I built the version from scg vegas, and ran it at local event went 3/0/1, ooze is amazing main, allowing you to control knights and other spells can not be overstated
the engine swap of Lilliana for seismics 1 and 2 is an awesome thing that opponents do not really see comming and just wrecks them, we're kinda dogs to the combo match anyways, i'd rather shore up other matchups then try to raise something from less than 15 percent any higher.
I figured I can bring this back up now. Played 2 events this weekend, one was a GPT for Indy, and the 2nd was the Canadian Magic Tour legacy portion of the program.
This is what I sleeved up on saturday:
4 Life from the Loam
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Punishing Fire
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Seismic Assault
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Putrefy
1 Sylvan Library
4 Mox Diamond
4 Wasteland
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Badlands
2 Taiga
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forgotten Cave
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Mountain
Sideboard
3 Pyroblast
2 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
3 Devastating Dreams
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Thoughtseize
On sunday, the only change was:
-1 Putrefy
+1 Liliana
Both events were 6 rounds.
I lost my life totals, so this is totally by memory with no sleep, but here it goes. I probably will not give too much useful information, because I forgot it all :( .
Saturday.
R1, Deadguy Ale 2-0
Somehow, this match-up always gives me nightmares, but being able to kill his little guys with the burn helped a ton. He didn't really side in too much that I saw.
R2, Forgot, I am sorry :( I think it was UR Delver, 2-0
R3, David, UW Stoneblade, 2-1
I lose game 1 because I keep a greedy one-lander, one-mox, but get there in the 2nd and 3rd game. I think I have a really good match-up.
R4, Wilkin, Deadguy Ale, 2-1
Wilkin is a great Deadguy player, and has a very anti-me sideboard. Somehow. However, this is the games are always interesting. The trick is to win game one and hope to squeeze against the massive graveyard hate. I think game 3 came down to me having a Dark Confidant on the board long enough to grind it out.
These are how these games go anyway, every card matters. I side out at least 1-2 moxes, because I cannot afford to be hymned, then hymn myself.
R5, Hugo, UR Delver-Burn, ID
R6, Charles, Control something, ID
Top-8 David again with UW
He concedes to me since he has the byes already. I win game 1, then game 2 I have almost complete control. Then THIS happens:
I have Liliana at 2 and a Punishing Fire in hand (and other stuff). He has one or two cards, a Mishra's Factory that's tapped (and a land), and one mana open, having just cast Geist of Saint Traft. I even have a REB.
Guess how I punted?
That's right, I should have used Lili's -2 ability, then nuke the stupid factory when he animated it, and that's it for the Geist. I don't know WHY i didn't do it, instead of making us both discard a card.
That Geist single-handed wins the game for Dave. It was incredibly weird.
I lose game 3 due to keeping a land, 2 cycling lands, life, bob, REB and something else, and not getting another land for like 12 turns. It's amazing how your deck stops helping you when you punt a sure-fire game.
I have to play a good UW player next, but I still feel confident (confidant? hah hah...). But it is like 9pm, we all want to go home, and so I get the byes after punting a game because I am SMRT like that. Someone at the GP will be very happy to face me in round 4 apparently.
Anyway, today's games were simply weird. I will only point out the highlight of my dreadfulness:
- I beat combo! 2-0!
- I drew round 1 against Luke with UW, and again I made a lot of errors. I still think that the game is in your favor, even though Luke played a ton of Geists, but you cannot afford to be sloppy.
- I lost round 2 to Lam with Mongeese.dec. Creatures you cannot target are a pain in the ass!
- I lost round... 4? to Remington with Slivers. Yes, turns out... Crystalline Sliver is incredible. Again, creatures you cannot target. At least Geist and Mongeese you can block, but Slivers fly, among other things. Funny enough, I couldn't even kill Mutavaults.
FFS, I sound like a broken record. And I didn't even face the monster of those hexproof bunch, Thrun. I can't even imagine how rough he is.
So. When I started playing Aggro Loam, I had the 3-4 Countryside Crushers, but then I decided to replace them with Lilianas and more burn. I have experienced both the dizzying heights and the terrifying lows with this deck this weekend, so I cannot tell if the idea is good or not.
I really like this build I have, but I think the sideboard needs some changes, and maybe even the maindeck. Having 4 bolts and 4 fires is really good against a lot of decks, but sometimes, I feel like other things might be better (Terminate, for one, or Engineered Explosives). I like how the 4 Fires really help you against blue decks, since their control sort of stops mattering if you have a lot of lands down. UW Stoneblade is quite easy for this build as well.
