Overview
AssaultLoam describes a wide category of midrange decks that use early game disruption to stall long enough to assemble the Life from the Loam + Seismic Assault engine as a sort of combo finish. Originally an old extended deck, the archetype was established in modern by Bronson Magnan when he won GP Lincoln with the deck in 2012. Since then, while the popularity of the deck has declined its strengths have not. In the current metagame, the archetype is extremely effective as it has great matchups against top decks like Phoenix and Humans due to its recurring disruption.
Loam decks come in many shapes and sizes. Like many engine-based decks such as ThopterSword or pre-ban Pod, the AssaultLoam combo can be ported into all RGx variations depending on your metagame. Each of these archetypes will be discussed individually in this primer, but to start, let’s look at a few key cards and synergies to watch out for in the decklists.
Seismic Assault - With Loam, this turns into a one-sided boardwipe every turn, and with the new cycling lands, that 6 damage quickly turns into 10 with Loam-Cycle-Loam. That damage eventually goes at your opponents face to round out the game real quick.
Wrenn and Six - This card has already been putting in work to put Jund back on the map in modern and has upset the balance of Legacy as well. In this archetype, it is just as strong if not stronger as the lands you get back can be easily turned into spells which gives the PW even more depth. I’m not yet sure what number is correct for this card, but it has given the deck some momentum after the Hogaak ban.
Let’s look at some decklists and see how these cards fit in.
Decklists:
My current deck of choice. This is the list I took to the SCG Classic in Worcester which I took to a 6-3 finish.
The classic version of this archetype. I haven’t tested the new cards in this archetype fully, which will be similar for the rest of the strategies, but I think this will be a good starting point to go off of.
Now for this archetype you can either play Faithless Looting and focus more on AssaultLoam or cut looting and play a more traditional Jund game with AssaultLoam to finish the game. I’m more familiar with the looting-less list, but both are here for reference.
One of the biggest problems with this “prelim” list will be the lands which will likely need some tuning.
This archetype is kind of foreign to me. It was the brainchild of the previous owner of the primer with counterspells like Deprive and cantrips like Serum Visions. Now, Jace, the Mindsculptor adds a lot to lynchpin this deck into a more secure consistent beast.
This list is gonna be purely what I think it could look like. I’m unsure on most of these card choices, so this is a rough outline that I will iron out over some time and some help from the community as well.
This is the deck I thought was best before Modern Horizons that I was playing. It looks pretty insane, but I will explain the math behind it later. This list heavily utilized Dark Confidant to get back value lost by the mana hungry/discard enchantment Molten Vortex. With Wrenn and Six, which some Jund players at my lgs are calling a “Dark Confidant that always hits a land and kills x/1’s and ultimates,” this deck could look much different, though I don’t know how yet. Here’s my list, and over time it will be updated for the new format.
This archetype is a quintessential midrange deck that tries to stifle aggressive strategies while getting in under control quickly. Each RGx variation will have its own mini things to watch out for which I will specify in each category, however, there is a lot of carryover which I will discuss here.
First, let’s discuss the combo itself. When you have AssaultLoam online, many new players of the archetype will cast Loam and discard the three lands right away. It is almost always better to hold the lands as long as you can so you can take out something huge. If you keep casting Loam to discard three lands every turn and your opponent plays something like a Karn Liberated and ticks up, then you won’t be able to kill it with one Loam in a single turn. If you hold your three lands, the next turn you can get three more and deal 12 damage in a single shot to kill the Karn. Only once you have enough lands to kill your opponent, don’t have enough lands in your yard to cast loam, or are moving to discard and need to get down to seven cards should you just throw lands randomly. If you are killing creatures, it’s fine, just make sure you do it at a time that makes sense.
Speaking of casting Loam, to make sure you have enough lands in your yard to cast it, you can pull the lands out first then pay the mana and make targets. With 5 mana, you can cast Loam, get back a Forgotten Cave, cycle, and dredge Loam to cast it again and get 5 lands total. This lets you deal 10 damage with Seismic Assault and is generally the route I take to win the game - play lands up to 5 mana with AssaultLoam online, then Loam-Cycle-Loam to the end. With each 3 mana after that, you can cycle for Loam again and cast it which will get 2 additional lands every time, though that’s pretty uncommon. I’ve done it twice against UW Control and Jund when I drew Loam off the top, but it’s a hefty 14 points of damage that can steal the game.
Aside from Loam + Seismic Assault, in most lists you also have Loam + Flame Jab or Raven’s Crime. With 5 mana, you can Loam + 3 retrace to either Arc Lightning your opponent’s board or Mind Twist them. This is especially good against control and with Young Pyromancer. Against control, you can try to deal a bunch of damage early and then have turn after turn of JabLoam to win the game, or take a turn off casting spells to Mind Twist them out. With Young Pyromancer in both cases you cast 4 spells and make 4 tokens which your opponents usually can’t deal with since they won’t have a hand any more or won’t have their chump blockers. Keep in mind you can Loam and stockpile lands so you can just cast loam and Flame Jab four times on something like a Thought-Knot Seer.
Living Twister is a really weird card that was the first thing that made this deck reeally competitive before Horizons. With Seismic Assault and 6 lands in play, you can use all your green sources at your opponent’s end step to bounce 3 lands to your hand, untap, and bounce the other three to deal 12 points of reach to your opponent and win without using your graveyard. This means we can easily assemble a two card combo to get around a Rest in Peace. Twister’s body is no joke too, as it has done me wonders blocking Monastery Swiftspear in Mono-Red Phoenix and bigger 4/4s like Hollow One and Thought-Knot Seer. There is no incentive not to play lands as long as it is on the battlefield as the lands can bounce themselves (meaning it is mana neutral) to be discarded to Seismic Assault at any point.
When you just have Living Twister, the math is “you can pay 3 mana to bounce a land and deal 2 damage to something.” If you have 6 lands on the battlefield and your opponent is at 6, you can pay 3 twice at your opp’s end step to deal 4 damage, and then on your turn tap 3 to deal 2 more damage and kill. It can also do some weird things with Faithless Looting and Conflagrate, but I haven’t even explored those fully.
Finally, let’s talk about graveyard hate. This deck doesn’t care too much about a Nihil Spellbomb or other 1 time graveyard hate spells like it. This archetype is fully capable of just behaving like a Jund deck and just winning through beats even through something like a Rest in Peace or Surgical Extraction on Loam, but recently we’ve gotten even more tools to be able to beat these cards.
With Forgotten Cave, you have the ability to dredge loam at instant speed to save it from Surgical and other hate. It is critically important to hold up mana to do this at all times, as even though we can win and frankly dominate on board still without a graveyard, if we can save the loam, we can win much easier. I just recently lost twice in the same tournament because I was greedy when I had AssaultLoam assembled and Loam-Cycle-Loam’d with 5 mana instead of waiting a turn and doing it with 6. With 6 mana, you still have an extra mana to dredge Loam with in response with a Surgical. I’ll go more in depth in this dance of graveyard hate in sideboarding where you can make yourself less susceptible to it. For now, let’s look at some card choices.
Spells: Faithless Looting - This card shines in this archetype. Nowadays, you find this everywhere in modern, but this may be the fairest deck to play it. Even as a Careful Study, the ability to cycle through your deck to find the right answers to your opponent’s threats while setting up your graveyard with lands to get back with Loam is unmatched. You can also discard those extra lands from Loam to just “draw 2 cards” with Looting late game.
Lightning Bolt - Simple, efficient removal that can go upstairs late game.
Path to Exile - Unconditional removal. Very good in the archetype, and is one of the main reasons to splash white.
Fatal Push - Unconditional removal. Very good in the archetype, and is one of the main reasons to splash whit--- I mean black.
Lightning Axe - Another removal spell for RG that can kill bigger creatures. I’ve moved away from this card since this deck often gets to the point where you are playing off the top. Lightning Axe in a grindfest is often hard to cast as you don’t have a blank in hand or 6 mana. I’ve gone down to just one Axe in RG as it can help vs Meddling Mage, Thing in the Ice and doesn’t deal you damage like Dismember.
Dismember - An alternate removal spell for Lightning Axe. If the goal is to kill Thing in the Ice turn 2, it’s important to run removal spells like this one. Due to the issues with Lightning Axe late game, I prefer leaning on this removal spell more.
Flame Jab - This spell is more than it may seem. With Life from the Loam, you can cast a 5 mana Arc Lightning each turn. However, in certain matchups this is a godsend. Against Affinity it swings the game. Against Company you can kill their dorks over and over again. Against Jund you can kill Confidant and tick down PWs. Against control, you can get in the last 6 points of damage over two turns. With Young Pyromancer, you make 4 tokens a turn on top of it, which lets you build a boardstate from nothing off the top. I’d recommend running at least 1 as a way to hedge against control, though it is useful in many more situations.
Raven’s Crime - Similar to Flame Jab, but it is better in many more situations. It can feel really bad casting this card turn one against a Phoenix deck, but if you can discard a couple lands turn three and make your opponent discard 3 spells, it feels sooo good. Very good against control, Jund, BG, Phoenix, Burn, and any “critical mass” deck. Same synergy with Peezy.
Conflagrate - This card is a very useful utility spell from your graveyard. You can see how good it is in Dredge, though it is decidedly worse here. Often, this helps as a way out of your graveyard to deal with a Gurmag Angler or simply to deal the last few points of damage to a PW or your opp. I’d only run 1 if any.
Molten Vortex - This card is a build around card, and is a trap to play with Seismic Assault imo. Molten Vortex is a card that requires mana investment and lands in hand, resulting in a very mana hungry card. This hunger gums up your curve and often leaves you in strange situations on mana, especially when your opponent has creatures like Tarmogoyf that are too big to throw lands at. If you are looking for another card vs an aggressive meta to throw in your deck, I’d go for Anger of the Gods over this.
Magmatic Insight - This card is okay, but has a lot of situations where it is very awkward. People have thought it would just be like another looting in Loam especially with new cards like Wrenn and Six where you can get the card back, but that’s just not the case. A hand with Faithless Looting and two lands is a snap keep, but the same hand with Magmatic Insight has to be thought about. You need to run a million lands to minimize the drawback of Insight.
Vessel of Nascency - This card is kinda weird. It is similar to Commune with the Gods in effect and can find both Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam. It’s a lot of mana to be invested at 3 mana for a cantrip, but since the deck often isn’t doing anything turn 1, I don’t see a huge problem with it in a more budget strategy. For example, you can cast it turn 1 and hold up a removal spell turn 2. It seems reasonable but not powerful. I’d rate it a 2.5/5.
Creatures:
Flameblade Adept - This card is a clockable threat in RG that does well as you are AssLoam’ing. You can swing for 4 each turn you AssLoam (or JabLoam for that matter) with this beast and get in for some real damage. With Loam-Cycle-Loam, that turns into 7 attacking power, for a total of 17 in a turn. Legitimate threat, though it is pretty weak on its own. Needs to be built around more I’d say.
Soul-Scar Mage - Another playable creature threat for the archetype. If Flame Jab is a really good card in the metagame, then consider this card. It turns Flame Jab into a repeatable Scar, and grows to a 5/6 each turn with JabLoam. Making damage permanent can be useful too, as you can slow down the clock from a Tarmogoyf enough to gather up lands in your hand to kill with AssLoam. Weird interactions abound with this one.
Insolent Neonate - Neonate is a way to cast 2 loams on turn 4 and get in for chip points of damage until then. It dredges Life from the Loam at instant speed in response to a Surgical Extraction or Nihil Spellbomb. It’s a playable card though it has never really had a time to shine.
Elvish Rejuvenator - New card that could be good in an aggressive shell. A 3/4 for 1 is no joke, and its ability can go grab Raging Ravine, Ghost Quarter, Bojuka Bog, etc. We don’t generally just play beaters other than Tarmogoyf, but this card seems legit enough to get there in the right shell. Seeing how Goyf doesn’t grow well in RG, maybe this will take its slot there.
Spells: Life from the Loam - The card advantage engine that makes this deck tick. You don’t really want to be flooded with these as in multiples they aren’t amazing, so 3-4 is fine especially if you are running cantrips like Faithless Looting, Satyr Wayfinder, and Commune with the Gods. Namesake card is good in the deck.
Wrenn and Six - This card is busted. Insanely good at so many things: fixing your mana, drawing cards with Forgotten Cave, wicked good with Faithless Looting, is essentially a shock every turn for +2 with a Seismic Assault or just pings by ticking down, combos with Raven’s Crime vs control (t2 Wrenn, get a land, t3 discard 2-3 cards), get GQ every turn against Tron, the card is an all star already in legacy and is even better in this deck.
