[Deck] Aggro Loam

So after scrubbing out day one of GP:Toronto faster than I have ever scrubbed before (it was bad), I decided to cut my losses. Although I don't mind modern, on that Sunday I would have rather seen Canada razed to the ground than play modern.

So I resleeved my aggro loam and decided to play some legacy.

The deck was about the same:

4 Bob, Ooze
3 Goyf, Terravore

4 Bolt, Life, Mox Diamond
3 Liliana
2 EE, Abrupt Decay
1 Sylvan Library

4 Wasteland, 6 cycle land, 6 fetchland, 2 basics, 7 duals, 1 stronghold


except I had this sideboard:

3 REB
3 Surgicals
3 Koth
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Grudge
3 Thoughtseize

R1: Burn. 1-2
R2: Wilkin Chau with Deadguy Ale, 1-2

Good grief. Round 1, I mulliganned all 3 games, but somehow I won game one vs. this burn player. Game two he top-decks runner-runner-runner, and game 3 he only needs to get lucky on one draw-step, but it was incredibly frustrating. I know burn just sometimes wins, but after the disaster that was saturday, this didn't help at all.

Deadguy is a problem, especially Wilkin's version. They run a lot of stuff that's very annoying for us, like Swords, Vindicate, a lot of discard, Liliana and a lot of GY hate, including the shaman. I didn't really expose Life to it very much, but it's still a pain. Oh, and Hero of Bladehold is nuts. Absolutely ridiculous. Makes me miss Seismic Assault.

R3: Jason Pilarski with W/u Land Tax

Turns out that my deck has absolutely no outs to Leyline of Sanctity / Moat if you cut Maelstrom Pulse for Abrupt Decay. Otherwise, Surgicals and Thoughtseize and Liliana were really good vs. him. He has a lot of MD GY hate (he runs Rest in Peace / Energy Field), so I sided out all but one life, the Mox Diamonds and so... couldnt' even get to 4 for EE.

But he dropped and they forgot to drop him, so he conceded. I think I went 3-2 in games.

R4: no-show
R5: no-show

This was incredibly annoying, but because this 41-person tournament had ONLY a top-4, most people stopped showing up. Great. So I played Jason some more, and several other players from all around, including RUG delver, BUG delver, some control, and WALLS! More on Walls later.

R6: Chris with BUG Delver

So Chris is at 3-1-1 and could top-4. Probably not, but maybe. He's a friend, so I concede after I demolish him. Delver really has no chance against us, especially not with THAT sideboard.

So this was disappointing, but I enjoyed at least playing legacy again. And having some time to actually test and play against friends for fun allowed me to get over how horrible the GP actually was for me.

One thing I noticed is that I had more fun putting in the SB stuff than the main deck. I took out Life/Mox Diamond out a lot and just played straight Jund Control with some Life action mostly for cycle lands and wastelands. Koth really is a lot of fun and feels like it should be in there. I realize at this point it's no longer Aggro Loam, but I don't know if that is because Aggro Loam itself might not be doing what I want to do, or maybe it just doesn't work when I don't face blue all the time. This deck is really good at beating RUG and with a dedicated hate-board, miracles and combo, but I lose to crap like burn.

Oh, well, we shall see next tournament, I have a new list I want to try out and see where it goes from there.

Now a side-note: Andrew Oyen plays a version of Walls, with Blossoms/Omen, and mana walls, and ramps (very quickly) into Emrakul and Terastodon and the like.

Turns out that it is a BIG problem for us. We can't get through with creatures, and we need mass-removal. It's obviously the fringest of fringe decks, but just saying, it was fun to try to break through 8 walls, only to have 8 more come down. Wall of Shards IS pretty funny with Sylvan Library though :).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by razvan

I took out Life/Mox Diamond out a lot and just played straight Jund Control with some Life action mostly for cycle lands and wastelands. Koth really is a lot of fun and feels like it should be in there. I realize at this point it's no longer Aggro Loam, but I don't know if that is because Aggro Loam itself might not be doing what I want to do, or maybe it just doesn't work when I don't face blue all the time.

