[Deck] Non-LED Based Dredge/Ichorid Combo

@DDD – I don’t do this much; I think I did it once in the last tournament I played in. It can be useful in games 2 and 3 but it very much depends on what your hand looks like (being able to follow it up with a careful study) and what deck your playing against. The problem with DDD is that you often depend a lot on your first dredge and if that isn’t good, you really need to pray that your careful study shows you something relevant…

@DR-targets – What targets to play depends on your meta and preference / play-style. I’ll probably stick with Sphinx and FKZ although Witness remains an option because of its usefulness after boarding (I’ve tried Iona but didn’t like her). I don’t like to play no targets aside from GGT. Troll leaves too much room for recovery; for instance if you only have 1 Bridge in the yard and no Therapy’s, you have to hope they don’t have a StP or PtE in hand. If you replace Troll with FKZ or Hypnotist; you either still do 9 damage that turn or leave them without a hand… With a Sphinx or Witness you can probably dredge into more Bridges and DR’s/Therapy.

@AcidFiend – If you only play 4 PImp and 3 Tribes MD and no Study; don’t you find yourself without a discard outlet very often? I run 4 Pimp, 4 Tribe and 3 Study and I wouldn’t cut one of them.

@ SB-ing – I never take out all DR’s. If I take out Sphinx and don’t board another target in (i.e. Chosen), I’ll take out 1 but hardly ever more than that. While I agree that games 2 and 3 or often won on Ichorid beats; being able to DR in a turn where you have just dredged 1 or more Bridges is just too good.

@SB: I’m probably going to fit in a playset of Chalice of the Void. I lost to ANT in the QF in my last tournament and I think the matchup can be winnable if we can drop a Chalice at 0 on turn 1 (and have some luck with our hand and dredges).
My SB will probably be something like this:
4 CotV
4 Ancient Grudge
1 Ancestor’s Chosen
3 Firestorm
3 CoV

Do the decks you all are siding in Firestorm against not run Crypts or Relics? Seems like Firestorm forces you to discard more, and it makes it easy for them to Crypt you pretty heavily.

I mostly side them in against decks able to counter my other discard outlets. But obviously you don't want to discard your entire hand with firestorm if you know your opponent brought in GY-hate. For me it's first an uncounterable discard outlet and secondly a way to get rid of pesky critters like Teeg.

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Originally Posted by Muradin

I think that you just don't need any Dread Return targets at all.

My maindeck is running very smoothly without DR targets and while they are for sure cool and nice to have sometimes they are win-more most of the time and hardly win any games you would otherwise have lost.

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The only DR target I wouldn't cut is Sphinx. IMO its the LEDless version of Deep Analysis, and helps you keep going off. This either generates huge threat or gets me out of a rut whenever I animate it.

Other cards like FKZ/Chosen/Primus border on unnecessary (MD). Ages ago builds would run two Sage, I'm even wondering if I've gone too far astray and shouldn't try 2 Sphinx. Anyways..

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Originally Posted by ZZZ

@AcidFiend – If you only play 4 PImp and 3 Tribes MD and no Study; don’t you find yourself without a discard outlet very often? I run 4 Pimp, 4 Tribe and 3 Study and I wouldn’t cut one of them.

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To clarify, I run 4 Tribe MD, but yes, sometimes I don't have a discard outlet. Thoughtseize can target self so its no less an outlet than Study (in slots, it discards 1 less obviously). Its not ideal, the opponent will probably lol, but I've won games like that. Also we can both Cabal ourselves. Having 7 turn 1 discard effects is very powerful. With Thoughtseize + Therapy you can disrupt someone right out of the game.

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Originally Posted by AcidFiend

The only DR target I wouldn't cut is Sphinx. IMO its the LEDless version of Deep Analysis, and helps you keep going off. This either generates huge threat or gets me out of a rut whenever I animate it.

Other cards like FKZ/Chosen/Primus border on unnecessary (MD). Ages ago builds would run two Sage, I'm even wondering if I've gone too far astray and shouldn't try 2 Sphinx. Anyways...

