[Deck] Aggro Loam

[Aggro_zombies]

Yup. Neither of those are 'amazing' and I haven't really missed them in my gbw.

Well, I mean, if we cut red...

Scrolling up, I'm going to use the last list I see with a good showing, which looks like this:
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Mox Diamond

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Seismic Assault

Cutting red frees up 13 non-land slots immediately. Assuming we swap it out for white, we automatically add 4 Knight of the Reliquary and 4 Swords to Plowshares (since we want the removal and StP is the best removal spell we have access to). That leaves 5 slots.

But wait, let's think about this. Life from the Loam gets a lot worse when you lose Seismic Assault, since its remaining uses are: #1 Waste-lock people (exciting), #2 grow your three-drops (meh), #3 draw some cards for a bunch of mana (meeeeeh). Instead of growing our threes or slowly drawing cards, why don't we just make more creatures? Let's cut some of the Loams add 4 Green Sun's Zenith, since that will both give us card advantage and increase our board presence, which is sort of like making our guys really big. But...while we're on the subject of build your own monster, there's more than one way to slice that particular cake. Stoneforge Mystic plus a small equipment toolbox would give us guys who are superior in combat, so let's use Mystic and Jitte and...hmm...Sword of Feast and Famine.

Now that I think about, shaving down on Loams makes Mox Diamonds worse. We don't need access to all the colors and two-for-one-ing ourselves seems weak. Let's cut the Diamonds for 3 Noble Hierarch and one Birds. Cutting Diamonds and Loams means we don't need nearly as many lands, so we'll cut the number down a bit. Let's also add a few miscellaneous GSZ targets so we get the full value out of the card.

But wait, what's black adding to all of this? Bob and Pulse? That doesn't seem like enough to justify making the mana worse for a third color: Pulse is very meh and Bob is better in grindy long games, something in short supply in a largely tempo-defined format. So let's cut black and add in some other ways to generate card advantage: Sylvan Library is a good one, and Elspeth is good at breaking through board stalemates.

And...voila! Here's our new Aggro Loam list:

1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Quirion Ranger
3 Stoneforge Mystic

1 Sylvan Library

4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam

1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle

...

I am only being a little bit of a smartass here. WBG Aggro Loam is a worse Junk deck, which itself is a worse Maverick deck. RG is really the core of Aggro Loam; cutting Crusher does not justify removing the red entirely because at that point most of your card choices start to look really suboptimal. Fixing all those suboptimal card choices rapidly leads you into the realm Maverick or Zoo, and at that point you might as well just build Maverick or Zoo because those decks are tuned.

@marcel: Like I said, I don't think people are running the kind of hate that kills Terravore right now, and Crusher not having trample or evasion is a real cost. Plus, he is really slow to get off the ground and bricking on your Crusher triggers is pretty bad for you because then you actually have to do some work to make him effective.

[alrightgame]

Would the bgw version look something like this?

2 engineered explosives
4 mox diamond
4 knight of the reliquary
4 dark confidant
4 tarmogoyf/scavenging ooze
4 life from the loam
2 maelstrom pulse/vindicate

What do you replace seismic assault and the 2 flex slots?
raven's crime? living wish? hymn to tourach? wrath of god? stoneforge mystic package? thoughtseize? liliana?

I imagine the sideboard would include path to exile and thoughtseize.

[PollePotDK]

The decklist Aggro_Zombie have listet is really solid. I'm playing it myself and it's very good against RUG Tempo, Blue Control decks, BW and other Stoneblade decks, Aggro obvious and I could go on. Only combo is difficult (alot ).

Can't see why anyone would want to cut Red in this deck. It's the cornerstone of this deck. Want to splash white, go look at the Rock, Maverick og other threads combined of BGW.

Terravore vs. Crusher? I'm very happy with Crusher. If it sticks, it's a beast and if the opponent doesn't play white, hence Swords to Plowshare/Path to Exile, it's a matter of time, before you win. Yes, Terravore does have Trample, but it dies to any gravehate, and the double Green is a bit tricky, when there's double and triple Red and in my case double Black (Liliana).

