[Deck] Dredge

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Originally Posted by sampi

I guess a lot of potential sideboard options will have a similar problem of not drawing it in the opener (Nature's Claim etc). Maybe ingot chewer would be better than grudge as it also triggers bridge.

I think noxious revival should see some spots in the board. Being able to put the card back on top in resp to DRS, surgical. But the last game I played vs Team America they were running extirpate, which was a beating.

What is your current sideboard?

Thanks for the reply!

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No problem!

I'll address the last two things you said first. Extirpate and Surgical Extraction are hideous. There's little we can do to stop them, but there are a couple of things that might keep us from getting totally blasted (see the last part of this post).

Here's the (perhaps rather rickety) sideboard I'm planning to run the next time I take the deck out for a spin:

4x Nature's Claim
2x Street Wraith
2x Lotus Petal
1x Ashen Rider
1x Dread Return
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Flayer of the Hatebound
1x Blazing Archon
1x Memory's Journey

[EDIT: Someone earlier mentioned the danger of having an Eldrazi player cast Metamorph to copy Archon. I think Flayer would be extremely useful in such situations, so my default plan against the menace was to bring in both.]

I'm not a big fan of Ingot Chewers, either, primarily because they only hit artifacts (and not enchantments) and we can't cast them in response to anything's hitting the field. Looks like it shines against Grafdigger's Cage, which is pretty cool, but I feel like the major strength of Nature's Claim is that it hits either artifacts (esp. Grafdigger's) or enchantments (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void). N.B.: none of those cards puts a clock on us; we may (MAY) be able to topdeck cards against these threats if the opponent doesn't have a [EDIT: clock] on the board already. Again, that's a luxury not afforded us if the opponent's running Deathrite or something similar.

I've always felt like Ancient Grudge (and Ray of Revelation) had their uses, but both were themselves pretty narrow. It's nice that we don't need to open with (or topdeck) them, but—unless they're in our opening hand—Grudge doesn't respond meaningfully to the artifacts that hate us out (except, I guess, Relic of Progenitus) and Ray doesn't stop Leyline of the Void. I've still got a Ray floating in and out of my sideboard to give me an extra shot at hitting Rest in Peace, but I'm not a big fan.

I considered Noxious Revival for a little while, but I feel like it doesn't do anything we would want it to do better than other cards would do the job. Sure, it brings back cards we've dredged that we can't use if they're in the 'yard, but it also doesn't do anything if it's been dredged out. In most games, unless I'm totally locked or have had rotten luck with dredges, my hand's empty within the first three or four turns, whether or not I've managed to combo out.

It's worth pointing out that Street Wraith (which can bring us back a dredger in case of DRS shenanigans) has this problem, too. With that said, the Wraith has other advantages, like being harder to counter, putting the card back into our hand directly, and acting as fuel for Ichorid. I feel like it's a better call to run it instead of Revival.

The only card on which I feel like we can rely for those situations (and, perhaps more importantly, against Surgical Extraction) is Memory's Journey. I don't think it's a stable enough card to run in multiples, but I may be wrong about that. I'm running a whole lot of reanimation targets in my 'board right now, and I think that if I cut one of those cards, the thing I'll add to the sideboard is a second Memory's Journey specifically because it's so good against Deathrite.

Extirpate still cuts up our whole plan. Not sure we've really got an answer to it because Split Second is one of those things better left unprinted.

Hope I'm not being too harsh! Sincerely, I'm interested to hear further input regarding these cards, my sideboard choices, and my attempts at rational analysis. If anyone's got data they can provide, that'd be fantastic, so thanks in advance.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

No problem!

I'll address the last two things you said first. Extirpate and Surgical Extraction are hideous. There's little we can do to stop them, but there are a couple of things that might keep us from getting totally blasted (see the last part of this post).

