[Primer] +Manaless Dredge+

[Mitalca]

Glad to see shoals out from sides! :)
I say this because in playtesting using this side:

4 FoW
4 Shoal
4 M. trap

i found shoal, even fow, very conditional cards. With fow, you need a blue card which become 16 if you side in 4 fow and 4 shoal with 4 probes and 4 moebas but with shoal you precisely need moeba to deal with rip and probe to deal with cage. This bothered me.

I'd prefer a side more like:

4 Trap
4 FoW
4 Unmask (you have extra black cards all time)
3 Macabre.

That's why when you go with blue, you change the reanimation target to whirlpool rider

[zzap]

what's your guys maindeck lists look like nowadays? i've been using the same one on modo for a while, but have only had time to play in casual 1v1's. current list is still using 4 md FoW, 3 whirlpool rider and the rest of the usual suspects

4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Griselbrand
4 Ichorid
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith

4 Bridge From Below

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dakmor Depths
4 Wasteland

I am very happy with my list; the only weak spot in the deck are the probes, so I am waiting for a replacement to be printed.

[mistercakes]

some questions about your brew:

do you not miss nether shadow? doesn't griselbrand seem kind of bad? you can't win without attacking and he's greatly affected by karakas. i don't quite understand the 4 wasteland, it seems like it's taking up a lot of slots. and playing this many lands, and still not having any way to deal with the hate cards seems a bit strange.

i'm not saying your decisions are bad, but i think they warrant some kind of explanation.

[zzap]

some questions about your brew:

do you not miss nether shadow? doesn't griselbrand seem kind of bad? you can't win without attacking and he's greatly affected by karakas. i don't quite understand the 4 wasteland, it seems like it's taking up a lot of slots. and playing this many lands, and still not having any way to deal with the hate cards seems a bit strange.

i'm not saying your decisions are bad, but i think they warrant some kind of explanation.

Nether Shadow: I've posted before writing that, in my opinion, Bloodghast is better. BG can hit the board on T2 without help from Phant or Wraith unlike Nether. Nether has the same hiccup as Ichorid in that they can't activate the turn they are dredged. Also, 2/1 is much bigger than a 1/1 where a grindy match needs to be played.

Griselbrand: He is soft wincon by himself. Then he dredges my deck. He plays very well against Show and Tell, where Spy can't be dropped because you lose the game on your turn. Karakas hardly hurts; I respond with dredging and/or Wasteland.

Wasteland: This is my personal choice; usually lists with BG run Arbors, so I replaced them with WL. I believe the choice is sound. WL can win games by themselves, as I have had the chance in opening a hand with double WL which is absolutely brutal for greedy decks. The land helps me fight DRS at times by hitting their critical colors. So far so good, for I have been blessed with solid results and compliments from opponents many times on CT for their inclusions.

Fearless: My deck is Fearless, so hate will be hate. I have run FOWs packages before, and I haven't seen much improvement. I have countered hate before, but I have also had delinquent dredges because of FOWs and Shoals where I would have won if I hit another Narc instead.

Probes and WL dredged into the yard are making the deck less efficient; this is true. That's 8 cards that don't dredge well, but I believe that number is fine so long as it stays under 10. In my opinion, Probes are weaker than WL. I am considering replacing them with a playset of Pharaohs, but testing will prevail.

Keep Dredging!^^

[GoldenCid]

That's why when you go with blue, you change the reanimation target to whirlpool rider

Yes, but i still think that it is very specific.
You have to go shoal + Whirlpool to deal just with RIP. I feel it weak but that is how it works.

[DarkJester]

You have to go shoal + Whirlpool to deal just with RIP.

Or Shoal + Shoal, or Shoal + Narco. It happens ;)

[Echelon]

some questions about your brew:

do you not miss nether shadow? doesn't griselbrand seem kind of bad? you can't win without attacking and he's greatly affected by karakas. i don't quite understand the 4 wasteland, it seems like it's taking up a lot of slots. and playing this many lands, and still not having any way to deal with the hate cards seems a bit strange.

i'm not saying your decisions are bad, but i think they warrant some kind of explanation.

Griselbrand is a fine DR target as long as you have 8+ life (or 11+ when facing anyRed.dec). Who cares about Karakas? You just activate his ability, dredge your deck and combo out that same turn. Heck, if necessary you just DR a 2nd one for that turn (as long as your life total is high enough).

Nowadays I run a hybrid build with Nether Shadow, Ichorid AND Bloodghast as recurring critters and Whirlpool Drake as DR target. I run Drake over Rider b/c I don't use the counter package, so Drake lets me ignore a Stifle/lets me do my trick twice. I've been able to combo out with only 2 cards in hand, Drake is nuts (and it's easier to keep track of all that's going on then it is with River Kelpie). The only thing I'm having trouble with is finding enough creatures to feed to Ichorid(s). But that's mainly b/c I don't like to feed Ichorid Nether Shadows or Bloodghasts.

[kuroko16]

hi guys, my friend decide to play legacy (budget for now) and manaless it's sound a good idea ( he has already burn)

i don't know nothing about manaless. i found this list. it's old or it's ok?


4 Balustrade Spy
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith

Spells [16]
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe



Force of Will are necessary? some idea for side?

thanks.

[jimmythegreek]

hi guys, my friend decide to play legacy (budget for now) and manaless it's sound a good idea ( he has already burn)

i don't know nothing about manaless. i found this list. it's old or it's ok?


4 Balustrade Spy
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith

Spells [16]
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe



Force of Will are necessary? some idea for side?

thanks.

List looks good. This is my preferred version of manaless with spy, dread returning a spy is usually good game. I personally would add a chancellor and subtract a shambling shell if drs is something you think you'll see regularly. A single serra avatar in your deck allows you to show and tell spy and win on your next turn, you could side one of these. Also, chancellor can be a great dread return target against certain decks. Force of will is definetly not necessary. Sometimes the card will save your ass, other times its just another dead card in your graveyard and any other card would have been better. Best bet ive found is learn the format and use cabal therapy to its full potential.

[Echelon]

hi guys, my friend decide to play legacy (budget for now) and manaless it's sound a good idea ( he has already burn)

i don't know nothing about manaless. i found this list. it's old or it's ok?


4 Balustrade Spy
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith

Spells [16]
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe



Force of Will are necessary? some idea for side?

thanks.

As Jimmy said:
-1 Balustrade Spy
-1 Shambling Shell

+1 Chancellor of the Annex
+1 Progenitus/Serra Avatar/Darksteel Colossus/Worldspine Wurm

But that's it.

[Mitalca]

Progenitus or colossus. Way better since they have a replacement effect and not a trigger that can be answered

[zzap]

Prog is most likely the best choice out of all; it can be pitched for Force of Will. Also, in the acute case that Prog is in play, it cannot be stped or wipe awayed.

[Echelon]

I went with Progenitus as well. Mostly b/c I happened to have one. But yeah, it can also be pitched to FoW/Unmask/Contagion/whatever.

[slave]

Prog is most likely the best choice out of all....
I agree with this ^^^^, however I usually went with Worldspine Wurm cos my Progs disappeared a while back, and cos it's cheaper.

Show and Tell would be the only way I would land it, and since Emrakul would make us sac our reanimated beat-stick more often than not, I like the idea that Wurm turns on Dread Return the next time we get to play sorcery-speed stuff.
That said, this line of play has never once actually happened for me yet (that I can remember anyway), but then I don't play Spy all that much unless I'm playing that silly Storm deck featuring Spy.

[Echelon]

Besides, dropping Spy vs. Show & Tell is living the real dream, right :wink:.

"Oh no, my poor library". Next turn, combo out. "Nice Emrakul you got there".

[kuroko16]

opinion on this list?

THICKWICK (3-0)
LEGACY PREMIER #8762323 ON 09/13/2015



4 Bloodghast
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
3 Whirlpool Rider

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
3 Gitaxian Probe

3 Force of Will

4 Bridge from Below

2 Dakmor Salvage

Sideboard
1 Force of Will
1 Blazing Archon
2 Contagion
2 Darkblast
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria 1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
3 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

[Echelon]

A little light on the dredgers/Salvages but apart from that, it's close to what I play (I skipped on the blue package).

I'd say that's about as tight a list as it gets. Though, as long as there are no Disrupting Shoals in the 75, one might just as well run Whirlpool Drake instead of Rider (since you don't need CMC 2 blue cards, all you care about is that they're blue). The extra trigger can matter greatly and makes comboing out a lot easier.

[slave]

Besides, dropping Spy vs. Show & Tell is living the real dream, right :wink:.

"Oh no, my poor library". Next turn, combo out. "Nice Emrakul you got there".
Ha ha, nice one.

[Rampart]

So question. I took blue manaless to the local last night and ran into belcher round three. How would you sideboard against this deck with the list below? I really struggle with a sideboard plan before and after I got dump trucked.

List
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Chancellor of the Annex
4x Dread Return
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Golgari Thug
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
4x Nether Shadow
4x Phantasmagorian
3x Shambling Shell
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Street Wraith
3x Balustrade Spy
1x Flayer of the Hatebound
1x Progentius

Sideboard
4x Force of Will
4x Disrupting Shoal
3x Faerie macabre
3x Whirlpool Rider
1x Ashen Rider

[Echelon]

Out:
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Street Wraith
2 Phantasmagorian
1 Nether Shadow
1 Shambling Shell

In:
3 Whirlpool Rider
4 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal

Gives you the highest number of disruption and blue cards to pitch to FoW. I'm not sure if you'll be able to Shoal anything, but at least you can pitch it to FoW.

[Rampart]

Out:
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Street Wraith
2 Phantasmagorian
1 Nether Shadow
1 Shambling Shell

In:
3 Whirlpool Rider
4 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal

Gives you the highest number of disruption and blue cards to pitch to FoW. I'm not sure if you'll be able to Shoal anything, but at least you can pitch it to FoW.

Ok, that’s pretty close to what I did, I wasn’t sure if I should side out the B.Spy pacakage or not because it allows for such a quick win. I did keep the Street Wraith’s in though because it did give me a little ability to dig for a FoW or Shoal. I am pretty new to the deck; Tuesday was the first day I played it ever so I find the sideboarding to be a little challenging with the deck. Thanks

I sideboarded the following:

Out:
3 Balustrade Spy
1 Progentius
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Nether Shadow
1 Shambling Shell
1 Dread Return

IN:
4 FoW
4 Shoal
3 Whirlpool Rider.

Shoal gets the following cards:
Land Grant
Desperate Ritual/Pyritic Ritual
Burning Wish
Some sideboard cards

[Echelon]

Oh man don't ever board out your Flayer (unless for some reason you also board out all Dread Returns).

That's the single card that lets you close the game quickly.

Also, boarding out all 4 of your Nether Shadow leaves you with so few creatures to feed to Cabal Therapy (important card vs. combo) and Dread Return. You need your creatures man, they're your "lands".

[slave]

Oh man don't ever board out your Flayer (unless for some reason you also board out all Dread Returns).

That's the single card that lets you close the game quickly.

Also, boarding out all 4 of your Nether Shadow leaves you with so few creatures to feed to Cabal Therapy (important card vs. combo) and Dread Return. You need your creatures man, they're your "lands".
^^ Yup.
Phants, Shell are usually the cards I trim numbers down first and foremost.
After that it depends on how many side cards I'm choosing to bring in and what opponent I'm facing.

When I play manaless blue (I admit I've been playing storm lately), I play 4 Rider, 4 Force in the main. My main blue count is 16.
I do this because whilst Spy is a better reanimation target, Rider and Force in the main gives us more room in the side.

[Rampart]

Yeah I didn't realize that until last night when I was gold-fishing the deck. I felt like I needed to answer the board, but why bother when you can win game. The nether shadows make sense, and cutting Street Wraith why isn't ideal is probably the most easiest choice. I was thinking about cutting the Spy's and just run maindeck Whirlpool riders to open up some sideboard space

[Echelon]

So... The DTT era was a nightmare for this deck. But with it gone, people'll have to go through a bit more trouble to find their Grafdigger's Cages/RiPs etc, comparable to the pre-Khans meta. Miracles is probably going to run rampant again, which is a pretty good MU for this deck. The uprising of Elves! might suck though.

Anyone planning to bring this badboy out again? I fear my own meta is too hostile to graveyard strategies for this to be a viable choice, but other metas might differ.

[slave]

So... The DTT era was a nightmare for this deck. But with it gone, people'll have to go through a bit more trouble to find their Grafdigger's Cages/RiPs etc, comparable to the pre-Khans meta. Miracles is probably going to run rampant again, which is a pretty good MU for this deck. The uprising of Elves! might suck though.

Anyone planning to bring this badboy out again? I fear my own meta is too hostile to graveyard strategies for this to be a viable choice, but other metas might differ.

Yeah I stopped playing Grave-based decks for while, mainly trying to win a game to be honest!!! Given that DTT demanded everyone had hardcore graveyard answers, I'm glad it's gone. :laugh: That said, I didn't really notice Miracles NOT dominating. They were running DTT aswell round me, so they've been their normal winning-self regardless. I don't really expect that to change...

I am looking forward to pulling out LED/Manaless dredge again. I might wait to see how the meta shapes up though, same reason as yourself.
RE: Elves, I like Firestorm in LED-dredge, but manaless doesn't really have anything that powerful. Contagion doesn't quite have the same balls, but for me it's an automatic sideboard inclusion to deal with DRS.

Just wish they'd print something new relevant to this deck...

[Michael Keller]

I'd be curious to see how a Manaless variant does with Hangarback Walker, Endless One, Phyrexian Marauder and Shifting Wall.

(All in on Bridge, I know. But still that'd be kind of cool.)

[Echelon]

Not well. They're only useful in your opening hand. And yes, they count for Nether Shadow, but that's pretty much all it does. It's not like if you need the numbers for Grave Troll.

[Final Fortune]

I'd be curious to see how a Manaless variant does with Hangarback Walker, Endless One, Phyrexian Marauder and Shifting Wall.

(All in on Bridge, I know. But still that'd be kind of cool.)

How many can you realistically use beyond the original 8?

[Echelon]

If you cut all the fat (including FoW/Chancellor) you can get the number up to 12 or so. Which means 19% chance of not having any in your opener, 38% chance to have exactly 1, 29% at exactly 2, 11% at exactly 3 and roughly 2,5% at 4 or more.

So generally speaking, you'd have 1 or 2 in your opening 7 when running 12.

[easysantiago]

I am joining a new playgroup this week and looking forward to running Manaless Dredge again. I might follow up with a general report, although I will probably hold off until I get back to playing a weekly tournament. Any tips? What do most players forget to do or not do after a long break from piloting Manaless Dredge?

[civet five]

I am joining a new playgroup this week and looking forward to running Manaless Dredge again. I might follow up with a general report, although I will probably hold off until I get back to playing a weekly tournament. Any tips? What do most players forget to do or not do after a long break from piloting Manaless Dredge?

For me, its mostly remember all of the shenanigans involving the stack, Phantasmagorian, and cyling Street Wraith. There's some stupidly busted stuff you can do if you can remember how to manage the stack properly

[Echelon]

Triggers, triggers, triggers! Untap, UPKEEP (check triggers), draw step? Dredging -> Narco triggers? Stuff dies -> Bridge triggers?

When playing Manaless I just recite "Untap, upkeep, draw step?" as a sort of mantra so I don't miss anything.

[slave]

I'd be curious to see how a Manaless variant does with Hangarback Walker, Endless One, Phyrexian Marauder and Shifting Wall.

(All in on Bridge, I know. But still that'd be kind of cool.)
It would be dependant on getting a Bridge into the grave quickly I would think. Not always that easy in a world with Extraction, DRS etc.
Hmm..

Have you had much luck with a Tallman build in the past Michael?

[DarkJester]

It would be dependant on getting a Bridge into the grave quickly I would think. Not always that easy in a world with Extraction, DRS etc.
Hmm..

Have you had much luck with a Tallman build in the past Michael?

If my opponent would try to eat a Bridge from Below with his filthy little Shaman I would instantly call a Judge ;)

[mistercakes]

If my opponent would try to eat a Bridge from Below with his filthy little Shaman I would instantly call a Judge ;)

what are your guys thoughts on a transformational, but still keeping most dredge sb of

4 vamp hexmage
4 dark depths
4 urborg
3 thespian stage

(would also fit 2 dakmor salvage in maindeck)

[easysantiago]

Triggers, triggers, triggers! Untap, UPKEEP (check triggers), draw step? Dredging -> Narco triggers? Stuff dies -> Bridge triggers?

When playing Manaless I just recite "Untap, upkeep, draw step?" as a sort of mantra so I don't miss anything.

This mantra works well!

[easysantiago]

what are your guys thoughts on a transformational, but still keeping most dredge sb of

4 vamp hexmage
4 dark depths
4 urborg
3 thespian stage

(would also fit 2 dakmor salvage in maindeck)

I really like the idea of a transformational sideboard, but I have only done it by going from an all-in build to Blue Manaless. Win game 1, bring in the Blue package to deal with the hate in game 2.

[Echelon]

what are your guys thoughts on a transformational, but still keeping most dredge sb of

4 vamp hexmage
4 dark depths
4 urborg
3 thespian stage

(would also fit 2 dakmor salvage in maindeck)

Don't like it. How do you want to assemble the combo..? After your opening 7/8, you normally don't draw any cards. Any missing combo pieces will just be dredged into your graveyard. Even if you do manage to assemble the two lands, you'd have to have 3/4(!) lands in play total, 2 of which have to produce mana, to perform your plan. First off that just takes too friggin' long and second this deck doesn't produce all that much mana (surprisingly).

And when having to resort to Hexmage as a secondary way to get your token - why not DR combo out the regular way and forfeit the Depths combo? The token doesn't even kill your opponent on the spot unless you add stuff to your combo like Flamekin Zealot. Normally when you can safely cast DR you win on the spot, why change that to a "I'll kill you next turn" mode that doesn't work all that well with the decks natural plan?

You'd be better off doing this in LED Dredge where you can at least run Life from the Loam to get back any dredged combo pieces and even then it's still shaky at best.

[Mitalca]

Did no one play at GP SeaTac?? I want to see some reports, to know how hostil the enviroment is at least

[jimmythegreek]

Did no one play at GP SeaTac?? I want to see some reports, to know how hostil the enviroment is at least

Worry less about how "hostil" the meta is, play dredge and make them have the hate.

[Mitalca]

I already do that. But my comunity is quite small. I wanted to hear about the big Legacy tourney

[Fox]

I played vs Manaless Dredge in round 6 [both of us were out of the running for day 2 at that point]. The deck was piloted by a Jamal S. and he was against me on Reanimator. Then end result was 2-1 in my favor with game 1 and 3 concluding with entomb/reanimated elesh norn.
Game 1 he had 2x phantasmagorian in his opener [if memory serves], and showed proficiency in juggling them (not much I can do to threaten one, but good to see continued attention to detail after 6 hours. I would not have been able to interact meaningfully with a DRS were my deck to have had one).
Game 2 I mull to 5 or 4 looking to find lands; game starts and I can't find the reanimation spell for entombed elesh (good name by him with cabal therapy).
Game 3 I choose to go second, get elesh in yard. He draws and moves to discard phantasmagorian. I play land #2 and drop a Jace, Vryn's Prodidgy before he can cabal. He does some dredging and doesn't find too much to get zombies on the field. I entomb reanimation spell and flash it back. After the game he shows me his hand and has force/no blue card. Not sure exactly what sideboard he was on past the Chancellor/FoW.

I'm pretty sure there's a timeshifted match in the VODs from the GP where another manaless dredge player is featured. This guy had FoW, Chancellors, and Disrupting Shoalolololols (and it was awesome!). Pretty sure it was around the 1-0 to 4-0 matches from day 1

[zhandro]

I really like the idea of a transformational sideboard, but I have only done it by going from an all-in build to Blue Manaless. Win game 1, bring in the Blue package to deal with the hate in game 2.

Could I see a list? I am actually interested in whether or not one should run FoW in the main as in the process of dredging it reveals to the opponent we have counterspells. Is it better to have the usual whirlpool riders, git probes in the main and side in the FoW to surprise the opponent?

Please do correct me if I'm wrong. The FoWs Maindeck are for storm and faster combo. What if the meta consists mainly of DnT, Lands and Delver decks? Could we afford to relegate the FoW to the sideboard for G2?

[mistercakes]

Could I see a list? I am actually interested in whether or not one should run FoW in the main as in the process of dredging it reveals to the opponent we have counterspells. Is it better to have the usual whirlpool riders, git probes in the main and side in the FoW to surprise the opponent?

Please do correct me if I'm wrong. The FoWs Maindeck are for storm and faster combo. What if the meta consists mainly of DnT, Lands and Delver decks? Could we afford to relegate the FoW to the sideboard for G2?

i think one way you can play FoW if you're worried about slowing the deck down too much is by playing some LED's in the deck. i've tried them before, and they aren't 100% amazing, but they have their moments.

ex: cycle street wraith and crack LED in response, dredge back stinkweed imp and then cast it. (there's not a lot of lines of play like that, but it will get you to discard your hand if you need to)

[Legionnaire12s]

i think one way you can play FoW if you're worried about slowing the deck down too much is by playing some LED's in the deck. i've tried them before, and they aren't 100% amazing, but they have their moments.

ex: cycle street wraith and crack LED in response, dredge back stinkweed imp and then cast it. (there's not a lot of lines of play like that, but it will get you to discard your hand if you need to)

If you're down to this very narrow line of play then you're in a bad spot.

[mistercakes]

If you're down to this very narrow line of play then you're in a bad spot.

and there are many games where you have to force a card and then you're stuck without dredging for 2-3 turns. (or they resolve another hate card and you lose) just a suggestion!

[Legionnaire12s]

and there are many games where you have to force a card and then you're stuck without dredging for 2-3 turns. (or they resolve another hate card and you lose) just a suggestion!


Manaless gives you the short end of the stick in that regard. Neither of the choices are that great to deal with and it is a bit of an uphill battle at that point. If you're worried about turn one hate run Force and C.Annex. Helps improve your anti hate quite a bit.

[DarkJester]

Is it better to have the usual whirlpool riders, git probes in the main and side in the FoW to surprise the opponent?

You could do that, but be aware that a "good" (read: prepared) opponent will expect Force cause there is no reason to run whirlpool creatures when you arent't in blue.

[Legionnaire12s]

You could do that, but be aware that a "good" (read: prepared) opponent will expect Force cause there is no reason to run whirlpool creatures when you arent't in blue.

I agree with Jester here. Even if they see it game one, it forces them to have hate AND a solution to deal with your counters all in one go. I really don't see a point behind hiding it unless your over all goal is a little more speed.

[zhandro]

I agree with Jester here. Even if they see it game one, it forces them to have hate AND a solution to deal with your counters all in one go. I really don't see a point behind hiding it unless your over all goal is a little more speed.

Ah, perfect. This was the answer I was looking for. Makes sense.

