(Archive) [DTW] Aggro Loam [Archive] - Page 6

Aggro_zombies

07-17-2009, 11:48 PM

In answer to your questions, ho_master:

1) Team America doesn't typically have many creatures in play, making either Chainer's Edict or Diabolic Edict an option. Soul Reap seems rather weak, but I suppose it gets the job done.

2) It crops up occasionally in sideboards and sometimes main in lists on deckcheck.net.

3) It crops up occasionally in sideboards in lists on deckcheck.net, but much less often than it used to.

4) Chalice's overall usefulness has been reduced in recent months thanks to the growing prevalence of Grip as an answer to Counterbalance. Previously, Chalice was obviously much better than discard, but with Grip running rampant it's much less useful now in games two and three. That's the main reason people have started bandying around the idea of using discard; unlike Chalice, Grip can't negate your entire disruption package that way. It also answers Counterbalance and things like Tombstalker.

5) It depends almost entirely on how your sideboard is configured to handle it. Leyline and Crypt are the best options the deck has because they're the cheapest and quickest answers, but Ichorid has outs to Leyline and Leyline is pretty sucky anyway. You really don't want to run Relic, and Jund Charm is too slow most of the time to stop them before they combo off. EE eats tokens but requires two mana to use, making it dicey if you're on the draw. Random Wastelands can be good, but only if the Ichorid player isn't playing around them or their hand is somewhat weak. Chalice is pretty generally bad here, since it only really stops Therapy and Careful Study, and requires two mana to get into play. Basically, Ichorid is like a combo deck that folds to different hate, but which will probably kick your ass anyway.

EDIT: @lavafrogg: Okay, yeah, I'll admit that I have an Intuition-Loam fetish. However, my testing showed Dark Confidant to be holding the deck back more often than helping it. Maybe I'm just exceptionally unlucky in that I tend to die to my own Bobs a lot (even in a more traditional build with a lower curve), but I would prefer to run something that didn't put me on a clock and didn't die to my own sweepers. I've been exploring other Intuition-Loam options and will probably put a thread/primer up when I get the testing in (or get my lazy teammates to help me with it).

Back to the points at hand, though: Seismic Assault is rather mana intensive, and is not as powerful with Exploration (because the two ask you to do mutually exclusive things with your lands). If I were to drop one, it would be Assault, in favor of Terravore. The creature base would then be 4 Goyf, 4 Crusher, 3 Vore, 1 Witness, 2 Shriekmaw. Alternately, I could add Dreams back in, but it seems weak. Have other people noticed these things, or is my play style just not compatible with this deck? I mean, I could just be an exceptionally bad pilot...

Soldar

07-18-2009, 09:47 AM

Aggro_Zombies:

How has Exploration and Shriekmaw been working out for you? I've been really curious about them. If you're cutting Confidant, these seem fantastic inclusions.

Spot removal is fine, and cutting Dreams and Seismic is fine - but it really weakens your Tribal matchup. I've been finding myself keeping Dreams in even against Merfolk because they only run 4 hard counters, and the reward versus the risk is significant. Don't necessarily do that in a tournament yet, I need to do a lot more testing against them.

And yeah - I've been playing Chalices in the board for a while now, and I find myself not boarding them in a lot.

ho_master:
My wishboard:
1 LftL
1 Dreams
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Flex slot (Have tried a lot of cards here, Worm Harvest, Unearth, etc)

And honestly, I haven't wanted too much more than that. It lets you have a real sideboard, but less corner-case cards. Not that Maelstrom Pulse is a very corner case card... but I could see myself playing Nostalgic Dreams in there.

We should probably build some sort of matchup analysis and the like into the first and second posts.
There should be a lot to be said about:

Discard variants
3c versus 4c Loam
Knight versus Terravore

How to not be boned by Countertop (This one time I was playing Genesis in my deck, and Genesis came down through Counterbalance, then I beat my opponent to death with it.)

And other debated topics within the thread. It's been a while since I played Cabal Therapy in Aggro Loam.

lavafrogg

07-21-2009, 12:06 AM

Aggro_zombies

07-21-2009, 06:42 AM

AggroZombies: I am working on an intuition Loam deck with Finn this upcoming weekend I will keep you posted on the results. In the mean time... what do you think of this as a rough manabase...

8 Cycle Lands
3 Wastelands
2 Basics
4 Fetchlands
5 Duals

4 Mox Diamonds
4 LftL

I know it is light but I have found it effective.
4 Loams has typically been overkill for me, but 3 seems to hit the sweet spot between getting it when you need it and not drawing a million copies (since any after the first are dead). Especially with Intuition, four Loam is probably overdoing it. How many colors are you running, three? If so, I'm a little leery of the heavy focus on cycling lands and the relatively low colored mana source count. I treat Mox Diamond as acceleration, and therefore I don't typically count it when I count permanent mana sources. This is mostly just because Mox Diamond is usually worse than a land due to having restrictions on how you can play it, and being an artifact makes it automatically more vulnerable than a land (Wasteland is less of an issue because you have Loam). Also, if you're in blue, you should strongly consider running both Academy Ruins and Engineered Explosives.

Or is this an Aggro Loam mana base?

johanessen

07-21-2009, 07:02 AM

I've also been working with intuition loam when coatl showed up, but finally i droped it for terravores. Havin access to academy ruins and cycle lands would masticore be a viable option maybe? I mean, we don't run volrath stronghold, so having a recurring creature is always good.
Also, is necessary to run additional colours like black or red, red having burning wish was very good but nowadays with the exile think doesn't help to much with a extirpated Loam i.e. It's worth it? Black provides Confidant and stronhold, while white give access to knight of reliquary.
Btw, what's your list atm?

lavafrogg

07-21-2009, 01:02 PM

Its a mana base I have been working on for a variety of applications. The Four loams are there because of such a low land count and the mox diamonds are there for the same reason. It runs really smooth and I have used it for AggroLoam and Rock Decks, I just wanted some feedback.

I have never been unhappy with the eight cyclelands, as when you run so many they are strong without Loam recursion. Sorry about the unclearity in the previous post but they were two seperate thoughts.

nodahero

07-21-2009, 11:15 PM

Below I have two similar lists with the variations coming in the form of the the preferred control package (Note the wishboard is the same for both the other half is still in progress (Any suggestions welcomed))

Lands
25 with the typical inclusions including Stronghold

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

Spells
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [JU] Burning Wish
2 or 3 [TO] Devastating Dreams
3 [EVE] Raven's Crime
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 or 3 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [10E] Seismic Assault
0 or 1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
0 or 3 [FD] Engineered Explosives

The two key differences in these lists is the "threat" density and the control/sweeper density.

I find myself hard pressed primarily in regards to the inclusion of EE and E-Witness. My main issue with E-Witness is that it is merely adding to the vulnerability the deck has to grave hate. My issue with EE is its overall value in comparison to an additional D-Dreams and slightly higher hand disruption (this essentially comes down to a meta choice I suppose). I am planning on playing this deck at worlds in just under a month. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Aggro_zombies

07-22-2009, 12:29 AM

I'll give you my opinions on this, but they will probably differ from most standard opinions.

I agree with the sentiments regarding the two-drop slot expressed in the Ultimate Walker thread, namely that the high amount of hate in the form of Counterbalance and Spell Snare makes two mana spells relatively less attractive than they used to be. These days, a two mana spell needs to be incredibly powerful in order to justify running in the face of denial cards common to a large swath of the field - almost anything running blue will have at least Spell Snare, and probably 35-40% of a given field will consist of decks packing Counterbalance. That's why I don't think it's worthwhile to run Devastating Dreams in the main anymore - the risk to reward ratio is very skewed, and leading off with a discard spell only decreases your hand size, making the subsequent Dreams worse. There's also the fact that getting a Dreams big enough to kill a Tarmogoyf requires a considerable amount of effort, but that's less of an issue when your dorks are big.

I think you're underrating EE. EE is basically your only out in the main to a resolved Counterbalance, and you sorely need one. Discard may be better at stopping Counterbalance than Chalice is, but it's also worse at stopping them from hiding their Counterbalance with Brainstorm, or digging around for another with Ponder, Top, and the aforementioned Brainstorm. If you're running discard as your main disruption, you really need to have EE in the main to deal with things that will inevitably slip through the cracks.

I also don't think Burning Wish is that good anymore, for many of the same reasons Dreams isn't. Not only will it never get you anywhere in the blue matchup, it's often too slow to find a sweeper against tribal - and there's also the fact that playing Wish into Dreams or Firespout is a huge hint at what you're about to do, making a tribal player more inclined to hold onto a Ringleader or drop a Standstill.

Worm Harvest has been generally mediocre in testing, but YMMV.

Eternal Witness is a very strong card, and is probably worth running. You're playing a deck with Life from the Loam as its main engine; the graveyard hate argument doesn't really work when it's one card and you're already vulnerable. One card will not tip the deck from "Ouch" into "Pwnt" territory.

Overall, the list looks generally solid. I'd recommend the fourth Crusher since it's not dependent on the graveyard at all and is therefore a reasonable way around graveyard hate. I think Chalice is still generally better than discard because it's better at stopping random topdecks and it turns off most of the relevant dig spells in the format, making decks like Threshold much less consistent. If you expect a lot of Krosan Grips, it may be the right call, but I'm not convinced the risk of losing a Chalice is worth it when the rewards of having one in play are so high. Then against, discard does root out Counterbalance, so...

Good luck at the event. Where is Worlds this year, anyway?

hyggli

07-22-2009, 05:59 AM

so, aggrozombies, you are suggesting playing something more consistent by itself and not depending on wish for removals and answers

4 Countryside Crusher
4 Knight of the Reliquary (or terravore, every one chooses wether to be vulnerable to Rotp or wastelands)
4 Dark Confidant (no dd so no matter playing less than)
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness

4 Life from the Loam
4 Maelstrom Pulse/EE or splitted ofc
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
2 Seismic Assault

25 land w volrath, cycles, fetches, duals, a pair of basics

edit: worlds are in my country, Rome XD

georgjorge

07-22-2009, 10:05 AM

1. However, I argue that Team America is a tough matchup too due to the Tombstalkers. He's big enough to avoid EE, and with the counter backup to stop your devastating dreams, he's a force to be reckoned with, so much so that I've run Soul Reap in the sideboard to deal with him. What do you guys think about that choice?

5. Does anyone have a strategy against the occasional Ichorid that pops up? No space in my board/not enough appearances in my meta to warrant Leyline of the Void, but was wondering what people's experiences have been with that matchup...

1. Soul Reap looks worse than Chainer's Edict for the Wishboard.

5. I, too, don't want to dedicate space to graveyard removal that is seldom needed. I'm currently trying Jund Charm instead of Pyroclasm, which can act as a 3-mana-Crypt against Ichorid...sometimes it's too slow, sometimes it's gamewinning. The 3cc hasn't mattered much against Goblins or Merfolk so far (and being instant helps against Vial-Warchief alpha strikes), but then I could also play Firespout instead, which would be useful in the Zoo/Goyf Sligh matchup as well...Against Ichorid, you don't have many decisions to make. Playing maindeck spot discard, I can often disrupt them on the play with that or Chalice, but on the draw you just have to hope. If I can't keep them from starting their engine, the only way is to get in one massive hit with either Vore or Crusher, the latter needing a DDreams or Explosives or Pulse to get the Zombies out of the way, which in turn probably needs a Chalice @1 on the board so those cards aren't taken by Therapy first :frown:

Also, you seemed to mention the need for Pulse in the Wishboard a couple of times...Personally, I think that Pulse can even replace the Wishes + Wishboard with it's flexibility, but some people here seem to want DDreams and Loam a lot more times than I do, so I won't argue it. Anyway, Pulse as a Wish target seems awfully slow, so try to fit 2-3 in the main if you need them...

Soldar

07-22-2009, 02:31 PM

georgjorge:

I've been working with Jund Charm for a while in the sideboard, and it's had mixed results.

Cons:
Slow against Ichorid
Doesn't hit x/3's
Gets countered in the Merfolk matchup if you're not careful

Pros:
Instant speed
Incredibly flexible (I've used it to win Goyf Wars, Crypt tempo thresh, and additional sweepers versus tribal)

A couple notes on Maelstrom Pulse:
I've played with it, and played with EE in the same slot, and I've just been much happier with EE. It's much more likely to break a Counterbalance lock (much more mana required in that case) and if you're also playing with Dark Confidant it's a 0 versus a 3. When you get the more 3's and 4's you want to destroy, Pulse looks more and more appealing, but the majority of things I've wanted to destroy have cost 0-2 recently.

Shanghi Knights

07-23-2009, 01:08 AM

has anyone tried farie macabre in the sideboard for mirror match/ichorid/ breaking soft locks? if you have tried it whats ur experience with it?

i've only used it in two tournaments thus far and i managed to stop ichorid with it thought they were lucky opening hands with macabre in them. once i got stronghold out that was the nail in the coffin.

i did manage to use it and give a landstill deck problems as they usually only pack 1 disk 1 EE and a few other recurable artifact soft locks with academy ruins. macabre seemed useful. (my bigger issue in that game was i burned wastelands early on and they weren't letting me get off a loam to hit ruins.)

nodahero

07-23-2009, 01:09 AM

I finally got around to some serious testing and have come to a very valuable collection of conclusions.

First
Using the argument "Wish is bad due to Counterbalance and Spellsnare" is very poor and incorrect. A very argument against this is shown very well in the ultimate walker thread. In the thread on Page 2 I believe they are explaining that the deck is very good because it does not use the two slot and thus makes Spellsnare dead and Counterbalance significantly worse. This argument is extremely applicable due to the existence of a large slew of two drop cards existing in our deck such as Goyf, Loam, and Confidant to name a few.

Second
From personal testing it has seemed evident to me that Counter-Top and Mono Blue while very solid actually have a very poor game against us when making sure to utilize a solid wish board and good disruption package. One example from testing tonight had me slow rolling the game by merely laying the occasional lands and drawing threats at which point I merely went for a very large collection of Ravens crimes and retrace and then passed the turn to ensure the ability to go next turn Threat into Wish into Revernt Silence to off his CBallance.

Third
While Chalice of the Void is a huge bomb against combo and good against control and aggro I have been seeing a large amount of evidence which suggests cutting Chalice for a more focused discard package. Testing has shown the Combo matchup to be 40-60 in their favor at best with Chalice as opposed to anywhere from 35-65 or 45-55 depending on the combo list. Also it has seemed very evident that Chalices biggest advantage has always been agaisnt Tempo Thresh and with Tempo Thresh on the decline while Nassif style CBalance and RG as well as RGW decks on an up swing Chalice has lost a large quantity of its use. Not to mention it is only good against the 'Folk turn one on the play otherwise discard is strictly better.
Also another piece of supporting evidence for the removal of Chalice and the inclusion of discard is the increased value of our game breakers such as DD. Discard makes this card playable and very volatile given a mere 2 turns to set up (this may be to long in some cases but in others the ability to out right win may well outweigh this).

Fourth
I believe the correct solution to combo is to merely concede this matchup. I have tried to locate a viable strategy but the problem is such that we take such a long time to win that any form of permanent disruption we include such as Chalice or 3Sphere will merely be bounced at the proper time allowing them to go off.

I look foreword to any comments, suggestions, or opinions regarding these topics.

Nelis

07-26-2009, 08:19 AM

I agree with your first 3 points

I'm actually glad you're addressing counterbalance. I don't understand why so many people make it seem it's the end of the world when someone is playing counterbalance.

About point 4. Why would you have to concede to combo except maybe Ichorid? You mentioned Raven's Crime and Thoughtseize, right? That should do the trick. It might not always be sufficient but you stand a proper chance.

It's all a matter of having a good sideboard which should imho consist out of at least 3 Raven's Crime and 4 Krosan Grip.

jazzykat

07-26-2009, 05:59 PM

Cb is not the end of the world for you. You need to play aggressively against a deck packing it and you should find an "answer" quick in either the form of remove the cb or a serious threat. I have not played for a while but the meta does not shift so quick. not Playing a card because it isn't good vs. Cb is a poor reason. I think that EE is the best card vs it and that you be playing 2+ md.

hyggli

07-28-2009, 06:02 AM

Hi all again.

I played on my country legacy @ nationals on sunday and I would like to post my report to see if it does help anyone.

my list is the following:
3 Wasteland
3 Windswepth heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Taiga
1 Stomping Ground (hate extirpate on taiga)
1 Scrubland
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Forest
4 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary

2 Seismic Assault
3 Life from the loam
4 Burning wish
2 Devastating Dreams
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond

Sb:
1 Worm Harvest
2 Devastating Dreams
1 Reverent Silence
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Seeds of Innocence
1 Shattering Spree (couldn't find a Hull breach b4 startin the tournament)
1 Crime/Punishment
1 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth
1 Duress
2 Krosan Grip
2 Jund Charm (no room for 4 leylines imho)

1st match: vs Rock BGw
on the first game, I keep a hand with crusher, kotr, chalice, lftl and 3 lands.
he starts with an early bop and I suddenly laugh, cause my turn 2 chalice seems to be too good in this matchup, in wich I find out lately his deck being composed by tops, stp, thoughtseizes, therapies. my huge crusher comes down and he vindicates him(why not on chalice? bah dunno, that was dumby), but unfortunately when I play my kotr he doesn't know the card and attacks with a goyf. I jedi-mind trick him and tap kotr to find wasteland and kill his treetop and goyf both. gg.
the second game he starts with an early thoughtseize wich finds a risky hand with 6 lands and a lftl. I'm slurpy sometimes.
I draw and I see seismic assault. well... he cannot see an answer to lftl+seismic till he drops a pernicious deed on the "last able to win" turn, wich I Grip on eot and he concedes.
1-0-0

2nd match: vs Landstill Uw
b4 the game, I hear him talkin about "that Humility" wich won him last game with a friend. I'm not that happy with that but I assume that if I take an early Confidant I can Overwhelm Him someway.
Unfortunately my list is not legal. I forgot that Worm harvest to be wrote. So I start with a game loss and I don't see how I can win this game without Krosans.
My hand is "keepy" but with no confidant nor turn 1 chalice. I win the roll and on my first turn I take "fetch, mox diamond discarding cycler, lftl" . well... that's card advantage folks :P . He takes some turns stping my crushers and goyfs till he drops an "infinite blocker" Elspeth with a Jace and I cannot do so much... I try to screw him recurring wasteland and trying a devastating for 2 (that was odd... I destroyed my own only green-source with crusher on board) but he drops a crucible and he starts to pwn my lands via wasteland instead. some attacks with elspeth take him the game.
1-1-0

3rd match: vs Imperial Painter Ru
on 1st game I try to trick him someway... fetching for stomping ground and trying a turn 2 goyf with forest, to let him think I'm playing some kind of extended zoo and I was lucky to win one game. He drops a turn 1 recruiter and I see myself going for second match if I don't see devastating or bwish. I go for a cycle land on last turn and draw my countryside crusher wich I don't wanna let him see.
He says he plays just t1 and my deck seems some kind of zoo but that cycle(damnit) land seems to recognize him something.
on 2nd game I go for a turn 1 goyf, he drops ancient tomb, removes simian spirit guide and drops a magus of the moon. I have seismic assault +wasteland on my hand and laugh quietly. I drop assault and he drops grindstone+painter. I get my devastating dreams and he concedes.
On third game, it is hard for me to set a chalice of the void @1 but I do on the last turns where he can try to combo off but I have a lot of disruption in my hand in form of double chalice+burning wish on seeds of innocence and it is a draw.
1-1-1

4th match: vs Threshold UGr canadian
He seems like he wants to concede when I go turn 1 chalice@1 turn 2Kotr 4/4.
And he does after 1st game saying he doesn't want to go again vs me without countertop and without stps.
2-1-1

5th match: vs W stax
On first game, everything goes ok, with him takin a Crucible+mox diamond+wasteland and me makin bwish+seeds.
On the second game, he goes nuts. Turn 1 Trinisphere, turn 2 smokestack, turn 3 Crucible. I can't do anything without a loam online
The third seems fair. He tries to disrupt me with crucible+waste but I went on an ok hand with assault+wish wich gets me loam.
On the last few turns he can try to disrupt me someway via armageddon+suppression field but as I said I have loam... with 2 mox diamond
and he dies with me paying 2 for the last 3 assault activations. It seems another stax is near in rating so I hope
to go vs him on the last match to come in the top8. This was easy
3-1-1

6th match: Ubw Faerie
Before this, I go eat something. The location is my country nats so there is a bar wich gives some kind of snacks. That was the error.
After, I become some kind of zombie and cannot link a pair of synapsis in the following match. I feel like I cannot win and he kills me
with an equipped scion+jitte ( O.o ) while every single menace by me is being countered or removed.
The second match is a little bit better but The only thing I do is a devastating dreams for 1 removing vendilion clique discarding devastating dreams
(lol) and a pair of big fatties blocked most of the time by bblossom tokens while he smashes me with another bunch of.
After this, I'm out for the subsequential third time from the top8.
3-1-2

After that, I take some kind of trades like "Mox diamond(i give) for Intuition+10€(i take)" and such :P

The only thing I don't know if I want to play any more is deva dreams. it is kind of completely unstable and too fragile in a lot of metagames(combo? balancetop? spellsnare? mirror?)

Redlotus27

07-28-2009, 01:34 PM

One Question I would like to throw out there is why doesn't any sideboards contain anti-control cards? Cards like City of Solitude or Choke or Shusher? We try so hard to get a good answer to CB, and that very answer gets countered by it. Maybe its better to try and make using top more difficult rather than try and destroy CB?

nodahero

07-28-2009, 04:40 PM

I believe a very easy response would be something along the lines of... what do we cut from the board?

We already have these (typically)...
Devastating Dreams
Life from the Loam
Raven's Crime
Reverent Silence
Shattering Spree
Chainer's Edict

Then we also run typically K-Grip/some utility removal and possibly some grave hate...

The only option for fitting in Shusher I see is by swapping out Grip for it and then we are left with a fragile creature to ensure our spells resolve... Example... I cast Burning Wish with Shusher in play... Opponent responds with StP on Shusher... unless I have 2 extra mana at this point my spell wont resolve... and If i have two extra mana I was prolly gonna cast the spell and now cant due to a lack of mana not to mention post StP that spell is counterable...

georgjorge

07-29-2009, 07:53 AM

I DO run four Shusher in the side as of now (used to be Choke)...

nodahero

07-29-2009, 01:26 PM

The question is George then... what does your list and more specificaly your side look like?

ho_master

07-29-2009, 02:19 PM

Wouldn't it be the case that if your Shusher is getting STP'd, that's one less removal card that your main beaters have to deal with? That seems like an advantage to me.

I'm curious about people sideboarding strategies too...here's what i do:

My board looks like the usual wish targets (6, -1 Raven's Crime for +1 Nostalgic Dreams) + 3 Krosan Grips + 4 Thorn of Amethysts + 2 Vexing Shushers.

Against blue-based control, I side out 2 Terravores, 2 Devastating Dreams, 1 Terminate/1 Countryside Crusher for 3 Krosan Grips, 2 Vexing Shushers. The Terravores come out obviously because Relic is probably coming in. The Devastating Dreams come out because a countered dreams sucks really bad, obviously. I have 2 Terminates in my main board, and it'd depend if the control deck has tombstalkers/Dreadnought on whether or not I'd cut terminate.

Against combo, I side out 2 Terravores, 2 Countryside Crushers/2 Engineered Explsoives for 4 Thorn of Amethyst. I don't think the Krosan Grips are needed here, and against Ad Nauseam, I'll keep in the explosives to deal with Empty the Warrens. Against Ichorid, I probably just roll to them, but Explosives also stops zombie tokens and Thorn messes up their Cabal Therapies/Dread Return.

Against Aggro, I side in Krosan Grips in case they're running Leyline of the Void or Relic of Progenitus, and again remove 2 Terravores, 1 Countryside Crusher. I guess I just trust the deck to win against aggro w/ Explosives, Devastating Dreams, and Terminates.

K1LO

07-30-2009, 08:33 AM

Hi to everyone. After some time of just reading, I finally registered for an account on the source. I´m 27 years old and a pedagogy student from Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart, Germany. Back on topic.

I´m playing Aggro-Loam for almost half a year now, mostly in smaller tournaments as can be seen here (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=23638), here (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=24771), here (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=25367), or here (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=28205). As you may have noticed, I´ve tried both versions with either Chalice of the Void or (targeted) discard and I´m not really decided yet, which one I like better. But, the one thing I liked the most, was the slight white splash for Solitary Confinement out of the sideboard.

