[Deck] Non-LED Based Dredge/Ichorid Combo

[sunshine]

That's a completely lost cause, because you're taking for granted having those cards in the first place.


That's the only situation that this is relevant.

What difference does it make if you have CC and another land but no dredger - or no way to get it in the bin? Your hand might still be keep-able (maybe) but you won't be planning on activating CC on turn two anyway. In order to make an appropriate assessment we have to assume that we could even make use of the card.

I'll grant you that the percentages will drop when you're forced to consider that you need to cast your discard outlet, but really that's it.

[Anusien]

That's the only situation that this is relevant.

What difference does it make if you have CC and another land but no dredger - or no way to get it in the bin? Your hand might still be keep-able (maybe) but you won't be planning on activating CC on turn two anyway. In order to make an appropriate assessment we have to assume that we could even make use of the card.

I'll grant you that the percentages will drop when you're forced to consider that you need to cast your discard outlet, but really that's it.
I'm not comfortable assuming that you always draw Cephalid Coliseum. I think it's more useful to compare the chances of getting that hand in the first place than to compare when you've already drawn most of the nuts. This puts things into perspective much more cleanly.

[sunshine]

I'm not comfortable assuming that you always draw Cephalid Coliseum. I think it's more useful to compare the chances of getting that hand in the first place than to compare when you've already drawn most of the nuts. This puts things into perspective much more cleanly.

I'm not assuming that you always draw Coliseum, I'm looking at how likely it is that you will be able to use it given that you've drawn it - and you've drawn it in a hand that you wouldn't mulligan anyway. By just looking at the chance that you draw Coliseum with another Land you falsely count a lot hands that get thrown back. For example, a hand of seven land (at least one being Coliseum), while rare, counts as a success in that model, but we really don't want to count as such. This is an extreme case but then we have to consider whether or not we could keep a hand that was Coliseum, rainbow rand, and no dredger, etc.

I took for given that we had a dredger and discard outlet because in our scenario we were dredging on turn two - on the play this requires a dredger and discard outlet (plus the correct land to play the outlet, which I admittedly neglected to account for). I think it would be way too much of a headache to try and nail down what constitutes a keepable hand.

Edit: I should also mention that in all our examples we have the same number of Coliseums in our deck. Accounting for the probability that we draw that first one is not necessary, although as you say it may help to put things in perspective.

[Anusien]

Since I'm in a statistics mood, I'm going to start re-analyzing the deck in that framework. If you consider keepable only hands that have at least a rainbow land, at least a dredger, and at least a discard creature (the core of the deck), then you have about a 60% chance of finding a keepable hand going down to 5 with 11 rainbow lands, 11 dredgers, and 8 discard guys. If you go up to 12 dredgers, the percentage goes up a little to about 62%. If you cut to 10 rainbow lands, the percentage goes down to around 57%. If you cut to 8 rainbow lands, it drops to 49%.

I'm excluding Cephalid Coliseum and Darkmoor Salvage from the list because they're terrible at playing Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe on turn 1.

This math is a little quick and dirty, and doesn't take into account hands you can keep on the strength of Breakthrough or Careful Study (so no DDD). But it's pretty useful, I think. I may produce a more automated tool to do this analysis and report back.

[sunshine]

I'd be interested to see what you come up with. There are certainly keepable hands that don't match that criteria, but I'd say that's a reasonable place to start with evaluating Coliseum. Heh, if you have the stoumach for statistics you're a braver man than I, I was always an abstract math guy myself.

[Nidd]

I dunno, but wouldn't it be somewhat more feasible to drop CC and play another drawspell?
I mean, sure, cracking a CC is awesome, but it also has some huge requirements. I think it's much better in LED versions than in LEDless.

[NecroYawgmoth]

...we have more mana than LED-Dredge, and we have a good chance of seeing 2 Lands, so what about playing Zombie Infestation instead of Tireless Tribe? (or just run it as a 1-2-3-off, if you have random slots)


YawG

[4eak]

@ Anusien


How did you calculate these? I think you're way off.

The percentages didn't look right to me either. Unfortunately, I actually lost my work from before (wife deleted it). I re-wrote it here (http://pastie.org/723247). It is producing approximately the same results as I had before. I'm assuming this script is attempting to emulate the results of your math.

I know one mistake I made. I had quickly copied portions of another script, and I edited incorrectly. I (stupidly) forgot that the handsize was 7 (because we assumed dredging) instead of 8. I had mistakenly set it as if I were drawing into the 8th card for turn 2 while on the play, and a 9th card for turn 2 on the draw, even though I knew better otherwise.

I bet you must be correct, and I've got this one quite wrong. I'd appreciate it if you could let me know what I've got wrong because I can't reproduce your results. I'll fix it as soon as I know what I've got wrong here (I even ran it at 100,000,000 hands to see if I just didn't have a significant enough sample size). In light of my previous mistake, I'll clarify my new results.

% of 7-card hands (out of a million hands) with CC and another Land:
4x CC + 8x Rainbow Land: ~27.3%
4x CC + 9x Rainbow Land: ~28.8%
4x CC + 10x Rainbow Land: ~30.2%
4x CC + 11x Rainbow Land: ~31.6%

% of 8-card hands (out of a million hands) with CC and another Land:
4x CC + 8x Rainbow Land: ~33.0%
4x CC + 9x Rainbow Land: ~34.7%
4x CC + 10x Rainbow Land: ~36.0%
4x CC + 11x Rainbow Land: ~37.4%


By the way, is a 5% chance not worth it?

You'll notice that both sets of our numbers are between 4-6% difference (5% as you suggested) between 12 and 15 land builds. Getting back to my original point, a 12-land build isn't extremely worse than 15-land builds at activating CC in a vacuum. Both are capable (while your hyperbole suggested otherwise).

Obviously, running more than 12-land isn't just to maximize CC activations. The 5% possible increase is just one benefit.

I think you are right that we should have required a Dredger as well. Just building off (http://pastie.org/723358)the previous script (because I haven't anything better)--

% of 7-card hands with CC + Another Land + Dredger:

Across = # of Dredgers
Down = # of Rainbow Lands (in addition to 4 CC's)

------ 11 ---- 12 ---- 13 ---- 14
8 - ~19.2% ~20.1% ~21.0% ~21.8%
9 - ~20.4% ~21.4% ~22.3% ~23.1%
10- ~21.4% ~22.4% ~23.4% ~24.4%
11- ~22.5% ~23.6% ~24.6% ~25.4%

We obviously disagree on the viability of DDD. So, we might have different perspectives on what hands are keepable and what aren't. This might be the best sort of metric that both of us would use directly on thinking about the viability of CC activations.

@ Yawgmoth'sWill


...we have more mana than LED-Dredge, and we have a good chance of seeing 2 Lands, so what about playing Zombie Infestation instead of Tireless Tribe? (or just run it as a 1-2-3-off, if you have random slots)


We'd only have mana roughly half the time (depending on how many land you run) for Zombie Infestation. It also comes into play a turn later than a good permanent-based discard outlet should.




peace,
4eak

[sunshine]

...we have more mana than LED-Dredge, and we have a good chance of seeing 2 Lands...

Not quite, we generally run more lands than LED Dredge but not more mana sources. LED can fuel CC too, meaning most LED dredge lists have a total of (at least) 15 mana sources. So, if they draw a CC they're just as likely to be able to use it as our 15 land builds.

As for Infestation, I would love to run that card if we could reliably hit two mana. Actually, with the printing of Bloodghast there might be a viable version of this deck that runs Infrestation and Trade Routes (<- pretty awesome with landfall/resetting Gemstone counters too) as the primary discard outlets.

[4eak]

Out of curiosity (don't think it merits a poll):

Assuming you win the die roll against an unknown opponent/deck (mutual ignorance), does anyone here choose to Draw instead of play?

I've been testing purely on the Draw for a while, and I have to say, I've grown somewhat addicted to it. Few decks can claim to have such little regard for the cards they would draw in later turns (although LEDless is certainly capable, and it is sometimes a necessity in the face of hate, it isn't the goal); and few decks have such a focused set of requirements for an opening hand. Your opening hand is really everything to this sort of deck.

Drawing has some badpoints. It opens you up to discard, CoTV@1, Brainstorm->goodness, Daze, lets your opponent setup, etc. It gives the obvious hint that you are playing a combo deck. Opponents will usually mull and Turn 1 play accordingly. Belcher, for example, really doesn't want the opponent to know what is going to hit them game 1, and often can't afford to give the information (of what deck they are playing) away, despite how much consistency it adds to their opening hands.

Dredge is in a unique position. Giving away information that you are playing combo isn't as devastating. The sorts of hands and turn 1 plays which an opponent would have against a hinted combo deck aren't as potent against Dredge. The interesting part is how many players will mull for hands to their detriment in this regard. The costs of Drawing, instead of playing, are minimized; the benefits are even better for this deck than most combo decks as well.




peace,
4eak

[BreathWeapon]

I've DDDed as my standard for Dredge since the Classic LED lists were ported to Legacy, and honestly I think designing your MD under the assumption that you're drawing is the best possible setup.

[Anusien]

Going on the DDD plan is the worst if they lead with Thoughtseize.

Edit: If you're simulating, why use iterations? Why not just generate every possible deck configuration?

[4eak]

@ Anusien


Going on the DDD plan is the worst if they lead with Thoughtseize.

I don't see Thoughtseize often, although I did admit it is one of the downsides. Anusien, would mind outlining why you don't like DDDing and when you would choose to do it, etc.? Not many people here consider DDD as poor an option as you. Please explain =).


Why not just generate every possible deck configuration?
Aren't there a metric ton of permutations?

I was just simulating because it was easy and felt more tangible.




peace,
4eak

[Anusien]

Aren't there a metric ton of permutations?

I was just simulating because it was easy and felt more tangible.
Yes, but that's why we have computers, to perform difficult and tedious tasks for us.


@ Anusien



I don't see Thoughtseize often, although I did admit it is one of the downsides. Anusien, would mind outlining why you don't like DDDing and when you would choose to do it, etc.? Not many people here consider DDD as poor an option as you. Please explain =).
Well, going on the DDD plan without a discard outlet is basically the worst thing ever. It blanks all the Narcoembas, Bridges, Dread Returns and Ichorids you might have in your hand. It's super slow. It doesn't really allow you to be strategic around hate.

Going on the DDD plan with an outlet has a few issues. It opens you up to Daze as well as Force of Will. And it's not actually a good answer to beat counters. You can't rely on it to go the distance. So basically you're saying, "I'm going to dredge once while I give you a chance to find counters." Sure, you might dredge into Narcoemba + Cabal Therapy. It's too unlikely to bet on.

The only time I can see DDD being reasonable is if you have no discard creatures, but Careful Study and Breakthrough. I'd want at least two blue spells before I go on that plan (because against an unknown opponent, you lose if they have a counter). And even then, I think I'd rather take my chances with a mulligan. As a friend of mine said, you're taking too much effort to play around a lesser threat. To me it sort of seems like choosing to draw first with Counterbalance to improve your chances of seeing Top + CB. Sure it might have some benefits, but it's not worth it.

Plus, this is Dredge. It's one of the most fundamentally non-interactive and unfair decks ever. Why would you want to try and slow it down to be more fair?

Edit: Are you just afraid of mulliganing? This deck mulligans better than maybe any deck in history.

[sunshine]

Aren't there a metric ton of permutations?
4eak

Only about 8.32*10^81 :wink: . Unless you play more than 60 cards of course, and you'd want to run that for each of the different land counts.

[Anusien]

For any given decklist, here are 8.32*10^81 different deck orderings. But there are only 386206920 different opening hands.

[Aleksandr]

For any given decklist, here are 8.32*10^81 different deck orderings. But there are only 386206920 different opening hands.

I am just curious: Where are these numbers from?

[Anusien]

60! is the number of permutations of a deck.

60 choose 7 is the number of opening hands possible.

[grahf]

As for Infestation, I would love to run that card if we could reliably hit two mana. Actually, with the printing of Bloodghast there might be a viable version of this deck that runs Infrestation and Trade Routes (<- pretty awesome with landfall/resetting Gemstone counters too) as the primary discard outlets.

This sounds interesting. Enchantment-based discard outlets would be a little harder for the opponent to get rid of, too.

Trade Routes costs a mana to activate, though, so effectively it's gonna cost 2U. And it can only discard lands. For that mana you could play Attunement, which was the only enchantment-based discard outlet besides ZI I could find that doesn't cost mana to activate. Of course, I realize that with only 12-15 lands and without LED, 3 mana might as well be a bajillion. But Attunement looks sorta like a reusable Breakthrough...

[Illissius]

This list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30198) recently won a largeish tournament.

[Anusien]

I'm pretty sure that list wants Hedron Crab. Although I'll admit, I'm skeptical of its ability to hit {1}{G} on turn 2 or even turn 3 after trying to cast Putrid Imp or Careful Study on turn 1.

[Aleksandr]

This list (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30198) recently won a largeish tournament.

Interesting list, namely the sideboard.

What I like is the LftL idea. I already tinkered with it (just with the idea, not that I build some list), because it is so hot with the Colliseum! And as we play dredge lands and mostly start the game with a rainbow land, we can get to two mana even with a turn1 Breakthrough.
Yeah, it is a bit slow, also losing the rainbow land to Waste means "screw the LftL", but I still like it somehow

Btw, what do you think of Deep Analysis in LED-less?

[Anusien]

Btw, what do you think of Deep Analysis in LED-less?
I don't like it. It's a blank card until you're already winning. If you want to go that route, Loam is a better card because it dredges.

Edit: I'm beginning to become a fan of Darkblast, at least in theory. It barely Dredges, but it's good in a lot of awkward situations. They can't use just counters to keep you from Dredging it, and it's a way to get started. Plus you can randomly cast it in the midgame.

[Aleksandr]

I don't like it. It's a blank card until you're already winning. If you want to go that route, Loam is a better card because it dredges.

Edit: I'm beginning to become a fan of Darkblast, at least in theory. It barely Dredges, but it's good in a lot of awkward situations. They can't use just counters to keep you from Dredging it, and it's a way to get started. Plus you can randomly cast it in the midgame.

I like it too, it can be helpful, even in the mirror (killing their PImp / our Moeba). But what to cut?

[Illissius]

Interesting list, namely the sideboard.

Transformatively boarding into creatures which are themselves somewhat vulnerable to grave hate is a bit odd. Grave hate is usually Crypt so Tarmogoyf is probably fine, but I'm pretty sure I'd use something else like Clique or Putrid Leech or whatever rather than Tombstalker.

[sunshine]

Unless they know you boarded into Goyf+Tombstalker most players won't blow a crypt against dredge in the first couple turns, especially if there's a permanent outlet on the table as they (understandably) want to get the most value out of the crypt. It seems a little odd at first, but after thinking about it I'm not really sure it's such an issue.

[paK0]

Transformatively boarding into creatures which are themselves somewhat vulnerable to grave hate is a bit odd.

This

And most Decks don't scoop to a single Goyf or Stalker if you cannot back em up.




@Darkblast. Tried it and it's hot. I'm on Ichorids right now so I wanna have the Thugs but f I'd run Bloodghast I would not hesitate to cut Thugs for Darkblasts.

[Anusien]

I like it too, it can be helpful, even in the mirror (killing their PImp / our Moeba). But what to cut?

@Darkblast. Tried it and it's hot. I'm on Ichorids right now so I wanna have the Thugs but f I'd run Bloodghast I would not hesitate to cut Thugs for Darkblasts.
As far as I can tell, the primary goal of the deck should be to get to the point where you are dredging and have a way to keep dredging (even if it's just having Dredgers in the graveyard) and can start attacking. The dedicated Dread Return targets don't help you get to this point. And I find it hard to believe you can't win once you have the resources to cast Dread Return. So here's the list I'd recommend:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough

4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
3 Tarnished Citadel

[Aleksandr]

Unless they know you boarded into Goyf+Tombstalker most players won't blow a crypt against dredge in the first couple turns, especially if there's a permanent outlet on the table as they (understandably) want to get the most value out of the crypt. It seems a little odd at first, but after thinking about it I'm not really sure it's such an issue.

That's it...

EDIT: Anusien, do you play enough black creatures to support four Ichorids? Also: Why no FKZ?

[4eak]

@ Anusien


Yes, but that's why we have computers, to perform difficult and tedious tasks for us..... But there are only 386206920 different opening hands.

Some tasks might be too difficult for even a computer to accomplish in short periods of time. You realize that I usually need to compare a multitude of decklists. That number grows quickly.

Finding all the configurations for so many decklists is probably outside the feasible computing range (by a few orders) of a quick scripting language while working on the fly. Why wait for hours (days, etc.) for an answer when I can wait 100 seconds for something which likely provides just as significantly accurate an answer as the other?

I'm not skilled, just a tinkerer, so any help you can provide would be appreciated.


Well, going on the DDD plan without a discard outlet is basically the worst thing ever.

Less hyperbole please. You can still get turn 3 wins from DDD w/no Discard outlet (and turn 2 if you played FKZ, which I believe neither of us recommend). It is far from "the worst thing ever". The DDD plan without a Discard outlet OR a Draw card is certainly awful though, but frankly, any hand is terrible without at least one of those.


It's super slow.

How much slower? Have you really sat down to look at the numbers on this one? PImp/Tribe have the most effect for speed when you have 2 or more dredgers + Draw (there are other contributions, but this is by far the largest contribution to speed these discard outlets provide). In this respect, you have more reason to be playing 14 dredgers (instead of that 11-dredger list you recommended).

There are differences, but I don't find DDD is to "super slow" compared to many Discard Outlet-based hands. It depends on how you choose to play your hand out in many cases. Check this hand:

[CoB, GMine, PImp, GGT, Study, Narco, Ichorid, (Top Card= Bridge)]

T1= Land->PImp->GGT
T2= Dredge GGT->Land->Check if you Dredged a Dredger->Pitch GGT->Study

T1= DDD plan with GGT
T2= Dredge GGT->Check if you Dredged a Dredger->If yes, possibly Land->Study, if no, DDD GGT

I'm not arguing the optimality of strategy in this example, I'm just showing that it isn't much slower if you don't want it to be. If PImp resolves and lives, DDD certainly isn't as good at chain-dredging (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=400923&postcount=780), and there are higher risks by not Dredging a Dredger. Those risks are curbed by the fact that you can continue to DDD, whether before or after Study.

Land + Discarder + Dredger isn't necessarily better at Dredging than DDD either. Take this hand:

[CoB, GMine, PImp, GGT, Therapy, Narco, Ichorid]

I'm not saying there aren't differences (like using GY goodies trapped in hand), but I think you've exaggerated the speed differences.

I'm also not saying PImp/Tribe aren't great in this deck. Those cards are very good. I just don't seem to find them as necessary as you.


It blanks all the Narcoembas, Bridges, Dread Returns and Ichorids you might have in your hand.

Not exactly true. DDD w/out a discard outlet can still often get trapped cards into the GY. Breakthrough and Study are solid examples (assuming you are referring to permanent-based discarders as the "outlets", as opposed to spells like Therapy and these drawers), and in cases where you've Dredged a Dredger (not hard, especially at high dredge counts), you can Discard a Bridge instead.

How problematic would it be to have a few trapped in hand? The deck is redundant, and Dredging will get you to the multiples as well.


It doesn't really allow you to be strategic around hate....[Dredge is] one of the most fundamentally non-interactive and unfair decks ever.

DDD itself is the strategy against hate; it is a valuable contributer to the "fundamentally non-interactive" characteristics of the deck. You get to force the engine to come online, despite most control strategies. I often DDD even when I open a hand with a singleton PImp/Tribe, especially if I know what I'm up against, simply because my hand would be slowed by several turns if I meet FoW (not an uncommon card to meet).


You can't rely on it to go the distance. So basically you're saying, "I'm going to dredge once while I give you a chance to find counters." Sure, you might dredge into Narcoemba + Cabal Therapy.

Why can't you rely on it? The most potent aspect of permission is not against the cards you play after you've dredged, it is how FoW interacts with your engine starting cards (Draw and discard). Bridge, Ichorid, Narco, and sac-outlets do most of the work against blue, not your discard outlet.

DDD is rarely a total failure, while an FoW on PImp is a failure that can cost you several turns, and your opponent's turn 1 or 2 StP or Bolt on PImp puts you in no better a dredging position (if not worse) than the DDDer who play PImp later.


The only time I can see DDD being reasonable is if you have no discard creatures, but Careful Study and Breakthrough. I'd want at least two blue spells before I go on that plan (because against an unknown opponent, you lose if they have a counter). And even then, I think I'd rather take my chances with a mulligan.

DDD is never the fastest possible play or the sort of play we make from a very good hand. Nevertheless, there are times where DDD is a viable alternative.


[Dredge] mulligans better than maybe any deck in history.

Again, is this hyperbole? Decks with the fewest requirements for opening hands are the decks which can afford to mulligan the most. Cantrip-heavy decks and combat-synergy decks can 'make it work' with less variance in the strength of their hands. I think Goblins and Thresh mull much more effectively than Dredge.

That doesn't mean I don't mulligan with Dredge. But, a decent DDD hand is often better than your random 6. Going on the Draw, and 1st turn DDD is a nice guaranteed consistency without a huge hit in speed, and it also leaves us the option to explode out or play other things in our hand when the time comes.


As far as I can tell, the primary goal of the deck should be to get to the point where you are dredging and have a way to keep dredging (even if it's just having Dredgers in the graveyard) and can start attacking

I recommend playing more Dredgers then. If you are looking for the best ways to get your Library into the GY, and arguably an increase in average speed, then you should up that Dredger count -- 11 is too low.





peace,
4eak

[Anusien]

EDIT: Anusien, do you play enough black creatures to support four Ichorids? Also: Why no FKZ?
The only matchup you really want Flame-Kin Zealot in is combo. No other deck can beat just putting an 8/8 Troll and a bunch of Zombies on the table. Flame-Kin Zealot is flat-out only good when you're winning. If I wanted a maindeck Dread Return target, I think you want one that doesn't require you to already have multiple Bridge from Belows and other setup cards. The cards that do that are Sadistic Hypnotist and Iona, Shield of Emeria. Right now I feel like everyone is going to do their best to stop you at the very beginning of the game, and if you can beat them there, you'll win. So who cares how good or bad your dredges in the midgame if you never get there.

And yes, I think I have enough black creatures to support 4 Ichorids. Sometimes it's one or two short. But you don't have to bring back every Ichorid if you can't afford them. It's more important to bring back an Ichorid early and put pressure on the other guy.

RE: DDD
I'm designing my maindeck to beat counters. The blue decks are getting to the point where you can't race them with DDD alone. I don't think it's worth opening yourself up to Daze to make this a regular part of your play. I'll never actively seek it out. If I happen to be on the draw and open a hand with a dredger, a land or two and multiple draw spells but no Putrid Imp, I may consider it. But I don't seek it out, and the Dredge players I respect don't too.
And let's be honest. You probably can win on turn 3 with DDD alone. But it isn't bloody likely. Relying on DDD is unlikely to chain-dredge, and I've tried it a few times.


Again, is this hyperbole? Decks with the fewest requirements for opening hands are the decks which can afford to mulligan the most. Cantrip-heavy decks and combat-synergy decks can 'make it work' with less variance in the strength of their hands. I think Goblins and Thresh mull much more effectively than Dredge.
Nope. Look, mulliganing with Dredge is so good. Considering half your deck is blank in your hand or worse (Narcomoeba), and when you mulligan you get to put those back. You don't care about card advantage or needing to have more cards in your hand. You can find a 5 card Dredge hand that is as good as its 7 card hands. No one deck can say the same thing.

[Aleksandr]

Interesting thoughts on FKZ. I am not 100% sure if you are right (e.g.: I doubt that we need the FKZ combo only against opposing combo decks; in fact there are many non-combo decks that are fast/bothersome enough - Zoo, Stax, toolbox decks, etc. - to justify our combo finish. That one turn could easily make a difference between winning and losing - right before the Moat hits the table, or Fireblast reaches our head... or Trinket finds the Crypt... or SotF searches for Fae Macabre...), but maybe you're right. Well, if it works for you...?

S.

[sunshine]

Just to put my $.02 into the DDD debate, I (would say I) opt to DDD more often than most - with the exception that I never choose to be on the draw. I don't really have any reservations about choosing to play first, looking at my starting seven and just passing the turn. It's not a route that I actively plan on, but in many cases I think giving the opponent an extra card can be less detrimental than announcing that you're playing dredge before they make mulligan decisions.

[Anusien]

If you have 1 Dredger in hand and 7 other cards when you DDD, you're 66% to hit another dredger based on my list of 4 GGT 4 SImp 2 Thug 1 Darkblast. It's 74% if you dredge with GGT, 67% if you dredge with Stinkweed Imp, 59% if you dredge with Thug, 48% if you dredge with Darkblast. If you cut the darkblast and go down to just 4/4/2, it drops to 64%.

[paK0]

How much would it be for 4/4/3 Darkblast and 4/4/3 Thug?

Right now I run Iona as my target, its the only one that wins with zero Bridges. Thoughts?

[Anusien]

67% and 65%.

[jimirynk]

How much would it be for 4/4/3 Darkblast and 4/4/3 Thug?

Right now I run Iona as my target, its the only one that wins with zero Bridges. Thoughts?

Lark.

[BreathWeapon]

4eak more or less said everything I could say about DDD, but I think Anusien is generalizing Dredge's mulligans, because Dredge does not mulligan well. If you're objective is strategic non-interaction, than mulliganing is counter-intuitive to that objective because it takes away your tools vs U.dec by reducing your hand size to the point where you have to interact with Force of Will in a terrible manner.

Also, I don't get the "DDD" doesn't race U.decs comment either, because sans Natural Order, Dredge's DDD + Bloodghast gets there more often than not and you can strategically discard or Therapy your Bridges and Returns as you go.

Right now, I'm running 4 Undiscovered Paradise and 4 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud just because returning Bloodghasts is so effective in DDD and being able to return your land to your hand after you've been countered is such a speed increase it's ridiculous.

Honestly, if you're designing your deck to beat counters and you're not playing Bloodghast you're doing it wrong IMO.

[Anusien]

Why does Bloodghast beat counters better than Ichorid? Because they hit for less? Because they don't help you build up an army of tokens to race?

It's getting to the point where DDD can't beat race turn 2 Tarmogoyf if they have other relevant spells.

[Grillo]

Lark.

jimirynk, I´ve been trying to find some insights in this thread about why you are using Lark... without any success...

Can you explain this choice to me please.

Thanks mate!

[Anusien]

If you Dread Return Reveillark and sacrifice it to Cabal Therapy, you can get back two Trolls.

And yes, it works.

I'm pretty sure it's a wasted slot. Instead of trying to dredge the Reveillark, you can just Dread Return the first Troll.

[paK0]

Yeah, and 2 StP/PtE still take care of them. Iona on white wins in three turns ond most decks can hardly do anything about it.

I tested Lark loosely after seeing your list and it kinda felt like winmore.

[Anusien]

Yeah, and 2 StP/PtE still take care of them. Iona on white wins in three turns ond most decks can hardly do anything about it.

I tested Lark loosely after seeing your list and it kinda felt like winmore.
If you are getting your Dread Return targets removed by Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, you are doing it wrong. Regardless of what the target is.

Honestly, the best thing Iona does is fly.

[paK0]

Without Therapy you can't really do anything about it, can ya?

Most of the time DR is gg, i could target Eager Cadet and still win with the Tokens. However the question I'm asking is: What creatures wins games that others don't.

