[Deck] Aggro Loam

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Originally Posted by juppal

Hey, I used to play a lot of Legacy but more recently took a break for real life stuff. Anyway, thought about going to the Grand Prix and played this list here a few days ago.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...gue-2016-06-02

I had some questions about this deck though as I'm not really sure how aggressive or defensive this deck really is.

1. How often do you prioritize Dredging back Life from the Loam? Obviously this is very dependent on the situation, but it often felt to me that Loam was really just an afterthought for Wasteland or Grove and rarely an engine I wanted to depend on like if I was playing Lands or something.

2. I feel like I often board out Maze of Ith, but I still think it is worth keeping in the main-deck, but against decks where Karakas does nothing, is it reasonable to cut it on the draw for G2/G3? The land count in this deck is really confusing since I basically never want to have Dryad in my opening hand.

3. I'm not really sure how I feel about the Depths/Stage combo, I've never been in a spot where it would be ideal, and I find myself just happy attacking with Knight ect. Is there a real advantage I am not seeing here?

4. Lastly, I felt as though any opening 7 without Mox Diamond or GSZ on turn 1 had to be really solid (aka: Mana Color wasn't an issue and I could reasonably curve out). Basically, I'm not sure how aggressively I can mulligan with this deck.

Thanks a bunch. Sorry if this is already laid out somewhere in this giant thread.

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1. Not all that often. There are a handful of times when I dredge Loam (this might not be correct, but it works well for me): when Wasteland/Loam lock is the priority (e.g., ahead on board against a deck with few/no basics AND out of Wastelands in hand), when Loam gets back a cycling Land AND a Land that does something immediately useful (e.g., Maze of Ith against Eldrazi) or multiple cycling Lands when I have a bunch of extra mana, to clear garbage or excess Lands to see more cards with Sylvan Library, and when I need Punishing Fire in particular. The last one rarely comes up, but there are times when you have better odds of finding removal by Dredging and hoping to hit a Punishing Fire than you are by naturally drawing and hoping to hit Decay or Liliana.

2. I board Maze out against decks where it's bad, like combo and Miracles. It's actually not bad against Reanimator since it contains one of their fatties indefinitely unless they go for Inkwell Leviathan or Tidespout Tyrant. You'd rather not have to use it there at all, but it does considerably more work that some of your other maindeck cards.

3. I haven't played with it enough to say for sure, but there are times when it can completely turn the game around.

4. You can mulligan quite aggressively. The deck recoups value fairly easily over the course of a game, so always make sure your opener does something. That "something" can be as simple as "Fetch, Go, EOT cycle Thicket/Moor, untap, Land, Decay your thing", but it needs to have a plan. Keeps have to be much more coherent than in decks with Brainstorm. This is much easier games 2 and 3 when you get to know what you need to be doing, but most business + mana hands are keeps g1, especially on the play. Turn 1 plays are ideal, but if you have a reasonable curve of stuff to do at 7 I'd keep it.

Dredge loam only if it's guaranteeing you a card of value
Having played the combo, it's hard to go back because it's just another huge angle of attack.
Role assessment is the hardest part with playing this deck, it can be aggro, midrange, control, prison or even combo. It depends a lot on the match-up and your draw, but in general this is a control deck and should be played as such. Against combo/miracles, it's an prison-aggro deck.

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Originally Posted by Koke_MTG

A couple of months ago I was searching for an impactful sideboard card to beat Shardless BUG and I tried Meren of Clan Nel Thoth, the second Garruk Relentless and the third Life from the Loam, but I think I've found it with Chandra, Flamecaller. It's the perfect bomb. From the other options I like a lot the third Life from the Loam to have the Wasteland engine ASAP, what is really helpful against many other archetypes or just win through card advantage with cycle lands, but as I said I like the maindeck so I'd see it as a sideboard slot.

...

