[Deck] Aggro Loam

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Originally Posted by chokin

Burning Wish > Living Wish for Aggro Loam. And Burning Wish is now too slow.

@Aggro_Zombies - Have you given up NOPro in Aggro Loam? Haven't seen/talked to you in a while. I'm curious about your most recent list. I'm gonna try to get back into playing tournaments in the summer and I may be picking up Aggro Loam :D

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I've not given up on it so much as switched to another deck that I think will have a better shot at Columbus. My most recent list is something like this:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Progenitus

3 Firespout
4 Life from the Loam
3 Natural Order
2 Seismic Assault
2 Sylvan Library
4 Mox Diamond
2 Engineered Explosives

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
1 Arid Mesa
3 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Plateau
1 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronghold

I think that's it, but I may be missing some cards (lands, most likely). The deck is pretty strong, but I'm not sure if that's due more to surprise factor or actual strength. Assaults should be something else; possibilities include going back to a black splash and having them be Maelstrom Pulses. I'd be kind of interested in testing Sprouting Thrinax in a straight Jund NO shell, but we'll see. I don't think Aggro Loam currently has what it takes to make the top tables in Columbus, given that Reanimator and Storm combo will probably be the two most popular decks going into it: Storm is almost unwinnable and Reanimator is pretty grim even if you have access to both Swords and Edict effects because they can always just get a shroud guy and beat you senseless.

It might be worth swapping Libraries to Scroll Racks. Accidentally drawing Progenitus is kind of a bummer for this deck. Sideboard Terastodon is actually a massive beating against aggro as another NO target (blow up three of your lands and it's almost impossible to race you, plus you can recoup what you lost pretty easily).

The sideboard is kind of up in the air, but I'd recommend starting at:

1 Bojuka Bog
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
1 Terastodon
1 Nomad Stadium

...and going from there.

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Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

I've not given up on it so much as switched to another deck that I think will have a better shot at Columbus. My most recent list is something like this:

(list)

I think that's it, but I may be missing some cards (lands, most likely). The deck is pretty strong, but I'm not sure if that's due more to surprise factor or actual strength. Assaults should be something else; possibilities include going back to a black splash and having them be Maelstrom Pulses. I'd be kind of interested in testing Sprouting Thrinax in a straight Jund NO shell, but we'll see. I don't think Aggro Loam currently has what it takes to make the top tables in Columbus, given that Reanimator and Storm combo will probably be the two most popular decks going into it: Storm is almost unwinnable and Reanimator is pretty grim even if you have access to both Swords and Edict effects because they can always just get a shroud guy and beat you senseless.

It might be worth swapping Libraries to Scroll Racks. Accidentally drawing Progenitus is kind of a bummer for this deck. Sideboard Terastodon is actually a massive beating against aggro as another NO target (blow up three of your lands and it's almost impossible to race you, plus you can recoup what you lost pretty easily).

The sideboard is kind of up in the air, but I'd recommend starting at:

1 Bojuka Bog
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grip
1 Terastodon
1 Nomad Stadium

...and going from there.

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I've been tossing the idea around of dropping Death Cloud in the Dreams slot, but I haven't had time to test it. In your build, it may be excellent; half the reason I'd run it is because you can use Boseiju to make it not garbage against blue (as Dreams tends to be), and your KotRs can tutor up a Boseiju. Boseiju would also help when you're trying to NO, though at some point I suppose the life loss would get awkward.

Flip side being, of course, that triple black will not be easy and will allow people with mana denial and Moons to totally molest you.

Has this been discussed and I've just missed it? I haven't had time to test it, but if I do anytime soon I'll wax pathetic on it here.

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Originally Posted by coraz86

I've been tossing the idea around of dropping Death Cloud in the Dreams slot, but I haven't had time to test it. In your build, it may be excellent; half the reason I'd run it is because you can use Boseiju to make it not garbage against blue (as Dreams tends to be), and your KotRs can tutor up a Boseiju. Boseiju would also help when you're trying to NO, though at some point I suppose the life loss would get awkward.

Flip side being, of course, that triple black will not be easy and will allow people with mana denial and Moons to totally molest you.

