[Free Article]: A new take on Legacy Dredge! - by Andrew Weinberger

[piZZero]

The first article from Andrew Weinberger for Eternal Central (http://www.eternal-central.com) talks about the powerful but underplayed deck, Dredge.

Hope you guys like this article and leave him some feedback about those things you liked and those you didn't.

A new take on Legacy Dredge! - by Andrew Weinberger (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=918)


Legacy is a format that is constantly in flux. Tons of decks are viable and therefore it’s very hard to attack the format. A lot of people dislike this, but I think its great.

Nowadays Vengevine Madness is slowly starting to dominate and various decks and their sideboards are adapting to help fight the Vengevine menace. This is great news for dredge since people are now packing graveyard hate that is quite weak against the deck.

Enjoy!

piZZero - Jordi Amat

[Tinefol]

Pretty much missed the Wheel of Sun and Moon as a very solid piece of hate against Dredge. Bojuka Bog is also worth of a mention, with Knight of Reliquary being all over the place. Both are run more, than, say, Trap or Jailer.

[dahcmai]

Bash on Leyline much? lol Wow, if that card is so bad against Dredge and everything else, why do people still play it in winning lists. I stopped reading right after the bashing of all the hate against dredge. Jailer being one of the best? Whatever. It was reading like all of that was no problem at all and you just have to play around it, but it's no big deal. Ummm, yeah, you do have to play around it, but it's the whole deal. That's how dredge works, it's totally based on how much grave hate they are going to have. This guy doesn't play dredge much it seems.

The leyline one really got me. It's the main piece I use in Landstill for Dredge in addition to Extirpate, one of the other ones he bashed. All I have to do is land a leyline and counter a Chain of Vapor and Extirpate it and I win. Granted, that's not always easy, but still seems pretty good to me. I auto-lose to dredge game 1. I just give that game to them. I tired using Crypts, Relics, and Ravenous trap all at the same time, but nothing compares to having the Leyline to just shut them out. I haven't lost to Dredge but once in any major tournament and hardly ever in testing. I guess I have been a bad player and got lucky all this time. Snicker. He totally missed the Bog, which is the most relevant since it's the one thing you can't Therapy or even respond to effectively.

I wasn't about to go any further into that one.

[SlopeeJ]

I'm not sure I agree with everything the article says, but you saying all you have to do is mull into leyline, counter their answer and extirpate it to win doesn't make much sense either.

Leyline does have it's downside, meaning you have to mull into it or caste it on turn 4. Technically you have to mull to all graveyard hate if you want it in your opening hand so it might as well be something that stops them from doing anything at all. Such as wheel or leyline. Jailer is pretty good vs dredge because most lists don't have many ways to get rid of creatures, when they pack mostly enchantment/artifact hate.. Maybe one blast.

[AriLax]

Yeah the Leyline section really read like "I don't know why I keep losing to this card, it really sucks, etc etc.". Especially as if they T0 it you have actual 2 outs that cost 2 mana. Leyline is the strongest hate card once it is in play. Consider the correct numbers of Dredge hate:

0: Just don't give a fuck.
1-3: Your G1 match up is either fine, or you are hoping to mise a Tutor target. Leyline is unnecessary.
4: Leyline is most likely a good option, unless you have a way to search up Crypt/Relic or would prefer the other options for flexibility as you can afford the loss of raw power.
5+: You know the match up is bad, you want the best cards possible. Go Leyline.

Jailer is pretty embarrassing actually, especially if you ran more than 2 Therapy which is one of the best cards in the deck. As you start moving towards a linear combo deck you start to get into the scenario where you can just lose to Force + Wasteland or similar disruption. The grinder game plan is much better as even grinder Dredge decks can turbo out a bunch of Zombies/Iona on 2.

[Kuma]

Faerie Macabre is not garbage against Dredge, especially all-in Dredge lists like his with LED.

Him: Land, LED, Breakthrough, sacrifice LED putting two dredgers in the graveyard.

