Originally Posted by
FTW
I've been trying out the new lists and I'm not a fan. My understanding is that Dredge HAS to win game 1 to be competitive. We concoct elaborate sideboard strategies to dodge hate, but our lives are so much easier if we can run away with the pre-board match before the hate comes in. That's when our deck is most efficient and when the opponent has the fewest tools to interact with our gameplan. I realize maindeck DRS changes this somewhat, but DRS is still slow and we can try to dodge it with sheer speed. Anyway, this is how I've always played Dredge - to maximize the chance of a game 1 win. I don't see how the new builds help with that.
In particular:
2 Dread Return
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Griselbrand
0 Flamekin Zealot
0 Sphinx of Lost Truths
Before the days of Flayer, I would always play with 3 Dread Return + 1 Zealot + 1-2 Sphinx maindeck. What this meant is that if you ever "combo off" with a Breakthrough or Faithless Looting, you are pretty much guaranteed to hit gas and can Dread Return into more draw/discard until you mill most of your library and can Zealot FTW. Those builds were set up so if you can ever dredge 18+ cards in one turn, then you usually just hit enough gas to chain off and outright win immediately. I find that isn't so with the newer builds. I can Looting + LED + flashback Looting and dredge 24 and then have to pass the turn and wait for Ichorids/Ghouls to come online.
Sure, you set up Ichorids a few turns down the road and might be able to Cabal Therapy once or twice, playing for some incremental advantage. But where is the explosiveness?
I like the Flayer kill. It dodges the combat step, Elephant Grass and friends, and so much more. The problem is, for it to be a 1-turn kill, you need double Dread Return: Return on Flayer and then Return on a Grave-Troll to deal the rest. With only 2 Dread Returns in the deck, this is not easy. It is much lower probability to see both Dread Returns and Flayer than it was in the old build to see 1 of 3 Returns and either a Flamekin or Sphinx. That means comboing off in one turn is less consistent. And you have no way to get gas. If you are trying to combo off, there is 0 point in Dread Returning Griselbrand to dredge the rest of your deck because then you are guaranteed to only have 1 Dread Return left and cannot possibly win this turn. I guess you can just make Zombies and leave up Griselbrand and threaten a lethal attack, but that just seems too open to tampering. The Flamekin+Sphinx builds let you chain and close the game off that very turn.
So how do you guys play around that and make the Flayer version work for you? Do you just play slower, incremental games and avoid the "flip library over. confuse opponent. win" aspect? Do you avoid "comboing out" and just deal slow damage with zombies and Ichorid until Flayer on its own is lethal? Do you increase the number of Dread Returns?
