(Archive) [DTW] Aggro Loam

[rockSTAR]

3 Devastating Dreams
3 Burning Wish into -> Devastating Dreams.

[zulander]

61 card deck? I'm sorry but no.

[rockSTAR]

Dood. it's mot tuned at all. Chill. I know theory.

[Mordel]

61 card deck? I'm sorry but no.

I hate to say it, but anyone that proposed that twenty-three lands was a great manabase for this deck can't talk shit about a sixty-one card deck, because twenty-three land trying to support four mox diamonds and a dredge engine is way more monumentally retarded issue with "theory"...

Originally Posted by zulander
I've been playing a manabase like this:
4 mox diamond
4 wasteland
5 cyclers
6 fetches
7 duals
1 volraths stronghold.

What the hell is that shitty mana base framework? Not that one-liner posts with no actual info in them are good to start with, but in light of the above, wow...just wow.

[zulander]

I hate to say it, but anyone that proposed that twenty-three lands was a great manabase for this deck can't talk shit about a sixty-one card deck, because twenty-three land trying to support four mox diamonds and a dredge engine is way more monumentally retarded issue with "theory"...

Get over it. It works for me so why are you crying about it. It's not like I ate your baby or anything. You don't like 23 lands then don't play 23 lands, but playing 61 cards is a much bigger theoretical issue in MtG than playing 23 lands in an aggro loam deck.

[Mordel]

I'm not crying about it...I'm using as an example to illustrate why you should not be taken seriously.

[zulander]

Someone who self-proclaims that he doesn't know the deck that well shouldn't be passing judgement on whether or not someone who's been playing the deck and doing well with it in local tournaments should be taken seriously. Especially if my argument is that someone shouldn't be playing 61 lands (something that I hope you would agree with).

[georgjorge]

It's good that you could get that off your minds...now can we stop the personal attacks again ?


@Seismic Assault: The main reason to not play it is that it depends very much on Loam. You might not always have that (and Wishing for it to use it with Assault is usually too slow), and even if you have it, you might want to play threats or Chalice during your first turns instead (I myself use Loam mostly as a drawing engine for when I've run out of threats). Not saying it's a bad card, but that's the reason I don't run it (plus the casting cost makes me ditch Wasteland to Mox when I don't want to, and makes Terravore a bit harder to cast without Bayou, but that's not as important).

The difference might seem subtle with how I described it, but I feel a lot less vulnerable so far when playing this build because my strategy isn't as reliant on getting an engine online and making a creature as big as possible, it's centered on raping my opponent's resources and finishing things off with creature, but with the presence of goyfs and crushers, you can always do things in reverse order too. An engine is still created with loam and raven's obviously, but the engine protects itself basically when raven's crime is throw into the mix.

I think Raven's Crime makes the deck MORE vulnerable to graveyard hate, not less, and I can't see how Crime protects the Loam engine from the most common hate - Relic, Crypt, Extirpate, Leyling - as they will be down before their hand is empty.

[rockSTAR]

Get over it. It works for me so why are you crying about it. It's not like I ate your baby or anything. You don't like 23 lands then don't play 23 lands, but playing 61 cards is a much bigger theoretical issue in MtG than playing 23 lands in an aggro loam deck.

I really laughed about this. Can you even tell me why 61 cards are worse then 60? I opt for no

[coraz86]

@Seismic Assault: The main reason to not play it is that it depends very much on Loam. You might not always have that (and Wishing for it to use it with Assault is usually too slow), and even if you have it, you might want to play threats or Chalice during your first turns instead (I myself use Loam mostly as a drawing engine for when I've run out of threats). Not saying it's a bad card, but that's the reason I don't run it (plus the casting cost makes me ditch Wasteland to Mox when I don't want to, and makes Terravore a bit harder to cast without Bayou, but that's not as important).

That's why many lists only run two Assaults. They aren't the focus of the deck like they were in the Extended variant, but they are quite helpful in a variety of situations (especially 26 or 27 lands, as many Aggro Loam decks do). They can help end games in a creature stalemate (or break the stalemate, if you have a Terravore or Crusher down); kill off annoying little dudes, or occasionally a Goyf if you have enough land in hand; or deal those last four or six points to an otherwise comfortable opponent. Plus if you drop it game one, your opponent might bring in Grips as a knee-jerk reaction, but then they're sitting there with Grips in hand instead of something relevant as your deck does other things and wins.