---

I don't like not running Seismic Assault as I think it's one of the main reasons to run Loam in the first place, but I suppose if you've got your heart set on running Lilianna it would hurt your mana too much to run a triple red card. That said, as you discovered, Loam is not very good in the absence of significant support - it's really an all-or-nothing card. In your deck, the cycling lands and Mox Diamond are really the only reasons to run Loam, which by themselves are not sufficient because Diamond is not that great as acceleration and the cycling lands are kind of bad as far as card advantage engines go. You may be better off just building Jund Control minus maindeck Loam (or even without any Loams at all) and seeing if you can make that work.

I have run Liliana over Seismic for a long time. The deck is fine, I just don’t think I know what I want to convey and English is hard sometimes..

First Loam is still amazingly broken with Wasteland alone. There is so much removal that I can afford to use life as a buffer against decks and keep them off mana (primarily Delver decks, but any other aggro-control as well).

Secondly, the cycle lands are a really good engine especially if I get two.

Finally, Mox Diamond is the same as it always was. It can suck. I am debating replacing the 4 Diamonds with 4 Shamans. You still get turn 3 Liliana, but you won’t get turn 1 Bob/Library. It’s a trade-off.

Also, Miracles are a problem. They run a one-mana Wrath of God, and obviously a lot of annoying crap like Swords-Snapcaster, CB-Top, and Jace.

This is why I like Koth. By himself, a planeswalker with only one relevant ability instead of 2 is not a good thing. His Ultimate is also mediocre, and he cannot protect himself.

But he smokes Jace, he works really well with Liliana and the removal, and he turns Terminus into a 1-mana wasteland that we get back (or is irrelevant). The rest of the deck is strong enough (really, the only problem I can see is a need for Hero of Bladehold to be dealt with) to allow him to win the game really quickly, alongside Goyfs. Furthermore, 4mana walkers have been traditionally hard to deal with, and while 4 mana for 4 power worth of damage isn’t exactly something to write home about, traditional removal is REALLY bad vs. him.

----

Ok, so now to my original point. I am aware it is no longer really traditional Aggro Loam, I just don’t have anywhere else to put it, nor have I tested it enough to be comfortable saying it’s a working deck. I placed that last post mostly because that’s where my reasoning of the deck took me. It’s still a Jund Aggro Control deck. I don’t really want to post it before I get at least one tournament and I get to play and test it against what’s good, but a teaser:

3 Liliana and Koth, 5 Discard, 2 Loams, 0 Diamonds, 4 Shaman/Bob/Goyf/Bolt, lots of removal, exciting sideboard options!

----

On another hand, I see a few new Aggro Loam decks pop up. They cut Lightning Bolt completely, instead running Punishing Fire and Chalice of the Void. They are significantly more red. They still have 3 Seismics. Another avenue to explore. Some guy at the last SCG top-16-ed with Bloodbraid maindeck too.

I guess finally, I am just excited that there’s so many ways to go from this point with Jund, allowing us to focus on multiple big cards to build around.

ps: Tony might have a conniption :P

Punishing Fire is a card I like - but I don't like what it does to the manabase. Grove is really, really bad on its own: not just the life, but the fact that you can't fetch it and that it skews you away from black when you're building your manabase. I also tended to side out Fires a lot against decks that weren't really that aggro, but then I was stuck with completely useless Groves still in my main because I wasn't going to stick +3 duals or whatever in my board.

