I've got two words that will change the future of this deck, and possibly the Legacy format:
Orcish Lumberjack.
Printable View
I've got two words that will change the future of this deck, and possibly the Legacy format:
Orcish Lumberjack.
Any ideas on how to combat the Sneak Attack/Show and Tell decks which are bound to pick up in popularity?
REBs and Pyroblasts in the SB counter Show and Tell but they play lots of counters too. Mana denial only works so far because they have enough basics, Lotus Petal and can drop a Tomb or City of Traitors on the critical turn.
I've found discard spells are generally better than Blasts versus Sneak-Show. It's pretty frustrating to keep a Blast shield up only to have them use some Lotus Petals to hardcast Sneak Attack and then own you.Quote:
Originally Posted by trivial_matters
I kind of want to run a package of Thoughtseize and Duress to combat decks like that (since Duress is generally better than IoK against Show and Tell decks), but honestly it's not a very good matchup. You need to have a very aggressive start backed up by at least a couple discard spells, which might be consistently doable for a more traditional Jund deck, but not Aggro Loam.
Any combo deck can be hindered by discard + surgical extraction. Combo is not our best matchup, let's put it that way. Revoker would be fine to combat Sneak Attack/Griselbrand, but you can't win them all.
-Matt
So what are people's thought on faithless looting? Is it godly in this deck or what? I haven't gotten a chance to test it out yet. I was going to run them as a 3 of this past Sunday at my store but I decided more creatures and instead threw in kitchen finks. He wasn't spectacular, but I still went 3-1 with my only loss being to manaless dredge (didn't think anyone was dredging that day and had no GY hate) and got some credit
I'm undecided on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradstone
The card sees play in the Modern versions of the deck because they don't have access to either cycling lands or Sylvan Library, making Looting the next best thing. Of course, the Legacy version of the deck runs cycling lands and probably should run Sylvan Library, but Looting isn't clearly worse than either of those.
On the cycling land side, it doesn't work that well with Loam (I mean, you can painlessly pitch lands and stuff, but you could mostly do that anyway given how many you run) and can only be used twice per copy. At the same time, your opponents aren't likely to waste a Surgical or Ooze activation on your in-graveyard Looting, so you will likely get both castings out of it.
On the Library side, it doesn't provide long-term, recurring card advantage and doesn't enable as much dredge shenanigans. At the same time, it does allow you to filter dead cards out of your hand, isn't subject to anti-enchantment cards, and does actually draw the cards without a life cost.
On the one hand, I don't really think this deck needs what is essentially a glorified - and even then, not very good - cantrip. But on the other hand, there's definitely been situations, particularly in the midgame, where the deck will start to shit on me and I'll draw a bunch of lands and Mox Diamonds in a row and then lose. I feel like Looting would be a good card to have in those situations, but I don't know if it pulls its weight enough elsewhere to justify the slots. I'd have to test it, but I'm kind of down on this deck right now so I'm not really motivated to do so.
I'm looking for some advice on my current build of this deck. For a while I was doing chalice, burning wish, and devastating dreams build but it fell to slow and inconsistent, especially if I didn't get a turn 1 diamond. After reading this thread and checking out the recent builds that have topped I've come to this.
Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Scavenging Ooze
Instants:
4 Lightning Bolt
Sorcery:
4 Life From the Loam
1 Maelstrom Pulse
Artifact:
4 Mox Diamond
2 Engineered Explosives
Plainswalker:
2 Liliana of The Veil
Enchantment:
3 Seismic Assault
4 Wasteland
4 Forgotten Cave
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
3 Taiga
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Barbarian Ring
If you count that list its only 57 cards because as of right now I've got 3 spots I can't figure out what to put in them. The last two weeks I've tried Kitchen Finks and Grim Lavamancer as a 3 of.
Finks was solid, I liked having more beaters and his recursion/lifegain was always really good but he didn't have a whole lot of synergy with the deck
Lavamancer I felt was awful almost everytime I saw him, he went against pretty much all the cards in the deck as there's never really anything I want to remove from my graveyard.
Some other cards that I want to try out are Faithless Looting and Thoughtsieze, or try and find some other creatures that work well to be more aggressive (that aren't terravore). Faithless looting seems solid in mid to late game as aggro zombies points out but I'm not sure how well it'll play in the first few turns. Thoughtsieze also feels nice (I like it more than IoK) but I also feel fine running it out of the board.
