Budget Loam (<$100), W or B splash?

[kidsmokin]

Oy, so here's the dilemma. I've managed to make a SB-less Aggro Loam for under $100, but the situation here is: which splash do I go?

B: Tombstalker, Terminate
W: Knight of the Reliquary, Nantuko Monastery (1-of), Swords to Plowshares

So which way to go? I have a fetish for Tombstalkers so I'm tempted to go the B route, but my friend says W is better...

Somehow, both are under $100 even with the vile SCG, so I'm not sure how that happened. Granted, under the budget, the land base is a lot jankier, but they still work, just at a slower pace. And it's budget, so what can you do?

Any insight would be great. Thanks in advance!

So the splash choice can be summarized this way, with the W splash listed before the or and the B splash listed after:

// Lands
3 [ON] Forgotten Cave
2 [MI] Mountain Valley
3 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
5 [IN] Forest (2)
4 [SHM] Mountain (4)
1 [OD] Barbarian Ring
3 [ALA] Plains (2) or 3 [TE] Swamp
1 [JU] Nantuko Monastery or 1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal or 1 [MI] Rocky Tar Pit
4 [10E] Terramorphic Expanse

// Creatures
3 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
4 [OD] Werebear
2 [OD] Terravore
2 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary or 2 [FUT] Tombstalker

// Spells
2 [PS] Hull Breach
4 [TO] Devastating Dreams
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [FUT] Coalition Relic
3 [FUT] Edge of Autumn
3 [10E] Seismic Assault
2 [A] Swords to Plowshares or 2 [PS] Terminate

[Soldar]

Go with White, Knight of the Reliquary is way more synergistic with the deck than Tombstalker, and much easier to cast.

When you're playing the deck, especially without duals, I would imagine you want to minimize how many lands you need to get your engine going, and to cast your spells. Since you already need to get 3 mountains to cast Seismic Assault, you should want to minimize off-color mana costs, and playing a Knight's ability will also make it easier to fix your mana, hit your 1-of's, and, and become big enough to win the game.

I really only have good things to say about Knight in aggro loam, after playing with him for a while.

Here are some color comparisons for you:

White:
Swords to Plowshares is way better than Terminate
Knight is far more synergistic with the deck, especially if you're playing Werebear
Nantuko Monastery and other 1-of's can be found with Knight
If you can find a Wasteland in your budget, you can make it work as a 1-of with Knight

Black:
Tombstalker flies and is always going to be huge
Volrath's Stronghold is much stronger than Nantuko Monastery
Opens you up to stronger sideboard cards in my opinion

I'm sure there are other considerations, but these are off the top of my head.

[SomeRandomDude]

You may want to thing about burning wish, I know you want to keep in budget but you can get them cheap on ebay (I got mine for $20). If you do that you can cut down to two Devastating Dreams and have one on your wish board. I also would go with white splash over black, for swords (which I feel as if you should run 4) and Knight of the Reliquary.

With the mana base, i know its a bit hair to run so many colours and no fetchs or duals, but you may want to consider Ravnica shock lands or pain lands as a cheap alt. Although they don't play well with Terramorphic Expanse....

Well, the best way to build a deck like this is proxy it and test it with someone, that way you can get a feel for what you like without spending any money :tongue:

[Elfrago]

Well, the real reason for the black splash is Dark Confidant, consider splashing B for him.

You may also consider remaining RG, without most of the staples a solid manabase may be better than a slightly more powerful but unstable deck.