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That is possibly the dumbest thing I've read in a while. Your argument for playing a card is that for the same cost you get a worse effect (Skarrg gives +1/+1 and trample for RG).Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawon
While I think it would be cool to run these, you haven't run Skarrg in the past, and I don't see why you would now. Especially since as AZ said, you should just be sinking mana into Loam in the lategame.
My bad, I thought Skarrg costs 1RG-> for +1/+1.
I was looking @this list and testing it for 2 weeks now.
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 plains
1 Swamp
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 karakas
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Nantuko Monastery
3 Barren Moor
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Mox Diamond (is 4 really needed, also something I really don't know)
4 Dark Confidant
4 SFM
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Batterskull
1 Jitte
3 Raven's Crime
3 Loam
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Go for the Throat (or I was also thinking to do something interesting with Unearth what's quite good)
2 Liliana of the Vale (Really a bomb)
SB:
2 Path to Exile
1 Canonist
4 Duress
2 Perish
4 Leyline of the void
2 Krosan Grip
Now, against combo if I've got some discard like raven's crime and 4 duress side.
You should be able to win, if they go off they go off but you can win it :)
Now, your good matchups are control and combo is to do also.
Only against zoo and merfolk, if you don't get a jitte/batterskull online, you are screwed...
So maybe @some more removal maybe?
I really like deed but the problems is that you also blow your own mox diamonds up so that ain't an option.
So what would you play then? Merfolk is also to do but especially zoo and I think zoo and merfolks will be much played because they are so cheap @GP Amsterdam.
Thanks for helping me -BantFTW-
EDIT: maybe - 1 barren moor and -1 go for the thorat for 2 unearth, would that be good or woudn't you guys play it?
That looks like a more top-heavy Junk list. Check that thread.
Been having pretty good (mws) results with the following:
4 countryside crusher
4 knight of the reliquary
3 tarmogoyf
1 eternal witness
1 thrun, the last troll
3 burning wish
3 life from the loam
2 punishing fire
2 seismic assault
2 liliana of the veil
4 swords to plowshares
4 mox diamond
4 wasteland
4 wooded foothills
1 arid mesa
1 windswept heath
1 verdant catacombs
1 volrath's stronghold
1 maze of ith
1 tranquil thicket
2 forgotten cave
2 grove of the burnwillows
2 taiga
1 bayou
1 plateau
1 savannah
1 badlands
1 scrubland
1 mountain
1 forest
The sideboard so far is a work in progress, I've been testing a bunch of things and trying to trim it down. Feedback is welcome.
Preaty interesting build. Only 3 cycling lands and no dark confidants.
I imagine i would have consistency problems with such build.
How is it working for you?
And do tell how good is actually Lilliana in this deck?
Maybe i would remove few removal spells for some boost to your draw engine.
Also in red versions i preffer Lightning bolt over STP, but thats just my own preverence i suppose.
good day, svizcy
In this deck I would never play Bolt over STP, you don't care about small creatures since you can just block them, and giving them a couple of life doesn't matter since you can just kill them in two hits with KotR, but STP does kill other knights and goyfs and scavenging ooze which is much more important.
@Trentemoller: about STP, that may be, BUT it's a 4C Aggro Loam, which has a pretty shanky manabase. Jund Aggro Loam er better -> Lightning Bolt.
If you dont care about small creatures why have punishing fire and seismic assault in the deck at all then?
I bassicly run Vindicates and Dissmembers and kill big creatures with those and keep lightning bolts for small ones.
It is prefference thing i belive. And i always like killing nooble hierarch on turn 1, eventhou you can do the same with stp ofc.
