New to the deck, played a ton of kiki-chord but abzan coco does something similar but is actually good. Couple questions.
1. How come so many lists don't run redcap anymore?
2. What kind of changes(if any) would you all recommend if I wanted to play this deck online?
3. 2 or 3 viscera seers? I imagine playing without redcap makes the card a bit worse.
4. In my limited experience so far, it seems very difficult to combo off in certain matchups(anything with interaction basically). My experience with kiki-chord was to play it as a midrange creature-centric value deck first and a combo deck second. Is this how I should approach interaction-heavy matchups?
Yea, I didn't think Lighthouse was good against affinity; I just saw some random posts here and there siding it in and I wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy.
Do you all think collective brutality is a good card to have mainboard in an extremely diverse meta? Is it not a bit narrow for that?
Also does lighthouse come in against affinity? Does it come in against any decks I wouldn't think of?(like aggro decks or other non-control/midrange matchups)
I've been thinking of just running 4 magmatic insight instead of 4 faithless looting. Thoughts? Maybe a 2-2 split? The card disadvantage on looting hurts a lot early game.
Personally I would never drop the 4th Faithless Looting. Although you may at times find more than you need, it is great late game should you need to dig. Being able to cast it with Flashback to dig for threats that you can't recur is very relevant. If you have too many, you just discard them when you cast 1. Since they recur it isn't an issue to bin them. Early game they can be very necessary to dig and sculpt your hand.
I personally would never go below 3 Seismic Assault or effects of that nature. It isn't just a win condition. It is also an instant speed answer to creatures, or the final X amount of damage to the face of your opponent. It is certainly a durdly win condition, but it works great with our loam value engine.
As for the mana base, I would still never go twilight over graven cairns. Twilight is find and everything, but you rarely ever need GG in a turn. If you do, you should be able to get a forest and Gx shockland from your deck. Having Cairns means you can more easily facilitate retracing a Flame Jab or Raven's Crime more consistently as well as multiples in a turn. I could see 1 mire and 2 Cairns. But not 2 Mire. I am not sure why you have a basic Plains in the deck either. You likely never need to worry about hardcasting Lingering Souls that much, where you need to ensure that you have a white mana source through a Blood Moon. The decks that run Blood Moon usually run several sweepers. Tokens are terrible in those match ups. Usually. Many Blue Moon players run Staticaster in my experience and having a basic Plains out could be the difference between casting an Abrupt Decay or not. I would have a second Swamp or Forest in that slot.
I agree about Smallpox. In Legacy where decks only run 15-21 Lands it is far easier to cripple them, whereas in Modern most decks run between 19-23.
Thanks! The other major issue with Pox I find in that same vein in that without a fast clock people would generally just draw into lands eventually anyway while I looked for a Pyromancer or Assault.
This card was suggested to me when I wrote the primer; how does haunted Fengraf sound as a replacement for the plains? Basically whatever it gets back will be good whether it be a goyf or a pyromancer, gives a way to recur creatures where the deck couldn't before. The main issue is that I'm not sure it's better than running a 2nd GQ if I was going to run another colorless land or if I can even support another colorless land at all.
So, I did a bit of rehauling of my 4c PyroPox Loam list. I've found a lot of problems with Smallpox. In a lot of cases outside the midgame it's downright worse than a bolt since it's a sacrifice effect. Even taking into account the discard as well I found that the cost of running Smallpox(running very few creatures and BB on turn 2) was very detrimental. In short: I durdled way too much. Lingering Souls is not a fast clock and pyromancer isn't either without a fair amount of support. Far too many games were lost because the opponent managed to cobble together the right combo of cards to kill me while I durdled looking for a Pyromancer or Seismic Assault to end the game.
