(Archive) [DTW] Aggro Loam

[DeathwingZERO]

You don't need eight fetches in a 4c-manabase ? Umm okay, I think you do. I'd cut the Mountain though, as Wasteland is almost never a problem with this deck, and the only reason to run nonbasics is Moon effects (ok, and Back to Basics, but that doesn't justify the slot).

Running 8 fetches in a deck that has Loam? Hardly necessary. Not to mention, at nearly all instances, you'd be bound to draw into one of the duals, so only 2 fetches would need to be seen, since all can be gotten with the fetches. I'd put it at 7 tops, though.

[bruno_tiete]

I played a 70 players tournament with the following list 10 days ago:

4 Taiga
4 Wooded foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
2 Forest
1 Mountain

4 Mox Diamond

4 tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Terravore

4 Burning Wish
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Life from the Loam
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Seismic Assault

SB:

3 Krosan Grip
3 Devastating Dreams
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Unearth
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Life from the Loam
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Shattering Spree

I forgot to pack my Reverent Silence but it went unnoticed all day long. I was about to play a plateau for Morningtide, but a fellow with great experience with this deck in Extended swore to me it was not enough to stop Ichorid, so sticked with Unearth.

The tournament was run at the following structure: 6 rounds of Swiss and a cut to top16, as a local tradition to try to give a shot to newer players.

I ended up the Swiss portion in 2nd, with a 5-1. I faced monoB doomsday combo with menplan in the SB in round one, followed by 4c Landstill, Meathooks, Mono U Faeries (to which I lost in a very close game), and 2 White Weenies. I didn't ID because I was trying to drag teammates into the top 16. It ended up not making a difference as the guy ended Swiss in 12th.

In the elimination rounds I faced the same Meathooks again, then ScepterChant and lost the semi to goblins and 3rd place match to dredge.

Had I Morningtide in the SB, I would have won the match, as it went to the third game and I had a full grip and took him to 9 before passing and him dealing me 21 out of zombies and zealot.

In fact, I could have beaten both goblins and dredge, had I not punded games against them. It was my first time running Aggo Loam and I still cant see half of the trick I could make while playing.

I ended up in 4th, and won 6 boosters, a deckbox and a medal. I was overall glad with the deck. I misplayed a lot and still managed to do good. Unearth was never wished for. Echoes were wished for but I lost before untaping and casting it in the 3rd place match.

Two days ago I gave the deck another shot, this time with Plateau (for Taiga) and Tide (for 1 Thorn).
The other change in the list was a Taiga for a Stomping Grounds, for I only own 2 of them and Pyroclasm for Unearth.

This one had 29 players, but the overall quality of the decks present was far superior, so the championship felt like round 4 and on when compared to the one mentioned above. I beat Belcher in round 1, then W/B aggro on round 2, lose round 3 to dredge, beat W/B LD control on round 4 and lose game 5 to affinity.

On my loses: the dredge guy just got the nuts in game 1. Then in game 2, I manage to get to 4 manas with a wish in hand and plateau in play, to clean the board out of zombies with EE, but I lack pressure, so I end up losing to a narcomoeba beatdown. Morningtide felt like enough. What I lacked was Dreams, Clasm, EE or Seismic Assault. I could easily have won from there.

The affinity match was made of bad luck and fail. I got stuck on 2 lands with no green mana in both games while the guy had no hand in turn 3. :(

I ended up 3-2, disappointed. The deck still seems insanely strong. Chalice of the Void at 1 owns Legacy. I am looking forward to play it again in the near future.


I would like to share thoughts on a few issues that were being discussed a few pages ago. I really really really love Bob in this deck. Its a broken opening in a way Goyf usually is not. You can rely on him against a lot of slower decks. If he gets removed, its one more oportunity for another bigger guys to connect.

The "low" count of 3 CC guys felt right for me. Crusher can be a pain from time to time and Terravore is just bad in the first few turns of the game. With Bob bringing me more cards, it felt like I swaped Islands for cantrips in a blue deck. They are lesser, but I still see them a lot. Seismic assault was the most Game Over card, so I decided to keep them at 3 while sacrificing Vores and Crushers to make space for Dark Confidants. Maybe I dont know what I am doing, because i saw no Counterbalance active against me in my 15 games, but still...

I am still unsure about the no MD Dreams issue. I decided to play extra copies on the board for they are very strong in certain match-ups. It seems they could have saved me at some points, but Dark Confidant was worth his slots all along my experience. If I had space, I would run a couple DDs. Currently I have none left.

The remainig point is the sideboard. With EVE legal, I could see myself running Raven's Crime and maybe Worm Harvest. Its a recurring kill condition after all.
While I felt I could have won 1 of my 2 defeats to dredge by running Morningtide, I am still uncertain if I should give up on Thorns for Leylines. Mulliganing into them seems like an awful idea. Any other ideas on The Ichorid Problem?

[Pulp_Fiction]

Dredge is such a horrid match the only thing I think that should be dedicated towards it is Morningtide in the SB. Leyline as a 4x of is just awful as it just gets Chained back to your hand. If you want to run Leyline then run it but with Aggro Loam the best SB strategy is to make the decent-good matchups even stronger and to so-so matchups stronger. Dredge is such an awful match that I don't think it is even worth more than 1x SB slot.

For those of you playing Morningtide in a Rgb Loam deck here is what your mana base should look like:

3x Taiga
4x Wooded Foothills
1x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wasteland
3x Tranquil Thicket
3x Forgotten Cave
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Badlands
1x Plateau
1x Volrath's Stronghold
2x Forest
2x Mountain

5x Fetches and 4x Mox Diamond are more than enough to support a single Morningtide in the SB. And Dredge is another matchup where Cranial Extraction would be excellent, slow, but effective so long as they dont explode on ur face in the first few turns.

[Hana, The Deadly Flower]

anyone not playin eternal witness in the deck?

[Wiggy]

My list, 1st place at the Legacy Old Box event at Nats 2008

RGb Aggro Loam

4 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Terravore
1 Genesis
3 Burning Wish
3 Devastating Dreams
3 Life From the Loam
3 Seismic Assault
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Taiga
1 Badlands
3 Wasteland
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Forest
2 Mountain

Sideboard

4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Life From the Loam
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree

The maindeck is so strong against aggro and aggro/control that I wanted to devote a large part of the sideboard to dealing with Ichorid and other graveyard-based decks. I also loved the chalices main--Chalice at 1 is so amazing right now that the decision of chalice vs thoughtseize for nats was an easy one in my opinion. I'd love to discuss this matter though, since it's largely meta dependent!

As for dredge being an awful matchup--it's true that game 1 we may as well shuffle up and start siding. But I won 12 of 20 games post-sideboard during testing. Extirpate + Burning Wish or Dreams with Crypt giving you setup time often leaves ichorid with 0 bridges in the yard and 0 permanents in play. Extirpates and crypts arent dead in other matches, either--at worst, they replace chalice against 43 land or survival.

[jazzykat]

Congratulations! Please write a report for us!

You know, with their being so many variants I would hope to see this converge to an optimal list.

[technogeek5000]

I toped 8 at Milford and am gonna right a report tommorow. I played RGw and I have concluded that my ichorid matchups is actually favorable for me(Tabernacle is just so good against ichorid)

[Mayk0l]

SB:
1 DD
1 LftL
2 Spree
1 Silence
1 Geddon
1 Morningtide
3 T. Crypt
3 Pithing Needle
2 Krosan Grip

Pros:
- Wishable answer to Ichorid

A Sorcery that grabs you a Sorcery, which basically does the same as 1 Tormod's Crypt usually doesn't stop Ichorid.

[bruno_tiete]

A Sorcery that grabs you a Sorcery, which basically does the same as 1 Tormod's Crypt usually doesn't stop Ichorid.

You are right that a single tormods wont beat Ichorid, but its really a matter of added pressure. If you play Chalices, Explosives, Dreams and have Burning Wish into hate, you are not in such a bad position. Well in fact you are, but its really a matter of going all in on dredge hate or nearly ignoring the matchup.

In that context, I do believe sacrificing a single for four extra time buyers is worth it. Running 8 Crypts in 5 slots seems like a good trade-off. Actually, I heard from Ichorid players that Faerie Macabre is even more powerful than crypts due to SURPRISE! effect. The also have the upside of keeping Goyfs and Vores big, unlike Crypt or, even worse, Tide.

Your plan becomes putting down a clock and disrupting them just enough to make your threat get there. (no big news here)

[Muradin]

I will be playing Aggro-Loam in the German Legacy Championship and at the moment I am leaning towards this build:

30 Manasources:
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Windswept Heath
3 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Wasteland
1 Volraths Stronghold
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Mox diamond

30 other cards:
4 Dark confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Countryside Crusher
3 Terravore
3 Life From the Loam
4 Burning wish
3 Seismic Assault
4 Thoughtseize
2 devastating Dreams

Sideboard:
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering spree
1 Deathmark/ Raven's Crime
4 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
3 Pernicious Deed

The event will have 7 rounds, so I don't want to take the risk of playing CotV which can actually do more broken things than Thoughtseize but I think it is too inconsistant considering I won't be on the play all of the time and Thoughtseize helps me to smooth out many draws without Mox Diamond and give me a strong and disruptive one drop.

Confidant is in the list as I do need a draw engine when facing graveyard hate, as this deck is running 26 Lands and 4 Moxen and will therefor be in a bad position in terms of cardadvantage, if the game lasts long and one has no active Loam engine.
The only slot in the deck I am still not comfortable with is the 3rd Terravore. I really don't want to see too many of them in the early game and they are really bad against graveyard removal as well, but removing him would further decrease the threat density of the deck which might cause problems in a deck with 30 manasources. One could play the 3rd Devastating Dreams here as well, but they suck with Dark confidant and would only become better with more Terravores.

The meta at the event will probably consist of a lot of blue aggro-control decks, some Landstill and other decks like Goblins, Dreadstill, Survvial and Loam. I chose this deck because in this said metagame I think combo is pretty weak and Aggro Loam is favored against many of the named decks.
The sideboard has got 5 wishtargets in it which are the most important ones.
But I am still not sure whether there shouldn't be any Raven's Crime in the deck as it's really strong with Life from the Loam and would help in the extremely weak combo matchups.
The rest of the board is aimed to beat Aggro control with and without counterbalance (Deed + Grip) and to handle troublesome permanents like Humility, Crucible and of course Counterbalance.
Extirpate is there for the mirror, for all control matchups and gets boarded in against everything that is dependant on it's graveyard and in combo matchups as well.

So what do you think of the list? Are there still any tweaks that could be made to make the deck more succesful in said metagame? Could Raven's Crime somehow be included? Should I dedicate some sideboard slots towards stormcombo/Ichorid or are those matchups so bad, that I can't make them at least winable without eating up too many room in my sideboard to do so?

[Nihil Credo]

Two things I'd recommend:

1) PLAY FOUR FREAKING COUNTRYSIDE CRUSHERS!! Cut a Confidant for it, or just play 61 cards, I don't care, your deck will still be better. That guy is an engine on its own and there is no excuse not to play the full set.

2) Pernicious Deed in the sideboard: Engineered Explosives probably does what you want to do better and faster. Everything you want to hit from aggro-control (Thresh and Survival) costs two mana, you can overpay to dodge Counterbalance, and unlike Deed it can save you from Phyrexian Dreadnought. Not hitting Mox is another minor bonus. I think I'd only prefer Pernicious Deed against Goblins and Survival.

3) Removal in the Wish sideboard: Deathmark is not a very good choice, since you've got 11 creatures that can block Tarmogoyf (and even Assault can kill it with three hits). If you want to play any, I'd go for Soul Reap, since the few creatures you really want to kill are Tombstalker and Phyrexian Dreadnought, and sometimes Meddling Mage.

4) Combo and Ichorid: I understand that both archetypes see very little play in Germany. If that is still true, I would strongly consider not boarding anything specifically for them. With Extirpate + Engineered Explosives you have a chance at beating Ichorid anyway. Combo is much tougher - I don't think you can ever get a decent chance against fast ones (Belcher, TES) without at least maindeck Chalice; if you run into a Solidarity or Fetchland Tendrils player, you can hope to beat them with some fast land destruction.

[I'm a TROLL]

I will be playing Aggro-Loam in the German Legacy Championship and at the moment I am leaning towards this build:

30 Manasources:
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Windswept Heath
3 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Wasteland
1 Volraths Stronghold
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Mox diamond

30 other cards:
4 Dark confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Countryside Crusher
3 Terravore
3 Life From the Loam
4 Burning wish
3 Seismic Assault
4 Thoughtseize
2 devastating Dreams

Sideboard:
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering spree
1 Deathmark/ Raven's Crime
4 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
3 Pernicious Deed

The event will have 7 rounds, so I don't want to take the risk of playing CotV which can actually do more broken things than Thoughtseize but I think it is too inconsistant considering I won't be on the play all of the time and Thoughtseize helps me to smooth out many draws without Mox Diamond and give me a strong and disruptive one drop.

Confidant is in the list as I do need a draw engine when facing graveyard hate, as this deck is running 26 Lands and 4 Moxen and will therefor be in a bad position in terms of cardadvantage, if the game lasts long and one has no active Loam engine.
The only slot in the deck I am still not comfortable with is the 3rd Terravore. I really don't want to see too many of them in the early game and they are really bad against graveyard removal as well, but removing him would further decrease the threat density of the deck which might cause problems in a deck with 30 manasources. One could play the 3rd Devastating Dreams here as well, but they suck with Dark confidant and would only become better with more Terravores.

The meta at the event will probably consist of a lot of blue aggro-control decks, some Landstill and other decks like Goblins, Dreadstill, Survvial and Loam. I chose this deck because in this said metagame I think combo is pretty weak and Aggro Loam is favored against many of the named decks.
The sideboard has got 5 wishtargets in it which are the most important ones.
But I am still not sure whether there shouldn't be any Raven's Crime in the deck as it's really strong with Life from the Loam and would help in the extremely weak combo matchups.
The rest of the board is aimed to beat Aggro control with and without counterbalance (Deed + Grip) and to handle troublesome permanents like Humility, Crucible and of course Counterbalance.
Extirpate is there for the mirror, for all control matchups and gets boarded in against everything that is dependant on it's graveyard and in combo matchups as well.

So what do you think of the list? Are there still any tweaks that could be made to make the deck more succesful in said metagame? Could Raven's Crime somehow be included? Should I dedicate some sideboard slots towards stormcombo/Ichorid or are those matchups so bad, that I can't make them at least winable without eating up too many room in my sideboard to do so?


Is there any way we can add Sensei's Diving top? 2 or 3? that card just seems so good in combonation with fetchlands and life from the loam and Dark confident!

[technogeek5000]

Well I played RGW loam for Milford and toepd 8 in a field of 33. I hardly remember anything so Im not going into any detail for the matches

4 Crusher
4 Vore
2 Mongrel
1 Goyf
1 Genesis
3 Loam
3 Dreams
4 Wish
3 Assault
4 Stp
4 Mox diamond
4 Taiga
1 Savannah
2 Plataeu
3 Foothills
3 Mire
1 Heath
3 Waste
3 Thicket
3 Forgotten cave
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Nantuko
1 Tabernacle

4 Leyline
4 Chalice
2 Grip
1 Loam
1 Dreams
1 Morningtide
1 Spree
1 Silence

Round 1 RGb Loam 2-1

Round 2 UGR Thrash 1-2 (horrible play mistakes)

Round 3 UW Parralax tide control 2-0

Round 4 Landstill 0-1

Round 5 Imperial Painter 2-0

Round 6 Ichorid 2-0 (wow, tabernacle for the win both times)

Top 8: UGR thrash 0-2

I got seroiusly fucking topdecked on by Rich Meyst's thrash. He counters the first 9 spells I play, bolts my crusher, I dreams away his board only for him to topdeck fucking tormods crypt (I just needed one turn with him having no board for a terravore/wasteland), then 2 turns later he topdecks the last colored source left in his deck and topdecks 2 nimble mongeese in a row FTW(could have raced one). Whatever, I ripped a mutavault in a pack though so I was up 25 for the day.

So yah, I sided out the mongrels every game, I never wanted anything in my board outside of those 5 this and last week, and tabernacle is beastly in this deck. Also I found out that the white splash has the advantage over the mirror.

[Volt]

.

[Muradin]

The other option would be the standard RG Aggro Loam build with 12 creatures, 4 chalice, 2 Explosives and 3 Dreams.
I am already quite experienced with this build and did also have really good results in some 5 rounds tournaments until now.

The problem I have with the build is, that in those tournaments I knew what most of my opponents were playing and could mulligan for Chalice, which gave me a good fighting chance against combo in game one.
But at a bigger tournament in most cases I won't know against what I am up and so I would never drop Chalice set at 0 on the play and then get comboed out while I would always go for Thoughtseize on turn one.

This is the Sideboard of my RG deck:
4 Krosan Grip
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Shattering spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Nostalgic Dreams

With Thorn of Amethyst I've actually got a really good chance against Ichorid as combined with Wasteland, Dreams and some pressure it will completely hinder them from playing anything.
Postboard this deck might even be favored against Combo as 4 Thorn and 4 chalice with enough removal to make Empty the Warrens look ridiculous one has a lot of tools to slow them down a lot.

I don't feel comfortable yet with the other version of the deck as it doesn't have Engineered Explosives which has been really strong for me so far and doesn't give me the option of getting lucky with chalice and completely screwing my opponent be setting it on one. But on the other hand I don't like the RG build as well, because Chalice somehow seems to be weak when I don't know what my opponents are playing.
Especially in a longer tournaments chalice makes the deck less consistant while Thoughtseize simply smoothes out the whole mana curve of the deck.

[GreenOne]

I tested a bit Raven's Crime and it sucked all day. Is this just my feeling?

[georgjorge]

Is there any way we can add Sensei's Diving top? 2 or 3? that card just seems so good in combonation with fetchlands and life from the loam and Dark confident!

I tried it and found soon that it's not good here because the deck already uses all of its mana every turn, especially if you're playing Wish. You can start using Top on turn four or five, at which point you would rather have something which can finish the game.


With Thorn of Amethyst I've actually got a really good chance against Ichorid as combined with Wasteland, Dreams and some pressure it will completely hinder them from playing anything.

I don't think so...you would need to do it with a Mox on the play, and even then, Ichorid can often get to two lands in the first two turns. If they go first, they will already have gotten their Dredgers in the Yard (and maybe have some Zombies out). Or they can just pay one for LED and go off with Analysis or Coliseum. I really think without four Leylines (or maybe Crypt) the Ichorid matchup is very bad. I've beaten it, but only on the strength of Leylines (sometimes coupled with Chalice @1 for their Chains).

[memnarch]

Yeah, Tabernacle seems like pretty savage tech for this deck. Hmm. I may have to get me one of those.

As a sideboard against Ichord yes. I recommend maze of ith MD. goyf's, noughts other large creatures seem to be more common now days then tokens and goblins. I haven't seen Ith in a lot of lists. But it works great because it stalls the game out long enough to drop a fattie. And its fetchable with life from the loam.

The version I run is just RG with chalice instead of any discard. chalice for 1 totally wreaks half the decks i come across.

Personally I prefer Terravore over crusher. because he wins the game the next two turns usually. usually around the size of a Darksteel Colossus. most of the time I would rather just end the game quickly instead of letting a body just sit around on the table for a while. I'm not saying don't run crusher. But Terravore > Crusher.

Has anyone tested Worm Harvest? this seemed like the best of the retrace sorcerys. I was thinking about trying it main deck and definitely having one in the side for a wishboard incase I need another win condition.

[GreenOne]

Has anyone tested Worm Harvest? this seemed like the best of the retrace sorcerys. I was thinking about trying it main deck and definitely having one in the side for a wishboard incase I need another win condition.

I tested it as a 1of in the MD. It was good but not great. It helped sometimes in creating infi-chumpblockers or an army to attack with in case of goyf-stall. It was huge against control however.

[adrieng]

There is no way terravore is better than crusher. I am trying to cut terravore for doran. As anyone tested doran in the terravore slot?
What i have found, is that at the beginning of the game doran is bigger than terravore which is often a 2/2 or 3/3. With devastating dreams terravore is bigger but if there is no creature doran does the same job.
I have tested vial and liked it at the beginning but mox diamond is really better after more test.
I have also tested a one of worrm harvest in the maindeck and didn't like it.
What i have found is that when i dredged it i was happy but lot of times you have it at the beginning of the game and I would always prefer have something else. Furthermore I sometimes have some burning wish in hand with already an active loam and no real useful target but worm harvest. So I easily can have it with wish(no need to maindeck it).
I play the 4 enlightned tutor in sb which gives game against two bad matchup which are burn (tutor target warmth) and ichorid (tutor target tormod's and wheel of sun). It allowed me to play more hate without losing place in the sb.

[memnarch]

There is no way terravore is better than crusher. I am trying to cut terravore for doran. As anyone tested doran in the terravore slot?
What i have found, is that at the beginning of the game doran is bigger than terravore which is often a 2/2 or 3/3. With devastating dreams terravore is bigger but if there is no creature doran does the same job.
I have tested vial and liked it at the beginning but mox diamond is really better after more test.
I have also tested a one of worrm harvest in the maindeck and didn't like it.
What i have found is that when i dredged it i was happy but lot of times you have it at the beginning of the game and I would always prefer have something else. Furthermore I sometimes have some burning wish in hand with already an active loam and no real useful target but worm harvest. So I easily can have it with wish(no need to maindeck it).
I play the 4 enlightned tutor in sb which gives game against two bad matchup which are burn (tutor target warmth) and ichorid (tutor target tormod's and wheel of sun). It allowed me to play more hate without losing place in the sb.

Perhaps you are going a more aggro route but this deck plays like a control deck for me. I wipe the board of creatures and lands and lock out 1 drops with chalice. By the time thats done I have a crap load of lands in the grave. Thats when I drop the fat. Also terravore has trample. If your dropping it late game which I ALWAYS do: the 11/11 trample for 3 > 3/3 for three. I like the enlightened tutor idea though. free up slots for the wishboard and help combo match up.

[technogeek5000]

There is no way terravore is better than crusher. I am trying to cut terravore for doran. As anyone tested doran in the terravore slot?
What i have found, is that at the beginning of the game doran is bigger than terravore which is often a 2/2 or 3/3. With devastating dreams terravore is bigger but if there is no creature doran does the same job.
I have tested vial and liked it at the beginning but mox diamond is really better after more test.
I have also tested a one of worrm harvest in the maindeck and didn't like it.
What i have found is that when i dredged it i was happy but lot of times you have it at the beginning of the game and I would always prefer have something else. Furthermore I sometimes have some burning wish in hand with already an active loam and no real useful target but worm harvest. So I easily can have it with wish(no need to maindeck it).
I play the 4 enlightned tutor in sb which gives game against two bad matchup which are burn (tutor target warmth) and ichorid (tutor target tormod's and wheel of sun). It allowed me to play more hate without losing place in the sb.

UUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh :rolleyes: :confused: :rolleyes:

Terravore and crusher are equal in strength, and the statement that terravore isnt big early on is a common misconception that people picking up this deck have. Everytime I play this deck and I cast terravore in the first 3 turns it always has 5-7 P/T (remember your opponent plays lands too). Also, whats up with doran. First off if your playing doran that means your running 4 colors and doran requires you have 2 light splash colors(still possible, but with out a mox hes normally going to be sitting in your hand). Doran has no where near the impact that Terravore and crusher do on the game. The way I see it is you can pay 3 mana on a easy color for a huge trampler or you can pay 3 mana of difficult colors for a 5 power creature. Also burn is a easy matchup, I know because I have played it over 45 times with my dad. If you resolve 1 dreams you win, this is not a exageration (I have lost 2 games out of every single one that I have resolved dreams and 1 of them was a play mistake). Also if your playing white stp steals alot of games you have no right winning.

[BreathWeapon]

Random thought,

If Aggro-Loam is considering one drops, is Tinder Wall a one drop Aggro-Loam could take advantage of as a blocker for Goblins, mana filter, accelerant and mana source post Devastating Dreams? Tinder Wall is a reasonable choice in R/g Survival and R/g Survival and Aggro-Loam are kind of distant cousins, with the RR(R) mana costs in this deck it could prove useful.

[Sims]

Also burn is a easy matchup, I know because I have played it over 45 times with my dad. If you resolve 1 dreams you win, this is not a exageration (I have lost 2 games out of every single one that I have resolved dreams and 1 of them was a play mistake). Also if your playing white stp steals alot of games you have no right winning.


The white part may be true, but I know a few people who will disagree with the burn assessment. P_R nearly sold his Crushers after being decimated by Goyf Sligh 12 games in a row. 13th game he won, off a DDreams no less, but the other games where he resolved DDreams it didn't mean anything.

[Arkham]

Hey guys.

Out of curiosity, what are Aggro Loam's traditional bad match-ups?

[Volt]

.

[BreathWeapon]

Burn

Is that with or with out Chalice of the Void?

[Volt]

.

[Redlotus27]

I played Aggro Loam at GenCon Legacy Champs to a 6-2 Record.

