[Deck] Manaless Ichorid

[meffeo]

Came in 15th out of 173!

Expect a report!

Congratz! And waiting for your report

[gato con botas]

Congratulations I wait for your deck list and your report

[Mr. Froggy]

Nice going Hollywood!

[Darklingske]

As expected a very nice result Hollywood! Can't wait for the report & list!

[gato con botas]

Which is the card SFM????? Excuse my ignorance

[Michael Keller]

Which is the card SFM????? Excuse my ignorance

Stoneforge Mystic.

[gato con botas]

Holly we are eager to know your dec list!!!!!!!!!!!! XDDDD and your repor

[Michael Keller]

I'm working on the report; it should be up tomorrow.

[chlb]

I'm working on the report; it should be up tomorrow.

Great job, looking forward to the report.

[slave]

.....and the seagull's wait for a chip.... :laugh:

[JPoJohnson]

Congrats on the finish! I saw that you originally said you got 15th and then edited it to say 13th. Was there a change to the finished rankings or was there just a typo?

[Michael Keller]

Yeah, I checked Planeswalker Points to verify: the official record was 13th out of 173.

[ahg113]

Yeah, I checked Planeswalker Points to verify: the official record was 13th out of 173.

Instead of 3rd crack at a Badlands, you should've had 1st pick. Oughta find a way to rectify that. Nice to meet ya, congrats on the finish. I got the missing cards minus FoW in the mail today. Likely to jump on the bandwagon with ya. Good showing.

[Michael Keller]

Report (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27642-Report-13th-173-BoM-%28-PTQ%29-Qualifier-w-Manaless&p=795064#post795064) is up!

[JPoJohnson]

Did NOT expect 4 FoW AND Disrupting Shoal. That's crazy awesome (:

[Red Zone]

Excellent report and congratulations. I'm glad to see you decided to run Force main. That was the same conclusion I came to after running Chancellor main. The Chancellor was fine, but most opponents just run a worthless one drop into it. I do like Leyline in the Board. It serves nearly the same function as Mindbreak Trap against Storm and offers some options against other decks as well. Unfortunately, it didn't shut down Empty the Warrens. I hate Storm decks with a passion and I like having the pitch options for Force of Will so I'll probably keep running Mindbreak Trap in the board for now.

This list is so next level and considering how little graveyard hate there is in the current meta I think your proclamation of not resting in peace anymore is right on target. Expect to see this configuration of Dredge top eight a major tournament in the near future. I so wish there was a Star City in Minneapolis this weekend. It would be like taking a gun to knife fight.

Discarding a worthless Narcomoeba to counter a Rest in Peace with Disrupting Shoal was priceless.

[Mr. Froggy]

Amazing report Hollywood!

[carefulmug]

Congratulations, Hollywood.

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12692&iddeck=93066

Does this gentleman post in these forums? I remember having seen this a few weeks back; he seems to have beat us to the punch.

Moving Force MD and the discovery of Whirlpool Rider are profound advances in the archetype and I applaud everyone involved.

Also, I think I am going to try Chancellor over Leyline of Sanctity in the SB.

[Thrasher]

Nice report and result, Hollywood. Beating reanimator is quite something.

@carefulmug: that's me.

[Final Fortune]

I really don't see the over committment to blue as a problem, Faerie Macabre is incredibly niche.

[gato con botas]

Holly you can put since you use the sideboard? That you extract and that you put

[Barsoom]

I want to ask, what's the difference between Contagion and Sickening Shoal? it's just a personal preference or more? i saw you used 4x Contagion Hollywood.

[Michael Keller]

Contagion is much better against Elves and other fast aggro. It's also awesome with your own creatures.

@FF: I felt compelled to fun two Faeries main as a compliment to the sideboard, in addition to the reality that there were multiple Reanimator decks present at this event.

Having that utility and the creatures for Ichorid and Shadow was quite helpful. Griselbrand, even as a Dread Return target, was useful filling that alternate role. Faerie was fine and I liked it a lot.

[gato con botas]

In a metagame where there does no exist reanimator that it uses before putting faeires of main?

[slave]

Well done Hollywood.
Cheers for the kind words. :cool:
I had a feeling Chancellor was getting the cut > I did the same last time I took the deck out after getting the blue side in there.


Contagion is much better against Elves and other fast aggro. It's also awesome with your own creatures.
Second that.
I prefer Contagion over Black Shoal > has much better art, can possibly take out 2 creatures, or just blunt their attackers. This last part is especially important given we have Bridges to protect > so simply cutting their balls off, instead of killing them can potentially be betterer.

[ahg113]

Well done Hollywood.
Cheers for the kind words. :cool:
I had a feeling Chancellor was getting the cut > I did the same last time I took the deck out after getting the blue side in there.


Second that.
I prefer Contagion over Black Shoal > has much better art, can possibly take out 2 creatures, or just blunt their attackers. This last part is especially important given we have Bridges to protect > so simply cutting their balls off, instead of killing them can potentially be betterer.

I think the only corner case for picking Shoal over Contagion is that you face a lot of Elesh Norn, or Scavenging Ooze. Otherwise, Contagion offers much more flexibility.

[P-E]

Contagion allows your ichorids to survive a terminus too ^^

[gato con botas]

Good I do not have leyline can use unmask?

[slave]

Good I do not have leyline can use unmask?

Actually I'm kinda interested... I don't have them either.

For you guys who run them, how useful are they, really?
And how often do you side them in, excluding the Burn matchup?

[Michael Keller]

Actually I'm kinda interested... I don't have them either.

For you guys who run them, how useful are they, really?
And how often do you side them in, excluding the Burn matchup?

Leyline has game against the aforementioned Burn, Storm, discard-laden decks, Bojuka Bog, Crypt, Relic, Nihil Spellbomb, Intuition, Grindstone, Helm of Obedience, Goblin Charbelcher, etc.

It has a wide array of utility and is a bitch to deal with, largely because decks don't anticipate it or bring in cards to destroy it. It's a card that either has to be dealt with or has to be played around - both completely altering the strategy of opponents unprepared for it. In my experience, it's better than Mindbreak Trap (against Storm) because you don't want to open yourself up to discard, which will make it useless. When you run out a Leyline, your opponent has to play around it. Giving this deck a few turns while your opponent durdles can get ugly for them in a hurry.

I know Empty the Warrens exists, but your opponents will almost always have to obtain it with Ad Nauseam, Burning Wish or Infernal Tutor. And with multiple counterspells in the deck to back the card's power up - that's easier said than done.

Faerie Macabre and Leyline of Sanctity provide a blanket of security I love having when I see them to start the game off with. Most decks just can't afford to give Manaless >2 turns because of its raw power.

[carefulmug]

@ gato con botas

Chancellor of the Annex is also a cheap, suitable alternative for Leyline.

It is good in multiples, it is a reasonable Dread Return target, it is not a functional -1 from your opening hand, and it helps to enable Nether Shadow.

[Mr. Froggy]

Leyline has game against the aforementioned Burn, Storm, discard-laden decks, Bojuka Bog, Crypt, Relic, Nihil Spellbomb, Intuition, Grindstone, Helm of Obedience, Goblin Charbelcher, etc.

It has a wide array of utility and is a bitch to deal with, largely because decks don't anticipate it or bring in cards to destroy it. It's a card that either has to be dealt with or has to be played around - both completely altering the strategy of opponents unprepared for it. In my experience, it's better than Mindbreak Trap (against Storm) because you don't want to open yourself up to discard, which will make it useless. When you run out a Leyline, your opponent has to play around it. Giving this deck a few turns while your opponent durdles can get ugly for them in a hurry.

I know Empty the Warrens exists, but your opponents will almost always have to obtain it with Ad Nauseam, Burning Wish or Infernal Tutor. And with multiple counterspells in the deck to back the card's power up - that's easier said than done.

Faerie Macabre and Leyline of Sanctity provide a blanket of security I love having when I see them to start the game off with. Most decks just can't afford to give Manaless >2 turns because of its raw power.

I once played vs Storm, it was game 2 (or 3, can't recall), he Probes my hand which consists of some random useless cards except for Trap. He has discard in his hand, but doesn't play it (didn't notice my Trap I guess). After that he proceeds to go off, cast a million spells, Tendrils me I respond with a smile, Mindbreak Trap. :)

I know its not a real win since he had the game if he hadn't missed my card, but it was still really funny. :)

[slave]

Lucky play Frogster. That's a mindsnap...:tongue:
And thanks for that Hollywood.

Went to local last night for some legacy. Wierd night... wierd night.
Running Force in the main, sideboard was;
4 Shoal, 4 Faerie, 4 Contagion, 2 Unmask, 1 Trap
Unmask didn't do much for me, but I thought I'd try it out with the blue side, and to be honest, storm was about the only matchup where I was desperate to draw it.

Went 3-2
2-1 Death and taxes - He was playing Spirit of the Labyrinth in from the side. :cool: Ha ha, he thought it would stop me dredging. This really surprised me from someone with a very expensive deck!
1-2 GW Maverick - Game 1 he plays DRS, GSZ for Ooze then topdecks a Bojuka Bog, we had a laugh about it. End up losing to a sea of hate maindeck. He had that silly Spirit of the Labyrinth too?!?
0-2 Charbelcher - .... lost quickly. Stupid storm.
2-0 Manaless Dredge Mirror!!! Well Hello Stranger. 2-0 I had a Faerie in hand game1, game2 was over quickly.
2-1 WU Miracles - Won game1 quick, game 2 and 3 = Terminus, RiP. Game 3 opening hand, 2 SHoal, Probe, 2 Narc, 2 Dredger, take a guess what happened...:wink:

I kept a note of the successful counters too > 7 total;
RiP x3, Ooze x1, GSZ x1, Entreat the Angels x1, Red elemental blast x1
Only one game I saw hate that wasn't RiP.
(I thank LED-Dredge for playing Chain of Vapor to discourage Grafdiggers Cage. Kudos.)

Caught up with my manaless mirror afterwards, he went 4-1 with green side dryad arbor, silence, claim, trap, unmask etc.
He had soooo many questions about the blue side....

The deck felt killer, but I just got stomped in a few games. I exiled blue cards a lot... really liking this blue sideboard.
I think Probe's usefulness is getting better with a blue counter plan > being able to see their hand and judge what our best course of action is just screams *win*.
...and I'm no longer terrified to mulligan.

[Thrasher]

Playing Fow's there seems a good choice, that maverick was overloading with dangerous stuff!
Belcher shouldn't be that bad, it has no protection, i guess you've just been unlucky not drawing counters.


By the way, contagion vs Shoal: Contagion is most of the times better, in my latest list i have 1 Sickening Shoal just because it deals with Elesh Norn and Scavenging Ooze, and since i was going to play it in a big tournament, i wanted my build to be as flexible as possible.

Aaand i'm done with my exams, finally i'll get some dredges going at tournaments! :tongue:

[slave]

Playing Fow's there seems a good choice, that maverick was overloading with dangerous stuff!
Belcher shouldn't be that bad, it has no protection, i guess you've just been unlucky not drawing counters.
Yeah, I think so too. Force in the main just makes sense the more I think about it.

The Mav guy I know pretty well, he knows my deck too. I did manage to counter quite a bit from this matchup. It surprised him a bit!
I was hoping he was playing his Reanimator deck, cos I'm keen to test against it, but as soon as he played a Savannah T1 > "Well, bugger me..."

The belcher matchup was a bit crappy, I misplayed a little. I could've mulled I guess, but mulling for a counter and not finding one against a T1/2 clock?
I'm curious > how would you guys have approached this scenario??? :confused:

[Thrasher]

Force is definitely good if there are a lot of decks like the ones you faced this time. It's just a matter of metagame, imho.

Anyway, vs belcher i would mull every hand without a counter or a gitaxian/street wraith/phant. We wouldn't win anyway without those.

[Michael Keller]

Unless of course you had a Leyline to crush their Belcher dreams. That with counter-magic is too much. It's actually worth a mull with a weak hand.

Also, how did you beat the Manaless player with a Faerie game one if you have four in your board? Or did I misread that?

[Mr. Froggy]

Also, how did you beat the Manaless player with a Faerie game one if you have four in your board? Or did I misread that?

I was wondering the same thing..

[laserstone]

Quick aside, brief question:

What targets in manaless are the most crippling when surgical'd? I play both with and against this deck, but haven't had much experience doing either (new to Legacy).

[JPoJohnson]

Quick aside, brief question:

What targets in manaless are the most crippling when surgical'd? I play both with and against this deck, but haven't had much experience doing either (new to Legacy).

Personally I would say Narcomoeba. It's really hard to do much without them if they get extracted before you do anything.

Edit: The only reason I say Narcomoeba is because it slows down the plan quite a bit if you have to rely on just Ichorid. Sure there's no one card that can get extracted to beat the plan, but I feel it's a big burden to get it removed.

[P-E]

i think it's really a situational question.
you can always survive without any card in the deck narco or icho or bridge etc but in some situation being prived of one buys enough time for opponent to win.
So there isn't a right answer for your question , just analyze his grave and guess what will put him in big trouble.

[Mr. Froggy]

i think it's really a situational question.
you can always survive without any card in the deck narco or icho or bridge etc but in some situation being prived of one buys enough time for opponent to win.
So there isn't a right answer for your question , just analyze his grave and guess what will put him in big trouble.

I don't know if I agree. I've won countless times with my opponent Extracting my Bridges.

On the other hand I've almost never won if my opponent targets my Narcomoebas (especially one Dredged into).

[Michael Keller]

Surgical Extraction against Manaless Dredge is like throwing a pebble at a freight train.

A well-timed Surgical can be good, but more often than not it's relatively ineffective (especially if your opponent targets a dredger early and you respond with a Street Wraith activation).

[Mr. Froggy]

Surgical Extraction against Manaless Dredge is like throwing a pebble at a freight train.

A well-timed Surgical can be good, but more often than not it's relatively ineffective (especially if your opponent targets a dredger early and you respond with a Street Wraith activation).

I know what you mean but I feel Extraction on Narcomoeba is like a kick in the nuts.

[davelin]

The new decklist looks very intriguing, congrats to Hollywood for his recent finish with it. Not sure if this is a naive question but how does this deck handle opening hand situations post-SB? What I mean is, the list doesn't look capable of handling a resolved RiP or Cage. I understand it plays with 8 pitch counters post-SB, however doesn't guarantee one (along with an appropriate blue card) will be in the opening hand. And since it's manaless, every mulligan essentially is a free timewalk for the opponent. Thanks and keep dredging!

[Mr. Froggy]

The new decklist looks very intriguing, congrats to Hollywood for his recent finish with it. Not sure if this is a naive question but how does this deck handle opening hand situations post-SB? What I mean is, the list doesn't look capable of handling a resolved RiP or Cage. I understand it plays with 8 pitch counters post-SB, however doesn't guarantee one (along with an appropriate blue card) will be in the opening hand. And since it's manaless, every mulligan essentially is a free timewalk for the opponent. Thanks and keep dredging!

I know the merits of the Blue SB, but I don't feel like buying FoWs (I hate the card), so instead I play the Green SB with Claims/Silences to destroy opposing troublesome enchantments. It's been working for me.

[Michael Keller]

The new decklist looks very intriguing, congrats to Hollywood for his recent finish with it. Not sure if this is a naive question but how does this deck handle opening hand situations post-SB? What I mean is, the list doesn't look capable of handling a resolved RiP or Cage. I understand it plays with 8 pitch counters post-SB, however doesn't guarantee one (along with an appropriate blue card) will be in the opening hand. And since it's manaless, every mulligan essentially is a free timewalk for the opponent. Thanks and keep dredging!

There's also no guarantee an opponent will open with a piece of hate (namely Cage or Rest in Peace), and even if they do, they will likely mulligan for it because they know what it means against this deck. Every card down in an opponent's hand means one less chance of opening with hate. When playing with a green sideboard, you need to open with a mana source and a removal spell - which is for all intents and purposes the same as needing to open with a counter and blue card.

The counter package is much more robust in that you're not hoping and praying your Arbor doesn't get Plowed or Wasted. Force and Shoal stop the problem...before it actually becomes a problem. If either Cage of Rest in Peace resolve, you do lose the game. However, in the amount of time the green package necessitates killing a hate card, your opponent is drawing counterspells or building board presence to the point where removal becomes moot.

Basically, you really do have an excellent chance opening with a counter and a blue card to stop hate from resolving. The only two hate cards we care about are Rest in Peace and Cage, and they only usually come in droves out of sideboards in totals of three or four, max.

[slave]

...how did you beat the Manaless player with a Faerie game one if you have four in your board? Or did I misread that?
Ha ha, yeah I must have rushed that post a bit and not proof read it > must have been game 2 I had the Faerie.


(extraction) i think it's really a situational question.
I agree here. Most of the time I find that Extraction only slows us down, although taking our Dread Returns against a deck running stuff like Ensnaring Bridges really sucks...
In practice, we should expect Cage of Peace > I wouldn't consider using counter on extraction, as they may be foxing to get you to spend it, then land a Cage of Peace.

[jimmythegreek]

Theres no killing dredge.....EVER. Its essentially comparable to jason vorhees, you can slow him down but one never completely escapes him (dredge).

[slave]

Theres no killing dredge.....EVER. Its essentially comparable to jason vorhees, you can slow him down but one never completely escapes him (dredge).
Actually, killing dredge is easy. There are three cards that can just completely blow us out, all of which can come down on, or before turn 2, without any acceleration.
And many more that can be difficult to play around, or slow us down considerably.

The deck is the definition of a glass cannon IME, albeit a good one, as interacting/stopping us really just comes down to these main hate cards.

[jimmythegreek]

Actually, killing dredge is easy. There are three cards that can just completely blow us out, all of which can come down on, or before turn 2, without any acceleration.
And many more that can be difficult to play around, or slow us down considerably.

The deck is the definition of a glass cannon IME, albeit a good one, as interacting/stopping us really just comes down to these main hate cards.

More or less that its always gonna be a boogey-man deck....watching scary movies...kinda got me in the mood. I know cards shut this deck down. Everyone who has ever played against, with or heard of dredge knows that....but thanks. Simply implying that the deck has relative" horror " flavor that makes this deck so appealing to me.

[slave]

More or less that its always gonna be a boogey-man deck....watching scary movies...kinda got me in the mood. I know cards shut this deck down. Everyone who has ever played against, with or heard of dredge knows that....but thanks. Simply implying that the deck has relative" horror " flavor that makes this deck so appealing to me.

No worries.

[Dick_Tator]

I'm new to this thread, but I have been screwing around with Manaless Dredge for a while on my own. However, it always bummed me out to just flat out lose whenever an opponent resolved a Rest in Peace, Grafdigger's or the like. I tried the green sideboard with lands and Nature's Claim/Reverent Silence, but I never really liked it. This new blue splash, however, looks much more promising to me. I don't have shoals at the moment (they should be in the mail though), but I tried running FOW main at my last tournament, and the look on people's faces when I countered their spells was priceless:-)

Now, I read Hollywood's report (well done by the way, both on the result and the report), and I have some questions regarding sideboarding. It seems that we quite often want to board in a lot of cards, but what do take out? For instance, against Storm or Belcher you might want at least the fourth FOW and the four Leylines, and possibly Shoals(?). But what do you cut? Likewise, against U/W/R Delver you would want the last FOW as well as the Shoals, but again what do you cut?

I don't usually run Faeries main, so my inclination is to board out Nether Shadow against fast combo decks, because we are not going to win by grinding him out. But I have a sneaking suspicion, that this might be wrong, or at least that my reasoning might be flawed. And I honestly don't know what to cut against Delver and control, so here I mostly just shave some numbers here and there.

Any tips or pointers that could help me out would be much appreciated. :tongue:

[slave]

.... I have some questions regarding sideboarding. It seems that we quite often want to board in a lot of cards, but what do take out? For instance, against Storm or Belcher you might want at least the fourth FOW and the four Leylines, and possibly Shoals(?). But what do you cut? Likewise, against U/W/R Delver you would want the last FOW as well as the Shoals, but again what do you cut?
I'm interested to see what everyone else's input on this is.

Sideboard plans are always gonna be about what hate you expect to see, and how u might expect to win.
I'm runnin Force in the main, with my side comprising of 4 Faerie Macabre, 4 Blue Shoal, 4 Contagion, 3 Mindbreak Trap.
Storm (in general);
+3 Trap, +4 Shoal
-2 Shadow, -2 D.R., -1 Flayer, -1 Shell, -1 Phants.

