[Deck] Aggro Loam

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Originally Posted by velya

Thanks for the fast reply.

I have to say, that I like this package of grave hate. I started without crop rotation, but the Faerie Macabre alone one me several games against tin fins, storm, dredge and reanimator (the latest game against Reanimator I one against his show and tell-non legendaries with getting a Marit lage. One Knight was just too slow and couldn't do it, but the rotation one me that game. Even my reanimator opponent couldn't believe it that I turned around the game with the crop rotation). In the end I think its just a matter what you prefer, but so many players count with leyline - but not with faerie.

I might consider exchanging the library, but I will not have that much time next month to test though. As I played without red I had one goyf maine, which felt pretty good in some games, just to get a "simple" beater out of the zenith. But I also had the downside that with rest in peace the goyf is only 0/1 while the flayer is still 2/2. So, I guess it's testing time.

Just a short update: I was able to test with the flayer today on a 14-Person Tournament. I changed 1 Dark Confidant for 1 Grim Flayer.

Matchups were:
2-1 Thought lash where I grabbed the Flayer, but maybe Gaddock Teeg would have been better
2-1 Mud
2-1 Hypergenesis , where Chalice on 0 was pretty good (It was a budget version without Forces and show and tells. But it was 2-0 nevertheless)
1-2 vs. Merfolk. The game I one here was because of Grim Flayer, that was not handled. He filtered me enough removal and stuff to win the game. And he tramples over True-name nemesis. The other rounds I lost because of mulligan to 4 and a hand that was too slow.

In the End I was first (I drawed last round) and I am still not sure on the Flayer.

Pros:

• He has Trample
• Able to be grabbed with Zenith
• Its fun to yell "GRIM FLAYER!"
• He can fill the grave if needed

Cons:

• It feels weird, that you don't draw a card and that he is just setting up the next turn
• It's not always easy to get him big

I think I will give him a try once more. In the end it could be a question about the local meta.

Maybe this gives some new ideas to the Discussion

Grüße

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New Aggro Loam player (Played Maverick for the past 4 months completely)

I tried out Grim Flayer today at the SCG Baltimore: This is my assement. (I cutted a Lily for him from Rudy Briska's list)

Flayer has a lot of synergy with the other cards of the deck.
-Fuels Knight to get bigger
-Enables Loam to dig deeper into the deck, when you dredge.
-Helps both Bob and Sylvan Library with more library manipulation
-Evasion in form of trample

While it doesn't provide card advantage, it does provide another way to manipulated you deck. I think there needs to be more assessment, but I'm planning on running for the Legacy Classic (I might just cut a Bob)

Finally after some aggressive trading I finally got it all together. Hopefully I wont regret using the FTV Burnwillows.

http://imgur.com/b19zrOp

I'm not sure what the meta is like in my area so I hope this is a good general SB.

Sideboard:
3x Leyline of the Void
2x Thalia
2x Thoughtsieze
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Garruk Relentless
1x Arlin Kord (trying her out)
1x Golgari Charm
3x Swords to Plowshares
1x Reclamation Sage

While I don't love the combo since it's hard on the mana and we aren't as good at assembling or defending it as Lands or Turbo Depths, the rest of the deck looks pretty stock. Arlinn Kord doesn't seem quite as good as Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, or Elspeth, Knight-Errant, even though she's green. The white 'walkers in particular seem to be better token makers.

Only sort of relatedly, I've been testing an MD Bojuka Bog over the second Barren Moor, and it's been solid so far. Having access to it main let me cut the Leylines from the board for a second Bog as my only graveyard hate. I go back and forth on whether I want a Crop Rotation in the 75 to make the Bogs easier to access at instant speed, but having only Bog and Maze of Ith as targets seems meh. Thoughts? I'm considering a creature-land, either Mishra's Factory or Stirring Wildwood.

While we are not as good Lage decks as either Lands or Turbo Depths, the combo takes very little investment for us. The cost for us is 2 KorR attacks, whereas Turbo Depths is all-in on the plan, and Lands has that as its only good win con.
That means that an answer from the opponent doesn't really blow us out. We get most (though not all) of the benefits of having the combo while having only a fraction of the costs. The main cost (leaving Knight up) also lets us react by getting different lands instead. In response to removal on KotR, you an tutor up a manland. Or get a wasteland for Karakas, etc

Against Merfolk for example, my gameplan is almost exclusively to tutor for knight, and then tutor out a Lage. Otherwise I would actually have to care about their TNNs/deck.

The green-ness of non-creatures does not matter much and I've never played a 2nd walker, but 2WW is hard for most lists to make consistently.

