[Deck] Dredge

[Izor]

Speaking about the sneak show matchup, I just noticed that was the finals at the SCG Orlando, both decks running Griselbrand:
www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/finals_mark_eilers_vs_david_mc.html

True. The difference being that Griselbrand is actually a pretty hot tech for one of those decks, but entirely useless in the other deck...

[majikal]

True. The difference being that Griselbrand is actually a pretty hot tech for one of those decks, but entirely useless in the other deck...

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/round_8_gerald_orrison_vs_mark.html

Griselbrand is a badass in Dredge. I gave him that tech on Saturday and it obviously did him some good.

[HokusSchmokus]

I disagree. Irrelevant ability.

[Einherjer]

I disagree. Irrelevant ability.

Agreed! When you need a Main-Board-Dread-Return-Target then grab a Flayer. He is badass!

[Calado]

Irrelevant is a strong word. Since the other DR target were FKZ, Griselbrand helped him to reach his combo. Worked like Ad Nauseam on TES.

[Izor]

Irrelevant is a strong word. Since the other DR target were FKZ, Griselbrand helped him to reach his combo. Worked like Ad Nauseam on TES.

Poor comparison.

TES doesn't pass the turn with lethal on the board if they don't get to cast their AdN-->ToA.

[NecroYawgmoth]

I disagree. Irrelevant ability.

+1

Flayer or Iona have FAR more relevant mainboard abilities. Even Elesh Norn has... :eek:


Irrelevant is a strong word. Since the other DR target were FKZ, Griselbrand helped him to reach his combo. Worked like Ad Nauseam on TES.

Besides that bad comparsion: Sphinx of Lost Truths or even Cephalid Sage [good ol' times] were there before Griselbrand, neither of them were relevant enough to stay in Dredge's mainboard.

Griselbrand needs 2 DRs to kill the Opponent [DR & FKZ] and 2 DR targets. So it wastes 1 more slot than Flayer. Additionally, Griselbrand can't win in akward situations like Flayer can.

I do agree that Griselbrand is a monster in manaless, but that's a different story.

[HokusSchmokus]

The only thing Grisel is good for is drawing 7 cards game 2-3 when you need a chain/claim midgame. Every other time, you cannot draw 7 with dredging.Maybe 5. But still not worth it for 7 life, when Sphinx does a similar job.

[Final Fortune]

Griselbrand is pretty decent, I don't think he's any worse than Iona, Shield of Emeria or Flayer of the Hatebound fwiw. You just have to ask yourself whether or not you want a Dread Return target in the first place, and it really comes down to being overkill in the MD, IMO, and useful post-board when you want to differentiate your angles of attack vs Surgical Extraction and need a secondary target for when Golgari Grave Troll is RFGed.

I actually think Flayer is the worst, just because he requires the 3rd Dread Return and multiple Dread Return activations to do anything.

Anybody can win with Dredge game 1, it's really now your 75 works out over 3 games that matters.

[jares]

I disagree. Irrelevant ability.
I wouldn't say that Griselbrand's ability is "irrelevant", but I would surely say that the card's inclusion is unnecessary (which, in my opinion, also borders on being "win-more"). Its ability does surely power-up the deck to its limits, but it's not always true that the cost and benefit of running the card is essential to winning games, at least in the current meta.

Anybody can win with Dredge game 1, it's really how your 75 works out over 3 games that matters.
I most certainly agree.

Cheers,
jares

[joemauer]

....

[joemauer]

I would use Grislebrand along side Flayer. This would be the best way to optimize Grislebrand as well as Flayer.

Grislebrand is a good target on it's own. Works a similar role as Sun Titan. Establish awesome board presence while drawing/dredging cards. I imagine he would be nice to accidentally have in hand against Show and Tell decks.

I mean he eats up one card of the deck and is an insta-win if dread returned. Why all the hate?

[HokusSchmokus]

Grislebrand isn't a good target on it's own.
Fixed.

[Final Fortune]

Fixed.

Seriously dude, I don't know whether or not Griselbrand kicked your dog or something, but it's perfectly fine to play just 2xDR and a Griselbrand in your MD or SB. That guy has been nothing but awesome in every archetype that he's been sensibly included in, and Dredge isn't that much of a stretch for him. Whether or not you actually want to play with Dread Return and a target at all is another argument, but it doesn't really have anything to do with Griselbrand being a bad choice if you do choose to play DR and a target.

I've had pretty much no regrets running 2xDR and a Griselbrand in my SB for awhile to fight Surgical Extraction fwiw.

[Brot_Ohne_Kruste]

Hi there,

here is my little report from the Bazaar of Moxen 6 tournaments: www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23872-20-05-12-BoM-6-Vintage-Mainevent-and-bonus-First-place-in-Vintage-with-Dredge

I hope you like it :-).

[rxavage]

I've had pretty much no regrets running 2xDR and a Griselbrand in my SB for awhile to fight Surgical Extraction fwiw.


How does Griselbrand fight surgical extraction exactly?

[Calado]

I'm getting confused about this. Speaking about versatility, we have usually:
-Flayer, wich allow us winning without attacking (needing another DR on GY);
-Iona, wich can shut down the opponent spells (doesn't help against Emrakul on the board either);
-Angel of Despair, wich can destroy something critical that was stopping us or can remove their wincon (very good against Emrakul/Griselbrand/Archon/etc);
-Griselbrand, wich can dredge the entire deck finding whatever is in it instantly (DRs, DR targets that can be one of the mentioned above, Narco/Bridges, Cabals, etc). This is the all-in play, wich can guarantee the use of the full potential of the deck the same turn.

I can't understand why all options are good but Griselbrand, considering that all of them does the job when DR'ed. A "winmore condition" sometimes can turn an "almost win" into a real victory, especially against fast clocks.

[HokusSchmokus]

The thing is that you are never able to use Griselbrands effect properly. If you DR him, you should have at least 20 cards in your gy, most likely more. Than pay 7 life for a draw 3-4? I don't think Griselbrand is efficient in this deck, that is all.

Also, for every German speaker: check out Brot's blog at mtg-forum.de, way better report:P

[dredgekid]

The thing is that you are never able to use Griselbrands effect properly. If you DR him, you should have at least 20 cards in your gy, most likely more. Than pay 7 life for a draw 3-4? I don't think Griselbrand is efficient in this deck, that is all.

Also, for every German speaker: check out Brot's blog at mtg-forum.de, way better report:P

You are looking at it wrong. In a combo shell of dredge with a flayer kill, Gris reads WIN TARGET GAME. Find all pieces you are missing and kill them.

[Tammit67]

You are looking at it wrong. In a combo shell of dredge with a flayer kill, Gris reads WIN TARGET GAME. Find all pieces you are missing and kill them.

Which you made harder to do initially with 3 DR + 2 targets. I'd rather run 2 DR and 1 target and nut up on things that will get me to that point. Any dread return target should win us the game on its own. If resolving a DR wins us that game, I'd rather do it more consistently and with fewer slots.

[NecroYawgmoth]

You are looking at it wrong. In a combo shell of dredge with a flayer kill, Gris reads WIN TARGET GAME. Find all pieces you are missing and kill them.

Which needs 3 DRs in one turn...

DR Grisel, pay 7 life, flip your deck.
DR Flayer, do the usual stuff
DR GGT, win.

How many DRs would you want in that deck? :rolleyes:

[Anusien]

Griselbrand is an updated Sphinx of Lost Truths. If you ran that effect, you run Griselbrand instead. If you didn't, Griselbrand isn't significantly better enough to justify his inclusion.

[Calado]

If you DR him, you should have at least 20 cards in your gy, most likely more. Than pay 7 life for a draw 3-4?
If with 20 cards in GY you will win, then with 50 cards it'll be the same. But the opposite doesn't happen. Sometimes you need that bridge or that DR target that didn't come yet.
You guys are analyzing only scenarios where you don't need him. The question is: When you can't win without DR, how often will Griselbrand turn the loss into a win?

[NecroYawgmoth]

When you can't win without DR, how often will Flayer of the Hatebound turn the loss into a win?
When you can't win without DR, how often will Iona, Shield of Emeria turn the loss into a win?

I am not saying Griselbrand is bad. He is an updated Sphinx, right... This is why he is better in Manaless which doesn't have any drawspells. But in a deck with 8 Studies and 4 BTs, why Do I want a DR-target that draws cards?

Yes, Griselbrand is the next best Sphinx. But no one runned Sphinx, and now everyone wants to run Griselbrand.

[HokusSchmokus]

Griselbrand is an updated Sphinx of Lost Truths. If you ran that effect, you run Griselbrand instead. If you didn't, Griselbrand isn't significantly better enough to justify his inclusion.

This. So much.
Also, in EU the RUG Delver Decks don't suck so much as they do in US (read: they run Stifle)

[Gui]

Technically Griselbrand will turn loses into wins more often than Sphinx, since it can turn loss into win by being a 7/7 flying lifelink in addition to drawing more cards.

To me, more imporant than this question -> How often you can't win without DR target but if you had it you could? I don't have numbers for this, but my guess is that it's not as often as people think. This is why I play 0 targets in maindeck.

[Anusien]

I find Dread Return much more useful in game 2s. People are more equipped to fight Bridges and Ichorids. I find being able to jam a 9/9 Troll closes a lot of games before the opponent can topdeck a Crypt.

[Calado]

This is why I play 0 targets in maindeck.
I'm getting addicted to this play style, except when Iona is absolute (I have friends who run ANT and Blade Control too).

What I really liked in the tournament report is the part when SnT resolves and he wrote "Cephalid Coliseum couldn’t match the massive flier", and next turn the Coliseum activation gave Mark bridges, narcomoebas and ichorids enough to seal the victory.

[jares]

I find Dread Return much more useful in game 2s. People are more equipped to fight Bridges and Ichorids. I find being able to jam a 9/9 Troll closes a lot of games before the opponent can topdeck a Crypt.
I've actually foregone the use of Dread Returns altogether, but I do miss the option of being able to win the game this way, as it does add another dynamic to the deck. Successful battles using 9/9 Trolls are good reminders that I should continue to keep a DR in my back pocket.

Cheers,
jares

[Final Fortune]

How does Griselbrand fight surgical extraction exactly?

Diversification, if the opponent removes Golgari Grave Troll(s) from the game with Surgical Extraction then you still have a target worth Dread Returning left in your deck.

Also, people need to stop speaking non-sense about "only" Dredging three activations and having to draw 4 cards being a "bad" thing, being able to trigger the card twice in the same turn, or multiple turns, and keeping some cards in hand is what makes the card busted. Those drawn cards matter too, a lot.

[Michael Keller]

I still feel Dread Return enables some incredibly broken plays, in addition to enabling a large number of Zombies to enter the battlefield. I don't see it as a "win more" card, I see it as a "win now" card. Bringing something incredibly powerful into play completely changes the dynamic of the game and can help as an alternate means of winning games.

I wouldn't dismiss it quite yet.

[Final Fortune]

It's not so much that Dread Return is "win more," but a question of just how much you want to build your deck around Dread Return and whether or not that is or isn't a good idea games 2+ based on what kind of hate you expect to see i.e. it's better vs Surgical Extraction than Tormod's Crypt type effects.

Playing Dread Return, in my mind, is either a game 1 consideration where Dread Return increases our clock one turn where we need to race what we can't reliably slowdown with Cabal Therapy or a reaction to indirect MD hate if you look at it from a strategic perspective. Altho' I think there's some argument for just running 1xDread Return to differentiate a little, you can spare the 4th Ichorid for it as long as you have another DR and a target in your SB to represent a clear post-board plan with Dread Return.

[HokusSchmokus]

Diversification, if the opponent removes Golgari Grave Troll(s) from the game with Surgical Extraction then you still have a target worth Dread Returning left in your deck.

Also, people need to stop speaking non-sense about "only" Dredging three activations and having to draw 4 cards being a "bad" thing, being able to trigger the card twice in the same turn, or multiple turns, and keeping some cards in hand is what makes the card busted. Those drawn cards matter too, a lot.

Are people really extracting GGT in your meta?

[Final Fortune]

Are people really extracting GGT in your meta?

It's not as if the opponent purposely targets GGT in order to prevent you from DRing him, but the opponent will accidentally prevent you from DRing him by targeting your first Dredger in response to your draw spell etc. and remove every other copy from the game, effectively cutting you off from being able to target anything better than a Stinkweed Imp.

So yeah, if the opponent uses Surgical Extraction to stop you from your first dredge activation, it's going to incidentally hit GGT 1/3rd of the time and I do not want my DR to be "completely useless" when that happens.

[NQN]

Hey,
just decided I want to spin some cards again and will do so at GP Gent.
Since my only two decks left are TES and Dredge i am currently reading this thread and trying to get to know the meta again :)
But as for the Dread Return question: Since I started playing dredge 19293239 years ago, people tried to add fanzy DR targets or cut it entirely because they believe it´s bad without targets etc etc.
Let me tell you one thing: DR is never dead. I can´t count the number of times I went like:
Ichorids->Attack->Therapy->DR Target Ichorid->Therapy->100 Zombies, go.
GGT is the one and only target u need preboard and if it get´s removed somehow, just reanimate a moeba or an Imp and tell them they suck ;)

[K1w1]

After reading some posts here, i want to tell you my opinion about Dread Return.

I agree that Dread Return helps you a lot in situations, in which you could lose. Or targets that help you in this scenario.
But the thing is, if you play dread return targets with 2-3 dread returns, you can lose due to this.
Game 1 you win easily, imo. There are some situations in which you wont ( Maverick = Ooze, Reanimator = Elesh + Archon, NicFit = Ooze + Pernicious Deed + Maelstrom Pulse ) but normally you can race them. Maybe not the Elesh + Archon against Reanimator, but this just happens.
Game 2 and 3 you want to protect yourself against graveyard hate. And if you play dread return + targets, you have more dead cards in your hand or you can draw cards you don't need.

I played Flayer + 3 Dread Returns, too, but i came to the conclusion, that the quadlazer is the way we ( or I ) should go.
For example: You have an opener with : 3 Dredger, 2 Lands, breakthrough, and DR or DR target. I would more likely have a putrid imp.

Btw, i'm not saying DR is a bad card and you shouldn't play them. Just for me!

K1w1

[Michael Keller]

It's not so much that Dread Return is "win more," but a question of just how much you want to build your deck around Dread Return and whether or not that is or isn't a good idea games 2+ based on what kind of hate you expect to see i.e. it's better vs Surgical Extraction than Tormod's Crypt type effects.

The general consensus among players cutting Dread Return is that they feel it facilitates kills that can already be set in place just as fast based on the deck's incredible strength of speed and resiliency without Dread Return - which in turn obsoletes its utility. You can build a deck around Dread Return, but I don't feel as though that is the reason for its purposeful exclusion by players opting to not run it.

Of course, people will continue to be subjective on the varying types of targets to use - if they opt to run them. I think the Flame-Kin/Griselbrand package has the potential to be incredibly viable - as indicated by this recent Open. I also feel as though a legitimate argument can be made for cutting Iona all together.

Let's think about this outside the box for one second:

Iona generally shines in match-ups where a deck operates primarily on a single color to facilitate wins (Burn, Elves, High Tide, etc.). Against Burn, you're already just gaining life off Griselbrand attacks - if not destroying an opponent the usual way flat out. Against High Tide, drawing/dredging into fourteen cards seems absurdly good (a built-in-almost quintuple Ancestral Recall just for you). And against Elves, you can still outgun them with the speed the deck possesses in addition to Firestorms in the board. I understand what it can do - and believe me I still run it - but I am beginning to wonder if it is really all that necessary against match-ups we already have favorable percentages against.

I honestly think Griselbrand - even as a primary or an alternate Dread Return target - may have catapulted this archetype into the heavens, and I'm being generous on that assumption. It's a free Yawgmoth's Bargain in a deck that wants to draw cards and flip itself sideways. Hell, just drawing cards at that rate is still unequivocally good.

[dredgekid]

Which needs 3 DRs in one turn...

DR Grisel, pay 7 life, flip your deck.
DR Flayer, do the usual stuff
DR GGT, win.

How many DRs would you want in that deck? :rolleyes:

Well I'm playing quadralazer so zero :rollseyes:

However, the list I am referring to is an established list and a valid choice and grisl is a strict upgrade to sphinx and sun titan. Just because the flayer list isn't your preference, don't assume it's bad

[NecroYawgmoth]

Well I'm playing quadralazer so zero :rollseyes:

However, the list I am referring to is an established list and a valid choice and grisl is a strict upgrade to sphinx and sun titan. Just because the flayer list isn't your preference, don't assume it's bad

I don't assume its bad, I play a Flayerlist myself, LOL.

Thing is that the normal Flayerkill needs 2 resolved DRs and the Griselbrand-lists need 3...

[Holly]

But most Flayer-Builds allready play 3 DR, for the kill you need 2 in your graveyard.
With Griselbrand you can "go off" with 2 DR + Flayer + GGT, or 1 DR + Griselbrand and since you can draw 7 you will allways both your others DR in your graveyard.

Just saying, as a matter of fact I haven't played with Dredge, today will probably my first time if I dont settle for Goblins in the last minute.

[NecroYawgmoth]

Yeah, I see the logic here.

The largest problem is that Flayerlists are already very very tight because 3DR & Flayer are 4 Slots. Finding a 5th slot for Griselbrand seems uberhard, imo.

[joemauer]

Yeah, I see the logic here.

The largest problem is that Flayerlists are already very very tight because 3DR & Flayer are 4 Slots. Finding a 5th slot for Griselbrand seems uberhard, imo.

It is a combo kill. I would not play Flayer without something along the lines of Grislebrand/SotLT. If you are going for the combo route for the kill, whether it be Flayer or Flame-Kin, then the best way to optimize this is to have three dread returns+kill button+draw guy. I have goldfished enough to know this is what you want. Elsewise the kill button + perfect situation(bridges & Narcos or double dread return) won't happen enough to really matter. Upping the dread returns to three and adding a draw creature increases your speed significantly.

In order to go the combo kill route you must trim other aggro-control cards such as ichorids or cabal therapies. You then have a tougher time with the grindy games, but you will have the fastest deck possible that won't auto lose to Force of Will.

I'm not advocating the combo route, especially in a RUG meta, but if you are going to build your deck in that direction then do it right.

[Final Fortune]

The general consensus among players cutting Dread Return is that they feel it facilitates kills that can already be set in place just as fast based on the deck's incredible strength of speed and resiliency without Dread Return - which in turn obsoletes its utility. You can build a deck around Dread Return, but I don't feel as though that is the reason for its purposeful exclusion by players opting to not run it.

Of course, people will continue to be subjective on the varying types of targets to use - if they opt to run them. I think the Flame-Kin/Griselbrand package has the potential to be incredibly viable - as indicated by this recent Open. I also feel as though a legitimate argument can be made for cutting Iona all together.

Let's think about this outside the box for one second:

Iona generally shines in match-ups where a deck operates primarily on a single color to facilitate wins (Burn, Elves, High Tide, etc.). Against Burn, you're already just gaining life off Griselbrand attacks - if not destroying an opponent the usual way flat out. Against High Tide, drawing/dredging into fourteen cards seems absurdly good (a built-in-almost quintuple Ancestral Recall just for you). And against Elves, you can still outgun them with the speed the deck possesses in addition to Firestorms in the board. I understand what it can do - and believe me I still run it - but I am beginning to wonder if it is really all that necessary against match-ups we already have favorable percentages against.

I honestly think Griselbrand - even as a primary or an alternate Dread Return target - may have catapulted this archetype into the heavens, and I'm being generous on that assumption. It's a free Yawgmoth's Bargain in a deck that wants to draw cards and flip itself sideways. Hell, just drawing cards at that rate is still unequivocally good.

Considering the number of Ichorid's between the MD and the SB is only relevant when facing Tormod's Crypt effects, I'm wondering whether or not we should be persuing the opposite extreme of reducing the total number of "win conditions" MD to their absolute minimum in order to increase the consistency of the deck in terms of lands and dredgers.

Does anyone think there's really any difference between 4xIchorid, 3xIchorid and 1xDread Return, 3xIchorid and 2xDread Return, 2xIchorid and 2xDread Return and 1xTarget, 2xIchorid and 3xDread Return and 1xFlayer of the Hatebound that actually determines whether or not the deck will win or lose game 1?

What's the minimum bounds for having "just enough" win conditions to end the game, 3xIchorid, 2xIchorid and a 1xDread Return, or even 2xIchorid just aren't good enough? If the number of win conditions game 1 were irrelevant, assumming we only really need Narcomoeba, Cabal Therapy and Bridge from Below to actually win games after resolving draw spells, then why aren't we playing with the cards that facilitate gaining advantages i.e. lands that cast spells that put us in a winning position game 1 instead of SBing them for game 2 and only bringing more of them in only as a reaction to the opponent's hate instead of playing lands down game 1 when the composition of the win conditions is meaningless?

Anybody got the balls to just play with Quad Lazer -2 Ichorid, +2 Tarnished Citadel game 1 with the position of the Ichorids and additional Lands switched to see whether or not it actually matters?

[Calado]

IDK, the game is so good when I get Ichorids that even without a bridge it puts pressure on the opponent, so trading it for lands doesn't seems good on Theory.
Trading for DR on the other hand, can increase the chance of win, because when you can win with Ichorids, you can win DRing Iona/Flayer/Troll/etc too, but sometimes you need the DR target to win (against combo, removal, etc).
I agree that the gain may not be high enough to guarantee inclusion, but it fits the role of "pulling wins from nowhere" (and I still love the FKZ btw).

[Izor]

Anybody got the balls to just play with Quad Lazer -2 Ichorid, +2 Tarnished Citadel game 1 with the position of the Ichorids and additional Lands switched to see whether or not it actually matters?

I've been playing Quadlazer with -1 Ichorid, -1 Putrid Imp +2 Tarnished Citadel for months. Sometimes played around with one or two slots in the deck (usually cutting the 3rd PImp for a singleton DR), but this is certainly the 'Best' list I've played so far.

I'm not really sure how much the number of Ichorids matters (although I am sure that the gap between 2 and 3 is much bigger than between 3 and 4), but I can tell you that the additional land is 100% necessary. I'd play 15 If I could. It improves the consistency, general smoothness and average win turn more than anything else.

[Holly]

So, today I played Dredge for the very first time (out of goldfishing), without any tests since I've got this Deck for about a week and had no time =/.
It was a small tournament, we were 23 people, 1 dropped after the first round. He won the first match but did not want to play the Enchantress-mirror and did not want to wait a whole match.
Anyway, I went 4-0-1 (intended draw, we played out) but mostly because of the deck, I made some mistakes.