Lightning Helix - Nice life gain / removal spell in Naya. I wouldn’t call it a reason to play that variant, but it’s a likely include in most Naya Loam decks.
Commune with the Gods - This card looks better than it is. If you cast it turn 2, you can hit both Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam. You can. However, when you don’t, especially on the draw, and you hit a Tarmogoyf instead, you regret all your life decisions as you just paid two mana to do nothing turn 2. In modern, you can’t just take turns off which makes Commune really slow on the draw. The reason why the list above plays one is because the card is good at recovering from graveyard hate and is a good draw off the top in a grindfest. Be careful with this card.
Creatures: Tarmogoyf - The quintessential midrange threat. In our deck it can be hard to grow as we have no targeted discard, but the card is never terrible. As the deck is already weak to graveyard hate, some people (me included) choose to play Young Pyromancer in its slot as a way to win without the graveyard, but it’s up to you and your metagame. In decks like Jund Loam, the Lhurgoyf is much better.
Young Pyromancer - This card looks weird in the Loam deck but it is critically powerful. As a strategy, our goal is to control the board of all threats and win with AssaultLoam. Pyromancer gives us tokens that can win the game off of our removal, and with JabLoam is able to steal the game. It can be often thought of as a 3 drop, casting Peezy and a spell to get an extra token as “card advantage” when able, and is way better than it first seems. The list above is built around it and plays extra spells because of it, making the creature even more powerful. Useful to beat decks that are loose and based on graveyard hate postboard.
Satyr Wayfinder - I initially tested this card as a budget option. Now, I see how powerful this card can be. Wayfinder takes the slot of a few lands, kind of like how Xerox decks cut lands for cantrips. It effectively is a 2 mana 1/1 that gets you a shock, fixes your mana, and looks at the top 4 to find Loam, Raven’s Crime, Flame Jab, Conflagrate, Faithless Looting, Forgotten Cave, and Ghost Quarter vs tron. The chip points of damage it gets in are impressive as we keep an empty board the majority of the game and the ability it has to block is stellar. I really am a fan of this card, though I have cut a couple for Wrenn and Six.
Scavenging Ooze - One of the reasons to play RG and not Jund. In Jund Loam your mana is really tight between turn 1 discard and RRR spells and trying to cast multiple Raven’s Crime in one turn… you don’t have much space to eat a bunch of cards each turn. In RG (and also Naya) your mana isn’t as constrained and you can eat a bunch of stuff to help hedge against all the graveyard decks in the format while ending up with a large beater that can help against Jund. This card is great.
Spells: Seismic Assault - The reason to play Loam. With Life from the Loam, you can continually wipe the board then kill your opponent.
Liliana of the Veil - Really good card in the Loam deck. You can just discard lands and get them back. A must include in any Jund strategy.
Anger of the Gods - A good catchup spell for the archetype. Doesn’t play well with Young Pyromancer, but if you play your hand right then it won’t matter.
Burning Vengeance - A reasonable option for a backup Seismic Assault. If you cast Flame Jab or Raven’s Crime while this is on the battlefield, it turns into a 1 mana Arc Trail or Kolaghan’s Command, and JabLoam deals 9 dmg. It’s a possible budget option if you want to make Young Pyromancer and prowess creatures better, and is a viable alternative to the AssaultLoam combo. Useful in a metagame where you want more Assaults.
Creatures: Countryside Crusher - The biggest creature in this archetype. If you cast this turn 3, it will almost assuredly become a 5/5 (if not bigger) turn 4. The ability makes you not draw lands ever on your draw step, which can be useful but be mindful of it. If you cast Crusher with three lands, one of them being something like a forest that doesn’t tap for R, you won’t be able to cast Seismic Assault without dredging Loam to get another mana source. Crusher walls out big creatures and gets in for a ton of damage with AssaultLoam online. Alongside AssLoam, Crusher grows even bigger and has an empty board to swing in for lethal in 1 to 2 turns.
Knight of the Reliquary - This card is the major reason to play Naya. It is an incredible beater, often coming down as a 4/4 or more and growing higher. Unfortunately, it isn’t as good as it is in AggroLoam in legacy, and can easily be answered by graveyard hate. Real good include.
Living Twister - This card is insane in this archetype. At first, I played one copy to test it out, but I’ve added another recently due to the success it has brought me. It does a decent job of walling out aggro decks as you can block anything from a Hollow One to a Thought-Knot Seer to random Humans with it. Its second ability is not what stands out on the card, though it’s far from useless - paying two mana to deal the last two points of damage to a creature is useful in many situations. Its first ability is where the card gets interesting. Alongside Seismic Assault, Living Twister gives you a way to tap out, bounce all your lands, and win the game without Life from the Loam. On its own, you can pay 3 mana to bounce a land and discard it, meaning that if your opponent has 6 or less life and you have 6 or more lands, on their end step you can pay six to deal 4, untap and deal two. You can bounce your played cycle lands to cycle them, you can bounce lands to replay with Tireless Tracker, you emulate AssaultLoam with Loam over two turns. With 4 mana, you can cast loam, deal two, next turn deal 4. This card has a lot of weird interactions, and I’ll go over them later, but this card is insane.
Tireless Tracker - Quintessential green midrange creature for a while now. This card is a threat on its own, which is notable in the archetype since most of our threats are synergistic with each other. Seismic Assault is mediocre if you have no lands to back it up. Young Pyromancer is pretty bad if you have no spells to cast. Tracker draws cards and attacks for big damage on its own, something important in midrange and control matchups. The reason why I prefer it in my sideboard is because the maindeck is pretty tuned to those decks already. Tracker is worse against hyperaggressive decks like Phoenix where I can play a better creature like Scavenging Ooze. It wouldn’t be wrong to play it maindeck, but I don’t think it’s necessary with the amount of card advantage you already have.
Bedlam Reveler - This was the card I relied on before Living Twister was printed for late game card advantage. With extra spells, you can commonly cast this for 3 mana off the top, giving you a 3/4 body attached to an Ancestral Recall (which you can dredge Loam off too.) Works well with JabLoam, which grows Reveler to a 7/8 each turn, a great finisher vs Control. It costs 8 mana vs a Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace postboard, which makes me lean towards something less vulnerable to hate, but it is a viable option nonetheless.
Hey all, this is my first primer and is a work in progress. I'm planning on writing a sideboard and matchup guide for each of the decks here which will take some time, but I'm excited to bring a fresh coat of paint to this primer.
The Jund list should really have like 1 Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth. Its mana fixing really helps Raven’s crime do dirty work.
Also kinda surprised you didn’t at least mention Trade Routes in temur. It’s somewhat outclassed by living twister + horizon lands, but it has colorless activation.
You should also probably mention GQ lines. Idunno about you but I definitely find myself targeting my own lands with GQ at least once an event.
Overall though a good start, it gives a good overview on the archetype and explains the core well.
Trade Routes is a card, but it doesn't fit into the base temur shell here, I like it more in a 4C shell which is even more testing which would push the primer even more far off.
I feel like this deck was a great choice for the metagame. I beat Mono-Red Phoenix, AmuletTitan, EldaziTron, GW Vizier Combo, Jund, and UW Control, losing to Dredge twice and Taking Turns, Turns due to three missed Howling Mine triggers in game 3. As far as matchups go for this deck, that's pretty standard.
I didn't take many match notes and don't remember exactly how the matches went, but I remember getting absolutely dumpstered by Dredge multiple times. Before Creeping Chill, the matchup was great as I could just kill all their creatures over and over again and get in for damage with my attackers. With CC, since I'm planning to play the long game, I essentially start at 8 life and my opponent starts at 32. It's kind of stupid, so I added a Surgical Extraction to my sideboard after the tournaments for one of the Tormod's Crypt. The deck doesn't really need surgical, just a way to get rid of all the cards in a graveyard once or twice a game to combat Storm or Bedlam Reveler etc., but if I can cast surgical on CC, the dredge matchup is very winnable.
I also made an error playing a second Satyr Wayfinder as a way to chump block against Mono-Red Phoenix which I thought would dominate the tables, but I was mistaken and I had multiple occasions where I wished I had another land instead of the Wayfinder.
All in all, the tournament gave me some real confidence in this deck. It seems very consistent now with Wrenn and cycling lands.
A few years back I played around with this archetype for a while, before dismissing it. With modern horizons and m20 the deck got some very interesting toys and I am eager to delve into assault loam once again.
I am thinking about a RG shell, starting from your very checklist CrypticCommander.
But there are a few cards I would like to talk about, so let's get started.
Sorry for the lack of tags, but I am on my phone right now.
Is elvish reclaimer any good?
I do believe so, in theory it is 1/2 that can potentially stem the bleeding early on, or act as a beater or get utility lands. A repeatable instant speed crop rotation is quite powerful.
What about ruination rioter?
Stems the bleeding early on against fast creature decks and develops into a threat that opponents neither want to kill, nor want to attack into. Being able to shoot it down with the last land in hand after dumping the other lands to assault can nearly oneshot the opponent.
(Loam back 3 lands -> cycle forgotten cave -> loam back 3 more lands. Throw 8 damage to the opponent's face and 2 at the rioter to get another 5 damage).
The next card on my list, that fuels those 2 cards mentioned above is lotus field, which is especially good with the elvish reclaimer. The only cards that could be a problem when playing lotus field are blood moon and smallpox, otherwise we don't really care if 2 lands are in the yard, as we can get them back pretty easily.
Next up is cindervines vs. leyline of combustion. I have no experience with either of those cards, so it would be very cool hearing about which one is better and why.
Magmatic sinkhole might be an awesome addition to the removal suite, as it further diversifies spot removal if you are afraid of meddling mage and it can deal with planeswalkers in addition to that. The downside is delving away some amount of the graveyard, but with maybe one copy in the main deck this should be bearable.
And last but not least, in your RG list you are playing quite a few lands that come into play tapped @CrypticCommander. Does this make for weird sequencing at times or have those citpt lands never been bad. And is the cinder glade worth it?
A few years back I played around with this archetype for a while, before dismissing it. With modern horizons and m20 the deck got some very interesting toys and I am eager to delve into assault loam once again.
I am thinking about a RG shell, starting from your very checklist CrypticCommander.
But there are a few cards I would like to talk about, so let's get started.
Sorry for the lack of tags, but I am on my phone right now.
Is elvish reclaimer any good?
I do believe so, in theory it is 1/2 that can potentially stem the bleeding early on, or act as a beater or get utility lands. A repeatable instant speed crop rotation is quite powerful.
What about ruination rioter?
Stems the bleeding early on against fast creature decks and develops into a threat that opponents neither want to kill, nor want to attack into. Being able to shoot it down with the last land in hand after dumping the other lands to assault can nearly oneshot the opponent.
(Loam back 3 lands -> cycle forgotten cave -> loam back 3 more lands. Throw 8 damage to the opponent's face and 2 at the rioter to get another 5 damage).
The next card on my list, that fuels those 2 cards mentioned above is lotus field, which is especially good with the elvish reclaimer. The only cards that could be a problem when playing lotus field are blood moon and smallpox, otherwise we don't really care if 2 lands are in the yard, as we can get them back pretty easily.
Next up is cindervines vs. leyline of combustion. I have no experience with either of those cards, so it would be very cool hearing about which one is better and why.
Magmatic sinkhole might be an awesome addition to the removal suite, as it further diversifies spot removal if you are afraid of meddling mage and it can deal with planeswalkers in addition to that. The downside is delving away some amount of the graveyard, but with maybe one copy in the main deck this should be bearable.
And last but not least, in your RG list you are playing quite a few lands that come into play tapped @CrypticCommander. Does this make for weird sequencing at times or have those citpt lands never been bad. And is the cinder glade worth it?
Best regards
Maze
Thanks for the questions! Let's start from the top:
I feel like Elvish Reclaimer could be good in the right shell, but I'm not sure what that is. In the RG lists, Tarmogoyf is often mediocre as we don't have great ways to put card types into the graveyard early aside from Faithless Looting. Reclaimer is a 3/4 with a somewhat relevant ability as it could get a Bojuka Bog, Blast Zone, Ghost Quarter, or even a manland vs the right deck. The problem is we aren't really looking for a vanilla 3/4 most of the time in the current list. Countryside Crusher often starts as a 4/4 on 3 which grows and draws gas while playing with the gameplan of the deck - as you loot, dredge and discard lands to Seismic Assault, it grows bigger while Reclaimer is stuck as a 3/4 for the whole game. In a more aggressive version that tries to get in quick under control I could see it being good, but as it stands I don't like it very much. It stands in the same category as a Flameblade Adept, while it beats in well, I'm not sure I want it in the current metagame.
