I think that this deck will have to embrace Blood Moon in order to deal with Tron and Valakut. 4 ghost quarters might get there against tron some of the time, but there is no real way to interact with a scapeshift or titan and their Valakut plan kills much much faster than Seismic Assault. That said, the value to be gained with fetches is a big part of the loam engine, so the deck does lose a little bit of steam under moon. I think a way to compensate for this is to go off the top of the library with cards like courser of kruphix and oracle of mul daya
The alternative would be to build around black and cards like Smallpox and Death Cloud as the disruption package. This is much harder to do as there aren't any enemy bicycle lands yet. You do gain zombie infestation though, which is pretty sweet.
Drake haven, which creates 2/2 flyers every time you cycle or discard also looks pretty nuckin futs.
Anyway, I choose to build the Deck RG with a light bluesplash for counterspells in form of Spell Pierce or even Stubborn Denial to protect our threats from random Abrupt Decays or literally any other removal.
How does countermagic protect your threats from Abrupt decay? The uncounterable clause on decay disagrees with that statement.
I think against death's shadow you just sandbag lands after a loam or two and then drop a seismic assault to punish them for going down to 8 life or so. Tron falls to ghost quarter/loam lock. I like Aggro loam vs those two decks.
In a more aggressive build where you use assault as some late game reach and some board control I think that new creature is fine. In a more controlling build bob and goyf will still likely reign supreme.
Looks like I have to actively come back to modern... darn. These cards are soo good. I am prepping a list for the new set, will post when I am happy. It will likely be BRGw "creatureless" with a couple unburial rites alongside a few good reanimation targets like bobo, elesh norn, iona
With only one Ghost Quarter and no Zombie Infestation, Raven's Crime or Molten Vortex/Seismic Assault, are the cycling lands enough payoff for bothering with Life from the Loam in the first place?
The deck as presented seems too durdley to me, you draw a ton of cards and fill your graveyard fast, but the net gain seems to mostly be large Countryside Crushers, which is nice, but there are a lot of answers to Crusher.
We even got bonepicker if we wanted to play the tempo delver plan. Could do jund splash blue for delver and basically have 8 delver of secrets 4 of which start flipped and aren't as susceptible to abrupt decay or fatal push without revolt
Seems like a good start. Personally I would like to see at least 3 Life from the Loam with at least 2 Shadow. If you don't have a way to get all the land into your hand, Shadow isn't going to do very much for you.
Insult is certainly interesting. One thing that I like about Shadow from the Grave is that with 2 mana up if our opponent tries to use discard to hit Assault early we can use Shadow to get it back at the end of turn. Naturally this is a corner case scenario, but it is further reason why I like the idea of Shadow. I think Insult would be great in a build with something like Tarmogoyf or crusher where you can use assault to wipe their board/hit their face and then a large creature to just punch their face in.
I noticed the list. I still think I like a 4/2 loam/shadow split, maybe a 4/3 loam/shadow split over 3/3 but that is just me. I like it for the fact it can pull the random "gotcha" but I do not like it for the fact that it really needs loam to be optimal.
I am a big fan of commune with the gods over Vessel of Nascency since it digs 1 deeper, though I do suppose vessel can be used at instant speed so the trade off is likely worth it.
I like this list, it appears solid though I am not sure that Knight is great here. As a land tutor you don't have much in the way of utility and as far as a beater you are better off with Tarmogoyf or Countryside Crusher. If you do insist on splashing white for knight of the reliquary then potential removal options to make more use of that white include: Path to Exile, Dromoka's Command (which naturally needs a Knight to be useful) and again, Lightning Helix.
So I've been off and on building a budget Red/Green Loam for a while. I know it's not perfect, and I'll accept any suggestions. I've been debating on taking Young Pyromancer and Magmatic Insight out for Crawling Sensation and Vessel of Nascency but I haven't been able to test to see if it would be worth it.
I am also looking for sideboard advice on a budget. I know the local meta has Tron, Infect, 8rack, Naya Burn and Merfolk as regular attendees. Edit: a coworker of mine said he's faced Lantern Control and Bant Eldrazi at the LGS too. They only recently startrd holding Modern again so it's going to be my first time playing the format in a competitive setting.
I'm officially switching from Seismic Swans to Assault Loam (possibly the Naya build with Swans).
I brought Corbin Hosler's Seismic Swans list to a local event. I got R-E-K-T.
I played against a lot of UBx and BGx decks and it sucked. Most of the time, you'll have two or less nonland cards in your opening hand, so the deck just fell apart in the face of all that hand disruption. Then I went 1-2 against revolting zoo. Pinging your opponent's creatures with Molten Vortex is usually not enough to keep you alive for the first few turns when you have no other interaction to speak of.
Seen some mentions about putting Death's Shadow in the list, so this is what I came up with. Haven't got to test it yet, as Xmage doesn't work on my laptop anymore.
Pretty high level analysis, but it has a decklist to consider.
I was hoping someone had already posted this here. I don't like the list, but Paulo is a great Magic mind and him mentioning the deck will certainly spike many people's interest. Loam already spiked after the bycicle lands got spoiled, so I don't expect much in that way anymore, btw. The main problem I still see with the deck in general is the grave hate prevalent in most metas. Assault Loam's not fast enough to be able to just ignore it and always playing around it is worse than simply playing 'normal' Jund. Still, the archetype is super sweet and I'm excited to see whether it'll receive a little more attention., It certainly deserves it.