Chalice is I guess okay. Shutting down manipulation from a blue player is always nice, particularly versus RUG and/or BUG that really need Brainstorm and Ponder to smooth out their awkward mix of control and tempo cards. However, turn one Chalice at one is relatively rare, and turn two Chalice at one is significantly less likely to resolve since your opponent has had one to two turns to Brainstorm/Ponder into a free counter. Once you resolve a Chalice, subsequent Chalices are more or less completely dead draws. A Chalice later in the game is often useless since your opponent has had more time to use his cantrips to find an answer or put himself ahead; it can still be okay if you're on even footing and you expect the game to drag on for a while, but I don't want to be attrition in this format and I especially don't want to be attrition versus an active Top. Also, BUG now has maindeck Abrupt Decays, making Chalice less of a game-ending blow without a fast clock to back it up. Chalice also precludes you from running your own one-drops, something I dislike when we have access to DRS and Looting in addition to Bolt.

BBE is not really that great in this deck. It's better in a more aggressive Jund deck that can leverage the 3/2 body and the extra card. BBE here tends to get you an extra card and then die in combat, which is okay but not worth stretching the curve.

My general experience with Wasteland has been that it's a blowout against bad players or decks with loose mana. There aren't tons of decks with loose mana running around anymore - BUG/RUG are the biggest culprits right now - and Miracles can run a bunch of basics to completely stymie your efforts to lock them out. The occasional Wasteland recursion is nice but the mileage really varies. Once upon a time, Wasteland was THE thing to do with Loam, but I think the format has moved on a bit since then.

I do agree Miracles is an issue. However, a lack of Assault makes it more of an issue. Grip was always a fine answer to CB, and now we have Shaman to land before it and Abrupt Decay to take it out after it hits, so it's not nearly as horrible as it used to be. Once you clear a path for Loam to resolve continuously, you can Assault them to death. Discard and/or Fires might help with that. I'm a little doubtful about Chalice here but I would need to test the matchup a lot before I could say for sure how often you can actually get a turn one/two Chalice down. My suspicion is that the answer is "not often enough" based on my experience with the old Nassif Counterbalance lists (what did those end up being called? Next Level something?).

I really, really like sdematt's recent list. That guy has sharp instincts when it comes to midrange.

Not running Seismic Assault is easily the worst decision to make in the deck. Skew your manabase towards badlands if you want to run liliana.. There's no definitive reason that the deck actually stocks up on Taiga's. Even doing a 2/2/2 split with moxen and 1 of each basic I've never had an issue landing either liliana or seismic assault, but not running Seismic Assault...you may as well not play everything that makes the deck what it is.

Seismic Assault is what wins most of my games by far, it shouldn't even really need explaining, besides loam it's the card that actually holds the deck together. Like yeah you can win without it, but burn can win without creatures. It doesn't make it a good idea. I would go so far as to say that your list is not fine without it's inclusion.

-- There is a working Jund thread in the New and Developmental Decks that sounds more in line with what you're doing, it's also just a general thread about the color wheel which makes it easier. Aggro Loam is not what you're doing.

Truth be told, I have kind of wondered about Koth in this deck for a while. The +1 is not bad and the ultimate is basically Seismic Assault Lite for situations where you don't have Loam or Assault.

My two biggest issues have been the four-mana price tag and the completely useless -2.

Two notable finishes by Aggro Loam lately.

M. Protasov, 1/106 in Finland

4 Wasteland
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
2 Taiga
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Countryside Crusher
3 Tarmogoyf

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Seismic Assault

3 Punishing Fire
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Life from the Loam

SB
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Pyroblast
2 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge

Antonius, 7/269 at SCG:LA

2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
4 Deathrite Shaman

4 Abrupt Decay

2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Life from the Loam

1 Sylvan Library
2 Seismic Assault

2 Engineered Explosives
3 Mox Diamond

1 Barren Moor
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Badlands
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

SB
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
4 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Choke

Interesting choices include a full set of Chalices, either main or in the side, a full set of Abrupt Decays (which in my testing is proving to be great, too) and Deathrite Shaman in Antonius' list.

I hope Antonius posts his thoughts on the finish and on the list. Why is Goyf down to 2 (less RUG?) and Ooze in the SB? In what matchups do you side in Chalice except combo? How was Deathrite Shaman?

