actually doesn't make me feel better, lol. If he had been an X-1 or X-0 at round 6 i would have had amazing breakers and would have drawn in.Quote:
Originally Posted by soltakar
As for pointers, I got a primer on my site.
Printable View
actually doesn't make me feel better, lol. If he had been an X-1 or X-0 at round 6 i would have had amazing breakers and would have drawn in.Quote:
Originally Posted by soltakar
As for pointers, I got a primer on my site.
I read your primer when you first posted it. I'll probably review it and read through this thread again for some ideas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
I read your primer when you first posted it. I'll probably review it and read through this thread again for some ideas.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
@Richard Cheese, ain't bolt and chalice comparing to eachother?
I mean you probably play chalice @1 always, then bolt doesn't dfo anything anymore? :O
Also the w<hite iq uite good and I would go play karakas, if also is quite good against hive mind combo :)
I also really miss assault because aggro matchups are quite hard if you don't have it^^
Control with my list is so easy to beat, I always win against it.
They can never get enough land, always got waste lock and I also drop one big beater and I win...
I'm trying to be patient here because it seems like English is not your first language, but for christ's sake man, slow down a bit when you type.
You run Chalice OR 1-drops, not both. Lately it seems that Chalice is falling out of favor because of two things:
1. Turn 1 Chalice requires an opening hand with a Mox, two lands, and Chalice. Statistically that's just not going to happen often. IF you're on the play and IF you open with those specific cards, it's great, but that's way too conditional.
2. Chalice gets worse as the game goes on. You aren't likely to drop it on 2 or 3 and shut down your own key cards, so drawing multiples is usually terribly redundant. At least with something like Bolt, it's never a dead card. I just prefer StP because in my meta there's a lot of Painter Stone and Dredge, so exiling something is usually worth the tradeoff in versatility.
Also Karakas is terrible main. Every time I've had it in my 60 and draw it, I wish it was something else. I wouldn't even bother with it in the SB, as Tariff deals with Emmy and Progenitus, and Hive Mind is just a terrible matchup anyway.
Oh, I forgot, I had a somewhat newish innovation for the deck: Scavenging Ooze. I played a 2/2 split of Ooze and Goyf at the last tournament. There was never a moment when I drew it and wished it was Goyf, though I didn't go up against matches where it wrecks face, either. I think it's good, but more experience will tell.
It's actually kind of hard to grow Goyf in the deck because you can get lands and sorceries easily enough, but then you have to luck out with dredges. I can see Ooze being a good addition.Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
what do you think about b.wish instead of devastating dreams main?Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
i been less and less impressed with devastating dreams, i almost never can cast it for good value.
either i have it late and no loam or i have it early and no board presence + mox diamond.
i just always want to brainstorm it away (which is not possible obv.)
i always board out devastating dreams and assaults.
people always bring in gy hate and i want to blank their sb plans.
dd w/o loam is suicidal most of the time.
thoughts on burning wish vs dreams in the deck is what im interested in.
i realize burning wish is a "slow card" but this deck has a way of slowing the game down and playing it on it's own terms most of the time.
i think burning wish is usually a turn 4 and later card in this deck and should not be considered as a 2 drop most of the time which makes it ok.
otherwise i think im willing to try 2 ee in the slot of 2 dd.
last tournament, I played 1 Dreams, 1 Edict in place of Dreams. I think I"m going to play dreams sideboard again. 8 disruption spells in the board does not seem like enough to get there against combo, so I'm not even gonna bother anymore.
why edict, to have 1 main deck out to a naked progenitus?Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
they usually vclique you or have a goyf/hierarch/dryad arbor/fow to go with progenitus to kold the 1 edict you have.
I actually stole a game where a 15/15 ran into my main deck edict. It was OK. I think I will be playing two EE's next time though.Quote:
Originally Posted by sauce
i am playing a 3rd mpulse and a 2nd sylvan instead.
we'll see how it goes this weekend.
Ran the deck today in a tournament for a Mox Pearl (with 14 participants :(
I played against TES (2-1 for me), then 1-drop Zoo (1-2 for me, he had the god-hand), then Esper America(1-1 tie, went to time, I'm favoured to win), then Bant good stuff (lost 1-2, mostly I was just tilting).
My deck treated me meh today, most of the opponent seemed to have everything. I opened some REALLY terrible openers, and didn't hit Loam in several games. Fires was great, and so was Terminate.
7/14 players were Stoneblade, which I wanted to face all day long, but I got stuck hitting slightly awkward matchups. I didn't hit a single Stoneblade, which I would have beaten. The winner was U/W Stoneblade who rode in the car with me to the event.
