[Deck] Dredge

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Originally Posted by sherko7

During certain situations, especially post board, it is better to draw than to dredge when you have enough tools in your graveyard to already apply some pressure or need to bait the hate (Relic, Crypt). I believe that was what he meant by "slowdredging". I too am having issues with this.

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Guys, I have a medium sized tournament coming up (60-80 people) this weekend and my Ashen Ghouls haven't arrived in the mail. I'm playing the Quad Laser list, any substitute I can use for the board?:confused:

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Are you really trying to explain to me what slowdredging means? I know it. I was only wondering how people can not know how to do it, because explanation is the word itself. You dredge slowly. Apart from that, I think you have the wrong idea about what it is. Drawing a card should always be the last thing you want to do. You might need to, but more often than not it's wrong. You cannot bait out hate this way. This is where slow dredging actually shines: against crypt/relic you just use your drawstep to dredge until they have to react. You do that so you can reach this point rather quickly while not losing too much.
I also tried to give an answer to when to do it bc I feel like that is the only thing one could not know.
Maybe I misunderstood him.
To your second Question: I wouldn't cut an Ichorid main,otherwise do what Mr. Fortune said. Even though he thinks he knows the absolute truth, he actually gives reasonable advise most of the time.

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Originally Posted by HokusSchmokus

Are you really trying to explain to me what slowdredging means? I know it. I was only wondering how people can not know how to do it, because explanation is the word itself. You dredge slowly. Apart from that, I think you have the wrong idea about what it is. Drawing a card should always be the last thing you want to do. You might need to, but more often than not it's wrong. You cannot bait out hate this way. This is where slow dredging actually shines: against crypt/relic you just use your drawstep to dredge until they have to react. You do that so you can reach this point rather quickly while not losing too much.
I also tried to give an answer to when to do it bc I feel like that is the only thing one could not know.
Maybe I misunderstood him.
To your second Question: I wouldn't cut an Ichorid main,otherwise do what Mr. Fortune said. Even though he thinks he knows the absolute truth, he actually gives reasonable advise most of the time.

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Well it's a question of MD and SB space, if you don't need the 4th Ichorid to end your game 1s in your MD and you do need ~11 golden lands post-board then saving SB space by cutting a MD Ichorid from Quadlazer and adding a MD Tarnished Citadel instead makes a lot of sense. You also tend to cut an Ichorid to reduce the effectiveness of Surgical Extraction regardless, so if you're playing 2/3 of your games with only 3 Ichorid anyway and it's working then why are 4 Ichorid necessary game 1?

Think of it like Keeper, the other 58 cards in the deck were what won you the game, the 2 Morphlings were just there to force your opponent to scoop. Dredge is really similar, in the sense it wants to spend all of its MD space on cards that win the game and as few cards as possible actually killing its opponent. It's the same reasoning for why Dread Return targets are usually bad choices, altho' God is Dread Returning Grislebrand, Flayer of the Hatebound and Golgari Grave Troll all in the same turn so damn cool.

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Originally Posted by joemauer

...Also, it is not a good idea to play dredge at a small local metagame. When you only have a dozen decks to play against then it is easy to find room for graveyard hate if one or two of those decks may be dredge.

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Hmm, this part seems like a real deal. So then my question becomes, when will I ever get to play this deck? I don't go to anything more than the weekly Legacy tourney at the local store. I'm not an Open Series grinder. Is this a deck that will just sit on my shelf then?

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Originally Posted by TerribleTim68

Hmm, this part seems like a real deal. So then my question becomes, when will I ever get to play this deck? I don't go to anything more than the weekly Legacy tourney at the local store. I'm not an Open Series grinder. Is this a deck that will just sit on my shelf then?

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No, it's completely irrelevant, because any good Dredge player already expects graveyard hate, it's only a question of how much graveyard hate and which graveyard hate you have to expect. If everybody is playing in 4 Surgical Extraction in their SBs, that's par for the course, so you may as well get use to it now.

