[Deck] Dredge

In a meta that is as wide open as yours I would deffinitly recommend some kind of anti hate, because with BUG Landstill and Aggro Loam you have two potentional candidates for Leyline of the Void and if you got another Dredge player in your meta, then I will ensure you that the other players will squeeze more hate into their boards.

So the decks in your meta can basicly play any kind of hate, from Bojuka Bog over Relic of Leyline of the Void to Relic of Progenitus or Tormnonds Crypt.
Luckily we can handle them with only 2 cards: Ancient Grudge and Natures Claim.
So lets start with 4 of them each
->
4 Ancient Grudnge
4 Natures Claim
7 Slots remaining

The next 4 slots could contain either a playset of Firestorm, Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sactity. While Firestorm can deal with Merfolk, Affinity and Faeries, Leyline of the Void just wins the mirror if your opponent is unprepared and Leyline of Sactity could potentional buy you the one turn you need to win against TES ( and don't get me wrong: they don't really have any problem to deal with a Leyline, but if it slows them down for one turn, then it got the job done). Also you can also shut down Crypt, Bok, etc. with the Leyline (actually the only way to deal with Bok).
As you got only 1 storm player I would recommend 4 Firestorms, because frying fish and faeries is never a bad idea.
->
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
3 Slots remaining

The last 3 slots should be devoted to DR targets. As there are so many different targets to choose from you should pick some targets who turn the board state into your favor.
Elesh Norn, Iona and Flame Kin Zealot would come into my mind, as each of them can win a game on his own.
Norn is great in the mirror, against Fish, Faeries, Zoo or Affinity, while Iona and Zealot are good against Combo and Control.

The final board would look like this:
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Flamekin Zealot

The only way to find out if the board works for you is testing ;).


Well if I'm posting a comment anyway, then I can also include a short report:

Local Tourney, 13 player:

Round 1: Affinity
G1.: He wins the die roll and starts with Darksteel Citadell and some dudes, while I start with a Putrid Imp, followed up by a turn two Breakthrough. On his second turn he played a Ancient Tomb and said something about a missplay on his side, well one Therapy later he loses two Masters of Etherium and the combined force of Ichorid and Zombies take him down quickly.
G2: He leads with a turn 1 Relic, while I start with City and Study, finding a Tireless Tribe while discarding a Troll and a Grudge. On his second turn he plays a Cranial Plating, leaving one mana open for his Relic.
As the Troll is my only dredger I dredge once, play another city and my Tribe. At the end of his third turn I flashback the Grundge to destroy his Relic, leaving me with an empty graveyrd. However in my upkeep I discard the Troll again, play a Colluseum, crack it and animated a big fat Troll to seal the deal (alongside his Zombie buddys).

Round 2: GW Maverick
G1: I start with Carefull Study, discarding Imp and Thug, while he leads with Canopy into Zenith for Dryad Arbor. On my turn I cast another Study and a Breakthrough, leading to a quick surrender from my opponent.
G2: He starts with Forest and Noble Hierach and I just discard a Grave Troll. In his second turn my opponent goes for another Hierach as well as a Mother of Runes, attacking me down to 18. My Troll finds another Troll and an Imp, so I decide to go all in and go for Gemstone Mine into Breakthrough. I find a couple of Moebas and 3 Bridges, so its basicly game over. After sculpting his hand with Therapies I DR for a big Troll and he scoops it up.

Round 3: Affinity
G1: As I know what my opponet plays I lead with Cabal Therapy on my self, to discard 2 Imps. He does the usual Affinity start, with Memnite, Land, Mox, Planting and Frogmite. On my second turn I dredge an Imp, play Colluseum, crack it and cast two Therapys to wreck his hand. He dies one turn later due to Ichorid and Zombies.
G2: We both mulligan down to 5, however I'm still able to lead with a Putrid Imp and a Carefull Study. To speed things up: he doesn't find his hate and dies slowly to Ichorids and Zombies.

Round 4: DDFT
G1: He wins the die roll and reveals his hand, containing USea, 2 Ritual, 2 Petal , LED and Infernal..... nice one.
G2: I lead with a Leyline of Sanctity, he reveals 3 Orim's Chant and we are off to game 3.

Sidenote: We both know each other very well, so we didn't want to waste time watching the other jerking off.

G3: He starts with Top, while I start with a Putrid Imp. He is able to chantwalk me 3 times in a row, while I slowly fill my yard with Therapys. On his 5th turn he goes for a Doomesday, pass. Finaly I get to cast Study and some Therapys, leaving him with lands only. He ponders for a bit, plays Tendrils for 18 and shakes my hand, whew that was a close one.

So I end up 1st, my opponent from round two ends up 2nd and my opponent from round 4 ends up 3rd.

note that I didn't say his comment on the AoD and terastodon was wrong. I just pointed out that the statement about Ledbuilds was incorrect. I agree on the other points!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

In a meta that is as wide open as yours I would deffinitly recommend some kind of anti hate, because with BUG Landstill and Aggro Loam you have two potentional candidates for Leyline of the Void and if you got another Dredge player in your meta, then I will ensure you that the other players will squeeze more hate into their boards.

So the decks in your meta can basicly play any kind of hate, from Bojuka Bog over Relic of Leyline of the Void to Relic of Progenitus or Tormnonds Crypt.
Luckily we can handle them with only 2 cards: Ancient Grudge and Natures Claim.
So lets start with 4 of them each
->
4 Ancient Grudnge
4 Natures Claim
7 Slots remaining

The next 4 slots could contain either a playset of Firestorm, Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sactity. While Firestorm can deal with Merfolk, Affinity and Faeries, Leyline of the Void just wins the mirror if your opponent is unprepared and Leyline of Sactity could potentional buy you the one turn you need to win against TES ( and don't get me wrong: they don't really have any problem to deal with a Leyline, but if it slows them down for one turn, then it got the job done). Also you can also shut down Crypt, Bok, etc. with the Leyline (actually the only way to deal with Bok).
As you got only 1 storm player I would recommend 4 Firestorms, because frying fish and faeries is never a bad idea.
->
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
3 Slots remaining

The last 3 slots should be devoted to DR targets. As there are so many different targets to choose from you should pick some targets who turn the board state into your favor.
Elesh Norn, Iona and Flame Kin Zealot would come into my mind, as each of them can win a game on his own.
Norn is great in the mirror, against Fish, Faeries, Zoo or Affinity, while Iona and Zealot are good against Combo and Control.

