[SCD] Leyline of the Void / Graveyard hate in todays Legacy environment

[catmint]

I never played with this card and I am asking myself how strong it is and how to play it correctly.

Following thoughts/questions:

1)Is Leyline the strongest graveyard hate versus dredge, reanimator and other graveyard based decks?! However, how do you play it correctly. Assuming you are not in black (and even if you are) you cannot brainstorm into it to cast it. So, do you go all-in G2/G3 and mull into it? Do you stop at 5 cards? How likely is it that you win g2/g3 with leylines after loosing g1.

2) What do you do if someone plays just plays a deck that utilizes the graveyard a little bit. Let's say snapcaster mage, 1-2 loam or storm combo. You cannot board in "a bit" graveyard hate. Do you just accept not to have hate versus these decks?

3) Playing with and against snapcaster, surgical extraction (or extirpate) seems nice. These cards can also fill up dead slots versus combo. Is this kind of hate enough versus dredge in your experience or do you still need complete GY removal like Tormods crypt?

Thanks to everyone sharing their thoughts and (especially!) experiences.

[kiblast]

In my opinion:

1) Dredge and Reanimator can fight through permanent hate by bouncing or destroying it (Chain of Vapor, Nature's Claim come to mind). Leyline is just as bad for them as a Crypt. Except that Leyline is also bad for you because it is functional only if you see it in your opening hand, and so it forces you to mulligan aggressively (If you play Leylines in your board and then you stop mulliganing @5, you are doing it wrong. I'd stop @5 only if my 5/6 cards hand already has plenty of tools to mess with opponent's graveyard based strategies. If not, mull till you find something).

2) Against someone who plays with grave only a little bit I'd never board in Leylines obviously. They force your mulligans only to stop a little part of opponent's gameplan. The best cards against Snapcaster/Loam are Relic (because it cantrips and lets you remove 1 card per turn) and Extirpate. Against Loam I'd board in both, against Snapcaster only Relics.

3) 4 Extirpate/Surgical may not be enough against Dredge. With Snapcaster they may be enough. I still prefer diversifying my sb choices (ex:2 Relic, 1 Tormod's, 2 Extripate.) Anyway, it really depends on the rest of your build i.e.: if you are blue based, if you have EE/Deed somewhere in your 75's, if you have some fast way to steal the game (Dreadnought) etc...

Conclusion: Don't play Leylines unless you play Landeed. This is not Vintage, Leylines are bad.

[brattin]

Depends on the deck. Leyline is great against dredge and loam shenanigans. Leyline is great in combination with ichorid.dec (they can't remove your bridges) or, say, ill gotten gains, or helm of whatever that combo is. Helm of Dominance?

1. I only play leyline in decks which can hardcast it. I only mull into it when it will make me auto-win. (e.g. playing against dredge and they didn't sideboard).

2. If Leyline is your grave hate, you probably don't board it in against snapcaster mage. Usually when you're choosing which card to play there are tradeoffs. Leyline is the best against some things, so it's suboptimal against others.

3. Surgical extraction and extirpate are both good against dredge. They don't outright win the game most of the time, but they're solid. I'd think you'd probably want at least a set, but it depends how much manipulation you have, and how much you expect to see ichorid. I think these are probably better than tormod's crypt against ichorid, though.

EDIT: Leyline is really, really good. I disagree with kiblast. I used to play it maindeck in ichorid, and it stole games all the time. Obviously it sucks if you can't cast it and don't get it in your opening hand, but if you can play it its very powerful. Ichorid can't do anything until they answer it (by drawing a chain / ray and the mana to cast it) and anything they have to discard is gone for good, which is nice. And if they do bounce it, it might only buy them a turn, which might not be enough.

[kiblast]

Helm of Dominance?

Helm of Obedience, and btw is a crap combo.


1. I only play leyline in decks which can hardcast it. I only mull into it when it will make me auto-win. (e.g. playing against dredge and they didn't sideboard).

