[Deck] Dredge

Small report for you guys. Went 4-0 in a local store and won a set of promo Go for the Throat and 1 Urza's Legacy booster (the store owner dig depth into his stuff, good for me!).

1) BUG Snapcaster Control (2-0)
Game 1: Tireless Tribe sticks, and I go nuts via Coliseum. He just played 2 polluted delta, fetched an underground sea and played 1 Ponder. I couldn't see past a Snapcaster and a Jace in his hand before my horde stomped him.

Board: +2 Coffin Purge +1 Purify the Grave -2 Breakthrough -1 Careful Study

Game 2: Mulligan a poor hand with 2 Narcomoeba and start with Tribe again. Resolves. I discard GGT and dredge an Ichorid, which get promptly Surgical Extracted, but I Coffin Purge in response, he brainstorms in response to my Purge and finds no counterspell. Good News. Played my second City of Brass and Cabal Therapy for Daze, hit. Played Breakthrough safely and that was game.

2) Mono Black Whatever (2-1) - awful matchup, don't know how I managed to win.
Game 1: He won the roll and starts with Swamp, Dark Ritual -> Hymn to Tourach. Lucky me, hits my Darkblast and Stinkweed Imp. I dredge on the draw, play CC and C.Study. Dredged 1 Ichorid and 2 Bridges, pass. He plays another Swamp -> Bob, seems good. I revive Ichorid, dredge 2 Narcomoebas and strip his hand with a hardcasted and post flashbacked Cabal Therapy, and stomp him from there.

Board: +2 Coffin Purge +1 Dread Return +1 Iona, Shield of Emeria -1 Ichorid -2 Breakthrough -1 Tireless Tribe.

Game 2: We both keep our seven, and he just shows me double Leyline of the Void and 1 Ravenous Trap. Lol.

Board: -2 Coffin Purge -1 Dread Return +3 Nature's Claim

Game 3: I keep a strong hand with Firestorm, Careful Study, Gemstone Mine, Nature's Claim, Golgari Thug, Golgari Thug and Tarnished Citadel. He plays 1 Leyline of the Void I just pass the turn with Gemstone in play. He goes for Swamp -> Dark Ritual -> Dark Ritual -> Bob and Liliana of the Veil (eh, sometimes people just draw godlike). Still, that awsome play wasn't enough for Nature's Claim EOT. Firestorm in Upkeep dealt with Bob (couldn't care less for Liliana), dredged Thug into a GGT. Cast Careful Study which gets me 2 Narcomoebas and 2 Ichorids, pretty good. His Bob reveals Tombstalker (to compensate his first play, thanks god), and things got much easier.

3) Mono Blue Control (2-0)
Game 1: I start with PImp, resolves. He stares at my shiny PImpy boss and just scoops, saying that his sideboard has 0 cards for Dredge's matchup.

Game 2: see game 1.

4) Canadian Threshold (2-0)
Game 1: He starts with that annoying Mosquito guy and my PImp gets Dazed, crap. He fails to flip his guy, replays the land and passes. I played CC and casted another PImp, this one resolves. Discarded my Stinkweed Imp and tempted to Breakthrough, but Daze is there again to rain on my parade (still, he's far behind on land drops). His mosquito finally flipped and started to bash me. I dredge a bit and find a Narcomoeba and Cabal Therapy, which gets used naming Stifle and hits twice, yay. CC activates safely and I dredge my win.

Board: nothing, some Canadian players use Crypt, other use Surgical, just tried my luck.

Game 2: He mulls to 5 and starts with mosquitoman again. I Firestorm it, me and him, and dredge a bit finding nothing relevant but 2 more dredgers. Cast Careful Study, resolves. Dredged like a boss, finding me 3 Ichorids, 1 Bridge, 1 GGT and 1 Dread Return. He plays the second land, and Brainstormed. After some thinking he just scooped, revealing a Relic of Progenitus (wtf? Probably off brainstorm) and no mana to activate it.