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I wouldn't say that FKZ/... are unnecessary; I think 3 DR and 2 targets MD is the best configuration to combo out as early as possible. Very often it won't really matter what you target with DR as you just gain 6 or more zombies off of it and win from there. However if you only run Sphinx (or Troll) as a target; you'll always give your opponent 1 more turn to deal with your Zombie army. While there aren't that many decks who can deal with this (especially in the first couple of turns of the game); there are decks who can (EE, Deed, Firespout, WoG are all cards you see in several of the Decks to Beat) so why take that risk and why not just take away their resources to deal with your Zombies?
Of course if in your meta you don't see many mass removal spells MD, I can understand that you don't feel the need to run FKZ or Hypnotist.

Sphinx is indeed useful sometimes to continue dredging although I don't seem to use it that much which has me got me thinking of going back to Witness just because of its versatility (especially in the post board games).

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Originally Posted by AcidFiend

To clarify, I run 4 Tribe MD, but yes, sometimes I don't have a discard outlet. Thoughtseize can target self so its no less an outlet than Study (in slots, it discards 1 less obviously). Its not ideal, the opponent will probably lol, but I've won games like that. Also we can both Cabal ourselves. Having 7 turn 1 discard effects is very powerful. With Thoughtseize + Therapy you can disrupt someone right out of the game.

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I think running more discard than 4 Therapy depends a lot on your meta. If you face mostly blue decks and combo, I can understand.
Although I think it makes the deck a bit les consistent. The biggest benefit of Careful Study is that it's both a discard outlet and it draws you cards which makes it much easier to have a starting seven with all 4 things dredge wants to see (i.e. mana, discard outlet, dredger and draw).
In my last tournament I played 7 rounds of Swiss and a QF and I mulliganed to 5 once. This is what makes me play the LEDless version (+ the fact that it plays through hate more easily) and I believe Study adds a great deal to this decks consistency.

In my metagame people run quite some mass destruction effects but I still don't need any Dread Return targets. Assuming you can Dread Return you probably also have 1-2 Cabal Therapies available. Use those on cards that might still give your opponent a shot at winning this game and you are fine.
Most commonly played cards that kill your tokens will not kill GGT. For example Deed, Firespout, Pyroclasm, Engineered Explosives... I guess those are the most common ones.

For sure Wrath of God can take out GGT as well but that costs 4 mana, does not see that much play and can be therapied away easily. Of course Swords to Plowshares will eventually kill your GGT but does that matter? Most of the time you can therapy those away and even if it happens you still got a bunch of zombies to smash face with.

Taking into consideration that all those attempts to win fail you still got some random dudes like Moebas, Tribes, Imps and Ichorid beat down to finish your opponents off as they are quite likely to have used a lot of resources to get rid of your troll and the zombies.

I don't even see DR as ways to get a big guy into play much rather as a sacrifice outlet for 3 creatures with a nice benefit beneath netting you many zombies.

The only matchup where DR targets are really important is the combo matchup where cards like Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor can protect their cards from Cabal Therapy (in case you didn't dredge more than 1-2 of those) and set up a kill for them in the next few turns.
However the situations where you get to dredge a lot and resolve some therapies and pass with an awesome board position and proceed to lose are quite rare. I even doubt that those DR targets make the combo matchup much easier as without special sideboard cards the LED-less versions are too slow most of the time to beat combo anyway so you basically get an about 2-3 % better matchup by wasting 2 slots in your deck that could be used to max out consistency and making the deck more stable, thus improving the deck in general.

In short: consistency > occasional utility

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Originally Posted by Muradin

I don't even see DR as ways to get a big guy into play much rather as a sacrifice outlet for 3 creatures with a nice benefit beneath netting you many zombies.

The only matchup where DR targets are really important is the combo matchup where cards like Brainstorm or Mystical Tutor can protect their cards from Cabal Therapy (in case you didn't dredge more than 1-2 of those) and set up a kill for them in the next few turns.
However the situations where you get to dredge a lot and resolve some therapies and pass with an awesome board position and proceed to lose are quite rare. I even doubt that those DR targets make the combo matchup much easier as without special sideboard cards the LED-less versions are too slow most of the time to beat combo anyway so you basically get an about 2-3 % better matchup by wasting 2 slots in your deck that could be used to max out consistency and making the deck more stable, thus improving the deck in general.