Has this been discussed and I've just missed it? I haven't had time to test it, but if I do anytime soon I'll wax pathetic on it here.

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No, mostly because the consensus up to this point has been that, if you want to reach triple of some color, it's best to get triple red and have a LftL-fueled Fireball that can also kill creatures.

I'm not sure this deck is in a good position to take advantage of Death Cloud. It would be better in a Jund build focusing primarily on being :b::g: with stuff like Blooghast, Exploration, Worm Harvest, etc. You could even run Crop Rotation to find Boseiju.

what do you think of this list?

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35949

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Originally Posted by kirtash

what do you think of this list?

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35949

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You should not just post lists (or links to lists) on this site without at least offering some comments of your own. Tell us what you think of the list and what inpired you to post the link. Is this your deck or just one that you saw?

As to your question, it seems like a very standard Aggro Loam list, with the exception of Lotus Cobra. At first glance, the card does not seem like it belongs in this deck. I'm not sure how necessary mana acceleration is for this deck. I would probably replace the cobras with Eternal Witness.

well, I think there're a lot of zoo decks in my metagame so I was looking for an aggro loam list whick would be able to stop the speed of these decks. I found it in a Spanish forum, the list made a good top in Madrid GP, the inclusion of Lotus cobra accelerates the ability of the deck of ressisting aggro. It has very explosive beginings and can face up to bad matchups (reanimator).

I'm Spanish, so there might be expressions that you wont understand, please, excuse me

I heard this deck isn't too good in the current format and I see this thread has about 0 traffic. How come? It's a DtB, it's not here because it smells good! People play it and they place with it, or am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by Nidd

I heard this deck isn't too good in the current format and I see this thread has about 0 traffic. How come? It's a DtB, it's not here because it smells good! People play it and they place with it, or am I missing something?

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It's kind of sad that there is no action with the thread, but no can do. A friend of mine won a small (twentysomething) tournament in Finland some weeks ago with a deck that is basically the same deck that I've posted earlier with a couple of small changes (-1 Knight -1 Land +1 Pulse +1 EE).

I like the fact that Aggro Loam doesn't really have any really good or really bad matchups. Of course some are better and some worse, but if you're a good player that knows the deck, you can do well against the field as a whole.

I'm trying 3 of those Lotus Cobras in my build at the moment, but that's mostly because I've had the same decklist for ages now and I actually really like the guy. There's going to be a big Legacy tournament in Finland in 1,5 weeks and I will be testing a build with Cobras there and I shall post some of my findings unless it's too horrible to think of (0-X-X).

While the deck doesn't really need additional mana acceleration, the worm enables some very funny rounds with fetchlands. I also like that fact that with a turn 2 Cobra, you can play third round three drop through Daze and also waste your opponent if you happen to have that Wasteland, or drop a land, play Crusher and you still have that one mana left for the cycling land to make the Crusher immediately 4/4. Of course these are hypothetical situations, but as I like the Cobra, I'm open for testing it out.

-kortero

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Originally Posted by kirtash

what do you think of this list?

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=35949

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I think it's pretty standard, and I think Cobra is out of place. I've tested Cobra a bunch in various build of Aggro Loam, including ones with Natural Order, and the most exciting things you could do with him generally involved making Progenitus on turn two. Most of the time, he made an extra mana or two, chumped a guy, and was generally unexciting. You don't really have any way to take advantage of the mana boost until the very late game (where it improves your ability to Loam multiple times in a turn, making it easier to grow Crushers or burn people out with Assault).

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Originally Posted by Nidd

I heard this deck isn't too good in the current format and I see this thread has about 0 traffic. How come? It's a DtB, it's not here because it smells good! People play it and they place with it, or am I missing something?

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The deck has a surprisingly weak Merfolk matchup. You're not blue, so Islandwalk doesn't matter, but Merrow Reejerey is basically a Lord of Atlantis because you have so few guys that just one or two Merfolk will tap your team down and allow for an alpha strike. The counters are very good at keeping you off-balance and their creatures scale much better than any other deck's, making it hard to race.

