[Deck] Aggro Loam

[rlesko]

I haven't played 4C Loam post-Khans, but I too can't but reckon that it's well positioned in the current meta. And by current meta I of course refer to Treasure Cruise in particular and URx Delver in general.
Chalice and Punishing negates most, if not all, of what they are doing.
Teeg seems a lot better now as well, he'll pull his weight in the fair match-ups in addition to being great in the unfair or control ones.
I do wonder however, how good is Liliana and Dark Confidant against Swiftspears, Pyromancers and a ton of burn? Could perhaps something like Stoneforge with the complete equipment package (BS, Jitte, SoFI) be better currently?

I'm not a regular aggro loam player but I've found that loam as an overall strategy is kind of slow against UR in testing with a friend (we both plan on playing UR). For example take the opening play of, land, mox (discard), chalice is 4 cards, so if they just have the force of will, you have 3 cards left and they have cruise whereas maybe loam can get punishing fire online. Then you're pretty much at the mercy of the top of your deck while swiftspear and co. are smashing face. UR can fetch basics to play around wasteland and has much better filtering. Just my 0.02.

[apocolyps6]

I've done about 2 days worth of testing against UR delver, and have played 2 burn decks in an event yesterday.

Burn, as always is a very positive matchup as long as you see a chalice before you have to have to mull to 4. From there the card that matters most is price of progress. Pretty simple

UR delver on the other hand, plays a bunch of stuff that on paper is weak to what we are doing, but in reality .. always nutdraws I guess? All of your best cards are conditional (YP beats chalice, swiftspear beats Pfire, etc). If we do our best D&T impression by boarding in thalias and just dropping heatbears the matchup becomes kind of even.

For reference this is my list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/naya-loam-29-04-14-1/

Yes it is pretty different form the stock list.

[rlesko]

UR delver on the other hand, plays a bunch of stuff that on paper is weak to what we are doing, but in reality .. always nutdraws I guess? All of your best cards are conditional (YP beats chalice, swiftspear beats Pfire, etc). If we do our best D&T impression by boarding in thalias and just dropping heatbears the matchup becomes kind of even.

Glad to see someone else had similar results.

[sdematt]

Run Devastating Dreams maindeck again. They only run low powered creatures and they're reasonably landlight, but they run Basics. The level of Spell Pierce in the format is exceptionally low, and since you'll only be Dreaming for 1-3, even if it gets countered, you're only back 1-3 cards.

I'd also want to be on the trample train in any way, shape, or form. Bunch of X/1's in the format? Yes please.

-Matt

[apocolyps6]

Funny enough, a daze will both protect their most important land and possibly let their swiftspears survive. Meanwhile we have lost 3ish cards in a matchup where it is hard to take a turn off to loam.

I don't want to make bold statements without very extensive testing, but I was very rarely able to actually deny the deck mana, and with the amount of cards the deck draws/sees I would expect something like 3 counterspells per game.

I also had 4 boardwipes in my SB, 2 sudden demise (as a 1-sided pyroclasm) and 2 ZP. After I brought in 12ish cards the matchup became even to favorable.

I am gonna test more probably tomorrow with an engineered plague in the board

[alrightgame]

I played 10 games against delver yesterday to test. I really only feared young pyromancer (damn thing killed me twice and nearly killed me 4 times). The trick is actually not to deny them mana unless they are mana screwed and you have a chalice of the void locked on the table at 1. Wastelanding a land only gets them closer to the next treasure cruise. You guys are correct about Niklas list - there isn't a whole lot that needs to be changed maindeck (I'd love to add a bojuka bog main though).


My sideboard will be the following (assuming I get a second priest):

2 golgari charm
1 thrun, the last troll
1 gaddock teeg
2 ethersworn cannonist
2 containment priest
3 leyline of the void
1 slaughter games
1 qasali pridemage
1 abrupt decay

I'm not sold on the 15th spot - this spot could be toxic deluge, leyline of the void, ethersworn cannonist. Maybe one of you can persuade me on this?

Here is my sideboard strategy at the moment (not all of it is fleshed out yet):

http://imgur.com/kaKSFiZ

[rlesko]

Liliana of the Veil seems pretty poorly positioned though right? Is she even worth a slot anymore? Also, how many of you guys run with a Volrath's Stronghold main?

