Without seeing the final results for the SCG Rochester event I wanted to start a thread anyways on Life from the Loam in Vintage magic.
Obviously the card is an amazing card and it is being abused in some aspect in most other formats. (its even pretty sweet in 5color)
What I wanted from you guys was your opinions on the best uses for Loam in the current vintage meta. Beyond that do you think it is good enough to warrent its own decks such as the Loam deck that got some discussion here and on TMD, or should it be used more as a support card for something like Dragon against stax.
Personally I find the card very exciting for my own personal favorite Cerebral Assasin. CA's bad matchup has been Stax for some time now (due to a weak mana base that could not be helped previously) and Loam makes the stax matchup somewhat less of a problem.
The way I see it, this card really needs you to be doing one of two things.
1)Playing a strategy that benefits from throwing a lot of cards into your graveyard (like Dragon), or
2)Being able to translate its effect into drawing spells.
The latter can be done through a couple of methods, such as cycling lands.
If you're not doing one of those two things, you might as well just be playing Crucible of Worlds so you're not throwing away chunks of your deck and tying up your draw phases.
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Do you think it might be used as a land tutor for strip mine, library, etc via Intuition or Gifts? You may also be able to cut down on wasteland and free up some space for more spells. Even one of's like Barbarian Ring or man land could be found much easier. I haven't seen LftL used this way in my area and I'm unsure of its place in vintage, it's just a thought.
The Wild Zombies lives only because of that card and seems to have a good future if people start playing it. Any green beatdown deck could use it to recur wastes and fetches. Also, every decks with fragile mana bases and cards that work with the graveyard (squee, gaea's blessing and AK in oath, etc.) could work with it. It's a card that could fit in a lot of decks for various reasons. The main advantage of this card is that it dumps cards in the graveyard and it recurs. Not a lot of decks don't work with that in vintage.
Now that there are several other posts I will expand a bit on what I was getting at.
Loam is amazing in decks with weak mana bases...(GASP!!! NO WAY!) 5colorDragon and Cerebral Assasin are amazing examples of this. Intuition for Bazaarx3 doesnt EVER have to happen again with loam, you can now do fun things like intuition for Loam/Bazaar/land or squee or deep analysis or dragon or whatever....It makes Intuition a MUCH stronger card in Bazaar based decks. Beyond improoving the intuition power, you also get benefits against mana denial tactics such as those used in Stax and to a lesser degree things like fish (see leik's example). Protecting Bazaar is much less of a problem overall for these various bazaar decks (which include everything from zombies to hounds to dragon to CA to madness etc etc etc) and beyond the protection of bazaar it also helps expand your ability to get key cards to the yard in a more timely fashion. This is especially juicy with a tutor in hand or a welder on the board or an animate in hand...you can dredge your heart away and have fun doing it without it being countered, yay how fun...
Beyond that its been a lot of fun in more controllish style decks featuring strip mine somewhere in the deck as a soft lock with loam can be used for a while to get the game under control.
Loam is too good to not be used in pretty much any deck that has any sort of opportunity to abuse it (and there are a lot of decks that have this ability...)
I just hope the T1 world can take advantage of it in a good fashion...(and im still waiting to see the top 8 dragon list from the SCG event to see if that guy used a few...)
Intuition is now more powerful just in the fact you don't need to search for 3 of the same card any more. I loved Life from the Loam when I first saw it, thinking its the 2nd best land spell ever. 2nd to Crop Rotation
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first turn
Nick: I lay a swamp, tap, dark ritual...
Me: If you cast a hypnotic specter I'll punch you in the face
Nick:...ahh I take 3 points of mana burn
The reason I play black according to CrovaxtheCursed:
I think that in decks that can easily support Crucible of Worlds (ie Workshop based decks) CoW is a vastly superior card, simply due to it not losing card advantage by losing a draw phase. In workshop decks such as stax you thrive off of the best top decking ability in the game...with loam you greatly inhibit that top decking ability since you have little to no draw to make up for the loss of your draw from Loam. However there would be times where the mana denial of Loam/Strip-waste could be enough to get you far into the game and could work well...especially with a goblin welder already on the board.
The trick would be how to fit Loam into the deck...many Stax builds only run 3 Crucibles as it is, and I dont know that they would even want to fit more land recursion into the deck, although Smokestack+Loam isnt a terrible substitute for SS+CoW....
But Master of Darkness touched on a good point..Intuition for Strip Mine, Loam and Random graveyard card like deep analysis would be extreemly strong for a deck like Bazaar Madness or Tog against another control deck...these decks can (and should) throw a loam into their intuition pile against stax or fish to protect themselves from their own lands going bye bye.