2. If Leyline is your grave hate, you probably don't board it in against snapcaster mage. Usually when you're choosing which card to play there are tradeoffs. Leyline is the best against some things, so it's suboptimal against others.

I agree on both points.



3. Surgical extraction and extirpate are both good against dredge. They don't outright win the game most of the time, but they're solid. I'd think you'd probably want at least a set, but it depends how much manipulation you have, and how much you expect to see ichorid. I think these are probably better than tormod's crypt against ichorid, though.

Playing 1-2 Extirpate effects against Ichorid doesn't win you the game unless you have a turn 3 goldfish.

[brattin]

So I'm coming from the ichorid-player's perspective here, and I think the deck hates me. I consistently draw hands with one dredger, it gets extirpated, and then I draw 4 cabal therapies in a row. In this case, one extirpate wins the game. Obviously that is not the common case, but it's not too unreasonable either--people typically only run 10 (12?) or so dredgers, right? And if you extirpate one, then there are only 6 (or 8, or whatever) left to draw into.

EDIT: Yeah, obedience. Thanks. Not normally something to base a deck around, but it can be good out of the board, when you're boarding leylines anyway. I was just mentioning it, I don't expect anyone to actually try it.

[Humphrey]

Is it possible to remove the targeted card (Snap) with extraction before the opp casts it?

I liked Leyline in black decks and mulled to 6 exept the hand is crap. Otherwise I prefer Relic

[death]

@catmint
1) Leyline is the strongest graveyard hate versus dredge/reanimator because they just can't go nuts turn 1 without first finding an answer to it. However 4 LotV is not enough, I'll probably run 2-3 Faerie Macabre/Surgical Extraction along with it. This way you have a higher chance of opening with a hate in hand without having to mulligan aggressively.

2) Leyline is also good in decks that run Snapcaster AND green (Tarmogoyf). Against U/w you'd probably be better off with Surgical Extraction/Extirpate instead.

3) Surgical Extraction (or Extirpate) isn't enough against Dredge or Reanimator. Dredge can simply discard a second dredger to Tireless Tribe/Putrid Imp and proceed as usual. Reanimator has 3-4 JGCA + 4 singleton targets and unless you draw 4 Surgical Extractions, you still can't remove all their creatures.

[Humphrey]

With Extracion i wouldnt remove a dredge enabler, exept he has only 1 active. Id remove Bridges or Dread Returns.

[whienot]

Is it possible to remove the targeted card (Snap) with extraction before the opp casts it?


Yes. When Snapcaster's etb ability goes on the stack, targets are announced. You can then Extraction the target.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

My preference at the moment is for a couple maindecked Scavenging Oozes coupled with Faerie Macabre and Tormod's Crypt in the sideboard. Also, Faerie Macabre is insane when coupled with Eternal Witness Volrath's Stronghold.

It's not an immediate blowout strategy against Dredge, but it's enough to give an aggro-control deck a good chance to win. I also keep in my MD removal and don't hesitate to use it on my own stuff to remove Bridges. Ooze doubles as a brilliant beatstick and life gain option in any matchup, while the Faerie is uncounterable and therefore quite useful against Loam and Snapcaster, while not as useful against storm. Obviously, what deck you're playing makes a big difference. I, at least, manage to win 2/3 against Drege quite often with that strategy.

[TheShaun]

With Extracion i wouldnt remove a dredge enabler, exept he has only 1 active. Id remove Bridges or Dread Returns.

Hitting Narcomoeba with its trigger on the stack is really good too. Don't let your opponent just put them into play when they hit the graveyard, he has to resolve the entire effect (Breakthrough, Careful Study, etc) before the Narco trigger goes on the stack. You can then target them and slow the deck down a ton. I almost never use targeted removal on anything other than Bridge/Narco/Ichorid. Only time I'd do it to remove a dredger is if he doesn't have another discard outlet, letting me know that I'll have a few turns before he's able to do anything.

