Lotleth Troll would probably be a better discard outlet than Pack Rat. Resilient to board wipes, and is probably a bigger threat in Modern than Pack Rat will be, what with Anger being a hot new card, and Bolts/Abrupt running rampant. Pack Rat in Modern would be a turn 5 play at best, turn 2 he would just get bolted or Decayed. At least Lotleth Troll can come down turn 2 and protect himself, however turn 3 with Black mana back up is probably best
Realistically he should only be unblockable without equipment
Guard 1: There goes a sword floating down the street!
Guard 2: Well, he's unblockable, so ignore it.
Eat your greens kids, omnath does, and it makes him strong....
So ever since I made that BUG Haakon/Trade Routes deck, I've been messing around with a lot of different ideas to find a Loam deck to fit the Haakon/Inversion combo in (Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Nameless Inversion), as it is a huge trump in any fair matchup, and generally feels pretty strong in Modern right now.
I feel this list is the best one I've brewed so far, and it has been performing very well, having made top 4 in 3 out of the 4 Modern tournaments I have brought it to so far. The deck:
This deck is much more dredge-centric than most Loam decks I have played in Modern. Almost all of its combos and synergies can be dredged into, and it plays much more cards with the actual dredge mechanic to find them very consistently.
Knight of the Reliquary is one of the most important additions to this version of the deck. He is a giant roadblock against aggro, a giant threat against control, can tutor out Bojuka Bog, Gavony Township, and Tectonic Edge, and is recastable from the graveyard with Haakon when it dies or is dredged into.
Lingering Souls provides a lot of bonus value while dredging, and buys you a lot of time to find Haakon/Inversion against creature decks without costing you cards. Also protects Liliana of the Veil and puts some amount of pressure on control decks, especially when combined with the Gavony Township.
The main sideboard cards white provides are Leyline of Sanctity and Timely Reinforcements, although Stony Silence is also a legitimate option. These really help shore up the previously unwinnable burn matchup, and help against many of the bolt-snap-bolt decks.
I have been very impressed with Stinkweed Imp thusfar, as there are quite a few Modern decks that are surprisingly soft to just dredging and playing Stinkweed Imp every turn. It also digs very hard for Haakon and Loam while doing this, accelerating your own game plan while trading with any opposing attackers (nice Restoration Angel, bro).
I have yet to find any truly terrible matchups, but Melira Pod is usually not great. Smallpox is generally dead on any turn except turn 2, and Liliana of the Veil is pretty bad too. I have found that playing a super reactive game is generally not a good plan since they are so resilient to removal, so I think the best way for me to win is to pressure them with a large Knight of the Reliquary and maybe some spirit tokens early while I dig for Haakon/Inversion. I think I usually end up overboarding for this matchup, and want to find more effective sideboard cards for it. Damping Matrix has been catching my eye recently, as it stops Pod, Scooze, Pridemage, and both combos.
The manabase could use a few more white sources, as I am still using the same manabase from when white was ONLY for half of Lingering Souls.
This looks like it could be a fun deck. I think some number of Crib Swap could be good for you, since it is also a Knight to recur with Haakon, not to mention it exiles instead of just giving -3 toughness.
I love the idea and I think you realize this is a control deck with KotR as a finisher. This deck can make KotR silly big very quickly. His ability is very relevant as well. Haakon is inevitability so long as they don't deny you access to the graveyard.
I just worry about getting my graveyard blown up. I'd like things to get rid of Graftdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void, etc. So I think you need artifact and enchantment removal that isn't graveyard based. I'm not sure what the best choice is honestly. Abrupt Decay can hit some of them, but not the Leyline of the Void. Qasali Pridemage would be my first thought. Its in color and good for a lot of things. Golgari Thug and put it back into your hand once you use it so that you can removal additional graveyard hate that comes down later. The Thug is good to recur non-knights back into your hand since there really aren't many knights that have much utility.
A singleton, Pentarch Paladin, was tech I recently saw in a similar deck. Its late game answer to just about anything. You can theoretically kill your own Pentarch with a Nameless Inversion to choose a different color later in the game if truly necessary. (In general its probably too slow, but it awfully powerful once you get going)
Nameless Inversion is normally enough to kill things, if Haakon is in play then you can always cast Nameless twice or more to give things additional +3/-3, so it kills and puts in the graveyard everything you can target if you have a reasonable amount of mana. I'm not saying a singleton Crib Swap is bad mind you. Its good you know its available because it is situation-ally good. But Nameless Inversion takes care of most things.
I love this deck! I really wish there were more brewers working on it. It seems very competitive and just as fun as can be to play. I'm working on getting ahold of the Liliana of the Veils, and as soon as I do this deck is getting built. The junk route definitely seems to be the most formidable. A couple of questions:
How has Damnation been for you? It's kind of pricey, but if it's been an all-star for you I could bite the bullet and get a couple.
Also, what are some good graveyard protection strategies? I've never played a graveyard based deck before and I'm kind of ignorant in that area.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MODERN: BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG EDH: BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
So ever since I made that BUG Haakon/Trade Routes deck, I've been messing around with a lot of different ideas to find a Loam deck to fit the Haakon/Inversion combo in (Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Nameless Inversion), as it is a huge trump in any fair matchup, and generally feels pretty strong in Modern right now.
I feel this list is the best one I've brewed so far, and it has been performing very well, having made top 4 in 3 out of the 4 Modern tournaments I have brought it to so far. The deck:
This deck is much more dredge-centric than most Loam decks I have played in Modern. Almost all of its combos and synergies can be dredged into, and it plays much more cards with the actual dredge mechanic to find them very consistently.
Knight of the Reliquary is one of the most important additions to this version of the deck. He is a giant roadblock against aggro, a giant threat against control, can tutor out Bojuka Bog, Gavony Township, and Tectonic Edge, and is recastable from the graveyard with Haakon when it dies or is dredged into.
Lingering Souls provides a lot of bonus value while dredging, and buys you a lot of time to find Haakon/Inversion against creature decks without costing you cards. Also protects Liliana of the Veil and puts some amount of pressure on control decks, especially when combined with the Gavony Township.