[BreathWeapon]

Why does Bloodghast beat counters better than Ichorid? Because they hit for less? Because they don't help you build up an army of tokens to race?

It's getting to the point where DDD can't beat race turn 2 Tarmogoyf if they have other relevant spells.

Play both ...

[Joe_C]

Without Therapy you can't really do anything about it, can ya?

Most of the time DR is gg, i could target Eager Cadet and still win with the Tokens. However the question I'm asking is: What creatures wins games that others don't.

ancestor's chosen

[frogboy]

Without Therapy you can't really do anything about it, can ya?

Most of the time DR is gg, i could target Eager Cadet and still win with the Tokens. However the question I'm asking is: What creatures wins games that others don't.

What Dread Return targets lose you games because they are blanks?


Play both ...

I only play three Ichorids. Even if I wanted to play five, your latest list shows a split in favor of Bloodghasts; why? And is it worth not maxing out on Tireless Tribe? Further, how often do you want to kill yourself because you can't activate your Cephalid Coliseum?

re: DDD vs Tarmogoyf: The loosest parts of DDD is bricking on more dredgers and how hard it can be to race a Tarmogoyf. It depends on how their lists are constructed, too; a UGW list that can Plow your Narcomoeba is a little harder to chump against than a list that has Bolt to clear out blockers. If you are just straight dredging from seven and if they play Tarmogoyf, you have to dredge into Narcomoeba by your fourth dredge. Alternatively, you can hit Ichorid + black creature + Bridge by your third dredge. When you do hit Narcomoeba, they can't have a spare counter or Stifle for it, and they can't have a second Tarmogoyf.

That's actually all reasonably low percentage. I think postboard you want to aggressively play outlets because you don't want to give them time to cantrip into hate and you want to be poised to kill them as quickly as possible after you get Crypted, but in game one you can take your time.

So it's a function of how many counters you can beat as opposed to how many games they will play Tarmogoyf and you will lose to it. I think you're probably more likely to beat Tarmogoyf + two counters + Plow on the DDD plan than you are to just beat three counters, although it's close. I think either plan beats one or two counters with no Goyf pretty easily. I dunno what the math is, but it's probably reasonable. Further, if you slam into double Force with Imp and Study and just stone never draw another outlet, you are completely kold. The Wasteland decks might also be able to make their Dazes live.

Choosing to draw is loose; there are nonblue decks that you actively want to be racing, and it tips control decks off that a hand of Ponder, Stifle, Plow, land, land, Top, Tarmogoyf is actually seven blanks, but I think if you find yourself on the draw and have seven cards and your opponent leads Island go, you probably just ship your dredger and pass.

[Nidd]

I'm currently running a version with 1 FKZ and 2 SPhinx MD to seal the deal G1 asap, but I don't know which DR targets to play in my SB.

Currently I play Iona and Woodfall Primus. Any other good targets? Ancestor's Chosen? Sadistic Hypnotist?

[Joe_C]

I'm currently running a version with 1 FKZ and 2 SPhinx MD to seal the deal G1 asap, but I don't know which DR targets to play in my SB.

Currently I play Iona and Woodfall Primus. Any other good targets? Ancestor's Chosen? Sadistic Hypnotist?

what do you expect to face?

[Nidd]

what do you expect to face?
Well, thats the interesting part of it - I don't really have much information as it will be the first Legacy Tournament here in my city. I only know there will be 1 B/W-Aggro-Something, 1 G/R Goblins and 1 Team America.
I expect about 3 CounterTop and a good chunk of Zoo... from what I've heard most people coming play simple things like beatface.dec, competitive, never the less. Sligh, Zoo, you name it.

[Anusien]

Without Therapy you can't really do anything about it, can ya?
Sure. I don't cast Dread Return without Therapy. It's highly unlikely to hit a 2 or a 3 of (Dread Return) and a 1 or a 2 of (Dread Return man) and not get access to a 4 of.

I'm pretty sure maindeck Dread Return targets are cute, not good. Sure, you can be clever by running these guys, but they're just blanks. I find it highly unlikely game 1 that you can Dredge into Dread Return + 3 guys and not win. If you're having trouble winning in that situation, you probably need to switch decks. Because the metagame has adapted. If you want to win, I think you'll find dedicated Dread Return targets in the main are cute, win-more and more clever than good. Post-board, the only ones I find interesting are Ancestor's Chosen and maybe FKZ for the combo matchup, although I'm interested in seeing if AC fulfills the necessary role there.

Sideboard space is at a serious premium with this deck. I sincerely doubt you can afford the slots for maybe a 1% advantage.

[Nidd]

A quick question: Why would you want to play FKZ over Hypnotist in the combo matchup? I mean, both pretty much seal the deal, right? But I can't think of any other matchup where FKZ would be better than hypno... I mean, he could even be boarded against something like... Landstill.

And nuking away their hand seems easier than assembling enough dudes for the final rush.

[Anusien]

Sadistic Hypnotist doesn't beat the "Topdeck/Mystical Tutor for Ad Nauseam" plan. Iona might even be better than Hypnotist there because you can name black and they have to bounce it. It's unclear.

[Zappa]

For game 2 and or 3 where the opponent has boarded crypt. With a list that has no dread return targets except for troll, and have tireless tribe MD, and 2 Dread Returns MD. What's the more reasonable slot to cut to board in the ancient grudges?

The tribes? The Careful Study? The Breakthrough?

I've usually been taking out the tribes, but from the conversation here, seems like some people value them over the draws.

[BreathWeapon]

Running less than 4 Ichorid and 4 Bloodghasts is really, really bad, because games 2 and 3 are defined by grinding thru' Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus - in which case you need every threat.

Tarmogoyf does not consistently race DDD, if you're playing Bloodghast and you're playing 4 Undiscovered Paradise and 4 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds you'll easily recur enough threats to keep up the pace.

Cephalid Coliseum is debatable, because right now I'm convinced Bloodghasts and Oboros both speed up the deck and fight thru' the hate, where Cephalid Coliseum only accelerates your dredging under ideal situations.

Also, I'm not convinced more outlets > more dredgers necessarily, I've tried boarding in or MDing 4 Shambling Shells and just concentrating on DDD with Breakthrough, Careful Study and Brainstorm with interesting results.

[Muradin]

Running less than 4 Ichorid and 4 Bloodghasts is really, really bad, because games 2 and 3 are defined by grinding thru' Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus - in which case you need every threat.


So how do you find room for 4 Ichorid and 4 Bloodghast in your list? I can definitely see that this setup is a very strong one postboard against graveyard removal. However I am still convinced that Bloodghast is quite weak in comparison to Ichorid. He doesn't die at the end of turn but this seems to be rather bad in this case because he can't provide you with a critical mass of tokens in case of a stall on the board. And not having haste unless your opponent's life total is less than half also doesn't make him better, not speaking of 3/1 being better than 2/1. Nevertheless it sounds really strong to have 4-offs of Bloodghast and Ichorid in the deck as both together also makes DDD insanely strong because you get another 4 threats you can dredge in addition to Ichorid and Narcomoeba.

[BreathWeapon]

So how do you find room for 4 Ichorid and 4 Bloodghast in your list? I can definitely see that this setup is a very strong one postboard against graveyard removal. However I am still convinced that Bloodghast is quite weak in comparison to Ichorid. He doesn't die at the end of turn but this seems to be rather bad in this case because he can't provide you with a critical mass of tokens in case of a stall on the board. And not having haste unless your opponent's life total is less than half also doesn't make him better, not speaking of 3/1 being better than 2/1. Nevertheless it sounds really strong to have 4-offs of Bloodghast and Ichorid in the deck as both together also makes DDD insanely strong because you get another 4 threats you can dredge in addition to Ichorid and Narcomoeba.

Cut Dread Return targets and cut lands, the problem the other lists have is they're playing too many cards they don't need to play in order to win.

Start here,

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba

4 Bridge from Below
2 Dread Return

4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe

4 Cabal Therapy

4 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Gemstone Mine
3 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud
1 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Dakmor Salvage

I fiddle with the ratio of Oboro to Coliseum a lot, I just can't put in the volume to come to any conclusion (tho' I think SBing Oboros might be really smart.)

[4eak]

Bloodghast is rarely blocked, so he's free damage. He's good when you were even or winning in this respect. If you need to quickly catchup on the board, he's really not very hot. Sac outlets are quite necessary with him. I desperately wish Bloodghast could block. More than once I've been forced to DBlast him for Bridgesex.

My largest problem with bloodghast is the required changes in the mana-base. As for Oboro, I really don't care for its legendary status. 2 seems safer. I do prefer running Oboro to Dakmor though. I only run 1 Dakmore just in the case I'm missing the self-bouncing land and I've got a GY chuck full of the BGs. If you dump your library, a single land trigger is usually all you'll need to finish the combo.

Currently testing:

// Lands -- 14
4 [OV] City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine or CC
4 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
2 [SOK] Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 [FUT] Dakmor Salvage

// Draw and Discard -- 14
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
2 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [OD] Careful Study

// Dredgers -- 14
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Thug
2 [RAV] Darkblast

// GY-Goodies -- 18
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below

The deck is noticeably less explosive. I don't have a problem with this, but others might. It plays out differently. If you go the Bloodghast route, you are going for the full slow-roller build. The nice part is that recursion is likely to occur, to some degree, even with minimal GYs. I think Bloodghast, at 4x, comes at the cost of Narco's. I take the math on dredgers pretty seriously, and I'm not going to be cutting below 13 (and if I can help it, 14).




peace,
4eak

[BreathWeapon]

Having 4xOboro, Palace in the Clouds in game 2 is huge vs Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus tho'; if you're not MDing them, then you should be SBing them because Oboro is the card that helps you win small by recurring your threats and activating Crypt/Relic.

IMO, 4 Undiscovered Paradise, 1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds and 2 Dakmor Salvage is probably optimal in your MD, that gives you 3 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds to SB in game 2 and you can MD your Cephalid Coliseums game 1 to win big instead of winning small.

2 Dakmor Salvage is solid, producing black for Putrid Imp, adding the extra Dredge to your Careful Study, Breakthrough or Cephalid Coliseum and letting you ramp up to 2 mana for hard casting creatures makes it a versatile card (besides obviously triggering Bloodghasts).

[Lev]

current list:

// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [5E] City of Brass
4 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
2 [FUT] Dakmor Salvage

// Creatures
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
2 [RAV] Golgari Thug
2 [OD] Tireless Tribe

// Spells
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [WL] Null Rod
SB: 4 [MM] Unmask
SB: 3 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 1 [SHM] Woodfall Primus
SB: 1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria

Other version is to cut 1 Ichorid and 1 Careful Study, then maindecking a Sphinx and an Iona, cutting the DR targets from the board, replacing them with Wispmare/Chain of Vapor/Firestorm/other targets like Ancestor's Chosen.

What do you think about Null Rod? It has to show up in your hand and costs 2, but kills every Crypt and Relic.

[paK0]

Sure. I don't cast Dread Return without Therapy. It's highly unlikely to hit a 2 or a 3 of (Dread Return) and a 1 or a 2 of (Dread Return man) and not get access to a 4 of.

I'm pretty sure maindeck Dread Return targets are cute, not good. Sure, you can be clever by running these guys, but they're just blanks. I find it highly unlikely game 1 that you can Dredge into Dread Return + 3 guys and not win. If you're having trouble winning in that situation, you probably need to switch decks. Because the metagame has adapted. If you want to win, I think you'll find dedicated Dread Return targets in the main are cute, win-more and more clever than good. Post-board, the only ones I find interesting are Ancestor's Chosen and maybe FKZ for the combo matchup, although I'm interested in seeing if AC fulfills the necessary role there.

Sideboard space is at a serious premium with this deck. I sincerely doubt you can afford the slots for maybe a 1% advantage.


Well, i play against Zoo frequently (bro play is) so i often find myself with 3 Creatures but no Bridges thanks to him killing his guys. In this situation Iona often is the best one, where everything else (aside from a lucky Sphinx/Sage) sucks. Even Troll does't guarantee a victory since he can be raced w/o Bridges.

[Anusien]

Well, i play against Zoo frequently (bro play is) so i often find myself with 3 Creatures but no Bridges thanks to him killing his guys. In this situation Iona often is the best one, where everything else (aside from a lucky Sphinx/Sage) sucks. Even Troll does't guarantee a victory since he can be raced w/o Bridges.
Try being more conservative. The "kill your own guys to kill Bridge" plan leaves them wide open to being raced. The trick is to as much as possible play conservatively. If I have Bridges in hand and a Putrid Imp in play, I'll hold the Bridge in hand for a while. As long as they can only get 1 or 2 Bridges at a time, you can easily race. In this matchup, when you're not on a clock it's often awesome to sit back and bring back Ichorids and just let them die, building up an army of Zombies.

[Rascal]

Hi,

I´m very pleased with 4reak´s version from post No. 1058.
I did only some little changes:

-1 Tireless Tribe (cause I haven´t two pieces) - what to replace this free slot?
-2 Gemstone Mine / see CC
-1 Oboro / see DS

+2 Cephalid Coliseum
+1 Dakmor Salvage

(and three Oboro´s in SB)


Maybe it´s from little different playstyle of this version, but sometimes I miss Moebas...and DR targets....as I said, it is propably caused by my misunderstanding of its function.

I started play Ichorid with this version :http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29531

@ 4eak + BreathWeapon : How was your testing going, especially with Bloodghast version of Ichorid?

And one question in the end - how is the right function of Undiscovered Paradise going?
Is it returns every turn on upkeep, or it had has to be used in the turn for mana?

I hear both of explanation and I´m a little bit confused.

Thx

[paK0]

Try being more conservative. The "kill your own guys to kill Bridge" plan leaves them wide open to being raced. The trick is to as much as possible play conservatively. If I have Bridges in hand and a Putrid Imp in play, I'll hold the Bridge in hand for a while. As long as they can only get 1 or 2 Bridges at a time, you can easily race. In this matchup, when you're not on a clock it's often awesome to sit back and bring back Ichorids and just let them die, building up an army of Zombies.

I wonder what kind of Zoo Decks you play that don't put up a clock.
Especially the versions that run more creatures are not crippled by loosing one. As long as I have the Bridge in hand its ok, but if I dredge them in the drawstep they are fucked up most of the time.

[Anusien]

I wonder what kind of Zoo Decks you play that don't put up a clock.
Especially the versions that run more creatures are not crippled by loosing one. As long as I have the Bridge in hand its ok, but if I dredge them in the drawstep they are fucked up most of the time.
The kind that 2 for 1s themselves multiple times.

[bum_man]

@paKO & Anusien: It is true that targets aren't that important in winning but they help the deck greatly by putting the deck in a better position of winning. They sway the scales more to your side of the match-up which is often relevant in a number of match-ups.
At the very least in terms of return targets you should have a Sage since it speeds up dredging the deck into the graveyard, and then probably Reveillark because he opens the deck up to win-con that doesn't make use of bridges. Just bring two 15/15 trolls on the average and start racing, being able to return 2 trolls instead of 1 is very relevant. They get stp'd? who cares, you gain 15 or 30 life and they have spend resources killing they're guys to remove bridges that ichorids and bloodghasts can race them especially due to your life gain. pte'd? who cares? since you say they kill guys to rfg bridges and now they lost two more ways to stop you by rfging ichorids and bloodghasts. Zoo and the like can still race or probably kill an Iona if not through stp/pte or straight on burning her to death. She does have some merits that I have yet to test, but so far in my experience when I was still running Reveillark he wins matches that were otherwise marginally winnable.

@Nidd: I play Hypnotist for blue, Chosen for red, and Primus for the occasional propoganda that i usually see around where I play, these I think would be more than enough where you play since it seems decks there are a high variety of decks there. FKZ also puts them in a spot where they're at a low life total preventing them from AdNauseam-ing a win, this isn't sure though, last time I faced AdN combo he blew me out before I did anything remotely relevant.

@Zappa: What does your list look like? Usualy taking out a study, a breakthrough, a return (if you have 3), a return target (if you have 1 that is irrelevant in the match-up) or probably a tribe (if you play 4).

@Breathweapon: Your list looks solid. It really looks like a post-board juggernaut. A few questions though, without return targets like FKZ and Coliseums don't you feel that the deck is too slow that it makes some match-ups more even? And are 13 lands enough? especially with 6 of them not being the ideal land you'd to be opening up with? I played 14 lands with 2 Salvage, 3 Coliseums, a 1 Oboro and i find myself with off-color mana in the opening hand way too often than I would've wanted, prompting me to go 15 lands. Overall, the list looks great.

I'm trying to find a slot for a 3rd Dread Return again without taking out the 15th land, my list looks like this, any suggestions on what to cut?

// Lands 15 //

3 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
2 Dakmor Salvage
3 Gemstone Mine


// Sorcery 13 //

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
3 Breakthrough

// Enchantments 4 //

4 Bridge from Below


// Instant 3 //

2 Darkblast


// Creatures 26 //

1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
2 Tireless Tribe
3 Ichorid
3 Blooghast

[Aleksandr]

Try being more conservative. The "kill your own guys to kill Bridge" plan leaves them wide open to being raced. The trick is to as much as possible play conservatively. If I have Bridges in hand and a Putrid Imp in play, I'll hold the Bridge in hand for a while. As long as they can only get 1 or 2 Bridges at a time, you can easily race. In this matchup, when you're not on a clock it's often awesome to sit back and bring back Ichorids and just let them die, building up an army of Zombies.

Most of the time you don't have enough time.

Zoo can deal absurd amount of damage in first few turns and if they somehow manage to get rid of the blockers - e.g.: due to bad starting hand/and or dredges you have no Moebas, Bridges and other stuff that can block; or even some Crypt poped - your life total drop below ten very fast (even due to the City and Colliseum damage), where they can easily Bolt+PoP+Fireblast you out of game...

.
.
.

Guys, how do you sideboard for the mirror? MWS is spoiled with dredge, every third match I play against it (and reanimator). Is it time for Leyline? :-P

My build:

Qty Name
// Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Dakmor Salvage
//\\
// Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
//\\
// Spells
3 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
3 Dread Return
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
//\\
// Sideboard
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Raven's Crime
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Woodfall Primus
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Firestorm

[YigSnakeDaddy]

Guys, how do you sideboard for the mirror? MWS is spoiled with dredge, every third match I play against it (and reanimator). Is it time for Leyline? :-P


Leyline of the Void is a must have for mirror.
Another card that is very amusing (imho) against Dredge is an early dread return'd Blazing Archon.

[BreathWeapon]

Cephalid Sage and Flame-Kin Zealot do not put the deck into a position to win, they win more, because Tinkering and Mind Twisting should be more than enough already. At best, Dread Return targets prevent the opponent from top decking an answer/win, but with Golgari Grave-Troll and Zombie Tokens on board and Ichorid and Bloodghast in the graveyard it's "nigh" impossible.

Cephalid Coliseum is terrible, games 2 and 3 it's a non-basic Island and game 1 its function can be replaced by Brainstorm. I DDD more than most with Dredge, apparently, and Cephalid Coliseum is just too slow and too clunky with Undiscovered Paradise. I pretty much play 4 Undiscovered Paradise, 3 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud, 3 Gemstone Mine and 2 Dakmor Salvage with 1 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud in the SB. Winning small is just so much better than winning big in the post-board games.

I don't rely as much on mana, so not being able to cast Tireless Tribe isn't that big of a deal, and the 2 Dakmor Salvages do a good job of brining Putrid Imp online later down the road etc.

I haven't noticed a significant loss in speed, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds manages to put Bloodghast after Bloodghast on the board and keep them there quickly, so if the deck is only a little slower it's significantly more inevitable.

But anyway, Ghast/Oboro are the nut high in Dredge, I just straight up laugh at Crypt.

[bum_man]

Cephalid Sage and Flame-Kin Zealot do not put the deck into a position to win, they win more, because Tinkering and Mind Twisting should be more than enough already. At best, Dread Return targets prevent the opponent from top decking an answer/win, but with Golgari Grave-Troll and Zombie Tokens on board and Ichorid and Bloodghast in the graveyard it's "nigh" impossible.
What I said was put you in a better position to win. Improving and Speeding up the matches are win more these days? Waste time passing the turn and grinding out the opponents game 1 when you can just close the deal then and there. Waste of time in rounds for games 2 and 3 where you need alot of time to grind your opponent to a pulp.


Cephalid Coliseum is terrible, games 2 and 3 it's a non-basic Island and game 1 its function can be replaced by Brainstorm. I DDD more than most with Dredge, apparently, and Cephalid Coliseum is just too slow and too clunky with Undiscovered Paradise. I pretty much play 4 Undiscovered Paradise, 3 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud, 3 Gemstone Mine and 2 Dakmor Salvage with 1 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud in the SB. Winning small is just so much better than winning big in the post-board games. Coliseum is a card that greatly speeds up the deck and wins game then and there. Is that win more? Maybe it's a non-basic Island because your manabase is not tweaked to activate it and make it more than just an Island. In that case why not make it City of Brass instead?


I don't rely as much on mana, so not being able to cast Tireless Tribe isn't that big of a deal, and the 2 Dakmor Salvages do a good job of brining Putrid Imp online later down the road etc.
I haven't noticed a significant loss in speed, Oboro, Palace in the Clouds manages to put Bloodghast after Bloodghast on the board and keep them there quickly, so if the deck is only a little slower it's significantly more inevitable.
I don't DDD alot. My meta has a number of fast decks that can race DDD so I rarely do it.



But anyway, Ghast/Oboro are the nut high in Dredge, I just straight up laugh at Crypt.
I agree, the only thing bad about Bloodghasts are that they can't block really. Not dying at EoT does have its advantages.

[Zappa]

@Zappa: What does your list look like? Usualy taking out a study, a breakthrough, a return (if you have 3), a return target (if you have 1 that is irrelevant in the match-up) or probably a tribe (if you play 4).

I don't really run dread return targets, and I usually take out the Tireless Tribes and bring in 3 sideboard usually, but during games 2/3 where hate comes in, I dunno if that's a very good idea. It's working for me, but maybe I am just getting lucky, or my competition's skill isn't up to par. Reading the posts from before seems like the tribes are favored more than study/breakthrough, that's why I was wondering if I am actually making a mistake on sideboard.

The kind of hate I usually face are these:
- Tormod's Crypt
- Necroplasm
- Night Soil
- Extirpate
- Mog Fanatic

Tormod's crypt is usually seend from everyone, one player runs Tormods Crypt + maindecked Necroplasm, 1 deck runs night soil, and someone else runs Extirpate. But Tormod's crypt is the usual hate, so its no big deal.

Against Extirpate, I usually don't throw everything out unless I play cabal theraphy 1st. Night Soil, run by a jank deck is giving me problems, specially when such jank decks run things like Spore Frog/Genesis combo... *sweat*
So when I see cards like that, that I really don't expect I'm like "Ha ha ha what the heck".

Decks I am facing for the time being are:
- UGR Threshold (brings crypt)
- Goblins (fanatic)
- Burn w/artifacts (Supports artifacts also for Shrapnel blast, so it runs crypt)
- Random black aggro (has Extirpate)
- Random green aggro (Night soil and spore frog+genesis combo)
- Pox (Has Crypt + Necroplasm)
- Affinity (Crypt)
- some budget wanna be threshold deck (Crypt)


But yeah most hate I usually see are just Crypt, but I tend to take out the Tribes, and I was wondering if that is a mistake on my part. List I am running is as follows:

4 Cephalid Colliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Theraphy
2 Dread Return

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

4 Golgari Grave-troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

1 Dark Blast

4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe


Sideboard
3 Unmask
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Ray of Revelation
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Darkblast

it is also the reason why my SB was in a 3 split.

[Anusien]

Sounds like Pithing Needle would be insane in your metagame. It stops everything but Extirpate, including Spore Frog lock.

[Aleksandr]

Yeah, Anusien is right. I also don't believe that they are going to sideboard artifact hate against you, so Needle can be really good... :wink:

[Zappa]

I used to run needles, I just get so annoyed when I dredge it to the graveyard :cry:. When I used to run it, i have a rather bad luck mulliganing into it, and when I do, I either miss out on dregers/discard outlets, or not have the mana for it. Plus with our already dwindled hand, i dislike it running into daze or force :cry: .Thats why I just played safe and used grudge, as I'll have better chance of seeing it :tongue:.

[Aleksandr]

Yeah, that's the reason why I also dismissed them. But: it can stop both Crypt/Relic and Frog, and you can cast it preemptively. You know what? If the real hate that ppl board against you is always the same (read Crypt/Relic) why not play four of Needle and Grudge? I know that sb-ing eight cards is.. strange, at least, but if it will work? You can always take out some number of Breakthrough, Therapy, Thug, Icho, Moeba, Tribe.. idk. As long as they cannot touch your GY, you have inevitability. Also Grudge >> Affinity.

:really:

EDIT: I don't care of Extirpate. I hope you know why...

[BreathWeapon]

@Bum

Your argument for Zealot/Sage is the definition of win more, you can't just include 2 cards in a deck that's dying for space because you want to finish the game a little faster after you've already won.

Cephalid Coliseum is a non-basic Island games 2-3 because it's draw is stopped by Crypt, I find the UA/Oboro plan conflicts with the Cephalid Coliseum plan a lot, so I'd rather emphasize the land that helps me play thru' Crypt instead of the land that does nothing vs Crypt.

[SlopeeJ]

@Bum



Cephalid Coliseum is a non-basic Island games 2-3 because it's draw is stopped by Crypt, I find the UA/Oboro plan conflicts with the Cephalid Coliseum plan a lot, so I'd rather emphasize the land that helps me play thru' Crypt instead of the land that does nothing vs Crypt.


How is its draw stopped by crypt? You just rebuild your graveyard and try again, isn't that the plan to beating the hate and slow playing?

[FieryBalrog]

Because if they crypt you in response to the Coliseum draw, you lose the Coliseum and dont get to dredge at all? "Just try again" isn't really a slow-playing plan, or an actual plan at all.

[SlopeeJ]

that is true, I thought he meant you didn't get to draw cards.

But that still gets you 3 more cards and hopefully you discard more dredgers, which is what I meant for the slow play. You also have studies and breakthrough. Its still a draw/discard that cant be countered, I think the basic island is a little harsh :)

What plan are you on, just keep drawing and not getting him to activate the crypt?

[sunshine]

Cephalid Coliseum is a non-basic Island games 2-3 because it's draw is stopped by Crypt, I find the UA/Oboro plan conflicts with the Cephalid Coliseum plan a lot, so I'd rather emphasize the land that helps me play thru' Crypt instead of the land that does nothing vs Crypt.


If you want to run Oboro over Coliseum for Ghast that's fine, and possibly correct. To argue that Coliseum is bad against Crypt though is very far off IMO. If you're looking to break your Coliseums and play out your Studys early games two and three then it's not really a surprise that they would seem sub par in a build without a combo finish. Why not hold them until after your graveyard is exiled to refuel yourself, rather than have to rebuild using just the draw step? Dredging once a turn is OK in the early game but can easily be raced later if your graveyard gets wiped and the opponent as established a clock - being able to recover that ground quickly is very important - having that functionality in a land is better still as slow dredging becomes a lot more effective when you can actually play the cards you dredge up.

[jimirynk]

Honest question here.
WTF are you guys losing to?
I mean besides are bad match-ups (prison, mirror, combo) what decks are you guys losing to?
I'm not asking you what hate you're losing to, or what we should lose to, what are you honestly having a hard time beating?

Build your 75 to help you with those match-up's stop posting lists trying to justify running ichorid and bloodghast.

