[Deck] Dredge

Okay, played my first legacy tournament post DKA with dredge and went 2-2. My losses were to NicFit, with him going to 2 game one then top decking the ooze to stabilize, then having nihl spell bomb, crypt, deed AND ooze game two. The other loss was to a jund deck I helped my buddy build. Nothing to really report on that game, my deck beat itself with terrible dredges.

I beat U/W stoneforge 2-0 in convincing fashion and 2-0'd sneak and show in the same way.

All in all, I am very happy with the list and the sideboard.
Here's the 75:


Dredgers
4 Golgari-Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

Enablers
4 Putrid Imp
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Faithless Looting

Graveyard Goodies
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge From Below
4 Narcomoeba
2 Ichorid
2 Dread Return
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Sun Titan

Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
2 Ichorid
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Angel of Despair
1 Dread Return

Okay, the main board is fairly straight forward. I opted for a 4/3 split between the studies and looting for ease of casting. I went from 3 Ichorids main to two because I was seeing them more than I needed to game one and felt like I needed to put in the fourth coliseum because I was mulliganing too often. Everything else is pretty self-explanatory.

My sideboard plan is to either A) board in Iona/Norn + DR for the two ichorids and go all in on the speed kill in games where I have to race (combo for the most part) and B) board out 4 LED and 4 Breakthrough for 2 Tarnished Citadel, 2 Ichorid, and 4 Chain for the grindy match ups. Have not yet tested the Chewer + Thug combo for cage, but I really feel that cage is a sub-par choice for dredge hate and I like that I can devote my board to actually adapting to certain strategies rather than certain hate cards, and can just board in vapors as a catch all. I feel that chewer is just too narrow a card to devote so many board slots to it.

Whelp, those are my thoughts. Input would be greatly appreciated! :laugh:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dredgekid

Sideboard
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
2 Ichorid
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Angel of Despair
1 Dread Return

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Any non-manaless dredge deck not auto running 4 Nature's Claims in their SB must have a pilot that is a bit touched in the head, imho.
I will agree with the iona, elesh, angel and firestorms being at the right number though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrHealex

Any non-manaless dredge deck not auto running 4 Nature's Claims in their SB must have a pilot that is a bit touched in the head, imho.
I will agree with the iona, elesh, angel and firestorms being at the right number though.

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I'm assuming the only reason hes not running them is because hes playing Chain of Vapor in its place which isn't completely unreasonable.

Chain has a lot more merit as a catchall type of card having multiple applications.

btw at the next local tourney -Gpt for Indy- I'm planning on running Dredgekid's list from his starcity open win with the only difference being 1 Tireless Tribe over the 3rd Firestorm. Sometimes you need some warm bodies for DR.

List for reference:

Quote:

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Maindeck:

Creatures
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Stinkweed Imp

Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below

Instants
3 Firestorm

Sorceries
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Dread Return

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tarnished Citadel

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I'm not really looking for advice. This is the list I want to run. Sometimes Sphinx just turns nothing into something.

I'm not fully committed to my sideboard yet, but this is what it currently looks like:

1 ichorid
1 Elesh Norn,
1 Iona,
1 Angel of Despair
3 Ancient Grudge
4 Nature's Claim/Chain of Vapor
4 Faerie Macabre

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Que

I'm assuming the only reason hes not running them is because hes playing Chain of Vapor in its place which isn't completely unreasonable.

Chain has a lot more merit as a catchall type of card having multiple applications.

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The merits of using Chain of Vapor over Nature's Claim, and vice versa, have been repeatedly discussed in this forum. At the end of the day, it's really more of a meta choice, and both choices are defensibly correct based on what you're trying to address with your SB in the meta.

Cheers,
jares

If Grafdigger's Cage becomes the popular answer to Dredge, I think Chain of Vapor has the edge over Nature's Claim because bouncing it and discarding it with a full graveyard is roughly equivalent and you're saving 4 damage and a potential dead card while being mana friendly with Cephalid Coliseum.

I am an experienced LEDless Dredge player, and I've been pleased testing LED with Faithless Looting. Will post my test list if anyone is interested.

I've played a LOT against artifact hate, and am proficient at forcing it with Ancient Grudge. As such it doesn't scare me.

I have not played a lot against Snapcaster/Surgical Extraction (been inactive for a few months), and the combo seems like a total blowout to me- if they know what they're doing, 2x Surgical Extraction by turn 2 leaves us virtually threatless, unlike artifact hate.