The main sideboard cards white provides are Leyline of Sanctity and Timely Reinforcements, although Stony Silence is also a legitimate option. These really help shore up the previously unwinnable burn matchup, and help against many of the bolt-snap-bolt decks.
I have been very impressed with Stinkweed Imp thusfar, as there are quite a few Modern decks that are surprisingly soft to just dredging and playing Stinkweed Imp every turn. It also digs very hard for Haakon and Loam while doing this, accelerating your own game plan while trading with any opposing attackers (nice Restoration Angel, bro).
I have yet to find any truly terrible matchups, but Melira Pod is usually not great. Smallpox is generally dead on any turn except turn 2, and Liliana of the Veil is pretty bad too. I have found that playing a super reactive game is generally not a good plan since they are so resilient to removal, so I think the best way for me to win is to pressure them with a large Knight of the Reliquary and maybe some spirit tokens early while I dig for Haakon/Inversion. I think I usually end up overboarding for this matchup, and want to find more effective sideboard cards for it. Damping Matrix has been catching my eye recently, as it stops Pod, Scooze, Pridemage, and both combos.
The manabase could use a few more white sources, as I am still using the same manabase from when white was ONLY for half of Lingering Souls.
Also, what are some good graveyard protection strategies? I've never played a graveyard based deck before and I'm kind of ignorant in that area.
I'm running a contingent of Maelstrom pulse, Abrupt Decay, and Qasali Pridemage. They all have multiple uses, but I don't see anything I can get out of my graveyard that I'd want. Golgari Thug didn't have enough other targets. But don't delude yourself, we don't prevent them from nuking our graveyard, we just need ways to be able to get our graveyard back. The deck is pretty strong when you can't use your graveyard, we have good control cards, but it usually wants access to the graveyard to win.
I love this deck! I really wish there were more brewers working on it. It seems very competitive and just as fun as can be to play. I'm working on getting ahold of the Liliana of the Veils, and as soon as I do this deck is getting built. The junk route definitely seems to be the most formidable. A couple of questions:
How has Damnation been for you? It's kind of pricey, but if it's been an all-star for you I could bite the bullet and get a couple.
Also, what are some good graveyard protection strategies? I've never played a graveyard based deck before and I'm kind of ignorant in that area.
Thanks! I don't think Damnation is SUPER necessary, but your Melira pod matchup (already not good) will get worse without it. Drown in Sorrow is a reasonable alternative that I played for a while, but you will lose the occasional game or two because you don't have the real sweeper. Coming down a turn sooner is pretty relevant against affinity though, and it still clears out Etched Champions. If you don't have the Damnations, definitely try it with the Drown in Sorrows first.
I haven't had too much trouble with graveyard hate, as almost all the commonly played ones can be taken out with Abrupt Decay, which I currently play as a 4-of in the maindeck. Single-time use graveyard hate (such as Tormod's Crypt/Rakdos Charm etc) is usually pretty easy to play around, as you can often bait it out with a Loam or something similar. Scavenging Ooze, however, is very good against the deck. The deck has a lot of answers to one, but sometimes you just don't have it.
The only deck that generally plays Leyline of the Void right now is Living End, and even those decks sometimes replace it with Jund Charm. I used to run more ways to deal with a leyline, but it just never comes up. If it becomes more common, I would add more Maelstrom Pulse/Nature's Claim to the sideboard.
Opponents will often keep bad hands just because they have graveyard hate in them, and it is very possible for you to win with Lingering Souls/Treetop Villages without access to your graveyard.
I have been really happy with the changes, and I have top 4ed the last 2 local tournaments I have brought it to. The deck is definitely powerful, and is very good at punishing metas that are heavy on UWx control or don't play enough graveyard hate. It has a very consistent endgame, as the entire wincon can be played from the graveyard.
There should be at least 1 more white source in the deck, and the Treetop Villages might want to be Stirring Wildwoods. If that were to happen, there should probably be a Plains as well. I'm not sure how necessary the Bojuka Bog is (could be a Godless Shrine), but it has been good before.
Also, what are some good graveyard protection strategies? I've never played a graveyard based deck before and I'm kind of ignorant in that area.
I'm running a contingent of Maelstrom pulse, Abrupt Decay, and Qasali Pridemage. They all have multiple uses, but I don't see anything I can get out of my graveyard that I'd want. Golgari Thug didn't have enough other targets. But don't delude yourself, we don't prevent them from nuking our graveyard, we just need ways to be able to get our graveyard back. The deck is pretty strong when you can't use your graveyard, we have good control cards, but it usually wants access to the graveyard to win.
This. The deck is very capable of winning without its graveyard, although it is more accurate that you control the game without your graveyard until you draw an Abrupt Decay. One of the reasons Scavenging Ooze is a problem is that it puts a lot of pressure on you while denying you access to your graveyard, while most other graveyard hate means that the opponent spent a card and mana NOT putting pressure on you.
This past Saturday, I took the deck to a 202 person PTQ in the area. I went 6-2, finishing 11th overall and narrowly missing top 8. I played the following list:
Congratulations on the good finish, nice to see this deck putting up results!
I'm working on acquiring this deck in paper myself, and I must say I enjoy it at lot more than the BUG version currently more discussed here on the deck creation forum.
Getting KotR and Lingering Souls does so much for the deck.
How was the 3 Darkblasts? I'm currently only running 1.
Congratulations on the good finish, nice to see this deck putting up results!
I'm working on acquiring this deck in paper myself, and I must say I enjoy it at lot more than the BUG version currently more discussed here on the deck creation forum.
Getting KotR and Lingering Souls does so much for the deck.
How was the 3 Darkblasts? I'm currently only running 1.
Thanks! Yeah the BUG version is actually me too, and I'm convinced it is certainly worse, albeit a nice change of pace every now and then. I was surprised when more people had interest in that version.
