I think this card is going to be good, but is only going to be a 2 of or so in the archetype. It is a fairly slow card, but the inevitability it would give to the deck is surely something to like. I think it is better in the former Burning Vengeance spot for more Seismic Assault effects. I have already done some testing with it with my friends online and it has performed well and won me the game already against UW Control, though I was playing 4 just to be able to draw it in the games...
I usually use untap.in to test spoilers and other new cards, so if anyone wants to run real tests on the Loam deck, let me know and we can use the site to run guantlets.
This may take up that BBE spot. The list as I see it has about 4 flexible top end slots to fill with different stuff. Raging Twister incentivizes the deck to play more lands, so I'm more inclined to play cards like Courser of Kruphix and even ye ol Ramunap Excavator + Fetchlands / Ghost Quarter / Horizon Canopy combo. In the loam decks of the past, you would want to play only 3-4 lands and then discard the rest to Seismic Assault. With AKH, we started to play lands up to Loam-Cycle-Loam. Now with twister, we can play limitless lands and return them to our hand in the late game. How good this would be IDK, but it is something we should consider. What cards like having lands being played?
The obvious answer to me is Tireless Tracker, which I think gets better with Twister in the deck at a very base level. If we don't have a land to play, you can tap a Rootbound Crag to bounce Rootbound Crag and play Roodbound Crag for 0 mana lost. I wanted to test Courser of Kruphix to see how good it is now, and may try BBE as well. The thing about BBE before is there weren't many great targets to hit and I didn't really want to play it turn 4 for 4 mana. Now that we are incentivized to play more lands, it may be way better, idk.
Land
Blast zone enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it.
T: Add C
XX, T: Put X charge counters on Blast Zone.
3, T, Sacrifice Blast Zone: Destroy all nonland permanents with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Blast Zone.
Looks like we are getting a new utility land with WAR.
It does seem to be pretty slow and producing only colourless is of course a real cost, too.
I will definitly test 1 Mainboard maybe in the 3rd Ghost Quarter slot, since utility lands are so much better with loam and it does come into play untapped.
I think it looks pretty good. Against Bogles, we only need to interact with 1's and occasionally 2's, so this can wipe away everything turn 4. That being said, it comes down later than EE and is harder to get charge counters on, so I don't see it being great. EE can destroy all 0 mana non-lands against affinity, hardened scales, chalice of the void prison strategies, and tokens, can be put on 1 to wipe all your opp's mana dorks and Bogles, and can be put on 2 to kill goyfs and Scoozes. I think EE is way bigger and better.
It reminds me of an old RUG Loam list that used EE and Academy Ruins to continually wipe the board. If you want a recurrable Explosives effect, I think this would still be better since it is more flexible and easier to crack.
If the goal is only to have a better matchup against Bogles, throwing a couple of these into the maindeck wouldn't be so bad. I just don't think this replaces EE just like I don't think Ratchet Bomb replaces EE. While it may be a more budget option, it loses a lot of what makes EE good.
The vortex deck is an entirely different build than the AssaultLoam version. Because of the nature of Molten Vortex, you have to play ungodly amounts of lands to make a turn 1 Vortex good. The reason why is in the numbers.
If you want to discard 2 lands turn 2 to Vortex, then you have to play 2 lands as well. That's 4 lands turn 2 for profit. If you were playing AssaultLoam, a turn 2 Loam or Wayfinder would turn a t3 Seismic Assault into that same effect a turn later.
That extra turn that Molten Vortex gives you is the key that makes it good or bad in a certain metagame. And while on the play the difference between turn 2 and turn 3 interaction doesn't matter much currently, on the draw it is monumental.
I posted earlier about how my win rate on the draw with Loam being around 50% while on the play I won over 90%. I have been looking for ways to fix the play/draw scenario with this deck for weeks now, and I think this Vortex list may be a step in the right direction.
The biggest thing about Vortex is this: on the draw, it can kill TiTi on turn 2, so the major upside is that it can come down and answer the biggest threat to the deck in the biggest deck in the metagame immediately. Fatal Push does the same thing.