Me: Faerie Macabre removing your dredgers.

...

Him: Sacrifice two Narcomoebas and a Putrid Imp to Dread Return Sphinx of Lost Truths triggering Bridge from Below.

Me: Faerie Macabre removing Sphinx of Lost Truths and Bridge from Below.

[Deadweight]

Changes I'll make (when speaking of dredge consistency and explosiveness): -4 Street Wraith, -2 Entomb.

In: +1 Coliseum, +1 Tarnished Citadel, +2 Careful study (better than Wraiths by a mile, imo), +2 Deep Analysis (really, cause you're playing with LEDs)

I guess the accepted norm now is to substitute LEDs with Tribes as most prefer resilience to hate post board.

[Jonathan Alexander]

All you guys are right about the hatepieces he mentions. Extirpate is really good, especially against all those business-light lists, and so is Faerie Macabre. He basically has seven cards in the deck you need to remove. Without his Narcomoebas and Ichorids he doesn't do much. So I don't get why he even removed one Ichorid from his list. He's also totally wrong about Relic and Crypt only slowing you down. Turn two Relic paired up with Countermagic basically says "I win" against Dredge, there's not much they can do since he won't get more than one card per time into his graveyard. If he should use LED, that's fine just use Relic's second ability. He really underestimates Relic.
His cardchoices in general are quite weird and he doesn't explain them well enough, a few examples of how the deck plays with his changes would've been good, maybe in form of a brief tournament report.
The article is a bit too short since he only talks about how bad all the hate you come across is and talks a bit about his list, but definitely not enough. Really seems like he didn't actually play the deck.

[CorpT]

Personally I think this card is garbage. It is terribly designed as it requires no skill. It is a luck card that shouldn’t see play in a legacy.

I stopped reading right there. Anyone who complains about luck cards or says something requires no skill doesn't deserve to be read.

[yankeedave]

I stopped reading right there. Anyone who complains about luck cards or says something requires no skill doesn't deserve to be read.

I almost stopped too at this stage, but then thought I would continue for comedy value. Didn't Matt Elias cover this at the beginning of the year, using pretty much this build (ie Entomb etc)?

[GGoober]

Hehe, haven't you heard? Luck is the new hot in MTG. When your opponents win, you scream luck-sack! When you draw that turn 0 Leyline, you're lucksacking because you run 4 of them.

In all seriousness, the whole point of running Leyline is a statistical reason, not a luck reason..

I feel that he probably just isn't aware on how he's typing and conveying his thoughts. I'm sure he doesn't mean any harm, but just haven't organized the article. E.g.

He starts off saying the rise of Vengevine Survival is creating the increased use of GY-hate that is weaker against Ichorid. So I got interested and read on:

He says Extirpate is weak against Ichorid, Crypt/Relic can be needled, Leyline is weak, Trap won't be played since it's too specific, Macabre is weak, and Jailer is hot! So historically for dredge matchups, haven't all dredge player been playing against these very cards? So what's the deal now? Some miracle happened and these cards are not that effective against Dredge? The only time I understood the concept of 'not-effective-against-dredge' is when your opponents do not prepare for the dredge matchup and have less than 4 GY hate lol. If what he claims to be true, we should really all play Dredge, since out weakest link is defeated aka GY-hate. He was writing with a mentality on how these cards are now more popular against Vengevine Survival, and try to argue how they were weak against Dredge, but he focused too much on how they were popularly used against Vengevine and forgot the problems they still created for Ichorid, and history backs that up.

I just feel the article wasn't well thought out. Other than that, I don't disagree much outside of running just 2 Therapies.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

The whole him bashing on grave hate thing I think was well intentioned and just came off wrong. The fact is, as far as hate is concerned, Extirpate and Macabre are far less effective against Ichorid than something like crypt/relic. I think he was just trying to make a point that Ichorid can play through hate, you just need to know whats coming in.