Ruination Rider is a card I've yet to test. It leads to explosive hands and incentivizes playing more lands and fetches, actually quite like Reclaimer. It's another aggressive card that can close out the game fast and gives us a better shot at killing on turn 4 alongside other fast beaters. Historically, I have really tried to build my AssaultLoam decks like your typical midrange deck that can use the AssaultLoam combo to gain back tempo like a boardwipe because I think that is where it shines. We have gotten more and more cards in the past few years that could legitimize an aggressive build with cards like Insolent Neonate, Flameblade Adept, Elvish Reclaimer, and Ruination Rider with ~10 fetches... This could work, but it is much more susceptible to graveyard hate, so I personally don't think it's worth the risk. It could use some testing though.
I don't think we should play Lotus Field. We like to use our mana in weird ways (RRR for Seismic Assault, RRG for Living Twister, while holding up GG to activate Scooze) and it enters the battlefield tapped meaning we can't use it on turn 3 to play our spells. If we want to turn on Elvish Reclaimer, we can just as easily fetch 3 times which would constitute the same amount of mana or fetch once and play a Faithless Looting. We're playing enough taplands as it is, and I think it would put us in a weird spot in that same breath as far as colors of mana go.
I haven't posted sideboard guides, but Cindervines is a great card, I'm not sure about Leyline of Combustion. I can bring in Cindervines against all sorts of decks if I predict they have any artifacts or graveyard hate like Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace. The card deals a whole lot of damage against control as they cast a whole lot of spells and often has to be answered by a Teferi or bounce spell into a counter. It nearly won me the match against UW turns too, as I got in some chip shots early, Cindervines took them down to 5 life, I cracked it to deal another 2 and made Lightning Bolt or a Seismic Assault off the top an out to win the game. The card is great, and is why I would rather keep one than go up to two Force of Vigor.
I honestly hadn't thought of Magmatic Sinkhole. That card seems like it could replace a Lightning Axe, as I used to play 1 Harvest Pyre which is about the same thing. I'm not sure if it would be clunky with my graveyard stuff, but it warrants some testing definitely.
The taplands have been awkward in the past, especially with the new cycling lands plus Ghost Quarter. After I made the shift to 24 lands it hasn't been a real problem, and I think the 5 taplands are fine, especially with 4 of them being cycle lands, meaning I don't really ever want to play them - I'll fetch for Sheltered Thicket, but I don't ever want to play it from my hand - I'd really rather cycle them or discard them to a Looting or Assault. If I have to play one on turn one, that's fine, the only turn one plays in the deck are Looting, Bolt, or cycle Forgotten Cave. I don't think Cinder Glade is worth it, it will often just be a tapland, while the rest of the taplands I'm playing now are have a lot of utility.
Finally, I'm gonna test a few Leyline of the Void in the sideboard of RG to combat dredge. The problem card in that matchup is Creeping Chill, and though I know dredge can just cast Nature's Claim, if I can take them off tempo I think we can win the matchup postboard.
The Reclaimer I just want to test out, not only as a way to potentially have a faster clock, but more so to have a repeatable crop rotation at my disposal with the upside of being able to grow into a fairly sizeable beater for only one mana. Countryside Crusher is with no doubt the more potent finisher, but Reclaimer is extremely versatile and thats what I like about the card.
Living Twister I just dont like yet, but I guess thats because I just see a 2/5 body with expensive abilities, but I am willing to try it out, as you are very high on the card.
After some thought I cut the Ruination Rioters. As you mentioned above the deck is fairly resilient against graveyard hate and cards like this just make it more susceptible to hate.
Regarding the sideboard I havent put much thought into that. Sadly I dont own cindervines and my LGS does not currently have any.
It will probably look quite similar to yours.
I really like the idea of playing like 1 bojuka bog in the 75, mainboard could get a little weird. My meta isnt that heavy on graveyard related decks so mainboard is probably a little to wild. Lotus field will most likely get cut down to 1 copy and be replaced by one fire-lit thicket.
One last thing, fair decks are probably the decks we like to play against, but how do we combat a deck like Neobrand?
I would love to hear some opinions and tips on how to approach degenerate decks.
One last thing, fair decks are probably the decks we like to play against, but how do we combat a deck like Neobrand?
I would love to hear some opinions and tips on how to approach degenerate decks.
While RG is fairly consistent at taking out creature decks and going over the top of midrange decks like UW Control, it's downfall is its spread against degenerate decks like Neobrand. If a deck relies on creatures like Vizier Combo, then it's an easy matchup. Even unfair matchups like Storm are playable since you can force them to combo off without a cost reducer, but it lacks the hand disruption of Jund, the strong sideboard cards of Naya, and the countermagic of Temur. Which one you use in which metagame depends on which decks are on top. If you pick RG, you cede some edge to the unfair decks for an edge against aggressive decks.
I've been staying away from Tarmogoyf for a while in RG because of how weak it is to graveyard hate, and it takes a while for it to grow into a big threat in the deck since we don't play hand disruption. I've leaned on the old strategy of Young Pyromancer instead with the backup plan of just casting a bunch of Bolts and Flame Jabs. With most decks running Leylines ATM I decided to try this list which tries to cut the graveyard synergy as much as possible while staying true to the archetype.
I've cut down on Countryside Crusher in favor of 3 Seasoned Pyromancer. The Pyromancer seems like it could be good in this archetype especially postboard being able to discard drawn leylines or other dead cards. Maindeck it draws you towards one of your three copies of Life from the Loam as well as refilling your hand when you get hellbent. For that reason, the card plays well with Seismic Assault and a lot of lands, as you can hellbent yourself real quick. I'll be testing out this list at FNM tomorrow night and will let y'all know how it goes.
Went 3-1-1 at my lgs last night with the list I just posted, and the deck feels... okay.
I played against a random draft deck from a new player, Hogaak, Dredge, and Jund, and ID'd with my last opp. The deck preboard is pretty bad, as there are no really big threats to close out the game quickly. The point of the deck was to be good against leylines postboard which it was, and to be good with leylines in my deck postboard, which it also was, so I guess the experiment was a success?
I lost my game one to Hogaak and Dredge, and did the sideboard plan of board in Leylines and Blood Moon, cut graveyard synergy like Life from the Loam, Countryside Crusher, a Seismic Assault and more depending on the matchup. Postboard, I mulled to leylines each time as there is no other way this deck wins, but with the help of Seasoned Pyromancer, Anger of the Gods, and one for one removal, we got there. This list feels stellar against Hogaak and Dredge, but it has some holes...
Because it is more threat light, it is worse off vs midrange decks like Jund. I'm likely gonna cut Countryside Crusher entirely for Tireless Tracker as I think that's just a better threat that can draw me extra cards. That slot could also be Bloodbraid Elf, which I want to test but idk yet.
The long and short of it is, I think this deck could survive the degeneracy of Hogaak and Dredge with Leylines and Blood Moon. I think the deck is still good, we just need to find the right threat that is able to get in through leyline.
I don't have Lilianas in paper anymore (I traded them for 4 Wrenn and Six among other things) so I'm using 1 Sarkhan, Fireblood as a different 3 mana walker.
The key card in this deck is Smallpox. This card is insane when decks are playing fair, and that's what I'm expecting postban, a resurgence of fair decks or combo decks that rely on creatures like Infect or Druid Combo or Elves, etc. For this, you don't want to play many creatures, which is why most of the creatures in our deck do more than just be bodies. The alternate card to play would be Tarmogoyf, but it depends on if we want to be proactive vs noninteractive combo decks like Ad Nauseum or fair decks. Because we are playing Wrenn and Six on top of loam now, Pox is just a way to win games on turn 2 by getting so much value.
The rest of the deck is built to supplement this game plan. The mana base looks a little weird, but it works since we need double black turn 2, triple red two turns after on the god draw. Wrenn and Six plus a fetch fixes on its own, though you can't cast it off a Graven Cairns.
Instead of Looting, we have turn 1 discard in Inquisition of Kozilek and Raven's Crime. With all of the lands we play plus Loam and W6, I have often been able to get every card out of my opp's hand by turn 3 or 4, which in combination with a removal spell or creature, can shut down the opp without a Seismic Assault.
Seasoned Pyromancer can help get back all those cards while giving us the option to make tokens off of a dredge.
Mortuary Mire is a really good card with the new cycling lands. Now you can cast loam, get back a Mire + Forgotten Cave, then get back any creature in your yard for essentially 2 mana.
I think this will be the best version of the deck for now, at least with a few tweaks, but we will have to see how the meta develops.
Hi guys, i suppose we post here now rather than in the old 100+ pages thread, right ?
Anyways i have been tweaking this deck for some time now. Tried to focus on spell synergies with Bedlam Reveler and Young Pyromancer, tried more midrange creature focused strategies with maindeck Scavenging OozeTireless Tracker and Countryside Crusher, tried to go all in on the loam / assault engine and usually got meh to bad results.
I finally made it to top 8 at my shop's modern tournament though, it seems the Faithless Looting ban did us more good than harm. I didn't get stomped by phoenix / dredge / hogaak that often, but sideboards now definitively pack less graveyard hate. I did 3-1-1, won urza sword 2-1, lost 0-2 to mardu pyro, won 2-1 against GW Voice of resurgence company, 2-0 againt grixis shadow then drew last round. Won 2-0 against mardu shadow in the top 8 then lost to amulet titan.
Here is the list i ran with. It is a high-ish land count build to take advantage of Magmatic Insight as Faithless Looting fill in and Molten Vortex. It relies a lot on Young Pyromancer, and tries to balance the instant/sorcery count with the need to run lots of lands and enough threats. I expected lots of blue control and eldrazi tron decks, and geared the sideboard to that effect along with 3 main deck Blood Moon. Not having graveyard hate post sideboard didn't hurt, but next time i'll probably cut 1 Damping Sphere 1 Veil of Summer for 2 Anger of the gods.
Magmatic Insight seems good enough as a poor man's looting despite no recursion or filtering, with 25+ lands we usually can afford to cast it.
Molten Vortex performs well as a faster Seismic Assault, and is usually efficient enough along with land recursion to control most boards.
Commune with the Gods gives consistency by finding our sparse threats and filling the graveyard, seems even better now that looting is gone.
Seasoned Pyromancer kind of fills the filtering role that looting previously held and is all around an allstar card, we oftentimes get enough mana to make its activated ability relevant.
Veil of Summer is realy solid in the sideboard even though 4 copies might be too much, i expected to use it against BWX control decks but it ended up being great, especially against shadow decks.
Ancient Grudge seems better now that graveyard hate is on the downturn, not sure how many to run though
Now is our time to shine as the looting ban didn't wreck us too much and the modern meta is now more favorable.
I think this list is pretty solid. Molten Vortex has gotten a lot better with Wrenn and Six, so I think it's a much more viable option now, and with Seasoned Pyromancer, you can just pitch extra enchants to the ETB trigger.
The thing about this archetype is that there are so many different ways to build around the Loam engine that you need to find a build that's good for each individual meta. While this list is suited to be great against aggro, I don't think it would do well against midrange decks like Jund or Pyromancers, as they have more disruptive elements with overall stronger threats and answers in Goyfs and Plague Engineer / hand disruption.
From a first glance, it seems that this list could easily just get some people with Blood Moon or a simple set up of AssaultLoam / VortexLoam, which is a big advantage to it. The midrange decks are designed to hedge against the field while the typical all in lists usually target a portion of the metagame.
The one major gripe I have is in your sideboard. I think Engineered Explosives or Ratchet Bomb is a necessity for Bogles while having utility in other matchups like Urza or Storm. If your lgs doesn't have any of those decks that's fine, but it's something I include in most of my RG lists as there is no other axis to fight a deck like Bogles in these colors except for that one. The other change I would make is 2 Cindervines over the 2 Destructive Revelry. Cindervines is the same up front cost with damage over time and can be cracked for a mana to essentially cast a [/card]destructive revelry[/card]. While it can be cheesed out by something like a Pithing Needle, but you can crack it in response to still destroy an artifact and deal 2 damage. The card has done a lot of work for me in these colors.
As for what the midrange deck can do differently now, since the graveyard hate has dwindled, I think it's safe to bring back Goyf into the deck. Goyf has long been the best beater for the archetype, but if our opp brought in Leylines against us, then it would just be something like a 2/3 vanilla creature, making it get easily outclassed by other stuff in the format. I was playing Young Pyromancer over it because it's a decent creature in the deck that still does work with all your instants and sorceries while not being hated out by GY stuff. I'm still trying to figure out the best configuration of the midrange deck - since Looting is now banned I've been testing a lot of Jund shells with Inquisition and Raven's Crime. Having a consistent clock gives us another axis which decks will have to fight us on, and I think the deck will do better because of it.
