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Went 2-2 this past weekend with my 4c build. Could have been 3-1 if I'd responded to IoK by bolting him, but against ub snapcaster, I thought I might need the extirpate as well, so I let him choose, then he won at 1 life...sadface at bad playing.
Still really happy with the manabase, but undecided on the removal suite. Also thinking of trying to brew a Jund control list with Liliana, anyone test her out much yet?
I'm testing her out right now in b/g/w and she's awesome. Knight > Crusher and white still gives you 1cc removal (stp/pte your choice). Also I love maindeck sylvan library, helps give you so much card advantage it's not even funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Cheese
Yep. Our first two games were drawn-out affairs. In the third game, he got a Wheel out on me, and I wasn't drawing an answer to it, which curtailed my development enough that it was looking like we were going to draw, since we didn't have much time going into the game. I had a small Knight out and a Dark Confidant, and he had a larger Knight. Then he topdecked an Elspeth and made his Knight fly over, which put me to 2. I was able to grab a Maze of Ith to stave off the next attack (had to crack a fetch to do so), but I ended up dying to Bob flipping up a Bolt. Good, well-matched games.Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
Draw two usable non-land cards, pitch two lands. In a loam deck, lands in the yard are virtually lands in the hand, so it's almost like a Thoughtcast with flashback in this build in the sense that you're netting an extra card for 1 mana, but you're actually advancing your "board position" by putting more lands in your yard. Also triggers Crusher's +1/+1 counter ability when pitching lands. Can also be used for loam dredge trigger which seems pretty good. Just a thought.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
I agree I have no idea what I would cut for it, though.
This is kind of the problem. Giving Careful Study flashback doesn't make it any more of an effect the deck wants. If you want to pitch useless lands that badly (instead of just, say, recurring cycling lands and doing it naturally), you can dip into blue for Trade Routes and the superior-to-Looting Desperate Ravings. The filtering effect you get from this card isn't very strong; you can get something much more powerful from Sylvan Library or Sensei's Divining Top. I don't think stapling discard onto minor filtering really improves that card all that much, to be honest. The effect is still just very weak.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seems Good
What do you think of Chalice of the Void for Saint Louis?
I'm thinking of modifying Micah's list with:
-2 Goyf for +2 Scavenging Ooze
-2 Plowshare +2 Explosives
-1 Wurm Harvest +1 Explosives
-2 Devastating Dreams +2 Chalice of the Void
-2 Vindicate +2 Chalice of the Void
Chalice of the Void is just not very good. I mean, if you open with "land, Mox, Chalice, go" it's okay, but if you don't it gets rapidly worse (and of course, the second and third Chalices are blanks). The issue is that the land, Mox, Chalice opener is not very likely to happen unless you have the luck of the gods, and against tempo decks it's pretty risky unless you're on the play. I would be very leery of raising my curve against Canadian Thresh decks; you are pretty soft to tempo decks, especially if they get a fast start, and the upside of Chalice locking them out of their dig spells and flying Nacatls is massively offset by the turn you lose if you try to resolve one and they counter it, or you wait to resolve one to play around Daze and they counter it anyway with Spell Snare or something.Quote:
Originally Posted by alrightgame
Outside of tempo decks, I don't really see why you would need Chalice.
Cards chalice of the void stops on 1, if it resolves:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
reanimate, entomb, stifle, spell snare, careful study, almost everything in elves and burn, noble, mother, swords, vial, nacatl, cabal therapy, top, and thoughtseize.
It also prevents you from folding to storm combo and reanimate, which is relevant in the first six rounds.
If chalice does not resolve, it gives you a significant chance of resolving crusher or reliquary.
I know how dead the card can be when you draw multiples. It is an evil necessity.
Other benefits includes 0 cc for bob, and stopping decks that are for a resolved chalice. I think it might be worth testing again.
Chalice does not stop you from folding to storm. Chalice plus a fast clock does, but this deck's average clock is pretty shitty. Burning Wish for Shattering Spree beats it, Animate Dead and/or Exhume beats it, Elves and burn are terrible, discard still gets you because the chances of you being on the play and having turn one Chalice are laughable, green/white/x decks have Pridemage and GSZ at least and can bring in Grips from the board, any deck running Stifle will have more than enough answers for Chalice, and so on. The card is just bad.
