[Deck] Dredge

[Michael Keller]

So taking my Dredge build to an unknown meta local legacy tournament tomorrow, my board and deck are fleshed out as I like it

Only thought was cutting 2 PImps for a 3rd Dread Return and Flayer, I don't think it is a good call as my deck is explosive enough to win by turn 2-4 and I should not need the flayer

Also, anyone have any luck with Ghoultree, I have a playset not sure if they help the deck or not?

I had some brief success with Ghoultree out of the board in an LED build not too long ago, but I don't know if it's better than Ashen Ghoul. Dredging into Ashen Ghoul is much more probable than open-handing a Ghoultree with a way to dump a dredger and potentially having to wait another turn to be able to cast him.

Flayer in some LED builds is just overkill, and I think Final Fortune was correct at some point earlier when he mentioned that Dread Return, while strong, isn't always necessary. Flayer is still good and can facilitate some fast kills without attacking, so it does have its merits.

[Fizzeler]

I had some brief success with Ghoultree out of the board in an LED build not too long ago, but I don't know if it's better than Ashen Ghoul. Dredging into Ashen Ghoul is much more probable than open-handing a Ghoultree with a way to dump a dredger and potentially having to wait another turn to be able to cast him.

Flayer in some LED builds is just overkill, and I think Final Fortune was correct at some point earlier when he mentioned that Dread Return, while strong, isn't always necessary. Flayer is still good and can facilitate some fast kills without attacking, so it does have its merits.

Noted, I use Nether Shadow over Ghoul (easy to interchange if I wanted to go Manaless and I like the odd Revised art), I may do some more testing to see how Tree is, I can see him being great against someone who sides in Cage or tries to cripple you with Crypt/Relic

I thought Flayer was a bit overkill as well (save manaless where I see him as another way to just win) so for now I'll pass on it

I still need Angel Of Despair for the board

On another note Shambling Shell, save manaless builds, is there any way to abuse this guy? He pumps your guys and can sac himself to trigger Bridges. I guess the reason not run him is he only Dredges 3 and is 1GB to cast

[NecroYawgmoth]

On another note Shambling Shell, save manaless builds, is there any way to abuse this guy? He pumps your guys and can sac himself to trigger Bridges. I guess the reason not run him is he only Dredges 3 and is 1GB to cast

I wouldn't run him, because Darkblast is X times better.

Manaless only runs him because that deck has no drawspells to find Dredgers, which means you need more dredgers to open with one. It's run in Manaless Dredge over Darkblast because it feeds Ichorids, and they are creatures that count for Nether Shadow.

[Fizzeler]

I wouldn't run him, because Darkblast is X times better.

Manaless only runs him because that deck has no drawspells to find Dredgers, which means you need more dredgers to open with one. It's run in Manaless Dredge over Darkblast because it feeds Ichorids, and they are creatures that count for Nether Shadow.

Noted, I guess Darkblast is a ton better, still going to pick them up for Manaless though

Izor, I am curious what you do to combat the GY hate you expect when heading to local tourneys? I know the overall meta is different in Europe than in the US, hence why I wonder what GY hate is prevalent?

[Final Fortune]

Noted, I use Nether Shadow over Ghoul (easy to interchange if I wanted to go Manaless and I like the odd Revised art), I may do some more testing to see how Tree is, I can see him being great against someone who sides in Cage or tries to cripple you with Crypt/Relic

I thought Flayer was a bit overkill as well (save manaless where I see him as another way to just win) so for now I'll pass on it

I still need Angel Of Despair for the board

On another note Shambling Shell, save manaless builds, is there any way to abuse this guy? He pumps your guys and can sac himself to trigger Bridges. I guess the reason not run him is he only Dredges 3 and is 1GB to cast

I'm not certain Nether Shadow contributes as much as Ashen Ghoul post-board vs Surgical Extraction, I tried Nether Shadow for awhile and found it mediocre without Dread Returns to take advantage of ~8xNarcomoeba effects. Dread Returns required the removal of Breakthrough in addition to Lion's Eye Diamond, which I found rather sub-optimal because Breakthrough shouldn't be SBed out of Dredge nearly as much as people are SBing them out fwiw.

@thread

Isn't that the asshole who thinks Dakmor Salvage and Bloodghast are good? /facepalm "false logic" despite it never placing serious results more than the one time he managed to luck sack one big tournament compared to Quad Lazer ...

[Zodiark]

Out of topic: I really miss that clown aka JBulko for his trolling skills... anyway, Hollywood and Izor made a good job on beating the crap out of his fat ass.

On topic: Chags you made your point back there, and since you mentioned Tireless Tribe, tell me if you can, how it works in the place of LED (I don't have much time right now to test it asap) :smile:

About the SB Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim, I only mention them because of this:
Storm: Leyline of sanctity? Iona?
Show and Troll: No idea if they get counter + turn 2 Emrakul... Maybe peacekeeper or sudden spoiling? Chain of vapor?
Painter/MUD: Nature's Claim?
Maybe FKZ can be useful too.

As I stated before with different sentences, my words were directed not only to a single person, nor did I tried to attack anyone.

The list I run right now is very close to that of Hollywood

[Izor]

Izor, I am curious what you do to combat the GY hate you expect when heading to local tourneys? I know the overall meta is different in Europe than in the US, hence why I wonder what GY hate is prevalent?

This is a good question. It really depends on let's say 'how local' the tournament is. If it's a very small one and I know pretty much all players there, it's something different than if I don't really know people.

What I can say about the metagame here is that people like to splash their gy hate much more than I usually see in the SCG Open tops, I for instance face things like 2 Surgicals, 1 Crypt, 1 Relic, 1 Grafdiggers Cage pretty frequently. Things like that are pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you as a Dredge player, but if you expect it to happen and have a good sideboard, it's possible to beat anything.

I think I've told that story before, when someone showed me 10 dedicated hate cards against Dredge before the tournament and he said he's going to play all of them. This is of course not the rule. But it kind of shows that over here, people respect the power of this deck and if they know they usually lose to it more than egainst any other deck, they pack loads of hate cards. In other metagames, I feel, people try to just dodge Dredge much more than they actually prepare for it. I mean, everyone just throws some random three gy hoser cards into their legacy sideboard, because well.. that's what everyone does. For example, if I was facing the guy with the 10 hate cards, I would maybe just board my Nature's Claims to destroy his Equipment (it was a BW Stoneforge deck) and try to win with random beats, I don't know.


In general, no hate is really prevelant, it's really a mix. And people tend to find the cards that make most sense in their respective decks, or they just splash it. I usually always board anti hate, because I can assume that everyone has something against me post board. My sideboard consists of at least 8-10 anti graveyard hate cards, and I feel that that's what I pretty much have to do. Despite all that, I've never gone worse than 2-2 with the deck and I was able to make the finals in a good portion of tourneys. Strikingly, I seemed to be more successful with LEDless lists, mainly because through all the hate, having dorks in play on turn 1 can really make the difference. I'm not saying LEdless is better by any means now, but in such a metagame it might make more sense.

[Fizzeler]

I'm not certain Nether Shadow contributes as much as Ashen Ghoul post-board vs Surgical Extraction, I tried Nether Shadow for awhile and found it mediocre without Dread Returns to take advantage of ~8xNarcomoeba effects. Dread Returns required the removal of Breakthrough in addition to Lion's Eye Diamond, which I found rather sub-optimal because Breakthrough shouldn't be SBed out of Dredge nearly as much as people are SBing them out fwiw.

@thread

Isn't that the asshole who thinks Dakmor Salvage and Bloodghast are good? /facepalm "false logic" despite it never placing serious results more than the one time he managed to luck sack one big tournament compared to Quad Lazer ...

Main reason for shadow over ghoul is lack of ghouls

I have seen Dredge lists run some crazy post board plans like Gravecrawlers for instance, I think Dakmor Salvage Bloodghast are decent, but Ichorid is much better

@Izor
I think that seems to be the underlying theme in metagames where Dredge is a factor, the people are much more prepared for it, as I said I split a local tourney because no one prepared for dredge. The last match I played was against my friend who I tested with previously so I told him how to hate out my deck, let me say that was hard and I ended up losing in 3

[blindspotxxx]

Hey Dredge Dudes...Im preparing for a tourny and expect there to be a fair amout of Dredge. I'm a little inexperienced when playing it so I'm not sure what I should Sb against it. Here are my options:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Faerie Macabre
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Relics of Protgenus

Which of those are the most effective against you?

4 Leyline of the Void

or combination of

Surgicals and Graftdiggers

[namrufmot]

Surgicals targetting Ichorid correct?

Or would a combo of Surgicals and Faerie Macabres be better? Since I can play either of those when if Dredge goes first...

[TerribleTim68]

I had a game 2 that I saw no leyline of the void's from my opponent, just surgical extractions, so game 3 i didn't run any enchant destruction and at the start of game 3 he starts & has 1 in hand, putting it in play, so dumb! lol

Hahahahaha! I remember that! :tongue:

[Smea.gol.lum]

I'm always looking for innovation and I'm wondering if anybody has tested the following cards so that i won't have to do it :
1. Manabond would probably need a new shell built around it with more lands and Life from the Loam.
2. Hedron Crab is an outlet and dredger in one card, but it is slow, needs fetchlands and is probably not needed in game 1.
3. [cards]Standstill[cards], but Breakthrough is probably just better :P

I hope the new edition will give us some goodies with the Scavenge mechanic, which doesn't play the spell and is uncounterable.

[HokusSchmokus]

I hope the new edition will give us some goodies with the Scavenge mechanic, which doesn't play the spell and is uncounterable.
My hope,too. A black creature with life cost as scavenge that gives a creature -2/-2 instant speed would be too good to hope for I guess,isn't it?^^
But I think it is not unlikely that there will be something we can use.

[LeePerry]

Surgicals targetting Ichorid correct?

Or would a combo of Surgicals and Faerie Macabres be better? Since I can play either of those when if Dredge goes first...

1. Surgicals generally target Ichorid yes, but after board there are some lists that side in Ashen Ghoul to mitigate the loss of the Ichorids... In some cases it might also be interesting to Surgical the Bridge from Below, especially if they get a bridge in the yard early with still little pressure on the board. I believe that against dredge decks that feature Dread Return/ reanimation target to combo out, it is especially effective to target a bridge early when you have the opportunity.

2. You have to understand that a dredge player generally has two options in his sb. The first is enchantment / artifact removal to fight cages, crypts and most importantly Leyline of the Void. The second is several copies of Ashen Ghoul (with extra lands) / Memory Lapse to mitigate the effect of Surgical Extraction / Extirpate / Faerie Macabres

Occasionally if they play Dread Return, they have some additional DR targets, or some meta-game dependent choices like Firestorm

A good reason to split between Grafdigger's Cage / Surgical Extraction in your anti-dredge choice of SB cards is because it requires the dredge player to dilute his deck a lot more then if you only play hate that he can answer with the same sb slots. So a split between Surgical and Faerie Macabres is probably less effective then a split between Cage and Extirpate for example.

Macabres in general are more effective against reanimator, so if you want to sb those, add some artifact / enchantment answer to complement the macabres in your dredge match-up.

If anyone disagrees with this feel free to add.

[Fizzeler]

SO took Dredge to a local tourney and went 2-2

Match 1 Vs Maverick
Lose game 1 to turn 2 thalia followed by Garruk to hit my Bridges
Game 2 mull to 5 and just get stomped

Match 2 Vs U/W Meddling Mage/Stoneblade/Exalted Angel Thing
Lose game 1 to a questionable keep and him beating face hard
Game 2 I get a ton of zombies turn 3 and win
Game 3 I go off, but he Mages Therapy which slows me down enough for him to win

Match 3 Vs Dredge
G1 + G2 I go off and win turn 2

Match 4 Vs Bant
Game 1 go off turn 2
Game 2 he surgicals Therapy and Troll, I go off shortly after and beat with my Undead Horde!

Overall not bad still need to find ways to beat Maverick though

[chags]

Out of topic: I really miss that clown aka JBulko for his trolling skills... anyway, Hollywood and Izor made a good job on beating the crap out of his fat ass.

On topic: Chags you made your point back there, and since you mentioned Tireless Tribe, tell me if you can, how it works in the place of LED (I don't have much time right now to test it asap) :smile:

About the SB Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim, I only mention them because of this:

As I stated before with different sentences, my words were directed not only to a single person, nor did I tried to attack anyone.

The list I run right now is very close to that of Hollywood

I was not trying to attack anyone either just to be clear. And I do not share the same thoughts as JBulko. I have to decide if I'm going with tribes or leds for the side events at the GP. I may just play multiple 8 mans and test both, if I run LED I plan on trying Que's latest list with 14 land main and firestorms in the sb, I know a lot of people don't like firestorm but it is quite good against merfolk and elves which have both been popular in my area. Having an "uncounterable" discard outlet is always nice too.

[mort-]

Got 2nd place in a 46 players tournament, going 5-1 (no top8 playout).
Had really retarded draws almost every game and I'm really starting to love this deck :D
Firestorms were MVP in every game I boarded them in, imho, it's by far the best sideboard card.
Maybe I'll write a short report, it was really hot in there yesterday, so I'm not remembering that much :D

[Izor]

Firestorm getting some love back. I assume people just didn't run it since March, because it's the slots you often have to give up for the extra Lands in LED Dredge.

[chags]

Got 2nd place in a 46 players tournament, going 5-1 (no top8 playout).
Had really retarded draws almost every game and I'm really starting to love this deck :D
Firestorms were MVP in every game I boarded them in, imho, it's by far the best sideboard card.
Maybe I'll write a short report, it was really hot in there yesterday, so I'm not remembering that much :D

Can we see the list? I'm not sure on other people's reasons for not running firestorm but mine was definitely due to sideboard space and with the lands back in the main I'm more then happy to be running 3 again. The card is just such a sick tool.

[Final Fortune]

Got 2nd place in a 46 players tournament, going 5-1 (no top8 playout).
Had really retarded draws almost every game and I'm really starting to love this deck :D
Firestorms were MVP in every game I boarded them in, imho, it's by far the best sideboard card.
Maybe I'll write a short report, it was really hot in there yesterday, so I'm not remembering that much :D

Were you using it to address Scavenging Ooze or just using it as a Wrath of God? I usually found the card to be a combination of win more and overly committal vs. hate myself, altho' it is super cool to WoG bitches in an aggro-combo deck out of no where.

[mort-]

Can we see the list? I'm not sure on other people's reasons for not running firestorm but mine was definitely due to sideboard space and with the lands back in the main I'm more then happy to be running 3 again. The card is just such a sick tool.

Sure.

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
→ 12
4 Bridge from Below
→ 4
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
→ 4
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
1 Griselbrand
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
→ 22
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
→ 17
1 Darkblast
→ 1
→ → 60


Sideboard:

1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Nether Shadow
3 Firestorm
4 Nature's Claim
→ → 15

I know the list is kind of strange, but it somehow works very well for me. All DR targets have been a house (in this case, a little village then :p) so far.


Were you using it to address Scavenging Ooze or just using it as a Wrath of God? I usually found the card to be a combination of win more and overly committal vs. hate myself, altho' it is super cool to WoG bitches in an aggro-combo deck out of no where.

Both. I really don't like the Maverick matchup and had a hard time against it with the quadlaser. Ooze is a card that gets me very often, so I really like Firestorm. As you said, it's not only a solution against hate (KotR, Ooze, Thalia, Fauna Shaman), but also kills their board, which, seeing that they don't have carddraw, is almost every time GG.
I also like it against Tribaldecks boarding Relics / Crypts. I kind of noticed that I only board Nature's Claim against Crypts / Relics / Spellbombs against blue based decks. Sounds weird, yes, but I love Firestorm much more in Tribalmatchups. It buys you so much time while slowdredging.
Best example is from this weekend. I played against Goblins (well, only match that I lost ;D). He went T2 War Marshal, T3 Chieftain, T4 Krenko. Taps Krenko and Firestorm gets his whole board in response.

[joemauer]

@mort-: If I were to run something outside of Quadlaser, I would run your list -1 Ichorid & Cabal Therapy,+1 dread return & thug.

Were you still having trouble against Maverick with the Dread Return package main?
I really don't firestorm as a sideboard choice. Tribal is usually an easier matchup(barring not too much hate) and Firestorm doesn't always help against Maverick. They have MoM to save their best creature and can find graveyard hate in form of Ooze or Wheel while we are durdling around with firestorm.

[Final Fortune]

Generally speaking, Nature's Claim is only for Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage, without knowing whether or not your opponent is playing Surgical Extraction, Tormod's Crypt or "other" you're usually better off SBing in Ashen Ghoul because it's good against Surgical and ok vs Tormod's Crypt.

Firestorm is obviously awesome uncontested, and I understand if you're playing in a metagame where Maverick has more than 1 Scavenging Ooze between the MD and SB, but how well does it fare when you're facing Tormod's Crypt and your opponent has a board position? I mean, you should probably destroy Goblins regardless of their board position as long as Mogg Fanatic isn't a part of it, what were your experiences with having to play into hate with it and what were you SBing out for it?

[mort-]

@mort-: If I were to run something outside of Quadlaser, I would run your list -1 Ichorid & Cabal Therapy,+1 dread return & thug.

Were you still having trouble against Maverick with the Dread Return package main?

Don't do that :D The few games I tested with two Ichorids were just horrible, I think three is the minimum requirement here. Also, Cabal Therapy is by far the strongest card in the deck. Winning and losing are often divided by naming the correct card with Therapy or having a second one, so this would be the last card I'd cut.

As for problems against Maverick, like I said, I think the Firestorms do make the difference, not the DR package. Allthough it's quite nice to have two additional saccoutlets to overwhelm them with tokens (also, Griselbrand and Flayer have been plain awesome). Even if some people might call it win-more, I do think that winning on the spot is certainly better then having to wait a turn at the meager cost of four MD slots. Reanimating Elesh is obv really strong G2 / 3, as it will kill everything except KotR and buys you time / kills very fast.


Firestorm is obviously awesome uncontested, and I understand if you're playing in a metagame where Maverick has more than 1 Scavenging Ooze between the MD and SB, but how well does it fare when you're facing Tormod's Crypt and your opponent has a board position? I mean, you should probably destroy Goblins regardless of their board position as long as Mogg Fanatic isn't a part of it, what were your experiences with having to play into hate with it and what were you SBing out for it?

Playing against Crypt / Board position is actually quite ok. Seing as they will most likely will begin the game and have Crypt on the field T1, you'll have at best 8 cards in your hand. So there's 6 after Land + Looting or still 7 if you want to DDD. And that's it. You are the deck that can bring terror and destruction, so they have to depend on their Crypt to protect them.
You have time to wait, you don't need to play anything. So while they HAVE to break the Crypt (the luckier you are, the earlier they have to), you wait with your instant WoG + 6 cards in your hand. Maybe 1 less, if you did play Cabal Therapy.
If they are to fast for you.. well, then you both start at 0 again.

As for the boarding plan, against creaturebased decks, I'll usually cut the Breakthrough, Flayer, sometimes Griselbrand (if Iona and Elesh are both better). Next slot I cut is Thug, sometimes Darkblast (Merfolk for example).
I don't like cutting LED (usually I'll only board it against Leylines) because it enables some sick lategamer power postCrypt or postWaste if you still have a Looting in hand / grave.

So I actually don't board much, the deck doesn't really need to. I'm quite positive that you can win postboard games against Crypt without boarding at all. Of course, sometimes they get the nuts, sometimes you do, sometimes you both and sometimes neither, but that happens :D

Edit: I think up until now, I've lost maybe two games were I'd played and resolved Firestorm. It's the real deal, I can't stress it enough.

[Que]

@thread

Isn't that the asshole who thinks Dakmor Salvage and Bloodghast are good? /facepalm "false logic" despite it never placing serious results more than the one time he managed to luck sack one big tournament compared to Quad Lazer ...

You're kidding me right? http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?p_first=Jason&p_last=Bulkowski

I thought we knew Jason has already been placing with his list before.. he likes Bloodghast and they work for him so why do you keep insisting its terrible? its obviously a different build and catered more for a combo finish.

[Michael Keller]

You're kidding me right? http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deckshow.php?p_first=Jason&p_last=Bulkowski

I thought we knew Jason has already been placing with his list before.. he likes Bloodghast and they work for him so why do you keep insisting its terrible? its obviously a different build and catered more for a combo finish.

It's one thing to be good at Magic. It's another to be overly condescending and inherently rude to people trying to facilitate a discussion with comments that serve no purpose but to flame others, especially the less experienced players trying to make honest contributions.

[Vandalize]

Latest list:

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

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp

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

4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Breakthrough

SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Ashen Ghoul
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Tarnished Citadel
SB: 1 Putrid Imp
SB: 1 Tireless Tribe (or second Ancient Grudge, depends on how much I expect Stoneblade)

Seems pretty good. I don't like playing (almost) Quadlaser without 4 Ichorids main deck. I was using the 4th Thug on place of the 4th Ichorid, and the last Ichorid was really missed in every game 1 against fast decks. I needed to hit them consistently on my graveyard to grind out games (storm is pretty big here in my locals).

Postboard, the fourth Ichorid comes out in the first place, followed by Lion's Eye Diamond and Breakthrough (depending on the match). The lonesome Tireless Tribe has pulled its weight against Goblins, Merfolk and Zoo, but I might replace it for Grudge #2.

This deck feels very consistent, and I've been keeping strong hands consistently, they being turn 1 or 2 combos. This deck ins't belcher, and you don't need to combo out turn 1. I usually play some Study effect or a blind Therapy (I'm pretty good [luckysack] at this).

Leylines of the Void is mainly to deal with Reanimator, as its an stupidly hard matchup. I don't play Darkblast nor Firestorm because Peacekeeper isn't present here in my meta, and the deck that uses it (UW Miracles) is almost a bye, so no worries.

[Que]

It's one thing to be good at Magic. It's another to be overly condescending and inherently rude to people trying to facilitate a discussion with comments that serve no purpose but to flame others, especially the less experienced players trying to make honest contributions.

I was responding to a flame myself.

idk if its just this thread exclusively, but there are regulars on here who treat others' opinion as completely wrong simply because they're differing from their own. Being constructive seems to be a challenge in this thread which is the main reason I tend to lurk rather than post.

At the end of the day we'll get nowhere if we keep bad mouthing others' decks instead of improving our own game.

@Vandalize. how do you like that list? did you not want to go completely Quad to help our your sb? The only difference I see is the addition of PIMP and Tireless tribe from Quad. Are you really missing those 2 lands in your Game 1s? Or do you believe Tireless and PIMP add significant impact Games 2 & 3?

[Michael Keller]

I was responding to a flame myself.

idk if its just this thread exclusively, but there are regulars on here who treat others' opinion as completely wrong simply because they're differing from their own. Being constructive seems to be a challenge in this thread which is the main reason I tend to lurk rather than post.

The reason this occurs is in large part to novice Dredge (and Legacy, for that matter) players who seek to learn from the more experienced players. The challenge lies in educating each other - not ourselves. That seems to be difficult for others as the tolerance level for those individuals making questionable arguments or suboptimal choices is incredibly low for some people.


At the end of the day we'll get nowhere if we keep bad mouthing others' decks instead of improving our own game.

I agree with this sentiment. However, the issue I was referencing pertains to bad mouthing others and not necessarily their decks. That is intolerable and will not be accepted.

[sclabman]

Got fifth place at a local tournament with Quadlaser -1 breakthrough -1 led +2 street wraith. I beat a mono blue control deck, a pretty scrubby dragon deck, and an esper control deck. I lost to this real jerk playing Belcher who just had the worst attitude. He probably just had a colonoscopy with a rough-handed doctor. Anyway it was fun and street wraith has been really good for me in testing and in tournament play.

[JBulko]

It's one thing to be good at Magic. It's another to be overly condescending and inherently rude to people trying to facilitate a discussion with comments that serve no purpose but to flame others, especially the less experienced players trying to make honest contributions.

I understand that my humor is dry, and that text can't accurately convey what I'm attempting to express. I'm fine wit that, what's annoying is that the number of posts someone has(as opposed to real world results) seems to directly correlate with perceived wisdom.

It feels wrong to me to decide to make a change to my list based on the results from smaller 4-5 round tournaments. In some cases theses smaller tournaments can have relatively slow reactions when compared to national, of even regional metagame shifts. As such I would argue that results from such events are largely unimportant. This may hurt some feelings. I won't exactly shed a tear, and I would ask that people think logically about doing the same. Realize that larger events such as SCG events do not mirror your local metagame. Since these events can be a lucrative and personally rewarding venture, it would seem to be in the best interest of the players attending to be aware of this. While the Bazaar of moxen and world champs events may be at the pinnacle of the competitive scene, SCG events are the best thing to happen to Legacy since it's inception.

If it seems like I'm attacking you, defend yourself. ARGUE with me. Change my mind.
Don't reduce my arguments to ravings of a condescending passer by, that benefits no one.

Just because you're offended, doesn't mean I'm wrong...

[Final Fortune]

I was responding to a flame myself.

idk if its just this thread exclusively, but there are regulars on here who treat others' opinion as completely wrong simply because they're differing from their own. Being constructive seems to be a challenge in this thread which is the main reason I tend to lurk rather than post.

