I’m thinking 1 throes in the side as well. I was messing with Risk Factor as something to help give me cards out of the side but this is probably better.
I personally don’t think Loam needs reformation, even RG, since we have cycling lands and WrennSix. WrennSix fills the 2-mana engine slot pretty nicely. However, i’m not against testing out cards in the deck.
Shenanigans seems like decent artifact hate for the side. Dredge 1 is very manageable and lets us use it more times than ancient grudge. I like the option at least.
I’m actually kinda interested in Ruination rioter for my more tempo-focused list. I have no idea how it’ll play out but I like the idea of a 2/2 that we can blow up or block with to do a bunch of damage.
I saw this threat is for all loam related decks (as I saw different versions in the first post, so I felt free to put a different version here too.
Maybe this is not the most popular opinion: I don't think red is the color you want in a loam deck.
Red brings: Bolt, Wrenn&Six and seismic assault. The rest is honestly not that great. Flame jab, is cool but nowadays you can go much bigger late game. Rioter and dragon are a joke compared to the creatures modern already got, so I hardly see a reason to include those. Imagine the dragon is RR and 5 lands in the GY. You have to fetch turn 1 and 2 and the dredge 3 lands to play a 4/4 haste on turn 3. Or you have to fetch on turn 1 2 and 3 and loot 2 lands in the GY to play this turn 3. You can play so many better card with much less effort. I know people like this card but when you really anylize it, it's actually not that great, unfortunately. At least I don't believe in I vesting so much in a 4/4 dude when you can play better cards
The enchantment is a 2 mana do nothing. And later in the game you can cycle your cards, but how often do you actually want to do this when you want to make landdrops at least until the early late game. You really cannot afford this in Modern.
Faithless looting is a great cars, but doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck besides being a cantrip that actually is card disadvantage without a loam engine active.
All in all red just falls a bit short if you would compare it with cards from other colors that just have a bigger value.
When analyzing this, I think going another route is the best way to approach this archtype in Modern.
So I have done some brewing. I am sure this isn't the best possible list. I'm not a veteran midrange player and midrange is a very difficult archtype to build in Modern, so feedback is very much appreciated. But alright here we go:
4 knight of the reliquary
4 tarmogoyf
3 dark Confidant
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Eladamri's Call
2 life from the loam
3 Path to exile
4 Fatal Push
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last Hope
Sideboard:
1 collector ouphe
1 eidolon of rhetoric
2 fulminator Mage
1 Kambal, consul of allocation
2 graveyard hate Spellbomb/surgical
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
1 Sorin, Vengeful BloodLord
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
Alright so the deck is a little bit based on 4c Legacy Loam and uses a lot of aspect from modern midrange decks and old legacy aspects.
So first of all, this is a regular midrange deck. It uses discard and removal to deal with the strategy of the opponent.
Fatal Push, Path to Exile and Trophy are the best all round removal in the format. Liliana of the Veil and the last hope, both provide a control element in terms of board and hand control.
Alongside this, it has solid beaters. Tarmogoyf and Knight are a quick clock when not appropriate dealt with. This follows a Jund-like pattern of play.
Knight can also tutor any land you need and has big synergy with loam.
So you got a pretty solid game plan here. Disrupt, remove and combat. Normally a strategy like this easily runs out of gas when cards go 1 for 1. This is where confidant comes in, (the average manacost is about 1.1, so that's not to bad) together with the cycle lands and eledamri's Call. These cards make sure you draw a lot of cards to keep up with your own Liliana and to draw more useful cards to stay in control.
Eledamri's Call provides a small toolbox. The maindeck isn't too exciting. Although Teeg can provide some nice on board hate against Tron and UW. Scooze is for GY strategies. Kalithas too. And it provides life to compensate the lifeloss from Confidant. The sideboard provides all kinds of hate card. Since most of them cost 3 mana, you can play them nicely on curve. Turn 2 E.Call EOT when you see what the opponent is up to and tutor the appropriate hate creature and play it on 3.
Loam is not a 4 off in this deck. This is because loam is not the main plan of this deck. It functions as a support factor for everything else. You can switch to the loam plan late game against grindy decks, if need be.
It provides card advantage with cycle lands, Fuels liliana of the Veil, the dredge part makes tarmogoyf bigger and lastly it recurs the lands from knight while also filling the grave. It can strip your opponents had. Late game and put down a landlock.
About the landbase. 3 cycle land might seem not enough. Remember that without loam they are even worse basics, so I rather hfind them later in the game than to be stuck with 2 in my opener. The rest is pretty basic I think. Some utility lands. Fetches and shocks. Since the deck plays confidant and already a draw engine with cycle land, I don't thing canopy lands are a good fit with the lifeloss.
So again, I don't know if this is it, Midrange decks always look great on paper, but often prove to be not so great on cardboard.
I like your imput, feedback and suggestions.
One thing I am not sure of is the Call. It's a great tutor. But the 2 mana might prove to be too costly. I thought about traverse, but I think delerium is not easily achieved in this deck. Glittering wish would be another alternative, although that changes the idea a bit. Call is instant, but one might say in this type of deck, that doesn't really matter.
Things I have considered:
Tireless tracker: a less good 3 drop than knight and a draw engine that costs 2 in stead of 1 like the cycle lands.
Birds of paradise: since the curve goes to 3 (and Kalithas) I think mana dorks of any kind really lower the value of individual cards in comparison to the ramp they provide.
Beat Assault= is really not a card you need in this archtype.
Other planeswalkers: I don't think you need them or want them. They need to be extremely good and fully align with this strategy. I think the new Sorin is okay in the side against burn like decks and as recursion. Maybe Kaya is okay but I would not really want to play too many planeswalkers.
I probably thought of more but can't really remember because I have dismissed them in an earlier stage.
Alright , thanx for reading and let me know if you have something add or adjust to this brew
Going more aggro loam I'd find room for 1 sejiri steppe as added protection. You can probably go down 1 cycle lands, 2 is all you really need.
Edit: you'd probably benefit from some amount of urborg, tomb of yawgmoth as well. Helps ensure you get the double black early and can cast your hand hate t1,
Edit 2: also mortuary mire is decent in a really creature heavy deck.
Going more aggro loam I'd find room for 1 sejiri steppe as added protection. You can probably go down 1 cycle lands, 2 is all you really need.
Edit: you'd probably benefit from some amount of urborg, tomb of yawgmoth as well. Helps ensure you get the double black early and can cast your hand hate t1
Thanx,
Yeah I thought about Urborg. Probably would be smart when so heavy on black. The steppe I don't know. I like the effect, but the white mana feels a bit off.
2 cycle land. Even with knights it's not too easy to get them, because you can't sac them to the knight. Maybe you are right. I mean 2 in the bin are enough. But with just 2 in the deck. You don't have such big cha ce to have them both.
@Selene I think your assessment of looting is a little off - RGx Loam is generally built with more grave synergies than GWx. This helps break the disadvantage of looting when you can not only discard lands for later but also conflagrate, driven//despair, raven’s crime, or what have you. As for the rest of why you would play red, I personally think Seismic assault is worth it, it’s won me a ton of games by letting me deal >10 damage in one turn. The onslaught lands make me even more sure of this. However, it’s not to say there’s only room for GRx lists.
As for abzan/junk lists, I like what you have so far. Maybe playing another land-destruction land or 2 might help? One of the reasons I like KotR in Loam lists is that it lets you get one part of the ghost quarter lock from your deck. I’d also recommend at least one Urborg to help with the double black costs.
@Selene I think your assessment of looting is a little off - RGx Loam is generally built with more grave synergies than GWx. This helps break the disadvantage of looting when you can not only discard lands for later but also conflagrate, driven//despair, raven’s crime, or what have you. As for the rest of why you would play red, I personally think Seismic assault is worth it, it’s won me a ton of games by letting me deal >10 damage in one turn. The onslaught lands make me even more sure of this. However, it’s not to say there’s only room for GRx lists.
As for abzan/junk lists, I like what you have so far. Maybe playing another land-destruction land or 2 might help? One of the reasons I like KotR in Loam lists is that it lets you get one part of the ghost quarter lock from your deck. I’d also recommend at least one Urborg to help with the double black costs.