Here's the (perhaps rather rickety) sideboard I'm planning to run the next time I take the deck out for a spin:

4x Nature's Claim
2x Street Wraith
2x Lotus Petal
1x Ashen Rider
1x Dread Return
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Flayer of the Hatebound
1x Blazing Archon
1x Memory's Journey

[EDIT: Someone earlier mentioned the danger of having an Eldrazi player cast Metamorph to copy Archon. I think Flayer would be extremely useful in such situations, so my default plan against the menace was to bring in both.]

I'm not a big fan of Ingot Chewers, either, primarily because they only hit artifacts (and not enchantments) and we can't cast them in response to anything's hitting the field. Looks like it shines against Grafdigger's Cage, which is pretty cool, but I feel like the major strength of Nature's Claim is that it hits either artifacts (esp. Grafdigger's) or enchantments (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void). N.B.: none of those cards puts a clock on us; we may (MAY) be able to topdeck cards against these threats if the opponent doesn't have a threat on the board already. Again, that's a luxury not afforded us if the opponent's running Deathrite or something similar.

I've always felt like Ancient Grudge (and Ray of Revelation) had their uses, but both were themselves pretty narrow. It's nice that we don't need to open with (or topdeck) them, but—unless they're in our opening hand—Grudge doesn't respond meaningfully to the artifacts that hate us out (except, I guess, Relic of Progenitus) and Ray doesn't stop Leyline of the Void. I've still got a Ray floating in and out of my sideboard to give me an extra shot at hitting Rest in Peace, but I'm not a big fan.

I considered Noxious Revival for a little while, but I feel like it doesn't do anything we would want it to do better than other cards would do the job. Sure, it brings back cards we've dredged that we can't use if they're in the 'yard, but it also doesn't do anything if it's been dredged out. In most games, unless I'm totally locked or have had rotten luck with dredges, my hand's empty within the first three or four turns, whether or not I've managed to combo out.

It's worth pointing out that Street Wraith (which can bring us back a dredger in case of DRS shenanigans) has this problem, too. With that said, the Wraith has other advantages, like being harder to counter, putting the card back into our hand directly, and acting as fuel for Ichorid. I feel like it's a better call to run it instead of Revival.

The only card on which I feel like we can rely for those situations (and, perhaps more importantly, against Surgical Extraction) is Memory's Journey. I don't think it's a stable enough card to run in multiples, but I may be wrong about that. I'm running a whole lot of reanimation targets in my 'board right now, and I think that if I cut one of those cards, the thing I'll add to the sideboard is a second Memory's Journey specifically because it's so good against Deathrite.

Extirpate still cuts up our whole plan. Not sure we've really got an answer to it because Split Second is one of those things better left unprinted.

Hope I'm not being too harsh! Sincerely, I'm interested to hear further input regarding these cards, my sideboard choices, and my attempts at rational analysis. If anyone's got data they can provide, that'd be fantastic, so thanks in advance.

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Not harsh at all. As you can all probably tell i'm new to the deck.

Jeff Hoogland is currently streaming a bit of Dredge action, for those interested.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

I'm not a big fan of Ingot Chewers, either, primarily because they only hit artifacts (and not enchantments) and we can't cast them in response to anything's hitting the field. Looks like it shines against Grafdigger's Cage, which is pretty cool, but I feel like the major strength of Nature's Claim is that it hits either artifacts (esp. Grafdigger's) or enchantments (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void).

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To add to your thought here;

I started running a couple of Ingot Chewer and/or Wispmare after I had some good experiences running them against soft-lock perm's like Trinisphere & Chalice of the Void @ 1.
They're not a necessity, but they're a good way through cards like these, as Nature's Claim is typically ineffective.

I usually have 2 or 3 of the Evoke creatures in my side for flexibility, but I usually run a minimum of 3 Claims also.
Another option is Wear/Tear.

I guess it's just more ways to beat dredge hate. Bringing in 4 claim and 4 chewer doesn't seem crazy in this meta. And chewer Also triggers bridge.