The problem with VortexLoam in the past was that people tried to do too much with it. Tarmogoyf isn't great in the deck because the majority of your deck is lands, and I've found that it ends up a 3/4 too often. A vanilla 2 mana 3/4 isn't that great in modern.
If you don't have anything to kill on turn 2 with Vortex, no problem. Dark Confidant does wonders in this deck, and it is why we go black. Turn 1 Vortex into turn 2 Confidant makes you regain a lot of the cards you lose from Vortex, letting you more easily play lands and discard them at the same time. I have had games with this list where I didn't loam, but used the two cards per turn off of Dark Confidant to get more lands and removal spells to keep the board clear and win the game.
Countryside Crusher is the other major creature in the list. With 32 lands, it flips multiple lands often, and helps us draw gas in the sea of lands. With Dark Confidant, you can choose to stack the triggers either way. If you do crusher first, you dig through more of your deck to draw loam faster. If you stack confidant first, you likely will draw a land and then a spell. Depends on the situation.
Vortex is good against TiTi, but it is not the only reason to play this version of the deck. A similar thing can be done to decks that are playing a lot of creatures like Dredge, Humans, and Spirits, where you can turn 1 Vortex, turn 2 discard 2 lands with a lot of value to get back. Vortex also allows you to pay a red to Shock a Phoenix every time it comes back, to keep the birds off the board. Also, a turn 1 vortex means that it'd be very hard to counter aside from a Spell Pierce on the draw, so the control matchup gets easier (in some ways) as well.
I'm not saying this list is better than the well-tested AssaultLoam. It has a lot of flaws that can be exploited including folding to graveyard hate and not having as much game against control. However, if this list gets optimized, I think it will be better overall on the draw. Whether this small percentage increase will be better is to be seen, but so far I like how it plays in testing.
TL;DR: VortexLoam answers some of the problems with the AssaultLoam list, but is unoptimized atm. If this archetype gets optimized, it will likely be better on the draw, which may or may not decrease the variance of the list.
Has anyone played with Jaya Ballard at all? I'm currently running her as a 2 of in my take on the RG list. I took it in a more controlling direction with only 3 main board creatures (3x Countryside Crusher). While she comes down a lot later than you'd like both of her + abilities are relevant in this deck. I've had a few games where I use the 3R mana she can generate to cast multiple Flame Jab because Assault isn't online, or get extra damage out of the Loam -> Cycle Thicket -> Assault loop by casting more Loams per turn.
I haven't tried Jaya, as I always thought she would be too slow on 5 mana.
I have tried Sarkhan, Fireblood in the past to take a similar role looting Loams into your hand, though Jaya would do it a lot faster. I can see her being good, but I just don't see her being as effective as some of the other options we have access too. Still, I don't know though since I haven't tested with her.
In other news, I am currently 9-1 with the Vortex list with a loss to RW Burn. I don't think I would have won against that deck even if I had been playing the other list, so I'm very happy with how the deck has been doing. The turn 1 Vortex on the draw against UW Spirits made me feel so good. Other notable wins were over Dredge twice, Mono-Red Phoenix twice, and Storm.
I added 1 The Gitrog Monster to the list too that has been doing better than I expected. Since the Vortex deck wants to get to 5 mana turn 5 to turn on Vortex + Loam anyways, it makes casting Gitrog pretty easy. The two times it has hit the table, I have won the game on the spot due to its card advantage and huge butt, so I may continue playing it in the list and add a Dakmor Salvage for it.
Stylistically, that is exactly the form of Ramp the deck wants, it is a guranteed (mostly) ramp on turn 1 without being able to get interacted with (par with Counters) to enable a turn 2 Seismic Assault on the draw. Sure, it eats a full Shock, which kinda sucks, but on the other hand, it also enables Crusher on turn 2, which allows the deck to race combo better.
