[Primer] Dredge

[Vissah]

This is pretty hard to answer, because we don't know, which decks they are playing and how many cages they board in. If they are playing blue or also have a scary combo, boarding in answers for cage can backfire. But if it is really necessary to board in answers, claim is obviously better. I would still not expect to do well against a blue/combo deck with sth like 4 cages in the sb. It would be a better strategy to just choose another deck if that is the case.

Ah sorry for not giving enough information Orim.

It`s just a 1 off that I see popping up so it is not as bad as it might sound like.
I seen it popping up in decks like Canadian and Aluren mostly.

[Michael Keller]

Went 4-1 with an LED list yesterday.

Here were match-ups:

R1 [W] vs. Grixis Delver [2-0]
R2 [W] vs. Grixis Delver [2-1]
R3 [W] vs. Eureka-Tell [2-0]
R4 [L] vs. Eldrazi [1-2]
R5 [W] vs. Shardless [2-1]

I had a really sweet play in game three of the fifth round. I was on the play, and passed with no action. He drops T1 DRS. I discard Troll. He goes to his turn, Ponders, and then tries to eat the Troll. I cycle Street Wraith and hit gas. I proceed to my turn, dredge, and then drop Coliseum into Breakthrough.

Was pretty sweet.

[hellhound]

Went 4-1 with an LED list yesterday.

Here were match-ups:

R1 [W] vs. Grixis Delver [2-0]
R2 [W] vs. Grixis Delver [2-1]
R3 [W] vs. Eureka-Tell [2-0]
R4 [L] vs. Eldrazi [1-2]
R5 [W] vs. Shardless [2-1]

I had a really sweet play in game three of the fifth round. I was on the play, and passed with no action. He drops T1 DRS. I discard Troll. He goes to his turn, Ponders, and then tries to eat the Troll. I cycle Street Wraith and hit gas. I proceed to my turn, dredge, and then drop Coliseum into Breakthrough.

Was pretty sweet.

Mr. Hollywood, nice to see you after so long! :cool:

What list did you play?

[slave]

So I've been checking out the new set.
Muldrotha, the Gravetide & Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain are the top picks for me.
Dominaria is a pretty nice set for multiplayer, but it's not great for a dredger.

[DrDiabetes]

Doesn't Muldrotha seem like a win-more?

[Parcher]

Need opinions;

Silent Gravestone vs. Elves. It does nothing to advance our game plan. And outside hate, Elves can do little to interact with us. But it does nullify ALL of their hate. And we only need a turn or two unfettered to advance the board to where there is nothing they can do to get out of it. It loses us a turn, but allows all-in LED/Bthrough type hands since we have no fear of hate on our empty hand, or us bricking. I'm thinking of something like -3 PImp,-3 Wraith(I only run 3 each), for +3 Grave, +3 Fstorm. But I'm concerned that Grave may be overkill. And that the turn lost either opening with it, or hitting it on a dredge may not justify it's inclusion. Also, while Wraith is superfluous with Grave in play, cutting it means we are open to everything if we don't have Grave.

[Vissah]

Need opinions;

Silent Gravestone vs. Elves. It does nothing to advance our game plan. And outside hate, Elves can do little to interact with us. But it does nullify ALL of their hate. And we only need a turn or two unfettered to advance the board to where there is nothing they can do to get out of it. It loses us a turn, but allows all-in LED/Bthrough type hands since we have no fear of hate on our empty hand, or us bricking. I'm thinking of something like -3 PImp,-3 Wraith(I only run 3 each), for +3 Grave, +3 Fstorm. But I'm concerned that Grave may be overkill. And that the turn lost either opening with it, or hitting it on a dredge may not justify it's inclusion. Also, while Wraith is superfluous with Grave in play, cutting it means we are open to everything if we don't have Grave.

I used it last week against Elves and it won me the game. It was the first time I was using Silent Gravestone so I was just throwing it in there to test it out.

[Izor]

On the play I would present the fastest 60 and not care about their hate that doesn't work until their 2nd turn. On the draw I'd try to deal with their hate, so I'd board the grafstones. I would keep in some Wraiths though. I'd most likely trim something like 1 Ichorid, 1 Dredger and 1 Wraith instead.

[Parcher]

On the play I would present the fastest 60 and not care about their hate that doesn't work until their 2nd turn. On the draw I'd try to deal with their hate, so I'd board the grafstones. I would keep in some Wraiths though. I'd most likely trim something like 1 Ichorid, 1 Dredger and 1 Wraith instead.

Problem with that is every list I've seen runs around least 2 Surgical. Going all in blind is one of the few ways we can get blown out by that. I'm actually less afraid of their hate on the draw, as they have to risk exposing it to Fstorm.

[Orim67]

They will probably keep in all glimpses and Natural orders, so it may be risky to skip a turn.

[Parcher]

They will probably keep in all glimpses and Natural orders, so it may be risky to skip a turn.

Completely accurate. And one of my main reasons for posing the question. They can definitely kill us before we get a second turn. But at the same time, if we are on the draw and they open with Surgical into Ooze, then we are in deep trouble anyway. I mean, like Gravestone, neither of those cards advance their primary game plan. But unlike us, they can win with anything once we are shut down. So we need to force them to have it. Especially on the draw. And Firestorm is still a trump, since they can't stop it. On the play, Gravestone is far less of a risk, and yet far less needed. If they don't have Surgical, we should win. Elves is basically a match we should win. I'm just assessing the cost of preventing the multi-hate blowout, vs the speed and redundancy loss by adding Grave, in a match we don't HAVE to run it.

[slave]

Elves is basically a match we should win.
My experience of elves in general, is that they bank on their speed to win, much like us.
Elves is the main reason I typically run Firestorm, over any other deck. I'm not sure Gravestone is where I wanna be here.

[mulder]

Just played against dredge with Eldrazi. Lost game 1 on turn two, lost game two on turn one after having played a Relic on my turn. Opponent said he wins on turn two at the latest almost every time. This deck is absolutely busted why isn't it played more?

[Parcher]

Just played against dredge with Eldrazi. Lost game 1 on turn two, lost game two on turn one after having played a Relic on my turn. Opponent said he wins on turn two at the latest almost every time. This deck is absolutely busted why isn't it played more?

Legacy players have a Gentlemen's Agreement not to.

[Ronald Deuce]

Legacy players have a Gentlemen's Agreement not to.

I lost it.

[slave]

Just played against dredge with Eldrazi. Lost game 1 on turn two, lost game two on turn one after having played a Relic on my turn. Opponent said he wins on turn two at the latest almost every time. This deck is absolutely busted why isn't it played more?
He won on Turn 1? Yeah that hardly ever happens, sounds like he's shitting you.
Why isn't it played more? Because T1 terminal hate exists I guess.

Seriously though, given the steep entry price for legacy, I AM surprised Dredge isn't more common as the deck is mostly cheap/budget cards by legacy standards.

[mulder]

He won on Turn 1? Yeah that hardly ever happens, sounds like he's shitting you.
Why isn't it played more? Because T1 terminal hate exists I guess.

Seriously though, given the steep entry price for legacy, I AM surprised Dredge isn't more common as the deck is mostly cheap/budget cards by legacy standards.

Well... he went turn one Petal, Petal, LED, Coliseum, sac Petal for Breakthrough and in response sac the LED discarding a Grave Troll. And he dredged his entire deck on turn one :-/.

[Cyrus]

Well... he went turn one Petal, Petal, LED, Coliseum, sac Petal for Breakthrough and in response sac the LED discarding a Grave Troll. And he dredged his entire deck on turn one :-/.

In Stompy shells Leyline of the Void is so much better than relic because of that; if you had that hate t1 he'd probably be in a lot of trouble having to dig for an answer.

[Ronald Deuce]

Well... he went turn one Petal, Petal, LED, Coliseum, sac Petal for Breakthrough and in response sac the LED discarding a Grave Troll. And he dredged his entire deck on turn one :-/.

That's a god-draw, you know; I ended up cutting FKZ because I was reaching too hard for it when I didn't need to.

The reasons Dredge isn't played more are that a) as Slave said there's terminal hate for it that is free and available from turn 0-1, and b) it is inconsistent and has no ways to counter this problem once opening hands are determined. Don't get me wrong: I love Dredge, but I've definitely been infuriated piloting it before.

I still love how boss this deck is against Miracles.

[Orim67]

I think that dredge is probably the most underrated deck in legacy right now. My list performs very well vs all the popular fair decks. Even though dredge is inconsistent, you will still win most of your games vs them, because dredge is hard to disrupt and strong draws are very powerful. It is also very convenient that leagues don't take long online when you play dredge. I had a wr of about 63% with dredge online, which is close to the expected wr of tier 1 or tier 2 decks, but like I said, I feel very confident vs all the popular fair decks, which should be worth something.

[Oestrus]

Dredge made Top 8 in the Legacy portion of EU Eternal Weekend!

https://www.magicbazar.fr/article/52-eternal_weekend_2018

Really interesting list, too.

[Oestrus]

Dredge made Top 8 in the Legacy portion of EU Eternal Weekend!

https://www.magicbazar.fr/article/52-eternal_weekend_2018

Really interesting list, too.

I just realized they only have the main deck at 56 cards. Curious what the remaining 4 are.

[notkevin]

I just realized they only have the main deck at 56 cards. Curious what the remaining 4 are.

At a guess, I'd say Therapies? I don't see a similar replacement, like other lists that eschew the card (although the only recent case I can remember for that was when the pilot admitted it was an oversight during deck construction :P).

[mistercakes]

i'm pretty sure the guy who t8 was the same guy who posted a few weeks ago.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31901-Primer-Dredge&p=1041884&viewfull=1#post1041884

[Unlif3]

i'm pretty sure the guy who t8 was the same guy who posted a few weeks ago.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?31901-Primer-Dredge&p=1041884&viewfull=1#post1041884

That is correct, I've been running hot lately.
For the French readers out there, I have posted an in-detail report here http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=15253&st=15#entry278382.

My decklist can be found on the Eternal Week-End website (the missing cards being 4 Cabal Therapies) and should be posted anytime soon on tcdecks/mtgtop8 I guess.
As a disclaimer, please note that this decklist has some major flaws I managed to win in spite of, and should therefore not be taken as a reference. Playing double Putrid Imp with only 11 lands + 2 Petals is a mistake (for keeping a hand of Petal into Looting is decent, but Petal into Imp is way less).
In the sideboard I meant to play Wear//Tears instead of Fragmentize & CoV, but couldn't find my copies before the event ; and 4 copies of Firestorm is probably overzealous - 3 should be enough, with the extra slot freed this way to be dedicated either to an Ancient Grudge or a 3rd Silent Gravestone imho.

I had a double bye due to winning the Eternal Week-End Trial, 3 weeks ago.

R3 vs Colorless Eldrazi - Not much to say, he didn't mulligan agressively enough in his Leylines and that was it.
2-1, 3-0.
R4 vs. BUG Control - Some mistakes from my opponent, conceding G1 too fast and Surgicaling the wrong target G2.
2-0, 4-0.
R5 vs. BR Réanimator - I hoped to face none, considering their bad MU vs. Grixis Delver, and got crushed because I didn't have any kind of GY-hate and the MU still being atrocious.
1-2, 4-1.
R6 vs. BUG Delver - I lost G2 to legit Tarmo beatdown, he lost G3 to a manascrew.
2-1, 5-1.
R7 vs. Moon Stompy - Got hit by CotV@1 OTP G1, but he had a weak hand and managed to get there with my discard step. G2 he managed to assemble a double Ensnaring Bridge but Ashen Rider is dope.
2-0, 6-1.
R8 vs. 4c Control ft. Punishing-Grove - I kept a mull to 5 with double LED into Faithless OTP. He forces the first LED, to then get crushed by the second one. He has no choice but to force a T1 Gravestone G2, and then manascrews.
2-0, 7-1.
R9 vs. Moon Stompy.
ID, 7-1-1.
QF vs. Grixis Delver - he has the toss, LED off my land-less hand gets Dazed, then I find a Coliseum into Study, which gets Forced and he topdecks Wasteland the turn right after. Game 2 was as one-sided as was G1, he has DRS and double active Force, into a Surgical two turns later.

The deck is well-positioned, GY-hate is less prevalent than maybe ever before, especially in big events where people try more actively to hedge against the top dogs (Grixis Delver, Czech Pile, etc.). I think this low-hate window is to be exploited before it closes, so fellow Dredgers, to arms!

[Oestrus]

That is correct, I've been running hot lately.
For the French readers out there, I have posted an in-detail report here http://www.legacy-france.org/index.php?showtopic=15253&st=15#entry278382.

My decklist can be found on the Eternal Week-End website (the missing cards being 4 Cabal Therapies) and should be posted anytime soon on tcdecks/mtgtop8 I guess.
As a disclaimer, please note that this decklist has some major flaws I managed to win in spite of, and should therefore not be taken as a reference. Playing double Putrid Imp with only 11 lands + 2 Petals is a mistake (for keeping a hand of Petal into Looting is decent, but Petal into Imp is way less).
In the sideboard I meant to play Wear//Tears instead of Fragmentize & CoV, but couldn't find my copies before the event ; and 4 copies of Firestorm is probably overzealous - 3 should be enough, with the extra slot freed this way to be dedicated either to an Ancient Grudge or a 3rd Silent Gravestone imho.

I had a double bye due to winning the Eternal Week-End Trial, 3 weeks ago.

R3 vs Colorless Eldrazi - Not much to say, he didn't mulligan agressively enough in his Leylines and that was it.
2-1, 3-0.
R4 vs. BUG Control - Some mistakes from my opponent, conceding G1 too fast and Surgicaling the wrong target G2.
2-0, 4-0.
R5 vs. BR Réanimator - I hoped to face none, considering their bad MU vs. Grixis Delver, and got crushed because I didn't have any kind of GY-hate and the MU still being atrocious.
1-2, 4-1.
R6 vs. BUG Delver - I lost G2 to legit Tarmo beatdown, he lost G3 to a manascrew.
2-1, 5-1.
R7 vs. Moon Stompy - Got hit by CotV@1 OTP G1, but he had a weak hand and managed to get there with my discard step. G2 he managed to assemble a double Ensnaring Bridge but Ashen Rider is dope.
2-0, 6-1.
R8 vs. 4c Control ft. Punishing-Grove - I kept a mull to 5 with double LED into Faithless OTP. He forces the first LED, to then get crushed by the second one. He has no choice but to force a T1 Gravestone G2, and then manascrews.
2-0, 7-1.
R9 vs. Moon Stompy.
ID, 7-1-1.
QF vs. Grixis Delver - he has the toss, LED off my land-less hand gets Dazed, then I find a Coliseum into Study, which gets Forced and he topdecks Wasteland the turn right after. Game 2 was as one-sided as was G1, he has DRS and double active Force, into a Surgical two turns later.

The deck is well-positioned, GY-hate is less prevalent than maybe ever before, especially in big events where people try more actively to hedge against the top dogs (Grixis Delver, Czech Pile, etc.). I think this low-hate window is to be exploited before it closes, so fellow Dredgers, to arms!

OMG you're eAlphax? I'm such a fan!

[Unlif3]

OMG you're eAlphax? I'm such a fan!

What have I done to deserve a fanbase? é_è

[Orim67]

Hey Unlif3, congrats on your top 8!

I saw your match vs mengucci and I think that Leyline of the void might be pretty good right now. Reanimator got more popular. What did you cut for it? Do you bring it in in other matchups other than Dredge and Reanimator?

[Unlif3]

I saw your match vs mengucci and I think that Leyline of the void might be pretty good right now. Reanimator got more popular. What did you cut for it? Do you bring it in in other matchups other than Dredge and Reanimator?

I don't recall playing vs. Mengucci at all - I'm quite sure I didn't - and I don't play Leyline of the Void, so I guess you spectated another Dredge player :eyebrow:
I do like Leyline of the Void in heavy meta combos (I bring it in against Reanimator, Dredge, and ANT) - that's what I play on MTGO due to the heavy amount of combo decks, but in a field where I mostly expected Delver/4c Control, my sideboard was 4 Firestorm (should be 3), 2 Gravestone (should be 3), 2 DR, 1 Iona, 1 Rider, 2 Fragmentize (should be W//T), 1 CoV, 2 Street Wraith. The full list has been corrected and is now available here (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=19135&d=320912&f=LE).

[contra]

Bought back into Dredge online again since it's dirt cheap and well positioned. I thought I'd share the sideboard guide I put together which includes the most common match-ups from mtgtop8 and the average amount/type of hate in their respective sideboards again from mtgtop8.

I've been playing LED dredge for about 10 years now and while I can only think of three relevant printings during this time (Confluence, Amalgam, Gravestone), the deck recently has taken a new direction - hence the new primer. I don't think many would argue that this is in large part due to deathrite and the fact that surgical extraction seems to be
- exclusively - the premier sideboard GY hate. Prior to this I had never considered Street Wraith in LED dredge, but in the face of deathrite and surgical it presents a new dynamic. Without further ado....

60 MAIN
13 LANDS (& Lotus Petal)
4 Cephalid Coliseum
3 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
1 Lotus Petal
25 CREATURES
1 Prized Amalgam
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Street Wraith
22 SPELLS
2 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

15 SIDEBOARD
1 Breakthrough
2 Dread Return
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Firestorm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Wear // Tear

Grixis Delver - 2 Surgical, 2 Pyroblast
+3 Firestorm
-2 Breakthrough
-1 Golgari Thug

Czech Pile - 3 Surgical, 1 Deluge
+3 Silent Gravestone
-2 Breakthrough
-1 Golgari Thug

DnT - 2 RIP, 1 Containment, 1 Surgical, 1 Faerie
+3 Firestorm
+2 Wear // Tear
-2 Putrid Imp
-3 Street Wraith

Miracles - 2 Surgical, 2 Pyroblast, 1 EE
+3 Silent Gravestone
-2 Breakthrough
-1 Cabal Therapy

Storm - 1 Surgical, 1 Ground Seal, 1 Chain OV
+2 Dread Return
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
+1 Breakthrough
-1 Prized Amalgam
-2 Putrid Imp
-1 Golgari Thug

Dark Depths - 2 Surgical, Bojuka Bog
+1 Breakthrough
-1 Putrid Imp

Dragon Stompy - 50% Leyline, 1 Fallout, 1 KReturn
+2 Wear // Tear
+1 Serenity
-2 Putrid Imp
-1 Street Wraith

Reanimator - 1 Faerie Macabre
+3 Silent Gravestone
+2 Faeri Macabre
-1 Prized Amalgam
-2 Putrid Imp
-1 Street Wraith
-1 Golgari Thug

Elves - 3 Surgical, Scooze
+3 Firestorm
+2 Dread Return
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-2 Putrid Imp
-1 City of Brass
-1 Prized Amalgam
-1 Golgari Thug
-1 Ichorid

S&T - 2 Grafdigger's Cage, 1 Surgical, 2 Pyroclasm
+2 Wear // Tear
+2 Dread Return
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-2 Putrid Imp
-2 Breakthrough
-1 Prized Amalgam

Lands - 1 Surgical, Bojuka Bog
+2 Silent Gravestone
+2 Faerie Macabre
+1 Breakthrough
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Golgari Thug
-1 Prized Amalgam
-1 Street Wraith

Eldrazi - 4 Leyline
+2 Wear // Tear
+1 Serenity
+1 Breakthrough
-1 Prized Amalgam
-2 Putrid Imp
-1 Street Wraith

Stoneblade - 2 Surgical, 1 RIP, 1 Contain, 1 Pyroblast
+2 Dread Return
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-1 Prized Amalgam
-2 Putrid Imp

Burn - 2 Faerie Macabre, 1 Graffdigger's Cage
+2 Dread Return
+1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
-1 Prized Amalgam
-2 Putrid Imp

[Vissah]

http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=19165&d=321216&f=LE

Check this list out.