I also went down to 25 lands because I very rarely find myself missing land drops/not having enough lands in the yard between Faithless Looting, dredging Loam, or even just through the large amount of fetches the deck runs. Even with cutting Smallpox I think I will have no issue getting lands into the bin. 25 lands is still quite a bit for a deck with as low curve as mine and still enough to feed the 4x Faithless Looting and Loam
-3 Smallpox Too many restrictions to use it. BB is awkward a lot of the time and skews the manabase a fair bit. Not running many creatures means that the only clocks I had were frequently combos in themselves. Pyromancer and Seismic Assault both require other pieces to be effective clocks. Lingering Souls is good for reasons other than being a clock. Raging Ravine is basically the only wincon in the deck that doesn't require other pieces to be decent and, well, winning with a creature land is just about the definition of durdle. Removal of Smallpox also allows me to run a wider range of sideboard cards such as Kitchen Finks which shores up aggro matches far better than Dragon's Claw. I remember cutting the 4th Smallpox a while back because the card is poor in multiplies if I don't have Loam backup. Well, I found that even in singles it tends to be poor without Loam backup. This deck is fairly mana-hungry in wanting to flashback those Faithless Looting and spam retrace spells after loaming and such. I love Smallpox dearly but it just hasn't worked out.
+4 Tarmogoyfs Here come the no-questions-asked clocks that I've been wanting. More creatures also makes my Commune With the Gods considerably better. This also makes any Pyroclasms/Angers in the board significantly better since I'll have a threat that survives through it(as opposed to young pyromancer or lingering souls) The deck still runs damn near half instants/sorceries so there's plenty of stuff to trigger Pyromancer.
-1 Seismic Assault I think this is much better as a backup wincon for when creatures don't quite get there. It's just way too durdly to rely on this as a wincon in modern. Between Faithless Looting and Commune With the Gods I found myself drawing the 2nd copy of this card way too often and being able to pitch it to Faithless Looting doesnt really make up for it. Again, also reduces the number of durdly wincons that require other pieces.
+1 Lightning Bolt: This makes 3. Hard to go wrong here. This may become a 3rd Abrupt Decay or maybe a Maelstrom Pulse/Terminate.
-1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Less necessary with the removal of Smallpox. The need for triple or even quadruple black is much less now.
Smallpox requiring BB on T2 has opened up my manabase a bit. Copperline Gorges are to accomodate the earlier need for green mana with the addition of Goyfs. Cutting 1 Seismic Assault also allows me to distribute my mana sources a bit more evenly so -2 graven cairns for 2 twilight mire. Twilight Mire enables Turn 2 Abrupt decay very nicely while also allowing double green later in the game to cast some combination of Loam/Goyf/Commune/Abrupt Decay in the same turn.
As usual, not that great at manabases. Open to suggestions.
A more pointed question, more and more I play this the more I feel the 4th Faithless Looting is unnecessary. I always find myself with way more faithless lootings than I'll ever really cast. I feel like the card is better for lists that rely more heavily on Loam. Do you all think there is any merit to cutting the 4th Faithless Looting for another Bolt or Inquisition? What else would be a good replacement? Maybe a 1-of Traverse? Maybe a Scavenging Ooze to improve the Dredge matchup. God, not playing smallpox really opens up my options. In testing Commune with the Gods has been very good since it almost always hits now AND mills lands, lingering souls, and retrace cards. Maybe a 3rd one of those?
&lol at blue being bad this standard because kids these days.
Are you going to actually say why blue isn't bad despite the fact it's nothing but a splash in the best decks atm? Or just condescending and thought-terminating clichés?
Can't deny that this is a strong card and a reasonable CMC. However, folks I play with tend to prefer the creatures that have this effect (Archaeomancer, Izzet Chronarch) since they are easier to abuse and recur.
Traverse actually never occurred to me.(Which is odd considering I love the card) Definitely something to keep in mind for the builds that run a decent amount of creatures to enable it. I run a PyroPox variant splashing white for Lingering Souls(meaning the only creatures are 4 Pyromancers) so I'm going to try it as a 1-of to try and increase the density of Pyromancers somewhat in the lategame. Geier Reach Sanitarium is definitely something we want. Again, specifically for my build, I was skeptical about running a 1-of Ghost Quarter so I don't think I want another colorless land.
