[Deck] Aggro Loam

[Megadeus]

The 4 color loam Lists dont generally play Liliana. I think if you were to play her, you would need to be in straight Jund.

[Tyrio]

The list that won BoM was 4 Color with Liliana. She's fine, just that you probably can't run Seismic Assault if you're in 4 colors with her.

[Aggro_zombies]

Bob is also an important reason to go black. If you're in straight Jund, DRS and Decay are pretty good reasons to stay there as well.

[Dosferra]

Here is a short, abridged, report from a 16 player tour with me playing 4 Color Loam, going 4-0 (8-1).

It's basically the BoM9 list but with a 1x Thespian's and 1x Dark Depths. It was the first time I played it in paper but I have it on MTGO as well and have been having a success with it there.

Here is my 75 for reference:

Land (27)
1x Barren Moor
2x Bayou
1x Dark Depths
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Karakas
1x Maze of Ith
1x Savannah
2x Scrubland
1x Taiga
1x Thespian's Stage
2x Tranquil Thicket
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Wasteland
2x Windswept Heath

Creature (10)
4x Dark Confidant
1x Gaddock Teeg
4x Knight of the Reliquary
1x Scavenging Ooze

Instant (6)
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Punishing Fire

Sorcery (5)
2x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Life from the Loam

Artifact (8)
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Mox Diamond

Enchantment (1)
1x Sylvan Library

Planeswalker (3)
3x Liliana of the Veil

Sideboard (15)
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Choke
3x Ethersworn Canonist
1x Gaddock Teeg
2x Golgari Charm
4x Leyline of the Void
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Slaughter Games

And for the report.

Round 1
Noble Fish (Bahra Bant)
Game 1: I mull to 5. I have Punishing, Grove, Loam, Wasteland and Mox in my starting hand which is enough to continuously remove all his permanents, except for a basic island. He doesn’t scoop even though he is done for. Eventually I have a Confidant, Sylvan Library, cyclelands and fetchlands, which in conjuction with my Loam means I can go through my library at considerable speed, finding Thespian’s and Depths after a while.
Game 2: Mull to 6. I think I had Chalice, Chalice, Knight, Land, Land, Mox which I keep, because I know he extremly weak to a Chalice on 1. He brainstorms in response to my T1 Chalice and finds FoW. I play another Chalice for 1 on T2 which resolves and then a Knight on turn 3. I see that my Knight will have the same clock as going for the combo. So I just go beatdown with Knight and remove some odd blockers with Liliana and Abrupt.

Round 2
MUD (with Welders)
Game 1: I mull 6. I'm on the play and get a hand with T1 Chalice for 1, so I feel pretty smug. He goes T1 Cavern of Souls, names goblin and puts a Welder into play, mkay.. We both have kinda slow hands. He puts a Blightsteel Colossus in play via Kuldotha Forgemaster, but I have a Knight in play that can tutor for Maze of Ith and then tutor for the combo.
Game 2: He puts a Chalice on 0 on his T1, luckily for me I don’t have any Mox. I T2 Pridemage, he T3 Chalice for 2 which shuts down most of my deck, which I guess is bait for my Pridemage, but I have Abrupt, Liliana and Knight in hand and he apparently draws his only 2 drops..
Pridemage and Knight beats him down while I remove blockers.

Round 3
Punishing Nic Fit
Game 1: A pretty fast game. A Knight tutors up the combo, he survives one hit because he gained some life via a Ooze.
Game 2: A slugfest of probably 20-30 turns. Everything on both sides gets abrupted, edicted and deeded. He surgicals my Knights which is pretty backbreaking for me. In the end I have zero creatures left in my library and I never get a Loam or Punishing. He has all the lands in his deck in play, via a Primeval Titan that keeps attacking and getting Mazed, one which was Volrath's Stronghold, which eventually proves too much for me.
In hindsight, I should have perhaps boarded in my Leylines of the Void.
Game 3: He gets a boat load of lands fast with 2x Explorers, but I get the combo fast because I draw Knight and Thespian’s naturally. He survives one hit, because of life gained from Thragtusk, and goes to 2, but I have a Punishing in hand.

Round 4
Manaless Dredge
Game 1: I know what he is on, so I know I have to mull to either Ooze or Zenith. I mull to 6 and get something like Grove, Grove, Mox, Ooze, x, x. He reveals Chancellor of the Annex, I T2 cast Mox so it will get countered and then play a Ooze. He gets pretty mediocre dredges and I keep drawing green source lands, so my Ooze is enough to get me there.
Game 2: I have a Leyline of the Void in my starting hand.


