[Deck] Dredge

Playing dredge today is like playing frost death knights and shadow priests in WoW.
it used to be very powerfull, it still is, but the nerfs (in the case of dredge it's the thousand hate cards) ruined it =/
Yet, ppl hold up to it, and actually still play it, hoping that it will come back to it's former glory.

We must find ways to innovate, or we will keep the "up and down" in the usage lists forever, this weekend I will try something different, it will most likely fail utterly but I will try.

I wil try -4 Pimps, and try out phantasmagorian or street wraith or even some weird combination of both
I will also give brainstorm another try to offshot DR shaman (but that will be later, I wil test W/O PIMP first) and it's best to find anwsers than our current draw engines.

we can't go on like this, our opponents learned how to play against us, our g1 (the strongest point of the deck) is harder than ever, we must adapt (either the main or the sideboard), it's time to re-define our staples, and what the deck really need to succeed.

I'm afraid the card pool for us is just to small, being innovative with Dredge is pretty much impossible. Street Wraith and Brainstorm are just too narrow in my opinion. Maybe there is a possible upgrade to Pimp and I'm just not seeing it.

I agree that game 1's aren't what they used to be, and getting shredded by Daze/Force/Thoughtseize + Wasteland is a real issue. I just can't figure out how to mitigate the damage and I've never been happy with any sideboard configurations I've seen/tried out myself. My advice would be to start the sideboard from scratch and try to innovate there rather than taking out Pimps. Maybe a transformational sideboard exists that is actually good?

What we need is something like this:

Dread Amulet 5
Legendary Artifact
If Dread Amulet is in your graveyard, cards from your graveyard can't be exiled and have hexproof.

-3/4 Ichorid +3/4 Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul

Nullify graveyard hate, never loose your bridges again, infinite DR and Cabal Therapy (maybe my ruling is wrong here...=x)! :laugh:

Jesus people it's not the end of the world, ofcourse Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace have made game ones less guaranteed, however with the indoctrination of True Name Nemesis, MD Rest in Peace is all but gone in Miracles. That means the only MD consideration is Deathrite Shaman - which is easily hateable with Firestorm. I actually think if you give it another couple of months or so the format will definitely be easier for Dredge because nobody will play Rest in Peace MD anymore and you guys may get it thru' your heads at some point that you should stop building linear decks that fold to a 1/2 creature.

Until I see 4 MD Deathrite Shaman and 3+ additional sideboard hate cards, I'm just not that concerned that the deck is DED dead.

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

Jesus people it's not the end of the world, ofcourse Deathrite Shaman and Rest in Peace have made game ones less guaranteed, however with the indoctrination of True Name Nemesis, MD Rest in Peace is all but gone in Miracles. That means the only MD consideration is Deathrite Shaman - which is easily hateable with Firestorm. I actually think if you give it another couple of months or so the format will definitely be easier for Dredge because nobody will play Rest in Peace MD anymore and you guys may get it thru' your heads at some point that you should stop building linear decks that fold to a 1/2 creature.

Until I see 4 MD Deathrite Shaman and 3+ additional sideboard hate cards, I'm just not that concerned that the deck is DED dead.

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It's not DR shaman, the card just made the matter worse.
What's really happening is that we are loosing space to other decks, we lost our most powerfull advantage (game ones) against most of the field, and they lost the fear they had to dredge.

Old decks are getting new weapons to play with, or getting reprints to make their deck easier to build and the last time a card was built for dredge was the looting (witch is IMO the reason why the deck is viable today), but even then we got screwed by grafftdiger cage printed in the same set!

All that DR shaman did was oppening ppl eyes, it was the viable card to hate us in their MD and was not completely dead against the field! It was the card that make they lose their fear of facing dredge in the finals, because now they stand a chance to open on us.

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Originally Posted by Vlad Teppes

It's not DR shaman, the card just made the matter worse.
What's really happening is that we are loosing space to other decks, we lost our most powerfull advantage (game ones) against most of the field, and they lost the fear they had to dredge.

Old decks are getting new weapons to play with, or getting reprints to make their deck easier to build and the last time a card was built for dredge was the looting (witch is IMO the reason why the deck is viable today), but even then we got screwed by grafftdiger cage printed in the same set!