Against Loam based decks, I also think that targeted is best. Have you ever played against a Loam deck that never gets to cast Loam? It rarely goes well for them. Leyline is solid in this matchup, but they'll almost certainly have Maelstrom Pulse or K-Grip coming in. Crypt and Relic are only good if the player is bad. A decent Loam player will never leave Loam in his yard post board unless he has a cycler in hand to save it.

I personally like to vary my hate. Decks like Dredge will have an answer in their sideboard to any kind of hate you bring. If you use 3 Leylines, then all of their Chain of Vapors and Rays are active. Bring in a bunch of Crypts/Relics and their Ancient Grudges are all online. Their deck can't bring in all of its sideboard hate and still function normally, so they'll have to typically choose one line of hate and go with it. I just can't count how many times I have a Leyline in play and my opponent shows me the Grudge in his hand,

I haven't tested post board against Snapcaster yet. My initial logic would be that mass removal is better than targeted, as they can just bounce the Snapcaster back to hand and cast him again for something else. These decks tend to be filled with tons of good instants and sorceries, so I feel that removing all the options for a few turns is better than removing one single option for the rest of the game. Will need more testing to verify though.

[Beatusnox]

wheel of sun and moon is a pretty lulzy grave hate card that doesnt see much play though i feel it should.

[jamis]

Leyline is a great card to save you 2-3 turns. If after 2-3 turns, you can gain control of the match-up and win without any graveyard resistance, it's the perfect card. But, I don't think this is the case for the majority of decks.

One of my favorite gravehate cards right now is Faerie Macabre. I think the card is really underplayed right now. Probably not as good against dredge as Extirpate or Surgical extraction since it won't remove all the bridges unless you can recur it (Tortured Existence and Macab = really really fun times), but the 0 mana cost and inability to be countered make it pretty worthwhile with reanimator being around for now.

Really though, switching which gravehate you use is always a good idea, imo. Especially in local metagames. Grave-based decks will dedicate more space for cards they expect, so keeping what you use fresh is something to consider.

[jamis]

double post

[Malchar]

In my experience, if you're playing a deck that mulligans well, then it's usually worth it to mull aggressively to find a leyline against dredge and reanimator. Yes, they will eventually get rid of the leyline and go off anyway, but that will delay them a number of turns, which is worth the price of mulling heavily. I generally play combo and/or stompy, which both mulligan very well, so this is the strategy I usually use.

If you're playing a deck that doesn't mulligan well, like control, then it's better to use tormod's crypt (or any one shot spell you can draw into). Control decks generally have built-in disruption anyway, like counterspells, which will delay the opponent's dredge/reanimator long enough for you to brainstorm into that tormod's, and then proceed to wreck them.

[keys]

Playing 1-2 Extirpate effects against Ichorid doesn't win you the game unless you have a turn 3 goldfish.

If you Extirpate Ichorid and either (a) Narcomoeba or (b) Bridge from below, the game is pretty much over.

[HokusSchmokus]

If you Extirpate Ichorid and either (a) Narcomoeba or (b) Bridge from below, the game is pretty much over.

People tend to think that. Problem with that is
a) this is entirely wrong
b) It is not very likely you have double Extirpate and some sort of relevant business on the first 2-4 turns.Later, who cares?


With Extracion i wouldnt remove a dredge enabler, exept he has only 1 active. Id remove Bridges or Dread Returns.
Don't listen to this man. Don't ever remove Dread Returns over something relevant. I mean I don't even run DR anymore.
Also,best thing is to diversify your hate.Something like 1 Jailer,1 Crypt, 1 Relic, 1 Leyline is better against dredge than just 4 LotV.
But make sure you play your hate right.Something that is not done too often btw.

[keys]

People tend to think that. Problem with that is
a) this is entirely wrong
b) It is not very likely you have double Extirpate and some sort of relevant business on the first 2-4 turns.Later, who cares?