At the end of the day we'll get nowhere if we keep bad mouthing others' decks instead of improving our own game.

@Vandalize. how do you like that list? did you not want to go completely Quad to help our your sb? The only difference I see is the addition of PIMP and Tireless tribe from Quad. Are you really missing those 2 lands in your Game 1s? Or do you believe Tireless and PIMP add significant impact Games 2 & 3?

Because he is an asshole and his deck is bad, one person placing with Bloodghast and Dread Return packages does not make it viable compared to multiple people placing with Quad Lazer or variants there of. Anyone can win with Dredge game 1, it's who can win with Dredge games 2 and 3 vs hate that distinguishes the bad Dredge players from the good Dredge players.

I'm all for constructive dialogue regarding innovation and optimization in Dredge, but the problem is Dredge is subject to a lot of "what about this or that" suggestions that are strategically and theoretically baseless because there's this ~6 card difference in lists that allow for flashy kills at the cost of consistently winning that people like to play around with. It permits some flexibility game 1 but has serious issues post-board. Bloodghast just gets destroyed by Tormod's Crypt, because it's inherently unable to apply incremental pressure in the same way Ichorid and Ashen Ghoul can. Furthermore, having to play Dakmore salvage at all is unbearably horrible, and having to have a second land in your hand in a land light deck in order to activate your Bloodghast with Landfall is asking for unnecessary inconsistency and heavily penalized by your mulligans. There's a lot wrong with that list that'll show itself if you play it enough, one guy placing well in an American tournament or even two doesn't really justify it compared to Quad Lazer and its variants consistently placing all over Europe in the hands of multiple people.


@Mort

I think you'll find Breakthrough does a better job at what you're describing than Lion's Eye Diamond specifically because it doesn't require you to have Faithless Looting in your hand or in your graveyard, and it's capable of digging 4 cards deep by itself. I believe cutting Lion's Eye Diamond over Breakthrough for game 2 is always the correct decision because of Lion's Eye Diamond's unreliability vs Tormod's Crypt and the nature of DDD as a whole, unless you're certain you'll only be facing Surgical Extraction post-board i.e. you see a Snapcaster Mage game 1.

I'll definitely try Firestorm again, I just play Leyline of the Void because I hate the Dredge mirror and the Reanimator match up, but if you're routinely casting Firestorm thru' Tormod's Crypt vs Goblins and winning your games that's pretty much living the dream as far as I'm concerned and I'm willing to test it over Breakthrough game 2 post-board (especially against Maverick)

I'm thinking about taking something similar to this list to the shop this weekend,

MD

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tarnished Citadel

4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast

3 Putrid Imp

4 Narcomoeba
3 Cabal Therapy

2 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below

2 Dread Return
1 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

SB

1 Ichorid
3 Ashen Ghoul
2 Tarnished Citadels
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Nature's Claim
4 Firestorm

Default SB plan game 2 is -4 Lion's Eye Diamond, -1 Dread Return, -1 Griselbrand, -1 Shield of Emeria for +1 Ichorid, +3 Ashen Ghouls, +2 Tarnished Citadels and +1 Cabal Therapy.

It's obviously a combo oriented version of Dredge, but I've been wanting to experiment with transitioning between the combo and aggro variants pre and post-board vs diversified hate in SBs to see if I could leave the MD intact vs Snapcaster/Surgical Extraction decks and use all of the packages to minimize the impact of Surgical Extraction altogether because there are too many targets that he'd be better off always taking the first Dredger or the Bridges.

I'm not certain what the best 2nd Dread Return target should be, I went with Iona, Shield of Emeria because I think she just absolutely destroys more archetypes than any other Dread Return target I can think of and being able to Dread Return her as disruption hopefully offsets cutting the 4th Cabal Therapy. I don't really like Flame Kin Zealot because it requires you to have a graveyard position and your opponent not to have a board position to end the game, and if all Flame Kin Zealot really does is prevent your opponent from top decking out of a lost position then Iona, Shield of Emeria does more or less the same thing and actually flies in for 7 to the face by herself.

It's probably no where as consistent as just Quad Lazer -1 Ichorid, - 1 Putrid Imp, -1 Golgari Thug for +3 Tarnished Citadels in the MD, which has the smoothest mulligans of any Dredge I've played so far, but it's not as much fun as resolving OP bullshit IRL and I'm kind of tired of taking the deck too seriously and just want to chill.

Also does anybody know any credible artists doing card mods that have done decent Starcraft art and could mod 75 cards for around 1k euro or less with Zerg art?

[Calado]

Because he is an asshole and his deck is bad, one person placing with Bloodghast and Dread Return packages does not make it viable compared to multiple people placing with Quad Lazer or variants there of.

I just want to defend ideas that makes us think in another angle. I could test his deck in local tourneys to see its performance. The deck doesn't look bad (although JBulko still looks like an asshole)...


I'm not certain what the best 2nd Dread Return target should be, I went with Iona, Shield of Emeria because I think she just absolutely destroys more archetypes than any other Dread Return target I can think of and being able to Dread Return her as disruption hopefully offsets cutting the 4th Cabal Therapy.
What about the forgotten Sadistic Hypnotist? He still shut the opponents hand, isn't color dependant, offsets cutting the 4th Cabal Therapy by having a nice discard effect and contributes to the goal of the deck making zombies.

And I liked very much this sideboard. If Maverick is one of the toughest machups for dredge, why don't run Firestorms? We know how bad is being hated.
Btw, darkblast isn't only for peacekeeper, it's better than Thug against Maverick because it can kill their starters (arbor, hierarch and mother) still allowing us to dredge.

[mort-]

I'm not certain what the best 2nd Dread Return target should be, I went with Iona, Shield of Emeria because I think she just absolutely destroys more archetypes than any other Dread Return target I can think of and being able to Dread Return her as disruption hopefully offsets cutting the 4th Cabal Therapy. I don't really like Flame Kin Zealot because it requires you to have a graveyard position and your opponent not to have a board position to end the game, and if all Flame Kin Zealot really does is prevent your opponent from top decking out of a lost position then Iona, Shield of Emeria does more or less the same thing and actually flies in for 7 to the face by herself.

From my point of view, we have good DR targets atm, but no best. I think it's personal preference. I currently like Griselbrand and FotH because it lets you race fast combo decks or break stalemates (like in the mirror). FotH also ignores a variety of cards, the really dangerous ones being Karakas, Maze of Ith (if Bridges got removed), Elephant Grass and Engineered Explosives. So I think it's a viable G1 target and very good if you have to expect some sort of can't-attack-hate. Iona is actually the least chosen target to be boarded in, most of the time Elesh is just better (as I board to only 1 target G2 / G3 most of the time).

Will look into boarding LEDs instead of Breakthroughs, still have to learn much before Ovinogeddon :D

[ahg113]

Just tossing it out there without reading a bunch of the back pages but...

In order to fight against some of the hate, which typically is Surgical Extraction/Extirpate or Faerie Macabre type sort, ever think about putting in Ground Seal? It's cheap, and a cantrip, and you guys don't target cards in your own graveyard. I've done well with it in Modern with a gy theme. It still has short comings against relic and crypt though.

[iPhael]

Just tossing it out there without reading a bunch of the back pages but...

In order to fight against some of the hate, which typically is Surgical Extraction/Extirpate or Faerie Macabre type sort, ever think about putting in Ground Seal? It's cheap, and a cantrip, and you guys don't target cards in your own graveyard. I've done well with it in Modern with a gy theme. It still has short comings against relic and crypt though.

:1::g: Is highly prohibitive in a deck with 8-11 rainbow lands, and we already have cards like Ashen Ghoul to combat extraction effects.

[Fizzeler]

Just tossing it out there without reading a bunch of the back pages but...

In order to fight against some of the hate, which typically is Surgical Extraction/Extirpate or Faerie Macabre type sort, ever think about putting in Ground Seal? It's cheap, and a cantrip, and you guys don't target cards in your own graveyard. I've done well with it in Modern with a gy theme. It still has short comings against relic and crypt though.

:1::g: Is highly prohibitive in a deck with 8-11 rainbow lands, and we already have cards like Ashen Ghoul to combat extraction effects.

Not to mention Seal has negative effects with Dread Return, now if there were a card like

Sacred Ground :w:
Enchantment
Cards in your graveyard have Hexproof

then I foresee it being applied to dredge to some extent, although the cantripping from seal is pretty good and does shut off Snapcaster it is to costly at :1::g:

[Vandalize]

@Vandalize. how do you like that list? did you not want to go completely Quad to help our your sb? The only difference I see is the addition of PIMP and Tireless tribe from Quad. Are you really missing those 2 lands in your Game 1s? Or do you believe Tireless and PIMP add significant impact Games 2 & 3?

The extra lands in the main deck are actually useful. After extensive test with Quadlaser, that 12 lands configuration didn't give me a lot of Land hands, so I add those 2 (and it made more space for my SB, which is a bonus).

The main reason for Tireless Tribe in the sideboard is because I own a foil Japanese one, and I love it. The second reason is that Goblins and Merfolk are real again, and this guy blocks good, and plays arround Crypt.

PImp and Tribe just come in against archtypes that are known to use Relic or Crypt, otherwise is the main +3 Ashen Ghoul +1 Tarnished -4 LED boarding, or I don't even bother boarding.

Leyline and Nature's Claim have limited use, and they come in very specific cases.

[Final Fortune]

I just want to defend ideas that makes us think in another angle. I could test his deck in local tourneys to see its performance. The deck doesn't look bad (although JBulko still looks like an asshole)...


What about the forgotten Sadistic Hypnotist? He still shut the opponents hand, isn't color dependant, offsets cutting the 4th Cabal Therapy by having a nice discard effect and contributes to the goal of the deck making zombies.

And I liked very much this sideboard. If Maverick is one of the toughest machups for dredge, why don't run Firestorms? We know how bad is being hated.
Btw, darkblast isn't only for peacekeeper, it's better than Thug against Maverick because it can kill their starters (arbor, hierarch and mother) still allowing us to dredge.

The problem with Sadistic Hypnotist is that either A) you've already discared your opponent's hand by the time you've resolved Dread Return for Griselbrand or B) he's only a bear by himself and requires Bridge from Below to create a better board position where A) Iona, Shield of Emeria names White and prevents the opponent from using the Swords to Plowshares or Terminus he Brainstormed on top of his deck or has floated on top of his deck with Sensei's Divining Top and "locking down" your board position from his top deck and B) Iona, Shield of Emeria is a 7/7 evasive threat by herself.

A Griselbrand and an Iona, Shield of Emeria naming White on the board is a better position than a Griselbrand and Sadistic Hypnotist on the board vs. U/w Counter Top.

One of the things I've realized with Dredge is that it's more important to prepare for Surgical Extraction than it is for Tormod's Crypt, because decks without Force of Will will lose the match if they play Tormod's Crypt regardless. While Tormod's Crypt is an effective counter game 2, game 3 we have the initiative with Cabal Therapy and Lion's Eye Diamond, and there's nothing Goblins, Elves or Maverick can do vs. us either resolving Cabal Therapy for Tormod's Crypt and going off with Lion's Eye Diamond and dredging into Narcomoeba and Tormod's Crypt. Unless they are playing Surgical Extraction, or Leyline of the Void, they risk automatically losing the match in game 3.

This realization has prompted me to cut Ashen Ghoul from my SB and take Dread Returns more seriously post-board, because Ashen Ghoul is an inherently weak card that's vulnerable to Wasteland and Dread Returns is an inherently broken card between the token generation and Troll. And altho' Ashen Ghoul is easier to recur thru' Tormod's Crypt than Dread Return is, Dread Return and targets are a significantly more powerful package for Surgical Extraction to have to consider dealing with. My observation was no one bothered to Surgical Extraction Ashen Ghoul, but when I tried to Dread Return Iona, Shield of Emeria it forced the Surgical Extraction every time they could cast it.

As far as MD and SB Dread Return targets are concerned, Iona, Shield of Emeria is the best MD target after Griselbrand, because after you draw and dredge into your second Dread Return and Iona, Shield of Emeria you can name White and "lock down" your board position from your opponent's top decks. Furthermore, Iona, Shield of Emeria disrupts every archetype, from Control to Storm, to Reanimator to Tribal to Aggro-Control and it's only worse vs Tribal and Dredge compared to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. As such, I've decided to replace the Ashen Ghouls in my SB with 1 Putrid Imp and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in order to improve my consitency and resiliency and to hedge against the Dredge mirror.

Post-board, I'm SBing out 4 Lion's Eye Diamond and 1 Dread Return target for 2 Tarnished Citadel, 1 Putrid Imp, 1 Cabal Therapy and 1 Ichorid and between 3 Ichorid and 2 Dread Return I feel diversified vs. Surgical Extraction.

I really feel as tho' the deck is clicking for me from a design standpoint, my SB is -3 Ashen Ghoul for +1 Putrid Imp, +1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and +1 Angel of Destruction and I think I can rest my laurals on this build for awhile.

[Tombstalker]

Final Fortune- With 2 dread returns main why did you choose iona and griselbrand over say, flayer of the hatebound? I posted a list on page 87 for some help before I give it to a friend which is why I ask. Im not sure what is best and now you have me reconsidering my DR targets.

[mort-]

Final Fortune- With 2 dread returns main why did you choose iona and griselbrand over say, flayer of the hatebound? I posted a list on page 87 for some help before I give it to a friend which is why I ask. Im not sure what is best and now you have me reconsidering my DR targets.


As far as MD and SB Dread Return targets are concerned, Iona, Shield of Emeria is the best MD target after Griselbrand, because after you draw and dredge into your second Dread Return and Iona, Shield of Emeria you can name White and "lock down" your board position from your opponent's top decks. Furthermore, Iona, Shield of Emeria disrupts every archetype, from Control to Storm, to Reanimator to Tribal to Aggro-Control and it's only worse vs Tribal and Dredge compared to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. As such, I've decided to replace the Ashen Ghouls in my SB with 1 Putrid Imp and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in order to improve my consitency and resiliency and to hedge against the Dredge mirror.

He explains it quite good. Allthough, I think the only real set DR target is the big bargain :)

[joemauer]

Iona is so sweet!!!!!!!!!!

Don't get too hung up on Iona. Karakas is still a card.

[Final Fortune]

Don't get too hung up on Iona. Karakas is still a card.

Vs. Maverick perhaps, if opponents want to SB in Karakas vs Dredge I'll just draw a new hand with Griselbrand regardless or name White with Iona, Shield of Emeria and force them to top deck it without Knight of the Reliquary. In fact if they SB in Karakas vs Dredge, I'll probably just SB out Iona, Shield of Emeria, Dread Return Golgari Grave Troll and laugh at them for wasting 3 slots on a land vs me or exchange Iona, Shield of Emeria for Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and still Wrath of God them regardless. I don't care if you can return both Griselbrand and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite to my hand with 1 Karakas, I've still dredged and drawn 7 times, cleared your board and have managed to Mind Twist you and spawn an army of zombie tokens.

I chose Iona, Shield of Emeria over Flayer of the Hateband for 5 reasons, 1) Flayer of the Hateband requires 3 Dread Returns, which means I'd have to play with a 5 card instead of a 4 card Dread Return package. 2) Flayer of the Hateband is ineffective compared to Iona, Shield of Emeria when you Dread Return him by himself 3) 3 Dread Returns means you're more vulnerable to Surgical Extraction because it has more value when he removes 3 copies rahter than 2. 4) If your opponent Surgical Extractions and removes Golgari Grave Troll then he neuters Flayer of the Hatebound accidentally, and the idea behind keeping a Dread Return target in your deck post-board is to give you an alternative target to Dread Return if Golgari Grave Troll is removed in the first place 5) There are no common MD cards that you need to use Flayer of the Hate Bounds ability against as far as I'm aware of, and I have Angel of Destruction or Terrastadon in the SB regardless.

I may play Terrastadon instead of Angel of Destruction because it'd be cooler for Brutalisk art :)

I'm pretty confident in my choices, just wait until you see the expression on U/w Counter Tops face when he Brainstorms in response to your Cabal Therapy and then you Dread Return into Griselbrand, draw/dredge 7 cards and the Dread Return Iona, Shield of Emeria and name White and pass the turn with 2 7/7 Flyers, a board full of Zombie tokens and a graveyard with Ichorids, top deck Terminus, scoop is the most demoralizing feeling ever ... MOAR ISLAND TEARS ...

If you guys need SBing help regarding the 1 Dread Return target, I find I use Iona, Shield of Emeria vs U/w Counter Top, Storm and Reanimator, Griselbrand vs RUG Tempo and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite against Maverick, Tribal and Dredge.

Typically vs Storm and Reanimator, I just SB out 1 Putrid Imp for 1 Cabal Therapy and pray Lion's Eye Diamond likes me more than than it likes them or I get to Griselbrand and/or Iona, Shield of Emeria naming Black before they get to Grislebrand and/or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.

Firestorm has been hilarious vs Goblins and Elves, clearing the opponent's board, watching them drop their next creature and then dredging into Dread Return and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is rage inducing. If aggro players aren't playing Leyline of the Void, then the match up is ours IMO, the only reason Merfolk and RUG can get away without it is because they have 12 relevant counters.

[joemauer]

@final_fortune: I was trying to say Iona isn't as good as you make her out to be, and Saddistic Hippie isn't as bad as you make him out to be.

Also, miracles decks run one or two Karakas maindeck and have plenty of library manipulation to fine it. It isn't gg when you land Iona against miracles deck because they have Jace if you name white.

As for a permanent destroyer I prefer Angel of Despair because of the random tricks that can happen against Show and Tell & Exhume.

[Final Fortune]

@final_fortune: I was trying to say Iona isn't as good as you make her out to be, and Saddistic Hippie isn't as bad as you make him out to be.

Also, miracles decks run one or two Karakas maindeck and have plenty of library manipulation to fine it. It isn't gg when you land Iona against miracles deck because they have Jace if you name white.

As for a permanent destroyer I prefer Angel of Despair because of the random tricks that can happen against Show and Tell & Exhume.

Hmm, I wasn't aware U/w Miracle was playing 2xKarakas MD, I haven't seen it personally but if it's becoming a standard then I'd have to reconsider my strategy of keeping Iona, Shield of Emeria in post-board instead of Griselbrand. I'm still confident Iona, Shield of Emeria is a stronger card than Sadistic Hypnotist vs the field, unfortunately a bear that triggers additional Zombie tokens just isn't as good as a 7/7 Flyer in a lot of situations and you still let your opponent top deck his outs against your board position.

That's a good point about Angel of Despair, but I don't think I'd ever SB in Angel of Despair vs Reanimator or Show&Tell because the legend rule with Griselbrand is more or less equivalent since I can't resolve Dread Return thru' Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite regardless and I can't target Emakrul, the Aeons Torn at all. I think it's a question of whether or not you value a 4/4 Flyer or a 9/9 on the board more than anything, and I'd give the edge to Terrastadon because he can Armageddon the opponent's board immediately instead of waiting for him to cast a Moat etc.

[joemauer]

Two Karakas isn't common in Miracles, but one is. But I have seen two Karakas in that deck.

[lochlan]

Angel of Despair...can't target Emakrul, the Aeons Torn

Angel of Despair absolutely can target Emrakul, the Aeons Torn--protection from colored spells does not save the spaghetti monster from a triggered ability.

Having been on the wrong side of it at an SCG open (winning my opponent the match--a play he made twice that day), I can say with absolute certainty that sandbagging an Angel of Despair vs. Show and Tell is unbelievably good. And vs. a Show and Tell'd ("Shown and Told?") Omniscience, Angel's triggered ability means they don't get to cast anything sorcery speed for free before their ten-mana enchantment is destroyed.


4/4

Angel of Despair is a 5/5


Terrastadon [sic]

...can't hit a creature, making Angel strictly better off of Show and Tell or Exhume.

[Final Fortune]

Angel of Despair absolutely can target Emrakul, the Aeons Torn--protection from colored spells does not save the spaghetti monster from a triggered ability.

Having been on the wrong side of it at an SCG open (winning my opponent the match--a play he made twice that day), I can say with absolute certainty that sandbagging an Angel of Despair vs. Show and Tell is unbelievably good. And vs. a Show and Tell'd ("Shown and Told?") Omniscience, Angel's triggered ability means they don't get to cast anything sorcery speed for free before their ten-mana enchantment is destroyed.



Angel of Despair is a 5/5



...can't hit a creature, making Angel strictly better off of Show and Tell or Exhume.

Hmm, in other words RTFC, I haven't used Angel of Despair for so long it seems I've underestimated it. Regardless, I don't think Angel of Despair is a card I'd SB in vs Show&Tell or Reanimator, and the only creature you have to remove is Peacekeeper, which is covered by Darkblast. Nevertheless, if you find yourself SBing in Angel of Despair vs Show&Tell or Reanimator let me know if it makes any difference, because I usually just SB out Iona, Shield of Emeria for a Cabal Therapy anyway vs Sneak&Show and I just accept the fact that I'm fucked vs Reanimator if they MD or SB Elesh, Norn and any amount of Surgical Extraction - we can't beat this match up :(

Oh, and in before "it feeds Ichorid."

[TerribleTim68]

I'm still flailing around on the Dread Return target conversation. Let me back up a bit. I play modified Quadlazer; -1 Ichorid (4th in board), Putrid Imp, -1 Careful Study, +1 Tarnished Citadel, +1 Dread Return, +1 Flame-Kin Zealot. I board some other DR targets for other matchups, like Iona, Shield of Emeria or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, yadda yadda yadda.

Ok, so here's my thing. I find the Zealot to be pretty darn good. More often than not we're talking about a turn 2 zombie horde with haste for lethal. Way more than you'd think we're talking turn 3. I've also tried Griselbrand and really can't figure out why you guys are running him. I get the whole "I can dredge for weeks off his draw ability" bit. But by the time I can get him into play via a Dread Return, there aren't enough cards left in my deck to bother with his draw ability AND I'd rather just swing with a huge pile of hasted 3/3s! What am I missing here?

And why did you guys stop playing Flame-Kin Zealot? I find him to be the nuts every time. That dude just wins games out of no where.

[NecroYawgmoth]

The thing is: When you have a Zombie Horde on Turn 2, you usually had hit the opponent with 1-2 Ichorid beats, and you Mind Twisted their hand with Cabal Therapy.

Now imagine your opponent. He has zero relevant handcards, ~10-15 life, and is facing 6+ Zombie Tokens. What should he do? Topdeck gravehate? Fine, your Zombies will kill him. Topdeck something like Engineered Explosives? Also fine, Your Ichorids will come back, attack him, and you will also end the turn with x Tokens. Normally when you can cast Dread Return [at least in game 1] it's overkill, and you don't need a) the fatty, or b) the instant haste to win now. It is very rarely and unlikely, that the win NOW or die next turn situation will occur in game 1.

Also, I think that other DR targets do at least something relevant, if the mainplan [attacking with x Zombies] fails. Iona kills their removal, or their wincondition, Elesh Norn Mini-Wrathes and autowins against certain MUs, Angel of Despair kills at least one problematic permanent. FKZ does nothing, he just strengthens plan A, which is already strong enough.

[Final Fortune]

In addition to NecroYawgmoth, Griselbrand being a 7/7 Flyer, Lifelink is also important because he can disregards his ability and just put the game out of reach vs Burn and its variants on fast-aggro.

You'll just get into situations where recurring FKZ wont immediately kill your opponent, and in those situations anything is better than FKZ.

Altho' honestly if you want to play with 2 Dread Return, 1 Griselbrand and 1 FKZ just do it game 1 and SB it out game 2, as long as you have the SB space to converge into your post-board plan then what you choose to play for game 1 isn't a big deal, altho' I'd never play FKZ game 2 vs hate for certain.


The reason that Griselbrand is hands down the best DR target is because he's a stand alone threat at 7/7 Flying, Lifelink and he draws/dredges the deck out into a position where you're opponent is Mind Twisted and can only top deck Swords to Plowshares Griselbrand and die to Zombie Tokens and Ichorids, Terminus and get attacked by Ichorids who leave behind a board full of Zombies or Tormod's Crypt and die anyway to Griselbrand and Zombie Tokens. Griselbrand ensures your opponent is facing "power overwhelming," because there's just no way to McGiver your way out of that ass beating.

[Calado]

The thing is: When you have a Zombie Horde on Turn 2, you usually had hit the opponent with 1-2 Ichorid beats, and you Mind Twisted their hand with Cabal Therapy.

Now imagine your opponent. He has zero relevant handcards, ~10-15 life, and is facing 6+ Zombie Tokens. What should he do?
Counter heavy decks will still have relevant cards and can miracle Terminus or sneak in Griselbrand to search for Emrakul. There are games where swinging one turn earlier is necessary.
But I agree that the odds of being overcame in this situation is too low for justify running FKZ. The same isn't true for the non LED versions. That Sun Titan plus FKZ old tactic states a really strong board position when rushed. Sometimes we have three creatures but find only one bridge. What do you usually do? Wait one more turn? (not a rhetorical question, I'm trying to learn about this)

[Final Fortune]

Counter heavy decks will still have relevant cards and can miracle Terminus or sneak in Griselbrand to search for Emrakul. There are games where swinging one turn earlier is necessary.
But I agree that the odds of being overcame in this situation is too low for justify running FKZ. The same isn't true for the non LED versions. That Sun Titan plus FKZ old tactic states a really strong board position when rushed. Sometimes we have three creatures but find only one bridge. What do you usually do? Wait one more turn? (not a rhetorical question, I'm trying to learn about this)

There's no reason LED can afford not to play with Dread Returns and LEDless can't afford not to play with Dread Returns and Dread Return targets, the only difference between the two decks is that LED has a faster fundamental turn than LEDless does, what happens after they both reach that fundamental turn is the exact same thing.

