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I think LEDless can still have strenghts that LED doesn't, since it runs more lands MD, while LED uses them SB.Quote:
Originally Posted by 4eak
That said, what really pushes LED to be better than LEDless is that the best solution against Maverick is going nuts, and a fine tunned LED list can do that better than a fine tunned LEDless list, and with the bonus % chance to crit and go off on turn 1.
In a meta low on Maverick (unlikely?) or heavy on hate, maybe LEDless can have an edge.
As long as people board out LEDs in certain matchups, LED Dredge is never going to be strictly better than LEDless.
LED is still potentially faster and more combo-ish, but more fragile and inconsistent. This has been the case for years. Before Lootings, LED Dredge was just a bit faster and a lot more inconsistent, so people played LEDless. Looting improved the speed and consistency of LED Dredge. It's now even faster and at the same time, the consistency discrepancy has diminished.
By strictly better, I don't mean that there aren't cases where LEDless performs better than LED Dredge. Although, I can't think of a real matchup (I can generate artificial decks where I prefer LEDless, but that isn't what I'm talking about) where I prefer to play LEDless. What I mean by strictly better: given a developed and competitive metagame, LEDless is noticeably less effective, on average, than LED Dredge.
LEDless is not more consistent, imho. I've kept records of LED Dredge in a spreadsheet to give me some perspective, and I'm finding that with proper mulligans, LED Dredge is likely just as (if not more) consistent as LEDless.Quote:
I don't think LED Dredge is strictly better than LEDless Dredge, because the latter is more consistent and has a higher win rate vs. aggro-control, control etc. fwiw. It's just that without LED we're definitely at a loss vs stuff like Storm and Reanimator that we can no longer race.
Please give me examples (decklists if you have the time) of competitive, tier 1 decks where you honestly prefer LEDless to LED Dredge. Explain why you prefer LEDless in these matchups.
This just isn't necessarily true. I run 14 lands in both LED and LEDless. There are a variety of ways to build both decks. LEDless vs. Quadlazer, you are correct. I think Quadlazer is misguided.Quote:
I think LEDless can still have strenghts that LED doesn't, since it runs more lands MD, while LED uses them SB.
One of the strengths that LEDless has usually had over LED dredge is being more effective at slow-rolling, particularly in game 1 (where LEDless has more permanent discard outlets). I'm not even convinced anymore that LEDless is a better deck at slow-dredging in game 1. LED Dredge has just as many discard outlets, and it can dig deeper (as it is trading in permanent discard outlets for a higher density of draw/discard outlets) than most LEDless lists (meaning, LED Dredge can actually see more dredgers than LEDless does in opening hands).
Not clearly true either.Quote:
As long as people board out LEDs in certain matchups, LED Dredge is never going to be strictly better than LEDless.
LED is at its absolute best in game 1 because you are looking for raw speed and consistency without worrying much about overextending. Once your opponent has access to their sideboard (which almost always has some GY hate), and overextending becomes a very real risk, then cards like LED and Breakthrough become far less valuable.
Just because one might board out LED's doesn't mean it isn't strictly the best card for game 1. Game 1, LED Dredge is king by a ridiculous margin. I've lost far more game 1's with LEDless than LED Dredge. Games 2 and 3, that's LEDless's only chance to catchup to LED Dredge. It doesn't though.
Boarding does matter, but not the way you've implied. LEDless has one major strength going for it in games 2 and 3; LEDless is generally thought to be pre-boarded, and thus may have more sideboard space than a comparable LED Dredge deck. I've not found the difference in sideboard space to really increase the odds of winning so much so that I would sacrifice the amazing game 1's that I get with LED Dredge.
peace,
4eak
LED dredge won't see more dredgers in hand neither after mulligans since LEDless don't run 11 dredgers (like some 14 lands LED versions).
Actually, LEDless is tuned towards increasing the chance of having the good "land draw dredger discard" hand.
Since we're staying that consistency is having this sort of opening hand, LEDless mustn't be less consistent than LED version, because the first has 16 lands, which are the only cards besides dredgers that will make you mulligan.
I agree with 4eak about the maverick matchup (and would include show and tell too) being hard, but I'm looking for solutions to compensate it with sideboarding strategies (removal/extra discard/DR).
