U/G/b Counterbalance Loam

[Hanni]

I wanted to create a new thread for this, but it's so similar to ITF that I'm not sure if it's appropriate. If others feel it belongs in the ITF thread, this can be merged.

Anyway, this is deck is based off of the model of my U/W Counterbalance Landstill list, with a few modifications. Basically, I took the shell of my U/W Counterbalance Landstill list and swapped out the Standstills for the Intuition/Loam engine. While the Standstill list has many advantages, like a more consistent manabase and bombs like Elspeth, the Intuition/Loam engine is far more powerful than Standstill and alot less situational. The color combination shifted to U/G/b as well.

Let me first post my U/W Counterbalance Landstill list as a reference point:

U/W Counterbalance Landstill
Kaezurstill

Lands (23)
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Windswept Heath
4 Tundra
4 Island
3 Plains
4 Mishra's Factory

Spells (37)
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Decree of Justice
4 Brainstorm
4 Standstill
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Counterbalance
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
2 Oblivion Ring

Sideboard (15)
1 Wrath of God
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Path to Exile
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Meddling Mage

Now the U/G/b list:

U/G/b Counterbalance Loam
Kaezurloam

Lands (24)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (1)
1 Gigapede

Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Top
4 Intuition
1 Loam
4 Counterbalance
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Raven's Crime
2 Innocent Blood
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse

I'll come up with a sideboard later, more than likely resembling most typical ITF and Landstill sideboards.

I'll make comparisons from this to my Landstill list first, since it makes more sense that way, and then compare it to typical ITF afterwards.

I like to look at U/G/b Counterbalance Loam as a hybrid of Aggro Loam and Counterbalance Landstill.

There are advantages and disadvantages to going this route rather than U/W Counterbalance Landstill.

Intuition/Loam is a powerhouse of a draw engine. Once online, you are drawing 3 cards a turn, for the same 2 mana Standstill draws you. The difference is that it's less conditional, but the cards drawn are lands. There are serious advantages to this. First off, it allows for more consistent land drops. This is great in control. Secondly, it gives recurring win conditions via Factory and Gigapede. Thirdly, it opens up Wastelock and Crimelock as additional disruption elements not available in U/W Counterbalance Landstill. Fourthly, there is great synergy between Top and Loam.

The downside is that it's more expensive and demanding that Standstill to create quality card advantage because the Sandbars/Thicket cost additional mana, and the deck opens itself up to graveyard hate. It also loses the strengths of white, primarily Elspeth and Swords to Plowshares.

Why not 4c? I hate 4c decks. I hate inconsistency in land drops, especially in control decks, and the format is rather hateful towards nonbasics. Merfolk, Goblins, Canadian Threshold, and Aggro Loam are all popular decks that screw up manabases. Obviously Elspeth is not an option in a 4c deck because of the WW cost, and StP alone is not worth manabase instability for me. Many games are lost because of unstable manabases even in 3c lists, and 4c is worse. Given that this deck runs 5 colorless sources and 3 Lonely Sandbars, I don't feel that 4c is the route to go. On top of that, I run a removal split of 2 1cc removals and 2 2cc removals to round out my Counterbalance curve at 11 1cc spells and 11 2cc spells anyway.

Lonely Sandbar and Tranquil Thicket are a necessary evil. ITF doesn't run it, and I don't know why, because it's essential to making Loam a great card advantage engine. Brainstorm alone is not enough alone to shuffle lands from hand back into the library to turn the card advantage of lands into business. Aggro Loam runs Burning Wish, Loam, and cycle lands, and this directly ports to Intuition, Loam, and cycle lands. Effective strategy. 3-4 cyclers should be enough, whereas Aggro Loam runs 5-7, since the deck runs Brainstorm/Top/Intuition as it's draw package as opposed to Dark Confidant/Countryside Crusher/Burning Wish.

I'm still on the fence with Urborg, but it's there currently for Raven's Crime. It will probably get dropped for another Misty Rainforest.

Wastelock is invaluable, regardless if it stops the deck from making land drops for a period of time, because it alone wins games. Locking out colors, or even locking opponent's off of lands completely, is game wrecking. Aggro Loam is mana hungry and still utilizes this strategy. Since Intuition allows us to run a singleton Wasteland and still be effective, I see no reason to not run it.

Mishra's Factory is the coupe de gra aggro piece for control decks, Landstill or not. It avoids your own sweepers, and is unaffected by sorcery speed removal. You don't care about the size of it (obviously it's smaller than Goyf), because you keep the opponent's board clear so that it can swing in. As a defensive piece, a 3/3 is still very solid, as it has been in Landstill for a long time. In here it's downright disgusting because it is recurrable with Loam. Absolute beating.

Gigapede is the alternate win condition. Gigapede is self recurring, which makes him nonreliant on Loam, which is great. It's grabbable with Intuition, which makes it great. It's 5cc, which makes it great through opposing Counterbalances. It's 5cc, which means you can activate Deed without losing tempo. It has shroud, which makes it immune to rfg cards like Swords and Path, which is great. A 6/1 non-trample body isn't the most impressive beater, but it does trade with Goyfs. If 1/1 guys are getting you down, slap that Deed down. Even if it trades with a 1/1, who cares; you're playing him again next turn.

Gigapede is a very solid win condition by all means. His discard recur effect is card parity so you're not losing anything, and since you'll have excess lands to pitch from Loam, you're already gaining card advantage and Gigapede is generating card quality. Awesome finisher. Whereas my Landstill list runs 2 different, 4 total alternate win conditions in addition to Factory, 1 Gigapede is fine. Intuition essentially makes Gigapede's count 5, Intuition can grab Factories, and Loam makes Factory a recurring win condition while Gigapede is a recurring win condition. Evens itself out.

Raven's Crime is sick nasty. It's just as busted as CounterTop against certain decks. The ability to empty the opponent's hand and put them into topdeck mode literally rapes certain decks. Given that Deed can occasionally blow up Counterbalances, it's additional disruption that's unaffected by Deed.

In combination with CounterTop, Crimelock is often a hard lock. In addition to Wastelock, Crimelock is often a hard lock. With so many gamewinning lockout potentials with this deck from different angles, the deck is tailor fit for multiple matchups. Intuition/Loam makes each of these approaches very consistent, so the deck is not spread out too thin.

The 4/3/2 removal package is a direct port from Counterbalance Landstill.

I runa a split on spot removal for Counterbalance curve reasons. Innocent Blood is the only option I can think of for 1cc removal in the colors I'm on, though I have no creatures I'm worried about sac'ing anyway. Diabolic Edict I'm still on the fence with; Smother doesn't seem worth it, since Deed is great at hitting low cc guys anyway, and Chainer's Edict is a possible option with Intuition/dredge, but it's sorcery speed and I'm not sure how relevant that will be. Opinions on what might be a better combination is welcome.

Pernicious Deed is obviously a bomb, answering any nonland permanents (sans Planeswalkers) that might need to be dealt with en mass. Maelstrom Pulse does the same thing, as a spot removaler, at less mana investment regardless of cc, with potential removal en mass.

Very strong removal package, IMO.

In comparison with ITF, you're dropping the very slow engines (Stronghold, Ruins, Witness, Etched Oracle). You also lose Goyf, which I feel is inefficient in a control deck (more on that later). You lose some synergy with Stronghold/Ruins with Counterbalance, but you gain synergy with Factory/Gigapede with Deed. Goyf improves some early games by being defensive, but Factory can do the same in most cases. Goyf on its lonesome is not very synergistic with the rest of the deck, and while it speeds up the early game while being big for low cost, it slows the deck down by requiring Stronghold to make it worthwhile. Overall, I feel Goyf is inefficient for what the decks purpose is. Overall, I feel the deck is already slow with the Loam engine and that Stronghold/Ruins just make it that much slower. Eternal Witness is even slower, and the deck doesn't need that sort of card advantage when it already ruins Intuition/Loam. Same with Etched Oracle, they're just overkill IMO.

However, that's just my opinion on the matter. I love ITF, ITF is a great deck, but I don't think it's the only viable route to take with this type of approach.

Thoughts?

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Intuition/Loam is a powerhouse of a draw engine. Once online, you are drawing 3 cards a turn, for the same 2 mana Standstill draws you. The difference is that it's less conditional, but the cards drawn are lands. There are serious advantages to this. First off, it allows for more consistent land drops. This is great in control. Secondly, it gives recurring win conditions via Factory and Gigapede. Thirdly, it opens up Wastelock and Crimelock as additional disruption elements not available in U/W Counterbalance Landstill. Fourthly, there is great synergy between Top and Loam.


Although I very much agree with you, isn't running just one Loam a little on the low side? After all, if you could draw your way into it through Brainstorm, Top, and your cycling lands, then you don't need to use up an Intuition and another turn to get the engine online. You can use Intuition to grab more situationally relevant elements of the deck instead.






The 4/3/2 removal package is a direct port from Counterbalance Landstill.

I runa a split on spot removal for Counterbalance curve reasons. Innocent Blood is the only option I can think of for 1cc removal in the colors I'm on, though I have no creatures I'm worried about sac'ing anyway. Diabolic Edict I'm still on the fence with; Smother doesn't seem worth it, since Deed is great at hitting low cc guys anyway, and Chainer's Edict is a possible option with Intuition/dredge, but it's sorcery speed and I'm not sure how relevant that will be. Opinions on what might be a better combination is welcome.


If you're looking for another option, then what about Snuff Out? Complemented with either Innocent Blood or Diabolic Edict (and then the Pulses and Deeds), it seems like such a removal package could take on anything at all that you might worry about.

[Hanni]

1 Loam is a little on the low side, but the deck is very tight for space. Considering that any Loam past the first is a dead card, 1 is efficient. I know Aggro Loam runs a 4/3 split of Burning Wish/Loam, but they also aren't running the sort of control this deck is running. Loam isn't mandatory here. I guess I was thinking more in terms of the 4/1 split of Intuition/Loam replacing the 4 Standstill's I run in my Landstill deck.

Cannot do Snuff Out here. Two reasons, a) 4 lifeloss is very bad in a control deck (this isn't aggro/control like Intuition Thresh), and b) it has to be a 1cc or 2cc replacement because of the Counterbalance curve.

9 removal spells should be adequate given the decks draw engine and other anti aggro options (recurring Factory, recurring Gigapede, Counterbalance).

I've also decided to cut the Urborg for the 4th Misty Rainforest. The deck really only needs that much black mana to dump with Raven's Crime, which is not worth the color source loss for U and G. Even with 1-2 black sources in play, Raven's Crime can still empty and opponent's hand and lock them into topdeck mode.

I've also decided that Chainer's Edict is much better with the synergy of the deck and I actually like it. Having so much sorcery speed removal does kinda suck sometimes, but Deed can be instant speed sorta and again... Chainer's Edict is just more synergistic. It takes advantage of hitting alot of land drops, takes advantages of the times you Dredge, and gives you a tutorable removal spell via Intuition.