My question: Did anyone of you ever test sideboarded Gaddock Teegs, against Ichorid/Landstill/Combo? I know that it struggles with our Chalice of the Void and our own Engineered Explosives, but besides that it seems quite good and promising to me.

Edit: This is my latest decklist.

Maindeck:

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

4 Mox Diamond
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
2 Seismic Assault
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Krosan Grip
2 Devastating Dreams
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Burning Wish
3 Life from the Loam

Sideboard:

1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
3 Solitary Confinement
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Krosan Grip
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Chainer´s Edict
2 Terminate
2 Gaddock Teeg

Greetz, K1LO

mercc

07-30-2009, 04:21 PM

K1LO

07-30-2009, 04:57 PM

I am also trying aggro loam and maybe my comment now may just come out of the blue.

But when I think discard I'm thinking raven's crime.

Duress and thoughtseize is just targetet 1 for 1 which are horrible topdecks.

In a land-loam deck the discard you want to see is raven's crime and abuse it and rape hands.

4 maindeck is kinda heavy.
3 + 1 sideboard in a list with wish maybe?
In my playtestings I just found the Raven´s Crime-engine not to be effective enough. My main aim with the discard-version has been to grab counters, resolve a Dark Confidant and/or a Devastating Dreams with a big dude on my "battlefield". After sideboarding it becomes strictly worse, facing all the graveyard-hate and Raven´s Crime´s drawback of letting your opponent choose what to discard, doesn´t give you any information about his/her hand and does hardly affect their quality. The rolling Life from the Loam/Raven´s Crime-engine mostly seemed to be like a win-more (especially against Landstill in the 1st game) to me and doesn´t even protect your threats like Chalice of the Void can do. Decks with Sensei´s Divining Top can sometimes negate this form of discard, just playing from the "top" until they e.g. find a Counterbalance. But my main issue against the discard-version is, that it takes up too many slots which should be filled with more threads instead. Nevertheless, when playing with discard I was pretty satisfied with 4x Thoughtseize and 3x Duress (+1x Duress in the Sideboard), but had to switch my playstyle from control-aggro to more aggro-control, which I also should have considered more in terms of deckbuilding. And, Raven´s Crime as a topdeck is at least as worse as Thoughtseize/Duress.

Greetz, K1LO

Shanghi Knights

07-31-2009, 11:08 PM

Aggro_zombies

07-31-2009, 11:14 PM

i run a black discard version of this deck but am running into the problem of people getting a swords through when its most inconvienent. however i don't have access to chalices, i was considering splashing in a red or black creature with protection from white for such match ups but this seems like a narrow solution.

i guess what i'm asking is if you don't have chalices and the control decks are giving you a headache due to swords whats a good alternative?
- Cutting down on the number of Crushers and increasing the number of Terravores
- Having more than one big creature in play at a time
- Manlands

If you're really desperate, here's a list of creatures with some sort of shroud: hxxp://beta.gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[%22can%27t%20be%20the%20target%22]&color=+@%28[B]|[R]|[G]%29&output=spoiler&method=visual&type=+[Creature]&sort=color+

EDIT: Replace the hxxp with http. The link wouldn't show up properly otherwise.

georgjorge

08-01-2009, 09:23 AM

i guess what i'm asking is if you don't have chalices and the control decks are giving you a headache due to swords whats a good alternative?

It depends on the kind of control deck, but in general the answer isn't to run specific hard-to-deal-with threats, but more threats than they can handle...which isn't that hard, seeing as we already 14-15 threats in creature form, 4-7 disruption spells (discard or Chalice), maybe some Assaults, and then Loam to draw us into even more of those cards (and against decks like Landstill, Loam-Wasteland acts as a threat on its own).

The question is George then... what does your list and more specificaly your side look like?

Easy, no Wishes :wink: (just when I was starting to test them, Maelstrom Pulse came along, and I've stuck with those instead ever since), so no Wishboard:

4 Vexing Shusher
3 Firespout or Jund Charm
3 Duress
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Maelstrom Pulse (with 3 in the main)
1 Chalice of the Void (with 3 in the main)
1 Terminate

I'm not sure yet if the Pulses can be full substitutes for Grips - I'm not overly worried about Counterbalance, but Gripping Relics is important, though I'm not sure whether good players won't expect the Grip and activate Relic as soon as they play it anyway.

@K1LO: What matchups did you bring in the Confinement for ? I can see their potential, but I'm worried about going more into a defensive role, in turn giving your opponent more turns to draw into either their enchantment or graveyard removal...there are enough matchups where they won't bring in Grips and that stuff g2 because they aren't worried about Chalices, but do you side the Confinements out for g3 then ?

chokin

08-01-2009, 02:02 PM

Does Shusher ever suck against MUC when they have Shackles? Or is Devastating Dreams enough to keep that under control?

Also, I've been a big fan of siding Solitary Confinement in Game 2 and occasionally taking it out game 3 (leave it in vs Burn and Mono Black or decks with no real answer to it). It's a solid shield in my opinion. Playing defensively in an aggressive deck does suck though. But in some cases, it is better than just rolling over and dying to some decks.

Also, Relic is becoming increasingly popular...is Terravore really better than Crusher?

Shanghi Knights

08-01-2009, 03:24 PM

i was browsing 'shroud" creatures for a anti swords threat to go in my deck and i came across sylvan safekeeper.

hes a one green 1/1 with ability "sacrifice a land: target creature gain shroud until end of turn"

to me he looks like a possible alternative to chalice i've been looking for.

the sacrifice a land cost seems like a small price to pay to protect crusher, goyf and terravor. second its a +1/+1 pump in addition to that shroud its giving them. if need be a 1/1 chump blocker.

not seeing much down side to him other than i'm losing a land.
any thoughts on anything i'm over looking?

K1LO

08-02-2009, 08:17 AM

@K1LO: What matchups did you bring in the Confinement for ? I can see their potential, but I'm worried about going more into a defensive role, in turn giving your opponent more turns to draw into either their enchantment or graveyard removal...there are enough matchups where they won't bring in Grips and that stuff g2 because they aren't worried about Chalices, but do you side the Confinements out for g3 then ?

Like chokin already said, especially against decks with a lot of burn (Stupid Burn, Tarmosligh, ...), decks that have no real answer to it (Affinity, Canadian Threshold, ...) and combo-decks (Fetchland Tendrils, Solidarity, ...). Against most of these kind of decks, Solitary Confinement complements or just replaces Chalice of the Void quiet well and can buy you enough time to win. Graveyard removal isn´t really a problem, because most of it is targeted or can be played around. Loosing it´s surprise effect for game 3 doesn´t really weaken Solitary Confinements impact on the game, so I don´t side it out that often.

Greetz, K1LO

Shanghi Knights

08-03-2009, 12:34 AM

i mentioned a few posts back about a blue version of this that i ran with lorescale coalt 2 as back up for graveyard hate. i started thinking what if i upped it to 4 coatl and 4 crushers but bridged there abilities with trade routes. it can be mana intensive growing them but it does turn a lot of non cycle land cards into, well cycle cards.

does this seem like a feasible idea or just a good but impractical synergy?

Proper capitalization is required on this site. Please use it. Thanks.

- Zilla

ho_master

08-03-2009, 05:42 PM

I just wanted to say that I took Aggro Loam to a recent event held in Waco, TX and was able to place 2nd out of 11 (not a very big showing), but with a varied meta. On the way to 2nd, I faced ANT (2-1), Angel Stax(2-0), Ur Dreadstill/Fling (2-0), Pro-Red White Weenie (2-1), and Angel Stax again (1-2). There was one Ichorid player there that I had no sideboard for, but I gambled on the chance that I wouldn't end up playing him (he's one of my friends that drove to Waco from Houston), but I was lucky that it didn't happen I must say. I ran the old school decklist without discard, and the Chalices had relevance against ANT and Dreadstill, but the Chalices were definitely dead against Angel Stax, which was pretty frustrating. He was able to get out Chalice @ 2, 0, and 3 at some point to completely lock me out for about 15 turns, until I made a play mistake that cost me the match. I know Angel Stax isn't exactly a monster matchup, but perhaps this is where Vexing Shusher might be a good sideboard option, preventing you from your deck being completely screwed by Chalice @ 2.

DrewliusMaximus

08-03-2009, 07:38 PM

Shanghi Knights

08-03-2009, 08:04 PM

haunting echoes could be fun useful but just the size of 5 mana+ wishing for it makes it a little impractical. but whos to say it wouldn't be a mortal wound when you play it.

with 7 mana i would rather drop another creature or wish for vindicate and knock something out.

Proper capitalization is required on this site. Please use it. Thanks.

- Zilla

Blitzbold

08-04-2009, 12:39 AM

I tried Haunting Echoes quite some time ago. The only cases it was good was in the mirror.

jazzykat

08-04-2009, 05:06 AM

I used to have haunting echoes as a wishable item in the flex slot. Some recursive opponents decks or otherwise long matches were flat out ended with this card.

If you realize analyze the your metagame and see that you have a large percentage of time going against heavy control or loam engines then I think it is worth it.

K1LO

08-04-2009, 07:10 AM

kkoie

08-04-2009, 11:21 AM

I personally like Teeg. I don't run him because I balk at going to a 4 color mana-base. I currently run 5 basics in my list to combat all of the non-basic hate that tends to float around. I hesitate to cut back on that to support a 4th color. I certainly wouldn't want to reduce any of the other #'s of lands.

Currently my manabase is as such:
1 Badland
1 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills

Koby

08-04-2009, 11:24 AM

On the contrary, Worm Harvest has been nothing but bombs in my wishboard. It can singlehandedly beat C'Top decks and acts as a huge buffer against Merfolk, both of which are unfavorable matchups.

Haunting Echoes does strike me as win-more, for if you can wish for a 3BB sorcery to exile your opponent's deck, you can also just get something to win, like Devastating Dreams or Nostalgic Dreams/Regrowth to get back that Seismic Assault you dredged away.

ho_master

08-04-2009, 06:18 PM

Congrats on that finish David. I wouldn't overreact to that last match with Stax. Remember that you could have won even with that crazy Chalice party he was having.

Also, I wanted to ask (as someone with absolutely no familiarity with Aggro Loam), could a Haunting Echoes in the SB work as a Wish target? Or is double black out of the question?

Thanks, Drew, next time this needs to be you posting a crazy awesome tournament report in your deck's thread :)

I'd argue that Vexing Shusher has more relevance against matchups than Gaddock Teeg can, and the easier to cast is a huge thing. If you're not running the white version of Aggro Loam, I'd hope to not have to rely on Mox diamond to get the mana to cast him. Not only that, but going back to the Stax matchup, if your opponent gets out Chalice @ 2 (which he will go for viciously because of LftL, Burning Wish to get Shattering Spree, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, etc), you are not casting Teeg to stop him ever again. Shusher, on the other hand, gets your spells around the Chalice party. Also, against Merfolk/Counterbalance decks (matchups that are bad as rukcus says), you'd profit greatly from having Shusher being able to still allow your Devastating Dreams to get through, if you felt like being sneaky with leaving those in post-board. DD is the card of choice against tribal anyway, so you want the Shusher's to aid in stopping Merfolk. Anyways, obviously if you have heavy blue-based meta/stax meta (and I really hope no one runs into the latter), I recommend you have 2-3 Shusher's in your sideboard for certain.

Worm Harvest seems too prohibitive for me. If you're casting your threats properly against Counterbalance decks, you wont need the safety net that is Worm Harvest not being CB'able. Just bait until you can sneak out that Tarmogoyf or that Terravore and go for it. Against merfolk, they get some pretty fast starts when I've played it, so I don't see how you can ramp up to 7 mana fast enough to cast it without 1. having it countered or 2. getting hit for lethal damage. And yeah, Haunting Echoes has the same cost problem.

Koby

08-04-2009, 07:13 PM

Granted, having Wish resolve against either blue deck is tricky. And there is no absolute "cookie cut" play in these matchups. It has, and always will, be based on board position and what you have in your hand. Sometimes you don't have the luxury of baiting to get 'Goyf out. Sometimes they just get Balance+Top and you're in trouble. Sometimes you're facing down an angry 'Goyf you need to make a play no matter what.

The only real way to resolve these board positions is familiarity with the matchup and playtesting. I've playtested this deck for weeks and I'm pretty familiar with what draws to expect out of Merfolk. BTW - you cannot just wait out a Standstill vs Merfolk w/ Vial out. You need to make plays ASAP even if they get to draw three cards. Most likely, those three cards will only net them an extra Daze. In this matchup you have to be the reckless combo player and just go for it. You're unlikely to win if they have counters either way, so just go for the best play.

ho_master

08-04-2009, 07:43 PM

Yeah, I agree rukcus, I almost never wait out Standstill against Merfolk/any blue deck. With no instants in the deck to cause the player to discard down to 7 EOT, might as well go for it right?

I understand your points about each situation being different, but the point I wanted to bring up was just that Worm Harvest is so expensive that it might take too long to get online and ready to go against Merfolk for example (against slow CB decks, I agree it's a huge bomb though). But hey, I just am bringing up the opposite point because I don't have room in my board for it, but if you do that's awesome. How often have you had it be successful/how many times has it been too slow against Merfolk?

Also, what are people's responses to Natural Order->Progenitus? So far for me, it's pretty much been fall over and die. Chainer's Edict doesn't work when Elves has Priest of Titania to offer as a sacrifice.

Shanghi Knights

08-04-2009, 09:05 PM

I just race out a cranial extraction on decks like progenitus, not the most effective but gets the job done. in addition wish for damnation.

Lately i've just been wanting to run extract for 1 blue but theres no guarentee the opponent is only playing 1 progenitus

if you got knight just let them attack and sneak in glacial chasm and try to swing for game while the progenitus is tapped.

Koby

08-05-2009, 12:12 AM

Perish wouldn't be half bad in a meta that Elves frequent. This also nails Progenitus, so that's a solution for you. Edict usually works for me, as I pre-empt it with a DD.

K1LO

08-05-2009, 07:01 PM

On the contrary, Worm Harvest has been nothing but bombs in my wishboard. It can singlehandedly beat C'Top decks and acts as a huge buffer against Merfolk, both of which are unfavorable matchups.

[...]
@ rukcus: Worm Harvest doesn´t beat decks with Counterbalance on its own, never did and never will. If that would be the case, I´d play one in my SB for guarantee. In the 1st game, if you ever managed to wish into it, they have at least one turn to get Force of Will on top of their Library and in the 2nd and 3rd game it becomes even worse and next to useless. For me, Worm Harvest is just wasted SB-space beeing simply to slow in most situations.

I personally like Teeg. I don't run him because I balk at going to a 4 color mana-base. I currently run 5 basics in my list to combat all of the non-basic hate that tends to float around. I hesitate to cut back on that to support a 4th color. I certainly wouldn't want to reduce any of the other #'s of lands.

Currently my manabase is as such:
1 Badland
1 Bayou
2 Forest
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Taiga
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
@ kkoie: Playing a deck with 25 to 26 lands plus four Mox Diamonds never brought me into trouble with nonbasic-hate, exept Price of Progress and that is what I´m playing Solitary Confinement in the SB for (see #1286, page 65). Even Back to Basics wasn´t ever a problem, because two basics and the Moxen were more than enough to play around it. From my experience, decks like Eva Green, Canadian Threshold, Team America, Deadguy Ale, ... really have a hard time to screw you on mana and not playing four Wastelands by yourself is kind of a crime. Not to forget, that we´re playing Life from the Loam and therefore one Forest should be enough, unless you are maybe playing Terravore or Eternal Witness. But then I ask me, how you reliably manage to get Seismic Assault onto the "battlefield"? I´m a huge fan of fetchlands also, stabilizing my manabase, pumping my Countryside Crusher or shuffling unloved cards he revealed away, ... . Beeing more vulnerable to Stifle is definately outclassed by their benefits. And btw that lonely Swamp, without or even with Bloodstained Mire, absolutely makes no sense to me.

[...]

I'd argue that Vexing Shusher has more relevance against matchups than Gaddock Teeg can, and the easier to cast is a huge thing. If you're not running the white version of Aggro Loam, I'd hope to not have to rely on Mox diamond to get the mana to cast him. Not only that, but going back to the Stax matchup, if your opponent gets out Chalice @ 2 (which he will go for viciously because of LftL, Burning Wish to get Shattering Spree, Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, etc), you are not casting Teeg to stop him ever again. Shusher, on the other hand, gets your spells around the Chalice party. Also, against Merfolk/Counterbalance decks (matchups that are bad as rukcus says), you'd profit greatly from having Shusher being able to still allow your Devastating Dreams to get through, if you felt like being sneaky with leaving those in post-board. DD is the card of choice against tribal anyway, so you want the Shusher's to aid in stopping Merfolk. Anyways, obviously if you have heavy blue-based meta/stax meta (and I really hope no one runs into the latter), I recommend you have 2-3 Shusher's in your sideboard for certain.

[...]
@ ho_master: I´d really like to know your SB-strategies against Threshold-decks with Counterbalance and Merfolk, especially what you´re taking out for the two to three Vexing Shushers? Maybe this is going to convince me testing them again ;).

Greetz, K1LO

Shanghi Knights

08-06-2009, 01:37 AM

personally i've been running a lot of situations where eternal witness in the MD just doesn't come up at any time when it would be helpful. That being said i've started contemplating putting something better in it place all together.

something that did catch my attention was Hollistic wisdom. Has anyone had any experience with it in the loam deck?

Aggro_zombies

08-06-2009, 05:08 AM

Personally I've been running a lot of situations where Eternal Witness in the MD just doesn't come up at any time when it would be helpful. That being said I've started contemplating putting something better in it place all together.

Something that did catch my attention was Holistic Wisdom. Has anyone had any experience with it in the Loam deck?
Fix'd for capitalization.

Holistic Wisdom is shitty. I run it in EDH sometimes if I'm desperate for recursion elements and not in black, but in any serious game of Magic you should be ashamed of yourself for running it.

Just run more Witness if it's that much of an issue.

lolosoon

08-06-2009, 05:31 AM

Sooooo....

I'm planning going on an 40ppl Legacy Event this Week-End. No absolute need to win the tournament, but Top8/Top4 would help a lot (ie: i can afford a loss in the swiss and in the Tops).

The predicted meta would be like :
TempoThresh//Ugr DreadStill
Goblin
Merfolk
A bunch of burn and Zoo//Sligh players
A li'l bit of CBTop (NLU or Bant)
1-2 Ichorids
A very few Combo then the usual random Tier1-1.5 decks including Ravager

I first though to pack in TempoThresh, but the Merfolk Matchup is frightening with their 11 lords. So a non island deck seemed a good thing.

My current build has the classic RGb backbone, with those particularities :
25 lands (6 fetches, 6 duals, 4 wastes, 5 Cycling, 1 Stronghold, 1 Mountain, 1 Forest, 1 B.Ring)
3 Crushers//2 Vores, No Witness(es)
2 MD Assaults
2 MD DD
2 MD EE
2 MD Terminate

SB :
3x Grips
3x Jund Charms
1x Loam//DD//R.Silence//R.Crime//SSpree//Pulse//C.Edict
1x FireSpout//Pulverize

I'm fairly accustomed to goldfishing AggroLoam, but I have some build questions regarding of the metagame forementionned :

- Doubtful Deck and Build choices ?!
I know, we're in the Loam thread, but would TThresh be a better choice ?!
Would recurring B.Ring really helps vs aggro//tribal decks ?!
MD Pulse instead of Terminate ?!

- Chalice or Discard Package ?!
With close to no combo presence, I wonder if those "packages" are needed.
For now, I'd stick with CotV 'cause it wrecks TempoThresh and is good G1 vs those MD Relics the Tribal deck runs nowadays.
Chalice also protects your dudes froms nasty stuff like Path, StP, Mind Harness and so on...
And to be honest, I don't see what to put into the deck in these slots (beside obv. additionnal beaters ). And the Chalice package takes 1-2 less slot than the discard one, making rooms for MD Assaults.

- Jund Charm//Leyline//Crypts ?!
Or could I totally dismiss the Mirror and Ichorid matchups to reinforce another matchup (Shushers, Chokes, etc..)
I like the Charms 'cause they are polyvalent, but not as good as other cards (Crypts and Pyroclasm//Firespout).
I wonder if the Pyroclasm effect is needed (Zoo will laugh at it, so will Merfolks with their lords, BEB, ans other countermeasures). If not, Leyline//Crypts ar the other logical choices for GY hate.
And with Chalice@1, they could be protected enough to race Ichorid, huh ?

Sourcers : Your wise advices will be appreciated !!

Aggro_zombies

08-06-2009, 06:22 AM

My current build has the classic RGb backbone, with those particularities :
25 lands (6 fetches, 6 duals, 4 wastes, 5 Cycling, 1 Stronghold, 1 Mountain, 1 Forest, 1 B.Ring)
3 Crushers//2 Vores, No Witness(es)
2 MD Assaults
2 MD DD
2 MD EE
2 MD Terminate
Seems reasonable, but four Crusher is probably better than three.

SB :
3x Grips
3x Jund Charms
1x Loam//DD//R.Silence//R.Crime//SSpree//Pulse//C.Edict
1x FireSpout//Pulverize
I'm assuming that Crime in your sideboard means you don't run Chalice? If you do, you may wish (heh) to change Crime to something else. The two of them don't play well together, and Raven's Crime is generally weak even against control decks.

- Doubtful Deck and Build choices ?!
I know, we're in the Loam thread, but would TThresh be a better choice ?!
Would recurring B.Ring really helps vs aggro//tribal decks ?!
MD Pulse instead of Terminate ?!
Pulse has more utility and is probably better overall, but Terminate doesn't fuck up your curve. It doesn't seem like you're expecting much Counterbalance, so the two mana cost on Terminate is not such an issue, and costing less against aggro is relevant. That said, many Merfolk decks will probably have access to Spell Snare, so Pulse is probably a better bet if you don't have too many 3cc cards.

Recurring Barbarian Ring is worse than an active Seismic Assault. Tabernacle or Glacial Chasm would help against aggro decks, but Chasm is sucky without Exploration.

Counterbalance Threshold, white splash, would probably be better given what you're expecting. You could even lightly splash red for Firespout (by running a single Plateau in the SB - remember that all your fetches will find white).

- Chalice or Discard Package ?!
With close to no combo presence, I wonder if those "packages" are needed.
For now, I'd stick with CotV 'cause it wrecks TempoThresh and is good G1 vs those MD Relics the Tribal deck runs nowadays.
Chalice also protects your dudes froms nasty stuff like Path, StP, Mind Harness and so on...
And to be honest, I don't see what to put into the deck in these slots (beside obv. additionnal beaters ). And the Chalice package takes 1-2 less slot than the discard one, making rooms for MD Assaults.
Pretty much. Discard is only really an option if you expect lots of Counterbalance Threshold with Grips.

- Jund Charm//Leyline//Crypts ?!
Or could I totally dismiss the Mirror and Ichorid matchups to reinforce another matchup (Shushers, Chokes, etc..)
I like the Charms 'cause they are polyvalent, but not as good as other cards (Crypts and Pyroclasm//Firespout).
I wonder if the Pyroclasm effect is needed (Zoo will laugh at it, so will Merfolks with their lords, BEB, ans other countermeasures). If not, Leyline//Crypts ar the other logical choices for GY hate.
And with Chalice@1, they could be protected enough to race Ichorid, huh ?
Jund Charm is generally weak because it's too expensive for any of its effects. For the same total amount of mana, you get Firespout as a sweeper, which is so much better against tribal and Zoo it hurts. Crypt can actually be played and activate in a relevant time frame against Ichorid, but most competent Ichorid players will see it coming and play around it. Needle there is not an issue and might not even come in if the Ichorid player thinks he can go off before you can realistically Crypt him. On the other hand, fewer people are prepared to face Leyline, but the caveat to that is that Leyline sucks if you draw more than one or don't open it; it's certainly not worth it to mulligan into one.

You should have some form of graveyard hate simply because so many decks use the graveyard in some way, and Crypt is probably the best card in this deck to accomplish that.

