MTG Salvation

Quote from supachai

Does anyone have tips in the Merfolk matchup? I've found that its surprisingly difficult. They just crap out a ton of lords and have a ridiculous clock before I can stabilize. Aether vial is also very annoying when I want to wipe with a Dreams.

I've never played against any merfolk deck, but my build had consistantly beat Goblin+Vial by using the Devastating Dreams. Maybe I've been lucky and killed the group before too many Lords got out. Plus with the LD it should slow them down.

But if you can Burning Wish for Boil I'm sure would piss off all the fish be for you DD them.

Merfolk isnt that hard of a matchup for me. I run DD main board and can Burning wish for Maelstrom Pulse, Firespout or more DD. I usually board in my Gaddock Teegs as he is a nifty 2 drop that pretty much says bye bye FoW.

The issue Merfolk has against Aggro Loam comes in the form of Seismic Assault mostly. If you can get 1 board wipe the SA will clean out the rest of the board easily and quickly while allowing anything extra to be sent straight to your opponent's heads.

Side note: Knight of the Reliquary combat tricks is huge in this matchup as well. Finding the Maze of Ith and Sejiri Steppe to swing pro blue offen allow for a game win just as quickly as SA can.

Quote from jmbitzer81

I've never played against any merfolk deck, but my build had consistantly beat Goblin+Vial by using the Devastating Dreams. Maybe I've been lucky and killed the group before too many Lords got out. Plus with the LD it should slow them down.

But if you can Burning Wish for Boil I'm sure would piss off all the fish be for you DD them.

I think Goblins is a completely different matchup. They can't counter our key card, Devastating Dreams, and they have like 3 lords maybe while Merfolk has upwards of 10-12. Lords make Seismic Assault sad :(.

@Areys: I agree that I've found the Wish builds to be better against Merfolk in general. Not sure why, but thats just how they played out. I think that's going to be important in helping me settle on Wish or Wishless builds. Then again, I haven't test post board and maybe some strong creature/blue hate cards would help. I'll have to see. Anyway, thanks for the tips, I'll keep them in mind while playing.

Quote from jmbitzer81

But if you can Burning Wish for Boil I'm sure would piss off all the fish be for you DD them.

I'm sure you meant Tsunami or Boiling sea! (Boils an instant)

In general boarding in a few anti island things such as boil makes for good counter magic eat up in the blue control match up. Paving way for DD.

my only beef with it is it eats up spots in the Sideboard when running multiple boils, plus against control theres a lot of other cards i prefer.

thing with merfolk is something like Volcanic fall out works pretty decently as by turn 3, (and it is turn 3 crucial) most of there merfolk lords aren't all pumped to a solid 3 toughness yet. usually its 1 lord in early game and its only 2 toughness. So a 2 damage uncounterable spell can really knockout there momentum early game.

I like the idea of wishing for Tsunami after a kotR fetches a tabernacle But i've never been 1 to run KotR so I can't speak first hand of the strategies effectiveness. But every merfolk match up I think of is packing a lot of counter spells be played around.




Course I might just be Mad enough to throw a Thrashing Wumpus at them in the black version of the deck.

Volcanic Fallout is an instant (Therefore not able to be grabbed on turn 1-2 with Burning Wish) and while you are right about the tempo that it creates, the fact that it is not going to kill anything if they have 2+ Lords makes it's uncounterable not as important as Firespouts 3 damage that does NOT need RR1 only R2/G2/RG1 mana. It allows you to play it with a less perfect mana hand. (There will be games where RR1 wont be castable on turn 3 guaranteed and thats where Firespout also helps)

Quote from Areys

Volcanic Fallout is an instant (Therefore not able to be grabbed on turn 1-2 with Burning Wish) and while you are right about the tempo that it creates, the fact that it is not going to kill anything if they have 2+ Lords makes it's uncounterable not as important as Firespouts 3 damage that does NOT need RR1 only R2/G2/RG1 mana. It allows you to play it with a less perfect mana hand. (There will be games where RR1 wont be castable on turn 3 guaranteed and thats where Firespout also helps)

I meant volcanic fallout as a 3 or 4 of in your sideboard to board in. I didn't mean it as a wish target. which i should of stated. But what i said about volcanic was my opinion of it.