(a) Without any reasoning behind this, who is going to believe you? I stand by my statement that 2x resolved Extirpate/Extraction is pretty much game over for Dredge if you have a clock (I am assuming, however, that the optimal targets are chosen).
(b) I was responding to a very specific statement made by kiblast. It doesn't need to happen in the first 2-4 turns. The most popular graveyard hate cards (Crypt, Relic) don't win by themselves either.

TheShaun actually provided a good analysis of the optimal way to use Extirpate/Extractiona few posts up. I would only add that the first target should be Ichorid 99% of the time, unless it's clear that targeting their only dredger would screw them.

[DragoFireheart]

One of my favorite gravehate cards right now is Faerie Macabre. I think the card is really underplayed right now. Probably not as good against dredge as Extirpate or Surgical extraction since it won't remove all the bridges unless you can recur it (Tortured Existence and Macab = really really fun times), but the 0 mana cost and inability to be countered make it pretty worthwhile with reanimator being around for now.


- I'm also surprised more people don't talk about the Faerie. Can't be countered, can nab two cards (which can be very relevant depending on the deck), doesn't need any mana to use, and the only way you can stop it is with only a handful of spells like discard or stifle effects. It's very versatile graveyard hate that while it isn't strong against any one graveyard based deck, it's good enough to be used against all of them to some effect.

[Fossil4182]

1)Is Leyline the strongest graveyard hate versus dredge, reanimator and other graveyard based decks?! However, how do you play it correctly. Assuming you are not in black (and even if you are) you cannot brainstorm into it to cast it. So, do you go all-in G2/G3 and mull into it? Do you stop at 5 cards? How likely is it that you win g2/g3 with leylines after loosing g1.

In short, yes. Graveyard based decks basically dedicate their sideboard to answer graveyard hate. It is true that cards like Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim are ubiquitous and somewhat omnipresent in the sideboards of graveyard based decks. Pithing Needle (and to a lesser extent, Null Rod) also sees about as much play as Chain of Vapor and Nature's claim. However, all of the cards that would want to be targeted by Pithing Needle (Crypt, Relic and Spellbomb) are also answered by Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim.

Even if Leyline forces you to mulligan aggressively, if you're playing against those decks, you're going to mulligan into a hand that can beat them so you might as well mulligan into a card that they cannot play around and therefore have to remove in order to deploy their game plan. Other cards such as Jailer, Trap, Faerie Macabre are all narrow or too slow. Extirpate effects are alright, but they only slow those decks down unless you resolve multiples.

2) What do you do if someone plays just plays a deck that utilizes the graveyard a little bit. Let's say snapcaster mage, 1-2 loam or storm combo. You cannot board in "a bit" graveyard hate. Do you just accept not to have hate versus these decks?
I've been piloting a storm deck for close to a year now. While graveyard hate is not the best strategy to board in against these decks, its not terrible if you have dead cards in your deck. It cuts off routes to victory such as Past in Flames and Ill-Gotten Gains. It also has a side effect of shutting down Cabal Ritual and Rite of Flame.

I wouldn't be able to speak for decks running Snapcaster Mage. My guess is if you have something like Relic which can continually remove cards, its probably not terrible.

3) Playing with and against snapcaster, surgical extraction (or extirpate) seems nice. These cards can also fill up dead slots versus combo. Is this kind of hate enough versus dredge in your experience or do you still need complete GY removal like Tormods crypt?
Totally depends on what you're deck is doing. Even flashing in a Snapcaster Mage to get a creature kill spell back targeting the Snapcaster in order to remove Bridges doesn't seem terrible. You really need multiple Extirpate effects in order for them to be good so its possible that Snapcaster plus Extirpate might work. Sleeve it up and test it.

[Gui]

I never played with this card and I am asking myself how strong it is and how to play it correctly.