LEDless is likely dead for the foreseeable future. From what I can tell, nobody has top 8'd a sizable (33+ person) tournament with LEDless in the past 4 months. Nobody seems to be playing it (or if they are playing it, they aren't doing well with it), and for good reason, LED Dredge is just plainly better (and I submit it is not simply because of the presence of Maverick).
I run 13 Dredgers in both LEDless and LED Dredge. I do not compromise on the chance to open with dredgers (alongside all the functions I seek) and the ability to effectively chain dredge.Quote:
LED dredge won't see more dredgers in hand neither after mulligans since LEDless don't run 11 dredgers (like some 14 lands LED versions).
LED can be tuned to have just as high (if not higher) a chance to open "mana source, discard outlet, dredger, draw." In fact, that is largely my goal in any mana'd version of the deck. We now have a critical mass of draw/discard spells, enough so that the best way to attain "mana source, discard outlet, dredge, draw" is by lowering the number of permanent discard outlets to play draw/discard spells (which pull double duty). LED Dredge is simply in a better position to take advantage of that critical mass of draw/discard spells. Further, LED Dredge can viably run more mana sources than LEDless in virtue of the fact that LED pulls double duty - and that also improves its consistency. I'm fine with 18 mana sources in my LED Dredge deck, but I would never go above 15 with LEDless.Quote:
Actually, LEDless is tuned towards increasing the chance of having the good "land draw dredger discard" hand.
16 lands is outright too many, even for those who desperately want to make Faithless Looting more effective in LEDless.Quote:
Since we're staying that consistency is having this sort of opening hand, LEDless mustn't be less consistent than LED version, because the first has 16 lands, which are the only cards besides dredgers that will make you mulligan.
Consistency is largely based upon your opening hands (which is all you've talked about here), but given how many draw spells we can run at this point, your opening hand is not the only thing which matters to consistency. Being able to reliably play back to back draw spells in the first two turns often means that you have to consider that your hand + the top 2-4 cards of your library bears upon your consistency.
Consider this opening hand:
LED, CoB, CC, Looting, Study, Bridge, Ichorid.
That hand is a keeper. It isn't great, but it is certainly keepable. The reason this is keepable is because I can use my draw spells to find a dredger and still likely have gas left over to explode. Consistency requires more than merely considering the odds of opening with "mana source, discard outlet, dredger, draw."
Regardlesss, at this point, I believe that number of hands which are keepable for LED Dredge is greater than the number of hands which are keepable for LEDless.
peace,
4eak
What's your latest list 4eak? I'm pretty trying to figure out how to play LED version with 14 lands and 13 Dredgers o_oQuote:
Originally Posted by 4eak
But yeah, LED > LEDless nowdays.
// Mana Sources - 18
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
// Dredgers - 13
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Darkblast
// Strictly Draw/Discard - 12
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
// The Goods - 17
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
// Sideboard
SB: 4 Putrid Imp
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I know many of you are attached to PImp. I think the card just isn't as good as the other options in the main. If I were to add PImps, I'd go: -2 DR, -1 DB, +3 PImp (which is fairly close to quadlazer). I think PImp is weaker than DR and the 13th Dredger in game 1 though.
With a critical mass of draw/discard effects and the double-duty mana sources (CC and LED), I find permanent discard outlets not worth using in game 1. Games 2 and 3, in most matchups, I didn't side in Tribes even when I had them, so I cut them.
peace,
4eak
I agree that PImp is somehow the worst card. I played with 1-2 PImp here and then, because I literally never felt that I really needed it, and I also board it out often, becaue you don't really need it to beat Crypt/Extraction but there is still the point that PImp is Ichorid-fodder.
Your list plays 8 feedable targets [besides Ichorid-canibalism], and sometimes you can't eat that Dredger. Have you encountered any problems where this "low" count on black creatures is relevant?
@4reak
I've played more or less the same before with -1 Dark Blast, +1 Tarnished Citadel and -2 Dread Return, +2 Phantasmagorian awhile ago, do you actually feel like your Dread Returns are contributing to your wins or that your Dread Return targets are addressing your problems post-board?
