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I think he wanted to say Rogue Hermit (Oops all spells)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
Nice tech. It adds an "uncountereable instant speed draw spell". Complements wrtaiht and makes tokens with arbor at the same time you dredge.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
An odd question is griselbrand reemplazable in this deck? I love running stuff like Angel of despair and Woodfall primus in addition to flayer. I found them like "gain too much time and win guys". Love'em.
So I just tried something out, and it actually somehow wound up being really good: Serum Powder.
Here's what I did: I took out the three Edge of Autumn and replaced them with three Serum Powder straight-up. I've been playing all night and gold-fishing games at the house and I'm actually surprised at how good it's been. The lands in the deck already compliment the Bloodghast package well, so didn't need to really edit anything there. I tried an experiment where I wanted to play like Vintage Dredge and see how it would work. In Manaless Dredge (the Legacy version), the closest options we have at facilitating faster kills are basically Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith - two extremely powerful cards that we're all happy to open up a game with.
The benefits I found were actually staggering:
1. It allowed me to improve vastly on open-handing either of the aforementioned cards, which was especially helpful against Deathrite Shaman. This was also crucial because I didn't have to dip into my sideboard for anti-hate cards, but instead, it just allowed me to open with the cards that counter DRS on the spot.
2. It allowed me post-board to open-hand Mindbreak Trap against a Belcher player twice without having to mulligan.
3. It improved my opening hand multiple times with multiple Narcomoebas - drawing me into Sreet Wraiths and Phantasmagorians.
While there is no comparison to Bazaar of Baghdad in any way, shape or form, in Legacy when we open-hand Street Wraith with this deck, the winning percentages just rocket. Add the fact that this variation (like it's distant Vintage cousin) plays Bloodghasts, we're in less danger of exiling our threats off Powder because we have redundancy in the form of Bloodghast anyhow.
I was pretty shocked at how good it was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
I had thought of Serum Powder a while back, just didn't want to mention it. I felt people would take me for a fool if I did...
This is actually true. But in a blind meta what versión would you play??Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
Manaless is so funny and have inique techs that make it a headache forma countermagic.
However, it explosiveness is weaker than mana ichorid. Indeed i think that serum powder is much justified in a deck that can explode into your opo face!
I guess that depends on your play style, honestly.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenCid
Inspired by Hollywood i took this autum dekc list:
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Dakmor Salvage
3 Bloodghast
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Dryad Arbor
2 Griselbrand
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Bridge from Below
4 Street Wraith
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Edge of Autumn
SB: 4 Unmask
SB: 1 Forest
SB: 2 Verdant Catacombs
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Sickening Shoal
SB: 1 Contagion
Loved edge of autumn since its provide an instant speed response for multiple situations. Increase a t2 combo at the same time is very sinergistic with other cards of the deck. And yes....i surrendered to griseldbrand...XD
15 dredgers
15 free guys
Comments are very welcomed.
I've used Serum Powder off and on since Breathweapon suggested it for the original Manaless Dredge on MTGO, the list with 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 4 Cephalid Coliseum, 4 Deep Analysis and 4 Serum Powder, and I've hade a long standing suspicion that replacing Shambling Shell with Serum Powder would increase the deck's consistency overall because you lose the majority of your game ones to either Deathrite Shaman, Storm or having to keep a Dredge 3 as opposed to a Dredge 4 etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
Regardless of the additional dead cards while Dredging, having a higher overall average Dredge offsets it and increases the odds of opening Chancellor of the Annex, Street Wraith or Phantasmagorian vs Deathrite Shaman, Mindbreak Trap vs Storm or Leyline of the Void vs other graveyard based strategies.
There was some interesting math, gold fishing, done on Bauble Dredge vs a version of Dredge that just used Lion's Eye Diamond, Deep Analysis and Serum Powder as I recall with the lists being approximately even in their gold fish speed, altho' it was said that Serum Powder actually made the deck slower (which I find hard to believe).
I do worry that not having the redundancy of drawing 2 Dredgers, even one as weak as a Shambling Shell, could adversely affect your resiliency to Surgical Extraction and your ability to chain Dredge.
