If you've been around modern for any time at all, you know about a basic Jund or Abzan deck. Threats like Tarmogoyf to pressure your opponent's life total, or even block for days; Dark Confidant to get incremental card advantage turn after turn on a body; and Liliana of the Veil to play an attrition game furthered through targeted discard and removal like Thoughtseize, Lightning Bolt and Abrupt Decay.
Jund Loam has this base, but extends upon it with synergies and combos that will go bigger than other midrange decks and grind out control decks with incremental card advantage with the best card advantage spell ever printed, Life from the Loam.
But Patrick, I hear you say, It only gets lands back from your graveyard! What do I do with lands™?
By far the best combo in the deck and the one that holds the deck together is Life from the Loam + Seismic Assault
. With Seismic Assault, each turn you get at least 3 lands that can divide 6 damage among your opponent's board. If your opponent has no board, you can keep the lands in your hand to answer even bigger threats, or eventually aim them at your opponent's face to kill.
The reason why I said at least 3 lands is because of new cycling lands from Amonkhet. Canyon Slough and Sheltered Thicket both let you dredge loam multiple times in a turn not only to fill your yard faster, fueling Countryside Crusher and all manners of graveyard shenanigans, but to get more lands to discard to Seismic Assault. This way you can finish off your opponent in 2 turns late game rather than 3 or 4 as you would've had to before the bicycle lands were printed.
Raven's Crime is a card that seems lackluster before you play it in your deck. A 1 mana, you discard a card of your choice is probably unplayable in modern. But when you can do it 3 or 4 times in a single turn along with Life from the Loam, the card turns from junk to Mind Twist. This card is insane against control decks, often making your opponents run out counterspells on loam rather than your threats letting you run out Goyfs and Countryside Crusher for free. Flame Jab does this same thing against X/1s, and can be another way to get the last points of damage to win the game if you don't have a Seismic Assault.
Along with the "loam centered" cards we have a bunch of threats that your opponents will need to answer in Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Liliana of the Veil, and Countryside Crusher. If you've never seen Crusher, it's basically a 3 mana Goyf that gets way more huge and makes you never draw lands again. That being said, with all the dredging, discarding, sacing fetches and Ghost Quarters, I've had crusher go over 16 power unanswered. The card is nuts when you are doing anything with lands.
While dredging through your deck, there are lots of one of spells to get back from your yard in case your primary gameplan goes south. Darkblast is another hoser to get rid of X/1s that can dredge to hit more things, especially loam. Cut // Ribbons is great early as a kill spell and late as the last points of damage to kill your opponent (still testing, and in the testing it hasn't been as impactful as I would expect.). Heaven // Earth wraths the board from the yard, letting you worry about dredging instead of drawing an out. Worm Harvest is the card that will most likely win the game when it goes long and drains resources. Casting it from the yard requires you to discard a land, but if you do, you will usually be making anywhere from 7-10 worms tokens that will stabilize the board and start attacking. Then, the next turn, you do it again. The card is great late game.
Transform Sideboard Show
The sideboard has a few cards that you can board in vs various matchups: Grudge vs Affinity and Lantern, Decay and Pulse as extra removal when you need it, Anger as a sweeper, plus the creatures can come in by themselves when needed as extra threats or blockers.
Generally, post G1 you will transform to throw off your opponents. This involves taking out most of the graveyard stuff in your maindeck and replacing it with removal and value creatures, basically transforming into a bigger Jund deck.
In most matchups, the sideboarding will look like this:
4
Life from the Loam
3 Seismic Assault
1 Heaven // Earth
1 Flame Jab
1 Cut // Ribbons
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Raven's Crime
The first thing we take out is the easily interactable graveyard stuff, loam and assault. Heaven // Earth loses most of its value as it won't be in the graveyard to be easily casted anymore, but instead has to be put there by casting Heaven for 0. The postboard deck usually stalls out at 4 due to Countryside Crusher anyway, so you can't usually cast it for a whole lot. Flame Jab generally comes out because you want to be playing your lands, and it isn't really impactful for a lot of decks. this changes if the opponent is playing a bunch of X/1s! In that case, just board out both Raven's Crime. Having a single crime in the deck lets you use your floods to your advantage late game if you ever do flood. Being able to interact despite flooding is amazing. We can board out a land since we curve out at 4, and take out Cut // Ribbons because we have better removal.
This sideboarding will punish your opponent for bringing in GY hate against us. Most people will be packing it, and if they are not, you can go back to your original gameplan G3 (if there is one).
Thank you for reading this essay of a description, and please give any suggestions that you have to make it better. Upvoting the deck will let more people see it and give advice, so please do that thing too.
Happy Brewing!
-Patrick