[Deck] Dredge

The one DR does come in against Extraction. It is there, however, mainly for Land-based decks that we can't normally interact with. Rider serves the same purpose as Terastodon as far as removing troublesome permanents. Rider has some advantages though. It can remove creatures, which is barely relevant. But against Lands and Post there are two major upgrades. Oftenyou can go off, and they already have the Chasm, Tabernacle, etc. in hand. The Don really wont get full value there, where Rider laughs at both Tabernacle and Chasm even if already in play. Also, Rider exiles said lands so they can't Loam them back. The deck doesn't need any help adding more DR targets for other matchups.

The extra lands are to enable Decay, and/or against Tempo decks. The Petals come against any Combo, and decks without countermagic, or a turn one/zero hate sweeper. With any discard spell, any draw spell, a land and a dredger, and/or drawing any of these missing pieces off a T1 cantrip, Petal effectively is at least a time walk.

Just because I get so many requests for it:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
4 Ichorid

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
3 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass

3 Lotus Petal
3 Firestorm
2 City of Brass
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Dread Return
1 Ashen Rider

DBlade:+2 City,+2 Decay,+3 Fstorm,+1 Dread/-4 LED,-4 Bthrough
DBlade:(OP)+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-1 City,-4 LED
Patriot:+2 City,+2 Fstorm,+3 Decay,+1 Chain/-4 LED,-1 Thug,-2 BThrou,-1 PImp
Miracles:+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-1 Ichorid,-1 City,-2 PImp,-1 Thug

BUG:+2 City,+3 Fstorm,+3 Decay/-4 LED,-4 Bthrough
RUG:+2 City,+3 Fstorm,+3 Decay/-4 LED,-3 Bthrough,-1 Thug
Merfolk:+2 City,+3 Fstorm,+3 Decay/-4 LED,-1 Thug,-2 Bthrough
U/Burn:+3 Fstorm,+1 Dread/-4 LED
Tide:+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-1 City,-1 Thug,-1 Ichorid,-2 Study
Post:+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-1 City,-2 PImp,-1 Thug,-1 Ichorid
Reanimator:+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+2 Chain/-2 PImp,-1 City,-2 Ichorid,-1 Thug
Bant:+3 Fstorm,+3 Decay,+1 City/-4 LED,-3 Bthrough
Show:+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-2 Ichorid,-1 City,-2 PImp

AdN:+3 Petal/-1 City,-2 Ichorid
Elves:+2 Petal,+3 Fstorm/-1 Ichorid,-1 City,-3 PImp
Gobs:+3 Decay,+3 Fstorm,+1 City/-4 LED,-1 Ichorid,-1 Thug,-1 Bthrou
MUD:+2 Fstor,+1 Dread,+1 Rider,+3 Petal/-1 Therp,-3 PImp,-1 Thug,-1 Ich,-1 Mine
D&T(OP):+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-2 Ichorid,-1 City,-2 PImp
D&T(OD):+1 City,+2 Decay,+2 Chain/-2 PImp,-1 Therapy,-1 Ichorid,-1 Thug
Maverick:+3 Petal,+1 Dread/-2 Pimp,-1 City,-1 Ichorid
Dredg:+3 Petal,+1 Dread/-1 Ichorid,-1 Therapy,-1 City,-1 PImp
Burn:+3 Petal,+1 Dread/-2 PImp,-1 City,-1 Ichorid
Affin:+3 Decay,+1 City,+3 Fstorm,+2 Chain/-3 BThrou,-4 LED,-1 Thug,-1 Therp
Paint:+3 Decay,+1 City,+3 Fstorm,+1 Chain/-3 Bthrough,-4 LED,-1 Thug
Loam/Lands:+3 Petal,+1 Dread,+1 Rider/-3 PImp,-1 Ichorid,-1 City
Jund:+3 Petal,+1 Dread/-1 City(Ceph OP),-2 PImp,-1 Ichorid

With my usual caveat, that this is ONLY a guideline. And should not be canon in sideboarding. As always, I use it mainly to see how to actually build my SB, than to tell me how to SB in matches.

The one change I will likely make once I've worked through the logic is -1 Chain, +1 Memory's Journey. I almost never want the second Chain, though losing it makes Leyline an auto-win. But the Journey is as good, or better against Reanimator, and it gives me some play against Surgical that I currently don't have access to. Running the Quad list, one Surgical is barely a speedbump. But two are dangerous if they have a clock, and three are probably game.