I mean, yes, Mental Misstep showed that Legacy was full of nice one-drops that were fine to counter, but the thing is, MMS still let you run your own one-drops. Chalice doesn't do that unless you are the worst deckbuilder ever. Giving up one-drops to make your Chalice of the Voids better is a huge cost that is not offset by Chalice being ridiculously broken if it resolves. Again, the chances of having it turn one on the play are vanishingly small. Having it turn two on the play (more likely because you don't need to resolve Mox Diamond) is not nearly as good unless the opponent bricks on turn one. Having it turn one on the draw, or turn two on the draw, is so mediocre it hurts. Getting Chalice any later than that virtually blanks the card.
Look, this is not the deck you play if you're paranoid about combo. You can have fifteen anti-combo cards in your sideboard and STILL lose because you sided out a quarter of your deck for cards that are designed to help you "not lose," as opposed to "win." Combo decks are fast and flexible and Aggro Loam is neither. If combo is an issue, play blue.
There are better answers to Reanimator than Chalice, mostly because of Animate Dead and Exhume getting around it.
The old, "But then I bait all of his counters and resolve my good spells!" argument has never worked for me. Crusher is not a good creature anymore. Knight is a fine creature but can still be answered or raced. Against tempo decks, if you are giving up a turn to try to force through your dorks, you are losing because you are doing exactly what the tempo deck wants you to do: durdle while you get beaten up by 3/2 flying dudes and Tarmogoyf. Yeah, they may be down a counter, but the time you've lost, the mana you've lost, and the card you've lost are all more important to you, the clunky midrange deck, than to them, the fast tempo deck whose cards naturally lose value as the game drags on. You'd be better off bringing in red Blasts and fighting them that way.
Honestly, if you're sold on Chalice, nothing I can say will convince you. The card looks great on paper and in theory does all this great stuff but in practice it is not very good and you will still usually lose to all the same things Chalice is supposed to help you beat (combo, blue). But you're welcome to try it.
I'm not entirely sold on chalice. I havn't played chalice in since 2010, but the meta is entirely simliar to how it was then.
Let's put it this way - chalice is good ONLY if you put it on T1. Imagine a topdeck in midgame: CHALICE OF THE VOID?? NICE!!
Something like this - "damn this delver of secrets attacked me 3 times I need an answer to this, come on, lighning bolt - CotV??" NICE!!
Wait, wait here, is another one - "omg I have to do something with his knight, oh I how I'd like to draw a StP right now, ok, let's see the topdeck - CotV??" NICE!!
Anyway, let's say you kill delver with punishing fire and you vindicate KotR, but what if you land CotV on T2, while you start first:
-(you)land
-land zenith to arbor
-chalice
-land kotr
-??
-(you)land
-land putrid imp
-land chalice
-discard troll dregde land brakthrough for 1 dregde I win
-??
-(you)land
-land delver
-land chalice
-flip delver land goyf attack
-??
-(you)land
-land vial
-land chalice
-land lord of atlantis
-??
Want to see games like this? In every situation above you do NOTHING on T2, it's like you NEVER had it, like you buy a Time Walk for 2 mana but for your opponent. Let flow your imagination in order to see your game while you land CotV on T2 and you are on the draw...oh that story is sooo sad.
So we need 3 factors to make it work:
--Chalice in hand
--Mox in hand
--We start
(--2+ lands in hand)
so this a 3-piece combo that does NOT instantly win the game.
Still want to play it? Good luck=)
Chalice wasn't good then, either, it just took people a while to realize it and come up with a build that took advantage of having access to one-drops.Quote:
Originally Posted by alrightgame
This is important to remember. I recognize that Chalice can be good, but usually for it to be most effective, you need it Turn 1 on the play, and the odds of that are not great.Quote:
Originally Posted by marcel
Alrightgame, if you are concerned about Reanimator and storm combo for this tournament, then this is not the right deck to run. It IS possible to contort the deck to make it competitive in those matchups, but you lose some strength against the rest of the field.
If you decide to play Chalice, let us know how the tourney goes.
I actually never found reanimator to be that hard to beat if you run a version with white. You play swords to his creatures and if you land a KotR you already won if you run karakas/maze/bojuka/etc. And after sb you have even more options. It's also fun to dredge KotR - I bet he won't play exhume=)Quote:
Originally Posted by ESG
It doesn't seem like it should be that hard for a black version of the deck, either. You have:
Coffin Purge
Diabolic Edict
Extirpate
Pyroblast
Red Elemental Blast
With the latter two as an answer to Jin-Gitaxias. Iona on black could be a problem but I suspect most Reanimator players will reach for Sphinx of the Steel Wind first after Jin, just to blank most of your removal anyway and make it impossible for you to race. Actually, Sphinx is an issue for Naya Loam as well since you can't Karakas it and Maze doesn't keep it from blanking your Knights/Crushers on offense. I guess you can try to Swords it, but I don't want to be in a position where I have to resolve a removal spell against a blue deck with discard in order to attack effectively.