Zoo is largely dependent on how many sweepers you run. Firespout and Dreams go a long way towards making that matchup winnable for you. It's also probably the one matchup where I'd rather see Terravore than Crusher, but that's another issue altogether.

lolosoon

08-06-2009, 07:55 AM

Thanks for you answers A_Z !

four Crusher is probably better than three.
(...)Pulse has more utility and is probably better overall, but Terminate doesn't fuck up your curve. It doesn't seem like you're expecting much Counterbalance, so the two mana cost on Terminate is not such an issue, and costing less against aggro is relevant. That said, many Merfolk decks will probably have access to Spell Snare, so Pulse is probably a better bet if you don't have too many 3cc cards.
Well, CB.dec could always have a better showing than expected, and I feel the aggro matchup is already in the AggroLoam favor, 2cc removal or not, due to DDreams (or am i wrong ?). Thus, I could go for -2 Terminate +1 Crusher +1 Pulse.

Therefore, the curve would be :
"0"cc : 10 (Mox, EE, Chalices)
2cc : 17
3cc : 9
(yeah I know, 61 cards deck. Guess what ?! I'm European !! XD )

Seems fair with 25 lands + accel...

Well, I'd be faster to put the previous decklist here :

Artifacts : 10
4x Mox Diamond
4x CotV
2x EE

Critters : 13
4x Goyfs
4x Bob
3x Crushers
2x Vores

Spells : 11
3x LftL
4x B.Wish
2x DDreams
2x Assault
2x Terminate

Lands : 25
3x Taiga
2x Badlands
1x Bayou
3x Mires
3x Foothills
3x Caves
2x Thicket
4x Wasteland
1x Stronghold
1x Forest
1x Mountain
1x B.Ring

I'm assuming that Crime in your sideboard means you don't run Chalice? If you do, you may wish (heh) to change Crime to something else. The two of them don't play well together
(...)
Jund Charm is generally weak because it's too expensive for any of its effects.
Good catch 'bout Crime, the slot is suboptimal. And if I put the Pulse MD, I could always make rooms for additionnal FireSpouts and Crypts.

-1 Crime -1 Pulse -3 Charms +2 Firespout +3 Crypts (3 Leylines = more mulls = teh suck) looks fair

Recurring Barbarian Ring is worse than an active Seismic Assault. Tabernacle or Glacial Chasm would help against aggro decks, but Chasm is sucky without Exploration.
The thing is B.Ring is a worse/better Mountain, but still provide the Red Mana for your Assaults, Crushers and/or Dreams. Tabernacle or Chasm can't be counted as lands themselves, and 24lands is a bit *cough* shy in AggroLoam.
Still, B.Ring is a Wastable Mountain, so adding a 4th taiga (3 Taiga, 2 Badlands, 1 Bayou for now) might provide more benefits...

Zoo is largely dependent on how many sweepers you run. Firespout and Dreams go a long way towards making that matchup winnable for you.
Zoo, made only winnable due to high numbers of Firespout ?! Damn, wasn't this matchup supposed to be a walk in the park with Chalice and DD+Wishes ?!
I really thought so =/

It's also probably the one matchup where I'd rather see Terravore than Crusher, but that's another issue altogether.
I also thought that vs their Crypts and/or Relics they'd bring in G2, the play was to side out the 'vores and bring in the Grips.
I understand that big body+trample is stellar vs their critters, but their hate >> our Terravores. Or I'm mislead again ?

hyggli

08-06-2009, 12:11 PM

i'm recently testing jund charm. that's imho one of the most versatile cards in my side.

I think more than two times "if I don't want to make that chalice@0"(without mox diamond ofc) vs dredge on first turn, sincerely, and playing jund charm as a graveyard sweeper is better than tormod in this kind of decisions, also cause on turn 3 it can sweep the board too(with confidant on our side of the field to remove those bridges?). Charm is also spected as a bomb in your pants to be.

To stop led starts is usually imbalanced cause many ppl mulligan to it.

Leyline can make the cut too, but 4 is the number, and playing 3 is some waste of space imho. There is no reason.
Tormod can also be decent but sometimes it is thrown away by needle or some grudge.

No way to play relic or yixlid for obvious reasons.

Also, I would like to have that Hull breach in my side instead of shattering spree. vs stax it is just the nuts and is not under chalice.

i never liked those terminates, and I think it is better to run additionals ee or maelstrom pulse cause they are much more versatile although being slower. we have a nice matchup vs aggro usually and that removal on turn 2 seems unnecessary with mox diamonds and chalices in the deck.

That b.ring is not good. we take already a lot of damage with fetches and confidant both and it seems like a win more that doesn't help vs zoo (x/3) and doesn't help vs threshold for the same reason. the only thing I can think about is that it can be some kind of useful vs goblin but it is not that easy to take it online on turn 2/3 and make a removal per turn. Throw it away, pls ;)

3 crushers can be enough. but ofc the creature slots must be tested imho

Koby

08-06-2009, 01:13 PM

Against Dredge I'd prefer to play Chalice@1. This stops Careful Study, Cabal Therapy, Pithing Needle, Chain of Vapor, Breakthrough@0. EE is really good in this matchup unless they Dread Return a shrouded fattie. I guess Tormod's Crypt is probably the best card here, but very likely it will be Needle'd/Ancient Grudge'd/Chain of Vapor'd. It's a tough matchup if they have a semi decent hand.

Zoo is largely dependent on how many sweepers you run. Firespout and Dreams go a long way towards making that matchup winnable for you. It's also probably the one matchup where I'd rather see Terravore than Crusher, but that's another issue altogether.

Zoo shouldn't really be much of a problem. The key should be to cut them off mana and casting burn whenever possible. This includes Wasteland, DD, & Chalice. I bring in EE to sweep the 1-drops which frees up Terminate and Maelstrom Pulse to take care of Goyfs. Zuran Orb is really useful in this matchup as well as in the Burn matchup (which is tougher IMO since their mana base isn't as vulnerable).

My tourney record againsst Zoo is close to 15-4 in games. DD usually is sufficient to completely neuter them. PS: board out Dark Confidant. He's a liability that you can't risk.

lavafrogg

08-06-2009, 01:31 PM

Real men never take out dark confidant, and it is also never right to take it out. Unless of course you are heavily boarded against zoo. He will draw you onto your hate cards/huge dudes much faster. He cam also chump block, and if they don't attack into him then horray for everyone!

Koby

08-06-2009, 02:07 PM

And they can just wait it out while you reveal 3cc threats, and sit on their burn until they can burn you out.

No, it's never a good idea to keep him in because he is the weakest card games 2 & 3 and liable to do you more harm than good. If you want to take risks and play russian roullette with Dark Confidant, play a deck like Ad Nauseum. I'd rather be safe and win vs Zoo than be "Cool" and lose to Fireblast from being greedy.

lavafrogg

08-06-2009, 03:06 PM

So can I ask what your boarding plan is against zoo? Honestly I see loam and burning wish as far weaker cards in the matchup in that they are so slow. No deck wants to see an early confidant and if you drop him early they will kill it, leaving you more time to stabilize(and less removal/burn in their hand). Unless your board consists of 4x grips and 4x other relevant spells I don't see how the confidant comes out.

Koby

08-06-2009, 03:14 PM

I board into:

+2 EE
+2 Zuran Orb
-4 Dark Confidant

Clearly ZOrb is very useful, and EE is just gravy against their fast start. However, the game plan vs Zoo is to find DD and cast it early (even for 1). All of Zoo's 1-drops don't grow big without lands in play, so this will often be the correct play. With that in mind, you will most likely BWish for DD as soon as you have 2 mana. You will need lots of mana to recover, so Loaming early isn't bad either (esp if you get Mox). A Wasteland soft-lock is good enough too, as you can just cycle into removal while you attrition their lands.

You also want to make every single land drop to make ZOrb effective. Loam helps that.

lavafrogg

08-06-2009, 04:30 PM

And there is where our views differ, I play ee main and dint think zuran orb is worth a slot in my sideboard. As long as they don't overextend into a dreams they should be just fine in playing 2-3 power guys and attacking your lifetital down to the negatives.

Their whole deck costs 1-2 so they can also play around the geddon effect. Another view of mine is thar casting lftl early is always a bad play on that it dies not effect the board. In my opinion the way to beat zoo is to establish board control with a fattie early and then overrun them/race the burn. Zuran orb is very win more in these situations in that you have to sacrifice landdrops which set you back in a mana hungry deck like this. If they are attacking you to force the orb then you are basically sacrificing the only advantage you have over them, the late game.

hyggli

08-06-2009, 04:47 PM

my board is the following
-1 dark confidant (as i said I play 3, so now they're 2)
+1 Devastating Dreams(I have 2 in sb, and 1 is often fair enough with a moo on board and a life in hand to win)

Koby

08-06-2009, 04:50 PM

ZOrb is probably win more, I agree. However, with the amount of RDW and Zoo in my meta, it helps to alleviate those matchups. It's in there moreso for the RDW decks, but it's useful against Zoo.

I also differ on the fattie aspect. Goyf almost always just sit around as a wall until DD resolves. Terravore/Crusher on the otherhand, starts attacking as soon as it can for pressure and really benefits from aggresive DD (for 1 or 2).

The crux of the matchup still comes down to DD however, so just go for that and you should be fine.

Manhattan

08-08-2009, 09:36 PM

I just went 4:1 with Aggro-Loam in a minor tournament (15 people or so). The loss was against Belcher though, overall not such a big disappointment. The reason I adress this event is because I was conducting a little experiment for this event: No Burning Wishes. Now before giving any reasons first the list:

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

4x Mox Diamond
4x Chalice of the Void
3x Engineered Explosives
4x Sensei's Divining Top

3x Countryside Crusher
4x Tarmogoyf

2x Raven's Crime
4x Life from the Loam
1x Worm Harvest

4x Seismic Assault
1x Solitary Confinement
--
4x Leyline of the Void
4x Krosan Grip
3x Thorn of Amethyst
3x Jund Charm
1x Boil

The replacement for Wish was obviously Sensei's Divining Top. The reasoning behind this decision was that Wish always appeared to be a little slow to me (turn 2 Wish for LftL, turn 3 Lftl, turn 4 threat maybe?) and often blank when I was looking for threats. Top on the other hand diggs up everything you want from your deck (upkeep top, found threat? no: dredge, top, found threat? no: fetch/cycle, dredge etc). Now looking at this list one might find a slight countersynergy between Chalice, Top and Raven's Crime. Well the reason I kept those Chalices was I knew Combo had won at this tournament before and I didn't want to completely dropp this matchup. Since it didn't work anyway maybe they can be replaced by Confidants or the like in the future. Now let me summarize in short words how this tournament played out for me.

Match 1, Game 1:
On the play I mull to five and dropp a Top, not sure what he's playing I keep a Chalice in my hand. He builds 14 token. I spend two turns digging for EE but futile.

Game 2: I don't have a turn 1 play. He casts belcher on his turn and hits me but fizzles. I try to keep him from activating it a second time by EE'ing his Mox and casting a Thorn but to no avail. He finds a Land grant and a spirit guide.

Match 2, Game 1:
He appears to be playing a blue aggro control rogue deck. Game 1 he builds Cloud of Faeries into Ninja of the Deep Hours and a blind Counterbalance. I build Goyf/Crusher (not sure in what combination) and bash face.

Game 2:
Almost identical just including Crypts on his side and Grips on mine. (and I think an Assault).

Match 3, Game 1:
He plays two Islands, I start hitting him with a little Tarmogoyf. He concedes on more than 10 life when he doesn't find into the game. I know from before that he is playing something including Back to Basics, Venser, Vendillion Clique, Spellstuter Sprite and Riptide Laboratory.

Game 2: I rape him hard with Raven's Crime. For the most part he just has a laboratory and 4 Islands in play. I have Loam and Seismic online but rather than just ending it mercyful I spend multiple turns digging for my singleton Boil. Somewhere along the line he casts a Clique and attacks, I discard a land, he bounces, I discard another land. He doesn't understand what's going on and we need confirmation from others to continue...rather telling. Eventually I find my boil but he counters it with a topdeck, I then proceed to assemble 10 lands :(

Match 4, Game 1:
He is playing a weird Rg-Fatty build with Albino Troll, Pillage and Karpulsan Forest. In the first game he pillages a Mox and builds a Spellbreaker Behemoth big enough to dwarf my 3/4 Goyf. I build another Goyf, things are looking ok...he builds another Behemoth...I build a Countryside Crusher. He goes on offense, fetch, cylce, dredge: Crusher is now 8/8 (hit 3 lands). Double block with Goyfs, single block with Crusher: loose 1 Goyf. Next turn a Countryside Godzilla pays him a visit.

Game 2: He casts an Albino Troll and attacks three times before I can put a 4/5 Goyf infront of him. In his shadow I have already began meddling with Loam. He uses a first crypt to get rid of my Loam and a second Crypt to remove his own graveyard in order to shrink my Goyf after block. I have a Seismic online by now and find another Loam, however I am still looking for lands and his troll just won't die to Assault. He then casts a Hunted Troll and now I am under serious pressure. After two turns of chumping with the tokens from the troll I manage to find my confinement. He is at 16 life, I at 3. I proceed to put a few lands into play and build Assault up for lethal. He on the other hand comes up with a Nevinyrral's Disk of his own. I spend my next turn pondering my situation but ultimately conclude that I'm one land short of assaulting him for lethal. I then rather dig for Grip but unsuccessful. His turn is the first extra-turn. He cracks the disk and regenerates his team (no damage on the stack, woooh!) He then charges with two manlands, I waste one and take two down to 1 (Assault gone aswell). On my turn I dredge and retrace Harvest for 6 tokens. He doesn't find a way to fight himself through the worms. Next turn I make 7 more tokens, game over.

Match 5, Game 1:
I suspect him to play a blue control build and keep a hand with Loam and Crime that would have pretty much annihilated such a deck. He goes Mountain, Lackey...ups! Apparently I had him mixed up. I loose that one on turn 3.

Game 2: I cast two Goyfs, Grip a Vial and team him with Jund Charm.

Game 3: I get Assault/Loam working briefly until I retardedly cycle all Cyclelands in my turn. He topdecks Relic. However I still have 5 lands in hand and an Assault with some lands in play. I topdeck Goyf, Weirding. I topdeck Crusher, he taps out for Ringleader/Piledriver. I topdeck Loam, kill a goblin, cast Loam, kill a Goblin, calculate how big my Crusher would be, realize not enough for lethal, so I just cast Harvest for 3 tokens. He concedes, revealing a Weirding and two Extirpates.

Now just reading this it would appear that I am not really using Top at all. Maybe so, however using top isn't really something that sticks in your mind for very long. But on the flipside I didn't really miss Wish at all. Except for Match 1, Game 1, where I could've wished for DD and killed his Tokens, had the Top been a Wish, there weren't many situations that desperately demanded for Wish. I am definetly going to keep Top for a while now and see how it develops. I was really disappointed in Chalice. It didn't do anything (not even against myself) and was boarded in all Matches except for the combo-matchup.

Oh and for your consideration. Imagine this: The location is a bakery after opening hours, entree fee is 6€ (about 8,50$) first place got a Wooded Foothills with some shiny commons/uncommons, second place 3 booster, third place 2 booster, fourth place a Conflux "Naya-Domain"-Pack (that was me) and everybody else got a booster (yes that includes the last place) and everybody starting with the second could choose a promo-foil (though there weren't enough for everyone) and you got food for free. I ate 3 bread rolls (and those were some bread rolls) and one sugarpastry. Awesome.

lolosoon

08-09-2009, 09:49 AM

Sooooo....

I'm planning going on an 40ppl Legacy Event this Week-End. No absolute need to win the tournament, but Top8/Top4 would help a lot (ie: i can afford a loss in the swiss and in the Tops).

The predicted meta would be like :
TempoThresh//Ugr DreadStill
Goblin
Merfolk
A bunch of burn and Zoo//Sligh players
A li'l bit of CBTop (NLU or Bant)
1-2 Ichorids
A very few Combo then the usual random Tier1-1.5 decks including Ravager

Ok, I finally stick with Aggro-Loam this Saturday. The turnout was 41 people with competitives deck and from a good level overall.

Ther was much less merfolks than expected, and much, much more Goblins decks around.

Here's the list :
4 Goyf
4 C.Crusher (Thanks to A_Z, the 4th one rocks !)
4 Confidant
3 Vores (1 too much imho)

4 B.Wish
3 LftLoam
2 D.Dreams
2 Seismic Assault
2 EE

4 Chalices
4 Mox Diamond

4 Taiga
2 Badland
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Stronghold
3 B.Mire
3 W.Foothills
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Tranquil Thicket

SB:
1 Loam
1 D.Dreams
1 R.Silence
1 Chainer Edict
1 S.Spree
1 Firespout
3 Grips
3 Crypts
1 Plateau
2 Worship

Ok, the random Worships+Plateau package sucks. But I was frightened of Burn after some matchups the night before the tournament, and I didn't want to add Solitary Confinment due to the Loam dependency and Relics(or GY hate) boarded in G2&3.

I made it to Top4 (we split the prizes) after 6 rounds of Magic and beating a Rockish Loam deck on Top8.

Thoughts on the deck :
3 vores are 1 too much imho. They're not stellar early game (only wih tremendous play involving Loam, Moxes or Crusher) so I only need to draw them mid-game.

No pinpoint removal is bad, but I had to make some rooms for Seismic Assault and EE which were disapointing somehow...

BW for removal (Firespout or Edict) is way too slow sometimes, the mana denial from Goblin and Merfolks deck I played against hurt too much.
So 3 SB Firespout could be great as you can always board 2 of them G2&3.
Or I could always find some place for Pulses or Terminate (-1 Vore, -1 Bob ?)

The Worships were crap, but I never played against a burn deck all day....

Not playing blue is painfull. I'm used to find what I want with Brainstorm and Ponder and Top in control. Bob is too fragile and Loam too slow to be reliable engines. Moreover, AggroLoam isn't as straightforward as a classic aggro deck : sometime you draw the bad answers at the bad time.

I'm not fond with Mannhatan's idea of dropping B.Wishes, but I'd like to put those Tops into the deck.

Too bad Chalice and Top ain't no good together...

kroelai

08-09-2009, 12:06 PM

If you don't like EE (like I do, because it is to slow) maybe you should try Terminate in that spot.

Shanghi Knights

08-09-2009, 02:53 PM

i'd recommend drop a confidant and vore for 2 eternal witness to back up 2 maelstrom pulse (or any wished for destruction) that you might replace your explosives with.

i've done a flip in my opinion of eternal witness. After some play testing with 2 eternal witness's in my deck i've actaully seen it help me few times as compared to when i was running just 1 in the deck.

electrolyze

08-09-2009, 03:35 PM

Hey guys,

I decided I want to make a loam deck. I want to play a rwg version of the deck because I enjoy playing that version the most.

Here is my build:

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
1 [OD] Barbarian Ring
1 [GP] Skarrg, the Rage Pits
2 [EUL] Forest (3)
2 [TE] Mountain (1)
1 [OD] Nomad Stadium
3 [TE] Wasteland
1 [B] Savannah
1 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
4 [EVG] Forgotten Cave
3 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
3 [B] Taiga
2 [U] Plateau

// Creatures
4 [CON] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher

// Spells
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TO] Devastating Dreams
2 [7E] Seismic Assault
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
4 [AT] Swords to Plowshares
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
SB: 1 [TO] Nostalgic Dreams
SB: 2 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg

I really like how it plays and I dont want to change the build, but there is one thing i'm still thinking about.

I play only one explosives and its a bit random I think, is it smart to cut a land for the second one? Because explosives is really good so I want to play a second one.

My land count is 28 so I think cutting one is a possibility that doesnt hurt me a lot. Which land should I cut then? the 7th cycle land(had some problems with normal land drops and cycle land in my hand), A basic land(cause I run 4 of them) or should I cut something else than a land?

Greet, Bas

Shanghi Knights

08-09-2009, 03:50 PM

your probably safe cutting a plateau for another explosives.

maybe drop stadium for a academy ruins for recuring explosives but you would be depending on mox as your only source of blue.

something you might try and squeeze (and i've been experimenting with sorta) in none chalice builds would be mother of runes. (in my build sylvan safekeeper) she was powerful when it came to protecting dreadnought, the fact the deck usually only has 1 to 2 creatures on the field at a time makes her useful for getting through more damage/stopping swords.

kroelai

08-10-2009, 08:48 PM

Cutting 1 Plateau (or the stadium, never tested it) would be fine,
I would also sugest to add up 1 fetch in the spot of the 7th cycle land.
Fetch is great with the 7 loams you have, so why not run 1 extra.
6 cyclers should be enough, you don't really want to put it into the battlefield (still sounds weird).

blueneverfails

08-10-2009, 09:24 PM

Also you need to have a 1 of TABERNACLE.... you have knight to go fetch it, its a beast

georgjorge

08-11-2009, 07:29 AM

On the zoo matchup...it's a hard one, because a) you are obviously in the role of the control deck, but on the other hand can't wait too long to kill them for fear of burn b) Aggro Loam isn't one of the fastest decks around, and Mox-less hands sometimes just get you killed before you can stop them.

DDreams is not gg, but it's still one of the best spells in that matchup against those speedy draws that would kill you on turn four otherwise. It still needs support from Life from the Loam since they can rebuild rather fast, and you need to have some lands of your own in play by then, so I'd never go below 3 Loam here...actually, I think turn 2 Loam turn 3 Dreams is a decent play if they don't have the Goyf. My boarding is something like

-4 Confidant (not TOTALLY useless, but close)
-1 Life from the Loam

+1 Maelstrom Pulse (3 in the main)
+1 Chalice of the Void (3 in the main)
+3 Firespout

on the play, and on the draw I'd probably go

-1 Maelstrom Pulse
-1 Countryside Crusher (easily Bolted if played on turn three)
+2 Duress (if they play a reasonable amount of Burn)

in addition to the above changes.

Shanghi Knights

08-13-2009, 12:30 AM

Aggro_zombies

08-13-2009, 02:39 AM

when i first started messing with this deck i built it with a janky zombie infestation squee thing going on and ran gambles with it, never worked very well in its short life span before i ended it with going full aggro loam.

does anyone have experience with gamble in the aggro loam deck, if so what was your results? i ask this because i run intuition and intuition being three is often costing me too much mana for tutoring stuff up like loam ravens crime and land. especially when dropping a goyf in the same turn would be very useful.
43lands ran Gamble as an "efficient" tutor in its colors, but Gamble itself isdicey if you're trying to find something you need to survive. Intuition is basically the most powerful tutor you can get in this deck, so it would probably be best to keep it in if tutors are what you're looking for.

And yes, Intuition can be mana intensive, which is partially why I opted for Exploration in my build.

Koby

08-13-2009, 12:10 PM

when i first started messing with this deck i built it with a janky zombie infestation squee thing going on and ran gambles with it, never worked very well in its short life span before i ended it with going full aggro loam.

Gamble was in my first incarnation of Aggro Loam when Ravnica first came out. It was marginal at best - Burning Wish just worked better.

Zombie Infestation (w/o Squee, which is redundant to Loam + lands) seems like a cute trick. It's far easier to cast than Seismic Assault, so that's a plus. But in order to kill with it, you need to discard twice as many lands, or twice as many turns. Neither of which are an attractive alternative to just casting a Big Dumb Creature, removing blockers with DD, and crashing for ~6.

Nizmox

08-13-2009, 08:29 PM

Koby

08-13-2009, 08:59 PM

White gives you access to:
* Solitary Confinement
* Loxodon Heirarch
* Kitchen Finks
* Swords to Plowshares/Path to Exile
* Armageddon/Ravages of War
* Morningtide

The black splash gives you access to:
* Dark Confidant
* Terminate
* Pernicious Deed
* Chainer's Edict
* Discard

lavafrogg

08-15-2009, 02:41 AM

Fuck countermagic! Black can help you break up counter top before it comes online, which I heard is a good thing.

The white version is for pure board control and IMHO should always include dark confidant.

Aggro_zombies

08-15-2009, 05:45 PM

Can anyone provide a comparison between the RGB and RGW builds?
I really like electrolyze's build, but I can't help but think without black you are missing out discard which is crucial in beating combo and very useful against any deck running counters (although life from loam being countered isn't much of an issue).
I guess the benefits from white are only STP and black has plenty of removal anyway? Knights of the Reliquary are nice but not required.
If you don't run StP, you can still run Chalice as a disruptive element. The biggest benefits of white are the land toolbox you can get with Knight and Solitary Confinement, which just wrecks a lot of decks not prepared for it. Unfortunately, the prevalence of Grip makes Confinement a lot worse.

sephorusFR

08-16-2009, 06:07 AM

Is there any BGW build or is the seismic/crusher base too good to be left out ?

hyggli

08-16-2009, 01:08 PM

Some kind of BGW Build can be the following, maybe:

4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore

4 Thoughtseize
2 Raven's Crime
4 Life from the loam
4 Maelstrom Pulse / e.e.
4 Mox Diamond
2 Armageddon

6/8 cycles, volrath, 4wastes, fetches, duals, basics, maybe 2 flagstones, maybe 1/2 centaur to race faster

Shanghi Knights

08-16-2009, 01:26 PM

Is there any BGW build or is the seismic/crusher base too good to be left out ?

you can make such builds but at the end of the day crusher and seismic are just that good. (bording reading follows ---->) that is to say crushers abilitys will survive the standard graveyard hate at the end of the day (relic and crypt). Seismic assualt is just that good in that it bombs for direct damage.

on another note did out thread get moved from the decks to beat forum?