UWR Delver;
This used to be a deck with weenies we could kill quickly to reduce their advantage considerably. Then they printed TNN, and this deck now runs Jitte, Batterskull and also Engineered Explosives.
They usually run a mix of Grafdigger's Cage, Meddling Mage and RiP. In my experience, Mage players usually name Therapy or Dread Return.
I usually start with this;
+ 4 Blue Shoal, +1 Contagion
-4 D.R., -1 Flayer (cos Mage sucks out the fun)
I typically don't find COntagion that useful in this matchup, as the only useful targets are Delver, or a tempo measure (nailing SFM to prevent them tapping it for batterskull). TNN does put us on a clock, especially should they land a Batterskull, so I don't wanna drop any acceleration.
That said, you could always up the number of contagion, as it is useful to kill your own creatures too.

Almost all the other decks, my side plan will depend on whether I expect to see RiP, Cage, LotV, DRS, Ooze etc...

[Final Fortune]

I board out Gitaxian Probe for the other blue cards rather often, and then just cut 1x of the weaker, redundant cards like Shambling Shell, Nether Shadow, Phantasmagorian and Dread Return for the rest.

[GoldenCid]

I see phantasmagorian like the heart of the deck. Which is the basis for cutting it

[Michael Keller]

I board out Gitaxian Probe for the other blue cards rather often, and then just cut 1x of the weaker, redundant cards like Shambling Shell, Nether Shadow, Phantasmagorian and Dread Return for the rest.

Why would you board out Probe when it's the only blue card able to be exiled to satisfy Shoal against Cage?

Force counters everything, but Shoal is conditional. I agree with trimming redundant cards, but I don't see the value in cutting a card that has built-in synergy against one-half of the most prolific hate cards we have to contend with.

Also, never cut all four Dread Returns - ever. The card is too important to kick aside and is more than just a combo element - it's a token generator. I mean, going down to three or two I can see. But never all four.

[slave]

I see phantasmagorian like the heart of the deck. Which is the basis for cutting it
LOL. :laugh:
I just coughed my arse out my neck and back again. What a hell of an aftertaste... Damn you!


Also, never cut all four Dread Returns - ever. The card is too important to kick aside and is more than just a combo element - it's a token generator. I mean, going down to three or two I can see. But never all four.
Yeah I don't ever side out Probe's and bring in Shoal's > there are just so many good 1-drops in legacy we could potentially stop, not to mention the interaction with Therapy.

But don't drop all Dread Return?
Majority of the time I agree here, as Rider seems to always be in the deck now we have the blue side.
In the instance above, UWR Delver > they usually seem to run at least 3 to 4 grave-hate (cage and/or RiP) and usually run a full four Meddling Mage from the side. Whenever I've faced this matchup I struggle to cast Dread Return (c/o swords to plowshares vs Ickys) and even if I'm in a position to cast it, Meddling Mage usually prevents me.
Granted, Shoal/Force improves this matchup a lot, but I feel like D.R. is a low % play here > I can't recall ever actually casting it against this deck after game1.
But your point of token generation is a valid one > ... please educate me if I'm missing something.

[Michael Keller]

You just can't overly rely on Ichorids to get the job done. They'll either get Plowed or you won't hit them in time. Dread Return transforms Shadows and Narcomoebas into zombies and something else. That's what makes it worthwhile.

It basically turns less scary threats into a full-blown zombie invasion.

[Dick_Tator]

I'm runnin Force in the main, with my side comprising of 4 Faerie Macabre, 4 Blue Shoal, 4 Contagion, 3 Mindbreak Trap.
Storm (in general);
+3 Trap, +4 Shoal
-2 Shadow, -2 D.R., -1 Flayer, -1 Shell, -1 Phants.

Why would you side out Flayer? Wouldn't you want to keep it in to give you the possibility of a fast combo kill? I mean, counterspells will only buy you so much time against Storm, so you would need to kill your opponent pretty fast, before he gets to reload and go off again?

[Thrasher]

@slave: that sb plan vs storm seems weak to discard. I definitely want Chancellor or leyline of sanctity in my 75.

I agree on not cutting completely dr's. It's good to have 2 different token generators vs meddling mage, and having only 4 slows us down by a lot.

[Michael Keller]

I've just had huge success with Leyline of Sanctity. And that's true that the deck is cold to discard, unless you have double counter in your hand.

Just look at how many cards target you in Storm. You cut out their ability to make informed decisions. This puts serious pressure on them because:

1. You're going to assault them and rip their hand apart with Therapy (remember, we run Probe now too which makes Therapy more dangerous).

2. You're going to combo out on them first with Dread Return.

3. You're going to counter their attempt at going for Empty the Warrens or some other spell.

While an opponent is looking for ways around your one card, you're attacking them from multiple angles.

Also, assuming you open with Leyline and a blue card, you've got two draws to find a back-breaking counter. Street Wraith also works double-duty in that department in being able to cycle into counters.

[GoldenCid]

I wanted to share some impresions and doubts about the last development of the deck (FoW + Shoal).

It seems an "all pourpose" tech but i think that it's reserved for 2 situations:

A- Cage / RiP decks (RUG / enchantress, dead and taxes and Miracles respectively): will try to counter them removing probe (shoal) for cage and moeba (shoal) for rip. Do you suggest adding discard for hit them to increase the chance to hit them? I imagne on the play g2 and usmasking them when the counter is not accompained with a blue card or we have no counter at all. Which other decks run cage / rip hate?

B- Combo decks. This is a great strategy, hit rite of flame, dark ritual or even infernal tutor or belcher is just awesome. I'm on the trap side but i'm reading hollywood with great results with leyline.

I'd go this configuration:

4 Fow
4 Disrrupting shoal
4 Leyline / Trap
3 Sickening shoal (yes my meta is full of shaman) / Unmask.

Side note: I feel really very dispointed when i keep a good hand and the opo goes shaman t1. What is the best for for deal with this scenario?

Thx!!

GC.

[slave]

Side note: I feel really very dispointed when i keep a good hand and the opo goes shaman t1. What is the best for for deal with this scenario?
If an opponent is on DRS, I don't side out any Wraiths or Phants.


@slave: that sb plan vs storm seems weak to discard. I definitely want Chancellor or leyline of sanctity in my 75.

I agree on not cutting completely dr's. It's good to have 2 different token generators vs meddling mage, and having only 4 slows us down by a lot.
Fair enough,
I'm not playing either Leyline (don't have them) or Chancellor (I have force in the main instead) right now.
I think Force and Chancellor carry out the same job don't they?
I always found chancellor only ever slowed them down for a turn, which doesn't really help that much. Kinda why I don't run it. I've also had them Reanimated by my opponent a few times too...:eek:
I can see the value in Leyline. I may have to buy a set.


Why would you side out Flayer? Wouldn't you want to keep it in to give you the possibility of a fast combo kill? I mean, counterspells will only buy you so much time against Storm, so you would need to kill your opponent pretty fast, before he gets to reload and go off again?
Yeah I guess you have a point, it's only one slot afterall...
My thought is that counters are only there to buy time until we Cabal Therapy them. It's really only the first 3 turns I worry about, after that our chances of discarding their meat just got a lot more likely. Since Storm rarely runs much creature defence, we can usually just stomp them should the game get beyond turn4.

[Thrasher]

If an opponent is on DRS, I don't side out any Wraiths or Phants.


Fair enough,
I'm not playing either Leyline (don't have them) or Chancellor (I have force in the main instead) right now.
I think Force and Chancellor carry out the same job don't they?
I always found chancellor only ever slowed them down for a turn, which doesn't really help that much. Kinda why I don't run it. I've also had them Reanimated by my opponent a few times too...:eek:
I can see the value in Leyline. I may have to buy a set.


Yeah I guess you have a point, it's only one slot afterall...
My thought is that counters are only there to buy time until we Cabal Therapy them. It's really only the first 3 turns I worry about, after that our chances of discarding their meat just got a lot more likely. Since Storm rarely runs much creature defence, we can usually just stomp them should the game get beyond turn4.

Chancellor slows them in THE turn. Discard spells and DRS are not useful unless played in the first turn.

You don't really need Flayer. You can easily reanimate Whirlpool Rider and win with triple therapy. For the lists playing it, chancellor is usually the best DR Target.


I wanted to share some impresions and doubts about the last development of the deck (FoW + Shoal).

It seems an "all pourpose" tech but i think that it's reserved for 2 situations:

A- Cage / RiP decks (RUG / enchantress, dead and taxes and Miracles respectively): will try to counter them removing probe (shoal) for cage and moeba (shoal) for rip. Do you suggest adding discard for hit them to increase the chance to hit them? I imagne on the play g2 and usmasking them when the counter is not accompained with a blue card or we have no counter at all. Which other decks run cage / rip hate?

B- Combo decks. This is a great strategy, hit rite of flame, dark ritual or even infernal tutor or belcher is just awesome. I'm on the trap side but i'm reading hollywood with great results with leyline.

I'd go this configuration:

4 Fow
4 Disrrupting shoal
4 Leyline / Trap
3 Sickening shoal (yes my meta is full of shaman) / Unmask.

Side note: I feel really very dispointed when i keep a good hand and the opo goes shaman t1. What is the best for for deal with this scenario?

Thx!!

GC.

I agree with it being for those 2 situations. That's what it does in my list, at least. You shouldn't have problems with 4 Chancellor 4 Phantasmagorian 4 Street Wraith, i usually play 1 sickening shoal MD, too, i have a free slot and it's quite good at hitting oozes, shamans, and elesh norns.


I've just had huge success with Leyline of Sanctity. And that's true that the deck is cold to discard, unless you have double counter in your hand.

Just look at how many cards target you in Storm. You cut out their ability to make informed decisions. This puts serious pressure on them because:

1. You're going to assault them and rip their hand apart with Therapy (remember, we run Probe now too which makes Therapy more dangerous).

2. You're going to combo out on them first with Dread Return.

3. You're going to counter their attempt at going for Empty the Warrens or some other spell.

While an opponent is looking for ways around your one card, you're attacking them from multiple angles.

Also, assuming you open with Leyline and a blue card, you've got two draws to find a back-breaking counter. Street Wraith also works double-duty in that department in being able to cycle into counters.

Leyline + counter is easily the best thing we can do versus storm. It requires heavy sideboarding, though, and the deck ends up being quite diluted. I found that plan to be very good with leyline on the board, but significantly worse without it, unless we somehow get the first dredge going. I usually side only 4 FoW 4 Trap because i think it's the best way to try to go for the double counter/Chancellor + counter route/Chancellor + wraith without diluting the deck (Trap doesn't need a pitch, it's easier to get it active).

Leyline is generally a more versatile card, though. i like it versus bojuka bog. I have them ready in case lands gets more popular here.

[Final Fortune]

Leyline is a bit of a gamble, a lot of the better players will understand it's better to go all-in instead of trying to answer Leyline and giving you the turn you need to start dredging and discarding Cabal Therapy - I tried it regularly vs TES and either got Silenced or they beat me down with Goblin tokens.

I typically prefer Chancellor of the Annex over Leyline of Sanctity for that reason, a lot of combo players are just like "whatever" and try to kill you anyway and the odds of them getting away with it are actually pretty good. If you consider they probably won game 1, they go all in on game 2 on a free roll and either win the match or go straight to game 3 and each time they do this they always get the 8th card so their odds of going off are that much better.

I'd rather Daze, Time Walk into my Dredge and then let them Duress me because it actually sets them back from their fundamental turn by 1 or maybe 2 turns when they can't cantrip on their first and they choose to Duress me on their second turn.

It seems like the "surprise" value of MDing Force of Will has worn off already.

[Michael Keller]

If an opponent has Silence and is able to Empty the Warrens before you can get going, you weren't winning that game to begin with no matter what you're boarding in.

Also, how is Leyline a "gamble"? Couldn't the same be said for every other card in the deck you want to open hand to play? Your counters, Macabres, Street Wraiths - everything is reliant on being in your opening hand in order to be effective.

The key is what's worth opening that hurts an opponent the most and has more versatility in other matchups. Leyline fits the bill here, and honestly with counters and the very threat of Probe-Therapy should be enough to close games out.

Leyline blanks a huge percentage of a Storm player's deck and forces them to play your game instead of you playing around theirs with discard and such.

[gato con botas]

Hello boys and girls I have a small probllema this Saturday have tilt we will be approximately 60 in the last tilt in the top 8 uvieron 6 dredges the regunta is aoparte of the faeires use black leilines?

[Darklingske]

Hello boys and girls I have a small probllema this Saturday have tilt we will be approximately 60 in the last tilt in the top 8 uvieron 6 dredges the regunta is aoparte of the faeires use black leilines?

Do you mean what happens if they open with Leyline of the void? We just roll over and die. But since leyline of the void is not played in large quantities (in my meta not even once) I accept the random loss against it.

[Thrasher]

I guess he meant that there were 6 dredges in the previous tournament. If i guessed correctly then go with both. If there are really all those dredge decks i'd pack more than 4 pieces of hate, maybe 6.

[Final Fortune]

If an opponent has Silence and is able to Empty the Warrens before you can get going, you weren't winning that game to begin with no matter what you're boarding in.

Also, how is Leyline a "gamble"? Couldn't the same be said for every other card in the deck you want to open hand to play? Your counters, Macabres, Street Wraiths - everything is reliant on being in your opening hand in order to be effective.

The key is what's worth opening that hurts an opponent the most and has more versatility in other matchups. Leyline fits the bill here, and honestly with counters and the very threat of Probe-Therapy should be enough to close games out.

Leyline blanks a huge percentage of a Storm player's deck and forces them to play your game instead of you playing around theirs with discard and such.

Why do they need Silence and Empty the Warrens, all they need is Empty the Warrens and considering they get 8 cards and you have to wait 2 turns to Dredge they can usually just play Goblins and race you. It might work vs ANT because that deck is a lot slower than TES, but TES just ignored the Leyline of Sanctity and went all in aggressively regardless of "the fear" of a counter spell and had a high enough win % to reliably close out the match in 3 games.

I like Chancellor of the Annex because there's no way to go around him, they pay the Daze cost period and Leyline of Sanctity is a "gamble" in the sense that if you don't have anything backing it up they can just go off undisrupted compared to Chancellor of the Annex and you just Time Walked yourself to do nothing basically.

Just find a good TES pilot and test the match up, you'll see Leyline is kind of bleh vs Goblins. I'm not saying Chancellor is really that much better, but I like having Chancellor vs other stuff because it's pretty good against everything basically instead of being really good vs one thing. I mean if Leyline works for you then go for it, I've played with it before, but I just think there are more ways around it.

[Michael Keller]

Why do they need Silence and Empty the Warrens, all they need is Empty the Warrens and considering they get 8 cards and you have to wait 2 turns to Dredge they can usually just play Goblins and race you. It might work vs ANT because that deck is a lot slower than TES, but TES just ignored the Leyline of Sanctity and went all in aggressively regardless of "the fear" of a counter spell and had a high enough win % to reliably close out the match in 3 games.

Either you've got it in your hand or you don't. Probability says you don't, but have a way to get it. I run counters, so Wishes and Tutors aren't resolving under the protection of a Leyline. Discard nullifies that prospect almost entirely, and I'm sure a Storm pilot would gladly pay one mana for a Chrome Mox or Probe to just win.

That's my point: Leyline forces an opponent to go all in blind against counters. Empty the Warrens is a one of in almost all variations main, so either my opponent gets lucky or I counter their predominant acceleration.

Unless you've got Silence. In which case it doesn't matter.


I like Chancellor of the Annex because there's no way to go around him, they pay the Daze cost period and Leyline of Sanctity is a "gamble" in the sense that if you don't have anything backing it up they can just go off undisrupted compared to Chancellor of the Annex and you just Time Walked yourself to do nothing basically.

And I like Leyline better. Case closed.


Just find a good TES pilot and test the match up, you'll see Leyline is kind of bleh vs Goblins.

That's funny. Who do you think taught Bryant Cook how to play Magic?

[Michael Keller]

Look, here's what it boils down to:

The deck I run is a bit more reactive with the inclusion of counters. I've heard people get worked up on other forums because of this change. Consider this: all of your dredgers are virtually free draws spells with a buyback cost of "0." You semi-autonomously sit back and let them do work for you.

Yeah, trigger mamanagement is key. But once you master that and situational Magic, it's cake. It really is. Think about how scary it is for an opponent watching you bypass interaction and, for all intents and purposes, accumulate a hand out of your graveyard by doing nothing really except for discarding. That's terrifying, and anyone who says otherwise is probably lying.

Permission gives the deck the edge it was missing by controlling the game state and stunning opponents who keep weak hands or boarded incorrectly. This deck more than any other punishes the unprepared severely.

The false premise that counters make the deck less threat intensive is egregious. Ichorids? Check. Shadows? Check. Bridges? Check. Dread Returns? Check. Therapys? Check.

The hardest part of this archetype is knowing how to sideboard correctly. That changes based on a variety of factors. I've also been a proponent of running Faerie main for the longest time in metas that warrant it; that isn't going to change anytime soon.

[Final Fortune]

ETW being a 1 of has no barring on the discussion, all of TES' threats either tutor for it or wish for it. I've just found Leyline gives them more chances to go off than Chancellor if they ignore it, you have to take stuff like Belcher and Hermit Druids into consideration as well.

[Michael Keller]

ETW being a 1 of has no barring on the discussion, all of TES' threats either tutor for it or wish for it.

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point lol? It does have a huge deal to do with the discussion, in fact it has everything to do with this discussion because Empty the Warrens - against a Leyline of Sanctity and counterspells - literally has to be in the opponent's opening hand in order to win them the game undisturbed. Anything else gets countered, including key acceleration and tutors in the process. They aren't casting Duress, Probe, Therapy, Tendrils or anything else that targets me unless they go for Empty the Warrens - which has to be in their opening hand or drawn naturally/cantripped into.

And they literally have to try and fire it off by turn two - in the face of an unknown hand, no less - or risk having their hand shredded and combo'd out. We also get two draws to find another counter in the process, which is fine by me.


I've just found Leyline gives them more chances to go off than Chancellor if they ignore it, you have to take stuff like Belcher and Hermit Druids into consideration as well.

Yeah, Belcher isn't doing anything against Leyline of Sanctity, or Force of Will/Shoal on a Wish or key Ritual effect to ice Empty the Warrens - much like Storm where their primary win condition is a targeted spell (Tendrils->Belcher), and their secondary win condition is Empty the Warrens (or vice versa - doesn't matter). And as for "Hermit Druid": we run counterspells and Faerie Macabres, which is just backbreaking. Neither of those match-ups scare me the least bit - not one iota. That's how comfortable I am with my sideboard.

[Red Zone]

Played a small 8-man tournament Wednesday night with the Force of Will main version of the deck. I did not run Faerie Macabre main, but had three in the board. I beat Death and Taxes (2-1) and BUG Delver (2-1), but lost to Jund (0-2). The BUG and Jund matchups had turn one Deathrite 4 of the 5 games.

I was able to fight through the BUG matchup using Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith shenanigans coupled with their terrible mana base, but I went down hard to the Jund. Deathrite combined with Scavenging Ooze post board were more than this "little engine that could" could handle.

I wasn't terribly concerned with the Deathrite, but the Ooze shut me down completely. I realize Ooze doesn't see a ton of play, but I just wanted to note that it is a huge pothole for this deck and the community should be aware of it's presence in Jund sideboards. Disrupting Shoal, Contagion or Sickening Shoal should be boarded in against this matchup.

[Final Fortune]

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point lol? It does have a huge deal to do with the discussion, in fact it has everything to do with this discussion because Empty the Warrens - against a Leyline of Sanctity and counterspells - literally has to be in the opponent's opening hand in order to win them the game undisturbed. Anything else gets countered, including key acceleration and tutors in the process. They aren't casting Duress, Probe, Therapy, Tendrils or anything else that targets me unless they go for Empty the Warrens - which has to be in their opening hand or drawn naturally/cantripped into.

And they literally have to try and fire it off by turn two - in the face of an unknown hand, no less - or risk having their hand shredded and combo'd out. We also get two draws to find another counter in the process, which is fine by me.



Yeah, Belcher isn't doing anything against Leyline of Sanctity, or Force of Will/Shoal on a Wish or key Ritual effect to ice Empty the Warrens - much like Storm where their primary win condition is a targeted spell (Tendrils->Belcher), and their secondary win condition is Empty the Warrens (or vice versa - doesn't matter). And as for "Hermit Druid": we run counterspells and Faerie Macabres, which is just backbreaking. Neither of those match-ups scare me the least bit - not one iota. That's how comfortable I am with my sideboard.

Ok, you just seem to have the counter for everything in your hand at any time so there doesn't seem to be any point in carrying on this discussion, Rest in Peace "no problem, I'll just Dryad Arbor and Reverent Silence and win after a double Time Walk" Storm no problem "I'll just Leyline of Sanctity and always draw Force of Will and a blue card too" Reanimator no problem, "My 2 MD Faerie Macabre will turn the match up around." If you run like god you can justify anything, wtf is the point of having a rational discussion with you when my novelty of MD FoW has suddenly turned the Storm match up into a 100% lock for the deck, fuck aggro-control man we can all just play Manaless Dredge and face roll the format now.