Matches with some highlights were as follows:

RND 1 DreadStill -- Win 2-0
Chalice@1 was golden, and I resolved Choke in game 2
(1-0 Matches, 2-0 Games)

RND 2 Imperial Painter -- Win 2-0
Assaulted ftw game 1 with some help from shattering spree and game 2
DD erased his entire board then Vore ate him.
(2-0/4-0)

RND 3 Combo/Aggro Elves
game 1 turn 1 Chalice@1 on the play was key, game 2 he went first and threw up
his hand all over the table and had 8 permanents on turn 2. I scooped at 19 life.
Game 3 Got the chalice@1 turn 2 and the finished with assault.
Great games and great opponent!
(3-0/6-1)

RND 4 CounterSliver! (eventually won it all)(this rnd @ table 1)
Game 1, resolved EE for 2, erased his board and Crusher killed him.
Game 2, he had tons of countermagic, and when I went for City of Solitude when
I should've went for DD. I lose to really fat slivers.
Game 3 goes back and forth and eventually I get through his counter wall and
resolve EE for 2; wipe his board. He plays one more sliver from hand which I have the
terminate for and Vore eats him.
(4-0/8-2)

RND 5 Black Thresh
Game 1 DD clears his board and Vore eats him.
Game 2 I make a grevious mistake early by fetching a non-green source of mana with a red
cycler in hand and it costs me as I can't recover. Dark bob kills me
Game 3 My desperatin DD for 6 gets dazed and I suffer match loss #1.
(4-1/9-4)

RND 6 Enchantress
Game 1 I get him down to one, can't find the DD before he locks me out. I reverent
silenced him twice this game (+12 life). That stunk!
Game 2, I get the nut draw and resolve DD before he can get set up and win easily with Crusher.
Game 3 I wasn't quite fast enough, frowing as I look at my hand with DD, Grip x2 and EE,
and can't play them since he has 3 Karmic justices which will geddon/wrath me if I do it.
I die to many pegasi.
(4-2/10-5)

RND 7 Landstill (I think this guy is a sourcer..not sure)
Game 1 I win after resolving Vore after a DD
Game 2 I lose to a 28/28 Avatar token compliments of Ajani Goldmane.
Game 3 Chalice@1 locks out his hand full of 1cc spells, and I eventually win a long
(like we were the last game finished in the round long) game with assault
(5-2/12-6)

RND 8 Burn
Game 1 He frowns at my Chalice@1, Goyf, then Chalice@2. He does get me down to 1 life
fireblasting me twice along with PoP. I wasteland a barbarian ring that would have killed me.
Game 2, Chalice @ 1 on turn 2, he was land-light and couldn't recover in time.
(6-2/14-6)

Heres what I played:

4 Countryside Crusher
4 Goyf
3 Terravore

4 Burning Wish
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
3 Seismic Assault
3 Life from the Loam

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Wasteland
4 Forgotten Caves
3 Tranquil Thicket

SB:
3 Terminate
2 Choke
2 City of Solitude
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
3 Krosan Grip
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Reverent Silence
1 Regrowth

Dang that was a long post

[Pulp_Fiction]

@RedLotus27: I run basically that exact build except for: -1 Explosives -1 Forgotten Caves +1 Bayou +1 Eternal Witness and I am curious about your sideboard. I really like the idea of Terminate but I think Burning Wish for Deathmark or Edict should be enough. Was 3x Terminate in the SB overkill or did it work out fine? Same with 2x Choke and 2x City of Solitude. Great cards but how necessary were they? I would think a 2x of in the SB would be just average at best. All things considered would you still run those same cards in the SB in the same amounts or would you run something else?

Also, thanks for the update on Elves in the GenCon thread.

[Redlotus27]

Truth told, the sideboard was pretty much a wreck. Using the wishboard will do that. I sometimes wished that I had more cards to bring to the MD in certain matchups. Terminate was good when it mattered; I was expecting more aggro/mirror type matches and it was there to ace opposing goyfs.

I decided to concede any combo matches I would come across by not running Sphere of resistance or thorns, and instead try to improve matches against control and aggro using Cities/chokes. I only faced one counterbalance all day, and it didn't matter since I never NEEDED to remove it. The Edict was good-- even flashed it back once. I ran the regrowth since I wasn't running Witness MD.

I considered Deed, but ended up deciding it was going to kill me more than it would help me. EE gets rid of most problems by itself, and for usually less mana. I would maybe like to fit in a large flyer like tombstalker, or replace the blue hate with Confidants. Maybe look like this:

3 Krosan Grip
3 Dark Confidant
3 Terminate
1 Pyroclasm
1 DD
1 Reverent Silence
1 Loam
1 Edict
1 Shattering Spree

[angrod]

hello

For the moment I am making an aggro loam deck but I don't know what color to splash white or black? Does the deck have enough draw with loam and crusher? In the white versions I see very often tabernacle at pendrell vale but the black version doens't play this one, does it have a reason? I hope you can give me some arguments which splash to pick.

angrod

[technogeek5000]

hello

For the moment I am making an aggro loam deck but I don't know what color to splash white or black? Does the deck have enough draw with loam and crusher? In the white versions I see very often tabernacle at pendrell vale but the black version doens't play this one, does it have a reason? I hope you can give me some arguments which splash to pick.

angrod

I believe that I am the only person who currently runs tabernacle, probably because Im one of the few who actually owns one (price tag is a bitch). Its mostly personal preference but you could certainly playtabernacle in the black builds. I do believe that the white version is stronger because it improves the bad matchups(ichorid, burn, and leaving storm combo in the same state) this deck has while still retaining its positive matchups. And yes, loam alone is enough draw and filter for this deck in my opinion and crusher adds even more to that (has helped me dig for cards that I would have otherwise recieved game losses without) so I would think that running confidant would be excessive unless your meta has 35% landstill.

[technogeek5000]

Looking over my deck and my recent tournament sucesses/anti successes I realized that my overall matchup against threshold decks is alot worse then I would like it to be. Im just not sure how to go about and do this. My decklist is below for referance. What Im really looking for is resilience against their countermagic its just I cant find out how to remedy this.

4 Crusher
4 Vore
2 Mongrel
1 Goyf
1 Genesis
3 Loam
3 Dreams
4 Wish
3 Assault
4 Stp
4 Mox diamond
4 Taiga
1 Savannah
2 Plataeu
3 Foothills
3 Mire
1 Heath
3 Waste
3 Thicket
3 Forgotten cave
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Nantuko
1 Tabernacle

4 Leyline
4 Chalice
2 Grip
1 Loam
1 Dreams
1 Morningtide
1 Spree
1 Silence

[Arkham]

Why exactly did you add Mongrel to your list?

EDIT: Also, it was my impression that with Aggro Loam that you're essentially supposed to weather the storm when it comes to counter if you're using the deck. Like just throw spells at it until they run out of counter. I mean, like it or not, but even threshold decks, with the exception of countertop, have a tide mark with how many counterspells/FoWs/Dazes they can draw in a single game before they become fish food.

Other than that, what've you thought about red elemental blasts/pyroblasts in your board?

[Nihil Credo]

Looking over my deck and my recent tournament sucesses/anti successes I realized that my overall matchup against threshold decks is alot worse then I would like it to be. Im just not sure how to go about and do this.
Blood Moon, if you're sticking to no MD Chalice (legitimate choice, btw).

Edit:

Why exactly did you add Mongrel to your list?
I imagine to try and make up for the scarcity of Goyfs.

[georgjorge]

I believe that I am the only person who currently runs tabernacle, probably because Im one of the few who actually owns one (price tag is a bitch). Its mostly personal preference but you could certainly playtabernacle in the black builds. I do believe that the white version is stronger because it improves the bad matchups(ichorid, burn, and leaving storm combo in the same state) this deck has while still retaining its positive matchups. And yes, loam alone is enough draw and filter for this deck in my opinion and crusher adds even more to that (has helped me dig for cards that I would have otherwise recieved game losses without) so I would think that running confidant would be excessive unless your meta has 35% landstill.

Play white AND black :wink: I think the deck can afford it. Black is key - it improves the combo matchup a good deal with six or seven one-mana discard spells (and I'm not talking about Raven's Crime here), which also are invaluable in resolving a Dreams or Blood Moon, taking removal before dropping Crusher/Vore etc...in essence, they speed up the deck because you use the first turn to take away some of your opponent's defense instead of having to overload them on the later turns.

Confidant is a bit excessive, I agree, but it often draws removal on the second turn and provides CA when there's Leyline/Extirpate/Ground Seal to shut down Loam. With that said, I'd cut my three copies if there were some better spell, but I haven't found it so far.

Finally, I'm not sure I understand the concept of Tabernacle here. Playing it as a one-of in a deck without tutoring ? That sounds random, since Dredging with Loam takes a long time before you get to that one-of. Also, the deck has Dreams to stop creature rushes, and against decks with fewer creatures, it will probably slow you down as much as them (playing ~15 creatures after all).

[Yo-hann]

Play white AND black :wink: I think the deck can afford it. Black is key - it improves the combo matchup a good deal with six or seven one-mana discard spells (and I'm not talking about Raven's Crime here), which also are invaluable in resolving a Dreams or Blood Moon, taking removal before dropping Crusher/Vore etc...in essence, they speed up the deck because you use the first turn to take away some of your opponent's defense instead of having to overload them on the later turns.

Confidant is a bit excessive, I agree, but it often draws removal on the second turn and provides CA when there's Leyline/Extirpate/Ground Seal to shut down Loam. With that said, I'd cut my three copies if there were some better spell, but I haven't found it so far.

Finally, I'm not sure I understand the concept of Tabernacle here. Playing it as a one-of in a deck without tutoring ? That sounds random, since Dredging with Loam takes a long time before you get to that one-of. Also, the deck has Dreams to stop creature rushes, and against decks with fewer creatures, it will probably slow you down as much as them (playing ~15 creatures after all).

Right now im testing a version, where i use crop rotation to fetch; waste pernacle, stronghold ... so far it seems to do ok

[Arkham]

Play white AND black I think the deck can afford it. Black is key - it improves the combo matchup a good deal with six or seven one-mana discard spells (and I'm not talking about Raven's Crime here), which also are invaluable in resolving a Dreams or Blood Moon, taking removal before dropping Crusher/Vore etc...in essence, they speed up the deck because you use the first turn to take away some of your opponent's defense instead of having to overload them on the later turns.

What'd be a good example for a mana base for 4C Aggro Loam? I like the idea of splashing black or white, but I'm a bit hesitant to do both. I'd like to be able to test it, though. :smile:

[Blitzbold]

This is the 4C manabase I am currently using. Please note that I am running White only for a couple of sideboard cards at the moment.

3 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Plateau
2 Forest
1 Mountain (needed?)
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold

[georgjorge]

Three basics are unneeded, this deck doesn't fear Wasteland.

Mine is

4 Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Plateau
1 Forest

4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Wasteland

with white only being played for three Swords to Plowshares.

[Nihil Credo]

3 [PR] Taiga
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [ON] Forgotten Cave
3 [TE] Wasteland
1 [UNH] Mountain
3 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
2 [UNH] Forest
2 [PR] Badlands
4 [PR] Wooded Foothills
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [PR] Plateau


Here, too, the W splash is just for some SB options.

[Roelke]

The main reason to play a basic mountain is to have a better chance against decks that play back to basics or price of progress.

My current 3color mana base is:
4 wooded foothills
2 bloodstained mire
4 taiga
1 badlands
2 forest
1 mountain
4 wastelands
1 volrath stronghold
3 forgotten cave
3 tranquil thicket

For a 4color mana base I'd change:
-1 taiga
+1 plateau

The number of white/black duals is depending on the number of cards played main or side. In my deck I only play some discard spells in the sideboard (chalice of the void maindeck). So only one badlands is sufficient. When playing white or black cards main, you should probably play two plateaus/badlands. So when playing black cards main and white cards in the sideboard i'd play this mana base (26 lands instead of 25):

4 wooded foothills
2 bloodstained mire
3 taiga
2 badlands
2 forest
1 mountain
1 plateau
4 wastelands
1 volrath stronghold
3 forgotten cave
3 tranquil thicket

[Shugyosha]

Looking over my deck and my recent tournament sucesses/anti successes I realized that my overall matchup against threshold decks is alot worse then I would like it to be. Im just not sure how to go about and do this. My decklist is below for referance. What Im really looking for is resilience against their countermagic its just I cant find out how to remedy this.

Cut the Mongrels for Goyf. You have enough big outs to win the game. 3 Goyfs will help to keep the earlygame safe.

Play 1 Worm Harvest main and one Harvest sideboard (to wish for). The card is ridiculous in Aggro Loam. I cannot understand why people still play without Harvest. On top of that 1 Raven's Crime is makes almost all matchups better too. Unlike Harvest it needs the black splash (Badlands and Urborg) but makes the mana base stronger for Harvest and opens up the possibilty to run Tombstalker which is also a hell of a beater in this deck. Especially against Threshold (flies, laughs at Balance and Daze and occasionally shrinks your opponents Goyfs).

[georgjorge]

Why exactly did you add Mongrel to your list?

EDIT: Also, it was my impression that with Aggro Loam that you're essentially supposed to weather the storm when it comes to counter if you're using the deck. Like just throw spells at it until they run out of counter. I mean, like it or not, but even threshold decks, with the exception of countertop, have a tide mark with how many counterspells/FoWs/Dazes they can draw in a single game before they become fish food.

Other than that, what've you thought about red elemental blasts/pyroblasts in your board?

Quoted for truth.

Also, if you have problems with Thresh I'd cut the Assaults (no threat if you don't get Loam or they have Extirpate) and one Swords for main Chalices, or even better a black splash and five to six Duress and Seizes.


Has anyone actually tested Tombstalker ? It seems like an interesting idea, I'd just be worried that removing four or five lands (not much else in an early graveyard) doesn't exactly have synergy with Loam and 'Vore, so it probably would come down turn four or five ? Which is still good, but maybe not better than Doran...

[technogeek5000]

Cut the Mongrels for Goyf. You have enough big outs to win the game. 3 Goyfs will help to keep the earlygame safe.

Play 1 Worm Harvest main and one Harvest sideboard (to wish for). The card is ridiculous in Aggro Loam. I cannot understand why people still play without Harvest. On top of that 1 Raven's Crime is makes almost all matchups better too. Unlike Harvest it needs the black splash (Badlands and Urborg) but makes the mana base stronger for Harvest and opens up the possibilty to run Tombstalker which is also a hell of a beater in this deck. Especially against Threshold (flies, laughs at Balance and Daze and occasionally shrinks your opponents Goyfs).

The mongrels are there for budget reasons. It was expensive enough to build Aggro loam and adding 2 more goyfs would only make that worse. I am looking forward to the price drop when Shards of Alara turns its head. And yah, Im testing worm harvest (not crime though, Ill test that if I switch my splash (or change my focus) to black).

@georgjorge: Doran sucks, I tried it. Also assaults are golden against everything that is not thresh and combo.

[Shugyosha]

Has anyone actually tested Tombstalker ? It seems like an interesting idea, I'd just be worried that removing four or five lands (not much else in an early graveyard) doesn't exactly have synergy with Loam and 'Vore, so it probably would come down turn four or five ? Which is still good, but maybe not better than Doran...

My teammate plays them for months. He Top 3'd with his build this weekend in a tourney (around 50 players):

Main Deck
1 Raven's Crime
3 Tombstalker
4 Burning Wish
4 Countryside Crusher
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Seismic Assault
3 Life from the Loam
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Terravore
1 Worm Harvest
2 Engineered Explosives

4 Mox Diamond
3 Badlands
3 Forgotten Cave
4 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
2 Forest

Sideboard
1 Deathmark
3 Extirpate
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Ruination
1 Shattering Spree
1 Gaea's Blessing
3 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam
1 Reverent Silence
1 Hull Breach
1 Firespout

An early Counterbalance, Goyfs and counters is needed to stop that list. I managed to pull wins through with my Threshold occasionally but since Harvest and Crime it got worse.

[Arkham]

Sensei's top is also a nice addition to the deck, from what I've played. It'd probably make Gaea's blessing a whole lot better too.

EDIT: I've also been considering Treetop villages as a way to get out from under countertop/counterspells. It's not a great option, but it seems like it has some merit.

[georgjorge]

To quote myself on Sensei's from the previous page...


I tried it and found soon that it's not good here because the deck already uses all of its mana every turn, especially if you're playing Wish. You can start using Top on turn four or five, at which point you would rather have something which can finish the game.

...and why would I ever play Blessing in Aggro-Loam ? Ok, if Painter is big in the meta, but even then the point is not to play it but to have it in your library.


I think some people are a BIT too paranoid about counterspells and countertop. The deck has enough threats to beat decks like Landstill which consist ONLY of counters and removal for your threats. Countertop is a permanent defense, but it's not such a problem: we have seven threats for three which can win the game on their own, Wastelands to keep their mana short (so they have to choose between digging and playing spells), and enough mana in the midgame to bait the Top activation with one-cc discard before resolving a Loam or Dreams. Finally, some people (not me) play Explosives and Deed. If you fear CBalance so much, I suggest exchanging the Wishes for those (in my experience, the power level is about the same).


On Tombstalker: I'll try it, but I don't like that is means being even more dependant on the graveyard. I have won a number of games where my opponent kept Leyline in play the whole time just by playing a first turn discard, second turn Confidant, and winning with the card advantage. Confidant would be cut for Stalker, which can't do anything in the face of Leyline.

[Yo-hann]

Sensei's top is also a nice addition to the deck, from what I've played. It'd probably make Gaea's blessing a whole lot better too.

EDIT: I've also been considering Treetop villages as a way to get out from under countertop/counterspells. It's not a great option, but it seems like it has some merit.

Why not play mirri's guile instead?

[Blitzbold]

Why not play mirri's guile instead?

The deck is loaded with really good cards. Why substitute good cards with trash like Miri's Guile?

[Arkham]

Why not play mirri's guile instead?

Because other than with krosan grip, Top can resist most hate targeting it. It can also go for what you need at any time as opposed to only your upkeep. It also has synergy with cards in your deck like Crusher or Loam. But, to be honest with you, I sort've mixed up cards when it comes to the interaction with Gaea's blessing and Top. (Too many go arounds with Brainstorm, I guess.)

I mean, I'm not that paranoid about being decked or losing the cards in my graveyard, because if I were, I'd have already gotten my copies of Wheel of Sun and Moon which is a way better card than gaea's blessing when it comes to versatility.

[Nihil Credo]

If one wants to make the deck more consistent by adding velocity, I don't see why run Mirri's Guile when you could support Dark Confidant. Roughly speaking: when you have Loam, they're both overkill; when you don't, Guile/Top's advantages over Confidant are:

- Can drop turn 1
- Doesn't suffer from creature removal
- Doesn't cause life loss

of which points 1 and 2 are both moot, since you run 25-26 lands with a very solid mana base and have no need to fish for land drops, and you're absolutely delighted if a removal spell hits Confidant instead of your game-winning threats.


To incorporate the above ideas into a wider philosophy, my approach to the deck is: 1) Run as many and as powerful threats as possible; 2) Don't get crippled by hate. I think cantrip-ish tools like Top or Mirri's Guile are much more appropriate for a subtler approach, such as, say, Intuition/Loam/Confinement.

[Yo-hann]

The deck is loaded with really good cards. Why substitute good cards with trash like Miri's Guile?

Well i think that mirri's guile is alot better then top in this deck;
the fact that you don't have to pay 1 mana to see the top three cards is actually pretty good, considering you almost never have any spare mana because of Cycling cards an so on..

Mirri's guile is good, because you can use it with crusher to make sure that the lands go to the grave, and that you get the cards you really need faster. + in this deck there's isn't that many 1 drop cards...

[C.P.]

Well i think that mirri's guile is alot better then top in this deck;
the fact that you don't have to pay 1 mana to see the top three cards is actually pretty good, considering you almost never have any spare mana because of Cycling cards an so on..

Mirri's guile is good, because you can use it with crusher to make sure that the lands go to the grave, and that you get the cards you really need faster. + in this deck there's isn't that many 1 drop cards...

The Interaction between top + dredge itself makes it better than the Guile. Also, don't forget that plooping the top at instant speed will save loam from random GY removal if needed.

[Yo-hann]

The Interaction between top + dredge itself makes it better than the Guile. Also, don't forget that plooping the top at instant speed will save loam from random GY removal if needed.

Point taken!

[I'm a TROLL]

Sensei's top is also a nice addition to the deck, from what I've played. It'd probably make Gaea's blessing a whole lot better too.

EDIT: I've also been considering Treetop villages as a way to get out from under countertop/counterspells. It's not a great option, but it seems like it has some merit.

Finally somebody else who sees it. I run it and I've found it to be amazing. The thing is like a Brainstorm everyturn because of the cycling and the Life from the Loam. It really is amazing and it's almost impossible to destroy!


If one wants to make the deck more consistent by adding velocity, I don't see why run Mirri's Guile when you could support Dark Confidant. Roughly speaking: when you have Loam, they're both overkill; when you don't, Guile/Top's advantages over Confidant are:

- Can drop turn 1
- Doesn't suffer from creature removal
- Doesn't cause life loss

of which points 1 and 2 are both moot, since you run 25-26 lands with a very solid mana base and have no need to fish for land drops, and you're absolutely delighted if a removal spell hits Confidant instead of your game-winning threats.


To incorporate the above ideas into a wider philosophy, my approach to the deck is: 1) Run as many and as powerful threats as possible; 2) Don't get crippled by hate. I think cantrip-ish tools like Top or Mirri's Guile are much more appropriate for a subtler approach, such as, say, Intuition/Loam/Confinement.

Ok, yeah, let's see: First of all that's your opinion so don't be so elite-ist. Second of all we play 25-26 land. You said it yourself. Ok, so now: WHAT IS THE POINT OF PLAYING GOOD CARDS IF YOU CAN'T FIND THEM?! Unless you plan on luckysmoking into every threat then what?

[georgjorge]

Dude, calm down...Nihil knows what he's talking about here.

To answer your rant - if you play a threat instead of Top, you obviously don't need to find that threat with Top because it will be right in your hand. Top will find more threats over several turns, but as said before, it's a card more for the mid- to lategame, and the deck already seems to have those covered well with Loam and big creatures. Try it out, but I hardly think it will be the powerful card that you imply it is.

[adrieng]

I am playing a 4 colour version of aggro loam. I tested etched oracle as a 3 of and I am very happy with him. I am also playing tombstalker as a 2 of and like it and 3 doran (obviously 4 goyf and 4 crusher).
Doran and crusher are very good at the beginning of the match, contrary at terravore. They are a good on their own meaning without loam or without lands in grave. So good at fighting hate. They help fighting counterbalance.
Tombstalker is really good, I usually can play it turn 3/4/5. He is one of the most difficult creature to kill in the format.
As for etched oracle, he is good creature with a really good ability drawing 3 so immune to removals.

I am playing also a 4 off firestorm. At the beginning of my test I thought the gob matchup was good. But not really against R/B gobelin with 4 weirding and 2 snuff out main my creatures didn't stayed long time on the board. And dream was sometimes too slow/ too late or bad with a vial in play (I still play them). Firestorm solves this problem. It is also really good against random decks, merfolk, slivers...
Others removals such as swords, snuff out,... have been tested but they weren't enough to stop gobelin (I tested with 4 swords and 3 snuff out).
Seismic assault : I tested it and didn't find good enough. It can give you random win. But you need loam (meaning no counterbalance no extirpate no blue elemental blast etc...). Seismic assault is a bit like phyrexian dreadnought
if we can make this comparaison bad on his own gamebreaking but easily disrupted/ too slow.

So far the bad matchup are combo,burn, MUC (with back to basics and shackles),43 deck lands(exploration and manabond).
My side is trying to beat combo, burn.
I have found the MUC unwinnable any thoughts?(I play only one basic and don't want to weaken my manabase or cut wasteland)

[Giles]

I have found the MUC unwinnable any thoughts?(I play only one basic and don't want to weaken my manabase or cut wasteland)

I lol'ed. I just think your mana base is trash if that case. Normally I can fit between 4-6 basics nicely in the deck.

[frogboy]

Top and Loam is one of the dumbest things ever, fwiw. I wanted to play some but couldn't find room.

re: MUC: define 'MUC'. If it's some idiot draw go deck, out land them and then show them a bunch of awesome spells. If they don't have Plow, Terravore + Stronghold should be a beating. If they have some Back to Basics thing, go with the first plan and you should still be okay.

[jazzykat]

I just picked up this deck tonight after putting down CAL 2 years ago and beat imperial painter and reanimate combo! This deck is nuts, I wonder what it does to decks it's supposed to beat? RGw for the record.

Can we decide on some standards I mean....thresh has matured in a few different directions but with pretty set lists...

Is there an optimal color combination? No one could agree on #of DD, or Confidants, or assaults. Is this deck so good at beating what it beats and so bad at what it loses to that it is near impossible to find an optimal list?

Should we be at 4 colors with white for just stp, and sb and black for confidant, and stronghold activation, with a chalice disruption md?

Let's discuss...

Can anyone come up with heuristics for when a certain config is better for a meta?

[Blitzbold]

Chalice is played MD because it is really powerfull against nearly every good Deck, especially when set to 1. Because of this you'll either find lists containing CotV x4 or -depending on the splash- a number of 1cc-spells like Thoughtseize, Raven's Crime or Swords to Plowshares.

Although I like the powerful effects provided by those 1cc-spells I never tried a version with them as Chalice feels to be much more powerful against a much broader spectrum of opposing decks. One can say that, when for example running a black splash, the discard package is better against an unknown field, but even then I'd prefer the Chalices.

[georgjorge]

Can we decide on some standards I mean....thresh has matured in a few different directions but with pretty set lists...

Is there an optimal color combination? No one could agree on #of DD, or Confidants, or assaults. Is this deck so good at beating what it beats and so bad at what it loses to that it is near impossible to find an optimal list?

Should we be at 4 colors with white for just stp, and sb and black for confidant, and stronghold activation, with a chalice disruption md?

Let's discuss...

Can anyone come up with heuristics for when a certain config is better for a meta?


Ok, so some cards are pretty much standard for nearly all builds, I think.

6-7 cycle lands
3-4 Wastelands
4 Mox Diamond

3-4 Crusher
4 Goyf
3 Vore

3-4 Life from the Loam


...and then there are some issues that have been widely debated in this thread, and I think haven't (or can't) be finally resolved.

3 Assault

Too slow and dependant on Loam, or aggressive enough to justify it ? Certainly good against Goblins and other hordes, not to good post-sideboard when your Loams are in danger of being removed or neutralized otherwise.

3 Dark Confidant

Card advantage overkill, or a much needed 2cc-drop that sucks up removal ? Obviously not so good against beatdown, the mana curve is bit higher than usual in this deck so it can deal 3-5 damage to you. Shines against combo to get additional disruption quick, against control where you might need more threats than your eleven beatdown creatures, and post-sideboard to make up for graveyard disruption of Loam.

4 Chalice or 6-7 black discard

...the previous post says it all, except that I think discard is better than Chalice because it's cheaper and there aren't so many 1cc-spells you need to stop (I don't even sideboard it against CBalance Threshold). But we all agree that it needs to be somewhere between main- and sideboard.

