Raphael Levy posted an article Christmas Day on tcgplayer. He brought up a new brew he's been thinking about in Modern, and quite honestly, I think it's one of the better decks I've seen pop up lately (as far as new ideas go).
I think this deck is brilliant. It combines the strength of Life from the Loam, with the strength of the 8Rack decks, to create something that can compete with a ton of different decks. He claims that the Pod matchup is not the best in the world, along with the Burn matchup. I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on this deck, because I think it's really interesting and could be very good.
how is this deck better than gifts loam? , i really dont like this deck, i mean its not bad, but i will take gifts loams or aggro loam any day over this
Theres the first of his video series with the deck. I haven't examined the side-by-side card differences, but from looking above I recall it being very familiar.
Gifts loam is great, but a little slow. When you're all in on loam tricks too, its much easier to make the strategy viable against all decks--as opposed to starting turn 4/5--then sometimes its too late for loam to do its work.
I play GB Loam Pox, and I'll just add that it was difficult for me to add a white splash for Lingering Souls, much less white and red. Neat idea but I dont think 4c Loam Pox can be a thing
He claims that the Pod matchup is not the best in the world, along with the Burn matchup. I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on this deck, because I think it's really interesting and could be very good.
I've been testing this list and played it at an FNM tournament the other night. It takes a very long time to win and I ended up multiple draws (I'm not a slow player). I've began to do some timed testing against a gauntlet of pod, scapeshift, delver and affinity. We are consistently unable to finish 3 games in the allotted time. Although it is a competive deck and very fun to play, I think it's best to play it casually. I wouldn't take it to a PTQ or any serious tournament due to the likelihood of grinding into multiple draws (basically a loss).
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Modern: Lingering RockBGW - Patriot FlashURW - Mono Black InfectB(MTGO)
I do think something like this, with knights of the reliquary, a kessig wolf run and vault of the archangel would be really solid, maybe a few mutavaults too.
I've done quite my share of beating in with souls tokens, and it is frustrating as a fast player to go to time against even just a slightly slow player.
I've been testing this list and played it at an FNM tournament the other night. It takes a very long time to win and I ended up multiple draws (I'm not a slow player). I've began to do some timed testing against a gauntlet of pod, scapeshift, delver and affinity. We are consistently unable to finish 3 games in the allotted time. Although it is a competive deck and very fun to play, I think it's best to play it casually. I wouldn't take it to a PTQ or any serious tournament due to the likelihood of grinding into multiple draws (basically a loss).
I'm happy to work around the grind - but how have you managed against Delver, Burn and other Aggro decks?
Delver isn't terrible as long as you can find an early darkblast. It feels like the all-star of that match up. Also, as long as they don't have access to Path to Exile, the will have trouble with racing Bloodghast.
Burn is a very bad match up. You just can't close fast enough to beat their draw/burn strategy. Smallpox and thoughtseize are pretty bad with no way to gain life. Postboard is slightly better with Tombstalker to close it out, but still not great. If you see burn often in your meta, consider packing an additional white source and vault of the archangel over the 3rd tectonic edge.
I haven't played against affinity or zoo yet. However, I assume it's similar to how BGx Rock plays those match up's, one for one with removal and disruption and win the late game with the grind.
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Modern: Lingering RockBGW - Patriot FlashURW - Mono Black InfectB(MTGO)
I am going to be running this tonight at a small (10-14 players normal) modern tourney. It is the list that Raphael ran on stream a week ago Sunday (Feb 15th) and won the daily 4-0. Hopefully I can play this correctly as there are MANY lines of play. Will try and come back to do a report tomorrow of how I do. Three rounds only but I will try and jam a few games before vs a buddy.
@herkamurjones - Do you know where I can find that stream by Rapheal Levy on Loam Pox? Thanks
Also, I'll be running this list tonight too and I'll try to post results and what I've learned tonight or tomorrow.
@herkamurjones - Do you know where I can find that stream by Rapheal Levy on Loam Pox? Thanks
Also, I'll be running this list tonight too and I'll try to post results and what I've learned tonight or tomorrow.
@herkamurjones - Do you know where I can find that stream by Rapheal Levy on Loam Pox? Thanks
Also, I'll be running this list tonight too and I'll try to post results and what I've learned tonight or tomorrow.
