After more tests, I was wrong about Once Upon a Time. The card is awesome.
https://www.manalessdredge.com/2019/...-thrice_4.html
Hi you all, next week i will push this configuration (not convinced at all). Advice is welcome.
4 thug
4 moeba
4 shadow
3 amalgalm
4 shel
4 sitnkweed imp
4 ichorid
3 spy
4 golgari troll
4 wraith
2 hogaak
1 giant
4 gorian
4 therapy
3 chill
4 dread return
4 bridge
SB:
3 macabre
2 black shoal
4 vigor
4 blue trap
2 contagion
@GoldenCid Only 14 green sources for FoV will cause you to lack a pitch card every once in a while, so that's something you could look at
Not my list. I was replying to GolgariGlenRoss, who said his goal was to combo as fast as possible with a Spy build. My guess is unless you have Phantasmagorian, Basking Rootwalla is more likely to be stranded in hand, whereas Vine Dryad could enable a faster Dread Return. Personally, I haven't tried either option, so I don't know which is superior.
The bad news: Tiebreakers caused me to just miss out on top 8, so I didn't get an invitation to the Format Championship.
The good news: I finished 9th out of 150 in today's quarterly Format Playoff, and I'm really happy about that Manaless is sweet.
It's the same list as this one. Don't hesitate to ask questions if you have any. I remember a lot of it, and I can check the replays if it's something specific I forgot.
6-2
2-1 Aggro Loam
2-0 Blood Sun Stompy/Red Eldrazi
2-0 RUG Delver. They finished 18th
0-2 Elves. They finished 3rd
1-2 RUG Delver. They finished 1st
2-0 Esper creature deck
2-0 Jund. They finished 25th
2-1 BUG Once Upon a Time Death's Shadow. They finished 21st
My favorite moment: A player I've never played before winning the die roll and putting me on the play game 1
Awesome showing. Aside from the missed tie breakers, how'd everything go for you? Just highlight a couple of sweet plays from the day.
Did you notice a lot of graveyard hate to play through? SB strategies, always important, how did you typically play it?
And the two matches you lost, how did they play out, were you never in it or ?
The even better news :D
Thanks a lot! I felt like a report would answer your questions more roundly.
Round 1. 2-1 Aggro Loam
Game 1 win: They landed KotR on turn 3, but follwing an earlier Wraith and then a Phantasmagorian, I had the combo set up before any activations
Game 2 loss: They mull to 3 for a LotV and I don't see a FoV
Game 3 win: Seeing their aggressive mull, I mull to 6, Powder away that 6, mull that 6 into a 5 with FoV. They mull to 6 for a LotV, a slower hand. FoV takes out the LotV and a Library. They land Confidant and play a Bojuka Bog to get rid of my first discarded dredger, Imp. A brief standout ensues when they have Thalia, Confidant, and PFire, and I have a slew of creatures and Bridges. I land Hogaak, they Crop Rotation for Karakas, and PFire their Thalia to get ride of Bridges. 2nd Thalia lands, but my creatures keep coming and overwhelm Swords and Decay
Sideboarding: I probably did something like -4 Therapy -4 Phantasmagorian, +4 FoV +3 Sickening Shoal +1 Gigapede before Game 2 and -4 Therapy -4 Phantasmagorian -2 Spy -1 DReturn, +4 FOV +3 Sickening Shoal +3 Powder +1 Gigapede before Game 3
Therapy out b/c of Chalice, Phantasmagorian out b/c of Bog, Shoal in for Ooze. I may have boarded in Powders for Game 2
Round 2. 2-0 Blood Sun Stompy/Red Eldrazi
Game 1 win: They land Chalice, then I discard Imp instead of Phantasmagorian because I don't know if they're playing Karn (into Crypt). Their turn 2 Reality Smasher and turn 3 Rabblemaster are threatening, but I discarded Phantasmagorian on my second discard, giving me a Nether Shadow to go along with an Ichorid in the GY from my first dredge, and I tap both to cast Hogaak, and sac them all for a Spy DReturn
