Nothing new to us in born of the gods so far.
Spirit of the labyrinth will make an impact on the legacy meta for sure
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Nothing new to us in born of the gods so far.
Spirit of the labyrinth will make an impact on the legacy meta for sure
WotC despise Dredge (and combo, in general), they won't give us anything that can improve our game. Maybe one or another Dread Return target, but I doubt they'll print something better than Griselbrand. We would really benefit from Stinkweed Imp 5#~8#. Perhaps, the best addition we can get is a rainbow-land that hurts less than Tarnished Citadel.
Went to a small local tournament with my LEDless Firestorm list (pretty much Final Fortune's list). I wanted to try something without different, because LED wasn't performing wonderfully last month for me.
List:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
3 Tarnished Citadel
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
3 Ichorid
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Firestorm
SB: 4 Unmask
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 2 Dread Return
SB: 1 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Flame-kin Zealot
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Shardless BUG (2-1) [on the draw]
G1: I keep a good hand with Firestorm, Faithless Looting, GGT, Ichorid, Cephalid Coliseum and City of Brass. He starts with Thoughtseize, taking my Looting but I proceed to topdeck a Breakthrough like a champ, lay my City and pass. He fetches and goes for Tarmogoyf. I Firestorm EOT for 2, discarding Ichorid and GGT targeting him and his critter. Then I proceed to Breakthrough, which resolves, and after some Therapy action, he's left with nothing and concedes.
SB: nothing, I was expecting only Nihil Spellbomb
G2: Leyline of the Void caught me off guard (seriously, who would play LotV in Sharless BUG?)
SB: +4 Nature's Claim, -3 Breakthrough, -1 Putrid Imp
G3: He mulligans to 3, trying to find the LotV, and I mulligan into an average hand of PImp, Thug, Nature's Claim, Tarnished Citadel, Cephalid Coliseum, Bridge from Below. I start out with PImp, and he plays a fetch and passes. I dredge Thug into 2 GGT and 2 blanks, discard everything (including Claim), play my Coliseum and dredge for a lot, hitting a couple Narcomoebas and a couple Therapies, he concedes.
Canadian Thresh (0-2) [on the draw]
G1: This one was fast and I misplayed hard. I mulligan into 2x Looting, Careful Study, Tarnished, Stinkweed Imp, Ichorid. He fetches into Delver, and pass. I draw Cephalid Coliseum, play Tarnished Citadel and follow with Careful Study (misplay), which gets Dazed. His Delver flips, he Wasteland my Citadel. Now I'm stuck with Coliseum in hand that can't cast anything. Then, I drew 1 Narcomoeba and 1 Ichorid and by the time I was able to discard a dredger in my end step, I was already at 9. My first two dredges weren't able to find a Narcomoeba or a Bridge, so his Delver finishes me off with the help of Lightning Bolt.
SB: +2 Dread Return +1 Griselbrand -2 Firestorm -1 Breakthrough (this is probably wrong boarding)
G2: I keep another weak hand: Thug, PImp, Citadel, Breakthrough, Breakthrough, Griselbrand, Stinkweed Imp. He FoWs my PImp, Wasteland my Citadel. Follows up with a Ponder into a Goyf, while I'm trying to reach DDD or topdeck a land. I finally draw a land, but went DDD with Stinkweed Imp. He plays another Goyf and keeps a land open. I dredge good off the Stinkweed Imp, lay my City of Brass and try to Breakthrough, which meets Spell Pierce. By this time, both his Goyfs are 5/6 (due to Bridge from Below on GY) and I'm losing life fast. He Bolts me and attacks, leaving me at 2 life.
I dredge another Stinkweed Imp into some Ichorids and stuff, and make my last attempt to Breakthrough, which resolves. I dredge a lot, making LOTS of zombies and tearing his hand apart with Therapy and Dread Return Griselbrand. He topdecks a Ponder, which digs into Forked Bolt and kills me. Derp.
UWR Patriot (2-0) [on the play]
G1: This one was pretty easy. I keep a god hand consisting of Breakthrough, Putrid Imp, GGT, Therapy, Gemstone Mine, Cephalid Coliseum and Faithless Looting. I start with PImp, he starts with Ponder. I discard GGT EOT, dredge off him, lay CC and play Looting off Gemstone Mine. He FoW's it. Then I Breakthrough off CC and it resolves, dredging a LOT of stuff. I Therapy his entire hand, leaving him with lands and facing 5 Zombie Tokens (with 2 Ichorids on standby). He draws Stoneforge Mystic, but it was too late.
