[Deck] Non-LED Based Dredge/Ichorid Combo

[Bryant Cook]

Running witness in the board right now. Iona is my only MD dedicated DR target.

I've also made this move since earlier. I changed Witness to a third Dread Return, with these changes to my sideboard...


4 Firestorm
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Eternal Witness
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon

[kurterickson]

Ok so here is my list;

4x Lotus Petal
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Narcomoeba
4x Bridge from Below
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Putrid Imp
3x Breakthrough
3x Careful Study
3x Golgari Thug
3x Dread Return
3x Ichorid
3x Bloodghast
2x Darkmor Salvage
1x Undiscovered Paradise
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
1x Yosei, the Morning Star

Sideboard:

4x Pithing Needle
4x Chain of Vapor
3x Unmask
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1x Terastodon
1x Cephalid Sage

Card Explanations:

Lotus Petal I find is a lot better for being able to play a PImp and a Therapy in the same turn or a Study and a breakthrough can make a lot of match ups fairly better.

Bloodghast is basically a second Ichorid. Being able to dredge back the Salvage and recurring 1-2 Ghasts after dredging for your draw can help get a DR off earlier in the game. The salvage also helps get under ravenous trap.

Inkwell Leviathan and Yosei: Inkwell is possible the best basic option (matchup dependent of course) for a beat stick that can be animated from the graveyard. Islandwalk is a bonus seeings how a fair bit of decks have islands in their manabase. Yosei, as stated earlier, is probably a better win con than recurring cephalid sage for the fact it doesn't mean you have to win that turn. It leaves more options open and by the time you DR it back and sack it to a therapy or another DR, your opponent shouldn't have much more than 5 permanents anyways.

Pithing Needle and Chain of Vapor: Pithing needle shuts down too many things not to run 4 of. Chain of vapor is a quick answer to almost anything.

Unmask is a nice side board to remove any highly threatening cards, or to just slow down your opponent giving you time to set up. It can also combos great with cabal therapy.

The 4 dread return targets in the side board are based heavily on what your meta is. Iona can shutdown storm decks, or just cut you opponent out of a color. Terastodon is for ghostly prison and such. Akroma is mainly for goblins, but can also help with going for game when you have next to lethal damage on the board. The cephalid sage is just for opposing combo decks too.

[GreenOne]

...don't you think 7 DR targets in the maindeck + 4 SB is too much?

[kurterickson]

I only have 3 main deck though. GGT is basically "I'm screwed" dread return target but I hardly ever need to. Game 1 is usually just a win either turn 2 or 3 (depending on the opposing deck, storm is a bit rough along with enchantress) then game 2 I usually slow roll treading carefully knowing most of my opponents SB in 3-4 ravenous traps. If I'm able to get them with an unmask or cabal therapy then ill go for the speed kill. But normally I just dread return either inkwell, yosei, or FKZ for the win.

[jimirynk]

@ Eternal witness
Games 2/3 become an uphill battle If you get 3 creature's in play and have a dread return AND a target AND get it to resolve AND they don't macbree it after you targeted it, WHY WOULD YOU WANT A WITNESS?

Iona
Ancestor's chosen
Inkwell

Those are the game 2/3 target I want to get into play..

[GreenOne]

I only have 3 main deck though. GGT is basically "I'm screwed" dread return target but I hardly ever need to. Game 1 is usually just a win either turn 2 or 3 (depending on the opposing deck, storm is a bit rough along with enchantress) then game 2 I usually slow roll treading carefully knowing most of my opponents SB in 3-4 ravenous traps. If I'm able to get them with an unmask or cabal therapy then ill go for the speed kill. But normally I just dread return either inkwell, yosei, or FKZ for the win.

You have 7 maindeck (4 sages) without counting GGT, and everyone is running 0-2.
So you statistically find yourself with more DR targets in the grave, than actual DRs.
Don't you think this is too much?

[Anusien]

I may post a report if there's interest. I just 3-1ed a Legacy Daily Event. The highlight was round 4 against New Horizons. I lost game 1. Game 2 I had a 1 outlet hand, so when I went turn 1 outlet and he Swordsed it, I pitched most of my hand. He obviously had a Crypt. I grudged the Crypt and played a Cephalid Coliseum. He wasted the Coliseum, and also Swordsed a second Ichorid when I brought it back. I still won.

Game 3 he had Swords to Plowshares on your outlet, Tormod's Crypt, Bojuka Bog, Force of Will, Stifle and I still won.

[Nidd]

I may post a report if there's interest. I just 3-1ed a Legacy Daily Event. The highlight was round 4 against New Horizons. I lost game 1. Game 2 I had a 1 outlet hand, so when I went turn 1 outlet and he Swordsed it, I pitched most of my hand. He obviously had a Crypt. I grudged the Crypt and played a Cephalid Coliseum. He wasted the Coliseum, and also Swordsed a second Ichorid when I brought it back. I still won.

Game 3 he had Swords to Plowshares on your outlet, Tormod's Crypt, Bojuka Bog, Force of Will, Stifle and I still won.

Sounds like some crazy stuff happened, I'd like to read about that.

[kurterickson]

That was a typo, seeing as how I typed at 3 A.M... Its fiixed now though. It was meant to be the draw 3 land. >.<

[Exospaciac]

I may post a report if there's interest. I just 3-1ed a Legacy Daily Event. The highlight was round 4 against New Horizons. I lost game 1. Game 2 I had a 1 outlet hand, so when I went turn 1 outlet and he Swordsed it, I pitched most of my hand. He obviously had a Crypt. I grudged the Crypt and played a Cephalid Coliseum. He wasted the Coliseum, and also Swordsed a second Ichorid when I brought it back. I still won.

Game 3 he had Swords to Plowshares on your outlet, Tormod's Crypt, Bojuka Bog, Force of Will, Stifle and I still won.

Yeah, that sounds pretty nuts. I'd like to know how you beat all that hate.

[Matthias]

Hi,

I would like to know how the recent banning of Mystical Tutor and the resulting impact on ANT and Reanimator should affect our sideboard for an unknown metagame (i.e. 100+ people tournament).

I used to run a board like:

4 Chain of Vapor
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Unmask
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Furystoke Giant
1 Ancestor's Chosen

Now that the tow hardest combo matchups are likely to be less present, shouldn't I switch the Unmasks for Firestorm to have an edge against Zoo and Merfolk?

[Augustas]

a noobish question haha. do you get more tokens for sacrificed ones (like, for therapy and dread return)?

[MMogg]

a noobish question haha. do you get more tokens for sacrificed ones (like, for therapy and dread return)?

No.


Whenever a nontoken creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield.
When a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, exile Bridge from Below.

[SHABOOGS]

Here's another question: Let's say both players have creatures in play and there's a bridge in the yard. Would I still get tokens if my opponent casts a Fleshbag Marauder or Damnation? This happened to me yesterday and someone said that I can stack the ability so that I can end up with tokens. The thing is: How do I stack the abilities in order to get the desired output? (If it is possible in the first place)

BTW I finished 5th in that tourney. XD

[Matthias]

Here's another question: Let's say both players have creatures in play and there's a bridge in the yard. Would I still get tokens if my opponent casts a Fleshbag Marauder or Damnation? This happened to me yesterday and someone said that I can stack the ability so that I can end up with tokens. The thing is: How do I stack the abilities in order to get the desired output? (If it is possible in the first place)

It's your Bridge, so it's your trigger. After a mass removal, all creatures hit the graveyard at the same time. You will stack the bridge triggers, letting your opponent creatures' death triggers go on the stack first, than your creatures' triggers. "Your" trigger will resolve first, so you get tokens, than "your opponent's" trigger will resolve, exiling all bridges from your graveyard.

[Digital Devil]

Mini-report of a 31-men tournament - I saw A TON of hate, since most people remembered the last montlhy event, with 7 dredge decks out of 30 people, with 2 of them in the top8 - one (me) finished first place. Half of the field had 4x graveyard hate slots, but I faced the other half with 6 to 8 hate pieces...

Round 1 - Glimpse Elves
City of Brass into Putrid Imp. He plays Heath ===> Forest ===> Quirion Ranger, so I put him on Survival.
On my second turn, I discard a GGT to dredge 6. Breakthrough ===> Iona on green.

-3 Golgari Thug, -3 Careful Study, +3 Darkblast, +3 Ancient Grudge

While sideboarding, my opponent accidentally revealed Glimpse of Nature and a Relic of Progenitus. Nice. Well, not exactly, since he leads with Forest and Llanowar Elves, I go with Turn 1 Tribe, the following turn he goes Forest ===> Quirion Ranger ===> Glimpse of Nature ===> gg.

Game 3 was almost identical, except I played Tribe with a Tarnished Citadel instead of Gemstone Mine, and I played Breakthrough milling 10 cards only, finding nothing relevant. He didn't even need to play his hate cards, since he lucksacked two second turn kills. He also sayed if it weren't for my g1 second turn Iona, he would've won the following turn. WTF, 3 second turn kills? Looks awesome.

Round 2 - Demon Stompy
G1 I open with Putrid Imp, he plays a City of Traitors into Chalice@1. I Dredge 6, find Ichorid and another Imp. He plays a Swamp to play Trinisphere. I proceed with Ichorid beatdown. He plays Swamp, and a Chrome Mox. I point at his Trinisphere. He makes a sad face, while I deal 5 damage per turn, until the game's over.

Before the beginning of the event, I heard him saying "Well, if I play Crypt followed by a Trinisphere, they can't Grudge until they reach 3 mana, meaning I can set a fast clock, and..." But I didn't hear the rest of the words, as he suddenly switched his Crypts for Leylines, and when a Leyline of the Void was deployed on the table, I scooped without even playing a single turn. The 3x Grudge I sided in instead of Studies were useless.

-3x Grudge, -1x Cabal Therapy, +4x Nature's Claim

As usual, he drops first turn Leyline, but I have Claim in my hand. I drop Pimp, and pass the turn. He goes with Tomb, Mox, Priest of Gix and face-down Bane of the Living. During my turn, I was forced to draw, since I had a single land, and a Breakthrough I wanted to cast. So, I pass the turn, counting to EOT Claim his Leyline, and then during my turn dredge the hell of out my deck with the blue sorcery. He plays Nether fu***n' Void. I Claim his Leyline in response, but then I can't Breakthrough, and my hopes of glory were crushed when I realised my army of Zombies would fall before a flipped Bane. GG.

Round 3 - I seriously don't know what deck it was, I crushed him both games in like 2 turns
Both games were turn 1 discard outlet, turn 2 Breakthrough, Iona, gg. With my Therapies I saw some green accelerants, and burn. Grudges were unnecessary.

Round 4 - RB Goblins
I lead with Careful Study, discarding 2 Trolls. He plays Badlands and Lackey. I Dredge 6, finding another Troll. I then Breakthrough, lucksacking enough to find 3 Narcomoebas, Dread Return, and Iona, naming red. Bridge from Below tokens would have protected the 7/7 from Warren Weirding, I guess.

-3x Careful Study, -3x Golgari Thug, +3x Ancient Grudge, +3x Darkblast

We both mull to 5, he is at 1 land, and kept only because of Vial, but Iona gets me there once again.

Round 5 - Dream Halls
We both mull to 4, and I win with Narcomoeba and Tribe beatdown

-3x Careful Study, -1x Dread Return, +4x Nature's Claim

He opens with Tomb, Petal, Show and Tell ===> Progenitus. WTF.

-1x Tireless Tribe, +1x Ancestor's Chosen.

Show and Tell ===> Dream Halls ===> 3x Cruel Ultimatum, followed by 2nd turn Emrakul. Oh, I also mulled down to 3. Funny.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The sad thing is that deck is set to defeat the top tiers, and I faced 4x rogue decks. They didn't even need to show me their Crypts/Relics, since they either won in like 2 turns, or I won in 2 turns. Most disgraceful tournament report, ever. My sideboard was the following:

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [GP] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 1 [JU] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair

I'm still not sure about Leyline of the Void, as I want to fit in an additional Ancient Grudge. Thoughts?

[(nameless one)]

I actually liked your sideboard when your gravehate was Faerie Macabre. Someone did mentioned that they are really good against Mirror and Reanimator and they can also provide as Ichorid Fodder.

I am still skeptical over 3 Darkblasts on your side. Ever tried Firestorm on the side? Possibly Path to Exile for big creature removal?

Also, why no Terastodon on the side?

[VITASOY]

Can we get a consolidated main deck just to see the general direction everyone is headed

[Nidd]

Can we get a consolidated main deck just to see the general direction everyone is headed

My current list is:

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below

4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

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


I dislike MD DR targets because they always feel so win-more G1.

[indefinite.soul]

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below

4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

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


Same here but:

-2 Tarnished Citadel
+2 Undiscovered Paradise
Can't see any reason why to use TC. You won't get both Paradises anyway.

-1 Tireless Tribe
-1 Golgari Thug
+1 Flame-kin Zaelot
+1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
I agree the DR targets may be unnecessary. Are 4th Tribe and Thug the right call?

Also, my SB is:
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Firestorm
4 Null Rod
2 Wispmare
1 Ancestor Chosen

[Anusien]

You use Tarnished Citadel over Undiscovered Paradise because it makes it easier to do stuff like cast Ancient Grudge, Breakthrough X=1, activate Coliseum, etc. Yes it sucks to bolt yourself, but it sucks more if you have to tap Paradise on turn 1 to cast something and then can't win on turn 2.

[indefinite.soul]

You use Tarnished Citadel over Undiscovered Paradise because it makes it easier to do stuff like cast Ancient Grudge, Breakthrough X=1, activate Coliseum, etc. Yes it sucks to bolt yourself, but it sucks more if you have to tap Paradise on turn 1 to cast something and then can't win on turn 2.

Play the other land first?
I mean, you're not defending the idea to keep a hand with Citadel alone and hope for drawing a second land, are you?
Especially on this deck...

[Anusien]

Play the other land first?
I mean, you're not defending the idea to keep a hand with Citadel alone and hope for drawing a second land, are you?
Especially on this deck...
Cephalid Coliseum is notoriously bad at casting Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe.

I've not yet had the extra damage from Tarnished Citadel be relevant. Even against Zoo.

[Nidd]

Play the other land first?
I mean, you're not defending the idea to keep a hand with Citadel alone and hope for drawing a second land, are you?
Especially on this deck...
Why would you need a second land in this deck other for some corner-cases?

G1 it's totally irrelevant aside from activating Coliesum (which should never ever be your only land, except in some corner cases) and G2/G3, Chain of Vapor, Nature's Claim, Wispmare, Firestorm, flashback of Ancient Grudge and plenty other stuff only costs 1 mana, so why would you need a second one?

Tarnished Citadel is a fine card, you won't have to tap it for colored mana too often. And in MUs where life matters, you board in Ancestor's Chosen, which makes gives you plenty of life to survive.

€: High 5, Anusien!

[indefinite.soul]

Cephalid Coliseum is notoriously bad at casting Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe.

You have a point.

[Augustas]

what do you guys think about the white leyline from m11?

[Nidd]

what do you guys think about the white leyline from m11?
Ugh... it still doesn't save us from Leyline of the Void, Faerie Macabre, Relic of Progenitus, Planar Void, Jotun Grunt, Jailer, etc etc.

Sounds like a bad card to me.

[frogboy]

Why would you need a second land in this deck other for some corner-cases?

I cast Thug and Narcomoeba pretty much all the time.

[indefinite.soul]

What do you guys think of a sideboard with Duress and Unmask?
Along with Therapy it respondes everything but Leyline and Bokuja.
For Leyline we would have Chain and for bokuja we cry.

4 Chain of Vapor
4 Duress ( Maybe 3 for a 3-3-3 with Unmask and Therapy)
4 Unmask(Maybe 3 for a 3-3-3 with Duress and Therapy)
3 Firestorm (1 MD)

[chokin]

Discard doesn't answer Tormod's Crypt if they play...or if they draw it after you Duress them (I hate when that happens).

Usually, I've seen people answer graveyard hate by luring them to crack it. Obviously Leyline and Bog are excluded from that statement, but you can force a Crypt/Relic pop by Grudge/CoV or just by dredging up enough good stuff. A more narrow supplement to CoV is Wispmare for enchantment hate. There are some green cards like Simplify or Emerald Charm. Just be careful with Charm because Wheel of Sun and Moon does exist thanks to UW Tempo.

With Reanimator losing gas, I'd imagine that Faerie Macabre is going to be subbed out for Crypt or Relic (or Ravenous Trap maybe) anyway.

[SHABOOGS]

HI guys,

Just wanted to share my experience using this deck last weekend on a 36-man tourney. I was seeded 1st after the swiss (5-1) but lost at the first round of the playoffs. >_< I finished 5th overall. anyways here's my list:

4 Bridge from Below
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Ichorid
3 Tireless Tribe
3 Golgari Thug
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

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

Sideboard:
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Ray of Revelation
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Ancestor’s Chosen

Round 1 vs Affownity (I think that's what it's called - Affinity w/ FOW): Win 2-1
Game 1 was a turn 3 kill via FKZ. I won the roll and played pimp at turn 1. He played an artifact land and passed. I dredged during my upkeep and got a lot of goodies. Got him on cabal therapy for FOW, then breakthrough FTW. (1-0)

Since I'm still considered a noob using this deck, my sideboarding was very sloppy. I think what I did here was +3 Ancient Grudge -3 Careful Study.

Game 2 was lost coz I kept a 6 card hand with no outlet. Honestly, I didn't know what I was thinking when I kept that hand. 2 Myr Enforcers made quick work of my mistake. (1-1)

Game 3 was pretty much like Game 1 (first turn outlet) with the exception of him playing a crypt and me dredging into an ancient grudge before I did a cabal therepy for FoW, then Grudge on crypt, discard dredgers, and breakthrough FTW. (2-1)

Round 2 vs Survival: Loss (1-2)
Game 1 was a turn 3 kill via FKZ. Turn 1 Imp. Turn 2 Breakthrough and got ichorids, and bridges. Turn 3 FKZ! (1-0)

Again with the sloppy sideboard: +3 Ancient Grudge +3 Ray of Revelation +3 Faerie Macabre -3 Careful Study -1 Breakthrough -3 Tireless Tribe -1 Sphinx of Lost Truths -1 Dread Return

Game 2 was a lost cause coz I kept another crappy 6 card hand (I'm still afraid of being more aggressive when it comes to mulligans) I only kept it coz I had a macabre and a ray in that opening hand. He did that loyal retainer + Iona on black trick and I was dead soon after. (1-1)

Game 3 was similar to Game 2 coz I kept another crappy hand and got beat up by two Tarmogoyfs and I got Crypted and Macabred as well >_< (1-2)

Round 3 vs FaeStalker (I honestly had not idea what his deck was coz it was a very quick round): Win (2-0)
Game 1 was again won by FKZ. I went first and played my outlet and passed. He played a volcanic island on his turn so I assumed that he had FoW so I just waited til I dredged into a cabal therapy so that I can get his FoW and Breakthrough FTW. (1-0)

Sideboard woes: -3 Careful Study +3 Ancient Grudge

Game 2 he played a land + crypt and then passed. I used DDD to get my dredger on the yard and got a lot of goodies. My opponent then decides to use the crypt when he saw that I had Ichorid and Bridge in the yard. With no sign of additional hate cards, I went DDD for a few turns till I got a narcomoeba, some dredgers and cabal therapy. I used therapy for FoW and got 2! When the coast was clear, I DRed Iona on Blue. (2-0)

Round 4 vs MBC: (2-0)
Game 1 was the same as my other game 1 wins. FKZ FTW!

Sideboard: +3 Ancient Grudge +3 Ray of Revelation -3 Careful Study -1Tireless Tribe -1Breakthrough -1Sphinx of Lost Truths

I won Game 2 on sheer luck! He extirpated my bridges, Trolls, Ichorids and even got a Withered Wretch in play. I'll just describe the last few turns of that game. He was down to 5 life due to early Ichorid and Imp beatdown. I stuck with the plan and kept dredging every turn and was down to 7 cards in my library. My life count was at 6 due to the wretch and bob beatdown. I gambled and decided to dredge using Stinkweed Imp hoping for a miracle. I got 2 Narcomoebas! I passed hoping I could still chump block his guys and delay the game. On his upkeep, Bob gave him a vampire nighthawk bringing down his life count to 2 and I thought that it was game over for me. But what's weird is, he didn't cast nighthawk and played an extirpate on my Stinkweed Imp! He only had 3 lands in play which meant that he needed a dark rit to cast nighthawk. Turns out he didn't so my Narcomoebas flew in FTW. (2-0)

Round 5 vs Aggro Loam: Win (2-0)
Game 1 FKZ Win (1-0)

Sideboard: +3Ancient Grudge +3Ray of Revelation +3Faerie Macabre --3 Careful Study -3Tireless Tribe -1Sphinx of Lost Truths -1Iona -1Dread Return

Game 2 he played chalice for 1 and I was able to dredge into an ancient grudge to destroy the chalice. Then it was the same story. (2-0)

Note: I didn't know how aggro loam worked at the time. >_<

Round 5 was supposed to be ID but my opponent needed to win so we just played for it.
Round 5 vs CounterTop ProBant (Again, I'm not sure what it's called) (2-0)
Game 1 Cabal Therapy for FoW, Breakthrough then FKZ FTW (1-0)

Sideboard: +3 Ancient Grudge +3 Ray of Revelation -3 Careful Study -1Tireless Tribe -1Breakthrough -1Sphinx of Lost Truths

Game 2 was a little different coz he got 2 Goyfs, 2 War Monks, and a Noble Hierarch in play but no hate cards. I had 6 tokens, a 13/13 Troll and a pimp in play. I was unsure of how the battle would end so I waited for another DR and got another 13/13 Troll in play then I attacked with just the troll and pimp, he tried to kill the troll by blocking it w/ the Goyfs and Monks. But he didn't know that Troll had a regen ability so I won the next turn. (2-0)

At that time I was seeded 1st in the playoffs since some of the guys that had 4 wins decided to ID. (5-1)

Playoffs T___T
Round 1 vs Aggro Loam (Yup, the same aggro loam that I beat in the swiss) Loss
Game 1 was a turn 2 kill by FKZ!

Sideboard: Since we talked after our first match, he mentioned that he had Wheel of Sun and Moon as SB so what I did was:
+3Ancient Grudge +3Ray of Revelation -3 Careful Study -1Sphinx of Lost Truths -1Iona -1Dread Return

This was a fatal flaw on my plan since I didn't include the macabres thinking that I wasn't able to use them during our first encounter

I kept a 6 card hand with land, therapy, breakthrough and dredger. I play therapy to get my dredger in the yard then passed. He played another chalice for 1 and passed. I dredged and got nothing. tired to breakthrough for 1 and still got nothing! I lost to a terravore and goyf.