There wasn't a particular card that fucked me over, except Assault. The card was so good, but my Zoo opponent drew 3 Qasali in a row and killed my shit. I was pissed. Thrun wasn't really relevant, even in the Zoo matchup. It would have been better in the Stoneblade matchup, but again, I didn't face it. If my Thruns were Ghastly Demises, a much different story would have taken place, but oh well.
-Matt
I took Antonius's list, with small changes to the board,to a small legacy tournament for a trop ( 8 people).
Round 1: Junk Depths I went turn 1 mox diamond mox diamond wasteland, tarmogyof go and then set up the loam + seismic assualt combo and beat him, next game i boarded -2 devasting dreams ( all of his dudes survive) -2 bolt (same reason) +4 leyline of the void. I won the next game with crushers vs his 2/3 goyf
Round 2: Stoneblade with Standstills and not visions. He destroyed me game 1, but I went -3 siesmic assault -2 devasting dreams -1 bolt +4 REB +2 Krosan Grip. He got land screwed second game, and third game, he could not make double blue for jace and got countryside crushed.
Round 3: Team America with Ancestral Visions. Blown out game one, I kept a one lander on the draw with a mox diamond and a loam ( this normally gets there) and got land screwed. I noticed his tombstalkers and goyfs so i went -3 seismic -1 bolt +4 Leyline of the Void, game 2 he got land flooded big time and got countryside crushed. Game 3: I set up everything to win and was in the dominant position, I could feel that trop already in my hand...till the shopowner told us we were cutting to top 4. We both drew turn 7 into the third game.
Top 4: Hive mind. Not much to say here, I got blown out game 1 and went for the REBs, which got there game 2. Sadly, game 3 i did not counter the intuition and he pact of negation'ed my REB to win.
Testing that list to atm:
Some questions:
1) Why you play crusher over terravore? Terravore can beat dredge and reanimator and progenitus quite easyer than crusher, because of the trample.
2) I've tested and I don't really liked Mealstrom Pulse because it's first of all sorcery (I would prefer something like removal for 2 mana, like a Terminate or something)
3) Do you guys realy like DD, I always lose on it if it get's countered or I don't get any land (if I don't have any in hand) I think a firespout or more spotremoval would be better, maybe even an extra Terravore and 3 spotremoval, or something like 2 EE more.
4) Woudn't EE/Perniscious Deed be quite good/better than Mealstrolm Pulse mainboard?
Just some thoughts, I really like that I don't play Chalice mainboard anymore.
IT's good but not that needed like I thought... I also liek the botls and lavamancers main so..
Also myabe we can paly kird apes main to go faster (but then you have a really hard aggro version so)
I would like to hear your idea's and sorry for my language and fast typing in previous posts :)
I don't think EE is good in general anymore, but I'd be interested in testing the new Liliana over Pulse. She's still a removal spell but does other neat stuff too.
I don't like DD, but some people swear by it. YMMV, I guess.
Why EE woudn't be good, it kills so many things (I only use it upto like manacost 3/4).
And yeah DD, I think it ain't good and would be better replace it for firespout or something then...
And the new lilliana let's test that yeah that's quite mean, we shall see :)
I haven't been playing Aggro Loam in a long time, but it has always been one of my favorite decks. The printing of the new Liliana made me interested in the deck again, in addition to Antonius's recent good results, and I've been testing it for some time now.
I can't even describe how awesome the new Liliana has been in the deck. I had 2 copies of it instead of Pulses at the beginning, but I upped the count to 3 shortly after. My list is basically the latest Antonius's list with 3 Liliana's and 1 EE instead of 2 Pulse and 2 DD. I also changed 1 Taiga to B/R filter (Craven Cairns) which has worked well.
Anyway, how do you feel the banning of Mental Misstep will affect the playability of Aggro Loam?
I'm trying to decide for a deck to play at GP Amsterdam and the deck that I'm most familiar with is Aggro Loam. Actually I went 7-2 on the first day of GP Madrid with Aggro Loam when Mystical was still legal, but I do acknowledge that (storm) combo is one of (if not the) the worst matchups for Aggro Loam.
Is there any way to negate the increased amount of combo being played (just a speculation) or is Aggro Loam just a bad choice from now on?
Hi, I'm also going to GP and testing the deck with all choices (white, with/without chalice,...)
And I think the best thing is to go the hard aggro version.
So now MM is banned, I think it will be quite good to play more one-drops again.
So I will be testing my old list back with kird apes/wild nacatls and bolts, to speed my list up.
The only thing that ain't good is that there will be played much more combo now MM is banned.
So thinking of that we should play more hate, maybe chalice sideboard or something...
what are your idea's?
And didn't tested the new lilliana yet, is it so good that you need to play it 3x :O?
I should get maybe 2x/1x, but 3 looks to much.