The problem with Dread Return or Dread Return into FKZ is that if you're over commiting to either your board position instead of your grave position, you have a Golgari Grave Troll and more Zombie Tokens on the board instead of an Ichorid in your graveyard to hedge against Terminus, or you have to be able to win immediately in order to justify recurring FKZ. If all FKZ does is prevent the opponent from top decking Terminus, Iona, Shield of Emeria does the same thing by naming White and is a 7/7 Flyer for the times you can't win immediately for FKZ. Likewise Griselbrand lets you either dredge your deck into your graveyard, where you have more than enough Ichorids and Bridges to come back regardless of a Terminus or he lets you draw 7 cards wheren you now have a board position, a graveyard position and a new hand. If you know a way for a control deck to win thru' that then you are a god, because it's not mortally possible.

That's why I'm not a fan of either the singleton Dread Return in decks or Flame Kin Zealot, if Flame Kin Zealot doesn't win immediately it's worthless, while Griselbrand or Iona, Shield of Emeria don't have to have to the exact board position in order to be worthwhile.

Edit: Also FKZ is worthless vs. Mogg Fanatic, check the DTB ...

[Gui]

That's why I'm not a fan of either the singleton Dread Return in decks

Technically, 5 sacrifice outlets makes it more easily attainable than 4, just saying...

[Final Fortune]

Technically, 5 sacrifice outlets makes it more easily attainable than 4, just saying...

Yeah, I know what you mean, but that doesn't necessarily encourage the use of Dread Returns in place of an Ichorid over Darkblast in place of a Golgari Thug for the extra Narcomoeba killer. I don't think the singleton Dread Return is necessarily bad, I just don't like cutting the 4th Ichorid for it unless I have some other extenuating circumstances in mind like diversifying vs Surgical Extraction or saving SB space.

IDK, Dread Returns is growing on me right now because every deck pretty much seems to be playing Surgical Extraction over Tormod's Crypt, and even the decks playing Tormod's Crypt like Goblins or Affinity can't really win the match with it. Also nobody seems to be playing more than 4 SB cards for Dredge or other graveyard decks, I've never seen anybody play 3 Surgical Extraction, 3 Tormod's Crypt in their SBs IRL for example and I'm not convinced you can reliably beat Dredge as RUG with only 4 Surgical Extractions, U/w with 4 Snapcaster Mages may be another matter tho'.

[TerribleTim68]

My meta has a lot of graveyard hate for what ever reason. I have a couple RUG players that board 3 or 4 Surgical Extraction & 2 or 3 Tormod's Crypt, then a couple guys running Snapcaster Mage siding 4 Surgical Extraction (which is like running 8 ), top all that off with the other decks running Leyline of the Void. It gets pretty crazy if you wanna play a graveyard based deck around here. :frown:

[Final Fortune]

My meta has a lot of graveyard hate for what ever reason. I have a couple RUG players that board 3 or 4 Surgical Extraction & 2 or 3 Tormod's Crypt, then a couple guys running Snapcaster Mage siding 4 Surgical Extraction (which is like running 8 ), top all that off with the other decks running Leyline of the Void. It gets pretty crazy if you wanna play a graveyard based deck around here. :frown:

I feel your pain, I have to deal with U/w with 4 Surgical Extractions and Snapcaster Mages and Goblins, Affinity and Elves with Leyline of the Void and RUG with a mix of graveyard hate at my local meta as well, my best suggestion is to just play 7 answers to Leyline of the Void in your SB and diversify your Dredgers and kill conditions as much as possible. I think you can still compete as long as you don't run into Reanimator with Surgical Extraction, which feels like having your balls hammered to the wall.

[Que]

Rofl I can attest to that. For whatever reason my Reanimator opponent must have been really worried about the mirror that day because in our match he ended up siding in Surgical extractions as well as Fearie Macabres to fuck me.

[TerribleTim68]

Yeah, I forgot to mention the Maverick and Zoo decks that MB at least 2 Scavenging Ooze and then SB 1 to 2 more. :frown:

[Que]

Well thats different. Its to be expected from those decks.

[Final Fortune]

Yeah, I forgot to mention the Maverick and Zoo decks that MB at least 2 Scavenging Ooze and then SB 1 to 2 more. :frown:

Be thankful for the Maverick match up, if all they're playing is a set of Scavenging Ooze and that Graveyard sweeping land for Knight of the Reliquary they can't win the match up because Lion's Eye Diamond out races them. If they play Faerie Macabre, then you've got problems.

SB Firestorms and laugh off the match up IMO.

[sperry023]

Yesterday I beat Burn in two games, Esper Stoneblade in two games, and lost to RUG in three. I had high hopes after he scooped Game 1 on Turn 0 to Gemstone, LED, LED, Breakthrough, Troll, Troll, PImp, after I called Gemstone, LED, Breakthough, Troll, Troll, Therapy, Bridge during shuffling. Game 2 we both mulled to six and Extracting my Trolls stalled me out. Game 3 we both mulled to five and I had to keep land, land, Thug, Stinkweed, Stinkweed. I didn't draw any more lands and he Extracted Ichorid and Thug as my only dredger in the yard while the trigger was putting Narcomoeba back. It was a pretty messed up game of Magic. I'm feeling pretty good about Quadlaser, though I might want to sneak in one more land.

[Izor]

JBulko explains his Dredge list here (http://starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_dredge_with_jason_bu.html).

I'm curious where he's going to finish. 2-1 after round 3 afaik.

[joemauer]

JBulko explains his Dredge list here (http://starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_dredge_with_jason_bu.html).

I'm curious where he's going to finish. 2-1 after round 3 afaik.


Hopefully he doesn't top eight or else we might get flooded with a bunch of posts like this:

Suck it suckers!!!!
My dredge deck is the best ever!!!!!!!!!

[NecroYawgmoth]

9 Dredgers not counting Darkblast and Salvage... Oo

[HokusSchmokus]

Seriously, stop hating Jason already. I know his style of writing and maybe even his cardchoices anger some people but you guys really exaggerate. It's almost like you are jealous... I don't know what the deal is with all this hate...

[NecroYawgmoth]

Seriously, stop hating Jason already. I know his style of writing and maybe even his cardchoices anger some people but you guys really exaggerate. It's almost like you are jealous... I don't know what the deal is with all this hate...

I don't hate him. I also don't hate someone else in this forum / thread. But c'mon Hokus, you have to agree that you shouldn't ever play Dredge with only 9 real Dredgers... :rolleyes:

[Izor]

I think Bulko finished 5-3, so no tops this time. Not a terrible result either.

[JBulko]

Thanks for the faux quote Mauer... :really:

Had a rough couple of matches. Including the Burn kid who had to read all my cards, The eventual T4 Omni-show player(svien), though it was closer than I expected it to be, and a 3rd loss to Metalworker, who had chalice for one in both games he played first. I guess that's the kind of stuff you run into in the X-2 bracket. Shrug.
Here's the round-by-round:
R1- Beat delver in 3
R2- lose to the burn kid in 3
R3- 2-0 Maverick, wining G2 with the Sb plan
R4- Lose in 3 to eventual T4 Omni-show(Jap version)
R5- 2-0 Esper blade, Win G2 with board plan
R6- Lose in 3 to Metalworker
R7- beat Esper blade in 3
R8- Beat U/w control(not miracles) in 3
End up 5-3, in 35 place, well inside the money.

I'm a little disappointed, but I can't be too upset finishing 4th in the standard, and with Joe WINING the event!!!

I'm still happy with the deck, and with the board.

I know we all have strong opinions about card choices etc., and my language isn't exactly friendly, but I actually agree with Hokus on this one, some of you guys just take it too personally.

[Ozymandias]

Took the following to 9th on breakers at a 55-man tournament today.

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
2 Careful Study
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
1 Sun Titan
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

SB

1 Ichorid
2 Memory's Journey
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Nature's Claim
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm

R1 Dredge 0-2
R2 Esper Stoneblade 2-0
R3 UB Delver homebrew 2-0
R4 Merfolk 2-1
R5 Esper Stoneblade 2-0
R6 ID Maverick, miss top 8 by .9% on breakers. If I were going to play the tourney again I might move the combo DR targets to the side for Ichorid and something and turn the Norn into a Firestorm. Memory's journey was great versus stoneblade.

[Final Fortune]

How is Sun Titan ever better than Griselbrand?

[Michael Keller]

How is Sun Titan ever better than Griselbrand?

Sun Titan doesn't necessitate having to pay seven life for its triggered ability, and for all intents and purposes (virtually) wins you the game on the spot - much like Griselbrand would.

However, Griselbrand buries Sun Titan as far as utility in Dredge goes. Drawing cards or flipping your deck at the cost of seven life is ludicrously good.

[Vandalize]

Sun Titan can bring back Bloodghasts by putting a land into play. And as they win the game the same, Sun Titan is strictly better than Griselbrand in Bloodghasts lists.

Still, with Ichorids I'd definetely go for Griselbrand, if I was running Dread Return at all.

[Fizzeler]

A dredge deck did top 16 the recent Open
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=48942
I am curious on why he chose to play Sphinx Of Lost Truths, while it is good I think the slot could have been another Careful Study or Griselbrand

As for Bloodghasts Vs Ichorid, I personally prefer Ichorid as it sacs itself (then again I play a very close to Quadlazer list) and beats a bit harder. The advantage to Bloodghast being easier to recur than Ichorid as you don't have to feed 4 of them just one, but they don't remove themselves for Bridges so you have to get a Sac outlet to remove them

EDIT: Izzet Charm, this card does 3 things at instant speed one of which loots, it may be UR to cast, but I think it warrants some testing, the instant Loot ability + Countermagic on a card seems insane as this will give the deck more resiliency to Graveyard Hate

[Ghiwo]

Hi, I'm new here, and also new playing Dredge; I'm still learning how to play the deck, but I read all the Thread and found it really useful.

I started playing Dredge about 3 months ago, during that time I converted to Anusien's simil-quadlaser LEDless list.

What I would like to ask is mainly about sideboarding. I really liked the idea of Griselbrand in the board, and understood its use reading at page 65, but I can't imagine what are its match-ups. When do you usually board it? Against what?

Another question: one of the first things I learned, reading here, is that we usually have to board out breakthrough G2. Is replacing it every time with 4 Nature's Claim a good choice? Or are there better choices?

Talking about MD, do you think that 16 lands in a LEDless list could be fine? Or should I go down to 14?

Thanks a lot!

P.S. I'm Italian, so sorry for my English!

[TerribleTim68]

...P.S. I'm Italian, so sorry for my English!

Oddly, your english seems better than a lot of Americans. :wink:

[Final Fortune]

Hi, I'm new here, and also new playing Dredge; I'm still learning how to play the deck, but I read all the Thread and found it really useful.

I started playing Dredge about 3 months ago, during that time I converted to Anusien's simil-quadlaser LEDless list.

What I would like to ask is mainly about sideboarding. I really liked the idea of Griselbrand in the board, and understood its use reading at page 65, but I can't imagine what are its match-ups. When do you usually board it? Against what?

Another question: one of the first things I learned, reading here, is that we usually have to board out breakthrough G2. Is replacing it every time with 4 Nature's Claim a good choice? Or are there better choices?

Talking about MD, do you think that 16 lands in a LEDless list could be fine? Or should I go down to 14?

Thanks a lot!

P.S. I'm Italian, so sorry for my English!

SBing in 2xDread Return and 1xGriselbrand is for the Surgical Extraction/Snapcaster decks, where you're diversifying your kill conditions to prevent a double Surgical Extraction from completely blowing you out of the game.

You do not have to board out Breakthrough game 2, and in fact I believe boarding out Breakthrough game 2 is an obvious mistake unless you can put your opponent on Tormod's Crypt post-board, i.e. Affinity, Trinket Mage.dec etc. and even then you want to SB out Lion's Eye Diamond before you SB out Breakthrough.

As far as LEDless Dredge is concerned, I use Anusien's list -1 Tarnished Citadel, -1 Golgari Thug and -1 Ichorid for +3 Tireless Tribe, and I think 11 Golden Lands, 11 Dredgers and 7 discard creatures is where the deck wants to be.

[Fizzeler]

So I have been tinkering with Izzet Charm a bit and came to this list:

4 Lotus Petal
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Breakthrough
3 Izzet Charm
4 Careful Study
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
1 Flame-Kin Zealot

You lose LED for Lotus Petal to more consistently get UR and drop Faithless Looting for Izzet Charm, warrants testing still I have just been solitairing with it.

Another advantage is the ability to run Ground Seal post board (siding out DR and Zealot for 3 Ground Seal) in addition to having Counterspells for their GY hate

[NecroYawgmoth]

Why Play Izzet Charm over... lets say Zombie Infestation, Ideas Unbound or Wild Guess?

[Fizzeler]

Why Play Izzet Charm over... lets say Zombie Infestation, Ideas Unbound or Wild Guess?

I see your point

I think the utility of a Spell Pierce post-board though seems good as it can also remove Scavenging Ooze and counter Surgical Extraction

[TerribleTim68]

...I think the utility of a Spell Pierce post-board though seems good as it can also remove Scavenging Ooze and counter Surgical Extraction

I'd rather SB Firestorm to deal with Scavenging Ooze. Not to mention that, to me, dropping Faithless Looting seems insane since I tend to cast it from the yard more often than from the hand. Izzet Charm doesn't have that option.

[igri_is_a_bk]

Please stop posting about Izzet Charm. It is not good enough. I don't have to test it to tell you that. Dredge will never play a spell that can't be cast from hand for one. Never. Otherwise, we'd all be using 4 Tolarian Winds. Sure, you may cast Breakthrough for x=1 once in a while, but that's the exception, not the rule.

And seriously, look at the cards you cut: Lion's Eye Diamond and Faithless Looting. Instead, you get Lotus Petal and Izzet Charm? Um....

[Fizzeler]

I'd rather SB Firestorm to deal with Scavenging Ooze. Not to mention that, to me, dropping Faithless Looting seems insane since I tend to cast it from the yard more often than from the hand. Izzet Charm doesn't have that option.
Point taken

Please stop posting about Izzet Charm. It is not good enough. I don't have to test it to tell you that. Dredge will never play a spell that can't be cast from hand for one. Never. Otherwise, we'd all be using 4 Tolarian Winds. Sure, you may cast Breakthrough for x=1 once in a while, but that's the exception, not the rule.

And seriously, look at the cards you cut: Lion's Eye Diamond and Faithless Looting. Instead, you get Lotus Petal and Izzet Charm? Um....

Okay

On another note has anyone had positive results using Gravecrawler after board or is Nether Shadow just strictly better?

[TerribleTim68]

...On another note has anyone had positive results using Gravecrawler after board or is Nether Shadow just strictly better?

Gravecrawler - Costs 1 mana, no haste, 2/1.
Nether Shadow - No mana, haste, 1/1.

Personally I don't like either of them. I could see where Gravecrawler could be an issue on those times where you don't have a land because your Gemstone Mine ran out of counters or something. I don't like the small body of Nether Shadow either. But that's just me.

I'm still looking for more feedback on that "Ghoultree out of the board" situation myself.

[Fizzeler]

Gravecrawler - Costs 1 mana, no haste, 2/1.
Nether Shadow - No mana, haste, 1/1.

Personally I don't like either of them. I could see where Gravecrawler could be an issue on those times where you don't have a land because your Gemstone Mine ran out of counters or something. I don't like the small body of Nether Shadow either. But that's just me.

I'm still looking for more feedback on that "Ghoultree out of the board" situation myself.
I think the Ghoultree option is cute, but not that good, all things considered

I was thinking of Crawler because Nether Shadow is to small and Ashen Ghoul (While good) needs you to have B at your upkeep for recursion, Crawler could help you beat, but you do need a Zombie for it to be useful

Mainly I am hitting Propaganda all to often and trying to find ways to combat it, as the player will drop it and then force your ways of removing it so I need a second recurable dude that can beat as Nether Shadow is to slow and Ichorid can only com back for so long, I can see Ghoultree shining under Propaganda though

[Vandalize]

I think the Ghoultree option is cute, but not that good, all things considered

I was thinking of Crawler because Nether Shadow is to small and Ashen Ghoul (While good) needs you to have B at your upkeep for recursion, Crawler could help you beat, but you do need a Zombie for it to be useful

Mainly I am hitting Propaganda all to often and trying to find ways to combat it, as the player will drop it and then force your ways of removing it so I need a second recurable dude that can beat as Nether Shadow is to slow and Ichorid can only com back for so long, I can see Ghoultree shining under Propaganda though

Ashen Ghoul: Requires B, and needs 3 creatures above him. 3/1 haste.

Gravecrawler: Requires B, a Zombie. 2/1 no haste, can't block.

Hmm, Ashen Ghoul is strictly better than Gravecrawler.

[Fizzeler]

Ashen Ghoul: Requires B, and needs 3 creatures above him. 3/1 haste.

Gravecrawler: Requires B, a Zombie. 2/1 no haste, can't block.

Hmm, Ashen Ghoul is strictly better than Gravecrawler.

Is Ghoul better than Nether Shadow if I only run 13 lands? (seeing as Shadow requires no mana to recur, but is very small, while Ghoul requires B, but has 3 times the power)

[igri_is_a_bk]

No, if you depend on Dread Return, then Nether Shadow is the best creature to fuel that. It all depends on your build. Ghoul and Ichorid make for grinding, aggro games. Shadow leans towards a combo build with a DR finish.

[Anusien]

If Surgical Extraction is that big of a problem, what about running your own Surgical Extraction?

*) Counters their copy by taking the card they targeted and leaving your deck intact.
*) Stops them from Snapcaster Mage
*) No mana and instant speed
*) Synergizes with Cabal Therapy
*) Value in the mirror

[Final Fortune]

Ashen Ghoul: Requires B, and needs 3 creatures above him. 3/1 haste.

Gravecrawler: Requires B, a Zombie. 2/1 no haste, can't block.

Hmm, Ashen Ghoul is strictly better than Gravecrawler.

Disagree, the difference between Gravecrawler and Ashen Ghoul is that even tho' Gravecrawler is worse from your graveyard he's better from your hand, where you can play him directly and apply pressure thru' Gravecrawler and Putrid Imp beats.

I'm not saying I'd play Gravecrawler or Ashen Ghoul right, because frankly I don't care about Tormod's Crypt anymore in a world of Surgical Extractions, but Gravecrawler isn't strictly worse than Ashen Ghoul. When I did play Gravecrawler, the most annoying aspect of the card was having to play 4 Gravecrawlers and 4 Putrid Imps where Ashen Ghoul was less demanding at ~2 Ashen Ghouls and ~3 Putrid Imps.

@Anusien

I think all of the Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre and Coffin Purge effects are just completely unreliable, about the only way this has ever been an effective strategy (SBing directly against Surgical Extraction) is to use Street Wraith to instant speed draw your dredgers vs the 1st Surgical Extraction

[Ghiwo]

First of all thanks to Final Fortune for your reply!

Talking again about boarding, how many cards do you usually bring in? I always find myself boarding about 7 or 8 cards, because, this makes me feel safe. But I have many problems to find room for those cards. Maybe it's better to board a little bit not to destroy the nature of the deck. I don't know, tell me the right way! :smile:

[Gui]

Why Play Izzet Charm over... lets say Zombie Infestation, Ideas Unbound or Wild Guess?

... or Tolarian Winds.

[Hyv]

I'm new to the dredge archetype and I'm looking to build a dredge deck, to facilitate this I've been reading this thread and a lot of other sources. Initially I'll build it LEDless because of financial reasons and if I enjoy playing the deck competitively I'll play either LED or LEDless based on my personal preference.

I have 1 question concerning land that I haven't found being discussed yet however (I might've overlooked it, big thread): Why are Gemstone Caverns never run?

As I understand it, an opening hand wants to see mana, a dredger, discard and card draw, so exiling a card (while never good) does not inhibit a prize hand. Nor do dredge decks seem to want to draw into lands, making the colourless generation if Caverns isnt in your opening hand of little concern. At the same time, (mostly LEDless decks) running 14 or 15 lands seem to have a hard time running good gold lands apart from the 8 City of Brass + Gemstone Mine.

I'm not so much advocating playing Gemstone Caverns as that I'm curious why no one seems to consider them over Undiscovered Paradise or Tarnished Citadel

[HokusSchmokus]

Gemstone Caverns is way too conditional. A land that doesn't tap for a color in ~90% of you having it is kinda sucky

[Fizzeler]

First of all thanks to Final Fortune for your reply!

Talking again about boarding, how many cards do you usually bring in? I always find myself boarding about 7 or 8 cards, because, this makes me feel safe. But I have many problems to find room for those cards. Maybe it's better to board a little bit not to destroy the nature of the deck. I don't know, tell me the right way! :smile:
There are many options on boarding for games 2 and 3, but you will usually board in your anti-hate cards (like Nature's Claim or Chain Of Vapor), and hate against that match-up (like Iona or Elesh-Norn) and prepare for a longer game than game 1 (Boarding in Nether Shadow for me), you then board out what you see as not necessary for the match-up or bad for the match-up, this is how I generally board


I'm new to the dredge archetype and I'm looking to build a dredge deck, to facilitate this I've been reading this thread and a lot of other sources. Initially I'll build it LEDless because of financial reasons and if I enjoy playing the deck competitively I'll play either LED or LEDless based on my personal preference.

I have 1 question concerning land that I haven't found being discussed yet however (I might've overlooked it, big thread): Why are Gemstone Caverns never run?

As I understand it, an opening hand wants to see mana, a dredger, discard and card draw, so exiling a card (while never good) does not inhibit a prize hand. Nor do dredge decks seem to want to draw into lands, making the colourless generation if Caverns isnt in your opening hand of little concern. At the same time, (mostly LEDless decks) running 14 or 15 lands seem to have a hard time running good gold lands apart from the 8 City of Brass + Gemstone Mine.

I'm not so much advocating playing Gemstone Caverns as that I'm curious why no one seems to consider them over Undiscovered Paradise or Tarnished Citadel

Gemstone Caverns is way too conditional. A land that doesn't tap for a color in ~90% of you having it is kinda sucky

It also forces you to exile a card in your hand and can easily get wasted putting you down 2 cards

[Final Fortune]

First of all thanks to Final Fortune for your reply!

Talking again about boarding, how many cards do you usually bring in? I always find myself boarding about 7 or 8 cards, because, this makes me feel safe. But I have many problems to find room for those cards. Maybe it's better to board a little bit not to destroy the nature of the deck. I don't know, tell me the right way! :smile:

As far as SBing is concerned, the less you SB in game 2 the better, because there's no guarantee the opponent will be able to draw or mulligan into his hate and you don't know which hate he'll draw or mulligan into regardless. Due to this uncertainty, I'll blindly prepare for Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction by playing this configuration game 2.

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

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Breakthrough*
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study

4 Putrid Imp

4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below

2 Dread Return
1 Griselbrand

You'll SB out your Lion's Eye Diamonds for G2, they're the worst cards in your deck vs Tormod's Crypt because they require you to commit your hand to your graveyard and are totally reliant on Faithless Looting to become a pseudo draw spell. Assuming you've already won G1, then G2 you'll be able to use "DDD" and don't need the additional discard outlets in order to get your deck into motion.

I've replaced the 3xAshen Ghoul package with the 2xDread Return, 1xGriselbrand package because I realized either no one plays Tormod's Crypt anymore because it's bad against Reanimator or no one play Tormod's Crypt anymore because you can either kill them before they can play it G3 or you can Cabal Therapy for it and then kill them T2. Maverick, Goblins, Elves and Affinity actually have to play with either Faerie Macabre, Surgical Extraction or Leyline of the Void if they want to have a chance of winning the match, and I think they have to play with Leyline of the Void if they want to have a good chance to win the match by auto-winning G2 vs Dredge players who don't blindly SB vs Leyline of the Void G2. Someday, there may be a meta-shift where you have to SB in Nature's Claim blind G2 vs decks without Force of Will, but I don't think that meta-shift is here yet.

The 2xDread Return and 1xGriselbrand are win/kill condition differentiation vs Surgical Extraction and either forces the opponent to target my initial Dredgers with their first Surgical Extraction or later my Bridge from Belows in order to guarantee reliable damage. When the opponent doesn't draw any hate, then Dread Returning Griselbrand or Golgari Grave Troll and generating a board full of Zombie Tokens is significantly better than having to tap a land on the board in order to cast a single 3/1 Haste.