As you can see I'm worried about the Sneak & Show matchup as well, and by this I bring in the third Thoughtseize and Revokers, that are more useful than Thalia, Canonist and Priest these days. You can board in them against D&T, Miracles, Elves, Storm, Sneak & Show... and the rest are not good against all of those. Depending on the expected amount of combo I'd run the third Loam over the third Thoughtseize or maybe another sweeper, but I'm pretty happy with the rest.

What do you think especially about this sideboard?

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Glad that you like Chandra, Flamecaller,too :) Right now she is my sideboard card number 15 to 25. Sadly she gets cut more often, but it is really close. You could also just play the third Loam Maindeck for the second library. Postboard just remove some Loams when you expect a lot of graveyard hate.

Having more Thoughtseizes is definitely never a bad idea. Phyrexian Revoker is the kind of card I want and the card types I hate the most. Having a Pithing Needle that can name LED is huge. Being a creature as well as an artifact is bad. Most of the cards your opponents will bring in can most likely kill it.
Vs Miracles naming Sensei's Divining Top is great, but once you have it on the battlefield it gets interesting.
Do you attack in two open mana? Snapcaster Mage sometimes just wants to be an Ambush Viper!
How many more threats are you deploying? Two or three for ones with Terminus now get real.
Do you add an enchantment to the battlefield? Now Wear/Tear might completely destroy you.

As mike1987 mentioned: Pithing Needle might just be better.

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Originally Posted by mike1987

Not a pro here but i hope i can answer some of your questions.

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You realized that this is the perfect deck to play. You are a pro to me!

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Originally Posted by juppal

Hey, I used to play a lot of Legacy but more recently took a break for real life stuff. Anyway, thought about going to the Grand Prix and played this list here a few days ago.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...gue-2016-06-02

I had some questions about this deck though as I'm not really sure how aggressive or defensive this deck really is.

1. How often do you prioritize Dredging back Life from the Loam? Obviously this is very dependent on the situation, but it often felt to me that Loam was really just an afterthought for Wasteland or Grove and rarely an engine I wanted to depend on like if I was playing Lands or something.

2. I feel like I often board out Maze of Ith, but I still think it is worth keeping in the main-deck, but against decks where Karakas does nothing, is it reasonable to cut it on the draw for G2/G3? The land count in this deck is really confusing since I basically never want to have Dryad in my opening hand.

3. I'm not really sure how I feel about the Depths/Stage combo, I've never been in a spot where it would be ideal, and I find myself just happy attacking with Knight ect. Is there a real advantage I am not seeing here?

4. Lastly, I felt as though any opening 7 without Mox Diamond or GSZ on turn 1 had to be really solid (aka: Mana Color wasn't an issue and I could reasonably curve out). Basically, I'm not sure how aggressively I can mulligan with this deck.

Thanks a bunch. Sorry if this is already laid out somewhere in this giant thread.

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1.1. As soon as you have one Cycle Land and enough mana to cycle+play Loam+play a spell, that means 6 mana or more, you should always dredge. It just gives you a free redraw while also gaining more value by finding additional cycle-lands, Wastelands, Punishing Fires and making your Landdrops.
1.2 If you don't need anything right now ->you should most likely Dredge. Getting to point 1.1 is super important.
1.3 You need an answer and are constrained on mana or do not have a cycle land? Draw!

Always remember, as long as your opponent doesn't interact with your graveyard, use it as much as possible to win with it. Once your opponent is ready to deal with it, just using Loam to get back two or three lands means card advantage. Cards like Dark Confidant and Liliana will win while your opponent wasted too many cards to deal with your graveyard.

2. Against comboish decks and Miracles you can board it out, otherwise leave it in. Cutting Karakas gets more difficult once you start playing the best Sideboard-card.

3. It is just another angle of attack against Shardless and Miracles. Attacking twice for 6 damage with Knight is not going to do it when they topdeck the answer for it. Furthermore it helps to have a fast clock against Combo, the clock (can be really important as well) and it's perfect against elves. Often times they can block Knight forever with all their bounce shenenigans.