I recently acquired my plates of Forces and was wondering if there is an ideal Blue Manaless Dredge list. I see the one in the front and a few in recent pages, but is there a stock list for the post DTT meta? Also, I happen to have a playset of LEDs. Is there a reason not to run them? They can be a flexible Phantasmagorian.

[Daize]

After a loong hiatus I played a tourney again... 5 rounds, and T8 here in Mexico City. It was the last edition of the year's league so it was pretty packed.


4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
3 Phantasmagorian

3 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Street Wraith

3 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
3 Force of Will
3 Chancellor of the Annex


Sideboard
1 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
3 Faerie macabre
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Whirlpool Rider
1 Phantasmagorian
1 Chancellor of the Annex
3 Balustrade Spy
1 Contagion


The results were okay, 4-1 and dropped out the first match in T8 against Death & Taxes.
The important thing to realize here is that this deck gets to "draw" for answers way quicker than other decks, it just comes at a vulnerability price. When sideboarding and playing, try to weigh off the chances you'll be faster (going all-in Balustrade Spy style), and the chances your answers (within your first 7) are going to matter or not. E.g. having that starting FoW can matter a TON against Death and Taxes, but close to nothing against Miracles (due to counter backup).
Strangely enough, I've felt super solid. I'm strangely happy with the choice to go all-in with the Balustrade Spy sideboard. There were some things that didn't pan out the way I wanted it too, but I'm actually pretty happy with my setup, even if it's not perfect.


One of the best tricks of this deck stays the following:
Phantasmagorian in graveyard, Street Wraith in hand. Activate Phantasmagorian, discarding a dredger, keep priority, cycle Street Wraith, dredge, and on the second activation of Phantasmagorian, discard the dredger once more.


Match 1: vs R/U burn 2-0
Game 1: He didn't get anything done, just played out my combo without the help of Street Wraith / Probe. Goldfish game.
Game 2:
SB: + 1 Chancellor, -1
It was a race he could have won. He could have won by casting Daze on Cabal Therapy, then Blast on his Daze generating enough tokens, but with him not finding his SB cards I could play it out pretty well.

Match 2: vs U/G/w Infect 1-2
Game 1: goldfish game
Game 2:
SB: +1 Force of Will, +1 Disrupting Shoal, +1 Whirlpool Rider, -3 Chancellor of the Annex, The problem is I can't lose tempo too much due to his explosiveness, but Rest in Peace can fuck me over terribly. I can still outrun him, but I need those counters. Half/half.
I had a powered FoW, he had Daze and Rest in Peace T2.
Game 3:
I didn't have a counter, but a really explosive start with Probe and Street Wraith at the ready.
He had a FoW backed Rest in Peace T2.

Match 3: vs Mono R Burn
Game 1: He rushed me hard while I was looking for answers too late. Sometimes it just goes like this.
Game 2:
SB: +3 Balustrade Spy, +1 Phantasmagorian, +1 Chancellor of the Annex – 3 FoW, - 2 Whirlpool Rider I don't need the counters, Chancellor is amazing in this matchup. I can use the Phantasmagorian for sure, and Balustrade Spy gives me the extra speed-edge.
Goldfish game.
Game 3:
It's closer, I'm at 3 when I get him. I had double Cabal Therapy, and he doesn't draw a 3 spell. I don't find my supersauce, but I manage to Dread Return 3 Chancellor of the Annexes (and he has 2 lands).

Match 4: vs Lands 2-0
Let's start off saying this is a horrible matchup. Life from the Loam digs really fast, and 4 crop rotations are devastating answers to removing my entire graveyard, giving my critters a (1) upkeep, or just preventing all damage.
Game 1:
I actually goldfish this one, he doesn't find Crop Rotation.
Game 2:
SB: +3 Faerie Macabre, +3 Balustrade Spy, -3 Chancellor of the Annex, -2 Whirlpool Rider, -1 FoW
The Chancellors don't do a lot in this match up, and instead of going with a counter package I choose to go all out. I'm assuming he's boarding in Sphere of Resistances, Trinisphere, and who knows what. I need to be faster than that, and I can't fight that. Faerie Macabre is amazing if he's digging with Life from the Loam and an answer hits the graveyard. This guy is a good player, and he'll wait with his Crop Rotation until after his Trinisphere hits.
I start out with a Fearie Macabre and a powered FoW. He lays down a T2 Sphere of Resistance, and I decide NOT to counter it to maintain tempo. I hope he doesn't have a Crop Rotation, and he is going at it with 2 Life from the Loams. I actually get him down with tokens and Ichorids before anything interesting hits the graveyard, Faerie awaiting.

Match 5: vs Stompy: 2-1
Game 1: I just don't get my Bridges from Below, and I get stuck on dredging (it happens), and he beats me down with Kor and Chandra.
Game 2:
SB: +1 FoW, +1 Whirlpool Rider -2 Chancellor of the Annex. I know he plays main deck Trinispheres and Chalice of the Voids, but his deck isn't fast enough to have Chancellor do anything big. I don't mind leaving 1 in for Dread Return shenanigans. Either he's waiting with his Tormod's Crypt / Relic until after his lock pieces (which gives me time) or I can counter it.. whatever it'll be.
He doesn't find SB pieces, and I roll him over. Goldfish!
Game 3: No changes
He mulligans down to 5, I have my sole Chancellor in hand. He plays a Tormod's to the Chancellor, plays a land, and plays another Tormod's!?! I'm so confused here. I got the game =/.

Quarter: vs Death & Taxes 1-2
Game 1: Beatdown through T2 Thalia with critters. I'm loving it.
Game 2:
SB: -3 Chancellor of the Annex, -1 Cabal Therapy, -1 Dread Return, +3 Disrupting Shoal, +1 FoW, +1 Whirlpool Rider. Since he doesn't play counters, these are pretty valuable. He has to have a perfect Aether Vial, Thalia, Rest in Peace for his plan to follow through.
I don't have counters, and he has a Rest in Peace T2.
Game 3:
This is a long game, where I just don't find my Bridges, and he pings down my creatures with his Jitte. I started out with two powered FoWs in hand, but felt like ditching 1 to Phantasmagorian when I got desperate for fuel. Turns out he had a RiP in his hand all the time, and he played it out when he drew the second one.

[Daize]

Ah, perfect. This was the answer I was looking for. Makes sense.

I recently acquired my plates of Forces and was wondering if there is an ideal Blue Manaless Dredge list. I see the one in the front and a few in recent pages, but is there a stock list for the post DTT meta? Also, I happen to have a playset of LEDs. Is there a reason not to run them? They can be a flexible Phantasmagorian.

Don't run LEDs, they're only useful in your first 7. Hihgly limited. For a blue list (but by no means "stock"), you can see mine. You can change stuff in the sideboard (and anywhere, honestly :D), but for flexibility, see the report. Ask away too, if you want. Been playing with this almost exact list for a little less than a year now.

[easysantiago]

Could I see a list? I am actually interested in whether or not one should run FoW in the main as in the process of dredging it reveals to the opponent we have counterspells. Is it better to have the usual whirlpool riders, git probes in the main and side in the FoW to surprise the opponent?

Please do correct me if I'm wrong. The FoWs Maindeck are for storm and faster combo. What if the meta consists mainly of DnT, Lands and Delver decks? Could we afford to relegate the FoW to the sideboard for G2?

Something like this list (credit: Hollywood) is what I have had success with in the past:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Shambling Shell
4 Street Wraith
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Serra Avatar
3 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe

Sideboard
3 Contagion
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Whirlpool Rider
4 Force of Will

[mistercakes]

is serra avatar > progenitus here? something about the if vs when important?

[Daize]

I'd say run neither. Every slot counts in this deck since you're racing through it so quickly - that's its power. Never once in a year of playing it have I had trouble with decking myself (I had once, only once, that I was stoked for answers and upkeep Ichorids + Flayer triggers had to do it next turn), and I don't see any situation where that would save you - where in ALL other situations with another card, that one wouldn't help you (i.e. FoW or other goodies mainboard).

Having the ENTIRE "blue package" sideboarded leaves you with very few places to have other answers, like Faerie Macabre, Mindbreak Trap, Ashen Rider.

[Mitalca]

Progenitus is better than Serra Avatar every day
I dont use neither of them, but the When can be crucial

[dte]

Progenitus is better than Serra Avatar every day
I dont use neither of them, but the When can be crucial

Both are terrible. Seriously, after some eldrazi, it's one of the worst cards you could have in your deck.
You should never run any of them, there isn't any sensible reason to run them.

[easysantiago]

I'd say run neither. Every slot counts in this deck since you're racing through it so quickly - that's its power. Never once in a year of playing it have I had trouble with decking myself (I had once, only once, that I was stoked for answers and upkeep Ichorids + Flayer triggers had to do it next turn), and I don't see any situation where that would save you - where in ALL other situations with another card, that one wouldn't help you (i.e. FoW or other goodies mainboard).

Having the ENTIRE "blue package" sideboarded leaves you with very few places to have other answers, like Faerie Macabre, Mindbreak Trap, Ashen Rider.

I agree on all accounts. I no longer run SA, Progenitus, or an Eldrazi. SBing the entire blue package is limiting.

[hellhound]

hi folks!

Played a 7-turn events a couple of weeks ago, now I've a little time to post a small report and some feedbacks.
After playing the blue version for a while I felt a bit unconfortable with an overcommitted all in-all out sideboarding.
I've always been fascinated by the X-men version so I started to test it some months ago and seemed pretty solid in answering to cages. But I also felt that we need a solution for the ugly hands that sometimes we open, so under the vintage dredge influence I jam in 4 serum powders and...I love 'em!!

So here's the list:
4 golgari grave troll
4 stinkweed imp
4 golgari thug
1 shambling shell
4 serum powder
4 narcomoeba
4 ichorid
4 nether shadow
4 bridge from below
4 cabal therapy
4 dread return
1 flayer of the hatebound
3 balustrade spy
3 contagion
4 phantasmagorian
4 street wraith
4 gitaxian probe

SB:
1 contagion
1 progenitus
3 faerie macabre
3 phyrexian marauder
3 shifting wall
4 mindbreak trap

Turn 1: Miracles: 2-0
both times won with combo through multiple counters and one terminus per game
-1 contagion +1 progenitus

Turn 2: RUG Canadian: 2-1
won game one by combo, lost g2 to cage without any X creatures in hand, won g3 through cage casting 3 Xmen with 3 bridges in GY racing a tarmo
-3 contagion -1 spy -1 d.return -1 shell +3 walls +3 marauders

Turn 3: BUG shardless: 2-0
won through one shaman g1 and two shamans g2
No SB

Turn 4: Dark maverick: 2-1
lost g1 to shaman+ooze+reliquiary, won g2 and g3 through multiple hatebears (double contagions in g3 4theWin)
-1 probe +1 contagion

Turn 5: ANT: 0-2
he decides to start, turn1 duress, turn 2 cabal, turn 3 combo. game 2 he goes for ETW without protection on turn one for 12 gobbos, I had faerie in hand but not a MBTrap -it was 50/50 if he went for a pif loop he was pretty dead
-1 shell -3 contagion -1 spy -1 return -1 ichorid +4 MBTrap +3 faeries

Turn 6: D&T: 1-2
won g1 comboing out, lost g2 to containment priest+jotun grunt, lost g3 in a long game due probably a poor choice during a combat phase.
-1 shell +1 contagion (rethinking to this I could drop probes and some to side in Xmen to battle thalia and other taxing bear)

At this point I was pretty disappointed due to that error so I decided to drop and go drinking with friends, so I ended up with a solid 4-2 missing the top8.

Some datas:
times I mulled to 6 or less: 0
times I mulled to 7 with powders: 4
times I chose not to mull having powder in hand: 1
X men casted during the games: 3
cages met: 2 (in only one deck)

my 2cents

[easysantiago]

I ran Manaless recently and was trounced. Despite being trounced, it was exhilarating.

How is everyone else fairing?

[Echelon]

I ran Manaless recently and was trounced. It was still exhilarating though.

How is everyone else fairing?

My meta is too hostile to run this deck. We currently have 1 player that keeps piloting dredge, but he always performs horribly.

[slave]

I've stopped running Manaless.
I ran mainly Manaless for about 2 years, the Blue List for the 2nd year of that, maybe more, until I got hated out too regularly and gave up.
From memory I was running full 4 Force & Rider in the main most times to try and maximise the chance Force would have blue in the same grip and actually be useful.
To me, the whole point of the blue list is to make Force as viable as possible, so that means having your main with at least 16 blue, as many as you can, but not just for Force. If your main has a high blue count, it frees up space in the side for stuff like Contagion etc.
My lists might be here in this thread, but will definitely be in the old thread.

These days I run LED-Dredge (and some other combo decks), and whilst hate is still out there, it's good enough to usually win game1 against most opponents.
From there you have the option of siding in anti-hate, or siding in Lotus Petals and going all-out fearless. I find the deck still works for me, but I do have the odd night I get hated out.

Progenitus/SA etc.? I wouldn't bother unless Mill or Reanimate (Spy) is something you actually encounter regularly, even then I would run it from the side.
LED's aren't needed, nor optimal.
Serum Powder is definitely a card I can get behind in Manaless Dredge. For a deck that can't/shouldn't mull, this card can be very useful, especially postboard.

[mistercakes]

i'd recommend trying this list if you're still interested in manaless:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-dredge-23580#paper

it does run lands -> but dread returning a river kelpie almost always will end the game that turn, and it can be pitched to force of will. think of it almost the same way as dread returning a griselbrand that is pitchable. it's also really fun to flashback cabal therapy (sacrificing anything other than kelpie and getting to dredge, then hitting a narcomoeba, and dredging again)

[easysantiago]

My meta is too hostile to run this deck. We currently have 1 player that keeps piloting dredge, but he always performs horribly.

Rough...

[easysantiago]

i'd recommend trying this list if you're still interested in manaless:

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-dredge-23580#paper

it does run lands -> but dread returning a river kelpie almost always will end the game that turn, and it can be pitched to force of will. think of it almost the same way as dread returning a griselbrand that is pitchable. it's also really fun to flashback cabal therapy (sacrificing anything other than kelpie and getting to dredge, then hitting a narcomoeba, and dredging again)

This looks fun. I remember a discussion on the Source--likely in this or one of the other Dredge threads--about River Kelpie, but I failed to save the list. Cheers.

[Echelon]

This looks fun. I remember a discussion on the Source--likely in this or one of the other Dredge threads--about River Kelpie, but I failed to save the list. Cheers.

Page 10 of this thread. I still run that build. I've switched to Whirlpool Drake as my DR target though. I find it a bit easier to combo off with it. Kelpie generates so many triggers you need to remember. I've succesfully DR'd the Drake with as little as 2 cards in my hand, so that doesn't really seem to be a problem. I'm also considering Griselbrand as DR target. It can close the game on its own but needs 8 (or vs. anything red 11) life to function. I'm not sold on it yet.

Easiest way still is Balustrade Spy though. With other DR targets you still need to keep track of if you have all necessary stuff in your GY (enough DRs, mostly) to perform the combo finish.

I do love me some Bloodghast though, but it makes it harder to recur Ichorid (which is another reason why I'm looking into Griselbrand).

[hellhound]

Progenitus/SA etc.? I wouldn't bother unless Mill or Reanimate (Spy) is something you actually encounter regularly, even then I would run it from the side.


I don't side in proggy for those MU 'cause they're really borderline (btw in my meta there's a interesting comeback of painters), proggy is intended to not go all in and die by a well timed terminus (you still have a card in your deck and can combo out o combat-kill during following turn).
And miracles with top isn't a borderline case imho.

my2cents

[pirol94]

Played the following list at a Legacy 2K (53 players) on Saturday:

Main Deck -

4x Chancellor of the Annex
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Narcomoeba
4x Whirlpool Rider
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dread Return
4x Golgari Thug
4x Ichorid
4x Nether Shadow
4x Phantasmagorian
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Street Wraith
1x Flayer of the Hatebound
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
3x Shambling Shell

Sideboard -

2x Ashen Rider
3x Contagion
4x Disrupting Shoal
2x Faerie Macabre
4x Force of Will


I'm primarily a Miracles player (this was the first Legacy tourney I've played in in over 2 years where I didn't register 4x Divining Top...) but, having been on a short hiatus from legacy, I decided to rebuild Manaless to prevent my rusty self from picking up any draws and the deck ended up being an absolute blast and a great pick for the event. My rounds as I can recall them:

Round 1, Nic Fit:

Holy hell was there a ton of Nic Fit in the room. It's always had a devout following in the local legacy scene and was strangely the most played deck in the room (about six pilots). Weird.

Anyway, the games were less than exciting. He mulled to 5 in games 1 and 3 looking for a turn 1 DRS, which he found both times but proved to be less than enough. Game 2 he had two DRS and managed to keep me off of dredgers.

1-0

SB:
-2 Shambling Shell, -1 Whirlpool Rider
+3 Contagion


Round 2, Omnitell:

Game 1 is fairly unremarkable, I have a slow start and he has turn 3 kill, oh well.

Game 2 goes more according to plan, as I'm able to combo him on turn 3 after forcing his first Show and Tell.

Game 3 is a heartbreaker. He chooses to play but still manages to get me on T3 through my FoW. Beats.

1-1

SB:
-3 Shambling Shell, -3 Chancellor of the Annex
+4 FoW, +2 Ashen Rider


Round 3, ANT:

I knew what my opponent was on having sat next to him in Round 1 and I felt a 1-2 record drawing near. Fortunately I had the absolute nut in game 1 and was able to turn 2 him. Then in G2, he starts to storm off on his third turn but inexplicably infernal tutors for PiF instead of Ad Nauseum. I immediately realize he's two mana short of a kill and relax in my chair as he realizes his mistake.

2-1


My memory of the next three rounds is a bit hazy, as I was exhausted and stopped taking notes but the matchups were: BUG Delver, Lands, and MUD Eldrazi, all of which were relative cakewalks and I finished the swiss in first at 5-1 after having to play out the last round because of my breakers.

The T8 decided to play out the first round since there were byes on the line and my T8 opponent was on Shardless. The match was pretty breezy and I managed to turn 2 him G1 and turn 3 him G2. He revealed afterword that he had 0 grave hate in his sideboard.

The T4 (including my Omnitell opponent from round 2) decided to split after that, even though I felt decent about my chances against the remaining decks.

Manaless turned out to be a surprisingly viable choice, as grave hate was sparse and Miracles was largely absent from the event. Not sure if I would run it back, but I think the deck has more legs than I would've expected right now, though that largely depends on what your local meta looks like.

[igri_is_a_bk]

3 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Contagion
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Unmask
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

This is what I would play if I had a tournament tomorrow. I'm interested in exploring the deck with LED because I think that card offers quite a bit more than I initially thought. The deck gains flexibility with LED, and I think if you add Faithless Looting, it's especially worth playing the card. You get an out to Thalia in your main which is a pretty big relief since she's trounced me more times than any piece of graveyard hate. You gain the potential to go off turn one, even on the play. You open up the possibility of mulligans, since you now have a way to discard besides the clean up phase (Unmask could add redundancy here).

You do lose dredgers in the exchange, which may be off set by the ability to mulligan. That remains to be seen. But losing Shell obviously lowers the creature count for both Shadow and Ichorid, which is another consideration. I'll have to see if I get hindered too much. Maybe this style has been tried, but I have a feeling it is gonna impress me.

[beebles]

You get an out to Thalia in your main which is a pretty big relief since she's trounced me more times than any piece of graveyard hate.

LED isn't really an out to thalia since you aren't gonna cast it till your second turn, and since you are on the draw, thalia is already down and you can't afford to pay 1 so it is stranded....

[Echelon]

So... This just got spoiled:

http://mythicspoiler.com/soi/cards/prizedamalgam.jpg

I propose the following list:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam

3 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Progenitus

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below

15 dredgers, 16 creatures that ETB, Balustrade Spy to flip the library. Progenitus can always be turned into dredger #16.

When triggered by Narcomoeba, the new guy comes to the party earlier than Ichorid/Nether Shadow (EOT instead of next upkeep), when triggered by Ichorid/Nether Shadow he arrives at the party kinda late (EOT after said next upkeep). Anyways, it's another creature to help us combo out. The more creatures, the easier it is to clear your opponents' hand w/ CT before comboing out.

Edit: And another list to consider:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

3 River Kelpie
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

3 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy


No Bridges, instead 20 creatures that ETB. You either combo out or wear the opponent down hard with the continuous onslaught of recurring creatures. Another variant would be one that does have Bridges but forfeits the Dread Return-package in favor of something I still need to come up with. I feel like we do have quite some new design room with this latest addition.

Edit: Mayhaps something like this:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

4 Vengeful Pharaoh

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble


I call it Horde Mode.

[ahg113]

When triggered by Narcomoeba, the new guy comes to the party earlier than Ichorid/Nether Shadow (EOT instead of next upkeep), when triggered by Ichorid/Nether Shadow he arrives at the party kinda late (EOT after said next upkeep). Anyways, it's another creature to help us combo out. The more creatures, the easier it is to clear your opponents' hand w/ CT before comboing out.

Not sure why it would matter if triggered by icky/shadow or narco or DR/ghast. I read the card as coming back regardless during your eot.

This is a very cool card though, and something worth including. Makes most sense in the RiverGhast, as it's a bit slower in the Spy version. The card reads "more grind". Not sure what the point is to run a manaless version without any bridges or DR. Super aggro, but conceptually seems to lose it's resilience.

Haven't played for a year+. How has manaless performed anecdotally?

[GoldenCid]

Prized amalgalm sounds good in paper...

[slave]

So... This just got spoiled:

http://mythicspoiler.com/soi/cards/prizedamalgam.jpg
Noice!
I'd like to test out my old blue-manaless deck with Prized Amalgam.
Here's my idea, or something like it;

Manaless Blue
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
3 Nether Shadow
3 Prized Amalgam

4 Dread Return
3 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below


17 blue total, meaning;
16 (other) blue cards to satisfy a single Force in hand definitely puts it into *viable* territory.... :eek:
Gonna have to do some testing to work out how Shadow and Amalgam work together, and whether I can get the blue count as high as possible yet retain consistency.
Ha!
Didn't think I'd see any more *free* cards for this deck that work with the blue plan!

[Echelon]

Haven't played for a year+. How has manaless performed anecdotally?

Same here for quite some time now. I still see too many people packing Grafdigger's Cage and other hate.

The speed of the card doesn't really matter, by the way. All that counts is that you get extra bodies on the field, making it easier to protect and execute the combo. In the past I've struggled with games where I came just 1 or 2 creatures short of being able to and strip my opponent of his last counters and execute the combo in the same turn. I mentioned it mostly b/c when it recurs courtesy of Narcomoeba, it can attack the following turn. If you dredge into Ichorid/Nether Shadow instead (and recur those during your next upkeep), it'll take another turn before it recurs. Not that that makes it bad, I just felt it was worth mentioning.