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Originally Posted by sampi

I guess it's just more ways to beat dredge hate. Bringing in 4 claim and 4 chewer doesn't seem crazy in this meta. And chewer Also triggers bridge.

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Just be careful how many you side in. LED-dredge suffers with consistency if you side in too much. Also bear in mind that *Plan A* is often enough to get a win through non-terminal hate like extraction.
I try to keep the cards I sub in/out to around 3 to 6, opponent dependant.

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Originally Posted by slave

Just be careful how many you side in. LED-dredge suffers with consistency if you side in too much. Also bear in mind that *Plan A* is often enough to get a win through non-terminal hate like extraction.
I try to keep the cards I sub in/out to around 3 to 6, opponent dependant.

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How do you feel dredge will do in the current meta?

I haven't actually play tested the miracles match up yet. But RIP plus instant speed terminus seems bad already.

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Originally Posted by sampi

How do you feel dredge will do in the current meta?

I haven't actually play tested the miracles match up yet. But RIP plus instant speed terminus seems bad already.

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There's good news and bad news. The bad news is what you said: RiP wrecks us and Terminus is a constant threat. Also, Clique can cause major problems if we're running light on dredgers and our anti-RiP tech is likely to get countertopped.

The good news: we have a much faster clock than they do, even if they put together countertop, and Iona's a silver bullet against them.

I haven't played against Miracles with this deck in some time (I can't remember anything about how it went), but I don't think it's a one-sided matchup. Definitely not a good matchup for us, but not too good for them, either. Pretty opening-hand dependent, I think.

Without the RIP G1 they're not too bad just as long as you don't overextend your Ichorids into a Terminus. Just bring one back and generate a few zombies to beat them down with to force them to Terminus. I may not even bother to attack them with the Ichorid that turn if they're holding up Mana for either Snapcaster Mage or Vendilion Clique so as to not lose my bridges course that depends on whether I've already seen their hand via Cabal Therapy.

I hate playing against Miracles.

Recently I've been popping TWO Iona's (naming white of course) & 3 DR's (total) in the side to try and better my track record against Miracles and a few other decks.
Having them there is one thing, but so far I can't recall ever landing Iona against Miracles, due to counter, and I play them often enough.
So far my track record against M in game 1 is favourable against the non-Helm/RiP versions, in game 2 and 3 it's abysmal....

I tend to play fairly conservative with my Icky's in this matchup too.

One thing I feel bears repeating about Terminus is that, if we try to strip it with Cabal Therapy, name Brainstorm if the opponent can't produce six mana.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

One thing I feel bears repeating about Terminus is that, if we try to strip it with Cabal Therapy, name Brainstorm if the opponent can't produce six mana.

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Why are they not brainstorming in response to Cabal Therapy? :/

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Originally Posted by Que

Why are they not brainstorming in response to Cabal Therapy? :/

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They would, but multiple Brainstorms would still bring out Terminus down the road. If they've gotten to six lands, I think we're pretty much dead anyway, and if they've got a Sensei's Top on the table Therapy doesn't help us. If they don't, Brainstorm and Top are the only things they might still have in hand that could pull out an insta-Terminus on us until they get to six mana.

As I think about it, naming Top in this situation might be better simply because it's integral to the way their deck works regardless of the presence of Terminus.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

They would, but multiple Brainstorms would still bring out Terminus down the road. If they've gotten to six lands, I think we're pretty much dead anyway, and if they've got a Sensei's Top on the table Therapy doesn't help us. If they don't, Brainstorm and Top are the only things they might still have in hand that could pull out an insta-Terminus on us until they get to six mana.

As I think about it, naming Top in this situation might be better simply because it's integral to the way their deck works regardless of the presence of Terminus.