Game 2 win: I Powder away a FoV-less hand into one with FoV, but I see no LotV, and a turn 1 Trinisphere instead. I see a turn 2 Rabblemaster, but a Street Wraith'ed GGT gives me Narcomoeba and Shadow, and next turn a 2nd Shadow into a Hogaak, which triggers Amalgam
Sideboarding: -4 Therapy probably -2 Spy -2 DReturn, +4 FoV +3 Powder +1 Gigapede
LotV and other artifacts a possibility. Combo finish less reliable with the possibility of Trinisphere anyway
Round 3. 2-0 RUG Delver
Game 1 win: Quick concession after the first GGT dredge and a Phantasmagorian give me a Narcomoeba, two triggered Amalgams, a Shadow in the yard, and Bridge/Therapy
Game 2 win: With Hexdrinker and Tarmogoyf on the board, my two Ichorids in the GY are Surgical'ed. On their next turn, they land another goyf and a Delver. I recur two Shadows, get a Narcomoeba, trigger 2 Amalgams, take a Daze and get a Zombie with Therapy, then cast Hogaak. They Karakas the Hogaak and start swinging. My guys do some attacking and blocking and they level up Hexdrinker to get to unblockable attacks, but I win the race
Sideboarding: -4 DReturn -3 Spy -1 Flayer, +4 Faerie Macabre +3 FoV +1 Gigapede. Edit: I brought in all 4 FoV. Either brought in 3 Macabre or shaved a Therapy
Macabre for Surgicals on my recurring creatures
Round 4. 0-2 Elves
Game 1 loss: They play a turn 2 Ooze from hand, and even though Phantasmagorian and my first dredge give me goodies, they start exiling all of my recurring creatures
Game 2 loss: Another turn 2 Ooze from hand, and despite Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith, a similar story
Sideboarding: ~-4 Cabal Therapy -3 DReturn -3 Spy -1 Flayer, +4 FoV +3 Sickening Shoal +3 Serum Powder +1 Gigapede
Sucks to lose the speed of the combo finish, but Ooze or LotV are lights out, and given the Game 1 loss, didn't have any space to feel out their SB choices
Natural Oozes are tough to beat, but thankfully that sequence isn't going to happen a lot. Bigger threats than Ooze in terms of being common are Bog and fast combo, and I was fortunate enough to see a minimal amount of that
Round 5. 1-2 RUG Delver
Game 1 win: Nothing too crazy
Game 2 loss: They play Cage turn 1 and FoV is FoW'ed a few turns later
Game 3 loss: Opponent mulligans to 5. The replay of this one is messed up, but I remember getting going after an early Surgical, and then a Cage a number of turns in which halted my momentum
Presumably because of Storm, Reanimator, and Dredge, and I'm guessing W&6 freeing up a sideboard slot (but I'm not a RUG player to know), we have to expect a singleton Cage. It's still a favorable matchup though; it's probably gone from 90/10 to 70/30 or something. You're not gonna see a 1-of in both sideboard games every time, and with counterspell backup. Totally fair play though; I've had plenty of unlikely, fortuitous dredges in my time And later game Cages are always possible with their card selection
Sideboarding: -4 DReturn -3 Spy -1 Flayer, +4 Faerie Macabre +3 FoV +1 Gigapede. Edit: I brought in all 4 FoV. Either brought in 3 Macabre or shaved a Therapy
Round 6. 2-0 Esper creature deck
Game 1 win: I see Moms, Meddling Mage, and Strix, but not much happens and I combo out
Game 2 win: They play Mage and Strix, and Jotun Grunt as graveyard hate, but Narcomoebas, Ichorid, Tokens, Amalgam, and Hogaak overwhelm it
Sideboarding: I think -4 DReturn -3 Spy -1 Flayer, +4 FoV +3 Sickening Shoal +1 Gigapede
They had counter magic, not a terribly fast clock, and both RiP and CPriest were possible
Round 7. 2-0 Jund