I am thinking of a proper substitute for the Ashen Ghouls in Quad Laser's SB... I'm thinking 2-3 Tireless Tribe (to help my slowdredging) or 2-3 Shambling Shell (to help against Surgical Extraction). Am I better off just adding 2-3 DR and 1-2 Flayer/Griselbrand in the SB? Currently my SB (because Ashen Ghoul still hasn't come in the mail) looks like this:

2 Tarnished Citadel
3 Tireless Tribe - yes, looks stupid
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancient Grudge

Need your criticism, no matter how harsh :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

...it's only a question of how much graveyard hate and which graveyard hate you have to expect. If everybody is playing in 4 Surgical Extraction in their SBs, that's par for the course, so you may as well get use to it now.

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What I have typically seen is a fairly standard sb of 3 Surgical Extraction & 1 or 2 Tormod's Crypt. Then there is the random deck that sb Faerie Macabre (usually ElfCombo) and on real rare occasion the sb Leyline of the Voids.

What kills me is how they draw the hate opening hand EVERY FREAKING TIME!!!! How can you be that good? :eyebrow: :eek: :cry: Like, literally I mean every freaking time. For example, I have one opponent who I've played every week for the past 5 months. No matter what deck I play he ALWAYS draws his sideboard cards against me, every time, for 5 months now. And I mean every time, like clockwork. :eyebrow: :cry:

Anyway, that being the case, can you suggest a sb strategy and line of play to deal with it for a typical local weekly 4rounder? I mean, we are suppose to be here to help and support each other, right?

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Originally Posted by TerribleTim68

Hmm, this part seems like a real deal. So then my question becomes, when will I ever get to play this deck? I don't go to anything more than the weekly Legacy tourney at the local store. I'm not an Open Series grinder. Is this a deck that will just sit on my shelf then?

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I would get a second deck that is powerful that doesn't abuse the graveyard: MUD, TES, Maverick, or some kind of blue deck. Save your dredge deck for every so often. Your local meta probably won't load up on grave hate if you are only playing dredge once every month or so.

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

No, it's completely irrelevant, because any good Dredge player already expects graveyard hate, it's only a question of how much graveyard hate and which graveyard hate you have to expect. If everybody is playing in 4 Surgical Extraction in their SBs, that's par for the course, so you may as well get use to it now.

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Dredge at a small local meta is such a bad idea.
What do you when you have to play against MaryMcMonoBlackTheDredgeHater or HarryLovesHelmComboDecks?
Those are auto losses.
It is easy for local metas to load up on graveyard hate when there are only a handful of decks to have to combat.

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Originally Posted by sherko7

I am thinking of a proper substitute for the Ashen Ghouls in Quad Laser's SB... I'm thinking 2-3 Tireless Tribe (to help my slowdredging) or 2-3 Shambling Shell (to help against Surgical Extraction). Am I better off just adding 2-3 DR and 1-2 Flayer/Griselbrand in the SB? Currently my SB (because Ashen Ghoul still hasn't come in the mail) looks like this:

2 Tarnished Citadel
3 Tireless Tribe - yes, looks stupid
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancient Grudge

Need your criticism, no matter how harsh :tongue:

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Are you playing Quadlaser or do you play 1 Tarnished in your main? If you play the original quadlaser you would want 3 lands in your sideboard.

The Ashen Ghouls are mainly there to fight cards like Surgical. Neither Tireless Tribe nor Shambling Shell helps you here (smart players do not extract you dredgers but aim for your Ichorids/Moebas/Bridges).

You could use Nether Shadow and Bloodghast as a substitute. Bloodghast beeing the weaker choice in this deck. And Nether Shadows are really weak. You will need the extra power from Ashen Ghoul. So I would go for 2 Dread Return and perhaps 1 target in the 3 free slots like Final Fortune said.

Ray of revelation is a card I haven't missed in years. What do you use it for?