No Street Wraith but 2 Dread Return, Norn and Flamekin the the main :D

[RThomas-]

I'm glad to see our deck putting up results in my absence. Here are a couple thoughts from perusing those top 8's and 16's:

--We're battling the same kind of Grixis Delver decks we were 18 months ago. We know we can beat these decks. These are the kind of decks that have a slow clock with Deathrite Shaman main (which we already know we can beat), and then battling Surgical Extraction post-board (which we can play around well enough to win one of two). Based on what I see, I don't envision that deck gaining anything we couldn't already defeat. So good work there.

--Sure, colorless(ish) Stompy got a boost with Gravestone and other friends. Do you remember our problem with this deck? It was (a) a corner deck, and (b) one that relied on mulliganning to Leyline of the Void against us. I can't comment on (a) since I've been out of it but I'm willing to bet it's not as much of a threat as one would think, especially in the bigger bouts. Even with a couple more outs that are good vs other decks, the scare for them is real as it has always been. Don't let this deck discourage you from piloting Dredge.

--Reanimator remains a stick in our craw, and that's true. In my extensive testing on MTGO, that Reanimator-favored environment, I had no problem maindecking a Faerie Macabre or two. Granted, this sounds like my proposal for Driven/Despair, but that matchup is extremely winnable. Remember my tenets for playing the matchup that I conveyed to you in the original primer. Your IRL opponents are going to have trouble with the rules variations that lean our way because (1) Reanimator opponents don't concern themselves with those rules nuances, and (2) it will be enough of a surprise to them to get you to the post-side games, which you should be at least an even favorite in.

Heckle and/or slight. I'm back.

[Cyrus]

Dredge just top8ed GP Birmingham! List can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpbir18-legacy/top-8-decklists-2018-05-12

[Orim67]

So dredge top8ed mkm rome, eternal weekend paris and now gp birmingham. That should be all big European legacy tournaments this year. Probably just some weird variance. A little bit unfortunate that it lost in the quarters every time.

[Cyrus]

So dredge top8ed mkm rome, eternal weekend paris and now gp birmingham. That should be all big European legacy tournaments this year. Probably just some weird variance. A little bit unfortunate that it lost in the quarters every time.

It's good so we can keep being seen as the underdogs, few top8s a day keep the leylines away.

[Vissah]

I also see that most of the winning lists play 13 land instead of 12.

Is playing 1 more land really that much better?

They are also playing 3 Firestorm instead of 4 in the side.

You guys think that is enough?

Personally I love Firestorm that is why I`m always playing 4 of them.

[Pische]

I also see that most of the winning lists play 13 land instead of 12.

Is playing 1 more land really that much better?

They are also playing 3 Firestorm instead of 4 in the side.

You guys think that is enough?

Personally I love Firestorm that is why I`m always playing 4 of them.

I play 13 lands because I play 4 Coliseums.
If I would cut a coliseum, I'd play with 12 lands.

[Michael Keller]

I also see that most of the winning lists play 13 land instead of 12.

Is playing 1 more land really that much better?

They are also playing 3 Firestorm instead of 4 in the side.

You guys think that is enough?

Personally I love Firestorm that is why I`m always playing 4 of them.

I'd judge more based on pilot experience than the differences between 12 and 13 lands.

[SHABOOGS]

I also see that most of the winning lists play 13 land instead of 12.

Is playing 1 more land really that much better?

They are also playing 3 Firestorm instead of 4 in the side.

You guys think that is enough?

Personally I love Firestorm that is why I`m always playing 4 of them.
I'd personally play 14 lands if I could squeeze the 14th land in. As for Firestorm, I haven't won any match ups when I used it in the past so I decided to cut them out entirely from my sideboard. I think playing 4 of the same sideboard cards is excessive unless your playing Leylines. I found out that 3 would usually be enough to me to dig for them if needed. But that's just based on my own experience.

[Orim67]

You can kind of do the math for the number of lands. Your best hands have either 1 or 2 lands, 13 lands give you the best odds to have such a number in your opening 7, something like 66%. These numbers are also not really saying too much, because there are definitely keepable hands without lands and having 3 lands isn't too bad if the rest of your hand is busted.

[Vissah]

Again thanks for all the great help from all you guys.

I been playing the straight up Quad list from the beginning, because I wanted to get a feel for the deck and for Legacy in general, for about 5 months now.
Now I`m starting to tweak the list a bit because with more experience I`m seeing stuff like I can cut a card here and gain something there. FOr me that is the fun part of playign Magic, tweaking your list to what you want it to be.

[KaiSchafroth]

In case anyone wants it - video coverage of eventual T8 competitor Alexander Mertins. It's one of those time warp matches but better than nothing; esp with it being the win & in for T8

R15 vs Grixis Delver
https://youtu.be/BkL0z0EPu9Q?t=37m47s

[Vissah]

Thanks I was looking for that one 😃

[Unspeakable Elvis]

Hi, new to Dredge and I had a question about a particular interaction that pertains to "keeping priority".

Consider an opening hand with 1 LED, 2 Street Wraith, and 2 random dredge cards, and 2 other things that aren't relevant.

What I want to do on my first turn is this:
1. Play LED
2. Announce Cycling on a Street Wraith, paying 2 life
3. Keep priority and announce Cycling on the second Wraith, paying 2 life
4. Still keep priority, and sacrifice LED, discarding my hand
5. Replace the two Wraith cycle draws with 2 dredges.

Is this feasible?

[ronco]

Hi, new to Dredge and I had a question about a particular interaction that pertains to "keeping priority".

Consider an opening hand with 1 LED, 2 Street Wraith, and 2 random dredge cards, and 2 other things that aren't relevant.

What I want to do on my first turn is this:
1. Play LED
2. Announce Cycling on a Street Wraith, paying 2 life
3. Keep priority and announce Cycling on the second Wraith, paying 2 life
4. Still keep priority, and sacrifice LED, discarding my hand
5. Replace the two Wraith cycle draws with 2 dredges.

Is this feasible?

Assuming all resolve without a stifle effect, yes that is correct.

Edit: And, since you weren't clear by just saying "announce", the Wraiths are in the graveyard before the LED activates while their cycle ability is on the stack, so they will be below the cards you discard. Might or might not matter for your question.

[Michael Keller]

So, I was testing this guy out online - and surprisingly, it was shockingly effective:

//Mainboard

4x Force of Will
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Narcomoeba
4x Careful Study
4x Faithless Looting
4x Foil
3x Prized Amalgam
3x Bloodghast
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Bridge from Below
1x Firestorm
1x Ashen Rider
1x Life from the Loam
1x Dread Return

4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Volcanic Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
1x Riftstone Portal


//Sideboard

3 Faerie Macabre
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Firestorm
2 Pithing Needle


The deck has room for adjustments, but it was still balling. I think it has a ton of room to blossom, but this was pretty good in the games I tested with. It's much, much grindier than traditional, faster LED Dredge variants - but it's incredibly resilient. Key plays when testing were on-the-draw Foils where the dredger hit the hard before I dropped a land, which in turn was good because it gave me the ability to drop a land and trigger Bloodghast.

Also: Dakmor Salvage was terrible in testing, and I've been fluctuating between Darkblast and no Darkblast. I think I want Darkblast lol.

[notkevin]

So, I was testing this guy out online - and surprisingly, it was shockingly effective:

//Mainboard

4x Force of Will
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Narcomoeba
4x Careful Study
4x Faithless Looting
4x Foil
3x Prized Amalgam
3x Bloodghast
3x Cabal Therapy
3x Bridge from Below
1x Firestorm
1x Ashen Rider
1x Life from the Loam
1x Dread Return

4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Volcanic Island
4x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
1x Riftstone Portal


//Sideboard

3 Faerie Macabre
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Firestorm
2 Pithing Needle


The deck has room for adjustments, but it was still balling. I think it has a ton of room to blossom, but this was pretty good in the games I tested with. It's much, much grindier than traditional, faster LED Dredge variants - but it's incredibly resilient. Key plays when testing were on-the-draw Foils where the dredger hit the hard before I dropped a land, which in turn was good because it gave me the ability to drop a land and trigger Bloodghast.

Also: Dakmor Salvage was terrible in testing, and I've been fluctuating between Darkblast and no Darkblast. I think I want Darkblast lol.

Ooh, that's an interesting take on things :) I think my biggest worry would be frequency of casting "important" spells - only 4 sources to cast Faithless/Firestorm seems low. Maybe consider Hapless Researcher over Faithless since there aren't LEDs?

It also feels weird to uninitiated me to see Bloodghast without fetches (which would help with color-balance), but I see that it weakens Foil quite a lot. Maybe there's some middle ground between the two, or maybe adding Dazes to help bounce lands to hand? (Might shift the deck too much, though.)

[Michael Keller]

This version of the deck feels like it would play more like old Extended "Friggorid" than anything else.

For the unitiated... (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?3374-Deck-Friggorid)

Except now it plays more counters and lands than a traditional list would these days. I'm all for not fixing what isn't broken, but what the heck. I do, however, think Foil is a good card in Dredge. It just needs be played in an extremely well-planned and tight list.

I'll update the list after more testing.

[Michael Keller]

I was tinkering around a lot last night with the list I've been working on. I underestimated how difficult it is to build a list using Foil as a resource, because you basically have to build your deck around it. It's not a big deal, because instead of rainbow lands, you're effectively using dual lands. The key is ensuring the dual lands can cast the majority of the cards in the deck. Since Foil can be pitched to Force of Will, this isn't too big of a deal. Some hands may not even have Foil in them, so maximizing the use of the lands in hand is something I'd like to take advantage of.

I think the existing LED Dredge lists are good enough where (as most of us know), all you need to do is tailor a few cards here and there. Ultimately, the strength of the pilot and organizational methods with triggers and other abilities still makes the deck completely competitive. I think there are strengths and weaknesses to playing a variant like this, versus traditional lists.

That being said, here's an updated list as a point of reference:

4x Force of Will
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Narcomoeba
4x Careful Study
4x Faithless Looting
4x Foil
3x Bloodghast
3x Prized Amalgam
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Bridge from Below
2x Firestorm
1x Dread Return
1x Daze
1x Life from the Loam

4x Volcanic Island
4x Tropical Island
4x Steam Vents
2x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Riftstone Portal


//Sideboard

3 Faerie Macabre
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Firestorm
2 Pithing Needle

[Unlif3]

This version of the deck feels like it would play more like old Extended "Friggorid" than anything else.

For the unitiated... (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?3374-Deck-Friggorid)

Except now it plays more counters and lands than a traditional list would these days. I'm all for not fixing what isn't broken, but what the heck. I do, however, think Foil is a good card in Dredge. It just needs be played in an extremely well-planned and tight list.


I never quite understood why some Dredge players wanted to give up on speed and explosivity in order to add resiliency against disruption to their MD.
Resiliency should belong to the post-board games, not the pre-board ones.
Pre-board games are just about how consistently you can smoke your opponent - who's trying to do fair things most of the time - with the unfair shit Dredge does: no Legacy deck can realistically beat a triple Cabal Therapy and eight Zombies on turn 1. The reasons why we lose some of our G1s are variance (mulliganning into oblivion), faster decks (Reanimator, ANT, S&T), or soft-hate, possibly backed up by permission (DRS+FoW/Daze, double Plow/Terminus on a slow Icho start).
The problem is that slowing the deck down means increasing Deathrite Shaman's efficiency - the best way to beat a DRS being to overload the shit out of him - losing in the process a large chunk of our advantage against fair decks G1. It also means grindier games, which leaves room for such cards as Stoneforge>Batterskull to clog the board up. It sure increases our odds to beat a combo deck - especially when they do not expect counters out of Dredge - but this comes at the cost of a steep decrease of our auto-wins G1.

What I suggest, if you want to follow this kind of gameplay, is playing the traditional "LED-BT-Oops I just won" Dredge G1, then sideboard out all the pure "speed" (LED, BT, possibly Petals) to add permission and blow your opponent's sideboard-hate.
Having access to Force in an efficient Dredge package has long been a wet dream for a lot of Dredge players, including myself. Had I found a reliable way to fit them in, I would most definitely have played them - but every single time I tried to, it just felt janky in the end.
I'm really skeptical about Foil, albeit I do see the rationale behind it. It's seen some success in old UB Reanimator lists, but those lists do only rely on one critical card to be put in their GY. I think that, in Dredge, the cost (playing bilands instead of golden lands) is too high. You want U for CS/BT/Coliseum, R for FL, possibly B for hardcasted Therapies ; and you don't want to play fetches. Disrupting Shoal is arguably a bad Magic card, but if you add Gitaxian Probes to the mix it may be more reliable than Foil - Manaless has done it before.
Be wary, though, for you have to consider very tightly what you want to counter. Surgical Extraction on Ichorid may sound scary, but if I have 4 Narcoes and 2 PA left in your deck, is it really worth blowing a counterspell on ? On the other hand, this innocuous T1 Aether Vial out of Death & Taxes means, if it resolves, that you'll never have a chance to counter the Containment Priest it may bring soon enough.
An extra thing to be wary of is that if you run a counterspell package, you will probably find yourself back to the wall against Leyline of the Void, simply because it sounds unlikely that you'll ever find a way to fit counterspells, SB bullets for DR, and answers to LLotV in your SB. :eyebrow:

But well, have a nice time brewing and tell us how the deck treated you!

[Michael Keller]

I just see a lot of merit in the card, because it accelerates into a dredger in the graveyard while being able to counter a Cage or Deathrite Shaman on the draw. It's basically another set of Forces, with the added benefit of playing more lands in the deck with a huge bonus of a built-in discard outlet with said counter.

I'm not defending it as much as I'm trying to rationalize its utility. While I was playing it (Foil), the more and more I liked it.

[Michael Keller]

An extra thing to be wary of is that if you run a counterspell package, you will probably find yourself back to the wall against Leyline of the Void, simply because it sounds unlikely that you'll ever find a way to fit counterspells, SB bullets for DR, and answers to LLotV in your SB. :eyebrow:

But well, have a nice time brewing and tell us how the deck treated you!

Thanks. Also worth noting: Chain of Vapor is in my sideboard. It's not only relevant against a card like Leyline, but Marit Lage, as well. The added density of lands to hardcast spells is also worth mentioning.

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

I played Dredge years ago and I have good memories with this deck. Now I'm coming back to play it thanks to this result at the GP, but some things have changed in the meantime. :eek:


Dredge just top8ed GP Birmingham! List can be found here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpbir18-legacy/top-8-decklists-2018-05-12
This list features Dread Return and Silent Gravestone, both in the sideboard. Is this a different game plan based on being on the draw or on the play?
I will explain with an example: against Turbo Depths, on the draw I put Silent Gravestone and Firestorm (taking out Breakthrough and some Ichorid / Putrid Imp / Streeth Wraith). On the play, I put only Dread Return, Ashen Rider and Blazing Archon. Is it right or have I done something wrong?

[notkevin]

I played Dredge years ago and I have good memories with this deck. Now I'm coming back to play it thanks to this result at the GP, but some things have changed in the meantime. :eek:


This list features Dread Return and Silent Gravestone, both in the sideboard. Is this a different game plan based on being on the draw or on the play?
I will explain with an example: against Turbo Depths, on the draw I put Silent Gravestone and Firestorm (taking out Breakthrough and some Ichorid / Putrid Imp / Streeth Wraith). On the play, I put only Dread Return, Ashen Rider and Blazing Archon. Is it right or have I done something wrong?

I think it's definitely reasonable to have DR on the play and Gravestone on the draw in some matchups :) I'd just think about it more generally as "what will be my gameplan in this game?" For quite a few matchups, only one of them really makes sense (eg, boarding in Dread Return/targets against Czech Pile/Miracles probably isn't the most effective, whereas Gravestone's pretty sweet; vice versa for Storm, where many of their lists run Gravestone as well :P), but the plan of "race them on the play, grind them on the draw" makes sense to me.

[Oestrus]

I was tinkering around a lot last night with the list I've been working on. I underestimated how difficult it is to build a list using Foil as a resource, because you basically have to build your deck around it. It's not a big deal, because instead of rainbow lands, you're effectively using dual lands. The key is ensuring the dual lands can cast the majority of the cards in the deck. Since Foil can be pitched to Force of Will, this isn't too big of a deal. Some hands may not even have Foil in them, so maximizing the use of the lands in hand is something I'd like to take advantage of.

I think the existing LED Dredge lists are good enough where (as most of us know), all you need to do is tailor a few cards here and there. Ultimately, the strength of the pilot and organizational methods with triggers and other abilities still makes the deck completely competitive. I think there are strengths and weaknesses to playing a variant like this, versus traditional lists.

That being said, here's an updated list as a point of reference:

4x Force of Will
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Narcomoeba
4x Careful Study
4x Faithless Looting
4x Foil
3x Bloodghast
3x Prized Amalgam
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Bridge from Below
2x Firestorm
1x Dread Return
1x Daze
1x Life from the Loam

4x Volcanic Island
4x Tropical Island
4x Steam Vents
2x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Barbarian Ring
1x Riftstone Portal


//Sideboard

3 Faerie Macabre
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Chain of Vapor
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Firestorm
2 Pithing Needle

I ... don't hate this. Maybe I'll take it out for a spin on stream.

Thanks for all your hard work, Michael!

[Unspeakable Elvis]

Further question about holding priority with this deck.

Consider the example that I have just dredged 20 cards (as a consequence of Breakthrough resolving, say), and among them were 2 Cabal Therapy, 2 Bridge from Below, and 2 Narcomoeba.

Of course, the Narcomoebas are put into play when the dredge effect resolves.

This would seem, to an opponent, to be the perfect time to sacrifice or burn his own creature in order to exile Bridge. However, I want as many zombies as possible.

Now, since the rules text say that Sacrificing something "moves it immediately into the graveyard", and this is the cost of Therapy's flashback, it seems I can get 2 zombies without my opponent being able to react.

However, since Therapy is a sorcery, I have to wait for the stack to resolve before I can sac the second Narcomoeba for the second Therapy; thus my opponent can "in response" to the first Therapy get his own creature into his graveyard, thus exiling Bridge.

First question: Is this the correct interpretation?

Second question: Do I need to say "retain priority" before sacrificing the first Narcomoeba?

Third question: Is this the best play, as Dredge?

[Parcher]

Further question about holding priority with this deck.

Consider the example that I have just dredged 20 cards (as a consequence of Breakthrough resolving, say), and among them were 2 Cabal Therapy, 2 Bridge from Below, and 2 Narcomoeba.

Of course, the Narcomoebas are put into play when the dredge effect resolves.

This would seem, to an opponent, to be the perfect time to sacrifice or burn his own creature in order to exile Bridge. However, I want as many zombies as possible.

Now, since the rules text say that Sacrificing something "moves it immediately into the graveyard", and this is the cost of Therapy's flashback, it seems I can get 2 zombies without my opponent being able to react.

However, since Therapy is a sorcery, I have to wait for the stack to resolve before I can sac the second Narcomoeba for the second Therapy; thus my opponent can "in response" to the first Therapy get his own creature into his graveyard, thus exiling Bridge.

First question: Is this the correct interpretation?

Second question: Do I need to say "retain priority" before sacrificing the first Narcomoeba?

Third question: Is this the best play, as Dredge?

