I've got two words that will change the future of this deck, and possibly the Legacy format:
Orcish Lumberjack.
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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.