Antonius has expressed dislike for Goyf in the past, IIRC. Goyf is just sort of a big, dumb beater, which are not really in short supply in this deck. He's decent at holding off quick ground dudes (from, say, Goblins) but painfully mediocre pretty much everywhere else. Since aggro is still kind of a thing I wouldn't cut him completely, but I wouldn't run that many, either.

I'm also interested in the resurgence of Chalice. Is it for Show and Tell? You don't really stand a chance versus Storm anyway, so...

I started running chalice in the sideboard when I did a lot of testing against Joe Lossett and found that the old options (Pyro, discard, Choke, revoker) were simply not good enough against miracles. Chalice on one though can disable virtually every relevant play they have except Los Angeles. A chalice on one and a revoker on top is incredibly hard for UW to beat. Oh, and I didn't even get matched up against UW yesterday. With ten damn cards for them in the board. Hilarious. Other decks I brought in chalice against: UR Burn, Tempo Thresh, Belcher (Twice). It was really strong in these matchups but honestly it's not really necessary to win. Yes, chalice is relevant against combo but you're still going to lose a vast majority of the time.

Shaman was pretty sweet. He's better than mox diamond in hands that don't have loam and the life gain won me matches against belcher (goblin token race) Burn and Thresh. I have always run 2/2 goyf/ooze since ooze came out. I took ooze out of the Md to make room for shamans (also cutting the fourth mox and a cycle land) and shunted Ooze to the board. Ooze is still amazing but I think that as long as there are relevant red decks like Burn and Thresh you won't be able to replace goyf with him completely.

Hmm, I guess Miracles don't have that many counters for Chalice on turns one or two. Interesting.

Congrats on the finish!

I've been playing 4 Chalice of the void main deck and I love it. Gave me a lot of win against a lot of deck. Pre sideboard winning against Belcher, High Tide, Burn, Rest In Peace Control/Combo, U/R Delver... All my opponents agreed on the fact that Chalice main deck locked them out. I do not feel like any 1 drop right now is better than my Chalice of the void. But then again, it's up to how you like to play this deck. I've been trying Confusion in the Ranks in my sideboard against show and tell and it is amazing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JonhLightning

I've been playing 4 Chalice of the void main deck and I love it. Gave me a lot of win against a lot of deck. Pre sideboard winning against Belcher, High Tide, Burn, Rest In Peace Control/Combo, U/R Delver... All my opponents agreed on the fact that Chalice main deck locked them out. I do not feel like any 1 drop right now is better than my Chalice of the void. But then again, it's up to how you like to play this deck. I've been trying Confusion in the Ranks in my sideboard against show and tell and it is amazing.

---

Would you mind sharing your list? I've been curious what the Aggro Loam lists look like with Chalice of the Void main.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DarkSteel5

Would you mind sharing your list? I've been curious what the Aggro Loam lists look like with Chalice of the Void main.

---

I imagine something like this:

2 Tarmogoyf
2 Uzi
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant

4 Abrupt Decay

4 Life from the Loam

1 Sylvan Library
2 Seismic Assault

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void

2 Barren Moor
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Badlands
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

by the way, I strongly disagree with John Lightning. Grim Lavamancer and Deathrite Shaman are infinitely better than Chalice in almost every matchup except UW Miracles and the obvious unfair decks (which you're not beating anyway). And the only reason you want Chalice for 1 against UW is because you don't have time to get Loam to get going to play boatloads of creatures through their removal...they're going to hit you with Los Angeles.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonius

I started running chalice in the sideboard when I did a lot of testing against Joe Lossett and found that the old options (Pyro, discard, Choke, revoker) were simply not good enough against miracles. Chalice on one though can disable virtually every relevant play they have except Los Angeles. A chalice on one and a revoker on top is incredibly hard for UW to beat. Oh, and I didn't even get matched up against UW yesterday. With ten damn cards for them in the board. Hilarious. Other decks I brought in chalice against: UR Burn, Tempo Thresh, Belcher (Twice). It was really strong in these matchups but honestly it's not really necessary to win. Yes, chalice is relevant against combo but you're still going to lose a vast majority of the time.