SB: +4 Unmask -2 Firestorm -2 Breakthrough
G2: He starts with Ponder again. I keep an okay hand, consisting off: Thug, Thug, Firestorm, Gemstone Mine, Faithless Looting, Unmask, Cephalid Coliseum. I play Gemstone Mine and Unmask, taking his Rest in Peace. He goes for Stoneforge Mystic fetching Batterskull. I EOT Firestorm for 1, targeting him. I dredge Ichorid, GGT, GGT and City of Brass. I play Coliseum and play Looting, resolves. I dredge some stuff that include 2 Narcomoebas, 2 Bridges and 1 Therapy, which takes his Batterskull. He Swords to Plowshares one of my Narcomoebas, but in the next two turns I recur Ichorid and let him die, netting some Zombies in the process. After 2 turns and some Brainstorms, he's able to land Rest in Peace, but by that time, I already have 7 Zombies, which is enough to race him.
Sneak and Show (1-0) [on the play]
G1: I can't remember my exact hand, but I start off with PImp, and he sighs. He goes for some endless cantripping action, but I'm able to land a Breakthrough and discard his entire hand, except Sneak Attack. He isn't able to reach 4 lands or find Show and Tell, and I overrun him with Zombies. When we're about to sideboard, he receives a call from his girlfriend. She seemd very angry, I could hear screams. He apologizes and leaves in a hurry.
3-1. Pretty decent run, I think. Too bad I wasn't able to sideboard Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation. Didn't meet any Deathrite Shaman as well. Iona wasn't also needed, but there's some Elves players once in a while, she's pretty good against them.
Any comments or suggestions?
Congrats on the finish mate!
that round 4 opponent had an angry girlfriend too huh? I know that feeling too...
hopefully today spoilers will reveal a nasty draw spell or rainbow land with scry (that doesn't enter the BF tapped)
Glad somebody else has taken up the list, did you get any use out of the additional SB space to play anything really back breaking like Leyline of the Void, Sanctity or Mindbreak Trap? I usually feel the most compelling reason to play Firestorm MD is the SB space it provides to bring in a really unfair bullet.
How do you feel about Unmask over Thoughtseize? I've been preferring to just keep the extra card in hand as of late.
Well, I haven't tested Thoughtseize, to be honest. It seems pretty affordable with 11 lands that can support it. But, in theory, Unmask is better. Sometimes it does hurt to remove an Ichorid or Stinkweed Imp from hand, but it does take a Rest in Peace, who am I to complain?Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
Moreover, Dredge can't really board in too many cards without a significant loss of consistency. I don't board more than 5~6 cards, like ever. This deck has been working pretty good, since people are now worried about the True-Name dude and skipping graveyard hate in order to fit some Golgari Charms, Zealous Persecutions & Co. Since reanimator has fallen off the radar a bit, people are packing less hate (maybe some Nihil Spellbombs to deal with Nimble Mongoose, and stuff).
Legacy doesn't have a lightning fast popular deck. ANT is a 3 turn combo, and so is Show and Tell. We don't need LED to speed up things, because we don't need to speed up.
TL;DR Firestorm has been pretty good, better than LED in my experience, but then again, it's just a matter of flavor and playstyle.
I had the same feelings when I was playtesting Dredge last month, if all of the combo decks are T3+ and all of the MD hate is Deathrite Shaman and counter spells then Firestorm and more SB space makes the most sense for us; Firestorm being a natural foil to Empty the Warrens and Leyline of the Void being an auto-win vs Rogue Hermit, LED Dredge and to a lesser extent Reanimator means even the fastest decks in Legacy have serious problems vs us.