I dunno, I think the Manaless Bridgeless Dread Returnless version has some merrits too. It plays 16 Timewalks and 20 creatures that come back turn after turn to smash face. Most decks'll have a hard time when they need to deal with 4/5+ creatures/turn (and that number only increases as the game goes longer). It turns Daze, FoW and Wasteland into dead cards and makes any spotremoval just horrendous. Tempo decks are basically left with 12 creatures (that die after one strike, thanks to Vengeful Pharaoh) or so against your horde. Vs. Miracles you just bring back 4 creatures a turn or so, turning Terminus into a don't-care. Your game vs. ANT/TES/Elves! stays horrible though.

Edit:

I've goldfished Horde Mode a couple of times now - with the added Timewalks I average about 7/8 creatures on the field after 2 turns or so. I might be on to something here.

Edit 2:

The Bridge from Belowless 20 recurring creature River Kelpie build also runs quite smoothly. Mid combo you just dredge a Dakmoor Salvage to recur Bloodghasts for the last part of the combo. Takes a lot of time to work through all the triggers though (and there are a lot of them). It's hard not to miss any.

I'm not going to explicitly test the 16 recurring creatures Balustrade Spy version, I'm sure that'll work just fine. It's the quickest way to execute the combo finish and offers Ichorid the biggest amount of food.

[Dziga Murnau]

Some middle iteration of the actual deck list, while I'm testing in the teaching hospital between haemanalysises and drip bulbs (crucial sickness provides a lot of free time for the family'n'work busy man).

14 Dredgers

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
1 Shambling Shell
1 Dakmor Salvage (slightly improves taxing matchups - DnT, Eldrazi, MUD, often sided out)

16 Beaters
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam (the card is nuts, especially love to sacrifice them for the non-lethal Dread Return - they return the same turn)

16 Enablers
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Lion's Eye Diamond (great, especially when we are not on the draw, allows to mulligan and have a plan beyond scooping)
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe (dislike them, possibly, should be exchanged for the Chancellors to make room for more blue goodies in the side, but someone should help Shoals to counter Cages, after all)

14 Combo cards
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
2 Flayer of the Hatebound

Sideboard
4 Chancellor of the Annex (for cages and faster combos)
4 Force of Will (for faster combos and any counterable hate)
3 Disrupting Shoal (for Force of Will doubling)
4 Unmask (for going first and literally everything)
And a lot of prayers for the God of Gamers

Against taxers I tend to side out almost all the combo cards (dread returns, therapies and creatures against Eldrazi, dread return package against DnT) and beat them with beaters, outnumbering them (better fast than slowly). Against Cages I leave Therapies, Dread Returns and Flayer in, shaving a couple of Dreadgers and enablers instead - Returns are for the sided Chancellors, that can finish the game on their own. Against leylines I scoop, I name this unfavorable matchup.

Speaking of the art of sideboarding, I side out 2 weak dredgers and even 1 Thug in desperate matchups, where stopping the opponent is more important and we have time to draw into dreadgers that dredge good, I side out Probes when Shoals have no 1-mana targets, I side out 1 Phantasmagorian (only in desperate times also) and often side out combo parts (the sixteen beaters dredge can play the sole aggro mode), but attackers are the untouchables - never start the game with less than 16 - you need all of them to get things going.

Next tests will be against faster combos and Miracles.
I dismissed Pharaohs from the sideboard, because I like never wanted them to kill oponents creatures and often feed them to Ichorids as the most useless black creatures in the yard. And because I was too low on Force pitches.

[Echelon]

I'm not a fan of LED in this deck. Outside of your opening hand it's useless. Street Wraith in the GY at least equals Ichorid food and I prefer Gitaxian over LED. It's a Timewalk that shows you what to name with Therapy. However, your list did make me think of this:


4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

2 River Kelpie
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

3 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below


20 recurring creatures, combo finish & Bridges to boot. I'm guessing it'll work as a beatdown deck that threatens with the combo (since only 2 Kelpie & 3 Dread Return is a very light combo package. It's literally the bare minimum) like crazy. It should be throwing out so, so many creatures it overruns anything. It will be one of the slowest iterations of the deck though.

By the way, with this many creature maybe one only has to run 3 Flayer of the Hatebound as damage will accumulate quickly enough without flipping the entire library.

[Dziga Murnau]

Yes, you've caught my thoughts on the fly. I started to notice, that in too many post-side games I tend to side out combo creatures to have room for Chancellors - stop their first turn, get a 5|6 flying one-sided Sphere of Resistance after that. Second thing - too often I feel, that reanimating Kelpie, while being cute and fancy, looks more like a winmore - why not to reanimate Flayer immediately, sac it for 9 damage total and then deal 6-9 more with Amalgams, without passing a turn? Usually by that time opponent was already dealt some damage, so why bother and risk with Kelpie?
Going Flayers as the only DR target lets shave the numbers once more (I never shaved that much in my life, as I do through this deck tuning) and return the full 4 Gitaxian Probes into the main. So I'll update my upper post.

I tested Bloodghast-Salvage package and was never happy with it. They demand too much to work.

[Echelon]

I tested Bloodghast-Salvage package and was never happy with it. They demand too much to work.

Consider them a combo piece of sorts. The turn you know you will DR Flayer you dredge a Dakmor Salvage and recur the Bloodghasts for some extra damage (or as the final creatures you need to DR Flayer). I mean, you know that the last card you dredge during your combo turn only brings Narcomoebas to the field to help you with the combo. If you already have multiple Bloodghasts in your GY recurring those might yield you a better result. And that's dismissing the cornercases where you already start with the Dakmor Salvage in your hand.

Dredging just 2 sucks, but having those few extra bodies (and with that also triggers for your Prized Amalgams) can make quite a difference. I've been running a 16 creature build with Whirlpool Drake as DR target for some time now and it surprises me how quickly I hit the number of creatures needed to cast DR. Prized Amalgam gives you the potential to increase the number to 20, which is just nuts. Especially since we manage to keep in the Bridges. Remember that we come from a place where traditionally we only run 12 creatures that ETB instead of 16/20. That 33/67% increase makes this a completely different beast. I mean, just look at the Horde Mode build.

By the way, for the Horde Mode build - maybe adding Gravecrawler over Pharaoh might be a thing. Dakmor Salvage gives the deck a little mana - might as well use it. In the worst case scenario you just feed your Gravecrawlers to your Ichorids. Might be too farfetched though.

[Dziga Murnau]

I have Lion's Eye Diamonds in the place of Pharaohs) But I dislike Horde Mode also - we run out of gas very quickly, and the speed is not that much higherthan in normal dread return approach.
Yes, Lion's Eye Diamonds work only in the starting hand - they balance the numbers of cards that do absolutely nothing in the starting hand and demand to be discarded immediately to wrok. It's 5-8 Phantasmagorian, the most important and the only bottleneck card of the deck.

[Echelon]

I have Lion's Eye Diamonds in the place of Pharaohs) But I dislike Horde Mode also - we run out of gas very quickly, and the speed is not that much higherthan in normal dread return approach.
Yes, Lion's Eye Diamonds work only in the starting hand - they balance the numbers of cards that do absolutely nothing in the starting hand and demand to be discarded immediately to wrok. It's 5-8 Phantasmagorian, the most important and the only bottleneck card of the deck.

The point of Horde Mode isn't the speed of it but rather the robustness. Since you don't cast a single spell, you don't need to care about Wasteland/Daze/FoW/CotV/Trinisphere/Counterbalance etc. Horde Mode doesn't run out of gas as much as it keeps on snowballing. You start off with a couple of creatures and the longer the game goes, the bigger that number gets. There aren't many decks that'd be able to deal with 10+ creatures that keep coming back over several turns. You don't really need to care about spot removal, about sweepers, even about Terminus. It'll all come back the following turn anyway. The only (immense) downside is that you have no game vs. combo decks and no way to answer hate. You can smash face with it and that's it.

Also, I'm not saying it should actually be a thing. It's more of a case study. A different take on deckbuilding - play Magic without making mana or casting spells.

[Dziga Murnau]

Well, I also added Cabal Therapies to the Horde Mode - can't play without that card)

By now I'm finally happy with the main deck of the normal Manaless Dredge and will consider it my own stock list. Constant 2-3 turn kills both going and drawing first. Just reanimated two Trolls 8/8 and 7/7 and a Phantasmagorian on my third turn in the face of Grixis (with only Delver on the board) after three probed Therapies (and followed with 3 Ichorids, that got the party started, next upkeep). This deck goes insane sometimes.

Now we'll shave the side beard, iykwim.

[Echelon]

Well, I also added Cabal Therapies to the Horde Mode - can't play without that card)

Why? It's too slow vs. hate/storm combo and there isn't much else you care about.

[Dziga Murnau]

Why? It's too slow vs. hate/storm combo and there isn't much else you care about.

I tried Horde Mode without Therapies and now like it more. You're right, it has quite different approach to the dredge idea. It's simple and occasionally very fast (though have the most dead cards in the grave). It's a pity, we can't fit even more free creatures in form of Dryad Arbors. Btw, sideboard and sideboarding here is not that hard - the deck consist of redundancy and redundancy, that's good for finding the side outs (just side out one of each card, lol).

[Echelon]

I tried Horde Mode without Therapies and now like it more. You're right, it has quite different approach to the dredge idea. It's simple and occasionally very fast (though have the most dead cards in the grave). It's a pity, we can't fit even more free creatures in form of Dryad Arbors. Btw, sideboard and sideboarding here is not that hard - the deck consist of redundancy and redundancy, that's good for finding the side outs (just side out one of each card, lol).

Yeah, that's what made me think about Gravecrawler (since you end up with a little mana anyways). I'm not sure if it's better than having the extra timewalks. If it is, you could just switch out the Baubles for a set of Gravecrawlers and a set of Nether Traitors.

It'll cost you some more speed, but that's a lot of creatures.

[ahg113]

What's the Horde More build?

Looking at recent posted decklist, I'm not seeing any with no castable spells.

[slave]

I tried Horde Mode without Therapies and now like it more.
I wouldn't consider it myself.
Therapy is not only the best card in the deck, but it's about the only way we have of slowing down fast combo/storm or disrupting a control player.
I've been a dredge player for some time now, and we're just not fast enough to go fearless without therapy. And also remember that Therapy works in tandem with Phantasmagorian to discard to your own yard, which is crucial for fast starts on occasion.

I played around with the Horde idea.
Thoughts;
1. It's utterly reliant on your opponent not being able to deal with creature attacks.
Many decks don't fear creature attacks at all, as they are faster than us, or have ways of negating us like Ensnaring bridge, Elephant grass, Terminus etc etc.

2. In order to get the damage through, we need to grow our yard fast. Slow dredging against soft hate may have problems with this plan.
Because we're not running mana, we're too slow for this to be a genuine threat.
And we're especially slow when the opponent has ways of nerfing our yard like DRS, extraction etc., which are both common as muck.

3. It's not actually faster than the combo version. At least in the combo version we have a way around point #1 (flayer).

So anyway, after goldfishing a bit I was left with the final thought that *the Horde* idea would be a fun for multiplayer. :wink:

[Echelon]

What's the Horde More build?

Looking at recent posted decklist, I'm not seeing any with no castable spells.

To quote myself:



Edit: Mayhaps something like this:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

4 Vengeful Pharaoh

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble


I call it Horde Mode.

It's basically just dredgers, recurring creatures and Timewalks, the end.


I wouldn't consider it myself.
Therapy is not only the best card in the deck, but it's about the only way we have of slowing down fast combo/storm or disrupting a control player.
I've been a dredge player for some time now, and we're just not fast enough to go fearless without therapy. And also remember that Therapy works in tandem with Phantasmagorian to discard to your own yard, which is crucial for fast starts on occasion.

I played around with the Horde idea.
Thoughts;
1. It's utterly reliant on your opponent not being able to deal with creature attacks.
Many decks don't fear creature attacks at all, as they are faster than us, or have ways of negating us like Ensnaring bridge, Elephant grass, Terminus etc etc.

2. In order to get the damage through, we need to grow our yard fast. Slow dredging against soft hate may have problems with this plan.
Because we're not running mana, we're too slow for this to be a genuine threat.
And we're especially slow when the opponent has ways of nerfing our yard like DRS, extraction etc., which are both common as muck.

3. It's not actually faster than the combo version. At least in the combo version we have a way around point #1 (flayer).

So anyway, after goldfishing a bit I was left with the final thought that *the Horde* idea would be a fun for multiplayer. :wink:

CT to discard your own cards means you've dredged at least once and hit at least one creature that could ETB. How is that crucial for a quick start? It's something that happens after you've started. Keeping the dredger you returned to your hand and discarding it EOT is just as fast.

To comment on the rest of your points - the point of the build wasn't speed but robustness, I've said this before. Especially G1 there aren't all that many cards you care about. If this build should ever be used with a specific prey in mind that prey'd probably be anyDelver, Miracles, MUD and Eldrazi. And, as I've said before as well, I don't necessarily recommend this build over any build with a combo finish - the ability to win on the spot (and/or mess with what your opponent is doing) is just too strong to pass up. The major downside of this build is that you're basically dead vs. anyHate or anyCombo. This is also something I said before.

Again, I came up with this mostly as a deckbuilding excercise, and I found it quite entertaining. Especially G1 you'd be able to take quite some people by surprise. The problem is that you also have to go through G2 and G3.

[Dziga Murnau]

Come on, Slave, Horde mode is just a sketch idead right now. Yes, it's not faster and stronger than combo version, it's just a new take on the dredge idea. It's just a start. Corner hate like grass and bridges can be solved with the proper sideboard, where Therapies can find their place.

Echelon, through testing added 2 Salvage Titans to the main deck. Their ability to return to the hand for the almost no price (in desperate time one Titan can eat another) lets do some good things in the team with two Phantasmagorians: dredge Troll every turn even if you have only one in the yard (with Gorian in hand dredge Troll, return Titan, discard them to another Gorian), charge the Shadows that have less than 3 creatures above (that was the starting point for Titan adding), so they can attack and die safely every turn, be the 8th card to discard (corner case, the first two are pretty popular).

Quite fun, I'll say (but at the next Russian Legacy championship I'll stick to my stock list with possible changes in the side).

Yet again, beloved dredgers, what things in Legacy do we fear the most beyond ultimate hate like Cage/RIP/Leyline?
(toying with Stain the Mind right now - looks a bit slow against 1-2 mfnf hate).

[Echelon]

Echelon, through testing added 2 Salvage Titans to the main deck. Their ability to return to the hand for the almost no price (in desperate time one Titan can eat another) lets do some good things in the team with two Phantasmagorians: dredge Troll every turn even if you have only one in the yard (with Gorian in hand dredge Troll, return Titan, discard them to another Gorian), charge the Shadows that have less than 3 creatures above (that was the starting point for Titan adding), so they can attack and die safely every turn, be the 8th card to discard (corner case, the first two are pretty popular).

That, my good sir, is a beautiful find.

I was building upon the idea of Gravecrawler - theoretically it'd allow us to trigger Vengevine. It'd require having 2 untapped Dakmor Salvage on the field and at least 1 other zombie on the field. Mayhaps as a finishing blow?

Other options (maybe to combine with Gravecrawler and Vengevine):
- Delraich
- Demon of Death's Gate
- Scourge of Nel Toth
- Nether Traitor

Delraich & Demon - easy alternate casting costs. If not in your opening hand, it can be fed to Ichorid. Sucks that Daze/FoW works against it though. Same goes for Scourge, but that BB probably is a problem. Maybe as a 1-/2-off. Seems good for the lategame.

Nether Traitor unfortunately isn't cast but just returns to the battlefield.

Take a look at this monstrosity:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine
2 Scourge of Nel Toth

3 Vengeful Pharaoh

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
3 Gitaxian Probe


Slowest build so far, but capable of dropping some bombs if you manage to live long enough. I might be taking this a step too far now though.

[Dziga Murnau]

I think, it's better to fit Dread Returns back, as it will work from the graveyard and return 20/20 Trolls. Searching for the game-ending blowouts, you will return to the normal combo-build step by step.

Salvage Titans are the key engine in my Salvage Titan combo deck, so I quickly remembered it's ability to return to hand from the grave)

[Echelon]

I think, it's better to fit Dread Returns back, as it will work from the graveyard and return 20/20 Trolls. Searching for the game-ending blowouts, you will return to the normal combo-build step by step.


You're right. But Dread Return cares about FoW/Daze. Gravecrawler, Gravecrawler into x Vengevines doesn't. The Gravecrawlers don't have to resolve to trigger the Vengevines.

When falling back on DR, you'd have to reintegrate CT so you actually get to resolve it and at that point you might as well just spend the few slots needed to add the combo back in.

We both agree the regular combo version is best. As for Horde Mode, the one with Baubles and a couple of Salvage Titans is probably the most streamlined iteration. Pushing it past that equals too much inbreeding.

[zzap]

CT is a must.

This deck wants to dredge; adding LED or FoW majorly reduces the quality of dredges.

New zombie will replace Shadow in my build. I can't wait.

Horde Mode is cute. DR combo is better.

[slave]

Come on, Slave, Horde mode is just a sketch idead right now.
Okay, fair enough > So you're constructing horde just because. :wink: If you're looking hard at Gravecrawler (with Dakmor) or Bloodghast;

Ghast works with Undiscovered Paradise potentially

Dakmor Salvage works with Ashen Ghoul too. If we're using mana, Prized Amalgam might be competing with this card, as Ghoul has haste.

[Echelon]

Okay, fair enough > So you're constructing horde just because. :wink: If you're looking hard at Gravecrawler (with Dakmor) or Bloodghast;

Ghast works with Undiscovered Paradise potentially

Dakmor Salvage works with Ashen Ghoul too. If we're using mana, Prized Amalgam might be competing with this card, as Ghoul has haste.

So the overly inbred list would look like this:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
4 Ashen Ghoul

4 Vengeful Pharaoh

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith

4 Undiscovered Paradise


28 recurring creatures is pretty cool. Undiscovered Paradise probably makes for more value than Gitaxian Probe and is equally useless in the yard, so that'd be desirable over Probe.

It's silly. I love it. It's certainly more elegant than the Vengevine iteration.

[GoldenCid]

So the overly inbred list would look like this:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
4 Ashen Ghoul

4 Vengeful Pharaoh

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith

4 Undiscovered Paradise


28 recurring creatures is pretty cool. Undiscovered Paradise probably makes for more value than Gitaxian Probe and is equally useless in the yard, so that'd be desirable over Probe.

It's silly. I love it. It's certainly more elegant than the Vengevine iteration.

Have you done any additional testing whith this?

I cant imagnine dredge without therapy, dr and bridge

[Echelon]

Have you done any additional testing whith this?

I cant imagnine dredge without therapy, dr and bridge

All it takes is a little creativity and balls of steel.

G1, it does well vs. fair decks (since those play a lot less creatures than you, have to care about them dying and a lot of their cards are dead vs. you) but you're close to dead vs. anyCombo & a couple of quick DRS. Don't forget that especially Manaless actually is just a beatdown deck that threatens with a combo finish. As long as your opponent respects that, you have a hard time pulling it off. The only times you do pull it off is when you either get such a force on the field that you can strip their hand before comboing or when your opponent doesn't play blue. More often than not you just win on Ichorid beats, so why not run 20-28 "Ichorids" over the regular 12? The same goes for Bridge from Below - it's such a lightning rod (and for good reason) that the times you actually get to abuse it are just few, so why not switch those for something that doesn't care about what your opponents' creatures are doing? And if you're dumping Bridge anyway, why not run a number of Vengeful Pharaoh? It nicely kills off the few creatures they actually do have and dare to send your way.

G2 & G3 is the usual struggle.

Don't get me wrong, I prefer the 16 creature Balustrade Spy version b/c it can steal games with the combo finish, but I can see Horde Mode (especially the first 20 creature, 16 Timewalk build) as a meta predator if the meta is soft enough to it. The 16 Timewalks might even allow you to get some creatures on the field before Grafdigger's Cage hits the field, allowing you to nab the game in the process. That's probably just a pipedream though.

Edit: It looks like someone is living the dream:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100033

First at a SCG IQ 2 weeks ago. Iona and Elesh Norn seem like odd SB choices though - resolving DR should mean winning on the spot and the standard combo already does this for you.

Iona might just be some nice tech vs. Miracles though. Resolve it on white and you don't have to worry about Terminus messing up your combo. Just turn it sideways a couple of times and you're done.

[GoldenCid]

G2 & G3 is the usual struggle.



Thats the problem my friend. What sb pln do you have in mind?
Consdering amalgam fow plan seems more viable. If i take this deck id take the bfb version. My free guy stuff would be:

4 ichorid
4 moebas
4 shadow
2 prized amalgam

This makes a total of 14 blue cards MD (i run whirlpool rider) to pitch fow. Problably my side would look like this:

4 FoW
4 M. Trap
3/4 Shoal
3 unmask

[slave]

I cant imagnine dredge without therapy, dr and bridge
I'm in the same boat.

Although;
If any of your fellaz take out this Horde version to a Legacy night, call me curious as to how you go.

Considering amalgam fow plan seems more viable.
The blue version I'm fiddling with at is ~17-18 blue (4 Force, 4 Moeba, 4 Probe, 3 Rider, 2-3 Amalgam)
I'm running the typical 4 Bridge, Therapy, Icky, Shadows, 15 dredgers etc.
I would like all 4 Force of Will & Prized Amalgam in the main if possible, but I'm still not happy with that list yet.

If I was going to take this deck out for a run tomorrow, I'd want a side similar to what you're suggesting GoldenCid.

RE: Prized Amalgam
I did some goldfishing with 4 PA in the main (proxies obviously), and so far for me it hasn't felt like the card I thought it might be.
Anyone else feeling the same way?
Reason being;
(thinking out loud here)
One list I'm thinking of, is simply replacing Shadow with Amalgam for max. blue count.
Icky is a regular target of extraction, so that leaves only 'Moeba as the trigger for PA :cry:
PA might not help much if your opponent is smart and targets Icky for extraction. Extracting 'Moeba from there? :mad:
Excluding Shadow for PA is a no-bo for me.

[Echelon]

Thats the problem my friend. What sb pln do you have in mind?
Consdering amalgam fow plan seems more viable. If i take this deck id take the bfb version. My free guy stuff would be:

4 ichorid
4 moebas
4 shadow
2 prized amalgam

This makes a total of 14 blue cards MD (i run whirlpool rider) to pitch fow. Problably my side would look like this:

4 FoW
4 M. Trap
3/4 Shoal
3 unmask

BFB version? What am I missing here?

As for SB, that'd probably be all black stuff. I don't own FoWs. Judging by our buddies' performance in Roanoke, it might be viable.


I'm in the same boat.

Although;
If any of your fellaz take out this Horde version to a Legacy night, call me curious as to how you go.