The other thing is 26 land seems incredibly greedy, especially given my "Oh, I'll run this, I am feeling lucky" propaganda. I think that mulliganning becomes a lot more important, and I am sure I lost at least a few to that.
I like the 3 Lilianas maindeck. I am never sorry to see them (assuming I can cast them), and it allows you to deal with things you cannot otherwise (see: hexproof).
As for the sideboard, I think I might go one of two ways:
1) Take out the Extirpates, take out the Thoughtseizes, put in 4 Inquisitions of Kozilek, and 2 something else. I have played IoK since it was legal, and I am always amazed at how good it can be. You wouldn't put Thoughtseizes in against Burn (hey, seems popular), but IoK is really good. It's still there for your "I think I can beat combo with my Life from the Loam deck". I also will go assuming GY decks are non-existent... OR!
2) Take out the Extirpates, take out the Thoughtseizes, put in 4 Leylines and 2 Extirpate/Cranial Extraction (yes, I am taking out Extirpate to put in Extirpate). This will give you a better match-up against GY decks, of which I HOPED would be less. I feel safe with this selection, but if anyone has advice...
I think the 4 REB and 3 Devastating Dreams are solid. Krosan Grips are good, but I never really bother siding them in unless I face Affinity, Tezzeret or Countertop. I still wouldn't mind keeping them in.
Anyway, I will have to try Scavenging Ooze maindeck, maybe going down to 3 goyfs (or taking out one of something else). I now have to go FIND Scavenging Ooze.
So I'm trying a new build. Notice no more Fires.
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mires
2 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Wasteland
3 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
1 Barbarian Ring
3 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
1 Terravore
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Sylvan Library
4 Terminate
3 Seismic Assault
1 Noxious Revival (so far, the tits)
BOARD:
2 Noxious Revival
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
3 REB
3 Virtue's Ruin
So far, it's been super fun to play. Fires isn't missed. Ring is nice to have a colourless damage source against Mom's and recurring 2 damage against Jace and such if no Assault is up. EE has come back, and it's been stellar. The singleton Revival has been so good, considering sometimes you just mill all your Assaults, and I don't want to play Eternal Witness.
-Matt
Is there still no love for the blue splash? Brainstorm and Intuition do so much for the deck, Ruins + EE does just about everything you would need Maelstrom Pulse for, and you even get Spell Pierce postboard for combo.
For me, if I'm going to play Blue, I'll run BUG Control with Intuition. I'm not brave enough to switch out Black for Blue yet. I do love Worm Harvest, Loam, Darkblast, and all that great stuff. Maybe I'll give your list a whirl.
@ Antonius
I've been loving the Oozes, especially since we're playing all non-RFG removal. Thanks for playing them :)
-Matt
The BUG list is cool too, I had a thread in N&D called The Mind Harvester that seems to have disappeared, but BUG is a pure control deck, whereas the RUG list I'm talking about is still very much Aggro Loam.
Oh god, this again?Originally Posted by Hanni
Blue is still not worth splashing for. Brainstorm is worse than repeatable draw and Intuition alone is not good enough. This deck doesn't need help finding bombs. It already has plenty, and adding a tutor to the cmc slot of your deck that already has the most competition does nothing to make your early and mid-games less squishy. I suppose you could construe Brainstorm as helping with that but there's honestly nothing I would want to cut for an uber-cycling land I can't recur with Loam.
I'm still assuming you never tried it, either. Trying to run Dark Confidant in a format filled with Lightning Bolts just doesn't seem fruitful, and you are seriously underestimating what blue offers.
Why run a ton of cycle lands that are junk in the early game compared to Brainstorm? The cycle lands are only good after you assemble Loam, which still isn't a problem for the blue splash, since the deck still runs 4 cycle lands and can even tutor for them with Intuition if needed.
I can see the point of running 3-4 Loam's being better than 4 Intuition 4 Burning Wish and 1 Loam in a countermagic heavy meta, since even if it's countered, it's still active. However, the ability to Intuition for Loam and the powerful toolbox is just so strong.
Plus you're also ignoring the fact that access to Spell Pierce, and other blue goodies if you feel the need, shores up your worst matchups.
At any rate, I've never stated that the blue splash is strictly better than Jund, but it seems arrogant to discredit it as a viable splash for the deck.
EDIT: My list does run 4 Lightning Bolts. I'm not sure what more early game you want, considering I only cut midrangey stuff to fit other midrangey stuff with the blue splash anyway.
