Amount of Grave hate

[KobeBryan]

I see these people place in tournaments with only 3 gravehate cards in the board. How do they do so well when there are some decks like dredge and reanimator that smokes them like no other? Decks i'm talking about are Maverick and rock based decks. I know with counters you can beat some of these graveyard decks.

I mean i play a rock deck and i need 6-7 gravehate just to deal with loam decks, dredge, and reanimator.

[Esper3k]

1) Getting lucky and not hitting those decks
2) Tutors / Brainstorm / Ponder, etc. increase your ability to see your hate cards

Even graveyard based decks aren't all entirely dependent upon being beaten by graveyard hate. For example, Reanimator can be stopped if you can keep them from getting a creature into the yard while you have a fast clock going.

[TheShaun]

Well some decks don't care what the opponent is doing, such as TES or Belcher. Some decks can win faster, like burn. The mid-range decks you're talking about have plenty of cards that aren't dedicated to beating Dredge/Reanimator/Loam, but still have an effect. Grim Lavamancer is great against Dredge and sees a ton of play, any deck running Knight of the Reliquery will have access to at least one Bojuka Bog, Scavenging Ooze isn't dead against anything, while being amazing against graveyard decks, etc.

Basically most decks become worse if they focus too much on denying the graveyard, because that often ends up in the same thing happening, but 5 turns later, since the deck packing 6 cards of hate has a harder time doing what it does. If I have an opening hand of 3 lands, Crypt, Surgical Extraction, then I'm realistically only hoping to win with 2 cards. If I then proceed to keep drawing graveyard hate or lands, then I'm really going to have a hard time actually winning the game.

This is in addition to the fact that these decks fully expect hate to come in, and have plans to get around it or an alternate. Reanimator decks pretty much always have Show and Tell in the sideboard, Dredge won't put more cards in the graveyard than they need to, and (good)Loam players will never leave a Loam in their graveyard without holding a cycling land in their hand to protect it.

Long story short, there is probably a 1% chance that any hate card will singlehandedly win a matchup, so the best bet is usually to just slow their plan down enough for you to win, instead of trying to deny them any way of advancing their plan at all.

[sir]

3 grave hate slots in Maverick is very irregular. Typically you have like 6-7 or more all somehow fetchable between mainboard (broadly useful stuff like scavenging ooze) and sideboard, counting enlightened tutor and not counting other helpful things, like Karakas vs Reanimator or, like, swords to plowshares.

it's less precisely prepared to stymie postboard show and tell.

[Julian23]

While Maverick will usually have a setup of 3-4 Surgical Extraction and 1 Bojuka Bog, it actually has way more cards that are good against Dredge, e.g. Jitte, Ooze and Swords to Plowshares. I beat Dredge in GP Amsterdam (to make 10-2) with a setup of 3 Extractions/1 Bog 2-1 (even almost won game1) without using any sideboard cards but 1 Bog in game3 that wasn't even needed. Jitte all the way. Dredge is just so inconsistent and easily disruptable.

[lordofthepit]

While Maverick will usually have a setup of 3-4 Surgical Extraction and 1 Bojuka Bog, it actually has way more cards that are good against Dredge, e.g. Jitte, Ooze and Swords to Plowshares. I beat Dredge in GP Amsterdam (to make 10-2) with a setup of 3 Extractions/1 Bog 2-1 (even almost won game1) without using any sideboard cards but 1 Bog in game3 that wasn't even needed. Jitte all the way. Dredge is just so inconsistent and easily disruptable.

Add to this Green Sun's Zenith, one or two copies of Scavenging Ooze and possibly Gaddock Teeg.

There are also fringe ways to fight Dredge, even maindeck, such as blowing up your own Dryad Arbor with Knight of the Reliquary or Wasteland, or dropping a Batterskull (which will itself do quite a bit of work) and then bouncing it to kill the Germ token.

I'm currently playing Bant, which is very similar to Maverick in these respects, and I find the Dredge matchup quite favorable.

[Michael Keller]

While Maverick will usually have a setup of 3-4 Surgical Extraction and 1 Bojuka Bog, it actually has way more cards that are good against Dredge, e.g. Jitte, Ooze and Swords to Plowshares. I beat Dredge in GP Amsterdam (to make 10-2) with a setup of 3 Extractions/1 Bog 2-1 (even almost won game1) without using any sideboard cards but 1 Bog in game3 that wasn't even needed. Jitte all the way. Dredge is just so inconsistent and easily disruptable.

This is not entirely accurate. Manaless Dredge is much more difficult to stop due in large part to its resiliency and consistency advantages it has over its counterpart, which is far less consistent albeit more explosive. It does have its disadvantages, which I think are for the most part benign due to most decks' inability to keep pace with the abnormally high recursive threat density.

Manaless also went 9-0 Day One and fought through said hate. Leyline is very narrow and extremely bastardizing to one's game plan, which is why it sees less play. I've won multiple games after being Extracted and double-Crypted through tight play and discipline. This is where experience is advantageous over inexperienced or aggressive players who jump at the sight of a Crypt or Relic and use them incorrectly. Even timely activations aren't enough sometimes, which is a huge advantage for the Dredge player.

[muscleb]

As mentioned, many midrange decks have other ways to combat reanimater/dredge. Knight giving Karakas, Bojuga Bog, Wasteland+Dryad arbor. Jitte, Ooze, StP, Vindicate, Pernicious Deed. Add a couple of Tormod's Crypt and suddenly a dredge deck has to fight through that and Ooze+mom+Jitte.