Short conclusion:
I like this deck a lot, it can play out in so many different ways, being a controlling lands deck in some cases, a Jundish/Maverickesque midrange in others and a (albeit little slow) combo in some. More often than not, it's everything at the same time, which makes it hard for most conventional decks to defend against all it's angles.
It plays cards that are already very powerful and they work synergistically with each other, i.e. Knight becomes more powerful with Loam, Liliana with Loam/Punishing, Knights can fetch Grove for Punishing, Chalice protects Marit and Knight from Swords and so on. I can understand why it was able to win the BoM9 and I do not understand why it's so fringe.
The Thespian's Stage+Dark Depths fits so naturally into the deck, given that you can both tutor and dredge into it, as well as Loam it back should Marit get removed. Also, the Knight is usually fairly large after you've done the combo, because of all the lands in the graveyard.
If you kill them with Marit Lage the first game, they will often board and/or use resources to try and play around the combo, and then you can just waste or punish lock them instead, or simply play a normal midrange game.
Or vice versa if you waste lock them the first game and they don't know about the combo, you can surprise them the second game.
Also the combo doesn't care about graveyard hate, which is the decks main weak point.
I'd like to fit in a Volrath's Stronghold somewhere, for grindy control matchups.
It's weak matchups would be blue combo and Blood Moons.
The mana base is obviously super greedy, but it is a Loam, Punishing and Chalice deck after all, so a mull to 6 or 5 isn't usually that bad.

[litenkatt]

Nice report, thanks!

Seems like Thespian/Depths combo can work out quite good. Decks like nic fit, that generaly doesn't play wastelands/swords indeed have a hard time dealing with it. Marit lage having indestructible is quite useful against deed :)

Oh and, greedy manabases, I like! Though it feels like we can afford it. Perhaps it would be good to find place for at least 1 basic forest though

[aluisiocsantos]

With Mox Diamond, Life From the Loam and Punishing Fire in this deck, anyone ever thought of using Pack Rat?

[apocolyps6]

1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
2 Forgotten Cave
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
2 Plateau
2 Savannah
1 Taiga
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Treetop Village
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Burning Wish
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Life from the Loam
3 Punishing Fire
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond
2 Sylvan Library
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Qasali Pridemage
3 Council's Judgment
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dismember
1 Barbarian Ring
SB: 1 Council's Judgment
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 2 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Tariff
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Choke
SB: Bojuka Bog
SB: Fiery Justice
SB: The Tabernacle at Penrell Vale
(SB: 3 Mindbreak Trap)

Played in a 10 person tournament yesterday with the above list.
The "stock" sideboard had mindbreak traps because this meta tends to be pretty unfair, but it today was surprisingly combo free.
Decks present: 2x Elves, 2x Bug Delver, 2x Manaless dredge (Blue and Bauble), Naya Loam, miracles, (brewy) MUD, borrowed TES
Took no notes so the details might be off.

Round 1 Miracles
Game 1: No need to explain why this almost went to time. Punishing fired my opponent to death after he took a few turns finding terminus for my scooze and arbor. Wasn't careful with my sequencing and got my fires cliqued but running Council's Judgments dealt with the clique and Jace. I draw another fires and my opponent has no answers.
Game 2: Snappy and clique beat me down while i struggled to find .. something. I might have help a land heavy hand.
Game 3: I casually lay down a Dark depths next to my stage and make a 20/20 on his turn 3. I have a chalice and he doesn't have answers.
2-1

Round 2 MUD
Game 1: Double mox diamonds power out a turn 1 knight of the reliquary. Opponent plays a turn 1 chalice on 1. I bash in with knight and arbor and waste him down to 2 mana each turn with loam. He doesnt draw an answer in time.
Game 2: I misboarded here a bit by not siding out chalices. Turn 2 metalworker gets punishing fired. Turn 3 forgemaster threatens to weld himself, a nearby Great Furnace and something else into blightsteel so I do what I can and waste the furnace. forgemaster, darksteel citadel, and ratchet bomb leave the battlefield (0 permanents left due to city of traitors) and a ... staff of nin comes out. The colossus would have won had it been in the deck. I take some time to deal with it and it ends up drawing something like 5 cards while my opponent attempts to wasteland me off of Judgement mana. U burning wish for shattering spree. He end up with a furnace, the staff, a mox diamond, a golem, and a city of traitors. I topdeck a plateau and he is down to the furnace and city. He doesn't recover from triple vindicate followed by judgement.
2-0

