Card/Deck Life from the Loam

James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
I just traded for a copy of Life from the Loam, and I've never played with or against this card. Should I put it in my cube? I run 10 fetches, Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Strip Mine, Tectonic Edge, and 8 different manlands. The cube is 429 cards right now, and I'm trying to cut it down a bit closer to 400.

I want to add some reanimation spells to black, things like Whip of Erebos and maybe Deadbridge Chant, and get some midrangey graveyard decks going.

So, what do you guys think? Is it a do nothing? Am I a noob?
 
D

DreamPaint

In my experience LftL is too durdly to work most of the time. Just playing it for value doesn't work often enough and just isn't worth inclusion most of the time. And recurring Strip Mine is very unfun so it's pretty much lose/lose.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
Life from the Loam works best when your deck can passively utilize the extra cards in your graveyard. If you have a pile of Green/Black graveyard matters cards, adding a Loam to that pile probably makes it better, particularly if you grab something like cabal pit that really works well with it. These decks tend to have so much late game value creation that they crush typical control builds, but they often have lots of trouble with lots of early dudes. Toxic Deluge will be a godsend.
 
Kyultu

Kyultu

Loam is a Johnny All-Star and one of my all time favorites. It's usually a mid-game value engine for B/G graveyard decks or recursive land destruction with Strip Mine and co, but I've seen synergies in Pox-type builds, Reanimator, G/R Wildfire and some BUG control builds.
 
Ryan

Ryan

Loam is easily one of my favorite cards to cast. It just does so much and can be so powerful. I would recommend putting it in and looking at adding some cards that interact with it like Raven's Crime, Flame Jab, Seismic Assault etc.,etc.,
 
Lucre

Lucre

I find I really like feel good about myself when I get weird use out of those cards.

Like when I find myself moonfolk-ing up a couple lands and then putting them to sleep to keep an extra card from my Compulsive Research, or just keep something else cool if I'm looting.

Faithless Looting / Frantic Search is something I like quite a bit in decks with Crucible of Worlds. I guess the world has moved on from glacial value you found in cards like Keljordan Outpost or Thawing Glaciers but I find the incedental bonuses aren't something to scoff at, if you are willing to build your cube stuff more around dumb older ideas like graveyard strategies and madness or like combo cube standby concepts like always digging or stuff that triggers on your always having spells to play.

Having more ways to lean on the crucible or the life from the loam is kinda tricky because a lot of what it is used for is kinda degenerate and unfun. It's the sort of magic I revel in, and I don't mind playing that sort of magic, but I can see how a deck that could consistently find it's recursion engine and it's piece would be pretty lame to play against all the time and not fun for youngsters who don't know the value of certain cards. What sort of oppression do you want to support? A delicate balance between the freedom to and the freedom from.

Anyway the way I like to used these cards tends to be as glacial value cards who's written job description is enabling something else powerful with another good card in my deck. I'm not really sure where most cubes would want to put it.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
My experience with Loam mirrors DreamPaint's the most. We just haven't quite figured out what to do with it over here. Even with twenty fetches and four Edges, along with a whole bunch of looting in blue, nobody's really built an engine with it here.

I'm holding out hope that somebody will crack this nut, though, so it's still in my list!
 
anotak

anotak

the card needs support to be good. It's pretty bad in my cube but i haven't gone out of my way to make it better because I only have 6 lands that will end up in the yard on their own. I'm going to be fixing this really soon. I'm a really huge fan of the card, I've played with it a ton in constructed and EDH. It is a lot of fun and it also can be very powerful.
If your cube has no discard/grave interaction, then it's probably awful. However, if you already have cards like this, I don't think you have to go far to make it worth including.

there's the retrace cards like Raven's Crime, Oona's Grace, or even Worm Harvest.
also stuff like Cabal Pit, Cephalid Coliseum, and Horizon Canopy as mentioned before
if you want to go particularly deep: Squandered Resources + Azusa, Lost but Seeking

it probably helps to double up on it and/or use other effects that overlap with it like Creeping Renaissance (I have a weird environment but this is one of the strongest cards in my cube) or Grim Discovery, and hopefully the environment supports other graveyard interactions to make dredging be advantage.