My list from back in 2011, for reference:
R/G/u Aggro Loam
// Lands (24)
4 [ON] Wooded Foothills
3 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Taiga
1 [R] Volcanic Island
1 [R] Tropical Island
3 [UNH] Mountain
1 [UNH] Forest
3 [ON] Forgotten Cave
1 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [TE] Wasteland
// Creatures (8)
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [MOR] Countryside Crusher
// Spells (28)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
4 [JU] Burning Wish
4 [R] Lightning Bolt
3 [EX] Seismic Assault
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
// Sideboard (15)
SB: 1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
SB: 1 [TO] Nostalgic Dreams
SB: 1 [PS] Hull Breach
SB: 1 [TO] Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 [SHM] Firespout
SB: 2 [4E] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [IA] Pyroblast
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [LG] Karakas
Intuition sounds terrible. Its so slow. So is burning wish.
The new piece that blue adds to the deck since the last time i was discussed is Snapcaster Mage. With brainstorm, lightning bolt, dismember and possibly chain lightning, he could be pretty good. Some play with noxious revival out of the sideboard seems cool as hell too. It still seems like it would be lower in overall power level than what you can get out of Jund colors though.
@ Razvan: That list seems pretty cool. I might try something like it. Have any issues with color consistency? is getting BB with three badlands and a bayou a lot easier? Also, tarmogoyf is trash, man. I would cut him entirely and some of the 3cc removal for crushers and two ooze. With so much burn in your list to keep Jace in check, maelstrom pulse seems less necessary. I mean, other than enchantress stuff and leyline, our deck can just power through the artifacts and enchantments in the format.
So slow compared to what? Dropping a Dark Confidant and drawing 1 additional card every turn? I mean, if it survives, you're looking at a few turns until it generates enough card advantage to be on par with Intuition's card advantage anyways, and 2/1's with no equipment don't swing too often in this format.
Intuition can be cast on turn 2 with a Mox. Once you get Loam going, it doesn't take very long to get a swarm of 1/1 tokens on the board to hold aggro at bay, at which point it only takes another turn or two to go Empty the Warrens on someone.
I'm not disagree'ing that Intuition/Loam isn't a little slow, I'm just not understanding why everyone is dismissing the idea like they've actually tried it and failed with it, and with a list with it that was actually built well.
Burning Wish being slow I also don't get. This isn't 2010 where Zoo and Merfolk are the DTB, and you don't have time to Burning Wish for a Firespout before you get destroyed. The format has slowed down alot, and there is alot more midrange decks getting played these days. You actually have time to do shit now.
The key here is that a hand with three intuitions is most probably trash while a hand with three confidants is going to blow someone out. You need to re-evaluate some of your generalizations. Two power creatures attack a lot more than you think. And that damage matters a lot more than you think.
see, the primary problem I see with both burning wish and intuition is Spell Snare. Spell Snare on confidant... you can try to play around it, but it happens. Every time someone spell snares your burning wish, though, you're going to grit your teeth while wishing it was a loam, given that you get loam like 90% of the time...
If you intuition up Loam/worm harvest/whatever, then you've pretty much tipped your hand. You might as well tell your opponent: counter my loam until you can tempo me out with dudes or get a clique in hand. If that intuition was just a pocket loam, it would be a much more dubious decision. Countering it could really set you back in mana development or it could open them up to being fucked sideways by confidant/crusher/whatever other resolving threat next turn.
I remember why I quit posting in this thread. I guess Burning Wish getting Spell Snare'd is worse than Dark Confidant getting Snare'd, since they both cost 2 mana and 1 card. I guess casting Intuition for Loam gives up too much information, gotta be afraid of that Clique. Not like dredging Loam would get it Clique'd away any differently or anything. Plus, using Intuition to grab Loam is gonna get tempo countered constantly where a hardcast one wouldn't. Thanks for the insight.
He has legitimate points, you know. I know you have a raging hard-on for blue, but not every deck wants it.
Look, if I wanted a tutor in Aggro Loam, I'd start with Entomb. Let's assume that our primary Entomb target is going to be Loam because, hey, the deck is built around Loam, so having consistent access to the card is a good idea. Entomb for Loam does the same thing Intuition for Loam does but for a fraction of the mana; getting the Loam to hand or having multiple Loams available (if you run multiple in the main) is a marginal benefit over just having a Loam, and there's little practical difference between Intuition and Entomb when you're casting them EOT. I'll admit that Intuition for Loam and two cycling lands is usually going to be better than Entomb for just Loam. But...