I think keeping land counts at 14-15 and play Coffin Purge/Purify the Grave is the way to go on this. Especially in LED lists, the synergies and recursion are just better. Nevertheless, I love the idea of getting extra value out of the protection play by playing Beckon Apparition, Cremate, or Heap Doll. The exile thing bugs me too. Even Noxious Revival or Faerie Macabre seems better than exiling a key card like Bridge or a Dredger. But like I said, I have yet to cast a Coffin Purge in my MtG career.

So, what is playing against 4x Snapcaster/4x Extraction like when running 10-11 gold lands and 3-4x Coffin Purge?

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Originally Posted by tiefighterdragon

I am an experienced LEDless Dredge player, and I've been pleased testing LED with Faithless Looting. Will post my test list if anyone is interested.

I've played a LOT against artifact hate, and am proficient at forcing it with Ancient Grudge. As such it doesn't scare me.

I have not played a lot against Snapcaster/Surgical Extraction (been inactive for a few months), and the combo seems like a total blowout to me- if they know what they're doing, 2x Surgical Extraction by turn 2 leaves us virtually threatless, unlike artifact hate.

I think keeping land counts at 14-15 and play Coffin Purge/Purify the Grave is the way to go on this. Especially in LED lists, the synergies and recursion are just better. Nevertheless, I love the idea of getting extra value out of the protection play by playing Beckon Apparition, Cremate, or Heap Doll. The exile thing bugs me too. Even Noxious Revival or Faerie Macabre seems better than exiling a key card like Bridge or a Dredger. But like I said, I have yet to cast a Coffin Purge in my MtG career.

So, what is playing against 4x Snapcaster/4x Extraction like when running 10-11 gold lands and 3-4x Coffin Purge?

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You have to be careful what to put in your yard, that's the most important thing imo.
Nothing like baiting extraction with a Thug:)

Update:
Looked at 20+ sideboarded hands with this list: http://www.mtgdeckbuilder.net/Decks/ViewDeck/365673

Side: -4 LED +4 Coffin Purge
I tried to play as if they had 2x Surgical Extraction (very probable with Snapcaster). Between Cabal Therapy and Coffin Purge you can have very well protected starts. I would expect to play this VERY slowly:
-wait for a backup gold land for Purge any time you go for Lootings to setup dredge
-wait for either Therapy or Purge before discarding anything very relevant (Troll, Bridge, Narco)
-try to flashback Therapy to grab Snapcaster before discarding

I'll keep looking at sample hands, but I actually think this hate package might be easier to play against than artifact-based hate. As usual, playing smart and slow will keep you out of danger.


I forgot to mention in my previous post that I don't believe in Sun Titan over Sphinx of Lost Truths (and yes, I have tested it). The idea that you need both Lootings and LED in yard (not going to happen if you get Crypt'd or Relic'd) to keep dredging, and that even then you are only provided with two instead of three draw effects just makes it subpar. I think the creature advantage is notable (building up to another Dread Return with low Bridge count), but not worth it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DrHealex

Any non-manaless dredge deck not auto running 4 Nature's Claims in their SB must have a pilot that is a bit touched in the head, imho.
I will agree with the iona, elesh, angel and firestorms being at the right number though.

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Pre-Grafdigger's Cage, this was an embarrassingly silly thing to say. The correct sideboard answer was either Emerald Charm or Wispmare since all you cared about were Leylines and Wheel and such, not Crypt and Relic. (I have a hunch that Wispmare was far and away better than Emerald Charm, but it's possible you could set up a Stinkweed Imp ambush against Reanimator.)

Of course now, maybe nobody will play Leylines because they can play Cage instead. And then the correct answer will just be Ingot Chewer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tiefighterdragon

Side: -4 LED +4 Coffin Purge
I tried to play as if they had 2x Surgical Extraction (very probable with Snapcaster). Between Cabal Therapy and Coffin Purge you can have very well protected starts. I would expect to play this VERY slowly:
-wait for a backup gold land for Purge any time you go for Lootings to setup dredge
-wait for either Therapy or Purge before discarding anything very relevant (Troll, Bridge, Narco)
-try to flashback Therapy to grab Snapcaster before discarding

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That's a reasonable line of play, but I think people get far too cautious in their game two's and three's, which is what ultimately can cost them the round. You can play cautious, but remember the deck is still combo-based at its very core, and you should not be afraid with the high number of discard outlets to fear Surgical Extraction. Most Control players thrive on this, and I always get over-aggressive in my game two's because you really have nothing to lose in a game you are supposed to either be even or slightly favored/unfavored at most in. This is how I've managed to win a disturbingly high number of game two's - as you're obviously favored game one under most circumstances.

