Dredge Versus Everything: 9th at Prague Eternal Legacy Trial

[meffeo]

Ok guys, here's the story. A car filled with Berliners desiderous to conquer the Czech Republic during the Prague Eternal event left on friday morning the German capital.

I was playing Manaless Ichorid and three of my buddies decided to go for the Storm way, including a Reanimator and a Miracles deck.

For reference, here's my list:

4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Street Wraith
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Griselbrand

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return

4 Disrupting Shoal
3 Faerie Macabre
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Force of Will

We arrived early in Prague, left the luggages in the hotel and packed our boxes with our beloved 75s.
The hall was ok, the judges were ready and the standings were approaching.



And now, onto the matches:

MIRACLES 2-1

Not a really good match up for me. Facing a German player, won the first one thanks to ichorids and nether shadows. G2 a bunch of angels seal the deal. G3 he didn't found any grave hate and I won thanks to zombie dudes and ichorids.

MIRACLES 2-1

And again Miracles. A very fast player from Sweden. Nothing very impressive to say, apart G3, where I kept a hand with double active Fows and random dredgers. He tried to land a RiP which I forced, followed by his force and followed again by my Force of Will. Stunning.

CANADIAN 0-2

I kept a quite bad hand, double Chancellor, Phantasmagorian and random dredgers. I put him on the play and showed him a Chancellor, which astonished him a little bit. In my turn I discarded a Phantasmagorian and discarded six cards, going to dredge the next turn just for three cards. No business spells, just some others Chancellors and random useless cards like Griselbrands and Dread Returns. Died very quickly thanks to hungry Goyfs in both matches.

MIRACLES 2-0

No way, four matches and three Miracles. I put him on the play and he groaned, probably knowing what he'd face. I remember a quite early terminus which slowed me a little bit but not a really great threat. G2 he didn't found any hate and a Gitaxian Probe followed by a Cabal Therapy cleaned the way towards a Griselbrand - Flayer of the Hatebound - Golgari Grave Troll kill.
At this moment of the tourney I felt quite comfortable and relaxed, knowing that my strongest hate card (Rest in Peace) received a very well answer.

SNEAK & SHOW 1-2

I would say a nice Matchup, thanks to my maindeck Griselbrand. G1 my German opponent put an Emrakul via Show & Tell and passed the turn. I dredged the next turn and found just what I was waiting for. A Gitaxian Probe showed me an empty hand and went easily combo kill thanks to the flying Yagwmoth's Bargain. G2 he saw an early Intuition which brought Sneak Attack and a fast Emrakul, even though he decided to be on the play.
G3 was very close, he searched with an Intuition three Griselbrands and put one of them in play thanks to that awful S&T. Next turn I dread returned a Griselbrand without having any Bridges in my gy, his response was paying 7 life and drawing 7 cards, founding the necessary FoW who sealed the deal.

(Yes, I'm the bearded dude wearing the black shirt and sitting on table 4)

DARK MAVERICK 2-1

I faced a really nice Czechian dude piloting a Maverick deck splashed with black. I won the first game with the combo kill; a quite early Nihil Spellbomb ruined my plans for G2 and in G3 no gy hate leaded the way toward the 4th wins of the day.

4COLOUR CONTROL 2-0

The fastest game of the day. G1 I put this young Czechian dude on the play, who landed a tapped Creeping Tar Pit. I discarded a Phantasmagorian and went to dredge for six cards, which fulfilled my graveyard of business spells. The next turn he played a Brainstorm, passing the turn. "What was he playing?" was my first thought. I dredged again and was ready to comboing; flashbacked a Cabal Therapy not really sure what to name. He scooped before it resolved.
G2 was quite exactly the same, just two more turns longer.

CANADIAN 2-1

In or out, 8th match and last of the day. My Slovakian opponent knewed what was I playing, I guess, but he decided to be on the play. G1 was really close, me at 2 life and my opponent at 1 but I had no way to win the match. A Cabal Therapy naming FoW was really a bad choice: he had two FoWs and a Daze but my tireness made me forget that he was at 1 life...
G2 I won thanks to Ichorids and 2/2 undead guys.
G3 he mulliganed to 3, looking for a Grafdigger's Cage I suppose. I kept a hand with an active FoW, really dangerous because he already saw in G2 that I was running a blue sideboard. No gy hate, a bunch of zombie dudes crushed the board.
GG.