I totally agree on the seismic assault. That card has been a powerhouse since the early '00. It is certainly a reason to play red. In Modern however you don't have Mox diamond so you have to go pretty deep in red to be able to cast this consistently. But once this is on the field, this will go all the way, certainly.
Looting is good. It's just not what looting is in decks like dredge or Phoenix. I think they get better over the course of the game, but turn one, I don't know. But you're probably right. NY basic point was that red has a few strong cards, but you have to play too many suboptimal cards to fill the gap that seismic assault leaves with its RRR cost.
Thnx for the feedback. I Think Urborg is indeed a good addition. With Urborg there is also more room for colorless utility lands. That makes sense. Thanx again.
If you're worried about being able to get them then Sylvan scrying would be worth looking into. Keep an eye on how hard or easy delirium would be to trigger. Personally I favor traverse over the new card, however I haven't tested this. crop sigil though a bit slower helps on the protection of your creatures and turns on delirium, though it feels bad when you mill one of your spells you really need.
Also, what are your opinions about the jund version of the deck? I also like the idea of 3 assault, 2 bear enchantment, 1 twister, but how effective can this be in relation to 3 or 4 Assault and 2 vortex?
Also what does countryside crusher bring to the table?
Countryside Crusher is a weird one. It sounds extra mediocre on paper but it's usually a 3cmc 5+/5+ dude that makes sure you only draw gas every turn. I'd recommend trying it out if you haven't played with it before.
Hey guys! I’m new to the deck archetype but have been very interested for a while now and after seeing these spoilers I wanna go all in and join the Loam Assault gang lol. I had a question though, I know a lot of you love BBE, but what about that new card with cascade and retrace? Which card is better with this archetype?
Historically, BBE hasn't been featured prominently in the deck. In a list with Assault, BearSault and better 3 drop hits, I would say BBE is better because it has legs, hasty ones as that and we have better things we can be doing with lands that we discard from Loam.
However, effectively paying 4 mana to cast the next spell in your deck seems good vs control. We have other options to spend our mana on in those occasions that are less expensive and therefore get under counterspells better, but the retrace spell would have to be tested. To be honest, I would lean towards neither one in the deck, though the retrace spell does need to get tested (along with like 10 other cards now, so all hands on deck...).
Also, what are your opinions about the jund version of the deck? I also like the idea of 3 assault, 2 bear enchantment, 1 twister, but how effective can this be in relation to 3 or 4 Assault and 2 vortex?
Also what does countryside crusher bring to the table?
Jund is the classic archetype for AssaultLoam, and I honestly think that Jund VortexLoam is the best version of the deck in the modern metagame right now.
In regards to your proposal, I have always been an advocate of picking one enchantment (out of Seismic Assault, Molten Vortex, and Burning Vengeance + Flame Jab) to build around as each one is fundamentally different. Assault is the most universal (as in you can throw it into the other subcategories and be okay), so for instance you could likely play 4 Molten Vortex and 1 Seismic Assault in VortexLoam or 2 Burning Vengeance and 3 Seismic Assault in a spells list and be perfectly well off. Molten Vortex requires extra mana investment in relation to the other enchantments, and if you are in a creature heavy metagame with Humans and Spirits where you would want it, mathmatically, it requires just over 30 lands to consistently keep board control starting t2-3 onward. With wrenn and Six that number may actually go down, but likely not below 28. For this reason, I find it hard to throw Molten Vortex into a loam list.
I don't want to kill the hype around Ayula's Influence, but the card doesn't seem to easily slot into any lists at the moment. Seismic Assault is a much more versatile tool that can control the board and put pressure on your opponents life totals in the face of on board interaction. While Ayula's Influence can similarly put the pressure on, it also is worse in many more matchups as people don't care if you are making bears if they are comboing off with Storm or simply have an Ensnaring Bridge. Seismic Assault makes a much bigger impression in those matchups an in general though it does get hated out by Leyline of Sanctity which is the most major advantage the Influence has imo. I think the Ayula's Influence deck will look much different, and may drop red in general in favor of colors that can deal with those downsides. I'm too buried under this pile of cards to even think about what a BGx Influence deck would look like, but I think that's where BearAssault will fit in.
Living Twister, though it can act as a bigger, more expensive Molten Vortex, is better for its synergy with Seismic Assault as it can bounce all the lands on the battlefield into your hand to deal the last 12 or so points of damage to your opponent. I think you are right on either 1 or 2 Twister.
In summary, however boring it may seem, I think for AssaultLoam, 3-4 Assault are good enough with 1-2 Living Twister to back them up. Playing too many enchantments dilutes the deck
Maybe this is not the most popular opinion: I don't think red is the color you want in a loam deck.
Red brings: Bolt, Wrenn&Six and seismic assault. The rest is honestly not that great. Flame jab, is cool but nowadays you can go much bigger late game. Rioter and dragon are a joke compared to the creatures modern already got, so I hardly see a reason to include those. Imagine the dragon is RR and 5 lands in the GY. You have to fetch turn 1 and 2 and the dredge 3 lands to play a 4/4 haste on turn 3. Or you have to fetch on turn 1 2 and 3 and loot 2 lands in the GY to play this turn 3. You can play so many better card with much less effort. I know people like this card but when you really anylize it, it's actually not that great, unfortunately. At least I don't believe in I vesting so much in a 4/4 dude when you can play better cards
The enchantment is a 2 mana do nothing. And later in the game you can cycle your cards, but how often do you actually want to do this when you want to make landdrops at least until the early late game. You really cannot afford this in Modern.
Faithless looting is a great cars, but doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck besides being a cantrip that actually is card disadvantage without a loam engine active.
All in all red just falls a bit short if you would compare it with cards from other colors that just have a bigger value.
When analyzing this, I think going another route is the best way to approach this archtype in Modern.
So first of all, this is a regular midrange deck. It uses discard and removal to deal with the strategy of the opponent.
Fatal Push, Path to Exile and Trophy are the best all round removal in the format. Liliana of the Veil and the last hope, both provide a control element in terms of board and hand control.
So you got a pretty solid game plan here. Disrupt, remove and combat. Normally a strategy like this easily runs out of gas when cards go 1 for 1. This is where confidant comes in, (the average manacost is about 1.1, so that's not to bad) together with the cycle lands and eledamri's Call. These cards make sure you draw a lot of cards to keep up with your own Liliana and to draw more useful cards to stay in control.
Hi Selene, thanks for posting.
I think a list based on legacy AggroLoam is great. I think leaving out red is a bad decision however as Seismic Assault is the single reason to play a midrange Loam shell in modern.
While legacy AggroLoam looks like the deck you posted nowadays, if you go back 7-10 years ago, it was a 4 color deck with 3-4 Knight of the Reliquary, 1-2 Countryside Crusher, and 2-3 Seismic Assault along with Punishing Fire. That's because back then, Legacy was a more creature heavy format with old Death and Taxes and Maverick strategies alongside the newly printed Stoneforge Mystic and later Delver of Secrets. That legacy, is a lot more conducive to what we know in modern at present. Nowadays in legacy, casting a 3 mana enchantment isn't good enough because there isn't a lot to kill on board. Though it may be good against a deck like death and taxes, even Death and Taxes will make you wait till turn 4 to cast it with cards like Thalia, Rishadan Port and Wasteland. It's horrible in the legacy metagame, so they shifted to the BGx style as we know in modern and ran with the deck.
In modern we don't have Punishing Fire to kill creatures. In legacy, that is your out against decks that want to play creatures. In modern, a format ruled by hyperaggressive creature decks where you'd want it, we need something to help maintain board control.
Even if we only play red for Seismic Assault, it is worth it in the metagame. Assault lets us have recurring disruption against every aggressive deck and gives us a favorable matchup against the best decks in the format like Izzet Phoenix and Humans. In the old days of the deck, you didn't even have to play 4 Assault; some people just "splashed" red (it's kinda hard to splash a spell that costsRRR but I digress) and played 3 Assault with 3 Loam. I can't stress how good Seismic Assault is, especially now, though I think many people rely on it too hard as the "end all be all."