M1 vs Reanimator
I lost the die roll.
He did nothing in both games besides dropping lands and drawing cards, dumping some creatures..till I killed him (G1 turn ..4? and G2 turn 3). In the second game he had Jin-Gitaxias in his graveyard and could have casted Exhume, but didn't because he feared my 5/5 Troll.. which costed him the game.

M2 vs Dredge
He's the better player, and played Dredge before.. Urghs.
I lost the die roll.
Anyway G1 I mull to 5, discard 2 LED's in his first turn and lose hard.
G2: he sticks a Leyline which I can destroy and I overwhelm him soon.
G3: He mulls to 5, sticks a Leyline. My 3rd Breakthrough for X=3 finally gets me a Claim of Nature to destroy it. Thankfully he couldn't do much with his no-lander hand. I won a few turns later, since he was to slow.

M3 vs Countertop.
I lost the die roll.
G1: Win in turn 2.
G2: He starts with top, I didn't knew he had Counterbalance, thought UW-Controll, top for some miracles.. since I had 2 Stinkweed-Imps in my hand as my only Dredgers, I start with a Therapy on Surgical Extraction, he has none but sticks a Counterbalance next turn. I knew I couldnt cast any lootings/studys so I started to slow dredge (and I mean really slow..t5 the first time. But my dredges do suck, getting no Ichorid till I only have 10 cards left. Later on he exiles my Bridges and I cant do anything..
G3: T1 Therapy for Top, T2, Therapy for Fow, LED, Land, Looting, Crack, Kill.

M4 Enchantress
I WON ! the die roll.
G1: In t2 I have 6 Zombies, he playes Moat, T3 Flayer-Kill..he didn't knew about Flayer ~~.
G2: Elephant Grass from him in T1. My hand consists off.. Troll, Land, LED, Breaktrough & Faithless Looting.. do I go for it? Of course I do.. not finding any other Dredger.. uhm..
My second turn.. I'm thinking.. he still has Elephant grass in play.. so I really need the Flayer.. I Draw, Breakthrough, Chain-Dredging 4 Trolls and win.

M5 Nic-Fit
Intended Draw, we played for fun and for first place, of course I lost th die roll ;P.
We each knew what the other plays.
G1: I Mull to 5, got hit by a Theraphie naming LED, and I'm to slow for a turn 2 Ooze.
G2: He mulls to 5, I know he's looking for a Leyline, so I also mull to 4, Land, Nature's Claim, Looting, Dredger. I destroy his Leyline, he starts with an Explorer. Looting, binning my Stinkweed Imp. Well.. he played again an Ooze and I lost.

[K1w1]

Reporting time.

Went to a tourney with only 22 players ( normally 30-40 )

Played the quadlazer -1 ray -1 grudge +2 journey

Game 1 against UR Delver:
R1: After dredging and multiple therapies, he lost.
R2: I had a nice hand, but he played first turn crypt followed by some delvers and i lost.
R3: I start with therapy into crypt, i hit, but he topdecked another.. I won due to missactivation of crypt.

1-0

Game 2 against CounterTop Miracle 4 ColorGoodstuff, whatever it is called.
R1: He kept a one-lander and didn't draw another.
R2: He didn't find any hate and i won easily.

2-0

Game 3 against High Tide ( the same from last tourney )
R1: I won with multiple therapies.
R2: I lost, because he extracted my therapies and killed me with brainfreeze and blue sun's zenith ( otherwise i had played memory's journey )
R3: I won without therapies, due to he only had two mana in play and used one for brainstorm ( he was at 11 and i did 16 next turn.

3-0

Game 4 ID

3-0-1

Game 5 ID

3-0-2

I'm 2. out of 22 now.

Top 8: Maverick
R1: Won easily with looting, study, LED, breakthrough.
R2: Lost against Crypt/Ooze/Bojuka Bog
R3: Lost against Thalia/Bog/Crypt

6. out of 22 :mad:

I think i will change it back to +1 grudge -1 journey.
I boarded the journey's every game, but 3 are definitely not needed.

K1w1

[Godmode]

Gerry Thompson is 6-1 and likely to t8 @ the SCG Nashville legacy open. He lost to Justin Uppal (RUG Delver).


Round 6: Gerry Thompson (Dredge) vs. Justin Uppal (RUG Delver) Match Report: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/round_6_gerry_thompson_dredge_.html

[GnuHouse]

So, any comments on Gerry's version of Dredge? The main I find fairly "stock" (in that it's off the Quadlazer base with some variance) but the SB is interesting and I'd like to hear some commentary (I'm relatively new to Dredge and trying to learn as much as possible)

Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Creatures
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
2 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp

Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below

Sorceries
2 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
1 Sundering Titan
2 Bloodghast
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Ichorid
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Nature's Claim
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Undiscovered Paradise

[Michael Keller]

So, any comments on Gerry's version of Dredge? The main I find fairly "stock" (in that it's off the Quadlazer base with some variance) but the SB is interesting and I'd like to hear some commentary (I'm relatively new to Dredge and trying to learn as much as possible)

Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Creatures
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
2 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp

Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below

Sorceries
2 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
1 Sundering Titan
2 Bloodghast
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Ichorid
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Nature's Claim
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Undiscovered Paradise

There's really nothing new to see here. All he did was shift a few cards around from main to board and tossed in a few dedicated D.R. targets.

Nothing new really at all.

[joemauer]

So, any comments on Gerry's version of Dredge? The main I find fairly "stock" (in that it's off the Quadlazer base with some variance) but the SB is interesting and I'd like to hear some commentary (I'm relatively new to Dredge and trying to learn as much as possible)


Sideboard:
1 Sundering Titan
2 Bloodghast
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Ichorid
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Nature's Claim
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Undiscovered Paradise

All I know is putting Nature's Claim and Chain of Vapor in the same sideboard will get you ridiculed here on the forums.

[Izor]

All I know is putting Nature's Claim and Chain of Vapor in the same sideboard will get you ridiculed here on the forums.

This is not true.

There is a huge difference between full plysets of Claim/Chain and a 3-2 split. One should play between 4 and 5 anti-Leyline cards. Chain and Claim are your options. Either split is fine as long as you have 4-5 total. Running 8 total is what people ridicule in these forums.

[GnuHouse]

There's really nothing new to see here. All he did was shift a few cards around from main to board and tossed in a few dedicated D.R. targets.

Nothing new really at all.


I've seen decks that run Bloodghasts, but not out of the board. Don't like them in my current builds (trying to decide between Flayer and Quadlazer builids). Sundering Titan is new from the board, which had me scratching my head.

[Michael Keller]

I've seen decks that run Bloodghasts, but not out of the board. Don't like them in my current builds (trying to decide between Flayer and Quadlazer builids). Sundering Titan is new from the board, which had me scratching my head.

Bloodghast is basically identical to putting in something like Gravecrawler or Ashen Ghoul in the sideboard as a diversion for Surgical Extraction. Same premise.

[jares]

This is not true.

There is a huge difference between full plysets of Claim/Chain and a 3-2 split. One should play between 4 and 5 anti-Leyline cards. Chain and Claim are your options. Either split is fine as long as you have 4-5 total. Running 8 total is what people ridicule in these forums.
I agree, as I have also done the same (2-2 split). I can't imagine how you'd be able to properly fit 8 total in the sideboard though... you can probably round that sideboard out with a 3-4 split of Wispmare and Ingot Chewer. :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

I've seen decks that run Bloodghasts, but not out of the board. Don't like them in my current builds (trying to decide between Flayer and Quadlazer builids). Sundering Titan is new from the board, which had me scratching my head.
Sundering Titan reminds me of Realm Razer. Maybe this new DR target can be added to the opening post? :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

[Final Fortune]

There's really nothing new to see here. All he did was shift a few cards around from main to board and tossed in a few dedicated D.R. targets.

Nothing new really at all.

Well, it does show that you don't need any more than 2 Ichorids and X Dread Returns to win game 1's, if anything it reconfirms my suspicions that we're playing too many win conditions and too few lands.

Cutting Breakthrough is probably just awful tho', no way Putrid Imp stays in the MD before Breakthrough IMO.

[HokusSchmokus]

All I know is putting Nature's Claim and Chain of Vapor in the same sideboard will get you ridiculed here on the forums. I strongly believe nobody was "ridiculed"

[Digital Devil]

Hey guys, I want to rip some players apart so I'm going to win the next tournament no matter what - I need your advice to achieve my goal. I'm playing non-LED Dredge (due to budget + playstyle) and I don't know how to tune my sideboard for the event. I expect a ton of UR Delver, Nic Fit and GW Maverick. Also one of the best players here always plays Reanimator, so I'd better be prepared for it. List is still the same:

------------------------------------------------

// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
2 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
4 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
3 [TO] Ichorid
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria

// Spells
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
2 [TSP] Dread Return
1 [RAV] Darkblast

------------------------------------------------

Considering I want to fit the 4th Ichorid in somewhere (makes flashbacking Therapy easier), what is the best suggested sideboard I can build with these cards?

------------------------------------------------

4x Nature's Claim
4x Chain of Vapor
4x Ancient Grudge
4x Firestorm
3x Purify the Grave
2x Ingot Chewer
2x Ray of Revelation
1x Ichorid
1x Angel of Despair

------------------------------------------------

P.S. - Isn't it better to play the fourth Ichorid maindeck in spite of Iona?

[dredgekid]

Hey guys, I want to rip some players apart so I'm going to win the next tournament no matter what - I need your advice to achieve my goal. I'm playing non-LED Dredge (due to budget + playstyle) and I don't know how to tune my sideboard for the event. I expect a ton of UR Delver, Nic Fit and GW Maverick. Also one of the best players here always plays Reanimator, so I'd better be prepared for it. List is still the same:

------------------------------------------------

// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
2 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
4 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
3 [TO] Ichorid
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria

// Spells
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
2 [TSP] Dread Return
1 [RAV] Darkblast

------------------------------------------------

Considering I want to fit the 4th Ichorid in somewhere (makes flashbacking Therapy easier), what is the best suggested sideboard I can build with these cards?

------------------------------------------------

4x Nature's Claim
4x Chain of Vapor
4x Ancient Grudge
4x Firestorm
3x Purify the Grave
2x Ingot Chewer
2x Ray of Revelation
1x Ichorid
1x Angel of Despair

------------------------------------------------

P.S. - Isn't it better to play the fourth Ichorid maindeck in spite of Iona?

First off, I agree with your P.S. If you are going to play a MD DR target, I feel like it should actually win you the game instead of functionally, put that's just my opinion.

As far as SB notes, you should probably cut down on your leyline hate cards. 4-5 is the accepted amount it seems, usually using some split of nature's claim and chain of vapor. Ray of revelation has really fallen out of favor due to its 2cmc. I think you are playing too many anti-hate cards in general. 4 ancient grudge 2 ignot chewer is very excessive. I only play 4 chain of vapor to bounce cage and leyline and no other hate cards. The logic behind that is you can just play through other hate by slow dredging and forcing them to crack their crypt or relic, and you can just sit back on dredger + draw spell.

Also, I feel like it's wrong to not play at least a few lootings, even in LEDless.

If I were to alter the 75, it would probably look something more like this.

------------------------------------------------

// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
3 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
2 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
4 [TO] Ichorid

// Spells
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
1 [TSP] Dread Return
1 [RAV] Darkblast
2 [ISD] Faithless Looting


4x Chain of Vapor
4x Firestorm
3x Faerie Macabre
1x Dread Return
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Angel of Despair
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria

Ideas on the sideboard: You really only need 4x Chain for the hate as you can play through crypt/relic. For more permanent hate, like leyline/cage/jailer, you can sit back and sculpt your hand like a storm player with your studies, then when you find chain EOT bounce target hate card, upkeep discard dredger, dredge, discard dredger, breakthrough kill them (or at least therapy away the hate card). 4x Firestorm, because Maverick is a deck, enough said there. 3x Faerie Macabre for your friend the Reanimator Player. I like putting the second DR in the board if you have no MD DR targets.

Hope this helps you out!

[dredgekid]

Diversification, if the opponent removes Golgari Grave Troll(s) from the game with Surgical Extraction then you still have a target worth Dread Returning left in your deck.

Also, people need to stop speaking non-sense about "only" Dredging three activations and having to draw 4 cards being a "bad" thing, being able to trigger the card twice in the same turn, or multiple turns, and keeping some cards in hand is what makes the card busted. Those drawn cards matter too, a lot.

People extract GGT in your meta? Can I come play at your shop?

[Calado]

My list is almost like this one, with +3 looting -2 Tribe -1 Darkblast. About the 4th Ichorid, Iona seems better (Final Fortune is even arguing that only 2 Ichorids are enough...).
About the sideboard, instead of using Purify the Grave, you can use Leyline of the Void.
I'll grab the opportunity to discuss (again) about Firestorm. I was playing with a burrowed Maverick last week, and getting a turn 2 Ooze is so easy that the dredge player needs something solid to stop it. Land+Hierarch/Zenith(Arbor)+Ooze gives a turn 2 Ooze with one mana floating, and a normal turn 2 Ooze is dangerous even without mana to activate it.
There's another option better than Firestorm to fight the ooze?

[Tombstalker]

I've noticed a recent tend towards higher land count. I assume this is to increase consistency in the opener but if so shouldn't any such increase be split equally between lands and dredgers? i.e. 13/13 split rather than 14/12 lands?

[Michael Keller]

You don't *have* to run any Dread Returns if you don't want to. We have no idea what areas Thompson struggled in on his way to placing with the deck. I'm quite certain his strength of play masked some minor flaws with the deck over the course of the entire day.

Thirteen land is more than fine in LED Dredge. He was running fifteen total to facilitate Bloodghasts out of the board.

[Rekk]

You don't *have* to run any Dread Returns if you don't want to. We have no idea what areas Thompson struggled in on his way to placing with the deck. I'm quite certain his strength of play masked some minor flaws with the deck over the course of the entire day.

Thirteen land is more than fine in LED Dredge. He was running fifteen total to facilitate Bloodghasts out of the board.

What minor flaws did you see with the list?
(not implying it was perfect simply asking your opinion)

I personally like reanimation targets in my deck but i think im just a fan of splashy big finishes

[Final Fortune]

People extract GGT in your meta? Can I come play at your shop?

Do you have any idea how ignorant it is to say this when you don't take into consideration the context in which Dredgers are targeted for removal? It happens, period, I'd prefer to be prepared for it than not.

[Izor]

I've noticed a recent tend towards higher land count. I assume this is to increase consistency in the opener but if so shouldn't any such increase be split equally between lands and dredgers? i.e. 13/13 split rather than 14/12 lands?

Your line of thought is correct, but you don't take into account that you should atually count only Gold lands into your actual land count. Coliseum as your only land can only cast one spell right (Study). It's actually a draw spell, not a land.

Then it should make sense why people try to play more lands. The most successful lists play 10 gold lands, many of them have the 11th in the sideboard. I'm currently trying to fit the 11th in the main deck and I read that the sb Land was Gerry T's mvp card in the tournament.

[Tombstalker]

Thanks for the explanations, in that context it makes more sense. Also is 11 lands now considered the optimal amount, if the main wasn't so tight?

[Michael Keller]

What minor flaws did you see with the list?
(not implying it was perfect simply asking your opinion)

I personally like reanimation targets in my deck but i think im just a fan of splashy big finishes

The first flaw I see with the list is only two Breakthrough. Because LED is much more of a Combo deck than any of its counterparts, you really want either three or four of them to max out on its efficiency. Two really isn't enough to fire out quick wins game one where having a third or fourth add a bit more redundancy to win flat-out with.

Two Ichorids are fine, but I think a lot of folks tend to sway more towards three. If you're plowing through your entire deck and want to facilitate fast, evasive kills, then you really want to have that diversity aside from Narcomoebas to either naturally (EOT) or purposefully put Zombie tokens into play.

I personally don't like Nature's Claims mixed with Chain of Vapor, and have never been an advocate of Chain of Vapor in this archetype. It doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable, and the only targets that you can really benefit from playing this with are against Leyline and Elesh Norn, which is why I just think the certainty and definitive solution of being able to destroy Leyline with Claim is really more than enough.

You should (could) run some form of grave-hate in the sideboard, but it's obvious he eschewed that to run Vapor for Reanimator or problematic enchantments that deserve to be bounced.

I have also never liked Bloodghast in LED Dredge. If you're looking to explode on someone by using LED or other draw/discard effects, you really would rather have additional Ichorids or Ashen Ghoul/Gravecrawler as they are far less conditional than a card which necessitates having - and holding - a land in your hand in order to be viable. I think Bloodghast is the stone-cold nuts in Vintage Dredge, but not so much in Legacy *LED* Dredge.

The Dread Return targets post-board are cute, and I see what he is trying to do with Sundering Titan and Cabal Therapy, but Dredge shouldn't be wasting its time trying to pin an opponent's resources so much as it should be trying to flat out deal damage and win the game. It's really just a vanilla 7/10 that gets chumped all day and doesn't do much of anything else besides that.

Still, Gerry obviously played tight and did what he had to to win games - which should go to show some of the more inexperienced players that if you play tight, remember triggers and mulligan correctly you can win lots of games.

[Rekk]

I believe he said the bloodghasts are for anti surgical, which i understand since that card can be brutal. I have been kinda on board with the ghast plan against surgical as well due to losing too many games to surgical meba surgical ichorid (i'll just cry now...)

as for maindeck targets i've started to come around to the fact that they kinda maybe don't actually do anything.... which sadly took me a long time to figure out.

i can't believe i missed that he ran only two breakthroughs....

[Michael Keller]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower. Either way, no one sees it coming which is why it gets even better when opponents side out their Forces (and it happens) on the play game two.

So far I'm liking it.

My list currently looks like this:

// Lands
4 [AN] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise

// Creatures
3 [TO] Ichorid
3 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
1 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [RAV] Flame-Kin Zealot

// Spells
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [DKA] Faithless Looting
3 [TO] Breakthrough

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
SB: 3 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 2 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [7E] Duress
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction

[Rekk]

(ignore accidentally double sent)

[Rekk]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower.

So far I'm liking it.

Iiiii never thought of that, i like that idea quiet a bit. (yet it doesn't really interact with the graveyard at all, which makes it akward due to being a in hand trick only)
If you wouldn't mind could you ship me your list. I feel like calling forth zombies

[joemauer]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower.

So far I'm liking it.

I've considered duress/thoughtseize before because it is like Unmask without the situational drawback.

I thought it might be worth trying against decks using surgical extraction. The only problem is decks that use surgical extraction have a good ole brainstorm or daze/FoW to stop the duress. Thoughseize seems stronger here since you can take their best creature if they have no hate.

Combo hasn't been a problem lately for me, however I haven't tested against the upgraded Sneak N Show decks.

What have you been taking out to add the duress in? And how many duress?

[Michael Keller]

Iiiii never thought of that, i like that idea quiet a bit. (yet it doesn't really interact with the graveyard at all, which makes it akward due to being a in hand trick only)
If you wouldn't mind could you ship me your list. I feel like calling forth zombies

After thinking outside the box for a bit, it didn't make sense to me why any Dredge player should have to live in fear and tailor their entire play around a single card at the mercy of their opponents. Targeted, proactive discard forces an opponent to ditch sandbagged hate and punishes them severely for weak mulligans.

It hits Zenith and other tricky spells, too. What I kind of like about it is that it is definitive, and that actually means something because you're probably going to get something out of it anyway - at worst information, and at best a hate spell or combo piece.

Leyline doesn't see a whole lot of play in my area, so I kind of also have a sideboard tailored that way, but really we run a lot of filtering so finding an answer shouldn't be that big of a deal - especially with Show and Tell on the rise anyhow (circumventing Leyline hate and having it fall from where it once was).

@joe: I've been trying different configurations and don't really have anything set in stone quite yet. I've been trying siding out the Zealot, an Imp, and a Breakthrough in favor of three Duress. Seems to work fine. Also, if an opponent has a Brainstorm with a counter *with an Extraction,* then Duress was probably a good bet anyhow because this way you at the very least force them to use their Brainstorm when they don't want to which in turn gives you a window to do things with something like Coliseum or LED.

Either way, you were in trouble early in that scenario to begin with. This is game two, mind you. I'm also not in any way insinuating this is the best line of play and that this is the best solution to Dredge sideboarding strategies around the world. I'm simply trying something a bit more proactive than reactive in my sideboard and so in some random testing against decks running S.E. (like U/w Snapcaster and Delver variants), it seems to be working really well.

[jares]

I strongly believe nobody was "ridiculed"
I believe that I've observed a lot of ridiculing on this thread, though maybe not for the Nature's Claim+Chain of Vapor Discussion. :tongue:

I specifically remember the ridiculing involving Vizzerdrix. I'm not so sure about who was being ridiculed, though: it's either Vizzerdrix or the player being responded to. :laugh:

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Also, I feel like it's wrong to not play at least a few lootings, even in LEDless.

I most certainly agree. Careful Study has always been our most-reliable glue-guy (for lack of a better term), and it just feels wrong to not take advantage of the consistency that Careful Study+Faithless Looting is able to provide - especially when going LEDless.

Kind Regards,
jares

[GerryT]

The first flaw I see with the list is only two Breakthrough. Because LED is much more of a Combo deck than any of its counterparts, you really want either three or four of them to max out on its efficiency. Two really isn't enough to fire out quick wins game one where having a third or fourth add a bit more redundancy to win flat-out with.

Two Ichorids are fine, but I think a lot of folks tend to sway more towards three. If you're plowing through your entire deck and want to facilitate fast, evasive kills, then you really want to have that diversity aside from Narcomoebas to either naturally (EOT) or purposefully put Zombie tokens into play.

I personally don't like Nature's Claims mixed with Chain of Vapor, and have never been an advocate of Chain of Vapor in this archetype. It doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable, and the only targets that you can really benefit from playing this with are against Leyline and Elesh Norn, which is why I just think the certainty and definitive solution of being able to destroy Leyline with Claim is really more than enough.

You should (could) run some form of grave-hate in the sideboard, but it's obvious he eschewed that to run Vapor for Reanimator or problematic enchantments that deserve to be bounced.

I have also never liked Bloodghast in LED Dredge. If you're looking to explode on someone by using LED or other draw/discard effects, you really would rather have additional Ichorids or Ashen Ghoul/Gravecrawler as they are far less conditional than a card which necessitates having - and holding - a land in your hand in order to be viable. I think Bloodghast is the stone-cold nuts in Vintage Dredge, but not so much in Legacy *LED* Dredge.