As for calling Leyline bad, well, for most decks it is the wrong choice. Any deck with a decent clock would prefer crypt/relic as it requires no mulligans and those decks only need a little time. But for certain slow decks with a bad Ichorid matchup, its pretty essential. Its just that not many decks fit that description. In fact, the only one I can think of is Landstill decks.

[Tacosnape]

The list is pretty bad. The article is terrible and whiny. This strikes me as an amateurish website hungry for anybody to lend articles to it and doesn't give a shit about quality or factual accuracy.

[ButtholeMcGhee]

Thanks for the article! :)

[piZZero]

Since no one who writes for Eternal Central (http://www.eternal-central.com/) is getting paid for doing so, yes, we are an amateur website. With that being said, I do recommend you to read more articles from EC as there's plenty of material that could perfectly be published in one of those "premium" sites. Needless to say the many hours being put in order to contribute with coverages, reports, videos, etc...

This is Andrew's first article ever. Were you born knowing how to write articles? Have you ever written one? If so, I'd love to read them. And if they're good, I'll even recommend them.

So, How bad is Andrew's list from your point of view? Is it bad because it differs from what you think is good? Man, the title of the article states that already: "A new take".

We do appreciate the criticism, both good and bad. Keep it respectful as there's many people who actually love the article and thought it was helpful.

Cheers,

piZZero - Jordi Amat

[QQQ]

Isn't this from the same guy who was banned from these very forums?

[piZZero]

Isn't this from the same guy who was banned from these very forums?

I don't think so. Andrew's username here is mythical1, and as far as I know, he's not banned.

[Vacrix]

I stopped reading right there. Anyone who complains about luck cards or says something requires no skill doesn't deserve to be read.
The more important point to make here is that the guy is constantly justifying himself with various 'its only my opinion' modifiers.

He doesn't know his shit and it comes out in his writing.
He complains about hate instead of facing it confidently, and then denies hate like Leyline viability.

The list is interesting. I'd rather have my Studies and Colesiums to have more Dredge power than a little flexibility with Entombs and Street Wraiths. Ichorid is a DTB at the moment so a new approach isn't necessary when the conventional approach is working.

[QQQ]

I don't think so. Andrew's username here is mythical1, and as far as I know, he's not banned.

Funny. The username of the writer of the article on that site, is the same as a user who was banned here. And he's registered here under a different name, huh..........

[Jonathan Alexander]

Dredge being a DTB makes it even more important to find some new tricks for Dredge-players, doesn't it? When everyone is preparing for Dredge you need to be able to play through hate even more and find new ways to do so. Dredge is indeed able to profit from Vengevine-hate, but not by playing less threats. I think that Bloodghast-builds are really strong right now since they have a lot of business. I always felt that Bloodghast-Dredge was way harder to beat than the other builds and my tournament-record proves that. The only two tournament matches I ever lost to Dredge were both against Bloodghast-Dredge.
As the meta is shifting towards fast aggro and blue-based aggro, I think it's a good idea to run a few number of Firestorms in Dredge. They're good against basically anything except combo, but even here, they're decent. Plus they're an uncounterable discard-outlet.

[Anusien]

The best way to protect Dredge cards from Faerie Macabre is not Street Wraith, it's keeping them in your hand and having more of them. I love it when I keep Tribe, Dredger, Dredger and they Crypt away the first Dredger. So I drop the second Troll and just win.

[voltron00x]

I almost stopped too at this stage, but then thought I would continue for comedy value. Didn't Matt Elias cover this at the beginning of the year, using pretty much this build (ie Entomb etc)?

Didn’t read this article yet (I will later this evening hopefully), but I haven’t written about Legacy Dredge this year. I believe Anwar wrote about a version with Entomb earlier in 2010, though.

[yankeedave]

Didn’t read this article yet (I will later this evening hopefully), but I haven’t written about Legacy Dredge this year. I believe Anwar wrote about a version with Entomb earlier in 2010, though.

Ahh, yeah, that's the one I was thinking of, thanks Matt, I had forgotten Anwar used to write for SCG.