3-4 Swords to Plowshares

Too much for the manabase or much needed removal ? Now there are some problem creatures for this deck where this is needed - Tombstalker, Grunt, Faerie Stompy flyers. If you are likely to encounter those, play it.


...and then there's the question of running Wish or not, although I think I'm pretty much the only one who thinks it's not needed :wink: . Without Wish, three Dreams is a given. Wish seems to be better in slower metas, and post-sideboard, also against stuff like Stax, Enchantress, or Noughts.

[Arkham]

Using a black splash instead of white, you can mainboard terminate instead of StP and achieve the same creature removal effect except they go to the graveyard instead of being removed from the game and not become a victim of your own chalice. Personally, I think it's a concession worth making. I've yet to try making Aggro Loam 4C, but I've already figured out that StP and Chalice MB do not really play well together.

I'm not entirely sure what is better when considering MB Chalice or discard in a black splash, but I think Chalice has the edge because of how it can trip up combo/control and buy you the turns you need to take control of the board. Perhaps discard might be able to do the same thing, but not as well?

[Shugyosha]

Why do you need targeted remova anyways? It's not necessary. Your creatures are bigger than anything most decks can muster and 2 Dreams + 2 E. Explosives can handle everything you care about while hitting lands or other permanents, too (like Balance or Humility).
Together with Raven's Crime they also give you a fighting chance against combo (mainly EtW tokens).

[georgjorge]

Why do you need targeted remova anyways? It's not necessary. Your creatures are bigger than anything most decks can muster and 2 Dreams + 2 E. Explosives can handle everything you care about while hitting lands or other permanents, too (like Balance or Humility).

In my experience, fast Aggro can be a problem for the deck (Goyf Sligh, Canadian ThreshThreshThreshThreshThresh, Faerie Stompy), thus the need for cheap (1cc) removal. Yes, our creatures are bigger, but they can come down a bit too late in Mox-less hands. Explosives CAN handle anything, but often too slow to survive, and Dreams can't handle so many creatures (without building up your hand with Loam first). For reference, I'm worried about

Grunt (a real bitch against this deck)
Goyf (backed up by Daze/Force)
Tombstalker
Serendib Efreet
Sea Drake
Exalted Angel
Dreadnought

[Arkham]

Why do you need targeted remova anyways? It's not necessary. Your creatures are bigger than anything most decks can muster and 2 Dreams + 2 E. Explosives can handle everything you care about while hitting lands or other permanents, too (like Balance or Humility).
Together with Raven's Crime they also give you a fighting chance against combo (mainly EtW tokens).

You should have spot removal in Aggro Loam regardless of the stuff you already have like DD, Explosives, etc. You aren't always in a position to dreams nor are you able to explosives in every given situation. For something like dreadnought and tombstalker, Terminate takes out both without the hastle of life gain from STP or the limited scope of Smother. The only thing Terminate falls down against is white weenie, which stuff like pyroclasm/DD should be able to care of.

Spot removal has it's perks.

[Shugyosha]

Spot removal has it's perks.

Sure it has, nobody is questioning this. But running spot removal just in fear of some creatures that might hit the board fast is not how the deck works IMO. Aggro Decks and Dreadnought can be problematic but they are not bad matchups. I would rather let the sideboard make the matches better and have my maindeck as straight as possible instead of running cards in fear of things that don't happen that often. Given that your meta is not full of Aggro and Dreadstill I see no reason to play spot removal main.

Regarding flying creatures: That's why the list I posted a page or so back runs Tombstalker which can be casted quickly. Sure it will cost you some lands but that pretty much not important with a 5/5 Flyer on the board and a Loam possibly in the grave.

[freakish777]

So for those following the GoyfSligh thread it looks like 2 Sylvan Library is worth running in that deck, and I was testing out Crusher in that deck as well. While I'm not convinced Crusher has a spot in GoyfSligh (I still like it a lot, especially with Fireblast), I'm beginning to think Sylvan Library has a spot in Aggro Loam.

In GoyfSligh it usually reads :1::g: and pay 8 life, draw 2 cards and set up your library. In Aggro Loam however, you get to draw 2 cards in your draw step, and dredge Loam, or draw a card dredge and draw another, then put 1 card back (you always have to draw your normal card before drawing 2 for Library so unfortunately you can't "know" that the top two cards are bad and just immediately dredge them, unless you don't want to draw for the turn in addition to dredging).

Also, Crusher + Library are flat out rediculous together. Library puts 1 land or 2 on top for Crusher to mill, Crusher mills them, and then Library shows you 2 or 3 new cards.

While you can't rescue a Loam from Tormod's Crypt with Library like you can with Top, you get the benefit of drawing a card (or 2 if you really are pushing it) and Dredging in the same turn.

Perhaps I'm over-estimating Sylvan Library and Dark Confidant already fills that role well enough, but the interaction between Crusher and Library is fairly obscene.

[Illissius]

draw a card dredge and draw another, then put 1 card back

This doesn't work.


At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two cards. If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library.

The only time you don't have to put two cards back is if you haven't drawn that many. If you dredge once, you'll still have drawn two cards normally. If you dredge twice, then you get to put back only one card.

[freakish777]

This doesn't work.



The only time you don't have to put two cards back is if you haven't drawn that many. If you dredge once, you'll still have drawn two cards normally. If you dredge twice, then you get to put back only one card.


Hm, I was under the impression for some reason that you could replace one of the draws and not the others. So you'd have to dredge 3 different cards in order to circumvent paying life here? Seems unreasonably difficult.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I have been messing around with the deck a little and I decided to test out Putrefy in the 2x EE slot. This card is really good and since my meta is seeing all kind of Vedalken Shackles lately this seems to be a good card to have pre-board. Now Putrefy offers its own versatility, although it can't hit enchantments or mass remove Goblin or Zombie tokens it seems to help a little more in other matches. Its really fucking good against Stiflenought and the deck's biggest menace Tombstalker. Thoughts on Putrefy?

[jazzykat]

If it works for you go for it. EE kills Warren tokens, pre-empts counterbalance and standstill and smokes chalice at anything but 0.

If you are having problems with lots of tombstalkers then I think it is a good choice.

HOWEVER, If you never see combo I love the white version with swords.

[Arkham]

I have been messing around with the deck a little and I decided to test out Putrefy in the 2x EE slot. This card is really good and since my meta is seeing all kind of Vedalken Shackles lately this seems to be a good card to have pre-board. Now Putrefy offers its own versatility, although it can't hit enchantments or mass remove Goblin or Zombie tokens it seems to help a little more in other matches. Its really fucking good against Stiflenought and the deck's biggest menace Tombstalker. Thoughts on Putrefy?

Putrefy's an interesting idea, I'll give you that. For one extra mana it gives you a longer reach against both artifacts and any creature. Terminate does the same thing against those creatures, but can't be used to target noncreature artifacts and pro-red creatures have a field day with it and dreams.

However, I wonder why would you even bother to try and keep shackles off the table? I mean there are some situations where wishing for a shattering spree or a hull breach can take care of it, but why would shackles be bad for Aggro Loam? Hear me out. Crusher/Terravore/Tarmogoyf all fluctuate in power and toughness so much that it isn't that hard to make them too big for shackles to throw a lasso over them. I'll admit that tarmogoyf might be a weak link when it comes to getting bigger in comparison to our other creatures, but with our ability to demolish land with dreams, wasteland, etc is it really necessary to add more preperation for a card that shouldn't really bother us anyway?

Putrefy is cool, but I still think in situations like these terminate is a better choice because it's cheaper and can still kill dreadnought/tombstalker and with a wishboard you can use anarchy to handle pro-red creatures and shattering spree to handle those pesky artifacts we can't touch with our mainboard.

Who knows, Putrefy might work just as well.


HOWEVER, If you never see combo I love the white version with swords.

I'm running a white splash with swords AND chalice mainboard until I can get the rest of my cards together to finish my black splash. It's had some mixed results, but StP can be very effective. My environment has 2 painter decks (1 of them just showed up and is played sporadically), a guy who plays belcher occasionally, and the other person who plays painter also plays TES. The only other combo I've faced is Swan Thresh, which to aggro loam is like fishing for trout with a hand grenade. The biggest problem in my meta I've faced so far with loam is Cephalid Breakfast.

Aggro Loam doesn't like that deck too much.

[Dark_Cynic87]

The white version seems like it wouldn't mind Breakfast. StP ftw?

[Waikiki]

In the dutch/belgian Meta the gwb version puts up very good results.

// Lands
3 [A] Bayou
3 [B] Savannah
1 [A] Scrubland
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [P3] Forest (1)
1 [P3] Swamp (3)
4 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
2 [ON] Barren Moor
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
3 [OD] Terravore
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [A] Swords to Plowshares
2 [AP] Pernicious Deed
2 [AP] Vindicate
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [TE] Choke

This is the list I've settled on. It's a more controlling approach then the red version. But better against a varied metagame. Where the combo matchup is pretty doable after SB siding in teeg + chalice.

It will probably lose some advantage in some matchups but it will make others better having like I said an overall better performance against more different decks.

Stp and vindicate are awesome adds. just as confidant. The recurring engine is very strong in stronghold and witness.

But then again it's easy to simply say Red version is better I will not test this. Your loss. I've also played the red version and this is just stronger in a diverse meta as we've got here.

It's also not that loam dependant. I even board it out in some matchups

[Kuma]

The white version seems like it wouldn't mind Breakfast. StP ftw?

Hardly. The key to stopping Breakfast is to have a vast number of solutions, not a few silver bullets. This isn't too difficult, because nearly every disruptive card in the format hurts breakfast.

Once you get the combo rolling, a single StP is useless, as the Breakfast player will just flashback Cabal Therapies until your hand is devoid of problem cards. (Extirpate and Orim's Chant are about the only cards that are annoying mid-combo).

White Aggro Loam runs some number of Wasteland (usually slows Breakfast a little), StP (useful for making sure the combo doesn't happen), sometimes Chalice (annoying, but managable), Devestating Dreams (very annoying) and Seismic Assault (annoying). This is why good Breakfast lists run Thoughtseize, CounterTop, Pernicious Deed (usually in the board) sometimes Daze, and usually even more protection/anti-hate, not to mention the obvious Force of Will.

Breakfast can combo while White Aggro Loam is finding its legs. I think Breakfast is favored.

[Pulp_Fiction]

Interesting build, it looks like the Rock without Duran Duran. But to be honest I have to say that without even putting that together it is worse than the RGb versions. The reason is Burning Wish, Crusher, and DD. All of which add to the consistency of the deck. Also, Crusher filters your draws then beats your opponent into the ground something Confidant can't ever do. I am just not a believer in Dark Confidant. His proper use is in suicide-black and B/W Disruption (Deadguy) uses. This is in no way an attack on the deck, I am just pointing out that it truly is inferior. The reasons the other deck work so well as the synergies. Mox Diamond and any of your other creatures get owned by Deed.

Honestly, I like the creativity but that is almost a whole other deck. But the point is, why run Confidant who sucks at everything but drawing cards when you can play Crusher who ... sucks at everything unless he is put in the right deck in which case he is fucking sick and becomes a 10/10+ in a matter of 2-4 turns and makes sure you draw non-land cards. Also, that deck can just lose to quick aggro and burn is almost an auto loss. Devastating Dreams owns almost every single matchup against non-combo decks and non-8+ counterspell control decks. I will honestly put it together but I can guarntee you that this version will be inferior to RGb Loam.

[Paradigm Shift]

Hey everybody, I played Aggro Loam (RGb) at Hadley and got 10th on breakers, 4-1-1. Thought I would share my experiences (not a formal report or anything, I didn't write stuff down, just stuff I noticed while playing.)

For reference, a list

3 Taiga
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Windswept Heath
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
4 Wasteland
1 Mountain
1 Forest

4 Mox Diamond

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Terravore
3 Dark Confidant

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Burning Wish
3 Life from the Loam
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Seismic Assault
2 Krosan Grip

SB:
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Thoughtseize
2 Krosan Grip
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Perish
1 Reverant Silence
1 Life from the Loam
1 Shattering Spree
1 Chainer's Edict

(Note: Upon arriving at Hadley, the store owner and all 50 people in the building told me they didn't have Nostalgic Dreams, which accounts for it's absence. One of the two Grips in the SB would have been it, had it been available.)

Now, onto some things I liked and didn't like

Volrath's Stronghold:

This card was an absolute house all day, winning me games (and matches) against a UBg Faerie Control list as well as Landstill. Against Landstill, in game one, I probably activated Volrath's Stronghold over 15 times, and actually won through decking him in a grueling 34 minutes, even though he had two Humilities in play. Thanks to him StPing Terravores before he had Humility, I was at a high enough life total that he could not win through Soldier Tokens and had to hold them back for blocking. I worry that players might catch on and start using Pithing Needle against it, because it truly wins games.

Perish:

Perish was an excellent wish target. I used it to completely hose Counterslivers. He had drawn an aggro heavy hand, using his one FoW to counter my Chalice @ 1. He dropped double Might Sliver, and I wished for Perish and handily wrecked his board. This card saved me from death that game, and I went on to win the match (which, at the time I thought was for T8.)

Maindeck Grip:

Over the course of the day, I had one copy of Counterbalance resolved against me, and it was destroyed by Grip. Obviously, I had hoped to play against more CBs that day, but Grip was never really dead. It nailed Vial, Arcbound Ravager, Jitte, and EE all in Game 1's, showing it's versatility and usefulness as a MD card. I don't know if it is the best choice over, say, EE or Putrefy, the other two cards considered in this slot, but I felt it was not a wasted slot.

Countryside Crusher x4/Terravore x3:

After the tourney, I'm not sure if I those numbers should stay the same. It seemed generally, Terravore was a far huger bomb, and easily gained me more life from StPs as well as won more games. The only time Cunt Crusher was superior was when Meathooks dropped Planar Void against me, and I loamed the few lands already in my yard back to discard to Seismic Assault and still grow Crusher. Maybe I'm lucky, but the draw smoothing given by Crusher was never actually relavent, as he always revealed gas I would have gotten anyways or mox diamond. He generally only grew thanks to Loam.

A couple of thoughts I had after the tourney, were a possible 1-of Anger (though I feel Witness is probably just better, with the only downside being Witness needs the Stronghold), because he is a pretty good bomb against decks with Sorcery-speed answers (Wrath, Weirding), and that a 1-of Factory would be good, at least against control decks.

[Aggro_zombies]

Cunt Crusher
I see what you did there...

I play Eternal Witness (along with a few other odd card choices) and I really like it. The ability to get back Assaults, Wishes, Dreams, and other cards that got dredged/countered is not to be underestimated. There are even occasions when I'll point a land at my own Witness with Assault to recur it with Stronghold and get a card I need back, similarly to Astral Slide shenanigans.

Also, no Hull Breach in the sideboard? You could probably drop a Grip from the board and add one, though Tranquility may be better depending on what you're worried about.

[BKclassic]

Was Countryside Crusher ever actually bad? I was thinking 4 Vore, 4 Crusher and 3 Goyf might be the way to go.

[frogboy]

Was Countryside Crusher ever actually bad? I was thinking 4 Vore, 4 Crusher and 3 Goyf might be the way to go.

The only problem with this is that your three drops aren't usually that awesome on turn three, and sometimes you just need an Abyss on turn two, because otherwise your curve sort of sucks.

[Paradigm Shift]

Was Countryside Crusher ever actually bad? I was thinking 4 Vore, 4 Crusher and 3 Goyf might be the way to go.

In all honesty, I would rather cut to two Confidants and run four of each. Confidant was underwhelming, but that was most likely because he always almost immediatly ate removal. Obviously, one can argue "Well, that's one less removal spell your wincons have to worry about, and what if he had lived?" and that argument is valid. I'm considering cutting to 24 lands for 4-4-4-3 creature split, 3 being Confidants. This deck definatly benefits from threat density, and I never felt really screwed. On that note, this deck mulligans really well.

And a protip I have after the tourney: Be a lucksack, draw tons of Wishes.

[BKclassic]

The only problem with this is that your three drops aren't usually that awesome on turn three, and sometimes you just need an Abyss on turn two, because otherwise your curve sort of sucks.

But he still has 3 Dark Confidant, between that Goyfs and Chalice, that is 10 solid 2 drops. Mishra's Factory could be a pseudo 2 drop as well, if that works out.

[frogboy]

Factory trading with some random idiot on turn two isn't terribly productive. Chalice is only okay; especially on the draw, it's good but not great against some aggressive draws. Confidant is also not really that awesome against most mountain decks because he's not a great body and he can be a liability in play.

[jazzykat]

I had a ginormous post going but of course lost it:

@Paradigm Shift: I assume you play in a control heavy meta where you have more time and resources to set up Terravore. He will be sexier in it. Crusher IMO is the overall better card.

Reasons:

1. He sets up your draw!
2. He can get big quick in the early or late game as opposed to Vore which is more of a late game card and needs stuff to stay in the yard.
3. Is often easier to cast depending on how you slant your manabase.



WRT Dark Confidant: I don't like him because he makes more spot removal relevant and is not as strong a 2 drop. With MD chalice often set at 1, there is only smother(and the less common snuff out) as a commonly played way to remove, the Big 3 dudes at anything better than 3/4, 4/4 which happens pretty quick. StP being highly relevant at 1. Confidant makes other spot removal relevant,,,not my idea of a good time. The life loss and dieing to DD is sort of irrelevant.

My other 2 drops are Chalice, Tarmogoyf, DD, Burning Wish and Loam...I don't think I need to have another one....

Is he a good card? YES. Do I feel he belongs in Loam NO.

On to the subject of manabase. I see most people including myself running 28 can we shave it to 27 or 26 plus the diamonds, I don't know what I would do with an extra one or two slots but maybe put in Terminates or Grips.

[bruno_tiete]

I am currently playing the following RGB list:

4 Goyfs
2 Dark Confidants
3 Countryside Crushers
2 Terravores

4 Burning wish
3 Life from the Loam
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Seismic Assault

3 Engineered Explosives
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond

3 Taiga
1 Plateau
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
2 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Forgoten Cave

1 Shattering Spree
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Reverent Silence
1 Morningtide
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Worm Harvest
1 Pyroclasm
3 Krosan Grip
4 Faerie Macabre

I 6-0ed a 30 people tournament last month. The field was aggro oriented, but I faced and beat 2 Belchers, losing the games were they went for Charbelcher and winning otherwise. My deck was then piloted to a 6-0 plus top4 win in a 49-player tournament a few days ago by a friend. This time, the field shifted towards board control and Chalice decks. In the last game, the guy 2-0ed Enchantress, which I believe to be a troublesome match up.

Despite the recent sucess, I am not really set about the numbers. I love how Dark Confidants can be so gamebreaking in case they stick. They work a bit like small engines when you cant find any of your 7 loams. Losing them to my own Dreams makes me consider cutting them time and again though.

Maybe I will switch the third Explosives and/or Assault for some extra beaters.

Why is it people didn't embrace harvest?

EDIT- looking at my own list, there seems to be no reason for the Plateau + Tide once I went for Faeries. The thing is I first started with Thorn of Amethysts in their place, making Morningtide the only GY hate I had. I lost reasonable amount of prize in a 70-player event a couple months ago for not running it and facing Ichorid in the 3rd place match. It seems like a fair effort to make you a less likely to be pounded by Ichorids.

[jazzykat]

@Bruno: That is almost exactly my MD! The manabase is different...I use Nihil's which runs 28 land and I use:

-2 DC + 2 Land
+1 CC - 1 Assault

1. How does it run with only 26 land? Do you find yourself mulliganing much?
2. What happens if you put 2 Thorn of Amethyst MB in place of the DC's? I love thorn and try to put it in everything where I am destroying land, or don't want to bend over to combo.
3. Do you like the third explosives? I just don't want to pack up to chalice=2 otherwise DD takes it home most of the time.

WRT Faerie Macabre: On the oft chance they are recurrable via Stronghold, I am not convinced they are stronger than LotV or crypt.

Has anyone considered control the court, as a dig tool to find loam?

[georgjorge]

Gamble is better than Control of the Court and might fit in there, I just don't play it because I have six discard for one mana, but with maybe a one-of Worm Harves it could be good.

2 Thorn sounds not too bad, but I really don't like making my Loam and Dreams more expensive. I'd be interested in how they do in testing !

[jazzykat]

I've gone down to 27 land and in limited testing didn't miss it. I was running a 3/2 chalice/thorn split and I am torn between having a turn 1 play vs. combo (Which I suppose could be chalice for 0, but it does shut off my EE's for 0, sadness:( ) and hosing the heck out of them.

[Akuma]

Which I suppose could be chalice for 0, but it does shut off my EE's for 0

In this scenario, I believe you can still cast Engineered Explosives through the Chalice by using colorless mana (Wasteland). Anyone care to confirm this?

[Sanguine Voyeur]

You can. Explosives only cares about what colors were used to play it. The X is irrelevant in terms of charge counters.

[bruno_tiete]

1. How does it run with only 26 land? Do you find yourself mulliganing much?
2. What happens if you put 2 Thorn of Amethyst MB in place of the DC's? I love thorn and try to put it in everything where I am destroying land, or don't want to bend over to combo.
3. Do you like the third explosives? I just don't want to pack up to chalice=2 otherwise DD takes it home most of the time.

WRT Faerie Macabre: On the oft chance they are recurrable via Stronghold, I am not convinced they are stronger than LotV or crypt.

1. I never tried 27 or 28 lands, but I feel really comfortable with both my mulligan rates and my six-card hands.

2. I do believe that in non-combo match-ups Chalices are better than Thorns. You hurt 2/3 of your spells with a Thorn. Its somewhat simmetry is much fairer thar just shutting down both removals and cantrips from across the table. Simple as that, a resolved Chalice may turn anything you play next into Hell unleashed when people cant search for the few answers left.
Thorn has the extra con of being absolut crap vs goblins (I face that once a tournament).

Other than that, a chalice at 0 is an option if you are on the draw without a Mox, while Thorn might be too late to matter anymore.
Even if you play chalice at 0, you still have 4 lands that allow you to EE for 0 (Wastelands and Stronghold). Anyways, in the first 3 turns, around 2/3 of your cards come from your opening hand, so you should be able to cast EE for 0 and then Chalice more often than not.

I said all of this because the 4th Chalice has been bothering me. Drawing a Chalice in the late game is even more frustrating than a Mox. I am not sure I'd be happy adding something which is clearly inferior to CotV to my MD while cutting DCs which smooth games were they last a couple turns.

3. The third Explosives is one of the weakest cards right now. It has too fickle of an effect. It is often gamebraking to have one EE early. This is specially true against EtW. On the other hand, they can be subpar when you're searching for a threat of your own. I am afraid that taking the third explosives out, I will overburden my Wishes for answering stuff, instead of presenting threats. Still, cutting EE#3 might be easier on Wishes than cutting Assault#3. I need to try it out.

So yeah, I got confused with all thoses questions, as the answers tend to overlap, but I hope I made some sense.

EDIT- About Faerie Macabres, one long-time dredge-player friend of mine said they tend to mulligan to find bounce/removal fo leylines in game 2, specially if you "show" them you sided in 4 or more cards. Faeries get them off guard, at the moment they go for it. This friend told me Faerie induces errors, because playing under the assumption you got it is hard and inefficient, while ignoring it is potentially lethal. The fact that Leyline has me sold for Chain of Vapor makes me consider it the next best option. We are not capable of defending our Leylines like blue decks are. More than that, we cannot affor to mulligan for it under the risk of losing our explosiveness and giving them too much time to do stuff.

[Nihil Credo]

@Bruno: That is almost exactly my MD! The manabase is different...I use Nihil's which runs 28 land

Just nitpicking, but if it was a manabase from one of my lists, it must have been an old one... I ran 27 for a while, and now I'm playing 26 in the following configuration:

1 Stronghold
7 fetches
3+3 cycling lands
2 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Taiga
3 Wastelands
2 Badlands
1 Plateau

(It's really difficult to tune colour rations in a Loam manabase: you have so much manipulation, recursion and fixing that 95% of the time it won't matter, you will still be able to play whatever you want to play at the appropriate moments.)

I think I'll be moving away from the white mini-splash: Morningtide does help a tad against Ichorid, but I think I prefer to have the 4th Wasteland (or even an extra basic Mountain - I hate it when Thrash or Dreadstill mana-screw me in the opening turns). The other White addition was SB Gaddock Teeg, which can be replaced by a dozen other options.


By, I have noticed an interesting Alara card: Jund Charm. One side kills Ichorid and helps the mirror, the other Pyroclasms (at instant speed!), the third, while much less useful, still can win Tarmogoyf fights and make Confidant (if played) a 4/3, i.e. large enough to survive Pyroclasm.

It won't usually be better than Explosives, but let's say you have to bring your AL deck to a tournament that is full of aggro, it would probably pay off in spades as MD tech.

[jazzykat]

@Nihil: Hmmm...so now you only runs 26 I am a dinosaur...so can you post up your current list?

So I am leaning towards confidants too as I don't know what else to run unless it's something like a 3 Chalice/3 Terminate split or 3/4 seize/3/2 duress

[Redlotus27]

Has anyone ever looked into a one-of Skarrg the Rage Pits? Gives trample and can be a Gofy trumper?

Seems techy on the outside, but is it better than say a cycling land?

[jericohs@cottage]

Has anyone ever looked into a one-of Skarrg the Rage Pits? Gives trample and can be a Gofy trumper?

Seems techy on the outside, but is it better than say a cycling land?

hehe I suppose if you wished to simply top a goyf with your goyf...the problem with that card is the activation cost. Are you willing to loose consistency for something that you'll use at best late game?

Here's some tech, try these following two lands ...

nantuko monestary = 4/4 manland
or
(my favorite) nomad stadium = threshold, sac and gain four life
or
rifstone portal = if rifstone portal is in your graveyard, each of your lands produce GorW or their original color (i/e murmering bosk for all your lands)

[Nihil Credo]

@Jazzykat: The MD is still the same: 4x Mox, Goyf, Crusher, BWish, Chalice; 3x Loam, Vore, Assault, EE; 2x DDreams. SB up for grabs as always, outside of the default Wish targets.

