[Deck] Aggro Loam

[Aggro_zombies]

My ignorance is showing here. Out of curiosity has any tried (I certainty have not) exploration or tabernacle in this deck? Would exploration give the deck a better turn 1 in combination with mox diamond? Is tabernacle to far from the decks purpose?

I tried Exploration once, years ago. It was so-so. It might be worth revisiting, but I honestly don't know what to cut for it.

Tabernacle really isn't needed, between Dreams, Assault, and potentially Firespout and Virtue's Ruin/Perish if you need them.

[timmycolossus]

What if you just run the land guys (knight, csc, terravore) with exploration loam devastating dreams, seismic, and lands. If you so desired punishing fire as well I guess. This is just a shot in the dark. I am not really experienced with the deck but from playing it the last month I felt as though the deck is missing something.

[Aggro_zombies]

What if you just run the land guys (knight, csc, terravore) with exploration loam devastating dreams, seismic, and lands. If you so desired punishing fire as well I guess. This is just a shot in the dark. I am not really experienced with the deck but from playing it the last month I felt as though the deck is missing something.

I would not want to maindeck Dreams in a format where the two best decks are blue decks with Spell Snare (and sometimes Spell Pierce). There are very few times where Mind Twisting yourself into a counter is safe, and the longer you try to bait out their counters, the worse your Dreams get.

That aside, I'm not a fan of decks with really polarized curves - that is, decks with a bunch of cheap accelerators and big spells. Not only do they tend to get really awkward draws (like all accel and nothing to accel into, or too much big stuff and not enough accel), I'm also not tremendously fond of running non-creature accelerators because then your accel cards don't do anything on the side: Hierarch can at least attack for one, for example. Extra Mox Diamonds are already weak draws because they are just totally blank once you have a lot of mana; having 4 Diamond 4 Exploration opens you up to a lot of blank draws, although I guess it's not significantly worse than the old 4 Diamond 4 Chalice builds where subsequent Chalices were actually the worst because you can't profitably cast them for anything but x=1, whereas an extra Mod Diamond is at least a little more mana.

Specific to your example, in a deck with all three-drop dudes and Assault, you really need an Exploration or Mox Diamond to do anything early, and Exploration tends to empty your hand of lands, weakening Dreams and Assault unless you have a Loam. I think I tried Exploration in a Naya Loam list that durdled around with a high curve, and Exploration felt more like a band-aid there than an actual power card, the sole exception being when you Wastelanded someone right out of the game.

As for what this deck's missing, it's a format where playing a Life from the Loam deck is a good idea.

[timmycolossus]

kk. Thanks.

[sdematt]

The main problem is we're a deck that's REALLY great at the long game. As in, insanely awesome. Very few decks have the long game potential that we do. Our main problem is landing and sticking a threat early, and successfully getting there with it. We have few cheap threats, and if you don't hit Loams or draw spells early, all you're doing is drawing lands and saying pass.

Loam was excellent, and just starting to catch on in a format shaped by Mental Misstep. By making Turn 3 the critical turn instead of turn 2, the format was shaped in such a way that we could be ourselves (=bad) in the early game, and make up for it by turn 4 or 5. Now, we don't have that kind of time to wait. Burn is a real deck for some reason, and Delver.deck is pretty fast. Sure, we'll still be the tits against Stoneblade, but still.

Also, I ran Dreams in the board at GP Seattle, and it was pretty decent. Held its own against White Weenie, Maverick, Elves, Goblins, etc.

-Matt

[Aggro_zombies]

The main problem is we're a deck that's REALLY great at the long game. As in, insanely awesome. Very few decks have the long game potential that we do. Our main problem is landing and sticking a threat early, and successfully getting there with it. We have few cheap threats, and if you don't hit Loams or draw spells early, all you're doing is drawing lands and saying pass.

Loam was excellent, and just starting to catch on in a format shaped by Mental Misstep. By making Turn 3 the critical turn instead of turn 2, the format was shaped in such a way that we could be ourselves (=bad) in the early game, and make up for it by turn 4 or 5. Now, we don't have that kind of time to wait. Burn is a real deck for some reason, and Delver.deck is pretty fast. Sure, we'll still be the tits against Stoneblade, but still.

Also, I ran Dreams in the board at GP Seattle, and it was pretty decent. Held its own against White Weenie, Maverick, Elves, Goblins, etc.