As for SB:
4 challice of the void
1Thrun the last troll
3 REB
2 Shattering spree
and 5 card slots are bassicly free (maybe laylines/tormods crypts, donno
As for MD difference i'm also not running burning wish, because i find it to be to slow for the meta now that MM has been banned.
good day, svizcy
It's been working good. Obviously, it's a little greedy in terms of the color combinations it wants the mana base to be able to hit, but I've found that as long as I'm judicious with my fetch-lands, I usually get there. I certainly wouldn't say it has consistency problems, given intelligent mulligans and planning ahead with fetch-land usage. Opposing Waste + Loam lock can be a bit problematic though (ie, it's pretty nasty, and you need basic land(s) plus Loam and/or Diamonds to withstand it). Been thinking of trying to squeeze in one more basic, but it would be hard. Plus it's hard to say if the next basic should be another Mountain or a Plains anyways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Svizcy
Liliana has been an absolute beast in testing. As you can see, I'm really only running black for her and Stronghold, plus Raven's Crime out of the board. But I've been happy with the black splash so far. Her +1 ability is really easy to support, since you can usually pitch some extra lands/ Loams/ Diamonds happily. Also, with the density of other removal options, her Edict effect tends to hit its target. And lastly, besides being incredibly solid against control and aggro, she figures heavily into the Magic Fantasyland scenario where you open with Diamond, land, Chalice of the Void, then land Liliana the next turn, and then start beating them up with Gaddock Teeg + dudes for the win while making them discard each turn so they (theoretically) can't sculpt a winning hand. (Granted, this has yet to actually happen, mws or otherwise...) To paraphrase, Liliana is incredibly flexible, can dig you out of unfavorable board positions, and is especially brutal if you stick her on your second (or even first) turn, which does happen sometimes, even using just 2 copies.
Swords to Plowshares, in my mind, is way better in this deck than Lightning Bolt. If I was running a Jund list, I'd probably squeeze in a few bolts for sure, but I'm already running white... And the games where I've needed to Plow a fatty have occurred waaaay more often than the games where my opponent is sitting at 3, and I'm like "Geezy Petes, I wish I had some Bolts in this deck." None of the creatures I'm using have trample or evasion (and this is common of most lists, unless they're running Terravore.) So it's important to be able to break up stalemates on the ground. Also, against most aggro strategies, Aggro Loam has the power of inevitability. Our engines will win nine times out of ten against something like Cat Zoo, if we can delay the game enough to get to that point. So I'd rather have my removal be able to take out their Knight or what-have-you instead of falling short on creatures with big butts, despite giving the opponent some life.
About Burning Wish: I agree with you that it's a bit slow for the meta these days, but I think the flexibility, and the ability to give you virtual copies of LftL, might still merit its inclusion. I have been thinking about going down to two copies though, because I think it's a common design mistake to make Aggro Loam decks try to be too dependent on their silver-bullet Burning Wish strategy. Anyhow, in no particular order, here are the Wish targets I've been liking the most in testing: Reverent Silence, Shattering Spree, LftL, Firespout, Raven's Crime, Nostalgic Dreams. I think an argument can be made for Devastating Dreams also, but I read the meta as still too full of counterspells for me to want to risk it (doesn't help that it eats Spell Snare all day long.)
I do agree that my draw engine for this list could stand to get beefed up a bit though. I haven't been the hugest fan of Dark Confidant in this deck (unimpressive body, can lead to too much self-inflicted damage in aggro matchups), but he might need to be tested. Sylvan Library/ more cycling lands could also be good, although I have a feeling Bob > Library in my list (since he doesn't need fetches to get going, provides a body, and the most he'll ever dome me for in this list is 4 damage anyways-- making him cheaper in terms of x life for y extra cards). The question, though, is always what to cut. Since the deck is color-greedy, the manabase is almost too tight to fit in more cyclers (although I sometimes question whether the maindeck Maze of Ith is optimal, that could maybe go.)
Anyhow, I hope this doesn't come off as overly defensive in parts of it. I certainly don't think my list is optimized yet, and I'm happy to get some critique on it; there are just a few points you raise that I wanted to address.
Bolt is really good. Swords might be better most of the time but i've found it's rarely worth adding white just for swords. If you're already in white, then yeah. But your argument against bolt misses the primary point of running it: it gives you an early answer to early threats. It's entirely possible to lose to zoo just cause they get things going faster than Loam can get you drawing cards.
@List: i would honestly consider just dumping red from that list. But that's biased according to my metagame. Red is really shitty in my meta game right now, which is overrun by reanimator (red removal doesn't answer Jin) and storm (You need to be heavy black to have a shot). Not playing dark confidant is a mistake. he is way too good. Also, if you go straight GBw, i'd consider running SFM+skull/sword and eternal wetness.