I'm still on Smallpox at my lgs for the moment which has gone exceedingly well. My meta is a bunch of creature / midrange / storm decks that get eaten by turn 2 Pox EZ, which I think is the best Loam shell for the moment at least. The metagame is just adjusting to the new banned list, so let's see how everything evolves and works itself out.
P.S. Sideboard guide is finally coming. I wanted to wait for things to cool down because I had a feeling there were gonna be changes in the format post-Hogaak, and now everything should work out fine. I'll post the general feel of the matchup for each deck and then might go in depth on certain archetypes, it's to be seen. With the amount of different shells out there, it's hard to tell people exactly what to cut and bring in because the cuts for the Jund list will be different than the cuts for the RG list than the Temur list etc. Keep your eyes on the primer in the coming weeks.
Hey everyone! I'm switching over from Mardu Pyromancer post-ban and don't have the Wrenn and Sixes. Are there any budget replacements? Or is it essential to AssaultLoam?
Wrenn and Six was a big addition to this deck from Modern Horizons, but the deck existed before it and we have some new tools from that set to help the deck in its place. I haven't made a new Wrenn and Six-less list, however, it would probably be similar to some of the pre-MH1 lists I have stored on my desktop. Most of those also have Faithless Looting, so I'd have to make some changes.
If you have a playset of Dark Confidant, those fit pretty well into Wrenn's slot though it's not exact. Confidant dies to removal way easier, and can deal you a bunch of damage - though with the amount of lands we play, it's less than usual. That being said, Bob has it's own advantages in being able to beat in and draw you spells as well as lands, which can't be overstated.
A playset of Confidant is somewhat similar to a playset of Wrenn though, so if you don't have them then it would almost be just as hard to get those. Still, the deck can function without either one and perform fine, just with a slightly different build.
Right now, imo the three playable "archetypes" of AssLoam right now are (in order) Jund, RG, and Naya. Jund can go in many different ways, currently I'm on a low creature count Smallpox list which you can see above. Instead of Wrenn and Six in that deck, you can play Bloodghast which is just a great threat in this strategy especially when combined with a spell like Pox. Bloodghast also makes it so if you are forced to cast a Pox late game, you don't have to sac a Tracker and lose value, you just sac a BG and get it right back. I couldn't find room for the card before, but BG just like Wrenn gives you fuel to get back from Pox, as you can discard it to that side of the card then play a land to get it right back.
If you want, DM me with your specific needs and I can help you figure out a decklist that seems good. We're technically not supposed to go too much into budget talk on this part of the forum, so it would be better to talk there. Hope this helped!
Greetings! I've been wanting to get on the assault loam train for some days now, I'm curious as of which is the best option right now? RG, Jund or Naya? I see each version has it's strenghts and weaknesses, can you guys help me out and pick one? Right now I'm more inclined for buying into Naya since I already got the fetchlands for that (Hence, I also got the ones for RG, I don't have anything for jund though).
It's kinda hard to say what the best deck is right now. Because of the Looting ban, the deck has to adapt to different play lines.
The Jund list is the most solid right now because it has a real easy replacement for Looting in targeted discard spells like Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and Collective Brutality, a switch that many decks were already employing once Wrenn and Six was printed. I'd say this is the deck to play for now because it isn't really affected by the looting ban and it's more traditional than weird RG lists testing out cards like Magmatic Insight which have big downsides.
That being said, you can go even deeper into the individual card choices for each archetype and the deckbuilding gets deeper. Right now I'm on Pox Loam, an archetype that looks like this:
There are a lot of one ofs and weird numbers in this list, but let me run through some of the card choices real quick, and you'll see why I use it for my metagame.
My lgs is pretty large, like 60-70 person FNM each week with a pretty diverse set of decks. The most prominent decks however are creature-based strategies like Humans, Spirits, Company, Vizier Combo, Infect, and Bogles. Aside from that, there are a bunch of UW players alongside random UB or Grixis control strategies.
Smallpox is really good at decimating these decks that are trying to curve out on creatures. If I cast Pox turn two on the draw against a Storm player who went t2 land land Baral, casting a Smallpox puts them behind on threats, behind on mana, and behind on cards while we can discard any land and sac a land with Loam or Wrenn to get them back. The effect in this deck is symmetrical in the short term, but by one or two turns later, we're back ahead on cards and, in a weird way, tempo.
To quickly delve into the other parts of the deck...the manabase aims to get double black on turn two every time, and since Seismic Assault is only the late game plan and a 3 of, we don't have to worry too much about t3 RRR every time and we can focus on just casting pox and moving from there. I'm playing 6 fetches because I think that's a good number with all the extra cycling lands and other stuff we have to find spots for, and Polluted Delta is only in the list because I traded away a Bloodstained Mire plus some other cards for a Wrenn and Six. Either way, the important part is that you have a few black fetches to fetch basic swamp when you need to.
Now if your meta was more combo based with decks like Ad Nauseum, Storm, Valakut, or any "critical mass" deck like Burn or Mill, you might want to cut Smallpox and play something with more discard spells and Liliana of the Veil. Raven's Crime is a hoser against any midrange deck or combo deck - when you can have cast 3 discard spells by turn 3, you really can ruin someone's day. With 9-10 discard spells plus Liliana of the Veil, you can play the gameplan of strip all of your resources, then use AssaultLoam to finish off the board then your opponent. This strategy can be kind of slow vs a Burn deck, but usually to combat that you play extra maindeck copies of Collective Brutality and bigger threats like Tarmogoyf, which you can't play in Pox since you have to sac a creature to the namesake card.
I haven't built one of those decks post looting ban, but if you think that's better for your metagame, I can help you build something in that shape.
RG is typically better against aggro in the sense that it deals less damage to itself because of its lands. In the past, the only thing the deck had to do on t1 was play Looting or "bolt the birds," but now the biggest t1 play is gone so we have to find something else to fill its slot. Because of this, for the moment I would stay away from RG and look at something more set in stone that has stood the test of time in Jund Loam, which is the deck that won a GP to put this deck on the map years ago, and is stronger than ever with cycling lands and Wrenn and Six to power it out into the late game.
TL;DR - I think some version of Jund Loam is the best choice right now because the other colors need to replace looting somehow. Let me know what your metagame is like and I can help you find a good list for you.
Great! Thanks for the reply, what I'm planning to do right now is buy into RG first, so I can get a base for the jund version! Yeah, I agree RG got a big hit with looting gone, but such is life, we'll adapt, we always do!
Played FNM for the first time in a couple of weeks to an official 4-0-1 finish, but with an ID last round into top 8 which I played out making the total record 5-0 in matches, 10-1 in games. Specifically, I got it 2-0 over UW Control, 2-1 over Mono-Red Prison, 2-0 over VialSlivers, 2-0 over Whirza, and 2-0 over Whirza. Here's my list:
Raven's Crime overperformed big time. It won me the match over UW, it won me one of my matches over Whirza, it was fine against the Slivers deck, and I think going up to a 3/3 split with inquisition would be great overall. I may have to change the sideboard slot to something more targeted, something like a Collective Brutality but that's fine because it seems like Raven's Card is one of the key reasons to play this deck.
Smallpox tended to be pretty bad in most cases, but I think that's because it's just a bad card in most of these MUs. I did cast it once against the slivers deck when they didn't have Vial, and the Pox essentially took my opponent out of the game by making them sac their last creature and discard their last card. If I faced more aggressive matchups or creature combo decks then it would have been more impactful probably, but it was pretty bad vs most of these control / prison decks.
The one of Mortuary Mire came in handy a couple times this tournament, once against UW, the other in a long game against Whirza. If you can loam back a Mire and have a way to draw a card for instance off of a cycle land or Clue, you can immediately draw a creature card from your graveyard for a very costly reanimate. vs UW, I was able to end step Bolt, reanimate a Bloodbraid Elf which was able to come down with haste and hit big Teferi to kill it. It's pretty nasty stuff, especially if you are playing extreme value cards like Seasoned Pyromancer or Bedlam Reveler.
I felt really good with this deck this week, and felt like there weren't many issues with it that had to be plugged up, other than a lackluster sideboard. I'm looking for ways to fill that out with more threats for the UW matchup while having enough answers for everything else. Still, I think this deck is sweet and one of the best decks for the metagame right now. If y'all want me to go match by match to help show how I think about the deck and describe some of the lines I take, I can, but I don't have time atm for that right now. Any suggestions are still welcome to help sure up the sideboard and maindeck numbers too if you think there are any things that stand out to you as strange or something.
I've been trying to think of ways to build something more similar to Legacy Lands in Modern. Has anyone tried Field of the Dead? I feel like it synergizes with the whole deck and gives a strong late game. I slapped things together tonight so sorry if it is rough. I have yet to playtest other than goldfishing but I hope to play it live this weekend.
Mulch can be pretty insane in this deck and can sometimes be 2 mana 8 damage. I'm a bit skeptical on Hour of Promise but it can be pretty good with Field.
I wanted to try and go completely creatureless but not sure what to cut Reclaimer and Grazer for. Maybe go Jund and remove out the creatures for discard spells and probably the Bolts for Bob.
Have yet to build a sideboard but my goal is to get to a creatureless build and then run Tireless Tracker and maybe Goyf out of the side to surprise people and be a little transformational.
@CrypticCommander Do you have any new ideas for the new Theros? It's a shame the subject is dead, I guess it's gonna be hard to resurrect our deck right now.
Hello fellow Assault/Loam players. I took a little break from Modern back in August after Looting got banned; by the looks of the forum activity, apparently I wasn't the only one. Anyway, with a little down-time on my hands my mind has returned to my long-time pet deck, and I've been trying to brew up a list for the current metagame (which I notice has changed a ton). Hopefully some of you guys are still around to discuss some new ideas.
@PurpleBlood, Mulch is a cool card that I played years ago, and it can definitely provide CA in a land-heavy deck and is a great way to continue to get lands to use for Assault if something happens to your GY. That said, I remember I switched away from it because paying 2cmc to do something that has no effect on the board on turn 2 (or at any point really) can mean death in some of the faster Modern MUs. It may be good again in the right deck though, Idk. For the record however, while I love the Rebecca Guy art from SH, we have Winding Way now, and it's a strict upgrade, so you should probably be running that.
Also, in regard to the rest of your list, did you end up testing it? Because I'm one hundred percent certain that thirteen colorless lands and one black-only producing land aren't going to allow a deck with RRRSeismic Assault to function.
@suckmyfoot,
Like I said, I've been away for quite awhile, so I don't really know what people have tested or not, but the main Theros: Beyond Death card that stood out to me is Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. I see many of the Jund decks have begun to incorporate 1-3 copies - shifting a bit more towards the Rakdos colors in the process. Still, I think, in theory at least, the Jund versions of our deck would be better set-up to utilize it as a 1-of, since we're better at filling the yard with food for it, and since our mana-bases have been running Seismic Assault and Raven's Crime in the same deck for years, we probably wouldn't have to do much in terms of alterations.
Honestly though, I'm still playing around with some of the new toys we got from MH1 and WAR. While losing Looting definitely hurt, it definitely opened up a few more slots for brewing.
I'm back looking at and brewing in Modern again after a year-and-a-half hiatus, and of course I'm back with my old favorite.
Upon doing a little research, I found that some people apparently are still working on this archetype. Here's a great video of Youtuber d00mwake playing a red green list in a Modern league a few months ago (12/26/2021). While the list is certainly not super tuned (the sideboard in particular looked like it could use some changes), it seemed pretty solid. He managed a 3-2 finish with a deck that he didn't build and was somewhat unfamiliar with. He also had some bad luck as far as match-ups; the follower who sent him the list apparently had several 5-0s with it, so there's definitely potential.
One thing that seemed well worth adding would be a Fire-Lit Thicket or two in the mana-base. d00mwake ran into color fixing issues a couple of times, and I can say from long experience with this deck - it's a land you really want.
Also, you know you have issues with your board when you consistently don't side anything in. He mentioned wanting better graveyard hate, and the Return to Natures he did bring in a couple of times seemed underwhelming; I get that it's a flexible card, but as a result of that it's not the best at dealing with the problems you really want it to deal with.
RGx AssaultLoam
Overview
AssaultLoam describes a wide category of midrange decks that use early game disruption to stall long enough to assemble the Life from the Loam + Seismic Assault engine as a sort of combo finish. Originally an old extended deck, the archetype was established in modern by Bronson Magnan when he won GP Lincoln with the deck in 2012. Since then, while the popularity of the deck has declined its strengths have not. In the current metagame, the archetype is extremely effective as it has great matchups against top decks like Phoenix and Humans due to its recurring disruption.
