[Deck] Aggro Loam

[Kich867]

So we should just play punishing jund?

See, now, I was literally going to type something close to that out and it might just be it. It was sort of a morbid, "Have we really just reached the conclusion that Punishing Jund is where this archetype is going?". Maybe it's true, Aggro Loam is a very cool deck, but Punishing Jund has a far more linear gameplan with similar perks, except it has a faster clock, better disruption, and more relevant card advantage--triple cycling lands and dredging loams is really cool, but is it really worth it?

The big difference between my list and Jund is that I have Chalice and Devastating Dreams, which are cool, and disruptive, but Punishing Jund is disruptive in a far more direct way and is way less durdley.

[Megadeus]

I pay this over jund because I like loam strategies, I like lotsof decision trees, andI think chalice is well positioned. also like playing wrathageddon with knights of the reliquary

[Richard Cheese]

I think the combination of punishing burnwillows and Liliana is what we want to be playing right now. They lock up the game against virtually everything the fair decks can throw against us and are very robust and difficult to disrupt. Liliana is almost always a 2 for 1, one of the advantages I think she has over dudes. Whether seismic is better than dudes or not is something I'll have to see in testing. As of now, though, I think being able to win outside of combat damage is very important.

I agree that the big dudes don't seem to be pulling as much of their weight as they used to, but with RiP and Deathrite running around all over the place, I'm not sure that making the deck even more graveyard-focused with Deathrite and PFires is the right direction though. Between trying to run this and TinFins over the past few months, I can tell you doesn't feel like a great time to be heavily dependent on your graveyard as a resource. Last time I played Loam, the one card that really felt like it pulled its weight against Miracles was Koth, but he seems to have dropped off everyone's radar. I'd kinda like to go in a similar grindier direction and just clog up the board with Planeswalkers, but then I have to wonder what the point of still building around Loam is.

[Antonius]

So we should just play punishing jund?

Yes, and I'm sure that most stone blade players, upon seeing the brainstorms, jaces, stps and snapcasters in their deck think, "oh, what's the point! I might as well play miracles!"
...
don't get it twisted. I'm simply proposing playing the most robust and effective tools conducive to our strategy. If those are common to another deck, so the fuck what?

The reason to play this over jund is because discard is pretty unimpressive past turn five.

[Megadeus]

my point being that the core of pfire and liliana seems like it may just be better in jund. especially if you don'trun seismicassault

[Antonius]

my point being that the core of pfire and liliana seems like it may just be better in jund. especially if you don'trun seismicassault

How effective liliana and punishing burnwillows is in jund has nothing to do with how effective it is in our deck. And I assure you--they are extremely effective here. And what does seismic assault have to do with anything?

[Megadeus]

How effective liliana and punishing burnwillows is in jund has nothing to do with how effective it is in our deck. And I assure you--they are extremely effective here. And what does seismic assault have to do with anything?

if you are running pfire and lily, and not running assault, then what kind of deck are you playing? at that point you are just a bad jund deck.

[Megadeus]

I didnt say anything due to being disappointed last week, but I only got to play 2 rounds (odd luck and turnouts). Both against the same player playing Hypergenesis.

I played him in round 1, and he T2 SnT me, I put in a Bob, he puts in Omni, casts griselbrand, draws cards, cast emrakul. Well that was fun. Game 2, I board out Chalices (due to him not playing 1 drops) and bring in Thalias, and my one of Inquisition of Kozilek. My reasoning was that he was so fast that Wishing for my discard spell would never happen. So I would just hope to draw it. I plop down thalia on T1, and he is never able to hit the 5 mana he needs to cast his cascade spell, then pay the one for the spell he cascades into. Game 3, it was another quick one where he T2 Hypergens me and I die a horrid death to Progenitus and Emily.

Round 2 I got a bye, and round 3 due to the low turnout I was actually able to draw into top 8... (worked hard for that one!) I did play a game for fun against Junk Depths. It wasnt close. I had chalice on one, plopped down a KOTR, and Devastating dreams. He had three swords to plowshares in his hand. lol

Top 8: I play against the same Hypergenesis player. I actually win game 1. I figured out that chalice on 0 is pretty sweet against a hyper genesis. I get a KOTR down, and beat the living shit out of him with that and a Bob. Game 2 is a very very very tight game. I board out abrupt decays this time (because they are actually dead) and bring in thalia, but leave my inquisition in the board this time because I figure chalice on 0 is enough to slow down super fast hands. But I did also bring in my perish so I would have an out to progenitus.