The presence of Bloodghast has no weight on the effectiveness of Serum Powder, it's probably the opposite as Serum Powder should significantly increase your Landfall triggers. The card removal effect on your threats is of little consequence, when you considering you're also removing the Serum Powder and 5 other spells the deck tends to stay in balance relative to everything but Dredgers, and when you think about it removing 7 cards that aren't Dredgers and drawing 7 new cards is a VERY, VERY good thing.
@Goldencid
If you don't have Griselbrands in order to play alongside Dryad Arbour than something like Iona, Shield of Emeria is probably your next, best bet or go back to the old Cephalid Sage (or whatever improved version has been printed since) and Flame Kin Zealot kill if you can't wait until your next turn to kill your opponent.
Also for the love of god don't play more than 2 Dakmor Salvage, you can not keep a hand on Dredge 2 and if you just want to recur it to activate Landfall then 2 is more than enough redundancy because you have to wait until 2, maybe 3, Bloodghast in order to make that play worthwhile. You're much better off playing 4 Bloodghasts if for no other reason it makes the overall effect of returning Dakmor Salvage or playing a Dryad Arbour that much better.
So you'd go-1 dakmor +1 ghast?
At least, I don't think I'd play Dakmor Salvage at all honestly. Dryad Arbor and Dread Return is enough, you usually just chain two Dread Returns into each other in order to shit out zombie activations and a big troll and win vs most decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenCid
The point of Ghasts is to give Dryad Arbor and Dread Return added value, not really be its own engine, because that requires running Dakmor Salvage(s) and that shit is really bad. He's just trying to make other really bad cards work, like Edge of Autumn, and bad cards beget more bad cards especially when you're sitting across from an active Deathrite Shaman and a player who isn't stupid.
Serum Powder, for what it does, would undoubtedly increase the deck's overall consistency. Manaless Dredge is a deck that really cannot afford to naturally mulligan, so you're essentially stuck on whatever seven cards you draw. The black creature count in the deck is sufficient enough for Ichorids to run wild, so that's never a problem. The biggest issue with the deck rests solely on the shoulders of the opening hand, and that's really it. There's nothing the deck - or player - can control in an in-game situation when playing Manaless Dredge and drawing seven cards. There are no Brainstorms...or Tops...or Ponders...etc., that dictate what said player can and cannot draw. The deck just grinds through itself like a conveyor belt in a factory assembly line.Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
With that being said, Serum Powder may just be the right choice for this deck's continued success. Not only is it vastly improving on the overall mathematical probabilities of open-handing key cards in critical situations, it really gives the player operating it a chance to get rid of chafe and move right to the deck's power-plays with S.W. and Phantasmagorian. There may be instances where the player would exile something like a singleton Flayer, but I suppose if you're looking for a stronger opening hand, you don't need to worry about that if you're going to stampede over them with your creatures.
Also, Deathrite Shaman isn't a card that shuts this deck down as much as everyone thinks it does - even without Serum Powder. With a full compliment of Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith, you have a 65.36% shot of opening at least one of those eight cards in your opening hand, as opposed to the obvious 39.95% chance of your opponent opening the same. This is also ignoring the wide array of variables that are more advantageous to the Manaless player - largely due to the fact that this deck doesn't mulligan, but rather autonomously motions forward with its usual line of play without needing lands to operate.
Leyline of the Anything is atrocious in any composition of Manaless Dredge. If you're going to play any hate, use Faerie Macabre. You at least get a draw for the turn and are able to discard while keeping this unsuspecting form of hate in your hand, which also has more blowout value and synergistic qualities with Ichorid and Nether Shadow. There is virtually no reason to "Time Walk" yourself when you can play a (virtually) non-interactive card that is clearly superior out of the sideboard. It's also better in multiples, which Leyline is definitely not.Quote:
Regardless of the additional dead cards while Dredging, having a higher overall average Dredge offsets it and increases the odds of opening Chancellor of the Annex, Street Wraith or Phantasmagorian vs Deathrite Shaman, Mindbreak Trap vs Storm or Leyline of the Void vs other graveyard based strategies.