After I test Wasteland, I intend to go down to two Seismic Assault, since it's getting harder and harder to actually *kill stuff* with it; the replacement will be the 4th Wasteland if I can't fit it into 26 lands without colour issues. If not, I'll try something else, probably a one-of Worm Harvest or Eternal Witness.

@Skarrg: Intriguing. Running a colourless lands is no small issue for a deck featuring RRRGG(BW) mana costs, unfortunately. I'll still give it a whirl though, just because a trampling Crusher is way too sexy.

@JCottage: No offense, but the cards you listed all, well, suck. 4/4 First Strike is crap these days (without Humility). Nomad Stadium is near the bottom of a long list of lifegain tools (at the top is Chalice). Riftstone Portal is useless, your manabase is fine already and the one colour you really want lots of is Red (Assault, or BWish into Dreams/Spree).

[jericohs@cottage]

Nomad Stadium has its merits. Terravore already has trample.

[jazzykat]

@Nihil: I have been playing with only 2 Assaults from the beginning and never wished "Oh darn if only I had another assault!". What is your deck at this point because after searching I couldn't find it quickly.

I have been testing the "open spots" in my deck as 4 chalice and 2 DC as I don't know what else to put. I am really tempted to play thoughtseizes and duress, and then I ask myself...why?

Basically, if I run 4 chalice I need to have to "place fillers"...this deck is so busted it makes confidant look mediocre...lol.

[b4r0n]

I've been playing around with Aggro Loam again, after a long hiatus. My list is basically identical to Nihil's, but I've been running 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Confidant instead of the Chalices and Explosives. Confidants might be wrong (I'm back and forth between them and Grips), but I definitely like Thoughtseize better than Chalice. Here's my logic: this deck has an absolute beast of a late-game, but its early game is quite lacking. You can't do anything meaningful on turn 1 without a Diamond (cycle a land?), and your turn 2 plays are also pretty weak without a Diamond (1/2 Goyf? Wish for Loam? Maybe cast Loam for a single land?). Chalice is a decent play on turn 1 or 2, but it's only really useful against decks like Thresh or Goyf Sligh which have a low curve. Against all other decks, the ability to selectively disrupt the opponent seems like a better way to slow down the game and move into the mid-game, when you can start to establish board control. In short, without Thoughtseize, I felt unable to interact with the opponent and slow them down. All you do is play lands and let them have their way with you.

Similarly, EE feels too slow to me. I find that I'm really only using it for enchantments and tokens. Against enchantments (specifically Counterbalance), Grip just seems better. I mean, it costs less and its basically unstoppable. And, although replacing EE with Grip leaves you more vulnerable to the tokens from decks like Ichorid and TES, I feel like those matchups are basically unwinnable anyways. Even with both Chalice and EE, you can't really do much to stop them. So, replacing EE with Grip seems like a logical move for improving those closer matchups which can actually be won.

So that's where I am right now. Thoughts?

[Paradigm Shift]

I've been playing around with Aggro Loam again, after a long hiatus. My list is basically identical to Nihil's, but I've been running 4 Thoughtseize and 3 Confidant instead of the Chalices and Explosives. Confidants might be wrong (I'm back and forth between them and Grips), but I definitely like Thoughtseize better than Chalice. Here's my logic: this deck has an absolute beast of a late-game, but its early game is quite lacking. You can't do anything meaningful on turn 1 without a Diamond (cycle a land?), and your turn 2 plays are also pretty weak without a Diamond (1/2 Goyf? Wish for Loam? Maybe cast Loam for a single land?). Chalice is a decent play on turn 1 or 2, but it's only really useful against decks like Thresh or Goyf Sligh which have a low curve. Against all other decks, the ability to selectively disrupt the opponent seems like a better way to slow down the game and move into the mid-game, when you can start to establish board control. In short, without Thoughtseize, I felt unable to interact with the opponent and slow them down. All you do is play lands and let them have their way with you.

Similarly, EE feels too slow to me. I find that I'm really only using it for enchantments and tokens. Against enchantments (specifically Counterbalance), Grip just seems better. I mean, it costs less and its basically unstoppable. And, although replacing EE with Grip leaves you more vulnerable to the tokens from decks like Ichorid and TES, I feel like those matchups are basically unwinnable anyways. Even with both Chalice and EE, you can't really do much to stop them. So, replacing EE with Grip seems like a logical move for improving those closer matchups which can actually be won.

So that's where I am right now. Thoughts?

I believe you underestimate Chalice's ability to be a house. Dropping at against any deck with brainstorm+stp (landstill, any control with U and W) or brainstorm+stifle (thrash, dreadstill, possibly U/R painter?) is just awesome. The chalice will shut off most of their decks ways to dig for answers, and if they do draw into answers their first answer must be used to get rid of chalice, giving you time to setup how you please. Chalice at 1 is amazing against burn, and can be a house against combo decks depending on the deck and what their hand is. In fact, on the play, diamond -> chalice at 1 is even a very good play against ichorid, one that generally forces a draw+discard unless they have an LED + Cephalid hand.

Thresh players and Landstill players are apt to have opening hands that include brainstorm/top/stifle/mongoose/dreadnaught/ponder and any other splash card like StP, and these decks generally need to force an opening chalice @ 1, situations where they have grip/EE in opener aside. And, if they force your Chalice @ 1, you gained +1 CA and they have one less counter available for your actual threats.

I do, however, agree on Grip main, the card is rarely dead, and is a really great surprise game 1.

[nodahero]

I was wondering if I could get feedback on the current list I am testing. Typically I play some form of combo including Ichorid (yes it is combo), Fetchland Tendrils, and UR Painter although lately I have found myself tiring of the lack of interaction. The only real question I have when playing those is... I win... can you stop me now?

The current list I am testing is as follows:

creature [14]
2 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Terravore

sorcery [10]
4 Burning Wish
3 Devastating Dreams
3 Life from the Loam

enchantment [2]
2 Seismic Assault

artifact [10]
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond

land [25]
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
60 cards

I opted for this list for almost no particular reason other than it seemed to me a very well rounded list that allows for many options depending on the situation I get myself into too. The sideboard is your typical wish-board including shattering spree, reverant silence, hull breach, pyroclasm, loam, D-Dreams, and Nostalgic dreams. The only wish target I wonder about is Nourshing dreams. It seems like it could be an insane card due to the massive utility it provides. I have 5 non-wish slots which are currently 4 Crypt and 1 EE.

My anticpated meta is goblins, affinity, 1 kithkin, 1 survival, 1 landstill, a pox deck, and possibly one very poor SI list.

[georgjorge]

Needs more Crusher, it's INSANE ! Also, playing both Confidant + Chalice is a bit hard on the two-mana-slot (both need to be played on the second turn, and there's already Goyf + Loam + Wish at two mana). I'd cut one of them, probably Chalice, for Seize+Duress. Four Confidant is also one too many, as you will very rarely wish to draw a second in any given game.

[jazzykat]

I was wondering if I could get feedback on the current list I am testing. Typically I play some form of combo including Ichorid (yes it is combo), Fetchland Tendrils, and UR Painter although lately I have found myself tiring of the lack of interaction. The only real question I have when playing those is... I win... can you stop me now?

The current list I am testing is as follows:

creature [14]
2 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Terravore

sorcery [10]
4 Burning Wish
3 Devastating Dreams
3 Life from the Loam

enchantment [2]
2 Seismic Assault

artifact [10]
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond

land [25]
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
60 cards

I opted for this list for almost no particular reason other than it seemed to me a very well rounded list that allows for many options depending on the situation I get myself into too. The sideboard is your typical wish-board including shattering spree, reverant silence, hull breach, pyroclasm, loam, D-Dreams, and Nostalgic dreams. The only wish target I wonder about is Nourshing dreams. It seems like it could be an insane card due to the massive utility it provides. I have 5 non-wish slots which are currently 4 Crypt and 1 EE.

My anticpated meta is goblins, affinity, 1 kithkin, 1 survival, 1 landstill, a pox deck, and possibly one very poor SI list.

I thought that "we" had agreed on 4 crushers MD, and IMO if you play chalice then run 4 or none. They cripple most decks in the format and want to be down turn 1 at x=1.

I don't like confidant but others have had great success with them, so whatever works.

[Arkham]

I thought that "we" had agreed on 4 crushers MD, and IMO if you play chalice then run 4 or none. They cripple most decks in the format and want to be down turn 1 at x=1.

I don't like confidant but others have had great success with them, so whatever works.

I won't run confidants, I run 4 terravores and 3 Crushers and it's been paying off in spades for me, and as much as I like crusher's ability to mill land and grow bigger, I like Terravore's duality with two graveyards and the trample mechanic even more. I like having 4 Chalices MD but I have no problem siding them out for other stuff if need be especially when my track record has shown that mulligans for first turn chalice have been extremely rare. I've actually been considering trimming down a chalice to run an E-Witness in my black build for recur. I'll let you folks know once I do sufficient testing.

But other than that, to each his own.

My biggest problem right now while running my white splash is Dredge/Cephalid Breakfast. Weirdly enough, they're both being played by the same person. My thoughts on sideboard options for dredge at this point is running a morningtide as a wishable solution and I've gotten the suggestion of putting in Engineered Explosives to deal with them. But, I'm tired of cutting land (I run like 24-25 and I haven't had a problem at all) for this shit and the next thing to come out I think are a few chalices. Maybe.

[nodahero]

I opted to run less then 4 curshers and vores due to the danger of being crypted or having leyline against me and lacking a solution. Many times in testing with other versions that has happened which led me to this decision.

As for Confidant vs. Chalice many times I have found Chalice to be a dead card because typically the only thing I ever sit it to is 1 so I feel 3 is sufficent if not actually to much. 4 Confidants for me has never been bad. If I have an extra Confidant in hand I have no problem running one of them into the red zone to die. I also feel that having both together is just fine on the 2 slot. I have never found myself complaining about that aspect of it. They both have differnt applications. The only time I rush to Chalice at 1 is against combo or thresh. Otherwise I go slow and steady.

[jazzykat]

I opted to run less then 4 curshers and vores due to the danger of being crypted or having leyline against me and lacking a solution. Many times in testing with other versions that has happened which led me to this decision.

As for Confidant vs. Chalice many times I have found Chalice to be a dead card because typically the only thing I ever sit it to is 1 so I feel 3 is sufficent if not actually to much. 4 Confidants for me has never been bad. If I have an extra Confidant in hand I have no problem running one of them into the red zone to die. I also feel that having both together is just fine on the 2 slot. I have never found myself complaining about that aspect of it. They both have differnt applications. The only time I rush to Chalice at 1 is against combo or thresh. Otherwise I go slow and steady.

The fact of the matter is the deck is so powerful against everything but combo it doesn't seem to matter as long as you have most of the "core". I am pretty sure that you will just lose to combo like the rest of us, but other than that do what you like.

As to chalice being a dead card...I think you have to look at the top decks and see if you make 4 or more of their cards dead in the DTB's. If I can make 8 or 12 cards dead for my opponent I will happily sit with an extra chalice in my hand while they have STP, bolt, chain lightning, etc. in their hand.

BTW: This deck loses to burn, chalice helps with that too. I'm not going to argue with you the point is moot, especially if you never face a burn deck.

Lastly, I like having a small chance vs. combo first game so again a dead chalice in my hand... I'm tickled I'm still alive for it to be dead!

[nodahero]

@ Jazzykat: I fully understand your reasoning about the chalice argument. I supose I should have clarified and said given my listed decks of competetion is there anything you feel I should add or subtract to make those matches easier on me.

@ anyone: What is the verdict on worm harvest? Has a verdict been reached on worm harvest? It seems like it could be amazing. In my mind it seems to be functionaly similar to Vore in that I can get a large power with sufficent land in my yard. The difference is that instead of putting all my eggs in 1 basket I have them spread out on the floor in a large area.

[Arkham]

@ anyone: What is the verdict on worm harvest? Has a verdict been reached on worm harvest? It seems like it could be amazing. In my mind it seems to be functionaly similar to Vore in that I can get a large power with sufficent land in my yard. The difference is that instead of putting all my eggs in 1 basket I have them spread out on the floor in a large area.

It's doable, but not really worth it. A few friends of mine tried the same thing with Haunting Echoes and Cranial Extraction in the wishboard. Ideally, all three are kind of nice cards to have on hand in some situations, but aren't really effective in most. They have their cost + 2 and usually that's a hard thing to set up in an aggro loam deck. The way I've intended to solve my removal problem was with extirpates in my black splash sideboard. I also like the idea of having all those 1/1s on the board, but laying down a seismic assault with the same amount of land with cycle/dredge gets you essentially to the same place except a turn faster.

For everybody else, I've been coming across this recently. I've been in a lot of situations with Seismic Assault where I have to kill somebody in one if not two turns and they have 20+ life or I'm screwed. I use dredge and cycle to my advantage as much as I can but I'm usually just 1 point off from killing them out right, even at my best. Is there anyway to expediate the process?

[nodahero]

@ Arkham: I know your pain with Assault (sort of). Yesterday I was in a 20 man tourney and ended up taking 2nd due to my inability to beat a n00btastic flashback deck, although it didn't help that I didnt bring in my crypts. I had no idea his deck was actually flashback until we went to game 3 where we traded punches all day. In the middle of game 3 I was totally online. I had the whole thing up and running like a perfect car. The only problem was so did my opponent with his 12+ 2 drop counters. The turn before I had Assault and Loam up and running my opponent flashback'd 2 6/6 tokens with apparently just counter protection to screw any shot of sufficent loam recursion.

The list I ran yesterday was:
creature [13]
3 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore

sorcery [10]
4 Burning Wish
3 Devastating Dreams
3 Life from the Loam

enchantment [2]
2 Seismic Assault

artifact [10]
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond

land [25]
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Mountain
4 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
60 cards

I realize some of the card choices may seem a little bizarre such as the 3/2 crusher/vore split. I opted for this split because I expected a large contingency of "I hate your grave so bye bye grave bye bye". Our place typically has about 25% grave based decks so it wasn't much of a stretch to assume such hate. One thing that I will have to look into is the red source count as well as the assault count. After my experience with yesterdays tourney it seems that assault may be significantly more powerful then I gave it credit. That card with loam won me 2 matches itself.

[kicks_422]

So why exactly does the deck splash black? I'm new to the deck, and I'd like to know why the black splash is good in it. Confidant draws you cards, and Thoughtseizes nab removal spells (most of the time, I presume)... But are those what the deck really needs?

[nodahero]

The black splash is as you pointed out for Confidant and Thoughtseize. The black splash however also grants you access to Volrath's Stronghold. The Stronghold can single handily beat any non counter-top control suite. There actually is one additional use for black and that comes in the form of Raven's Crime. So far since its release it has proved so-so to me. The few times I really need it the results have been astounding although those times are few and far between.

[Arkham]

So why exactly does the deck splash black? I'm new to the deck, and I'd like to know why the black splash is good in it. Confidant draws you cards, and Thoughtseizes nab removal spells (most of the time, I presume)... But are those what the deck really needs?

Volrath's Stronghold, Terminate, Thoughtseize, Dark Confidant, and for black wishboard cards. Those are usually what are in a black splash version, but I've heard from friends trying to incorporate the use of black for creatures like Tombstalker and other such things. The beautiful part of aggro loam is that it's far more flexible in most of the ways you want to play it and put things in that it's an easy deck to experiment with.

And yes, I think splashing black or white into Aggro Loam is necessary, but there are some folks out there that just play it straight with red and green. How sucessful they are, however, I'm not sure.

[Illissius]

The Aether Vial variant has continued to T8 (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=18315) a (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=19994) few (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20051) times (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20012). (Winning tournaments of 75 and 76 players is sort of impressive.)

Does anyone here have experience either with or against the deck? I always felt like Aggro Loam wasn't reaching its full potential, that it was missing a little something (none of the candidates for the last 8ish slots -- Thoughtseize, Chalice, Explosives, and so on -- feel fully satisfactory), and I think Vial might be the answer.

Those four lists above are very similar, so maybe they know something -- or maybe they just netdecked off each other. Without having claim to much experience with the deck myself, though, I think I might build it something like this:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Terravore

4 Burning Wish
3 Life from the Loam
2 Seismic Assault

4 Aether Vial
4 Mox Diamond

4 Wasteland
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
4 Taiga
1 Bayou
3 Forest
1 Mountain

SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Reverent Silence

[lupus_g]

Hi, i have a big tourney in a few days and i'm considering to bring this deck.
So far i've tested this version:

4 vore
4 goyf
4 crusher

3 assoult
3 loam
4 wish
2 DD
2 Explosives
4 chalice

4 mox
4 waste
1 volrath's stronghold
6 cycle
7 fetch
3 taiga
2 badland
1 bayou
1 forest
1 mountain

I'd really like to squeeze some confidants in but i really feel the other cards in md are more vital.

As regards the sb what would you suggest for a wide open meta? I have never played a legacy tournment before and have little idea of what to expect. (tested on MWS only..). Having been an ext loam player i'd be afraid of counterbalance decks, so i'd put some K grip and maybe thoughtseize (going blind with DD and meet a counter is not funny) but i really don't know what else to fit in.. Help :smile:

[bruno_tiete]

Your sideboard should consist of the following:

4-6 Wish targets
3-4 Krosan Grips
3-4 Pieces of graveyard hate
X Answers regarding your local problems, likely combo MUs. (Thoughseizes count here)


I am in love with Jund Charm.

I am playing the deck next Sunday and my likely board will have 3 of them. I am also tempted to tech one into my MD.

EDIT- Also, on the Worm Harvest question, it has proven itself to me. I just wish for it asap against control decks. It also generally turns your late Wishes into threats.

[Nihil Credo]

3-4 Krosan Grips
3-4 Pieces of graveyard hate
I think that while you'll want to have either or both of these more often than not, neither are strictly mandatory.

Countermagic is not so absolutely terrifying that you *always* want Krosan Grip over more versatile options to handle Counterbalance, Chalice, Leyline and Humility (e.g. Pernicious Deed, Oblivion Ring, EE if not maindecked); and even in terms of uncounterability, Vexing Shusher is a defensible alternative. And Ichorid is a tough enough matchup that it can often be the correct choice to write it off as a nearly auto-loss and focus on beating the other decks.

And yes, Jund Charm is very neat. I'm just pissed off that it's so slow against Ichorid.

[bruno_tiete]

Countermagic is not so absolutely terrifying that you *always* want Krosan Grip over more versatile options to handle Counterbalance, Chalice, Leyline and Humility (e.g. Pernicious Deed, Oblivion Ring, EE if not maindecked); and even in terms of uncounterability, Vexing Shusher is a defensible alternative. And Ichorid is a tough enough matchup that it can often be the correct choice to write it off as a nearly auto-loss and focus on beating the other decks.

Ok, maybe you could build a SB without Grips, but I wouldnt advice you to do it, unless you have absolut grip of what you are doing. I know I couldnt build a precise enough read of the metagame in my next tournament as to be that confident. That's one of the reasons I am trying Jund Charm. 2 hates in a single slot.

To me, Grips have an edge here because they deal with all the things you mentioned, plus Vedalken Shackles and oposing Deeds. In fact, I feel most juicy targets are well defended by blue magic more often than not.

On a semi-related note, if enchantments were not an issue, I'd lean to Ancient Grudge.

[SilverGreen]

I am playing the deck next Sunday and my likely board will have 3 of them. I am also tempted to tech one into my MD.I'll take a note of this, just in case.

[Thansimo]

Hi,
Im new to the source and have played aggro loam for some time.

My list:

MD (60):

4 Mox diamond
2 Sensei's divining top
1 Barbarian ring
1 Bloodstained mire
1 Forest
3 Forgotten cave
1 Mountain
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
4 Taiga
4 Tranquil thicket
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept heath
4 Wooded foothills
3 Life from the loam
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Terravore
4 Burning wish
4 Countryside crusher
3 Devastating dreams
3 Seismic assault
4 Swords to plowshares

SB (15):

4 Chalice of the void
4 Krosan grip
3 Gaddock teeg
1 Life from the loam
1 Reverent silence
1 Devastating dreams
1 Shattering spree

What do you think about it and do you think that the b-splash is better than the white one? For me, the Swords did a very good job, especially vs Goyfs, Tombstalkers,...

[georgjorge]

As to the color of the splash, it's been discussed like six or seven pages back...my reply was:


Play white AND black I think the deck can afford it. Black is key - it improves the combo matchup a good deal with six or seven one-mana discard spells (and I'm not talking about Raven's Crime here), which also are invaluable in resolving a Dreams or Blood Moon, taking removal before dropping Crusher/Vore etc...in essence, they speed up the deck because you use the first turn to take away some of your opponent's defense instead of having to overload them on the later turns.

Four Swords are way too much for this deck. I'm down to two (plus a Vindicate) now, and if you run both splash colors, you can substitute Vindicate for some Grips. Four Grips is also too much in addition to the Wishboard. Finally, Thorn of Amethyst could be better than Gaddock against combo since it doesn't allow them to dig their library for an answer (then again, it makes Serenity that much better against you).

Other than that, it looks good.

[Lord Gibbo]

I just want to ask you a question: How do you Side and Play Against Ad Nauseam Combo??
In Italy there is a growing percentage of Ad Nauseam, and it isn't a good MU for This Deck.
I Run 4 Chalice of the Void but it isn't enough to stop it.

[georgjorge]

I usually go

-2 Swords (Explosives/whatever you run in this slot)
-2 Loam
-3 Terravore
-2 Crusher
-1 Goyf

+4 Chalice
+3 Extirpate (Seize/Duress, then Extirpate a Ritual or even AN, also shuts off Mystical)
+3 Thorn of Amethyst

...and if they splash white, chances are they'll be boarding Serenity which absolutely kills you, so I go

-3 Dreams
+1 Grip (with one already in the main)
+2 Naturalize

You can also kill an LED with those, since people tend to play out their artifact mana as soon as possible against decks with discard. Naturalize is better here since casting Grip can be hard with a Thorn out. If you run Wish instead of three Dreams, you probably don't need to take them out for Grips as you can get Reverent Silence.

So I board thirteen cards of my sideboard :smile: but it's not always enough.


Playing against AN is not very complex, you need a hand with either a Thorn or Chalice, or at least two discard spells. If you're on the draw, you might consider mulling if you don't have a first turn discard or Mox into Thorn/Chalice. Play all your disruption before you play creatures or Loam.

A not so easy decision is knowing whether to play Chalice at one or zero, which depends on how many discard spells you have to play afterwards, and on their hand if you've seen it.


EDIT: Actually, better take out the Dreams BEFORE you take out Goyfs and Crusher, there are very few situations where Dreams can help you out, i.e. those where you've already got a Thorn and creature on the table.

[Lord Gibbo]

I agree with Thorn of Amethyst, but why do you paly Chalice of the Void and Extirpate?

with Chalice at 1 you can't play Extirpate...

[georgjorge]

If you get Chalice at one to stick, you've already got a decent position (no Ponder, Brainstorm, Ritual, Mystical). The problem is when you don't get one or it gets destroyed, and that's when Extirpate might save you. Against combo, you have so much useless stuff to side out that you just need to put in every card which is even a little bit relevant here, regardless if there could arise situations where you can't use one of them.

[Odd Mutation]

Hi,

I've been playing with Aggro Loam for some time now, making ninth in a recent Legacy tournament. I was even able to win against combo thanks to Chalice of the Void. I had twelve points going into the last round (of six) but my opponent couldn't draw and he knocked me out off top 8 in 3 games. Alas...

I feel really confident playing this deck against almost any matchup except Eva Green or mono black with Tombstalker. These decks just always seem too fast for me with Snuff Out destroying my biggest creature and Tombstalker finishing things off. What are your experiences playing these matchups? How do you sideboard and what do you think are Aggro Loam's best cards of defense in this matchup?

If anybody is interested, I will post my list.

Thanks,

Robrecht.

[jenzo]

Unlike most players, I still play the white version of aggro loam. Imho this deck is better than the red version (I never lost the mirror in tournaments)

Here's my list;

artifact
3 engineered explosives
4 mox diamond
2 umezawa's jitte

creatures:
4 dark confidant
2 eternal witness
4 tarmogoyf
3 terravore

sorcery
3 life from the loam
2 vindicate

Instant
3 extirpate
4 swords to plowshares

enchantment
1 pernicious deed

land
2 barren moor
3 bayou
2 forest
1 polluted delta
2 savannah
1 scrubland
2 swamp
4 tranquil thicket
1 volrath's stronghold
4 wasteland
4 windswept heath

SB
4 chalice of the void
3 choke
4 engineered explosives
4 gaddock teeg
1 krosan grip

I played some tournaments with this deck during the last year, and the results became better and better. (a few top 8's and a 2nd place last tournament I played, a 58 player tournament)

With the coming of Ad Nauseum I foresee an increasing number of TES players for the next tournaments, but I'm not sure how I can handle them.

I was thinking of skipping the 3 extirpates MD and replace them with 3 Thorn of Amethyst, but I don't have any other (better) ideas.

Do you guys think I can handle TES just by SB'ing Chalice and Teeg, or do you agree that I need to add Thorn MD?
Any other suggestions for the deck are always welcome.

Cheers

Jenzo

[leander?]

You can also just play gaddock teegs MB instaed of thorns. While thorns makes about fifty percent of your deck more expensive, you dont care about gaddock teeg at all. Thorn is powerfull vs combo and control, but so is teeg. And besides, the kithkin has a body.

[jenzo]

You can also just play gaddock teegs MB instaed of thorns. While thorns makes about fifty percent of your deck more expensive, you dont care about gaddock teeg at all. Thorn is powerfull vs combo and control, but so is teeg. And besides, the kithkin has a body.

the problem is that Teeg costs me 2 mana, so it's never sure I can drop it turn 1. Thorn is a sure Turn 1 drop

[Arkham]

I feel really confident playing this deck against almost any matchup except Eva Green or mono black with Tombstalker. These decks just always seem too fast for me with Snuff Out destroying my biggest creature and Tombstalker finishing things off. What are your experiences playing these matchups? How do you sideboard and what do you think are Aggro Loam's best cards of defense in this matchup?