Just my 2 cent

[Koby]

I very much like the idea of Kessig Wolf Run in builds that also run Knight of the Reliquary. Seems like a slam junk way to turn Crushers and KotR into Terravores.

[PollePotDK]

@rukcus: I have also looked at Kessig Wolf Run and would very much like to include it into Aggro Loam. Think it could be powerful. But it requires White hence Knight OR Crop Rotation, but there's not enough utility lands in the RGB version, so if Kessig is to be included it should be a RGW version of Aggro Loam.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking against myself (previous post ), I prefer the RGB build AND Red must not be cut, but a RGW build could be interesting, as long it doesn't end as a mediocre Zoo build. The build Nikitin top16 with in Amsterdam is to much a Zoo build in my opinion.

[Aggro_zombies]

Yes, Terravore does have Trample, but it dies to any gravehate, and the double Green is a bit tricky, when there's double and triple Red and in my case double Black (Liliana).

It...doesn't, actually. Crypt rarely kills it outright (it usually does so after combat damage), Relic does not seem to see a lot of play, and Leyline of the Void turns Crusher into a permanent 3/3 (as opposed to Terravore only getting buffs off of the opponent). Extirpate and Surgical Extraction do not kill Terravore, and those seem to be the most common graveyard hate cards right now because of their usefulness vs. Snapcaster among other things.

I mean, maybe I'm just chronically unlucky with my Countryside Crusher triggers, but I've had numerous games wherein I did not hit a single land on upkeep and had to sink time and mana into making my Crushers not suck (and trust me, 3/3s for 3 in Legacy absolutely suck). Very rarely do you live the dream of hitting five lands at once and getting them. The average for 27 lands, 33 spells seems to be around two or so lands per turn, maybe slightly less. That's not very interesting for a guy that costs three and gets actually, legitimately blanked by Mother of Runes (or chumped by Tarmogoyf, or bounced, or Bolted/Dismembered in response to his first trigger, or whatever). Terravore is better in the near- and medium-terms and I think that's what matters most; you have late-game coming out of your ears but if your midgame was any softer it would actually vanish into thin air.

I mean, yes, if your metagame is all Relics all the time, Crusher is better. But I think Terravore is worth it when that's not the case.

@ruckus: Hmm. I think Skaarg (Skarrg? I forget how to spell it) might be better. You tend to want to use all or most of your mana on your turn, and Wolf Run is three plus Run to give the same power boost of two plus Ska(a)(r)rg. I would have to test it, though.

EDIT: @Polle: Naya Loam tends to end up a lot like Big Zoo just because you share a lot of the cards but shift from being flexible to being top-heavy. I've tried to fix that but have either ended up with an even more top-heavy mess or a Zoo deck. Jund is basically the only color combo that doesn't turn into "[Deck X] But Worse."

[Koby]

@ruckus: Hmm. I think Skaarg (Skarrg? I forget how to spell it) might be better. You tend to want to use all or most of your mana on your turn, and Wolf Run is three plus Run to give the same power boost of two plus Ska(a)(r)rg. I would have to test it, though.

Objectively, they do the same (give trample). I suspect that Kessig being able to pump more power might be the key however. Imagine going EOT tutor up Kessig, untap, pump for 3 and trample over for 10. Seems better in a race condition than a simple +1 power boost for 2 less mana. It does depend on the amount of mana available however.

[Aggro_zombies]

Objectively, they do the same (give trample). I suspect that Kessig being able to pump more power might be the key however. Imagine going EOT tutor up Kessig, untap, pump for 3 and trample over for 10. Seems better in a race condition than a simple +1 power boost for 2 less mana. It does depend on the amount of mana available however.

Yeah, that's why I'd have to test it. It does give you another way to win races, but I suspect that Assault plus your other burn already do that fairly well. Then again, the last time I played this deck I was running maindeck Firespout and EE, so "racing" was not something that came up often.

Oh, you know what? I forgot about Scavenging Ooze being a maindeck GSZ target in Maverick. That makes Terravore kind of worse. Hmmm.

[PollePotDK]

@Aggro: Like you say, I also think the Jund version is the best. Any other combination makes a sligthly worse version of an other established deck.