[socialite]

Andrew is a great guy. I enjoyed this article even though I rarely play Legacy. I for one welcome his out of the box thinking in such a stale format where the same decks and card selection get rehashed over and over on these forums without much change.

His tone regarding Leyline of the Void was unnecessary and I am inclined to tack it on this article being one of his first.

He is right in pointing out that Leyline is one of the worst hate pieces to play vs. Dredge.

It is not easy to cast for most decks.

Requires mulligans to properly use.

Removed by Chain of Vapor.

Removed by Nature's Claim.

[menace13]

Leyline is the best dredge hate one can play. Crypt and Relic are easier to play through since dredging in the face of a Crypt/Relic can yeild Grudge in the gy, something Leyline and Jailer do not allow. Leyline is better than Jailer being that it comes down turn 0 and doesnt allow Therapy to grab your hate card even more so when on the draw against Dredge. Leyline also prevents the gy from filing up with Ghasts/Ichy/Dread Return using Breakthrough/Study, where as Jailer doesn't stop the yard from holding their plans in stasis until they rid of Jailer and go off using what was binned. Jailer is very good until players begin using more Firestorms and Dark Blast.

[socialite]

This is an excerpt from an email sent to me by Demonic Attorney on The Mana Drain. While in regards to Vintage I think most of his reasoning holds true to Legacy Dredge hate.


I don't like Leyline as an Ichorid hate card, and I like it even less in a combo deck. Here's why. Leyline is the easiest card for Ichorid to get rid of, and it's the hardest to play. Running Leyline often puts you in the position where you need to choose between a hand with viable mana and/or action, and a hand with Ichorid hate. In addition, running combo makes the problems inherent in Leyline even worse, because you're going to have fewer resources with which to defend it, assuming you get it into play.

For me, I've run a steady 6 cards against Ichorid for more than a year, and I've never lost a match against Ichorid in all that time. I use some combination of Jailer, Pithing Needle, and Relic of Progenitus, and I've never been disappointed. Those cards can be played from your hand if you draw them in the mid-late game, where Leyline can't always be. They also represent a wide range of angles of attack; Ichorid can't rely on any one answer to deal with all of them-- Jailer survives claim, Needle survives Darkblast, Relic survives everything.

I especially like Pithing Needle against Ichorid because it not only kills their engine, but also prevents them from digging for answers to my hate. In addition, none of those cards are affected by Leyline of Sanctity or Chalice at 0, which are both sometimes played as preemptive answers to Dredge hate.

[Kage]

The decklist and the masterpost from Parcher in the [DTB]Ichorid thread here on the source is about 10000x better than this article.

Seriously, Leyline as the worst hate card? 2 Cabal therapy? 2 Study but only 1 DA? 3 MD Ichorid in a LED build? WTF?

Also 2 Rays are hardly enough to beat Leyline, and Pithing Needle is awful.

[Michael Keller]

I really can't stand reading "articles" posted by people who do not even attempt to use proper grammar and punctuation in their writing. It's hard to be taken seriously when you publicly (and purposefully) try to explain an idea to readers who seek optimal information only to be mislead with (as Taco pointed out) information that lacks factual backing.

Anyone can just toss out a list and say, "Look at this and how good it is," only to find how God-awful it really turns out to be. That's really the only thing I assimilated from this entire mess. Give us statistics or some numbers we can work with to better understand your reasoning behind using the cards from a quantitative and qualitative perspective.

If not, at least try and use capital letters; that's a good start.

[Tacosnape]

His tone regarding Leyline of the Void was unnecessary and I am inclined to tack it on this article being one of his first.

Requires mulligans to properly use.

What graveyard hate piece is this not true of? Why are you keeping a hateless hand against Ichorid and hoping you hit the yard hate piece in your next two cards somewhere?

[socialite]

What graveyard hate piece is this not true of? Why are you keeping a hateless hand against Ichorid and hoping you hit the yard hate piece in your next two cards somewhere?

Coming from a Vintage stand point if you are playing first there are many lines of play that can lead you to keep a solid non hate hand tutor into hate and play it on your first turn.

