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Antknee42,
Well of course I'm jealous; I'm going to be spending around a grand just to attend SCG Open next month, and have been talking about a "window of opportunity" for dredge, because of the recent absence in re-animator and dredge decks, all week. I'm livid, dammit. lol
Very sincerely,
Matthew
The only thing I agree with is that Careful Study, and to a lesser extent Faithless Looting, is the best draw card in Dredge. I spent a lot of time proxying Careful Study and Breakthrough back and forth, and Careful Study was usually enough gas to win the game. What really matters tho' is that you don't have to SB Careful Study out, ever, and unlike Breakthrough it can search for answers to hate game 2. The post-board utility of Careful Study is more important than the "overkill" of Breakthrough, and what really worries me about these "balls to the wall" decks of LED + Breakthrough + Cephalid Coliseum + Sphinx/FKZ lists is that they litterally need to board out around 10+ cards with other MD cards like Cephalid Coliseum losing utility as a result and skimping on gold lands is going to cost you games post-board.
People are getting really greedy game 1 with a ton of MD cards they can't transition out of post-board vs an opponent who is prepared for Dredge. Not having any answers to Surgical Extraction thru' being able to SB into redundancy is going to definitely bite you in the ass and not 4xing Thug and Ichorid is just stupid if you're not planning on actually playing out game 2/3.
I'm also kind of on the fence about Angel of Despair being in SBs, because frankly it's only really good at picking off random shit like Ghostly Prison and you can't reliably count on it game 2 if they SB in any graveyard hate. I mean why would you bother to SB it in game 2 when you could just SB in Grudge/Ray, because they pretty much do the same thing without you having to have an unmolested board and grave to try and pick off random jank. I actually find myself MDing Angel of Despair game 1 and SBing it out game 2 because it's an unreliable waste of space, which makes a lot more sense to me.
I still hate Imp/Tribe and Coliseum, but I think I've beaten that horse to death.
I personally like it better whenever the meta is well-prepared for Dredge - that makes it more of a challenge. I find that winning a game after going through graveyard hate is much more satisfying for me when compared to winning game 1 - you expect to win that game anyway. Having said that, I agree with those that have stated that we would be spending our time more wisely by preparing for the worst - which is game 2/3 loaded with hate. If the worst doesn't happen, then we should win anyway :smile:.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
Cheers,
jares
How many lands does a LED list need to avoid excess mulligans? I'm currently on 13, but I'm trying to convince myself to cut SOMETHING for another rainbow land. However, what that something is is really hard for me to tell at this point. Here is a list for reference:
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Putrid Imp
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
3 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Having 10 Gold Lands in the MD gives you a 74.14% chance of getting at least one in your opening hand - going up to 11 raises your chances to 77.76%.Quote:
Originally Posted by Annatar
Personally, I would cut the 2nd DR, especially because you're not running any DR targets in the MD anyway. On second thought, because you're running only 3 Ichorids, cutting the 12th Dredger might be a better idea. Another option would be to cut either a Breakthrough or a Careful Study, given that you're already loaded with draw effects (I would personally lean towards keeping the Careful Study over the Breakthrough). The last thing that you could possibly cut is the 4th Cabal Therapy, but that won't really do well with your build because you can't go full combo without MD DR targets to get you there.
I hope that helps.
Kind Regards,
jares
Jares,
At this point I think cutting Breakthrough might be better, since I was planning on having the full playset in my 75 anyway. Also, it might make sideboarding against certain strategies slightly easier. Apart from Cabal Therapy Dread Return is my only sac outlet so I feel it is important to hit at least one to seal a game, either by reanimate-ing a huge troll or just an Ichorid for more zombies.