Cutting LED is (probably) the correct choice when going into game two. Game three, however, you have a little bit more flexibility and will hopefully have a taste as to what sort of hate your opponent is bringing to the table.

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I forgot to mention in my previous post that I don't believe in Sun Titan over Sphinx of Lost Truths (and yes, I have tested it). The idea that you need both Lootings and LED in yard (not going to happen if you get Crypt'd or Relic'd) to keep dredging, and that even then you are only provided with two instead of three draw effects just makes it subpar. I think the creature advantage is notable (building up to another Dread Return with low Bridge count), but not worth it.

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Sun Titan gives you the flexibility of being able to do virtually the same thing that Sphinx does - recur LED or Coliseum and go off with either. The difference here is that Sun Titan also gives you the flexibility of not having to be dependent on dredgers that are in your graveyard at the time his ability is triggered, meaning that by recurring LED, you're able to dump your hand full of dredgers and work from there - ensuring you will dredge just as deep in the scenario a Sphinx would have to be optimized in its one-time use and dependency on the current setup of your graveyard.

It's (Titan) simply better because it creates so many different outlets of play and gives you that level of explosiveness when needed. You also really want to run Flame-Kin Zealot with him; that's a very deadly combination and provides an incredible amount of speed and resiliency. Additionally, if you find yourself in the predicament where you've been Crypt'd or Relic'd and you actually have the ability to put a Sun Titan into play (or Sphinx, for that matter), then you're probably going to have something relevant in your graveyard to make things happen. As stated, a recurred LED will at the very least give you the ability to dump your hand at a moment's notice and create an interactive play with a Coliseum or Looting, although I suspect if you had the ability to flashback a Titan you probably have at least one dredger, an LED or a Coliseum in your graveyard anyways. Sphinx is one shot and really doesn't do anything more than Looting, Breakthrough, Coliseum, and Study can do, so it's basically over-redundant by the time he comes into play. Also, in builds than run a higher dredger count (like Manaless), they predominantly used Sphinx to exploit the raw power of the dredge mechanic due in large part to the excessive amount of dredgers it runs - unlike this build - which requires the utility of spells for explosiveness and the novelty of the DR target to provide immediate assistance.

One more thing to note: I've noticed a lot of Dredge lists falling farther and farther south in the number of dredgers being played. I think that's a critical deck-building error that needs to be addressed to people looking to optimize their lists. I'm even finding that eleven at a bare-bones minimum is simply just too little under most circumstances, which his why I've upped the count in my list currently back up to twelve - at a maximum of Trolls, Imps, and Thugs. Surgical Extraction hitting any one of these three creates a dire circumstance where we have to bank on the other eight (or less) dredgers to keep the deck's firepower relevant. If we run a full set of each, we can maximize the probability of not only chaining our dredges, but keeping a steady and healthy line of slow-dredging in the form of Golgari Thug - which is severely underrated right now in most builds. Not only is he a body to fill the role of a Dread Return or Therapy, he also exiles to Ichorid, he attacks and chumps, puts Narcomoeba's back on top of your library, and keeps a steady flow of dredging possible where lost or in-hand Imps and Trolls become increasingly problematic.

In my experience, I've just been noticing situations where - especially in the second and third games - dredging is incredibly important because of cards like Surgical Extraction and other hate people bring in against us to slow us down. We also need and require that ability to slow-dredge where situations call for it, and not be drawing cards off the top of our decks in the situations where it's optimal to dredge anyways. Casting a Breakthrough with an LED out or Looting is fine, but if you're running tight on dredgers, you're not getting value out of the spells you're casting, which is why we're stalling out more and more.

It just seems counterproductive to fill a Dredge deck with clutter when we should, in fact, be playing a solid suite of dredgers to make things happen. I just think that at least in my experience we've been taking things incredibly too light in the games where we can still blow open the game on turns one and two without having to always slow-dredge and take out some explosiveness in the deck. It'll add a bit of consistency, but I think the very core of LED-based Dredge now really wants to be able to explode in the match-ups where it can, and not stall out and give the opponent more time to setup an Extraction and flash it back. Purge/Purify is fine in that respect, but it still requires an investment.