[Thrasher]

Played a small 8-man tournament Wednesday night with the Force of Will main version of the deck. I did not run Faerie Macabre main, but had three in the board. I beat Death and Taxes (2-1) and BUG Delver (2-1), but lost to Jund (0-2). The BUG and Jund matchups had turn one Deathrite 4 of the 5 games.

I was able to fight through the BUG matchup using Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith shenanigans coupled with their terrible mana base, but I went down hard to the Jund. Deathrite combined with Scavenging Ooze post board were more than this "little engine that could" could handle.

I wasn't terribly concerned with the Deathrite, but the Ooze shut me down completely. I realize Ooze doesn't see a ton of play, but I just wanted to note that it is a huge pothole for this deck and the community should be aware of it's presence in Jund sideboards. Disrupting Shoal, Contagion or Sickening Shoal should be boarded in against this matchup.

I play chancellor over force in the maindeck, and jund is a pretty good matchup. I usually side 4 counters, and often manage to win at least one of g2/3. I often see it played it 1/2 copies, it shouldn't be that troublesome. If you lose g1 then yes, you might want to side 8 counters. You can't afford to go to g2 with one loss and praying to dodge it for both games. Winning g1 you can expect to dodge it for at least one game, that's why i side half the counters.

[Jankwolf]

Ok, you just seem to have the counter for everything in your hand at any time so there doesn't seem to be any point in carrying on this discussion, Rest in Peace "no problem, I'll just Dryad Arbor and Reverent Silence and win after a double Time Walk" Storm no problem "I'll just Leyline of Sanctity and always draw Force of Will and a blue card too" Reanimator no problem, "My 2 MD Faerie Macabre will turn the match up around." If you run like god you can justify anything, wtf is the point of having a rational discussion with you when my novelty of MD FoW has suddenly turned the Storm match up into a 100% lock for the deck, fuck aggro-control man we can all just play Manaless Dredge and face roll the format now.

Don't be an ass hat when responding to posts. If you're going to post something on here please be constructive. If not, I would whole heartedly encourage you to keep your sarcasm to yourself.

[Final Fortune]

Don't be an ass hat when responding to posts. If you're going to post something on here please be constructive. If not, I would whole heartedly encourage you to keep your sarcasm to yourself.

Or people could stop being intellectually dishonest and actually admit when a card has a weakness and there are other acceptable substitutes to that card and MD configurations instead of using whatever rhetoric comes to mind to justify their flavour of the month card choices in Dredge? I really don't care whether or not he plays Leyline or Chancellor, I've even played Leyline myself before back when he originally dismissed it because "leylines are bad in Dredge" and then he later accepted it, because it's efficacy is going to heavily depend on which Storm or Combo variants he faces. I was just pointing out that Leyline has an exploitable weakness to Empty the Warrens if they don't fear the counter because you time walk yourself out of the ability to deal with it and "don't worry, I always draw Leyline and a counter" is not an honest way to compare the cards merrits because even tho' he may math says you wont.

I probably play Manaless Dredge vs combo decks more than any one else because I play primarily on MTGO, and I spent a really long time trying to find any way I could to shore up the combo match up and I know each of those cards exploits. I'm not saying Chancellor is hands down better because it has its own problems, he's right about Gitaxian Probe or Chrome Mox burning thru' it but it still always costs them a card and they can't always afford to lose a card and go off immediately so you usually buy a turn to start dredging immediately and then hope they lose another turn to Cabal Therapying you, naming the wrong counter or they don't have enough mana to win immediately despite discarding the counter and you have a chance to dredge up a Cabal Therapy yourself next turn, but more importantly Chancellor gives EV vs Deathrite Shaman where Leyline doesn't really give EV vs any other tertiary cards in the format other than a Nihil Spellbomb which is really debeatably worth SBing it in for at all.

The fact of the matter is Storm is a bad match up and his hyperbole hasn't solved that, the problem is probably worse for me than it is for him and even I don't put all of my eggs into the anti-storm basket because Deathrite Shaman is a more important consideration. I've pretty much moved to Mana Dredge for the moment because even with Force of Will in the MD and the blue SB the match up vs combo is an uphill battle and Rest in Peace is still a major problem, things have gotten better but the deck is still a glass cannon instead of a daily driver. I could be entirely convinced that we should go back to playing Chancellor and Arbor in the MD and just SB Force of Will/Disrupting Shoal and run 7 slots vs Reanimator even tho' I think Gitaxian Probe/Whirlpool Rider gave this deck the first legitimate progression in years just because it's your win% vs Deathrite Shaman that's probably going to get you to and thru' the T8.

In short, Leyline and Chancellor are pretty equivalent vs Storm, actually I should say Chancellor is probably weaker vs Storm, but Chancellor provides added winning% vs arguably the most ubiquitous graveyard hate in the format so it should probably get the nod in a tournament setting. If he plays vs ANT like every other match up tho' then yeah Leyline of Sanctity is pretty damn good.

[Jankwolf]

Or people could stop being intellectually dishonest and actually admit when a card has a weakness and there are other acceptable substitutes to that card and MD configurations instead of using whatever rhetoric comes to mind to justify their flavour of the month card choices in Dredge? I really don't care whether or not he plays Leyline or Chancellor, I've even played Leyline myself before back when he originally dismissed it because "leylines are bad in Dredge" and then he later accepted it, because it's efficacy is going to heavily depend on which Storm or Combo variants he faces. I was just pointing out that Leyline has an exploitable weakness to Empty the Warrens if they don't fear the counter because you time walk yourself out of the ability to deal with it and "don't worry, I always draw Leyline and a counter" is not an honest way to compare the cards merrits because even tho' he may math says you wont.

I probably play Manaless Dredge vs combo decks more than any one else because I play primarily on MTGO, and I spent a really long time trying to find any way I could to shore up the combo match up and I know each of those cards exploits. I'm not saying Chancellor is hands down better because it has its own problems, he's right about Gitaxian Probe or Chrome Mox burning thru' it but it still always costs them a card and they can't always afford to lose a card and go off immediately so you usually buy a turn to start dredging immediately and then hope they lose another turn to Cabal Therapying you, naming the wrong counter or they don't have enough mana to win immediately despite discarding the counter and you have a chance to dredge up a Cabal Therapy yourself next turn, but more importantly Chancellor gives EV vs Deathrite Shaman where Leyline doesn't really give EV vs any other tertiary cards in the format other than a Nihil Spellbomb which is really debeatably worth SBing it in for at all.

The fact of the matter is Storm is a bad match up and his hyperbole hasn't solved that, the problem is probably worse for me than it is for him and even I don't put all of my eggs into the anti-storm basket because Deathrite Shaman is a more important consideration. I've pretty much moved to Mana Dredge for the moment because even with Force of Will in the MD and the blue SB the match up vs combo is an uphill battle and Rest in Peace is still a major problem, things have gotten better but the deck is still a glass cannon instead of a daily driver. I could be entirely convinced that we should go back to playing Chancellor and Arbor in the MD and just SB Force of Will/Disrupting Shoal and run 7 slots vs Reanimator even tho' I think Gitaxian Probe/Whirlpool Rider gave this deck the first legitimate progression in years just because it's your win% vs Deathrite Shaman that's probably going to get you to and thru' the T8.

In short, Leyline and Chancellor are pretty equivalent vs Storm, actually I should say Chancellor is probably weaker vs Storm, but Chancellor provides added winning% vs arguably the most ubiquitous graveyard hate in the format so it should probably get the nod in a tournament setting. If he plays vs ANT like every other match up tho' then yeah Leyline of Sanctity is pretty damn good.


LoS and CotA are temporary solutions until you can get your CT's online. The only purpose they serve is to buy you time, not shut the game out. Your storm opponent will have to shift to find an answer for that instead of finding a way to beat you. FoW and DS are there to buy you even more time while you dredge and win. Not saying it's a great MU but it evens the playing field a bit.

[jimmythegreek]

Any manaless players in richmond?

[Jankwolf]

Any manaless players in richmond?

Alexandria count?

[slave]

Okay.... so it sounds like things have fired up since I've been away... for better or worse.:eyebrow:

I'm not necessarily addressing the points quoted, more so the points made in the last couple of pages.
I agree and disagree with some points made.


ETW being a 1 of has no barring on the discussion, all of TES' threats either tutor for it or wish for it. I've just found Leyline gives them more chances to go off than Chancellor if they ignore it, you have to take stuff like Belcher and Hermit Druids into consideration as well.
Hermit Druid is banned, but I assume you've just been thinking of vintage.

RE: Chancellor VS Leyline, this is a moot point most of the time, as unless we have Chancellor on the field, all they need to do is let their first play get countered or play a 2nd mana source and they might be able to go stupid from there, however unlikely. I've had at least a couple of occasions where I've flashed my Chancellor to storm, only for them to still win on turn1. :mad:

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point lol? It does have a huge deal to do with the discussion, in fact it has everything to do with this discussion because Empty the Warrens - against a Leyline of Sanctity and counterspells - literally has to be in the opponent's opening hand in order to win them the game undisturbed. Anything else gets countered, including key acceleration and tutors in the process. They aren't casting Duress, Probe, Therapy, Tendrils or anything else that targets me unless they go for Empty the Warrens - which has to be in their opening hand or drawn naturally/cantripped into.

And they literally have to try and fire it off by turn two - in the face of an unknown hand, no less - or risk having their hand shredded and combo'd out. We also get two draws to find another counter in the process, which is fine by me.

We're on the backfoot against Storm, even with Leyline and Blue counter in the 60.
Game 1 we usually lose VS Storm, they just sided in answers/hate > so are we saving counter for their tutor/wish etc., only for them to extract our win-cons?
I realise Storm like TES & ANT rarely run gravehate beyond extraction, due to them running Wishboard.side, but they also run counter of their own too, like REB/PB.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hollywood, I know you're aware of stuff like this, but I'm gonna put this down for the benefit of others.

Let's look at chances;
Bear in mind, this assumes we're on 8 counters, 19 blue cards total in the main (4 of all, apart from 3 Riders)
And a counter we find might be Shoal, which may not be all that useful on occasion.

4 leyline in the deck = ~40% chance of getting one in your 7. And we have <70% chance of getting a single counter (or more), and a ~93% chance of another blue card in hand.
(thats a <27% total chance of getting both LoS & Counter we can use turn1).

Lets say you've landed a LoS on turn1;
1) No counter in hand, but you do have a single blue card > chance of drawing a counter over two draws is ~28%.
If you already have a counter in hand, chance of drawing another counter ~24%.
2) No blue card in hand besides a single counter > chance of hitting blue over 2 draws is ~56%.
If you already have blue in hand other than a counter, finding another blue ~54%
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I agree with both feet that it's a great premise, I really do, but having both in hand doesn't look very likely....

Anyway;
My point is, without the counter as backup, the leyline plan only stops the simple storm decks that don't have a planB outside the typical Belcher/Tendrils etc., which just reeks of rookie pilot syndrome. Otherwise the best we could hope for is to slow them down a turn and/or deprive them discarding/probing us.
I DO agree that a resolved LoS will often be enough to buy you a turn should it land, who knows? maybe more?
....But even if we win game2 > game3 is likely to be pushin shit uphill when they side out Belcher/Tendrils etc. and concentrate on EtW.

With Leyline slowing us down a turn, we're a turn further away from casting Therapy or raping face with creatures. I find Therapy is the best tool we have against storm, besides winning of course. I love that Probe now belongs in the list for this reason!

Conversely, whilst Chancellor is only a 40% chance in our first grip, (like LoS), it invariably buys us a turn, instead of costing us one > possibly a net gain of two turns compared to LoS! :eek:
For me, the biggest decision would seem to be whether you're more afraid of Turn1 Storm, or Turn1 DRS.


LoS and CotA are temporary solutions until you can get your CT's online. The only purpose they serve is to buy you time, not shut the game out. Your storm opponent will have to shift to find an answer for that instead of finding a way to beat you. FoW and DS are there to buy you even more time while you dredge and win. Not saying it's a great MU but it evens the playing field a bit.
THIS. Buyin time to cast therapy and rape Storm (and fast combo)s' fuckin smug-bastard face.
I'm not sayin I have the answers boys.... hope the math helps you fella's.


Any manaless players in richmond?
You mean tigerland?
Go on, sing the song....
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/smobass/tigers2013_zpsc1cfddef.jpg (http://s28.photobucket.com/user/smobass/media/tigers2013_zpsc1cfddef.jpg.html)

[Thrasher]

Hermit Druid=Oops, all spells.

Well put, that's a good analysis.

[Michael Keller]

The primary engine of the deck will never change. It's the pointless squabbling and bickering over personal preference that gets out of hand.

Look for the new primer soon.

[slave]

Hermit Druid=Oops, all spells.
.....
(roll eyes) Thanks Thrasher, and sorry FF.
Why is a deck named after a banned card it has never had, and will never have?

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c201/smobass/potpalace_zps4583313c.jpg (http://s28.photobucket.com/user/smobass/media/potpalace_zps4583313c.jpg.html)


The primary engine of the deck will never change. It's the pointless squabbling and bickering over personal preference that gets out of hand.
Unless they print something that transforms the deck or we have a moment of inspiration, I agree.

I think we all agree that personal attacks over the internet are pathetic.
Be civil people, and remember, this is a card game designed to free you of your hard earned money.
But....
Isn't the bickering about this choice and that choice exactly what this thread (& every other thread), here on the source is all about in the first place?

[carefulmug]

Regarding the argument that occurred last page over Chancellor//Leyline in regards to TES and the like, I do think Hollywood exhibited some overly optimistic and stubborn behavior.

TES only having one EtW in their MD 60 does not necessitate that they naturally draw one or have one in their opening 60. This is a ridiculous assessment. How do they ever win a game otherwise? Remember: they have an Ad Nauseam and 8 tutors to 'get there', plus 12 cantrips to hit the aforementioned 9 (or ten) cards.

Leyline does not shut down their Gitaxian Probes. They can still probe themselves. They can also still Therapy themselves and name Vizzerdrix.

Leyline does not stop Silence. They have a better chance of drawing Silence than we of drawing Force. ie, Ponder + Brainstorm.

And they do not NEED to go off turn two. Because we are NOT a turn 2 consistent deck. We are occasionally a turn 2 deck. And we definitely are not a t2 deck when we're opening -1 card off a Leyline of Sanctity.

While Final Fortune could possibly have taken a higher road in the conversation, I can empathize the frustration he must have been having in articulating a statement when Hollywood has been, indeed, just short of claiming to have a Leyline + Force, Shoal, adequate blue cards to pitch, and a t2-t3 kill every g2 and 3 against storm.

And, really, it shouldn't matter much whether someone has placed or not. Good for you, Hollywood, and it's cool that you taught Bryant Cook how to play with cardboard at some point, but that's no justification for telling people their ideas are invalid. Let's remember that you were the predominant opponent to the Blue side, MB Gitaxian Probes, and a number of other modifications that you now seem to think are the absolute bee's knees.

[Shawon]

Just use the Ignore List, honestly. You already gave said user enough of your time.

[TableTopMagic]

Just use the Ignore List, honestly. You already gave said user enough of your time.

http://reactiongifs.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Bill-Hader-Popcorn-reaction-Gif-On-The-Daily-Show.gif

Oh it was just getting good. :D


I think the problem is that quite often people think of magic in black and white, 1D and 2D. When it is a multispectral and 3D. Hell, it almost boarders on the forth, but that would depend on if your talking to a Physicist or a Mathematician. (That's a little nerd joke there. :P)

From any dimension to the next the point of view of and object can change, but still have the same number of points. For example a single square can be seen straight on as this dot . or it can be seen from the side as this _____________________ and still be the same object. The same can be said for cards. Just because a card wasn't good when it was looked at from one angel doesn't mean it wont be better or great from other views. Not saying anyone here is better or worse than anyone else, just that ideas should be viewed in multiple ways before any judgements are made. Especially if personal attacks are made using those judgements.

[jimmythegreek]

Played some side-events at gp Richmond this weekend. Beat uw miracles......forced my first rip (felt amazing). Is uw miracles a difficult match up? It felt as if I didnt over extend I wouldnt get blown out by terminus. Lost to sneak and show ( guy had the nuts game one and two). Is therapy the only way to fight that deck? I suppose one might bring in all blue cards to beat snt?

[carefulmug]

I've spoken without tact or etiquette. Forgive me. Let me try again.


If you open the game with LoS, your opponent can't Tendrils you, simple.

I felt this comment was misleading in its decisiveness because Tendrils is not their default win condition, so we're not stripping them of much. The statement sounds confident in our shutting down Tendrils being a game breaker when it is a secondary win condition, anyway.

===

about win conditions, you said:


a.) Have it in their hand...
b.) Infernal Tutor all-in for it...
c.) Burning Wish for it...
d.) Ad Nauseam to find it or an answer to Leyline...
e.) Randomly cantrip into it.

i said:


Remember: they have an Ad Nauseam and 8 tutors to 'get there', plus 12 cantrips to hit the aforementioned 9 (or ten) cards.

Gotcha. I'm picking up what you're putting down.


Now, as you can see, the only way they win under that set of circumstances is if they have it in their opening hand because any other attempt can be stopped cold with a counter. That's all I was trying to say. Nothing more, nothing less.

and earlier in the thread, concerning the singleton EtW in their maindeck, you said:


Either you've got it in your hand or you don't. Probability says you don't, but have a way to get it. I run counters, so Wishes and Tutors aren't resolving under the protection of a Leyline. Discard nullifies that prospect almost entirely, and I'm sure a Storm pilot would gladly pay one mana for a Chrome Mox or Probe to just win.

I suppose this is a difference of perspective. I believe our statements above describe numerous methods by which a storm player may find their win conditions. I'm not confident a single counterspell will prevent them from having two or more routes to victory in hand. And while counter + discard is good for us to have, Therapies don't usually come online for a few (2-4) turns at which point they may have Brainstorm to hide behind.

===


Leyline does shut down Gitaxian Probe, because I don't care if they look at their hand, pay two life and cycle it. They're not looking at my hand and have zero information as to what I'm sandbagging. That makes Leyline more potent.

I concede this point. It is a plus for running Leyline. But I believe this is an instance of assuming we will have counters in hand if we started with a Leyline in hand. This kind of conclusive language is what was throwing me off. I believe the statement also subtly diminishes the importance of Gitaxian Probe's ability as free storm +1 and cantrip by claiming "Leyline does shut down Gitaxian Probe". Also, the scenario (Leyline protecting us from our opponent's discard or knowledge of possible counterspell(s)) invites a question:

If our opponent is on the EtW plan, which, by default, they will be, and we do not have a counterspell in hand, how good is Leyline alone? Is there something that might be good against EtW all the time?

===


like I said blatantly in the beginning of a previous post that if they have Silence and a Tutor/Wish, well then we'll lose no matter what

You're right. My apologies.

===

i said:


And they do not NEED to go off turn two. Because we are NOT a turn 2 consistent deck. We are occasionally a turn 2 deck. And we definitely are not a t2 deck when we're opening -1 card off a Leyline of Sanctity.

and you said:



I never said we were, so I have no idea where that came from or why you're reiterating something completely obvious to me.


My comment was in reference to this, on page 104:


And they literally have to try and fire it off by turn two - in the face of an unknown hand, no less - or risk having their hand shredded and combo'd out. We also get two draws to find another counter in the process, which is fine by me.

Perhaps I misunderstood you, but I figure I should clarify the base of my previous statement.

===


Let me explain to you what "frustration" is. It's when you have proven tournament results year in and year out and the same person constantly ankle-bites you by pissing on your choices and logic without so much as providing a single piece of in-game Comp-REL experience or a tournament report to show exactly why something works better than the other.

I understand you and FF have had your differences. Personally, I don't mean to piss on any of your choices. I just want to challenge them because I have ideas of my own. Something tells me FF is trying to do the same thing--question.


You can't keep trolling these threads with baseless assumptions unless you've jumped into the fire and danced with the devil at multiple big events.

I used inflammatory language in the previous post, for which I had no right. Nonetheless, I don't believe anybody has been trolling.


And I never said anyone's ideas are invalid.

You did not explicitly state as much, no, but above statements--such as calling people's actions trolling because they are contradictory your own, or their ideas "baseless assumptions" because they have not placed or competed--are examples of the rhetoric that suggests you do believe some people's invalid.

Competing (and succeeding) and card theory are two very different aspects of the game and each have their merits. Consider the world of sports: there are many great coaches or instructors who were never great competitors. I don't mean to provide a condescending connotation with words like "coach" and "instructor", but mean to use them merely because these are the equivalents of theory crafters in MtG.

