[Deck] Aggro Loam

@ AggroZombies, thanks for the comments. I also agree that Seismic Assault is being treated somewhat like a sacred cow. I agree with all your points especially assault being "A loam dependant late game card in a deck full of late game cards". I have been having alot of success with my GBW lists and it is very respectable vs goblins and other aggro decks. The inclusion of swords is great as well as having dudes that are not boltable when they land (knight and the vore).

People underestimate the usefulness of simple junk-esque cards like thoughtseize and STP in this deck. I know you guys love chalice but it really isn't very good if you dont open it on the play or have a mox in your hand. I find it awesome half the time and terrible the other half of the time. Thoughtseize is always good to open and is not mox dependant. I've won games by ripping that T1 vial or necatl from the opponent's hand.

Pridemage is very common now, so Chalice has lost it's lustre somewhat. However these are my opinions. Not having firespouts hurt, definitely. But you will be surprised how big dudes + stp/vindicate can be equally effective against aggro. Bob + loam have been winning me games against control, so that hasnt changed.

I agree, play whatever list u want that puts up results, but tonight i went 2-0-1 drop with this list:

4x Burning Wish
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Crusher
4x Mox Diamond
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Loam
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Grim Lavamancer
2x Seismic Assault
2x Knight of the Religuary
2x Punishing Fire
1x Path to Exhile

4x Wooded Foothills
4x Arid Mesa
4x Wasteland
3x Forgotten Cave
2x Taiga
2x Tranquil Thicket
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Plateau
1x Savannah
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Mountain

Sideboard

3x Krosan Grip
2x Firespout
2x Vexing Shusher
1x Kitchen Finks

Wish Targets

1x Devastating Dreams
1x Worm Harvest
1x Loam
1x Firespout
1x Hull Breach
1x Regrowth
1x Wing Snare
After winning 2 rounds then being paired against B/W D & T I drew and dropped because I would rather drink beer w/ my buddies than play magic. But, this list is easily the most savage thing I have ever played against my opponents. I played against Stax and 5c Silvers and just ravaged them. I left because 5$ buckets are > magic cards (IE 5 beers = 5$). But this is easily the most aggressive list of Loam I have ever played. The SB needs some tweaking but this list is close to optimal in the current meta. It literally beats everything besides dredge and combo. Almost every other match is a walk in the park and u are ready to win. I went 4-0 in my mathups tonight. The only reason I am posting now is because I am drunk and my last post no one responded 2 besides 1 awesome person. I don't give a shit about ur list but this is an unbelievably savage list that has its way with most of the format besides combo.

The funny thing is this, none of u fuckers even replied 2 this thread and don't even deserve this insight ... but since i am not totally sober i felt the need to updatye this thread and maybe get this thread started again. Once again, this list is 3-0 in tournaments and has sominated my metagame in every possible way. This list has rocked most of the meta and only lost when i dropped to go drink beer:

4x Burning Wish
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Crusher
4x Mox Diamond
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Loam
2x Qasali Pridemage
2x Grim Lavamancer
2x Seismic Assault
2x Knight of the Religuary
2x Punishing Fire
1x Path to Exhile

4x Wooded Foothills
4x Arid Mesa
4x Wasteland
3x Forgotten Cave
2x Taiga
2x Tranquil Thicket
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Plateau
1x Savannah
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Mountain

Sideboard

3x Krosan Grip
2x Firespout
4x Leyline of Sanctity

Wish Targets

1x Devastating Dreams
1x Worm Harvest
1x Loam
1x Firespout
1x Hull Breach
1x Wing Snare

Now since noone has posted u guys are not deserving of a tournement report so I will give u a short summary of how diminant this deck really is:

round 1: Monoblack aggro
g1 - Assault Dominates
g2 - He gets a god draw and wins on turn 5-6.
g3 - Assault Kills him yet again.

round 2: G/B Discard
g1 - I kill his duals and resolve Crusher ...
g2 - He Tries to mull into the black Leyline and I kill him with Assault in 4 turns.

Round 3 - R/G/b/w Big Zoo w/ Vial
g1: He resolves a Planeswalker .... I waste him out of the game and Seismic Assault kills all threats and him.
g2: Pithing Needle on Wasteland stops my plan ... Seismic Assault + Loam kills his Planeswalker and hims in short fasion.

Round 4 - ID

Round 5 - Top 8 split

Now I assume noone is going to post about this list. in faict i assume someon is going to say "why not play this or ... why not play that" .... fuck all that shit. This list is SOLID AS HELL. And i assume people will post their lists and say this won in my meta and is whatever. The only reason I am posting this is because I want Loam to be good again and I hope people play something similar to this in their meta because it beats literally 80% of the mata. Dredge and combo yiou lose 2 ... everything else is in your favor, no joke.