My luck ran out and I kept a 6 card hand with pimp, a land, and breakthrough. I played land + imp then passed. He play Mox D + land then chalice for 1. Next turn since I didn't have any dredgers, I played breakthrough for 1 and got a land, tireless tribe and 2 breakthroughs! Still no dredger. I kept the breakthrough hoping my luck would change the next turn. He wasted one of my lands so I couldn't cast breakthrough for 1. I was able to get a thug a few turns after but when I dredged I got, land, ray, ray, land. He had Terravore and Goyf in play so I shook his hand and called it a night. Now I know how aggro loam works! >_<

Lessons learned that day:
1. I need to work on my sideboarding and mulliganing (LOL) skills.
2. I was also thinking of cutting Sphinx coz most of the times, I just boarded it out after game 1. I was only able to use Sphinx a couple of times on that day and most of the times I was just wishing for a gold land on my opening hand rather than a lone coliseum.
3. I wasn't able to use Iona that day mainly because I wasn't sure what color to choose so I think I'll keep her MD and just do more research on our meta.
4. I was also thinking of cutting Chain of Vapor coz I really don't like to mull for an anti-hate card. I didn't run into leylines that day but I think (hope) ray of revelation can do the job.

[frogboy]

"Your" trigger will resolve first, so you get tokens, than "your opponent's" trigger will resolve, exiling all bridges from your graveyard.

For clarity, you control both Bridge triggers. This means that it does not matter who is the active player when creatures trade in combat; you can choose to get Zombies either way.

(note that you do actively have to choose to get Zombies)

[SHABOOGS]

For clarity, you control both Bridge triggers. This means that it does not matter who is the active player when creatures trade in combat; you can choose to get Zombies either way.

(note that you do actively have to choose to get Zombies)Cool. just in case my opponent gets into technicalities, would this be the correct way to stack the abilities?

Stack "When a creature is put into an opponent's graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, exile Bridge from Below." first.

Then stack "Whenever a nontoken creature is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, if Bridge from Below is in your graveyard, put a 2/2 black Zombie creature token onto the battlefield."

[Nidd]

I cast Thug and Narcomoeba pretty much all the time.
Alright, point taken, casting Thugs and Narcomoebas happens quite often. But in this case, you will always have another land which can produce colored mana - if you have TC and CC, well, bad luck.

[Anusien]

I end up mulliganing a lot of hands that have just Cephalid Coliseum for mana. I also love having multiple sources of colored mana in my hand, so I don't lose to some nonsense like Force of Will + Wasteland. And I've cast the front side of Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation.

[indefinite.soul]

So, does anyone disagrees that this is, at least near, the optimal Main Deck for led-less bloodghast-less version?



4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study

4 Bridge from Below

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

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


My questions are:
1- I agree that Main Deck Dread Return targets are overkill, but, since you don't need the 4th Thug and Tribe (not to mention other cards), wouldn't it be interesting to "extend" you sideboard?
2- Wich Sideboard are you plaing after the banning of Mystical Tutor?

My opinion is (considering that the answer for the 1st question is "Yes", and running Iona and Terastodon MD - please discuss about this as well):
4 Firestorm
4 Nature's Claim
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor Chosen
1 Furystoke Giant
1 Realm Razer

I'm skeptical about Furystoke and Razer, although I see why people thought of them. What if I remove them and maybe extra Ray(?) to run Unmask?

Don't let the topic die. Come on people!

[The Pharmacist]

I play Iona. I want to play a second Dread Return target, I was thinking Witness.

Why doesn't anyone play FKZ or Sadistic Hypnotist?

Byrant lastnight I played this deck at PLay the Game and I was running Angel of Despair and it was great all night! killed so much stuff for me.

[alderon666]

A friend of mine suggested something that I thing deserves at least some testing.

Playing 4 Leyline of Anticipation either MD or SB, don't quite know.

http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/replicate/EXID21272/images/leyline_of_anticipation.jpg

It looks a little underwhelming at first, but think about it. In the MD we don't have a single instant spell, just being able to cast all your stuff at instant speed is a fine advantage. But if you look deeper into it, you'll see that it allows you to play around several hate cards, given you have the right cards in the grave. Not Leyline of the Void, but that's another story.

Let's see what it can do for you:

Say the opponent starts with a Crypt/Relic and you have Leyline of Anticipation:
- You can start with a Imp/Tribe/Study and sit on it dredging with what you get. When the opponent tries to break the hate, you can go off in response with Breakthrough/Study/Coliseum. Then you can get enough tokens and a reanimation target into play before the hate removes your grave. Outside of Wrath and maybe Firespout (probably not) you win. But that shouldn't be that much of a problem either, beucase you can instant speed Therapy.

Say your opponent Bolts his own cat in response to a Therapy:
- You can either respond with a draw Spell, flipping more Moebas and then Dread Return getting a huge amount of Zombies or simply sacrifice your other non-token creatures getting a bunch of zombies with the Bridges that otherwise(no Leyline in play) would be gone for good before you could do anything else.

- It allows you to let your opponent gessing what is your play all the time, forcing him to let mana open and being careful with every spell he casts. You can just cast everything on his EOT!

I could go on listing the situations that the Leylines gives you an advantage, but I'll let you figure that out by yourself.

A you can see, the Leyline adds a hole new level of interaction between Ichorid and other decks. The real question are:

- Is this what the deck needs to rise to the top?
- Do the advantages warrant the inclusion of 4 dead cards in a somewhat tight deck?
- Does it help you fight hate enough to justify its inclusion?

Please discuss.

[Djenin]

While the basic idea seems cute, quite strong even. Having to mulligan into leyline makes it a lot worse. This deck needs to mulligan quite often as it is. Realistically you won't be able to hardcast this thing, and if you can, it will most probably be too late. And the decklist is tight enough as it is, without having a 4 of in there that's basically dead unless you have it in your opening hand.

[alderon666]

While the basic idea seems cute, quite strong even. Having to mulligan into leyline makes it a lot worse. This deck needs to mulligan quite often as it is. Realistically you won't be able to hardcast this thing, and if you can, it will most probably be too late. And the decklist is tight enough as it is, without having a 4 of in there that's basically dead unless you have it in your opening hand.

The thing is, you don't have to mulligan into it. We are not building a deck that only works if you have Leyline in your starting hand, like Helm of Obedience + Leyline of the Void combo. If you get Leyline it's great, if you don't... oh well. You're going to flip some dead cards on your dredges, but we already have plenty of those, 4 more aren't going to make that big of a difference.

I agree to the point where Leyline isn't essential to the combo, and mullin' to 6 and getting a Leyline and missing a combo piece sucks.

Now, this decks doesn't draw a lot of cards. At least not in a conventional way. Odds of you drawing a dead Leyline exist, but are small enough and probably won't matter that much. So I don't think that's much a of reason to dismiss it.

The real question is if the benefits are good enough to warrant it's inclusion and if those advantages add enough to the main plan or are superflous like Bloodghast/Unexplored Paradise.

[Digital Devil]

So, does anyone disagrees that this is, at least near, the optimal Main Deck for led-less bloodghast-less version?


4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study

4 Bridge from Below

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

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


My questions are:
1- I agree that Main Deck Dread Return targets are overkill, but, since you don't need the 4th Thug and Tribe (not to mention other cards), wouldn't it be interesting to "extend" you sideboard?
2- Wich Sideboard are you plaing after the banning of Mystical Tutor?

My opinion is (considering that the answer for the 1st question is "Yes", and running Iona and Terastodon MD - please discuss about this as well):
4 Firestorm
4 Nature's Claim
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor Chosen
1 Furystoke Giant
1 Realm Razer

I'm skeptical about Furystoke and Razer, although I see why people thought of them. What if I remove them and maybe extra Ray(?) to run Unmask?
I run the same exact list, except for -1x Study, -1x Thug, +1x Iona, +1x Dread Return. I find the maindeck to be pretty strong, but I'm seriously in doubt about my sideboard choices. I currently own those cards:

4x Nature's Claim
4x Ancient Grudge
3x Ray of Revelation
3x Leyline of the Void
3x Darkblast
1x Terastodon
1x Angel of Despair
1x Ancestor's Chosen
1x Caldera Hellion
1x Realm Razer

1) What kind of sideboard would you play with my same card pool?
2) I learned how to play around every kind of hate except for Knight of the Reliquiary ===> Bojuka Bog. I'm not considering Chain of Vapor as a solution, since it sucks against "normal" hate (we don't have the explosiveness of LED Ichorid), and must hit Knight the same exact turn it enters the battlefield, since then they still have the chance to activate it in response. Losing to a 3 mana creature (the ability is playable after the fourth turn, which makes it even worse to lose because of it) makes me feel like I'm playing the deck wrong, so I hope for some enlightenment gently given to me by far more expert players.

[indefinite.soul]

alderon666: I think Leyline is worth testing, not MD though.

Djenin: We have space for artifcat hate on SB, so why not change them for Leyline? Also, it respondes Bokuja and Trap, right?

Digital Devil: I can't answer the SB question as I just did the same one. But on Knight, I'd say Firestorm, Angel of Despair and, who knows, Leyline of Antecipation. xD

[alderon666]

alderon666: I think Leyline is worth testing, not MD though.

Djenin: We have space for artifcat hate on SB, so why not change them for Leyline? Also, it respondes Bokuja and Trap, right?

Digital Devil: I can't answer the SB question as I just did the same one. But on Knight, I'd say Firestorm, Angel of Despair and, who knows, Leyline of Antecipation. xD

Yeah, turning your draw spells into ways to fight hate looks really good. Breakthrough goes from being a liability to being godlike with Leyline in play.

All kinds of crazy situation can come up like: your slowdredge into a bunch of shit and then the opponent decides do crack his Tormod's Crypt. In response you Cabal Therapy him once or twice to clear counterspells and them Breakthrough in response. Flip your hole deck upside down, make a lot of tokens and a huge troll and then remove your grave.

PS: Funny thought that came to me while writing this. Imagine your opponent's face when you do all this stuff in response and then Dread Return a Voidmage Husher countering his hate card. That would be so funny.

[alderon666]

alderon666: I think Leyline is worth testing, not MD though.

Djenin: We have space for artifcat hate on SB, so why not change them for Leyline? Also, it respondes Bokuja and Trap, right?

Digital Devil: I can't answer the SB question as I just did the same one. But on Knight, I'd say Firestorm, Angel of Despair and, who knows, Leyline of Antecipation. xD

Yeah, turning your draw spells into ways to fight hate looks really good. Breakthrough goes from being a liability to being godlike with Leyline in play.

All kinds of crazy situation can come up like: your slowdredge into a bunch of shit and then the opponent decides do crack his Tormod's Crypt. In response you Cabal Therapy him once or twice to clear counterspells and them Breakthrough in response. Flip your hole deck upside down, make a lot of tokens and a huge troll and then remove your grave.

PS: Funny thought that came to me while writing this. Imagine your opponent's face when you do all this stuff in response and then Dread Return a Voidmage Husher countering his hate card. That would be so funny.

[Bryant Cook]

What do people think of the white Leyline to stop people from removing our yard. Is it playable?

[RaNDoMxGeSTuReS]

What do people think of the white Leyline to stop people from removing our yard. Is it playable?

Doesn't save us from Relic.

[(nameless one)]

What do people think of the white Leyline to stop people from removing our yard. Is it playable?

In some ways, it might be but Faerie Macabre and Relic of Progenitus' 'ultimate' still gets around it.




PS: Funny thought that came to me while writing this. Imagine your opponent's face when you do all this stuff in response and then Dread Return a Voidmage Husher countering his hate card. That would be so funny.

I can imagine hundreds of faces but nothing would beat the MWS chatbox:



<opponent> hahahahha
<opponent> fukin
<opponent> NOOOOOOOOB
<opponent> learn rules
<opponent> its a sorcery
<dredge-dude> read leyline?
<opponent> are you kidding me ???
<opponent> idiot
<System> Player Lost
<System> Session Lost
<System> Disconnected


now, thats priceless!

[Anusien]

What do people think of the white Leyline to stop people from removing our yard. Is it playable?
I think it's very promising, but it's really really awkward if you don't draw it in your opening hand. I've ordered a set, but haven't gotten around to messing with it.

[kicks_422]

I think it's very promising, but it's really really awkward if you don't draw it in your opening hand. I've ordered a set, but haven't gotten around to messing with it.

But wouldn't boarding in 4 White Leylines and 3-4 Ancient Grudges (I'm assuming) dilut the deck too much? I'm really comfortable with just boarding in 4 cards at a time. But 8?

[Digital Devil]

Right, I'm having trouble siding in more than 4 cards, too, except when I switch Thugs for Darkblasts. We reached what seems to be the ideal maindeck configuration, more or less. About sideboarding, most people say it depends on playstyle and the meta. I agree with the metagaming argument, but it works only in small tournaments (8-40 attendants): at larger events (150-200 people enrolled) it becomes more difficult to keep track of what decks you may encounter, but even at weekly local events, many players tend to play random games with a "bait deck" (before the beginning of the tourney), only to switch to their regular deck thereafter. So, generally speaking, seeing that no one better than ourselves knows our metagame, it looks pretty simple to choose our 15 SB cards. But what kind of sideboard would you play in a random meta?

P.S. - as for the new Leylines question, I find them both to be inferior to Leyline of the Void, and although I used to play it in the past, I personally dislike the Leyline cycle.

[indefinite.soul]

As I'm playing 2 DR and 2 DR targets MD, I take all 4 out for 4 Nature's Claim and them 4 1 of for 4 oxidize as the main hates are artifacts. Also have 2 wispmares for leyline, so it would be only 2 1 of.

The problem is that I'm always changing the 1 of. Thug, Breakthrough, Careful.

What would it be the right call?

[Digital Devil]

As I'm playing 2 DR and 2 DR targets MD, I take all 4 out for 4 Nature's Claim and them 4 1 of for 4 oxidize as the main hates are artifacts. Also have 2 wispmares for leyline, so it would be only 2 1 of.

The problem is that I'm always changing the 1 of. Thug, Breakthrough, Careful.

What would it be the right call?
No love for Ancient Grudge? That card is ridiculously powerful, and does not require you to mull into it. Boarding in 3-4 Grudge might give you the same chance (if not higher) of getting your anti-hate as well as keeping the deck more linear.
-----------------------------
I'm impressed by Caldera Hellion. Everytime it enters the battlefield, I win. I side it in against Goblins, since they can race Iona, and they have Vial. Ancestor's Chosen doesn't do enough to stop their race, since g2 we hipotetically get our graveyard blown up more than once. Caldera Hellion wipes their board, leaving a 3/3+X/X body behind. It can also be used aggressively to clear our way from blockers. I find it to be a useful card against tribal strategies (Elves, Goblins, Merfolks - they still have to land THREE lords in order to survive DR ===> Hellion), against Survival, random aggro junk and the mirror.

[indefinite.soul]

No love for Ancient Grudge? That card is ridiculously powerful, and does not require you to mull into it. Boarding in 3-4 Grudge might give you the same chance (if not higher) of getting your anti-hate as well as keeping the deck more linear.


Ok. Let me open the game. I'm testing Rust.

But the question lasts. What we should board off?

Also. Chain of Vapor worries me because of Planar Void. Shouldn't we run something like Erase instead?

[Nidd]

You can board out Thugs, Breakthroughs, 1 discard outlet... I guess that's it.

Btw, when you have to expect Grunts and jailers G2/G3 from a single deck in a tournement of 8-10 people, would you rather play Chain or Claim?

[indefinite.soul]

You can board out Thugs, Breakthroughs, 1 discard outlet... I guess that's it.

Btw, when you have to expect Grunts and jailers G2/G3 from a single deck in a tournement of 8-10 people, would you rather play Chain or Claim?

Thanks.

What's the difference? You should be running Firestorms anyway.

[kicks_422]

You can board out Thugs, Breakthroughs, 1 discard outlet... I guess that's it.

Btw, when you have to expect Grunts and jailers G2/G3 from a single deck in a tournement of 8-10 people, would you rather play Chain or Claim?

I still don't understand why people keep on boarding out Breakthroughs. That card has won me so many post-board games, since you only usually get a small window of opportunity between pieces of grave hate coming in from your opponent. Having a permanent discard outlet is a great start for the deck post-board, and Breakthrough allows you to capitalize on that moreso than any other card in the deck.

[indefinite.soul]

I still don't understand why people keep on boarding out Breakthroughs. That card has won me so many post-board games, since you only usually get a small window of opportunity between pieces of grave hate coming in from your opponent. Having a permanent discard outlet is a great start for the deck post-board, and Breakthrough allows you to capitalize on that moreso than any other card in the deck.

Ok. So, what do you board out?

[kicks_422]

4 Careful Study for 4 Ancient Grudge/4 Chain of Vapor. Also, 2 DR targets for additional 2 SB cards, if more need to come in.

[Nidd]

4 Careful Study for 4 Ancient Grudge/4 Chain of Vapor. Also, 2 DR targets for additional 2 SB cards, if more need to come in.

Is boarding in 4 cards really enough? I play the DR-target-less list posted above, would you board out 2 Thugs instead?

[Ciberon]

What are your thoughts on Caldera Hellion versus Terastodon mb?

[Ozymandias]

Caldera Hellion? Are you serious? What matchup do you want that against, even?

[Nidd]

Caldera Hellion? Are you serious? What matchup do you want that against, even?

I can see it being useful against all sorts of Tribal, Zoo, Belcher/TES (if they absolutely have to go for EtW) and... that's it.

[indefinite.soul]

-4 Careful Study = -4 draw spells AND -4 discarding spells. Is that the right choice?

Also, do you keep the 2 DR without target? To make tokens? Not for Troll, I guess.

Thanls

[Anusien]

Dread Return Troll is a fine play. Absolutely leave them in.

I would not cut 4 Careful Study in any matchup because they dig for SB hate.

[indefinite.soul]

I would not cut 4 Careful Study in any matchup because they dig for SB hate.


That's my point. Of course not for Grudge, but for chain or firestorm.


My list and Sideboard I'm testing right now:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe

4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study

4 Bridge from Below

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastodon

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

Sideboard:
4 Erase
4 Firestorm
4 Ancient Grudge
2 Nature's Claim
1 Ancestor's Chosen

I'm trying Erase because Chain of Vapor may answer Leyline of the Void but not Planar Void. Any negative points on the choise?
I'm still considering 4 Nature's Claim because you can close your eyes sidding 4 of them in. They answers all our main problems.

[kicks_422]

I would not cut 4 Careful Study in any matchup because they dig for SB hate.

I find Careful Study a weak discard outlet and a weak draw spell. I view it as the wekest card in the deck, so it follows that it's the one I boad out.

Perhaps I should rethink my boarding plans though, and side out DR targets and something else for 4 cards coming in.

[Malloot]

No love for Ancient Grudge? That card is ridiculously powerful, and does not require you to mull into it. Boarding in 3-4 Grudge might give you the same chance (if not higher) of getting your anti-hate as well as keeping the deck more linear.
-----------------------------
I'm impressed by Caldera Hellion. Everytime it enters the battlefield, I win. I side it in against Goblins, since they can race Iona, and they have Vial. Ancestor's Chosen doesn't do enough to stop their race, since g2 we hipotetically get our graveyard blown up more than once. Caldera Hellion wipes their board, leaving a 3/3+X/X body behind. It can also be used aggressively to clear our way from blockers. I find it to be a useful card against tribal strategies (Elves, Goblins, Merfolks - they still have to land THREE lords in order to survive DR ===> Hellion), against Survival, random aggro junk and the mirror.

I think that in a big tourny or unknown meta it can be very usefull to have a hellion in your sideboard. is Crater Hellion better? a 3/3beater make's little difference in a deck like this and blowing for 4 just might kill some more

[Nidd]

I think that in a big tourny or unknown meta it can be very usefull to have a hellion in your sideboard. is Crater Hellion better? a 3/3beater make's little difference in a deck like this and blowing for 4 just might kill some more
Caldera Hellion eats your Zombies and leaves you with a creature. Crater Hellion just dies.

Also, what does the difference between 3 and for 4 do? It kills RWM, I suppose - which you can block when your Hellion eats at least 1 token.

[Exospaciac]

I find Careful Study a weak discard outlet and a weak draw spell. I view it as the wekest card in the deck, so it follows that it's the one I boad out.

Perhaps I should rethink my boarding plans though, and side out DR targets and something else for 4 cards coming in.

I have difficulty sideboarding sometimes too. I always want to keep Careful Study in to dig for hate but I'm never certain on what else to take out. I REALLY want to leave Breakthrough in, as it's the best card to have after you've cleared the way of hate.

Usually what I'll do if I'm bringing in 4-6 pieces of hate is take out -1 Dread Return, -2/3 Careful Study, -1 Darkblast, and -1 Tribe. My maindeck is McCall's list.

To those of you who play maindeck DR targets: how often do you just side them out games 2 and 3? Terastodon (or Woodfall Primus) is the only maindeck target I'd even consider running, and it's not useful in most matchups.
At least they make it easier to sideboard, I guess?

[MrSoze]

To those of you who play maindeck DR targets: how often do you just side them out games 2 and 3? Terastodon (or Woodfall Primus) is the only maindeck target I'd even consider running, and it's not useful in most matchups.
At least they make it easier to sideboard, I guess?

I maindeck 1 Terastodon, and I would never take it out. There's a ton of Jace/Foundry decks in my meta, and they all have one of silver bullets starting in G1 like Moat, Academy Ruins with EE and Crypt, and other irritating things that they can just tutor for; as they're just one-ofs, Therapy doesn't always get me there in time. I agree with the idea that we really don't want a ton of MD Dread targets, but the one doesn't hurt me that badly; it's not enough to dilute the deck since it actually has uses, and it does win the game for you most times you Return it.

Also, Leyline of Anticipation is basically the stone nuts. I would play 12 if I could. Being able to go off at instant speed in the face of hate has been huge for me. Last night, that card was single-handedly responsible for me just winning the game through Ruins/Crypt, thanks to being able to set up a turn where I Therapied during the draw step after he used Ruins and went off with 2xBreakthrough on his end step. Same thing happened against a KOTR fetching Bog; response, make a bunch of zombies and 2 huge trolls, kill you.

[Anusien]

In these situations where you're going off with end of turn Breakthroughs and in response to Bojuka Bog, make some Trolls: why didn't you just do all that stuff on your main phase?

[kicks_422]

Also, Leyline of Anticipation is basically the stone nuts. I would play 12 if I could.

Leylines would be awesome if you could play 12 of them in a deck.

[Heroix]

In these situations where you're going off with end of turn Breakthroughs and in response to Bojuka Bog, make some Trolls: why didn't you just do all that stuff on your main phase?

I'm assuming because if he did it during his main phase, he would walk right into all that hate? Knight tutors for bog at instant speed, countering the whole troll making process. And I think Breakthrough in response to Breakthrough is pretty sweet considering it's normally sorcery speed.