...but there's no part of this deck's game plan wherein casting five-mana Harmonizes until your good cards show up is your primary goal. Loam is an accessory to what the deck is trying to do: be a midrange control deck. Yes, sometimes drawing cards off of Life from the Loam is the best thing you can be doing, but often your opponents are not going to give you the luxury of time that requires. Often you will want to Loam back fetchlands to build your mana in the early game or Loam back Wastelands to stop your opponent's development in the first couple of turns, and Entomb is just better for that because it costs less. Okay, sure, if your opener had no fetches or Wastelands then Intuition for Foothills, Loam, Wasteland is fine, but I would not want to consume my entire second or third turn to do basically nothing to affect the board state.
Intuition vs. Entomb for other cards isn't that different, either. With Stronghold in your deck, you can safely Entomb for creatures. You can't really Entomb for Assault without Witness (who is meh), but you can Entomb for Punishing Fires, which does a reasonable Assault impression and is not bad in this deck as early-game redundancy. Looking at your build specifically, Intuition for EE is the only thing you can't profitably mimic with Entomb. You got me there.
I'm not sold on Brainstorm with this deck either; I would rather have Bob or Sylvan Library. The important factor here is that they're repeatable sources of card advantage that lessen your reliance on Loam to draw cards. Yes, your build can consistently set up Loam plus cycling lands, but it has to do so in order to have good draws, whereas Antonius's or sdematt's builds don't need Loam to create good hands. If I'm in blue I would actually rather use Jace TMS because, in addition to the Brainstorms, he also gets rid of troublesome utility creatures and blockers and can kill the opponent outside of combat in case they're on the Infinite StPs plan.
Black also offers far better sideboard options than blue. The worst matchups by far are the combo ones and four random soft counters are not going to change the fact that you can't clock the opponent to save your life, your deck is half mana, and you are casting Intuition for Loam and some cycling lands so that you can spin your wheels while they recover from your Spell Pierce. This is, incidentally, why I don't understand the occasional fascination with adding counters to the deck to "improve" the combo matchup; blue-based decks don't win vs. combo by having just a couple of counters, they win by having consistent and early access to lots of counters plus a good clock or some other long-term disruption plan (like Snapcaster). Aggro Loam has neither a good clock nor a long-term disruption plan beyond perhaps trying to Wastelock the opponent, which only works some of the time (ANT, for example, has lots of basics). I would actually rather just run 4 Chalice than 4 Spell Pierce because the Chalices will buy me more time than a random one-of Pierce will.
Basically, I'm honestly not sure what blue provides here that's not better done with Jund. It doesn't really solve any of this deck's problems and actually creates a few more along the way because it pigeonholes you into making certain plays that aren't usually very strong and can be downright costly under pressure.
EDIT: And for the record, I did try blue in the deck, probably before you even brought it up the first time. It was terrible.
I didn't mean to come off as an ass in my last response, but I had a bit of a buzz last night. Anyway, I'm going not going to push the issue any further. I like the blue splash, you guys don't, I get it.
If you want to sell people on the blue splash being viable, you need to do a better job of articulating what the Jund splash's issues are and then doing a point-by-point discussion of why the blue splash fixes them. I think most people in this thread would agree that the Jund splash ain't broke, and it's not immediately clear to me from your posted build what the blue splash does to fix known problems without generating a whole slew of its own issues.
I mean, from where I'm sitting, the blue splash looks like you removed recurring sources of card advantage for more powerful but also less impactful ones and then added a clunky tutor so that you can consistently set up clunky late-game engines or do something completely irrelevant like Intuition for three Tarmogoyfs or something. This seems like a very bad trade to me.
Hanni- I fully support the blue splash and all it has to offer the loan engine. I am having a real hard time not playing white in any of my decks due to the presence of huge creatures for little to no mana. Swords/paths are very necessary in my mind and Every deck in this metagame should have an answer to huge knights/goyfs.
The jund versions of the deck can grow creatures larger than any deck it will face and also has terminate to kill what really needs to die. I don't think that the blue plan offers enough without splashing for the fourth color it's the fear style.
When I play a loam list I always plan on what I have to do when I cannot get the Loam engine online. For me this is dark confidant for others it it grim lavamancer or punishing fires. You seem to have burning wish for loam as a back up plan and that seems weak against anything thy can answer your loam again.
Don't stop innovating the loam list because I love all that you do and plan on building this when I get home, I haven't played blue with loan since ITF was good.
"eggs... why'd it have to be eggs"
AZ, I've done that all before, and spent more words than I'd like to waste again, because it was all for naught. I'd articulate the idea if I thought it was going to get fruitful results, but I'm pretty sure at this point that it won't.