===


In my report I even gave credit to *all of you* for bettering the archetype and making it more competitive. At what point does someone seriously have to just throw their fucking hands in the air and say, I'm done with this shit.

I know I just fucking did.

I was unintentionally antagonizing in my previous post, and apologize. I thought I was incurring justice, but instead came short of talking shit. You're a valuable resource to the forum and I don't mean to minimize your's or anyone else's efforts or cause stress in any way.


Frustration is having to read novel-esque posts

Oops...

===

tl,dr: Leyline doesn't seem very strong against EtW alone. Is there something that we can board in against EtW that will always be good?

[carefulmug]

Lost to sneak and show ( guy had the nuts game one and two). Is therapy the only way to fight that deck? I suppose one might bring in all blue cards to beat snt?

If you're not running Force main, bring it in g2, but as far as the other blue cards in the SB, but I don't think Disrupting Shoal will do anything against Show and Tell because we have no 3 cc (for SnT) or 4 cc (for Sneak Attack) blue spells to pitch to the Shoal. Also, if you're running Mindbreak Trap in your sb, it will only work against OmniShow variations.

Ashen Rider seemed like an agreed upon answer for SnT, but it hasn't been discussed since the blue sideboard was created.

[Karbunkelsopp]

I would say Mindbreak Trap is always good against Empty the Warrens. Unless someone casts EtW as a first or second spell. But then EtW is really horrible...
But mindbreak trap is already included in our deck or have I missed something?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Thrasher]

Miracles can be a tough matchup against a good player. They have ways to threaten us. G1 is favorable to us, g2-3 are more complicated.

Sneak and show should use sneak attack against us, and that's slower, so therapy works. Show and tell is nowhere as threatening, we can drop Griselbrand/Whirlpool rider and win or have an additional body for a dread return the turn after. Playing vs a griselbrand is definitely harder than emrakul, though. Racing Emrakul with flayer is always funny, in the end it's just a 15/15 that gives us tokens. :tongue:

Mindbreak isn't always included. It's an option that has to be considered, but it isn't mandatory.

[Mr. Froggy]

I really like M. Trap vs Storm, in all honesty. I see it as a free counter.

[slave]

... that's a lot of deleted posts in the last few pages. :eyebrow:


M. Trap is a good side choice if you fear storm.
I've been liking it against storm with the blue side, especially since with the blue side we can have Trap and Force smoke them.
The fact that Shoal can be somewhat situational does hurt it sometimes, so I like having access to Trap for storm, Shoal for non-storm.
Now we have the blue side, I'm liking Trap more than I did with the green side TBH.

That said, as far as a protective shield against Storm going off, Leyline of Sanctity does have greater use in non-storm matchups also.
I've been testing it on MTGO a bit > which I'm loathe to really use as a test-bed, as I tend to find most of the time people will just scoop if they don't get a nut-draw and waste my bloody time, so any results are gonna be somewhat skewed. I'm in Australia > the US/Euro legacy players don't seem to be around when I am, so it's usually pretty light on possible players.
I have some LoS in the post, I'm quite keen to give them some real match time....

[jimmythegreek]

So with the blue board we often side in the disrupting shoals game two. Whats the general plan in what to take out? I see alot of people shaving a phantasmagorian, s.shell, spirit and maybe street wraith. Where as game two we usually have to fight grave hate I would rather remove two phantasmagorians and keep the shell to up my dredger count. Against what decks do we suppose a different combonation of cards could be boarded out rather than the typical four.

[slave]

So with the blue board we often side in the disrupting shoals game two. Whats the general plan in what to take out?

To me it sounds like people have different opinions on how to best use the blue side so far.
Personally, whether you bring in Shoal and sub out ????, all depends on what hate you expect to see, and how quickly an opposing deck can possibly win.
My fear of hate is generally Rip, Cage, DRS in that order. DRS is there for me as many decks seem to run the little wizard sleeve in the main.

So far I've been bringin in Shoal if I expect two drops to be a gamebreaker. I've found Shoal to be so-so versus 1-drops like DRS & Cage.
Against DRS, I leave in 4 Phantasmagorian & Wraith, as they're our only way to play through it if we don't draw a counter.

[Michael Keller]

How do you guys feel about going with three Faerie Macabre, three Leyline of Sanctity and two Mindbreak Trap in the board?

[jimmythegreek]

How do you guys feel about going with three Faerie Macabre, three Leyline of Sanctity and two Mindbreak Trap in the board?

Do you still run one Macabre main? I tend to want maxed out hate against grave decks especially since reanimator is very prevalent in my meta. I often feel like that match up is super tough when they get a good hand. Im good on the two mindbreaks (other blue cards strengthen only having two mindbreaks or vice versa). My only question is why not max out on leylines? For reference my board is 4 macabre, four mindbreak, four shoal and three contagion. Probably would cut down on the traps just dont know what else to replace them with.

[Thrasher]

I once tried 4 leyline 3 traps (not sure if i had faeries, too), and it worked decently,although i didn't test it for long (i had a tournament where i expected ant, and i had nothing but this to sleeve up, so i had to overload on storm hate). I've never liked Shoal in the storm matchup, it's too conditional for the double counter plan, so i guess having trap in addition to Leyline might be worth it for the leyline + counter plan,too. I'm not sure about the 3/2 split, maybe 4/2 or 3/3 would be better, i like helping maths, when i can.

@slave: i play it the same way. I'm quite careful when it comes to side in Shoal, i try to avoid doing it, if it's not completely needed.

[Michael Keller]

Do you still run one Macabre main? I tend to want maxed out hate against grave decks especially since reanimator is very prevalent in my meta. I often feel like that match up is super tough when they get a good hand. Im good on the two mindbreaks (other blue cards strengthen only having two mindbreaks or vice versa). My only question is why not max out on leylines? For reference my board is 4 macabre, four mindbreak, four shoal and three contagion. Probably would cut down on the traps just dont know what else to replace them with.

I run two main.

I was thinking three total seems acceptable in a meta without tons of Reanimator and such. I was curious to see how you all mix it up.

[slave]

Another legacy night at the local, another group sigh when I bring dredge. :laugh:

6 matches, went 4-1-1. Didn't keep much in the way of notes, although I did write down my counters.
I beat LED-Dredge, UW Blade, UW Miracles & some WUG exalted-aggro pile of shame. Lost to Reanimator quickly.
Drew to D&T > Slow player played slow. Time called. If he played quicker early on, he had me beat with a resolved RiP game3.....

I countered;
3 RiP, 1 Cage, 1 SFM, 1 Jitte. Not much huh?
Combined with not getting a swag of blue in my 7, some of the counters I did play, got countered.

Impressions;
Chuffed to beat LED-Dredge c/o Faerie & Trap, that deck usually smashes me.
Contagion was okay for stopping SFM land Batterskull early.
I spoke with the Reanimator player after > seems we both agree that RiP has made white decks a lot more viable, I seem to be facing a glut of them recently.
We both sadface.


... I'm good on the two mindbreaks (other blue cards strengthen only having two mindbreaks or vice versa). My only question is why not max out on leylines? For reference my board is 4 macabre, four mindbreak, four shoal and three contagion. Probably would cut down on the traps just dont know what else to replace them with.


I once tried 4 leyline 3 traps (not sure if i had faeries, too), and it worked decently,although i didn't test it for long (i had a tournament where i expected ant, and i had nothing but this to sleeve up, so i had to overload on storm hate). I've never liked Shoal in the storm matchup, it's too conditional for the double counter plan, so i guess having trap in addition to Leyline might be worth it for the leyline + counter plan,too. I'm not sure about the 3/2 split, maybe 4/2 or 3/3 would be better, i like helping maths, when i can.

I like Trap, but they're too narrow to be a 4-of in the side I think.

When my LoS turn up in the post I'm gonna be running 4 in the side for a few weeks to try and see how effective they are in non-storm matchups. This to me is the bigger reason to run them, the flexibility of the card, to prevent griefer/discard decks > like D&T that just stop us dredging for the first few turns before they power out a batterskull etc.
I think you mentioned something about that a while back Hollywood.... how have you found LoS in these sort of discard-heavy matches?

My current side, 4 Shoal, 4 Faerie, 3 Trap, 4 Contagion.
I don't have much reanimator in my meta, so Faerie is all in the side. Until recently, I usually experience a lot of DRS. A lot of RiP lately > the blue side has been an absolute rockstar.
RE: Los, I'd like to include all 4 when I get them > but so far I'm not sure what to cut. Trap is quite narrow, but effective. Contagion has always been one of my fave side cards in many matchups, but given we're running Probe, Phants & Wraith > is shutting down DRS still necessary in the first place?

[Thrasher]

WUG exalted-aggro pile of shame.
This made me laugh. :tongue:

Nice result!
Honestly, i would not side Contagion versus SFM-based decks. I actually side it in only vs goblins and elves. I always feel like in those matchup i want to take the token route and just overwhelm whatever comes at me.Do you often side contagion in in this matchup? Do you find it effective?

[slave]

Honestly, i would not side Contagion versus SFM-based decks. I actually side it in only vs goblins and elves. I always feel like in those matchup i want to take the token route and just overwhelm whatever comes at me.Do you often side contagion in in this matchup? Do you find it effective?
Cheers.
Depends > I probably use Contagion more than I should, I use it to target my own creatures on occasion too. You could be right, maybe a misplay???

I've typically included Contagion mainly for DRS.
The last month I've been facing a heap of decks with SFM. I have no idea why, could just be freak chance? I'm just getting tired of having turn3 Batterskull, coupled with Swords to Plowshares, so I've occasionally been using contagion to kill SFM to give me more time. I typically find SFM players to be greedy against us, often going for batterskull as they know we have few options for stopping it hitting the field, but since they're typically creature light, killing one can be favourable so we can just attack and kill their Jace/Elspeth or in the occasion of D&T, Liliana.
Opinions on this line of play?

[Michael Keller]

I really like Leyline of Sanctity not just against discard-heavy metas, but as a dynamic utility against so many other cards that spell trouble.

My sideboard at the moment *is* this:

4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Disrupting Shoal
4x Contagion
2x Faerie Macabre
1x Force of Will

However, I'm currently looking at something like this:

4x Disrupting Shoal
4x Contagion
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Mindbreak Trap
1x Force of Will
1x Faerie Macabre

(Or going with -1 Contagion, +1 LoS there.)

[Thrasher]

Cheers.
Depends > I probably use Contagion more than I should, I use it to target my own creatures on occasion too. You could be right, maybe a misplay???

I've typically included Contagion mainly for DRS.
The last month I've been facing a heap of decks with SFM. I have no idea why, could just be freak chance? I'm just getting tired of having turn3 Batterskull, coupled with Swords to Plowshares, so I've occasionally been using contagion to kill SFM to give me more time. I typically find SFM players to be greedy against us, often going for batterskull as they know we have few options for stopping it hitting the field, but since they're typically creature light, killing one can be favourable so we can just attack and kill their Jace/Elspeth or in the occasion of D&T, Liliana.
Opinions on this line of play?

Yeah, SFM is one of the most common threats. I see your point, i don't think it's a bad strategy, it's just a different way of playing the matchup. I wouldn't side it in vs d&t, though, there's thalia who makes contagion a dead card...that's if she doesn't get Fow'd/Shoal'd. Using contagion on our own creatures is pretty good vs Swords to Plowshares, it makes profit with Bridge from Below. It's funny how some people say this deck is brainless, but even a slight difference in sideboarding changes the gameplan.

As for the amount of SFM's, i haven't seen SFM's presence increasing, here. I haven't attended the latest big tournament, though, and it was the one after the GP, so i guess something might have changed. I'll see how the next one goes. Probably i'll have to stick with my old list for it, after getting DRS decks in 50% of my matchups in my area i don't feel safe with less than 12 answers which don't timewalk.

[Michael Keller]

Huge tournament tomorrow. I'll keep you guys updated.

[Darklingske]

For me too. I'll post a report afterwards.

[Michael Keller]

Should be a sizable turnout tomorrow.

Expect a report to follow, as well.

[gato con botas]

Hello boys and girls next weekend I have a tilt of the league rule of my zone suppose that we will be between 100 or 130 it will play this list:

[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Golgari Thug
[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Nether Shadow
[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Bridge from Below
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Dread Return
[4x] Phantasmagorian
[4x] Street Wraith
[4x] Gitaxian Probe
[4x] Force of Will
[3x] Shambling Shell
[3x] Whirlpool Rider
[2x] Flayer of the Hatebound


Since podeis to see and put the fourth fow of main and a fayer mas. It is to be able to have some kind of mas of control that niunca comes badly jeje and the fayer to curve before for that it seems to me that one is too just as to be able to curve fast.

The this sideboad:


[4x] Disrupting Shoal
[4x] Contagion
[4x] Leyline of the void/faeire macare. In this I doubt
[3x] trap


That seems to you?

[Michael Keller]

Nothing to report here today, fellas. Was a short day at 1-2 drop having played against Leyline of the Void twice.

Although I did manage to win the Vintage side event and a couple of City of Traitors, which was nice.

[Darklingske]

It didn't go as planned yesterday. Ended 3-3
R1 SneakShow
G1 fast win for him.
G2 shred his hand and he didn't find a creature in time.
G3 I guess his keep was a little shady. He didn't find a Creature in time.
1-0 (2-1)

R2 UWRDelver
G1 fast win on my side.
G2 fast win on my side thanks to T2 FoW on SFM. The WTF-face on my opponent was hilarious!
2-0 (4-1)

R3 TinFins
G1 combo for him on T3
G2 long game with me eventually taking the game.
G3 again a long drawn out game with us going in time en he finally finding a shallow grave to start the combo.
2-1 (5-3)

R4 Elves
G1 easy win after double Cabal naming DRS & NO
G2 combo for him on T3
G3 long game with me eventually grinding him to a pulp
3-1 (7-4)

R5 Jund
G1 T1 Thoughtseize, T2 Thoughtseize, T3 Ooze with G open. Not winning this one!
G2 open with LoS, to no avail. He opens with T1 Cage, T2 DRS, T3 Extirpate, T4 Ooze. Yeah, not winning this one either!
3-2 (7-6)

R6 BUGDelver
G1 T1 Delver, T2 DRS, T3 DRS and the few dredges I could do gave me no dredgers...
G2 more of the same. I try to FoW a DRS, but he FoW's back. Contagion on a DRS the eats a Pierce. DRS 2 joins the battle and that is my deathsentence.
3-3 (7-8)

[potatodavid]

Long time lurker, first time post. Just wanted to share. I used Hollywood's list at my local big legacy on saturday. I did scrub out after the 3rd round but not after defeating a blue white control deck 2-0. His first rest in piece met FOW and his following turn SFM met disrupting shoal. His life total met a wall of ichorids and zombie tokens. It was most satisfying. Unfortunately my next couple rounds were greeted with Turn 1 DRS go, with no hate in hand or enough gas. The deck was an absolute blast and I will be piloting it for a long time.

[slave]

Sorry to hear you guys had a hard time of it.

Holly, which decks were running LotV?

Sucks about Jund > I hate that matchup. They just have so many good options for screwing us in the main, & in the side.

[Darklingske]

Yes indeed! It was the only MU that I felt really unable to do anything relevant that could change the outcome of the match. Oh well, I guess we have to accept that there are decks out there that are hellish MU for us and thus almost unwinnable.

[Michael Keller]

Sorry to hear you guys had a hard time of it.

Holly, which decks were running LotV?

Sucks about Jund > I hate that matchup. They just have so many good options for screwing us in the main, & in the side.

Two Dredge decks.

[slave]

Two Dredge decks.
OO00oooo.....:eek: Yeah that matchup is uphill regardless of LotV.

I play the LED- variant on occasion, but I favour manaless as discard/counter doesn't ruin us as much. That and I tend to win more with manaless for some reason (maybe I just suck with led-dredge :rolleyes:)
Most times I've faced/played LED-dredge, they don't seem to run gravehate, just things like Ingot Chewer et al, Chain of Vapor etc. with Elesh Norn in the side.
Is LotV even that good in LED-Dredge?
I mean, besides Reanimator or the mirror (which isn't too common I would think), there can't be many decks using the grave they're afraid of.... am I missing something? Why wouldn't they just run Faerie?

[DarkJester]

OO00oooo.....:eek: Yeah that matchup is uphill regardless of LotV.

I play the LED- variant on occasion, but I favour manaless as discard/counter doesn't ruin us as much. That and I tend to win more with manaless for some reason (maybe I just suck with led-dredge :rolleyes:)
Most times I've faced/played LED-dredge, they don't seem to run gravehate, just things like Ingot Chewer et al, Chain of Vapor etc. with Elesh Norn in the side.
Is LotV even that good in LED-Dredge?
I mean, besides Reanimator or the mirror (which isn't too common I would think), there can't be many decks using the grave they're afraid of.... am I missing something? Why wouldn't they just run Faerie?

Because lazy peolple are simply netdecking and the standard-olschool-quadlazer-list plays LotV as a 4-off:wink: ... but maybe it was a meta-choice? :eyebrow:

[gato con botas]

Can you look at my list and say to me if correct this one and you help me to decide that it is better if faeires or lotv? My smooth this in the page 106

[Mr. Froggy]

I was thinking about this a couple days ago. Has the Blue SB lost its novelty? I'm asking this because to me Manaless Dredge never wanted to interact with the opponent, which got me curious.

[jimmythegreek]

I was thinking about this a couple days ago. Has the Blue SB lost its novelty? I'm asking this because to me Manaless Dredge never wanted to interact with the opponent, which got me curious.

The blue sideboard is the real deal. Essentially the shoals complement the fow's if not used to pitch to narco, rider or probe. As far as not wanting to interact with the opponent it seems completely necessary with the amount of rip around nowadays. I played the blue board in richmond and it saved my ass multiple times, single handedly allowing me to beat rip decks. I suppose our blue cards give oup opponents less dead cards against us (counter spells) but rip is a hoser and our blue cards allow us to be more proactive. I will admit I miss my spys though...maybe mainboard as a one of taking out a rider? Meh. Probably not.

[atosecond]

Is Unmask worth playing here? Potentially, gets rid of DRS, etc. G1.

I like Hollywood's list, I am just not sure how to play against a leyline of the void except for mindbreak trap.

Although, on the flipside, rest in peace is much more common at the moment.

Sorry, I am sure this has been discussed to death above.

[DarkJester]

Is Unmask worth playing here? Potentially, gets rid of DRS, etc. G1.

I like Hollywood's list, I am just not sure how to play against a leyline of the void except for mindbreak trap.

Although, on the flipside, rest in peace is much more common at the moment.

Sorry, I am sure this has been discussed to death above.

Sorry, but with the current build you simply fold to LotV. But I rarely see Leylines at tournaments (sometimes out of LED-Dredge-Sideboards, sometimes in Pox, but those matchups are not that common overall). Excuse my question, but how does a Trap deal with a LotV, cheating aside? ;)
Unmask is not good enough to handle Deathrite Shaman, because if your opponent is smart enough to put you on the play game 2, you basically give him three free timewalks. More than enough to find more hate or put enough pressure on your life total. Against DRS try to open a hand with Wraith/Phanta and enough Dredgers. Chancellor of the Annex is also pretty good against him.

[atosecond]

Excuse my question, but how does a Trap deal with a LotV, cheating aside? ;)
.

It doesn't, had a bit of a brain fart. It's been ages since I last played and I didn't remember the card as it is actually printed (thought it bounced permanents).


Sorry, but with the current build you simply fold to LotV. But I rarely see Leylines at tournaments (sometimes out of LED-Dredge-Sideboards, sometimes in Pox, but those matchups are not that common overall)

I suppose my point here is that, once your local meta susses out what you are doing they'll board in LotVs and mull into them.


Despite being obviously unplayable. I'd love to see a Landgrant into savannah for Abolish and/or Reverent Silence. I mean purely for the hilarity. I'd love to see someone's face if you could actually pull it off.

[Thrasher]

There's no good answer to leyline. Even using removal is a double timewalk. I wouldn't play manaless for many consecutive tournaments in a small meta, i think it's best suited for a vast one, where people can't overprepare for it.

[Mr. Froggy]

There's no good answer to leyline. Even using removal is a double timewalk. I wouldn't play manaless for many consecutive tournaments in a small meta, i think it's best suited for a vast one, where people can't overprepare for it.

I think I agree with this. One of it's greatest strengths is its surprise factor.

[Mountainhead]

What do you guys think of a list like this? I focused on setting up a reliable game 1 with about 90% chance of opening with a dredger, and 12 mainboard blue spells for the fow side in. Jin-gitaxis might not be the best dread return target, but if he isn't answered by the end of your turn he starts causing problems. I was thinking about kederekt leviathan but it interferes with bridge tokens too much. Other blue baddies I was considering: Dinrova Horror, murder of crows, and prime speaker zegana.