[alderon666]

I'm assuming because if he did it during his main phase, he would walk right into all that hate? Knight tutors for bog at instant speed, countering the whole troll making process. And I think Breakthrough in response to Breakthrough is pretty sweet considering it's normally sorcery speed.

That's why I really think Leyline has some serious potential. It turns dead/supbar spells when facing hate into a way to fight hate. I haven't tested it yet, but the possibilities are endless. Another good one I realized today: as long as you have a Therapy in your grave your Ichorids are "immune" to Swords to Plowshares. That might seem not that great, but anyone who has played this deck has had and Ichorid removed from the game on their draw step after flipping a couple of Bridges from Below off a dredge.

Keeping pointing out how Leyline isn't good when you don't draw it is just pointless.

[alderon666]

I'm assuming because if he did it during his main phase, he would walk right into all that hate? Knight tutors for bog at instant speed, countering the whole troll making process. And I think Breakthrough in response to Breakthrough is pretty sweet considering it's normally sorcery speed.

That's why I really think Leyline has some serious potential. It turns dead/supbar spells when facing hate into a way to fight hate. I haven't tested it yet, but the possibilities are endless. Another good one I realized today: as long as you have a Therapy in your grave your Ichorids are "immune" to Swords to Plowshares. That might seem not that great, but anyone who has played this deck has had and Ichorid removed from the game on their draw step after flipping a couple of Bridges from Below off a dredge.

Keeping pointing out how Leyline isn't good when you don't draw it is just pointless.

[kicks_422]

Are you saying that you dropped all your grave-hate-hate cards (e.g. Ancient Grudge, etc) and just went with Leyline out of the board for Games 2 and 3?

[MrSoze]

Are you saying that you dropped all your grave-hate-hate cards (e.g. Ancient Grudge, etc) and just went with Leyline out of the board for Games 2 and 3?

Not necessarily; I've been boarding Nature's Claim/Chain of Vapor, but I really like the fact that if you have leyline and you play carefully, the only card that can beat you is Leyline of the Void or a resolved Wheel of Sun and Moon, and you can still bring in board hate for those. I've just been trying out different things to see if any matches just get instantly better with things like leyline, and a lot of them just have. Not just being able to go off in the face of hate, but being able to bait counters eot, have a way to toss Ichorids if they have Path/Swords (another poster pointed this out), all of these things make the deck just play differently at instant speed. You can set up great combat tricks with bridges against decks like zoo if your life gets too low; in short, you can outplay your opponent on a different axis when Leyline is in play, and a lot of people don't seem, at least in my testing, to be prepared to face that axis. I've won a lot of games due to opponent error because of their thought process being that they 'know' how to play the dredge matchup, but Leyline changes the rules.

[kicks_422]

Yes, I see the merit of Leyline once it's in play. However, for the instances when you don't open the game with it in play... What then? If you still boarded in additional cards to supplement the Leylines (e.g. 4 Chain of Vapor), haven't you diluted the deck too much? Just wondering.

[StrangeVine]

So I've been noodling around this thread and the LED-based lists for some time trying to figure out what exactly to play for GP Columbus, and this is what I'm working with right now:

Beatz and Dredgez
3 Ichorid
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Bloodghast
2 Golgari Thug
1 FKZ
1 Eternal Witness

Other Stuffz
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

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


The first thing everyone will probably point out is the 4 Bloodghast hanging around there. I just want to say that after playtesting for a few initial hours with this build, the Bloodghast/U-Paradise combo is VERY GOOD, especially against Bant/anything with blue obviously. That being said, I should also point out that because of the neverending Bloodghast beats, this version definitely thinks in more aggro terms than of the combo. Most games I've played so far I've just held back my combo pieces and let my creatures do the talking. If things start going downhill, I just go "well, oops I guess I'll win then."

Another "eh" point is the Eternal Witness in there. I used to have Iona in its place but I figured Iona is best in games 2/3 after you know what your opponent's playing, while Witness adds some flexibility if game 1 goes late

I'm having the hardest time figuring out how to SB for the GP, but that's why I come here!

So, lemme know what you guys think, especially about whether Bloodghast/Undiscovered Paradise merits spots in an aggro-focused version of this awesome deck

[Nidd]

In a meta, where not much GY hate will be played, would you say that playing 4 StP in the SB to fight off Grunts and Jailers (we will be like 10 people and 1 of us always brings 4 Jailers, just because he doesn't seem to have something else for his SB::: *_*), is a rational decision? I doubt he'll be playing at the lower tables, because his deck works like a greased gear.

Other expected hate is the basic stuff, Relics, Crypts, Leylines, yadda, yadda. I already play 3 Chain of Vapor and 4 Nature's Claim in my SB, so I have the slots.

[Exospaciac]

In a meta, where not much GY hate will be played, would you say that playing 4 StP in the SB to fight off Grunts and Jailers (we will be like 10 people and 1 of us always brings 4 Jailers, just because he doesn't seem to have something else for his SB::: *_*), is a rational decision? I doubt he'll be playing at the lower tables, because his deck works like a greased gear.

Other expected hate is the basic stuff, Relics, Crypts, Leylines, yadda, yadda. I already play 3 Chain of Vapor and 4 Nature's Claim in my SB, so I have the slots.

If you're mostly scared of Jailer, why not just run Darkblasts over a few Golgari Thugs?
Grunt can be annoying, but I've never lost a game solely because of its presence.

[Nidd]

If you're mostly scared of Jailer, why not just run Darkblasts over a few Golgari Thugs?
Grunt can be annoying, but I've never lost a game solely because of its presence.
First reason: i can't find my Darkblasts. I should have a playset here, but I can't find it. i recently moved and I have the strange feeling that it didn't go where all my other Legacy-relevant cards went...*sigh*
Second reason: If I kill a Jailer with Darkblast, my Bridges get exiled, don't they? StP bypasses that problem.

[lotriderm]

First reason: i can't find my Darkblasts. I should have a playset here, but I can't find it. i recently moved and I have the strange feeling that it didn't go where all my other Legacy-relevant cards went...*sigh*
Second reason: If I kill a Jailer with Darkblast, my Bridges get exiled, don't they? StP bypasses that problem.

With Jailer, the fastest it comes in is turn2 and I probably won't have any (or maybe 1) Bridge in my GY. If it comes down when I have multiple Bridges in my GY, I'm probably going to win already.

So, I prefer Darkblast over STP because Darkblast dredges, whereas STP has to be in my opening. Or I can hope to lucksack into it, but I'm a pretty unlucky guy, so that never turns out well.

[Exospaciac]

I wanted to ask about sideboarding again after getting roflstomped by Elves combo in 5 post-sideboard games in a row.

What do you take out against a fast combo deck like that, that also has graveyard hate (in this case, 4 Crypts)?

For reference, I'm using McCall's list +1 Darkblast -1 Thug, and my sideboard looks like:

4 open slots (maybe Leyline of Sanctity/Void/Anticipation goes here?)
3 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Nature's Claim
1 Terastodon
1 Ancestor's Chosen

I tried taking out combinations of Careful Studies, Darkblasts, and Dread Returns and singletons of Tireless Tribe, Ichorid, Breakthrough, and Golgari Thug.

He was able to either hate me out or combo off in my face every single time. It's impossible to dredge into a grudge, get your graveyard eaten, and still recover fast enough before they start comboing or just land a huge Warcaller. It seems like I just have to keep a hand with Therapy, name Crypt or Heritage Druid T1, and hope to race him before he gets a bunch of hasty x/x guys (or topdecks a crypt). Darkblast definitely helped, but only if I drew City of Brass or Gemstone Mine. This is the only matchup so far I've found where the life loss from Citadel mattered even a little bit.

[lotriderm]

In my SB, I have Iona and Flame-Kin Zealot (this might get cut sometime). I haven't really tested that matchup, but I guess I will try to slow them down via Cabal Therapy and Darkblast and DR a fast Iona. Like all combo matchups, Dredge is an underdog besides maybe LED-dredge since they can win turn1.

[Nidd]

I just took first in our small toruney, won a Badlands.
StP proved to be the right call, sending a Jötun Grunt plowing was excellent ;)

[(nameless one)]

I just took first in our small toruney, won a Badlands.
StP proved to be the right call, sending a Jötun Grunt plowing was excellent ;)

Would you like to share your list and what were youre matchups?

[Adan]

First reason: i can't find my Darkblasts. I should have a playset here, but I can't find it. i recently moved and I have the strange feeling that it didn't go where all my other Legacy-relevant cards went...*sigh*
Second reason: If I kill a Jailer with Darkblast, my Bridges get exiled, don't they? StP bypasses that problem.

I don't think that the Bridges get exiled. When a permanent changes it's gamezone, effects that happen before any triggers are treated like the permanent was still in it's original zone. Thus, the Bridges should only get their trigger again when Jailer is completely dead and he should therefore not trigger the Bridges. At least I've been killing a few Jailers in Vintage and no one ever complained about my Bridges not getting exiled.

Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

[Nidd]

Would you like to share your list and what were youre matchups?
My list was:

// Lands
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba

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

// Sideboard
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Nature's Claim
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Dread Return
1 Caldera Hellion
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Woodfall Primus

Swords really proved to be good at what I wanted them to do: Get rid of problematic creatures without killing my Bridges.

My MUs were:
First Round: Bye
Second Round: BG Rock (2-0)
Third Round: UBrw Planeswalker Control (2-0)
Fourth Round: BWg Suicide (2-1)

The Rock wasn't the most interactive opponent, as he was just getting back into the game - he had a deck from Mirrodin + Kamigawa Standard (which was a beast back then), but playing Kokushos in your deck isn't the best thing to do when wanting to win against Dredge. His most relevant cards that I saw were Maelstrom Pulse and Deed, which I therapied away.
G2 I sided in only Iona and I reanimated her, naming B on my 3rd turn - which was game.

The third round was... well, it was interesting.
G1 I just smash him, as his MB isn't prepared to deal with Dredge.
G2 takes a long time. Somewhere, between me not finding any Narcomoebas for ~ 8 turns, neither finding an Ichorid for 6 turns (which gets extirpated immediately), my first Dredger gets extirpated (Stinky). I therapy away his hand with some random dorks and the resulting tokens (EE, Firespout), still not having found something remotely relevant to win. He managed to find Nicol Bolas in the last 2 turns, which might be good against other decks - but definitely not this one. I DR a Woodfall Primus, kill Bolas with it and that's game.

Fourth round was the MU I prepared for with my StPs, as he was playing Jailers (SB) + Jötun Grunts (MB).
G1, I mull to 4 and announce the best hand possible with 4 cards. Gemstone, PImp, Stinky, CS. Not the best one, but one I'm thankful for. Long story short: Thoughtseize taking my CS, StP my PImp. Yeah... I dont draw relevant stuff til' turn 5 or so, when I'm pretty much dead. he got a Grunt up to 6 counters, which sealed the deal.
G2, I side in my StPs and 2 CoVs, siding out 2 Thugs, 1 Ichorid, 1 DR, 2 Careful Study. I open with Tribe, go, he opens with StP. In response, I discard my BfB and my Dredgers, he sighs. I play Careful Study, dredging 1 Ichorid and bullshit. At least my little friend has some fodder. He plays Jailer, which gets sent plowing EoT. He gives me the strange gaze "what in hell is that?" and I proceed to dredge. And I dredge the way it's supposed to be: The nuts. 3 Narcomoeba, 1 Bridge and 2 Therapys. Thank you, deck. End of story: Big GGT and some tokens for me, no hand for him. Sounds fair.
G3, he opens with... Land, go. I let lose a sigh of relief and play land, PImp, go. He plays Tidehollow Sculler, in response I empty my hand, safe for the Breakthrough and the CS I had. He takes the BT and I dredge for the nuts in my turn, making something along the lines of 8 Zombies and a big GGT. He shows me the Jailer he should've played instead of the Sculler, but he told me he was afraid of StP or CoV. Yay me!

I had to decide whether I'd pick a playset Standstill or 1 Badlands and I went with the Badlands. Eventually I have everything I need for Monored Goblins, maybe I'll play Rb Gobllins some time.


I don't think that the Bridges get exiled. When a permanent changes it's gamezone, effects that happen before any triggers are treated like the permanent was still in it's original zone. Thus, the Bridges should only get their trigger again when Jailer is completely dead and he should therefore not trigger the Bridges. At least I've been killing a few Jailers in Vintage and no one ever complained about my Bridges not getting exiled.

Correct me if I'm wrong, though.
We debated about that one as well, but came to no conclusion. Doesn't matter anyways, as StP was a pure meta choice and also a substitute, because I couldn't find my DBs.

[frogboy]

If I was going to Columbus, I'd play this:


// Lands
4 [CH] City of Brass
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
3 [OD] Tarnished Citadel
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine

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

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

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [10E] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 4 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 [RAV] Flame-Kin Zealot
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 1 Angel of Despair
SB: 1 [ZEN] Sphinx of Lost Truths
SB: 1 [FNM] Cabal Therapy

The fourth Golgari Thug can be something else. The fourth Therapy is pretty important against combo decks. Angel kills Blazing Archon and Glacial Chasm for one slot. You could play 2 Claim 1 Ray if you're more worried about Leyline of the Void than you are Wheel of Sun and Moon. The Sphinx in the sideboard is like a second copy of all of the bullet creatures.

I usually board out some combination of Breakthroughs, a Therapy, an Ichorid, and a Thug. If you're bringing in Firestorms, you can start cutting Studies. A fourth Firestorm might be better than a fourth Ancient Grudge.

[indefinite.soul]

Aren't you busted against Leyline? Even if you play 2 Claim 1 Ray? I mean, it destroy us so badly that I play 6 hate cards...

I disagree with some stuff but if seems very consistent!

[Anusien]

I don't think Leyline is a real card.

I would recommend having Angel of Despair or Terastodon main just to not be dead to random fringe decks.

[Exospaciac]

I did awful at Knight Ware today, going 2-3 and getting the absolute worst series of dredges and mulligans I've ever gotten.
My list was frogboy's old list -1 Thug +1 Darkblast.

I'm convinced that Darkblast is nowhere near as useful as I thought it would be. The only relevant things I killed all day were a Cursecatcher and my own Narcomoeba. One person brought in Meddling Mages but I loled and won anyway. -2 and +2 Thugs.
I didn't sideboard in Coffin Purge at all, and it might not even be worth a slot now that Reanimator is gone. It might be good against random decks that recur EE, but I think the deck has better cards to side in.

I wanted to ask: how often does everyone usually mulligan with the deck? I mulled to 4 three times today and to 5 a few more times. My biggest missing piece was a draw spell, which was kind of odd.
On that note, how often should I keep hands with no draw pieces against an unknown opponent? I definitely remember mulliganing an "okay" hand with no draw pieces to try to find one, but it ended up backfiring pretty badly.

[frogboy]

Aren't you busted against Leyline? Even if you play 2 Claim 1 Ray? I mean, it destroy us so badly that I play 6 hate cards...

Sometimes you get got.

Other times, they don't draw it.

Leyline is by far the least popular sideboard card, anyway.

[sunshine]

I wanted to ask: how often does everyone usually mulligan with the deck? I mulled to 4 three times today and to 5 a few more times. My biggest missing piece was a draw spell, which was kind of odd.
On that note, how often should I keep hands with no draw pieces against an unknown opponent? I definitely remember mulliganing an "okay" hand with no draw pieces to try to find one, but it ended up backfiring pretty badly.

I'm personally very hesitant to mull anything with dredgers and lands, especially in the first game where DDD is usually good enough to get there. If I happen to know my opponent is not running counters I'll look more aggresively for a permanent outlet or draw spell but otherwise I tend to ship very few hands back. Having the abilit to discard at the end of my turn is not something I throw away readily - I'm sure (know) some people here disagree with that idea, but for what it's worth that's what I've found to be a best practice.

[Anusien]

I mulligan all the time, and I don't mulligan enough. Any hand with Narcomeobas in your hand has a few blanks already, so the mulligans are free. And if you're DDDing, you have a ton of blanks in your hand. Going to 6 and even 5 is not really a big deal.

[Nidd]

Proper mulling with this deck is the most important thing, even more important than proper SBing, I'd say. In my report up there, R4G1, I shipped back hand after hand, because they all lacked crucial things - Mull to 4 presented me Land, Dredger, Outlet, Draw. What else can you ask for?

[kurterickson]

How about as a sideboard:

4 - Leyline of Sanctity
4 - Chain of Vapors
4 - Unmask
2 - Firestorm
1 - Terastodon

Sanctity blocks off Crypt and Trap, not to mention the random assortments of things your opponents can throw at you.

Chain of Vapors is a great answer to just about anything. Kills Leyline of the Void pretty hard.

Unmask gets rid of Trap, Crypt, Relic, Macabre, Jailer, and just about any other hate your opponent cant play turn 1. So basically all hate besides Leyline.

Firestorm can kill Jailer, Grunt, Withered Wretch. Though, to be honest, I would rather have 2 more DR targets such as Iona and Sundering Titan.

Terastodon is a destroy 3 for 1. Turning cards like Ghosty Prison, Elephant Grass, Propoganda, Solitary Confinement, and such into 3/3 elephants is gaming winning in and of its self. If need be, it can target your opponents lands, giving that extra edge the next turn to win the game.

[Rune]

In Legacy, Ancient Grudge is simply too good not to play in your sideboard. 3 should be minimum, but I wouldn't play less than 4. Relic/Crypt are the most common hate cards and I wouldn't want to rely on Unmask/Leyline of Sanctity to deal with them.

[kurterickson]

In Legacy, Ancient Grudge is simply too good not to play in your sideboard. 3 should be minimum, but I wouldn't play less than 4. Relic/Crypt are the most common hate cards and I wouldn't want to rely on Unmask/Leyline of Sanctity to deal with them.

I suppose, but Unmask hits anything thats a threat and the Leyline shuts off Trap which is by far the best answer to dredge.

Perhaps this would be a better option:

4 - Leyline of Sanctity
4 - Chain of Vapors
4 - Unmask
2 - Ancient Grudge
1 - Terastodon

The only problem I have with Grudge is that it costs 2 which means no turn 1 destroy Crypt and when you can cast it from the grave, they would have played their crypt or relic.

[indefinite.soul]

I don't think Leyline is a real card.


Not here. Champ is comming and Leyline is sold out on the stores...

[sunshine]

Proper mulling with this deck is the most important thing, even more important than proper SBing, I'd say. In my report up there, R4G1, I shipped back hand after hand, because they all lacked crucial things - Mull to 4 presented me Land, Dredger, Outlet, Draw. What else can you ask for?

clicky (http://xkcd.com/552/)

Also, I do agree that proper mulliganing is one of the most important things with this deck. I just happen to think a lot of pilots do it too often (read: incorrectly).


I mulligan all the time, and I don't mulligan enough. Any hand with Narcomeobas in your hand has a few blanks already, so the mulligans are free. And if you're DDDing, you have a ton of blanks in your hand. Going to 6 and even 5 is not really a big deal.

I think we're talking about different things when we say DDD. I'm refering to what happens when you you draw an eight card, must then discard at the end of your turn, then replace your next draw with a dredge (as opposed to using PImp/Tribe/whatever-discard-outlet to fuel your dredging). Going to 6 or 5 makes this option much less appealing.

To be honest, even with a hand of Land, Dredger, Draw, PImp, X, X, X I will 99% of the time choose to DDD at first when on the draw against an opponent who drops an Island.

[Anusien]

Obviously that's what DDD means. But if you do it, you're basically blanking all the Cabal Therapy/Dread Returns/Bridge from Below/Ichorids/etc you have in your hand. Maybe over the course of the game you'll be able to discard one. It's a really awful play to make.

[sunshine]

Just because you decide to start with DDD doesn't mean you don't have lands and the ability to cast Therapies, permanent discard outlets, draw spells, and even creatures later on. I never choose to be on the draw but if I find myself there and my opponent's first turn signals countermagic I'm very reluctant to try and resolve a discard outlet when in reality I already have one if I haven't mulled. Of course there are situations where you have multiple outlets and don't really care if one or two get countered.

Going DDD turn one when on the draw and waiting until turn two to play PImp/Tribe doesn't actually put you behind in dredging (unless you have draw spells as well - but if you're resolving all this stuff game one you're winning anyway, and game two you should have an idea of what your opponent is playing) - but it potentially saves you from being blown out of a single FoW or Daze.

Once you start dredging into more dredgers, which shouldn't be too tall of an order, there's no reason you can't get whatever other cards you need from your hand into the graveyard. Also, DReturning PImp/Tribe is a fine play if the situation calls for it.

[Anusien]

If you DDD turn 1 and brick (don't hit another dredger), are you going to then play Land, Imp? And walk into Force/Daze? Plus, what if the 7 card hand didn't have an Imp or a Tribe? Snap keeping your 7 because it has a dredger in it is wrong. You shouldn't be afraid to mull to 6. This deck mulligans better than any deck in the format.

[indefinite.soul]

If you DDD turn 1 and brick (don't hit another dredger), are you going to then play Land, Imp? And walk into Force/Daze? Plus, what if the 7 card hand didn't have an Imp or a Tribe? Snap keeping your 7 because it has a dredger in it is wrong. You shouldn't be afraid to mull to 6. This deck mulligans better than any deck in the format.

What if in your 6 you still don't? Then you are a one extra turn away form DDD. And mullingan to less (5, 4), maybe you wont have 2 discard outlet, or maybe you have, but no dredge.

Deep inside I know you are right. But i never had a happy experience mulligan for less than 5...

[frogboy]

Obviously that's what DDD means. But if you do it, you're basically blanking all the Cabal Therapy/Dread Returns/Bridge from Below/Ichorids/etc you have in your hand. Maybe over the course of the game you'll be able to discard one. It's a really awful play to make.

Against most Blue decks you can usually discard between two and five spells, and decks like Landstill can't really take advantage of it effectively.

[lotriderm]

Against most Blue decks you can usually discard between two and five spells, and decks like Landstill can't really take advantage of it effectively.

Do you mean you usually DDD for 2-5 turns against more blue decks?

[frogboy]

Do you mean you usually DDD for 2-5 turns against more blue decks?

If I don't have any spells I can cast from my hand, sure. Ideally you'll have spells or at least two lands so that you can get constructive with Golgari Thug or whatever, but sometimes things don't go your way etc

[(nameless one)]

I am planning to bring this tomorrow at a local tournament (given I can leave early from work and I won't be at the GP :( )



4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Colisseum
2 Tarnished Citadel

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid

4 Nacromoeba
4 Bridge from Below

4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastodon

Sideboard:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Path to Exile
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Ancestor's Chosen


I am expecting an aggro-field (Zoo/Goblins/random weenie decks) with traces of control (possibly Blue-based or Black-based - this will be the same player and a Lands player)

Any comments?

Card choices:

Its essentially an identical stock list but I have some main/sideboard switches.