4. You are correct here. If you don't have a Mox or a GSZ and your mana seems not perfect -> you should probably mulligan. Once you start playing Swords to Plowshares in your SB (Best card!) you will get way more keepable hands postboard.

To learn more about Swords to Plowshares and the role in this deck you just need to read a few pages of this thread, starting at page 162.


Edit: ironclad8690 has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space.

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Originally Posted by schniggaz

Glad that you like Chandra, Flamecaller,too :) Right now she is my sideboard card number 15 to 25. Sadly she gets cut more often, but it is really close. You could also just play the third Loam Maindeck for the second library. Postboard just remove some Loams when you expect a lot of graveyard hate.

Having more Thoughtseizes is definitely never a bad idea. Phyrexian Revoker is the kind of card I want and the card types I hate the most. Having a Pithing Needle that can name LED is huge. Being a creature as well as an artifact is bad. Most of the cards your opponents will bring in can most likely kill it.
Vs Miracles naming Sensei's Divining Top is great, but once you have it on the battlefield it gets interesting.
Do you attack in two open mana? Snapcaster Mage sometimes just wants to be an Ambush Viper!
How many more threats are you deploying? Two or three for ones with Terminus now get real.
Do you add an enchantment to the battlefield? Now Wear/Tear might completely destroy you.

As mike1987 mentioned: Pithing Needle might just be better.




You realized that this is the perfect deck to play. You are a pro to me!



1.1. As soon as you have one Cycle Land and enough mana to cycle+play Loam+play a spell, that means 6 mana or more, you should always dredge. It just gives you a free redraw while also gaining more value by finding additional cycle-lands, Wastelands, Punishing Fires and making your Landdrops.
1.2 If you don't need anything right now ->you should most likely Dredge. Getting to point 1.1 is super important.
1.3 You need an answer and are constrained on mana or do not have a cycle land? Draw!

Always remember, as long as your opponent doesn't interact with your graveyard, use it as much as possible to win with it. Once your opponent is ready to deal with it, just using Loam to get back two or three lands means card advantage. Cards like Dark Confidant and Liliana will win while your opponent wasted too many cards to deal with your graveyard.

2. Against comboish decks and Miracles you can board it out, otherwise leave it in. Cutting Karakas gets more difficult once you start playing the best Sideboard-card.

3. It is just another angle of attack against Shardless and Miracles. Attacking twice for 6 damage with Knight is not going to do it when they topdeck the answer for it. Furthermore it helps to have a fast clock against Combo, the clock (can be really important as well) and it's perfect against elves. Often times they can block Knight forever with all their bounce shenenigans.

4. You are correct here. If you don't have a Mox or a GSZ and your mana seems not perfect -> you should probably mulligan. Once you start playing Swords to Plowshares in your SB (Best card!) you will get way more keepable hands postboard.

To learn more about Swords to Plowshares and the role in this deck you just need to read a few pages of this thread, starting at page 162.


Edit: ironclad8690 has exceeded their stored private messages quota and cannot accept further messages until they clear some space.

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Thanks for the responses, one thing I noticed was that I am never really sure how to go about playing Dryad Arbor from your hand. My opening hand last night was ( OTP in the dark)

Dark Confidant x 2
Liliana
Verdant Catacombs x2
Dryad Arbor
Abrupt Decay

I kept, and I felt like that wasn't particularly close. But would you lead on Arbor? I feel as though it is wrong due to the fact that 2 is such an important juncture in the game-plan with this deck, so letting your opponent be able to play a removal spell on T1 doesn't feel particularly good. Thoughts?

Is there any reason why a singleton Gitrog Monster would be actively bad in this deck? I am interested in trying it. Triggers from fetches, wastes, cycling lands, dredged lands, extra moxen. Fetchable with GSZ, blocks really well. Two lands a turn is great for wastelocking and you can even use a draw trigger to dredge loam if you want to use the same Wasteland twice in a turn.

This thread is great by the way...I have been lurking for a while and look forward to playing against some of you in Prague!