White also has Purify the Grave, for what that's worth.
EDIT: One other thing I've been thinking about recently is the use of Terravore over Crusher. It feels like people are skimping on graveyard hate right now, and when they have it, it's stuff like Extirpate or Surgical Extraction instead of Crypts or Relics (since the former are generally better vs. Snapcaster), which makes Terravore more attractive. Terravore will be bigger than Crusher in the near and medium terms and has trample, making it difficult to blank through chumps or Mother of Runes. Plus, Terravore will almost always be bigger than Knight of the Reliquary.
It might be worth trying, especially in Naya builds.
I totally agree with you, usually they side out Iona, as you play too many colours, so you always have an answer to her. Gin in not such a problem with red blasts, but sphinx can really win the game. Also Blazing Archon can cause problems.
Terravore seems much better now, it would be nice to play it, but I would not know what to take out? Any ideas?
I would want to try some number of Terravore over some number of Countryside Crusher. Crusher doesn't strike me as being particularly good anymore.Quote:
Originally Posted by marcel
Then why not cut red and just rune white for crushers and better removal?
You mean cut Seismic Assault, Devastating Dreams, Punishing Fire/Bolt and many sideboard options like Pyroblast?Quote:
Originally Posted by zulander
Crusher makes a fine combo with bob and besides, he survives ANY gravehate except the leyline.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
But anyway I was talking about RGW bild=)
Yup. Neither of those are 'amazing' and I haven't really missed them in my gbw.Quote:
Originally Posted by marcel
Well, I mean, if we cut red...Quote:
Originally Posted by zulander
Scrolling up, I'm going to use the last list I see with a good showing, which looks like this:
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Mox Diamond
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Seismic Assault
Cutting red frees up 13 non-land slots immediately. Assuming we swap it out for white, we automatically add 4 Knight of the Reliquary and 4 Swords to Plowshares (since we want the removal and StP is the best removal spell we have access to). That leaves 5 slots.
But wait, let's think about this. Life from the Loam gets a lot worse when you lose Seismic Assault, since its remaining uses are: #1 Waste-lock people (exciting), #2 grow your three-drops (meh), #3 draw some cards for a bunch of mana (meeeeeh). Instead of growing our threes or slowly drawing cards, why don't we just make more creatures? Let's cut some of the Loams add 4 Green Sun's Zenith, since that will both give us card advantage and increase our board presence, which is sort of like making our guys really big. But...while we're on the subject of build your own monster, there's more than one way to slice that particular cake. Stoneforge Mystic plus a small equipment toolbox would give us guys who are superior in combat, so let's use Mystic and Jitte and...hmm...Sword of Feast and Famine.
Now that I think about, shaving down on Loams makes Mox Diamonds worse. We don't need access to all the colors and two-for-one-ing ourselves seems weak. Let's cut the Diamonds for 3 Noble Hierarch and one Birds. Cutting Diamonds and Loams means we don't need nearly as many lands, so we'll cut the number down a bit. Let's also add a few miscellaneous GSZ targets so we get the full value out of the card.
But wait, what's black adding to all of this? Bob and Pulse? That doesn't seem like enough to justify making the mana worse for a third color: Pulse is very meh and Bob is better in grindy long games, something in short supply in a largely tempo-defined format. So let's cut black and add in some other ways to generate card advantage: Sylvan Library is a good one, and Elspeth is good at breaking through board stalemates.
And...voila! Here's our new Aggro Loam list:
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Quirion Ranger
3 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Sylvan Library
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam
1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle
...
I am only being a little bit of a smartass here. WBG Aggro Loam is a worse Junk deck, which itself is a worse Maverick deck. RG is really the core of Aggro Loam; cutting Crusher does not justify removing the red entirely because at that point most of your card choices start to look really suboptimal. Fixing all those suboptimal card choices rapidly leads you into the realm Maverick or Zoo, and at that point you might as well just build Maverick or Zoo because those decks are tuned.
@marcel: Like I said, I don't think people are running the kind of hate that kills Terravore right now, and Crusher not having trample or evasion is a real cost. Plus, he is really slow to get off the ground and bricking on your Crusher triggers is pretty bad for you because then you actually have to do some work to make him effective.
Would the bgw version look something like this?