Zoo is not so bad, but it requires you to retool the deck to be able to answer it effectively. Your big guys are on par with Zoo's big guys, but the loads of little guys will get you. I know there are people who swear by DDreams as an answer to Zoo, but in my experience it's been a pretty awkward answer unless you're way far ahead of the Zoo player. You can't kill the biggest threats with it, and Steppe Lynx builds will often sandbag a land or two in hand to make Steppe Lynx better during the mid- to late-game. That means that you'll often Mind Twist yourself, sacrifice most or all of your lands, and the other guy will go land, burn spell, attack, go. Plus, you need at least four lands and a Mox (or three lands and two Mox) to make Dreams not completely hose you versus Zoo.

Firespout in the main is much better. It's not nearly as good at punishing people who are behind, but it's much better at not randomly shooting yourself in the foot.

I think a big reason why this thread gets no traffic is because the deck is much more popular in Europe than it is in America, and even then, it's only "popular" in the sense that maybe a dozen people play it in Europe as compared to a half-dozen in America. Yeah, that's a bit of a joke, but you get the point: the deck is underplayed relative to the format's top-tier decks and therefore there's not a lot of innovation going on.

On the other hand, one of the biggest strikes against Aggro Loam right now is that's it's a pretty fair deck. I know people object to that terminology, but it's true: Aggro Loam doesn't do anything particularly powerful (it's not even the best deck at abusing LftL). It's basically The Rock but with more thematic focus, which just isn't very exciting in a format where you can make 7/7 flying "You can't play half your deck" dudes on turn two, or have five lands in play on turn one, or even just curve with a 3/3 for one, a 4/5 for two, and a 6/6 for three. I've tried to rectify some of this in my work on the deck, and there is a possibility I'll take some of my handiwork to Columbus. Here, food for thought: here's the list I've been tinkering around with recently:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Progenitus

3 Firespout
4 Life from the Loam
3 Natural Order
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Scroll Rack
4 Mox Diamond

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath

3 Taiga
2 Savannah
2 Forest
1 Mountain

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wasteland
4 Tranquil Thicket
2 Forgotten Cave

Bob is pretty overrated in this format - actually, drawing cards for the sake of drawing cards is pretty overrated in this format (as opposed to drawing cards to set up something stupid). Scroll Rack and Life from the Loam are pretty stupid together, and Rack also lets you hide Progenitus if you draw it or set up explosive growth spurts for your Countryside Crusher. I don't think Assault is very good in the main anymore (as it is very slow and taxes your mana base), and it's mostly redundant as a finisher with Progenitus. You have far fewer green creatures than most decks making a Super Hydra, but in this case your goal is to find Arbor and upgrade it into your Pro:Everything dork - and if you fail, you can get Arbor back with Loam. I think the deck is pretty strong in testing, and being only three colors gives it lots of stability. I don't like the four-color versions because there are too many decks that can punish you for being greedy with mana, and then you fall behind very quickly because you're trying to get back on your feet instead of trying to stop the opponent from killing you. Bob is also pretty meh here and Maelstrom Pulse is not sexy enough to make me want to fuck up my mana for it. Yeah, Stronghold can only be activated with a Mox, but that's 1 land in a deck that doesn't often need it - and Stronghold is solid enough that I'm willing to overlook a single off-color activation cost.

Hope that helps. The meta is shifting back into something favorable to this deck (lots of aggro, not much combo and really anemic aggro-control decks), so now is as good a time as ever to pick up the deck and practice.

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Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Progenitus

3 Firespout
4 Life from the Loam
3 Natural Order
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Scroll Rack
4 Mox Diamond

4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath

3 Taiga
2 Savannah
2 Forest
1 Mountain

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Wasteland
4 Tranquil Thicket
2 Forgotten Cave

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I like this list a lot. I've never seen Scroll Rack used in this deck, but you note that it has a number of great uses. It can also let you trade excess land you've drawn from Life From the Loam for cards from the top of your deck (some of which might be spells that help you win). I also like the idea of running EE and Firespout in the same deck. It's either/or with most lists, but this gives you a lot of great removal to be more competative in an aggro meta. This should help your Merfolk and Zoo matchups.