Besides this, I would need to actually test the (pure) Vortex list to get a better grasp of it, but honestly, the fact that the deck (still) folds to a Surgical on Loam or a Needle on Vortex sucks big time. In my opinion, the deck has already suck a good main plan (against close to everything but combo) adding elements which help you, when the main plan gets shut down (Needle/exiled Loams) should be the main goal.
Greetings,
Kathal
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I'm still not sold on the list either, but just like with the Assault lists, I have won multiple games with just good creatures and Fatal Push / Lightning Bolt to back them up. I think people are overstating how good surgical is against our deck. While it may take out Loams, you can play around it and go down to 3 copies of it post board.
The premise of this archetype is to have a midrange deck that uses AssaultLoam to steal wins. The maindeck should be good enough on its own so that if it never sees Loam or never sees Seismic Assault it still wins. If you want to play a more combo focused version that's fine, but you concede more chance of just folding to hate like Surgical or Rest in Peace. I feel like the primer needs to be updated to cover new options and explain postboard strategy more in depth.
I currently have 2 grim lavamancers in my SB, but i’ll Probably switch them to vortexes. When I played an old version of vortex Loam years ago I found that vortexes were great against fast decks. I still like having my mana opened up after I cast seismic assault, I might try a split of some sort in the main.
I wish there was a good way to recur arboreal grazer in some capacity. If we could play it multiple times it might allow us to feasibly run more utility lands.
One idea I had recently was a RG build with an above-average amount of forests and running Nissa’s Pilgrimage. Maybe when war comes out i’ll Try nissa’s triumph and the origins nissa.
Lavamancer is a great card in the deck that hasn't seen a lot of play recently. The only thing about Vortex is I'd advise playing more lands to be able to activate it efficiently, even upwards of 25. Statistically, the least lands a deck needs to activate vortex consistently is 31 (~80% to get 4 lands turn 2), so playing 24 often leads to heartbreak. That's how I initially tested Vortex before doing the Hypergeometric Distribution and I was disappointed. If you only need to discard one land turn 2 though against something like infect, 25-26 should be fine.
I couldn't find anything in this thread about the explore creatures from Ixalan block. Has anyone tried running Merfolk Branchwalker or Jadelight Ranger? In a creature heavy build they seem like gas. They draw lands to pitch with Assault, they help you filter your draws and get Loam/Flame Jab directly into the graveyard. I don't otherwise think these cards are really that great in Modern, but I think they fit this game plan really well. They're also a great cascade target for BBE.
I tested Jadelight over Tireless Tracker for a couple weeks and didn't like how it played. That being said, it may have not been the right spot for it so I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be good in a better position.
I wish there was a good way to recur arboreal grazer in some capacity. If we could play it multiple times it might allow us to feasibly run more utility lands.
There are a couple of recursion options available in these colors. Ewit comes to mind or mortuary mire is a great option, though it is essentially a colorless land in rg.
I really like Chandra to help close out games and she affects board states.
Edit: so I'm new to using the tags and still need to figure out the deck tag. I was gonna post my current list but will do that once I figure out the tags.
3 Dismissive Pyromancer
3 Satyr Wayfinder
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Living Twister
1 Tireless Tracker
Spells: 20
4 Faithless Looting
2 Dismember
2 Flame Jab
1 Conflagrate
4 Life from the Loam
4 Seismic Assault
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Ground
2 Sheltered Thicket
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Rootbound Crag
1 Raging Ravine
4 Mountain
1 Forest
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/808368-living-twister
edit : too slow, sorry guys, hype made me forgot to read before posting :'(
Upsides compared to Seismic Assault:
- can attack and block
- not awful in multiples
- can return extra lands to your hand
- slightly easier mana cost (maybe)
Downsides:
- requires mana to activate ability
- dies to creature removal
I usually use untap.in to test spoilers and other new cards, so if anyone wants to run real tests on the Loam deck, let me know and we can use the site to run guantlets.
which is a good thing. I'm more inclined to play RG BBE Loam now
The obvious answer to me is Tireless Tracker, which I think gets better with Twister in the deck at a very base level. If we don't have a land to play, you can tap a Rootbound Crag to bounce Rootbound Crag and play Roodbound Crag for 0 mana lost. I wanted to test Courser of Kruphix to see how good it is now, and may try BBE as well. The thing about BBE before is there weren't many great targets to hit and I didn't really want to play it turn 4 for 4 mana. Now that we are incentivized to play more lands, it may be way better, idk.