Game 1 win: They have Liliana, then Bloodbraid Elf into Tarmogoyf, but I sac creatures to DReturn a Flayer, and their life total is low while I have a board presence + more creatures coming to trigger Flayer
Game 2 win: They put a LotV into play but it eats a FoV right away. Recurring creatures get the win
Sideboarding: -4 DReturn -3 Spy -1 Flayer, +4 FoV +3 Serum Powder +1 Gigapede. I know I brought in some number of Macabres because I've seen Surgical in Jund but I don't remember if they fully replaced Therapy or not
Round 8. 2-1 BUG Once Upon a Time Death's Shadow
Game 1 win: These games are always on a razor's edge, attacking into the opponent while growing their Death's Shadows. I generally attack into them making sure I have blockers for giant Shadows. In this game, I had them at 1 life, and they had two 12/12 Death's Shadows and an Angler. I attack with 4 creatures, and the Narcomoeba is returned to my hand with Brazen Borrower. That leaves me with 6 Zombies. I clear their hand of a Daze with a Hogaak tapping two of them, check for more with a Therapy, and then DReturn a Spy
Game 2 loss: I'm Thoughtseized, and then my first dredger is Macabre'ed. I get a dredge for two Narcomoebas in, but by then they have an 8/8 Death's Shadow, a Delver, and a Plague Engineer on Illusion
Game 3 win: They cast Once Upon a Time and then Delver on turn 1, and I discard GGT. Their Delver doesn't flip, they activate Macabre targeting GGT, and I Wraith in response. I dredge into Phantasmagorian and dump a bunch of stuff, and they conceded at some point after
Sideboarding: For game 2, I think I sided out the combo, and brought in something like 4 FoV, 1 Gigapede, and 3 Macabre, but I'm not positive. Therapies are nice for making Zombies to block big Death's Shadows, even if you're not clearing the way for spells
For game 3, I assumed Macabre was their GY hate, so I sided the combo back in and Macabre out, and I think because they kept a 7 card hand in game 2, I ruled out LotV and went back to the game 1 60, but I'm not 100% on that. I don't think I did anything weird like boarding in Powder to maximize my chances at Phantasmagorian and Wraith, considering their clock and not wanting to water things down
Last edited by Scott; 10-16-2019 at 06:41 PM.
Hello, new user here.
I wanted to bring to attention to this article that I just read about GP Atlanta --> article
In short, interesting information here:
- 7 Manaless Dredge (0.7% of the meta)
- Manaless Dredge won 57.1% of 56 matches (7th most succesful deck)
- 15 Dredge (1.5% of the meta)
- Dredge won 54.1% of 109 matches (slightly lower than the manaless counterpart)
- 3 Mindbreak Trap in the SB and no Serum Powder in the 75
Among the comments, the pilot of the deck (John Tollison) confirms my initial assumptions: GP Atlanta turned out to be a great field for Manaless Dredge given the presence of numerous Wasteland-Delver-Counters based decks.
What do you think of these numbers?
Peace!
I think they are about right. We generally have a good delver matchup. I took my list to a 3-3 at the last Lal and the deck felt strong. Mulliganing aggressively for lotv proved costly for most of my opponents. My last round loss was due to variance but I was live for t16 up to that point
I just finished building this deck and it's fun as hell!
I'm running Balustrade Spy/Flayer. I was wondering about the potential benefits of switching to a version using Creeping Chill and maybe Lotleth Giant. I can't find anything in the primer, since I think these cards were printed after it was last updated.
Thanks in advance and Hail the Source!
The 2/2 split on Spy/Giant is just better, 4 black cards instead of 3 or 2 and more resilent to Crypt effects.
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