If everyone expects Surgical Extraction to hit creatures and all the Dredge players pack extra creatures, soon the smart players will use Surgical Extraction on Golgari Grave-Troll :)

Main targets I've had extracted would be my Grave Trolls, Bridges, Ichorids, Narcomoebas. Probably in that order too.

Actually, for an Agressive deck, like RUG Delver or Zoo, extracting Golgari Grave-Troll from a 1 dredger hand (average hand) is the best play.

They can buy 3~4 turns that are enough to kill you. If you overextend, Surgical is irrelevant, and targeting a Dredger doesn't let that happen 75% of time.

If one's playing UW Landstill, if they extract Troll, they're just shitting on theirselves.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

If everyone expects Surgical Extraction to hit creatures and all the Dredge players pack extra creatures, soon the smart players will use Surgical Extraction on Golgari Grave-Troll :)

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Of course it hurts to get Troll extracted...but Shambling Shell will never solve this problems. Troll 5-8 would do it...but there is no alternative troll :-/

It is just my opinion...but when I am playing against dredge I generally let them dredge if I have SE in my hand until they reveal the serious business. People here tend to play quadlaser and you can just let them dredge until Ichorid or Bridge shows up.

Of course you can take troll and with some pressure it may be enough. But if an opponent starts with PImp and discards Troll in their next upkeep which gets extracted and they dump Stinky into dredge into dump Stinky into breakthrough I am sure you better save your SE's for bridges or Ichorids next time.

Same goes for more comboish dredge lists...but Moeba might be a better target to extract here. While Ichorid looses on worth.

Extracting 4 Ichorids hurts, extracting 4 Bridges hurts...taking away 4/12 Dredger is okay for me most of the times.

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Originally Posted by Mindlash

Are you playing Quadlaser or do you play 1 Tarnished in your main? If you play the original quadlaser you would want 3 lands in your sideboard.

The Ashen Ghouls are mainly there to fight cards like Surgical. Neither Tireless Tribe nor Shambling Shell helps you here (smart players do not extract you dredgers but aim for your Ichorids/Moebas/Bridges).

You could use Nether Shadow and Bloodghast as a substitute. Bloodghast beeing the weaker choice in this deck. And Nether Shadows are really weak. You will need the extra power from Ashen Ghoul. So I would go for 2 Dread Return and perhaps 1 target in the 3 free slots like Final Fortune said.

Ray of revelation is a card I haven't missed in years. What do you use it for?

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RoR is just a filler, but ideally its gonna be used for Moat :laugh:

Problem is Nether Shadow and Bloodghast are both coming together with Ashen Ghoul in the mail.

I'm thinking something like this:

2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Dread Return
2 Flayer of the Hatebound

I am really not a fan of the 15th land, especially Tarnished Citadel. My meta plays a lot of UR Delver, RUG and Burn so reach is pretty much an issue for me and Tarnished Citadel gets to help them a lot if I use it more than once. Sometimes I'd use an Undiscovered Paradise as my 15th land, but that card has its own demerits. I've tried playing LEDless with 14 lands and it sure seems to do well. Quad Laser with 14 lands post board would probably work the same, no?:smile:

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Originally Posted by Anusien

If everyone expects Surgical Extraction to hit creatures and all the Dredge players pack extra creatures, soon the smart players will use Surgical Extraction on Golgari Grave-Troll :)

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A RUG delver extracted my trolls after my T1 discard a few weeks ago. The deck still dredged itself out fine and beat him down with Ichorid, Shadow, Cabal, and Bridge.

However a troll extract is definitely more painful when the Flayer combo kill is a big part of your game.