I remember that the list that placed well in the recent SCG tourney also had a Breakthrough in the SB - I'm not sure of how your SB is constructed, but having those in the SB would probably mean that you won't be packing too much anti-hate. You'll need to have a good read of the meta to maximize the remaining SB space - snooping around would certainly help :wink:.Quote:
Originally Posted by Annatar
Good Luck,
jares
1st of things my list I brought to Ohio
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
1 Dread Return
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge From Below
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tireless Tribe
4 Breakthrough
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkeweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Dakmor Salvage
Sideboard
4 Firestorm
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Nature's Claim
1 Dread Return
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Angel of Despair
3 Leyline of Sancitity
After recently jumping back into legacy (I've played dredge pretty much forever), and getting back into standard I played last weekend in ohio
Some notable things about my list is 0 Careful Study's. I simply could not find room for them at all. I decided going into the tournament that faithless looting would suffice. I also insisted on Breakthroughs because I did not want to be cold to storm. I also personally love the card because it helps fight against those mb oozes that I saw all day.
A key in flash-backing looting back was the ability to dredge a dakmor salvage at first site.
Although this may seem weird only having one because a majority of games you usually will only have 1 land in play, However it was critical in fighting all the hate. Even with one land I was able to cast Golgari Thugs to recur my Narcomoebas to keep up when my opponents extracted my Dredgers with a snapcaster draw when I missed dredging into a therapy. Being able to cast the Thug was tremendous.
Also To explain the 1 Undiscovered Paradise is that my logic was that it was simply another Gemstone cavern. In all situations I was able to deal with the Paradise's drawback, but
I could never deal with 2. Thats why I kept it as a one of because I never wanted to see 2. It could easily have been a 3rd Tarnished Citadel.
I ended up losing to a terrible misplay g3 against nickfit round 6 on turns, when i had the game in my hand. (seeing dredge win to kicked me further in the balls, but there's no way I
could realistically beat the LED version with Leylines to boot), while my other lose was to a walker deck with enlightened tutor. Getting caged turn 2 into humility--> Jace was pretty brutal.
However playing against cage the only thing that I wanted was a sacrifice outlet because untill they draw their second piece of hate I was able to get on with my day job and hard-casting
Thugs to get in the red zone.
Firestorms came in handy, all day thanks to goblin guide revealing the top card of my library g3 (Revealing a Firestorm) sealed the game in my favor.
I never played Burn/Storm despite playing 3 Leylines. They're were at least 10-15 people playing burn, and X amount playing a affinity variant. However after playing
I'm pretty sure that I want Leyline of the Void simply because Beating the LED Version is next to impossible without it.
I've been thinking lately about ways to fight the cage, looking back through the thread I saw Ingot Chewer (With his friend Wispmare), but this still requires sacrificng the golgari thug
in order to gain access. I'm still stumpted in finding a way to bring it back except when I can bring in firestorms (Ex: Affinity with the cage). The only way thing I could think of is Greater Gargadon. But he seems even more narrow than a nature's claim
Angel of Despair was pretty useless as well. It was handy that I was able to remove it to recur a ichorid but I still think I want another dread return target besides the super
grave titan, and Elsesh Norn. I think if I remove the leylines I would Add a Ancestors Chosen, But I'm not sure I'd ever want to bring that in against zoo/storm. I know for a fact
that one dread return mb was enough, and I liked being able to board out 2 therapy for a additional dread return and a target.
For those of you boarding Iona do you bring it in against what other decks besides storm.dec? Is it just good enough against burn as well?
I also did not play against affinity during the entire tournament, It is indeed a race and ancient Grudges in the board would help the matchup. However It would be handy to bring in against
the stoneblade decks instead of the 2 Nature's Claims, but my logic was that Firestorm was enough. Is this logic true?
Is Darkblast a viable answer to the ooze? I know that Yixid Jailer doesn't really exist, but the problem is would you keep darkblast in against the stoneblade decks as well as a
additional answer if your don't dredge into a therapy? I'm not sure where I would find room unless cut a Ichorid, But my reasoning for 4 is because usually players don't like to
surgical him for the reason that they like making they're paths/swords effective. The only other way would to move a breakthrough in the board and reducing firestorm down to a 3 of.
I really enjoyed my list, and even if it's a little old school I managed to win against Maverick with the ooze, A knight into bojuka bog along with his crypts.
So to sum it up for sure in the board I know I'd like
3-4 Firestorm
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Nature's claim
1 Dread Return
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 (Dread Target)
3-4 Leyline of the Void
I like most of these numbers because the only cards I boarded out were either 2 Therapy and 4 Breakthrough or X amount of Ichorids in a non dredge matchup.
