I ramble a lot but I don't think I was the pernicious deed advocate, I haven't played that card in ages.Originally Posted by apocolyps6
I am currently playing GWR loam without black. I do not play DRS and I bring in Ground Seal against blue value and DRS decks mostly. I was not very happy with Choke and am trying to attack them on another axis. Additionally, it protects our yards for Knight, Excavator and Fires to all function and it shuts down opposing DRS and Snapcaster Mages.
For specific yard hate, I play 3 Containment Priest, 1 Bojuka Bog and 1 Scavenging Ooze. I feel like I can steal enough games from GY strategies and would rather have the Priest to shut down Show and Tell, Zenith and Vials.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Nah he was talking about me. I still like deed but not entirely in the matches I was originally testing it out for.
I feel like the loam engine shines in the DRS shaman matchups too much to shut it down. I guess I can see an argument for UWx decks since they tend to be more snapcaster mage based. I haven't really been happy with choke either, it feels like with DRS and Decay in the format Choke has gotten a lot less useful than before. If you're looking for a card to attack them on i'd recommend a walker. I think that walkers like Kaya or Sorin are viable in the Junk versions of this deck.
Hm, I'm sure I'm missing something here, but an active DRS denies us Loam targets and threatens to eat Loam. I usually only cast loam into an active DRS as bait.
I think the expectation is set a bit too high here. Sure, sometimes choke is a one-sided 3 mana Armageddon, but I think it is unreasonable to expect that every time (and more importantly, it isn't necessary to). IMO talking about Decay here is just the 'dies to doomblade' argument, everything in our maindeck dies to decay as well (besides Marit Lage I guess). And even if it does, the time that Choke spent on the board represents an advantage.I haven't really been happy with choke either, it feels like with DRS and Decay in the format Choke has gotten a lot less useful than before.
I'm usually happy enough catching 2 lands with Choke. Now the opponent lost 2 lands, and there is a choke + library/knight/etc. I'm executing on some game plan, and the opponent has to either stop me or stop my choke. Its 2x Stone Rain with potential upside.
We also have a significant weakness to decks like Omni, High Tide, Sneak&Show etc, combo decks heavy on basics. Choke is one of our better options as it denies them the mana they would otherwise use to answer it (chalice/canonist just get bounced).
I might be missing where I said/implied that too. I think that the loam engine is good against DRS decks as they often have very greedy manabases that you can punish with wasteland/gq and loam is a very good way to keep up in CA with blue decks.
I'm not sure what you think my expectations of Choke is, I just want a more proactive way of winning the game which is why I prefer walkers instead of chokes. You also seem to be overstating the power of choke in the S&T matchups...
There is always that 1 burn player in the tournament and i always play him. Therefore i tried Jaddi Offshoot against burn sometimes, because i wanted 1 card in the SB, but search it with GSZ to have more virtual copies. Of course is is miles away from beeing a COP, Warmth, zuran Orb, but you only play 1 of those and have to draw it. He looks pretty bad, but i "won" some games because of him (if you get him out turn 1). T1 they have to Bolt him, which saves you 3 life. Otherwise they can´t play a creature (GG, Swiftspear) and attack you. Or they just ignore him, when they don´t have creatures and then you get at least 3 more life. + fetches get a slight upgrade.
What do others think of him ?
Since it seems like a lot of people are going 3 color because of mana issues, i just want to tell you that i (4C, lilli, basic swamp+forest, cabal pit, 27 lands(arbor including)) have no issues at all. You just have to be aware of what you fetch. I really can't remove 1 color, all colors are to important imo.
If your meta is filled with burn and combo...loam is not a deck that you want to be playing, it's the sad truth. We have the ability to steal games and matches from time to time and can sideboard against a few bad matchups(or more common ones) but if you want to beat burn on a regular basis you need to add life gain mainboard to steal a few game ones, courser of kruphix?,and then additional for games 2/3.
The downside is you have to sacrifice a lot to be able to make the match closer to even. Sideboard is just what is in your meta, skim on graveyard hate and add white leylines, I have been high on blessed alliance for several matchups, but you have to skim elsewhere.