Valtrix

08-16-2009, 01:45 PM

Yes the thread got moved. Apparently there was an August update. See the DTB philosophy etc. sticky in the DTB section.

Aggro_zombies

08-16-2009, 03:58 PM

Is there any BGW build or is the seismic/crusher base too good to be left out ?
You could probably argue that Seismic/Crusher/Dreams are at the core of what Aggro Loam is, but if you decide to drop them then hyggli's list is a reasonable place to start. A Worm Harvest or two in the main might be a good idea, and Nantuko Monastery gives you a good manland option. Nomad Stadium is probably a necessary component against aggro decks alongside Tabernacle and possible Glacial Chasm (which you really want Exploration for). I'd probably start somewhere around here, using hyggli's build as a jumping-off point:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary

4 Thoughtseize
2 Raven's Crime

4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond

3 Life from the Loam
3 Maelstrom Pulse

2 Armageddon
1 Worm Harvest

3 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
2 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Plains

4 Windswept Heath
2 Bloodstained Mire

3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor

1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Maze of Ith

SB:
1 Tabernacle
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Duress
X Gaddock Teeg
X Engineered Explosives
X Armageddon / Worm Harvest

Something along those lines.

f|i[p]

08-17-2009, 06:53 AM

I have a bgw loam that I actually test on mws now... The only real problem I encounter is graveyard hate...

I can't seem to find a suitable replacement for countryside crusher...but nevertheless its quite good...

I run 2 solitary confinements main deck..

georgjorge

08-17-2009, 07:56 AM

I don't care for Assault, but Crusher IS hard to replace as the only beater which isn't crippled by Relic, so Knight isn't a full subsitution. And Confidant of course...

When I tried Gbw, I included three Armageddon. They play totally different from Dreams and are there for control instead of Aggro, but they fit in well nonetheless. Then of course Vindicate, which allows you to play the mana denial role more effectively while taking care of everything else as well, and even two or three Noble Hierarch to supplement the Armageddons and make up for the lack of 1cc-discard. It was more of a cross between Terrageddon and Aggro Loam, and was a pretty synergistic build...I went back to standard Aggro Loam, but I think the idea was a good one, especially if you pack 4 Grip in the side for Relic.

Manhattan

08-17-2009, 08:31 AM

Besides Crusher is the man in the mirror. Turn two Crusher is game 90% of the time.

sephorusFR

08-18-2009, 05:26 AM

Well I ended up with this (no sb yet)

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Confidant
2 Eternal Witness
-------------------------
14 creatures

4 Mox Diamond
4 Toughtseize
4 Swords to plowshares
3 Life from the Loam
2 Raven's Crime
3 Vindicate
1 Worm's Harvest
-------------------------
21 spells

4 Wasteland
3 W. Heath
3 W.Foothills
3 Savannah
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
2 Seclued Plains
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Barren moor
1 Forest
1 Plain
1 Maze of Ith
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
-------------------------
26 lands

Shanghi Knights

08-18-2009, 03:25 PM

since your not running chalice i might suggest trying aggro zombies idea of running explorations. they've been running great for me so far.

nodahero

08-18-2009, 07:19 PM

As a quick heads up I recently competed in worlds with Aggro Loam and came in 23 out of a 182 players. My losses came to THE MOST insane counter-top draws ever and to my luck against my third Dragon Stompy matchup.

My version is not very typical although if you go back through the thread you will see a very close list to what I actually played. My list ran 4 Thoughtseize, 2 ravens crime, and no Chalices.

If you guys want a rough tourney report I can give you one or if you just wana see my list I can also oblige that as well.

Aggro_zombies

08-18-2009, 09:18 PM

If you guys want a rough tourney report I can give you one or if you just wana see my list I can also oblige that as well.
Both would be appreciated, thanks.

Koby

08-18-2009, 11:15 PM

Agreed on both. Would Chalice have performed better in place of the discard? Which matchups would it have helped, and which matchups would it have been useless?

sephorusFR

08-19-2009, 07:13 AM

since your not running chalice i might suggest trying aggro zombies idea of running explorations. they've been running great for me so far.

By replacing what with them ?

Aggro_zombies

08-19-2009, 10:24 AM

By replacing what with them ?
Depends on your list. They replaced Burning Wish in mine (Wish is too slow).

nodahero

08-19-2009, 05:43 PM

For those who would like a copy of my list here it is and the notes on my matches follow.

LANDS 25
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Wasteland
3 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
4 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Bayou

CREATURES 14
2 Eternal Witness
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Countryside Crusher
1 Terravore

ARTIFACTS and ENCHANTMENTS 6
2 Seismic Assault
4 Mox Diamond

SORCERIES 15
2 Ravens Crime
4 Thoughtseize
4 Burning Wish
2 Devastating Dreams
3 Life From the Loam

SIDEBOARD 15
4 Vexing Shusher
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harverst
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Reverent Silence
1 Ravens Crime
1 Devestating Dreams

Round 1
Counter-Top
Game 1 was very straight foreword. I opened with Fetch into Badlands into TSeize and ripped out his Top. Seeing Daze, Clique, Strand, Tundra, CBalance, and another land. From here I just went for waste lock with loam and rode it to the win.
Game 2 was a little more annoying in that he went turn 1 top into turn 2 balance into turn 3 Clique... Luckily I had infinite redudancy in hand (all being drawn actually). My hand was 2 DD, 2 Thoughtseize, and Confidant (I think). I ended up Seizing his hand and then playing DD when I knew the coast was clear and beat him senseless.
1-0

Round 2
Man Plan Combo
Game 1 and 2 were very loopsided... Game one I went Bayou, Mox diamond (pitch some land), Ravens Crime, and then Thoughtseize. Decimating his hand. From there I retracred crime all day. Game two I played Chalice at zero and jsut went aggro.
2-0

Round 3 and 4
Both of these matches were against Dragon Stompy and went almost identical. While they tried to play out lock pieces I picked off the relevent ones and landed a Seismic in Round 3 both games 1 and 2 and road it to the win. My round 4 was opponent drew significantly more relevent cards in both games and had a good mix of threats to back up his locks. Game 1 the Dragon went stupid on me. Game 2 came down to me at 1 life with Goyf, Bob, and land in play versus his at 2 life with a near empty board. I had 25 cards left in my deck and only 4 that would not kill me off Bob... I cycled a land at my upkeep and drew a land... I did it again and drew a Crusher (Phew I guess...) and then Bob resolved revealing a Loam to kill me... Oh Well.
3-1

Round 5
This round was agaisnt Eva Green. This match was very linear in all games. It appeared that whoever was on the play had a key advantage. Luckily I was on the play game 1 and 3 and pulled it out with a combination of Discard and Wasteing.
4-1

Round 6
Round 6 was against UBG CoutnerTop. This match really demonstrated the value of discard to me. Both games I managed to pick off a relevant card in the early game with Seize and control the late game with RCrime. Not to mention the KGrips were handy (I never drew a shusher here either).
5-1

Round 7
This round pitted me against the luckiest CounterTop player ever. Game 1 I played 4 duals over the first 4 turns only to have each land wasted. I then drew a mere one land in the next 4 turns after and lost quickly. Game 2 saw him land Top turn 1 CBalance turn 2 (blind counter a loam) and then turn 3 stifle a land and counter both a KGrip (I think or an Assault) and also a loam. Again I drew dead and got beaten senseless. He eventually made Top 4 I believe.
5-2

Round 8
I am not sure what happened because due to a fire alarm incicdent I lost my notes and was on tilt due to accute panic attacks I often get. I won game 1, lost game 2, and drew nada after my opening grip game 3 to Folk.
5-3

Overall I really preferred the swap to discard simply because it was capable of picking off relevant cards and giving me valuable info to force through spells game 1. The other thing I noticed while playing was the value of Assault and the value or lack their of in Crusher and Vore. Every time they landed they failed to be relevant. Their size did almsot nothing at all for them. I honestly think Kitchen Finks would have been anywhere from better to significantly better every time they showed up. I also think going up to a third Assault would be very beneficial. That card single handidly won me 4 games.

Shanghi Knights

08-19-2009, 10:53 PM

By replacing what with them ?

id suggest

-1 vindicate
-1 swords
-1 heath

for putting them in. with two witnesses in the md you should be fine with 1 less of each of those.

@zombies

i'd reconsider wish thought because with exploration in there your easily a turn ahead in the mana to power out any spell you wish for.

at the same time i only go for a few things like pulverize, relevent silence, hull breach, back up loam and back up devastating dreams. and maybe a pyroclasm

Tamariz

08-22-2009, 12:22 PM

Hi guys.
Alter some time reading theese aggroloam posts, i decided to register and comment my version in several points here written.
I used to run a classic RGb with some board control such as 4 chalices and 2 EE (I think it is better than discard option), as well as wish targets in SB. Now I’ve been persuaded with knight’s versatility. I changed 3 vores for 2 vores and 2 knights, cutting one single Grip MD, that was sometimes useful but always random. Changes in land listing came also.

Old list

4 crushers
4 confidants
3 vores

4 wishes
3 lftl
3 DD (I would cut 1 for witmess, but she seems better than she is in aggroloam)
2 assaults
1 K grip

4 moxen
4 chalices
2 EE

4 taiga
4 wastelands
4 foothills
2 mire
4 cave
3 thicket
1 badlands
1 V’s stronghold
1 barbarian ring
1 forest
1 mountain

This is the current list:

4 crushers
4 confidants
2 vores
2 knights

4 wishes
3 lftl
2 DD
2 assaults

4 moxes
4 chalices
2 EE

4 taiga
4 wastelands
4 foothills
1 mire
1 heath
3 cave
3 thicket
1 plateau
1 bayou
1 V’s stronghold
1 barbarian ring (maybe ith is better, but luv ring! and it uses to be a decisive R source)
1 glacial chasm
1 forest
1 mountain

1st thing: no goyfs! Laugh if u want, but I hate em and theres too much hate against it. I definitely don’t want vanilla threads when I have access to such powerful spells like knight, vore, and assaults. (must confess that one of the reasons for it is that I haven’t any of them, but its still vulnerable to spell snare and CB. (yes, goyf is a 56 vainilla for 2, but sure I prefer 3cmc 15/15’s).

I run 27 lands in the knight version, but chasm doesn’t give u mana, and requires u to sacrifice lands. I treat it as a spell slot. The problem is to accurate those fetches and duals composition. Bayou seems dead sometimes cause doesn’t give u red, but I need more than 4 moxes’ way to take B. I tried to replace bayou and plateau by scrubland and 1 knight-toolbox-item, such as ith or skarrg (maybe tabernacle, depending on meta), but scrubland comes to be a colorless mana source too often when u just need R or G.

The question is: which version do u like most?
This deck has a wonderful access to many options, it is synergy and sources 100%, and is able to respond to everything. So the versatility of knight just increases options a lot. (i.e. chasm is huge against burn and any time u just need time).
His only big problem is blues, specially when CB enters.My SB solution for that, after testing a lot of things, is Leyline of lifeforce. If u SB out wishes, dreams and grip and leyline come in, the advantadge u take on g2 is huge. Susher is slow and thin. Discard with crime could be a thing, but it proved slow to accomplish emptying opp’s hand, and I don’t run enough B to play around it. Not to mention that cutting chalice against control just for crimes is stupid.

My great simple solution to Ichorid is just 1 Dryad Arbor in SB! Believe me, think on it and tell me if its not great. Searchable with fetches and knight, sacrificable by dreams and knight, destroyable by own wastelands, surprise-bloching an ichorid or token, recurring chumplblocker thx to loam engine…!!! Great deal for any-time-bridge-removing, isn’t it? It is also great against 1st turn lackeys, kills confidants,… It is nice in any matchup, I think, but MD is maybe excessive and usually a nasty topdeck.

So, my current SB is:

4 leyline of lifeforce
3 grip
1 loam
1 DD
1 maelstorm pulse
1 hull breach
1 reverent silence
1 pulverize (not sure to replace it by spree)
1 perish (better than edict against progenitus)
1 dryad arbour (great!)

Maybe solitary confinement could be nice there instead of leyline. I have tested it and its such fun, but way too slow for our purposes isn’t it

So, what do u think about the lists?
Thanks and long lfe to Aggroloam!

Tamariz

08-22-2009, 02:37 PM

Hi again

I’ve been testing a couple hours and decided some changes in mana base, after taking knight’s RGbw version as the correct choice (Same early game power than RGb version and better an mid game. Much better late game):

27 lands

4 wastelands
4 foothills
2 mire
4 cave
2 thicket
3 taiga
1 plateau
1 badlands
1 forest
1 ring
1 dryad arbour
1 ith
1 V’s stronghold
1 mountain
1 forest

Final SB:

4 leyline of lifeforce
4 solitary confinement
1 lftl
1 DD
1 M pulse
1 hull breach
1 S spree
1 reverent silence
1 perish

Main deck remains the same as first choice

4 crusher
4 confidant
2 knight of the R
2 vore

4 wish
3 lftl
2 DD

2 assault

4 mox
4 chalice
2 EE

Would you cu 1 crusher for 1 knight? That’s the next question.

Elegant list isn’t it.

I’ll run this same list in the next 3 tournaments, which come next week, with 30-35 players. The meta seems to be 6-7 CB, 6-7 tempothresh/canadian, 5-6 burn/goysligh, 5-6 merfolks, 3-4 landstill, 3-4 ichorid and some combo-random-enchantress

Manhattan

08-22-2009, 09:08 PM

Ran Aggro Loam to a 4:1 again. I'm going to spare you the list, I'll rather just list the nonconventional tweaks I made.

3x Burning Wish and wishboard containing 1x Loam, 1x Rev.Silence 1x DDreams 1x Raven's Crime. I really wanted to save space in the board for bad matchups and a second Wish is often a dead draw with this board. The rest of the sideboard was: 4x Krosan Grip 4x Leyline of the Void 3x Pyrostatic Pillar.

3x Chalice of the Void. Again a second Chalice is often dead against anything but Combo. I've so often topdecked Chalice when I was looking to stabalize on the board, I decided to cut one.

3x Sensei's Divining Top. He has a slight dissynergy with Chalice at one, I realize that. However you often cast Top turn 1 and Chalice turn 2 and even when you don't you're probably still affected less than your opponent. Besides Top is just terrific on its own. I kept a hand of 5 lands, Mox and Top on the play against Merfolk and won easily by digging up a Crusher and smashing face.

4x Seismic Assault. Drawing two is obviously pointless. However Seismic+Loam is just game against so many decks that running the risk of drawing two is worth it in my oppinion. And occasionally your opponent can handle one Seismic.

Only 4 Cyclelands (Forgotten Cave). I have noticed that I seldom use Loam+Cyclelands as a carddrawengine simply because it costs a ton of mana and you usually use half of that to play your threat for the turn. That put my landcount at 24, probably the bare minimum for this deck (+Moxen)

No DDreams mainboard. Against blue decks dreams is just horrible because you discard all your business and get it countered anyway. Against Aggro you are often not fast enough to get a Crusher/Terravore to stick before you have to cast it. That said it can be an excellent card against aggro even without having a threat in play. However I was counting on more blue in my meta.

The tournament went about like this:
Match 1: Goblins
He has turn 1 Lackey in each of three games and gets to connect in each. I only win one game with a mulligan to 5 because of Seismic+Loam.

Match 2: Solidarity
Game 1 I see an Island, so I cast Burning Wish for Raven's Crime, I soon realize what I'm up against and continue to race his combo with Loam+Crime. He doesn't make it. Game 2 I bait him with another Wish (I don't have black or green at this point neither in play nor in my hand, just a red cycle-land and Volrath's Stronghold), he forces and I resolve a Pillar turn 3. He doesn't find the answer in time.

Match 3: Pox
Game 1 a 9/9 Terravore eats him. Game 2 two Relics eat my graveyard. Game 3 a Chalice at one shuts down his hand and two Goyfs go the distance. DDreams seals the deal.

Match 4: Zoo
Game 1 a turn 1 Chalice prevents him from doing anything exciting until turn 3. By then I'm in position. Game 2 I waste his Taiga leaving him with a 1/1 Kird Ape and a Badlands. He doesn't draw a second land for the remainder of the game.

Match 5: Merfolk
Game 1 I just resolve a Crusher and he doesn't have the men to race him. He chumps once or twice and concedes. Game two he has Relic going but other than that only one lone Lord of Atlantis, Islands and Vials in play. I myself have a hand full of gas but can't cast anything because I'm sitting on Badlands and colorless mana. However I have Top+Confidant in play. Those eventually draw me into colored mana (despite getting my first two attempts to fetch stifled).

skulls

08-23-2009, 01:52 AM

i know i haven't posted much on here, before this anyway, but my general feeling, testing, and results lead me to believe that this general trend away from chalice is flat out wrong. i have tried the discard, both main and out of the sb fro the appropriate matches. it just not hold a candle to chalice. that card in this deck has won me more games than raven's crime and thoughtseize combined, including those outside the archetype. my list is nothing revolutionary, save perhaps running a tabernacle main, which will wind up getting cut most likely as even i am not even totally sold on it. also, shushers do come in out of the side, which is, i feel, unquestionably right. i looooove resolving dd or other retarded spells. of course, that's how i feel about chalice as well. resolving chalice at 1 is better than discard, better than top, hell...better than the format. there isn't a single play i would prefer. there isn't a deck outside of the mirror that doesn't decimate. despite the common perception to the contrary, this deck has a reasonable matchup with storm based combo as i have yet to lose a round to it, and that has nothing to do with playing discard. if anything, the introduction of white to the deck weakens that matchup from my experience. i just felt that i should speak up that the general trend is pushing this deck in the wrong direction.

Tamariz

08-23-2009, 07:46 AM

I also feel that chalice is the thing. Discard is often too poor while chalice is narly-always huge (I mean, it's often a 8x1 or more).

I think knight/crusher+dreams is game in most matchups. Yes, except for blue, but that's not a good reason to take it out definitely. I recommend 2 and sometimes 3 MD. Just sb it out in g2 for shushers, grips or whatever. 4 Leyline of lifeforce is hardly recommended here. If you're not lucky in opening hand or mull at 6, LoLf will be a must-fow'd mid/late game (since its not affected by counterbalance and most others), giving u the chance to cast the creature anyway.

I like 4 solitary confinement in sb as an universal response against all non-blue, when necessary. (goyfslighs, mirror, combo, control...).

Another universal respond is little dryad arbour. I put in MD because it doesnt fit in SB, but its a good change (since u change 4 LotV slots in SB for 1 single slot MD or SB, giving place to confinement and lifeforce).

Is krosan grip really necesary in this SB? maybe 2 should fit...

Manhattan

08-23-2009, 07:55 AM

Summary: Chalice is awesome

Chalice is really, really bad against Goblins and suboptimal against Merfolk aswell. The problem especially against Goblins is they can almost always cast their Lackey/Vial before Chalice comes down (except when you go turn 1 Chalice on the play, not very common). And when that happens spending the second turn for a pointless Chalice isn't really getting you anywhere.
And then Chalice is also really bad as a topdeck. If you draw Chalice turn 4 against Zoo it's not even half as good anymore.
I'm not saying Chalice is rubbish but rather that there are more downsides to it than you are willing to admit.

I also feel that chalice is the thing. Discard is often too poor while chalice is narly-always huge (I mean, it's often a 8x1 or more).

I think knight/crusher+dreams is game in most matchups. Yes, except for blue, but that's not a good reason to take it out definitely. I recommend 2 and sometimes 3 MD. Just sb it out in g2 for shushers, grips or whatever. 4 Leyline of lifeforce is hardly recommended here. If you're not lucky in opening hand or mull at 6, LoLf will be a must-fow'd mid/late game (since its not affected by counterbalance and most others), giving u the chance to cast the creature anyway.

I like 4 solitary confinement in sb as an universal response against all non-blue, when necessary. (goyfslighs, mirror, combo, control...).

Another universal respond is little dryad arbour. I put in MD because it doesnt fit in SB, but its a good change (since u change 4 LotV slots in SB for 1 single slot MD or SB, giving place to confinement and lifeforce).

Is krosan grip really necesary in this SB? maybe 2 should fit...

Dreams is bad against Control and Combo. Solitary Confinement can randomly snatch games but now with Relic it's much less inevitable than when there was only Crypt. Also many decks that loose against Confinement also loose against Seismic Assault. So there's a good chance that they will be packing against enchantments postboard. And Zoo now has Pridemage. Zoo was a major reason for playing Confinement before.

Tamariz

08-23-2009, 08:21 AM

Well, maybe chalice is not god, but I really think that is the best choice that aggroloam has to equilibrate its lacks. Chalice eats brainstorms, snares, swords, paths, bolts, and 1000 creatures. And all these cards are everywhere in all meta. It's virtual card advantadge is much better than thoghtseize's. Well, raven's crime is also a good choice, but its not better at that card advantadge, and is not good against goblins. Not to mention that the 3rd color of ur deck becomes more important. ather vial could be great instead of chalice: against blue and giving u many many tricks. Chalice>vial?

I don't have goblins as a bad matchup, with 2/3 DD and 2 assaults. -4 Chalice +4 Solitary Confinement uses to be more than enough.

Tamariz

08-23-2009, 08:55 AM

Dreams is bad against Control and Combo. Solitary Confinement can randomly snatch games but now with Relic it's much less inevitable than when there was only Crypt. Also many decks that loose against Confinement also loose against Seismic Assault. So there's a good chance that they will be packing against enchantments postboard. And Zoo now has Pridemage. Zoo was a major reason for playing Confinement before.

In g1 I have only 2 assaults, son i don't think opponent will sb in enchantment hate for g2, when confinement comes. If he does, or pridemage is out there, u cant simply force him to destroy one of ur enchantments (all must-destroys), but sure will come more when u run 4 confinement+2 assaults.

Relic is the reason for at least 2 grips in sb..., but dont know where to fit.
Here's a possibility:

4 confinement
4 leyline of lifeforce
1 hull breach/krosan grip
1 s spree
1 reverent silence
1 pulse/krosan grip
1 DD
1 lftl

mabe 3 confinement instead of 4?
1 perish

Manhattan

08-23-2009, 12:49 PM

Krosan Grip has to be a 3 off at the least. Otherwise you just loose to every Counterbalance and Leyline of the Void. And then there are other problemcards like Humility, Crucible, Chalice@2, Back to Basics, Vedalken Shackles, Dreadnought, Survival and of course Crypt/Relic.

Also I just don't understand the Leylines of Lifeforce. They are dead against everything but heavy-Blue-Control and Counterbalance. Since Blue Control is a generally positive matchup anyway that leaves us with Counterbalance, which is dealt with quite reliably with Grip.

skulls

08-23-2009, 01:57 PM

Manhattan

08-23-2009, 03:21 PM

i can't say that goblins is a problem matchup even assuming that chalice is a dead draw. merfolk can be hit or miss, depends on the build. against the version with fetches, brainstorm and ponder it's fine. white splash for swords? also fine. relics main? again, seems alright. i'm not going to dispute that it's suboptimal at times and can occasionally be a blank in mid to late game, but i'm failing to see how discard is better in these matchups. i'd even venture to say that flame jab is better than raven's crime against these decks. i guess bottom line what i want to know is where does discard shine for you that chalice does not?

Don't mix me up with the wrong people here. I definetly don't advocate Thoughtseize in Chalices place. In fact I think Chalice is a pretty good card for this deck. However I read multiple posts clearly overstating Chalices value from my point of view, so I attempted to rectify that.
Chalice can probably best be described as a card with large fluctuation from awesome to terribad.