EDIT: I really like the synergy between Top, Brainstorm, Loam, and Counterbalance. Top let's you know if you should dredge or not. With CounterTop, Loam can dig into getting the 1cc/2cc spells on top of library for the lock. Loam is a recurring 2cc spell, so if you have CounterTop (or just Counterbalance in play), Brainstorm puts Loam on top to counter something. The entire engine all-together just works really really well. I like it alot.

EDIT 2: Just got done playing against Tempo Thresh and the matchup vs it is worse than with U/W Landstill. Somewhat to be expected, since its 3c. His Stifles/Wastes/Dazes/Snares kinda hurt. Removal at the 2cc spot is bad vs Snare, even though they are sac effects which are good against Mongoose. I had a few mulligans to 5, and a few games where I was either mana screwed or mana flooded from my draws, but with those aside... tough matchup. Very winnable, I think after a 10 game set I ended up 6-4. Neither of us boarded for all 10 games. If he disrupted my manabase early, I lost. If he drew heavy aggro and I drew light removal, I lost. Every other time, I won by grinding him out with control.

[Phoenix Ignition]

With loam being so vital to the deck, wouldn't it be wise to have more than one in case someone Relics you? Even in the Tempo thresh matchup like you just played, their mana denial package is probably strong enough to keep you off of 3 for quite a few turns, rendering Intuition a bad card, but drawing into a loam would be very helpful since after you establish your manabase you pretty much win.

It seems to me like dropping 1 Intuition would be acceptable as early on it will be helping you to find your LftL (and win conditions that don't help as much until late game, except for possibly wasteland), and having 3 should be enough to find your win package by late game. Sure, it's pitchable to FoW, but I'm more worried about the bad matchups that have stifle/waste.

I'm worried about the Merfolk matchup in particular, since they do all the things tempo thresh does but swing faster and get around innocent blood + chainer's edict far easier. Sideboard could have the new instant for B that gives -2/-2 to any creature, since it will blow up their lords. I was going to suggest it over innocent blood, but that's probably a bad idea since IB blows up Goyf.

[Hanni]

Loam is not vital, it's only necessary function is to make enough land drops to play the control gameplan effectively, and maybe drawing a few cards from cycle lands before it's removed. Think of it as a slower but stronger Standstill. If it gets shut off, you still have multiple other avenues to win with. Relic on Loam does hamper the strategy, but cards like Counterbalance and Pernicious Deed power the deck through graveyard hate. Factory still does what it does best, and Gigapede can be Intuitioned for after the opponent casts a Relic to give you a recurring win condition.

Even when I had Loam in hand vs Tempo Thresh, it didn't save me. The reason why I lost was because I was behind on land drops and down on color sources. Getting to 1G and paying 1G to return lands back to hand eats alot of my tempo, and I'm gonna lose before I can get enough lands in play to cast and pop Pernicious Deed. Innocent Blood is the best removal spell here because it's 1cc... Edict and Maelstrom Pulse are oftentimes too slow. I just have to accept that preboard, the matchup can be problematic. I'm sure that for my increased weakness against manabase-hate matchups, many of my other matchups are improved, though (in comparison to U/W Counterbalance Landstill).

[Tacosnape]

Why Gigapede over Worm Harvest?

Similarly, why not a 3/1 split between Innocent Blood and Chainer's Edict? Not only would this speed up your removal suite, this would allow you to Intuition for the 3 Bloods if you only had 4 mana at your disposal and time was of the essence. If you needed the flashback power, you could also grab the single Chainer's as part of whatever package you chose.

[Aggro_zombies]

Four Intuition is too much. It's a very useless card in the early turns, and it's downright terrible against certain decks (often too slow to matter against Zoo or most tribal decks). With Brainstorm and Top to find it quickly, you should be able to get away with running three.

Cephalid Coliseum is worth a look. I've run it in conjunction with Genesis in versions of Intuition-Loam not splashing black, and it's worked out quite well. However, if you go with that as a backup card selection plan to Loam, I would recommend adding a single Crucible to the deck to give you a draw package independent of Loam.

Innocent Blood is flat-out better than Edict in a deck with few to no creatures. It's especially lulzy with a one-of Witness. Speaking of which, where's yours? They're quite powerful in this deck.

[Shanghi Knights]

could i suggest adding worm harvest or even grave shell scarab? I really think your win conditions are very narrow, even though they can be brought back over and over. a second creature or manland would do your deck a lot of good.

[Hanni]

I forgot to add this to the OP, but I'll just post it instead.

I should have maybe mentioned before I posted this deck that I have an extensive background of Intuition Loam variants.

In fact, I actually started working on my original Intuition Loam archetype back in 2006, with an aggro/board control version using Nimble Mongoose, Wild Mongrel, and Psychatog wayyyyy before Tarmogoyf ever got printed. At the time, I called it UGb DAT (Dredge-a-Tog). It was such a complicated deck to me back then, and so difficult to pilot because of the retarded amount of decisions that you had to make each turn, that I set it down after only a few weeks of playtesting to resume UWb Fish.

Once Tarmogoyf came to the forefront, I picked the deck back up and helped Goas, Solupgid (sp?), and a few others innovate and design the evolution of that deck into what is now known as UGb Intuition Threshold. Very good deck, made even better now with Misty Rainforest, but I've shifted my focus from aggro/board control decks to Counterbalance control decks, because I feel they are the new wave of badass in the metagame.

Thusly, U/W Counterbalance Landstill, and now this deck have been spawned. I know that ITF is already an existing deck of similar frame with the same idea, but I just really don't like several aspects of that deck. First of all, I already dislike the anti-synergy between Deed and Counterbalance in my own deck. The anti-synergy between Counterbalance and Tarmogoyf with both Deed and EE is just too much for me to handle in ITF, annoys the shit outta me. Secondly, I hate 4c manabases. Lastly, the deck is way too damn slow for my tastes. Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, Eternal Witness, and Etched Oracle plays push you into like turn 40. I hate long ass games like that. I've been trying to revolutionize control decks for a long time to have a faster fundamental clock, and with every new card that sees print, my goal keeps getting closer and closer.

----------


Why Gigapede over Worm Harvest?

You know, I had originally considered Worm Harvest, and actually wanted to run a 1/1 split of them and Gigapede. I needed to cut a card, so 1 of the win conditions had to go. I decided to test with Gigapede first, for a few reasons. Worm Harvest costs 3 colored mana, Gigapede costs 2 colored mana. Worm Harvest requires a specific card to be discarded (land) while Gigapede can discard any card. Worm Harvest is generally reliant upon Loam to be highly effective (not that it cannot be effective without it), Gigapede is a stand alone guy (no dependance on Loam). Worm Harvest is more vulnerable to graveyard hate; I typically don't grab these win conditions until after I'm in a position to win, and a prior Relic or Crypt or what have you, makes Worm Harvest kinda suck while, Gigapede doesn't care (although, I probably won't see much graveyard hate maindeck anyway). Gigapede can trade with opposing Goyfs, playing awesome defense. Finally, I can have a Gigapede on the board and cast a Deed without losing my Gigapede, which is a huge tempo swing, while I lose all of my 1/1 tokens from Harvest.

However, there are also many advantages that Worm Harvest has as well. Number one being that it answers multiple aggro creatures when the board is not clear (chump blocking until you create enough tokens over several turns to simply alpha for the win or massive chump block stack to kill them all). When the opponent has aggro to hold back as blocker(s), the tokens can push through, while Gigapede dies to just about every blocker in the format. Gigapede is vulnerable to sac effects like Edict, but avoids being destroyed by removal like EE. Worm Harvest, with enough lands in the graveyard, can be an insta win, while Gigapede typically takes at least 2 swings if Factory got a few beats in early. Probably more pros that I haven't listed, but that should cover the bulk.

So basically, both have advantages over the other. In the end, I decided I wanted to try Gigapede first. If I could fit a 1/1 split of both of them, I would. However, I'm at a loss for what I could possibly remove to do so. However, I will include either 1 or the other in the sideboard, depending on which one I decide that works better in the maindeck.

Good question to bring up, though, and I definitely should have included it in the opening post.


Similarly, why not a 3/1 split between Innocent Blood and Chainer's Edict? Not only would this speed up your removal suite, this would allow you to Intuition for the 3 Bloods if you only had 4 mana at your disposal and time was of the essence. If you needed the flashback power, you could also grab the single Chainer's as part of whatever package you chose.

This was primarily for a 11/11 split of 1cc/2cc spells for the Counterbalance curve, though I definitely see the benefits of doing it this way. Very good idea, and I will try it out and hope that it doesn't significantly effect my Counterbalance curve.

Again, another great suggestion.

Honestly Tacosnape, I always value your posts and opinions. I like them very much.


Four Intuition is too much. It's a very useless card in the early turns, and it's downright terrible against certain decks (often too slow to matter against Zoo or most tribal decks). With Brainstorm and Top to find it quickly, you should be able to get away with running three.

4 Intuition is pretty good. This is a 24 land control deck that runs 4 Brainstorm and 4 Top. Ramping to 3 lands, aside from the random Waste/Stifle/Daze decks the deck will sometimes run into (Tempo Thresh and Merfolk basically), I almost always want to see an Intuition as soon as I can. I'd rather address matchups like those and Zoo in a different way rather than cut Intuition. This deck values casting more than 1 Inutition a game, because there are more than 3 targets it wants to grab.

We have: 1 Loam, 3 cycle lands, Wasteland, Raven's Crime, Gigapede, Mishra's Factories, 3x of certain cards, and possibly Worm Harvest, Maze of Ith, and Stinkweed Imp out of the board.

If you count Mishra's Factory as just 1 rather than 4, that gives me a total of 8 maindeck cards that I could want Intuition to grab and up to an additional 3 from the sideboard.

Not only that, but Intuition is blue and increases my blue spell count for FoW. Not only that, but Intuition increases my 3cc spell count for Counterbalance, which is becoming more and more relevant in the metagame. Not only that, but as a control deck that wants to hit lots of lands, I really want to get the Loam engine online as soon as possible without running more than 1 Loam. Not only that, the Loam engine is such a massively powerful draw engine that getting it online asap often wins games alone against many matchups.

I do appreciate the idea though. However, this deck is pretty Intuition centric, and it enables the card advantage engines of the deck to come online. Pretty essential 4-of, IMO.


Cephalid Coliseum is worth a look. I've run it in conjunction with Genesis in versions of Intuition-Loam not splashing black, and it's worked out quite well. However, if you go with that as a backup card selection plan to Loam, I would recommend adding a single Crucible to the deck to give you a draw package independent of Loam.

Cephalid Coliseum is great in UGb Intuition Thresh. That deck cannot afford 3 spots to add cycle lands, so Cephalid Coliseum is the next best thing. Additionally, it pitches Gigapede from hand in that deck. Since I can fit 3 cycle lands in here, and since I don't run Gigapede, Coliseum is suboptimal. It requires my land drop for the turn, where I want to be playing a land every single turn (aside from Wastelock, but that's different).

Crucible is absolutely unecessary in the deck. Loam fills the role that Crucible would fill much better, since it reads; 1G: Draw 3 cards, and can be played as a 1-of because it's tutorable by Intuition.


