[Deck] Aggro Loam

[joemauer]

Mox Diamond is great in this deck.
People are cutting it?!?!
Most of the cards in the deck cost two or three mana, so a jumpstart is great.
This decks plays ample amount of lands and only needs three mana to function.

So which hands with Mox Diamond are bad? The ones with Land x2, Mox, and five threats(not named Dark Confidant) and no Loam, perhaps? If the third card was a land then it would be too slow and cumbersome to win anyway.


Random sidenote: Mox Diamond and Life from the Loam are like Peanut Butter and Jelly.

[Kich867]

Mox Diamond is great in this deck.
People are cutting it?!?!
Most of the cards in the deck cost two or three mana, so a jumpstart is great.
This decks plays ample amount of lands and only needs three mana to function.

So which hands with Mox Diamond are bad? The ones with Land x2, Mox, and five threats(not named Dark Confidant) and no Loam, perhaps? If the third card was a land then it would be too slow and cumbersome to win anyway.


Random sidenote: Mox Diamond and Life from the Loam are like Peanut Butter and Jelly.

That's eight cards, and mox diamonds are bad in any hands in which you have no reason to actually accelerate into anything with.

Even something like this:

Land - Land - Cycle - Mox - Goyf - Pulse - Crusher

That's a pretty sweet hand. Mox kills it. What purpose does Mox serve in this hand? Are you going to accelerate into a turn one goyf? To do what? He'd be a 1/2. Just looking at this hand I would much rather lay a land, cycle EOT, curve into my goyf and hope he's a little bigger now, which curves nicely into a pulse to clear the way + grow the goyf and bank the crusher until they deal with Goyf (depending on the deck obviously).

Like that's a six card hand. There's no reason to accelerate into any of that. Replace Mox with a Discard spell and that hand gets stupidly better. Instead of ditching the Cycle to Mox, why not just cycle on your otherwise wasted turn one, rather than arriving at your goyf on turn one, not cantriping, not digging a little deeper for even more business?

Why is acceleration being put into a deck that inherently tends to hit it's land drops anyways and opts for a longer game? Wasteland doesn't really bother us that much as it stands what with us being Loam and all, and it seems fine to just play around Daze so long as we aren't dead by turn 4. Which we won't be. Especially not after Abrupt Decay. That card is huge to this all working. We have an uncounterable answer to virtually all early game threats except Goose who, quite frankly, we don't give a shit about anyways and we can board in firespout if it's really -that- bad.

I don't feel like this is an unreasonable line of thinking: up the threat density, make the manabase more stable and playable, drop moxen for business spells, protect your creatures with point discard, lower your requirements on double mana to be more flexible, and be less reliant on loam.

[sdematt]

If you're cutting Mox Diamond from Loam-based control deck, I think there's a misfiring neuron somewhere. You're an inherently slow deck that desperately wants to pump out mana to play good cards. Mox Diamond helps this. It doesn't matter if you have a dead-mox once in a while. This deck NEEDS Mox to keep up with the rest of the format. Plus, we're not playing any one-drops (or few one-drops), so we need SOMETHING to give us an edge. Mox can do just that.

-Matt

[Tainted]

The only reason I think I may want a mox in the opening hand is to make a T1 chalice, and i rarely see chalice at all in the latest list.
As Kich867 said a goyf T1 is useless as it is an assault T2 cause we probably won't have the engine online, confidant T1 or T2 if they have removal or counter it won't change, if they haven't, you gained a card(at the cost of hp probably)throwing away a land; with RTR I'd prefer the new Deathrite Shaman, it may accelerate you using your fetch or the opponent one, it may let you gain life/ do some damage, it may help you main deck vs reanimator/dredge, it may stop the lackey without die and if it take a removal is 1 less removal on a real threat(and it's still immune to wasteland).

[Kich867]

I don't believe that to be the case sdematt. Why do we have to stay ahead, why can't we just smooth out our curve, keep pace, and use loam as the sick card advantage engine it was designed to be and not use it as the crutch that holds all these disjointed parts of the deck together?

Play more one drops, keep more cards in your hand, cycle more lands to find real business. Maybe my list is just a new list or something, loam based control doesn't sound right. I outlined previously that im looking to lean more towards the aggro in aggro loam and leads towards the loam.