And Lilliana ain't good against things with burn, but for the rest it's quite good yeah :)
I have no idea how much combo is played in Europe right now, but this is one of those decks that you just don't play if combo is going to be a serious metagame issue. I'm not sure that it will be, though: combo was not particularly rampant in the American metagame prior to the printing of MMS, and while I suspect that there will be an initial uptick in players looking to play some variety of storm now that MMS is gone, it will likely settle down again after a while. My impression of the European meta is that it has always been combo-heavy, so this may not be the best deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by kortero
That said, Aggro Loam was only so-so in the meta prior to the printing of MMS and the resurgence of interest in decks that largely eschewed one drops. I don't think 1cc-less Loam builds are any good, but if the meta goes back to being creature- and midrange-heavy, this deck should continue to be a solid choice.
I think that with the loss of MM, there will obviously be more 1cc spells in the metagame, of major note TES and High Tide. I think that the 1cc spells that can be played in Aggro Loam aren't very good, which is why I'm thinking that Chalice might be a pretty solid thing to bring back now. Otherwise, I feel like combo is going to be something like a 30% matchup at best. We used to be able to count on all the MM decks keeping combo down in the loser bracket, so we can beat up on blue. Might not be that likely anymore.
Combo will be bad even with Chalice, and eschewing one-drops entirely is bad. I would recommend at least using Lightning Bolts.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheShaun
This is not a deck you want to play if you are concerned with beating combo. You would have to completely rebuild the deck to do it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think Chalice fell out of favor because combo declined in popularity. I'm pretty sure it was more because of the fact that the chances to land it turn 1 are very slim, and that after the first few turns it is generally a dead draw. It might steal the occasional game 1 against combo, but they'll just bring in bounce/artifact hate and sculpt a hand to go off with. Without any additional hand disruption, you're not likely to get there in time.
Correct. Chalice turn one is good against most of the format, but after that it isn't, and it prevents you from running solid cards like Bolt. I would rather have a real curve than need Mox Diamond to not be a turn behind the rest of the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
I'm using the build with Punishing Fire, and Bolt doesn't really seem necessary. I am currently not running any 1-drops, and can't really think of any that I'd like to have maindeck. The reason I'm considering bringing back Chalice isn't so much to deal with combo, more to deal with the probably massive increase in 1cc spells in the format. I agree that beyond turn 1 it isn't going to severely cripple any decks, but it should still be pretty good. Stops the most popular removal spells other than Dismember, splashes for combo decks other than Hive Mind, and can help slow Zoo down enough to take the game over.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
Again, I'm not sure that it'll be the answer. But my thinking is that the format will be speeding up a bit, and this deck is already quite dominant late-game against almost anything. If the game lasts 5+ turns, Loam should be in pretty good shape against anything but Counterbalance, which will probably rear it's stupid head again. I think it will be a thorn in the side of control decks, shutting down StP, Brainstorm, and SDT. Aggro decks typically overload on 1-drops, so even though we aren't stopping their turn 1 play, we can possibly strand 1-3 dudes in their hand, unless of course their 1-drop is Aether Vial.
I'm not trying to tune the deck to beat combo, as I understand that will be a poor matchup regardless. I'm trying to figure out how this deck can get a jump on the metagame shift, as there will be an inevitable change. My previous post definitely made it seem like I was trying to make a change to improve combo, but that wasn't really the intention. This deck has been very strong IMO with Misstep in the format, but won't remain so without any changes.
Chalice wasn't particularly good in the format before MMS was printed. Actually, the deck itself wasn't particularly good, since there were a lot of matchups were it just okay.
Maybe the Blue version is worth looking into again? Intuition is pretty nuts, and it seems like there could be some good tricks with Brainstorm/Loam. I just don't know if you could have the density of blue cards required for Force, and this really doesn't seem like the type of deck to keep mana open for counters.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
The issue with Intuition is that the absolute best use for it in this deck is getting some number of Loams and some number of cycling lands. It enables you to assemble a slow, mana-intensive, late-game draw engine that is in many ways just worse than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The rest of the time, Intuition will be an expensive tutor for three copies of one card or some pile that will allow you to spend a lot of mana and time to eventually get all three cards back while your opponent is busily killing you. Also, adding Intuition and the support cards to use Intuition effectively tends to kill the curve.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Brainstorm is so-so in this deck. It draws cards and then your fetches shuffle, sure, but your card quality is lacking and one-shot draw effects are generally not that good here. The fact that your curve is high and you're built for attrition and a strong midgame negate a lot of Brainstorm's usefulness relative to things like Ponder or Preordain, and those cards aren't particularly useful either. I guess you could run Jace since Brainstorming every turn while dredging seems sexy, but this is probably one of the worst TMS decks ever, so...
Aggro Loam is really a metagame deck, and the metagame it was good in just got banned out of existence. I would like someone to prove me wrong since this is a pet deck of mine, but right now I would rather run Big Zoo than Aggro Loam.