@Antonius: First, if you live in LA, of course your meta is combo-infested. You'd need to be pretty stubborn, plus have balls of steel, to want to run Aggro Loam, from what I understand of the LA metagame.
Also, I'm not really running white "just for swords," since for one thing, I have the 4 Knight of the Reliquaries.
Cutting red seems pretty unwieldy... Wouldn't that just make me a (suboptimal) Rock deck? What would you even add in the eleven slots that taking all the red cards out of my maindeck would open up?? Also, it seems kind of contradictory to advocate Lightning Bolt, and then say I should cut red, but I guess the two points don't have to be related.
About Dark Confidant, yeah, I should maybe try to fit him in.
in a normal metagame, yeah, there's no way that white ever comes close to being as good as red. But with Reanimator so dominant, white gives you kotr and swords as answers to Jin and switching your third color to white also enables you to go heavy black, which means a mana base where you can consistently cast Liliana on turn 2/3 or start crushing hands with raven's crime on turn 2. SFM/Batterskull replaces Grim Lavamancer as your anti-aggro tool. And with Nantuko Monastery, your SoFF will almost always be relevant down the stretch. The primary problem with white over red is that there's nothing in white that can come close to crusher/seismic as far as synergy and power with the rest of the strategy. But in the current meta, you might not have a choice.
@Antonius:Quote:
Originally Posted by Antonius
If you're playing a traditional Jund list and want to answer Jin Gitaxias, you have about a billion options in black. Dismember and Go for the Throat come to mind. The problem is that most Aggro Loam decks can't afford that many spaces on targeted removal spells.
The GWB deck you describe sounds cool, and it sounds like something I would test. Honestly though, it really sounds much more like a Junk type of strategy than what I would identify as Aggro Loam.
The main reason I'm trying to optimize a four-color list right now anyways, is so I can run all the best beefy creatures available to go with an 'aggressive' Loam strategy (note the quotes, because purely speaking, no LftL strategies are really "aggro"). So I want white mainly for Knight, and StP is just extra gravy, being imo the best removal spell for this deck unless you're maindecking Chalice. Green is ubiquitous with LftL. Red is for Countryside Crusher, Seismic, Punishing Fire, Burning Wish, etc. Honestly, red is probably even more important to this strategy in general than green. The black splash is there for Liliana and Stronghold, and I'll probably find a way to fit Dark Confidant in there.
As far as Grim Lavamancer, I don't even run him, if you'd take a look at my list. So far, I've found my anti-aggro tools that are actually in there (Goyf, StP, Punishing Fire, Liliana, and Seismic Assault) are usually sufficient. Grim is a good card, but I don't feel that I need him in that build.
In general:
I do understand that a four color list makes itself more vulnerable to non-basic hate, and this can be an issue. However, there are also things to be gained by going to four colors, and the spells are very "cast-able" in the list that I showed, unless you're facing something extreme like Wasteland every turn, or Back to Basics. Blood Moon effects are actually not that bad, since you should be able to fetch your basic Forest and/or get a Mox Diamond going.
On the other hand, despite a more shaky manabase, it's really not that hard to understand why I would want to run the best possible spells out of four colors instead of three, and it's not like there haven't been successful four color Aggro Loam lists before. I understand that I'm giving up a bit of stability in the manabase in order to splash both white and black. I've tested the list-- it actually works, or I wouldn't have posted it here. I'm not pretending it's optimized. But it would be much more helpful to me if y'all would comment on individual card choices and quantities, etc. instead of being like "I think you should change like 25% of the cards in that deck" or, "Does your manabase even work?"
And honestly, here's a spoiler alert: Red and Green are fundamentally vital colors to this strategy. There is a chance that testing shows me that a more stable manabase would outweigh having bombs across four colors. But: If I'm going to cut a color, it's going to be either white or black. They're the "splash colors."
Personally I've found adding white to be worth it for StP and KotR.
I don't really like the idea of Dismember in Loam, just because it can sometimes take a few turns to get the deck rolling, so life is an important resource, and the deck has so many crucial sorcery-speed effects that I generally want to come as close to tapping out as possible every turn. Then again, I'm pretty new to the archetype, so I could be doing it totally wrong.