Round 3 Bauble Dredge
Game 1: I punishing fire dryad arbor to get rid of a bridge, land a knight, maze chump-blocked knight getting village, animate and waste to get a second one it (mis-sequence a little bit) but it doesn't matter as I lose on the following turn (3?)
Game 2: I board in revokers, thalia, bog and tabernacle. I don't see them and can green sun for 2 on turn 2. I pick scooze knowing if I untap I can handle the situation. Should have probably picked teeg as i get killed on my opponent's turn 2.
0-2

Round 4: Bug Delver
Game 1: He makes 2 goyfs. I make a Lage and 2 knights. He chumps the lage and tries to DRS my scooze to keep from dying to the knight he can't block. I maze the blocked knight and Barbarian ring the opponent back down to dead in response needed the scooze in the yard for threshold so that was the only window to make that play.
game 2: I keep wasteland, thicket as my mana base with library, zenith, and dismember as the relevant cards. He plays t1 DRS. I play turn 1 dismember off of wasteland (probably a mistake) he plays 2 more DRS and it all goes downhill from there.
game 3: T4ish Barbarian ring dodges the force that flipped delver the durn before to neutralize his threats. I wasteland every black source in his deck and have a hand full of answers. He counts his black sources and scoops.
2-1

Overall nothing crazy. Had decent matchups. Didn't have to stare down a true name but would have been comfortable doing so. 1 loss to the guy eventually getting first and some bad rolls off the RNG means my tiebreakers knock me down to 3rd place.

made mistakes in sideboarding, and probably in play too. Few of which I actually got punished for.

Edit:
here is a writeup from the miracle player with our game in greater detail.

Anybody know of a swords to plowshares variant that I can get with burning wish and cast through chalice? Tariff is the closest I got :/

[Richard Cheese]

With Mox Diamond, Life From the Loam and Punishing Fire in this deck, anyone ever thought of using Pack Rat?

Interesting idea, but I'm wondering if it's any better than Worm Harvest in a loam deck.

[Dosferra]

I went undefeated and split the finals in a 40+ people swiss+top8 tournament with 4 Color Loam yesterday.
Used the same 75 (except -1 cycle land and +1 zenith) as the list I wrote about a few replies back.

Opponents were (iirc):
UB Tezz - Draw
Miracles - Win
BUG Control (with Loam/gy interactions) - Win
BW Deathblade - Draw
ANT - Win
Black & Taxes/Deadguy Ale - Win
UW Stoneblade - Win
Shardless BUG - Win

When the other finalist asked if we should split, I jumped at the proposal because I was so tired. Later I found out that he played Noble Fish (Bahra Bant) which is a overwhelmingly positive matchup, oh well.

The deck feels very powerful, especially considering that I think that several opponents played more tight than me.

I might do a proper tournament report if I find the time and people are interested.

[litenkatt]

Congrats

I've play tested the 4color loam a bit and I've found out that reanimater is a terrible matchup. After board we have the four leylines, but we can't do anything to stop them from casting s&t. Oh and we don't have any answer to Grave Titan niether

[Megadeus]

Would love a report of you are up to writing it!

I'll be on a 4 color brew this week, but I don't know if it is exactly aggro loam just because it plays loam

[Dosferra]

Congrats

I've play tested the 4color loam a bit and I've found out that reanimater is a terrible matchup. After board we have the four leylines, but we can't do anything to stop them from casting s&t. Oh and we don't have any answer to Grave Titan niether

Thank you.

Show and Tell is indeed a weak point of the deck, but we do have "answers" for it, either put in the 1 of Karakas or one of the 4 Knights (that can tutor for Karakas) when it's time for showing. Isn't that actually pretty ok all things considered?
Of course there are times when a Tidespout Tyrant shows up.

Grave Titan isn't usually a card that I consider or encounter that much. In a perfect world we punish his tokens and edict the titan with Liliana or keep him Mazed. Could just trade with a Knight? But preferably in those kind of situations I'd just stop caring about what the opponent does and go for Stage+Depths.

Stage+Depths actually resolves a lot of situations :)

Would love a report of you are up to writing it!

I'll be on a 4 color brew this week, but I don't know if it is exactly aggro loam just because it plays loam

I will try to produce a report then.