The blue version I'm fiddling with at is ~17-18 blue (4 Force, 4 Moeba, 4 Probe, 3 Rider, 2-3 Amalgam)
I'm running the typical 4 Bridge, Therapy, Icky, Shadows, 15 dredgers etc.
I would like all 4 Force of Will & Prized Amalgam in the main if possible, but I'm still not happy with that list yet.

If I was going to take this deck out for a run tomorrow, I'd want a side similar to what you're suggesting GoldenCid.

RE: Prized Amalgam
I did some goldfishing with 4 PA in the main (proxies obviously), and so far for me it hasn't felt like the card I thought it might be.
Anyone else feeling the same way?
Reason being;
(thinking out loud here)
One list I'm thinking of, is simply replacing Shadow with Amalgam for max. blue count.
Icky is a regular target of extraction, so that leaves only 'Moeba as the trigger for PA :cry:
PA might not help much if your opponent is smart and targets Icky for extraction. Extracting 'Moeba from there? :mad:
Excluding Shadow for PA is a no-bo for me.

The thought never crossed my mind to just switch Nether Shadow for Amalgam 1-on-1, precisely b/c you need to trigger Amalgam. I do think it's a good addition to the decks core though, seeing as the regular build sometimes has a real craving for some extra bodies.

As for taking Horde Mode out for a spin - some time ago I traded away my Mishra's Baubles and can't stand the idea of paying 30+ euros for such stupid cards. Also, the next tourney I attend I plan to take a new build of my Nic Fit. So mayhaps sometime after that. So many ideas, so few tournaments (or so little time to attend them) to put them to the test.

[Rivfader]

Problably my side would look like this:
4 FoW
4 M. Trap
3/4 Shoal
3 unmask


The blue version I'm fiddling with at is ~17-18 blue (4 Force, 4 Moeba, 4 Probe, 3 Rider, 2-3 Amalgam)


Regarding the blue version with force of will, I was wondering if Shoal is still a good sideboardcard now there's Amalgam to push up the amount of blue cards. I always thought of Shoal as the next best thing besides force, but the 'next best thing' is much worse than force, and often just a blue card making force more reliable. Now there's Amalgam as an additional blue card for Force. Would you guys still run Shoal?

And I was thinking about Serum Powder instead. If it's in hand, it's another shot at an opener containing force (or another strong opener). And if it's dredged away, it's equally as useless as Shoal would have been in the graveyard. What do you think?

[Final Fortune]

After Amalgram I think Foce of Will is the obvious choice regardless of whether or not you MD or SB it, because now you can SB out Nether Shadow and have up to 20 blue cards supporting it without losing any velocity. As for Shoal, it is either added % to counter Rest in Peace or Infernal Tutor so you have to ask yourself whether or not you value that enough to play it - personally I do.

I think you just MD Chancellor, Amalgram, Waverider and SB in Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal vs your most difficult match ups like Miracles and Storm, altho' there is an argument for wasting 4 SB slots on Waverider to hide your SB plan.

I don't understand why people are discussing lists without Dread Returns, you just lose vs Lands and random SB cards for what compensation?

[Echelon]

I don't understand why people are discussing lists without Dread Returns, you just lose vs Lands and random SB cards for what compensation?

Yeah, you clearly don't. That's OK, I know noone likes to read more than just the last couple of posts.

The main reason is just because we can. And why shouldn't we? We know the deck can have trouble resolving the combo, so why shouldn't we give omitting the combo in its entirety a try? Where we lose some ground vs. Lands, we gain some vs. chalice/tax.dec and our G1 vs. ANT/TES/T1 combo can't get much worse anyway.

Compare it with what's happening with Elves! at the moment. They have trouble resolving Natural Order (a card that also says "I win" and as such is considered near-holy in the Elves!-deck), so they replace it with something they actually get to resolve (and to some good results, so far. Apparently slaughtering the sacred cow produced a rather tasty steak). Why wouldn't we try the same thing? Sometimes it's good to switch things up, to confirm that what we're doing is still that which yields the best results for us.

[Final Fortune]

I've tried and posted more lists on Manaless Dredge in the last 3 incarnations of the thread than anyone else on the Source, try reading thru the archive and you can find the "man plan" builds that were used to grind thru Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction. Trust me it isn't going to win you any game 1s you wouldnt have won already but it will probably lose them. Nobody really plays Tormod's Crypt or Surgical Extraction anymore, so you just push back your fundamental turn and open yourself up to hate for no compensation in the metagame that I am aware of today.

Youre welcome to try it tho'

[slave]

After Amalgram I think Foce of Will is the obvious choice regardless of whether or not you MD or SB it, because now you can SB out Nether Shadow and have up to 20 blue cards supporting it without losing any velocity. As for Shoal, it is either added % to counter Rest in Peace or Infernal Tutor so you have to ask yourself whether or not you value that enough to play it - personally I do.
Agreed. However I don't want to side out Shadow completely, as extraction is still a thing where I play.
Shoal is obviously not Force, but potentially having 8 answers to RiP in a deck that can't mulligan, is much better than 4.

Now we have PA, Force is now definitely into viable territory, whereas before it was borderline questionable given we can't mulligan. But the amount of 3-cmc gravehate is pretty thin to satisfy Shoal. I'm gonna have to take the deck for real-world testing against humans before I make a call on this.

[Echelon]

I've tried and posted more lists on Manaless Dredge in the last 3 incarnations of the thread than anyone else on the Source, try reading thru the archive and you can find the "man plan" builds that were used to grind thru Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction. Trust me it isn't going to win you any game 1s you wouldnt have won already but it will probably lose them. Nobody really plays Tormod's Crypt or Surgical Extraction anymore, so you just push back your fundamental turn and open yourself up to hate for no compensation in the metagame that I am aware of today.

Youre welcome to try it tho'

Yup. Luckily the meta hasn't changed since the last time the man plan was posted and we didn't get any new toys either.

Seeing as Eldrazi run both CotV and Warping Wail, I reckon the man plan has more potential to push through that the combo version, even with FoWs.

But as I already said (multiple times now): I still prefer the combo version over the man plan simply b/c it gives you the ability to steal games out of nowhere.

[slave]

Seeing as Eldrazi run both CotV and Warping Wail, I reckon the man plan has more potential to push through that the combo version, even with FoWs.

But as I already said (multiple times now): I still prefer the combo version over the man plan simply b/c it gives you the ability to steal games out of nowhere.
The newer Eldrazi deck makes it hard even for LED-dredge to win, given Bridges don't stand a chance of staying in the yard. So yeah, the man-plan probably does have a better chance in game1 here given the sheer number of bodies we could field. However, I still want that combo finish too.

[Echelon]

My good sir, do I have a list for you:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast

3 River Kelpie
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

3 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

3 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy


And we might be able to omit River Kelpie and just go for 3 Flayer of the Hatebound as DR targets and add the 4th Phantasmagorian back in.

[slave]

My good sir, do I have a list for you.....


And we might be able to omit River Kelpie and just go for 3 Flayer of the Hatebound as DR targets and add the 4th Phantasmagorian back in.
That could be a fairly entertaining multiplayer deck.:cool:
I like Pharoah in this list. The only thing I would be wary of is hitting too many of them early, where we screw up our slow-dredges. 3 feels like the right number.

I think you're right about 4 Phants, I'd want that too. No bridges might hurt our chances of landing a DR at all, given we'd be playing out our deck slower, making our DR/combo turn more vulnerable. Some testing against blue & DRS decks will give a good idea as to whether the DR plan is worth pursuing.

3 Dakmor looks like the right number given I wouldn't want to dredge for 2 *by choice*, unless I could swing for the kill.
I have to wonder though.
If we're playing Dakmor, it opens up the possibility of playing Raven's Crime.
Not saying we should, just thinking out loud. It could be used to set up a Therapy, or to form some sort of control where you dredge Dakmor every turn and force them into topdecking, while you beat them with creatures. Or you could *crime* yourself :confused:
I guess this all depends on whether the DR package is worth the space??? If not, Crime & some Serum Powder etc. might be worth a shot?

[Echelon]

Not having Bridges probably means you may have to split your combo over 2 turns (although recurring Bloodghasts mid-combo might give you enough creatures to finish it entirely).

Let's say Kelpie is the only creature we have on the field when we DR it and with our last dredge we get back a Dakmor Salvage. If we manage to get 3 Bloodghast in our yard and/or Narcomoeba on the field whilst dredging that'd be enough to complete the combo without any help from Bridge from Below. You sacrifice Kelpie + 2 creatures (1 creature + Kelpie left on the field) to DR Flayer and then sacrifice Flayer, Kelpie and the last creature to cast the third DR, targeting Grave-Troll. Seems reasonable.

You could also switch out the 3 Vengeful Pharaoh and a River Kelpie for 4 Bridge from Below. 20 creatures, Bridges and a combo finish all in one list.

[GoldenCid]

Any new testing with our new guy?

I was goldfishing a 3 PA version, 13 dredger, 4 chancellor and the devil win cond and it was good. The only concern with adding PA in exchange for dredgers (shambling shell) is the need for a higher number of mulligans.

Is anybody using chancellor of the main MD?

[Final Fortune]

Any new testing with our new guy?

I was goldfishing a 3 PA version, 13 dredger, 4 chancellor and the devil win cond and it was good. The only concern with adding PA in exchange for dredgers (shambling shell) is the need for a higher number of mulligans.

Is anybody using chancellor of the main MD?

I do, probably only card that significantly increases your win rate vs a potential blow out, where Force of Will vs Storm is just skating up hill. Probe just gets countered too often to bother fwiw, so the only other generally useful card is like the Red Chancellor or Gigapede or an X creature.

I think it is important to play what generally good anti hate you can when nothing else is that stellar.

[GoldenCid]

So....this is the list im testing:

Dredge

4 troll
4 imp
4 thug
1 shell

Beaters

4 ichorid
4 shadow
4 moeba
3 amalgam

Spells

4 therapy
4 probe
4 return

Stuff

3 W. rider
4 street wraith
1 flayer of the hatebound
4 bridge
4 phantasmagoria
4 chacellor of the anex

SB (not defined at all suggestions are welcomed)

4 Fow
3-4 blue shoal
4 blue trap
3-4 Unmask
0-2 contagion

It's nice. It goes off via combo o beatdown.

[Echelon]

That's a dangerously small number of dredgers.

[GoldenCid]

That's a dangerously small number of dredgers.

That is what i thought at first....that is why i mentioned mulligans i a previous post. In my testing mulls was almost unaffected but it is true that when i reanimate rider for going off there are just 1 or 2 dredges for digging. Off if phantasmagorian is not in yard.

What would you cut? i think 14 dredgers is the nunmber.

[Echelon]

Normally I'd say a Phantasmagorian since you'd have enough dredgers to compensate.

In your case I'd choose to go down to 3 DR.

[slave]

That's a dangerously small number of dredgers.
Especially when you consider how prevalent DRS is these days. Personally 15 is the lowest number of dredgers I'll go.

[Echelon]

Especially when you consider how prevalent DRS is these days. Personally 15 is the lowest number of dredgers I'll go.

Seconded.

[GoldenCid]

14 is a good number for me.

I'll cut a PA for 1 dredger to rise to 14.

The deck worked fine before PA was printed

[Echelon]

So... I took both the Prized Amalgam Balustrade Spy list and Horde Mode out for a spin yesterday. Here's some thoughts:

I started off with the Spy list. Prized Amalgam in the Spy list is nuts. Turns out it gives you some funny interactions. At some point I had 2 Amalgams on the field and dredged a third into my yard, together with a Narcomoeba (so number 3 triggered and was primed to return at my EoT. I put a dice on it to keep track of that). During combat my opponent blocked both Amalgams to death. As soon as Amalgam no. 3 came back at the end of my turn, both Amalgams triggered and returned at my opponents' EoT. The Amalgams gave me enough raw power to break through a Batterskull, Thalia and assorted other stuff. It was insane.

On to Horde Mode: It must be the funniest deck I've ever piloted. At some point (vs. D&T again) I went from having a Narcomoeba and a Nether Shadow on the field (as lonely blockers) to having that + 3 Bloodghast, 3 Nether Shadows and 3 Ashen Ghouls. For some reason, Ichorid was nowhere to be found. At the end of the turn I also got back a couple of Amalgams. Reminder: Combat math is hard. That's all I can say. It was funny as hell (I had 1 game vs. Grixis Delver where my opponent started out with 2 DRS. He still almost lost. I had some poor luck with my dredges, so he got there), Vengeful Pharaoh made attacking a living hell for my opponents. Games take long and take a lot more thinking than the Spy list though.

[GoldenCid]

So... I took both the Prized Amalgam Balustrade Spy list and Horde Mode out for a spin yesterday. Here's some thoughts:

I started off with the Spy list. Prized Amalgam in the Spy list is nuts. Turns out it gives you some funny interactions. At some point I had 2 Amalgams on the field and dredged a third into my yard, together with a Narcomoeba (so number 3 triggered and was primed to return at my EoT. I put a dice on it to keep track of that). During combat my opponent blocked both Amalgams to death. As soon as Amalgam no. 3 came back at the end of my turn, both Amalgams triggered and returned at my opponents' EoT. The Amalgams gave me enough raw power to break through a Batterskull, Thalia and assorted other stuff. It was insane.

On to Horde Mode: It must be the funniest deck I've ever piloted. At some point (vs. D&T again) I went from having a Narcomoeba and a Nether Shadow on the field (as lonely blockers) to having that + 3 Bloodghast, 3 Nether Shadows and 3 Ashen Ghouls. For some reason, Ichorid was nowhere to be found. At the end of the turn I also got back a couple of Amalgams. Reminder: Combat math is hard. That's all I can say. It was funny as hell (I had 1 game vs. Grixis Delver where my opponent started out with 2 DRS. He still almost lost. I had some poor luck with my dredges, so he got there), Vengeful Pharaoh made attacking a living hell for my opponents. Games take long and take a lot more thinking than the Spy list though.

Would you share your list?

[Echelon]

Ofcourse :smile:.

Spy list (the same as on page 17):
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam

3 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Progenitus

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below

Liked it a lot, wouldn't change a thing.

Horde Mode:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmoor Salvage

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
4 Ashen Ghoul

4 Vengeful Pharaoh

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

[GoldenCid]

And what about sideboarding?

[Echelon]

The standard stuff.
4 Unmask
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Contagion
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Vengeful Pharaoh

[GoldenCid]

The standard stuff.
4 Unmask
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Contagion
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Vengeful Pharaoh

Off course. But i meant sideboaring, not the list of your side.
You could tell us specific movements in your match ups

[easysantiago]

So... I took both the Prized Amalgam Balustrade Spy list and Horde Mode out for a spin yesterday. Here's some thoughts:

I started off with the Spy list. Prized Amalgam in the Spy list is nuts. Turns out it gives you some funny interactions. At some point I had 2 Amalgams on the field and dredged a third into my yard, together with a Narcomoeba (so number 3 triggered and was primed to return at my EoT. I put a dice on it to keep track of that). During combat my opponent blocked both Amalgams to death. As soon as Amalgam no. 3 came back at the end of my turn, both Amalgams triggered and returned at my opponents' EoT. The Amalgams gave me enough raw power to break through a Batterskull, Thalia and assorted other stuff. It was insane.

On to Horde Mode: It must be the funniest deck I've ever piloted. At some point (vs. D&T again) I went from having a Narcomoeba and a Nether Shadow on the field (as lonely blockers) to having that + 3 Bloodghast, 3 Nether Shadows and 3 Ashen Ghouls. For some reason, Ichorid was nowhere to be found. At the end of the turn I also got back a couple of Amalgams. Reminder: Combat math is hard. That's all I can say. It was funny as hell (I had 1 game vs. Grixis Delver where my opponent started out with 2 DRS. He still almost lost. I had some poor luck with my dredges, so he got there), Vengeful Pharaoh made attacking a living hell for my opponents. Games take long and take a lot more thinking than the Spy list though.

Money plays.

[Echelon]

Money plays.

Thank you.


Off course. But i meant sideboaring, not the list of your side.
You could tell us specific movements in your match ups

I didn't do any sideboarding. I wanted to get a good feel for the new list as-is first.

[vieko]

Horde Mode


You sick man... I salute you! This is so fun to play :) Few changes made – thoughts?

28 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Gravecrawler
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid

19 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmor Salvage
3 Shambling Shell

5 UTILITY
4 Street Wraith
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

8 GRAVE
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Gigapede

---

The changes:


-3 Vengeful Pharaoh +3 Shambling Shell: Ichorid food, dredges, enables Shadow / Ghoul
-4 Gitaxian Probe +4 Gigapede: more chances to get engine going, enables Shadow / Ghoul

[Echelon]

Beautiful list

I'd switch a Shambling Shell and/or a Gigapede for 2 Vengeful Pharaoh. They do some much needed discouraging to your opponent whenever he thinks of attacking.

The list is stable as it is so I don't really know if you'd want to switch 4 Timewalks for other cards, but it absolutely does not hurt to try!

It's awesome to see other people messing around with Horde Mode. It might not be better than the combo lists, but it's fun as hell.

[vieko]

I'd switch a Shambling Shell and/or a Gigapede for 2 Vengeful Pharaoh. They do some much needed discouraging to your opponent whenever he thinks of attacking.

The list is stable as it is so I don't really know if you'd want to switch 4 Timewalks for other cards, but it absolutely does not hurt to try!

It's awesome to see other people messing around with Horde Mode. It might not be better than the combo lists, but it's fun as hell.

I think you are right, swapped to 3 Pharaohs, 3 Gigapedes and 3 Gravecrawlers... it's super stable and fun to play! Here's the current list with the two sideboards I'm experimenting with:

27 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid
3 Gravecrawler

19 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmor Salvage
3 Shambling Shell

7 UTILITY
4 Street Wraith
3 Vengeful Pharaoh

7 TO GRAVE
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Gigapede

COUNTER COMBO SB
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
3 Whirlpool Rider
3 Dread Return
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

ANTI-HATE SB
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Reverent Silence
3 Nature's Claim
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Sickening Shoal

[GoldenCid]

I think that you u card caount is too low to run fow. Did you test it in a real tournament?

[vieko]

I think that you u card caount is too low to run fow. Did you test it in a real tournament?

I think you might be right there... would probably make more sense to run the Blue SB like so – bringing the blue count to 23:

COUNTER SB
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Whirlpool Rider

Also: I've tried the sideboard below in a MTGO League (3-2), tweaked it to this after:

ANTI-HATE
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Nature's Claim
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Dryad Arbor
1 Sickening Shoal
1 Reverent Silence

Reverted the Pharaoh count back up to 4 (just to good to not have) – 3 Shamblings, 3 Gravecrawlers and 2 Gigapedes. Will likely try the deck this coming week on paper... not sure which board but will post an update :)

[Echelon]

@vieko: Awesome!

Nice touch to add that SB combo package.

[civet five]

I think that you u card caount is too low to run fow. Did you test it in a real tournament?

Prized Amalgam and Narcomoeba are also blue for the blue count

[GoldenCid]

Prized Amalgam and Narcomoeba are also blue for the blue count

Off course they count...but if you have no aditional u cards seems weak.

Anyway this hypothesis need to be tested in a real field, NOW!

[slave]

Off course they count...but if you have no aditional u cards seems weak.
Anyway this hypothesis need to be tested in a real field, NOW!
I ran the blue-force manaless list exclusively for around 6 months. You may be able to find info on my findings early in this thread or in the old manaless thread.
This was before amalgam was printed obviously.

I was running Force in the main for a total of 16
The amount of times I had a Force in hand but couldn't actually use it was significant, however the *threat* of Force did seem to make some opponents' play more cautiously once they knew you were playing it, especially if you managed to fire off a Probe to see their hand.
Postboard, siding in Disrupting Shoal, Mindbreak Trap helped to get Force into *viable* territory, but Shoal is often impotent to hate, Trap is only useful against certain opponents, and siding in all 8 just to satisfy force, when a card like Trap won't actually be useful, isn't ideal.
Manaless is never going to get out of *glass-cannon* territory against terminal hate, riding the blue.
All IMHO of course.

4x Amalgam in the list IMO will significantly improve the Blue counter plan, but think about how high your blue would be in the majority of matchups, postboard. If it's below 16, I would argue the blue plan is actually diluting your deck, rather than improving it against hate.
As for the Horde plan, I'm not sure running blue for Force is a great plan, but I've been wrong before! :smile:

Hypothetically, if I was going to run the Horde plan and the green anti-hate side;
:g: is useful.
Given you're already running Dakmor Salvage, I would consider siding in Riftstone Portal.
We have redundancy in Natural State.
Claims are often blocked by CHalice of the Void @ 1, Ray of Revelation &/or Ancient Grudge in small numbers maybe?
Unmask would be high on my list too.

[Echelon]

OMG we're taking Horde Mode seriously? That is awesome! I didn't think that far ahead when I started that particular list, lol.

I'm glad people are having fun with it.

[vieko]

OMG we're taking Horde Mode seriously? That is awesome! I didn't think that far ahead when I started that particular list, lol.

I'm glad people are having fun with it.

I've had fun with it today... few 3-2 in leagues... it's a fun list. Latest interation:

24 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid

18 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmor Salvage
2 Shambling Shell

14 UTILITY
4 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Faerie Macabre

4 TO GRAVE
4 Phantasmagorian

SIDEBOARD
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
3 Whirlpool Rider
3 Dread Return
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

As much as I liked the Gigapede tricks, I think having Faerie (or another useful black creature) makes more sense. The combo sideboard can be explosive, does fall flat to counters but has won games. Not crazy about Gitaxian Probe main anymore... feels like I'm accommodating for a sideboard I never want to board for :) Anyways, fun times... has potential, will take for a spin on paper.

[Echelon]

You, my good sir, just made my day.

Good call on cutting Gravecrawler. In the games I've played I recurred exactly 1. All the others got fed to Ichorid. Ashen Ghoul is surprisingly good. @slave: Thank you again for bringing that one up!

@vieko: What were your MUs in the league/can you give us a small report?

[easysantiago]

You, my good sir, just made my day.

I second this. It's great to see novel builds of this archetype.

[mistercakes]

been having a lot of fun with the manaless list. can't seem to go better than 4-1 though in leagues. so depressing. was 4-0 today and lost 3rd game to miracles.

anyway

that list was:

4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
3 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Nether Shadow
3 Ashen Ghoul
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ichorid
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Dread Return
2 Ashen Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

sb
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity

that league was

2-0 g/b eldrazi ramp with crop rotations
2-0 miracles
2-0 bug delver
2-1 miracles
1-2 miracles

am trying out a new list with some bridges and therapies, but only cutting back minimally on some of the horder and the 2 ashen riders.

additionally, found out there is a modo bug with phantasmagorian. you are unable to determine the order you place your guys in there, so best of luck to nether shadow players.

-rob

[vieko]

Prized Amalgam + Flayer of the Hatebound


I'm just gonna leave this here and let it speak for itself in regards to the power of the Amalgam when combined with Flayer!

http://vieko.io/magic/flayer-amalgam-over-elesh.png

:)

[Echelon]

@mistercakes: Cool list! Who needs Bridges? Lol.