Innocent Blood is flat-out better than Edict in a deck with few to no creatures. It's especially lulzy with a one-of Witness. Speaking of which, where's yours? They're quite powerful in this deck.

I completely agree with you. The only reason I'm even running the split is because I was trying to balance out my Counterbalance curve. However, I really do like Tacosnape's 3/1 split idea, and I'm definitely going to test that. I hope it doesn't screw the Counterbalance curve too bad, because I definitely see it improving the deck.

I don't like Witness. With no way to recur it, all it is, is a mediocre "tutor." I run more than enough draw than to need this guy, and I feel that it's presense is simply overkill. Intuition/Loam is already a slow and overkill draw engine in comparison to Standstill, and I do not think Eternal Witness is a step in the right direction. You can argue that I could run Volrath's Stronghold; however, that slows the deck down even more, which is something I am trying to avoid altogether. I don't need the effect, and the 3cc 2/1 body is an unnecessary bonus. I will agree that in some versions of Intuition/Loam that this guy can be very good, I just don't think it's what this version really wants.

However Aggro Zombies, I do appreciate your suggestions and feedbacks, and I want you to definitely feel welcome to add any more things you come up with. I'd like to get alot of discussion going on this deck because I think it's really good. If ITF can take off en masse (although I realize I don't have the reputation Gearhardt does), I don't see why this deck wouldn't.


could i suggest adding worm harvest or even grave shell scarab? I really think your win conditions are very narrow, even though they can be brought back over and over. a second creature or manland would do your deck a lot of good.

Worm Harvest already got explained, and yes I do like it, and yes it will either replace the Gigapede maindeck after testing, or will go as a 1-of in the sideboard. Between the decks 75, I plan on having 1 Gigapede and 1 Worm Harvest.

Grave-Shell Scarab is a great win condition, especially in Truffle Shuffle, but it's really not necessary here, somewhat similar to why Eternal Witness isn't necessary. The Intuition/Loam draw engine is already powerful enough that it doesn't need any additional drawing, and the 4/4 body of Scarab is worse than the 6/1 Shroud body and 1/1 token generation of Worm Harvest.

I will agree that 3 seperate win conditions maindeck would not be a bad idea, I just really don't have the room. What would you drop to accomodate the 3rd win condition? The biggest thing I see is a vulnerability to Extirpate, which can suck. Luckily, I'll be running a 3rd win condition in the sideboard and CounterTop can randomly counter Extirpate, especially if I'm expecting it at some point because I'll float a 1cc spell on top.

My win conditions may seem slightly narrow, but they actually do offer alot. Mishra's Factory is obviously good, else why would Landstill run them (aside from obvious synergy with Standstill, which DoJ also does)? They don't die to your mass removal, they can chump block as 3/3's on defense to answer Nimble Mongoose, Kird Ape, Wild Nacatl, so on and so forth, and with Loam, they can recur, which is very synergistic, and a great anti-aggro tool. Gigapede, on the other hand, is tutorable by Intuition. For any alternate win condition, this is a mandatory requirement for me. I don't want to play draw go all day while I wait for my win condition if I can't do it with Factories. Secondly, Gigapede recurs. This is very good against removal options, making it highly resilient, and also allows it to chump block big ass dudes like Goyf and come back for more. Shroud is pretty friggin sweet too. Worm Harvest fits into this category, and is also a great option. Again, Scarab just doesn't do it for me in this particular deck.

EDIT: After some extra thinking, I think I'm ass backwards with Gigapede maindeck and Worm Harvest sideboard. Few decks pack maindeck graveyard hate, so Gigapede being more resilient to graveyard hate is mostly irrelevant for maindeck material. Secondly, 3 colored sources required either green or black is about just as restrictive as requiring strictly GG, so it's not much harder on the manabase, and 1/1 tokens are probably going to be a better defensive option against the general metagame rather than a 6/1 Shroud. Win conditions that double over as anti-aggro defense, like Elspeth and Decree of Justice, are the best forms of win conditions. While Gigapede is better equipped to deal with big guys like Goyf, 1/1 tokens are better equipped to deal with decks like Goblins, Zoo, Merfolk (if they don't have Islandwalk via Atlantis), so on and so forth. The 1/1 tokens can chump block Goyf anyway, so they aren't worthless, and it only takes a few turns of Worm Harvest advantage to put any player out of the game. Thanks for reminding me about this little gem you guys, I had it originally in the maindeck and decided to try Gigapede first and wouldn't have reconsidered this option without you making me think about it.

I also am going with the 3/1 split on Innocent Blood/Chainer's Edict. I'll let you guys know how the Counterbalance curve turns out.

I currently have the following sideboard, but am at a loss for what the 15th card should be:

Sideboard (14)
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Stinkweed Imp
1 Maze of Ith
1 Gigapede
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Duress

Preferrably, since I only have 1 slot left, it should be something that Intuition can tutor for. I don't really think I need any more alternate win conditions like Mutavault, and I think my sideboard removal is pretty much covered with 1 Stinkweed/1 Maze of Ith/1 Pernicious Deed/2 Maelstrom Pulse. That kinda puts me into the: what are my problematic matchup(s), and what random 1-of that Intuition can tutor for would improve that matchup(s); ideas?

EDIT 2: I wanted to respond to Aggro Zombies PM, but again I typed a message too long for the PM. I've been having that problem alot lately; too much typingzzz

Here ya go Aggro Zombies, and I appologize if you didn't want your list posted, I'll remove this post if you want me to after you read it:


Any thoughts? The curve is right for Counterbalance in the board, but I don't like it much in the main.

That's alright. In an aggro version of the list, I wouldn't advocate Counterbalance maindeck. You replace Counterbalances purpose in a deck like CounterTop Threshold (card advantage to carry it through the mid-late game since it relies on this later on... without it, it makes mostly 1-for-1 trades and needs CounterTop to generate card advantage to win games in the mid-late). Basically, you're running the most savage draw engine in the game with Intuition/Loam, and that's all you need if your an aggro version. See: UGb Intuition Threshold if you wanna see what I mean.

I think that is interesting. I tried working on something similar to that a little while back, minus some of the new cards obviously.

What intrigues me the most is the Explorations. I definitely like that idea, especially since you run EE and not Deed. Mana ramp is awesome in mana wanting ramp deck.

However, I do not like some of your card choices. Drop the Crucible for the 4th Intuition. Both cost the same 3 mana; Intuition grabs you Loam and 2 tutorable cards, and you can immediately get the Loam engine going on the following turn. Crucible + Loam in the same deck just seems redundant when you play Intuition, as I suggested in my post on my thread.

If you're worried about diversifying things against graveyard hate or Extirpate, don't go with both in the maindeck. Few people run maindeck graveyard hate. I also wouldn't be worried too much about CounterTop locking you out of Loam; Loam is not integral for you to actually win, unlike Aggro Loam which almost needs to see it every game, and it looks like you have a ton of badass answers to opposing CounterTop locks anyway.

Spell Snare is an interesting take on the deck. However, do you feel that the tempo element you gain from Spell Snare is better than running the power of Counterbalance or the increased speed of Daze (which forces Intuitions to resolve and the land bounce drawback should be negated by Exploration). Honestly I'd drop Spell Snare for either Counterbalance or Daze. Since you run a somewhat aggro/control approach with Factory and Goyf, I'd be inclined to say to go with Daze. Run Counterbalance in your sideboard.

I tried Intuition and Standstill in the same deck before, and it seemed kinda silly. Just like I replied to you in my thread about Witness in my deck, it just seems like its overkill. Intuition/Loam is a massive draw engine, stronger than any other draw engine in the format, and doesn't need card advantage supplements. What you do want, however, is Top in your maindeck, with or without Counterbalance. Top is the best card in every single control deck that packs fetchlands, ever, and should be an auto 4-of somehow, I promise. Top on its own wins games; you draw exactly what you want, when you want, every single game (at least way more consistently than any other card can ever do).

I really do despise the slowness of the recur lands. At least in ITF, they had synergy with Counterbalance because they could put varying cc's on top of library when the deck didn't have Top in play. In here, it seems like you add all these tempo elements to speed the deck up so you can play all these slow elements so you can slow the deck down. Even with Exploration to ramp mana, I'd be inclined to include those slower recur lands, but not entirely like that. Since you already run Worm Harvest as an alternate recurring win condition (and you run Factory), I'd say that those easily replace Volrath's Stronghold. I'd cut Eternal Witness since you won't have Stronghold, but I'd keep Academy Ruins. Academy Ruins gives you recurring removal, which you wouldn't have access to otherwise, and makes for some interesting sideboard options.

I'm very on the fence with Cepahlid Coliseum. Typically, the card is only really good in these decks in two circumstances, a) you cannot possibly fit 3 cycle lands into the list, or b) you want to discard Genesis.

Now, while I told you to drop Volrath's Stronghold, I'd just as quickly add Genesis if you're adamant about keeping Coliseum. Great combo, since Genesis creates actual card advantage (Stronghold was only parity), and allows you to utilize the Genesis card advantage engine rather than the Loam engine when you draw enough land (since Coliseum is a bad conversion card for card quantity to card quality with Loam). If you want to add the Eternal Witness back if you add Genesis, that's up to you. Without a reliable way to sac it so you can continually reuse it's ability, and since your opponent won't always have a blocker or destroy effect to do so, since a 2/1 is a shitty body, and since running it as a 1-of is StP bait, I wouldn't.

I'd be weary about adding Eternal Witness back if you do go that route. Keep in mind that he's hella slow and you're already going to be mildly slow going from Intuition into Loam, Coliseum into Genesis, paying 2G a turn for Genesis recursion, and then the cost of the creature. If the cost of the creature is 1GG for Eternal Witness, and then you're grabbing back a spell, you're essentially paying 2U + 1G + 1U + 2G + 1GG + [cost of the returned spell with Witness] = 13 + the cost of the spell. Now of course this is a recurring ability once online, it just seems way too slow when you can simply Top + fetchland into whatever card you would have wanted from Witness anyway. The point of the Loam draw engine and/or the Genesis card advantage engine is exactly that, card advantage, and slow tutor is simply made up for with card quality via Top, and I suppose Coliseum. I realize Witness is also card advantage, but an extra 3 mana on top of Genesis for a card you want just really seems like overkill and just further slows your engine.

Basically, take your pick. 3 cycle lands, or 1 Coliseum and 1 Genesis. I would not run Coliseum without Genesis. I personally like the 1 Coliseum 1 Genesis route in your deck best, since it plays better with Tarmogyf, and it allows you to run a 1-of Shrieikmaw as additional removal.

I'd fit the 4th Factory in. They are just that good.

Lastly, I feel like you need some spot removal. Spot removal is so essential. I realize you run Exploration to accel into more expensive removal, but what happens when you draw Exploration and no removal or removal and no Exploration? Bad times, IMO.

Without effecient spot removal (even 2cc), your fast aggro opponent's like Zoo, Tempo Thresh, Canadian Threshold, Goblins, Goyf Sligh, so on and so forth are gonna be problematic, even with you running Goyf. Ahhhh wait, run Shriekmaws. Problem solved.