I quickly established a rule for playing Dredge in games 2/3. If I can make a Troll and it's 6/6 or bigger, do it. Sometimes you have to just hope they don't have it. More often than not, you're right. But you'll find if you had just waited one more turn to check with Therapy, they'd have topdecked the Crypt or whatever. You're in a race against time to a certain extent.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Pre-Grafdigger's Cage, this was an embarrassingly silly thing to say. The correct sideboard answer was either Emerald Charm or Wispmare since all you cared about were Leylines and Wheel and such, not Crypt and Relic. (I have a hunch that Wispmare was far and away better than Emerald Charm, but it's possible you could set up a Stinkweed Imp ambush against Reanimator.)

Of course now, maybe nobody will play Leylines because they can play Cage instead. And then the correct answer will just be Ingot Chewer.

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I highly doubt the cage will pick up that much in popularity. And if it does, great. It's really not that good against dredge. If it becomes popular, all the better for us. We start running some amount of darkblasts either main or board, then board in chewers and go to town.

I really feel that everyone is over-reacting to Cage. It is pretty easy to beat if it becomes the hate of choice, and if it doesn't (more likely), then just treat it like a mini leyline and bounce it or claim it then kill them. Hate cards are hate cards, and they will always be there. It just comes down to the fact that they have to have one of the up to 4 cards they boarded in in their opener. If they have it, then they have it and we have a tough game ahead. If they don't, they probably mulled to 5 to try and get it and you are probably winning.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dredgekid

I highly doubt the cage will pick up that much in popularity. And if it does, great. It's really not that good against dredge. If it becomes popular, all the better for us. We start running some amount of darkblasts either main or board, then board in chewers and go to town.

I really feel that everyone is over-reacting to Cage. It is pretty easy to beat if it becomes the hate of choice, and if it doesn't (more likely), then just treat it like a mini leyline and bounce it or claim it then kill them. Hate cards are hate cards, and they will always be there. It just comes down to the fact that they have to have one of the up to 4 cards they boarded in in their opener. If they have it, then they have it and we have a tough game ahead. If they don't, they probably mulled to 5 to try and get it and you are probably winning.

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It's not an overreaction, Grafdigger's Cage is the only hate card besides Leyline of the Void that Dredge can't simply ignore and continue to dredge thru'. Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction to a certain extent are just Time Walks vs. us, but Grafdigger's Cage is an auto-loss if you didn't board in dedicated answers and it protects itself vs your most synergistic answers like Ancient Grudge.

It's roughly the equivalent of every deck playing Leyline of the Void now and only marginally weaker because Cabal Therapy can exploit the 4xing and Chain of Vapor can exploit the unmolested graveyard. Our best hope is that it's pretty bad vs Reanimator and people stick to Surgical Extractions and Faerie Macabre, otherwise our win percentages are going to take a hit if people 4x this. Either that or they only 1x it with Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus and they just slop an auto-win every now and then.

First of all, Cage is not as bad as Leyline. In testing I've won games by Darkblasting or Firestorming my own board in order to create a critical mass of Zombie Tokens. You can easily do this if they have Cage and few pressure. If they have leyline, you literally can't do anything until you remove it.

Even w/o Firestorm or Darkblast, it will at least be harder for them to swing into your dudes if ou get tokens out of it. And more often than not you just beat them down with a Flying PImp and/or a hardcast Moeba.


As of anti hate, this is something we can't tell yet. If Cage becomes the one and only grave hate in the format, then sure we'll play a set of Ingot Chewers. If Cage isn't played at all, we stay with Grudge plus a set of either Claim or Chain. If it sees some play and is used along other hate, we'll have to find a good mix. I dare to say, though, that such a mix should probably contain a full set of nature's Claim, because it answers everything and can be blindly boarded for game 2 if needed. Though, Chain has the huge advantage of being very useful against Reanimator, which is imho its biggest selling point over Claim.

We'll have to see.

I think there's also one more startling thing about the previous Star City Open:

It was the first tournament where Faithless Looting and Cage became legal at the same time, prompting claims from everywhere that Cage will be the choice of hate on the day and that the newly empowered Looting-LED combination in Dredge will be offset or sunk because of this occurrence, or completely overpower the meta. These are obviously over-generalizations, and as such didn't pan out as people thought they would.