So, I was discussing having Guttural Response in the sideboard and I was reminded of another matchup where the card is a godsend. I played against RUG scapeshift. Now that's a deck where I really need the guttural responses to force through something and(this feels like a recurring theme) if I don't draw a Raven's Crime then I just lose.
I don't think I would side out abrupt decay for the fact that it does still kill Clique, Snapcaster Mage, Soulfire Grandmaster, Rest in Peace and the stray pithing needle, etc.
I still prefer pulse since it does hit leyline which can be an issue. Bolt will likely never come out against you since it will always have some relevance so you can't always assume that pyromancer and souls will get there. Souls is likely to be ok, but being such a slow clock has a lot of disadvantages. Having pulse to turn assault and raven's crime back on is usually relevant. Plus the fact that it can hit every nonland with the same name could be relevant when staring down 2 or 3 tarmogoyf. The fact that dreadbore is a target for spell snare is also relevant, however dreadbore could open up the way for a pyromancer to land. I am not sure that is relevant enough though.
The loss of Eye of Ugin is not what made our Tron match up better. Ghost quarter every turn means they can never assemble tron and that is why the match up is good. When they miss land drops it also gives you the opportunity to play a young pyromancer and get a retrace in every turn to get the value and close out the game while you lock them under ghost quarter. On the play you could potentially tap out turn 2 for pyro and then turn 3 begin ghost quarter lock, on the draw you just have to immediately begin ghost quarter as soon as possible. If you give them turn 3 to potentially have Tron and play something like a Karn, you're in trouble.
Lingering Souls is a very nice addition. I had considered it at one point, but always felt that 3 color was painful enough so I never wanted to add the 4th color. Glad to hear it has worked out for you.
Commune with the Gods was great when I ran it back in the Treasure Cruise era. I can imagine that would still hold true today, given that we always want to find the assault or pyro digging 5 cards is great.
Your sideboard changes seem perfectly reasonable. I am curious about Gutteral Response though. Is it necessary? Raven's crime should be handling Blue instants.
I believe it was I that suggested cutting Liliana. In that shell I was never happy to see her since she doesn't trigger pyromancer and using 2 spells like a raven's crime and bolt/jab/loam/etc after pyromancer always seemed better.
I always have Maelstrom Pulse for the Leyline of the Void/Leyline of Sanctity. It is also relevant that if your opponent taps out turn 4 for Nahiri, you can just pulse it away.
For your mana base I would drop Temple Garden and keep the Sacred Foundry and Godless Shrine for the white splash. We are predominantly RBgx deck. Which is why I would drop the GW producing land over the RW or BW. Also Temple garden doesn't pump into Graven Cairns whereas the other 2 can. I would definitely add a Ghost Quarter back to the main. You really don't want to have 0 ways of interacting with Trons mana base game 1. Smallpox is great and all, but not nearly effective enough to shut down Tron.
Thanks for the manabase advice. As I said, I tend to be pretty bad at that aspect. I'll replace the Temple Garden with a GQ. After realizing how bad a GW land is, dropping it for a colorless land that helps against certain matchups doesn't sound bad.
On Guttural Response, I will admit, I have not tested a whole lot against Jeskai Nahiri. I've only played a handful of times against it.(in which Guttural response, as one might aspect did work but wasn't game-breaking) Guttural Response was basically the most obvious card that came to my head when I decided to add some sideboard against the deck. Good points about Maelstrom Pulse. I might just straight replace the Guttural Reponses with Pulse and then side out the abrupt decays for them against nahiri.
Another note about Lingering Souls. It's pretty amazing against jeskai nahiri as well since they have few ways of clearing them out that doesn't involve Anger of the Gods.(which would often be a dead card against us since we can go the entire game without having a creature on the field theoretically AND lingering souls is innately strong against board wipes by being split in two halves.) Not all nahiri lists include Staticaster in the board, and even then it's always a 1 of.
What are your thoughts on Dreadbore over Maelstrom Pulse in the board? Or do you think I should be mainboarding some number of Pulses? Dreadbore would be better for specifically the Nahiri matchup(or maybe not? It gets hit by spell snare) while maelstrom pulse in the board is a lot more general and applicable to tons of random T2 or T3 decks. I can't remember the last time I had someone play a Leyline of the Void against me and Leyline of Sanctity has become pretty rare with burn getting worse. Not to mention winning through a white leyline is perfectly reasonable with lingering souls/pyromancer.