Tamariz

08-23-2009, 08:53 PM

Manhattan

08-24-2009, 11:14 AM

I think chalice vs discard is already over. After testing both I really feel CotV is the way to walk.
The discussion should be now at white splash convenience, and the possibility of going thru a WG more control based loam.
Knight is a real man here, sometimes better than crusher, so I'm trying to fit 3 of em in the list, adding 1 thread to creatures composition. I'm now trying a 61 card deck with 27 lands, since a 3rd copy of knight is such fun. (my critters are:4DC, 4CC, 3 KotR and 2 vores)
I think crusher must stay at 4 since he is not affected by relic and grav hate like knight and vore are.
For WG list fans, I think that red pack of wish+DD+crusher+assault makes this deck a real tier, and it should be always there. Removing red is not a choice in my aggroloam list, but white looks pretty, not only for knight, but for StP, armagedon, confinement...

The issue I am seing with the whitesplash is it feels like trying to cram an answer for everything into the deck. Decks with answers to everything look good in a vacuum but they are inherently inconsistent.
I think it's probably wiser to take the AggroLoam-shell and then design it towards the expected metagame. If a lot of control is expected then Confidant/Raven's Crime/Worm Harvest/Cyclelands/Sensei's Divining Top should enter the focus, if aggro is big then the deck should lean more towards giant creatures/Devastating Dreams/Seismic Assault, if combo is running wild pray for Chalice and build a strong sideboard or switch to another deck.

georgjorge

08-24-2009, 03:57 PM

i guess bottom line what i want to know is where does discard shine for you that chalice does not?

If you want/need to play something on the first turn to keep up with your opponent's threats, and don't have a Diamond. Yea, I'd maybe not play Thoughtseizes if Chalice would cost only one mana, but as it is, I find not having many first-turn-plays can be a problem.

Anyway, the topic has been discussed at length maybe 8-12 pages back, and I don't think the arguments have changed.

But I've been playing 4 Thoughtseize AND 3 Chalice in the main for some time now, and though I'm not 100 percent sure, I think that it can be the right thing to do (the chances for opening Mox + Chalice + Seize are only about 8%, and later Seizes aren't so hot anyways). This configuration has some problems against slow control like Landstill, where late Seizes are still valuable, but if you're not expecting many of those...also, it's a good feeling if you use a first turn Thoughtseize to force through a second turn Chalice against those blue-based aggro-control decks.

@skulls: As an aside, welcome on the Source, but please use some capitalization etc, your posts are hard to read that way...

About Top: I'd like to hear more about how this works out, as my impression is that between the beaters being a bit expensive, and the drawing engine requiring a lot of mana, the deck doesn't often have mana to spare for using Top during the first four or five turns (especially if you're also using Wish), and if you start using it in the mid- to lategame only there should be better options.

Shanghi Knights

08-24-2009, 09:23 PM

Regarding top

when i first started looking into playing aggro loam i thought top was an essential to the deck as many builds i saw had like 1 or two in the deck. I had all my tops in another deck and opted for Mirri's guile instead.

Top or guile is nice as you set up the top three for crusher. Guile being free is its major advantage where top requires mana to use. Second Guile goes to work for you much quicker, I mean in the sense you drop it early game and you can get advantage of setting the top 3 without having to spend mana to do that, where top eats up mana early game.
Tops big advantages is you know ahead of time if something crucial is about to be dredged from life from the loam. In addition top isn't restricted to upkeep, in addition that draw part can be powerful encase an emergency dredge must be made, for instance you do it in response to a crypt or relic to save your loam.

My personal experience is i don't like top because of how it eats up avaible mana that can be better spent on other plays. I opt for guile over top as often you just want to set up for crusher. Which occurs more often than any of the other situations i mentioned regarding top. I find knowing whats coming on the upkeep is enough for this deck as well as you will often be dredging with your 1 turn draw in early game or if no cycle lands are avalible. that being said paying mana just to peek at your top 3 on upkeep seems kind of pointless as guile will do it for your for free on upkeep.

Tamariz

08-25-2009, 04:29 AM

The issue I am seing with the whitesplash is it feels like trying to cram an answer for everything into the deck. Decks with answers to everything look good in a vacuum but they are inherently inconsistent.
I think it's probably wiser to take the AggroLoam-shell and then design it towards the expected metagame. If a lot of control is expected then Confidant/Raven's Crime/Worm Harvest/Cyclelands/Sensei's Divining Top should enter the focus, if aggro is big then the deck should lean more towards giant creatures/Devastating Dreams/Seismic Assault, if combo is running wild pray for Chalice and build a strong sideboard or switch to another deck.

What I think about white splash is similar. If you want to keep all agrroloams machine u can't change more than 4-5 cards, and they must fit with at least the same sinergy than the ones u take out. That's why i decided for 3 knights as the only W splash MD. They make the rol better than goyf does, so I think of changing goyfs for knight could be really good for this deck. I know it sounds really heretic and noob, but that's what I feel... While testing, i've seen all my creatures enough to stop possible (and sure) opponent's goyfs. When an opponent casts a goyf, i need almost 1 turn or 2 (receiving 1 attack from it) to respond with one of my threats, who will be bigger next turn, thanks to crushers or knight abilities. If we had already lftl going on, goyf will be a baby for us. Also, vedalken shakles will be useless when we dont run goys (it is easy for us to play around opp's islands with all of our guys powers).
With knight, I dont change anything in aggroloams philosophy, and don't think I am forcing the deck to do more than it can handle (the only changes for me are maze of ith and knight for goyf, and some other land in toolbox, such as ring, tabernacle, chasm, dryad arbor, etc. Changing 1 taiga for 1 plateau is also enough in mana base. Only feth for it when need it. Maze here is nothing but great at win chances-remember tarmogoyf?-). Also we can respond easily to sower of temptation thanks to knight+ barbarian ring. Knight is able to make spectacular combinations! i.e. in combat, declaring him as a blocker and tapping to sacrifice 1 land to search wasteland and destroy 1 land, maybe ours (getting +3/+3 in the proces). It is a situation given sometimes in my testing. White could have swords instead of chalice, which could be great if for some crazy reason u dont want to run chalices, but sure i prefer to avoid opponents swords over running them. Opponents swords will sometimes be a good news running knights instead of goyfs (+10life instead of +5 ;)
In SB, white has nothing but goods. I opted for 4 confinements and im sure keeping em, but u cold also make place to swords, armaggedon or something else. I dont recommend it because it would be trying to have answers to everything, wich is an error, as you said. In that case we should talk about another, more control deck.
Top is too suboptimal in my opinion. It has a lot of sinergies, but way too slow, while you already have a consistent draw engine.

Tamariz

08-25-2009, 06:45 AM

Why not swans instead of confidant as draw engine plus? removing B splash for more white... the problem is swans hard cost, but -4DC -1 badlands +3/4 swans +1 savannah/plateau (+1 assault/DD? )seems pretty. Sure it is more situational than DC, but +1 assault is pretty tempting...Our curve gets touched, but our turn 1-2 is already full of possibilities.
DC is thin and black, while swans flies, is immortal and makes crazy draws with assaults and dreams! it can be used by opponent to draw, but thats a little handicap I think. His cost will probably be a problem, not to mention V's stronghold becomes dead without a mox (do any of u use V's more than in 15% of total matchups?). Im gonna test, since it promises lots of fun and on text seems pretty better than DC in some cases doesnt it. If tou think its suicide, please let me know. This hard testing week is burning my brain.

Manhattan

08-25-2009, 09:21 AM

a) Tarmogoyf is vital to the curve of this deck. If all boardaffecting spells start at 3, the deck will become to slow and vulnurable to removal. Maybe Knight can fit into another slot.

b) Top can give the deck a fighting chance in case Loam is absent and the power of top+fetch/Crusher should not be underestimated. Mirri's Guile is an interesting idea. It's obviously less powerful but the reduced manarequirements might make the switch worth it.

c) Swans without Seismic does nothing and with Seismic it's overkill. The Seismic+Loam combo is much better. It still wins the game, it's less spectacular but more consistent, doesn't require double-white and the individual cards are useful by themselves. Ok, Seismic without Loam can be pretty weak, but with enough lands in hand it can stall almost any creature-based deck until Loam arrives.

Nizmox

08-26-2009, 12:25 AM

c) Swans without Seismic does nothing and with Seismic it's overkill. The Seismic+Loam combo is much better. It still wins the game, it's less spectacular but more consistent, doesn't require double-white and the individual cards are useful by themselves. Ok, Seismic without Loam can be pretty weak, but with enough lands in hand it can stall almost any creature-based deck until Loam arrives.

I also imagine that if you played swans in game 1 vs any burn deck it would be GG for you pretty quickly. But I think it's really the casting cost that's killer. You don't see many 4cc creatures due to 1cc swords.

Nizmox

08-26-2009, 07:12 PM

Manhattan

08-26-2009, 07:24 PM

Has anyone considered running Lightning Rift in this deck over Seismic Assault?
Pros:
1cc cheaper to cast
No choice between draw or 2 damage, get both!
Cons:
1cc required to activate
Not all lands have cycling

I'm just curious to know if anyone has tried running it.

It's an idea but it would require about 8 cyclelands or more. And the extrapayment is also very restrictive. You will probably only be able to activate it twice a turn, three times at best. And then you won't be casting Loam. Try shooting down a Tarmogoyf with this engine. Or a horde of Goblins.

Shanghi Knights

08-27-2009, 12:09 AM

Rift would cost the same as it would to run barbarian ring over and over. I say this in regards to mana consumption. Plus barbarian ring is faster.

Rift wouldn't be a bad idea at all though i mean some people do run there decks with 6-8 cycle lands. But again its just mana heavy.

Speaking of cycling recently i dropped my lorescale coatls from my deck altogether and just went with trade routes and upped my 2 seismic assaults up to 4, a late game 7 land return to hand for SA feul is pretty nice.

Manhattan

08-27-2009, 04:22 PM

Shanghi Knights

08-27-2009, 07:04 PM

ya but why go for 3 shots for two mana when you can go mana per shot, get more shots out of seismic assault. It comes in handy once in a blue moon when people think there being funny by getting a relic through. In addition my list has exploration so i usually have a lot of land on the table.

Manhattan

08-27-2009, 07:29 PM

Honoluluicecaps

08-27-2009, 11:19 PM

sillysam71

08-28-2009, 12:57 AM

Engineered explosives is a good solution to Ichorid, most of the time. But that depends on if you run EE or not.

Manhattan

08-28-2009, 08:43 AM

Hey guys, I run a RGB version of this deck, and I was wondering what you thought I should add in an ichorid heavy meta? I've been trying to contemplate effective Burning Wish targets and have yet to find anything more satisfying than Rat's Feast... although I really don't want to dedicate 3 spots in my board to crypt... any suggestions?

Singleton Plateau main and a Morningtide as wishtarget is the best I can imagine.

I played with EE for very long but eventually came to the conclusion that it's just to manaintensive. Very often you pay 4 just to kill a Goyf, 2for1's have been very rare in my experience. Only every once in a blue moon do you kill 14 goblintoken and ruin a Belcher-players day.

georgjorge

08-28-2009, 09:13 AM

Replace your Pyroclasm/Firespout slots (if you have those) with Jund Charm, so you don't have to dedicate additional slots. It's obviously worse than Crypt, but if they don't win very quickly, it's usually enough.

leander?

08-28-2009, 11:26 AM

Pyroclasm/Firespout is usually to wish for. Charm is an instant.

DragoFireheart

08-28-2009, 11:45 AM

What caused this deck to fall off the DTB / Tier 1 list?

georgjorge

08-28-2009, 02:51 PM

Pyroclasm/Firespout is usually to wish for. Charm is an instant.

I don't play Wish, and even if I did I would want more Pyroclasm-effects than only the Wishes against Tribal.

Manhattan

08-28-2009, 04:28 PM

What caused this deck to fall off the DTB / Tier 1 list?

Many blame Relic. I personally think it's probably also Qasali Pridemage (Turn 3 Seismic+Loam used to be autowin against Zoo) and especially Ad Nauseam. Not that Ad Nauseam made the Combomatchup considerably worse. Rather they show up more often at the top tables.

leander?

08-28-2009, 04:48 PM

Aggro Loam is still one of the strongest decks in the format. It's just not played enough. Or not played enough by people who can ;) (I know, sounds arrogant, blahblah, but it's not an easy deck to pilot).
I don't fear Relic. Chalice stops it, Wish answers it (the 8 cards that I still really like, even though not everybody still plays it), Pridemage doesn't wreck your engine, it's just an answer to your threat or lockpiece so you can drop a new one and combo is still not played that much ánd still really winnable.

Manhattan

08-28-2009, 06:28 PM

Well there has to be some reason Aggro Loam went from Deck to Beat to Established Deck. If you are dismissing all the possible reasons I gave, all that's left is that people just don't like it anymore. Not very plausable to me.

Koby

08-28-2009, 06:40 PM

I also don't fear Relic - it's easy to bait them to pop it, and you just end up playing the normal backup plan - Crusher + Dark Confidant while always holding onto your cycler to dredge-return LftL.

It probably fell off the radar because the Wish errata which nerfed Wish with regards to Exile g/y effects. And that the deck is prohibitedly expensive to build, coupled with the rather poor Merfolk matchup, the even Zoo matchup, and abysmal CB-Top matchup.

All three of those archetypes have been on the upswing, which are Aggro Loam's inferior matchups.

leander?

08-28-2009, 07:50 PM

I really don't think Wish has lost more than 5% of its power because of the exile-change. I don't see how the change can make anyone cut it.

coupled with the rather poor Merfolk matchup, the even Zoo matchup, and abysmal CB-Top matchup.
All three of those archetypes have been on the upswing, which are Aggro Loam's inferior matchups.
Countertop is not played that much over here. Zoo and Merfolk are, but at the moment I'm working on the MB to improve the aggro matchups a lot.

Shanghi Knights

08-29-2009, 12:07 AM

What caused this deck to fall off the DTB / Tier 1 list?

i was told its because its not showing up in very many tournament results. not because it sucks against some sort of tech or anything its just not being played very often.

Pulp_Fiction

08-29-2009, 04:14 AM

This is quite sad. Loam is one of the best dekcs in the format but hardly played. i am drunk and i still realize this. here is my problem with the deck, i went on a 8 week winning spree at my local cardshop becaus idiots kept bringing CB thresh garbage to thge tournament and i said as long as they bring that shit i will keep bringing aggro Loam. When they finally relented (for the most part) I switched to combo.

IMOP this is why loam isnt playeed as much, its quite boring and monotonous after a while. much like goblins it functions like a predictable machine and gets boring after a while, then again, so is thresh bullshit so o have no idea why that deck is so played (i get bored as hell just watching the matchups, no idea what kind of goober gets excited about playing it, to each their own i guess). at least loam is somewhat interesting. but i really just burned myself out on the deck and stoppeed playing it. the deck is fucking amazing but boring after a while.

Tamariz

08-29-2009, 07:09 AM

Agggro loam is one of the funniest decks to play. It's hard to run cuz it always has different ways to choose from. I play it since a year ago and I am testing new possibilities for it yet. I think white splash is very nice against many decks. I changed knight for goyf and I am happy with the change. Knight can be easily stronger even under grav hate and without loam engine. You don't need more than 8 big beaters, and CC, vore and knight trio do the job better than with tarmogoyf I think. It opens tons of windows in the deck, and maximizes defense. I considere dark confidants more necessary than goyf, even forcing the deck to play 4 colors. Now I run tabernacle (instead of dryad arbor :P) and EE MD, than is often enough to stop ichorids (well, not georgjorge's, but I didn't run tabernacles and morningtide in SB when we met in mws. The possibilities in game 1 are many (morningtide is sometimes used to reduce goyfs for a while). For game 2 I sb in confinements (as with gofsligh and others).
Goblins is never a problem. For blue I tested Leyline of lifeforce, but now I run 4 vials to change with chalice against merfolks (grips also go in). It's nearly the same than leyline, but less randomish. Also, a countered DD is not that bad with vial in play. So sb has changed a little, and now I only run 5 wish targets. I use to sb wishes out against blue, so I dont want to depend on it for deck engine (4th lftl goin in).

3 solitary conf
4 aether vial
3 grip
1 lftl
1 DD
1 shattering spree
1 reverent silence
1 morningtide

Bad pairings for me are (in order):

1. CB
2. Merfolk
3. goyfsligh
4. Burn

For all these i have a good sb with confinements and vials. Maybe should fit the 4th confinement in sb...

I run 26 lands (with tabernacle and ith as non mana producers) and 3 knights, but im thinking of another copy of knight and 25 lands.

georgjorge

09-01-2009, 10:40 AM

Koby

09-01-2009, 11:57 AM

The Abomination probably fits better into a mono-black Pox than it does in Aggro Loam. A 2/1 hasty cakes isn't exactly exciting when you can have 6/7 2 drops, and 3 drops that grows without bound.

I'd still rather play Dark Confidant than Blood Abomination.

Nizmox

09-03-2009, 09:32 PM

Blood Extractor BB
Creature - Vampire Spirit

Blood Abomination can't block.
Blood Abomination has haste if an
opponent has 10 life or less.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters
the battlefield under your control,
you may return Blood Abomination
from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
2/1

The main reason I think this creature won't be useful is because of STP. It doesn't recur when it's been 'Exiled'. If it wasn't for STP, in combination with equipment (i.e. Jitte) the creature could have been good.

Shanghi Knights

09-04-2009, 02:06 PM

I'm excited about Zendikar's Landfall mechanic - 26 lands and Loam should be able to make good use of that, if only they print some decent cards.

There's already a nice one which even wants to get dredged into the yard...

Blood Extractor BB
Creature - Vampire Spirit

Blood Abomination can't block.
Blood Abomination has haste if an
opponent has 10 life or less.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters
the battlefield under your control,
you may return Blood Abomination
from your graveyard onto the battlefield.
2/1

...but I don't think the deck wants small attackers, maybe in versions running stuff like Wild Mongrel and the like instead of the bigger beaters and Dreams.

this looks good for those of us running intuition forms of the deck. Second i like the idea of having something that can come back or can easily be brought into play after a massive DD board wipe. It certainly not aggro loams as we know it to have a huge face beater on the table but it certainly falls in like with the zombie infestation loam concept only a lot less card intensive. (or even factory recursion)

I know landstill stylish deck would go for such a creature.

Manhattan

09-04-2009, 04:51 PM

It. Can. Not. Block.
While this may be halfway decent against control the card is abysmal against aggro (and doesn't do anything against combo, but so do a lot of cards in this deck). Also if this sits in the opener that's where it truly sucks. Fetching for doubleblack puts this deck in a really difficult position to cast its other spells reliably on the consecutive turns. And this deck needs a lot of colored mana.

beastman

09-04-2009, 06:13 PM

Manhattan

09-04-2009, 06:27 PM

I've been playing this deck a lot, and I have to say that this is probably the strongest deck I have played in a long time. I just want to clear one thing up before I get ready to buy it. What are everyones thoughts about the color splashing? I know the most common with a black splash for Dark Confidant and stronghold, but what is the consensus on white splash for Knight of the reliquary?

Countryside Crusher is the central beatstick this deck has. Since it's resilient to Crypt/Relic and draws you into business. Next in line is Terravore. It tramples. And it's really scary when you put it ontop of your deck with Stronghold in a long match. Knight is rarely going to be bigger than Terravore because almost every opponent fetches. And the tap-ability is almost irrelevant. This deck has no toolbox. Only a single Stronghold and Wastelands. Neither are likely going to be very good if you have Knight on the board already. In most cases you'll rather bash face and Terravore is strictly better at that. Also having to fetch for white is a pest.

I'm not exactly sure if you wanted to hear the reasoning or just the conclusion. But basically Crusher>Terravore>Knight
Though Magic isn't an exact science, so that's only my opinion. (But there are surely more with similar thoughts.)

I left Tarmogoyf out of the equation here since his lower casting cost dictates a different strategical purpose.

Koby

09-04-2009, 06:41 PM

I made a post a few pages back highlighting the differences between the white and black splashes.

I am of the school of thought that unless you're in a huge combo environment (and can run Solitary Confinement), the black splash is better suited. Altho, playing Loxodon Heirarch vs Zoo is not bad at all.

The white splash is more similar to CAL from way-old Extended, and probably not as strong as Aggro Loam can be.

Manhattan

09-04-2009, 06:48 PM

I was assuming that you can splash both (which is entirely within the realm of possibility with 8 fetchlands and Loam) but Knight is just not enough reason to do so.

Shanghi Knights

09-05-2009, 10:56 AM

I've been playing this deck a lot, and I have to say that this is probably the strongest deck I have played in a long time. I just want to clear one thing up before I get ready to buy it. What are everyones thoughts about the color splashing? I know the most common with a black splash for Dark Confidant and stronghold, but what is the consensus on white splash for Knight of the reliquary?

basically the splashes are for two different stradegies. white for toolbox and yard wipe resilianse. black is for card advantage and creature recursion.

when it comes to knight and your deck doesn't have tabernacle or maze of ith in the main or the side shes not really worth including into the deck. the mana base is some what off as well, seeing as our two most common colors are red and green you'd be better off with our old buddy terravore or filling the slot with solitary confinements.

personally black seems best as you have access to malestrom pulse or i dare even say deed

---

speaking of white for those of you who may not be using chalice of the void, has anyone main boarded or side boarded pull from eternity for this deck? seems like another great way to recover from relic by getting back any loams that may have been lost.

something else i been thinking about for the deck over all was the idea of using gigapede. its recursion is better used in rock deck but it seems like it could have potential being a 6/1 shroud. additionally it looks great as it doesn't care if we accidentally dredge it or if its killed by dreams. But dreams is where the problem could be, as we often won't have enough mana for recasting gigapede for several turns after using dreams. like knight gigapede doesn't care about graveyard wipe, less hes in the yard. Over it does seem like a solid card for the deck.

Tamariz

09-05-2009, 02:46 PM

coraz86

09-05-2009, 03:18 PM

What about the planeswalkers? would you make place for any? Garruk, Sarkhan and Ajani veng. seem to be nice there. Sarkhan is really strong is its 3 abilities. What about a terravore with haste? and his apocaliptic and cheap 3rd ability is a really finisher option that Ajani hasnt got. Garruk seems pretty nice also in his 3 abs for aggroloam. Who do yo guys think fits better, Garruk or Sarkhan?

I often run Garruk in my Extended builds; his untap ability lets you play LftL an extra time every turn if you want to, among other things, and it makes all your dudes threats when he goes ultimate.

Sarkhan Vol seems pretty spiffy. I like the idea of hasty Terravores, and stealing people's Goyfs/Dreadnoughts/Tombstalkers is pretty sweet (both for clearing away blockers and for punching people in the head). The question with Sarkhan Vol is how useful he'll be for four mana; how often do you really want his +1? Both Garruk and Ajani have great +1. but Sarkhan's seems a little weak in here.

The same goes for Ajani Vengeant. It can help you Waste-lock people (keep nuking their non-basics and tapping their basics until you can ultimate), and it shoots annoying little dudes.

Having not tested SV or AV, I can't say with much certainty how good they'd be, but I feel like the latter is more synergistic with the deck; he helps with the mana-denial function if you go that way, he burns little dudes or does the last couple points of damage to an opponent (while gaining you life, at that), and he can Armageddon. The only issues is I see are him being better in the four-color build, where you can back him up with both Wasteland and Vindicate, and him possibly being win-more if you're already running Seismic Assault.

Long story short; I've played with Garruk in Assault/Loam and loved it, though not yet in this format. Sarkhan Vol seems too weak, and Ajani Vengeant seems excellent, but I haven't tested either enough to do more than guess that based on the way their abilities mesh with other things the deck tries to do.

georgjorge

09-06-2009, 11:43 AM

Hmm, enemy fetchlands are coming...that'll make it harder to Waste people as they can search out appropriate basics more easily (or maybe they'll just do FOUR fetchlands and leave out the UG one...I would love that :wink:).

@Planeswalkers: I think something that costs 3+ mana needs to be something that can stand on its own, i.e. be good even if you don't have a 'Vore or multiple small creatures out. So I wouldn't play Sarkhan. Garruk and Ajani (though I don't want the white splash) could be playable, but I'm not sure which advantage they'd give you over additional Crushers or 'Vores besides not being reliant on the graveyard - not dying to creature removal doesn't seem that relevant since we're already playing 13+ creatures, so your opponent will have good target for that removal anyway, and run out of removal before we run out of creatures. I'd be interested in testing results to see if and in which situations they are better than additional beaters...

Shanghi Knights

09-08-2009, 12:16 AM

Aggro_zombies

09-08-2009, 12:44 AM

I have a feeling someones sarcasm backfired.

