Modern

Picture Me Loaming

Hello again, rogue brewers, friends of rogue brewers, or people contractually obligated to read my articles! It’s been awhile, but with Return to Ravnica flying off the shelves, my rogue juices are flowing freely and I’m ready to share them with you!

About this time last year, I wrote an article on an aggro version of the Life from the Loam/Seismic Assault deck for Modern. The deck kept putting up good results for me all of last year, and I thought it really had the potential to be a break out deck. Alas, my heart was turned from the Loam by the siren song of Kiki-Jiki and his swarm of infinite [card]Restoration Angel[/card]s. But, now that Ravnica has Returned, one card has me extremely excited about exploring the archetype further.

[card]Grisly Salvage[/card] seems tailor made for a [card]Life from the Loam[/card] deck. Digging 5 cards can set up some devastating card advantage. You may laugh, but there have been many games where I’m pretty sure I won as soon as I cast this card, snagging a [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] on turn two and dumping [card]Life from the Loam[/card], [card]Raven’s Crime[/card], and a couple lands. It felt like I was casting an [card]Ancestral Recall[/card] beefed up with a healthy diet of anabolic steroids and meth. There are times when it seriously feels like you’re drawing 5 cards, at instant speed, for two mana.

This is my first take on the deck, though I think it definitely has room for growth/improvement. Since there are no squirrels in Modern (the first person to mention Changelings or [card]Mistform Ultimus[/card] gets shived in the kidneys) this is what I’m running:

[deck title=Travis Hall – I Spit on Your Grave]
[Lands]
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Overgrown Tomb
3 Stomping Ground
2 Rootbound Crag
2 Graven Cairns
2 Raging Ravine
3 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Mountain
2 Horizon Canopy
[/Lands]

[Creatures]
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
3 Countryside Crusher
[/Creatures]

[Spells]
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Life from the Loam
3 Seismic Assault
2 Jund Charm
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Raven’s Crime
1 Flame Jab
4 Faithless Looting
2 Lightning Bolt
[/Spells]

[Sideboard]
3 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Jund Charm
2 Ultimate Price
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Sowing Salt
3 Kitchen Finks
[/Sideboard]
[/deck]

Note: I’m writing this on the eve of the Pro Tour, wherein I’m sure some devastating tech will be unleashed, the rivers and seas will boil, and dogs and cats will start living together. Enjoy the plentiful pillaging. When this goes up, you should have a better picture of the metagame.

Also, I swore on Twitter that every deck I brewed in October would be named after a horror movie in hopes that we could get back to Awesome Deck Names instead of lazy abominations like RUG Delver. If you haven’t seen “I Spit on Your Grave,” you’ve missed one of the most grisly de-penissings in all of cinema.

[card]Grisly Salvage[/card] and [card]Faithless Looting[/card] are the engines for this deck, getting the card we want in the graveyard, refining our hand, and setting up Seismic Assault/Life from the Loam. [card]Faithless Looting[/card] especially becomes an all-star late game, helping you grind out wins. Just Loam some lands back to your hand and cycle the Looting to get two minty fresh cards, ready to strike terror into your opponent’s hearts. [card]Grisly Salvage[/card] is great at filling your graveyard up again after a [card]Relic of Progenitus[/card] or similar graveyard removal spell.

With [card]Faithless Looting[/card] and [card]Grisly Salvage[/card], you tend to see a lot of cards, so I’ve shaved the numbers off of a few key spells to accommodate this (especially the retrace spells where you’d usually run a full set). This may prove to be a mistake, but it’s something we’ll have to discover in further testing.

The deck usually offers two routes to victory. Route one has you casting [card]Dark Confidant[/card] and [card]Tarmogoyf[/card], backed by decent removal, and riding the two best creatures EVAR (fo’ realz yo’) to victory like a pair of bridled, blood-thirsty velociraptors. This is the route many decks choose to take in Modern, and is as time tested and weathered as your mom. Route two, the fabled “road less traveled,” involves ripping your opponent’s hand to shreds with [card]Raven’s Crime[/card], Loaming back three or more lands a turn and chucking mountains at their head with [card]Seismic Assault[/card] like you’re the MFing Hulk.

Card choices:

[card]Raven’s Crime[/card] and [card]Flame Jab[/card]: Though they seem innocuous at first, these two cards will quickly overwhelm most decks. [card]Raven’s Crime[/card] will rip an opponent’s hand to shreds and put them into an early topdeck mode, forcing them to overextend just to have a board presence. [card]Flame Jab[/card] will pick off [card]Birds of Paradise[/card], [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]s, [card]Vendilion Clique[/card], and even bigger creatures in the late game, once you get the Loam engine going. You’ve really got to play with these cards to see just how powerful they are in this deck.