So, this is a version I put together after doing a lot of testing with the PyroPox loam I posted earlier. Here are some of the more pertinent changes I made and my reasoning.
Mainboard
-1 Ghost Quarter: Tron is a really good matchup atm since we can grind them out harder while before it was the opposite because of the inevitability of Eye of Ugin. An opening hang with Raven's Crime, lands, and a loam is nearly unbeatable for tron. I felt running a colorless land in a really color intensive shell was not worth it. It helps against affinity and infect to kill creature lands but those already tend to be fine matchups due to running so much removal in Smallpox/Bolts/Flame Jabs/Abrupt Decay. Even better postboard with the pyroclasms.
+4 Lingering Souls This card is just absurd in this shell. Procs Pyromancer, gives value off Commune with the Gods, I can discard it to Faithless Looting and not feel bad. Generally easy to splash since it allows 3 turns to grab white and the flashback cost is easy in an abundantly black deck. In addition, this card damn near makes the Jund matchup unloseable.(I already found I had a favorable matchup against jund with the jund shell.) As if Lili wasn't horrible enough against us. Rofl.
-3 Desperate Ravings, +3 Commune with the Gods: This is something I was discussing earlier in the thread. I found that desperate ravings was far too often a really bad dig spell. I found myself very rarely actually flashing back the spell(which is where most of the value is) In my experience, loam shells function very similarly to a combo deck in that you need to dig deep and find specific cards(in my case, lingering souls, seismic assault, loam, pyromancer) which serve as the main engine pieces/wincons. Lands serve as fuel to either dig or provide for said engine(Loam + Retrace for pyromancer or Loam + seismic assault). While most of the time Desperate Ravings hit something inconsequential like a land. My experience was that the card just drew into worthless stuff far too much. Sure, it's value since you're not discarding anything of worth most of the time. Sometimes you discard your only abrupt decay and you scoop to pure luck. These kinds of value cards just don't work that well in a deck that runs a lot of cards that rely on other cards. Another big reason, as I said before, was just that I very rarely had time to flashback desperate ravings. Discarding one of your three Seismic Assaults feels absolutely awful since it's one of the few cards in the deck that 1. tends to sit in your hand for a while 2. Is completely lost if it hits the yard. Splashing white also allows for more relevant sideboard cards as I'll go over in the next entry.
Sideboard
-2 Golgari Charm, +2 Ray of Revelation: This change was made with the white splash. Blood Moon is quite good against us. No doubt about it. However, Golgari Charm and Abrupt Decay being my only means of removing it was often extremely detrimental because it required two basics under a blood moon. Ray of Revelation either casting or flashing back requires only one basic which is infinitely easier to search out before the blood moon hits the table. I prefer this over similar cheap enchantment removal such as Nature's Claim or Natural State(both of which I considered) because Commune With the Gods and Faithless Looting both interact quite favorably with it. Commune by putting it in the yard and effectively drawing it. Faithless looting because it allows it to be cast for a different color if there's a blood moon on the field but you're lacking a basic forest. Just discard it with looting and you can use the plains you managed to get before the Moon hit the field. The other modes of Golgari Charm are honestly not terribly useful. In matchups where the -1, -1 is good I found myself overloaded with hate against decks which, as I said before, are already pretty decent matchups, namely Affinity and Infect. Against Affinity I would have literally 6 cards in the board for it(2 Ancient Grudge, 2 Pyroclasm, 2 Golgari Charm) and it was just overkill when Flame Jab means the matchup is quite good. For the regeneration effect I can't remember the last time I used it. It's basically only useful for protecting Pyromancer and that tends to not be my main wincon against decks that pack Anger of the Gods/Pyroclasm/Supreme Verdict anyway. Too often it was an enchantment removal that was hard to cast under a blood moon first and a mediocre instant board wipe second.