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Originally Posted by Fergblaster

Is there any reason why a singleton Gitrog Monster would be actively bad in this deck? I am interested in trying it. Triggers from fetches, wastes, cycling lands, dredged lands, extra moxen. Fetchable with GSZ, blocks really well. Two lands a turn is great for wastelocking and you can even use a draw trigger to dredge loam if you want to use the same Wasteland twice in a turn.

This thread is great by the way...I have been lurking for a while and look forward to playing against some of you in Prague!

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The only reason I can think of is just deck space. What card would you cut to fit Gritrog? There has definitely been a few occasions where i wished i had an exploration effect so accelerate wastelock so i see where you're coming from.

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Originally Posted by Fergblaster

Is there any reason why a singleton Gitrog Monster would be actively bad in this deck? I am interested in trying it. Triggers from fetches, wastes, cycling lands, dredged lands, extra moxen. Fetchable with GSZ, blocks really well. Two lands a turn is great for wastelocking and you can even use a draw trigger to dredge loam if you want to use the same Wasteland twice in a turn.

This thread is great by the way...I have been lurking for a while and look forward to playing against some of you in Prague!

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Just the fact that its 5 mana. I've wanted the exploration effect too but more in the early turns not after turn 4. It does seem like a bomb that can take over the game though.

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Originally Posted by juppal

Thanks for the responses, one thing I noticed was that I am never really sure how to go about playing Dryad Arbor from your hand. My opening hand last night was ( OTP in the dark)

Dark Confidant x 2
Liliana
Verdant Catacombs x2
Dryad Arbor
Abrupt Decay

I kept, and I felt like that wasn't particularly close. But would you lead on Arbor? I feel as though it is wrong due to the fact that 2 is such an important juncture in the game-plan with this deck, so letting your opponent be able to play a removal spell on T1 doesn't feel particularly good. Thoughts?

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How did it play out?

I'd be likely to lead with Arbor, personally. If left unchecked, it still leads to T2 Bob / T3 Liliana.
- If you let it sit in your hand, it slows down Liliana until T4 (assuming no other lands)
- If they have the removal, I'd rather they hit the arbor than Bob or a future KotR
- If the removal is Wasteland, then you're basically netting even at that point (assuming you are on the play), and have a land in the yard for KotR

That being said, I absolutely hate having Arbor in my opening X.

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Originally Posted by rlesko

Just the fact that its 5 mana. I've wanted the exploration effect too but more in the early turns not after turn 4. It does seem like a bomb that can take over the game though.

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What about Azusa? I guess she just doesn't do enough on her own to warrant taking a spot. I'm gonna test a little with Gitrog and a Ghost Quarter somewhere in my 60 and see how it fares.

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Originally Posted by Fergblaster

What about Azusa? I guess she just doesn't do enough on her own to warrant taking a spot. I'm gonna test a little with Gitrog and a Ghost Quarter somewhere in my 60 and see how it fares.

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What are you cutting for these? What match-ups do you expect this to thrive in?

Not being argumentative, and would love to do the same, but it hasn't appeared to be worth a cut from our 60 for Gitrog, and I can't see adding a GQ at all (unless you're non-DD/TS?)

Gitrog is, if anything, an option for the Garruk/Meren/etc slot in the board. It does similar things. My biggest concern is that the card feels strictly unplayable if the opponent has grave hate. The rest of the deck is perfectly playable despite grave hate (esp if you board out a loam) so you get to choose whether or not to remove grave hate

Being able to ignore a RIP or Leyline from the opponent is a wonderful source of "card advantage." Now with the frog if there is a RIP, we need to eventually care about it.

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Originally Posted by Fergblaster

What about Azusa? I guess she just doesn't do enough on her own to warrant taking a spot. I'm gonna test a little with Gitrog and a Ghost Quarter somewhere in my 60 and see how it fares.

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If I really wanted an exploration on a stick I would probably play Mina and Denn, Wildborn. Its a 4/4 so dodges bolt, explores, and gives knight trample.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, this sounds pretty good, anyone try this when OGW came out? haha

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Originally Posted by Aberosh1819

What are you cutting for these? What match-ups do you expect this to thrive in?