I have no problem cutting Pimp(s) for dredgers and lands, but cutting Pimps for kill conditions is completely against the idea of adding consistency to the deck IMO.
As far as LEDless being "unviable," I think it's a weaker deck pre-board but a potentially stronger deck post-board if it can leverage the ~7 discard creatures vs conventional hate.
Breakthrough isn't a discard outlet that we can rely on our opener. And multiple draw spells without dredger are risky since the game starts at least one turn later if we don't draw a dredger.
They've calculated the chances of having the great openers on the main dredge variations, and the LEDless got 1% more than the LED version, so again it's wrong to say that it's less consistent.
Btw, I agree that the power gained from LED makes the LED version better, that's why people don't play the lesser version on tournaments.
I play LEDless only because I don't own LED, but it's not the version of the deck that is making me lose.
After more than one month of abstinence I finally played the deck once again in my local tournament.
But not your ordinary LED / LEDless Dredge, but the allmost forgotten Manaless Dredge.
So lets start with the list ( aka: "fuck I neither own Shambling Shell nor fancy DR targets").
3 Dakmore Salvage
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bloodghast
4 Phatasmagorian
4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
2 Sphinx of the lost Truth
1 Cephalid Sage
1 River Kelpie
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxin Probe
4 Bridge from Below
SB:
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Faerie Macabre
1 Iona
1 Realm Razer
1 Terrastodon
And before you ask: yes, the list is as inconstistant as it can get, but then again it can also explode on turn 2, which is pretty funny I have to admit.
Round 1: BUg Langstill
G1: He starts with a 2nd turn Standstill, guess you know how this is going to end....
G2: He mulligans twice and leads with USea into Gravediggers Cage.
G3: Once again he mulligans, this time down to six, but to my relief he only opend with Snapcaster + Extractions, taking my Ichorids and Dread Returns. I simply grind him out, as he doesn't find another piece of hate in time.
Round 2: Combo Elves
G1: I have to mulligan once ( bad), he has the turn 2 kill via Cradle ( worse) and he still manages it to waste 20 minutes on the game, missing allmost every trigger and overall playing like a total douchebag (the worst).
G2: I got an Iona online on turn 2.
G3: I have to mulligan down to six ( timewalk 1) while he goes down to 5. The first thing I discard gets eaten by a Fearie ( timewalk 2) and so does the 2nd thing ( timewalk 3). Naturally I die on his 4th turn.
Round 3: ANT
G1: He starts with a couple of discard, but somehow only finds mana exelaration after that, giving me the chance to blow him out via multiple Therapies.
G2: He mulligans down to 4, doesn't find him Cage and I win on turn 4.
Round 4: Maverick
G1: He leads with a Hierach into a 2nd turn Zenith for Ooze, which isn't so impressiv as I got 3 Street Wraiths in my hand. Long story short: I kill him via a large amout of hasty zombies.
G2: He starts with a 2nd turn Thalia, followed by a 3rd turn Ooze and since my first dredger failed to find anything I scoop it up.
G3: On turn 0 I reveal 3 Chancellors, hoping to buy me some time, while slowly building my grave. His first spell ( Teeg) gets countert, but then he has an Extraction on my Ichorid and a Thalia, who doesn't look so impressiv anymore once you get Dakmore Salvage online.
I DR a Chancellor, making sure that he won't cast any GSZ in the near future for more than 1 and a couple of turns later he dies to the overwhelming force.
I end up on the 3rd place, due to my opp score.
Stuff I learned from playing the deck and pros/cons for Manaless in the current Meta:
- People will mulligan really really really hard when they figure out that they only need one card to beat you ( Leyline / Cage), so you better start practise your shuffle skills to prevent this from happening.
- You have way more trigger than in ordinary dredge, so better not screw them up,
pros:
- watching the fear in your opponents eyes when they see that you discard Phantasmagorian
- being able to ignore cards like Surgical Extraction
- being able to ignore any form of counter magic
- being able to kill on turn 2 ( hey quadlazer can't do this)
cons:
- Leyline + Cage. Seriously during my testing I had some games that lasted no longer than 10 minutes, due to those cards g2/3.