What decks do you want the bog for? It is only good off of Knight, and Knight is a 3drop. Against the GY combo decks you want more speed and against the GY value decks you ideally want a higher value play.
I've actually been playing 2 Nihil Spellbombs in my board. They are T1 plays against the combo decks (where you only need to buy enough time to GSZ->Scooze), and they help you play a value game against the likes of Jund.

I've loved playing Wildwood for a while now. It taps for relevant mana, and eats Jace, Delver, and the avg. Legacy creature. Factory's main allure is coming into play untapped, but it is a colorless source... which might be worse sometimes. If you are off of the Bog GY hate plan, you can play a Horizon Canopy instead of the third cycle land, to have 2.5ish of them, and have an extra tutorable.

Regarding the dark depths combo, I just feel more comfortable with a tutor-able get out of jail free card which I feel, like apocalypse6 said, takes very little investment tho I may change my mind with further testing. Regarding the SB i think you're right Kord might not be the best fit, maybe a containment priest?

Now another question, how much better did DnT get with that new card Recruiter of the Guard I understand thats one of our worst match-ups?

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Originally Posted by Digitend89

Regarding the dark depths combo, I just feel more comfortable with a tutor-able get out of jail free card which I feel, like apocalypse6 said, takes very little investment tho I may change my mind with further testing. Regarding the SB i think you're right Kord might not be the best fit, maybe a containment priest?

Now another question, how much better did DnT get with that new card Recruiter of the Guard I understand thats one of our worst match-ups?

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I'm with you on containment priest.

The new recruiter may have shot that deck into another dimension of good. They just got a card that tutors for mom, revoker, stoneforge, and flickerwisp which is terrible for loam unless you already established punishing fire lock. the good news is that it costs 3 mana so the best early play they can get out of it is hard casting it turn 3 with a vial on 2. The long game just got alot tougher though since that recruiter becomes a live topdeck that proxies for the best creature in any situation.

About D&T, actually my current win rate is ~85% over 13 games. That number might be inflated, but STP is huge in that matchup. I've added a spreadsheet to my sig where you can see a bit more detail about that.

IMO the strongest thing D&T can be doing against us is the early stunlock (vial + thalia + waste/port) and the recruiters encourage a stronger lategame, giving the D&T player a reason to use their lands as mana sources. In my last match against imperial at least, my opponent did not go after my manabase at all. I'm not sure if that would have remained the case if we played 5+ games rather than 3, but he explained that the deck is less tempo-oriented due to a better late game. The same might be true for future white lists.

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Originally Posted by apocolyps6

About D&T, actually my current win rate is ~85% over 13 games. That number might be inflated, but STP is huge in that matchup. I've added a spreadsheet to my sig where you can see a bit more detail about that.

IMO the strongest thing D&T can be doing against us is the early stunlock (vial + thalia + waste/port) and the recruiters encourage a stronger lategame, giving the D&T player a reason to use their lands as mana sources. In my last match against imperial at least, my opponent did not go after my manabase at all. I'm not sure if that would have remained the case if we played 5+ games rather than 3, but he explained that the deck is less tempo-oriented due to a better late game. The same might be true for future white lists.

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I agree that D&T tends to be a pretty good matchup, especially with Plows. Delver in general is much harder, and I'd say we're slightly less than 50/50 against Shardless. Sneak and Show and Reanimator are the matchups I think are the poorest since we're not great at fighting against Show and Tell. I've got 2 Containment Priest in my board to help with that, but it's much harder to board for those decks than it is to board for Storm decks.

On other matters:

You're mulliganing to interaction against the all-in graveyard decks anyway, and the ones like Reanimator where turn 3 is too slow are the ones that are most vulnerable to Chalice and Thalia, so you're not well served by mulliganing to Leyline, nor are you likely to win those matchups if you don't get to 3 mana. Bog has been great against the value GY decks in particular because the slot is typically "free" - you're basically getting an extra (potentially high impact) sideboard slot in your maindeck, and countering a Snapcaster Mage or opposing Loam is often a huge win.

Our differences on the combo might stem from different deckbuilding/playstyle preferences. If you're cutting Lilianas and going with a more creature/GSZ focused Loam deck, then I can definitely see how the combo benefits your game plan and is often the most robust angle of attack, and how the investment of two Knight activations would be smaller. Similarly, my list is much more interested in grinding the opponent out with Liliana, Loam, and Punishing Fire than yours is, so I'm also much more mana intensive in general, and colored mana intensive more specifically. I didn't mind the Stage when I drew it nearly as much as the Depths, since I often wanted to be able to copy a dual, a Maze, a Grove or even a Ghost Quarter.