I expect good things to come from loam (although knowing the T1 crowd it could take a while to see its full effect.)
I played at a event today where a guy got secound playing a old TnT with 3 loams in it. It ruled over my gift's deck with ease. It was sickening. THis card could also bring back many decks such as TnT and can also bring us new light as decks come.
This card can already be put atop of the broken list.
Wild Zombies is very good. In all seriousness though. If Fish can succed then thsi should be able to dominate. It packs as good disruption (IMO better) and it has a faster clock. Give me a bit and I'll make a killer list.
I got in some pretty decent testing yesterday with some members from meandeck (yay for winter break vacations to california!) and I think all 5 (me two teammates and 2 meandeckers) of us were pretty impressed with loam in the madness deck we were using at the time. It was just really singing with intuition and wild mongrel (mongrels were swinging as flying 8/8s and 13/13s with wonder in the yard and stuff) it was just really hot...
Even with people saying its bad cause you lose a draw I am pretty firmly convinced that it is indeed a very solid card in the right decks...
Yeah, that just seems like awesome utility power. I however, have still been testing Ichorid. I know Wild Zombies is a great deck, but i really do think Ichorid has the potential to be the topdog, assuming it takes the format by surprise.
Well the thing is, I've got this list of Friggorid that kills turn 3 pretty consistently. With that speed, if you go first, you could race combo sometimes.
Combo isn't that popular ear me though, $tax and Fish are most of my meta-game. $tax is like the easiest match-up possible. Fish like other aggro-control decks just can't deal with Ichorids and Ashen Ghouls assaulting them. This is my list
Mana 22
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Land Grant
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Sea
1 Taiga
Spells 14
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
1 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
Lnd Grant is simply awesome this deck. it uses veyr little land (9 only) soi it is almost always a Mox. Further more, it thins out your dekc ,makign it more likely that you dump an Ichorid or an Ashen Ghoul in the yard. Any game where you get a Bazaar of Baghdad can be won as it allows you to deal 15-18 cards on turn 2, on turn 1 if you have a Carefull Study or a Recall.
I have yet to decide on which deck is better, this or Wild Zombies. Though Wild Zombies lacks Friggorid's speed, and it's ability to win with no permanents on the board, it packs a lot of disruption.
I've taken the Intuition for LftL, Bazaar, and Stip Mine, and put it in my Tog deck. the deck cna now set up an amazing draw engine, and can win really quickly.
The GWS dredge a tog decks have already been doing this for some time, and it can be really effective at times, the only issue I have with the build now (after some substantial testing) is that it is at times slow to win and can simply be out controlled even by faster control/combo decks at times if you dont get mana denial working very quickly.
Anyone notice the interaction with Dredge and Sylvan Library. This could be very useful to some kind of control build which relies on the graveyard. Flashback, Dredge, and/or threshold backed up with Force of Wills, etc.
Sylvan seems like it would be good, especially with LftL, but it really isn't. The circumstances required for setup are too hard to come by: as many as 9 lands in the graveyard, 6 mana open (3 of them Green), both Sylvan Library and Life from the Loam available. And the payoff, after all, is just land.
Even with other dredge cards, you have to have already put them in the graveyard, and that means you have dredge working the way you want it.
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Now please, go back to blowing your cat and let the real people enjoy society.
the most effecient use i've been able to put LftL to is in dragon, an intuition pile of bazaar, loam, and dragon is ridiculous. It keeps the bazaars from being destroyed and also makes sure you've got a pain-free source of the right color mana for however you want to win. It's so good I'm now working on how to fit gifts into the same build that's already running 4 x intuition.
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What in the name of all that's holy are you smoking????
Obviously the card is an amazing card and it is being abused in some aspect in most other formats. (its even pretty sweet in 5color)
What I wanted from you guys was your opinions on the best uses for Loam in the current vintage meta. Beyond that do you think it is good enough to warrent its own decks such as the Loam deck that got some discussion here and on TMD, or should it be used more as a support card for something like Dragon against stax.
Personally I find the card very exciting for my own personal favorite Cerebral Assasin. CA's bad matchup has been Stax for some time now (due to a weak mana base that could not be helped previously) and Loam makes the stax matchup somewhat less of a problem.
Discuss!
Life could help landstill at least do a little better if soneone tried to develop a list that could use it to good effect.
I can also see it having some uses in oath based decks as a way to just push things along/get back a screwed mana-base.
Im serton it has other uses but those are the ones I can think of right now.
1)Playing a strategy that benefits from throwing a lot of cards into your graveyard (like Dragon), or
2)Being able to translate its effect into drawing spells.
The latter can be done through a couple of methods, such as cycling lands.