Not sure what this ends up making the deck look like right now, and whether it is over or under 60 cards (probably way over), whether it has enough blue spells for FoW, and whether or not it has a decent curve for SB Counterbalances, but that's generally what I would do with the deck. Make of that what you will.

EDIT: Actually, I'll try to convert my suggestions into a decklist for you since I'm still rolling on Adderall and think it would be interesting to see what the deck looks like (very close in relation to UGb Intuition Thresh, I'm guessing):

U/G/b Aggro Zombies Intuition Loam

Lands (22)
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (7)
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Shriekmaw
1 Genesis

Spells (31)
1 Worm Harvest
4 Brainstorm
4 Sensei's Divning Top
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Exploration

Wow, right on queue with 60 cards. Nice! Only problem is, you DEFINITELY want a 1-of Raven's Crime, and you only have 16 blue spells. Hmm... well there's my general guideline, you can fix those 2 problems in your own way since I'm sure you will want to modify this for your own playstyle.


I mentioned those cards because recently I've been working on this:

4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

3 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland

4 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness

4 Brainstorm
3 Standstill
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds

4/3 Spell Snare
2/3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Exploration
1 Worm Harvest

3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Engineered Explosives

Any thoughts? The curve is right for Counterbalance in the board, but I don't like it much in the main.

[Aggro_zombies]

Interesting suggestions, although I'm not so sure about some of them.

I agree that Standstill is probably overkill. This deck also tends to be a bit more proactive than most because of the sorcery-speed removal and Worm Harvest, so sticking a Standstill can be problematic at times. That said, it gives the deck a lot of card advantage, and I'm not sure I want to rely solely on Loam for that.

No-can-do on dropping Witness. I love that card to death in this deck, as it's very powerful, makes your Intuitions a lot better, and lets you plow through a lot of things without caring (Counterbalance, opposing guys, etc).

Agreed on Crucible. I'll probably move it to the board, but keep it somewhere in my 75.

If I'm going to run cheap removal, I'd rather have it be Smother or Doom Blade because it's better with Counterbalance. Recurring Shriekmaw is badass, true, but recurring EE fills that role as well and may even do it better in some cases (lol Zoo). Shriekmaw is definitely faster, but the first two make Counterbalance more relevant in the places I want it to be (mainly Zoo here).

I'm not sold on Daze. It's still really bad in the late game, and Exploration is there not so much as a tempo boost, but as a speed boost. As the meta shifts further towards Zoo and tribal, control decks need to develop better early games to avoid falling too far into burn range/alpha strike. Exploration allows this deck to start playing its power cards early on, in addition to allowing some sick plays in the late game. I suppose Daze would be a good way to take advantage of the "play an extra land" effect, but I don't think dropping Spell Snare is necessarily a good idea. There's also the fact that most people tend to play around Daze once they know you have it, making it a lot less attractive. On the other hand, Coliseum lets me filter a lot of chaff out of my hand in the mid and late game, so I can always ditch them for more relevant cards at that point. With that said, I'd probably do either a 3/3/4 or 4/2/4 Daze/SS/Force split, but it needs moar testan to tell which is better.

I still think 4 Intuition is overkill. It's always been so in my testing, so I'll keep it at three for now.

Ah, Genesis versus Stronghold. They actually behave quite differently in this deck. Tapping down three mana on my upkeep to recur something is quite relevant, and losing my recursion engine to graveyard hate hurts. On the other hand, Stronghold ties up a land slot and makes colorless mana, which is kind of sucky because you really don't want to keep opening hands that have it (though sometimes it's okay if you have sufficient colored lands). I've tested both and lean towards Stronghold in most cases, if only because I like having as much mana available to me as possible on my main phases.

Cutting Crucible and Standstill frees up four slots, which can become Tops. However, that leaves me with 17 blue cards, which makes me a bit nervous. I can add three Top and do 4/3/4 SS/Daze/Force, getting me to 18 cards, but I'm not sure about the lack of draw at that point. The biggest reason I added Standstill to begin with was because Exploration tends to empty your hand fairly quickly, and the deck runs a lot of one-for-ones. Adding cycle lands upsets the mana, but I could potentially drop Factories for them (I feel I should go all-or-nothing with these guys, but I simply can't find room for the fourth). Three cycling lands allows me to draw two cards per Loam loop, but at the low, low cost of :1::u::u::u::g: and my top three cards. That's...a lot to ask for, actually. Even with Exploration, the deck would only be running a maximum of 14 lands that tap for mana. With all of those in play and cycling cards on-line, I can do this loop twice per turn. I like to keep a full hand (it's something I'm actually kind of neurotic about), so...eh. I'll try it and see. Losing my card drawing engine to Extirpate is gonna be a low blow, though.

It's fine to leave the list up. I haven't been working on it much lately due to a total lack of testing partners, so maybe this will generate some interest and rectify that.

[Tacosnape]

The other advantage of Worm Harvest over Gigapede? If your Gigapede is in play and can't punch through for any reason at all, you can't recast him until he dies. You can recast Worm Harvest over and over, though.

Worm Harvest doesn't also auto-fail to Warren Instigator and other random first strikery.

How has Counterspell been in this list? I hate questioning it, because I personally think Counterspell's one of the five most underrated cards in the format right now, but there seems to be a lot of sorcery-speed things that will prevent you from very often having the mana open to utilize it to its full strength.

[Aggro_zombies]

The other advantage of Worm Harvest over Gigapede? If your Gigapede is in play and can't punch through for any reason at all, you can't recast him until he dies. You can recast Worm Harvest over and over, though.

Worm Harvest doesn't also auto-fail to Warren Instigator and other random first strikery.
Worm Harvest is also silly against control. One of those two rapes Factory-Crucible in half, and the other...well...doesn't.


How has Counterspell been in this list? I hate questioning it, because I personally think Counterspell's one of the five most underrated cards in the format right now, but there seems to be a lot of sorcery-speed things that will prevent you from very often having the mana open to utilize it to its full strength.
It's been "I want more than eight counters, but my other options are kinda shitty." I mean, it's strong, but as you pointed out it can get rather painful at times to have to play around leaving :u::u: up. However, I've found that most often the two mana cost is only a bother if I'm trying to clean the board up with EE or Pulse, or if I'm trying to use Worm Harvest. Recurring EE is GG against a lot of decks in this format, so that often trumps my desire to leave mana up unless the board is sparse enough that I can leave double blue and Ruins open and then use the mana for either a counter or getting EE back. Obviously, it's a lot better in slower matchups like Countertop or control, and it comes out for Zoo and tribal. However, those last two decks are becoming more popular lately...I may drop it entirely from the main and run Daze as Hanni suggested, although Spell Pierce deserves a look (not sure it's better against Thresh/Control than Counterspell, but it's a hell of a lot faster elsewhere).

[Hanni]

I agree that Standstill is probably overkill. This deck also tends to be a bit more proactive than most because of the sorcery-speed removal and Worm Harvest, so sticking a Standstill can be problematic at times. That said, it gives the deck a lot of card advantage, and I'm not sure I want to rely solely on Loam for that.

I've actually tried to run both of them before. It's not a good, or necessary, combination of draw.

Relying solely on Loam is fine. Consider this either without changing the lands in, with comparison to a Standstill drawing you 3 lands off its rip, or using Brainstorm to change in your 3 lands for actual business and then cracking a fetchland. Your basically drawing off a Standstill each time you cast Loam for 3 lands. It's dredge effect cancels your draw step but puts Loam into your hand, so that's card parity... but the dredge effect itself gets cards in the graveyard that you often want there, so thats rather interesting. If having nothing but lands in hand isn't your thing, Brainstorm, Lonely Sandbar/Tranquil Thicket, and/or Cephalid Coliseum all change those in. Recurring Ancestral Recall for 1G every turn, what? Totally broken draw engine in comparison to Standstill. It's only drawback is that it is slow; much, much slower than Standstill

The only reason why Standstill is so effective is because it costs significantly less mana to set up and draw from, forces the opponent to break it immediately or play a draw go game where you inevitability, and because of the strength of the rest of the cards in the deck (primarily Elspeth). I wanted to create a U/G/w Intuition Loam deck with CounterTop and Elspeth as the win condition over cards like Gigapede and Worm Harvest, but I had serious problems fitting in what I wanted and still maintaining the Counterbalance curve. Plus, if you're going to play Intuition/Loam, you might as well splash black for the most broken/synergistic disruption spell in Raven's Crime.


No-can-do on dropping Witness. I love that card to death in this deck, as it's very powerful, makes your Intuitions a lot better, and lets you plow through a lot of things without caring (Counterbalance, opposing guys, etc).



Like I said, thats up to you. I think he's too slow in decks like these that are already slow, but to each his own.


Agreed on Crucible. I'll probably move it to the board, but keep it somewhere in my 75.

I wouldn't even do that, what's the point? You only need 1 Loam to do everything that Crucible would do. Difference is, Loam requires mana where Crucible doesn't, but Loam creates more card advantage. Are you worried about making land drops every turn, or worried about making land drops and creating card advantage every turn? I always recommend either straight Crucible or a Crucible/Loam split in decks that don't run Burning Wish or Intuition and want that effect... but with Intuition, come on man. Deck space is so precious; there's so much you want to fit in 75 cards that running dead cards like Crucible in an Intuition/Loam deck doesn't make much sense. Academy Ruins or not, graveyard hate or not.


If I'm going to run cheap removal, I'd rather have it be Smother or Doom Blade because it's better with Counterbalance. Recurring Shriekmaw is badass, true, but recurring EE fills that role as well and may even do it better in some cases (lol Zoo). Shriekmaw is definitely faster, but the first two make Counterbalance more relevant in the places I want it to be (mainly Zoo here).

Your not even playing Counterbalance maindeck. At least play 1 Shriekmaw as an Intuition target so you have recurring spot removal. I suggest two so that if you want to hardcast one, you still have one you can use for recurring spot removal. It's a solid alt win condition, and honestly, I'd probably just cut Worm Harvest from the maindeck to the sideboard. In your aggro shell, with Genesis, you have inevitability on killing the opponent anyway, you don't need to play as defensive because you'll have a ton of guys (and bigger than 1/1) to block with already, and win conditions are typically going to be less important for you than disruption/removal. As an aggro deck, you're more concerned with dealing 20 to 0 as fast as possible, and Worm Harvest can be rather slow. Not saying I'd cut it from the entire 75, but I question if it's necessary maindeck with the rest of your aggro.

Back to Shriekmaw though, hardcasting one is also card advantage, which was why I loved it in Intuition Thresh. You Genesis a Shriekmaw to gain +1 CA, hardcast Shriekmaw to gain +1 CA, your up +2 CA while advancing your gameplan at the same time. Pretty powerful strategy, from my experience with Intuition Thresh.

Just consider at least 1 Shriekmaw, though. Recurring EE is decent, but Ruins itself just generates card parity and EE can be rather expensive to answer something in comparison to Shriekmaw. Plus, you can't hit shit past 3cc. Now, I know that you also run Maelstrom Pulse, but the ability to recur a Shriekmaw to kill a Sower of Temptation, for example, isn't unheard of.