All that DR shaman did was oppening ppl eyes, it was the viable card to hate us in their MD and was not completely dead against the field! It was the card that make they lose their fear of facing dredge in the finals, because now they stand a chance to open on us.

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And that's fine, I actually liked facing Deathrite Shaman and losing game ones some times because it meant all they were playing in game twos and threes was 4 Deathrite Shaman and nothing else in the board so I could just play Firestorm and win the match anyway. You need Deathrite Shaman, Force of Will, Daze, 4 SB Spell Pierce and at least 3 SB Surgical Extraction to make me shelve Dredge.

I tried Street wraith in my playgroup.
He was decent, but decent is not what I'm looking for right now.
I'm going to use brainstorm next, I know it was tested and dumped a million times, but I need to see it with my own eyes.

If only Brainstorm let us discard 2 cards, not put 2 back on top :(

Also: 420 fucking posts, I need to stop now

Yeah, but it can do some "cute" things.
On the play it can protect us against discard, it has instant speed to beat surgical extraction, deathrite shaman and scooze targeting our dredgers, can restock narcomoebas stuck in our hand and it's better to find anti hate in games 2 and 3.

I don't think the card is any good in dredge, for what I saw, everyone who tried dismissed it, I will only try because we are on a meta shift, It's the perfect time to do weird stuff.

Hello my dredge brothers. I've been trolling and taking notes on these forums. Lots of great input. So this is a pure business deck. We don't care much what our opponents play as long as we have answers for game 2-3 hate. Lately I'm running into nasty blade control decks. Can't get alot of casual practice since my groups hate playing it.
I see that griselbrands, wraiths, and probes are getting some slots. I like the synergy when they hit, however, removing putrid imps, therapy's or led's seem so risky. Has anyone been running this strategy and doing well? Lots of opinions here and luck plays a factor with an experienced player.
Reviewing the tournaments and at Washington GP Drew Dunison placed a respectable 3rd with his deck. But no top 8's since the arrival of Theros.

I expected to see blade and Merfolks running sets of TNN and snap to keep their gameplan in motion.
is Dredge losing footing?
I'm going into a tournament soon. I'm looking to run fast and combo off early.
Is there an updated sb detail and a hot therapy hit list for turn one that we're using?

I think the deck is moving towards full combo and away from the older Quad builds. I think in that you can blow out a blade deck quite easily if you expect to face them. As for TNN, if there is a deck that could not care less it's us. We can't kill it? So what, our bridges don't die then. We can't block something that is a threat as early as turn 3? Oh I guess I will just have to kill you on turn 3 then. Not the biggest threat in the world.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I think the deck is moving towards full combo and away from the older Quad builds. I think in that you can blow out a blade deck quite easily if you expect to face them. As for TNN, if there is a deck that could not care less it's us. We can't kill it? So what, our bridges don't die then. We can't block something that is a threat as early as turn 3? Oh I guess I will just have to kill you on turn 3 then. Not the biggest threat in the world.

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Yes.
I agree full combo. theres just no time to grind. I love playing with ANT for this option. Just remove the roadblocks and go off.
I thought ashen rider would solve alot of problems. Its unreliable as are alot of dr targets. The main has to flow and mill as many cards as possible without disruptions. Ive taken to running 3 dr with 3 targets 2x griselbrands +1x fkz/flayer which seemed to hit consistently turn 3-4. Cutting a thug down to 11 dredgers risky but always seemed to go off on schedule.
I had doubts about griselbrand until I found myself in a grindy matchup and was outnumbered facing lethal combat damage with one lonely griselbrand. Total damage brought me to -5 life. I did the math he didn't (looking smug) and I chose to block a deathtouch bringing in 2 zombies and add an ichorid for next upkeep. 7 lifelink kept me in the game for the win next turn. *whew

I don't follow, what's the reason we have to go back to the 3 DR, 1Griselbrand, 1 Flayer of the Hatebound package MD? Granted the DDD plan folds in a format full of Deathrite Shaman, but is the Ichorid kill condition not working for you guys any more at all? Because I don't see how Deathrite Shaman RFGing an Ichorid is any worse than RFGing a Dread Return?