[Anusien]

Aside from Prison, Dredge doesn't have matchups against decks. It has matchups against hate cards.

[Grillo]

I'm losing to prison and merfolk.
FOW + daze + wasteland + vial is a bit too much.
They can control the early game and then win the attrition war vialing in lord after lord... DDD is not an option against merfolk.

[kicks_422]

Seriously? Merfolk?

When I built my sideboard, I initially thought of what decks to prepare for, but eventually I realized I was thinking of what hate each deck would bring in against me, not bring in something to stop them from doing their thing... So I would agree with Anusien.

[johanessen]

FOW + daze + wasteland + vial is a bit too much.

Add cursecatcher and we are fucked. I don't fear Vial more than cursecatcher. But after side, firestorm is teh nutz. This is why firestorm is really needed in the sideboard.

[Grillo]

Add cursecatcher and we are fucked. I don't fear Vial more than cursecatcher. But after side, firestorm is teh nutz. This is why firestorm is really needed in the sideboard.

Yes firestorm is the nutz... when you can resolve it.

[andrew77]

Why do people even post bloodghast lists here? They should start another thread in the new/developmental forum where they can talk about awful decks running bloodghast.

[Anusien]

I'm losing to prison and merfolk.
FOW + daze + wasteland + vial is a bit too much.
They can control the early game and then win the attrition war vialing in lord after lord... DDD is not an option against merfolk.
Then you're doing something wrong. Feldman beat these lists that had all that plus maindeck Relic of Progenitus.

[SMR0079]

Trying to fit in both Bloodghast and Ichorid in the traditional shell while still maintaining consistent ratios is difficult.

Has anyone tried straight up swapping Narcomoebas for Bloodghast?

My friend was complaining about Narco the other day and had trimmed down to 3 in his Bloodghast/Ichorid list. I first balked at his idea, then the more we talked about it, I suggested he just cut the Narcos entirely.

This will certainly slow the deck down a bit when you don't have a recurring land, as you won't flip Narcos for free off your last big dredge before you cast Dread Return. However, games 2 & 3 you aren't really trying to do that anyway.

If you are able to play a land the turn you are dredging than Bloodghast accomplishes what NArco does and much more. Running Oboro would help support this plan.

I know it's a radical idea, and possibly garbage, but I think it's worth giving a try if you are running both creatures.

[Aleksandr]

Why do people even post bloodghast lists here? They should start another thread in the new/developmental forum where they can talk about awful decks running bloodghast.

Smokin' too much?

Bloodghast is the best card since BfB.

[Anusien]

Smokin' too much?

Bloodghast is the best card since BfB.
There's not strong consensus to that fact. I agree, actually. I'd not like to see this become a war of Bloodghast versus Ichorid. If you want Ichorids, stay here. If you want Bloodghast, start a new list. If LED/LEDless are divergent enough for new threads, so is Bloodghast.

[andrew77]

Then you're doing something wrong. Feldman beat these lists that had all that plus maindeck Relic of Progenitus.

If you are talking about his matches at GP Chicago he got extremely lucky. His opponent made mistake after mistake. There really was no excuse for the merfolk player to lose, but I guess the feature match got to him.

Also on bloodghast. I won't go into depth, but I will say this. It is strictly worse than ichorid. That means ichorid stays over it. If you still want to fit it that means you are diluting the deck and making it slower and worse. Any version with bloodghast plays very differently from ichorid versions. I would say LEDless ichorid is more similar to LED dredge than it is to the awful bloodghast lists so if there are separate lists for LED, and LEDless there should be a separate list for bloodghast lists.

The real issue with bloodghast is that not only is it unimpressive, but it does more harm than good. Sure you might be more consistent and it might help some matchups, but it completely screws other matchups up. Please explain to me how a bloodghast list has any game against combo? You go off turn 4 on average compared to their turn 2. Also due to the fact they are so slow bloodghast lists will have huge problems against traditionally easy matchups like 43 lands. Giving them 3-4 turns means they will find a chasm and you will lose.

[Aleksandr]

Also due to the fact they are so slow bloodghast lists will have huge problems against traditionally easy matchups like 43 lands. Giving them 3-4 turns means they will find a chasm and you will lose.

Like that it matters, because 75% of meta consist of 43_Land.crapdeck... :rolleyes:

I always thought that one of the strengths of the Ichorid deck is its total noninteractivity (or call it however you wish). 2/1 imbecils that skip from GY and do not die to removal (sort of) are weak since when? If such is a case, than take out Moebas, too.

Taking out LEDs and adding Ghasts is reasonable move, as you make the deck more consistent and you increase your threat count... etc. I'm too lazy to explain something that obvious.

Otoh, play the deck as you like to, I cannot care less.



V From the thread where ppl seriously advice to take out FKZ. V


Also due to the fact they are so slow bloodghast lists...

^ From the thread where ppl seriously advice to take out FKZ. ^

[andrew77]

Like that it matters, because 75% of meta consist of 43_Land.crapdeck... :rolleyes:
Actually 43 land has put up much better results than bloodghast dredge. Bloodghast dredge has almost 0 results due to the fact that it sucks.



I always thought that one of the strengths of the Ichorid deck is its total noninteractivity (or call it however you wish). 2/1 imbecils that skip from GY and do not die to removal (sort of) are weak since when? If such is a case, than take out Moebas, too.
LED dredge is noninteractive too. If you really value noninteractivity though why don't you drop cabal therapy from your list? Anyway moeba doesn't compare to bloodghast as it doesn't require screwing up your lands etc.



Taking out LEDs and adding Ghasts is reasonable move, as you make the deck more consistent and you increase your threat count... etc. I'm too lazy to explain something that obvious.

There is a balance between consistency and speed. Adding bloodghast gives you consistency you don't really need while slowing you down massively. Put it this way. If you could run 8 ichorids would you? I seriously doubt it. If fow didn't exist the LED lists would probably only run 2 or 3 main as ichorid itself is slow. Bloodghast is not only slow, but requires you to screw up the manabase, and is generally awful. It doesn't die at eot to feed bridges and a 2/1 that can't block isn't all that impressive.

[johanessen]

Bloodghast dredge has almost 0 results due to the fact that it sucks.
Yeah:

Matthew Bartlett StarCityGames.com $5,000 Legacy Open - Philadelphia 11.10.2009 3rd/Many
Ginés Valera Liga Valenciana de Legacy II. Torneo 2 18.10.2009 5th/59
Alessandro Teneggi The Reckoning 08.11.2009 1st/82
Josué López Liga Valenciana de Legacy II. Torneo 2 18.10.2009 1st/59
Darío González Final Liga Madrileña de Legacy 25.10.2009 1st/28
Artur Marciniak Legacy League - Poznan 14/11 14.11.2009 2nd/25
Joachim Feuerstein Legacy Bäckerei Müller Leverkusen 31/10 31.10.2009 4th/13
Dominik Tillmann Legacy Bäckerei Müller Leverkusen 14/11/09 14.11.2009 1st/16


deckcheck.net

[FieryBalrog]

Whenever I've played against Dredge, lists that combine Bloodghast and Ichorid are much more scary than lists that only use either one alone.

[YigSnakeDaddy]

Has anyone any reports on the games from these tourneys? I'd like to see how big Bloodghasts role actually was. Or if the matches couldn't have been won by regular Dredge too, because that's the feeling I get when I watch people play with BGhast.
Despite the obvious appliance in Dredge, I still think it takes too much support to justify its use.

Which brings me to the next point. Since the recent trend in Dredge focuses so much on Bloodghast and it's support cards like Dakmor, I find it quite unfair to still call it Ichorid-Dredge, since good old Ike plays second fiddle to his baby brother.

[johanessen]

Has anyone any reports on the games from these tourneys? I'd like to see how big Bloodghasts role actually was. Or if the matches couldn't have been won by regular Dredge too, because that's the feeling I get when I watch people play with BGhast.

http://www.magic4all.es/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73:final-liga-madrilena-legacy-report&catid=8:reports&Itemid=10

It's in spanish, you may need a translator

[4eak]

To make Bloodghast worthwhile it requires surgery on the mana-base and a different strategy. It has different strengths. I'm not so much a fan of BG-Dredge in game 1. I am, however, a much bigger fan of it in games 2 and 3. From my testing (feel free to do your own, as it will be difficult to see some of these points without actual pilot experience), BG-Dredge:

Positive=

Has a mana-base which makes DDD even stronger.
Requires the smallest GY of any build to be actively grinding out the opponent.
Is less reliant upon Bridge, and is thus less linear than other Dredge builds.

It has an alternate recursive plan, yet another way to win, that also works in conjunction with regular Ichorid.
Because it can more reliably recur creatures into play, it isn't as concerned about having multiple Bridges before blowing a "sac-outlet".
Even 1 Bridge, 1 BG, and 1 Bounce land will force your opponent into playing very differently.

Has more ways to abuse Bridge. This is ironic, but true. BG simultaneously makes positions with and without Bridge stronger than what is available to LEDless.
Plays through artifact-based GY hate (forcing it early usually) even without Ancient Grudge.
Has even fewer mana-requirements to function (playing land is not necessarily the same as using mana)
Has an even better matchup against blue-based control decks -- dropping land doesn't use the stack.


Negative=

It is slower, by roughly a turn.
Can't cast or use abilities which require 2 lands (CC, 2cc Spells, etc.) nearly as well.
If your opponent maintains creature parity with you (let me stress how difficult this can be for an opponent to achieve), they have X/+3 creatures, and you lack bridges, then Bloodghasts aren't very useful.
Has an even weaker matchup against combo decks.
Has more problems against very strong openings from opposing aggro decks.
Will likely not support Red, Green, and White costs as well as regular LEDless (although it also has much less need for the colors)


Anyone still struggling with "should I run DR targets in the main?" and "What is the use of DDD, doesn't it suck?" is unlikely to appreciate or be as fully capable of piloting LEDless builds designed with Bloodghast in mind. If you think Dredge's primary problem is not speed, but instead running interference against opposing hate and breaking apart this decks linearity into more more flexible gameplan possibilities, then you should test Bloodghast some more. I'm not saying it is the only option, but I think its a viable option.





peace,
4eak

[Aleksandr]

4eak summed it very well. I just cannot stress how true is namely this:


It has an alternate recursive plan, yet another way to win, that also works in conjunction with regular Ichorid.
...
Has an even better matchup against blue-based control decks -- dropping land doesn't use the stack.

[JonBarber]

Has an even better matchup against blue-based control decks -- dropping land doesn't use the stack.


Yeah, but BG's landfall ability does, which can be stifled.

[Aleksandr]

Yeah, but BG's landfall ability does, which can be stifled.

But don't forget that it triggers for each BGhast and every time a land enters BF. They don't have that many Stifles. Unless they are on the Stick, of course...

[Grillo]

http://www.magic4all.es/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=73:final-liga-madrilena-legacy-report&catid=8:reports&Itemid=10

It's in spanish, you may need a translator

From the report it's pretty clear that bloodghast is just another beater and not an enabler.
Key cards for this guy were putrid imps and therapies.

[4eak]

Yeah, but BG's landfall ability does, which can be stifled.

So, that means they won't have a Stifle for my Ichorid. Stifle isn't very useful against Dredge (not nearly as effective as FoW and Daze), but if there is a serious Stifle target, it would be a CC activation, which BG-Dredge does not rely upon as much (testing without CC has been fairly decent for BG builds; which is was quite a surprise to me, as I that is not my finding for regular LEDless).

The point is that Bloodghast is yet another almost completely non-interactive way to recur. And, for your example, BG-Dredge has way more targets to absorb Stifle than other non-BG builds. If Stifle was a concern, then BG wins out as well.

The engine, for all intensive purposes, is immune to permission. Self-bouncing lands and Bloodghast play right through blue.

-------------------------------------------------

For those who are too lazy, here's a Google translation link of that page:

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://www.magic4all.es/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26view%3Darticle%26id%3D73:final-liga-madrilena-legacy-report%26catid%3D8:reports%26Itemid%3D10&sl=es&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

I have to admit, I don't care for his build very much. He's certainly not going to maximize the value of Bloodghast in his shell. He's even running DR-targets; this is a good sign that he doesn't know how and why the deck would evolve with Bloodghasts.


From the report it's pretty clear that bloodghast is just another beater and not an enabler.
Key cards for this guy were putrid imps and therapies.

Bloodghast is another form of "Ichorid", but instead of requiring a lot of black creatures and heavy dredging to keep him active, you can have very minimal dredging (sometimes doesn't even require it at all) with a suitable bouncing/dredging mana-base. Bloodghast has fewer requirements for activation (lower cost), although he can't block and doesn't kill himself endstep, so he's also not as powerful Ichorid (lower benefit). All in all, Ichorid is no more an enabler than Bloodghast.




peace,
4eak

[jimirynk]

The only way you should be losing to Ux control is if you keep a weak opening hand, or the get enough hate to stop you.

[4eak]

The only way you should be losing to Ux control is if you keep a weak opening hand, or the get enough hate to stop you.

Neither conditions are possible. I guess we shouldn't consider specializing any further as a non-interactive deck which isn't as linear, and we shouldn't worry about being capable of winning in the face of effective hate or winning in cases where we've mulled into weak hands.

I'm not calling Bloodghast the second coming of the Messiah; there are metagames where I don't prefer the build. It seems reasonable, however, to recognize what Bloodghast does, where he belongs, how you should play with him, and so on. I'm wondering how many people have actually sat down and tested Bloodghast--that might produce more fruitful conversation.





peace,
4eak

[bum_man]

Also on bloodghast. I won't go into depth, but I will say this. It is strictly worse than ichorid. That means ichorid stays over it. If you still want to fit it that means you are diluting the deck and making it slower and worse. Any version with bloodghast plays very differently from ichorid versions. I would say LEDless ichorid is more similar to LED dredge than it is to the awful bloodghast lists so if there are separate lists for LED, and LEDless there should be a separate list for bloodghast lists.

Have you even played the card before saying this? Bloodghast is a little worse than Ichorid that's why it shouldn't replace it, it's a supplement. Even with bloodghasts, The deck still wins at the same pace as the pre-ghast non-led lists. I've been playing it that way, If you aren't winning at the same pace, you're doing it wrong, you/your list is the problem and not the card. The deck's philosophy is still the same even with bloodghasts in them, thus, no need for a new thread. Again, if you're not playing it the same way/combo way and/or replaced ichorids with bloodghasts, go create a new "dredge based landfall aggro.dec" thread.


The real issue with bloodghast is that not only is it unimpressive, but it does more harm than good. Sure you might be more consistent and it might help some matchups, but it completely screws other matchups up. Please explain to me how a bloodghast list has any game against combo? You go off turn 4 on average compared to their turn 2.

Ichorid has less game against combo since you can't put them back into the battlefield during your combo turn. Bloodghasts are capable of such, thus, making my turn 2-3 returns more frequent. I've piloted this deck and it ran toe to toe against belcher and AdN, so I'm definitely sure that what you said is not the case.


Actually 43 land has put up much better results than bloodghast dredge. Bloodghast dredge has almost 0 results due to the fact that it sucks.
This the same arguement LED Players used to say against Non-LED Players some time ago. The deck doesn't put up as many results because they aren't played as much. Obviously, the deck doesn't suck since it placed 1st 4 times in the span of a month or so.


There is a balance between consistency and speed. Adding bloodghast gives you consistency you don't really need while slowing you down massively. Put it this way. If you could run 8 ichorids would you? I seriously doubt it. If fow didn't exist the LED lists would probably only run 2 or 3 main as ichorid itself is slow.

This is the point, the point of discussing bloodghast in the deck is finding away to fit them in without losing speed through drastically changing the shell /overdoing things and greatly emphasizing on bloodghast. This means finding a list that can play bloodghast effectively enough without necessarilly re-engineering the deck too much that its strategy revolves around bloodghast exclusively.


Bloodghast is not only slow, but requires you to screw up the manabase, and is generally awful. It doesn't die at eot to feed bridges and a 2/1 that can't block isn't all that impressive.
Screwing up the mana base is a good example of over-doing the whole fitting-in the bloodghast plan. Not dying EoT isn't necessarily a bad thing, You have more outs to combo-out a finish after being crypted. Not being able to block is the only bad thing bloodghast does, but in any case, you really shouldn't be in any position where you desperately need to block something and ghast is your only creature, if you are, regardless of any list you play, you lose.

Again, the point of discussion should be finding a way of using Bloodghast in the deck effectively without building the deck around it. Any useful insights on this?

[johanessen]

Again, the point of discussion should be finding a way of using Bloodghast in the deck effectively without building the deck around it. Any useful insights on this?

Have not tried this, but a LED version with Eternal witness?

[Joe_C]

Again, the point of discussion should be finding a way of using Bloodghast in the deck effectively without building the deck around it. Any useful insights on this?

I really dont think there is. You need to manipulate the manabase to run 4 Paradise and usually a dakmor or oboro(s). That changes the deck enough to cause issues in my book. Having 8 permanent discard outlets is why this version (ledless) is as good as it is in my opinion. Being able to activate a coliseum on turn 2 since it doesnt normally run 4 paradise but rather more "permanent" sources of mana makes it stronger. True that turn 1 discard outlet, discard bloodghast+dredger is a busted opening, but ledless ichorid already has busted plays. Now if bloodghast really helped us win games 2/3 I would be way more interested in it. And trust me, I have a build with them that I have been trying to fall in love with, but it is yet to happen

[SlopeeJ]

The real topic conversation should be about games 2/3 and what to have in the sideboard and what to bring in vs what matchups/hate.

No matter how many Ichorid or Bloodghasts you run, you will most likely win game one. So arguing over which creature is stupid, even if you run both or one the problems in game 2/3 are still the same

I sometimes have problems with zoo or merfolk even game 1. For zoo, its hard to side in the 4 firestorms and needle/ancient grudges cause that is so many cards (7-8 cards). Even then zoo is still a pretty tough matchup, not to mention the combo decks and stax.

[BreathWeapon]

IMO Undiscovered Paradise and Cephalid Coliseum do not mesh, so it's not a question of whether or not Bloodghast is worth playing but a question of whether or not consistency/resiliency vs speed is what's in the deck's best interest.

[bum_man]

I really dont think there is. You need to manipulate the manabase to run 4 Paradise and usually a dakmor or oboro(s). That changes the deck enough to cause issues in my book. Having 8 permanent discard outlets is why this version (ledless) is as good as it is in my opinion. Being able to activate a coliseum on turn 2 since it doesnt normally run 4 paradise but rather more "permanent" sources of mana makes it stronger. True that turn 1 discard outlet, discard bloodghast+dredger is a busted opening, but ledless ichorid already has busted plays. Now if bloodghast really helped us win games 2/3 I would be way more interested in it. And trust me, I have a build with them that I have been trying to fall in love with, but it is yet to happen
I'll be looking to play my deck more but so far, Bloodghasts have been a factor in post-board games, especially enabling a return for FKZ for the finish after a wave or two of beats. I run 3 Paradise Effects (2 Undiscovered Paradise and 1 Oboro), 3 Coliseums, 2 Dakmor Salvages, 6 Discard Outlets. 3 each of paradise effects and coliseums, so far, have been good to me. I've never liked playing 4-ofs of both because both of them are terrible in multiples, they "slow" the deck down; 3 makes them show-up enough to make them very effective in the deck. I understand that this may just be the danger of cool things but it's good to me so far and I'll be changing it once I see a reason to do so.

[Aleksandr]

I'll be looking to play my deck more but so far, Bloodghasts have been a factor in post-board games, especially enabling a return for FKZ for the finish after a wave or two of beats. I run 3 Paradise Effects (2 Undiscovered Paradise and 1 Oboro), 3 Coliseums, 2 Dakmor Salvages, 6 Discard Outlets. 3 each of paradise effects and coliseums, so far, have been good to me. I've never liked playing 4-ofs of both because both of them are terrible in multiples, they "slow" the deck down; 3 makes them show-up enough to make them very effective in the deck. I understand that this may just be the danger of cool things but it's good to me so far and I'll be changing it once I see a reason to do so.

With only two Und. Paradise, do you have enough black/colored mana for your discard outlets? (I hope that by "discard outlets" you mean PImp and Tribe, not Study or Breakthrough... in such a case I understand that you don't need that many colored mana...)

Are three colliseums really enough? Because I play four-of and many times I find none of them in my starting seven and/or first one or two card I draw. (And one cannot rely on drawing them later, once the dredging starts.)

[bum_man]

With only two Und. Paradise, do you have enough black/colored mana for your discard outlets? (I hope that by "discard outlets" you mean PImp and Tribe, not Study or Breakthrough... in such a case I understand that you don't need that many colored mana...)
I play 4 City of Brass, 3 Gemstone Mines, and 2 Undiscovered Paradise which makes 9 out of my 15 lands. I tried it with 14 lands and it wasn't consistent enough, this led me to add the 14th land. So far, this set-up has been good to me, I am able to consistently start with a rainbow land and permanent discard outlet everytime.

[QUOTE=Aleksandr;408679]Are three coliseums really enough? Because I play four-of and many times I find none of them in my starting seven and/or first one or two card I draw. (And one cannot rely on drawing them later, once the dredging starts.)
One of the few things that I'd really like to find space for in my list is a 3rd Dread Return and a 4th Coliseum. A 4th Coliseum is great but three works just as well, I get alot of rainbow land + Coliseum hands consistently enough when I need them.

[Joe_C]

we all know bloodghast can be good. The situation here is more playstyle and preference I think. I cant bring myself to like this deck if it runs more than 13 land. It may just be me but when I increase my land count up tp 15 I dredge lands away instead of business. And running 4 coliseum makes me draw just a singleton in my opening hand (as in its my only land) or multiples of it. I would drop to 2, but I do want to see it when I drop a turn 1 imp/tribe. I also dont like going below 12 dredgers or less than the full playset of tribe/imp. And I have tried many configurations, this is just what works best for me I guess

[Aleksandr]

we all know bloodghast can be good. The situation here is more playstyle and preference I think.

Seconded.


I cant bring myself to like this deck if it runs more than 13 land. It may just be me but when I increase my land count up tp 15 I dredge lands away instead of business. And running 4 coliseum makes me draw just a singleton in my opening hand (as in its my only land) or multiples of it. I would drop to 2, but I do want to see it when I drop a turn 1 imp/tribe. I also dont like going below 12 dredgers or less than the full playset of tribe/imp. And I have tried many configurations, this is just what works best for me I guess

Dakmor Salvage is both land and dredger (otoh: awful at both roles...), so I don't find problem with three of them. Even though it is not an "insane play" to put it tapped on turn1, but going turn2: PImp, land, BT/Study is far from weak.

Is the playset of Tribes that important? I think that 4x PImp+BT+Study (and occasional Therapy) is enough. (With support of 2-3 Tribes.) But I don't use Tribes, because I play 15 lands, so maybe it is right call to have four of them.

[4eak]

In case others might be interested, I've tried a more extreme route in my testing:

// Lands -- 12
4 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
4 [SOK] Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4 [FUT] Dakmor Salvage

// Draw and Discard -- 16
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [FUT] Street Wraith

// Dredgers -- 14
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Thug
2 [RAV] Darkblast

// GY-Goodies -- 18
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below


Bloodghast provides serious incentive to run bouncing lands and Dakmors, to an extent that it edges out our ability to consistently have more than 1 land in play. In addition, those lands are tailormade for DDDing (pickup the list, and you'll see it). So, I bit the bullet, went for the full change in the manabase, and I've been testing a build which revolves around extremely consistent chain dredging and 1cc spells exclusively.

8 Self-bouncing lands and 4 Dakmors might seem over the top. If you aren't trying to cast 2cc spells or abilities, then this change isn't as bad as you would think; there isn't actually a huge difference for casting PImps, Study, Breakthrough, Darkblast, and Therapy. Dropping Mines and CoBs for a very consistent abuse of Bloodghast is reasonable.

You'll notice (very sadly) that the coloration of the deck takes a hit. This means that I've chosen not to run Tribe in this build. I find this acceptable because I always DDD with this build, and with 18 Dredgers, it isn't as necessary to empty your hand. Breakthrough and PImp do a fine job, but it isn't as important. I have tried other options which are U or B, such as Raven's Crime (http://magiccards.info/eve/en/41.html), Drowned Rusalka (http://magiccards.info/gp/en/24.html), Hapless Researcher (http://magiccards.info/ju/en/42.html), and Trickster Mage (http://magiccards.info/ne/en/49.html); but, I wasn't impressed.

Street Wraith is surprisingly good. I really dislike SW in normal LEDless, but it has worked out in a more focused BG-Dredge list. While you don't have CC for explosiveness, DDD->SW is actually a relevant play with so many dredgers. As a mere bonus, it makes Ichorid more consistent. This curbs some of the speed issues I've faced in the surgical processes the deck had to undergo to effectively abuse Bloodghast.




peace,
4eak

[Zappa]

@4eak

I just tried that list since I have access to all those cards. The deck seems to lose out some speed by 1 turn and a few games it actually feels like its 2. When I was testing that list also, I really do miss the Narcs.

That configuration seems good for game 2/3. However, for game 1, I feel that there is only so much speed we can lose. Otherwise, even game 1, when we start losing speed, other decks that can put up a clock can race us.

[Nidd]

I'm going to take a list that is a bit similiar to 4eak's to our local Legacy tournament. I hope it works out the way I want it to...

[4eak]

For clarification, I am testing that build. It is quite experimental. I'm giving you my train of thought and relatively brief experience with it. I consider Bloodghast to be a largely untested segment of the Dredge world. If you want a surer bet, then stick to what you know.





peace,
4eak

[Zappa]

For clarification, I am testing that build. It is quite experimental. I'm giving you my train of thought and relatively brief experience with it. I consider Bloodghast to be a largely untested segment of the Dredge world. If you want a surer bet, then stick to what you know.

I understand, I didn't mean to sound like I'm bashing it or anything. I'm also twiddling with BG but, so far no positive lists yet. As messing with the mana base is a bit iffy without affecting our discard outlets =/ while tying to maintain same speed. x_x

I am going to test it out (your list) against some people though, on Monday.

[JonBarber]

Quick question. Lets say your opening hand is something like PImp, Careful Study, Grave-Troll, and City among other things. Turn 1 PImp, but then do you discard Grave-Troll EOT and skip your draw step to dredge? Or do you draw regularly, then hit them with CS to dredge?

[OurSerratedDust]

Quick question. Lets say your opening hand is something like PImp, Careful Study, Grave-Troll, and City among other things. Turn 1 PImp, but then do you discard Grave-Troll EOT and skip your draw step to dredge? Or do you draw regularly, then hit them with CS to dredge?

I would say definitely dredge on your draw. The chances of you drawing something useful aren't that good. Your changes of getting a dredger with GGT are pretty good, so following up with careful study sounds like a good plan. Even without hitting another dredger, you can discard GGT to pimp, and then careful study.

[Nidd]

And btw, you discard during your Upkeep, so your PImp has flying during your turn without having to discard sth again.

[JonBarber]

And btw, you discard during your Upkeep, so your PImp has flying during your turn without having to discard sth again.

Ahh, yes, that would make sense. How picky are all of you with your hands? I run a fairly standard list, nothing crazy, and I find that its pretty uncommon for me to have a land, dredger, draw, and discard in the opening 7. Taking a mulligan usually only gets me into more trouble. What do you consider a hand worth keeping? Something that only has all 4, or something with a little more give room? Thanks for the responses!

