You Got Loamed! or Wild Zombies Takes A Mox Ruby in Hamilton. This is the story of how a four-year-old Extended deck took down a Type 1 tournament, fighting through some very stiff competition to win a Mox Ruby.
For those of you who don't remember, here's the original Wild Zombies deck that Your Move Games came up with so many years ago.
Can you imagine if Judgment was actually legal and had been released for this Pro Tour? Nothing would have beaten that deck had it included Krosan Reclamation, Cabal Therapy, and Anger.
The tournament was being held at Big B Comics in Hamilton, Ontario by Mark Sims. Mark is an avid Type 1 player, was Top 8 at the StarCityGames.com Power Nine: Syracuse, and is an all around super-guy. (He also owns the store.)
My friend Jason Chau and I get picked up by Peter Olszewski (second place at SCG P9: Rochester) and we proceeded to pick up Rich Mattiuzzo (third place at SCG P9: Rochester) and Lam Phan (undefeated in the Swiss at SCG P9 Syracuse) to round out our car. The level of competition in the car alone is quite steep.
I tell everyone that I'm playing a casual fun deck that smashes Fish, which is by far the most-played archetype in Ontario. I'm just out to have fun, since I haven't played Type 1 since SCG: P9 Rochester, where I had food poisoning and had to drop halfway through the game. Everyone in the car is polite when I try to inform them that Life From The Loam is totally busted and that my deck actually has a chance. I'm sure they had their doubts; the deck is so far outside of anything seen in Type 1 that it sounds janky.
We arrive just in time to notice there are a few other recognizable names in attendance: Nick Rosu and Bryan Finch of Team Nonesense (fourth and fifth place at SCG: Rochester), Derek Denholme (Top 8 at Canadian Nationals 2005) and member of my testing team Rat Pack, and another member of my team, Ryan Trepanier, who just qualified for Los Angeles. But truthfully, neither of my teammates play much Type 1.
There are forty-one players in attendance and I recognize most of them as seasoned Type 1 players. This is not going to be easy.
Here is what I played to carry me through the rough competition:
This deck's existence is solely due to the power of Life From The Loam. This card lets you run fewer Wastelands and removes your fear of seeing Bazaar Of Baghdad blown up. It also helps to meet your splash color requirements, and dredges to put more goodies in the yard, providing card advantage to help your Zombie Infestations and Bazaars. Life From The Loam also acts like a Crucible Of Worlds when combined with Wasteland to lock your opponents out, or to keep them off-balance long enough for the beats to do their job. So essentially, in this deck it's a Squee-Mentalnote-Ancestral-CrucibleofWorlds all wrapped up in a neat little 1G sorcery package.
It's amusing, though, how close this deck really is to the original Wild Zombies deck. Even though this version doesn't have the "oops, I win" speed of Hermit Druid it does have a card advantage engine and a solid mana base with some amazing synergies. This definitely plays more of a disruption game than its predecessor.
Round 1: Some person playing Zombies (Not the Wild variety)
This guy is obviously just out to have fun, just like me. He is playing an Onslaught Block Zombie deck with Duress, Cabal Therapy, and Dark Ritual thrown in to make it Type 1-powered.
Game 1:
He stalls at two lands, but keeps drawing Dark Rituals and gets out some Undead Warchiefs, which make all his men bigger than mine. I eventually get out a Zombie Infestation to hold the ground, and soon enough I have enough guys to start swinging back to take game 1 with only six life left.
I board in Firestorms.
Game 2:
He starts off with a Mox Jet and a Dark Ritual into an Undead Warchief, which isn't so bad so I follow with a Mox into a Wild Mongrel, with a Basking Rootwalla hiding in my hand to join the party later. On his second turn, he plays Black Lotus and drops Call To The Grave... And now it looks like my Basking Rootwalla is only going to keep my dog alive for one turn.