The asterisk on Breakthrough is because I think it's possible that SBing out Breakthrough for Firestorm is the correct decision vs a Maverick who is playing 4xScavenging Ooze and 1xBojuka Bog between their MDs and SBs, these players are terrible deck builders and magic players because they don't understand that they're letting us keep Lion's Eye Diamond in our deck without the threat of Tormod's Crypt and they're letting us Cabal Therapy OR Firestorm their hate G2 by it being a turn too slow. Pretty much every Maverick player at my shop plays 4 Faerie Macabre for Dredge and Reanimator and only plays 1 Scavengering Ooze and 1 Bojuka Bog between the MD and SB in order to seal the match.

So vs Maverick, look into SBing in Firestorm and pay less attention to cards like Dread Returns, Putrid Imp and Careful Study and just Wrath of God these morons. I also think removing Breakthrough for Firestorm vs. Goblins, Elves and Affinity is quite promising, albeit unnecessary.

That's essentially how I approach SBing with the deck as a whole, I'll have to adapt when Snapcaster decks start to play Tormod's Crypt or Affinity starts to play Leyline of the Void, but until then players are really shooting themselves in the foot by using such predictable hate cards because they have inherent synergy with their decks and they're using too few hate cards as well, I can consistently beat RUG with less than 3 Surgical Extraction and 3 Tormod's Crypt in their SB for example.

Good Luck

[Gui]

Everyday I look these forums to see if people already figured out that cutting the 12th thug instead of, say, the 4th breakthrough is wrong... doesn't look like it will happen any time soon, tho...

[TerribleTim68]

Ok, finally tried playing Dredge again last night. Pretty small field, we only had 8 show up. But most of those 8 were the ones who matter anyway. So 3 rounds and back home early can't be all bad on a work night. :cool:

The list I played :

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Bridge from Below
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Dread Return
1 Grizzlebrand
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
//////
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Nature's Claim
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
2 Memory's Journey
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Blazing Archon
1 Angel of Despair
1 Dread Return

The Report :

Round 1 vs Stefani-Anne (no idea on the spelling there) playing Affinity? :
Game 1 - She wins the roll, of course, and leads with a Memnite. I instantly think "Affinity". My turn 1 Cabal Therapy shows Indomitable Archangel, Karn Liberated, Akroma's Memorial & Tempered Steel. Now I'm thinking "Ok, I have no idea but it looks like I've got a little time." Turn 2 she does nothing. My turn 2 I rip her hand apart before proceeding to the "make a huge zombie swarm" step and crush her pretty quickly.

Game 2 - I can't really find anything relevant and she proceeds to drop fast mana and big threats such as Wurmcoil Engine and Darksteel Plate. In no time I'm picking up my cards and moving to the next game.

Game 3 - I get a pretty nuts hand and by turn 3 I've ripped her hand apart and made a zombie swarm that would make George Romero smile. After Griselbrand joins the zombie horde, it's all over.

Side note: Once Griselbrand hit the board, his draw-7 ability was pretty much useless. Every time I use him in this deck this is the case. By the time he comes on line there aren't enough cards left in the deck to use that ability.

(1-0)

Round 2 vs Kevin (my arch-nemesis) playing RUG (as always) :
Game 1 - For those who have read my reports, you know this is the guy I can never beat playing the same deck he plays every single week. As always, I lose the roll and Kevin leads with a dual land and passes. I lead with a Gemstone Mine and Cabal Therapy, Kevin answers with Daze. His turn 2 he plays land and passes. I play City of Brass, Careful Study, to which Kevin answers with Force of Will. I then cast Breakthrough and Kevin answers with Daze. Really? :eyebrow: At this point I'm out of gas and Kevin's double Nimble Mongoose takes it to the house.

Game 2 - I board in the Memory's Journeys for the Dread Return and target since I know he brings in Surgical Extraction and Tormod's Crypt. I lead with Gemstone Mine into Careful Study and Kevin let's it resolve. I now have a Stinkweed Imp in my yard, to which Kevin answers with Surgical Extraction. He plays land and passes on his turn. I play a Cephalid Colosseum and cast Breakthrough, Kevin answers with Red Elemental Blast, then on his turn he Wastelands the Colosseum. Again, I'm out of gas and his Tarmagoyf goes the distance as I get to play draw/go for the rest of the game.

For what ever reason, Kevin seems to always have about 8-10 sideboard cards for when he plays me no matter what deck I play. And to top that off, he ALWAYS draws multiples of them in his opening hand. I could almost believe it if it happened occasionally, but every time for the past 4 months? Really? :mad:

(1-1)

Round 3 vs Austin playing Pox/Dredge thing :
Game 1 - This matchup is a bit wierd. Austin's deck is sort of half Pox and half Dredge, using a Bloodghast, Life from the Loam engine to create a psudo-lock as needed. So in short, I'm not sure how to play this one. I actually won a die roll so I'm totaly confused, but lead with Gemstone Mine into Cabal Therapy, not even sure what to call. I know I don't want to call the two afore-mentioned cards because he wants them in the yard. Then I remember that he runs Crop Rotation and sure enough, it's in his hand. No Bojuka Bog for you! His turn he plays a land and passes. My turn two I go nuts creating a huge swarm of zombies to which Austin pretty much scoops 'em up.

Game 2 - I mull to oblivion trying to hit a Leyline of the Void I sided in and I don't find it. Austin does however and this one is all him.

Game 3 - Again, no Leyline of the Void, but I choose not to mull because it looks do-able. I lead with my favorite hand; Gemstone Mine, Lion's Eye Diamond, Careful Study popping the Diamond for 3 red and pitching Faithless Looting, Golgari Grave-Troll, Ichorid and Bridge From Below. You can figure out how the rest of this one went. :cool:

(2-1)

I ended up 4th on tie breakers, payout to the top 3 of course.

Props -
None - This tournament sucked. It seemed like the whole house was in a funky lifeless haze. There just wasn't any excitement at all. Everyone was sort of just trundling through it like it was a chore they didn't want to do. Even Austin, the store owner, stated he didn't want to play before the tournament but he played so we would at least have 8.

Slops -
Griselbrand - I have yet to see you be 100% relevant in this deck and still can't come to love you here. The times I saw you I really wished you were Flame-Kin Zealot. Sorry bro, I just don't see it.
Shane - Because you decided to hand your round 3 opponent the win without playing him or dropping, he ended up 3rd putting me 4th on tie breakers. I know you would have beat him if you played it so I'm not sure what happened there. I just know it sucked for me.
Kevin - I know the guy is good, but this has gotten to the point where I just don't want to play there any more. I've watched the numbers drop from a steady 22-26 a couple months ago down to 8 last night and I have to wonder if all those guys chose the same thing I am considering now. :confused: At one point I just set my cards on the table, drew and passed without even looking at them. At that point you have to ask why you even bother to show up. The downfall of Legacy is that the number of places you can play is pretty limited. :frown:

[Final Fortune]

Everyday I look these forums to see if people already figured out that cutting the 12th thug instead of, say, the 4th breakthrough is wrong... doesn't look like it will happen any time soon, tho...

You want to back up your claim with math? Cutting a Putrid Imp for Dredgers or Lands I'll buy, but cutting Breakthrough for a Dredger is a borderline decision considering hands like City of Brass, Careful Study, Breakthrough and 4 blanks are definitely keepable on the draw when you've got your draw step and Careful Study.

Cutting Breakthrough is wrong, and while I realize having 12 Dredgers and 12 Gold Lands is optimal in terms of mulligan criteria, I think it's difficult to calculate the value of Putrid Imp, and to a lesser extent Tireless Tribe, in place of the 12th Dredger or 12th Gold Lands because being able to discard your entire hand, use your draw step to dredge and guarantee you have a Dredger in your graveyard for your draw spell and play around Tormod's Crypt has merit that's incalcuable.

I can't even figure out what the trade off is between a Golgari Thug and a Gold Land actually is, like Anusien said it feels like having to choose between cutting off a hand or a foot, is the 12th Golgari Thug more important than the 11th Golden Land when the Golgari Thug has a worse return on Dredge (4) compared to Tarnished Citadels equal return on mana (3 damage is irrelevant IMO)?

Maybe the post-board Griselbrand should be a Golgari Thug, worrying about having an alternative Dread Return target in case of Golgari Grave Troll being RFGed may be anal retentive considering putting 3+ Zombie Tokens on the board and either an Ichorid to activate Bridge from Below again at end of turn, a Putrid Imp to discard your hand, a Golgari Thug to sacrifice to Cabal Therapy and stack a Narcomoeba on top of your deck or just a Stinkweed Imp to chump block all have merrit.

Hmm, maybe not playing the 12th Golgari Thug is a personal leak of mine, but RAWR Griselbrand ...

[Fizzeler]

You want to back up your claim with math? Cutting a Putrid Imp for Dredgers or Lands I'll buy, but cutting Breakthrough for a Dredger is a borderline decision considering hands like City of Brass, Careful Study, Breakthrough and 4 blanks are definitely keepable on the draw when you've got your draw step and Careful Study.

Cutting Breakthrough is wrong, and while I realize having 12 Dredgers and 12 Gold Lands is optimal in terms of mulligan criteria, I think it's difficult to calculate the value of Putrid Imp, and to a lesser extent Tireless Tribe, in place of the 12th Dredger or 12th Gold Lands because being able to discard your entire hand, use your draw step to dredge and guarantee you have a Dredger in your graveyard for your draw spell and play around Tormod's Crypt has merit that's incalcuable.

I can't even figure out what the trade off is between a Golgari Thug and a Gold Land actually is, like Anusien said it feels like having to choose between cutting off a hand or a foot, is the 12th Golgari Thug more important than the 11th Golden Land when the Golgari Thug has a worse return on Dredge (4) compared to Tarnished Citadels equal return on mana (3 damage is irrelevant IMO)?

Maybe the post-board Griselbrand should be a Golgari Thug, worrying about having an alternative Dread Return target in case of Golgari Grave Troll being RFGed may be anal retentive considering putting 3+ Zombie Tokens on the board and either an Ichorid to activate Bridge from Below again at end of turn, a Putrid Imp to discard your hand, a Golgari Thug to sacrifice to Cabal Therapy and stack a Narcomoeba on top of your deck or just a Stinkweed Imp to chump block all have merrit.

Hmm, maybe not playing the 12th Golgari Thug is a personal leak of mine, but RAWR Griselbrand ...
You add in the fact that sometimes in games 2-3 you need to cast Thug to say recur that Therapy in your yard to get some Bridge tokens and take out there Jitte they just fetched for, then trigger thug to recur that Narcomeoba that you sacrificed earlier

Thug Vs Land I still lean on Thug and tend to cut a PImp over him as I like the idea that he can feed Ichorid and recur my Narcomeobas in games 2-3

[Felidae]

Round 2 vs Kevin (my arch-nemesis) playing RUG (as always) :
Game 1 - For those who have read my reports, you know this is the guy I can never beat playing the same deck he plays every single week. As always, I lose the roll and Kevin leads with a dual land and passes. I lead with a Gemstone Mine and Cabal Therapy, Kevin answers with Daze. His turn 2 he plays land and passes. I play City of Brass, Careful Study, to which Kevin answers with Force of Will. I then cast Breakthrough and Kevin answers with Daze. Really? At this point I'm out of gas and Kevin's double Nimble Mongoose takes it to the house.

Did you allready had a Dredger in your hand? If yes you should have simply gone for DDD in this scenario.


I board in the Memory's Journeys for the Dread Return and target
Can't find the Journey in your board, you might wanna edit it ;).

[TerribleTim68]

Did you allready had a Dredger in your hand? If yes you should have simply gone for DDD in this scenario.
I did not, but with Careful Study and Breakthrough in my opening hand I thought for sure I'd get to one in the either 4 cards I would draw between the 1 card for each of my next 2 turn & the 2 off the Study or the 6 I would see off the 1 for each of my next 2 turn & 4 off the Breakthrough. I was looking at a hand that was going to get another 4 to 6 cards very soon and I've had very good luck drawing into a dredger with that kind of hand. I knew I was going to Therapy that first turn so that meant more time to draw into one. :cry:


Can't find the Journey in your board, you might wanna edit it ;).
Oops, I knew that didn't look right. I fixed it.

[jettjj]

I'm not so much advocating playing Gemstone Caverns as that I'm curious why no one seems to consider them over Undiscovered Paradise or Tarnished Citadel

A number of reasons. The first is that it is only a gold land when you are on the draw, and while being on the draw is awesome with Dredge and you will do so more often than just about any other Legacy deck, the reason that Dredge wants the draw is to be able to draw up to 8 cards and discard at end step to get a Dredger in the yard all while avoiding countermagic. Effectively mulliganning twice and starting with a gold land in play is obviously counter-productive to that game plan.

The second reason is that while Dredge doesn't use much land, the land it does use all needs to be colored. Imp, Tribe, Breakthrough, Looting, Study, those are generally the only cards you will tap lands to cast and none of them benefit from a colorless mana source.

And third, the other gold lands are just more reliable. City of Brass and Tarnished Citadel may deal you a bit of damage, but at least they will give you whatever color you need each and every time you use them. Undiscovered Paradise is generally for the landfall in Bloodghast builds, but can also give you the very small amount of mana you will need. Gemstone Mine may only have 3 uses, but those three uses are generally more than enough.

[that0neguy]

@TerribleTim68

Against RUG, don't you just want to Draw Discard Dredge a few times in game one? Then they have no way to interact with you outside of bolting their own delver to kill your bridges, or bolting a couple zombies.

As long as you don't go saccing zombie tokens to a dread return that almost certainly won't resolve you should be fine.

If you have the absolute perfect hand with like 1 troll, 1 land and several discard/draw outlets thats one thing, but if it is a hand that has a dredger, and would be destroyed by a force of will and a daze, then just keep it and DDD. Save the enablers to speed up your clock latter in the game if you need it after you have a solid hold on the game. If your first 2 dredges flip 2-3 more dredgers then its probably safe to try to fire off a study/looting, and you might just win that turn. But if it fails you still can be dredging the next few turns until you can DDD again.

Its not like the RUG player was extremely lucky to draw 3 pieces of counter magic by the third turn. Thats just what RUG does. Game 2 doesn't sound like he got a nuts draw either. He drew 3 cards that worked well against you, its not like he drew 3 extractions and a crypt. The REB could have been any counterpell. The Wasteland could have been a stifle and still blown you out.

I have played dredge in the past, and currently play RUG, those are just some of the things that I noticed that I think probably went wrong from what you posted.

I used the DDD plan a lot game one. Many decks just can't interact and you can grind them out. You might have a hand that kills on turn 3 if you are not disrupted, but I think its just better to go for the slow grind and guarantee the g1 win, because a lot of the time bad dredges and mulligans to oblivion are the only things that can beat you g1.

Edit:

Just saw you didn't have a dredger, I guess that changes things a bit, I would have maybe mulled the hand in that scenario. DDD just seems so powerful against RUG, and you have a very good shot at drawing a dredger in the mull hand, but you get blown out by countermagic if you keep the hand you kept. Tough call.

[Felidae]

@Tim:

I play City of Brass, Careful Study, to which Kevin answers with Force of Will. I then cast Breakthrough and Kevin answers with Daze. Really?
He didn't had any preassure on the board, so it was actually really careless to play that Breakthrough right into the Daze when you cut have waited another turn.

It's also questionable if you should have kept the hand at all ( as you knew he was on Canadian).

As for game 2: If you get blown out by a single Surgical Extraction( I wont count the counter, as you have to expect this against Canadian), then you can only blame yourself for keeping a weak hand and not your opponent for doing what his deck is suppose to do.

[TerribleTim68]

@Tim:

He didn't had any preassure on the board, so it was actually really careless to play that Breakthrough right into the Daze when you cut have waited another turn.

It's also questionable if you should have kept the hand at all ( as you knew he was on Canadian)....

Well, I thought I was in the clear when he had already used a Daze the turn before and just cast a Force of Will, removing another Force of Will. Having seen 3 counters already I thought "There's NO WAY he has another one!" Guess what? :cry:


...As for game 2: If you get blown out by a single Surgical Extraction( I wont count the counter, as you have to expect this against Canadian), then you can only blame yourself for keeping a weak hand and not your opponent for doing what his deck is suppose to do.
You're probably totaly right. Having only played this deck twice now I'm by no means "good at it". I'd have to ask for a bit more constructive insight as to how to not end up in the same situation next time. Or should I just switch to a different deck?

That's sort of been my view of these forums lately. Everyone is willing to point out what you did wrong, but no one really says what the right choice is. You're pretty much just left to figure it out on your own with the only advice being "don't do that" after you do that. :rolleyes:

[Fizzeler]

You're probably totaly right. Having only played this deck twice now I'm by no means "good at it". I'd have to ask for a bit more constructive insight as to how to not end up in the same situation next time. Or should I just switch to a different deck?

That's sort of been my view of these forums lately. Everyone is willing to point out what you did wrong, but no one really says what the right choice is. You're pretty much just left to figure it out on your own with the only advice being "don't do that" after you do that. :rolleyes:

Playing your deck is how you get better with it, I know when I started playing Dredge I would never remember my Ichorid Triggers :mad:

After more practice I don't miss them and know when I can keep a hand

[that0neguy]

I wouldn't say that people aren't backing up criticism of the wrong play without providing what the right play was.

Multiple people have said you should have gone the Draw Discard Dredge plan. Also, even with him having used a Daze and a force, Spell Pierce was still live. From what it sounds like, the guy was either miss playing himself, not dropping geese/playing cantrips or he probably had infinite countermagic in his hand, and even if you waited a turn to play around the daze, I would bet that you were about to get hit by either a spell pierce or a second FoW.

[blindspotxxx]

Hey guys a manaless list top 8'd our recent major here in the Philippines. He beat 3 Miracles deck lol I think the meta is well tuned for manaless right now if it's full of control terminus and fair decks.

[Michael Keller]

Hey guys a manaless list top 8'd our recent major here in the Philippines. He beat 3 Miracles deck lol I think the meta is well tuned for manaless right now if it's full of control terminus and fair decks.

It's what I'm playing right now, FWIW. While I've been doing really well with it, I am still uncertain if it's the "best" Dredge deck right now in the format.

[Philipp2293]

Hey guys a manaless list top 8'd our recent major here in the Philippines. He beat 3 Miracles deck lol I think the meta is well tuned for manaless right now if it's full of control terminus and fair decks.

Can you provide the top 8 decklists? Thanks!

[TerribleTim68]

So, vs RUG, really the best plan is DDD from the get go and then go from there? What do you do game two, same plan? This has to be the worst matchup for me of them all. Is DDD the solid answer then? My fear is, game two, I DDD and he Cabal Therapys that dredger. Then do you just DDD next turn again and pray he doesn't have another Therapy?

My problem is, I really do like the feel of this deck so I really want to stick with it.

[Ozymandias]

My one issue with Manaless Dredge is that you are totally cold to Grafdigger's Cage, which is becoming increasingly common. Scavenging Ooze is also no picnic to play against. What is your current list for it, Hollywood?

As far as surgical extraction goes, I see 3 possible answers

1) Memory's Journey to respond to Surgical. This card doesn't need to be in your hand to be effective, which is a huge plus. It can also mitigate Crypt, rescue Bridges from exile triggers, recycle Narcomoebas, and mess with opposing graveyard decks. The downside is that it costs mana.
2) Additional GY threats. Adding in a couple Ashen Ghoul/Bloodghast/Nether Shadow can keep Surgical from being a problem. It can also speed your clock. The main problem is that every creature besides Narcomoeba and Ichorid has somewhat onerous requirements for recursion, which can be difficult to acheieve in postboard grinds. It's also not as flexible.
3) Just play around it. You can beat 1 or even 2 Surgicals postboard if you play smart, depending on what you have left to play with. This plan doesn't always work, and it can slow you down enough for the opponent to come back.

I decided to go with the Journey plan, and I was super satisfied.

[Final Fortune]

My one issue with Manaless Dredge is that you are totally cold to Grafdigger's Cage, which is becoming increasingly common. Scavenging Ooze is also no picnic to play against. What is your current list for it, Hollywood?

As far as surgical extraction goes, I see 3 possible answers

1) Memory's Journey to respond to Surgical. This card doesn't need to be in your hand to be effective, which is a huge plus. It can also mitigate Crypt, rescue Bridges from exile triggers, recycle Narcomoebas, and mess with opposing graveyard decks. The downside is that it costs mana.
2) Additional GY threats. Adding in a couple Ashen Ghoul/Bloodghast/Nether Shadow can keep Surgical from being a problem. It can also speed your clock. The main problem is that every creature besides Narcomoeba and Ichorid has somewhat onerous requirements for recursion, which can be difficult to acheieve in postboard grinds. It's also not as flexible.
3) Just play around it. You can beat 1 or even 2 Surgicals postboard if you play smart, depending on what you have left to play with. This plan doesn't always work, and it can slow you down enough for the opponent to come back.

I decided to go with the Journey plan, and I was super satisfied.

The answer to Maverick's Scavening Oozes and Knights of the Reliquary is the Force Spike Chancellor, it guarantees they can't accelerate their board position with Exalted Hierarch and Green Sun's Zenith T1 and it gives you the time you need to kickstart your Dredging.

Any of the old Manaless Dredge lists we posted with an updated Griselbrand/Flayer of the Hatebound win condition is probably fine, the only cards that were ever in contention were the 12 cards that accelerate your deck or decelerate your opponent, for instance the Lion's Eye Diamond, Cephalid Coliseum, Deep Analysis package vs the Street Wraith, Gitaxian Probe, Force Spike Chancellor package or the Baubles etc. and I think you could honestly SB between the two if you wanted to.

My only problem with Manaless, besides Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage, is that it's completely cold to Storm/Reanimator without being able to play on the play, open with Lion's Eye Diamond aggressively without Spell Pierce and Daze being online or Duress makes it more or less a metagame deck compared to LED Dredge or LEDless Dredge where you're relying on control to keep combo in check and don't have any pseudo aggro-combo decks like Affinity or Elves to contend with (in addition to having to dodge either the above hate cards or just a lot of SB hate cards in the form of Surgical Extractions and Tormod's Crypts)

@TerribleTime

Don't misinterpret this, but it sounds like you're completely misplaying the aggro-control match up by walking your Putrid Imp into Daze and your mana source into Wasteland, you're not suppose to play Putrid Imp (or Tireless Tribe) before you DDD, people figured this out in the Misstep era out of necessity but it's completely relevent today as well.

For instance if you open,

Cephalid Coliseum
Careful Study
Careful Study
Golgari Thug
X
X
X
Y (Draw)

The correct play is to discard the Golgari Thug, draw a card on your draw step and then play Cephalid Coliseum and cast Careful Study, not play Cephalid Coliseum, cast Careful Study into Daze and then get Wastelanded on your opponent's turn and be shit out of luck for ~3 turns until you can top deck a mana source or DDD.

Putrid Imp is a card you cast aggressively on the play vs. an unknown opponent, not a card you cast reactively on the draw vs an Island.

It's one of the reasons Putrid Imps place in the MD/SB is debatable, you only lead with Putrid Imp in 50% of your G1s and ideally never in your G2s which makes it a G3 card. I only board in the full set of Putrid Imps for G2 because they're a soft answer to Tormod's Crypt, not because they're necessary to start dredging.

Ofcourse, that all depends on whether or not you're able to keep your opening 7, Putrid Imp is actually for your mulligans more than anything.

Maybe we should set aside some space in the primer for actual play situations with opening hands? I think we've discussed card choices to death, and it's clear the skill cap for the deck isn't in card choices but in understanding the mechanics and proper SBing (IMO)

Edit: Also, it sounds like you're misplaying Griselbrand as well, if you don't have enough cards in your deck left to dredge your entire deck without killing yourself then you draw 7 cards and now you have a board position, graveyard position and hand with absolutely no way for your opponent to be able to deal with all 3.

[Felidae]

It's what I'm playing right now, FWIW. While I've been doing really well with it, I am still uncertain if it's the "best" Dredge deck right now in the format.

Stop teasing us and post your list allready :cool:.

[HokusSchmokus]

Stop teasing us and post your list allready :cool:.

Seriously! Think of all the additional testing you miss out on!

[NecroYawgmoth]

Stop teasing us and post your list allready :cool:.


Seriously! Think of all the additional testing you miss out on!

+1

[plimplam]

Hi, heres is the list of my top 2 ( ID in the finals ) and all the lists of the rest of Top 8. http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8964&iddeck=65479
My matches were those ones:

Deadgy Ale: 2-0
Delver tempo blade: 2-1
Dredge: 0-2
Maverick: 1-1
UW miracles: 2-0
Delver tempo blade: 2-1

Quarter finals:
MUD: 2-0

Semi finals:
Dredge (the same of swiss): 2-1

Finals:
Soldiers: ID. Think I could win this matchup very easy, but my headacke stops me :(.

[Gui]

You want to back up your claim with math? Cutting a Putrid Imp for Dredgers or Lands I'll buy, but cutting Breakthrough for a Dredger is a borderline decision considering hands like City of Brass, Careful Study, Breakthrough and 4 blanks are definitely keepable on the draw when you've got your draw step and Careful Study.