[Zappa]

I'm pretty happy with any hand with a dredger on it, I tend to mulligan when I draw the following:

- No dredgers
- A couple of Narcomoebas
- Several Bridge from Below in hand and no discard outlet
- Discard outlet (Imp/Tribe) and card draws but no mana

Hmm, I guess I may be picky on my hand :tongue: , but pretty much so long as I can open with a dredger its good. Dredger and combination of discard outlets /w mana and/or card draw is even better. Opening with bridges (multiples) in hand isn't as bad as you can Therapy yourself, but... I prefer to aim those therapy at the opponent.

But sometimes even with a good hand like City/Tribe/Troll/Breakthrough... I've had the misfortune of not getting a chain going. :laugh:

[4eak]

@ JonBarber


Lets say your opening hand is something like PImp, Careful Study, Grave-Troll, and City among other things. Turn 1 PImp, but then do you discard Grave-Troll EOT and skip your draw step to dredge? Or do you draw regularly, then hit them with CS to dredge?

For your hypothetical situation, you'll almost be guaranteed to dredge, barring a Leyline or some corner cases which I can't seem to think up right now. When you aren't lucky enough to have PImp, Dredger, Land against opposing hate and other odd circumstances, that is where you'll be forced to draw. A turn 1 thoughtseize on your solo PImp would be a good example of a place where you simply must draw.


How picky are all of you with your hands?

It depends on the build and what your up against. You say you run a standard build. I'll try to give you the standard answer for the standard build. You're sitting at 11ish Dredgers and 2 DR targets, 7-8 PImp/Tribe, right? The standard build is aiming to be more explosive; it either has the goods or it doesn't. Prepare to mull aggressively (not as bad as LEDredge by any stretch), just in part because of the low odds of getting your golden hand.

This is the hand you are looking for from the standard build against an unknown opponent:

[Land] + [Dredger] + [(PImp/Tribe) or (2x Draw cards)*] *(should not be 2 CC's)

I think there are more keepable hands than the standard (even for the standard build), but my opinion is controversial, and you'll need to work that out for yourself. You should know that if you are willing to DDD, the options open up. Additionally, builds with more Dredgers or those built around Bloodghast have many non-standard keepable hands.

As Zappa explained, you'll need to weigh the value of cards that could be trapped in your hand. You'll also need to consider the effects of permission and removal on your hand. Most importantly, if you are against a known opponent (games 2 and 3), you'll need to consider the value of being resilient to hate or perhaps the necessity of exploding. You'll obviously need different hands against Storm and Stax than you'd need against Zoo or Thresh.


@ Zappa

It really sucks to have a good hand like that fall apart. Blowing your Breakthrough too early (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=400923&postcount=780) is easy to do. The odds of chain-dredging a breakthrough on turn 2 with a single dredger are unacceptably low in my eyes.

I only cast Breakthrough in these cases:


I have 2 or more dredgers in the GY.
I'm directly attempting to draw out a counter (Therapy revealed or the situation presented itself as such), perhaps I've a second in hand.
I mulled into a poor hand where Break is functionally a discard outlet.
I have 2 lands, a hand of goodies, and its worth the risk of trying to Break@1 for another draw spell (this is slightly different from the previous).
I'm in a "win now or lose" position (or quickly approaching it to the extent that I should Break now).




peace,
4eak

[Aleksandr]

I only cast Breakthrough in these cases:


I have 2 or more dredgers in the GY.
I'm directly attempting to draw out a counter (Therapy revealed or the situation presented itself as such), perhaps I've a second in hand.
I mulled into a poor hand where Break is functionally a discard outlet.
I have 2 lands, a hand of goodies, and its worth the risk of trying to Break@1 for another draw spell (this is slightly different from the previous).
I have 2 lands, one them is Colliseum, the other taps for blue. Be careful of Wasteland/Stifle.
I'm in a "win now or lose" position (or quickly approaching it to the extent that I should Break now).



I added one usual situation.

It is a bit different from the previous procedure, because you have your "draw spell" already prepared on the table. You may also cast BT for 0 and thus save a land for Daze mana or play Therapy/PImp/Tribe before the BT.

[Nidd]

God, that tournament went better than everyone said it would.

I'm going to write a small report later on, but I have some questions as for matchups.

Against Zoo, what's your strategy G2-3? Needle isn't that good against them because of Pridemage, they got PtE and tons of Burn, so they can remove your Bridges with ease.

Also, what to do against a resolved Jitte (R4 I faced Dragon Stompy)? I saw no way of playing around it. Do I simply suck or is a Jitte that bad news for us?

[Illissius]

Null Rod seems like (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30554) a great sideboard idea. I keep wanting to put that card into decks but hadn't thought of a good one yet. It works here for entirely different reasons, but now that we're not playing LED...

[Aleksandr]

Shame that Null Rod costs :2:, it is great card but for another deck... :-(
Also Pridemage destroys both Needle or Rod (and simultaneously takes care of BfB), so good old Grudge seems to be the best choice.

Nidd, I am really interested in the report!

[Nidd]

Okay, so here is the report I promised.

First off, I always played more traditional LED-less lists, but I got somewhat bored by them and Bloodghast looked refreshing to me. So I looked for a possibility to combo out asap G1 and then still have a deck that can slowroll and recover from GY hate.

Lands //

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Undiscovered Paradise


Discard //

4 Putrid Imp


Draw //

4 Careful Study


Dredger //

4 GGT
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug


Sac-Outlets //

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return


GY-Goodies //

4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below


Combo //

2 Sphinx of Lost Truth
1 FKZ



Okay, so I know the dredgecount looks low, but you can dredge the Salvages, too and I never found myself lacking a dredger. Maybe I'm just lucky:rolleyes:
Slowrolling is a joy with the deck. Bloodghast really does improve the deck very much in this department.
Also, the lack of tribes didn't matter to me. CS and PImp did the job very well. If I ever needed to discard a dredger and I didn't have either of those 2, I therapied myself.

Ok, off to the important thing (at which I horribly failed...): The SB.

SB //

1 Iona
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Reveillark
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Wispmare
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Pithing Needle
4 Unmask


My conclusion: Wispmares did nothing for me and noone packed Leylines or other enchantments that I would've cared about.
Grudge, on the other hand, was the MVP. It did everything I ever wanted it to do and more.
Needle is... well, it's Pithing Needle. The card every Dredge deck should have in it's SB. I could only lend me 3, I would've played 4 if I could.
Unmask really wasn't worth it. It somewhat improved G2-3 R3 (more on that later) but it didn't do anything else.
The Chosen didn't have a chance to save me because I dredged like... 10 lands in 3 turns before I died R4.
Reveillark was cool - I guess he had fun hanging around in my SB together with Iona and Primus. I didn't board any of the 3 even once - my fault. Ok, I used Reveillark once, but it was pretty unnecessary.



R 1
Matthias with Zoo

G1
I keep a hand with 2 CoB, 2 CS, 1 GGT, 1 Therapy and 1 PImp. I'm confident with it and keep.
He plays a Fetch T1 and I figure he plays some sort of R/G Aggro, as he fetches a Taiga and smacks down a Grim Lavamancer which already gives me worries.
On my turn I, I draw a CC and do the obvious thing - I play a City, play my PImp and pass the turn.
Then, the beats start. He plays a T2 Goyf, T3 thoctar while I'm busy dredging and go off T5 with 0 bridges in my GY (he removed them with his Lavamancer). I reanimate a Sphinx, dredge 2 GGTs, find 2 Moeba and 3 Bloodghast, dredge 1 Salvage, recur my dudes, return another Sphinx and then finally I find 2 Bridges and FKZ takes it home.


G2
I SB my combo out (only keep 1 DR) and grab 2 Grudges and 3 Needles.
I mull to 4 while he keeps his 7 with me on the draw. My 4 cards were Gemstone Mine, CS, CS, Bloodghast. I figured it could be way worse - and I was right. It could be way worse. And it got way worse.
He plays T1 Grim Lavamancer and 2 Crypts, T2 Qasali Pridemage and T3 Thoctar. I concede T5, as I fail at finding business.


G3
No further boarding.
My opening 7 look promising: CC, Therapy, Grudge, CoB, Needle, GGT, GGT.
I keep them and start T1 with a Needle on Crypt. He nods and plays a Fetch into Taiga into Oxidize which makes me sigh. He then smacks down 3 Crypts and I know I'm into deep shit.
The game drags on and on. He fails to find a clock (He later on showed me his hand, he had like 3 Thoctar and 2 Qasali - but he didn't find a white source) and I start the rolling and blast his Crypts with my Grudge. Grudge takes down 2 Crypts, he takes out my GY 3 times, stripping me from the majority of my dredgers, 3 Ichorid and 1 Bloodghast. I still didn't blow the Coliseum, but I know I will be dead next turn because I have nothing to block his 3/3 Nacatl. I'm on 3, so I figure he doesn't have Lightning Bolt. I crack my CC and he fires a magma Jet at my hand.
For curiosities sake, we went through what I would've dredged. He was on 4 and had an untapped Nacatl to block 1 of my Bloodghast if I would've managed to dredge 3 and recur them with a Salvage. guess what I dredged - right, 3 Bloodghast. And I could've recurred them with a Salvage.


R 2
I hear I should play some dude called Bye, but he doesn't show up. I figure he's a lame ass dude and get myself something to eat.


R 3
Axel with Salvager Combo

G1
I knew what he was playing because I spent my time during R 2 with scouting and I figured this would be an easy matchup for me.
I'm on the play and he tells me he doesn't know how my deck works, which makes me feel sad for creating 32 Zombie Tokens T4 (after eating 3 FoW and 2 Condescend) and giving them haste. I fail at doing over 100 damage:frown:
Fun fact: He plays Arcane Denial and he actually used it once to stop a hardcast Narcomoeba. I could've hugged him for doing this.


G 2
I SB my combo out, as I know he can tutor up hate (He got EE, Crypt and Relic) and I board 4 Unmask, 2 Grudge and 3 Needle. I also take out 1 PImp, 1 Study and 1 Paradise.
The game basically boils down to him winning because I am so goddamned stupid as I don't name Crypt with my Needle, but rather aim it at Salvager.
The games takes like 13 turns for him to find his combo, EE to get rid of Needle and recovering from my assault of discard.


G3
I board out 2 Unmask and take in the Reveillark and 1 DR, as I saw him not having any removal at all.
I draw my starting 7 and I see Therapy, Therapy, Therapy, CC, Gemstone Mine, GGT, CS and I decide to keep it.
T 1 I therapy him naming Crypt and I hit a full playset of these bitches. From there on, it's a cakewalk to victory and I take it home T5 with 2 GGTs.


R 4
Moritz with Dragon Stompy

G 1
In our testing, we pretty much blew the other one up everytime - tehre were no close games, even after SB. The matchup isn't that easy G2-3.
G 1 ended with me comboing out on T3 - He got raped by his own manabase and I dredged decently.


G 2
I SB my Grudges and my Needles, taking out the combo besides 1 DR for a big GGT which he can't handle.
My starting 7 consisted of something like CoB, Needle, Grudge, CS, Thug, Thug, Ichorid and I kept it.
He played T 1 Crypt and a CoT, then passed the turn.
I play Needle for Crypt and pass the turn.
He plays a Mountain with 2 mana in pool, sacs his CoT, plays 2 Seething Song, removes a SSg from hand, plays 1 SSG, Trinisphere and Chalice @ 1. I stare at him and ask him if he's serious, he gives me his dirty smile. Oh well, he eventually manages to get on 1 Rakdos Pit Dragon and goes hellbent ftw. I dredge... lands. And Bridges. Then I'm dead.:frown:


G 3
No SB changes. I'm an idiot for forgetting Iona.
I start with a CS and discard 2 Stinkweed Imp, he starts with T 1 Jitte off an Ancient Tomb. I dredge some cards, nothing too important. he plays a morphed creature and I figure it must be Akroma. I then dredge into 2 Narcomoeba and 2 bridges, thinking about how to kill him. I pass the turn and hope for the opportunity for a big GGT next turn.
On his turn, he shows me his war face, plays 2 Seething Song, removes 1 SSG from his hand, equips his morphed creature and shows me Akroma.
The deal is sealed, I don't dredge into an answer to her fat butt and have no business racing her.




Conclusion

The list still needs work, though I'm quite satisfied because I lost to a bad matchup R 1 and was blown out by a very nutty hand R 4. Definitely going to get my hands on 4 Needles, they are worth every single cent.


And now criticize my list.

[Zappa]

@ Zappa

It really sucks to have a good hand like that fall apart. Blowing your Breakthrough too early (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=400923&postcount=780) is easy to do. The odds of chain-dredging a breakthrough on turn 2 with a single dredger are unacceptably low in my eyes.

I only cast Breakthrough in these cases:


I have 2 or more dredgers in the GY.
I'm directly attempting to draw out a counter (Therapy revealed or the situation presented itself as such), perhaps I've a second in hand.
I mulled into a poor hand where Break is functionally a discard outlet.
I have 2 lands, a hand of goodies, and its worth the risk of trying to Break@1 for another draw spell (this is slightly different from the previous).
I'm in a "win now or lose" position (or quickly approaching it to the extent that I should Break now).




peace,
4eak


For me, when it is game 2/3, yes I'll play more conservatively. However, game 1, I try not to think too much into things and just play the deck as is. But regardless, should there be a doubt, I could always just DDD, specially when going 2nd, and seeing if the opponent with somehting like a land that can fetch/produce anything blue. I am however, a gambling man, specially when I go 1st, so definitely when a chance like that shows up, I tend to just throw the dice without thinking twice :tongue: .

A little thing I need an opinion with. Against ANT, which creature is better to board in, specially when you were able to rip away his tutors/wish/draw. Chosen or Iona?


R 3
Axel with Salvager Combo --- snip ---
Fun fact: He plays Arcane Denial and he actually used it once to stop a hardcast Narcomoeba. I could've hugged him for doing this.

Wow, seeing that would put a smile on my face actually ha ha.


EDIT:
Last night I took my pretty standard decklist, and toyed with it for a dozen games (19 actually, according to my note pad). I went a little extreme and increased my dedge count some more, and it seems very consistent. I went with a 15/15/15 split between Dredgers/Discards/Lands.


"15 is the magic number" (lol not really, just felt funny for me)

//15 Lands
4 Cephalid Colliseum
3 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

//15 Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Darkblast

//15 Discard
4 Cabal Theraphy
4 Putrid Imp
4 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study

4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

2 Dread Return
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths

I mulligan far less, and was able to chain very well. Slow rolling with DDD felt smoother as well. The sphinx was just to chain and get more therapies and tokens. What you guys think? Looks good so far, but just 19 games played with it though. No extensive play test yet. Looks like it has promise or do I just stick with the traditional build?

[jurda]

I've been a lurker in this thread for some time, and today I got the chance to play in a small, local legacy tournament. Not having any other competitive decks, I decided to sleeve up an LED-less list with quite a few non-standard cards.

Mana (12)
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Dredgers (11)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Golgari Thug
2 Darkblast

Draw/Discard (19)
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Street Wraith

Graveyard Stuff (18)
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge From Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Flame-kin Zealot

Sideboard
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darkblast
3 Unmask
2 Spell Pierce
1 Ancient Grudge

Most, if not all of the sub-optimal card choices are because I wasn't able to find cards in time for the tournament. I went heavy on the darkblasts as I was expecting alot of aggro to show up. Tournament is 4 rounds of swiss, cut to top4

Round 1. Craig with Zoo

Game 1
He's on the play. I get the nuts breakthrough on turn two, make a bunch of tokens, and beat him down.

Game 2
I keep a slow hand, and don't do too much during my first few turns. He gets a turn 1 Nacatl, turn 2 goyf, turn 3 goyf and I struggle to stabilize. By the time I hit enough bridges in the yard to create a token army I'm within reach of his burn spells.

Game 3
We go back and forth for a while. My bridges get blown up repeatedly by his active jitte, and Gaddock Teeg keeps me from hitting a breakthrough. I get him down to 9, but the jitte and several nacatls prove too much. After the game my opponent tells me my ancient grudge was sitting in my graveyard for most of the game.
1-2 (0-1)

Round 2: Mike playing LED Ichorid
Game 1
He mulligans to 4 and keeps a slow hand. I get a first turn P Imp and double first turn dredges off of street wraith cycles. Turn 3 I dread return FKZ for the win.

Game 2
His turn 0 leyline gets chained, and my double ravenous trap keeps him from getting any steam going. I slow roll him with ichorid beats
2-0 (1-1)

Round 3: Joel playing Landstill
Game 1
My first ichorid gets stp'ed and he is able to keep me off draw spells. I win in a longish game through narcomoebas and tokens taking small chunks out of his life.

Game 2
Early on in the game he gets a recurring engineered explosives out for 0 to deal with my token swarms and follows it up with an E. plague set to horror. Next turn he plays a second e. plague and I prepare to get locked out of the game. Instead of naming illusion to kill my narcomoebas he names horror again :smile: I'm able to chip away at his life, but almost end up decking myself. With 1 card left in library I ancient grudge his EE and he scoops, thinking I have FKZ. Looking at my notes afterward I realize I sided out my FKZ to go for a more controlling game.
2-0 (2-1)

Round 4: James playing UGb Fae Thresh?
I'm still not sure what his deck was. It played bitterblossom and spellstutter sprite for counters along with goyf, standstill, stifle, EE, and the standard threshold counter package.

Game 1
He gets out a first turn mongoose, and has counters for my first two breakthroughs. I end up racing his double geese with recurring ichorids and finish him off with lethal on the board.

Game 2
I have no idea how to sideboard for this match, so I play cards which turn out to be completely dead against him. My turn two breakthrough is met with a tormod's crypt and I don't draw any more gas as a goose and a goyf beat me.

Game 3
We get an equal number of creatures on the boards, but his are 5/6 goyfs while mine are 2/2 bridge tokens. I play sloppy and lose the race to the finish.
1-2 (2-2)

Thanks to the most ridiculous standings ever, I'm able to make the cut to top4, along with my round 1,2, and 4 opponents.

Top4: Craig playing zoo
Game 1
He's on the play, and drops a kird ape. I draw the nuts and combo out early.

Game 2
Turn 2 I cabal therapy twice and manage to whiff on both :confused: Apparently remembering your opponents hand is savage tech. The rest of the game is pretty similar to our game 3 in round 1, with him playing a Teeg and a jitte. I'm able to grudge away the jitte this time, and ride a token swarm into the finals.

Finals: Mike with LED dredge
Game 1
I start on the play, and we trade bridges and tokens. I'm down to 5 when I hit triple ichorid with 10 tokens in play and attack for the win

Game 2
We both build our board position and it comes down to his Akroma racing my 16/16 grave-troll. Unfortunately Akroma has trample and my troll does not.

Game 3
I keep a marginal hand and am unable to deal with his turn 0 leyline. Four lands lets me hard cast a few creatures, but nothing that is able to compete with his side.

Considering the choice of cards in my 75 and my loose playing throughout the day, I felt my deck worked quite well. Please feel welcome to rip my decklist apart

[Zappa]

Wow, you played against 2 LED dredge? ... Interesting... surprised you 2-0 against one of them. As I would have expected them to be faster.

EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't notice it was Swiss.


I've been a lurker in this thread for some time, and today I got the chance to play in a small, local legacy tournament.

I don't think i've seen you post here, or in this thread at least. But, welcome, current thing we're talking about here is just about increasing consistency during chain dredging, though people lost me when people started giving numbers... I don't like numbers :tongue: . Also, some discussions about how to fit in BG in a nice optimal build.


Not having any other competitive decks, I decided to sleeve up an LED-less list with quite a few non-standard cards.Considering the choice of cards in my 75 and my loose playing throughout the day, I felt my deck worked quite well. Please feel welcome to rip my decklist apart

Hm... some people here believed that 13 lands would be the minimum of lands they'll run. Me, my comfort is at 15, though for others its too much. But what I was curious about, is that I see you're running Zealot main decked, but only running 1 copy of dread return? I would just advise you to try to make room for 1 more. It's a great way of making tokens, as well as somewhat sealing the game DRing a troll with zombie tokens by it's side.



Thanks for the report, always nice to see what people play against and how they play against that particular match.

[BreathWeapon]

In case others might be interested, I've tried a more extreme route in my testing:

// Lands -- 12
4 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
4 [SOK] Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
4 [FUT] Dakmor Salvage

// Draw and Discard -- 16
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [FUT] Street Wraith

// Dredgers -- 14
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Thug
2 [RAV] Darkblast

// GY-Goodies -- 18
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FNM] Cabal Therapy
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below


Bloodghast provides serious incentive to run bouncing lands and Dakmors, to an extent that it edges out our ability to consistently have more than 1 land in play. In addition, those lands are tailormade for DDDing (pickup the list, and you'll see it). So, I bit the bullet, went for the full change in the manabase, and I've been testing a build which revolves around extremely consistent chain dredging and 1cc spells exclusively.

8 Self-bouncing lands and 4 Dakmors might seem over the top. If you aren't trying to cast 2cc spells or abilities, then this change isn't as bad as you would think; there isn't actually a huge difference for casting PImps, Study, Breakthrough, Darkblast, and Therapy. Dropping Mines and CoBs for a very consistent abuse of Bloodghast is reasonable.

You'll notice (very sadly) that the coloration of the deck takes a hit. This means that I've chosen not to run Tribe in this build. I find this acceptable because I always DDD with this build, and with 18 Dredgers, it isn't as necessary to empty your hand. Breakthrough and PImp do a fine job, but it isn't as important. I have tried other options which are U or B, such as Raven's Crime (http://magiccards.info/eve/en/41.html), Drowned Rusalka (http://magiccards.info/gp/en/24.html), Hapless Researcher (http://magiccards.info/ju/en/42.html), and Trickster Mage (http://magiccards.info/ne/en/49.html); but, I wasn't impressed.

Street Wraith is surprisingly good. I really dislike SW in normal LEDless, but it has worked out in a more focused BG-Dredge list. While you don't have CC for explosiveness, DDD->SW is actually a relevant play with so many dredgers. As a mere bonus, it makes Ichorid more consistent. This curbs some of the speed issues I've faced in the surgical processes the deck had to undergo to effectively abuse Bloodghast.




peace,
4eak

I run something real similar, IMO you want LED instead of Pimp game 1, Pimp is just sub-optimal game 1 because you're DDDing regardless and he's slow as fuck if you're casting him off Dakmor. Narcomoeba > Street Wraith, and Darkblasts are overkill IMO. You only need 2xDakmor MD, I SB the other 2, because you really want to make room for Serum Powder and a Deep Analysis to go with LED or maybe Shambling Shells and Brainstorms.

[ddt15]

Hello I'm new to the source.
I have a fairly standard list and i'd like some critique:

Mana (14)
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Undiscovered Paradise

Dredgers (11)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast (should be a 3rd Thug)

Draw/Discard (18)
3 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Cabal Therapy

Graveyard Stuff (17)
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge From Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Dread Return
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Cephalid Sage

Sideboard
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Pithing Needle
4 Ancient Grudge
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Firestorm

Four tribes are in there because my meta is infested with burn-goyf decks.
Thx in advance.

[bum_man]

@Nidd: Your list caught my attention, first of all, because it lacked breakthrough. Don't you think some matches tend to drag on for a long time when it could have ended turns sooner? The match-ups you lost to (zoo and dragon stompy) are just some of the few match-ups where the speed of the deck is a deciding factor in swaying the match-ups in your favor. Your match-ups would've been more solid if you had say -1 ghast, -1 ichorid, -1 sphinx for at least 3 breakthrough pre-board then 2 post-board without taking out the combo.
Then, i noticed you only had 1 paradise and 2 salvages to enable bloodghasts, was it enough? Oh and one last thing, how was the split of needle and grudge. I play 4 grudges because pridemage is rampant where I play, I want to play 4 but only have 3 and having 1 needle in play is often not enough since sb cards are more diverse now. I've tried splitting it and it was a struggle finding the right card during the right situations. X__X

@Zappa: On ANT, I'd probably go for Chosen, returning him, therapy and returning him again is game-breaking. This is assuming you were able to stop his combo. @__@
On your list, looks great. Just one thing, why not add 1 FKZ. For a list that could chain dredge so well, it would be such a shame if you can close-out the match right then and there on your combo turn.

@Jurda: Grats on the finish man, very well played. Just a few things. Thumbs-up on ravenous trap, savage tech man, there alot of dredge around your meta, i assume. Street Wraith would've been better it were 2 more returns and 2 more sphinxs, it'll give you more gas in chain dredging especially post-board. Needle and Grudge, any thoughts?

[jurda]

@burnman

Yeah, I'm one of four dredge decks in my metagame, so trap wins me games. Street wraith was mostly a filler card. It does provide gas and food for ichorids, but some of them will get switched for something else, probably dread returns.
Grudge in the sideboard is sometimes helpful. I ran it as a one-of to test, and, when it showed up it was helpful. Pithing needle is getting changed out for something else. The only time it gets cast is when I open the game with it in-hand, and most of the time it gets countered/destroyed.

[Anusien]

Null Rod seems like (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30554) a great sideboard idea. I keep wanting to put that card into decks but hadn't thought of a good one yet. It works here for entirely different reasons, but now that we're not playing LED...
I've had Null Rod in my sideboard for a while, although I haven't gotten to try it. If I'm just facing Crypt/Relic I'll bring in Ancient Grudge. But locally some of the Counterbalance decks are starting to run Ravenous Trap. If they float it with Top I can't Therapy it or stop it. So it's Nix holding mana open or Null Rod to stop Top and their Crypts.

[Nidd]

@Nidd: Your list caught my attention, first of all, because it lacked breakthrough. Don't you think some matches tend to drag on for a long time when it could have ended turns sooner? The match-ups you lost to (zoo and dragon stompy) are just some of the few match-ups where the speed of the deck is a deciding factor in swaying the match-ups in your favor. Your match-ups would've been more solid if you had say -1 ghast, -1 ichorid, -1 sphinx for at least 3 breakthrough pre-board then 2 post-board without taking out the combo.
Then, i noticed you only had 1 paradise and 2 salvages to enable bloodghasts, was it enough? Oh and one last thing, how was the split of needle and grudge. I play 4 grudges because pridemage is rampant where I play, I want to play 4 but only have 3 and having 1 needle in play is often not enough since sb cards are more diverse now. I've tried splitting it and it was a struggle finding the right card during the right situations. X__X
Yeah, I noticed that not playing Breakthrough slowed me down a good chunk, the next list will include 3.

Grudge is awesome, however it needs to have an artifact in play and then your GY still gets blasted, while with a Needle it gets blasted only once.

The 2 Salvages are enough. I dredged them during chain dredges to reanimate my BGs and go for the kill.

[bum_man]

Grudge is awesome, however it needs to have an artifact in play and then your GY still gets blasted, while with a Needle it gets blasted only once.
This is a big issue that I have long considered in deciding whether to play needle or grudge, I decided to play grudge because in my experience its less of a dead card than needle in most of the time. Plus, bloodghast greatly improves the deck's resiliency after being crypted or reliced.

[QUOTE=Nidd;409545The 2 Salvages are enough. I dredged them during chain dredges to reanimate my BGs and go for the kill.[/QUOTE]
Ah, you reanimate ghasts only for the last few points of damage? I share the exact same sentiments.