There are far fewer lines of play in Legacy so your point is valid. Optimally you want to see some form of hate in your first grip. Speaking from my own experience, I would rather run hate that isn't entirely dependent upon being in one of my opening hands. While not in play the effectiveness of Leyline of the Void decreases significantly with each turn that passes. I suppose the same can be said of any hate card, however I would rather be dropping Yixlid Jailer/Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus once the Dredge player has progressed their game plan to a certian point or after they have dealt with the first line of hate. Running Leyline out turn 2 or 3 does nothing to effect the game state where I feel one could argue that other hate cards would.

[Nidd]

if that article sets the standard for free articles, I decline to read any future articles. That list is horrible.

[frogboy]

Every sentence in the paragraph about leyline is wrong. I might elaborate later when I am not posting from a phone

Edit: it's also pretty hard to take the stability claim seriously when you see 11 lands 11 dredgers 4 diamonds 0 tribe and maindeck dread return targets.

[ButtholeMcGhee]

Every sentence in the paragraph about leyline is wrong. I might elaborate later when I am not posting from a phone

Edit: it's also pretty hard to take the stability claim seriously when you see 11 lands 11 dredgers 4 diamonds 0 tribe and maindeck dread return targets.

This.

This guy must certainly know what he's talking about. Just look at all the results put up. I hope everyone follows what he has to say.

[AriLax]

I don't like Leyline as an Ichorid hate card, and I like it even less in a combo deck. Here's why. Leyline is the easiest card for Ichorid to get rid of, and it's the hardest to play. Running Leyline often puts you in the position where you need to choose between a hand with viable mana and/or action, and a hand with Ichorid hate. In addition, running combo makes the problems inherent in Leyline even worse, because you're going to have fewer resources with which to defend it, assuming you get it into play.

For me, I've run a steady 6 cards against Ichorid for more than a year, and I've never lost a match against Ichorid in all that time. I use some combination of Jailer, Pithing Needle, and Relic of Progenitus, and I've never been disappointed. Those cards can be played from your hand if you draw them in the mid-late game, where Leyline can't always be. They also represent a wide range of angles of attack; Ichorid can't rely on any one answer to deal with all of them-- Jailer survives claim, Needle survives Darkblast, Relic survives everything.

I especially like Pithing Needle against Ichorid because it not only kills their engine, but also prevents them from digging for answers to my hate. In addition, none of those cards are affected by Leyline of Sanctity or Chalice at 0, which are both sometimes played as preemptive answers to Dredge hate.


Lets break this down.

First, Needle is not viable against Legacy Dredge (no Bazaar).

Jailer is not a reliable T1 cast in Legacy. On the draw it legitimate is very slow against Dredge as your plan.

Mixing hate is good. That point is very valid.

Lets get into Leyline now.

If you don't have Leyline in your opener, there are 2 actual options.

1. Your hand has game against Dredge and is keepable.
2. Your hand has lands and spells but no game against Dredge.

The problem actually lies in people thinking hands in part 2 are keepable becasue they are keepable in real Magic, much like the people who in Jund vs. RDW last Standard wondered why they lost with openers of Pulse, Elf, Sarkhan, Thrinax, 3 lands. If your hand is not good enough to win, regardless of a mix of lands and spells, it isn't good enough. Even if you had Crypts or w/e instead, the hand isn't good enough. It's probably better with Leylines as you are less likely to make a bad keep on the "Oh I might get there" promise.

There actually is one 3rd option that makes Leyline subpar though.

3. Your deck can hold Dredge's early game and has digging, but in the end they will grind you out.

In this case, you don't want to draw Leyline and have the ability to generate the time to draw a hate cards. In this case Leyline is bad. Decks like this also tend to want a lot more hate, so a mix of Leylines and other hate is possible.

As for combo, my experience with combo in Legacy has been that it is more powerful than Dredge, and Dredge is the one reaching for their board after G1.