TL;DR: What should I put in my 3 flex spots
1 Scavenging Ooze, and possibly 2 Faithless Looting. Also consider adding a Graven Cairns to the manabase.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradstone
Incorrect. Lightning Bolt, Maelstrom Pulse, EE and Seismic Assault don't do anything in your graveyard. You're not running Volrath's so creatures in your graveyard don't do anything either. Hell, the lands in your graveyard don't do anything unless you have Loam. And if you have loam going and you're feeding useful lands to Lavamancer then you're probably playing against a deck composed of X/2 dorks and you're winning really hard.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradstone
A land that cycles. Basic swamp and barbarian ring both seem terrible. If you insist on playing Liliana, then I'd suggest:Quote:
TL;DR: What should I put in my 3 flex spots
+1 Tranquil Thicket
+1 Graven Cairns
-1 Swamp
-1 Ring
+1 Badlands
+1 Fetchland
+1 most effective removal for your meta (Forked Bolt, EE or Maelstrom) or Sylvan Library
If you did some brainstorming, I'm sure you'd come up with a solution.Quote:
But on the other hand, there's definitely been situations, particularly in the midgame, where the deck will start to shit on me and I'll draw a bunch of lands and Mox Diamonds in a row and then lose. I feel like Looting would be a good card to have in those situations, but I don't know if it pulls its weight enough elsewhere to justify the slots.
I don't play the deck but seems that looting would fuel both countryside crusher and grim lavamancer.
Edit: come to think about it, it even filters out your second seismic assault. The card disadvantage is possibly nullified by loam.
So I will be building Loam very shortly, I'm just sort of wondering why Bob is here without tops and given that the deck actually has a ton of draw as it is through cycle lands?
This doesn't seem necessary given he's not very aggressive either..I'd probably rather play Faithless Looting, Terravore, or discard over him.
Are you looking for other reasons except for the fact you can play him turn 1, swings for 2, and draws you an extra card per turn usually for free? Well, for reasons other than those, no.
-Matt
27 Lands, 4 Mox Diamond, 2 EE = 0
4 Lightning Bolt, 2 Grim Lavamancer = 6
4 Loam, 4 Confidant, 2 Goyf, 2 Ooze = 24
4 Crusher, 3 Seismic Assault, 2 Maelstrom Pulse = 27
27 + 24 + 6 - 2 (You already have a confidant in play, silly goose!) = 55/60 = 0.92
With this deck and its curve, you can expect to pay 0.92 life per card drawn on average. If you really don't think that's a good deal then you need to live a little dangerously every now and again.
Should be 55/57 (ignoring the contents of your hand) for a t2 Confidant :tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
I used to play tombstalker and confidant in a non blue non top deck and just played the odds as much as I could. With an active confidant you just win games.
I guess that's true. My point wasn't so much as to why Bob is a good card, I get that, I understand those odds, I'm just wondering why he's in this deck specifically which the answer seems to be "because he's a good black card". The deck already draws a lot through cycle lands, it already has beaters, it already has an enormous card advantage outlet, he just seems sort of redundant to me between cycle lands, loam, and faithless looting.Quote:
Originally Posted by lavafrogg
I was thinking there has to be a better option that shores up something the deck doesn't handle so well other than him, perhaps another aggressive creature or something.
Oh, I can answer that: Bob is in the deck as life from the loam 5-8(4-7). Sometimes you don't draw life from the loam, somethings it gets extracted, sometimes you side out a few to combat hate cards, sometimes they have leyline of the void in play. For any instance like that, you play Bob.
I think you are looking at Bob as a card that he isn't. He is a non-graveyard dependent engine that just happens to swing for two.
Faithless looting is in the danger of cool things category, if you have the loam you are not dealing with the card disadvantage. If you don't have the loam you are -1ing yourself to filter through cards.
This is what I thought originally as well. But later in the game, detritus like extra Mox Diamonds or fetches you don't need or whatever else has a tendency to pile up in your hand. On paper, yes, you are losing on raw card advantage. In practice, you are discarding stuff you don't want and hopefully digging into stuff you do, increasing overall card quality. For a deck like this, card quality is generally much more important than the numbers game of card advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by lavafrogg
my arguments are based on the fact that loam is a non factor, for what ever reason, without loams faithless looting are not good unless you have a bob pumping extra cards into your hand. The discussion is about Dark Confidant, not about faithless looting.