Not being argumentative, and would love to do the same, but it hasn't appeared to be worth a cut from our 60 for Gitrog, and I can't see adding a GQ at all (unless you're non-DD/TS?)

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I can't speak to Gitrog, but I tested one Ghost Quarter over my fourth Wasteland and it wasn't bad. It's functionally identical most of the time and the worst downsides are fairly easy to mitigate by using it at appropriate times. The upside of being Strip Mine against 80% of Legacy decks is significant, and should at least be considered.

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Originally Posted by juppal

Thanks for the responses, one thing I noticed was that I am never really sure how to go about playing Dryad Arbor from your hand. My opening hand last night was ( OTP in the dark)

Dark Confidant x 2
Liliana
Verdant Catacombs x2
Dryad Arbor
Abrupt Decay

I kept, and I felt like that wasn't particularly close. But would you lead on Arbor? I feel as though it is wrong due to the fact that 2 is such an important juncture in the game-plan with this deck, so letting your opponent be able to play a removal spell on T1 doesn't feel particularly good. Thoughts?

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First of all this hand is like a mulligan because of Dryad Arbor, but a solid 6 card hand on the play. You would most likely not keep the hand on the draw.
Playing the Dryad Arbor first and getting it removed is like being on the draw again which is horrible with this hand.
If you play your two Fetches on the first two turns, you have two more draws to draw a third land until it gets relevant. And even if you do not draw your third land in time (which is unlikely), you still have at least two other good plays with your two mana. If the first Dark Confidant lives you have even three draws to draw a third land. And now take into consideration that you could also draw a Mox Diamond. Now your Dryad Arbor gets kind of "good".

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Originally Posted by rlesko

If I really wanted an exploration on a stick I would probably play Mina and Denn, Wildborn. Its a 4/4 so dodges bolt, explores, and gives knight trample.

EDIT: As a matter of fact, this sounds pretty good, anyone try this when OGW came out? haha

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Being able to bounce Bojuka Bog isn't too shabby either, though I can't name how often you want to bounce and replay Bojuka Bog. You could get saucy with Seijri Steppe.

It also lets you get some more benefit from playing out Cycle lands, although that's fairly rare, and lets you "untap" utility lands like Maze, Karakas, Grove, and Thespian's Stage.

Worth a shot.

How useful has Scavenging Ooze been lately anyway?

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Originally Posted by Claymore

Being able to bounce Bojuka Bog isn't too shabby either, though I can't name how often you want to bounce and replay Bojuka Bog. You could get saucy with Seijri Steppe.

It also lets you get some more benefit from playing out Cycle lands, although that's fairly rare, and lets you "untap" utility lands like Maze, Karakas, Grove, and Thespian's Stage.

Worth a shot.

How useful has Scavenging Ooze been lately anyway?

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Not that my thoughts lend credence to anything, but I have been considering Steppe. This entire line of thinking is attractive to me, although I can't see dramatically altering my GP list this late in the game.

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Originally Posted by schniggaz

First of all this hand is like a mulligan because of Dryad Arbor, but a solid 6 card hand on the play. You would most likely not keep the hand on the draw.
Playing the Dryad Arbor first and getting it removed is like being on the draw again which is horrible with this hand.
If you play your two Fetches on the first two turns, you have two more draws to draw a third land until it gets relevant. And even if you do not draw your third land in time (which is unlikely), you still have at least two other good plays with your two mana. If the first Dark Confidant lives you have even three draws to draw a third land. And now take into consideration that you could also draw a Mox Diamond. Now your Dryad Arbor gets kind of "good".

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Wow. Okay I wouldn't have considered this hand to be a mulligan on the draw. Is there any other guidelines you had on mulligans? Specifically in certain matchups?

Mina and Denn might be cool as a 2drop, but as a 4drop it is pretty underwhelming.