Once your opponent indicates that Breakthrough resolves, he doesn't get priority until it has completely done so. While Narcomoeba triggers are announced when dredge rolls them into the yard, they cannot resolve until Breakthrough has. Therefore, your opponent does not gain priority until their triggers hit the stack. Since they are not in play at that point, I'm sure they will pass, with the assumption that they are working towards removing Bridges, and not, say, Extracting the Narco. Since you are the active player, you again gain priority once the triggers resolved. If Therapy is your first action, sacrificing the Narco is part of the cost. Again, they do not have priority to act until Therapy is placed on the stack. However, when the Narco hits the yard, it creates the Bridge trigger, before Therapy resolves. Considering you are playing Dredge, you very likely have to pass priority there. This is where your opponent can take action to put a creature into his yard. If your opponent has done so, the "exile" clause of Bridge will trigger and resolve before the "zombie" trigger, exiling it. Since Bridge has an intervening "if" trigger, if not in your yard, the "zombie" trigger will fizzle, and you get nothing.

[Echelon]

To be clear, you cannot flashback Therapy when there's still a Narcomoeba trigger on the stack. Only once both triggers (and whatever your opponent might do in response to those triggers) have resolved can you flashback Therapy.

Also, the best time for your opponent to burn one of his own creatures in order to kill your Bridges is when your Narcomoeba triggers are on the stack. That way your Bridges are gone before the Narcomoebas hit the field.

As to your second question, you cannot keep priority to cast another sorcery in response to the first one. That doesn't work.

[Unspeakable Elvis]

Note that my second question was concerning the first sorcery; obviously one can't case a sorcery while there's something on the stack, because it's a sorcery, not an instant :wink:

Ah yes, I didn't take into account that Narcomoeba itself has a trigger to enter the battlefield, and that Bridge triggers to create a zombie. Obviously an opponent can respond to either one of these to get stop the zombie coming into play.

I'm also guessing that there's no good way to play this; I mean a dredge deck that doesn't dredge as much as possible is pointless. All you can say is GG for taking out the Bridges and hope your Ichorids and Narcos do the job...

[Echelon]

I'm also guessing that there's no good way to play this; I mean a dredge deck that doesn't dredge as much as possible is pointless. All you can say is GG for taking out the Bridges and hope your Ichorids and Narcos do the job...

This :smile:

[notkevin]

Welp, DRS and Probe out: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/july-2-2018-banned-and-restricted-update-2018-07-02

What are our moves going forward? It's good that we don't have to fight t1 DRS anymore, but I liked the naivete of opponents thinking that just a DRS was enough to win against us :P Maybe trimming some Wraiths for Carefuls again, and moving the Firestorms in the sb to be more DR targets or enchantment hate?

Also scared that Reanimator might see a rise, which either means 1) one of our worst mu's is way more common [ugh] or 2) everyone starts playing leylines everywhere [even more ugh]. But hopefully I'm just overreacting :)

[ThomasDowd]

Welp, DRS and Probe out: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/july-2-2018-banned-and-restricted-update-2018-07-02

What are our moves going forward? It's good that we don't have to fight t1 DRS anymore, but I liked the naivete of opponents thinking that just a DRS was enough to win against us :P Maybe trimming some Wraiths for Carefuls again, and moving the Firestorms in the sb to be more DR targets or enchantment hate?

Also scared that Reanimator might see a rise, which either means 1) one of our worst mu's is way more common [ugh] or 2) everyone starts playing leylines everywhere [even more ugh]. But hopefully I'm just overreacting :)

you also play leylines vs reanimator, people have played them in the past, also good in the mirror and versus lands which can be tough if you're not fast. the Firestorms probably go away, but scooze is still real but less common. you can probably just play more reactive hate if you want it since people will likely be packing more non creature pieces. Basically reading what dredge used to be before drs is probably the way to go. so basically 2012

EDIT: also expect to see surgical in full force, so having a plan or reaction to that may help, either diversify(amalgams maybe?) or just remember how to play against it.

[Cyrus]

Welp, DRS and Probe out: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/july-2-2018-banned-and-restricted-update-2018-07-02

What are our moves going forward? It's good that we don't have to fight t1 DRS anymore, but I liked the naivete of opponents thinking that just a DRS was enough to win against us :P Maybe trimming some Wraiths for Carefuls again, and moving the Firestorms in the sb to be more DR targets or enchantment hate?

Also scared that Reanimator might see a rise, which either means 1) one of our worst mu's is way more common [ugh] or 2) everyone starts playing leylines everywhere [even more ugh]. But hopefully I'm just overreacting :)


I'm probably dropping 2 Wraiths for +1 careful study, +1 dread return and, in the sb, dropping 1 dread return and maybe 1 Iona/firestorm for 2 faerie macabre

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

Also scared that Reanimator might see a rise, which either means 1) one of our worst mu's is way more common [ugh] or 2) everyone starts playing leylines everywhere [even more ugh]. But hopefully I'm just overreacting :)
Silent Gravestone is good against BRx Reanimator, because they can only use Exhume, that can be named with Cabal Therapy. UBx Reanimator have Show and Tell too, but maybe is slow against LED Dredge.

[Vissah]

Couple things we need to think about atleast I think we need to revaluate.

- Street Wraith, keeping them in or switching them to some combination or Dread Return with a target and Breakthrough/Study or maybe an Amalgam or 2.
- Firestorm, keep them in the side, lower the amoutn or just change them to some other card that takes out creatures like Contagion.

I personally think we can take out the Wraiths, put in some more Studies, a Dread Return with a dedicated target. Basicly put a combo finish in the main deck.

Firestorm I`m not to sure about yet. I really love that card and it has won me many games in the past so I`m a little hesistant about taking it out. I know Contagion will be a very good card because it takes out Cantaignment Priest for example but Firestorm sweeps the board clear when facing Elves.

So what are your thoughts?

[InTherapy]

What are your toughts on archon of valor's reach as DR target in the SB?https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180715/cc3c4ebf870eb23a2f118823d1558d11.jpg

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

[Orim67]

Probably worse than iona in most or all matchups and I even think that Iona isn't necessary or stock in LED Dredge anyways. In matchups where it might be better than Iona, you also have to think about if it is better than ashen rider which I think is the best target.

[Ahab]

So I Top 8'd two medium sized Legacy tournaments with Dredge in the last months (~65 and ~25 players). Before the ban Silent Gravestone was MVP, but since DRS is not a threat anymore I get the urge to not board anything. What are everyone's experiences with sideboarding in the new meta? I saw a lot of control shells: Stoneblade, Grixis Control, Miracles. They pack a variety of hate, e.g. Spellbomb, Grafdigger's Cage, Surgical, Containment Priest, RiP. Boarding Gravestone feels underwhelming. In most of these matchups I bank on getting a few early therapies through. But the chances to do this are reduced by siding out Breakthrough for Gravestone.

But without Gravestone Surgical on Cabal Therapy is backbreaking, as we lose our most important sac outlet and therefore Zombie token generator. So I was thinking, what if I improve my resiliency against Surgical by diversifying the threats? Next event I will try 3 Nether Shadoes instead of 3 Gravestones in the side.

What are your thoughts on this?

My SB atm is this:
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Firestorm
2 Dread Return
1 Iona
1 Ashen Rider
2 Lotus Petal
2 Serenity
1 Wear//Tear

Edit: @Orim67, I just looked up your newest list on mtgtop8, I like your SB with 3 Wear//Tear! Also cutting Iona might be correct. But I really don't like the LotV, but this may just be a concession to the online meta, which I heard is full of RB Reanimator.

Btw, how so you SB against Infect? I was unsure about Firestorm but boarded it in. Also, Wear//Tear seems good.

[FrabjousDaze]

Congrats on the top 8's Ahab.

Hello all, went 4-3 (dropped before the last round) in the legacy classic in Worcester this weekend. Most of the hate I saw was Leyline and Surgical. I think Wear//Tear was a sideboard MVP, although I didn't bring in gravestone aggressively enough since I was expecting more Leylines, RIP, etc. from certain decks than surgical.


Boarding Gravestone feels underwhelming.
I had good luck with gravestone in the past. I think I saw advice on this thread previously about using gravestone for matchups with surgical but without the full suite of soft counters (i.e. miracles but not delver), particularly if they play snapcaster, which served me well. Not sure if it should come in against blade. I didn't bring it in for those matchups, and found myself wishing I did. It also presumably has some play against reanimator if you don't want to devote the anti-hate slots to 4 leyline. Delver matches got very grindy, but it felt like inevitability was on our side again. Deck felt great, even in the face of a lot of graveyard hate.

My matchups and lists were as follows.

Round 1: Sneak and Show (2-0) (Show and Tell revealing my Ashen Rider was key)
Round 2: RUG Delver (2-1)
Round 3: Death and Taxes (2-0)
Round 4: Goblins (1-2)
Round 5: Bant Blade (2-1)
Round 6: UW Blade (0-2) (Got blown to absolute pieces by multiple stifles, but I had played this player before, they knew the match up quite well and are very good IMO)
Round 7: Turbo Depths (1-2)
Round 8: Dropped

Maindeck:
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine

4 Faithless Looting
2 Putrid Imp
3 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Golgari Grave-troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Prized Amalgam
1 Dread Return
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan

Sideboard:
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Firestorm
1 Ichorid
1 Ingot Chewer
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Wear//Tear

[Drujeful]

Maindeck:
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine

4 Faithless Looting
2 Putrid Imp
3 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Golgari Grave-troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Prized Amalgam
1 Dread Return
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan

Sideboard:
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Firestorm
1 Ichorid
1 Ingot Chewer
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Wear//Tear

How did you feel about the combo kill in the main? Do you think it's correct to drop Street Wraith for that in the new meta?

[ryanburninator]

How did you feel about the combo kill in the main? Do you think it's correct to drop Street Wraith for that in the new meta?

Not OP but,

In my personal experience, I didn't have wonderful results with street wraith even before the ban. Many times I think it would have been better to just have another draw spell; I often found it difficult to get dredgers in my yard after a force of will on my only draw spell or putrid imp. The only real times I felt Street Wraith being worth the slots was cycling in response to surgical, which usually happens post-board anyway.

After the ban, I feel that -4 street wraith, +1 DR +1 DR Target, +2 careful study is more efficient setup. I rarely run out of food for Ichorid, and I have many more keepable hands with the extra draw spells.

What are your thoughts?

[slave]

I didn't have wonderful results with street wraith even before the ban....
Street Wraith was all about DRS being so bloody prevalent in the meta for me. Now DRS is gone, I don't think we need the extra food for Icky. Wraith is gone for me.

I assume now that DRS is gone, that our game1 win% will increase, but I also expect gravehate to change little. I expect Surg to be prevalent as ever, maybe some more people running LotV but no much more than that. Wait and see....

[FrabjousDaze]

How did you feel about the combo kill in the main?
Of the 7 matches I played in Worcester, I had at least one game that I can remember (against turbo depths) where Dragonlord Kolaghan won me the game when the opponent had lethal on board. I lost the match, of course, but that was good proof for me. I've reanimated her fairly infrequently, but she does serve the dual role of another creature for Ichorid and a win-the-game button.


In my personal experience, I didn't have wonderful results with street wraith even before the ban.
I want to echo this. I respect the inclusion of street wraith, but I never had good results with it, and I definitely think it is much better against DRS, which is game 1 and repeatable, than surgical. Against surgical I just tend to try to expose the least powerful dredgers first (which had decent success last weekend). I think surgical on the dredgers isn't even the best target (obviously 2x surgical on both Ichorid and Narcomoeba is just lights out), so I just let my opponents spend the card.


I expect Surg to be prevalent as ever, maybe some more people running LotV but no much more than that. Wait and see....
I had trouble with sideboarding decisions because of this. There were several instances where I thought LotV or RiP were better sideboard cards for my opponent's deck, so I brought in wear//tear only for my opponent to tell me after the match that they didn't bring in artifacts or enchantments, or at least had more cards of the surgical/containment priest variety. I guess when the metagame settles down we will be able to see what the preferred method of attack is and can adjust the sideboard options.

[fm4d]

Hi, I've spent entire yesterday terrorizing people with Dredge at the MKM Series Prague Legacy main event with 226 players
(for non-europe players: MKM Series is probably the largest and highest quality legacy/modern series,
something like SCG) achieving score of 7 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss which netted me 10th place - but I had the same amount of points
as players on positions 5 - 10 but I was very unlucky with my OMW (having no byes probably played some role) and I've prepared
a short recap to bring some optimistic energy and mood for my fellow dredge players.

My list:
Last time I've played dredge the standard was DR + FKZ combo kill so I've been a bit reluctant to accept the idea of beatdown
+ discard, but I've submitted to the wisdom dredge folks accumulated over the years. My only change is -2 Street Wraith for
+2 Careful Study, Street Wraith seems like the weakest cards after ban. I've considered cutting all 4 of them but then I would have to
cut 1 Ichorid etc. and I had no time to test that + no experience. With the hindsight I am happy for this split, they performed really well.
The lands are not some secret tech, Mana Confluence is obviously superior to City of Brass (and it was relevant in a
game vs. D&T because of Rishadan Ports), I've just opted to save some money to but Firestorms instead of them. The Undiscovered Paradise
is probably wrong, but my teammate (oldschoold dredger) forced me to play it for the spice and it was actually quite cool - good against
Rishadan Ports, painless, allowing for some niche plays like discarding it for threshold or more Firestorm damage.


4 Lion's Eye Diamond

3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Street Wraith

4 Bridge from Below

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise

// SB
2 Lotus Petal
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Ashen Rider
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Serenity
3 Firestorm
2 Wear // Tear
2 Dread Return



Metagame:
https://i.imgur.com/gASgPRC.png

Luck and mistakes:
The one draw with Grixis Control was absolutely horrible mistake, I've insisted on playing G2 for ~30 minutes after my opponent
stopped me with Thoughtseize, Flusterstorm, FOW and 2x Surgical. I should have realize that this is a very favorable matchup
and concede to have enough time for G3. Being on the play is super relevant and in G3 I was in a winning position, all I needed was 5 minutes
to lead my zombies to victory which would his secure me top8. I've made one smaller mistake vs. Elves which could give me about 25% chance to win G1.

My luck was above average in this tournament - I've seen 3 of my opponents playing and knew what I play against, the lady luck favoured the brave and
nearly all my mulligans to 4 and 3 cards were rewarded by the Land, Faithless Looting, Lions Eye Diamond, Stinkweed Imp hands and notably I've won
against OmniTell after he countered my business spells and played Graffdigger's Cage by hardcasting 2 Thugs and 1 Narcomoeba while my opponent drew
more counterspells, lands and his Ponders fizzled. After game he confessed that he sideboarded out Show and Tell because of my Angel of Despair so maybe
I was not so lucky - he simply made his combo much less consistent. I was also very accurate with Cabal Therapies - hitting Stoneforge Mystics
and Swords to Plowshares very often while only one of my opponent topdecked Rest in Piece right after I double discarded him.

Matches:

2-0 Deadguy Ale
2-0 U/R Prowess
2-1 OmniTell with Sneak Attack
2-0 Sultai midrange/control
1-1 Grixis midrange/control
0-2 Elves
2-0 Death & Taxes
2-1 BR Reanimator
2-1 Death & Taxes


The day before the tournament during the trials I've seen mostly Delvers, D&T, Stoneblades and various midrange decks with
blue so I've been trying to keep hands with lands and multiple business spells without focusing on speed - anything that can
give me solid chance to get a t2 Cabal Therapy for Batterskull was good enough. I simply wanted to minimize the chance of
defeating myself in first game knowing that Ichorid + Zombie beatdown can beat 2/3 of field even with very mediocre hand
and it just worked - the midrange decks could not deal with Ichorid, my hands against D&T were fast enough to race possible
Batterskull. I've lost only 2 first rounds against Elves (I was on draw and had and opted to keep a 5 cards that were rather slow)
and against BR Reanimator with nut draw (Chancellor of the Annex with Unmask and T2 combo). To sum it up I would say that
it is quite an arcane art to read the metagame properly + critically think about your mulligans in order to keep optimal hands in
first game. My hedge to prefer consistent t2-t3 hands over explosive t1/t2 hands payed off, but I can see that being a mistake
in a different metagame.

The hate was present but quite manageable - most people had 2-3 Surgical Extractions, to my surprise even both D&T decks,
some Containment Priests, RiPs from Deadguy Ale and D&T, some Graffdigger's Cage - notably OmniTell had 4 and some blue
decks played a few. BR Reanimator had nothing, U/R Prowess only Surgical and Sultai/Grixis also only Surgical I believe. Other
then that they sided in some discard and counterspells. Elves player was scared of graveyard decks and had an extensive SB of
Bojuka Bogs and Scavenging Oozes and Surgicals.

My sideboarding was... messy, in the first rounds I've tried to proactively side in Wear/Tear and combo, but in the entire tournament
I have not used a single artifact/enchantment removal + the combo was quite underwhelming, all my g2-g3 wins were due to
very aggressive mulligan for fast hand, racing their hate. I've used the tactique I've seen somwhere to sideboard Lotus Petal against
D&T, essentially exploding before they have a chance to play their 2-mana hate and I've won my both games agaisnt D&T in this way -
they cannot fight it unless they have both Faerie Macabre/Surgical + T2 hate. I cannot comment on Firestorm, I've sideboarded it in
blue midrange matchups, Deadguy Ale, U/R Prowess and Elves but I've not seen a single one. It was my only out vs. Scavening Ooze btw.
I've lost a g2 vs. OmniTell and Grixis when they kept a hand of counterspells and discard without hate - I am not sure what is the optimal
strategy for this, maybe sideboarding Firestorm? I don't think so, I would probably keep a good aggressive hand again, forcing them to
have all the answers.

Serenity was underwhelming, I haven't seen any situation where I would like them. Faerie Macabre is nuts with so many B/R Reanimators
and Surgicals, but I am not sure about Gravestones, I think I would rather keep my deck consistent and force my opponent to have both
Surgical and fast clock/snapcaster. Also many players used their Surgicals suboptimaly, for example on Faithless Lootings.

I am still somehow unsure about DR + Ashen Rider. They are very nice vs. Surgical Extraction to diversify your threats, but I've always spent
5+ minutes pondering about cards to take out for them and there was only one game where reanimating Ashen Rider was relevant and good.
I will consider either adding DR targets or taking DR out of SB. I could use that space for an extra Breakthrough or Lotus Petal.

Taking cards out of deck for sideboard is super painful and I still don't have any idea whether I've done it correctly. Usually some combination of
1 Putrid Imp, 1 Golgari Thug, 0-2 Street Wraith, 1-2 Careful Study and 0-2 Breakthrough. I would really love to see a long and comprehensive
sideboard guide - not a fixed set of rules how to sideboard against which matchup but what sideboarding out certain key cards means for the
mulligans and consistency etc.