Shaman was pretty sweet. He's better than mox diamond in hands that don't have loam and the life gain won me matches against belcher (goblin token race) Burn and Thresh. I have always run 2/2 goyf/ooze since ooze came out. I took ooze out of the Md to make room for shamans (also cutting the fourth mox and a cycle land) and shunted Ooze to the board. Ooze is still amazing but I think that as long as there are relevant red decks like Burn and Thresh you won't be able to replace goyf with him completely.

---

Congratulations and thanks for your comments.
I have a few questions regarding sideboarding: did you board Shaman out when you boarded Chalice in? How do you board against RUG? Shaman seems pretty good against RUG but Chalice shuts practically their whole deck down, provided you manage to resolve it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by trivial_matters

Congratulations and thanks for your comments.
I have a few questions regarding sideboarding: did you board Shaman out when you boarded Chalice in? How do you board against RUG? Shaman seems pretty good against RUG but Chalice shuts practically their whole deck down, provided you manage to resolve it.

---

Shaman and Lavamancer come out against UW. They're just not that useful in that matchup. I boarded out Lavamancer against Thresh and UR but kept Shaman in. Chalice on 1 blocking Shaman sucks but they're both just too good against burn to not run. Uzi always comes in against red.

Oh, and I don't think I'm going to run Choke anymore. It's only good against UW, which I already have 8 cards for. I think I'm going to run bolt or ghastly demise or some other type of cheap, efficient removal. Something that costs 1 and can kill both delver and tombstalker would be ideal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonius

I imagine something like this:

2 Uzi

...they're going to hit you with Los Angeles.

---

Just want to make sure someone translated to English -

2 Scavenging Ooze

... "Entreat the Angels"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonius

Shaman and Lavamancer come out against UW. They're just not that useful in that matchup. I boarded out Lavamancer against Thresh and UR but kept Shaman in. Chalice on 1 blocking Shaman sucks but they're both just too good against burn to not run. Uzi always comes in against red.

Oh, and I don't think I'm going to run Choke anymore. It's only good against UW, which I already have 8 cards for. I think I'm going to run bolt or ghastly demise or some other type of cheap, efficient removal. Something that costs 1 and can kill both delver and tombstalker would be ideal.

---

The sideboarding against UW makes sense, but I'm unsure about boarding Lavamancer out against RUG. He shoots Delvers down and lets you win Goyf wars. I suppose the problem is his CMC of 1, when you're bringing Chalice in.
EDIT: Okay, if you're only playing 2 Goyfs and are bringing Chalice in, I reckon boarding Lavamancer out is the right call.


Regarding removal, Ghastly Demise doesn't kill Tombstalker (black) but it is pretty efficient. Other cards which come to mind right now are Dismember and Go for the Throat.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Antonius

Shaman and Lavamancer come out against UW. They're just not that useful in that matchup. I boarded out Lavamancer against Thresh and UR but kept Shaman in. Chalice on 1 blocking Shaman sucks but they're both just too good against burn to not run. Uzi always comes in against red.

Oh, and I don't think I'm going to run Choke anymore. It's only good against UW, which I already have 8 cards for. I think I'm going to run bolt or ghastly demise or some other type of cheap, efficient removal. Something that costs 1 and can kill both delver and tombstalker would be ideal.

---

Dismember.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Koby

Dismember.

---

Paying four life in matchups where Tombstalker and/or Delver are in issue does not seem that great. I guess if you're desperate...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aggro_zombies

Paying four life in matchups where Tombstalker and/or Delver are in issue does not seem that great. I guess if you're desperate...

---

There are always StP and PtE, but Tony is still hesitant to splash White.