@Everyone: Just some food for thought. It's obvious that bloodghast has been the next best thing to happen to this deck after bridge from below and dread return. It makes the deck loads better, and this can be seen in the increase of top 8 finishes of dredge decks across all formats in the whole world. It makes the deck's primary combo plan better and its fall back plan even more solid. Despite taking the deck into a whole a new phase in its development, there is still a big problem that bloodghast doesn't solve, the deck's linearity. It is true that bloodghast made the deck more vicious and more resilient, while at the same time increasing in the linearity of the deck. This is a bridge deck through and through, and bloodghast solidifies this point. The problem is the bridges are arguably the first things that opponents handle against this deck, despite having a strong ghast and ichorid swarm back-up plan, there just some matches that can still race this and zombie tokens. I've encountered a number of matches where i had no bridges at my disposal and my opponent just raced my critters. Then it came to my attention that I had I played my old list, I could've won that game. The point I'm trying to arrive at is, does this deck really need a more solid traditional game plan, increasing its linearity or expanding to its game plan, ie. having a win con that isn't bridge enabled (I'm looking at you Reveillark)? I've experienced playing both lists and I feel that both are very good in their own specific metagames. Any thoughts?

[Nidd]

Well, I use it G1 for a faster combo finish and it massively improves my slowrolling G2-3.
Also, I recur Ghast for Therapy.

But yeah, that's it. As a recursive beater, we have Ichorid. BG is the sacrificial lamb, like Narcomoeba.

@Grudge VS Needle
Needle still can shut up things like EE, so it's a hard decision. I wish Nullrod would cost 1...

Also, I start to feel more and more that an Eternal Witness warrants a slot. As a DR target, she can recur Null Rods/CC/Breakthrough/Needle. I dunno whether MD or SB, though. I tend to say SB.

[LostButSeeking]

Bum_man, I'm curious, what did you take out for the bloodghasts that lost you the game?

On your main point. You said it yourself; bloodghast makes the deck more resilient to hate, have a better plan A (combo for the flaming zombies)and a better plan B (get a few zombies and kill with Ichord and co.). I think the problem with what you're saying is that Dredge's strength is its linearity; dredge might look like an aggro deck because you generally kill people with a bunch of flaming zombies, but it's a combo deck, through and through, balls to bones. Imagine if storm combo said:
"Guys, look. There're all these good anti-storm cards right now. Stifle, and silence, and meddling mage, and that new trap card. Let's Make the deck less linear."

Also, I'm a bit unsure why you think reveillark would make the deck less linear. Could you explain?

What you actually made me think of is the old Friggorid deck. Remember it?
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=15221

[Nidd]

I already thought about banishing Bridge to the SB together with FKZ and play a more... GGT oriented version with Reveillark and Iona MD.

It looks interesting and sounds interesting, but I'm not sure whether this is developing the deck or ripping out it's intestines.

[LostButSeeking]

I mean, I suppose that protects you from decks that have creatures they can sacrifice--Zoo and Goblins, if they still have mogg fanatic. But you're sacrificing a lot of the decks power and you still have the same weakness to graveyard hate. I suppose I'd still like to see a list, although we might want to take that to N&D.

[ktkenshinx]

Crunching the Numbers
With the SCG 10K in the books, I wish to share a series of interesting observations about the Dredge deck. Much of the discussion over the past day has ignored these results, so I now offer them to liven up the deck building process. I will back up these observations with evidence from the SCG website, specifically from the Excel spreadsheet found here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18460_Too_Much_Information_St_Louis_Legacy_Open.html

1. Tons of Dredge Decks
The commentators and players consistently talked about Dredge being everywhere at St. Louis. The facts are in, and indeed it was. In the entire pool of 128 decks, here were the most played builds.

The Top 5 Archetypes at St. Louis
1. Dredge: 15 decks
2. Merfolk: 11 decks
2. Threshold: 11 decks
4. Countertop (and variants): 9 decks
5. Zoo: 5 decks

(There was also a large showing of various permutations of G/W/U/B beatdown decks, but it is unfair to lump those together without decklists, as they are likely rather different decks; both top 8 Aggro Loam decks are classified as “B/G/R Beatdown”, for instance.)

2. Overall, Dredge Performed Poorly. Very Poorly.
Just because Dredge was everywhere does not mean it did well. While 2 Dredge decks made the top 16, they were a clear exception to the norm. Here is the numeric breakdown of the 15 Dredge decks and their Win/Loss/Draw performance over the day:

5/2/0 record
5/2/0 record
4/3/0 record
4/3/0 record
3/3/0 record
1/2/0 record
1/2/2 record
1/2/0 record
1/2/0 record
1/2/0 record
1/3/0 record
1/3/0 record
1/4/0 record
0/3/0 record
0/3/0 record

Only 4 of the 15 decks had a winning record. One more broke even. The other 10 decks had a losing record. In many cases, it was a truly ugly losing record. Now, I admit that there is variety in Dredge lists, but not that much variety. It would not be fair for someone to say “The players who did well played a better list than the others,” especially with 15 decks which I imagine were all extremely similar.
So what decks did Dredge lose to? Here is the breakdown.

Dredge: 5
Threshold: 5
Aggro Loam: 4
Zoo: 3
ANT: 2
Armaggedon Stax: 2
Evagreen: 2
Merfolk: 2
StifleNaught: 2
38 Land
Affinity
B/W Beatdown
Belcher
Burn
Countertop Beatdown
Dragon Stompy
Goblins
Hulk
Landstill
Mono White Beatdown
Reanimator
Scepter

And here are the decks that Dredge beat over the course of the day:

Dredge: 5
Countertop: 4
Threshold: 4
Armageddon Stax: 2
Belcher: 2
Evagreen: 2
Scepter Chant: 2
Zoo: 2
Bant Beatdown
Elspeth Control
G/B/w Beatdown
Goblins
Merfolk
Reanimator
Sphinx Control

So what do we take away from this? The answer is, nothing good. For one, Dredge was Dredge’s best and worst matchup. That is sort of disheartening for many reasons, but also it was to be expected; a 50/50 race to the death. Countertop was, as expected, always in the Dredge player’s favor. Threshold was also about a 50/50 matchup, slightly in favor of the Threshold player, if the numbers are any indicator. But now we come to the two problematic conclusions that we must draw from this data. Aggro Loam, the tournament’s triumphant deck, beat Ichorid in all 4 matches. Yes, two of them went 2-1 in the Loam player’s favor, but the other two were 2-0 blowouts. This is concerning because this deck is going to become more prolific at future events.
The second problem was all the random losses that Dredge had. ANT and StifleNaught enjoyed 100% wins against Dredge on Sunday, with other decks like Land, Hulk, and Burn randomly appearing to hand Ichorid defeats. I am willing to concede that these are not statistically significant results, as they only played one match against each other. But it is something to consider in future testing of this deck.


3. The Good News
There is a bright side to all of this. Chase Lamm and Jack Dobbin finished 13th and 16th respectively. Both of them had an impressive 5/2/0 record over the day. Why they didn’t make the top 8 is our next item on the agenda, but first, let us see what decks that Lamm and Dobbin smashed en route to an impressive, 100% winning day:

Lamm
Round 1: Evagreen, 2-1 Win
Round 2: Elspeth Control, 2-0 Win
Round 3: Dredge, 2-1 Win
Round 4: Zoo, 1-2 Loss
Round 5: Zoo, 2-0 Win
Round 6: Threshold, 2-0 Win
Round 7: Dredge, 0-2 Loss

Dobbin
Round 1: Aggro Loam, 0-2 Loss
Round 2: G/B/w Beatdown, 2-1 Win
Round 3: Scepter Chant, 2-0 Win
Round 4: Countertop, 2-1 Win
Round 5: Merfolk, 2-0 Win
Round 6: Burn, 1-2 Loss
Round 7: Zoo, 2-0 Win

Both players beat a nice range of decks en-route to their 5-2 finish. So why did neither player make top 8? The answer seems to be a matter of bad luck in both player’s cases. Let us consider Dobbin first. Dobbin lost to Aggro Loam and Burn over the day. Aggro Loam was universally a rough matchup for Ichorid, and it is just unlucky that Dobbin faced up against the deck; a cursory glance at the list shows that there were only 4 or so Aggro Loam decks at the event (although it is hard to tell for sure because the Excel spreadsheet does not label them as Aggro Loam). If Dobbin had played another deck in this slot, he likely would have made the Top 8.
Lamm had even worse luck. In the first place, he lost the 50/50 tossup match to Dredge, which must have been particularly annoying because he won that same matchup earlier in the day. Far more irksome must have been the Zoo loss. Dobbin crushed Zoo 2-0 in his only Zoo match of the day, and Lamm went on to win a second Zoo match just after losing the first one. Even worse, Lamm did not play a single Countertop deck throughout the day, even though he played a matchup against 3 other of the 5 most played archetypes at the tournament. If he had faced a Countertop match instead of his last Dredge one, Lamm would likely have been representing in the Top 8.

4. The Moral of the Story
Without access to detailed decklists and match reports, it is impossible to know for sure what happened to Dredge that day. But what we do know is that it did NOT do very well at all. Compare its performance to Aggro Loam or 38-43 Land. Of the 4 players who played both archetypes, 2 each made it to the top 8, such that half of the top 8 was either Loam or Land. That is an excellent tournament win percentage by any measure. Dredge just did not match up. I imagine that if we crunched all of the numbers, we would find that Dredge, as a whole, did worse than any of the other top 5 archetypes (Zoo, Threshold, Merfolk, Countertop), or at least worse than most of them.
That being said, what about Lamm and Dobbins? Are they just exceptions to the rule? Or were they better players playing better decks who are the true representatives of the Dredge build? This appears possible; after all, both players won matches that others Dredge decks lost throughout the day. But that is purely speculation that cannot be really backed up with concrete evidence (at least not at this juncture). One thing, however, is clear; Dredge was NOT stopped by Graveyard Hate throughout the day. Read on to find out…

5. The Myth of Graveyard Hate
One reason that Dredge gets hated on in forums is because of the ubiquitous hate aimed at it. Let us look at the sideboards of the top 8, or rather, some select cards from them…

4 Leyline of the Void
Andersen, 43 Land, 7th Place
Boss, Aggro Loam, 6th Place
Turtenwald, 43 Land, 2nd Place
McGregor, Aggro Loam, 1st Place

4 Relic of Progenitus
Black, Fish, 5th Place
Cocchiarella, Fish, 3rd Place

4 Tormod's Crypt
Larson, Zoo, 4th Place

Now, unless we are to believe that these decks are unique, then we must imagine that pretty much every deck in the tournament had similar sideboards. This is extremely reasonable; every deck that I have heard of from Sunday had at least 4 cards in the sideboard dedicated to exiling graveyards. So we must conclude that Dredge came up against such sideboards throughout the day.

But Lamm and Dobbins still did amazingly. Now part of this might be the luck of the draw. But another part of it MUST be that Dredge had great resilience to graveyard hatred. This must be true if we think of the numbers. Both Lamm and Dobbins won 5 games each. Unless we are to believe that their opponents in these matches, in both games 2 and 3, did not draw any of their sideboard graveyard hate (4 copies of Crypt/Relic/Leyline), then we must conclude that Lamm and Dobbins just played through the hate. And they won anyway.

Thus in the end, while part of the Dredge tale of the St. Louis 10K is a sad story, the other is quite elevating. Hats off to Dobbins and Lamm for their performance in upholding Dredge.

-ktkenshinx-

[frogboy]

Probably everybody who figured Leyline is no longer a card, we can cut these Chains of Vapor got annihilated. Seems basic. Tendrils was never a good matchup.

The mirror will obviously be 50-50 in any sort of breakdown.

[bum_man]

Bum_man, I'm curious, what did you take out for the bloodghasts that lost you the game? I cut 1 of my 3 tribes, 1 of my 3 dread returns, and I cut my only Reveillark for 3 bloodghasts in my deck.


On your main point. You said it yourself; bloodghast makes the deck more resilient to hate, have a better plan A (combo for the flaming zombies)and a better plan B (get a few zombies and kill with Ichord and co.). I think the problem with what you're saying is that Dredge's strength is its linearity; dredge might look like an aggro deck because you generally kill people with a bunch of flaming zombies, but it's a combo deck, through and through, balls to bones. Imagine if storm combo said:
"Guys, look. There're all these good anti-storm cards right now. Stifle, andsilence, and meddling mage, and that new trap card. Let's Make the deck less linear." It is a combo deck, the aggro part is only the fall back plan, what I was saying is that both game plans rely heavily on bridge from below for tokens. Storm has no other choice since Legacy storm has no other option than to chain spells together to win. Unlike dredge, that has 3 ways to win, hasted zombies, amassing a zombie army, and slowly recur ichorids and the like. 2 of 3 are these rely heavily on bridges, without bridges we are forced to win with the fall back plan. That isn't such a bad idea, but what I was thinking was if the deck would be better given it has a way to win that isn't bridge-based aside from the slow aggro plan. This is where Reveillark comes in. He decreases the deck linearity by making the deck less reliant on bridge tokens. It's a virtually a combo finish without the tokens with a hasted 16/16 Grave-Troll and a FKZ. Somewhat of a Rampage Jackson hook punch that just takes-out the opponent out of nowhere. It's not bridge reliant so not a lot of people would be expecting that. Before you know it, you've won without even having to use tokens. I've won countless games with this plan including a win against the deck's worst match-ups (White Stax, Lands). I wish I could play Larks with ghasts but sadly the deck's space issues can't accomodate such. So I know, I am evaluating which option is better at... well, making the deck better. @__@ Outside of it being a metagame choice that is.

[ktkenshinx]

Bum Man: While I understand the basic point that you are getting at, I must respectfully disagree with you. Dredge does not need any additional stuff in it, especially Bloodghast. While it might work in theory, I must turn you to three pieces of evidence that suggest either a) that it does not work in practice and b) that it is not needed.

First I turn you to this recent article:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18295_The_Long_Winding_Road_Metagame_Analysis_The_AU_Legacy_Showdown.html

Specifically, the following quotes:
"I wasn’t impressed with Bloodghast at all."
"If the game goes long, which happens more often than you’d think (as compared to Vintage Dredge games in particular), Bloodghast is far from optimal"
Now, I will concede that Mr. Elias took out Ichorid for Bloodghast, which might have been a bad substitution. Even so, his comments and performance hint at a larger problem with Bloodghast itself, not just his decklist.

If we look later in that article, we will also see the one Dredge list that finished in the Top 8 at the tournament. Yes, it was a small tournament, but it still had a fairly representative field of opponents. Here is the list with no Bloodghast in sight.



Maindeck:
4 City of Brass
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Sadistic Hypnotist
1 Tireless Tribe
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
2 Deep Analysis
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Gemstone Mine

Sideboard:
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 Firestorm


Now let us look at the most recent Legacy tournament, the SCG 10K in St. Louis. 2 Dredge decks did well at that event. Here are their lists:

Chase Lamm: 13th Place
Maindeck
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard:
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer

Jack Dobbin: 16th Place
Maindeck
4 Narcomoeba
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Golgari Thug
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Ichorid
4 Careful Study
1 Darkblast
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Tarnished Citadel

Sideboard
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Unmask
3 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod

No Bloodghast in either deck. These decks performed admirably against a wide field of opponents (See my earlier post for details) without this card.

The concrete evidence suggests that Dredge is just fine without Bloodghast. If anything, the Bloodghast might be detrimental to the deck.

-ktkenshinx

[bum_man]

Bum Man: While I understand the basic point that you are getting at, I must respectfully disagree with you. Dredge does not need any additional stuff in it, especially Bloodghast. While it might work in theory, I must turn you to three pieces of evidence that suggest either a) that it does not work in practice and b) that it is not needed.
I am not working on theory here. I am raising up issues I encounter during my experience of piloting the deck.



First I turn you to this recent article:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/18295_The_Long_Winding_Road_Metagame_Analysis_The_AU_Legacy_Showdown.html

Specifically, the following quotes:
"I wasn’t impressed with Bloodghast at all."
"If the game goes long, which happens more often than you’d think (as compared to Vintage Dredge games in particular), Bloodghast is far from optimal"
Now, I will concede that Mr. Elias took out Ichorid for Bloodghast, which might have been a bad substitution. Even so, his comments and performance hint at a larger problem with Bloodghast itself, not just his decklist.

If we look later in that article, we will also see the one Dredge list that finished in the Top 8 at the tournament. Yes, it was a small tournament, but it still had a fairly representative field of opponents. Here is the list with no Bloodghast in sight.
Bloodghast is over-hyped, it definitely doesn't replace Ichorid, but that doesn't mean it doesn't make the deck better. A number of people that were playing bloodghasts with Ichorids top'd various tournaments in deckcheck.

Refer to:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30554 5th
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30543 3rd
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30473 8th
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30384 3rd
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30369 4th
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30291 2nd
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30262 1st
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30198 1st
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30009 4th
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29994 1st
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29942 3rd
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29531 1st
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=29286 5th

They made the concept work, that means it is possible to make the concept work. They played either bloodghasts or Reveillark, both cards that I advocate to see some serious play. Them being able to make the concept work were able to generate a number of the best results that Non-LED Dredge have had for quite some time only in the span of roughly a month or so. That indicates two things, the concept works and the concept wins. This ultimately means one thing, the card works, it's just a matter of making it work.



Now let us look at the most recent Legacy tournament, the SCG 10K in St. Louis. 2 Dredge decks did well at that event. Here are their lists:

Chase Lamm: 13th Place
Maindeck
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard:
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer

Jack Dobbin: 16th Place
Maindeck
4 Narcomoeba
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Golgari Thug
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Ichorid
4 Careful Study
1 Darkblast
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Tarnished Citadel

Sideboard
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Unmask
3 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod

No Bloodghast in either deck. These decks performed admirably against a wide field of opponents (See my earlier post for details) without this card.

The concrete evidence suggests that Dredge is just fine without Bloodghast. If anything, the Bloodghast might be detrimental to the deck.

From what I have read Elias' list, along with these two lists above lost to decks like affinity, zoo, and burn. Notice anything similar between these decks? They all knock-out bridges. Their lists are great, arguably some of the more solid lists I've seen with the deck so far. But the thing is, those match-ups, zoo, burn, and affinity should be relatively favorable match-ups for the deck. I weren't able to see the matches happen so I had no idea how the dredging and how the play goes, but the fact remains that when the deck is losing games they should normally win, there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Despite finishing solidly in these tournaments, don't you ever wonder if these lists would have done way better had they changed a few things in their lists? That is where the improvement for the deck starts. To say that the deck doesn't need to improved right now is wrong because obviously, the decks are good but they have the potential to do loads better. That should be the objective. To whether getting to this objective is through playing bloodghasts or Reveillark or whatever, some changes need to be made. That is the point of why we are testing and exploring untackled regions of the decks potential, to see it can make the deck better. If further testing show that playing this and that is not the best direction that the deck should be going then, it's not.

[Nidd]

Just for the record, the list you quoted has a playset of LEDs in it.


Just because these 2 dudes didn't play Bloodghast, it doesn't mean that Bloodghast is bad for Dredge. The lists we are testing right now are far from being optimized and substituting Ichorid with BG is a very bad move. He's not a substitute - he's a complement.

[thefreakaccident]

Just for the record, the list you quoted has a playset of LEDs in it.


Just because these 2 dudes didn't play Bloodghast, it doesn't mean that Bloodghast is bad for Dredge. The lists we are testing right now are far from being optimized and substituting Ichorid with BG is a very bad move. He's not a substitute - he's a complement.

Saying this, do you believe that ichorid should be a four-of and bloodghast should be fit in as a 2-3 of?

I think that this would be an interesting idea (fitting both cards into the same deck)... perhaps a 3/3 split or something along those lines?

[jurda]

I've been toying with cutting 2 narcomoebas and an ichorid and running a 3/3 bloodghast/ichorid split as a way of strengthening the mid to late game. Recurring bloodghast does everything that the narcomoeba does, and adds additional damage too. I'm not sold on the change yet, but its an interesting idea that has seen play in a few tournaments.

[Anusien]

People winning with a particular deck doesn't prove anything about that list in relation to other tweaks. It just means that deck is popular and not the worst.

[bum_man]

Saying this, do you believe that ichorid should be a four-of and bloodghast should be fit in as a 2-3 of?

I think that this would be an interesting idea (fitting both cards into the same deck)... perhaps a 3/3 split or something along those lines?
I have been playing with 3 ichorids and 3 bloodghasts for sometime now and they seem to be playing quite well. I'm still doing some tweaks to the rest of the list though but has been playing great so far.


I've been toying with cutting 2 narcomoebas and an ichorid and running a 3/3 bloodghast/ichorid split as a way of strengthening the mid to late game. Recurring bloodghast does everything that the narcomoeba does, and adds additional damage too. I'm not sold on the change yet, but its an interesting idea that has seen play in a few tournaments.
I have tried this and it had marginal results. I play 4/3/3 split with narcomoebas being the 4-of. It's a free creature, and this is very important when you are chain dredging through a breakthrough or coliseum. There are a lot of times where you have to pass a turn to be able to make a land drop to bring back bloodghasts, and this slows the deck down. Most of the situations you will encounter with the deck, hitting a narcomoeba is always better than hitting a bloodghast.


People winning with a particular deck doesn't prove anything about that list in relation to other tweaks. It just means that deck is popular and not the worst.
So winning is all about popularity of a deck in a certain tournament?? I doubt that the number of dredge players per tournament vary that much per tournament in a certain area for that to matter. Dredge is not a widely played deck anywhere, this would mean that the increase in top8s are not due to more people playing the deck but a higher quality of lists playing the deck. People winning with a particular list matters because not just anyone can win with just any build of a certain deck.

[Anusien]

Any one particular win can be a fluke. A trend of people winning with a particular deck does not indicate that the given build is better than other builds that are winning. For example, we could explain a recent trend of Bloodghast Dredge winning by saying "It's more popular now." To extend that claim to say BG is better than Ichorid, you'd need evidence about matchups and whether Ichorid is being played in equal numbers by at least as good pilots with at least as good matchups.

[ktkenshinx]

So winning is all about popularity of a deck in a certain tournament?? I doubt that the number of dredge players per tournament vary that much per tournament in a certain area for that to matter. Dredge is not a widely played deck anywhere, this would mean that the increase in top8s are not due to more people playing the deck but a higher quality of lists playing the deck. People winning with a particular list matters because not just anyone can win with just any build of a certain deck.
I am not sure where you are getting the bolded statement from. Dredge is an incredibly popular archetype, even if we are unwilling to take the SCG 10K as representative of it. Look at decklists from any tournament and Dredge is consistently one of the top decks played.
Anusien, if I am correct in saying this, simply does not believe that we can draw conclusions about archetypes based solely off of tournament data. First, there is a lot of randomness in Magic as I am sure everyone agrees. Over the course of 7 matches in a tournament, let's say 10 if you make it to finals, you get in maybe 20 or so games. No more than 30 if you take every match 2-1. Of those 20-30 games, you might play only 6 against a single archetype. In 30 games, a lot of random stuff can happen. In 6 games, TONS of random stuff WILL happen. You might get lucky and have some amazing opening hands. You might get unlucky and not hit enough dredgers or business cards.
Now, if you test 100 games against one single deck, then you have a much more accurate idea about the true Form (Plato style) of the match.

Second, player skill level varies. 15 players might run Dredge, but only half of them are decent. Only a quarter of them are "good". Of that quarter, let's say half of them are unlucky in a few games. Now only 1 or 2 players get to make it to the top 8. Is this representative? Of randomness, maybe. Of a deck, not really.

Bottom line: there is other evidence to consider. A gauntlet of tests using a BG-inclusive build in a series of matches, compared with another with a BG-less build, would be more conclusive.

-ktkenshinx

[andrew77]

As I have said all along... bloodghast is awful. No results from ghast at the 5k, no results from ghast at Vestal. It only did well in philly when the guy got super lucky and also faced next to no hate.

[Nidd]

As I have said all along... bloodghast is awful. No results from ghast at the 5k, no results from ghast at Vestal. It only did well in philly when the guy got super lucky and also faced next to no hate.
That statement makes it look as if BG would be much worse against GY-Hate than ichorid is, which is just wrong.

And yes, I paired BG with Ichorid. I believe that's the way to go.

[bum_man]

I am not sure where you are getting the bolded statement from. Dredge is an incredibly popular archetype, even if we are unwilling to take the SCG 10K as representative of it. Look at decklists from any tournament and Dredge is consistently one of the top decks played.
When I said popularity, I meant the number/percentage of dredge decks in different metagames. I'm pretty sure that not all areas have dredge decks and dredge decks don't come in big numbers, is 5 in a 60/70-ish people tournament on the average, popular?? 15 decks are st. louis is not an average of dredge deck attendance universally, it's probably a decade-high record of attendance. If the deck is popular then most certainly people would pack hate for it, since it is a popular notion that this deck loses to hate cards. Now, given that the deck is popular and with that popularity comes hate cards, the deck still wins. So that would mean either the deck is not popular, or it can win through hate now. Or people are stupid since they now there alot of dredge decks and they still don't pack hate knowing the deck loses to it (alledgedly), which is most definitely not the case.


Anusien, if I am correct in saying this, simply does not believe that we can draw conclusions about archetypes based solely off of tournament data. First, there is a lot of randomness in Magic as I am sure everyone agrees. Over the course of 7 matches in a tournament, let's say 10 if you make it to finals, you get in maybe 20 or so games. No more than 30 if you take every match 2-1. Of those 20-30 games, you might play only 6 against a single archetype. In 30 games, a lot of random stuff can happen. In 6 games, TONS of random stuff WILL happen. You might get lucky and have some amazing opening hands. You might get unlucky and not hit enough dredgers or business cards. Randomness is a reality in magic, but you see, the point of deck building is being able to construct a deck that minimizes the randomness ie. getting the deck's ratios correctly so that you have great odds of not getting trash hands. And also there is this tech called mulliganing if ever you have a bad hand, if you mulligan into more shit, then your deck is probably not as balanced as it could be, this especially applies to combo decks. Luck is virtually a rationalization for a deck's inconsistent construction.


Now, if you test 100 games against one single deck, then you have a much more accurate idea about the true Form (Plato style) of the match. Uhm, this is exactly what people do before tournaments, play-testing. Your point is?


Second, player skill level varies. 15 players might run Dredge, but only half of them are decent. Only a quarter of them are "good". Of that quarter, let's say half of them are unlucky in a few games. Now only 1 or 2 players get to make it to the top 8. Is this representative? Of randomness, maybe. Of a deck, not really. This contradicts the argument of people winning because a certain build is "popular." Just because a list wins, it wins all the time, It just means the list can win and people can pilot a certain list into winning. And because it wins, it can't possibly be terrible. It's not the best, but it's not terrible.


Bottom line: there is other evidence to consider. A gauntlet of tests using a BG-inclusive build in a series of matches, compared with another with a BG-less build, would be more conclusive.
This is unnecessary in showing that certain lists can win games. This is needed in seeing which is better, but like I said, that is not the point of the discussion, the point is whether a list can win tournaments.


Any one particular win can be a fluke. A trend of people winning with a particular deck does not indicate that the given build is better than other builds that are winning. For example, we could explain a recent trend of Bloodghast Dredge winning by saying "It's more popular now." To extend that claim to say BG is better than Ichorid, you'd need evidence about matchups and whether Ichorid is being played in equal numbers by at least as good pilots with at least as good matchups.
Clearly, if there is a trend it can't possibly a fluke. Furthermore, the point of discussion is not which deck is better due to winning, the point is since a deck wins it can't possibly rubbish. We are not saying bloodghast lists are better than ichorid, what we are saying is that the whole list COULD possibly steer the whole deck development into the direction where the deck is getting better.


As I have said all along... bloodghast is awful. No results from ghast at the 5k, no results from ghast at Vestal. It only did well in philly when the guy got super lucky and also faced next to no hate.
bloodghast did well everywhere else though, those deserve some credit too. The world is not just the 5k, vestal, or philly meaning they aren't the only results that matter.