Loam decks come in many shapes and sizes. Like many engine-based decks such as ThopterSword or pre-ban Pod, the AssaultLoam combo can be ported into all RGx variations depending on your metagame. Each of these archetypes will be discussed individually in this primer, but to start, let’s look at a few key cards and synergies to watch out for in the decklists.
Life from the Loam - The namesake card of the deck. It’s a one-card card advantage engine that can get back 3 lands each turn which can essentially be turned into spells by effects like Seismic Assault, Faithless Looting, Flame Jab, Raven’s Crime, cycling lands, Liliana of the Veil...the list goes on.
Seismic Assault - With Loam, this turns into a one-sided boardwipe every turn, and with the new cycling lands, that 6 damage quickly turns into 10 with Loam-Cycle-Loam. That damage eventually goes at your opponents face to round out the game real quick.
Wrenn and Six - This card has already been putting in work to put Jund back on the map in modern and has upset the balance of Legacy as well. In this archetype, it is just as strong if not stronger as the lands you get back can be easily turned into spells which gives the PW even more depth. I’m not yet sure what number is correct for this card, but it has given the deck some momentum after the Hogaak ban.
Let’s look at some decklists and see how these cards fit in.
Decklists:
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sheltered Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
4 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Rootbound Crag
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Raging Ravine
Creatures: 12
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Scavenging Ooze
1 Satyr Wayfinder
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Living Twister
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember
2 Flame Jab
1 Lightning Axe
1 Flame Slash
4 Life from the Loam
2 Wrenn and Six
4 Seismic Assault
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Alpine Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Weather the Storm
1 Cindervines
1 Beast Within
Now for this archetype you can either play Faithless Looting and focus more on AssaultLoam or cut looting and play a more traditional Jund game with AssaultLoam to finish the game. I’m more familiar with the looting-less list, but both are here for reference.
One of the biggest problems with this “prelim” list will be the lands which will likely need some tuning.
2 Raven’s Crime
4 Fatal Push
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Flame Jab
1 Surgical Extraction
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant
2 Wrenn and Six
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Life from the Loam
1 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Collective Brutality
3 Seismic Assault
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Blood Crypt
2 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Graven Cairns
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Mountain
1 Raging Ravine
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Blast Zone
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Alpine Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Plague Engineer
1 Tireless Tracker
2 Weather the Storm
1 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven’s Crime
4 Fatal Push
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Flame Jab
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Dark Confidant
2 Wrenn and Six
3 Life from the Loam
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Collective Brutality
1 Assassin’s Trophy
3 Seismic Assault
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Blood Crypt
2 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Graven Cairns
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Mountain
1 Raging Ravine
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Blast Zone
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Alpine Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Plague Engineer
1 Tireless Tracker
2 Weather the Storm
1 Assassin’s Trophy
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Path to Exile
1 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Jab
2 Lightning Helix
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Life from the Loam
2 Wrenn and Six
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Seismic Assault
1 Living Twister
1 Anger of the Gods
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Arid Mesa
2 Mountain
2 Stomping Ground
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Raging Ravine
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Clifftop Retreat
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Weather the Storm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Force of Vigor
1 Cindervines
2 Alpine Moon
1 Tireless Tracker
This list is gonna be purely what I think it could look like. I’m unsure on most of these card choices, so this is a rough outline that I will iron out over some time and some help from the community as well.
4 Serum Visions
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember
1 Flame Jab
1 Spell Pierce
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Life from the Loam
2 Wrenn and Six
3 Deprive
3 Seismic Assault
1 Living Twister
2 Cryptic Command
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Mountain
3 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Wandering Fumarole
2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Fiery Islet
1 Rootbound Crag
3 Swan’s Song
1 Beast Within
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Faithless Looting
3 Fatal Push
1 Dismember
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Dark Confidant
2 Wrenn and Six
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Life from the Loam
4 Countryside Crusher
Lands: 31
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Blast Zone
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sheltered Thicket
4 Forgotten Cave
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Dragonskull Summit
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Scavenging Ooze
Strategy
This archetype is a quintessential midrange deck that tries to stifle aggressive strategies while getting in under control quickly. Each RGx variation will have its own mini things to watch out for which I will specify in each category, however, there is a lot of carryover which I will discuss here.
First, let’s discuss the combo itself. When you have AssaultLoam online, many new players of the archetype will cast Loam and discard the three lands right away. It is almost always better to hold the lands as long as you can so you can take out something huge. If you keep casting Loam to discard three lands every turn and your opponent plays something like a Karn Liberated and ticks up, then you won’t be able to kill it with one Loam in a single turn. If you hold your three lands, the next turn you can get three more and deal 12 damage in a single shot to kill the Karn. Only once you have enough lands to kill your opponent, don’t have enough lands in your yard to cast loam, or are moving to discard and need to get down to seven cards should you just throw lands randomly. If you are killing creatures, it’s fine, just make sure you do it at a time that makes sense.
Speaking of casting Loam, to make sure you have enough lands in your yard to cast it, you can pull the lands out first then pay the mana and make targets. With 5 mana, you can cast Loam, get back a Forgotten Cave, cycle, and dredge Loam to cast it again and get 5 lands total. This lets you deal 10 damage with Seismic Assault and is generally the route I take to win the game - play lands up to 5 mana with AssaultLoam online, then Loam-Cycle-Loam to the end. With each 3 mana after that, you can cycle for Loam again and cast it which will get 2 additional lands every time, though that’s pretty uncommon. I’ve done it twice against UW Control and Jund when I drew Loam off the top, but it’s a hefty 14 points of damage that can steal the game.
Aside from Loam + Seismic Assault, in most lists you also have Loam + Flame Jab or Raven’s Crime. With 5 mana, you can Loam + 3 retrace to either Arc Lightning your opponent’s board or Mind Twist them. This is especially good against control and with Young Pyromancer. Against control, you can try to deal a bunch of damage early and then have turn after turn of JabLoam to win the game, or take a turn off casting spells to Mind Twist them out. With Young Pyromancer in both cases you cast 4 spells and make 4 tokens which your opponents usually can’t deal with since they won’t have a hand any more or won’t have their chump blockers. Keep in mind you can Loam and stockpile lands so you can just cast loam and Flame Jab four times on something like a Thought-Knot Seer.
Living Twister is a really weird card that was the first thing that made this deck reeally competitive before Horizons. With Seismic Assault and 6 lands in play, you can use all your green sources at your opponent’s end step to bounce 3 lands to your hand, untap, and bounce the other three to deal 12 points of reach to your opponent and win without using your graveyard. This means we can easily assemble a two card combo to get around a Rest in Peace. Twister’s body is no joke too, as it has done me wonders blocking Monastery Swiftspear in Mono-Red Phoenix and bigger 4/4s like Hollow One and Thought-Knot Seer. There is no incentive not to play lands as long as it is on the battlefield as the lands can bounce themselves (meaning it is mana neutral) to be discarded to Seismic Assault at any point.
When you just have Living Twister, the math is “you can pay 3 mana to bounce a land and deal 2 damage to something.” If you have 6 lands on the battlefield and your opponent is at 6, you can pay 3 twice at your opp’s end step to deal 4 damage, and then on your turn tap 3 to deal 2 more damage and kill. It can also do some weird things with Faithless Looting and Conflagrate, but I haven’t even explored those fully.
Finally, let’s talk about graveyard hate. This deck doesn’t care too much about a Nihil Spellbomb or other 1 time graveyard hate spells like it. This archetype is fully capable of just behaving like a Jund deck and just winning through beats even through something like a Rest in Peace or Surgical Extraction on Loam, but recently we’ve gotten even more tools to be able to beat these cards.
With Forgotten Cave, you have the ability to dredge loam at instant speed to save it from Surgical and other hate. It is critically important to hold up mana to do this at all times, as even though we can win and frankly dominate on board still without a graveyard, if we can save the loam, we can win much easier. I just recently lost twice in the same tournament because I was greedy when I had AssaultLoam assembled and Loam-Cycle-Loam’d with 5 mana instead of waiting a turn and doing it with 6. With 6 mana, you still have an extra mana to dredge Loam with in response with a Surgical. I’ll go more in depth in this dance of graveyard hate in sideboarding where you can make yourself less susceptible to it. For now, let’s look at some card choices.
Faithless Looting - This card shines in this archetype. Nowadays, you find this everywhere in modern, but this may be the fairest deck to play it. Even as a Careful Study, the ability to cycle through your deck to find the right answers to your opponent’s threats while setting up your graveyard with lands to get back with Loam is unmatched. You can also discard those extra lands from Loam to just “draw 2 cards” with Looting late game.
Lightning Bolt - Simple, efficient removal that can go upstairs late game.
Path to Exile - Unconditional removal. Very good in the archetype, and is one of the main reasons to splash white.
Fatal Push - Unconditional removal. Very good in the archetype, and is one of the main reasons to splash whit--- I mean black.
Lightning Axe - Another removal spell for RG that can kill bigger creatures. I’ve moved away from this card since this deck often gets to the point where you are playing off the top. Lightning Axe in a grindfest is often hard to cast as you don’t have a blank in hand or 6 mana. I’ve gone down to just one Axe in RG as it can help vs Meddling Mage, Thing in the Ice and doesn’t deal you damage like Dismember.
Dismember - An alternate removal spell for Lightning Axe. If the goal is to kill Thing in the Ice turn 2, it’s important to run removal spells like this one. Due to the issues with Lightning Axe late game, I prefer leaning on this removal spell more.
Flame Slash - Another way to kill Thing in the Ice. Can be run to get more spells around Meddling Mage. Fairly niche other than that.
Flame Jab - This spell is more than it may seem. With Life from the Loam, you can cast a 5 mana Arc Lightning each turn. However, in certain matchups this is a godsend. Against Affinity it swings the game. Against Company you can kill their dorks over and over again. Against Jund you can kill Confidant and tick down PWs. Against control, you can get in the last 6 points of damage over two turns. With Young Pyromancer, you make 4 tokens a turn on top of it, which lets you build a boardstate from nothing off the top. I’d recommend running at least 1 as a way to hedge against control, though it is useful in many more situations.
Raven’s Crime - Similar to Flame Jab, but it is better in many more situations. It can feel really bad casting this card turn one against a Phoenix deck, but if you can discard a couple lands turn three and make your opponent discard 3 spells, it feels sooo good. Very good against control, Jund, BG, Phoenix, Burn, and any “critical mass” deck. Same synergy with Peezy.
Conflagrate - This card is a very useful utility spell from your graveyard. You can see how good it is in Dredge, though it is decidedly worse here. Often, this helps as a way out of your graveyard to deal with a Gurmag Angler or simply to deal the last few points of damage to a PW or your opp. I’d only run 1 if any.
Molten Vortex - This card is a build around card, and is a trap to play with Seismic Assault imo. Molten Vortex is a card that requires mana investment and lands in hand, resulting in a very mana hungry card. This hunger gums up your curve and often leaves you in strange situations on mana, especially when your opponent has creatures like Tarmogoyf that are too big to throw lands at. If you are looking for another card vs an aggressive meta to throw in your deck, I’d go for Anger of the Gods over this.
Magmatic Insight - This card is okay, but has a lot of situations where it is very awkward. People have thought it would just be like another looting in Loam especially with new cards like Wrenn and Six where you can get the card back, but that’s just not the case. A hand with Faithless Looting and two lands is a snap keep, but the same hand with Magmatic Insight has to be thought about. You need to run a million lands to minimize the drawback of Insight.
Vessel of Nascency - This card is kinda weird. It is similar to Commune with the Gods in effect and can find both Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam. It’s a lot of mana to be invested at 3 mana for a cantrip, but since the deck often isn’t doing anything turn 1, I don’t see a huge problem with it in a more budget strategy. For example, you can cast it turn 1 and hold up a removal spell turn 2. It seems reasonable but not powerful. I’d rate it a 2.5/5.
Creatures:
Flameblade Adept - This card is a clockable threat in RG that does well as you are AssLoam’ing. You can swing for 4 each turn you AssLoam (or JabLoam for that matter) with this beast and get in for some real damage. With Loam-Cycle-Loam, that turns into 7 attacking power, for a total of 17 in a turn. Legitimate threat, though it is pretty weak on its own. Needs to be built around more I’d say.