@vieko: What list are you running now?

@both: Write some reports on your leagues! Daddy needs his fix, dammit!

I love this deck so much. It seems Amalgam gives us so much room to fuck around!

[mistercakes]

4-1 in another league. will type up a report in the next few days

[vieko]

4-1 in another league. will type up a report in the next few days

@echelon Holding off until I hit 5-0 with either list. Been alternating between Horde and Combo and collaborating with @mistercakes almost daily :) Current lists (both with several 4-1 finishes):

MANALESS HORDE 1.7 BLUE

22 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
2 Ashen Ghoul

15 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Dakmor Salvage

8 PEAK / CYCLE
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Street Wraith

11 UTILITY
4 Chancellor of the Dross
4 Vengeful Pharaoh
3 Faerie Macabre

5 GRAVY
4 Phantasmagorian
1 Dread Return

SIDEBOARD
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
3 Mindbreak Trap
3 Soul Spike
1 Contagion

PROS

Great against Miracles... nothing beats the feeling of watching "the joyless bunch" Terminus and Terminus and flashback Terminus and take a beating to our endless recursive army.
Chancellor of the Dross: starting at 23 vs 17 is great, sometimes 26 vs 14... Dread Returning a 6/6 Flying Lifelinker ends games. Also: feeds Ichorid and enables Shadows / Ghouls
you literally cast TWO spell in the list pre-board (and that's if you choose to)... we give ZERO fucks about permission.
Soul Spike: this card is fantastic! I blame @mistercakes for suggesting it and applaud him :) OMG Burn hates it, other decks don't see it coming (Storm I'm looking at you) and Double Dross + Spike in opening hand = 10 Damage in their Upkeep leaving us at 30 to start the game... it's happened.


CONS

Folds to Leyline – oh well :)


===========================================

MANALESS COMBO 1.7 BLUE

16 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

14 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Shambling Shell

11 UTILITY
4 Bridge from Below
4 Street Wraith
3 Faerie Macabre

8 PEEK / DISRUPT
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy

8 GRAVY
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Dread Return

4 TARGET
2 Balustrade Spy
1 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

SIDEBOARD
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Soul Spike
1 Contagion
1 Serra Avatar

HIGHLIGHTS

Faster than Horde
I beat Reanimator with an active Elesh on board with this list – Flayer and Amalgam... yup (http://vieko.io/magic/flayer-amalgam-over-elesh.png).


CONS

Folds to Leyline – oh well :)

[Echelon]

Some crazy cards in there. I'm loving it! You guys are a bunch of heroes! Seems like you're doing a lot of great work. Thank you for making my day (again).

[mistercakes]

Latest league:

4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
2 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Nether Shadow
2 Ashen Ghoul
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ichorid
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Bridge From Below
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Dread Return
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

sb
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of Sanctity

that league was

2-0 esper stoneblade (maybe deathblade)
2-1 miracles
1-2 UR delver
2-0 belcher
2-1 tribal zoo

highlight of this was last round he had won game 2 with a turn 1 grafdigger's cage.

game 3 i chose to be on the play.

had opening hand of:

thug, narcomoeba, stinkweed, led, therapy, street wraith, X (can't recall)

play LED -> cycle street wraith, crack LED for BBB. dredge with thug. hit prized amalgam and grave troll. cast thug. flash back therapy (putting narco on top of deck) strip him of his grafdigger's cage.

going to try same list but cutting sb slots of leyline for 2 undiscovered paradise and 2 nature's claim.

-rob

[Echelon]

@mistercakes: How does Griselbrand sound as DR target? It can win the game on its own and makes it a lot easier to pull off the combo finish. Amazing to see how much stuff you packed in that list, by the way. You could possibly skip the Bridges for another 2 Bloodghast/Ashen Ghoul. 22 recurring creatures + DR finish, sheesh. Or just add another Therapy and another Flayer. Seeing how many creatures come back turn after turn you don't really need a combo finish. Just grind people out.

[mistercakes]

the version listed above isn't a combo deck, that's mostly why there is only 3 dread return.

Griselbrand is probably unnecessary. I like iona because there's many games where reanimating flayer doesn't kill (it may a bit more with cabal therapy in the deck + hitting amalgams but I'm not dependent on getting two dread return)

the therapies were added for some resiliency against combo and random stuff.

the bridges are in there to secure the deck a bit more Vs miracles. I've still lost a few game ones to some good disruption (meaning 2-3 terminus + stp followed by an early monastery mentor)

making tokens from ichorid should secure that a bit more.

beat eldrazi last night. 2-1.

game 1 on the end of my opponent's 2nd turn I had in play

2 narcomoeba 2 amalgam thanks to phantasmagorian and street wraith.

on my turn I got a nether shadow followed by 2 more narcomoeba and an ichorid...and a bridge.

i finished the turn dread return on iona and a grave-troll (9/9).

he had a karakas but it didn't matter.

game 2 he had 2 leyline on his opening 7 so I die.

game 3 he mulled to 5 to get a leyline, but I had the undiscovered paradise and a nature's claim. his hand wasn't that strong from there and dredge got there.

also worth noting on magic online undiscovered paradise, phantasmagorian are bugged.

you can't choose graveyard order with phantasmagorian and undiscovered will only return back to hand if you've used the mana. (that being said it appears that wizards will reset your match if you lose due to the bug)

also i had a weird interaction for regular dredge (with lotus petals).

if you click on narcomoeba in hand to cast it and all you have in play is a lotus petal, don't use it to cast narcomoeba...there's no takebacks....and you can't cancel the spell. game locks. they did reimburse me. (logic would dictate that i should lose the lotus petal, but be able to cancel the spell. not the case on modo).

to return to earlier points:

the earlier versions of this deck had 4 bloodghast 4 ashen ghoul. it was good at times, but i think the current build is a bit stronger. will keep posting as i play more.

-rob

[mistercakes]

UR delver 2-1 (pharaoh did some overtime game 3 on his weak draws. he didn't draw any hate.)
spanish inquisition 2-0 (he fizzled game 1, game 2 mindbreak trap)
mono red goblins 2-0 (he had turn 1 lackey on the play, but his hand was awkward and i think he misused his lackey (prioritizing siege gang over ringleaders...he had 3. i got to therapy them away.)
dredge 1-2 sigh. he's faster. (he also misplayed last game b/c he could have dread returned iona on black. i untapped and could attack for 12 and hit a flayer, but whiffed on dread return.

ijoawefijaiwfje;oajwefo;ajwiefawoefij;oawfije. 4-1 again.

[Echelon]

So close, lol.

[Blastoderm]

Spanish inquisition lol!!

[Scott]

Anyone else having buckets of fun with Prized Amalgam?

I just cycled Street Wraith during my opponent's turn, dredged into Phantasmagorian, Narcomoeba, Ichorid and something else, responded to Narcomoeba's trigger by activating Phantasmagorian's ability, discarding two Prized Amalgams from my hand, Dread Return and other stuff, and started my second turn with Narcomoeba, two Prized Amalgams, and Ichorid on the battlefield.

[Echelon]

Yes I am. It's nuts.

[vieko]

Anyone else having buckets of fun with Prized Amalgam?

SO much fun, I got a message from an opponent the other day yelping "good effort, seems you've ran out of card for your next turn... GG" Flayer on board and 12 points of damage on end step quieted him promptly ;)

[Scott]

Niice. Glad to see I'm not the only one.

[Echelon]

SO much fun, I got a message from an opponent the other day yelping "good effort, seems you've ran out of card for your next turn... GG" Flayer on board and 12 points of damage on end step quieted him promptly ;)

Lol! Also, did he forget he'd get up to 16 damage during your next upkeep anyways? I mean, as long as he dies before you draw a card it's fine.

It's one of the reasons I run a Progenitus in my Spy lists - if my opponent is being a smart ass and thinks I'll die when he counters everything after my Spy flips the deck he just gets his butt kicked by Amalgams and Ichorids the next turn(s). Ichorids + Prized Amalgams + Nether Shadows + Narcomoebas equals up to 32 damage/turn. Or, you know, some obvious value with Flayer.

[vieko]

Lol! Also, did he forget he'd get up to 16 damage during your next upkeep anyways? I mean, as long as he dies before you draw a card it's fine.

It's one of the reasons I run a Progenitus in my Spy lists - if my opponent is being a smart ass and thinks I'll die when he counters everything after my Spy flips the deck he just gets his butt kicked by Amalgams and Ichorids the next turn(s). Ichorids + Prized Amalgams + Nether Shadows + Narcomoebas equals up to 32 damage/turn. Or, you know, some obvious value with Flayer.

I think he didn't see the Amalgams returning on my end step when he made the comment. They would've returned on his / her end step if not mine winning the game regardless (if Flayer was still on board). I do run a Progenitus in the SB (Thanks @mistercakes) but hardly ever bring it.

[Echelon]

It can be quite a lifesaver sometimes. I know I've lost games b/c I boarded it out, lol.

[ahg113]

Haven't played in a long time (over a year+). How's the gravehate been looking lately?

I probably have the deck configured to RiverGhast at the moment with Blue sideboard. but bought Prized Amaglam, cause #obvi.

Have seen the spy lists post better results typically, but am interested in the hoard moar approach.

Any suggestions or advice to take to a GP Trial? What should I expect to play against?

[ahg113]

First off, props to mistercakes, played his list with the Nature’s Claim and Undiscovered Paradise in the board.

Yesterday, played at the local GPT, Stomping Grounds in Hatboro, Pa. Props to the shop, cause I was able to pick-up the Iona, Shield of Emeria and 2nd Ashen Ghoul right before the game started. Was going to play a Grizzle and ghast if the other cards weren’t available.

TL;DR – 3-0-2, finished 2nd after swiss, then top 8 split (6 split pot, 2 played for the GP byes), finished 5th overall (somehow got jumped for 4th…)

Rd 1 Matthew L. – Grixis Delver (with DRS)
G1 (He won the roll, played, mulled to 6)
Just got there with undying zombies. He had an active DRS that prolonged the game by 4 turns, eating an icky, two shadows, and a prized amalgam. He hit me twice with an unflipped delver, and I cycled two wraiths. Two Ickies, two Prized Amalgams, two Narcos, and one N Shadow made it go. A few were eaten in the process.
Finished 14-0
G2 (Me on play, no sb changes)
He fetched twice, but had a t2 cage, and that’s that.
Finished scoop-18
G3 (Me on draw, him mull to 5, sided in LEDs and Lootings, sided out combo pieces and a phanta)
He surgicaled an Imp, but I had thugs to dredge with still. Returned a shadow and ghast, had a bridge that netted me a zombie. (This is the only game Bridges netted me a dude.) After dumping hand with a Phanta was drawing, and got an LED that paired with an already flipped Looting. Had 5 damage on board, opponent at 6, so just went hog wild to amass a bunch more dudes for overkill on my next turn, he scooped. I finished at 18 from a cycled wraith.
Finished 18-scoop

Rd 2 Louis F. – D&T
G1 (He won the roll, played)
He landed an early Thalia, attacked me with it. I returned an icky which was promptly Stp’d. I attacked with a narco and Prized. There was some stalling and me attacking into him just to kill his blockers. I played a Salvage to get around Thalia, and was able to DR a Flayer, which killed a Phyrexian Revoker on Phanta. Dumped three Prized into yard, they returned and shot opponent for 9. Based on other critters in yard he scooped. Also won through an active Jitte.
Finished 19-scoop
G2 (Me on play, he mulled to ?, no sb changes)
T2 RIP, :(
Finished scoop-20
G3 (Him on play, he mulled to 5 I think)
He kept a loose hand with a RIP, but no white sources. My hand was LED, F Loot, Therapy, Amalgam, Troll, Imp, Thug. So I was dead to first turn cage, but he was on RIP. Unsure on turns, but I do my stuff (loving the LED addition) and blind name RIP (not difficult) and get it, maybe my second or third turn. See he has a mom, two waste and a mirran crusader as well. He had already played a P. revoker. Ultimately it ends in a swarm win, narco, shadows, amalgams.
Finished 18-scoop

Rd 3 Bernard L. – High Tide
G1 (I won the roll, thankfully, cause while shuffling I flipped a Salvage, so he played, fat fingers)
Cast a Probe that was countered, got there with slow nice beats, about 4 turns. Shadows, returning amalgams, add an icky, the beats are real.
Finished 18-scoop
G2 (Me on play, sided out Pharaohs and a Bridge for Traps)
He combo’ed out on turn 4. Funny thing, I had a trap in hand and used it, countered. Then on his critical turn he Time Spiral’ed twice, and each spin I drew another Trap, which was in turn countered each time.
Finished 18-19 (decked)
[At this point, I make the comment it’s ironic our decks are playing against each other, both just masturbatory games where one doesn’t really interact with the other to achieve victory]
G3 (Him on play)
I tried to punt this game hard. I drew and discarded a troll. Then after he said island go, I drew a Narco. Because I am bad at magic. Luckily I had two probes in hand, and was able to use them both and just filled the yard, saw he had an intuition, b-storm, preordain. On the following turn I was able to fire the therapies I’d flipped, he b-stormed in response. I wanted that Intuition, but figured he’d hide it, so blind called merchant scroll and hit it. He had a Force, Ponder, and the Intuition left in hand, fired a second therapy for the Intuition. On my 4th turn I had gotten him down to 5 after attacks (icky*2, shadow, prize), he had a TITI as a blocker. I went for broke and sac’ed dudes for a DR on Iona, which is overkill, but not cause combo. He b-stormed, and whiffed, probably could’ve FoW&pitch countered, but would be dead on board next turn with a still unflipped TITI. Whew, the coverage on that punt was excellent.
Finished 16-scoop

Rd 4 Chris R. - ?
ID
We played a game of Modern, we were both on reactionary snappy decks, and I got rolled. He was more Grixis, me Izzet. I did get to Squelch him searching for a land, and Remand’ed several Ancestral Vision. So while I lost, I kind of won.

Rd 5 Roy Smith – UR Delver
ID
We played it out for funsies, but didn’t take notes.
I know I won game 1 pretty easy, Vengeful Pharaoh did work.
He sided in Surgicals, I sided in LEDs and Lootings, cause it took me till the 5th and last round to realize these should always go in the deck for G2 because a smart player will always put us on the play. Took a little bit. The second card flipped was an Iona, that just gets covered and passed over. Lo and behold, the game progresses, I Therapy him, naming daze as he was tapped out, and seeing a clear path DR Iona, and that’s that. Pharaoh did work again, and he was kinda miffed at the lack of Bridges in the yard, not wanting to trade his creatures on blocks with no bridges. I did flip a bridge, and he was much more willing to trade, still got a zombie out of it.

Get to top 8 cut, in 2nd. We hem and haw while the judge is on a “bathroom break” and the non-bye folks are happy to split the cash. It’s a rough deal for 2nd place, but can’t have your cake and eat it too. This is my second top 8 in a tourney, and it feels pretty great.

Stayed in the shop for a second to play an EDH game (Grimgrin). Softened people up hardcore with a Shepard of Rot, but, that was killing me too. Lost to the guy with a Purphoros, God of the Forge.

Went to go see X-Men: Apocalypse afterward, and it was ok. Got $75 in store credit, finished off some pain lands, got two more Ashen Ghoul, and a Restless Dead for EDH.

A good day indeed.

[ahg113]

I never felt the need for the claims or paradise. Would Riftstone Portal and Ray of Revelation make more sense? Tweaking for tweakings sake, I might go back to Contagion or Sickening Shoal. Revoker, Thalia, and DRS were the easiest things to hate on. Didn't miss the extra 2 Bridges like I thought I would, nor the 4th Therapy.

The deck is pretty awesome, definitely enjoy the added juice of Amalgam and Ghoul, and lack of gy hate since I'm guessing the banning of DTT.

Excellent work group for the added work on the deck.

[mistercakes]

I never felt the need for the claims or paradise. Would Riftstone Portal and Ray of Revelation make more sense? Tweaking for tweakings sake, I might go back to Contagion or Sickening Shoal. Revoker, Thalia, and DRS were the easiest things to hate on. Didn't miss the extra 2 Bridges like I thought I would, nor the 4th Therapy.

The deck is pretty awesome, definitely enjoy the added juice of Amalgam and Ghoul, and lack of gy hate since I'm guessing the banning of DTT.

Excellent work group for the added work on the deck.

undiscovered was in there for leyline of the void as a random out.

congrats on win. i think this deck is well positioned regardless of the build, although i am pretty partial to the LEDs out of the sb.

ive gone back and forth on the land version with ghoul and ghast or loading up on therapies and bridges.

still not sure what is better. depends on the amount of unfair combo.

[ahg113]

undiscovered was in there for leyline of the void as a random out.

congrats on win. i think this deck is well positioned regardless of the build, although i am pretty partial to the LEDs out of the sb.

ive gone back and forth on the land version with ghoul and ghast or loading up on therapies and bridges.

still not sure what is better. depends on the amount of unfair combo.

That makes more sense. I was thinking cage or RIP.

Honestly, I think the 3 Therapy, 2 Bridges makes a lot more sense than 4 & 4. The drop off of Salvage to S. Shell isn't that great, and it has the added benefit of getting around any tax effect. And I'm a fan of Ghoul, with the added beef of Amalgam, a haste beat stick that sticks around is pretty nice. When the D&T player tried to Port the Salvages, it was great to just float it and bring back a Ghoul with it. If there's a chance to cast Therapy from hand, it's just extra icing.

I think Horde Moar started as a joke, but I'm digging the extra bodies and grinding. The combo is there (props to Iona), but not necessary. I've ran out of steam with the team in times past, Ghoul and Amalgam really help turn the tide. 3 power that stays on the board, instead of self-sac. If the combo is better preferred, I reckon the Spy Version makes the most sense.

[mistercakes]

That makes more sense. I was thinking cage or RIP.

Honestly, I think the 3 Therapy, 2 Bridges makes a lot more sense than 4 & 4. The drop off of Salvage to S. Shell isn't that great, and it has the added benefit of getting around any tax effect. And I'm a fan of Ghoul, with the added beef of Amalgam, a haste beat stick that sticks around is pretty nice. When the D&T player tried to Port the Salvages, it was great to just float it and bring back a Ghoul with it. If there's a chance to cast Therapy from hand, it's just extra icing.

I think Horde Moar started as a joke, but I'm digging the extra bodies and grinding. The combo is there (props to Iona), but not necessary. I've ran out of steam with the team in times past, Ghoul and Amalgam really help turn the tide. 3 power that stays on the board, instead of self-sac. If the combo is better preferred, I reckon the Spy Version makes the most sense.

yea its possible to combat combo youll want to sb up to the 4th therapies at least. i know vieko has had a lot of success as well with the faerie macabres.

what was the 75 you ran? i cant seem to find it.

[ahg113]

I ran the last list you posted.

4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
2 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Nether Shadow
2 Ashen Ghoul
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ichorid
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Bridge From Below
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Dread Return
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Nature's Claim
2 Undiscovered Paradise

[mistercakes]

I ran the last list you posted.

4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
2 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Nether Shadow
2 Ashen Ghoul
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ichorid
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Bridge From Below
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Dread Return
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Mindbreak Trap
2 Nature's Claim
2 Undiscovered Paradise

oh yea. that was a fun one! also when you side in 4 faithless 4 led, make sure you also bring in the 2 undiscovered. randomly great with bloodghast too.

[ahg113]

oh yea. that was a fun one! also when you side in 4 faithless 4 led, make sure you also bring in the 2 undiscovered. randomly great with bloodghast too.

I had been running a blue RiverGhast list, so having Salvages over Shambling Shell wasn't a stretch. Add in the Prized Amalgams, and it was -1 Therapy, -1 DR, -2 Bridges, and swap two Ghast for Ashen Ghouls. Other change... +2 Vengeful Pharaohs, +1 Iona, -3 River Kelpie. Easy peasy, and thanks to the Amalgams for the added beef. Super impressed with that card.

[Echelon]

Horde mode at an actual paper tournament - I'm impressed!

[mistercakes]

I had been running a blue RiverGhast list, so having Salvages over Shambling Shell wasn't a stretch. Add in the Prized Amalgams, and it was -1 Therapy, -1 DR, -2 Bridges, and swap two Ghast for Ashen Ghouls. Other change... +2 Vengeful Pharaohs, +1 Iona, -3 River Kelpie. Easy peasy, and thanks to the Amalgams for the added beef. Super impressed with that card.

i wonder if it's better for the sb to keep it with river kelpie.

maybe try keeping the kelpies over the 2 pharaoh and iona. dunno. but i haven't tested yet. 3 kelpie + 4 amalgam + 4 probe + 4 narcomoeba is starting to be a very reasonable amount of blue cards.

[Echelon]

i wonder if it's better for the sb to keep it with river kelpie.

maybe try keeping the kelpies over the 2 pharaoh and iona. dunno. but i haven't tested yet. 3 kelpie + 4 amalgam + 4 probe + 4 narcomoeba is starting to be a very reasonable amount of blue cards.

That's a loooooooot of triggers to keep track of. It's one of the biggest reasons why I stopped playing Kelpie - it's friggin' exhausting (and this was before Prized Amalgam existed).

[ahg113]

i wonder if it's better for the sb to keep it with river kelpie.

maybe try keeping the kelpies over the 2 pharaoh and iona. dunno. but i haven't tested yet. 3 kelpie + 4 amalgam + 4 probe + 4 narcomoeba is starting to be a very reasonable amount of blue cards.

M'eh. Counterspells are awkward, I'd rather keep the LED + Looting SB, and splitting them leaves 4 FoWs, and either 3 MB Traps or D. Shoals. I'm not in love with the lands and N. Claims, but that makes more sense than a half idea of counterspells.

The pharaoh's do work. It seems a lot of decks win through combat damage. Pharaoh is seldom dead. And Iona can just end a game. Kelpie is good, but the triggers are problematic, because they have to be taken, but it's not "automatic" enough to land and get there 100%, unlike Spy or Grizz.

[vieko]

i wonder if it's better for the sb to keep it with river kelpie.

maybe try keeping the kelpies over the 2 pharaoh and iona. dunno. but i haven't tested yet. 3 kelpie + 4 amalgam + 4 probe + 4 narcomoeba is starting to be a very reasonable amount of blue cards.

I would run Whirpool Riders instead of Kelpies. They will get you a similar result, keep that blue count high and work great with Shoals (Scooze, RiP, Teeg, Thalia, etc).

[ahg113]

I would run Whirpool Riders instead of Kelpies. They will get you a similar result, keep that blue count high and work great with Shoals (Scooze, RiP, Teeg, Thalia, etc).

Ditto. Kelpies weren't as explosive, but offered a lot more long term bang, and a body that was useful. But for flipping, and on the counterspell plan, Whirlpool Riders make more sense, especially with Shoals.