Assault is really in the deck to give a late game punch. It is a sweeper turn 3 that kills planeswalkers and wipes the board too. You don't deal damage with it to your opponent until you have 10 lands in your hand. Each turn you can deal 6 damage to your opp's board, or choose to hold up the lands to deal say 8 damage to an opposing 6/7 Tarmogoyf. With the new cycling lands, you can deal 10 damage per turn instead once you hit 5 mana. Assault is your sole reason to play red, everything else is a cherry on top.
I agree with you that most of the new cards are traps for the deck. The Dragon and Rioter are a little loose and not as powerful as the deck can be. Rioter may be powerful but has to be built around, and I don't think would just slot in well to the archetype. Tectonic Reformation could be good, but has many applications where it just doesn't do much. The cycling cost on it may make it playable in the archetype but slots are limited in the deck.
Faithless Looting in our deck says "Draw 2 cards, Flashback, Draw 2 cards." Even if you don't have loam, discarding cards that you want to be in the graveyard practically makes it card advantage. With Wrenn now too, you can get back those lands you discard over 2 turns, serving the same role as loam.
On top of this, Wrenn and Six at worst makes us hit land drops every turn. At best, it gets us cycling lands to draw cards. It gets back Ghost Quarter against tron (in testing had this happen, best feeling in my life). It gets back Blast Zone vs decks like Bogles. And with our board control, it ticks up to its ultimate, which practically says "Win the Game." Don't sleep on this card.
You laugh at Flame Jab, but that card is often just a 1 of for control. You have your opponent at 6 life after a gruelingly grindy game of playing around countermagic and barely killing planeswalkers with creature lands. Over 2 turns with Loam and Flame Jab, you win the game. There aren't many cards in modern that let you win out of your yard like this that see a lot of play. Conflagrate does it but is more vulnerable to countermagic. It also kills creatures more often than you would think, with it being a win con vs Affinity and keeping problematic planeswalkers in check. It is a pretty loose spell in terms of density, but a 1 of Flame Jab wins games.
One of the biggest upsides to your list compared to RG is the straightforward midrange gameplan. Discard spells, removal, and cheap threats.
When you explained that I was honestly very confused because that is what every midrange deck in modern does. The most played version of AssaultLoam is Jund, which has the same packages and gameplan with a better lategame. Here's a 5-0 list from January that shows the basic outline of the deck:
Now I will say I disagree with a lot of the choices of this deck, but it shows the basic outline of the gameplan. Discard spells, cheap threats, and endgame card advantage. The red splash is just for Assault and Looting, and the rest of the deck is a BG deck with a Traverse package. I don't think the Traverse package is necessary, and in fact would just rather them play a playset of Dark Confidant but this deck is like the original deck back when the archetype was brought into modern; Jund+. It's like Jund but you have this late game card advantage engine. I have my own Jund Loam list on the primer which will be posted in the next two days, but it's pretty similar to this one in terms of removal packages just differing in threat choice. There are gonna be about 6 archetypes covered in the primer and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The RG list has been discussed at length on here recently because it was formerly almost unplayable but has found new upgrades over time to make it competitive in the current metagame.
Now in your Abzan AggroLoam list, I feel like the worst card is Life from the Loam. I would honestly go down to 2 as you only need one in the late game as you are cycling through your deck. Over that, I think one Nourishing Peatland would be a good card to go fetch with KOTR or another cycling land would be satisfactory.
End of Essay... cue tomorrow getting more spoilers and more testing
I think a list based on legacy AggroLoam is great. I think leaving out red is a bad decision however as Seismic Assault is the single reason to play a midrange Loam shell in modern.
While legacy AggroLoam looks like the deck you posted nowadays, if you go back 7-10 years ago, it was a 4 color deck with 3-4 Knight of the Reliquary, 1-2 Countryside Crusher, and 2-3 Seismic Assault along with Punishing Fire. That's because back then, Legacy was a more creature heavy format with old Death and Taxes and Maverick strategies alongside the newly printed Stoneforge Mystic and later Delver of Secrets. That legacy, is a lot more conducive to what we know in modern at present. Nowadays in legacy, casting a 3 mana enchantment isn't good enough because there isn't a lot to kill on board. Though it may be good against a deck like death and taxes, even Death and Taxes will make you wait till turn 4 to cast it with cards like Thalia, Rishadan Port and Wasteland. It's horrible in the legacy metagame, so they shifted to the BGx style as we know in modern and ran with the deck.
In modern we don't have Punishing Fire to kill creatures. In legacy, that is your out against decks that want to play creatures. In modern, a format ruled by hyperaggressive creature decks where you'd want it, we need something to help maintain board control.
Even if we only play red for Seismic Assault, it is worth it in the metagame. Assault lets us have recurring disruption against every aggressive deck and gives us a favorable matchup against the best decks in the format like Izzet Phoenix and Humans. In the old days of the deck, you didn't even have to play 4 Assault; some people just "splashed" red (it's kinda hard to splash a spell that costsRRR but I digress) and played 3 Assault with 3 Loam. I can't stress how good Seismic Assault is, especially now, though I think many people rely on it too hard as the "end all be all."
Assault is really in the deck to give a late game punch. It is a sweeper turn 3 that kills planeswalkers and wipes the board too. You don't deal damage with it to your opponent until you have 10 lands in your hand. Each turn you can deal 6 damage to your opp's board, or choose to hold up the lands to deal say 8 damage to an opposing 6/7 Tarmogoyf. With the new cycling lands, you can deal 10 damage per turn instead once you hit 5 mana. Assault is your sole reason to play red, everything else is a cherry on top.
I agree with you that most of the new cards are traps for the deck. The Dragon and Rioter are a little loose and not as powerful as the deck can be. Rioter may be powerful but has to be built around, and I don't think would just slot in well to the archetype. Tectonic Reformation could be good, but has many applications where it just doesn't do much. The cycling cost on it may make it playable in the archetype but slots are limited in the deck.
Faithless Looting in our deck says "Draw 2 cards, Flashback, Draw 2 cards." Even if you don't have loam, discarding cards that you want to be in the graveyard practically makes it card advantage. With Wrenn now too, you can get back those lands you discard over 2 turns, serving the same role as loam.
On top of this, Wrenn and Six at worst makes us hit land drops every turn. At best, it gets us cycling lands to draw cards. It gets back Ghost Quarter against tron (in testing had this happen, best feeling in my life). It gets back Blast Zone vs decks like Bogles. And with our board control, it ticks up to its ultimate, which practically says "Win the Game." Don't sleep on this card.
You laugh at Flame Jab, but that card is often just a 1 of for control. You have your opponent at 6 life after a gruelingly grindy game of playing around countermagic and barely killing planeswalkers with creature lands. Over 2 turns with Loam and Flame Jab, you win the game. There aren't many cards in modern that let you win out of your yard like this that see a lot of play. Conflagrate does it but is more vulnerable to countermagic. It also kills creatures more often than you would think, with it being a win con vs Affinity and keeping problematic planeswalkers in check. It is a pretty loose spell in terms of density, but a 1 of Flame Jab wins games.
One of the biggest upsides to your list compared to RG is the straightforward midrange gameplan. Discard spells, removal, and cheap threats.
When you explained that I was honestly very confused because that is what every midrange deck in modern does. The most played version of AssaultLoam is Jund, which has the same packages and gameplan with a better lategame. Here's a 5-0 list from January that shows the basic outline of the deck:
Now I will say I disagree with a lot of the choices of this deck, but it shows the basic outline of the gameplan. Discard spells, cheap threats, and endgame card advantage. The red splash is just for Assault and Looting, and the rest of the deck is a BG deck with a Traverse package. I don't think the Traverse package is necessary, and in fact would just rather them play a playset of Dark Confidant but this deck is like the original deck back when the archetype was brought into modern; Jund+. It's like Jund but you have this late game card advantage engine. I have my own Jund Loam list on the primer which will be posted in the next two days, but it's pretty similar to this one in terms of removal packages just differing in threat choice. There are gonna be about 6 archetypes covered in the primer and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The RG list has been discussed at length on here recently because it was formerly almost unplayable but has found new upgrades over time to make it competitive in the current metagame.