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I've having a hard time following your logic tbh. Can you just backup your claims/statements with support or examples.

btw the only time you should actually be "pretty dead anyway" is when your opponent drops a RIP or Cage and you don't have any means of interaction. Any other time you should be in the game regardless of how many lands your opponent possesses. My two cents.

Excluding the Helm builds, it's difficult to lose to Miracles game one. All you have to do is one burst of damage. Say, putting them to 12 or below. That puts them in a situation where they most likely cannot save themselves with an Entreat. Then you want to just put enough on the board to guarantee damage every turn. If it's an Ichorid, you only need one. They won't have a Plow every time. Then if your Ichorid nets you more than one zombie, you don't even bring it back. A turn where you know you won't be bringing one back usually I will choose to draw a card instead of dredging. It forces them to be more wary of you comboing them out. Without MD hate, their clock is too anemic to force you to commit more. And worst case scenario, if they do Entreat, you should have them in a position where you have extra Ichorids to force them to Terminus the whole board. This especially is where taking your free draws when you get them is good. Since you can reload quickly if you are forced to allow them to Terminus for value. They most often can't Entreat for value anyway, since all of those Forces, Plows, and Terminus they take means they aren't drawing lands. They don't have actual card advantage to get both. Except for the Predict builds. Which I'm fine with if they want to hold open two mana to play.

Post board, I've found specifically vs Miracles, and if you've won game one, it's better to just attempt to combo turns one or two. They have lots of hate, and many ways to find it. In addition to their board wipes and RFG effects, of course. Every turn you give them puts you farther in the hole. The vast majority don't run hate that costs less than two. And they really don't have much countermagic active the first couple of turns. its obviously high risk, since this plan wont give you the slots to remove a RiP. But realistically, if Miracles resolves one, the odds of you successfully removing it, and still being able to mount an offense in the face of their removal, disruption, and other hate, is slim. And gets worse with every turn they get.

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Originally Posted by Que

I've having a hard time following your logic tbh. Can you just backup your claims/statements with support or examples.

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I haven't taken Dredge for a spin in a couple of weeks (scene's been a bit dead lately), but a while ago I remember an opponent's responding to Therapy by Brainstorming to float Terminus near the top of his deck with another Brainstorm in hand. There wasn't much I could do to stop him at that point because even if I flashed back the Therapy, he could just Brainstorm again to hide or fire the Terminus at us. I hadn't realized that it didn't matter whether I named Terminus because he'd get the chance to play it anyway, even if he didn't have countermagic to stop the Therapy.

I only realized the other day that Top would have worked similarly. In the above situation, if he'd had Top in his hand instead of the second Brainstorm, he wouldn't have been able to respond to a flashed back Therapy, but he could just keep rearranging his top three to keep the Terminus ready.

Naming and hitting Top or Brainstorm off Therapy might shut off the shenanigans unless they've got a Top on the board already.

I agree that chipping away at their life total bit by bit and forcing them to fire Terminus when it doesn't remove much is the best option, but we've got to be really careful. I was just pointing out that if Miracles has mana open, Therapy doesn't do much good if we name the threat. It's the stuff they run that lets them accelerate/manipulate their threats that we need to worry about.

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Originally Posted by Que

btw the only time you should actually be "pretty dead anyway" is when your opponent drops a RIP or Cage and you don't have any means of interaction.

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I should've been clearer regarding the "six lands" thing. What I meant was mostly that we burn through our library so quickly that the game's usually been over by the time my opponent's found a sixth land. Definitely not impossible for us to win when that happens, but I find that those games are really rare and usually they've only lasted so many turns because I'm on the back foot topdecking for an answer to Cage, RiP, Leyline, etc. If Miracles can't bring out Terminus for :w:, they probably won't get to play it unless we're stuck already.

Hope I made some sense! If you've got suggestions or critiques, I'd be glad to hear them.