I haven't had the mana problem you describe, but even it if be just a run of luck, the risk of the mana color not being there is all to real, thought i never considered it till now.

But against merfolk they always seem to have a counter for firespout.

turn 1 cursecatcher is a very strong plus that backed up with dazes and forces. by the time you have enough to get around either of those or get firespout number 2, in most cases you've lost more than half your life.

In general, Volcanic Fallout is never going to wipeout more than 1-2 Merfolk because if they have more than 1 lord, Fallout is useless. I think the better plan is just to lay out fat guys to block and try to land Seismic Assault. Fallout is not good enough in enough matchups to warrant sideboard space. Firespout is worth considering if there is a lot of Zoo and Goblins running around.

Got 5th place out of 66 players using a 4color Aggro loam:)

But I lost to a RB Goblins because I did not mulled for a better hand.

Quote from blue_mage

Got 5th place out of 66 players using a 4color Aggro loam:)

But I lost to a RB Goblins because I did not mulled for a better hand.

Congrats on the top 8. Just for discussion sake, would you mind posting your list you placed with and any thoughts/comments you have about your deck and what possible changes you might want to make?

Quote from Areys

Congrats on the top 8. Just for discussion sake, would you mind posting your list you placed with and any thoughts/comments you have about your deck and what possible changes you might want to make?

It would be great to see the hand you thought you should have mulled also. I have a lot of questions on how to mull aggro loam correctly and that's the main thing that keeps me from playing it instead of countertop at this point.

This was the list I run. But I might add 1 mountain, replacing 1 taiga. It’s kind of hard running only 1 basic forest in this deck is quite prone to mana screw. Like what happened in the payoff against gobs.

But overall I like the performance of the deck. Devastating dreams is really a power house against non blue based decks is can turn games in your favor. I like the list with wish because you are able to get the cards that you need on a given situation.

On my 2nd game against Gobs I kept a hand with 2 burning wish 1 firespout 1 wooded foothills 1 sejiri steppe 1 devastating dreams and 1 life from the loam.

It cost me game for I fetch for taiga and it got wasted! I had no other choice since I had no other basic red mana source. I wasn’t able to get a land after several turns!

I think I should have mulled for a hand with a better land count. Or a hand with a mox diamond so I can keep up with the opponents fast phase


LANDS
1 Forest
1 Maze of ith
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Arid Mesa
1 Windswept Heath
26


CREATURES
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Countryside Crusher
1 Eternal witness
15
SPELLS
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Life from the Loam
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Seismic Assault
4 Burning wish
19

46

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
2 firespout
1 reverent silence
2 gaddock teeg
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 shattering spree
1 Worms harvest
1 Devastating dreams
1 life from the loam
1 perish
15

So 2 perish in the sideboard? (assuming thats a miss print.) If it is Might i suggest upping your firespouts to 3.

Quote from TheRogue

So 2 perish in the sideboard? (assuming thats a miss print.) If it is Might i suggest upping your firespouts to 3.

Yup, its a miss print, sorry about that. I might try adding 1 more firespout in the SB and remove worm's harvest. But still it depends on the Meta that we will be having on this upcoming GP.

By the way has anyone tried kitchen finks or zuran orb as an SB against aggressive decks? Please let me know how it worked for you. thanks!

kitchen finks can be hit any a miss against aggro because if its goblin its a recurring blocker and giving you life, so its great there.

Against Naya/zoo with sword/paths its life gain is great but it won't last as long due to most of the time being exiled before they go on the attack. Possible upswing is it may draw the removal spells away from the main core of creatures.

Orb is great against zoo just because they will run low on gas in the longer game and your other removal is keeping there creatures down. or there locked up with chalices
(Also good against tendrils as they must make a bigger storm count.
Same goes for kitchen finks in this area, only not as effective as orb against tendrils.)
Against aggression like goblins orb isn't the best answer as they will keep growing less other removal takes them out.

Quote from blue_mage

LANDS
1 Forest
1 Maze of ith
4 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Plateau
1 Savannah
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Arid Mesa
1 Windswept Heath
26


CREATURES
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Countryside Crusher
1 Eternal witness
15
SPELLS
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Life from the Loam
2 Devastating Dreams
2 Seismic Assault
4 Burning wish
19

46

Sideboard:

4 Leyline of the Void
2 firespout
1 reverent silence
2 gaddock teeg
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 shattering spree
1 Worms harvest
1 Devastating dreams
1 life from the loam
1 perish
15

Your mana is atrocious. I'd suggest cutting the Steppe and the Maze for more Taigas, or a Taiga and a Mountain.