I think Thoughtseize is better than Unmask considering we play 11 lands that can cast it, the latter I think is unnecessarily resource intensive for speed that isn't necessarily.
so... the brilliant idea's of the week are to not run dread return ... or led... and instead run firestorm maindeck and thoughtseize in the sideboard ...
turn one thoughtseize is horrible when you can just go nuts and have several cabal therapies that actually flow with the game plan of dredging. thought seize does not facilitate a dredge, LED does... did i mention it's effectively a black lotus ...
secondly you shouldn't be trying to control combo with extra discard. the deck has enough discard as is with cabal therapy. the main goal should simply just be to race them. timewalking yourself by playing unmask and thoughtseize when your opponent is playing brainstorm and ponder just isn't smart... like at all
So what it does look like Black Lotus? It can only flashback Faithless Looting and activate Cephalid Coliseum (by turn 2+). LED makes the fundamental turn faster, but makes the deck softer on Daze and Spell Pierce when on the draw.Quote:
Originally Posted by ragamuffinvb
In my experience with LED Dredge, we go off turn 1~2 (on the play) with a lot of explosiveness or we lose G1 to Deathrite Shaman, board out LEDs for Firestorms. So why don't we play the Firestorms maindeck to deal with the everpresent hate? LED is boarded out 90% of my games 2 and 3 when I used to run it, and the added speed on game 1 is pretty unnecessary as we already have the highest win rate.
If you think you can race Rest in Peace on the draw, good luck, you'll lose 95% of your games 2.
Probably the only match-ups that I miss LED are the ones Final Fortune mentioned: Reanimator and Rogue Hermit (probably T.E.S as well). These are bad matches EVEN with LED lists, because they're consistently faster than us. Every other combo list we do have a shot, since we're half to a full turn faster than they are (with any list except Manaless).
While I don't think Lion's Eye Diamond makes the deck inconsistent vs Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm and Daze considering it pays for Spell Pierce and Daze, the problem is Deathrite Shaman has become one of the pillars of the format, and considering Firestorm is an uncounterable discard outlet, a board sweeper, spot removal and finisher all in one it stands to reason that pre-boarding an answer vs the ubiquitous graveyard hate of Legacy is at least a viable choice, if not the best choice, provided we can leverage the additional SB space to good effect. I don't have anything against LED, but if I'm boarding out LED in all of my difficult matches for Firestorm then I should probably be playing Firestorm MD to begin with and make up for my lost speed with increased disruption vs my impossible match ups like Rogue Hermit, Reaniamtor, Tin Fins or Manaless Dredge with Leyline of the Void.Quote:
Originally Posted by ragamuffinvb
You also have to remember that we live in a post Deathrite Shaman metagame where keeping a hand on Lion's Eye Diamond is no longer viable, it used to be where we could keep a hand on LED, Golgari Grave Troll and then DDD into a Faithless Looting, go off and there was nothing a fair deck could do about it. Now even the fair decks play Deathrite Shaman, so LED isn't really the "I win" button it used to be out of the "God hand" scenarios where you have to mulligan to 6.
Thoughtseize is 100% necessary, it has nothing to do with combo and everything to do with Rest in Peace, you need a card that can pre-emptively answer their hate while not being dead in the event that they didn't draw it.
Dread Return is always in my 75, but frankly the only Dredge players who have ever played Dread Return MD are the bad Dredge players who don't understand basic mathematics and the need to draw lands in a format where Daze, Wasteland are considerations. Even if I decided to SB Firestorm and MD LED, I'd still play 11 gold lands over a single copy of Dread Return MD. Surgical Extraction, and for that matter Snapcaster Mage, just don't have the same place in the metagame that they used to have so it's difficult to justify diversifying your win conditions as much as we were.
I mean, that's at least my take on the current meta environment and deck building considerations for Dredge, if you want to play LED MD and Firestorm SB then be my guest - personally my meta is pretty inbred towards Deathrite Shaman being in every, fucking deck. If I went to a 100+ player event vs a wide field, and if I wasn't just going to metagame vs the Top 8 then I might go back to playing LED vs n00bs so I could auto-pilot for half the day.
Edit: On another note iff Spirit of the Labyrinth becomes a real addition to the metagame then Firestorm keeps gaining stock.
The fact that you seem to not realize that led allows you to play around both daze and spell pierce is already telling on your knowledge of the archetype. The fact that you also fail to realize that led lets you go off turn one with just a cephalid coliseum when your on the draw is also telling of ur knowledge of the archetype, and in case you don't understand what I'm talking about I will gladly point out how it works...Quote:
Originally Posted by Vandalize
On the draw
Draw card
Play colliseum
Play led
Crack led for blue
You now have seven cards in your graveyard and an uncounterable
Racing a rest in piece is a lot easier then fighting it, u know why, because if you create a board presence with a bajillion zombies they will most likely not play the rest in peace because they will die .... Every match I play American delver ends up with me having a bunch of dudes , and them looking at a rest in peace on hand when I have 20 plus power on the board ... It's also just important to just one shot any miracles player you find, as you cannot win this game if it goes to the late game.
