[Deck] Aggro Loam

[Aggro_zombies]

Perish is a known quantity against Maverick/random green stuff, but I wanted to see if Dreams specifically was enough. If it was, then going Naya becomes easier because you can just swap Perishes in the board to Dreams and still be good against aggro decks.

Dreams has the upside of destroying lands, which is randomly useful in non-aggro matchups. However, Perish is more effective as a Wrath. So I dunno.

EDIT: I should add that Dreams was a 1-of in my board for testing purposes. I probably won't use it if I stay on Jund.

[lavafrogg]

Your burn/dredge match ups involve them keeping sub par hands. Discard can usually get you from the start of the game to landing your hate card on turn 3, especially against more traditional combo. Usually you will be dead by the time an ooze gets active, not saying turn one ooze=> go cant happen, it just is not reliable.

I also find a hole in the 24-26 land as a negative in that 4-6 of those land cycle into gas. I constantly play games with loam where I see ever card I want to see in a matchup. 1 piece of disruption can buy time for the cyclers and confidant to find more disruption. 20 lands with 2-6 cantrips has a better chance of finding cards it needs.

Against interactive decks game one I feel loam has the edge in that card quantity can overwhelm an underprepared opponent. Games two and three you have to plan to play most of the game without loam/without a graveyard and plan accordingly. Jace is a game winner, their is no question when you have no hand/no board and they have no hand/no board and they drop a jace, you probably lose that game. But loam has an effect way before a jace should hit the board, recurring wastelands should keep their mana in check and recurring cycle lands and stronghold should keep creatures on the table. I feel like the loam deck can always be ahead in a control matchup and it is up to the control player to combat loam or lose.

I dont even know what I am arguing at this point. The beliefs on this forum and only changed by the opinions of the few and a tournament report from a winning list. I have no support and no report to offer. Ill be waiting with my junk lists if anyone feels that loam can do better than just a metagame deck.

[Vacrix]

Perish is a known quantity against Maverick/random green stuff, but I wanted to see if Dreams specifically was enough. If it was, then going Naya becomes easier because you can just swap Perishes in the board to Dreams and still be good against aggro decks.

Dreams has the upside of destroying lands, which is randomly useful in non-aggro matchups. However, Perish is more effective as a Wrath. So I dunno.

EDIT: I should add that Dreams was a 1-of in my board for testing purposes. I probably won't use it if I stay on Jund.

I would think that Dreams would be good against aggro actually considering it can wipe their entire board and keep them off lands, while Aggro Loam has a much easier time recovering from DD and then stabilizing. Also it gets rid of basics which compliments wasteland nicely. I'd imagine against a deck like Goblins they'll have an easier time recovering given that they play Vial, but Maverick wouldn't have it so easy. Also, in the non-aggro matchups you risk it getting Snared or Pierced, which is makes it a much more costly investment given that the discard is an additional cost.

I guess I'll find out in a few minutes when I start playing your list. Gotta say though.. Punishing Fire coupled with Seismic Assault looks pretty savage.

[Aggro_zombies]

The annoying parts about Dreams are that it's really not good if you don't have an active Life from the Loam, and it's random discard. I have definitely Dreams'd myself out of games doing exactly this - randomly discarding the land in my hand that I needed to Loam back my other destroyed lands, then not drawing another land for a few turns. I have also been in situations wherein I randomly discarded cards I wanted to keep and couldn't get them back fast enough. It's not a card I'm happy with playing because its usefulness varies so much. Perish doesn't have the same highs, but is much more consistent.

@lavafrogg: I'm not sure what to tell you, then. True Junk lists (that don't have Life from the Loam, run fewer lands, and have more discard and creatures) tend to struggle with combo precisely because discard alone does not get there; eventually, they will draw themselves into a good hand and kill you if you don't pressure them. Every time you pay mana to cycle a land, you are giving them more time to recover. Every time you brick by drawing a Mox Diamond, or a land that doesn't cycle, or a random Loam, you give them time to recover. Have you ever watched RUG versus, say, Ad Noz? Or, better yet, have you ever played RUG versus storm combo? I have. Doing so is pretty instructive and will tell you a lot about why Aggro Loam can't beat combo.