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Originally Posted by Final Fortune

I don't follow, what's the reason we have to go back to the 3 DR, 1Griselbrand, 1 Flayer of the Hatebound package MD? Granted the DDD plan folds in a format full of Deathrite Shaman, but is the Ichorid kill condition not working for you guys any more at all? Because I don't see how Deathrite Shaman RFGing an Ichorid is any worse than RFGing a Dread Return?

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I'd rather them remove the dread return over the ichorid honestly... they lose either way unless ur slow dredgin at that point lol. I'm of the opinion you only need 2 dread return and one flayer as any package main deck. I also think it's a necessary in the fact i'd rather just kill my opponent the turn i mill forty cards deep then let them get any activation out of a deathrite shaman. I think in a meta full of Deathrites and TNN with jittes, i'd much rather just be combo

I've been tweaking my decklist for a while, and it has stabilized on this:

Lands [13]
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel

Creatures [21]
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
2 Street Wraith

Spells [26]
4 Bridge from Below
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
3 Breakthrough
2 Firestorm
1 Dread Return

Sideboard [15]
4 Nature's Claim
4 Unmask
2 Firestorm
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Dread Return
1 Ichorid
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Removed PImps from maindeck, since they're pretty much the weakest card maindeck. Added Firestorms, which have been AWESOME (I might even remove that Dread Return and add the 3rd Firestorm MD). 2 Street Wraiths helps against Deathrite Shaman and keeps black creature count high enough for Ichorid.

You guys should test this list, it's pretty good.

I am really giving thought to Maindeck Firestorm as well. My personal view is that I would add them or DR but not both. I like consistent draws and Dredge. Cutting too much from the main game plan I think is bad.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I am really giving thought to Maindeck Firestorm as well. My personal view is that I would add them or DR but not both. I like consistent draws and Dredge. Cutting too much from the main game plan I think is bad.

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It's not bad at all, I use this personally

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
3 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Putrid Imp
4 Firestorm
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel

and I think it's relatively competitive, depends a lot on who comes out of the BUG vs UWR battle on top and the place of RIP in aggro-control decks in the overall metagame tho'. Putrid Imp is the under appreciated, over worked hero of the archetype and I wouldn't cut it so hastily. I really think LED is the red herrring in the deck personally, because I still race vs Storm Tendrils kills, have a MD answer to Storm Warrens kills and can improve the match up with Unmask post-board regardless.

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Originally Posted by Dice_Box

I am really giving thought to Maindeck Firestorm as well. My personal view is that I would add them or DR but not both. I like consistent draws and Dredge. Cutting too much from the main game plan I think is bad.

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I've also been putting a lot of thought into what LED actually does for us. It speeds us up for sure, but how often do we lose because we are too slow?

Firestorm is good, but is it really necessary for it be in the main deck?

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Originally Posted by HammafistRoob

I've also been putting a lot of thought into what LED actually does for us. It speeds us up for sure, but how often do we lose because we are too slow?

Firestorm is good, but is it really necessary for it be in the main deck?

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Without LED, yes. If you go the old Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe route then you're going to routinely get into uncomfortable situations where your opponent resolves a Deathrite Shaman on the play and you either lose or have to go into contortions compared to just playing Wrath of God for R.

Honestly, ask yourself which deck Firestorm is really bad against, worst case scenario it's a Shock and uncounterable outlet vs Show&Tell. Even vs Miracles it kills MD Entreat the Angels and SB Meddling Mage, the card is just fucking boss hog as far as I'm concerned and actually having SB space is a real plus these days.

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Originally Posted by raikenxy

I'd rather them remove the dread return over the ichorid honestly... they lose either way unless ur slow dredgin at that point lol. I'm of the opinion you only need 2 dread return and one flayer as any package main deck. I also think it's a necessary in the fact i'd rather just kill my opponent the turn i mill forty cards deep then let them get any activation out of a deathrite shaman. I think in a meta full of Deathrites and TNN with jittes, i'd much rather just be combo

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What are our feelings on noxious revival? Top decking led, coliseum, narcomeba or even removing extraction and reanimator targets... ? Has anyone else seriously battletested it's relivance to the deck synergy?