On an unrelated note, I think there was a bad judge call at the tournament.
(Playing hollywoods manaless 3x Grissel, 1x Flayer, 1x STitan list)

I attacked into Mongoose, Delver with 2x Ichorid
The player wanted to know if he blocked could he stop the bridges from making tokens
The judge ruled that I couldn't get zombie tokens for the Ichorids because the goose would exile the bridge first
I responded Active player Non-Active player (I think I should be correct here and able to stack the triggers)

Because of that ruling the player traded Mongoose for my Ichorid and left me with a significantly weaker board than I would have liked. I was planning on killing the goose/ichorid, getting 2 tokens, responding to the removal trigger and using contagion on my other ichord and his delver for a total of 4 tokens. Thankfully he didn't top deck anything relevant enough and I still won the game and the match.

It has nothing to do with APNAP. You control both triggers. The judge made a poor ruling.

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Originally Posted by sherko7

RoR is just a filler, but ideally its gonna be used for Moat :laugh:

Problem is Nether Shadow and Bloodghast are both coming together with Ashen Ghoul in the mail.

I'm thinking something like this:

2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Nature's Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Dread Return
2 Flayer of the Hatebound

I am really not a fan of the 15th land, especially Tarnished Citadel. My meta plays a lot of UR Delver, RUG and Burn so reach is pretty much an issue for me and Tarnished Citadel gets to help them a lot if I use it more than once. Sometimes I'd use an Undiscovered Paradise as my 15th land, but that card has its own demerits. I've tried playing LEDless with 14 lands and it sure seems to do well. Quad Laser with 14 lands post board would probably work the same, no?:smile:

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Someone better in math then me posted somewhere that 11 Lands is the best chance of getting 1 in your starting 7. 10 rainbowlands like you said might work well, but you really want those lands reliably after boarding to either reccur your ashen ghouls or use your claims to fight the hate.

If life is a problem in your meta due to burn, ur delver or rug you can try 2 paradise and 1 citadel as your sideboardlands. Citadel and Paradise both have their downsides, but recurring ashen ghouls with citadels on a regular basis might be really taxing.

Paradise might slow down your gameplay a bit because you cannot play turn 1 paradise into turn 2 coliseum, but the matchups where the extra lands come are mostly versus slower decks anyway (e.g. Ashen Ghoul vs Extractions in Esperblade or UW Miracle).

As I already said 10 rainbowlands might be enough, but I am feeling more comfortable with 11 rainbowlands. But this might be as debatable as the question of +1/+2 lands in the Quadlaserlist or not.

Greetings Mindlash

Edit: Your Sideboard might work this way well. You could also use 1 Grisel / 1 Flayer as targets. Flayer ends the game on the spot. Grisel dredges your deck, reveals Flayer and wins on the spot. Grisel might work out well if burn is a problem in your meta.

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Originally Posted by Mindlash

Someone better in math then me posted somewhere that 11 Lands is the best chance of getting 1 in your starting 7. 10 rainbowlands like you said might work well, but you really want those lands reliably after boarding to either reccur your ashen ghouls or use your claims to fight the hate.

If life is a problem in your meta due to burn, ur delver or rug you can try 2 paradise and 1 citadel as your sideboardlands. Citadel and Paradise both have their downsides, but recurring ashen ghouls with citadels on a regular basis might be really taxing.

Paradise might slow down your gameplay a bit because you cannot play turn 1 paradise into turn 2 coliseum, but the matchups where the extra lands come are mostly versus slower decks anyway (e.g. Ashen Ghoul vs Extractions in Esperblade or UW Miracle).

As I already said 10 rainbowlands might be enough, but I am feeling more comfortable with 11 rainbowlands. But this might be as debatable as the question of +1/+2 lands in the Quadlaserlist or not.

Greetings Mindlash

Edit: Your Sideboard might work this way well. You could also use 1 Grisel / 1 Flayer as targets. Flayer ends the game on the spot. Grisel dredges your deck, reveals Flayer and wins on the spot. Grisel might work out well if burn is a problem in your meta.

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Went 4-2 for a rank 14 finish at a 60-70ish player tournament just now.