I'm trying to think of what I have that can deal with a Call To The Grave (other than hard-casting Squee every turn, of course). Of course, being the lucky guy I am after sacrificing my Rootwalla, I draw a Zombie Infestation to make my own zombies which unlike dogs and lizards, do not die to a pseudo-The Abyss.
1-0, 2-0
Round 2: Lam Phan, playing an updated version of Bird S**t though it doesn't have white in it anymore so it should really just be called U/G Threshold.
Game 1:
He plays some Nimble Mongeese and Werebears; I play some dogs and zombies. Realistically, this isn't a fair fight; I have a lot more men than he does, not to mention Zombie Infestation shenanigans and an uncounterable draw engine, whereas he has eight creatures total and no real removal. His men are bigger early on and they smash me, but I soon stabilize with an Infestation for eternal chump-blocking duties and soon enough, a Life From The Loam starts working on his mana base to shut him out of the game.
When we are sideboarding, we discuss the fact that there is no way his present configuration of the deck can really try to match up against an aggro deck like mine with so many creatures, barring any ridiculous starts on his part. He doesn't even have Swords To Plowshares or Wonder to fight past my guys.
Game 2:
He keeps a sketchy hand he thought might be fun, since he can't really win this match anyway. He ends up being land-screwed even after a Brainstorm and Mental Note, and my guys end up coming down uncountered. It's over after that.
2-0, 4-0
After this round ended, I start trading with my friend Matt Hensley, who is really interested in my deck list. But I don't want to show it to him, since he is also 2-0 and we might end up playing each other. He shows me his crap binder first and as soon as I open it, right at front page center is a Whippoorwill. Of course I ask if it's up for trade, and he laughs. "Ha ha! Good one."
Then I inform him I'm serious and I need one for my second set of The Dark.
He just stares at me blankly, at a loss for words. Someone actually wanted the Whippoorwill after it's rode the binder for at least three years.
Round 3: A Special Surprise Guest
So who do I play in Round 3 but Matt Hensley, of course? He's running U/B Dragon. Good thing I didn't show him my deck list.
Game 1:
I don't know what he is playing yet, so I keep a disruption-light hand with some fast beats. I beat him down fast and get a Last Rites off to make him play off the top. He has a Bazaar of Baghdad and one Squee working, so I need to finish this quickly. I beat him down some more and have lethal damage next turn, but he manages to find the last piece of his combo with his Bazaar activation to steal the game back.
This is a bad matchup for me, as illustrated in Game One. Even if I put him on a clock and disrupt him, he can still win off the top.
I board in Pithing Needles, Ray of Revelations, Plateau, and some Red Elemental Blasts for his Compulsions and Thirst For Knowledges.
Game 2:
I start with a Wild Mongrel, a Ray of Revelation, and a fetchland to go get my Plateau. He has an early Bazaar and Duresses me, seeing only the Ray of Revelation, and has to rethink his game plan to win around a Ray in the yard.
I start beating him down and get a Wasteland for his Bazaar so of course, he rips a second Bazaar off the top. To match his luckiness, I tell him I'm going to rip a Life From The Loam and Loam him out of the game, and that's exactly what happens. He had a few turns to get out of the Wasteland lock, but he was always a few cards too short to win through the Ray of Revelation in the graveyard.
Game 3:
I get a similar start to the last game, and feel pretty comfortable with a Ray in my hand. I start the offense, and he once again Duresses me and takes the Ray, then proceeds to craft a hand to win through the Ray.
I attack him for a few turns with a Wild Mongrel and Basking Rootwalla, and he Duresses me to see if it's safe to go off next turn... Which it would be, except on my turn I draw into the second Ray! I must have smiled, or maybe one of the people watching the match gave it away but Matt was apprehensive about going off even though he is facing lethal damage next turn. He goes for it and loses to my double-Ray.
Dumbfounded, Matt just stares at me. "You had to have it, didn't you?" he asks. "First, you actually traded for a Whippoorwill, then you rip the second Ray, and now you're 3-0 with a zombie dog deck. You totally have to send me that list."