Why is lotus petal good in the sideboard? There was a bit of discussion in the thread earlier but I didn't fully understand. And is Decay better than Nature's Claim despite the casting cost?

In general, how would you tailor the board to a meta full of Maverick, Deathblade, BUG Delver, Nic Fit? Lots of creature based strategies.

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Originally Posted by laserstone

Why is lotus petal good in the sideboard? There was a bit of discussion in the thread earlier but I didn't fully understand. And is Decay better than Nature's Claim despite the casting cost?

In general, how would you tailor the board to a meta full of Maverick, Deathblade, BUG Delver, Nic Fit? Lots of creature based strategies.

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Dredge - especially LED variants - usually roll those strategies. Firestorm is really all you need post-board, and even then that's not even needed in some match-ups.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by laserstone

Why is lotus petal good in the sideboard? There was a bit of discussion in the thread earlier but I didn't fully understand. And is Decay better than Nature's Claim despite the casting cost?

In general, how would you tailor the board to a meta full of Maverick, Deathblade, BUG Delver, Nic Fit? Lots of creature based strategies.

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As far as I can tell, the rationale for Petal is that you gain a full tempo if you play it and get to cast two spells turn 1--one to bin dredgers and another to Dredge with it. This will oftentimes be enough resources to overwhelm or race through graveyard hate--especially slow graveyard hate like DRS or Ooze. Similarly, you can race combo better. Decay is better than claim because you will very often only have one opportunity to remove their hate card, owing to your limited number of slots--so it best resolve.

I'm not Parcher, but I feel the best card in the deck versus creature strategies is Firestorm. It often buys one or two turns on its own, besides serving as an uncounterable discard outlet. And it also answers Deathrite pretty well. I boarded it in in every single match but Miracles--we're talking BUG Delver, Elves, Canadian Thresh, Jund, U/R delver, Burn, Shardless BUG, Infect, you name it.

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Originally Posted by Michael Keller

Dredge - especially LED variants - usually roll those strategies. Firestorm is really all you need post-board, and even then that's not even needed in some match-ups.

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Hollywood, what's your current LED Dredge 75?

I've retired from playing Dredge.

However, if I were to play LED Dredge again, I'm sure it would be a Quadlazer variant of some sorts similar to Parcher's list.

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Originally Posted by Parcher

The one DR does come in against Extraction. It is there, however, mainly for Land-based decks that we can't normally interact with. Rider serves the same purpose as Terastodon as far as removing troublesome permanents. Rider has some advantages though. It can remove creatures, which is barely relevant. But against Lands and Post there are two major upgrades. Oftenyou can go off, and they already have the Chasm, Tabernacle, etc. in hand. The Don really wont get full value there, where Rider laughs at both Tabernacle and Chasm even if already in play. Also, Rider exiles said lands so they can't Loam them back. The deck doesn't need any help adding more DR targets for other matchups.

The extra lands are to enable Decay, and/or against Tempo decks. The Petals come against any Combo, and decks without countermagic, or a turn one/zero hate sweeper. With any discard spell, any draw spell, a land and a dredger, and/or drawing any of these missing pieces off a T1 cantrip, Petal effectively is at least a time walk.

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Hi Parcher,

congratz to your results!

May I ask you whats your reasoning on playing the full set of gemstones oder cities? Especially in the grindy games I like to have permanent mana sources. I haven't tested either way yet though. Have still to order the playset of confluences.

Firestorms seem to be a big player in your sideboard (and in Ozymandias' sb too - congratz to you too by the way ^^). How does it fare in the matchups you bring it in? Something that annoys me is the opponent beeing able to eat my discarded dredger in response to his drs getting fried.

My sideboard currently looks like this (maindeck is quadlaser):

4 Nature's Claim (against permanent hate)
2 Goldlands (to cast claim more reliably)
2 Dread Return
1 Elesh (against Elves, Dredge and most creature decks)
1 Iona (against Combo)
1 Griselbrand (as some kind of joker who gets you the needed target (iona/elesh)
4 Nether Shadows (to overload drs/surgical with threats)

I can totally see the Firestorms replace the Nether Shadows in my current sideboard. I really like the card but was never be able to fit it in my sb :/

Thanks in advance and a nice weekend to all of you :)

Regards Chris

Why isnt anyone playing a combo finish? FKZ off of an early turn library mill is always great. It leaves less time for your opponent to react.