Observations:

Its hard to lose G1 vs. non-combo deck without mulliganing yourself to oblivion. Mulliganing conservatively in G1 might be the correct plan.
4 Ichorids were super nice - you can keep good hands with multiple Narcomoebas G1, having all your Narcomoebas in last 20 cards is still winnable etc.
Less then 4 Thugs must be wrong, failing to chain dredgers when you explode and having less hands with dredgers is really bad.
Never give up against combo, you can beat T1 Chancelor/Grisselbrand, you can kill OmniTell with army of 1/1s, but keep an eye on the clock vs. midrange/control,
especially in favourable matchup being stubborn can cost you 2 points.
Dredge is all about the balls, I've mulliganed to 4 cards at least in 1/3 games, probably more, and won most of these games and there is a certain
mindset of "just having shitload of fun" really helped me with those decisions - transforming the unpleasant experience of mulliganing into an exciting
event of exchanging 4 bad cards into 3 cards with 20+ outs that are still winning.
Losing to G2 Graffdigger's Cage feels bad, but sideboarding Wear/Tear and crippling your consistency feels even worse. I think that sideboarding
2x artifact hate blindly is probably bad, but not being drawing dead is a strong temptation. I would like to hear some opinions about this issue.
Surprisingly many players keep 7 or 6 without any hate in G2/3, just as if they played against fair deck. I ascribe this tendency towards the non-combo kill that
gives them the feeling that they can somehow beat it without the hate. For this reason it might be worth to play G1 tightly if you are sure that they cannot come back
and just kill them over few turns with some zombies and Ichorids, instead of dredging 55 cards and creating 20 zombie tokens. Maybe its nonsense, not sure.

[Drujeful]

What are your thoughts?

I absolutely loved the combo kill. I switched between Dragonlord Kolaghan and Flame-Kin Zealot depending on how I felt. It was so much fun being able to just explode. I was sad when the deck switched away from that so now I'm really excited that we could potentially go back to it. Unfortunately, due to school I don't have a ton of time to play so I'm out of practice. Hopefully I can catch a break here soon.

[Drujeful]

Here's my latest list that I hope to get some miles under.

Creature (25)
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Golgari Thug
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
2x Putrid Imp
4x Stinkweed Imp
2x Street Wraith

Enchantment (4)
4x Bridge from Below

Sorcery (14)
3x Breakthrough
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Careful Study
1x Dread Return
4x Faithless Looting

Land (13)
4x Cephalid Coliseum
2x City of Brass
3x Gemstone Mine
4x Mana Confluence

Artifact (4)
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

Sideboard (15)
1x Ashen Rider
1x Dread Return
3x Firestorm
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
2x Lotus Petal
2x Serenity
2x Silent Gravestone
3x Wear

I'm wondering if going to 3 Putrid Imp is going too low. Are there enough discard spells otherwise in Faithless Looting and Careful Study? Is Street Wraith even necessary at this point? I have two just in case they show up against Surgical Extraction. Regarding the sideboard, how is Silent Gravestone now? It still helps against reanimator as long as they don't use Exhume which is nice. But is it not doing as much now compared to pre-ban? What does everyone think?

[FrabjousDaze]

achieving score of 7 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss which netted me 10th place - but I had the same amount of points
as players on positions 5 - 10

Rough that breakers didn't break the right way for you, but congrats on placing so high in the event!



...but in the entire tournament
I have not used a single artifact/enchantment removal + the combo was quite underwhelming, all my g2-g3 wins were due to
very aggressive mulligan for fast hand, racing their hate.
...
Serenity was underwhelming, I haven't seen any situation where I would like them. Faerie Macabre is nuts with so many B/R Reanimators
and Surgicals, but I am not sure about Gravestones, I think I would rather keep my deck consistent and force my opponent to have both
Surgical and fast clock/snapcaster. Also many players used their Surgicals suboptimaly, for example on Faithless Lootings.

I am still somehow unsure about DR + Ashen Rider. They are very nice vs. Surgical Extraction to diversify your threats, but I've always spent
5+ minutes pondering about cards to take out for them and there was only one game where reanimating Ashen Rider was relevant and good.
I will consider either adding DR targets or taking DR out of SB. I could use that space for an extra Breakthrough or Lotus Petal.

Taking cards out of deck for sideboard is super painful and I still don't have any idea whether I've done it correctly. Usually some combination of
1 Putrid Imp, 1 Golgari Thug, 0-2 Street Wraith, 1-2 Careful Study and 0-2 Breakthrough. I would really love to see a long and comprehensive
sideboard guide - not a fixed set of rules how to sideboard against which matchup but what sideboarding out certain key cards means for the
mulligans and consistency etc.


I found that 2 wear//tear have not made my draws much less explosive, but they definitely are not a fun card to flip over to a dredge. I've tried following advice I've seen in this thread about not siding out more than 5 cards, and it has done wonders for me.
I've only brought in Serenity twice recently, both times against Eldrazi post (I think it is generally there for the chalice + trinisphere decks), and it seemed great when I cast it, but I definitely don't think it is for matchups without chalice.
Personally, I bring in the ashen rider against show and tell, reanimator (especially if they have blue for show and tell) and dark depths. I'm not sure about that last one, but it seems correct as a way to interrupt their combo since they can be a bit faster and we cannot block Marit Lage. I've considered it for decks that bring in ensnaring bridge as an out if you've already got the engines running by the time it comes down, but that seems pretty corner case. I don't like it as a threat diversification method, since you need so much else to go right for that to matter, and if you've got 3 creatures in play + dread return/rider in your yard you've probably also got an apocalypse of zombies in play.

I won't say my sideboarding method is perfectly tuned, but I tend to bring out a combination of discard outlets, since that is what we are heaviest on. You mention that less than 4 thugs must be wrong, and I wholeheartedly agree, I've never sideboarded out a dredger and am happier for it. Putrid imp is the best initiator against spell pierce specifically, and it is a key to the ichorid engine, and LED when played correctly cannot be daze'd, so I tend to tune my sideboarding based on which of the discard outlets seem the most/least powerful in that matchup. Breakthrough is the only draw spell that doesn't draw you into anti-hate, so that tends to be the first one out in most matchups for me.


Here's my latest list that I hope to get some miles under.
I'm wondering if going to 3 Putrid Imp is going too low. Are there enough discard spells otherwise in Faithless Looting and Careful Study? Is Street Wraith even necessary at this point? I have two just in case they show up against Surgical Extraction. Regarding the sideboard, how is Silent Gravestone now? It still helps against reanimator as long as they don't use Exhume which is nice. But is it not doing as much now compared to pre-ban? What does everyone think?

I'm on 2 imp and I think it is fine. Remember that LED and Cabal Therapy can be discard spells when you need them to be, so the discard outlet count is still pretty high. I recently played at the Philadelphia legacy classic, and gravestone was still great for me in that meta. I won a match against Maverick by slamming gravestone the turn after he cast GSZ for scavenging ooze. As the most prominent/general hate from my experience and from what fm4d says above is Surgical, gravestone seems like it should still be great.

My current experiment with the deck is exploring 3 Ichorid + 2 Nether Shadow instead of 3 Ichorid + 2 Prized Amalgam. I found that amalgam would get stranded a lot in the graveyard when one of my two self-reanimating creatures got surgical'd (or if I dredged poorly). The reduced size is a downside, but usually you are just cashing those creatures in for zombies anyway. If anyone has recent experience with that set up, please share your impression. Otherwise I'll post my impressions once I've tried it out for a while.

[InTherapy]

Just found an list on MTGO which placed 27th of 100 with following card:

- Stitcher's Supplier ({B} , 1/1 )

Rules Text
When Stitcher's Supplier enters the battlefield or dies, put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.

What are your thoughts on this guy?

[Vandalize]

Just found an list on MTGO which placed 27th of 100 with following card:

- Stitcher's Supplier ({B} , 1/1 )

Rules Text
When Stitcher's Supplier enters the battlefield or dies, put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.

What are your thoughts on this guy?

This card is crazy good in Dredge. Ichorid fodder, becomes Golgari Grave-Troll with Therapy. I think that's enough to test it.

My post-ban list would look like this:

4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Mana Confluence
2 City of Brass

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Stitcher's Supplier

4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Prized Amalgam

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Faithless Looting
2 Careful Study
2 Breakthrough

SB: 4 Fragmentize
SB: 2 Firestorm
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Ashen Rider
SB: 2 Dread Return
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

[QQQ]

This card is crazy good in Dredge. Ichorid fodder, becomes Golgari Grave-Troll with Therapy. I think that's enough to test it.

My post-ban list would look like this:

4 Gemstone Mine
3 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Mana Confluence
2 City of Brass

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Stitcher's Supplier

4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Prized Amalgam

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Faithless Looting
2 Careful Study
2 Breakthrough

SB: 4 Fragmentize
SB: 2 Firestorm
SB: 2 Faerie Macabre
SB: 2 Ashen Rider
SB: 2 Dread Return
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

60th cards?

[Ahab]

Orim67 recording a league:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOQ2ONSCE88&t=1s

[Drujeful]

I'm on 2 imp and I think it is fine. Remember that LED and Cabal Therapy can be discard spells when you need them to be, so the discard outlet count is still pretty high. I recently played at the Philadelphia legacy classic, and gravestone was still great for me in that meta. I won a match against Maverick by slamming gravestone the turn after he cast GSZ for scavenging ooze. As the most prominent/general hate from my experience and from what fm4d says above is Surgical, gravestone seems like it should still be great.

Great points, I think I focus too hard on trying to get the most out of LED for Faithless Looting flashback. It's still good even if it's only used for discarding. I also always forget that sometimes targeting myself with Therapy works to get multiple dredgers in the graveyard. Also good to see that Gravestone is still alright. I'm thinking I might go with that and Faerie Macabre rather than Serenity in my sideboard. Probably keep two Wear//Tear.

[Runninonwater]

Hello everybody!

I was wondering if you guys could help me update my list.

This is what i have atm:

OLD

CREATURES (26)
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
2 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Street Wraith
ENCHANTMENTS (4)
4 Bridge from Below
SORCERIES (14)
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Careful Study
1 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
INSTANTS (1)
1 Tolarian Winds
ARTIFACTS (1)
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
LANDS (14)
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
SIDEBOARD (15)
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ashen Rider
4 Nature’s Claim
1 Darkblast
4 Faerie Macabre
1 Street Wraith
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Breakthrough

And yes, sadly i only have one LED.

How can i imrove it on a budget?

Cards i've seen :
Stitcher's Supplier
The 6 mana haste enabler Kolaghan

And should i drop the mainboard flamekin package ?

EDIT: I got 2 Stitcher's Suppliers today.
I figured i could remove :

1 Steet Wraith
1 Dread Return (moving this to the sideboard)
1 Flame-kin Zealot

added:

2 Stitcher's Supplier
1 Ichorid


New:

CREATURES (26)
2 stitcher's supplier
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
2 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Street Wraith
ENCHANTMENTS (4)
4 Bridge from Below
SORCERIES (14)
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
INSTANTS (1)
1 Tolarian Winds
ARTIFACTS (1)
1 Lion’s Eye Diamond
LANDS (14)
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
SIDEBOARD (15)
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Ashen Rider
4 Nature’s Claim
1 Darkblast
4 Faerie Macabre
1 Street Wraith
2 Silent Gravestone
1 Breakthrough

[FrabjousDaze]

I was wondering if you guys could help me update my list.

Here are my personal opinions, I could definitely be wrong, playtesting is going to be your best guide, but here we go:

Mainboard:
Personally, I like 13 lands, I might consider -1 coliseum. Functionally 4x island can be rough with all the black/red spells that want to be played on turn 1.

I can't comment on supplier since I haven't played it, but it seems pretty low impact to me, I would at least consider more putrid imps over suppliers. Similarly, without DRS, street wraith could be cuttable. (maybe -1 wraith, +1 pimp).

Having only 1 LED is understandable, that price spike was pretty back breaking. Knowing that, I might consider more draw/discard spells. We often put LED in its own category, but in many hands its a 0 mana One With Nothing that happens to combo with coliseum and faithless looting. Maybe +1 careful study, since without LED breakthrough is less explosive. As someone who loves casting winds of change at any opportunity, tolarian winds seems great to me, but it could be study #4.

If you want the combo finish, Kolaghan is probably better than FKZ, but you don't necessarily need it.

Sideboard:
You seem to have 2 DR targets and no DR in the 75. I think at least 2 DR is necessary if you are playing reanimation targets (either 1 main/1 board or both in the board). Darkblast, street wraith, and the 4th breakthrough are probably all cuttable. Iona might not be the best target in the current meta, If you own Elesh Norn that can be an option, Iona can still be strong in some matchups/local metagames though.

I think 4x nature's claim is too many, and at least some of your disenchants should probably be wear//tear (I was very resistant to that card over claim, the first game I cast wear//tear I was convinced). A 2/2 split could be fine.

4x macabre probably depends on how much reanimator you have seen locally. I can't say its wrong, it just could be too many. The firestorm price spike is also silly, but that card is ridiculously powerful if you can get some.

Of course this all depends on what you have access to and what it in the metagame, but those are my thoughts.

[Runninonwater]

Here are my personal opinions, I could definitely be wrong, playtesting is going to be your best guide

Hello!

Thank you for your reply!
This is my deck after i've done some updates:

4 Purtrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari-Grave troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Street Wraith
2 Prized Amalgam

4 Bridge from Below

3 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study (otherwise 2 here, 1 LED)
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence

Sideboard:
1 Ashen Rider
1 Breakthrough
2 Dread Return
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Firestorm
1 Iona, shield of Emeria
4 Nature's Claim
2 Silent Gravestone

My answers:

I didn't think 13 Lands would work well if i don't run 4 LEDS, thats why i opted for 14, and to be able to get to that third land if i really need it in a pinch i guess.
I see what you mean, with my increase of Blackspells maybe -1 Coliseum is better. But now i've added another Careful Study.

Yes, removed supplier for more Pimps

Okay, will take it into consideration, some thought the card is just cute. I can also see the problem where i can't discard the dredgers i dredged haha... Anyhow.

Im thinking that could be better with Kolaghan, but maybe i should just grind it out.

Sideboard:

That was a mistake because i was trying to fix the main haha, so i removed the dread return to go for the more grindier route.
I have now added 2 of them.
Ok, i can remove breakthrough.
I do have 1 Elesh norn, i'll add her.

Yes, i was thinking of getting some Wear // Tears, just gotta find some.

Last thursday when there was legacy (i didn't participate i played EDH) there were 3 Reanimator decks, 2 Tin Fins,1 Show and Tell , 1 Lands, 2 Stoneblade decks (esper and bant i think) and 1 Grixis Delver.

I did go down on Macabre, to 2 in the side with the split for Silent Gravestone since i've seen some people asking for Surgicals.

I acutally managed to find a playset firestorms for 22 dollars =)

But thank you for your answers! I'll see what i can do.
I have a colourless suite of cards so i can alternate between dredge and like: Steelstompy, MUD Stax, MUD Stompy, Eldrazi stompy and Eldrazi Post. Can also build it redbased with Daretti and Welder etc.
So im not "stuck" with dredge.
But i've loved dredge since i was introduced to magic 10 years ago, first really unfair deck i've seen and faced. And now 10 years later i got a dredge deck haha.

[slave]

I've been testing with Stitcher's Supplier.
Thoughts;
It doesn't protect our GGT in the yard like Street Wraith can, and it doesn't drop dredgers from our hand like Putrid Imp. That said, it will dump cards in the yard every single game it lands on the field, it's the first thing we want to sac for Therapy, and it's fodder for Icky.
It's good, it's going to be a casual staple for years to come - but whether it gets slots here in legacy, I'm still on the fence.
I reckon SS isn't a bad T1 play attached to a black creature, so I think this one has some real merit.

I'm enjoying using the card so far.
I'm going to test this one against some hunams next time I go out for a card night.

[slave]

Sphinx of Lost Truths isn't optimal IME. Altho, SoLT is unlikely to be targetted with Reanimate, unlike Griselbrand
I tend to max out on the combo enablers (like Breakthru) and face biters (Icky) instead, and I find Dredge doesn't really need DR in the main to win game1 against most opponents. I aim to get in at least 2 Prized Amalgam to combat extraction.
That said, YMMV and all that.


I've been testing with Stitcher's Supplier.
And my first thought is pretty much where I'm still at. Anyone else given it a go? Thoughts?

My thoughts;
GREAT casual card, it works here pretty okay, but it's not better than what we already have to work with.
Short story - LED & Stitcher in hand can create lines of play, but LED does that with everything else we already have.
Putrid Imp is still in that 1-drop Black creature slot for me.

[AmokPL]

Sphinx of Lost Truths isn't optimal IME. Altho, SoLT is unlikely to be targetted with Reanimate, unlike Griselbrand
I tend to max out on the combo enablers (like Breakthru) and face biters (Icky) instead, and I find Dredge doesn't really need DR in the main to win game1 against most opponents. I aim to get in at least 2 Prized Amalgam to combat extraction.
That said, YMMV and all that.


And my first thought is pretty much where I'm still at. Anyone else given it a go? Thoughts?

My thoughts;
GREAT casual card, it works here pretty okay, but it's not better than what we already have to work with.
Short story - LED & Stitcher in hand can create lines of play, but LED does that with everything else we already have.
Putrid Imp is still in that 1-drop Black creature slot for me.

care to share your current list with Suppliers and Amalgams?

[FrabjousDaze]

So last week I played in a local 5 round event (went 3-2, lost last round playing for top 8, got 9th). I played a list similar to one I posted earlier, but with 2 lotus petals in the board (over ingot chewer and the 4th ichorid) and with +2 nether shadow and -2 prized amalgam. My reasoning is that even though amalgam insulates you against surgical in game 2/3, if your opponent goes after your self-reanimators with surgical, your amalgams can get stranded in the yard (happened to me a lot at an SCG classic a month or two ago). My thoughts:


By rule 404.3, when you dredge nether shadow, you can move it to the bottom of the dredged pile (the 4-6 cards). This almost never mattered, since most dredges were not 4 creatures or more, and most shadow triggers had >>3 creatures above it.
While I will often wait on discarding Ichorid in favor of a dredger/bridge/therapy, leaving it to a later looting effect or a self therapy, I found that I wanted to discard shadow earlier. This is probably not that different from the play style for prized amalgam, since it needs to see the other creature enter.
Amalgam usually has a one turn delay if it dies (trigger Ichorid on upkeep or dredge Narcomoeba, trigger amalgam, put it in at end of turn tapped), the exception being if you sacrifice it to Dread Return. Often if I'm aware of how the turn will go (will Ichorid die in combat, what am I sacrificing to therapy this turn), I can get shadow back in the yard with 3 creatures above it, making it a small Ichorid that doesn't tax my graveyard. I found that I was less frustrated with getting shadow back that I usually am with amalgam in grindy games. Very much felt like a hybrid between Ichorid and Narcomoeba.
I never played a game of anemic beats, so I never got to feel out whether being a 1/1 instead of a 3/3 mattered, nor whether the cheaper cost matters.

My plan is to keep testing Nether Shadow. I'm not sold on it being better/worse than Amalgam, but it does definitely change how the games play out.

Additionally, while I've been touting Dragonlord Kolaghan as better than FKZ, my round 5 game had the corner case where it was in fact much worse (of course, my op scooped to seeing the Kolaghan in the graveyard despite having an on board answer, was probably eventually dead to zombies regardless). Op had a Karakas (presumably much more popular game one with the resurgence of Reanimator and Sneak/Show), and bouncing the Kolaghan in begin combat would take the haste away from the zombie army, whereas FKZ's effect would persist through the eat-their-brains step. I think I'll keep playing Kolaghan since it is a black creature for Ichorid, but this was a strike against her.