Land
Blast zone enters the battlefield with a charge counter on it.
T: Add C
XX, T: Put X charge counters on Blast Zone.
3, T, Sacrifice Blast Zone: Destroy all nonland permanents with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Blast Zone.
Looks like we are getting a new utility land with WAR.
It does seem to be pretty slow and producing only colourless is of course a real cost, too.
I will definitly test 1 Mainboard maybe in the 3rd Ghost Quarter slot, since utility lands are so much better with loam and it does come into play untapped.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
It reminds me of an old RUG Loam list that used EE and Academy Ruins to continually wipe the board. If you want a recurrable Explosives effect, I think this would still be better since it is more flexible and easier to crack.
If the goal is only to have a better matchup against Bogles, throwing a couple of these into the maindeck wouldn't be so bad. I just don't think this replaces EE just like I don't think Ratchet Bomb replaces EE. While it may be a more budget option, it loses a lot of what makes EE good.
I've been testing Molten Vortex more.
The vortex deck is an entirely different build than the AssaultLoam version. Because of the nature of Molten Vortex, you have to play ungodly amounts of lands to make a turn 1 Vortex good. The reason why is in the numbers.
If you want to discard 2 lands turn 2 to Vortex, then you have to play 2 lands as well. That's 4 lands turn 2 for profit. If you were playing AssaultLoam, a turn 2 Loam or Wayfinder would turn a t3 Seismic Assault into that same effect a turn later.
That extra turn that Molten Vortex gives you is the key that makes it good or bad in a certain metagame. And while on the play the difference between turn 2 and turn 3 interaction doesn't matter much currently, on the draw it is monumental.
I posted earlier about how my win rate on the draw with Loam being around 50% while on the play I won over 90%. I have been looking for ways to fix the play/draw scenario with this deck for weeks now, and I think this Vortex list may be a step in the right direction.
3 Sheltered Thicket
1 Blast Zone
1 Canyon Slough
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Field of Ruin
1 Raging Ravine
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Stomping Ground
2 Blood Crypt
4 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Dark Confidant
2 Scavenging Ooze
4 Countryside Crusher
Spells: 14
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Fatal Push
4 Life from the Loam
1 Damping Sphere
1 Cindervines
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Vraska, Golgari Queen
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Life Goes On
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Scavening Ooze
2 Engineered Explosives
The problem with VortexLoam in the past was that people tried to do too much with it. Tarmogoyf isn't great in the deck because the majority of your deck is lands, and I've found that it ends up a 3/4 too often. A vanilla 2 mana 3/4 isn't that great in modern.
If you don't have anything to kill on turn 2 with Vortex, no problem. Dark Confidant does wonders in this deck, and it is why we go black. Turn 1 Vortex into turn 2 Confidant makes you regain a lot of the cards you lose from Vortex, letting you more easily play lands and discard them at the same time. I have had games with this list where I didn't loam, but used the two cards per turn off of Dark Confidant to get more lands and removal spells to keep the board clear and win the game.
Countryside Crusher is the other major creature in the list. With 32 lands, it flips multiple lands often, and helps us draw gas in the sea of lands. With Dark Confidant, you can choose to stack the triggers either way. If you do crusher first, you dig through more of your deck to draw loam faster. If you stack confidant first, you likely will draw a land and then a spell. Depends on the situation.
