Dredge Insanity

[Ruckusmh]

Just bumping this again because I saw a list go 3-1 in a Modern Daily that was kind of interesting and maybe fits here.
4 Greenseeker
4 Llanowar Mentor
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 GGT
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Craterhoof Behemoth

4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Axe
4 Unburial Rites
3 Life from the Loam

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
1 Swamp

SB:
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Gnaw to the Bone
4 Stain the Mind
3 Engineered Explosives

Kind of a fascinating take - it is probably a little slower, more stable, and goes HUGE.

[Ruckusmh]

Ok I've been playing this a bit today and have an update so far.

-4 Lightning Axe
-1 Craterhoof
-1 Unburial Rites (Hard to combo turn four, so much has to go right and generally when it does you're 30 cards deep anyways so you will almost always find one.)

+3 Tormenting Voice
+1 Raven's Crime
+1 Iona (Against combo you sometimes need it very fast. Easier to shut off certain decks than going for a 4+ creature craterhoof)
+1 Urborg

My rationale is that in grindier matchups Crime/Loam just ends the game. Decks that don't kill quickly, although not prevalent right now, are pretty much dead in a long game with this addition and it only costs really 1.5 slots.

In the sideboard I'm messing around with a few things, but I love Stain the Mind for storm and the like. I put an Elesh Norn in the SB as well, there are a number of decks running around that it just ends the game against and for one slot it doesn't seem awful.

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

Very few draw cards, but still pretty interesting. I'll look more into it.

[Ruckusmh]

Yeah I have a number of ideas, you could basically go to the same list as before -Vengevine, gravecrawler, and fatestitcher and adding Bloodghast, Narco, Unburial, Fatties, but one of the strengths of the list is that it tends to get stronger as the game goes longer.

It may be worth trying cutting either Greenseeker, Llanowar Mentor, or both for some sort of draw but the biggest issue then is keeping the manabase acceptable as well as making sure you have enough green lands to cast Loam consistently since it is so much more critical to this gameplan than it was before because of Bloodghast (and actually hitting 4 lands).

This makes Dangerous Wager pretty bad in my estimation and if you're going to try Thought Scour or something similar it may be challenging to get the number of green, red, and blue mana you need.

One of the nice things about this list is that although it puts less pressure on an opponent as quickly (rarely have much of anything besides a few small guys before turn 4), it has a huge amount of inevitability between the unburial fatty plan, Bloodghast, and Crime/Loam.

[vieko]

these are all great lists to try! First sack outlet that came to mind for the bridge list: Greater Gargadon... suspends for one red, can't be dealt with by opponent, get's you a hasty 9/7 when 10 counters have been removed... thoughts?

[Mr. Safety]

http://lm.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%...=ZAQHvGInW&s=1

Just leaving this here...deck looked sweet as another dredge option. Raphael Levy has a little bit of credibility as a player/builder.

Edit: sorry, its more of a loam deck than a dredge deck. My apologies.

[No_Life_No_Future]

I have been inspired by this thread and I have been working on this dredge deck for a while. I think it is pretty good.

Modern Dredge

18 Land:
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Breeding Pool
1 Steam Vents
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Steam Vents
2 Misty Rainforest

Dredge Package 19:
4 Golgari Gravetroll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Fatesticher
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine

Dredge Enablers/Interaction 23:
4 Hedron Crab
4 Faithless Looting
2 Thought Scour
2 Lightning Axe
4 Izzet Charm
4 Remand
3 Ideas Unbound

Sideboard 15:
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Lightning Axe
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Pyroclasm
3 Thoughtsieze/Inquisition of Kozeliek

I realized early on that this deck is not like legacy dredge. You don't have cabal therapy and you aren't faster than the rest of the format. On the plus side the deck is pretty consistent. You mill most of your deck by turn 4 and this allows you to put a Fatesticher, 2 Gravecrawlers and 3-4 Vengevines into play for a huge attack. This is all possible to do off of only 2 lands, but it is more ideal off of 3 where you can use your Fatestitcher to tap down a potential blocker and allows you to set up by flashbacking faithless looting if you don't have 3-4 Vengevines, 2 Gravecrawlers or a Fatesticher by turn 3.

The manabase needs improvement as I am frequently losing to burn (help please?). Sometimes I can catch them off their guard with gnaw to the bone from the sideboard. The maindeck cards which I am not sure of are:

Thought scour
Lightning Axe
Remand
Ideas Unbound

I have been testing Thought Scour and Lightning Axe in the 1 drop slot along with the Hedron Crab and Faithless Looting.
Lightning Axe is obviously better against aggro, especially in match-ups where scavenging ooze could be trouble. Sometimes however they are not playing aggro and Thought Scour is better. Lightning Axe and Thought Scour both being instants is relevant along side Remand or Izzet Charm. Right now I have a 2-2 split and I keep 2 Lightning Axes in the board to swap with my 2 Thought Sour against decks that will have targets for them. If they are playing a creature light deck I cut axes for my sideboard discard effects.