[hellhound]

So last week I played in a local 5 round event (went 3-2, lost last round playing for top 8, got 9th). I played a list similar to one I posted earlier, but with 2 lotus petals in the board (over ingot chewer and the 4th ichorid) and with +2 nether shadow and -2 prized amalgam. My reasoning is that even though amalgam insulates you against surgical in game 2/3, if your opponent goes after your self-reanimators with surgical, your amalgams can get stranded in the yard (happened to me a lot at an SCG classic a month or two ago). My thoughts:


By rule 404.3, when you dredge nether shadow, you can move it to the bottom of the dredged pile (the 4-6 cards). This almost never mattered, since most dredges were not 4 creatures or more, and most shadow triggers had >>3 creatures above it.
While I will often wait on discarding Ichorid in favor of a dredger/bridge/therapy, leaving it to a later looting effect or a self therapy, I found that I wanted to discard shadow earlier. This is probably not that different from the play style for prized amalgam, since it needs to see the other creature enter.
Amalgam usually has a one turn delay if it dies (trigger Ichorid on upkeep or dredge Narcomoeba, trigger amalgam, put it in at end of turn tapped), the exception being if you sacrifice it to Dread Return. Often if I'm aware of how the turn will go (will Ichorid die in combat, what am I sacrificing to therapy this turn), I can get shadow back in the yard with 3 creatures above it, making it a small Ichorid that doesn't tax my graveyard. I found that I was less frustrated with getting shadow back that I usually am with amalgam in grindy games. Very much felt like a hybrid between Ichorid and Narcomoeba.
I never played a game of anemic beats, so I never got to feel out whether being a 1/1 instead of a 3/3 mattered, nor whether the cheaper cost matters.

My plan is to keep testing Nether Shadow. I'm not sold on it being better/worse than Amalgam, but it does definitely change how the games play out.

Additionally, while I've been touting Dragonlord Kolaghan as better than FKZ, my round 5 game had the corner case where it was in fact much worse (of course, my op scooped to seeing the Kolaghan in the graveyard despite having an on board answer, was probably eventually dead to zombies regardless). Op had a Karakas (presumably much more popular game one with the resurgence of Reanimator and Sneak/Show), and bouncing the Kolaghan in begin combat would take the haste away from the zombie army, whereas FKZ's effect would persist through the eat-their-brains step. I think I'll keep playing Kolaghan since it is a black creature for Ichorid, but this was a strike against her.

why not Ashen Ghoul over the shadow?
i've used it for a long time when playing quadlaser and it worked better than shadow... the only downside is the B manafor reanimating which should almost never be an issue
just my 2cents

[GoblinSmashmaster]

I'll probably cut Sphinx from my list. I boarded it out 100% of the time, even when I kept DR Zealot in. In the past it's given me more turn 1 wins in game 1, but you have a good point we probably win those game 1s either way. Don't need to discard their whole hand and attack with 12 3/3s on turn 1.

I'll stick with Zealot over Kolaghan for now. Zealot's haste sticks even if the Zealot dies (you can even sac Zealot to Therapy them pre-combat and have back-up zombies to block if the attack fails). 3/3s are better than 2/2s, and that difference has won me games when there were a number of chump blockers to beat through.


why not Ashen Ghoul over the shadow?
i've used it for a long time when playing quadlaser and it worked better than shadow... the only downside is the B manafor reanimating which should almost never be an issue
just my 2cents

I would play Ashen Ghoul over Shadow too. 1/1s suck. Manaless plays Nether Shadow only because they can't play Ashen Ghoul.

In my post-board games where Ichorids got extracted AND Bridges got exiled, Narcomoeba and Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp beatdown really wasn't getting me there. I don't think another 1/1 would have helped. 1/1s are too slow and too easily stopped.

[Ronald Deuce]

Anybody watch the Legacy Premier League?

EDIT: Great TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thUU29k8WJY

[Manroe]

Kind of a newbie here, and by no means very proficient with the deck but I rode Dredge to 6-2 at the 40 Duals tourney in StL today and it was a lot of fun. I finished 12th. Could do a writeup this week.

[Oestrus]

Kind of a newbie here, and by no means very proficient with the deck but I rode Dredge to 6-2 at the 40 Duals tourney in StL today and it was a lot of fun. I finished 12th. Could do a writeup this week.

I would love to read it!

[Manroe]

My rounds were as follows:
Rd1: Merfolk W 2-1
Rd2: Aggro Loam W 2-0
Rd3: Sneak and Show L 1-2
Rd4: UB Shadow W 2-0
Rd5: Burn W 2-1
Rd6: Grixis Delver L 1-2 (This still stings, I'll detail more this week but 3 bridges in bottom 6 game three did me in)
Rd7: UB Shadow W 2-1 (Most intense game 3 I have ever played)
Rd8: Grixis Control W 2-1

Ended up with a Scrubland, not too shabby!

[slave]

Mausoleum Secrets is one of the newbie's from the new set.
Instant-speed tutor opens up possibilities, however it isn't a flexible tutor (which I don't like generally) and at 2-cmc it might be tricky for us to even cast in some games.
I haven't tried testing it in any fashion. Personally I'm not sure we even need it...

Anyone looking to try test this card out here in Dredge?

[Fatal]

Mausoleum Secrets is one of the newbie's from the new set.
Instant-speed tutor opens up possibilities, however it isn't a flexible tutor (which I don't like generally) and at 2-cmc it might be tricky for us to even cast in some games.
I haven't tried testing it in any fashion. Personally I'm not sure we even need it...

Anyone looking to try test this card out here in Dredge?

Legacy Dredge doesn't use spells with CMC > 1 (mostly!), it's bacause in turn 2 your hand is already empty (LED involved) or your opponent was on play and already cast some taxing effect or is prepared to counter (spell pierce, spell snare etc..).

It's focused on turn 1-2 play to dodge most hate / countermagic. Manaless doesn't use mana at all.. only alternative costs. S answer to Mausoleum Secrets is negative this card doesn't bring anything to Legacy Dredge.

[Ronald Deuce]

Legacy Dredge doesn't use spells with CMC > 1 (mostly!), it's bacause in turn 2 your hand is already empty (LED involved) or your opponent was on play and already cast some taxing effect or is prepared to counter (spell pierce, spell snare etc..).

A related problem is that oftentimes we just don't get to two mana on the board. Last year, I cut Abrupt Decay and added a thirteenth land to address that problem, but it's still there.

[GoblinSmashmaster]

A related problem is that oftentimes we just don't get to two mana on the board. Last year, I cut Abrupt Decay and added a thirteenth land to address that problem, but it's still there.

Other games I've hardcast Golgari Grave-Troll... It's hilarious when you flood with a 12 land deck. But yes, this deck doesn't consistently hit 2 mana. I don't run Decay for that reason.

The bigger problem with Mausoleum Secrets is it doesn't advance our gameplan. What would we ever do with it? It only finds a black card, it puts the card in hand instead of GY, and it requires us to already be dredging. It can't find engine stuff like LED or Breakthrough and it puts cards like Ichorid and Bridge from Below into an awkward zone. What would we even tutor for? Street Wraith? Cabal Therapy? Sideboard Abrupt Decay?

Entomb has more live targets and still wasn't good enough to make the cut.

[Ahab]

Mausoleum Secrets is beyond unplayable. Probably even Infernal Tutor would be better. Or Spoils of the Vault. It doesn't help starting the engine, so it's use would be in finding answers to hate, but in order to do that you need to already have creatures in your graveyard, which is not going to happen against hate (LotV, RiP, etc.).

Dredge is not a "graveyard deck", where you can just jam cards that have "graveyard" in their textbox. It's a deck with a specific gameplan which is already strong enough to win against decks without hate. What is missing is a consistent, maindeckable way to combat hate, not another card that depends on the engine but is not part of the engine.

[Asthereal]

Mausoleum Secrets also only tutors for black cards.
I think I'd rather try and make Entomb work, but even for that seemingly strong card we don't find space.

[slave]

Yeah I stopped running Abrupt Decay quite a while ago for the same reasons stated above.
Since DRS kicked the bucket, I've been concentrating on building the deck & side fast. Not quite fearless, but close...

The bigger problem with Mausoleum Secrets is ..... What would we ever do with it?
This is pretty much where I'm at with this card, I was just wondering if anyone might have found something good to do with it.
I guess not! It's not something I'm going to be buying or testing with FWIW.

Entomb IS a card I've tested with. I ran it with Ghasts and 4 Dread Return some years back.
It was fun to play, but had more moving parts and relied on the combo a bit more than simply grinding out zombies like regular LED-dredge will.

[GoblinSmashmaster]

OK serious question about new cards: For those of you still playing Abrupt Decay, would you consider replacing it with Assassin's Trophy?

One thing I really hate about this deck is boarding the wrong answers in game 2 because you got almost 0 information in game 1. Assassin's Trophy is a safe pre-emptive swap in game 2, answering a wider range of answers than Decay. Namely you don't lose on turn 0 if they brought in LotV, but you also don't lose to say Containment Priest if you had brought in Nature's Claim. How often does the uncounterable clause come up? Is Decay often coming in against blue decks, or are those decks just running Surgical anyway?

If you were running it, would you play 13 lands main + 1 land SB?

[slave]

For those of you still playing Abrupt Decay, would you consider replacing it with Assassin's Trophy?
....
If you were running it, would you play 13 lands main + 1 land SB?
When I was running AD, the *cannot be countered* text is sooooo important.
I used to run a couple of petals in the side for it too.

[Ronald Deuce]

OK serious question about new cards: For those of you still playing Abrupt Decay, would you consider replacing it with Assassin's Trophy?

I may be going pretty far out on a limb, and you weren't asking me, but I actually think that Trophy is a trap for a lot of decks. It answers certain things for which the other available tools are relatively narrow or clunky, but I don't think Trophy is any less clunky than Decay. Decay's major strength was (as Slave said) "can't be countered," and I found it to be no more versatile (maybe even less so) than cards like Chain of Vapor. I may well be wrong, though; if you're ok with paying {B}{G}, give it a whirl and let us know how it goes!

[meffeo]

Am I the only one here thinking that Radical Idea might be a fine addition to the deck? Historically, Dredge never had an instant speed draw spell (with the exception of Street Wraith, but removing food to feed an Ichorid scares me a bit) and Careful Study looks like the first card that I might starting to cut.

I know, two mana are A LOT.

[Fatal]

Am I the only one here thinking that Radical Idea might be a fine addition to the deck? Historically, Dredge never had an instant speed draw spell (with the exception of Street Wraith, but removing food to feed an Ichorid scares me a bit) and Careful Study looks like the first card that I might starting to cut.

I know, two mana are A LOT.

Compare this card to Deep Analysis same cost + 3 life vs drawing 2 cards. Answer is not - Deep Analysis doesn't have place in Dredge since 2009. Sure it's not discard outlet - but on turn 2 if you didn't start to dredge this mean you lose.

[Ahab]

So I've been on the 4 Street Wraith plan for a while. SW are good, but not amazing. I'm thinking about switching them for more Putrid Imps and drawspells.

It would look something like this:

4 SW
2 PImp
4 Faithless Looting
2 Careful Study
3 Breakthrough

-->

4 PImp
4 Looting
4 Study
3 Breakthrough

Does anyone have experience with this setup, especially in sideboard games? It's weaker against Chalice I think, but the extra PImps are great against Flusterstorms. Against non-blue and non-Chalice decks it should be stronger postboard because the drawspells are more consistent.

[fluuu]

Can i have a discord invi???

[slave]

So I've been on the 4 Street Wraith plan for a while. SW are good, but not amazing. I'm thinking about switching them for more Putrid Imps and drawspells.
I would.
I'd consider cutting Study to make room for 4x B-thru too.

Street Wraith is a card I've played with a lot. It's real use is in-hand, for post-board situations, to see if they play a targeted hate-card like Surgical Extraction. I used to run SW in the main back when DRS was the expected 1st-turn play of every 2nd deck, but I dropped that card from the main (& side) once DRS got the boot.
We have faster options for main, and better options for side.
Stitcher's Supplier probably earns a spot more than SW these days. Not saying it deserves a spot tho.

[Izza]

Can i have a discord invi???
I would like to have one, too. Thanks.

[Que]

Dredge is not well positioned atm imo. There is a lot of Chalice Decks (Eldrazi Post/Stompy:Moon Stompy:4C Loam), RB Reanimator, Dark Depths, and even the controly blue decks are packing Snapcaster Surgical package. I mean yes Silent Gravestone is supposed to do a lot of work here assuming it resolves. Not to mention people are playing more robust gravehate in Graffdiggers Cage and Leyline of the Void.

[Francisco Pires]

What are your thoughts on Hollow One or Gurmag Angler in sideboard as a plan B?

[Que]

What are your thoughts on Hollow One or Gurmag Angler in sideboard as a plan B?

I personally have not tried it. My theory is that it wouldn't be good in the sense that you're still vulnerable to certain cards like RIP, but those are played in lower number so perhaps its negligible.

[Michael Keller]

I've actually been testing out Tortured Existence for the Legacy Open in Syracuse coming up. I'll post a list shortly.

[Que]

I've actually been testing out Tortured Existence for the Legacy Open in Syracuse coming up. I'll post a list shortly.

We playing basics in this list? or a higher number or lands? Being able to activate this more than once consistently seems a stretch.

[mistercakes]

Hopefully running street wraith with that. :)

[Michael Keller]

(I'm not necessarily playing it at the Open, but I'm testing it out first.)

[Michael Keller]

Tried a few iterations with Tortured Existence - it still needs more work. I do think, however, that it has potential. The ability to recur creatures that would otherwise be countered and provide utility is pretty nasty (i.e. Faerie Macabre).

I just think the shell has to be perfect, and unfortunately within the context of Dredge, there are just better combinations of cards.

[r3dd09]

I'm coming out of the woodwork to play some legacy. What list is everyone running with and without Tortured Existence?

[niv]

I'm coming out of the woodwork to play some legacy. What list is everyone running with and without Tortured Existence?

I haven't tried playing with Tortured Existence; I've been running a pretty stock (I believe) build at the moment:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
2 Putrid Imp

4 Faithless Looting
4 Street Wraith
3 Breakthrough
2 Careful Study
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Mana Confluence
3 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Nature's Claim
2 Serenity
2 Lotus Petal
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Dread Return
1 Ashen Rider


I have been considering some split of Stitcher's Supplier and Street Wraiths though, instead of the full 4. In the games I've played, I just haven't felt like it does a ton. I'm not sure that supplier would be that much better, but the list still feels pretty good to me, and I haven't had a ton of time to grind out and test many changes.

[r3dd09]

I haven't tried playing with Tortured Existence; I've been running a pretty stock (I believe) build at the moment:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
2 Putrid Imp

4 Faithless Looting
4 Street Wraith
3 Breakthrough
2 Careful Study
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Mana Confluence
3 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass

Sideboard
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Nature's Claim
2 Serenity
2 Lotus Petal
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Dread Return
1 Ashen Rider


I have been considering some split of Stitcher's Supplier and Street Wraiths though, instead of the full 4. In the games I've played, I just haven't felt like it does a ton. I'm not sure that supplier would be that much better, but the list still feels pretty good to me, and I haven't had a ton of time to grind out and test many changes.


Thanks for the list. I haven't been too impressed by SW as well, but I haven't grinded enough games with it. Just been a break even card at best for me .

I've been running a bloodghast list as I'm working with what I have. Currently placing an order from MKM to pick up extra goodies in my pimp of choice to fill out the slots I'm missing.

I'll try and work on a TE deck as I think it'd be fun to test at my weeklies.


I've actually been testing out Tortured Existence for the Legacy Open in Syracuse coming up. I'll post a list shortly.

Could you post the list you've been using please :)

[Ronald Deuce]

Shenanigans.

[mistercakes]

gives a lot of ideas for the new 8/8 convoke/delve guy. didn't notice but you can actually use bridge tokens to pay for the convoke and cast one hogaak into another hogaak to legendary rule generate more tokens. (not sure if it's great here, but maybe worth exploring)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRlBDhYlnb0&fbclid=IwAR3BChXqpanB2f32RAUpn7-QEg83NZuynNFiUVCdUnPMnaD7_fG4dc3fsbU

[Ahab]

Yesterday I played in a Legacy weekly. There were 4 rounds, 16 people I think. I played thelist from the youtube video https://youtu.be/JY0KjhMGLS0, except my sideboard was:

4 LotV
3 Claim
1 Wispmare
2 Serenity
3 Silent Gravestone
1 Dread Return
1 Ashen Rider

The list felt extremely resilient, I was able to go off through double Force with Wasteland backup once.

Short summary:

R1G1: I have a broken start where I flip half my library but he doesn't scoop to therapy. He shows me S&T, Progenitus, Shardless, lands. ??? He tells me he plays he owns from ~Scars. I win.
R1G2: He mulls to 5 and asks "pregame actions?" and puts two cards face down on the table. I groan. Then he shows me 2 Chancellor of the Tangle, Trop, S&T, Progenitus. I put in a land but I'm too slow. So far I have not seen any hate.
R1G3: I go off like crazy, therapy shows me a hand of SSG, Shardless, Hypergenesis (the jig is up) and ramdom fatties: Emrakul, Maelstorm wanderer, Progenitus. He fails to find a second land and I win.

1-0

R2G1: I go off T1, he scoops. I board in Claims.
R2G2: Savannah, GSZ -> Arbor. I start on T1 Therapy naming Scooze. He shows me a hand with a second GSZ and I loose after a few turns and Knight -> bog. He is a really good player and knows how to play this matchup. After the game we discuss my therapy. My reasoning was that I don't think he has a second GSZ but wants to setup T2 Scooze w/ activation mana up. He tells me that him playing T1 GSZ basically guarantees a second one in hand as he wouldn't waste it on ramp. I think he's right.
R2G3: He has Tormod's, Surgical, Bog, and creatures. Too much varied hate.

1-1

R3G1: I know he's on merfolk with max. amount of 2-drop lords. I vomit my hand and he only has Spell Pierce. I win.
R3G2: No hate, but he has Force, Spell Pierce, 2 Lords and TNN. Close, but he races me as I dredge 0 Ichorids, Bridges or Narcs in the top 40 cards.
R3G3: Greatest game of the day. I mull into: Land, Land, Pimp, LED, Careful Study, Looting, Ichorid. Bottom Ichorid. T1 I start on Study, he forces. LED, he forces pitching Spell Pierce. He wastes my land and is on 3 cards. I draw a dredger and play looting. Next turn I am able to coliseum and therapy twice, taking all the cards in his hand. He is super salty.

2-1

R4G1:Volcanic Island go. I play LED and he tanks. Resolves. I follow up with 2nd LED (no lander) and discard Looting + GGT to start dredging. He Chain Lightnings me. I therapy and see a hand of Enigma Drake, Bolt, Brainstorm, lands, Spell Pierce. I win. I board in petal and 2x Silent Gravestone (he has Snapcaster and Arcanist)
R4G2: He tempos me out, arcanist is reaaally stron and I have no pressure.
R4G3: I keep a slow hand with 2x therapy and Thug. He flips his T1 delver and wins on the last possible turn when I'm at 9 with Arcanist, Bolt me, Maximize Velocity. GG.
I think I should have aggressively mulliganed to a broken hand G3. I keep losing to UR tempo. Arcanist gives them soo much gas, in R3G3 I destroyed merfolk because he had to cripple himself with double force, but UR can rebuild so quickly. After the game he told me he had no surgicals, so Gravestones were definitely a mistake, had I known that.

2-2

All in all a great tournament with great people, although I played against many weird decks. The dredge list felt really explosive, Street Wraith are not good right now as hate is pretty varied. Hogaak was good, but not that necessary. Whenever I cast him it was after already having multiple threats on board. It's good against Delver and Pile I guess.
Didn't see a single Leyline all day.