Following thoughts/questions:

1)Is Leyline the strongest graveyard hate versus dredge, reanimator and other graveyard based decks?! However, how do you play it correctly. Assuming you are not in black (and even if you are) you cannot brainstorm into it to cast it. So, do you go all-in G2/G3 and mull into it? Do you stop at 5 cards? How likely is it that you win g2/g3 with leylines after loosing g1.

2) What do you do if someone plays just plays a deck that utilizes the graveyard a little bit. Let's say snapcaster mage, 1-2 loam or storm combo. You cannot board in "a bit" graveyard hate. Do you just accept not to have hate versus these decks?

3) Playing with and against snapcaster, surgical extraction (or extirpate) seems nice. These cards can also fill up dead slots versus combo. Is this kind of hate enough versus dredge in your experience or do you still need complete GY removal like Tormods crypt?

Thanks to everyone sharing their thoughts and (especially!) experiences.

I play Dredge and Leyline of the Void is a recurring topic on it. Mostly because people don't actually know whether to play Leyline or not. In short, a Leyline means a good chance of winning game 2 against dredge, and if you didn't hit Leyline on game 2, it has a good chance of winning g3 as well.

The obvious problem with leyline is that it is a mulligan bet. Against Dredge, you can mull to 1 and still win, and have a good % chance of hitting it, if the opponent didn't predict Leyline. But against Reanimator, this is not a good idea.

From my experience, I am reaching the conclusion for the right usage of Leyline, which should involve you having all of these situations:
a) Without hate in hand, your win % is waaaay smaller than with the hate (so that you will be wanting to mull into Leyline)
b 1) You can protect your Leyline, preventing the already narrow solutions for it to resolve
or
b 2) You can rush your opponent if you get 1 or 2 extra turns from the resolved leyline even if you mull to something like 4 (meaning a hand with 3 cards + leyline)

Since (b 2) is not likely, because rushing gets worse with less cards, I disconsider it. My view is that you should run Leyline only if you are in some sort of slow blue or discard control deck. You will want to mulligan leyline because your win chance is low without it, and you once you hit it, you can protect it. (a) is the most determinant condition in my view, because if you are not willing to mull into leyline for the reason that your matchup is really bad, you could be better of using something else, as a simple Tormod's Crypt.

A third common used line of think would be "you can hardcast it in case you didn't mulligan". This is a terrible line of think in my view, because Dredge and Reanimator are decks that will see a lot of action before you hardcast it, or find it. Unless you have Dark Rituals, being able to hardcast is not good enough. The main reason :b: should run leyline, in my view, is being able to use discard and being a controlish deck.


Lastly, this is not my reasoning to determine whether or not my opponent is using Leyline. People tend to use it without much reason, so I just tend to rely on hunch, or simply discover this @ g2 without any anti-hate.


So, in short: Is it strong against Dredge? Yes, but only if you hit it, and then can protect it.
Is it strong against Reanimator? Kinda, but only if you can protect it.
Should you use it? Only if you have no game against these decks without hate.

These are my two cents.

[kiblast]

If you Extirpate Ichorid and either (a) Narcomoeba or (b) Bridge from below, the game is pretty much over.

That's not always true especially if your Extirpate effect doesn't come super fast in the very early game.
If you give enough time to the dredge player, he can easily build a small Zombie army (5-7 dudes) and slowroll it to victory...
If you menage to cast 2 Extirpate in the first 2 turn of the game, hitting both Ichorid AND Bridge, well that's an easy matchup for you.



In short, yes. Graveyard based decks basically dedicate their sideboard to answer graveyard hate. It is true that cards like Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim are ubiquitous and somewhat omnipresent in the sideboards of graveyard based decks. Pithing Needle (and to a lesser extent, Null Rod) also sees about as much play as Chain of Vapor and Nature's claim. However, all of the cards that would want to be targeted by Pithing Needle (Crypt, Relic and Spellbomb) are also answered by Chain of Vapor and Nature's Claim.