4 golgari grave troll
4 stinkweed imp
4 golgari thug
2 shambling shell

4 ichorid
4 nether shadow
4:u: narcomeba

4 phantasmagorian
4 street wraith

4 Chancellor of the annex
2 flayer of the hatebound
4 :u: jin-gitaxis, core augur

4 :u: gitaxian probe
4 cabal therapy
4 dread return
4 bridge from below


sb
4 :u: force of will
4 faerie macbre
3 magus of the moon/ ashen rider
4 contagion

[Thrasher]

15 dredgers feel safer, to me. I like "helping my luck", when i can. You could cut a Flayer, maybe, the second one isn't necessary, in my opinion. Jin-Gitaxias is a pretty bad DR Target, as its draw ability can be negated by removal before your end step. Whirlpool Drake is better, as its ability triggers when it enters the battlefield.Magus of the Moon is bad, too. You don't need a moon effect when you could easily dredge 30 and win on the spot. I also noticed your lack of sideboard slots dedicated to storm: if there are none in your metagame it's fine, otherwise i suggest you to try something for that matchup.

[Jankwolf]

Top 8'ed with Manaless and the Xanadu tournament.

This is the list I ran.

15x Dredgers

4x Wraith
4x Probe
4x Contagion
4x DR
4x CT
4x Phantaz
3x Whirlpool Rider
2x Flayer
4x Ichorid
4x Narco
4x Nethershadow
4x Bridge from Below

SB:
4x FoW
4x Dis. Shoal
4x Trap
3x Chancellor

Round 1: Explorer Pod of some kind. 2-0
Game one didn't last long, dredge dredge dredge win. Nothing Fancy.
Gmae two: He tried whipping out a Scavenging Ooze with a forest and a fetch open. He tapped his forest to try eating Phantasmagorian. I responded by pitching a few cards in my hand. His response was to crack the Fetchland which I responded with Contagion and nuked his Ooze. Winning rather quickly after words.
Great guy to play against.

Round 2: Merfolk 2-0
Win and win. Nothing worth mentioning.

Round 3: Another Explorer Pod. 2-0
Win and win. Nothing particularly crazy.

Round 4: BUG (Mr. Lynch) 1-2
Game one was a loss. Didn't get dredgers fast enough. I was finished in short order from a giant goyf.
Game two I won. Didn't get much gas going in the beginning and I believe I missed bringing in a Shadow and an Ichorid at some point. Won via Flayer and an Army of Tokens.
Game three was a lot like Game 1. Mr. Lynch is a very skilled player and a lot of fun to play against.

Round 5: Storm 1-2
Yeah...Screw this MU. There is a special place in hell for people who play Storm...Just saying.

Round 6: Miracles 2-0
Game one, Ichorids and shadows do their thing.
Game two he Surgicals my Ichorids. Awww Sad face for him. This is Manaless Bubb, I don't go down that easy! I had to resort to DR'ing a HUGE troll (24/24) and swung for the fences. Win and IN!

Top 8:
1-2 VS Enchantress (A Deck comprised of just about everything I hate.)
Game one: RiP..enough said there.
GAme two: Rip was introduced to FoW. The look of shock on this guys face was epic. Poor bastard. He thought he was good behind a Sphere of Safety. I was building up an Army after a while. He told me I couldn't win because I couldn't attack. As I was DR'ing a Whirlpool Rider I said this, "Sit tight, this is going to take a minute. Flayer made an appearance followed up by his Horror friends. Game over.
Game three: I Shoaled a Ground Seal and I didn't have the additional counter for the RiP. Meh, it was fun altogether.

CotA needs to go. He didn't do anything except take up space. I'll be taking them out in favor of a board that looks like this.

4x Shoal
4x Force
4x LoS
3x Trap

The main board I will be keeping the same for future tournaments.
Anyway, thanks for reading.

[Michael Keller]

Of course, a few Forces main could help against Rest in Peace decks packing them main, like Enchantress.

Nice work!

[Mountainhead]

15 dredgers feel safer, to me. I like "helping my luck", when i can. You could cut a Flayer, maybe, the second one isn't necessary, in my opinion. Jin-Gitaxias is a pretty bad DR Target, as its draw ability can be negated by removal before your end step. Whirlpool Drake is better, as its ability triggers when it enters the battlefield.Magus of the Moon is bad, too. You don't need a moon effect when you could easily dredge 30 and win on the spot. I also noticed your lack of sideboard slots dedicated to storm: if there are none in your metagame it's fine, otherwise i suggest you to try something for that matchup.

I didn't think Jin was gamechanging or anything, but he needs to be answered right away. Usually vs storm I try to get an early DR on chancellor.

It doesn't have to be magus of the moon but I want some answer to glacial chasm. Ashen Rider can def fill that spot.

[Mr. Froggy]

Hollywood, how's the primer coming along??

[Michael Keller]

Hollywood, how's the primer coming along??

On hiatus from doing it at the moment; been really busy with my family and such. :)

It's coming along, though.

[P-E]

Manaless ended 7th this week at scg and no words about it ?
Welldone Mr Boland
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65253
Not tainted with blue but it seemed to work for him

[jimmythegreek]

Manaless ended 7th this week at scg and no words about it ?
Welldone Mr Boland
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=65253
Not tainted with blue but it seemed to work for him

Is there any footage of his matches.

[P-E]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28175_Leaving-A-Legacy-Manaless-Dredge-At-SCGLA.htmlHis tournament report

His tournament report

[Jon]

I played FOW Manaless dredge last night at our local legacy event, 20ish people. Instead of the full 3 Force main, I tried 2 Shoal / 1 FOW mainly because I didnt bring FOW's and I am lazy. Also managed to put a Pithing Needle in my deck as the 61st card.

RD One- RUG
I won in two, He didn't know what was happening and he let me have my way. Even flipped a delver showing Surgical, let me bring back 3 Ichorids, then attack, and flashback therapy naming Surgical all with no response.

RD Two- Burn
I won in 3, He was playing a sweet one called Cave-In . Surprising 2 is relevant against all my zambies. His deck was major budget, Ball Lightning, Flamebreak , no Chains. He was pretty new to getting back into magic, so I had to explain everything to him.

RD Three- Miracles.
I won in two, G1 was Ichorid beats, G2 he mulled to 4 and I had Shoal +1 and 2 so when he tried to BS the turn before my lethal attack I Shoal'd it.

RD Four- Bant Lands
ID but played for fun, T1 Needle on Phantasmagorian was great. He T3'd me with thy liege. Game 2, Explore-> Living Wish-> thy liege.


T8, #1 Seed

Played Nedleeds, on b/g/w Humanos, Pretty terrible match as I see it, He has 4 Thalias, 4 Glowriders, and some number of Knights to get BOGS. Only point I had a chance was when I attacked in with Ichorids, Zambies, and Spirits into his Mom, Bob, Glowrider, and Other Random Human killed all my guys and his guys and I was left with a lone Narcomeoba on board with him at 3 life. Attack for one, he goes to two. He draws and makes a face of horror, passes and slams a Fiendhunter off a Vial on 3. I lost.

All in all I loved the deck, I should build a SB next time for it. Contagion is good against x/1 creatures.

[P-E]

Silly idea, does someone already tried leyline of anticipation instead of white leyline ?
i think it can be decent against combo to probe in response to his discard/ritual (dredge some yummy cabals)and respond with instant cabal or dread return

it supports fow by the way ( i don't think shoal at 4 is really needed ^^)
sure it doesn't protect us from discard walk or bog or crypt anymore.

[Thrasher]

Well, it's a negative timewalk which isn't guaranteed to be useful. You'll hardly have 2 turns (at best, they increase if you factor discard) vs combo. Testing never hurts, though.

[p0werslave]

there is something in the boland report that i did not get. when he explains his avatar in the sb ... against a show n tell, "cast a spy; untap; then if he pass..".
i m probably wrong, but when the spy is on the field and all your deck in the graveyard, you can go with the flayer combo in your opponent turn and win instantly, isn't it?

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[shopshopshop]

You can't Dread Return at instant speed.

[Holly]

Unless you're playing the Leyline above !

[Technics]

there is something in the boland report that i did not get. when he explains his avatar in the sb ... against a show n tell, "cast a spy; untap; then if he pass..".
i m probably wrong, but when the spy is on the field and all your deck in the graveyard, you can go with the flayer combo in your opponent turn and win instantly, isn't it?

Inviato dal mio GT-I9300 utilizzando Tapatalk

You put in Spy off Show and tell and he puts in an Emrakul. Then since you have no library, he could just pass, and you die in your draw step. But now you have the avatar left, meaning you can put the spy in off a show and tell, and when it becomes your turn again, you can go off, without losing to having no cards.

[Mr. Froggy]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28175_Leaving-A-Legacy-Manaless-Dredge-At-SCGLA.htmlHis tournament report

His tournament report

I like his fearless approach towards Rip. :)

Quite refreshing. :)

[fooswashere]

I went 4-0 with Manaless Dredge on the Legacy daily on MODO last wednesday.
The list I ran. http://www.mtgo-stats.com/decks/101498
I am still learning how to sideboard so if you think I sideboarded wrong please share.

Round 1 I faced UW Miracles.
Game 1 I stripped his hand of terminus and ran him over with Ichorids and Zombies.
I side in 4x Shoals, side out two fairies, a nether shadow, and a shambling shell.
Game 2 Turn 2 I countered RIP with a Shoal ditching a Narcomoeba and he proceeds to lose.

Round 2 Belcher,
Game 1 I cabal therapy him naming burning wish after I see him play a tinder wall. I cabal therapy again naming the belcher in his hand. He scoops
Sideboard in 4x Leyline of Sanctity sideboard out two fairies, nether shadow and shambling shell. Unsure about this move I don't know how good shoal is against him.
Game 2 He puts me on the play, draws a card, I draw and discard, He proceeds to go off on turn 2.
Game 3 I turn 0 LOS, Draw a card, pass, draw a card, discard, counter his burning wish, and proceed to go off with some good dredging into whirlpool rider and two Narcomoebas with a dread return in the GY.

Round 3 was against Grixis
Game 1 I win, fighting through a DRS (Not very hard to do)
Side in Contagion x4 and side out 2 therapy and 2 fairies
Game 2 He turns one DRS, I discard grave troll with street wraith, ichorid, and contagion in hand, Turn 2 he thoughsiezes me, I contagion his DRS in response pitching ichorid and he tries to exile GGT, I cycle street wraith and the game goes easy from there.

Round 4 against miracles
Game 1 fight through a Thopter foundry and Sword of the Meek. I get a pretty good dredge that gets me all the guys I could ask for. He counters the first dread return but can't counter the second.
Game 2 he casts RIP on turn 2 I fow pitching probe, he casts fow pitching counter balance in respond, onto game 3
Game 3 I counter RIP and cabal therpy him after he casts stoneforge mystic without fetching anything. I name batterskull and what do you know its sitting pretty in his hand. I proceed to kill him with a dread return on flayer and then GGT.

Final notes
The FOW and shoals were crucial against anything trying to jam RIP and combo decks. A lot of decks will just keep bad hands as long as it has a RIP or cage in it. Counter that first one and it is smooth sailing from there. I am still working on the sideboard. I would rather have mindbreak traps over Leyline of Sanctity for the storm match ups so I will try that out next. I ran the fairies MD because I know a lot of people play Lands and reanimator on MODO.

I really love the deck. Playing on MODO makes the triggers a lot easier to remember and to get in the right order. I am just starting to get into legacy on MODO so i wanted a deck that was cheaper but has staples for other decks hence why I run the FOWs. If you guys are interested I will post the next time I am playing and I can stream on twitch.tv

[Thrasher]

Congrats!
On the sideboarding:
I'd have kept shambling shell and Nether Shadow vs miracle. It's gonna be a slow and grindy matchup most of the times, so even a dredge 3 is fine. Nether is just more bodies to recover from Terminus. Also, i never side out Cabal Therapy.

[Michael Keller]

Never remove a dredger when moving to your sideboard. It's imperative - especially in this archetype - to always keep your percentages at a higher level of opening with a dredger, as you cannot afford to mulligan.

It's a rather subjective ideology (sideboarding, that is), and I get that each person has their own way of doing things. But this is something you should be aware of when playing this deck.

[Tlbwars]

Hi guys, after reading both Hollywood's and Michael Boland report about their Manaless Dredge deck, i'm confused ... which one have the best version of the deck ? I played '' Normal Lion's eyes Dredge'' for the past 2 years.. so I'm wondering which version to play now... Thx :)

Balustrade Spy Dredge VS Fow Dredge ? :)

**Michael Boland's report: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28175_Leaving-A-Legacy-Manaless-Dredge-At-SCGLA.html

**Hollywood's report: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27642-Report-13th-173-BoM-%28-PTQ%29-Qualifier-w-Manaless&p=795064#post795064

[Mr. Froggy]

I guess it depends on play style? I haven't switched to FoW Manaless yet because I haven't felt like I need to.

Obviously it works though, given the added protection FoW offers.

[gato con botas]

@Mr. Froggy
I change to the blue buffet with fow, disrupting and mindbreak and the truth that me goes much better two weekends ago I had tilt and not between in in the top for 3 tenths of 121 persons

[Thrasher]

Without fow you let your opponent decide the outcome of the game. If he/she finds rip/cage in g2/3 there's nothing you can do. If you feel lucky you can go without force, otherwise play it. Relying on luck doesn't seem a competitive way of thinking, to me, but it's up to you.

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[Mr. Froggy]

Without fow you let your opponent decide the outcome of the game. If he/she finds rip/cage in g2/3 there's nothing you can do. If you feel lucky you can go without force, otherwise play it. Relying on luck doesn't seem a competitive way of thinking, to me, but it's up to you.

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I run Claim SB because those have been working for me.

[Michael Keller]

Without fow you let your opponent decide the outcome of the game. If he/she finds rip/cage in g2/3 there's nothing you can do. If you feel lucky you can go without force, otherwise play it. Relying on luck doesn't seem a competitive way of thinking, to me, but it's up to you.

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This is a good summation of Manaless Dredge in general in today's general metagame.

[Final Fortune]

I think Fearless is fine as long as you have a read on the meta game, because even with Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal I wouldn't be eager to play Manaless Dredge in a field of Rest in Peace. Fearless really comes down to whether or not you think Tarmogoyfs are going to pull ahead of True Name Nemesis as players aim Golgari Charm and Pithing Needle at True Name Nemesis and Stoneforge Mystic and Rest in Peace at Tarmogoyf, Deathrite Shaman and Tombstalker, and either fortunately or unfortunately I don't think either aggro-control strategy has a clear advantage over the other right now.

What I'm hoping for is that UWx will become UWBg with Deathrite Shaman so Rest in Peace will become a 2x instead of a 3x in SBs because of the nonbo with Deathrite Shaman.

[dte]

@ fooswashere

I agree that you should not remove cabal therapy vs grixis. You could remove at least one Nether Shadow and one Whirlpool Rider instead.
However siding out 1-2 S. Shell is perfectly fine for me in the non DRS MUs. The probability of having only SS as a dredger in your original 7 when having between 15 and 13 dredgers is only 88 - 84 =4%. And starting with only SS in your hand is not really different from mull6 into Dr6 or 5 (and probability to have at least one of these 8 dredgers in a 6-cards hand is 60%).
So you really lose something in less than 2% of the cases by removing 2 SShell against non DRS MU (neglecting shadow/ichorid food here).

As I disagree on this point with more experimentated dredgers, I'm probably wrong. But I would like to have their opinions on this subject (the siding out of SShell n°2-3 in non-DRS MU).

Otherwise, why are you not playing the 4th FoW (MD or SB)? Budget reasons or smthing I do not understand?

[Thrasher]

I often side out a single Shambling shell vs ant,tes and reanimator. A dredge 3 in the opening wouldn't be enough to win in such bad matchups. I keep 2 in, though, they're useful as ichorid food, and 12 dredgers isn't enough to chain dredgers without fizzling. Even fizzling for a turn would be really bad in those matchups.

[davelin]

This is a good summation of Manaless Dredge in general in today's general metagame.

Seems like the main FoW-targets reside in SBs (Cage and RiP), would putting FoW/Disrupting Shoal in the 'board and bringing in Contagions maindeck for Thalia and Stoneforge a consideration?

[Michael Keller]

Seems like the main FoW-targets reside in SBs (Cage and RiP), would putting FoW/Disrupting Shoal in the 'board and bringing in Contagions maindeck for Thalia and Stoneforge a consideration?

How do you plan on casting Contagion against Thalia?

[carefulmug]

ninja'd

[jimmythegreek]

Having force in the main is totally rad. Its blatantly there to fight gy hate game two, yet it easily fits in the main with probe, rider and narcomoeba. Being able to discard with force+blue card in hand is one of the most dominant positions a player could be in. Im sure you can eventually find a relevant spell of theirs to counter.

[Final Fortune]

Seems like the main FoW-targets reside in SBs (Cage and RiP), would putting FoW/Disrupting Shoal in the 'board and bringing in Contagions maindeck for Thalia and Stoneforge a consideration?

I started out that way before some one found Whirlpool Rider and I moved Force of Will to the MD, at some point you're going to want your SB back to deal with Reanimator if playing a graveyard deck is a good idea to begin with.

[Thrasher]

Force md is not necessary, but contagion is not good as a 4 of in the main. The choice for those slots is, in my opinion, between Chancellor of the Annex and Force of Will. Contagion is worse than Chancellor at dealing with Deathrite, it can't negate discard and counter stuff. It seems more a sideboard card for elves.

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[beebles]

Let me ask you guys something, lets say you have a reasonable hand (i.e. with a dredger in your opening 7). Your opponent casts turn 1 Deathrite.

Is it correct to Force of Will on it if you have force and blue card?

Lets say you have some way of sort of playing around Deathrite as well (lets say phantasmagorian and two dredgers)

I literally do not know if it is worse to have a deathrite in play or to essentially mull to 5 and give your opponent two time walks.

[Michael Keller]

Depends.

Was the DRS cast off a Bayou or Sea? Did they mulligan?

[beebles]

Depends.

Was the DRS cast off a Bayou or Sea? Did they mulligan?

I dunno, lets say they crack a flooded strand and put a underground sea into play and kept at 6. Lets also assume they won the die roll and do not know what you are playing.

[Michael Keller]

In that case, I wouldn't Force it if I had a Street Wraith or Phantasmagorian. Your opponent is down to four cards in their hand, and because they're likely to spend that second turn walking into a blowout, you can keep Force and blue card for protection.

[Final Fortune]

I'd ignore Deathrite Shaman and save the Force of Will for their cantrip, the number of people who keep 1 land, 1 shaman and 1 cantrip hands is ridiculous, put their ass in top deck mode if at all possible and buy as much time as you can vs Rest in Peace. I very strongly recommend countering cantrips with Manaless Dredge, we don't care about the card disadvantage and they lose a lot of momentum unexpectedly.

Force of Will is like an uber Mental Misstep for us.

[TableTopMagic]

Quick question for all the other Dredgers out there. How do you keep your Graveyard and how do you Dredge? Are you a single pile guy, side by side overlaping, or overlaping downward kinda guy? Do you flip your Dredged cards one by one or all at once?

[Karbunkelsopp]

Downward, then spiralling counter-clockwise ;)
Around your entire playing area! (Gotta love the graveyard after a solid dredge-fest from grisel/whirlpool)


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[Mr. Froggy]

I had been thinking of something lately, should I try Surgical Extraction in the SB? It could help vs RiP as well as giving game against Combo decks.

My thought was, Cabal Therapy RiP, Extract the rest (or is this too Magical Christmasland-y?)

[Thrasher]

You can hit RiP with therapy only if your opponent is manascrewed. Otherwise he'll slam it on the table before you get the chance to use CT. Also, if you manage to hit it with therapy, extracting doesn't seem needed, as you opponent would have to immediately topdeck another one, which is quite unlikely.

[Mr. Froggy]

You can hit RiP with therapy only if your opponent is manascrewed. Otherwise he'll slam it on the table before you get the chance to use CT. Also, if you manage to hit it with therapy, extracting doesn't seem needed, as you opponent would have to immediately topdeck another one, which is quite unlikely.

That's exactly what I thought, but I played vs UWr Miracles and he kept it in his hand when he could have played it. I blindcalled RIP and hit it, proceeded to win afterwards.

[Michael Keller]

Quick question for all the other Dredgers out there. How do you keep your Graveyard and how do you Dredge? Are you a single pile guy, side by side overlaping, or overlaping downward kinda guy? Do you flip your Dredged cards one by one or all at once?

My graveyard is always set up like an "L" to avoid confusion between the battlefield and graveyard. I always dredge my cards into my hands, show my opponent and organize them as I choose.