Iona and Terastodon: I felt that these 2 cards will be important. I always see either Iona or Terastodon on main. Never seen both on main together. They're both good cards, so why not try?

Golgari Thug vs. Darkblast: Im not really sure if Darkblast really helps. I like having three Thugs as they also count as Ichorid fodder.

Path to Exile vs. Swords to Plowshares/Darkblast: Nidd used StP on his sideboard and he said it was effective enough. I am expecting gravehate in the form of hatebears. Ichorid usually go for the aggro win, so I am trying to prevent as much life-gain. I think Path to Exile would be better since that land that you are giving them might not play a role anyways. If you have anything against this idea, please let me know.

Ancient Grudge/Nature's Claim: I am not sure if this is overkill but I think running 7 enchantment hate + maindecked Terastodon should help with such problematic permanents.

Faerie Macabre: This used to be Coffin Purge since it has flashback but I think Faerie Macabre is a better choice. It also serves as Ichorid fodder. The question is would Leyline of the Void be a better gravehate card?

Ancestor's Chosen: Its going to be an aggro-field.

If you guys have anything to add, please feel free. This will be the first time I will be piloting the deck on a tournament. Any advices are welcome.

PS. If I have two Ichorids on the yard, can I fodder Ichorid B to Ichorid A (or does Ichorid's text apply to all Ichorids in the yard)?

Thank in advance!

[Nidd]

Path to Exile vs. Swords to Plowshares/Darkblast: Nidd used StP on his sideboard and he said it was effective enough. I am expecting gravehate in the form of hatebears. Ichorid usually go for the aggro win, so I am trying to prevent as much life-gain. I think Path to Exile would be better since that land that you are giving them might not play a role anyways. If you have anything against this idea, please let me know.

Ancient Grudge/Nature's Claim: I am not sure if this is overkill but I think running 7 enchantment hate + maindecked Terastodon should help with such problematic permanents.

Faerie Macabre: This used to be Coffin Purge since it has flashback but I think Faerie Macabre is a better choice. It also serves as Ichorid fodder. The question is would Leyline of the Void be a better gravehate card?

PS. If I have two Ichorids on the yard, can I fodder Ichorid B to Ichorid A (or does Ichorid's text apply to all Ichorids in the yard)?!
PtE VS StP really comes down to personal preference, I think. Ramping your opponent can be quite bad, on the other hand, giving him some life can also be lethal. However, if given the choice between giving my opponent 1 land VS 2/4 life, I'd rather give him the lifepoints, as that land could mean that he can both play hate and a threat this turn.

I'd suggest you look into Chain of Vapor for the SB. I like Claim over grudge, because when I can get grudge in my yard and flash it back, it looks good anyways and i can cast Claim off a single land, while Grudge would need a discard outlet to do that. Also, Chain handles random things you may encounter - reset a Grunt, or bounce a Jailer. Utility is the key here.

Faerie sounds great, however, how many other GY decks will be there? If there are some other Dredge players, go for Leyline - many people don't see it coming and just scoop it up G2.

@PS: Works.

[Darksteel]

So I'm still not sure what to sideboard out for anti-hate cards. I've heard people suggest Careful Study, but that seems counter intuitive, since it digs for your SB cards. Everything else seems so important for the deck, that I'm not sure what the best card is to take out.

Also, you would say a hand with a dredger, rainbow land, draw spell, and outlet is the ideal hand? Regardless, what should I be looking for to have in my hand?

Here is my list I plan using tomorrow at a local tournament (well, technically later today):

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths (Iffy on this one)

4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

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

Cookie-cutter for the most part, but I'm not sure on the sideboard. I can't get any Firestorms, so other than those, what would you guys recommend for an unknown metagame's sideboard?

[sa17dk]

Hey everyone,

I'm building a dredge deck and was wondering what everyone thought on the number of Ichorids in the MD? I usually see 4 but I've also seen many lists going down to 3. What are the pros and cons? (not including Bloodghast versions)

[Rune]

So I'm still not sure what to sideboard out for anti-hate cards. I've heard people suggest Careful Study, but that seems counter intuitive, since it digs for your SB cards. Everything else seems so important for the deck, that I'm not sure what the best card is to take out.

Also, you would say a hand with a dredger, rainbow land, draw spell, and outlet is the ideal hand? Regardless, what should I be looking for to have in my hand?

Here is my list I plan using tomorrow at a local tournament (well, technically later today):

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths (Iffy on this one)

4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

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

Cookie-cutter for the most part, but I'm not sure on the sideboard. I can't get any Firestorms, so other than those, what would you guys recommend for an unknown metagame's sideboard?

You should replace one of your Dread Return targets for something that deals with annoying permanents (Angel of Despair/Woodfall Primus/Terrastodon). It sucks to have zero outs against Blazing Archon, Ensnaring Bridge, Moat Glacial Chasm etc.

I normally side out all Careful Studies, some Dread Return targets and sometimes a copy of Dread Return if I need to board more than 4+ cards.

I'd board out Breakthrough instead of Study against blue decks, though, since it helps punching through counters.

Against combo decks (that don't play hate), bring in Unmask (if you have it) and board out some of the cards that are too slow; some number of Ichorids and some Tribes.

[Nidd]

So I'm still not sure what to sideboard out for anti-hate cards. I've heard people suggest Careful Study, but that seems counter intuitive, since it digs for your SB cards. Everything else seems so important for the deck, that I'm not sure what the best card is to take out.

Also, you would say a hand with a dredger, rainbow land, draw spell, and outlet is the ideal hand? Regardless, what should I be looking for to have in my hand?

Here is my list I plan using tomorrow at a local tournament (well, technically later today):

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths (Iffy on this one)

4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

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

Cookie-cutter for the most part, but I'm not sure on the sideboard. I can't get any Firestorms, so other than those, what would you guys recommend for an unknown metagame's sideboard?
Problem is that you play 2 bad DR targets MB.
FKZ is the definition of win-more, I've never had a game where I thought "dang man, all you need to win is a FKZ..." because usually, when you can snort out massive amounts of zombies, the opponent is dead next turn anyways, there's no need for cute tricks like giving them haste etc. The only MU where FKZ comes in handy is Combo.
Sphinx, again, is bad. When you have the ressources to reanimate a creature with such a bad body simply to dredge, you should've overcome the hate already and are winning, other creatures that can support that plan are plain better.
Iona is decent. I don't like her MB, though, as she doesn't provide utility, she protects you from nasty stuff and creates virtual CA, but neither do you need G1. better play Terastodon or Woodfall Primus or Angel of Despair, which can help you seal the deal in MUs which can be hard G1 (Enchantress, Lands).

Pulling these 2 bad DR targets and replacing Iona with something more useful enables you to cut 1 DR and add 1 CS.


I normally side out all Careful Studies, some Dread Return targets and sometimes a copy of Dread Return if I need to board more than 4+ cards.
I found myself to be siding out 2 Thugs and 1 Ichorid quite often. Siding out 2 Thugs has a big benefit: You can safely side out 1 Ichorid because the fodder for them gets lower. Then you can take out 4 CS/4BT, depending on the MU and ta-daa, you have created 7 slots you can fill.

[Sprite]

Here is my build:

Dredge.dec


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

#14

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastodon

#27

4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

#19

Sideboard:

4 Chain of Vapor
4 Nature's Claim
1 Ancestor´s Chosen
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
5 xxx

#10

I would need 5 sb card´s.

If I would board in
+ 4 Chain of Vapor
+ 4 Nature´s Claim

what can I board our?
- xxx

On the last Tournemant there was: (28 Players)

1 Dreadstill with Jace
2-3 Land.dec
1 Survival
2 Solidarity
1 Merfolk
1 Burn
1 Entchantress
2 Decks like Rock with Rhox War Monk
1 ANT
...

[Aleksandr]

I played the Bloodghast buils to (not a great) success today. I thought of DDFT, but when I've seen the blue filed and imagined the horror of building the piles, etc. I sleeved this Ichorid.

I met Burn (he played for the tourney for the first time, I Iona him both times); lost to Survival (g1 he drawn nothing but lands and discard, g2 fast Hydra, g3 he won with topdecked Frog), draw with something, defeated Merfolks, lost to Ninjas (double Relic g2, triple Relic g3), won with Tempo Thrash (very satisfying game3), lost to Bant O_O

I played Null Rods in side, they never did anything significant. Ghasts are bad, they can be powerful in T1, where there are less chumpers and they come into the BF via Bazaar, but here they suck.

I got problem with siding, I always want to take so many cardss... Rods, Grudges, etc., and I dilute the deck.

I played it after... half a year or so? I'm pretty sure I didn't play it since spring at least. without any testing and having bad version (there are no Citadels in our area... :eyebrow:) it is not that bad.

there were two more Dredges inthere (out of... IDK, some 50+ players), one went 1:2 drop.


I played Serenity sb, because of the Stax/Stompy/Tress decks, but never met one.

Good luck guys with the deck, I like it, shame that there is no tech to make g2+3 better. I once heard of the Gargadon board, but never tried it and in fact, iI don't really like it...


--

EDIT: If only I had the DarkBlast, I could maybe won the SotF matchup against Frog-lock, but whatever...

[addaro]

Aleksandr: was it at Zuzys legacy? Dindt you go for a "kung pao with rice" with someone?

[Aleksandr]

Yeah. :-)

No, I stayed on a tourney and went for the triple beer after the show.

[Qax]

I got 9:th place in the MOCS with 8-2 and the following deck.

I played 3 RDW, 1 GB Elves, 2 cbtopthopter(1 loss), 1 GW Aggro/Midrange, 1 UBw faeries(loss), 1 Mirror, 1 Merfolk

CREATURES (26)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
ENCHANTMENTS (4)
4 Bridge from Below
SORCERIES (14)
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
INSTANTS (2)
2 Darkblast
LANDS (14)
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tarnished Citadel
SIDEBOARD
3 Ancient Grudge
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Nature’s Claim
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Angel of Despair
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Ancestor’s Chosen

I like 12 dredgers for consistency and 2 darkblasts seems nice to be having main.

[Cant See]

Does anyone have an optimized or nearly optimized list for an unknown meta, IE Gencon? I sort of expect to see more combo/show and tell and merfolk due to the high showing at the gp, but i cant say anything for sure.

[sa17dk]

Am I just terrible or is the Merfolk matchup hard? I played a couple games today versus a Merfolk player and they just annihilated me when I didnt have nutty hands.

Between Cursecatchers removing my Bridges while countering my spells (and the Daze/FoW/Spell Pierce) and all the normal GY hate they bring in the matchup just seems miserable.

[kicks_422]

Plus the Wastelands for your lands.

It's difficult, but not unwinnable. You basically have to find the right timing to go all in. A lot of practice is needed.

[Joon]

The Merfolk Matchup can be difficult. Merfolk is one of the few decks who have slightly better chances against you in the first game, as they have some countermagic together with Cursecatcher, which is more "hate" than other decks have before boarding. In addition to that their clock is sometimes too fast (especially those 16 lord-lists). Personally, I'm 4-1 in rounds against merfolk in tournament play, but those matches were pretty much the most difficult with this deck so far (except Storm of course, but here you actually have a fighting chance).

As kicks_422 already pointed out, you need practice with the matchup. If you go to DDD and they topdeck crypt that's bad news. Same goes (sometimes) for topdeck Jitte or Cursecatcher. Often you got only a small window to go off before they can race you. It is difficult to explain, but in this Matchup you have to be more aggressive as in all other blue matchups.

I guess the obvious thing were already noticed, like keeping one land hands is hella risky, Grudge is one of your best Sideboard cards here (as it kills their hate, without caring if it's Crypt or Relic, can blow up Vials to slow them down or takes out Jitte). If you want sideboard cards especially for the Merfolk matchup I suggest playing a playset of firestorm.
I've played this deck now for a long time and more than the half of my won matches were won by a big Firestorm burning away my opponent's board. It is also useful as a discard outlet which can't be countered and allows the game to last longer, so you can find therapies and/or grudges. You can sit on your lands and maybe an Imp or Tribe till he fills the board, then you therapy for force and annihalte his board with firestorm.
If your opponent does not play much creatures in fear of Firestorm that's good for you - 1-2 merfolks can be stalled out by a Tribe or something till you find your stuff to go off "protected".

[sa17dk]

Thanks guys for the great responses. I have one last question. What would I board out for all the Firestorms and Grudges? I'm having trouble boarding out more than 4-5 cards and feeling confident with the engine.

I usually end up boarding out:

3 Careful Study (I only run 3 in my list)
1 Ichorid

For the 4 Grudges. If I were to also add in 2-3 Firestorms what should I take out? 1 of my 3 Thugs and...?

[lotriderm]

Thanks guys for the great responses. I have one last question. What would I board out for all the Firestorms and Grudges? I'm having trouble boarding out more than 4-5 cards and feeling confident with the engine.

I usually end up boarding out:

3 Careful Study (I only run 3 in my list)
1 Ichorid

For the 4 Grudges. If I were to also add in 2-3 Firestorms what should I take out? 1 of my 3 Thugs and...?

Sometimes if I remove an Ichorid, I also remove a Thug. Probably take out 1 DR also.

[Joon]

We need to see your list to tell you what to board out. Personally, I go with

-4 Studies
-2 Dread Return (no targets main, and I do not board targets in against merfolk)
-1 Thug (I play four of them)
-1 ??? (normally an Ichorid, but in the last time I use to play only three of them, so I board him only against Storm out. Normally I tend to board out a citadel as the last card to get to eight free slots but against a deck with wastelands that's a bad plan. Probably a Tribe or an Ichorid here)

+4 Ancient Grudge
+4 Firestorm

[sa17dk]

My list is:

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

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
1 Iona

3 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below

I've been thinking of dropping the Ichorid count to 3. I've been playing with 4 and I've found that they flood my opening hands way too often and I never want to see them until at least 2 dredges. Even after that I only end up being able to consistently support 1-2 Ichorids every turn.

[No Trash Cougar]

I would board out
-3 studies (firestorm replaces it as discardoutlet)
-2 dread return (you don't really need it without targets)
-1 ichorid
-1 breakthrough
-1 iona (you don't really need her,because if you can play dread return a 15/15 troll gets the job also done)

and board in
+4 grude
+4 firestorm

[Anusien]

I would board out
-3 studies (firestorm replaces it as discardoutlet)
-2 dread return (you don't really need it without targets)
-1 ichorid
-1 breakthrough
-1 iona (you don't really need her,because if you can play dread return a 15/15 troll gets the job also done)

and board in
+4 grude
+4 firestorm
You realize you said "Take out Iona because Dread Returning a Troll is enough" and "Now that we've cut Iona, we don't need Dread Return", right?

I don't think I'd want to bring in 8 cards against Merfolk. If you're struggling though, I'd consider maindecking the 15th land.

[Nidd]

My list is:

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

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
1 Iona

3 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below

I've been thinking of dropping the Ichorid count to 3. I've been playing with 4 and I've found that they flood my opening hands way too often and I never want to see them until at least 2 dredges. Even after that I only end up being able to consistently support 1-2 Ichorids every turn.
If your Ichorids run out of fodder, you can still let them munch each other. That's better than not having an Ichorid when you need one.

[Quark.Nova]

If your Ichorids run out of fodder, you can still let them munch each other. That's better than not having an Ichorid when you need one.

No you can' t. Ichorid says:
"At the beginning of your upkeep, if Ichorid is in your graveyard, you may exile a black creature card other than Ichorid from your graveyard. If you do, return Ichorid to the battlefield."

so unfortunatly you can't sac a Ichorid for another one.

[Saff]

No you can' t. Ichorid says:
"At the beginning of your upkeep, if Ichorid is in your graveyard, you may exile a black creature card other than Ichorid from your graveyard. If you do, return Ichorid to the battlefield."

so unfortunatly you can't sac a Ichorid for another one.

Yes, you can. It says that if you have only one Ichorid in your GY you can't remove him from the game and put him into play then.

[Quark.Nova]

OK, in this case i got this totally wrong, sorry.
Maybe i will up my Ichorid count to 4 again. I seldomly had the problem of unwanted Ichorid in the first turns, rather the opposite,
when i need they wont come.

[Kiljae8n]

Anyone have any ideas against a Hypergenesis deck? Other than Chalice of the Void what can I use? This deck is kinda common in my meta, I haven't played against it yet, but it looks equally as fast.

[Anusien]

Therapy, Chalice of the Void and quick Dread Returns.

[frogboy]

Kederekt Leviathan.

(or, you know, what Anusien said)

[bum_man]

I play in a meta full of Zoo, Merfolk, Goblins, BANT, Thresh, Some Aggro Loam and Strom Combo, and a resurgence of Survival archetypes (BANT, Vengevine Madness)

My Sideboard is currently:

4 Ancient Grudge - For artifacts, has to be 4, the 4th grudge is always a factor
3 Chain of Vapor - Catch all and Enchantments
2 Faerie Macabre - Supposed to be for Loam and Survival @_@
2 firestorm - Merfolk and Gobs
2 Ray of Revelation - Enchantment hate
1 Ancestor's Chosen - Zoo and Gobs
1 Terastodon - Permanent-based disruption for a lands, W stax, and Enchantress and Propaganda

My questions are:

1) In a meta like mine where Survival archetypes are starting show-up and put up excellent results against Dredge, I was thinking of a sideboard card to use against them. I thought of Pithing Needles and Leyline of the Void but they only get pridemaged away. Then I saw Faerie Macabre as potentially something I could use against both Survival and Loam. Question is, in your experience what sb cards (spells or permanents) are great against survival?

2) I feel that in a meta like mine, I need 3 Firestorms, but I don't have slots anymore in my sb plus I can't seem to find a card that I want to take out for the 3rd firestorm especially against merfolk. I was thinking of taking out the Macabres and replace them for the 3rd firestorm and maybe an Iona as a dedicated DR target for Aggro Loam and Survival @_@ What do you guys think?

[No Trash Cougar]

good cards against survival are chain of vapor, claim of nature, ray of revealation and maybe voidstone gargoyle

[NetherGamer]

Hi guys! So I've been working on dredge for a little while now, and am just looking for some help on my side board. Right now, it looks like such:


4 chain of vapor
4 ancient grudge
3 leyline of the void
1 ray of revelation
1 realm razer
1 ancestor's chosen
1 angel of despair


I've noticed a lot of you using nature's claim. Is that a better choice? What are the reasons for using it over Chain of vapor? Another question I have is regarding Angel of Despair. I had it in there for the reanimator matchup, lousy Blazing archon, but now I'm not sure if it will be necessary, what are your guys thoughts?

[kicks_422]

Why are people packing Leyline of the Void in their SB's? If you're packing them for hate against other grave-based decks, do yourself a favor and drop them. Dredge should always be on the offensive, not boarding in hate against other decks. It's them that board in hate against you.

Well, at least that's how I see it.

[Ozymandias]

So I was working on my sideboard, and I'm wondering if Leyline of the Void is really even worth it. It's only really good in the mirror match, as other decks have ways around it (SnT or just survivaling up a Viridian Zealot or something.) Right now, the SB is:

1 Ancestor's Chosen (vs. aggro/combo)
4 Leyline of the Void (GY decks)
3 Ancient Grudge (Crypt/Relic)
4 Chain of Vapor (Leyline of the Void)
3 Nature's Claim (Leyline, Crypt/Relic)

If I were going to cut the Leylines, that leaves me 4 slots to play with. Possible choices would be:

Firestorm-Very good versus decks that can counter your discard outlets and aggro.
4th Grudge or 4th Claim-Grudge is probably more useful, but Leyline is gaining popularity as anti-dredge tech.
Ray of Revelation-Probably just 1, as it is only really useful to nail Leyline and if you see it vs. a moat.

I'm also considering cutting a Chain of Vapor. Nature's claim basically does everything it does except that Chain is more easily castable

4 Chain of Vapor
3 Nature's Claim
3 Firestorm
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Ancient Grudge

This gives me 7 answers to Leyline, 8 to crypt (plus obviously slowrolling with Tribe or Imp), and a possible 11 cards to sideboard vs aggro. I probably do want a 4th Grudge-what should I cut for it? My MD is super standard


4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Woodfall Primus

4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

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

I can probably bring in a max of 10 cards () before the deck begins to suffer, but I realistically want 7-8. With my current sideboard, my plans are as follows.

Crypt decks with dudes (Blue/Nonblue aggro): +4 Grudge +1 Chosen +3 Firestorm. -1 Primus, -1 Iona -1 DR, -1 Ichorid, -1 Therapy -3 Study. Claim is probably not needed here. Firestorm is a sick bomb. I wish I could fit the Ichorid back in.
Crypt decks without dudes: +4 Grudge -2 DR targets -1 DR -1 Study
Leyline decks: +4 Chain +3 Claim -2 Tribe -2 Therapy -2 Study -1 Ichorid.

Any comments would be helpful.

[lotriderm]

Against the Leyline decks, I would probably do keep the 2 Tireless Tribes and take out a combination of DR and DR targets, also +2 Careful Study and -2 Breakthrough. Resolving a permanent discard outlet is pretty important in most G2 and G3. If they start the game with Leyline in play, at least you can apply some beats as you dig for an answer. This is why I leave Careful Study in instead of Breakthrough because I need to dig for an answer to Leyline.

[Saff]

I'm also considering cutting a Chain of Vapor. Nature's claim basically does everything it does except that Chain is more easily castable
If you cut it what will you do with things like Blazing Archon without CoV/Angel of Despair?

[Ozymandias]

See the problem is versus decksa that run Leyline (read: Loam decks and base Blackdecks ) I only get to cast two spells, and one of those is a Nature's Claim. The other has to be a pretty damn good one, and Breakthrough is the best of the bunch.

I don't really think Blazing Archon even sees play anymore.

[Sunsatzu]

i have 2 questions

why are people running woodfall primus over terastodon?

when is iona better/neccessary over other targets?

[frogboy]

Woodfall Primus doesn't give your opponent any elephants that you have to attack through, and you can rebuy his ETB trigger with Cabal Therapy.

I can't really think of a situation where I'd want Iona instead of a different target.

[Ozymandias]

Iona might become a MD Chosen instead, because it serves the same anti-combo purpose. On the other hand, Iona allows you to do things like:

Shut off a Loam player's Chasm-lock or Assault loop.

Shut off Enchantress' White spells, without which they cannot actually stop Iona from clocking them.

Actually stop combo harder than making them generate extra storm.

[bum_man]

i have 2 questions

why are people running woodfall primus over terastodon?

when is iona better/neccessary over other targets?

Woodfull Primus doesn't give your opponent a 3-turn clock.

I generally don't like Iona as a MD target. I recently have one in my SB though, something I plan on using against loam decks.



Iona might become a MD Chosen instead, because it serves the same anti-combo purpose.