Playing Needle in Dredge sideboard is a mistake, in fact it should not be played as the best choice are obviously Chain of Vapor,Emerald Charm,Ancient Grudge, Nature's Claim. If you can mull aggressively to find a Leyline, they can easily mull aggressively to find either a Chain or a Claim, with the little difference that if you mull down to 4-5, or you keep an unplayable hand but with Leyline, your gameplan is pretty much ruined or very slowed down, while Dredge can mull several times without worrying because it handles mulls pretty nicely. It's not uncommon to see dredge players mull down to 5-4 even g1 finding a good starting hand. By playing Leyline, you are simply committing to a plan which can be disrupted really easily by the dredge player.
Moreover, even if you play 4 Leylines, you have a lower probability of finding them in your opening 7 (and in your mulligans) than the probability of the Dredge player of finding a solution, just because he will have sided in at least 5-6 answers...

Tcdecks says that the last 10 Dredge list play an average number of: 0.7 Needles, 1.0 Chain and 1.8 Claim in their sideboard. Clearly Sorcery/Instant solutions are far more relevant than Artifact ones.

For Reanimator this reasonment doesn't apply since most of the Reanimator builds easily switch to SnT decks post sb.

[Amon Amarth]

1. Leyline is probably the strongest GY hate available but it has it's own drawbacks. I've rarely ran it and I prefer Crypt instead. Depending on what I'm playing, what my hand looks like, and other factors I would stop mulling at 5 cards, sometimes 4.

2. I would never board in GY hate against those decks. This is a common mistake that I see many players make all the time. None of the aforementioned decks rely upon the GY, they only do so incidentally. Unless you have cards that are absolute bricks in the matchup I would never consider bringing GY hate in.

3. Haven't tested it yet. Not sure. Some people seem OK with it though.

[ivanpei]

I don't like leylines, never did. Sure, it's the bomb against dredge/reanimator, but it is incredibly narrow. I never board them in even against decks like Loam/Snapcaster decks.

The issue with decks like reanimator/dredge, is that they can deal with it. If you are mulling into leylines, they still have outs. You will be often starting with 4-5 cards and you can't honestly defend your leyline. Also if it's bounced back to your hand, its hard to recast it after you've mulled down so much.

Sometimes you are also forced to ship excellent hands when you are mulling for leylines, I just never really liked that concept, it feels too "all in". Crypt IMO is the best anti yard hate in general. It's simple, it's fast and it's effective. It is much better against dredge because it gets rid of everything with narc/bridge triggers on the stack. The dredge player often has to rebuild from nothing.

With Surgical extraction, it's good against a large range of decks from combo, to prison, to decks that play top deck tutors (looking at you countertop thopthers...) Getting free peaks at opponent's hands and deciding to tap out or not can sometimes be critical if you have nothing better to board in. That said, it is still not as good as crypt against dredge.

Like most of the posters have mentioned, dredge gets a variety of threats into the yard. The most dangerous of course is still bridge. But if they go off, they can still strip your hand of answers (in response you most probably will RFG their bridges with surgical) with therapy and then D Return a huge Troll or just kill you with Narc/Ichorids. With Crypt, if you use it at the right time (usually after resolving a major draw spell with Narc triggers on the stack), You get to RFG the entire yard, removing the whole weapon suit. Often cards like Careful or Breakthrough require you to pitch most of your hand, pretty much forcing them to all in. If you keep imp/tribe off the table with spot removal and clean their yard after they all in, you are in good shape. They have to topdeck a Dredger + Discard outlet to get back into the game. Even if they do, slow dredging might not win them the game.

Crypt forces dredge players to slow roll. Extirpate, on the other hand is like a band aid, it wont stop the entire army. Double extirpate (with snappies) backed by some counters/spot removal however can shut down Dredge. however, if you had that with any other hate card you'd win anyways. IMO if you really want to beat dredge, you should play crypt. If you need a flexible anti yard card with many other uses, you should play Surgical/Extirpate. Also if you have snapcasters, Surgical can be a major disruptive weapon. I tried playing against landstill once with Surgicals and RFGed their Jaces. Man was it rough, they honestly have alot of trouble winning without that card. My removal was pretty much dead, so better surgicals then dead cards.