[Echelon]

Or, if you don't have Shoals in your SB - Whirlpool Drake. Triggers twice instead of just once. Also provides some extra value when facing Stifle.

I'm probably attending a monthly at the LGS for the first time in months this saturday and I just can't decide if I want to take Nic Fit or Manaless for a spin. Both have new toys that I want take for a fieldrun and shine in various MUs. If I'm taking Manaless, it'll probably be the Balustrade Spy with Prized Amalgams list. I like threatening with the combo finish and Spy is the most efficient way to do just that.

[ahg113]

Or, if you don't have Shoals in your SB - Whirlpool Drake. Triggers twice instead of just once. Also provides some extra value when facing Stifle.

I'm probably attending a monthly at the LGS for the first time in months this saturday and I just can't decide if I want to take Nic Fit or Manaless for a spin. Both have new toys that I want take for a fieldrun and shine in various MUs. If I'm taking Manaless, it'll probably be the Balustrade Spy with Prized Amalgams list. I like threatening with the combo finish and Spy is the most efficient way to do just that.

Happy Hunting either way. Manaless seems to be in a good spot. The GY hate seems to be at a serious low. If a player isn't on Miracles or D&T, I doubt they're packing anything worthwhile that can't be played around, or raced. I agree on the assessment of Spy for combo though. Horde Mode seems to be best at grinding, and Spy for combo.

[Echelon]

Happy Hunting either way. Manaless seems to be in a good spot. The GY hate seems to be at a serious low. If a player isn't on Miracles or D&T, I doubt they're packing anything worthwhile that can't be played around, or raced. I agree on the assessment of Spy for combo though. Horde Mode seems to be best at grinding, and Spy for combo.

It isn't that other versions combo off slower or anything, but it just takes so much time to execute. Kelpie is just a giant clusterfuck of triggers (especially now we have Prized Amalgam) and I've been in a position where I had to DR 2 Whirlpool Drakes to complete the combo. Working through all those dredges and triggers took near forever (or at least long enough to rightfully annoy/bore my opponent to death) to do. Going DR Spy?, Spy trigger?, flip library, Progenitus replacement effect & Narcomoeba triggers? and iterate over the Prized Amalgam triggers is just so much quicker.

[ahg113]

It isn't that other versions combo off slower or anything, but it just takes so much time to execute. Kelpie is just a giant clusterfuck of triggers (especially now we have Prized Amalgam) and I've been in a position where I had to DR 2 Whirlpool Drakes to complete the combo. Working through all those dredges and triggers took near forever (or at least long enough to rightfully annoy/bore my opponent to death) to do. Going DR Spy?, Spy trigger?, flip library, Progenitus replacement effect & Narcomoeba triggers? and iterate over the Prized Amalgam triggers is just so much quicker.

I think we agree? It's not like Spy can't grind, and they're not different decks. But one obviously looks to combo win like whoa, and the other can combo win. Potato, Potato.

[Echelon]

Yeah, we agree :smile:

[dte]

I do disagree.
To my opinion spy is far less good than the other targets.

If you run counterspells, of course there is no questions that spy is bad (at least way worse than the blue ones, especially rider), but I think that spy is less good without too:
- Vial and thalia make spy lose the game right now, while the others make it an immediate win (fringe but exists).
- Same argument with surgical extraction, a card which sees a lot of play against us.
- SDT/Terminus. Also relevant in G1.
- Most of you agree with the aforementioned as they run a progenitus in the 75, aka one of the worst possible cards in the deck: you often dredge half your deck, losing 1 or 2 cards in grave with no upside is relevant. Not to speak about the wasted slot.
- the durdling factor is for the manaless player: G1 is usually ours, winning 1-0 is a thing. If an opponent does not concede, you an not to kill him if you know he does not have really relevant things to do. If G2 or 3 starts while there is only 5-10 min it is good, we win in few turns, not all the decks do that. Decks in the draw bracket are good too.

I really wonder what kind of advantage the spy can have?

[Echelon]

I do disagree.
To my opinion spy is far less good than the other targets.

If you run counterspells, of course there is no questions that spy is bad (at least way worse than the blue ones, especially rider), but I think that spy is less good without too:
- Vial and thalia make spy lose the game right now, while the others make it an immediate win (fringe but exists).
- Same argument with surgical extraction, a card which sees a lot of play against us.
- SDT/Terminus. Also relevant in G1.
- Most of you agree with the aforementioned as they run a progenitus in the 75, aka one of the worst possible cards in the deck: you often dredge half your deck, losing 1 or 2 cards in grave with no upside is relevant. Not to speak about the wasted slot.
- the durdling factor is for the manaless player: G1 is usually ours, winning 1-0 is a thing. If an opponent does not concede, you an not to kill him if you know he does not have really relevant things to do. If G2 or 3 starts while there is only 5-10 min it is good, we win in few turns, not all the decks do that. Decks in the draw bracket are good too.

I really wonder what kind of advantage the spy can have?

Vial & Thalia (or any other way of messing with the rest of the combo) -> Solved by Progenitus. Flip your library, the following turn attack for up to 34 (12 from Amalgams, 12 from Ichorids, 4 from Nether Shadows, 4 from Narcomoebas, 2 from Spy). Seems legit. Discard Progenitus a couple of times more to continue the onslaught (and perhaps build some extra zombie tokens in the process). Progenitus just means you can spend all 4 of your DRs on just Balustrade Spy while still being able to close the game. Progenitus isn't a bad card, it's an extra win-con. Even SDT/Terminus is nothing more than a speedbump. They'll need Terminus for 2/3 turns straight before you're in any danger.

Concerning the durdling - I happen to like playing Magic. If I want to sit there not playing the game, I should just not show up.

[dte]

Vial & Thalia (or any other way of messing with the rest of the combo) -> Solved by Progenitus.

Well, it's what I said: Spy has such strong drawbacks that it forces you to play progenitus, a terrible card.


Progenitus isn't a bad card, it's an extra win-con.

You'll have to explain what a win condition is. You can neither cast or reanimate it, neither use it as icho fodder. it's sole point at being in the deck is not to die because spy mills your whole library instead of a chosen number of cards, I cannot see how this fit in any definition of "win condition".

Proge is one of the worst possible cards, being a blank both in hand and in grave (even slightly worse than that).

[Echelon]

Well, it's what I said: Spy has such strong drawbacks that it forces you to play progenitus, a terrible card.

You'll have to explain what a win condition is. You can neither cast or reanimate it, neither use it as icho fodder. it's sole point at being in the deck is not to die because spy mills your whole library instead of a chosen number of cards, I cannot see how this fit in any definition of "win condition".

Proge is one of the worst possible cards, being a blank both in hand and in grave (even slightly worse than that).

It allows you to (hypothetically) run Spy as only combo piece. You win by just smashing face, which you can do b/c Progenitus allows you to live for a couple more turns.

You might find that a bad thing, for me it mostly just tickles my funny bone.

[vieko]

It allows you to (hypothetically) run Spy as only combo piece. You win by just smashing face, which you can do b/c Progenitus allows you to live for a couple more turns. You might find that a bad thing, for me it mostly just tickles my funny bone.

I don't think you NEED to run Progenitus alongside Balustrade Spy but I like it for the following reasons:

As Echelon points out, it gives you an extra turn (and a standing army) if things go belly up
Counts towards blue for games where you bring in Forces
Painter Servant is just funny
I could say something about S&T but I haven't had this happen to me yet


I went 5-0 last night with the list below beating Shardless, Nahiri Miracles, Miracles (Lossett), Eldrazi and Miracles along the way:

MANALESS COMBO 2.1 GRIS

16 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

15 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

10 UTILITY
4 Bridge from Below
4 Street Wraith
2 Faerie Macabre

8 PEEK / DISRUPT
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy

8 GRAVY
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Dread Return

4 TARGET
1 Griselbrand
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

SIDEBOARD
4 Force of Will
2 Disrupting Shoal
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Progenitus
3 Nature's Claim
3 Elvish Spirit Guide

My favourite build so far, I've been collaborating with @mistercakes for the past little while on several iterations of Dredge and think we are making some SOLID progress :) Few notes on the list above:

2-3 Faeries mainboard give you a fighting chance vs. Reanimator, will mess your fellow dredge players... can be sided out without messing the rest of the deck.
All targets in mainboard will win you the game, on the spot or the next turn: Rider is a controlled Spy, Gris is a lifelinking Rider, Flayer is awesome and now that Amalgam is a thing, he's even better.
Force / Shoal are the best answer to hate IMO. You just need to play TONS of post-board games to get a feeling of how many and when to bring them in.
Mulligans are OK... don't be afraid to give them a turn, they need all the help they can get.
Claims + Guides are for Leylines... that's it. Guide enables Neather Shadow and can be used on the spot (Dryad needs a turn and messes with the Spy plan).

[Sovelis]

It's been a long time since I've posted. It looks like I will be able to attend GP Columbus and I can't think of anything else I'd rather play. Time to dig out manaless again.

Prized Amalgam is so good! I've been on the blue build for a while so it's just a perfect fit.

My list is very similar to vieko and mistercakes from the post above. Good to see great we're on the same page.

16 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

15 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

10 UTILITY
4 Bridge from Below
4 Street Wraith
2 Force of Will

8 PEEK / DISRUPT
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy

8 GRAVY
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Dread Return

4 TARGET
3 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

SIDEBOARD
2 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Contagion/Sickening Shoal (unsure of what the split should be if any)
2 Vengeful Pharaoh

Main differences are:
-all the deck dump targets be Whirlpool riders for the increased number of Shoal in the SB
-2 maindeck FoW as a hedge against other fast combo decks. I do like the thought of main deck Faerie Macabre and will have to try those
-Dead to Leyline. No way of removing it. It doesn't see that much play. You cant have the answers to everything. Just hope to dodge it.
-Contagion and Pharaoh as ways of removing DRS and Containment.

My concerns are over-boarding for certain match ups. There are times when I want to bring in Shoals, FoW, and the creature removal but I know that can't be correct.

Any feedback is appreciated!

[mistercakes]

haven't tried maindeck Force of will. seems like a good idea. will test.

[Echelon]

I went 5-0 last night with the list below beating Shardless, Nahiri Miracles, Miracles (Lossett), Eldrazi and Miracles along the way:

You can't just go 5-0 and not post a report, mister!

[Echelon]

So... I had a wonderful run today. Took my own Spy-list out for a spin. Went 3-0-2 into top 8 at my LGS's Monthly.

Round 1, vs. Eldrazi (2-0)
Game 1 goes quite long. Didn't hit any Bridges or DRs until the bottom 20 cards of my library. My recurring army held his at bay while a couple of Narcomoebas were pecking away at his life total until I could combo out. First I CT to take away his Warping Wail, then go for the DR. G2 he T2 Faerie Macabres away my dredger. Fortunately I have another, kickstart the engine and combo out 2 turns later. Somewhere before that he kills one of my Bridges by Dismembering (or whatever it was) his own Endless One. Cool!

Round 2, vs. UR Delver (2-1)
Game 1 I just overwhelm him with beats. He falls quickly. G2 he Surgicals my first discard, which happened to be my only dredger. I don't draw another and die shortly after. G3 he mulligans to 6 or 5 while I have a great hand with Troll, Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probe. It does get kinda close so I choose to strip his hand and leave blockers for his lone attacker rather than also cycle my Street Wraith and trying to combo out that turn. Seeing as all he has in hand are 2 FoWs and he was no way to kill me, I play it safe and the following turn beat him to death.

Round 3, vs. Eldrazi (2-1)
It was this guys first Legacy tournament. He'd never played against Manaless, so in both G1 and G3 he played CotV on X = 0. That's fine by me. G1 I overwhelm him with creatures since a Thorn of Amethyst had shut down the combo route. G2 he starts with a T1 Relic of Progenitus and I can only discard 1 card/turn. I die quickly. G3 he taps out on T3 and I go for the combo (and succeed). Afterwards it turns out he boarded out his Thorns b/c he thought I wouldn't cast any spells. We talked a bit about how the deck worked so he won't be surprised the next time he faces it (or something similar).

Rounds 4 & 5 - ID

I play some casual rounds with my R5 opponent. He's on Sneak & Show. We end up 3-2 in my favor (started out 0-2, then turned it around to 3-2). This MU is intense. Either he combos off, or you do. On the final game he manages to land a Grafdigger's Cage. Luckily I still have 2 zombie tokens and they get me there.

Top 8 - Quarter Finals. Mono U Dream Halls S&T (1-2)
This was interesting. G1 he goes for S&T. I drop BALUSTRADE SPY, flip my library, do my triggers, have Progenitus as library and I just see him looking like "What the fuck is happening..?". Unfortunately he can complete his combo, so I die to a lot of released ants. G2 I get there before he does. Combo finish FTW. G3 I have an incredibly quick opener (Troll, Street Wraith & 2 Probes) but he goes off on his T3, just before I can. So close!

I had a lot of fun.

One nice trick I came across during the day: In a couple of games I had several Prized Amalgams in my hand. When I did my dredge for the turn I hit a Narcomoeba and a Phantasmagorian. With the Narcomoeba trigger on the stack, I discarded the Prized Amalgams to Phantasmagorian so they'd see the Narcomoeba enter the battlefield. This speeded up quite a few games.

My thoughts in general: I loved my list. Didn't board in even a single card the entire day. Speed kills too, especially vs. Eldrazi. For reference - my list was just dredgers, combo and gas. No stuff like MD Faerie Macabres or anything (I'm not saying that they're a bad choice, I'm just saying that I like to keep my deck as streamlined as possible). The Prized Amalgams do give this list an incredible boost. It's quicker and hits a lot harder. They also make it a lot easier to go for the combo. You just have so many creatures to sacrifice to multiple CTs before you go for DR, it's nuts. And b/c of that the Progenitus in my main 60 is needed more than ever. I was so happy that thing was in my deck. It just allows you to go all out and beat the everloving shit out of whatever you face. I wouldn't play this deck without it.

[benjiman13]

Echelon, can you share your list?

[Echelon]

Echelon, can you share your list?

I absolutely can! It's still the same as the last 2 times I posted it though. No spicy new tech from me. Here it is:

Maindeck (60)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam

3 Balustrady Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Progenitus

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below

Sideboard (15)
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Unmask
4 Contagion
3 Vengeful Pharaoh

It's as straight forward as can be. All business, no fancy stuff at all. As it stands, I wouldn't change a single card in the main 60. It runs like a dream. Smash a lot of face and go for the combo whenever you see (or can force) an opening. Doing so is a lot easier than it used to be (which is thanks to Amalgam and does not apply to just my list specifically, obviously. This holds true for all lists that run Prized Amalgam). My meta turned out to be very poorly equiped to deal with graveyards today and I managed to capitalize on that. That, and I think I got pretty lucky with my MUs for the first 3 rounds. It's nice to be the biggest boogeyman in the room. Having your deck price in at <10% of what the person at the other side of the table is piloting is a fun bonus (or at least it tickles my fancy).

Edit: Another funny thing I noticed was that people tend to keep Thought-Knot Seer home when you have enough blockers to kill it. People do not want to give you extra dredges, lol. In one of my games I was holding 3 of them at bay with a zombie token, and 2 Nether Shadows. Awesome!

[Michael Keller]

Went 6-3 with Blue Manaless (Amalgam) at Eternal Extravaganza 4. Details to follow.

[vieko]

Went 6-3 with Blue Manaless (Amalgam) at Eternal Extravaganza 4. Details to follow.

Nowhere near as exciting as Hollywood's news but, another 5-0 on MTGO with this list: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/432468#online :)

[Echelon]

It seems the deck is pretty well positioned at the moment. Cool!

@vieko: I have to ask - why the 2 MB Macabres?

Oh, and reports people!

[vieko]

It seems the deck is pretty well positioned at the moment. Cool!

@vieko: I have to ask - why the 2 MB Macabres?

Oh, and reports people!


Feeds Ichorids
Activates Nether Shadow
Single Faerie Macabre in opening hand vs. Reanimator / Tin Fins / Dredge / Storm is unexpected and can be devastating (detrimental at least) to them. I prefer to have this ability as opposed to additional dredge cards. Also: these are the first couple cards I'll cut to bring in the counter package game two (unless relevant).

[Echelon]

Feeds Ichorids
Activates Nether Shadow
Single Faerie Macabre in opening hand vs. Reanimator / Tin Fins / Dredge / Storm is unexpected and can be devastating (detrimental at least) to them. I prefer to have this ability as opposed to additional dredge cards. Also: these are the first couple cards I'll cut to bring in the counter package game two (unless relevant).


Points 1 & 2 - same goes for the Shambling Shells that normally take their place. That just leaves point 3. You sure they're worth it G1? 2 out of 60 cards for very specific MUs that don't win you the game on the spot seem like very little value.

[vieko]

Points 1 & 2 - same goes for the Shambling Shells that normally take their place. That just leaves point 3. You sure they're worth it G1? 2 out of 60 cards for very specific MUs that don't win you the game on the spot seem like very little value.

I see your point :) Expanding on P3: the 2 Shells / 2 Faeries are my flex slots. I switch these around based on how the deck "feels" in the current meta. Right now, it makes sense (to me) to have some sort of G1 out to the decks I noted before. These cards seem to do the trick. I've tried:


Surgical Extraction: up to 4 – fantastic when you get a 7 with Probe / Therapy / Surgical
Vengeful Pharaoh: kinda ruins the Bridges but hey, they bought me turns.
Noxious Revival: up to 4 – so, so... they do fix having Narcos in opening hand as you will put them back up on top for next dredge, can also help mess opponent.
Force of Will: up to 4 – this is probably the one that makes the most sense but I prefer the surprise post board and additional dredgers MB.


Anyways, my point I suppose: right now, I feel more comfortable running Faeries MB than additional dredgers or anything else.

EDIT: you could make the argument for additional Return targets in place of the Faeries: Extra Flayer + Extra Spy (speed), Iona + Elesh (utility), etc.

[Michael Keller]

I used to always play two Macabres main as a hedge to stop Loam strategies from recurring Chasm and Bog (Wasting themselves), in addition to the porous Reanimator match-up (which isn't nearly as bad anymore with Amalgam and Pharaoh against Elesh Norn). It also helps break Relic lock, as well. I didn't play with Faeries this weekend, but I certainly had three in my board. Here's the list I ran, for reference:

//Main
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Prized Amalgam

2 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
3 Gitaxian Probe
3 Force of Will

4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below

//Sideboard
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Contagion
3 Disrupting Shoal
2 Ashen Rider
1 Force of Will

Match-ups:

R1: W vs. Miracles [2-0]
• Multiple Terminus and Swords could not stop the creature assault, and draw step or main phase Terminus could not handle EOT Amalgams. Surgical came in, and was countered by Street Wraith and Force of Will.

R2: W vs. Shardless BUG [2-0]
• A blistering start pinned him down early, as a mulligan strategy on his part was done to find a Deathrite Shaman - which was countered in Game 2.

R3: L vs. Aluren [Feature] [0-2]
• I had a mediocre hand game one, but he did nothing for three turns but play lands. I was a Therapy away from sealing the game. The second game saw him starting on a Deathrite Shaman, and I had no way to stop it from doing its thing over the course of five turns.

R4: W vs. Burn [2-0]
• Buried my opponent under a mountain of zombies, followed by a Chancellor hitting play. Game two I had a Force at the ready, but he played nothing but a Lava Spike the whole game.

R5: W vs. Grixis [2-0]
• Scared my opponent into mulling to find Deathrite in game one, but that wouldn't matter with multiple Street Wraith and Force on the first draw. Second game was slightly more competitive, but he was destroyed by a mountain of zombies after ripping his hand apart.

R6: L vs. Sneak and Show [1-2]
• I named "Force" blindly game one after he mulled to five and dropped two Islands. He drops in Emrakul and I try to close it out, but can't hit the Dread Return to finish the game. I destroy him game two after another mulligan, and wipe out his hand. Game three my opponent goes all-in on a turn-two Show. I have two Street Wraiths in hand, with a Probe. If he drops Griselbrand, I might be okay. I tank and let it resolve. He drops Omniscience into Griselbrand, and I drop Stinkweed Imp. I concede after he finds an Emrakul after drawing seven, and I casually look at the top two cards of my deck (which the Street Wraiths would have drawn) and they are Chancellor of the Annex and Ashen Rider. Needless to say, there was no reason what so ever I should have passed on cycling, because I could find any answer like a Force, Shoal (pitching Amalgam), Ashen Rider or Chancellor to shut down his play off Omniscience. I beat myself here.

R7: W vs. Lands [2-1]
• Dave Long and I go the distance in three grueling games. Leyline of Sanctity shines game three against Bog, and on turn four of turns with a crowd watching and a crazy amount of gas in play, I dredge into Ashen Rider. I bring him back and knock off Glacial Chasm - but not before he copies it with Stage. Outside of his next turn, he knows he's in trouble with the potential for a dredged Therapy or another Dread Return off the top to trigger Rider, so Dave graciously concedes knowing that a dredge-six off a Troll would theoretically be lethal. After the concession, the top six are flipped and sure enough the lethal sacrifice outlets are there to enable Rider shenanigans.

R8: L vs. Lands [0-2]
• I'm spent after the previous round going the distance in a sweat-box, and have to pick up my cards and trolley over to my table almost immediately. Game one he somehow has Wasteland, Bog and Loam with Exploration. I lose that game, unsurprisingly. Game two I not only don't hit business, but with my opponent mulling into oblivion I don't see a single dredger twenty (!) cards into the match. He can't find a red source to cast his spells, and is forced to just play draw-go for eternity. I have a triple-Street Wraith opener with Force backup, so any dredger - in theory - would have enabled some apocalyptic beats.

R9: W vs. ANT [2-1]
• PirateKing from The Source and I do battle. Game one I manage to hit a Force to counter his shenanigans, and I have a lot of gas on the table. Game two he shreds my hand with discard, and while I open with multiple counters he just keeps hitting the key discard spell before I can pitch a dredger. He gets there. Game three I have Shoal and Force, and after making me discard key cards he draws blanks and I go to town. I dread Return a lethal Troll with Zombies in play, stripping his hand a part with nothing but three mana sources in play and an empty hand. He chains cantrips, depleting his resources in the process. He succumbs the following turn.

Overall, the deck was incredibly solid and performed extremely well. Amalgam was broken. In every sense of the word. Force was all-star, and my bone-headed non-cycling play in round six, game three cost me a (virtual win). The deck generated a lot of interest by spectators and opponents alike. I shredded Miracles and Delver all day, and didn't see a single Cage, Rest in Peace or Leyline. The counters were there and I drew them all day in case, so they were incidentally good to backup the dredge plan. I mulliganed a few times against slower match-ups, and pulled some good six-card hands. As far as fourteen dredgers go, I can see the desire to push to fifteen (as I've played that number for years, obviously), but I never really had too many glaring issues with fourteen. Most of my mulligans weren't because of non-dredging hands; they were predicated on finding speed or protection in Leyline. The Chancellors were good and forced opponents to rethink their turn-one plays. In the end I won $100 in credit for a 6-3 finish.