I like the idea of Ajani Vengeant as he will be a nice distraction for many match ups who would be foolish to let him remain on the table for any length of time. destroy all opponents lands would be funny and make terravore very happy.

garruk is basically whats not to like as he can make creatures after a DD wipe

why doesn't sarkhon get any attention outside extended. his abilities look good in theory.
Because his -2 is the only thing you really want him for. His ultimate is nice, but that requires you to use his +1 ability, which is fucking awful.

EDIT: Also, because Garruk is better than he is, and Garruk isn't even playable in this deck.

Shanghi Knights

09-08-2009, 12:52 AM

Because his -2 is the only thing you really want him for. His ultimate is nice, but that requires you to use his +1 ability, which is fucking awful.

EDIT: Also, because Garruk is better than he is, and Garruk isn't even playable in this deck.

personally i'm just posting nonsense that goes with the flow of planeswalkers in aggro loam.

if one of them were playable in the deck someone would of posted it long ago.

since the thread go knocked out of decks to beat it hasn't been very juicy

georgjorge

09-08-2009, 04:59 AM

Well at least you're honest about it...but I'd much prefer it if you didn't post here if you don't think you have anything relevant to add to the thread.

beastman

09-08-2009, 10:21 PM

What are most people's wish boards like right now?

I've got:
1 wormharvest
1 LftL
1 devastating dreams
1 reverant silence
1 shattering spree
3 pithing needle
3 krosan grip
4 vexing shusher

Aggro_zombies

09-08-2009, 10:39 PM

What are most people's wish boards like right now?

I've got:
1 wormharvest
1 LftL
1 devastating dreams
1 reverant silence
1 shattering spree
3 pithing needle
3 krosan grip
4 vexing shusher
I think having a Maelstrom Pulse or two is getting popular. Reverent Silence is still rather irrelevant, as Pulse cleans up non-Counterbalance enchantments quite nicely and you'll almost never resolve a Wish through Counterbalance.

beastman

09-08-2009, 10:59 PM

Can't believe I forgot about that. Just changed it to -1 silence, -1 shusher, +1 pulse,+1 Chainers edict.

I've gotten dicked out by progenitus a few too many times.

Aggro_zombies

09-08-2009, 11:15 PM

Can't believe I forgot about that. Just changed it to -1 silence, -1 shusher, +1 pulse,+1 Chainers edict.

I've gotten dicked out by progenitus a few too many times.
Another thing you may wish to consider (heh) is Firespout. I actually prefer it against aggro and Zoo over Dreams because it doesn't set you back at all but will still kill most, if not all, of the opponent's guys. It's also pretty good against the Elf versions of Progenitus (better than Edict, which will usually just eat some guy other than Progenitus, then require a million mana to flash back).

Shanghi Knights

09-09-2009, 12:16 AM

i use to run edict but i prefer perish in the side as it knocks out quite a few creatures in the current format. Yes there is risk of killing your goyfs, knights or vores but common you don't cast it less you need too.

current pests, rhox war monk, tarmogoyf, nacatl, coatl, progenitus, and anything i'm forgetting. plus mono green chalice aggros.

i do keep reverant silence for the occasional enchantress deck.

i like needle as you never know if there bringing in crypts or relic.

i hate losing to anfinity in my meta so i go all out with pulverize. plus it powers up the crusher/vore/knight.

i should un-main deck one of my pulses and make it a wish target in hull breach's place but as it currently stands i only own 2.

currently

3 krosan grip
3 shusher
1 dreams
1 perish
1 loam
1 reverant dreams
1 hull breach
1 pulverize
3 pithing needle

beastman

09-09-2009, 11:01 AM

shattering spree is much better, as it let's you dodge countermagic, and, you should still be able to kill all of affinity's threats with one copy.

Shanghi Knights

09-09-2009, 11:38 AM

shattering spree is much better, as it let's you dodge countermagic, and, you should still be able to kill all of affinity's threats with one copy.

i agree with you and i will pay for it when i got to use it against a deck with both counter magic and an artifact that needs removing. but in the case of anfinity i just wanna bomb them back into the stone ago which only pulverize can do.

you say shattering spree can deal with most there threats. this is by all means true but all to often i don't wanna even see them with artifact lands still in play.

plus i assume most of you use shattering spree cause it gets around your chalices set at 1, but i use sylvan safekeeper in chalices spot so pulverize has no effect on me where in anyone elses case it would risk killing a crucial chalice set up.

there is a chance i may experiment with knight here shortly in which case i'm going over to mother of runes instead of sylvan safekeeper.

Arcadia

09-10-2009, 10:02 AM

So..I played a lot this deck (black splash) and I think there's just one thing I can change in the deck is thoughtseize or chalice of the void.
I don't know what to play...chalice is nice, but without mox it's not that good and it's useless/slow against some decks. Thoughtseize costs 1. What do you think?

beastman

09-10-2009, 11:12 AM

Are you not playing mox diamond? Thay's a huge part of the deck.

Fasbi

09-10-2009, 01:23 PM

I think he meant the slow start with Chalice and no Mox. Chalice comes "only" at turn 2 in that case, but Chalice is great enough in turn 2.
It counters Swords, Path, Brainstorm, Ponder, Top, Spell Snare, many burn spells, Stifle and much more. Sure, all those spells could be played in turn 1, too, but most time its useless (Spell Snare, Swords,...) so the Chalice will find enough targets to counter.
I never really tested discard, because I don't like it. Chalice is HUGE and i do not have to test discard.

beastman

09-10-2009, 01:50 PM

I agree , chalice is one of the best cards in the deck, as it shuts down relic and swords, which are both incredibly hard for this deck to beat.

tsabo_tavoc

09-10-2009, 01:57 PM

Sure, all those spells could be played in turn 1, too, but most time its useless (Spell Snare, Swords,...).

Welcome to post on the Source:smile:

Chalice is indeed huge by having the potential to create card advantage. Discard, on the other hand, cost 1 less and streamline the curve. I don't think this is a settled choice. As a side note, Spell Snare does counter Chalice.

beastman

09-10-2009, 02:01 PM

But chalice counters spell snare too.:laugh:
Zing.

Fasbi

09-10-2009, 02:11 PM

The point is that Chalice will also works if the opponent doesn't have anyone of those cc1 cards in his hand, because he will draw them later and without a solution for Chalice they are all dead hand cards.

ho_master

09-10-2009, 02:13 PM

beastman

09-10-2009, 02:15 PM

Maybe for a maze of ith, or even tabernacle.

Manhattan

09-10-2009, 04:02 PM

Chalice is a card that gives very mixed results from invisible to gamebreaker. Depending on what decks you test against you may even decide to cut them. However, looking at the big picture, they are far too valuable far too often. There are just so many matchups Chalice warps that it's worth running four in my oppinion.
Almost the same can be said for Wasteland. I ran three for a long time because I didn't have a fourth but also because the colorless mana sucked and I didn't play that many games where Wasteland made a difference. However in retrospect I think running three Wastelands makes just as much sense as running one. You either want to disrupt your opponents mana or you don't. Loam+Wasteland is one of this decks major weapons.
Now with the new fetchies coming some decks may be able to fetch for basics more reliably. True. However let's not forget why fetchies are so popular in Legacy in the first place. It's not just the shuffle that entices so many decks. It's the easy accessibility to duals. Often an opponent is not going to be able to help it but to fetch for a dual because it's his only reliable way he can play his spells on the following turns. And that's exactly when you want to have a Wasteland. Plus opponents often open with duals. If you manage to waste those, you are usually in a much better position to recover from this speedbump later on.

Aggro_zombies

09-10-2009, 05:09 PM

One thing I've been experimenting with (prior to the spoiling of the fetches, actually) was the use of a single Ghost Quarter. I've been getting tired of going to all the effort of Waste "locking" someone only to have them trot out their basics and continue to play, so I decided to test a recurring way to kill basics (Quarter). By itself, it's too slow, although Life from the Loam gives you a great deal of inevitability. However, in conjunction with Exploration, you can often run the other guy out of basics in just a few turns, or even faster if you can successfully fire off a Dreams. I need to test it more, but it seems promising in a retooled build (since Dreams is as sucky as ever against blue).

Shanghi Knights

09-10-2009, 05:33 PM

Regarding the new fetchlands, is anyone planning on cutting 1 wasteland from the land base, since decks will now be able to fetch for that one basic of whatever they need more easily? I'm looking at that blue/green fetchland in particular.

i'd keep in your wasteland. most decks that would benefit from the new fetches are already operating on a 1 color in the casting cost curve in most cases. just because they have access to more basics doesn't really upset aggro loams land lock stradegy. As against most decks of such curves we never used that stradegy to beat them in the first place.
Threshold in particular could be a primary beneficiary as well as exemption to my forecast as they won't need to rely on there tropicals. A wasteland"ed" tropical was very strong against them as they have only a small amount of green for dropping goyfs and gooses. But problem usually solved by aggro loam going in with discard or chalice variants.

ho_master

09-10-2009, 05:47 PM

Oops, forgot to say thanks for everyone's input, probably will keep that 4th wasteland in.

Let's say hypothetically you're playing some control deck that has FoW/Daze/Spell Snare and it's your 2nd turn (you're on the play). You have a Dark Confidant and a Chalice of the Void in your hand. You do not have Life from the Loam in your hand yet. Your opponent has an island on his board. You drop your 2nd land (no mox diamond). Which do you cast first?

What if you had Goyf + Chalice? What about Goyf + Dark Confidant? What if in any of these situations you have Life from the Loam in your hand as well and a fetch + cycle land in the yard?

Just curious of what other people's plays are.

leander?

09-10-2009, 08:46 PM

So, lets do that one by one. Ofcourse, all of the choices (espacialy the less obvious, and thus harder, ones) really depend on the situation (exact matchup. rest of the hand, etc. For example, if the MU is Canadian Thresh, Chalice is much more valuable than against i.e. Countertop). But I'll suppose you don't know anything about the MU and try to ignore the rest of the hand as much as possible (becouse you'll have to figure out your own alternate choices for certain hands, ofcourse)

1)DC and CotV, no LftL: Tricky one. I'd probably drop Chalice first becouse most of those decks pack Bolt or StP. So if you drop Chalice prior to Confidant, they'll have to have an answer to Chalice. And if they don't, Confidant is probably going to resolve (next turn you don't need to fear Daze or Spell Snare. Only FoW could mess with your plans.) ánd stick (Becouse Bolt and StP are stopped by Chalice). If you, on the other hand, would drop Confidant first, they could just let it resolve. They'd have one more turn to find a Snare (or a Fow) ánd they could just Burn/Plow Confidant later on (If you wóuld resolve the Chalice, they have to do it before that, obviously. But if you don't, they can use all the time they want. It's not that they're going to wait with killing Confidant if they have the removal, but at least they can search for it. And with cantrips and SDTop, wich they can play now, this shouldn't be that hard.).
The downside is, that if you do drop Confidant first, and they have both a counter and a StP, they might counter the Confidant becouse they know there are other creatures that are really worth to send farming. Next turn you cast the Chalice and they might not be able to answer it, becouse they used their counter and are stuck with their, now dead, StP. In this case, you've seduced them to use their allround answer for a threat that can be answered with creatureremoval as well. So when you're casting the Chalice, they'll need a second counter, where otherwise one counter and a Bolt/StP would have been sufficient. But, if they're really smart, they'll realise that you play Chalice as well and won't fall for this, so I'm not really sure if this changes anything.
2)Goyf and CotV, no LftL: Try to bite a counter by first casting Goyf. Resolving Chalice is much more important and it's very likely the opponent has a counter. Besides, you might be able to dodge Daze by waiting with Chalice until turn three.
3)Goyf and DC, no LftL: See 2, but replace Chalice by Confidant.
4)DC, CotV, LftL. Cycler and Fetch in Grave: See 2, but replace Tarmogoyf by Loam. Loam into fetch and cycler is still a really good play, but if it gets countered thats ok, becouse you can dredge it back and there's one counter less for the spells that really need to resolve. If he doesn't counter it (wich is most likely, actually), you resolved a, depending on the rest of your hand, decent to good spell and you know you will dodge Daze next turn when you cast Chalice/Confidant. Keep in mind though, that you really should keep an eye on not trying too much to bite all of its counters with cards that aren't really a threat at that point of the game. Becouse a) they probably won't counter all of them and thus might have left a counter for that crucial spell as well and, even more important, b) if you won't be able to drop Chalice or Confidant (the spells you really want to resolve) early, their impact on the game will decrease a lot, and you might already have lost when you finally resolve them if you don't put any serious pressure on the opponent with those LftL's and Tarmogoyfs. It's very important to bite counters, but at the same time put early pressure on the opponent and try to resolve spells like Confidant and Chalice early in the game, in order to let them have enough impact on the game.
5)Goyf, CotV, LftL. Cycler and Fetch in Grave: I think, in order to bite counters for the sake of resolving Chalice next turn, but still putting pressure on the opponent, you should play Tarmogoyf. Granted, both LftL ánd Tarmogoyf won't put that much pressure on the opponent at that point of the game, but your opponent will realise that small Tarmogoyfs get big and might counter it (On a sidenote, if you know you're playing against Canadian Thresh, you might want to wait a bit with Tarmogoyf to get it out of Bolt Range prior to resolving it.)
6)Goyf, DC, LftL. Cycler and Fetch in Grave: Pretty much the same as 5, actually. Apart from the fact that you should replace Chalice by Confidant.

Thanks for the question BTW! It's a really interesting (and tough) one. This scenario is a very common dilemma.

ho_master

09-11-2009, 12:30 AM

Hehe, just trying to keep chatter on the deck alive. The turn 2 play is something I think about alot against my meta, because I run into Daze quite frequently, so I have to weigh the costs of casting one or the other and having the first spell most likely countered. There's no Canadian Thresh in my meta, so I rarely have to deal with the bolt + counters situation, but it's something I'll keep in mind.

I definitely value the Chalice more than anything else, so I usually try to bait with other spells, like you suggest, so I agree with your scenarios. Goyf is always the most expendable spell to me on turn 2, so I usually cast it first if I have both in my hand before I break out the Chalice. If I have just a Chalice and a Loam, though, I'll cast the loam to get more lands and wait one more turn to prevent it getting Dazed.

sauce

09-11-2009, 02:05 PM

So why has this deck went to Knight of Reliquary and away from Terravore?

B0W53R

09-11-2009, 02:14 PM

Relic of Progenitus is the graveyard hate of choice for non-goyf decks.

georgjorge

09-11-2009, 02:46 PM

So why has this deck went to Knight of Reliquary and away from Terravore?

I really don't think it has. All there is are some decklists with Knights being thrown around here, but I'm not sure if there's really extensive testing behind those (which is really one of the big problems of this thread), and I don't see them putting up results in numbers either.

As to the hypothetical situation mentioned above, I wouldn't play a second turn Life from the Loam if I had two or more additional threats as well as another land in hand as they won't counter it, and all it does is get the opponent an extra turn to cantrip into answers (but I would if I didn't have the third land). You shouldn't be too afraid of running your threats into counters in most situations, because in general the longer you wait with your threats the more answers they will have. Also, if they Daze they can't play a second turn Confidant or Counterbalance, which is important. So I often cast threat after threat, and IF they can indeed answer all of them, start Loaming to get more threats than they have answers. Loam on the second turn is something for when I need additional mana, cards for Dreams, or when there's nothing else to play.

I would also bait with Confidant before Chalice in that matchup if I had both. If they play Force + Daze, they also play Ponder + Brainstorm (+Top) and will be crippled by Chalice, and they'll usually also have fewer answers to it than to Confidant. It would be nice if you could first drop the Chalice to protect the Confidant, but it's rather unlikely that the card you play first will resolve anyhow, so...

leander?

09-11-2009, 10:06 PM

So why has this deck went to Knight of Reliquary and away from Terravore?
I've never been that enthousiastic about KotR, and I'm still running 3 Terravores.

As to the hypothetical situation mentioned above, I wouldn't play a second turn Life from the Loam if I had two or more additional threats as well as another land in hand..
Yeah, I see now you're right on that one. I think, as I explained at situation 5, you should put pressure, and thus, in the case of 4, drop Chalice/Confidant first.

Mr. Fix it

09-11-2009, 10:13 PM

I really don't think it has. All there is are some decklists with Knights being thrown around here, but I'm not sure if there's really extensive testing behind those (which is really one of the big problems of this thread), and I don't see them putting up results in numbers either.

As to the hypothetical situation mentioned above, I wouldn't play a second turn Life from the Loam if I had two or more additional threats as well as another land in hand as they won't counter it, and all it does is get the opponent an extra turn to cantrip into answers (but I would if I didn't have the third land). You shouldn't be too afraid of running your threats into counters in most situations, because in general the longer you wait with your threats the more answers they will have. Also, if they Daze they can't play a second turn Confidant or Counterbalance, which is important. So I often cast threat after threat, and IF they can indeed answer all of them, start Loaming to get more threats than they have answers. Loam on the second turn is something for when I need additional mana, cards for Dreams, or when there's nothing else to play.

I would also bait with Confidant before Chalice in that matchup if I had both. If they play Force + Daze, they also play Ponder + Brainstorm (+Top) and will be crippled by Chalice, and they'll usually also have fewer answers to it than to Confidant. It would be nice if you could first drop the Chalice to protect the Confidant, but it's rather unlikely that the card you play first will resolve anyhow, so...

i do agree baiting is part of the whole stradegy of the deck to survive the counter spell match ups.

knight is as stated a survivor over terravore when relic hits. plus possibly an amazing toolbox. when i first saw knight i thought wow a quick answer to get an elusive bazaar of baghdad. god if only aggro loam could utilize such a card. strangley after the banning changes in 2005 for the formats following in 06 comes dredge.

only thing that comes close to bazaar is looter il kor i found. but it is flawed.

Manhattan

09-11-2009, 10:48 PM

only thing that comes close to bazaar is looter il kor i found. but it is flawed.

A) what about Magus of the Bazaar?
B) how did Bazaar of Baghdad end up in the debate? And just why would this deck want to play it?

Fasbi

09-14-2009, 08:58 AM

Am I wrong? Bazaar is banned in Legacy, right?And why do you want to play a ->BLUE<- 1/1 Creature that gives 1 draw (+1 Discard?!) each turn? Loam + Cycling-Lands/Dark Confidant should already be enough to won't get out of gas. In addiation to that I have no idea what should I cut for that...

If someone is interrested in:

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

Sideboard
1 Life from the Loam
1 Devastating Dreams
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Reverent Silence
1 Worm Harvest
1 Shattering Spree
3 Krosan Grip
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Raven's Crime
1 Hull Breach

I already went to two tournament here in Germany with that list and it's beautiful. I just lost against Combo. Next Saturday is my next tournament and if you want I´ll report how it went.

€dit: I'm not really happy with Hull Breach, Raven's Crime and Worm Harvest. :/ I think I will play Mealstorm Pulse over Shattering Spree.

beastman

09-14-2009, 01:13 PM

Worm harvest is one of my favorite cards in the deck. It's so goddamn good at just slowly grinding out control decks such as ITF and landstill.

luckymartyr

09-14-2009, 01:34 PM

Anyone have advice against red burn decks. I'm running chalice of the void which is pretty good at stopping bolts, chain lightnings, lavamancers and fanatics, but unless i devastating dreams them out of the game and remove most of my nonbasics to do it i pretty much lose. I am running primal command as a wish target as gaining seven and finding a big guy will likely win the game but surviving the first couple of tuns to do this is difficult.

Fasbi

09-14-2009, 01:51 PM

Chalice of the Void + Kitchen Finks are great against Zoo/Goyf Sligh

beastman

09-14-2009, 01:53 PM

luckymartyr

09-14-2009, 02:14 PM

Actually, even though chalice shuts down 1/3 of the deck its still about 50/50 for me. I ended up putting a chalice for 1 on turn 2 in my 3rd game of the match and ended up losing to riftbolt, hellspark elemental, shrapnal blast and fireblast as well as like 2 damage off of fetchlands (my build of loam only runs 5 fetchlands).

I have been thinking about cutting terravore and eternal witnesses that I had been running as one ofs and adding white for knight of the reliquary and morningtide in the board. Maybe something like a singleton nomad stadium could work. I would imagine that I would have to fetch more nonbasics for this plan to work and would just take more damage off of price of progress so this line of thinking maybe inherently flawed anyway. Anyone run anything similar?

georgjorge

09-14-2009, 02:49 PM

I have been thinking about cutting terravore and eternal witnesses that I had been running as one ofs and adding white for knight of the reliquary and morningtide in the board. Maybe something like a singleton nomad stadium could work. I would imagine that I would have to fetch more nonbasics for this plan to work and would just take more damage off of price of progress so this line of thinking maybe inherently flawed anyway. Anyone run anything similar?

Those exact cards have been discussed quite a bit over the last few pages.

As has Chalice vs Thoughtseize.

I know no-one in their right mind is going to read the whole thread before posting something, but reading the last ten or so pages coupled with the Search function really gives you a decent amount of knowledge on the deck, and also keeps the thread from running in a cycle forever :wink:.

CorpT

09-14-2009, 03:02 PM

I haven't had a chance to test it, but my group had considered adding blue for Trinket Mages. They would allow for some great tutors and allow Zuran Orb in the board.

ho_master

09-14-2009, 04:30 PM

Shanghi Knights

09-14-2009, 07:58 PM

Just thought I'd put it out there that this deck has some pretty bad game against Planeswalker Control (Ultimate Walker) that runs Humility. They have the same must-answer threats in Planeswalkers, recurring Engineered Explosives to hose threats, and sometimes even Humility, which causes them to save the rest of their counters on reverent silence/recursion on reverent silence. Has anyone tried testing against it?

I'm making room for Maelstrom Pulse in my board against that deck, and considering Worm Harvest as well, but I'm still wary of Worm Harvest because Graveyard hate dramatically hoses it, and it always comes in when you're playing a control deck.

Thats the best reason to run maelstrom pulse, its the best anti planeswalker avalible currently, in my opinion.

@luckymartyr

have you tried playing the solitary confinement version of the deck? That change might serve you well in solving the burn deck match up and maybe +another problem match up or two you might have.

Tamariz

09-15-2009, 05:35 AM

Solitary confinement is The Card against many hard matchups. I often sb it in in g2 no matter what opponent runs. It is great to clean that dead card slots against each matchup, such as DD, CotV or even wish or assault. I go -4 confidants +4 confinement against burn and goyfsligh, even being more dependant on cyclelands and lftl engine to draw, and it has been great many times.

Stinkweed Imp seems a good choice to me in many ways in the deck. It can KO almost everybody in the format and seems nice to battle relic. A recursive flier "chump"blocker is not a little thing in aggroloam I think.

Aggro_zombies

09-15-2009, 06:01 AM

Stinkweed Imp seems a good choice to me in many ways in the deck. It can KO almost everybody in the format and seems nice to battle relic. A recursive flier "chump"blocker is not a little thing in aggroloam I think.
Stinkweed is probably unnecessary.

Sure, it doesn't really "die" in the sense that it can be easily retrieved. However, one power means it's going nowhere fast in terms of putting your opponent on a clock. Three mana for what is basically a glorified wall is not tremendously appealing in a deck that already has a lot of bomby options in that slot, such as Crusher, Vore, Pulse, or Knights and Confinements in the white splash.

Speaking of that splash, I'm still not sure whether I like it. Knight seems like a cute replacement for Terravore, but no matter how I look at it, I'm not impressed with it. I'm not sure why, it just gets a gigantic "meh" from me, probably due to replacing trample with a mostly irrelevant ability.

Confinement seems nice but puts additional pressure on the deck to use the graveyard, which is not good when one of the most popular graveyard hate cards doesn't target. You also can't depend on Confinement when you're behind, as losing it to a Grip will be pretty awkward. In that sense, I think the card is win-more, or at least useful in letting you pull ahead in a close situation.

Moving on to the deck as a whole:

I have a feeling that one of the reasons (actually, one of several reasons) this deck has been losing ground lately is because of its overall weakness to blue decks, specifically Counterbalance. The deck can fight through it, but it's still an unattractive choice as the meta becomes more and more saturated with blue, mostly because it's not really worth the effort of having to play close game ones and even closer game twos and threes every other round at a big tournament when you can play something that has an easier time instead. The main challenges for this deck now (as I see them) are to:

Find a way to reduce reliance on Life from the Loam and the graveyard,
Find board control elements that don't get raped by Counterbalance and Spell Snare.