Now in your Abzan AggroLoam list, I feel like the worst card is Life from the Loam. I would honestly go down to 2 as you only need one in the late game as you are cycling through your deck. Over that, I think one Nourishing Peatland would be a good card to go fetch with KOTR or another cycling land would be satisfactory.
End of Essay... cue tomorrow getting more spoilers and more testing
Hey Cryptic Commander,
Thanx for taking the time to reply to my post.
Yes this is very true. I played legacy around that time, althugh it was my friend who played aggro loam back then (I played standstill/Fow based strategies at that time). I remember the list from back then, confidants, Mox diamonds, Tarmogoyfs, Chalice of the Void, Crusher just replaced Terravore, and indeed seismic assault. And yes the meta was very different. I might even be talking about 10-15 years back when Loam was Jund colors, because I don;t really remember punishing fie being a thing back then.
I totally understand the power of seismic assault. It's is the card that makes you win the game, it clears boards, it does almost everything you want. It is certainly extremely good in a creature heavy meta. It is the artillery of the deck that supports your ground troops.
However, I think playing red is a choice you make on how you want your deck to work. Like tarmogoyf is a great creature, the best value for it's cost, but you will not include this in an elves deck, because that is not what you want your deck to do, no matter how good tarmogoyf is as a creature. I know, this sounds a bit like I am explaingin magic to a chaild, i mean no offense. I am just saying that Assault is amazing in the deck where it works. And again you can choose how you want your deck to work.
I am glad that we share the opinion on these new loam cards they printed in Horizons. Although I disagree with 'the cherry on top' statement. In my opinion you choose to play less good cards to be able to play 1 really good one (Seismic asaault). Playing stugg like Wrenn*, Crusher, Koth and the like is a cost, not a welcome addition to the deck. Don't get me wrong, often it is good to play some less good cards to be able to play a game winner. Often this is more than worth it.
(* Wrenn looks great as an individual card. It provides tons of synergy. I like to judge cards on their worst scenario rather than just seeing the upsides. Playing against humans on the draw: You play wren, shoot down their Noble Hierarch, pass Turn, they play a Mantis Rider, put a counter on their Champion and kill Wren. Wren is pretty bad without protection. so it's most likely a 3 or even 4 drop. I do not particularly like this card a lot.)
You might be right on the faithless looting, I probably judged that card too quickly based on my general modern experience.
Flame Jab. I remember going to a GP a couple years back and a friend of mine made day two with a list with multiple flame jabs, loam and assault. He stil lis a big fan of the card and I certainly see the value. In a format with a lot fo creatures this is excelent removal ad, as you mentioned, a game winning card.
So we have: Assault, Looting and Flame Jab that are very good reasons to play red in loam. I read your arguments and I agree with this.
then we come back to the choice thing. I think choices should be made on at least the meta, a full analysize of the deck (does it do what it's supposed to do, does it do that effectively, consistently and can ti win from meta decks?) and and your personal playstyle. The last thing is arbitrary so let's not go into that too much. The meta changes, so that's also something that is a little bit arbitrary. I mean last year You had to be able to win from Shadow, last couple of months it was Phoenix and now it's Humans and Tron and who knows what comes after horizons. GR loam has not that much interaction, except from it's on board interaction, so I think its control and combo MU are rather bad. I hoped to adress those deck more with my list.
I understand that my explanation was a bit confusing, since I basicly esplained what every midrange deck tries to do. I get that, but not everyone is as focussed on competitive play and deckbuilding as others, so that's why.
About the Loam in the deck. It's already on a 2 off. So I think we share our thoughts about this card in the deck. As I mentioned before. I thought of Peatland, but I thought the cycling lands would be enough. Your argument that Knight can find the Peatland, which doesn't work with the cycle lands, is a solid argument to include at least one. Thanx for that.
Yes, more spoilers, more testing. Today I will test the deck so I'll know more after that. Maybe t is indeed just bad, I don't know. Midrange decks are very hard to judge on paper.
Thanx again for your feedback! Looking forward to more discussions about the deck in this group.
Hey guys! I’m new to the deck archetype but have been very interested for a while now and after seeing these spoilers I wanna go all in and join the Loam Assault gang lol. I had a question though, I know a lot of you love BBE, but what about that new card with cascade and retrace? Which card is better with this archetype?
Historically, BBE hasn't been featured prominently in the deck. In a list with Assault, BearSault and better 3 drop hits, I would say BBE is better because it has legs, hasty ones as that and we have better things we can be doing with lands that we discard from Loam.
However, effectively paying 4 mana to cast the next spell in your deck seems good vs control. We have other options to spend our mana on in those occasions that are less expensive and therefore get under counterspells better, but the retrace spell would have to be tested. To be honest, I would lean towards neither one in the deck, though the retrace spell does need to get tested (along with like 10 other cards now, so all hands on deck...).
Also, what are your opinions about the jund version of the deck? I also like the idea of 3 assault, 2 bear enchantment, 1 twister, but how effective can this be in relation to 3 or 4 Assault and 2 vortex?
Also what does countryside crusher bring to the table?
Jund is the classic archetype for AssaultLoam, and I honestly think that Jund VortexLoam is the best version of the deck in the modern metagame right now.
In regards to your proposal, I have always been an advocate of picking one enchantment (out of Seismic Assault, Molten Vortex, and Burning Vengeance + Flame Jab) to build around as each one is fundamentally different. Assault is the most universal (as in you can throw it into the other subcategories and be okay), so for instance you could likely play 4 Molten Vortex and 1 Seismic Assault in VortexLoam or 2 Burning Vengeance and 3 Seismic Assault in a spells list and be perfectly well off. Molten Vortex requires extra mana investment in relation to the other enchantments, and if you are in a creature heavy metagame with Humans and Spirits where you would want it, mathmatically, it requires just over 30 lands to consistently keep board control starting t2-3 onward. With wrenn and Six that number may actually go down, but likely not below 28. For this reason, I find it hard to throw Molten Vortex into a loam list.
I don't want to kill the hype around Ayula's Influence, but the card doesn't seem to easily slot into any lists at the moment. Seismic Assault is a much more versatile tool that can control the board and put pressure on your opponents life totals in the face of on board interaction. While Ayula's Influence can similarly put the pressure on, it also is worse in many more matchups as people don't care if you are making bears if they are comboing off with Storm or simply have an Ensnaring Bridge. Seismic Assault makes a much bigger impression in those matchups an in general though it does get hated out by Leyline of Sanctity which is the most major advantage the Influence has imo. I think the Ayula's Influence deck will look much different, and may drop red in general in favor of colors that can deal with those downsides. I'm too buried under this pile of cards to even think about what a BGx Influence deck would look like, but I think that's where BearAssault will fit in.
Living Twister, though it can act as a bigger, more expensive Molten Vortex, is better for its synergy with Seismic Assault as it can bounce all the lands on the battlefield into your hand to deal the last 12 or so points of damage to your opponent. I think you are right on either 1 or 2 Twister.
In summary, however boring it may seem, I think for AssaultLoam, 3-4 Assault are good enough with 1-2 Living Twister to back them up. Playing too many enchantments dilutes the deck
Maybe this is not the most popular opinion: I don't think red is the color you want in a loam deck.
Red brings: Bolt, Wrenn&Six and seismic assault. The rest is honestly not that great. Flame jab, is cool but nowadays you can go much bigger late game. Rioter and dragon are a joke compared to the creatures modern already got, so I hardly see a reason to include those. Imagine the dragon is RR and 5 lands in the GY. You have to fetch turn 1 and 2 and the dredge 3 lands to play a 4/4 haste on turn 3. Or you have to fetch on turn 1 2 and 3 and loot 2 lands in the GY to play this turn 3. You can play so many better card with much less effort. I know people like this card but when you really anylize it, it's actually not that great, unfortunately. At least I don't believe in I vesting so much in a 4/4 dude when you can play better cards
The enchantment is a 2 mana do nothing. And later in the game you can cycle your cards, but how often do you actually want to do this when you want to make landdrops at least until the early late game. You really cannot afford this in Modern.