The Dread Return targets post-board are cute, and I see what he is trying to do with Sundering Titan and Cabal Therapy, but Dredge shouldn't be wasting its time trying to pin an opponent's resources so much as it should be trying to flat out deal damage and win the game. It's really just a vanilla 7/10 that gets chumped all day and doesn't do much of anything else besides that.

Still, Gerry obviously played tight and did what he had to to win games - which should go to show some of the more inexperienced players that if you play tight, remember triggers and mulligan correctly you can win lots of games.

When building my Dredge list, I did a lot of research including reading a bunch of stuff you wrote, so thanks for that. It's great to have people that are willing to give back to the community.

Anyway, I knew I wanted LED, and I knew there were few situations in game ones where I would need to Dread Return anything special. There are very few corner case scenarios where I would Dredge, Therapy their hand, pass the turn, and somehow not be able to kill them because I died. Dread Return might not be necessary at all, but I was a little shy about going straight Quadlaser. I felt like I might need that Troll to actually cut their clock down to one turn.

Breakthrough and Ichorid were the last cuts made in order to fit the 13th and 14th land. I knew that it was likely "wrong" but I knew that I would definitely regret not having enough lands more than not having access to those cards.

Chain was a hedge vs Maverick, where I wouldn't know if they had the ETutor sideboard or not. It's kind of dated, but it's still out there, and I didn't want to have to board in Nature's Claim against a deck with Scavenging Ooze. Chain is basically Nature's Claim vs Leyline, so that point was moot.

That said, I think if they have an ETutor sideboard, then they got me. I'd rather have a 4th Claim and open up a sideboard slot.

My main concerns with Dredge were how to win when my Bridges got Surgicaled in certain situations, and RUG and Stoneblade are the two most likely decks to have Surgical. I decided that if I had another creature in the sideboard (Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Nether Shadow, etc) then I could realistically cast and resolve one Dread Return per game vs those decks. It was a matter of finding something that outright won me the game or came close to it if they had a Goyf/Batterskull in play.

Vs RUG, Elesh Norn seemed like the best one because they can't beat it and it had crossover effects in matchups like the mirror and Elves. That slot seemed worth it.

Sundering Titan was the best thing that I could come up with for beating a board of lands and Batterskull. I never played against a true Stoneblade deck (although I played against the Delver version from BOM), but the Sundering Titan definitely doesn't do enough.

Flayer was just for matchups with Ensnaring Bridge, Propaganda, and things of that nature, none of which I faced.

Bloodghast was actively awesome but the sideboard Paradise should have probably been a Dakmor Salvage, even though being able to cast my sideboard cards with consistency was very helpful. I'm not sure if the Bloodghast is the right one or I should be playing Nether Shadow or what, but it was awesome against different RUG opponents with Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction.

Hollywood: I know that you trashed Prosak's list, and you think you know everything there is to know about Dredge, but that doesn't mean you do. I kind of fancy myself a deckbuilder and as such, I put a lot of time and effort in deciding what cards I'm going to play and the reasons behind why I should. I might be wrong, but I have a rational for doing everything that I do.

I guess what I'm saying is that while you might know a lot, things that you think are "wrong" could very well just be different. For example, some people have admitted to liking when they win big, like with Griselbrand or Flame-Kin Zealot. However, I just want to win. Neither school is necessarily wrong, as those cards could probably win them games my deck couldn't.

I'm sure a lot of readers would appreciate if you recognized that fact and, instead of cutting people (and their ideas) down, you were more open. You would probably get more respect if that were the case.

As I said though, thanks for the help. Couldn't have done it without the vast pool of information here.

[jares]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower. Either way, no one sees it coming which is why it gets even better when opponents side out their Forces (and it happens) on the play game two.

I also like this exploration, and this shouldn't be too surprising given that Unmask used to be used extensively in the earlier versions of Dredge. I've also tried to take a look into using Unmask and found that pitching a black card to play it isn't always a harmless move. I'm thinking that I like Thoughtseize better than Duress because it can take out Scavenging ooze, though these slots would probably make more sense against combo decks that don't use too many Creatures anyway.

Cheers,
jares

[iPhael]

Odd, I was just discussing bringing back Unmask yesterday. I'll have to give Duress/Thoughtseize a whirl in it's place, seem's like it could be outright nuts vs. those heavy mullers on the draw.

[Michael Keller]

When building my Dredge list, I did a lot of research including reading a bunch of stuff you wrote, so thanks for that. It's great to have people that are willing to give back to the community.

Gerry, I've never had a chance to speak or meet with you personally because the last four years of my time has been preoccupied with the military and every Open I seem to attend you're never there, but I am proud of what you've done for this game on the Star City Open circuit.

Congrats on taking Dredge the distance!


Breakthrough and Ichorid were the last cuts made in order to fit the 13th and 14th land. I knew that it was likely "wrong" but I knew that I would definitely regret not having enough lands more than not having access to those cards.

I think you did fine (as I had previously stated) with the choices you selected. Some folks tend to lean towards a higher land count and eschew a few other selections. It seems to have worked out for you.


Chain was a hedge vs Maverick, where I wouldn't know if they had the ETutor sideboard or not. It's kind of dated, but it's still out there, and I didn't want to have to board in Nature's Claim against a deck with Scavenging Ooze. Chain is basically Nature's Claim vs Leyline, so that point was moot.

I see. Still, even with an Enlightened Tutor package most LED Dredge variants are able to just cruise past that and blow the game open before an opponent gets a chance to Tutor up and play anything relevant. If anything, an opponent would likely fetch either Crypt or Wheel, which are both nullified by Claim.


That said, I think if they have an ETutor sideboard, then they got me. I'd rather have a 4th Claim and open up a sideboard slot.

I have been teetering this way as well. However, I have been on the brink of running the fourth Claim as I don't know if 'watering' down a strong enough start is worth doing when an opponent is probably more apt to mulligan aggressively to find hate or a decent enough hand to work with.


My main concerns with Dredge were how to win when my Bridges got Surgicaled in certain situations, and RUG and Stoneblade are the two most likely decks to have Surgical. I decided that if I had another creature in the sideboard (Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Nether Shadow, etc) then I could realistically cast and resolve one Dread Return per game vs those decks. It was a matter of finding something that outright won me the game or came close to it if they had a Goyf/Batterskull in play.

This is why I am beginning to wonder if targeted discard is the way to go in order to fight weaker hands with hate that have been mulliganed or are less reactive without counter-magic. An early Duress or Thoughtseize might be worth the protection instead of holding back and waiting for the blowout.


Vs RUG, Elesh Norn seemed like the best one because they can't beat it and it had crossover effects in matchups like the mirror and Elves. That slot seemed worth it.


Hollywood: I know that you trashed Prosak's list, and you think you know everything there is to know about Dredge, but that doesn't mean you do. I kind of fancy myself a deckbuilder and as such, I put a lot of time and effort in deciding what cards I'm going to play and the reasons behind why I should. I might be wrong, but I have a rational for doing everything that I do.

Gerry, I understand what you're saying. However, I do take a lot of pride in the work that I do when it comes to Legacy deck-building, and am the first to raise my hand when I make a mistake. However, I think I also am the guy who is willing to speak up when others won't in calling something out I see that has serious flaws with it.

I never once claimed to know everything there is to know about Dredge (and I get a lot of flack for this because for whatever reason, people think I'm a self-centered prick who honestly just feels good helping out in any way that I can), but I'll say this: being in the military has given me an awful lot of free time (because technically I'm working 24/7 when needed) to explore in depth thousands of different interactions and an overwhelming number of percentages when it comes to the viability of interactions stacked against the top archetypes - within a certain population of decks.

I had a rationale for blasting Prosak and his list, and I wasn't the only one who did. I was just the one who was more vocal about it. I've been playing Dredge for an incredibly long period of uninterrupted time, and rationale can sometimes be obsoleted by lengthy, direct experience. Adam did quite well with his list, but I still think - like so many others do - that it is inherently flawed based on the countless hours of trials and tribulations and in-play tournament experience people have had testing this archetype. That has to count for something.


I guess what I'm saying is that while you might know a lot, things that you think are "wrong" could very well just be different. For example, some people have admitted to liking when they win big, like with Griselbrand or Flame-Kin Zealot. However, I just want to win. Neither school is necessarily wrong, as those cards could probably win them games my deck couldn't.

I'm sure a lot of readers would appreciate if you recognized that fact and, instead of cutting people (and their ideas) down, you were more open. You would probably get more respect if that were the case.

As I said though, thanks for the help. Couldn't have done it without the vast pool of information here.

[jares]

This is why I love this thread - there's a lot of action (and drama) to go around... not to mention suspense, horror, sci-fi, and my favorite, comedy. :laugh:

Seriously though, I agree with the thought that, as much as it might sometimes be interpreted the wrong way, making an effort to steer our collective thoughts towards the right direction is absolutely necessary in a community as diverse as this one, and we'll only be able to succeed in steering towards the right direction if we do this collectively. It would also help to keep in mind, though, that, sometimes, how we say things is more important than what we do say.

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Dread Return might not be necessary at all, but I was a little shy about going straight Quadlaser. I felt like I might need that Troll to actually cut their clock down to one turn.

Given your premise, I was wondering if you would still be able to achieve the same function by going with just [1x] Dread Return, but with [3x] Ichorid (at least in the main deck).

Generally, I would think that going with as few as [2x] Ichorids would be okay if the deck was configured to go all-in with the combo kill (though the Flayer main deck would require [3x] DR); your composition noticeably didn't have a main deck DR target (which is actually to my preference). This prompts me to think about what Final Fortune has mentioned a few times - we might actually be running more than the necessary number of Ichorid+Dread Return. This begs the following question: how many of these do we need in the main deck (or sideboard)? Historically, the number is around 4-5 in the main deck, with 1-2 being packed in the sideboard.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Final Fortune]

I'm managing to still win games with only 2xIchorid and 1xDread Return, so it appears it's either the absolute minimum or near the absolute minimum number of win conditions, as I still want to see whether or not I can 2xIchorid and just use Cabal Therapy and Bridge from Below to win my game 1s.

Here's another abstract question, if you had to choose between 10 Dredgers and 11 Golden Lands and 12 Dredgers and 9 Golden Lands which of the two would make the deck more consistent and why?

As far as SBing, I don't think you should play Nature's Claim as anything other than Chain of Vapor 5+, because SBing artifact removal for Tormod's Crypt isn't as good as SBing Tireless Tribe for artifact "resiliency" and still having an outlet and wall for every time they don't draw Tormod's Crypt. You can never know whether or not the opponent is SBing in Tormod's Crypt etc. or Surgical Extraction, and if they SB in Surgical Extraction then you are playing a completely dead card with Nature's Claim where Tirless Tribe would still be generally useful.

The Chain of Vapor slot is just for answering Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage with the most mana efficient removal we can play (i.e. you can cast it off of Cephalid Coliseum) and that's all the utility we need from that slot.

If anybody wants the lists I'm on, it's just Quad Lazer -2 Ichorid, -2 Golgari Thug, +1 Dread Return, +1 Darkblast, +2 Tarnished Citadel and the SB is just Chain of Vapor, Tireless Tribe, an Ashen Ghoul and 2 Nether Shadows, an extra Dread Return and Iona, Shield of Emeria, an Ancient Grudge and an open slot.

[dredgekid]

Do you have any idea how ignorant it is to say this when you don't take into consideration the context in which Dredgers are targeted for removal? It happens, period, I'd prefer to be prepared for it than not.

Lighten up man I was clearly kidding. I've been playing dredge long enough to know that people extract dredgers...

[Parcher]

I think that it might be in everyone's best interest if we could actually find what is the best solution for Extraction/Extirpate. That's always the idea, but for other hate cards, it's less likely to be clear. By that, I mean that stuff like Crypt and Relic, and Leyline not only have a great deal of options for us to deal with them, but these can easily change with the differing builds of the deck.

For Extraction, I don't feel this is true. There should be a definite answer for what is best against it. From what I can see, there are three paths; First, the man plan. Adding alternate creatures to continue threat after an Extraction. The only real options in the LED version that I've seen are Bloodghast, Nether Shadow, Gravecrawler, and Ashen Ghoul. In the non-LED versions I think that a set of Tribes takes care of both Crypt, and acts as a blocker long enough for you to use him as a DR target. In LED versions, you'd need to find enough slots to run a set of them for this to work though. Since you need to assume that you won't open with one, and they can't be Dredged into like the other options.

Of the four, I think that right now Ashen Ghoul is the only standalone threat. The rest may add some pressure, but are more there just to facilitate DR. As I see it, these creatures stand like:

Ashen Ghoul:

+3 Power
Can block
Haste

-Needs Black mana to activate(concern against Wasteland)
Needs Creatures in yard to activate
Can't be hard cast


Bloodghast:

+2 Power
Can be used multiple times without graveyard creatures
Get multiple with one activation(though only two in SB)
Can be cast(though difficult with Paradise)

-Worsens manabase(1-2Dakmor,Paradises)
Weakens Coliseum(Paradise)
Need SB slots for Dakmor as well
Can't block
No haste(*mostly)
Needs land in hand
If using LED, must have Paradise turn one or multiple Dakmor

Nether Shadow:

+Haste
Can block
Can be cast

-1 Power
Needs creatures

From what I see, Ghast has both the most advantages, and the most weaknesses. Shadow the least of either, and Ghoul somewhere in the middle.

The second plan is the counter-suite. Using Memory's Journey, Coffin Purge, etc. to fizzle the Extraction. Useless against Extirpate, or if you can't hold mana open. But has the additional benefit as acting as GY hate in other matchup. A slot this decks usually can't afford. Also allows you to go "all-in" against decks not running GY sweepers, since all you have to do after your initial outlay is Therapy countermagic, and sit on the mana for Flashback costs. Coincidentally, this plan works equally well against Painter and Reanimator. Probably not powerful enough in the mirror though.

The third option, currently under review, is adding discard to pre-emptively hit Extraction. This concerns me not only because of all of the decks able to both hide, and protect their Extractions, but also if the just rip one, and you have no alternate plan. If they are able to use their one Extraction through your disruption, and can attack your secondary threat base(Plow'ing Ichorids, removing Bridges, or just having something like a Jitte), it doesn't seem that the discard would be worth it. And you are likely in for a very difficult time.

I'm sure that everyone has done their own testing, and has their own opinion on the subject, but I was hoping that we could get enough information down here to if not get a best answer, then to at least eliminate enough options to get a best plan of attack.

[Michael Keller]

Duress and or Thoughtseize are options we have been discussing, Damon. They fit the bill as proactive answers against Surgical Extraction or other sandbagged hate - in addition to clearing the way of Pierces and other conditional counter-magic. It seems to me that being more proactive and less reactive might be the better line of thought here as cards like Memory's Journey - or even Coffin Purge for that matter - are a bit more situational and conditional. Targeted discard also punishes weaker hands predicated on soft keeps having these hate spells.

I've recently been playing them in my sideboard (in addition to another Paradise) and have been liking them a lot.

What are your thoughts on those?

[Parcher]

I don't like discard, regardless of it's form, against Extraction for the reasons that I mentioned. The decks that tend to use Extraction, tend to be Blue-based. That means that in addition to having Brainstorm, Top, Ponder, etc. to hide Extraction from discard assuming that they don't have a target to hit in response, that they also have countermagic to protect it. Which they will do in such a case. Or they can always just rip it off the top. Dredge really shouldn't be concerned with counters otherwise. The deck is basically built to ignore them in most cases. The only time I feel different is when you are on the Land, LED, Breakthrough type-plan, which should rarely be the case post-board anyway.

They also due to mana or card-type constraints, slow your early turns down. Either by pitching a needed Black card, or using your likely one land for that turn. And additionally, open you up to Wasteland in those cases. Neither using creatures, nor fizzle effects constrain your primary strategy as much, since the openings to use them come from the deck's natural course of action. I think that it's likely that the best solution will allow you to function normally with the deck, and simply get more options to lessen the impact of Extraction. From what I've seen, spending your opening turn or two using discard instead of drawing, discarding(yourself), and consequently being able to dredge, could hurt the way the deck plays. In this case, it may not even have the desired effect due to the reasons mentioned above. There is the chance that you can instead discard their only threat, or counter magic, and that's great. But it's not neccessarily the effect that I'm looking for in this case. Therapy usually does a decent job against the majority of the format for this purpose.

[cb4]

I you wanted to go the counter/fizzle route, you could pack your own surgical extractions. Extract what they target in response to their extraction. You search your library and fail to find any other copies. The copy in the grave is removed by your extraction so their extraction fizzles. All for zero mana.

[Holly]

I you wanted to go the counter/fizzle route, you could pack your own surgical extractions. Extract what they target in response to their extraction. You search your library and fail to find any other copies. The copy in the grave is removed by your extraction so their extraction fizzles. All for zero mana.

In this case Faerie Macabre would be better, doesnt cost 2 life, uncounterable and fodder for an Ichorid.

[Koby]

In this case Faerie Macabre would be better, doesnt cost 2 life, uncounterable and fodder for an Ichorid.

Or Noxious Revival as another way to reset Narcomoeba cheats.

[K1w1]

Or Noxious Revival as another way to reset Narcomoeba cheats.

Don't think about it!

[Parcher]

I think that all of those are good suggestions. Macabre sounds like the best, as it has the least drawbacks and vulnerability, and it feeds Ichorid. And while not at all popular now, Reanimator is an awful matchup.

My concern with all of these if going this route would be that they all need to be in your hand. Since unless things are going terribly wrong, you only draw two-three cards outside your opener a game, that means for a decent chance at having them, you'll need to max out.

I'm a little uncomfortable at using 4 slots for something that isn't a guarantee, and would be for objectively the weakest SB hate card against Dredge. While more difficult to apply, when going the "fizzle" route, the cards that can be flashed back at least will only run you a couple of slots.

[Koby]

Wasn't Coffin Purge suggested a few pages back to act as this very answer? At least it's castable from the Graveyard as well, so there's no need to mulligan into it.

[nitewolf9]

What about a more "balls to the walls" approach with Unmask against the slower snapcaster decks using extraction (I assume that's what you're talking about, as extraction seems god awful in RUG)? Preemptive answers to extraction seem to be the most powerful, and Unmask would help against all these sneak and show decks running around as well. Seems to not dilute your game plan as much as well due to the amazing synergy with therapy, and even a discard outlet in a pinch. And it lets you do the "Land, LED, Breakthrough type-plan" against decks with extraction, which punishes that kind of hate very well as it isn't going to be nearly as effective a top deck as a crypt versus that plan.

Plus, I mean, Unmask, c'mon. Card is awesome.

[Parcher]

Wasn't Coffin Purge suggested a few pages back to act as this very answer? At least it's castable from the Graveyard as well, so there's no need to mulligan into it.


Absolutely. And it's definitely viable. What I'm hoping, is that there is enough accumulated experience and knowledge here that we can come to a conclusion of first, which plan of action is the best against Extraction, and second, which card(s) most effectively allow us to implement that plan, with the lowest cost in slots, mana, inconsistancy, etc. Basically the most elegant solution.

Unmask has two problems. The first is, again, you need to draw one naturally. The second being that your same hand that needs all of the normal requirements, now plus Unmask, also has to have an unneeded Black card. Now you can use your first dredger for this if you hit a second one naturally, but all of these issues likely add up to a good deal of inconsistancy. Unmask is very powerful in this deck, but if it does indeed breed inconsistancy in these newer versions that have worked very hard to what I think, drum that out, then I'd be leery of adding it.

The two main decks that you can be confident of seeing Extraction over other hate are Stoneforge, and U/R Delver. With High Tide and about half the time RUG being the next. Against Stoneforge, I really want access to Artifact removal. That isn't going to give me slots to run Grudge, and 3-4 Unmask. Against Delver, and RUG, I really want Firestorm. Especially since a lot of RUG versions run Crypt. But mostly since their only real plan is disrupt and race. If you can significantly retard their clock, a lot of times the hate won't matter(mainly if it is Extraction though). Against High Tide, Unmask would almost definitely be amazing. But against Sneak/Show, you can't afford to bring it in, since you have to keep all of your "speed" cards, and they all run either Cage or Leyine. And you have to board cards for those in all cases.

[cb4]

I think faerie macabre is the best for the fizzle route for the reasons Holly stated above.

Inquisition of kozilek is the best discard spell vs extractions. Inquisition hits all the hate cards we fear in their hand and gives info for therapy. It doesn't cause life loss or card disadvantage and can be used to dump an imp or thug if needed.

I personally like a proactive approach vs extractions by playing dread returns and varied grave-based creatures. This way, you don't lose to a single extraction.

[Parcher]

This is odd.

I actually agree with all three of your statements. Especially about Inqusition, since Therapy takes care of the only card you can't hit(Force).

My only concern with Macabre is the amount of slots it would take. So the question would be; If the best course is to attempt to fizzle Extraction(which is still undecided), is it worth running a set of Macabre to do so? Is it worth the slots over something like Coffin Purge? Does the additional utility of Macabre against other GY decks make it worth it?

If not, then in my opinion, running the creatures is likely better. This will likely prove true if we find that we can't run that many slots against Extraction. Since you only need to hit one or two creatures unless they have multiple Extractions, or they have a massive board advantage. Which is unlikely against the decks that run Extraction. But which creature is the best selection in this case will likely prove the most difficult decision.

[Calado]

My only concern with Macabre is the amount of slots it would take. So the question would be; If the best course is to attempt to fizzle Extraction(which is still undecided), is it worth running a set of Macabre to do so? Is it worth the slots over something like Coffin Purge? Does the additional utility of Macabre against other GY decks make it worth it?
Coffin purge still requires mana, so it's hard against turn 1 permanent hate (cage/relic/crypt/leyline), and we can still get screwed by extraction when the first bridge gets dredged.
Seems confusing yet. Macabre will work amazing against Reanimator and help against Extraction (but I'll try Leyline because of the mirror).
Maybe delaying one turn to avoid one extraction is more beneficial, and discard is the only thing that comes in my mind to avoid it. And with a bonus of getting rid of Zenith/Ooze/Stoneforge, I liked the idea from Thoughtseize.