I realize that people will argue that Chalice and/or Shusher are answers to the blue problem, but I remain unconvinced and really don't want to go there right now anyway, as it's been hashed and rehashed about a million times. The big issue is Relic and sideboard graveyard hate taking out Loam and leaving Crusher as the only big guy versus a field of Merfolk/Elves/Dreadnought/whatever. Bob can help you refuel but usually not in time to stop yourself from getting outmuscled. I don't think Dreams is useful in this situation as the discard becomes a real issue if you lose access to Life from the Loam.

I've since moved on to other projects nearer and dearer to my heart, but as far as this deck is concerned, I'd be curious about looking into maindeck Firespout and possibly a land toolbox. That served me well when I ran Intuition here, though I chalk that up more to recurring EE lock than the usefulness of the other lands. That said, a singleton Boeseiju helps force through Wishes and all manner of other things, is harder to get rid of than Shusher, and is easily recoverable with LftL. Tabernacle is a big nail in the aggro coffin, especially if the deck moves towards the stronger but less versatile Firespout in the sweeper slot. I still don't like Dreams against blue decks.

Just some 3 a.m. thoughts to get discussion rolling. I don't have many answers, but I'm working on them for a different deck facing similar predicaments.

Tamariz

09-15-2009, 07:22 AM

While testing, my options in sb against blues have been (4) Vial, leyline of Lf, shusher and spellbreaker behemoth, and I think behemoth is my favourite.

Manhattan

09-15-2009, 12:07 PM

I prefer Boil. Though I'm not sure wether that's just the sadist inside me.

Shanghi Knights

09-15-2009, 12:45 PM

Boil in the side board? At most i've just squeezed in a tsunami to wish for. But i am curious how is boil working for you?

I see where counter top is a huge problem, i consider myself lucky as my meta doesn't have too many people who are very hellbent on playing the deck so i don't run into it very often.

other than counter top and merfolk, what blue has been a growing problem match up for the deck?

georgjorge

09-15-2009, 12:46 PM

I have a feeling that one of the reasons (actually, one of several reasons) this deck has been losing ground lately is because of its overall weakness to blue decks, specifically Counterbalance. The deck can fight through it, but it's still an unattractive choice as the meta becomes more and more saturated with blue, mostly because it's not really worth the effort of having to play close game ones and even closer game twos and threes every other round at a big tournament when you can play something that has an easier time instead. The main challenges for this deck now (as I see them) are to:

Find a way to reduce reliance on Life from the Loam and the graveyard,
Find board control elements that don't get raped by Counterbalance and Spell Snare.

I'm not sure why Aggro Loam should be a bad choice in a blue-based metagame, or against Counterbalances. It has more powerful threats than other decks to overload your opponent's defenses, and enough 3cc-cards to be able to still resolve stuff through Balance. Of course many games will still be close, but I don't know many decks that DON'T have close games against CounterTop and other blue-based decks - there's a reason that archetype has been a DTB forever, the blue cantripping just gives them incredible consistency, meaning there will rarely be games where they don't draw any counters and you can do whatever you want. But you could do a lot worse than Aggro Loam if you're facing those decks.

Also, I find that one of the toughest cards to beat is an early Dark Confidant on the other side of the board - Aggro Loam often (read: without Diamond/ on the draw) isn't fast enough to be able to swarm it and kill the opponent before it matters, and it doesn't play enough (or cheap enough) removal to kill it early (especially when you add Daze to the equation).

I also don't see how the prevalence of blue-based decks calls for more Firespouts, or how Intuition helps making the deck less reliant on the graveyard (I'm really not being sarcastic, just saying how I see it). I play two Firespout in the board right now, and like it a lot because of the Zoo and Merfolk matchups, but I wouldn't really play it main unless the meta was very heavily Aggro-based.

Finally, I'm having some problems against black-based Aggro (Eva Green, Suicide Black, Team America) - they have more and cheaper threats, and our removal, as said above, is rather expensive, plus their discard makes Dreams bad, so Ritualed out threats (especially Specters and Stalkers) can be hard to deal with. Has anyone come up with good (read: not useless in other matchups) sideboard cards for this, or is the best we can do just to board additional Pulse/Firespout/Terminate/Explosives ?

Aggro_zombies

09-15-2009, 01:42 PM

I'm not sure why Aggro Loam should be a bad choice in a blue-based metagame, or against Counterbalances. It has more powerful threats than other decks to overload your opponent's defenses, and enough 3cc-cards to be able to still resolve stuff through Balance. Of course many games will still be close, but I don't know many decks that DON'T have close games against CounterTop and other blue-based decks - there's a reason that archetype has been a DTB forever, the blue cantripping just gives them incredible consistency, meaning there will rarely be games where they don't draw any counters and you can do whatever you want. But you could do a lot worse than Aggro Loam if you're facing those decks.
You could also do a lot better. Merfolk is popular because it has ways around Countertop and an army of unblockable guys. Zoo can often shrug off all but the fastest Counterbalances, and can sometimes play through them if it's still early enough. Canadian Threshold can keep Countertop off its mana long enough to close the game with burn and a Goyf or Clique.

What I'm saying here is that this deck is not as indifferent to Counterbalance as you make it out to be. Counterbalance doesn't effectively stop Pulse, Crusher, or Terravore, but it does stop Loam, Wish, Tarmogoyf, and Dark Confidant, all of which are huge. Having a close matchup isn't good enough when you can play decks that have a solid or even good matchup. There's also the fact that graveyard hate out of the sideboard puts a lot of pressure on you when combined with Counterbalance and a reasonable clock.

I would like to improve this situation if possible by reducing the deck's vulnerability to Counterbalance at the very least. That way, you have less to worry about in games one, two, and three.

Also, I find that one of the toughest cards to beat is an early Dark Confidant on the other side of the board - Aggro Loam often (read: without Diamond/ on the draw) isn't fast enough to be able to swarm it and kill the opponent before it matters, and it doesn't play enough (or cheap enough) removal to kill it early (especially when you add Daze to the equation).
Sudden Shock? If you can bait the opponent into putting a one- or three-coster on top, you can safely nuke Confidant. It does nothing elsewhere, though.

I also don't see how the prevalence of blue-based decks calls for more Firespouts, or how Intuition helps making the deck less reliant on the graveyard (I'm really not being sarcastic, just saying how I see it). I play two Firespout in the board right now, and like it a lot because of the Zoo and Merfolk matchups, but I wouldn't really play it main unless the meta was very heavily Aggro-based.
This isn't quite what I said.

Blue-based decks running Tarmogoyf make Dreams a less attractive choice as a sweeper, mostly because it's easy to counter and doesn't kill Tarmogoyf unless you really put a lot of effort into it. The fact that Dreams isn't spectacular against Zoo or Merfolk either makes a compelling case for Firespout as an alternative board wipe card.

Intuition doesn't reduce the reliance on the yard. I mentioned it because it enabled a land toolbox, which is what I wanted to talk about. Lands that do stuff are difficult for Counter-Top variants to deal with, so it may be worth exploring a land base with more utility lands built in. Intuition does not necessarily need to be the enabler for this, but it was the one I used when I ran such a toolbox.

Finally, I'm having some problems against black-based Aggro (Eva Green, Suicide Black, Team America) - they have more and cheaper threats, and our removal, as said above, is rather expensive, plus their discard makes Dreams bad, so Ritualed out threats (especially Specters and Stalkers) can be hard to deal with. Has anyone come up with good (read: not useless in other matchups) sideboard cards for this, or is the best we can do just to board additional Pulse/Firespout/Terminate/Explosives ?
Firespout is actually pretty good against them, especially if they can't pump Shade in response. Chalice at one stops their acceleration, and at that point the only really problematic thing you have to worry about is Tombstalker, which can be mopped up by Pulse or Terminate. Running Explorations and discard of your own is also an option, and one I've been interested in investigating.

beastman

09-15-2009, 02:42 PM

What I want to know, is how the hell are you guys having a hard time against merfolk?

Aggro_zombies

09-15-2009, 02:52 PM

What I want to know, is how the hell are you guys having a hard time against merfolk?
It's not that hard, but Firespout is better here than Dreams because of Spell Snare and Force.

beastman

09-15-2009, 03:00 PM

Seriously, I hear everyone saying "O Noez, tooo Much fishez, I cant win"

I have not dropped a game to mer**** yet, we just have too many bombs for them.

Lastly, I have never seen merfolk run snare, thats why DD is such a goddamned beating.

Shanghi Knights

09-15-2009, 03:45 PM

last merfolk game i popped in volcanic fallout and mopped them up. it does require you to race when it comes to them getting out two or more lords. but it does get the job done, though 3 or more damage would be better.

"But what is a lord with no subjects to follow him/her?" -someone-

With exploration and mox daimond the race for 3 mana is easily accomplished. Plus volcanic fallout could hit a planeswalker too which is nice.

BreathWeapon

09-19-2009, 07:18 AM

Anybody else reviving Aggro-Loam with Entomb? Short of Reanimator or Ichorid, Aggro-Loam stands the most to gain, with Genesis, Anger, Life from the Loam, Ancient Grudge/Ray of Revelation, Roar of the Worm, Worm Harvest, Raven's Crime and all of the utility lands. Just Entomb, Anger go probably ups your fundamental turn considerably, and we'd be able to cut down to only 1 Life from the Loam with 4 additional tutors for it.

Something along the lines of,

4 Countryside Crusher
4 Terravore
4 Wild Mongrel ???
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Genesis
1 Anger
4 Devastating Dreams
4 Burning Wish
4 Entomb
3 Life from the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
23 Lands

georgjorge

09-19-2009, 09:01 AM

It's something to be tried out, but that list isn't really my style of playing, as I see Loam as a strong support card for the deck, not as something I need or want to see every game, mainly because of tempo issues. There are enough situations where I wouldn't want to spend B and a draw step to tutor up Loam. I can see it working in a more controllish version which has enough time to set up the engine though.

Regarding the other cards, first turn Anger looks rather nice against some decks. Genesis/Harvest/Crime are strong against control, but as they depend on having Loam as well, they might be too slow against all the other decks, and I'm not sure how many slots we need to fight control. I've also been thinking about Brawn against Tribal...

I don't know how relevant the dissynergy with Chalice is. I'm ok with playing 3-4 Thoughtseize as 1cc-cards along with Chalice in my main, so I think it could work out fine.

Shanghi Knights

09-20-2009, 10:59 PM

i have contemplated putting entomb in my intuition slot. while giving my creatures a +3/+3 or fetching lands for loam, entomb single searching might not be bad in its own right. may have to dredge loam a few more times to get what i want but if i use entomb it can get what i want. all to often intuition makes me grab extras when i only need 1. I gotta think on it more. but certainly the tutoring for loam is a huge plus for most black builds of this deck.

georgjorge

09-21-2009, 02:33 PM

Soldar

09-21-2009, 04:52 PM

I think this new Trap, and the unbanning of Entomb could help create new and interesting variations, not even fit to be called "Aggro" loam. I can see the trap going into an even more creature-heavy build, since if you're running the 11-14 creatures variants of Loam, I can see myself whiffing on the Trap every now and then.

Entomb Loam might be worth messing around with, since you could maindeck more Eternal Witnesses.

Aggro_zombies

09-21-2009, 07:35 PM

When I finally have time to play some Magic again, I'll DEFINITELY test that nice little Trap in the anti-counter (currently: Shusher) slots.
So what happens when they counter this?

If you're using Shushers, keep them. This doesn't do anything for this deck.

EDIT: Also doesn't help if they counter Wish, Loam, Chalice, Dreams, EE...

Shanghi Knights

09-21-2009, 07:54 PM

Summoning Trap 4GG
Instant - Trap

If a creature you cast this turn was
countered by a spell or ability an opponent
controlled, you may pay 0 rather then pay
Summoning Trap's casting cost.
Look at the top 7 cards of your library.
You may put a creature card from among
them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on
the bottom of your library in any order.

When I finally have time to play some Magic again, I'll DEFINITELY test that nice little Trap in the anti-counter (currently: Shusher) slots. With 14 creatures, the chances of hitting one are pretty good, and in this deck any creature is a threat. It's only okay against CBalance as you still lose a card, but playing it after your first- or second-turn threat got Dazed/Snared/Forced looks like a very strong Tempo play.

Also, finally a card whose casting cost doesn't match ANY card in the whole Counterbalance deck, not even Force or Sower !

Zendikar rocks...

That trap card sounds better than shusher to me. I want to know wheres your source for that card? Though creature counts not the issue as much as its a creature quality issue. I would not want to play that trap when casting a tarmogoyf and in the top 7 only find a dark confidant or any other pip squeek creature we run in the deck. But the trap card almost looks like a whole other deck in itself as well.

georgjorge

09-22-2009, 05:43 AM

So what happens when they counter this?

If you're using Shushers, keep them. This doesn't do anything for this deck.

EDIT: Also doesn't help if they counter Wish, Loam, Chalice, Dreams, EE...

Yes, they can counter it, though they often won't have two counters by turn two. If compared to Shusher/Choke, you sacrifice some midgame power for explosiveness (which can be a good thing, especially against stuff like Tempo Thresh or Team America). Also, Shusher seems better IF they have 2+ counters on the first 2-3 turns, and you have 3+ lands to abuse Shusher, which doesn't always happen, especially against decks using Stifles and/or Wastelands.

As to the non-creature cards - I'll give you Chalice, but Dreams gets usually boarded out, Loam usually isn't played early and won't be countered much anyway, and I don't play Wish.

I'm not saying this card is broken and will singlehandedly win you games, but it fulfils a certain role pretty well, and shouldn't be dismissed without any testing. I'll get back to you when I've done that.

I want to know wheres your source for that card?

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=185582

Jak

09-23-2009, 12:12 AM

I saw a 5c Loam list that looked awesome and had to tweak with it. I know Aggro Zombies was working on a list with Intuition so hopefully he can weigh in. The first thing I didn't like was being 5 colors. Fitting everything into the mana base was just hard so I cut black. I felt white gave the deck better removal and Knight of the Reliquary which allows for an awesome toolbox. Black does give Raven's Crime, Vindicate, and Volrath's Stronghold. I felt creature recursion could be accomplished via Genesis, and Crime and Vindicate can slo be replaced. They were just SB options. I am trying this out.

Lands - 26
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Arid Mesa
4 Taiga
2 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
3 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 Academy Ruins
1 Nantuko Monastery
2 Forgotten Cave
2 Tranquil Thicket

Accel - 4
4 Mox Diamond

Creatures - 14
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
2 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Etched Oracle
1 Gigapede
1 Genesis

Removal - 8
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Devastating Dreams

Engine - 8
2 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
3 Burning Wish

Winnar - 2
2 Seismic Assault

SB
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Life from the Loam
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Banefire
1 Compulsive Research
1 Worm Harvest
1 Armageddon

I want to add another land but I would rather cut it down to 60 (currently at 62) first. Ideas? I also would like to work on the SB, like running some more combo hate. I mean, I am in blue, there should be something more alongside Chalice. Spell Snare? Spell Pierce (the new card)?

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 12:30 AM

If your looking for anything similar to vindicate for the deck temporal spring is an often under estimated card that can work very similarly. If your looking for a blue spell to use as a counter or something i'd try negate. not too many creatures that threaten this deck. if they do you have swords.

etched oracle looks nice but maybe cut it for a 4th wish or if you want something that costs 4 in that spots put in a sower of temptation.

nantuko monastery looks nice but one shot from graveyard hate and its a couple turns to rebuild and use it again.

the only other issue you might have is the need for additional card draw. the cycle lands are the primary but stuff like confidant in the mix is almost godly sometimes because it doesn't demand you invest mana.

Aggro_zombies

09-23-2009, 12:34 AM

Interesting.

First off, I would drop the Seismic Assaults to get the deck back to sixty. Assault is nice and wins outside of combat, but triple red is kind of a pain and the card really isn't that great anymore outside of the tribal matches (for example, you need to pitch at least two lands to kill pretty much anything out of Zoo, which is unattractive).

Secondly, three Wasteland is probably too many with Intuition. Not only is it becoming less useful with the rise in mono-colored tribal decks and the addition of enemy fetches, it taps for colorless mana in a deck with a lot of different colored mana requirements. You still have quite a lot of ways to find one, so going to two tops should be safe. In a similar vein, drop Monastery (resounding meh) and possibly swap Maze for Kor Haven. Haven requires mana to use, sure, but it doesn't generate a blocker for the opponent and taps to make mana itself. Whether those two benefits outweigh the :1::w: activation cost would require testing.

Gigapede is a yawner. Another Knight or a Worm Harvest would be much, much better. I'm also unsure about Oracle. It seems cute, and a 4/4 Ancestral Vision is nice, but playing it for anything less than the full spectrum of colors is weak and it's not really great as a beater. If you like it, then keep it, but I'm pretty sure you could find better things to put into that slot (like another Knight or a fourth Wish).

The sideboard needs Firespout: at least one for a Wish target, but probably more against Zoo and aggro. They're much better than Dreams and you're light on heavy-damage spells as it is.

Jak

09-23-2009, 12:42 AM

If your looking for anything similar to vindicate for the deck temporal spring is an often under estimated card that can work very similarly. If your looking for a blue spell to use as a counter or something i'd try negate. not too many creatures that threaten this deck. if they do you have swords.

etched oracle looks nice but maybe cut it for a 4th wish or if you want something that costs 4 in that spots put in a sower of temptation.

nantuko monastery looks nice but one shot from graveyard hate and its a couple turns to rebuild and use it again.

I'm not sure about Spring. It deserves testing but I always prefer to just get rid of whatever I target permanently.

Etched Oracle is there because it is pro Swords and recurrable via Ruins. Its pretty awesome.

Not sure about Monastery. It is there for Knight to tutor up or to randomly have a recurrable beater with Loam. Deserves testing.

Jak

09-23-2009, 12:51 AM

Interesting.

First off, I would drop the Seismic Assaults to get the deck back to sixty. Assault is nice and wins outside of combat, but triple red is kind of a pain and the card really isn't that great anymore outside of the tribal matches (for example, you need to pitch at least two lands to kill pretty much anything out of Zoo, which is unattractive).

Yeah, I was thinking that is what needed to go. I still want to test with it.

Secondly, three Wasteland is probably too many with Intuition. Not only is it becoming less useful with the rise in mono-colored tribal decks and the addition of enemy fetches, it taps for colorless mana in a deck with a lot of different colored mana requirements. You still have quite a lot of ways to find one, so going to two tops should be safe. In a similar vein, drop Monastery (resounding meh) and possibly swap Maze for Kor Haven. Haven requires mana to use, sure, but it doesn't generate a blocker for the opponent and taps to make mana itself. Whether those two benefits outweigh the :1::w: activation cost would require testing.

I like the idea of dropping Wastelands to 2 or something, I just worry of turning the deck into a toolbox that ends up not functioning correctly without Intuition.

I still will test Monastery for the reasons in my other post, but it is on the watch list.

I'm down with the change to Kor Haven. It may not be strictly better since the deck is so mana intensive and tapping 3 lands sucks.

Gigapede is a yawner. Another Knight or a Worm Harvest would be much, much better. I'm also unsure about Oracle. It seems cute, and a 4/4 Ancestral Vision is nice, but playing it for anything less than the full spectrum of colors is weak and it's not really great as a beater. If you like it, then keep it, but I'm pretty sure you could find better things to put into that slot (like another Knight or a fourth Wish).

Pedey is to get Genesis in the yard as well as turning into a killer of control. Deserves testing.

The sideboard needs Firespout: at least one for a Wish target, but probably more against Zoo and aggro. They're much better than Dreams and you're light on heavy-damage spells as it is.

For sure, don't know how I misted it. I still want a creature removal spell that isn't a damage sweeper though.

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 12:51 AM

Like Aggro zombies said gigapede might be a yawner. but i assume you plotted to spend 5 mana at some point in your deck for him. In gigapedes place gargoyle castle might be interesting just because it makes a flyer. Hey its loam and just as reusable as gigapede.

@Aggro Zombies

Over in the smoke stax thread they were yapping about a angel that has land fall ability of making 1/1 flyers? whats your opinion of such a creature entering aggro loam? it does cost 2 and 2 white to cast. but 3/3 flyer as well. the mana cost seems too white for the deck so i'm kinda wanting to dismiss it from aggro loam and leave it to its own deck and shell all together. if we put white in the deck obviously we have knight to go get us that extra white mana for the angel. so it doesn't seem as bad as i think but still, whats your opinion?

Aggro_zombies

09-23-2009, 01:08 AM

Over in the smoke stax thread they were yapping about a angel that has land fall ability of making 1/1 flyers? whats your opinion of such a creature entering aggro loam? it does cost 2 and 2 white to cast. but 3/3 flyer as well. the mana cost seems too white for the deck so i'm kinda wanting to dismiss it from aggro loam and leave it to its own deck and shell all together. if we put white in the deck obviously we have knight to go get us that extra white mana for the angel. so it doesn't seem as bad as i think but still, whats your opinion?
Worse than Baneslayer, even with Exploration. Baneslayer wins when you're behind, while that...doesn't.

The only remotely playable landfall card spoiled so far (for this deck, anyway) is Bloodghast. If he were slightly bigger, he be ridiculous, but as it is a 2/1 that's really fucking difficult to get rid of is nice. On the other hand, it's too small to do much damage in combat and is worse in most cases than Worm Harvest. It's too bad, but it seems the landfall mechanic didn't really pan out in this set.

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 01:24 AM

Oh ya jaK if your running blue, In my build i was messing with wonder, intuition making your non flying tarmogoyf suddenly into a flying tarmogoyf can be quite fun:laugh:

Jak

09-23-2009, 04:53 AM

I was testing and I basically said fuck it and added black. Volrath's Stronghold is just soooo much nicer than Gigapede/Genesis shit. It also gave me a better wishboard with Edict, Raven's Crime, Pulse, and Worm Harvest.

I was also able to cut it to 60 with the 27 land by removing the creatures. I then added a Burning Wish to put it at 61 because the card is bonkers.

// Lands
3 [TE] Wasteland
2 [ON] Forgotten Cave
3 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
2 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
3 [B] Taiga
1 [R] Savannah
2 [R] Plateau
1 [R] Badlands
1 [A] Bayou
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [U] Tropical Island
1 [U] Volcanic Island
1 [NE] Kor Haven
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

// Creatures
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
2 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
1 [FD] Eternal Witness

// Spells
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
2 [EX] Seismic Assault
4 [JU] Burning Wish
2 [RAV] Life from the Loam
2 [TO] Devastating Dreams
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [U] Swords to Plowshares

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
SB: 4 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
SB: 4 [MR] Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 [TO] Chainer's Edict
SB: 1 [RAV] Compulsive Research

SB is all kinds of wack.

jazzykat

09-23-2009, 04:58 AM

Jak

09-23-2009, 11:40 AM

@Jak's build: I have a small problem with your build. Allowing for witness (which is 1 more turn slower) you play many 2 ofs and intuition. Can you explain that logic?

Also, have you tried 1 dustbowl in place of 1 of the 3 wastelands?

The logic is to not have the deck be a giant toolbox. I am not even running that many 2-ofs to begin with. Assault is standard at that number, Loam because I now have 9 MD, Dreams is standard at that number, Knight because I can't fit the third, and EE because I can't fit the third.

The Wintess was more for piles and as a ridiculous recursion engine with Stronghold. It could be cut for another Knight, Terravore, or an Etched Oracle.

Dust Bowl is weak. It sucks having your mana denial spell get hit by Wasteland.

jazzykat

09-23-2009, 11:55 AM

... It sucks having your mana denial spell get hit by Wasteland.

Do you mean it sucks to have to activate it it for 3 mana? A tapped wasteland can be wastelanded, and you still need to loam recursion to bring it back to hit the second land. Can you expand on this idea.

BTW I agree with the numbers of the cards that are 2 ofs as that follows from older non blue lists. I need to test this intuition idea out.

Windux

09-23-2009, 12:03 PM

Jak

09-23-2009, 12:08 PM

Do you mean it sucks to have to activate it it for 3 mana? A tapped wasteland can be wastelanded, and you still need to loam recursion to bring it back to hit the second land. Can you expand on this idea.

Meaning it sometimes doesn't get to do its job before it gets hit. It is much slower than Wasteland and against things like Merfolk.

The other thing I don't like is how slow it is. 4 lands need to be tapped to hit one of their lands. In a deck that wants to keep Loaming, playing threats, cycling cards, etc it just ends up being counterproductive to waste a turn to Dust Bowl one land.

It does deserve testing because this is all theory, however.