TL,DR:

If you can stop Dredge early but die to the Ichorid/single Dredge + discard step end game, Leyline might not be for you as you will see a lot more cards than your opening 7 each game.

If you are comboing in Legacy, odds are you are more stable and win faster than Dredge. Any minimal amount of resistance from you should be enough.

For everyone else, you are likely to be in a scenario where you don't see many cards outside your opening 7 against Dredge unless you have the hate, so Leyline is gas.

[frogboy]

Leyline is the easiest card for Ichorid to get rid of,

This isn't even close to true. You can bring in three Grudges against four Crypts and have them totally outgunned. You want like six Chains/Claims/Rays/Wispmares to be comfortable against Leyline. Six cards is SO MANY.

[AriLax]

This isn't even close to true. You can bring in three Grudges against four Crypts and have them totally outgunned. You want like six Chains/Claims/Rays/Wispmares to be comfortable against Leyline. Six cards is SO MANY.

This is a very good point. Ichorid can outgun a Crypt/Relic fairly easily without actually trying. It needs minimal support to bash through Crypt/Relic + incidental hate. Leyline you are absolutely locked unless you have the answer or they brick on doing anything. I've only seen the later happen once, and it was when an Enduring Idea player in Extended mulled to 5 with 2 Leyline + Crypt as 3 of his cards.

[socialite]

First, Needle is not viable against Legacy Dredge (no Bazaar).

I'm aware of this, as I stated in my post what I linked was in regards to Type 1, in respect to Type 1.5 it still contains relevant information.

That aside there are still targets it is useful against albeit controversial targets - still targets nonetheless.


The problem actually lies in people thinking hands in part 2 are keepable becasue they are keepable in real Magic, much like the people who in Jund vs. RDW last Standard wondered why they lost with openers of Pulse, Elf, Sarkhan, Thrinax, 3 lands. If your hand is not good enough to win, regardless of a mix of lands and spells, it isn't good enough. Even if you had Crypts or w/e instead, the hand isn't good enough. It's probably better with Leylines as you are less likely to make a bad keep on the "Oh I might get there" promise.

What I’m getting from this is individuals who are poor at making mulligan decisions are at an advantage running Leyline of the Void because they are forced to mulligan at a higher percentage to find the card; thus passing on weak hands they might otherwise keep.

This is not so much an argument for Leyline of the Void as it is for improving one’s mulligan skills.

Taking a look at the other end of the spectrum; will Leyline of the Void pigeonhole players into keeping weak hands solely because it contains Leyline?



This isn't even close to true. You can bring in three Grudges against four Crypts and have them totally outgunned. You want like six Chains/Claims/Rays/Wispmares to be comfortable against Leyline. Six cards is SO MANY.

This example is very narrow and I wouldn’t advocate running Crypts as sole Dredge hate, let alone 4 of them.

In my experience Leyline of the Void receives far more splash damage from potential Dredge side boards as opposed to other cards which arguably do not. Including Leyline removal when one constructs a Dredge side board is second nature. I’d rather see them side in Claims/Rays/Whispmares when I’m running a mix of Jailer, Relic, Crypt, and Pithing Needle.

[ButtholeMcGhee]

This isn't even close to true. You can bring in three Grudges against four Crypts and have them totally outgunned. You want like six Chains/Claims/Rays/Wispmares to be comfortable against Leyline. Six cards is SO MANY.

Crypt is pretty easy to deal with with Grudge. I always like to run at least seven answers to Leyline.

[KevinTrudeau]

Leyline is easily the best card against dredge. Dredge is forced to react to Leyline before doing anything else, giving the opposing player all sorts of time to set up a win. This dude don't know nothing man.

[AriLax]

What I’m getting from this is individuals who are poor at making mulligan decisions are at an advantage running Leyline of the Void because they are forced to mulligan at a higher percentage to find the card; thus passing on weak hands they might otherwise keep.

This is not so much an argument for Leyline of the Void as it is for improving one’s mulligan skills.