What's your build? Eva Green is practically nonexistant in my meta and mono black decks that run Tombstalker I tend to get a handle on before they can beat me to the punch. The thing about these decks is that they rely on moving fast while controlling our hand, land, and board. But, since this deck is designed solely to combat things like this, I find it sort of strange that your having trouble fighting them off. Usually a well placed devastating dreams will clear the board and allow you to win or a CoV for 1 can usually stop most discard spells and mana bombs like dark rit which can slow them down enough for you to tangle with them.

My question is; are you running spot removal? StP or Terminate are great additions to this deck, whether it be main or sideboard because it gives you a great deal more control when somebody drops something like a tombstalker rather than having to rely on a top deck seismic assault or a DD for 5 which can sometimes cripple you as much as it can them. It's a personal choice, I guess, but I've had a lot of success with StP in my white build and I probably wouldn't have won half the games I do now if I wasn't mainboarding 4 of them. Give it some thought.


With the coming of Ad Nauseum I foresee an increasing number of TES players for the next tournaments, but I'm not sure how I can handle them.


While I agree that TES might be rearing it's ugly head again, I don't really think that we'll be seeing a ton of it, even with ad nauseum being added to the deck. My reasoning is simply this. The price of getting the pieces for TES together, and the skill level needed to play it. I've seen a lot of people play the deck and have met few with the patience of trying to learn the fundamentals of the deck, myself included. I think we can rely on the fact that because TES is as difficult to pilot as it is to master, that we'll probably only be seeing a few more of the decks pop up. Whether or not they stay, however, is anyone's guess.

Perhaps we still need to discuss ways of preparing for it. In which case, I agree that thorns would probably be the way to go here. Although I have no idea how well teeg would do in the deck, it merits some testing. I'll let you folks know what I find out.

[leander?]

the problem is that Teeg costs me 2 mana, so it's never sure I can drop it turn 1. Thorn is a sure Turn 1 drop


As far as I know Thorn costs 2 mana as well? The only difference in casting is the fact that thorn costs colorless mana, while teeg costs GW. But if you want to play your combo-hate at turn 1, you will need to have a mox anyway. This means that you only need a nonwasteland, nonstronghold, nonswamp land to be able to cast teeg. Any such a land is ok.

[Sims]

As far as I know Thorn costs 2 mana as well? The only difference in casting is the fact that thorn costs colorless mana, while teeg costs GW. But if you want to play your combo-hate at turn 1, you will need to have a mox anyway. This means that you only need a nonwasteland, nonstronghold, nonswamp land to be able to cast teeg. Any other land is ok.


I believe that was his point.

[jenzo]

As far as I know Thorn costs 2 mana as well? The only difference in casting is the fact that thorn costs colorless mana, while teeg costs GW. But if you want to play your combo-hate at turn 1, you will need to have a mox anyway. This means that you only need a nonwasteland, nonstronghold, nonswamp land to be able to cast teeg. Any other land is ok.

Hmm,

I think I was a little vague in my wording.
I did mean the difference between colorless mana (thorn) & colored mana (teeg)

But that's not so important for me; the main question I'm dealing with is: "is the chalice of the void - gaddock teeg combination I play in my SB enough to deal with the TES decks I think I will meet during the next tournaments?!?

[Aggro_zombies]

chalice of the void - gaddock teeg
Um...unless you're doing Chalice at zero on turn one, this seems kinda bad...

[georgjorge]

Since most storm combo now plays a lot of digging and tutors, I think Thorn is better than Gaddock. Gaddock only stops their kill, while Thorn makes it also harder for them to cantrip into their answers. There's also the (small) possibility of FT with Doomsday killing you despite Gaddock with a stack of Helm of Awakening + two Tops + Brain Freeze/Grapeshot. On the whole, I think the advantages of Thorn are worth the risk of Serenity.

But Gaddock + Chalice is not such a problem, I think - you'll play the Chalice first anyway, so it's only bad if you draw into Chalice later (and you won't have many draw steps against combo either way :wink: ).

[leander?]

Hmm,

I think I was a little vague in my wording.
I did mean the difference between colorless mana (thorn) & colored mana (teeg)

But that's not so important for me; the main question I'm dealing with is: "is the chalice of the void - gaddock teeg combination I play in my SB enough to deal with the TES decks I think I will meet during the next tournaments?!?

The problem with Thorn is that it will make your game worse agianst most of the noncombo decks. A lot of your spells (including Loam) will cost more mana. While Gaddock, in my opinion, can be a mainboard card, Thorn can't . Becouse you don't play less noncreature spells than the average aggro control deck, so it's not like a one-sided disadvantage, and becouse he will be bad against most noncombo decks and suicide against aggro.

[jenzo]

I just went Top-4 in a 35 player tournament in Ghent (Belgium) yesterday.
After 6 swiss rounds I ended up in 3th place, behind MUC & AN TES.
There was a Top-8 play-off, but after the quarter finals the Top-4 decided to split, so we all ended up with 2 blue-based duals.

Final standings were (based on the standings after 6 rounds of swiss):
1. Stijn De Clerq (MUC with white splash for plow)
2. Jens Ruts (= me) (See decklist below)
3. Shaun Pauwels (The rock)
4. Roel Jans (AN tendrills)

artifact
3 engineered explosives
4 mox diamond
2 umezawa's jitte

creatures:
4 dark confidant
2 eternal witness
4 tarmogoyf
3 terravore

sorcery
3 life from the loam
2 vindicate

Instant
3 extirpate
4 swords to plowshares

enchantment
1 pernicious deed

land
2 barren moor
3 bayou
2 forest
1 polluted delta
2 savannah
1 scrubland
2 swamp
4 tranquil thicket
1 volrath's stronghold
4 wasteland
4 windswept heath

SB
4 chalice of the void
3 choke
4 engineered explosives
4 gaddock teeg
1 krosan grip

after long consideration I decided to play my 'usual' list, without any specific changes for AN TES on my sideboard. Lucky me I didn't change anything, because I didn't see any TES decks during the whole day. :tongue:

these were my match-ups:
(I didn't make any notes, so it will be very short)

round 1: bye
I played a quick game against a player (RGb Aggro Loam) whose opponent didn't show up. We played 2 games without SB, the first I won easily, the second I lost.
1-0
Round 2: Salvagers-bomberman-combo
Lost the first game after a long 'fight'
Won the next 2 games quite easily
2-0
Round 3:
can't recall it anymore, but I won
3-0
Round 4: MUC (the later 'winner)
First game I lost quite hard. MUC's a very tough match-up
Second game I opened with a turn 1 Choke, but it caught a FoW. So I lost
3-0-1
Round 5: Angel Staxx
Good match-up for me, so 2 quick games got me in a good position for Top-8
4-0-1
Round 6: The Rock (later number 3)
I.D. for top-8
We played a quick game that I won
4-1-1

Top-8
quarterfinals: Dreadstill
First game he sees no Blue mana for the whole game :cool:
Second game he didn't see my choke coming. I had just extirpated his counterspells and saw his hand, so I was sure he couldn't counter. He was proper f¨¨ked and I made an easy win for top-4 split.

[jenzo]

artifact
3 engineered explosives
4 mox diamond
2 umezawa's jitte

creatures:
4 dark confidant
2 eternal witness
4 tarmogoyf
3 terravore

sorcery
3 life from the loam
2 vindicate

Instant
3 extirpate
4 swords to plowshares

enchantment
1 pernicious deed

land
2 barren moor
3 bayou
2 forest
1 polluted delta
2 savannah
1 scrubland
2 swamp
4 tranquil thicket
1 volrath's stronghold
4 wasteland
4 windswept heath

SB
4 chalice of the void
3 choke
4 engineered plague
4 gaddock teeg
1 krosan grip


Some time passed since my last post here in the topic, without any reactions :cool:
I am really interested in comments on my current list; remarks on choices,...

So if you have any questions or so; feel free to comment.

I am thinking of making some slight changes to my deck in order to have a better match-up against MUC and TES (all variants), but I don't know what cards to play or not to play to improve these match-ups. Any suggestions?

The first cards I am willing to remove mainboard are:
1. the 2 umezawa's jittes (they were there for the mirror and against burn, but you don't see burn so often anymore, and the mirror -against RGb- is already in my favor I think)
2. the 3 extirpates (they don't have a specific match-up reason, perhaps against Bridge-ichorid, but they do their job against many decks. So I'd rather not skip these)

[HdH_Cthulhu]

You play a total of 7 engineered explosives!
Are you sure you played with this list^^?

[jenzo]

You play a total of 7 engineered explosives!
Are you sure you played with this list^^?

my mistake; 4 engineered plagues of course

[rancOr_]

Nice decklist,but I'd cut the Umezawa's Jitte. Burn really isnt played that much anymore,and it seems just like a win more card against other decks.
If you still need more space, maybe lower the exirpate count to 2(this would be the next card to cut,although it can be very usefull in most MU's).

As for thorn vs gaddock teeg, I think Thorn is much more effective against Tes-AdN variants. Teeg is harder to cast(I know this isnt a big issue )but if you have like wasteland-mox,.. and ure playing against AdN u wont make it.
If you play Gaddock Teeg, they can still B-wish/tutor for bounce and just kill u after. Thorn of Amethyst makes it alot harder to play any spells at all.
If you go like T1/2 thorn and you draw/have another thorn,you will most likely win the game,while a 2nd gaddock teeg is useless.

[leander?]

but if you have like wasteland-mox..

Then you've probably made a mistake. Most of the time you will have discarded a colored land for mox (ór your only lands in your openinghand were two wastelands/strongholds, wich isn't that common). So, instead of playing the mox - discard a land - play wateland, just play mox - discard wasteland - play land. In allmost all of the cases this will give you GW at turn 1.

Beside that, I agree that Thorn is better against combo as long as it's in play. But that's just the look at what it does to combo, while both cards will do something different to yourself. (power, no drawback for you and usefull in other matchups VS no power, drawback for you, and mostly not usefull in other matchups)

[Roelke]

There are 2 reasons to play gaddock instead of thorn: First when you have to win with artifacts you will be way to vurnable against their artifact hate (which usually kills all your artifacts). Second; with a thorn in play it is still possible for a deck like tes/ ad naseam tendrills to win right trough it (with ETW or cabal ritual). With gaddock in play they just can't win.

On the other hand, when playing with gaddock you actually lock down your own explosives. This can be an issue sometimes, though it won't happen that often.

So even though gaddock is more difficult to cast I think it is the better choice. When you play a (single) white source or a G/R/w build casting mister Teeg shoudn't be that difficult.

Next to these arguments gaddock is also quite good against uw landstill (humilty, wog, fof, fow), stax and some other decks.

EDIT:
I've playtested against both gaddock and thorn with a AN tendrills deck. I won 30 percent of the matches against gaddock and 50% versus thorn (mostly because of cabal ritual). Gaddock usually slowed me down for about 3 or 4 turns even though I was playing 4 cards to get rid of him.

[citanul]

4 chalice of the void
3 choke
4 engineered plague
4 gaddock teeg
1 krosan grip


Also only 3 Gaddock Teeg, else it would be 16 cards.

I normally play TopRock, as you know, but find a lot of similar things in our lists. Especially when thinking of the deck's weaknesses, mana hungry, bad combo and burn Match up, etc...
I used to play Umezawa's Jitte half a year ago, moving them to the sideboard later followed by a complete cut. As someone said before, it's a win more card. The life loss from Confidant isn't that big. And I even play 2 Tombstalker, 3 Shriekmaw, 4 Thoughtseize with only SDT allowing me to manipulate the top.
Same goes for Extirpate, played it, didn't feel it was needed, cut it instantly. It either was in my hand, able to target things but not saving me from my death or just make sure I would win by removing an answer to an already advantageous board, making it a win more card. The only spot Extirpate deserves is sideboard, even that might be to friendly to the card.

As for the Teeg versus Thorn discussion, I prefer Thorn. It slows AdN in every spell they wish to cast, be it mana (LED, Lotus Petal), mana acceleration or tutors where Teeg only stops the eventual kill card (AdN is considered a kill card :p). As an Agro-control deck you should be able to race them while Thorn slows them down. Thorn is enormous in multiples! Sure AdN artifact removal can target multiples but to be able to cast it they'll have spent a lot of resources or already looking at a fatal board on your side with barely any gas.

Does this mean that combo just rolls over and dies to Thorn? Of course not, but neither does it roll over and die to Teeg. When comparing those 2 cards I found Thorn to be the most succesful.

[georgjorge]

EDIT:
I've playtested against both gaddock and thorn with a AN tendrills deck. I won 30 percent of the matches against gaddock and 50% versus thorn (mostly because of cabal ritual). Gaddock usually slowed me down for about 3 or 4 turns even though I was playing 4 cards to get rid of him.

Unless that percentage difference is due to Serenity, I can't imagine where it is from. In which situations could you win against Thorn on the board but not against a Gaddock? I can only think of somehow getting to AN mana and drawing into a Serenity or bounce, but that doesn't seem that common...

[Roelke]

I run 2 copies of serenity and a single copy of hurkyll's recall in the board. Although during testing i knew which card my opponent used. I guess that's something I didn't consider during testing.

But my opinion remains unchanged: From the AN-tendrills player point of view I'd rather see thorn then gaddock.

[Waikiki]

I really have more problem with thorn imo. Teeg lets you search for land. Then I can easily go EOT mystical for bounce. bounce it and go off.

While thorn prevents me from using my brainstorms to a better extend. But then again. in the lategame it is possible to miss the extra mana.

1 more point for thorn is dat is does work in multiples and teeg does not.

[Roelke]

You're right about that, but when you have to fight combo by artifacts only you are vurerable to artifact hate (either serenity, hurkyll's recall or shattering spree). When you got gaddock + chalice things get a lot harder; maybe nearly impossible. .Your opponent will need at least two cards to win the game in stead of one.

And getting to 3 mana with most combo decks to resolve a serenity, recall or shattering spree isn't that hard. Sure you might need a brainstorm or mystical but it's possible to play them for 2 mana and still win.

As long as you have two hate cards in play it's hard to win for combo; but gaddock + chalice spells good game while chalice + thorn is favorable but no guarenteed win.

[Mantis]

Some time passed since my last post here in the topic, without any reactions :cool:
I am really interested in comments on my current list; remarks on choices,...

So if you have any questions or so; feel free to comment.

I am thinking of making some slight changes to my deck in order to have a better match-up against MUC and TES (all variants), but I don't know what cards to play or not to play to improve these match-ups. Any suggestions?

The first cards I am willing to remove mainboard are:
1. the 2 umezawa's jittes (they were there for the mirror and against burn, but you don't see burn so often anymore, and the mirror -against RGb- is already in my favor I think)
2. the 3 extirpates (they don't have a specific match-up reason, perhaps against Bridge-ichorid, but they do their job against many decks. So I'd rather not skip these)
Of all the decks in the format, Burn is like the deck that least cares about Jitte. They play Mogg Fanatic and burn spells, a lot of burn spells. Spells that knock out your creature after you just spent 6 or 7 mana on getting a creature into play with a Jitte attached all they do is tap one Mountain and Bolt your creature. So if you run them for that purpose, by all means remove them from your deck. Although I guess they have a hard time dealing with Goyf + Jitte.

[Waikiki]

I'd like to see a burn player burn out your creature when they are trying to burn goyf and terravore. Means they aren't aiming at your head and jitte is doing it's job perfectly.

[Mantis]

Like I said an equipped Goyf is decent. Also, if you keep your Goyf untill you can equip it that means it can't block opposing Goyfs (otherwise they would just burn it down after combatdamage).
It takes a lot of setup to get a 4/4 Terravore with a Jitte equipped that isn't something that really happens before turn 4 or 5.

But I admit, I went a bit overboard here, Jitte is not terrible against Burn. I merely wanted to illustrate that it's by no means game against burn. In addition it's pretty terrible against combo, Landstill and ITF. That said, I just don't think it's maindeck material here. I think Jitte is only amazing in Stompy decks that can drop down a creature and an equipped Jitte by turn 2 or 3 instead of turn 4 or 5.

[leander?]

It takes a lot of setup to get a 4/4 Terravore with a Jitte equipped that isn't something that really happens before turn 4 or 5.

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about Terravore. A hand like: 2 fetches, 1 mox, 1 random land and a Terravore, is a 3/3 Vore at turn two. If you add a cycle land to that its 4/4, and if your opponent fetches once, its 5/5. At turn two. And this is not rare.

[Mantis]

That's exactly what I mean, it's 3/3 on turn 2. You want it to be safely out of Lightning Bolt range and that takes some setup. Although they play fetchies too so that might change it a little bit. Anyway that was never the point, I think Terravore is a threat Goyf Sligh has difficulty dealing with regardless. And I agree that a Vore + Jitte is nice, but you cannot rely on a 2 card combo to win 2 out of 3 games against Burn. Look, it takes a while before Goyf gets out of burn range and it can be chump blocked by Fanatic regardless. And even then they can easily spend two burn spells or Lavamancer + burn spell on the Goyf and continue the onslaught. What other good targets do you have for Jitte? Countryside Crusher, Eternal Witness or Dark Confidant? They all get burned down in response to you equipping.
I just wouldn't feel comfortable with just Terravore as a good Jitte target.

I think if you want to beat Burn look at something like Kitchen Finks, Ravenous Baloth or Loxodon Hierarch.

EDIT: Just for the record I am talking about Goyf Sligh here not about Lava Spike.dec.

[ebbitten]

chalice builds also help to beat burn by shutting off ~1/3 of their cards

[Itecken]

I've been playing this deck a lot recently and have been wondering what white adds to the deck. I've also been messing around with Mongeese instead of CotV, it's made many matches swing my way that would have otherwise caused me to lose. I was wondering if the mongeese strategy has been messed around with?

[Arkham]

chalice builds also help to beat burn by shutting off ~1/3 of their cards

That's how I essentially win burn match-ups. Jitte as a solution to burn is silly. Just shut down their deck with CoV, grab a creature, and pound them down. It's simple, brutal, and effective.

That and having a StP back up with huge creatures to raise my life total if I ever needed it is also good. But, to date, I haven't had to use that tactic yet because I've usually killed burn before he can get me low enough to make me nervous.


I've been playing this deck a lot recently and have been wondering what white adds to the deck.

My white build only has two different white cards in it; StP in the MB and Morningtide in the SB. And that's usually all you really need.

[spider900]

Hey Guys,

today I found this list, which placed 2nd in a 87 people event.

Can someone explain the playstyle of this type of AggoLoam to me? And especially why running this list over the RGb Build?

// Lands
2 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [P2] Forest (2)
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
3 [EVG] Forgotten Cave
2 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
4 [B] Taiga
1 [A] Plateau
3 [REW] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [B] Volcanic Island
2 [B] Badlands
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TO] Devastating Dreams
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
3 [JU] Burning Wish
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
3 [TE] Intuition

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [EVE] Raven's Crime

Cheers, spider

[diffy]

Can someone explain the playstyle of this type of AggoLoam to me? And especially why running this list over the RGb Build?


Since the list is pretty close to what I developed and then piloted to a top8 finish at last month's Hassloch event (-3 Solitary Confinement, -1 Engineered Explosives, +3 Exploration, +3 Mishra's Factories, +1 Maze of Ith and +3 City of Brass in the manabase, list here (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=20369)), I might be entitled to give you some feedback, although Windux, who played the deck at this month's Iserlohn event, is on these boards too and will probably give you more detailed information, especially on aforementioned changes.

First of all, you have to know that my list plays a lot like traditional Aggro Loam i.e. you drop some lands, drop some fat guys, disrupt their manabase and then just win - everything that makes Aggro Loam good, you can do that too.
The main difference between the two approaches is that you aren't as clunky/slow as traditional Aggro Loam due to the addition of Explorations which just crazily speed you up. Remember how awesome those Mox Diamond + X hands were with traditional Aggro Loam? Now imagine you have an acceleration piece in 60% of your opening seven instead of 40% and that this acceleration piece is speeding you up even further. Explorations making the entire Loam engine (i.e. your entire deck) better is only an added bonus (e.g. being able to maintain a Wastelock while developing your manabase - this is especially important since you're the one skipping his draws to destroy some lands meaning that you're drawing into nothing while your opponent will draw into stuff sooner or later - or being able to maintain a Glacial Chasm or Zuran Orb lock).
Another difference between 5c Seismic Assault and 08/15 Aggro Loam is that you have a better alternative gameplan due to the inclusion of Manlands (and Exploration to a lesser extent) which give you an additional 'Lands.deck' dimension which is enough to win games on its own (e.g. you can operate better under Standstill than most decks currently running it) and greatly complements your overall strategy of being aggressive by giving you something to do with your lands when you have run out of gas. Manlands also fix the problem that, often, casting Loam would not add to your clock and therefore not supplement your main gameplan (keep in mind that playing this deck like an aggro deck with lategame potential for card advantage rather than like a control deck with fat guys is close to always the good choice).
The problem of running out of gas is something I come across rather frequently with traditional Aggro Loam too: if you don't have a Loam engine going, you're not really going anywhere. 5c Seismic Assault fixes this by including Intuition which basically ups your virtual Loam count to 9 which means that you have very good outs of having found one of your Loams by turn5 - you'd have to wait until turn9ish to have the same odds when only running 7 Loams. Intuition also gives you another boost in flexibility by allowing you to run a small toolbox of utility lands like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Maze of Ith and Glacial Chasm which improve many matchups (Maze of Ith is so good against random flyers that would otherwise just outrace you, Tabernacle and Chasm are important to buy time against random aggressive decks so that you can find Devastating Dreams, Burning Wish or Engineered Explosives), by setting up random engines such as Engineered Explosives + Academy Ruins which is especially important against Counterbalance and by not making you 'waste' Burning Wish on Loam so often.

So basically I'm boldly going to state that 5c Seismic Assault has a better early- and lategame than traditional Aggro Loam while not loosing much - you loose any possibility of winning the combo matchup and have to get used to not playing Terravore. I'm fine with that because the combo matchup is rather abysmal anyway, even if you play 4 Chalices or go 'French Style' with 7 cmc1 discard spells, and because Terravore is one of the weakest links in traditional Aggro Loam (if you have a look at French RBG Aggro Loam lists [link (http://www.legacy-france.com/Loam-Disrupt-Aggro-RBg-t1901.html)], you'll find most of them having cut the 'Vores already).

[frogboy]

I can sort of see cutting Terravore, but the same logic probably leads one to cut Countryside Crusher, too, i.e. they're only really good when you're ahead.

I am probably one of the only people who thinks that Seismic Assault is one of the most broken cards in the deck.

I still don't see why people are playing random Dark Confidants. Exploration is pretty hot, though.

[ebbitten]

just out of curiosity, der, why is the acedemy ruins mb and the volraths sb when volraths has more targets mb and acedemy has targets sb?

[raharu]

DIF, I think it's important to note that -3 Solitary Confinements +3 Exploration is a really significant modification, because they serve drastically different purposes. Exploration, along with the manlands, serves to give you more lategame potential, whereas Soli. is a hard-lock that essentially serves as a secondary 'win-con', creates breathing room, and, until it's answered, gives you indefinite breathing room to develop, but requiring setup. The differences almost make them different decks (almost).

[frogboy]

Can you really lean on Confinement in postboard games with all the Krosan Grips running around?

[raharu]

Can you really lean on Confinement in postboard games with all the Krosan Grips running around?
Game one? An okay amount of the time. Post-board? Hell no, because everyone and their mother is bringing hate for Counterbalance. I guess that's why there's 3 Confinements, and a Witness :3 They need to make a Volrath's Stronghold/ Academy Ruins card for enchantments...

Then again, you could say the same about Exploration.

[frogboy]

I guess that's why there's 3 Confinements, and a Witness :3

I guess it would be awkward if they Gripped you out with damage on the stack.

[Blitzbold]

I won quite a lot of games with Terravore because of him having trample, thus forcing through damage or because of him being big right now without any further ado, thus bringing an opponent's assault to a halt.

I am biased about Crusher though, sometimes finding him to be absolutely amazing in this deck to sometimes finding him just plain bad in certain situations.

About the 5c version: I like it, but there are too many Moons or B2B running around in my meta, so it's a no-go for me at the moment.

[Arkham]

I won quite a lot of games with Terravore because of him having trample, thus forcing through damage or because of him being big right now without any further ado, thus bringing an opponent's assault to a halt.

Yeah, I like Terravore as well. The trample mech on him has saved my ass a bunch of times, but I'd argue that he's probably the biggest MVC in the deck. Crusher isn't bad, but he requires a lot more set-up and planning than Terravore or Tarmogoyf.

[Brehn]

Could you please elaborate why you think that Crusher needs setup while Terravore doesn't? I can't follow.

[spider900]

Could you please elaborate why you think that Crusher needs setup while Terravore doesn't? I can't follow.

I think he refers to the fact that Terravore (most of the time only in the mid- to late game though) ist big in P/T when he enters play. Crusher can be bigger, but there are several things needed to get him that powerful (e.g. discarding lands to Assault several turns).

I like Crusher, but not because he can be big. It's a nice sideeffect. I like him, because he increases card quaility by never drawing you lands any more.

Anyway, this is the list I am currently running:

// Lands
3 [SHM] Mountain
2 [SHM] Forest
3 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
3 [EVG] Forgotten Cave
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [R] Taiga
1 [R] Bayou
1 [R] Badlands
1 [A] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [OD] Terravore
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
3 [10E] Seismic Assault
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TO] Devastating Dreams
4 [JU] Burning Wish

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 [TO] Chainer's Edict
SB: 1 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 3 [SHM] Wheel of Sun and Moon
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
SB: 1 [UL] Unearth

I really like the Manabase; I never had problems with colourscrew (due to Mox Diamond) and I only run 3 Dual Lands. I think this is very positive, since Nonbasic hate is very present nowadays.

Has anyone suggestions for improving this list?

I'm not quite sure about Witness, I never used her at test games. The Slot might become another Devastating Dreams. I found that card being completely awesome in many MUs (Goblins, Domain Zoo and Meat Hooks especially). I also like the effect of sacrificing lands against a control Deck.