Jak

09-23-2009, 12:12 PM

I played a 5c Intuition build as well.
Jak: I would suggest to cut white.

The Knigh doesn't search that often. Kor Haven would be cut anyway.
Terravore can do the job as well.

Swords could be replaced with Chalice, which is much more impressiv.
Your creatures are always bigger, exvept for Tombstalker which can be really annoying.

Confinements are relly nuts, but I played them only pre-Pridemage, so I Think Confinement is out of reach for being added to this deck.

Except for 4 good Removal (Smother, Maelstrom Pulse would be nice as well in this slot), you don't lose anything, therefore your manabase improves

What does cutting white give you? A more stable manabase? I mean, I tried going three colors by cutting white or black but the manabase always ended up being still terrible. I'd end up cutting three lands for another Taiga, Badlands, and Volcanic Island, but does that help any?

The deck is tight and finding room for Chalice main would be incredibly hard. I think it could be awesome MD, but I've used its slots up with Intuition.

Paradigm Shift

09-23-2009, 07:42 PM

Not sure if this list belongs here, but I suppose here is better than a new thread.

Midrange Loam

// Lands
1 [JU] Nantuko Monastery
4 [REW] Wasteland
3 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ON] Windswept Heath
1 [ARE] Forest (5)
1 [ARE] Plains (5)
1 [ARE] Mountain (5)
3 [B] Taiga
2 [B] Savannah
2 [B] Plateau
1 [ON] Secluded Steppe
3 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
1 [ON] Forgotten Cave
1 [UL] Treetop Village

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [CNF] Knight of the Reliquary
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
3 [LRW] Gaddock Teeg

// Spells
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [B] Swords to Plowshares
4 [JU] Burning Wish
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
4 [RAV] Lightning Helix

// Sideboard
SB: 3 [CNF] Volcanic Fallout
SB: 1 [WL] Tariff
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 1 [NE] Reverent Silence
SB: 1 [GP] Shattering Spree
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 [SHM] Dawnglow Infusion
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam

Helix is pretty good in the current aggro-heavy environment. Lots of guys with 3 or less toughness. In this deck, StP is better than Path because you don't want them to get their basics, and the life isn't as relevant as it would be to Zoo.

The only situations where Teeg will interfere with your own spells are Dawnglow Infusion or Reverant Silence out of the board. But seriously, in matchups where those two spells are relevant wish targets, teeg probably comes out for canonist or grip.

I haven't decided if either Sylvan Library or Top would work better in this deck. Top + Loam interaction is nice, but so is Sylvan.

The wishboard is half serious, half cards I thought were funny.

I figured this deck wouldn't benefit too much from Mox Diamond. Would it really? Is it better than one of the cards in the list?

Should I run bigger threats, or maybe even Natural Order (add in Birds and an Arbor).

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 08:42 PM

@jak

What do you mean by saying you have a hard time finding room for chalice main? you said (less i am miss reading you) you used its space up with intuition, its you main boarded it you would be taking out swords as its only the 1 costers that chalice is needed to stop in this deck.

Also in my own experience two seismic assaults isn't enough. when you want/need them theres a risk of the two being either dredges or never coming down the pipes so you need to increase them if your going to use them.

However In your build as your using swords, you should cut the seismics for additional knights or additional md removal, or a second witness.

Not @ Jak (yet important)
about chalice though. its for keeping creatures from getting swords or other annoying 1 costers from being played, a more challenging/risky build of aggro loam in my opinion are the builds that steer clear of playing 1 drop chalices. Though the so far proven and already proven path is packing chalice for setting at 1. That said, in white splash version, i find mother of runes to be very good as a defense breaker and shield to swords. Yes your open to pesky stuff like exerpate but that is why wish is vital with a side board with a loam in it. Something blue white splashed into loam can do that isn't explored much is our old friend meddling mage for stoping such things as exerpate.

@ jazzy

dustbowl looks good on paper but with loam you don't need it as you just bring back waste land over and over.

@ paradigm

you build is interesting. but the lack of mox diamond could cause you trouble in mana base consistency. crusher and dreams costing two red and the random need for 1 white, mox diamond goes far to make the mana consistency more stable to play a combination of white green and double red. I would suggest cutting the swords for the mox diamonds. lightning helix does need to be explored as it give life and kills a lot of pesky creatures that swords is used to kill.

If your running stuff like dawnglow infusion and life gain from helix's i would suggest trying to work in black for dark confidant perhaps. At the same time teeg brings a lot to the deck in the main board. No wraths no forces no smokestacks no x's. I would suggest putting in chalice of the void in the md. yes teeg prevents you from playing chalice but if you drop chalice for 1 before you play teeg and then play teeg you have effectively stopped a great deal of magic cards from being played. yes though it is a lot of work to get both out and any further drawn chalices would be dead draws. but it might be worth exploring. Like i was suggesting to jak maybe add some mother of runes if you don't like how chalice at 1 causes disruption to the plan of your decks design.

this post is jankey i just came from the bar shortly before making it, just as a heads up. I'll edit it as i sober. or read it and go wtf was i saying.

Jak

09-23-2009, 08:58 PM

@jak

What do you mean by saying you have a hard time finding room for chalice main? you said (less i am miss reading you) you used its space up with intuition, its you main boarded it you would be taking out swords as its only the 1 costers that chalice is needed to stop in this deck.

Also in my own experience two seismic assaults isn't enough. when you want/need them theres a risk of the two being either dredges or never coming down the pipes so you need to increase them if your going to use them.

However In your build as your using swords, you should cut the seismics for additional knights or additional md removal, or a second witness.

about chalice though. it for keeping creatures from getting swords or other annoying 1/1s, a more challenging/risky build of aggro loam in my opinion are the builds that steer clear of playing 1 drops of there own by using chalice 1 as a staple stradegy. That said, in white version, i find mother of runes to be very good as a defense breaker and shield to swords. Yes your open to pesky stuff like exerpate but that why wish is vital and a side baord with a loam in it. Something blue white splashed into loam can do that isn't explored much is our old friend meddling mage of such things as exerpate.

So take out all my MD removal to run Chalice? I don't like that idea. I would probably just end up cutting white then since Swords is one of the larger reasons to splash if I ever were to add Chalice.

If Assault was ever dredged or Gripped away, Eternal Witness shines at getting it back.

Why should I cut Assault because I run Swords? They serve different roles in my eyes.

Cutting white would probably leave me playing this.

Mana - 30
26 Lands
4 Mox Diamond

Creatures - 12
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Terravore
1 Eternal Witness

Control - 10
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Seismic Assault

Engine - 9
4 Burning Wish
3 Intuition
2 Life from the Loam

SB - 18
4 Negate
3 Krosan Grip
1 Life from the Loam
1 Firespout
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Shattering Spree
1 Reverent Silence
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Raven's Crime
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Compulsive Research
1 Banefire
1 Worm Harvest

Aggro_zombies

09-23-2009, 09:02 PM

I don't think Terravore is really that great anymore; not only does it die to creature removal, it dies to a lot of graveyard removal as well. Crusher gets bigger and can plow through just about everything, although I guess trample is just good enough that it can't be dropped completely. Even so, I would recommend cutting down to two at most.

Maelstrom Pulse is really good. Like, really good. I haven't been impressed with the power of Burning Wish for a long time (irrelevant against combo, too slow against Zoo, costs two mana versus blue decks), so I ended up cutting mine a while ago. If you do that, you can run three Pulse in the main, although I might consider two Pulse, three Dreams depending on the meta.

Dropping Burning Wish also lets you have a real sideboard, which is nice.

Jak

09-23-2009, 09:10 PM

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 09:31 PM

drop a loam and up the assualts by 1 if your keeping them. with 4 intuition its like running 6 loams if done like i suggest.

the thing with assault is its two fold. Its a creature killer and a player stabber!. You drop it on a goblin player there fried. even merfolk are butchered by it. Yes you can get it back if accidentally dredged by loam but that only because you will in most cases of that happening be using it as a finisher. If drawn early and played with in the first several turns its a staple attack plan throught out the game. I find running less than 3 is sub par if your going to actually use seismic assault. If your just using it as a finisher then cut it down to 1 and intuition into it and get it back with witness. The thing with it as a finisher is witnessing it back is mana heavy or turn heavy as you witness 1 turn then have to wait a whole other turn to play assault. This is where that 3 red becomes bother some as aggro zombies often points out.

i realize the previous list i am commenting all this on is a proposed theoretic list, for it you dropped wish. but if you kept it the advice is similar in reguards to assault.

Swords is awesome in this deck in its own right, it really doesn't have that much to do with the presence of assault.

Jak

09-23-2009, 09:49 PM

drop a loam and up the assualts by 1 if your keeping them. with 4 intuition its like running 6 loams if done like i suggest.

Yes, I know that. I wouldn't up Assaults because it is hard to cast and drawing it early is a dead draw.

the thing with assault is its two fold. Its a creature killer and a player stabber!. You drop it on a goblin player there fried. even merfolk are butchered by it. Yes you can get it back if accidentally dredged by loam but that only because you will in most cases of that happening be using it as a finisher. If drawn early and played with in the first several turns its a staple attack plan throught out the game. I find running less than 3 is sub par if your going to actually use seismic assault. If your just using it as a finisher then cut it down to 1 and intuition into it and get it back with witness. The thing with it as a finisher is witnessing it back is mana heavy or turn heavy as you witness 1 turn then have to wait a whole other turn to play assault. This is where that 3 red becomes bother some as aggro zombies often points out.

I know Assault is good, thanks. The problem with it is RRR isn't the easiest thing to get early. Running more than 2 means you will draw it early which most likely means it will sit dead. It also isn't as great without Loam.

i realize the previous list i am commenting all this on is a proposed theoretic list, for it you dropped wish. but if you kept it the advice is similar in reguards to assault.

Kay.

Swords is awesome in this deck in its own right, it really doesn't have that much to do with the presence of assault.

Then why would I cut it for Assault? I would understand cutting it if the deck just didn't need the removal, but cutting it to just add Assault doesn't seem right.

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 09:55 PM

i'm a little confused when did i say cut assault for swords? i remember saying cut swords for chalice. (which is solid advice from many other players)

but yes early the 3red of assault makes it a dead draw. but with intuition i find myself land grabbing and loam grabbing before assault ever gets played so its not really a dead draw for very long.

when i get at assault, i just found that 2 seemed like it would never come up in my play experience. that lead me to think it was space better used for something else. so instead of dropping it i upped it to 3/4 pending on my tournament and my thinking at the time and suddenly it started coming up and having an influence on my games. thats just my experience with it though.

Jak

09-23-2009, 10:10 PM

However In your build as your using swords, you should cut the seismics for additional knights or additional md removal, or a second witness.

I took that meaning, "cut Assault since you already run Swords".

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 10:14 PM

I took that meaning, "cut Assault since you already run Swords".

i see how that might not be very clear. sorry if i'm going off on a tangent about assault.

Aggro_zombies

09-24-2009, 03:48 AM

So using the last list I posted, you would run something like this?

Mana - 30
26 Lands
4 Mox Diamond

Creatures - 12
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
2 Terravore
2 Eternal Witness

Control - 13
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Seismic Assault

Engine - 7
4 Intuition
3 Life from the Loam

SB - 15
4 Negate
3 Krosan Grip
3 Firespout
5 ?
I'd probably do -1 Witness, -1 Intuition, +1 EE, +1 Dreams. Past testing showed that four Intuition was a bit much, since you really only need to fire one off to pull very far ahead and it's dead early on. Three is about right, especially because you don't have very many ways to accelerate into it.

If you're using black, a single Shriekmaw is actually not bad. I haven't tested it alongside Pulse, though.

For the sideboard, I'd consider some amount of graveyard hate and utility lands. Not all of your one-of lands will be useful in every matchup, so it helps to bring in specific hate cards (like Tabernacle against tribal).

I've actually never thought about Negate before. It could be interesting, but my gut reaction is an "Ehhhh..." since I'm not sure how much better it would be in most cases than Chalice or Grip.

Shanghi Knights

09-24-2009, 07:50 PM

If you're using black, a single Shriekmaw is actually not bad. I haven't tested it alongside Pulse, though.

Normally i maindeck 3 shriekmaw to kill goyfs. but lately I've had that issue of shriekmaw vs pulse.

pulse is superior. but i like having creature removal main boarded for 2 mana. My whole logic was to get everyones tarmogoyf out of my way initially. but now its to kill the merfolk lords so there a manageable size for pyroclasm or cave in. (yes i said cave in) (p.s. don't pitch your countryside)

right now i'm 2 pulse md and 2 shriek.

EssKay

10-01-2009, 02:43 PM

I have a question about this deck that I can't seem to find an answer to. I have seen people dredge the card revealed by Bob to return Loam to their hand...is this a legal play? They way Bob is worded, the revealed card is put into your hand, more like a tutor effect, and according to the comprehensive rules, dredge only applies to cards that are drawn. If someone could point me towards an authoritative ruling on this, I would really appreciate it.

Shanghi Knights

10-01-2009, 04:07 PM

simply put bob doesn't draw cards. most dredge cards have it in italic writing stating that you must have the action of drawing a card available in order to replace drawing that card with dredge. If dark confidant was drawing you a card it would say in its wording draw but it doesn't. his ability triggers, (when it resolves) you reveal the card, lose life equal to its casting cost and that card goes to your hand. You never "draw by rules standards" in the whole process of his ability.

Jayzonious

10-06-2009, 04:39 PM

What do you guys think of GWB Aggro Loam? It's a little less aggro and a bit more control. Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but having trouble finding a place to post my list...

4 Dark Confidant
3 Terravore
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Qasali Pridemage

4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Path to Exile

2 Vindicate

3 Exploration
3 Solitary Confinement

4 Life from the Loam

4 Windswept Heath
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
3 Savannah
1 Scubland
3 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Secluded Steppe
1 Nomad Stadium

SB

2x Vexing Shusher
2x Choke
3x Null Rod
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Krosan Grip
2x Path to Exile

Nizmox

10-06-2009, 07:02 PM

What do you guys think of GWB Aggro Loam? It's a little less aggro and a bit more control. Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but having trouble finding a place to post my list...

I think people will say what they have said before.
That Aggro Loam isn't the same deck without Countryside Crusher and Seismic Assault. CC in particular is just too valuable when you're opponent is running graveyard hate because he can play through it.
It might be a reasonable deck, but I imagine if you want to run White and Black you'd be better off going 4 colour so you keep Crushers.

Shanghi Knights

10-08-2009, 11:55 AM

@Jayzonious

why is nullrod in your sideboard? (just guessing but to stop crypt and relics?)

Yes crusher is invaluable but a few posts back another guy built the deck without red too. i say its just preference.

Valtrix

10-08-2009, 12:04 PM

Jayzonious

10-08-2009, 12:19 PM

@Jayzonious

why is nullrod in your sideboard? (just guessing but to stop crypt and relics?)

Good guess :wink:

Graveyard hate really hurts the deck, especially the GBW version due to not running Countryside Crusher.

Seemed like really good anti-gy hate option, being as it works like a Pithing Needle naming both relic and crypt. If you happen to play against a deck running top even better.

I guess it conflicts with Mox Diamond, but I didn't run them in the deck primarily because I only have access to 1 at the moment, but I feel like Exploration is pretty good at accelerating (Turn 1 drop land play exploration, drop another land and have mana open for turn 1 STP/PTE) and adds also acts as a threat later game, with recurring double wastelands in one turn, nomad's stadium, etc.

Shanghi Knights

10-08-2009, 12:28 PM

if i were to make a suggestion to your deck maybe put in a eternal witness somewhere, and try and get either a maze of ith or a kor haven to capitalize on what you can grab with knight in there.

besides exploration version of the deck may playing different, as far as i am aware of no ones really found a way to capitalize on it in the deck yet.

(At most i use it to keep lands coming up for my safekeeper, which isn't anything particularly nifty.)

gotta be some landfall thing that would make it useful in a deck using loam to replay lands but so far nothing comes to mind.

Jayzonious

10-08-2009, 01:16 PM

Yeah I really wanted to squeeze like 2 witness in there, it has especially good synergy with Volrath's Stronghold. I'm thinking either -2 Vindicate or -1 Qasali Pridemage -1 Terravore. I think dropping the vindicates is a better option.

I like the idea of a single Maze of Ith too. Kind of. I guess I'll go -1 Wasteland +1 Maze of Ith and test that out.

ScatmanX

10-08-2009, 02:41 PM

Question: What is the single most scary card this deck can see coming from a Goblin oponent SB?
Relic? Tormord? Needle? Other?
Thanks.

georgjorge

10-08-2009, 05:06 PM

Speaking of seismic assault, I've almost completed assembling this deck, and I was wondering what its role is in the deck. I feel like it is amazing with life from the loam, but it seems not that great without it. I also hear that reliance on the graveyard is an issue the deck has, so if that's the case with assault, why run it in the main over a different type of threat? Also, in the little bit of testing I've done, the :r::r::r: has been fairly difficult.

I apologize about not keeping up with the thread :P

I feel exactly the same about it (although from only limited testing).

Question: What is the single most scary card this deck can see coming from a Goblin oponent SB?
Relic? Tormord? Needle? Other?
Thanks.

Relic in an aggressive deck like Goblins is rather scary for me, as those decks don't give you the time to re-grow your Goyfs but force you to throw them in front of their Lackey/Instigator, turning Relic into cantripping removal that also disables Loam (enabling their land destruction), plus it's hard to get damage through without a 'Vore. That's partly why I bring in Duress on the play against Rb (having Vial, Relic and Weirding as targets). Needle would only be scary if you're relying exclusively on Assault as removal, which is a bad idea. Crypt is not a big problem. Actually, Perish from the side would maybe be even more scary than Crypt, I guess, but I haven't seen many of them (yet).

Shanghi Knights

10-08-2009, 08:35 PM

as george said, but also stingscourges get annoying as we have to regrow the countrysides for instance.

personally goblins and zoo (maybe even merfolks) is why i can't part with devestating dreams in this deck.

@ Jayzonious

i'd keep the vindicates. they just destroy so many annoying things, if anything i'd up them to 3/4.

maybe drops the paths to exile.

On another note what are we doing about Dark depths? I mean if they resolves marit lage. I got a couple things i'm thinking here, we just wasteland it before its ability resolves and were good. second if the 20/20 comes out just kor haven or maze of ith. I am aware some people run sword/ path so easily removed. But i can't entirely see all of us running creatures removal of the sword and path type. some of us just have destroy like maelstrom or other.

Anyone got any good suggestions as wish targets to deal with marit leige once its on the table?
(besides chainers? (there might be a confidant on the table with marit leige.)

Hanni

10-09-2009, 05:45 AM

If you're going to splash white, Armageddon and Cataclysm are two very attractive options.

Also, just figured I'd post this in here since it is kind of like Aggro Loam. Well, Aggro/Control Loam, but similar concept:

U/G/b Aggro/Control Loam

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [U] Tropical Island
2 [A] Underground Sea
1 [B] Bayou
2 [MR] Island (1)
1 [5E] Forest (1)
1 [4E] Swamp (3)
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [TE] Wasteland
3 [ON] Lonely Sandbar

// Creatures
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [OD] Terravore
3 [LRW] Shriekmaw
1 [ON] Gigapede
1 [JU] Genesis

// Spells
4 [BD] Brainstorm
4 [LRW] Ponder
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [DD2] Daze
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
3 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 4 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [A] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 4 [DDC] Duress

Drops the base color of red for a base color of blue. Blue gives the deck increased consistency, allows it to drop certain cards that are no longer needed in multiples, like Loam, cycle lands, and Wastelands, and plays like a cross between Thresh and Aggro Loam. Anyway, there is more content about it here: UGb Intuition Thresh (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11638&page=7). Probably not appropriate for this thread, but since people were considering some other off-the-wall ideas, I figured it wasn't hurting anything. Not only that, but the Inuition Thresh thread doesn't seem to get much love (no clue why, ITF took off big and I think it's a better deck), so hopefully it sees more eyes here.

If you want more detailed info, like comparisons with this and normal Aggro Loam, or whatever, you can see some of it in the link, or I can simply address it.

Just for a quick comparison: the deck loses it's engines of Confidant and Crusher but gains engines with cantrips, Intuition, and Genesis. The cantrip engine makes it more consistent early, and the Genesis engine gives it more inevitability late. It loses it's amazing swarm aggro matchup (Devastating Dreams/Seismic Assault) for a good swarm aggro matchup (Pernicious Deed), but gains increased durability against just about everything else. The combo matchup is relatively better.

In comparison with Threshold, it loses CounterTop lock for Ravenlock, and loses the card advantage of CounterTop for the slower but more universal Intuition/Loam card advantage engine. The swarm aggro matchup is answered by Pernicious Deed and Terravore as opposed to Counterbalance and Rhox War Monk, which I suppose is =/= since they have StP and SB PtE. It's combo matchup is worse, but it's control matchup is significantly better. However, I play U/W/g Planeswalker CounterTop, which actually is a board control version of the deck (2 Elspeth, 2 Oblivion Ring, 2 WoG MD), so that deck probably has a superior swarm aggro matchup (PtE's SB too).

Anyway, that's the basic gist of it. I love blue, so naturally this is what I'd prefer to play if I wanted to play an aggroish Loam deck. Not to say I don't like the classic Aggro Loam deck, but you get what I mean.

Shanghi Knights

10-10-2009, 08:20 PM

@Hanni

This is the same project you were working on in that other thread in Developing forum?

In some ways i wanna say that your builds missing mana acceleration similar to traditional loam but on the other hand packing 8 1 mana draw spells should keep the mana droping ever turn.

ho_master

10-13-2009, 03:42 PM

I flew in from Houston and took this deck to SCG Philly and went 3-3 drop, wining 3 games against BUG countertop, Canadian Thresh, and Dragon Stompy and losing to Canadian Thresh, RGW Sligh, and Zoo.

In all 3 of my losses, I think it came down to simply not having chalice @ 1 and being able to protect it to prevent getting burned out. Also, Vendillion Clique caused untold amounts of damage to me in both Thresh matches, but I was able to stabilize in the one I won while I got ran over in the match I lost. However, I never felt like I would've preferred discard against the 6 decks I faced over Chalice, since my losses were to relatively fast decks that rely on low mana curve.

I feel like terminate mainboard is important to stop clique/tombstalker/trygon/whatever flyer that smacks you hard.

It was worth going to this event because one of the Houston crew (yeah you might see this same comment in multiple threads) won the whole shebang. Stax! Thank goodness for shattering spree and Grips in our boards, in case you run into that. Thanks to SCG for running a smooth and awesome event!

georgjorge

10-14-2009, 04:00 PM

So over the last months, this is what I've been testing and liking...

2 Gemstone Caverns

This needs a bit of an explanation...First of all, Gemstone Caverns on the draw is card disadvantage the same way that going first is card disadvantage, i.e. it's usually worth it because of the speed you gain. In fact, if your opponent Wastes your Caverns on his first turn, that's a good thing because it's exactly the same as you going first (with both players having one less card). Caverns is not as good as Mox Diamond because the card gets removed, but it's the next best thing, and allows for more frequent first turn Chalices, Confidants etc. I really encourage you to test it out, I've found it rather helpful in many matchups where going second can be hard to overcome...for example, Daze gets a lot worse if it has to be used on the first instead of the second turn, it's easier to answer Lackey or put down some defenses before getting overrun against Zoo etc.

So why isn't Caverns widely played in other decks ? I believe it's mostly because many decks either don't want any colorless mana, or if they can use it, they prefer Wasteland/Factory/Mutavault for it. This deck already has Wasteland and doesn't want manlands, and with Diamond and Loam has a stable enough manabase to allow for 2-3 of this little gem without getting screwed when not on the draw. For reference, my manabase is

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest

4 Wasteland
4 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Gemstone Caverns

3 Maelstrom Pulse

Those are definitely going to stay in. In fact, I've even cut the Grips from the sideboard and haven't felt any need for them yet because of this card. Being able to hit Counterbalance/Moat/Deed/Chalice/Crucible as well as Tombstalker/Goyf/Dreadnought/Angel saves you precious slots, and doesn't put you in a position where you have to sideboard in Grips because you fear a certain artifact/enchantment, and have dead draws if they don't get it. Also, there have already been some instances where I've destroyed more than one creature...Goblin tokens against Belcher, Zombie tokens against Ichorid (and then swinging for the win), double Serendib against Faerie Stompy, double Specter against Eva Green, and of course double Goyf against Tempo Thresh.

Now up for testing: Summoning Trap ;)