It's an interesting list Pulp. I almost feel as though I should pick up grove of the burnwillows now since you're saying your list is retardedly good against the whole format sans combo and ichorid. How has wish been working out for you? I have always thought that the card was too slow to be good but since you're saying the list you posted has been winning for you maybe I was wrong about wishes power.

Not to insult you pulp, but I think a reason that people aren't paying attention are because of the lack of results against real decks. Of the matches you posted, the closest to a real deck is 4c zoo with vials. And I think that's stretching it. 5c slivers, G/B discard, mono black aggro may be solid pet decks, but at a large tournament you we can't count on playing any of these. I'm not saying your list is bad, I'd just like to see a report where you beat merfolk, goblins, real zoo, counterbalance, and rock. Those decks will be the major part of any large tournament, and people will be tentative to play something that hasn't posted any results against them.

So no black splash for Bob. How was that? I wanted to build a R/G budget version and the 3 color gave me insights.

@darkritual: It really is that good. It seems every deck I play has Burning Wish these days. I wouldn't want to play the deck without it, and it is slow but ... so. Against Gobbos and Merfolk you still have a turn 2-3 Firespout/DD game 1 and 7 copies of Loam in the main. I like BW because regardless of what you are playing against it is always relevant. Its Loam, an answer, or a threat. It is also another out to Reanimator. Assuming they get Iona they HAVE to call white and Wing Snare (don't laugh) is awesome. One of the biggest enemies of this deck is Tombstalker and this card handles him nicely and has the added benefit of being good against random stuff like Serra Avenger.

@theshaun: Not at all, post exactly what u think. It ravages all of the decks you mentioned but for some reason I was about 55% preboard against CBThopter shit. I have played it a lot online and have had nothing but success against Merfolk, gobbos, and elves. In particular Merfolk since they have no Ringleaders and 4 real counters. Running 5x Swords, 2x Lavamancers, 2x Punishing Fire, 2x Seismic Assault and better creatures (plus access to Firespout game 1 and potentially 6 after the board) basically ruins their day. Test it out on MWS, it really is an animal against basically all of those. Lavamancer and Punishing Fire are the standouts here though, they easily kill every threat merfolk and gobbos play and usually ensure a mid-late game where Loam really thrives. And you also have the combo of Seismic Assault + deck ... both gobbos and merfolk are nearly dead in the water to SA on turn 2-4, even without active Loam it instantly kills any relevant threat and makes drawing 5 lands in a row not so bad :)

@namelessone: I used to play 4c Loam but the deck lost to its own manabase far to often. That and I really just don't like Confidant in the deck. One of my buddies swears by 4x Confidant, 4x Crusher, 4x Goyf, and 4x Chalice in the main. I used to run something similar to that and just didn't like it. Bob sucks at everything except drawing cards and can do nothing relevant in the early game and sucks late game when you are at lower life. He can't block, sucks at attacking, and greatly lowers the threat density of a deck already low in that area. I don't think there is a such thing as budget Loam, you HAVE to play Mox Diamonds, Goyf, Wasteland, and fetches/duals. Everything else is relatively cheap, but in order to be any kind of competetive you would not want to run it without those cards.

Have you ever considered swapping the Path for a third Fire? Or is the 5th Sword effect too important for hitting stuff you can't burn down?

I did think about the 3rd PF but I think 5x Swords is too important. Especially on the draw against turn 1 Lackey and no Mox Diamond to get rid of him early with Fire. PF is an excellent card but it is really hit or miss against something like Zoo, so I think 5x Swords is better. However, the 3rd Fire certainly wouldn't be wrong if you play against a lot of merfolk, elves, or Death and Taxes variants. Against them most relevant threats you can burn but sometimes they get the triple lords going and since your creatures are better you can stall, but its just nice to draw the instant answer and start swinging. 5x answers to Goyf never hurt either :)

I've been innovating on an RBG Firespout build, but it wasn't ready to present as of yet.

-Matt

Hi all

I've just got back into legacy and have this deck built up.

Are people now advocating Burning Wish? I seem to remmeber people saying it was too slow?

Also, I read somewhere a suggestion to include Glissa with artifact lands - is this too cute? It does seem incredibly strong against tribal strategies but there's no way to tutor up the artifact lands... thoughts?

Cheers,
Ben

Artifact lands only make one color of mana. This deck generally runs a single basic. You would have to wreck the manabase to do that.
Recurring EE is kind of meh in this deck also. Beyond that Glissa isn't good for much.