As for Loam, well...the metagame is full of Surgical Extractions and Snapcaster Mages right now. Constantly playing around that is a pain in the ass. I don't feel that Loam automatically favors you going long against control, especially not versus Snapcaster and Jace; UW Stoneblade's mana is not as shaky as you might think, and it is particularly easy for them to fetch basics and just blank Wasteland.

So yeah, dunno what to tell you. I prefer to talk about things that put up results because they're known quantities that can do well in large competitive settings.

[kortero]

Hello,

Last saturday I played a stock jund list in a 5 round tournament here in Finland. I started out 3-0 against UB delver, burn and a homebrew bgw loam with new Sorin's and such. After that I got paired against hivemind. I even won the game 1 as he didn't find any action, but in the next two he topdecked his way out of my thoughtseize into surgical starts. In the last round I got paired against an almost identical jund list. The mirror is pretty boring as the first one to find loam pretty much wins it. My hands were fine in g1 and g2, but his was just better. 3-0 into 3-2. Well, one can't win it all. Oh, and seismic assault (I played 3 of them) was as good as always winning me games here and there. Noxious revival was also nuts out of the sideboard. On the paper it felt like "meh", but during the games it was really good. The card is just so versatile that it's one of the few cards that are non-questionable in my sb in the future.

While I still enjoy the deck as much as I did enjoy it the first time I tried it more that two years ago at gp madrid (even made day2), I've been thinking if a legacy version of the "modern loam" would be any good. This is my latest list:

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Badland
2 Bayou
1 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
1 Volrath's Stronhold
2 Forgotten Cave
1 Tranquil Thicket

3 Mox Diamond

4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf

4 Life from the Loam
4 Faithless Looting
1 Thoughseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
2 Flame Jab

3 Punishing Fire

3 Liliana of the Veil

3 Seismic Assault

The list is really tight. I had to go down to 25 lands and 3 moxes instead of 27/4 to fit in the spells I wanted. Lootings also help to dig for lands and get rid of useless moxes later on. The basic configuration of 7 cycling lands became 4 looting and 3 cycling lands. Btw., Looting is nuts in this kind of build, but that shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone. 3 point discards + 2 raven's crime feels like a solid amount. 3 punishing fires + 2 (one mana) burn spells should work as well. I'm not sure though if the flame jabs are a good fit in legacy, and if few lightning bolts would just be better. The deck needs to have a critical amount of cards that one wants to dredge and loot to gy and that's one of the reasons why I currently have the jabs in. Few Scavenging Oozes might/would/should be good also, but I haven't been able to fit them either. Again, I though that the md of a stock jund loam is tight, but this deck.. Manabase might look sketchy, but it has worked well so far. Filter lands might fix things, but the biggest problem with them is the fact that they don't provide colored mana on turn 1 and this build has 9-11 t1 plays. Other basics than forest are really hard to justify, but I feel that the forest is needed for loaming purposes against mana denial.

Anyway, this is what I'm goldfishing at the moment. The deck feels solid and I'm eagerly waiting to try it out in a tournament to see if it really is any good in legacy. I understand that it's risky to get more gy oriented as splash hate will hit the deck even harder than before, but other than that, I feel that this kind of build might be worth pursuing into.. Try it out or comment just by looking at the build. Any feedback is welcome!

B r,
Roope

[sdematt]

That Jund list looks like a Modern list with Mox Diamonds and 3 Cycling lands. This isn't to say that's bad, just an observation.

RE: Maelstrom Pulse

It also doubles as creature removal, Aggro. Sure, it's slow, but it does also kill Jace, which can be a problem if you're not active, or Elspeth or whatever that's going to kill you.

