A few weeks ago I lent my Punishing Jund deck to a friend for Legacy FNM. Midway through the tournament he asked what a singleton Life from the Loam was doing in the sideboard. I couldn't give a proper answer since I was in the middle of the match, but I think I responded with something along the lines of "it does everything".
I too used to ponder the purpose of the occasional 1-of Loam I saw in Jund sideboards. As an Aggro Loam player in particular, I scoffed at the notion of jamming Loam as an afterthought in such an "unoptimized" Loam deck. I read some arguments in its favor online, and was convinced enough to try it out myself at the 2015 GP Providence Legacy side event. It made one appearance in five rounds, during which I Wasted someone into oblivion. That was enough to get me to play it in a few more tournaments, and I soon found it fulfilled a surprisingly diverse and flexible role in the deck I wasn't even aware of, and took for granted playing Aggro Loam.
One set of prevalent decks Loam is very strong against are Delver decks. As long as you have mana in play you will be in a good position to out-muscle a Delver deck with your spells, and no card allows to you hit land drops and recover from Wasteland better than Loam. Once you survive to the mid-late game, Loam also turns into a win-con. Since Delver decks have no basics, once you get ahead on board you can Loam back your own Wastelands with impunity to destroy all their lands. If you play a Sylvan Library maindeck, I think it is an easy swap for a sideboard Loam. Lands are more important than cards in Delver matchups since you're often dying with spells in hand, and Loam also has a painless, immediate effect.
Loam is another powerful tool in many midrange matchups like Shardless BUG and Death & Taxes. These matchups are often very grindy, with Wastelands playing an important role on either end of the table. Dredging Loam in conjunction with Liliana of the Veil offers an avenue of gaining incremental advantage, enabling you to increase Liliana's loyalty while preserving important spells in hand by discarding Loam or accompanying lands. The downside of Dredging is in fact quite small in this deck. Your deck is quite streamlined and redundant, so turning over a few copies of a card doesn't hurt much. On the other hand, Dredging can increase Tarmogoyf's power by adding a card type to the graveyard, provide fresh fuel for Deathrite Shaman, or hit Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire to turn on your removal engine.
There are several decks in Legacy revolving around crucial lands where bolstering your Wasteland plan with Loam becomes paramount since you generally will only be playing 3 Wastelands. These matchups include Infect (Inkmoth Nexus), MUD (Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Cloudpost), Turbo Eldrazi (Cloudpost, Vesuva, Eye of Ugin, Karakas), and Lands (Rishadan Port, Maze of Ith, Dark Depths). In the case of Lands, the ability to also fight back against their oppressive mana denial will make or break games.
Tl;dr - Loam fulfills a unique role in the deck by offering utility across an impressive breadth of matchups.
I too used to ponder the purpose of the occasional 1-of Loam I saw in Jund sideboards. As an Aggro Loam player in particular, I scoffed at the notion of jamming Loam as an afterthought in such an "unoptimized" Loam deck. I read some arguments in its favor online, and was convinced enough to try it out myself at the 2015 GP Providence Legacy side event. It made one appearance in five rounds, during which I Wasted someone into oblivion. That was enough to get me to play it in a few more tournaments, and I soon found it fulfilled a surprisingly diverse and flexible role in the deck I wasn't even aware of, and took for granted playing Aggro Loam.
One set of prevalent decks Loam is very strong against are Delver decks. As long as you have mana in play you will be in a good position to out-muscle a Delver deck with your spells, and no card allows to you hit land drops and recover from Wasteland better than Loam. Once you survive to the mid-late game, Loam also turns into a win-con. Since Delver decks have no basics, once you get ahead on board you can Loam back your own Wastelands with impunity to destroy all their lands. If you play a Sylvan Library maindeck, I think it is an easy swap for a sideboard Loam. Lands are more important than cards in Delver matchups since you're often dying with spells in hand, and Loam also has a painless, immediate effect.
Loam is another powerful tool in many midrange matchups like Shardless BUG and Death & Taxes. These matchups are often very grindy, with Wastelands playing an important role on either end of the table. Dredging Loam in conjunction with Liliana of the Veil offers an avenue of gaining incremental advantage, enabling you to increase Liliana's loyalty while preserving important spells in hand by discarding Loam or accompanying lands. The downside of Dredging is in fact quite small in this deck. Your deck is quite streamlined and redundant, so turning over a few copies of a card doesn't hurt much. On the other hand, Dredging can increase Tarmogoyf's power by adding a card type to the graveyard, provide fresh fuel for Deathrite Shaman, or hit Grove of the Burnwillows/Punishing Fire to turn on your removal engine.
There are several decks in Legacy revolving around crucial lands where bolstering your Wasteland plan with Loam becomes paramount since you generally will only be playing 3 Wastelands. These matchups include Infect (Inkmoth Nexus), MUD (Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Cloudpost), Turbo Eldrazi (Cloudpost, Vesuva, Eye of Ugin, Karakas), and Lands (Rishadan Port, Maze of Ith, Dark Depths). In the case of Lands, the ability to also fight back against their oppressive mana denial will make or break games.
Tl;dr - Loam fulfills a unique role in the deck by offering utility across an impressive breadth of matchups.
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