I assume you've tested these changes. I'm interested how MD Iona is as compared to MD Chosen because I too am planning to change my MD FKZ. How quickly do you close-out a game using Chosen as compared to Iona? Do you gain enough life with Chosen or do you get to bring back Iona immidiately when you need to, even without the help of a Cephalid Sage or a Sphinx of Lost Truths to dig your library more? And, how better is it to be out of ToA range as compared to have them not being able cast their bombs or wincon. From testing I assume this because of blue bounce spells that bounce Iona?

[kicks_422]

I like Iona as a DR target because she's not dependent on having Bridges and/or dredgers in the graveyard. She's still one of the biggest game-breakers once in play.

[Saff]

Shut off Enchantress' White spells, without which they cannot actually stop Iona from clocking them.

They can if they're playing Lignify MD.

[sa17dk]

Did pretty miserably at a tournament today.

1. Firestorm is amazing. But I have no idea on how I'd run 4.
2. The MD Iona can probably be cut, but she makes me feel safe =(
3. I'm ambivalent about keeping the Chain of Vapors instead of Nature's Claim.
4. Playing against storm combo sucks without Unmask and LED.
5. I need to mulligan better.

[Ozymandias]

I am going to experiment with cutting a Chain of Vapor for nature's claim 4 into the SB. This gives me the following boarding plans:

Ancient Grudge/Firestorm+Chosen (artifact hate and smaller creatures) (Zoo or Goblins or Merfolk)
Ancient Grudge/Chain of Vapor (fat creatures+artifacts) (decks like NH or leyline-free Loam decks)
Ancient Grudge/Nature's Claim (Decks like countertop thopter with multiple problematic artifacts and enchantments)
Chain of Vapor/Nature's Claim (Decks with Leyline as their primary gravehate and no small problematic cards)
Nature's Claim/Firestorm+Chosen (Decks with leyline and small creatures) ( maybe extra Chains)
Oh, and for completeness sake:
Chain of Vapor/Firestorm (Never relevant)
Ancestor's Chosen/Bend Over (Storm)

[Ozymandias]

Well, I did some testing, and I found that I wanted the 4th chain, and I definitely want a Ray of Revelation in my sideboard to deal with stuff like Propaganda or Moat, so I am going to run

4 Chain of Vapor
3 Nature's Claim
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
as my board

With my chosen maindeck. I won't bring in more than 7 cards, out of 3 Careful studies, Ichorid, 1-2 DR, 1-2 Cabal Therapy, 1 Breakthrough, 1 Iona, 1 Primus depending on the matchup.

[Sunsatzu]

i have 4 slots in my sb that im changing (4 leyline of the void, only good for the mirror now)

my choices are thus

3 Firestorm
1 Eternal Witness

for merfolk, which while beatable first game, becomes such a headache after sb

or

4 Leyline of Sanctity

so i cant get tendril'd or charbelchar'd. also great if it turns out the only hate my opponent has must target me, ntm i cant get duress'd etc

for reference, i run no md dr targets and 1 darkblast md. the rest of my sb is as follows

4 Chain of Vapor
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation (may become Nature's Claim if i play Witness)
1 Ancestral Chosen
1 Terastodon
1 Flame-Kin Zealot (i dont see how u can beat enchantress or lands without him)

so what do u guys think would better fill out my sb? theres always merfolk at the tourneys i go to, but im so in love with the new Leyline that i cant decide. thanks for your input guys.

[indefinite.soul]

After a 2nd place a while back, I won my 1st irl tournament whith this deck!!! (I won a online extended with trinity green a while back)

All my games were EPIC! I'll try to remember it all later.

I won against Enchantress (!!!), Emrakul (!!!), BR Goblins (also tight, although it should be a easy matchup) and manage to draw with Stax after loosing G1, and mulliganning G2 to 4!!!!! I IDed the last round with Bant.

My list was:

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

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

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

Sideboard
4 Firestorm
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths

[Saff]

4 Leyline of Sanctity

so i cant get tendril'd or charbelchar'd.

Belcher has Reverent Silence at wishboard so even this could not protect you.

Finally I'm going to run with this:

4x Leyline of the Void -> I've got two another Dredge's and Tog (byebye loam)
3x Firestorm -> few merfolks/goblins
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Nature's Claim
2x Chain of Vapor
1x Ancestor's Chosen

Finally I resing from playin Terastodon/Woodfall Primus (got Angel of Despair in mainboard).

[Digital Devil]

After a 2nd place a while back, I won my 1st irl tournament whith this deck!!!
'Grats for the finish.
---------------------------------
I ain't that lucky, since yesterday I played @ a very small tournament (20 people only) and placed 5th. While I managed to win against impossible matchups (read: Enchantress) I lost really badly to two blue based decks (UBR Faeriestalker during swiss rounds and NO Bant in top8). I was forced to DDD all the time, either because of denial, either because of removal on my permanent discard outlets. Permanents can be easy to answer, but sorceries/instants are tricky. I used to steamroll anything with Force of Will (even Merfolk) and suffer against lockdown strategies, then all of a sudden my win % got reversed. I wonder if I'd been unlucky, or if I made some play mistakes: I simply ask for some advices on how to fight properly against those two kinds of blue decks.

For reference, my build:

// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
2 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [TO] Ichorid
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria

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

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 4 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 2 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 [JU] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair

[Felidae]

Played the deck at a small tournament (28 people) yesterday to a 4-1-0 record and 2th place.

My list was basicly the same as Devils, -1 Ichorid, -1 Therapy, +1 Study, +1 Woodfall Primus and a slightly different Sideboard.

2-1 vs Burn
2-0 vs Zoo
2-1 vs TES
2-1 vs Mono B Controle
ID with UW Ninjafish

I played the deck for the first time and I'm really impressed with it, but overall I can see that I need much more practise in order to play the deck probably.

[ThomasDowd]

Currently deciding between dredge and burn for legacy. and it's leaning way more towards dredge but with the increase in U/G madness is anyone worried about increased GY hate?

Also has anyone extensively tested the U/G madness matchup? it seems like that deck may be on the upswing with GP and the upswing in T16 penetration at the 5K.

it seems like here faerie macabre or leyline really shines in this situation faerie more so due to being ichorid food.

Also although chain is really good doesn't nature's claim hit almost everything needed (minus jailer, Grunt)?

these are just some questions i have and am trying to figure out a sideboard/plans and it's always as it seems kind of a metagame decision.

[HokusSchmokus]

I don't think Iona is needed im either MD or SB.
Her hole card just seems to scream "win more!".
MD she is just stealing a slot off a more useful card. I mean, yeah, it's really a blast to DR Iona into play against decks that rely mostly on one certain color, but honestly I have yet to come to a situation in which Iona wins me a game a 15/15 GGT along with his multiple 2/2 friends wouldn't have won it as well.
That's the thing with most DR targets...I don't think you need any besides GGT preboard when you win G1 most of the time anyways.

Here's what I'd suggest, I copied the list out of the mtg-forum.de primer, which is one of the best primers I've seen yet. Didn't copy it because I'm lazy, I tested a bunch of games with it and I have to say I belive it's the most optimized version of the deck yet. MD, that is. SB, as always, is meta-dependant in some slots.

4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
3 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Dread Return
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
3 Tarnished Citadel

My SB

1 Terastodon
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Firestorm
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor

I think I'm about to cut a few CoVs though, in favour for more Rays or Nature's Claim
Tested both Leylines, didn't work out for me.
And as for Ancient Grudge: NEVER leave the house without a whole playset of them, MVP 99% of the time.
Test it, it's a blast to play!

[Nidd]

15 lands but only 3 Ichorid? Can't be optimal. I've never seen an Ichorid and complained about it, 4 is the right number.

I play TES and it plays only 13 lands and I rarely have problems with opening hands with 0 lands in them, no need to water down the engine behind the Dredge deck. 14 lands are perfectly fine.

[HokusSchmokus]

I found 15 lands to be better. Maybe 14 lands, 4 Ichorids, but I like beeing actually able to cast my spells.
The 4th Ichorid was competing with the 4th Tireless Tribe MD. I just found Tribe way better. 3 Ichorids are enough to hurt your opponent quite bad, and sometimes you're in the Situation not to be able to pitch something for the 4th.
just what occured in my testing games. Also, my built is tailored to provide maximum consistency.

But I will test 14 lands, 4 Ichorids again. Although, I recommend to try out the 15 lands 3 Ichorids built, I bet you will hardly ever miss the 4th.

Edit: 15 lands enable you to play some of the sideboard cards more consitently, too. Also, multiple Ichorids in my opening hands make me wanna cry.

[Nidd]

I found 15 lands to be better. Maybe 14 lands, 4 Ichorids, but I like beeing actually able to cast my spells.
The 4th Ichorid was competing with the 4th Tireless Tribe MD. I just found Tribe way better. 3 Ichorids are enough to hurt your opponent quite bad, and sometimes you're in the Situation not to be able to pitch something for the 4th.
just what occured in my testing games. Also, my built is tailored to provide maximum consistency.

But I will test 14 lands, 4 Ichorids again. Although, I recommend to try out the 15 lands 3 Ichorids built, I bet you will hardly ever miss the 4th.

Edit: 15 lands enable you to play some of the sideboard cards more consitently, too. Also, multiple Ichorids in my opening hands make me wanna cry.
The general consens here was that 14 lands and 4 Ichorids is the most consistent version.

If you have nothing else to feed the Ichorids, feed them to each other. This deck has to be relentless in it's resource management, as the speed is the biggest advantage it has to offer.

What cards are you talking about, Ray and Grudge? If you find yourself having problems to cast them, play Claim.

[HokusSchmokus]

The general consens here was that 14 lands and 4 Ichorids is the most consistent version.

If you have nothing else to feed the Ichorids, feed them to each other. This deck has to be relentless in it's resource management, as the speed is the biggest advantage it has to offer.

What cards are you talking about, Ray and Grudge? If you find yourself having problems to cast them, play Claim.

Again, it's just what occured in my testing. And I did lots of it.
If you all find 14 lands to be sufficient, no problem with that.

Any thoughts on the list apart from the Ichorid/lands thingy?:tongue:

[Ozymandias]

I would definitely run Woodfall Primus or Terastodon maindeck, so that you don't just lose every single game your opponent ever drops Glacial Chasm, Moat, Ensnaring Bridge , or any number of other cards that just wreck your day otherwise. It can also let you time walk combo by killing lands.

[Nidd]

Again, it's just what occured in my testing. And I did lots of it.
If you all find 14 lands to be sufficient, no problem with that.

Any thoughts on the list apart from the Ichorid/lands thingy?:tongue:
No, because that's the only thing one can argue about ;)
The rest of the list is really solid.

@Ozymandias: MB targets are cute, but mostly a meta call.
Also, I'd play Terastodon over Primus MB, if I'd have to play one.

[HokusSchmokus]

I would definitely run Woodfall Primus or Terastodon maindeck, so that you don't just lose every single game your opponent ever drops Glacial Chasm, Moat, Ensnaring Bridge , or any number of other cards that just wreck your day otherwise. It can also let you time walk combo by killing lands.


@Ozymandias: MB targets are cute, but mostly a meta call.
Also, I'd play Terastodon over Primus MB, if I'd have to play one.

This. You just say-hello-in-japanese most decks g1. to cut speed / disrupt / discard to be prepared for niche decks is just not worth it imo.Plus if you live to see enough turns to DR Terastodon vs combo ( due to therapies or whatever) you might as well just explode in their faces with x/x ggt +inf. zombies.

[sa17dk]

So I'm playing the LED version right now (switching back and forth from LED and LED-less) and I gotta say that if I were to return to the LED-less build, I would cut at least 3 Careful Study for 3 Unmask. Unmask is just amazing. You guys seriously need to try it. Careful Study was always sided out anyway.

Trying to play G2 and G3 blindly without knowing what your opponent has in store for you makes dredge feel like a Belcher deck that dies to graveyard hate.

The problem I had with dredge was that it was hard being aggressive with the deck after G1. Playing draw-go or turtle dredging and waiting for your opponent's control deck to develop a sweet hand and shit all over me was frustrating. Unmasking that FoW or other counterspell away and being able to cast Breakthrough safely within those small windows of opportunity has definitely made G2 and 3 more manageable despite the hate they bring in.

[sunshine]

I don't think Iona is needed im either MD or SB.
Her hole card just seems to scream "win more!".
MD she is just stealing a slot off a more useful card. I mean, yeah, it's really a blast to DR Iona into play against decks that rely mostly on one certain color, but honestly I have yet to come to a situation in which Iona wins me a game a 15/15 GGT along with his multiple 2/2 friends wouldn't have won it as well.
That's the thing with most DR targets...I don't think you need any besides GGT preboard when you win G1 most of the time anyways.

I'd say you likely play in a rather sheltered, or at least consistent, meta. Iona wins games against all sorts of randomness that Troll and Zombies just roll over to. To give you just a couple examples from the last tourney I brought this deck to (GP Columbus):

- Lands (shutting off recurring Loam to enable a win through Zuran Orb + Tabernacle)
- The Mighty Quinn (win through Moat + StP on Scepter)

In particular the Quinn match was an excellent example - being able to win through Moat + Scepter imprinted with StP is something Dredge has no business doing game one. That's certainly a corner case but the point is there are many viable (and even more played) strategies in Legacy and IMO Iona gives you the most value against the spread. The fact that she also has evasion and hits hard is amazing, giving you (for example) additional outs to Propaganda effects should they hit the board.

At this point I think the deck can easily support at least one DR target main without suffering any noticeable hit to consistency - which if nothing else means you effectively get a 16 card SB.

Is the card "win more"? I don't think so. In the matches you're winning anyway, sure, the card is unnecessary (which can make her feel "win more" depending on your meta), but realistically in those matches so is about 12% of your deck.

It boils down to this: there are 1-2 slots in the main deck that can easily be occupied by DR targets without really harming the deck's consistency. These slots are highly dependent on your meta (where it may even be correct to not play any at all). Given that our SB space is at such a premium I gladly play Iona main and enjoy getting out of jams that wouldn't be possible otherwise - but like I said, this is highly meta dependent.

[Anusien]

Terastodon can also beat Glacial Chasm + Tabernacle if the rest of your deck helps.


I tried Leyline of Sanctity. Nobody mentioned any experience here with it, so let me go ahead and give mine. Totally unimpressed. It never showed up, but they did get milled and made me wish I had Grudge.

One guy had Bojuka Bog in the maindeck and brought in Ravenous Trap. I beat him anyway. Leyline never showed up. Trap is easy to beat if you're prepared for it, and he can't Bog you on your turn, so as long as you have Imp and slowroll a Dredger, you can recover. He can't even beat a Dread Return with Bog.

Everyone else brought in a mix of artifacts. Predominantly they were Relic! I've always been able to beat Relic by just holding draw spells. This was no exception. Plus, some people brought in other relevant cards; E. Plague and Wheel of Sun and Moon were potentials. The guy with Trap could have had Leyline or Planar Void. You have to bring in some other hate just in case. So I found myself boarding 6 hate cards or 7 instead of 4. This was bad.

So yeah, if people are going overboard with 8 hate cards, maybe Leyline is worth it. But I'd rather just bring in Grudges than Leylines against Crypts and Relics.

[HokusSchmokus]

I'd say you likely play in a rather sheltered, or at least consistent, meta. Iona wins games against all sorts of randomness that Troll and Zombies just roll over to. To give you just a couple examples from the last tourney I brought this deck to (GP Columbus):

- Lands (shutting off recurring Loam to enable a win through Zuran Orb + Tabernacle)
- The Mighty Quinn (win through Moat + StP on Scepter)

In particular the Quinn match was an excellent example - being able to win through Moat + Scepter imprinted with StP is something Dredge has no business doing game one. That's certainly a corner case but the point is there are many viable (and even more played) strategies in Legacy and IMO Iona gives you the most value against the spread. The fact that she also has evasion and hits hard is amazing, giving you (for example) additional outs to Propaganda effects should they hit the board.

At this point I think the deck can easily support at least one DR target main without suffering any noticeable hit to consistency - which if nothing else means you effectively get a 16 card SB.

Is the card "win more"? I don't think so. In the matches you're winning anyway, sure, the card is unnecessary (which can make her feel "win more" depending on your meta), but realistically in those matches so is about 12% of your deck.

It boils down to this: there are 1-2 slots in the main deck that can easily be occupied by DR targets without really harming the deck's consistency. These slots are highly dependent on your meta (where it may even be correct to not play any at all). Given that our SB space is at such a premium I gladly play Iona main and enjoy getting out of jams that wouldn't be possible otherwise - but like I said, this is highly meta dependent.
nah, german meta is anything but "sheltered". I have the feeling it's sheer randomness. Though Lands.dec is a deck I rarely played against.
I honestly believe that Iona is completely unnessasary.Main deck that is. SB is a different story, though U tend not to play Iona in SB simply because I find the other options better and much more valuable. I mean, sure, it is definately a huge help against some decks. But do you need the additional help so much that you cut a SB card for it? Don't know. I would'nt do it. Probably will though, if I start losing against Random.decs
or similar stuff. So far, Therapies and Beatdown worked for me.

edit: what would you cut for Iona btw?

[Nidd]

nah, german meta is anything but "sheltered". I have the feeling it's sheer randomness. Though Lands.dec is a deck I rarely played against.
I honestly believe that Iona is completely unnessasary.Main deck that is. SB is a different story, though U tend not to play Iona in SB simply because I find the other options better and much more valuable. I mean, sure, it is definately a huge help against some decks. But do you need the additional help so much that you cut a SB card for it? Don't know. I would'nt do it. Probably will though, if I start losing against Random.decs
or similar stuff. So far, Therapies and Beatdown worked for me.

edit: what would you cut for Iona btw?
Agreed, the german meta isn't defined, it's all over the place. My local meta is predictable and doesn't need Iona, but whenever I'm going to Nuremberg (40+ man tourneys) I sleeve her up.

I guess 1 Thug is the card to cut for Iona.

[HokusSchmokus]

I thoght so.
well, I'm goin to attend a rather big tourney at the end of the month(60+).Without Iona. We'll see how this works out.
Also, I have to decide if I'll sleeve up 3 or 4 Ichorids, but again, we'll see.
#

@Anusien:

I had quite the same experiances as Leyline. You mull for it, you lose cos of speed. You don't mull for it, you dredge that thing-> ray/grudge > leyline. at least it felt that way.

[Nidd]

I thoght so.
well, I'm goin to attend a rather big tourney at the end of the month(60+).Without Iona. We'll see how this works out.
Also, I have to decide if I'll sleeve up 3 or 4 Ichorids, but again, we'll see.
Where are you going?

I'd never sleeve up less than 4 Ichorids. If you have 2 and run out of food, feed one to the other.
Also, it makes SBing easier, at least for me. Boarding out 2 Thugs means 1 Ichorid can go, too.

[HokusSchmokus]

Where are you going?

I'd never sleeve up less than 4 Ichorids. If you have 2 and run out of food, feed one to the other.
Also, it makes SBing easier, at least for me. Boarding out 2 Thugs means 1 Ichorid can go, too.

That's actually a great point.
Oh, I will attend the TRADER- tourney in Dülmen I think.Maybe Iserlohn, too.
Though I might acutally play my lovely lovely WalkerControl in Iserlohn:P too much Zoo there usually.

[Izor]

Hi, guys.
I plan on playing a tourney soon and I chose LEDless Dredge as my deck.
Obviously this is my 1st post but I've been playing legacy for some time now and after some extensive playtesting I wanted to share some of my impressions with this deck with you.

Generally speaking I was impressed by the performance of this deck. I also feel quite comfortable with my build, but there has always been a thing I just couldn't really decide on: Main Deck DR Targets or not. I know this topic has already been discussed a lot in this thread but anyways. I can completely understand the advantages of running NO DR Targets main. The point is that if you try to get the best consistency (4 Careful Study, 15Lands, 11+Dredgers, 4 Tribe etc) you will usually end up having exactly 60 cards together, having no space left for DRTs. But on the other hand having a DRT main also has some benefits. I'm especially referring to Iona, as I think no other DRT (besides Sphinx oLT) should be considered for the MD. It has been said several times that a 2nd turn Iona does nothing a 2nd turn big GGT couldn't do as well. Well, I've encountered several situations in which she does it better. I've lost several games to UW Landstill for example when my opponent was able to kill my tokens with E.Explosives and Plow my GGT at the same time. I've also lost games to Burn, when my opponent simply blocked away my Troll with Fanatics, G.Guides and co, while simultaneously removing my Bridges. Topdecked Volcanic Fallouts got rid of my Tokens. Also Iona seems to be the only way to beat Glacial Chasm locks, Storm Combos and some other hard stuff preboard. Also, the simple fact that Iona is a 7/7 Flyer (3 turn clock) is often underestimated.
In short, the consistency I lost wasn't as obvious as the simple strength I gained. The chance to have at least one of two DRTs in your opening hand is around 22%. Even then it's possible that the hand can be kept or that you would have to mulligan even without them.
So this was the list I came to:

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

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
4 Brakethrough
3 Dread Return

SB: 4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor (might become Nature's Claims)
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Firestorm

If I should decide to drop my DRTs I would add a Tarnished Citadel and a Careful Study. In some specific metagames a MD Terastodon might also be considered.

Also one question: How does it work to have only 2 Dread Returns in a DRT-less build? Is that enough to expect 2nd turn Trolls?

Thanks for reading. I'm open for any thoughts and opinions ;-)

[HokusSchmokus]

2nd or 3rd Turn Trolls are common.just remember to ct them enough and everything is fine.

[zmattk]

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to this deck, I just finished my first build of it and I have been playtesting it a bit. I have a few questions though. I have seen a lot of the recent lists not running FKZ or Sphinx/Sage. When I first played this deck, Sphinx or Sage was needed to win turn 2 or turn 3 and was extremely helpful just to cycle through your deck. I was wondering why people have been cutting these from the deck.

Also, I am going to be entering a tournament hopefully with this deck in about a month and I am having some problems with my sideboard. I was wondering what you guys normally side against certain match ups. Like if I am playing against goblins or any other aggro deck, should I side in Firestorm game 2 and hope I don't see Crypt/Relic, or should I side in my artifact hate like Grudge game 2 and hope I can go off quick enough, or do I side in both. But siding in both would be siding in like 8 cards which doesn't seem like the best idea. And how often do you guys see Leyline of the Void, do only black decks really play it? And do I need both Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim in my sideboard?

Here's my current list:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame Kin Zealot

4 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy

SB
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Firestorm
1 Terastrodon

I also have Iona but I don't know when I'd want to bring her in over anything else. If you guys could help me out, I would really appreciate it

[Izor]

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to this deck, I just finished my first build of it and I have been playtesting it a bit. I have a few questions though. I have seen a lot of the recent lists not running FKZ or Sphinx/Sage. When I first played this deck, Sphinx or Sage was needed to win turn 2 or turn 3 and was extremely helpful just to cycle through your deck. I was wondering why people have been cutting these from the deck.