KotR I like because she usually comes down way outside of burn range, can grow herself and Crusher to absurd levels, and makes Bojuka Bog a really attractive SB option for grave hate by giving it instant speed in addition to delicious synergy with the rest of the deck.
I think the deck would be a totally different animal if it dropped red, mainly because of Assault. When Assault hits the table, I just feel like the whole game changes. You enter a new reality where the only possible future is your opponent crying on the floor while you teabag his whole deck.
That said, a Junk-like list could be a pretty interesting beast, since you could incorporate enough discard to make combo something other than an extra lunch round.
For Aggro Loam lists running GB/w I would suggest Smallpox for added disruption, but I think that at such a point Trisomy/Loam-Pox might be a better avenue to pursue.
I'm an advocate for 4c Aggro Loam with :w: for KotR, StP, and possibly Vindicate or Punishing Fire. Part of the difficulty in such a list is including Seismic Assault while still managing the manabase correctly. For that reason, I put Seismic in the SB against decks where it absolutely shines and let the MD Crusher/KotR mix (3 and 3 currently) to do most of the leg room. I think the deck can't afford to cut Dark Confidant whatsoever, and the deck is pushing its limit when it puts more than 14 creatures maindeck. This color configuration gives the deck tools to fighting reanimator much better than current lists.
Another option would be to start running Burning Wish which gives the deck a way to find Edicts/Reanimate yourself. Imagine such a blowout against such a deck... (ya ya it's a pipedream, Burning Wish will very likely get countered anyway).
However, this deck really only shines in a metagame with a lot of tribal/random aggro, similar to Lands.dec, but is a dog to combo decks.
For the BGW version i'm thinking on running gsz(why not even run it instead of burning wish in red versions also, removing crushers for some uttility creatures like gaddock and 1 terravore?), cause it is just soooo good. There would also be room for some added dissruption spells to combat combo.
For 4 collor version i'm just uncertain atm of what to do.
Playing assault or DD in main, i really cant decide. Both seem good and bad at same time.
Also whats your oppinion on MD challice guys?
Cause atm i'm just packing more removal, because when i added KotR and white, i lost 4 slots that were challice beffore in RGB version. And i don't feel like runninf less than 6 removals in MD. Ideas?
good day, svizcy
double post
I think you have to decide on what spells you really want to cast, and build your manabase accordingly. In my case, I love Assault and Crusher, so all my lands either produce red or green, most of them red. In that setup, I found that while Bob and StP or KotR never gave me issues, Vindicate often did, so I replaced it. Right now I'm testing Beast Within, since it's the most manabase-friendly catch-all solution, but that may change back to Maelstrom Pulse if the 3/3 turns out to be too much of a liability.Quote:
Originally Posted by rukcus
I took Aggro Loam to the Jupiter Games monthly NELCQ tournament. I've been playing this deck for awhile now, and it was a great choice in the Mental Misstep metagame. When that got banned however, combo decks started coming back in force, which are the worst matchups this deck has.
I decided to look into the major decks I predicted to be a part of the metagame, and see if I could adjust my maindeck enough to handle it. The decks that I figured would be most popular were Reanimator, Snapcaster based control, High Tide, TES (with or without Past in Flames), and Dredge (since it usually has a strong combo matchup). I noticed is that all of these utilized the graveyard, and are fairly light on creatures. I decided to make a very extreme maindeck change, which would strengthen all of these matchups but weaken myself against creature based decks. Here's the list.
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
1 Sylvan Library
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness
3 Punishing Fire
3 Countryside Crusher
3 Seismic Assault
4 Dark Confidant
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Extirpate
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Wasteland
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Volrath's Stronghold
Sideboard
3 Pyroblast
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Devastating Dreams
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Terminate
A few notes about the list: Maybe should have had 4 Countryside Crushers, He beats very hard and very quick. Liliana is an absolute monster in this deck. Extirpates were the obvious metagame hate maindeck change. Devastating Dreams is there for small creature decks like Goblins or Merfolk. They never got a chance to see play. Terminate comes in for big creatures like Goyf and KoTR, which are otherwise hard to deal with. Chalice is for Storm. All in all I was very happy with the maindeck Extirpates. They were very relevant in 5 of my 7 matches, and they weren't necessarily bad in the other 2. This report is going to be done from memory and life tracking, so may not be completely accurate.
