent Silence

I don't think it's worth the sideboard slots to hate on a deck that will have less than half a dozen pilots in a big tournament and which is extremely expensive to build correctly. Dreams, Grip, and Pulse already give you some tools to address the matchup, and if the opponent stumbles this deck is in a good position to capitalize on it.

EDIT: I expect Enchantress to go down in popularity as the season progresses, barring another high-level finish. The field wasn't particularly hateful in Dallas but not having Moat and facing lots of counters probably hurt a lot. Many of the pilots I saw (and there were apparently 5 who started strong but ended up in the middle of the pack by the end of the day) did not run Moat because it's prohibitively expensive.

Then again, it may have helped that ANT did well most of the day.

[Volt]

Congrats and condolences on the finish, AZ. How good were the Eternal Witness and Volrath's Stronghold for you?

[Aggro_zombies]

Congrats and condolences on the finish, AZ. How good were the Eternal Witness and Volrath's Stronghold for you?

I don't recall ever activating Stronghold, but it's historically been quite strong in a number of matchups: Zoo is the biggest, but there are a number of times where an early Crusher doesn't survive or your opponent has the trump burn spell in the Tarmogoyf war. Witness was quite good when I needed her, but one is definitely the correct number as she's unimpressive as a beater, though she gets blocked a lot less often than Bob.

Thanks! Hopefully next time I'll do better. Once the videos are out, I intend to watch mine to try to pinpoint where I punted.