I just don't see anything being boarded out besides the one dakmor salvage which I did bring out once.
Thanks for the read,
@ Annatar: I would cut a DR and I would also play 4 Breakthrough. Especially with LED it's too good to pass up imho. I'd start cutting Putrid Imps before Breakthrough in LED Dredge.
@ Hunter: I would really try to make room for Studies. Especially if you're not even running LED, Study is better than Lootings anyway.
Something different. In your guys expierience, what is the most frequent target if you get Surgically Extracted? Dredgers or Narcomoebas/Ichorids?
For me it's by far the Dredgers, which is why I had the idea to play 4 Street Wraith in the sideboard and board them in for other draw spells against Snapcaster-Extraction decks. In the short testing I did against RUG Delver it was a huge blowout for him every time I had SW in my opening hand. Instead of having 4 Trolls extracted you get to Dredge 6 and it can't even be countered.
However, this 'tech' doesn't do anythingif your opponent just waits for Ichorids/Narcomoebas and starts extracting those, so it all depends on that. I'm not sure if this tech has a future, but as I said it can be huge sometimes. What do you think?
I have been examining this tech on the side too and it's actually really nasty in a lot of circumstances. Street Wraith is a card that can act as protection - in addition to acceleration. The problem is making space in your sideboard, which can be difficult. It's actually really nasty with cards like Study and Looting, because you can just draw into a Street Wraith, dump your dredger, pass, have it Extracted, and respond by basically playing a spell that functionally reads:Quote:
Originally Posted by Izor
Street Wraith - 0
When you cast Street Wraith, pay two life or Street Wraith is countered.
Street Wraith cannot be countered by spells or abilities.
Counter target spell that targets a card with the Dredge mechanic in your graveyard, return that card to your hand, then dredge for that card's amount.
Okay, so Stifle and Trickbind hit it, but that's neither here nor there. It still seems really good - especially on the draw.
As for Careful Study being better than Looting, I would have to strongly disagree. Under most circumstances, you're going to have a rainbow land in play, and both cards effectively do the same thing - with Looting having the ability to interact disgustingly with LED. I am, however, running one Study in my build (as previously mentioned) to assist with Cephalid Coliseum.
You're right in that Lootings is better than Study in LED Dredge, but he didn't play LED and w/o it I honestly believe that Careful Study is way better. I might have expressed myself wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
In that respect I would agree partially, if only the fact that Study costs a Blue - with that benefit outweighing the benefit of corner-cases where you actually have the mana to flashback a Looting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Izor
So I'm pretty much playing Prosak's main list, except I go -1 Careful Study, -1 Faithless Looting, -1 Darkblast for +1 Golgari Thug, +1 Cabal Therapy, and +1 Ichorid. The same explosive build with a slight tweak towards resilience, considering we're back on the radar. Regardless, the current meta is pretty slow.. mostly aggro-control which we can out race all day long.. which I've been doing on cockatrice. lol This build also allows us to legitimately race AdN and TES, and 4 cabal gives us a chance against belcher and crazy stuff like that.. The only complaint I have about this list, which has already been mentioned, is siding; If you have a lot of slots devoted to answering hate, it's nearly impossible to side them all in with such a tight build.
You know my MD list, as I'm sure Prosak's list is common knowledge at this point, but take a look at my side and tell me what you think should be minused and plused when siding, and make sure to give specific examples of which deck or hate you're siding for.
1x Woodfall Primus
1x Chain of Vapor
2x Ancient Grudge
3x Firestorm
4x Nature's Claim
4x Memory's Journey
Much appreciated,
Matthew
And you should add:Quote:
Street Wraith - 0
When you cast Street Wraith, pay two life or Street Wraith is countered.
Street Wraith cannot be countered by spells or abilities.
Counter target spell that targets a card with the Dredge mechanic in your graveyard, return that card to your hand, then dredge for that card's amount.
Okay, so Stifle and Trickbind hit it, but that's neither here nor there. It still seems really good - especially on the draw.
Some people really don't know, that they can stifle/trickbind your Street Wraith! That's important, too!