[Aggro_zombies]

I don't believe that to be the case sdematt. Why do we have to stay ahead, why can't we just smooth out our curve, keep pace, and use loam as the sick card advantage engine it was designed to be and not use it as the crutch that holds all these disjointed parts of the deck together?

Play more one drops, keep more cards in your hand, cycle more lands to find real business. Maybe my list is just a new list or something, loam based control doesn't sound right. I outlined previously that im looking to lean more towards the aggro in aggro loam and leads towards the loam.

The Loam part of Aggro Loam is going to hold you back, then. There are far more efficient ways to bolster your beatdown than LftL.

[Richard Cheese]

Just curious, what advantage does a more aggro build have over Maverick or Zoo?

Cycling and Loaming eats up a ton of mana and actually seems counter-productive to playing a more aggro strategy. I guess you could run white and try to drop some super huge knights and Terravores and protect them with Mom/Safekeeper/something.

[Aggro_zombies]

Just curious, what advantage does a more aggro build have over Maverick or Zoo?

Cycling and Loaming eats up a ton of mana and actually seems counter-productive to playing a more aggro strategy. I guess you could run white and try to drop some super huge knights and Terravores and protect them with Mom/Safekeeper/something.

I don't actually think there are any. Jund colors are not very conducive to playing an aggro deck, and a Naya build loses Dark Confidant (great in Loam decks) and ends up with a ton of threes: Knight, Crusher, Assault.

[Kich867]

Just curious, what advantage does a more aggro build have over Maverick or Zoo?

Cycling and Loaming eats up a ton of mana and actually seems counter-productive to playing a more aggro strategy. I guess you could run white and try to drop some super huge knights and Terravores and protect them with Mom/Safekeeper/something.

maverick and zoo don't have card advantage and the amount of permanent removal we do.

What does playing this as a control deck offer over miracles or stoneblade? They can protect their threats better, are near impervious to wasteland, run cheap efficient counterspells, run better removal, and has a less mana intensive draw engine that synergizes just as well with their deck that also serves as a win con.

Maverick and zoo have almost no consistent board control and eat it pretty hard to an assault/loam engine. In terms of their matchup, I would board in the 3rd assault and 4th loam to get that engine online while dropping duresses as they're less good vs them.

[Hanni]

This is unrelated to the Mox discussion, but I was just wondering why... if in Jund colors... people play 4 Loam's and no Entomb. This must have been discussed somewhere before, but I really don't feel like going and searching for it if it has.

You don't have Chalice anymore. The only thing I can think of is that people are scared of countermagic, where Loam can be cast through it... but when most of the countermagic is Daze, Pierce, and FoW... does it really matter?

So Loam can push through countermagic not named Counterbalance. On the other hand, every Loam drawn after the first is a dead spell. With Entomb, you can effectively reduce the number of cycle lands you need to run. You increase the consistency of whatever toolbox lands you might run like Stronghold. You can fix your vulnerable threat density by running a singleton Worm Harvest (and if the argument against that is that it costs 5 mana in a deck running Loam, I guess I don't get it). You can run a singleton Crime for the matchups where that card can be a blowout (SNT, Miracles), and you can even run a singleton Flame Jab (or PFire) to grab if you don't have Assault.

Maybe I'm missing something here.

5 1cc discard (1 Crime) seems to do alot of good, regardless if this deck is a slower deck or not. You have several bombs you want to resolve and keep them on the board, and discard helps make that happen easier.

With a little bit of MD discard, you only need 3-4 more in the board to make the SNT matchup much better. The extra discard postboard seems good vs Stoneblade and Miracles, too.

Worm Harvest fixes the light and vulnerable threat density issue pretty nicely, if you ask me. Making swarms of 1/1's is very hard for most decks to deal with, especially when you can just keep making them. Ooze is the only spell I can think of that people run maindeck, that can deal with it... and this deck should be doing well vs most decks running Ooze anyway.

I mean, cut some Loam's, fit some Entombs, fit a tiny splash of discard, and fit 1 Harvest... and many of the decks current problems seem to diminish greatly... right? Maybe I'm wrong. But those few changes satisfy my complaints, at any rate.

[Koby]

Is Entomb more versatile than Burning Wish? The deck cut Burning Wish moons ago due to its slowness. I don't really see how Entombing would be any different, and at the same time open you up to the same g/y hate you're already vulnerable.