Basically people try to get the best consistency if playing without Lion's Eye Diamond. So many eschew Dread Return Targets in the main deck. Other people prefer Targets, which are less dependent on the Bridges in your Graveyard, like Iona for example.


Also, I am going to be entering a tournament hopefully with this deck in about a month and I am having some problems with my sideboard. I was wondering what you guys normally side against certain match ups. Like if I am playing against goblins or any other aggro deck, should I side in Firestorm game 2 and hope I don't see Crypt/Relic, or should I side in my artifact hate like Grudge game 2 and hope I can go off quick enough, or do I side in both. But siding in both would be siding in like 8 cards which doesn't seem like the best idea. And how often do you guys see Leyline of the Void, do only black decks really play it? And do I need both Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim in my sideboard?

Generally against non-white and non-black decks you can side in Grudges, for Crypt/Relic are their main options of grave-hate. Against Black decks, where you can expect Leyline or Yixlid Jailer you should rather side in Chains/Claims or Firestorms respectively. Same goes for white decks using Wheel of Sun and Moon.
Most people use either Chain or Claim. So 4 Chain and 3 Claim kind of waste some sb space.
Against non-blue Aggro decks Firestorm is not absolutely necessary, so if you think you would dilute your deck too much, just leave them out and concentrate on fighting their hate.
How often you'll see Leyline of course depends on your metagame, but usually it's fairly rare. Non-black decks will usually not use it.


Here's my current list:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame Kin Zealot

4 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy

SB
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Firestorm
1 Terastrodon

I think you could cut a Sphinx even if you want to keep the Sphinx-FKZ plan. Also, I would personally not leave the house without 4 Tireless Tribes and 4 Breakthrough.


I also have Iona but I don't know when I'd want to bring her in over anything else. If you guys could help me out, I would really appreciate it

Iona is an instant win against mono colored decks in general and many multicolored decks are shut down as well. It also stops annoying things like Glacial Chasm locks. And it's a 7/7 Flyer. Other than that, it doesn't do much other Targets couldn`t do as well.

Maybe I should add that I've compiled a list of the top 30 archetypes of current legacy and for each I wrote down how much Iona on a certain color affects that deck. (3: concede, 2: significant lock, 1: annoying but playable, 0: doesn't care)
9 decks I graded 3, 12 decks were graded 2, 8 decks got a 1 and only Affinity got a 0.

[HokusSchmokus]

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to this deck, I just finished my first build of it and I have been playtesting it a bit. I have a few questions though. I have seen a lot of the recent lists not running FKZ or Sphinx/Sage. When I first played this deck, Sphinx or Sage was needed to win turn 2 or turn 3 and was extremely helpful just to cycle through your deck. I was wondering why people have been cutting these from the deck.

Also, I am going to be entering a tournament hopefully with this deck in about a month and I am having some problems with my sideboard. I was wondering what you guys normally side against certain match ups. Like if I am playing against goblins or any other aggro deck, should I side in Firestorm game 2 and hope I don't see Crypt/Relic, or should I side in my artifact hate like Grudge game 2 and hope I can go off quick enough, or do I side in both. But siding in both would be siding in like 8 cards which doesn't seem like the best idea. And how often do you guys see Leyline of the Void, do only black decks really play it? And do I need both Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim in my sideboard?

Here's my current list:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame Kin Zealot

4 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy

SB
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Nature's Claim
1 Ancestor's Chosen
3 Firestorm
1 Terastrodon

I also have Iona but I don't know when I'd want to bring her in over anything else. If you guys could help me out, I would really appreciate it

I would completely cut the DR targets. That would look like -2 Sphinx, -1 FKZ, -1 DR, +Ichorid/+1 Citadel, +1 Thug, +1 Breakthrough
If you really want a DR silverbullet it would be like -1 Sphinx -1 FKZ, +1 Breakthrough, +1 Ichorid, +1 Iona/ Terastodon

I really don't think you need a md target though. and if, i would use terastodon over Iona. Doesn't matter too much if the opponent has removal, as terastodon does it's job while coming into play.
There are other reasons I dont like md dr targets, too:
I really don't like not having the full package of breakthorugh and thug. Breakthrough can pull of insane dredges, while Thug is useful for some tricks with moeba & therapy.

What you really need to work on is the sideboard. If you expect a lot of reanimator-like stuff, use chain.if not, don't. Nature's Claim does the same job equally good, also always have 4 Grudges, they are just THAT good.
I would consider -4 chains, +1 grudge, +1 claim, +1 firestorm, +1 Ray of Revelation

Edit: And as for sideboarding against goblins, using my list from the post a page ago, I would side : -4 Studies, -1 Thug, -1 DR,-2 Tribes/Pimps, +4 Firestorm, +4 Grudge

[sa17dk]

Here's the list I've been running after going back and forth between the LED and non-LED versions.

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

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
1 Iona

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Unmask
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return


Unmask is awesome. Try it.

[HokusSchmokus]

Here's the list I've been running after going back and forth between the LED and non-LED versions.

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

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
1 Iona

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Unmask
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return


Unmask is awesome. Try it.

Meh.Needs moar careful studies

[Nidd]

Here's the list I've been running after going back and forth between the LED and non-LED versions.

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

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
1 Iona

4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Unmask
4 Bridge from Below
3 Dread Return


Unmask is awesome. Try it.
Unmask MB is unneeded. Unless your Meta is combo heavy, in which case you should play Sadistic Hypnotist as your DR target and play the full playset Unmask.

I agree with HokusSchmokus, needs more CS.

[Mana Drain]

I've read through the most recent 5 pages and couldn't help but notice a complete lack of Leyline of Sanctity in any sideboards. Is there a consensus that has been reached on its playability in legacy? I'm very curious as it seems like a must have 4-of in the side.

It stops:
Tormod's Crypt
Bojuka Bog
Extipate
Faerie Macabre
The tap ability of Relic
Additional Burn to the face
TENDRILS FOR 20 TO THE DOME(something that is still an important consideration due to dredges combo matchup %)

The 3 gravehate cards it doesn't stop are Leyline of the Void(this is a big one here I must admit), Yixlid Jailer(nobody plays this in legacy), and Relic.
So you still have to run answers to leyline but relic's ability to slowly grind you is negated and it turns into a speedbump at best with careful play.
The combo protection I think is huge. Unless you're running unmask somewhere in your 75, TES and its ick will steamroll you, in addition to being of the few decks to run Leyline of the Void. With Leyline of Sanctity, atleast you force the TES pilot to slowdown enough to wish for an answer, which can give you the time to do what dredge does(fight through the hate with anti-hate like Claim or Chain) or just therapy/unmask the answer if possible. At the very least, I believe LoS should be given a second thought in the grudge slot, as a single LoS does what all grudges in your deck do while not requiring a rainbow land.

I'm just curious as to why this card isn't getting at least the discussion it deserves. If your meta's gravehate is nothing but targeted effects or has a higher-than-average combo density, give LoS a shot. It has a lot of potential and no results, but I believe this is due to people being afraid of dropping grudge, or possibly the fear of additional mulligans. Regardless, I'm eager to hear some opinions on this.

[Anusien]

Most people just board Relics and Crypts. Running Grudge is a better answer. And I find that it's easier to beat Bogs, Traps (well these are even easier to beat), Crypts and Relics mostly by just casting draw spells.

I would not replace Grudges with Leyline of Sanctity. Just try sideboarding in Leyline and see how often you don't draw it.

[Izor]

Most people just board Relics and Crypts. Running Grudge is a better answer. And I find that it's easier to beat Bogs, Traps (well these are even easier to beat), Crypts and Relics mostly by just casting draw spells.

I would not replace Grudges with Leyline of Sanctity. Just try sideboarding in Leyline and see how often you don't draw it.

I totally agree with that.
The chance of having at least 1 Leyline of Sanctity in your opening hand postboard is less than 40% assuming a 7 card hand. After each mulligan it becomes even less. Given the fact that Dredge already has some fixed requirements for its opening hand (Discard outlet, Gold Land and Dredger) you will have to be really lucky.
Grudge can easily be dredged into, if you don't see it in your opening hand. And it gets rid of Relic.
Trap, Extirpate and Macabre can be stopped by a timely Cabal Therapy, which is already in your main deck.
Bojuka Bog can be hard if topdecked by your opponent but mostly it will enter the battlefield through Knight of the Reliquary or you see it in the graveyard before it gets Loamed back, so you can prepare for it. Also it has Sorcery speed.

And if you're concerned about the storm combo matchup, you should rather board (or even maindeck) Sphinx of lost Truths + FKZ/Iona. From my expierience that is a more reliable way to deal with that.

[Saff]

I've read through the most recent 5 pages and couldn't help but notice a complete lack of Leyline of Sanctity in any sideboards. Is there a consensus that has been reached on its playability in legacy? I'm very curious as it seems like a must have 4-of in the side.

It stops:
Tormod's Crypt
Bojuka Bog
Extipate
Faerie Macabre
The tap ability of Relic
Additional Burn to the face
TENDRILS FOR 20 TO THE DOME(something that is still an important consideration due to dredges combo matchup %)


Okay vs Crypt, Bojuka or burn/Tendrils it might be good. Extirpate, Faerie Macabre, Relic (except useless against dredge first ability) doesn't target player but his/her GY or cards in it.

[Digital Devil]

What about decks with Daze opening with turn one Relic of Progenitus? I guess DDD isn't an effective plan.

[Sintheros]

I'm going to be playing Dredge in a tournament this weekend, and my list currently looks fairly stock, like so....

Land (14)
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tarnished Citadel

Creatures (27)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame-Kin Zealot

Other (19)
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
3 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below

SB
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon

I always seem to run into bad draws though. I know that I could gain consistency by adding a 3rd Citadel, a 3rd or 4th Thug, or a 4th Ichorid, but nothing seems like it can be removed. And I'm always changing my sideboard around....

[Sunsatzu]

it seems that while maindecks have been sharpened to a t. my personal build for reference has 3 careful study, 3 dr, no targets, 3 thug/1 darkblast, and 3 ichorid/ 3 citadel. sideboards, however, still seem to be all around the place. so here is my personal guide on how i arrived at my own sideboard

Leyline of Sanctity is not a replacement for grudge/ray/claim, it replaces Unmask for the Charbelchar/Storm matchups as a speed-bump that doesnt cause you card disadvantage. however, i feel the slot is truly competing with Leyline of the Void since the slot is dedicated to either a nigh impossible matchup or the mirror. after testing both these matchups with and without their respective hate cards, i can honestly say that having ammo to combat the mirror is much more important. its not just that my meta is more dredge than storm, but because Void in the mirror has upped my win percentage more than Sanctity vs storm did by a wide margin. furthermore, ive found that i can get by with 3 Void as opposed to the necessary 4 Sanctity. thus my sb is currently-

3 Leyline of the Void
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
11 ?

Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus still see plenty of play even though they are no longer, perhaps never have been,the best forms of hate. Regardless, we must expect them in quantity especially vs the aggro decks. i started put playing 3 grudges, and they have always been enough as ive never really needed the fourth. also, it is not uncommon for aggro to straight up race us and get us to single digits before grave troll and gang hit the board. many people already play Ancestor's Chosen because of this, but im trying not to leave anything out. thus my sb is currently-

3 Leyline of the Void
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestor's Chosen
7 ?

I used to auto-include 4 Chain of Vapor like clockwork, but recently ive had trouble not just with my opponents recasting their Leylines (R/b goblins, WBG Junk, some Lands builds) but that Wheel of Sun & Moon has been discoved as possibly the best hate there is against us. its cheap, prevents dredge, and doesnt have to be in the opening hand. Ray of Revelation costs 2 and the odds of dredging what many run as a 1 of is really low. many like the relatively new Nature's Claim, but ive always wondered how often, if ever, id want it over Ancient Grudge. wouldnt Demistify serve the same role without giving our opponents 4 life? then i remembered there was a much better alternative and its name is Wispmare. it can even be dread returned and triggers our bridges when we evoke it. absolutely perfect. ill take 4 please. thus my sb is currently-

3 Leyline of the Void
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Wispmare
3 ?

There is the argument of Woodfall Primus vs Terastodon. Lets keep this simple for once. the choice will be boarded in for our worst, yet still winnable, matchups in Lands & Enchantress. there are multiple targets in Enchantress, and i see no reason to keep any Cabal Therapy in the md against Lands. Terastodon is the clear winner. thus my sb is currently-

3 Leyline of the Void
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Wispmare
1 Terastodon
2 ?

I knew that the last 2 slots would be dr targets so i set about testing those that others swore by. in games where you would want Sphinx of Lost Truths to come in with Zealot, Eternal Witness was just plain better. I also just love the fact i can get anything back, not just draw. I never liked Sadistic Hypnotist or Iona. I asked myself, "self, what matchup is causing me migraines?" I easily answered "Merfolk". There is lots of it, often has enough disruption + threats thanks to Standstill, and has one hell of an enemy in Llawan, Cephalid Empress. Llawan, backed by Ancient Grudge for Jitte/Relic. should spell endgame to the 'folk..

Final Sideboard

3 Leyline of the Void
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Wispmare
1 Terastodon
1 Eternal Witness
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

tune in tomorrow when i go over my personal sideboarding strategies...

[Izor]

What about decks with Daze opening with turn one Relic of Progenitus? I guess DDD isn't an effective plan.

That's true. Generally we can afford to DDD against most blue decks but if they have turn 1 relic it won't work. So you will have to try to resolve an outlet or you can't really win. Maybe you can back it up with Cabal Therapy.
The best solution here is Firestorm out of your Sideboard. As the discarding is a cost, it can't be countered and especially against merfolk etc it can win you games.

@ Sintheros:

Your list seems pretty solid in general. Nonetheless I think you should add a Dredger. 11 is a good number for cards you want to see in your opening hand and it will make your deck a bit more consistent. For the same reason you might want to add the 3rd Citadel. But then you will probably have to give up your Dread Return Targets. If you really want to keep them, cutting the 4th Careful Study is also viable.
Your sideboard looks quite good to me, in fact I don't think you will have to make major changes.

[HokusSchmokus]

I'm going to be playing Dredge in a tournament this weekend, and my list currently looks fairly stock, like so....

Land (14)
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tarnished Citadel

Creatures (27)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame-Kin Zealot

Other (19)
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
3 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below

SB
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon

I always seem to run into bad draws though. I know that I could gain consistency by adding a 3rd Citadel, a 3rd or 4th Thug, or a 4th Ichorid, but nothing seems like it can be removed. And I'm always changing my sideboard around....
Really? I think it's fairly easy what to remove. e.g. - 1 FKZ -1 Sphinx -1 DR +2 Thugs +1 Ichorid/Citadel...

Props on your Sideboard though. As I mentioned before, I find Iona completely unnessasary(is that how it's written?^^ )
If you really wanna run it, -1 Firestorm +1 Iona seems like the only viable change for me.

Also why Chain instead of Nature's Claim? A lot of reanimator in the meta?
Edit: Seriosly, why less then 4 Thugs? They are really THAT good, if used correctly. Even though I board 'em out a lot, at least 2 of them, you can pull off INSANE tricks with it.
I mean... Amoeba(s) in play, dredge thug->hardcast thug, now either
a) Multiple Therapies. Cast Therapy, Fb Therapy saccing Moeba, FB another Therapy sac Thug, Thug trigger-> moeba on top of bib and a whole lot of tokens.BOOOOM
b) Same with DR. FB DR saccing 2 moebas and a thug, get tokens, put moeba back on bib, evil grin-> opponent is a saaad panda as soon as he realises your amazingness.



@Sunsatzu: what neigh impossible matchup are you talking about?If you mean Reanimator, I find Chains viable, too.
Also, I don't like any Leylines because of what has been mentionend above. Void is certainly more viable then the other leylines though.
I just board Firestorm for the mirror though, and the all mighty elephant of frickin doom and destruction
The addition of the empress is kind of interesting btw. I can imagine using it myself in an Merfolk-heavy meta.
Instead of 1 Claim probably.Kudos for the idea!

[Sintheros]

This is going into an entire unknown meta, actually. I'm trying to cover as many bases as possible. Chain works better than Claim in any case that isn't Wheel of Sun and Moon, really. Sphinx/FKZ are generally for a speedy game 1 on the offchance they're combo, and then usually get removed.

Also, there's no reason to play Llawan over Iona. Iona wins more games, and Iona against Merfolk is just as GG as Llawan is.

[HokusSchmokus]

Unknown meta, then. Chain is worse against leyline, too btw.
Still, I don't understand running less then 4 Thugs. You really don't need Sphinx imo. Citadel's usually enough.
Also, IF they are combo, FKZ does not really help. Orim's Chant-> useless FKZ. I like Thug even more then, because Multiple Therapies with less drawback is always a good thing, but exspecially against combo.

edit:yeah dumb me. Iona's of course better then the empress...-.- doh.

[Sintheros]

Unknown meta, then. Chain is worse against leyline, too btw.
Still, I don't understand running less then 4 Thugs. You really don't need Sphinx imo. Citadel's usually enough.
Also, IF they are combo, FKZ does not really help. Orim's Chant-> useless FKZ

edit:yeah dumb me. Iona's of course better then the empress...-.- doh.

Then what, Claims over Chains....?

And how does Citadel replace Sphinx?

And what if I do fight Belcher or Reanimator? I'd have nothing to bring in.

[HokusSchmokus]

Oh. I mean Coliseum. Way too early around here, sorry.
If you need enchantment hate , definately Claim over Chain. Hatebears die to Firestorm, too, so no need for Chain.
If you expect a lot of Reanimator, you might wanna put chains over claims. but then again, a good reanimator player will just reanimate leviathan.
I would just race 'em nowadays. Leylines probably a solution, but no idea what to cut for it.

Belcher? Uhm...Therapies again? Terastodon + Ancestor's Chosen in SB is viable, too. Might even wanna side in Firestorm for those puny Goblins. But 2/2 Zombies -> 1/1 Goblins.

[Sintheros]

Oh. I mean Coliseum. Way too early around here, sorry.
If you need enchantment hate , definately Claim over Chain. Hatebears die to Firestorm, too, so no need for Chain.
If you expect a lot of Reanimator, you might wanna put chains over claims. but then again, a good reanimator player will just reanimate leviathan.
I would just race 'em nowadays. Leylines probably a solution, but no idea what to cut for it.

Belcher? Uhm...Therapies again? Terastodon + Ancestor's Chosen in SB is viable, too. Might even wanna side in Firestorm for those puny Goblins. But 2/2 Zombies -> 1/1 Goblins.

Coliseum you have to draw though, Sphinx you just run into.

[HokusSchmokus]

Coliseum you have to draw though, Sphinx you just run into.

Yeah, though it's quite common that you "run into" sphinx when you don't need her anymore. It does not help as much against difficult matchups as Thug would, imo.

[Mana Drain]

Well, it seems a consensus is closer to being reached. While I can't argue against the opinions, I can argue against the reasoning.


Most people just board Relics and Crypts. Running Grudge is a better answer. And I find that it's easier to beat Bogs, Traps (well these are even easier to beat), Crypts and Relics mostly by just casting draw spells.

I would not replace Grudges with Leyline of Sanctity. Just try sideboarding in Leyline and see how often you don't draw it.

First of all, how many draw spells are you running post-board? I run 4 BT and 4 CS MD, then always side the 4 BT out post-side. When I play CS, I'm generally looking for anti-hate to answer a piece of hate on the table, not looking to get blown out by a relic activation after CS resolves and the narc triggers go on stack. And how often do you have the abundance of rainbow mana g2 against decks with wasteland? What about the mana to pay for daze or spell pierce? Do you always have the therapy in grave with a dude to sac also? Maybe you draw 2 rainbow land hands all day and never play against permission backed up by waste, but I can't say the same for myself.

I do agree that grudge is effective against crypt and relic WHEN you dredge it to grave and WHEN you have the mana, but your still at a loss. You're still removing your grave. Undoing work that took you mana and cards to achieve and losing more dredgers and ichorids. This may not directly lose you the game, but it sure slows you down. My point is grudge doesn't stop crypt or relic at all. It just makes them pop it sooner.
Why not try and prevent most of that altogether? Why not prevent your opponent from popping crypt in the first place? Why not name some business spells with therapy instead of the safety rav-trap, relic, or crypt? Why waste mana and tempo for a temporary answer, but not a solution?


I totally agree with that.
The chance of having at least 1 Leyline of Sanctity in your opening hand postboard is less than 40% assuming a 7 card hand. After each mulligan it becomes even less. Given the fact that Dredge already has some fixed requirements for its opening hand (Discard outlet, Gold Land and Dredger) you will have to be really lucky.
Grudge can easily be dredged into, if you don't see it in your opening hand. And it gets rid of Relic.
Trap, Extirpate and Macabre can be stopped by a timely Cabal Therapy, which is already in your main deck.
Bojuka Bog can be hard if topdecked by your opponent but mostly it will enter the battlefield through Knight of the Reliquary or you see it in the graveyard before it gets Loamed back, so you can prepare for it. Also it has Sorcery speed.

And if you're concerned about the storm combo matchup, you should rather board (or even maindeck) Sphinx of lost Truths + FKZ/Iona. From my expierience that is a more reliable way to deal with that.

The argument you make regarding chances of LoS occurring in your opening hand can also be made against LotV, a card recent posts have said to be considered more valuable than LoS. I ask what matchups are relevant where LotV shines vs. what matchups are relevant where LoS shines.
Leyline of the Void is relevant in: Mirror (extremely, gamebreaking), Loam (relevant, but still have crusher and goyf), U/B reanimator (relevant, but still have show and tell), maybe U/G madness (a minor nuisance) and random jank that runs some slow, mana-intensive recursion/advantage engine.
Leyline of Sanctity is relevant in: almost any form of Combo (extremely), any deck that runs burn (Zoo, Sligh, janky burn), any jank Rock or black deck (having your discard outlet tossed by thoughtseize t1 can be ugly), and any deck that runs crypt, trap, or bog or the random wheel of sun and moon. Which is a lot of them.

Of those decks, which are you more likely to face in a large (30+ man) tournament? I exclude personal metagames because different card and even deck choices can be justified by the element of small scale tournaments and just knowing what the 15-20 people you constantly play with are using. If I were going to be playing in a GP tomorrow, I'd worry more about my Storm match FAR more than my mirror match.

Second, do you really have the time AND luck of the dredge to DR an Iona or Chosen against combo? We're not playing LED and Deep Analysis, so we don't have that kind of speed. I'm far more worried about whats in their hand and frankly don't always have 3 dudes, a DR, AND a target in the grave. I'd much rather the combo player answer MY cards through MY disruption than I would frantically dig through my deck to somehow make the stars align and DR the target I want all on Turn 3 at the latest. And that's if they don't have a LotV on their side that we have to answer.


Okay vs Crypt, Bojuka or burn/Tendrils it might be good. Extirpate, Faerie Macabre, Relic (except useless against dredge first ability) doesn't target player but his/her GY or cards in it.