Exploration is an effect you want early, Bojuka Bog is mostly for fast GY decks like dredge and reanimator. We don't want to put in lands that are there mostly for situational ETB (Steppe seems really eh). It doesn't generate card advantage (by itself) in the late game. It is neat to get to use Maze for vigilance and removal, but that's kind of it

It does feel like a win-more card, but I don't think this deck can utilize early game Exploration effects as well as Lands purely because we run fewer lands (24-26 vs ~35). This deck wants establish some early control effects (Chalice, Removal, Wasteland), little bit of board presence (Bob, Liliana, Knight) and then fire up the loam engine mid to late game and bury them in card advantage...which is when you can afford to GSZ for 5 mana.

The matchups where you would want Mina-Denn are where you want multiple Wastelands/Ghost Quarters a turn (Shardless, Lands, Eldrazi, Miracles if you want to be annoying and fuck up their Tops with GQ) or need the Trample effect (DnT, Grixis Delver, maybe Shardless to push through Strix). Or, where you need to combat tax/Wasteland effects (Lands, DnT) with extra land drops. Or you can churn Dryad Arbor as a repeatable blocker/sac target for Goyf/Liliana in Shardless.

The land drop effect would help power-up your board to churn the expensive Punishing Fire and Loam package to recover against DnT or Shardless, or let you still make progress with Wasteland drops.

Tireless Tracker or Gitrog might fit the deck more on that mid-late game end for pure card advantage plus game ending beatdowns. Tracker benefits for being cheaper and not relying on the graveyard against RIP and Leylines.

It seems like a good card to help the Shardless matchup the most, but without a high P/T to fight Goyf I think Gitrog would fit that requirement better.

I do feel like Scavenging Ooze has been lackluster for me, that slot feels fairly flexible overall. If I get some testing time I'll try it out.

Went to a local tournament today and went an amazing 0-3 drop. Used the list that Schniggaz proposed a page or two back except I had three Leyline of the Voids instead of the Crop Rotation, Bojuka Bog graveyard hate in the sideboard. I played fairly bad today but felt like I didn't draw that well either so that didn't help. I wasn't that used to the new-ish manabase and felt like I kept on playing the wrong lands and fetching the wrong lands. Just miserable.

Thoughts about the deck as of now:
- I liked having the 3rd loam but only having 1 cycling land really makes the loams not as effective as before when you could dredge with loam and still draw a card with a cycling land.
- I know many people like having the Thespian's Stage + Dark Depth combo in the maindeck or sideboard but I've really grown to dislike it. I've had to mulligan multiple times today where I kept on drawing the Stage or the DD in my opening hand and there just wasn't enough colored sources in hand to keep and that was very frustrating. Going for the combo also felt very clunky and it always seems like the opponent had an answer ready for it.
- Also, this is probably just me but it seems like every time I resolve a Chalice on 1, in the next two draw steps, I always end up drawing the Deathrite Shaman and this has happened in multiple tournaments already which is very annoying. I will definitely change the Deathrite back to an Abrupt Decay as I have found that I missed having a 4th Decay. Maybe I'm not playing the deck right by always using GSZ to get the Deathrite out of the deck ASAP when there's a Chalice on 1 but I just feel I need to save the GSZ for a Knight as a Knight usually has higher impact.
- I've really missed having the Maelstrom Pulse in the sideboard for the past couple of tournaments and I feel like the deck needs some kind of effect like that to deal with problem threats like a fast Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Also, has anybody actually every destroyed multiple permanents with a Pulse? I've never done it and I want to try a Vindicate in place of a Pulse since I have many times wanted to have the ability to destroy a land when I had a Pulse in hand.
- I really want to also have a Pyroclasm type card in the sideboard. Didn't have one today and really felt the need for one. I could see running a Pyroclasm but if there are a lot of Mentors running around, maybe we need something like Sudden Demise instead? It'll cost more to kill big things but at least you're not paying tons of life like Toxic Deluge. The only issue this might have is that now the manabase post board is going to be stretched to need more white for Swords to Plowshares and red for the sweepers. Not sure if our mana can take the strain.