Btw, i'm actually working to build a more like manaless version with some lands to get a useful sideboard against gravehate.
I will test some things and change some things and post my list after good results.
K1w1
Okay, as I mentioned earlier, I really think Hollywood is on to something by increasing the number of threats in the deck. I felt like it did not have enough draw effects, and have been tweaking it and trying several ideas, and this is what I have come up with.
Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
3 Nether Shadow
Draw Spells
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
Other Graveyard Goodies
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
Other
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
Sideboard
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
4 Breakthrough
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
Now, this is a huge step into uncharted territories for me, because I'm not only not playing with FKZ main, but I'm only playing with ONE DR! I feel like this deck should be able to grind out any match up, and is explosive enough to compete with storm game one by therapying away their hand quickly enough, then recurring lethal damage next turn.
Basically, I feel like Breakthrough is a card that is not needed in the main for most match ups. We have enough draw outlets with basicly 12 careful studies that breakthrough is for the most part overkill and I feel that the 4 slots are better used as +3 Nether Shadow +1 Ichorid
The maindeck and board are completely untested (outside of goldfishing), so suggestions are most definitely welcome.
Good idea Izor. 90% of the Extraction targets are Dredgers (and the other 10% are Bridge from Below). I've never had an Ichorid extracted, I don't really know why. The Street Wraiths seems good on theory. I'll test it to confirm.
@Hollywood What about that Tortured Existence build? Bring the list on, so we can bring some ideas and tune it.
For people who are not familiarized, it envolves playing Street Wraith and Golgari Grave-Troll under the Tortured Existence shell to avoid permission.
Vandalize,
That's funny because they always go for my Ichorid's.. Don't get me wrong, I still like the idea, but it can definitely go either way.. In my opinion, Extracting the threats is generally correct. I mean, how many threats is there in a standard dredge deck? Bridges, Ichorids, maybe DR... Hitting one can easily stall us long enough to Snapcaster or just Extract another, which makes us dead in the water. Once again, don't get me wrong, I can definitely see the merit in Extracting dredgers, I'm just saying there are definitely several ways to look at it, which means people packing Extraction will be playing it several ways. That being said, we can probably find a way to play/side with Street Wraith in mind. Less Ichorids, more dredgers or something.. Still doesn't prevent them from hitting Bridge though... Would also make our job tougher with less threat density. Idk, just seems like a lot of work for a situational answer.
I disagree with cutting Dread Return based on not playing dedicated Dread Return targets, Golgari Grave-Troll and to a lesser extent Phantasmagorian, are more than enough to justify 2xDread Return.Quote:
Originally Posted by jares
Playing less threats in hopes of enticing an opponent to Extract a dredger could easily backfire, if they get an opportunity to Extract a threat. This is all just speculation, but it seems like either decision is pretty bad. Either you guess at wether or not your opponent targets threats or dredgers, or you alter your MD accordingly, which can backfire..
I'm well aware that the Street Wraith tech in the sb is far from perfect.
It's just that people have tested a lot of stuff to fight the dreaded Snapcaster-Extraction combo, but in my eyes nothing really solved the problem. I mean if you face a Leyline, you try to find your Claim and kill it. That's what you call a solution. Against Extraction we have things like Memory's Journey, Coffin Purge and Purify the grave, but let's face it; they're not good. Too often they extract your only Dredger and you Purify it in resp. Great deal for them, they still get the time to find another Extraction. You know, I hate that our 'solution' to a hate card is actually something that hurts us as well. Some people might even board Purify against us, which shows how bad it actually is for us. Ground Seal is another option that I've tested, but it's surprisingly hard to resolve a CC2 spell against those blue decks and you have to board DR out entirely.
So in the end I was somewhere between not doing anything about it and just hope for the best (which still works regularly), or trying to find something that solves the problem while actually helping our own game plan instead of destroying it. That's where the idea came from.
In my testing I've found that this strategy works best in a build that actually still runs Tireless Tribes and a DR package, because those make you less dependent on your Ichorids/Narcomoebas.