Burning Wish is too slow in my opinion, but somehow people are apparently doing well with it. I find it's hard to keep up with the current metas speed without wishes. With them it seems almost impossible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cabs

Also, I read somewhere a suggestion to include Glissa with artifact lands - is this too cute? It does seem incredibly strong against tribal strategies but there's no way to tutor up the artifact lands... thoughts?

Cheers,
Ben

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The tribal decks all run Wasteland or are combo decks, so I'm not sure how this qualifies as being "strong". This deck has enough issues with the tempo gain from mana denial and Vial anyway.

The problem is, Aggro Loam is an excellent deck in the mid-game to late-game. Early on, it's not the greatest because it doesn't really interact with the opponent: you're really just trying to get Life and Assault up and running, or get some big beats out. In those first 4-5 turns though, you're usually not full on assaulting (no pun intended) your opponent.

Even before when this deck was widely played, one Chalice on the board isn't enough to screw over Combo, so you died to that. Dredge isn't a great matchup, so you die to that. Gravehate makes you cry like a girl. But, I feel that if you can interact, or just get to the midgame and still have a buffer of life left with your deck, against non-combo you should be alright. The problem IS the fact there's so much combo in the format. How do you deal with Show and Tell? Dredge? TES? You basically don't. But, this deck could improve the aggro matchup, but I don't think it's going to cut it.

I still think the deck can be tuned for the new meta, but I doubt it can up it's game against Combo based decks to the point where it becomes really good again, but I'll still keep trying.

EDIT: I forgot Counterbalance can also lock you out. Whoops.

-Matt

Quote:

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Originally Posted by sdematt

The problem is, Aggro Loam is an excellent deck in the mid-game to late-game. Early on, it's not the greatest because it doesn't really interact with the opponent: you're really just trying to get Life and Assault up and running, or get some big beats out. In those first 4-5 turns though, you're usually not full on assaulting (no pun intended) your opponent.

Even before when this deck was widely played, one Chalice on the board isn't enough to screw over Combo, so you died to that. Dredge isn't a great matchup, so you die to that. Gravehate makes you cry like a girl. But, I feel that if you can interact, or just get to the midgame and still have a buffer of life left with your deck, against non-combo you should be alright. The problem IS the fact there's so much combo in the format. How do you deal with Show and Tell? Dredge? TES? You basically don't. But, this deck could improve the aggro matchup, but I don't think it's going to cut it.

I still think the deck can be tuned for the new meta, but I doubt it can up it's game against Combo based decks to the point where it becomes really good again, but I'll still keep trying.

EDIT: I forgot Counterbalance can also lock you out. Whoops.

-Matt

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Hey, I'm new to this particular thread (and the site, really), but I thought I'd point out that in the three color versions, Engineered Explosives can be useful for dealing with Counterbalance and early aggro. It's a great reset button by turn 4-5, and you can pay 4 or 5 mana with only two colors to make it uncounterable by Counterbalance and still able to blow it up. You just have to bait out the hard counters first...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keiichi

Hey, I'm new to this particular thread (and the site, really), but I thought I'd point out that in the three color versions, Engineered Explosives can be useful for dealing with Counterbalance and early aggro. It's a great reset button by turn 4-5, and you can pay 4 or 5 mana with only two colors to make it uncounterable by Counterbalance and still able to blow it up. You just have to bait out the hard counters first...

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EE does nothing to early aggro. It's far too slow; even if you open with a turn one EE at one and then pop it on turn two, you've wasted a sweeper on answering a single threat against decks brimming with them. Granted, that line of play is probably correct against Vial because you just lose to it, but against Zoo you're better off with EE at higher numbers and with Firespout to clear out the one-drops. But even then you're usually losing a lot of life to do so.

Counterbalance as a deck covers a whole range of issues. You're okay against the midrange ones as long as they don't run NO to trump you (in which case, you probably just lose), but the Gerry T and Martell builds are rough because there's a lot of denial and Jace does some bad things to you. Life from the Loam is also too slow as an engine in today's format, and not flexible enough.

On a related note, waiting that long to get your EE out just gives your opponent cover to set you farther behind. Counterbalance will mop up basically all of the bottom of your curve, and you're short enough on powerful spells that running various three-drops into counters isn't the hottest. Furthermore, you get crushed by Tops and Jaces because the Counterbalance player will likely have more answers than you have relevant, counter-worthy threats.

This deck isn't good anymore, even as a metagame deck. I mean, I love me some midrange Life from the Loam decks, but I cannot imagine a metagame where this deck would be the best choice. Maybe a meta full of random jank, but then Tendrils would probably be better because the rounds are faster, so I don't know.