Match 1: Belcher (2-1)
I went LED, Breakthrough, Looting and Cabal Therapy'd his hand to nothing. T2/3 win for Game 1. Game 2 I didn't board anything and he went turn 2 Belcher and I let him flip his whole deck to see his hate. Saw Crypt and Relic. G3 boarded in Nature's Claim, he went EtW for 10 Goblins, I went crazy T2 and we had a stalled board for 2 turns while I amassed zombies until I finally won.

Match 2: Aggro Loam (1-2)
G1 I exploded on turn 2 and won turn 3. Not much happened here. G2 he played first turn Explosives for 0, Nihil Spellbomb. T2 Ooze and that was that. G3 he double Surgical'd my Bridge and Grave-troll, I couldn't recover and got killed by Tarmo and Bob.

Match 3: UW Delver (2-0)
G1 I exploded turn 1. G2 I didn't board anything and exploded turn 2.

Match 4: (0-2) Maverick
G1 I had a triple cantrip hand with 1 dredger. Dredged badly for a bit but I Cabal Therapy'd a GSZ T2. He played T2 Library and this was probably the turning point as he was able to filter out into Maze of Ith, Jitte and finally Ooze to seal the deal. Not to mention he Wasted his Arbor to remove the 3 Bridges I had. G2 I boarded in the DR's and targets but it didn't matter as I mull'd to 4 and had a Cabal Therapy, cantrip, Coliseum, land hand and didn't draw a dredger. GG.

Match 5: Dredge (2-1)
I knew his deck and board. G1 he blew me in turn 3. G2 he knew I had Leyline and I knew he had 5 hate against that so I didn't bother boarding it in. We both mull'd to 5 and I had LED, Study, Looting, Land, dredger and won from there. G3 he dredge'd quite badly while I had a great T1 and won by T4. Still didn't board in Leyline. He had a faster clock (he had DR and FKZ, I was playing Quad Laser) and forcing him to play 4-5 dead cards was the key.

Match 6: Reanimator (2-1)
G1 I exploded with 14 zombies and 4 Bridges on turn 1 with a mull to 6 hand of Careful Study, LED x 2, Land, dredger and Looting. I saw his hand of 4 lands, Platinum Empyrion, Thoughtseize and Brainstorm and noob as it may seem I didn't know what his deck was at first so I didn't bother boarding in for the next game. G2 he Reanimated Iona and Elesh and I scoop'd. G3 I played turn 0 Leyline and won from there.

I didn't face as much hate as expected. But I guess it never hurts to be prepared. I'm thinking of removing the 4x Leyline (even though that was pretty much the only card that I used from my SB the whole tourney) and siding in Firestorm once it arrives in the mail. My final SB would be:

4 x Nature's Claim
2 x Tarnished Citadel
3 x Ashen Ghoul
4 x Firestorm
1 x Undiscovered Paradise
1 x Ancient Grudge

Mav is a huge problem for me, I think I've never won a match against the deck. I need a T2 win to seal them, a turn slower and it gets more difficult.

Thoughts?:smile:

This is what I'm planning to run in SCG: Providence.

Maindeck: Quadlaser +1 darkblast, -1 golgari thug

Sideboard: 4 Nature's claim, 4 Leyline of the Void, 2 Tarnished citadel, 2 Nether Shadow, 2 Dread Return, 1 Ancient Grudge

Explanation for not going full Quadlaser: darkblast is sick utility. Kills delver, Kills Goblin lackey, Kills Peace Keeper, saves Ichorid/Narcomoeba from StP, etc.

Reason for not using Ashen Ghouls: Ashen Ghoul is great in against dedicated control (Miracles, BUG), but I feel that those matchups are pretty good anyway. I wanted that space for Dread Return.

Dread Return thoughts: Dread Return is such a ridiculous value card. Its like a 7-for-1 most of the time. I also believe there to be a distinct psychological advantage to having one in your graveyard; your opponent is under a lot of pressure to make sure you don't reanimate an Ultra-Grave Titan. However, they do dilute the deck and make it less streamlined which is not good against Maverick, Storm, Belcher, or Reanimator where game 1's are really important (especially against Maverick).