I'm also thinking about Unearth and Raven's Crime in the Sb. I really like both of the cards, since RC ist unbelievably strong against Control and against Combo to some extend. Unearth ist really since, because it makes Burning Wish turning into a threat. The problem is that my own Chalices are too often at 1 (which is of course good against many decks).
Any suggestions for those two slots?

[Arkham]

I think he refers to the fact that Terravore (most of the time only in the mid- to late game though) ist big in P/T when he enters play. Crusher can be bigger, but there are several things needed to get him that powerful (e.g. discarding lands to Assault several turns).

Your half right. I can get Terravore to be a 4/4 or 5/5+ by turn 2 without even having to lay him down before hand, where as with Countryside Crusher I have to set up the board and be aware of my opponent constantly to see what he's going to try while I make him grow. Also, I'd like to point out that while Crusher's ability to grow is a triggered ability, Terravore's isn't. It's a lot harder for your opponent to manipulate the stack to kill a Terravore than it is to kill Countryside Crusher.

In my meta, Crusher is far more likely to become a victim of burn or astral slide (which would make those counters he'd gain at any point in between absolutely useless). While Crusher can come in as a 3/3 no matter what you do, Terravore's P/T depend fully on the graveyards, both of which should have some number of lands since it's the function of your deck to do so. Crusher as a creature is also less accessible in my meta because of pro-red, while with Terravore I can swing all day without having any worry at all about a protection from green creature or enchantment hitting the table (Runed Halo excluded).

Also, while I like the idea of being able to mill lands and thin my deck for other cards, trample is so much more useful. I can't tell you the number of times I've managed to pull out a game solely because my terravore was bigger than the opposition and trample damage would always get through.

Don't get me wrong, I love countryside crusher and what he does, but I just think Terravore is naturally better.

[spider900]

Don't get me wrong, I love countryside crusher and what he does, but I just think Terravore is naturally better.

I'm not quite sure, I think it depends on the deck you play against. Concerning Astral Slide, Vore is definetly better than Crusher. But that Vore is graveyard dependant, can be a problem. After your opponent casted a Tombstalker and then activated his Crypt, Vore is probably 0/0 and dies, whereas Crusher remains as strong as he was before. I like Vore because of trample, and I like Crusher because of the card quality he ensures and because of his independancy from grave.

[diffy]

Don't get me wrong, I love countryside crusher and what he does, but I just think Terravore is naturally better.


My main grudge against Terravore is that he's much harder to cast than Countryside Crusher: you're going to need double red anyway to cast Devastating Dreams while you won't necessarily need more than one green source in the entire course of the game. Not playing Terravore allows you to play a more red-centric and therefore much more stable manabase.
Also, I prefer Countryside Crusher to Terravore because he does something outside of being a mere beater: he fixes your draws which is especially important in my version because it plays more lands than the average.
Your main point against Crusher, that he is vulnerable and slower, is often not relevant: just keep back a single fetch- or cycle-land and he's out of burn range and if you untap with Crusher, he'll always be a beast - he might not be as big as Terravore in the lategame but this is leveraged by the fact that he's much bigger earlier.



I can sort of see cutting Terravore, but the same logic probably leads one to cut Countryside Crusher, too, i.e. they're only really good when you're ahead.


Crusher does actually help you get ahead by fixing your draws which is awesome.



I am probably one of the only people who thinks that Seismic Assault is one of the most broken cards in the deck.


Seismic Assault is quite win more, in my opinion - it's only really good when you have Life from the Loam on-line and hard to cast in the first place. Against swarms you'd rather have Devastating Dreams and as wincondition you'd rather have something not reliant on Life from the Loam.



I still don't see why people are playing random Dark Confidants.


Reduce dependency on Loam, increase threat density. He's awesome as he's pretty much another 'must handle' and your opponent will only have that and that many answers.



Why is the Academy Ruins main and the Volraths sb when Volraths has more targets mb and Acedemy has targets sb?

You don't want Volrath's Stronghold in the maindeck because you close to never want to recur creatures - it's just that horribly slow (and remember: you're supposed to be the aggro deck). It's fine for the board though as it adds to your ability to out-control your opponent in the Control matchups and, combined with Shriekmaw, gives you more outs in your harder matchups (i.e. against random aggro) and against hate (e.g. Shriekmaw/Stronghold also come in against the mirror and Threshold to be more independent from Loam).
Academy Ruins is in the main to pull out Engineered Explosives via Intuition stacks and to supplement the Trinket Mage toolbox postboard. The later use frees up slots in the sideboard which is always nice, but it's really the former use that justifies Academy Ruins - being able to Intuition for Engineered Explosives, Academy Ruins and Eternal Witness in the face of Counterbalance or Life from the Loam, Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins in the face of hordes is worth gold. For sure Volrath's Stronghold coupled with Shriekmaw and Wickerbough Elder (or similar) could fulfil a similar purpose but that would require you finding another slot in an already incredibly tight maindeck while adding more semi-bad draws.



Krosan Grip on Exploration <> Krosan Grip on Solitary Confinement.


If they Krosan Grip your Exploration, they've just spent 3 mana to trade with your 1 mana investment which additionally has helped you develop your board position. If they Krosan Grip your Solitary Confinement, they're pair with you in terms of mana investment and Confinement will most likely have made you slow down and use resources to keep it up - much more devastating.



About the 5c version: I like it, but there are too many Moons or B2B running around in my meta, so it's a no-go for me at the moment.


Believe it or not, but I have yet to loose a game to any sorts of non-basic hate. If you don't manage to build up enough pressure prior to Blood Moon coming down, you can still function somehow thanks to Countryside Crusher, Devastating Dreams and Mox Diamond or just Burning Wish for solutions. You do have to play a little more carefully but if you aren't under immense pressure, your chances are that Moon won't break your neck. Dragon Stompy, for instance, is not a bad matchup - they just can't really put you under pressure. Back to Basics is a totally other story as you can still use all your lands once allowing you to put up some pressure which is all you're going to need.

[Arkham]

Your main point against Crusher, that he is vulnerable and slower, is often not relevant: just keep back a single fetch- or cycle-land and he's out of burn range and if you untap with Crusher, he'll always be a beast - he might not be as big as Terravore in the lategame but this is leveraged by the fact that he's much bigger earlier.

That depends. Like I said, I enjoy the trample mechanic and the graveyard dependency of Terravore more. Tormod's crypt only removes one graveyard from play, when really your playing off both yours and your opponent's graveyards with land. Now, if your playing the deck right, you should never have an opponent that doesn't have some kind of land in the graveyard during most of the game, which would mean that Terravore becoming a 0/0 is still unlikely. Of course, this would all go out the window with the relic of progenitus on the table, but I haven't seen that card used very often in my meta at all.

And yes, I'm well aware of defending your crusher with lands in response to burn. My point has been that with other than burn or astral slide, some of my hardest match-ups are fought against opponents that play pro-red creatures. What do you do then with a red-dependent deck? You can't remove the creatures with dreams or seismic assault, and crusher, no matter how big he is, suddenly becomes nothing more than a chump blocker because he can't push damage through, because he doesn't even have trample. One could make the argument that wishing for Anarchy would solve this problem, but for 6 mana, 3 of it needing to be red, how often will an opportunity like that come up? You can cast terravore for half the mana, and tarmogoyf with a third of it.

In that kind of situation, a tarmogoyf or terravore are life savers. Alternate sideboard cards you could use, though, would be; sickening, massacre, virtue's ruin, etc. But, Terravore or Tarmogoyf, both green creatures, would still end up being the cheaper options.

In the end, I guess, it all comes down to personal preference.

[Swing4Five]

Der i F, I really, really like your 5c Seismic list; though I have a few questions (like why the hell you named it that without the enchantment in the deck) and changes I would probably make to it.

I had a list of cards I wanted to try and fit into a 5c Loam shell and you've hit almost all of them... except Chalice of the Void. You say you dropped it because your combo match up is already lacking and you would rather just hope to dodge than have cards agianst it, but and I don't want to auto-scoop to storm. And more importantly; CotV is amazing in the metagame right now even without factoring in combo.

Lets look at the DtB (in order just by the order of the threads in the forum).
Amazing against: Goyf Sligh
Dreadstill
Threshold (all varietys)
Storm (all varietys)
Decent against: Survival
Landstill

Not so good against: Ichorid
Goblins (unless you have land, mox, CotV @ 1 as a tempo play)

Looking at the link you posted I'm thinking of making the following cuts:
-2 Maze of Ith OR Glacial Chasm OR Tabernacle
While these are good agianst various types of aggro decks they take up land drops without producing mana, the most versitile should be kept as an intuition target (I realize with all 3 slots you can Intuition for the suite, but thats going to get you the worst one for your current situation anyhow).

-1 Mishra's Factory
The deck is colored-mana hungry and something needed to go.

+3 CotV

I couldn't find another slot to cut from the Maindeck, so I started looking @ the Sideboard for that 4th slot. I discovered that I found your sideboard to be too mishmash for my taste, although it is clear you have a plan for your sideboarded games it seems a little unfocused; here's what I'd make for changes.

+1 CotV
The slot I started looking @ the sideboard for.

-1 Hull Breach
With both Shattering Spree and Rev Silence why waste another sideboard slot.
-1 Shriekmaw
In the matches this would be good for it's too slow as a one of Intuition target.
-1 Zuran Orb
Too narrow, I'd rather use my land drops for casting spells and Glacial Chasm abuse in the situation you want this.
-1 Voltrath's Stronghold(?)
Seems like the weakest slot, another hate card should be better.

+1 Krosan Grip
+2 Tormod's Crypt
When you want these to be boarded in you want to see them outside of an Intuition pile.

PS. Upon a last look-over of my post, how strong is the Eternal Witness? She could be cut for the last CotV slot and keep that last Sideboard slot open.

[Aggro_zombies]

One thing I never got: why are we using Reverent Silence in the sideboard to begin with? If it's anti-Counterbalance, it's terrible, because you have to wish for it before they drop CB, or you won't be able to wish for it. I don't think Enchantress is prevalent enough to warrant its inclusion, and it does nothing to Standstill. Is it for random things like Solitary Confinement (which sees virtually zero play anyway) or Blood Moon?

[Arkham]

One thing I never got: why are we using Reverent Silence in the sideboard to begin with? If it's anti-Counterbalance, it's terrible, because you have to wish for it before they drop CB, or you won't be able to wish for it. I don't think Enchantress is prevalent enough to warrant its inclusion, and it does nothing to Standstill. Is it for random things like Solitary Confinement (which sees virtually zero play anyway) or Blood Moon?

It's never been meant for specific decks, Aggro. Reverent silence is for sideboard hate and for decks that give us hiccups. We can play through blood moon, and we can use our enchantment removal for counterbalance, but there are other reasons to use it. Runed halo, Moat, oblivion ring, pernicious deed, astral slide and all those nasty little enchantments that are used in many decks in the format can all impede aggro loam as a deck. I never thought of reverent silence as something to use solely against counterbalance or enchantress, but there are enchantments out there that can stall us and it only takes a turn to change the tide of the game completely. Reverent silence overall deals with one of our bigger problems; enchantments in general.

I think removing it from the sideboard would be more damaging than helpful.

[Swing4Five]

I just like having the knowlege that Wish really can allow me to handle anything on the opposing side of the table, you probably could cut it for another actual strategy slot.

[frogboy]

Seismic Assault is quite win more, in my opinion - it's only really good when you have Life from the Loam on-line and hard to cast in the first place. Against swarms you'd rather have Devastating Dreams

Dreams without a Loam is a fairly miserable proposition as well, though.

[Phantom]

Dreams without a Loam is a fairly miserable proposition as well, though.

I think the difference is that Dreams lets you shore up otherwise shaky matchups (like Goblins), while Seismic Assault lets you win games you would probably win anyway, just faster.

[jazzykat]

Reverent Silence kills enchantments. The reason it is in the board is that you will almost never main deck it, so you can play wish then cast it on the same turn, thus gaining back the turn you used casting wish. The 6 life usually only matters if you are beating in with a lone Tarmogoyf creature and to a lesser extent Crusher and Vore. If you have 2 dudes down then it matters much less.

[Aggro_zombies]

Reverent Silence kills enchantments. The reason it is in the board is that you will almost never main deck it, so you can play wish then cast it on the same turn, thus gaining back the turn you used casting wish. The 6 life usually only matters if you are beating in with a lone Tarmogoyf creature and to a lesser extent Crusher and Vore. If you have 2 dudes down then it matters much less.
Yeah, that's obvious. I'm just wondering why it's in the board to begin with. Trying to kill Counterbalance with it is unproductive, since Wish will never resolve, and most other enchantments either (a) have sacrifice effects and thus "dodge" it, or (b) occur at such low frequency that it doesn't justify using a slot on the card. I was hoping to clear that up, but Arkham didn't convince me (since most of those cards can be dealt with just as efficiently through Krosan Grips from the side or Hull Breach off of Wish).

It just seems like there would be something more generally useful to run in that slot.

[frogboy]

while Seismic Assault lets you win games you would probably win anyway, just faster.

It's a whole lot better than the "put out a beater" plan against all the aggro decks that have removal spells. (i.e. all of them)

[leander?]

I'm amazed that no one named Leyline of the Void as a target for Silence.
If your opponent drops a Leyline and you don't find a Krosan Grip, or you didn't expect Leylines, or you didn't had the space for boarding Grips in, or the opponent drops two or more leylines, wish into silence is a turn one or two solution.

Silence is one of the reasons that you don't really care about graveyard hate, since you have a fast answer to the most effective graveyard hate card printed.

[Arkham]

I was hoping to clear that up, but Arkham didn't convince me (since most of those cards can be dealt with just as efficiently through Krosan Grips from the side or Hull Breach off of Wish).

Well, that's unfortunate for you then. The enchantments I mentioned are usually laid down in multiples or a combination whenever I've had to face them (which I usually do in every other tournament), so the idea of a krosan grip or hull breach simply 'handling' the problem with 3 or 4 enchantments on the board slowing you down is not, in fact, efficent at all. I don't really know what it'd take to convince you that silence is a great tool for destroying multiple enchantments, which is something that is not uncommon for aggro loam to face, but I guess it's ultimately up to what your metagame is and how reverent silence directly affects you. So, if you want to use spot removal in place of something that can destroy and handle the problem entirely virtually for free, well, there's something to be said for somebody who'll use a shovel instead of a drill when digging a well.

[Illissius]

Yeah. Basically, posit: you want to be able to deal with enchantments via Burning Wish. And given that, why not deal with all enchantments, and why not do it for free? Seems like a good idea to me.

[diffy]

Graveyard dependency of Terravore - Crypt doesn't hurt it too much


Meanwhile, Crusher is not hit by Crypt at all while it will always be a speed-bump against 'Vore.


Astral Slide, Pro-Red Creatures.
Alternate sideboard cards you could use, though, would be; Sickening, Massacre, Virtue's Ruin, etc.


Who plays Astral Slide or Pro:Red creatures anyway? Certainly not enough people to warrant a dedicated Wishboard slot, especially if you could just pull out an Engineered Explosives or Shriekmaw and solve the problem that way.



Why are we using Reverent Silence in the sideboard to begin with?


Mainly it is there to deal with Counterbalance - sure Burning Wish costs two but at least the target you get is playable the turn you Wished for it meaning that you don't have to hope dodging Counterbalance twice. Also, if your opponent has just dropped Counterbalance, chances are that he's low on mana and/or doesn't have Top out meaning that exactly that turn is the turn to try and get rid of Counterbalance... it works more often than you'd imagine.
The fact that it is free comes in handy against a lot of random stuff too (e.g. against Blood Moon - just fetch a Forest once if you expect Moon and then don't bother slowing down to handle it when they drop it).


Dreams without a Loam is a fairly miserable proposition as well, though.

Being able to Pyroclasm/Firespout + double/triple Sinkhole is incredibly solid against a wide array of decks, even if it costs you half or your entire hand, especially when you have any sorts of pressure on-line.



Why the hell you named it that without the enchantment in the deck


The deck isn't 5 colour either so no part of the name really makes sense... previous incarnations of the deck (found here (http://mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10968)) did match the name though.



Chalice of the Void. You say you dropped it because your combo match up is already lacking and you would rather just hope to dodge than have cards agianst it, but and I don't want to auto-scoop to storm. And more importantly; CotV is amazing in the metagame right now even without factoring in combo.


True. There are also a number of other cards I'd love to see in the deck (esp. Brainstorm, tinkering with the manabase along the way) but I just can't find any slots.



Maindeck:
-2 Maze of Ith OR Glacial Chasm OR Tabernacle
-1 Mishra's Factory


Cutting lands is not a good idea as it makes your Explorations crappy without Loam - 28 lands is already on the lowish side in order to really abuse Exploration so that 25 (less than what 'normal' Aggro Loam plays) will certainly not work.



Sideboard:
-1 Hull Breach
With both Shattering Spree and Rev Silence why waste another sideboard slot.
-1 Shriekmaw
-1 Zuran Orb
-1 Voltrath's Stronghold(?)


Hull Breach is basically there to not have to kill your own Explorations only to get rid of some random Enchantment that is in your way. I thought like you for quite some time, someone on the Team then pointed that subtlety out to me and I've never looked back.
Zuran Orb is a necessary evil to not completely loose to aggressive decks postboard when they might have disruption - although you can fight through disruption extremely well (in fact I yet have to loose to hate with the deck), disruption coupled with a sharp clock and maybe even Price of Progress is often too much to handle without help from the sideboard. The fact that the deck is so resilient to hate also makes it unnecessary to overload your sideboard with hate-hate.



How strong is the Eternal Witness?

Eternal Witness is essential to be able to build Intuition piles that dodge Loam-hate and aren't hideously slow.

[Swing4Five]

Cutting lands is not a good idea as it makes your Explorations crappy without Loam - 28 lands is already on the lowish side in order to really abuse Exploration so that 25 (less than what 'normal' Aggro Loam plays) will certainly not work.
Yes, I am proposing cutting lands out of a land-based deck, but here's the thing, 2 of these lands don't even produce mana, so their removal from doesn't hurt your manabase @ all. The 3rd land only produces colorless, and appears to be in the deck more as a threat than a mana source.

25 is one less than the 26 run in most lists, but there are a number of lists that run 25. 26 is probably optimal.

If your arguement here is that you need the extra 2-3 land not to have the most effective manabase, but to be able to abuse Exploration to it's maxium, I'm going to have to disagree with you. I feel fitting in Chalices, a huge part of me wanting to play a Loam deck in the first place, is way more important than making sure you get 110% out of your Explorations.


Hull Breach is basically there to not have to kill your own Explorations only to get rid of some random Enchantment that is in your way.

That makes complete sense, a situation I hadn't yet come across with my limited testing of the deck.


Zuran Orb is a necessary evil ... disruption coupled with a sharp clock and maybe even Price of Progress is often too much to handle without help from the sideboard...
I think I would rather have the 4th D. Dreams somewhere.


Eternal Witness is essential to be able to build Intuition piles that dodge Loam-hate and aren't hideously slow.
Again, makes sense, I'm still just questioning slots to find space for my Chalices, although I'm curious how E. Witness dodges Loam hate as they are both Graveyard recursive cards; ie Witness doesn't do much when the opp has a T. Crypt across the board waiting for you to Intuition up a LftL.

I haven't had the time recently, but this deck is something I am definately going to continue to test and tweak in the future.

[ThatGuyThere]

I'm amazed that no one named Leyline of the Void as a target for Silence.
If your opponent drops a Leyline and don't find a Krosan Grip, or you didn't expect Leylines, or you didn't had the space for boarding Grips in, or the opponent drops two leylines, wish into silence is a turn one or two solution.

Silence is one of the reasons that you don't really care about graveyard hate, since you have a fast answer to the most effective graveyard hate card printed.

Definitely this.

Ever since I turn-two Burning Wished my way out of a mulled-into Turn 0 Leyline, I've realized this is crucial.

...how else do you even deal with Leylines? (Not one - one's not so bad.)

Note - Yes, I know one example does not a great sideboard card make. What I'm saying is that particular match convinced me of the importance of a way out of Leyline ASAP.

[gypsy]

i really like the concept of playing intuition in loam but i think it might just be the danger of cool things. it lets you do all these cool things but it makes you play stuff you dont rly want to do. i like that you have exploration in the aggro loam shell as i am a huge fan of that card and would never play loam with out it.
i think that you can play gamble instead of intuition and gain more consistency while not losing that much power.

[jazzykat]

I just checked in with this thread and I have to say that the 5-c evolution of aggro loam is quite interesting!

Speaking from my long experience from CAL, and also the RGB and RGW aggro builds I am a bit perplexed by the evolution in a way.

The builder's themselves say, we have built a better version but we give up all hope of beating combo game 1, and looking at their plan game 2 and 3 it is about as sad as the more traditional RGB and RGW builds.

In my experience on the whole, old aggro builds didn't have a problem beating most decks. However, they struggled against combo and to attempt to mitigate that fact I played CoTV maindeck.

I feel that CoTV MD is probably the single most effective hoser you can hope for against the widest variety of decks. It gives Thresh and Dreadstill fits and it also shuts off StP.

The big gain I see in the new build are the explorations which do let you build up your manabase quickly but....short of having it on the first turn I don't think it helps you until you hit loam.

The argument about wastelocking while building up your manabase with an exploration out is true but something I have never found relevant. If I can waste 2 or 3 lands in a row and burn my draw step then my opponent is probably SOL. Don't forget I also get to keep up to 7 cards in hand. At that point I am ready to win the game by dipping into my graveyard and using cycling lands to find threats.

Manlands are also a cool addition but honestly, do you really want to wait under a standstill...? In my experience putting pressure on the opponent is the only way to beat landstill. If you don't molest their manabase and keep throwing threats down that will bring their life total down quickly then you will probably be in trouble.

Maze of Ith, glacial chasm, and solitary confinement are definitely more relevant now but in a way they would be unescessary in the old builds.

Maze is really good for keeping that tombstalker off you until they wasteland it and get in for 5 (you will obviously loam it back). The old builds would also have 3 terravore, which would just kill them in short order if not dealt with and short of StP there would be another one or it would be recurred via stronghold.

Chasm is good against aggro swarm I suppose and with exploration and loam become super cute. It also cuts off some burn as they burn you when you choose not to pay the life during the upkeep. I would argue again that having bigger dudes that smash their face and Dev Dreams is better but to each their own.

Confinement takes set up. It protects you from combo decks but it costs 3 mana and can be bounced. It also keeps you alive vs. all the other decks but I would argue that you don't need it. It also stomps burn but chalice gives you a pretty good out and can come down turn 1 without needing any maintenance or set up.

I really like the idea of intuition and the toolbox set up but if you really want loam then play gamble and get it for 1 red mana. Since you will theoretically be OK with all of the cards going to the bin from an intuition then you should be fine and also a turn or 2 faster in finding it.

All in all I think the 5c builds are cool and innovative and may just be objectively better. However, I have had very little trouble winning with the old builds against what this is supposed to be good against.

I asked a while ago what build was objectively strongest or best for metagame X and no one could answer me. The conclusions I drew from my own study were that:

1. The engine is so powerful it will crush just about anything but combo provided you have somewhere near an "optimal" build

2. There is no best build and they all suck vs. combo.

I would love for people to shout me down on all points but telling me that terravore is not that good because he needs set up is not really good because someone will cast tombstalker and crypt me isn't really that good of an argument lest I say Dreadnaught sucks because I can threads him.

Where I think this deck needs to go is towards something that maintains its amazing non-combo matchup but shuts down combo decks. Something more stax like in 2 colors (RG?), with tombs, and perhaps CoT and the big man package might prove much more complimentary than a toolbox. I realize the double mana symbols make 3 sphere and/or 2 mana lands look weird together.

That's all I've got, I think that the new direction is cool but not really taking this deck into the position of an all around competitor.

[Arkham]

I feel that CoTV MD is probably the single most effective hoser you can hope for against the widest variety of decks. It gives Thresh and Dreadstill fits and it also shuts off StP.

CoTV is the tripwire that helps this deck gain ground, and is such a great card in general. As for combo match-ups, it's the only card we really have available to get our foot in the door, but it's usually enough if we can draw it. (I lost 2-0 to Belcher last night because I couldn't get one or two of my four chalices after mulling to four the first game and down to five the second.)


The big gain I see in the new build are the explorations which do let you build up your manabase quickly but....short of having it on the first turn I don't think it helps you until you hit loam.

I have explorations, and I've debated whether or not to use them for some time. I like having more lands, but I like being less dependent on enchantments, especially since there's reverent silence in the wishboard. Other than that, I think it's just to fill slots where there is better stuff to replace it.


The argument about wastelocking while building up your manabase with an exploration out is true but something I have never found relevant. If I can waste 2 or 3 lands in a row and burn my draw step then my opponent is probably SOL. Don't forget I also get to keep up to 7 cards in hand. At that point I am ready to win the game by dipping into my graveyard and using cycling lands to find threats.

Don't forget about Dreams. We don't need a wastelock with exploration because of what you said and because we have that card to fall back on, which is usually enough to close a game if we have a creature on the board before we do it.


Manlands are also a cool addition but honestly, do you really want to wait under a standstill...? In my experience putting pressure on the opponent is the only way to beat landstill. If you don't molest their manabase and keep throwing threats down that will bring their life total down quickly then you will probably be in trouble.

This has been an argument I've had with my fellow aggro loam players in my meta for quite some time. I always thought putting a one of of treetop village or something to get out from under counterbalance would be an excellent idea. However, for everything else, I don't think a 4 of mishra's factories helps this deck at all. Maze of Ith or Glacial Chasm don't belong in aggro loam because it's counter productive. I mean honestly, man, if you want to run all those you should pick 42 lands as a deck instead of aggro loam. Different principles and a much different play style.


Chasm is good against aggro swarm I suppose and with exploration and loam become super cute. It also cuts off some burn as they burn you when you choose not to pay the life during the upkeep. I would argue again that having bigger dudes that smash their face and Dev Dreams is better but to each their own.