I completely agree with TheShaun on the original lack of responses: saying you've solved the format because you beat Stacks and Slivers wasn't exactly floating anyones boat. Your list may be the best thing since sliced bread but I'm guessing people wanted to see more results before they invested in testing it etc.

Now you've added Mono-black, Junk? and Vial-Zoo to your list of defeated opponents.. again, I'd like to see some tourney results vs. Tier 1 decks. Unless your testing on MWS vs a quality testing partner I don't count beating random scrubs on there any more than I do goldfishing.

That said I am often bored at work these days and will test your list. I like that your still tuning the archetype, so props for that. Am also interested to see if Burnwillows can hold its own in Legacy.

Ya Pulp seems like he has no idea what he's talking about

Quote:

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Originally Posted by COBBLER

Ya Pulp seems like he has no idea what he's talking about

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I actually LOLed reading this, ty, that made my day :)

Once again on wednesday I went 2-0 drop (friends at bars > magical cards). Playing against mono-black infect ..... it wasn't even close in any game, and I beat burn 2-0. Burn is not nearly as tough as I thought it would be. Turn 4 DD with Knight on the board is pretty savage. The white Leyline is killer. I am really liking this card. It literally just shut him down. Now Crusher sucks here, you have to hold a fetch back and force the 2-1 but you will eventually run them out of spells or land Assault and just win in 4 turns. Again, not tier 1 decks but it can hold its own against literally everything but Dredge and combo. However, I have actually been about 40ish% against Belcher post board which is something for a deck like this.

The reason I keep advocating to at least test my list out is that it rapes the hell out of a lot of the format and has little reliance on the graveyard. The only card that actually hurts is Leyline of the Void, everything else is largely irrelevant. Playing 5 Swords, 2 PF, and 2 Grim Lavamancers gives the deck the early game it was lacking. You can easily make it 2 the mid-late game against most decks. Punishing Fire has been interesting, most of the time it just sits in my hand for a few turns but, in general, it is never dead and always has some kind of impact on the game. With 2x Knight and Loam it isn't very hard to find 1/3 Groves and the land isn't bad at all. The best thing about it is that that land does not dilute your manabase, it actually helps a little.

One of my buddies has been playing a more traditional list w/ 4x Chalice main and has gone 0-2 drop 2 weeks in a row. He keeps losing to grave hate. Chalice is not nearly as good as it was and is really not as good against combo like most people think. In the aggro matchups it sucks now since Pridemage exists and its horrid against Merfolk and Goblins unless it hits turn 1 on the play. I have really been liking 4x Swords in these slots. Chalice is really only good against CB and even then it has to come down turn 1 on the play. If they resolve a Top .... all you have done is turn off their cantrips. And against CBThopter they just EE it away. Chalice used to be ridiculously good in this deck, but now ... it is not nearly as back breaking as it used to be.

I will never understand why there is no love for Burning Wish. How is it bad? Its never dead and allows you to essentially play 7 copies of Loam and with the proper wishboard you can find answers to almost every situation you encounter. Its slow .... thats the argument? This card gives you access to Firespout g1 against Goblins and Elves. How is turn 2-3 (depending on Moxes) Firespout too slow? It even gives you an out against Empty the Warrens tokens. Where is Wish bad? Your opponent sees the card you wish for in advance ... so what. And how is it 2 slow? What you you rather play? Wish is the most adaptable card in the deck. Your playing against the Black Leyline ..... answer. Iona on white in play ...... answer. Too many goblins and merfolk in play .... answer. No threats ..... Worm Harvest. It adapts to every situation you can be in, and how is a turn 3 (at the latest) board sweeper too slow?

Pulp, I salute you for actually trying to innovate (or renovate?) this archetype. I've been testing a slightly modified version of your list with competent players and I'm becoming a tenuous believer that this could be a competitive deck. I definitely feel RGw is stronger than RGB, as StP can get you out of tight spots in the early game and Knight is a house in this deck. Yes, this deck scoops to Show and Tell and NO decks and dredge. That doesn't seem to be a huge percentage of the meta. (Except Sneak and Tell has been hugely popular around here.) AND it's really fun to play!

I've been testing Green Sun's Zenith as a wish target:

4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Krosan Grip
1x Vexing Shusher
1x Firespout (2 MD)
1x Worm Harvest
1x Hull Breach
1x Regrowth
1x Devastating Dreams
1x Life From the Loam
1x Green Sun's Zenith

Yes, I know it misses the best creature in the deck, but snagging Shusher, knight or a huge beatstick when you absolutely need them is a nice option. This way, the most we will ever have to mess with the deck's balance post-board is 4 cards (Leylines or Grip and Shusher), and we dramatically improve our CB or Zoo/burn/storm/belcher matchup. Thoughts?