So out of the three rounds I ended up going 1-1-1....:weird: I love how the deck worked but it seems like it would be hard to play in a GP or SCG level event because of the grind that it (can) take to win. Here is a summary of my opponents and then a little more detailed report.
Round 1 vs UW Tron - L in 2
Round 2 vs Affinity - W in 3
Round 3 vs Abzan - D in 3 (we played it out and I ultimately lost)
Early vs the Tron opponent, I felt pretty good because of tec edges and ghost quarters for the UrzaTronLands but wasn't able to draw into any of my dredge spells. Didn't have a great SB plan because I didn't know the deck well enough. If I had known, I would have certainly boarded in the grudge's for batterskull and wurmcoil. My fault, and lost because of it. Should have taken notes but forgot. I'm pretty sure I went:
-2 GftT
-1 darkblast
-1 flame jab
+2 brownie
+2 raven's crime (because discard is great vs draw decks)
Affinity was a win in 3 and the loss was, unsurprisingly, game 1. Affinity is my long-term deck of choice so I know a lot of the "tricks" they have. In game 2 I tried to bait her to block with her 4/4 vault skirge after I cast darkblast during my upkeep and then dredged it back with a flame jab in the yard. She didn't take the bait so had to fetch an untapped crypt so I could do another darkblast then double jab! Sideboarding was (if I remember correctly):
-2 GftT
-1 raven's crime
-1 murderous cut
-4 smallpox
+4 ancient grudge
+2 brownie
+2 king tut
Basically ancient grudge got there. It's pretty good vs grafdigger's cage.
Abzan went down hard game 1. Got the zombie infestation's when I needed them along with Squee and brownie as a super sweet engine, dredge 2, get a 2/2 zombie and gain 2 life! Sideboard went something like this:
-1 terminate (hard-ish to cast)
-1 darkblast (not too many 1/1's EXCEPT for lingering souls tokens..)
-1 flame jab (again, probably should have kept this in for spirit tokens..)
+1 brownie
+1 king tut (turns out, he is a powerhouse vs siege rhino)
+1 deathmark
The second game went pretty long and I ended getting stomped by 2 rhinos and couldn't keep up with the crashing beaters. Game 3, ended going to time and we rolled for the extra pack, he got it :frown:. Wish I would have known a little more about his deck because I would have brought in (probably) 2 grudges for the batterskull. I was able to take care of the token a few times while I was digging for a loam but he was able to bounce it and play it every-other turn. Got out of control quickly. He had timely paths for my bloodghasts and souls tokens along with a well timed, yet strange inclusion, damnation to wipe both boards just to flashback souls. It was the beginning of the end when he decayed my infestation and I couldn't draw my last.
I will be playing this deck again, because I want to get more reps in with it so I can get better and quicker. It really does take a lot out of you, if you are not used to playing a deck like this, like I am. Very excited to see that this thread has come back to life though! Hopefully Raph will be doing some more videos in the near future with this deck as he said he wanted to in the daily vid. There are so many different interactions that it would be too much to write an article about, better suited for a video series we can hope!
Excellent information herkamurjones. I took that exact list into a daily queue on MTGO and a few 8-mans. I lost in the daily to games I should have won. Abzan seems like a favorable matchup, because their dorks and lingering souls get eaten by darkblast / flame jab. The rest of their creatures get taken out by smallpox / spot removal. Most abzan lists are running very few basics right now, so a ghost quarter lock turns ghost quarter into strip mine very fast.
A couple of things I learned about playing this deck.
1: Having an opponent discard Obstinate Baloth, Loxodon Smiter, or Wilt-Leaf Liege to smallpox is awesome because they have to sac it if they have an empty board.
2: Hands without some kind of discard outlet or a dredge card are extremely slow if you don't draw one.
EDIT: I feel like this deck needs some kind of sweeper if your opponent gets ahead. The games I lost with decent hands were because I couldn't cast smallpox and my opponent got ahead.
I've played his original list at a premiere IQ at an Open, and have made some small tweaks that kind of mirror his changes.
Only 1 Lili is necessary in the main(and probably in the 75). She's best as a two drop or a three drop with protection. In this deck she's usually a t4 play that's mostly there for longevity with no way to recur it.
Murderous Cut is playable, but both it and Tasigur are mediocre(don't play Tasigur for any reason). You will rarely be able to make the most of him, you will often sac him to pox, and your opponent will just give you something with dredge which will actually slow you down. You also have very few cards you want to delve away that you don't also recurr. The only thing you can delve away safely is redundant Zombie Infestations. I would very much want Poxes back.