Cutting Breakthrough is wrong, and while I realize having 12 Dredgers and 12 Gold Lands is optimal in terms of mulligan criteria, I think it's difficult to calculate the value of Putrid Imp, and to a lesser extent Tireless Tribe, in place of the 12th Dredger or 12th Gold Lands because being able to discard your entire hand, use your draw step to dredge and guarantee you have a Dredger in your graveyard for your draw spell and play around Tormod's Crypt has merit that's incalcuable.

I can't even figure out what the trade off is between a Golgari Thug and a Gold Land actually is, like Anusien said it feels like having to choose between cutting off a hand or a foot, is the 12th Golgari Thug more important than the 11th Golden Land when the Golgari Thug has a worse return on Dredge (4) compared to Tarnished Citadels equal return on mana (3 damage is irrelevant IMO)?

Maybe the post-board Griselbrand should be a Golgari Thug, worrying about having an alternative Dread Return target in case of Golgari Grave Troll being RFGed may be anal retentive considering putting 3+ Zombie Tokens on the board and either an Ichorid to activate Bridge from Below again at end of turn, a Putrid Imp to discard your hand, a Golgari Thug to sacrifice to Cabal Therapy and stack a Narcomoeba on top of your deck or just a Stinkweed Imp to chump block all have merrit.

Hmm, maybe not playing the 12th Golgari Thug is a personal leak of mine, but RAWR Griselbrand ...

Yes, I can post software simulation results for this exact change, from a Thug to a Breakthrough. Drop me the list you want analysed, and I'll get you the chance to hit a godly hand with both.
While it may vary from list to list, my previous analysis all shown that Thug increases the chance by more than BT does.

I will probably drop the Java code too, if someone out there wants to take a look...

[TerribleTim68]

...@TerribleTim

Don't misinterpret this, but it sounds like you're completely misplaying the aggro-control match up by walking your Putrid Imp into Daze and your mana source into Wasteland, you're not suppose to play Putrid Imp (or Tireless Tribe) before you DDD, people figured this out in the Misstep era out of necessity but it's completely relevent today as well.

For instance if you open,

Cephalid Coliseum
Careful Study
Careful Study
Golgari Thug
X
X
X
Y (Draw)

The correct play is to discard the Golgari Thug, draw a card on your draw step and then play Cephalid Coliseum and cast Careful Study, not play Cephalid Coliseum, cast Careful Study into Daze and then get Wastelanded on your opponent's turn and be shit out of luck for ~3 turns until you can top deck a mana source or DDD.

Putrid Imp is a card you cast aggressively on the play vs. an unknown opponent, not a card you cast reactively on the draw vs an Island.

It's one of the reasons Putrid Imps place in the MD/SB is debatable, you only lead with Putrid Imp in 50% of your G1s and ideally never in your G2s which makes it a G3 card. I only board in the full set of Putrid Imps for G2 because they're a soft answer to Tormod's Crypt, not because they're necessary to start dredging.

Ofcourse, that all depends on whether or not you're able to keep your opening 7, Putrid Imp is actually for your mulligans more than anything.

Maybe we should set aside some space in the primer for actual play situations with opening hands? I think we've discussed card choices to death, and it's clear the skill cap for the deck isn't in card choices but in understanding the mechanics and proper SBing (IMO)

Edit: Also, it sounds like you're misplaying Griselbrand as well, if you don't have enough cards in your deck left to dredge your entire deck without killing yourself then you draw 7 cards and now you have a board position, graveyard position and hand with absolutely no way for your opponent to be able to deal with all 3.

Awesome, thank you for the post. That helps a ton. Your opening hand run-down actually showed everything I'm doing wrong. I never thought to approach it like that. I have been playing the first couple turns like a "normal deck" where you put lands out and cast spells. It didn't dawn on me to just DDD even when I had spells to play that put stuff in the yard. This deck is so radically different that it's hard to see the little things like that. When you've done the whole "draw a card, play a land, cast a spell" type thing since the beginning of time, that other method isn't so clear or intuitive. So knowing when to do that isn't so simple. Next time I'll be looking to just DDD the dredger and then save the draw spells to dredge with him even more than I am probably doing now.

So to expand on that a bit. Say I have the same hand as above. I DDD the Golgari Thug and pass. Next turn I dredge with him for my draw step. If I hit another dredger I can then play a land and cast the Careful Study, correct? Or do you wait until you can play it around Daze and hope you don't get Wastelanded before that? What do you do if you don't hit another dredger? Do you just discard him again and pass? Do you silently weep inside? Do you curse your deck for hating you? :tongue:

You're totaly right that I am also missplaying pImp. It didn't dawn on me to view him that way. I had only viewed him as a "get him out there so you have a discard outlet" situation. So with that in mind, is pImp a card you SB out for game 2 then? And then you mention bringing him back game 3 when on the play. I know that would help me find cards to SB out for that game 2.

As for Griselbrand, yea when there isn't enough cards left in the deck I have just drawn 7 and filled my hand back up. But even then I have been less than impressed since you stand a good possibility of having a Moeba or a Bridge in your hand after that or some other configuration of useless cards (by useless I mean "I really wish these weren't in my hand"). Maybe it would help post board to get to your anti-hate hate cards, I don't know. I just haven't fallen in love with the big scary demon in this deck yet, while at the same time I really love the blazing set of plate mail that is Flame-Kin Zealot.

Again, thanks for your post. I think it has helped me more than any other so far. It just never dawned on me to think in a method other than the typical linier approach. Much appreciated. :cool:

[Michael Keller]

Stop teasing us and post your list allready :cool:.

This should really be in the Manaless forum, but here it is anyhow:

//Main
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Golgari Thug
[4x] Shambling Shell

[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Nether Shadow

[4x] Street Wraith
[4x] Gitaxian Probe
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Phantasmagorian

[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Bridge from Below

[4x] Dread Return
[2x] Griselbrand
[1x] Sphinx of Lost Truth
[1x] Flayer of the Hatebound

[4x] Dryad Arbor

//Sideboard
[4x] Nature's Claim
[4x] Reverent Silence
[4x] Contagion
[2x] Verdant Catacombs
[1x] Forest

Obviously my meta hasn't been flooded with Reanimator or Dredge, hence the absence of Faerie Macabre. That is subject to change at any time, though.

[HokusSchmokus]

This should really be in the Manaless forum, but here it is anyhow:

//Main
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Golgari Thug
[4x] Shambling Shell

[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Nether Shadow

[4x] Street Wraith
[4x] Gitaxian Probe
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Phantasmagorian

[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Bridge from Below

[4x] Dread Return
[2x] Griselbrand
[1x] Sphinx of Lost Truth
[1x] Flayer of the Hatebound

[4x] Dryad Arbor

//Sideboard
[4x] Nature's Claim
[4x] Reverent Silence
[4x] Contagion
[2x] Verdant Catacombs
[1x] Forest

Obviously my meta hasn't been flooded with Reanimator or Dredge, hence the absence of Faerie Macabre. That is subject to change at any time, though.

You saved my Sunday

[Michael Keller]

I like it a lot.

I mean, I am not going to advocate using a 'pseudo' Manaless build over the traditional LED variants that people have been more geared towards recently, as Manaless has kind of dropped off the map a bit. However. a version like that certainly has its merits and operates on a completely different functional level than that of its counterpart, so you have to understand that in a meta where Manaless can thrive it is actually really hard to stop.

Also, I just wanted to try something different.

[TerribleTim68]

I don't understand the Phantasmagorian. What is that card doing in your mana-less build? And by that I mean, how do you use it, what is it's purpose? Not "WTF are you doing with that card in your deck!?!?!?" :wink:

[HokusSchmokus]

It is because of Phantasmagorian's second ability. You get it in the yard somehow and use the discard ttee: return Phantasmagorian ability to fill your graveyard with Dredgers,stack creatures for Shadow, sandbagging Bridges etc, the possibilities are quasi endless.

[TerribleTim68]

It is because of Phantasmagorian's second ability. You get it in the yard somehow and use the discard ttee: return Phantasmagorian ability to fill your graveyard with Dredgers,stack creatures for Shadow, sandbagging Bridges etc, the possibilities are quasi endless.

Oohhhhhhhhhhhh. :tongue: Got it, thanks.

Man, I suck at this Dredge stuff. :frown:

[Klazam]

Hollywood- nice deck. I might give it a try sometime.

Phantasmorigan can be the best card at times in this deck, but one thing I am questioning, why the sphinx and not Griselbrand?

[Michael Keller]

Hollywood- nice deck. I might give it a try sometime.

Phantasmorigan can be the best card at times in this deck, but one thing I am questioning, why the sphinx and not Griselbrand?

The Sphinx is for a bit of diversity. There might be times where you won't have the life to activate it, in addition to being legendary. While these are certainly not big reasons for concern, two Griselbrand seems perfectly fine next to another choice which does something without having to pay for its ability.

[Fizzeler]

That is a very interesting Manaless, build

I am curious on the option to exclude Gigapede? or is it to slow for manaless?

[Final Fortune]

Awesome, thank you for the post. That helps a ton. Your opening hand run-down actually showed everything I'm doing wrong. I never thought to approach it like that. I have been playing the first couple turns like a "normal deck" where you put lands out and cast spells. It didn't dawn on me to just DDD even when I had spells to play that put stuff in the yard. This deck is so radically different that it's hard to see the little things like that. When you've done the whole "draw a card, play a land, cast a spell" type thing since the beginning of time, that other method isn't so clear or intuitive. So knowing when to do that isn't so simple. Next time I'll be looking to just DDD the dredger and then save the draw spells to dredge with him even more than I am probably doing now.

So to expand on that a bit. Say I have the same hand as above. I DDD the Golgari Thug and pass. Next turn I dredge with him for my draw step. If I hit another dredger I can then play a land and cast the Careful Study, correct? Or do you wait until you can play it around Daze and hope you don't get Wastelanded before that? What do you do if you don't hit another dredger? Do you just discard him again and pass? Do you silently weep inside? Do you curse your deck for hating you? :tongue:

You're totaly right that I am also missplaying pImp. It didn't dawn on me to view him that way. I had only viewed him as a "get him out there so you have a discard outlet" situation. So with that in mind, is pImp a card you SB out for game 2 then? And then you mention bringing him back game 3 when on the play. I know that would help me find cards to SB out for that game 2.

As for Griselbrand, yea when there isn't enough cards left in the deck I have just drawn 7 and filled my hand back up. But even then I have been less than impressed since you stand a good possibility of having a Moeba or a Bridge in your hand after that or some other configuration of useless cards (by useless I mean "I really wish these weren't in my hand"). Maybe it would help post board to get to your anti-hate hate cards, I don't know. I just haven't fallen in love with the big scary demon in this deck yet, while at the same time I really love the blazing set of plate mail that is Flame-Kin Zealot.

Again, thanks for your post. I think it has helped me more than any other so far. It just never dawned on me to think in a method other than the typical linier approach. Much appreciated. :cool:

Putrid Imp a card I don't have to play with G1, always play with G2 and may play with G3, because in G2 I'll SB out Lion's Eye Diamond and SB in Putrid Imps since Lion's Eye Diamond are the worst cards vs Tormod's Crypt, Putrid Imp is a soft counter to Tormod's Crypt and I don't know what hate my opponent is or is not playing. G3 I'll make a decision to keep in or to SB out Putrid Imp based on whether or not I saw Tormod's Crypt and likewise I'll SB Lion's Eye Diamond back in because I'm on the play and not on the draw and can go off vs. Tormod's Crypt before they can play.

I'll post 3 configurations of the same deck thru' 3 games,

G1

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
1 Griselbrand
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
2 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below

SB

2 Tarnished Citadels
1 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Naturalize
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Wispmare

And now for G2, out 1 Dread Return, 1 Griselbrand, 1 Flayer of the Hatebound, 4 Lion's Eye Diamond and in 1 Ichorid, 2 Tarnished Citadels and 4 Putrid Imp

And now for G3 on the play, if you saw Tormod's Crypt instead of Surgical Extraction, out 2 Tarnished Citadels and 2 Dread Returns and in 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds.

As far as your correct play question, once you draw for your turn and you discard Golgari Thug for your end step, DO NOT replace your draw with a dredge activation on the following turn and hope to hit another dredger. Draw for your draw step and then try to resolve Careful Study, if the opponent counters Careful Study then you pass and draw for your next draw step and try to resolve your second Careful Study. If both Careful Studies were countered and the 2 cards you drew didn't offer you anything, now you Dredge your Golgari Thug and hope the missing land drop from Daze and the card disadvantage from from Force of Will have slowed him down enough for you to get back into the game by dredging manually.

Edit: The deck may be better with -1 Dread Return, -1 Flayer of the Hatebound for +1 Ichorid +1 Flame Kin Zealot since I always SB out the 3rd Dread Return and SB in the 3rd Ichorid and you open a SB space for Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. My logic was the 3rd Dread Return and Flayer of the Hatebound let me save games vs Propaganda etc, but I think you can just DR Griselbrand, draw 7 cards and win thru' anything but Ensnaring Bridge.

@Gui

Ok, it'd be interesting to take a look at a deck, for example.

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Brakethrough
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomobea
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below

Hold the number of Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe constant and find whether or not the value of the 11th Tarnished Citadel or the 12th Breakthrough is less than the 12th Golgari Thug for opening hands and mulligans. Edit: I know Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe are the least useful for openings hands and mulligans, but I don't think data can show the importance of being able to discard your entire hand, immunity to Spell Pierce, resiliency to Tormod's Crypt, being able to immediately discard a dredger and disrupt your opponent with Cabal Therapy or the extra creature for Dread Return and flying 2/2 beats and unkillable blocker. You can assume we always have to start the hand with a Dredger if you want, altho' I think hands with Careful Study + Breakthrough or Faithless Looting + Lion's Eye Daimond or Cephalid Coliseum, Breakthrough and Lion's Eye Diamond are keepable personally.

I've been debating -3 Tireless Tribe for +1 Golgari Thug and +2 Dread Return for awhile in this list and just playing my post-board configuration for Dredge G1 to save on the board space, altho' I'm at a loss for what I'd use it for ...

[Final Fortune]

That is a very interesting Manaless, build

I am curious on the option to exclude Gigapede? or is it to slow for manaless?

Compared to Phantasmagorian it's a terrible reward on investment in terms of MD slots, I personally play the White Chancellor in the Dryad Arbor slot because I don't see any need for Contagian in the SB when you're playing with Flayer of the Hatebound MD, unless they're for Scavenging Ooze? But even that doesn't seem very good to me, because you can only kill Scavening Ooze if they don't have any mana to activate it the turn they play. If Scavenging Ooze is the reason he's playing Contagian, then he should probably be playing Sickening Shoal instead, no way Knight of the Reliquary lives thru' Sickening Shoal pitching Griselbrand.

[Gui]

@Gui
Hold the number of Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe constant and find whether or not the value of the 11th Tarnished Citadel or the 12th Breakthrough is less than the 12th Golgari Thug for opening hands and mulligans.

You can assume we always have to start the hand with a Dredger if you want, altho' I think hands with Careful Study + Breakthrough or Faithless Looting + Lion's Eye Daimond or Cephalid Coliseum, Breakthrough and Lion's Eye Diamond are keepable personally.
I can do this kind of change, and consider all keepable hands instead combo hands, but I prefer to analyse the chance to have a combo opening instead, or else I'll be biased to remove all my draw spells to add other utilities xD

Combo hands for your list, up to mull to 4:
raw: 75.4%
raw -1 BT +1 thug: 75.9%
raw -1BT +1 tarnished: 75.7%
raw -2BT +1 thug +1 tarnished: 76%
raw -3 tireless +1 thug +2 DR: 74.4%

Notice that the small difference in % is actually due to the fact that it's already a somewhat high percentage, it gets harder to improve im percentage as it goes up. Do 1/(1-x) to see how many avarage games you will play until you screw up, for example, 1/(1-75%) -> screw 1 game out of 4.

Here's the code, in Java
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B_GxGrkIiEszd0RiS3M4WDVjWXM/edit



I've been debating -3 Tireless Tribe for +1 Golgari Thug and +2 Dread Return for awhile in this list and just playing my post-board configuration for Dredge G1 to save on the board space, altho' I'm at a loss for what I'd use it for ...
This is like the advantage of having pimp as outlet, you can't quantify the value of having DRs over discard. Discard will obviously help on having more decent hands, but DR can help in a non-trivial number of situations.

[Michael Keller]

Compared to Phantasmagorian it's a terrible reward on investment in terms of MD slots, I personally play the White Chancellor in the Dryad Arbor slot because I don't see any need for Contagian in the SB when you're playing with Flayer of the Hatebound MD, unless they're for Scavenging Ooze?

Why would you play Chancellor of the Annex main when you can bring him into the sideboard against cards like Relic/etc.? I mean, it has utility and I get its purpose, but it doesn't seem like it would necessitate a slot main at this point.

Dryad Arbor serves the purpose of Dread Returning faster, making tokens faster, having a mana source in the deck before even going to the sideboard (alleviating some pressure off more lands coming in post-board), stacks on Nether Shadow as a creature, attacking, working well with Therapy and being able to lure tokens off of Bridges when facing Wasteland. And it's a mana source.

It's a perfectly acceptable idea and I feel as though its utility speaks for itself. You can replace it with anything else, but I like what it brings to the table and the fabric of the deck.


But even that doesn't seem very good to me, because you can only kill Scavening Ooze if they don't have any mana to activate it the turn they play. If Scavenging Ooze is the reason he's playing Contagian, then he should probably be playing Sickening Shoal instead, no way Knight of the Reliquary lives thru' Sickening Shoal pitching Griselbrand.

I forgot about Shoal, thanks. I swapped them out.

[Final Fortune]

Because Chancellor of the Annex offsets the disadvantage of allowing our opponents to play first by choosing to draw, where Dryad Arbor is only a 1/1 creature you have to play from your hand game 1 and only makes sense in your MD if you need to free SB space for Sickening Shoal vs Maverick.

I understand why you'd choose to play Dryad Arbor MD, I just don't think it's necessary to play Dryad Arbor MD because it's not as good as Chancellor of the Annex, or more comparitively Chancellor of the Forge, MD G1 and you may never see a Leyline of the Void for the entire tournament.

Yeah, I figured the Contagion was the anti-Maverick card, Sickening Shoal is better at it because it destroys Knight of the Reliquary as well.

I think the deck is fine with Dryad Arbor, but considering the deck is a gambit to begin with, I just prefer to ignore Leyline of the Void altogether and play the best MD I can.

[Ghiwo]

Hi everyone!

I'm bothering you again, this time with a question concerning the way to play certain match-Ups.
Especially I'm talking about AggroLoam. I lost 0-2 from a guy who played a turn 2 Knight of the Reliquary with a Mox Diamond. I saw in my mind the specter of Bojuka Bog and tried not to overcommit, but next turn Bog arrived with no delay. It wiped away my grave, then a Wasteland destroyed my gemstone Mine. Tried to restart, but didn't manage because of the clock of Knight and a Tarmo.

I sided in 1x Griselbrand and 1x Dread Return (2 DR total) for 1 land and 1 Thug, 4x Firestorm for 3 PImp and 1 Breakthrough. Tried to bring in Firestorm in order to destroy KotR before it could grab Bog, but can't deal with a deck running 3x Bojuka Bog, 2x Tormod's Crypt, 3x Surgical Extraction, 2x Engineered Explosives, 2x Maelstrom Pulse. Plus Life from the Loam for recurring Bogs.

Tell me how to play this Match-Up, because I think it's very very difficult! :cry:

[Fizzeler]

Hi everyone!

I'm bothering you again, this time with a question concerning the way to play certain match-Ups.
Especially I'm talking about AggroLoam. I lost 0-2 from a guy who played a turn 2 Knight of the Reliquary with a Mox Diamond. I saw in my mind the specter of Bojuka Bog and tried not to overcommit, but next turn Bog arrived with no delay. It wiped away my grave, then a Wasteland destroyed my gemstone Mine. Tried to restart, but didn't manage because of the clock of Knight and a Tarmo.

I sided in 1x Griselbrand and 1x Dread Return (2 DR total) for 1 land and 1 Thug, 4x Firestorm for 3 PImp and 1 Breakthrough. Tried to bring in Firestorm in order to destroy KotR before it could grab Bog, but can't deal with a deck running 3x Bojuka Bog, 2x Tormod's Crypt, 3x Surgical Extraction, 2x Engineered Explosives, 2x Maelstrom Pulse. Plus Life from the Loam for recurring Bogs.

Tell me how to play this Match-Up, because I think it's very very difficult! :cry:
Are you sure this was Aggro Loam and not The Rock? Many Loam decks I know are RGB as they tend to play Countryside Crusher and Grim Lavamancer

Regardless for Loam the general strategy would be to bring in Leyline of the Void and Leyline of Sanctity if you have them in your board. Game 1 the deck is slow and they generally don't have any way to search for their 1 Bog (which again is why I think you may have been playing The Rock). Loam has a lot of discard and recurrable disruption you need to be quick game 1 and when therapying hit their threats.

For The Rock, I am not to sure, save Knight and Ooze need to be considered and GSZ. If they do run Loam and Darkblast you need to be a lot faster than them, fortunately their turn 1 Hymn To Tourach isn't the worst as it can hit Dredgers.

[Ghiwo]

It was a strange version, probably The Rock, you're right, but I saw even Swords to Plowshares and red spells...

I think it's a really difficult match up, a deck very hard to deal with!

[Dravus Mallinard]

did someone have ever tryed Stifle as SB in Dredge???

I start think about it not just to stop crypts and bojugas, but to complete counter Belcher and storm decks.

Other nice interaction may be available... What do you guys think about ???

[Fizzeler]

It was a strange version, probably The Rock, you're right, but I saw even Swords to Plowshares and red spells...

I think it's a really difficult match up, a deck very hard to deal with!

Red spells, maybe Punishing Fire combo?

Overall if they are the Creature heavier version of The Rock, you just need to be faster and don't keep a hand where their discard spells will hurt you a lot (like they turn 1 Duress see you have 1 discard outlet and now you're stuck for a few turns).

If they are playing the token heavy version you don't need to worry as much about Pernicious Deed, as it generally wraths their board, but they do play 3-4 Maelstrom Pulse main, meaning you should be using your Zombie tokens to strip their hand with Therapy as one well timed Pulse can eat all your zombie tokens, fortunately it is a sorcery

They are the control deck that is very important to remember

[Calado]

did someone have ever tryed Stifle as SB in Dredge???

I start think about it not just to stop crypts and bojugas, but to complete counter Belcher and storm decks.

Other nice interaction may be available... What do you guys think about ???
Interesting idea. If I'd play hate against storm, I'd play Leyline of Sanctity which is free (considering I'll mulligan for it), but Stifle is more frustrating for them, and fights Sneak Attack, Griselbrand, Stoneforge Mystic, Miracle, etc.
But idk if it's optimal.

[Final Fortune]

Stifle doesn't accomplish anything Nature's Claim already does.

[joemauer]

Stifle causes us to sit around with one mana open which isn't something dredge can do.
It is also very narrow against cards such as Tormod's Crypt, where as cards like Ancient Grudge can hit Batterskull, Jitte, or Aether Vial.

Stifle against storm isn't too great either. If a storm player can play around Stifle + free countermagic in the form of Canadian Thresh then how good is Stifle in our deck? Do you want to pass your turn without doing anything against a storm deck so you can have mana open?

Leyline of Sanctity is great against narrow cards like Bog and Crypt, but won't help against Cage or Surgical Extraction. Also, Leyline is actually bad against Storm decks with Belcher being the only exception as to a storm deck that Leyline is possibly good against.

[Calado]

Why is Leyline of Sanctity bad against storm if it prevents tendrils and brainfreeze?

[joemauer]

Why is Leyline of Sanctity bad against storm if it prevents tendrils and brainfreeze?

It is better to race those decks while disrupting with Cabal Therapy.

We are a combo deck. Every card we side out dilutes are deck a little more making our deck just a little slower.

Leyline doesn't do much against storm decks either. When those decks are comboing off, via Time Spiral or Ad Nauseum, more often than not they will find a bounce spell for the Leyline anyway.

[that0neguy]

No single permanent/spell really slows down storm that much, unless it is backed by significant pressure. They just need to find a discard spell or removal spell with a tutor to go off, which if it something that they can do after ramping up the storm count, ect often isn't that hard to do.

Adding leyline I think slows dredge down (removing pressure), without having a huge impact on the board.

Against storm I usually just try to race them, and value hands were I can hit them with one or more therapies by turn 2. I bring in things like the extra breakthrough, dread return, ect.

[Final Fortune]

Firestorm has just become a permanent addition to my SB,

http://castlesandcooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/h-dryad-militant.jpg

Between Judge's Familiar and Dryad Militant the Maverick matchup is not going to be a walk in the park anymore, the Cursecatcher effect and T2 GSZ -> Hate Lion are pretty worrysome IMO.