[ktkenshinx]

When I said popularity, I meant the number/percentage of dredge decks in different metagames. I'm pretty sure that not all areas have dredge decks and dredge decks don't come in big numbers, is 5 in a 60/70-ish people tournament on the average, popular?? 15 decks are st. louis is not an average of dredge deck attendance universally, it's probably a decade-high record of attendance.
Again, I am not sure where you are getting these numbers from. Do you have any concrete evidence to suggest that Dredge appears 5 times in a 60/70 person tournament? Moreover, do you have any evidence to suggest that this is not a high number for attendance? In the full tournament reports that I have seen (not just the top 8), Dredge is consistently in the top 5 most played decks, if not first or second on that list. If you provide evidence I will happily concede this point to you.

If the deck is popular then most certainly people would pack hate for it, since it is a popular notion that this deck loses to hate cards. Now, given that the deck is popular and with that popularity comes hate cards, the deck still wins. So that would mean either the deck is not popular, or it can win through hate now. Or people are stupid since they now there alot of dredge decks and they still don't pack hate knowing the deck loses to it (alledgedly), which is most definitely not the case.
Had you read my earlier post on the previous page, specifically the part entitled "The Myth of Graveyard Hate", you would know that I am in agreement with you here and have been for the entire time. The deck clearly can play through the hatred; the evidence demonstrates it.

Randomness is a reality in magic, but you see, the point of deck building is being able to construct a deck that minimizes the randomness ie. getting the deck's ratios correctly so that you have great odds of not getting trash hands. And also there is this tech called mulliganing if ever you have a bad hand, if you mulligan into more shit, then your deck is probably not as balanced as it could be, this especially applies to combo decks. Luck is virtually a rationalization for a deck's inconsistent construction.
The point I am making is that even if your deck has been balanced by God himself, so long as it adheres to statistics and basic mathematical laws, it is EXTREMELY likely that you will get non-representative good and/or bad hands in a tournament. You are only playing a few games. I am not undercutting deck building and the purpose of tuning builds. I am simply saying that at a tournament, even the best tuned decks can lose to statistics. Whereas if you test the deck in 100s of games, you are less likely to lose to randomness IN THE LONG RUN.

Uhm, this is exactly what people do before tournaments, play-testing. Your point is?
That you cannot just use a tournament report as evidence that a deck is performing well overall. it can be evidence to suggest this, but it is not proof.

This contradicts the argument of people winning because a certain build is "popular." Just because a list wins, it wins all the time, It just means the list can win and people can pilot a certain list into winning. And because it wins, it can't possibly be terrible. It's not the best, but it's not terrible.
I am not entirely sure what you are saying here. Can you clarify your point? I believe you are saying this, although it is not clear from the sentences above. "Just because a list wins some tournaments, that does not mean it will win all tournaments. It just means that the list is capable of winning. Is it the best? No. Is it terrible? Also no."
If this is indeed what you are saying, then I must ask you to consider the implications of this. Are we to play lists just because they can place well in tournaments? Or should we use careful testing to find the best list, not just circumstantial tournament evidence?
For instance, look at the two Aggro Loam decks that made it to the SCG 10K. One of them ran a Burning Wish toolbox. The other ran big creature beaters. The former placed 6th. The latter placed 1st. Both decks made it to the top 8, and by your logic, both would be equally passable to test. But would we not want to discover which is actually BEST? Just because a deck or card is not terrible does not at all imply that it is good. It certainly does not imply it is best. This brings me to my next point...

This is unnecessary in showing that certain lists can win games. This is needed in seeing which is better, but like I said, that is not the point of the discussion, the point is whether a list can win tournaments.
I do not want to play a list that "can win games". I do not want to play a list that "can win tournaments." I want to play the list that is BEST at winning games and is BEST at winning tournaments. A thorough comparative analysis of BG builds and no BG builds will prove this.

I am not at all saying that BG is necessarily bad. The card has performed well since it came out in a wide range of events. But so have builds without BG. This just means that the cards must be thoroughly tested and backed up with evidence and data. It is not enough to look at tournament reports to draw general conclusions from. When I analyzed the results of the well-covered SCG 10K, I did not ever intend that to be taken as gospel on Dredge. I merely discussed a deck's performance at a prolific tournament.

Evidence leads to truth. Testing leads to evidence.

-ktkenshinx

[Aleksandr]

As I have said all along... bloodghast is awful. No results from ghast at the 5k, no results from ghast at Vestal. It only did well in philly when the guy got super lucky and also faced next to no hate.
bloodghast did well everywhere else though, those deserve some credit too. The world is not just the 5k, vestal, or philly meaning they aren't the only results that matter.

He's got some problem with Ghasts.

[bum_man]

Again, I am not sure where you are getting these numbers from. Do you have any concrete evidence to suggest that Dredge appears 5 times in a 60/70 person tournament? Moreover, do you have any evidence to suggest that this is not a high number for attendance? In the full tournament reports that I have seen (not just the top 8), Dredge is consistently in the top 5 most played decks, if not first or second on that list. If you provide evidence I will happily concede this point to you.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=393604&postcount=806 4 in 112 people
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=393283&postcount=805 4 in 64 people
http://www.magic-speyer.de/showthread.php?tid=216&pid=1670#pid1670 (http://www.magic-speyer.de/showthread.php?tid=216& pid=1670#pid1670) 2 in 50 or so people
http://www.magic-speyer.de/showthread.php?tid=200&pid=1545#pid1545 0 in 42 people
http://launiversidaddelasartesludicas.blogspot.com/2009/07/report-global-1-duel-for-duals-ual.html 7 in 125
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=311018&postcount=762 1 in 46
http://www.elsantuario.es/foro/index.php/topic,3740.0.html 0 in 40.

Im currently busy with school work today so these are the only stuff I could fine on short notice. So you're gonna go out and say that these data are irrelevant now?


Had you read my earlier post on the previous page, specifically the part entitled "The Myth of Graveyard Hate", you would know that I am in agreement with you here and have been for the entire time. The deck clearly can play through the hatred; the evidence demonstrates it.
So this would definitely debunk the notion that the deck loses to hate. Thanks for clearing that up. Or maybe the pilots you mentioned were able to construct a list and sideboard that is aimed at successfully and efficiently dealing with hate cards played at them. It appears this can be the case since if we assume that majority of the match-ups that dredge players faced hate similar to those you pointed out, not all of the decks had a list and sideboard that that can handle hate as good as the other two lists you mentioned. They didn't play through hate, they answered the hate and played around it given a well constructed list and sideboard.


The point I am making is that even if your deck has been balanced by God himself, so long as it adheres to statistics and basic mathematical laws, it is EXTREMELY likely that you will get non-representative good and/or bad hands in a tournament. You are only playing a few games. I am not undercutting deck building and the purpose of tuning builds. I am simply saying that at a tournament, even the best tuned decks can lose to statistics. Whereas if you test the deck in 100s of games, you are less likely to lose to randomness IN THE LONG RUN.

That you cannot just use a tournament report as evidence that a deck is performing well overall. it can be evidence to suggest this, but it is not proof.

Elaborate more on the bolded text, please, thanks. I disagree, testing is definitely not definitive proof, furthermore, testing and the tournament atmosphere are two very different environments. A deck can do as good as it can in testing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it would do just as good in a tournament atmosphere. If you play competitively, test and play your deck on a tournament level. Extremely likely? What exactly do you mean by extremely likely? Like in a tournament of 5 rounds, and 3 games each. You get 10 bad of 15 possible hands or more, is that extremely likely? That's having the statistics of your deck all wrong. The point of having a well-tuned deck is finding the right ratio of cards that give you the best odds of getting a good 7 card hand, if not, it gives a good 6 card hand in its place, and so on.


I am not entirely sure what you are saying here. Can you clarify your point? I believe you are saying this, although it is not clear from the sentences above. "Just because a list wins some tournaments, that does not mean it will win all tournaments. It just means that the list is capable of winning. Is it the best? No. Is it terrible? Also no."
If this is indeed what you are saying, then I must ask you to consider the implications of this. Are we to play lists just because they can place well in tournaments? Or should we use careful testing to find the best list, not just circumstantial tournament evidence?
For instance, look at the two Aggro Loam decks that made it to the SCG 10K. One of them ran a Burning Wish toolbox. The other ran big creature beaters. The former placed 6th. The latter placed 1st. Both decks made it to the top 8, and by your logic, both would be equally passable to test. But would we not want to discover which is actually BEST? Just because a deck or card is not terrible does not at all imply that it is good. It certainly does not imply it is best. This brings me to my next point...

I do not want to play a list that "can win games". I do not want to play a list that "can win tournaments." I want to play the list that is BEST at winning games and is BEST at winning tournaments. A thorough comparative analysis of BG builds and no BG builds will prove this.

Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but Do you play competitively? If you do, then your probably know that Decklists and builds are subjective to the playstyle of the pilot AND the current meta a certain list is expected to play in. Decks are tuned and changed constantly after every tournament because you may have noticed some things that needed to be changed, or you are expecting to play a different meta, or you plan to change the deck's philosophy, or for whatever reason it maybe, decks and builds are subjective. Given that, it is proper to say that there is no universally accepted "best" build. A build can be good for a time but can get outdated after a few months, thus there is no permanent standard as to what build is the "best." Your build can be the best now, but definitely it won't be the best at competing in a meta that constantly changes, gets more competitive, generally, gets better itself.


I am not at all saying that BG is necessarily bad. The card has performed well since it came out in a wide range of events. But so have builds without BG. This just means that the cards must be thoroughly tested and backed up with evidence and data. It is not enough to look at tournament reports to draw general conclusions from. When I analyzed the results of the well-covered SCG 10K, I did not ever intend that to be taken as gospel on Dredge. I merely discussed a deck's performance at a prolific tournament.

Evidence leads to truth. Testing leads to evidence.
This is exactly what people like me that play BG are doing right now, testing.

[ddt15]

To me it seems that if you run Bloodghasts instead of Ichorids you need to go for the combo kill every time, in fact you are sacrificing some consistency AND your plan B to occasionally combo out faster. On top of that Bloodghast only really shines if you dredge in to that dredgeland, otherwise its near useless. Ichorid doesn't have that problem its always good as long as you can feed black creatures to it. I don't think Bloodghasts and Ichorids work well if you put them in a deck together, it seems that you only dillute the base strategy with this; you need to either play ghasts/dredgeland or ichorids/imps. I prefer the Ichorid plan B over the (only slightly) improved combo chance.

I really like this list:

Chase Lamm: 13th Place
Maindeck
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard:
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer

No win more cards or unnecessary strange numbers, just the core strategy and a FoW sideboard.

[bum_man]

To me it seems that if you run Bloodghasts instead of Ichorids you need to go for the combo kill every time, in fact you are sacrificing some consistency AND your plan B to occasionally combo out faster. On top of that Bloodghast only really shines if you dredge in to that dredgeland, otherwise its near useless. Ichorid doesn't have that problem its always good as long as you can feed black creatures to it. I don't think Bloodghasts and Ichorids work well if you put them in a deck together, it seems that you only dillute the base strategy with this; you need to either play ghasts/dredgeland or ichorids/imps. I prefer the Ichorid plan B over the (only slightly) improved combo chance.
On the contrary, I've actually liked the fact that the two play together. Bloodghast makes up for Ichorid's inability to be relevant when comboing out and Ichorid makes up for bloodghast's marginal inability to optimal in a particular area that Ichorid shines in, being a clock, a fast beater that can accumulate tokens. Ever since I started playing the deck, I've only played 3 Ichorids so I've never felt bloodghasts diluted into my Ichorid and critter aggro plan. I've been playing 3 of each and this seems to be just right for making both of them relevant in games without having one card being better than the other in terms of making the deck's game plan work.

[ktkenshinx]

Im currently busy with school work today so these are the only stuff I could fine on short notice. So you're gonna go out and say that these data are irrelevant now?
As I said, when provided with evidence, I will happily concede a point. While I would love to have better access to a larger pool of Legacy decklists (the vast majority of tournament reports do not include a full metagame breakdown), I am moved enough by this to say that it is not a wildly popular deck. This does not undercut its prevalence at the two events that I mentioned, however, so I think it is fair to take a middleground and say that it is a competitive deck like any other, and it will be played in most tournaments. Time and more evidence will tell if it is as popular as I suggest, or more of a sleeper as you do.

So this would definitely debunk the notion that the deck loses to hate. Thanks for clearing that up. Or maybe the pilots you mentioned were able to construct a list and sideboard that is aimed at successfully and efficiently dealing with hate cards played at them. It appears this can be the case since if we assume that majority of the match-ups that dredge players faced hate similar to those you pointed out, not all of the decks had a list and sideboard that that can handle hate as good as the other two lists you mentioned. They didn't play through hate, they answered the hate and played around it given a well constructed list and sideboard.
These are sideboards from 6 different Dredge decks, all of them making the Top 16 of their respective events. I have bolded the cards that appear in at least 5 of the 6 sideboards.

4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer

1 Woodfall Primus
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Unmask
3 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod

4 Pithing Needle
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain Of Vapor
3 Force Of Will

3 Firestorm
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void

2 Pithing Needle
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Leyline Of The Void
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Chain Of Vapor
3 Firestorm
1 Ray Of Revelation

4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Tireless Tribe
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Unmask
1 Gemstone Mine

These seem to be the most common elements of a successful sideboards. Naturally, we would need detailed game-by-game analyses to determine which of these common sideboard cards were actually used to win games. But based off of lists alone, these are the cards that form the core of any serious competitive Dredge sideboard.



"I am not undercutting deck building and the purpose of tuning builds. I am simply saying that at a tournament, even the best tuned decks can lose to statistics. Whereas if you test the deck in 100s of games, you are less likely to lose to randomness IN THE LONG RUN."
Elaborate more on the bolded text, please, thanks. I disagree, testing is definitely not definitive proof, furthermore, testing and the tournament atmosphere are two very different environments. A deck can do as good as it can in testing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it would do just as good in a tournament atmosphere. If you play competitively, test and play your deck on a tournament level. Extremely likely? What exactly do you mean by extremely likely? Like in a tournament of 5 rounds, and 3 games each. You get 10 bad of 15 possible hands or more, is that extremely likely? That's having the statistics of your deck all wrong. The point of having a well-tuned deck is finding the right ratio of cards that give you the best odds of getting a good 7 card hand, if not, it gives a good 6 card hand in its place, and so on.
There are three ways that we can tell if a deck will perform well at a tournament. First, we can theorize about it. No one is advocating that this is the best way to test decks, just as it is not the best way to test anything. So we will discount that method right off the bat. Second, we can run it in a tournament and see how we do. This gives us a better feel for how a deck works, but in terms of raw numbers, it just isn't enough data to prove anything. Let us use your example: 5 rounds, 3 games each. That's 15 total games. Let's say in those 15 total games you get 3 abnormally good hands and 3 abnormally bad hands. Because drawing a hand is independent of your matchup, let us say that you get the 3 abnormally good hands against a deck that you have problems with. Furthermore, let us say that you get the 3 abnormally bad hands against a deck that you should steamroll. All things being equal, you will probably win the sub-optimal matchup and lose the favorable matchup.
Two days later, your results are posted to a website and we see that your Dredge deck, which had a 3-2 record, beat Aggro Loam and lost to Countertop. Can we now extrapolate from that and say that Dredge has a good/bad matchup in either instance? Certainly not. Randomness determined a large part of this tiny pool of evidence. This is not a matter of getting your deck statistics all wrong. Even if you only have 1 game that goes well/poorly for you owing to randomness, others will still look at your tournament report and only see the win or the loss. They won't see the randomness that was at work.
The third way to figure out if a deck works is testing. Repeated testing done dozens, even hundreds, of times. Not just on MWS (although that can be helpful), but against intelligent and competent players that you know. This replicates a tournament environment over the long run. Of course, in the end you certainly want to do some of both; a little tournament playing and a lot of testing.
Let me put it this way. Would you rather take a list to a big tournament that you just copied from another tournament winner? Or would you want to take a list that you have thoroughly tested against the metagame, and tuned based on those results? Certainly you want a little of both, but you definitely want to err on the side of more testing.

Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but Do you play competitively? If you do, then your probably know that Decklists and builds are subjective to the playstyle of the pilot AND the current meta a certain list is expected to play in. Decks are tuned and changed constantly after every tournament because you may have noticed some things that needed to be changed, or you are expecting to play a different meta, or you plan to change the deck's philosophy, or for whatever reason it maybe, decks and builds are subjective. Given that, it is proper to say that there is no universally accepted "best" build. A build can be good for a time but can get outdated after a few months, thus there is no permanent standard as to what build is the "best." Your build can be the best now, but definitely it won't be the best at competing in a meta that constantly changes, gets more competitive, generally, gets better itself.
I have not played competitively for three years. If competition and tournaments have changed drastically in those three years, then I admit that I am no longer qualified to speak about this. If, however, as is more reasonably the case, it is still a similar experience, then for all intents and purposes I do "play competitively". While the best list might change from month to month due to external metagame shifts, there is still an optimal list for that period. Similarly, there is an optimal list for each playstyle and player. Similarly again, there is an optimal list even within periods of metagame shifts, depending on where you live and what decks are popular in your area. What does this mean? Well, it looks like there are many "optimal" lists for each different situation. But what it really boils down to is a single optimal list for a unique player in his or her own metagame.
On a similar note, we can all agree that there are SUB-optimal lists out there. A Dredge deck with neither BG nor Ichorid would strongly qualify as sub-optimal, for instance. Similarly, a Dredge deck that randomly decided to run 4 Illusions of Grandeur in the maindeck would similarly qualify as sub-optimal. I am not comparing BG's inclusion to Illusions of Grandeur's inclusion. I am simply saying that card inclusion demands testing, and you can't gain convincing data about a cards strengths or weaknesses from tournament data; as we discussed, it is not a reliable representation.

As to Chase Lamm's list, I really enjoy it. As ddt15 said, it is a really tight list that doesn't mess around with "cool things" or anything like that. I do have a few questions about the decklist though (posted below):

Maindeck
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard:
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer

1. Where would Bloodghast go in this list? Would you do something like -1 Ichorid, -1 Tireless Tribe, -1 ??? to add +3 Bloodghast? What lands would you take out for the Darkmoor Salvage?

2. How helpful are those two Null Rods in the sideboard? Lamm has no way to recur them if they are dredged, and a very small probability of drawing and casting them in a given game. I suppose between Needle and Rod he has 6 ways of dealing with Relic and Crypt, but would not Ancient Grudge be more useful? At least he would have a higher chance of being able to find it.

3. Realm Razer is an interesting choice. Lamm's is the only sideboard that includes this card, and I wonder how it works out for him. Could another creature go here? His list lacks Hypnotist (maindeck or sideboard). Would that be a better inclusion?

-ktkenshinx-

[kortero]

I recently bought a playset of AN City of Brasses, and I just had to buy rest of the cards to the only deck that plays them, Dredge. I'm totally new to the archetype, but I've been reading these forums, and this thread as well for a pretty long time.

ktkenshinx:

This is how I would add 3 Bloodghasts to Lamm's list:

4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
3 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum

I don't have all the cards yet so I haven't tested it at all. "On paper", it looks quite solid though. 3/3 split on Ichorid/Bloodghast, 14 lands, 12 dredgers, 6 permanent discard outlets + 4 Careful Study + 3 Breakthrough. I hope it works. ü

-kortero

[NQN]

We dont need Rod. Crypt/Relic is not an issue as we can almost ever play around it or nuke it down with Grudge. I just don´t get the point Oboro. Why is it so amazing? Just because it comboes with BG and therefor does nothing for the deck itself (like Coliseum does in the fact of fast wins through counters)?
I did only play Parcher Dredge in tournaments (with quite some success) but I want to give this version a shot as well.
Without having read the whole thread, what do you guys think about this:


// Lands
1 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
2 [FUT] Dakmor Salvage
4 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum

// Creatures
2 [RAV] Golgari Thug
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba

// Spells
2 [TSP] Dread Return
3 [OD] Careful Study
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
3 [TO] Breakthrough
1 [RAV] Darkblast

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
SB: 1 [10E] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 4 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 [SHM] Woodfall Primus
SB: 2 [JU] Ray of Revelation

I tested 2 Iona MD and they were insane, but if I´m really honest I guess it was just winmore. So I just added some more consistency to it...I won the last tournament there with Parcher.dec and so I think there is going to be lots of hate...but then again, it´s ~40 players so there will be about ~39 players don´t know what to do against Ichorid :P

[Nidd]

Well, if our opponents don't know how to handle our deck, all I can say is... l2p. Sorry, even a trained monkey can at least make us slow down. Stopping a competent pilot is difficult (Heck, I nearly won through triple Tormods... not saying I'm competent at all), though.

I think Iona is best in the SB, as the Combo Win G1 is too good to pass up IMO.

Anyone tested Lark a bit more?

[Aleksandr]

I went throungh multinpel crypts.
So... lol your moekeys

[Nidd]

I went throungh multinpel crypts.
So... lol your moekeys
Well, you had to play at a slower pace against Crypts, didn't you? That was the point I was trying to make.

[umbowta]

I finally put this pile together and I'm really enjoying goldfishing it to get used to the weird dredge playstyle. It's fun to watch the deck do busted stuff while casting very few spells. There are a few things that are nagging me.

I find myself wanting to Dread Return something fat and all I've got is Grave Troll. FKZ and Sphinx are not Fat. Grave Troll doesn't have shroud, trample, or fly. :cry:

While I love Careful Study, I don't care so much for Breakthrough and I didn't like seeing it very often so it's not gonna be a 4-of in my deck. Meanwhile, dredging is great and all but both Carefull Study and Breakthrough look so sad and alone in a graveyard from which they'll never return. I put in a singleton Deep Analysis, going up to 61 cards cause I'm just fishin, and everytime it hit the yard I was happy. Why are you guys not running 1-2 Deep Anal?

[Nidd]

Most of the time you'll be operating with just 1 land. Wasteland and stuff, you know?

And if you want to reanimate a big fat shrouded creature, I guess you play the wrong deck. Reveillark let's you return 2 GGTs, but that's about it. Iona is another legit target, too, but if you want to win with Empyreal Archangels and Inkwell Leviathans, you should look at Reanimator.

[SlopeeJ]

Ancestor's Chosen is pretty awesome, I just watched tourney where dredge got to 95 life and took the mox home. I don't think many decks can come back from that.

Also Eternal Witness can be pretty good for getting that random card back to win the game. Land or breakthrough to combo out. I would say most of the time you will be operating with 2 lands.

[umbowta]

Most of the time you'll be operating with just 1 land. Wasteland and stuff, you know?

And if you want to reanimate a big fat shrouded creature, I guess you play the wrong deck. Reveillark let's you return 2 GGTs, but that's about it. Iona is another legit target, too, but if you want to win with Empyreal Archangels and Inkwell Leviathans, you should look at Reanimator.

I think the "operating on one land" argument is a bunch of boola. If that was actually the case why would Cephalid Coliseum be in the deck? Aside from that, Dakmor Salvage has this strange ability to come back to your hand.

lol...I don't "play" the deck. I just started fishing it today...so I'm learning to play it. Iona is fat...and cool. I could see 1-2 between the main and board.

[Nidd]

I think the "operating on one land" argument is a bunch of boola. If that was actually the case why would Cephalid Coliseum be in the deck? Aside from that, Dakmor Salvage has this strange ability to come back to your hand.

lol...I don't "play" the deck. I just started fishing it today...so I'm learning to play it. Iona is fat...and cool. I could see 1-2 between the main and board.
If a CC stays on the table for too long, something is going wrong I guess. And the Salvages CiP... erm, sorry, EtBT. Sure, DA isn't that bad and I might actually try it instead of something like Breakthrough, but it is only useful when in your GY. And yes, I know, CS and Breakthrough are only useful in your hand...

It does happen that you have 2+ lands, but I can tell you from experience that most of the time you're playing with 1 land. You either trust me, I've been playing this deck for about three-quarter year now, or you don't.

How many lands do you play btw? That might explain something.

[umbowta]

How many lands do you play btw? That might explain something.I've started out with 15 land. That seems to be right about where most people are.

[BreathWeapon]

As far as the Bloodghast + DDD centric builds, I've found Phantasmagorian to be awesome, it's like a dredgable Putrid Imp game 1 that accelerates your DDD by discarding your dredgers and threats as you go - I'm 100% convinced that playing the outlets G1 is sub-optimal

[ddt15]

I don't like phantasmagorian you will understand when you draw it in your opening hand and you go 'f*** i wish i had an imp instead'. :wink:

[NQN]

With my last sentence I was just referring to the fact that most people think that 2-3 hatepieces are enough and that they rarely test against Dredge and therefor don´t know what´s really important. Ofcourse they slow us down, but they´ll never win.
What do you usually side out for, let´s say, 3 Grudges? I usually sided Breakthroughs against blue decks, but what´s next? DR+Targets? What if I want to side in more DR-targets? With the LED-dredge there were alwawys 6 cards you could safely side out but I´m wondering about this one :eyebrow:

[Rascal]

At the first place, I would like to say "thanks" to 4eak and BreathWeapon for advices and encouraging me at some point for playing, at least testing with BGhast.

Maybe it could look like little offtopic in this forum, but I think, that my teammate found some really good version of LED Bloodghast Dredge.

We stopped at this decklist:

[This is the non-LED thread. Off-topic. - Bardo]

[Aleksandr]

Yesterday I’ve piloted a LEDless to not very imposing 2-1-1 result (twenty ppl). I used this decklist:

Qty Name
// Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Dakmor Salvage
//\
// Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
//\
// Spells
3 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
3 Dread Return
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
1 Darkblast
//\
// Sideboard
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Blazing Archon
1 Raven’s Crime
2 Wispmare
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Firestorm

I will tweak the list a bit, also a singleton Raven’s Crime was used instead of Sadistic Hypno that the shop lacked. (Together with black protectors... which was a pity, now I got awful blue protectors.)
I bought some card for both main deck and SB. The whole tournament cost me about 2 thousand crowns Raven’s Crime including.
Ok, to the business.


R1, RB homebrew.
Even though my opponent used maindeck Extirpates, I won both two our games as he played not very well.


R2, UW Cunning Elspeth
Wasting my sole land and double Wish->Extirpate made me some serious trouble. DDD and Moeba beatdown was not enough. At least I won the second game just a minute before the time was called.


R3, Painter’s Control
G1 I did not won and quadruple Relic and double Crypt in G2 defeated me. But it was close, because my opponent finished at one life and had he not drew the EE to kill my PImp, I would won on the next attack.


R4 monoblue
First game I won, but I made a mistake, that could cost me a warning at least if only it happen at a bigger tourney. Second game I won when I DReturned Wispmare for bajillion zombies and simultaneously cracked the Propaganda.


Sideboarding:
Yes.


EDIT: I am strongly considering Null Rod.

[NQN]

3 Darkmores looks awful as I always hate drawing them. They just suck as both, manasource and dredger. I think 3 Bloodghasts should be enough as they aren´t that strong and they only rule with U.Paradise.
And btw, how bad is Careful Study? I almost always prefer to have a permanent Discardoutlet than having a study...


Sidenote: Couldn´t find any GHasts yesterday and therfor play LED-Dredge again. Didn´t matter at all, got in 2/39ppl.

[Nidd]

CS is pretty good, it also lets you draw into SB cards G2-3.

[NQN]

Sometimes it´s good, but never as insane as a permanent outlet is.
It also tends to let you keep bad hands because you hope to draw into something. I just don´t like it that much, maybe I´ll go down to 2 and therfor play the full 8 discard creatures.