If we're giving our opponent the benefit of the doubt (as you've done later) by insinuating they are an intelligent opponent who knows how to play this match-up, then Extracting a dredger - in most situations - is usually a mistake. There is no reason to run any less than 25% total of your deck comprised of dredgers.Quote:
I do worry that not having the redundancy of drawing 2 Dredgers, even one as weak as a Shambling Shell, could adversely affect your resiliency to Surgical Extraction and your ability to chain Dredge.
The deck is redundant and capable in a variety of interesting scenarios, and that happens to be one of them. Surgical Extraction is also directly countered by Street Wraith - and Extraction is pretty bad in the mid to late game against any form of dredge on a dredger, so it would tend to happen earlier and more often. This increases the likelihood of using Street Wraith to counter that effect more readily in the early game without any issues.
Never play anything less than three Dakmor Salvage in a dedicated, four-count Bloodghast package...ever. Dredging three with Shell or two with Salvage really makes no large difference as they're both relatively ineffective in that department - even though they technically still dredge. You always want to open the game with a land, and if you're not opening the game with a land, dredging two to return it back is always your secondary line of play, as opposed to improving your chances of open-handing one or drawing into one on the first turn. Jumping north of 60% odds of opening with a land is very important in a deck tailored to suit Bloodghast's strengths as opposed to "crutching" on the card's off-the-bench utility.Quote:
Also for the love of god don't play more than 2 Dakmor Salvage, you can not keep a hand on Dredge 2 and if you just want to recur it to activate Landfall then 2 is more than enough redundancy because you have to wait until 2, maybe 3, Bloodghast in order to make that play worthwhile. You're much better off playing 4 Bloodghasts if for no other reason it makes the overall effect of returning Dakmor Salvage or playing a Dryad Arbour that much better.
Dryad Arbor into Bloodghast in a Dread Return-fueled list is incredibly nice, but being "nice" alone is not enough. Bloodghast is a card that deserves attention of you're running the full compliment, and riding on six lands (two of which are the only ones that dredge) in a list where Shells have been removed seems a bit low: 22.15% opening the game on one of your two Salvages as opposed to 31.54% for one of your three. (Their utility must be disseminated because one card functions as a dredger and the other does not - even if they are lands.) You want to mitigate that loss by at least improving your chances of opening with a dredger - even if you're not running Shell or Serum Powder.
You're sitting over there talking about using outdated choices like Cephalid Sage and you're calling a card like Edge of Autumn bad? Look, you've clearly never tested or used the card and are making a baseless assumption in an area where you haven't even done so much as an ounce of testing to conclude any sort of intelligible opinion, like, "He's just trying to make other bad cards work, like Edge of Autumn, and bad cards beget more bad cards..." What it honestly comes off as is blatant ignorance. Within a virtual melting pot of blossoming ideas, you're honestly still talking about cards that haven't been used in this archetype to success in years and generating opinion after opinion without so much as providing a competitive REL-level result.Quote:
The point of Ghasts is to give Dryad Arbor and Dread Return added value, not really be its own engine, because that requires running Dakmor Salvage(s) and that shit is really bad. He's just trying to make other really bad cards work, like Edge of Autumn, and bad cards beget more bad cards especially when you're sitting across from an active Deathrite Shaman and a player who isn't stupid.
That's not how it works.
News flash: no matter how "smart" you purport your opponent to be, the virtual non-interaction that this deck brings to the table completely wipes out any ability for that player to make *confident* choices in extremely situational Magic where they have little to no opportunity to interact and risk losing the game on a single line of play. They have no clue what you're going to be dumping with Phantasmagorian or if you have double-Street Wraith in your hand to blow them out. A smart player still has limited options within their first two turns. all the while you're flooding them with layer after layer of impending threats. Edge of Autumn is more than just a card - it's an ideal meant to generate the survival and success of this deck against its current and most popular nemesis. This deck, to be honest since I last really started talking about it, hasn't done much of anything and the lists have been stagnant or drifting to Chancellor/non-Chancellor, Spy/non-Spy or anti-hate/no anti-hate sideboards. Perhaps stimulating change and bringing a new layer of unpredictability to the table might actually make the deck, you know, viable again in a world-wide meta where it's not very well represented.