Even if we are talking about faithless looting I still stand by my quote in that looting is only good when you have an engine online, and in that case you should be winning anyways. If you are fighting for card quality, top or library are better choices.
I know the current discussion is about Bob, but I wanted to bring up Faithless Looting because I'm having second thoughts about it and your post mentioned it.Quote:
Originally Posted by lavafrogg
I also don't think you need to have an engine going to have good Lootings. There are plenty of times where you'll have a couple of cards in hand that you either don't want or can't use anytime soon, and Looting lets you hopefully upgrade those. It's also worth noting that you'll often draw an extra mana source in most Loam builds because the deck is 50% mana. After turns three or four, these cards are...not exactly dead, but not really something you want, and are therefore fine fodder for Looting.
Having an engine going obviously makes Looting quite good, but that's true of pretty much anything in the deck.
I don't think Top is better than Looting in this deck. You don't have a lot of instant-speed interaction and you don't really want to spend 1+ mana every turn to set up your next draw step. I get that Top makes Bob better, but Bob was already fine on his own; we're looking at options for when we don't have Bob or Loam kicking around.Quote:
Originally Posted by lavafrogg
Library is certainly a fine card, but I'm worried about how much grind the deck has. One of the attractive things about Looting is its immediacy. Many of the cards in the deck get incrementally better as the game grinds on, but my biggest problems arose when the opponent did something that demanded an immediate answer and all I had were cards whose power level is cumulative. Faithless Looting helps fill some of that immediacy gap. The deck doesn't really need more grind: if anything, it's too grindy, and needs something to tide it over while the grind gets warmed up.
In regards to top, it allows you to protect your loams, it can help you truck through your deck by dredging away the top three cards of your library when they suck, and without loams then ensure that you draw gas as much as possible.
Looting doesn't really help in that you don't get any value out of discarding cards from your hand and in an ideal situation you want to make all of your land drops and play all of your diamonds to have the ability to loam and cycle more.
That being said; I don't think the deck needs card selection with the amount of card draw that it has access too. I feel that the deck needs as much gas as it can fit into its lists(seeing how the deck is 50% lands and loams). Loams + cycle lands and bobs are more than enough draw, the spots for looting's/tops can be better utilized with more action.
I'm trying one Silvan Library right now.
Additionally, I swapped out Volrath's Strongold for a Kessig Wolf Run because I hardly ever use Stronghold's ability. The other idea was to try Cabal Pit instead. Thoughts?
EDIT: Cabal Pit deals with Delver, Mother of Runes and most of Maverick actually, also Batterskull, solves Goyf standoffs...
This hasn't really been my experience. You don't need to Loam and cycle more to win unless you're really hurting for a way to stick a creature or you're trying to kill them from a high life total with Seismic Assault. I mean, there's no harm to trying to play all of your lands (although many Aggro Loam builds run only slightly more targets than fetches), but there's no harm to pitching them either.Quote:
Originally Posted by lavafrogg
Once, a couple of years ago, I worked on Merfolk when that deck was still running Standstill. The deck was interesting and not one I'd revisit, but one of the problems I had with with it was the idea that you should cut out the good blue draw spells to run more gas. This was based on the reasonable assumption that, if your creatures were all lords who buffed each other, then running more of them was a good thing. The problem, of course, was that the deck's draws became very rocky: sometimes you'd need just one more guy to punch through but you'd draw a bunch of counters or lands, or maybe you'd want a counter because you suspected your opponent was about to do something crazy but then you'd get the all-Stifles-and-dudes draw and die to the crazy.Quote:
Originally Posted by lavafrogg
This was because you were actually running too much gas. See, the thing is, while running more gas may increase the chances of drawing gas relative to the deck with no cantrips and less gas, you're still seeing the cards in essentially a random order. That means that, sure, when you draw well you'll draw really well, but you still draw poorly more often than you'd like, and certainly more often than if you'd run some card selection.
I know Looting doesn't look very impressive on its face, but it does see more than one card for one mana and helps bridge the gap between the early game and that late game mecca wherein you've reaped the accumulated value of your slower engines. I mean, cycling lands see cards at a rate of one card seen per one mana and one card invested; compare to Brainstorm or Ponder, staples of blue decks, which see three cards per one mana and one card invested. The only virtue to cycling lands is their accumulated power over several turns, but if your opponent is doing something that requires an immediate answer, cycling lands can feel pretty inadequate. The same is true for once-per-turn effects like Bob or Library.
