It feels very win-more.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle".
- Albert Einstein
Well, we ARE talking about impraticable DR targets.Originally Posted by JPoJohnson
IF we are making a bad choice, at least put a cool creature in it =P
Just wait until you Griselbrand into a Nichol Bolas with Dragon's Breath, that's a fucking ultra combo right there.
So this is my current list:
[Lands]
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
[Dredgers]
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
[Enablers]
4 Putrid Imp
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
2 Dread Return
4 Narcomoeba
[Combo stuff]
3 Breakthrough
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
[Kill]
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
[Sideboard]
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Griselbrand
4 Nether Shadow
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Breakthrough
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Nature’s Claim
I play DR main, but with no dedicated targets. Resolving it alone is often powerful enough G1.
My current plan is to board as such:
Against DRS/Midrange decks:
-3 breakthrough
-2 Dread return
-4 LED
+ 4 nature's claim
+ 4 nether shadow
+ 1 tarnished citadel
Against decks I want to race (i.e. general faster combo decks):
- 4 ichorid
- slot I don't like in the MU
+ 1 breakthrough
+ 1 Dread Return
+ 1 Griselbrand (to keep the engine going in one turn)
+ 1 Flame-kin Zealot (To get the kill)
+ 1 Iona/Elesh (whichever's better in the respective MU)
However, what I still don't really do well is boarding against Miracles/Permission decks. How would you go about it? Any general comments/tips to my build?
Meta consists of lots of fair decks (Junk/Deathblade/Merfolk/Miracles) and a some conventional unfair decks (Elves, Storm & Reanimator). There's almost no Tempo, Sneak&Show, Omnitell or painted stone going on.
Any suggestions?
[instant EDIT: I also am still very much in debate with myself regarding Dread return. I think it's great against an unknown opponent, but I feel it generally sucks against any permission/DRS deck. What do you think?
Dread Return probably sucks in the MD and in the SB right now, nobody really plays Surgical Extraction over Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage and Nihil Spellbomb so diversifying your sacrifice cards really isn't necessary.
If the deck is going to evolve at all, I think you have to look at other avenues than Dread Return, like Lotus Petal instead of Lands and Street Wraith or Phantasmagorian instead of Putrid Imp.
I feel the same way, however with my very limited experience I prefer learning to drive before I try to reinvent the wheel.
Are people currently involved in evolving this deck? New innovations are always awesome!
lotus petal, street wraith, and phantasmagorian have all been tried in LED dredge and have been deemed unnecessary. these concepts really aren't new or innovative. the deck is powerful enough to win with these in the list but that just goes back to the intrinsic power of the archetype. Dredge is busted, we all know that. street wraith is a cute trick but when i tested him i've always ended up wishing it was simply a breakthrough. phantasmagorian has the ability to let you keep hands with no enabler but it doesn't allow you the speed to overwhelm decks. Lotus petal i've always seen just being useful in combo match-ups, and would put them in the sideboard just for that purpose over maindeck, but as personal preference i wouldn't run it anyway. It ends up only being useful against decks without force of will, and you'll most likely have to sideboard out lands to bring them in since the list is so tight. Yeah you'll be to play two lands on turn one, and even as i type that it sounds exciting, but i think it falls in the danger of doing cool things that are just unnecessary
I don't think you get what's happening in the meta game, it's not about what we have tried before it's about what we should be trying right now. MD Deathrite Shaman is ubiquitous, and SB hate is either Rest in Peace or Grafdigger's Cage instead of Surgical Extraction or Relic of Progenitus. If you take the time to think about it, Putrid Imp is too slow vs Deathrite Shaman on the draw and unnecessary vs SBs because there really are no more Tormod's Crypt effects other than Nihil Spellbomb in the metagame. So you either have to speed the deck up by converting the mana base to Lotus Petals so you can Putrid Imp and then draw on the same turn, or you have to cut Putrid Imp as the way forward.
Of course you'd rather have Breakthrough than Street Wraith, that's not the point because we already have Breakthrough. The point is whether or not we can eliminate the weakest card in the deck in favour of a card that doesn't cost mana, and our options are either Street Wraith, Phantasmagorian or Shambling Shell because we need a X black creature count. That in turn lets us run fewer land, because we have to cast fewer spells and we could speed up the deck by playing Careful Study and then immediately dredging off a Street Wraith or discarding our hand to a Phantasmagorian.
I can't say with any certainty what is right or wrong because all of my previous attempts to cut Putrid Imp have failed, but that was when people were playing Relic of Progenitus which they don't play any more. I find Lotus Petal invaluable vs aggro-control in the same sense that Lion's Eye Diamond is invaluable vs aggro-control, because it allows me to counter Daze and make Putrid Imp relevant on the draw and I like 4 Street Wraith and 2 Phantasmagorian because I have cards that do relevant things for free.
It may be entirely true Putrid Imp is just the best of the worst choices but I think people's tinkering right now has some merit, it could also just be a question of cutting down to like 2 Putrid Imp too I guess but that card is just less than stellar right now.
I don't think you can ever reply to a thread without a passive aggressive comment regarding a persons magic knowledge. If you want to waste your time with street wraith, phantasmagorian and lotus petal feel free. I already did and have found them to be nothing special or game changing. Dredge is more then capable of winnning in this metagame, if you want to dismiss the feedback of someone who's already tried these idea's then feel free.
Final Fortune is right, and this coming from a person who rarely agrees with him.
Cards like Nether Shadow are a waste of space in the sideboard. That is sideboard tech intended for the days of Snapcaster+Surgical, neither of which are played at the moment.
The only staple in the sideboard at the moment should be x4 Nature's Claim.