Darkblast has been overperforming for me quite a bit. In the matchups you really want it, like Affinity, Tempo Twin, and Pod, it singlehandedly makes it very hard to lose when you have just one copy. It also does a very good job at teaming up with Nameless Inversion to take out otherwise troublesome 4 toughness creatures (like Deceiver Exarch, Restoration Angel, Celestial Colonnade, and Linvala, Keeper of Silence). This helps a lot with the Twin matchup, as you have outs to a Twin on an Exarch other than just Abrupt Decay. It is also a reasonable out to Scavenging Ooze by casting it on upkeep, dredging it, then casting it again. It is very versatile.
The switch to Stirring Wildwood was something I tried out because I wanted my manland not to be boltable. The fact that it also adds white mana also helps, as it makes you rarely not have access to white mana. I changed up the manabase slightly to accommodate the extra need for white mana in its activation, and that is certainly a cost. However, I like the added toughness, and the reach is occasionally relevant. It could go either way though.
I have been brewing something similar, it is a reanimator focused deck that is similar enough to yours. It is a side project of the deck that I posted over here in the Gristlebrand Reanimator Primer.
One thing that I didn't find when looking through your posts is no discussion on the card Ashes of the Fallen. I didn't see it mentioned when I read through or when I Condrol+F'd for it. I know it is sub-par, but it opens up another route in the deck which is what first lead me to start to brew it. Aside from that, a couple things that I have found are:
1) The 4th Abrupt Decay is always amazing. I have never been upset to see one, and sine going up to 4 it has payed off for me a lot.
2) This deck fills up the yard fast on wither side of the table, so it led me to include 2 Scavenging Ooze in the place of your two Stinkweed Imp. The Imp is something that I never thought about, so I will probably look into it as a means of seeing more cards in the yard.
3) Burn is so bad, similar to Assualt Loam. Fortunately we play white so playing Leyline of Sanctity is very good for us. I have used 4 to heighten the chances of getting it in the opener, so how has 2 worked out for you?
4) Nyx Weaver is an overly cute card that basically wins games by itself when it works like it should. I tinkered around with it and found it ot be as bad as you think it would be, but it's still something to spark discussion.
5) I saw that you don't have any fastlands in the form of Razorverge Thicket. They don't make turn 1 black, yes, but they save some crucial life that the deck is bad at regaining. You have 5 that don't produced colored mana and 3 that come in tapped. I found that playing KotR you can go down to a lot of singletons, and up the count of the basics. You really always want a Forest or Plains to be saccing, and with Life from the Loam you can recur them and not be looking 2 life per turn like you would be with the shocks. The basics just mean that you don't have to pay any life each time. I personally went with a 3 Forest 1 Plains, 2 Swamp
6) On that note, a singleton filter land, Twilight Mire, gives you the double black that you need for basically half the deck.
That's all I can really think of off the top of my head. I hope it helps a bit and I would love to hear some of the reasoning for the cards in your most recent list, even though about 80% is similar to mine.
I have been brewing something similar, it is a reanimator focused deck that is similar enough to yours. It is a side project of the deck that I posted over here in the Gristlebrand Reanimator Primer.
One thing that I didn't find when looking through your posts is no discussion on the card Ashes of the Fallen. I didn't see it mentioned when I read through or when I Condrol+F'd for it. I know it is sub-par, but it opens up another route in the deck which is what first lead me to start to brew it. Aside from that, a couple things that I have found are:
I honestly didn't know Ashes of the Fallen existed, but it seems a bit too cute. The general philosophy I have with this deck is I want to keep as few cards completely cold to graveyard hate as possible. Currently there are only 7 cards (Haakon and Loam) in the deck that are completely dead when I don't have access to my graveyard, and only 3 of those (Haakon) are dead when that hate is Grafdigger's Cage. I think this is very important to the deck's success, as opponents will often keep very sketchy hands because it has a piece of graveyard hate in it, and I like being able to punish those opponents.
1) The 4th Abrupt Decay is always amazing. I have never been upset to see one, and sine going up to 4 it has payed off for me a lot.
I moved the fourth Abrupt Decay to the sideboard to make room for the third Darkblast. Abrupt Decay is much less important in game 1 when it usually just kills a dude. In games 2 and 3, it plays a much more critical role, because having more outs to graveyard hate is a must. Because of this, I end up boarding it in in most matchups. I would never go less than 4 in the 75, but I found that oftentimes in game 1 it was not the all-star that it is in postboard games. I added the third Darkblast over it because it is probably the most important card in the deck against both Pod and Affinity, and having just one copy in your opener completely changes that matchup in your favor.
2) This deck fills up the yard fast on wither side of the table, so it led me to include 2 Scavenging Ooze in the place of your two Stinkweed Imp. The Imp is something that I never thought about, so I will probably look into it as a means of seeing more cards in the yard.
How many creature cards in your own graveyard do you actually want to exile? I generally don't like playing creatures with no value in the graveyard in a deck that plays Smallpox, although decks doing exactly that have done well in the past, so it is certainly an option. I think if you were set on adding more creatures, you want either Courser of Kruphix or Tarmogoyf. Courser of Kruphix is very powerful in this kind of deck, as knowing the top card of your deck makes dredging decisions significantly easier, and being able to play lands off the top gives you more lands for Raven's Crimeing your opponent. The incidental lifegain is also not to be taken lightly. Tarmogoyf gets to almost his full potential in this deck, as you dredge past Creature, Instant, Sorcery, Land, Planeswalker, and Tribal (plus Artifact and Enchantment in games 2 and 3). I regularly see 7/8 Tarmogoyfs on the other side of the table.
3) Burn is so bad, similar to Assualt Loam. Fortunately we play white so playing Leyline of Sanctity is very good for us. I have used 4 to heighten the chances of getting it in the opener, so how has 2 worked out for you?
Burn is bad. Really bad. It is completely unwinnable game 1, and even a pile of Leylines often doesn't save games 2 and 3. My current plan against burn is to hope I don't get matched up against them so that I can have better matchups against the rest of the field. If you expect a lot of burn, definitely add the last 2 Leyline of Sanctity.
4) Nyx Weaver is an overly cute card that basically wins games by itself when it works like it should. I tinkered around with it and found it ot be as bad as you think it would be, but it's still something to spark discussion.