The list I used was:

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
4 Putrid Imp
3 Firestorm
2 Tireless Tribe
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
SB: 4 Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Coffin Purge
SB: 1 Purify the Grave
SB: 1 Dread Return
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Terastodon
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation

And the night was pretty, pretty nice. Just got 2 Lion's Eye Diamond off 2 Snapcaster Mage plus some crap. Can't wait for Faithless Looting :)

@ Vandalize:

Congratz on the finish. I like your list and I'm pretty glad to see Coffin Purge/Purify the Grave do the work they're supposed to do.


@ The whole LED vs LEDless with Looting:

Actually, I'm pretty sure that running LEDs without DRs and DR targets doesn't make sense at all. LED Dredge is NOT one turn faster than LEDless. It just has the chance to win on turn 1. That is a pretty huge difference if you think about it. The chance for LEDless to go off turn 2 is just as high as the chance for LED Dredge to go off turn 2. Matter of fact.

That said, if LED actually wants do do anything LEDless can't do better already, whether it has Lootings or not, it has to run DR targets that win you the game on turn 1.


I don't quite understand why Lootings should actually be an argument for LED and against LEDless. You guys do realize that LEDless might not even want to play Lootings, because it might in fact not even be good enough? Let's just compare LED and LEDless pre- an post Lootings:

This is based on my own lists, things may vary of course.

Pre: LED had 2 Deep Analysis, 4 LED, 2 DR targets where LEDless had 3 Lands, 4 Tireless Tribe and the 4th Careful Study.

Post: LED has 4 LED and 2 DR targets where LEDless has 3 Lands and some careful Studies (because LED will not have room for 4 Lootings, DR targets AND 4 Studies)


Given that LEDless was commonly considered superior to LED pre-Lootings, I can't see why that would change post-Lootings. LEDless can just play the 4 Lootings over Tribes, which will keep the difference between LED and LEDless equal. I see that LED can make better use of the Flashback, but does that really push LED over LEDless all of a sudden?

Firstly, LED is not inferior to LEDless. They are completely different decks for completely different metagames.

Secondly, LED dredge really,really wants faithless looting.

You want the maximum amount of deep anals in this deck so you can first turn careful study/breakthrough with LED and hope to dig into one of those deep anals. I currently have three deep anals in my LED build, but would love a fourth. Can't do though because of space in deck and it's a dead card in hand most times. Faithless Looting solves both of these problems.

Furthermore, Faithless Looting ups the first turn kill rate for this deck and gives the deck more careful studies! How frickin awesome is that?

Also, random old scenario: Play LED, Land, then careful study while popping LED to have Careful Study Fow'd. Minor setback :(

Random new scenario: Play LED, Land, then Faithless Looting while popping LED to have Faithless Looting Fow'd. Flashback Faithless Looting into success :)


Anyone who thinks this card won't be a great addition to LED dredge has either never succesfully played LED dredge or is just going to miss saying stuff like "digging up that deep anal let me beat that girl playing solitaire".

@ Gui:

This is the most recent decklist:

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy

The SB isn't set in stone yet. A friend of mine and I are tinkering with a few ideas whether we should build an SB that can transform the deck into the LEDless-version or not. And whether we should play 2 Dread Returns along with 2 Elesh Norn.


@ Izor:

I haven't liked the LED-version until the spoiling of Faithless Looting, neither. I'd rather played the LEDless-version every day, but Faithless Looting is too good not to be tested. And so we did; and it did great.

So, why don't we play Dread Return and at least one target? The answer is simple: consistency-problems. If you've got three cards in the deck that don't do anything alone or with an LED (or discard-outlet), it's just bad. I've played this version of the deck back in 2007 and 2008, so I know what I'm talking about. The reason it worked well was that nearly nobody knew the deck back then; at least here in Germany.
Back to the consistency-problem: Which cards you want to cut for the 2 Dread Returns and the target? 1 Ichorid, 1 Study, 1 Looting? Or any other card? I don't think it's worth for generating an turn 1 kill. Most of the times you are dredging at least 1/3 of your library turn one. Even 2/3 isn't unlikely. So, which opponent is likely to recover from at least 2 C. Therapies with about 2-4 Tokens and a few Ichorids in the grave first turn? I personally think it is pretty uncommon.