He goes for a turn 2 Show and tell (I have a chalice at 0), and I have a Thalia and 2 KOTR in my hand. My board however is awkward with a badlands and a grove of the burnwillows. I drop a KOTR hoping that he just has emrakul. He does, but I still need a forest/plains to find karakas. I draw a cycling land, cycle it, and draw my singleton basic forest like a boss. I play it and sacrifice it to find a karakas and bounce emrakul. Next turn he KGrips my chalice (I think I may have misplayed by not casting thalia) and then on his turn hypergenesis into griselbrand and emrakul. I am able to bounce emrakul again, but have to take a hit off of Griselbrand. He draws 7 and passes. This turn I bounce Griselbrand, and attack him to something like 3 I think. On his turn though he is able to cast hypergenesis off of his cascade again, and he puts in the trio of fatties, griselbrand, emrakul and progenitus. I actually have drawn my perish at this point so I sadly have to cast it (and kill my own KOTRs) and bounce emrakul with Karakas again, but I dont have any way to get rid of griselbrand sadly and I die to him the next turn.

Game 3 I have to mull to 5 and it is a bad 5 and I lose horribly because he has force for my sylvan library. Looking back my 7 was decent but didnt have any hate so I was reluctant to keep it. It was: 4 Lands, Mox Diamond, Sylvan Library, KOTR. I thought that I may be able to do better by finding hate so I mulled, got a no lander, then mulled to 5 and then promply died to a SnT emrakul. Yay magic? That 7 was a good hand looking back at it, I just got a little bit greedy. (and stupid)

[Aggro_zombies]

if you are running pfire and lily, and not running assault,

I guess my question is: why even pose this hypothetical? Antonius's list on the previous page has three Assaults in it in addition to Lili and Fire. Is that deck worse than Jund, or sufficiently different on paper and in play style that it occupies a different niche?

EDIT: @Antonius: I really don't like Raging Ravine all that much in this deck. Four mana to simply attack - which deprives you of another mana - is way too much. It's also interesting that your deck actually presents fewer high-value targets for a BUG deck's Abrupt Decays than a normal Aggro Loam deck, which conversely makes Decay much, much better. Now your opponent knows that he can just sit on it to get your Assaults instead of having to decide whether to use it on a Crusher and risk getting Terravore'd or Assaulted or sit on it and potentially take a hit from an [Enormous]/[Enormous] Crusher.

I also really, really, really don't like slowing down as a solution in this format unless you are running Brainstorm. The longer the game goes, the more chances there are for something to go catastrophically wrong and destroy your hard-won board position. That's a large part of why Stax is bad: it can lock up the board just fine, but it can't actually win unless the opponent is willing to concede. Your deck basically needs Assault to win in anything approaching a timely manner, which I really don't like.

EDIT 2: Though that is probably just a fundamental difference in play style. It could be completely fine, I'll just never actually like it.

EDIT 3: Scrolling up, Kich867 sort of hit my line of thought on the head. Life from the Loam, as a card, has not really aged very well thanks to planeswalkers and power creep, so it follows that decks based around it are not going to age well either. Going for big midrange power plays like the four-color version does may really be the only remaining viable version of Aggro Loam in today's metagame, but it would help if more than one player could reliably do well with that build of the deck in big tournaments. Or is it getting play in Europe? I know the Russians are (or were) fond of a straight Naya version of the deck.

EDIT 4: I should mention there's a caveat to EDIT 3. Aggro Loam's prey has always been the fair decks of the format. Built properly, this deck should go over the top of those decks every time. Antonius's complaint - that the deck is soft to true control decks like Miracles - is pretty standard for midrange decks: they have just enough control to beat aggro but not enough aggro to actually threaten control, so they just sort of sit there and take it until the control player feels like ending the game. Taking this deck in a more controlling direction probably doesn't help all that much versus decks like Miracles because Brainstorm and Jace let them play the control role much more easily than you can - they can get the card advantage without having to spend as much mana or try quite as hard, which mitigates some of the inevitability Fires and Assaults are supposed to give you.

[Megadeus]

I guess my question is: why even pose this hypothetical? Antonius's list on the previous page has three Assaults in it in addition to Lili and Fire. Is that deck worse than Jund, or sufficiently different on paper and in play style that it occupies a different niche?

I was actually talking about this comment:

"I -really- don't think going grindier is the way to go nor do you need Punishing Fire / Seismic. I do however, think that Seismic Assault is antiquated after the tournament. I never actually killed anyone with it, I just killed creatures, and Punishing / Grove is far more easily setup and functions separately from Seismic Assault. However, being able to Dredge the shit out of loam in order to find the entire combo is wonderful and profitable, so that's cool. I'll have to fix my mana base accordingly."

But I do realize that I did an awful job of noting what I was commenting on. It is difficult to post on my phone sometimes...