Went along night before last to another Legacy night. Really poor turn out, only 9 of us turned up to play (including me!)
Anyway, I went 4-0 :laugh:
Played Jund, Mono-R Burn, Hypergenesis & Shardless-BUG.
All were 2-0 apart from BUG, 2-1. Kinda disappointed I didn't get to play against Miracles, given our current discussion, as there was 2 players there running it.

BUG was a close run thing. I can't remember actually beating this deck before (I don't get to play against it very often)
I won game1 quickly. Decided to go all-in speed in game2, siding in Petals. He 2x extracted me and got there with Goyf.
Game 3 I sided in answers to artifacts (chewer x2, Claims x3) and played aggressively through a T1 DRS.
He didn't seem to draw much in there way of answers so maybe I got lucky.
Didn't see Cage this time, but he did land Null Rod. I haven't seen Null Rod played by anyone against dredge for ages!

Hypergenesis was just pure comedy. in game2 he played a Hypergenesis, dropping a Griselbrand. I landed Iona & 2 GGT's. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by Parcher

Post board, I've found specifically vs Miracles, and if you've won game one, it's better to just attempt to combo turns one or two.

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I've tried that before without much luck. Do you have any specific way of playing this out, or is it just simply *go for it* like you might when gold-fishing for pure speed?

And while we're at it, how do you guys play against Shardless BUG? What do you typically side in? And how do you usually fare against them?

Well, there was no Legacy at the local on Sunday because of the prerelease. I got to play some battles against Eldrazi afterward, though; I did ok; I think we broke even or I went 2-3.

I maindecked two Street Wraiths for the matchup instead of PImps. I didn't get the chance to use them very much, but they worked when a Chalice cut off my one-drops. I'm hoping to test with three in the maindeck and one in the 'board next time I take the deck out.

I also tried going up to 3x Dread Return, 1x Blazing Archon, 1x Flayer of the Hatebound (I've got a G-Brand and 2 Dreads in the main and I kept the Wraiths in), which worked pretty well. I also boarded in a Ray of Revelation and an Ancient Grudge, which weren't fantastic, but worked ok; at one point I Grudged out the opponent's Chalice to get comboing. It didn't happen in the matchup, but conceivably we could flash back a Ray to snipe Rest in Peace in response to its exile trigger. I replaced Careful Studies and, I think, a Golgari Thug. I don't know that I would board out the Thug again because I had some really awkward draws with only 11 dredgers and fewer cantrips.

The Eldrazi player was running Displacer, Skyspawner, and Drowner of Hope. The token generators made it hard to stick Bridge from Below, so keep in mind that Eldrazi doesn't require graveyard hate to stop our Bridges. Endless One does this for free, so watch out. He also had a number of Rest in Peace in the sideboard. I think his deck only ran six lock pieces (maybe more in the sideboard), so Cabal Therapy on the play was pretty useful to take hate out of his hand. I usually named Rest in Peace or the biggest dude in his hand if I was firing blindly.

The games in which my opponent beat me were when either he could land Thought-Knot to hit important accelerants or he could junk my Bridges by sacrificing tokens.

Ichorid did a ton of work here. I'm keeping four in my maindeck in part to deal with this matchup, because if we lose our Bridges we need any attackers we can find. In one game I managed to chip away at his total (as he did to mine) until I could Dread Return a Flayer off of my Ichorids to win the game. In another, I landed Blazing Archon. He had a couple of flying creatures to block it, but he couldn't find Dismember to remove the Archon in combat and I broke through.

I didn't find myself wanting to have Lotus Petal, but I'm not against its inclusion. I just felt like running alternatives to our one-costed looters was more useful in the face of Chalice and Thorn.

Que, thanks for the suggestion re: Street Wraith. I like it a lot more than I did PImp, though there were a couple of times that I would've liked to have a discard outlet.