I think it plays into or against the style of the deck (depending on whether you go the aggro route or the controllish route), so it's not something to just run because other people do, but it would be a really hard cut for me. Assault answers different questions than Chalice/Shusher or Raven's Crime or Devastating Dreams; I suspect the best answer depends on the meta. In my area, people love to play aggro-control like Thresh and Zoo and Goblins, so I run three Assaults; I typically want one down turn two or three to neutralize early stupidity and to keep the way clear for my fatties, and the discard doesn't mean a whole lot against them. If anyone in a control or combo-heavy meta wants to chime in, please feel free.

[Al-ucard]

I think that the main diference in discard and non-discard deck is that if you pack discard is because you main win condition is a resolved devastating dreams. A resolved dd and raven's crime in yard is near to GG.

PS: I've seen more 61 cards decks that 23 lands decks packing mox diamond XD

[kkoie]

I think that the main diference in discard and non-discard deck is that if you pack discard is because you main win condition is a resolved devastating dreams. A resolved dd and raven's crime in yard is near to GG.

PS: I've seen more 61 cards decks that 23 lands decks packing mox diamond XD

I myself would not be comfortable running less than 25 lands in this deck. The further you drop below 25, the more often you will be in a situation where you have to use a cycle land as a mana source rather than draw (which I hate).

As for 61 cards, I can't see a justifiable reason to run 61. They should analyze their list, find the questionable slots, pick one, and cut it. If the deck has problems in testing, make a replacement, not an addition. Statistically running 61 may not feel significantly differn't than running 60, but when you play the deck a hundred games or so, eventually you would notice that small statistical differnce.

[rockSTAR]

Yep I already did this and cut 1 Gamble.

For those who are interested:

//NAME: aggroloam
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
2 Taiga
3 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Mountain
1 Forest
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Volrath's Stronghold
_____
25

3 Countryside Crusher
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Terravore
2 Tombstalker

3 Life from the Loam
3 Burning Wish
4 Mox Diamond
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Devastating Dreams
4 Thoughtseize
1 Raven’s Crime
1 Seismic Assault
2 Gamble
_____
35

// Sideboard:
SB: 3 Jund Charm
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 3 Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 Chainer's Edict
SB: 1 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Raven’s Crime

[Mordel]

@George

Yeah, I mispoke there, but the discard build has been working better for me in the face of hate than my normal build. I suspect that the reason is that opponents are having a difficult time backing up their hate when they are often playing off of the top of their deck. With my other, more normal build opponents are able to back up their hate and seem to have an easier time delaying my threats connecting with their domes. A CotV stopping swords is fine, but deeds, O-rings, smallpox, snuff out and smother are a different ball game. Eventually I would connect, but I am finding my wins with the build that I recently posted to be a lot more solid and inevitable.

It comes down to play style and meta, I think.

On the raven's crime relying on loam, yes, loam is very helpful, but I have hit three to four mana sources and started flinging lands off the top a number of times, which is pretty doable with twenty-six to twenty-seven lands.

On the sixty-one cards thing, I have often found myself opting for a sixty-first card in the form of a land. Never a non-land card, but I have done it with decks like mono blue stasis, white stax, forbiddian and loam. I don't do it when there are slots that can easily be dropped, I do it when I want one excessive land. For example: in a deck that runs well with twenty-four lands, but I want one extra utility land, so I make it twenty-five. One deck that I did that with a fair amount way back was Forbiddian, which I would tend to make the sixty-first card a thawing glaciers if I didn't feel like running one less disrupt or force spike. With a deck like aggro loam, so long as the extra card is a twenty-seventh land, not twenty-sixth because I feel that twenty-six is the minimum, I don't see anything wrong with a twenty-seventh land if it is an extra fetch or something. I have a number of odd sort of rules for my sixty-first land that I sort of subconcsiously apply, such as it needs to either produce coloured mana or directly lead to a coloured land and if the deck runs three colours of so and one isn't just splash for one card or something, I make sure that the sixty-first slot can contribute to any colour the deck may need. I also never add a sixty-first land to decks like sligh, ww and such: if I feel that I want an extra land in such a deck, I just remove an actual spell. I also only do it with decks that I am extremely comfortable and familiar with. There are other things that I consider before adding a sixty-first land, but they aren't coming to mind right now. It's something that I have been doing for a very long time that first started with an extended stasis deck before an event during deck registration.