Agreed. Btw, I knew where you were coming from, I was just putting in my two cents. I'm starting to think we should just ignore it. If we wait to set-up for Memory's Journey or Purge, they're prepared to back their Extract up with a counter. And if we do have an early Journey or Purge, it's via flashback which they'll obviously just play around. So in that aspect, agreed. Ignore or Wraith seems like the best options.. and I'm opting for ignore.
Kindly check the list that's being referred to - I believe that Phantasmagorian was not part of the list.Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
Kind Regards,
jares
It's irrelevant, all Imp/Tribe lists had 2 Dread Return with or without dedicated Dread Return targets or Phantasmagorians regardless, you don't need to add the 20+ draw spell and turn Dread Return into a high variance 1x. The deck needs threat density for when it doesn't draw lands.Quote:
Originally Posted by jares
I run a list with no DR targets MD, and only 1 DR. In game two, when I expect Extraction, I just add 1 or 2 DR and some targets (usually just 1 or 2). I also exchange Firestorm for TTribe (I play Firestorm MD, meta choice) in order to get more bodies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt
This seemed better in my experience... fighting Extraction with Purge-like effects, specially against Blue, is just a terrible plan.
I'm afraid that you miss the point entirely. This was not a declaration that you should play just 1x Dread Return, much less an evaluation of the card and its interactions. This was a statement that simply said that "I would personally cut the 2nd DR", and that doing so won't make it much worse for his main deck DR targets because he has none anyway. :tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
The funny thing is that I actually agree with everything that you stated :laugh: - except that it's misdirected towards a personal preference that's unarguable because, well, it's a personal preference! :laugh:
I hope that that helps clear things up.
Cheers,
jares
So yesterday I wound up playing to a 3-1 record on the day and good enough for 3rd place in a twenty man event. Because I will be going to the Open this weekend, I was looking to try something a little spicy in the sideboard, but was more concerned with finding and purposely wanting my opponents to exploit faults in the list I ran so they can be retroactively corrected.
For reference, here is the list I opted to run:
[4x] Lion's Eye Diamond
[4x] Putrid Imp
[4x] Breakthrough
[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Bridge from Below
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Faithless Looting
[3x] Golgari Thug
[2x] Dread Return
[1x] Careful Study
[1x] Flame-Kin Zealot
[4x] Gemstone Mine
[4x] City of Brass
[4x] Cephalid Coliseum
[1x] Undiscovered Paradise
//Sideboard
[4x] Nature's Claim
[4x] Street Wraith
[2x] Ancient Grudge
[2x] Coffin Purge
[1x] Purify the Grave
[1x] Ray of Revelation
[1x] Iona, Shield of Emeria
I opted to diversify the hate in the sideboard and see how Street Wraith would operate under the pretense I would be playing against Surgical Extraction, which I did not ironically run into (typically a few players packing it in their sideboards there). However, all of my wins were blowout rounds, with a lone defeat to RUG Delver and some loose keeps games one and two.
One of my favorite plays was against Burn, where I managed to dump all four Bridges into my graveyard (with him tapped out his turn one in game two) and me double-Dread Returning two Ichorids to make eight tokens on my end step, in addition to the already four that were in play. I didn't have a Flame-Kin Zealot at that point, and figured if he ripped Crypt or something stupid I would at least be able to hammer him for thirty damage the following turn. They could have been Pyroclasm'd or something to that effect but I had seen his hand with Therapy and figured having lethal on board was more important than succumbing to hate.
One thing I am greatly considering is running two Careful Study. I think it really operates well under a lot of circumstances and I think one of the most overlooked aspects of cards like Looting and Study is that you can find anti-hate, LED, or draw spells with them, which is ridiculously good. It's not something Breakthrough can do all the time, and I was thoroughly impressed with it. I only ran one, but wound up casting it three times on the day. I think two would be about the right number here - maybe in cutting one Looting. I still don't think that's a good idea, because you want to maximize your LED's potential in starting draws.
It's possible I'll cut a Dread Return and shift one to the sideboard, but I'm also not sure on that yet either. It's such a tempting card when you can cast it and generates an overwhelming advantage in a hurry.