I think Looting is at least worth testing.
Wait, how does Cabal Pit deal with Batterskull? And I think if you're going to go with a Threshold land, it might as well be Barbarian Ring so you can at least kill them with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by trivial_matters
Swapping Volrath's to Wolf Run is fine, I guess.
I should have said that Cabal Pit deals with the Germ token carrying Batterskull. You need Loam to activate it twice in a single turn.
I agree that Barbarian Ring looks better and it is a way of dealing with planeswalkers too.
I know it's the Germ token, I just thought you were talking about a single activation. I see what you mean now.Quote:
Originally Posted by trivial_matters
I don't really like the Threshold lands in the deck because they aren't very good unless you have an active LftL, and then they're mostly just okay. Having one probably doesn't hurt in terms of mana stability, but I'd rather run a Wolf Run/Rage Pit to let my creatures punch through. It's worth noting that trample also "deals" with the protection granted by Mother of Runes.
So far barbarian ring has been the nuts when ever I see it. This deck gets threshold super fast and its versatility has been amazing, especially with all the delvers running around I just really love that land.
I'm curious as to why people stopped running grove/punishing fire in this deck. I'm thinking of doing a combination of 3 punishing fire and 4 lightning bolts. I really love bolt, but some recurring removal that interacts with dredging sounds real good.
Grove of the Burnwillows is awkward. You can't fetch it, which lowers the number of lands you can fetch, which makes fetches worse in the long run. When you side out Punishing Fire, you're stuck with maindeck Groves, which is terrible because those generally aren't the matchups where you want to give the opponent life. A similar thing will happen if, say, your opponent sits on a Surgical Extraction until you activate Grove and put the Fire trigger on the stack.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradstone
The other half of the combo is pretty bad by itself as well. Two mana for two damage is not really where you want to be and postboard, if your opponent brought in Surgicals, they will often go straight for the Fire if you don't have Grove.
In short, Fire-Grove is like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Little Girl: when it's good, it's very, very good, but when it's bad, it's horrid.
The fire/grove combo is also very slow.
I played the fire/grove combo for a couple months in my loam build and ended up cutting it. It looks so great on paper but when you are paying in actual games it just makes your already good match ups better
Played in a small tournament (if you can call it that) with 12 people, 4 rounds.
My results were: UR Delver 2-1, UBr control 0-2, Maverick 1-1, Spiral Tide 1-2.
I should have beaten Maverick. Against UBr featuring Snare and Jace with Go for the Throat, Bolt and Terminate my creatures couldn't stick due to removal and Snapcaster Mage for removal. In game one, when we were both topdecking on an empty board I kept drawing lands and lost. Faithless Looting would've come in handy here.
Against Spiral Tide, I should've probably waited a bit with my Blasts to counter Time Spiral; instead I was quite aggressive and in game 2 I went for the first Merchant Scroll but he still won. Any tips on what is best to counter?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies
Well put I deffinitely agree. I was running punishing fire in the first builds I was making but I dropped it after a while because of what's been talked about above and I felt like I found myself stalling to often or giving them to much health dragging out lost games.
I've got a list down right now that I like a lot after taking suggestions from this thread I filled my 3 flex spots. I'm just curious however, how important you guys think it is to utilize the 1cmc spells. I've only got 4 right now out of the mainboard, all of which are lightning bolts. Is it really not s problem since were hoping go get that turn 1 diamond anyways ?
It's better not to rely on Mox Diamond to solve your deck's mana curve problems. Furthermore, if you open with land, go and the opponent opens with land, Hierarch, go, or Stifles your fetch, or gets a fast flipped Delver, or whatever, you'll be grateful for cheap, early answers.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradstone
Grim Lavamancer is a solid 1-drop. Often you can cycle on your first turn. All in all though, this deck is slow and needs time to get going.
Lightning Bolt is great at the moment.
Sorry if the way I worded that was wierd, you guys misunderstand me. I agree 100% that lightning bolt is the nuts right now. What I meant to ask, is if the deck should have more than 4 1cmc spells, like IoK, Thoughtsieze, and darkblast, or are 4 bolts simply sufficient enough to keep the heat off for the first couple of turns until we get rolling.
edit: Also I know a lot of people are supporters of grim lavamancer, but when I played with him he wasn't so great in the first few turns, and that's when I really needed him the most. He takes away from goyf, scavenging ooze, and life from the loam
IoK is a powerful card in the right matchups. I don't know about starting it, or how many you'd want to start and how many you'd want to side, but I like having access to that kind of effect.Quote:
Originally Posted by bradstone
Thoughtseize is less attractive than IoK because of the life loss. The number of 4+ cc cards you actually care about is pretty limited, so it's not a card I'd want to start but maybe a card I'd want to sideboard. Most of the cards it hits that IoK doesn't are non-creatures, so Duress may just be better.