2 engineered explosives
4 mox diamond
4 knight of the reliquary
4 dark confidant
4 tarmogoyf/scavenging ooze
4 life from the loam
2 maelstrom pulse/vindicate
What do you replace seismic assault and the 2 flex slots?
raven's crime? living wish? hymn to tourach? wrath of god? stoneforge mystic package? thoughtseize? liliana?
I imagine the sideboard would include path to exile and thoughtseize.
The decklist Aggro_Zombie have listet is really solid. I'm playing it myself and it's very good against RUG Tempo, Blue Control decks, BW and other Stoneblade decks, Aggro obvious and I could go on. Only combo is difficult (alot :cry:).
Can't see why anyone would want to cut Red in this deck. It's the cornerstone of this deck. Want to splash white, go look at the Rock, Maverick og other threads combined of BGW.
Terravore vs. Crusher? I'm very happy with Crusher. If it sticks, it's a beast and if the opponent doesn't play white, hence Swords to Plowshare/Path to Exile, it's a matter of time, before you win. Yes, Terravore does have Trample, but it dies to any gravehate, and the double Green is a bit tricky, when there's double and triple Red and in my case double Black (Liliana).
Just my 2 cent :smile:
I very much like the idea of Kessig Wolf Run in builds that also run Knight of the Reliquary. Seems like a slam junk way to turn Crushers and KotR into Terravores.
@rukcus: I have also looked at Kessig Wolf Run and would very much like to include it into Aggro Loam. Think it could be powerful. But it requires White hence Knight OR Crop Rotation, but there's not enough utility lands in the RGB version, so if Kessig is to be included it should be a RGW version of Aggro Loam.
Just to be clear, I'm not talking against myself (previous post :smile:), I prefer the RGB build AND Red must not be cut, but a RGW build could be interesting, as long it doesn't end as a mediocre Zoo build. The build Nikitin top16 with in Amsterdam is to much a Zoo build in my opinion.
It...doesn't, actually. Crypt rarely kills it outright (it usually does so after combat damage), Relic does not seem to see a lot of play, and Leyline of the Void turns Crusher into a permanent 3/3 (as opposed to Terravore only getting buffs off of the opponent). Extirpate and Surgical Extraction do not kill Terravore, and those seem to be the most common graveyard hate cards right now because of their usefulness vs. Snapcaster among other things.Quote:
Originally Posted by PollePotDK
I mean, maybe I'm just chronically unlucky with my Countryside Crusher triggers, but I've had numerous games wherein I did not hit a single land on upkeep and had to sink time and mana into making my Crushers not suck (and trust me, 3/3s for 3 in Legacy absolutely suck). Very rarely do you live the dream of hitting five lands at once and getting them. The average for 27 lands, 33 spells seems to be around two or so lands per turn, maybe slightly less. That's not very interesting for a guy that costs three and gets actually, legitimately blanked by Mother of Runes (or chumped by Tarmogoyf, or bounced, or Bolted/Dismembered in response to his first trigger, or whatever). Terravore is better in the near- and medium-terms and I think that's what matters most; you have late-game coming out of your ears but if your midgame was any softer it would actually vanish into thin air.
I mean, yes, if your metagame is all Relics all the time, Crusher is better. But I think Terravore is worth it when that's not the case.
@ruckus: Hmm. I think Skaarg (Skarrg? I forget how to spell it) might be better. You tend to want to use all or most of your mana on your turn, and Wolf Run is three plus Run to give the same power boost of two plus Ska(a)(r)rg. I would have to test it, though.
EDIT: @Polle: Naya Loam tends to end up a lot like Big Zoo just because you share a lot of the cards but shift from being flexible to being top-heavy. I've tried to fix that but have either ended up with an even more top-heavy mess or a Zoo deck. Jund is basically the only color combo that doesn't turn into "[Deck X] But Worse."
Objectively, they do the same (give trample). I suspect that Kessig being able to pump more power might be the key however. Imagine going EOT tutor up Kessig, untap, pump for 3 and trample over for 10. Seems better in a race condition than a simple +1 power boost for 2 less mana. It does depend on the amount of mana available however.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
Yeah, that's why I'd have to test it. It does give you another way to win races, but I suspect that Assault plus your other burn already do that fairly well. Then again, the last time I played this deck I was running maindeck Firespout and EE, so "racing" was not something that came up often.Quote:
Originally Posted by rukcus
Oh, you know what? I forgot about Scavenging Ooze being a maindeck GSZ target in Maverick. That makes Terravore kind of worse. Hmmm.
@Aggro: Like you say, I also think the Jund version is the best. Any other combination makes a sligthly worse version of an other established deck.
I was only saying IF Kessig was to be i included I would go RGW.