[apocolyps6]

Besides precedent, why are people playing canonist over thalia? They are both about equally good agaisnt storm decks, and both punish combo on general. The big difference is that canonist has applications against elves, while thalia has applications against almost all blue decks (and dredge).
thalia also tends to have a more one-sided effect in a deck with ~30 mana sources and only 8-10 artifacts.

[iamajellydonut]

The big difference is that canonist has applications against elves

That's a pretty fucking big difference. Also, Thalia has zero application against generic blue decks. Just because you run a bunch of lands doesn't mean you can go nuts with Thalia. She hurts us. When a Death and Taxes player lands her, I groan. Mox Diamond, Life from the Loam, and Punishing Fire, the absolute core of the deck, is absolutely crippled by her presence. Not to mention the simple stuff that gets rather effectively harried. Going off the 4C list, there are 25 cards the list are land. And none of them do anything on their own.

[apocolyps6]

Well that is why I ask. My elves matchup is very good, and I am pretty happy siding in thalias against most problematic blue matchups.

Thalia does hurt me, but because of the fact that she hurts my opponents (usually a lot) more and the fact that she is a decent clock, she is usually worth having vs a card that is similar but without this feature. Sometimes being able to play a 2/1 sphere of resistance on turn 1-2 and then win a mana fight locks people out.

When D&T plays her it is bad for us because they win the mana fight and they are ahead by a 2/1. We can do the same thing to a bunch of decks.

[sdematt]

Then you Devastating Dreams them out of the game.

[Madmankevinx]

Stoneforge Mystic + Batterskull and Jitte should be given a very hard look in this deck with how powerful they are right now in the red-heavy meta. I also am 100% on board with Devastating Dreams. The card almost always wins you the game when it resolves assuming it is played at the right time.(generally when a KotR is in play) it should be with noting that I have personally won matches that were in desperation mode simply by resetting the board knowing I have better chances of top decking land than my opponent when they are on 16 and 17 land decklists.

[Madmankevinx]

Looking at Jeff Hoogland's old list from his SCG article ( http://www.starcitygames.com/article...-Heart-Is.html ) I think I want to start back there at this and tweak the sideboard to include a couple of Toxic Deluge to get rid of True-Name Nemesis which is I believe the card that Jeff said he stopped playing the deck because of. The original list seems like it could be nice right now.

[apocolyps6]

If you are gonna play Hoogland's list, you should not play one so early in the development. Nantuko monastery in particular is much less good G2 and 3. GSZ is quite important to the plan.

4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Punishing Fire
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Life from the Loam
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Burning Wish
2 Sylvan Library
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
1 Forest
4 Wasteland
2 Forgotten Cave
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Maze of Ith
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Savannah
2 Taiga
2 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Plateau
1 Treetop Village
2 Devastating Dreams
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Dark Confidant
SB:
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Dreadbore
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Shattering Spree
1 Massacre
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Slaughter Games
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Reverent Silence
2 Phyrexian Revoker

He eventually played 2 diabolic edicts, over a DD and a GSZ, but at that point TNN was everywhere and these days I see very little of it.

But if you are already playing this kind of deck, if you choose to give up DD and play a heavier white splash, you can use either Council's judgement as an answer to TNN or ZP as an answer to most of the creatures in the format.

[Madmankevinx]

It occurred to me that possibly Terravore could make a comeback in this deck as a 1-2 of to get past YP tokens?

[apocolyps6]

You prefer trample and a conditionally bigger dude to getting to demonic tutor every turn?

If you want to get past a bunch of 1/1s I think a 20/20 flier is a pretty good way to do so.

Edit: Spelling. Mobile

[Avey]

@apocolyps6: if you really do wanna play something like thalia, why do you prefer thalia over thorn of the amethyst?

I haven't played very much mtg in the past 1-2 years but lately I found myself start playing again. actually my first legacy deck ever was a loam deck and since canadian isn't performing that good in the recent meta I fell back to playing loam. I did some research and designed an updated list which fits the needs of the current meta. However, my list somewhat differs from the what I would say is the "standard loam" deck right now. After I have conducted some further testing I'll maybe post the list in this thread. Nevertheless, I think my latest experiences with my list is somewhat applicable to the normal list.

