Spotlight: Life from the Loam

Life from the Loam is one of those cards that seems simple on the surface, but there's a lot going on here.

Before we get into all that, let's break down the card and take a look at what it does.

For two mana, 1G, you get to return up to three land cards from your graveyard to you hand.

If that's all this card did, it would be a pretty good deal. Three-for-one and protection against land destruction.

But of course, Life from the Loam is so much more.

Dredge is a cool ability that lets you replace a card you would draw with, in this case, Life from the Loam. In other words, if you are going to draw a card, you can instead use Dredge to get this card back.

Oh, and lookie here, you get to mill three cards into your graveyard. What can we do with that?



As it turns out, being able to consistently mill yourself enables a lot of cool strategies including Replenish, Open the Vaults, Planar Birth, Nighthowler, Bonehoard, Living Death, Patriarch's Bidding, Jarad... the list goes on.

And if that's all Life from the Loam did, it would be a pretty darn good deal.

But of course, Life from the Loam is so much more.

The dream set up is Life from the Loam in your hand, with one fetch land in your graveyard and two one-mana cycling lands.

Why?

Check this out.



Let's say you are holding Life from the Loam in your hand with Misty Rainforest in your graveyard along with Tranquil Thicket and Lonely Sandbar.

Okay, that's three lands in your graveyard, right?

Step 1: Spend 1G to cast Life from the Loam and return Misty, Thicket, and Sandbar.
Step 2: Play Misty and crack it to put an untapped land into play.
Step 3: Cycle the Thicket off the untapped land to draw a card.
Step 4: Cycle the Sandbar, using Dredge to replace the draw, putting Life from the Loam back in your hand. Mill three.

You now have a land in play (from the Misty), an extra card in hand (from the Thicket), and Life from the Loam back in your hand (from the Sandbar). The three original lands are back in your graveyard. You are up one card and one land in play for the low-low cost of 1G+G+U, but one mana you spent came from the land you got with the Misty.

In other words, for 3 (or 4) mana, you have a consistent way to play a land every turn, draw an additional card, and mill three more cards into your graveyard. As I mentioned before, putting cards into your graveyard enables lots of different strategies.

The engine is super-flexible, too. You can cycle twice if you need to draw something right now. You can even Dredge twice with a little planning if you are trying to fill up your graveyard. Restart the engine on your next draw step if Life from the Loam gets stranded.



Since there are one-mana cycling lands for every color, this setup also works for non-Blue decks. Red/Green, Black/Green, or even White/Green, using Life from the Loam, now have access to repeatable card draw with upside.



But if you do happen to have access to Blue, track down a copy of Intuition to get this party started right. By searching for Life from the Loam and two cycling lands, no matter what card your opponent gives you, the engine is started. You can always cycle to get back Life from the Loam.



Life from the Loam can similarly be used to punish or lock down decks by repeatedly using it to return Strip Mine or Wasteland. Use this strategy at your own peril - people hate this - but it's certainly an option. Be one of the good guys that uses this to take out other utility lands around the table.

If you are already running Life from the Loam, let me know what you use it for in the comments. Post a link to your decklist so that we can check it out.