What do you think of Chalice of the Void in Aggro Loam? Do you not like it, or did you omit it simply because you couldn't find room?

One more thought is that you could substitutie Terravore for KotR and go with a RG deck with no splash in order to make the mana base more stable.

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Originally Posted by Justin

What do you think of Chalice of the Void in Aggro Loam? Do you not like it, or did you omit it simply because you couldn't find room?

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It's in the sideboard, which has about five open spots right now.

Chalice is okay, but not stellar. I mean, yeah, turn one Chalice at one is a beast, but this doesn't happen very often. You're far more likely to get turn two Chalice, which is often a turn too late in some matchups (Merfolk, Lands, and Reanimator being big ones). Pridemage being prevalent in blue-green-based aggro-control decks also makes Chalice much less of a backbreaker there than it used to be. In short, it's still useful, but it's not useful enough for me to want to maindeck it when I could be packing more removal or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Justin

One more thought is that you could substitutie Terravore for KotR and go with a RG deck with no splash in order to make the mana base more stable.

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Nah, three colors is fine. Knight is a house and white gives you some interesting sideboard options.

Chalice is ridiculous against Storm Combo. If for any reason, it's worth a sideboard slot for that alone. 0 stops petal, mox, and LED. 1 Stops Rit, Brainstorm, Ponder, Duress, Thoughtseize, Rite of Flame...

You mentioned before that our MU against combo is pretty poor. I run 4 Chalice and 3 Teeg out of the board for combo. It has won me games. Even Reanimator... Chalice at 1 stops Tutor, Entomb, Thoughtseize, Brainstorm, Ponder, careful study... It's so good.

Is it possible to play Aggro Loam with blue in it? Seems like it could have alot of good match ups. I found it difficult to run enough Blue spells to include Force of Will though. Anyways, this is what I've come up with and wouldn't mind some critique.

Lands (26)
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand

1 Forest

3 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Underground Sea
1 Bayou

1 Maze of Ith
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold

3 Lonely Sandbar
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Wasteland


Creatures (13)
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Terravore
2 Rhox War Monk

Spells (21)
4 Mox Diamond
3 Daze
4 Counterspell
4 Life From the Loam
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Hydroblast
4 Krosan Grip
3 Meddling Mage
1 Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Tormod's Crypt

What do you think?

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Originally Posted by Mosesthecoot

Chalice is ridiculous against Storm Combo. If for any reason, it's worth a sideboard slot for that alone. 0 stops petal, mox, and LED. 1 Stops Rit, Brainstorm, Ponder, Duress, Thoughtseize, Rite of Flame...

You mentioned before that our MU against combo is pretty poor. I run 4 Chalice and 3 Teeg out of the board for combo. It has won me games. Even Reanimator... Chalice at 1 stops Tutor, Entomb, Thoughtseize, Brainstorm, Ponder, careful study... It's so good.

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One Chalice is only okay against Storm, although two might do it. The issue is that you're far less likely to get the Chalice down on turn one than you are on turn two, and even if you're on the play (likely, as you probably lost game one with any version of Aggro Loam), it's still possible for the ANT player to tutor or Brainstorm into a bounce spell (or play a Top, which in some ways much worse for you). If ANT is on the play, the opponent can also hit you turn one with a Thoughtseize/Duress or set himself up to bounce a Chalice before you can even play one.

Teeg is okay as a second line of defense, but if you stick a Teeg without sticking a Chalice first, you're in much worse shape than if you'd played Chalice, or even Ethersworn Canonist. Even if you do manage Chalice then Teeg, it's still possible for the ANT player to topdeck bounce spells - though it's much harder because he has two targets he has to get rid of, and you're applying pressure. Of course, Teeg does basically nothing against the minority of Tendrils decks using Doomsday.

Storm combo was, is, and will continue to be a bad matchup for this deck; one of several, in fact. Your ability to interact with that deck is weak and relies on you winning the die roll and/or losing the previous game played so as to be on the play, and then to basically assemble a four-card combo (two lands, Mox Diamond, Chalice). Even then your chances of winning are largely dependent on how many of the other three cards in your hand are creatures and whether or not you can do enough damage to the ANT player to put him in a position to accidentally kill himself when he does eventually combo off. There is a reason why non-blue decks are generally considered byes for competent combo players, and "Can't do shit to stop them" is a large part of it.

