Sevryn
01-20-2010, 12:38 AM
This all started out as a brainstorming exercise on ways to use Foil (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=24587) in a deck. Using Foil requires two things: one, that you have island density; two, that you can turn the disadvantage of discarding a card into an advantage. As you can tell by this deck's name, we are going to be discarding a dredger.
However, running 11+ islands in a Dredge deck means going down one of two roads. First, one could opt to run the full 8 island-swamps with duals and shocklands in an effort to preserve the black core of the original Dredge deck. Or, one could just accept that this is a different build of Dredge and go with the very stable 11 islands. This requires other changes to the deck, mainly that Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe no longer function as effective discard outlets. This in turn makes Ichorid more difficult to run as there are 4 fewer black creatures for him to eat. This leads to running Bloodghast instead, and because we cannot really use Undiscovered Paradise, we can use Dakmor Salvage for mid-game landfalls instead.
So far, this looks something like:
Counter Dredge:
Lands (15):
-4 Underground Sea
-4 Watery Grave
-3 Islands
-2 Dakmor Salvage
-2 Cephalid Coliseum
Discard Outlets (16):
-4 Careful Study
-4 Breakthrough
-4 Foil
-4 Cabal Therapy
Dredgers (11):
-4 Golgari Grave-Troll
-4 Stinkweed Imp
-3 Golgari Thug
Stuff We Want to Dredge (18)
-4 Bloodghast
-4 Bridge from Below
-4 Narcomoeba
-3 Dread Return
-1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-1 Flame-Kin Zealot
-1 Wonder
Tentative Sideboard:
-4 Chain of Vapor
-2 Ancestor's Chosen
-3 Tormod's Crypt
-3 Null Rod
-3 Force of Will
An important thing to do when playing this deck is to ALWAYS choose to draw if you win the die roll (if you lose the die roll you are almost certainly going to draw). This leads to the best play this deck has: turn 0 Foil followed by a turn 1 dredge. Because you will always be drawing on your first turn, you always have the option of DDD (draw/discard/dredge), especially if you fear turn one counters.
Some other things to note when playing Counter Dredge:
-Breakthrough is probably best if you can wait to cast it with X=2, as this gives you a reasonable chance of ending up with Force of Will and another blue card in hand.
-Dakmor Salvage is there to bring back Bloodghasts, not for dredging
-Narcomoeba in hand can be removed to Force of Will.
-Mulligans are pretty rough compared to other Dredge lists. If you have an otherwise mediocre hand with a dredger, you should probably keep and DDD.
-We can't dredge into the typical flashback hate (ancient Grudge, Ray of Revelation) because we aren't running rainbow lands. Chain of Vapor is a good tool, and Null Rod can answer Crypt and Relic. We also have 8 counterspells on turn 0 to deal with any hate that isn't Leyline.
Hope this was worth your time. Any criticism welcome.
However, running 11+ islands in a Dredge deck means going down one of two roads. First, one could opt to run the full 8 island-swamps with duals and shocklands in an effort to preserve the black core of the original Dredge deck. Or, one could just accept that this is a different build of Dredge and go with the very stable 11 islands. This requires other changes to the deck, mainly that Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe no longer function as effective discard outlets. This in turn makes Ichorid more difficult to run as there are 4 fewer black creatures for him to eat. This leads to running Bloodghast instead, and because we cannot really use Undiscovered Paradise, we can use Dakmor Salvage for mid-game landfalls instead.
So far, this looks something like:
Counter Dredge:
Lands (15):
-4 Underground Sea
-4 Watery Grave
-3 Islands
-2 Dakmor Salvage
-2 Cephalid Coliseum
Discard Outlets (16):
-4 Careful Study
-4 Breakthrough
-4 Foil
-4 Cabal Therapy
Dredgers (11):
-4 Golgari Grave-Troll
-4 Stinkweed Imp
-3 Golgari Thug
Stuff We Want to Dredge (18)
-4 Bloodghast
-4 Bridge from Below
-4 Narcomoeba
-3 Dread Return
-1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-1 Flame-Kin Zealot
-1 Wonder
Tentative Sideboard:
-4 Chain of Vapor
-2 Ancestor's Chosen
-3 Tormod's Crypt
-3 Null Rod
-3 Force of Will
An important thing to do when playing this deck is to ALWAYS choose to draw if you win the die roll (if you lose the die roll you are almost certainly going to draw). This leads to the best play this deck has: turn 0 Foil followed by a turn 1 dredge. Because you will always be drawing on your first turn, you always have the option of DDD (draw/discard/dredge), especially if you fear turn one counters.
Some other things to note when playing Counter Dredge:
-Breakthrough is probably best if you can wait to cast it with X=2, as this gives you a reasonable chance of ending up with Force of Will and another blue card in hand.
-Dakmor Salvage is there to bring back Bloodghasts, not for dredging
-Narcomoeba in hand can be removed to Force of Will.
-Mulligans are pretty rough compared to other Dredge lists. If you have an otherwise mediocre hand with a dredger, you should probably keep and DDD.
-We can't dredge into the typical flashback hate (ancient Grudge, Ray of Revelation) because we aren't running rainbow lands. Chain of Vapor is a good tool, and Null Rod can answer Crypt and Relic. We also have 8 counterspells on turn 0 to deal with any hate that isn't Leyline.
Hope this was worth your time. Any criticism welcome.