3-0, 6-1
Round 4: I get paired against another person in my car, Rich Mattiuzzo (Shockwave) playing U/R Landstill.
Rich offers me a draw since we are friends and because there is almost no way of his deck ever beating mine, so I decline.
Game 1:
This goes according to plan. Landstill is the type of control deck that can't really "just win" like Gifts Ungiven can, and it can never beat uncounterable card drawing and threats. That being said, he starts off game one with a first-turn Nevinyrral's Disk off a Black Lotus ouch!
That's pretty much the best thing he can possibly do against me game one. I can't commit too many threats to the board, and in the meantime he starts beating me with Mishra's Factories. He eventually has to blow the Disk, and I get a Life From The Loam to work on his manlands, then Loam him out of the game.
Game 2:
He keeps a Library Of Alexandria and not much else. I have the Wasteland, and he proceeds to draw very few lands. I win without ever seeing his sideboard plan.
That's foreshadowing, incidentally.
4-0, 8-1
So I'm the only 4-0; the other 3-0s were Gifts Ungiven decks, and they didn't want to go through an agonizing, luck-dependent mirror match, so they drew. Everyone is talking about the crazy Zombie Loam deck, and people keep asking for my list. My entire goal for this tournament so far had been to have fun and hopefully make the Top Eight so that the Tournament Organizer would post my list, as he posts all the top eight lists for every Type 1 tournament.
Round 5: Mark Coombes playing Meandeck Gifts/Oath of Druids
This pairing isn't very good for me at all; he's such a superior player that it's not even funny, and since he drew the last round he can't draw with me.
Game 1:
I keep an "all-in" hand on the play of Mox, Zombie Infestation, double-Squee, and a Krovikan Horror. I figure this is acceptable, as it is really fast but if he has the Force of Will, I'm dead. If I don't come out of the gates with guns blazin', I'm dead.
So I play the Zombie Infestation and it resolves. Yay, I don't lose! I make a zombie and get the Krovikan Horror back at the end step to make another one. He says "go," and I untap and beat for four, make a zombie, and say go. This goes on for another few turns, and I win on turn 4 when I attack for twelve.
We're both a little surprised; if he'd found an Oath or a Gifts I was dead. He drew a lot of, cards but just couldn't find anything to steal the game.
I board in two Artifact Mutations, three Red Elemental Blasts, two Ray of Revelations, and the Plateau.
Game 2:
I beat him down quite fast and disrupt him quite a bit with Wastelands and Cabal Therapies. He rips an Oath Of Druids off the top after I stripped his hand of anything useful. I have an Artifact Mutation in my hand and lethal damage in two turns, so I figure I am quite safe and there is no way he can win.
He Oaths and flips over his whole library. Oops!
He boarded out the Darksteel Colossus, and combos me out with ease. I totally didn't see that coming, as Darksteel Colossus is really good against me but I guess winning is good, too.
Game 3:
I can't win or disrupt fast enough and he combos me out with ease.
4-1, 9-3
Round 6:
I intentionally draw with my teammate Derek Denholme.
4-1-1, 9-3
Derek is a really good player; he made Top 8 at Canadian Nationals this year, but he doesn't know a lot about Type 1. Funny thing is, he's running a BBS list from 1998, Morphlings and all. This wouldn't be funny, except for the fact that Derek is only fourteen years old, so the deck is literally half his age!
The top 8 looks like this:
Mark Coombes: MD Gifts/Oath vs. Jason Chau: OFM2K5 (UW fish) (Jason wins 2-0)
Richard Mattiuzzo: Landstill vs. Andrew Oyen: Wild Zombies
Steven Brown OFM2K5 (UW fish) vs. Derek Denholm BBS (Derek wins 2-1)
Rich Watson: Salvagers Oath vs. Peter Olszewski: Gifts (Peter wins)
So unfortunately, I have to play Rich again. It would have been excellent if either of us could have gotten paired up against Steve or Derek so the top four could potentially be just our car. As for my bracket, I really need Jason to beat Mark because as round 5 illustrated Oath is a much harder matchup than Fish.