And I agree full heartedly about 4 color loam not being aggro loam. It's more a control deck than anything else. Or well, I can't speak for everyone, but my list plays zero Tarmogoyfs and zero Countryside Crushers so there really isn't a aggro aspect to it at all, unless 4 Knights and 1 Ooze is considered aggro, which it obviously doesn't.
But to my knowledge there isn't a 4 Color Loam thread, so I guess this is best place for it, the decks are cousins kind of after all.

[aluisiocsantos]

Congrats

I've play tested the 4color loam a bit and I've found out that reanimater is a terrible matchup. After board we have the four leylines, but we can't do anything to stop them from casting s&t. Oh and we don't have any answer to Grave Titan niether

I actually played 4C-Loam this weekend on an 8 man and won against reanimator. Sure it's way easier post-board. The first game I lost like at turn 3 when he reanimated Iona. Game two I open a hand with Ooze and two reliquarys. He goes Show and Tell on me and while he puts Iona again, I play Reliquary and promptly browse for a Karakas to bounce it back, win. Game three I open a hand with Leyline and Slaughter Games and it's a cake walk again.

[Megadeus]

We can beat show and tell. Sneak attack is the real Issue

[aluisiocsantos]

I think running Slaughter Games in the sidebord really helps, but you gotta be extra quick to cast it before he can show and tell into Sneak Attack. that said, if he DOES cast it before you, you can always name one of his creatures instead. Also, Golgari Charm is a card.

recently with jund I'd draw a sneak attack match after Surgical Extracting his emrakuls game 2, and in the game 3, with surgical again on Show and Tell. My problem which led to a draw was the lack of drawing a proper threat - no goyfs or BBE - which could similarly happen to Loam if you can't draw Reliquary or GSZ.

[Megadeus]

Agreed. Slaughter games can go the distance if you draw it. It's a great card. I love it. I think another option would be Revoker. It can come down on turn one with a diamond, helps out all of our combo match ups, and it can even come in versus miracle or something. And yeah I didn't like dark depths in the old list, but it really does help get the deck out of sticky situations

[Dosferra]

As promised, here is my report - Who needs blue? - Undefeated to a split finals with 4 Color Loam

[mith]

Played a similar list to a 3-0 finish at a local weekly Legacy event. Beat D&T, A URB painter/Tezz brew, and Merfolk. The deck feels great, but the manabase is clearly its weak point. Also, I won via Depths a majority of the time...the list definitely needs it.

For sideboarding, I'm going with:
2 Golgari Charm
3 Canonist
3 Choke
3 Slaughter Games
4 Leyline of the Void.

Hate needs to be draw asap against certain decks, and I prefer to up the odds rather than hope I'll draw it in a deck with no blue.

[sdematt]

Played a similar list to a 3-0 finish at a local weekly Legacy event. Beat D&T, A URB painter/Tezz brew, and Merfolk. The deck feels great, but the manabase is clearly its weak point. Also, I won via Depths a majority of the time...the list definitely needs it.

For sideboarding, I'm going with:
2 Golgari Charm
3 Canonist
3 Choke
3 Slaughter Games
4 Leyline of the Void.

Hate needs to be draw asap against certain decks, and I prefer to up the odds rather than hope I'll draw it in a deck with no blue.

For the 4C Loam builds most of you are running, and those who are also running Charm in the board, is the red constraint for RR for Devastating Dreams too backbreaking, or is the instant speed -1/-1 the reason you're running it (and its ability to kill TNN)?

I know in my build, I have few reasonable ways to kill a TNN, but I plan on going over the top with Stage/Depths, Assault/Loam, or Wolf Run.

-Matt

[kravkenov]

Hi,

Does anyone know why Countryside Crusher isn't played anymore (RR cost ?)?
Does the W splash really worth KotR ?

Also isn't the mana base much more stronger in 3 colors (RGB) than with W + utility lands ?
I really love Seismic Assault and Countryside Crusher.
I tried to pack also 1 KotR, Teeg and a Maze of Ith, but I'm a bit afraid that it is just too much :/
I removed Liliana for 2 Devastating Dreams. I think they are in really good synergy with Countryside Crusher.

I'm planning to play this list sunday in a small tournament (+25 players).
What do you think about ?

Thx :)

//Artifact (8)
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Mox Diamond

//Creature (11)
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Dark Confidant
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Scavenging Ooze

//Enchantment (2)
2 Seismic Assault

//Instant (6)
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire

//Sorcery (7)
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Life from the Loam

//Land (26)
2 Badlands
1 Barren Moor
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
2 Forgotten Cave
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Wasteland
3 Wooded Foothills

SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 Chains of Mephistopheles
SB: 3 Choke
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Qasali Pridemage