Soul-Scar Mage - Another playable creature threat for the archetype. If Flame Jab is a really good card in the metagame, then consider this card. It turns Flame Jab into a repeatable Scar, and grows to a 5/6 each turn with JabLoam. Making damage permanent can be useful too, as you can slow down the clock from a Tarmogoyf enough to gather up lands in your hand to kill with AssLoam. Weird interactions abound with this one.
Insolent Neonate - Neonate is a way to cast 2 loams on turn 4 and get in for chip points of damage until then. It dredges Life from the Loam at instant speed in response to a Surgical Extraction or Nihil Spellbomb. It’s a playable card though it has never really had a time to shine.
Elvish Rejuvenator - New card that could be good in an aggressive shell. A 3/4 for 1 is no joke, and its ability can go grab Raging Ravine, Ghost Quarter, Bojuka Bog, etc. We don’t generally just play beaters other than Tarmogoyf, but this card seems legit enough to get there in the right shell. Seeing how Goyf doesn’t grow well in RG, maybe this will take its slot there.
Life from the Loam - The card advantage engine that makes this deck tick. You don’t really want to be flooded with these as in multiples they aren’t amazing, so 3-4 is fine especially if you are running cantrips like Faithless Looting, Satyr Wayfinder, and Commune with the Gods. Namesake card is good in the deck.
Wrenn and Six - This card is busted. Insanely good at so many things: fixing your mana, drawing cards with Forgotten Cave, wicked good with Faithless Looting, is essentially a shock every turn for +2 with a Seismic Assault or just pings by ticking down, combos with Raven’s Crime vs control (t2 Wrenn, get a land, t3 discard 2-3 cards), get GQ every turn against Tron, the card is an all star already in legacy and is even better in this deck.
Lightning Helix - Nice life gain / removal spell in Naya. I wouldn’t call it a reason to play that variant, but it’s a likely include in most Naya Loam decks.
Commune with the Gods - This card looks better than it is. If you cast it turn 2, you can hit both Seismic Assault and Life from the Loam. You can. However, when you don’t, especially on the draw, and you hit a Tarmogoyf instead, you regret all your life decisions as you just paid two mana to do nothing turn 2. In modern, you can’t just take turns off which makes Commune really slow on the draw. The reason why the list above plays one is because the card is good at recovering from graveyard hate and is a good draw off the top in a grindfest. Be careful with this card.
Harvest Pyre - This is another way to kill big creatures. It’s fairly reasonable alongside Satyr Wayfinder and Commune if you want another way to kill an 8/8 Knight of the Reliquary efficiently. Depends on your metagame.
Creatures:
Tarmogoyf - The quintessential midrange threat. In our deck it can be hard to grow as we have no targeted discard, but the card is never terrible. As the deck is already weak to graveyard hate, some people (me included) choose to play Young Pyromancer in its slot as a way to win without the graveyard, but it’s up to you and your metagame. In decks like Jund Loam, the Lhurgoyf is much better.
Young Pyromancer - This card looks weird in the Loam deck but it is critically powerful. As a strategy, our goal is to control the board of all threats and win with AssaultLoam. Pyromancer gives us tokens that can win the game off of our removal, and with JabLoam is able to steal the game. It can be often thought of as a 3 drop, casting Peezy and a spell to get an extra token as “card advantage” when able, and is way better than it first seems. The list above is built around it and plays extra spells because of it, making the creature even more powerful. Useful to beat decks that are loose and based on graveyard hate postboard.
Satyr Wayfinder - I initially tested this card as a budget option. Now, I see how powerful this card can be. Wayfinder takes the slot of a few lands, kind of like how Xerox decks cut lands for cantrips. It effectively is a 2 mana 1/1 that gets you a shock, fixes your mana, and looks at the top 4 to find Loam, Raven’s Crime, Flame Jab, Conflagrate, Faithless Looting, Forgotten Cave, and Ghost Quarter vs tron. The chip points of damage it gets in are impressive as we keep an empty board the majority of the game and the ability it has to block is stellar. I really am a fan of this card, though I have cut a couple for Wrenn and Six.
Scavenging Ooze - One of the reasons to play RG and not Jund. In Jund Loam your mana is really tight between turn 1 discard and RRR spells and trying to cast multiple Raven’s Crime in one turn… you don’t have much space to eat a bunch of cards each turn. In RG (and also Naya) your mana isn’t as constrained and you can eat a bunch of stuff to help hedge against all the graveyard decks in the format while ending up with a large beater that can help against Jund. This card is great.
Seismic Assault - The reason to play Loam. With Life from the Loam, you can continually wipe the board then kill your opponent.
Liliana of the Veil - Really good card in the Loam deck. You can just discard lands and get them back. A must include in any Jund strategy.
Anger of the Gods - A good catchup spell for the archetype. Doesn’t play well with Young Pyromancer, but if you play your hand right then it won’t matter.
Burning Vengeance - A reasonable option for a backup Seismic Assault. If you cast Flame Jab or Raven’s Crime while this is on the battlefield, it turns into a 1 mana Arc Trail or Kolaghan’s Command, and JabLoam deals 9 dmg. It’s a possible budget option if you want to make Young Pyromancer and prowess creatures better, and is a viable alternative to the AssaultLoam combo. Useful in a metagame where you want more Assaults.
Creatures:
Countryside Crusher - The biggest creature in this archetype. If you cast this turn 3, it will almost assuredly become a 5/5 (if not bigger) turn 4. The ability makes you not draw lands ever on your draw step, which can be useful but be mindful of it. If you cast Crusher with three lands, one of them being something like a forest that doesn’t tap for R, you won’t be able to cast Seismic Assault without dredging Loam to get another mana source. Crusher walls out big creatures and gets in for a ton of damage with AssaultLoam online. Alongside AssLoam, Crusher grows even bigger and has an empty board to swing in for lethal in 1 to 2 turns.
Knight of the Reliquary - This card is the major reason to play Naya. It is an incredible beater, often coming down as a 4/4 or more and growing higher. Unfortunately, it isn’t as good as it is in AggroLoam in legacy, and can easily be answered by graveyard hate. Real good include.
Living Twister - This card is insane in this archetype. At first, I played one copy to test it out, but I’ve added another recently due to the success it has brought me. It does a decent job of walling out aggro decks as you can block anything from a Hollow One to a Thought-Knot Seer to random Humans with it. Its second ability is not what stands out on the card, though it’s far from useless - paying two mana to deal the last two points of damage to a creature is useful in many situations. Its first ability is where the card gets interesting. Alongside Seismic Assault, Living Twister gives you a way to tap out, bounce all your lands, and win the game without Life from the Loam. On its own, you can pay 3 mana to bounce a land and discard it, meaning that if your opponent has 6 or less life and you have 6 or more lands, on their end step you can pay six to deal 4, untap and deal two. You can bounce your played cycle lands to cycle them, you can bounce lands to replay with Tireless Tracker, you emulate AssaultLoam with Loam over two turns. With 4 mana, you can cast loam, deal two, next turn deal 4. This card has a lot of weird interactions, and I’ll go over them later, but this card is insane.
Tireless Tracker - Quintessential green midrange creature for a while now. This card is a threat on its own, which is notable in the archetype since most of our threats are synergistic with each other. Seismic Assault is mediocre if you have no lands to back it up. Young Pyromancer is pretty bad if you have no spells to cast. Tracker draws cards and attacks for big damage on its own, something important in midrange and control matchups. The reason why I prefer it in my sideboard is because the maindeck is pretty tuned to those decks already. Tracker is worse against hyperaggressive decks like Phoenix where I can play a better creature like Scavenging Ooze. It wouldn’t be wrong to play it maindeck, but I don’t think it’s necessary with the amount of card advantage you already have.
Bedlam Reveler - This was the card I relied on before Living Twister was printed for late game card advantage. With extra spells, you can commonly cast this for 3 mana off the top, giving you a 3/4 body attached to an Ancestral Recall (which you can dredge Loam off too.) Works well with JabLoam, which grows Reveler to a 7/8 each turn, a great finisher vs Control. It costs 8 mana vs a Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace postboard, which makes me lean towards something less vulnerable to hate, but it is a viable option nonetheless.
Sideboarding
TBD
Any suggestions or questions are appreciated.
Thanks!
Also kinda surprised you didn’t at least mention Trade Routes in temur. It’s somewhat outclassed by living twister + horizon lands, but it has colorless activation.
You should also probably mention GQ lines. Idunno about you but I definitely find myself targeting my own lands with GQ at least once an event.
Overall though a good start, it gives a good overview on the archetype and explains the core well.
I prefer playing a few Graven Cairns in my Jund lists as it also taps for red for Seismic Assault. In Smallpox lists, Urborg is great, but I don't really even like Smallpox in AssaultLoam.
Trade Routes is a card, but it doesn't fit into the base temur shell here, I like it more in a 4C shell which is even more testing which would push the primer even more far off.
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Ground
1 Sheltered Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
3 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
2 Rootbound Crag
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Raging Ravine
Creatures: 12
3 Young Pyromancer
3 Scavenging Ooze
2 Satyr Wayfinder
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Living Twister
4 Faithless Looting
3 Lightning Bolt
2 Dismember
2 Flame Jab
1 Lightning Axe
1 Flame Slash
4 Life from the Loam
2 Wrenn and Six
4 Seismic Assault
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Alpine Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Anger of the Gods
3 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Weather the Storm
1 Cindervines
1 Beast Within
I didn't take many match notes and don't remember exactly how the matches went, but I remember getting absolutely dumpstered by Dredge multiple times. Before Creeping Chill, the matchup was great as I could just kill all their creatures over and over again and get in for damage with my attackers. With CC, since I'm planning to play the long game, I essentially start at 8 life and my opponent starts at 32. It's kind of stupid, so I added a Surgical Extraction to my sideboard after the tournaments for one of the Tormod's Crypt. The deck doesn't really need surgical, just a way to get rid of all the cards in a graveyard once or twice a game to combat Storm or Bedlam Reveler etc., but if I can cast surgical on CC, the dredge matchup is very winnable.
I also made an error playing a second Satyr Wayfinder as a way to chump block against Mono-Red Phoenix which I thought would dominate the tables, but I was mistaken and I had multiple occasions where I wished I had another land instead of the Wayfinder.
All in all, the tournament gave me some real confidence in this deck. It seems very consistent now with Wrenn and cycling lands.
A few years back I played around with this archetype for a while, before dismissing it. With modern horizons and m20 the deck got some very interesting toys and I am eager to delve into assault loam once again.
I am thinking about a RG shell, starting from your very checklist CrypticCommander.
But there are a few cards I would like to talk about, so let's get started.
Sorry for the lack of tags, but I am on my phone right now.
Is elvish reclaimer any good?
I do believe so, in theory it is 1/2 that can potentially stem the bleeding early on, or act as a beater or get utility lands. A repeatable instant speed crop rotation is quite powerful.
What about ruination rioter?
Stems the bleeding early on against fast creature decks and develops into a threat that opponents neither want to kill, nor want to attack into. Being able to shoot it down with the last land in hand after dumping the other lands to assault can nearly oneshot the opponent.
(Loam back 3 lands -> cycle forgotten cave -> loam back 3 more lands. Throw 8 damage to the opponent's face and 2 at the rioter to get another 5 damage).
The next card on my list, that fuels those 2 cards mentioned above is lotus field, which is especially good with the elvish reclaimer. The only cards that could be a problem when playing lotus field are blood moon and smallpox, otherwise we don't really care if 2 lands are in the yard, as we can get them back pretty easily.
Next up is cindervines vs. leyline of combustion. I have no experience with either of those cards, so it would be very cool hearing about which one is better and why.
Magmatic sinkhole might be an awesome addition to the removal suite, as it further diversifies spot removal if you are afraid of meddling mage and it can deal with planeswalkers in addition to that. The downside is delving away some amount of the graveyard, but with maybe one copy in the main deck this should be bearable.
And last but not least, in your RG list you are playing quite a few lands that come into play tapped @CrypticCommander. Does this make for weird sequencing at times or have those citpt lands never been bad. And is the cinder glade worth it?
Best regards
Maze
I feel like Elvish Reclaimer could be good in the right shell, but I'm not sure what that is. In the RG lists, Tarmogoyf is often mediocre as we don't have great ways to put card types into the graveyard early aside from Faithless Looting. Reclaimer is a 3/4 with a somewhat relevant ability as it could get a Bojuka Bog, Blast Zone, Ghost Quarter, or even a manland vs the right deck. The problem is we aren't really looking for a vanilla 3/4 most of the time in the current list. Countryside Crusher often starts as a 4/4 on 3 which grows and draws gas while playing with the gameplan of the deck - as you loot, dredge and discard lands to Seismic Assault, it grows bigger while Reclaimer is stuck as a 3/4 for the whole game. In a more aggressive version that tries to get in quick under control I could see it being good, but as it stands I don't like it very much. It stands in the same category as a Flameblade Adept, while it beats in well, I'm not sure I want it in the current metagame.
