[Deck] Dredge

@Gui: I didn't really tested the 61 cards deck, I went to the tournament with the list I posted before, 13 dredgers, 15 lands, 3 Ichorid, 4 Firestorms and the usual.

In sideboard, I cut 3x Coffin Purge for 1x DR (the third), Sphinx of Lost Truths and Ancient Grudge (the third).

SB:
4x Nature's Claim
2x DR
1x Iona
1x Elesh Norn
1x Sphinx of Lost Truths
3x Ancient Grudge
3x Tireless Tribe

Thinking of -1 Grudge for +1 Tribe.
I went top 2 in the small tournament (22 players), and Tribe was amazing. Never used the 3 Grudges, just 2 of them anyway.
Win against: 2 Merfolk, Loam, Enchantress, TES.
ID: Hive Mind, Deadguy (finals).
Lost: Canadian.

Good job ^^

I like the list you are using, it's very consistant :D

There's this idea that the best way to fight Surgical Extraction is to have a good DR target as backup plan, one that stands alone like Iona, instead of Coffin Purge. What do you guys think?

I like Coffin Purge. I feel like if they target their extractions well and get rid of your ichorids and narcos then you would just be stuck with no way to DR that standalone creature.

Great job coming in 2nd at that event. How effective did you find Nature's Claim to be as a catchall leyline/crypt/trinisphere/moat answer? How often did it end up dead in your graveyard instead of doing it's job? I want to run them but I'm really put off by their inability to be playable from the grave. But then again I run 4 firestorms main so just..deal with it?

My current sideboard is
3 coffin purge
1 ichorid
2 ancient grudge
1 nature's claim
3 tireless tribe
1 dread return
1 iona
1 elesh norn
2 ray of revelation

the purges will become purify the grave(s), already decided on that. But if I wanted to run more claims what, in your opinion would end up on the cutting room floor?

When using Nature's Claim/chain of vapor you certainly want four. They are mostly used against leylines. If they have leyline in their opening hand you have no hate for it, then you are going to want to dig as quickly as possible for something. Having something that can be flashbacked is useless in these situations.

The secondary use of NC and CoV are to battle those maverick packages that use enlightened tutor + card of choice.

@wutangkillabeezonaswarm

I actually didn't played the finals, I splitted the prizes.

I once played CoV over NC because it's blue, and never useless, but in this tournament, NC did something that CoV wouldn't: answer turn 1 Wheel of Sun and Moon. Since I am not playing Ray of Revelation or any Vindicate-effect, I believe NC is better than CoV.

And I agree with Joemauer, if you are going to use NC or CoV, you should use 4, or the chance of drawing at least one of them starts to shrink, and as you said, they are useless on the graveyard.

I'd cut Ichorid and both Ray of Revelation in order to fit 4 Nature's Claim. It's worth pointing out, that I do not play Coffin Purge as well, so in my view, cutting them is also viable.

I'm currently running the Bloodghast/Dakmoor Salvage package to help deal with Surgical Extraction on Ichorids and Narcomoeba, and the 1-3 split of Darkblast/Golgari Thug as well.

As for the Nature's Claim vs Chain of Vapor (and the rest of the sideboard, tbh) argument: I feel we need both, really. Four answers is cutting it very slim, and keeping the board very one-sided as to what it can deal with. Chain of Vapor answers more than just turn 0 Leyline of the Void, problems like turn 3 Batterskull, or a turn 1 or 2 Blazing Archon, or worse. I didn't run Chain of Vapor at the SCG Legacy Open on Sunday, and lost vs Enchantress because the only lands I saw were 2 Coliseum when I drew 3 Nature's Claim staring down turn 0 Leyline/turn 1 Utopia Sprawl/turn 2 Wild Growth/Elephant Grass/turn 3 Sterling Grove, EOT search for Saproling Burst. Pandemonium soon after. Had I run Chain of Vapor, I could have had the blue mana to cast it, bounce the Leyline and the Elephant Grass in the same turn, untap, and win with Breakthrough.

Ancient Grudge seems to be a card everyone is unhappy with right now (including myself) so I just cut all of them. The only artifact I think we care about is Ensnaring Bridge (I don't know about you, but I can win through Relic and Crypt-maybe not both at the same time, but I doubt that will ever come up...) and Angel of Despair answers that.