But we have our stall cards already; dreams, cotv, etc. I really think Chasm isn't as good in the deck as people give it credit.


Confinement takes set up. It protects you from combo decks but it costs 3 mana and can be bounced. It also keeps you alive vs. all the other decks but I would argue that you don't need it. It also stomps burn but chalice gives you a pretty good out and can come down turn 1 without needing any maintenance or set up.

CoTV > Confinement. I think the latter is used by people who are really paranoid about getting wrecked by decks. Aggro Loam in general is a good deck, the added protection that people are giving it with chasm, confinement, etc are just slowing it down.


I asked a while ago what build was objectively strongest or best for metagame X and no one could answer me. The conclusions I drew from my own study were that:

1. The engine is so powerful it will crush just about anything but combo provided you have somewhere near an "optimal" build

2. There is no best build and they all suck vs. combo.

Aggro Loam doesn't roll over to combo easily. Remember, if we can get chalice on the table, we can buy time. Chalice for 0 buys us a turn, chalice for one buys us a lot more. I hate having to be dependent on one card, but you have to admit, it still gets the job done. TES, Ad Nauseum, Belcher, Breakfast, etc all usually crumble to the card anyway. My biggest fear nowadays is that people are putting too much stock into trying to beat combo with aggro loam. Aggro Loam is a deck that takes 2/3 of the format down, isn't that good enough? We'd all like to improve our match-up against combo so that we can be generally good against everything, but it just isn't worth the investment and the risk of bogging down Aggro Loam to the point where it can't even beat the decks it was originally designed to do.

We're not TES, we don't need to constantly update and evolve set by set like it does in order to stay relevent.


That's all I've got, I think that the new direction is cool but not really taking this deck into the position of an all around competitor.

I agree, though I do admire the initiative in trying to change the deck around a bit.


Meanwhile, Crusher is not hit by Crypt at all while it will always be a speed-bump against 'Vore.

While creatures in general are a speed bump to crusher because he doesn't have trample? Hm, I wonder what the more common obstacle is for this deck.


Who plays Astral Slide or Pro:Red creatures anyway?

People in my meta play it, which makes it relevent to me. Astral Slide is a fucking tough deck to beat with aggro loam if you can't destroy their landbase or they get online before you do. As for pro-red creatures.. are you kidding me? How many variants of white weenie do you face? Dreams can't stop the creatures, crusher can't get over them or even block them, and unless you have a seismic assault, what kind of creatures are you going to turn to to get the job done in that situation?


Certainly not enough people to warrant a dedicated Wishboard slot, especially if you could just pull out an Engineered Explosives or Shriekmaw and solve the problem that way.

True, I suppose.

[Solaran_X]

Here's the current Loam list I'm running, which is one of the decks I'm cultivating as a possible list for Chicago. Any help is appreciated.

Creatures:
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Terravore
Spells:
4 Burning Wish
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
3 Life from the Loam
3 Terminate
2 Seismic Assault
Lands:
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
3 Taiga
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Treetop Village
Sideboard:
3 Pithing Needle
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Life from the Loam
1 Shattering Spree
2 Deathmark
1 Hull Breach
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Massacre
1 Worm Harvest
1 Haunting Echoes
1 Thoughtseize
1 Pulverize

I'm thinking about cutting black from the deck, which will free up:
-3 Terminate (Main)
-1 Bayou (Main)
-2 Badlands (Main)
-2 Deathmark (Side)
-1 Massacre (Side)
-1 Haunting Echoes (Side)

I also want to swap out Treetop Village for The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, but unsure of whether or not I should run just Tabernacle and rely on Dredge and Crusher to get it out fast, or should I also run some Crop Rotations for a turn 1 Tabernacle against faster aggro?

[bruno_tiete]

@PAM: You are running way too much wish targets. In most games, you'll go for DDreams or Loam. Your wishes must be overburdened as well as your remaining Sideboard slots.

For instance, Worm Harvest and Echoes are very redundant. They both are anti-control bombs. I'd cut Echoes for Harvest's retrace is so strong.

Also Deathmark is not as good as in Extended.
I would also trade a Mire for Volrath's Stronghold and remover Nostalgic Dreams from the SB, freeing up one more slot.



Two Sundays ago I made finals to another tournament playing a very close list to what I listed a few pages ago. This time, it was a 38-man. I lost final in a mirror. The guy outdrew me both games, despite my having an active Bob for 7 turns on game one. In game 2, his 7 were Mox, 4 lands, Loam and Assault, which I couldnt remove before being toasted, for I was struggling for mana after a triple mox but 2 lands draw (mox #3 was topdeck turn 1). The fact that I cast a Dreams for 3 when it should have been for 1 also didn't help.

During the swiss, after opening 3-0 against 3 different aggro decks, I lost to UGr Thresh in a very weird game 3 were he removed 3 moxen with a Grudge and a Grip and drew 3 wastelands, while beating me for 6 turns with a pair of mongeese.
After that I lost to Belcher, which comboed for the cannon in turn one in both games 2 and 3, despite chalice for zero in the last one. In round 6, I taught UGw Thresh a lesson on Chalice of the Void. I passed at 4-2 on 7th due to awesome breakers. Due to local habit at the tournament site, the cut was for top 16. (from the start, I tried to force a top8 cut, but I was alone on that quest)

I finished 7-3 and got 14 packs for the result.

The third place was another Loam, which beat Goblins for the trophy. Strangely, his SB was made of cc 1 cards (Deathmark, Raven's Crime, multiple Extirpates) despite his 4 CotV maindeck.

[Solaran_X]

Let's try this revision.

Creatures (11)
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Terravore

4th Terravore is good, right? I've seen plenty of lists lately running a 4th Terravore. And should I try to find room for an Eternal Witness or two?

Spells (20 + 3)
4 Burning Wish
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
3 Life from the Loam
2 Seismic Assault
3 Open Slots

With cutting the Terminates, I open up 3 MD spell slots (as well as cutting my only need of MD black). 1 slot can supply my 4th Terravore, which still leaves me with 2 open slots. Possible spots for Crop Rotation?

Lands (22 + 4)
3 Taiga
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Open Slots

Cutting black from the main and side removes my need of black from the mana base, meaning I can cut Bayous and Badlands from the base and add in basics. Adding in The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale and a 4th Tranquil Thicket would be helpful.

Sideboard (15)
3 Pithing Needle
1 Life from the Loam
1 Shattering Spree
1 Hull Breach
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Worm Harvest
1 Pulverize
6 Open Slots

Cut from the sideboard is Nostalgic Dreams, Deathmark, Massacre, Haunting Echoes, and Thoughtseize. That frees up 6 slots in the board. Some should be devoted to Tormod's Crypt, to combat graveyard-based Combo. Possibly upping the Devastating Dreams count to 2 in the sideboard would give me an effective count of 6 Devastating Dreams against faster Aggro.

Here's a revision (no playtesting yet - will do that today).

Creatures (12)
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Terravore
Spells (22)
4 Burning Wish
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
3 Life from the Loam
2 Seismic Assault
2 Crop Rotation
Lands (26)
3 Taiga
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Tranquil Thicket
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Forest
Sideboard (15)
3 Pithing Needle
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Life from the Loam
1 Shattering Spree
1 Hull Breach
2 Devastating Dreams
1 Worm Harvest
1 Pulverize
1 Reverent Silence

Opinions on this RG build?

[Swing4Five]

I'd want to play the 4th Chalice and 3rd DDreams in the maindeck, probably cutting the Crop Rotations, as my gameplan usually involves a Chalice @ 1 asap.

Do you really need the Tabernacle against Aggro? I have this slot as a Barbarian Ring in my build, it's not really needed in the deck either, but gets me a recurrable source of damage while also tapping for red.

I probably would have that #4 Terravore as a miser's Eternal Witness.

You still have unessecary B Wish targets.
-1 Hull Breach, how often do you need to kill an artifact _and_ an enchantment?
-1 Pulverize, Shattering Spree is generally better.
-1 Devestating Dreams, because I would have it in the maindeck.

+3 Krosan Grip, not Wishable, but much much better than Hull Breach and Pulverize games 2 and 3.
If you really are scared of swarms of dudes I suppose you could also fit the Tabernacle & Crop Rotation plan in these slots.

[jazzykat]

Why do people post lists 2 cards off from relatively standard lists without testing and ask us to comment?

Some points:

1. Chalice=1 is awesome against this format in general. Play it or don't, but it is a fact.

2. AggroLoam has trouble against combo. This is also a fact. It also tends to stomp non-combo into the ground.

Can we add a few Tombs/CoT's to the MD to power out SB Sphere of Resistance on Turn 1. I feel that this deck is so powerful that it can give a titch vs. other matchups to shore up the combo matchup at least from abyssmal to 40/60 or something.

[SilverGreen]

The fact that I cast a Dreams for 3 when it should have been for 1 also didn't help.I almost quoted your post to remember you from this play. Almost. Thanks heaven I kept reading. :p

You could translate that play-by-play coverage and post it here, hm (ma english to bed)? I would appreciate to see some Legacy-driven toughts about some plays and decisions on the last games you played, on things like the infamous Dreams for 3 or that Gobbos starting 7.

Indeed: I still think this deck must run 3-4 Bobs, one Witness, -1 Assault and less Vores in the MD.

[leander?]

I still think this deck must run 3-4 Bobs, one Witness, -1 Assault and less Vores in the MD.

Bob: Agreed. I run 3 becouse of lack of space.
Witness: I love her, but i'm not sure becouse of the randomness of 1 card. Does/Doesn't it feel random for the people who have tested her?
Assault: -1=2 or -1=1 ? (Again: 1 is really random, 2 is perfect)
Vore: Disagreed. People tend to say that Terravore needs time to get scary, and that Crusher doesnt need this time. I'd like to state the opposite. Crusher comes down as a 3/3 and will probably not get bigger than 6/6 in that turn + the coming one. Unless you are ectremely lucky in your upkeep he will need time before he is 10/10. Terravore, on the other hand will be large right away and, unlike some users state, is big early. And it can be with only the 3 mana. To compare:

1) You play Crusher on turn 3 with all the mana you have. It will be 3/3 in any given situation.
2) You play Terravore on turn 3 with all the mana you have. It is not unusual that you have feched once, have cycled once, have used a wasteland once and your opponent feched once. This makes Terravore 5/5 Trample the turn you play it. Wich makes it a fast, direct answer to a lot of threats ánd a threat itself that should be answered fast.

The advantages of crusher are that he can be an (slow!) engine on itself (becouse of the cardquality-advantage) and that you can use your loam better becouse you don't need to care about keeping lands in your graveyard.
The advantages of Vore, on the other hand, are that he is usually bigger, has trample and can't be REB'ed. Crusher is an engine and helps in hard times (=not enough lands in your grave), while Vore just big. Really big. Becouse of this, I prefer a 3/3 split.

[jazzykat]

While crusher and goyf can be chumped, Terravore has trample and many times wins NOW not in 3 turns after you eat their little dudes.

I think that cutting Terravore completely is a foolish idea.

[Redlotus27]

I would most likely add a Skaarg the Rage Pits and give my self a Goyf Trumper and give my Crushers trample before cutting Vores!

[SilverGreen]

Sry, I wrote a reminder to bruno_tiete, but it ended looking like a random argument posted in a vacuum. Let me fix it and clarify my thoughts about the choices:


Bob: Agreed. I run 3 becouse of lack of space.Our group had an internal debate about the right number of Bobs to run, and I advocate the higher number possible because Bob is retarded in so many situations that I can't describe at the moment, for the lack of a bit more free time. But I'm sure many of you know them better than I do - or at worst, it makes interesting food for thought.


Witness: I love her, but i'm not sure becouse of the randomness of 1 card. Does/Doesn't it feel random for the people who have tested her?I didn't run any copy of her, until a friend (Jaiminho on Source) convinced me about the awesomeness of the occasional engine of Witness + Stronghold + dredge. Aggro Loam was never this "aggro", and its games aren't exactly quick. Look at it as an inevitable, long-term plan to win slow games (althrough this plan might overlap with the Worm Harvest rout).


Assault: -1=2 or -1=1 ? (Again: 1 is really random, 2 is perfect)My bad, I meant cut the third copy. Draw a second one is something I almost always try to avoid, so running two copies seems more reasonable at achieving it's power at the right moment. I' rather prefer a personal tech in the open slot.


Vore: Disagreed. [Arguments]The debate of Crusher X Vore has proven kind of innocuous at this point IMHO. Both are solid options with tons of advantages each, but neither prove itself undoubtedly definitive. The more I played the deck - my build, at least -, the more I found Vore awesome in the mirror, and not so necessary in other matchups. That's why I'm removing them by complete from MD and moving two copies to my SB. After some LftL shenanigans and a resolved DDream, Crusher is usually big enough to seal the deal with ease too, and I feel very confortable right now playing with it paired with Bob and Loam+cyclings.

[Blitzbold]

You've got space in your sideboard? *shocked*

I also think the discussion about Crusher vs. Vore has become more one of personal taste. Though I still run 3 of both I like Terravore much more, but it's not a 4-of for me like Goyf and Bob are.

As for Witness, I played one copy from the beginning and it never felt right when I tried to cut her. Many times my wished-for spell was counterd only to be recurred by Witness. I both like the taste of inevitability as well as the options I have whith her. Aggro Loam, as far as I understand and play it, is also able to play some sort of board-control game. Witness is very good in supplementing this alternate way of winning. She's not in my list for beatdown - that's what Goyf, Crusher and Vore are for.

[Resist_Temptation]

Your cutting terravore, from aggro loam...? That does not seem like such a good idea. Crusher may be as good or better, but the fact that he can be BEB and hydroblasted makes him really annoying. I haven't done much testing with this archetype but, what i have found is that both are useful, and many lands go to the graveyard so both make sense to keep in there. I have not needed to use bob in any of the lists i have been testing...This deck doesnt need more card advantage...it can't hurt to have the advantage but it is not neccessary. The mnirror seems like whoever gets their assault first wins. Tabernacle seems like some overkill to me. I do not believe many deck in the format to be overwhelming with creatures. Goblins may put down a pile of creatures but you should be able to deal with them.

[Blitzbold]

"Bob - yes or no?" is another big questions for this deck and when browsing lists on deckcheck you will find an amount of decks including him as high as those omitting him.

You're right in pointing out that this deck becomes a monster when Assault hits play. One never wants to draw it in multiples, though, and this is the reason I cut my number of Assault down to two in favor of Bob - which helps tremendously finding such bombs. I really like playing Bob turn 1 / 2 with a deck in which far more than 50% of the cards won't harm you when revealing them.

[georgjorge]

Aggro Loam doesn't roll over to combo easily. Remember, if we can get chalice on the table, we can buy time. Chalice for 0 buys us a turn, chalice for one buys us a lot more. I hate having to be dependent on one card, but you have to admit, it still gets the job done. TES, Ad Nauseum, Belcher, Breakfast, etc all usually crumble to the card anyway.


Actually, they don't "crumble". They often just lose two or three turns digging for a Serenity, Hurkyl's Recall, Wipe Away, or Grip (with a Top in play, or Draw4s, or Wishes), if they don't already have it in their hand. Those two or three turns are not enough for you to kill them, so you have to have some support for the Chalice...plus, if they play Doomsday, they can build stacks that just ignore your Chalice@1 (with LEDs or Cabals).



Can we add a few Tombs/CoT's to the MD to power out SB Sphere of Resistance on Turn 1. I feel that this deck is so powerful that it can give a titch vs. other matchups to shore up the combo matchup at least from abyssmal to 40/60 or something.

:eek:

Aggro Loam is a very good deck, but it's not good enough that it can screw up its manabase (many spells with double colored mana) and play a card that will likely slow us down as much as them, and still win most of its games. I think you overvalue the deck a bit - it CAN lose to Landstill, Stompy variants, Intuition control, or Goblins. But if you go that route, I would at least play Thorn over Sphere.

The combo matchup being problematic (but nowhere near unwinnable) is, however, a good reason to run 5-6 Duress and Seize in the main. I don't play Chalice in the main, but I think they can be played together, because

a) Chalice often comes down on turn two AFTER the discard
b) Discard after the fourth turn or so isn't very strong anyway
c) Against combo, the discard will be shut off by Chalice, but whatever you would play in those discard slots (Explosives/Terminate/whatever) would probably be useless against combo anyway; against Thresh, it's recommended to play the discard first, since you won't resolve Chalice otherwise.

[Arkham]

Actually, they don't "crumble". They often just lose two or three turns digging for a Serenity, Hurkyl's Recall, Wipe Away, or Grip (with a Top in play, or Draw4s, or Wishes), if they don't already have it in their hand. Those two or three turns are not enough for you to kill them, so you have to have some support for the Chalice...plus, if they play Doomsday, they can build stacks that just ignore your Chalice@1 (with LEDs or Cabals).

You're half right, George. Combo can dig for the hate it needs to lift chalices off the table and turn around and win the game.. but here's the big issue with that. Do you know how rare it is for them to actually have an answer for a chalice @ 1, Chalice @ 0, or both on turn 1 and 2? It's pretty dismal in my experience. Unless they're holding that hate in their hand, the game is virtually ours until they can dig themselves a way out, and by that time you either have a commanding board presence, have dealt with what they put on the board already, or you kill them.

I also don't know why you're under the impression that 2 or 3 free turns wouldn't give aggro loam the edge it needs to finish off an opponent. What this deck has taught me is that if your opponent doesn't have an answer for most of your threats immediately, aggro loam chances of steamrolling them grows exponentially.

In those free turns (usually 3+), Aggro Loam should have a commanding board presence and have either dealt with what combo has on the board already or found ways to cope with chalice being lifted off the table. The object isn't for chalice to win you the game, its to give you enough time to put combo under your thumb like we try to do to every other deck in the format.

[jazzykat]

Aggro Loam is a very good deck, but it's not good enough that it can screw up its manabase (many spells with double colored mana) and play a card that will likely slow us down as much as them, and still win most of its games. I think you overvalue the deck a bit - it CAN lose to Landstill, Stompy variants, Intuition control, or Goblins. But if you go that route, I would at least play Thorn over Sphere.



Well I tend to agree with you with regard to double color requirment, but my figuring is that if you play 2 colors then it might not be so bad. I still haven't brainstormed anything I want to share yet. Although, that was also my reaction to the 5C list in a sense that they were crazy to make a 5C manabase.

Yes, any deck can lose to anything else but generally speaking landstill is a a laughable matchup. They have no clock and everything you cast has to be countered (Burning Wish, Goyf, Crusher, Vore). What's worse is that your best spell recurs and gets you wastelands thus eating all their manlands.

I have had less experience with stompy variants except that I know for a fact this deck kicks Dragon Stompy in the junk, so much so that my friend with a 1800+ rating stopped playing DStompy when I started playing aggro loam.

Goblins + Devestating Dreams+Loam OR Loam+Assault = Loss

Intuition Control - I am in full agreement. It has plenty of land, a few basics and can loam its way out of problem. Then it gets deed online and you lose from there.

Realistically any deck can get a fast start against you and win. Honstely, I think you missed a bad matchup which is not combo U(G)R Dreadstill. It has spell snare and daze so your chalice almost never resolves. Plenty of basics, and has big dudes backed up by counters.

Anyway, I agree in principle any deck can beat any deck sometimes.

QUOTE=Arkham;299424]
In those free turns (usually 3+), Aggro Loam should have a commanding board presence and have either dealt with what combo has on the board already or found ways to cope with chalice being lifted off the table. The object isn't for chalice to win you the game, its to give you enough time to put combo under your thumb like we try to do to every other deck in the format.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree. Especially if it set on 1, most dig I know of besides impulse (solidarity) is going to cost 1. I know what you are saying about board position but I think your point is that they are going to die in short order.

[Pulp_Fiction]

I have been messing around with a new R/G/w version of Loam and I really like it. I played Aggro Loam way to often and burned myself out of playing the deck so I tried to make the deck a little more diverse. CotV was either fucking amazing or got sided out. No inbetween, and the same with Devastating Dreams. I sided DD out a LOT but thats because my meta has tons of Thresh/Dreadstill in it and I don't feel comfortable casting DD and discarding 2-4 cards at random when my opponent who plays counterspells has cards in hand. And when they have no cards in hand you will most likely be winning anyway. So here is a build I have been messing around with, I really like it:

4x Burning Wish
4x Mox Diamond
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Countryside Crusher
3x Seismic Assault
3x Life From the Loam
3x Engineered Explosives
2x Terravore
2x Loxodon Hierarch
2x Soltari Confinement

3x Taiga
4x Wasteland
3x Tranquil Thicket
3x Wooded Foothills
3x Forgotten Cave
2x Windswept Heath
1x Barbarian Ring
2x Plateau
2x Mountain
2x Forest
1x Plains

SB
1x Life From the Loam
1x DD
1x Shattering Spree
1x Worm Harvest
1x Flame Jab
1x Wing Snare (sick of fucking Tombstalker)
1x Morningtide
1x Reverent Silence
3x Krosan Grip
4x Choke

This is just a new idea, not sure if its better or worse but I was just really tired of RGb Aggro Loam so I tried to spice the deck up a little. Combo is literally no where in my meta, one guy brings Belcher randomly but thats it, this is geared toward the broadest meta you could possibly imagine. On a weekly basis you could play against Burn, Goyf Sligh, 5 Color Slivers, Glimpse Combo Elves, Affinity, Dragon Stompy, Goblins, Thresh, Dreadstill, Mono-U control, Faeries, Team America, Lands!, Angel Stompy, etc., the list just goes on. Here is an example: last wednesday the top 4 decks (which all split) were: R/W/G Zoo, Eternal Garden, Goblins, and Terrageddon. This deck would only be good in a meta without much combo in it. Thoughts?

[georgjorge]

I'm not sure you could call that AGGRO Loam anymore with 4 Swords, 3 Explosives, 2 Confinement, 2 Hierarch :wink:. And it seems to be more dependant on Loam than other builds (Confinement + Assault), which could be fine since you run seven copies, but on the other hand Wishing for Loam really slows you down. Can't say much more about the deck since I never tried playing such a version...can you tell us how it usually plays out?

Oh, and the wishboard looks too crowded, but that issue has been discussed on that very page (or the page before).

[adrieng]

For a while I am also testing a new version of aggro loam which I have found quite good. The thing which is new is that it plays survival and no burning wish.
Here is the list :


mana base

3 forest
2 taiga
2 plateau
1 savannah
1 bayou
4 wooded foothils
4 windswepth heath
3 wasteland
4 tranquil thicket
2 forgotten cave

creatures

4 birds of paradise
4 woolly thoctar
4 countryside crusher
4 tarmogoyf
1 harmonic sliver
1 shriekmaw
1 big game hunter
1 genesis
1 squee

4 lftl
4 survival of the fittest
3 swords to plow
2 oblivion ring


I have found threshold a good matchup (both tempo, and balance).
Standstill is quite good.
I didn't test goyf sligh(doesn't looks good).
dreadstill is a good matchup also
suicide is good (eva green)

even game one : gob, slivers, elf
bad game one : combo, burn, MUC

Survival of the fittest allowed you to play a removal tollbox which win the mirror (maw,big game), you have to play birds instead of mox diamond, which is better whith survival.
I don't play dream maindeck and I have found burning wish a bit too slow and sometimes bad in multiple and against counterbalance it sucks.Also it sucks for the sideboard.
The deck has a lot of solution with oblivion ring and sword.
Here is the side I have got so far :


3 null rod
4 enlightned tutor
3 DD
2 krosan grip
1 warmth
1 yixlid jailer
1 wheel of sun


The side is here to beat combo : ichorid(yixlid and wheel) and burn(warmth) are winnable
but ADN is really hard, usually you lose game one win game two with null rod
or ET=> null rod
game 3 is much harder cause they start and can have the turn 2 kill which you can't do anything.

You can also notice that null rod is good against hate and MUC (shackles+disk+sensei+relic tormod...) and also against affinity and goblin.

DD is here to beat goblin and elves, slivers and others swarm decks.

Grip is here for humility some noughts and counterbalance

[Pulp_Fiction]

I used to run Aggro Loam a LOT and that is basically the same wish board I have run for a long time (except with black instead of white). I always felt that 7x SB cards and 8 wish targets was the correct build for the SB. Don't mock Wing Snare until you have tested it. I wished for it around 4 times total and it won every game that I got it! I think a lot of builds underutilized the wishboard in the hopes of making a stronger Dredge matchup or something but the utility of Burning Wish is what makes this deck so strong.

I did shift the deck into some kind of Terrageddon, Aggro Loam, CAL blend but I really like how it plays. It plays out very similar to Aggro Loam except it has more answerers. Threat density is never an issue and Loxodon Hierarch is an amazingly underplayed creature in the format, and in a deck with so many answers to Goyf you can easily run Hierarchs. The Confinement lock is basically a win against Belcher since they have to deplete all of their resourceres to deal with it and Belcher is the only kind of combo I have in my meta. Confinement is just an I WIN card that a lot of decks are not equipped to deal with. It is a little more reliant on LftL but it can function just fine without it so long as the person playing the deck is experienced with how Aggro Loam plays. I just wanted to test out Confinement in Aggro Loam and thus far I really like it. I also wanted StP in the deck since I got so fucking tired of seeing Tombstalkers and StP REALLY helps in the Goblins matchup which can go either way but Goblins is around a 70/30 matchup for standard RGb Loam and is also quite good against Dredge, removing Ichorid from the game is always a plus and Confinement can make that matchup hell for Dredge!

[Windux]

I placed 2nd again with my 5color List in Iserlohn, where about 80players did play.