It seems that Aggro Loam can hold its own against many of the top decks, is it the combo decks/force of will checks that keep it down?

@ Digitend89:

What keeps it down is that the average legacy player would not play it. Many don't even know the deck exists. The deck is very hybridized so it looks like a big mess to ppl. From my experience, none of the current decks in the DTB are <50% matchups (others disagree). Combo decks are not particularly bad matchups, and FoW decks are generally good ones.

@btm10:

Show&Tell into Legend is risky for them. Showing in Karakas or the Knight to get it is pretty good. I'm waay more concerned about T1 entomb T2 reanimate from Reanimator, or basics into sneak attack from S&S.

You are right that my list is less set up to grind. I only rly feel like I'm missing out against Shardless, Jund Etc. but I'm 8-5 against Jund so I guess I grind enough when it counts? It might also be the case the the grindier games allow an outgunned pilot more agency to win rather than a "have it or you lose" situation that my list is better at dealing with. You are also right that depths costs you more in that list (even with the work that others have done on here to marry the two).

Marit Lage wins me such a significant percentage of games that it might be worth it any way. Moving the Maze out of the main would help a lot.

Edit: I tested against Recruiter-Prelate D&T yesterday. Prelate is the real deal. It is like a mom on crack. They name 2 and stop Decays+Pfires. My mainboard dismember was huge in the matchup, I'm not sure how Loam wins G1s otherwise (they'll play around Lili). Postboard I gain 3 STP, 2 Deluge, 1 Pulse makes it less of a problem.

I top 4d a local event this weekend. Pretty stock list with DD combo. Did ok, but lost in swiss to Eldrazi and in the top4 to the same deck.. What is our game plan against that beast? Not one game was I able to stabilize and take over the game. Maybe my opponent was just on it, but id like some suggestions.

I think the best thing to be doing in that matchup is landing a quick knight. Knight can usually block just about anything in their deck, and then kill them with Marit Lage. We lose most of the games where they cast 3 or more TKS/Smasher in the early game, but you can't win them all.
The hands that look like "2fetch, bob, thicket, wasteland, pfire, decay" and the like are probably going to lose you the game.

Of all of the games I've played against Eldrazi so far, the only ones where I felt steamrolled were last week's playtesting session. My opponent was one of the best Ancient Tomb wranglers in North America, and some of the hands I kept were pretty meh, so I still think the matchup should be positive.

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Originally Posted by rabidw0lf

I top 4d a local event this weekend. Pretty stock list with DD combo. Did ok, but lost in swiss to Eldrazi and in the top4 to the same deck.. What is our game plan against that beast? Not one game was I able to stabilize and take over the game. Maybe my opponent was just on it, but id like some suggestions.

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From my experience, since we don't have brainstorms and ponders to look for stuff, we have to make sure our opening hands have to be something that can put up a fight against eldrazi and mulligan if we don't. Probably moxes, knight, and plows and works towards Marit like apocalyps6 said.

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Originally Posted by Digitend89

From my experience, since we don't have brainstorms and ponders to look for stuff, we have to make sure our opening hands have to be something that can put up a fight against eldrazi and mulligan if we don't.

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Lately, i have been mulligan'd into oblivion just to because i keep getting "bad" openers. Pretty frustrating, not really sure if i am being to aggresive on the mulligan, but against fast decks and on the blind i mull if i do not have a T1 play.

Sometimes variance just fucks you. Oddly enough, for me it tends to happen on consecutive games. It is a dumb superstition, but I try 5ish games worth of sample hands before going to play the deck, and if they are all crap that's how it is gonna be the rest of the day.

That does not mean that aggressive mulligaining is wrong. Tho I would be inclined to keep a 6 card hand with strong T2&3 plays in the blind, especially because lili makes mulligans a bit worse.

Hey guys since Lily is $1,000,000 on modo what would be a good 3 card substitute? More DDs combo? Curious on your guys thoughts

Apocalypse has a list with no Lili in his signature. It's not bad at all and the easier mana is a nice change of pace from the normal build.

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Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE

Apocalypse has a list with no Lili in his signature. It's not bad at all and the easier mana is a nice change of pace from the normal build.

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Yeah you crushing me last night reminded me how fun the deck is, then I realized I don't have lilys :frown:

What were you playing?

The build feels fine despite not having liliana which was new to me as far as 4 color loam goes. I switched up the lands a little for my own preferences but otherwise I've kept it the same and have been pretty happy. The one card I want to find a replacement for is dismember since I'm not a fan of it in legacy. I'm playing the 4th decay for now which is just is fine in the delver-filled world of mtgo.

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Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE

delver-filled world of mtgo.

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That would be me :)

Also are you running a non lily build?