I also run 4 Leyline of the Void in board though, as half of my meta is graveyard-based decks, whether storm combo, Crucible of Worlds, Life from the Loam/Punishing Fire, Snapcaster Mage/Surgical decks (some RUG players have one main now,) Knight of the Reliquary, Reanimator, etc. but I could see why you would want to just flick away one card vs a deck like Reanimator grabbing Blazing Archon game 1. The rest of my board right now is Angel of Despair x 1, Elesh Norn x1, Blazing Archon x 1, and Iona x 1. I'm still not 100% sold on Elesh Norn, possibly because I've yet to play a matchup where I used it, or wanted to bring it in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joemauer

@digital devil:
Elesh Norn in SB?

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SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [ISD] Purify the Grave
SB: 3 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
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I've been playing 4x Ancient Grudge for ages - is it a sin to play only 3 to fit in Elesh Norn? I haven't tested the card yet 'cause I am able to slaughter aggro even without it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Digital Devil

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SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [ISD] Purify the Grave
SB: 3 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
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I've been playing 4x Ancient Grudge for ages - is it a sin to play only 3 to fit in Elesh Norn? I haven't tested the card yet 'cause I am able to slaughter aggro even without it.

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Playing 4 Darkblast in your 75 seems a bit too much, no?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ziilot

Playing 4 Darkblast in your 75 seems a bit too much, no?

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Oh, well, I'm so used to my maindeck I forgot to say I'm playing max 3x Darkblast between maindeck/sideboard - 'list is the same as post #2494, with a third Golgari Thug in place of the singleton Darkblast (same exact maindeck for almost two years as you can see on TC Decks if you know me xD)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wutangkillabeezonaswarm

Great job coming in 2nd at that event. How effective did you find Nature's Claim to be as a catchall leyline/crypt/trinisphere/moat answer? How often did it end up dead in your graveyard instead of doing it's job? I want to run them but I'm really put off by their inability to be playable from the grave. But then again I run 4 firestorms main so just..deal with it?

My current sideboard is
3 coffin purge
1 ichorid
2 ancient grudge
1 nature's claim
3 tireless tribe
1 dread return
1 iona
1 elesh norn
2 ray of revelation

the purges will become purify the grave(s), already decided on that. But if I wanted to run more claims what, in your opinion would end up on the cutting room floor?

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@wutang Hi, was wondering why only 3 anti-leyline spells? is leyline not use in your current meta? currently I'm running LED-Dredge and I'm having problem building up my sb.

As of now here's my 15:
2Chain of Vapor
2natures claim
3ancient grudge
1Elesh
1Teres
4firestorm
2purify the grave

Thx

ZL

I actually changed my SB to make room for more nature's claim.
I don't know how useful you'll find this SB because I play LED-less dredge but here you go.

4 Nature's Claim
3 Purify the Grave
1 Ichorid
1 Iona
1 Elesh Norn
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Dread Return
3 Tireless Tribe

I don't know how to feel about the 50/50 split of NC/CoV in your sideboard. CoV will probably never be dead in your hand but it's usually not a permanent solution unless you're dealing with Reanimator then it's funny. I had the displeasure of playing a monowhite stax player and whoa lordy. A compelling argument for running angel of despair maindeck. Get outta here with that ghostly prison ish.

A sidenote about leyline etc. Yeah, a turn 0 leyline can be pretty brutal. But you know what is even more annoying? When your opponent has mulled twice and still manages to begin with 3 extirpates in his opening hand. You might as well throw yourself off an 85th floor balcony.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Digital Devil

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SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [ISD] Purify the Grave
SB: 3 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 1 [GP] Angel of Despair
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
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I've been playing 4x Ancient Grudge for ages - is it a sin to play only 3 to fit in Elesh Norn? I haven't tested the card yet 'cause I am able to slaughter aggro even without it.

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With the ancient grudges, three sound like the right number. Rarely would I bring in all three, even against decks packing relics and stoneforges. Currently most decks only run 2 or 3 relics/crypts with some number of extractions.

As for Elesh, she shines against the mirror. Against other decks it is quite often win more. She does help in random corner cases though, like giving you another threat to DR against snappy and his surgical extraction nonsense.

My problem is what to take away from the main deck...

i have a list of 30 cards to use as side board ... and choose according to my meta ... however, every card I take out to give space for a SB card seems to break the strategy and the deck gets slow...

How are you guys dealling with that ???

In general, what you can take out is:

- all Breakthroughs.
- cut Ichorids down to two. I wouldn't cut the last two.
- cut Dredgers down to 11.
- cut the 4th Cabal Therapy.
- cut 1-2 discard outlets (usually not the Putrid Imps but the Firestorms or Tribes)
- cut all Dread Return and/or all DR targets you play main.


What you take out depends on what you board in and on your opponent's deck. But I'll try to put together some general plans.

Vs Combo: - 1 Ichorid + 1 anti-combo DR target, if you have any in the board. Pretty simple.