No offense to you, but I've won games against combo without sticking a single Chalice or hate bear. Granted, that version of the deck ran Lotus Cobra and made Progenitus on turn two, but people are notoriously good at remembering matchups where things came together the way they wanted, and notoriously bad at remembering all of the matchups where things didn't come together and they lost horribly. I'm extremely incredulous of the Teeg's ability to push the matchup past 50%, especially when most of the time (probably 70%) you end up dropping game one. In my book, with numbers that bad, it's best to just devote sideboard space to matchups that are marginally bad for you instead of trying to salvage one abysmal matchup while losing points across lots of others.

The deck I presented is reasonably strong against aggro and blue, variable against non-linear strategies like Reanimator or Lands, and weak to ANT/other storm. Against Reanimator, for example, you can actually pick up a lot of games you wouldn't otherwise win against people who just have no idea what they're doing. Right now, I'm working on trying to improve percentage against Lands and Reanimator with sideboard slots, as well as preserving percentage against blue. The results are something like this:

4 Pithing Needle
3 Oust
3 Krosan Grip
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Terastodon
1 Firespout

As you can see, there's no room in this mix for 4 Chalice. You can drop some number of Oust, but against Reanimator you really want to have a two-pronged attack to keep Show and Tell and counter-hate cards from completely ruining you. Speaking of which, Oust is an interesting option versus Reanimator, but it's a toss-up between this and Swords for this slot. Swords is better as a way to manage blue aggro-control decks (side out Firespout, bring in Swords), but Oust gives the opponent less life, which is relevant against Reanimator and sometimes Zoo. Being a sorcery is actually pretty irrelevant against everything but Merfolk, because most decks can't make creatures at instant speed, and the creatures they can make on their own turns usually don't buff their other guys. Potentially letting the opponent get his guy back is a concern against Zoo, but not so much against Reanimator, where "getting his guy back" entails getting another way to put the guy into the graveyard and another way to reanimate, all while potentially facing a bunch of pressure. I'd say Oust is probably better than Swords against Reanimator, worse against Merfolk, and the jury is still out on its performance versus Zoo and blue-green aggro-control. It may go back to being Swords. Feedback would be appreciated.

The tl;dr version: Chalice is good, but I'm pretty disillusioned with it. The hate cards for Counterbalance almost always overlap with the hate cards for Chalice, so your opponents will often have the ability to answer your answer in game two, and you don't have anything really compelling to bring in against them.





EDIT: @Jay: Well, aside from your Merfolk matchup becoming essentially unwinnable, I'm not sure how I feel about that list. The Daze are really out of place and should probably be cut, as I don't think they're really that great at doing what you want them to do. Counterspell seems okay, but they're pretty slow and don't play particularly well with Loam or trying to be aggressive. Overall, it feels like you tried to take the good bits in New Horizons, combined them with the good bits of Aggro Loam, and made something much worse than either of them.

I was just saying Chalice was a way to slow/steal/stop? combo in any given matchup. Sure, they expect it. Hell, we're not running blue so your opponent must assume we have SOME kind of hate to this horrible MU, to which they'll bring in their anti-hate. I'm never sold on giving up completely on a particular MU but that may have to be the case.

Teeg isn't JUST for combo either, he's a utility hoser that I just figured I'd mention for tendrils, ETW etc. I like him for his ability to lock down NO particularly but where NO is usually accompanied by Blue it sometimes doesn't get there.

You say your deck is reasonably strong against blue? I'm not doubting it but I always have an awful awful time against blue (my favorite color to play, my least favorite to face). Anything besides the Grips I'm missing?

I still feel justified that bringing in Chalice against Reanimator is worth the slots. Unless they're running ritual... they reanimate turn 2 giving decent time to drop one. They only tend to run Force and a playset of discard spells so its not an awful plan. If the meta I'll be going to has a bunch of it I also like Tariff. If anything, it gets some looks and removes shroud critters that Stp or Oust can't touch.