I'm not sold on Daze. It's still really bad in the late game, and Exploration is there not so much as a tempo boost, but as a speed boost. As the meta shifts further towards Zoo and tribal, control decks need to develop better early games to avoid falling too far into burn range/alpha strike. Exploration allows this deck to start playing its power cards early on, in addition to allowing some sick plays in the late game. I suppose Daze would be a good way to take advantage of the "play an extra land" effect, but I don't think dropping Spell Snare is necessarily a good idea. There's also the fact that most people tend to play around Daze once they know you have it, making it a lot less attractive. On the other hand, Coliseum lets me filter a lot of chaff out of my hand in the mid and late game, so I can always ditch them for more relevant cards at that point. With that said, I'd probably do either a 3/3/4 or 4/2/4 Daze/SS/Force split, but it needs moar testan to tell which is better

The reason why I suggest Daze is because you have to hold U open for Spell Snare but you really want to be curving out, and Daze protects you while your curving out. Similarly to why it's good in Threshold is why it would be good in here, except it's even more necessary when you're trying to resolve an Intuition on turn 3 after you've tapped out against an opposing blue deck. It's junk in the late game, I agree. Shouldn't you have inevitability in the lategame, though, because of the card advantage you get from Loam/Genesis (and potentially Shriekmaw, and/or CounterTop postboard)? I dunno, that was always the philosophy I followed in Intuition Thresh. I realize this deck is slightly different.


I still think 4 Intuition is overkill. It's always been so in my testing, so I'll keep it at three for now.

If your not wanting to establish the Loam engine right away, then 4 is overkill. How do you play the deck?


Ah, Genesis versus Stronghold. They actually behave quite differently in this deck. Tapping down three mana on my upkeep to recur something is quite relevant, and losing my recursion engine to graveyard hate hurts. On the other hand, Stronghold ties up a land slot and makes colorless mana, which is kind of sucky because you really don't want to keep opening hands that have it (though sometimes it's okay if you have sufficient colored lands). I've tested both and lean towards Stronghold in most cases, if only because I like having as much mana available to me as possible on my main phases.

They both have pros and cons, but the most important one is that they both cost they same mana investment but one creates actual card advantage. Is that relevant to you, or no? I've always thought it was, but some may not agree I guess.


Cutting Crucible and Standstill frees up four slots, which can become Tops. However, that leaves me with 17 blue cards, which makes me a bit nervous. I can add three Top and do 4/3/4 SS/Daze/Force, getting me to 18 cards, but I'm not sure about the lack of draw at that point. The biggest reason I added Standstill to begin with was because Exploration tends to empty your hand fairly quickly, and the deck runs a lot of one-for-ones. Adding cycle lands upsets the mana, but I could potentially drop Factories for them (I feel I should go all-or-nothing with these guys, but I simply can't find room for the fourth). Three cycling lands allows me to draw two cards per Loam loop, but at the low, low cost of and my top three cards. That's...a lot to ask for, actually. Even with Exploration, the deck would only be running a maximum of 14 lands that tap for mana. With all of those in play and cycling cards on-line, I can do this loop twice per turn. I like to keep a full hand (it's something I'm actually kind of neurotic about), so...eh. I'll try it and see. Losing my card drawing engine to Extirpate is gonna be a low blow, though.


Blue is such a hard color to make in Intuition Thresh-style lists. My list ended with 19 blue sources before I stopped innovating it, but they simply want to run so many nonblue spells, particularly because you run a bunch of green aggro, that you have to cut back on the blue spells a normal control shell would normally run.

Maybe this could be looked at another way. I love Exploration, and all that it does (I also like Mox Diamond, too, but Exploration is clearly a better card to run given the rest of the deck). However, what matchups will it improve and what matchups does it not matter in? That needs to be determined, because if its not that necessary against your bad matchups, I'd consider putting it in the sideboard and fitting in the extra cards you actually do want to run. But honestly, I don't know. All I know is that if I was actually running 4 Exploration, I'd be running every last bit of 4 Intuition. Why run Standstill to fill your hand up from the lands Exploration empties from your hand when you can cast Intuition for Loam and continue to empty your hand every turn? Seems counterproductive to me, when Intuition/Loam is 100x better with Exploration than Standstill.

I'd sooner drop all the other cute stuff your running before cutting Factories. These are your bread and butter. They avoid sorcery speed removal and provide effective beats while tapping for mana when you need it. With the symplistic synergy with Loam, I don't see why you wouldn't want them, especially when you're going for a more aggro approach. That's just my opinion, though.

The 3 cycle land draw engine isn't meant to be used every single turn. If you're doing that, you're drawing 3 cards a turn and not casting anything. Do you really need 3 cards a turn? If you cannot play 3 cards a turn, you don't need to draw 3 cards a turn. Play it in moderation. When your resources get low, and you can waste that turn drawing a bunch of cards (well, afford to waste 5 mana, anyway), dredge Loam and cycle three to draw 3 cards. Play a few more turns, do what you gotta do; need more cards? Dredge Loam, pay 5 mana total, draw 3. That's how it should be used. Some players fall into the misconception that you must dredge Loam and play it every turn. That's not the case.

Also, as an aside, I think the 2/1 split of Sandbars/Thicket's works out best. I'd also only advocate running the cycle lands in a control list like mine, honestly, because an aggro version doesn't really need as mana land drops and you'd rather invest your mana into playing creatures rather than drawing cards. Simply using Loam to set up the Genesis card advantage engine was my sole purpose in UGb Intuition Thresh; the Loam itself was only dredged when I needed to make more land drops and had no more land in hand, or I wanted to Wastelock. Otherwise, I relied on Genesis for the card advantage, because it straight up gives you what you want for 2G, rather than have to go through hoops to change card quantity into card quality. Mostly though, Coliseum was just horrible at doing this. If I had the 3 cyclers, I probably would have drawn cards with Loam more. Problem is, as an aggro version, do you want to fit 4 extra lands (3 cycle 1 Volrath), or skimp on lands to open up more card space (1 Coliseum 1 Genesis). In my Intuition Thresh of old, I only ran 19 lands.

This concept is very complicated. Honestly. There's a bazillion and one different options that it would literally takes months of playtesting to determine optimalization. You just can't try to theorize here. I'm trying to help you based on my past experiences with Intuition Thresh, but that was such a long time ago now. I think I'm about tapped out. You may want to visit the UGb Intuition Thresh thread for more advice.

Sorry for the massive amounts of clusterfuck text, I am still rolling on Adderall...

[Tacosnape]

I think I'd want Snare over Pierce here if for no other reason than I like to have all my counters be able to hit creatures in control decks. And I definitely don't want Daze in any deck where I want to hit all my land drops up until seven land or so and where I plan to take the game to turn 15-20 or so.

I also like the prospect of trying to make the Loam engine as tight and efficient as possible, so I've been running one Lonely Sandbar, period. Between Brainstorm, Top, the Sandbar, and Countertop, I find that card advantage is somewhat okay. This is mostly because there aren't many situations where I don't want to grab either the Wasteland or some other utility card as my third Intuition piece.

[Aggro_zombies]

Well, lots of stuff there. I've been working on this deck for forever too, so I know how it goes.

I should perhaps clarify my list by saying that it's meant to be a control deck that generates a lot of card advantage off of Intuition and Loam (this explains my reluctance on Daze, for example). It ended up having as much aggro as it does because I hate not being able to end the game in a hurry. Really, though, Goyfs are retarded in control decks. Gigantic fucking wall that can turn sideways for gigantic fucking damage whenever I want? Yes please! My only regret is that they're at odds with EE at two, but nothing is perfect.

Mishra's Factories are nice because they dodge a lot of removal, but they're just so...damn...slow. They also complicate mulligan decisions because colorless mana is terrrrrible in this deck, so having a Factory in your OP hand is usually a bad thing. Cycling lands can be played tapped if you're desperate, and you can be super cute later in the game and Waste your own cycling land to free it up for Loam. Factories got the nod because I couldn't come up with anything better, but I'd honestly rather go back to Worm Harvest and Goyfs for mad beats and counter any sorcery-speed removal that seems threatening.

The other important thing for this deck is mana management. Sure, you can get lots in play with Exploration, but you still have to use it carefully because the deck has about two hundred gajillion branches to its decision tree. I switched to Stronghold because I was finding there were too many games where I really wanted to bring something back, but couldn't do it for a long time because I had to use some of my mana for proactive things and then needed the rest open for responses. Volrath's Stronghold can piggyback on my response mana if I end up not needing to do anything, which was the most attractive thing about it. Sure, you don't get +1 card in hand, but the I'll gladly trade the card advantage for the flexibility any day.

Okay, I'll try a Shriekmaw again. There was one in there at one point, but I forget why I dropped it. I do remember that one was often sufficient, because I rarely hardcast it unless I was ready to move into the "end the game" phase of my plans. Now that I think about it, actually, it might have briefly become a Cabal Pit before getting lost in the shuffle.

Okay on Crucible, but I will make one last complaint about mana usage. I'm probably just overly paranoid after losing too many games to well-timed graveyard hate.

Also, even though I'm not playing Counterbalance main, it's still worth considering it when designing my curve. It will come in against Zoo (popular deck) and Canadian Threshold (popular deck), and I want to keep my removal for both matchups. Doom Blade and Smother make my Counterbalances that much better, even if it's only an incremental advantage. Again, I may be overthinking this by a long shot, but we'll see.

I actually kinda want to fit Countertop in the main, but that requires a lot of slots I don't necessarily have. Also, Tacosnape is probably right about Spell Pierce, and I agree with him on Daze (though land drops are less of an issue thanks to Exploration).

Oh yeah, did I mention that Exploration lets me run Glacial Chasm against Zoo? Shit's hilarious.

What are everybody's opinions on a single sideboard Ghost Quarter as a Wasteland substitute? Basics are cropping up a lot more these days, and enemy fetches make Wasteland weaker overall. Ghost Quarter can come in for matches where the opponent has enough basics to easily circumvent Waste lock, and with Intuition you can often Armageddon them in a few turns. Cute or actually relevant? You decide!

EDIT: Taco's sentiments on the Loam engine are what made me slim down to just Coliseum. I may add more cycling lands for card draw, though. I get nervous without a bunch of cards in hand (the result of personal inclinations and years of playing Pox).

[Hanni]

After some thinking, I'm actually kind of on the fence with Worm Harvester. It's alot more difficult to get going than Gigapede.

Worm Harvester is rather dependant on Loam. Unless you're aggressively dredging, you won't have enough lands in the graveyard fast enough to really make it worthwhile early on. While on cardboard it may be 5cc, your spending way more than that to make it powerful. What I mean is, there's no point in spending 5 mana and discarding a land card from your hand for only a few 1/1's. That's rather inefficient.

Gigapede can come down as soon as turn 5, for 5 mana, as a 6/1 Shroud, no questions asked. If he dies, he'll come right back as a 6/1 Shroud for 5 mana. He's completely self reliant and doesn't care what the hell you spend the rest of your mana on. That's the reason why I like him so much in Intuition/Loam, you never have to see Loam for Gigapede to be damn good.

