Thanks for the feedback regarding Amalgam and Street Wraith! I might start testing again with Amalgam instead of Wraith. I used to run zero Wraith, zero PImp, so I don't feel like I'll be missing it too much, but time will tell.
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I was just recently watching the movie Knuckleball!, about Wakefield and Dickey. And throughout, the correlation between knuckleballers and Dredge players just kept slamming me in the face.
Nobody starts out playing Dredge. It's never an introductory deck to Magic, no matter the format. And even those who have the knowledge to run it initially never choose to. Everybody wants the 96 mph fastball, sort of like Storm. Or wants to paint the corners and eke out every little advantage like Delver. Or even force other players to swing at curveballs and sliders they know they'll never hit, sort of like Miracles. They certainly don't think they'll gain fame and fortune being a junk baller.
Most knuckle ballers are forced to it by injury, or lack of pure talent. Just like most Dredge players choose it initially as a budget deck. But for the great ones. Hough, Wake, the Niekro brothers, it was a calling. Once they start, going back was never really an option. It becomes part of you. Your identity. In some ways, in life, as well as Magic
Knuckle ballers do everything backwards. Their grip, wind up, delivery. All range from slightly different, to completely opposite of what other pitchers do. Obviously it's the same with Dredge. To the point, some don't even consider it playing Magic. Your graveyard is your hand. Your library is just a depleting asset. Your hand is usually irrelevant. No one respects what you do. Though most fear it.
Dredge players rely on the power of their deck, and the fact that it attacks on an axis the most are unprepared for. Also, it preys on Blue based decks specifically, since their primary interactions, which are the most consistent and powerful, don't often line up against what Dredge is trying to do. Knuckle ballers traditionally do best against the better contact hitters. Your Jeter, Olerud, Williams. The smart ones with the great batting average lose all advantage when neither they, nor the pitcher knows exactly where the ball is going. And, in a similar vein, the power hitters can light up a junk baller by just swinging for the fences and getting lucky. Just how a Storm or Sneak just can just blow Dredge out before it even gets going.
In both cases, the player, and/or the manager has to have real intestinal fortitude. Because the fact is, you don't have any guaranteed consistency. You can throw back to back shutouts, or finish X-0 in running tournaments, then give up 5 runs in the 1st inning. With your performing the exact way each time. Throwing a dead ball it just like dredging into your graveyard. You can be mechanically perfect, and the wind can still carry a slow ball dead into the strike zone. It takes a special kind of person to accept this. And to know that if you just stick with it, the averages will even out. Especially with as much on the line as it is in the Majors or a big Magic tournament.
Both Dredge and knuckleballers are linear in strategy and paths to victory. But in both cases, you have to know when to switch up tempo within that strategy. To vary tactics. You can push a Knuckleball close to 90, losing a bit of the dead ball effect to shorten the time the enemy has to react. But if you don't drop some of them under 70mph, the batter will catch on. And most likely take you yard. Same with Dredge. The whole LED into Breakthrough is your most powerful play. And one of the main draws to the deck. But if you don't choose to manage your resources carefully and pick your spots, a Crop Rotation into Bog, or a well-timed Terminus is going to end your tournament in a hurry.
I don't have a conclusion, and I'm sure there's more that I missed. But I just felt like sharing.
It's also important that Dredge players have patience and can accept losing to resolved hate (without answer) over a stretch of bad losses. It's okay, it's just going to happen. It's part of being a Dredge player and comes with the territory.
More so you should just stop carring about losing games to hate altogether, you didn't make a mistake that resulted in your own loss and you can immediately move on to the next game. It's basically the same zen you need in poker whenever you get coolered, oh my KK ran into your AA ... whatever. You basically take turns making the other feel completely helpless to whatever you're doing, tit for tat.
======SPOILER ALERT========
So they've just leaked the new white Recruiter of the Guard. A toolbox card for 3cmc that can fetch up Faerie Macabre, Containment Priest etc etc.
A card like this makes a mainboard toolbox approach (think Goblins etc.) completely possible in some (already) strong white decks.
Bugger me backwards. This could hurt us
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It's just too slow. The game should be effectively over by turn three. And if you're running FoW, it's definitely too slow. If they start running a bullet Macabre to go with Recruiter, AND they open with it, you could get blown out. I'll take my chances every time. I've yet to drop a game to DnT while running Force.
Coincidentally, not only will the uptick in DnT be a welcome change, the resulting uptick in Combo should also be good with the Force SB.
SPOILER = Sanctum Prelate Looks like we'll have a Chalice on legs to contend with, like the format needed it.
I think we might need to consider removal we can cast through Chalice effects even more so now, maybe even maindeck.
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If playing against RIP, Containment Priest and Cage still hasn't deterred you then idk how this new card will...
#justundeadthings
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You're a hard man Que.
Exactly.
Chalice of the Void - "Whenever a player casts a spell with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Chalice of the Void, counter that spell."
Sanctum Prelate - "Noncreature spells with converted mana cost equal to the chosen number can't be cast."
I agree that Prelate isn't going to matter all that much if we can go off quickly, assuming they're not running maindeck RiP/Helm.
White is going to have Plowshares, Thalia, Containment & Prelate, not to mention Terminus. That's a minefield.
anyone here the guy that won the starcity classic? if so, any report? how was amalgam, how were the forces? how was the maindeck firestorm?
-rob
Forces were nice on the draw for him g3 vs me at least in rnd 6. Won him the game off my mul to five for t2 trinisphere. His shirt in the victor's photo is legendary. Congrats!
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