-Matt

I like Dreams, just not in the main. The card seems like a complete blowout against Maverick, for example.

[bfeingersh]

So I lent a friend my regular legacy deck for #GPIndy and ended up borrowing Aggro Loam for an 85-person tournament today. I had a great time, played the deck cold although I lost in the last round to miss top 8 at 4-2-1. On the way back we argued a bunch about the list, so I figured I'd throw it up here and see what people think.

4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Countryside Crusher
1 Terravore

4 Life from the Loam
2 Faithless Looting
3 Maelstrom Pulse

3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Seismic Assault

2 Lightning Bolt
3 Punishing Fire

4 Mox Diamond

2 Badlands
1 Taiga
2 Bayou
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Volrath's Stronghold
6 Fetches of various colors
4 Wasteland
1 Mountain
1 Forest

Sideboard:
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
3 Choke
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pyroblast
4 Leyline of the Void

Matchups:
1 Burn W 2-1 (1-0)
2 Elves L 0-2 (1-1)
3 Stoneblade T 1-1-1 (1-1-1)
4 Zoo W 2-1 (2-1-1)
5 Bant Maverick W 2-0 (3-1-1)
6 Bant Maverick W 2-0 (4-1-1)
7 Stoneblade L 0-2 (4-2-1)

I'm doing this from memory and I hadn't seen the list before this morning, but I think that was it. It might be -1 Fetch +1 Punishing Fire, but I think it was 26 lands 4 Moxen. I wanted Scavenging Oozes, but both other guys in the car were using 2 each (in Red Maverick and Bant) and I couldn't find any to trade for.

Anyway, here are my questions/suggestions:

1) Where can I cut a land to get a basic swamp in there? I really wanted one to fetch up when I get Path-ed. It seemed very difficult to cast Liliana unless I had a Mox in my opener.

2) Looting felt pretty win-more. It didn't do much unless I had a Loam going.

3) If I wanted to add a Burning Wish sideboard, what could I cut from the main? I was thinking -1 Loam, -1 Pulse, -2 Looting.

4) I also wanted Oozes, but I didn't want to cut down on creatures since it felt pretty light there as is. Maybe -1 Liliana, -1 Goyf, +2 Ooze? I didn't draw Crusher a single time today so I'm not sure how I like him. Terravore is boss status though.

Anyway, had a great time fumbling through the tournament today. Definitely going to try putting this deck together to play again.

[Aggro_zombies]

To answer your questions:

1) You can shave a Wasteland, probably, or a Grove. I do not like Liliana in a Punishing Fires version of the deck because the manabase blows.

2) Agreed.

3) Don't do it. Burning Wish has a number of problems. For starters, it's an enormous tempo sink in a format largely defined by tempo plays; it also doesn't help that it has "Spell Snare me" written all over it and your build largely lacks other good Snare targets. More generally, it encourages you to run a gimmicky half-sideboard, which weakens your games two and three because you don't have much to bring in (limited space for non-Wish targets), while your opponents have some idea of what your countermeasures are thanks to g1 Wishes and can board appropriately. I also don't think it improves your game one all that much, although YMMV depending on the matchup and the cards you're getting with Wish.

4) 3 Liliana is probably too much. I would definitely either cut them completely (thereby improving your mana), or drop down to two and cut a Crusher for 2 Oozes.

EDIT: Updated the second post. People can now weigh on what additional stuff they want to see (aside from matchup analyses).

[alrightgame]

Has anyone tried faithless looting? I feel it could add to the decks end game consistency, and act as a really explosive cycle land. What do you guys think?

[Dark Ritual]

Has anyone tried faithless looting? I feel it could add to the decks end game consistency, and act as a really explosive cycle land. What do you guys think?

Maybe if you read the posts your question would be answered. Faithless looting is only good when you dredge it with loam and usually bad in hand because you'd rather be casting things other than durdling around with looting. But even when you dredge it with loam, it's 3 mana to flashback and I don't know about you but when I'm loaming I usually get cycle lands or utility lands and loam costs 2 mana. I'd rather go loam into double cycle land and a fetchland or wasteland, cycle those lands hopefully into threats, and waste the opponents land and hopefully drop a threat next turn or waste them again if my plan is to wastelock them out of the game. On top of that, looting is card disadvantage unless you dredge it with loam and cast it using its flashback. Oh and lists of loam are super tight in terms of how many flex slots you have, and I'm not going to advocate cutting crusher for faithless looting as one wins the game and the other does actually nothing to advance your gameplan.

