[Deck] Dredge

I'm putting LED Dredge together.

I searched every post in this thread and only found a handful of people who mentioned Street Wraith. I'm assuming that it was tested and the reason that it's absent from lists is because it's ineffective. However, I'm inclined to believe that it could be quite good in LED to enable fast dredges, manaless draw, another black creature to feed Ichorid without removing dredgers, etc etc.

Does anyone have anything to say about Street Wraith other than "I'm going to test it"?

Thanks,

The thing with wraith is it makes you mulligan poorly. Often when playing it, you will be tempted to keep hands that have wraith, and are missing 1 card that would make it much better, and you are likely going to cycle it and "maybe" draw what you need. He big question is, what are you not running to make room for wraith? In LED builds he is inferior to deep analysis, and even careful study. I played with him in my non-led build for some time, but I ran 8 discard dudes (tribe, putrid imp) so he enabled turn 1 discard dork, discard, -2 life, dredge. The big benefit he offered was being quick ichorid food. But he never seemed better than the other options we have to play.

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Originally Posted by (nameless one)

I run the typical manabase (4 City of Brass, 4 Gemstone Mine, 4 Cephalid Colisseum, 3 Tarnished Citadel). I have been thinking of running Darkslick Shore in the Citadel spot.

I would still run the typical list (looks almost identical as Max Mccall's list from that article). Has anyone tried or tested the manabase mentioned above?

My main concern is aggro and burn decks.

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Why not run undiscovered paradise x2 and 1 citadel. It makes you less likely to need to tap citadel more than once for colored mana. Also in aggro infested metas maindecking ancestors chosen is a very strong call. Depending on what aggro decks you face Iona may not be your best choice for a return target if you run any at all

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Originally Posted by Joe_C

He big question is, what are you not running to make room for wraith?

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Totally valid. I guess it's not going to work. I doubt I'll test it to be brutally honest. I kind of want to have G1 be all-in, but I love Unmask too much. I was thinking maybe +4 Street Wraith, -4 Unmask.
I wasn't hoping to draw a card off of wraith. I was hoping to use it in the manner you mentioned. Deep Analysis and Coliseum are not the bombs they should be if you don't have LED. I wanted Wraith as a free "draw" so that I could dredge immediately if I don't have LED AND DA or LED AND Coliseum turn 1.
I guess I'll live.

Here's the list I want to assemble:


Breakthrough 4
Bridge from Below 4
Cabal Therapy 4
Cephalid Coliseum 4
City of Brass 4
Deep Analysis 2
Dread Return 2
Flame-Kin Zealot 1
Gemstone Mine 4
Golgari Grave-Troll 4
Golgari Thug 2
Ichorid 4
Iona, Shield of Emeria 1
Lion's Eye Diamond 4
Narcomoeba 4
Putrid Imp 4
Stinkweed Imp 4
Unmask 4


Ancestor's Chosen 1
Ancient Grudge 2
Chain of Vapor 4
Chalice of the Void 4
Ray of Revelation 2
River Kelpie 1
Woodfall Primus 1

Criticism welcome.

Edit: With Wraith, I was hoping that with LED and Coliseum I could: Play LED, Coliseum, put the cycle on the stack, retain priority and LED for blue, Dredge, hit threshhold, activate Coliseum, Dredge more, flashback Deep Analysis, etc. Sounded pretty awesome to me. I know the deck mulligans like crazy, but I feel too dependent on having the right combination of cards in my starting hand so I was trying to creature more redundancy in the draw considering you don't always open with Breakthrough.

Cephalid Coliseum 4
City of Brass 4
Gemstone Mine 4
Lion's Eye Diamond 4

Bridge from Below 4
Cabal Therapy 4
Breakthrough 4
Deep Analysis 2
Dread Return 2
Unmask 4

Putrid Imp 4
Golgari Grave-Troll 4
Stinkweed Imp 4
Golgari Thug 2
Ichorid 4
Narcomoeba 4
Iona, Shield of Emeria 1
Flame-Kin Zealot 1

Sideboard:
Ancestor's Chosen 1
Ancient Grudge 2
Chain of Vapor 4
Chalice of the Void 4
Ray of Revelation 2
River Kelpie 1
Woodfall Primus 1

Format your lists so they are legible.

In general LED-less builds are more consistant, which is the primary concern since the format isnt all that fast at the moment.

Unmask isnt very good, you dont want to be pitching your black cards since they are all useful i.e. You never really want to pitch a brisge/DR/Dredger, plus it doesnt really help you discard or draw, so it makes your mulligans more frequent and less likely to produce a keepable hand once you go to 5-6 cards. They should be Careful Studies to give you more discard outlets and accelerators, it isnt great at either but its better than Street Wraith.