In short: consistency > occasional utility

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I agree that DR is first and foremost a sac outlet for 3 creatures and secondly a reanimation spell but why not make that reanimation target something that maximizes the chance of winning.

Let's take the following example: you DR a Troll with 2 Bridges in the yard and 1 Therapy. Your opponent is playing 4c CounterTop and has a Top in play. You flashback your Therapy naming EE (or Firespout) and see a hand with StP and Brainstorm. You give your opponent the opportunity here to plow your Troll and dig with Top and BS for one of his mass removal spells...
Now granted everything should perfectly fall into place for him and so this won't happen that much but it takes 1 slot in your deck to avoid these situations.
Sphinx you can basically see as another Breakthrough or Coliseum so the only 'situational' DR-target would be FKZ and that one slot is not going to make your deck a whole lot less consistent.

Well, in case you can DR and just got 1 Therapy you probably didn't dredge that much of your deck thus far. So it is basically not that likely that you dredged your 1-off DR target. Moreover they have to get very lucky to get out of said situation and even if they do so you probably still got and Ichorid or more in your graveyard and they still didn't remove your bridge from below so even if all of that happens - well, you're still probably winning anyway unless they have like 3 goyfs in play. You just can't expect to dredge your 1-off whenever you can use your Dread Return. I just don't want to put cards into this deck that are basically unneeded, let's assume 80% of the times you resolve a Dread Returns you win with Troll as well, I guess that's quite fair.)

Most games you lose preboard you don't even get the chance to Dread Return anything, so basically DR targets are for sure handy quite handy, I played a 3/2 DR's / targets for a quite long time myself and I definitely see why they were needed in the old extended lists, but in Legacy I still haven't lost any games because my list lacks DR targets in the maindeck. I run one in the SB myself but those are certain metagame adjustments that can be taken if some strange deck runs rampant in your meta.

I totally agree that it is a rare situation to not win when you have DR'ed a Troll with a couple of Bridges in the yard but I know I wouldn't have won a game against ANT recently if I didn't ran FKZ.

Speaking of the combo matchup, does anybody has some good SB-options aside from Chalice?
I lost to ANT 1-2 the last time and the 3rd game he combo'ed off in turn 2 while I could've combo'ed turn 3. I think if we can slow them down just a bit the matchup is winnable (still not in our favour though). But the problem is that I don't want to slow my deck down too much by boarding in 6 or more cards.
I'm going to test Chalice a bit more but the problem is that you need to mulligan towards it and that can again slow you down too much...

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Originally Posted by ZZZ

Let's take the following example: you DR a Troll with 2 Bridges in the yard and 1 Therapy. Your opponent is playing 4c CounterTop and has a Top in play. You flashback your Therapy naming EE (or Firespout) and see a hand with StP and Brainstorm. You give your opponent the opportunity here to plow your Troll and dig with Top and BS for one of his mass removal spells...

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I think you played that situation wrong. If you are starting to get a bunch of zombies into play, you can assume he doesn't have Engineered Explosives or he would have used it. Generally here I would Therapy before casting Dread Return and clear out Swords to Plowshares. Then in order to win he needs to topdeck an StP and remove my Zombies and remove my Ichorids. If you take away StP, they have to topdeck a Swords to win; no other card can really do it. They may have multiple ways to stop the Zombie horde, but only one out to Troll.

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Originally Posted by Muradin

You just can't expect to dredge your 1-off whenever you can use your Dread Return. I just don't want to put cards into this deck that are basically unneeded, let's assume 80% of the times you resolve a Dread Returns you win with Troll as well, I guess that's quite fair.)

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Yeah, but that 1 slot does increase the win % more than it costs you consitency, so I feel like adding it is the way to go.

And against combo a Troll just doesn't do the trick most of the time.



@ZZZ:
Should have played like Anusie said =)


@ ComboMatchup: Well, i'd call my MU favourable, and i do in fact board in 6 cards.
3 Firestorm
2 Duress
1 Chosen

Firestorm can finish them off after the resolved AN, Duress gives you some time, as well as the Chosen.

And this MU is another reason why i like the Hypnotist > FKZ, it wins even with less tokens.