[Michael Keller]

As I had previously stated, I still feel as though proactive, targeted discard seems to be an incredibly viable solution against Control decks and decks using Surgical Extraction. To address some points:

1.) Faerie Macabre is a much more conditional piece of grave-hate. If you're bringing these in to circumvent Extraction, you're probably losing anyway because it really doesn't make sense to board something like this in against U/r Delver or StoneBlade. It's utility obviously stretches beyond that, but I don't see Faerie Macabre being a tool to combat Extraction. As Parcher stated (and I think it's relatively obvious here): artifact removal is key here.

2.) Proactive discard can be incredibly important because its application stretches beyond simply trying to milk hate out of an opponent's hand in addition to fetched pieces of problematic equipment like Jitte or Batterskull and freeing up some design space in our sideboards. It forces the player to do something then and there - if you haven't already played it turn one or two. Additionally, even if an opponent has a Surgical with Brainstorm in hand (which is a lot less likely than Brainstorming into Surgical), then you pretty much have a clear path to try and win right then and there on the spot without worrying about it in their hand.

3.) Coffin Purge is fine, but I have more and more seen it as a liability in that mana that is used to facilitate draw/filter or Coliseum activations simply negates the ability to use the card for anything really important. At one mana - the same price - I'd much rather just cast a discard spell, milk something out of their hand or force them to change their line of play. With all of the draw/filter the deck possesses, open-handing or drawing into discard isn't really all that hard.

What becomes difficult is the variance associated with Cabal Therapy that becomes a problem. I would personally much rather open-hand a Thoughtseize or Duress than a Therapy - even if I am confident I can nail something. Those cards are definitive, Therapy is not when initially hard-cast.

@Parcher: I think Ashen Ghoul - while perfectly fine as a diversion to Extraction - can still be more of a liability when an opponent actually isn't playing Extraction, because open-handing one of those is just awful as opposed to a timely discard spell. I think an argument can be made for why it works well, and I like the idea of being able to swing for three even after my Ichorids are toast. I might shift a few to my board and see how they work.

[Final Fortune]

From personal experience, attempting to address Surgical Extraction "head on" never seems to work out and differentiating your recursive creatures and your win conditions is the most inherently reliable solution.

I don't like Ashen Ghoul as more than a 1x, I usally play 1xAshen Goul and a couple of Nether Shadows to ensure the Dread Return package and that's it.

Coffin Purge is totally unreliable and Unmask is really resource intensive, I find myself RFGing a valuable outlet or Dredger almost every time I cast it.

[Mizeri]

I may be thinking too hard, but the only answers ive found are odd.

Ground Seal
Divert

I think the only way to fight extraction is to mess up their plan more than they were counting on. Diverting to a fetch pisses ppl off.

[Mojeh]

I may be thinking too hard, but the only answers ive found are odd.

Ground Seal
Divert

I think the only way to fight extraction is to mess up their plan more than they were counting on. Diverting to a fetch pisses ppl off.

One of the problems of Dredge as an archetype, is that you have to open your game to your opponent, often you can't surprise him because he's seeing what is going to your grave.
So, I believe Divert loses almost all of it's value, which would be exactly this "surprise element".

[joemauer]

@thesonofbitchsurgicalextraction:

I think coffin purge, fairie macabre, and the such are the worst. Too conditional. Requires mana left open or being in your opener. It never helps like it should. These cards are weak against graveyard strategies as well.

Nether Shadow+Ashen Ghould plan seems solid. It just won't help when they extract your only dredger(this is a bigger downside than it seems).

I haven't tried the discard plan yet. It seems somewhat promising. Here is the thing though, dredge is a combo deck. Every card we side in dilutes the combo. Siding stuff in to fight Leyline or wheel is a must because we can't win if one of the two are in play. We can still win against extraction without any sided cards. Cabal Therapy is already a perfect discard effect that furthers our combo.

In short, I have not found a better strategy than ignoring the card or picking it off with Cabal Therapy.

[Vandalize]

One of the problems of Dredge as an archetype, is that you have to open your game to your opponent, often you can't surprise him because he's seeing what is going to your grave.
So, I believe Divert loses almost all of it's value, which would be exactly this "surprise element".

True, but Divert seems so much fun!

Hmm, I've been testing this lately:

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Tarnished Citadel

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Breakthrough

SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Firestorm
SB: 3 Gravecrawler
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 Tarnished Citadel
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation

Seems fine?

[jares]

In short, I have not found a better strategy than ignoring the card or picking it off with Cabal Therapy.
Curiously, this has also been the summary of my experience. I have found that, even after bearing the effects of going through [2x] Surgical Extractions, we would still be able to win by capitalizing on the deck's resilience and exercising tight play. In these cases, Firestorm has usually been instrumental in affecting the progression of a game that we would usually need to grind-out using a small band of 1/1 and 2/2 misfits - it may not be directly related to how Surgical Extraction affects the game, but it's surely a way of affecting the game state in the absence of cards that have been exiled via Surgical Extraction.

Also, picking something off via Cabal Therapy can often be used as a default answer to a problem (and this usually ends up well), and supporting that game plan via targeted discard spells seems like a low-risk, moderately high-reward investment.

In summary, it seems to me like there are three things that we can do to address Surgical Extraction:

Attack the card proactively (Duress, Thoughtseize, Unmask, and even Cabal Therapy).
Respond to it whenever it is played (Faerie Macabre, Surgical Extraction, Coffin Purge, Noxious Revival).
Prepare the deck to be able to bear the damage (Ashen Ghoul, Nether Shadow, Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, maybe even Darkblast as a means of increasing the number of Dredgers)
Ignore Surgical Extraction, then address the loss of key cards indirectly (the cards that can be used to apply this strategy will vary; Firestorm was used in the example above)

Among these three choices, option #2 seems to be the most conditional, and thus, the most unreliable. Option #3 is the best choice in progressing the general game plan of the deck, and option #1 offers the most reliable means of disruption, especially against combo decks. As much as option #4 is actually my default strategy (and this option might not even be an objective means of actually addressing Surgical Extraction), a mix of options #1 and #3 would probably be the most versatile course of action given that Cabal Therapy is already built-in, and diversifying the threat base shouldn't really be too much of an investment.

I hope that helps.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Gui]

What I do against surgical extraction is siding in a couple of Nether Shadows and a Iona, Shield of Emeria (since I don't run DR targets maindeck).

Although this doesn't address the "Extract your dredger" plan, and can't really beat double extraction in a regular basis, or at least not as often as I'd like to, I found that siding it this way let me preventively side against extraction @ g2 without hurting my deck much. This means I have more chances at fighting it, since I'll be sided against it for g2 and g3.
Going with 4 Narco, 2 Ichorid, 2 Nether Shadow and a strong all around DR target is the plan I intend to be following.

If I was to use another counter to extraction, I'd go Coffin Purge + discard dorks. If you hit a PImp or a Tribe and wait to discard your dredger after your untap phase, you can counter Extraction against dredger and drop a second one. The problem in this case is, of course, that you have to reduce the amount of business from your deck, and hope that you open a Purge and TWO dredgers. It's still less terrible than Memory Journey or Faerie Macabre because it has wider aplications.

Now, if "extract the dredger" is the play you see most, Noxious Revival is the card you should use, because it's the card that most decently counters this plan, giving you the dredger back after the trick. Unfortunatly, it's worse than Purge at fighting bridge/moeba/ichorid extraction because it has to be on your opening hand.

Actually, now that I think about it, siding Noxious preventively @ g2 could be the correct play to increase the chance to beat g2/g3 extraction, because if they Tormods instead, you can still save your dredger with it.

[Parcher]

Outstanding. This is finally a good discussion on the subject.

It seems to be the consensus that reacting to Extraction is the weakest plan. I can't tell from the replies though, if people are taking into consideration the additional usage that cards such as Coffin Purge have outside of that. The mirror, and Reanimator being the most obvious. I am in agreement that for the sole purpose of stopping Extraction, there are better choices, but this does need to be taken into consideration.

The same goes for discard. I don't believe that it is neccassarily the best option against Extraction either, but is definitely a consideration because of the additional utility.

Most seem to think that the man-plan is the best overall. Or possibly in conjunction with one of the other two options. Individually, while it might be the best direct answer to Extraction, additional creatures are not likely to come in against anything else. So they still might not be the best answer to add to the SB. I don't really see how they could be combined with discard though, as you are looking at 5 minimum slots to do this.

Lots of good ideas though.

[Final Fortune]

Men can come in vs. Tormod's Crypt as well, it's not a one dimentional plan vs. Surgical Extraction only.

[NecroYawgmoth]

Men can come in vs. Tormod's Crypt as well, it's not a one dimentional plan vs. Surgical Extraction only.

Men can come in against any hate basically.

Its diversity against Surgical and it helps to force the opponent to use Crypt / Relic.

This leads me to a thinking of: "If I board dorks against any hatepiece, why don't I play them main?"

I fight Extraction with Memory's Journey. I like the card a lot, and it can screw around with a lot of opponen't gameplans.


BTW: I got a question to all of you.

If you have a sample hand of 1-2 lands,1-2 dredgers, discard-dork [Imp/Tribe],and Study/Looting-effect. Do you open with Discard dork, or with Study-effect? Please explain why.

[Final Fortune]

Because versus no hate, you don't want to play any more recurring creatures than absolutely necessary.

You usually play the discard dork before you play the draw spell, it maximizes the number of Dredges by guaranteeing you'll have +1 Dredger in your graveyard after your draw step for the draw spell.

[Darklingske]

You usually play the discard dork before you play the draw spell, it maximizes the number of Dredges by guaranteeing you'll have +1 Dredger in your graveyard after your draw step for the draw spell.

+1

[igri_is_a_bk]

I believe the best answer is to diversify our threats against Extraction and Extirpate. That means we don't bring in more than one of any guy. For example, if you want to battle Extraction in this way, the extra bodies from your board should look something like;

1 Ashen Ghoul
1 Bloodghast
1 Gravecrawler
1 Nether Shadow

Depending on how many you want, obviously. I don't think we have to analyze which one is the best, because we'd set ourselves up for Extraction to take out ~3 threats (which is what we wanted to avoid in the first place). Additionally, you want at least two Dread Return since you're powering the card up by bringing in any of the guys above. A dedicated target isn't necessary if you ask me. It can help, but we all know the applications of each fatty by now.

I don't think it makes any sense to bring in extra, non-Ichorid guys against artifact hate. Since they aren't any better protected from a wiped graveyard compared to Ichorid, we should just bring in more Ichorids in that case. We can all agree he is by far the best recurring creature, right? Besides, against Crypt/Relic, I usually want to bring in Grudge to either force the activation or battle the problematic Batterskull/Jitte they showed me game one.

@Vandalize - The list looks good. It is 59/60 the same as mine: -1 Ichorid, +1 Citadel. I still like four Firestorm, though. I haven't experienced the desire to reduce that card because I always play aggro and RUG each week. I'd say most people fight these decks pretty frequently too and probably would agree to max it out.

One thing I dislike now is sideboarded gold lands. It feels like a gigantic waste of space. Don't you want to be able to cast Faithless Looting as frequently as you'd cast Firestorm or Nature's Claim? I know I do, and when I made that realization, I stopped playing less than 14 lands and stopped using any sideboard space for them.

[Gui]

@ NecroYawg's question, I'd play the dork because if I hit it, I have a draw spell to fulfil the combo, but if I play the careful first and hit it, I'd have 2 discard spells instead. This of course, if I'm not considering that the first spell will be countered, in which case I would cast careful first and stick the best discard later

[Parcher]

I believe the best answer is to diversify our threats against Extraction and Extirpate. That means we don't bring in more than one of any guy. For example, if you want to battle Extraction in this way, the extra bodies from your board should look something like;

1 Ashen Ghoul
1 Bloodghast
1 Gravecrawler
1 Nether Shadow

Depending on how many you want, obviously. I don't think we have to analyze which one is the best, because we'd set ourselves up for Extraction to take out ~3 threats (which is what we wanted to avoid in the first place). Additionally, you want at least two Dread Return since you're powering the card up by bringing in any of the guys above. A dedicated target isn't necessary if you ask me. It can help, but we all know the applications of each fatty by now.

I don't think it makes any sense to bring in extra, non-Ichorid guys against artifact hate. Since they aren't any better protected from a wiped graveyard compared to Ichorid, we should just bring in more Ichorids in that case. We can all agree he is by far the best recurring creature, right? Besides, against Crypt/Relic, I usually want to bring in Grudge to either force the activation or battle the problematic Batterskull/Jitte they showed me game one.

@Vandalize - The list looks good. It is 59/60 the same as mine: -1 Ichorid, +1 Citadel. I still like four Firestorm, though. I haven't experienced the desire to reduce that card because I always play aggro and RUG each week. I'd say most people fight these decks pretty frequently too and probably would agree to max it out.

One thing I dislike now is sideboarded gold lands. It feels like a gigantic waste of space. Don't you want to be able to cast Faithless Looting as frequently as you'd cast Firestorm or Nature's Claim? I know I do, and when I made that realization, I stopped playing less than 14 lands and stopped using any sideboard space for them.


I'm not sure I agree with the logic here. I agree that you definitely want DR against Extraction, since it gives another avenue of attack. I mostly agree that you don't need extra guys against Artifact hate, since you would have to be extremely unlucky to be able to still continue dredging after a Crypt, but to have lost all of your threats to said Crypt. I even agree that it's still worth running Firestorm considering the current dearth of Aggro.

I don't agree that all the extra threats are equal, and I don't agree that you need to diversify them against Extraction. Ignoring the fact that some people are going to gamble and try and hit your first dredger, the three biggest targets are going to be Narcomoeba, Bridge, and Ichorid. If you are able to hit a big draw early, then most decks will have to hit Narcomoeba to keep you from winning on the spot. Bridge is usually the second target. Unless the opponent has a different way to remove Bridges, or has immediate access to a second Extraction, and goes for all of your creature-threats first. Ichorid is usually the third target, since it is slower than Narcomoeba, less powerful than Bridge, and more easily dealt with by other means.

So for the diversity to matter, they would need at least three Extractions to hit. If that happens in any reasonable circumstance, I doubt that you're winning the game anyway. As far as which to run, there really has to be an answer. There is always a "best", or "correct" choice. One that can be shown for whatever reason(s) to in it's circumstance to be superior than the other options. We have about 4 selections, with obvious pros and cons. Assuming that most are running the same main deck within 5 cards, and are already alloting 5-6 cards for more permanent hate, 2-3 slots for DR targets, and 1-2 slots for Lands, it should be possible to prove which of these creatures is correct.

[joemauer]

So for the diversity to matter, they would need at least three Extractions to hit. If that happens in any reasonable circumstance, I doubt that you're winning the game anyway. As far as which to run, there really has to be an answer. There is always a "best", or "correct" choice. One that can be shown for whatever reason(s) to in it's circumstance to be superior than the other options. We have about 4 selections, with obvious pros and cons. Assuming that most are running the same main deck within 5 cards, and are already alloting 5-6 cards for more permanent hate, 2-3 slots for DR targets, and 1-2 slots for Lands, it should be possible to prove which of these creatures is correct.

Games involving surgical extraction tend to go on for awhile because of the whittling of our resources. Because of this I believe Bloodghast is the worst answer. Unless you get lucky with an Undiscovered Paradise against no Wasteland he won't recur much in one game. Typically once or twice. You could run dakmor, but that tends to waste a turn of dredging and isn't a good land.

Gravecrawler seems too situational on paper, but I haven't tested him yet.

Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul seem like they will recur the most often. If your goal is to simply get dudes on the field so you can cast a game winning Dread Return then Nether Shadow is superior here because of the ease to get into play. If you need more guys to beatdown your opponent to win then I would play neither. Both are suboptimal creatures in the current metagame.

[(nameless one)]

Hey guys,

I have an outdated Dredge deck that my friend wants to borrow from an upcoming Tournament. Given that we cannot get an LED on time, would Parcher's old non-LED list still be viable or should I just tell my friend to run a rogue deck?

[Gui]

Hey guys,

I have an outdated Dredge deck that my friend wants to borrow from an upcoming Tournament. Given that we cannot get an LED on time, would Parcher's old non-LED list still be viable or should I just tell my friend to run a rogue deck?

Bottomline, get the list, cut 4 of something that ISN'T Careful Study and add 4 Faithless Looting to it. It will do fine. For reference, I cutted 2 Breakthrough and 2 Tireless Tribe from mine and it goes really well.



On Extraction subject, from the options that everyone knows to exist and mentioned so far, the one I believe to deserve a second chance is Noxious Revival. Siding it during game 2 against someone that could have extraction could be enough to grant us some wins against the devil, and also it's not useless against tormods or on its own, recurring a dredger or a moeba.

[(nameless one)]

The current outdated list goes:

4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Ichorid
1 Angel of Despair

4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return

I guess I'm gonna go with Gui's plans then. Or should I cut Tireless Tribe altogether and leave Breakthrough for more brokeness?

Also concerning sideboard, I used to run a playset of Leyline of the Void against graveyard deck matchups. I am guessing Surgical Extraction is better or should I stick with Leylines?

I don't really have a fixed sideboard and I am also lacking Firestorms so any advices on this is also welcomed

Thanks in advance!

[Gui]

I guess I'm gonna go with Gui's plans then. Or should I cut Tireless Tribe altogether and leave Breakthrough for more brokeness?
Thanks in advance!
Also works! I'd just advise you to find a way for the 12th dredger, it's more important that Breakthroughs, but yeah, this list will do fine if you play it right ^^

[Michael Keller]

Games involving surgical extraction tend to go on for awhile because of the whittling of our resources. Because of this I believe Bloodghast is the worst answer. Unless you get lucky with an Undiscovered Paradise against no Wasteland he won't recur much in one game. Typically once or twice. You could run dakmor, but that tends to waste a turn of dredging and isn't a good land.

Gravecrawler seems too situational on paper, but I haven't tested him yet.

Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul seem like they will recur the most often. If your goal Both are suboptimal creatures in the current metagame.

Ashen Ghoul is just fine as a beater. However, Nether Shadow really serves the purpose of solely fueling Dread Returns. Still, hasty attacks are fully acceptable in this archetype and because these creatures are generally "free," they really aren't that suboptimal in Dredge.

[jares]

Also works! I'd just advise you to find a way for the 12th dredger, it's more important that Breakthroughs, but yeah, this list will do fine if you play it right ^^
You could try cutting the main-deck Dread Return target (Angel of Despair?) for the 12th Dredger. I've also forgone the use of Tireless Tribe in favor of a full set of Breakthrough and Faithless Looting, and it has worked very well for me so far. You'll probably have to play a bit more tightly in having fewer permanent discard outlets though. Leyline of the Void is fine if you're happy with it, and it'll probably be a good choice given that you'll have less "racing power" against LED Dredge and Reanimator.

Good Luck :smile:

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Ashen Ghoul is just fine as a beater. However, Nether Shadow really serves the purpose of solely fueling Dread Returns. Still, hasty attacks are fully acceptable in this archetype and because these creatures are generally "free," they really aren't that suboptimal in Dredge.
I was also thinking that, if the premise of these sideboard cards is that we're going through well-played hate (Surgical Extraction, among others), then it will be more likely for us to need to pass through the beat-down route, something that Ashen Ghoul is better at when compared to other alternatives. I guess that I also prefer this card over the other choices because I also make it a point to play as many Gold Lands as I can, a preference that works well with playing Ashen Ghoul.

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Here's another abstract question, if you had to choose between 10 Dredgers and 11 Golden Lands and 12 Dredgers and 9 Golden Lands which of the two would make the deck more consistent and why?

This is a tough question to consider for me because I've always maintained that Gold Lands are still the main dependencies in the deck. I realized, though, that "Dredge loses when it's unable to Dredge", and, given that you'll also likely to have access to a few Cephalid Coliseums, I would have to choose to play 12 Dredgers alongside 9 Gold Lands (and preferably a full set of Cephalid Coliseums).

Cheers,
jares

[(nameless one)]

Also works! I'd just advise you to find a way for the 12th dredger, it's more important that Breakthroughs, but yeah, this list will do fine if you play it right ^^

For the 12th Dredger, which one would be better? A 4th Golgari Thug or Darkblast? I think I'm gonna go with Darkblast with all the hatebears and little dudes running around the format.

Whats your opinion on this?

[joemauer]

Ashen Ghoul is just fine as a beater. However, Nether Shadow really serves the purpose of solely fueling Dread Returns. Still, hasty attacks are fully acceptable in this archetype and because these creatures are generally "free," they really aren't that suboptimal in Dredge.

When compared to other decks Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul are weaker than Tarmogofy/Batterskull. That is why they are suboptimal.

Ashen Ghoul can't keep recurring if your only land is a gemstone mine or Cephalid Coliseum. That is more than half of one's mana base.

Not arguing just to argue here, but rather I haven't been convinced of the man plan yet. I still think ignoring it is the strongest play, but if someone has been very successful against Surgical Extraction with some sideboard tech please tell me about it.

[Parcher]

While sub-optimal in comparison to other creatures, there still may be an optimal choice of creature to run as a safeguard against Extraction.

That said, I can't say I've had spectacular success with any of these choices against Extraction. Hence, my starting this discussion. In most cases, it has either done virtually nothing against me due to the opponent chosing the wrong target, or my just overpowering it, or they have gotten one or two Extractions quickly, and had either a fast clock, or a bunch of Plow/Path to back it up.

Memory's Journey has performed very well for me. But rarely against Extraction. It's pretty awesome in the mirror, and the absolute nuts against Painter or Reanimator. Purge was awful, and I've not used any other attempts to fizzle cards.

Neither Bloodghast, not Ghoul ever did well for me per se either. Running Bloodghast sort of puts you all in on the Bloodghast plan. I don't care for what it did to my manabase, nor in the poor choices it forced on me when dredging, and in regards to keeping lands in hand. Ghoul sort of has done it's job. That is, I have forced a tempo loss on my opponent by making him Waste me or lose, then winning with whichever other threat I had left. I think that if we are assuming that your opponent has stopped your combo(Narcomoeba), and both your primary and secondary threats(Bridge and Ichorid), then if you are running Dread Return and a feasible target against that specific opponent, that Nether Shadow best facilitates that plan as a third option.

I've only run Unmask as additional discard, and it was a completely different metagame. I couldn't say how it, or other dicard would actually perform directly against decks running Extraction.

[Gui]

Well... it seems that Noxious Revival is the next test, then...

[Izor]

Not arguing just to argue here, but rather I haven't been convinced of the man plan yet. I still think ignoring it is the strongest play, but if someone has been very successful against Surgical Extraction with some sideboard tech please tell me about it.

Don't dilute your deck and hope they don't draw multiples or that they use it targeting the wrong cards.