Contrary to your opinion, I actually feel Loam strategies are the downright best GY decks to play against hate (outside of Surgical Extraction). They are less all-in and are okay with playing fair through hate. You just have to play tight and force your opponent to either pop their Relic-style hate too early or prepare adequately for Leylines/RIPs. You don't just fold to these cards like Dredge and Goryo decks often do. I've played Zombie Loam and Loam Pox for a couple years now and rarely get "hosed" by hate. You really only auto-lose to Surgicals on your Loams.
Agree on Paulo's list, as I feel you want more universal answers (Decays) and less direct creature kill since our Assaults can do most of the heavy lifting there. Pretty sure he just grabbed the old GP list from early Modern and shoved new stuff in. In spite of all the tech from the last 4 years, I'm going to start with this list as "level 0" for testing purposes and adapt from there. It's a solid starting point for the archetype.
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The alternative would be to build around black and cards like Smallpox and Death Cloud as the disruption package. This is much harder to do as there aren't any enemy bicycle lands yet. You do gain zombie infestation though, which is pretty sweet.
Drake haven, which creates 2/2 flyers every time you cycle or discard also looks pretty nuckin futs.
How does countermagic protect your threats from Abrupt decay? The uncounterable clause on decay disagrees with that statement.
I think against death's shadow you just sandbag lands after a loam or two and then drop a seismic assault to punish them for going down to 8 life or so. Tron falls to ghost quarter/loam lock. I like Aggro loam vs those two decks.
With only one Ghost Quarter and no Zombie Infestation, Raven's Crime or Molten Vortex/Seismic Assault, are the cycling lands enough payoff for bothering with Life from the Loam in the first place?
The deck as presented seems too durdley to me, you draw a ton of cards and fill your graveyard fast, but the net gain seems to mostly be large Countryside Crushers, which is nice, but there are a lot of answers to Crusher.
Lands 26
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
3 Graven Cairns
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Verdant Catacombs
Creatures 3
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Faithless Looting
1 Flame Jab
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Life from the Loam
3 Liliana of the Veil
3 Raven's Crime
4 Seismic Assault
3 Shadow of the Grave
2 Terminate
1 Unburial Rites
1 Worm Harvest
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Darkblast
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Kitchen Finks
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Ray of Revelation
I'm excited to test my creatureless variant. I will likely have a pair of iona and a single Elesh Norn in the sideboard.
I am a big fan of commune with the gods over Vessel of Nascency since it digs 1 deeper, though I do suppose vessel can be used at instant speed so the trade off is likely worth it.
2x Copperline Gorge
4x Forest
1x Game Trail
2x Ghost Quarter
6x Mountain
1x Raging Ravine
2x Rootbound Crag
1x Skarrg, the Rage Pits
2x Stomping Ground
1x Treetop Village
2x Wooded Foothills
4x Flinthoof Boar
2x Ghor-Clan Rampager
2x Scavenging Ooze
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Faithless Looting
1x Flame Jab
4x Life from the Loam
3x Magmatic Insight
3x Seismic Assault
So I've been off and on building a budget Red/Green Loam for a while. I know it's not perfect, and I'll accept any suggestions. I've been debating on taking Young Pyromancer and Magmatic Insight out for Crawling Sensation and Vessel of Nascency but I haven't been able to test to see if it would be worth it.
I am also looking for sideboard advice on a budget. I know the local meta has Tron, Infect, 8rack, Naya Burn and Merfolk as regular attendees. Edit: a coworker of mine said he's faced Lantern Control and Bant Eldrazi at the LGS too. They only recently startrd holding Modern again so it's going to be my first time playing the format in a competitive setting.
Thank you in advance.
I brought Corbin Hosler's Seismic Swans list to a local event. I got R-E-K-T.
I played against a lot of UBx and BGx decks and it sucked. Most of the time, you'll have two or less nonland cards in your opening hand, so the deck just fell apart in the face of all that hand disruption. Then I went 1-2 against revolting zoo. Pinging your opponent's creatures with Molten Vortex is usually not enough to keep you alive for the first few turns when you have no other interaction to speak of.
Seen some mentions about putting Death's Shadow in the list, so this is what I came up with. Haven't got to test it yet, as Xmage doesn't work on my laptop anymore.
Get a clewPretty high level analysis, but it has a decklist to consider.
Contrary to your opinion, I actually feel Loam strategies are the downright best GY decks to play against hate (outside of Surgical Extraction). They are less all-in and are okay with playing fair through hate. You just have to play tight and force your opponent to either pop their Relic-style hate too early or prepare adequately for Leylines/RIPs. You don't just fold to these cards like Dredge and Goryo decks often do. I've played Zombie Loam and Loam Pox for a couple years now and rarely get "hosed" by hate. You really only auto-lose to Surgicals on your Loams.
Agree on Paulo's list, as I feel you want more universal answers (Decays) and less direct creature kill since our Assaults can do most of the heavy lifting there. Pretty sure he just grabbed the old GP list from early Modern and shoved new stuff in. In spite of all the tech from the last 4 years, I'm going to start with this list as "level 0" for testing purposes and adapt from there. It's a solid starting point for the archetype.