@final fortune: I respect your argument but I will respectfully just disagree.
Dread return lists are more advantageous in the main board as they won through deathrite Shaman just as easy as firestorm. Most top dredge decks run dread return because it is that good of a tool in our deck. I wouldn't call anyone running t a noob by any means .
If they Daze or Spell Pierce your LED on the draw, you pretty much lost the turn. The Cephalid Coliseum + LED activation just works on the draw. If you use LED mana to pay for Daze and Spell Pierce, you lost its effectiveness by not being able to flashback Faithless Looting (50% of the reason why we play LED, in the first place). LED will only help against soft counters if you cast Breakthrough.Quote:
Originally Posted by ragamuffinvb
Firestorm gets your Dredgers in the yard even if it gets countered, while being an efficient removal.
If you say you're able to race Rest in Peace turn 2 on the draw consistently, you're pretty lucky or you lie. LED lists plays less lands (and less Dredgers, if you play Dread Return + targets), so your chances are either comboing turn 1 or casting Cabal Therapy with off 8 gold lands. Unmask/Thoughtseize give 8 turn 1 answers vs RiP, the first being "free" and the second being castable off 11 lands.
Removing LED from the deck makes our game 1 win rate slightly worse, I agree. But the space created on sideboard, and the consideration that LED is the card that gets boarded out more often than others, makes Firestorm maindeck a really good alternative.
@Final Fortune
Have you been using Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation recently? I like to have them as an extra security against stuff like Propaganda and Esnaring Bridge, but I haven't used them in a while. If you would play only 1 DR-Target, what would it be? Griselbrand? Iona?
I was thinking of a sideboard like this:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Unmask/Thoughtseize
4 Leyline of the Void/Mindbreak Trap
2 Dread Return
1 DR-Target
So instead of being a decent pilot, he's either just lieing to you outright or just luckier then you ... Lol ok then
Racing rest in peace is easy. Racing deathrite even easier lol
Perhaps you could tell me how the probability of having LED + Draw Spell + Dredger in your hand game 2 is linked to being a decent/skilled pilot.Quote:
Originally Posted by raikenxy
You make the choice on what to keep in and sideboard out, so in some ways, being knowledgeable about choices in post-board games is a credit to the skill of the pilot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vandalize
In response to some recent comments made:
@Vandelize:
So against blue decks on the draw you're running out your LEDs into Dazes/Pierces instead oh you know invalidating that strategy of theirs and DDDing? Do that for a couple of turns before you commit your lands. If he/she is not dropping any threat to pressure you then you have all the time. If they tap out then go ahead and try to cast some spells bra. I'm forcing them to have the FOW (zing!)
I used to side out LEDs all the time and now I just keep them in. Sure they're pretty "all in", but so is Breakthrough and that is an easier cut for G2 than LED. At least LED still lets me play around cards like Pierce and Daze while still giving me the potential nut hand if they turn 1 Goose, DRS, Delver etc. on the play (How to play LED: Play Land to avoid Daze, play LED, ???, Profit) Resolving a Careful Study, Faithless, or Breakthrough even if having to use LED to pay the tax will start the engine and eventually end the game.
Also MBing Firestorm is going to be semi dead in Combo matchups as they normally don't play any creatures and you lose the consistency of recurable discarding (in the case you're dropping Putrid Imp for it mb). I just feel that Legacy is so diverse that running a narrow answer to DRS is not worth cutting out "Black Lotus". If I'm trying to bury DRS in card Advantage LED helps me achieve that by binning a large percentage of my GY simply on the back of one Faithless + Flashback. DRS requires a G up to active and can only take a card a time. They're much too worried about multiple cards to really hurt you (assuming they don't pair it with a 2nd DRS which isn't unbeatable either without Firestorm). I still think playing Firestorm is too controly for my taste. I normally don't have any issues with aggro. With all that being said I am currently testing out 2x Firestorm in my sb and will post results from my next local if I get to use em.