Ruination Rider is a card I've yet to test. It leads to explosive hands and incentivizes playing more lands and fetches, actually quite like Reclaimer. It's another aggressive card that can close out the game fast and gives us a better shot at killing on turn 4 alongside other fast beaters. Historically, I have really tried to build my AssaultLoam decks like your typical midrange deck that can use the AssaultLoam combo to gain back tempo like a boardwipe because I think that is where it shines. We have gotten more and more cards in the past few years that could legitimize an aggressive build with cards like Insolent Neonate, Flameblade Adept, Elvish Reclaimer, and Ruination Rider with ~10 fetches... This could work, but it is much more susceptible to graveyard hate, so I personally don't think it's worth the risk. It could use some testing though.
I don't think we should play Lotus Field. We like to use our mana in weird ways (RRR for Seismic Assault, RRG for Living Twister, while holding up GG to activate Scooze) and it enters the battlefield tapped meaning we can't use it on turn 3 to play our spells. If we want to turn on Elvish Reclaimer, we can just as easily fetch 3 times which would constitute the same amount of mana or fetch once and play a Faithless Looting. We're playing enough taplands as it is, and I think it would put us in a weird spot in that same breath as far as colors of mana go.
I haven't posted sideboard guides, but Cindervines is a great card, I'm not sure about Leyline of Combustion. I can bring in Cindervines against all sorts of decks if I predict they have any artifacts or graveyard hate like Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace. The card deals a whole lot of damage against control as they cast a whole lot of spells and often has to be answered by a Teferi or bounce spell into a counter. It nearly won me the match against UW turns too, as I got in some chip shots early, Cindervines took them down to 5 life, I cracked it to deal another 2 and made Lightning Bolt or a Seismic Assault off the top an out to win the game. The card is great, and is why I would rather keep one than go up to two Force of Vigor.
I honestly hadn't thought of Magmatic Sinkhole. That card seems like it could replace a Lightning Axe, as I used to play 1 Harvest Pyre which is about the same thing. I'm not sure if it would be clunky with my graveyard stuff, but it warrants some testing definitely.
The taplands have been awkward in the past, especially with the new cycling lands plus Ghost Quarter. After I made the shift to 24 lands it hasn't been a real problem, and I think the 5 taplands are fine, especially with 4 of them being cycle lands, meaning I don't really ever want to play them - I'll fetch for Sheltered Thicket, but I don't ever want to play it from my hand - I'd really rather cycle them or discard them to a Looting or Assault. If I have to play one on turn one, that's fine, the only turn one plays in the deck are Looting, Bolt, or cycle Forgotten Cave. I don't think Cinder Glade is worth it, it will often just be a tapland, while the rest of the taplands I'm playing now are have a lot of utility.
Finally, I'm gonna test a few Leyline of the Void in the sideboard of RG to combat dredge. The problem card in that matchup is Creeping Chill, and though I know dredge can just cast Nature's Claim, if I can take them off tempo I think we can win the matchup postboard.
Tomorrow there is a small tournament near me and if I can make it I will pilot a list inspired by yours.
4 Elvish Reclaimer
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Living Twister
2 Scavenging ooze
Planeswalkers:
3 Wrenn and Six
Enchantments:
3 Seismic Assault
Sorceries:
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the loam
2 Flame Jab
1 Flame Slash
3 Lightning Bolt
1 Magmatic Sinkhole
1 Dismember
1 Lightning axe
Lands:
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Grounds
5 Mountain
1 Forest
2 Rootbound Craig
2 Lotus Field
1 Raging Ravine
2 Forgotten Cave
1 Sheltered Thicket
2 Ghost Quater
1 Blastzone
The Reclaimer I just want to test out, not only as a way to potentially have a faster clock, but more so to have a repeatable crop rotation at my disposal with the upside of being able to grow into a fairly sizeable beater for only one mana. Countryside Crusher is with no doubt the more potent finisher, but Reclaimer is extremely versatile and thats what I like about the card.
Living Twister I just dont like yet, but I guess thats because I just see a 2/5 body with expensive abilities, but I am willing to try it out, as you are very high on the card.
After some thought I cut the Ruination Rioters. As you mentioned above the deck is fairly resilient against graveyard hate and cards like this just make it more susceptible to hate.
Regarding the sideboard I havent put much thought into that. Sadly I dont own cindervines and my LGS does not currently have any.
It will probably look quite similar to yours.
I really like the idea of playing like 1 bojuka bog in the 75, mainboard could get a little weird. My meta isnt that heavy on graveyard related decks so mainboard is probably a little to wild.
Lotus field will most likely get cut down to 1 copy and be replaced by one fire-lit thicket.
One last thing, fair decks are probably the decks we like to play against, but how do we combat a deck like Neobrand?
I would love to hear some opinions and tips on how to approach degenerate decks.
While RG is fairly consistent at taking out creature decks and going over the top of midrange decks like UW Control, it's downfall is its spread against degenerate decks like Neobrand. If a deck relies on creatures like Vizier Combo, then it's an easy matchup. Even unfair matchups like Storm are playable since you can force them to combo off without a cost reducer, but it lacks the hand disruption of Jund, the strong sideboard cards of Naya, and the countermagic of Temur. Which one you use in which metagame depends on which decks are on top. If you pick RG, you cede some edge to the unfair decks for an edge against aggressive decks.
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Raging Ravine
2 Rootbound Crag
3 Forgotten Cave
1 Sheltered Thicket
2 Stomping Ground
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
5 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Windswept Heath
Spells: 21
1 Dismember
1 Lightning Axe
2 Wrenn and Six
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Life from the Loam
2 Flame Jab
4 Seismic Assault
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Countryside Crusher
3 Seasoned Pyromancer
1 Living Twister
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Weather The Storm
1 Beast Within
1 Cindervines
2 Force of Vigor
2 Blood Moon
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Anger of the Gods
I've cut down on Countryside Crusher in favor of 3 Seasoned Pyromancer. The Pyromancer seems like it could be good in this archetype especially postboard being able to discard drawn leylines or other dead cards. Maindeck it draws you towards one of your three copies of Life from the Loam as well as refilling your hand when you get hellbent. For that reason, the card plays well with Seismic Assault and a lot of lands, as you can hellbent yourself real quick. I'll be testing out this list at FNM tomorrow night and will let y'all know how it goes.
I played against a random draft deck from a new player, Hogaak, Dredge, and Jund, and ID'd with my last opp. The deck preboard is pretty bad, as there are no really big threats to close out the game quickly. The point of the deck was to be good against leylines postboard which it was, and to be good with leylines in my deck postboard, which it also was, so I guess the experiment was a success?
I lost my game one to Hogaak and Dredge, and did the sideboard plan of board in Leylines and Blood Moon, cut graveyard synergy like Life from the Loam, Countryside Crusher, a Seismic Assault and more depending on the matchup. Postboard, I mulled to leylines each time as there is no other way this deck wins, but with the help of Seasoned Pyromancer, Anger of the Gods, and one for one removal, we got there. This list feels stellar against Hogaak and Dredge, but it has some holes...
Because it is more threat light, it is worse off vs midrange decks like Jund. I'm likely gonna cut Countryside Crusher entirely for Tireless Tracker as I think that's just a better threat that can draw me extra cards. That slot could also be Bloodbraid Elf, which I want to test but idk yet.
The long and short of it is, I think this deck could survive the degeneracy of Hogaak and Dredge with Leylines and Blood Moon. I think the deck is still good, we just need to find the right threat that is able to get in through leyline.
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Graven Cairns
1 Canyon Slough
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Forgotten Cave
1 Raging Ravine
2 Swamp
2 Mountain
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Tireless Tracker
2 Seasoned Pyromancer
2 Bloodbraid Elf
Spells:
1 Sarkhan, Fireblood
3 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Assassin's Trophy
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
3 Seismic Assault
2 Wrenn and Six
2 Weather the Storm
2 Alpine Moon
1 Leyline of the Void
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Force of Vigor
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Shenanigans
1 Infinite Obliteration
2 Anger of the Gods
The key card in this deck is Smallpox. This card is insane when decks are playing fair, and that's what I'm expecting postban, a resurgence of fair decks or combo decks that rely on creatures like Infect or Druid Combo or Elves, etc. For this, you don't want to play many creatures, which is why most of the creatures in our deck do more than just be bodies. The alternate card to play would be Tarmogoyf, but it depends on if we want to be proactive vs noninteractive combo decks like Ad Nauseum or fair decks. Because we are playing Wrenn and Six on top of loam now, Pox is just a way to win games on turn 2 by getting so much value.
The rest of the deck is built to supplement this game plan. The mana base looks a little weird, but it works since we need double black turn 2, triple red two turns after on the god draw. Wrenn and Six plus a fetch fixes on its own, though you can't cast it off a Graven Cairns.
Instead of Looting, we have turn 1 discard in Inquisition of Kozilek and Raven's Crime. With all of the lands we play plus Loam and W6, I have often been able to get every card out of my opp's hand by turn 3 or 4, which in combination with a removal spell or creature, can shut down the opp without a Seismic Assault.
Seasoned Pyromancer can help get back all those cards while giving us the option to make tokens off of a dredge.
Mortuary Mire is a really good card with the new cycling lands. Now you can cast loam, get back a Mire + Forgotten Cave, then get back any creature in your yard for essentially 2 mana.
I think this will be the best version of the deck for now, at least with a few tweaks, but we will have to see how the meta develops.
Anyways i have been tweaking this deck for some time now. Tried to focus on spell synergies with Bedlam Reveler and Young Pyromancer, tried more midrange creature focused strategies with maindeck Scavenging Ooze Tireless Tracker and Countryside Crusher, tried to go all in on the loam / assault engine and usually got meh to bad results.
I finally made it to top 8 at my shop's modern tournament though, it seems the Faithless Looting ban did us more good than harm. I didn't get stomped by phoenix / dredge / hogaak that often, but sideboards now definitively pack less graveyard hate. I did 3-1-1, won urza sword 2-1, lost 0-2 to mardu pyro, won 2-1 against GW Voice of resurgence company, 2-0 againt grixis shadow then drew last round. Won 2-0 against mardu shadow in the top 8 then lost to amulet titan.
Here is the list i ran with. It is a high-ish land count build to take advantage of Magmatic Insight as Faithless Looting fill in and Molten Vortex. It relies a lot on Young Pyromancer, and tries to balance the instant/sorcery count with the need to run lots of lands and enough threats. I expected lots of blue control and eldrazi tron decks, and geared the sideboard to that effect along with 3 main deck Blood Moon. Not having graveyard hate post sideboard didn't hurt, but next time i'll probably cut 1 Damping Sphere 1 Veil of Summer for 2 Anger of the gods.
1 Blast Zone
2 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Forest
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Mountain
1 Raging Ravine
2 Stomping Ground
2 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Commune with the Gods
2 Flame Jab
4 Life from the Loam
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Magmatic Insight
Enchants / Creatures / PW : 18
3 Blood Moon
3 Molten Vortex
3 Seismic Assault
3 Wrenn and Six
2 Seasoned Pyromancer
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Abrade
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Damping Sphere
2 Destructive Revelry
1 Fry
2 Tireless Tracker
4 Veil of Summer
Random notes :
Now is our time to shine as the looting ban didn't wreck us too much and the modern meta is now more favorable.
I think this list is pretty solid. Molten Vortex has gotten a lot better with Wrenn and Six, so I think it's a much more viable option now, and with Seasoned Pyromancer, you can just pitch extra enchants to the ETB trigger.
The thing about this archetype is that there are so many different ways to build around the Loam engine that you need to find a build that's good for each individual meta. While this list is suited to be great against aggro, I don't think it would do well against midrange decks like Jund or Pyromancers, as they have more disruptive elements with overall stronger threats and answers in Goyfs and Plague Engineer / hand disruption.
From a first glance, it seems that this list could easily just get some people with Blood Moon or a simple set up of AssaultLoam / VortexLoam, which is a big advantage to it. The midrange decks are designed to hedge against the field while the typical all in lists usually target a portion of the metagame.