The final board would look like this:
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Flamekin Zealot

---

I have to disagree here. I agree on the 4 Grudges part. Also on the 4 Nature's Claim part, although I prefer Wispmare atm (since its CMC 3 and serves the same purpose). But then you talk about 4 firestorm/leylines. I dont like any of those cards and I feel like those are inferior to Darkblast. The matchups you describe where Firestorm would shine: Merfolk/Faeries/Affinity. Affinity: I never found this a hard matchup at all tbh, with 4 grudge and some darkblasts to kill their 1 drops like signal pest.
The point about Darkblast vs Firestorm is: If you want to kill alot of creatures with firestorm you are going to hold it in your hand waiting for them to drop a significant ammount of creatures. By that time you want to be dredging. Merfolk will probably have a cursecatcher by that time, then when you cast Firestorm they simply counter your firestorm and remove your bridges and then swarm you with lords (not even talking about hate). While with darkblast: You kill their cursecatchers/silvergills at such an early state that the loss of bridges is minimal, and that all while dredging through counterspells. Also because you are making land drops you should be much better prepared for hate, being able to flashback grudges/therapys. With Firestorm you dont want to make land drops since it will keep you off DDD. And if you want to use Firestorm t1 to discard Darkblast/Or even DDD is a much more subtle way to achive this. These are my findings in the Merfolk Matchup, and it has been working perfectly so far.
My Sideboard atm:
4 Grudge
3 Wispmare
2 Ray of Relevation
2 Darkblast (got 1 MD also)
1 FKZ
1 Elesh
1 Realm razer
1 Sadistic Hypnotist

I cut Iona since I felt like Elesh was powerfull enough to fight the mono-colored aggro strategys, and for the mono-colored spell strategys like Burn and Spring tide I found racing them with FKZ or disrupting with Hypnotist to be just as effective.

Leyline is nice against combo, but it will slow you down a bit aswell, since you wont be able to DDD. (unless you opened with something insane ofcourse that had land DiscardOutlet Leyline and a dredger but I dont think those chances are too great). And All of those decks run some kind of answer to the card.

These are my thoughts, please let me know of you disagree on something :).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

In a meta that is as wide open as yours I would deffinitly recommend some kind of anti hate, because with BUG Landstill and Aggro Loam you have two potentional candidates for Leyline of the Void and if you got another Dredge player in your meta, then I will ensure you that the other players will squeeze more hate into their boards.

So the decks in your meta can basicly play any kind of hate, from Bojuka Bog over Relic of Leyline of the Void to Relic of Progenitus or Tormnonds Crypt.
Luckily we can handle them with only 2 cards: Ancient Grudge and Natures Claim.
So lets start with 4 of them each
->
4 Ancient Grudnge
4 Natures Claim
7 Slots remaining

The next 4 slots could contain either a playset of Firestorm, Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sactity. While Firestorm can deal with Merfolk, Affinity and Faeries, Leyline of the Void just wins the mirror if your opponent is unprepared and Leyline of Sactity could potentional buy you the one turn you need to win against TES ( and don't get me wrong: they don't really have any problem to deal with a Leyline, but if it slows them down for one turn, then it got the job done). Also you can also shut down Crypt, Bok, etc. with the Leyline (actually the only way to deal with Bok).
As you got only 1 storm player I would recommend 4 Firestorms, because frying fish and faeries is never a bad idea.
->
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
3 Slots remaining

The last 3 slots should be devoted to DR targets. As there are so many different targets to choose from you should pick some targets who turn the board state into your favor.
Elesh Norn, Iona and Flame Kin Zealot would come into my mind, as each of them can win a game on his own.
Norn is great in the mirror, against Fish, Faeries, Zoo or Affinity, while Iona and Zealot are good against Combo and Control.

The final board would look like this:
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Flamekin Zealot

---

I have to disagree here. I agree on the 4 Grudges part. Also on the 4 Nature's Claim part, although I prefer Wispmare atm (since its CMC 3 and serves the same purpose). But then you talk about 4 firestorm/leylines. I dont like any of those cards and I feel like those are inferior to Darkblast. The matchups you describe where Firestorm would shine: Merfolk/Faeries/Affinity. Affinity: I never found this a hard matchup at all tbh, with 4 grudge and some darkblasts to kill their 1 drops like signal pest.
The point about Darkblast vs Firestorm is: If you want to kill alot of creatures with firestorm you are going to hold it in your hand waiting for them to drop a significant ammount of creatures. By that time you want to be dredging. Merfolk will probably have a cursecatcher by that time, then when you cast Firestorm they simply counter your firestorm and remove your bridges and then swarm you with lords (not even talking about hate). While with darkblast: You kill their cursecatchers/silvergills at such an early state that the loss of bridges is minimal, and that all while dredging through counterspells. Also because you are making land drops you should be much better prepared for hate, being able to flashback grudges/therapys. With Firestorm you dont want to make land drops since it will keep you off DDD. And if you want to use Firestorm t1 to discard Darkblast/Or even DDD is a much more subtle way to achive this. These are my findings in the Merfolk Matchup, and it has been working perfectly so far.
My Sideboard atm:
4 Grudge
3 Wispmare
2 Ray of Relevation
2 Darkblast (got 1 MD also)
1 FKZ
1 Elesh
1 Realm razer
1 Sadistic Hypnotist

I cut Iona since I felt like Elesh was powerfull enough to fight the mono-colored aggro strategys, and for the mono-colored spell strategys like Burn and Spring tide I found racing them with FKZ or disrupting with Hypnotist to be just as effective.

Leyline is nice against combo, but it will slow you down a bit aswell, since you wont be able to DDD. (unless you opened with something insane ofcourse that had land DiscardOutlet Leyline and a dredger but I dont think those chances are too great). And All of those decks run some kind of answer to the card.

These are my thoughts, please let me know of you disagree on something :).

You definitely want four ancient grudges as that will stop most of these decks sideboard plans and help versus affinity and stifle nought big time. Depending what aggro loam man uses for hate you want 4 chain of vapors or 4 nature's claim, I prefer the former. Winds of change might be a good one to use against dredge and TES. Then fill the other slots with your favorite/most useful dread return targets. Ancestor's Chosen and Elesh Norm seem to be the best for your meta. Also darkblast is indeed awesome try to squeeze in one or two. Good luck.

This post is directed to Vojvod_dop, quote thing didn't work.

@joemauer- I like your screen name.

I've been having some rough times with the standard 15 land, 13 dredger list as of late, so I decided I'd have some fun this week and play the manaless build since I don't think anyone on here has actually played the deck in a tournament. Hopefully I'll catch some people off guard. Here's the list I'm going to play today:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Chancellor of the Forge
1 River Kelpie
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Angel of Despair
1 Flame-kin Zealot

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dread Return

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void - I've played the mirror twice in the last two tournaments I've been in
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Chalice of the Void - I only have a single copy
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

@1maarten1: I have to disagree about the Firestorms. They work as an uncounterable discard-outlet, and it's a good option when Mental Misstep can counter all your stuff. You don't need to wait your opponent fill his table, cast Firestorm, and gets it countered... you can use it for 2 or 3, and kill 2 dudes on the end of turn.
Darkblast work as a discard-outlet too, but Dredge 3 is not going to save you from the mermaids.

So, I top 8ed said tournament with the manaless list above, going 4-1-1 in the swiss (of a 40+ person tourney) and losing in the first round of top 8. My matches:

W 2-1 vs. the BUG deck that masquerades as Team America, but plays Bob and Jace
W 2-1 vs. Affinity
W 2-1 vs. Belcher
L 1-2 vs. Dredge (a standard build with no Return targets main) - found Leyline games two and three
W 2-1 vs. NO RUG
ID

Top 8
L 1-2 vs. Cephalid Breakfast - comboed out on turn three of game one before I could Cabal Therapy his hand away the following turn; found Leyline game three

The deck performed a lot better than I initially expected; it's much more resilient versus one-shot grave removal than I'd thought. I wasn't sure about the sideboard coming into the tournament, but after, I wouldn't change a card in the 75 (possibly aside from the miser's Chalice of the Void, but it did win me a match). The deck has a lot of little things going for it, like a better combo matchup than a traditional build, and the fact that losing the die roll is actually winning the die roll, since you'll (usually) get to draw first, and you won't give away any information about what you're playing. The negatives are that you'll likely be playing three games per match, and the fact that Leyline of the Void wins the game on the spot (my only two match losses were because of it).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KevinTrudeau

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Spirit
4 Chancellor of the Forge
1 River Kelpie
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Angel of Despair
1 Flame-kin Zealot

4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dread Return

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void - I've played the mirror twice in the last two tournaments I've been in
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Chalice of the Void - I only have a single copy
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

---

Neat list. Couple questions.

1: Phantasmagoria looks pretty cool, how are you using him? Just discard him first, use him as a discard outlet?
2: I think someone was running the black chancellor as a DR target, and as a way to get mana free value, have you thought about it?
3: Nether Spirit seems fairly clunky, since you kind of have to chew through your graveyard in order to keep it active.

Other than all that, the list seems pretty cool.

Phantasmagorian was awesome all day, and really feels like a core card in the manaless build. I don't think I ever discarded it turn one, but there are certain situations, like an opener with a dredger, 2x 'Gorian, and a Nether Shadow, where I'd assuredly bin it first. The trick I used all day was to discard a Nether Shadow EOT whenever I'd dredged into a Phantasmagorian, then activate 'Gorian during their end step by discarding three creatures so I'd have a fresh Nether Shadow the next turn. Once you hit two, you can start chaining them and just basically discard your hand, which when done conservatively and not all willy-nilly, is often times a game winning interaction.

Black Chancellor seems awful; the six point life swing isn't really all that important, and DRing a 6/6 flying lifelinker is pretty underwhelming. I play the red one mainly because it gives you a free token, with the small secondary benefit of acting as a Flame-kin Zealot some of the time. Having a free token at the start of the game to be able to sac to Therapy or DR is huge.

'Twas a typo, I meant Nether Shadow. I'll fix it in the first post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mojeh

@1maarten1: I have to disagree about the Firestorms. They work as an uncounterable discard-outlet, and it's a good option when Mental Misstep can counter all your stuff. You don't need to wait your opponent fill his table, cast Firestorm, and gets it countered... you can use it for 2 or 3, and kill 2 dudes on the end of turn.
Darkblast work as a discard-outlet too, but Dredge 3 is not going to save you from the mermaids.

---

I dont really get what you are stating here. You say you dont have to keep it in your hand and then you talk about killing 2-3 creatures at the end of the turn. What I am saying is: you firestorm t1 for 2 or 3 creatures leaving you with 3 or 4 cards in hand, if they hit you with GY removal it will take you alot longer to recover then when you went with t1 darkblast or just normal DDD. And sure dredge 3 isnt alot, but it kills their turn 1 and some turn 2 drops so it saves you more time. Darkblast just handles 1 thing alot better then firestorm and that is cursecatcher, which might be the most annoying thing in the entire merfolk deck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KevinTrudeau

So, I top 8ed said tournament with the manaless list above, going 4-1-1 in the swiss (of a 40+ person tourney) and losing in the first round of top 8. My matches:

W 2-1 vs. the BUG deck that masquerades as Team America, but plays Bob and Jace
W 2-1 vs. Affinity
W 2-1 vs. Belcher
L 1-2 vs. Dredge (a standard build with no Return targets main) - found Leyline games two and three
W 2-1 vs. NO RUG
ID

Top 8
L 1-2 vs. Cephalid Breakfast - comboed out on turn three of game one before I could Cabal Therapy his hand away the following turn; found Leyline game three

The deck performed a lot better than I initially expected; it's much more resilient versus one-shot grave removal than I'd thought. I wasn't sure about the sideboard coming into the tournament, but after, I wouldn't change a card in the 75 (possibly aside from the miser's Chalice of the Void, but it did win me a match). The deck has a lot of little things going for it, like a better combo matchup than a traditional build, and the fact that losing the die roll is actually winning the die roll, since you'll (usually) get to draw first, and you won't give away any information about what you're playing. The negatives are that you'll likely be playing three games per match, and the fact that Leyline of the Void wins the game on the spot (my only two match losses were because of it).

---

Nice result, did you ever face a turn 1 Relic from your opponent? Because that seems like its pretty much game aswell. And I am pretty amazed leyline is so widely played in your meta, I never see it here. (I guess thats a good thing :)!)

@ 1maarten1,felidae and joemauer.Guys thx for advice! I have one more question,what sb plan and how to play vs Merfolk? I'm probably doing something wrong because they have answer to all my threats :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vojvoda_dop

@ 1maarten1,felidae and joemauer.Guys thx for advice! I have one more question,what sb plan and how to play vs Merfolk? I'm probably doing something wrong because they have answer to all my threats :)

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I take out the Dread Returns, since they are so awfull against cursecatcher, 2 thugs for 2 Darkblasts and 1 tribe.
so:
-1 tribe
-2 thug
-2 DR
for
3 Grudge
2 Darkblast

I have almost the same boarding plan against Merfolk. Only thing I do different is I don't take out tribes. Why exactly do you do that maarten?

Yeah, trim a cabal therapy instead of tribe would be the better move against merfolk. Besides that 1maarten1 has it right.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HokusSchmokus

I have almost the same boarding plan against Merfolk. Only thing I do different is I don't take out tribes. Why exactly do you do that maarten?

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Well I made a mistake :P I was in a hurry to go to my work so I wrote that down. I actually mistyped and ment to type 1 breakthrough (sometimes carefull study but I like to leave in all possible discard outlets). I leave in all the discard outlets because that is the first thing I want to land after I started DDD (and dredged another dredger ofcourse) So sorry for mistyping!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joemauer

Yeah, trim a cabal therapy instead of tribe would be the better move against merfolk. Besides that 1maarten1 has it right.

---

I never take out therapy tbh, I found it too multifunctional.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 1maarten1

I dont really get what you are stating here. You say you dont have to keep it in your hand and then you talk about killing 2-3 creatures at the end of the turn. What I am saying is: you firestorm t1 for 2 or 3 creatures leaving you with 3 or 4 cards in hand, if they hit you with GY removal it will take you alot longer to recover then when you went with t1 darkblast or just normal DDD. And sure dredge 3 isnt alot, but it kills their turn 1 and some turn 2 drops so it saves you more time. Darkblast just handles 1 thing alot better then firestorm and that is cursecatcher, which might be the most annoying thing in the entire merfolk deck.

---

I understood you said that we would have to keep our hand from discarding in order to make a greater Firestorm, I apologize.
Firestorm is obviously weaker to a GY hate, but it is also a way to discard your stuff without bothering with counters. Anyway, I'm going to test with no Firestorms in the 75, but I usually feel more threatened by a swarm of Lords than with a Cursecatcher, since I can win casting no spells at all.

Hey guys, first post here. Was hoping for some criticism/help on my Dredge list, as I'm planning on taking it to the SCG Open in Seattle and I'd like it to work as tightly as possible. Here's the list:

// Lands
4 [CH] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
3 [OD] Tarnished Citadel

// Creatures
3 [TO] Ichorid
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
1 [RAV] Flame-Kin Zealot

// Spells
3 [TSP] Dread Return
3 [OD] Careful Study
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 4 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 2 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 1 [JU] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 1 [ALA] Realm Razer

I got some feedback on the official Wizards forums and it was recommended to me to cut a Tarnished Citadel and run the Iona maindeck, but I'm unsure about what to run in the 'board in her place. I was also considering running Burning Inquiry in place of Careful Study, as Careful Study has been very underwhelming in my testing. Like, when I cast it, it doesn't seem to have much impact. I think Burning Inquiry might be great Dredge tech. Anyway, any feedback is definitely appreciated, I'd like this deck to run as well as humanly possible. Thanks in advance!

Also, since I'm very new with this deck, any advice on how to 'board against certain matchups, what to put in/take out, would also be great.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arbiter_of_Justice

Hey guys, first post here.
... I was also considering running Burning Inquiry in place of Careful Study, as Careful Study has been very underwhelming in my testing. Like, when I cast it, it doesn't seem to have much impact. I think Burning Inquiry might be great Dredge tech.
... Also, since I'm very new with this deck, any advice on how to 'board against certain matchups, what to put in/take out, would also be great.

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Hi. Welcome to Dredge. I greatly recommend reading through the last 15-20 pages of this thread, as that should answer most of the questions you have. A lot of new people are joining The Source, which is nice, but some of the threads are starting to sound like a broken record. We'll be happy to give our advice on things if we haven't already given them. I can tell you that Burning Inquiry is not great Dredge tech, as we generally want to control what we're discarding, and there are overall better options. (If all you're looking for is power, Winds of Change gives you a lot of bang.) Also, of the 15 lands you're running, only 11 can produce red, which means that even though Careful Study might not seem as explosive, it will be dead less often.

It seems like this deck has very little wiggle room, it's been streamlined by Max McCall in his primer and the main board from the top 4 finisher in BOM:5 (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...LEDless-Dredge) seems to be ideal. Most builds seem to have opted out of FKZ because its a win more card most of the time. The only match ups where winning on the spot is important is combo and combo decks seem to be taking up a smaller part of the meta with MM. Also Iona on a color they need to go off also solves the problem and can win games out of nowhere against decks as well. I wouldn't suggest cutting below 15 land, but the FKZ could be any of 3 or 4 cards depending on what kind of metagame you expect. Elesh Norn or Darkblast if aggro is a concern, Iona in a field of control/combo, AoD as a tool for dealing with random problem cards, ect. I do suggest cutting a DR for the 4th Study as well. I would swap Wispmare for Natures Claim in your board and cut a Ray for a second Darkblast.

I totally think it's not good in Dredge, but all of you should get a chance to share your opinion on this:

SPOILER ALERT!

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attac...5&d=1309234301

I'll state the obvious; it's garbage

Brainstorm and this card has the same utility in dredge as the put 2 back clause of brainstorm is irrelevant to dredge, and we all know dredge doesn't even play brainstorm when it has study and breakthrough

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Climax

I totally think it's not good in Dredge, but all of you should get a chance to share your opinion on this:

SPOILER ALERT!

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attac...5&d=1309234301

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all right I'll share my opinion :) It sucks. We have 8 draw spells that are alot better then this, hell even Gytaxian probe is better. If you want some kind of draw effect that you use during mid-combo go play some useless dread return target like Sphynx.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 1maarten1

all right I'll share my opinion :) It sucks. We have 8 draw spells that are alot better then this, hell even Gytaxian probe is better. If you want some kind of draw effect that you use during mid-combo go play some useless dread return target like Sphynx.

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Agreed, and Brainstorm would be the next after CS and BT. Brainstorm is better because it draws 3 anytime, and the put-back is actually relevant, for you can dredge the 2 you put back: dredger, MOEBA, anything useful (done that a lot, since I play a brainstorm MD)

@1maarten1:
sorry for the late reply.

Wispmare seems like a great way to fight MM, the only downside is the soccery speed and the fact that he only hits enchantments ( I guess if you know your local meta you can safely play him, but if you play in an open meta I'd still go for Claim, as it won't be a blank card against non Enchantment hate).

As for Firestorm I would agree with certain points, but I would only disagree with some of them:

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If you want to kill alot of creatures with firestorm you are going to hold it in your hand waiting for them to drop a significant ammount of creatures. By that time you want to be dredging.

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True point, but if we don't cast an early Breakthrough (and granted that we should usually win anaways if we resolve this) we are able to dredge quite freequently while holding Firestorm for the right moment.
Ofc this doesn't going to happen if Firestorm is your only discard outled, but in this case we shouldn't aim for killing a lot of creatures in the first place.

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Merfolk will probably have a cursecatcher by that time, then when you cast Firestorm they simply counter your firestorm and remove your bridges and then swarm you with lords (not even talking about hate).

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Last time I checked we could still pay for the Cursecatchers, if needed. Removing Bridges is a downside of this for sure, yet if we are using Firestorm in the first place to wipe there board so we should be aware of losing them (ofc by killing our own dudes as well and stacking Briges triggers right we still get our token, but they will be gone for sure).

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With Firestorm you dont want to make land drops since it will keep you off DDD

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Again if Firestorm is your only discard outled then we should use him as such and not as a way to wipe the board.

Darkblast is a good card and I'm happy to run the single copy in my maindeck, but the point that really favors Firestorm over other Darkblasts is the rise of those GW Zenith Decks, who can only defend themself with Mother of Runes against a Firestorm.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Felidae

@1maarten1:
sorry for the late reply.

Wispmare seems like a great way to fight MM, the only downside is the soccery speed and the fact that he only hits enchantments ( I guess if you know your local meta you can safely play him, but if you play in an open meta I'd still go for Claim, as it won't be a blank card against non Enchantment hate).

As for Firestorm I would agree with certain points, but I would only disagree with some of them:

True point, but if we don't cast an early Breakthrough (and granted that we should usually win anaways if we resolve this) we are able to dredge quite freequently while holding Firestorm for the right moment.
Ofc this doesn't going to happen if Firestorm is your only discard outled, but in this case we shouldn't aim for killing a lot of creatures in the first place.

Last time I checked we could still pay for the Cursecatchers, if needed. Removing Bridges is a downside of this for sure, yet if we are using Firestorm in the first place to wipe there board so we should be aware of losing them (ofc by killing our own dudes as well and stacking Briges triggers right we still get our token, but they will be gone for sure).

Again if Firestorm is your only discard outled then we should use him as such and not as a way to wipe the board.

Darkblast is a good card and I'm happy to run the single copy in my maindeck, but the point that really favors Firestorm over other Darkblasts is the rise of those GW Zenith Decks, who can only defend themself with Mother of Runes against a Firestorm.

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Alright :P! I dont really get the multi quote thing so Im just going to respond point per point.
Wispmare vs Claim
I never felt any matchup with artifact hard enough to board more then 4 ancient grudge. I only board Claims in as enchantment hate(and then I mean mostly Leyline because in almost all the other cases I prefer Ray of Revelation). I dont think the sorcery/instant debate is that much of a deal, plus the fact that wispmares triggers your bridges and can be dread returned (in case of moat or something) is relevent. So those are aditional reasons behind the fact that it cant be misstepped.

Cursecatcher:
Well paying it is not really the problem, removing bridges is really gnarly when you go all in on dread return which is very likely. Thats why I chose a more resilliant approach g2 and g3 versus merfolk. Sure if you can return an Elesh or an Iona it will most likely be game(mark my words most likely because that deck can do some insane stuff aswell :P) I rather keep my maindeck as strong as possible and make it more consistant by bringing in more dredgers and some artifact hate.

Firestorm:
I get the point that when you simply DDD and then cast a Firestorm after some time could be decent, I dont think it is very realistic that you can DDD and hold your storm long enough to cabal therapy a couple of times to strip the counters to make you firestorm of any use. While darkblast also gets that t1 dredger in the yard no mather what, gets rid of early threaths from them or might draw some counters so that you can resolve a draw spell or discard outlet.

On the Maverick matchup:
This is quite a tough matchup, and I think darkblast really does quite alot in the matchup, it gets rid of MoR, hierarch, dryad arbor. And since darkblast keeps returning to kill those creatures you can slow them down alot while stripping their hand for hate/big threats. I mean, they wont stop you from resolving an outlet t1 so they arent going to slow your dredge down alot. I dont see alot of advantages of firestorm over darkblast here since later in the game they will drop threaths like KotR and Terravore that are way out of reach of Firestorm nor Darkblast.

On using firestorm as a discard outlet turn 1:
I just do not get why you want to use a spell to do something that you can do at the end of your turn when they simply cant do anything about it? I mean in such a situation where the damage is not relevant, isnt DDD a much safer and better aproach?

Ill try to formulate some of the pro's and con's on both cards: feel free to comment!
Darkblast:
+Has dredge so it does not slow you down, sure dredge 3 isnt alot but every little bit helps (and when you are busy killing their creatures you dont want to be dredging 30 cards because then you would lose way to many bridges :P)
+Can start killing creatures turn 1 and help your dredge start at the same time.
+Does not care about getting countered since you will simply dredge it back into your hand.
-Does not get rid of 2/2 or bigger creatures efficiently (I mean it can, when you have it in hand and 2 lands in play but thats not the best play ever tbh)

Firestorm:
+Has the ability to wipe the board clean
-/+Wiping the board later in the game can be a game winner or a loser; you wipe the board and you remain with a couple of zombies but no bridges, so if your opponent has an echoing truth,an EE, a Deed or whatever you are very screwed.
+Does not really care about being countered since it will still discard your cards.
-Using it as an discard outlet turn 1 does not seem to have any advantage over DDD.

Im really tired atm so I am going to stop hurting my brain over this :P. I am sure you guys will comment on this and please do so!

PS. Playing Dredge again this weekend by the way, small tournament. Ill try to take some notes. Standard MD sideboard as stated a page ago.

Anyway I hope I answered some questions,

Maarten

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 1maarten1

I dont think the sorcery/instant debate is that much of a deal

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Going T1 Tribe/Imp, T2 upkeep Claim ===> dredge during our draw step is strong against Leyline of the Void.

DISCLAIMER: winning g1 isn't automatic. Also, sometimes you play a third game.

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Originally Posted by Digital Devil

Going T1 Tribe/Imp, T2 upkeep Claim ===> dredge during our draw step is strong against Leyline of the Void.

DISCLAIMER: winning g1 isn't automatic. Also, sometimes you play a third game.

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Good point, never thought of that play before :P! Do you guys have any idea about what decks run Leyline? I know BUGstill sometimes does, in which case the CMC could be relevent. Seen it in aggro lists like goblins, in which claim might be better like DD stated above.

Ofcourse you might play third games :P. It happens to me pretty often that I misjudged on what hate they might bring in and I lose to enchantments instead of artifacts. And sure sometimes you will just lose game 1, though that does not happen very often to me.

@1maarten1:

I think that counting Darkblast as a real dredger is generous. Dredge 3 is okay but not that great. I like Firestorm because it's uncounterable discard for AT LEAST two cards. I can:

Turn 1: City of Brass --> Firestorm targeting myself and my opponent, or my opponent and his mana dork, pitching Grave Troll and another dredger, or Bridge, or whatever.

Turn 2: Dredge Troll, play and activate Coliseum, win shortly thereafter.

Don't get me wrong, Darkblast has its place as solid creature kill. However, I don't think that it competes directly with Firestorm because that card's best feature is the uncounterable discard. The creature kill is secondary (but often useful).

Hello co-dredgers !

I just registered on The Source. I am a French player that started playing Legacy with Dredge last november (so 9 months of golgari grab trolls and sick ravenous traps/echoing truthes).

My first real tournament was a 80+ players in Paris in december 2010 where I top32ed going 6-3 losing twice to TES with a list created by the French player ASSASSIN and running 4 Bloodghast and 2 Firestorm maindeck.
ASSASSIN finished 2nd in French Legacy national championship 2 or 3 years ago with Goblins.
He had built his dredge deck to kill the tribal matchups - especially Merfolk which was ran a lot at the time Tomoharu Saito won Colombus GP in August 2010 piloting the fishes.
The deck with 2 Firestorm maindeck worked very well killing fishes, goblins and GW creatures.

In order to fully understand what was dredge, I rebuilt the classic version running 3 Ichorid 4 Tireless Tribe, 1 Iona and 1 FKZ maindeck and sometimes Firestorm in the sideboard (according to the meta, in France there are a lot of GW Mavericks for those of you who came at GP Paris in February 2011 might remember).

In GP Paris Legacy Challenge I went 2-3 drop losing to one of you german folks in the mirror match - can't remember the name though, I enjoyed a lot your accent saying Golgari Grab Troll and Breakthrough by the way.
It was a race to have creature + Cabal to remove the opponent's bridges, you won it. We should definitely talk about the mirror match which is an issue I am currently dealing with.
Congrats again for the BOM finish and at least one of you german dredgers made it !

Then I flew to California in Los Angeles three months ago, where I cut Iona and FKZ maindeck.
I put a top 8 finish in a small tournament losing to Painter/Stone in quarterfinals.
In three other tournaments I had mixed results (like 4-2, 3-3 and 2-4), mostly due to meta expectation and variance in my opinion. I think I am an experienced player but I go to tournaments with no sleep and smoke weed between every round, and that definitely affects my game.

There is a very good dredge player here, Jason Bukowski, who unfortunately ID 9th out of Denver's top 8 two weeks ago. By the way he ID with Thomas Ma's Hive Mind which is a winnable match-up from my experience here in LA. He also basically top 4/ top 8 every tournament he plays here.
Jason plays Bloodghast with 16 lands and is very talented at capitalizing on opponent's mistakes. I might post his list if he agrees but he is truly a succesful pioneer Bloodghast player. He has a lot of experience with Bloodghast and some of his points make sense.
He always has a Bloodghast to flashback a cabal or a dread return when he needs, and he can sometimes win one turn before the common fundamental turn (although Undiscovered Paradise slows us in the look for a fundamental turn). He has a good race against control match-ups.
I will tell him to register on The Source asap.