[jimmythegreek]

Quick question for all the other Dredgers out there. How do you keep your Graveyard and how do you Dredge? Are you a single pile guy, side by side overlaping, or overlaping downward kinda guy? Do you flip your Dredged cards one by one or all at once?

As far as flipping dredges I put say dredge 6 in my hand before laying them on the table. In other words if I flip a shadow I short cut the opponent asking the judge if shadow can be the first card in the pile of six. Very few people understand that all cards are flipped simultaneously and we can choose the order. So in other words, bear paw those cards and then place them down after ordering them appropriately. This move has saved me tons of time.

[beebles]

That's exactly what I thought, but I played vs UWr Miracles and he kept it in his hand when he could have played it. I blindcalled RIP and hit it, proceeded to win afterwards.

I can't envision a scenario where I was playing against manaless dredge and had 1W open and not cast RIP, unless I was like facing down lethal on board from like Nether Shadows and Zombie Tokens. Maaaybe if the dredge player had Green mana available and I got read on him that he had Nature's claim or something and I wanted to protect it with countermagic but that is about it.

[Mr. Froggy]

I can't envision a scenario where I was playing against manaless dredge and had 1W open and not cast RIP, unless I was like facing down lethal on board from like Nether Shadows and Zombie Tokens. Maaaybe if the dredge player had Green mana available and I got read on him that he had Nature's claim or something and I wanted to protect it with countermagic but that is about it.

I know exactly what you mean. I didn't have much on the board, got the win after beating down with randoms.

[jimmythegreek]

That's exactly what I thought, but I played vs UWr Miracles and he kept it in his hand when he could have played it. I blindcalled RIP and hit it, proceeded to win afterwards.

Being on board with the theory of naming the card that is most damning to your game (rip) I supose rip is the obvious target for cabal therapy but god damn.........I would have just assumed they didnt have it.

[Mr. Froggy]

My Therapy snapcalls have become God-like since playing this deck these past few months. Its a skill I'm quite proud of.

[Michael Keller]

I had been thinking of something lately, should I try Surgical Extraction in the SB? It could help vs RiP as well as giving game against Combo decks.

My thought was, Cabal Therapy RiP, Extract the rest (or is this too Magical Christmasland-y?)

Most decks running Rest in Peace run it as a two-of, three tops. You're likely to only run into one a game, which you can counter.

That makes Extraction a bit more situational, and not really worth the slot.

[ajfirecracker]

@Hollywood

Just wanted to say hi, I haven't been back to this thread since the early days and I'm a big fan of the Force builds. It's great to see you've kept with it and found some success.

What do you think of Laboratory Maniac in the blue builds as a win-con that's pitchable to Force and Shoal?

[Michael Keller]

@Hollywood

Just wanted to say hi, I haven't been back to this thread since the early days and I'm a big fan of the Force builds. It's great to see you've kept with it and found some success.

What do you think of Laboratory Maniac in the blue builds as a win-con that's pitchable to Force and Shoal?

Thanks! Awesome to hear - hope all is well.

As for Laboratory Maniac: it's a decent choice, but I'm not sure it's better than Rider. I get that it serves double-duty as a win-condition and a card to exile to Force and Shoal, but it's a bit more conditional and would probably work better in a Spy build. Rider's converted mana cost is what makes it the premier choice with Shoal to stop Rest in Peace.

The card just fits so well in the fabric of the deck, I can't see it ever being replaced as long as counters remain the best option in Manaless Dredge.

[ajfirecracker]

As for Laboratory Maniac: it's a decent choice, but I'm not sure it's better than Rider. I get that it serves double-duty as a win-condition and a card to exile to Force and Shoal, but it's a bit more conditional and would probably work better in a Spy build. Rider's converted mana cost is what makes it the premier choice with Shoal to stop Rest in Peace.

The card just fits so well in the fabric of the deck, I can't see it ever being replaced as long as counters remain the best option in Manaless Dredge.

I'm talking about the Flayer of the Hatebound slot. Flayer is vulnerable to much of the same removal (not all, mind you) and Whirlpool Rider should dredge ballpark 35 cards, easily enough to dredge+draw your deck by chaining multiples.

Dread Return for the first Rider + Dread Return for Lab Maniac + Dread Return 2nd Rider is still only 3 DR, so it doesn't really cut into "aggro" Returns (mostly on Troll) any more than Rider->Flayer->Troll would.

Another question: Why did you sideboard Leyline of Sanctity in the 13th-place BoM qualifier over Mindbreak Trap? I get that Leyline can stop targeted hate, but so do counters (or just being Manaless Dredge for 2-3 extra turns, while Sanctity for sure requires 1 extra turn).

[Holly]

He covered the Leyline topic a lot the last days.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1405932&pp=&page=3

[ajfirecracker]

He covered the Leyline topic a lot the last days.
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/search.php?searchid=1405932&pp=&page=3

bad link

[Holly]

Works for me, if it doesnt work for you. Right upper corner, advanced search this thread for Michael Keller & Leyline.

[Michael Keller]

I'm talking about the Flayer of the Hatebound slot. Flayer is vulnerable to much of the same removal (not all, mind you) and Whirlpool Rider should dredge ballpark 35 cards, easily enough to dredge+draw your deck by chaining multiples.

Flayer is just an alternate way of finishing the game that has more utility than Laboratory Maniac. Maniac is dependent on you having to dredge through your entire deck to win the game in a single turn. While that's certainly possible off of a Rider, the effect Flayer has to the board state is immediate. If we're talking a one on one scenario where one is Dread Returned into play over the other, then Flayer should win out based on its over utility and ability to deal a serious amount of damage in a hurry.

The Flayer-Troll combination has been a staple of the archetype for years as you know, and for good reason: it works. Maniac in play by itself doesn't really do much.


Another question: Why did you sideboard Leyline of Sanctity in the 13th-place BoM qualifier over Mindbreak Trap? I get that Leyline can stop targeted hate, but so do counters (or just being Manaless Dredge for 2-3 extra turns, while Sanctity for sure requires 1 extra turn).

I prefer Leyline over Trap based on its overall versatility in different match-ups. I boarded it in against Storm because of Trap's susceptibility to targeted discard. The ability for an opponent to do that effectively makes Trap useless unless it's against an all-in combo deck with no protection - which Force can handle on its own anyhow. Leyline intricately forces a combo player to bypass their targeted method of kill (namely Tendrils) and put them on an Empty the Warrens plan. In order for that to work, your opponent will need to generate mana and cast Tutors and Wishes - both of which eat counters. Targeted discard is just a pain, and honestly hurts.

I get that Chancellor can be good and can blank turn-one discard, but come on - against Storm, that's the least of our worries. If an opponent gets two or three turns, that card isn't going to matter when they've just paid an extra mana to rip the card out of our hands and kill us with a lethal Tendrils. Empty the Warrens all-in unprotected against a Leyline seems much better to me, in addition to the counters we have and ability to out-combo the Storm player by forcing them to pass the turns - several times, possibly - even after an Empty to give us a chance to win.

And remember, the key point here is an opponent actually having to naturally have Empty in their hand, which can be a little tricky. Aside from that, if I have a Leyline out and an opponent is going all-in on Wish or Tutor with X-Y-Z mana floating, if I have a counter, that's eating it. And there's no way for them to know - not with Probe, Duress, Thoughtseize, nothing. It's all-in or bust, which I love forcing on them.

It's a tired discussion, but I like Leyline better because it does so much more against so many other match-ups and individual hate-cards alone.

[P-E]

Leyline is great if you have 12 post/lands in your meta too , being protected from bog and copied bog with vesuva is great ^^

[ajfirecracker]

I prefer Leyline over Trap based on its overall versatility in different match-ups. I boarded it in against Storm because of Trap's susceptibility to targeted discard. The ability for an opponent to do that effectively makes Trap useless unless it's against an all-in combo deck with no protection - which Force can handle on its own anyhow. Leyline intricately forces a combo player to bypass their targeted method of kill (namely Tendrils) and put them on an Empty the Warrens plan. In order for that to work, your opponent will need to generate mana and cast Tutors and Wishes - both of which eat counters. Targeted discard is just a pain, and honestly hurts.

...

And remember, the key point here is an opponent actually having to naturally have Empty in their hand, which can be a little tricky. Aside from that, if I have a Leyline out and an opponent is going all-in on Wish or Tutor with X-Y-Z mana floating, if I have a counter, that's eating it. And there's no way for them to know - not with Probe, Duress, Thoughtseize, nothing. It's all-in or bust, which I love forcing on them.

It's a tired discussion, but I like Leyline better because it does so much more against so many other match-ups and individual hate-cards alone.

Has Leyline actually been doing good work when you don't have additional hate/counters in hand? That situation to me seems like the most important advantage of Mindbreak Trap. I would usually expect bounce or combo-into-Empty (remember, we're discussing when you don't have the other hate/counters) to just kill you anyway. On the other hand, Mindbreak by itself has a chance of stopping them cold, as detailed in this article (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2013/52883/the-cutting-room-floor-manaless-unplugged-vol-i) by some guy named "Hollywood". According to him, it may be "one of the most important cards to find its way into the sideboard".

:tongue:

What changed your mind?

[wuberg]

If we assume that we want to play Leyline of Sanctity, wouldn't Serum Powder be a pretty good compliment? There's been some discussion in the thread that Serum Powder performed favorably in a Dryad Arbor / Bloodghast build, but am I missing something why Powder wouldn't be a good idea in a Whirlpool / FoW build? There's only a 39.9% chance that we draw Leyline in the opening hand, but adding e.g. 3 Serum Powder would raise the probability of Leyline or Powder in the opening hand to 60.1%. Needless to say, Serum Powder is of course completely dead when it hits the graveyard and steals slots from other utility cards, so the local meta will have to decide if one can give up those slots for Powder or not.

What are your thoughts on Leyline together with Powder in a Whirlpool / FoW build? I only picked up this decks a weeks ago so it will take quite some time before my testing will yield any reliable conclusion ;)

[Michael Keller]

Has Leyline actually been doing good work when you don't have additional hate/counters in hand? That situation to me seems like the most important advantage of Mindbreak Trap. I would usually expect bounce or combo-into-Empty (remember, we're discussing when you don't have the other hate/counters) to just kill you anyway. On the other hand, Mindbreak by itself has a chance of stopping them cold, as detailed in this article (http://jupitergames.info/articles/2013/52883/the-cutting-room-floor-manaless-unplugged-vol-i) by some guy named "Hollywood". According to him, it may be "one of the most important cards to find its way into the sideboard".

:tongue:

What changed your mind?

That was a few years back when my perception on the sideboard was a little different. I was also running Arbors back then.

Don't get me wrong, Trap is good. I just find Leyline to be more overall useful.

[Mr. Froggy]

Here's my list:

4 Dryad Arbor
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Thug
4 Nether Shadow
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Bridge from Below
3 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid
4 Dread Return
4 Street Wraith
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Griselbrand

It hasn't changed much but still packs a hell of a punch.

I don't want to try the Blue-build because I feel it goes too much against Manaless's motto (never use the stack). :)

[Thrasher]

So you switched to fearless? Don't you feel the need of an answer to hate?

[Mr. Froggy]

So you switched to fearless? Don't you feel the need of an answer to hate?

I do that with my SB mostly, as in Claim/LoS/Trap.

I'm thinking of dropping the Claim Package though.

[joemauer]

I think the addition of Force of Will in manaless dredge has finally made the deck competitive. Still somewhat of a glass cannon, but FoW has made the deck much more competitive.

Sadly manaless is no longer a budget deck.

[Michael Keller]

I think the addition of Force of Will in manaless dredge has finally made the deck competitive. Still somewhat of a glass cannon, but FoW has made the deck much more competitive.

Sadly manaless is no longer a budget deck.

Manaless was always competitive in the hands of a skilled pilot.

You also don't have to play Forces if you don't want to.

[joemauer]

Manaless was always competitive in the hands of a skilled pilot.

You also don't have to play Forces if you don't want to.

Force of Will is a staple in the format for several reasons. If a deck can handle playing Force of Will(enough blue cards & won't hinder the goal of the deck) in it then it should.

I suppose the deck was somewhat competitive(post mental misstep) before the addition of Force of Will, but it was the definition of a glass cannon.

Also, Force of Will helps tremendously against the deck's toughest matchup: fast combo.

[Thrasher]

I do that with my SB mostly, as in Claim/LoS/Trap.

I'm thinking of dropping the Claim Package though.

Yeah, that makes sense. Claim has never been effective for me,anyway.

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[Mr. Froggy]

I find it awesome how much the deck has picked up these past few weeks. :)

It's the bane of MODO and has been putting up results a couple of times. :)

[carefulmug]

Another SCG, another top 8.

And another Balustrade list. Forgoing the extra dredgers and Baubles, this list also eschews Chancellors for a set of MB Unmask.

Feels like it's the Balustrade's version of Force in the main.

I'll keep DRing Whirlwind Riders, but it's cool to see such repeated results whatever the version.

[slave]

Manaless was always competitive in the hands of a skilled pilot.

You also don't have to play Forces if you don't want to.

Whilst I agree with these thoughts, I feel the blue side has increased our game 1 percentages, especially against decks that can run hate in the main, due in part to having force there, combined with extra acceleration from probe.
Since winning game1 has always been a must for this deck, I feel this is a big thing.

To argue whether blue is stronger than green, or even fearless, will be a personal decision though, as I find hate varies greatly.
For me, I find postboard to be easier to win with the blue side, and more importantly, has the ability to buy us time by countering a combo piece > something green/fearless is stuck being a spectator to.

[Final Fortune]

Whilst I agree with these thoughts, I feel the blue side has increased our game 1 percentages, especially against decks that can run hate in the main, due in part to having force there, combined with extra acceleration from probe.
Since winning game1 has always been a must for this deck, I feel this is a big thing.

To argue whether blue is stronger than green, or even fearless, will be a personal decision though, as I find hate varies greatly.
For me, I find postboard to be easier to win with the blue side, and more importantly, has the ability to buy us time by countering a combo piece > something green/fearless is stuck being a spectator to.

I think the most important aspect of Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal is the opponent can't just mulligan into a hate card and win any more, altho' I really don't think the deck is as viable as other people think it is because once you've faced these Blade decks with 4 Deathrite Shaman and 3 Rest in Peace you'll just want to pick up something else entirely.

[Thrasher]

I think the most important aspect of Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal is the opponent can't just mulligan into a hate card and win any more, altho' I really don't think the deck is as viable as other people think it is because once you've faced these Blade decks with 4 Deathrite Shaman and 3 Rest in Peace you'll just want to pick up something else entirely.

Chancellor of the Annex has sent you a friend request.
"Hey there, let's eat deathblade alive".

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[Final Fortune]

Chancellor of the Annex has sent you a friend request.
"Hey there, let's eat deathblade alive".

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I've tried, 7 graveyard cards is about where I draw the line with Dredge, especially when it's Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace because I can't think of a more hateful environment other than 4 Leyline of the Void.

I think you can still Top 8 with the deck, but it's really hard to win a tournament with it.

[slave]

I think you can still Top 8 with the deck, but it's really hard to win a tournament with it.

I think this is fair. The top decks can be scary fast, or just have an abundance of answers.....

[Mr. Froggy]

I think the deck has the potential to win a major tournament in this meta since it's putting up results.

Now once the deck picks up some more, hello 20$ Ichorids. ;)

[Michael Keller]

I certainly hope not.

One of the biggest driving factors of the deck's success is its "boogeyman" effect. Given its relatively cheap cost to build, a lot of new players will pick it up.

Which means welcome back Leyline of the Void.

[Darklingske]

In my meta, Leyline ot Void is already picking up again. That -and the abundance of DRS, Cage & RiP- is the reason I'm currently not playing Ichorid anymore.

[Thrasher]

I've never had problems in the deathblade matchup, with chancellor. The only scary start they can do is discard t1+ hate t2, otherwise it's completely manageable.

If manaless increases in popularity, we might see some more rips/cages, which may push the fearless versions out of the scene, but the force/shoal version would probably survive. At least until leyline happens.

I doubt we'll see a lot of leylines, though, the metagame is too variegated to allow such narrow cards. I hope i'm not wrong.



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[Vlad Teppes]

That's why I don't recomend dredge (any variation of it) as your only legacy deck.
Grab some cheap aggro or just use the manabase and LED to build T.E.S, it messes them up big time.
Manaless is a cool deck, it was the deck that brought me back to legacy, I will grab the FOWs and try out the blue package to see how it works.:smile:

[Mr. Froggy]

That's why I don't recomend dredge (any variation of it) as your only legacy deck.
Grab some cheap aggro or just use the manabase and LED to build T.E.S, it messes them up big time.
Manaless is a cool deck, it was the deck that brought me back to legacy, I will grab the FOWs and try out the blue package to see how it works.:smile:

I play D&T and I built Manaless because it was dirt cheap, and I wanted an unfair deck that could prey on unprepared opponents.

[igri_is_a_bk]

That was me in the top 8. I just wanted to chime in that Unmask was absolutely INSANE all day. As a MB card, it was much better than Force of Will because it CAN actually promote your own game plan. In a couple game twos over the tournament I drew a starting seven with Unmask. My opponents put me on the play about half the time and in both of these situations they did so I started with an Unmask on myself. Resolved both times. At that point I was able to Probe or Wraith my way into a first turn play as my opponent expected a free card while essentially being on the play. Sorry to disappoint, bra.

In fact, I should have done that in the quarterfinals during game two but I wasn't feeling risky since Steve had FoW in his deck and DRS already deployed. The fact game two was a free roll was all the more compelling reason to go for it. I played fearless all day, then got scared on camera so that's a little disappointing. But yeah, it would have gave me a better chance of winning.

And this hardly matters, but I had three Ashen Riders in the board since SCG mistyped that.

[P-E]

Good job anyway ^^
that's always good to see manaless top8

[Michael Keller]

That was me in the top 8. I just wanted to chime in that Unmask was absolutely INSANE all day. As a MB card, it was much better than Force of Will because it CAN actually promote your own game plan. In a couple game twos over the tournament I drew a starting seven with Unmask. My opponents put me on the play about half the time and in both of these situations they did so I started with an Unmask on myself. Resolved both times. At that point I was able to Probe or Wraith my way into a first turn play as my opponent expected a free card while essentially being on the play. Sorry to disappoint, bra.

In fact, I should have done that in the quarterfinals during game two but I wasn't feeling risky since Steve had FoW in his deck and DRS already deployed. The fact game two was a free roll was all the more compelling reason to go for it. I played fearless all day, then got scared on camera so that's a little disappointing. But yeah, it would have gave me a better chance of winning.

Congrats on the finish.

I still feel that Unmask is inferior to Force of Will right now. Unmask is inherently proactive and forces the player running it to fire it off immediately for any effect, which puts you down to six on the draw. Force let's you play the reactive role and doesn't necessitate you having to fire it off immediately - which is key when needing to discard.

It's also superior against fast combo and punishes top-deck hate draws. Unmask can't do that.

[TableTopMagic]

Played a SCG Legacy Open Saturday with Blue Manaless. Went 3-0-1
Played Elves Twice, RUG Delver, and Countertop.

RUG was the Draw with me having lethal on the board and him stalling game 3.

I will do a quick over view tonight on my thought on the deck over Spy builds.

[igri_is_a_bk]

I agree FoW out of the SB is better than Unmask for the purpose of fighting hate. But g1, Unmask is a much better card. There are very few instances you would need FoW g1 that I wouldn't even bother wasting space on stuff like Whirlpool Rider (which is so much worse than Spy). In testing, that Rider was a nonbo whenever I had a hand with Phantasmagorian and it was to support something I definitely didn't need the first game. I can tell you I didn't lose a single game one even without Force of Will and sideboarded exactly one time the whole tournament against Lands where I got to bring in my graveyard hate. Otherwise, I just played the same 60 each game. That tells me FoW is a sideboard card and probably a good one in conjunction with Disrupting Shoal. Whirpool Rider, on the other hand, is a waste of space no matter where you try to fit him.

[Michael Keller]

I agree FoW out of the SB is better than Unmask for the purpose of fighting hate. But g1, Unmask is a much better card. There are very few instances you would need FoW g1 that I wouldn't even bother wasting space on stuff like Whirlpool Rider (which is so much worse than Spy). In testing, that Rider was a nonbo whenever I had a hand with Phantasmagorian and it was to support something I definitely didn't need the first game. I can tell you I didn't lose a single game one even without Force of Will and sideboarded exactly one time the whole tournament against Lands where I got to bring in my graveyard hate. Otherwise, I just played the same 60 each game. That tells me FoW is a sideboard card and probably a good one in conjunction with Disrupting Shoal. Whirpool Rider, on the other hand, is a waste of space no matter where you try to fit him.