Remand was a later addition to the deck I have been testing over tormenting voice. If your 1drops can get a dredger into the graveyard by turn 2 then Remand feels really dirty. It slows your opponent while speeding you up and works well with the other instants in the deck. One thing I don't like about remand in the deck is that you usually cant hold it up the turn you combo off to bring back your Vengvines. The deck plays 18 land and you are dredging instead of drawing as early as turn 2 there are many games where you never go above 3 lands.

Ideas Unbound is another card I am testing in the 2 drop slot over Tormenting voice. If you already have a dredger in the graveyard this card is great. If you don't then it is slightly worse then Tormenting voice, however the discard three cards is really awesome and you get to draw further into your deck. The downside is that it is a sorcery and that the UU casting cost is tough on the manabase. This card makes the deck more consistent however I am unsure if tapping out on turn 2 is what this deck wants to be doing.

Perhaps 18 lands is too few. Sometimes it is hard to decide wither to draw or dredge because you don't have that 3rd land. Any suggestions?

[Mr. Safety]

If you take nothing else from Levy's article, try Golgari Brownscale. He plays one main and 2 more in the side. Its weak as a dredger at 2 but the recurring lifegain is brutal against burnm

[FoolofaTook]

Do Fatestitcher and Vengevine interact at all? Unearth is not the same as playing a creature spell. It's an activated ability that goes on the stack and can be interacted with in that capacity. I don't think Vengevine triggers off of Fatestitcher unearths.

Ah, got it, Fatestitcher untaps lands that then cast Gravecrawlers. Is it really worth the slots for that interaction plus tapping down a blocker?

[Ruckusmh]

Sorry to necro this, but once again trying something a little different that seems pretty promising so far.

4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Drowned Rusalka
4 Hedron Crab
4 Faithless Looting
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast

2 Life from the Loam
2 Unburial Rites
2 Craterhoof Behemoth

4 Mana Confluence
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Steam Vents
2 City of Brass
2 Breeding Pool

Basically less dredgers this time, but more self-mill. Wayfinder is really nice in that it helps you hit landfall triggers, provides a corpse for Russalka, and can chump block. The idea is to flood the board with Bloodghasts and Narcomoebas, then either just attack using bridges to help make death profitable, or hit enough lands to go for a craterhoof.

[Ruckusmh]

The more testing I get in the more I wonder if Unburial Rites really makes much sense. Most games I have been able to get there pretty easily with Ghasts and Narcos plus some bridge tokens. What I really need is something like Cabal Therapy, or just some sort of disruption that works in the shell. This one plays pretty smoothly compared to past versions so I would encourage anyone interested to run a few matches.

Right now my sb is:
4 Gnaw to the Bone
4 Krosan Grip
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Darkblast

I've been able to play through an active Relic a number of times by holding up fetchlands to make instant speed landfall triggers. Mulling to hate against this version tends to get you beat down by 2/1s.

[streetMage]

My list with match videos below.

Lands (16)
4 Dakmor Salvage
3 Steam Vents
2 Shivan Reef
2 Mana Confluence
2 Arid Mesa
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt

Creatures (27)
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
4 Greater Gargadon
2 Viscera Seer
1 Tymaret, the Murder King

Spells (13)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Thought Scour
2 Burning Inquiry
1 Raven's Crime
1 Darkblast
1 Dream Twist

Enchantments (4)
4 Bridge from Below

Sideboard (15)
3 Thoughtseize
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Rending Volley
1 Memory's Journey

Greater Gargadon and Viscera Seer are great sac outlets to enable Bridge.
Dakmor Salvage is a great way to enable addition land drops while still dredging.
Lands tend to get in the way of dredging things like Bridge, Narco and Bloodghast, so I want to run as few as possible.
Check out this legacy list for example:
http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=10673&d=261067&f=LE
They play 15 lands but run no Lion's Eye Diamond, other lists that do run Diamond run as few as 12 lands.

All spells they cast from their hands have cmc of 1, so if you do a legacy to modern comparison:
Careful Study = Thought Scour
Breakthrough = Burning Inquiry
As far as free creatures, Ichorid = Bloodghast (synergy with Dakmor Salvage)

Tymaret, the Murder King has won me games against decks like Lantern Control.
He's also and uncounterable way to sac Golgari Thug when trying to get a milled Greater Gargadon.
During my upkeep I can use his 2nd ability to sac a Thug and put Gargadon on top of my library.
Lastly, he is the 5th Gargadon, sometimes with multiple Bridges in the yard and no suspended Gargadon, sacing one Bloodghast/Narco is good enough

vs Bloom Titan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukrzYldL2Us
vs UWR Control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_gwA_cGN5k