This one I completely blew. I should start ReadingTFC.



Leyline of Sanctity is not a replacement for grudge/ray/claim, it replaces Unmask for the Charbelchar/Storm matchups as a speed-bump that doesnt cause you card disadvantage. however, i feel the slot is truly competing with Leyline of the Void since the slot is dedicated to either a nigh impossible matchup or the mirror. after testing both these matchups with and without their respective hate cards, i can honestly say that having ammo to combat the mirror is much more important. its not just that my meta is more dredge than storm, but because Void in the mirror has upped my win percentage more than Sanctity vs storm did by a wide margin. furthermore, ive found that i can get by with 3 Void as opposed to the necessary 4 Sanctity. thus my sb is currently-


I can't argue with the results you say you've had regarding LotV and dredge, but I completely disagree with not running a full set of whichever leyline you choose to run, and I must wonder what you are doing against the storm pilot with LoS on the table to lose, barring storm drawing chain of vapor plus raw gas. Coupled with unmask, therapy, and a possible DR on Iona if you can draw the game out long enough, LoS should go the distance. Many TES pilots I've played side out the ETW because anything short of a 6 Storm count after T3 is not going anywhere. That leaves them with the harder Tendrils route. Now they have to come up with atleat 8 storm plus a bounce spell all while dodging handrape.
Sometimes, yes, storm just does what it does and it doesn't matter what 75 you're running. More often than not, they're a beatable deck with proper siding.
Also, why would you run 3 of a card that has to be in your opening hand to be effective? Do you run it as a rare "Oops, I win"? Or do you plan on mulling like crazy against dredge only to lose your claims/chains and get blown out by THEIR LotV? I understand that the same argument can be made of LoS and Storm, but at the least, I run 4 of them to maximize my odds.

Everyone has their preferences when it comes to their local metagame and the hate that it runs. LoS is not meant to be a 4 card "answer-all-hate", and it never will be. Just a very powerful supplement and a great answer to an otherwise awful matchup. I typically side in 4 LoS and 4 Claim against everything but combo and Black. Cards that come out are usually a set of BT, an ichy, Some number of tribes, and a coliseum.
Combo is usually 4 LoS, 4 Unmask, and some number of claims/chains. I've found it to be quite effective against TES and ANT, although my testing against the Shelldrazi/DDFT hybrid is limited.

Different strokes I guess.

[HokusSchmokus]

The one point you make I completely cannot argue with is that you HAVE to run a full playset of whichever leyline you are running. Anything else is just not optimal.

But really, Leylines, doesn't matter which, reduce keepable hands down to a disastrous number.
Just going the handrape route might be better. So, Unmask is the card I prefer then. But this year I have yet to lose a Match against storm- and I don't run Unmask or Leyline.
Maybe it's just me, but for me Cabal Therapies + Dmg to make AN harder was enough every time to at least slow them down til I Terastodon their manabase +face or Ancestor's chosen shows up and saves the day.
Also, when I said LotV was more viable, I was actually referring to the matchups you stated. Sorry for not making my point more clear.
And do you really think you need the white Leyline against Zoo?

[Sintheros]

His point is that LoS does more than AG. All AG ever does is make them use their Crypt/Relic sooner. It'll still make you lose time and cards.

[HokusSchmokus]

His point is that LoS does more than AG. All AG ever does is make them use their Crypt/Relic sooner. It'll still make you lose time and cards.

Aye, but I would rather lose some cards and make them pop their crypt/ relic earlier than beeing immune to crypt but totally vulnurable to relic.
plus,grudge destroys tangle wires, ensaring bridges,aether vials and the like.

[Mana Drain]

You definitely don't need LoS, but I've found it to be a major clock reducer and safety cushion against Zoo. They don't run relics due to the tempo loss and the definite non-bo of relic grave-sweep and knight/goofy/lavamancer. So they usually side in 3ish crypts along with some number of swords and teegs if they run him. Teeg is usually ineffective, but does stop the DR>Troll route which is endgame against them after a therapy run. They always have a fast clock and put you low in life pretty quick, which is where I usually lose to zoo without a leyline due to a flurry of burn. If you get lower than 7 against the zoo deck, you have big problems. This match is where I wish I ran firestorm.

To be fair, siding in an enchantment against a deck with pridemage can backfire against you, allowing a sac outlet to remove bridges generally unavailable to them. But I worry more about the early game steppe lynx and nacatle beats more so than them timewalking themselves and maybe hitting a bridge. Plus they can just burn their used lavamancers or lynx if they really need to remove bridges.

Aside from my previous ramblings about the leyline, I've had another idea about an old favorite. I've been wondering whether 2-3 ray of revalations would be effective in the board against random stuff that just ruins our day. I haven't seen many rays in boards lately, with natures claim and Primus/Terastodon pretty much consuming the slots it used to have. With Saito's Folk list gaining popularity, the sided plagues from fish are straight murder when backed up by their never-ending supply of lords. Plague on horror or plague on zombie when staring down a couple fish lords makes it extremely hard to race them, and they have the counter backup to stop you from DRing something good. Even with 3 chains and 4 claims I find they are never in my hand or get countered by pierce/daze/force/cursecatcher. Sometimes you have to play a removal spell without discard reinforcement. I've been wondering if it may be worth the slots to put in a few rays, for extra hate. It will still be difficult to play/resolve, but it's extra removal for an already bad matchup.

Ray also is great against the worst dredge matchup possible: Enchantress. It will atleast give you some extra outs to grass/moat or let you blow a grove so you can claim/chain the aforementioned. Wispmare is another possibility, but I don't like running narrow cards that either can't be played from the grave or aren't EXTREMELY good at what they do. And anybody who thinks Primus/Terastodon is an out in this matchup is kidding themselves. Postboard enchantress will have at least 3 groundseals, stopping that plan cold.

Just an idea. Also great against the random Humility/Deed from landstill, but not like we need it against landstill.

[HokusSchmokus]

Extra Rays is a good idea. I usually find 1 Ray to be not nearly enough against enchantress.
I still don't know what to cut for it. Nature's Claim has proven itself many times against leyline.
This are the case where I wished I had a 17 card sideboard.

Any suggestions?

[Izor]

Generally I don't like either Leyline in my SB, mainly because it just forces you to mulligan much too often. You can expect to draw hands which you keep due to leyline, but then the rest of your hand is so bad that you can't do anything besides hiding behind the leyline. This is the problem with both Leylines.
Leyline otV is only really useful against Reanimator and to some extent in the mirror. In the mirror however you also have to expect an opposing leyline, so will you board 4 Leylines, and 4 Claims/Chains? Do you want to dilute the deck so much in a matchup where it's all about speed? I've made bad expieriences with that, so I dropped LotV. But I've actually won in the mirror without LotV, when I simply bounced the opposing leyline and went off fast, while my opponent was sitting at 2 dead Claims in his hand.

As for LoS I've not tested it enough, it's just the fact that it's a Leyline... I will test it again I guess. But only as an option against Combo, as it is definitely not as good as Grudge etc when it comes to antihate. Most people split Relic/Crypt, so Leyline won't save you.
Nonetheless I've always been happy with Sphinx + Iona to fight Storm combo decks. No storm Combo deck will get past turn 2 Iona and 1-2 Therapies in the process.

EDIT: I've always been running 1 Ray. Additional Rays may indeed be a good idea but I don't know what to cut either. I want to keep Grudges, Firestorms, Chosen, Terastodon and Claims/Chains.

[Sunsatzu]

But really, Leylines, doesn't matter which, reduce keepable hands down to a disastrous number.Just going the handrape route might be better. So, Unmask is the card I prefer then. But this year I have yet to lose a Match against storm- and I don't run Unmask or Leyline.
Maybe it's just me, but for me Cabal Therapies + Dmg to make AN harder was enough every time to at least slow them down til I Terastodon their manabase +face or Ancestor's chosen shows up and saves the day.
Also, when I said LotV was more viable, I was actually referring to the matchups you stated. Sorry for not making my point more clear.

yesterday's tournament had no dredge decks, so i took out the LotV's. i went around and discovered there to be 2 TES, 1 Hypergenisis, and 1 Survival. i was going to run 3 Unmask, but i hate the inherent card disadvantage so i went with Duress and was not dissapointed. i drew with the first TES instead of winning due to of all things not playing a land on turn 3 so i could DDD. i ended up hardcasting a Dread Return on a Purtrid Imp. 1 turn sooner would have won me the game and match. i beat the second TES thru double Duress by having a Duress and therapy of my own to wreck his hand(he had targeted my draw spells) FKZ ftw! i will definately consider leaving the Duress in my sb.

i continue to stand by my choice of Wispmare over Chain/Claim/Ray and will never change back

Ancient Grudge is a workhorse, never leave home without them

[Sintheros]

yesterday's tournament had no dredge decks, so i took out the LotV's. i went around and discovered there to be 2 TES, 1 Hypergenisis, and 1 Survival. i was going to run 3 Unmask, but i hate the inherent card disadvantage so i went with Duress and was not dissapointed. i drew with the first TES instead of winning due to of all things not playing a land on turn 3 so i could DDD. i ended up hardcasting a Dread Return on a Purtrid Imp. 1 turn sooner would have won me the game and match. i beat the second TES thru double Duress by having a Duress and therapy of my own to wreck his hand(he had targeted my draw spells) FKZ ftw! i will definately consider leaving the Duress in my sb.

i continue to stand by my choice of Wispmare over Chain/Claim/Ray and will never change back

Ancient Grudge is a workhorse, never leave home without them

What were you using Grudges on that wasn't responded with by eating your GY?

[Sunsatzu]

Ancient Grudge forces them to exile my graveyard on my terms, same as playing Darkblast on a Cursecatcher.

decks that commonly run crypt/relic

zoo
merfolk
blue-based control
most other aggro decks

in other words, decks where we are either favored or 50/50

against any of these decks, the Ichorid->zombie tokens plan shines, and we only need 1 bridge and ichorid to do this while we wait to draw either breakthrough or cephalid coliseum to 'go off', usually getting Ancestor's Chosen, though i like to hedge my fish'ing bets with a Llawan too.

u do not and should not blindly continue to dredge away in the face of known hate lurking somewhere in thier deck

[Sintheros]

merfolk


I'm sorry, did you just call merfolk a favored matchup? Are you mad?

Also, Iona > Llawan. Iona is just as much GG to fish as Llawan is, and can be used against other decks.

[Saff]

I'm sorry, did you just call merfolk a favored matchup? Are you mad?

Also, Iona > Llawan. Iona is just as much GG to fish as Llawan is, and can be used against other decks.
Imo Llawan > Iona. Iona just force him not to play U spells. Llawan bounces all his awful creatures and don't let them go back w/o Vial.


What were you using Grudges on that wasn't responded with by eating your GY?
What about Painter? And killing Pinter's Servants to slow them?

[Sunsatzu]

i call it 50/50 like i infered, and Iona does nothing against a hoard of present merfolk or an AEther Vial. my friends tell me to just DR Ancestor's Chosen, but im not always guaranteed to have that many cards in the yard if 'folk plays correctly.

in every matchup where Iona is useful ...

storm- FKZ > Iona

merfolk- Llawan > Iona

lands- Iona still gets got by Maze of Ith

mirror- Witness/Sphinx->FKZ > Iona

now i dont play Iona, and i could be missing some things, but it seems that she is outclassed in each instance

[Saff]

Witness
I don't get it ;s What would you bring back to your hand with it? I'm just confused and I think this is unnecessary.

[Sintheros]

Imo Llawan > Iona. Iona just force him not to play U spells. Llawan bounces all his awful creatures and don't let them go back w/o Vial.


What about Painter? And killing Pinter's Servants to slow them?

You know that Painter's can't actually beat this deck, if they mill our library it just enables us to win the following turn with no effort.

[Sunsatzu]

I don't get it ;s What would you bring back to your hand with it? I'm just confused and I think this is unnecessary.

Breakthrough/Cephalid Coliseum + plus has applications in other MU's that make it more versatile than Sphinx

[Saff]

You know that Painter's can't actually beat this deck, if they mill our library it just enables us to win the following turn with no effort.

Um? You're wrong? If you can't dredge cards because you don't have any left in your library you lose the game. It works similiar if you can't draw a card.

[Mana Drain]

i call it 50/50 like i infered, and Iona does nothing against a hoard of present merfolk or an AEther Vial. my friends tell me to just DR Ancestor's Chosen, but im not always guaranteed to have that many cards in the yard if 'folk plays correctly.

in every matchup where Iona is useful ...

storm- FKZ > Iona

merfolk- Llawan > Iona

lands- Iona still gets got by Maze of Ith

mirror- Witness/Sphinx->FKZ > Iona

now i dont play Iona, and i could be missing some things, but it seems that she is outclassed in each instance



Imo Llawan > Iona. Iona just force him not to play U spells. Llawan bounces all his awful creatures and don't let them go back w/o Vial.


What about Painter? And killing Pinter's Servants to slow them?


I totally agree that llawan is better against fish than any other DR target. The bigger question is: how often are you are you DRing your llawan/iona/FKZ/whatever against folk anyway? DR needs to be in the grave(all folk lists run atleast 3 crypt/relic), you need at least 3 dudes on board (Uw fish has swords/path, Ub fish has plague), you need your choice of big dude in the grave (crypt and relic yet again), AND you need your DR to not get countered in the process. In my experience, all these stars don't align very often. In the rare case they do, I'm either A. Already winning and DR is just winmore or B. A GGT would be just as sufficient as a special target to get the job done.

Llawan is awesome against fish, no question. But I think of DR as more of a Coup-de-Grace against fish, and more or less any aggro deck. If it gets countered your generally out a turn of tempo and possibly a couple zombie tokens. I'd much rather run grudges/rays/wispmares/needles than I would any special DR target post side. Especially considering even monoU folk lists run some type of bounce in the side (e.g. Echoing Truth).

Regarding Iona as a MD DR target, this is a matter of personal preference. Whatever you decide as your DR target is simply a matter of what you believe to be best against the field you're facing. I like Iona simply as a 3 turn flying clock, who either protects herself, or prevents your opponent from furthering their own game plan. She's more an all-around good fattie who is a good plan B rather than a special or circumstantial (like FKZ requiring 6-7 other zombies in play) gamebreaker.

Nobody plays painterstone combo. In the rare case you are playing someone with it, remember that they can't win until a minimum t3-t4 with the nut hand and you drawing NO disruption. Post-side, they are diluting their own combo with hate cards that are easily predictable (you know they will be running crypt/relic due to the trinket mage). Painterstone combo is the last combo/control deck you should be worring about. NO Bant has a much scarier Hydra that can come down on t3 giving them an unstoppable 2 turn clock backed up by efficient beaters and permission.

[Izor]

in every matchup where Iona is useful ...

storm- FKZ > Iona

merfolk- Llawan > Iona

lands- Iona still gets got by Maze of Ith

mirror- Witness/Sphinx->FKZ > Iona

now i dont play Iona, and i could be missing some things, but it seems that she is outclassed in each instance

I think you are getting some thing a bit wrong: This is how I see it (based on a lot of playtesting):

Storm: If you are also running Sphinx of lost truths, then yes, FKZ is better than Iona. If not, he isn't. You may say it's better to kill your foe instead of locking him out of a color. That's true. The problem is that FKZ will practically never e able to kill turn 2. Iona will hit the table, which is already enough. FKZ needs at least 3 creatures and 2 Bridges. Iona requires less. 2nd turn Iona is actually as good as than 3rd turn FKZ, so they're pretty even in this matchup.

Merfolk: Llawan bounces, that's right. But even if 2 or 3 merfolks are in play Iona is a 7/7 flyer, so they can't just attack you. Also Iona locks all non-creatre spells. You'll be very glad if your opponent can't cast FoW, Echoing Truth etc. Llawan buys some time. Iona kills in 3 turns. So for me Iona>Llawan.

Lands: Well, we are not afraid of Maze. We are afraid of Glacial Chasm locks. Iona is very capable of stopping that, especially with the help of Terastodon.

Mirror: Here it's really hard to say anything. Each DR Target can help here but none will win you the game. Locking your foe out of black will definitely help. But digging your library faster with Sphinx etc also can.

I don't say that Iona is the best target we have and that everyone should play it. But there can be no doubt that she is always a strong option. Sometimes she can win games ,sometimes she's unnecessary. The main thing I like about her is her independence. She doesn't need Bridges or Sphinx to be effective.
These were only my 2 cents.

[HokusSchmokus]

I'm just remembering something somebody said a few pages ago. About the merfolk matchup and the "hate-card" cursecatcher...

For the merfolk player to sac cursecatcher, HE HAS TO HAVE A TARGET.
you can't just sac cursecatcher as you like.and a lot of merfolk players don't know this.

[Mandalore]

I'm just remembering something somebody said a few pages ago. About the merfolk matchup and the "hate-card" cursecatcher...

For the merfolk player to sac cursecatcher, HE HAS TO HAVE A TARGET.
you can't just sac cursecatcher as you like.and a lot of merfolk players don't know this.

Well, they have a target indeed.
Careful study,breakthrough,cabal therapy and dread return just to mention something.
Of course you have to cast them in order to "give" catcher a legal target, but if you're able to win against merfolk always without casting spells you're some kind of superior entity blessed dredge-man.

The truth is that idiot 1/1 fish can blow up bridges quite too often....

[Sunsatzu]

I totally agree that llawan is better against fish than any other DR target. The bigger question is: how often are you are you DRing your llawan/iona/FKZ/whatever against folk anyway? DR needs to be in the grave(all folk lists run atleast 3 crypt/relic), you need at least 3 dudes on board (Uw fish has swords/path, Ub fish has plague), you need your choice of big dude in the grave (crypt and relic yet again), AND you need your DR to not get countered in the process. In my experience, all these stars don't align very often. In the rare case they do, I'm either A. Already winning and DR is just winmore or B. A GGT would be just as sufficient as a special target to get the job done.

Llawan is awesome against fish, no question. But I think of DR as more of a Coup-de-Grace against fish, and more or less any aggro deck. If it gets countered your generally out a turn of tempo and possibly a couple zombie tokens. I'd much rather run grudges/rays/wispmares/needles than I would any special DR target post side. Especially considering even monoU folk lists run some type of bounce in the side (e.g. Echoing Truth).

Regarding Iona as a MD DR target, this is a matter of personal preference. Whatever you decide as your DR target is simply a matter of what you believe to be best against the field you're facing. I like Iona simply as a 3 turn flying clock, who either protects herself, or prevents your opponent from furthering their own game plan. She's more an all-around good fattie who is a good plan B rather than a special or circumstantial (like FKZ requiring 6-7 other zombies in play) gamebreaker.

i like to think myself as open-minded and i always try everything i can as a possible SB card. i was discussing my own sb with a certain expert dredge player, and he pointed out that you indeed need only to resolve a DR to win againt merfolk, and that either GGT or Chosen gets it done. I have therefore removed Llawan based upon his word and experience. I then discovered that my falling in love with Wispmare means that i now lose to Lands since i dont have CoV to eot remove their crypt before i 'go off'. as much as i have dissed Nature's Claim, i will now run it in place of Wispmare. kudos to those to saw this when i didnt and shame on you for not telling me ;-p

p.s. i now run 2 Duress in the place of Llawan and Witness for the Storm and Merfolk mu's

[Wakkarr]

p.s. i now run 2 Duress in the place of Llawan and Witness for the Storm and Merfolk mu's

Thoughtseize is probably a better option, as it allows you to hit Cursecatchers and also acts as a discard outlet if you really need one (target yourself to pitch a Dredge creature).

[Sintheros]

Ah, I have no idea what to do with my SB...

Currently...

4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor (swap for Nature's Claim to hit Wheel of Sun and Moon/Ghostly Prison?)
3 Firestorm
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon
1 Iona

I really want black leylines in here as a metagame choice, Dredge and Vengevine Survival are popular here from what I've heard, but I honestly have no idea if that's true.

Perhaps...

3 Ancient Grudge
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon
1 Iona

[Izor]

Ah, I have no idea what to do with my SB...

Currently...

4 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain of Vapor (swap for Nature's Claim to hit Wheel of Sun and Moon/Ghostly Prison?)
3 Firestorm
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon
1 Iona

I really want black leylines in here as a metagame choice, Dredge and Vengevine Survival are popular here from what I've heard, but I honestly have no idea if that's true.

Perhaps...

3 Ancient Grudge
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Terastodon
1 Iona

My expierience also showed me that if you really need to run a set of Leylines as a metagame choice, I'll usually have to drop the Firestorms. 4 Grudges, 4 Claims/Chains, Terastodon/Woodfall, Chosen seem too important to cut and a SB can work without Firestorms.

But without Firestorms you will probably have to run Chain of Vapor over Nature's Claims. The reason is Yixlid Jailer. While it doesn't see much play, it will be plain GG once it hits the table. And I've especially seen some Survival lists, which can tutor it up as a singleton after boarding. Without Firestorms, Chains are your only answer. Also Chains are not that much worse against problematic Enchantments: As for Prison, it will be enough to just bounce it, as you will probably win the same turn. Leyline, Wheel etc can also be handled quite well, as you will usually bounce them EOT and go off in your turn. This will usually mean that you can Therapy it away if necessary.

Then, with Claim gone, I think you should run the full set of Grudges again (I'd actually never cut them). This will mean that you'll have to drop either Iona or Ray.

[Sunsatzu]

My expierience also showed me that if you really need to run a set of Leylines as a metagame choice, I'll usually have to drop the Firestorms. 4 Grudges, 4 Claims/Chains, Terastodon/Woodfall, Chosen seem too important to cut and a SB can work without Firestorms.

But without Firestorms you will probably have to run Chain of Vapor over Nature's Claims. The reason is Yixlid Jailer. While it doesn't see much play, it will be plain GG once it hits the table. And I've especially seen some Survival lists, which can tutor it up as a singleton after boarding. Without Firestorms, Chains are your only answer. Also Chains are not that much worse against problematic Enchantments: As for Prison, it will be enough to just bounce it, as you will probably win the same turn. Leyline, Wheel etc can also be handled quite well, as you will usually bounce them EOT and go off in your turn. This will usually mean that you can Therapy it away if necessary.

Then, with Claim gone, I think you should run the full set of Grudges again (I'd actually never cut them). This will mean that you'll have to drop either Iona or Ray.

i agree with having only one of either graveyard or aggro hate. but i believe that with Reanimator gone we can switch over to Ravenous Trap, which we wouldnt need but 3 imo. it also helps against Lands if they ever find Glacial Chasm via Intuition/Loam, though i am having difficulties fitting them in. and for those of u who think of Cabal Therapy'ing me for Trap in the mirror, i want to know why u even left therapy in after sb.

i run 1 Darkblast in the md for Yixlid Jailer, which ive never seen in a tournament myself ; helps with Cursecatchers too.