Honestly, our deck is considerably better suited to win through double-extraction with the maximum number of discard dorks. They attack in the air or block on the ground respectively, and just having them in play can grant you that small early game board presence and the warm body for your last effort DR on Iona when all your recursive threats have been dealt with. They also enable the best recovery from the first extraction on your Dredger. And they even increase the creature count of your deck in case you choose to use some Nether Shadows to beat Extractions as well (they also enable you to stack the top of your library for them).

In short, I think this is about how our deck could look like if we want the best chances to fight through multiple Extractions:

14 Lands

12 Dredgers

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Careful Study
2 Breakthrough/LED

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge From Below
2 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Why Nether Shadow over the other options? Simply because it's the only one that's easy to recur. Ghoul needs mana in addition to the Shadow's clause. Bloodghast needs an entirely different composition of lands and arguable some Dakmor Salvage as well. And Gravecrawler needs mana and Zombies in play. Also, Shadow can block. That's a pretty big deal in those attrition games when you have to fight with a severely crippled deck.

Why Iona as the DR target? Simply because she is by far the best individual creature you could have to win the game on her own. The only creatures that do it even better have some clause that prevent reanimation.


It should be noted that this list is also better at fighting artifact-based graveyard hate by running the full 8 discard dorks. So what I'm currently doing is thinking about how close I can get to that list with my LED list after sideboarding. I'm also pondering about whether the improves post board game could justify main board changes (Tireless Tribe over LED for instance), at least in hate-heavy metagames.


I'm going to do some testing.

[funyun45]

One aspect of this debate that I feel hasn't been addressed enough is the differences in how much sideboard space has to be allocated for each anti-Extraction strategy.

Like Gui, I board in 2 Nether Shadows and 1 Iona against Extraction (because, like Izor above, I think Shadows are obviously better than Ashen Ghoul and the like). One advantage of this strategy is that it requires only 2 SB spaces (the 2 Nether Shadows), since almost every correctly built Dredge SB should already have Iona in it. Compare this to the discard route, which would likely be putting 3-4 Duress/IoK/Thoughtseize in the board. In this deck, that extra 1-2 SB slots is a big deal in terms of reactivity to the diversity of GY hate.

On the other hand, one could simply put 2 discard pieces in against Extraction, the logic being that you only want to bolster opening a Therapy. At the same time, I feel like for a strategy as proactive as the discard route, going all out by maximizing the chances of the desired effect in the opening hand is what you want to be doing, and anything less is just halfassed and unreliable. While siding in 2 more discard certainly increases the chances of seeing the desired effect opening hand, it definitely seems like if that's the direction you want to go, 3-4 pieces in the SB is guaranteeing the efficacy of the strategy much better. And that requires narrowing the presence of other SB answers. If you're only going to throw 2 pieces of discard in games 2 and 3, in my opinion you might as well just go the Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul/etc. strategy, since it will more reliably pay off better "per capita."

At the same time, I think the discard route has other drawbacks:

1) The fact remains that for non-Cabal discard, you just have to open with it for it to be useful. Threat diversification just bolsters the deck's initial set of strategies, by increasing the chances of getting to 3 dudes for DR in cases where Bridge and/or Ichorids have been extracted, and even serving as backup Ichorid fodder if needs be. Flipped non-Cabal discard is just dead.
2) Proactive discard slows the deck down by at least one turn compared to the threat diversity route. And, depending on which discard piece you're using, they can't even act as discard outlets for yourself. Thoughtseize can, but Duress can't and IoK doesn't work on GGT.

The primary advantage that discard has on threat diversity is that it is far better against a wide range of hate. Nether Shadows aren't really good except in situations where you are trying to mitigate the damage from targeted GY hate (I disagree with people saying they're good against Crypt; they work alright, but I think Putrid Imp is much better). However, the deck already packs Therapies for hand hate, and in my opinion, if you're bringing in additional discard against non-Extraction strategies, you are going in the wrong direction with your sideboarding.

So, I was initially intrigued by the idea of boarding in discard against Extraction. But all in all, I think threat diversification/DR bolstering is the most efficient strategy, on a number of levels. It just jives with the deck's strategy better, interacting with different aspects of the deck very smoothly. In addition, as was my main point here, I think you get more bang for your buck as far as SB slots go.

[funyun45]

I believe the best answer is to diversify our threats against Extraction and Extirpate. That means we don't bring in more than one of any guy.

I don't think anyone in their right mind (at least game 2, when they don't necessarily know what's up) is going to Extract any of these backup guys over Bridge, Ichorid, or a dredger. And if they see the 3rd Extraction (or the second after a Snapcaster), they simply got the nuts and you're probably going to lose anyway.

[Final Fortune]

For the 12th Dredger, which one would be better? A 4th Golgari Thug or Darkblast? I think I'm gonna go with Darkblast with all the hatebears and little dudes running around the format.

Whats your opinion on this?

Darkblast has the advantage of making certain the deck never runs cold to Peacekeeper and reduces the effectiveness of Surgical Extraction on Golgari Thug.

[Infectious]

...

In short, I think this is about how our deck could look like if we want the best chances to fight through multiple Extractions:

14 Lands

12 Dredgers

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Careful Study
2 Breakthrough/LED

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge From Below
2 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

...

I'm going to do some testing.

If you're running 14 lands you've got almost a 20% chance to start with at least 3 (to be able to flash back faithless looting) in your starting 7. If you're going to be on the draw (8 cards) it jumps to over 27%. I mention it in case you want to reconsider the optimal list, when expecting to face extractions, to possibly include some number of faithless looting(s).

The odds to start with at least 2 lands in 7 cards is over 52%. On the draw (8) is over 60%. So if on your 2nd turn you play a 2nd land, and get a looting in your grave, your opponent won't know if you're hiding a 3rd land in your hand or not. Obviously they shouldn't use their extraction on looting, but it does open them up to more decision making and chances to misplay.

And best case scenario you're able to flash it back and it's the extra gas to push you over the top.

[Michael Keller]

4-0'ed the local tonight (24 players) with this updated version of Dredge:

// Lands
4 [AN] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise

// Creatures
3 [TO] Ichorid
3 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
1 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [RAV] Flame-Kin Zealot

// Spells
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [DKA] Faithless Looting
3 [TO] Breakthrough

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [WWK] Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 [JUD] Cabal Therapy
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 2 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 [IA] Ashen Ghoul
SB: 2 [INN] Memory's Journey

Here were the match-ups I ran into:

Belcher [2-1]
BUG [2-1]
Imperial Painter [2-0]
Reanimator [2-0]

The list fired incredibly smoothly as expected. The pick and roll of Memory's Journey and Ashen Ghoul was absolutely fantastic around Extraction - which I tailored my board around a bit to see how it would work. Against BUG, I was able to circumvent his hate by overwhelming him with Ichorids and Ghoul - both of which not only got around Extraction and Crypt (because of the excess threat density) but additionally Pernicious Deed. Ashen Ghoul did hit play and did some damage, too.

Additionally, Memory's Journey struck fear into my Imperial Painter opponent who had hoped I wasn't playing it in my board. Paired with Ancient Grudge, the combo was all-star in defending my attacks. I was able to win the second game through a Welder-Crypt lock by using both cards to dwindle his resources and stunt his recursion. Memory's Journey was also incredible against Reanimator - shipping an Elesh Norn back into the depths of his deck and allowing me to seal up the win.

Finally, against Belcher, Griselbrand was amazing. My opponent tried to "turn one" me by dropping fourteen Goblins into play. After getting some action with a Careful Study, I was able to get a few Narcomoebas and tokens off Coliseum and subsequently Dread Return Griselbrand into play - barely staying alive and offsetting his damage with Lifelink. He conceded after a turn surviving his assault now realizing he was now going to be destroyed by Griselbrand and an army of Zombie tokens.

I not only liked the changes, I loved them. Solid overall ideas and a powerful showing as usual with LED Dredge.

[jares]

The pick and roll of Memory's Journey and Ashen Ghoul was absolutely fantastic around Extraction - which I tailored my board around a bit to see how it would work. Against BUG, I was able to circumvent his hate by overwhelming him with Ichorids and Ghoul - both of which not only got around Extraction and Crypt (because of the excess threat density) but additionally Pernicious Deed. Ashen Ghoul did hit play and did some damage, too.

Good notes. I was wondering about how much of a difference it would have made if you used Nether Shadow instead of Ashen Ghoul in the instances where the ghoul performed well. I was also thinking that, at least in the Painter match-up, one Memory's Journey would be sufficient.

I like the pick-and-roll analogy by the way. Reminds me of Parker and Duncan running circles around Westbrook. :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

[Final Fortune]

Why isn't Memories' Jouney not strictly worse than Coffin Purge, considering you can't hard cast it as easily and you don't RFG Elesh Norn?

I find 2 Dread Return targets in Griselbrand and Flame Kin Zealot dubious compared to the 4th Cabal Therapy and Iona, Shield of Emeria instead, not letting the opponent win is virtually the same as killing your opponent with Dredge and the 4th Cabal Therapy has more utility by itself.

[jares]

Why isn't Memories' Jouney not strictly worse than Coffin Purge, considering you can't hard cast it as easily and you don't RFG Elesh Norn?
The Painter match-up is the only reason that I can think of...

I find 2 Dread Return targets in Griselbrand and Flame Kin Zealot dubious compared to the 4th Cabal Therapy and Iona, Shield of Emeria instead, not letting the opponent win is virtually the same as killing your opponent with Dredge and the 4th Cabal Therapy has more utility by itself.
+1

Kind Regards,
jares

[Final Fortune]

The Painter match-up is the only reason that I can think of...

+1

Kind Regards,
jares

That explains one, but I fail to see the purpose of multiples when Coffin Purge is strictly better unless you need two turns to alpha strike maybe?

[lsho]

Hi. I am new to Legacy and I am currently building my Dredge deck. I goldfished a little with the deck and wanted to ask whether Sun Titan as a DR target is still viable because I don't see it in lists anymore. I understand that FKZ can instagib the opponent but why is it that Sun Titan has been dismissed?

[jares]

That explains one, but I fail to see the purpose of multiples when Coffin Purge is strictly better unless you need two turns to alpha strike maybe?
Possibly, though that would seem to be an unlikely scenario. In an effort to save up on sideboard space, I would probably just use Memory's Journey as a singleton, given that Dredge's fundamental turn usually comes earlier than Painter, not to mention that we also have other means to disrupt their game play.

Kind Regards,
jares

[jares]

Hi. I am new to Legacy and I am currently building my Dredge deck. I goldfished a little with the deck and wanted to ask whether Sun Titan as a DR target is still viable because I don't see it in lists anymore. I understand that FKZ can instagib the opponent but why is it that Sun Titan has been dismissed?
I wouldn't say that Sun Titan has been completely dismissed, but in its role as an enabler, Griselbrand has been the next big thing for that slot.

Cheers,
jares

[Sedris]

That explains one, but I fail to see the purpose of multiples when Coffin Purge is strictly better unless you need two turns to alpha strike maybe?

Journey is just better in some special Matchups. Most time I use it, it does not act as Gy-hate.

1.) It handles 3 cards. So Purge would lose against Exhume with 3 or more targets in GY.
2.) It shuffles Libraries. So you can shuffle your own Deck if Terminus put Ichorids on bottom, or shuffle Decks in response to Top activations or after Enlightened Tutors and Brainstorms (obv only after your opponent wanted to hide smth).
3.) You can save Birdge from getting exiled, and recycle Moebas so that you can virtually have 7 in one game.
4.) Against Doomsday & Painter a card that may turn the situation for 100 degrees.
(5.) It's also better against treshed Mongoose, if that could be an aspect...)

[Calado]

I find 2 Dread Return targets in Griselbrand and Flame Kin Zealot dubious compared to the 4th Cabal Therapy and Iona, Shield of Emeria instead, not letting the opponent win is virtually the same as killing your opponent with Dredge and the 4th Cabal Therapy has more utility by itself.
Based on the report he would lose to Belcher with Iona. With Griselbrand he outraced him making a bigger army.
Btw, there's any defense against turn 1 Belcher? (I saw a recent report of one guy losing games 1 and 3 against it)

[Gui]

I would only consider Journey better than purge IF I was to play all 8 permanent discard outlets, in which case it would often be a :g: -> remove 3.

In current builds, Purge is better.

[Final Fortune]

Based on the report he would lose to Belcher with Iona. With Griselbrand he outraced him making a bigger army.
Btw, there's any defense against turn 1 Belcher? (I saw a recent report of one guy losing games 1 and 3 against it)

I'm sure there are multiple conditional scenarios where either Griselbrand or Iona would win where the other wouldn't, not certain what it proves tho'.

[joemauer]

Why isn't Memories' Jouney not strictly worse than Coffin Purge, considering you can't hard cast it as easily and you don't RFG Elesh Norn?

I find 2 Dread Return targets in Griselbrand and Flame Kin Zealot dubious compared to the 4th Cabal Therapy and Iona, Shield of Emeria instead, not letting the opponent win is virtually the same as killing your opponent with Dredge and the 4th Cabal Therapy has more utility by itself.

Memory's Journey is better against Time Spiral and the aforementioned Painter.

There are alot of situations where Iona won't win the game, but a strong board presence and more Cabal Therapies will. I cut Iona from my main awhile ago because of the all the ways different decks had to deal with it, the biggest one is Karakas though. Also, Grislebrand and Flame-Kin Zealot go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly.

[Michael Keller]

Coffin Purge's application is strictly the same in the sense that you're using it as a means to eliminate or save a particular card(s) in order to assist you in saving your assets or stunt an opponent. I think that Memory's Journey has a wider application to it and allows the Dredge player to not only circumvent Extraction-based strategies (and probably most other grave-hate post-board strategies), but it also works much better than a single Purge one on one in that the ultimate goal is to eliminate from the graveyard as many targets necessary to help you stay in and win you the game.

Also, being able to shuffle back Narcomoebas is just so damn good.

Iona is a completely separate issue. As I had stated previously, she really only shines in the match-ups that we already have favorable win-percentages against. It's a fine sideboard card but as joemauer mentioned they (Griselbrand and Zealot) really do go together like peanut butter and jelly. Iona doesn't stop a Maverick player from nabbing a Knight with a Green Sun's Zenith (if on 'White') and really just sucks against Karakas and Maze of Ith. Griselbrand's built-in feature will almost undoubtedly find you a Zealot in which you can spread your forces and create an army of attackers winning you the game on the spot.

Iona is really only a vanilla creature and against those decks like Sneak and Show where you want to be able to swing out and kill an opponent quickly without passing the turn, Zealot is really the most viable option because you won't have to pass the turn without knowing you can do a serious amount of damage and win off the crack-back with Ichorids and tokens, and potentially another Dread Returned 'Zealot (previously sacrificed for Annihilator).

I understand Iona's broad utility and why it would seem like a good fit as a modest and effective D.R. target game one, but I just don't think its utility is good enough to beat decks and players who are capable of playing around it with several colors or the ability to ice it with the aforementioned lands. You're still giving the opponent outs, which isn't really that great even if they are few and far between. The deck is strictly Combo at heart, so being able to have the ability to win the turn you Dread Return seems good in a format where passing can cost you the game. Iona just seems highly questionable against decks that are capable of playing around her, and I really don't want to give my opponent the luxury of decision when I can just attack and win the game then and there.

It's still a fine sideboard card.

Additionally, Iona would have strictly lost me the game I played against Belcher and won. I was able to gain life and whittle away his attacking Goblins with my Zombies and Griselbrand. Also, with his team tapped down, had I found a Flame-Kin Zealot and one more Narcomoeba (off a Coliseum activation), I would have won the game then and there with an attack for twenty-one. Iona would have forced me to sit there as a singleton blocker as my opponent would have just attacked me out for the win the following turn.

It's worth noting that all Dread Return targets do not actually say that they win you the game then and there, but in a virtual sense. The question we have to ask ourselves is in an incredibly diverse format, is it better to give our opponents the chance to make a play or is it better to exploit choices with built-in abilities created for the sole purpose of actually winning you the game by drawing an absurd amount of cards and pumping our dudes and giving them haste in the process?

[jares]

I would only consider Journey better than purge IF I was to play all 8 permanent discard outlets, in which case it would often be a :g: -> remove 3.

In current builds, Purge is better.
I agree. Having instant-speed discard outlets surely makes Memory's Journey much more reliable, though I still wouldn't say that that would make it better than Coffin Purge.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Tammit67]

Absolutely love your sideboard Hollywood Very close to what i have been toying around with. Still not sold on DR targets main, let alone 2(!).

My meta is too unpredictable with regards to GY hate for me not to want 4 Pimps. What would you recommend I axe from your list to make room?

[Dravus Mallinard]

@Hollywood

I noticed your list cant deal with an Elesh already in play... at this point, what guided you to not use the chain of Vapor ??

Could you detail your match against Reanimator? were you always in front of your oponent ??? How did his deck interact with yours ???

[Anusien]

Mathematically, the right cut is Tireless Tribe, not Breakthrough.

[Michael Keller]

@Hollywood

I noticed your list cant deal with an Elesh already in play... at this point, what guided you to not use the chain of Vapor ??

Could you detail your match against Reanimator? were you always in front of your oponent ??? How did his deck interact with yours ???

Dravus:

Not a problem. Technically speaking, my list can deal with an Elesh Norn in play game one, assuming I am able to bring Griselbrand back from the dead and get some heavy swings in with him. Additionally, if you're able to punish an opponent's life total to the point where Reanimate becomes uncastable, that is another line of play you can take. These are all game one plays.

Games two and three it's really the same premise. If an opponent goes with the Show and Tell plan and you have enough creatures in your graveyard, it's entirely possible to have a Troll in hand that can actually trump whatever an opponent tries to bring into play - like Elesh Norn. My list is a little soft to the Reanimator match-up when a fattie enters the battlefield, that I'll concede. But as Parcher already mentioned, Reanimator isn't seeing a whole lot of play right now. Memory's Journey and Nature's Claim can fight Reanimator pretty good if the game goes to turn three or four (Nature's Claim remember can hit Animate Dead) assuming an opponent just can't find Entomb. Even so, you can build a sizable enough graveyard where finding a Journey or Purge or whatever helps so that you can simply eliminate an imposing threat.

Game one my opponent just wasn't able to produce anything off a slow mulligan and I went the old-fashioned beat-down route with Therapy ravaging his hand. Game two he tried mulling to hit some form of grave-hate or possibly Entomb, and he couldn't find it. Meanwhile, I opened with LED, LED, Breakthrough, Troll, Looting, X card, Y card. He had a Pierce for the LED but not the second and the rest of the action that came along with it. He did manage to find Entomb (as I didn't hit Zealot off all of that draw power - go figure), but I just shipped the Norn back with Journey.

[Tombstalker]

Great discussion in this thread so far guys! I have a few questions maybe you could answer:

FKZ vs elesh norn vs flayer in the main- Basically I would like to know why FKZ is better than the other 2. I realize FKZ gives haste but my question is:
does the +1/+1 and haste to newly created tokens outweigh or even equal the damage output from elesh norns +2/+2 to non-sick tokens or the 9 damage of flayer? This is assuming 1 DR in the yard so no combo kill from flayer + troll or hasted trolls.

Also elesh norn main cancels an opposing elesh norn so there is that to consider I suppose.

Also good showing Hollywood! I like your build but is there anything you would change main or side in retrospect? Do you feel that 11 dredgers and 3 therapies main are sufficient, even optimal? Can coliseum be dropped to 3 to squeeze the 4th therapy/12 dredger or are 4 absolutely necessary?

Thanks and cheers.

[Michael Keller]

Also elesh norn main cancels an opposing elesh norn so there is that to consider I suppose.

This is assuming you can get yours into play first, which could be more difficult with Entomb. You couldn't get it into play if they get theirs in first.


Also good showing Hollywood! I like your build but is there anything you would change main or side in retrospect? Do you feel that 11 dredgers and 3 therapies main are sufficient, even optimal? Can coliseum be dropped to 3 to squeeze the 4th therapy/12 dredger or are 4 absolutely necessary?

Thanks and cheers.

I really like the deck as it stands. There is so much filter/draw/discard that getting a dredger, dredging, and discarding is hardly ever a problem. I still like the three Therapies main as really you're looking at going through your deck really fast and in the fundamental turn you look to win, having something like two can just clear the path to victory.

Some decks couldn't even beat LED Dredge game one even if you ran zero Therapies. Seriously. Three to me is a solid number main with the fourth in the board against Control and hate-heavy sideboards. Seems to work good for me.

Also, I totally forgot to mention this: Against the Imperial Painter player, I was able to actually hard-cast two Putrid Imps and a Narcomoeba, while dredging off an Imp into Griselbrand with a Dread Return sitting in my hand game one. I dumped the Imp and drew seven. Pretty disgusting.

[iPhael]

Great discussion in this thread so far guys! I have a few questions maybe you could answer:

FKZ vs elesh norn vs flayer in the main- Basically I would like to know why FKZ is better than the other 2. I realize FKZ gives haste but my question is:
does the +1/+1 and haste to newly created tokens outweigh or even equal the damage output from elesh norns +2/+2 to non-sick tokens or the 9 damage of flayer? This is assuming 1 DR in the yard so no combo kill from flayer + troll or hasted trolls.

Also elesh norn main cancels an opposing elesh norn so there is that to consider I suppose.

Also good showing Hollywood! I like your build but is there anything you would change main or side in retrospect? Do you feel that 11 dredgers and 3 therapies main are sufficient, even optimal? Can coliseum be dropped to 3 to squeeze the 4th therapy/12 dredger or are 4 absolutely necessary?

Thanks and cheers.

One thing worth mentioning is that when you go for an alpha strike with Elesh, you can potentially get blown out by a stp, whereas with FKZ you only lose his 3 damage. Probably a corner case, but still possible. Food for thought.

[Tombstalker]

Double post

[Tombstalker]

Thanks Hollywood and back to fkz vs elesh norn vs flayer regarding damage output, would you weigh in on that.

[Michael Keller]

Thanks Hollywood and back to fkz vs elesh norn vs flayer regarding damage output, would you weigh in on that.

Bridge from Below makes lots of tokens with Dread Return. You're looking at probably six to eight Zombies created off maybe two non-token sacrifices (plus the creatures already in play) to put a target into play. That's anywhere from seven to nine creatures in play at a given time, all of which now have Haste and +1/+1. That right there is twenty-one (21) to twenty-seven (27) in one fell swoop.