Personally,I hate Show and Tell/Reanimator, aggro, and blue, and my sideboards reflects that. I don't mind dropping a match to storm/burn every now and then as long as I can win my fair matchups.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Hey all, I've been attempting to build an enchantment version of loam, I'll post the deck list if you want to see it.
How important is the punishing grove synergy and chalice to the deck?
Hello, I'd be interested to see. They are not all that important. Go ahead and post!
Land
1x Bayou
1x Bojuka Bog
2x Dark Depths
1x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Karakas
1x Plains
1x Plateau
1x Savannah
1x Scrubland
1x Swamp
1x Taiga
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Thespian's Stage
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Verdant Catacombs
3x Wasteland
2x Windswept Heath
Enchantment
1x Blind Obedience
1x Chains of Mephistopheles
2x Exploration
1x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Molten Vortex
1x Phyrexian Unlife
2x Solemnity
1x Sylvan Library
Instant
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Crop Rotation
2x Enlightened Tutor
2x Noxious Revival
2x Swords to Plowshares
Artifact
1x Crucible of Worlds
4x Mox Diamond
Creature
4x Deathrite Shaman
4x Knight of the Reliquary
Sorcery
4x Life from the Loam
Sideboard
1x Choke
1x Containment Priest
1x Engineered Plague
2x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Leyline of the Void
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Stranglehold
1x Sudden Spoiling
1x Torpor Orb
1x Toxic Deluge
It's a first draft and just need to try and improve it
With the new change to the planeswalker uniqueness rule, does anyone else here want to try running Liliana the Last Hope alongside Liliana of the Veil? While I think her -2 plays very well with our deck and her ultimate ends games rapidly, it was hard to justify her instead of LotV beforehand.
Strongly disagree. Without Chalice there is no reason to avoid 1drops. Now that we are playing 1drops we need a strong reason not to splash blue for brainstorm (since we are apparently cutting red anyway). Also DRS might be too good not to play a s a 4of. With so many more 1drops in the deck, we have less need for a card like Mox diamond. Now we are GBuw and playing a rather different set of cards than we started. Good blue cards might even start edging out the non-blue cards we are playing now. Chalice is a "Load-Bearing Wall" for this deck, and without it any optimal list will look quite different from what we have now.
Edit: to clarify, I'm not saying all of this is a bad thing, just that it would basically be a whole different deck. Lincoln Baxter III's BUG (lands) control list looks a lot like where we might end up.
Agreed.
Chalice is a big deal and gives us instant wins against most of the format(if resolved and not immediately killed). The other disruption options are inferior, discard, if we aren't playing blue and the deck becomes something completely different if we are playing blue... brainstorms/counters/jace etc.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Just started an 8 week legacy league with Naya loam winning 2-1 over grixis Delver with daze, stifle, TNN and Angler.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
Do you record at all? I'd love to see some content.
I play Loams sometimes.
I can try to record something with my phone for the Facebook group.
This game was relatively uneventful, I can get lists if you want but he was on Grixis Delver with daze and stifle and the 2/2split of angler and TNN.
Game one-I struggled to establish a mana base after a mulligan and a turn 2 delver(blind flip) attacks me 6 times in a row. I have very bad luck with punishing fires...
Out- 2 pridemage, 2 library In- 2 swords 2 blessed alliance
Game 2-He mulligans and force of wills a turn 1 chalice of the void. An early DRS is active for a turn or two before it gets swords to plowshared. Goyf comes down and starts attacking, loam gets surgicalled after 1 use, but the excavator in my hand ensures the wastelock.
Game 3- I keep a turn 1 goyf + double wasteland hand. This game is never really close, I play around daze and stifle, resolve a chalice at 1 and force him into chump block duty shortly after.
Loam vs Delver isn't very close most of the time, if we establish our mana base we most likely win.
Edit: I just got paired against burn in round 2....let's go chalice?