You could devote half of your board to beat them, but then again I don't really see the point in doing so ( turning an inconsistant piece of shit into a way way way more inconsistant piece of shit doesn't seem to be that great).
- did I mentioned it's inconsistant
- you can easily get timewalked
- sometimes you need the consistant speed that LED/LEDless provide to beat the faceroll decks
- seriously it's so God damn inconsistant...
Overall I had a great time playing the deck, but I wouldn't take it to a tournament again in the near future, unless they'd print a phyrexian Natures Claim.
^ That's about the funniest damn thing I've read in a while.
That was a nice read, so how inconsistent is it?
Is there anyway to beat cage or Leyline g2/3
There were some ideas of Anti-Leyline Boards which consumed almost all if not all SB-Space. I tried it a bit an it was not very good. Of course I killed the Leyline which used up enough cards from my hand to timewalk me long enough to still die :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Fizzeler
Board was something like this:
4 Land Grant
4 Nature's Claim
4 Reverent Silence
3 Forest
I have seen a white version of it somewhere...but I don't remember anymore how it was build.
But in short: Cage/Leyline with Manaless are Game Over. Tormod's and Surgicals are ok. Once you start dredging your entire Graveyard consists of threats ^^
I've not had problems with feeding Ichorid, but I end up using him differently than I would use him in something like LEDless Dredge. I use him to build tokens and administer the final blow. I don't use him for aggressive beats throughout the game.Quote:
Your list plays 8 feedable targets [besides Ichorid-canibalism], and sometimes you can't eat that Dredger. Have you encountered any problems where this "low" count on black creatures is relevant?
The faster the dredge deck, the weaker Ichorid becomes. Essentially, when you are consistently flipping over a majority of your deck in a single turn, you really only need Ichorid for one (maybe two) turns in the majority of cases. In slower builds, Ichorid becomes far more important, as he is your essential grinding card. When you only flip 6 cards a turn, you need to get some action going early and be able to maintain that Ichorid action throughout the game, hence why a slower Dredge deck requires more Ichorids and also far more Ichorid fodder per Ichorid in the deck. LED Dredge, at this point, is stupidly fast. It is fast enough that going to 2 Ichorid is not insane, even if it is very likely suboptimal. It is fast enough that running 11 black creatures in total (including Ichorid) is sufficient.
I have tried cutting DR before. I really wish I could use that space for other things. Unfortunately, I've found the card too necessary.Quote:
I've played more or less the same before with -1 Dark Blast, +1 Tarnished Citadel and -2 Dread Return, +2 Phantasmagorian awhile ago, do you actually feel like your Dread Returns are contributing to your wins or that your Dread Return targets are addressing your problems post-board?
Dread return's literal effect is useful in a non-trivial number of games, both pre and post board. I can't count the number of times I needed a Dread return to win the game and nothing else would do. Sometimes it's the massive token generation, sometimes it's having a giant GGT (or very rarely a Stinkweed Imp), and sometimes it's both. I won't cut all of them. I think going down to 1 is possible, but not optimal. Dread return's indirect effect, primarily as a sac outlet which generates tokens, is actually the most important part of the spell. If Dread return didn't do anything, but still had its flashback, the card would still be worth running. That's how valuable DR as sac outlet, particularly a big sac outlet, is in my eyes. The fact that DR gives me a couple blowout post-board targets in a some matches is often gravy.
LEDless is only unviable in a very weak sense, primarily in the sense that it is strictly worse or virtually dominated by another strategy (namely LED Dredge). I certainly believe LEDless can win many games (it isn't strongly unviable) - LEDless should regularly beat a significant portion of tier 1 and 2 decks. LEDless simply doesn't win as often as LED Dredge - that's the point I was going for.Quote:
As far as LEDless being "unviable," I think it's a weaker deck pre-board but a potentially stronger deck post-board if it can leverage the ~7 discard creatures vs conventional hate.
To say that LEDless is a weaker deck pre-board is pretty much the same thing as saying that LED Dredge is strictly better. Those ~7 discard creatures are still available to LED Dredge post-board, it just means that there is slightly less sideboard space. That said, I'm not finding Tribes to be worth it. Even if I had a 25 card sideboard with Tribes in it, I just wouldn't board him in the vast majority of matchups.