You have 2 maindeck DR targets but only 2 Dread Returns. You should either cut a target (or both) or add more DR's.

One fewer Ichorid in favour of one more Golgari Thug will give you better consistancy

Chalice in the SB is almost useless with only 12 lands, you can almost never afford to bring it it.

I'd cut those Unmasks for 3 Careful Study (or 3 street wraith, maybe) and 1 Dread Return.

Street Wraith is worse than CS for drawing/discard, but it feeds Ichorid, which can be really good when you play the slow role.

I think those Chalice of the Void are to prevent Tormod's Crypt/Nihil Spellbomb, but that also counters LED. Leyline of Sanctity would do better for this cause.

Why is Bloodghast barely seen in Legacy Dredge?
In Vintage it seems like an automatic 4-of, and they play even less lands than the Legacy version.

Legacy Dredge lists are tighter than Vintage in general. Since we dont have the ability to just play 4 Bazaar and 4 Serum Powder, then mull to Bazaar, we have to maximize the consistancy of getting a discard outlet, mana, dredger and prferably an accelerator as well. This leaves little room to jam in cards which are sometimes good like Bloodghast. That being said, some builds do play some Bloodghasts, but it is tricky to accomodate them since you also need to run Undiscovered Paradise (which is awkward with Cepahlid Coliseum, or casting two spells on turn 2/hardcasting some dudes), as well as 1-2 Dakmor Salvage, which slows the deck down by taking up space and needing to be dregded to trigger the Bloodghasts. i.e. When you dredge your dakmor salvage for 2, you are choosing not to dredge a Stinkweed Imp or Grave Troll.

Chalice seems like a really bad way to fight 0 mana hate/opposing LED's. As mentioned, Leyine of Sanctity does the same job but better, but even that isnt very good.

A question I've been pondering. I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding ghast, and most important reasons I have read have boiled down to:

- It forces you to run Undiscovered Paradise, which can set you back in mana development in those matches where you have to hardcast multiple therapies or want to hardcast and flashback grudge (edit: and as the poster above me said, it makes coliseum awkward)
- It doesn't have haste unless your opponent is already below 10, so it's not as good in the contrrol matchups where ichorids can win you the game coming back and swinging every turn.
- People seem to feel forced to run Darkmor Salvage for whatever reason.

Personally I've played the Ichorid list and haven't tested the Bloodghast list thoroughly, however there is 1 other dredge player in my meta who runs a very heavily customized 5c Non-LED Bloodghast version that is relatively explosive. I'm not sure his list is optimal due to the fact that he has some random 1 of cards that scream win-more and he plays more DR targets than I think is necessary, but it's made me want to pick up the Paradises and give them a whirl at the very least.

I've tried bloodghast in a typical 5c LEDless build and I just wasn't a fan. Ichorid serves a similar purpose in a much more agressive way. I don't like that bloodghast doesn't kill itself and the only appeal to playing it in my mind is that you get your 3 dudes to dread return easier but I don't have any problem with that as it is with the deck right now. I don't like playing undiscovered paradise either since some times actually maintaining land drops is important. Bloodghast seems more appropriate in ub lists then 5c lists imo.

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Originally Posted by chags

I've tried bloodghast in a typical 5c LEDless build and I just wasn't a fan. Ichorid serves a similar purpose in a much more agressive way. I don't like that bloodghast doesn't kill itself and the only appeal to playing it in my mind is that you get your 3 dudes to dread return easier but I don't have any problem with that as it is with the deck right now. I don't like playing undiscovered paradise either since some times actually maintaining land drops is important. Bloodghast seems more appropriate in ub lists then 5c lists imo.

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I can agree with this. To be fair, the guy that plays the Bloodghast version in my meta has a very unconventional 5c list.... He has 3 maindeck DR targets (Eternal Witness, FKZ, and Iona) ontop of running 1 Wonder and 1 Island. His flex dredger, instead of the 4th thug or darkblast is a Life from the Loam. His games he generally goes for broke tryin to get a speed DR... either Iona to lock you until he can grind you out, or as this past weekend, most of his wins went from DRing Witness to return and play Island, getting his ghasts and giving the horde flying.

It's by no means conventional nor do I think it's really optimal, but the explosiveness of the ghasts makes me wonder and want to try it out at least.

Maybe I will even try going the full on UB route. Can't hurt to test it, at the very least.