I was only saying IF Kessig was to be i included I would go RGW.

[Aggro_zombies]

@Aggro: Like you say, I also think the Jund version is the best. Any other combination makes a sligthly worse version of an other established deck.

I was only saying IF Kessig was to be i included I would go RGW.

You know, Kessig or Skaarg are probably fine as singletons in a Jund version. You're already running only one Stronghold and your choice of "trample land" falls into the same general category of card you don't necessarily want or need to see every game but still want in your 75 somewhere in case you need it.

[sdematt]

I think Crusher gets better with less Jace in the format, and better since Knight gets chewed up by Ooze (F you, Maverick).

Terravore is also good since it counts both graveyards, so you don't get totally hosed by an active Ooze. Assault gives you more ways to remove Ooze, so I'm down for that.

With all the Knight, I think we'll also want more real removal. Bolt is nice, but is Bolt enough?

RE: Skarrg/Kessig: Sure, it's decent, but wouldn't you want the recursion in case you mill your crap away?

Also, with all the Stifle/Wasteland, I think we'd best stick to 3 colours, probably Jund.

-Matt

[Aggro_zombies]

I think Crusher gets better with less Jace in the format, and better since Knight gets chewed up by Ooze (F you, Maverick).

Terravore is also good since it counts both graveyards, so you don't get totally hosed by an active Ooze. Assault gives you more ways to remove Ooze, so I'm down for that.

With all the Knight, I think we'll also want more real removal. Bolt is nice, but is Bolt enough?

-Matt

Bolt is fine for dealing with stuff like Mom or Ooze. As for Knight...Terravore goes over the top pretty easily, but Knight can find stuff like Maze to take care of that. Maybe Deathmark? There's also Terminate and Doom Blade/Go for the Throat.

[sdematt]

I think Terminate is the best you can get in Jund. It kills everything. I'm in a huge KotR meta, so Terminate has been stellar for the past five centuries.

I'm also still running Fires combo, so you don't have to worry about the little stuff too much.

-Matt

[Aggro_zombies]

I think Terminate is the best you can get in Jund. It kills everything. I'm in a huge KotR meta, so Terminate has been stellar for the past five centuries.

I'm also still running Fires combo, so you don't have to worry about the little stuff too much.

-Matt

Ah, okay. I imagine you would want Lavamancer or Fires to clear out the mana and utility dorks vs. Maverick since they're more of a pain than random fat guys (Mom in particular).

[sdematt]

True. Plus, I'm running 3 Perish and 2 Firespout in the board, so I'm hoping that helps.

I'm thinking something like:

3 Extirpate
2 Firespout
3 Perish
3 REB
2 Grip ( CounterTop lock is bad to see, for sure)
2 Ancient Grudge

-Matt

[marcel]

It...doesn't, actually. Crypt rarely kills it outright (it usually does so after combat damage), Relic does not seem to see a lot of play, and Leyline of the Void turns Crusher into a permanent 3/3 (as opposed to Terravore only getting buffs off of the opponent). Extirpate and Surgical Extraction do not kill Terravore, and those seem to be the most common graveyard hate cards right now because of their usefulness vs. Snapcaster among other things.

I mean, maybe I'm just chronically unlucky with my Countryside Crusher triggers, but I've had numerous games wherein I did not hit a single land on upkeep and had to sink time and mana into making my Crushers not suck (and trust me, 3/3s for 3 in Legacy absolutely suck). Very rarely do you live the dream of hitting five lands at once and getting them. The average for 27 lands, 33 spells seems to be around two or so lands per turn, maybe slightly less. That's not very interesting for a guy that costs three and gets actually, legitimately blanked by Mother of Runes (or chumped by Tarmogoyf, or bounced, or Bolted/Dismembered in response to his first trigger, or whatever). Terravore is better in the near- and medium-terms and I think that's what matters most; you have late-game coming out of your ears but if your midgame was any softer it would actually vanish into thin air.

I mean, yes, if your metagame is all Relics all the time, Crusher is better. But I think Terravore is worth it when that's not the case.