My list didn't changed alot:

[ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [P2] Forest (2)
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
3 [EVG] Forgotten Cave
2 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
4 Taiga
1 [A] Plateau
3 [REW] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [b] Volcanic Island
2 [b] Badlands
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills

// Creatures
[B]3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
1 [FD] Etched Oracle
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TO] Devastating Dreams
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
3 [JU] Burning Wish
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [JU] Solitary Confinement
3 [TE] Intuition

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [EVE] Raven's Crime

The deck can be played in two totally different playstyles.
You just can be the aggroman who puts the player under pressure.
Th other thing is that you just can be the controlplayer.
EoT Intuition on Explosive, Loam, Ruins or Stronghold, Loam, Witness are common plays.
Confinement is just a 3-of because of Intuition. It's such a great card. The most decks can't win preboard.
Etched Oracle is just so amazing! You can pump your Goyf's with it (+ Draw 3 cards), you can Dredge up to 12 cards, pumping your Crusher and so on.
If you have much mana, you can EoT put the Oracle on top, play it, put a creature or Explosive on top, and with the other land, you put the Oracle on top, giving you Oracle+Critter/Removal+1 Random card (for example dredging Loam). You need 1 turn to prepare the winning turn with Oracle ;)

[rockout]

@Windux: Interesting twist on the Aggro Loam idea. Do you have a tournament report anywhere that I could read?

[georgjorge]

Congratulations on the 2nd place ! Good to see Aggro Loam defending its DTB status ; )



@Pulp_Fiction and Windux: Hmm, Confinement...can you maybe give some examples where Confinement has helped you win games outside of Combo / Burn / Ichorid ? I'm a bit puzzled as to how it fits into the deck, especially if you don't draw Loam (in which case it looks like a bad Moment's Peace), but as I'm running white already, I'm tempted to try it out...


Also, how many Bloodstained Mire where in that list ? I guess four (with five colors...), but then you'd run 29 lands...?!

[Aggro_zombies]

Also, how many Bloodstained Mire where in that list ? I guess four (with five colors...), but then you'd run 29 lands...?!
If he's running sixty cards and I added correctly, there are 2 Mires for a total of 27 lands and 33 spells.

[Windux]

Yes, I run 2 Mires.

Confinement won me many games. With Intuition, burning Wish and Confidant you have enough outlets to get the engine started.
Intuition also gets you the Confinement.
It won me games against:
monoR Goblins (yes, no Grips)
Dragon Stompy
Goyfsligh (I played Chalice on 3 to pretend Krosan Grip ;) )
Combo (with Chalice and/or Teeg to slow them down)
NQG (you need to play carefuly with Loam. Always try to get Loam back twice, to play around counters)
Merfolks
and so on.

It's just almost an autowin Preboard against Decks who can't counter much or bounce (except for Explosive, what do you play mainboard against enchantments atm?). It's just bad against Survival decks or Vindicate-Decks.

And no, there is no tournamentreport.

I lost this weekend against UR TempoThresh -> He plays 1 Rushing River. G1 and G3 he drew it. G1 he bounced my Confinement and burned me out. G3 he won because he bounced 2 blockers of mine, 1 turn before I would drewn the Burning Wish :(

[Jok3R]

// Lands
4 [ON] Forgotten Cave
3 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [R] Bayou
2 [u] Badlands
3 [u] Taiga
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold

// Creatures
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
3 [OD] Terravore
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
2 [7E] Seismic Assault
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [TO] Devastating Dreams
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 2 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [TO] Nostalgic Dreams
SB: 1 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 2 [PS] Terminate

SB obviously isn't done, 2 slots open... Maybe I'm missing something important? Also, I'd like to find a slot for a manland or two.

[kroelai]

I don't think we need manland, we have terravorres and goyfs instead.

I would like to hear from you if Thoughtseize works well with Chalice?

[Jok3R]

It doesn't work that well, really, as I'm sure you guessed. I think I can drop one thoughtseize (I'd like to keep additional disruption against combo) in favor of Terravore #4 or maybe another Bob. The other option, though, is to drop all three for removal, probably Terminate.

[leander?]

What about C. Crusher?

[Jok3R]

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [ON] Forgotten Cave
3 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
1 [R] Bayou
2 [U] Badlands
3 [U] Taiga
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [UL] Treetop Village

// Creatures
3 [RAV] Dark Confidant
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [OD] Terravore
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
2 [7E] Seismic Assault
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [TO] Devastating Dreams
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 2 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [TO] Nostalgic Dreams
SB: 1 [10E] Pyroclasm
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [LRW] Thoughtseize

Some updates to it. I could try countryside crusher, but over what? I'ved tried it over the terravore and just like trample to size here. A trampling 10/10 is better, IMO, than a 15/15.

[leander?]

You don't play Crusher becouse of its size, but becouse of the card quality it gives. In addition, it works well with Dark Confidant, becouse you can stack Confidant and Crusher in a way that you are sure you will draw a spell with Confidant and if you do, you will know what you will get with confidant, so you can even dredge or cycle that card away if you don't want it or it has a lethal cmc.
And it works even better with Loam. Besides the fact that it will get lands in your graveyard without even dredging, you will always know what there is on top of your library, so you can choose if it is wise to dredge. If you want the card, you draw it, if you don't want it, you dredge.

You might cut a Terravore and a Devastating Dreams for it. I'm not sure about the third slot.

My list:

Mainboard (61)

3 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness
3 Terravore
3 Countryside Crusher

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Life from the Loam
4 Burning Wish
2 Seismic Assault

1 Barbarian Ring
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Wasteland
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
3 Taiga

If I had the space, I would play a fourth Confidant. But right now, I still have one card too much.

Sideboard (15)

1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Worm Harvest
1 Soul Reap
3 Krosan Grip
3 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Choke

[georgjorge]

No offense to the previous posters, but maybe not everyone needs to post their whole list when those exact lists, maybe one or two cards off, have already been posted on many of the previous pages. I think it won't help the discussion much...but maybe I'm just picky (a likely option, I fear).


Anyhow, I made a Finals split at the MTGSalvation Tourney (yes, an online tourney, but only competitive decks, and competent players, many of them Source members). It had 66 players, so I went 7-1. Conclusions I made:

1. Bob is definitely staying in this deck, it singlehandedly won me games I would have lost. I realize Chalice can also do that, but Bob can do it against a wide variety of decks, Chalice only against some.

2. I splashed white for three Swords, wanting to avoid removal that costs two mana. Swords is a perfect fit for this deck, but I've had a couple of situations where I couldn't cast a 'Vore or Crusher because of the Scrubland (which is the best white land to run in 4-colors). I also had the feeling that when I used Swords, I would have had an extra mana ready anyway. I'll continue playing it, but I'm not as excited about it as I was (it removed a crucial Wirewood Herald, which would have gotten Caller of the Claw, from play though :smile: ). IF I didn't play Bob or Thoughtseize, I maybe would have run Snuff Out, playing a Crusher AND removal on turn three is something I would like to do.


And: Anyone know how the Team America matchup is ? I won it once, but he was heavily flooded, and it seemed to me that Aggro Loam is generally slow enough that it can be out-tempoed by TA. Especially if you run Deed or Explosives instead of Swords.

[leander?]

Anyone know how the Team America matchup is ? I won it once, but he was heavily flooded, and it seemed to me that Aggro Loam is generally slow enough that it can be out-tempoed by TA. Especially if you run Deed or Explosives instead of Swords.

I played the matchup once, and went 2-1. But ofcourse, one match will not give you a reliable look on the matchup. I think it should be somewhere around 50-50 or 40-60. If you manage to get into the lategame, you will probably win. But the deck runs more than enough tempo cards. And tempo is something you have a hard time dealing with. I tend to lose against a fast Tombstalker or fast landdestruction a lot, when I face decks like Eva Green and Pikula-ish decks.
But for a solid answer, more testing is needed.

[myselves]

2. I splashed white for three Swords, wanting to avoid removal that costs two mana. Swords is a perfect fit for this deck, but I've had a couple of situations where I couldn't cast a 'Vore or Crusher because of the Scrubland (which is the best white land to run in 4-colors). I also had the feeling that when I used Swords, I would have had an extra mana ready anyway. I'll continue playing it, but I'm not as excited about it as I was (it removed a crucial Wirewood Herald, which would have gotten Caller of the Claw, from play though :smile: ).

Could you explain that?
Maybe my english just isn't good enough to get the irony, but actually I assume that Plateau would be the best land for a light splash into W, regarding the fact you want to be able to cast crusher/SA which requires RR-RRR so you mostly wouldn't be able to fetch for a land producing neither R for Crusher/SA/D.Dreams/Wish nor G for Goyf/Loam/Vore.

And (depite the first part of your post) could you post your list?

[georgjorge]

I think that Scrubland is the best because I'll ALWAYS fetch a black source before a white one, so you'd need two fetches already to get a Plateau and Badlands, whereas you can do with one if you run Scrubland. And Plateau + Badlands + Taiga doesn't let you cast 'Vore, while Scrubland + two Taigas let you cast 'Vore as well as Crusher. If you need the red mana, you can just not fetch white and go for Badlands, the Scrubland is only a problem if you draw it. You probably want Plateau if you run Seismic Assault though, but I don't.


Well, if you're asking for the list... :smile:, it's here (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=3419216&postcount=26). Random maindeck Grip because it just seemed better for the last slot than anything else.

[Jok3R]

I think that Scrubland is the best because I'll ALWAYS fetch a black source before a white one, so you'd need two fetches already to get a Plateau and Badlands, whereas you can do with one if you run Scrubland. And Plateau + Badlands + Taiga doesn't let you cast 'Vore, while Scrubland + two Taigas let you cast 'Vore as well as Crusher. If you need the red mana, you can just not fetch white and go for Badlands, the Scrubland is only a problem if you draw it. You probably want Plateau if you run Seismic Assault though, but I don't.


Well, if you're asking for the list... :smile:, it's here (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=3419216&postcount=26). Random maindeck Grip because it just seemed better for the last slot than anything else.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but wouldn't you need 2 to fetch a Badlands and a Taiga? I understand your logic, for the most part, but it is by no means flawless. Your build is the first I've seen where black is more than 4-6 cards, so I can't say "black is by far the lightest color in this deck."

I like the deck, but you're favorable/unfavorable matchups look like they may shift a lot from more conventional builds (with Burning Wish). The addition of 6 MD discard may do wonders for Combo, even without the Chalice. How's everything been going on that realm?

[georgjorge]

Thanks !

I think my build in general is a bit better against very tempo-based decks because discard costs one but Chalice costs two, and Wish costs three or four. The deck does very well against aggro-control, but like other builds has problems with Tombstalker, and more problems than other builds with Dreadnought, or Goblins (still positive though). The deck does better than the traditional build against Faerie or Dragon Stompy, since using two mana for Wish hurts here, especially when, unlike with the discard, you can't get rid of their creatures or Forces anyway.

It may sound arrogant, but I've never ever lost a match to a Thresh variant with this build, except for one that got me with the tech of Show and Tell + Empyrial Archangel/Darksteel Colossus.

Most of my losses come from Landstill (I've got a number of wins as well, I'd say it's a bit better than fifty percent), but discard is also very good in that matchup. Stax is also a bit harder than with the traditional build.

I don't know if I've gotten relevant testing results for combo yet. I've played against storm combo a number of times, and surprisingly have only lost one match to Spanish Inquisition (first turn kills), and one match to Solidarity. But game one is hard, the discard usually isn't enough there - only if they get very little accel or very little business, and with today's combo decks being very consistent with Ponder + Brainstorm, it seldom happens. The wins mostly come game two and three with 4 Chalice and 2-3 Thorns. I think those games are actually in my favor - first turn discard prevents them from going off too soon, second turn Chalice or Thorn slows them down, and if you can follow up with either Dark Confidant or threat + Dreams/Wastelands, they won't like it. You just have to get lucky not to encounter Serenity, or to have the Grip/Naturalize for it. Maybe I'll switch the Thorns for Gaddocks to not lose to Serenity.

[chokin]

Thanks !

I think my build in general is a bit better against very tempo-based decks because discard costs one but Chalice costs two, and Wish costs three or four. The deck does very well against aggro-control, but like other builds has problems with Tombstalker, and more problems than other builds with Dreadnought, or Goblins (still positive though). The deck does better than the traditional build against Faerie or Dragon Stompy, since using two mana for Wish hurts here, especially when, unlike with the discard, you can't get rid of their creatures or Forces anyway.

It may sound arrogant, but I've never ever lost a match to a Thresh variant with this build, except for one that got me with the tech of Show and Tell + Empyrial Archangel/Darksteel Colossus.

Most of my losses come from Landstill (I've got a number of wins as well, I'd say it's a bit better than fifty percent), but discard is also very good in that matchup. Stax is also a bit harder than with the traditional build.

I don't know if I've gotten relevant testing results for combo yet. I've played against storm combo a number of times, and surprisingly have only lost one match to Spanish Inquisition (first turn kills), and one match to Solidarity. But game one is hard, the discard usually isn't enough there - only if they get very little accel or very little business, and with today's combo decks being very consistent with Ponder + Brainstorm, it seldom happens. The wins mostly come game two and three with 4 Chalice and 2-3 Thorns. I think those games are actually in my favor - first turn discard prevents them from going off too soon, second turn Chalice or Thorn slows them down, and if you can follow up with either Dark Confidant or threat + Dreams/Wastelands, they won't like it. You just have to get lucky not to encounter Serenity, or to have the Grip/Naturalize for it. Maybe I'll switch the Thorns for Gaddocks to not lose to Serenity.

Discard vs Chalice. Against tempo decks, wouldn't CotV be more devastating against those decks than a bit of discard? Discard is kinda like a little trip up while Chalice can really hose some decks. Thresh fits this which you say you have a good match against (all Aggro Loam should anyways).

Discard is much better against Landstill I think, but every time I've played Aggro Loam vs Landstill it was a matter of keeping them on 2-3 lands via Wasteland + DDreams.

I've just never felt satisfied with discard. I suppose it's a preference/meta call.

[Mantis]

Against Goblins; would you side in Krosan Grip or not?
Thanks in advance.

[georgjorge]

I'd say yes, just because I have enough pretty useless cards to side out.

-3 Duress
-1 Dark Confidant

+2 Naturalize
+1 Grip (another one maindeck)
+1 Terminate


But then I don't play Wish. If you have Wish instead of Duress, I would obviously let them stay in, and side out two more Confidants and a Loam.

Whether to put in Chalice on the play is a hard decision...it's strong on turn one, but pretty bad after their Lackey or Vial is already down. I'd probably not board it in on the basis that having Mox on the play already puts you in a strong position (first turn Goyf/Loam, second turn Crusher/Vore), and I'd rather have something to help me when I'm in not-so-good position.

On the draw it obviously stays out.

[Mantis]

Thanks for the quick response, I think that's probably the right call. Having an answer to Relic and Vial is a necessity, especially without Wish.

That said, I think not running Burning Wish makes your Goblins matchup terrible. The only way Aggro Loam has a shot against Goblins is by playing Devastating Dreams. Dreams is so good against Goblins that due to this one card the matchup swings in favor of Aggro Loam. Without Dreams I dare say Aggro Loam stands a very poor chance of beating Goblins. And assuming you only run 2 in the mainboard this would very much hurt your matchup. Anyway, if Goblins (and random aggro too for that matter) is non exsistent in your meta then by all means cut it.

Edit; I think my testing was a bit skewed because I played some more games, and Aggro Loam just seem to crush Goblins. I don't actually think Burning Wish matters all that much, Aggro Loam probably still wins.

[Muradin]

So I want to play Aggro Loam at the GP Chicago Trial in Utrecht as I think it has the strongest matchups across the field besides combo decks. I expect a lot of Landstill, Team America, Threshold, Dreadstill and random aggro.

This is my list for this metagame:

Manasources: 30
4 Wooded Fothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Plateau
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's stronghold
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forest
4 Mox diamond

Creatures: 12
4 Dark Confidant
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf

Spells: 18
4 Thoughtseize
3 Life from the Loam
2 Devastating Dreams
4 Burning Wish
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Swords To Plowshares

Sideboard: 15
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Chainer's Edict
2 Solitari Confinment
2 Choke
2 Krosan Grip
3 Gaddock Teeg
1 Swords To Plowshares

I am running white as swords is really good at handling Tombstalker and gives you an edge in the mirror. Then I think that Thoughtseize is better for a long tournament as chalice can only show its real strength when you are on the play and in most other situations Thoughtseize is just more flexible.
Confinement and Teeg are also really nice additions to the sideboard.

What are your thoughts on this build, especially the manabase and the sideboard?
Is Confinment actually still good if not maindecked or will everybody simply destroy it postboard?

Edit: Mistakes in decklist removed

[Mantis]

Any reason for no Terravores? Didn't see you omitted Chalice, that seems bad. I would just run the build leander posted a few pages back if I were to run Aggro Loam.

[Joon]

I fail to see how StoP will give you an edge in the mirror as your opponent will play Chalice. Chalice helps against two cards this deck hates to see: StoP and Extirpate. The latter is not often played but the first is still the best removal spell in the format.

Against everything but Random Aggro is Dark Confidant > Dreams.

Against Landstill, he draws you into business.
Against Team America he draws you into Loam/Lands - he simpy wins this Match alone - they HAVE to counter him, Snuff can't kill him.
Against Threshold it's even, bot get hit by spell snare, but if you can stick a confidant before Balance resolves or after/before he StifleWasted you, he's clearly better.
Dreadstill kinda the same - Dreams won't be able to handle those Noughts, but maybe screw him. Confidant will draw you into Wish/EE (Sword in your list) which will get rid of Nought.
Only against random aggro Dreams are good and therefore I'd play some in your wishboard.

Dreams help you when your Boardposition is good (LftL Engine active, enough Lands/Mox that survive Dreams in order to cast LftL afterwards), Confidant helps you to get there. Imo no discussion here.

You should play a pair of Seismic Assaults maybe. I know, all my arguments against Dreams are valid for Assault, too, BUT Dreams wins you the game only with critters on the field while Assault can actually kill your opponent without using the red zone (which is important under a Humility for example).

You can play Worm Harvest as a one off in your Wishboard - wishable Winconditions are always nice. And that Diabolic Edict is meant to be Cruel Edict/Chainer's Edict I suppose. Otherwise you couldn't wish for it and therefore it would be bad as a one off in your side.

If you want to play removal that does not cost one mana in order to play Chalice AND Removal try Terminate - it's a house! The only critter Terminate does not answer is Enforcer and other random Pro: Red oder Pro: Black guys.

Just my thoughts :cool:

EDIT: I'm dumb and read Vores instead of Confidants, ignore the confidant part, plz :rolleyes:

EDIT 2: Chalice deals also with that pesky Relics that tend to fuck up your Engine.

[jazzykat]

Terravore is a one card combo with the whole deck. It single handedly punches through any chump army of random dudes. Right now, you only have 8 I'm going to kill you type threats, that is a bit low and you have only 4 I'm going to kill you right now.

WRT Chalice: I've posted up and down this thread as to how its a house and a half. On the play it's godly because even your turn 2 can cause serious issues for the opponent. On the draw it's still good, especially considering you have mox diamonds.

Personally I have gone down to a 2 color build with a badlands MD to operate Volrath's stronghold. Honestly, I don't need the hassle of so many non basics and needing loam to smooth out my manabase. I prefer that my manabase be incredible on its own.

For your board, you can do what you like but 1 Diabolic Edict looks like a mistake. I'm pretty sure you meant chainer's edict.

Also, many of the decks you have listed play counterbalance. Your deck loses to CB on 1 and 2 worse that a lot of other builds. You don't have Krosan Grip in the board?

BTW: Your deck is only 56 cards.

You don't have to play my version but I am putting it up for refence what I would play in your meta.

Name Qty Sideboard
Bloodstained Mire 1
Forgotten Cave 3
Mountain (2) 2
Taiga 4
Tranquil Thicket 3
Volrath's Stronghold 1
Wasteland 4
Wooded Foothills 4
Burning Wish 4
Chalice of the Void 4
Mox Diamond 4
Seismic Assault 2
Devastating Dreams 2 1
Life from the Loam 3 1
Shattering Spree 0 1
Reverent Silence 0 1
Thorn of Amethyst 0 4
Badlands 1
Forest (1) 3
Engineered Explosives 3
Krosan Grip 1 2
Chainer's Edict 0 1
Countryside Crusher 4
Tarmogoyf 4
Terravore 3
Tormod's Crypt 0 4

For a real hoot in your meta add Blood Moon

[georgjorge]

Yea, Chalice should definitely be in those 75 cards (I prefer the sideboard though), especially when you expect Thresh and Dreadstill (I don't board it for Team America).

I'd maybe cut the Wish for Duress + the 'Vores (as people have said before), not only because I play that version, but also because Wish is not so strong against Landstill, Thresh and Team America, or random Aggro (unless you mean Goblins or Elves). It's nice against Dreadstill though, but Duress is good against all of those save for Aggro, and it saves you a lot of Tempo loss against Thresh and TA.

I tried playing Swords in the deck, and while they were good, the white mana kept me from dropping Crushers a couple of times, plus I felt like I always had mana open when I played Swords anyway. So I'm back to Terminate. Of course, if you keep white for Confinement and Gaddock, Swords is better. But then I'd play 8-9 fetchlands.

Finally, Blood Moon is better than Choke. Choke slows them down, but Blood Moon outright kills Landstill and Team America (not even Daze or Snuff Out works anymore), and is still decent against Thresh and Dreadstill.





I fail to see how StoP will give you an edge in the mirror as your opponent will play Chalice. Chalice helps against two cards this deck hates to see: StoP and Extirpate. The latter is not often played but the first is still the best removal spell in the format.

I wouldn't ever dream of sideboarding Chalice for the mirror. It would kill 5-6 cards max, and that's assuming the opponent isn't playing Extirpate himself... and if he isn't, then why should he assume that I am ?

[Solaran_X]

I just placed 5th this Saturday with Loam (a previously listed R/G/b list with a few minor sideboard mods) in a 12 man tournament in Tarentum, PA. I beat the mirror match and an Extended-port Elfball easily, but ran into problems with (surprisingly) Dragon Stompy and (not-so-surprisingly) Ichorid.

I've never tested much against Dragon Stompy...is that normally a bad matchup?

[Aggro_zombies]

I just placed 5th this Saturday with Loam (a previously listed R/G/b list with a few minor sideboard mods) in a 12 man tournament in Tarentum, PA. I beat the mirror match and an Extended-port Elfball easily, but ran into problems with (surprisingly) Dragon Stompy and (not-so-surprisingly) Ichorid.

I've never tested much against Dragon Stompy...is that normally a bad matchup?
What gave you more problems, Moon or Chalice? Either way, you should have sideboard Grips for them.

[leander?]

I've never tested much against Dragon Stompy...is that normally a bad matchup?

No, not at all. Chalice @ 2 and a fast Rakdos Pit Dragon are pretty scary though.

[Solaran_X]

What gave you more problems, Moon or Chalice? Either way, you should have sideboard Grips for them.
I did side in Grips against Dragon Stompy. But I seemed to have everything going against me that match.

1) Didn't see any of my 3 Grips
2) Didn't see either of my 2 Assaults
3) Didn't see any of my 3 Crushers
4) Didn't see any of my Fetches pre-Moon to get basics out

Chalice at 2 was probably more of the issue, since it cuts off Bob, Goyf, Dreams, and Wish.

[jazzykat]

Depending on your build, you would also have EE @ 0 to clear CoTV and Chrome Mox.

I realize that a lot of people are sold on Confidant in Aggro Loam but I am still not a believer.

[Solaran_X]

I suppose another question for Loam in preparation for Chicago is this.

Do we want Choke or Blood Moon in the sideboard? Choke will deal with Dreadstill better than Blood Moon, but Blood Moon will deal with Landstill and Team America and other decks better.

So...which decks are we most worried about for the match ups?

[georgjorge]

Blood Moon is generally better than Choke, as it kills some decks outright, while Choke only slows decks down (between Dazes + off-color basics, they usually can keep on playing for a while).

TA and Landstill are worse matchups than Thresh and Dreadstill, but the latter should see more play at the GP. I would still not play Choke, it's just not backbreaking enough for three mana. Whether you play Blood Moon or not depends on how your build does against TA (Terminate and discard are good, Chalice is ok, Explosives, Deed, Assault and Wish are not so good). If you do fine against TA, you probably don't need Moon since I really wouldn't expect much Landstill.

[Aggro_zombies]

Vexing Shusher with Stronghold backup is probably more devastating for blue-based decks than either of those cards (though Moon still does a number on Landstill). Forcing them to eat a DD for 5+ without a chance to stop you is kinda good, I hear.

Then again, Shusher dies to a lot of things.

Take your pick.

[georgjorge]

Knight of the Reliquary 1GW
Creature - Human Knight

Knight of the Reliquary gets +1/+1
for each land card in your graveyard.

Tap, Sacrifice a Forest or Plains:
Search your library for a land card,
put it into play, then shuffle your library.
2/2


This is a good card.

Not all of us play the white splash, but for those that do, it deserves consideration. It WILL be smaller than Terravore, but not by much considering it starts at 2/2, and it can search up Wastelands plus any other utility lands you might run if you don't feel like attacking (though I admit I almost always feel like attacking when I play this deck :smile: ).

[GreenOne]

I'd love a deck with 3-4 Knight, 4 Terravores, 4 Crusher, 4 Goyfs and 4 Vials
With so many creatures you should always have a couple of drops for vial when it reaches the third counter. And it's not like the deck doesn't use the free mana while Vial is charging :wink:
This way you also have an amazing curve at 1 too, vith vial and some number of STP (if it's needed).

[Aggro_zombies]

Devil's advocate time!

I don't think this card is that good. If I was looking for another creature for this deck, I would be looking for something like Countryside Crusher which doesn't rely on the graveyard. This deck's Achilles Heel is its reliance on the graveyard, so adding another creature that needs the graveyard to be worthwhile doesn't seem to be a good idea when your only functional guy under a Leyline is Crusher and maybe Goyf if you run it.

Also, the land search ability seems worse than just using something like Intuition. It also doesn't work under a Blood Moon, though you can do it in response to one to get a basic Forest for Grip (but then again, you can use a fetchland too...).

[luckymartyr]

I played this deck with burning wishes and chalices at a local 8 player tournament today and won a beserk. As expected I think burning wish is too slow for the format at this time and just playing playsets of loams and 3-4 maindeck dreams will probably work out fine as well as giving me the option of playing a real sideboard.

I have seen jund charms in multiple sideboards and gave it a try today. I was very impressed with the versatility of this card and highly recommend it.