Please give me some feedback. I want to make sure my dredge deck is properly striking fear into the hearts of the living. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by ZebraSleeves

This is what I'm planning to run in SCG: Providence.

Maindeck: Quadlaser +1 darkblast, -1 golgari thug

Sideboard: 4 Nature's claim, 4 Leyline of the Void, 2 Tarnished citadel, 2 Nether Shadow, 2 Dread Return, 1 Ancient Grudge

Explanation for not going full Quadlaser: darkblast is sick utility. Kills delver, Kills Goblin lackey, Kills Peace Keeper, saves Ichorid/Narcomoeba from StP, etc.

Reason for not using Ashen Ghouls: Ashen Ghoul is great in against dedicated control (Miracles, BUG), but I feel that those matchups are pretty good anyway. I wanted that space for Dread Return.

Dread Return thoughts: Dread Return is such a ridiculous value card. Its like a 7-for-1 most of the time. I also believe there to be a distinct psychological advantage to having one in your graveyard; your opponent is under a lot of pressure to make sure you don't reanimate an Ultra-Grave Titan. However, they do dilute the deck and make it less streamlined which is not good against Maverick, Storm, Belcher, or Reanimator where game 1's are really important (especially against Maverick).

Please give me some feedback. I want to make sure my dredge deck is properly striking fear into the hearts of the living. Thank you.

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First of all, good luck! It feels like every tourney gets harder for us Dredge players especially now with more GY hate available yet again.:laugh:

Ashen Ghoul is great against decks that run Surgical Extraction AND Snapcaster Mages. It just beats the living crap out of them. The only issues I have with it is whenever I draw Gemstone Mine only lands.

DR is probably the most powerful tool we have in our arsenal (next only to LED perhaps). Unfortunately I really don't like how inconsistent it makes the deck. Quadlaser is quadlaser, it is (for me) the most consistent form of LED/Mana Dredge. Not to mention 2 slots in the SB really hurts. Against which matchups do you plan to board it in? I think if you're planning to run it you can try adding it to the main as a 1-off.

As for Leyline of the Void, if you're expecting tons of Reanimator go ahead. But I suggest you run Firestorms instead. Ooze, at least in my meta, has run rampant. G1, when it catches me off guard, its almost GG. We can race Reanimator anyways with explosive T1's and Cabal Therapy spam.:laugh:

I just went 2-2-1 in a tourney with my Quad list last week. I'll post the report when I'm less busy. :laugh:

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Originally Posted by ZebraSleeves

This is what I'm planning to run in SCG: Providence.

Maindeck: Quadlaser +1 darkblast, -1 golgari thug

Sideboard: 4 Nature's claim, 4 Leyline of the Void, 2 Tarnished citadel, 2 Nether Shadow, 2 Dread Return, 1 Ancient Grudge

Explanation for not going full Quadlaser: darkblast is sick utility. Kills delver, Kills Goblin lackey, Kills Peace Keeper, saves Ichorid/Narcomoeba from StP, etc.

Reason for not using Ashen Ghouls: Ashen Ghoul is great in against dedicated control (Miracles, BUG), but I feel that those matchups are pretty good anyway. I wanted that space for Dread Return.

Dread Return thoughts: Dread Return is such a ridiculous value card. Its like a 7-for-1 most of the time. I also believe there to be a distinct psychological advantage to having one in your graveyard; your opponent is under a lot of pressure to make sure you don't reanimate an Ultra-Grave Titan. However, they do dilute the deck and make it less streamlined which is not good against Maverick, Storm, Belcher, or Reanimator where game 1's are really important (especially against Maverick).

Please give me some feedback. I want to make sure my dredge deck is properly striking fear into the hearts of the living. Thank you.