If you're not doing one of those two things, you might as well just be playing Crucible of Worlds so you're not throwing away chunks of your deck and tying up your draw phases.
It seems pretty savage in Dragon to put a Loam into your Intuition piles.
Loam is amazing in decks with weak mana bases...(GASP!!! NO WAY!) 5colorDragon and Cerebral Assasin are amazing examples of this. Intuition for Bazaarx3 doesnt EVER have to happen again with loam, you can now do fun things like intuition for Loam/Bazaar/land or squee or deep analysis or dragon or whatever....It makes Intuition a MUCH stronger card in Bazaar based decks. Beyond improoving the intuition power, you also get benefits against mana denial tactics such as those used in Stax and to a lesser degree things like fish (see leik's example). Protecting Bazaar is much less of a problem overall for these various bazaar decks (which include everything from zombies to hounds to dragon to CA to madness etc etc etc) and beyond the protection of bazaar it also helps expand your ability to get key cards to the yard in a more timely fashion. This is especially juicy with a tutor in hand or a welder on the board or an animate in hand...you can dredge your heart away and have fun doing it without it being countered, yay how fun...
Beyond that its been a lot of fun in more controllish style decks featuring strip mine somewhere in the deck as a soft lock with loam can be used for a while to get the game under control.
Loam is too good to not be used in pretty much any deck that has any sort of opportunity to abuse it (and there are a lot of decks that have this ability...)
I just hope the T1 world can take advantage of it in a good fashion...(and im still waiting to see the top 8 dragon list from the SCG event to see if that guy used a few...)
Nick: I lay a swamp, tap, dark ritual...
Me: If you cast a hypnotic specter I'll punch you in the face
Nick:...ahh I take 3 points of mana burn
The reason I play black according to CrovaxtheCursed:
The trick would be how to fit Loam into the deck...many Stax builds only run 3 Crucibles as it is, and I dont know that they would even want to fit more land recursion into the deck, although Smokestack+Loam isnt a terrible substitute for SS+CoW....
But Master of Darkness touched on a good point..Intuition for Strip Mine, Loam and Random graveyard card like deep analysis would be extreemly strong for a deck like Bazaar Madness or Tog against another control deck...these decks can (and should) throw a loam into their intuition pile against stax or fish to protect themselves from their own lands going bye bye.
I expect good things to come from loam (although knowing the T1 crowd it could take a while to see its full effect.)
This card can already be put atop of the broken list.
Even with people saying its bad cause you lose a draw I am pretty firmly convinced that it is indeed a very solid card in the right decks...
Mana 22
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Barbarian RIng
4 Bayou
3 Taiga
2 Badlands
Creatures 16
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Krovikan Horror
1 Anger
Spells 23
4 Zombie Infestation
4 LftL
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
I'm not a vintage expert, but teh deck appears be very awesome.
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=27013.0
It finished 20th day one an 3rd day two at Waterbury.
it IS a beast...until your matchups become TPS TPS Dragon Dragon Dragon..then you end up losing all of your matches and go home in a pissy mood
If you are auto lose to combo then why bother? Just relying on cabal therapy really isnt enough...
Combo isn't that popular ear me though, $tax and Fish are most of my meta-game. $tax is like the easiest match-up possible. Fish like other aggro-control decks just can't deal with Ichorids and Ashen Ghouls assaulting them. This is my list
Mana 22
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
4 Land Grant
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
1 Tropical Sea
1 Taiga
Creatures 24
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari-grave Troll
4 Ichorid
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Mesmeric Fiend
Spells 14
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
1 Crop Rotation
1 Life from the Loam
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
Lnd Grant is simply awesome this deck. it uses veyr little land (9 only) soi it is almost always a Mox. Further more, it thins out your dekc ,makign it more likely that you dump an Ichorid or an Ashen Ghoul in the yard. Any game where you get a Bazaar of Baghdad can be won as it allows you to deal 15-18 cards on turn 2, on turn 1 if you have a Carefull Study or a Recall.
I have yet to decide on which deck is better, this or Wild Zombies. Though Wild Zombies lacks Friggorid's speed, and it's ability to win with no permanents on the board, it packs a lot of disruption.
Current MTGO Player and paper reseller/speculator.
Even with other dredge cards, you have to have already put them in the graveyard, and that means you have dredge working the way you want it.
My decks:
Standard - MUC, Glittering Wish Control, Battle of Wits
Extended - White Rock, UW Control, Train Wreck
Legacy - SI, UbaStax, CounterSlivers
Vintage - Manaless Ichorid, Flash, Gush-a-Tog
Highlander - Burn, MUC
I test on MWS!