But to respond to your immediate point about not shoring up Jund's weaknesses and having more issues of its own, the only reason backbreaking difference with the blue splash vs black is that I cut Dark Confidant for Intuition. I feel like Dark Confidant in a deck with no way to protect him and no equipment, especially in the metagame right now, is alot worse than Intuition. I also know from experience that Intuition is alot more powerful of a draw engine than you give it credit for. It basically reads draw 3 for 3... sorry, tutor 3 for 3. Which then leads to recurring card advantage through Loam and Harvest. Also, Intuition for 3 Goyf seems a bit dumb when you can tutor for Harvest instead.
Brainstorm also increases the consistency a great deal, which was one the major issues that I always had with Aggro Loam during the early game. The heavy cycle land manabase and loads of nonbasics make the early game mana development sometimes confusing.
I also did address that the blue splash postboard shores up the combo matchup, depending on how many blue spells you want to sideboard for it. I only run 4 Spell Pierce, but it's always possible to run more.
1/1 Worm tokens prevent Goyfs and Knights from doing anything, and most fliers are capable of being dealt with through Seismic Assault. Goyf and Knight can also be dealt with through EE or blocking with our own Goyf or Crusher, so there are ways of coping without needing white. Tombstalker can be a pain to deal with, though.Hanni- I fully support the blue splash and all it has to offer the loan engine. I am having a real hard time not playing white in any of my decks due to the presence of huge creatures for little to no mana. Swords/paths are very necessary in my mind and Every deck in this metagame should have an answer to huge knights/goyfs.
Anyway, I'm not really interested in continuing this discussion anymore, AZ and Antonious really killed my Aggro Loam mood. Sorry guys.
@Hanni: ...? Okay. I mean, I'm not going to rag on you too much here, but assuming that people should accept the blue splash because it's the blue splash and then getting upset when people point out its flaws seems a little over the top. I mean, yes, we've been over it before, and we decided before that it wasn't good enough. I don't think the format has shifted in such a way as to make it better; if anything, I think casting Intuition for just about any combination of cards is just not good enough in this meta, and certainly not for Loam plus cycling lands. You may not be able to protect Bob, but how many decks are going to give you the time to durdle around with the black holes for tempo that are Intuition, Burning Wish, and Loam? Sylvan Library is a reasonable Bob substitute that generates a ton of card quality for little investment, and it costs less than casting Intuition.
I mean, as far as I can tell, you believe the blue splash is good because of some inherent and circular belief that Brainstorm is worth splashing for because it's Brainstorm and that Aggro Loam values redundancy, therefore we should cram the deck full of tutors. I mean, okay, sure, but like I said, Entomb is an on-color tutor for most builds and it's not even good enough, so why move out of black and sacrifice Pulse, Bob, Extirpate, and Virtue's Ruin/Perish for something we could already emulate?
If you don't want to discuss it, that's fine, but don't bring it up in the first place if you're not prepared or willing to argue your points.
@lavafrogg: I've never been a fan of four colors because the mana becomes excessively greedy. It's bad enough that you often need Mox Diamond to have a competitive curve, but to need it to even start casting your spells is just terrible. You can answer Goyf with Goyf or large Crushers and answer Knight with Terminate, Scavenging Ooze (for lands - remember it can target any card in a graveyard but only gets the bonus from creatures), and EE. The bigger issue is equipment since you have fewer answers to that and it can grant evasion (Swords of X and Y).
You cast Intuition once to grab Loam, cast Loam once to have enough lands, and then cast Worm Harvest for some 1/1's tokens for stability. Not sure how that's a blackhole worth of tempo loss, especially when you can hold the mana open for Intuition to cast on EOT, incase you needed to cast Lightning Bolt or something else. Especially since if you had cast Loam from hand instead, you'd still be doing the same thing anyway, minus having Harvest. Plus once you get Loam + Harvest going, it's only a matter of turns before you swarm the opponent with 1/1 tokens for the win.
The main point of the splash is for Intuition, not Brainstorm, but I think Brainstorm adds a tremendous amount of value for the deck at any rate.
And it's not like I didn't plan on coming in here and everyone dropping their Jund lists for blue, but this is also one of the few threads where I come in and suggest an idea that has pros to go with the cons, only to eat a stream of posts telling me me "Oh god, this again?" I'm not stating that the blue splash is strictly superior to the black splash, but the fact that the idea gets slapped down with constant negativity makes it hard for me to want to even bother trying to discuss the issue. This feels like 2008 all over again, when I suggested Counterbalance in Landstill.
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