Deathrite Shaman being in every deck in the Legacy metagame is indeed a hurdle for us right now. I think manaless dredge is better positioned right now because of this fact, but manaless has its own set of problems. But we should borrow from the strengths of manaless. Cards like Street Wraith help. It may also be time to squeeze in a "I win" Dread Return package as Shaman does nothing when you can win in one turn.
Also, Putrid Imp may be better replaced by Firestorm.
IDK, these are just thoughts and ideas. But if dredge wants to be competive again, it needs to adapt to the new metagame. Dismissing someone's ideas of trying something different won't help this become competive again despite how "capable" people may think dredge is at the moment.
I can only speak to my own experience, but from what I've found out so far it feels like Nether Spirit is 'good' against DRS while Dread Return isn't. Dread Return is just a single big threat which requires a lot of resources. If they respond by exiling your DR target, you're toast. However, I do like maxing on cheap, smaller threats (i.e. Nether Spirit). If you can overwhelm them, their 'one-card-a-turn' removal doesn't make a big difference anymore.
Other than that, I completely agree regarding innovation. Dredge needs experimenting and, funny enough, more rule-breaking (weren't we doing this enough before?). For instance, in LED dredge it feels like rainbowlands are the 'weakest' thing in the deck right now. Every card in the deck serves multiple purposes (Pimp: discard and ichorid fodder, Study/Looting/Breakthrough: enabler, yard-filler, CA etc). Cephalid coliseum is über-multipurpose. Perhaps cut some of the rainbowlands for Lotus Petal doesn't sound like such a strange idea!
I'm a fan or replacing PImp for something else, but Ichorid will suffer for not having enough black creatures to eat, we can allways go back to the bloodghast package (meh).
Right now, I'm using Brainstorm instead of breaktrough (yeah, that again) and I'm find a lot of my opponents are frustraded and confused by it and it helps a little against disruption, well that's my 2 cents.
IMO chain of vapor > Nature's claim, yeah they can bounce back a narcomoeba, Ichorid or zombie token (at the cost of a land, no less) but we are bouncing back their hate/creature/whatever and we can just cast it out of any of our lands!
I don't really like Bloodghast (and from your comment, I gather you don't either). Brainstorm seems interesting. However, it feels like it would 'mess up your draws', which is a very odd sentence.... It draws only three where breakthrough draws four. And it effectively has 'Dredge negative 2', as it causes you to put two cards on top. There are cools things you can do with it, I feel now:
- hide cards from discard
- stack Narcomoeba in your opener on top
- If you already have a dredger in your yard, it functions as a 'discard outlet' (put cards you want in your yard on top and then dredge)
- it saves your dredge spells from DRS (with instant speed draw we only had before in Cephalid Coliseum)
- Brainstorm works best with shuffle effects. However, we play twelve ways to get rid of the top cards of our deck, which is just as good.
- You get to act as if you're TES, making them think Counterbalance is good against you
Main downsides IMO
- You have to invest mana you rarely have
- I think on your first turn, I'd way rather have careful study or any other ACTUAL yard filler.
Other opinions?
BTW I update my list. Dread Return belongs in the SB right now, IMO. My current list is full Quad Laser with exception of -1 careful study +1 tarnished citadel.
I'm still as green a rookie as can be with this deck. I'll keep on the safe paths (while keeping an open mind ofc).
How about a staple from years past? Winds of Change in the board. When you sideboard, board out your breakthroughs for winds of change. Performs a (somewhat) similar role, while the hand the opponent keeps (with hate in it, otherwise he wouldn't keep) gets shuffled away. Is this strange reasoning?
If quadlazer tries to squeeze lotus petal and street wraith, I'd givea try with this:
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Breakthrough
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
3 Lotus Petal
3 Putrid Imp
3 Street Wraith
I don't think this needs firestorm, but since we do have 3 street wraiths for ichorid you can -3 putrid imp +3 firestorm (and then maybe -1 bridge from below +1 cabal therapy, since you don't want to discard a bridge for firestorm or it will get exiled, but if you don't it will just sit there forever).
If we also want dr package:
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Breakthrough
3 Bridge from Below
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Faithless Looting
3 Firestorm
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
3 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Lotus Petal
3 Street Wraith
2 Dread Return
1 Griselbrand (or whatever)
Here I already changed putrid imp for firestorm, for -1 bridge from below was "necessary". Sideboard gets more space since you already have dr package main deck.
None of this was tested, but i'll.
Personally, I think 2nd option looses too much in consistency.
PS: Yeah, I know there are some cards with only 3 copies that makes us sick just to see...
Last edited by indefinite.soul; 04-01-2014 at 11:29 AM.
Yeah, bloodghast is an aswome card, but not in LED dredge (belive me, I tried) and brainstorm is not without it's faults, with less discard outlets I sometimes have to DDD in order to get my first dredger in the GY and it makes me vulnerable to turn 1 DR shaman
And instant speed is sweet bro, dredging in response to DR shaman is a sight to behold
i'm gonna drop my LED's and faithless looting for bloodghast, life from the loam, and add in a flayer of the hatebound. Flayer plus bloodghast and ichorid triggers is pretty sick. I played in Charlotte this weekend and LED was only good in my opening hand or on my second turn because by the third turn i'm usually dredging my library away. i think playing a more conservative route is the way to go.
casting Life from the loam with only 14 lands is gonna be tough bro, Playing conservative is indeed a way to go.
I preffer to embrace the combo variation, explosive starts to finish my games quickly, giving them little time to react or counterattack, game 2 I play the grindy matchup removing the LEDs (deppending on the matchup of course) adding some Chain of vapor and grudges to counteract their hate, or the DR package if they are playing tribal, or just Firestorm to wipe the field/ get some tokens in a hurry.
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