If your real trouble is the equipment or the creatures, I ran Putrefy back when MM was in the meta and it was great. Instant speed was REALLY nice. But, if creatures aren't the issue for you AT ALL, just run 1 or 2 Ancient Grudge in the main. You won't care if you mill them, and you free up sideboard space, allowing you to play something else, like discard, etc.

RE: REB from the board

REB gives you more game against Counterbalance, which literally murders us, and Maelstrom Pulse also takes out Counterbalance. RUG is playing it in the board. Sure, it is really slow for them to do so, and probably not worth bringing in, but if you're facing it, it's fucking miserable to get locked on 2. But, the same could be said about preemptive discard, so whatever.

I used to play 2 Fires and 3 Grove, again, back during the MM meta, but I keep coming back to the fact that it's slow and I don't get as much value as I feel I should be getting. Maybe running a full set would make me "see the light," but it just feels REALLY derdly.

I'm thinking:

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Barbarian Ring
3 Forgotten Cave
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Taiga
2 Badlands
1 Bayou
3 Wasteland
26

3 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
3 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Terravore
13

4 Mox Diamond
2 Sylvan Library
3 Seismic Assault
4 Life from the Loam
13

2 Maelstrom Pulse (or 1 Pulse 1 Putrefy, or 2 Grudge, or 1 Grudge 1 Pulse, etc.)
3 Ghastly Demise
4 Lightning Bolt (or 2 Bolt, 2 Lavamancer, or whatever, just brainstorming)
9

--BOARD--
2 Virtue's Ruin
1 Devastating Dreams
2 Krosan Grip
1 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Ancient Grudge (or if these are in the main, something else)
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Noxious Revival

-Matt

[kortero]

That Jund list looks like a Modern list with Mox Diamonds and 3 Cycling lands. This isn't to say that's bad, just an observation.

That's absolutely true. What the deck gains compared to the modern version is Mox Diamonds for acceleration and Punishing Fire/Grove combo. I just don't know yet if that's enough :)

[Aggro_zombies]

@sdematt: I haven't had a problem with P Fire being durdley. It's a pretty solid way to keep everything smaller than Tarmogoyf off the table and gives you another way to kill planeswalkers. What I dislike most about it is having to run Grove of the Burnwillows.

As for Pulse - I get that it can kill creatures, but it's often something I'm reluctant to do because, with the exception of Knight, basically every creature I'm killing with it costs less, and many of them have CiP abilities to make Pulse feel even sillier. I suppose I can see keeping it in over Grudge or discard spells because it also kills Jace, but it's the first thing I take out in a lot of matchups.

@kortero: I have a couple of issues with that build. For starters, I don't think either Raven's Crime or Flame Jab is good enough in Legacy; the latter is pretty eclipsed by Lavamancer, Punishing Fire, Lightning Bolt, and Seismic Assault, while the former is often win-more when it isn't being downright terrible (i.e., against aggro decks). I'd considering swapping the Crimes to IoKs and turning the jabs into extra cycling lands or maybe a Scavenging Ooze or two. I feel like that build is a little threat-light, making it softer than normal to StP + Snapcaster, but that may be something you can remedy in game two.

[Richard Cheese]

I think Beast Within is a decent substitute for Pulse in Aggro Loam. A 3/3 is rarely anything you care about, and a pretty small downside for something that's easy on the manabase, and instant.

Just a thought, but Aggro Loam could pretty easily board in Cursed Totem, as it hoses Maverick pretty bad, but doesn't affect our own creatures. Probably not worth the spots though, as Maverick isn't a terrible matchup to begin with.

If Snapcaster --> Extraction is really the biggest hurdle the deck has to overcome in the current meta, there's always Torpor Orb! Turns off SFM too, along with a handful of other oddball creatures.

[Aggro_zombies]

I think Beast Within is a decent substitute for Pulse in Aggro Loam. A 3/3 is rarely anything you care about, and a pretty small downside for something that's easy on the manabase, and instant.