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Originally Posted by Sims

I can agree with this. To be fair, the guy that plays the Bloodghast version in my meta has a very unconventional 5c list.... He has 3 maindeck DR targets (Eternal Witness, FKZ, and Iona) ontop of running 1 Wonder and 1 Island. His flex dredger, instead of the 4th thug or darkblast is a Life from the Loam. His games he generally goes for broke tryin to get a speed DR... either Iona to lock you until he can grind you out, or as this past weekend, most of his wins went from DRing Witness to return and play Island, getting his ghasts and giving the horde flying.

It's by no means conventional nor do I think it's really optimal, but the explosiveness of the ghasts makes me wonder and want to try it out at least.

Maybe I will even try going the full on UB route. Can't hurt to test it, at the very least.

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Sorry to ask, but is part of the explosiveness of the ghasts due to the wonder allowing them to connect via evasion or does this not matter?


- Thanks for the responses to my earlier questions. I will consider the feedback.

If anyone has experience playing with Unmask, I would like to hear their thoughts.

Also, much of the research that I did claimed that Careful Study was crap.

Thanks,

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Originally Posted by Octopusman

Sorry to ask, but is part of the explosiveness of the ghasts due to the wonder allowing them to connect via evasion or does this not matter?


- Thanks for the responses to my earlier questions. I will consider the feedback.

If anyone has experience playing with Unmask, I would like to hear their thoughts.

Also, much of the research that I did claimed that Careful Study was crap.

Thanks,

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I can't speak a lot about the evasion. I know it has made a difference in some of the matches but if it's worth the 2 slots i couldn't really say without testing. The biggest thing with Bloodghast over Ichorid is the fact that they all come back at once at the low cost of playing a land. Having 1-4 guys come back sometimes as early as turn 2 after your draw step dredge allows you to cast multiple therapies or a DR earlier than the Ichorid version with less invested and without possibly having to remove your thugs or stinkweeds from the yard. For example:

Turn 1 you lay land, outlet and pass... You can pitch your Troll and dredge say 1 narco, therapy, and ghast. Cast careful study, and hit DR, Iona, and another ghast. You can now play a land, bring back both ghast, flashback therapy for countermagic or removal, then DR Iona immediately if their hand is threatening. This isn't counting any bridges you might flip during those dredges, if any.

Good dredge scenario, to be sure, but that's something you can't do with Ichorid. The fact that he can DR E.witness and return a land he dredged away to play and return all 4 ghasts for either a second DR, a string of therapies, or justmore beaters is gravy. One of the aspects I do like about Ghast is that in a control match where you're being forced to slow roll, they can give you an attack step, then flash back therapies and make zombies on the 2nd main, and play a land to bring them back and keep the pressure on.

Again: This is just looking at the possible plus'... I have not personally done any extensive testing with a ghast build, yet, but i plan on it. Either going to just proxy up the paradise' or see if i can find some on the cheap. I will keep you guys aprised of any testing results I have and what things i like or dislike compared to the Ichorids.

Thing is, while Ghast is more explosive in early turns due to the fact that he can return after your draw step, he's worse at everything else. And while it's cool to have 3 Narcomoebas and 3 Ghasty by turn 2, only two Moebas would be enough to kill your opponent easily as well.

But: Ghast doesn't have Haste, it's only 2 power and it doesn't produce Tokens on its own. That makes it so much worse than Ichorid when it comes to grinding out games and killing your opponent as reliably as possible. The fact that Ghast dioesn't die each turn doesn't have any advantage. It would have if he could block, but as it is, he's just weak.

Vintage lists can play it with ease, because they do want to see than scenario on turn 2 and they don't care about grinding out games as much.


And that one-of Island plus Wonder plus Witness thing scares me somehow. So when is that supposed to happen? I would have some difficulties at getting all 3 pieces (Wonder, the Island and Witness) into my graveyard by turn 2 or three. Not to speak of the fact that the shiny plan to drop an island that turn wouldn't work at all if the turn 1 land was a Paradise and/or if your 2nd turn draw effect was a coliseum... And when would it even matter if your 20 hasty 3/3 Tokens on turn 2 have evasion or not?

I neveer claimed his list was anywhere near optimal. I did say it wasn't conventional and that it was highly customized to suit his play style. He tends to pull it off more often than you'd think, and i know on a handful of times it has mattered, though I can't say to what degree the evasion really has helped.

And while I do agree that there are cons to Ghast, I want to at least test it further before dismissing him again. It's one thing to be doing well with Ichorids and dismiss a card because someone is playing it far away, but when you're watching it every week put up similar numbers to your own I think I'd definitely be in the wrong to not at least test it out and see if it's stronger or weaker for the way I play the deck.

i'll post more when I get home. leaving work now.