Flame-Kin Zealot serves this purpose at accelerating attacks. What makes it good is that it does so without having to stay in play, unlike either of those two choices in Norn and Flayer - both of which eat it hard to Swords. Sure, Flayer might deal four straight up, but it's still not going to matter when an opponent can just Plow it - or his or her own creature (like Knight) to gain life and stave off a loss. Zealot just brings the house, and while I normally wouldn't advocate him too much before Griselbrand was printed, a demonic, flying Yawgmoth's Bargain with a built-in Angel's Mercy pretty much just changed my mind about that.

[Tombstalker]

Zealot + griselbrand does look really good and zealot not having to remain in play is the part I was missing when compared to elesh norn, thanks.

[Calado]

I always played Iona maindeck, but that was because I was facing decks that depends of one specific color to win (ANT, Zoo, Merfolk and Reanimator). Now that my friends have Sneak Show, Maverick and Painter it's not that godlike anymore (even Angel of Despair is better in this meta, so I was deciding to not run targets maindeck).
I liked very much the Griselbrand build (as I stated about the SCG Orlando), and I'm glad that Hollywood became confident with it too.
Imo paying 7 life to dredge the entire deck seems as good as paying life to Ad Nauseam to go off.
@Hollywood: 1) Did you like Memory's Journey more than Leyline of the Void against Reanimator (I'm ignoring the Painter matchup)?
2) It's wrong to include the 4th Firestorm SB instead of the 4th Therapy?

[Michael Keller]

Four Firestorm is a bit much, IMO. It shines against Aggro, but LED Dredge can already match most Aggro builds in general.

Leyline requires a heavier investment and a much more aggressive mulligan strategy. Journey can be found much easier through dredging, dodges permanent-based hate, and has benefits that can additionally help you.

[jares]

I'm surprised to see that the success of the Griselbrand+Flame-Kin Zealot package sometimes comes as a surprise to others. Sphinx of Lost Truths+Flame-Kin Zealot used to be the thing, and Griselbrand simply improves on the Sphinx's utility - and more.

I also just noticed that the two more popular combo-finish packages that we have available use the same number of slots (4):

FKZ Package

[1x] Flame-Kin Zealot
[1x] Griselbrand
[2x] Dread Return

Flayer Package

[1x] Flayer of the Hatebound
[3x] Dread Return


Both these packages have their pros and cons that have already been noted (and re-noted), though I would say that Griselbrand does add a bit more versatility to the deck's options, and seems to be a bit less conditional.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Final Fortune]

Despite the combo finishes, I'm not convinced the Dread Return package is worth the loss of consistency in Breakthrough, Cabal Therapy, Golgari Thug and Putrid Imp MD and it's a lot of cards you have to SB out vs. Tormod's Crypt.

I think Dread Returning Griselbrand is enough to win the game already and that Flame Kin Zealot is just win more, because like Flayer of the Hatebound, it's utility post-board is extremely inconsistent when its secondary combo piece is RFGed i.e. Bridge from Below and Golgari Grave Troll respectively.

[Michael Keller]

Despite the combo finishes, I'm not convinced the Dread Return package is worth the loss of consistency in Breakthrough, Cabal Therapy, Golgari Thug and Putrid Imp MD and it's a lot of cards you have to SB out vs. Tormod's Crypt.

I think Dread Returning Griselbrand is enough to win the game already and that Flame Kin Zealot is just win more, because like Flayer of the Hatebound, it's utility post-board is extremely inconsistent when its secondary combo piece is RFGed i.e. Bridge from Below and Golgari Grave Troll respectively.

But you're still passing the turn, which is inherently bad because it gives your opponents additional turns to find hate. You can either *virtually* win the game with Griselbrand or *actually* win the game with FKZ or FKZ *and* Griselbrand. That seems like a tremendously acceptable approach as any three of those combinations will more than likely seal a win.

Iona on the other hand again doesn't really facilitate anything and against some archetypes it's not even going to do anything - because it's a game one card. While that might seem applicable because it can shut down a single color, you still have to pass the turn - potentially multiple times - without doing really anything involved.

The decks that LED Dredge has an advantage against already doesn't require Iona because it *already* has a good win percentage against those decks anyhow. If the ultimate goal of the deck is to attack for the win, wouldn't it make sense to win in one swing rather than two or three?

[Final Fortune]

But you're still passing the turn, which is inherently bad because it gives your opponents additional turns to find hate. You can either *virtually* win the game with Griselbrand or *actually* win the game with FKZ or FKZ *and* Griselbrand. That seems like a tremendously acceptable approach as any three of those combinations will more than likely seal a win.

Iona on the other hand again doesn't really facilitate anything and against some archetypes it's not even going to do anything - because it's a game one card. While that might seem applicable because it can shut down a single color, you still have to pass the turn - potentially multiple times - without doing really anything involved.

The decks that LED Dredge has an advantage against already doesn't require Iona because it *already* has a good win percentage against those decks anyhow. If the ultimate goal of the deck is to attack for the win, wouldn't it make sense to win in one swing rather than two or three?

I'm not advocating Iona, Shield of Emeria over Griselbrand and Flame Kin Zealot necessarily, as much as I am questioning whether or not the game is already won by either returning your target of choice or by dredging, drawing, disruptions and returning a Troll for inevitability.

The problem with the whole, Flame Kin Zealot wins the game "now" logic is that it's irrelevant if the game is already won positionally between discarding your opponent's hand, having Ichorid's in your graveyard and Zombies and Trolls on your board. What single card to you top deck in order to get yourself out of that position?

Edit: I think Iona, Shield of Emeria vs Griselbrand comes down to Iona being more effective the earlier it comes out and Griselbrand being more of a comeback mechanic between both the draw effects and the Lifelink. I wouldn't say Iona doesn't do anything relevant while she's on the board, it's just that you don't see her doing anything relevant because the effects of preventing the opponent from winning while you clean up aren't as obvious as just blowing him out. I also don't get why you keep repeating that Iona doesn't do anything for us because it's only good vs our bad match ups, because that's seriously wrong if you take into account how good it is vs. stuff like Storm, Burn, Elves etc. which are either unfavorable or close.

I don't really care whether or not that 1xcreature is either Iona or Griselbrand honestly, I just don't think Flame Kin Zealot contributes anything merritious compared to taking up 1 less slot for business or the 3rd Dread Return in the case of Flayer of the Hatebound. We lose a more consistent card MD and SB space for a wet blanket feeling IMO.

Just because the ultimate goal of the deck is to win doesn't mean it should, or needs, to do it in one swing, winning is winning and I think it's the cards that facilitate an advantage are far more important than cards that press that advantage. If resolving Breakthrough wins games, who cares how long afterwards it takes for Trolls, Zombies and Ichorids to end the game as long as we win it? When we start cutting the actual cards that facilitate an advantage for cards that don't really do anything until we've already sealed the game that's pretty bad in the long run. Not having that 4th Breakthrough is going to cost you more games than not having the option of Dread Returning Flame Kin Zealot IMO.

[jares]

Despite the combo finishes, I'm not convinced the Dread Return package is worth the loss of consistency in Breakthrough, Cabal Therapy, Golgari Thug and Putrid Imp MD...
I do agree with you, as my experience has also shown me that Dredge can surely win games even without the combo packages - in fact, even without the entire DR Package. I guess that, at the end of the day, this is one of those trade-offs where one would really have to sacrifice something in favor of the other. The good thing is, these sacrifices are very minor because we essentially use the deck's flex slots (though I feel that we might sometimes be "flexing" it too far), and each Dredge player will really have to decide on where to invest these "flex slots".

As for me, I prefer investing on reliability.

Cheers,
jares

[Final Fortune]

I do agree with you, as my experience has also shown me that Dredge can surely win games even without the combo packages - in fact, even without the entire DR Package. I guess that, at the end of the day, this is one of those trade-offs where one would really have to sacrifice something in favor of the other. The good thing is, these sacrifices are very minor because we essentially use the deck's flex slots (though I feel that we might sometimes be "flexing" it too far), and each Dredge player will really have to decide on where to invest these "flex slots".

As for me, I prefer investing on reliability.

Cheers,
jares

What is and isn't flexible tho'? We've seen the deck is capable of winning regardless of its kill conditions, i.e. 4xIchorid compared to 2xichorid 3xDread Return 1xFlayer of the Hatebound between the two extremes so are we trying to find out how many cards we can remove in terms of consistency to find out how much cute shit we can add?

Why are we playing any more kill conditions than necessary?

[jares]

What is and isn't flexible tho'?
The list of areas that have become flexible has grown more and more over time, such that even a Narcomeoba would be cut from time to time. I don't believe that all of this "flexing" is beneficial, though - in fact, I find that most of it is probably harmful (the Narcomeoba example being one of the more obvious ones). As an example, I find cutting a Breakthrough or two from the main deck to be questionable, as my experience has taught me that I would want a Breakthrough in my hand as often as possible. The same goes for Cabal Therapy, especially when considering the possibility of going against tricky match-ups. Of course, it has been proven time and again that running less than a full set of these cards can still produce wins, and that's where things become much more "flexible", at least in terms of perception.

Virtually every card in the deck has been "flexed" at one time or another, except maybe for the following:

Bridge from Below
Golgari Grave-Troll
Stinkweed Imp
Gemstone Mine
City of Brass

Is there anything that I missed? :tongue:

I like the discussion about how we can look at Dredge in terms of its "Core" and the "Packages" that have been incorporated around it (e.g. DR Package, Discard Dork Package, and even the LED Package). By definition, the inclusions in the "Core" are the non-negotiable areas of the deck, and those that can be considered be part of the "Packages" could very well be the "flexible" inclusions. It hasn't really been established this is the best way to look at things, but I believe that organizing the deck's configurations this way allows us to really dissect the ins and outs of the archetype - I've even suggested that this be discussed in the opening page. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this, and if this line of thinking can be developed to benefit our deck-building.

Why are we playing any more kill conditions than necessary?
... probably because we want to have kill conditions available as often as possible - or at least that's how look at it when considering the number of threats that I want in the deck. This might not be true for everyone else though.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Calado]

Just because the ultimate goal of the deck is to win doesn't mean it should, or needs, to do it in one swing, winning is winning and I think it's the cards that facilitate an advantage are far more important than cards that press that advantage. If resolving Breakthrough wins games, who cares how long afterwards it takes for Trolls, Zombies and Ichorids to end the game as long as we win it? When we start cutting the actual cards that facilitate an advantage for cards that don't really do anything until we've already sealed the game that's pretty bad in the long run.
That's not always like this. We have tough matchups that we need to win right there. Having 6 zombies plus Ichorid and pass the turn will cost us games against Emrakul, ANT, Elesh/Archon, Belcher, etc. There's a lot of strong decks who can make a comeback when not finished properly, and dread returning Griselbrand can reach the victory even when we are unlikely to win.
e.g. this week I played a match where all my Bridges were in the last 20 cards of my Library. With Griselbrand this wouldn't matter...

[igri_is_a_bk]

Virtually every card in the deck has been "flexed" at one time or another, except maybe for the following:

Bridge from Below
Golgari Grave-Troll
Stinkweed Imp
Gemstone Mine
City of Brass

Is there anything that I missed? :tongue:

I would say Careful Study, Faithless Looting and LED are also non-flex spots. I would probably include Cabal Therapy and Narcomoeba in that list as well (not all will agree here). I'm talking about optimization of the deck so we really do need more "core" cards if we want to achieve that, don't you agree? We don't want to be like Nic Fit, where they can't even decide on what colors are best lol.

-----

I'm just going to chime in to say that you can't really expect to lose in the few turns that you stick Iona, because they first need to deal with the 7/7 flier and that is a challenge in itself. Then, you consider the fact your graveyard is going to have some goodies if you were digging deep enough to DR her in the first place. Additionally, you'll have a board of X zombies unless the odds decided to screw you over. But if that were the case, I doubt you would have cast DR in the first place, because it's primary purpose is to produce a massive amount of tokens (with the exception of matchups where Iona straight up wins, like the Burn and Elves and whatnot).

Basically, they have to find spot removal for Iona, a sweeper for your Zombies, and a graveyard sweeper to stop the Ichorids from coming back. If they manage to find all that in the 2-3 turns that it may take to kill them, then congrats, they absolutely freakin' deserved it. That would literally be the anti-dredge draw.

I genuinely think the most appealing part of Grisel is that he has lifelink. And when you think about that, he's a pretty poor creature compared to Iona. We've always had the option of playing creatures that will allow us to dredge harder, but we opted to forgo that in the past. Does the lifelink with Grisel change that so considerably? I also worry about paying 7 life on a regular basis with the damage inflicted to ourselves in the first few turns.


That's not always like this. We have tough matchups that we need to win right there. Having 6 zombies plus Ichorid and pass the turn will cost us games against Emrakul, ANT, Elesh/Archon, Belcher, etc. There's a lot of strong decks who can make a comeback when not finished properly, and dread returning Griselbrand can reach the victory even when we are unlikely to win.
e.g. this week I played a match where all my Bridges were in the last 20 cards of my Library. With Griselbrand this wouldn't matter...

You seem to be ignoring Cabal Therapy's utility here. I make it a priority to cast at least one Therapy to see what's going on in their grip before I risk a DR. I think most players do as well.

And the games where the Bridges just sit on the bottom, well, it happens. Luck wasn't working for you, but 9 times out of 10 this isn't an issue. Don't build to suit the exception, build towards to rule. Building towards the exception is when you enter the win-more zone in a vast majority of your games. This kind of extends to what Fortune was talking about with our abundance of win conditions currently and the idea of reducing those.

Anyways, gotta go to work. Lata playas!

[Tombstalker]

Why isnt the 4th cephalid coliseum considered a flex spot over the 12th dredger/4th breakthrough? Coliseum seems to be less desirable than breakthrough considering it requires an additional manasource to activate plus threshold although maybe dodging countermagic is whats more important? I am thinking 12 lands (9 gold, 3 coliseums) vs 13 lands (4 coliseums) 3 breakthrough. Damn but the main is tight in this deck..ugh.

Also 3 pimps/3 thugs seem ok since thug can bring back a pimp to the topdeck if necessary. Is this the mindset on dropping to 3 of each?

Lastly of all the archtypes in legacy I would think that dredge can recover from aggressive mulliganing the easiest. So along this line of thought and considering the ease with which dredge can find even a single card, wouldnt this deck benefit from the 61st card more than any other deck?

Edit- for reference here is what I am thinking of, any inherent problems you see with the list:

Lands 13
4 city of brass
4 gemstone mine
4 cephalid Colliseum
1 undiscovered paradise

Dredgers 11
4 golgari grave-troll
4 stinkweed imp
3 golgari thug

Business 13
4 bridge from Below
4 narcomoeba
3 ichorid
2 dread Return

Draw/discard 22
4 LED
4 careful study
4 faithless looting
4 cabal therapy
3 breakthrough
3 putrid imp

DR targets 1
1 flayer


Anyway I am coming back to dredge after a looong break due to helping a friend with his deck and 'flex' spots are our primary concern when dialing in the maindeck so if these questions are 'noobish' please forgive.

[Michael Keller]

I still feel that Griselbrand and FKZ are an incredibly powerful combination of targets that gives the deck another dynamic of play. Passing the turn with any Combo deck is never good, especially when you're at the mercy of the top of an opponent's library - where that could mean the difference between losing and winning.

As I mentioned, it's a subjective archetype that frankly can be turned and twisted a variety of ways. Primarily, I'm looking into the Sneak-Show match-up and how to address that.

[Calado]

You seem to be ignoring Cabal Therapy's utility here. I make it a priority to cast at least one Therapy to see what's going on in their grip before I risk a DR. I think most players do as well.

And the games where the Bridges just sit on the bottom, well, it happens. Luck wasn't working for you, but 9 times out of 10 this isn't an issue. Don't build to suit the exception, build towards to rule. Building towards the exception is when you enter the win-more zone in a vast majority of your games. This kind of extends to what Fortune was talking about with our abundance of win conditions currently and the idea of reducing those.

Anyways, gotta go to work. Lata playas!
The deck is already built towards the rule. If I need DR to win, that's an exception, so an Exception card is needed. It's not "win more", it's just one more alternative to achieve the victory.
Iona do this by shutting down a single color. But it's not my case most of time, since I'm playing against Sneak Show and Painter too much (where a 7/7 flying doesn't claim victory against annihilator neither deck milling).

We need to realize that DR target is a flexible slot that can be used to explore our enemies faults or to power up our deck. Why the hell the sideboard is meta dependant and the DR target is not?

[Final Fortune]

That's not always like this. We have tough matchups that we need to win right there. Having 6 zombies plus Ichorid and pass the turn will cost us games against Emrakul, ANT, Elesh/Archon, Belcher, etc. There's a lot of strong decks who can make a comeback when not finished properly, and dread returning Griselbrand can reach the victory even when we are unlikely to win.
e.g. this week I played a match where all my Bridges were in the last 20 cards of my Library. With Griselbrand this wouldn't matter...

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot. The whole passing the turn phobia is a monsters under the bed complex, the one time you lose in X games to a top deck does not justify the number of times you lose in Y games because you cut business for two virtually dead cards.

I think the problem is that you always remember the games where you killed the opponent spectacularly with Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot, but you don't remember the games you didn't draw the Breakthrough.

[Vandalize]

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot. The whole passing the turn phobia is a monsters under the bed complex, the one time you lose in X games to a top deck does not justify the number of times you lose in Y games because you cut business for two virtually dead cards.

I think the problem is that you always remember the games where you killed the opponent spectacularly with Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot, but you don't remember the games you didn't draw the Breakthrough.

+1 Well said, sir.

[Calado]

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot.
Well, that's true. I need to get more experienced with Therapy to win more games. I was only figuring out if we can have a "consensual" DR target that makes sort of a miracle.
Ofc I miss the games where I didn't draw Breakthrough, but I remember when I won only by DRing Iona, and I was wondering if this can be more substantial with another target.
Thank you for the reply

[joemauer]

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot. The whole passing the turn phobia is a monsters under the bed complex, the one time you lose in X games to a top deck does not justify the number of times you lose in Y games because you cut business for two virtually dead cards.

I think the problem is that you always remember the games where you killed the opponent spectacularly with Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot, but you don't remember the games you didn't draw the Breakthrough.

This is kind of true. Having a Grislebrand & Flame Kin package versus more Cabal Therapy & whatever else will increase the speed of the deck for decrease in consistency.

When playing the combo esque kill route your are somewhat reliant on hitting all of your pieces to win: three creatures+dread return+bridges+win condition. Sometimes when you don't get to dredge 25+ cards on turn one or two, it would be better to dredge up more Cabal Therapies or Ichorids instead of a dread return or win condition. In reality these instances don't come up that often.

There are times when not winning on the spot after dredging bunches of cards has lost me the game. There are lots of situations and decks this has come up. All combo decks, particulary the mirror(where cabal therapy won't stop Cephalid Coliseum). Decks packing Ensnaring Bridge, humility, and other game ending cards entering play while being hidden by brainstorm or enlightened tutor. In reality these instances don't come up very often either.

You really can build dredge in either direction. Neither way is incorrect. They both have their subtle advantages and disadvantages.

[Michael Keller]

Games are won on the back on tight play and an appropriate mulligan strategy. The case with Cabal Therapy could be made with any other card or event that occurs within the spectrum of a said game that facilitates winning, like hitting Narcomoebas and Bridges when you need them most. Without them, Therapies become relatively innocuous because, well, you can't use them. Ichorids force you to wait a turn.

LED Dredge has the capacity of going off on turn one and or two. Against some archetypes, that's really what you want to be doing as succumbing to hate and giving your opponent another turn and perhaps more draw and filter to find answers is just not good. If you dredge deep into your library and don't hit anything relevant, you're going to rely more so on hitting those cards the following turn. Because you're doing this, you'll then have to wait an additional turn because you didn't have the capacity or setup to win the game that said turn.

My point is, there are no such things in competitive Legacy as "virtual" wins - in the sense that a given board state immediately qualifies you as the winner of the game, nor should there have to be when the option of actually winning is omnipresent with the dozens of options that create a more complex situation for an opponent to get out of and even more credible diverse options you can take advantage of as the Dredge player.

Winning a game consistently a turn faster with protection seems much better to me than putting myself in a position where I have to rely solely on the strength of my dredges to carry me to victory. LED Dredge is not 'grindy,' but rather a very finesse type of Dredge because it just blasts through itself and basically empties its contents into the graveyard at an incredibly accelerated rate. This is why having an elaborate plan like FKZ/Griselbrand helps facilitate faster kills without dealing with the formalities of waiting a turn or two to see what happens. Even if an opponent counters or stops Dread Return somehow, someway, it doesn't mean they're stopping the horde of tokens coming their way.

I like the combination as it is incredibly fast and multilateral and has the capacity to win you the game on the spot. That to me is what makes a true Combo deck worth playing. I do agree though that Cabal therapy is probably the most important cards in the entire deck.

[Final Fortune]

I believe there's a fundamental diagreement between whether or not Dredge is a "combo" deck attempting to win in one turn or an "aggro" deck attempting to generate and compound incremental advantages in card advantage and board position. When considering the extremes of the Flayer of the Hatebound lists and the Quad Lazer lists, the difference is that the Flayer of the Hatebound list takes more advantage of explosive starts by ending the game in a single turn, where Quad Lazer lists are capable of applying pressure off of gradual starts. To me, the list that can make more of gradual starts is more important than the list that can make more of explosive starts because the act of exploding is a win in and of itself regardless of the kill conditions.

When you say that Dredge isn't a "grindy" deck by nature, that's because you don't build the deck or play the deck in order to be a "grindy" deck by nature where as I, and other players, do. And it's not as if we disregard our explosive openings to do so, where in fact we have more explosive openings because we don't cut business for combo kill conditions, but we always have the tactical option of winning incrementally when necessary.

I disagree with the assertion that there is no such thing as a "virtual" win in competitive legacy, because it's a subjective observation based on whether or not the opponents either have outs to your board state or a non-interactive path to victory. When the opponent has been Mind Twisted, you have a board of tokens and a graveyard of Ichorids it's extremely difficult for any deck to find a way out of that situation because there's no way the can deal with effectively two board states between the threats on the board and the threats in your graveyard with any single top deck.

Games are won before they end, winning is the act of accruing positional and material advantages where ending a game is just the menial process of having to be bothered to go kill your opponent.