[Felidae]

Stifle

pro:
- negates Crypt / Relic / Bok / Knight ( for one turn) / Ooze ( once) / etc.
- can also be unsed against indirect hate ( such as Stoneforge, Jitte, Batterskull, etc.), Storm, etc.

contra:
- does nothing against Surgical / Extirpate / Leyline/ Wheel / Cage / etc. ( hence we'd still need to play Claim / Chain in our board and SB space is limited)
- doesn't interact well with LED ( since we like to win as soon as possible against those pesky Stormdecks we can't afford it to keep the LED uncracked, in order to leave the Stifle in our hand)
- needs open Mana ( which sucks, as we'd like to spend our mana in the early turns to develop our board [ or yard])


Since the current hate, that we have to face, is usually Surgical, Cage or Leyline ( if we cast Maverick aside for a moment) Stifle is only going to take away SB space form cards like Ashen Ghoul, Leyline of the Void, Firestorm, etc.


Also here are the two golden rules "How to know if a card has allready been disscused in this thread":

1. Is the card a legacy staple ? ( if you answer yes than there is a good chance that you aren't the first one who thought about it)

2. Does the card fight a new typ of hate that hasn't been around for more than 6 months? ( If you answer with no than there are most likely cards that allready fight those hate and do better than your card)

3. Was the card just spoiled ? ( If you answer with yes than you should better hurry, since you aren't the only one keeping track of the spoilers)

Lets compare such classy cards as Entomb or Stifle ( which keep on coming back to the discussion every 6-12 months) to a card like Ashen Ghoul or Tortured Existence.

When you look at Stifle / Entomb you should honestly ask yourself: "Did no one was ingenious enough to test them in the deck, yet ? Am I the first one who has this great idea that no one has ever thought about?"

Sooner or later you'll realize that there might be a slight chance that someone else allready had the same idea as you.


Dryad Militant

Is the card confirmed yet? At least we get to keep our Birdge and Creatures, but taking Therapies away for free, combined with the ridiculous casting cost ( remember when Savanah Lion used to be a rare?), is going to be a pain in the ass.
And we can't even savely rely on Darkblast :frown: .

[Pltnmngl]

Dryad Militant

Is the card confirmed yet? At least we get to keep our Birdge and Creatures, but taking Therapies away for free, combined with the ridiculous casting cost ( remember when Savanah Lion used to be a rare?), is going to be a pain in the ass.
And we can't even savely rely on Darkblast :frown: .

Yup. This is going to be a beating. I'm thinking of changing to a Manaless build and relying less on playing spells.

[Shadowmap]

http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/tcg/products/rtr/4xfhqpt6ek_en.jpg

This is from the official card image gallery on the mothership :(

[Michael Keller]

Yup. This is going to be a beating. I'm thinking of changing to a Manaless build and relying less on playing spells.

You won't even get Dread Return in a Manaless build with this on the table. All we'll have are Ichorids and Nether Shadows. (And to a lesser extent Narcomoebas.)

This creature is devastating to Dredge if it hits the table. And on a side-note, Dryad Militant seems outstanding in Vintage.

[Pltnmngl]

You won't even get Dread Return in a Manaless build with this on the table. All we'll have are Ichorids and Nether Shadows. (And to a lesser extent Narcomoebas.)

This creature is devastating to Dredge if it hits the table. And on a side-note, Dryad Militant seems outstanding in Vintage.

Hence why I want to go manaless. No point in running DR and other sorceries when I can't use them. Basically, we max out creatures that can come into play.

[Michael Keller]

Hence why I want to go manaless. No point in running DR and other sorceries when I can't use them. Basically, we max out creatures that can come into play.

But that just makes no sense. You can't tailor the entire archetype to combat one creature. The best course of action is to let the craziness surrounding it to die down for a while and strike when the iron is hot.

You're not winning a game with four Nether Shadows and four Ichorids against a deck running multiples of this card. There's a good chance given its application that it would be run in some sort of Aggro shell, perhaps Maverick, that already runs Swords and Paths. It's too much of an uphill battle to climb, not to mention you putting them on the play allows them to drop it turn one and effectively put the game on ice.

I'm not suggesting it is an 'auto-win' card, but without Therapies and Dread Returns, this is going to do some serious damage. If you're going Manaless as I already have, it might not be a bad idea to run Sickening Shoal - and potentially Contagion - main.

[Calado]

Darkblast will be useful in this case. Especially when the deck runs too much */1 important creatures (hierarch, mother, Thalia, arbor, elves, delver, mongoose, etc)

[Koby]

Yup. This is going to be a beating. I'm thinking of changing to a Manaless build and relying less on playing spells.

So you're going to prevent losing to the 1-drop Maverick creature by going all-in and making the 2-drop Maverick creature (Scavenging Ooze) a blowout?

[Michael Keller]

So you're going to prevent losing to the 1-drop Maverick creature by going all-in and making the 2-drop Maverick creature (Scavenging Ooze) a blowout?

If you play Contagion and Sickening Shoal, neither should be a problem. Dryad Militant doesn't do anything against a turn one discarded dredger, and during your upkeep you can just Shoal or Contagion and go from there.

Of course, Thalia is a problem in that circumstance. If the Maverick player has Dryad Militant turn one into Thalia turn two, well, there isn't much you can do anyhow in that circumstance (unless post-board you have the land and are able to Contagion them both out). I think you really want to run Shoal or Contagion or a combination of both in Manaless right now main either way.

[Gui]

If for any other reason, manaless dredge has the advantage of being able to run such cards, as Contagion and Sickening Shoal, without losing much of its power, while the other dredge lists will have to rely, once again, on Firestorm to deal with creatures.

This card has a higher impact against dredge than one might think. 2/1 for :g: and disrupt the faster part of our combo (narcomoebas need something to work with) as well as our main disruptive/protective effect (cabal therapy), giving a clock to the opponent as well.

Let's hope Ichorid and Firestorm are strong enough, so that this hate doesn't get played.

[Michael Keller]

If for any other reason, manaless dredge has the advantage of being able to run such cards, as Contagion and Sickening Shoal, without losing much of its power, while the other dredge lists will have to rely, once again, on Firestorm to deal with creatures.

This card has a higher impact against dredge than one might think. 2/1 for :g: and disrupt the faster part of our combo (narcomoebas need something to work with) as well as our main disruptive/protective effect (cabal therapy), giving a clock to the opponent as well.

Let's hope Ichorid and Firestorm are strong enough, so that this hate doesn't get played.

This also makes Street Wraith slightly better than it already is in Manaless. If an opponent swings in with Dryad Militant after you've discarded your first card for the turn, you can cycle it and possibly hit a Narcomoeba to trade. Just a line of play you can take.

[Vandalize]

This Dryad Militant won't see play from Maverick. It does nothing besides shutting down Snapcaster Mage, which Ooze already does well.

The only deck that might play this card as a four-of is Zoo, because what killed Zoo in the first place was Snapcaster Mage (and Batterskull, to some extent). Moreover, Tribal is rising again, and Zoo is well known as the tribal slayer, so it might push the deck to Tier 1. I said might.

Dredge didn't get anything from RtR so far, but I hope the next edition in the block brings us some Dredge stuff.

If you guys are worried about this Dryad guy, just go Quadlaser and make Ichorid laugh at the girl.

[Koby]

I think the Dryad will see play as a GSZ target in Maverick. It's not aggro, but the effect it provides is still useful for the Maverick game-plan in the 75.

[TerribleTim68]

It's interesting to see the Maverick thread discussing the Dryad. They seem split on whether it fits or not. My gut says it will become a 1x main deck choice to be a GSZ target against the decks it works against. I think we better start expecting it.

[Gui]

This Dryad Militant won't see play from Maverick. It does nothing besides shutting down Snapcaster Mage, which Ooze already does well.

The only deck that might play this card as a four-of is Zoo, because what killed Zoo in the first place was Snapcaster Mage (and Batterskull, to some extent). Moreover, Tribal is rising again, and Zoo is well known as the tribal slayer, so it might push the deck to Tier 1. I said might.

Dredge didn't get anything from RtR so far, but I hope the next edition in the block brings us some Dredge stuff.

If you guys are worried about this Dryad guy, just go Quadlaser and make Ichorid laugh at the girl.

I disagree. If anything else, this dryad is a potent GSZ target against dredge, 1 turn faster than Ooze. People say LED is better than LEDless against maverick because it can be 1 turn faster some part of the time. I guess Dryad is useful in that same case, since it's 1 turn faster than their usual bear. I'd expect at least 1-of on g2 and g3.

[Final Fortune]

This Dryad Militant won't see play from Maverick. It does nothing besides shutting down Snapcaster Mage, which Ooze already does well.

The only deck that might play this card as a four-of is Zoo, because what killed Zoo in the first place was Snapcaster Mage (and Batterskull, to some extent). Moreover, Tribal is rising again, and Zoo is well known as the tribal slayer, so it might push the deck to Tier 1. I said might.

Dredge didn't get anything from RtR so far, but I hope the next edition in the block brings us some Dredge stuff.

If you guys are worried about this Dryad guy, just go Quadlaser and make Ichorid laugh at the girl.

If you aren't playing Judge's Familiar and Dryad Militant in Maverick then you're just straight up terrible at Magic, trust me Maverick is going to be a complete bitch to play against in the near future, hence Firestorm.

[joemauer]

The new Dryad will probably just be a one of in the sideboard as either more or different hate for dredge. It's application is so narrow that it won't be a good maindeck for Maverick, but what Vandalize said about zoo using this guy sounds right.

I am actually more worried about the new cursecatcher bird seeing play. This guy can kill our bridges and block our Narcomoebas while countering our spells. He also plays well with Thalia. I don't know if this bird will see play in Maverick, Death n Taxes, u/w aggro control, or a completely new deck; but this guy will probably cause some problems.

[Koby]

If you aren't playing Judge's Familiar and Dryad Militant in Maverick then you're just straight up terrible at Magic, trust me Maverick is going to be a complete bitch to play against in the near future, hence Firestorm.

That's a very polarizing statement which isn't backed by any real performance. I would be hesitant to go out on a limb and say both of these hybrids are auto includes at this point.

[that0neguy]

To me, it seems like the Dryad will be too low impact in other match ups to warrant inclusion as a 4x.

And while it might be solid against dredge, it seems to me like it is such a dead draw later in the game that it might not even justify its use as a singleton. Maybe it could be in the SB as a 1x, but that seems like a stretch to me.

Judge Framiliar on the other hand. That card seems sick across all match ups, especially dredge. Go to play a spell, sac judge, kill bridges, counter the spell just seems silly, while being proactive and largely out of reach of Cabal therapy. It just seems like a blowout against a deck that has comparatively infinite more ways to interact with dredge game 1 already.

[Fizzeler]

You won't even get Dread Return in a Manaless build with this on the table. All we'll have are Ichorids and Nether Shadows. (And to a lesser extent Narcomoebas.)

This creature is devastating to Dredge if it hits the table. And on a side-note, Dryad Militant seems outstanding in Vintage.
Sad but true, yes this thing will see play (calling it now, might even preorder some foil ones as I am speculating it and preordering a playset of $1 foils, won't hurt me if it turns out to be junk)

But that just makes no sense. You can't tailor the entire archetype to combat one creature. The best course of action is to let the craziness surrounding it to die down for a while and strike when the iron is hot.

You're not winning a game with four Nether Shadows and four Ichorids against a deck running multiples of this card. There's a good chance given its application that it would be run in some sort of Aggro shell, perhaps Maverick, that already runs Swords and Paths. It's too much of an uphill battle to climb, not to mention you putting them on the play allows them to drop it turn one and effectively put the game on ice.

I'm not suggesting it is an 'auto-win' card, but without Therapies and Dread Returns, this is going to do some serious damage. If you're going Manaless as I already have, it might not be a bad idea to run Sickening Shoal - and potentially Contagion - main.
I think running removal in the board may be necessary as now there is both Ooze and Dryad to deal with

If for any other reason, manaless dredge has the advantage of being able to run such cards, as Contagion and Sickening Shoal, without losing much of its power, while the other dredge lists will have to rely, once again, on Firestorm to deal with creatures.

This card has a higher impact against dredge than one might think. 2/1 for :g: and disrupt the faster part of our combo (narcomoebas need something to work with) as well as our main disruptive/protective effect (cabal therapy), giving a clock to the opponent as well.

Let's hope Ichorid and Firestorm are strong enough, so that this hate doesn't get played.
Hopefully this ends up just being the new Grafdiggers Cage, which gave decks a new hate card, but wasn't strong enough to shut Dredge down

I disagree. If anything else, this dryad is a potent GSZ target against dredge, 1 turn faster than Ooze. People say LED is better than LEDless against maverick because it can be 1 turn faster some part of the time. I guess Dryad is useful in that same case, since it's 1 turn faster than their usual bear. I'd expect at least 1-of on g2 and g3.
Agreed as a 1 of in Maverick this card seems great, turn 1 this, turn 2 Ooze, you just lost

To me, it seems like the Dryad will be too low impact in other match ups to warrant inclusion as a 4x.

And while it might be solid against dredge, it seems to me like it is such a dead draw later in the game that it might not even justify its use as a singleton. Maybe it could be in the SB as a 1x, but that seems like a stretch to me.

Judge Framiliar on the other hand. That card seems sick across all match ups, especially dredge. Go to play a spell, sac judge, kill bridges, counter the spell just seems silly, while being proactive and largely out of reach of Cabal therapy. It just seems like a blowout against a deck that has comparatively infinite more ways to interact with dredge game 1 already.
Familiar seems good, but then again what creature drops to warrant the inclusion of Familiar in decks like Maverick?

[Vandalize]

This Dryad Militant crap is just spoiler hype. The same happened with Grafdigger's Cage and Cavern of Souls, and neither were backbreaking.

I bet my penis this card won't ever become competitive in Maverick.

@Judge's Familiar
This guy needs to be compared to Cursecatcher from Merfolk, which is a long forgotten matchup. You rely heavily on Ichorids for this matchup, except this dude is just dangerous in AEther Vial trickery. If you try to cast a Cabal Therapy with this bird on play, you just diserve to get brain cancer and die.

Of course it's a card that might slow you down, just like Cursecatcher, but it's easily played arround with Ichorid die trigger, so don't be a moron.

[lordofthepit]

This Dryad Militant crap is just spoiler hype. The same happened with Grafdigger's Cage and Cavern of Souls, and neither were backbreaking.

I bet my penis this card won't ever become competitive in Maverick.


:eek:

I hope for your sake that you're a girl.

[KobeBryan]

:eek:

I hope for your sake that you're a girl.

Its not that big of a deal. This card wont' hurt dredge all too much. If it said exile creatures...then you got a problem.

[lordofthepit]

Its not that big of a deal. This card wont' hurt dredge all too much. If it said exile creatures...then you got a problem.

I don't know about you, but my penis is a big deal to me. I wouldn't even bet on Norin the Wary never seeing competitive Legacy play when it comes to that.

[KobeBryan]

I don't know about you, but my penis is a big deal to me. I wouldn't even bet on Norin the Wary never seeing competitive Legacy play when it comes to that.

you didn't make the penis bet...vandalize did....unless thats ur alter ego?

[that0neguy]

Grafdiggers Cage really wrecks dredge, but it was too narrow for other match ups to justify the space in boards.

I think this is exactly what is going to happen to this. It is good against Dredge, but too low impact against the field, it might initially show up, but then people will cut it for more reliable graveyard hate that is necessary vs other decks, like Maverick, RUG, or reanimator.

If you are playing Maverick vs Storm and draw Dryad its a worthless draw.

Judge seems extremely powerful in Maverick. I posted a list using it in the other thread. Turn 1 Judge makes it so difficult to interact with their subsequent plays. Backed up by Thalia and it becomes even harder. It's not only good against us, but its good against the field. Judge I would be much more worried about.

[lordofthepit]

If you are playing Maverick vs Storm and draw Dryad its a worthless draw.

Dryad is still solid against Storm. Shuts off their Rite of Flame/Cabal Ritual craziness, as well as their Past in Flames/Ill-Gotten Gains options, while being a solid 2/1 clock. It's certainly not a Thalia, but it's not bad either (especially for a more aggressive G/W aggro deck oriented like Zoo).

There are only like 13 other cards I'd rather draw against Storm (Thalia, Teeg, GSZ if I have enough mana, and Wasteland), and none that I'd rather have on Turn 1 (besides possibly Hierarch to set up a GSZ->Teeg on Turn 2).

[4eak]

If Judge sees a lot of play, we will need to focus upon Ichorid (perhaps other creature recursion) and non-spell-based ways of dredging. That is one of the keys to beating Cursecatcher in Merfolk, and I think it may become important if Judge sees a lot of play. Whether or not Judge will actually be played a lot, I don't know.


peace,
4eak

[that0neguy]

I guess worthless vs storm is harsh, but I don't think it will be super high impact against them.

I think it will come down to them playing Dryad or Judge as a 4 of, and Dryad is going to lose out.

As a 1 of, its going to be incredibly weak late draw. It's something that needs to hit the table early to have an impact, vs Crypt/Cage/Relic/Crop Rotation>Bog which are great even late.

In the match up's where people are going to want GY hate, they are going to want something more versatile.

In Storm vs Mav they would rather have Judge
In RUG vs Mav they already have a great match up
In Reanimate vs Mav they would rather have Judge
In Blade Control vs Mav - I don't think they really care that much about either, but Judge probably gets a narrow nod protecting early knight's/Thalia from counters. Dryad shuts down snap caster mage, but snapcaster mage is also an answer to an attacking Judge.
In Sneak Attack vs Mav they would rather have Judge
In Merfolk vs Mav they would rather have Judge
In Goblins vs Mav both are pretty mediocre. Dryad trades with a x/2, Judge Carries Jitte over a stalled ground.

They would be crazy to pass up Judge for Dryad, and as a 1 of GSZ target, its just going to be slow. Dredge probably wants Firestorms against Maverick either way don't they? It doesn't seem likely to change the dynamic of the match up all that much. Also, Judge is potent against dredge, and attacks on a similar angle. It shuts down our therapies and dread returns that are attempting to trigger bridges. Judge is relavent in every match up, compare that to Dryad.

We should be fearing the sky falling on Judge, imo. Judge will be 4x main deck material, vs a 1 of GSZ target. But they both send us down the path of Ichorid, sac EOT without attacking to trigger bridges route.

If we are really paranoid about losing Dread returns and Therapies as sac outlets to make zombies to a Dryad, we could alway try to squeeze a few etra into the maindeck/sideboard to bring in to hope to hit them on the first dredge.

[Final Fortune]

The issue isn't whether or not Maverick will use 4x of Familiar or 4x of Dryad, just 4x of Familiar and 1x of Dryad is fine because it's a question of how quickly the Maverick deck can disrupt us and not how powerful those disruption effects are. The reason we destroy Maverick right now is because Maverick players are really bad Magic players, only relying on Scavenging Ooze and Bojuka Bog which manage to be far too little far too late vs our speed. If the Maverick deck isn't playing 4xSurgical Extraction in the SB, it automatically scoops the matchup vs Dredge. But now that Maverick can essentially stall with Familiar, it has a way to buy time for its creature based hate to disrupt us at the 2cc slot with GSZ -> Dryad and the combination simultaneously shuts down Cabal Therapy, Dread Returns and Bridge from Below, which buys time for the Scavenging Ooze or Knight of the Reliquary to actually do something.

Maverick could play 4 Knight of the Reliquary and 4 Scavenging Ooze and I really wouldn't give a shit, because they're dead before they can even activate either creature. Now that they have Familar and Dryad to basically tempo themselves into those cards being relevant, the match up is actually worrysome now.

I don't care whether or not Dryad is a 1x MD or SB card, but if Maverick wants to spend a single slot to directly improve its Dredge match up, along with a lot of other random match ups, then it's going to see play.

[Final Fortune]

This Dryad Militant crap is just spoiler hype. The same happened with Grafdigger's Cage and Cavern of Souls, and neither were backbreaking.

I bet my penis this card won't ever become competitive in Maverick.

@Judge's Familiar
This guy needs to be compared to Cursecatcher from Merfolk, which is a long forgotten matchup. You rely heavily on Ichorids for this matchup, except this dude is just dangerous in AEther Vial trickery. If you try to cast a Cabal Therapy with this bird on play, you just diserve to get brain cancer and die.

Of course it's a card that might slow you down, just like Cursecatcher, but it's easily played arround with Ichorid die trigger, so don't be a moron.

You're clearly theory crafting and not play testing the card, Judge's Familiar in Maverick is not comparable to Cursecatcher in Merfolk because Maverick doesn't have anything relevant to buy time for, where Maverick can completely blow us out with Familiar into Thalia and then just land a Knight of the Reliquary or Scavening Ooze to seal the deal.

Everybody talks about how easy it is to play around shit without actually trying to play around it, but when you can't cast your draw spell or your Dread Returns or Cabal Therapys without losing your Bridge from Belows and you give time for Maverick to stick a Scavening Ooze by playing around Judge's Familiar you'll feel differently about it.

I can understand being skeptical about Dryad Militant, I honestly hope he falls by the wayside because he's terrible vs Reanimator, but the difference between Dryad Militant and Grafdigger's Cage is that even when worse comes to worse he's still a cost efficient creature and only a 1x for Green Sun's Zenith and that makes me think he's going to have more staying power in the metagame than his predecessors.

Plus it's not like we don't prepare for Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage anyway, pretty much everybody plays Nature's Claim strictly for those two cards regardless and I think Firestorm is going to become the next "Nature's Claim" for all of the hate creatures WOTC is printing.

[Gui]

If Judge sees a lot of play, we will need to focus upon Ichorid (perhaps other creature recursion) and non-spell-based ways of dredging. That is one of the keys to beating Cursecatcher in Merfolk, and I think it may become important if Judge sees a lot of play. Whether or not Judge will actually be played a lot, I don't know.


peace,
4eak

If it sees enough play, meaning it being a 1-of GSZ target maindeck for maverick (this is enough cuz maverick is already a damn popular deck), I'll move to Firestorm MD once again. Firestorm eat the cheap f*ck for breakfast, has the added bonus of dealing with Ooze, and was very strong against Cursecatcher back in the day, meaning it's strong against Judge's Familiar as well...

This is a pretty nice tech to have, in my humble opinion.

[hellhound]

hi everyone! i'm an italian dredge-player. i've made top 4 out of 210-players-tournament last sunday. here's the list:
4 golgari grave troll
4 stinkweed imp
3 thug golgari
1 darkblast
4 narcomoeba
4 bridge from below
4 breakthrough
4 faithless looting
4 careful study
4 cabal therapy
4 lion's eye diamond
4 putrid imp
4 ichorid
4 cephalid coliseum
4 city of brass
4 gemstone mine
side
4 nature's claim
4 leyline of the void
3 ashen ghoul
2 tarnished citadel
1 undiscovered paradise
1 ancient grudge

here's a little report:
turn1: UW stoneblade 2-0 (darkblast on peacekeeper in g2 4 the win)
turn2: Sneak&Show 1-2 (he topdecks emrakul in g3 and kills me)
turn3: Canadian 2-0 (he strips my bridges and ichorids, killed him with narco & ashen)
turn4: JaceLandeed 2-0 (g2 won through 2 pernicious deed, 1 surgical, 1 extirpate, 1 ensnaring bridge and 1 engeenered plague on horror)
turn5: Maverick 2-0 (he played 3 oozes MD and sided 3 faerie macabre and 4 surgical)
turn6: Goblins 2-1 (nothin to say)
turn7: Omniscence combo 2-1 (won g1 through Grieselbrand and 2 pyroclasm)
turn8: ID
top 8: Dredge 2-1 (g1 i'm too fast, g2 he reanimates Elesh Norn, g3 I started with leyline he keeps a hand wth 2 lands and 3 drawers but can't find claim in time)
top 4: UWr Miracle 1-2 (won g1 easy, g2 & g3 I die under EE, StP, relics, moat and terminus.

that's it ! enjoy !

[4eak]

If it sees enough play, meaning it being a 1-of GSZ target maindeck for maverick (this is enough cuz maverick is already a damn popular deck), I'll move to Firestorm MD once again. Firestorm eat the cheap f*ck for breakfast, has the added bonus of dealing with Ooze, and was very strong against Cursecatcher back in the day, meaning it's strong against Judge's Familiar as well...

This is a pretty nice tech to have, in my humble opinion.

GSZ is for green creatures. Judge isn't green. Firestorm does at least give you a chance to use your instants and sorceries. My only problem with it is that you can't consistently have it in hand.


peace,
4eak

[joemauer]

Congrats hellhound.

Just a little curious how game 2 went against Maverick with him being loaded up on hate?

[Gui]

GSZ is for green creatures. Judge isn't green. Firestorm does at least give you a chance to use your instants and sorceries. My only problem with it is that you can't consistently have it in hand.


peace,
4eak

Never ever said Judge was a target for GSZ. I was referencing previous posts where people were worried about it being played as well.

Edit: Oh, nvm, I quoted the wrong post. Thought I was quoting a Dryad post >.<
How much more stupid can my human brain get... Me FaiLz -> Zombies wouldn't wanna eat it, for sure.

[hellhound]

Congrats hellhound.

Just a little curious how game 2 went against Maverick with him being loaded up on hate?

he kept a bad hand. started with land mother. felt that he hand a mediocre hand. went all in with 2 different dredgers to avoid surgical. cabal therapied him he played land and another topdecked mother on t2 and concede on t3

[NecroYawgmoth]

Just a funny game I had today against Goblins in game 3.