Disagree with removing Bloodghast. It's an amazing threat vs scape shift, ascension, and infect. Loses some of its impact when skite itls boarded in but I can't count the number of game 1's I've stolen with 2-3 ghasts attacking an opponent who has already dealt themselves damage.
Just my .02
I've played a fair amount affinity, Infect, ascension, and scale shift in testing and all matchups seem close to 50/50 or favorable. This deck has anemic draws at times but I think it has tools to succeed.
I had this same thought but after discussing it with a friend, she thought it was not right because you will more often want BB on turn 2 to smallpox. I totally get what you are saying in that you want to fetch for R on turn 1 for faithless looting and then have G on turn 2 for loam but you only have either 1) only 1 fetch in hand or 2) don't want to pay too much life to fetch & shock AGAIN.
I found that in my initial testing, the deck either crushes pretty quickly or sort of peters out because the cards come out of sequence. Need to get dredge spells early, not late! Also need to have some land destruction in either smallpox or one of the lands that kills theirs. I might be playing this one again on friday at FNM but it doesn't start until 10:30pm and I'm old now and might not be able to handle that! lol
Will report back!
I've been pondering a Maelstrom Pulse or two in the board. Haven't seen Jace but PW not named Liliana of the Veil seem like they could be troublesome though infrequent.
I wonder if dreadbore is just better than terminate because of the planeswalker clause? Maybe the instant speed is relevant though? Thoughts on that or hero's downfall?
So I played the deck again last night and ended up dropping after a 0-2 start but the deck was SOOO fun to play! Round 1 was vs Abzan (again) and lost in 2. A single Siege Rhino tore me up game 1 with the help from tarmogoyf but King Tut was an allstar. Boarded in 2 more of the pharaoh's along with a crime and deathmark, taking out darkblast, murderous cut and 2 other cards (cannot remember what at this point, don't take notes..) Game 2 was batterskull and 2 rhinos (its called a crash of rhinos ;)) which was just too much to handle. Had lots of removal right when it was needed but not enough to stabilize. Had a lot of fun and realized that I need to bring in the ancient grudge even if they only run 2 batterskulls total. Its hard to take out otherwise.
Round 2 was vs storm and he was able to go off the turn before I would have killed him. Abrupt Decay is such a great card vs this deck! Killing the ascension or electromancer is critical. Boarded in 2 bog, 2 ray of revelation and 2 brownies and out the 4 smallpox, flame jab and darkblast. I mulled to 5, no land. The hand was killer with looting, bloodghast, brownie, abrupt decay and infestation. Turn 2, no land. Turn 3 ghost quarter to kill his dual land. Turn 4 I FINALLY got a fetch for the blood crypt and really took off. Made a zombie and ticked him down to 10 over a few turns while he was filling his yard. He "YOLO'd" (actually said that too!) and was able to storm off. Again, this was such a fun deck just because everyone wanted to see it play. It's so much more different than people have seen.
One of my buddies is an avid graveyard player and recommended seismic assault to combat against blood moon, which is absolutely ingenious! Just would have to make sure to fetch for the forest before they drop the moon and you can shock them out.
I plan on playing this again on Monday night and seeing what it can do. Not going to make any changes at this point to the 75. Will keep trying it as is. I think my play-style needs to change to fit the meta, i.e. boarding in the grudges vs Abzan, lol. Know the decks better, I haven't needed to know much as I normally play affinity which doesn't care about the other deck that much.
I also played this deck last fnm and it went very poorly. The deck has a good matchup vs most of the non linear decks but against all of the linear comboish decks it is very weak. Sadly modern is filled with those decks as I got to play vs burn storm and amulet. The deck is not fast enough and also doesn't have enough disruption.
Also without a looting or a zombie infestation you really are not doing a whole lot. If you expect a meta filled with creature decks then this is a good choice, otherwise I would try something different.
Anyone else have different experience with the combo matchup let me know.
Kind of depends on the combo matchup. Vs storm you have to be faster, and disrupt their board by killing goblin electromancer and pyromancer ascension. It's very hard for them to go off without an engine. Smallpox helps keep them off lands. Against any combo that doesn't use the graveyard, like Twin, raven's crime is the all-star, as getting them hellbent as fast as possible should be your goal. Ad-nauseam can be laughably easy to beat. Ancient grudge destroys so much of their artifact mana, and they run maybe one or two basic lands. Ghost quarter very quickly turns into strip mine vs a deck like that.