Faithless looting is a great cars, but doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck besides being a cantrip that actually is card disadvantage without a loam engine active.
All in all red just falls a bit short if you would compare it with cards from other colors that just have a bigger value.
When analyzing this, I think going another route is the best way to approach this archtype in Modern.
So first of all, this is a regular midrange deck. It uses discard and removal to deal with the strategy of the opponent.
Fatal Push, Path to Exile and Trophy are the best all round removal in the format. Liliana of the Veil and the last hope, both provide a control element in terms of board and hand control.
So you got a pretty solid game plan here. Disrupt, remove and combat. Normally a strategy like this easily runs out of gas when cards go 1 for 1. This is where confidant comes in, (the average manacost is about 1.1, so that's not to bad) together with the cycle lands and eledamri's Call. These cards make sure you draw a lot of cards to keep up with your own Liliana and to draw more useful cards to stay in control.
Hi Selene, thanks for posting.
I think a list based on legacy AggroLoam is great. I think leaving out red is a bad decision however as Seismic Assault is the single reason to play a midrange Loam shell in modern.
While legacy AggroLoam looks like the deck you posted nowadays, if you go back 7-10 years ago, it was a 4 color deck with 3-4 Knight of the Reliquary, 1-2 Countryside Crusher, and 2-3 Seismic Assault along with Punishing Fire. That's because back then, Legacy was a more creature heavy format with old Death and Taxes and Maverick strategies alongside the newly printed Stoneforge Mystic and later Delver of Secrets. That legacy, is a lot more conducive to what we know in modern at present. Nowadays in legacy, casting a 3 mana enchantment isn't good enough because there isn't a lot to kill on board. Though it may be good against a deck like death and taxes, even Death and Taxes will make you wait till turn 4 to cast it with cards like Thalia, Rishadan Port and Wasteland. It's horrible in the legacy metagame, so they shifted to the BGx style as we know in modern and ran with the deck.
In modern we don't have Punishing Fire to kill creatures. In legacy, that is your out against decks that want to play creatures. In modern, a format ruled by hyperaggressive creature decks where you'd want it, we need something to help maintain board control.
Even if we only play red for Seismic Assault, it is worth it in the metagame. Assault lets us have recurring disruption against every aggressive deck and gives us a favorable matchup against the best decks in the format like Izzet Phoenix and Humans. In the old days of the deck, you didn't even have to play 4 Assault; some people just "splashed" red (it's kinda hard to splash a spell that costsRRR but I digress) and played 3 Assault with 3 Loam. I can't stress how good Seismic Assault is, especially now, though I think many people rely on it too hard as the "end all be all."
Assault is really in the deck to give a late game punch. It is a sweeper turn 3 that kills planeswalkers and wipes the board too. You don't deal damage with it to your opponent until you have 10 lands in your hand. Each turn you can deal 6 damage to your opp's board, or choose to hold up the lands to deal say 8 damage to an opposing 6/7 Tarmogoyf. With the new cycling lands, you can deal 10 damage per turn instead once you hit 5 mana. Assault is your sole reason to play red, everything else is a cherry on top.
I agree with you that most of the new cards are traps for the deck. The Dragon and Rioter are a little loose and not as powerful as the deck can be. Rioter may be powerful but has to be built around, and I don't think would just slot in well to the archetype. Tectonic Reformation could be good, but has many applications where it just doesn't do much. The cycling cost on it may make it playable in the archetype but slots are limited in the deck.
Faithless Looting in our deck says "Draw 2 cards, Flashback, Draw 2 cards." Even if you don't have loam, discarding cards that you want to be in the graveyard practically makes it card advantage. With Wrenn now too, you can get back those lands you discard over 2 turns, serving the same role as loam.
On top of this, Wrenn and Six at worst makes us hit land drops every turn. At best, it gets us cycling lands to draw cards. It gets back Ghost Quarter against tron (in testing had this happen, best feeling in my life). It gets back Blast Zone vs decks like Bogles. And with our board control, it ticks up to its ultimate, which practically says "Win the Game." Don't sleep on this card.
You laugh at Flame Jab, but that card is often just a 1 of for control. You have your opponent at 6 life after a gruelingly grindy game of playing around countermagic and barely killing planeswalkers with creature lands. Over 2 turns with Loam and Flame Jab, you win the game. There aren't many cards in modern that let you win out of your yard like this that see a lot of play. Conflagrate does it but is more vulnerable to countermagic. It also kills creatures more often than you would think, with it being a win con vs Affinity and keeping problematic planeswalkers in check. It is a pretty loose spell in terms of density, but a 1 of Flame Jab wins games.
One of the biggest upsides to your list compared to RG is the straightforward midrange gameplan. Discard spells, removal, and cheap threats.
When you explained that I was honestly very confused because that is what every midrange deck in modern does. The most played version of AssaultLoam is Jund, which has the same packages and gameplan with a better lategame. Here's a 5-0 list from January that shows the basic outline of the deck:
Now I will say I disagree with a lot of the choices of this deck, but it shows the basic outline of the gameplan. Discard spells, cheap threats, and endgame card advantage. The red splash is just for Assault and Looting, and the rest of the deck is a BG deck with a Traverse package. I don't think the Traverse package is necessary, and in fact would just rather them play a playset of Dark Confidant but this deck is like the original deck back when the archetype was brought into modern; Jund+. It's like Jund but you have this late game card advantage engine. I have my own Jund Loam list on the primer which will be posted in the next two days, but it's pretty similar to this one in terms of removal packages just differing in threat choice. There are gonna be about 6 archetypes covered in the primer and each has their own strengths and weaknesses. The RG list has been discussed at length on here recently because it was formerly almost unplayable but has found new upgrades over time to make it competitive in the current metagame.
Now in your Abzan AggroLoam list, I feel like the worst card is Life from the Loam. I would honestly go down to 2 as you only need one in the late game as you are cycling through your deck. Over that, I think one Nourishing Peatland would be a good card to go fetch with KOTR or another cycling land would be satisfactory.
End of Essay... cue tomorrow getting more spoilers and more testing
Thank you for your help! I think that the jund plan may be what I’m looking for as I do believe that the discard helps very much, but I’m thinking more of a 4 IoK and 3 Ravens crime. As for my beaters maybe budget beaters for now but slowly upgrade.
That or the 4 vortex 1 Assault that you mentioned. That makes more sense to me now. I do feel more knowledgeable about the crusher as well. Thank you again
I think the deck needs a finisher with CMC<4 that ends the game in 2/3 turns. The problem is that I don't want a card that dies to Rest in Peace, because I want a hope in a post-sideboard game. So no Tarmogoyf (and no Ore-Scale Guardian). I don't like Living Twister because without Seismic Assault it sucks and Assault is the most hated card after sideboard. The card doesn't have to be a creature, I just need it to finish the game quickly. Do you have any ideas? I can't figure out anything. Thanks
I think the deck needs a finisher with CMC<4 that ends the game in 2/3 turns. The problem is that I don't want a card that dies to Rest in Peace, because I want a hope in a post-sideboard game. So no Tarmogoyf (and no Ore-Scale Guardian). I don't like Living Twister because without Seismic Assault it sucks and Assault is the most hated card after sideboard. The card doesn't have to be a creature, I just need it to finish the game quickly. Do you have any ideas? I can't figure out anything. Thanks
The curve tops out at 3, so Copperline Gorge makes the cut over Rootbound Crag. If you're going up to 4 (for BBE) then Crag is better.
25 lands seems like a lot, but 4 of those are Forgotten Cave which should be counted as a spell instead. Having that many lands also keeps you on the safe side of not missing land drops after casting Magmatic Insight.
Soul-Scar Mage and Young Pyromancer are there because you're going to be casting a lot of Loams and Jabs, and Looting and Insight draw cards. T2 Wrenn will pump a T1 Mage and also starts throwing out Scars. Even if Wrenn can't kill their guy, the damage is permanent.
