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Just the fact that it's a 2 cards combo that doesn't win on the spot (or a 3 cards combo) makes it unplayable. Plus, it is shutdown by bridge removal (BSkull, bolt, ...).
Additionally, Saffi is neither blue nor black.
Just reanimating a merfolk in the counter build, or spy in true manaless, or grisel otherwise is one card, game winning combo.
I've been watching the thread for a long time but never felt the need to post any lists as I was mostly just following the innovations. However, don't think I've seen enough of the idea, so, has anyone done any serious testing on the super-consistent turn 2 kill list using Shifting Wall and Phyrexian Marauder that was mentioned a while back?
I've just started doing testing with it, then siding into the blue version to mop up game 2.
List for ref:
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Phantasmagorian
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Street Wraith
4 Bridge From Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Whirlpool Rider
4 Phyrexian Maurauder
4 Shifting Wall
Side
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Mindbreak Trap/Disrupting Shoal (depending on whether I'm expecting Storm)
3 Faerie Maccabre
Generally, what I've been doing is just going for straight swap of the X creatures to 4 FOW 4 Probe in game 2, then if needed game 3 maybe trim some fat for more spells depending on what hate I see
So far I've not lost a game 1 and even gotten a couple of turn 2 wins (but as I say, this is only VERY early in testing) and slowing down post-board to counter hate has won me a fair few games against mull to RIP
I don't see how a 0 mana creature can be better than a probe to accelerate the combo. I think this version has already been tested and eliminated previously, but I might be wrong.
By the way, it's one week old but for those who didn't saw it, it seems like a certain Jonathan Clarke finished at tenth place at starcity Portland with a fairly classic list.
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=69469
They work in two different ways. The main bonus to the 0 cost creatures is that they provide you with fast zombies, allowing for quick dread returns/cabals or earlier beats. Plus, you can play them through Thalia and they stack above nether shadow.Quote:
Originally Posted by saart
The reason I prefer them to probe is that probe only ever enables a dredge, whilst this can be game winning and there is no doubt it speeds you up, more often then not (in my experience) it doesn't end the game on the spot. The 0 mana creatures can provide you with a quick win via getting the crucial 3rd creature for a dread return, but when they don't they are filling your board up with more zombies allowing you to play the more grindy, attrition game (they also help in this situation by, like I said, stacking on Shadow).
I know it's been tested but I haven't really seen much evidence for or against it, have I missed something? I know Hollywood abandoned it right before his last tournament to play blue version, but I think that had more to do with comfort/familiarity, other then that, he seemed to believe it was a worthy evolution of the deck.
I think the Marauder/Wall version of this deck has a lot of potential and unmatched speed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shade909
Report of my 9th place at Prague Eternal 2014 could be found here http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...ad.php?t=28284
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.
Congrats on the placing & nice report :)Quote:
Originally Posted by meffeo
How often did you find you were getting active FOWs? Griselbrand rather than Whirlpool Riders seems like it would hurt your chances a bit
Congrats!
Congrats! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by meffeo
Hello everyone, what I'm about to ask probably isn't something to be discussed in this particular thread but I didn't know where else to go. Anyway, I have been under the opinion that manaless dredge is an awful deck that only wins because not many people are playing graveyard hate and can't actually play through or around cards like Rest in peace. With more traditional dredge decks you can cast your therapies a lot earlier, or if you're running LEDs you could conceivably win by the first or second turn, and you actually have lands to cast anti hate. Well I have realized for a while that these views are heavily biased so I decided to come here and ask players of the deck what is the consideration for playing this over other versions of the deck, besides price. I am also curious how many of you have played other versions of dredge and why you play manaless besides the fact that LEDs are pretty expensive. I am also wondering how often manaless dredge players lose to random things. I play a lot of death and taxes, and many times against manaless dredge I was able to get Thalia out with a Vial on 2, get batterskull into play and legend rule thalia or return batterskull to kill the germ and nuke bridges. I am trying to get a better understanding and respect for the deck so hopefully you guys can help to enlighten me about the archetype.
P.S. I probably won't play the deck period no matter how convincing the responses are strictly because I'm not the biggest fan of dredge as a whole, though my refusal to play it will hopefully not be solely based off of a hatred for the manaless dredge in particular.
P.P.S I very rarely have lost to any version of dredge outside of testing, I generally play 4-5 (not including any Deathrite Shamans) pieces of graveyard hate across the 75 because I do not like losing to dredge, so my hatred for manaless isn't founded upon losing to the manaless as I can't recall ever taking losses to it in a tournament setting, but by beating it (fairly handily) in my tournament experience.
7/13 9:07 P.M.