All in all, a very successful day.

[P-E]

Glad you're back to your old love Mr Keller
congrats for the finish
for what i know it's lands that won EE4 right ?

[Michael Keller]

I don't recall off-hand, but Lands may have won if I remember correctly...

[PirateKing]

So in hindsight, our game 1 was piloted pretty poorly by me. Though it's totally fine, I mean, having my first really egregious misplay on round 9 is a pretty good record for me.
I had perfect information on 2 Cabal Therapies, knew you had the Force and let you keep it, all the while building a hand that knowingly lost to a single counter.
I can't figure out what I was thinking, beyond maybe getting lost in some attempt to keep you from winning without realizing I could have just won instead.
Curious to know, I took some cantrip with the first Therapy, had I taken Force with the second, what were your outs when I showed my hand?
Thanks and congrats on the finish!

[Michael Keller]

So in hindsight, our game 1 was piloted pretty poorly by me. Though it's totally fine, I mean, having my first really egregious misplay on round 9 is a pretty good record for me.
I had perfect information on 2 Cabal Therapies, knew you had the Force and let you keep it, all the while building a hand that knowingly lost to a single counter.
I can't figure out what I was thinking, beyond maybe getting lost in some attempt to keep you from winning without realizing I could have just won instead.
Curious to know, I took some cantrip with the first Therapy, had I taken Force with the second, what were your outs when I showed my hand?
Thanks and congrats on the finish!

Great match, Matt - very well played.

I definitely had outs at that point. I believe I had a Narcomoeba in my hand, so I could have theoretically drawn into another Force, a Disrupting Shoal or a Street Wraith into either since (if I remember correctly) you had an Infernal Tutor on the stack to fetch up Past in Flames. So any other counter would have been relevant. Actually, now that I think about it a Faerie Macabre (which I brought in as a hedge against Past in Flames or Cabal Ritual acceleration) would have also theoretically done something, as the graveyard at that point was acceleration spells, discard in Therapy and a single Infernal Tutor. There also may have been a cantrip in there, but I can't remember.

[slave]

(Blue Manaless) was incredibly solid and performed extremely well. Amalgam was broken. In every sense of the word. Force was all-star. I shredded Miracles and Delver all day....

Talk of Blue Manaless over on the LED-dredge page had me wanting to take this list last night, happy I did!

My list;
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Golgari Thug
4x Stinkweed Imp
2x Shambling Shell

4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
3x Nether Shadow
4x Prized Amalgam

4x Phantasmagorian
4x Street Wraith
2x Whirlpool Rider
1x Flayer of the Hatebound

4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dread Return
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Force of Will
4x Bridge from Below

SIDEBOARD
4x Contagion
2x Disrupting Shoal
2x Unmask
3x Faerie Macabre
4x Mindbreak Trap

Went 4-1! :laugh:
Miracles 2-0, Combo-Elves 2-1, 2nd Miracles deck 2-1 & WR Goblins 2-1.
Got crushed by BUG 2-0, landing multiple DRS in both games to keep me from doing anything meaningful.
Hated only 4 times if you exclude DRS.
They successfully landed Surg. Extraction (BUG) once, RiP twice (Miracles & Goblins).
I "Forced" RiP once (Miracles), and Sc-Ooze (BUG) once.

I feel my list is compromised, still unsure on a few numbers, but a few like Flayer I just can't live without.
I wanted to max out of Force maindeck, as we have a few regular Death & Taxes players who play with RiP/Helm in the main.
Overall pretty happy. Force was amazing, Prized Amalgam was so strong against control I didn't miss the 4th Shadow.
Goblins was hilarious for how many creatures ended up on the board, after he whacked me with T1 Lackey in every game, but this matchup highlighted Amalgam for me, in that a matchup where Bridges don't usually last very long, PA got the job done.

[cartoonist]

Can't wait to start with this deck. I already had a few pieces, but finishing the mainboard cost me less than $70. Thinking of trying an Elesh Norn as an extra finisher.

[Echelon]

@slave: Congrats!

@cartoonist: If you're strapped for cash don't bother with getting an Elesh Norn. Just get any 10 cent library flipper. Whether it's Elesh Norn or the 10 cent library flipper, resolving Dread Return means you win the game. Going for the combo even wins the game on the spot rather than over a few turns.

Why bother with Elesh Norn/whatever when you can just kill your opponent then and there..?

[cartoonist]

@cartoonist: If you're strapped for cash don't bother with getting an Elesh Norn. Just get any 10 cent library flipper. Whether it's Elesh Norn or the 10 cent library flipper, resolving Dread Return means you win the game. Going for the combo even wins the game on the spot rather than over a few turns.

Why bother with Elesh Norn/whatever when you can just kill your opponent then and there..?

Already have the Elesh. The last combo deck I played was Booberries (Was that the right name? Shuko-Cephalid combo.) I guess it just bored me after awhile. I've never been a big combo guy. Couldn't hurt here, though...

[slave]

...Thinking of trying an Elesh Norn as an extra finisher.
I'm not sure it's needed, but feel free to test it out and see how you roll with it. (Elesh always felt like win-more to me in any form of Dredge)

Personally, when it comes to targets for Dread Return;
I want a single alt-win like Flayer of the Hatebound and 2 to 3 combo library-flippers (think Griselbrand, Balustrade Spy, River Kelpie, Whirlpool Drake/Rider etc.) in the main.
In the side I would consider answers. For these, I simply can't go past Ashen Rider to deal with trouble perms and Show and Tell, and Iona, Shield of Emeria to turn off combo/control decks.
There's plenty of other cards to consider, like Terastodon and Blazing Archon which I've run before.

[Darklingske]

Took manaless dredge to a small tourney last Saturday. I went 2-3.

List I used was identical to Hollywoods.

R1 1-2 against Shardless BUG. G1 fast beatings from me. G2 is a Shardless Agent into Grafdiggers cage GG. G3 gives me a slow hand and my first dredge for 6 give me no other dredgers. He lands T2 double DRS and I'm never able to keep a dredger in the grave.
R2 2-0 against Esper Deathblade. G1 fast beats from me. In G2 is my opponent colorscrewed for 4 turns with the RiP at hand. Lucky me I guess...
R3 2-0 against 12-post. Fast and easy games with a Flayer combo-kill.
R4 1-2 against Miracles. G1 the game goes as it's supposed to go with a fast kill. G2 & 3 both give me a slow dredge-hand and I'm never able to get a creature in play. He sees his one of Surgical G2 T3 to remove my dredger and then goes SCM into flashback Surgical for Ichorid. I draw for a few turns, but never see another dredger. G3 he resolves a T3 Containment Priest (also a one of...) and extracts my contagions. I had a Contagion in de GY due to my first (and only) dredge.
R5 0-2 against ANT. Both games he opens with Probe, Cabal Therapy and I'm way to slow to ever play a decent game. Guess I should've mulled to the leyline for these games...

I had lots of fun, but some bad dredges cost me at least 2 games. Variance is a b*tch :)

[Michael Keller]

Took manaless dredge to a small tourney last Saturday. I went 2-3.

List I used was identical to Hollywoods.

R1 1-2 against Shardless BUG. G1 fast beatings from me. G2 is a Shardless Agent into Grafdiggers cage GG. G3 gives me a slow hand and my first dredge for 6 give me no other dredgers. He lands T2 double DRS and I'm never able to keep a dredger in the grave.
R2 2-0 against Esper Deathblade. G1 fast beats from me. In G2 is my opponent colorscrewed for 4 turns with the RiP at hand. Lucky me I guess...
R3 2-0 against 12-post. Fast and easy games with a Flayer combo-kill.
R4 1-2 against Miracles. G1 the game goes as it's supposed to go with a fast kill. G2 & 3 both give me a slow dredge-hand and I'm never able to get a creature in play. He sees his one of Surgical G2 T3 to remove my dredger and then goes SCM into flashback Surgical for Ichorid. I draw for a few turns, but never see another dredger. G3 he resolves a T3 Containment Priest (also a one of...) and extracts my contagions. I had a Contagion in de GY due to my first (and only) dredge.
R5 0-2 against ANT. Both games he opens with Probe, Cabal Therapy and I'm way to slow to ever play a decent game. Guess I should've mulled to the leyline for these games...

I had lots of fun, but some bad dredges cost me at least 2 games. Variance is a b*tch :)

So, variance does catch up to us all. It happens. But don't forget: if your hand is slow and you know it doesn't get you anywhere (especially if an opponent mistakenly takes the play - which happens more than you think - and snap-keeps), you can absolutely mulligan that hand. It's not like the BUG player is going to win the game in two turns. Or the Miracles player. If your hand is slow and susceptible, give them a Time Walk - why not? Sure, it sets you back a turn. But you're giving yourself a chance to open with more explosiveness, counters, a Leyline, or drawing into a counter, Phantasmagorian or Street Wraith. I just think people have this preconceived notion that you can't mulligan with this deck, and that's totally wrong. It's obviously ill-advised if your hand is above-average against a faster deck, but against slower decks you can absolutely ship if you feel like you have to.

If you mulligan to six and find Force with a blue card, or something comparable to fight a game-ending spell, sure you've set yourself back a few turns. But isn't that better than losing the game? It's no different than playing the green version which would do the same. I mean, your opponent may have two or three hate cards out of their board. If they find one of those in their opening draw (Cage, to be exact), then Forcing that and setting yourself back is absolutely worth it. This is why I like the two Chancellors, because they give you a nice buffer to start the game, makes for a good Dread Return target, but also doesn't clutter your dredges or make for an awful top-deck as a pair only.

Also, an opponent who hits a Containment Priest and a Surgical Extraction - on turn three, no less - off a dredged Contagion does seem a bit fortunate. I suppose going with a single Vengeful Pharaoh would be cool, but again - to each their own. Shifting the deck around based on a small sample size is not what you want to do. Play the hell out of it, and see what you'd change.

[vieko]

So, variance does catch up to us all.

You beat me to it :) 100% agree with this statement.

[Darklingske]

Yeah, I know. Variance is a part of the game. I wasn't planning on changing a thing to the list MD. It felt really good and I will play it again. Maybe a few changes to the SB, but nothing really great.

[ChemicalBurns]

Hello everyone! After a long time not playing Manaless I've now jumped back on the train with Prized Amalgam's printing (I've been playing way too much D&T recently, and need to do some broken things). Had a lot of fun at my recent weekly Legacy going 3-1, and looking for a bit of help sideboarding, which I feel I'm struggling with.

The list:

Creatures: (41)
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Prized Amalgam
2 Whirlpool Rider
2 Shambling Shell
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

Non-Creature Spells: (19)
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Dread Return

Sideboard: (15)
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Contagion
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Unmask

M1 vs. 4c Loam
G1: My opponent had double Bob but only drew lands (a lot of Wastelands, hehe), though got some Staged Maze of Ith going. I eventually comboed out and killed him though. Notably, I screwed up and reanimated Whirlpool Rider with no Dredgers in yard, but luckily had a second DR to get Flayer > Therapy saccing Flayer into return a bunch of Amalgams for the kill. This tended to be how I killed a lot during the day, actually.

+4 Contagion
+3 Faerie Macabre
-4 Force of Will
-3 Nether Shadow

I tend to cut Shadow a lot... Is this correct? He tends to be the weakest of out of our guys when creature combat is involved, which is pretty central to these fair-ish matchups. Force seemed unnecessary since he either has Leyline (can't do much bout that) or hatebears like Containment Priest (which Contagion cleans up).

G2: Turn zero Leyline, not much to see here.

G3: He mulls deeply for Leyline but doesn't get there, though has a Thalia in hand. Luckily I go pretty bananas before he finds his white source and give him the Zombie beats.

M2 vs. Merfolk
G1: Just do my thing, combo out through his durdly TNN draw by Therapying Force and moving from there.

-4 Nether Shadow
-1 Dread Return
+4 Disrupting Shoal
+1 Unmask

I expect Cage and Relic, maybe, so I board in Shoals. I also fear countermagic on my DR so I cut one, not sure if correct, and this comes to bite me in the ass.


G2: T1 Cage, no counters, gg.

G3: An interesting game. I flip triple Narcomoeba early, but he has Vial. I go for DR on Rider, but he Vials in catcher, exiling Bridges and countering DR. Ouch. He casts another Cursecatcher which I Force but he Dazes back. I reach a point where I'm dead on board unless I hit another Dread Return, so I can jam the one in already my yard into his Catcher, and then DR Flayer > Therapy saccing Flayer > kill with Amalgams EoT. Which is impossible since I only have 2 DRs in my deck. -.-

I think Contagion would be a better call over the Shoals here.

M3 vs. Bomberman

G1: Do my thing, holding a Bridge in hand to pitch to Phantasmagorian since my opponent has EE in play for awhile. Eventually he taps out, I shred his hand and combo off.

He has Cavern and hatebears, so out come the Forces, in come the Contagions and Unmasks.

-4 Force of Will
-2 Nether Shadow
+4 Contagion
+2 Unmask

G2: My opponent has a great hand, with Priest and Canonist. But my hand is more absurd. I dump Dredgers into my yard with Phantasmagorian when he casts a Canonist, cycle Street Wraith twice, end up with four creatures in play on my second turn. I Contagion Canonist, Therapy seeing the coast is clear and combo from there - only needing two Dread Returns thanks to Flayer into EoT Amalgams killing my opponent.

M4 vs. Burn

G1: Race Vortex with Zombie beats while shredding his hand, my opponent only has an Eidolon to work with, which doesn't do much relevant. I could've Forced the Vortex but there was no need.

+4 Disrupting Shoal
+2 Unmask
-3 Dread Return
-2 Whirlpool Rider
-1 Flayer of the Hatebound

I boarded out all my combo package here, since I felt countermagic + Therapies (ie. turning into Zombie tempo deck) would be more effective than hoping to combo quickly, even though we can do it earlier than they can usually kill us. I know he has Cage and Crypt in SB tho, so the Shoals seemed necessary.

G2: I get an early triple Bridges with some Ichorids. My opponent tries to exile Bridges by killing a Swiftspear but Force of Will saves the day. I make twelve Zombies and overwhelm him.

Anyway, the deck felt like a blast, and despite the wrap it gets I was always figuring out new avenues to beat hate and assess what to do. The countermagic felt amazing all day, and I was never lacking a blue card to pitch. Amalgam was also amazing, especially when I machine-gun killed people with a Flayer in play.

Some thoughts:
- Since I killed with Flayer > Amalgam a lot, I almost feel like cutting the second Dread Return.
- I want to find a slot for a random catch-all like Ashen Rider, or even some other interesting reanimation targets, though this runs at ends with wanting to cut a DR.
- The sideboard was just the best things I could think of. Traps might be unnecessary, which frees up some slots. Chancellor of the Annex is something I want to try again.
- Sickening Shoal or Contagion? What are the pros and cons?
- I really struggle with sideboarding. I tend to cut Shadows or trim DRs, or cut Forces when they're unnecessary. But do we ever shave Shambling Shells? Or shave more creatures? A bit lost here.

Anyway, would love to hear some thoughts!

[Echelon]

Some points:

Don't board out Nether Shadows or other similar creatures. More recurring creatures means you can end the game more quickly, which is your biggest threat.

Contagion vs. Sickening Shoal: Think of what creatures you really want to kill with it. Probably just DRS & Containment Priest. Stick with Contagion. 9 out of 10 times it just does the job it's supposed to, the 10th time you can kill 2 creatures with it. Shoal'll never do that.

On cutting a 3rd Dread Return: That disables the combo kill, again one of the strongest points of the deck. You sure you want to do that..? If so, better skip on the dredge enablers and just add more Flayers.

[gRR!!]

Hey there folks,

These last weeks I've been following this thread and I see that almost all of you do prefer the "blue" version with FoWs and Whirlpool Riders over the Echelon's FoWless version. I'm thinking about playing Manaless again (I played it during some months last year and I had a lot of fun with it) and I like the Echelon version more than the FoW one. I suppose my question here is: Is the FoW version really superior to the Echelon one? Can you really count on winning by countering the Cage/RiP/Leyline/random hate piece our opponent will play?

I've purchased my playset of foil Priceless Amalgam (and the Vengeful Pharaohs should be on his way) and in a few weeks I'll start to play this deck in some random summer tournaments. I'll keep you posted!

[Echelon]

First off - thank you for naming it "the Echelon version", that made my day!

Counting on it is a big thing to say. It's more that the opportunity that you can do it exists, which also means the opportunity exists that your opponent doesn't have an answer for your FoW.

The blue Shoal is, in my idea, wishful thinking. To counter Grafdigger's Cage with it, you need both Shoal AND a Probe in your hand. Your odds of countering RiP with it are better though (albeit still not as high as you'd want them to be).

[gRR!!]

Thanks for your quick answer!

You confirm what I was thinking, especially about the Shoal. I'm not sure of wanting to play FoWs neither; if I was to do it, maybe I would try to squeeze them in the sideboard, not making any change in the maindeck. Anyway 4 Narcos+4 Probes+4 Amalgam +1 Progenitus (I LOVE the idea of maindeck Progenitus BTW) is probably a low blue card number to support FoWs. IDK, it seems to me that the FoW plan dillutes the deck. Or maybe is simply that I like the decks composed almost exclusively of 4-ofs, and the FoW plan offends my aesthetic sense :wink:

I would appreciate to read the point of view of some FoW Manaless player. Thanks!

[Echelon]

Thanks for your quick answer!

You confirm what I was thinking, especially about the Shoal. I'm not sure of wanting to play FoWs neither; if I was to do it, maybe I would try to squeeze them in the sideboard, not making any change in the maindeck. Anyway 4 Narcos+4 Probes+4 Amalgam +1 Progenitus (I LOVE the idea of maindeck Progenitus BTW) is probably a low blue card number to support FoWs. IDK, it seems to me that the FoW plan dillutes the deck. Or maybe is simply that I like the decks composed almost exclusively of 4-ofs, and the FoW plan offends my aesthetic sense :wink:

I would appreciate to read the point of view of some FoW Manaless player. Thanks!

I'm pretty biased so yeah, someone who has some experience with the FoW version should give their opinion.

The Progenitus in the main 60 is set in stone for me, it does so much work. Last weekend some guy asked me if I was waiting to see if I'd deck myself first or he'd be able to kill me first (he had a Cage out w/ 2 DRS, I just had a Narcomoeba that took him down to 7 singlehandedly, I might add). The look on his face when I told him that I'd end up discarding Progenitus to handsize every turn so there was no way in hell I possibly could deck myself was pretty funny. I still lost the game (obviously), but it still was pretty funny.

[gRR!!]

Waiting to play against that Painters guy in my local store. Too bad High Tide isn't a thing anymore :)

[Echelon]

Waiting to play against that Painters guy in my local store. Too bad High Tide isn't a thing anymore :)

I've had the pleasure to drop a Balustrade Spy from a Show and Tell.

Unfortunately my opponent was on Omniscience and managed to combo out that turn. When I was working through all my triggers he did have a "WTF is going on?" look on his face though, lol.

[gRR!!]

If you play against Omni-Tell, with Balustrade in hand you should be able to win even if they play Show -> Omni -> Emrakul (if you are over 15 life at least). Do you wanna to attack me with this thing in your extra turn? Be my guest, I'll annihilate 6 of my Amalgams/Narcomoebas. Bridge x 4 trigger, I'll put 24 Zombies into play, may I take my turn? :laugh: Too bad your opponent had taken the Cunning way!

[Echelon]

Yeah, he went Show -> Omni -> Enter the Infinite. Shit happens.

[Michael Keller]

4-0'ed the local with the list I used from EE4. Match-ups were as follows:

R1 vs. Reanimator (W: 2-0)
R2 vs. TES (Bryant Cook) (W: 2-1)
R3 vs. Punishing Jund (W: 2-1)
R4 vs. Grixis (W: 2-0)

The deck feels great and has been firing on all cylinders. The counter package has been amazing as usual - wouldn't change a thing at this point.

[vieko]

wouldn't change a thing at this point.

Agreed, it is very good right now.

[ChemicalBurns]

Some points:

Don't board out Nether Shadows or other similar creatures. More recurring creatures means you can end the game more quickly, which is your biggest threat.

Contagion vs. Sickening Shoal: Think of what creatures you really want to kill with it. Probably just DRS & Containment Priest. Stick with Contagion. 9 out of 10 times it just does the job it's supposed to, the 10th time you can kill 2 creatures with it. Shoal'll never do that.

On cutting a 3rd Dread Return: That disables the combo kill, again one of the strongest points of the deck. You sure you want to do that..? If so, better skip on the dredge enablers and just add more Flayers.

Would someone be enlighten me on what to cut then when sideboarding? Really struggling to find what to cut :( Especially when I'm boarding in the blue package, where I cannot cut Force of Wills. Is Shambling Shell the cut? Or cut more of the combo package and go full grind?

With Amalgam I tended to not need the final DR. In my experience DR Rider > DR Flayer (4 damage) > Therapy saccing Flayer (5 damage) and then let the Amalgams finish the job EoT tended to do the job most of the time. Of course, my experience is much more limited than everyone else, and if this is a sacred cow not to slaughter I'm more than happy to stop considering it.

Also, is there any pros cons people could outline about the flex slot creatures in the main? By this I mean:
- Chancellor of the Annex
- Faerie Macabre
- Griselbrand (I know its just another flip library creature, but why do I see it in MODO results over Rider and stuff when he does the job just as well while pitching to FoW? Is it coz' just a 7/7 Lifelinker is great?)
- Ashen Rider
- Vengeful Pharaoh

[Echelon]

Would someone be enlighten me on what to cut then when sideboarding? Really struggling to find what to cut :( Especially when I'm boarding in the blue package, where I cannot cut Force of Wills. Is Shambling Shell the cut? Or cut more of the combo package and go full grind?

With Amalgam I tended to not need the final DR. In my experience DR Rider > DR Flayer (4 damage) > Therapy saccing Flayer (5 damage) and then let the Amalgams finish the job EoT tended to do the job most of the time. Of course, my experience is much more limited than everyone else, and if this is a sacred cow not to slaughter I'm more than happy to stop considering it.

Also, is there any pros cons people could outline about the flex slot creatures in the main? By this I mean:
- Chancellor of the Annex
- Faerie Macabre
- Griselbrand (I know its just another flip library creature, but why do I see it in MODO results over Rider and stuff when he does the job just as well while pitching to FoW? Is it coz' just a 7/7 Lifelinker is great?)
- Ashen Rider
- Vengeful Pharaoh

I tend to board out Probes, and, depending on the MU, a DR target, a Phantasmagorian and some 1-offs.

Concerning the various cards, let's start with Chancellor. It just buys you a little time when you have it and is not a bad DR target.

Faerie Macabre - I don't like running it in the main. Vieko, you want to pitch in on this?

Griselbrand - Yes, it's that great. A lot of decks can't answer Griselbrand. Get it out & win, you don't even have to combo out.

