Can't agree with cutting Chalices. No 1cc spell you might replace it with will do more for the deck.
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The better solution is to realize that the mileage you get out Chalice varies by matchup, and that you should always have it somewhere in your 75 even if it's only in the sideboard. As it stands, yes, the current Jund-based Aggro Loam has nothing that really replaces Chalice very well, with the possible exception of more removal in the main. However, the issue here then becomes Bob, who will punish you for losing 0cc spells from the main. I think the Russian approach is a good illustration of what the deck would do if it dropped Chalice, as Swords is quite good and Bolt gives the deck a bit more reach. I've actually been working on a similar build independently, so I find it both funny and awesome that someone half a world away built something similar to what I had done, and without me seeing his list beforehand. I'll post what I've come up with after I do some testing, but that will have to wait until next week when I go on spring break and have the time to get lots of games in.
On the subject of Chalice, it's nuts against many different decks if you get the nutty land, mox, chalice draw on the play. It's also true that against certain decks, like merfolk or goblins, it really loses it's power after the first turn.
That said, I won't be cutting Chalice from main because in Madrid, there were many times when I couldn't get Chalice on the first turn, but after trading other threats for opponents removal or counters for some time, I got to stick Chalice for one and one beater (now protected against most common removal) to the table to win the game.
In the russian approach, even though Swords in good as removal, and Bolt gives the deck some reach, I really can't think of playing the deck without any means of protecting your own guys with only ~10 in the deck.
curious, has anyone tried using Scroll Rack as a supplement to Loam? Seems like a pretty broken engine if you can get it online.
Scroll Rack was in the primary days of the deck's evolution when it was mostly "aggro" with Loam to feed Wild Mongrel. It still a good tool, but most of the time it's overkill as you just want to smash with big guys and slow down mana production for your opponent.Originally Posted by Antonius
RE: Chalice in maindeck
I agree with Aggro Zombies in that Chalice is largely matchup dependent. In my metagame, there are a lot of combo decks, and having Chalice@0 is very vital. Against Merfolk, not so much. For Jund-based Aggro Loam, there are very few replacements for the maindeck, and pretty much consist of Raven's Crime, which isn't that exciting anyway.
I think scroll rack is awesome because its color neutral. Combined with Loam, its nuts. With Sylvan Library, it makes an equally powerful card draw/selection engine, which could sub for Confidant (and black as a whole).
Why go 2 color? I want to see how far you can go with Ancient Tombs or Cities in place of black duals. They make Chalice much stronger and also create potential for MD Trinispheres. Granted, that's a radically different approach to the deck and really just a thought in my head at this time, but it could be worth exploring.
How would you side against CB/Top with Progenitus with my build? (seen on page 2, but with +1 Knight -1 Crusher now)
My sideboard is:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Firespout
2 Krosan Grip
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Zuran Orb
1 Worm Harvest
So far I've been siding +2 Teeg +2 Grip -1 EE -1 LftL -1 Crusher -1 Knight. Got any better ideas? Do Teegs do enough in the matchup? (disables Natural Order and FoW if stays in play)
What is the best way to beat Reanimator, using one of the standard Jund lists? I know we have chalice and Leyline, but is there anything else to really hate them out?
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Faerie Macabre is pretty tech against reanimator
Last edited by B is for Big Job; 03-11-2010 at 04:56 PM.
Splitting your removal package also helps. There are a number of mono-green options to destroy flying creatures, including a card from Urza's that's basically Wrath of God, but green and for things that fly (forget the name). That gets around shroud and Iona naming black, which is the color the opponent should name. If you have Terminate, and the Iona player names green, you can just Terminate Iona and go to town.
That leaves them with basically just Inkwell Leviathan as a good target, but it's not evasive against you and you can block it with a sufficiently large Countryside Crusher.
EDIT: I'm less sold on the Faerie because it gets hosed by discard, but then again in games two and three you can expect Reanimator to bring in bounce in anticipation of Leyline. Discard is less relevant against you because you're not using counters, so most of what the Reanimator player has to worry about comes out at sorcery speed and is too slow to compete with turn one or two Iona anyway. In that case, the Faerie can be quite good.
One thing to note is that you may want to avoid relying entirely on targeted removal because many of Reanimator's creatures have shroud (or psedu-shroud with Iona). The green flying Wrath takes care of Iona, Blazing Archon, and Empyrial Archangel, of which only Archon gets hit by Pulse (and will probably be on the bench in g2 and g3 because it's not very good against us). Edicts kill anything but Iona on black.
Basically, expect Iona to come out first against you every time. If you show the other guy a non-standard removal spell, expect something shrouded to come out if that spell was targeted. The shroud guys are all blue, if it helps (Leviathan and Archangel). We don't yet know if Rise has any Eldrazi that would work in Reanimator, but if one has shroud you can expect it to end up in that deck even if it has a DSC- or Kozilek-type anti-Reanimation clause.
Your ideal removal package is thus some sort of non-targeted green flying sweeper and Edicts.
The green WoG is called Whirlwind. That strikes me as being phenomenally clunky, as it's only good against Iona on black. I've seen Dragon Stompy use Aftershock to cover corner cases like that, which imho is a better option; it's good specifically against Iona on black, and it has other applications (maybe against 43 lands or something, I don't know; I ran a Vindicate in my sideboard once because I couldn't find my fourth Krosan Grip and it turned out to be way better at hitting random unexpected whatever).
Of everything written so far, I'm most for Faerie Macabre, simply because it's the least narrow option. That or you could run Anarchy, I guess.
So I ended up going 3-4 today at Jupiter Games, losing to 4-color survival, losing to reanimator, beating RB goblins, beating tempo thresh, losing to merfolk (teammate) losing to dream halls, beating UB AnT.
The card from reanimator that wrecked me the most is sphinx of the steel wind, which dominates our entire deck, and I think it is impossible to win once they resolve one.
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Owner, Tales of Adventure Comics and Games, Coopersburg, PA
I haven't seen any Lightning Bolts when I played vs him in the GP. He had Oblivion Rings and Pithing Needles from the SB too.
I can gurantee you he plays 3 Lightning Bolts. From what I've been told Oblivion Rings' main purpose was to combat Dream Halls of which he was scared as hell.
The seven cardinal sins of Legacy:
1. Discuss the unbanning ofLand TaxEarthcraft.
2. Argue that banning Force of Will would make the format healthier.
3. Play Brainstorm without Fetchlands.
4. Stifle Standstill.
5. Think that Gaea's Blessing will make you Solidarity-proof.
6. Pass priority after playing Infernal Tutor.
7. Fail to playtest against Nourishing Lich (coZ iT wIlL gEt U!).
I have SB Edicts for these types of situations. Just a thought.
Duplicant works pretty well for removing Iona and Sphinx of Steel Wind.
But its kinda slow... If you keep playing vs reanimator just replace the Leylines with 4 Faerie Macabre.
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Some evil applications for the new card of Rise of the Eldrazi:
REALMS UNCHARTED???
I see that the card is better suited for Lands decks, but we could use it here as well to find Wasteland, cyclers, and fetchland.
The problem is that our lands don't inherently do broken things; it's just the volume of them.
I'm not sold. It has more applications in the white builds because those tend to have land toolboxes anyway, but then it overlaps quite a bit with Knight but without the benefit of being able to attack. It's possible that a 43land/Aggro Loam hybrid could be made that would like this card, but I'm not sure how good such a deck would be.
It sucks balls. Period. How is it better than LftL, Intuition or Gifts?
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