The time for change is now.
Please, I don't need to test Edge of Autumn in order to know it's bad, a Cycler that requires a land isn't worth being uncounterable and activating Bridge from Below compared to a Cycler that doesn't require a land and lets you make more informed decisions with Cabal Therapy. The card is an inconsistent, two card combo that requires you to have, Dredge and play Dakmor Salvage in order to cast it reliably.
Dakmor Salvage is a bad card, Ariston did extensive testing with Dakmor Salvage and Blood Ghast in the past and found that Dakmor Salvage's Dredge and Landfall activation slowed the deck down compared to not playing Blood Ghast and Dakmor Salvage. I think insisting on playing Dakmor Salvage in order to play Blood Ghast is a mental block, because all you need is Dryad Arbor and Dread Return in order to make Blood Ghast relevant. If you want to increase your Landfall, then you can play other lands like Fetchlands which extend the use of your Dryad Arbor for Cabal Therapy, Dread Return, Bridge from Below activations or Forests/G mana for your SB cards than 3x of a card that you'd rather not draw or Dredge at all.
I did not advocate Cephalid Sage, Golden Cid asked for a budget replacement for Griselbrand in a deck with Dryad Arbor and Cephalid Sage (or its iterations) is the only other option I know of to replicate the draw effect cheaply.
I prefer Leyline of the Void to Faerie Macabre, Leyline of the Void is immune to Thoughtseize and Cabal Therapy and requires bounce in order for the Reanimator, Hermit Druid or Dredge player to win - your Time Walk argument is awfully selective considering you previously advocated using Contagion against Deathrite Shaman by the way.
Having a 65% chance to answer a Deathrite Shaman is not enough, when you could have another 4 cards that answer Deathrite Shaman and are good vs every other match up in your deck. I don't see a reason to cut a necessary answer to a ubiquitous threat like Deathrite Shaman in order to play pet cards like Edge of Autumn, you're failing to address the metagame in favor of experimenting with jank.
You'll have to excuse me if I just outright dismiss some of your ideas, I assure you it's not out of laziness or ignorance, you've just advocated a lot of less than sound card choices in your attempts to revolutionize the deck like Rifstone Portal that have made me pretty cynical that anything you do advocate in Manaless Dredge is nothing more than your weekly flight of fancy. This deck is extremely linear, nothing you can do to it is really going to change its standing as a competitive deck in the format. I think loading down on disruption vs combo is one possibly way of increasing your EV vs the field, but the fact of the matter is that if the field is prepared for any linear deck than you shouldn't be playing it at all regardless of whatever novelties you've included in your deck this go around. Frankly, the core of the deck is so strong that it isn't really the player or the ~12 flex slots (more like ~8 flex slots considering I just think Chancellor of the Annex is mandatory post Deathrite Shaman) that is going to lead to your ability to win a tournament with it.
Provided you know the triggers, this deck is the definition of auto-pilot.
Edit: regarding the intelligible players comment, it doesn't really take a rocket scientist for a Storm player to name Unmask with Cabal Therapy game 1, it isn't until game 2 where I have Unmask and Mindbreak Trap where I feel confident Storm players have an actual decision to make.
But i found the sinergic Edge + sac savage + dredge + return more ghast useful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
Running edge + Street + arbor increased my t2 combo rate which is great!
I can see cutting Edge of Autumn if it doesn't work for you, although I've found it to be really good.
At this point, I've got a major hard-on for Serum Powder right now, and I'm going to try it at a big tournament this Saturday.
I'm 100% on board with Serum Powder replacing Shambling Shell, that seems to be a directly + EV decision, altho' it does require a couple of alterations to the Dread Return package, a 2/2 split of Griselbrand/Balustrade Spy and Flame Kin Zealot/Flayer of the Hatebound is probably a necessity. I found a curious problem with Mindbreak Trap that makes me think Leylines are better than people give them credit for despite the reversed Time Walk, an opposing Chancellor of the Annex counters everything other than Faerie Macabre.