[GexxX]

Hey Everyone.
I've been following the last 10ish pages. Usually Storm is my weapon of choice, but from time to time I need something to clear my head a little. I'm not saying Dredge is an easy Deck to play (Therapy can give you a really hard time) but it's something different and that is exciting.
Yesterday was another evening of testing Decks. First time in a while I did not pack my Storm cards, but the Quad-Laser list. 15 Playsets in a Deck, reasonable percentage to draw everything you need and a good percentage of kills before turn 4 is pretty good on paper.

Opponents were:
Burn (75% wins)
Storm (50% wins)
Sneak and Show (67%wins)

Seriously. That's bad ass. I haven't had any control matchups yet (apart from cockatrice) but man that's some good numbers. And the best part is people complaining about dredge being no 'real' deck. I told everyone to play it and to be honest. I'll buy the cards and have no regrets just having them in my closet just to be sure to have the deck prepared whenever I feel it's not the right time to Tendrils people.

Thanks to everyone contributing to todays Dredge list! You did a very good job!

[Digital Devil]

This is why having an elaborate plan like FKZ/Griselbrand helps facilitate faster kills without dealing with the formalities of waiting a turn or two to see what happens.

I dislike the enabler + FKZ route simply because when your enabler is put into your graveyard after FKZ, you now have a useless card in your discard pile, while also creating consistency issues be it in your starting 7. I never played Sage/Sphinx + Zealot simply because that package eats too many slots for the slight gain of winning a turn faster, whereas hitting multiple Therapies almost ensures your victory without warping your deck's construction. To me, FKZ is more of a sideboard card - useful against Lands, Storm, and Reanimator, and even then, I think there are better DR targets. I've won more games on the back of Cabal Therapy than on the back of Dread Return, and BTW, I'm playing a slower (non-LED) version of the deck.

[Calado]

Games are won before they end, winning is the act of accruing positional and material advantages where ending a game is just the menial process of having to be bothered to go kill your opponent.
I've noticed two things in this discussion that need to be cleared. The first is that we don't trade cabal for Griselbrand. We still run 4 maindeck and trade maybe one draw spell and one Ichorid for Griselbrand +FKZ.
The second is that "games are won before they end" is too subjective, especially against decks that set up and win in the same turn (which is what I want my deck to do too). With two therapies is hard to stop sneak show and ANT from continue pondering and brainstorming until find an answer, unless they are unlucky.
I'm trying to say that these targets are bringing more benefits than disadvantages.

[jares]

I would say Careful Study, Faithless Looting and LED are also non-flex spots. I would probably include Cabal Therapy and Narcomoeba in that list as well (not all will agree here). I'm talking about optimization of the deck so we really do need more "core" cards if we want to achieve that, don't you agree?

I most certainly agree. The problem is, that list I made is a list of cards that I've NEVER seen as less than a full set, at least in lists that have garnered a certain degree of success. A lot of people cheat on the other cards that both of us feel should be maxed-out to have the deck be one step closer to optimization, so unfortunately, the core really isn't set in stone. There have been many reasons for why people try their best to cheat on these slots without diluting the deck too much, and I find that the most common reason is to insert a package that would facilitate the combo finish. As for me, I've opted to forgo that package - in fact, I'm probably the only one in this forum that has been very pleased with not playing any packages at all (in the main deck, at least). :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

[Mojeh]

@Hollywood:

Don't you think the combo route makes the deck easier to pilot? I mean, if you play combo Dredge, you just ignore your opponent most of the times, and winning on the spot seems much easier than making combat strategies and certain Therapies choices.
Maybe that's why we've seen some bad players making good results with weird deck lists. Curiously, most of these "weird lists" were combo based lists.

The Quad Lazer idea came from Germany, curiously the place where are many Dredge-builders.

[Water_Wizard]

I posted this question in the Community Forum, but didn't receive many responses (only 2), so I am going to post it here.

How effective is reactive token hate vs. Dredge? i.e. Echoing Truth or Wrath of God?

To briefly summarize the schools of thought, the school against reactive token hate says: a) if you have to cast reactive hate, you are probably already losing, and b) you have most likely been Cabal Therapied, removing your hate before you can use it (or use it effectively).

However, I hear other people arguing for reactive hate, especially Echoing Truth, the idea being a well-timed Echoing Truth can remove an army of Zombies.

Personally, I am of the former school-of-thought. I would rather try to fight Dredge with counterspells and graveyard hate, but I hear a lot of people saying Echoing Truth should be sided in against Dredge decks.

Thoughts? Play experiences playing against these cards? I imagine an experienced Dredge player could utilize Cabal Therapies and the stack to minimize the effectiveness of Echoing Truth.

[Mojeh]

Indeed Echoing Truth isn't the ideal answer, but it could delay us, specially when we don't expect it.
Echoing truth is a nice sideboard card in some decks, and can have a wide application, so if you have it on your sb, you'd probably bring them against Dredge. On the other hand, if you are trying to actually fight Dredge, you could use some grave-hate.

[Woe]

I agree with FKZ/Griselbrand package because of the speed of Sneak/show and Tendrils. It may just be my meta but it feels like pre-boarding for those matches. I used to play non-led dredge a couple years ago and then moved to tendrils. I'm now playing this version as it feels consistent with faithless lootings. The cuts I made may be questionable, but it has been testing very well. As far as win % I felt the scariest deck was Sneak/Show. So I went with DR package. Their ability to sit on griselbrand through our Cabal therapy's then respond to Draw 7/14 and FOW our Clutch DR on FKZ to go for the win is making me think of adding a third DR as the 61 card. I'm already land lite and am not sure this is the right route. Second main cabal therapy opens up their hand again for emrakul call out as well if they didn't have the FoW.

Suggestions are welcome! I was going to pilot this at mirkwood this weekend but Fatherhood says otherwise.

4x Breakthrough
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Careful Study
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x City of Brass
1x Darkblast
2x Dread Return
4x Faithless Looting
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
3x Golgari Thug
1x Griselbrand
3x Ichorid
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Narcomoeba
3x Putrid Imp
4x Stinkweed Imp

[Izor]

Echoing Truth is generally an instant speed Time Walk against Dredge.

And people who know this deck also know that a Time Walk is surprisingly useless against Dredge, because Dredge generates the most unfair VCA in the format.

Echoing Truth can sometimes be annoying if your opponent can back it up with a strong primary plan (like Show and Tell), but other than that it doesn't really do anything.

[Final Fortune]

Careful Studies are more important than Breakthroughs over the couse of a three game match, cutting them isn't the best idea.

[Tombstalker]

What do people think about skaab ruinator as another wincon and decoy? Costing 3 is probably often to much to reach but my thinking is dredge could reach 3 lands when slow rolling or cast it off LED and people tend to board out spot removal for hate. So is this guy even worth discussing as a 1-2 in the SB or not?

[Tammit67]

What do people think about skaab ruinator as another wincon and decoy? Costing 3 is probably often to much to reach but my thinking is dredge could reach 3 lands when slow rolling or cast it off LED and people tend to board out spot removal for hate. So is this guy even worth discussing as a 1-2 in the SB or not?

He just doesn't attack the opponent from a different angle and has all the issues the rest of the deck is vulnerable to.

[jares]

What do people think about skaab ruinator as another wincon and decoy? Costing 3 is probably often to much to reach but my thinking is dredge could reach 3 lands when slow rolling or cast it off LED and people tend to board out spot removal for hate. So is this guy even worth discussing as a 1-2 in the SB or not?
For Dredge, anything that costs 2 or more mana (or at least the ones that don't have a profitable Flashback cost) automatically falls under the "unreliable" category - and this is coming from a player that prefers to run 16 lands! :tongue: This is not to mention that Skaab Ruinator does nothing from the graveyard.

If I were to run something that costs more than 1 mana, the first card that I would look at is Tolarian Winds.

I hope that helps.

Kind Regards,
jares

[jares]

When you say that Dredge isn't a "grindy" deck by nature, that's because you don't build the deck or play the deck in order to be a "grindy" deck by nature where as I, and other players, do. And it's not as if we disregard our explosive openings to do so, where in fact we have more explosive openings because we don't cut business for combo kill conditions, but we always have the tactical option of winning incrementally when necessary.

I disagree with the assertion that there is no such thing as a "virtual" win in competitive legacy, because it's a subjective observation based on whether or not the opponents either have outs to your board state or a non-interactive path to victory. When the opponent has been Mind Twisted, you have a board of tokens and a graveyard of Ichorids it's extremely difficult for any deck to find a way out of that situation because there's no way the can deal with effectively two board states between the threats on the board and the threats in your graveyard with any single top deck.

Games are won before they end, winning is the act of accruing positional and material advantages where ending a game is just the menial process of having to be bothered to go kill your opponent.
Being one of the few that prefer the "grindy" game over the combo finish, I would have to agree with the idea that "games are won before they end", though I would probably generalize it by saying that "games can be won before they end".

For us, Dredge is a Chess match where "the act of accruing positional and material advantage" becomes the means of achieving a "checkmate". To take the Chess analogy further, it's worth noting that the majority of (competitive) Chess games cannot be won in the first few moves (or even in one "big" move), and the same is likely to be true with Dredge (not to mention that a combo finish is much more difficult to pull-off in games two and three).

While the majority of players prefer to take advantage of Dredge's strengths by focusing on ending the game early (or at least, in one fell swoop), we prefer to take the more calculated, incremental route. At the end of the day, these two schools of thought each have their pros and cons, and I find it amazing the Dredge is one of the few decks that is able to harbor two very different strategies.

Having said that, I find that, as someone here has already mentioned, the best thing for us to do as Dredge players is to choose one of the available play styles, and do your best to understand how to be good at it.

Cheers,
jares

[xfxf]

Guys it's a little cheaty but I want to ask you what kind of hoser you fear most :smile: I was using 2 Tormod's Crypt and 2 Surgicals in my RUG Delver sideboard so that I'd have both permanent and non permanent hate. I was using the Surgicals against other storm based combo as well but lately I feel like replacing them with Scavenging Ooze as a threat against both graveyard decks and RUG mirrors.

However, when I take out the non permanent hate out of the equation I'm not sure if I should go with Crypt or Cage. I try to goldfish the quadlaser version to understand the deck but I'm not very clear about the different versions, dread return targets etc. so I'm asking for advice on how to best hate you guys out :laugh: Is anybody willing to give advice?

Thanks!

[jares]

Guys it's a little cheaty but I want to ask you what kind of hoser you fear most :smile: I was using 2 Tormod's Crypt and 2 Surgicals in my RUG Delver sideboard so that I'd have both permanent and non permanent hate. I was using the Surgicals against other storm based combo as well but lately I feel like replacing them with Scavenging Ooze as a threat against both graveyard decks and RUG mirrors.

However, when I take out the non permanent hate out of the equation I'm not sure if I should go with Crypt or Cage. I try to goldfish the quadlaser version to understand the deck but I'm not very clear about the different versions, dread return targets etc. so I'm asking for advice on how to best hate you guys out :laugh: Is anybody willing to give advice?

Thanks!
The cards that you've already mentioned are all good hate cards against Dredge. Personally, I don't like seeing Tormod's Crypt and Leyline of the Void, and not far behind are Scavenging Ooze and Surgical Extraction. It would probably be best to diversify your hate with some combination of those.

I hope that helps. :wink:

Cheers,
jares

[xfxf]

I will have to replace the Surgicals with Ooze to cover my other matchups as well, that's why I asked if it was better to team up Crypt or Cage with Ooze. But from your response I understand that Cage is not a major concern for you :)

[Tombstalker]

Tammit67 and Jares- thanks that makes sense although ruinator can be cast from the grave, still I see the point. Was just thinking of alternative wins in the face of hate.

My current TA board has 1 crypt 3 extractions 2 explosives plus 3 pierce all if which I bring in against dredge. Now from a dredge players perspective I'm looking at combating this amount of hate.

[jares]

Tammit67 and Jares- thanks that makes sense although ruinator can be cast from the grave, still I see the point. Was just thinking of alternative wins in the face of hate.

My current TA board has 1 crypt 3 extractions 2 explosives plus 3 pierce all if which I bring in against dredge. Now from a dredge players perspective I'm looking at combating this amount of hate.
Oh, I actually forgot the Skaab Ruinator can be cast from the GY. Either way, you get the point. To add to that, though, I realized that the best way to spend 3 mana is to Flashback a Faithless Looting (and it does happen a bit more often when using 16 lands). :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

[xfxf]

I was watching the SCG stream and the Gerry Thompson (dredge) vs Kaitlin Lindburg (hypergenesis) game was on. She started with Leyline and I saw a Life from the Loam going to the graveyard on Gerry's side whie Kaitlin put the Leyline in the graveyard herself. What was going on, how did Gerry counter the Leyline on Turn 0?

[Waikiki]

It was a nature's claim

[dredgekid]

Anybody have gerry's deck list for tonight? I wouldn't mind seeing what he came up with after the last SCG for changes to his list.

[Michael Keller]

I believe there's a fundamental diagreement between whether or not Dredge is a "combo" deck attempting to win in one turn or an "aggro" deck attempting to generate and compound incremental advantages in card advantage and board position. When considering the extremes of the Flayer of the Hatebound lists and the Quad Lazer lists, the difference is that the Flayer of the Hatebound list takes more advantage of explosive starts by ending the game in a single turn, where Quad Lazer lists are capable of applying pressure off of gradual starts. To me, the list that can make more of gradual starts is more important than the list that can make more of explosive starts because the act of exploding is a win in and of itself regardless of the kill conditions.

When you say that Dredge isn't a "grindy" deck by nature, that's because you don't build the deck or play the deck in order to be a "grindy" deck by nature where as I, and other players, do. And it's not as if we disregard our explosive openings to do so, where in fact we have more explosive openings because we don't cut business for combo kill conditions, but we always have the tactical option of winning incrementally when necessary.

I disagree with the assertion that there is no such thing as a "virtual" win in competitive legacy, because it's a subjective observation based on whether or not the opponents either have outs to your board state or a non-interactive path to victory. When the opponent has been Mind Twisted, you have a board of tokens and a graveyard of Ichorids it's extremely difficult for any deck to find a way out of that situation because there's no way the can deal with effectively two board states between the threats on the board and the threats in your graveyard with any single top deck.

Games are won before they end, winning is the act of accruing positional and material advantages where ending a game is just the menial process of having to be bothered to go kill your opponent.

With all due respect, you have disagreed with my philosophy on just about every aspect of this archetype there is to discuss by countering with known information that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. It's entirely subjective and to be honest there is nothing more that you can really say that can change my mind in that respect, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

We'll leave it at that.

Alternatively, I am interested in hearing others' thoughts on how they are opting to change their sideboards, if they decide to.

[dredgekid]

Hollywood, what does your board currently look like? did the duresses end up working out for you?

[joemauer]

Anybody have gerry's deck list for tonight? I wouldn't mind seeing what he came up with after the last SCG for changes to his list.

He made 11th place. His deck looked like it swapped a dread return for a thug and some other subtle change.

His sideboard had some changes. With Blazing Archon and Nether Shadow being the most stand out.

@GerryT: Did Blazing Archon help much against those show and tell decks? And did Nether Shadow help much versus those surgical extractions?

[Michael Keller]

Hollywood, what does your board currently look like? did the duresses end up working out for you?

They worked out all right, and they were essential in some circumstances. I am kind of shifting around right now but the last sideboard strategy I used in last week's local was incredibly good.

[Izor]

Alternatively, I am interested in hearing others' thoughts on how they are opting to change their sideboards, if they decide to.

My sideboard currently addresses graveyard hate only.

Surgical Extractions with 2 DR + 1 Iona and 2 Nether Shadow
Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb with 1-2 Grudge and additional discard dorks
Leyline and Cage with 4 Claims and a 5th out (Chain/Ray)



Congratz to Gerry T. on top 11! And an epic round 4 feature match and a very tight play overall.

I like the new list. It's actually the same list I've been playing for almost 2 months now, the only difference being that I play the full set of Breakthrough over the Pimps main. I also like Shadows over Bloodghasts in the sideboard, I've always liked them much better.

[jares]

They worked out all right, and they were essential in some circumstances. I am kind of shifting around right now but the last sideboard strategy I used in last week's local was incredibly good.
May I ask about the details of the test results for using Duress over Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek?

Cheers,
jares

[lsho]

I've picked up the deck 2 weeks ago, playing a round a bit to get the feeling for the deck and I've got to say that picking up the deck is rather hard if you go for the Quadlazer variant if you are new in legacy. You most certainly make quite a bunch of mistakes on the way.

On the other hand, I transformed into the DR + Flayer list and it plays very well with the combo finish. Rather love it, actually. The combo finish makes it a bit easier to play with and win games out of nowhere.

[Digital Devil]

Played at a local event with a non-LED version of the deck (with no maindeck DR targets) and placed 3rd out of 38 - won against Merfolk (2-0), White Stax (2-1), UW Stoneblade (2-0) and Hive Mind (2-1, the third game I faced triple Faerie Macabre, Surgical Extraction on Bridge from Below, Force of Will + Spell Pierce on my discard outlets, and still managed to win), then accepted to I.D. the other two rounds. I won against RUG (2-0) in the top8 only to lose against GW Maverick (1-2) in the semis (he had an early Knight of the Reliquary backed up by Scryb Ranger). Memory's Journey is amazing (I played 2x in my sideboard), it won me two games by protecting Ichorid and Narcomoeba from Surgical Extraction.

[Calado]

Played at a local event with a non-LED version of the deck (with no maindeck DR targets) and placed 3rd out of 38 - won against Merfolk (2-0), White Stax (2-1), UW Stoneblade (2-0) and Hive Mind (2-1, the third game I faced triple Faerie Macabre, Surgical Extraction on Bridge from Below, Force of Will + Spell Pierce on my discard outlets, and still managed to win), then accepted to I.D. the other two rounds.

After bridges got extracted, did you win only with the Ichorids and the remaining tokens?
I liked this, especially because I still play non LED dredge.

[Digital Devil]

After bridges got extracted, did you win only with the Ichorids and the remaining tokens?
I won with 1x Narcomoeba and 2x Ichorid beatdown - I didn't even have the chance to trigger Bridge from Below because they were extracted as soon as my opponent saw 'em.

[der_agibert]

Anybody have gerry's deck list for tonight? I wouldn't mind seeing what he came up with after the last SCG for changes to his list.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=46660

I really like his list as I came to the point of eschewing Dread Return from the main entirely, running 2 of them SB currently. Unless you want to/have to win combo-esque via Iona, Elesh Norn, *insert random "I win" creature* they always came to me as irrelevant and "win more". Narcos get sacced to Therapies, Ichorids die on their own. You just get your Zombies one way or another, even without DRing. Running 1x Darkblast and 3rd Citadel (I really dislike Paradise for not allowing T1 Lootings/PImp, T2 Coliseum and making me more vulnerable to Daze) instead.

[Gui]

@ Digital Devil

List? :D

[Izor]

@ Digital Devil

List? :D

I'm interested too, mainly I'd like to know if you played Tireless Tribe in your list and how important they were.

I always feel like Tireless Tribe improves the RUG Delver matchup like no other card in the deck ever could.

[GerryT]

He made 11th place. His deck looked like it swapped a dread return for a thug and some other subtle change.

His sideboard had some changes. With Blazing Archon and Nether Shadow being the most stand out.

@GerryT: Did Blazing Archon help much against those show and tell decks? And did Nether Shadow help much versus those surgical extractions?

Archon would have helped had I played against any Show and Tell decks I'm sure.

Nether Shadow was slightly better than Bloodghast since I didn't need an Undiscovered Paradise (or have to sandbag a land or play Dakmor Salvage).

Matches went:

Reanimator (2-1)
Belcher (2-1)
Zoo (2-1)
Hypergenesis (1-2)
Merfolk (2-0)
RUG (2-0)
Mono-Blue Control (2-1)
MUD (1-2)
RUG (2-0)

Some rough matchups in the first couple of rounds, but I beat the "real" decks easily enough. Almost certainly could have beaten MUD for t8 but I'm a buffoon.

[feline]

Congrats on what you did get (to the above post), anything with a winning record is still something you can talk about >^,^<

Also when I saw 1 Dread return that made me think about that, and I realize how it's quite rare to use that twice! or even need to when you sac ichorid/narcomeba etc and get a buncha tokens even if the D return gets countered or the target get's sword to plowshare'd or whatever. I guess the only other thing after that would be the argument of "if I only run 1 dread return, It might get stuck on the bottom of the deck -sometimes- basically, getting stuck without it when you really want it! but being dredge, you can go through so much of your deck so fast, you'll obviously see it way more often than you will not.

Also thank you for running 4 cabal therapy, i see lists that have gone like "ok squeeze in 4 faithless looting" since it came out, and they cut 1 cabal therapy to help squeeze them in, and I have never felt comfortable about that since cabal therapy is just so awesome here! >^,^<

[HokusSchmokus]

They worked out all right, and they were essential in some circumstances. I am kind of shifting around right now but the last sideboard strategy I used in last week's local was incredibly good.

The local Dredgers tweaked the Quad version's board. It looks like this atm:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ashen Ghoul
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Ancient Grudge

So we are now using the old differ-your-threats strategy.

[GnuHouse]

Archon would have helped had I played against any Show and Tell decks I'm sure.

Nether Shadow was slightly better than Bloodghast since I didn't need an Undiscovered Paradise (or have to sandbag a land or play Dakmor Salvage).

Matches went:

Reanimator (2-1)
Belcher (2-1)
Zoo (2-1)
Hypergenesis (1-2)
Merfolk (2-0)
RUG (2-0)
Mono-Blue Control (2-1)
MUD (1-2)
RUG (2-0)

Some rough matchups in the first couple of rounds, but I beat the "real" decks easily enough. Almost certainly could have beaten MUD for t8 but I'm a buffoon.

So what would you consider to be the "real" decks? And are you saying that the Hypergenesis deck wasn't real? ;) (seriously, that match was kinda cool to watch)

What happened in your MUD match?

[Izor]

The local Dredgers tweaked the Quad version's board. It looks like this atm:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ashen Ghoul
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Ancient Grudge

So we are now using the old differ-your-threats strategy.

Why Ashen Ghoul over Nether Shadow and why the Paradise? I thought whoever puts Paradise into a Dredge deck in Germany is shot in the head?

[NecroYawgmoth]

It's only 1 Paradise, because you board lands when you board Ashen Ghoul, and you don't want to Bolt yourself too often. 3 Tarnished hurts very often so its a 2/1 Split now.

Ashen Ghouls are relevant when you have no other critters / no bridges, while Shadows rarely are.