Just a thought, but Aggro Loam could pretty easily board in Cursed Totem, as it hoses Maverick pretty bad, but doesn't affect our own creatures. Probably not worth the spots though, as Maverick isn't a terrible matchup to begin with.

If Snapcaster --> Extraction is really the biggest hurdle the deck has to overcome in the current meta, there's always Torpor Orb! Turns off SFM too, along with a handful of other oddball creatures.

My beef with Pulse is the 3cmc. If it was just BG, I'd run it all day and be happy. But then again, Pulse for BG seems too good in general.

Snapcaster's power can be mitigated by running your own Surgicals (although I'm wondering if Surgical is necessarily better than Extirpate here). My biggest issue out of the blue decks is Jace + board control. If they cast Jace and Brainstorm, or cast Jace and have a bunch of cards in hand, you are probably screwed because they'll be able to protect him from removal and your dorks for several turns (or at least until you run out of removal and dorks). P Fires are quite good here, but I want something else. Jace is the blue deck's biggest out to you just smashing them.

[sdematt]

But, Surgical is also mitigated by Grim Lavamancer, Cycling Lands, and Noxious Revival. You're also boarding out 1 Loam and 1 Seismic in Game 2, usually.

Oh for sure, if Pulse was BG, I'd run that shit to the point of infinite.

RE: Beast Within,

You'd be surprised how good a 3/3 is. Sure, not as good as a Jace, but if you have to use it on an Equipment or something, a 3/3 pounding your face in, in addition to the other creatures they have, it's nothing to sneeze at. It's definitely an option though, I do like instant speed Planeswalker removal. Response to your Jace-storm, muck it?

RE: Cursed Totem

Totem is pretty good, and does bone Ooze (what a cunt) and Qasali (again, cunt). I'm good with this, but, what are you cutting? In reality, I'd almost want to run more regular removal.

RE: Removal

So guys, in general, let's get down to brass tacks, what are we worried about? What cards/creatures are giving us trouble? We're having trouble deciding on the removal to use to due , a) being in Jund for the most part, thereby giving us more but worse options than per the normal, b) no general consensus as to what's boning us.

I know this was posted above, but consider the following: /Bill Nye voice

Bolt: Hits Jace (most of the time they'll Brainstorm, since we usually don't have pressure), so this kills Jace. Doesn't kill Goyf, Knight, Ooze (depending).
Lavamancer: Reusuable 2-damage, but mucks our own graveyard. Bad with Ghastly, but decent overall.
Maelstrom Pulse: Hits Jace, takes out tokens (important possibly in the Esper matchup), hits Goyf, Knight, etc. Slow.
Ghastly Demise: Hits everything except Jace and Batterskull token, but bad really early on, fine otherwise. Soft to Ooze.
Putrefy: Bad on the mana, but instant speed equipment and creature removal. Kills all the creatures, even Knight, Ooze, Goyf, etc.
Engineered Explosives: Can kill Jace, but can also have friendly fire. Soft to Stifle and Qasali.
Punishing Fires: Inevitability, but slow as hell. Hits Jace, but doesn't kill Knight, Ooze, Goyf, etc.
Deathmark: Doesn't hit Jace, but kills Knight, Goyf, Ooze regardless of P/T. Not graveyard dependent. Doesn't cost 2.
Terminate: Kills all the creatures, but Spell Snareable, not graveyard dependent.

So essentially, we're facing down a few main threats here. Equipment/Batterskull, Jace, Knight, and Ooze. Ooze bones our Loam gameplan and graveyard, Batterskull is crafty to deal with, Knight is huge and can avoid non-destroy removal, and Jace is a huge problem regarding creature combat and pulling ahead.

So, we have 9-10 slots in the main (I suggest 9-10 dedicated to removal, like back when it was MM.meta) to be able to deal with the tide of stuff. I think if we're running Jund, we NEED 2-3 sweepers in the board, either Perish or Virtue's Ruin.

Ideally, we're looking for a combination of card(s) that overlap our 4 main categories the most: kills big things, kills Jace, not graveyard dependent, kills little things.