Ashen Rider - seems like a SB card to me. Can blow up some crucial shit.

Vengeful Pharaoh - same here. People hate it enough to want to Surgical it, which is fine by me.

[vieko]

Faerie Macabre - I don't like running it in the main. Vieko, you want to pitch in on this?

I've taken a couple of pages off of Mr. Hollywood's playbook and adjusted my list: Faeries to SB and Chancellors to MB, Leylines for Storm, Crypt, Bog, Ashen for Sneak & Show (lots more of these in the MODO meta):

16 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

14 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Shambling Shell

8 UTILITY
4 Bridge from Below
4 Street Wraith

8 GRAVY
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Dread Return

8 PEEK / DISRUPT
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 TARGET
1 Griselbrand
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

2 COUNTER
2 Chancellor of the Annex


SIDEBOARD
4 Force of Will
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Contagion
2 Ashen Rider
1 Progenitus

[Michael Keller]

I've taken a couple of pages off of Mr. Hollywood's playbook and adjusted my list: Faeries to SB and Chancellors to MB, Leylines for Storm, Crypt, Bog, Ashen for Sneak & Show (lots more of these in the MODO meta):

16 RECUR
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

14 DREDGE
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Shambling Shell

8 UTILITY
4 Bridge from Below
4 Street Wraith

8 GRAVY
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Dread Return

8 PEEK / DISRUPT
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 TARGET
1 Griselbrand
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

2 COUNTER
2 Chancellor of the Annex


SIDEBOARD
4 Force of Will
3 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Contagion
2 Ashen Rider
1 Progenitus

Conspicuous by their absence, I would recommend keeping Disrupting Shoals in the sideboard. The goal of the blue version is to maximize counter-effectiveness against game-ending cards. To rely strictly on Force of Will is dangerous in that regard. I think Disrupting Shoal gives the deck a boost in other areas, as well. With Prized Amalgam, you can counter a Show and Tell. It also stops the obvious in Rest in Peace, and while it's unlikely you'd hit a Shoal and Probe to stop Cage, at minimum it gives you an additional out in that scenario in conjunction with Force of Will. This is the reason why I went with two Chancellors as opposed to another Dread Return target and third Shoal: to ensure I could discard safely and counter anything thereafter.

It's just too good to pass up, it really is.

[vieko]

It's just too good to pass up, it really is.

Fair enough! It is an excellent card and I typically run 2. I opted to take them out (for now) because I found myself boarding them less and less. I find our monster takes a rhythm against the meta, I just adjust the beat accordingly when needed :)

[WarpWorld]

Played this at scg Worcester to a 5-4 finish after starting 5-1. But that's legacy.

Creatures (44)
4 Street Wraith
4 Phantasmagorian

4 Prized Amalgam
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

3 Whirlpool Rider
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

Sorcery (12)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dread Return

Enchantment (4)
4 Bridge from Below

Sideboard (15)
4 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Faithless Looting

The thought was to be fearless and just concede to resolved hate and make them have the answer.

The LED's were cool for when they put you on the play. I did get to see it in 2 out the 3 games that I brought them in. I lived the dream once with both in my opener and the other with just LED and hut the looting in my first dredge. It made the deck quite expensive. I think that it is enough to have just LED in hand as you can dredge into looting. Did get to live the dream on the play and blow them out. Worse case they make mulligans less painful as you can just discard your hand to it to get going.

I might mess with the numbers going forward as I feel the deck has a lot of room for growth.

Will update with matchups and highlights later. If interested.

[Michael Keller]

Played this at scg Worcester to a 5-4 finish after starting 5-1. But that's legacy.

Creatures (44)
4 Street Wraith
4 Phantasmagorian

4 Prized Amalgam
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

3 Whirlpool Rider
1 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

Sorcery (12)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dread Return

Enchantment (4)
4 Bridge from Below

Sideboard (15)
4 Force of Will
3 Disrupting Shoal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Faithless Looting

The thought was to be fearless and just concede to resolved hate and make them have the answer.

The LED's were cool for when they put you on the play. I did get to see it in 2 out the 3 games that I brought them in. I lived the dream once with both in my opener and the other with just LED and hut the looting in my first dredge. It made the deck quite expensive. I think that it is enough to have just LED in hand as you can dredge into looting. Did get to live the dream on the play and blow them out. Worse case they make mulligans less painful as you can just discard your hand to it to get going.

I might mess with the numbers going forward as I feel the deck has a lot of room for growth.

Will update with matchups and highlights later. If interested.

While I understand the appeal, is it really worth going with the LED and Looting plan? Both of those cards are relatively dead after the first draw (unless you have something like Sun Titan to bring LED back, which is just bad when you can win the game outright), and having a Looting in your hand is contingent on having or drawing into an LED. I just think the LED plan clashes with the counter package out of the board; you really want to be doing one or the other and it creates unneeded complexities when trying to sideboard.

I get the counters are dead after the first draw too if you can't stop hate in time, but those cards keep you alive if you can draw into them to stop game-ending hate as opposed to LED which doesn't do anything to protect you.

[slave]

I suppose my question here is: Is the FoW version really superior to the Echelon one?
Can you really count on winning by countering the Cage/RiP/Leyline/random hate piece our opponent will play?
(I'm assuming we're talking about E's list with a combo Dread Return package & Vengeful P, if not please correct me)
In my experience with the Blue FOW version;
Maybe, they're actually very similar. I prefer the blue but I'm not sure one could be called better.
And Occasionally.

The thing is, most of the time your wins are simply coming from beating on your opponent and using therapy when you can. Both decks do this.
The Game2/3's where hate comes in, Force/Shoal is superior IMO, but only if you have one in hand with another blue (obviously), so the answer has to be a conditional one. I can't honestly say that the blue FOW version is strictly better, as you will draw a blank a lot of the time and the hate will stick, but I will say that it has won me games I had no right to win, like those times you're playing against a fast combo or storm deck.

[WarpWorld]

While I understand the appeal, is it really worth going with the LED and Looting plan? Both of those cards are relatively dead after the first draw (unless you have something like Sun Titan to bring LED back, which is just bad when you can win the game outright), and having a Looting in your hand is contingent on having or drawing into an LED. I just think the LED plan clashes with the counter package out of the board; you really want to be doing one or the other and it creates unneeded complexities when trying to sideboard.

I get the counters are dead after the first draw too if you can't stop hate in time, but those cards keep you alive if you can draw into them to stop game-ending hate as opposed to LED which doesn't do anything to protect you.

I get what you are saying and the LED plan is cute. I am by no means saying that it is good or great. I am not opposed to trying different and new things. I agree that you can't board in both the Blue cards and the LED's as you end up diluting your deck and that just leads to more losses. You have to choose whether you want to fight hate or race. It also depends on the hate and matchup. Also being able to actually have a turn 1 on the play can be big especially if they think it is a free time walk to put you on the play. I had a game where I passed with Narcomoeba and 2x Amalgams. I combo'd out the next turn before the hate. It doesn't always happen that way. Having led in hand can turn on a flipped lootings as well. They feel like gas in the deck. It is something I will be messing with but if I ran it again I would change up some slots. I don't think there is a best 75 for this deck and I like how it is positioned right now.

[gRR!!]

Hey Echelon, I'm still thinking about your decklist from the page 23 (the one with 4 Unmask side), and I have a doubt: If you have your Unmask in your first seven, do you cast it immediately? This can rip the hate off the hands of the opponent, but you'll end with a 5 cards hand, so you are triple-timewalking yourself. But on the other hand, if you wait until you have discarded your first dredger, the opponent will have time to play his hate and beat us, making useless the Unmask. Am I missing something?

EDIT to comment I've just read Chancellor of the Spires and I thought it was the best card possible for Manaless Dredge. Until I've realized that only the opponent puts the first seven in the graveyard :frown:

[Echelon]

Nope, you didn't miss a thing. Unmask is probably best vs. Storm - first discard a dredger, then attack your opponents' hand to buy time until you can Therapy their hand to shreds.

The last couple of tournaments I've tried to board as little as possible, as speed is the decks biggest weapon. You lose when they have the hate, but give them the smallest window possible to find it. I don't know if it's the best call, but I do find it worth trying. Especially for the Spy list.

[gRR!!]

Ah OK, I get it: you are not boarding in Unmask always to fight hate, but just to address complicated matchups as Storm. For the other matches you just try to race them. I like it :laugh:

[Echelon]

Unmask just seemed to be better when paired with Chancellor of the Annex. Get past T1 courtesy of Chancellor, discard your first dredger and then cast Unmask.

The Amalgam list seems more suited for pure speed - Amalgam does help you get the T2 combo kill a little bit more consistently (meaning in those cases your opponent has only 1 turn to find Cage/RiP before having to cast it).

[Final Fortune]

For what it's worth I don't think Force of Will really has an advantage over any other MD choice, I actually have a higher winrate vs combo with Unmask, so you can more or less play whatever you want in the MD. What I like about Amalgram is that you don't have to play Probe or Rider at all and can surprise them with FoW later, albeit you have to run something like Mindbreak Trap as well in the board.

[slave]

For what it's worth I don't think Force of Will really has an advantage over any other MD choice, I actually have a higher winrate vs combo with Unmask, so you can more or less play whatever you want in the MD. What I like about Amalgram is that you don't have to play Probe or Rider at all and can surprise them with FoW later, albeit you have to run something like Mindbreak Trap as well in the board.
RE: Force;
(In context) I tend to agree that Unmask is a great option in Manaless for combo. They usually only run Surgical Extraction IME.
But....
Brainstorm is everywhere. And getting Time Walked on T1, when it matters most against terminal hate, is poor.
This is the only reason I'm leaning toward Force, other than budget.

[gRR!!]

I would like to try this sideboard:

4 Force of Will
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Contagion
3 Vengeful Pharaoh

This is, the Echelon's side -4 Unmask +4 FoWs. My plan would be not sideboarding Game 2, and in case there would be a 3rd game, side in FoWs and Traps instead of -3 Balustrade -1 Flayer -4 Dread Return, and go for the pure aggro plan. The Traps would be there only to up the blue cards count for the FoWs, so we would have 4 FoWs, 4 Traps, 4 Probes, 4 Amalgams, 4 Narcos and 1 Progenitus, which I think would be enough. I'd like to test this experiment today, but I forgot to swap Unmasks to FoWs this morning :cry:

EDIT: Ignore the above post, this make no sense. I should play Blazing Shoal instead of Traps. So keep walking, nothing to see here :rolleyes:

[Final Fortune]

RE: Force;
(In context) I tend to agree that Unmask is a great option in Manaless for combo. They usually only run Surgical Extraction IME.
But....
Brainstorm is everywhere. And getting Time Walked on T1, when it matters most against terminal hate, is poor.
This is the only reason I'm leaning toward Force, other than budget.

There is a huge difference in the consistency of being able to discard a black card to Unmask vs a blue card to Force of Will tho', and while Unmask isn't as much of a blow out vs combo as Force of Will it doesn't have to be as long as it buys you enough time to Cabal Therapy and/or win. Unmask isn't there to discard hate, it's there to delay the opponent's fundamental turn - so if you're Time Walking yourself with the card it's really your own fault.

I think you just have to force them to show you the Brainstorm, and even then you can still do some damage by discarding whatever is left behind. Force of Will works better as a "Hail Marry" SB strategy than a MB strategy IMO, because the priority targets for it aren't there game 1 and it's probably less consistent than Unmask vs combo fwiw.

Force of Will is definitely the best chance you have vs hate, no question, but I don't think it's just hands down better than the alternatives.

[gRR!!]

Well, yesterday I played the Echelon list (same exact 75) in a small tournament (18 people). I ended 3rd, making 3-1. I won 2-0 versus Canadian, 2-0 vs Miracles, 2-1 vs Omni-Tell and lost to Junk 1-2. Some thoughts:

* The deck is excellent when is unexpected. Right now the amount of graveyard hate is low (and people seems to start realizing it: yesterday they were 1 Reanimator, 1 Mana Dredge, 1 Manaless Dredge and 1 All Spells!), which obviously is great for us. But even more than that, the deck gets free wins because people has no clue of how to fight it. Of the four matches opponent could choose to play or to draw, in three of them they choose to play instead of draw. When to play Surgical, which target choose to Surgical, how to attack/block to exile Bridges/avoid Zombie tokens, when to aggresively mulligan for hate... any of this decisions, if is taken wrong, can give us wins in matches we should lose. Which is great :cool:

* In the match I've lost, game 2 my opponent found his only Grafdigger's Cage turn 1 and game 3 he has turn 1 Enlightened Tutor to turn 2 Cage. Sh*t happens.

* The match versus Omni-Tell was hilarious. I lost game one after dumping my hand to the graveyard via Phantasmagorian, then dredging my only Shambling Shell and not finding any other dredger. Then in Game 2 my opponent Show and Telled directly for Emrakul. I had Balustrade Spy in hand, so I deployed it and buried my entire library to graveyard. My opponent (and the people who were watching the match) thought that I was auto-losing, until they saw my Progenitus. Progenitus shuffled away, Narcomoebas came, Amalgams came, turn ended, in my upkeep Shadows and Ichorids came, I drew Progenitus and attacked with 17 creatures for something like 34 damage. Game three I boarded in Mindbreak Traps. When I started dredging and the first Trap hit the bin I said something like "oh well, now you know I play Traps". The match was long, as he coulnd't find his combo and he was trying to play around Traps (even if I didn't have any), and I was dredging awfully. He Extracted my Bridges and saw the two Balustrade Spies (and no Traps) I had in hand. Next turn he went for it with Show to Omni to Emrakul, hoping to draw something useful in his extra turn. I did again the Balustrade trick and emptied my library (except for Progenitus). In his extra turn he attacked me, leaving me boardless and at 5 life, but he couldn't find anything useful in his draw step, so I counter-attacked next turn with an army of dead things :) Winning twice through his Show and Tell: Living the dream!

* All in all I had a blast (and the spectators too, I think :tongue:). The sad thing is that I won't play the deck again in a couple of months; now people in the store is again aware of it and will be more prepared. Maybe next time I'll try the blue sideboard version (though I'm not really sold on it).

[Echelon]

I'm glad the deck worked out well for you! Progenitus does wonders for that particular list, it enables some incredibly fun plays. As long as your hand is full you can't deck yourself (just discard Progenitus to hand size every turn).

[slave]

There is a huge difference in the consistency of being able to discard a black card to Unmask vs a blue card to Force of Will tho', and while Unmask isn't as much of a blow out vs combo as Force of Will it doesn't have to be as long as it buys you enough time to Cabal Therapy and/or win. Unmask isn't there to discard hate, it's there to delay the opponent's fundamental turn - so if you're Time Walking yourself with the card it's really your own fault.
The point is, Cage & RiP are the most common hate I see outside of Extaction (which doesn't really bother us as much as the previous) and if we want to discard them, we have the best chance of doing it on T1 on the play.
Force isn't as reliable, I agree with you there, but then again Unmask VS Brainstorm usually means they get to land their hate IME. Force also has to content with our opponent playing with counter too, so there's that.


Force of Will is definitely the best chance you have vs hate, no question, but I don't think it's just hands down better than the alternatives.
Fair enough. I like both options, and I can see the negatives of both. If where I usually play was running less dedicated hate, I'd probably run Unmask, but because my local usually takes graveyard decks seriously (might be my fault), the hate is usually there....

[Kozilek]

Hello! I've taken this deck to a few tournaments lately but I'm new to these forums. My list is very standard, Chancellors and Balastrude Spies. Probably the stock list from a few years ago. My sideboard is kinda thrown together, and I'm looking for some advice.

4 contagion
2 sickening shoal
4 faerie macabre
4 serum powder
1 blightsteel colossus

I've seen a lot of lists with Vengeful Pharaoh in the sideboard.. Doesn't that run counter to our game plan? It fries our own bridges, and it's a very defensive card when I feel like we want to be trying to just kill as fast as possible.

The Serum powders have been very underwhelming, but I don't really know what to replace them with. I don't currently have forces, and right now my magic budget is going towards a different deck.

Why do people run alternate DR targets? Don't you almost always want to be returning for the combo?

[Echelon]

First off: Switch your Chancellors for a set of Amalgams. It's an incredible power boost.

It also makes Vengeful Pharaoh a lot better - they lessen your need for Bridges, hence it's less of a problem to blow them up.

Experience has taught me people handle Vengeful Pharaoh with a lot of care - the threat of blowing up their creatures can sometimes even halt the assault entirely (keeping your Bridges alive and buying you time in the process). I've also had people Surgical them before turning their creatures sideways (which is also fine by me). Pharaoh is a nice smoke curtain to distract your opponent from what's really going on. It can also sometimes catch a Containment Priest by surprise.

Browse through this board, take your pick from whatever stuff we throw in our sideboards and adjust it to your local meta as much as you can. Be aware of what MUs to actually sideboard for though - sometimes sticking with speed is your best bet (so don't configure your SB to deal with MUs where you don't want to SB).

On the topic of DR targets - each has their own up- and downsides. Balustrade Spy is straight on combo. Griselbrand is good when you expect to resolve no more than 1 DR in an entire game (since it can steal the game on its own strength). The blue cards are used when FoW (and possibly Disrupting Shoal) are involved, to up the blue count for those specific cards.

[Final Fortune]

The point is, Cage & RiP are the most common hate I see outside of Extaction (which doesn't really bother us as much as the previous) and if we want to discard them, we have the best chance of doing it on T1 on the play.
Force isn't as reliable, I agree with you there, but then again Unmask VS Brainstorm usually means they get to land their hate IME. Force also has to content with our opponent playing with counter too, so there's that.

Fair enough. I like both options, and I can see the negatives of both. If where I usually play was running less dedicated hate, I'd probably run Unmask, but because my local usually takes graveyard decks seriously (might be my fault), the hate is usually there....

My point is they're not mutually exclusive strategies, you can MB Unmask and SB Force of Will.

[slave]

My point is they're not mutually exclusive strategies, you can MB Unmask and SB Force of Will.

[Snowfire]

Hey guys

I'll play my first Legacy tournament on sunday and want to ride the manaless beast to battle. The following list is what I've come to reading this thread.

MB:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
3 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Prized Amalgam

4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Phantasmagorian

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy

3 Dread Return
2 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound

4 Force of Will

SB:

3 Disrupting Shoal
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Unmask
4 Sickening Shoal
4 Leyline of the Void

Since I have not played the blue version yet (also no Prized Amalgam) I'd like to have some opinions on my sideboarding thoughts.

I consider the following as flex spots:

- 4 Force of Will
- 2 Nether Shadow
- 1 Shambling Shell
- 1 Phantasmagorian

My plan is to board out Force of Will, where I'd rather have Sickening Shoal (BGx --> Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze). Is that correct or would you rather have Force of Will AND Sickening Shoal?

Further if I want to keep Force of Will and additionally bring in Disrupting Shoals (three of them) I'd cut 1 Nether Shadow, 1 Shambling Shell and 1 Phantasmagorian. I'm not sure if boarding out Phantasmagorian is correct but I'm also not sure if boarding out another Nether Shadow is better. I can't see any other flex spots.

If I need space for 4 specific sideboard cards though (Leyline of the Void, Unmask + Mindbreak Trap), I'd also cut the second Nether Shadow.

If I only board in 2 Unmask, I'll board out 1 Shambling Shell and 1 Nether Shadow.

That's my plan so far. I am not experienced with the list and I'm happy to hear some feedback to my list and if I can try sideboarding this way.

Greetings

[dte]

Since I have not played the blue version yet (also no Prized Amalgam) I'd like to have some opinions on my sideboarding thoughts.

I consider the following as flex spots:

- 4 Force of Will
- 2 Nether Shadow
- 1 Shambling Shell
- 1 Phantasmagorian


You´ve got much more slots than that that you can SB out. I would say that besides the 12 big dredgers, 4 narcos and 3 ichos everything can and should be considered as SB outable.

So considering your list:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

always keep.

3 Shambling Shell
Keep all 3 if DRS is there. Otherwise strongly consider shaving from 2 to 3 if you need space. It is a really bad dredger.

4 Narcomoeba

always keep

3 Nether Shadow

SBout against combo (you want your 9 counters + 2 unmask and high U count, maybe the LLotV), to be considered against others.

4 Ichorid
Shave 1 in combo MUs

4 Prized Amalgam
Shave some when bridges are not at risk and you SBout FoW.

4 Street Wraith
Always keep.

4 Gitaxian Probe
can be Sbed out.

4 Phantasmagorian
keep all 4 against DRS. Otherwise remove 1 to 3 depending on the MU.

4 Bridge from Below
Some can be shaved vs combo, merfolk (cursecatcher + image makes it quite bad here), mirror (LED or manaless alike),..

4 Cabal Therapy
I almost never SB them out, but there must be some MUs were they are not stellar (mirror, ?)

3 Dread Return
Some can easily be SB out if space is needed. But I would play 4 in the first place.

2 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
Easily SBed out if Troll is a good enough target and/or some DR are gone.

4 Force of Will
If there is noting that you truly fear that would be played in numbers.



Otherwise, your SB:

3 Disrupting Shoal
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Unmask
4 Sickening Shoal
4 Leyline of the Void

First, it is really oriented vs Storm. You may want to address other MUs. The 2 traps, in particular have no use outside of this particular MU.

I usually prefer Contagion over shoal: it kills DRS in the same way or better if pitch is CT, can cripple opposing creatures without killing them to keep bridges. Contagion is better vs delvers, young pyro, goyf, elves, infect (counters stays, so playing it during your turn prevents invigorate saving, can take a noble down with it,...), can be played on your own blocked ichorid/token to avoid losing bridges,... I would at least consider a contagion /S.Shoal split.

On the grave hate, I prefer faeries/SE/noxious revival over LL, but that depends witch MUs you want to address with gravehate: they let you keep a full grip in MUs that are usually fast, SE is really good with CT, Faeries interact nicely with the deck, noxious is an ok card as it is a gravehate that doubles as getting things from your GY (FoW-unmask mostly) and protection from opposing SE.

I really do like 1-2 pharaoh, extremely good vs some MUs.
On the MD, CotA is a very good card, especially when you pair it with cards such as FoW or unmask, and is an OK DR target.

Hope it helped, and good luck for your first tournament! The deck is a lot of fun to play :)

[Michael Keller]

I really don't like Leyline of the Void in Manaless Dredge sideboards. You're sacrificing a turn to work the opponent's graveyard, but potentially needing to mulligan to do so. You're better off playing (or mulling to) Leyline of Sanctity, which grants you not only protection from hate cards like Bojuka Bog and the sort, but also has a wider application versus decks like Burn, ANT/TES, Belcher, discard, etc. Faerie Macabre has much more rich synergy with the deck and gives you greater blowout value. It's also a much better top-deck and "draw-into" card with Street Wraith and Probe.

Point being: graveyard decks don't give Manaless as much trouble as player-targeted strategies do.