[badjuju]

Sometimes it´s good, but never as insane as a permanent outlet is.
It also tends to let you keep bad hands because you hope to draw into something. I just don´t like it that much, maybe I´ll go down to 2 and therfor play the full 8 discard creatures.

CS has been irreplaceable for me. Even if it may not be permanent, it allows me to keep many hands I wouldn't have kept without it. Not only does it act as an outlet, it can fuel dredges and filter through your deck game 2/3 for anti-hate board cards.

[NQN]

It digs 2 cards...thats not that much. In fact the only hatecard I´m always searching is Grudge and that is done via dredging.
I would take Land+Creature+X over Land+Study+X all day long...

[jimirynk]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15270&highlight=script

Thread talking about the percentage of lands in your opening 7,8,9,10 drawn a million times.

[bum_man]

It digs 2 cards...thats not that much. In fact the only hatecard I´m always searching is Grudge and that is done via dredging.
I would take Land+Creature+X over Land+Study+X all day long...
CS can't be compared to permanent discard outlets because they play different roles in the deck. CS is primary a draw spell, the speed that draw spells give the deck is indispensible. CS digs for cards, enables dredges, discards, draws out counters, IMO it's function is better than permanent outlets, plus, you generally only need 1 or 2 outlets at a time, so 6-7 is enough to support that function of the deck.

[Raptor]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15270&highlight=script

Thread talking about the percentage of lands in your opening 7,8,9,10 drawn a million times.

Sadly, there isn't any percantage of land in your opening 6,5,4... Which could really help figuring how many lands we really want to play considering we mulligan a lot.

By the way, as a general strategy, if you have a dredger on the draw in your seven cards, would you DDD vs canadian ***** or would you try going agressive?
I'm leaning toward going DDD more often then not, I've lost 2 times in tournament vs can ***** (I know, it's shame)... Getting your first 3 spells coutered or your land wasted is pretty harsh...

[Aleksandr]

CS can't be compared to permanent discard outlets because they play different roles in the deck. CS is primary a draw spell, the speed that draw spells give the deck is indispensible. CS digs for cards, enables dredges, discards, draws out counters, IMO it's function is better than permanent outlets, plus, you generally only need 1 or 2 outlets at a time, so 6-7 is enough to support that function of the deck.

I am not sure if "better than permanent outlets", but you summed it all.

People sometimes underestimate the dig-for-sb role, but with usual 7+ cards sided, the sole two cards drawn from CS can be enough to get the sideboarded stuff. Against non-Leyline hate it even fills the GY with cards, so even if you did not draw your hate, they can be forced to crack Crypt/Relic...

[jimirynk]

DDD is SUCH a soild game plan vs. Canadian thresh!
Once you get a narc/ghast play your land sac to therapy name force, see how many dazes play around it.

Inb4 you're a newfag.. just no sleep.

[pippo84]

As a permanent discard outlet do you think 4 PImp and 2 Tribes are enought or more needed tribes needed?
And as for the Ichorid/Bloodghast split is 3/3 fine? I saw that some people run 3x and others 4x, but the deck is just too tight to fit in the 4x unless they are really needful.
Thoughts?

[bum_man]

As a permanent discard outlet do you think 4 PImp and 2 Tribes are enought or more needed tribes needed?
And as for the Ichorid/Bloodghast split is 3/3 fine? I saw that some people run 3x and others 4x, but the deck is just too tight to fit in the 4x unless they are really needful.
Thoughts?
If you notice from the common bloodghast lists, they don't play tribe, so they have the space to play 4-ofs of either creature. I play 3/3 since its enough and I really like the fact that i have 2 more discard outlets in my deck. Ideally I'd like 3 tribes to go along with 4 PImps, sadly i think this deck needs the 3rd Dread Return than the 3rd Tribe. Finally, got my last 2 paradises and I've re-tuned my list to this:

// Lands 14 //

3 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Gemstone Mine (Could possibly be Coliseum no. 4 but testing if the deck doesn't color screw as much)


// Sorcery 14 //

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
3 Dread Return
3 Breakthrough


// Enchantments 4 //

4 Bridge from Below


// Instant 2 //

2 Darkblast


// Creatures 26 //

1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
2 Tireless Tribe
3 Ichorid
3 Blooghast

It's been playing as good as ever. I'll be testing it against some deck in a few days and I'll come back with some feedback.

[Aleksandr]

1 Cephalid Sage


I know that from time to time one can hardcast him, but isn't the Sphynx plain better? Except, of course, if you need to hold that one card that Sage brings (mostly Salvage for BGhasts). But as you play DReturn/Sage during your main phase, you already have that one card from draw step... no matter if it was dredged or whatever.

[NQN]

I´d go for:
-both Targets x2
-1 DR
-1 CS

+1 Tribe
+1 Ichorid
+1 Coliseum
+1 Golgari Thug

= more consistent MD that still wins on turn 3-4. You just never need the targets, resolved DR is almost always just gg.

[Raptor]

DDD is SUCH a soild game plan vs. Canadian thresh!
Once you get a narc/ghast play your land sac to therapy name force, see how many dazes play around it.

Inb4 you're a newfag.. just no sleep.

Well, when you have a one lander vs can *****, you can really play around daze. Especially when they have so many can trip and wastelands.

I would name daze over FOW anytime if I have a one lander and would name Daze over FOW anytime if I know they have a wasteland and I have a two lander.


Naming daze is much better then naming FOW when you can't play around it.
Oh, and notice that I don't play the bloodghastversion so I can't bring back darkmore salvage.

[Zappa]

Wondering if I may get some help as I am new with using the card. I just bought 1 Reveillark yesterday, just to try it out. But I am unsure if I am playing the card properly. Do the trolls I am bringing in, come one after another or do they come in at the same time? Like do they both have the same P/T or is the 2nd one weaker than the first?

Also I apologize for kinda going off topic here, but, how are you guys arranging your graveyard? Do you guys line them up in a straight line, or is it just a normal stack of graveyard and try to memorize what you have in there? I am wondering because for the past couple days, one of the guys I am playing against, despite me showing him clearly what I am dredging, he would keep scooping up my graveyard that's lined up coz "he wants to see" what I have even though i tell him what I do have... then hands the graveyard back to me. Then after lining it up again, when he gets his turn, or mine, he scoops my graveyard again then hands back to me, which goes like that the whole game... dunno if hes doing it intentional or not... but it's kinda... annoying... :laugh:

[SlopeeJ]

I think they would be the same, not counting themselves as creatures.


As far as the guy, is this a casual Friday Night Magic? I set my graveyard out in columns up and down from right to left. I'm not sure of the exact rules, but if he keeps doing it and you get the feeling he is just trying to be a jerk then I wouldn't let him touch the cards. If he has a question or something you can answer it, but I don't think there are any rules saying he has to physically pick up your graveyard. That could be called slow play, but he does have right to read the cards and stuff if he hasn't played a dredge deck before.


Sounds like he has , but he is just being a jerk

http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/images/gbnat07/stuartsgraveyard.jpg

[Aleksandr]

I set my graveyard out in rows up and down from right to left.

[Zappa]

I think they would be the same, not counting themselves as creatures.


As far as the guy, is this a casual Friday Night Magic? I set my graveyard out in columns up and down from right to left. I'm not sure of the exact rules, but if he keeps doing it and you get the feeling he is just trying to be a jerk then I wouldn't let him touch the cards. If he has a question or something you can answer it, but I don't think there are any rules saying he has to physically pick up your graveyard. That could be called slow play, but he does have right to read the cards and stuff if he hasn't played a dredge deck before.


Sounds like he has , but he is just being a jerk

http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/images/gbnat07/stuartsgraveyard.jpg

Oh okay, that is what I do as well, columns or horizontal depending on the the space of the table. It is just a casual game, but it feels like he's doing it to be a jerk. I brought it up because back then, I also watched a video of a match where the guy was doing the same thing. So I was wondering... in an actual tournament, do opponents really have the right to keep taking my graveyard like that?

I guess you're right, if someone does something like that over and over in a tournament I guess I can inform the judge that he's delaying? But then again, he can just make an excuse saying he doesn't know the cards, even if he does... ha ha... :rolleyes:


Thank you for the feedback.

[Aleksandr]

Also don't forget that sometimes even you are uncertain what exactly is in your GY (namely after Colliseum + BT), so imagine his confusion. Especially if he has some way how to interact with your GY (not only Crypt/Trap, but also anything from Bolt to Mogg Fan/Spore Frog) or even something strange like Orim's Chant or w/e and he's just waiting for the best moment to cripple your gameplan.

Otoh I think he's just moron.

?

[Ozymandias]

I just do it with a stack, and figure out what I'm going to do every turn in my upkeep by paging through. After a year and a half of playing the deck, you immediately focus in on the key stuff.

[SlopeeJ]

also remember he can still read/see your graveyard from his side of the table. I have been playing dredge constantly for 2-3 months now and never have had an opp actually pick up my graveyard. (mostly because it is stacked across the table)

They ask questions and I answer, or if they ask to look at a card just pull it out keeping its spot and let them read it. But every turn no way. Commonly asked questions like how many bridges, you just count and say 3. They don't need to actually touch your whole graveyard.

I would say no they don't have the right to keep touching your graveyard, especially if you have it in rows spread out. Just say no he can see it from there and you will be happy to answer any questions or let him read cards.

I also have been stacking it more and more, but it is just easier to go with the rows. Looks cooler also and prolly irritates your opp so gives you an edge vs the people who think dredge isn't magic etc

[mercc]

I fell stupid already answering the question.

But what is the DDD plan?

[Sevryn]

I fell stupid already answering the question.

But what is the DDD plan?

Draw - in your draw step
Discard - in your end step (from having 8 cards in hand)
Dredge - in your next draw step

Useful if you lack a discard outlet but have an otherwise good hand.

[SlopeeJ]

draw, discard, dredge. I think thats the order, you take the draw turn 1 discard to 7 and then next turn dredge. Ensures you can dredge and not face fow or daze.


As Sevryn stated you don't have an imp/tribe. Sucks getting your Pimp forced/dazed which slows you down 2/3 turns

[bum_man]

I know that from time to time one can hardcast him, but isn't the Sphynx plain better? Except, of course, if you need to hold that one card that Sage brings (mostly Salvage for BGhasts). But as you play DReturn/Sage during your main phase, you already have that one card from draw step... no matter if it was dredged or whatever.
I only do play Sage because I can keep a salvage in hand after comboing-off through him, otherwise I'd totally play Sphinx. In practice, I always empty my hand before returning Sage since I'd be saccing my discard outlet away. It wouldn't matter most of the time but since I play bloodghasts it becomes a factor in some situations.


I´d go for:
-both Targets x2
-1 DR
-1 CS

+1 Tribe
+1 Ichorid
+1 Coliseum
+1 Golgari Thug

= more consistent MD that still wins on turn 3-4. You just never need the targets, resolved DR is almost always just gg.
Made a change in my list, I play 4 Coliseums now to up the explosiveness of the deck. I'd like to play a 3rd Tribe but I don't have space. I'd never think of cutting the DR targets because they speed up the deck significantly that they have always been a big factor in my wins. Where I play, I need to race around 80% of other decks, the DR targets are solid in giving me the gas to do so.

I was able to test my completed list earlier today and it showed overwhelmingly good results. I don't feel that the deck has lost speed and explosiveness with the addition of bloodghast in the list. It is definitely fast as fast, at the very least as my pre-bloodghast list. I haven't really been up against some blue so I haven't extensively stress-tested bloodghasts yet, but so far, the list looks very promising.

My list looks like this now:

// Lands 14 //
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
3 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Gemstone Mine


// Sorcery 14 //
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
3 Dread Return
3 Breakthrough


// Enchantments 4 //
4 Bridge from Below


// Instant 2 //
2 Darkblast


// Creatures 26 //
1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
2 Tireless Tribe
3 Ichorid
3 Blooghast

Finished testing and I'll probably playing with this list for a while, replacing the 4th paradise with mine is the right call, It definitely helps the deck avoid hands that slow down due to 2 paradises. I'll probably keep testing this list and tweak it as necessary since there are no tournaments where I play for quite some time I could have enough time to stress test the list. Anyone played before the holidays?

[bum_man]

Hey guys, happy new year. Bored at home so I went online and found that a LED-less list made it 1st and 4th in a tournament of 34 people at this link: http://www.deckcheck.net/event.php?event=Legacy+@+Zoetermeer+(The+Netherlands)

The first place list (found at this link: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31183) had a very interesting list. He played 61 cards, 4 bloodghasts, and 1 Protean Hulk. Has anyone played something similar to this? Especially on Hulk? Because I honestly have no idea what it was for except for fetching DR targets directly. Solid list with a great finish though.

[Ciberon]

I would never play such thing for two reasons. He runs only 2 Dread Return and 4 Dread Return specific targets. I highly dislike his manabase.

As to Protean Hulk, I've played with it for a while. It used to get me either Cephalid Sage or Flame-kin Zealot and a couple Putrid Imps. I have to say it's a nice card, if you have the slot. I've ended up cutting it for Eternal Witness, though.

[geosgaen0]

today i played the deck for fun against my friend deadguy-ale deck.
the first game is always in my favor, cos theres no hate. but the second and third game is hard, cos he side in 2 withered wretch, 2 jitte, 2 tormods crypt, 2 relic and 1 ravenous trap.
the question is, what should i side in facing hate lika that?
thx^^

[Aleksandr]

he side in 2 withered wretch, 2 jitte, 2 tormods crypt, 2 relic and 1 ravenous trap.
the question is, what should i side in facing hate like that?

In fact I don't think that it is easy to answer, because he has so diverse kinds of hate, but some number of Needles and Grudges/Chains could be helpful. I would not bother with random one-of Trap, namely if you can Therapy it away. Wretch is somehow slow, also Needle is da tech against it and you can always name another, more dangerous permanent (Relic/Crypt), if he plays it.

Jitte is not a factor, because it is a bit slow, even though it can sometimes win the games on its own. Otoh, it does not interfere with our combo (well, unless he destroys one of his own creature), so it is not that bothersome as e.g. Relic can be.

I recommend 4x Ancient Grudge and either a Pithing Needle (namely if he cannot sideboard additional artifact hate) or even Firestorm - because it not only kills the pesky Wretches, but also Confidants (that can help him to get the hate earlier) and/or Grunts.

If you use Chain of Vapor, try sideboarding it too. In most cases you need to get rid of Relic or Crypt in his EOT, than combo out (or at least make your opp. some serious trouble with multiple draws, dredges and DReturns) with a Therapy backup. Chain helps to accomplish this in the same manner a Grudge does and while it cannot destroy the hate piece, it can bounce even those hate cards, that Grudge cannot touch. My sb (as of now) looks like this:

1x Blazing Archon (Zoo, mirror, NQGw)
1x Woodfall Primus (Stax, Tress)
1x Ancestor's Chosen (Zoo, Burn, Tendrils)
2x Wispmare (Stax, Leyline)
2x Ray of Revelation (ditto) *
4x Ancient Grudge (Triskelavus.dec)
4x Chain of Vapor (multiple uses)
* could be Firestorm, as not many ppl use Leyline

...and I would sideoboard as follows:

-1x Ichorid
-1x Golgari Thug
-1x Narcomoeba
-1x Breakthrough
-1x FKZ
-1x DReturn
-1x BfB

+4 Grudge
+3 Chain

I tend to overboard against awaited hate, because you I am the one who needs the answers. With this sb plan I have seven cards against artifacts and three against Wretch (not that the zombies matter much to me). As long as it is a post-board game, you anyway cannot senselessly dredge into CryptYouLose, so you have enough time to wait for a Therapy to cover you from Trap (or even double Therapy naming Trap and than Chain+2nd Therapy to get rid of permanent based hate).

I am considering Null Rod more and more. With our manabase of fifteen lands (and some of them even dredgeable), we can easily play the Rod and be save from both Crypt and Relic (and simmultaneously the collateral hate like Jitte). We really need some cards to answer the Crypt/Relic and I don't find mere four cards (Ancient Grudges in this case) to be enough. I know that we can flashback them and that we can also use Chain, but I like it how one an only Rod can stop not only both the Relic and Crypt in the same time (unlike Needle), but it also stops any number of them (unlike Grudge that destroys just one or two of them). It also forces our opponent to sideboard Disenchant effects, that otoh have very little effect against our deck... but in fact some of the artifact hate (like Deed or EE, latter been succesfully solved by the very Null Rod) is useful against us and an inteligent opponent would not board them out... :really:

The upside of Null Rod is that it has all the problems of Needle and costs even one more mana, not talking about its inability to stop bothersome creatures like Lavamncer, Mogg Fan or Gempalm Incinerator. We also need to have it in the opening hand, but note that same is true for Chain of Vapor (and no one seriously asks its importance), so maybe this is not a great reason for some arousing debate.

Was this helpful?

EDIT: I just thought more on Null Rod cause and realized that the card sucks... and not only because it is a ten-bucks rare, while the other contender costs USD 0.10. I'll try Ingot Chewer.

[bum_man]

today i played the deck for fun against my friend deadguy-ale deck.
the first game is always in my favor, cos theres no hate. but the second and third game is hard, cos he side in 2 withered wretch, 2 jitte, 2 tormods crypt, 2 relic and 1 ravenous trap.
the question is, what should i side in facing hate lika that?
thx^^
Given my sideboard, I'd put in 4 Grudges and 2 firestorms. Grudges to handle artifact hate and most especially jitte. In theory, Jitte is a slow card but with the diverse amount of hate brought in along with the disruption package that most Deadguy decks have I really doubt we can win-fast. Just blow-up hate immediately since the deck can recover quickly after a small crypt or relic. The same goes for jitte because when jitte starts getting counters, that's the start of the end for the match. I'd probably go -1breakthrough, -1study, -1return, -1dr target for 4 chains if you d0n't know the sideboard or grudges. Then maybe, -2 tribe for the firestorms. For me, boarding like this gives the deck enough speed and explosiveness while at the same time having enough answers. This way of boarding also gives you a strong plan B aggro plan with Ichorids (and bloodghast in my case). With different types of hate being brought in, this match-up can be a really serious struggle. You are still generally faster than his deck as long as he doesn't crypt a big chunk of your library and/or jitte doesn't take over the game. Therapy for ravenous trap before combo-ing out. Just play carefully if you have to slow-roll and continue to dictate the tempo and keep applying pressure eventually, your deck's recursion becomes really annoying and eventually lands the win.

[Aleksandr]

Jitte is a slow card but with the diverse amount of hate brought in along with the disruption package that most Deadguy decks have I really doubt we can win-fast.

Yeah, this is true!

[jimirynk]

If we're posting lists:

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomeba
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ancestor’s Chosen

4 Bridge from From Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Undiscovered Paradise

sb
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Realm Razer
4 Leyline of the void


This is what i got sleeved up now.

[Aleksandr]

Are the Leylines needed? Also: Realm Razer? I can imagine how powerful it is against control, but AFAIK, we destroy control anyway. (That's the reason why I don't even use Sadistic Hypnotist...)

I don't get why people don't play FKZ, but as far as it works for you...

[BreathWeapon]

Anybody else testing -4 Cephalid Coliseum for +4 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud? Cephalid Coliseum is a slow, conditional draw mechanic when compared to Breakthrough and Careful Study, the only thing Cephalid Coliseum has going for it is that it's a land + spell. Oboro has the same thing going for it, land + spell, except Oboro functions by itself, turn 1+, and fights thru' Crypt/Relic better. If the deck "needs" explosiveness, then I think Brainstorm is both overlooked and less conditional.

[AcidFiend]

@ BreathWeapon: Chalice @ 1 shuts off all this decks discard outlets (as does an early Trinisphere) - Pimp, Tribe, Cabal, Breakthrough. They can be quite a beating.

This is where Coliseum comes in. You can DDD and activate Coliseum turn 3 and go off from there. I've won games this way a number of times during testing against Chalice/3sphere decks.

[BreathWeapon]

@ BreathWeapon: Chalice @ 1 shuts off all this decks discard outlets (as does an early Trinisphere) - Pimp, Tribe, Cabal, Breakthrough. They can be quite a beating.

This is where Coliseum comes in. You can DDD and activate Coliseum turn 3 and go off from there. I've won games this way a number of times during testing against Chalice/3sphere decks.

I doubt Chalice/Sphere is a significant metagame presence, considering Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus is like in every deck ever.

[JonBarber]

I went 3-0 and split first with this list yesterday

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Tireless Tribe
1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Golgari Thug
4 Careful Study
4 Bridge from Below
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return
3 Darkblast
3 Breakthrough
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Side Board

2 Wispmare
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Null Rod
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Firestorm
1 Iona

I'd have to say darkblast was MVP of the day. It literally won me games. My matchups were burn, zoo/landfall, and countertop.

[Aleksandr]

Interesting sideboard. Were the Rods useful? Also: why no Grudge? Are five hosers enough? (Well - seven with Chains).

three Darkblasts main? Really? Also interesting...

[JonBarber]

I'll admit that the sideboard was a little sloppy. I didn't get to prepare for it as much as I wanted to. I put the rods in because there are a few affinity decks in my meta, and null rod is an auto win against most. Sensi's top was the only artifact I encountered in all 3 matches, and trying to blow it up would have been useless.

The 3 darkblasts were great. I was able to save my bridges by taking out fanatics against burn, it worked wonders against Steppe Lynx in zoo, and I took out a few critters in the countertop deck. I believe I'm going to run a 2/2 split with darkblast and thugs though because there were a few times where I would have loved one more black creature. I almost want to throw in the 4th dread return, but I'm going to play test some more before I really decide to or not. So far this list has been running great.

[Raptor]

I'll admit that the sideboard was a little sloppy. I didn't get to prepare for it as much as I wanted to. I put the rods in because there are a few affinity decks in my meta, and null rod is an auto win against most. Sensi's top was the only artifact I encountered in all 3 matches, and trying to blow it up would have been useless.

The 3 darkblasts were great. I was able to save my bridges by taking out fanatics against burn, it worked wonders against Steppe Lynx in zoo, and I took out a few critters in the countertop deck. I believe I'm going to run a 2/2 split with darkblast and thugs though because there were a few times where I would have loved one more black creature. I almost want to throw in the 4th dread return, but I'm going to play test some more before I really decide to or not. So far this list has been running great.

You should consider running 4 ichorid before even thinking about running 4 dread return. Two Dread Return is often enough and three DR is almost always enough.

Have you consider running 2 undiscovered paradise instead of a split between paradise and tarnished citadel ? The odds of having 2 paradises in your opening hand is really low, and often the damage taken from tarnished citadel can make you loose game.

[JonBarber]

You should consider running 4 ichorid before even thinking about running 4 dread return. Two Dread Return is often enough and three DR is almost always enough.

Have you consider running 2 undiscovered paradise instead of a split between paradise and tarnished citadel ? The odds of having 2 paradises in your opening hand is really low, and often the damage taken from tarnished citadel can make you loose game.

I really don't feel like the 4th ichorid is necessary. I never really found myself wishing for another Ichorid, but I did feel that way towards dread return, especially against control. As I said though, more testing will give me a better idea.

As for the tarnished citadel, I only had to take the 3 once, and it was the only damage I took the whole match. Another paradise might be a good idea, because I really like how it can speed up DDD (giving you 9 cards in hand). More testing will also help me decide what to do there.

[leander?]

Why run Sage, if Zendikar gave you this idiot? (Notice the absence of a comma)
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/zen/69.jpg

[Raptor]

I really don't feel like the 4th ichorid is necessary. I never really found myself wishing for another Ichorid, but I did feel that way towards dread return, especially against control. As I said though, more testing will give me a better idea.

As for the tarnished citadel, I only had to take the 3 once, and it was the only damage I took the whole match. Another paradise might be a good idea, because I really like how it can speed up DDD (giving you 9 cards in hand). More testing will also help me decide what to do there.

Well, in the lots of match that I've done versus Landstill or countertop, ichorid is definitly the MVP. They can cet sworded, and you really want them as much as possible. Anyway, you shouldn't have any problems agaisnt control decks. A month ago, I've tested about 10 matches against counter top (post side) siding out my DR and my 2 DR targets and it worked pretty well, I've lost 1 match or maybe 2.

By the way, more ichorid means more creature to sac to DR.

[frogboy]

often the damage taken from tarnished citadel can make you loose game.

I routinely take six from Citadel and have yet to lose a game to it. I've taken as much as twelve.

Cephalid Sage only forces you to discard two cards, which is relevant at times.

[JonBarber]

Well, in the lots of match that I've done versus Landstill or countertop, ichorid is definitly the MVP. They can cet sworded, and you really want them as much as possible. Anyway, you shouldn't have any problems agaisnt control decks. A month ago, I've tested about 10 matches against counter top (post side) siding out my DR and my 2 DR targets and it worked pretty well, I've lost 1 match or maybe 2.

By the way, more ichorid means more creature to sac to DR.

Hmm.. You make a valid point. I might give it a try. But theres very little control in my meta, so idk if it would be as useful for me.

[Nidd]

Why run Sage, if Zendikar gave you this idiot? (Notice the absence of a comma)
http://magiccards.info/scans/en/zen/69.jpg
Bloodghast-Builds like to dredge a Salvage and be able to keep it to play it and then DR for the win.

[ddt15]

It seems that the most succesful lists of dredge all have a thing in common; they don't run bloodghasts at all.

[bum_man]

Are the Leylines needed? Also: Realm Razer? I can imagine how powerful it is against control, but AFAIK, we destroy control anyway. (That's the reason why I don't even use Sadistic Hypnotist...)

I don't get why people don't play FKZ, but as far as it works for you...
I think these cards are metagame cards aimed at 43 lands and Aggro Loam. These decks maybe a significant presence where he plays. Furthermore, these decks both have serious game against dredge and have recently done well, so I guess, he aims to improve these match-ups with such changes.


Anybody else testing -4 Cephalid Coliseum for +4 Oboro, Palace in the Cloud? Cephalid Coliseum is a slow, conditional draw mechanic when compared to Breakthrough and Careful Study, the only thing Cephalid Coliseum has going for it is that it's a land + spell. Oboro has the same thing going for it, land + spell, except Oboro functions by itself, turn 1+, and fights thru' Crypt/Relic better. If the deck "needs" explosiveness, then I think Brainstorm is both overlooked and less conditional.
I've tried this, and the deck loses too much explosiveness. Both cards are problematic in terms of the mana that they produce. But the thing is, Coliseum is more useful in more ways and Oboro is. Oboro without bloodghasts is a joke, Coliseum even without dredgers are useful in putting cards in the graveyard which is speeds you up at least a couple of turns at least. Brainstorm doesn't dump cards back into the graveyard, in some instances it brings dredgers back into the library, which is counter-productive.


The 3 darkblasts were great. I was able to save my bridges by taking out fanatics against burn, it worked wonders against Steppe Lynx in zoo, and I took out a few critters in the countertop deck. I believe I'm going to run a 2/2 split with darkblast and thugs though because there were a few times where I would have loved one more black creature. I almost want to throw in the 4th dread return, but I'm going to play test some more before I really decide to or not. So far this list has been running great.
Grats on the strong finish. I agree about the darkblasts I play 2 myself, finding space to make it 3. I don't play Thugs though. Blasts are better in more ways than thug honestly, the utility of the card is great especially in some metagames.


I really don't feel like the 4th ichorid is necessary. I never really found myself wishing for another Ichorid, but I did feel that way towards dread return, especially against control. As I said though, more testing will give me a better idea.