@ruckus: Hmm. I think Skaarg (Skarrg? I forget how to spell it) might be better. You tend to want to use all or most of your mana on your turn, and Wolf Run is three plus Run to give the same power boost of two plus Ska(a)(r)rg. I would have to test it, though.

EDIT: @Polle: Naya Loam tends to end up a lot like Big Zoo just because you share a lot of the cards but shift from being flexible to being top-heavy. I've tried to fix that but have either ended up with an even more top-heavy mess or a Zoo deck. Jund is basically the only color combo that doesn't turn into "[Deck X] But Worse."

I still don't understand, why in America and in Europe people see RGW Loam as a variation of Big Zoo...yes, you have 4 Goyf and 4 Knights, yes, you have Punishing Fire some times, but the concept of the deck is completely different.
I also don't see, how it's worse, but this is another question=)

[Richard Cheese]

On Crusher, I was under the impression that his role as a giant beater was secondary to his role as a card filtering engine. In any deck running 26-27 lands, the chance of drawing blanks multiple turns in a row is pretty high, and an active Crusher just keeps you in business spells. Terravore is good because it pushes damage through, and hits the ground fat rather than taking a few turns to get there, but other than that it has no utility. Personally I don't think they should be looked at as mutually exclusive.

[zulander]

Well, I mean, if we cut red...

Scrolling up, I'm going to use the last list I see with a good showing, which looks like this:
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
2 Mountain
3 Taiga
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Wasteland
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Mox Diamond

2 Engineered Explosives
4 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Grim Lavamancer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Seismic Assault

Cutting red frees up 13 non-land slots immediately. Assuming we swap it out for white, we automatically add 4 Knight of the Reliquary and 4 Swords to Plowshares (since we want the removal and StP is the best removal spell we have access to). That leaves 5 slots.

But wait, let's think about this. Life from the Loam gets a lot worse when you lose Seismic Assault, since its remaining uses are: #1 Waste-lock people (exciting), #2 grow your three-drops (meh), #3 draw some cards for a bunch of mana (meeeeeh). Instead of growing our threes or slowly drawing cards, why don't we just make more creatures? Let's cut some of the Loams add 4 Green Sun's Zenith, since that will both give us card advantage and increase our board presence, which is sort of like making our guys really big. But...while we're on the subject of build your own monster, there's more than one way to slice that particular cake. Stoneforge Mystic plus a small equipment toolbox would give us guys who are superior in combat, so let's use Mystic and Jitte and...hmm...Sword of Feast and Famine.

Now that I think about, shaving down on Loams makes Mox Diamonds worse. We don't need access to all the colors and two-for-one-ing ourselves seems weak. Let's cut the Diamonds for 3 Noble Hierarch and one Birds. Cutting Diamonds and Loams means we don't need nearly as many lands, so we'll cut the number down a bit. Let's also add a few miscellaneous GSZ targets so we get the full value out of the card.

But wait, what's black adding to all of this? Bob and Pulse? That doesn't seem like enough to justify making the mana worse for a third color: Pulse is very meh and Bob is better in grindy long games, something in short supply in a largely tempo-defined format. So let's cut black and add in some other ways to generate card advantage: Sylvan Library is a good one, and Elspeth is good at breaking through board stalemates.

And...voila! Here's our new Aggro Loam list:

1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Fire and Ice

3 Aven Mindcensor
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Mother of Runes
3 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Quirion Ranger
3 Stoneforge Mystic

1 Sylvan Library

4 Swords to Plowshares

1 Umezawa's Jitte

1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant

4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam

1 Forest
1 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Maze of Ith
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Savannah
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Karakas
1 Gaea's Cradle

...

I am only being a little bit of a smartass here. WBG Aggro Loam is a worse Junk deck, which itself is a worse Maverick deck. RG is really the core of Aggro Loam; cutting Crusher does not justify removing the red entirely because at that point most of your card choices start to look really suboptimal. Fixing all those suboptimal card choices rapidly leads you into the realm Maverick or Zoo, and at that point you might as well just build Maverick or Zoo because those decks are tuned.