Vortex is good against TiTi, but it is not the only reason to play this version of the deck. A similar thing can be done to decks that are playing a lot of creatures like Dredge, Humans, and Spirits, where you can turn 1 Vortex, turn 2 discard 2 lands with a lot of value to get back. Vortex also allows you to pay a red to Shock a Phoenix every time it comes back, to keep the birds off the board. Also, a turn 1 vortex means that it'd be very hard to counter aside from a Spell Pierce on the draw, so the control matchup gets easier (in some ways) as well.
I'm not saying this list is better than the well-tested AssaultLoam. It has a lot of flaws that can be exploited including folding to graveyard hate and not having as much game against control. However, if this list gets optimized, I think it will be better overall on the draw. Whether this small percentage increase will be better is to be seen, but so far I like how it plays in testing.
TL;DR: VortexLoam answers some of the problems with the AssaultLoam list, but is unoptimized atm. If this archetype gets optimized, it will likely be better on the draw, which may or may not decrease the variance of the list.
Here's my current list:
3x Countryside Crusher
Planeswalkers:
3x Chandra, Torch of Defiance
2x Jaya Ballard
Instants and Sorceries:
2x Anger of the Gods
3x Commune with the Gods
4x Faithless Looting
3x Flame Jab
4x Life from the Loam
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Seismic Assault
2x Slagstorm
4x Arid Mesa
3x Forest
3x Ghost Quarter
5x Mountain
3x Sheltered Thicket
4x Stomping Ground
4x Wooded Foothills
I have tried Sarkhan, Fireblood in the past to take a similar role looting Loams into your hand, though Jaya would do it a lot faster. I can see her being good, but I just don't see her being as effective as some of the other options we have access too. Still, I don't know though since I haven't tested with her.
In other news, I am currently 9-1 with the Vortex list with a loss to RW Burn. I don't think I would have won against that deck even if I had been playing the other list, so I'm very happy with how the deck has been doing. The turn 1 Vortex on the draw against UW Spirits made me feel so good. Other notable wins were over Dredge twice, Mono-Red Phoenix twice, and Storm.
I added 1 The Gitrog Monster to the list too that has been doing better than I expected. Since the Vortex deck wants to get to 5 mana turn 5 to turn on Vortex + Loam anyways, it makes casting Gitrog pretty easy. The two times it has hit the table, I have won the game on the spot due to its card advantage and huge butt, so I may continue playing it in the list and add a Dakmor Salvage for it.
Stylistically, that is exactly the form of Ramp the deck wants, it is a guranteed (mostly) ramp on turn 1 without being able to get interacted with (par with Counters) to enable a turn 2 Seismic Assault on the draw. Sure, it eats a full Shock, which kinda sucks, but on the other hand, it also enables Crusher on turn 2, which allows the deck to race combo better.
Besides this, I would need to actually test the (pure) Vortex list to get a better grasp of it, but honestly, the fact that the deck (still) folds to a Surgical on Loam or a Needle on Vortex sucks big time. In my opinion, the deck has already suck a good main plan (against close to everything but combo) adding elements which help you, when the main plan gets shut down (Needle/exiled Loams) should be the main goal.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
The premise of this archetype is to have a midrange deck that uses AssaultLoam to steal wins. The maindeck should be good enough on its own so that if it never sees Loam or never sees Seismic Assault it still wins. If you want to play a more combo focused version that's fine, but you concede more chance of just folding to hate like Surgical or Rest in Peace. I feel like the primer needs to be updated to cover new options and explain postboard strategy more in depth.
I wish there was a good way to recur arboreal grazer in some capacity. If we could play it multiple times it might allow us to feasibly run more utility lands.
One idea I had recently was a RG build with an above-average amount of forests and running Nissa’s Pilgrimage. Maybe when war comes out i’ll Try nissa’s triumph and the origins nissa.
There are a couple of recursion options available in these colors. Ewit comes to mind or mortuary mire is a great option, though it is essentially a colorless land in rg.
Edit: another land safe haven
I really like Chandra to help close out games and she affects board states.
Edit: so I'm new to using the tags and still need to figure out the deck tag. I was gonna post my current list but will do that once I figure out the tags.