Rabblemaster ends the game quickly on a clear board (which is pretty easy to accomplish once you get Assault+Loam going). It's also your fastest clock against combo.
Straight RG is atrocious against combo. You can splash black for discard, but T1 discard into T2 Wrenn into T3 Assault is extremely impractical. The alternative is to slam Damping Sphere or Eidolon of the Great Revel in your SB and cut Jabs for those in combo matchups.
I was just curious what do you guys think of tectonic reformation? Is it worth a card? Or do you think just having 3 cycling lands in our deck being churned through with Life of the loam will be enough card draw? I was thinking about playing it as a 2 of in the deck until I get a feeling for whether it's good or not. I mean it even cycles so if we do have enough cycle lands in our hand we can always get rid of it if we want to.
I was just curious what do you guys think of tectonic reformation? Is it worth a card? Or do you think just having 3 cycling lands in our deck being churned through with Life of the loam will be enough card draw? I was thinking about playing it as a 2 of in the deck until I get a feeling for whether it's good or not. I mean it even cycles so if we do have enough cycle lands in our hand we can always get rid of it if we want to.
My initial impression is just run 3 cycling lands and not the enchantment, just for the sake of card economy. Dedicating 3 land slots makes more sense than having to play another enchantment.
Other than that i feel like force of vigor might be a sideboard card of choice if we can generate enough value/card draw. Pitching an extra loam or whatnot without paying mana seems like a pretty decent option against rest in peace/leyline of the void/etc. Gets extra good vs some matchups, definitely worth trying out i think.
Any thoughts on regrowth now being modern legal? Getting back key pieces that were milled, looted or destroyed seems good, or just having the option to do the bolt regrowth bolt play is maybe good enough?
Also a card i want to try out alongside wrenn and six is sakura-tribe scout. Some people mentioned how the planeswalker can do busted play with exploration in legacy. Scout is the closet thing to that and can ramp us every turn as long as we have a way to get back dredged lands or fetchlands. Getting to the critical 5 lands will be important because now with the cycling lands we have access to the classic play of cast 2 loams a turn with a cycling land so that we can pitch 5 lands each turn to assault or influence for profit. We can now basically deal 20 damage in two turn from there, which is pretty sweet.
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I personally don’t think Loam needs reformation, even RG, since we have cycling lands and WrennSix. WrennSix fills the 2-mana engine slot pretty nicely. However, i’m not against testing out cards in the deck.
Shenanigans seems like decent artifact hate for the side. Dredge 1 is very manageable and lets us use it more times than ancient grudge. I like the option at least.
I’m actually kinda interested in Ruination rioter for my more tempo-focused list. I have no idea how it’ll play out but I like the idea of a 2/2 that we can blow up or block with to do a bunch of damage.
I saw this threat is for all loam related decks (as I saw different versions in the first post, so I felt free to put a different version here too.
Maybe this is not the most popular opinion: I don't think red is the color you want in a loam deck.
Red brings: Bolt, Wrenn&Six and seismic assault. The rest is honestly not that great. Flame jab, is cool but nowadays you can go much bigger late game. Rioter and dragon are a joke compared to the creatures modern already got, so I hardly see a reason to include those. Imagine the dragon is RR and 5 lands in the GY. You have to fetch turn 1 and 2 and the dredge 3 lands to play a 4/4 haste on turn 3. Or you have to fetch on turn 1 2 and 3 and loot 2 lands in the GY to play this turn 3. You can play so many better card with much less effort. I know people like this card but when you really anylize it, it's actually not that great, unfortunately. At least I don't believe in I vesting so much in a 4/4 dude when you can play better cards
The enchantment is a 2 mana do nothing. And later in the game you can cycle your cards, but how often do you actually want to do this when you want to make landdrops at least until the early late game. You really cannot afford this in Modern.
Faithless looting is a great cars, but doesn't synergize much with the rest of the deck besides being a cantrip that actually is card disadvantage without a loam engine active.
All in all red just falls a bit short if you would compare it with cards from other colors that just have a bigger value.
When analyzing this, I think going another route is the best way to approach this archtype in Modern.
So I have done some brewing. I am sure this isn't the best possible list. I'm not a veteran midrange player and midrange is a very difficult archtype to build in Modern, so feedback is very much appreciated. But alright here we go:
4 knight of the reliquary
4 tarmogoyf
3 dark Confidant
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
3 Eladamri's Call
2 life from the loam
3 Path to exile
4 Fatal Push
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last Hope
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Blast Zone
1 Tranquil Thicket
2 Barren Moor
4 verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 temple Garden
1 Godless shrine
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Stirring Wildwood
Sideboard:
1 collector ouphe
1 eidolon of rhetoric
2 fulminator Mage
1 Kambal, consul of allocation
2 graveyard hate Spellbomb/surgical
2 Collective Brutality
1 Damnation
1 Sorin, Vengeful BloodLord
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
Alright so the deck is a little bit based on 4c Legacy Loam and uses a lot of aspect from modern midrange decks and old legacy aspects.
So first of all, this is a regular midrange deck. It uses discard and removal to deal with the strategy of the opponent.
Fatal Push, Path to Exile and Trophy are the best all round removal in the format. Liliana of the Veil and the last hope, both provide a control element in terms of board and hand control.
Alongside this, it has solid beaters. Tarmogoyf and Knight are a quick clock when not appropriate dealt with. This follows a Jund-like pattern of play.
Knight can also tutor any land you need and has big synergy with loam.
So you got a pretty solid game plan here. Disrupt, remove and combat. Normally a strategy like this easily runs out of gas when cards go 1 for 1. This is where confidant comes in, (the average manacost is about 1.1, so that's not to bad) together with the cycle lands and eledamri's Call. These cards make sure you draw a lot of cards to keep up with your own Liliana and to draw more useful cards to stay in control.
Eledamri's Call provides a small toolbox. The maindeck isn't too exciting. Although Teeg can provide some nice on board hate against Tron and UW. Scooze is for GY strategies. Kalithas too. And it provides life to compensate the lifeloss from Confidant. The sideboard provides all kinds of hate card. Since most of them cost 3 mana, you can play them nicely on curve. Turn 2 E.Call EOT when you see what the opponent is up to and tutor the appropriate hate creature and play it on 3.
Loam is not a 4 off in this deck. This is because loam is not the main plan of this deck. It functions as a support factor for everything else. You can switch to the loam plan late game against grindy decks, if need be.
It provides card advantage with cycle lands, Fuels liliana of the Veil, the dredge part makes tarmogoyf bigger and lastly it recurs the lands from knight while also filling the grave. It can strip your opponents had. Late game and put down a landlock.
About the landbase. 3 cycle land might seem not enough. Remember that without loam they are even worse basics, so I rather hfind them later in the game than to be stuck with 2 in my opener. The rest is pretty basic I think. Some utility lands. Fetches and shocks. Since the deck plays confidant and already a draw engine with cycle land, I don't thing canopy lands are a good fit with the lifeloss.
So again, I don't know if this is it, Midrange decks always look great on paper, but often prove to be not so great on cardboard.
I like your imput, feedback and suggestions.
One thing I am not sure of is the Call. It's a great tutor. But the 2 mana might prove to be too costly. I thought about traverse, but I think delerium is not easily achieved in this deck. Glittering wish would be another alternative, although that changes the idea a bit. Call is instant, but one might say in this type of deck, that doesn't really matter.
Things I have considered:
Tireless tracker: a less good 3 drop than knight and a draw engine that costs 2 in stead of 1 like the cycle lands.
Birds of paradise: since the curve goes to 3 (and Kalithas) I think mana dorks of any kind really lower the value of individual cards in comparison to the ramp they provide.
Beat Assault= is really not a card you need in this archtype.
Other planeswalkers: I don't think you need them or want them. They need to be extremely good and fully align with this strategy. I think the new Sorin is okay in the side against burn like decks and as recursion. Maybe Kaya is okay but I would not really want to play too many planeswalkers.
I probably thought of more but can't really remember because I have dismissed them in an earlier stage.