By my calculation, Bolt covers 3/4, Terminate covers 3/4, Putrefy covers 3/4, Ghastly covers 2/4, Deathmark covers 2.5/4 (limited), Punishing Fires covers 2/4, Lavamancer covers 2/4, Pulse covers 4/4 (but slow, more like 3.5), beast covers 4/4 (but 3/3, so 3.25/4). By this assumption, our removal suite should be some combination of:

Maelstrom Pulse (awkward mana)
Lightning Bolt
Terminate (Spell Snare)
Putrefy (awkward mana)
Deathmark (kills Ooze/Knight/Goyf, easy on mana)

What about:
1)

1 Putrefy
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Deathmark
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
@ 10 pieces of removal.

total score: 3+3.5+5+12+6=29.5

Or:

2)

1 Putrefy
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Deathmark
2 Terminate
@ 10 pieces of removal = 30

Or:

3)

1 Putrefy
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Deathmark
2 Terminate
@ 9 pieces of removal

My point is, we need to see what's doing what and why and when. So against the top decks, like see what's a dead card, assuming suite one or two:

Delver: Deathmark is the only one that's not the greatest here, but save it for Goyf.

Stoneblade: Deathmark only good against the tokens or SFM, everything else is fine. Maelstrom and Bolt only hit Jace, none of your other stuff does.

Maverick: Bolts don't kill Knights, but everything else, but Deathmark is the nuts here.

As we can see even from before, Deathmark isn't the tits in 2/3 of the big matchups, but is insanely good in the 1/3. I'd almost warrant running it unless you're all Delver in your meta.

I don't like Beast, in all honesty. You're creating another problem.

Thoughts?

-Matt

[Aggro_zombies]

The problem with Putrefy is that it's like a bad Terminate when aimed at a creature and a bad Maelstrom Pulse when not aimed at a creature. I generally want my creature removal to either cost less than the things it's killing or come with some awesome bonus.

I think Terminate is fine for killing big things. There aren't a ton of decks right now that run big creatures AND Spell Snare - Stoneblade, for example, gets mopped up pretty handily by Punishing Fire. Against Maverick, Bolt, Lavamancer, and Fire can keep small guys in check, and they probably don't have a way to stop Terminate aside from Mom. It seems less narrow than Deathmark to me, but maybe the narrower card is fine given how many creatures are green or white these days.

Burn can occasionally kill a Tarmogoyf, either in conjunction with Ooze or post-combat if they blocked with it. Fire is great for this if they aren't keeping track of it in the graveyard.

I really, really like how much card advantage P Fires provide. There are points in the game against aggro where having an active Fire means the opponent is just dead to your guys because they will never be able to keep a blocker on the table. It also makes semi-swarm strategies (like Maverick) way worse because they usually can't play guys quickly enough to outpace your Fires...and then all their guys die, and they die to your Crushers. The card is great at mopping things up.

That said, I agree that the removal suite needs work. Lightning Bolt feels good against aggro because it increase the density of kill spells early, but I haven't yet felt like a game came down to Bolting the opponent for the last points of damage. I like the flexibility on paper, but in practice...maybe a Bolt/Deathmark split is worth it. I don't know.

Also, the 1-of Library in my build can probably go. It's the definition of "okay" when I get it, but only running one means I rarely see it, and I feel like that slot could be better as something else. Fires provide a lot of card advantage, so I don't feel like I need more, per se.

[bfeingersh]

Is there any reason to board Dread of Night? I like the idea of playing it ever since I saw it in Nick Spagnolo's invitational list, but is it better than other alternatives we could be playing (Virtue's Ruin, Devastating Dreams, etc.)?

I'm going to bring some to my weekly legacy thing tonight and see how it goes.

[Aggro_zombies]

Is there any reason to board Dread of Night? I like the idea of playing it ever since I saw it in Nick Spagnolo's invitational list, but is it better than other alternatives we could be playing (Virtue's Ruin, Devastating Dreams, etc.)?