-2 Witchbane Orb +2 Bojuka, This more of a meta call in addition to balancing out the sideboard a bit. Burn as a whole has become pretty rare and even if it wasn't I don't feel dedicating 5 slots to it is worth it. Bojuka Bog is in response to the slurry of Dredge-flavored decks that come about(and this list's inability to effectively play Anger of the Gods). I also find myself boarding it in against Jund, Jeskai Nahiri, etc simply because I don't lose a whole lot from playing it. Oddly enough, now that I have a white splash I could feasibly play Leyline at this point but I don't find that effect all that worth it when Dragon's Claws generate so much life with Flame Jab spamming.(not to mention double white is difficult in a deck with 3 total white sources and a need for massive amounts of black and red mana for spamming retrace/seismic assault/smallpox.
More general bits I've learned in testing is that dedicating too hard to the Seismic Assault+Loam combo leaves you very vulnerable in a number of ways(leyline, enchantment hate, surgical extraction, etc) My list can attack from a lot of different angles and is quite resilient. Even something like Rest In Peace is beatable by playing a abusing Pyromancer.(Blood Moon does tend to still be a pain though).
Another thing is that Commune with the Gods is great even if you're only running 7 things it can hit like me. Even if it misses it puts Retrace cards in the yard, flashback stuff out of the board, lands for loam, mill a Lingering Souls, proc Pyromancer, etc. You can even discard to Faithless Looting if it's really that bad in a given scenario.
Cutting Liliana as one poster suggested before has really helped. I haven't really found myself wishing I had liliana. My turn 3 plays are absolutely filled to the brim atm(Lingering Souls, Loam+Retrace, Pyro+1cmc spell, Flashback Lingering Souls+1 cmc spell, Seimic Assault, etc) and I've found those types of plays to be far more impactful than Lili. The sac effect also tended to be redundant since I had Smallpox.(for hexproof and such)
That post ended up being much longer than I intended. Anyway, I don't expect a reply to every single point I bring up. I suppose my main question is this:
TLDR: How's the manabase? I tend to not be too good at making these kinds of things. It's felt fairly good but outside opinions always good. Any other general thoughts/advice are also appreciated.
1. How come so many lists don't run redcap anymore?
2. What kind of changes(if any) would you all recommend if I wanted to play this deck online?
3. 2 or 3 viscera seers? I imagine playing without redcap makes the card a bit worse.
4. In my limited experience so far, it seems very difficult to combo off in certain matchups(anything with interaction basically). My experience with kiki-chord was to play it as a midrange creature-centric value deck first and a combo deck second. Is this how I should approach interaction-heavy matchups?
Also does lighthouse come in against affinity? Does it come in against any decks I wouldn't think of?(like aggro decks or other non-control/midrange matchups)
Thanks! The other major issue with Pox I find in that same vein in that without a fast clock people would generally just draw into lands eventually anyway while I looked for a Pyromancer or Assault.
This card was suggested to me when I wrote the primer; how does haunted Fengraf sound as a replacement for the plains? Basically whatever it gets back will be good whether it be a goyf or a pyromancer, gives a way to recur creatures where the deck couldn't before. The main issue is that I'm not sure it's better than running a 2nd GQ if I was going to run another colorless land or if I can even support another colorless land at all.
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Copperline Gorge
1x Blood Crypt
1x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Godless Shrine
1x Graven Cairns
2x Twilight Mire
4x Marsh Flats
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Plains
1x Raging Ravine
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Stomping Ground
1x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Faithless Looting
2x Flame Jab
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Life from the Loam
4x Lingering Souls
2x Raven's Crime
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Lightning Bolt
2x Seismic Assault
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Young Pyromancer
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Anger of the Gods
2x Bojuka Bog
2x Ghost Quarter
2x Guttural Response
3x Kitchen Finks
2x Ray of Revelation
So, I did a bit of rehauling of my 4c PyroPox Loam list. I've found a lot of problems with Smallpox. In a lot of cases outside the midgame it's downright worse than a bolt since it's a sacrifice effect. Even taking into account the discard as well I found that the cost of running Smallpox(running very few creatures and BB on turn 2) was very detrimental. In short: I durdled way too much. Lingering Souls is not a fast clock and pyromancer isn't either without a fair amount of support. Far too many games were lost because the opponent managed to cobble together the right combo of cards to kill me while I durdled looking for a Pyromancer or Seismic Assault to end the game.