5) I saw that you don't have any fastlands in the form of Razorverge Thicket. They don't make turn 1 black, yes, but they save some crucial life that the deck is bad at regaining. You have 5 that don't produced colored mana and 3 that come in tapped. I found that playing KotR you can go down to a lot of singletons, and up the count of the basics. You really always want a Forest or Plains to be saccing, and with Life from the Loam you can recur them and not be looking 2 life per turn like you would be with the shocks. The basics just mean that you don't have to pay any life each time. I personally went with a 3 Forest 1 Plains, 2 Swamp
When you play a lot of colorless/utility lands, need to play 8 fetches, and are regularly dredging fetch targets, it becomes hard to justify adding non-fetchable lands that do nothing but fix colors. I used to play a 1-of Woodland Cemetery as an extra painless land that fixes my colors while coming in untapped, but I ended up just not having room for it. I think checklands are probably better than fastlands for this purpose because you will not have room for more than 1-2, it comes in untapped later, and it gives you more choices in colors than just GW (neither of which is the primary color of the deck).
There are only 4 colorless lands in the maindeck, but the deck is 3 colors and relatively color-intensive. I don't think playing 6 basics is a luxury you can afford. That being said, I rarely shock myself with my lands, and if I need to use the mana, I will almost always fetch basics. The fact that all of the fetches in the deck are black helps greatly with this.
Knight of the Reliquary usually activates 0-2 times per game. Generally he is just a giant recursive beater that doubles as graveyard hate against Storm and Reveillark, and can occasionally mana ramp you when you desperately need it. I have been playing this deck for about 4 months and I have never wanted to activate Knight and not had the required Forest or Plains to do it.
6) On that note, a singleton filter land, Twilight Mire, gives you the double black that you need for basically half the deck.
See above, although filter lands are definitely a strong option to consider instead of checklands if you decide you want that slot. My only concern is the deck plays a lot of colorless lands, and opening a hand with just a Twilight Mire and Tectonic Edges is a real possibility, especially games 2 and 3 when you bring in more Tectonic Edges against something like Scapeshift or Tron.
Ok, really good insight from your point of view. I recently moved for the summer and they allow 100% proxies at this new store so I will probably not play this deck for the time being, but I'll keep testing it and after the summer start to bring it out to my other local shops.
Another thought is a singleton Horizon Canopy. It allows you to do a double dredge in a turn, or save some dredge card from graveyard removal. Getting 6 lands into your hand with a Loam is pretty good, and on the second activation it can even bring itself back. I played it in Assualt Loam for a while and loved it because of all of the utility it provides. I think it is worth looking into.
This idea is kind of out there, and I know you prefer to play white instead of blue, but it occurs to me that Zur's Weirding is a total house in this archtype. You can deny your opponent from every drawing anything useful after hitting their hand with discard effects, while the Weirding does nothing to stop your graveyard strategies. You can even choose to dredge and they can't pay to stop you. I think it creates an unbeatable soft-lock for this deck if you have a Haakon in the yard, or even just some dredgers, or honestly even just a Liliana if their hand is weak enough. Kind of want to try this now.
Could Lili be replaced with maybe Thoughtseize? just because lili price wise is so expensive, i could maybe afford 2 of her, but would that be worth it?
Lilly is not interchangeable with Thoughtseize, In the awkward situation where you draw a Haakon, Lilly makes him castable, her -2 mode is also very useful against hexproofcardslikeGeist. Thoughtseize is surely a card to be considered for the deck, but not as a Liliana replacement.
Been working on this myself lately. My meta consists of mainly Affinity, Pod, and Storm. I've been having reasonable success against Pod and Storm, but Affinity has been wrecking me (currently not running Damnation). However, I've been considering trying 2 Death Cloud. Any thoughts against? With the recurring engine this deck has I don't see it as being that bad for us, and feels like a good main board card that could be sided out for a sweeper against aggro matchups.
Been working on this myself lately. My meta consists of mainly Affinity, Pod, and Storm. I've been having reasonable success against Pod and Storm, but Affinity has been wrecking me (currently not running Damnation). However, I've been considering trying 2 Death Cloud. Any thoughts against? With the recurring engine this deck has I don't see it as being that bad for us, and feels like a good main board card that could be sided out for a sweeper against aggro matchups.
edit: If you're not sure why I'm suggesting this, you mentioned a lack of colored mana- I personally think 1 Tec-Edge is enough for the main when it's fetchable and recurrable- you also have Ghost Quarter- and running Steppe is an extra white source. Also, Steppe was a common tutor target in Reliquary decks back in the day, mainly to protect KotR.
P.S. I really like the build. I'd never considered running Haakon and KotR together, and it's just gravy.
So what we have is a prototype deck I'm brewing up. I know there is the Jund Version and the Young Pyro Version and the BUG version running around but I like Junk colors.
Basically the strategy in a nutshell is to use the Dredge Mechanic from Life from the Loam , Darkblast and Necroplasm to generate card advantage by taking advantage of strong retrace spells like Raven's Crime and Worm Harvest to be as disruptive as possible.
With Life From the Loam we should be able to have a never ending onslaught of Bloodghast s and manlands to beat down and if that wasn't enough we have a back up plan of flooding the board with Worm Harvest with a tertiary back up of using Unburial Rites to bring back either Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or Sun Titan depending on the match up. We can also use Life From the Loam to reuse disruptive lands like Ghost Quarter , Tectonic Edge and Mouth of Ronom .
I have no idea what I want the sideboard to look like.
Very open to suggestions at this stage.
After reading through this thread there are a few changes I would make.
I really like the points people made with Leyline of Sanctity. I never even thought of burn as I was trying to contemplate a sideboard. I wanted more Ghost Quarter's in the side because they can quickly lock out some decks. Someone mentioned Vault of the Archangel when I was discussing it and the idea seemed solid. I haven't tested yet. I chose to go with 2 more Unburial Rites targets in the form of moving Sun Titan to the side and adding Azusa, Lost but Seeking. I feel that the combination of our main Dredge engine, Life from the Loam combined with the utility lands we have could benefit from Azusa, Lost but Seeking in some match ups.