[StefN]

Hello everyone,

this weekend I made 2. place (4-1) at a small tournament (25 people) with dredge. I played the following list:

Main:

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
2 Hogaak
4 Putrid Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Cabal T.
4 Nacomoeba
4 Bridge from B.
3 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Loothing
4 LED
4 Cephalid C.
2 Gemstone Mine
3 Mana Confluence
4 City of Brass

Side:

2 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline oft he Void
1 Dread Return
1 Ashen Rider
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Natures Claim
2 Whispmare
1 Shenanigans

1. Round: UW Blade (1-2):
Game 1: Dredge does what it does best. He has no chance.
Game 2: He forces 2 LEDs. I have no other discard outlet. I scoop when he plays Ashiok Dream Render.
Game 3: I manage slowly to dredge every turn but I have to scoop as soon as he plays Containment Priest. GG ;)

2. Round: Dragon Stompy (2-0):
Game 1: Again a fast start. He has no chance.
Game 2: He mulls to 3 to get a Leyline but I have a Natures Claim in my hand. Ha managed o play an Ensnaring Bridge on turn 2. I have to dredge my whole deck to find Ashen Rider and the Dread Return.

3. Round: RB Reanimator (2-0):
Game 1: Again a fast start. He doesn’t play Elesh Norn so I win pretty fast.
Game 2: I have Leyline in my opener. He has no out but it takes pretty long until I get a dredger in my graveyard. Second turn he reanimates my Thug ;). He also played a Gravetitan in this game but at this point it was already too late.

4. Round: Eldrazi (2-1):
Game 1: Fast start = fast win.
Game 2: He starts with Leyline and Chalice on 1 on his first turn. The second turn Thrinisphere. GG
Game 3: We both takes mulligan on 4. He has no Leyline. I have an ok start. He scoops on turn 4 or 5.

5. Round: SneakShow (2-0):
Game 1: I have an ok start and a lot of therapies. He didn’t manage to get a fattie into play.
Game 2: Same as game 1. Therapies wins me the game.
We play an additional game for fun. Same outcome as Game 1+2.

Dredge made a lot of fun this weekend. I’m not sure if 2 Hoogaks are really necessary, but it feels good to play he fatty on turn 2. ;)

[Amon Amarth]

Anyone have experience with Creeping Chill? Looks like it has some merit, there is a version that did well with Chill on a recent Legacy Challenge. Seems pretty good against decks like RUG.

https://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=31738&iddeck=273710

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

2 Leyline of Sanctity

Why so many decklists run 2 Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard? I've seen them also in the Dredge that placed 9th at MagicFest Atlanta.
I also see a lack of cards against Containment Priest. How did Adam Colletta reach the 9th place without cards against Containment Priest?

[StefN]

Why so many decklists run 2 Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard? I've seen them also in the Dredge that placed 9th at MagicFest Atlanta.
I also see a lack of cards against Containment Priest. How did Adam Colletta reach the 9th place without cards against Containment Priest?

The white Leyline is good against Bojuka Bog, Tormods Crypt, discard heavy decks and Storm Combo. On the other hand, when your opponent is playing Containment Priest, this doesn't mean that you auto lose. You can still dredge Thugs + hardcast them and Therapy your opponent to produce Zombietokens. To play a sideboard card (Firestorm) just for Containment Priest that functions as a discard outlet but you have to keep it in your hand for the right moment is pretty bad.

[notkevin]

Also, remember that Hogaak is still castable through Priest, so it's not nearly the concern it used to be :)

[jolssoni]

I top8'd Finnish Legacy Nationals last Saturday with:

4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Careful Study
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
2 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
4 Ichorid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp

Sideboard:
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Lotus Petal
2 Nature's Claim
2 Silent Gravestone
3 Wispmare

Given that Storm is always underplayed in paper whereas Depths variants are not, I think -1 Iona -1 Void +2 Leyline of Sanctity is the way to go in the future. Biggest worry I have going forward is Mentor, possibly UW Blade as well, running 2-3 Rips/Containment Priest and 5-6 Forces to protect them, do ya'll think boarding answers makes sense in those matchups instead of trying to go off turn 1/therapy them, play/draw?

[GoblinSmashmaster]

I top8'd Finnish Legacy Nationals last Saturday with:

Congrats!

I'm thinking of playing Dredge again soon.

What's the reason for your 1 Lotus Petal main over say Mana Confluence or 3rd Study?

Why 3 Wispmare? Is there an uptick in Chalice decks running Leyline?

In the past my plan to beat 2cc answers like RiP & Priest was to explode and play under them. Especially on the play. I found that better than diluting the main plan and trying to kill their hate through counters. We're the aggressor. We should race, not answer. My last list also ran 2 Thoughtseize in the SB, a proactive answer for slow hate and faster combos.

[Ahab]

Sunday morning, it's cold. Slight rain, when we meet the streets are still empty, not even last night's drunks are out in this weather. It doesn't get better going south, as we drive into a thick fog. Close to the Gotthard we enter a winter wonderland, over half a meter of snow. This will come to bite us on the way home. We discuss our deck choices. My only deck is Dredge. Krzysztof likes spicy things and is on UR Standstill with sideboard Sulfuric Vortex. But no one can top Youn when he proudly announces that there is no name for his deck, but he likes to call it Thoughtlash combo with the new Jace and 3 Latern of Insights. I have fond memories of donating Thoughtlashes to unsuspecting opponents, and they have to pick it up and read it, it's perfect, like gifting someone a boring book for Christmas.

The tournament is in a simple house, looks more like a warehouse. The organizer seems very experienced.

20 people, so 5 rounds and cut to Top 8. 1st place is 2 Force, 2nd place 2 Wasteland, 3-8 MKM coupons.

R1: Enrico on Jeskai Mentor
G1 I lose to Mentor after he has double Force and Spell Pierce for my first 3 plays: LED, Looting, Pimp.
G2&3 he only has max. 1 Surgical
1-0

R2: Moon Stompy
Didn't bring my Serenities. Great.
G1 he gets an early Trinisphere into Hazoreth, then Ensnaring Bridge and Karn. I am just a little bit too slow.
G2 I keep a hand with Looting, GGT, Thug, Whispmare, Land, Petal, Careful Study. Amazing. He has no Leyline so I go Land -> Study, discard 2 dredgers, Petal -> Looting but he has FAERIE MACABRE. I proceed to do nothing the rest of the game. Later I cast another Looting and have the choice to discard 2 dredgers again or play around another Faerie. Of course he has it when I discard both dredgers, but it was too late anyway. Still, a punt.
1-1

R3: Adriano on Eldrazi Stompy. I know for a fact he is on Eldrazi as Krzysztof lost to him in R2.
G1: On the play LED -> Breakthrough -> Looting, flip my deck. He concedes when I cast Therapy. This is why you sleeve this deck.
G2: He opens with Leyline and Chalice on 1. Pretty good, except that I have Whispmare, the perfect answer to his board. We play back and forth a bit, he exiles 3 Bridges by playing Endless One on 0, but then I cast Hogaak off of 2 Ichorids. Hogaak is bigger than the Eldrazis and his only out is finding back to back Reality Smashers, which he doesn't.
2-1

R4: Sascha aka eheh_dude on RUG Delver
I am a big fan of Sascha's stream so this is my highlight of the tournament.
G1: I do some dredging, he flips T1 delver with bolt. I have bridges in the yard, and he stares at the ceiling for a long time. I ask him if he's thinking or praying, to which he responds that praying is useless, and bolts my face. This tells me he's racing (he could've bolted his own delver to remove the bridges), so I Cabal Therapy him and name Bolt. As expected he has the second one and proceeds to lose to hasty horrors.
G2: T1 Delver, natural flip and Surgical. He tells me this is the only way to win in this matchup. I ask him if he doesn't play Cages in the SB, he tells me no. Still I leave in my single Ingot Chewer as he has EE and could have Tormod's.
G3: My notes only consist of 2 informations: 1) The only life change I recorded was him going to 19. 2) At one point I wrote his hand down: Fiery Islet, EE, Volcanic, TNN, Delver, Bolt. This is not a hand that wins against dredge.
3-1

R5: ID
3-1-1

Youn is also locked for Top 8. Krzysztof is convinced his breakers are too bad but plays it out anyway, at 2-2. He proceeds to play the most epic game of the evening against my R1 opponent. He is behind, but manages to stabilize the board with a hail mary move of sudden shocking a mentor and Snapcaster -> Echoing Truth the tokens. Nothing much happens for a few turns, except he draws Sulfuric Vortex into Sulfuric Vortex into Mountain, while being on 4 life to his opponent's ~20 life. His opponent narsets into Magmatic Sinkhole to stop the attacking Factory after taking a few hits. Krzysztof draws out all the answers with Grim Lavamancer, Snapcaster, etc. With his opponent on 4 and himself on 2, he plays Vortex. His opponent laughs, a bit confused. He brainstorms, finding 3 lands. Vortex resolves. Krzysztof plays the second Vortex. Blank stare from the other side of the table, the crowd goes wild.

He makes Top 8.

All of us made it.

Top 8: Youn, on Thoughtlash combo!
G1: I dredge half my deck without finding anything but a single Ichorid, which he swords, and a Narcomoeba. I die soon after he resolves Thoughtlash.
G2: Same as G1, except he finds RiP after ~8 turns.

Krzysztof lost 2 quick games against my R2 opponent (Moon Stompy).
Youn ends up being the next snack for Moon Stompy and we head home.


+
The tournament was organized very well, thank you!
Thanks to all the players, I had a great time playing
Whispmare
Hogaak being an 8/8, simply great design

-
Prismatic Vista only fetching basics (this is for you Youn)
Confusing route back through small mountain towns and heaps of snow
Me dropping my coffee two seconds after buying it

P.S. My list: 13 lands, 12 dredgers, 4 LED/Narc/Ich/BfB/Therapy/Looting/PImp, 3 Breakthrough, 2 Study, 1 Hogaak (8/8), 1 Petal. SB: 3 LotV, 2 Leyline of Sanctity, 1 Silent Gravestone/DR/Ashen Rider/Ingot Chewer/Nature's Claim, 4 Whispmazing, 1 Petal.

[Que]

Congrats on the Top 8! I wouldn't even know how to approach that matchup lol. I've never seen it in person.


-----------

I've noticed more individuals playing Creeping Chills, but I don't actually understand the advantage of it. It seems like another "dead" card if we open with it. And it doesn't facilitate what we want to be doing i.e. discarding/drawing, its not even a black creature for Ichorid.
:eyebrow:


EDIT: 420:g:

[Ahab]

There are two things in favor of Creeping Chill:
1) It's great against Delver and Chalice, since it's uncountreable and makes it difficult for them to race.
2) The London mulligan changed how we approach opening hands significantly. Before, you would keep a solid hand of lands, Imp, dredgers, but now it's often correct to simply mull into explosive LED hands. Effectively, ~40% of your hand is dead anyway, so Chill is not too bad.

I have not tried Chill myself, but point 2) seems wrong or more inconsistent. Against a lot of matchups it's great to have a backup drawspell or Imp in case they have an answer to the first one. I played 4 Imps, inspired by MTGO player THE_DADDY (Pingu on the discord). Attacking for 2 is often relevant, it flashes back Therapy, convokes out Hogaak and is a permanent discard outlet. Feels really strong right now, I would always play a drawspell into blue mana to bait a counter. A resolved Imp is very problematic for some decks. It's also great when you have stranded Ichorids or Bridges in your hand.


Something else:
I have trouble deciding when to keep Therapy hands. By that I mean hands with Therapy, 2 lands and a 2-drop like Narc or Thug. The idea is to T1 Therapy, T2 flash it back and win from there. However, Thug has to put itself on top of your library, which isn't great.
Thoughts on that?

[Andifeated]

Hi,

I played against an interesting Dredge version utilizing Fiery Islet and Insolent Neonate.
The full decklist is not available to me but I think it should/could look something like this:

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Fiery Islet
4 Gemstone Mine

4 Insolent Neonate
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Street Wraith
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

Sideboard: 15
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Unmask
2 Lotus Petal
1 Leyline of Sanctity

I like the idea of having more utility lands like Coliseum and Insolent Neonate maybe is an upgrade to Putrid Imp to make the deck faster.
The deck becomes faster and more consistent with this change but loses the ability to cast cards like Nature's Claim or Serenity.

What do you guys think?

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

Hi,

I played against an interesting Dredge version utilizing Fiery Islet and Insolent Neonate.

The deck hits a top 8 at GP Bologna (https://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=32548).

2 Insolent Neonate
2 Street Wraith
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Bridge from Below
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
3 Fiery Islet
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine

Sideboard:
4 Chain of Vapor
2 Dread Return
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Lotus Petal
1 Shenanigans

Wish to know his sideboarding strategies. The Dread Return targets seems good only against combo and maybe few other decks, but probably they're good even against fair decks to win early when on the play. I hope for a report to know these things.


What do you guys think?
The decklist seems built to play against Surgical Extraction and seems a little more resistant against Faerie Macabre.

[Izor]

Wish to know his sideboarding strategies. The Dread Return targets seems good only against combo and maybe few other decks, but probably they're good even against fair decks to win early when on the play. I hope for a report to know these things.


The decklist seems built to play against Surgical Extraction and seems a little more resistant against Faerie Macabre.

I'm not the person who piloted the list, but the reasoning behind it when compared with the stock list that is used 99% of the time on MODO is simply giving up all non-UR colors in order to gain something that probably should have been considered earlier, which is another land that can act as a draw effect in Fiery Islet.

All you lose are PImp and sideboard cards for the most part, and gaining access to a much worse but at least two colored Cephalid Coliseum is pretty nice. Chain of Vapor is really all you need right now because of how prominent Leyline is and the random utility it has over Claim and the like. I was first surprised about the inclusion of 5c lands to fill up the mana base at first, but I guess it makes sense to be able to randomly hardcast Therapy and Dredgers at times. If that wasn't important you could play something like a singleton basic Island, Volcanic Island and a few blue Fetches instead.


I topped a 6-round tournament this weekend with a UB list without LED and with Force of Will among other things. I've grown pretty tired of that same 75 everyone usually copy/pastes nowadays and I don't like its all-in nature very much anyway, so I played something I'd been brewing with with for a long time that fits my playstyle more and that's more resilient to hate, because I always expect a lot of it in my meta. My only loss was to a Turn 1 Veil of Summer into turn 2 kill on the play in g1 and a mulligan to four in g2 to TES (in which I could have found a FoW after his Echo of Eons to instantly win) and I beat Eldrazi (2-0), UWgr Miracles (2-0), BUG Zenith Snowko with Natural Order (2-0) and UW Stoneblade twice (2-0/2-1) going 5-1. I can provide some more info if anyone's interested, but I was slacking a lot on my notes.

[InTherapy]

I'm not the person who piloted the list, but the reasoning behind it when compared with the stock list that is used 99% of the time on MODO is simply giving up all non-UR colors in order to gain something that probably should have been considered earlier, which is another land that can act as a draw effect in Fiery Islet.

All you lose are PImp and sideboard cards for the most part, and gaining access to a much worse but at least two colored Cephalid Coliseum is pretty nice. Chain of Vapor is really all you need right now because of how prominent Leyline is and the random utility it has over Claim and the like. I was first surprised about the inclusion of 5c lands to fill up the mana base at first, but I guess it makes sense to be able to randomly hardcast Therapy and Dredgers at times. If that wasn't important you could play something like a singleton basic Island, Volcanic Island and a few blue Fetches instead.


I topped a 6-round tournament this weekend with a UB list without LED and with Force of Will among other things. I've grown pretty tired of that same 75 everyone usually copy/pastes nowadays and I don't like its all-in nature very much anyway, so I played something I'd been brewing with with for a long time that fits my playstyle more and that's more resilient to hate, because I always expect a lot of it in my meta. My only loss was to a Turn 1 Veil of Summer into turn 2 kill on the play in g1 and a mulligan to four in g2 to TES (in which I could have found a FoW after his Echo of Eons to instantly win) and I beat Eldrazi (2-0), UWgr Miracles (2-0), BUG Zenith Snowko with Natural Order (2-0) and UW Stoneblade twice (2-0/2-1) going 5-1. I can provide some more info if anyone's interested, but I was slacking a lot on my notes.Hi,

Very interessing to modificate the whole list even without LED's. Please give us some more insight in your list and the thoughts about it.

Personaly was thinking aswell longtime in brewing something new with the dredge theme, which suits my personal playstile more.

Thanks in advance!

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

[Izor]

What I dislike about the current stock list is the fact that's it's a massive glass cannon with little to no resilience against true graveyard hate. The natures of the cards LED and to a lesser extent Breakthrough and the 8 Careful Studies is that they give you percentage points where and when you're already advantaged, which is when there's no graveyard hate or to a lesser extent Force of Will involved (referring to how terrible it is for us if our Careful Study/Breakthrough gets Forced with LED sacked), but in the face of true hate they turn into actively terrible magic cards. LED is straight up the worst card in the deck if there's a Leyline, Rip or Tormod's Crypt effect in play and it is also very risky in the face of Surgical, because it always gives your opponent perfect information on whether they're supposed to hit the Dredgers or the meat.

So I've been trying to find ways to change the deck in a way that doesn't compromise my g1 win percentage against fair decks too much while being significantly better against various forms of hate post board. I was always going to lose percentage points against other fast combo decks like TES or Reanimator this way, but they're tough matchups even for the LED lists and they can be addressed in our sideboard, so I still wanted to try it out.

The first decision then was that LED needed to go and that Breakthrough shouldn't be relied on. You'll see that I still play 2 of the latter, but that's mainly to have enough cards for FoW. They're always boarded out against anything but combo. The second realization was that Careful Study effects are pretty terrible against graveyard hate as well, because they're bad cantrips when looking for an answer to RiP/Leyline, forcing you to give up card advantage and exile cards you'd want access to later. They're also terrible against Surgical, because once again they give the opponent full info on what to go for. That's where I decided to play no more than 4 of them and cut red entirely in the process. Assuming Chain of Vapor as my go-to anti-hate in the board I was also pretty much UB at that point. That gives me access to an actual mana base that doesn't have to play the worst lands that see any kind of play in Legacy.

Back to the question on what's good or bad against hate, the solution to my issue always had to start with Putrid Imp. It's by far the best discard outlet in the face of any kind of hate, because it does everything right that LED and Study effects don't: It is no card disadvantage and lets you start Dredging one full turn earlier by casting it turn 1 and removing Leyline in your t2 upkeep, it lets you carefully play around Crypt effects by slow-dredging until they are forced to sac it (which most of the time they'll not do correctly), and they 100% leave your opponent in the dark about what you still have in your hand, which means that your opponent might make wrong decisions with their Surgical by either hitting a Dredger when you have another one left or vice versa. In fact, after testing with UB lists for a long time my issue was simply that I wanted more PImps than I was allowed to play, also due to the fact that you're kinda struggling to find anything playable beyond the first 8 discard effects (PImp and Study). After being disappointed by Hapless Researcher I decided to add White to the deck just for Tireless Tribe as my PImps 5-8. I didn't expect that to work initially, but it overperformed so massively in its role that I stuck with the idea.

And the last unconventional choice I made is the card that puts all those ties together: Brainstorm. Usually a much worse draw effect than anything that discards at the end of resolution, that drawback is not a factor if you start the game with a discard dork. Unlike Breakthrough it can also be cast in addition to another Brainstorm or Breakthrough off of 2 lands on turn 2. And most importantly, it is great in the face of hate, enabling you to search for things in the same fashion normal Legacy decks also do, and it provides random utility against Surgical hitting your Dredgers as well. I play 8 fetchlands, which maximizes its utility whenever you're not already dredging. Speaking of fetchlands, I cannot stress how much random utility they generate in this deck. First, you always mulligan a lot, and the cards you put back are always graveyard-relevant cards. Shuffling them back in before starting your dredging is actually a huge deal when compared to the common scenario where you know you'll never find those 2 Narcos you put back again in the game. Second, they thin your deck. Third, they let you actually play the long game with hardcast Stinkweed Imps and Golgari Thugs instead of taking 2-3 damage or losing your lands all the time. The only drawback is that you have to be somewhat careful to fetch the few duals before you might dredge them away, leaving you without anything to get back. Because you usually only have and need 1-2 Lands and you usually only dredge 4-6 before sacrificing your second fetch it doesn't come up very often, though.