some random cubeable cards with synergy off the top of my head:
Forbid (why is this the only interesting card with discard as a buyback wtf)
Fact or Fiction / Steam Augury / Forbidden Alchemy / Gifts Ungiven
Compulsion
Trading Post
Lotleth Troll / Wild Mongrel
Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
Rotting Rats / Death Cloud / Smallpox / any symmetrical discard
Greater Gargadon
Countryside Crusher
Lightning Axe
artifact lands + artifact sac outlets
 
Ryan

Ryan

Loam/Crucible isn't really too unfun as long as you're not just going strip mine you go every turn. I actually find loam when it has the support can make for some really interesting games.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Loam is really durdly and I've always disliked it in Cube (contrast with my extreme love of it in Constructed), but I'm giving it another try here cuz Zombies.

For a support package I would go with Raven's Crime, Smallpox, some cycle lands (funsies draft) at the very least. One of the major issues with Loam is that Seismic Assault is otherwise god-awful and RRR is such a depressing casting cost (hello, Purphoros!)

Loam is IMO yet another reason Tec Edges are way more fun than Wastelands or Strip Mines

Edit: Punishing Fire and Grove of the Burnwillows are another idea, these kinds of locks are never THAT good in Cube
 
CML

CML

Contributor
it's one of those damn cards that's perfect for constructed (way, way more perfect than one would expect, even, given that its printing antedates loam by what, 8 years? and remember exodus's theme was "busted-ass enchantments") but, horror of horrors, is kinda awkward for Cube.

now while i wring my hands over this sad state of affairs Chris T just makes a fixed version and starts throwing lands at people
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Yeah, that's basically mah jam :p
I also tried {1}{R}{R} 3/2 seismic assault, only with a {R} activation instead of just flinging lands. It's waaaaay worse.
 
anotak

anotak

Chris Taylor said:
pretend dryad arbor is a forest
block
Click to expand...
i haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the ftv dryad arbor art
5.jpg

seriously who thought this garbage was a good idea
 
Peter Angell

Peter Angell

Chris Taylor said:
I actually think Seismic assault would be a fine card at like {1}{R}{R} or {2}{R}
Click to expand...




Chris Taylor said:
pretend dryad arbor is a forest

block
Click to expand...


I'll be pedantic and point out that at any REL, if someone asks "is that a forest" in reference to your Dryad Arbor, it's legal to say yes. The better question is, "is that a basic forest?"

But if this happens while cubing, the proper ruling is to not invite them back.

Future Sight had a lot of cards that just got printed "just because" and ended up being total feel bads.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
The problem with land's Edge is it lets your opponent fling lands too, which while pushing through those last few points just blanks all your creatures
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
Peter Angell said:




I'll be pedantic and point out that at any REL, if someone asks "is that a forest" in reference to your Dryad Arbor, it's legal to say yes. The better question is, "is that a basic forest?"

But if this happens while cubing, the proper ruling is to not invite them back.

Future Sight had a lot of cards that just got printed "just because" and ended up being total feel bads.
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of the "do not invite back" approach.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
I've already soft-banned someone for being a nitpicky rules lawyer at my cube events. (I hope he doesn't come on here and read this. If he does... ummmm. HI!)
 
Goldenpineapple

Goldenpineapple

I don't like loam either, it just doesn't do enough. One local cube owner has been forcing it for years, drafts it as often as he can and only ever wins off the back of lingering souls tokens and civic wayfinder beats, with the occasional crucible of worlds / strip mine lock on a control player, all of which has nothing to do with loam.

Ryan said:
Realms Uncharted + Dryad Arbor is basically just 3 mana instant speed Ranger of Eos right? Right?
Click to expand...

Realms Uncharted said:
Different Names
Click to expand...
Not quite

I haven't had to ban anyone but there have been plenty of people I've only ever seen the one time they asked to play that I've had to politely decline. (I foolishly went down the foil road and it'd be pretty impossible for me to replace a few cards now that they've exploded)
 
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