I may take your advice next time, cut Chalice, and just pray I don't face any combo but I personally hate giving up on MUs.

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Originally Posted by Mosesthecoot

I was just saying Chalice was a way to slow/steal/stop? combo in any given matchup. Sure, they expect it. Hell, we're not running blue so your opponent must assume we have SOME kind of hate to this horrible MU, to which they'll bring in their anti-hate. I'm never sold on giving up completely on a particular MU but that may have to be the case.

Teeg isn't JUST for combo either, he's a utility hoser that I just figured I'd mention for tendrils, ETW etc. I like him for his ability to lock down NO particularly but where NO is usually accompanied by Blue it sometimes doesn't get there.

You say your deck is reasonably strong against blue? I'm not doubting it but I always have an awful awful time against blue (my favorite color to play, my least favorite to face). Anything besides the Grips I'm missing?

I still feel justified that bringing in Chalice against Reanimator is worth the slots. Unless they're running ritual... they reanimate turn 2 giving decent time to drop one. They only tend to run Force and a playset of discard spells so its not an awful plan. If the meta I'll be going to has a bunch of it I also like Tariff. If anything, it gets some looks and removes shroud critters that Stp or Oust can't touch.

I may take your advice next time, cut Chalice, and just pray I don't face any combo but I personally hate giving up on MUs.

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Well, combo is a matchup you never want to see anyway. In a meta with a lot of combo, running Aggro Loam with Chalice and Teeg is basically infinitely worse than running blue-green aggro-control, mostly because your ability to stop combo hinges entirely on permanents that the combo player can bounce (as opposed to counters, which are harder to deal with and require significantly more planning to work around). If you give up on the matchup, it only goes from being very, very bad to being unwinnable, but the upside is that you get to dedicate maindeck and sideboard space to improving aggro matchups and solidifying your game against blue.

Speaking of which, you have several tools to beat blue:

• Being aggressive. Zoo has a good blue matchup because it's basically straight gas, so it blanks a lot of blue's cards. As a blue player, you can counter Zoo's guys, but then you lose to the burn; alternately, you can counter the burn, but then you lose to the guys. If you try to split your counters between both (which is what usually happens), the Zoo player can run you out of counters by repeatedly throwing very dangerous things at you. Sure, you can hold a counter to let Tarmogoyf resolve if you're afraid of Knight, but that Tarmogoyf will get you - but countering means you have your pants down if the opponent follows it up with Knight. The philosophy of Aggro Loam (any version) is similar in that you want to play as many must-counter threats as possible to reduce the value of your opponent's counters in general. Your goal is to win in the quality department by being as proactive as possible. My latest version is pretty proactive, but like many Aggro Loam builds, there are a number of board control elements that don't really fit that plan, so you end up being Zoo lite where some of your draws are dead, but hopefully a lot less often than your opponent's draws.
• Go big. Most blue decks have Tarmogoyf, RWM, and V. Clique as their largest creatures. In Aggro Loam builds running white, Tarmogoyf is actually your smallest creature, which means you're mostly in command of the combat step. You can put tons of pressure on the opponent with only a few creatures because all of them will be huge, forcing the opponent to block a lot to stay alive. There are two caveats to this: first, New Horizons; second, most other blue opponents tend to run a lot of creatures that are good at chumping (Pridemage, Hierarch, RWM). New Horizons can match you in the big guy department, but you have the ability to make your Knights bigger and can selectively make Crushers larger than Terravores by using Loam to get lands out of the graveyard pre-combat. The other blue decks can chump your big guys and counterattack, which makes something like Seismic Assault effective as a way to clear small creatures out of the way or to end the game quickly if you do punch through (or just to let you leave your guys open to prevent the opponent from attacking).
• Don't run bad cards against blue, like Wish or Dreams. The meta is basically split into three main clusters of deck types right now - aggressive decks without counters (Zoo, Goblins), blue-based decks with counters and varying levels of aggression, and non-linear decks mostly immune to Dreams (Lands, combo). The first cluster of decks can be managed with Dreams, but Wish is mostly a late-game trump card there because of how fast these decks are, and how hard they hit. The middle cluster of decks - blue whatever decks with counters - are basically immune to Dreams (nice Mind Twist lol) and will probably let Wish resolve so they can counter the card you get. Dreams can actively lose you the game there, and the traditional "bait counters" strategy makes Dreams much slower and more dependent on active Loam to be big - and even then, Dreams is still pretty horrible against Merfolk and merely "solid" against Counterbalance decks that haven't stuck Counterbalance yet. Speaking of which - Counterbalance basically invalidates Burning Wish as an answer. The last group of decks allow you to get a bunch of utility out of Burning Wish, but most of them can ignore or mitigate Dreams in one way or another (although Wishboards prevent you from really effectively addressing these matchups in games two and three). I feel like cutting the Wish/Dreams package was a good move on McGregor's part at the end of last year, and continuing to run it may be holding the deck back. I don't think either card lives up to the claims of their fans, even in the matchups where they're supposed to be good. Legacy is all about explosive board presence right now; Wish doesn't provide that, and Dreams provides it at a very heavy price.