You know, Kessig or Skaarg are probably fine as singletons in a Jund version. You're already running only one Stronghold and your choice of "trample land" falls into the same general category of card you don't necessarily want or need to see every game but still want in your 75 somewhere in case you need it.Quote:
Originally Posted by PollePotDK
I think Crusher gets better with less Jace in the format, and better since Knight gets chewed up by Ooze (F you, Maverick).
Terravore is also good since it counts both graveyards, so you don't get totally hosed by an active Ooze. Assault gives you more ways to remove Ooze, so I'm down for that.
With all the Knight, I think we'll also want more real removal. Bolt is nice, but is Bolt enough?
RE: Skarrg/Kessig: Sure, it's decent, but wouldn't you want the recursion in case you mill your crap away?
Also, with all the Stifle/Wasteland, I think we'd best stick to 3 colours, probably Jund.
-Matt
Bolt is fine for dealing with stuff like Mom or Ooze. As for Knight...Terravore goes over the top pretty easily, but Knight can find stuff like Maze to take care of that. Maybe Deathmark? There's also Terminate and Doom Blade/Go for the Throat.Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
I think Terminate is the best you can get in Jund. It kills everything. I'm in a huge KotR meta, so Terminate has been stellar for the past five centuries.
I'm also still running Fires combo, so you don't have to worry about the little stuff too much.
-Matt
Ah, okay. I imagine you would want Lavamancer or Fires to clear out the mana and utility dorks vs. Maverick since they're more of a pain than random fat guys (Mom in particular).Quote:
Originally Posted by sdematt
True. Plus, I'm running 3 Perish and 2 Firespout in the board, so I'm hoping that helps.
I'm thinking something like:
3 Extirpate
2 Firespout
3 Perish
3 REB
2 Grip ( CounterTop lock is bad to see, for sure)
2 Ancient Grudge
-Matt
I still don't understand, why in America and in Europe people see RGW Loam as a variation of Big Zoo...yes, you have 4 Goyf and 4 Knights, yes, you have Punishing Fire some times, but the concept of the deck is completely different.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
I also don't see, how it's worse, but this is another question=)
On Crusher, I was under the impression that his role as a giant beater was secondary to his role as a card filtering engine. In any deck running 26-27 lands, the chance of drawing blanks multiple turns in a row is pretty high, and an active Crusher just keeps you in business spells. Terravore is good because it pushes damage through, and hits the ground fat rather than taking a few turns to get there, but other than that it has no utility. Personally I don't think they should be looked at as mutually exclusive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
That deck looks terrible, not sure why you think that's what bgw would look like. Here's the deck I'm playing that doesn't play bad cards:
Mana: 28
7 Black Fetches
4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
3 Wasteland
3 Barren Moor
4 Mox Diamond
1 Dryad Arbor
1 V. Stronghold
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
Beats: 13
4 Goyf
4 Knight
4 Green Sun Zenith
1 Pridemage
Disruption: 11
4 Swords
4 Ravens Crime
3 Liliana
Hawt-Sauce: 8
4 Loam
4 Sylvan Library
Sideboard: 15
2 Darkblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
3 E. Tutor
2 Choke
1 Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Ring
You could cut a library or two if there isn't a crap ton of blue in your meta, but if there is then you want all 4. GSZ is great as an accelerant on turn 1 or can be a beating if you get a turn one mox and turn two GSZ. I could see someone adding in +2 removal spells if needed depending on the meta. You can play a normal board with 5 3ofs or play the tutor board which I find helps out especially when you run redundant cards, and it gets really busted when you bring in the tutor package and creatues as hate which essentially lets you run creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and 7 tutors for them.
Also, Liliana is retarded good in this deck. Library helps you not have to invest mana into drawing cards like cycling, so it's a beast. And doesn't die like bob does, I don't like bob currently.
Only thing I would change in a zoo meta is -2 library, +2 removal (go for the throat, pulse, putrefy, vindicate, wtf ever you need). If you like creatures I'd recommend the following: pridemage, ooze, mystic enforce (2 max). These guys are great in most meta's and can turn into beats pretty nicely. Don't get too cute with stoneforge and equipment. Discard their hand, remove their creatures, and beat them with big dudes. Seems pretty good.
Why not throw out the whole loam engine and add more discard an removal and play Dark Horizons?=)Quote:
Originally Posted by zulander
Exactly my thoughts. Loam is pretty garbage as a card advantage engine in a format where Green Sun's Zenith, Jace TMS, and Brainstorm all exist, and you don't need more than 1-2 of them to Waste-lock people.Quote:
Originally Posted by marcel