@Golden Cid,
I don't know, I'm kind of on the fense about Unmask right now and Dread Return Dryad Arbor, Landfall, play Bloodghasts and sacrifice Dryad Arbor to Edge of Autumn could be a cute play to mess around with.
In other news, I think I'm done with Chancellor of the Forge, despite being a possible Dread Return target it's rarely a necessary Dread Return and otherwise it's a worse Dryad Arbor. I think I'm going to SB Unmask and play 4 Dryad Arbor and 4 Bloodghasts in order to see just how the added value of Bloodghast effects Dryad Arbor and how Dread Returning Dryad Arbor for Landfall works out.
Dryad Arbor is just an immensely solid card.
That Bloodghast build surely surprised me. At first i thought it was janky, but after a good amount of testing i realized it's seriously fast. It can't deal with rip/cage without a lot of luck, but that speed and consistency is impressive against the rest of the field. I have tried a list without Griselbrand and Flayer to squeeze in Chancellor of the Annex, but i felt the lack of a combo finisher.
I have tested serum powder in the past, it was nice to be able to mull sometimes, but it had some flaws.
-It makes it harder to chain dredges.
-It forces you to mull some hands where even a dredge 3 would've been nice.
-Can't be pitched to Ichorid/Doesn't count as a creature or Shadow.
-Surgical on a dredger becomes kinda effective, post board (you won't always be able to get dredger + wraith after mulling).
Not saying it's bad, just that i didn't find it that effective. Still, it'd be nice to see it working, it might deserve a spot in the deck, to let us mull into those Faerie Macabre's versus reanimator.
It does create some consistency issues vs hate by replacing Shambling Shell, that said you can always play it in addition to Shambling Shell or add it to the SB.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thrasher
For anybody playing the combo version, do you ever feel like Flame Kin Zealot is just better than Flayer of the Hatebound if for no other reason you'd actually reanimate it on its own (barring a world that plays with Moat effects)? It's a remarkably shitty Dread Return target by itself.
I have yet to try out Serum Powder, I'll test tonight once I'm back from school. This new build has got me really interested.
I'd say undying and ignoring the blockers make Flayer slightly better than FKZ.
I rarely reanimate it versus elves, if i suspect they're going off next turn and i don't have griselbrand nor therapy. Burning the correct dude often means delaying them one turn, which should be enough to sweep their board in our next upkeep with ichorid/shadows triggering Flayer. This is a corner case, though.
The only case where i would want TFK is Leyline of sanctity, but i side Flayer out most of the times i have to face it, and i would do the same with Zealot.
The Bloodghast-Arbor-Dread Return package is incredibly fast, in addition to just flat-out Dread Returning an Arbor, making tokens, getting Bloodghasts back, repeat and rinse. Dread Return, in this instance, becomes a monster token generator. It's actually quite sick.
I basically swapped out the three Edges in my list for three Powder and it wound up being really good. I'd like to try the fourth Powder at some point to maximize its effectiveness.
Are you playing dedicated Dread Return targets in that list?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
I'm messing around with this,
4 Serum Powder
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Street Wraith
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomboea
4 Nether Shadow
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
I've been thinking a lot about either SBing or MDing Fetchlands in order to increase the virtual number of Dryad Arbors in the deck while faciliting Reverent Silence vs Rest in Peace, you increase Landfall, you increase Bridge from Below triggers, you increase Cabal Therapy targets, you increase Dread Return targets etc. so as long as your SBing in Reverent Silence and only Reverent Silence and you're playing Bloodghast then you're keeping considerable parody in the total number of business spells in your deck.
Try cutting the Dakmor Salvages for Fetchlands MD when you get a chance, if the Dredge is irrelevant and returning it to play is mediocre than I'm pretty sure any land that can trigger Landfall and in addition to that feed Cabal Therapy, Dread Return and generate Zombies is pretty bonkers.
Dryad Arbor is like the best natural draw in the deck, and we can have as many as we want, it's pretty sick when you think about it because I'm actually SBing in lands vs combo over Unmask *head explodes*