[Aggro_zombies]

Is Entomb more versatile than Burning Wish? The deck cut Burning Wish moons ago due to its slowness. I don't really see how Entombing would be any different, and at the same time open you up to the same g/y hate you're already vulnerable.

This, pretty much. It's also the reason Worm Harvest is not very good.

If you are going straight for Life from the Loam every single game, you should probably reconsider how you play the deck. Loam is not very good until later on, at which point you have probably naturally drawn one without the need for a card that is pretty bad outside of the specific application of finding LftL.

[Hanni]

I can see how Burning Wish into Loam is slow, especially when so much of the format was running Spell Snare. Those lists were also running 4 Wish and 3 Loam for maximum consistency for finding Loam.

That is much different than what I am suggesting. First of all, the difference between 1cc Instant and 2cc Sorcery is huge. Secondly, I am talking about cutting Loam's for Entomb, not in addition to. I don't understand how cutting excess Loam's for Entomb is "too slow" or all-in on the Loam plan, I guess

So it's okay to run 3cc Assaults (for RRR), that depend on Loam no less than Harvest does, yet Harvest is not viable because of its reliance on Loam? Most decks where you want to grab Harvest do not have MD gy hate, and this deck should not be having problems hitting 5 mana for its endgame finisher. We're talking about a mere 1 copy, which is tutorable, that is resilient to spells like Terminus, Swords to Plowshares, and Oblivion Ring.

I guess my confusion lies within posts that call this deck a slow deck, a control deck, so on and so forth.. and then other posts that reject the idea of a single copy of an endgame finisher (that is resilient and powerful), because its too slow and dependant on Loam. Honestly, after 5 mana (which the deck does get up to in the matches where you want Harvest), you can just as easily discard topdecked lands to cast it.... meaning you don't actually need Loam. Again, Assault is not really much different, but it can be countered/discarded/destroyed/etc, where Worm Harvest specifically requires gy hate.

Worm Harvest is still only 1 aspect of Entomb, fwiw. And the entire concept of this deck is to abuse Loam in the midgame anyway. If not, why bother with stuff like Assault, Crusher, and even cycle lands?

I just want to again clarify that my point was to increase consistency, resiliency, and power by cutting down to 1-2 Loam(s), and fit in Entomb instead (I'd personally go down to 1 Loam). Then fit in a very small toolbox to get more mileage out of it (1 Crime and 1 Harvest being the main ones). You could even cut a cycle land for a Barbarian Ring, for some tutorable recurring removal when you have Loam and no Assault, etc. Entomb costing only 1 mana can easily be played on the opponent's EOT when you have the excess mana available to "curve out," regardless if you need the Loam right away. Unless you are playing vs an opponent with MD Ooze and don't want to hold mana open to cycle in response, that seems like a fine play to me... without sacrificing any tempo. That Entomb would have otherwise been a Loam anyways...

[Kich867]

This, pretty much. It's also the reason Worm Harvest is not very good.

If you are going straight for Life from the Loam every single game, you should probably reconsider how you play the deck. Loam is not very good until later on, at which point you have probably naturally drawn one without the need for a card that is pretty bad outside of the specific application of finding LftL.

So this is like, the epitome of my point with what I was arguing earlier. People seem to be in massive conflict with this or simply agree with it but for some reason don't.

Loam is not very good until later on.

But a primary argument to keeping Mox Diamond, is so that you can loam early on. But the crux there is that you want to Loam early to make the drawback of Mox not a drawback.

Hanni also hits a key point in that the opinion of the deck is that it's generally slow and grindy--slow and grindy decks don't ramp. Nor do they need to. Nor should they sacrifice card advantage to do so. Maverick can ramp better than we can and utilize those creatures very well. And they don't sacrifice their hand to do it.

I got the feeling that people misinterpreted what I was saying, and/or didn't read my initial post on the subject to evaluate the list (which I'm still tweaking).

I mean at it's very most basic premise, the idea is that nothing in this deck costs more than 3 to play, we now have Bolt, Abrupt Decay, and Pulse to deal with anything anyone drops in those turns, and starting turn 4--when Loam is actually good because you can play it and do shit every turn--you can look to start abusing your loam engine.

Also, burning wish and entomb aren't really comparable. At least entombing Loam lets you hit a dredge which can make your goyf -not- suck on turn 2.