Currently building... XGRUrzaTron in Modern, WUBEsper Control in Modern, BGRJund in Modern, UWRThopter Miracles in Legacy, BUWGDelver-Tog in Legacy (My guilty pleasure)
So I know this deck is pretty hard on the life totals, like when Haakon dies and all the fetches etc... But I have been looking at Imp's Mischief as a black panic button and "oh shoot that card is bad" kind of card. It acts as a counterspell and can turn things back at the opponent. I personally like it but it's never been played by anyone before.. ever, so no one ever seems to have an opinion on it.
Thanks! And yeah i forgot to mention that interaction. It doesn't come up much, but it's worth thinking about as sometimes it can take a turn off your clock when your opponent is mostly locked out but still has outs to draw to.
Been working on this myself lately. My meta consists of mainly Affinity, Pod, and Storm. I've been having reasonable success against Pod and Storm, but Affinity has been wrecking me (currently not running Damnation). However, I've been considering trying 2 Death Cloud. Any thoughts against? With the recurring engine this deck has I don't see it as being that bad for us, and feels like a good main board card that could be sided out for a sweeper against aggro matchups.
Yeah the Affinity matchup without Damnation seems very rough. Are you running any Drown in Sorrow in its place? You need to mulligan VERY aggressively against Affinity, pretty much throwing back any hand without a Darkblast or a sweeper. Lingering Souls+removal can sometimes get there, but the matchup is just so much more in your favor when you have one of those effects in your opener. I have been losing to Affinity more than I am comfortable with recently, and I think it might be time to add some dedicated hate in the board (probably Creeping Corrosion).
While Death Cloud is a powerful card, I don't think it helps any of the problem matchups, and getting it hit by a Remand or Mana Leak feels pretty awful. I think it is very good against nonwhite BGx decks (which are pretty popular right now), but it is too easy to strip out of your hand before you can cast it, seeing as it costs 5+ but is still hit by Inquisition of Kozilek. I also don't really like playing lategame-only cards that don't do anything in the graveyard because our lategame plan is to dredge every turn. This means that, in order to actually cast this card, it had to be in our hand in the early turns of the game before we start dredging. That being said, I really like how this card provides a very powerful effect that we can cast and recover from even through a Grafdigger's Cage.
edit: If you're not sure why I'm suggesting this, you mentioned a lack of colored mana- I personally think 1 Tec-Edge is enough for the main when it's fetchable and recurrable- you also have Ghost Quarter- and running Steppe is an extra white source. Also, Steppe was a common tutor target in Reliquary decks back in the day, mainly to protect KotR.
P.S. I really like the build. I'd never considered running Haakon and KotR together, and it's just gravy.
Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge is one of the best reasons to play this deck. It is incredible in the meta right now. Against the decks it is good against, (UWR, Twin, Scapeshift, Jund, etc) it is completely insane and you want to see it every game. One of the biggest things I think this deck has over the Jund Assault Loam lists is that the manabase is less strained so you can afford to play more Tectonic Edge. I think it would be a reasonable idea to play a third.
Knight of the Reliquary is not a reliable land tutor in this deck. I rarely get to untap with it in the early turns where I really want to be able to find my Tectonic Edges, and protecting it with Sejiri Steppe is usually not an option. In Legacy, Knight of the Reliquary is a land tutor first, and a beater second. In this deck, it is the opposite.
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Fetchlands fill the yard for Loam and then I run Faithless Looting and Drown in Filth
Come help me make my Pauper cube awsome!
I feel this list is the best one I've brewed so far, and it has been performing very well, having made top 4 in 3 out of the 4 Modern tournaments I have brought it to so far. The deck:
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Stinkweed Imp
Instants (8):
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Nameless Inversion
2 Darkblast
Sorceries (16):
4 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
3 Raven's Crime
3 Lingering Souls
2 Damnation
Planeswalkers (3):
3 Liliana of the Veil
Lands (25):
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Treetop Village
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dakmor Salvage
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Gavony Township
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Thoughtseize
2 Torpor Orb
1 Damnation
1 Nature's Claim
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Pithing Needle
This deck is much more dredge-centric than most Loam decks I have played in Modern. Almost all of its combos and synergies can be dredged into, and it plays much more cards with the actual dredge mechanic to find them very consistently.
White brings 3 main things to the table: Knight of the Reliquary, Lingering Souls, and sideboard cards.
Knight of the Reliquary is one of the most important additions to this version of the deck. He is a giant roadblock against aggro, a giant threat against control, can tutor out Bojuka Bog, Gavony Township, and Tectonic Edge, and is recastable from the graveyard with Haakon when it dies or is dredged into.
Lingering Souls provides a lot of bonus value while dredging, and buys you a lot of time to find Haakon/Inversion against creature decks without costing you cards. Also protects Liliana of the Veil and puts some amount of pressure on control decks, especially when combined with the Gavony Township.
The main sideboard cards white provides are Leyline of Sanctity and Timely Reinforcements, although Stony Silence is also a legitimate option. These really help shore up the previously unwinnable burn matchup, and help against many of the bolt-snap-bolt decks.
I have been very impressed with Stinkweed Imp thusfar, as there are quite a few Modern decks that are surprisingly soft to just dredging and playing Stinkweed Imp every turn. It also digs very hard for Haakon and Loam while doing this, accelerating your own game plan while trading with any opposing attackers (nice Restoration Angel, bro).
I have yet to find any truly terrible matchups, but Melira Pod is usually not great. Smallpox is generally dead on any turn except turn 2, and Liliana of the Veil is pretty bad too. I have found that playing a super reactive game is generally not a good plan since they are so resilient to removal, so I think the best way for me to win is to pressure them with a large Knight of the Reliquary and maybe some spirit tokens early while I dig for Haakon/Inversion. I think I usually end up overboarding for this matchup, and want to find more effective sideboard cards for it. Damping Matrix has been catching my eye recently, as it stops Pod, Scooze, Pridemage, and both combos.