I think if you enlighten us as to what you played against in the Swiss, I think we can get a better understanding of your reasoning. You're telling us that Unmask is a much better card game one, but your sample size is one tournament. Did you play against Storm or anything a turn faster than Manaless?

Phantasmagorian and Whirlpool Rider is hardly the least of the deck's worries. At minimum, it's going to be a Sphinx of Lost Truths. At best, it's going to be a Contract from Below. See, this is why I think it's incredibly deceiving to believe that the Spy version is better than other variations of Manaless. It performs well at SC-Opens because the players aren't adequately prepared to deal with it. I'd also mention the level of skill these folks bring to the table in that regard. To say that you navigated through a field full of hate like Rest in Peace, Cage, etc. tells me that you either had great match-ups, or your opponents had little hate to deal with a deck like Manaless Dredge.

With the blue package, Rider strictly fits the bill. The whole purpose of Shoal out of the board is to counter Rest in Peace and, to a lesser extent, Cage. There is no creature in Magic: the Gathering that works better in conjunction with those cards in this variation of this archetype than Whirlpool Rider. Spy is fine in different builds, but not the blue variation with counters.

[Acclimation]

Unmask seems like a much better game 1 card though. It functions as both protection and business.

We have a similar argument in the Tinfins thread between discard and counterspells every couple of months or so. Being able to use the discard against your opponent while using that same slot as an enabler for your "combo" makes your g1 percentages go up higher.



Outside of potential space issues, what is to stop you from running Unmask main, and Force in the side, just swapping the two when relevant?

[Final Fortune]

Unmask is a worse card than Force of Will MD, and I championed for Unmask in the past, because it doesn't do anything to stop combo or Deathrite Shaman and only does something to stop Show&Tell and Stoneforge Mystic decks. The only reason to play Unmask is to play Balustrade Spy, and I don't think your choice of Griselbrand, Balustrade Spy or Whirlpool Rider really makes a difference on whether or not the deck will win or lose a match. I'm not even confident Unmask and Balustrade Spy is any better than Dryad Arbor and Griselbrand, which I came to prefer once I realized Dryad Arbor is consistently more disruptive vs combo and accelerates your own combo while giving the deck some resiliency vs tax effects and you could play Unmask just as well if you really wanted to.

I don't have anything against Balustrade Spy or the fearless approach, it's certainly the cheapest way to play the deck, but it doesn't have any significant benefits to the MD and I'd say it's strictly worse if you're playing in a metagame where 3xRIP is in every SB. I mean you could probably auto-pilot manaless dredge into the final rounds, but once you get there you've got nothing to push your way thru' to 1st place unless you have Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal and even then your fate is squarely in the hands of your opening 8.

But hell, honestly I hope you keep playing it because anything that makes it harder for Storm to name the right card with Cabal Therapy is doing us all a favor. I actually have the Chancellor/Unmask/Spy list sleeved up right now just because my FoWs are off doing better things, but if I had to play the deck as my daily driver there's like no way I'd play it without Force.

[ajfirecracker]

See, this is why I think it's incredibly deceiving to believe that the Spy version is better than other variations of Manaless. It performs well at SC-Opens because the players aren't adequately prepared to deal with it. I'd also mention the level of skill these folks bring to the table in that regard. To say that you navigated through a field full of hate like Rest in Peace, Cage, etc. tells me that you either had great match-ups, or your opponents had little hate to deal with a deck like Manaless Dredge.

I have no respect for this attitude.

The past successful results of a deck don't indicate that you should play that deck, or that you should play the same 60 or 75 cards.

They do indicate that the deck was right for that tournament and that metagame. Successful finishes are the one thing you absolutely cannot simply dismiss. You can dismiss theorycrafting, you can explain away test results, you can ignore people's opinions on the deck, but you cannot dismiss actual tournament finishes and expect to get results. Period.

[Michael Keller]

I have no respect for this attitude.

It's not an attitude, it's the unspoken truth. That's a jab. I didn't say one derogatory thing about anything. There are questions unanswered, here. If me stating my opinion about this bothers you, oh well. I congratulated the guy and spoke my criticism. That's my right.


The past successful results of a deck don't indicate that you should play that deck, or that you should play the same 60 or 75 cards.

Then explain to me what the point of playing something proven to be successful means. Nothing? What's the point of this forum? Why waste your time developing something?


They do indicate that the deck was right for that tournament and that metagame. Successful finishes are the one thing you absolutely cannot simply dismiss. You can dismiss theorycrafting, you can explain away test results, you can ignore people's opinions on the deck, but you cannot dismiss actual tournament finishes and expect to get results. Period.

Not quite.

I never once disputed it was a poor meta choice, because it wasn't and isn't. However, whatever it is your babbling about confuses me. In a given tournament with eight rounds, you play against varying types of decks. That's undisputed. How are we as a community supposed to evaluate a deck on how good it is unless we know what the placer played against? What, RUG eight times?

I'm sorry, but your reasoning is inherently flawed here. Someone coming out and saying "A" card is better than "B" card because you did well with it in one tournament - without explaining why - seems egregious in the face of evolution. I mean, excuse me for being overly critical here, but I want to be sold - like the rest of us - as to why we should drop what we're going with and move into a different direction.

There are a multitude of variables missing here. Unmask is fine, but in testing from all of the folks working and testing it here, it hasn't worked. I want to know why I should play it. If that bothers you, oh well.

You know you're treading odd water when Final Fortune and I both agree on this.

[igri_is_a_bk]

This thread is about manaless dredge, so let's just keep it to that.

I don't know what to tell you and FF, because you really don't seem to be open to hearing it, but Unmask proved better than Force during g1. There is no mandate to use Unmask if you draw it. I had hands where I was on the draw and simply went good ol' DDD and held that Unmask until t2 when I could dredge and use it without throwing a kink in my chain.

Force is going to be unpowered more often than Unmask even with more blue cards, like Whirlpool Rider, which is much worse than Spy or Griselbrand. I agree that there is likely very little difference between Spy and Griselbrand, but there is certainly a gap between them and Rider. It is those hands with Phantasmagorian that cause a problem, even if you think it's not major (which I don't see how it isn't). It boils down to I dredge enough to win or I dredge three times and don't.

And here's the bone that I think you've been waiting to be thrown, Force is better MB against combo! But IMO the inconsistency isn't worth it g1 and the best play against combo is a combination of Wraiths and Probes so that you can Therapy their hand to shreds, not Unmask or Force them. Those both help, but it's more likely you beat combo by dredging well early. G2 and g3, I want Force just like you because I don't see this deck every getting through a top 8 without them, like FF said.

Here's what I played in the swiss, and it does confirm that manaless was an excellent meta choice more than anything else. I think we should all concede that's going to be the more decisive factor, regardless if you play Unmask or Force.
Rd 1 - Esper Blade (RiP x3) 2-0
Rd 2 - DnT (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 3 - RUG Delver 2-1
Rd 4 - Burn 2-0
Rd 5 - UWR Delver (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 6 - UWR Delver (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 7 - Affinity 0-2
Rd 8 - Lands (MB Bojuka Bog) 2-1
Rd 9 - Sneak and Show ID

[Michael Keller]

This thread is about manaless dredge, so let's just keep it to that.

I don't know what to tell you and FF, because you really don't seem to be open to hearing it, but Unmask proved better than Force during g1. There is no mandate to use Unmask if you draw it. I had hands where I was on the draw and simply went good ol' DDD and held that Unmask until t2 when I could dredge and use it without throwing a kink in my chain.

Force is going to be unpowered more often than Unmask even with more blue cards, like Whirlpool Rider, which is much worse than Spy or Griselbrand. I agree that there is likely very little difference between Spy and Griselbrand, but there is certainly a gap between them and Rider. It is those hands with Phantasmagorian that cause a problem, even if you think it's not major (which I don't see how it isn't). It boils down to I dredge enough to win or I dredge three times and don't.

And here's the bone that I think you've been waiting to be thrown, Force is better MB against combo! But IMO the inconsistency isn't worth it g1 and the best play against combo is a combination of Wraiths and Probes so that you can Therapy their hand to shreds, not Unmask or Force them. Those both help, but it's more likely you beat combo by dredging well early. G2 and g3, I want Force just like you because I don't see this deck every getting through a top 8 without them, like FF said.

Here's what I played in the swiss, and it does confirm that manaless was an excellent meta choice more than anything else. I think we should all concede that's going to be the more decisive factor, regardless if you play Unmask or Force.
Rd 1 - Esper Blade (RiP x3) 2-0
Rd 2 - DnT (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 3 - RUG Delver 2-1
Rd 4 - Burn 2-0
Rd 5 - UWR Delver (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 6 - UWR Delver (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 7 - Affinity 0-2
Rd 8 - Lands (MB Bojuka Bog) 2-1
Rd 9 - Sneak and Show ID

I think you did an awesome job and represented the archetype well!

[Thrasher]

@igri_is_a_bk:
Congratulations for the top8!

It was nice to see Unmask in your list, it's a card i've always liked, but i had to drop it due to overabudance of Deathrite Shamans.

I don't agree on the Whirlpool Rider topic, though, it's worked quite well for me, even though it's obviously not as good as Griseblrand/Spy as a DR target. Being a pitch for FoW allows me to bring in FoW from the board without boarding Shoal with it.

[ajfirecracker]

It's not an attitude, it's the unspoken truth. That's a jab. I didn't say one derogatory thing about anything. There are questions unanswered, here. If me stating my opinion about this bothers you, oh well. I congratulated the guy and spoke my criticism. That's my right.



Then explain to me what the point of playing something proven to be successful means. Nothing? What's the point of this forum? Why waste your time developing something?



Not quite.

I never once disputed it was a poor meta choice, because it wasn't and isn't. However, whatever it is your babbling about confuses me. In a given tournament with eight rounds, you play against varying types of decks. That's undisputed. How are we as a community supposed to evaluate a deck on how good it is unless we know what the placer played against? What, RUG eight times?

I'm sorry, but your reasoning is inherently flawed here. Someone coming out and saying "A" card is better than "B" card because you did well with it in one tournament - without explaining why - seems egregious in the face of evolution. I mean, excuse me for being overly critical here, but I want to be sold - like the rest of us - as to why we should drop what we're going with and move into a different direction.

There are a multitude of variables missing here. Unmask is fine, but in testing from all of the folks working and testing it here, it hasn't worked. I want to know why I should play it. If that bothers you, oh well.

You know you're treading odd water when Final Fortune and I both agree on this.

Did you not read your own comment? You literally said you didn't want to believe all the Manaless finishes show that a particular build is better because it was against 'unskilled' players who were 'unprepared' for it.

How can you not see that that takes an absurd amount of hubris? "I'm just going to ignore ALL the actual tournament data because these players are bad." How is that not obviously a shitty attitude?

[Michael Keller]

Did you not read your own comment? You literally said you didn't want to believe all the Manaless finishes show that a particular build is better because it was against 'unskilled' players who were 'unprepared' for it.

That's B.S. I said that it would be beneficial to sell a point on why one card is better than another as opposed to just saying it for the sake of saying it. When you have a sample size of one tournament - and one person - saying one card is superior to another - that has been tested and proven efficient in the current general meta - you're going to draw skepticism. It goes without saying that Star City Opens have a tendency to be saturated with inferior Eternal competition - especially in the early rounds. I've already explained where I'm coming from and am not doing it again - so stop antagonizing; I dropped this a while ago.


How can you not see that that takes an absurd amount of hubris? "I'm just going to ignore ALL the actual tournament data because these players are bad." How is that not obviously a shitty attitude?

Again, you're putting more words into my mouth. Look, I'll be honest with you: I don't even care. I'm an open, honest person who enjoys hearing what others have to say. But I also don't have time for bullshit, because I've read a lot of it having been a regular here for eleven years. So, when someone tells people - people that have spent countless hours and accumulated hard data on a subject - that one option is better than another, please cite specific examples and give the community a reason to believe you. Every piece of tournament data is important, sure. But to claim something is better than something else because you did well in one tournament is not practical - hence the critical nature of my response.

That goes for myself, too.

[ajfirecracker]

That's B.S. I said that it would be beneficial to sell a point on why one card is better than another as opposed to just saying it for the sake of saying it. When you have a sample size of one tournament - and one person - saying one card is superior to another - that has been tested and proven efficient in the current general meta - you're going to draw skepticism. It goes without saying that Star City Opens have a tendency to be saturated with inferior Eternal competition - especially in the early rounds. I've already explained where I'm coming from and am not doing it again - so stop antagonizing; I dropped this a while ago.

Again, you're putting more words into my mouth. Look, I'll be honest with you: I don't even care. I'm an open, honest person who enjoys hearing what others have to say. But I also don't have time for bullshit, because I've read a lot of it having been a regular here for eleven years. So, when someone tells people - people that have spent countless hours and accumulated hard data on a subject - that one option is better than another, please cite specific examples and give the community a reason to believe you. Every piece of tournament data is important, sure. But to claim something is better than something else because you did well in one tournament is not practical - hence the critical nature of my response.

That goes for myself, too.


Phantasmagorian and Whirlpool Rider is hardly the least of the deck's worries. At minimum, it's going to be a Sphinx of Lost Truths. At best, it's going to be a Contract from Below. See, this is why I think it's incredibly deceiving to believe that the Spy version is better than other variations of Manaless. It performs well at SC-Opens because the players aren't adequately prepared to deal with it. I'd also mention the level of skill these folks bring to the table in that regard. To say that you navigated through a field full of hate like Rest in Peace, Cage, etc. tells me that you either had great match-ups, or your opponents had little hate to deal with a deck like Manaless Dredge.

Emphasis added. I didn't put anything in your mouth. Also, it's slimy to claim I'm putting words in your mouth immediately after repeating the claim which 'I put in your mouth' as something that "goes without saying".

This is a toxic attitude, and the only reason I'm still upset about this. You CANNOT simply disregard tournament results and you should be ashamed of calling people who look at the actual tournament record of being "incredibly deceiving".

You keep saying this is a single tournament but even in your initial derisive comment you acknowledged it was multiple SCG Opens. Forgive me for taking that at face value and assuming you were familiar with the tournament record.

As you're ignorant of Spy's results in general: Please examine Michael Boland's SCG Los Angeles list (Top8 against a field of 374 Players). Please examine Alan Villamayor's Top8 list at the TeTe Open (113 Players). Please examine Theo Van Doosselaere's Top8 list at SCG Philly last fall (280 Players). Please let me know if the Whirlpool Rider list has managed a single Top8 anywhere - I can't find any instance in the tournament record. The closest I can find is a single list in Milan with Force of Will in the sideboard and Griselbrand in the main-deck.

Even if we assume a full half of the players at those SCG tournaments were totally incompetent, then that places Spy Manaless with Top8's in fields of 187, 140, 113, and (most recently) 188.

You absolutely can make an argument that Whirlpool Rider is the way forward, but it is not "incredibly deceiving to believe" that the Spy version is better. Even if Spy only had the one tournament, it wouldn't be incredibly deceiving - it would be sketchy data but you still draw the best conclusions you can. On such limited data, the best conclusion would be that the Spy build is probably best. It wouldn't be certain, or proven, but it would be the best conclusion and not deceitful.

@igri_is_a_bk: I'm convinced that most of your opponents knew what they were doing. I'm convinced that you had to exercise a degree of skill and creativity during matches as well as a degree of thoughtfulness and foresight beforehand in deck selection. I'm sorry that Michael doesn't. I'm sorry that he feels it would be "incredibly deceiving to believe" that you were capable of choosing the best deck, or of analyzing your own tournament performance.

Now, that is putting words in his mouth - but they're his words. It's "incredibly deceiving to believe" that Spy is the best deck, and you chose it anyway. It's "incredibly deceiving to believe" that you can identify after-the-fact that your deck was indeed the best option, but you make that claim.

[Michael Keller]

Emphasis added. I didn't put anything in your mouth. Also, it's slimy to claim I'm putting words in your mouth immediately after repeating the claim which 'I put in your mouth' as something that "goes without saying".

This is a toxic attitude, and the only reason I'm still upset about this. You CANNOT simply disregard tournament results and you should be ashamed of calling people who look at the actual tournament record of being "incredibly deceiving".

You keep saying this is a single tournament but even in your initial derisive comment you acknowledged it was multiple SCG Opens. Forgive me for taking that at face value and assuming you were familiar with the tournament record.

As you're ignorant of Spy's results in general: Please examine Michael Boland's SCG Los Angeles list (Top8 against a field of 374 Players). Please examine Alan Villamayor's Top8 list at the TeTe Open (113 Players). Please examine Theo Van Doosselaere's Top8 list at SCG Philly last fall (280 Players). Please let me know if the Whirlpool Rider list has managed a single Top8 anywhere - I can't find any instance in the tournament record. The closest I can find is a single list in Milan with Force of Will in the sideboard and Griselbrand in the main-deck.

Even if we assume a full half of the players at those SCG tournaments were totally incompetent, then that places Spy Manaless with Top8's in fields of 187, 140, 113, and (most recently) 188.

You absolutely can make an argument that Whirlpool Rider is the way forward, but it is not "incredibly deceiving to believe" that the Spy version is better. Even if Spy only had the one tournament, it wouldn't be incredibly deceiving - it would be sketchy data but you still draw the best conclusions you can. On such limited data, the best conclusion would be that the Spy build is probably best. It wouldn't be certain, or proven, but it would be the best conclusion and not deceitful.

@igri_is_a_bk: I'm convinced that most of your opponents knew what they were doing. I'm convinced that you had to exercise a degree of skill and creativity during matches as well as a degree of thoughtfulness and foresight beforehand in deck selection. I'm sorry that Michael doesn't. I'm sorry that he feels it would be "incredibly deceiving to believe" that you were capable of choosing the best deck, or of analyzing your own tournament performance.

Now, that is putting words in his mouth - but they're his words. It's "incredibly deceiving to believe" that Spy is the best deck, and you chose it anyway. It's "incredibly deceiving to believe" that you can identify after-the-fact that your deck was indeed the best option, but you make that claim.

I'm sorry you actually took the time to type that mess out; you get the gold star for the day.

Moving right along: Has anyone else considered shifting Unmask to the main?

[Final Fortune]

This thread is about manaless dredge, so let's just keep it to that.

I don't know what to tell you and FF, because you really don't seem to be open to hearing it, but Unmask proved better than Force during g1. There is no mandate to use Unmask if you draw it. I had hands where I was on the draw and simply went good ol' DDD and held that Unmask until t2 when I could dredge and use it without throwing a kink in my chain.

Force is going to be unpowered more often than Unmask even with more blue cards, like Whirlpool Rider, which is much worse than Spy or Griselbrand. I agree that there is likely very little difference between Spy and Griselbrand, but there is certainly a gap between them and Rider. It is those hands with Phantasmagorian that cause a problem, even if you think it's not major (which I don't see how it isn't). It boils down to I dredge enough to win or I dredge three times and don't.

And here's the bone that I think you've been waiting to be thrown, Force is better MB against combo! But IMO the inconsistency isn't worth it g1 and the best play against combo is a combination of Wraiths and Probes so that you can Therapy their hand to shreds, not Unmask or Force them. Those both help, but it's more likely you beat combo by dredging well early. G2 and g3, I want Force just like you because I don't see this deck every getting through a top 8 without them, like FF said.

Here's what I played in the swiss, and it does confirm that manaless was an excellent meta choice more than anything else. I think we should all concede that's going to be the more decisive factor, regardless if you play Unmask or Force.
Rd 1 - Esper Blade (RiP x3) 2-0
Rd 2 - DnT (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 3 - RUG Delver 2-1
Rd 4 - Burn 2-0
Rd 5 - UWR Delver (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 6 - UWR Delver (RiP x2) 2-1
Rd 7 - Affinity 0-2
Rd 8 - Lands (MB Bojuka Bog) 2-1
Rd 9 - Sneak and Show ID

I listened and I have a lot of experience with Unmask already, probably more than you do in all honesty, and while I don't think Unmask and Balustrade Spy are significantly better than Force of Will and Whirlpool Rider they may be marginally better game 1. That's really not the point tho' because you don't play Force of Will and Whirlpool Rider for game 1, you play them for a match in a meta where you want to maximize your SB space. I find them "good enough" at what they do game 1 and "absolutely great" at what they do games 2+ because I have a MD that transitions into my SB plan to fight hate instead of ignore it.

I just don't lose games because I had Force of Will instead of Unmask or Whirlpool Rider instead of Balustrade Spy, but I do lose games to a resolved Rest in Peace. I think the longer you've played Manaless Dredge, the less you care about your game 1 win% and the more you care about your match win% because those are really the only games that test your skill cap.