@marcel: Like I said, I don't think people are running the kind of hate that kills Terravore right now, and Crusher not having trample or evasion is a real cost. Plus, he is really slow to get off the ground and bricking on your Crusher triggers is pretty bad for you because then you actually have to do some work to make him effective.

That deck looks terrible, not sure why you think that's what bgw would look like. Here's the deck I'm playing that doesn't play bad cards:

Mana: 28
7 Black Fetches
4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
3 Wasteland
3 Barren Moor
4 Mox Diamond
1 Dryad Arbor
1 V. Stronghold
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith

Beats: 13
4 Goyf
4 Knight
4 Green Sun Zenith
1 Pridemage

Disruption: 11
4 Swords
4 Ravens Crime
3 Liliana

Hawt-Sauce: 8
4 Loam
4 Sylvan Library

Sideboard: 15
2 Darkblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg

3 E. Tutor
2 Choke
1 Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Ring


You could cut a library or two if there isn't a crap ton of blue in your meta, but if there is then you want all 4. GSZ is great as an accelerant on turn 1 or can be a beating if you get a turn one mox and turn two GSZ. I could see someone adding in +2 removal spells if needed depending on the meta. You can play a normal board with 5 3ofs or play the tutor board which I find helps out especially when you run redundant cards, and it gets really busted when you bring in the tutor package and creatues as hate which essentially lets you run creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and 7 tutors for them.

Also, Liliana is retarded good in this deck. Library helps you not have to invest mana into drawing cards like cycling, so it's a beast. And doesn't die like bob does, I don't like bob currently.

Only thing I would change in a zoo meta is -2 library, +2 removal (go for the throat, pulse, putrefy, vindicate, wtf ever you need). If you like creatures I'd recommend the following: pridemage, ooze, mystic enforce (2 max). These guys are great in most meta's and can turn into beats pretty nicely. Don't get too cute with stoneforge and equipment. Discard their hand, remove their creatures, and beat them with big dudes. Seems pretty good.

[marcel]

That deck looks terrible, not sure why you think that's what bgw would look like. Here's the deck I'm playing that doesn't play bad cards:

Mana: 28
7 Black Fetches
4 Bayou
3 Scrubland
3 Wasteland
3 Barren Moor
4 Mox Diamond
1 Dryad Arbor
1 V. Stronghold
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith

Beats: 13
4 Goyf
4 Knight
4 Green Sun Zenith
1 Pridemage

Disruption: 11
4 Swords
4 Ravens Crime
3 Liliana

Hawt-Sauce: 8
4 Loam
4 Sylvan Library

Sideboard: 15
2 Darkblast
1 Krosan Grip
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg

3 E. Tutor
2 Choke
1 Crypt
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Ring


You could cut a library or two if there isn't a crap ton of blue in your meta, but if there is then you want all 4. GSZ is great as an accelerant on turn 1 or can be a beating if you get a turn one mox and turn two GSZ. I could see someone adding in +2 removal spells if needed depending on the meta. You can play a normal board with 5 3ofs or play the tutor board which I find helps out especially when you run redundant cards, and it gets really busted when you bring in the tutor package and creatues as hate which essentially lets you run creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and 7 tutors for them.

Also, Liliana is retarded good in this deck. Library helps you not have to invest mana into drawing cards like cycling, so it's a beast. And doesn't die like bob does, I don't like bob currently.

Only thing I would change in a zoo meta is -2 library, +2 removal (go for the throat, pulse, putrefy, vindicate, wtf ever you need). If you like creatures I'd recommend the following: pridemage, ooze, mystic enforce (2 max). These guys are great in most meta's and can turn into beats pretty nicely. Don't get too cute with stoneforge and equipment. Discard their hand, remove their creatures, and beat them with big dudes. Seems pretty good.

Why not throw out the whole loam engine and add more discard an removal and play Dark Horizons?=)

[Aggro_zombies]

Why not throw out the whole loam engine and add more discard an removal and play Dark Horizons?=)

Exactly my thoughts. Loam is pretty garbage as a card advantage engine in a format where Green Sun's Zenith, Jace TMS, and Brainstorm all exist, and you don't need more than 1-2 of them to Waste-lock people.