The manabase could use a few more white sources, as I am still using the same manabase from when white was ONLY for half of Lingering Souls.
Cards that I have been meaning to try out/want to fit in:
Drown in Filth (main)
Inquisition of Kozilek (main)
Stirring Wildwood (main)
Stony Silence (side)
Dismember (side)
Slaughter Pact (side)
Damping Matrix (side)
My Custom Cards
My Twitch - Languishing in neglect under the vain hope of starting again
My Livestream Archive
I just worry about getting my graveyard blown up. I'd like things to get rid of Graftdigger's Cage, Leyline of the Void, etc. So I think you need artifact and enchantment removal that isn't graveyard based. I'm not sure what the best choice is honestly. Abrupt Decay can hit some of them, but not the Leyline of the Void. Qasali Pridemage would be my first thought. Its in color and good for a lot of things. Golgari Thug and put it back into your hand once you use it so that you can removal additional graveyard hate that comes down later. The Thug is good to recur non-knights back into your hand since there really aren't many knights that have much utility.
A singleton, Pentarch Paladin, was tech I recently saw in a similar deck. Its late game answer to just about anything. You can theoretically kill your own Pentarch with a Nameless Inversion to choose a different color later in the game if truly necessary. (In general its probably too slow, but it awfully powerful once you get going)
Nameless Inversion is normally enough to kill things, if Haakon is in play then you can always cast Nameless twice or more to give things additional +3/-3, so it kills and puts in the graveyard everything you can target if you have a reasonable amount of mana. I'm not saying a singleton Crib Swap is bad mind you. Its good you know its available because it is situation-ally good. But Nameless Inversion takes care of most things.
How has Damnation been for you? It's kind of pricey, but if it's been an all-star for you I could bite the bullet and get a couple.
Also, what are some good graveyard protection strategies? I've never played a graveyard based deck before and I'm kind of ignorant in that area.
BRGJUNDGRB---BRHOLLOW ONERB---BGELVESGB---BRGLIVING ENDGRB---GWBOGLESWG
EDH:
BRGKARRTHUS, TYRANT OF JUNDGRB
Where about do you play? Your deck looks failiar
I'm running a contingent of Maelstrom pulse, Abrupt Decay, and Qasali Pridemage. They all have multiple uses, but I don't see anything I can get out of my graveyard that I'd want. Golgari Thug didn't have enough other targets. But don't delude yourself, we don't prevent them from nuking our graveyard, we just need ways to be able to get our graveyard back. The deck is pretty strong when you can't use your graveyard, we have good control cards, but it usually wants access to the graveyard to win.
Thanks! I don't think Damnation is SUPER necessary, but your Melira pod matchup (already not good) will get worse without it. Drown in Sorrow is a reasonable alternative that I played for a while, but you will lose the occasional game or two because you don't have the real sweeper. Coming down a turn sooner is pretty relevant against affinity though, and it still clears out Etched Champions. If you don't have the Damnations, definitely try it with the Drown in Sorrows first.
I haven't had too much trouble with graveyard hate, as almost all the commonly played ones can be taken out with Abrupt Decay, which I currently play as a 4-of in the maindeck. Single-time use graveyard hate (such as Tormod's Crypt/Rakdos Charm etc) is usually pretty easy to play around, as you can often bait it out with a Loam or something similar. Scavenging Ooze, however, is very good against the deck. The deck has a lot of answers to one, but sometimes you just don't have it.
If you suspect your opponent will bring in Jund Charm and also plays Thoughtseizes, Leyline of Sanctity is pretty good at protecting your graveyard.
The only deck that generally plays Leyline of the Void right now is Living End, and even those decks sometimes replace it with Jund Charm. I used to run more ways to deal with a leyline, but it just never comes up. If it becomes more common, I would add more Maelstrom Pulse/Nature's Claim to the sideboard.
Opponents will often keep bad hands just because they have graveyard hate in them, and it is very possible for you to win with Lingering Souls/Treetop Villages without access to your graveyard.
My current list has the following changes from the one posted above:
Main:
-1 Smallpox
-1 Misty Rainforest
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Marsh Flats
Sideboard:
-1 Torpor Orb
-1 Timely Reinforcements
-1 Maelstrom Pulse
+1 Thoughtseize
+2 Damping Matrix
I have been really happy with the changes, and I have top 4ed the last 2 local tournaments I have brought it to. The deck is definitely powerful, and is very good at punishing metas that are heavy on UWx control or don't play enough graveyard hate. It has a very consistent endgame, as the entire wincon can be played from the graveyard.
There should be at least 1 more white source in the deck, and the Treetop Villages might want to be Stirring Wildwoods. If that were to happen, there should probably be a Plains as well. I'm not sure how necessary the Bojuka Bog is (could be a Godless Shrine), but it has been good before.
I play in the Troy area, so I'm sure you've seen me around.
This. The deck is very capable of winning without its graveyard, although it is more accurate that you control the game without your graveyard until you draw an Abrupt Decay. One of the reasons Scavenging Ooze is a problem is that it puts a lot of pressure on you while denying you access to your graveyard, while most other graveyard hate means that the opponent spent a card and mana NOT putting pressure on you.
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
2 Stinkweed Imp
Instants:
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Smallpox
3 Nameless Inversion
3 Darkblast
Sorceries:
4 Life from the Loam
3 Lingering Souls
3 Raven's Crime
2 Damnation
Planeswalkers:
3 Liliana of the Veil
Lands:
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Stirring Wildwood
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Gavony Township
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Damping Matrix
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Pithing Needle
1 Torpor Orb
1 Nature's Claim
1 Damnation
1 Abrupt Decay
I played against (in order):
BGw Midrange (2-0)
Merfolk (2-0)
BG (Tec Edge) Midrange (2-1)
Melira Pod (2-0)
Affinity (1-2)
Storm (1-2)
Infect (2-0)
Scapeshift (2-1)
I managed to dodge the deck's worst matchup (burn), but I also happened to dodge the two best matchups (UWR and Twin) as well.