This deck has so many options and lines of play, and can be tuned to deal with just about any type of deck. But the lines of play it presents are very complex. In the first couple of turns you have to understand exactly what it is your opponent is trying to accomplish, and through the use of kill spells, abrupt decay, smallpox, raven's crime and your sideboard tech, disrupt that plan as hard as possible. Then, it's a simple matter of beating them down with Bloodghast, Lingering Souls, and zombie tokens.
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Come watch me stream over at my twitch channel. I play Loam Pox, Ad Nauseam, and jank in modern on MTGO.
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3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
3 Life from the Loam
4 Lingering Souls
2 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
3 Thoughtseize
3 Zombie Infestation
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Swamp
3 Tectonic Edge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
His sideboard looks like this:
2 Golgari Charm
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Magma Spray
3 Tombstalker
1 Zombie Infestation
I think this deck is brilliant. It combines the strength of Life from the Loam, with the strength of the 8Rack decks, to create something that can compete with a ton of different decks. He claims that the Pod matchup is not the best in the world, along with the Burn matchup. I'd like to hear everyone's opinions on this deck, because I think it's really interesting and could be very good.
Theres the first of his video series with the deck. I haven't examined the side-by-side card differences, but from looking above I recall it being very familiar.
Oh and heres the article : http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/woo-brews-zombie-combo/
Thirst for Knowledge % to hit artifact
Loses to over 20% of the meta...
I've done quite my share of beating in with souls tokens, and it is frustrating as a fast player to go to time against even just a slightly slow player.
I'm happy to work around the grind - but how have you managed against Delver, Burn and other Aggro decks?
Burn is a very bad match up. You just can't close fast enough to beat their draw/burn strategy. Smallpox and thoughtseize are pretty bad with no way to gain life. Postboard is slightly better with Tombstalker to close it out, but still not great. If you see burn often in your meta, consider packing an additional white source and vault of the archangel over the 3rd tectonic edge.
I haven't played against affinity or zoo yet. However, I assume it's similar to how BGx Rock plays those match up's, one for one with removal and disruption and win the late game with the grind.
How does this deck do against other G/B/x strategies?
Thanks for spiderboy4 of High~Light_Studios for the kick ass avatar.
Thanks for DarkNightCavalier of HotPS for the exceptional signature.
4 Bloodghast
1 Golgari Brownscale
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
Spells
1 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
1 Flame Jab
1 Raven's Crime
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Go for the Throat
4 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
1 Terminate
4 Zombie Infestation
4 Lingering Souls
1 Murderous Cut
2 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
2 Tectonic Edge
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bojuka Bog
4 Ancient Grudge
1 Deathmark
2 Golgari Brownscale
2 Raven's Crime
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
Also, I'll be running this list tonight too and I'll try to post results and what I've learned tonight or tomorrow.
http://www.twitch.tv/raphaellevy/v/3793298
Google is your friend
lol thanks
Round 1 vs UW Tron - L in 2
Round 2 vs Affinity - W in 3
Round 3 vs Abzan - D in 3 (we played it out and I ultimately lost)
-2 GftT
-1 darkblast
-1 flame jab
+2 brownie
+2 raven's crime (because discard is great vs draw decks)
It should have been:
-2 GftT
-1 darkblast
-1 flame jab
+4 ancient grudge
-2 GftT
-1 raven's crime
-1 murderous cut
-4 smallpox
+4 ancient grudge
+2 brownie
+2 king tut
Basically ancient grudge got there. It's pretty good vs grafdigger's cage.
-1 terminate (hard-ish to cast)
-1 darkblast (not too many 1/1's EXCEPT for lingering souls tokens..)
-1 flame jab (again, probably should have kept this in for spirit tokens..)
+1 brownie
+1 king tut (turns out, he is a powerhouse vs siege rhino)
+1 deathmark
The second game went pretty long and I ended getting stomped by 2 rhinos and couldn't keep up with the crashing beaters. Game 3, ended going to time and we rolled for the extra pack, he got it :frown:. Wish I would have known a little more about his deck because I would have brought in (probably) 2 grudges for the batterskull. I was able to take care of the token a few times while I was digging for a loam but he was able to bounce it and play it every-other turn. Got out of control quickly. He had timely paths for my bloodghasts and souls tokens along with a well timed, yet strange inclusion, damnation to wipe both boards just to flashback souls. It was the beginning of the end when he decayed my infestation and I couldn't draw my last.