@ ZZZ: The LED version runs fine replacing CS with 3 discard effects. While FKZ gives Combo one less turn, the LEDless version is slower than LED and still has a hard time dealing lethal before ANT goes off. You said youself he went off Turn 2, and its rare that you'll get your FKZ + 20 dmg on Turn 2 (or turn 1 if you lost the dice roll). Thus taking a card from their hand may have been your best option.

I run a Chosen MD if it shows up in time, which could put me out of combo range, but doesn't require me to deal lethal that turn. I have thoughtseize from turn 1 to limit their resources. Its just not the best matchup no matter how you slice it.

I'm playing in a tournament tomorrow so I can stop theorycrafting then hehe. I think theres only one local ANT player anyways. There'll be plenty of Countertop, Merfolk & Zoo.

That's my list right now:

Main Deck:
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise

4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Golgari Grave troll
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Tireless Tribe
2 Dread Return
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths

Sideboard:
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Firestorm
4 Null Rod
2 Wispmare
1 Ancestor’s Chosen



Would you people change anything?


I'd like to have the 3rd Dread Return. You see, the deck is comboing frequently on turn 3. But when I got a nice hand, i.e. discard outlet + Breakthrough + Dredger, I can combo turn 2. The problem is that sometimes both Dread Return are in the last half of the deck. That may be the difference from winning or loosing for a ANT.


Question:
It's G2. The guy is running a Blue based Agroo or Agroo/Control deck, that I already faced both Fow and Daze. I side in all 4 Null Rod. My hand is 5c land, another land, Cabal Therapy, Null Rod, stuff (that I'm willing to keep).

Turn 1 he goes land + relic.
My turn I go 5c land + therapy. It wont get countered. I go for Fow or Daze? None?

I don't see any of them.
He goes turn 2, he does, whatever, land + 2cc creature.
My second turn I go land + Null Rod, right?
I mean, he must be luck to draw the counter, and after all I'm the agroo one.

Why did you cut a Tireless Tribe and not a Putrid Imp?

Edit: that hand sounds miserable. Are you really keeping hands without a dredger or a discard outlet?

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Originally Posted by Anusien

Why did you cut a Tireless Tribe and not a Putrid Imp?

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Probably to help feed Ichorid.

And you know, flying 2/2ers are better than 1/5 dudes.

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Originally Posted by NQN

And you know, flying 2/2ers are better than 1/5 dudes.

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Tireless Tribe is much better in most of your matchups, because the only way to kill it is StP.

I do only play LED-Dredge but I always felt like the little flyer is nice for some early beats and ofc for the ichorid trigger since he´s the only card you can remove without having at least a little disadvantage.

I do said I'd have other stuff. Anyway I wanted to make two questions with only one sample.

As they mentioned, Imp feeds Ichorid as well as help to punish the opponent. It helps a lot against ANT, since it makes their Ad range smaller. And that is a match we should be concerned with.
Tribe will help only against matchs we are already spected to win.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

I think you played that situation wrong. If you are starting to get a bunch of zombies into play, you can assume he doesn't have Engineered Explosives or he would have used it. Generally here I would Therapy before casting Dread Return and clear out Swords to Plowshares. Then in order to win he needs to topdeck an StP and remove my Zombies and remove my Ichorids. If you take away StP, they have to topdeck a Swords to win; no other card can really do it. They may have multiple ways to stop the Zombie horde, but only one out to Troll.

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Well yes, I should have thought that through more :wink: I was trying to illustrate that the speed that FKZ provides can matter on a rare occasion. Let's say then that you Therapy first for StP and see a hand with EE and Path to Exile...

I've played some games over the weekend without FKZ and while I still won most of my Game 1's, the deck seems to play a bit less like a combo deck to me. It's probably just a matter of playstyle and preference, although it did matter in one game.

@Pako: how relevant is Firestorm going to be against ANT? If the combo player plays Ad Nauseam he is not going to go below 5 or 4 life easily unless he already flipped Tendrils and Ill-Gotten Gains or he really needs to continue drawing because he doesn't have lethal storm or enough mana yet but that doesn't happen very often. You will need to have a lot of cards in hand to be able to kill him with a Firestorm.

@PImp; I really think 4 are necessary because he feeds to Ichorid but Tireless Tribe can be awesome in games 2&3 where you will sometimes have to slow dredge or hold off some beats until you can get your Ichorid or Zombie beats on. I play the full set of both...