Nether Shadows need Phantasmagorian to be good, and are most of the time DR fodder instead of beats.

[jares]

The combo finish makes it a bit easier to play with and win games out of nowhere.
I would agree with this observation for the following reasons:

The deck becomes much more linear when built around the combo finish, and thus, the range of decisions that have to be made is lessened.
Because games are usually decided in a fewer number of turns via the combo finish, there are also fewer opportunities to make critical decisions, and thus, there would also be fewer opportunities to make mistakes (e.g. missing triggers, missing blind therapies, misplayed combat phases, etc.).
The threshold for error is more forgiving because the deck is not built around "winning incrementally", but rather, on one big alpha-strike.
It's probably easier to take note of the combo pieces that you need to go-off (Dredger - Draw Enabler - Free Creature - DR - DR Target) rather than assess the board state to find a means of gaining "positional or material advantage" which may or may not be there.

This almost makes me feel like I'm comparing the combo version to a control version of Dredge, haha. :tongue:

Cheers,
jares

[Mojeh]

I would most certainly agree, I just wonder if this has to do with some 'weird' lists and 'bad' players doing great results.

[K1w1]

As Hokus already said, we went to the local tourney with the quadlazer + this sideboard.

Now the report.

Game 1 against Canadian:
G1: He had no counters for my turn one LED, LED, Looting, breakthough, Land, dredger.
G2: He kept a mull into 6 without a land. He had a surgical extraction + 2 Magma spray. The situation was this: I had a Putrid Imp in play and 2 in my hand. In my grave were Ashen Ghoul, Ichorid and i decided to discard both Pimps in response to the Ichorid trigger. He wants to extract both Pimps but i paid a black mana to recover my Ashen Ghoul. After some rounds i won.

1-0

Game 2 against Affinity:
G1: Again Turn 2-3 kill.
G2: He kept a hand with 2 Darksteel Citadels and Extirpate, but he had no black mana to use it. He drew a 3rd citadel instead. So i therapied his extirpate and won afterwards.

2-0

Game 3 against Maverick /r
G1: He conceded, due to 4 bridges, 3 therapies, 3 moeba in my grave after turn 2.
G2: I had study, looting, led, dredger, land, therapied him and saw nothing relevant. He topdecked Knight of the Reliquary and i didn't find any therapies to make more zombies to race the knight. Bog wins.
G3: Same like G2, i had 3 zombies and a thug in play, he had nothing, topdecked a crypt ( why not ... ) and i attacked him each turn for 7. The funniest thing is, he had three mana and waste my city of brass and topdecked a batterskull. No mana Oops.

3-0

Game 4 against Esperstoneblade:
G1: He won with a batterskull. Too bad -.-
G2: He won with six lingering souls tokens due to tarnished citadel... If i had a gemstone mine or paradise maybe not, because i would have 3 Ashen Ghouls, 3 Ichorids in play to win.

3-1

Game 5 against High Tide:
G1: I'm faster with tokens after wish into extraction into ichorids.
G2: He mulled into 6 and kept a non-lander and double extraction. Hmm, ok. Land - therapy - Extraction - GG

4-1

Game 6 against MUD:
G1: Turn 2-3 kill.
G2: Chalice 1 + Metalworker + Crypt + Forgemaster etc. won him the game.
G3: Chalice 1 + Metalworker + Crypt + Staff of Domination into endless combo.

4-2

Game 7 against Reanimator:
G1: After throwing some cards in my grave, i therapy him and he played entomb in response into Elesh Norn. I took a look in my grave and saw a 11/11 grave troll. And he already had Animate Dead in grave. Let's say Reanimate. He had Exhume. Ok. he recovered Elesh and i recovered GGT. GGT won me the game.
G2: He kept while i mulled into 5. We both started with Leyline, but he won with Show and Tell, because i had no lands in my hand and he said green with Iona. ( Nature's Claim.)
G3: We talked a bit and we said we split the price and he gave me the win, because he wanted into top 8 to qualify myself for a special tourney in some month. We played this game and i won because he had no leyline. He played Show and Tell into Iona and me into narcomoeba. He said black and i lol'd. Topdeck Looting <3
Narcomoebas blocked Iona while i got zombies.

5-2

Now it was bad, that i splitted the price :D

And sure, what happens? 9. out of 67 -.-

The other two players went 5-2 and 3-4 with the same decklist.

K1w1

[plimplam]

@: GerryT

How do you side against RUG? Cz sometimes they run surgicals and sometimes artifact hate..

[HokusSchmokus]

K1w1:
Also, I Top 4ed using a different board:P
And Brot Top8ed, too.

[Digital Devil]

List? :D

I'm interested too, mainly I'd like to know if you played Tireless Tribe in your list and how important they were.

I always feel like Tireless Tribe improves the RUG Delver matchup like no other card in the deck ever could.

I played the following list:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
2 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [TO] Ichorid
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug

// Spells
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [OD] Careful Study
2 [TSP] Dread Return
1 [RAV] Darkblast

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 4 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 [ISD] Memory's Journey
SB: 1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair
----------------------------------------------------------------------

As usual, Tireless Tribe was outstanding - it won g1 against RUG by itself, blocking a 4/5 Tarmogoyf for about 2-3 turns - by the time my opponent had 2x 5/6s I was already in a favorable board position. I like the card so much I always choose to play non-LED though I have Faithless Looting and the money to buy 4x LED.

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

The 1x dread maindeck it's a solid choice for most metagame, better than Griselbrand, that's only a win more.
Archon is the best choice vs. sneack&show, but the sideboarding in led dredge isn't clear for me.
Can you help me, for example with the Gerry Thompon's decklist, the best way to sideboarding?

[Izor]

As usual, Tireless Tribe performed egregiously - it won g1 against RUG by itself, blocking a 4/5 Tarmogoyf for about 2-3 turns - by the time my opponent had 2x 5/6s I was already in a favorable board position. I like the card so much I always choose to play non-LED though I have Faithless Looting and the money to buy 4x LED.

Thumbs up.

I fully understand your argumentation. I still bring the two decklists to tournaments and only decide last minute whether to play LED or not.

LEDless still rocks. It's rocked for years and it will keep on rocking. And the RUG matchup is significantly better than for LED. The only downside is that the Sneak Show matchup is probably slightly worse due to the lower speed and Sneak Show seems to be tier 1 right now.


@ K1W1:

Congratz on the finish.

As of the discussion about your new sidebard; why does Shadow need Phantasmagorian and Ashen Ghoul not? They both have the same clause, the only difference is that Ghoul has two more power, but is impossible to hardcast and that it needs a mana everytime he wants to come back.

[K1w1]

@ K1W1:

Congratz on the finish.

As of the discussion about your new sidebard; why does Shadow need Phantasmagorian and Ashen Ghoul not? They both have the same clause, the only difference is that Ghoul has two more power, but is impossible to hardcast and that it needs a mana everytime he wants to come back.

Thx.
I never said Shadow needs Phantasmagorian. And that's the thing. He has two more power. In the quadlaser you need this two more power to win against decks which extracted Ichorid and Moebas.
In the Flayerlist it is ok to have Nether Shadow, because you only need three creatures, not creatures with high power. ( Dread return Flayer )
That's true, but he stays in play and this can be important sometimes. And with a City of Brass, there is no problem!

I'm also thinking to add a 2nd paradise for a tarnished citadel. As i played at sunday, it was REALLY nice to have.
I also thought the paradise is a bad card but now i know it's not like that. The only bad thing about the paradise is, that you have to take it back into your hand and that you can't activate a coliseum turn 2, except you have a LED.

K1w1

Ps: @ Hokus : Did you play the same SB?

[Michael Keller]

Updated links in the primer. I'll be sure to try and expand the entire primer exponentially as soon as possible.

[Calado]

"win more" is becoming a cliche here. It looks like two cards are going to split the thread in aggro/combo, like they made in Team America into aggro/control.
Archon is nice against sneak show, so does FKZ finisher, with the bonus of don't letting them time to answer by bouncing the target later.
I think that if sneak show start winning too much, people will be siding against it (like happened with Burn), and they'll Mulligan into Echoing Truth every time, so I'm already thinking about another options beyond Archon to fight Sneak Attack. So far, Archon is giving too much happiness against it.

[Tombstalker]

I must ask why pimp is still played main in LED dredge? (not LEDless this is obvious)
Ive read through this whole thread and have been testing as well and it seems that LED dredge can keep the speed, consistancy AND the combo by putting permanent outlets to the board.
i.e. quadlaser minus pimps plus 2 DR + target and 13th land. This seems good to me for several reasons but mostly due to lack of hate G1 but also because it ups the chances of winning G1 with full sets of everything including ichorids, plus the combo element. Games 2-3 the pimps and even tribe come in if needed after spot removal has been boarded out for hate to give better control of dredges. Am I missing something here? I did notice a few people discussing/testing this build but discussion seemed to have died off.

[jares]

It looks like two cards are going to split the thread in aggro/combo, like they made in Team America into aggro/control.

Nah, it surely won't be like that. The composition of the majority of the deck rarely differs too much from player to player - it's only the play style (preference) and focus (embellishments) that outlines the variations. This, in fact, is one of the things that I love about Dredge - it can adjust from being a combo deck to an aggro deck in the middle of the game, and vice versa.

Cheers,
jares

[Izor]

I must ask why pimp is still played main in LED dredge? (not LEDless this is obvious)
Ive read through this whole thread and have been testing as well and it seems that LED dredge can keep the speed, consistancy AND the combo by putting permanent outlets to the board.
i.e. quadlaser minus pimps plus 2 DR + target and 13th land. This seems good to me for several reasons but mostly due to lack of hate G1 but also because it ups the chances of winning G1 with full sets of everything including ichorids, plus the combo element. Games 2-3 the pimps and even tribe come in if needed after spot removal has been boarded out for hate to give better control of dredges. Am I missing something here? I did notice a few people discussing/testing this build but discussion seemed to have died off.

Well, you hit the point exactly. I'm playing only 2 PImps main plus 1 Pimp and 3 Tribes side, for exactly the same arguments.

I also added lands in those slots. My biggest critique concerning the quad list has always been the 12 lands. I started from that list, removed the 3rd Ichorid and some PImps, and added two lands and a DR. And that's where I'm still at.

The reason most people don't want to cut PImp from the main board is probably that they know they need it occasionally (for example against artifect based hate), so they just keep them in the main. Putting them in the board seems like a waste of space at first sight.

[HokusSchmokus]

My reasons for 4 PImps main are:
-I play 4 Ichorids, not having to remove Dredgers is good
- relevant Body
-4 more discard outlets
- useful post-sideboard

[Tombstalker]

Izor- good to know im finally getting on a target with something. Ive been looking at keeping 1-2 main just for ichorid food and board space. It feels like even these are bad reasons though.

HokusSchmokus- I forgot about pimps body being relevant sometimes. Regarding ichorid food how many dredgers do you play?


@ forum- Im looking at 13 total black creatures including griselbrand as the DR target. I wanted the full set of ichorids just to make sure I always see them but I dont mind feeding them to themselves if necessary. Is this poor planning to anticipate possibly feeding ichorids with themselves and/or with griselbrand if the need arises?

Another thought: the pimpless build seems to have plenty of discard outlets, maybe even a surplus with pimps. So for those playing DR + target main why doesnt anyone replace pimps with 2 nether shadows main? I like this idea in theory because shadows can feed ichorids if necessary and better facilitate DR, plus DR main acts like therapies 5-6-7 for bridge. Seems to have more synergy than permanent discard outlets, strictly speaking of G1 that is.

Edit- I may get kidney punched for this but would 1-2 nether shadows main mean narcomoeba could be a 3-of? I know it sucks to have 2 in the opener but they power the whole deck. Could shadow be functional overlap making us more resilient to hate and less prone to bad openers?

[HokusSchmokus]

HokusSchmokus- I forgot about pimps body being relevant sometimes. Regarding ichorid food how many dredgers do you play?


12.4x every Dredger.

Regarding your other Idea, Shadows require Phantasmagorian to properly set up imo. Also, you can just cast Moebas most of the time.

[jares]

I must ask why pimp is still played main in LED dredge? (not LEDless this is obvious)
Ive read through this whole thread and have been testing as well and it seems that LED dredge can keep the speed, consistancy AND the combo by putting permanent outlets to the board.
i.e. quadlaser minus pimps plus 2 DR + target and 13th land.
I also agree that Putrid Imp could be treated as the flex slot in the quadlazer list. I don't agree, though, that it should be replaced by non-enablers (e.g. DR + Target). While Putrid Imp is one of the few cards that are able to accomplish three functions in the deck (Discard Outlet, Ichorid fodder, Warm Body for Sacrifice Effects and even for attacking), I find that one of the most important benefits of using it is the redundancy that it provides for our other Discard Outlets that also serve as Draw Effects when possible (Careful Study, Faithless Looting). With PImp in tow, we increase our chances of being able to use CS and FL as Draw Effects rather than as Discard Outlets for our Dredgers. Of course, if it's absolutely necessary to have access to [2x] DR + [1x] Target, then PImp would probably be the best card to cut (at the expense of decreased redundancy). For the quadlazer list, I would probably do it this way though:

[-2] Putrid Imp
[-1] Ichorid
[+2] Dread Return
[+1] DR Target (preferably a black creature, just in case it might be relevant; e.g. Griselbrand)

Replacing a PImp for a Gold Land would probably be fine, given that access to these lands is still the main dependency of Dredge.

Kind Regards,
jares

[jares]

@ forum- Im looking at 13 total black creatures including griselbrand as the DR target. I wanted the full set of ichorids just to make sure I always see them but I dont mind feeding them to themselves if necessary. Is this poor planning to anticipate possibly feeding ichorids with themselves and/or with griselbrand if the need arises?
The consideration that you would sometimes need to feed Ichorids to each other is worth taking note of when constructing the deck. I don't remember if the "safe" number of Black Creatures has been agreed upon, but 14 of those would probably be good enough, depending on how often you would expect to need to get Ichorids into play.

Another thought: the pimpless build seems to have plenty of discard outlets, maybe even a surplus with pimps. So for those playing DR + target main why doesnt anyone replace pimps with 2 nether shadows main? I like this idea in theory because shadows can feed ichorids if necessary and better facilitate DR, plus DR main acts like therapies 5-6-7 for bridge. Seems to have more synergy than permanent discard outlets, strictly speaking of G1 that is.

Edit- I may get kidney punched for this but would 1-2 nether shadows main mean narcomoeba could be a 3-of? I know it sucks to have 2 in the opener but they power the whole deck. Could shadow be functional overlap making us more resilient to hate and less prone to bad openers?
It has been suggested (by Final Fortune, I believe) that we might actually be running more "threats" (e.g. Ichorid, Dread Return) than we actually need. The evidence that has been looked-into does actually support this theory to a certain degree (judging from the variance of the number of Ichorids + Dread Returns being used by builds that have had notable success), though I believe that the best way to find out is to test it for ourselves. As of the moment, there isn't a consensus on the optimal number of "threats" that should be included in the main deck.

To answer your question more definitively, I would say that it's more important for us to have a greater degree of redundancy for our enablers (Draw, Discard, Dredge) than to have increased threat density (at least in the main deck, for Game 1). After all, Dredge loses when it fails to Dredge, not when it fails to DR (which, I assume, is the main reason for why you're considering Nether Shadow in the main deck).

I hope that helps.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Tombstalker]

Awesome responses thanks for taking the time to elaborate. I will consider everything you guys have said. Also that is why I was considering the shadows but now im taking another perspective.

[GerryT]

I must ask why pimp is still played main in LED dredge?

I've liked Putrid Imp since it's your best card vs Tormod's Crypt, it beats down, sacrifices to Therapy and DR, and is black for Ichorid. That said, I think the next version I'm going to try with be without it, more Breakthroughs, and Griselbrand/FKZ.


So what would you consider to be the "real" decks? And are you saying that the Hypergenesis deck wasn't real? ;) (seriously, that match was kinda cool to watch)

What happened in your MUD match?

RUG mostly.

Against MUD, I mentally checked out of the game after a good start from him and a bad one from me. Rather than play out the game, I conceded instead, assuming I was dead when I wasn't. Kind of convoluted, but I probably would have won.


@: GerryT

How do you side against RUG? Cz sometimes they run surgicals and sometimes artifact hate..

From my article:

"+ 2 Nether Shadow, 1 Tarnished Citadel, 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, 1 Dread Return

- 2 Breakthrough, 2 Cabal Therapy, 1 Golgari Thug

Delver of Secrets is basically the only card that matters. You can block Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose all day long. It's even at the point where I'm considering boarding in Firestorm. You can use it to kill Delver, plus it's an uncounterable discard outlet. If they are siding in Scavenging Ooze, then it's even better.

Most people say to side out Lion's Eye Diamonds, but I don't think that's correct. If they have no pressure you probably draw and discard, but if they have a Delver or some such you really need to explode. In a lot of the games I've played, I've cast a turn 1 discard outlet, it's gotten Dazed, Pierced, or Forced, and then I'd get Wastelanded. Hopefully on the next turn I can do the same thing, but that's not very fast.

LED allows you to play multiple spells they want to counter in a single turn. Also, if they sandbag Tormod's Crypt, you can potentially explode with a flashbacked Looting or Cephalid Coliseum. At that point, you should be able to establish a board presence with Zombies and Therapy their hand away.

Putrid Imp is solid against Tormod's Crypt, but you can board one or more out if they have Surgicals.

As always, sideboarding isn't set in stone, and you should do whatever feels right."

In the last round of SCG Columbus, I sided in two Firestorms and there were pretty good, so I might keep doing that. It killed a Delver which gave me a ton of turns and was a fine discard outlet.

[Tombstalker]

I've liked Putrid Imp since it's your best card vs Tormod's Crypt, it beats down, sacrifices to Therapy and DR, and is black for Ichorid. That said, I think the next version I'm going to try with be without it, more Breakthroughs, and Griselbrand/FKZ.
I guess this is my problem with pimp, i.e. breakthrough/study/looting/coliseum and griselbrand are all so much more powerful. That being said im just a returning player so I cant speak with much authority.

[jares]

I guess this is my problem with pimp, i.e. breakthrough/study/looting/coliseum and griselbrand are all so much more powerful. That being said im just a returning player so I cant speak with much authority.
I certainly agree. You can even add LED to the list of cards that are "so much more powerful". The thing about Putrid Imp, though, is that it was never meant to be "powerful". While all the cards that we mentioned serve as the "star players" in the deck, I like to think of Putrid Imp as the "glue guy", the role player that rarely gets the credit for doing the little things and never complains about the dirty work. As I've expressed quite a few times in the past, my appreciation of the card stems from the fact that it's able to facilitate several of the deck's functions, while at the same time increasing the deck's resilience and reliability.

While Putrid Imp will never be a piece that will be absolutely necessary for Dredge, but you'll be hard-pressed to look for an alternative for something that makes the other cards in the deck much better.

Cheers,
jares

[HammafistRoob]

I think that grislebrand really pushes this deck to the next level. imo u dont even need FKZ with him, u dredge almost your entire deck most likely hitting three or four therapies as well as a few narcos and a ton of bridges. At this point you can look at FKZ as win more, you rape your opponents hand leaving you with insane board position. Heres the list Ive been testing for about a month now, with great results.
4 gemstone mine
4 city of brass
3 cephalid coliseum(i know i know)
2 tarnished citadel

4 golgari thug
4 golgari grave troll
4 stinkweed imp
4 narcomoeba
3 ichorid
2 grislebrand

4 lions eye diamond
4 bridge from below

4 careful study
4 faithless looting
4 breakthrough
4 cabal therapy
2 dread returns

The sideboard is obviously meta dependent heres mine as of today.
4 natures claim
2 chain of vapor
4 unmask
2 ashen ghoul
1 ancient grudge
1 angel of despair
1 ichorid

Putrid Imp just isnt necessary in led dredge, if you still play him I suggest u test my list and see how it goes.

[jares]

Putrid Imp just isnt necessary in led dredge
That's just as true for Griselbrand (or any other DR target for that matter, at least in the main deck), but we play it anyway. :laugh:

Cheers,
jares

[Tombstalker]

Jares has a point, but I have to say double griselbrand is seriously cool.

[jares]

Jares has a point, but I have to say double griselbrand is seriously cool.
To add to that, I do agree that Griselbrand, by itself, should be sufficient - in other words, while FKZ does provide avenues of attack that the deck would otherwise be unable to take without it, I don't find its inclusion alongside Griselbrand to be absolutely necessary.

Kind Regards,
jares

[HammafistRoob]

While grislebrand may not be absolutely necessary for dredge in genereal I see it as follows. He gives the deck a reliable way to simply outrace any other combo deck (be it belcher, doomsday, tes or any other storm variant). He also gives you the ability to just outrace serious threats(like 3sphere, bloodmoon, a reanimated iona, scavenging ooze, even random jank like ensnaring bridge or tabernacle). With my list the number of times Ive cabal therapied opponents out of the game as early as turn one is just retarded. Being able to reliably answer any piece of hate(with leyline and surgical two exceptions, and when on the play obviously) is simply invaluable for any dredge deck.

He does alot more than any other return target could even think of. He also makes the burn match nearly unloseable. Not to mention 7/7 lifelink flier can race just about anything you come across.

Its been so good Ive been tryin to find room for 1DR and 1 Grislebrand in my sideboard but im still debating that in my head.

Im seriously telling every dredge player to at least find the room for 2 DR and 2 Grislebrand and do some testing with it.

[joemauer]

He also makes the burn match nearly unloseable.

I have never lost to burn or zoo with LED dredge, you know the full 2 out of 3. These are by far the easiest matchups for me. Am I the only that feels this way?

I agree with all the other strengths you listed about him. I would run one in my maindeck if I owned one. I am a little apprehensive to run out and buy this card as a Yawgmoth's Bargain effect in Legacy might not be around after June 20th.

[HammafistRoob]

While burn is an easy matchup most of the time it can become a serious headache if your forced to mulligan to less than 6. They have multiple ways to deal with bridge and they have a decent clock to boot.

While burn may be an easy matchup it doesnt mean that you autowin. With grislebrand though this is as close to an autowin matchup you can hope for.
(this is NOT an arguement to run grislebrand, its meerly an added bonus of running him)

Im about 100% sure grislebrand wont become grislebanned until a certain archetype exploits him well enough. He hasnt shown enough results to be banned in two weeks. My advice is to buy them now before they become 30/40 dollar cards. After wizards makes their money on a card is when they ban it, they wait for the price to skyrocket first.