I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong by any means, if you can put up results with the cheapest version of the deck than that's great, but I walked away from Unmask specifically because it couldn't deal with combo or hate and leaves the deck vulnerable to both. You beat a lot of decks with SB RIP tho', so if anything I guess it shows that you still have a chance if you play Fearless. I've just been raped by RIP really hard in the past and I'm tired of games being decided by it, it's not like the good ol' days where I had to think about Surgical Extraction and Relic of Progenitus and felt rewarded for play skill

Any way like I said, keep playing it, it just makes Cabal Therapy worse against us.

[Michael Keller]

And I think that's what this boils down to: personal preference. I just don't see how Unmask is worth the slot. If an opponent has hate, it's hitting the table; Unmask isn't stopping that from happening.

So then what? Why play it over something else? What's its purpose?

[slave]

I'm sorry you actually took the time to type that mess out; you get the gold star for the day.

Moving right along: Has anyone else considered shifting Unmask to the main?
Yes and no .
Unmask and force are a one or the other proposition for me, and you choose the dread return target to suit.
That said, when I ran spy with unmask it was actually okay, but bear in mind I found it more useful as a tool to dredge than discarding on opponents.

I would argue that talk of whirlpool rider being bad, tells me you simply haven't tested with it, or used it in a tourney very much. I find the card dredged most of my deck on almost every occasion. Having access to counter is a big fucking deal.
I get that spy does it every time, I tested it exclusively for close to a year (go through the thread for %'s and thoughts) but spy has weaknesses too. I would argue that since spy is the cheapest version of the deck, that this is a ffairly large reason why the spy version is turning up regularly

[ajfirecracker]

Yes and no .
Unmask and force are a one or the other proposition for me, and you choose the dread return target to suit.
That said, when I ran spy with unmask it was actually okay, but bear in mind I found it more useful as a tool to dredge than discarding on opponents.

I would argue that talk of whirlpool rider being bad, tells me you simply haven't tested with it, or used it in a tourney very much. I find the card dredged most of my deck on almost every occasion. Having access to counter is a big fucking deal.
I get that spy does it every time, I tested it exclusively for close to a year (go through the thread for %'s and thoughts) but spy has weaknesses too. I would argue that since spy is the cheapest version of the deck, that this is a ffairly large reason why the spy version is turning up regularly

It sounds like that's how igri_is_a_bk was using Unmask.

My testing with Whirlpool Rider shows it being quite good most of the time, but it does prevent you from being able to Phantasmagorian aggressively + then use Whirlpool Rider, unless you want it to be a straight downgrade to Sphinx of Lost Truths (who at least discards the same number of cards as you just dredged). This has an associated speed penalty - you can't dump an entire hand of Bridge from Below, Cabal Therapy, key dredgers and free creatures like you can with Spy, Griselbrand, or the "traditional" blue draw creatures. If you're running Force only, then something like River Kelpie is probably better.

The big problem I have is that if you're not hitting Rest in Peace in particular, your counter suite is much, much worse. Tormod's Crypt you have around 30% chance of countering, and will probably get double Time Walk'ed doing so. Leyline of the Void you still just scoop against, and Bojuka Bog (out of a Knight of the Reliquary deck, mostly) can be frightening as well. You have good odds of countering a non-tutored Scavenging Ooze, but that's something you race in many situations. The most-played hate cards in the format at the moment are 1 mana, unless I'm very much mistaken. This includes Deathrite Shaman, Grafdigger's Cage, Relic of Progenitus, and (less critically) Nihil Spellbomb. Grafdigger's Cage seems to be the most popular as well as the most powerful against Blue Manaless. To counter Grafdigger's Cage, you have Force of Will or Disrupting Shoal + Gitaxian Probe, which should come out to around a 45% chance altogether. (for Tormod's Crypt that number is more like 30-35%)

I'm not totally convinced that those odds are high enough to be worth this particular plan.

Edit: Forgot Surgical Extraction. You can add that to the list of 1-mana spells that you're not likely to counter.

Edit 2: I still think Spy vs not-Spy is a discussion worth having. Let's cut the rhetoric and actually look at the numbers. Since Spy was printed there have been 5 high finishes (Top8 or better) by Manaless Dredge at major tournaments (100+ Players). 4 of these used Balustrade Spy. Of these, 3 were at SCG Open events with 200+ players each (so all 4 events would still qualify as 100+ even if you assume half the SCG players are incompetent). The last list of the 5 used Griselbrand with 0 lands anywhere in the deck and Force of Will in the sideboard. Using that same yardstick (Top8 /100+) there have been zero finishes for Whirlpool Rider of any kind. I think the conclusion to draw is quite clearly that Spy is the way to go, pending further high finishes from some other variant.

[Thrasher]

Force of Will has to be able to deal with RiP and Cage, because those are just gg. I think there's no need to counter crypt/relic/bomb/extraction, as we have ways to play around that. Force can stop bojuka to a certain extent: countering crop rotation/kotr/expedition map won't allow them to cheat bojuka into plan.



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[Final Fortune]

It sounds like that's how igri_is_a_bk was using Unmask.

My testing with Whirlpool Rider shows it being quite good most of the time, but it does prevent you from being able to Phantasmagorian aggressively + then use Whirlpool Rider, unless you want it to be a straight downgrade to Sphinx of Lost Truths (who at least discards the same number of cards as you just dredged). This has an associated speed penalty - you can't dump an entire hand of Bridge from Below, Cabal Therapy, key dredgers and free creatures like you can with Spy, Griselbrand, or the "traditional" blue draw creatures. If you're running Force only, then something like River Kelpie is probably better.

The big problem I have is that if you're not hitting Rest in Peace in particular, your counter suite is much, much worse. Tormod's Crypt you have around 30% chance of countering, and will probably get double Time Walk'ed doing so. Leyline of the Void you still just scoop against, and Bojuka Bog (out of a Knight of the Reliquary deck, mostly) can be frightening as well. You have good odds of countering a non-tutored Scavenging Ooze, but that's something you race in many situations. The most-played hate cards in the format at the moment are 1 mana, unless I'm very much mistaken. This includes Deathrite Shaman, Grafdigger's Cage, Relic of Progenitus, and (less critically) Nihil Spellbomb. Grafdigger's Cage seems to be the most popular as well as the most powerful against Blue Manaless. To counter Grafdigger's Cage, you have Force of Will or Disrupting Shoal + Gitaxian Probe, which should come out to around a 45% chance altogether. (for Tormod's Crypt that number is more like 30-35%)

I'm not totally convinced that those odds are high enough to be worth this particular plan.

edit: Forgot Surgical Extraction. You can add that to the list of 1-mana spells that you're not likely to counter.

No offense but it sounds like you're behind the times, RIP is the most common grave yard hate out of the SB bar none, and honestly Nihil Spellbomb and Surgical Extraction aren't hate - they're a speed bump. Just wait until you hit the 4 Deathrite Shaman, 3 Rest in Peace match ups and you'll really feel differently about the necessity of Chancellor of the Annex and Force of Will.

If you're not discarding 6 cards to Phantasmagorian just because you want to Whirlpool Rider for more cards than you're probably misplaying the deck, you should be able to win from Whirlpool Rider for 3 cards just fine and I think too many people are obsessed with the combo kill in this deck because it's really Dread Return that wins the game. I could probably MD 4 Cephalid Sage and have a pretty equivalent win rate, what makes Whirlpool Rider the best Dread Return target in my book is that he's more than a Dread Return target, he's a pitch to Force and Shoal. Yeah I know Spy is a pitch to Unmask and Ichorid but honestly black cards and creatures aren't exactly in short supply.

If you guys want to claim like the deck is 1% better with MD Unmask and Spy game 1 then that's cool, but you are cold to RIP and that's the difference between Top 8ing and having any chance to take 1st place. Likewise if you play the deck in a local meta, you can expect to see way more hate than at a tournament. If you manage to dodge RIP all day good for you, not everybody is as fortunate.

[slave]

I still think Spy vs not-Spy is a discussion worth having.....

Using that same yardstick (Top8 /100+) there have been zero finishes for Whirlpool Rider of any kind. I think the conclusion to draw is quite clearly that Spy is the way to go, pending further high finishes from some other variant.

Spy seems to fit fearless well, but fearless banks on racing hate.
I won't argue that spy can be better game1, but I''ve found rider is better game2 onwards. Against combo/storm etc a fearless approach can work, but so much of that is based on them not having a good hand. A ssingle force is usually enough against storm to buy us time for zombie stompage.

Your assertion that spy is better based on your quote above is not fair. It's not like people have been playing with rider for long, or that many manaless lists run it. Spy is cheap, force is not = why.

[Final Fortune]

Spy isn't even the fastest combo kill, Dryad Arbor and Griselbrand is. I always thought the only point of Spy was that it was the cheapest kill and some people have a complex about not having 7 life when they DR Griselbrand and a 7/7 flying life link not being good enough for 1 turn.

[ajfirecracker]

No offense but it sounds like you're behind the times, RIP is the most common grave yard hate out of the SB bar none, and honestly Nihil Spellbomb and Surgical Extraction aren't hate - they're a speed bump. Just wait until you hit the 4 Deathrite Shaman, 3 Rest in Peace match ups and you'll really feel differently about the necessity of Chancellor of the Annex and Force of Will.

If you're not discarding 6 cards to Phantasmagorian just because you want to Whirlpool Rider for more cards than you're probably misplaying the deck, you should be able to win from Whirlpool Rider for 3 cards just fine and I think too many people are obsessed with the combo kill in this deck because it's really Dread Return that wins the game. I could probably MD 4 Cephalid Sage and have a pretty equivalent win rate, what makes Whirlpool Rider the best Dread Return target in my book is that he's more than a Dread Return target, he's a pitch to Force and Shoal. Yeah I know Spy is a pitch to Unmask and Ichorid but honestly black cards and creatures aren't exactly in short supply.

If you guys want to claim like the deck is 1% better with MD Unmask and Spy game 1 then that's cool, but you are cold to RIP and that's the difference between Top 8ing and having any chance to take 1st place. Likewise if you play the deck in a local meta, you can expect to see way more hate than at a tournament. If you manage to dodge RIP all day good for you, not everybody is as fortunate.

I realize Surgical is more of a speed-bump than proper hate, but it does have some uses. Nihil Spellbomb I do think is actually hate. It's a Tormod's Crypt that can still be played and activated on the first turn. It seems foolhardy at best to simply dismiss that.

Regarding the draw creature, you could run another blue creature and still pitch to Force. It is only Shoal which requires you to warp your deck to that degree.

I did a little digging to see what hate is actually being played.

Methodology: pull up mtgdecks.net, search for the number of decks running the given card in their sideboard. I realize it may take a while for people to adopt Rest in Peace and to acquire them, so I went a year out from their release. They were released on Oct 5 2012. From Oct 5 2013 to present (April 10 2014) this is the number of decks running each of the following graveyard disruption cards:

Keep in mind this is all decks that appeared for that search in that time period. This will include some small tournaments, as well as some Top16s. Additionally, this is sideboard only, and does not account for the number of a particular card being played in a single deck. Finally, note that there may be some overlap.

Surgical Extraction - 711
Rest in Peace - 602
Grafdigger's Cage - 581
Relic of Progenitus - 334
Tormod's Crypt - 226
Nihil Spellbomb - 189
Scavenging Ooze - 172
Extirpate - 100
Bojuka Bog - 82
Leyline of the Void - 62
Faerie Macabre - 62
Deathrite Shaman - 5
Ravenous Trap - 5
Jotun Grunt - 5
Yixlid Jailer - 3
Cremate - 3
Wheel of Sun and Moon - 2
Loaming Shaman - 2
Morningtide - 1

Total, by converted mana cost:

CMC=0 - 308 (Tormod's Crypt + Bojuka Bog)
CMC=1 - 1923
CMC=2 - 782
CMC=3 - 64 (but basically all Faerie Macabre)
CMC=4 - 62 (all Leyline of the Void)
CMC=5 - 5 (all Ravenous Trap)

The above is 3144 card instances. Of these, 306 cannot be countered by any means. 539 cannot be countered by Disrupting Shoal (in the Whirlpool list as we've seen it so far, anyway).

Let's assume you can play through any number of Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, Faerie Macabre, and so on. Let's assume we only care about cards that permanently remove your graveyard/abilities or remove the entire thing.

In that case we get:
CMC=0 - 308
CMC=1 - 1104
CMC=2 - 608
CMC=3 - 2
CMC=4 - 64
CMC=5 - 5

This isn't apples-to-apples with the above, but since Deathrite Shaman was printed (Oct 2012) there have been 75 lists which run DRS main+RIP side. 0 with both main, 0 with RIP main+DRS side, and finally 0 with both in the sideboard.

Maybe it's possible to get a real bad beat and see both from a single deck, but it doesn't look like something you should worry too much about.

[Thrasher]

The maindeck is more than capable of dealing with all but rip,leyline,cage. The blue side answers effectively rip and does a decent job with cage. That's what the counters are there for. It's good at countering Crop Rotation,too, but that's a plus. You shouldn't consider the rest when thinking about the effectiveness about the blue side.

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[ajfirecracker]

The maindeck is more than capable of dealing with all but rip,leyline,cage. The blue side answers effectively rip and does a decent job with cage. That's what the counters are there for. It's good at countering Crop Rotation,too, but that's a plus. You shouldn't consider the rest when thinking about the effectiveness about the blue side.

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Relic of Progenitus is definitely a card. The main-deck may be able to play through it, but it takes a lot of gas to do so, and can buy enough time for the opponent to win with aggro or find a better solution. The same goes for Tormod's Crypt, although that requires more pressure (and allows more pressure, as it's free to cast and to activate).

We all know Force of Will is good, my point is that Disrupting Shoal isn't as strong. It counters one threat fairly conditionally but the other biggest threat miserably.

Why not run Force main + Unmask in the side?

You can run whichever blue draw creature you like with this plan, and maintain the same blue count game 1 as the Whirlpool list. This also has the benefit that Force / Shoal / blue card + 4 non-blue cards is less awkward.

[Thrasher]

Sure, crypt and relic are annoying, but that has nothing to do with force or shoal. If you can't deal with relic, that's not a problem of the blue side. The blue side is aimed at fighting rip more than anything else, if you don't find enough of those you can play without shoal, that's your choice.

Also, unmask is a good card, but it's bad at dealing with hate.

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[slave]

We all know Force of Will is good, my point is that Disrupting Shoal isn't as strong. It counters one threat fairly conditionally but the other biggest threat miserably.

Why not run Force main + Unmask in the side?

You can run whichever blue draw creature you like with this plan, and maintain the same blue count game 1 as the Whirlpool list. This also has the benefit that Force / Shoal / blue card + 4 non-blue cards is less awkward.

Because shoal pitches to force. For force to be decent, we need a certain amount of blue (or more).

[Final Fortune]

Fair enough regarding Rest in Peace being the second most played hate card, however Rest in Peace is a younger card than Surgical Extraction and has only seen wide spread adoption since True Name Nemesis was printed so I'd say I'm still right as far as recent events are concerned and moving forward. I may be a bit biased but my meta game generally seems to be ahead of the curve in the sense that UBWg is fast becoming the premier True Name Nemesis deck in the format and they play Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace. I'm kind of surprised people are still on UWR, but I guess it just takes time for people to put two and two together.

Regardless, even if Rest in Peace is off by 100 cards, which is a bit misleading because people tend to play more Surgical Extractions than Rest in Peace because it can be tutored for with Enlightened Tutor, the card is far more devastating and definitely what you should be afraid of.

I reject the idea that Whirlpool Rider is warping the MD, if I had known about Whirlpool Rider and Whirlpool Drake I would have used those over Cephalid Sage back in the day. Sometimes certain cards just aren't re-evaluated the way they should be, we probably skipped over Whirlpool Drake because the deck originated with LED. The card just does what it needs to do and supports our anti-hate plan vs the worst hate card in the format right now, that just seems like a cohesive game plan to me.

You can't ignore Relic of Progenitus or Nihil Spellbomb but honestly 1 grave yard wipe hardly guarantees victory, RIP is GG and the most aptly named card ever.

I'm just saying the blue version of this deck is the best from all of the versions I've tested, but other versions are definitely playable. I actually MD Chancellor and SB Force of Will right now because I think that's the best way to increase your win rate vs the format and Deathrite Shaman being a universal 1cc Planeswalker but as far as I'm concerned Gitaxian Probe and Whirlwind Rider are staples in the MD because they enable your SB.

[ajfirecracker]

I counted decks, not cards.

I gave people a full year to adopt Rest in Peace.

[Final Fortune]

I counted decks, not cards.

I gave people a full year to adopt Rest in Peace.

That's fine, honestly I'm just looking at the DTB and current meta game progression because I really don't care about anything pre-TNN. Look at how long it took people to realize RUG was dead as soon as TNN was printed, people are slow to catch on but they get their eventually.

[Michael Keller]

Because shoal pitches to force. For force to be decent, we need a certain amount of blue (or more).

The pitch-counters have the obvious interoperability with other blue cards in the deck. It seems like the anchor of this conversation is whether or not Whirlpool Rider is good enough to run with a counter build, which it is. Let's not forget that countering other key spells against combo that have a converted mana cost of two can be very good. Shoals also pitch to other Shoals, which winds up being very good. Whirlpool Rider fits the bill not just because of his cost, but for what he does.

So we were talking about whether or not Rider is also worth running based on how many cards he's going to be dredging for. Okay, so let's say we have a Phantasmagorian in our hand to start the game off. We draw and discard it for the turn. Assuming we don't have a second one, we dump six cards - keeping one in our hand - and bring Phantasmagorian back. That's two cards in hand now. Then we move to dredge for our turn, making three cards in our hand. We then Dread Return Rider.

For all intents and purposes - at the very worst - we've just pulled off a Sphinx of Lost Truths. This is the worst-case scenario for a turn-two combo. That seems just fine with me, because if I'm not going to flip my deck that turn like I would with a Spy I'm either going to fill the battlefield with zombies and rip your hand apart with multiple Cabal Therapy or I'm going to continue Dread Returning until the game is effectively over. Best case scenario, Rider is a Contract from Below and blows the game wide open. The icing on the cake is its converted mana cost, which is perfect for what the blue shell is trying to do.

It should be noted that Whirlpool Rider would likely be nullified in the blue-based config without the presence of Disrupting Shoal. The redundancy of multiple counters is what makes the version worth playing because it gives you a chance to fight hate. The hard focus on Shoal is to generally stop Rest in Peace, and there is absolutely no creature that exists in the entire game that does what Rider does - for its critically pertinent cost. The reason I run Force of Will main because it frees up space out of the board and still acts as the best free hard-counter in the game, no matter the situation. I think that's a distinct advantage most people would agree with - especially in an archetype mired for its ability to fight through just about anything. Rider conveniently pitches to Force, which is a huge bonus.

Again, there are a variety of ways you can go with the archetype, and Spy is just fine. I have always been an advocate of the cheapest, most effective decks in the format. But I also don't want convenience to impede what could in fact be arguably the most resilient version of Manaless Dredge we've ever seen.

[TableTopMagic]

I was actually at the Milwaukee SCG Open and I wanted to run two Unmasks in the main of my Blue Manaless, but I went with two Contagions instead. I played at the last SCG in Milwaukee I went 6-3 and placed 40th. In 9 rounds I went threw 3 "Rock" style decks with DRS and a Elves deck. So I thought Contagion was where I needed to be as my open 2 slots for this event. I felt pretty sold about that choice after I went 3-0-1 in the 60+ man Open trial the day before beat two Elves deck... Well I was wrong. I did so well the next morning before the Legacy open I was checking out the dealer both and they sold out of all the RIPs, Relics, and Cages before 9 am. lol

I didn't do amazing in the open. In the first 4 rounds everyone knew the deck and also happened to be a Manaless player, just not playing Manaless that day. That was pretty crazy. I did manage to be Reanimator which is a horrible match up. Countered lots of Cages threw out the day and the day before.

[igri_is_a_bk]

The fastest version of the deck is the Unmask version with additional Baubles if you can fit those and then Spy or Griselbrand can interchangeably be your finisher. It's not the Dryad Arbor version because they can't win on t1. You have to get remarkably lucky, but it's the only version that can do that.

Edit - on second thought, Baubles don't actually increase t1 speed. Unless there is another zero mana cantrip, I was on the fastest version.

[gato con botas]

Who is the deck more fast?

[Final Fortune]

The fastest version of the deck is the Unmask version with additional Baubles if you can fit those and then Spy or Griselbrand can interchangeably be your finisher. It's not the Dryad Arbor version because they can't win on t1. You have to get remarkably lucky, but it's the only version that can do that.

Edit - on second thought, Baubles don't actually increase t1 speed. Unless there is another zero mana cantrip, I was on the fastest version.

It's not, Gitaxian Probe + Dryad Arbor + Griselbrand is the fastest average combo kill, I did like a bazillion gold fishes to test this back in the day with a lot of odd cards like Chancellor of the Forge.

I don't care about T1 wins, those are a complete fluke.