The one major gripe I have is in your sideboard. I think Engineered Explosives or Ratchet Bomb is a necessity for Bogles while having utility in other matchups like Urza or Storm. If your lgs doesn't have any of those decks that's fine, but it's something I include in most of my RG lists as there is no other axis to fight a deck like Bogles in these colors except for that one. The other change I would make is 2 Cindervines over the 2 Destructive Revelry. Cindervines is the same up front cost with damage over time and can be cracked for a mana to essentially cast a [/card]destructive revelry[/card]. While it can be cheesed out by something like a Pithing Needle, but you can crack it in response to still destroy an artifact and deal 2 damage. The card has done a lot of work for me in these colors.
As for what the midrange deck can do differently now, since the graveyard hate has dwindled, I think it's safe to bring back Goyf into the deck. Goyf has long been the best beater for the archetype, but if our opp brought in Leylines against us, then it would just be something like a 2/3 vanilla creature, making it get easily outclassed by other stuff in the format. I was playing Young Pyromancer over it because it's a decent creature in the deck that still does work with all your instants and sorceries while not being hated out by GY stuff. I'm still trying to figure out the best configuration of the midrange deck - since Looting is now banned I've been testing a lot of Jund shells with Inquisition and Raven's Crime. Having a consistent clock gives us another axis which decks will have to fight us on, and I think the deck will do better because of it.
I'm still on Smallpox at my lgs for the moment which has gone exceedingly well. My meta is a bunch of creature / midrange / storm decks that get eaten by turn 2 Pox EZ, which I think is the best Loam shell for the moment at least. The metagame is just adjusting to the new banned list, so let's see how everything evolves and works itself out.
P.S. Sideboard guide is finally coming. I wanted to wait for things to cool down because I had a feeling there were gonna be changes in the format post-Hogaak, and now everything should work out fine. I'll post the general feel of the matchup for each deck and then might go in depth on certain archetypes, it's to be seen. With the amount of different shells out there, it's hard to tell people exactly what to cut and bring in because the cuts for the Jund list will be different than the cuts for the RG list than the Temur list etc. Keep your eyes on the primer in the coming weeks.
P.P.S. Turn 2 Stoneforge Turn 3 Seismic Assault or Batterskull is pretty cool. That list is in the works too.
If you have a playset of Dark Confidant, those fit pretty well into Wrenn's slot though it's not exact. Confidant dies to removal way easier, and can deal you a bunch of damage - though with the amount of lands we play, it's less than usual. That being said, Bob has it's own advantages in being able to beat in and draw you spells as well as lands, which can't be overstated.
A playset of Confidant is somewhat similar to a playset of Wrenn though, so if you don't have them then it would almost be just as hard to get those. Still, the deck can function without either one and perform fine, just with a slightly different build.
Right now, imo the three playable "archetypes" of AssLoam right now are (in order) Jund, RG, and Naya. Jund can go in many different ways, currently I'm on a low creature count Smallpox list which you can see above. Instead of Wrenn and Six in that deck, you can play Bloodghast which is just a great threat in this strategy especially when combined with a spell like Pox. Bloodghast also makes it so if you are forced to cast a Pox late game, you don't have to sac a Tracker and lose value, you just sac a BG and get it right back. I couldn't find room for the card before, but BG just like Wrenn gives you fuel to get back from Pox, as you can discard it to that side of the card then play a land to get it right back.
If you want, DM me with your specific needs and I can help you figure out a decklist that seems good. We're technically not supposed to go too much into budget talk on this part of the forum, so it would be better to talk there. Hope this helped!
The Jund list is the most solid right now because it has a real easy replacement for Looting in targeted discard spells like Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and Collective Brutality, a switch that many decks were already employing once Wrenn and Six was printed. I'd say this is the deck to play for now because it isn't really affected by the looting ban and it's more traditional than weird RG lists testing out cards like Magmatic Insight which have big downsides.
That being said, you can go even deeper into the individual card choices for each archetype and the deckbuilding gets deeper. Right now I'm on Pox Loam, an archetype that looks like this:
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Canyon Slough
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Graven Cairns
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Raging Ravine
1 Hissing Quagmire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Mortuary Mire
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
3 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Wrenn and Six
3 Seismic Assault
1 Worm's Harvest
Creatures: 6
3 Tireless Tracker
3 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Infinite Obliteration
1 Assassin's Trophy
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Alpine Moon
1 Shenanigans
1 Force of Vigor
My lgs is pretty large, like 60-70 person FNM each week with a pretty diverse set of decks. The most prominent decks however are creature-based strategies like Humans, Spirits, Company, Vizier Combo, Infect, and Bogles. Aside from that, there are a bunch of UW players alongside random UB or Grixis control strategies.
Smallpox is really good at decimating these decks that are trying to curve out on creatures. If I cast Pox turn two on the draw against a Storm player who went t2 land land Baral, casting a Smallpox puts them behind on threats, behind on mana, and behind on cards while we can discard any land and sac a land with Loam or Wrenn to get them back. The effect in this deck is symmetrical in the short term, but by one or two turns later, we're back ahead on cards and, in a weird way, tempo.
To quickly delve into the other parts of the deck...the manabase aims to get double black on turn two every time, and since Seismic Assault is only the late game plan and a 3 of, we don't have to worry too much about t3 RRR every time and we can focus on just casting pox and moving from there. I'm playing 6 fetches because I think that's a good number with all the extra cycling lands and other stuff we have to find spots for, and Polluted Delta is only in the list because I traded away a Bloodstained Mire plus some other cards for a Wrenn and Six. Either way, the important part is that you have a few black fetches to fetch basic swamp when you need to.
Now if your meta was more combo based with decks like Ad Nauseum, Storm, Valakut, or any "critical mass" deck like Burn or Mill, you might want to cut Smallpox and play something with more discard spells and Liliana of the Veil. Raven's Crime is a hoser against any midrange deck or combo deck - when you can have cast 3 discard spells by turn 3, you really can ruin someone's day. With 9-10 discard spells plus Liliana of the Veil, you can play the gameplan of strip all of your resources, then use AssaultLoam to finish off the board then your opponent. This strategy can be kind of slow vs a Burn deck, but usually to combat that you play extra maindeck copies of Collective Brutality and bigger threats like Tarmogoyf, which you can't play in Pox since you have to sac a creature to the namesake card.
I haven't built one of those decks post looting ban, but if you think that's better for your metagame, I can help you build something in that shape.
RG is typically better against aggro in the sense that it deals less damage to itself because of its lands. In the past, the only thing the deck had to do on t1 was play Looting or "bolt the birds," but now the biggest t1 play is gone so we have to find something else to fill its slot. Because of this, for the moment I would stay away from RG and look at something more set in stone that has stood the test of time in Jund Loam, which is the deck that won a GP to put this deck on the map years ago, and is stronger than ever with cycling lands and Wrenn and Six to power it out into the late game.
TL;DR - I think some version of Jund Loam is the best choice right now because the other colors need to replace looting somehow. Let me know what your metagame is like and I can help you find a good list for you.
Played FNM for the first time in a couple of weeks to an official 4-0-1 finish, but with an ID last round into top 8 which I played out making the total record 5-0 in matches, 10-1 in games. Specifically, I got it 2-0 over UW Control, 2-1 over Mono-Red Prison, 2-0 over VialSlivers, 2-0 over Whirza, and 2-0 over Whirza. Here's my list:
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Stomping Ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blood Crypt
1 Canyon Slough
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Graven Cairns
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Raging Ravine
1 Hissing Quagmire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Mortuary Mire
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Raven's Crime
3 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Bolt
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
2 Wrenn and Six
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 Seismic Assault
Creatures: 7
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Tireless Tracker
2 Bloodbraid Elf
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Assassin's Trophy
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Shenanigans
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Infinite Obliteration
1 Weather the Storm
1 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime
Raven's Crime overperformed big time. It won me the match over UW, it won me one of my matches over Whirza, it was fine against the Slivers deck, and I think going up to a 3/3 split with inquisition would be great overall. I may have to change the sideboard slot to something more targeted, something like a Collective Brutality but that's fine because it seems like Raven's Card is one of the key reasons to play this deck.
Smallpox tended to be pretty bad in most cases, but I think that's because it's just a bad card in most of these MUs. I did cast it once against the slivers deck when they didn't have Vial, and the Pox essentially took my opponent out of the game by making them sac their last creature and discard their last card. If I faced more aggressive matchups or creature combo decks then it would have been more impactful probably, but it was pretty bad vs most of these control / prison decks.
The one of Mortuary Mire came in handy a couple times this tournament, once against UW, the other in a long game against Whirza. If you can loam back a Mire and have a way to draw a card for instance off of a cycle land or Clue, you can immediately draw a creature card from your graveyard for a very costly reanimate. vs UW, I was able to end step Bolt, reanimate a Bloodbraid Elf which was able to come down with haste and hit big Teferi to kill it. It's pretty nasty stuff, especially if you are playing extreme value cards like Seasoned Pyromancer or Bedlam Reveler.
I felt really good with this deck this week, and felt like there weren't many issues with it that had to be plugged up, other than a lackluster sideboard. I'm looking for ways to fill that out with more threats for the UW matchup while having enough answers for everything else. Still, I think this deck is sweet and one of the best decks for the metagame right now. If y'all want me to go match by match to help show how I think about the deck and describe some of the lines I take, I can, but I don't have time atm for that right now. Any suggestions are still welcome to help sure up the sideboard and maindeck numbers too if you think there are any things that stand out to you as strange or something.
3 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Mulch
3 Arboreal Grazer
2 Hour of Promise
4 Seismic Assault
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Wrenn and Six
4 Life From the Loam
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Blast Zone
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Field of Ruin
4 Field of the Dead
1 Raging Ravine
4 Stomping Grounds
2 Cinder Glade
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Sheltered Thicket
Mulch can be pretty insane in this deck and can sometimes be 2 mana 8 damage. I'm a bit skeptical on Hour of Promise but it can be pretty good with Field.
I wanted to try and go completely creatureless but not sure what to cut Reclaimer and Grazer for. Maybe go Jund and remove out the creatures for discard spells and probably the Bolts for Bob.
Have yet to build a sideboard but my goal is to get to a creatureless build and then run Tireless Tracker and maybe Goyf out of the side to surprise people and be a little transformational.
@CrypticCommander Do you have any new ideas for the new Theros? It's a shame the subject is dead, I guess it's gonna be hard to resurrect our deck right now.
@PurpleBlood,
Mulch is a cool card that I played years ago, and it can definitely provide CA in a land-heavy deck and is a great way to continue to get lands to use for Assault if something happens to your GY. That said, I remember I switched away from it because paying 2cmc to do something that has no effect on the board on turn 2 (or at any point really) can mean death in some of the faster Modern MUs. It may be good again in the right deck though, Idk. For the record however, while I love the Rebecca Guy art from SH, we have Winding Way now, and it's a strict upgrade, so you should probably be running that.
Also, in regard to the rest of your list, did you end up testing it? Because I'm one hundred percent certain that thirteen colorless lands and one black-only producing land aren't going to allow a deck with RRR Seismic Assault to function.
@suckmyfoot,
Like I said, I've been away for quite awhile, so I don't really know what people have tested or not, but the main Theros: Beyond Death card that stood out to me is Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger. I see many of the Jund decks have begun to incorporate 1-3 copies - shifting a bit more towards the Rakdos colors in the process. Still, I think, in theory at least, the Jund versions of our deck would be better set-up to utilize it as a 1-of, since we're better at filling the yard with food for it, and since our mana-bases have been running Seismic Assault and Raven's Crime in the same deck for years, we probably wouldn't have to do much in terms of alterations.
Honestly though, I'm still playing around with some of the new toys we got from MH1 and WAR. While losing Looting definitely hurt, it definitely opened up a few more slots for brewing.
I'm back looking at and brewing in Modern again after a year-and-a-half hiatus, and of course I'm back with my old favorite.
Upon doing a little research, I found that some people apparently are still working on this archetype. Here's a great video of Youtuber d00mwake playing a red green list in a Modern league a few months ago (12/26/2021). While the list is certainly not super tuned (the sideboard in particular looked like it could use some changes), it seemed pretty solid. He managed a 3-2 finish with a deck that he didn't build and was somewhat unfamiliar with. He also had some bad luck as far as match-ups; the follower who sent him the list apparently had several 5-0s with it, so there's definitely potential.
Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ5ofwMGp9k
And here's a link to the decklist:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4511665#online
One thing that seemed well worth adding would be a Fire-Lit Thicket or two in the mana-base. d00mwake ran into color fixing issues a couple of times, and I can say from long experience with this deck - it's a land you really want.
Also, you know you have issues with your board when you consistently don't side anything in. He mentioned wanting better graveyard hate, and the Return to Natures he did bring in a couple of times seemed underwhelming; I get that it's a flexible card, but as a result of that it's not the best at dealing with the problems you really want it to deal with.