Also, I had no issues running four Ichorids yesterday; none what so ever. We all know how explosive this deck can be, and sometimes all you need is one or two to get the ball rolling with tokens and some damage, but you should have one or two more as an insurance policy against Swords and the like. It's just so much fun watching my opponents kill their own dudes to knock off my Bridges. That's where Ichorid truly shines.
As for Street Wraith's effectiveness, it was good in some random circumstances, but ultimately fell short of what I expected. I think any good opponent would forgo Extracting your dredgers and would probably (and should probably) go for Bridge from Below or Narcomoeba. Hitting a dredger just seems bad and with all of the draw effects the deck possesses, it's not like you can't dump more dudes in the graveyard.
I'll look more into it later, but yeah.
I think that if you build a non-LED list (e.g. because you don't own LED like I do) you should focus on the ability to flashback Looting as reliably as possible.
Here's my proposal:
Lands:
4 City
4 Citadel
4 Coliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
Graveyard:
1 Dread Return
4 Therapy
4 Bridge
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Troll
4 S.Imp
3 Thug
Enablers/Business:
4 Looting
4 Study
4 Breakthrough
4 P.Imp
Sideboard:
3 Grudge
1 Iona
1 Wispmare
4 Chain of Vapor
4 Firestorm
2 Ashen Ghoul
- 16 lands in order to maximize the chance of having 3 lands
- good thing of Looting/Study is that they dig for more lands while also enabling dredging T1
- 2 Ashen Gouls against Extraction (against decks with Extraction i normally board in 2 Ashen Ghouls and Iona to increase the threat density and board out 1 Ichorid and other stuff)
- Firestorm mainly against Ooze which has been a pain in the ass often enough in my test matches
To flashback Looting as reliable as possible, you have to run LED.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smea.gol.lum
I also think Looting will make LED Dredge superior now as you will still be able to transform into noLED postboard without any problems.
You are quoting my first sentence, but it seems that you haven't read it though :P
I am well aware of the fact that LED is best at casting Looting reliably, but i make a proposal for a non-LED list.
Yeah, it's hardly a question of meta-game anymore. LED/Looting Dredge has old LED-Dredges speed with the consistency of non-LED. Once again, I like your build Hollywood. I run an even split between Breakthrough and Careful study, because Careful is more of a utility card than Breakthrough, for the very reasons you gave. If you want to fit another Careful Study in, how about removing one Ichorid? You can just put it in your side if you find the fourth one that essential.. I'm currently running three, and find it very consistent as most builds are skimping on Thugs, which is crucial fodder for Ichorid. Also, thanks for the update on Street Wraith. I've been hesitant to even test it, let alone play it. As I said early, I'm probably going to ignore Extraction, as far as my side is concerned, come SCG Open time. Good luck at the Open!
Don't forget to SB for reaninmator, It got the lootings boost too. There is no shortage of dredge and reanimator decks at the big tournies, I assure you.
i think going forward, trimming the breakthroughs is where its at. I am down to 2. Leds and breakthroughs often get sideboarded out for antihate.
MD 4xCareful Study is mandatory if you want to be able to play thru' hate like Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage reliably, and I feel like Breakthrough and Lion's Eye Diamond are essentially the same card with Lion's Eye Diamond accelerating the deck's fundamental turn and Breakthrough increasing consisteny. One of the primary differences between the two cards tho' is that you don't have to SB out Breakthrough nearly as often as you have to SB out Lion's Eye Diamond and Breakthrough is a better card to have in your hand when the deck "stalls" vs Surgical Extraction on your first Dredger.
Several people have PMed me for my list, so I'm just going to post it here.
MD
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Dread Return
2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame Kin Zealot
SB
4 Nature's Claim
3 Chain of Vapor
4 Street Wraith
4 Nether Shadow
I've given up on trying to beat Storm and Reanimator with my MD and SB and refocused my MD on consitency and my SB on being able to deal with Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage reliably and being as resistant as possible vs Snapcaster Mage and Surgical Extraction with Street Wraith nullifying Surgical Extraction on dredgers and Nether Shadow adding redundancy vs Surgical Extraction on Ichorid. I feel pretty confident in either being able to answer the odd Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus with either Nature's Claim or just straight forward dredging with Street Wraith and Nether Shadow (I SBed out the 11th land for the 4th Street Wraith whenever I SB out Breakthrough and the Sage/FKZ package)
@ Final Fortune:
That list is interesting, but a few things worry me.
I understand if your goal is to dodge all kinds of inteactions your opponents might have pre board with your list. But unlike manaless Dredge, I don't actually think that your list does this so much better than a stock LEDless list with discard dorks. Yo run only 12 Dredgers, don't have Street Wraith or Nether Shadow MD, the only difference is that you took out the discard dorks and additional lands and added the Phantas and a DR package.
I might be wrong, but apart from Phantasmagorian a usual LEDless list should DDD just as well as your list, and if your hand isn't usually full of graveyard-relevant stuff (like in Manaless), Phantasmagorian isn't really needed as badly for the DDD plan.
Then you play 12 draw spells, which can very well be countered. I see that you only cast them if the path is clear, but again, most Dredge lists can do that anyway. Only that your list can't even choose to go the fast route, and while you might dodge some permission, you might just get run over by Batterskulls or flipped Delvers.
I don't want to hate on your list by any means. I just thought that you justify your omission of the discard dorks with a list that dodges permission so well. But without the added DDD potential of Street Wraith and Nether Shadow, I feel like your list doesn't really go after that plan. I see arguments for hybrid (or even manaless) lists, but somehow yours looks much more like a usual LEDless that DDDs a bit better, but which loses the potential to be explosive and just outrace opposing Combo decks or simply fast decks with SFM, Delver, Ooze and all kinds of stuff. Seems like a bad trade for me...
Seems to me that ignoring Extraction and Reanimator decks all together when building a sideboard is not the right way to go. Reanimator is a dtb because its popular and unless your local meta doesn't see any reanimator players, then I would advise to board for them.
Extraction is probably the most popular type of hate atm because it can go into any deck. Again I would do something to circumvent the effectiveness of the card whether it be by diversifying your threats or what have you.
I'm actually going to try some weird tech based on my local meta. I won't bother posting until I actually see results.
Side Surgical Extraction to combat Surgical Extraction..
I've actually tried something similar in the LEDless list below:Quote:
Originally Posted by Smea.gol.lum
After testing this list, though, I've found that being able to Flashback Faithless Looting using lands is ok, but it isn't really something that you would want to be doing, considering that 25% of your lands are composed of a more powerful version of Faithless Looting (Cephalid Coliseum). In my testing, having that option does help in tight situations, so that's definitely a good thing. I'm unsure, though, of whether or not building the deck around that premise would be wise. I personally have been considering cutting the 16th land on that list in favor of another Dredger.
Kind Regards,
jares
Okay, just reposting this because it seems to have been passed over due to the talk of SW being boarded vs extraction and I would like some input on the list.
Okay, as I mentioned earlier, I really think Hollywood is on to something by increasing the number of threats in the deck. I felt like it did not have enough draw effects, and have been tweaking it and trying several ideas, and this is what I have come up with.
Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
3 Nether Shadow
Draw Spells
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
Other Graveyard Goodies
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
Other
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
Sideboard
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
4 Breakthrough
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair
Now, this is a huge step into uncharted territories for me, because I'm not only not playing with FKZ main, but I'm only playing with ONE DR! I feel like this deck should be able to grind out any match up, and is explosive enough to compete with storm game one by therapying away their hand quickly enough, then recurring lethal damage next turn.
Basically, I feel like Breakthrough is a card that is not needed in the main for most match ups. We have enough draw outlets with basicly 12 careful studies that breakthrough is for the most part overkill and I feel that the 4 slots are better used as +3 Nether Shadow +1 Ichorid
The maindeck and board are completely untested (outside of goldfishing), so suggestions are most definitely welcome.
@Dr.Edge kid :laugh:
I like your list. I'm actually playing the same main deck except of the nether shadows and -1 Golgari thug.
Instead i play four (4) Street wraiths. I came to the conclusion, to cut breakthrough is the thing we should do. The 8 studies should be enough. I just play the street wraith to have the chance to get them in my opening seven. The advantage with street wraith against breakthrough is, that you have a draw spell, that can be exiled for ichorids in the graveyard.