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Originally Posted by Octopusman

Sorry to ask, but is part of the explosiveness of the ghasts due to the wonder allowing them to connect via evasion or does this not matter?


- Thanks for the responses to my earlier questions. I will consider the feedback.

If anyone has experience playing with Unmask, I would like to hear their thoughts.

Also, much of the research that I did claimed that Careful Study was crap.

Thanks,

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Its 'crap' in the sense that is isnt ideal at discarding or accelerating, but the fact that it does bot, and is therefore very flexible, is the reason it appears in the vast majority of lists, usually as a 4 of. At the very least it is way better than unmask.

I have xperience with unmask, which I why I made the comment I did. It isnt good. Do you ever want to pitch Bridge from Below? Dread Return? A Dredger? Is it worth losing one of those cards instead of running Thoughtseize?

Conemplate the following hand on the play:

Putrid Imp
Stinkweed Imp
Breakthrough
Gemstone Mine
City of Brass
Unmask
Narcomoeba

In the above example unmask is a blank. You dont want to pitch P-Imp since it is your only outlet, you dont want to pitch S-Imp because it is your only dredger. The fact that every single black card in your deck does something relevant means that you will only have profitable Unmasks when you are pitching another Unmask, or have redundancy (G-Thug ans S-Imp in the same 7). So you are much better off playing a card which always does something decent, like Careful Study, it isnt insane, but its always good.

@ Sims

The reason people feel they 'need' to run Dakmor salavge, is because if they dont there will be numerous situations in which they are completely unable to ever trigger Bloodghast, o they are just running 4 blanks which pitch to Ichorid. e.g. If they have a 1 land hand and dont draw etc... Unless they run witness/Sun Titan, which are both bad.

I actually quite like Boodghast, the ability to get more free creatures is nice. The problem is that it is replacing cards which do more for the deck. i.e. Ichorid is stronger (typically), cutting spells makes you slower/less consistant, and cutting lands is just bad.

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Originally Posted by Izor

The fact that Ghast dioesn't die each turn doesn't have any advantage.

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This is incorrect. Not that I neccassarily prefer Bloodghast, but in games after the first, having access to multiple creatures that are immune to topdecked graveyard hate can sometimes be desirable. Especially against decks that can easily remove Bridges, or sweep tokens. With Fetchlands, they can even enter play in response to the GY hate.

Btw... so, if mental misstep really make the cut into most decks, meaning a potential counter to our discard outlets and draw spells, will we have further problems than we already face with FoW & Daze? thoughts about it?

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Originally Posted by Gui

Btw... so, if mental misstep really make the cut into most decks, meaning a potential counter to our discard outlets and draw spells, will we have further problems than we already face with FoW & Daze? thoughts about it?

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You beat me to it. I think this makes the LED version stronger. This deck is very tight so it's hard to innovate but I think this is absolutely going to impact Ichorid. I predict MM having a very large impact.

I'm already brainstorming on how to adapt.

DDD looks more tempting as well... and not just against blue decks anymore? This could be tricky post board...

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Originally Posted by Octopusman

You beat me to it. I think this makes the LED version stronger. This deck is very tight so it's hard to innovate but I think this is absolutely going to impact Ichorid. I predict MM having a very large impact.

I'm already brainstorming on how to adapt.

DDD looks more tempting as well... and not just against blue decks anymore? This could be tricky post board...

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I'm thinking about Firestorm as discard outlet instead of careful, and also adapting maindeck Mental Missteps. Also thought about, 2cc discard outlets, which is terrible. Maybe we'll have to increase land count? :eyebrow:

First turn Cabal Therapy into Mental Misstep will be common play now, which is terrible too.

I'm open to ideas... All I see is everyone maindecks that sh!t card... ><

We'll have to just see what we see. I'm going to keep playing the way I have been until the card hits the point that every deck runs 4. I still am unsure that is even going to be the case, but if it happens then I'll adapt accordingly and begin testing my options. One of those options might entail going to a pure U/B manabase and dropping tribe in favor of LED or a 2cc outlet It might entail adopting a slower old-extended style dredge deck. It might entail 4 copies of Mental Misstep of my own. It might entail doing absolutely nothing and plowin through people anyways.

At the moment I just think it's too early to tell if the majority of people are Overreacting and Overhyping... or if I'm wrong and just not seeing the same issue everyone else is. To me, it just seems asinine to try and find room for 4 maindeck Missteps just to counter other players Missteps. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong and will eat those words and end up doing it anyways.