When I play a deck with sixty-one cards, it isn't because I made that deck to be sixty-one cards, it is because I added a sixty-first land before the event because I felt one excessive land would be of a benefit. Once again: I don't do it all the time, but I have in the past. The statistical drawback as best as I understand it manifests itself in the form of the occasional land dropping problems when there are not enough lands. When there is one excessive land, the "drawback" is too many lands, which is something that I have yet to specifically lose from. In this, I mean that from a statistical standpoint, that one land being responsible for loss would be from getting a land instead of a top deck or that sixty-first land clogging up an opening hand in a minute set of circumstances due to the 1/61 chances compounded with variables such as draw and fetching is a price that I have always been willing to pay when I do it because I believe in far more circumstances, the increased chance to hit a land drop cleanly and a reduced chance of mulling due to mana are far more valuable.

In many cases when I see sixty-one cards in a deck, it is generally just sloppy deck building and not a calculated move that takes a great deal of consideration. IE: I will often test and mull over the benefits of a flat-out extra land at the cost of one spell, versus an extra land if I can help it and often go for the one less spell in favor of a land.

I also have yet to go to an invent where I will be playing games in the hundreds where possible drawbacks of a sixty-first land would manifest more than once or twice.

[georgjorge]

I'd like to try out the Crime build...but how does it do against non-Tribal Aggro like Goyf Sligh and Zoo (and to a lesser extent Team America and Faerie Stompy) ? Those are already hard matchups, and it seems that Crime recursion isn't really the answer here, while Terravore and Chalice (against Goyf Sligh and Zoo) will really be missed.

[rockSTAR]

You play 3 dreams+1 in side. Thats quite okay vs goyf sligh and stuff.

[Mordel]

I never see TA or FS anymore online, which may be because it never pops up on deckcheck. Sligh decks are woefully untested matches for me. I imagine they wouldn't be too different though. Discard takes a bit of the impact out of their opening plays and later removes reach. A lot of builds run EE's main, so that could lead to more difficulties. My highlander loam deck has run into a decent amount of sligh and zoo decks and they are laughable matches for it due to glacial chasm and maze of ith.

That doesn't help much if you are looking into a retrace aggro loam deck, but if I was going to bring an aggro loam deck to somewhere that has a lot of sligh, FS and TA, I would probably bring highlander loam above others. The silverbullet lands and an additional vore-type creature that doesn't die to a relic is pretty nice to have for matches where you get goldfished to an uncomfortable life total. I am a bit of a lucksack with getting my chasm and maze without the help of knights as my buddy discovered when trying out some different aggro decks against me.

On the note of the retrace build that I have been fooling with; because it has less threats to stick on the table, I found myself going to pretty uncomfortable life totals, so I added a primal command to the sideboard for wishing. I've only used it, like three times, but it has worked pretty well. Seven life and tutoring for a crusher is nice and it is has the plow and repopulate/thran foundry effect built in which I see as being randomly useful, though I added them primarily as a means of getting roughly half of my life back and a threat for the following turn. They may not stay, but I haven't tested with them a lot yet to know for sure...I checked for green sorcery life gain effects and command seemed like the best one.

[Al-ucard]

Last friday I playtest the discard list a bit and I have to say that is quite powerful, but the fact that we only have 8 big guys is a problem.

With so many discard cards is easy to resolve a dd, but kill a single countryside or a tarmogoyf is quite easy in legacy (StP, smother, diabolic edict...)

I'm thinking of quit 2 duress an fit 2 more win conditions... what about 2 seismic assault?

What do you think? Next week I have a big event and I need a powerful deck XD

[kkoie]

I can't imagine running aggro-loam with out Siesmic Assault. It's a must answer for too many matchups.

[Al-ucard]

The fact is that it's a win condition, and a win condition must be answered XD

Someone who has tested the discard version too? Thoughts?