Round 1 - Timur with Reanimator
He has a kind of slow start, digging through his library a whole bunch. I had a triple Mox Diamond draw, which gave me a pretty strong start. I'm dredging through my library, just trying to find a monster. I think he misplays on his 3rd turn. He has 2 mana up, I have a Crusher in my graveyard. He casts Careful Study and discards Animate Dead. This makes it pretty obvious that he has plenty of Reanimation spells, but no dudes. Animating my crusher would probably have gone well here. Eventually I just have too much for him to deal with and he still hasn't seen a dude.
I expect him to bring in Show and Tell so I bring in Pyroblast and Terminates, took out Punishing Fire and something else. Game 2 is another game sort of like the first, except this time he has dudes but no reanimation. I beat him down in short order. I never like to win by my opponent just drawing dead, but I'll take it.
Round 2 - Dan Jordan with Reanimator
Game 1 I'm doing my thing, he casts Entomb on the end step of my 2nd or 3rd turn, putting a Jin Gitaxias in the yard. I have a Crusher in mine and Loam engine running. He casts Exhume, I Extirpate Jin Gitaxias. He calls a judge to verify that I'm not pre-sideboarded, and then tanks for a bit. His hand is FoW, Brainstorm, blue card. He ends up forcing his own Exhume to prevent me from stomping down, but it doesn't end up making a difference as I take game 1.
I sideboard the same way I did round 1. I have a pretty aggressive start, I think turn 1 Confidant turn 2 Crusher. He casts Show and Tell turn 3 but I have the Pyroblast. My next turn I beat him down to single digits but he has Entomb and Animate Dead for his Sphinx of the Steel Wind, which I am pretty much dead to. He had Thoughtseized my Liliana away the previous turn, and my digging couldn't find me another in time.
Game 3 was a beating. I think I got Liliana in play early, making us both discard. Not sure if that was the right thing to do, as I binned a Loam and he binned Jin Gitaxias. He Exhumes on his turn and I don't have a dude yet. He draws 7 end of turn I have Liliana kill Jin on my turn, but the damage has been done. At this point my memory is a little fuzzy, as I know he managed to remove Liliana somehow, but I don't remember how. Regardless, He gets a Sphinx in play again from a Show and Tell, and ends the game soon after.
Round 3 - Damon with LED Dredge
Game 1 he is on the play and casts Cabal Therapy on himself, hitting 2 Golgari Grave Trolls. My turn I fetch for a Bayou and Extirpate them, prompting another judge call. He was super friendly up to this point, but immediately turned VERY sour, can't believe he had to get paired against "one of those people". I shrug it off and try to stay focused, I win game 1 as he can't recover before I take over with Goyf and Seismic Assault.
I bring in Tormod's Crypts for I think Sylvan and something else slow. You need to have a way to interact with Dredge in the first 2 turns, and I generally tend to take things out that don't do that. I end up mulling to 5, but it doesn't matter because he turn 1 kills me. Guess I should have kept my 7 and saved some time.
Game 3 I open with turn 1 Confidant and Crypt. He draws, discards a dredger, says go. Bob starts giving me card advantage and beating down, I play Liliana on turn 2. I know that dredge is a deck that wants to discard, but I felt like with my crypt in play I was safe. I can always just pop it as soon as I see something scary hit the graveyard, and might be able to force him to over-commit to the graveyard this way. His dredges don't hit anything great for awhile as I continue beating down. Eventually he gets a Bridge from Below and Ichorid, so I blow his yard up after I make him discard with Liliana again. I have a Seismic Assault in play but haven't been able to find a Loam yet. He starts to do something, hitting me with a Firestorm that also kills Confidant. I don't have anymore hate yet, but he doesn't get enough going to finish me off before I draw enough lands to just win with Seismic Assault.
Round 4 - Dan Rae with Snapcaster BUG
I don't remember a whole lot about what happened here, his deck didn't really seem like it ever got going properly. Game 1 I remember us trading wastelands for a bit, he Stifled one of my fetches, but he had no means of pressure at all. I eventually get a 7/8 Goyf to stick while he has a Confidant. I hit it with Punishing Fire and beat for the win.