With the printing of Looting these turn 1 situations are absurdly common. And in these situations you don't need the DRs and the target. I would rather play 3 cards that support my gameplan to mill my library first turn more constantly and set the opponent under pressure in the next turn without hurting the consistence to do so.

I read your post on a german forum where you stated that you would board out the LEDs for game 2/3. With the old LED-version that may be true, but I'm not really convinced that it is the right thing to do with the Looting-version. I haven't tested that much postboard, but maybe the right call on game 2 is just to board nothing. If the start with first turn Relic then you are dredging 2/3 of your deck, therapy him a few times and generate so many tokens that he can't win against that. Simple as that :P. As I said, I'll have to test it a bit more.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joemauer

Firstly, LED is not inferior to LEDless. They are completely different decks for completely different metagames.

Secondly, LED dredge really,really wants faithless looting.

You want the maximum amount of deep anals in this deck so you can first turn careful study/breakthrough with LED and hope to dig into one of those deep anals. I currently have three deep anals in my LED build, but would love a fourth. Can't do though because of space in deck and it's a dead card in hand most times. Faithless Looting solves both of these problems.

Furthermore, Faithless Looting ups the first turn kill rate for this deck and gives the deck more careful studies! How frickin awesome is that?

Also, random old scenario: Play LED, Land, then careful study while popping LED to have Careful Study Fow'd. Minor setback :(

Random new scenario: Play LED, Land, then Faithless Looting while popping LED to have Faithless Looting Fow'd. Flashback Faithless Looting into success :)


Anyone who thinks this card won't be a great addition to LED dredge has either never succesfully played LED dredge or is just going to miss saying stuff like "digging up that deep anal let me beat that girl playing solitaire".

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Actually I agree with you entirely. Also I'm pretty sure I didn't say anything that contradicts your point. LED will run 4 Lootings and that card will improve the deck a good bit. Never agrued that, did I?

The only thing I said is that LEDless was by most people considered spuerior to LED over the last couple of months and I think that is a true statement. My entire post only referred to this question:

Even if LED Dredge gets a a boost now, will that make it really strictly better than LEDless (whether the latter runs the Lootings or not)?

And while many people seem to think that it will, I'm skeptical about it for now.


@ Brot ohne Kruste:

I understand what you mean. I'm also testing the Lootings-LED build at the moment, it's just that I haven't been very pleased with it. In short, while Lootings performed well, I still ran into the same problems LED has always had (and which I specified in the German forum). I'll do more testing for sure. But for now I'm left with the impression that LEDless w/ Lootings is still as much better than LED w/ Lootings as LEDless W/o Lootings was better than LED w/o Lootings. While 'better' is in this case a subjective view of course.

@LED vs LEDless: Of course Faithless Looting has improved the LED builds, but although faster, it has the same problems to fight hate, didn't it?

Actually I had trouble with hate even playing LEDless build, because I have main decked Firestorm, and I miss Tireless Tribe to fight Relic and Tormod.
I am trying Tribe in SB. In G2, sometimes you just don't know if your opponent is packing Artifact-form hate or Surgical Extraction (or both), so Tribe helps you in consistency, and can also fight a possible Relic/Tormod.

My SB:

4x Nature's Claim
1x Dread Return
1x Iona
1x Elesh Norn
3x Purify the Grave
2x Ancient Grudge
3x Tireless Tribe

My only issue with that strategy, is the lack of Ancient Grudge.

@Izor: I was see your main point now. I was trying to say that LEDless was never strictly better than LED dredge and vice versa.