Breakthrough is certainly a reliable way to discard your hand. Going Land, Breakthrough on T1 is obviously not preferred because it is slow. I do, however, Breakthrough to discard my hand and slow dredge in non-trivial number of games, particularly after mulligans.Quote:
Breakthrough isn't a discard outlet that we can rely on our opener. And multiple draw spells without dredger are risky since the game starts at least one turn later if we don't draw a dredger. They've calculated the chances of having the great openers on the main dredge variations, and the LEDless got 1% more than the LED version, so again it's wrong to say that it's less consistent. Btw, I agree that the power gained from LED makes the LED version better, that's why people don't play the lesser version on tournaments.
Please note, however, that while Breakthrough is not the preferred initial discard outlet, it makes for a wonderful secondary discard outlet. Breakthrough relieves you of any trapped cards (Bridges, DR, Ichorid, extra dredgers or black creatures) in hand. Dredge often needs more than just an initial discard outlet to get the ball rolling. Breakthrough serves admirably in these occasions.
Let us not forget that Breakthrough for X=1 is still a decent play in many circumstances, acting as a way to dump our hand and leaving us with a card to go off with in many cases.
peace,
4eak
Ok, so it seems we are back to debating the LEDless vs LED versions yet again. I still need some help understanding the concept of "slow dredging" and how/when to do it properly. Exaclt what is "slow dredging", how do you do it properly and what does it look like? So let's get back on a constructive path and help me learn how to not simply get rolled in games 2/3. :wink:
Get better at reading your opponent and understanding what their deck can and can not do.Quote:
Originally Posted by TerribleTim68
I don't really know what you have problems with. The only information I got so far is that you tend to get rolled after boarding. But by what? And how are you trying to fight it?
Anyways slow dredging is just that, you dredge slowly, that means with no or only minimal use of draw spells or effects. Usually you start by DDDing.It can be done if you simply don't have any discard outlet(you know what DDD means right?) or to fight things like counterspells,as your opponent can't do anything about you discarding down to 7 cards at the end of turn.Note that after you discarded,the turn has ended and your opponent cannot do anything at your eot anymore.
That means if they want to do something at eot, they have to do it when you announce you are going to discard.
The other main use of slow-dredging is to fight hate,particularly Crypt and Relic. You just dredge for the least amount possible or reasonable( I usually use Thugs for this) so you can force your opponent to crack relic/crypt because a) you hit ancient grudge or b) you have enough threats in your graveyard to deal respectable damage. That's why Ashen Ghoul has been very good against Crypt imo.
I have actually been looking into playing LED-less Dredge for a while now. While LED provides a level of explosiveness with Faithless Looting - in addition to being used as a discard enabler in conjunction with other draw spells and dredgers - I still kind of like dropping Tireless Tribe on turn one. A lot of decks right now (resurgence of Tribal, Aggro and RUG) have a hard-ass time dealing with it which is a really nice bonus to have.
I still, however, think that cutting Putrid Imp is a mistake and would never do it.
Thanks HokusSchmokus, that's more along the lines of what I'm looking for. The problems I face are opposing hate, usually in the form of Crypt and Extraction, those are what I see the most. There is the occasional Faerie, but we'll view that as a lesser Extraction for this conversation.Quote:
Originally Posted by HokusSchmokus
What I've found in my case is that I wasn't sure what to dredge or how much to dredge when facing a Crypt. So I tend to "over-dredge" I guess you would say. I never really know if I should just draw a card or keep dredging. It always seemed like drawing a card isn't what the deck wants to do. So knowing when to just draw a card has been an issue for me. Hearing things like "You just dredge for the least amount possible or reasonable( I usually use Thugs for this) so you can force your opponent to crack relic/crypt because a) you hit ancient grudge or b) you have enough threats in your graveyard to deal respectable damage." is very helpful. Is there a time when you just simply draw a card rather than dredging? Or are you still dredging, just doing so with guys like the Thug?
As for the EoT discard step, it's rarely an issue on the timing side of it because when facing either Crypt or Extraction they can just do it any time, even on thier upkeep step after my turn has ended.