Top Eight: Rich with Landstill.
Game 1: I roll him as my deck should, just like it did in the Swiss.
I board in Red Elemental Blasts and Pithing Needle. This ended up being a mistake; I never got to see what Rich boarded in for game two in our first match, and had I known I would have boarded differently.
Game 2:
He plays a Phyrexian Furnace that gets working on my graveyard, then lays down a Chalice Of The Void for two. Uh oh. I have no way of breaking those artifacts and the Chalice shuts off all of my primary win conditions. Thankfully, I have an active Bazaar and Landstill doesn't exactly have a fast clock, so it's going to come down to me playing the Krovikan Horrors, and getting out some Ashen Ghouls and Basking Rootwallas.
I keep dredging back a Life From The Loam (even though I can't cast it) so that my graveyard becomes well-stocked, which also keeps his Furnace from killing my graveyard. A Krovikan Horror and a Squee, Goblin Nabob get into play, and at that point it becomes really difficult for him to try to win with 2/1 and 2/2 manlands because of the Horror's second ability. I'm able to eventually overwhelm him with my team, even though I'm using the second-stringers instead of the dogs and zombies. I had about sixteen cards left in my library near the end.
Halfway through that very long second game I hear that Jason won out over Mark's Gifts/Oath deck, so I'm in very good shape to make it to the finals.
5-1-1, 11-3
Top 4: Jason playing OFM2K5 (U/W Fish, the version that made top eight at Rochester)
Game 1: Fish can't really win against this monstrosity. I have faster, bigger men and an uncounterable draw engine that he can't keep up with.
We both get some guys out, but I have Life From The Loam so he can't really disrupt me and I run him over. This game is really quick. As we go to sideboard, Jason says, "Gah! How can I beat that? I literally have no chance in game one, and I have zero cards to bring in for game two."
I board in Firestorms and Red Elemental Blasts.
Game 2:
This is the fastest game I played all day. On his turn 2, he plays a Cloud Of Faeries, and a Meddling Mage naming Zombie Infestation. My turn 2, I fetch out a red land and Firestorm both his guys while pitching a Rootwalla and an Ashen Ghoul.
He doesn't have a Force of Will and just scoops up his cards in disgust but he's still laughing at how bad the matchup is.
6-1-1, 13-3
Peter beats Derek in the other bracket, so I'm playing Peter in the finals. Peter was the one who drove us all out here, so he asks, "How are you getting home if you win?"
I'm happy to work out some kind of split since I know I probably can't beat him but he already did a split before the tournament with Lam and Rich. So because there's already a three-way split, they don't really want to dilute that especially against a good matchup. We end up playing for the Mox, with the loser getting $120 store credit.
Finals: Gifts.
This match up is a lot better than the Gifts/Oath one, as my disruption is way more relevant and keeping Gifts off its mana is more effective without him being able to rip Oath off the top to just win. My clock is really fast and if you disrupt a Gifts deck just enough they usually can't win before turn 5 or 6.
Game 1:
I get some quick beats with a Wild Mongrel and his friend the Basking Rootwalla. As I'm beating him down, Peter just draws cards; he knows that if he can just reach a critical mass, there is nothing I can do about it. He also whips a maindeck Pithing Needle into play, shutting off my Bazaar.
But on turn 5, after he had to discard two cards to a Thirst For Knowledge, I somehow resolve a Last Rites for the full five cards in his hand! I look at his hand, and he had two lands in it, so he discards the other three.
At this point I think I'm in pretty good shape, as he is playing off the top and will be dead from my beats in a couple of turns. He draws his card for the turn and says, "Interesting" at which point the guys watching him play start laughing and say "Interesting? You are so lucky!"