I didn't see very much blue so I didn't bring in Pyroblasts, but Terminate definitely came in. He started off ahead for game 2 but I eventually down his 7/8 Goyf with a Maelstrom Pulse then drop my own alongside a Crusher and beat for the win. Sorry I don't remember a whole lot about this match, as I'm sure it was actually more interesting that I'm making it seem.
Round 5 - Brian with Non-LED Dredge
Game 1 he has a very resilient hand, with a turn 1 discard outlet. I do have an Extirpate but hold on to it probably a bit too long. I don't want to use it on a dredger since I'm pretty sure he has more in hand, so I decide to save for either Bridge or Ichorid. The first scary thing that he bins is a Narcomoeba, and I think I misplay by not Extirpating it. My reasoning was that a Narco and Tireless Tribe is not going to scare me at all, but I think in hindsight I should have as I had no pressure at all yet and needed to slow him down a bit. Regardless, he ends up stomping me the whole game.
Game 2 I bring in Crypts again. We both have pretty good starts but I have a Crypt in play waiting for maximum value. At some point he baits me to blow it with a Nature's Claim and I do, as he has plenty of Dredgers and Bridges in the yard. He had hit me once or twice with an Ichorid, but clearing the yard gave me some breathing room. He still had a discard outlet and a dredger though, plus a few zombies and Narcos that had slipped into play. His next dredge hits Iona and Dread Return, which he promptly casts naming black. I think that black was the correct color for him to name, stopping Liliana, Terminate, and Maelstrom Pulse from killing Iona. I also had 2 of those in my yard along with Eternal Witness, and the Stronghold in play, so I could have easily killed he the next turn had he not named black. I try to bait an easy kill by attacking with a 5/6 Goyf while holding Punishing Fire in my hand but he doesn't fall for it. I start digging like mad and eventually hit my Seismic Assault. I'm about to play it and pitch a bunch of lands to kill Iona when I instead try to bait the block again with my Goyf attack, which he again doesn't fall for. Then I just pitch 4 lands to his dome for the win. I think I had drawn both Crypts this game which really let me slow him down for a very long time.
Round 6 - Eric English with Next Level Thresh
I was 99% sure he was playing this going in, as I can't remember the last time I've seen him play something else in Legacy. Game 1 he is stuck on a Lavamancer and 2 lands, neither of which makes green. I have Loam engine rolling but not finding anything. I felt like he was just sitting there begging me to kill him, but the deck just wouldn't let me. Eventually I'm able to force through a Seismic Assault and he just scoops.
Game 2 I bring in Pyroblasts and think about Terminate, but I (probably wrong) leave them out, instead thinking my burn will handle Lavamancers and Cliques, and I can just out-size Goyf. Being on the draw against NLT sucks, as they can pressure you but you know that if they have land up they're going to stifle your fetch. He has an early Lavamancer, counters my Crusher, but then I get Liliana in play and go to work. I think I mess up here again, since his Lavamancer is tapped from attacking me and I instead have Liliana +1 to make us both discard. I am thinking that I know discard will hurt him pretty badly, but not thinking that this makes Liliana eventually dead to Lavamancer. I should have just made him sacrifice the Lava-man right away. As a result, he ends up shooting her down and surviving with the guy in play still. I drop a Bob when he only has one card in his yard, but I believe he Preordains to get another card in there so he can shoot it. I think next turn he drops Clique on my draw step to take away the last breathe of fight I had left. I do have a Seismic Assault in play to try and save myself but am not drawing lands. On the last turn I managed to draw a land to kill Clique, but he has the Stifle for Assault. Brutal.