My SB has Wispmare to deal with RIP which may not be as prominent anymore considering the downturn in Miracle players. Because of those faster combo decks you mentioned like TES/ANT and even Belcher I have geared my SB towards beating faster combo. Hence the extra DR, Iona, and Mind Break Trap. I've won on the back on Mind Break many a times; usually Belcher and even Storm can't afford to play around a spell like that because within a couple of turns time we may just therapy away their action anyway.
@Final Fortune:
I guess we are combating different metas because I've not seen LOTV played in the past 2 years. At least I haven't seen it in any list that has topped recently. And decks like Rogue Hermit, Manaless, and even Tin fins are a lot more fringe than Dredge is so I'm not going to commit too much to those decks. I will admit I am pretty much conceding the matchup to a deck like Reanimator, Tin Fins, and to a lesser extent the Dredge Mirror because I don't play oppossing grave hate. I have practiced the matchups though should the pilot give me an opening to capatilze.
Thougseize seems fine as extra hand disruption, but the fact that its only really affective in your opening hand makes it less attractive. Thats part of the reason I never added additional discard to pair with cabal therapy like Duress, Inquisition, or the more widely discussed Unmask. On paper I would rather play Unmask, but it seems like you would need too many things to go right for it to work. Plus the 2 or 3 damage (City of Brass) you'd be taking from casting Thougtseize is nothing to scoff at when you're attempting to play a longer grindier game. Again you no longer have LEDs to work with nor do you have DR (dunno if u board these in when you board in your Thougtseizes so just guessin).
I still play 1 DR MD. And I normally keep the 1 in post board anyway. I must be bad at this game. The upside to running a single copy of DR should outway the negative situation where you open your hand with it (which isn't the worst either as pairing it with cards like LED, Putrid Imp, and even Therapying yourself for it means its never really dead in your hand). The DR gives the deck a seperate angle of attack (please note I don't have any dedicatred DR targets mb) by threating to flood the board with zombies off the back of a single spell; therapy is awesome, but its not going to generate an obscene amount of zombies like DR will regardless of whether it gets countered or not. Additionally some decks actually can't beat a large troll such as RUG and Jund. DRS is at times forced to eat a DR for simple fear of the aforemenioned hoard of zombies coming in which is fine by me if it means my Ichorid, Therapies, Narcos (off the stack), or Dredgers aren't being pilfered. Bonus points if they're forced to Surgical DR lol.
I think at the end of the day there is no right or wrong on playing DR as its 1 card. Playstyle and preference will determine your
md. I'm splitting hairs at this point.
On Spirit of Lab. I honestly could not care less about the card against Dredge. Or am I missing something?
I don't think I could have said it any better sir... and you are correct. Spirit of the labyrinth is a joke against us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Que
I wouldn't say it's a joke since it obsoletes Breakthrough, Colliseum, Study & Looting but if you see it G1, then you should remember to DDD and as such it becomes a joke. Well, in my eyes it seems like this...Quote:
Originally Posted by raikenxy
If you've never drawn a card this turn (replaced your regular draw by dredging ) you still can use your draw spells to dredge.
He only stops you from the moment on you actually DRAW your first cards if you did - no dredging for a turn.
Okay, didn't understand the card as such. I guess we will be sure after the rules update when BotG is legal.
Against blue decks I'd rather DDD with pretty much any version of Dredge, that's not exclusive of LED versions. If you get your LED Dazed turn 1, and pay the mana with lands, you pretty much lost it's effectiveness. You'll need to make your play turn 2. The point that I made with my post was: On game 2, on the draw, I'd rather use my first turn to disrupt my opponent's hand (searching for Rest in Peace) than try to mulligan into a hand that can combo out turn 1. The chances of getting a turn 1 combo hand or a hand with gold land and Cabal Therapy in LED lists are small, compared to the chances of getting a hand with 8 possible discard effects (Cabal Therapy and Unmask), being the first castable off 11 gold lands, and the second not being even mana intensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Que
Rest in Peace isn't exclusive of UW Miracles. Against Death and Taxes (which is pretty popular) this is a very real concern, their turn 2 postboard can be very devastating if we don't disrupt them. Between Thalia and RiP, they have plenty of ways to slow us down (or even shut us down completely).
Wispmare and Ray of Revelation are pretty lame against RiP, since it already removed your graveyard. My applications for Wispmare and Ray are to deal with boring enchantments like Humility, Moat and the like.