I wrote this post very poorly, as you can probably tell, so poorly that I am going back and writing this new passage. I really don't want to make excuses, it wasn't written hastily, it was just written straight up poorly. I would like to apologize for this error and am trying to write a newer version that doesn't demonstrate arrogance and frankly stupidity. Hopefully I can try to engage a few of you in a constructive conversation, which I feel I very clearly failed to do with this original post. What I wanted to know about the deck was why play it over other versions of dredge, if price isn't an issue. I know of many players who swear by this deck over other dredge decks even though they have access to the other cards, and I want to ask any of those that description applies to why this is the case. My understanding as to the considerations for playing this version of dredge over the others. From my point of view it seems like the other dredge decks, namely versions with LED and tireless Tribe, are just better at playing through and opponents hate. The main argument I've heard in favor of Manaless is that it boasts a greater consistency than other versions. I have limited experience with variations of the 2 different versions I listed early and it seems that manaless is trading away both speed and resiliency in favor of consistency. Both other variations can cast cards like natures claim, firestorm, and hard cast cabal therapies, while manaless, at least from an outsiders perspective, has a very hard time dealing with the hate other decks have access to. From my experience both playing against manaless with various decks, and watching manaless in tournaments and event coverage, is that it can beat decks that don't pack much graveyard hate, and slower combo decks, which have, at least in my experience, been among the best match ups for other variants of dredge. I have also noticed that manaless has a tougher time against decks that other variants of dredge boast good match ups against. For example when I played dredge death and taxes was a match up I was very comfortable with, and I felt heavily favored against them. From my experience and a couple other acquaintance's, this is not the case for manaless. If someone could thoroughly explain why you would choose to play the deck when you have the option not to? The way I see it when you are choosing to play manaless you are trading both speed and resilience for marginal games in consistency when slaying a goldfish. Obviously this post will remain fairly biased, but I am trying to gain a better understanding of the considerations for the deck, and hopefully a better respect for it as well.
Please explain to me how this deck can be considered "awful" because it mainly thrives in metas unprepared to deal with it? Just because the deck is effectively the poster child for chewing up and spitting out opponents who are unprepared doesn't mean it's a bad deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by GingaNinja77
In fact, I venture to say that you've likely played against inexperienced pilots who sided incorrectly against you or just don't know how to use the stack properly. You're giving us your resume against it, so what is it you're looking to know?
I'm not sure what sort of response you're trying to elicit here. You honestly just ranted about how "easy" you've been able to beat it. That's all I was able to pull from that.
I tried not to sound like I hated the deck too much, which sounds like it failed. What I want to know primarily is what are the considerations for playing this over other dredge decks. In my experience the deck can beat decks that are just weak to dredge, but struggles with decks that other versions of dredge can beat, Like MUD for instance. Looking back my post was horribly phrased and didn't really convey what I wanted to ask well. I have limited experience playing LED dredge, and I always regarded something like death and taxes as a good match up, but from watching event coverage, playing in events, and watching from the sidelines in local events that seems like a bad match up for manaless. I want to know why play manaless besides price when it SEEMS like other versions are just better. The main argument for it I've heard is consistency and resilience to counterspells, but there version with 4 tireless tribe and 4 putrid imp seems to be just as resilient to that kind of distruption while being faster, still being able to beat something like Leyline or a resolved Rest In Peace and cast cabal therapy before its second turn. I guess there is a certain novelty to the deck with way or reason to produce mana but it seems like you trade speed for marginal gains in consistency and a tougher time against hate, at least that is my understanding of the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Keller
Manaless is more resilient then you give it credit for. It's main strength comes from being harder to shut down completely (some obvious cards excluded).
Where "regular" Dredge mainly relies on it's Bridges to get the win, this deck can completely forego those. Are we somehow unable to go for the Dread Return plan? That's fine, we'll just stick to Ichorids & Nether Shadows, backed up by tokens from the Bridges and so on. This deck can (and often enough does) win without ever casting a single spell. Heck, from time to time not even graveyard sweepers are able to stop the deck because it fills up again so fast. Especially when you already have some creatures out - all you need are a Dread Return and a target for it and you instantly take the game.
When playing the deck you'll just have to accept the risk your taking concerning certain cards and take your losses like a man.
Then why not play a version of the deck that can beat hate? If you can play a version that can beat hate then why play a version that has a tougher time against it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Echelon
It all depends on the specific hate. In some cases (RiP, Grafdigger's Cage), sure, you're better off playing the other brother. But in a lot of other cases, specifically everything that isn't an insta-loss, you're often better off playing Manaless.