But if you are going to be GRB deck, with PFires and Liliana, but not run Seismic Assault, then why even play a loam strategy? At that point you might as well cast Bloodbraid elves.

[Kich867]

I was actually talking about this comment:

"I -really- don't think going grindier is the way to go nor do you need Punishing Fire / Seismic. I do however, think that Seismic Assault is antiquated after the tournament. I never actually killed anyone with it, I just killed creatures, and Punishing / Grove is far more easily setup and functions separately from Seismic Assault. However, being able to Dredge the shit out of loam in order to find the entire combo is wonderful and profitable, so that's cool. I'll have to fix my mana base accordingly."

But I do realize that I did an awful job of noting what I was commenting on. It is difficult to post on my phone sometimes...

But if you are going to be GRB deck, with PFires and Liliana, but not run Seismic Assault, then why even play a loam strategy? At that point you might as well cast Bloodbraid elves.

You may have gotten a little confused here. I'm the one agreeing with you that running PFires with Liliana is basically just a bad Punishing Jund. The upside to PFires Loam is that you can dredge aggressively to find it, whereas if you dredge past a Seismic Assault, it's gone. The rather massive difference however, between Punishing Jund and Devastating Loam is that Loam is -far- more of a resource denial strategy. And it's unequivocally harder to play. I'm just drawing hands over and over with Punishing Jund and am baffled at how not-at-all-joking people are about how easy the deck is to play.

I don't run Liliana in my main deck (2 in the side) because she doesn't do anything particularly better than any of my other cards. Also, double black in a deck that already needs double red and green, no thanks. I'm going to be tweaking the maindeck to fit Punishing Fires in over Seismic Assault and the manabase to accommodate the groves. List will likely look something like this:

//Creatures: 12
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
2x Countryside Crusher
2x Terravore

//Spells: 14
3x Punishing Fire
4x Life from the Loam
3x Devastating Dreams
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Maelstrom Pulse

//Artifacts: 8
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Mox Diamond

//Lands: 26
4x Wasteland
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
4x Taiga
2x Badlands
1x Bayou
3x Forgotten Cave
2x Tranquil Thicket
4x Wooded Foothills
2x Bloodstained Mire

//Sideboard: 15
1x Devastating Dreams
2x Liliana of the Veil
2x Golgari Charm
3x Hymn to Tourach
3x Thoughtseize
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Surgical Extraction

Seems pretty good.

[Aggro_zombies]

Loam isn't that hard to play, though? Or maybe it's just me.

Assault is really the only reason to run Loam in Legacy. Any of the card's other functions are either of low or variable value or are better accomplished by other cards that have been printed since Loam came out.

Also worth noting that P. Fire ups the amount of fodder you're okay randomly discarding to Dreams.

[Megadeus]

seems like a very solid list. I see what you are saying, but in a tournament setting, you basically have a jund deck that instead of discard as disruption, you play chalice, and instead of deathrite, you play mox diamond. I mean you have loam as your card advantage engine, but overall, you are the same deck as jund, except you open yourself up to losing to random graveyard hate. And yes jund is comically easyto play, but over a long tournament, the easier the deck, the less mistakes you will make

[Kich867]

Loam isn't that hard to play, though? Or maybe it's just me.

Assault is really the only reason to run Loam in Legacy. Any of the card's other functions are either of low or variable value or are better accomplished by other cards that have been printed since Loam came out.

Also worth noting that P. Fire ups the amount of fodder you're okay randomly discarding to Dreams.

Loam's decision trees are substantially more complicated I feel. Maximizing damage with Countryside Crusher and whether or not to dredge have always been things to really consider. I often find myself taking note of the likelihood of hitting certain cards if I dredge loam--when to start dredging it or not is also a fairly complicated metric to maximize.

Devastating Dreams is also a wildly complicated card to play when you end up having to start discarding real cards and not land, etc. I think replacing Seismic Assault however makes the dredging decision far easier, it's almost explicitly correct to dredge loam unless you have the engine for PFire in hand since dredging sets up both pieces.

[Megadeus]

Loam isn't that hard to play, though? Or maybe it's just me.

Assault is really the only reason to run Loam in Legacy. Any of the card's other functions are either of low or variable value or are better accomplished by other cards that have been printed since Loam came out.

Also worth noting that P. Fire ups the amount of fodder you're okay randomly discarding to Dreams.

I disagree that seismic assault is the only reason to play loam. The cycle lands make your loam into a card advatage engine, you can wastelock someome, or ensure you are making land drops. Hell lands is a very good deck and it doesn't run assault. I think punishing fire combo has outdated assault.