Obsoleted Aggro Loam lists can occassionally do well, but I think people need to really retool the deck from the ground up to bring it back to the forefront of the metagame. The deck is very proactive and good at scuplting the board, but it faces competition from Zoo in those departments. Zoo is the best deck in the format at being proactive, so Aggro Loam needs something else to give people a reason to play it instead of just seeing it as "crappy Zoo." The importance of the early game in the format makes having a powerful late game less exciting: many decks in the format can have powerful late games, but you often end up having to gut those strategic elements to shift emphasis towards surviving the early game. It's a zero sum game, and Zoo is very good at preying on decks that do this, hence its popularity right now despite the presence of a bunch of explicitly anti-aggro strategies like Lands. In order to thrive in this kind of environment, Aggro Loam needs to focus on its strengths: synergy, power, size, and just enough control to make it all matter. The NO-Loam list is a step in the right direction, although it has a bunch of issues that still need to be dealt with (the curve is awful, for starters).

Everything duely noted. My basic list off the top of my head for comparison is:

4x Tarm
3x Knight
3x Vore

4x Loam
4x sTp
4x Bolt
2x EE
2x DD

3x Assault

4x Diamond

3x Thicket
3x Cave
4x Waste
1x Kor Haven
Xx Duals+Fetches+basics

I feel like I have more answers than threats, which isn't very helpful when you're telling me to keep playing them to bait out counters. I don't run Witness or black for Stronghold so I'm wary of going that route with Diamond alone but.. I'm going to miss DD even though playing it is a heart attack sometimes when I'm holding 4 cards and I need one of them.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mosesthecoot

Everything duely noted. My basic list off the top of my head for comparison is:

4x Tarm
3x Knight
3x Vore

4x Loam
4x sTp
4x Bolt
2x EE
2x DD

3x Assault

4x Diamond

3x Thicket
3x Cave
4x Waste
1x Kor Haven
Xx Duals+Fetches+basics

I feel like I have more answers than threats, which isn't very helpful when you're telling me to keep playing them to bait out counters. I don't run Witness or black for Stronghold so I'm wary of going that route with Diamond alone but.. I'm going to miss DD even though playing it is a heart attack sometimes when I'm holding 4 cards and I need one of them.

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Bolt seems like the weakest link here, and Dreams could easily be either Scroll Rack or Sylvan Library. In a deck without Progenitus tricks, the latter might be better because of how insane it is with multiple Loams; if you run Crusher, Knight, and Terravore, things will get out of hand very quickly just off of the dredging alone. Speaking of which, I would recommend shaving Vore and an Assault to make room for Crushers.

Something like:

-4 Bolt
-1 Assault
-1 Terravore
-2 DD

+3 Crusher
+2 Sylvan Library
+1 EE
+2 Other

Not sure what you want in the "other" slot there. You could run Firespout, but it has little use against blue decks packing Tarmogoyf, Knight, and RWM. Alternately, those two could also be reasonable meta slots depending on how much aggro versus aggro-control you expect to face, with options including Qasali Pridemage or Oust.