I'm working on acquiring this deck in paper myself, and I must say I enjoy it at lot more than the BUG version currently more discussed here on the deck creation forum.
Getting KotR and Lingering Souls does so much for the deck.
How was the 3 Darkblasts? I'm currently only running 1.
I see that the Treetop Village has become Stirring Wildwood, is that solely for the mana consistency?
Thanks! Yeah the BUG version is actually me too, and I'm convinced it is certainly worse, albeit a nice change of pace every now and then. I was surprised when more people had interest in that version.
Darkblast has been overperforming for me quite a bit. In the matchups you really want it, like Affinity, Tempo Twin, and Pod, it singlehandedly makes it very hard to lose when you have just one copy. It also does a very good job at teaming up with Nameless Inversion to take out otherwise troublesome 4 toughness creatures (like Deceiver Exarch, Restoration Angel, Celestial Colonnade, and Linvala, Keeper of Silence). This helps a lot with the Twin matchup, as you have outs to a Twin on an Exarch other than just Abrupt Decay. It is also a reasonable out to Scavenging Ooze by casting it on upkeep, dredging it, then casting it again. It is very versatile.
The switch to Stirring Wildwood was something I tried out because I wanted my manland not to be boltable. The fact that it also adds white mana also helps, as it makes you rarely not have access to white mana. I changed up the manabase slightly to accommodate the extra need for white mana in its activation, and that is certainly a cost. However, I like the added toughness, and the reach is occasionally relevant. It could go either way though.
One thing that I didn't find when looking through your posts is no discussion on the card Ashes of the Fallen. I didn't see it mentioned when I read through or when I Condrol+F'd for it. I know it is sub-par, but it opens up another route in the deck which is what first lead me to start to brew it. Aside from that, a couple things that I have found are:
1) The 4th Abrupt Decay is always amazing. I have never been upset to see one, and sine going up to 4 it has payed off for me a lot.
2) This deck fills up the yard fast on wither side of the table, so it led me to include 2 Scavenging Ooze in the place of your two Stinkweed Imp. The Imp is something that I never thought about, so I will probably look into it as a means of seeing more cards in the yard.
3) Burn is so bad, similar to Assualt Loam. Fortunately we play white so playing Leyline of Sanctity is very good for us. I have used 4 to heighten the chances of getting it in the opener, so how has 2 worked out for you?
4) Nyx Weaver is an overly cute card that basically wins games by itself when it works like it should. I tinkered around with it and found it ot be as bad as you think it would be, but it's still something to spark discussion.
5) I saw that you don't have any fastlands in the form of Razorverge Thicket. They don't make turn 1 black, yes, but they save some crucial life that the deck is bad at regaining. You have 5 that don't produced colored mana and 3 that come in tapped. I found that playing KotR you can go down to a lot of singletons, and up the count of the basics. You really always want a Forest or Plains to be saccing, and with Life from the Loam you can recur them and not be looking 2 life per turn like you would be with the shocks. The basics just mean that you don't have to pay any life each time. I personally went with a 3 Forest 1 Plains, 2 Swamp
6) On that note, a singleton filter land, Twilight Mire, gives you the double black that you need for basically half the deck.
That's all I can really think of off the top of my head. I hope it helps a bit and I would love to hear some of the reasoning for the cards in your most recent list, even though about 80% is similar to mine.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
I honestly didn't know Ashes of the Fallen existed, but it seems a bit too cute. The general philosophy I have with this deck is I want to keep as few cards completely cold to graveyard hate as possible. Currently there are only 7 cards (Haakon and Loam) in the deck that are completely dead when I don't have access to my graveyard, and only 3 of those (Haakon) are dead when that hate is Grafdigger's Cage. I think this is very important to the deck's success, as opponents will often keep very sketchy hands because it has a piece of graveyard hate in it, and I like being able to punish those opponents.
I moved the fourth Abrupt Decay to the sideboard to make room for the third Darkblast. Abrupt Decay is much less important in game 1 when it usually just kills a dude. In games 2 and 3, it plays a much more critical role, because having more outs to graveyard hate is a must. Because of this, I end up boarding it in in most matchups. I would never go less than 4 in the 75, but I found that oftentimes in game 1 it was not the all-star that it is in postboard games. I added the third Darkblast over it because it is probably the most important card in the deck against both Pod and Affinity, and having just one copy in your opener completely changes that matchup in your favor.
How many creature cards in your own graveyard do you actually want to exile? I generally don't like playing creatures with no value in the graveyard in a deck that plays Smallpox, although decks doing exactly that have done well in the past, so it is certainly an option. I think if you were set on adding more creatures, you want either Courser of Kruphix or Tarmogoyf. Courser of Kruphix is very powerful in this kind of deck, as knowing the top card of your deck makes dredging decisions significantly easier, and being able to play lands off the top gives you more lands for Raven's Crimeing your opponent. The incidental lifegain is also not to be taken lightly. Tarmogoyf gets to almost his full potential in this deck, as you dredge past Creature, Instant, Sorcery, Land, Planeswalker, and Tribal (plus Artifact and Enchantment in games 2 and 3). I regularly see 7/8 Tarmogoyfs on the other side of the table.
Burn is bad. Really bad. It is completely unwinnable game 1, and even a pile of Leylines often doesn't save games 2 and 3. My current plan against burn is to hope I don't get matched up against them so that I can have better matchups against the rest of the field. If you expect a lot of burn, definitely add the last 2 Leyline of Sanctity.
I feel like Tarmogoyf, Courser of Kruphix, and Dark Confidant are all better options if you want to add more creatures. It's hard to justify playing a three-mana dude not named Knight of the Reliquary.
When you play a lot of colorless/utility lands, need to play 8 fetches, and are regularly dredging fetch targets, it becomes hard to justify adding non-fetchable lands that do nothing but fix colors. I used to play a 1-of Woodland Cemetery as an extra painless land that fixes my colors while coming in untapped, but I ended up just not having room for it. I think checklands are probably better than fastlands for this purpose because you will not have room for more than 1-2, it comes in untapped later, and it gives you more choices in colors than just GW (neither of which is the primary color of the deck).