Peter casts a Merchant Scroll into an Ancestral Recall, draws some more cards, and manages to combo me out after I draw nothing of consequence the next turn.
For sideboarding, I bring in Artifact Mutations, Red Elemental Blasts, and Pithing Needles. People questioned my choice to bring in Pithing Needles, but I stand by my decision: My reasoning was that I have almost no way of stopping the Time Vault combo if he brings it in. He can resolve a Time Vault in the early game and draw into a Flame Fusillade at any time to just ruin me.
Game 2:
A Zombie Infestation comes down uncontested and I manage to keep his hand in check with a couple of Cabal Therapies. I had a Red Elemental Blast in my hand from my opening grip and I blast away his first Gifts Ungiven without a fight. I Waste some lands and he is forced to Gifts for mana to stay alive.... But that doesn't help for very long.
Game 3:
Peter has to mulligan. He draws a bunch of cards but doesn't seem to be very satisfied with the results. I resolve a Mongrel on turn 2 with a Rootwalla, and on turn 3 I cast a Demonic Tutor while leaving up a red mana to bluff a Blast. My Tutor goes through, and I grab a Strip Mine to try to keep him land-light long enough for my beats to finish the job.
Peter does stay land-light, and he can't seem to find much action even with all his card drawing. I topdeck a Life From The Loam and manage to steal the Mox after Loaming him out of the game!
Peter says, "Good game" and is generous enough to still give me a ride home so I don't have to spend $200 on a two-hour cab ride back to my house.
7-1-1, 15-4
If I were to play this deck again and I will I suggest the following changes:
-3 Ashen Ghoul
These are only really good in match ups that already favor you, like Landstill and Fish; you don't need the long-game beats, as Loam or Krovikans can seal the deal just fine.
+3 Duress
I often found I was a little light on disruption, especially against the Tier One control/combo decks. These obviously help out your Therapies as well.
In the sideboard, I would make the following changes:
- 1 Firestorm
- 1 Pithing Needle
With the added Duresses in the main deck, the Needles don't need to work that hard. The Needles were okay on the day, but they were very rarely better than a Duress... And not too many people were packing Tormod's Crypts or Phyrexian Furnaces.
+2 Coffin Purge
I cannot believe that I overlooked these! There were a lot of close games on the day that would have been a complete blowout had I been packing these. These and the Duress should make your Gifts, Gifts variants, and Dragon match up a whole bunch easier.
Here is a link to all the top eight lists and the metagame breakdown; thanks again to Mark for posting the lists. And here's a picture of me looking stupid and happy holding my new Mox Ruby.
Smiles:
Thanks to Mark Sims for holding an awesome tournament with great prizes (and staying open late). I'm glad I went to this instead of Provincials, as the prize support was way better which is really sad. Props for getting the decklists up in a matter of hours! A lot of people were asking for my list.
Thanks to all my opponents, who were all better players than me, and for being good sports after losing to my pile of corpses.
Congratulations go out to everyone in Peter O's car, as four out of five of us made the top 8! (And three out of four of us were the top 4!)
Props to Derek Denholme for getting top four with a seven-year-old decklist, but riding his play skill all that way.
Huge props go out to Life From The Loam for loaming up my opponents all day long, and for being the best card in Ravnica. Every time this spell got cast, my opponents just slumped in their chair; they knew they couldn't stop it and it was just going to own them for the rest of the game.
Props go out to the Ice Age Block for Death Spark, Ashen Ghoul, and Krovikan Horror. This deck is only going to get more broken with Coldsnap this summer!
Tony P in Vancouver for giving me some Hobby Japan 3D zombie tokens, and also my huge pile of unglued and rewards zombie tokens I had for when the 3D ones ran out.
Team Rat Pack.
Frowns:
Proxies, but not proxy tournaments.
Thanks for reading.
Andrew
ReAnimator420 on the forums.
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