Alright , thanx for reading and let me know if you have something add or adjust to this brew
Love,
Selene
Edit: you'd probably benefit from some amount of urborg, tomb of yawgmoth as well. Helps ensure you get the double black early and can cast your hand hate t1,
Edit 2: also mortuary mire is decent in a really creature heavy deck.
Alright no more edits I promise
Thanx,
Yeah I thought about Urborg. Probably would be smart when so heavy on black. The steppe I don't know. I like the effect, but the white mana feels a bit off.
2 cycle land. Even with knights it's not too easy to get them, because you can't sac them to the knight. Maybe you are right. I mean 2 in the bin are enough. But with just 2 in the deck. You don't have such big cha ce to have them both.
Thanx for your imput!
As for abzan/junk lists, I like what you have so far. Maybe playing another land-destruction land or 2 might help? One of the reasons I like KotR in Loam lists is that it lets you get one part of the ghost quarter lock from your deck. I’d also recommend at least one Urborg to help with the double black costs.
I totally agree on the seismic assault. That card has been a powerhouse since the early '00. It is certainly a reason to play red. In Modern however you don't have Mox diamond so you have to go pretty deep in red to be able to cast this consistently. But once this is on the field, this will go all the way, certainly.
Looting is good. It's just not what looting is in decks like dredge or Phoenix. I think they get better over the course of the game, but turn one, I don't know. But you're probably right. NY basic point was that red has a few strong cards, but you have to play too many suboptimal cards to fill the gap that seismic assault leaves with its RRR cost.
Thnx for the feedback. I Think Urborg is indeed a good addition. With Urborg there is also more room for colorless utility lands. That makes sense. Thanx again.
If Delirium turns out to work well grim flayer is also a good card and top end consider gitrog with dakmor salvage
Countryside Crusher is a weird one. It sounds extra mediocre on paper but it's usually a 3cmc 5+/5+ dude that makes sure you only draw gas every turn. I'd recommend trying it out if you haven't played with it before.
Historically, BBE hasn't been featured prominently in the deck. In a list with Assault, BearSault and better 3 drop hits, I would say BBE is better because it has legs, hasty ones as that and we have better things we can be doing with lands that we discard from Loam.
However, effectively paying 4 mana to cast the next spell in your deck seems good vs control. We have other options to spend our mana on in those occasions that are less expensive and therefore get under counterspells better, but the retrace spell would have to be tested. To be honest, I would lean towards neither one in the deck, though the retrace spell does need to get tested (along with like 10 other cards now, so all hands on deck...).
Jund is the classic archetype for AssaultLoam, and I honestly think that Jund VortexLoam is the best version of the deck in the modern metagame right now.
In regards to your proposal, I have always been an advocate of picking one enchantment (out of Seismic Assault, Molten Vortex, and Burning Vengeance + Flame Jab) to build around as each one is fundamentally different. Assault is the most universal (as in you can throw it into the other subcategories and be okay), so for instance you could likely play 4 Molten Vortex and 1 Seismic Assault in VortexLoam or 2 Burning Vengeance and 3 Seismic Assault in a spells list and be perfectly well off. Molten Vortex requires extra mana investment in relation to the other enchantments, and if you are in a creature heavy metagame with Humans and Spirits where you would want it, mathmatically, it requires just over 30 lands to consistently keep board control starting t2-3 onward. With wrenn and Six that number may actually go down, but likely not below 28. For this reason, I find it hard to throw Molten Vortex into a loam list.
I don't want to kill the hype around Ayula's Influence, but the card doesn't seem to easily slot into any lists at the moment. Seismic Assault is a much more versatile tool that can control the board and put pressure on your opponents life totals in the face of on board interaction. While Ayula's Influence can similarly put the pressure on, it also is worse in many more matchups as people don't care if you are making bears if they are comboing off with Storm or simply have an Ensnaring Bridge. Seismic Assault makes a much bigger impression in those matchups an in general though it does get hated out by Leyline of Sanctity which is the most major advantage the Influence has imo. I think the Ayula's Influence deck will look much different, and may drop red in general in favor of colors that can deal with those downsides. I'm too buried under this pile of cards to even think about what a BGx Influence deck would look like, but I think that's where BearAssault will fit in.
Living Twister, though it can act as a bigger, more expensive Molten Vortex, is better for its synergy with Seismic Assault as it can bounce all the lands on the battlefield into your hand to deal the last 12 or so points of damage to your opponent. I think you are right on either 1 or 2 Twister.
In summary, however boring it may seem, I think for AssaultLoam, 3-4 Assault are good enough with 1-2 Living Twister to back them up. Playing too many enchantments dilutes the deck
Hi Selene, thanks for posting.
I think a list based on legacy AggroLoam is great. I think leaving out red is a bad decision however as Seismic Assault is the single reason to play a midrange Loam shell in modern.
While legacy AggroLoam looks like the deck you posted nowadays, if you go back 7-10 years ago, it was a 4 color deck with 3-4 Knight of the Reliquary, 1-2 Countryside Crusher, and 2-3 Seismic Assault along with Punishing Fire. That's because back then, Legacy was a more creature heavy format with old Death and Taxes and Maverick strategies alongside the newly printed Stoneforge Mystic and later Delver of Secrets. That legacy, is a lot more conducive to what we know in modern at present. Nowadays in legacy, casting a 3 mana enchantment isn't good enough because there isn't a lot to kill on board. Though it may be good against a deck like death and taxes, even Death and Taxes will make you wait till turn 4 to cast it with cards like Thalia, Rishadan Port and Wasteland. It's horrible in the legacy metagame, so they shifted to the BGx style as we know in modern and ran with the deck.
In modern we don't have Punishing Fire to kill creatures. In legacy, that is your out against decks that want to play creatures. In modern, a format ruled by hyperaggressive creature decks where you'd want it, we need something to help maintain board control.
Even if we only play red for Seismic Assault, it is worth it in the metagame. Assault lets us have recurring disruption against every aggressive deck and gives us a favorable matchup against the best decks in the format like Izzet Phoenix and Humans. In the old days of the deck, you didn't even have to play 4 Assault; some people just "splashed" red (it's kinda hard to splash a spell that costsRRR but I digress) and played 3 Assault with 3 Loam. I can't stress how good Seismic Assault is, especially now, though I think many people rely on it too hard as the "end all be all."
Assault is really in the deck to give a late game punch. It is a sweeper turn 3 that kills planeswalkers and wipes the board too. You don't deal damage with it to your opponent until you have 10 lands in your hand. Each turn you can deal 6 damage to your opp's board, or choose to hold up the lands to deal say 8 damage to an opposing 6/7 Tarmogoyf. With the new cycling lands, you can deal 10 damage per turn instead once you hit 5 mana. Assault is your sole reason to play red, everything else is a cherry on top.
I agree with you that most of the new cards are traps for the deck. The Dragon and Rioter are a little loose and not as powerful as the deck can be. Rioter may be powerful but has to be built around, and I don't think would just slot in well to the archetype. Tectonic Reformation could be good, but has many applications where it just doesn't do much. The cycling cost on it may make it playable in the archetype but slots are limited in the deck.
Faithless Looting in our deck says "Draw 2 cards, Flashback, Draw 2 cards." Even if you don't have loam, discarding cards that you want to be in the graveyard practically makes it card advantage. With Wrenn now too, you can get back those lands you discard over 2 turns, serving the same role as loam.
On top of this, Wrenn and Six at worst makes us hit land drops every turn. At best, it gets us cycling lands to draw cards. It gets back Ghost Quarter against tron (in testing had this happen, best feeling in my life). It gets back Blast Zone vs decks like Bogles. And with our board control, it ticks up to its ultimate, which practically says "Win the Game." Don't sleep on this card.
You laugh at Flame Jab, but that card is often just a 1 of for control. You have your opponent at 6 life after a gruelingly grindy game of playing around countermagic and barely killing planeswalkers with creature lands. Over 2 turns with Loam and Flame Jab, you win the game. There aren't many cards in modern that let you win out of your yard like this that see a lot of play. Conflagrate does it but is more vulnerable to countermagic. It also kills creatures more often than you would think, with it being a win con vs Affinity and keeping problematic planeswalkers in check. It is a pretty loose spell in terms of density, but a 1 of Flame Jab wins games.