There are only 4 colorless lands in the maindeck, but the deck is 3 colors and relatively color-intensive. I don't think playing 6 basics is a luxury you can afford. That being said, I rarely shock myself with my lands, and if I need to use the mana, I will almost always fetch basics. The fact that all of the fetches in the deck are black helps greatly with this.
Knight of the Reliquary usually activates 0-2 times per game. Generally he is just a giant recursive beater that doubles as graveyard hate against Storm and Reveillark, and can occasionally mana ramp you when you desperately need it. I have been playing this deck for about 4 months and I have never wanted to activate Knight and not had the required Forest or Plains to do it.
See above, although filter lands are definitely a strong option to consider instead of checklands if you decide you want that slot. My only concern is the deck plays a lot of colorless lands, and opening a hand with just a Twilight Mire and Tectonic Edges is a real possibility, especially games 2 and 3 when you bring in more Tectonic Edges against something like Scapeshift or Tron.
Another thought is a singleton Horizon Canopy. It allows you to do a double dredge in a turn, or save some dredge card from graveyard removal. Getting 6 lands into your hand with a Loam is pretty good, and on the second activation it can even bring itself back. I played it in Assualt Loam for a while and loved it because of all of the utility it provides. I think it is worth looking into.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Love the deck btw
Lilly is not interchangeable with Thoughtseize, In the awkward situation where you draw a Haakon, Lilly makes him castable, her -2 mode is also very useful against hexproof cards like Geist.
Thoughtseize is surely a card to be considered for the deck, but not as a Liliana replacement.
Is Plague Boiler any better?
edit: If you're not sure why I'm suggesting this, you mentioned a lack of colored mana- I personally think 1 Tec-Edge is enough for the main when it's fetchable and recurrable- you also have Ghost Quarter- and running Steppe is an extra white source. Also, Steppe was a common tutor target in Reliquary decks back in the day, mainly to protect KotR.
P.S. I really like the build. I'd never considered running Haakon and KotR together, and it's just gravy.
Here's my original list.
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Godless Shrine
2x Horizon Canopy
2x Marsh Flats
1x Mouth of Ronom
3x Overgrown Tomb
1x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Snow-Covered Plains
2x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Temple Garden
3x Treetop Village
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Woodland Cemetery
2x Drown in Sorrow
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Life from the Loam
2x Lingering Souls
3x Raven's Crime
4x Smallpox
1x Unburial Rites
1x Worm Harvest
Creature (6)
3x Bloodghast
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Necroplasm
1x Sun Titan
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Darkblast
1x Slaughter Pact
Planeswalker (3)
3x Liliana of the Veil
and my original explination.
After reading through this thread there are a few changes I would make.
1. The creature base.
-3 Bloodghast
-1 Sun Titan
-1 Necroplasm
+3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
+2 Knight of the Reliquary
2. The sweeper
-2 Drown in Sorrow
+2 Damnation
3. The Sideboard
+3 Leyline of Sanctity
+1 Torpor Orb
+2 Ghost Quarter
+1 Vault of the Archangel
+1 Necroplasm
+3 Nature's Claim
+2 Stony Silence
+1 Sun Titan
+1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
I really like the points people made with Leyline of Sanctity. I never even thought of burn as I was trying to contemplate a sideboard. I wanted more Ghost Quarter's in the side because they can quickly lock out some decks. Someone mentioned Vault of the Archangel when I was discussing it and the idea seemed solid. I haven't tested yet. I chose to go with 2 more Unburial Rites targets in the form of moving Sun Titan to the side and adding Azusa, Lost but Seeking. I feel that the combination of our main Dredge engine, Life from the Loam combined with the utility lands we have could benefit from Azusa, Lost but Seeking in some match ups.
GWBAbzan Midrange in standard.
XRU Affinity in Modern
Currently building...
XGRUrzaTron in Modern, WUBEsper Control in Modern, BGRJund in Modern, UWRThopter Miracles in Legacy, BUWGDelver-Tog in Legacy (My guilty pleasure)
Trade list is coming soon.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
Thanks! And yeah i forgot to mention that interaction. It doesn't come up much, but it's worth thinking about as sometimes it can take a turn off your clock when your opponent is mostly locked out but still has outs to draw to.
Yeah the Affinity matchup without Damnation seems very rough. Are you running any Drown in Sorrow in its place? You need to mulligan VERY aggressively against Affinity, pretty much throwing back any hand without a Darkblast or a sweeper. Lingering Souls+removal can sometimes get there, but the matchup is just so much more in your favor when you have one of those effects in your opener. I have been losing to Affinity more than I am comfortable with recently, and I think it might be time to add some dedicated hate in the board (probably Creeping Corrosion).
While Death Cloud is a powerful card, I don't think it helps any of the problem matchups, and getting it hit by a Remand or Mana Leak feels pretty awful. I think it is very good against nonwhite BGx decks (which are pretty popular right now), but it is too easy to strip out of your hand before you can cast it, seeing as it costs 5+ but is still hit by Inquisition of Kozilek. I also don't really like playing lategame-only cards that don't do anything in the graveyard because our lategame plan is to dredge every turn. This means that, in order to actually cast this card, it had to be in our hand in the early turns of the game before we start dredging. That being said, I really like how this card provides a very powerful effect that we can cast and recover from even through a Grafdigger's Cage.
Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge is one of the best reasons to play this deck. It is incredible in the meta right now. Against the decks it is good against, (UWR, Twin, Scapeshift, Jund, etc) it is completely insane and you want to see it every game. One of the biggest things I think this deck has over the Jund Assault Loam lists is that the manabase is less strained so you can afford to play more Tectonic Edge. I think it would be a reasonable idea to play a third.
Knight of the Reliquary is not a reliable land tutor in this deck. I rarely get to untap with it in the early turns where I really want to be able to find my Tectonic Edges, and protecting it with Sejiri Steppe is usually not an option. In Legacy, Knight of the Reliquary is a land tutor first, and a beater second. In this deck, it is the opposite.