The issue with Steppe is that it only really works well as a way to foil removal spells. You can occasionally use it to force through lethal damage, but it's generally worse at being a way to kill the opponent than Seismic Assault. However, in either case, you get the most mileage out of it by having a way to get it into play at instant speed, which in your build involves keeping a Knight of the Reliquary constantly untapped. That seems really bad, especially given that this deck usually wants to send its large guys in to bash.

The issue with Maze is that it's only really good in a few matchups (most of the time, one Maze will not do enough): Reanimator, Zoo, Bant, etc. The problem is, again, that your most reliable way to get it is with Knight of the Reliquary, which is very, very slow, especially against Reanimator where Iona can sometimes name green and prevent you from playing Knight at all.

The land toolbox seems cute, but you get a lot more value out of attacking with your Knights than with doing cute tricks with them.

Quote from Aggro_zombies

Your mana is atrocious. I'd suggest cutting the Steppe and the Maze for more Taigas, or a Taiga and a Mountain.

The issue with Steppe is that it only really works well as a way to foil removal spells. You can occasionally use it to force through lethal damage, but it's generally worse at being a way to kill the opponent than Seismic Assault. However, in either case, you get the most mileage out of it by having a way to get it into play at instant speed, which in your build involves keeping a Knight of the Reliquary constantly untapped. That seems really bad, especially given that this deck usually wants to send its large guys in to bash.

The issue with Maze is that it's only really good in a few matchups (most of the time, one Maze will not do enough): Reanimator, Zoo, Bant, etc. The problem is, again, that your most reliable way to get it is with Knight of the Reliquary, which is very, very slow, especially against Reanimator where Iona can sometimes name green and prevent you from playing Knight at all.

The land toolbox seems cute, but you get a lot more value out of attacking with your Knights than with doing cute tricks with them.

I have to disagree with the lands being atrocious bit. My list is posted somewhere on page 5. They run close to the same lands. Not too far at least. I run a WIsh & DD version of loam and having lands in general is not something that I am ever too concerned with. (I do understand that Wish and DD lists are becoming less common however its still my preference) All I ever really need is 1-2 Mox and another red mana producing land and I am good to go for a long while. Maybe perhaps its because I play Aggro Loam a little more controlly than most but I find that Steppe and Maze of Ith are really nice toolbox 1 ofs that aren't coming out of my list any time soon.

I was accused last night of playing "Aggro Loam". I was 4-0 then lost in top 8 1-2 vs. goblins. I smashed game 1 but drew terribly in the 2nd game and should have mulliganed, 3rd game he got out really fast and I was at 3 when I stabilized. He was then able to haste rush me.

Rathi Dragon ehh...

An interesting idea but may i suggest replacing it with wonder and swapping a land with a tropical/volcanic.
That way all your creatures have flying?

Quote from TheRogue

Rathi Dragon ehh...

An interesting idea but may i suggest replacing it with wonder and swapping a land with a tropical/volcanic.
That way all your creatures have flying?

Eh ... two people scooped when he hit. Threw some extra counters on Crusher as well. No point in getting islandwalked and struggling to find a way to pitch a bad blue creature.

I actually had my decklist slightly wrong. It was 3 x Vexing Shusher and Jaya Ballard, Task Mage.

curious but does anyone even still play the solitary confinement version of the deck anymore?


@ned

If you forgot you had jaya in there next to masticore theres discard outlet number two.

But none the less rathi can function as a unexpected late game threat to throw off your opponents.

-edit-

Gunna put up my latest incarnation of my trinket loam

3 trinket mage
4 tarmogoyf
4 countryside
2 terravore
1 eternal witness

2 echoing truth

4 burning wish
3 life from the loam
2 devastating dreams

3 seismic assaults

1 sigil of distinction
4 chalice of the void
2 engineered explosives
4 mox diamond

2 tiaga
2 volcanic island
1 tropical island
4 wooded food hills
2 scalding tarn
4 wasteland
3 forgotten cave
2 tranquil thicket
1 mountain
1 forest
1 academy ruins