He started with Mountain -> Relic, and another Relic on turn 2 without a landdrop. I was a bit "flooded" and won the game a few turns later. Wanna see how I've won? :laugh:

http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/blojja0c/GoblinsVSElesh.JPG

[Que]

That doesn't even make sense. How did you have that many turns against goblins.. :/

[Julian23]

Obviously his Cabal Therapy hit quadruple Goblin Warchief, leaving his opponent with must a Mountain and two Relic of Progenitus. Because he had no guys left to do the work, he called the Goblin unemployment office (http://magiclampoon.com/blog/2011/06/10/for-damage-stacking-industry-recession-hits-especially-hard/) where he found a group of Mogg Fanatics, which only arrived as early as 3 rounds later.

[Amon Amarth]

How do you have double relic but not be able to remove their DR target in response...? It hurts.

[Julian23]

I think you missed his point. He seems to have hardcasted it.

[LeePerry]

Just a funny game I had today against Goblins in game 3.

He started with Mountain -> Relic, and another Relic on turn 2 without a landdrop. I was a bit "flooded" and won the game a few turns later. Wanna see how I've won? :laugh:

http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/blojja0c/GoblinsVSElesh.JPG

so your opponent didn't put any pressure on you for 7 turns and declined to use his wastelands on any of your lands?

[Klazam]

I've seen a Golgari Grave Troll cast, but that takes the cake.

Must have been a hideously bad draw from goblins or a lot of chimp blockers from dredge.

[(nameless one)]

I've seen hardcasted Dread Return before but this one is just wow.

Achievement Unlocked: hardcasted a Dread Return target.

[Fizzeler]

I've seen a Golgari Grave Troll cast, but that takes the cake.

Must have been a hideously bad draw from goblins or a lot of chimp blockers from dredge.

Agreed I have casted a grave troll before, but never have I seen that

[Michael Keller]

Just won my round one on-camera feature match with Manaless Dredge against James Higgenbottom playing RUG at the Duel for Duals NELC.

[Michael Keller]

3-0. Haven't lost a game.

[NecroYawgmoth]

so your opponent didn't put any pressure on you for 7 turns and declined to use his wastelands on any of your lands?

The [small] pressure is the stuff you see on the table, and I am on 9 life. He drew the Wasteland the turn before, and used it to play his Ringleader, because it seemed useless to him to blow up my lands. Julian 23 is right. I hit Goblin Warchief with my Cabal Therapy as you can see on the picture. You also see that his hand was kinda a "snap-keep" because he only has 5 lands, but double hatepiece.

//////

Gogo Hollywood! Dredge to the first place. :tongue:

[Fizzeler]

3-0. Haven't lost a game.

Hooray!

How are some other people doing like Bryant?

EDIT: And is this being streamed?

[Michael Keller]

5-0. Number one seed overall and a lock for Top 8.

Get yo' popcorn ready.

[Fizzeler]

5-0. Number one seed overall and a lock for Top 8.

Get yo' popcorn ready.

I watched the end of your RUG match it seemed he kept a very slow hand which allowed you to just beat and his Cage did nothing

good luck in top 8

[HokusSchmokus]

where is this streamed? can't find it on twitch.

[Fizzeler]

where is this streamed? can't find it on twitch.

Hokus: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jupiter-games-legacy-series

[xikitins]

I'm looking forward to seeing your decklist hollywood! :wink:

[Tammit67]

I'm looking forward to seeing your decklist hollywood! :wink:

Sicking shoal?!?! Congrats Hollywood!
http://www.jupitergamesonline.com/articles/2012/51634/nelc-decklists-duel-for-40-duals-september-8th-2012

[Michael Keller]

Thank you to everyone.

Also guys, remember: this is Manaless Dredge. Let's liven up the other thread (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?21544-Deck-Manaless-Ichorid/page27)!

EDIT: I know, I know - I missed a Narcomoeba trigger in one of those match-ups and forgot to swing before I Dread Returned Griselbrand. I hate to push at least some of the blame on other shit, but I am on serious prescription painkillers/muscle relaxers for some bad, bad whiplash. Either way, it was enough to get there.

[berry]

Congrats. How many players?

[Michael Keller]

Congrats. How many players?

There were ninety (90) players in attendance.

[Que]

Congrats Hollywood! I may take the list our for a spin in the future. heh.

btw is anyone else attending SCGLA? It shouldn't be a surprise what I'm playing. :laugh:

[JBulko]

You know Joe and I will be there. And considering my recent success in standard, I'll be playing both days. 'cause that's what champions do!

[sherko7]

Anybody still running the LEDless version? I am still running Richard Felman's list in his article "The Art of Dredge Fu" and sometimes I'd remove 1 Tireless Tribe for a MD Dread Return target and it still seems pretty solid to me. Though I wouldn't hesitate to pickup a playset of LED if it simply didn't cost that much and if only it were easy to find here :P

[Fizzeler]

So who is taking Dredge to the invitational?
I would, but I am not qualified :frown:

[4eak]

If I can travel there (Lord willing), I will. ;P

I'm very comfortable with the main, but I'm still not decided on my sideboard. I will not be putting PImp in the main (I know every 'pro' [and I do respect your opinions] in this thread will swear up and down against me on this) - so, set that aside for the sake of argument, and I'd like to hear any suggestions about the sideboard.

// Mana Sources - 18
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

// Dredgers - 13
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Darkblast

// Strictly Draw/Discard - 12
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study

// The Goods - 17
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Putrid Imp
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite



peace,
4eak

[that0neguy]

Is there an advantage to running LEDless anymore now that Faithless looting has been printed? Seems like the only reason to run tribe now is the fact that a set of tribes run 40c where LEDs will run ~240$.

[Calado]

Anybody still running the LEDless version? I am still running Richard Felman's list in his article "The Art of Dredge Fu" and sometimes I'd remove 1 Tireless Tribe for a MD Dread Return target and it still seems pretty solid to me. Though I wouldn't hesitate to pickup a playset of LED if it simply didn't cost that much and if only it were easy to find here :P

I'm playing LEDless, most of times with looting instead of tribes, and with FKZ combo. I'd play LED too if it wasn't too expensive.
Idk if there's any advantage of not play LED, I think it could be perceived if people play more this version on tourneys to compare the results.

[Fizzeler]

If I can travel there (Lord willing), I will. ;P

I'm very comfortable with the main, but I'm still not decided on my sideboard. I will not be putting PImp in the main (I know every 'pro' [and I do respect your opinions] in this thread will swear up and down against me on this) - so, set that aside for the sake of argument, and I'd like to hear any suggestions about the sideboard.

// Mana Sources - 18
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

// Dredgers - 13
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Darkblast

// Strictly Draw/Discard - 12
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study

// The Goods - 17
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Putrid Imp
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite



peace,
4eak

Have you considered Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul in the board? You need something against Surgical Extraction and Shadow/Ghoul do a very good job with that

[Final Fortune]

I'm playing LEDless, most of times with looting instead of tribes, and with FKZ combo. I'd play LED too if it wasn't too expensive.
Idk if there's any advantage of not play LED, I think it could be perceived if people play more this version on tourneys to compare the results.

The only definitive advantage LEDless has over LED Dredge is more SB space.

[joemauer]

@4eak: If I was to play with Dread Return then I would either use it as a miser one of(like the Spanish lists) or go all out with a package. Playing in between makes you not reap the benifits of either. Mucking up your dredges and draws while not really making you more explosive.

Perhaps something like this: -Ichorid,-Thug,-Tarnished Citadel;+Dread Return,+Grizselbrand,+Flayer/Flame-Kin.

Either way you should definitely have the second Citadel in the sideboard as 13 lands is almost always enough for game one.

[Felidae]

Two quick reports with LEDless Dredge + some thoughts on Dryad Militant:

The list:
Quadlazer -4 LED +2 Tarnish Citadell +1 Undiscoverd Paradise +1 Dread Return

Sideboard:
4 Natures Claim
3 Ashen Ghoul
3 Firestorm
1 Darkblast
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Terrastodon
1 Iona
1 Dread Return

Tourney 1 ( 14 player):

R1: UW Tempo Blade

I played the deck a week before to a 4-0 finish, so I was quite aware what I had to face.

G1.: I do what I do best: Turn 1 Putrid Imp, Turn 2 Cephalid Colliseum Turn 3 conceed.

Board: Since I knew that he'd be boarding 2 Surgical, 2 Crypts and 2 Jotun Grunt I simply went for +1 Darkblast ( to kill unflipped Delver) + 3 Ashen Ghoul ( obvious) -1 Ichorid -1 Thug -2 Breakthrough

G2.: I mulligan down to five and never get a card in my yard befor I die to dual Delver beats.

G3.: I go all-in on turn 2 with Breakthrough... well he got the Extraction for my Narcomoeba + Crypt to wreck me completly.

R2: Goblins

G1: He starts with Lacky, followed by a Krenko, Mob Boss and a Skirk Prospector ( so yeah he hit both of his 1-off creatures that he needs to kill me...)

Board: + 3 Firestorm +1 Darkblast +1 Dread Return +1 Iona -3 Breakthrough -1 Thug -2 Looting

G2: He mulligans down to 5, keeps a hand without hate and dies on turn 4.

G3: A early Firestorm clears his board and Iona comes down a turn later to seal the deal.

After the games he complained a lot about my luck... guess you can call it karma.

R3: Maverick

G1: Turn 2 Breakthrough, gg.

Sideboard: +4 Natures Claim ( afraid of Whell of Sun/Moon) +3 Firestorm + 1 Darkblast -4 Breakthrough -1 Thug - 2 Looting -1 DR

G2: He got 3 Surgicals in his oppening hand and I naturally hit none of them with my Therapy ( naming Enlighted Tutor, well duh....)

Board: -4 Claim -1 Ichorid + 3 Ashen Ghoul +2 Looting

G3: I manage to Firestorm his Noble + Ooze and he never recovers.

R4: ANT

G1: He got the turn 2 Ad Nauseam but failed to find Lotus Petal or LED, wich gave me the chance to strip his hand with Therapies.

Sideboard: +1 DR +1 Iona +1 Terrastodon +1 Grudge -1 Thug -1 Ichorid -1 breakthrough -1 Looting

G2: He kept a rather slow hand and dies to multiple Therapies into an Iona on turn 2.


Tourney 1,5 ( 30 Player)

I'd love to tell an epic Dredge Story, but unfortunatly a friend of mine gave me his SneakShow Deck and since I'm a sucker for decks that I haven't played yet I immediatly took it.

Went 3-1-1, only to lose against Maverick in the top 8.

Tourney 2 ( 12 Player)

R1: Reanimator ( great and I don't have Leylines in my board...)

G1: He goes for a turn 2 Jin-Gitaxis which goes the distance, meaning that he killed himself with it.
Who cares if you got Blazing Archon when you draw 8 cards per turn.

Board: +1 DR +1 Iona +1 Terrastodon +4 Natures Claim - 1 Ichorid -1 Thug -2 Breakthrough -1 PImp -2 Looting

G2: He mulls down to five and finds neither hate nor action, so he dies rather quickly against a large horde of zombies.


R2: Maverick ( same guy who kicked me out of the top 8)

G1: Turn 1 Study, followed by Study + Looting on turn 2.

Board: +3 Ashen Ghoul + 3 Firestorm +1 Darkblast -4 Breakthrough -1 Ichorid -1 Thug -1 DR

G2: He does nothing until turn 3, while I hit nothing important with my early dredgers. Long story short, he kept the following hand: 1 KotR, 1 Bok, 3 Surgicals, 2 lands....

G3: I go for a turn 2 Colliseum and get rewarded, as he only got Ooze and Knight this time, which do nothing once they hit his yard.

R3: Monoblack Vampires ( I got paired down)

G1: He has no clue whats going and dies on turn 3.

Sideboard: +3 Firestorm +1 DR +1 Iona - 1 Ichorid -1 Thug -2 Breakthrough -1 Looting

G2: He still has no clue whats going on and dies to a turn 2 Iona.


R4: Terminator

G1: I mull to 6 and keep a horrible hand that loses to Force of Will, which he got. A couple of turns later I'm facing CB + Top, Jace and 2 Angels, who take me down rather quickly.

Sideboard: -1 DR -1 Ichorid -1 Thug -1 Breakthrough +3 Ashen Ghoul +1 Ancient Grudge

G2: I steamroll him with early Therapies and a turn 3 Breakthrough

G3: A blind Therapy leave him with with 2 Terminus and a Brainstorm, so I only had to play around Terminus ( i.e. only recuring 1 Ashen Ghoul and not 3) and won the game shortly afterwards.




So let talk a bit about Dryad Militant.

First of all the facts:
- yes, this card will see play as a 1-off in Maverick builds
- no, they wont run a full playset
- yes, other decks might run 4 off them ( lets say white weenie), but those decks shouldn't bother us at all ( i.e. they wont be a factor in competitive tourneys).

So with this in mind we can conclude that they won't hit the table befor turn 2
( hence Zenith for 1), so we got 1-2 turns to go apeshit on them.

Since the only way we can really explode on turn 1 is LED Dredge we can conclude that this might be the last nail to the coffin of traditional LEDless Dredge.

LEDless Dredge might start to play maindeck Firestorms again.

Another important fact, that we have to bear in mid: Dryad Militant doesn't actually do much on its own. We won't get Theraphies, Dread Returns or Lootings in our yard, but we still get Ichorids, Moebas and Bridge to steamroll their face.

So we can conclude that they'll only get Drayd if they have another piece of hate, or they'd spare that Zenith for an Ooze / Knight/. We have to keep that in mind, easpecially in game 2.

Overall I'd say that Dryad Militant won't affect us very hard, it will only proof that LED Dredge is superior to LEDless Dredge and it might force some changes in the traditional LEDless Dredge build.

[Final Fortune]

@4eak: If I was to play with Dread Return then I would either use it as a miser one of(like the Spanish lists) or go all out with a package. Playing in between makes you not reap the benifits of either. Mucking up your dredges and draws while not really making you more explosive.

Perhaps something like this: -Ichorid,-Thug,-Tarnished Citadel;+Dread Return,+Grizselbrand,+Flayer/Flame-Kin.

Either way you should definitely have the second Citadel in the sideboard as 13 lands is almost always enough for game one.

That's rubbish, there's nothing to say that you have to play a Dread Return package if you play more than 1 Dread Return, playing 2 Dread Returns means you can consistently Dread Return as opposed to mise Dread Return and you have a reliable secondary kill condition for Surgical Extraction.

I'm not saying playing 1 Dread Return is bad, but anybody who says playing 2 Dread Return with no Dread Return targets is baseless.

[Fizzeler]

That's rubbish, there's nothing to say that you have to play a Dread Return package if you play more than 1 Dread Return, playing 2 Dread Returns means you can consistently Dread Return as opposed to mise Dread Return and you have a reliable secondary kill condition for Surgical Extraction.

I'm not saying playing 1 Dread Return is bad, but anybody who says playing 2 Dread Return with no Dread Return targets is baseless.

This I play 2 DR my only target is Zealot

Playing Dread Return with no package is fine, even running 2 (to hit it more consistently), ever had to Dread Return a Stinkweed Imp to win, I have they could not survive the 9 Zombies on board + 3 Ichorids next turn and their Griselbrand could not swing without dieing (this was reanimator he was at 6 life I believe because he could not draw 7 in response to DR)

[joemauer]

@Dread Return:

Quadlazer plays none. It has been proven that we don't need the card to win at all. Dread Return in hand is a mulligan or dead card(I guess it can give Pimp flying for a turn).

The Spanish lists play one Dread Return as a just in case button. There will be games where you will need a really big troll to get there with. This is rare that you will need the Troll and/or zombies to win with. As a one of in your deck you will have Dread Return show up in those long games without messing up your draws/mulligans much. It can also give easier access to Dread Return targets from the sideboard namely Elesh Norn and Iona who can win games on their own.

You can go with a comboish kill route with three Dread Returns+Grisslebrand+Some guy who can kill your opponent. Three Dread Returns and two good creatures is the most optimal number if going for a comboish kill. It lets you hit a Dread Return+Awesome creature often enough to make it worth it that you don't have as strong of typical aggro kill angle. When you go with less Dread Returns/Creatures than 3/2; you sacrifice the consistency of the deck for little pay off. The odds that you will get a Flame Kin kill with only two Dread Returns and one Flame-Kin is very low, almost as if it kills your opponents accidentally.

So the way I see it is you can go for the utmost consistency with 0-1 Dread Returns or you can go for the ultimate combo kill with three Dread Returns. Anything in between gets you all the disadvantages and little to no advantages.

But hey it is dredge and you guys can build your decks however you. It will still basically be the same deck with subtle differences in the frequency and route in which you kill you opponents.

[sherko7]

Anybody play Faithless Looting instead of Tireless Tribe MD w/o LED?

[NecroYawgmoth]

Even without LED additional Study-effects are better than Tireless Tribe. So yes. I'd say you max out on Studies AND Lootings before you even start adding Tribes and PImps.

[Final Fortune]

@Dread Return:

Quadlazer plays none. It has been proven that we don't need the card to win at all. Dread Return in hand is a mulligan or dead card(I guess it can give Pimp flying for a turn).

The Spanish lists play one Dread Return as a just in case button. There will be games where you will need a really big troll to get there with. This is rare that you will need the Troll and/or zombies to win with. As a one of in your deck you will have Dread Return show up in those long games without messing up your draws/mulligans much. It can also give easier access to Dread Return targets from the sideboard namely Elesh Norn and Iona who can win games on their own.

You can go with a comboish kill route with three Dread Returns+Grisslebrand+Some guy who can kill your opponent. Three Dread Returns and two good creatures is the most optimal number if going for a comboish kill. It lets you hit a Dread Return+Awesome creature often enough to make it worth it that you don't have as strong of typical aggro kill angle. When you go with less Dread Returns/Creatures than 3/2; you sacrifice the consistency of the deck for little pay off. The odds that you will get a Flame Kin kill with only two Dread Returns and one Flame-Kin is very low, almost as if it kills your opponents accidentally.

So the way I see it is you can go for the utmost consistency with 0-1 Dread Returns or you can go for the ultimate combo kill with three Dread Returns. Anything in between gets you all the disadvantages and little to no advantages.

But hey it is dredge and you guys can build your decks however you. It will still basically be the same deck with subtle differences in the frequency and route in which you kill you opponents.

This is still wrong,

I don't play any Dread Returns MD and I still play 2 Dread Returns in all of my post-board games, Dread Returns have no effect on your mulligan rate unless you're cutting Putrid Imp, Dredgers, Lands or Draw for them.

3xDread Return is neither necessary or optimal for a Dread Return package, the only two viable, combo-kill Dread Return packages are 2xDread Return, 1xGriselbrand and 1xFlame Kin Zealot or 3xDread Return, 1xGriselbrand and 1xFlayer of the Hatebound and the 3rd Dread Return is only for the Golgari Grave Troll. Anytime you Dread Return your Griselbrand, you can dredge/draw 7 cards and find the remaining Dread Return and Dread Return target in all likelyhood. Yes, 3 Dread Returns is better than 2 in order to Dread Return Griselbrand, but 3 Dread Return requires you to only play 2 Ichorid and not just cut 4 Putrid Imps, leading to less creatures you can recur in order to sacrifice to Dread Return on your 2nd turn so it's not as clear cut as you say it is.

I'm not saying any of these options are wrong, but they're not right for the reasons you think they are.

I mean if you really need an "optimal" list,

MD

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast

3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Putrid Imp
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

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

4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study

SB

4 Firestorm (for Dryad Militant)
4 Nature's Claim
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Dread Return
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (for the Dredge mirror)
2 Tarnished Citadel

Is about as optimal as it gets, if you play the 2 Tarnished Citadels and 2 Dread Return MD instead of the 4 Lion's Eye Diamonds then you can SB 4 Leyline of the Void and have an edge in the mirror over the course of a match.

[Ghiwo]

Hi everyone! Talking about sideboard is it better to run 4 Leyline of the Void or 4 Faerie Macabre? I mean, Faerie seems good against reanimator, she can remove the first fatty and also feed Ichorid, but I think it's obviously worse in mirror. Her best skill is to be unaffected by any kind of antihate (counters, removals). Leyline seems a lot more consistent but it could be broken by nature's claim in mirror, bounced by chain of vapor vs reanimator. I don't know, which one do you think is the best?

[joemauer]

Yes, 3 Dread Returns is better than 2 in order to Dread Return Griselbrand


This was my point actually. If you are going to muck up your maindeck with Dread Returns then you want to make sure you are able to consistently use them to win with.

[Vandalize]

I'm attending a Legacy Qualifier tomorrow and this is my list, with just a little doubt on the sideboard:

4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum (brand new From the Vault ones :D)
4 City of Brass (7E Foils that's worth my wage :()
1 Tarnished Citadel

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return

4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid

SB1: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB1: 4 Nature's Claim
SB1: 2 Tarnished Citadel
SB1: 2 Firestorm
SB1: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB1: 1 Dread Return
SB1: 1 Ancient Grudge

SB2: 4 Nature's Claim
SB2: 3 Faerie Macabre
SB2: 3 Firestorm
SB2: 2 Tarnished Citadel
SB2: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB2: 1 Dread Return
SB2: 1 Ancient Grudge

Which version is better if I'm expecting a lot of Merfolk, Reanimator, T.E.S/ANT and GW Maverick?

I'm leaning towards the second one.

[that0neguy]

BTW, what do people think about Tarnished Citadel vs Undiscovered Paridise?

I always thought that Undiscovered Paridise was much nicer.

It helps you recover from a countered spell much faster to get back up to 7 cards to discard. The downside being that it is difficult to hardcast drawn thugs/narcomeobas.

[Calado]

BTW, what do people think about Tarnished Citadel vs Undiscovered Paridise?

I always thought that Undiscovered Paridise was much nicer.

It helps you recover from a countered spell much faster to get back up to 7 cards to discard. The downside being that it is difficult to hardcast drawn thugs/narcomeobas.
The problem with paradise is that it makes you unable to activate coliseum on turn 2.
Although it's good when you use bloodghast.

[Vandalize]

Report. LQ for the Brazil's Legacy National. 38 players showed up.

The list:

4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthough
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Firestorm
SB: 2 Tarnished Citadel
SB: 1 Dread Return
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge

Prizes for the top 8 in the swiss + cut for the top 8 (finalists would go to the National).

R1: Elfball (0-2)

G1: I keep CC, Putrid, City of Brass, Breakthough, 2 Studys, 1 Bridge. Never find a Dredger and he combo out turn 4.

SB: -4 Lion's Eye Diamond +2 Firestorm, +1 Dread Return, +1 Iona

G2: I mull to 6 and manage to Firestorm two Dredgers in the yard slowing him down a bit, dredge nothing good with Troll, and he Crypts me out. I don't have another discard outlet, and procede do die.

R2: Deadguy Ale (BW Stoneforge) (2-0)

G1: I open with a turn 1 Putrid into turn 2 Breakthough and just blow him out. He's never into this game, but he plays Scrubland -> Sensei's Divining Top, so I put him on Deadguy.

SB: nothing

G2: I open with Putrid Imp again, and he goes Scrubland -> Sensei's. I drop a Stinkweed in my upkeep, and dredge a Narcomoeba and Therapy. I therapy naming Surgical, he reveals Enlightened Tutor and nothing else relevant. I procede to drop a land, and Careful Study twice, flipping half my deck, but can't find the second Therapy. But I do hit a Dread Return and another narcomoeba, as well as 2 Bridge from Below. I just reanimate a 6/6 Troll and make 6 Zombies. He tutors for Crypt and remove my GY, but is too far behind in the race.

R3: Burn (2-0)

G1: He drops Figure of Destiny turn 1. I drop 12 zombies and 4 Therapys in turn 1.

SB: +1 Iona, Shield of Emeria, +1 Dread Return -1 Ichorid, -1 Breakthrough.

G2: I keep a hand with 2 Putrid Imp, 2 Dredgers, City and Cephalid. He starts with Goblin Guide, giving me a Tarnished Citadel. I dump a dredger in the yard, and he removes it with Faerie Macabre. I discard the second Dredger, and go nuts with Cephalid Coliseum. My Bridges are removed with Surgical, but I manage to bring back Iona to seal the deal.

R4: Maverick (2-0)

G1: I start with PImp + LED. He starts with Dryad Arbor, lol. I go for Coliseum into Looting chain, and flip my entire deck. Cast all Cabal Therapies and in the 4th one I name Lord of Atlantis, just for the lulz.

SB: -1 Ichorid, -1 Breakthrough, +2 Firestorm

G2: He starts with fetch into Noble Hierarch. I go for the Breakthrough + LED + Looting stuff, and he justs dies with Wheel of Sun and Moon in hand. Now Lord of Atlantis gave space to Mogg Fanatic, as my Therapy choice of target.

R5: Show and Tell (2-1)

G1: He starts cantriping, and FoW my Breakthrough after a DDD. I start slowdredging and hit all my Therapys, putting him far behind. I start bashing with 2 Zombies. When he's at 4, he Show and Tells Emrakul and I just drop a 5/5 Troll and swing for the win.

SB: +2 Tarnished Citadel +4 Nature's Claim, -4 Lion's Eye Diamond, -2 Breakthough (I saw him SBing 4 cards, so I put him on Leyline).