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

Why isnt anyone playing a combo finish? FKZ off of an early turn library mill is always great. It leaves less time for your opponent to react.

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I am, but I haven't posted good results with LED-dredge for a while.
I seem to repeatedly churn out T1 or T2 zombies to have Grafdiggers/RiP nuke my yard, and then have to rely on finding a Claim or Vapor, or getting there with those few zombies alone.
Hate is pretty thick right now, but I'm not too sure if the Dread Return package is still considered optimal or not?!?

I agree that Gemstone Mine can be problematic post-board due to it's far more needed multiple uses. Though it is still the best land in the main. However, with me running 15 Lands post, it has yet to prove an issue. In fact, it has worked better as a "permanent" source without running Paradise, since you get better decision trees if you are looking for a second or third land, and need to decide how likely it will be to draw one before you decide to use the "Paradise". Once you have the other lands, needing more than three uses from Gemstone is fairly rare.

Firestorm works well, or I wouldn't run it. If your opponent is sitting on DRS and a mana to respond, you usually have plenty of time to draw into multiple dredgers to mitigate this, since they won't be clocking you. Just use your normal draw step though. Don't fire Therapies and cantrips, as this will significantly increase said clock.

FKZ would be my third choice as a target after Terastodon. Petal makes it not a need against fast Combo, and while it is almost as good against Lands/Post, Chasm is still a thing. If I have room for only one target, it has to be able to deal with Lands.

I find it interesting that you can have 3 pages of talk about combo heavy dredge with transitional sideboards followed by 3 pages of Feldmanesque, "don't bother with a SB" grindy lists. Maybe some dredgers and bridge from below is all you really need. The rest is just filler.


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Originally Posted by drude1

I find it interesting that you can have 3 pages of talk about combo heavy dredge with transitional sideboards followed by 3 pages of Feldmanesque, "don't bother with a SB" grindy lists. Maybe some dredgers and bridge from below is a you really need. The rest is just filler.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Exactly. The argument on which version is best will always be dependent on so many factors, but arguably it comes down to personal taste and that will never change.

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Originally Posted by Parcher

I agree that Gemstone Mine can be problematic post-board due to it's far more needed multiple uses. Though it is still the best land in the main. However, with me running 15 Lands post, it has yet to prove an issue. In fact, it has worked better as a "permanent" source without running Paradise, since you get better decision trees if you are looking for a second or third land, and need to decide how likely it will be to draw one before you decide to use the "Paradise". Once you have the other lands, needing more than three uses from Gemstone is fairly rare.

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Yeah I tend to agree here. Not needing to lose life on each land activation does have it's merits.
I have very rarely had to use all 3 Gemstone mine counters to combo off > usually that's against the taxing style matchups.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by drude1

I find it interesting that you can have 3 pages of talk about combo heavy dredge with transitional sideboards followed by 3 pages of Feldmanesque, "don't bother with a SB" grindy lists. Maybe some dredgers and bridge from below is all you really need. The rest is just filler.

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LOL. Good point.

I would argue that these days you need an answer, or at least a strategy, for playing against Cage/RiP.

Generally speaking I think playing a combo finish comes down to whether or not your meta game is prepared for Dredge or not, if it's not prepared for Dredge you can get away with a combo finish and if it is prepared for Dredge then you had better worry about how you're going to win thru' hate instead of how you're going to kill your opponent. You'll win game one regardless, so I usually build Dredge with game 2 in mind and then reverse sideboard to see what luxuries I can fit into the deck.

As a whole, I think it matters less now that everyone is playing RIP and Cage and attrition from Surgical Extraction is really no longer a major consideration, games don't really come down to attrition anymore.

@Damon W.
@Caleb N.

1. What where the matchups you guys faced throughout the day?
2. What kind of graveyard hate did you see from your opponent? Was it relevant? And if so how did you navigate your way around it?
3. Did your sb cards do what they intended?
4. What would you change? Or was your 75 reinforced after the tournament's completion.

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Originally Posted by Que

@Damon W.
@Caleb N.