Taking a look at the other end of the spectrum; will Leyline of the Void pigeonhole players into keeping weak hands solely because it contains Leyline?

It is not that at all. It has nothing to do with "card A is better because you are better/worse".

The issue is that people keep "lands + spells" hands and blame it on "I didn't want to have to keep mulling to Leyline" when they aren't good enough. It isn't Leyline's fault they suck and can't figure out what cards constitute a real hand against Dredge.

[JACO]

I really can't stand reading "articles" posted by people who do not even attempt to use proper grammar and punctuation in their writing. It's hard to be taken seriously when you publicly (and purposefully) try to explain an idea to readers who seek optimal information only to be mislead with (as Taco pointed out) information that lacks factual backing.

Anyone can just toss out a list and say, "Look at this and how good it is," only to find how God-awful it really turns out to be. That's really the only thing I assimilated from this entire mess. Give us statistics or some numbers we can work with to better understand your reasoning behind using the cards from a quantitative and qualitative perspective.

If not, at least try and use capital letters; that's a good start.Hollywood, as one of the editors for EC, I can say that the grammar and punctuation problems in the article are entirely my fault and the fault of the other editors. I have been extremely busy as of late with a death in the family, and this article escaped the normal editing and cleanup process that EC does before posting most articles and blog entries (as in no eyes saw it before being posted; no editing, no peer review, nothing). That is 100% the fault of staff here at EC and a breakdown of our normal publishing process, and we'll make sure this doesn't happen again in the future. Believe it or not I have seen much worse from initial drafts before being cleaned up. I don't want to read articles like that, and I know you guys don't either. I've gone through since then and cleaned it up and republished it (same link), so it looks nice and clean now, like the rest of our articles. ;) Check it out again if you've got the time.



The list is pretty bad. The article is terrible and whiny. This strikes me as an amateurish website hungry for anybody to lend articles to it and doesn't give a shit about quality or factual accuracy.If you have a problem with the message being delivered, please state what you disagree with so we can have a discussion on the merits of the content now. I know it's currently all the rage to make a generic statement to say something is terrible, but if you think the list is bad, why do you think it's bad in your experience, and what do you not think is factually accurate? Let's try to foster some serious discussion here going forward.



This.

This guy must certainly know what he's talking about. Just look at all the results put up. I hope everyone follows what he has to say.Rather than snipe at a person, why don't you instead address the actual ideas being presented? We can play your little game for a minute if need be. The author (Andrew Weinberger) is a solid Magic vet, and to my knowledge has had pretty decent success with a variety of decks, including playing Dredge for months and piloting it to a win during the Grand Prix Chicago Trials at the GP. His decklist can be found on the Wizards coverage here (http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpchi09/blog1#2).


I happen to think Street Wraith is pretty awesome in this list, and any list playing the Flame-Kin Zealot kill. It can really speed you up, especially when playing with Lion'e Eye Diamond in this list.

[alderon666]

Leyline is easily the best card against dredge. Dredge is forced to react to Leyline before doing anything else, giving the opposing player all sorts of time to set up a win. This dude don't know nothing man.

The problem with Leyline is that it isn't that good of a card at all.

Sure getting it into play turn 0 is great, but not being able to timely Brainstorm/Ponder/SDT into it kinda kills it.

And mulling into oblivion to get a Leyline doesn't ensure your opponent didn't just keep Ray/Chain/Claim + Lands and gas.

While it's the best answer to Ichorid (and most graveyard decks), I ask thee, how consistent it really is?

[woremak]

While it's the best answer to Ichorid (and most graveyard decks), I ask thee, how consistent it really is?

I think the problem with this argument is that you can't win through Leyline.
Like for serious, every other piece of hate you can win through, but if they have turn one Leyline you actually can't do anything until you break it.
Magic is a game of variance, right? So you have to prepare for the worst case scenario. If you don't take into account all the reasonable hate you'll face with Ichorid or any combo deck you are probably doing it wrong.

Note: See above reasoning for why leyline is reasonable hate.