@ Wakkar
i would rather therapy myself than thoughtseize, and as i just stated i can kill the Cursecatchers easily. think on this, if they ever draw Cursecatcher, they are just going to play it straight away anyway over anything else they might have in hand. heck, if i even think that my opponent is blue, i do not hesitate to play therapy naming Cursecatcher.

[Sintheros]

Meh, 2-4. There were 8 or 9 Dredge players in the 53 man tournament and I fought none of them. What I did fight were both Belcher and ANT with no Mindbreak Traps to side in.

Round 1: 1-2 vs Fish (+Ancient Grudges)
Round 2: 0-2 vs Belcher (Wishing I had Mindbreaks)
Round 3: 2-0 vs Goblins (+Ancient Grudges, Ancestor's Chosen, Iona)
Round 4: 2-0 vs Burn (+Ancient Grudges, Ancestor's Chosen, Iona)
Round 5: 1-2 vs ANT (See Belcher)
Round 6: 1-2 vs Fae/Goyf/some weird thing (+Nature's Claims, Ray of Revelation, Terastodon)

Land
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tarnished Citadel

Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths

Other
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
3 Dread Return

SB
4 Leyline of the Void (Would have fared better as Mindbreak Traps)
4 Nature's Claim
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastodon

[Izor]

i agree with having only one of either graveyard or aggro hate. but i believe that with Reanimator gone we can switch over to Ravenous Trap, which we wouldnt need but 3 imo. it also helps against Lands if they ever find Glacial Chasm via Intuition/Loam, though i am having difficulties fitting them in. and for those of u who think of Cabal Therapy'ing me for Trap in the mirror, i want to know why u even left therapy in after sb.

i run 1 Darkblast in the md for Yixlid Jailer, which ive never seen in a tournament myself ; helps with Cursecatchers too.

@ Wakkar
i would rather therapy myself than thoughtseize, and as i just stated i can kill the Cursecatchers easily. think on this, if they ever draw Cursecatcher, they are just going to play it straight away anyway over anything else they might have in hand. heck, if i even think that my opponent is blue, i do not hesitate to play therapy naming Cursecatcher.

The problem with trap is that you'll have to keep it in your hand. So no Breakthrough X=0 for example. Also, why not Crypt over Trap? In the mirror they won't keep Therapies in. But they won't board grudges as well. Anyway if you really need Gravehate I think Leyline is the best option for us.

As for the Drarkblast, I think 1 copy of it won't ever stop Jailer. You'll not have it in your opening hand and dredging into it is impossible...

[HokusSchmokus]

Went 2-2 on Saturday in a small local tourney.
I totally raped Merfolk and Goblins ( note: I don't run Iona or the like and they were not needed at all)
Lost against the almighty all-time favourite deck of mine, FaerieNinjaStill (UW Fish with Sprites, Clouds, Ninja o.t. Deep Hours, Mistblade Shinobi and the Matchwinner Aven Mimeomancer
Also he didn't run hate artifacts, he ran propaganda and meddling mage...-.-
2nd loss against Enchantress.
First game I can't do anything. As usual. Second game I'm way too fast for him.(Terastodon on Sanctum, Forest, Sterling grove into Flashbacked ray on confinement ftw!).
Third game I make the mistake of having lethal on the board, 2 Therapies in GY but decide not to therapy him because he has 1 card left and I thought it could'nt be Replenish...well...it was... .__.

edit: baaaad english.way too early.

[Sunsatzu]

i went to a legacy tourny the other day.....and forgot my deck at home....*frown*

luckily, a friend of mine had a dredge deck to loan, though way different from mine

for reference

1 tarnished, 4 ichorid, burning inquiry over careful study, and the sphinx/zealot combo in the md

sb:
4 Ravenous Trap
4 Wispmare
3 Pithing Needle
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Duress
1 Iona

Round 1: against the friend who loaned me the deck with Zoo

Game 1: i open with 2x Narcomoeba, 2x Breakthrough, 2 lands and a DR..theres no dredge and i despise double narc hands. so i mull...all the way to 3 and get stomped.

Game 2: i keep a six with no dredge buts lots of draw. he play turn 2 Teeg and i see 20 cards over the course of the game but no dredge =(

0-1

Round 2: *bye*

its swiss+1 so i figure i cant place..."this sucks"

1-1

Round 3: TES

Game 1:
this mu seems to have gotten better since the banning of mystical imo. i have therapy in my opener so i keep and he mulls to 6. i open with therapy on LED and see mana+wish. he passes the turn and i flashback to nab the wish, he never draws anymore business as i beat down with Tribe+Ichorid.

side: -3 burning inquiry, +2 duress +1 iona

Game 2:
so its turn 3 and ive double therapied him and flashbackes one of of them. im at 5 cards with a dredge ive just drawn and a zombie token in play. i decide to not play a third land so as to discard and dredge in a few turns. i then proceed to draw land #4 and i realize i could have hardcasted my DR on my dead imp,and flashbacked therapy to put him on a 4 turn clock. i end up losing with him at 2 life as he topdecks - chant, chant, infernal to win.

Game 3:
at this point we have 3 min left, but with discard on both sides its a draw

1-1-1

Round 4: TES

Game 1:
this goes perfect-turn 1 therapy, turn 2 flashback therapy, turn 3 breakthrough and DR zealot for game

Game 2:
starts off with my hand being- duress, therapy, 2x breakthrough, 2x land, stinkweed. my oppo duress's me, taking a therapy. i draw therapy and play duress taking wish i think, and he draws duress taking a breakthrough. i think he chose his targets badly as i quickly got there with iona and zealot on the next turn.

2-1-1

Round 5: Mono-Blue CounterFaeries?

Game 1:
i DDD a grave troll into 3 bridges, discard ichorid and mow him down with zombies.

sb: -3 burning inquiry -1 ichorid -1 thug -1 sphinx -1 zealot, +3 needle +1 grudge +2 duress +1 iona

Game 2:
i open with therapy to see 5 lands, repeal, spell snare........ i win despite grudge'ing a relic he draws

so i finish 3-1-1 and am amazed that i got 4th out of 15 people. win a Jitte and am happy. =)

[justindz]

Hello. I played my first ever Legacy event on Sunday. I took my Dredge deck. I ended up 2-3 (posted report on my blog, http://justindz.tumblr.com if you want to read the full thing and make fun of my misplays) but felt like I mostly handled the deck well, played to my outs and lost matches genuinely where I did. Both of my wins were 2-0s. One was against a guy who was 4th place at GenCon apparently and the other was against someone with over 2000 rating playing the mirror on the draw. I had a few questions and comments, if you pros would indulge me:

1 - Against Merfolk, if you side pithing needles, is it appropriate to needle Cursecatcher before worrying about Crypts they bring in? Also, I played against the Standstill variant and felt that it was much harder than the all-Lord version would have been. Am I probably correct?

2 - Against New Horizons, I brought in Needles and a few Grudges. I didn't get to use a Needle, but I assume that it's correct to needle KotR to prevent them from fetching Bog? I figured this out after the fact, but wanted to check (luckily, 2-0'd the guy anyway). I suppose they don't use Crypt or Relic since both work against their Terravores (and one against the KotR).

3 - Dark Blast is so good. I boarded them in over Golgari Thug in most matches since I didn't play against any control or combo (other than the mirror). They are also awesome in the Dredge match for torching the other player's Bridges really easily.

4 - Yixlid Jailer is getting more popular, thanks to UG Madness. Watch out for that. Incidentally, it's another reason that Dark Blast is good. I played against a deck with main board Yixlid Jailer, Jotun Grunt and Ethersworn Canonist which basically just boarded in more Jailers. Ow. I luckily went 1-2 by combo'ing out brutally in the second game.

5 - If a token dies, it hits the GY and is exiled by game state rules or something like that, right? I'm fairly sure that killing an opponent's tokens still nukes your bridges.

Thanks in advance!

[sa17dk]

So I have a question about sideboarding and Careful Study.

While Careful Study seems to be the weakest card pre-board, I've been testing siding out Breakthrough instead of Careful Study for games 2 and 3. I've found that I never want to go balls to the wall with Breakthrough if I'm slow-dredging and fighting Relic/Crypt. Of course I dont have to dredge all 4 draws, but I still have to empty my hand (I usually am only able cast it for 0 or 1 at most, since I have 2 lands out on average and one of them always ends up getting Wasteland'd or spent on casting Tribe/Imp).

If I'm only siding in Ancient Grudge and Terastodon I guess Breakthrough would be better for finding them. But if I start boarding in cards like Nature's Claim and Firestorm, I'll obviously want to actually have them in my hand rather than discarding them to Breakthrough immediately. Not to mention the fact that often times I'll want to save a dredger and perhaps a bridge in my hand so that I can quickly recover after they nuke my graveyard, which is easier to do with Careful Study.

[HokusSchmokus]

i agree with having only one of either graveyard or aggro hate. but i believe that with Reanimator gone we can switch over to Ravenous Trap, which we wouldnt need but 3 imo. it also helps against Lands if they ever find Glacial Chasm via Intuition/Loam, though i am having difficulties fitting them in. and for those of u who think of Cabal Therapy'ing me for Trap in the mirror, i want to know why u even left therapy in after sb.

i run 1 Darkblast in the md for Yixlid Jailer, which ive never seen in a tournament myself ; helps with Cursecatchers too.

@ Wakkar
i would rather therapy myself than thoughtseize, and as i just stated i can kill the Cursecatchers easily. think on this, if they ever draw Cursecatcher, they are just going to play it straight away anyway over anything else they might have in hand. heck, if i even think that my opponent is blue, i do not hesitate to play therapy naming Cursecatcher.
Firestorm stops hatebears like jailer pretty good, actually.
And Sintheros: If you ask me, if you want to play 4 grudges again,I would cut Iona^^



So I have a question about sideboarding and Careful Study.

While Careful Study seems to be the weakest card pre-board, I've been testing siding out Breakthrough instead of Careful Study for games 2 and 3. I've found that I never want to go balls to the wall with Breakthrough if I'm slow-dredging and fighting Relic/Crypt. Of course I dont have to dredge all 4 draws, but I still have to empty my hand (I usually am only able cast it for 0 or 1 at most, since I have 2 lands out on average and one of them always ends up getting Wasteland'd or spent on casting Tribe/Imp).

If I'm only siding in Ancient Grudge and Terastodon I guess Breakthrough would be better for finding them. But if I start boarding in cards like Nature's Claim and Firestorm, I'll obviously want to actually have them in my hand rather than discarding them to Breakthrough immediately. Not to mention the fact that often times I'll want to save a dredger and perhaps a bridge in my hand so that I can quickly recover after they nuke my graveyard, which is easier to do with Careful Study.

I am usually pleased with siding out Studies 1:1 with Firestorm. Breakthrough just does so much BOOOOM in opponent's face.


Hello. I played my first ever Legacy event on Sunday. I took my Dredge deck. I ended up 2-3 (posted report on my blog, http://justindz.tumblr.com if you want to read the full thing and make fun of my misplays) but felt like I mostly handled the deck well, played to my outs and lost matches genuinely where I did. Both of my wins were 2-0s. One was against a guy who was 4th place at GenCon apparently and the other was against someone with over 2000 rating playing the mirror on the draw. I had a few questions and comments, if you pros would indulge me:

1 - Against Merfolk, if you side pithing needles, is it appropriate to needle Cursecatcher before worrying about Crypts they bring in? Also, I played against the Standstill variant and felt that it was much harder than the all-Lord version would have been. Am I probably correct?

2 - Against New Horizons, I brought in Needles and a few Grudges. I didn't get to use a Needle, but I assume that it's correct to needle KotR to prevent them from fetching Bog? I figured this out after the fact, but wanted to check (luckily, 2-0'd the guy anyway). I suppose they don't use Crypt or Relic since both work against their Terravores (and one against the KotR).

3 - Dark Blast is so good. I boarded them in over Golgari Thug in most matches since I didn't play against any control or combo (other than the mirror). They are also awesome in the Dredge match for torching the other player's Bridges really easily.

4 - Yixlid Jailer is getting more popular, thanks to UG Madness. Watch out for that. Incidentally, it's another reason that Dark Blast is good. I played against a deck with main board Yixlid Jailer, Jotun Grunt and Ethersworn Canonist which basically just boarded in more Jailers. Ow. I luckily went 1-2 by combo'ing out brutally in the second game.

5 - If a token dies, it hits the GY and is exiled by game state rules or something like that, right? I'm fairly sure that killing an opponent's tokens still nukes your bridges.

Thanks in advance!

So...these are my opinions:
1. uhm...what's all the fuzz about cursecatcher? they cannot just sac it at will. they have to have a target.get enough zombies, then play spells.it's as easy.
2. I think needling KoTR is not a bad Idea. But as far as I remember they DO use crypts, so that has to be taken care of as well.
But with needle on KotR you don't just prevent bog, you slow them down quite a bit, too. And Wastelock gets harder.
3. I am a HUGE fan of darkblast....in vintage dredge. Do you really think it's needed? Most of the time, Firestorm does the trick (at least that's my experiance)
4. Again , Firestorm. Or Chain of Vapor over Claim, if it's really the trend.
5. Bridge from Below As it says on the card: If a Non-Tokenyou control dies, it nets you a token. If either a non-token or a token creatureyour opponents control dies, Bridges are blown up.
NOTE THAT THIS DOES GO ON THE STACK SO IF YOU RUN INTO A BLOCK AND THE BLOCKER DIES OR STH. YOU STILL GET TOKENS

[justindz]

Thanks. I probably played the Merfolk match incorrectly. As I said, I'd never played Dredge before and only had a relatively theoretical knowledge of what I should be doing in this match in particular. Appreciate the advice!

[HokusSchmokus]

Keep in mind that merfolk is still not an easy matchup. I just don't think it's the cursecatchers you have to worry about.

[Sunsatzu]

So I have a question about sideboarding and Careful Study.

While Careful Study seems to be the weakest card pre-board, I've been testing siding out Breakthrough instead of Careful Study for games 2 and 3. I've found that I never want to go balls to the wall with Breakthrough if I'm slow-dredging and fighting Relic/Crypt. Of course I dont have to dredge all 4 draws, but I still have to empty my hand (I usually am only able cast it for 0 or 1 at most, since I have 2 lands out on average and one of them always ends up getting Wasteland'd or spent on casting Tribe/Imp).

If I'm only siding in Ancient Grudge and Terastodon I guess Breakthrough would be better for finding them. But if I start boarding in cards like Nature's Claim and Firestorm, I'll obviously want to actually have them in my hand rather than discarding them to Breakthrough immediately. Not to mention the fact that often times I'll want to save a dredger and perhaps a bridge in my hand so that I can quickly recover after they nuke my graveyard, which is easier to do with Careful Study.

im not sure why you're siding in Terastodon instead of Ancestor's Chosen (i like my lands tyvm), DR on Chosen/GGT means u should win the race anyway. Chosen especially helps when you're getting beat down by Coralhelm.
against merfolk i side +3 Ancient Grudge, +1 Ancestor's Chosen; -3 Careful Study, -1 Golgari Thug

heres what i do against merfolk post board. if they go turn 1-2 Relic, i resolve a dude(any dude), therapy myself for a dredge'r/Grudge. this forces them to pop relic instead of tapping it (ofcourse they could have counter backup) u can then start dredging normally (or DDD) and it turns into a pre-board game for the most part. if they dont start early Relic i do try to DDD just like first game before i try resolving any spells.

@ justindz
i dont mind them playing Standstill, if you're dredging, just stop casting spells and either cast therapy or make them pop it. its only really any good if its early after an AEther Vial has been played.

[sa17dk]

im not sure why you're siding in Terastodon instead of Ancestor's Chosen (i like my lands tyvm), DR on Chosen/GGT means u should win the race anyway. Chosen especially helps when you're getting beat down by Coralhelm.
against merfolk i side +3 Ancient Grudge, +1 Ancestor's Chosen; -3 Careful Study, -1 Golgari Thug

I'm not sure how you play Terastodon but I never use him to turn my lands into 3/3 creatures. Its there for problematic permanents, not for racing purposes.

And I wasnt even referring to the aggro/merfolk matchup. I dont know why you brought up Ancestor's Chosen at all.

My point was that I've been having an easier time being able to find and actually use non-flashback sideboard cards such as Nature's Claim/Chain of Vapor and Firestorm with Careful Study.

[justindz]

He had t1 AEther Vial and t2 Standstill every time, if I remember correctly and each time I popped Standstill, he drew in to a Force and another Standstill. I was unable to resolve any Breakthrough or Dread Return. I may have played fine and he just had the perfect sequence each time.

[lotriderm]

He had t1 AEther Vial and t2 Standstill every time, if I remember correctly and each time I popped Standstill, he drew in to a Force and another Standstill. I was unable to resolve any Breakthrough or Dread Return. I may have played fine and he just had the perfect sequence each time.

Ehhh, shit happens. Most of the time, Standstill ends up being a liability for them.

[(nameless one)]

Whats the Sphinx/Zealot combo that Sunstazu mentioned?

[Nidd]

Whats the Sphinx/Zealot combo that Sunstazu mentioned?
DR Sphinx, dredge half your deck, find Zealot, win.

[Sunsatzu]

So I have a question about sideboarding and Careful Study.

While Careful Study seems to be the weakest card pre-board, I've been testing siding out Breakthrough instead of Careful Study for games 2 and 3. I've found that I never want to go balls to the wall with Breakthrough if I'm slow-dredging and fighting Relic/Crypt. Of course I dont have to dredge all 4 draws, but I still have to empty my hand (I usually am only able cast it for 0 or 1 at most, since I have 2 lands out on average and one of them always ends up getting Wasteland'd or spent on casting Tribe/Imp).

If I'm only siding in Ancient Grudge and Terastodon I guess Breakthrough would be better for finding them. But if I start boarding in cards like Nature's Claim and Firestorm, I'll obviously want to actually have them in my hand rather than discarding them to Breakthrough immediately. Not to mention the fact that often times I'll want to save a dredger and perhaps a bridge in my hand so that I can quickly recover after they nuke my graveyard, which is easier to do with Careful Study.

when i read this, we had been talking about fish for awhile. all your comments made sense to me if u were talking about fish, so thats why i assumed u were.

Careful Study is indeed often 'weak', but only against blue decks. i side out 1-4 Therapy vs non-blue aggro and Lands. i side out Tribe vs storm decks. these are just examples.

[sunshine]

So I have a question about sideboarding and Careful Study.

While Careful Study seems to be the weakest card pre-board, I've been testing siding out Breakthrough instead of Careful Study for games 2 and 3. I've found that I never want to go balls to the wall with Breakthrough if I'm slow-dredging and fighting Relic/Crypt. Of course I dont have to dredge all 4 draws, but I still have to empty my hand (I usually am only able cast it for 0 or 1 at most, since I have 2 lands out on average and one of them always ends up getting Wasteland'd or spent on casting Tribe/Imp).

If I'm only siding in Ancient Grudge and Terastodon I guess Breakthrough would be better for finding them. But if I start boarding in cards like Nature's Claim and Firestorm, I'll obviously want to actually have them in my hand rather than discarding them to Breakthrough immediately. Not to mention the fact that often times I'll want to save a dredger and perhaps a bridge in my hand so that I can quickly recover after they nuke my graveyard, which is easier to do with Careful Study.

At last, they begin to understand :wink:.

IMO siding out a single Study before the last Breakthrough is incorrect in almost all matches, for the reasons you mentioned. You don't want to put yourself in the position of being unable to rebuild quickly unless you absolutely have no other choice. For that same reason I will often opt not to cast a my Study or crack a Coliseum until after my yard gets exiled and I need to dredge multiple times in the same turn to get myself back in the game. Landing a discard outlet, dredging carefully, not spending your trumps needlessly goes a long way.

[Anusien]

Those of us with 15 lands often cast Breakthrough with X>0.

[Sunsatzu]

i have repeatedly told myself that it makes sense to keep in Careful Study over Breakthrough because it makes playing thru and finding hate much easier. its just that i hate thinking on the loss of power. Firestorm could probably solve this and the fact i hate Magic every time i lose to Gaddock Teeg.

[HokusSchmokus]

@sunshine:yeah, but it's also slow as hell. I know, what you mean, but you cannot generalize that this is always the right play. and also, if I have another discard outlet in hand, I tend to go a lot more all-in with my dredges.

although it is really a blast to slowroll, therapy opponent multiple times, his hand is dead and you go
"boooooooom In-ya-face-todon in ya face!"(important to freak out...intimidation and such ;) )
and just explode all over them.

meh, ye good ole times

[largebrandon]

Here's a spoiled card from Scars of Mirrodin Set:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=110692&d=1284609683

This card would be a great target for Dread Return. As long as you have Morselhoarder, Devoted Druid and Oona, Queen of the Fae, then you have an insta-kill combo by creating a Bajillion Mana, and Activating Oona's ability a million times where x = a million (in case they have 999,999 stifles in hand). This option would be better than milling because you don't have to worry about Eldrazi shenanigans. This combo seems really good as it doesn't worry if Bridge is in the yard or not.

[HokusSchmokus]

seems interesting.I'm not convinced, though. I think this one needs heaaavy testing

[SHABOOGS]

Looks nice but are there other creature combos that Necrotic Ooze can abuse? The "Morselhoarder + Devoted Druid + Oona, Queen of the Fae" combo would eat up a lot of slots IMHO.

[Ecoris]

[...] In the mirror they won't keep Therapies in. [...]


[...]and for those of u who think of Cabal Therapy'ing me for Trap in the mirror, i want to know why u even left therapy in after sb. [...]

The quotes are a bit old, but I'm curious nonetheless. My experience with the mirror is limited, but Therapy struck me as a rather strong card, since it's the easiest way to get rid of your opponent's bridges, and it's unlikely that they get to dread return using a single breaktrhough / coliseum activation / careful study. This single purpose makes it strong, but sometimes you will actually hit their breakthrough / study / xx.
If you have Leyline / Trap / Crypt or some other graveyard hate for the mirror by all means bring it in over therapies, but I don't think you should be surprised to play against it games 2 and 3.

[Izor]

This card would be a great target for Dread Return. As long as you have Morselhoarder, Devoted Druid and Oona, Queen of the Fae, then you have an insta-kill combo by creating a Bajillion Mana, and Activating Oona's ability a million times where x = a million (in case they have 999,999 stifles in hand). This option would be better than milling because you don't have to worry about Eldrazi shenanigans. This combo seems really good as it doesn't worry if Bridge is in the yard or not.

Actually a cool idea, but unfortunately not really playable. The 2 main problems:

1. We barely have the space for any Dread Return Target in the main board, not to speak of 4. This will ruin the deck's consistency.

2. You will have to get all four pieces of the combo into your graveyard. So you can't expact to go off until you've dredged away your whole deck. This makes the deck much too slow, which is especially not worth the consistency loss.