Slave, I think the best thing we can do against Shardless is to just run as quickly as possible. The good news about the matchup is that they'll need to side out some of their really savage cards like Hymn to Tourach. The bad news is Deathrite Shaman, but again, I think we can race it. I played against Elves the other night, and racing the deck's DRS worked pretty well. Granted, Elves doesn't run countermagic.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

Que, thanks for the suggestion re: Street Wraith. I like it a lot more than I did PImp, though there were a couple of times that I would've liked to have a discard outlet.

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IMO Pimp gets worse the longer the game goes on. I think wraith would be fine in the SB.
Here's my current list. Still needs more testing.

4 Gemstone Mine [TSB]
4 Mana Confluence [JOU]
4 Cephalid Coliseum [ODY]
1 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Lion's Eye Diamond [MIR]
4 Breakthrough [TOR]
4 Faithless Looting [DKA]
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy [JUD]
3 Putrid Imp [TOR]
4 Ichorid [TOR]
4 Narcomoeba [FUT]
4 Golgari Grave-Troll [RAV]
4 Stinkweed Imp [RAV]
4 Golgari Thug [RAV]
4 Bridge from Below [FUT]

3 Dread Return [TSP]
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria [ZEN]
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite [NPH]
1 Blazing Archon [RAV]
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Nature's Claim
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Darkblast/Street Wraith

What cards do you guys normally take out to bring in DR package?

Also, has anyone tried realm razer in their decks before? I don't know how much of a blowout the razer is because lands has a lot of redundant cards and it's not a super fast clock.

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Originally Posted by sampi

IMO Pimp gets worse the longer the game goes on. I think wraith would be fine in the SB.
Here's my current list. Still needs more testing.

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Wraith helps us get out of the gate quickly, but it's a one-shot if we don't Thug it back to the top of our deck. PImp doesn't give a speed boost, but a consistency boost, making it better to have one on the table when we're dredging later in the game. Neither one helps us do anything but bring back Icky if we don't draw it naturally, though.

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Originally Posted by sampi

What cards do you guys normally take out to bring in DR package?

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A quick comment on your list: I would recommend keeping at least one Dread Return in the main, even if your only targets are Grave-Trolls. The thing that makes Dread Return and Cabal Therapy so useful is that their flashback cost generates tokens, and because the sacrifice is part of the cost of the spell, we get the tokens even if Dread Return gets countered. Therapy will make a token for every Bridge in your yard, but Dread Return makes three tokens per Bridge.

Regarding your question, it depends on the matchup for me. I tend to only bring in extra reanimation targets against decks with Chalice or other hate permanents that keep us from doing our thing. Containment Priest is an exception because, well...

Other places where bringing in more bruisers would help would be against Show and Tell and maybe Reanimator, simply because they both have reciprocal effects (S&T and Exhume). Not sure what I would cut at this point because we already have a pretty reasonable shot at going crazy in both matchups.

Versus Chalice-heavy decks, our big problem is that they can shut us off of our Looting effects at the drop of a hat. Having more Street Wraiths can give us non-spell dredges, and using more Dread Returns and viable targets is supposed to make it easier to bring back a game-breaking threat before they can lock us up. I've been cutting all my copies of Careful Study and 1x Thug or Ichorid to make it happen, but I'm thinking of cutting a Faithless Looting or LED, or maybe one Bridge instead because they've got so many ways to sacrifice creatures. I'd never, ever board out Bridge in any other matchup, but Eldrazi Spawn and Endless Ones are made to stop us from doing our thing.

I wouldn't ever board out Therapy in that matchup because it can still get us Bridge tokens even if the spell gets countered. It's also a total beast on the play, especially if we can flash it back quickly if we miss on our first cast.

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Originally Posted by sampi

Also, has anyone tried realm razer in their decks before? I don't know how much of a blowout the razer is because lands has a lot of redundant cards and it's not a super fast clock.

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I think Ashen Rider would be more useful in that matchup. Razer doesn't seem all that good in other matchups, it's a lot smaller (vulnerable to Punishing Fire), and two targeted exiles are hard to beat.