Vs decks you want to have some sort of anti-graveyard hate against:

You board in your anti hate and you usually start shaving one card of each 'group' of cards from your mainboard. So instead of asking yourself whether you board out all 4 Tribes or Breakthroghs or whatever, take out something like 1 Dredger, 1 discard outlet, 1 draw spell, 1 Dread Return. That's the best way to not dilute your main stategy too much.

Examples:

- vs artifact based graveyard hate you usually board in 3-4 Ancient Grudge and take out 1 card from each group (maybe 2 Breakthrozgh, because overextending your graveyard can hurt), except you shouldn't board out any permanent discard outlets because they're really good at playing around graveyard sweepers.

- vs Leyline of the Void you board 4-5 answers to Leyline and cut one card of every group. You can leave in 3 Breakthrough because against Leyline you don't have the risk of overextending your graveyard.

- vs decks with multiple Knights of the Reliquary, or even worse Scavenging Ooze, especially if they're supported by Green Zenith, you should make sure you have 4 Firestorms. They usually don't run a lot of other hate and if they do, you can still board a few Grudges for game 3 if you like.

- vs Surgical Extraction/Extirpate: It's still a debate whether one should board anything at all, but if you expect lots of those and think they will often be supported by Crapcaster Mage, you should probably board some Coffin Purge/Purify the grave against it. You still shave one card from different groups from the main deck.


@ Mojeh:

Congratz on the finish.

You said Tribes were amazing. Do you think it would be a good idea to put them in the main deck then? That's what I do and I keep the Firestorms in the side. Tribes are just always great. Firestorms are sometimes broken but sometimes weak. That's been my reasoning so far.

@Izor

Thanks =)

Well, I like having Firestorm main, because they fight some annoying stuff, like Cursecatcher, Scavenging Ooze, Delver of Secrets and counter spells. I run 13 dredgers, so the chance I fizzle the chain dredge isn't that relevant, in my opinion.
If you run Tribes main, you'd probably want to run Firestorms in side, so I believe the amount of slots is the same.

Tribe would come in against one shot grave-hates, and against combo, where it's body is more relevant than a few extra damage, specially against Hive Mind and Spiral Tide.
This can be a metagame choice, and here in Brazil, Merfolk is widely played and that's the main reason for my main decked playset of Firestorm.

Quote:

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Crapcaster Mage

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lol.

But no this is great advice esp. the bits about the merfolk matchup. I have only faced merfolk once and I got ethered hard. Had no what to side in/out even though I know it's a very popular and effective deck and I've gone through a few decklists so I have a general idea of what to target with therapy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by wutangkillabeezonaswarm

lol.

But no this is great advice esp. the bits about the merfolk matchup. I have only faced merfolk once and I got ethered hard. Had no what to side in/out even though I know it's a very popular and effective deck and I've gone through a few decklists so I have a general idea of what to target with therapy.

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against Merfolk it can(read: most of the times will) be a huge mistake to have DR + targets still in your Deck in game 2. If they open with cursecatcher, and you don't run Firestorm, you have at least 2 dead cards now. More so with targets. I usually try not to play spells if I can avoid it.
On a side note, the Last few tournaments Ancient Grudge was the worst card in my 75, so I am thinking of cutting a copy. What are your recent results with that card?

I had 3 ancient grudge in my sideboard but with the metagame in general seeming to get a lot quicker in my meta I've dropped them to make room for a playset of Nature's Claim. Haven't looked back.
The MVP against me during my merfolk match was definitely cursecatcher. I wasn't able to run firestorms then but even were I to cursecatcher would still be a thorn in the side to deal with. I feel like after every matchup I add DR targets; it's something I just automatically do. Next time I run into mer I'll try without any DR targets. I currently run 1 MD which I think may be the perfect number. The games I did win I pretty much would have won them with or without a dread return and yeah dropping Iona makes me feel giddy as a 3YO @ xmas but sometimes its just not needed.

IMO if you have enough space in the board, always play 4 chain, 4 grudge. This is the best configuration because grudge is the best anti crypt/relic tool while chain is the best anti leyline/other stuff tool.

If you run out of space in the board, you should play 4 claims without grudges. Playing grudges and claims in the board is overkill. You will not board in 8 anti crypt cards. So honestly what makes claim better in a cramped board is just that it can kill both leylines and crypts. However chain is much better against leylines/random crap like sfm/reanimator. If you are fighting crypt 4 grudges are enough.

Also another big point is that chain is almost always castable because it's blue. I've lost too many matches because of claim+cephalid coleseum hands. Consistency is key. I always prefer a 4 chain, 4 grudge board.