Even though regular Dredge has answers to hate, it is also more likely to be stopped by that same hate when not drawing it's answers whereas Manaless often doesn't need answers to deal with what it gets thrown in its face. Regular Dredge needs a lot more cards to do what it wants to. It needs land, Bridges, a discard outlet and a dredger to get anywhere at all. We just need to have a dredger and we're good.
I have played mana dredge since it was legal in Extended, and have tested both the Legacy versions of mana dredge, before choosing manaless. Also, i have no budget problems.
The biggest difference between Manaless and LED dredge is resilience to counterspells. When i'm playing manaless my engine doesn't get stopped by counters. DDD and start beating with Ichorids/Shadows/Narcomoebas. LED dredge can do DDD, too, but it's much worse at doing it: a dredge 6 with 12 recurring creatures, 4 Dread Returns,4 Cabal Therapies, 4 Phantasmagorian,4 Bridges is much better than one with 7/8 creatures, 4 Bridges, 12 draw spells, 12-14 lands.
Wasteland-proof is a thing, too: getting a draw spell countered and a land wasted puts the LED player in a pretty bad position (6 cards in hand, maybe no more lands, weak DDD plan).
Surgical Extraction is better versus LED than versus manaless. Manaless has more redundancy, if you get ichorids extracted you still have 8 recurring creatures. If bridges get extracted, you have a solid combo plan with 4 Dread Returns, and a good beatdown plan with the increased amount of creatures. If a dredger gets extracted there's street wraith, and 10/11/12 more dredgers left in the deck.
Same goes for Deathrite Shaman. Sure, it can lock manaless out of the game, but i think it hurts LED dredge more, due to the amount of redundancy i was talking about before. If you have 4 Chancellor 4 Phantasmagorian 4 Street Wraith you'll probably just ignore DRS.
LED dredge has a better storm matchup, because it's able to cast therapy, and it deals better with Grafdigger's cage, but that's all, in my opinion. On the death and taxes matchup: I have a positive record for that matchup. The only ways manaless loses is thalia+Stoneforge in the top9/10 cards. And that can be beaten by simply beating and triggering bridges (Thalia won't die, if stoneforge dies there will be no batterskull. G2/3 we have Force and Shoal, which are good at countering cc2 stuff->Thalia and Rip (actually some builds play FoW maindeck, it makes the matchup better). We really don't care about batterskull unless thalia is out, so often you'll need thalia + rip. I've lost to Mirran Crusader + jitte, sometimes:that's a decent plan, too.
Of course Manaless has weaknesses, it's not just pro's. Turn one discard hurts, unless we have Chancellor. Storm is not a great matchup, because we can't disrupt until turn 2 on the draw and they have cc1 discard. Grafdigger's cage is hard to deal with: sadly disrupting shoal is not good at countering it, having only 4 pitches. Force works, though.
You said you play 4-5 pieces of grave hate in your board: that's a lot. Most people nowadays can't afford to play that many cards, because the number of different decks is quite high, and dedicating too many slots to a single strategy, which is not even too common, can be a risk.That's why i prefer having a deck which is better against common maindeck cards rather than sideboard cards that i don't even see too often (Cage is a 2-of, leyline sucks, we can deal with the rest of hate cards). Manaless is a metagame deck that has to be played in the proper environment, basically one with a lot of u-based decks.
"I generally play 4-5 (not including any Deathrite Shamans) pieces of graveyard hate across the 75 because I do not like losing to dredge"––that probably explains a large part of why I enjoy playing any variation of Dredge.
The deck prays on people unprepared to deal with it. Interaction exists more with LED and similarly-built variants that have lands. This interaction causes the deck to lose stack-based battles, where cards like Spell Pierce and Wasteland take the deck off-balance when trying to "go off." Furthermore, Dredge variants that don't use any lands typically have a lighter creature density than its Manaless counterpart, which makes it a more appealing option to attack quicker and Dread Return faster.Quote:
Originally Posted by easysantiago
In short: it's more difficult to play around hate with Manaless Dredge, but the tradeoff is visibly apparent as it crushes the decks that normally could give land-based Dredge fits. Manaless loses to some specific hate, sure. But again - it's a meta call.
I dust off the dredge machine every now and again. Even though it is not a tier 1 deck, it is an absolute blast to play.
I understand the the draw 7 effect of Griselbrand is treated as 7 distinct draws so that each draw may be taken from the library or replaced for a dredge. One thing I'm curious about is how the draw 7 is represented on the stack and whether you can cast instants or activate abilities between the draws. For example, if I've already dredged 3 cards using Griselbrands ability (meaning I have another 4 draws) can I use Phantasmagorian to dump my hand back into my graveyard to use for my remaining Griselbrand draw/dredges? I want to say yes but I can't point to anywhere in the rules where this is addressed.