[ButtholeMcGhee]

Every sentence in the paragraph about leyline is wrong. I might elaborate later when I am not posting from a phone

Edit: it's also pretty hard to take the stability claim seriously when you see 11 lands 11 dredgers 4 diamonds 0 tribe and maindeck dread return targets.

This.

This guy must certainly know what he's talking about. Just look at all the results put up. I hope everyone follows what he has to say.



This was what was actually quoted, not anything by anyone writing that article. So obviously, it couldn't be in reply to the article, nor anyone who wrote it. It was written in earnest, since frogboy actually has results with the deck, and I listen to what he has to say.

But we can play your little game for a minute:


Would you be so gracious as to educate us with how you are sideboarding these matches? I'm sure this would be very helpful for the readers as well as those looking to get better with the deck.

Boy! What a sarcastic asshole! I'm sure you know so much more than who actually plays the deck! I can tell you for certain that he has done well at some small tournament somewhere. Etc., etc.


WHEEEEE!!!!!! Taking quotes out of context, and then responding to them is fun!

[alderon666]

I think the problem with this argument is that you can't win through Leyline.
Like for serious, every other piece of hate you can win through, but if they have turn one Leyline you actually can't do anything until you break it.
Magic is a game of variance, right? So you have to prepare for the worst case scenario. If you don't take into account all the reasonable hate you'll face with Ichorid or any combo deck you are probably doing it wrong.

Note: See above reasoning for why leyline is reasonable hate.

Every other piece of hate can be naturally drawn or filtered into.

Playing Leyline is basically giving up and saying, "I'll only win this if I luck out a Leyline with a decent hand." And that's actually a pretty good option for decks that can't beat Ichorid at all like BUG Landstill. Leyline + counters is mostly GG.

And your comment makes it seem that Leyline is close to impossible to remove. Any decent Dredge player will side in Chain of Vapor + Nature's Claim game 2 when the opponent's hate is unknown.

[Gui]

If Leyline makes a 4 card hand playable against it (mull to 5 and find a leyline, 4 cards remaining), the odds are that you'll find a Leyline 72% of the the time if you mull down to 5 trying to get it. Almost 80% if you don't care playing with 3 cards only as long as you have Leyline. That's more consistancy than side-in 4 tormods and play til turn 5 trying to get it if you didn't draw it at first, which represents 60% of chance to work. If you don't have a good fetch method, and can play with low amounts of cards, then, Leyline is consistant as hell.

[alderon666]

If Leyline makes a 4 card hand playable against it (mull to 5 and find a leyline, 4 cards remaining), the odds are that you'll find a Leyline 72% of the the time if you mull down to 5 trying to get it. Almost 80% if you don't care playing with 3 cards only as long as you have Leyline. That's more consistancy than side-in 4 tormods and play til turn 5 trying to get it if you didn't draw it at first, which represents 60% of chance to work. If you don't have a good fetch method, and can play with low amounts of cards, then, Leyline is consistant as hell.

What are the odds of the opponent getting an answer to your Leyline? What are the odds of a 3/4 card hand (not counting Leyline) winning after your opponent goes turn 1 Chain of Vapor?

Getting Leyline in play is NOT autowin. Dredge can't win with Leyline in play, but it can cast it's creatures and blow up in your face once it hits it's answer.

[Gui]

What are the odds of the opponent getting an answer to your Leyline? What are the odds of a 3/4 card hand (not counting Leyline) winning after your opponent goes turn 1 Chain of Vapor?

Getting Leyline in play is NOT autowin. Dredge can't win with Leyline in play, but it can cast it's creatures and blow up in your face once it hits it's answer.

Yet, I never said it was.

So aren't Tormod, Faerie, extirpate, etc, etc.

The odds, if ran as 4-of, unless he's going to mull until he get a solution, is 40% at the starter hand, and rises as he draws, to around 60% after 5 draws.

And as I said, IF you deck can play with 4 cards to a win, Leyline is actually good. IF leyline slows them down enough.