As for the tarnished citadel, I only had to take the 3 once, and it was the only damage I took the whole match. Another paradise might be a good idea, because I really like how it can speed up DDD (giving you 9 cards in hand). More testing will also help me decide what to do there.
4 Ichorids are not necessary in a build like yours that is focused on pulling-off a dread return combo, I assume that is why you want a 4th dread return. Unless you face targeted removal of cards in the graveyard like extirpate, and withered wretch, 3 Ichorids are enough. Do try to toy around with bloodghasts as they make the dread return combo easier to pull-off. If you aim to play returns often, ichorids are a turn slower in being relevant in doing this compared to bloodghasts. Bloodghasts are also better against non-blue decks.
I also suggest the 2nd Paradise, as I experienced taking 12 damage with it against burn once. Paradise is a better land than Citadel to get in mulligan hands.


It seems that the most succesful lists of dredge all have a thing in common; they don't run bloodghasts at all.
Are you serious? -> http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showpost.php?p=409767&postcount=1151

[BreathWeapon]

The problem tho' is Cephalid Coliseum loses "utility" game 2 where Oboro, Palace in the Cloud gains "utility" game 2 because the first is deterred by hate while the second thrives vs it. Also Cephalid Coliseum has piss poor synergy with Undiscovered Paradise, which leads me to believe the Bloodghast plan should put Cephalid Coliseum on the back burner.

[AcidFiend]

To those that have tested Bloodghast builds, is Dakmor Salvage enough to activate Blooghast or would Eternal Witness be good? Just from playing non-LED non-BG, I very rarely get more than an opening land into play. DS is just a once-off, but with EW you can get your Paradise online, as well as other useful effects (returning Breakthough etc). I know its not a new concept but I didn't see it in the lists bum_man linked to so wondered what happened in this space.

[BreathWeapon]

To those that have tested Bloodghast builds, is Dakmor Salvage enough to activate Blooghast or would Eternal Witness be good? Just from playing non-LED non-BG, I very rarely get more than an opening land into play. DS is just a once-off, but with EW you can get your Paradise online, as well as other useful effects (returning Breakthough etc). I know its not a new concept but I didn't see it in the lists bum_man linked to so wondered what happened in this space.

Eternal Witness is solid, it's the only non-Iona target I'd bother running, because recurring Cephalid Coliseum to recur Bloodghasts and then draw/dredge is better than any other play via FKZ or Sphinx. Generally tho', it's not so much the "one shot" Bloodghast activations you want, but the recurring Bloodghast activations by UP/Oboro that break the bastards in half.

Edit: I run Eternal Witness over Dakmor Salvage(s) MD, SB out Eternal Witness for Dakmor Salvage game 2. Generally they can't keep you off Dread Return -> Eternal Witness game 1 and recurring an UP/Oboro is better than recurring a Dakmor Salvage because your Blood Ghasts are endless. Game 2 Crypt disrupts the Dread Return -> Eternal Witness plan, so you're better off with Dakmor (doesn't force you to lose 3 guys to Crypt in response to Dread Return)

[bum_man]

The problem tho' is Cephalid Coliseum loses "utility" game 2 where Oboro, Palace in the Cloud gains "utility" game 2 because the first is deterred by hate while the second thrives vs it. Also Cephalid Coliseum has piss poor synergy with Undiscovered Paradise, which leads me to believe the Bloodghast plan should put Cephalid Coliseum on the back burner.
Once your bloodghast gets crypted away Oboro will become a brick. It doesn't thrive in hate so much. While Coliseum, once crypted you can still recover. both cards are deterred by hate but Coliseum helps you recover better, while Oboro is, well. a brick. Paradise don't work well with Coliseums, that I have to admit. But I'd rather have Coliseum rather than a brick in my hand anytime. Playing Oboro's with Paradises for me is awful, too much cards alotted that mess with the deck for a complimentary creature.


To those that have tested Bloodghast builds, is Dakmor Salvage enough to activate Blooghast or would Eternal Witness be good? Just from playing non-LED non-BG, I very rarely get more than an opening land into play. DS is just a once-off, but with EW you can get your Paradise online, as well as other useful effects (returning Breakthough etc). I know its not a new concept but I didn't see it in the lists bum_man linked to so wondered what happened in this space.
This is very interesting, I'm afraid I haven't tested witness yet in this build. Salvage is only used to enable ghasts as a last resort or when you combo-out a lethal FKZ swarm. You won't need to recur bloodghasts every turn in most cases anyway, I usually beat with Ichorids and bring back bloodghasts in the homestretch. So I haven't really looked into this, I'll probably do so though when I get a Witness.

[BreathWeapon]

Once your bloodghast gets crypted away Oboro will become a brick. It doesn't thrive in hate so much. While Coliseum, once crypted you can still recover. both cards are deterred by hate but Coliseum helps you recover better, while Oboro is, well. a brick. Paradise don't work well with Coliseums, that I have to admit. But I'd rather have Coliseum rather than a brick in my hand anytime. Playing Oboro's with Paradises for me is awful, too much cards alotted that mess with the deck for a complimentary creature.


This is very interesting, I'm afraid I haven't tested witness yet in this build. Salvage is only used to enable ghasts as a last resort or when you combo-out a lethal FKZ swarm. You won't need to recur bloodghasts every turn in most cases anyway, I usually beat with Ichorids and bring back bloodghasts in the homestretch. So I haven't really looked into this, I'll probably do so though when I get a Witness.

The problem tho' is Coliseum is a turn 3 activation where Oboro is a turn 2 activation that doesn't require 2 land drops in game 2. Oboro is more conducive to DDD than Coliseum, because it puts 1 card on the board instead of 2, and Oboro is effectively 0 cards on board with it's ability - thus you can return to DDD immediately after playing it. Even if a Bloodghast is Crypted, it's 1 Bloodghast out of 4. Oboro is never a brick, because inevitably, it turns into a recurring source of threats thru' how the deck naturally plays post-board game 2.

Arguably tho', Oboro/Dakmor may be better as SB cards than MD cards game 2 vs Crypt and co. since Oboro/Dakmor are sort of undesirable vs non-U match ups game 1.

[NQN]

Oboro might be good against Crypt, but the DDD plan doesn´t work against Relic :/ I tried Bloodghast in some different builds now and for now it seems that he´s good, but the sacrifice you have to make him good isn´t worth it.
I only recurred him with Paradise and almost never thought "woa just won `cause of Bloodghast".
Imho it can´t be good to add a horrible card like Oboro just to make another one work better...

[bum_man]

The problem tho' is Coliseum is a turn 3 activation where Oboro is a turn 2 activation that doesn't require 2 land drops in game 2.
I doubt that an Oboro activation will ever be relevant in turn 2 of the game except for maybe getting ghast into play and avoiding a wasteland. Regardless of any turn of the game, Coliseum almost always wins you the game after an activation pre-board or post-board. Oboro doesn't do this, it also slows the deck's goldfish so bad since playing 4 of this takes away 4 more ways for the deck to win now. Oboro is a good card at enabling bloodghast. It's just that, the way I play GhastDredge, I don't need Bloodghast to be overwhelming be powerful. I just want to make Bloodghast good enough so that it plays well with combo strategy of my list. Just this afternoon, I was able to squeek out a close match after getting hit by 3 crypt on the back of 3 bloodghasts and a narcomoeba that was made possible by a topdecked Coliseum activation into ghasts into win the following turn. The speed and explosiveness that Coliseum brings to the deck is replaceable imo.


Oboro is more conducive to DDD than Coliseum, because it puts 1 card on the board instead of 2, and Oboro is effectively 0 cards on board with it's ability - thus you can return to DDD immediately after playing it. Even if a Bloodghast is Crypted, it's 1 Bloodghast out of 4. Oboro is never a brick, because inevitably, it turns into a recurring source of threats thru' how the deck naturally plays post-board game 2.
I personally don't like playing DDD with the deck any game against any opponent. Even post-board against blue or anything, I don't DDD all the way, I usually DDD, rip their resources/counters apart, then combo for the win against anyone not thresh. Dredging into Grudges keep their hate cards in check so that you can force them to crypt you prematurely with a small graveyard. I don't think building around a DDD plan is wise because I don't think this deck needs any more help on DDD. Any generic Dredge list can win a match through DDD.


Arguably tho', Oboro/Dakmor may be better as SB cards than MD cards game 2 vs Crypt and co. since Oboro/Dakmor are sort of undesirable vs non-U match ups game 1.
I personally don't mind Dakmor game 1's since they bring back bloodghasts mid-combo turn to win. I do mind Oboro game 1 because seriously, this card just gives up too much speed for the sake of making bloodghasts immortal. I think, it's overkill and it's re-tuning the deck too much around bloodghast, a complimentary creature in the deck. Oboro could be used as an sb card, but I think it kinda wastes the 3-4 slots it takes up for an unnecessary good, and again, I just don't like making the deck slower.


Oboro might be good against Crypt, but the DDD plan doesn´t work against Relic :/
EXACTLY


I tried Bloodghast in some different builds now and for now it seems that he´s good... but the sacrifice you... I only recurred him with Paradise and almost never thought "woa just won `cause of Bloodghast".
I agree. For me Bloodghast was over-hyped too much especially in dredge. People thought this card alone is going to be the deck's Messiah and warp the deck into a whole new level much like how Bridge From Below and Narcomoeba did to the Sutured Ghoul Dredge back in the day. Ghast is not like a Kobe that wins you games on his own. He's more like a Gasol, a compliment, a card that isn't ape shit on its own, but within the deck's system and around the right pieces, definitely the card makes the deck better and takes it to a whole new level.


...but the sacrifice you have to make him good isn´t worth it... Imho it can´t be good to add a horrible card like Oboro just to make another one work better...
This really depends on how much you tweak the deck in my case, I changed 4 Gemstone Mines for 4 Undiscovered Paradise and formerly only 2 Paradises into 2 Dakmor Salvage. I also cut one-ofs of cards like tireless tribe, a Reveillark, and Dredger. For me, the effect of losing these cards are very minimal compared to the overwhelmingly good effect of how bloodghast plays in this deck. Like I've previously mentioned, fitting new cards in an old system is only a matter of finding the right balance and focus in the deck. Playing 4 Oboro is an example of taking a step into the wrong direction imo because it brings focus too much one aspect of the deck(triggering landfall on bloodghast) while it significantly makes all other aspects worse(land configuration, winning through combo, speed, explosiveness, resiliency).

Question: Does this deck suffer greatly in terms of the ratios of getting the cards you want drawn in your starting hand and dredged when you start dredging, by going to 61 cards. Bloodghast has been really good to me these past few days and I've been thinking of fitting-in a 4th one in but I can't find a spot in the deck so I've decided to try and play the deck on 61 cards. Oh, and my deck looks like this now:

// Lands 14 //
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Dakmor Salvage

// Sorcery 14 //
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
3 Dread Return
3 Breakthrough

// Enchantments 4 //
4 Bridge from Below

// Instant 2 //
2 Darkblast

// Creatures 27 //
1 Cephalid Sage
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
2 Tireless Tribe
3 Ichorid
4 Blooghast

So far, the can still win within 4 turns undisrupted, the mulligans are up to its usual standards, so are the dredges. The difference is the deck's stability and resiliency against hate post-board. It's a beast. I'll try to test this out by playing it for a few more days and post results after. Just asking for insights.

[Aleksandr]

I've just finished 3/21 with Bloodghast Non-LED winning a Grindstone.

round 1: Eva Green. Both me and my opponent went to four game2 and I lost it. G3 we had giant brainfart, but mine was not that hurtful, so I won when he Thoughtseized me incorectely (I had three lands on the bottlefield and my hand was: 2x DReturn, 1x Sphinx, 1x City; he discarded the Sphinx, after triple DReturn I won)

round 2: WB agrrocontrol. I won the first game through the Ghostly Prison and Tombstalker+Jitte with a 11/11 Troll.

round three: Dreadstill. I overboarded in G3 and lost.

round four: Kavu.dec. I've lost game two, even though I had "perfect" draw. (triple Grudge, BFB, Ignatio Chevalier, PImp, rainbow land, draw Salvage and Breakthrough.) He defeated me with some Berserk action, but maybe I should try the BT-->Salvage... who can tell.
Game three I played the usual nonsense with 28 zombies and Troll or two, but in fact I was very close to defeat, as he attacked me for 21 the turn before I won. (I had 23 life and I also blocked the 16/16 Kavu with a Sphinx. But it was really close.) I DReturned Bliskawychniy Arxont (just for sure) and than I turned sideways a vulgar ammount of zombies.

I remember one game winning with a 21/21 hasted Troll and nothing else, not even Moeba, (well, there was a FKZ, too...). These are the wins I like the most, because they are really hardly earned, as you spend all your resources on Therapies, DReturns, etc., and then in the end you have just one enormous Troll and still somehow manage to win...

[jimirynk]

top 8ed the vestal dual for dual (88 ppl).
Came in 6th after losing in top to 8 cards of dredge hate coming in out of the board.

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomeba
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ancestor’s Chosen

4 Bridge from From Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Undiscovered Paradise

sb
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Realm Razer
4 Leyline of the void

Might change the board to
4 unmask
4 leyline
3 chain of vapor/ ray of revalation
4 ancient grudge

[Muradin]

Yesterday I participated in a 54 men GP Madrid trial with led less dredge and split the finals.

My list is:
4 Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ichorid
2 Dread Return

SB:
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mindbreak Trap

The sideboard has 4 Ancient Grudge and some Firestorms because they are essential and I expected a lot of combo so I put 8 zero mana counters vs combo in my sideboard. This isn't that bad as postboard you have got 20 blue cards in your deck which is quite reliable.

My matchups were:

Faeriestompy 2-0

I win the roll, mull to 6 and play a Tribe which he forces. On his turn he drops a Chalice at one with an Ancient Tomb. I play a Coliseum and play a Breakthrough for 2 mana putting 1 GGT and some Ichorids in my graveyard. He play an Island and invokes a Mulldrifter on his turn. On my turn I activate my Coliseum in my Upkeep, hit more dredgers with my troll, dredge for my draw step and make a bunch of tokens and a big troll - he scoops.

SB: +4 Ancient Grudge, -4 Breakthrough

We both mulligan to 6 and he makes a first turn Chalice at 1 again with a City of Traitors. I play land go and on his turn he taps his city for mana, plays an Island and a Serendib Efreet. On my turn I grudge his Chalice and he doesn’t find another mana source than his lone island in the next 2 turns so I kill him quickly.

Aggro Loam 1-2

First game he doesn't do anything and scoops after my second turn after he had already taken a mulligan and I got a broken opener.

+4 Ancient Grudge, -1 Golgari Thug, -2 Ichorid, -1 Cabal Therapy
I am not sure if this is correct but my reasoning behind this is that I can't grind it out slowly against Aggro Loam but rather I got to be a real combo deck and thus I don't need that many Ichorids. Breakthrough can't be taken out in this matchup or Terravore and friends will eat you alive if you give them that much time. With 2 less Ichorids I also think that 1 Thug can be removed.

I mull to 6 into: 2x Careful Study, 2x Cephalid Coliseum, Stinkweed Imp, Ancient Grudge.

He plays Land, Mox, Loam, Crypt go. I draw something useless and play my first Study without finding a land to activate my Grudge and discard Grudge + Moeba or so. He plays a Knight of the Reliquary on his turn. I play another careful Study, find a land and Grudge his crypt. He taps 2x Taiga for red mana and uses his Knight to sacrifice one of them and gets a Plateau to play a Seismic Assault. On my turn I play a Tribe I drew with my Careful Studys, dump my hand and activate Coliseum. I dredge nothing of relevance and Assault kills me.

G3. I mull to 5, he keeps his 7. I have a Tribe, he has the crypt. I start to slow dredge and he eventually crypts me. However I am unlucky and on the dredge where I get my first Grudge I also hit 3 of my 4 Moebas and he crypts me before I get them. From there on it is a hard battle between a Knight of the Reliquary, a Goyf and a bunch of Zombie tokens and some Ichorid, however he finds an Assault and kills me with it in his last extra turn.

2-0 Eva Green with BLoodghast and Dark Confidant (or something like that)
Game 1 he does nothing and scoops quickly.

Game 2 I knew that he probably has Leyline of the Void in his Sideboard and I have no solution. So I boarded in my Firestorms.

He mulled to 6 and I keep my pretty nice opener. He starts with 2x Leyline and play 2 Mishras Factories and hits me with one while I beat down with 2 Tireless Tribe, a Putrid Imp and a Stinkweed Imp. Eventually he finds a Black mana and plays a Confidant. I hit him down to 10 with my guys and play a Breakthrough for 4 mana and find a Firestorm with it. He reveals a Smother with his Confidant and falls to 8. He drops a Goyf and on my turn I attack him again with my 2 Imps to 6. He reveals a Land and plays a Bloodghast and smothers my Stinkweed Imp. I draw, Firestorm for 4, kill his dudes and attack with my guys for the win.

Goblins 2-0

G1 he gets a first turn Lackey, I play a Putrid Imp. He plays a Stingscourger and bounces my I discard some Dredgers and his Lackey hits me and puts a Goblin Chieftain into play. I dredge, replay my Imp, discard some cards, play a Careful Study and get 2 Narcomoebas, 2 Bridges and 3 Therapies. I therapy his hand away and get 6 Zombie Tokens. On his turn his Stingscourger dies and removes my Bridges and he attacks with some guys which I block. I am left with some zombies and 2 Ichorids in my GY now and he doesn't draw any Ringleader, Matron or Siege Gang Commander for 3 turns while I dredge into new Bridges and Ichorids which eventually kill him.

I bring in 4 Ancient Grudge and 4 Firestorm but don't remember what exactly I took out. Definitely -4 Breakthrough and something else.

Game 2 he gets a Lackey and I get an Imp. On his turn 2 he gets a Skirk Prospector and a Relic of Progenitus. I discard a Troll on my upkeep, he tries to remove it and I discard something useless and remove that instead. My Troll dredges me into a Grudge immediately and I kill his Relic with it. He sacs his Prospector and uses the Relic. He drops a Warren Investigator and plays an Aether Vial with a Wasteland. I dredge, Careful Study, dredge more and pass with 3 Ichorids and 3 Bridges in the graveyard but no Moebas in play. On his turn he doesn't find a ways to kill his own dudes and attacks with lackey and investigator but has nothing to bring into play but a Goblin Warchief and another Investigator. On my turn I get back my 3 Ichorids, dredge into a Narcomoeba and a Dread Return and make 15 Zombie Tokens, a Troll and therapy him but he had just lands and an Aether Vial left in his hand and scoops.

TES 2-1

Game 1 he mulls to 5, I therapy for Dark Ritual after he opens with Gemstone Mine, Ponder and hit 2. He dies soon after that to my Zombie tokens.

+4 Force of Will, +4 Mindbreak Trap, -4 Tireless Tribe, -1 Golgari Thug, -2 Ichorid, -1 Dread Return

He kills me on his first turn after I mulled to 5 and got a hand of 2 Lands, Dredger, Putrid Imp, Force of Will but no card to pitch.

G3 I keep my 7 consisting of 2x FOW, 2x Mindbreak Trap, Breakthrough, Troll, Therapy. I go for DDD and in my first draw before I can start to Dredge I draw another Blue card. He tries to go off on turn 3 but hits 2 of my 4 counters he didn't expect.

I see that I have got a nice opponent score and my opponent for round 6 is Marius Hausmann (Wasteland on Mtgthesource) playing Ur Dreadstill. We figure out that we can draw and come in the top 8 as 7th and 8th.

In the top 8 I get to play against Christoph Alsheimer (Nemavera)

He wins the roll and starts with a Brainstorm. I mulled to 6 and get a quick opener. I get to Therapy him but in the end he can Chant me with kicker before I can kill him. On his turn he already had played out an LED before and draws a Dark Ritual for his turn. He plays his Dark Ritual, Cracks his LED and draws his Ad Nauseam with his top.

Draw a bunch of cards, play a bunch of cards, he wins.

SB: -4 Tireless Tribe, -2 Ichorid, -2 Dread Return, -1 Thug, -2 Putrid Imp, +8 Counter, +3 Firestorm

I mulligan to 4 into Troll, FoW, Trap, Land. I FoW a Xantid Swarm and he tries to go off without any pressure on turn 4. He goes for Doomsday and I Trap his Meditate. He scoops.

G3 I get a nice opening hand with 2 Lands, 2 Therapys, Fow, Moeba, Troll. I therapy him and start to dredge. He Mystical Tutors for Infernal Tutor with a LED in play and a Dark Ritual in hand but doesn't go for it. I dredge into more therapys and empty his hand and kill him.
He told me that he is going to write a report himself so I am not sure anymore how those games exactly went and you can read it there.
Top 4 Merfolk

Game 1 I win the roll and mull to 5 but get a nice opening hand consisting of Gemstone Mine, Tireless Tribe, GGT, 2x Careful Study. My first turn Tribe resolves and he drops an Island. I dredge and try to Careful Study but he dazes. On his turn he plays his Island again and passes. I Dredge and play my 2nd Careful Study which he also Dazes. He plays out his Island again and passes. I get back some Ichorids and dredge into a Bridge. I therapy him for Lord of Atlantis and hit 2, Therapy for Merrow Reejerey and get 2 Zombies. He has no ressources left and dies to many zombies.

SB: +4 Ancient Grudge, +3 Firestorm, -4 Breakthrough, -2 Cabal Therapy, -1 Golgari Thug

We both mulligan to 6 and he opens with Cursecatcher and Crypt. I play a Tireless Tribe which resolves. He just has a Mutavault and passes. I discard a dredger and start to dredge and drop a Putrid Imp and another Tribe. He doesn't have any play for his turn and passes back to me. I dredge more and get a Moeba out and hit him again with my flying creatures. When he is down to 10 he finally gets his 3rd land, Crypts me and plays a Merrow Reejerey. I hit 2 more Narcomoebas with my next dredge and he trys to race me but my flying beaters are faster that his merfolks while Tireless Tribe defends my life total.

Finals: I make a price split with Marius Hausmann and we both get 3 byes for Madrid. Moreover we get 4 Force of Will and a BB Savannah.

[Raptor]

top 8ed the vestal dual for dual (88 ppl).
Came in 6th after losing in top to 8 cards of dredge hate coming in out of the board.

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomeba
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ancestor’s Chosen

4 Bridge from From Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Undiscovered Paradise

sb
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Realm Razer
4 Leyline of the void

Might change the board to
4 unmask
4 leyline
3 chain of vapor/ ray of revalation
4 ancient grudge

If you make a report, please let me know, I would be very interested in reading it.
Did you ever side in your ray of relevation or your leyline ?

Have you tried duress/thoughtseize before considering Unmask ? Removing a black card was often screwing my hand.

[AcidFiend]

Congrats on your result Muradin, especially since you run such a 'pure' list without any other DR targets etc and 15 lands.

The 8 cards dedicated to Combo were nice, glad it helped you win that matchup.

[ddt15]

Frankie Mach 10th Place SCG 5K Dallas/Fort Worth

Creatures
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

Enchantments
4 Bridge From Below

Legendary Creatures
1 Iona, Shield Of Emeria

Sorceries
4 Breakthrough
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Deep Analysis
3 Dread Return

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Sideboard:
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Chain Of Vapor
2 Firestorm
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Nix
3 Ravenous Trap

Maindeck deep analysis without LEDs and only 12 land? Am i missing something? How does he ever get two mana to cast it or is it just to speed up a slow-dredge?

[Raptor]

Frankie Mach 10th Place SCG 5K Dallas/Fort Worth

Creatures
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

Enchantments
4 Bridge From Below

Legendary Creatures
1 Iona, Shield Of Emeria

Sorceries
4 Breakthrough
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Deep Analysis
3 Dread Return

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine

Sideboard:
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Chain Of Vapor
2 Firestorm
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Nix
3 Ravenous Trap

Maindeck deep analysis without LEDs and only 12 land? Am i missing something? How does he ever get two mana to cast it or is it just to speed up a slow-dredge?

Well, 2 mana is doable but pretty hard to reach without LED. I wouldn't advise anyone to use it in a non-LED list.

But I really like his Nix tech in the Sideboard... Anyone ever tested it ?
It hits crypt, force, ravenous trap, engineered explosives, LED,daze..
But you better pay off for the daze ;)

[jimirynk]

But I really like his Nix tech in the Sideboard... Anyone ever tested it ?
It hits crypt, force, ravenous trap, engineered explosives, LED,daze..
But you better pay off for the daze ;)

Doesn't spell pierce do the same thing but also hits relic?
I don't like taking the defensive roll in such an aggressive deck if you have a mana up why not cast a duress or thought-seize?

If nix could counter faerie macabre I'd be all for it because that card blew me out at vestal..

@Raptor
I'll get to a report soon just realized that me and you play the same 2 decks Ichorid and Canadian thresh.

[Raptor]

Doesn't spell pierce do the same thing but also hits relic?
I don't like taking the defensive roll in such an aggressive deck if you have a mana up why not cast a duress or thought-seize?

If nix could counter faerie macabre I'd be all for it because that card blew me out at vestal..

@Raptor
I'll get to a report soon just realized that me and you play the same 2 decks Ichorid and Canadian thresh.

Well, spell pierce is worst turn 3+, your opponents will often have the mana to pay because their hate spell cost 0 or 1 mana, so going with Nix could be a good idea. Plus, if I see them bringing relic or I think they are running it, I'll bring grudge instead.(I'll probally playtest Nix and spell pierce tonight against Merfolk and Supreme blue)

I know that going defensive is often not the best strategy and that's why I don't know if I should try in SB Duress/thoughtseize, Pierce, Nix or Unmask. I might try the Unmask because I hate going T1 Duress to get my only land wastelanded.

[jimirynk]

I know that going defensive is often not the best strategy and that's why I don't know if I should try in SB Duress/thoughtseize, Pierce, Nix or Unmask. I might try the Unmask because I hate going T1 Duress to get my only land wastelanded.

Current side board:
3-4 hand hate (unmask/though-seize/duress)
3-4 artifact hate(ancient grudge/null rod/pithing needle/ignot chewer)
3-4 grave yard hate (leyline/faerie macabre/ravenous trap/tormod's crypt)
3-4 answers to leyline (CoV/wispmare/ray of revelation)

I'll adjust my numbers according to the meta of the next torn I play at.

[Raptor]

Current side board:
3-4 hand hate (unmask/though-seize/duress)
3-4 artifact hate(ancient grudge/null rod/pithing needle/ignot chewer)
3-4 grave yard hate (leyline/faerie macabre/ravenous trap/tormod's crypt)
3-4 answers to leyline (CoV/wispmare/ray of revelation)

I'll adjust my numbers according to the meta of the next torn I play at.

In my meta I expect Zoo, Landstill, Countertop, Fearies, Chalice aggro. goblins, maybe some combo deck and lots of progenitus deck.

As for now my SB is :
4x Ancient grudge
3x Firestorm
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
3x Duress
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Ancestor's chosen

I will probally switch to something like this
4x Ancient Grudge
3x Chain of Vapor
3x Duress or Unmask
2x Firestorm
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
1x Ancestor's chosen
1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress

I've seen lots of traps in the past tournament, so that's why I'm seriously considering Nix. I would probally do -2 Firestorm, -1 Chain of Vapor, -1 Grudge
for 4x Nix or maybe disrupt.

By the way, do you often side out Breakthrough ? I keep them kind of often because I love to explode after being hit by a crypt.

What do you usually side out?
Me : -1 Tireless Tribe, -1 Ichorid (if I'm not versus Countertop or Landstill), -1 Golgari thug, and after this, I start taking out my breakthrough.