Last edited by lavafrogg; 09-03-2017 at 11:17 AM.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
i've been having some conflicting thoughts concerning chalice recently.
so chalice is at its best when it's on the table as early as possible, but it is such a good card in some MUs that you want to make sure it resolves through the initial onslaught of counters and removal. this sometimes makes me sequence it later rather than earlier, but allows the opponent to get off any number of 1cc spells.
you can just cast it and make them have it sometimes. but that can lead to blow out games where you get dazed, forced, and bolted into an empty hand. but it can also go in our favor.
given the opportunity, in a MU where it is impactful, would you just jam it into a possible counter/removal to get try to get maximum value or wait for a position where it can resolve and survive?
this also applies to bob i think.
also i might just be overthinking this.
Imo Chalice and Bob are still the best cards.
Play around Daze with Decay. Very common start:
Opp T1 Shaman
You T1 Decay with Mox or just wait a turn. Anyways always kill the Shaman if you can. It's the strongest card against us, imo. Never run into Daze when they T1 Shaman. It throws you far behind. When there is no Shaman T1 (let's say just Ponder or stuff) l usually don't play around Daze as we will be ahead in the tempo game alongside Wastelands. But Shaman breaks that to the opp favor.
When they Force Chalice it's often 'ok' if not good for us. It's a 2for1 trade. In grindy games card advantage wins. Also you opponent signals that he can not handle Chalice at this moment. In a lot of cases you can just play a 2nd one after it. I very rarely get annoyed by multiple Chalices.
Bob dies to removal, yes. But when he sticks he just wins. It's creature like all in Legacy. It dies to removal as does Delver, Shaman, SfM,... but when he doesn't... he outplays them all!
Chalice and Bob are also good late game cards. Ok, if the opp has 3 creatures on the board and you nothing then it isn't... But what's a good card there except a sweeper?
But imagine a late game top deck mode. Chalice is still very important here. Same for Bob. It stops all their late game cantrippin' and even against Texas (preboard) Chalice often stops that 1 Sword that would kill your Bob/KotR although it's obv a bad card in thus MU.
p.s.: I will try the new Lili as a one off when the new rule applies. 3/1 Lili split seems reasonable. If not a 3/2 split. Unfortunately she doesn't kill Shamans. But she is a ticking bomb (ulti will always win against non combo) and often not so easy to remove. Elegant answer to Balefulstrixes and lost Snapcasters or even makes flipped Delver to a virtual unflipped Delver.
Her -2 is obv great in grindy value games. Our creatures are must answer threats.
Gesendet von meinem SM-G935F mit Tapatalk
Last edited by Stuhl; 09-05-2017 at 07:36 AM.
As @Stuhl says, Chalice is still definitely fantastic.
Jamming into easily played around countermagic (such as daze) is not really the approach I'd be taking, as it's just as much of a lock piece turns 2, 3 and 4; once you've taken control of the board with Wastelands or removal.
I play Loams sometimes.
IMO chalice is good in a topdeck scenario or on any even board, but it loses a lot of power as soon as you let the opponent have 1-2 turns without it. Sometimes that second turn is all the opponent needs to brainstorm away a ponder and bolt and play out another 1drop threat, leaving the hand with force/daze/angler.
Before the Eldrazi deck forced players to make deckbuilding concessions to chalice, a turn 2 chalice was about as devastating as a T1 Chalice, but these days I'd take the gamble.
For every time the opponent will be on delver (14% of the online metagame) and have a daze (40% of opening hands) there will be plenty of times you win on the spot.
I actually don't think "getting got" here puts is all that far behind either. The opponent dazes our chalice, and then untaps with 2 mana. We then get to untap with 3. Our deck is more powerful per mana spent (with the major exception of Angler) so their advantage is far from insurmountable. If we have 2 strong turns after this we are likely to be favored again.
Obviously this chances if chalice is one of the only payoff cards we have, and the deck isn't always delver (as we have been assuming). Speaking of the number of payoff cards, I very frequently think of the game in stages. We start the game trying to end up not behind by then 3/4. From then on our more powerful cards can take over vs decks like delver. Anything I can do to basically waste their time (including trading down with excess gas) propels me into the stage of the game where I'm going to overtake the opponent by default. Both plays serve this goal, but the best case scenario for Decay still leaves us on the backfoot, potentially just as bad as if we had failed to land a chalice (2 vs 3 mana on an otherwise equal board).
Hi guys. Is there a discord channel for 4c Loam?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote