[Deck] Dredge

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Originally Posted by Zappa

Hey guys I am going to a different area to play magic this week, but there's 1 match up I wanted to inquire about, as I am very unfamiliar with the match up. In case I fight against a Vengevine survival deck, can anyone let me know what to expect? Is this a match that I need a very aggressive hand? Or can is this something I can slow play as well? What usual hate should I expect? Thanks, I haven't fought the deck before so I am unfamiliar with it, but from what I've been hearing/reading it seems to be popular, so I wanted to be prepared and have an idea what to expect.

By the way, I play Non-LED dredge, with 15 lands, 11 dredgers, and 1 MD reanimation target.

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In order to answer this it would be nice to know what that one DR Target is. If it is Iona, that will definitely give you a good shot against VengeVival, for she stops their whole engine and simultaneously blocks away flying Vengevines.

Generally it will be very hard to win by slow rolling. Against landstill and the like you can do that without fearing much, for they don't have a clock. 3 flying Vengevines on turn 2, however, I would dare to say that is a clock.

At that point one has to differenciate, because your chances and strategy depend largely on the colors they play.

There are several lists around by now, that don't run blue any more. Against those you should just play as fast as you can and try to win as fast as possible.
Against lists with blue, you'll face pretty much the same problems as against Merfolk or Reanimator. You don't want to have your only discard outlet countered but slow rolling by DDDing could be too slow against their clock. Having multiple discard outlets in your opening hand will increase your chances to resolve one. For instance, if you are on the play and have two discard outlets and two lands in your opener, I would be aggressive and play them. In that scenario they will need 2 Force of Will plus pitch cards in order to counter your outlets, which is very unlikely. If you're on the draw, Daze is a much bigger threat and it could be a better strategy to start slowly by discarding a Dredger in your first Cleanup step.

Hate:
As stated above, Faerie Macabre will be a common threat. Most lists with Survival use her because they can tutor her up. Apart from that the usual hate artifacts Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus should be the most common hate pieces. Leyline of the Void and Yixlid Jailer are off-color, so they should be rare (note however lists with a black splash could run Yixlid for the same reasons as Macabre: Survival can search for it).
All in all, Nature's Claim would be a great anti-hate card, hitting Survival, Crypt, Relic as well as Leyline and Wheel of sun and Moon. But Grudge, Needle, Chain of Vapor or whatever you run should work as well as soon as you know what your opponent has.

EDIT: As far as Dread Return targets are concerned it should be noted that Iona is probably your best bet against VengeVival. Especially non-white lists which don't have Swords to Plowshares will have a really tough time getting past her. Iona is strictly better than Grave Trolls here because she can block flying Vengevines and because it will be quite hard to actually recur Vengevines without green spells (no Rootwallas, no Noble Hierarchs, or no Survival at all if they don't have it yet).

If you are discussing a single Dread Return target against vengevines, it would be Blazing Archon. Of course, white lists have removal, but this is the problem with Iona as well: if you name green, they remove it, if white, they cast green stuff and win. UG lists have pretty much nothing to stop any of your targets.

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Originally Posted by Hopo

If you are discussing a single Dread Return target against vengevines, it would be Blazing Archon. Of course, white lists have removal, but this is the problem with Iona as well: if you name green, they remove it, if white, they cast green stuff and win. UG lists have pretty much nothing to stop any of your targets.

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That is correct, Archon is awesome against them. But as I was also talking about game one, when a Dredge player won't have any Archons and due to the fact that Blazing Archon is very rare, even in the sideboard, I talked about Iona.
And as you say it depends on their colors. UG can't win through Iona on green at all. GW doesn't have counter spells, so you can just play aggressively and your clock should be faster than theirs. So from my expierience the biggest problem will be lists that run UGW, for they have access to counter spells as well as white removal. But those lists are pretty rare as far as I know...

@Shaboogs

Regarding the DDD plan by going 2nd. Are you doing this game 1 or 3? I once tried to DDD on game 3 against MUC since they like to counter my discard outlets, however, seeing a Relic on turn 1 backed with counters from them is just... ugh.

EDIT: I mentioned game 1 coz I don't know if you're like me who likes to spy on people after ending your matches quickly. So it's possible you know what you're against game 1.

I choose to go 2nd almost all the time (with going against storm/belcher as the only exceptions). going 2nd also nets me 1 more card which could help me improve my opening hand in addition to being able to go the DDD route. The DDD route does change post board depending on what kind of hate they bring in but getting them to go first gives me an idea on what kind of hate they have and how I can deal with them. I also like to look around and watch other people's matches whenever I finish my matches quickly so that I can get an idea of the tournament meta.

Being on the draw against Zoo or whatever is pretty awful.

Also, what if you, like, mulligan?

Could you elaborate how awful it is going on the draw against zoo in your case? I've had no problems with zoo being on the draw (pre and post board). From my experience, you only lose to zoo if you kept a slow hand. You can DDD on your first turn then breakthrough, CC and/or DA+LED on the next (if you hit a dredger or two) and win. If I mulligan, I obviously drop the DDD plan and look for a better opening hand.

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Originally Posted by SHABOOGS

Could you elaborate how awful it is going on the draw against zoo in your case? I've had no problems with zoo being on the draw (pre and post board). From my experience, you only lose to zoo if you kept a slow hand. You can DDD on your first turn then breakthrough, CC and/or DA+LED on the next (if you hit a dredger or two) and win. If I mulligan, I obviously drop the DDD plan and look for a better opening hand.

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You must be very very lucky to always get "Dredger + Cephalid Coliseum + Breakthrough + other land" hands without mulliganing.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

You must be very very lucky to always get "Dredger + Cephalid Coliseum + Breakthrough + other land" hands without mulliganing.

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Sorry for the typo there. What I meant to say was you can drop a land and cast breakthrough or drop cephalid coliseum and LED and activate cephalid coliseum with LED or drop LED, activate it and flashback deep analysis on your second turn. Of course there are times when you can perform 2 of those draw effects mentioned. Although I don't always get "Dredger + Cephalid Coliseum + Breakthrough + other land" hands and this is just based on my experience but I get a hand with "dredger, coliseum, and LED" more often than I should so going second also helps me reach threshold to make the LED+CC on the first turn possible (but I still DDD on the first turn).

you must be fortunate to always draw Breakthrough/Study/Colisem/LED+Deep is Anusien's point, I think. And to never mulligan when the discard step is your only outlet.

Most decklists does have at least 10 or more of each component (land, dredger, draw effect) so having one of each in an opening hand should be consistent enough (at least consistent enough in my experience with the deck). Having a permanent discard outlet in your opening 7 is a bonus when your going second since you have the clean up step as an uncounterable discard outlet for your dredger.

I usually only choose to draw when going against slow blue with heavy counters (force in particular). However now I'm starting to doubt that option since I play firestorm postboard. I think being on the play and finding a better hand is more important than choosing to draw and pitching during the discard step. Being on the draw opens you up to crap like daze, spell pierce which are a pain. Mulliganning is very important and common when playing this deck. Choosing to draw IMO is not a very good idea in 90% of cases.

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Originally Posted by SHABOOGS

Most decklists does have at least 10 or more of each component (land, dredger, draw effect) so having one of each in an opening hand should be consistent enough (at least consistent enough in my experience with the deck). Having a permanent discard outlet in your opening 7 is a bonus when your going second since you have the clean up step as an uncounterable discard outlet for your dredger.

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It's far far far less than 50% to have one of each with 10 cards for each role. I actually did the math at one point.

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Originally Posted by SHABOOGS

Most decklists does have at least 10 or more of each component (land, dredger, draw effect) so having one of each in an opening hand should be consistent enough (at least consistent enough in my experience with the deck). Having a permanent discard outlet in your opening 7 is a bonus when your going second since you have the clean up step as an uncounterable discard outlet for your dredger.

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Multivariate hypergeometric distribution gives you a probability of .49 that you will draw one or more lands, one or more dredgers, and one or more draw spells when you have twelve lands, twelve dredgers, and twelve draw spells. With ten of each, p=.36.

Consider buying lottery tickets.

If you add the 8 discard outlets in the mix then it'll be p<.36 which means that it's more difficult to look for a discard outlet compared to the other components in your opening hand which is why I prefer to go second most of the times.

Have you guys ever played an LED version with 14+ lands? It's far easier to assemble Breakthrough/Careful Study -> crack LED in resp -> dredge. Not only that, but the ability to just hard cast creatures is extremely useful and underutilized IMO.

I'm playing 11 Dredgers, 6 draw (4 Breakthrough, 2 Careful Study) + 2 Deep Analysis, and 14 land (2 Citadels) and it's a lot more consistent than the typical 12 land setup, while also retaining the explosiveness of LED.

I still have room for 3 Ichorid, 2 Dread Return (3 would be best, but it's fair sacrifice), FKZ and Sphinx.

My SB has Tribes and the 4th Ichorid, so I can pretty easily transition into LEDless dredge for game 2 on the draw.

Sorry keys, I am a firm believer of non-led but 14 lands + led seems much better. If you need the speed in a combo-ish meta, I think your list looks very solid.

Ok just observations, I play the standard non-led lists with 4 of everything expect with 15 lands. I followed everyone's advise and cut an ichorid for the 15th land but I've noticed that dread return is a better cut. With just 3 ichorids, I can rarely flashback dread return (I run 2). I use my dudes to flash cabal therapies first and I rarely have enough to get out a dread return. And when I actually do flash it back for a golgari grave troll, it usually feels "win more". So is playing the 4th ichorid and just 1 dread return MD a good idea? I have the 2nd dread return in the board along with 2 targets. Cheers!

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Originally Posted by sa17dk

I personally prefer Iona and FKZ, but if I had to run FKZ + Sphinx/Witness, I would run the Witness.

Anyways, so I've been trying to build a list that combines the best of both worlds as I've been constantly switching back and forth between LED and non-LED dredge. I like the explosiveness of the LED builds, but I also like the increased land count of the LED-less versions. The biggest problem I had with the LED build was that I would get hands with LED, Breakthrough, and a dredger, but no land to actually cast the Breakthrough. The other problem was getting hands without LED. When that happens I'm basically playing a shittier version of non-LED dredge cause the deck runs less lands, no Tribes, and dead DA's. As a result, when I dont have LED the rest of the hand/other hands tend to be less keepable.

Thus, I want a hybrid build that would incorporate the following in the MD (in addition to all the other normal dredge stuff of course):

2-3 Tireless Tribes
3-4 LED
2 Deep Analysis
14 Lands

The hard part is figuring out what to cut. I'm probably going to have to cut all the other cute maindeck DR targets (e.g. Iona). Many people have already advocated cutting cute maindeck Dread Return targets because theyre not needed. Results seem to agree: http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37949. I'm not sure that FKZ is really even needed at all except in the combo matchup. I mean, imagine it's game one, and you manage to do the whole LED + Breakthrough + Deep Analysis bullshit on turn 1. Now you've basically dredged your entire deck and have a million zombie tokens. Realistically, what's going to stop you? Very few decks - with the exception of decks like Enchantress - can do anything about it.

This is the preliminary list I've been thinking of:

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
3 Golgari Thug
3 Tireless Tribe

Enchantments:
4 Bridge from below

Artifacts:
4 Lion's eye Diamond

Sorceries:
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
2 Dread Return
2 Deep Analysis

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

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This was from a while back when I was tinkering with a stable LED hybrid.

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Originally Posted by Izor

In order to answer this it would be nice to know what that one DR Target is... *snip*

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I don't know how I totally missed your post while I posted. But anyways, I played 4 rounds of swiss, having a 3-1 record. Losing my 3rd match vs Survival deck. I totally didn't have any experience playing against it. It's unfortunate that I did not see your post, when it's the very top of this page. I would have had changed my main decked dread return target, and followed your advise had I seen it. Iona is normally my DR target, but I wasn't so sure at the time so I took her out.

Here's the list that I had at the time.

4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Tarnished Citadel
3 Cephalid Coliseum

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return

4 Narcomoeba
3 Ichorid

1 Darkblast

4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug

4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe

4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
1 Angel of Despair



Sideboard:
2 Unmask
4 Nature's Claim
4 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
3 Firestorm
1 Ancestor's Chosen


I won against Merfolk, then won against Zoo, lost against survival deck with vengevines, and almost lost against a BW Leyline/Helm of Obedience that had main decked Leyline and Bojuka bog and he even had tormod's crypt in the sideboard, and he apperantly had a main decked Moat which he told me he was hoping to see... what the heck.

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Originally Posted by ivanpei

Sorry keys, I am a firm believer of non-led but 14 lands + led seems much better. If you need the speed in a combo-ish meta, I think your list looks very solid.

Ok just observations, I play the standard non-led lists with 4 of everything expect with 15 lands. I followed everyone's advise and cut an ichorid for the 15th land but I've noticed that dread return is a better cut. With just 3 ichorids, I can rarely flashback dread return (I run 2). I use my dudes to flash cabal therapies first and I rarely have enough to get out a dread return. And when I actually do flash it back for a golgari grave troll, it usually feels "win more". So is playing the 4th ichorid and just 1 dread return MD a good idea? I have the 2nd dread return in the board along with 2 targets. Cheers!

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If you are running as DR target just the GGT 2 DR is enought. Rely on your 4 ichorids. I always say: "never less than 4 ichorids".