Aggro_zombies
12-15-2009, 01:20 AM
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18463_Legacys_Allure_Loaming_in_St_Louis.html
Posting this because Life from the Loam is my favorite card by a mile.
EDIT: About the article - I'm not really qualified to comment on 43land, Zoo, or Progenitus Countertop (I prefer Supreme Blue myself), but I can say the following:
- My own testing seems to indicate Pat's list is the superior version of Aggro Loam. Pernicious Deed is very out of place in Boss's deck and can actually cause card disadvantage by destroying your Moxen and Chalice (making the opponent's one mana spells relevant again). The lack of Countryside Crusher is confusing since it's the best creature in the deck, and the addition of Terravore as 4-of makes the deck more susceptible to graveyard hate. Doug chalks the presence of Aggro Loam up to a decrease in Counterbalance, giving the deck some breathing room; while this is true, to a certain extent, Pat's version of the deck actually has less of a hard time against Counterbalance than Boss's does because it has a greater number of proactive destruction elements (EE and Pulse). Aggro Loam also doesn't lose to its own mana base if you build it correctly...at the very least, I've never had that issue.
- Blood Moon is largely irrelevant against an Aggro Loam build like Pat's. Crusher couldn't care less about Blood Moon and the deck should pack basic Forests regardless. A proactive aggro-control version has less of an issue losing Life from the Loam than a more traditional one - I found that out when I was attempting to come up with ways to improve the Counterbalance matchup, since you're essentially losing Loam there, too. EE and Pulse both give Counterbalance fits if you can bait the counters out with scary monsters first. Similarly, Spell Snare is less relevant when the deck isn't using Dreams or Wish because there's fewer insane targets for it (Bob is just about it; Goyf is decent to counter and countering Loam buys you a turn or makes the Loam player spend more mana, neither of which are spectacular if you're even or behind).
- Sam Black's version was cute, but I think it tried to do too many unnecessary things. Clique-Lab is okay against control decks, but as we saw when he played Zoo, it's pretty awful against aggro and ho-hum against Aggro Control. Riptide Lab also pushes the number of colorless lands in the deck to a rather risky number for minimal benefit - when do you want to bounce Trickster, except when it's about to die? Rejeerey, Lord, and Sovereign are all non-Wizards, and bouncing Adept seems like a rather resource-intensive way to get an extra card every turn (:3::u::u: or :2::u: and a Vial at two - note that I'm counting Lab tapping as a loss of a colorless mana). Trickster itself seems weak as the deck is pretty much fine on beaters, given that almost every guy in the deck provides Sliver-esque global pumps. Clique can be decent against control I suppose, but what control decks in this format (a) show up in any significant numbers without (b) playing blue? You basically only want it for the ability, which seems worse than just using more counters (all your guys are unblockable so the body is almost an afterthought. How often is flash relevant?). I like Kira from the other list a lot, though.
Posting this because Life from the Loam is my favorite card by a mile.
EDIT: About the article - I'm not really qualified to comment on 43land, Zoo, or Progenitus Countertop (I prefer Supreme Blue myself), but I can say the following:
- My own testing seems to indicate Pat's list is the superior version of Aggro Loam. Pernicious Deed is very out of place in Boss's deck and can actually cause card disadvantage by destroying your Moxen and Chalice (making the opponent's one mana spells relevant again). The lack of Countryside Crusher is confusing since it's the best creature in the deck, and the addition of Terravore as 4-of makes the deck more susceptible to graveyard hate. Doug chalks the presence of Aggro Loam up to a decrease in Counterbalance, giving the deck some breathing room; while this is true, to a certain extent, Pat's version of the deck actually has less of a hard time against Counterbalance than Boss's does because it has a greater number of proactive destruction elements (EE and Pulse). Aggro Loam also doesn't lose to its own mana base if you build it correctly...at the very least, I've never had that issue.
- Blood Moon is largely irrelevant against an Aggro Loam build like Pat's. Crusher couldn't care less about Blood Moon and the deck should pack basic Forests regardless. A proactive aggro-control version has less of an issue losing Life from the Loam than a more traditional one - I found that out when I was attempting to come up with ways to improve the Counterbalance matchup, since you're essentially losing Loam there, too. EE and Pulse both give Counterbalance fits if you can bait the counters out with scary monsters first. Similarly, Spell Snare is less relevant when the deck isn't using Dreams or Wish because there's fewer insane targets for it (Bob is just about it; Goyf is decent to counter and countering Loam buys you a turn or makes the Loam player spend more mana, neither of which are spectacular if you're even or behind).
- Sam Black's version was cute, but I think it tried to do too many unnecessary things. Clique-Lab is okay against control decks, but as we saw when he played Zoo, it's pretty awful against aggro and ho-hum against Aggro Control. Riptide Lab also pushes the number of colorless lands in the deck to a rather risky number for minimal benefit - when do you want to bounce Trickster, except when it's about to die? Rejeerey, Lord, and Sovereign are all non-Wizards, and bouncing Adept seems like a rather resource-intensive way to get an extra card every turn (:3::u::u: or :2::u: and a Vial at two - note that I'm counting Lab tapping as a loss of a colorless mana). Trickster itself seems weak as the deck is pretty much fine on beaters, given that almost every guy in the deck provides Sliver-esque global pumps. Clique can be decent against control I suppose, but what control decks in this format (a) show up in any significant numbers without (b) playing blue? You basically only want it for the ability, which seems worse than just using more counters (all your guys are unblockable so the body is almost an afterthought. How often is flash relevant?). I like Kira from the other list a lot, though.