With that list, you really want scavenging ooze and having only 1 crusher screams bad to me. I always run with the full set of crushers when I play this deck, as crusher helps to find loam, gets enormous, and doesn't get spell snare'd. Goyf, however, has been very disappointing for me hence the reason I run the 2/2 split of goyf and scavenging ooze since ooze is ridiculously powerful and isn't just a vanilla beater.

On terravore. I haven't run terravore for a while, but perhaps it's time to squeeze an additional copy in my list. Sometimes, terravore is a ridiculous card that can't be matched. Although the omnipresent question remains of what to cut for it.

[Aggro_zombies]

On terravore. I haven't run terravore for a while, but perhaps it's time to squeeze an additional copy in my list. Sometimes, terravore is a ridiculous card that can't be matched. Although the omnipresent question remains of what to cut for it.

Crusher. They fill basically the same role (large, late-game beater), but Terravore has more immediate pay-off and is better against certain kinds of removal.

[razvan]

I will write a report soon. I finished 85th or something. Great tournament, great deck. :)

[alrightgame]

Maybe if you read the posts your question would be answered. Faithless looting is only good when you dredge it with loam and usually bad in hand because you'd rather be casting things other than durdling around with looting. But even when you dredge it with loam, it's 3 mana to flashback and I don't know about you but when I'm loaming I usually get cycle lands or utility lands and loam costs 2 mana. I'd rather go loam into double cycle land and a fetchland or wasteland, cycle those lands hopefully into threats, and waste the opponents land and hopefully drop a threat next turn or waste them again if my plan is to wastelock them out of the game. On top of that, looting is card disadvantage unless you dredge it with loam and cast it using its flashback. Oh and lists of loam are super tight in terms of how many flex slots you have, and I'm not going to advocate cutting crusher for faithless looting as one wins the game and the other does actually nothing to advance your gameplan.

Thank you for the quick response. Forgive me for not reading other posts before this. I'm very busy in life and only frequent this thread to get an opinion on a card I might include in my deck.

[razvan]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...401#post625401

It's probably too big for this thread. I will make a small analysis of the cards at some point too.

[grim confident]

Grim Lavamancer really very good？
What is the role of it？
It and loam no conflict?

[Antonius]

Grim Lavamancer serves as both a clock and recurring removal. When you have loam going, I'd say that 1 fetch, 1 wasteland and 2 cycling lands are the minimum of what you want to keep in your yard/hand. Everything else, you can feed to the Lavamancer. Dredging with loam tends to give you endless shots.

For the most part, it works out; the only time the dissynergy can kick in is when you get lavamancer and cycling lands early then draw loam late after you've exiled all the cyclers, etc. However, usually when you find yourself in that situation, that means that Lavamancer has been killing dudes all day and carrying you through the game, so loam being not that great of a top deck isn't a big deal. Just resolve loam for no targets and start dredging to keep the Lavamancer online.

Also: against surgical extraction, use lavamancer to exile whatever card they targeted so they can't see your hand or dig through your deck.

[razvan]

As Antonius said, it is incredibly helpful against Surgical Extraction as well. It protects Loam and other key cards from this (I protected 1 Loam and 1 Ooze on separate occasions). Most people won't do this mistake, but you can still use your lavamancer if you have a cycle land.

So use the Cycle land, return Loam, then use Lavamancer if there is nothing you mind them hitting (or remove something you think they might hit, such as a creature, or a cycle-land if you have another).

[Dark Ritual]

Grim lavamancer is a house against maverick, assuming they don't get double mom out. It also lowers the curve of the deck. You can feed it with crusher, loam, or both or even seismic assault without loam to take out X/4's. Sure removing lands sucks but generating card advantage off of a 1 drop creature is quite powerful. It also works wonders against surgical as Antonius stated. The card is very solid.

[razvan]

Tony, congratulations on T4ing SCG:Sacramento. I said it before and will say it again... Hexproof sucks :(

[sdematt]

Nice job to the LA crew either way, win or lose. Koby, you lost against Tony?

-Matt