[Koby]

I'm just not sure if relying on Entomb to find a singleton Loam is better than drawing it naturally when playing it as a set. Especially when countermagic is concerned.

[Aggro_zombies]

I can see how Burning Wish into Loam is slow, especially when so much of the format was running Spell Snare. Those lists were also running 4 Wish and 3 Loam for maximum consistency for finding Loam.

That is much different than what I am suggesting. First of all, the difference between 1cc Instant and 2cc Sorcery is huge. Secondly, I am talking about cutting Loam's for Entomb, not in addition to. I don't understand how cutting excess Loam's for Entomb is "too slow" or all-in on the Loam plan, I guess

Because Entombing for basically anything else requires an Eternal Witness (+1 card, +3 mana) or a Life from the Loam (+1 card, +2 mana), making the card roughly on par with Burning Wish. This is not like Reanimator, where Entomb + a reanimation spell gets there all on its own for very little mana; pretty much everything you get will take longer to win or cost more mana to set up. Entomb is also a tempo sink in a deck full of tempo sinks.

So it's okay to run 3cc Assaults (for RRR), that depend on Loam no less than Harvest does, yet Harvest is not viable because of its reliance on Loam? Most decks where you want to grab Harvest do not have MD gy hate, and this deck should not be having problems hitting 5 mana for its endgame finisher. We're talking about a mere 1 copy, which is tutorable, that is resilient to spells like Terminus, Swords to Plowshares, and Oblivion Ring.

It's worth noting that Assault doesn't use the red zone, can play around graveyard hate more effectively than Loam (since it doesn't sit in the graveyard and then count cards in the graveyard like Harvest does), and produces more damage per land than Harvest. The situations in which you crush them with Worm tokens presuppose a very late game state wherein your opponent is not doing anything to pressure you anymore - basically, ones where you've already won.

Assault is also better at stabilizing. Worm Harvest, block still eats up five mana every turn and does not, in most cases, get rid of the attacking creatures.

I guess my confusion lies within posts that call this deck a slow deck, a control deck, so on and so forth.. and then other posts that reject the idea of a single copy of an endgame finisher (that is resilient and powerful), because its too slow and dependant on Loam. Honestly, after 5 mana (which the deck does get up to in the matches where you want Harvest), you can just as easily discard topdecked lands to cast it.... meaning you don't actually need Loam. Again, Assault is not really much different, but it can be countered/discarded/destroyed/etc, where Worm Harvest specifically requires gy hate.

The deck is not hard-up for finishers. If anything, it has too many finishers. Cards like Assault at least do something in the midgame, but Worm Harvest is pretty much strictly a late-game play. As far as strict late-game-plays go, it's worse than ones the deck already runs.

@Kich867: the train of logic you're on right now is going to end with the realization that cutting Life from the Loam to build a different deck is the correct choice. Mox Diamond gets you to the late game faster than you otherwise would get there; the cases where you Loam immediately after going Land, Diamond are sort of the exception rather than the rule.

Slow and grindy decks do need to ensure they make all their mana drops. Some decks do this by ramping, while others use blue cantrips like Brainstorm to ensure a continuous supply of lands. This deck has a comparatively high curve, so it opts to ramp. If you can lower the mana curve to be more in line with the rest of the format, that's fine, but LftL tends to be more of a liability than an engine in that version of the deck because you have all these cheap early-game cards that would be much better if it weren't for all this Loam-support crap you keep drawing.

It's also worth noting that Maverick runs ramp cards in a deck with a lower curve.

[Kich867]

I'm just not sure if relying on Entomb to find a singleton Loam is better than drawing it naturally when playing it as a set. Especially when countermagic is concerned.

This is a totally fair concern, I think running multiple loams is better as well. Or 2 loams instead of a singleton fetchable loam.

[Kich867]

@Kich867: the train of logic you're on right now is going to end with the realization that cutting Life from the Loam to build a different deck is the correct choice. Mox Diamond gets you to the late game faster than you otherwise would get there; the cases where you Loam immediately after going Land, Diamond are sort of the exception rather than the rule.

Slow and grindy decks do need to ensure they make all their mana drops. Some decks do this by ramping, while others use blue cantrips like Brainstorm to ensure a continuous supply of lands. This deck has a comparatively high curve, so it opts to ramp. If you can lower the mana curve to be more in line with the rest of the format, that's fine, but LftL tends to be more of a liability than an engine in that version of the deck because you have all these cheap early-game cards that would be much better if it weren't for all this Loam-support crap you keep drawing.