I also went down to 25 lands because I very rarely find myself missing land drops/not having enough lands in the yard between Faithless Looting, dredging Loam, or even just through the large amount of fetches the deck runs. Even with cutting Smallpox I think I will have no issue getting lands into the bin. 25 lands is still quite a bit for a deck with as low curve as mine and still enough to feed the 4x Faithless Looting and Loam
-3 Smallpox Too many restrictions to use it. BB is awkward a lot of the time and skews the manabase a fair bit. Not running many creatures means that the only clocks I had were frequently combos in themselves. Pyromancer and Seismic Assault both require other pieces to be effective clocks. Lingering Souls is good for reasons other than being a clock. Raging Ravine is basically the only wincon in the deck that doesn't require other pieces to be decent and, well, winning with a creature land is just about the definition of durdle. Removal of Smallpox also allows me to run a wider range of sideboard cards such as Kitchen Finks which shores up aggro matches far better than Dragon's Claw. I remember cutting the 4th Smallpox a while back because the card is poor in multiplies if I don't have Loam backup. Well, I found that even in singles it tends to be poor without Loam backup. This deck is fairly mana-hungry in wanting to flashback those Faithless Looting and spam retrace spells after loaming and such. I love Smallpox dearly but it just hasn't worked out.
+4 Tarmogoyfs Here come the no-questions-asked clocks that I've been wanting. More creatures also makes my Commune With the Gods considerably better. This also makes any Pyroclasms/Angers in the board significantly better since I'll have a threat that survives through it(as opposed to young pyromancer or lingering souls) The deck still runs damn near half instants/sorceries so there's plenty of stuff to trigger Pyromancer.
-1 Seismic Assault I think this is much better as a backup wincon for when creatures don't quite get there. It's just way too durdly to rely on this as a wincon in modern. Between Faithless Looting and Commune With the Gods I found myself drawing the 2nd copy of this card way too often and being able to pitch it to Faithless Looting doesnt really make up for it. Again, also reduces the number of durdly wincons that require other pieces.
+1 Lightning Bolt: This makes 3. Hard to go wrong here. This may become a 3rd Abrupt Decay or maybe a Maelstrom Pulse/Terminate.
-1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Less necessary with the removal of Smallpox. The need for triple or even quadruple black is much less now.
-2 Blackcleave Cliffs
+2 Copperline Gorge
-2 Graven Cairns
+2 Twilight Mire
Smallpox requiring BB on T2 has opened up my manabase a bit. Copperline Gorges are to accomodate the earlier need for green mana with the addition of Goyfs. Cutting 1 Seismic Assault also allows me to distribute my mana sources a bit more evenly so -2 graven cairns for 2 twilight mire. Twilight Mire enables Turn 2 Abrupt decay very nicely while also allowing double green later in the game to cast some combination of Loam/Goyf/Commune/Abrupt Decay in the same turn.
As usual, not that great at manabases. Open to suggestions.
A more pointed question, more and more I play this the more I feel the 4th Faithless Looting is unnecessary. I always find myself with way more faithless lootings than I'll ever really cast. I feel like the card is better for lists that rely more heavily on Loam. Do you all think there is any merit to cutting the 4th Faithless Looting for another Bolt or Inquisition? What else would be a good replacement? Maybe a 1-of Traverse? Maybe a Scavenging Ooze to improve the Dredge matchup. God, not playing smallpox really opens up my options. In testing Commune with the Gods has been very good since it almost always hits now AND mills lands, lingering souls, and retrace cards. Maybe a 3rd one of those?
Riptide Laboratory is a deceptively strong card got this reason.