Darkblast is eh. The dredge component of it is so-so and Deathmark kills most of the creatures you'd want to DB, and several more besides (like Knight and Tarmogoyf). Tribal linears aren't really relevant these days, so I'd run Deathmark in the main before I ran DB. The only advantage I can see to DB is the ability to hit an unflipped Delver and V Clique, which I guess is fine if you're expecting a lot of RUG/Tempo.
People should test Faithless Looting. I've warmed up to the card significantly since it came out but I'm not really playing Constructed anymore, so I have no motivation to get testing done.
Grim Lavamancer is actually not bad. Fetchlands, burn spells, and anything you pitch to Looting make fine early fodder, and the card can just dominate late when you have the board presence to win but need to punch through. Hell, you can feed him by casting a Mox Diamond and not pitching a land, which is relevant more often than you might think (either because you don't have a land to pitch or because you don't need even more mana).
I haven't played legacy much in the past month or so, but the resurgence of Sneak and Show will mean we need to adapt.
Inquisition is not the one-all, end-all, but it does help against the other boogey-men: RUG Delver and Maverick. It's also a nice stepping stone against Sneak and Show.
I remember Tony mentioning he hates discard because he cannot play too much of it in his deck. It is not effective if you only have 3 TS, but it was necessary.
If you now have 7-8 MD/SB, then it will be quite effective, stranding their big monsters in their hand while you beat down with a Goyf. Keep in mind that even if they get Sneak Attack down and cannot activate it yet, it's not over.
Also, Lilianas are really good against Show and Tell as well. Not as much when they show Griselbrand, but that's the nature of that stupid deck.
Honestly, the biggest problem you have against combo decks like Sneak-Show is how much damn mana you run. If this deck was Jund midrange or Jund aggro with 22-ish lands, it would be in much better shape.
But here, if you maindeck IoKs and have Duress/Thoughtseize side, the first things you'll want to drop when boarding will be shit like Maelstrom Pulse and EE (neither of which get you anywhere). Depending on your build, that may be all you have to drop to bring in your sideboard discard. However, the problem still remains that you have infinite mana in your deck; you will lose way too many games because they countered your only clock and then leisurely drew themselves into the combo while you leisurely drew yourself into some Mox Diamonds/Life from the Loams/lands/Dark Confidants/LANDS/stuff that doesn't kill the opponent, or they countered your only disruption spell and then killed you.
This is, incidentally, why I really don't like non-blue decks as answers to combo. Blue has Brainstorm and Ponder to ensure it sees the right mix of disruption and clock from turn one, counters that can be cast for free and mitigate topdecking from the combo deck, and pretty much any mix of clock it wants. Even Maverick can kind of get there vs. Sneak-Show because of hate bears and Karakas combined with a high density of beats. But this deck has at least six mana sources too many to reliably rumble with combo.
Inquisition of Kozilek sucks against Sneak Show. Thoughtseize is strictly better. I'm not convinced that Liliana is any good. She only deals with Show and Tell into Emrakul, but I suppose the discard is useful.
If you really want to hate on Sneak Show I'd suggest running 4+ Pyroblasts/Red Elemental Blasts, Thoughtseize and Revoker or Needle. Even then, I don't think the matchup will be nearly positive for Aggro Loam.
My plan is to just board in Pyroblasts and Hit/Run, use show and tell to drop an extra land into play, and attempt to blow them out with Hit. Any of their options should pretty much kill them in the event Hit resolves.Quote:
Originally Posted by trivial_matters
I agree that thoughtsieze is clearly better for this matchup as IoK hits nothing really relevant except for show and tell. I'm not sure why you think Liliana is bad in this matchup though, the last two times I've played sneak and show I won because of her. Against Sneak and Show I bring in 3 thoughtsieze, 2 REBS, and 3 Devestating dreams. If you pull off a dreams against most any combo decks its going to be a total bomb, especially if you've already been waste landing them as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by trivial_matters