[Sims]

That's not always true especially if your Extirpate effect doesn't come super fast in the very early game.
If you give enough time to the dredge player, he can easily build a small Zombie army (5-7 dudes) and slowroll it to victory...
If you menage to cast 2 Extirpate in the first 2 turn of the game, hitting both Ichorid AND Bridge, well that's an easy matchup for you.


Not always true... If you keep 7 and have 2 extirpates and say 2 lands, that leaves you with 3 cards to put pressure on them with. Depending on the dredge list they either just lose, or they start casting Thugs, Stinkys, narcos, 1cc outlets and go aggro while dredging Trolls looking for DR and narcos. With 3 cards in hand if they go the latter route, what are the odds that you're going to be able to put pressure on them?

As a dredge player, I was never really afraid of 'pate (or surgical) because it took either perfect timing and pressure, or insane luck to really beat me with those cards. Crypt was more of a speedbump, and even that could be played around.

[Gui]

I forgot how often ivanpei is used to be right. Great post, great overview, I share these thoughts.

[catmint]

Thanks to everyone who answered.
This thread contains some very good analysis! I play BUG and the GP and considered leyline after seeing Todd Anderson running them in BUG.

I like Gui's analysis which would fit the picture that BUG can run Leyline, but I think ivanpei nailed it, why I won't run them (besides of not having experience). Going to go with 2 surgical and 2 crypt to diversify and also use abuse surgical with snapcaster versus intuition or other combodecks to fill up slots..

[Malchar]

I tried playing against landstill once with Surgicals and RFGed their Jaces. Man was it rough, they honestly have alot of trouble winning without that card. My removal was pretty much dead, so better surgicals then dead cards.

I think that legacy is at a point where you can just run main deck graveyard hate and side it out in game 2 and 3 if it's not needed. It seems like the majority of decks that I worry about facing have either a graveyard dependency, some kind of combo, or a huge bomb, any of which could be dismantled by a well-placed surgical extraction. If you're going up against a deck that doesn't get hurt by a surgical then you're probably in good shape anyway.

[kiblast]

Not always true... If you keep 7 and have 2 extirpates and say 2 lands, that leaves you with 3 cards to put pressure on them with. Depending on the dredge list they either just lose, or they start casting Thugs, Stinkys, narcos, 1cc outlets and go aggro while dredging Trolls looking for DR and narcos. With 3 cards in hand if they go the latter route, what are the odds that you're going to be able to put pressure on them?

As a dredge player, I was never really afraid of 'pate (or surgical) because it took either perfect timing and pressure, or insane luck to really beat me with those cards. Crypt was more of a speedbump, and even that could be played around.

Well, you are basically supporting my argument. Extirpate is (normally) not enough to win against Dredge unless you Extirpate important cards very early (Bridge and, let's say, Ichorid). Obviously, you should have a clock in the meantime, but if you menage to slow down the dredge player a little bit,a couple of Goyfs, or even a JTMS will do the job pretty easily. The Dredge player can start chumpblocking and dredging, but this DDD plan is really slow, and by the thime he can dread back a GGT, (which is easily Sword-able, because you don't have Bridges so no more Therapies/Bridges shenanigans) it will be either not enough or too late.

Anyway people tend to run Extirpate in blue decks (or discard heavy decks such as mono black or some Pikula builds) because wins the control Mu, and incidentally is good even against Combo (fucks up their Past in Flames or their IGG) and Graveyard decks such as Ichorid and Reanimator. I'd never use Extirpate as my main Grave hate against Dredge though. I always prefer Relic for its cycling ability, or Tormod's in some cases ( for ex: when I'm playing a Trinket Mage toolbox).