It's also worth noting that Maverick runs ramp cards in a deck with a lower curve.

On the contrary I find Loam to be incredibly welcoming in my list. I mean looking at it, what loam-support crap do I keep drawing? I got rid of Mox Diamond. Seismic Assault is pretty decent with Bob or Loam, Crushers and Terravore's are badass all on their own, and that covers my 3 drop loam related things.

The rest of the deck is cheap removal / reach, discard effects, and highly efficient beaters. The land count means I don't need loam to hit my land drops and we run a whopping 10 removal spells to make sure we can get to the mid-game.

[Hanni]

I'm just not sure if relying on Entomb to find a singleton Loam is better than drawing it naturally when playing it as a set. Especially when countermagic is concerned.

That's valid, but what countermagic are we talking about? If you really need the Loam, Daze isn't going to counter it if you leave 1 open, and at 3 mana sources, Spell Snare isn't going to counter it if you leave 2 mana open. If you wait to cast Entomb until the midgame, where you would normally want to start casting Loam, Daze and Pierce are pretty much a non-issue.

If they are using Force of Will on Entomb, that's not really a bad trade for this deck. Just means they aren't 2-for-1'ing themselves for your other, more expensive bombs.

I guess it comes down to the fact that I really dislike playing multiple copies of a card, where additional copies drawn past the first are useless. I also like finding ways to increase consistency, resiliency, and power... and I feel that Entomb does those things. Is it worth some vulnerability to countermagic, for the benefits it provides? I think so.

I'm not expecting many others to agree with me on this, since I think my track record for that in the Aggro Loam thread is pretty bad. I still wanted to throw the idea out there nonetheless.

Because Entombing for basically anything else requires an Eternal Witness (+1 card, +3 mana) or a Life from the Loam (+1 card, +2 mana), making the card roughly on par with Burning Wish. This is not like Reanimator, where Entomb + a reanimation spell gets there all on its own for very little mana; pretty much everything you get will take longer to win or cost more mana to set up. Entomb is also a tempo sink in a deck full of tempo sinks.

I think you missed the point I made where Entomb would replace Loam's, not be an additional tutor on top of the fact. I'm also digging how a 1cc Entomb is a tempo sink, when you're cycling lands for 1 mana in the same deck. Also, the "toolbox" I'm suggesting doesn't require Eternal Witness. Raven's Crime just wants you to discard excess lands, that you should already have before you tutor up the singleton Raven's Crime. Same thing goes for Worm Harvest, but I guess that paying 2GGB for 8-10 1/1 tokens in the midgame isn't a powerful play in your opinion, and so I won't press the issue any further.

It doesn't make any sense to me why someone would play 4 Life from the Loam instead of 1-2 Loam's and some Entombs, and it doesn't make any sense to the others why I would play Entombs because of the drawbacks.

However, like I said before I replied to the quote, I'm gonna let the issue go. I tossed the idea out there because I thought it was a good idea, knowing full well that the Aggro Loam community never likes my ideas. Maybe someone else may benefit from it though, and that's good enough for me.

[Kich867]

That's valid, but what countermagic are we talking about? If you really need the Loam, Daze isn't going to counter it if you leave 1 open, and at 3 mana sources, Spell Snare isn't going to counter it if you leave 2 mana open. If you wait to cast Entomb until the midgame, where you would normally want to start casting Loam, Daze and Pierce are pretty much a non-issue.

If they are using Force of Will on Entomb, that's not really a bad trade for this deck. Just means they aren't 2-for-1'ing themselves for your other, more expensive bombs.

I guess it comes down to the fact that I really dislike playing multiple copies of a card, where additional copies drawn past the first are useless. I also like finding ways to increase consistency, resiliency, and power... and I feel that Entomb does those things. Is it worth some vulnerability to countermagic, for the benefits it provides? I think so.

I'm not expecting many others to agree with me on this, since I think my track record for that in the Aggro Loam thread is pretty bad. I still wanted to throw the idea out there nonetheless.

Multiple copies of loam are rarely useless. Multiple copies reduces your necessity on burning cycle lands to recast them, I'm generally ecstatic to have 2 loams rolling.