However, it seems like I'm often not getting the chance to drop my win conditions until later on in the game anyway. So maybe it doesn't matter so much. I still like the defensive nature of 1/1 tokens more than just 1 big shroud guy against aggro, but his ability to trade with Goyf and then be replayed the next turn is pretty beastly.

I'm really torn between the two.


How has Counterspell been in this list? I hate questioning it, because I personally think Counterspell's one of the five most underrated cards in the format right now, but there seems to be a lot of sorcery-speed things that will prevent you from very often having the mana open to utilize it to its full strength.

Necessary evil. If you play balls to the wall curve out and don't try to keep mana open to use them, then they suck. If you play the deck more like a control deck than a "I have to Loam every turn" deck, there fine. They are needed for the Counterbalance curve, but they're still pretty damn good for me. The thing I like is that, while they are a little slow early on, the deck ramps up mana pretty quickly after it establishes the Loam engine, and then I always have the extra UU open.


I also like the prospect of trying to make the Loam engine as tight and efficient as possible, so I've been running one Lonely Sandbar, period. Between Brainstorm, Top, the Sandbar, and Countertop, I find that card advantage is somewhat okay. This is mostly because there aren't many situations where I don't want to grab either the Wasteland or some other utility card as my third Intuition piece.

I like to do the same thing (i.e, tighten up lists as much as absolutely possible, especially in a deck like Intuition/Loam), but trust me when I say that cycle lands are downright amazing with Loam. You were asking about how to hold open UU for Counterspell? You pay 2 mana to have Loam give you 2 Sandbar's and a landrop, and then you wait to see if you need to play Counterspell or if you can draw 2 cards. Once you hit enough land drops, Loam + 3 cycle lands become a 5cc draw 3 spell whenever you need the extra cards. Need to desperately dig for that Deed? Well, of course, Brainstorm and Top are amazing at that. But a draw 3 is just so much stronger.

[Shanghi Knights]

this is kinda counter to your current plan but I can't help but think you need something to the effect of replenish. Being white that is the headache of changing the plans to splash it. But the idea of bringing in a dredged deed or counterbalance through that means seems cheaper than recurring either then casting them. However i expect if you dredge them, no sweat just try and draw into another one as you probably won't need more than 1 or 2 a game. But just something to consider.

[Hanni]

After trying over and over to get this deck to work, I'm thoroughly frustrated. The way the deck stands right now, sucks. The deck is too inconsistent in the early game, there are too many anti-synergies within the deck, and often the deck just completely folds to aggro.

The worst card in the deck has been Counterbalance, sadly enough. Counterbalance is so amazing in U/W Landstill, but so lackluster here. It's harder to get it setup, and then too many cards conflict with it. Deed wants to wipe it away, Intuition wants to shuffle away the 2cc spell you finally got on top, Loam wants to dredge away the 2cc spell you finally got on top. It's just way too much hassle, for very little return.

There are some very good things that the deck does offer, and some strong strategies that the deck does use very effectively. The deck doesn't always suck, and there are some matchups that are very strong. I think that by dropping the CounterTop component and just focusing on the strengths of the rest of the deck, something good can be made from this. I'll leave Counterbalance to ITF and Landstill.

While I really do like Top, and while it is really amazing in this deck, I'm torn on how to really fit it. If I drop Counterbalance, I'm down to 16 blue spells, with no clear way to up the count back up without dropping Top for a blue card draw/cantrip replacement. Top is such a damned powerful card in control decks that I really don't want to get rid of it. However, given the fact that Intuition/Loam is such a powerful draw engine, I think replacing it with Ponder might be the correct decision.

Ponder is going to be better early on, allowing the deck to stabilize it's manabase faster and free up early mana investment (in comparison with Top) so that it can invest mana on necessary removal instead. It still helps dig for Intuition, and once the deck gets Intuition/Loam online, really doesn't need Top anyway. Considering that the deck has consistency issues in the early game, as I mentioned in paragraph one, I think Ponder would be better than Top at improving this. Once the deck gets out of the early game, if it can survive long enough, it over powers just about everything. I think cutting Top for Ponder and Counterbalance for more removal should fix that problem.

U/G/b Loam Control

Lands (25)
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Lonely Sandbar
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Wasteland
4 Mishra's Factory

Creatures (1)
1 Gigapede

Spells (34)
1 Worm Harvest
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Intuition
1 Loam
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Raven's Crime
4 Innocent Blood
4 Pernicious Deed
3 Maelstrom Pulse

So basically, I dropped 4 Top for 4 Ponder, 4 Counterbalance for 1 Lonely Sandbar, 1 Pernicious Deed, 1 Maelstrom Pulse, and 1 Gigapede. I also dropped the 1 Chainer's Edict for the 4th Innocent Blood. The deck should be able to answer aggro much better now, without giving up too much to other matchups.

What I like is that, even without Counterbalance, the deck still has some great locks with Raven's Crime and Wasteland.

The extra Lonely Sandbar is pretty good, giving me 25 lands now, as well as additional cantrip early (or a land drop if I'm desperate), as well as easier assembly of the draw engine moving into the mid-late with Intuition/Loam.

Burn and Goyf Sligh may be more difficult now, and will definitely need addressed with the sideboard, but every other aggro matchup (Goblins, Merfolk, Zoo, etc) should be much better. Threshold variants should be a bit easier now, too. The combo matchup gets a bit worse, may need addressed in the sideboard. Of course, opposing control is still a great matchup, too.

A sideboard including 4 Duress and 4 Blue Elemental Blast would seem to be the way to go to answer Burn, Goyf Sligh, and combo. Of course, the deck still retains its ability to run a few 1-of's like Maze of Ith and Stinkweed Imp in the sideboard, too.

Anyway, that's the conclusion I've come to about this deck from testing it the past few days. Bah.

[Jak]

Why is this better than It's the Fear? It's the Fear is packed full of synergy where yours just looks like it goes for raw power and fails (well, you said it did bad, I haven't tested your list). Stuff like Academy Ruins and Volrath's Stronghold (although you aren't running creatures) is amazing with Loam, Intuition and most importantly, Counterbalance. Having that recursion engine to keep getting EE back or grab Shackles is amazing. Recurring Tarmogoyfs is insane.

[Hanni]

ITF was always too slow for me and I hated alot of the disynergy between Deed/EE and Goyf/Counterbalance. However, you're right, this deck didn't do a whole lot to improve any of that.

I'm not convinced that this archtype benefits tremendously from Counterbalance, though.

That's why I came up with a new list for Loam Control, which I'm hoping is a step in the right direction for me, as far as what I want to play.

[Jak]

ITF was always too slow for me and I hated alot of the disynergy between Deed/EE and Goyf/Counterbalance. However, you're right, this deck didn't do a whole lot to improve any of that.

I'm not convinced that this archtype benefits tremendously from Counterbalance, though.

That's why I came up with a new list for Loam Control, which I'm hoping is a step in the right direction for me, as far as what I want to play.

I do think this is a step in the right direction. Worm Harvest and Raven's Crime are bombs in the archetype and I think it's awesome that they are here.

I actually saw a pretty awesome deck being played at my last local. It was a UBG Gifts Tog deck that I saw crush Goblins. I really don't know how but I think it was a combination of Damnations, Deeds, and Raven's Crime.

[Hanni]

I do think this is a step in the right direction. Worm Harvest and Raven's Crime are bombs in the archetype and I think it's awesome that they are here.

I think so, too. In the limited amount of games that I've played the new version in so far, it's been doing really well. Much more consistent oppening hands, and the extra removal has made my aggro matchup much better. I like having both Gigapede and Worm's Harvest maindeck, as both are good against different forms of aggro and both are great win conditions in different situations. Honestly, I actually think the changed version has dramatically improved the decks performance. I guess the thread title needs to be changed. Do we have an established UGb Loam Control thread yet? Seems like a very viable archetype among the existing ones.


I actually saw a pretty awesome deck being played at my last local. It was a UBG Gifts Tog deck that I saw crush Goblins. I really don't know how but I think it was a combination of Damnations, Deeds, and Raven's Crime.

That sounds interesting. I really don't see what the advantage of Gifts is over Intuition, and I question the power of Tog in today's format, but if the deck beats Goblins... that's awesome.

[Aggro_zombies]

Anyway, that's the conclusion I've come to about this deck from testing it the past few days. Bah.
Heh, congrats, you've caught up with my last several months of work. I probably should have warned you about that, but I thought you knew.

Now that you've realized, it's time to reveal the TRUE POWER of my testing and card choices!

Standstill: Counterbalance is really good in some matchups (which is why I wanted to test it in the board against Zoo/things with burn), but most of the time it's bad for the reasons you've mentioned. Standstill was my choice for slowing aggro down, since the deck could (at the time) stick a Tarmogoyf or Factory and then lay a Standstill down on top of them. Really, Intuition is bad against Zoo/red decks in general because it's too slow to matter. I mean, sure, you can crush the red player with massive card advantage, but drawing nine thousand and one cards per turn doesn't help you stay out of burn range. I've been boarding out Intuitions against Zoo in favor of removal (Damnation) and using Standstill as a replacement card advantage engine that also doubles as "disruption." I agreed that it was kind of lackluster in the main, but it's still better than Counterbalance.

However, I say this with the caveat that I do not have enough sideboard Zoo games under my belt to know if it's actually effective after game one.

Top: I initially liked your suggestion, but after I thought about it I decided that it wasn't so hot for the reasons you mentioned. Loam basically makes Top worthless, and Top can't pitch to Force.

Goyf: Worm Harvest costs five mana and time to set up, while Factories aren't that hot without Loam and don't do much against Zoo (they trade with the deck's one drops, die to all its other creatures, and don't play very well with Lavamancer/burn). Tarmogoyf has a big, fat ass and can do a lot of damage quickly. At the very least, he soaks up some of the offense while you set up recurring EE, which generally game if you can do it quickly.

Crime: Crime is really a sideboard card. Sure, it's cute because you can Mind Twist the other guy with it every turn, but it's really too slow against aggro and aggro-control. By the time you can start playing it enough times each turn to matter, you're facing down Counterbalance/Nacatl and Goyf/a horde of Goblins/Standstill, Vial, and Lord of Atlantis/etc. This is not a good place to be. If you wait until after you have control of the board to start using it, then it's really win-more. However, it is a massive, massive beating against control.

Wasteland: Meh. Countertop Threshold and tribal decks typically have enough basics to get by, and the enemy fetches give other decks that option as well. Wasteland is okay against Zoo if the opponent doesn't hit fetches fast enough, but if he does, most of that deck's threats cost one or two mana. Even a single fetchland getting the right basic can make the matchup slip away from you. Control decks are still hurt by Wasteland, but Crucible in Landstill makes it irrelevant without Exploration to allow multiple Wastelands in a turn. Canadian Thresh doesn't like to see Waste (all nonbasics lol), but that deck is pretty damn fearsome as it is; I win this matchup if I can stick an early Exploration, but otherwise it's very, very close.