Also, like Mojeh pointed out faithless looting won't change how the deck fundamentally plays. Each dredge deck will still have the same weaknesses/strengths. This card will help LED dredge become quicker and smooth out their hands with less dead cards in the deck.

I got my 4th Firestorm (finally :tongue:) just today when I went to a tournament, and was trading some standard cards for legacy cards. Now that I am back in my barracks, I am not sure what to take out of my sideboard :cry:.

My current sideboard, for a 15 land stock list w/ 1 MDed Iona...

4 Nature's Claim
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
1 Angel of Despair
3 Purify the Grave

My meta consists of:
TES
Zoo
Merfolk
Several versions of GW Maverick
Reanimator
Show and Tell
Affinity
Alot of Bant decks utilizing Stone Forge Mystic
Goblins
Counterslivers
and others, but those are the ones I usually see.

So there aren't many other Dredge players? You seem really light on grave hate and though Purify the Grave is hate and it has flashback it seems like the free Surgical Extraction would be easier to cast.

Do you find yourself using the Purify's often?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UnderwaterGuy

So there aren't many other Dredge players? You seem really light on grave hate and though Purify the Grave is hate and it has flashback it seems like the free Surgical Extraction would be easier to cast.

Do you find yourself using the Purify's often?

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There's one person that plays dredge, he plays the bloodghast version Undiscovered Paradise. My sideboard is more focused on combating opposing hate rather than me bringing in my own hate, honestly. I was just going along with everyone with the Purify or Coffin Purge, but wanted to leave my sideboard, that's usually set and locked alone, which are:

4 Nature's Claim
4 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
1 Angel of Despair
X ?

The remaining cards I usually just mess around with depending on what seems to be the "flavor of the month" and just base it off that. But now that I got access to the 4th Firestorm when I was able to trade for it before the tournament earlier, I just do not know what to take out, as I'll leave my "X" to thin as a 2-of.

Making it:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Firestorm
1Angel of Despair
2 ?

Not really sure what would be a good 2-of...
+1 Dread Return and +1 Flame-kin Zealot maybe?

@Claymore-One I seem to have the same issue with my sideboard. I have a few cards in my SB I just can't justify reducing or removing altogether and I end up after a lot of deliberation with one or two spots that I just can't settle on. My most current SB lately has been

4 coffin purge
3 extirpate
1 elesh norn
1 iona
2 ray of revelation
1 ancient grudge
3 stony silence

yeah it's basically the sideboard that chinese kid used from this year's worlds. I haven't done too much testing but the 3 stony silences seem like the least attractive choice. I could probably cut a coffin purge as well. So far I've only tested against burn and I tend to win about 50% of the time but burn doesn't constitute a significant portion of my local meta at all so I think the main thing is I just have to play more games against people with this deck. My favorite thing about dredge though; regardless of what sort of list I'm trying out G1 is almost always mine. Sneaking past permission is so big.

my current deck is
4 city of brass
4 cephalid coliseum
4 gemstone mine
2 tarnished citadel
4 narcomoebia
4 ichorid
4 stinkweed imp
4 golgari thug
4 golgari grave-troll
4 putrid imp
3 firestorm
1 darkblast
4 careful study
4 breakthrough
4 cabal therapy
4 bridge from below
2 dread return

Last actual tournament I played I didn't have any firestorms so I'm eager to try those out in an actual competitive environment. There were so many times I would have given my pinkie finger for a board sweeper of some type. The only thing I don't like about firestorm is it has no recursive ability whatever, so once it's in the yard it's there, fugghedaboutit. To alleviate this I've considered running a singleton snapcaster mage. Not 100% sold on this idea, though being able to flashback a breakthrough or even careful study couldn't hurt either.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4eak

// Lands - 12
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Tarnished Citadel

// Dredgers - 13
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast

// Discard - 2
2 Phantasmagorian

// Draw/Discard - 12
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough

// Draw - 3
3 Winds of Change

// GY-Goodies - 18
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return


peace,
4eak

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This list is really intriguing to me. I want to test it some. Have you done any testing with it yet 4eak?