So, I was discussing having Guttural Response in the sideboard and I was reminded of another matchup where the card is a godsend. I played against RUG scapeshift. Now that's a deck where I really need the guttural responses to force through something and(this feels like a recurring theme) if I don't draw a Raven's Crime then I just lose.
What do you recommend I cut for pulse then?
Thanks for the manabase advice. As I said, I tend to be pretty bad at that aspect. I'll replace the Temple Garden with a GQ. After realizing how bad a GW land is, dropping it for a colorless land that helps against certain matchups doesn't sound bad.
On Guttural Response, I will admit, I have not tested a whole lot against Jeskai Nahiri. I've only played a handful of times against it.(in which Guttural response, as one might aspect did work but wasn't game-breaking) Guttural Response was basically the most obvious card that came to my head when I decided to add some sideboard against the deck. Good points about Maelstrom Pulse. I might just straight replace the Guttural Reponses with Pulse and then side out the abrupt decays for them against nahiri.
Another note about Lingering Souls. It's pretty amazing against jeskai nahiri as well since they have few ways of clearing them out that doesn't involve Anger of the Gods.(which would often be a dead card against us since we can go the entire game without having a creature on the field theoretically AND lingering souls is innately strong against board wipes by being split in two halves.) Not all nahiri lists include Staticaster in the board, and even then it's always a 1 of.
What are your thoughts on Dreadbore over Maelstrom Pulse in the board? Or do you think I should be mainboarding some number of Pulses? Dreadbore would be better for specifically the Nahiri matchup(or maybe not? It gets hit by spell snare) while maelstrom pulse in the board is a lot more general and applicable to tons of random T2 or T3 decks. I can't remember the last time I had someone play a Leyline of the Void against me and Leyline of Sanctity has become pretty rare with burn getting worse. Not to mention winning through a white leyline is perfectly reasonable with lingering souls/pyromancer.
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Raging Ravine
1 Forest
3 Graven Cairns
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Urborb, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Stomping Ground
1 Plains
4 Marsh Flats
1 Temple Garden
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Blood Crypt
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
3 Commune with the Gods
4 Lingering Souls
2 Raven's Crime
2 Flame Jab
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
3 Smallpox
4 Creatures
4 Young Pyromancer
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Enchantments
3 Seismic Assault
Board
So, this is a version I put together after doing a lot of testing with the PyroPox loam I posted earlier. Here are some of the more pertinent changes I made and my reasoning.
Mainboard
-1 Ghost Quarter: Tron is a really good matchup atm since we can grind them out harder while before it was the opposite because of the inevitability of Eye of Ugin. An opening hang with Raven's Crime, lands, and a loam is nearly unbeatable for tron. I felt running a colorless land in a really color intensive shell was not worth it. It helps against affinity and infect to kill creature lands but those already tend to be fine matchups due to running so much removal in Smallpox/Bolts/Flame Jabs/Abrupt Decay. Even better postboard with the pyroclasms.
+4 Lingering Souls This card is just absurd in this shell. Procs Pyromancer, gives value off Commune with the Gods, I can discard it to Faithless Looting and not feel bad. Generally easy to splash since it allows 3 turns to grab white and the flashback cost is easy in an abundantly black deck. In addition, this card damn near makes the Jund matchup unloseable.(I already found I had a favorable matchup against jund with the jund shell.) As if Lili wasn't horrible enough against us. Rofl.
-3 Desperate Ravings, +3 Commune with the Gods: This is something I was discussing earlier in the thread. I found that desperate ravings was far too often a really bad dig spell. I found myself very rarely actually flashing back the spell(which is where most of the value is) In my experience, loam shells function very similarly to a combo deck in that you need to dig deep and find specific cards(in my case, lingering souls, seismic assault, loam, pyromancer) which serve as the main engine pieces/wincons. Lands serve as fuel to either dig or provide for said engine(Loam + Retrace for pyromancer or Loam + seismic assault). While most of the time Desperate Ravings hit something inconsequential like a land. My experience was that the card just drew into worthless stuff far too much. Sure, it's value since you're not discarding anything of worth most of the time. Sometimes you discard your only abrupt decay and you scoop to pure luck. These kinds of value cards just don't work that well in a deck that runs a lot of cards that rely on other cards. Another big reason, as I said before, was just that I very rarely had time to flashback desperate ravings. Discarding one of your three Seismic Assaults feels absolutely awful since it's one of the few cards in the deck that 1. tends to sit in your hand for a while 2. Is completely lost if it hits the yard. Splashing white also allows for more relevant sideboard cards as I'll go over in the next entry.