Last Saturday I read an interesting article about New Phyrexia cards in Vintage Dredge on Starcitygames :
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/v...ge_Dredge.html

The point that drew my attention is Noxious Revival, a New Phyrexia uncommon.
G or 2life Instant
Put target card from a graveyard on top of its owner's library.
I knew that sounded somehow good when I studied NPH cards before the prerelease but I didn't know how. Now I know.
The point is that Noxious Revival makes you far more resilient to most G1 problems like countermagic, disruption and sometimes lack of explosiveness or symply bad dredges. In G2 it also helps you fighting hate.
The article's argument seemed to be easily transfered to Legacy Dredge so I packed 2 Noxious Revival in sideboard with 2 Firestorm and 2 Ravenous Traps (traps might sound silly but there are so many graveyard strategies in the LA meta) for my Sunday tournament at Knightsware.

Here are the things I did when I managed to have that blessed Noxious Revival in my hand :
- Against Merfolk, I got back 1 Cephalid Coliseum in a match and 1 Firestorm in an other. It enabled me to go nuts again after he countered my first Breakthrough and to have easily access to a two-card sideboard.
- Against Maverick, I got back a city of brass, my only land he had wastelanded. I lost this one but still I could do some stuff (turn 2 KoTR is not what you what to see when you play dredge though, especially in LA meta)
- Against Bloodghast Dredge, G1 I lost toss and game G2 after I mulled to 6, I put a dredger in my yard with Careful Study, next turn dredged, Noxious Revival on Breakthrough for the win T3. In G3 I interestingly put his only Dread Return on the top of his library so that he could not reanimate Elesh Norn this turn - once again I lost but due to baaad dredges.

The tournament was tough guys, with good players (basically last Los Angeles SCG Open Top 16). Liam Kane was there running TES and top8ed, cheerio man and thanks for the sharing ^^.
For the record, an innovative guy named Ben Perry who went X-0 in LA SCG Open swiss rounds with Becher (impressive, huh?) just ran HEAVY METAL Basalth Monolith+Mesmeric Orb to a top 4 finish that was very close to turning into a top 2 finish, pocketting 2 blue Duals in the process. No doubt we will hear him about him and the crazy Heavy Metal deck soon.
Plus, some playtest with Alexander Kwan (1st at LA with Painter) piloting FoWLessBant led him to cut his only Tarmogoyf maindeck for the infernal Scavenging Ooze, a Commander card. He played a second one SB. For those who think it is a trick he won the tournament Sunday at Knightsware, pocketting 2 USeas. GG Alex.
I should have avoided that funny friday night playtesting session.

Scavenging Ooze 1G 2/2
G : Exile target card from a graveyard. If it was a creature card, put a +1/+1 counter on Scavenging Ooze and you gain 1 life.

I basically had to mull and have slowish start both games and early Scavenging Ooze crippled me. Welcome to a new world. Eventually Firestorm got rid of it but it was too late, Jitte + 4 counters was on board.
Darkblast is just not powerful enough to get rid of it.
Is it a real problem ?
I mean, NoElves intuitively ran one in his sideboard too and that killed me (imagine priest of titania, a bunch of elves and scavenging ooze).

BUT I managed to win twice against Merfolks, due to Noxious Revival, Elesh Norn and my skillz of course ^^
By the way I never sideboard out Dread Return against Merfolk since I can win without Bridges just with Iona or Elesh Norn + some Ichorids/Narcomoebas. Elesh Norn is far better than Iona in this matchup by the way and we can cabal for FoW and Daze before the big turn.

I put a 2-4 record, losing 3 times to green decks (2 with Scavenging ooze and the other was GW Maverick, a matchup I dislike) and 1 match against Jason with Bloodghast Dredge.
After the tournament I started to talk with the same good players about Noxious Revival in Legacy and crazy ideas like getting back your Wasteland cracked t1 against an opponent running only duals or playing it with Sensei's Divining Top to have access to any card of your graveyard in instant for 2 life, or time walk your opponent making him draw a land or a crappy card, or being able to deal with Jace's fateseal, or dealing with disruption and wasteland, by getting your fetches back. Yeah, getting fetches back seems utterly powerful in legacy to my mind right now.
I just launched a debate on a French forum, Legacy France - full of skilled players like Sea R Hill or Sakimmd. We'll see what Noxious Revival will do for Legacy in the future.

For the moment let's focus on what it does in Legacy Dredge :
- bring back on top a land like coliseum EOT or upkeep
- put a narco back on top for more zombies (marginal use)
- bring back on top a Breakthrough, an imp, or any toolbox card like my firestorm in that tournament
- bring back on top a dredger, a bridge or an ichorid in response to an opponent activating some kind of hate
- when you DDD, slow-dredge or even mulligan, it enables you to get some draw engine very quickly. A game that might have taken like 5 slow dredge turns to kill is now far easier
- do time walk on our opponent to make him draw a land after the wave of cabal therapies. No more silly topdecks. And you might win one turn against combo which is relevant.
- play a toolbox in sideboard. That needs to be much debated in my opinion because we don't want to expose the graveyard too much. If it's for the win or if we can protect some key cards though...

So my conclusion is that Noxious Revival solves most of Dredge G1's problems like disrupt (discard wasteland), countermagic, mulliganing and also bad variance.
In G2 you have access to more anti-hate cards (noxious+claim in yard equals somehow ancient grudge), can protect a key bridge or ichorid and get back a drawing engine for the win. You can also play a toolbox since you have access to virtually any card sitting in your graveyard.
We are becoming far more resilient and unpredictable with this card in my opinion. It seemed good to me and proved to be even better in my last tournament testing. I mean, I really tried the card in tournament conditions and was amazed by its strengths - it also has some weaknesses I agree.