An additional bit of rationale for Library is that it provides a redundant library manipulation engine. Dark Confidant fills this role in traditional Jund builds, which is important because it makes you less susceptible to common graveyard hate (along with the use of Countryside Crusher over Vore) as well as allowing you to "draw" and dredge each turn. Library doesn't allow you to draw multiple times as well as Bob does, but if you have more than one Loam in your yard, you can replace each draw with dredge and not have to put any of the Loams back, which is sweet. In this respect, it's much better than Top - and you don't really have much use for multiple Top activations in one turn, so that's a bit of a wash. I liked Library when I used it before, but Scroll Rack was better at getting Progenitus out of my hand, so I ended up going with that.

I'm not sure about Kor Haven versus Maze of Ith. Untapping the attack creature can be relevant if you're trying to alpha strike, but in most cases your guys should just run over the other team in combat. Importantly, Maze of Ith costs no mana to use, which allows you to devote most of your resources to using Loam repeatedly in a turn.

Have you ever considered Raging Ravine? I like the card a lot as a 1-of, but never found a build where I liked it (mostly because by then I was working around Progenitus). Ravine is interesting because it's kind of like a Crusher that's asleep, but which can wake up at inopportune times and mess up combat math. Importantly, it attacks as a 4/4 the first time, which means the most common creature capable of dispatching it would be Tarmogoyf. In that case, it combos hilariously with Maze of Ith (save the Ravine, but get the counter; next turn, attack with a 5/5). It eats four mana per turn, though, which is a real issue. Another option is Stirring Wildwood, which blocks really well, and for less mana than Ravine. Neither of these lands are particularly necessary given how many large guys you're running, but they are something else that gives Counterbalance fits.

Honestly, I miss Crusher a little but because I'm not running confidant, and adding white for Knight, I took him out. I don't know, I particularly like Vore in that spot better because he comes out instantly a beast and Crusher in the late late game, which happens in Loam, isn't as strong as dropping a 9/9 Trampler for the same mana investment. I'm also not a fan of only drawing lands by loaming. Another reason it was betterto have confidant.

With Library, (I've always loved libraries simplistic ruling..) can I replace the first draw with a dredge and look at two off the top and pick one of those to keep for my hand with no life loss? I ran a casual deck with words of wilding a long time back and that's how I was playing it. Just want to be sure before I make a fool out of myself at a tournament because I like the idea of Library

I could see cutting Bolt but I'm not going to be sold on it until I test it. It HAS won me several games where my opponent is worried about the board and forgets that I'm even running it. I got the idea from a Russian build, Nitikin Loam who originally had Pridgemages main in my terravore slot but I opted for a bigger creature than utility and larger Goyf attacks.

I've also been going back and fourth between Maze and Haven. Both have their plusses. Kor makes mana, kor doesn't untap the creature...Maze is free to activate..

I guess it'll just be up to testing. Also, I have firespout out of my board. Thanks for the suggestions by the way

Honestly, I miss Crusher a little but because I'm not running confidant, and adding white for Knight, I took him out. I don't know, I particularly like Vore in that spot better because he comes out instantly a beast and Crusher in the late late game, which happens in Loam, isn't as strong as dropping a 9/9 Trampler for the same mana investment. I'm also not a fan of only drawing lands by loaming. Another reason it was betterto have confidant.

With Library, (I've always loved libraries simplistic ruling..) can I replace the first draw with a dredge and look at two off the top and pick one of those to keep for my hand with no life loss? I ran a casual deck with words of wilding a long time back and that's how I was playing it. Just want to be sure before I make a fool out of myself at a tournament because I like the idea of Library

I could see cutting Bolt but I'm not going to be sold on it until I test it. It HAS won me several games where my opponent is worried about the board and forgets that I'm even running it. I got the idea from a Russian build, Nitikin Loam who originally had Pridgemages main in my terravore slot but I opted for a bigger creature than utility and larger Goyf attacks.

I've also been going back and fourth between Maze and Haven. Both have their plusses. Kor makes mana, kor doesn't untap the creature...Maze is free to activate..

I guess it'll just be up to testing. Also, I have firespout out of my board. Thanks for the suggestions by the way