Game 3 I just make a dumb mistake, then let that dumb mistake lead to even more. I'm pretty pissed about this because I was going to top 8 if I had won it. I know to play around stifle, so turn 1 I fetch right away for a Taiga, looking to set up turn 2 Sylvan or Goyf, depending on his turn 1 play. I would have gotten a forest, but both fetches I had were Bloodstained Mire. Turn 1 he Wastelands my Taiga. Turn 2 I play my other fetch and pass, he drops his own fetch and I immediately say "oh shit you dumbass". Next turn I drop Grove of the Burnwillows and try to fetch, of course he has the Stifle. His turn he wastes my Grove. I now have zero permanents in play. He dominates this game. I end up playing Forgotten Caves, which is something I absolutely hate ever having to do. He Cliques me during my next draw step, and of course I don't decide to Pyroblast it because I'm still pissed about the Stifle. He doesn't even remove anything, not wanting to risk me drawing a land and getting my deck rolling. I blast the Clique but he has another, again not putting anything on bottom. My life total goes to zero in short order, and I end the game with zero permanents in play. Eric went on to win the whole thing, which made me feel a bit better about my loss.
Round 7 - Mike with NLT
We went into this as #1 and #2 in tiebreakers among the X-2's, with a very small chance of an X-2 making top 8. There were 2 guys at 13 points, which meant that many of the 15's who wanted to draw couldn't risk it. My hope was that enough of them would play it out so that one of us would sneak in with 15 points and better breakers. Alas, it was not to be, as #8 ended up with 16 points. Still, playing for top 16 and $75 isn't terrible.
Mike was a very fun opponent to play against, as were almost all of my other opponents during the day. Game 1 he's on the play and has a turn 1 Stifle on my fetch, turn 2 Goyf. I have Loam going, which is actually bad for me right now though as it's just growing his Goyf while not finding me anything good. He continues to beat me down, countering or killing any threat I propose
Game 2 I bring in Terminates and Pyroblasts. I stomp him pretty badly this game, he keeps 2 lands but one of them gets wasted on my 2nd turn. Then I play a Crusher and a 4/5 Goyf, and he scoops shortly after.
Game 3 is a great game, quite a bit of swinging both ways. I have a turn 2 Sylvan with Daze mana up, and honestly I think that Sylvan won me the game. He has a super counter heavy hand but no creatures. He counters a ton of stuff that I throw out there, Assault, Goyf, Bob, Crusher. I haven't seen a Loam still but am building resources. I start to feel good, as this deck is amazing in a long run and he isn't pressuring me at all. He then plays Surgical Extraction on my Goyf, cutting my win conditions almost in half. I have an opportunity to close the game out but he outplays me in an interesting situation. I have another crusher in hand, 2 red mana sources, 1 green, and a Wasteland. He has bolted my guy before, so my plan is to play Crusher with the Wasteland up, and use the Wasteland in response to a bolt to keep it alive. He is sitting at 2 Volcanics and a Wasteland. When I cast Crusher he responded by Wasting my Wasteland. I think that he sees my line of thinking and wants to prevent it, so I respond by wasting his Volcanic. He then returns that Volcanic to his hand and Dazes the Crusher, making me feel pretty dumb. Regardless, I was still in great shape with the Sylvan and him having no pressure. I think his next turn he draws a goyf that is quite huge at this point and I get pretty concerned. I draw Eternal Witness and cast it, trying to return a Crusher that will get bigger than Goyf in no time. He plays another Surgical Extraction on my Crusher :( . I chump his Goyf with the witness, and finally find the cards that I need from Sylvan - Loam and Assault. His hand is pretty much gone at this point, so I feel safe playing both. I have a Forgotten Caves in my hand to protect Loam from another Extraction. I use Assault to kill his Goyf, then I start slow rolling it. In hindsight I probably should have just gone nuts and used Loam 3 times in my next turn and killed him, but I was too cautious about another Extraction. I don't think there's anything he could have drawn at this point though to save himself, so I didn't feel too bad about slowing it down. I end up getting the win 2 points at a time.
I finish the tournament in 9th place. Sort of frustrating to just barely miss out, but at least I know that it was because I got out-played and not just drawing bad. I was very happy with the deck choice for this particular tournament. I wish I could have brought honor to the Aggro Loam archetype with a top 8, but this wasn't bad. I wish I could have run into the Merfolk or Goblin players in the room, but there weren't many of them. I think there was a single Merfolk in the top 8, and very few Goblins players at all throughout the entire room. This deck is still viable in my opinion, but you need to address the combo matchup game 1 now I believe. It is a very very fun deck to play, with countless difficult choices to make every game.