While i'm looking at your list, this could be nice with nether shadows.
If i play with shadows and +1 thug, i think i will play street wraith in the sideboard against surgical exctraction. ( Instead of playing Breakthrough in the board.
Did you already tested your list? If yes, how do you feel with lesser creatures in the grave to get back the shadows?
Then to the sideboard. How is Chain of Vapor a better choice instead of Nature's Claim?
I was already thinking about it, but i don't know what could be better.
Let's compare this two cards:
Nature's Claim:
+ Nature's claim can destroy your opponents hate directly.
- Costs green mana ( bad with coliseum )
+/- Your opponent gets 4 life ( This can be bad in some situation, but shouldn't be a big problem)
Chain of Vapor:
+ Nice against reanimator ( Bounce creatures like Elesh-Norn )
+/- Can also bounce hate, but if you don't have a therapy left, they will play it again ( except of leyline maybe )
- They can sacrifice a land to bounce you DR targets or creatures.
- blue mana ( can be cast with coliseum )
At any rate, i forgot some points! If you want, say me what, i will add it.
There are some advantages and disadvantages with this two cards.
But i think Chain of Vapor is the right answer, IMO. Because you should always have a therapy in your grave.
And the most important thing is, that you can cast it with every land you have.
Please tell me if i'm wrong with my opinion. I am open to any criticism or disagreement.
K1w1
LEDless Dredge is no more explosive than Hybrid Dredge, if you resolved your Imp/Tribe and your draw spell you'll be in the same position as Hybrid Dredge if it had DDDed and resolved your draw spell except you'll always be on the draw instead. Playing blindly into Force of Will or Wasteland is exactly what permits cards like Delver of Secrets to race you, because you've set yourself up for a double Time Walk before you can DDD or you cut yourself off of mana to cast your draw. Phantasmagorian completely mitigates counter magic and Wasteland, and counter magic is far more prevalent than graveyard hate. Your deck is inherently stronger with Phantasmagorian than without it, your DDD, your dredges, your starting hands all increase in value.Quote:
Originally Posted by Izor
Whether or not you choose to emphasize Phantasmagorian with draw spells, a Dread Return package or Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul game 1 is irrelevant because your strategy converges games 2 and 3. You can remove the MD Dread Return package and replace it with SB Street Wraiths or Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul, or you can just play with Firestorm or Lion's Eye Diamond. The core strategy is just to protect your DDD from counter magic and your manabase from Wasteland in exchange for "explosiveness" that's either unnecessary vs. aggro or dubious vs Storm. Dredge needs to do what it does and it needs to do what it does well, beat Island.dec while cheating vs aggro.dec Trying to beat Storm, even with LED and the initiative, is just a pipe dream. Likewise my logic vs. Reanimator is that you shouldn't be playing Dredge in any metagame where Reanimator exists, and if you dedicate any SB slots vs. Reanimator and Reanimator dedicates SB slots for either the mirror or you then you lose the match regardless - so why bother? The best we can do is hope that the presence of Reanimator skews the SB hate towards Surgical Extraction and Faerie Macabre so the aggro-control decks can deal with Reanimator, we can deal with the aggro-control decks and Reanimator (and/or Storm) can deal with us and we all just free-roll aggro.
As far as Imp/Coliseum is concerned, what really concerns me about your guys' arguments against Phantasmagorian and for Imp/Coliseum is that you guys always seem to draw 1 of 9 golden lands to cast the damn thing. I ALWAYS get to play with Phantasmagorian, you guys ONLY get to play with Putrid Imp 70% of the time. I was even playing Lion's Eye Diamond over Breakthrough because it gave me additional mana sources to resolve Faithless Looting, I have no idea how you are luck sacking these perfect hands on such sketchy mana bases so often.
I think chain is better because otherwise you just have no outs for elesh norn
In the feldman (zero anti hate in the sb) build i just side winds of change for reanimator because you want to be able to combo them out before they can drop norn.
If you run led you can probably do this even faster
I still think the fearless philosophy is decent becausr i have never been leylined and everything else can be played around
But you guys might have had different experiences etc