Because of all that, I've been eying Ghost Quarter as a substitute. It won't work for you, but because Exploration allows me to use it multiple times per turn, I can often GQ out all of my opponent's basics in as little as one or two turns (Thresh). It's no Armageddon, but it's a lot less dead than Wasteland in those matchups, and it's an amusing way to break a Counterbalance lock.

Crucible: I really started using this because I was tired of losing Loam to the hate that invariably got sided in against me (incidentally, Standstill makes a pretty good Loam draw engine imitation if you lose the actual Loam). However, it's also really nice to be able to use lands with sacrifice abilities and not have to pay to get them back, and it lets you slip cards like Coliseum and Wasteland under a Counterbalance lock (which Loam can't do). When combined with Ghost Quarter, it's basically an anti-Counterbalance card as it makes it extremely frustrating for the opponent to consistently lock you out of the one- and two-cc slots. However, I haven't tested that interaction enough to tell whether it's actually effective, or just cute (since GQ is a game 2+ card).

Spell Snare: The faster speed of Spell Snare versus Counterspell is relevant in a format with a lot of scary two-drops. At :u::u:, I think Counterspell is a tad too slow in many cases even if it's a lot more versatile; for example, it's awful against Zoo and weak against storm combo. On the other hand, this deck can go long, at which point Counterspell becomes much, much better. The reason Spell Snare got more slots than Counterspell in my list is because surviving the early game is more important in this format than the overall utility of Counterspell.

[Hanni]

Heh, congrats, you've caught up with my last several months of work. I probably should have warned you about that, but I thought you knew.

Well, I was basically porting a deck that I know works (U/W Counterbalance Landstill), and simply changing the draw engine from Standstill to Intuition/Loam. Turns out, while Counterbalance Landstill is friggin amazing (most powerful deck in the format, IMO), Counterbalance Loam isn't so amazing. I was hoping to fix some of the things I didn't like about ITF, but in the end, I didn't improve anything.

However, simply dropping CounterTop and increasing removal/anti-aggro has drastically changed the quality of the deck for me. It's actually a good deck now.


Now that you've realized, it's time to reveal the TRUE POWER of my testing and card choices!

Lol... okay.


Standstill: Counterbalance is really good in some matchups (which is why I wanted to test it in the board against Zoo/things with burn), but most of the time it's bad for the reasons you've mentioned. Standstill was my choice for slowing aggro down, since the deck could (at the time) stick a Tarmogoyf or Factory and then lay a Standstill down on top of them. Really, Intuition is bad against Zoo/red decks in general because it's too slow to matter. I mean, sure, you can crush the red player with massive card advantage, but drawing nine thousand and one cards per turn doesn't help you stay out of burn range. I've been boarding out Intuitions against Zoo in favor of removal (Damnation) and using Standstill as a replacement card advantage engine that also doubles as "disruption." I agreed that it was kind of lackluster in the main, but it's still better than Counterbalance.

However, I say this with the caveat that I do not have enough sideboard Zoo games under my belt to know if it's actually effective after game one.


I've tried mixing Standstill and Intuition/Loam before for quite a while and it wasn't worth it for me. Against aggro, especially something like Merfolk, I'd rather just add more removal. The deck doesn't need two competing draw engines; it dilutes the deck too much. If I'm going to play Standstill, I'd rather just to play U/W Counterbalance Landstill. Intuition/Loam is such a huge engine that it warps the entire deck around it; why dilute the focus by adding another seperate draw engine?

Intuition/Loam isn't necessarily bad against fast paced aggro. It's clearly slow, so it's not going to do a damn thing for you if you can't stabilize early on. That's what increased removals are for. However, if you can manage to stabilize, Intuition/Loam allows you to take over the mid-late game so they can never make a comeback.

Standstill vs Zoo just seems bad, since Standstill is going to be situational against them (they drop lots of early beats). You run Tarmogoyf so this may be a little different for you than it is for me. For me, if I'm able to clear the board and then drop a Standstill, it's just as win-more/slow as Intuition/Loam would be against Zoo. Also, Zoo runs a low burn count, so it's not a bad matchup if you have enough removal early.

The Goyf Sligh and Burn matchups, on the other hand, are going to be bad preboard no matter what I do. That's what the sideboard is for.

Everything else aggro related, like Goblins and Merfolk, are handled by extra removal. I'm very content right now with the increased removal for my aggro matchups, and if anything, I'd consider more spot or mass removal in the sideboard rather than something like Standstill in the maindeck.

However, my decklist is different than yours and we both use some different strategies (yours is more aggro, for example), so what doesn't work well for me might work well for you. This thread is for the discussion of Loam Control (which I might need to make another thread for since this one is titled Counterbalance Loam), whereas your deck is Loam Aggro/Control. I think the UGb Intuition Thresh thread may be more productive for you, since that thread is essentially going for the same idea that you're going for: UGb Intuition Thresh (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11638)


Top: I initially liked your suggestion, but after I thought about it I decided that it wasn't so hot for the reasons you mentioned. Loam basically makes Top worthless, and Top can't pitch to Force.


I still really like Top, because it has great synergy with Loam (when to dredge, when not to dredge, manipulates the top card so that the card quality drawn off of Sandbar's is better, etc). The only problem is that it isn't blue, so I was forced to switch to Ponder (mandatory switch, had to have enough blue spells for FoW). Ponder is an excellent replacement though, since it's a smoother play early on (less mana investment required) to stabilize the manabase, dig for removal, or find Intuition.


Goyf: Worm Harvest costs five mana and time to set up, while Factories aren't that hot without Loam and don't do much against Zoo (they trade with the deck's one drops, die to all its other creatures, and don't play very well with Lavamancer/burn). Tarmogoyf has a big, fat ass and can do a lot of damage quickly. At the very least, he soaks up some of the offense while you set up recurring EE, which generally game if you can do it quickly.


Similar to why I was having problems with Counterbalance (Deed), Goyf has the some similar problems. It's anti-synergetic with the deck. With Factory/Worm Harvest/Gigapede, the opponent's sorcery speed removal is completely disabled. With Tarmogoyf, it's not. I'd rather run more removal than Tarmogoyf as anti-aggro, because of it's susceptibility to their removal. It also prevents me from running Innocent Blood, which is the best 1cc spot removal spell this deck has access to without going 4c for StP.

I'm not worried about doing a lot of damage quickly. I'm a control deck, not an aggro/control deck, and I run slow powerful engines like Intuition/Loam so that I don't need to do alot of damage very quickly to win games; if I stabilize the early game, I have inevitability.

Factory is great against early aggro. While it acts as a mana source too, which makes it never dead, it slows down most early aggro I see. As a 3/3 on defense, it answers Kird Apes, Wild Nacatl's, Nimble Mongoose, small (i.e 2/3 or less) Goyf's, 3/3 (or less) Merfolk, Goblins, so on and so forth. Obviously it's not that great against aggro later on, but by later on, I should have other means of handling them. The fact that it's recurrable through Loam is awesome, but there are other synergies as well, like dodging my Innocent Blood's and Pernicious Deed's (which Goyf doesn't), and again, disabling the opponent's sorcery speed removal.

Goyf was one the reasons I wasn't a big fan of ITF. It creates conflicting synergy within the deck. I'm not saying it can't or isn't good in here, or other similar decks, but it takes the deck in an opposite direction than I want to go.


Crime: Crime is really a sideboard card. Sure, it's cute because you can Mind Twist the other guy with it every turn, but it's really too slow against aggro and aggro-control. By the time you can start playing it enough times each turn to matter, you're facing down Counterbalance/Nacatl and Goyf/a horde of Goblins/Standstill, Vial, and Lord of Atlantis/etc. This is not a good place to be. If you wait until after you have control of the board to start using it, then it's really win-more. However, it is a massive, massive beating against control.


Especially without Counterbalance, why sideboard it? It's only taking up 1 spot to maindeck it. I agree that it's slow against aggro, but not against aggro/control. Raven's Crime wrecks control and aggro/control. If I'm facing down Counterbalance... well, I've got 4 Deed/3 Pulse, so hopefully I see one of those. When their Counterbalance isn't active (if they do run Counterbalance), it empties their hand with little consequence for me (excess land drops I got from Loam and a few of my mana sources). Ripping apart an aggro/control players hand is huge. Ripping a control players hand is huge. Hell, it's even great against a deck like Goblins or Merfolk if I've swept them but they are still chaining card advantage together via Matron/Ringleader/Wort or Standstill/Silvergill, respectively.


Wasteland: Meh. Countertop Threshold and tribal decks typically have enough basics to get by, and the enemy fetches give other decks that option as well. Wasteland is okay against Zoo if the opponent doesn't hit fetches fast enough, but if he does, most of that deck's threats cost one or two mana. Even a single fetchland getting the right basic can make the matchup slip away from you. Control decks are still hurt by Wasteland, but Crucible in Landstill makes it irrelevant without Exploration to allow multiple Wastelands in a turn. Canadian Thresh doesn't like to see Waste (all nonbasics lol), but that deck is pretty damn fearsome as it is; I win this matchup if I can stick an early Exploration, but otherwise it's very, very close.

Because of all that, I've been eying Ghost Quarter as a substitute. It won't work for you, but because Exploration allows me to use it multiple times per turn, I can often GQ out all of my opponent's basics in as little as one or two turns (Thresh). It's no Armageddon, but it's a lot less dead than Wasteland in those matchups, and it's an amusing way to break a Counterbalance lock.


This is more for the potential to screw an opponent over more-so than attempting to Wastelock someone. That's why it's a 1-of. It's not always going to be beneficial to use, but there are times when either shutting the opponent off of a color or Wastelocking them will win games. Again, like Raven's Crime, it's only a 1-of, and has the potential to do some nasty things, so why not run it? It's not like I'm running a large toolbox.

Ghost Quarter has potential, but you said it yourself... alot of decks run a few nonbasics. So in that case, while it will create more of a lock, it requires more time investment (i.e, more uses) to get to that point, which defeats the intentions of it (Wasteland), for me in the first place. With Exploration in your build, I can see Ghost Quarter being better for you than Wasteland.


Crucible: I really started using this because I was tired of losing Loam to the hate that invariably got sided in against me (incidentally, Standstill makes a pretty good Loam draw engine imitation if you lose the actual Loam). However, it's also really nice to be able to use lands with sacrifice abilities and not have to pay to get them back, and it lets you slip cards like Coliseum and Wasteland under a Counterbalance lock (which Loam can't do). When combined with Ghost Quarter, it's basically an anti-Counterbalance card as it makes it extremely frustrating for the opponent to consistently lock you out of the one- and two-cc slots. However, I haven't tested that interaction enough to tell whether it's actually effective, or just cute (since GQ is a game 2+ card).

I wouldn't run Crucible in an Intuition/Loam deck. If sideboard hate is kicking you in the testies in games 2 and 3, I'd just run more Loam's in the sideboard (unless you're seeing alot of Extirpate). The deck isn't dependant on the Loam engine to actually function/win, since the deck already runs plenty of lands (and control), I wouldn't commit more space to something like Crucible. That's just me, though. I do see some of the advantages for using it, but I'd rather not waste space on it, myself.


