This card looks fantastic! The first ability is good enough on its own. The second ability will generate lots of value with tokens etc. Decent stats also for CMC3.
Been getting some more reps with re-adding Loam. In my experimental 540 list, I've added things like Mental Note / Thought Scour to help support both graveyard critical mass / spells matters, and Loam fits really well with that. Here's an Uro deck I played in last night's draft where Loam had a lot of synergies, Simic seems to be its best home with Uro / blue fueling the graveyard in general. Really wish I had a black dual land to splash for Takenuma, would've been nice to have that to recur with Loam also alongside Otawara.
Not playing Exploration in that list hurts. Looks like the perfect deck for it with Augur, Loam, Twister and good 3-4 drops.
I do want to add something - Exploration has been fairly decent in testing. On paper its bad card, but 3-4 CMC has been way too strong, anything that can help consistent jump curve has just been insane.
Its 60-70% a bad Mox Diamond in land heavy decks and 30-40% strong enabler with Draw-7/ Land Recursion in land synergy/ UB storm decks. (if you have 4+ ways to take advantage of this - Land Recursion, Draw 7, Smokestack etc. in addition to strong tempo based 3 drops - Tireless Tracker, Courser, Oko, Uro etc.).
I wouldn't recommend it if you don't support both a small lands package + BU Untap storm. (In other words, if you have Fastbond/ Heartbeat/ Life from the Loam/ Wreen and Six in your cube, I think this is a fine backup enabler).
I agree, I also like Exploration. That type of effects have really increased in value with the draw/sac lands. And Exploration works almost better than Fastbond with fetches + gy recursion as you don't have to take as much damage. Certainly Fastbond is still a better card overall, and I find it interesting that so few people run that card especially in lists with Crucible, Ramunap, Loam, Smokestack, Braids, Draw 7s. Even without all of those cards, it can still be fine in a midrange deck that wants to get to 3-5 mana ASAP.
Show and Tell has a notorious reputation on Magic online because of the high risk of giving your opponent a fatty and sees little play due to that. However, this card plays out differently in paper because you greatly reduce the amount of fatties available for your opponents as you're picking them up yourself, or hate-drafting them, which from my experiences make the card quite valid.
360 unpowered. I'm trying to create a fair environment while still having some powerful cards. Right now I only play one land per color, and can't decide between these two. I lean more towards treetop village but that's partly because I don't have money to buy a the cradle. I had Gaea's Cradle in my cube years ago but sold it , and while the card was swingy it was also lots of fun. At the same time I'd say Treetop village is probably the strongest of the mono color creature lands.
Also happy to see the changes! I rigorously followed your cube updates back when you had 450 list for inspiration, but once you upgraded to 720 it became pretty pointless since I maintain a 360 cube.
Basically I've come to realize that the best strategy isn't to just jam as many 1-one drops as possible in aggro. The only exception might be red aggro, because in red you have plenty of burn to finish the opponent off.
However in Mono W and B, I rarely play more than 3-4 1-one drops and focus more on 2, 3, 4 and even one or two 5-CMC cards. My issue with jamming lots of 1-drops is you get brick walled easily by a turn 2 signet into some 4 drop that is impossible to beat with solely 1-drops and perhaps some 2-drop.
This way, increasing the curve slightly, I've found to have more success. You certainly still want some 1-drops for curve purposes though.
I know he didn't it mention it there, but he said so earlier in that recording (i.e. saying remand is better than library which is just lol).
And yes, he did lose to Library. Certainly it didn't help not drawing enough lands, but I still believe that if the opponent didnt have library, then LSV would still have a chance winning that game.
This card looks fantastic! The first ability is good enough on its own. The second ability will generate lots of value with tokens etc. Decent stats also for CMC3.
I'm not adding any cards at all to my 400 unpowered cube. I think this set was lackluster for cube.
Not playing Exploration in that list hurts. Looks like the perfect deck for it with Augur, Loam, Twister and good 3-4 drops.
I agree, I also like Exploration. That type of effects have really increased in value with the draw/sac lands. And Exploration works almost better than Fastbond with fetches + gy recursion as you don't have to take as much damage. Certainly Fastbond is still a better card overall, and I find it interesting that so few people run that card especially in lists with Crucible, Ramunap, Loam, Smokestack, Braids, Draw 7s. Even without all of those cards, it can still be fine in a midrange deck that wants to get to 3-5 mana ASAP.
Thoughts?
Maybe try to find room for Angel of Mercy?
I won't add any cards to my 360 list.
360 unpowered. I'm trying to create a fair environment while still having some powerful cards. Right now I only play one land per color, and can't decide between these two. I lean more towards treetop village but that's partly because I don't have money to buy a the cradle. I had Gaea's Cradle in my cube years ago but sold it
Green 4 drops with good EtB are scarce, and this card seems to be a perfect fit to lists that run Birthing Pod.
However in Mono W and B, I rarely play more than 3-4 1-one drops and focus more on 2, 3, 4 and even one or two 5-CMC cards. My issue with jamming lots of 1-drops is you get brick walled easily by a turn 2 signet into some 4 drop that is impossible to beat with solely 1-drops and perhaps some 2-drop.
This way, increasing the curve slightly, I've found to have more success. You certainly still want some 1-drops for curve purposes though.
How do you draft aggro?
I know he didn't it mention it there, but he said so earlier in that recording (i.e. saying remand is better than library which is just lol).
And yes, he did lose to Library. Certainly it didn't help not drawing enough lands, but I still believe that if the opponent didnt have library, then LSV would still have a chance winning that game.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/806657087 4h 06m