6-2, 12-7, 9th place. A Wasteland and the hughs and hi-fives from my buddies were the gratifications of the day.

Reasons to run the blue sideboard:

- It's really better to react at "any" graveyard hate we're gonna face instead of waiting for a green source and an enchantment / artifact removal. Drs is no more terrible as before, thanks to Phantasmagorians and Street Wraiths.
- The synergy of Disrupting Shoal and Narcomoebas / Gitaxian Probes / Disrupting Shoals is great: you stop RiP, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbombs... And the synergy with FoWs, well, you already know it.
- See G3 of the Miracles match...

Reasons not to run the blue sideboard:

- let me know if you find them.

A big shootout goes to my fellows Kai (first place in Legacy main event with an amazing row of victories in the swiss, crushing miracles in the final), Robert (Top8 in Legacy trial event and in Legacy main event), Big D (unfortunately no Top8 but still a great driver) and Carsten (Top8 in Vintage main event).

Sorry if there are any mistakes but we were really tired after two days of tourney, especially me.
The tournament was really well organized, the players from whole Europe were correct and well prepared, waiting for the next edition.

Thanks for reading, any comments and questions are welcome.


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[CabalTherapy]

Good job, Matteo. Well done.
And all this without running any lands!

[Michael Keller]

Nicely done.

[P-E]

Great Matteo
didn't you feel that whirlpool would have been good in place of grisel ? (to support blue side)

[Michael Keller]

I was thinking the same thing. You really want to keep that blue count reasonably higher to support Force and Shoal out of the board to combat hate. I know you might have not seen any issues in this tournament, but considering the sample size, the long-term results will catch up to you.

[Blitzkreuz]

Would you mind giving us your sideboarding strategy? If you side in the full blue side, what do you board out?

[easysantiago]

Would you mind giving us your sideboarding strategy? If you side in the full blue side, what do you board out?

First off, congrats on placing and thanks for the great report. I second the request for info on your sideboard strategy. It would be very helpful.

[meffeo]

Great Matteo
didn't you feel that whirlpool would have been good in place of grisel ? (to support blue side)

Thanks guys.

I do believe that the blue count is still high in G2 (where usually I board out the combo pieces), thanks to the 4 probes, the 4 narcos, the 4 fows and the 4 shoals. The Whirlpool Riders would be redundant, imho, and by keeping the black demon I wanted to have an answer in G1 against the S&S / S&T decks.

How do I side?

Whenever I believe that I'm gonna face decks that are running RiP or Cage (the biggest threats for me), I'm gonna side in Forces and Shoals together. That means that I board out the combo pieces, such as the Griselbrands, the Chancellors (except when I'm facing storm) and one or two copies of Dread Return, since I don't really need to reanimate anything.

I never, never, never board out a dredger (guess why).

If I'm facing storm I'm surely want to insert the Mindbreak Traps, also because of the blue count.

The Faeries are there just because of Reanimator, a pretty hard MU because of his speed.

[Thrasher]

I knew it was you! I had read in your mates' reports about an italian manaless player living in Berlin, i could only think of one player with that description.

Congrats on the result! Also, that double force on RiP was insane.

[meffeo]

I knew it was you! I had read in your mates' reports about an italian manaless player living in Berlin, i could only think of one player with that description.

Congrats on the result! Also, that double force on RiP was insane.

Yeah, it was really a blast. My opponent's expression was priceless, I felt kinda sorry...


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[Daize]

First off, congrats on placing and thanks for the great report. I second the request for info on your sideboard strategy. It would be very helpful.

Congratulations for sure, good job!

I'm also pretty interested in the sideboarding. It's a lot easier to know what you'd side in, but what do you side out? It seems like the main board is highly rigid...