Sideboard
-2 Golgari Charm, +2 Ray of Revelation: This change was made with the white splash. Blood Moon is quite good against us. No doubt about it. However, Golgari Charm and Abrupt Decay being my only means of removing it was often extremely detrimental because it required two basics under a blood moon. Ray of Revelation either casting or flashing back requires only one basic which is infinitely easier to search out before the blood moon hits the table. I prefer this over similar cheap enchantment removal such as Nature's Claim or Natural State(both of which I considered) because Commune With the Gods and Faithless Looting both interact quite favorably with it. Commune by putting it in the yard and effectively drawing it. Faithless looting because it allows it to be cast for a different color if there's a blood moon on the field but you're lacking a basic forest. Just discard it with looting and you can use the plains you managed to get before the Moon hit the field. The other modes of Golgari Charm are honestly not terribly useful. In matchups where the -1, -1 is good I found myself overloaded with hate against decks which, as I said before, are already pretty decent matchups, namely Affinity and Infect. Against Affinity I would have literally 6 cards in the board for it(2 Ancient Grudge, 2 Pyroclasm, 2 Golgari Charm) and it was just overkill when Flame Jab means the matchup is quite good. For the regeneration effect I can't remember the last time I used it. It's basically only useful for protecting Pyromancer and that tends to not be my main wincon against decks that pack Anger of the Gods/Pyroclasm/Supreme Verdict anyway. Too often it was an enchantment removal that was hard to cast under a blood moon first and a mediocre instant board wipe second.
-2 Witchbane Orb +2 Bojuka, This more of a meta call in addition to balancing out the sideboard a bit. Burn as a whole has become pretty rare and even if it wasn't I don't feel dedicating 5 slots to it is worth it. Bojuka Bog is in response to the slurry of Dredge-flavored decks that come about(and this list's inability to effectively play Anger of the Gods). I also find myself boarding it in against Jund, Jeskai Nahiri, etc simply because I don't lose a whole lot from playing it. Oddly enough, now that I have a white splash I could feasibly play Leyline at this point but I don't find that effect all that worth it when Dragon's Claws generate so much life with Flame Jab spamming.(not to mention double white is difficult in a deck with 3 total white sources and a need for massive amounts of black and red mana for spamming retrace/seismic assault/smallpox.
More general bits I've learned in testing is that dedicating too hard to the Seismic Assault+Loam combo leaves you very vulnerable in a number of ways(leyline, enchantment hate, surgical extraction, etc) My list can attack from a lot of different angles and is quite resilient. Even something like Rest In Peace is beatable by playing a abusing Pyromancer.(Blood Moon does tend to still be a pain though).
Another thing is that Commune with the Gods is great even if you're only running 7 things it can hit like me. Even if it misses it puts Retrace cards in the yard, flashback stuff out of the board, lands for loam, mill a Lingering Souls, proc Pyromancer, etc. You can even discard to Faithless Looting if it's really that bad in a given scenario.
Cutting Liliana as one poster suggested before has really helped. I haven't really found myself wishing I had liliana. My turn 3 plays are absolutely filled to the brim atm(Lingering Souls, Loam+Retrace, Pyro+1cmc spell, Flashback Lingering Souls+1 cmc spell, Seimic Assault, etc) and I've found those types of plays to be far more impactful than Lili. The sac effect also tended to be redundant since I had Smallpox.(for hexproof and such)
That post ended up being much longer than I intended. Anyway, I don't expect a reply to every single point I bring up. I suppose my main question is this:
TLDR: How's the manabase? I tend to not be too good at making these kinds of things. It's felt fairly good but outside opinions always good. Any other general thoughts/advice are also appreciated.