1. What where the matchups you guys faced throughout the day?
2. What kind of graveyard hate did you see from your opponent? Was it relevant? And if so how did you navigate your way around it?
3. Did your sb cards do what they intended?
4. What would you change? Or was your 75 reinforced after the tournament's completion.

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Beat Miracles, Bant (I think), BUG Delver, Elves, Canadian Thresh, Jund, U/R delver, Burn. Lost to Shardless BUG, Infect, no particular order. The most common hate was DRS, so Firestorm did a ton of work--plus the anti-tempo applications. Unmask was great all day. I saw 0 stoneforges, so that's not exactly representative of Grudge's utility. Wear/Tear came in versus Miracles and killed a RIP, so it did what it was supposed to do. I also boarded it blind versus Infect and got a Nexus with it, which brought home its utility (Decay would not have worked there! ). I never lost a game due to Citadel, but it and the Paradise should realistically be more confluences. I could also see shaving an Imp for a Careful study to have slightly more keepable hands.

I saw many different types of hate--DRS, Relic, Extraction, Extirpate, RIP, Ooze, Cage--the only time I got wrecked by it was when I kept a 7 versus Shardless that wrecked a deathrite-dependant hand and had game versus Spellbomb (Bridge, 2x dredger, rainbow, coliseum, firestorm, Narco), but lost hard to the t1 Cage my opponent played. My elves opponent got an ooze-cradle thing going, but I was gonna lose that game anyhow after fizzling on dredges.

greetings thread!!

my name is mario, im going to the invitational in a couple weeks here and I'd like to pick up dredge for that event. I've played it back when maverick was far more popular, but I honestly havent touched it in awhile. I'm a TES player at heart, but i do love some degererate magic. I'll be reading the primer, but any advice otherwise is much appreciated. The metagame im expecting is Sneak attack, blade-decks, elves, reanimator, and delver variants. If theres any specific metagames calls, I'd like to know about them ^^

Wish me luck and I'll be checking the thread regularly.
Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Que

@Damon W.
@Caleb N.

1. What where the matchups you guys faced throughout the day?
2. What kind of graveyard hate did you see from your opponent? Was it relevant? And if so how did you navigate your way around it?
3. Did your sb cards do what they intended?
4. What would you change? Or was your 75 reinforced after the tournament's completion.

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I played BUG Delver twice, RUG, Miracles, Painter, Deathblade, D&T, Elves, Dredge, and something else.

I saw Lots of Cages and Deathrites, and a few RiP, Surgical, and Spellbombs. The one RiP was relevant since it was G1, and the Surgicals were only relevant when that opponent had two+Snap. I can't remember details.

I'm still not 100% one way or the other about Decay over Chain/Claim. If Patriot was still a Top5 deck, I would definitely run Decay. Unfortunately, Mana Confluence came out after Patriot's heyday. The slots even out, since you need more answers in case they counter a Claim. Compared to Decay, where I have to run more lands in those slots to facilitate it. But the extra mana to cast Decay slows the deck down anyway. So that would be a possible change, unless you expect a lot of Blue Tempo decks, where extra lands+Decay is worth it. Everything else was pretty much correct with the deck.

I know this is probably gonna get laughed at....

Last weekend I took along 2 Carpet of Flowers in the side.
I play this card in Pact S.I. normally, but had a "bugger it" moment, why not?! It was only my local haunt, nothing serious...
Funnily enough, I had the opportunity to side them in 2 match-ups > Merfolk & Reanimator.
My side was;
3 Chains, 1 LotV, 4 Firestorm, 4 Nature's Claim, 1 Ashen Rider, 1 Bearer of the Heavens, 2 Carpets.
(my meta is very hate-filled right now)

The Carpets actually weren't as bad as I thought they would be, despite their niche application.
For Reanimator, I sided in these aswell as my Chains and LotV (usually I have 3 LotV, but wanted to test out carpet), and pretty quickly I was able to get use out of it. Fortunately I got one in a *keep* hand in both game 2 and 3.
Didn't happen to get one in the merfolk matchup, but I imagine it would have been useful.

I'm still not convinced > Lotus Petal seems better here.
....but the fact that Carpet gives us the ability to actually play cards from our hand with an active RiP/Cage in play, means I can't help but keep thinking about it....:eyebrow:

What do you fella's think about it?