In short, there was only a single copy of Grafdigger's Cage in the Top 32 deck-lists, and there were absolutely no Dredge decks in that subset either. That number is probably based on poor piloting and a lack of proper deck-building, but it's quite the anomaly: neither LED/Looting-Dredge nor its newly conceived counterpart-hate card made any significant appearance except as a lone copy in an Enlightened Tutor-based control deck which happened to randomly navigate its way to the Top Eight.

I really don't blame lack of availability squarely as an excuse as to why Cage didn't see more play; I'm sure people were frenzied trying to think of ways to counteract the incredible power of Looting and LED together and either figured Cage just wasn't optimal or that other relegated hate was. (Aside from Surgical Extraction, Tormod's Crypt was another incredibly popular addition to sideboards at that event. There was even a pilot who ran a terrible four Leyline of the Void as a sideboard option in a U/w Stoneblade variant. This is how desperate deck-builders have become - even Aggro-Control variants using mulligan-aggressive, non-castable cards in order to win novelty points. It's erratic decision-making at its very core, and that is an incredibly hard issue to gauge.)

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Originally Posted by Izor

If Cage isn't played at all, we stay with Grudge plus a set of either Claim or Chain.

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If Cage doesn't see play, the correct hate is 0 Ancient Grudge, 0 Nature's Claim and some number of Wispmare.

I would be surprised if Reanimator were prevalent enough to justify running Chain of Vapor over Wispmare just to bounce fatties. If you have them, sure, but really?

One thing to consider is you have the option of not boarding for game 2 instead of just auto boarding in 4 Nature's Claim.

I'm just curious how you come to the universalist assumption that 0 Ancient Grudges was the way to go before DKA and will continue to be the way to go post DKA.

As far as I know there are many people who have tried to cut the established anti hate from Dredge sideboards and as much as I try, I can't remember a single tournament finish of such a list that would have justified that in the end. All lists that placed well ran Ancient Grudge. It seems a bit overhasty to claim that everyone who ever had a good finish with this deck did it wrong. I've personally won countless games with it, which is why it always had its place in my board. And as far as I can tell that's what the majority would say as well.



I recently won a tournament because I had the Chain against reanimator, but here I agree that it doesn't have to be played. We just need some sort of Leyline/cage removal.



I also agree that not boarding anything can be the correct call. It depends on matchup and in this case also on how the metagame will develop its grave hate in the future.

Also, wtf Wispmare.
Sure, it does its job quite good, but man do I love the instant speed of Claim.
Way surperior than Wispmare imo.
Also, your Highness of Dredgedom, not ALL people on this planet agree with your blunt statement that 0 Ancient Grudge is the way to go, that Tireless Tribes need to be played etc. Maybe don't generalize so much. You sound like a total douche doing that.

Edit: @ Hollywood: That's exactly what I am thinking when I am seeing most of the new lists. Also this is why I don't run Dread Returns anymore, and don't ever want to, at least in the main deck. Sideboard it's fine to have another threat against extraction.dec but it is required to dredge as constant as you can.

Hollywood, agreed!

I was just talking about this..

"It's legal now, correct? I just thumbed through the sideboard's of every deck, that placed, @ the Richmond tourney, 2/5/2012, and didn't see a single cage.. I think Crypts and Relics are still in vogue.. Regardless, I didn't see a single re-animator build, or dredge for that matter (not surprising). Though, dredge did find some compensation in Faithless Looting, while re-animator, well, didn't really get anything.."

This was my reply in response to Cage. I'm not sure if re-animator just flopped or if people didn't pilot the deck in fear of Cage having a big presence.. I'm really interested in dredge after the printing of Faithless Looting and StarCityOpen's recent results. I'm curious if the absence of graveyard-based decks will temporarily ease the relative hate, giving dredge a window of opportunity.. Sequentially, we need to collaborate in an attempt to harness the true power of LED/Loot dredge..

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Originally Posted by HokusSchmokus

Also this is why I don't run Dread Returns anymore, and don't ever want to, at least in the main deck.

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This page shows the most recent successful Dredge lists:

http://www.mtgtop8.com/search

They all play DR.


EDIT: I guess link doesn't work. While on site hit Search (button) --> Format:Legacy --> Dredge
That should give the list.