Spell Snare: The faster speed of Spell Snare versus Counterspell is relevant in a format with a lot of scary two-drops. At , I think Counterspell is a tad too slow in many cases even if it's a lot more versatile; for example, it's awful against Zoo and weak against storm combo. On the other hand, this deck can go long, at which point Counterspell becomes much, much better. The reason Spell Snare got more slots than Counterspell in my list is because surviving the early game is more important in this format than the overall utility of Counterspell.

Spell Snare's speed is definitely valuable. For me though, with my current configuration of 4 Blood/4 Deed/3 Pulse, I have enough removal to answer anything that slips by my counterwall. I'm a control deck, so holding open UU for Counterspell isn't that difficult, especially past the early game (whereas you have cards like Goyf, which make Spell Snare better for you). In a deck like what I'm running, with only 4 FoW 4 Counterspell as my countermagic, I'd rather run countermagic that answers everything, like Counterspell, than something more narrow like Spell Snare. Again, your version looks like it gets better use of Spell Snare because of it's committment to curving out early, whereas for me, I can sit back on UU easier. For example, putting a land into play on turn 3 and passing the turn; I want to cast Intuition, but I'll cast Counterspell instead if I have to. Past the early game, I'm holding UU open to either cast Counterspell or cast Lonely Sandbar x2.

--------

Also, I've decided to cut 1 Tranquil Thicket for 1 Polluted Delta. 3 cycle lands seem fine, since I'm not dependant on having them later on, I do have Intuition to grab them, and I don't want to be clogged up early on with CiPT lands. I'd prefer my cycle lands to be blue, since I'm blue based and being blue has more synergy with Counterspell once I'm using my draw engine mid-late. The extra Delta increases my early mana consistency for making U, G, and B mana production.

The current decklist:

U/G/B Loam Control

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [R] Tropical Island
2 [B] Underground Sea
1 [R] Bayou
2 [MM] Island (1)
1 [MR] Forest (1)
1 [P3] Swamp (1)
3 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [REW] Wasteland
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (3)

// Creatures
1 [ON] Gigapede

// Spells
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [DLM] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
4 [OD] Innocent Blood
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed
3 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [DK] Maze of Ith
SB: 1 [DDC] Stinkweed Imp
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 [DDC] Duress
SB: 3 [FNM] Tormod's Crypt

The deck has been playing very well, btw.

[Bardo]

Goyf was one the reasons I wasn't a big fan of ITF. It creates conflicting synergy within the deck. /

Think of Goyf as a control card in this deck--which really needs to stem early aggro bleeding in the early game (if under pressure) and close it later. In these times, I think of an insightful observation MFlores made about power and synergy. He said something like: "Choosing between power and synergy, choose power. Power, when not limited by speed, always has value." Goyf is powerful, more powerful than the off-chance of nuking it w/ Deed or Damnation or something.

Goyf is probably the best creature in the format--and one of the best cards in the format by default.

I've also been testing this deck since the weekend and it really wants Goyf to lube the gears. If not for the ZEN prerelease I attended on Sunday, I planned to play the first deck below this past weekend.

Counterbalance Control

“Vorosh” -Style
Blue / Black / Green

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam

4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare
1 Raven’s Crime / Worm Harvest

4 Ghastly Demise
3 Pernicious Deed

4 Tarmogoyf

8 Blue Fetchlands
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Lonely Sandbar
4 Mishra’s Factory
1 Wasteland

Sideboard
4 Engineered Plague
4 Hydroblast
3 Krosan Grip
3 Duress
1 Worm Harvest


Too bad Wretched Banquet is a sorcery. I haven't tested Damnation in place of Wrath--though that's also an option; but I prefer having the 3 over a 4 for CB. Putrefy was tested, but 3 mana is a ton for spot removal. Crime over Worm Harvest in the main is a metagame considertation.

Duress gets brought in vs. control and combo post board (dropping spot removal).

“Treva” -Style
Blue / White / Green

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam

4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
3 Spell Snare

4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God
1 Oblivion Ring

4 Tarmogoyf

8 Blue Fetchlands
4 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Lonely Sandbar
4 Mishra’s Factory
1 Wasteland

Sideboard
4 Meddling Mage
4 Hydroblast
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Island

White gives you better removal (StP), but you lose Loam/Crime.

[Tacosnape]

In the spirit of dead horse floggery, same question to Bardo: Why not 1 Worm Harvest? I feel the inevitability one copy grants you far outweighs the penalty of randomly drawing it at the wrong time / not being able to Brainstorm it back into hiding.

[Bardo]

It was on the short-list for the main, but got cut to keep the maindeck at 60 cards, so it's in the sideboard now. If it had to go in, it'd be in place of Raven's Crime.

[Jak]

I think every Intuition lists needs Academy Ruins and EE. Also, Vedalken Shackles isn't terrible as well. I think it just makes the deck stronger with that recursive engine going for it. It gets you the answers you need so you don't have to counter everything.

4 Brainstorm
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam

4 Force of Will
4 Counterbalance
3 Counterspell
1 Raven’s Crime

4 Ghastly Demise
3 Pernicious Deed
1 EE
1 Vedalken Shackles

4 Tarmogoyf
1 Worm Harvest

7 Blue Fetchlands
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
2 Lonely Sandbar
3 Mishra’s Factory
1 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
1 (another Island or Sandbar)

And then trim something else.

[Hanni]

I suppose I'm willing to try EE in the place of Maelstrom Pulse and fit 1 Academy Ruins in the maindeck, might as well. Gives me a tutorable removal spell I guess. The Maelstroms are great against some things and weak against others, where EE seems like it would be the same hit and miss. Might as well run the one that's typically easier on the manabase and can be recursive.

Guess that means I'm dropping 1 fetchland or 1 Lonely Sandbar. I guess that would require some testing. EE isn't as direct as Maelstrom, which was what I going for with it, since Innocent Blood isn't direct and Deed has problems with larger cc stuff (like Tombstalker). If it's got better synergy with the maindeck and is stronger overall, I guess I'll go with it.

I'm definitely fitting Maelstrom's in the sideboard, though.

[Bardo]

I've given up on this; reminded me a lot of playing Dredge-a-Tog when you can easily get paralyzed by the number of choices you need to make.

With Stifle in a lot of decks, Deed is weaker (besides being slow), the mana was super-shaky, Intuition/Loam was powerful but slow and the deck just kinda felt "bloated" and pudgy. I found most games were won by dropping a mid-game Goyf and using my control cards to keep it connecting.

In the end, Intuition could easily become Ponder; CSpell -> Daze; slow control cards -> threats; funky-lands -> consistent lands. [Full circle. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=388452&postcount=428)]

[Aggro_zombies]

In the end, Intuition could easily become Ponder; CSpell -> Daze; slow control cards -> threats; funky-lands -> consistent lands. [Full circle. (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=388452&postcount=428)]
One isn't necessarily a straight upgrade of the other. One of the attractive things about playing control is that, in theory anyway, you have a much better game against aggro-control and a comparable game against aggro (versus playing an aggro-control deck). Furthermore, the amount of Counterbalance hate, in the form of both specific cards and general strategies, is starting to approach a point where Counterbalance may lose its position as the clear dominant deck in the format. This is simply another take on the "blue-based controlling strategy" deck.

That said, a version erring even further on the side of control than my last posted one would be the following:

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
3 Lonely Sandbar
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland

4 Tarmogoyf

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam

4 Spell Snare
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

4 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Engineered Explosives

1 Worm Harvest

A couple of notes on this one. Modifications to the mana base that have been ongoing since early testing led me to realize that Exploration was a lot less stellar than it once was. It's a great card when you have lots of lands that sacrifice themselves for some effect: things like Wasteland and the Odyssey cycle of uncommon lands. However, as many of those lands gradually left the mana base I came to realize that Exploration wasn't really doing anything for me after turn three or so, and getting it down on turn one was tricky against blue decks, especially on the draw. I also didn't like the idea of running it side-by-side with cards like Pernicious Deed, since (initially, anyway) I got quite a lot of effect out of it late in the game. There was also the fact that I was rarely happy to draw more than one; there's not much difference between two and three lands per turn.

I decided to test some games with a new set of lands, this time using Factory in place of most of the more gimmicky lands, and found that I often didn't care about blowing up my Exploration with Deed. It made Deeds faster against Zoo and Merfolk, but getting it into play against Daze and Force was difficult. Despite the desirable speed increase, I began to get the nagging suspicion that it wasn't pulling its weight. This will probably make the Merfolk matchup worse (fast Deeds are awesome), but it probably increases the overall quality of my draws.

I still don't like Raven's Crime. It's only good in the late game, and even then it only helps me consolidate positions I'm already ahead on. It doesn't do anything if I'm behind on the board and isn't impressive in the early game where I can only play it once a turn and have to lose a land drop to do so. I'll sideboard it against control, but I'd rather have more removal against aggro and aggro-control.

The deck is a lot flatter than it was before (11 1cc, 8 2cc, 9 3cc, 5 5cc, 1 X). The power cards all sit in the 3cc slot, making the deck somewhat slower than previous versions, but the 1cc slot has a bunch of search spells now to help smooth early plays. I kinda want to fit Jace in there as a secondary draw engine, but there's no room.

No way to recur Tarmogoyf makes me sad, but it may not actually be necessary with Factories in the list. I'll see whether or not I like all that colorless mana; if I don't, I'll drop them for more colored sources and a Stronghold (and possibly reinsert Witness).

Surviving the early game can be patched up with the sideboard. Spell Pierce can replace Counterspell against Zoo and Merfolk, and Damnations or Infests can come in to provide additional sweeper coverage. I lose Glacial Chasm as an option because of the lack of Exploration, but Tabernacle is still a justifiable choice here (replacing Wasteland against Merfolk and possibly a Factory against Zoo).

This is what I'm going to test moving forward, with the aim of eventually writing a primer and getting proper matchup percentages. Anyone willing to do MWS testing late at night PST (11pm or later) would be appreciated.

[Vacrix]

Hanni, what about doing something along these lines?

-4 deed
+4 EE

-1 mishra's factory
+1 Academy Ruins

i dont see why you would want to play more than 3 factories because you can only intuition for 3 (if you plan on recurring them with loam to start swinging)

the justification of EE over deed is academy ruins and the fact that you can intuition for ruins, EE, and loam as a soft lock. it allows you to bypass the 'deed kills worm tokens' problem. also, it seems as though deed is going to come down fastest by turn 3 and blow up the board turn 4. in the mean time you will be playing out removal like innocent blood and counterspell to slow them down. i think that if you play it correctly, you could have your opponents creatures mostly at one mana cost. blow up lackey with innocent blood, but let the 2cc stuff resolve, and break EE for 2, and proceed to soft lock aggro with EE/ruins. also, once you get worms online your opponent will have a really hard time getting through. in which case you are going to want to recure EE to blow up stuff without blowing up your blockers.