Maybe I am just a fish with a bad idea and no notions of what I'm talking about.
For me this card will become very important for dredge in the future.
Feel free to debate and tell me why I might be wrong, maybe it's just a sideboard card or even a gadget we can easily throw away.
Nonetheless I personnally found it so awesome that it was the starting point for me to register on The Source.

For the record, here is my first decklist using Noxious Revival (it's exactly 4:20 AM as I am writing these lines, could it be a sign ?) :

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

3 Noxious Revival
4 Breakthrough
3 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below

4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise

SB :
1 Noxious Revival
2 Wispmare
2 Firestorm
2 Tormod's Crypt (for my current LA meta), else it would be 2 Darkblast - amazing card
1 Careful Study
1 Ichorid
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobyte
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Primus Woodfall
3 Ancient Grudge

I know my post seemed so long, I feel like going to Anonymous Dredgers and telling my whole Dredge story. It was my introductionary post and I wanted to put a context on my current view of our powerful deck.

My objective is of course to win GP Amsterdam with Dredge to prove that in hands of experienced pilots, it is one of the best Legacy decks.
Will Scavenging Ooze see some serious play ? I think so and we'll kill it thanks to Firestorm and Cabal on GSZ.
Will Noxious Revival impact our game plan ? I am sure of it.
Time will tell.

Card Taggin' for reference of the post above
Noxious Revival

Pretty good card for a discussion.

The question is: Is dredge willing to play a vampiric tutor? Because this is what noxious revival does in our deck.

The cons are obvious: if its not a moeba, we have to skip a dredge activation.
But it can take anything.

From my point of view the only cards we can cut for it are the draw spells and (very dangerous) lands. Cuz this are the only ones which could get substituted by the Revival.

And cuz i like it to provoke: I think some Breakthroughs are the right cards to cut 4 it. (If you wanna play with it)

To me, it's not a good card. It depends on the deck being at a good point already, and I prefer my lists to be tweaked to work the best possible at the beginning of the game. My $0.02

I don't know if I am facing real nice Merfolk players, or if I just don't know how to play this matchup. I just can't win against Merfolk. I don't feel comfortable playing a discard-outlet unless I have other 2 in hand, and the DDD plan is always too slow. After Sideboard, Firestorm helps me a lot, but sometimes isn't enough.
So, for the veteran dredge players, what is your plan against Merfolk?
I am seriously thinking about getting some number of Phantasmagorian instead of Tribe/Breakthrough/Study, do you guys think it's that bad in Mana-versions?


About Noxious Revival: my first opinion is that this card does nothing alone, unlike any draw spell. I wouldn't cut draw spells, or even dredgers for this card.

You can't expect to race Folks by DDDing, that's true. That being said, I usually play against them. They have 12 counter spells and I have 12 discard dorks. Factoring in Cabal Therapy and Breakthrough, your chances to stick an outlet should be over 50%. That's probably better than the chance to win by DDDing.

Just try to keep hands with multiple discard outs and Lands (due to Wasteland). Always play around Daze. Never play around Force and Misstep. That's at least what I had the best results with.

I've never had that much trouble with fish. All in all it's a pretty even matchup.

I've had very good results swapping Tireless Tribe with Firestorm in the maindeck of the feldman/mccall list and always electing to draw. This gives me information about what I'm facing, whether DDD might be a good idea, and if I have to mulligan, Firestorm is still available as an uncounterable discard outlet. Aggro decks aren't really fast enough to race you on the draw and the maindeck Firestorms add to the uneveness of the matchup.

Man, I'm so in love with Street Wraith... It OFTEN enabled me to DDD against a turn 1 Relic of Progenitus (Merfolk's usual hate). They tap it, and you respond by cycling and dredging, and start building off. Anyone had a similar experience?

Woodfall Primus has been pretty fine as well, being able to destroy random shit twice and still shoot with Cabal Therapy is really nice.

But I've been having some trouble with Team America lately... It's more like a 60/40 matchup for them in my testing. They can counter lots of stuff and still apply pressure in form of Tarmogoyf or card advantage in form of Dark Confidant. And it's a pretty good candidate to run Leyline of the Void in sideboard. So I've found DDD not to be effective against those UBx Tempo.dec, unless you get some epic dredging. Can anyone give me some boarding advices, or strategies?

For instance, my decklist is the following:
MD:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
3 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
3 Ichorid
4 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
2 Dread Return
2 Deep Analysis
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Woodfall Primus

SB:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Ancient Grudge
2 Wispmare
1 Realm Razer
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Ichorid
1 Dread Return

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Originally Posted by Vandalize

Man, I'm so in love with Street Wraith... It OFTEN enabled me to DDD against a turn 1 Relic of Progenitus (Merfolk's usual hate). They tap it, and you respond by cycling and dredging, and start building off. Anyone had a similar experience?

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So your plan vs Merfolk involves them drawing Relic on turn 2 or having it turn 1 but not playing it? Otherwise, if they play relic turn 1 and you discard, they tap relic, you respond with SW, they untap and just wait for your yard to be remotely interesting.

I've found team america to be pretty easy with the feldman list, even moreso when you run firestorm over tribe in the main.

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Originally Posted by emidln

So your plan vs Merfolk involves them drawing Relic on turn 2 or having it turn 1 but not playing it? Otherwise, if they play relic turn 1 and you discard, they tap relic, you respond with SW, they untap and just wait for your yard to be remotely interesting.

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That isn't the point... Relic of Progenitus T1 stops DDD. And Street Wraith enables you to dredge the first time.

Imagine the following situation:

G2: he goes Island -> Relic. I draw and discard a Dredger. He taps the relic to remove the Dredger. You SW in response and dredge. Lets say you dredged 5: Gemstone Mine, Golgari Thug, Narcomoeba, Ancient Grudge, Breakthrough.

You get Narco online, and remove something useless (like Breakthrough or Land) and you have an answer to Relic on their turn 2, forcing them to leave mana open for activation (tempo boost). Next turn you can blow their Relic and go nuts, or DDD again.