(Competitive) Volcanic Loam
Modern*
SCORE: 8 | 13 COMMENTS | 1135 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS
Modern Wednesday update —Aug. 13, 2015
Pretty unlucky run this week, I lost some matches I should have won, and had a very frustrating second round.
- 0-2 vs Bloom Titan Game 1: Not much to say here other than my deck hated me. I had the game pretty under control for awhile, but all 4 of my Life from the Loam were within 6 cards of each other in the bottom quarter of my deck (I checked). I almost got to them anyways through dredging and drawing, but ultimately I didn't have enough fuel to close out the game.
Game 2: This one was my fault completely. I actually have a pretty good matchup against bloom titan post board. I side in 6 artifact hate cards and 4 enchantment (Nature's Claim and Destructive Revelry do both) to kill his Hive Mind or Amulet of Vigor and then use land destruction and disruption to stall him out until I can spam Raven's Crime. Unfortunately, despite a pretty good starting hand, I screwed up discarding my only source of green mana to a Magmatic Insight meaning I couldn't dredge my Life from the Loam or cast Abrupt Decay. In the future, I should win this match.
- 1-0-1 vs Abzan Melira Combo
Game 1: This was a frustrating round. This game I killed everything he put out, even though Kitchen Finks is one of my nightmares, and then Raven's Crime took his entire hand away. The ONLY card that could have helped him keep up with me at this point was Collected Company. In 7 turns, he top decked 3. Eventually he could muster enough damage to kill me. This game took 45 minutes.
Game 2: I would have won this round eventually, I was trying to play fast to get to the third game, but my opponent had no such pressures, taking his time. He drew all four of his Kitchen Finks, allowing him to stall the game out long enough for time to be called. Suffice to say I was pretty salty after this round.
3: 2-1 vs UG infect
Game 1: He ended up winning turn 3 because infect. Not much I could have done.
Game 2: This game was hilarious. I kept a risky hand, but it paid off. Turn 1 was a molten vortex, turn 2 a Smallpox to kill his first land, turn 3 a Molten Rain to take his next land. Turn 4 was a Maelstrom Pulse to kill his 2 Noble Hierarch, after which he scooped. I had another Molten Rain in hand, so it was probably the right choice.
Game 3: He got 9 infect damage on me on turn two with a Glistener Elf, and 2 Groundswell. I killed the elf the next turn though, and every threat he had afterwards. Eventually I killed him through Molten Vortex and Life from the Loam.
I could have stayed for another round, but because of the first two losses, I couldn't have won packs, so I decided to go play SSB4. Will update next week.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #2
+1. Most aggressive Molten Vortex build I've seen so far. I like it. A couple notes - though your sideboard looks like it will do a good job of dealing with some difficult matchups (Affinity, Tron), it seems a little too redundant on artifact hate, especially for a deck with a lot of draw power. I think you could bring in some more flexibility with an extra Abrupt Decay and/or Maelstrom Pulse, and maybe a lifegain gag. I've playtested a similar build quite a bit, and one problem I've run into is that Liliana of the Veil can nearly match this type of deck's attrition abilities on her own, while Jund/Junk is far more likely to find a game-breaking Tarmogoyf or something off the top - hence I recommend the extra removal for her/other planeswalkers. I've also found that this type of deck often needs a little lifegain against Burn, and occasionally in long games against Control, etc.. I realize lifegain isn't something you want to necessarily be doing with a deck this aggressive, but it's something to chew on as you test. Syphon Life might do. You could also replace a couple Destructive Revelry or Ancient Grudge with Nature's Claim. It serves about the same purpose when you really need it, but you can also kill your own enchantments for the lifegain in a pinch, which I don't think is that nuts as you have 6 Vortex/Assault, plus the Countryside Crusher as another finisher. Good luck.
July 22, 2015 1:50 p.m.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely try out a few of your suggestions, I really like Syphon Life because this deck tends to drain its own life very quickly
July 22, 2015 2:39 p.m.
the courser is a bit of a non-bo because you want to drawn lans
August 1, 2015 4:11 p.m.
Sort of, but its not like I have to play the top card if I don't want to. The majority of the time Life from the Loam will be my land engine. Courser is there to offset the lifeloss from how many fetches I use and reuse
August 1, 2015 4:36 p.m.
Zombie Infestation is another potential win-con for this type of deck. I'd run all 4 Smallpox and Thoughtseize deserves some spots somewhere in the 75
August 7, 2015 4:17 p.m.
Zombie Infestation is good, but is generally redundant to Syphon Life. I've considered running Inquisition of Kozilek, but im not sure if I can justify taking out the removal. Thoughtseize is too heavy on my life total, given how often i'm fetching and shocking lands.
August 7, 2015 4:47 p.m.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #8
This thing looks even more aggro now than the last time I stopped by! I'd be curious about how your matchups have looked in testing, as contrasted with more grindy decks with Vortex. Hope you have some time to write about them in the description at some point.
August 12, 2015 5:17 p.m.
formayor the funny thing is that this is actually a really grindy deck. I basically just neutralize any threat my opponents can make until I can win a war of attrition with Molten Vortex or Syphon Life. I will make a write up about matchups later, currently almost everything has been even or in my favor, but I am worried about combo. I haven't faced a good combo deck (Other than twin, which is easy to manage) yet, and I'm not sure how it'll do. But I have another tournament tonight, so I'll let you know when I face combo.
August 12, 2015 6:05 p.m.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #10
Of course it's mostly grindy, but 3 Assaults should end a lot of games on the early side.
On combos: Besides Twin and Infect, you probably shouldn't be too worried about combo, unless I missed something.
The twin matchup doesn't seem too bad to me either. Infect might occasionally be a problem if you don't find Pox because they can pump their guys up faster than you can Vortex them, but that's not what they want to do and it may run them out of cards before they can kill you (I haven't tested this enough to say who's favored).
Besides those, you have tons of land screw for Bloom Titan and Scapeshift, grave hate for Storm, Grisel Cannon, and Living End - and Ad Nauseam just kills itself anyway. Good luck tonight.
PeterSilver says... #1
I like your deck, check out mine, it uses Devastating Summons as a finisher. +1 most def, this deck is good.
July 20, 2015 2:23 p.m.