I'm going to bring some to my weekly legacy thing tonight and see how it goes.

What does Dread of Night actually kill?

Dies:
Mother of Runes
Spirit tokens
Aven Mindcensor
Thalia

Does not die:
Qasali
Knight
Stoneforge
Geist
Teeg
Canonist

Of the things that die, Mom seems like the most important, followed by Thalia (who is more annoying than actually game-changing). Not killing Knight, Qasali, Stoneforge, or various other niche cards seems kind of bad, though.

I guess against Esper versions the Spirit tokens are annoying. But you have other ways to soften up an Esper deck.

[Koby]

I still think that DD is the best way to fight Maverick. Just make sure to not get locked out from re-Loaming after the DD.

[Aggro_zombies]

I still think that DD is the best way to fight Maverick. Just make sure to not get locked out from re-Loaming after the DD.

Dreams, huh. I've been on the fence about Dreams or Perish versus aggro decks. I like that Perish kills Knight and mana dorks, no questions asked, but also murdering half my own guys does not feel good.

[Koby]

That is, provided that Knight can also be answered. Perish/Virtue's Ruin is good in that respect. Also, DD is just better in Naya Loam too since the alternative doesn't exist.

[Aggro_zombies]

That is, provided that Knight can also be answered. Perish/Virtue's Ruin is good in that respect. Also, DD is just better in Naya Loam too since the alternative doesn't exist.

I've been trying to get a feel for the relative sizes of post-Dreams Knights versus post-Dreams Crushers in the Jund versions. If Crusher is usually bigger, it's not unreasonable to just race. Plus, if I'm going to switch up my removal package to include Terminates and/or Deathmarks, Knight does not seem like that much of an issue.

I also like that you can tempo Dreams on turn three or so for a couple of points and just wipe the board of opposition. Provided, of course, that you have a Mox Diamond and your Crusher is large enough to survive a Dreams.

Dreams seems fantastic in Naya builds not just because you have no alternative (for the record, I think Perish still edges out Virtue's Ruin despite nuking your team), but also because you are running Knights of your own. Having a Knight and a Crusher active post-Dreams seems like an absolute thrashing.

[Richard Cheese]

As far as targeted removal goes, has anyone tried out Ghastly Demise?

Against Maverick I agree that sweepers are best. Dreams seems pretty bad main with Spell Snare being everywhere...maybe just a 2-of Burning Wish in its spot (without moving a Loam to the board)? Against control it's probably still going to get countered, but if it doesn't you can always grab something more relevant like Worm Harvest or Pulse. I know there have been cases made against Wish in the past, but I'm talking about maybe 3-4 cards in the board max rather than devoting 10+ spots to targets.

[Aggro_zombies]

As far as targeted removal goes, has anyone tried out Ghastly Demise?

Against Maverick I agree that sweepers are best. Dreams seems pretty bad main with Spell Snare being everywhere...maybe just a 2-of Burning Wish in its spot (without moving a Loam to the board)? Against control it's probably still going to get countered, but if it doesn't you can always grab something more relevant like Worm Harvest or Pulse. I know there have been cases made against Wish in the past, but I'm talking about maybe 3-4 cards in the board max rather than devoting 10+ spots to targets.

sdematt likes Ghastly. I think it's so-so.

I don't like Burning Wish in Aggro Loam. It's a tempo black hole, has "Spell Snare me" written all over it and wrecks your sideboard. One could, like you said, just run 3-4 dedicated Wish slots, but then Wish loses value because you have a narrower range of stuff to get with it, and to be honest there's not a whole lot I'd want to Wish for right now. Worm Harvest is pretty expensive for what it is (and an especially tempting Surgical target), Dreams is fine but you really want multiples so you can side it in against the aggro matchups (which is the lion's share of where you want it), and then what else do you run? Pulse? Raven's Crime? There aren't a lot of good options for a Wishboard, even a small one.