Putrid Imp? How much of a sacred cow (imp) is he? If the plan is to flip most of the deck in a led/faithless looting-build we will have enough bodies anyway? Reusable discard seems "un-needed" game1. Im thinking Firestorm in the slots.
G2 is a different animal, but maybe the best plan here is just to board 4 unmasks and complement therapies for a turbo-win game3?
What about Ichorid? Im sorry if I step on any toes with my stupid ideas... but isn't he slow? Again, if we flip the deck wouldn't sphinx/fkz and 2 DR in these slots achive more? I guess DR is worse against counterspells. Another idea in the ichorid slot could be 2 tarnished citadel and 2 DR (still have those trolls).

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Firestorm
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy

I've tried a list with 3 ichorids and I was pretty unsatisfied with it's performance. With just one bridge, a dredger in GY and two ichorids in play it can be hard for some decks to get an upper hand esp. with therapies etc. Preboard games I've found having 4 ichorids ups the pressure on a lot of opponents because the main path to victory against a lot of decks G2/G3 is dread returning an iona or elesh and a 4th ichorid makes this happen a lot quicker. Also if you wanted to cut pimps you'd be forced to cut ichorids. They're kind of symbiotic; once one hits the GY they're the first target for ichorid food right before g thugs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vandalize

Faithless Looting can easily replace Tireless Tribe's slot in the main deck. Fixing draws or trying to get some Breakthrough off the top seems pretty good to me. Perhaps the only drawback is not being able to flashback Therapy in moments of despair.

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Replacing Tireless Tribe with this card is wrong.

I am relatively certain it doesn't have room in the maindeck, since it's worse than the 16 discard spells I already run.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mackan

Putrid Imp? How much of a sacred cow (imp) is he? If the plan is to flip most of the deck in a led/faithless looting-build we will have enough bodies anyway? Reusable discard seems "un-needed" game1. Im thinking Firestorm in the slots.
G2 is a different animal, but maybe the best plan here is just to board 4 unmasks and complement therapies for a turbo-win game3?
What about Ichorid? Im sorry if I step on any toes with my stupid ideas... but isn't he slow? Again, if we flip the deck wouldn't sphinx/fkz and 2 DR in these slots achive more?

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I don't think your ideas are that crazy. In my LED dredge I usually run 2-3 ichorids because he is kinda slow.

But I have been contemplating a red/blueish build with LED for faithless looting to go in. If we cut Pimps we would have to replace ichorids with bloodghasts. I need to do actual testing.

I think faithless looting opens up all sorts of new deck building possibilities.

Here is what I believe to be the best list right now!

Once again, I know it's pretty standard. No need to state that.


// Lands
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [WL] Gemstone Mine
3 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
2 [RAV] Golgari Thug

// Spells
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [WL] Firestorm
2 [TSP] Dread Return
1 [RAV] Darkblast

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 [OD] Coffin Purge
SB: 2 [ISD] Purify the Grave
SB: 2 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria

So you can support 4 Ichorids with only 10 other black creatures (total count of black creatures 14) and you also only run 11 dredger.... yeah this has to be the best list in the current meta.

hint: there might be irony in my statment.

Can someone explain why everybody is cutting Tireless Tribe for Firestorm? Reading back several pages, the only explanation I have found is "trust me."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

So you can support 4 Ichorids with only 10 other black creatures (total count of black creatures 14) and you also only run 11 dredger.... yeah this has to be the best list in the current meta.

hint: there might be irony in my statment.

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Wouldn't be easier for you answer that, in your oppinion, it should be -1 ichorid +1 Golgari Thug?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by igri_is_a_bk

Can someone explain why everybody is cutting Tireless Tribe for Firestorm? Reading back several pages, the only explanation I have found is "trust me."

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Firestorm can delay a lot your opponent, kill annoying stuff, is a uncounterable discard outlet and also makes damage.