[card]Tarmogoyf[/card] and [card]Countryside Crusher[/card]: The 100% Grade-A, All American BEEF. The Filet Mignon and the Porterhouse. The Dominator and his tag team partner from parts unknown. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard that [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] is a good Magic card, and he sometimes sees play and stuff, but there are many, many times that [card]Countryside Crusher[/card] is a better creature in this deck. Once you get the retrace or [card]Seismic Assault[/card] rolling, Crusher is usually the biggest creature on the field.

[card]Seismic Assault[/card] and [card]Life from the Loam[/card]: The bestest, grindiest combo in Modern. Against many decks, this is just straight up inevitability. Decks like the Kiki-Jiki combo decks have a hard time beating 6 points of damage spread across their best creatures each turn. Midrange U/W decks don’t have a reliable enough clock (outside of [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card], but more on him in a minute) to keep you from putting them in topdeck mode against [card]Tarmogoyf[/card] or [card]Countryside Crusher[/card].

[card]Lightning Bolt[/card]/[card]Abrupt Decay[/card]/[card]Maelstrom Pulse[/card]: The removal suite. The numbers will constantly change and evolve as the meta defines itself, but you need an answer to artifacts and enchantments while also retaining the flexibility of instant speed removal.

[card]Jund Charm[/card]: [card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card] is very difficult to deal with, and moving this to the main is a direct result of that. It also provides a way to fight the Storm decks and opposing [card]Tarmogoyf[/card]s.

Cards to Consider:

[card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]: This card was in the main until the most recent iteration of the deck. This card is a great Swiss Army Knife, answering a lot of problems, providing some life gain or extra damage, and occasionally tossing out a turn two [card]Seismic Assault[/card]. I love this card, and its sheer power may force it back into the deck, even if it isn’t always synergistic.

[card]Damnation[/card]: I really wanted to include this since going, “Raven’s Crime, [card]Raven’s Crime[/card], [card]Raven’s Crime[/card], [card]Damnation[/card],” crushes many of the creature based decks.

[card]Kitchen Finks[/card]: If Jund is as big as I expect it to be, you’ll probably want another way to fight it in the main.

[card]Grisly Salvage[/card] also makes me want to consider some of these various creatures as a one-of:

[card]Olivia Voldaren[/card] (the undead babe with the boner isn’t just for standard anymore), [card]Huntmaster of the Fells[/card], Finks, [card]Geralf’s Messenger[/card], or even [card]Thragtusk[/card].

Cards/Decks to Fear:

Aside from the usual Muderer’s Row of heavy hitters ([card]Cranial Plating[/card], [card]Second Sunrise[/card], [card]Past in Flames[/card], [card]Isochron Scepter[/card], Emrakul, etc) or removal for our threats (think [card]Qasali Pridemage[/card] or [card]Cryptic Command[/card]), here are a few problematic cards I wanted to highlight.

[card]Geist of Saint Traft[/card]: Hexproof is very annoying. Very, very annoying. I run [card]Jund Charm[/card] main almost solely for this card.

[card]Deathrite Shaman[/card]/[card]Withered Wretch[/card]: Targeted, constant graveyard removal scares me much more than a one-shot, get rid of everything hate card.

BURN: Seriously, all of it. This deck tends to damage itself pretty quickly, so it doesn’t take much to push us over the top. I have Finks in the board, but this might just be one of the “blind spots” for the deck.

[card]Second Sunrise[/card]: Screw this deck and screw the people that play it. I hope a spider lays Eggs in their ears.

Overall, the deck has performed very well in the (admitted limited) testing I have been able to put it through so far. The graveyard still isn’t getting enough respect in Modern, and there may still be time to really exploit this. Regardless, this deck has amazing synergy and raw power. It won Grand Prix Lincoln last year, but seems to have slipped off the radar since then. I would practice with it a bit, because the “do I dredge or not?” question is paramount to playing the deck correctly. Overall, this is a fun, powerful deck that needs more attention and a higher profile!

If you like my suggestions, you can follow me on MTGO or Twitter: travishall456. I throw around random observations and deck ideas every day. You can also check in with my weekly rogue ramblings on the Horde of Notions podcast: http://www.hordeofnotions.com/.

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