One of the biggest upsides to your list compared to RG is the straightforward midrange gameplan. Discard spells, removal, and cheap threats.
When you explained that I was honestly very confused because that is what every midrange deck in modern does. The most played version of AssaultLoam is Jund, which has the same packages and gameplan with a better lategame. Here's a 5-0 list from January that shows the basic outline of the deck:
1 Bedlam Reveler
1 Grim Flayer
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Collective Brutality
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Life from the Loam
2 Thoughtseize
1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Assassin's Trophy
3 Fatal Push
3 Seismic Assault
1 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Field of Ruin
1 Forest
1 Graven Cairns
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Raging Ravine
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Damping Sphere
2 Fulminator Mage
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow
1 Jund Charm
1 Kolaghan's Command
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Raven's Crime
Now in your Abzan AggroLoam list, I feel like the worst card is Life from the Loam. I would honestly go down to 2 as you only need one in the late game as you are cycling through your deck. Over that, I think one Nourishing Peatland would be a good card to go fetch with KOTR or another cycling land would be satisfactory.
End of Essay... cue tomorrow getting more spoilers and more testing
Hey Cryptic Commander,
Thanx for taking the time to reply to my post.
Yes this is very true. I played legacy around that time, althugh it was my friend who played aggro loam back then (I played standstill/Fow based strategies at that time). I remember the list from back then, confidants, Mox diamonds, Tarmogoyfs, Chalice of the Void, Crusher just replaced Terravore, and indeed seismic assault. And yes the meta was very different. I might even be talking about 10-15 years back when Loam was Jund colors, because I don;t really remember punishing fie being a thing back then.
I totally understand the power of seismic assault. It's is the card that makes you win the game, it clears boards, it does almost everything you want. It is certainly extremely good in a creature heavy meta. It is the artillery of the deck that supports your ground troops.
However, I think playing red is a choice you make on how you want your deck to work. Like tarmogoyf is a great creature, the best value for it's cost, but you will not include this in an elves deck, because that is not what you want your deck to do, no matter how good tarmogoyf is as a creature. I know, this sounds a bit like I am explaingin magic to a chaild, i mean no offense. I am just saying that Assault is amazing in the deck where it works. And again you can choose how you want your deck to work.
I am glad that we share the opinion on these new loam cards they printed in Horizons. Although I disagree with 'the cherry on top' statement. In my opinion you choose to play less good cards to be able to play 1 really good one (Seismic asaault). Playing stugg like Wrenn*, Crusher, Koth and the like is a cost, not a welcome addition to the deck. Don't get me wrong, often it is good to play some less good cards to be able to play a game winner. Often this is more than worth it.
(* Wrenn looks great as an individual card. It provides tons of synergy. I like to judge cards on their worst scenario rather than just seeing the upsides. Playing against humans on the draw: You play wren, shoot down their Noble Hierarch, pass Turn, they play a Mantis Rider, put a counter on their Champion and kill Wren. Wren is pretty bad without protection. so it's most likely a 3 or even 4 drop. I do not particularly like this card a lot.)
You might be right on the faithless looting, I probably judged that card too quickly based on my general modern experience.
Flame Jab. I remember going to a GP a couple years back and a friend of mine made day two with a list with multiple flame jabs, loam and assault. He stil lis a big fan of the card and I certainly see the value. In a format with a lot fo creatures this is excelent removal ad, as you mentioned, a game winning card.
So we have: Assault, Looting and Flame Jab that are very good reasons to play red in loam. I read your arguments and I agree with this.
then we come back to the choice thing. I think choices should be made on at least the meta, a full analysize of the deck (does it do what it's supposed to do, does it do that effectively, consistently and can ti win from meta decks?) and and your personal playstyle. The last thing is arbitrary so let's not go into that too much. The meta changes, so that's also something that is a little bit arbitrary. I mean last year You had to be able to win from Shadow, last couple of months it was Phoenix and now it's Humans and Tron and who knows what comes after horizons. GR loam has not that much interaction, except from it's on board interaction, so I think its control and combo MU are rather bad. I hoped to adress those deck more with my list.
I understand that my explanation was a bit confusing, since I basicly esplained what every midrange deck tries to do. I get that, but not everyone is as focussed on competitive play and deckbuilding as others, so that's why.
About the Loam in the deck. It's already on a 2 off. So I think we share our thoughts about this card in the deck. As I mentioned before. I thought of Peatland, but I thought the cycling lands would be enough. Your argument that Knight can find the Peatland, which doesn't work with the cycle lands, is a solid argument to include at least one. Thanx for that.
Yes, more spoilers, more testing. Today I will test the deck so I'll know more after that. Maybe t is indeed just bad, I don't know. Midrange decks are very hard to judge on paper.
Thanx again for your feedback! Looking forward to more discussions about the deck in this group.
Thank you for your help! I think that the jund plan may be what I’m looking for as I do believe that the discard helps very much, but I’m thinking more of a 4 IoK and 3 Ravens crime. As for my beaters maybe budget beaters for now but slowly upgrade.
That or the 4 vortex 1 Assault that you mentioned. That makes more sense to me now. I do feel more knowledgeable about the crusher as well. Thank you again
https://twitter.com/StarCityGames/status/1134139822837305345
https://www.twitch.tv/scgtour
3 Countryside Crusher
2 Bloodbraid Elf
4 Seismic Assault
4 Life from the Loam
2 Tectonic Reformation
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Wrenn and Six
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Stomping Ground
1 Sheltered Thicket
3 Forgotten Cave
2 Raging Ravine
3 Field of Ruin
1 Blast Zone
4 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Tranquil Thicket
I think the deck needs a finisher with CMC<4 that ends the game in 2/3 turns. The problem is that I don't want a card that dies to Rest in Peace, because I want a hope in a post-sideboard game. So no Tarmogoyf (and no Ore-Scale Guardian). I don't like Living Twister because without Seismic Assault it sucks and Assault is the most hated card after sideboard. The card doesn't have to be a creature, I just need it to finish the game quickly. Do you have any ideas? I can't figure out anything. Thanks
Tireless Tracker is a good place to start!
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Arid Mesa
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Mountain
1 Forest
3 Stomping Ground
3 Copperline Gorge
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Faithless Looting
4 Magmatic Insight
3 Wrenn and Six
4 Life from the Loam
2 Flame Jab
4 Seismic Assault
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
As far as 3 drops to finish the game might I suggest undergrowth champion in addition to tireless tracker
I'm keen to try out wrenn and six, ruination rioter, and the cycle lands forgotten cave.
I was just curious what do you guys think of tectonic reformation? Is it worth a card? Or do you think just having 3 cycling lands in our deck being churned through with Life of the loam will be enough card draw? I was thinking about playing it as a 2 of in the deck until I get a feeling for whether it's good or not. I mean it even cycles so if we do have enough cycle lands in our hand we can always get rid of it if we want to.
My initial impression is just run 3 cycling lands and not the enchantment, just for the sake of card economy. Dedicating 3 land slots makes more sense than having to play another enchantment.
Other than that i feel like force of vigor might be a sideboard card of choice if we can generate enough value/card draw. Pitching an extra loam or whatnot without paying mana seems like a pretty decent option against rest in peace/leyline of the void/etc. Gets extra good vs some matchups, definitely worth trying out i think.
Any thoughts on regrowth now being modern legal? Getting back key pieces that were milled, looted or destroyed seems good, or just having the option to do the bolt regrowth bolt play is maybe good enough?
Also a card i want to try out alongside wrenn and six is sakura-tribe scout. Some people mentioned how the planeswalker can do busted play with exploration in legacy. Scout is the closet thing to that and can ramp us every turn as long as we have a way to get back dredged lands or fetchlands. Getting to the critical 5 lands will be important because now with the cycling lands we have access to the classic play of cast 2 loams a turn with a cycling land so that we can pitch 5 lands each turn to assault or influence for profit. We can now basically deal 20 damage in two turn from there, which is pretty sweet.