[Aggro_zombies]

I disagree that seismic assault is the only reason to play loam. The cycle lands make your loam into a card advatage engine, you can wastelock someome, or ensure you are making land drops. Hell lands is a very good deck and it doesn't run assault. I think punishing fire combo has outdated assault.

This is what I meant when I said Loam's other functions were low-value or better accomplished through other cards:

1) Jace TMS is better than Loam at providing long-term card drawing. GSZ, Sylvan Library, and Bob provide similar card advantage outside of blue. There's no reason to spend 1CCCG to get a Jace's Ingenuity in this format.

2) Wastelocking takes time to set up (trying to do so early hampers your development for an uncertain outcome) and flat-out doesn't work against some decks. It also loses a lot of its luster in a world of Deathrite Shamans since they get two mana off the card if you Wasteland them (and you lose one Wasteland).

3) Ensuring land drops is more of a side benefit and not a compelling reason to run Loam, otherwise other slow decks would run Loam in the main or out of the board. Depending on your build you're running something like 6-8 fetches and 5-6 fetchable lands anyway, so it's not like it's thinning your library to any great degree. If anything, you're doing more work just by dredging than you are by pulling lands.

I know what Loam does, I'm saying that it's not relevant anymore. Power creep and planeswalkers have long since dethroned Loam as the King of Long-Term Card Advantage.

[Megadeus]

I'm just saying that you talk as if loam is not a valid strategy at all without seismic assault. DRS has done a good job of weakening loam, but it is still a powerful strategy. it is just a different angle. and waste locking is a valid strategy against a lot of decks. also devastating dreams is a fucking blowout. everytime

[Antonius]

I'm the one agreeing with you that running PFires with Liliana is basically just a bad Punishing Jund.

I'M still trying to understand the logical jump inherent in this statement... what is the meaning of being a "bad jund deck"? are you saying that punishing fires and liliana are ONLY good in Jund? Or that Jund is the only deck that can run them profitably? Both are nonsense. Jund runs punishing fires and liliana because they are the most robust, effective removal-plus options in their colors. You've already listed the reasons why punishing fires can be quite good in this deck. Liliana has good synergy with loam, serves as removal and can create a mire of a boardstate that just swallows up your opponent in incremental CA.

@Antonius: I really don't like Raging Ravine all that much in this deck. Four mana to simply attack - which deprives you of another mana - is way too much.

It's an experiment. Five mana is a lot to attack , but as a pure beater ravine can end the game in five turns. Volrath's getting back crusher ends the game in four.. The fact that it's a manland also means it is not vulnerable sorcery speed removal out there and can be protected from instants by Liliana's +1. It also punishes people severely for tapping out to drop a planeswalker. It doesn't have the same flexibility as volrath's getting back bob but being able to tap for color is a big deal.

It's also interesting that your deck actually presents fewer high-value targets for a BUG deck's Abrupt Decays than a normal Aggro Loam deck, which conversely makes Decay much, much better. Now your opponent knows that he can just sit on it to get your Assaults

If you're executing your strategy as intended, then your opponent will be put into situations where they have abrupt a Liliana that's already edicted them. If they sit on that shit then they're going to have to deal with losing a card a turn, the occasional creature and eventually having to choose between a pile of green sources and the pile of black sources. The new rules makes liliana even stronger for us, as game states with lilianas on both sides of the battle field or with a spent liliana on the battlefield and another in the pocket are going to heavily favor the guy that's resolving life from the loam.

[JeffHoogland]

Howdy Folks,

Just wanted to poke my head into this thread and offer to answer any questions folks might have on my four color variation of this deck. I'm fairly certain that something close to what I have been playing is the current optimal build of aggro loam. Why? Because I've been having consistent results with the deck since I finally got the hang of grinding out games with it. I've been playing this as my legacy deck of choice since December of 2012 and have put up the following results with it:

SCG Columbus (First large event with the deck) - Top 64
SCG Indy - Top 4
SCG Atlanta - Top 4
SCG Milwaukee - Top 2
SCG Nashville - Top 32
SCG STL - Top 32
SCG Columbus - Top 16

I've also won a few local 5 and 6 round events. In fact the only event I've "scrubbed" since I've gotten the hang of the deck was SCG KC where I fell on my face with a 2-4 drop.

You can find the current 75 I am playing here.

Cheers,
~Jeff Hoogland

[Megadeus]

I have a couple of questions/comments.

I have found the single plateau to be horribly awkward at times. What makes you want every single land that is fetchable via foothills?

Also what spurned you to play slaughter games? is it just due to the fact that some decks just auto lose to it?

Also watching a bunch of your matches, there were a whole lot of times where you seemed to have a very mediocre hand and yet you just keep dredging loam. What is your general thoughts on when to dredge and when not too dredge?