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Originally Posted by sherko7

First of all, good luck! It feels like every tourney gets harder for us Dredge players especially now with more GY hate available yet again.:laugh:

Ashen Ghoul is great against decks that run Surgical Extraction AND Snapcaster Mages. It just beats the living crap out of them. The only issues I have with it is whenever I draw Gemstone Mine only lands.

DR is probably the most powerful tool we have in our arsenal (next only to LED perhaps). Unfortunately I really don't like how inconsistent it makes the deck. Quadlaser is quadlaser, it is (for me) the most consistent form of LED/Mana Dredge. Not to mention 2 slots in the SB really hurts. Against which matchups do you plan to board it in? I think if you're planning to run it you can try adding it to the main as a 1-off.

As for Leyline of the Void, if you're expecting tons of Reanimator go ahead. But I suggest you run Firestorms instead. Ooze, at least in my meta, has run rampant. G1, when it catches me off guard, its almost GG. We can race Reanimator anyways with explosive T1's and Cabal Therapy spam.:laugh:

I just went 2-2-1 in a tourney with my Quad list last week. I'll post the report when I'm less busy. :laugh:

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Ghouls were added to diversify your threats against cards like Surgical Extraction like you said in which case you board in your 3 Ghouls and the 3 lands to cast Ghouls more reliable while not beeing screwed when your Bridges/Ichorids get extracted. It might be totally ok to board in 2 Lands, 2 Ghouls and 2 DR instead. What I do not like about DR in this case is that it gets worse if the aformentioned cards got extracted in contrary to the plan with 3 Ghouls and 3 lands.
Once your Ichorids are exiled it gets harder to cast DR and once your Bridges got extracted you get no real benefit out of DR (read: Zombies), while Ashen Ghoul would still hit for 3. Of course a giant Troll might help, but especially in the decks which run Extractions and Snapcasters your Troll might just get hit by StP. It might also be neccessary sometimes to eat a Ghoul with Ichorid. I also like to have the third land in other matchups where I have to reliably cast my Claims.

Thug vs Darkblast might be ok. It is something you might consider if there are lots of UW Miracles with Peacekeepers around (or other decks which play them). It also can kill early Oozes with no mana open, if you Darkblast them upkeep, dredge Darkblast und recast it, if you can get enough Mana early enough which might be a bit situational. I would not switch Darkblast for Thug if there are no Peacekeepers around. Lackey does not keep you from winning in contrary to Peacekeeper. Against Lackey you need the 1of Darkblast in your starting seven to be effective, while against Peacekeeper you can just dredge into it an build some Zombies over the course. Lackey is only good in this one turn where you cannot block on his turn 2 (which should not happen that often) and where you cannot Darkblast him on your first turn (which may happen often with a 1of on turn 1). I also like to eat Thugs :-)

Leyline vs Firestorms might also be a meta call. I see Dredge and Reanimator often enough to give me an edge with Leylines in these matchups and although I got lucky against the last few reanimator decks I still consider it a bad matchup. They can counter your fast starts or slow us down with discard on turn 1 taking away discard outlets or acceleration or just have a fast start themselves with an early Elesh to stop us for good.

Firestorms on the other hand might work well against all these new Hatebears from Ravnica in addition to the already known Hatebears. Just be careful not to burn you own Bridges :-) If there were less Dredge/Reanimator Decks around here I might consider this, but as I said its a meta-dependend choice and I am using Leylines in my board at the moment.

As of all the new hatecards like Rest in Peace...people still have only 15 cards in their sideboards. Going all out against graveyard decks might not be wise as it weakens other (more important?) matchups. You might still meet those people in tournaments but it is ok for me. Dredge was not hated out in the past and will not get hated out in the future. People just have more choices in which cards they use to hate us and RiP is just to slow. Enlightened Tutor into RiP might be a problem though. The sky was falling when Cage was spoiled. We are still here (two quadlaser in top 16 at Ovino 7 as a recent example).

Best regards,

Chris

Edit: If you use two lands in your board, I would make a split with Undiscovered Paradise. You do not want to either draw 2 Paradise nor 2 Citadels.