That said, this is the list I'm playing.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
4 Cephalid Coliseum

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
2 Breakthrough
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
4 Bridge From Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid

SB:
4 Chain of Vapor
1 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Silent Gravestone
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ashen Rider

After my recent testing and influenced by the fact that my only loss was to TES, I'm considering cutting into the holy grail that is Cabal Therapy and playing an Iona main to have something that actually does something against UG Omnishow and TES, both of which play 4 Veils main nowadays. With 2 Dread Returns main I still should have enough sac outlets. I'd also consider swapping Ashen Rider for Terastodon or Woodfall Primus for the same reason that is Veil of Summer. I also never liked Silent Gravestone because of how unreliable it is as anti-hate and because it shuts off your own DRs, and I think the Daze should be something else too, so I'd probably play 2 Mindbreak Traps over them. I might try to write a littl report on the tournament I played later, provided I can remember enough of it/my notes are enough.

And before anyone asks, I'm not a fan of Hogaak in the deck. I don't think this deck should ever need a vanilla 8/8 to be able to win pre-board. You have Zombies and Ichorids to do that job as well as DR to make 15/15 regenerators instead. Hogaak is only good when you hit two of them, which enables you to make infinite Zombies, but as I said, that doesn't help at all against the matchups where you get Veil'd and then die on their turn and it is very unlineky to happen to begin with. DR at least lets you guaranteed turn your meat into Zombies where Hogaak gets stuck in your graveyard with 2 Narcos in play and you not finding the necessary Therapies and/or Bridges to cast it.

[Whoshim]

I'm considering cutting into the holy grail that is Cabal Therapy...

This got me thinking. I decided to do a rebuild starting from mono-U, and it ended up looking like this:

4 Cephalid Coliseum
3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Prismatic Vista

4 Phantasmagorian

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

4 Bridge from Below

4 Piracy Charm

4 Careful Study
2 Breakthrough
4 Brainstorm

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid

2 Dread Return

Sideboard:
3 Veil of Summer
4 Spell Pierce
4 Nature's Claim
3 Reverent Silence
1 Forest


The basic lands could be duals, but I figured I would add some protection vs. Wasteland. The Piracy Charms could be Mind Bombs or Hapless Researchers or something else that helps with discarding. I tried looking for cheap effects to discard in Blue, but there were not many. I think the deck misses red the most here, with not Faithless or Firestorm possibilities.

There aren't really any answers to Containment Priest in this list right now though, so I might go with Contagion (can work to kill our own Narcomoebas as well).

I feel like I covered a lot of the bases from LED dredge, though without the explosive Looting + LED possibility.

I might want to go 4x on Veil of Summer. I also really want to jam in Disrupt, but I don't think it is good enough.

Daze is another card that I have considered, as are Faerie Macabre and Street Wraith. Force of Vigor is also probably better than Reverent Silence.

I splashed for green instead of other colors due to Nature's Claim and Veil, but I did not investigate white very deeply when making this list, so there could be good options that I am missing.

What cards am I missing that could help out?

[ThomasDowd]

What I dislike about the current stock list is the fact that's it's a massive glass cannon with little to no resilience against true graveyard hate. The natures of the cards LED and to a lesser extent Breakthrough and the 8 Careful Studies is that they give you percentage points where and when you're already advantaged, which is when there's no graveyard hate or to a lesser extent Force of Will involved (referring to how terrible it is for us if our Careful Study/Breakthrough gets Forced with LED sacked), but in the face of true hate they turn into actively terrible magic cards. LED is straight up the worst card in the deck if there's a Leyline, Rip or Tormod's Crypt effect in play and it is also very risky in the face of Surgical, because it always gives your opponent perfect information on whether they're supposed to hit the Dredgers or the meat.

So I've been trying to find ways to change the deck in a way that doesn't compromise my g1 win percentage against fair decks too much while being significantly better against various forms of hate post board. I was always going to lose percentage points against other fast combo decks like TES or Reanimator this way, but they're tough matchups even for the LED lists and they can be addressed in our sideboard, so I still wanted to try it out.

The first decision then was that LED needed to go and that Breakthrough shouldn't be relied on. You'll see that I still play 2 of the latter, but that's mainly to have enough cards for FoW. They're always boarded out against anything but combo. The second realization was that Careful Study effects are pretty terrible against graveyard hate as well, because they're bad cantrips when looking for an answer to RiP/Leyline, forcing you to give up card advantage and exile cards you'd want access to later. They're also terrible against Surgical, because once again they give the opponent full info on what to go for. That's where I decided to play no more than 4 of them and cut red entirely in the process. Assuming Chain of Vapor as my go-to anti-hate in the board I was also pretty much UB at that point. That gives me access to an actual mana base that doesn't have to play the worst lands that see any kind of play in Legacy.

Back to the question on what's good or bad against hate, the solution to my issue always had to start with Putrid Imp. It's by far the best discard outlet in the face of any kind of hate, because it does everything right that LED and Study effects don't: It is no card disadvantage and lets you start Dredging one full turn earlier by casting it turn 1 and removing Leyline in your t2 upkeep, it lets you carefully play around Crypt effects by slow-dredging until they are forced to sac it (which most of the time they'll not do correctly), and they 100% leave your opponent in the dark about what you still have in your hand, which means that your opponent might make wrong decisions with their Surgical by either hitting a Dredger when you have another one left or vice versa. In fact, after testing with UB lists for a long time my issue was simply that I wanted more PImps than I was allowed to play, also due to the fact that you're kinda struggling to find anything playable beyond the first 8 discard effects (PImp and Study). After being disappointed by Hapless Researcher I decided to add White to the deck just for Tireless Tribe as my PImps 5-8. I didn't expect that to work initially, but it overperformed so massively in its role that I stuck with the idea.

And the last unconventional choice I made is the card that puts all those ties together: Brainstorm. Usually a much worse draw effect than anything that discards at the end of resolution, that drawback is not a factor if you start the game with a discard dork. Unlike Breakthrough it can also be cast in addition to another Brainstorm or Breakthrough off of 2 lands on turn 2. And most importantly, it is great in the face of hate, enabling you to search for things in the same fashion normal Legacy decks also do, and it provides random utility against Surgical hitting your Dredgers as well. I play 8 fetchlands, which maximizes its utility whenever you're not already dredging. Speaking of fetchlands, I cannot stress how much random utility they generate in this deck. First, you always mulligan a lot, and the cards you put back are always graveyard-relevant cards. Shuffling them back in before starting your dredging is actually a huge deal when compared to the common scenario where you know you'll never find those 2 Narcos you put back again in the game. Second, they thin your deck. Third, they let you actually play the long game with hardcast Stinkweed Imps and Golgari Thugs instead of taking 2-3 damage or losing your lands all the time. The only drawback is that you have to be somewhat careful to fetch the few duals before you might dredge them away, leaving you without anything to get back. Because you usually only have and need 1-2 Lands and you usually only dredge 4-6 before sacrificing your second fetch it doesn't come up very often, though.

That said, this is the list I'm playing.

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
4 Cephalid Coliseum

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Careful Study
4 Brainstorm
2 Breakthrough
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
4 Bridge From Below
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid

SB:
4 Chain of Vapor
1 Daze
4 Force of Will
1 Silent Gravestone
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ashen Rider

After my recent testing and influenced by the fact that my only loss was to TES, I'm considering cutting into the holy grail that is Cabal Therapy and playing an Iona main to have something that actually does something against UG Omnishow and TES, both of which play 4 Veils main nowadays. With 2 Dread Returns main I still should have enough sac outlets. I'd also consider swapping Ashen Rider for Terastodon or Woodfall Primus for the same reason that is Veil of Summer. I also never liked Silent Gravestone because of how unreliable it is as anti-hate and because it shuts off your own DRs, and I think the Daze should be something else too, so I'd probably play 2 Mindbreak Traps over them. I might try to write a littl report on the tournament I played later, provided I can remember enough of it/my notes are enough.

And before anyone asks, I'm not a fan of Hogaak in the deck. I don't think this deck should ever need a vanilla 8/8 to be able to win pre-board. You have Zombies and Ichorids to do that job as well as DR to make 15/15 regenerators instead. Hogaak is only good when you hit two of them, which enables you to make infinite Zombies, but as I said, that doesn't help at all against the matchups where you get Veil'd and then die on their turn and it is very unlineky to happen to begin with. DR at least lets you guaranteed turn your meat into Zombies where Hogaak gets stuck in your graveyard with 2 Narcos in play and you not finding the necessary Therapies and/or Bridges to cast it.

Been trying this out. Love the tribes. Definitely screwed up a brainstorm interaction once. I still need to learn how to board appropriately with chain and force. In my pick up games I lost to D&T twice but I think it's a lot of 'I took a long break and punted some triggers'. I agree with daze and gravestone being meh, mostly from my past experience. Gravestone is probably better than daze tbh. I'll continue getting some games in. I'll probably mess with some numbers since I am used to not MD dread returns, and feel uncomfortable not maxing both thug and/or ichorid. Good list though!

Any thoughts on white sb cards? Since the mana kind of supports it? It does kind of not fearless dredge.

[Izor]

Cutting the 4th Ichorid and Thug is possible because more permanent discard outlets means both less bricking on dredgers and having more bodies to sac. In the same fashion DR gets better and more important to be able to turn your stuff into Zombies reliably. Going down to 1 is possible, but I would advise against cutting both main. As I said, I'm currently testing 3 Therapies and Iona main to fight the combo decks that have 4 Veil main, so 2 DR main is a must there.

As a general rule of thumb, I cut the Tundra and 3 Tribes for 4 Force against any combo deck, because they don't usually run graveyard hate (which makes discard dorks invaluable) or Wasteland (which could punish the cut land).

Against fair decks with cantrips, which usually don't run Leylines, I board a mix of Chains and Forces game 2 to hedge and scout for their choice of graveyard hate. The cuts there are always the Breakthroughs plus some trimming (like -1 dredger, -1 DR, -1 Iona). Against decks that play Wasteland plus Surgicals I'll sometimes cut the 4th Stinkweed over the 3rd Thug for both diversifying and hardcasting purposes. What makes Force and Chains so safe is that they are never dead cards, unlike more focused stuff like Nature's Claim. You can always Chain a Delver or Force a Terminus if needed, even though you didn't board those cards for those situations in the first place. If I'm 100% sure they don't have Leylines I'll board heavier on Forces, which are much better than Chain against RiP and Surgical, though I'll usually cap at 3 copies against those fair decks.

Against anything with Leylines I'll obviously side 4 Chains. My goal then is to not side anything else. If you're playing the Leyline mirror, I side Leylines and Chains, but always leave Force out.

As of other white cards, the only one I consider worth playing is Serenity. Also hits Leylines, but also Chalice and other lock artifacts, and it just generally hoses those prison style decks.

[Kriggy]

Do you think guys the deck can be played somehow on budget? Most of the cards are fairly cheap anyway but cant afford LEDs or the duals/fows. Or is it just better to play manaless instead?

[Grizzlenasty]

You absolutely can play this on a budget. Traditional lists run Gold Lands instead of duals anyway. LEDs are often winmore and in many games 2 and 3 outright bad. You can substitute them with for example Tireless Tribe.
LEDs are for explosive starts and really needed only against fast Combo. But in a fast combo heavy Meta you wouldn't want to be on Dredge anyways I'd say. The decks dredge is built to beat(Your bread and butter so to speak), you can absolutely beat without LEDs. FoW ain't needed either. U have Cabal Therapies for most stuff you might want to counter. Mindbreak traps can do the Job against Combo aswell.
Manaless dredge though is a whole other animal. More consistent and in my opionon more flavorful. But it lacks really good ways to fight through hate like leylines. It's highly metadependant. When fighting hate, even a budget regular Dredge list does way better.
But all of what I've just said has already been explained by way better players than me. You find loads of budget lists all over the net.

Up the land count a little to ~15
Substitute Leds with Tribes
And go for Careful study over Faithless Looting(easier to cast off of Colliseum.
If there is still space left, you might want to try Streetwraiths.
This is where I would start and later save up for LEDs.
Regarding Manaless Dredge.. I dunno.. not only is it less viable against hate, it's also more complicated to play. A lot of triggers and shenanigans that make it hard for someone who just got into legacy and looks for a budget deck. It might not be that rewarding to begin with.

[ThomasDowd]

Do you think guys the deck can be played somehow on budget? Most of the cards are fairly cheap anyway but cant afford LEDs or the duals/fows. Or is it just better to play manaless instead?

Yes, basically start with what GrizzleNasty said. Alternatively just start with lists pre faithless looting, where LED become easier to justify.

If you can find the dark art of dredge fu online somewhere that list is a pretty good start( it appears that starcity archive is no longer available, along with a bunch of other '11/'12 articles, which is unfortunate)

EDIT: you can still play faithless since there are some games where you'll have enough mana for the flashback cost but playing the full 4 can be tough due to coliseum + no led.

[Whoshim]

I saved "The Dark Art of Dredge Fu" in pdf form. PM me if you would like it.

Here is Richard Feldman's List from that article:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel
4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal therapy
4 Careful study
2 Dread return
Sideboard
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Angel of Despair
1 Ichorid
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Firestorm
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Winds of Change

Tarnished Citadel becomes Mana Confluence now. The Dread Returns can become an Ox of Agonas (most seem to be running 1x right now). The double red does make it a little harder to cast without LED though. Faithless Looting, as mentioned above, is another reason to run LED.

Anyway, if you want the article for his reasons for the card choices, let me know.

[Grizzlenasty]

I'd definetly change the sideboard though.

4xLeyline of the Void
3xLeyline of Sanctity
4xPieces of enchantment hate
1xDread Return
1xAshen Rider
2xContagion/Firestorm

Something like that. The white Leylines could also become 2xSilent Gravestone against surgicals and 1xElesh Norn.

The two DR main should probably become 1xOx and 1xHogaak. If it was my budget list, I'd also cut a Tribe for the 4th Ichorid.
Also Mainboard DR + Flamekin zealot is actually a consideration worth. With the load of one mana enablers you get three nontoken creatures on board for a DR together rather easily, thus regaining some of the oomph, the deck looses with the cut of LED.

Edit:
One thing that probably should be mentioned aswell.
Dredge is a deck for afficionados.
It's affordable and easy to learn the basic gameplay, but if you want to do good with it, you have to thouroghly understand the deck, your role, how to sideboard properly, how to master the therapies, stack interaction, in what metas it can be successfully run yadayadayada.
I often see people going for this deck only for budget reasons, but dropping it rather quickly when they can't succeed with it. In this case it might be better to lay the money aside for Force of Wills and fetches. They grant more options/directions you can build upon later and duals have become less relevant in times of Prismatic Vista and Astrolabe.
So pro tip here is, read the primer, read the thread, watch some gameplay on youtube and then see, if this is a deck you want to get accustomed with, before cashing in 150 dollars for a deck you only build cause of budget constrictions. This would be even more true for Manaless.
Other than that, dredge is hell of fun and you are pretty much guaranteed opponents rolling their eyes, the second you make your first landdrop.

[owerbart]

I'm starting to give baby steps in dredge, how do you guys win against surgical on bridge g2-3?

[notkevin]

I'm starting to give baby steps in dredge, how do you guys win against surgical on bridge g2-3?

Unfortunately, the short answer is "it depends", both on your build, the matchup, and the texture of the game so far. However, some general ideas (hopefully some are helpful to you):


Conventional wisdom is that we don't really lose to a single surgical against any target, as we have too many recursive elements. In typical lists, In typical lists, our threats come from Narcomoebas, Ichorids, and zombies, sometimes supplemented by Hogaak, Ox of Agonas, and Dread Return - without zombies, we just have to lean harder on our other ones.
Quite a few decks can't really handle even just 2 Ichorids every turn - and we also have access to Cabal Therapies to prevent them from doing anything else, and Hogaak to bash through larger blockers.
Against faster decks, where a turn-4 win might be insufficient, we may need to lean on a Dread Return plan to get the job done - perhaps reanimating FKZ/Flayer/Terror of the Peaks to kill them immediately, or with Iona/Archon of Valor's Reach/Elesh Norn to lock them out of their dangerous wincon.
As a more "play-style"-oriented idea, we can try to play more conservatively, using Cabal Therapy before going off to force their Surgicals to target bad choices.
Alternatively, if you find your meta to be extremely Surgical-heavy (eg, you find yourself getting surgical-ed multiple times per game by many decks), consider bringing in Surgical anti-hate. Just as we often have enchantment destruction to handle Leylines/RiPs/etc., it might be prudent to pack some Silent Gravestones to prevent Surgical from targetting our cards.


Hope this helps, and welcome to the deck!

[Mr. Safety]

I saved "The Dark Art of Dredge Fu" in pdf form. PM me if you would like it.

Here is Richard Feldman's List from that article:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel
4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal therapy
4 Careful study
2 Dread return
Sideboard
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Angel of Despair
1 Ichorid
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Firestorm
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Winds of Change

Tarnished Citadel becomes Mana Confluence now. The Dread Returns can become an Ox of Agonas (most seem to be running 1x right now). The double red does make it a little harder to cast without LED though. Faithless Looting, as mentioned above, is another reason to run LED.

Anyway, if you want the article for his reasons for the card choices, let me know.

Big necro here, sorry for that, but I was wondering if there still exists a streamlined non-LED Dredge list? I have started piloting Manaless Dredge, it's a ton of fun but super reliant on a couple of factors. If there is a way to make the deck slightly more consistent with lands but not need LED I would be really interested to try it.

[Reeplcheep]

Big necro here, sorry for that, but I was wondering if there still exists a streamlined non-LED Dredge list? I have started piloting Manaless Dredge, it's a ton of fun but super reliant on a couple of factors. If there is a way to make the deck slightly more consistent with lands but not need LED I would be really interested to try it.

Without LEDs, you should just play Jund Gaak IMO. If you can't afford non-blue duals a rainbow manabase should work if you cut ghast for something like satyr wayfinder.

[Mr. Safety]

Well, I still want to play Dredge in some form, not Hogaak. If playing LEDless Dredge isn't viable I'll just stick to Manaless Dredge for now. The reason for adding lands would be so I could have a lot more agency in the first few turns by opening up mulligan possibilities and allowing for velocity to find sideboard cards, ie Faithless Looting > Nature's Claim etc.

[Ronald Deuce]

Well, I still want to play Dredge in some form, not Hogaak. If playing LEDless Dredge isn't viable I'll just stick to Manaless Dredge for now. The reason for adding lands would be so I could have a lot more agency in the first few turns by opening up mulligan possibilities and allowing for velocity to find sideboard cards, ie Faithless Looting > Nature's Claim etc.

This specific problem is one reason I've gravitated more toward manaless over the last few years. Getting god-hands with one City of Brass only to get Dazed and Wastelanded feels bad, man.

If you've got the right duals, I've seen some older lists running fetches with Volcs and Underground Seas that might fit the bill. I think the pilots were taking a different tack in trying to reduce dead dredges by thinning, but you might try something a bit wild. Maybe you could try approx. 10 fetches, 4 Coliseums, and some number of duals (maybe one or two each of Volc and Underground Sea).