A couple of things I learned about playing this deck.
1: Having an opponent discard Obstinate Baloth, Loxodon Smiter, or Wilt-Leaf Liege to smallpox is awesome because they have to sac it if they have an empty board.
2: Hands without some kind of discard outlet or a dredge card are extremely slow if you don't draw one.
EDIT: I feel like this deck needs some kind of sweeper if your opponent gets ahead. The games I lost with decent hands were because I couldn't cast smallpox and my opponent got ahead.
Only 1 Lili is necessary in the main(and probably in the 75). She's best as a two drop or a three drop with protection. In this deck she's usually a t4 play that's mostly there for longevity with no way to recur it.
Murderous Cut is playable, but both it and Tasigur are mediocre(don't play Tasigur for any reason). You will rarely be able to make the most of him, you will often sac him to pox, and your opponent will just give you something with dredge which will actually slow you down. You also have very few cards you want to delve away that you don't also recurr. The only thing you can delve away safely is redundant Zombie Infestations. I would very much want Poxes back.
Disagree with removing Bloodghast. It's an amazing threat vs scape shift, ascension, and infect. Loses some of its impact when skite itls boarded in but I can't count the number of game 1's I've stolen with 2-3 ghasts attacking an opponent who has already dealt themselves damage.
Just my .02
I've played a fair amount affinity, Infect, ascension, and scale shift in testing and all matchups seem close to 50/50 or favorable. This deck has anemic draws at times but I think it has tools to succeed.
I found that in my initial testing, the deck either crushes pretty quickly or sort of peters out because the cards come out of sequence. Need to get dredge spells early, not late! Also need to have some land destruction in either smallpox or one of the lands that kills theirs. I might be playing this one again on friday at FNM but it doesn't start until 10:30pm and I'm old now and might not be able to handle that! lol
Will report back!
Round 2 was vs storm and he was able to go off the turn before I would have killed him. Abrupt Decay is such a great card vs this deck! Killing the ascension or electromancer is critical. Boarded in 2 bog, 2 ray of revelation and 2 brownies and out the 4 smallpox, flame jab and darkblast. I mulled to 5, no land. The hand was killer with looting, bloodghast, brownie, abrupt decay and infestation. Turn 2, no land. Turn 3 ghost quarter to kill his dual land. Turn 4 I FINALLY got a fetch for the blood crypt and really took off. Made a zombie and ticked him down to 10 over a few turns while he was filling his yard. He "YOLO'd" (actually said that too!) and was able to storm off. Again, this was such a fun deck just because everyone wanted to see it play. It's so much more different than people have seen.
One of my buddies is an avid graveyard player and recommended seismic assault to combat against blood moon, which is absolutely ingenious! Just would have to make sure to fetch for the forest before they drop the moon and you can shock them out.
I plan on playing this again on Monday night and seeing what it can do. Not going to make any changes at this point to the 75. Will keep trying it as is. I think my play-style needs to change to fit the meta, i.e. boarding in the grudges vs Abzan, lol. Know the decks better, I haven't needed to know much as I normally play affinity which doesn't care about the other deck that much.
Kind of depends on the combo matchup. Vs storm you have to be faster, and disrupt their board by killing goblin electromancer and pyromancer ascension. It's very hard for them to go off without an engine. Smallpox helps keep them off lands. Against any combo that doesn't use the graveyard, like Twin, raven's crime is the all-star, as getting them hellbent as fast as possible should be your goal. Ad-nauseam can be laughably easy to beat. Ancient grudge destroys so much of their artifact mana, and they run maybe one or two basic lands. Ghost quarter very quickly turns into strip mine vs a deck like that.
This deck has so many options and lines of play, and can be tuned to deal with just about any type of deck. But the lines of play it presents are very complex. In the first couple of turns you have to understand exactly what it is your opponent is trying to accomplish, and through the use of kill spells, abrupt decay, smallpox, raven's crime and your sideboard tech, disrupt that plan as hard as possible. Then, it's a simple matter of beating them down with Bloodghast, Lingering Souls, and zombie tokens.