As you might already guess I consider loam a very strong deck at the moment despite the fact that DRS and rest in peace had been printed. According to the u/r delver issue: I love playing against it. I just don't care how much cards they draw because my deck generates more card advantage. Often I see my opp doing nothing relevant in turns 1-3 besides cycling cards. I consider cycling a card in turn one one of the worst starts in my deck - funny isn't it. However, they will eventually draw half their deck rather quickly but thats ok. Also noticed some delver decks dropping daze in favour of chain lightning which allows us to play wish into dreams as soon as you have 4 mana available quite safely (if needed). Which kinda leads me to my last point. We play total blow-offs for their deck in our main deck. You might wanna compare this to any sideboard card like choke boarded in against blue decks. Its just insane. I even have a hard time deciding what to board out in game 2 because I want to keep all my cards..

I wanna close my statement with a sideboard card which I really like to play at the moment against u/r delver. It is zuran orb. Also helps against combo decks. which had always been the weak point of loam decks. right now I play 3 copies in my side board and I am totally happy with it ;)

[apocolyps6]

About Thalia vs thorn:

Thalia simply does things that thorn does not. They are similar in that they are great cards against storm and similar combo decks. Where Thalia differs is that I can board her in against decks like miracles where slowing down an already slow deck lets me get ahead by doing more thing per turn. A thorn by itself gives the opponent a bunch of time to find an answer. The fact that the 2/1 body puts you ahead on board before slowing the game down makes is harder for decks to deal with it.

I don't remember the last time I've felt bad about my combo matchup.

About UR, there was probably some overreaction on my part. Last games I remember playing against it were far from unwinnable. I've recently switched back to bobs over SFM in order make room to test a brewy 1 of and I am again liking how much less mana intensive bobs are.

[Madmankevinx]

If I'm playing this deck (which I am right now--and really liking it) there is no way I'm leaving home without 3 Thalia in the side. She is great against cruise.dec and....basically every other deck in the format right now! Now I wish they would print a 2 cmc Darkblast....

[Avey]

hey I had quite some success in playing the following list online (cockatrice). despite the fact my original list was somewhat different i ended up close to hoogland's list he played a year ago (?) at scg-tournaments. However, I have still some final decision to make and this is why i bother you guys :p

3 Life from the Loam
2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Burning Wish

2 Seismic Assault
1 Solitary Confinement

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire

4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void

2 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gaddock Teeg

4 Wooded Foothills
3 Wasteland
2 Forest
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Badlands
1 Savannah
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Taiga
1 Plateau
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Bojuka Bog

SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 Worm Harvest
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 2 Zuran Orb
SB: 1 Chainer's Edict
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Thorn of Amethyst
SB: 1 Chains of Mephistopheles

well and now for card decisions which i want to discuss..well first of all it feels like 60 cards ain't enough to play all the cards i want and i wonder whether I am ok to play 63 cards (one standard loam deviation..) because I dredge most of my deck anyway.

I am not sure if I really want play 4 burning wish, 3 did the job for me and I almost never want to draw more than two (in fact more than 2 in certain matchups really suck). which of course might be due to the fact that i don't want to run an excessive loam board or in other words I dont want to devote too many slots in my sb to burning wish. However, there is a tradeoff but i think burning wish too strong to cut it completely.

I havent tested solitary confinement excessively but on paper it is quite good (punishing fire) but I have a feeling that I should exchange it with the chains in my sb. nevertheless confinment is in game 1 so much stronger (even thought about playing 2).. the struggle is real.

Somehow really dislike bojuka bog. somehow. I will not devote a sb slot to it and so the alternative would be to cut it. should I run it or not?

If I had much more space I probabl would like to add one of each: knight, decay, goyf and confidant. unfortunately I don't have any slots left. I really think goyf is worth running. even 2. performed quite good.

and last but not least which i noticed during testing.. the maze of ith should be a tabernacle. I am sure. But I dont have one though..

if i had to cut two cards to finally reach a stack of 61 (this would be more than ok) i would cut confinement and bog.