I know that for a long time people ran Lotus Petals in the sideboard to power faster starts and give more game against Daze. You could try running a few Petals and maxing out on Breakthrough, not least because Breakthrough lets us dump our hands.

Depending on your sideboard, you could try maindeck Sphinx of Foresight and/or Once Upon a Time to feed the Forces of your choosing and help you dig on turn 0 or 1.

EDIT: Realizing I didn't really answer your question. I hope my food for thought helps, though.

[Mr. Safety]

Great response, thanks!

I was thinking of doing something like 11 lands + 4x OUAT + Xx lotus Petals. The bad dredgers/threats go away (Shambling Shell/Prized Amalgam), the combo goes out (Spy + Oracle) and Careful Study/Breakthrough goes in. No Faithless looting because I need room for OUAT, but Study still allows for sideboard Force of Will.

The next question becomes how many Putrid Imps go in, and whether Phantasmagorian is still worth including. Without LED we really need a way to dump our hand. Breakthrough and PImp seem like the best options.

Long story short (too late...) it's a thought experiment. I really think Once upon a Time adds a lot to the archetype, not the least of which is adding a higher green count for potential Force of Vigor out of the sideboard.

[Ahab]

On Sunday I played in a local tournament. The modern event had over 60 players, quite a lot for our community. The legacy event had 14 players, less than I hoped for but a diverse group of people, some of them travelling to the city just for the event.
The event was very well organized, the judges were great and there was even good food! All of my opponents were great, with lots of banter and noone got salty.
I played a standard list of dredge:
13 lands: 4x City of Brass & Cephalid Coliseum, 3x Mana Confluence & Gemstone Mine (I miss 1 Mana Confluence, City is slightly worse against Rishadan Port)
4 LED
1 Lotus Petal (good against Daze, slight increase in speed)
12 Dredgers: 4 Troll & Imp & Thug
12 Draw/Discard: 4x Faithless Looting, 3x Breakthrough & Putrid Imp, 2x Careful Study
16 Action: 4x Ichorid & Cabal Therapy & Bridge from Below & Narcomoeba, 1x Hogaak & Ox of Agonas

SB:
3x Leyline of Sanctity (hits Endurance & Bojuka Bog, I don't really side it in against combo, they can answer anything most of the time if given enough time. Also I can't overboard)
2x Leyline of the Void (against Reanimator, mirror, etc. Not against Murktide, we need a large density of action against them)
6 answers to hate: 3x Nature's Claim / 2x Chain of Vapor / 1x Ray of Revalation: Ray is also good against slower Urza's Saga decks. Saga going to 3 is devastating if they have Cage. I never play less than 5 answers to Leyline. Against decks that only play 1 Cage I don't board answers. If they have it, so be it.
2 DR package: 1x Dread Return, 1x Ashen Rider: In the past DR was a good add against Delver. If they have 1-2 Surgicals on Ichorid & Narcomoeba, you can really struggle creating a board state. DR -> Golgari Grave-Troll was like a 3rd threat. Nowadays we have Ox and Hogaak, so I only board in DR + Ashen Rider against Ensnaring Bridge, Tabernacle, Glacial Chasm, etc. and also against Storm (hitting LED or a land can delay them for 1 turn). It's debatable if Flayer of the Hatebound, Iona or Doomskar Titan are good but I never managed to cast any of them when necessary.
1x Memory's Journey: Tech against painter (if they use Grindstone on you, you can flashback in upkeep targeting yourself, unlocking 4 Ichorids. If they used temporary mana to active Grindstone, you can shred their hand with Therapies.) and Doomsday (they can enjoy their Scry 2 from Oracle if you manage to mill Journey and keep 1 mana up).
1x Lotus Petal: GOTTA GO FAST (Storm, decks with 2 mana hate pieces like DnT)

SB strategy:
Easy cuts are 1 Thug, 1-2 Imp or Study depending on the matchup, 1 Lotus Petal, 1 Ichorid if you don't need to grind.

I was happy with the sideboard, although the Lotus Petal is a bit underpowered. I can see a world where Breakthrough Nr. 4 could make the deck even faster postboard.

14 players, 5 rounds with cut to Top 8. Wow. I have not played Legacy in quite some time and look forward to the matches.

R1: Mono-Green Post
G1 my opponent copies my Gemstone Mine with Vesuva. Oh my god, it's 12 Post, one of the worst matchups. 4 Crop Rotation & Reclaimer for Bog, then 4 Vesuva to copy it. I get bogged 3 times in game 1. The sideboarded games are better but he completely demolishes me.
I board Leyline of Sanctity against Bog but never find it.
0-1

R2: Jesaki Stoneblade
I don't even sideboard.
1-1

R3: Maverick/GW Depths
I know what he's playing, keep an extremely fast hand and blind hit Crop Rotation. Crop Rotation is one of the best blind guesses anyway, apart from Dark Ritual and LED, but knowing that he has no counters helped.
I board Leyline of Sanctity but never find it.
G2 he mulls to 3: Savannah, Reclaimer, Sylvan Library. He topdecks a Savannah and concedes. He immediately regrets that as he could have fetched Tabernacle, but I have Hogaak in play + Ichorids.
2-1

R4: Burn
I board 3 Nature's Claim and 2 Chain of Vapor against Leyline. He slaps 4 cards from his SB on the table so I'm sure he has them. He opens G2 with Grafdigger's Cage and I dig a bit and find Chain of Vapor eventually. He has Pyrostatic Pillar but I manage to kill him at 3 life.
3-1

R5: ID for Top 8
We play some Vintage outside, now that is a great format with quick games.

Top 8: Death and Taxes
This matchup can be close but I have never lost against DnT in a tournament setting. I hope to be able to write this sentence in all of my future reports and prepare to go fast.
G1 I keep a hand with LEDs, lots of draw spells but no dredgers. Risky, but he has a slow clock G1. Well he drops Spirit of the Labyrinth and I cry.
G2&3 I vomit my hand and deck on the table turn 1.
He had Rest in Peace and Containment Priest (I named Contamination Priest with Therapy but he was kind enough to discard it) as main hate pieces. They need to cover many bases with their sideboard but 2 mana hate with no counter backup is just not good enough 80% of the time against dredge. They basicall need you to get unlucky or have Surgical + hate. Since you can cast Hogaak & Ox through Priest it's always correct to name Rest in Peace imo btw.

Top 4: Maverick/GW Depths again (same player)
G1 I dredge 2/3 of my library without finding a Therapy. After turn 1 Bog I beat down with 4 Narcos and 1 Ichorid but it's not enough.
G2 He mulls to 5 and keeps Tabernacle, Maze of Ith and 3 more lands. I keep a very fast hand and Ashen Rider Tabernacle. He concedes.
G3 Another close game that he wins.

Loser's Final: Painter
Prizes for 4th & 3rd are very different so we play it out.
G1 I keep the best hand ever:
https://imgur.com/a/lHa5Y8l
Unfortunately he has Veil of Summer while I have a slow start as I dredge into nothing and he manages to play T2 Karn and goes to fetch… Mycosinth Lattice. I now know he has no Tormod's Crypt and win soon after.
G2 is one of the weirdest games I have ever played.
I keep a hand of Land, LED, LED, LED, Faithless, Faithless on a mull to 6 and bottom Careful Study. He opens with Urza's Saga into Soulguide Lantern. Ok, time to dig. I open with Therapy for Painter's Servant and hit. Hw exiles my Therpies with Surgical but has no more lands in his hand. T2 he uses a Lotus Petal to play Goblin Engineer, tanks for a bit and finds… Grafdigger's Cage. Turn 3 Saga ticks up to 3 and he goes "Oh.". Meanwhile I dig like crazy using only draw spells but find nothing good. I find Nature's Claim and wait a bit before EOT targeting Soulguide Lantern. My board at this point is 4 LED and a land in play and 2 or 3 Lootings in my GY. He opts to gain 4 life and let's Claim resolve. This is clearly a game-losing punt but at this point it's 20:00 and we've been playing for 9.5 hours. In the craziest turn ever, I crack 4 LEDs to flashback 4 Lootings and find 2 dredgers WITH THE LAST LOOTING and pass. In the end I win a slow and grindy game. Even if he had found mana and Painter's Servant, I had Memory's Journey in the deck to mess up his combo.

I take home an Endurance and a foil Gamble. Nice!

PROs:
- Very well organized!
- Great food
- My opponents were great
- Dredge. Just opening a hand of 7 feels amazing. It's so colorful! Aesthetically, this is the most beautiful deck I have ever played. And I see the whole deck every game!
- Hogaak, really well designed card. 8/8 for 0 that sacs for Therapy multiple times is peak magic design.
- The judges were top. See also the second point in CONs.
- One of my friends making top 8 in the modern event with Izzet Emri Combo!
CONs:
- I hit my foot on the tent outside
- Foils. I had to call a judge in round 2 as a card was clearly bent and I was able to cut to it. It was a brand new Prismatic Ending oldborder foil. The judge ruled that it should be replaces with a basic until opponent can find a replacement. The judge then went and found a replacement himself and lent it to my opponent! Exceptional client service, as we say in the industry.
- Goblin players that drop early. You know who you are! Krenko would not be pleased with such a performance.

[Whoshim]

Vincente Mahfuz (MahfuzvanGogh) has been having success with Blue Gaze Dredge. It does not use LED or rainbow lands. Instead, it has access to Brainstorm and Force of Will and Negation. He previously had success with Rainbow Gaze lists, but currently feels that Blue Gaze is stronger. It is more resilient than LED Dredge, but not as explosive. He runs the following list in paper. Online, the 1x Poxwalkers becomes the third Ichorid, since the WH40k sets have not been put on MTGO yet.

I have been having fun (and doing pretty well) with his previous Rainbow Gaze list. I feel that it allows for a lot of choices and that I can still win through hate with careful play. I plan on trying this list at my local event at the end of this month.

Blue Gaze

Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

Creatures
4 Narcomoeba
2 Ichorid
1 Poxwalkers
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
3 Grief
1 Ashen Rider

Spells
4 Otherworldly Gaze
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study
2 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return

Bridge
4 Bridge from Below

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
3 Underground Sea

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Stern Dismissal
2 Force of Negation
4 Force of Will
4 Leyline of the Void


Rainbow Gaze
(Note, sometimes 2x Firestorm made it into the maindeck.)

Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

Creatures
4 Grief
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
1 Ox of Agonas

Spells
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Otherworldly Gaze

Bridge
4 Bridge from Below

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
1 Fiery Islet
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence

Sideboard
1 Ashen Rider
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Dread Return
3 Force of Will
2 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Leyline of the Void
4 Wispmare

[Whoshim]

MahfuzVanGogh has been tinkering with the build and has moved to a control-heavy dredge list with which he is 18-2 across his last 4 leagues.

Blue Gaze

Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

Creatures
4 Narcomoeba
2 Ichorid
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Spells
4 Otherworldly Gaze
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
4 Daze

Bridge
4 Bridge from Below

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
3 Underground Sea

Sideboard
1 Kiora's Dismissal
4 Stern Dismissal
3 Grief
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return

[Whoshim]

MahfuzVanGogh has been tinkering with what he calls Turbo Dredge and is over 70% with it across a pretty large number of games.

Turbo Dredge

Dredgers (11)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

Creatures (9)
4 Narcomoeba
2 Poxwalkers
1 Ox of Agonas
1 Duskana, the Rage Mother
1 Anger

Spells (22)
4 Otherworldly Gaze
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Dread Return

Bridge (4)
4 Bridge from Below

Lands (14)
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island

Sideboard
1 Kiora's Dismissal
4 Stern Dismissal
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ashen Rider

[Whoshim]

MahfuzvanGogh (TheDredgeGuy) has been brewing with Satoru, the Infiltrator.

"Control"

4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Undercity Sewers
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Narcomoeba
3 Poxwalkers
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
2 Satoru, the Infiltrator
1 Thassa's Oracle

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
3 Bridge from Below

4 Careful Study
4 Otherworldly Gaze
3 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Kiora's Dismissal
2 Stern Dismissal
1 Ashen Rider
1 Ichorid
2 Grief
2 Harvester of Misery
4 Leyline of the Void

This is notable because it is down to 3x Bridge from Below.

"Combo"

4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Flooded Strand

1 Lotus Petal

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug

4 Narcomoeba
4 Poxwalkers
1 Ichorid
2 Satoru, the Infiltrator
1 Thassa's Oracle

4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
2 Bridge from Below

4 Careful Study
4 Otherworldly Gaze
2 Brainstorm
3 Breakthrough

Sideboard
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Kiora's Dismissal
2 Stern Dismissal
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Force of Will
4 Grief

This goes down to 2x Bridge and is much faster. It still has enough punch to win with zombie tokens versus Delver.

[ESG]

I enjoy watching him pilot the deck and explain his lines. The only thing I disagree with is the land count. I think there are too few. Having one too many lands is a small issue, especially because Wasteland is everywhere, whereas having one too few lands is either going to induce a mulligan or lead to a game where you can get stranded. The slow dredge games generally don't get there, and you need lands to power your draw spells (with the small exception of Dread Return on Satoru).

[Whoshim]

I think 14 lands is pretty close to correct, though I sometimes play with 15. I don't think having more than 15 lands improves the deck.

[Whoshim]

Here is a recent list by The Dredge Guy (Mahfuz Van Gogh) that he has had a lot of success with. It is a bit of a combination of some of the different styles he has been trying. You can watch it here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuGuD-cakcg).

4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Otherworldly Gaze
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
2 Breakthrough

4 Narcomoeba
3 Poxwalkers
1 Anger
2 Bridge from Below

2 Dread Return
1 Ox of Agonas
1 Satoru, the Infiltrator
1 Thassa's Oracle

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

SIDEBOARD:
4 Into the Flood Maw
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Street Wraith


The Street Wraith sideboard slots are pretty flexible. His prior version of the deck (the one he played in the video) had Consign to Memory. Street Wraith is nice in the Faerie Macabre era we are in.

[Flaat]

Love the synergy between Narcomoeba and Dread Return.

[Ahab]

Eternal Weekend Prag 2024


Decklist:

12 Dredger
4 LED
4 Bridges
4 Narcos
4 Therapy
3 Poxwalker
1 Ichorid
2 Ox of Agonas
1 Dread Return

4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
3 Breakthrough
1 Putrid Imp

1 Petal
4 City of Brass
3 Mana Confluence -> I only own 3
4 Gemstone Mine

SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 4 Static Prison
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 Silent Gravestone
SB: 1 Dread Return
SB: 1 Ashen Rider
→ I only own 3 Gravestone, couldn’t find the 4th. Also would like to try 2 Molten Gatekeeper instead of DR/Ashen Rider package


R1: Dredge mirror!
He is on the blue list with Otherworldly Gaze, Anger, Satoru, Oracle
G1: He mulls to 5, I keep a strong hand and manage to overwhelm him
G2: He has a great start including GGT, LED, CT, Ox, Gaze, USea. Dredges find nothing so he has to pass. Boardwise he is always one turn ahead of me but he never gets a Mountain for Anger. I manage to exile his bridges and overwhelm him in one big swing
1-0

R2: Esper Frog
Prepare for a few rounds that are very similar: The tempo decks have a fast clock, interaction and mainboard Nihil Spellbombs. Postboard even more hate, basically no chance.
I have no idea how to board against this matchup. I was afraid of Cage so I boarded Static Prisons.
1-1

R3: TES
My opponent warns me that he has not played any tournaments in 30 years and puts a storm counter on his playmat. He played surprisingly tight and I get lucky with Therapy on Gamble when he had Echo of Eons in hand. He missed on Bauble trigger, otherwise good games.
2-1

R4: Dimir Tempo
I win G1 but G2&3 he finds Spellbomb and Cage.
2-2

R5: Painter
I win an easy G1. G2 he has a fast combo line and varying hate (he plays Lantern of Insight, Faerie Macabre, Ghost Vacuum) so I lose a close game. G3 he has too much hate and I have no chance.
2-3

R6: Dimir Reanimator
I keep a strong hand on a mull to 6 and bottom one Narcomoeba. T1 I play Careful Study and rip 2 more Narcos, the 4th one is in the last 10 cards. I almost flip my deck but never get a creature on board.
I manage to win G2 with Gravestone. In G3 there’s a very interesting decision:
My board is: Coliseum, Petal, Mana Confluence (tapped). GGT and Therapy in Grave.
Hand: Ox, Poxwalker, Faithless Looting
His board: Troll. I am at 18.
Do I play Faithless here, saccing Petal? I could dredge GGT and Coliseum in my next upkeep. But this line loses to a counter or a Wasteland (I would untap with only 1 land in that case). I pass the turn instead. My thoughts are that slow dredging will not win and passing makes it more likely to be able to active Coliseum. What I miss is that he could just waste the Coliseum. Unfortunately he has enough interaction to attack 3 more times with the Troll.
2-4

R7: Nadu Bant
Best match of the day. My opponent is from the city where I grew up and played at the same store during the time I started with magic, ca. 2001. We talk about the good old times and all the people we remember. They say “play the game, see the world”, I was not prepared for “play the game, confront your childhood nostalgia”.
G1 I win so fast, I only see a Trop and a mana dork, so Nadu?
G2 he rips Nadu at the last possible moment and GSZ for Sylvan Safekeeper. I think he plays it really safe here and only sacs a few lands. In his stead I would have gone max crazy, but that’s why I play dredge and he plays blue.
G3 I have two Therapies turn 1, he shows me his hand: Land, Land, Ponder, Brainstorm, Nadu, Nadu, Nadu. We laugh.
3-4

R8: Death and Taxes
Great games!
G1 is no contest
G2 I don’t have any notes, but lose.
G3 is the best, grindiest game I have played in years. He mulls to 3! I therapy and name Faerie Macabre because my hand can win through anything else. He shows me: Karakas, Ghost Vacuum, Surgical. Turn 2 I play Silent gravestone and he Surgicals my Therapies. We don’t know it, but I lose the game here. I boarded out Dread Return and Ichorid, so without Therapies I have no way to sac anything. He rips Vial, Port, Phelia. Phelia exiles Gravestone for a turn and Vacuum removes some bridges. I die a slow, slow death over a million turns. I am very close to attacking him for lethal, but a big lion sash and phelia keep my on my toes. After Gravestone gets exiled by Skyclave Apparition the race turns in his favor. A topdecked Static Prison would have won the game by removing a blocker, but alas! My first loss against Dnt in a tournament ever.
3-5

R9: Infect
Man, who am I to say this, playing dredge, but Infect is clearly not a good deck. He has Forces, but hardly any blue cards. Creatures, but they don’t have hexproof. Pump spells, but a single attack is only lethal with ~2-3 pumps.
4-5 drop, as we are all out of competition for prices.

Highlights:
Amazing experience
The deck just works. Poxwalker was a huge boost. I am not convinced a combo finish is necessary at all.
Ox+DR main is just gas.
Meeting Mafuhz and having him sign a DR

Lowlights:
Ichorid. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Blue decks are too fast.
No 1€ boxes to sift through, only highend cards for sale.
Playmat was not available, so everyone received a voucher: 1) order the playmat that was supposed to be handed out, 2) take a different Playmat 3) take 150 price tix. The tix were good value, but they randomly adjusted them to 120tx, then 100tx, then no tix at all. Try to be more consistent please.

[Kap'n Cook]

My list I mess around with at locals

https://i.imgur.com/Sj3c7xd.jpeg

[ESG]

Handsome deck, as always.

How much graveyard hate do you run into there? I had to put the deck down because I wasn't able to do better than 2-2 due to people coming prepared to beat Reanimator.