Actually I thought it was most handy in finding Seismic Assault early and consistently, but Loam and Cyclers are also good targets. Brainstorm I'm not really sold on, but keep in mind that we have the Dredge mechanic in addition to fetches to either get rid of dead cards. Brainstorm can also put unneeded lands on top to grow Crusher more reliably, or avoid a dead draw if Crusher reveals something like a Mox or anything redundant.
I just think it's worth some testing. In the interest of spurring more discussion, here's a quick list I threw together in Cockatrice:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Seismic Assault
4 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Mox Diamond
4 Wasteland
1 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Vendilion Clique
I basically never play blue, so my choices of spells/numbers could be totally off. Skaab Ruinator might also be worth testing in some quantity, since this list has no way to recur dredged guys, I just think the cmc 3 spot is overloaded as is with Clique/Assault/Intuition, and I'm guessing Clique is the better creature. Delver/Abberation seems cute but not worth any slots.
I guess you could also go for a super-control UBG version with Liliana 2, but I'd hate to lose Crusher's tutor-on-a-stick power.
You can't run Force of Will with only 12 blue cards ^^
This. Also, that list falls prey to the other problem with Aggro Loam, which is being too slow to get going. That's a huge part of the reason why Aggro Loam was suddenly a good deck in the Misstep metagame.Quote:
Originally Posted by Anen
Yeah I didn't really think so, but I threw Force in first out of Blue-ignorance, and then built up the rest of the deck and didn't bother to go back and change it. I guess either Daze or Spell Pierce is more appropriate, or some combination of other things with all counters going to the SB?Quote:
Originally Posted by Anen
I don't really know what we could do about the speed thing. I guess in Jund you could just run lots of discard like The Rock, which isn't a particularly fast deck either, but seemed to be doing pretty well pre-MM. Either that or run more sweepers. DD is usually pretty nuts against Zoo, but I think it benefited from having MM around because it meant less Dazes and Pierces to play around.
I'd actually run sweepers, since they'll be helping out most of your problems (and will be better since you can play them on T2 with Mox).
You can't rely on discard like Rock, since you don't have 10 slots. You have to assume combo is just going to get you, and deal with it. Against TES, if you run REB and Extirpate, you should be in decent shape (as well as running Assault and Fires, it makes it harder for them to Nauseum profitably).
I think your board should basically now include Firespouts, REB's, and some Perishes. Probably 3-4 Spouts so you can stabilize before setting up Assault engine. Fires is still good, but it'll be slow going. Bolts and Lavamancers also get better. You could board/maindeck a few of those.
Naya Loam might not be a bad idea, due to the fact you can run 7 Swords. Confidant is great, don't get me wrong, but give it some thought. Terravore is also super good.
-Matt
If you really want a shot against combo you probably have to play Junk colors with Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Vale and a maindeck hate bear or two.
Something like...
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Nantuko Monastery
3 Barren Moor
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Mox Diamond
4 Dark Confidant
4 SFM
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Wetness
1 Batterskull
1 Sword or Jitte
3 Raven's Crime
4 Loam
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Liliana of the Vale
SB:
2 Path to Exile
1 Teeg
1 Canonist
4 Duress
3 Perish
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Krosan Grip
Something like that. My initial gut tells me that this will be a lot worse than Jund against the weenie decks Aggro Loam is usually good against, but testing might prove otherwise. Merfolk and Zoo both bow to batterskull, but battkerskull isn't as good as assault. Also, dredging up equipment is going to awkward, hopefully witness helps.
RE: Blue.
Loam is a card that can sometimes be used in blue decks because Loam + Wasteland wrecks the control mirror and Loam + Jace is insane. You can't really play blue in Loam decks though, unless its a splash purely for intuition and/or Tolaria West. Blue cards are not very good with a dedicated Loam strategy.
How about GSZ in Loam?
In a naya build with a tool box, maybe... Though, in that case you might as well just play Maverick or something along those lines. In a jund build you're only gonna be able to get Goyf and/or Terravore, and that's not worth the 2-3 slots for GSZ.Quote:
Originally Posted by CorpT
What do you guys think of Kessig Wolf Run as a 1-of?
Good idea. For those who don't run Terravore, or for those who would like to try running AL without, it could be very useful. Late game, make Crushers actually crush, Tarmogoyfs get through their evil twins, have Bob kill Goyf...Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Isn't Skaarg just better? If you have tons of mana to sink into this late, it means you're not Loaming/cycling, and there aren't many situations where that's a good thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Besides the X variable in power, you can simply pay GR and tap Wolf Run just to give your Knight/Terravore trample (+0/+0), something Skarrg can't do. Could be relevant, but then again, you might not have space for either Wolf Run or Skarrg.