Life from the Loam in Dredge

[Oestrus]

I think we can all agree that the MVP of this week's Vintage Super League was Life from the Loam, with help from Riftstone Portal. Now I've used Riftstone Portal here and there, depending on what my SB looks like. Like, if I'm running Serenity and/or Abrupt Decay, I'm probably also running Riftstone Portal. But Life from the Loam has been curiously absent from Vintage Dredge at large, and I've never really understood why.

Did CFB happen to stumble on to something, and we should be testing this out? Or was this the result of a very specific metagame, and ultimately doesn't mean a thing?

Let me know your thoughts!

[vaughnbros]

I've been playing Loam in Dredge for the last 3 years. Its a great card for the deck.

[BlindTherapy]

playing it a bit recently with maindeck pit to kill maindeck priest, even in fatestitcher/power lists. liking it.
that said this whole VSL list is interesting, though i don't want to admit that we live in the world where ancient grudge is better than therapy.

[vaughnbros]

@blindtherapy I imagine the reduced Therapies has a lot to do with the deck building constraints of squeezing two dredge decks without 15 card overlap.

Ancient Grudge is also a very good card in the current meta though. There's no better counter to Tormod's Crypt. Its also a tailored hate piece for the two prevalent decks that can win game 1's outcome/shops.

[DunnyDee]

@vaughnbros Is there anyway we could get your current list?

[vaughnbros]

@dunnydee

[DunnyDee]

@vaughnbros Woah that's a super cool list. I'll have to scrounge up the tickets for force and unmask... I'd love to see it in action some time!

[vaughnbros]

@dunnydee

Oh its definitely not a budget dredge deck.

I think it works well in the Outcome heavy landscape though. All the answers are at 0 and 1 mana to keep the deck low to the ground, but it still has the grind factor against fair decks with the Loams+Pits+Canopies.

[DunnyDee]

@vaughnbros Yeah it's got a bit of a price tag but it seems really promising, I'll have to buy a set of Loam's tonight and give it a shot, although I'll have to use mindbreak trap over force and think of a budget replacement for the canopy's and unmask.

Maybe I'll try tranquil thicket for now.

[msg67183]

@vaughnbros
I see you have completely cut Bridges now, interesting to see.

[marcb]

@vaughnbros

I've always really liked your take on Dredge. I noticed this iteration removes the dark depths SB package in favor of hollowed one. Do you find this to be fast enough against PO decks and other fast decks in games 2/3 where they are also SB'ing? I really liked how your older lists could use LftL to recur Depths/Stage through Containment Priest and Grafdigger's cage. The current SB seems much more susceptible to the usual hate. What have been your experiences with this SB in comparison?

Marc

[vaughnbros]

@msg67183

I've found Bridge just leads you to play a number of suboptimal cards to try and support it, while in reality its just a win more. In game 1, you dont need a bunch of zombies to win with a turn 2/3 Griselbrand and post board Bridge has always been fairly unreliable.

@marcb

The Dark Depths combo was pretty slow too.
I liked the reliability of the uncounterable kill before, but that has become less true with the uptick of cards like Swords to Plowshares and Hangarback Walker. As for the speed of the "transform", you dont actually need to bring the Hollow Ones in for every game 2/3. The 8 pitch spells, 4 claims, 2 grudges, 2 pits is a comparable anti-hate package to a more traditional list and can fight through any type of hate.

[Oestrus]

@vaughnbros This is beautiful. I might just have to take it out for a spin myself this weekend.

[Ten-Ten]

@vaughnbros
Any vids to see you/this list in action?
I saw LSV run his Dredge list a day ago, I think, but he runs 4 Bridge. I Don't really enjoy his streams much though.

[vaughnbros]

@ten-ten

I have not streamed in quite some time (a lot of issues trying to stream where I lived the last couple years), but may start again in a couple weeks after I finish moving into my new apartment.

[Rat3dE]

Does anybody have any more advice for this thread? I was wondering if a Bloodghast/Life from the Loam based Dredge deck would be any good. I was thinking it would be a really wacky build, with FoW, MM, Prized Amalgam, LftF, and one of all the utility lands like Cabal Pit and Barbarian Ring, a few Riftstone Portals, and other lands as seen fit. You could cut some number of Bridge from Below as @vaughnbros suggests and just focus on a Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam and Barbarian Ring beat down that would be resistant to most hate. If you really want to get interesting you could even play some number of Creeping Chill to buy you time to get around hate.

[BlindTherapy]

@rat3de it's fairly feasible to just throw a loam or two, a pit or two, and a portal in a normal dredge deck, as you're already playing 4 bloodghast.

[Rat3dE]

@BlindTherapy Thank you. How does this tend to work with Pitch Dredge? Also does this make it easier to hardcast your spells during games 2 and 3?

[vaughnbros]

@rat3de

Loam is a pretty independently powerful card, pretty much no matter what version of dredge you are currently playing since all of the current builds have mana, and bloodghasts already anyway.

Loam doesn't help you get to 2 mana, but it certainly helps you cast anything beyond that as you can consistently hit land drops. You can definitely ramp up into a Golgari-Grave Troll and win via that in games where your opponent isn't applying a lot of pressure.

[Rat3dE]

@vaughnbros What would you recommend cutting to put in Loams and support lands?