G2: He mulligans to 6, and drop Show and Tell for Emrakul turn 1. I therapy him and see Tormod's Crypt. Yay.

SB: -4 Nature's Claim, -2 Tarnished, +4 Lion's Eye Diamond, +2 Breakthrough

G3: He mulls to 5, and I Therapy for Brainstorm, hitting twice. He doesn't have any countermagic, nor cantrips, and I just roll him.

4-1 on the swiss, 3rd on the standings. Won 12 packs of Avacyn Restored boosters, and procede do open nothing but a Bonfire of the Damned.

Top 8: Show and Tell (2-1)

G1: He mulls to 6, and I DDD into Breaktough, but it gets Spell Pierced. He Show and Tells turn 3, and I don't have enough graveyard to beat him.

SB: nothing, he doesn't SB as well.

G2: He mulls to 5, and I mull to 4. But my keep is: City of Brass, Faithless Looting, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Golgari Grave-Troll. I go all-in and he doesn't have Force. I hit 1 Narcomoeba, 3 Bridges and 2 Therapys and leave his hand with 2 Lands and Emrakul. He can't recover.

G3: He cantrips, I go for the turn 1 Breakthrough + LED, and he doesn't have Force. GG

Top 4: Belcher (2-1)

G1: He Burning Wish 10 goblins turn 1 on the play. I make 12 zombies turn 1 on the draw.

SB: +1 Iona, Shield of Emeria, +1 Dread Return, -1 Putrid Imp, -1 Ichorid

G2: I mulligan to 6, and keep a Putrid Imp + Thug + Study hand. He goes for turn 1 Belcher.

SB: nothing

G3: I keep a lousy turn 2 Coliseum hand, and he goes for Burning Wish with storm count 7. He fails to find his Empty the Warrens and I call the Judge for a deck check. His sideboard has 14 cards and his deck has 61. He gets a game loss. YAY.

Finals: Esper Stoneblade (2-0)

G1: I play Putrid Imp. He plays Fetch. I discard Troll and Dredge, followed by Breakthough, he scoops in response.

He has to go and concede game 2, as he already has his spot in the National. So I end 1st :D

[that0neguy]

Rest in Peace 1W

Enchantment
When Rest in Peace enters the battlefield, exile all cards from all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
Illus. Terese Nielsen

This seems really bad for us. White decks might actually pick this one up for their sideboard, where noone actually wanted to play grafdiggers cage.

Seems like chain of vapor won't even be too effective against this.

[(nameless one)]

Rest in Peace 1W

Enchantment
When Rest in Peace enters the battlefield, exile all cards from all graveyards.
If a card or token would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.
Illus. Terese Nielsen

This seems really bad for us. White decks might actually pick this one up for their sideboard, where noone actually wanted to play grafdiggers cage.

Seems like chain of vapor won't even be too effective against this.

Forget about sideboard and worry about being in the main.

This card can be Enlightened Tutored. While decks that aren't creature-based are typically slow, meaning that they will be using a really quick way to win late game. This card conveniently fits with Helm of Obidience. So on top of green creature decks packing Scavenging Ooze, Dredge needs to worry about white decks packing this.

[that0neguy]

It seems a little weak in the main. And I don't think this tips the balance for maindecking Etutor in higher numbers (I know some decks run it, but seems like most board in 2 tutors with a couple bullets). If you look at the DTB, it only is amazing against dredge and reanimate, with some spash damage to Mongoose/goyf, but terrible against Mav, goblins, merfolk, miracles, and Show and tell decks.

That being said, I think this is the strongest white graveyard hate printed to date. It's tormods crypt and a castable leyline in a single card, at the cost of shutting off snapcaster mage and lingering souls - but that hardly seems like much of a problem.

[joemauer]

Rest in Peace will only be maindecked in some quirky Helm of Obediance decks, but considering those aren't competive with Leyline of the Void then I don't foresee it being more competive with this card.

There are a few reasons this won't be maindecked.

One reason it won't be maindecked is the fact that it is symmetrical. What deck doesn't use the graveyard one bit and uses white? Ok, could you really see this going into a Death and Taxes maindeck?

The second reason it won't be in maindecks is that it can't cycle itself like Relic of Progenitus. It is a dead card in too many matchups.

I don't see a whole lot of decks using this a sideboard card. Mostly because Relic of Progenitus is usually better in most situations at similar mana cost.

All that being said, it really irks me that WotC feels inclined to print graveyard hate in every set. Couldn't they print some Show and Tell hate that can be used in all colors instead? Give us dredge players a break.

[Calado]

Report. LQ for the Brazil's Legacy National. 38 players showed up.

The list:

4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthough
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Firestorm
SB: 2 Tarnished Citadel
SB: 1 Dread Return
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge

Prizes for the top 8 in the swiss + cut for the top 8 (finalists would go to the National).

R1: Elfball (0-2)

G1: I keep CC, Putrid, City of Brass, Breakthough, 2 Studys, 1 Bridge. Never find a Dredger and he combo out turn 4.

SB: -4 Lion's Eye Diamond +2 Firestorm, +1 Dread Return, +1 Iona

G2: I mull to 6 and manage to Firestorm two Dredgers in the yard slowing him down a bit, dredge nothing good with Troll, and he Crypts me out. I don't have another discard outlet, and procede do die.

R2: Deadguy Ale (BW Stoneforge) (2-0)

G1: I open with a turn 1 Putrid into turn 2 Breakthough and just blow him out. He's never into this game, but he plays Scrubland -> Sensei's Divining Top, so I put him on Deadguy.

SB: nothing

G2: I open with Putrid Imp again, and he goes Scrubland -> Sensei's. I drop a Stinkweed in my upkeep, and dredge a Narcomoeba and Therapy. I therapy naming Surgical, he reveals Enlightened Tutor and nothing else relevant. I procede to drop a land, and Careful Study twice, flipping half my deck, but can't find the second Therapy. But I do hit a Dread Return and another narcomoeba, as well as 2 Bridge from Below. I just reanimate a 6/6 Troll and make 6 Zombies. He tutors for Crypt and remove my GY, but is too far behind in the race.

R3: Burn (2-0)

G1: He drops Figure of Destiny turn 1. I drop 12 zombies and 4 Therapys in turn 1.

SB: +1 Iona, Shield of Emeria, +1 Dread Return -1 Ichorid, -1 Breakthrough.

G2: I keep a hand with 2 Putrid Imp, 2 Dredgers, City and Cephalid. He starts with Goblin Guide, giving me a Tarnished Citadel. I dump a dredger in the yard, and he removes it with Faerie Macabre. I discard the second Dredger, and go nuts with Cephalid Coliseum. My Bridges are removed with Surgical, but I manage to bring back Iona to seal the deal.

R4: Maverick (2-0)

G1: I start with PImp + LED. He starts with Dryad Arbor, lol. I go for Coliseum into Looting chain, and flip my entire deck. Cast all Cabal Therapies and in the 4th one I name Lord of Atlantis, just for the lulz.

SB: -1 Ichorid, -1 Breakthrough, +2 Firestorm

G2: He starts with fetch into Noble Hierarch. I go for the Breakthrough + LED + Looting stuff, and he justs dies with Wheel of Sun and Moon in hand. Now Lord of Atlantis gave space to Mogg Fanatic, as my Therapy choice of target.

R5: Show and Tell (2-1)

G1: He starts cantriping, and FoW my Breakthrough after a DDD. I start slowdredging and hit all my Therapys, putting him far behind. I start bashing with 2 Zombies. When he's at 4, he Show and Tells Emrakul and I just drop a 5/5 Troll and swing for the win.

SB: +2 Tarnished Citadel +4 Nature's Claim, -4 Lion's Eye Diamond, -2 Breakthough (I saw him SBing 4 cards, so I put him on Leyline).

G2: He mulligans to 6, and drop Show and Tell for Emrakul turn 1. I therapy him and see Tormod's Crypt. Yay.

SB: -4 Nature's Claim, -2 Tarnished, +4 Lion's Eye Diamond, +2 Breakthrough

G3: He mulls to 5, and I Therapy for Brainstorm, hitting twice. He doesn't have any countermagic, nor cantrips, and I just roll him.

4-1 on the swiss, 3rd on the standings. Won 12 packs of Avacyn Restored boosters, and procede do open nothing but a Bonfire of the Damned.

Top 8: Show and Tell (2-1)

G1: He mulls to 6, and I DDD into Breaktough, but it gets Spell Pierced. He Show and Tells turn 3, and I don't have enough graveyard to beat him.

SB: nothing, he doesn't SB as well.

G2: He mulls to 5, and I mull to 4. But my keep is: City of Brass, Faithless Looting, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Golgari Grave-Troll. I go all-in and he doesn't have Force. I hit 1 Narcomoeba, 3 Bridges and 2 Therapys and leave his hand with 2 Lands and Emrakul. He can't recover.

G3: He cantrips, I go for the turn 1 Breakthrough + LED, and he doesn't have Force. GG

Top 4: Belcher (2-1)

G1: He Burning Wish 10 goblins turn 1 on the play. I make 12 zombies turn 1 on the draw.

SB: +1 Iona, Shield of Emeria, +1 Dread Return, -1 Putrid Imp, -1 Ichorid

G2: I mulligan to 6, and keep a Putrid Imp + Thug + Study hand. He goes for turn 1 Belcher.

SB: nothing

G3: I keep a lousy turn 2 Coliseum hand, and he goes for Burning Wish with storm count 7. He fails to find his Empty the Warrens and I call the Judge for a deck check. His sideboard has 14 cards and his deck has 61. He gets a game loss. YAY.

Finals: Esper Stoneblade (2-0)

G1: I play Putrid Imp. He plays Fetch. I discard Troll and Dredge, followed by Breakthough, he scoops in response.

He has to go and concede game 2, as he already has his spot in the National. So I end 1st :D

Nice one! Congratulations!
Btw, I'm from Minas Gerais. I'll try to watch the National.

[that0neguy]

People might still have a maindeck relic if they want MD GY hate, but out of the sideboard, this thing is king for white decks.

The 3 decks to beat that you bring in GY hate against are Dredge, Reanimate, and RUG, and this is great against all 3.

And this is much scarier than relic.

If you build up your GY through relic and they pop relic, its gone, and if you have set up your hand correctly, you can just drop some more dredgers and go to town. Against this, it eats our GY, and then we need to deal with it, after they have already gotten value from it.

We are more likely to be able to hit it with a cabal therapy, but it also incentivizes them to fight the therapy until it comes down.

People cried the sky is falling with Grafdiggers cage, but grafdiggers cage did not do any splash damage to decks like RUG, or maverick. At least this one can only be run in white decks, but I think those decks will run it.

[Final Fortune]

Grafdigger's Cage is more likely to see play than Rest in Peace, and Grafdigger's Cage only sees marginal play. The fact of the matter is, if your graveyard hate costs 2cc then you deserve to get a Morning Tide and Planar Void all in one, because the likelyhood the Dredge player either A) kills you before you can play it or B) discards it before you can cast it are extremely relevant considerations compared to Surgical Extraction, which is free and can be cast on your opponent's turn and Tormod's Crypt, which is free.

Like, unless you're playing Force of Will, I don't even think Tormod's Crypt is viable hate vs Dredge, because I've played vs both Ravager Affinity and Mogg Fanatic Goblins that could remove my Bridge from Belows as a natural mechanic of their deck and they still routinely lost game 3.

Unless Helm of Obedience becomes a thing, I'm more worried about Judge's Familiar, Dryad Militant and Deathrite Shaman than this.

[Calado]

Looking at the DTBs of the month, I've noticed Omniscience (Omnishow would be more aesthetic, btw).
Anyone faced this matchup? I still have too much problems against Sneak Attack, but this one seems stronger (harder to outrace).
How to deal with them?

[Fizzeler]

Grafdigger's Cage is more likely to see play than Rest in Peace, and Grafdigger's Cage only sees marginal play. The fact of the matter is, if your graveyard hate costs 2cc then you deserve to get a Morning Tide and Planar Void all in one, because the likelyhood the Dredge player either A) kills you before you can play it or B) discards it before you can cast it are extremely relevant considerations compared to Surgical Extraction, which is free and can be cast on your opponent's turn and Tormod's Crypt, which is free.

Like, unless you're playing Force of Will, I don't even think Tormod's Crypt is viable hate vs Dredge, because I've played vs both Ravager Affinity and Mogg Fanatic Goblins that could remove my Bridge from Belows as a natural mechanic of their deck and they still routinely lost game 3.

Unless Helm of Obedience becomes a thing, I'm more worried about Judge's Familiar, Dryad Militant and Deathrite Shaman than this.

QFT

You hit the nail on the head Final, RIP is to slow and really won't be played in many decks other than decks that have better options anyway (like Wheel Of The Sun And Moon), RIP isn't one-sided so the decks that utilize their own GY won't play it (which are most decks in the format, when was the last time you saw a Maverick deck board in Relic?)

I could see Void Helm ending up like Griffins, then again it is now much more powerful thanks to RIP, but still not good

[Klazam]

Looking at the DTBs of the month, I've noticed Omniscience (Omnishow would be more aesthetic, btw).
Anyone faced this matchup? I still have too much problems against Sneak Attack, but this one seems stronger (harder to outrace).
How to deal with them?

I've never lost vs show and tell. It's just about keeping the right hand- either ones that enable cabal therapy very early or hands with a insane fatty (Griselbrand, and angel of despair are the main ones I can think of but a iona isn't too bad- locking them out of blue is nice). It helps that I run a 3dr build post board and a 4 therapy 2dr build pre board.

Edit:(and by show and tell I'm including hive mind, old school s+t, sneak and show, and omnishow.)

[Felidae]

At least this one can only be run in white decks, but I think those decks will run it.

Any sentencethat starts with the words "can only be run in white decks" should bother us as much as " can only be run in Burn".

And befor you ask: No, I don't consider Terminator nor UWx Blade a "white deck" and I also don't believe that those decks will run it.

Seriously just stick to the things Fortune allready said and don't worry about this card.

But at least the artwork is nice.

Also: congratz to Vandalize ( allthough I don't like the 2 Firestorms in your board, as they appear to be to random to matter, in most scenarios) and good luck for the nationals.

[Final Fortune]

Looking at the DTBs of the month, I've noticed Omniscience (Omnishow would be more aesthetic, btw).
Anyone faced this matchup? I still have too much problems against Sneak Attack, but this one seems stronger (harder to outrace).
How to deal with them?

Game 1 is in the bag, match up comes down to the severity of their SB hate i.e. Surgical Extraction vs Leyline of the Void etc. Personally I've really given up trying to give Omniscience a chance at beating Dredge and Reanimator over 3 games, I just play Faerie Macabre to give myself the best Reanimator match up I can and pray it's enough vs. Dredge.

No worries IMO.

[slave]

I have a few questions about Dredge - hoping someone could help me out?

Looking to build a dredge deck, but unsure which way I should go.
I just don't have the money currently for LED,
it's a crucial part of the deck I know, and without it Faithless isn't so important, etc.

Thinking about MANA-less VS LED-less Build???
So, given all the grave-hate in Legacy, (including the new Rest in Peace), and the difficulty Mana-less has playing around hate - is Mana-less even competitive?

I've looked at a few LED-less lists, and seen them run a few different options, like Tireless Tribe & Putrid Imp (with free draw spells like Street Wraith/Gitaxian Probe)
Provided a deck has a heavy threat/dredge density, is these two above cards (Imp & Tribe) really the best way to get around having no LED in the deck?
And is Faithless Looting okay without it also?

[Mindlash]

I have a few questions about Dredge - hoping someone could help me out?

Looking to build a dredge deck, but unsure which way I should go.
I just don't have the money currently for LED,
it's a crucial part of the deck I know, and without it Faithless isn't so important, etc.

Thinking about MANA-less VS LED-less Build???
So, given all the grave-hate in Legacy, (including the new Rest in Peace), and the difficulty Mana-less has playing around hate - is Mana-less even competitive?

I've looked at a few LED-less lists, and seen them run a few different options, like Tireless Tribe & Putrid Imp (with free draw spells like Street Wraith/Gitaxian Probe)
Provided a deck has a heavy threat/dredge density, is these two above cards (Imp & Tribe) really the best way to get around having no LED in the deck?
And is Faithless Looting okay without it also?

I would probably start with something like the old Konkurs Ledless Dredge list with another Sideboard or with the Quadlaser Build - 4 LED + 3 Citadels +1 Tribe/Firestorm and replace the Lands in the Sideboard of the Quadlaser with Tribes/Firestorms. Looting deserves a place in Ledless as well. It helps post board in finding hate, is an enabler and a discard spell.

There was another interesting Version with Maindeck Firestorms in the German Forums, but this was pre-Looting.

Firestorms maybe a good Sideboard card post-Ravnica though, with all those Hatebears popping up left and right.

If you are interested in Manaless I would recommend Hollywoods decklist. It has Maindeck removal which can be used against hatebears or protect Ichorid froms Stp and so on and can fight hate with Claims and Reverent silence.

Manaless feels much more consistent and can fight easier through Surgicals due to the high thread density in your GY. It also feels much more dredgy :-)

Ledless/Led-Dredge can mulligan if needed and can be more explosive due to Breakthrough and other enablers. It feels also easier to fight hate with it. You can just blow up their hate. Discard a Dredger to Imp/Tribe and go all out with your Drawspells.

Manaless has to use some cards to fight the hate and time walks itself a bit until you can go on dredging again.

You might get problems with fast combo decks with Manaless and Ledless Dredge though.

Greetings Mindlash

[sherko7]

Quick question, kinda noobish too so I'm sorry... Is there anyway I can cast Breakthrough, wait for them to say it resolves before cracking my LED? Because all this time I've been casting Breakthrough and then cracking LED even before opponents can get a chance to respond. I am not entirely sure about the "PRIORITY" rule really... I can't even break LED in response to Breakthrough on MTGO :laugh:

[Klazam]

On mtgo, you have to hold down ctrl key to retain priority, or something like that.

And, no. You have to cast BT, hold priority, then crack LED in response. If you don't, your opponent will simply let BT resolve, which doesn't give you a chance to crack LED, which is.. Bad

[Mindlash]

Quick question, kinda noobish too so I'm sorry... Is there anyway I can cast Breakthrough, wait for them to say it resolves before cracking my LED? Because all this time I've been casting Breakthrough and then cracking LED even before opponents can get a chance to respond. I am not entirely sure about the "PRIORITY" rule really... I can't even break LED in response to Breakthrough on MTGO :laugh:

You have to crack LED before you pass priority. If you pass priority before the LED crack you will not get the chance again to crack it before Breakthrough resolves if your opponent doesn't respond.

If they just Daze / Spellpierce you in response you can use the mana from LED to pay the taxes.

Edit: Slow Mindlash is slow :-/

[slave]

If you are interested in Manaless I would recommend Hollywoods decklist. It has Maindeck removal......Manaless feels much more consistent and can fight easier through Surgicals due to the high thread density in your GY. It also feels much more dredgy :-)

Ledless/Led-Dredge can mulligan if needed.....

You might get problems with fast combo decks with Manaless and Ledless Dredge though.

Greetings Mindlash

Thanks Mindlash!
Hollywoods' List does look pretty good, as do the others you mentioned.
I really like the consistency with Mana-less, but the LED version does look much faster.
LED versions look to me to be very much a combo deck.....

Some Manaless decks I've seen pack 4 Dread Returns and about 5 to 6 targets, like Griselbrand, Flayer etc. Looks like it wouldn't be too bad against SnT decks....

[Mindlash]

Thanks Mindlash!
Hollywoods' List does look pretty good, as do the others you mentioned.
I really like the consistency with Mana-less, but the LED version does look much faster.
LED versions look to me to be very much a combo deck.....

Some Manaless decks I've seen pack 4 Dread Returns and about 5 to 6 targets, like Griselbrand, Flayer etc. Looks like it wouldn't be too bad against SnT decks....

Manaless goes well against SNT if they have to pass the turn or your target is Angel of Despair. Happened more than once to me :-)

LED Dredge can be played with a combo-resque finish. I myself play the LED Quadlaser List most of the time, which plays more like an aggro-control grinder.dec with a combo-engine :-)

If you want to go LEDdredge sooner or later I would recommend not to go with Manaless, because the alternatives I posted contain most stuff of LED-Dredge so you can minimize the money you have to spend (though Manaless is really cheap by itself ^^).

[(nameless one)]

Speaking of LED Dredge vs. Manaless Dredge:

I'm contemplating to update my old list. I am not planning to pilot it more often (I have MUD as my primary deck) but I do like having options when the local meta shifts.

Anyways, what would be the better deck to catch a meta that will run less gravehate but resilient enough against the current DtB list?

Personally I'm contemplating on upgrading to Manaless since its cheaper ($240 for playset of LED is debatable in my budget).

Thanks in advance!

[Mindlash]

Speaking of LED Dredge vs. Manaless Dredge:

I'm contemplating to update my old list. I am not planning to pilot it more often (I have MUD as my primary deck) but I do like having options when the local meta shifts.

Anyways, what would be the better deck to catch a meta that will run less gravehate but resilient enough against the current DtB list?

Personally I'm contemplating on upgrading to Manaless since its cheaper ($240 for playset of LED is debatable in my budget).

Thanks in advance!

Both decks are capable to catch a meta off guard.

Manaless may have easier times against the hate you can run occasionally into like Surgical Extraction or Tormod's Crypt due to the higher thread density.

LED Dredge has an easier time to deal with permanent hate due to multiple cmc1 discard outlets to restart dredging after the coast is clear.

I do not have any accurate percentages on specific matchups, but both decks do well against RUG Delver and Miracle Control. Blade Control feels easier with Manaless to me although it is totally doable with LED Dredge as well.

Maverick on the other feels easier with LED Dredge due to the explosive starts which Manaless is lacking. I have no experiences with Manaless against Maverick, but I remember Hollywood saying something like: Turn 2 Ooze with 1 open mana is highly unlikely and even then you still can kill their Noble with your removal in their upkeep.

Goblins can kill your Bridges easily and do some annoying stuff with Krenko. But again..Manaless has the high thread density and removal, while LED Dredge has the explosive starts.

ANT, Belcher and the like should be easier for LED Dredge due to its speed. I don't think Manaless has good chances here. Same goes for Reanimator and the mirror.

Omnitell might also be a little bit worse for Manaless unless they SnT and cannot finish you of the same turn, while you drop Griselbrand :-)

Manaless feels a bit like a tank to me. It has a more slow playstyle at the beginning, but every dredge is likely to reveal threats. Once you DR Griselbrand the Deck explodes (which is not unlikely to occur early due to 4 DR, 3 Grisel and lots of saccing material).

LED Dredge feels faster and menacing in the beginning, but often dredges lands or studies which do not bring more pressure to the table. I love it to create a lot of Zombies before my opponents first turn while stripping their hand apart ;-)

I think it is more of a personal choice and how much you want to invest. I like the feeling of LED Dredge and once I got my LEDs it was easy to build a Belcher too (which is lots of fun once in a while ^^). I also play ANT. So my LEDs really paid off.

If you don't want to play the deck very often and have no other use for LED I would prefer Manaless because it is cheaper and in times where your Meta is infested by Leylines and the like you can still play your MUD Deck :-)

Greetings Mindlash

PS: Feel free to correct / add something to this. I wrote it mostly out of my own experiences and I haven't played Manaless very often lately. Just some random online games or playtesting with friends.

[Ghiwo]

Can someone help me and give me some tips about the Miracle match-up? I find it very difficult to win post board. They board in tons of hate, Surgical, Grafdigger's Cage (via Enlightened Tutor).. Plus they have Terminus, Swords to Plowshares, Counterbalance as usual..
I play a LEDless Quadlaser, -4 LED +3 Tarnished Citadel + 1 Dread Return, and that's my Board:
1 Griselbrand
1 Dread return
4 Leyline of The Void
4 Firestorm
4 Nature's Claim
1 Free Slot (have to fill it!)
I was testing with a friend of mine preparing for a 60-70 people tournament on the 21th of Oct. I won G1 not so easily, but, anyway, I thought, Miracle is though, it could be that's quite difficult even G1.
I did my usual boarding, as Final Fortune taught me some pages before +1 DR +1 Griselbrand and I chose to do -2 Breakthrough this time. I also thought that Firestorm could have been great as a uncounterable discard outlet and an unexpected way to close the game, so I did -2 Breakthrough -2 Faithless Looting +4 Firestorm. So.. I was unprepared to Grafdigger's Cage, and I didn't expect it! Ok, that's my fault, I thought, I should have thought to Cage.. So I went on beating with Imps bringing him to 4. My game-ending Firestorm gets countered and Entreat the Angels closes the game.
I boarded this way: -4 Firestorm +4 Claim
G3 he shows early Cage, I have Claim and I draw Therapy. Unfortunately the way to disrupt his hand via Therapy and "counter-me" spells (I'm sorry I don't know the English word!) like looting and study is too long, and when I finally destroy Cage EOT, manage to reanimate 2 Ichorids, then the next turn he shows me Entreat the Angels..

Maybe I have to fill my free slot with Ingot Chewer! I'm sure I played and boarded wrong!