[Primer] Dredge

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Originally Posted by JakiraJakira

hi Everyone. Ive just started to pick up legacy recently and have been looking at Dredge not only because of cheaper cost but the metagame effect if players get greedy on graveyard hate.
my goal is to get good enough at the deck to win most of my matches come March and the team open.
Ive been testing this list a little bit online, took it from Eruxus. Went 4-1 in a league, but im honestly not sure on sideboarding.

I was wondering if you guys could please help me understand sideboarding for certain matchups.
Especially grixis delver and other top tier decks. Especially the gravestone, does that card come in alot?
Thank you so much:)

My list for reference


3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
3 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
1 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Confluence
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith

1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Firestorm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Wear // Tear

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Hey, nice to see that someone wants to bring dredge to bigger tournaments!
Your list looks good, Eruxus had much success online with it, he almost got into top 8 of the last challenge with it.
For the top decks:

Grixis Delver: +3 firestorm, - dread return, - 2 breakthrough
You can try to be greedier on the play and board some number of gravestones in. It just feels very slow vs their mana denial plan.

Pile: their main plan is snap+surgical and drs, so gravestone comes in and firestorm too. Cut dread return and some LED/draw spells and amalgams because they are better equipped to deal with 3/3s than delver and something has to come out.

Miracles: same as pile, but you don't need firestorm on the play. It can be good on the draw, because they will try to fluster/blast your studies/lootings and containment priest becomes a real thing.

ANT: try to be fast and discard their hand with therapies, board in iona. Amalgams are the obvious cuts.

Elves: same as ANT but 3 firestorms come in for studies.

Chalice decks: they will have some leylines, so tear comes in. Ashen rider if they go very big or have ensnaring bridge.
Firestorm can do work if they run blood moon and lets you discard through chalice. Amalgams and street wraiths can come out.

Crop rotation decks: discard their crop rotation and try to go fast and have ashen rider for problematic lands/marit lage. I don't think that gravestone is good enough vs loam, because of wasteland, just try to belcher them.

Show and tell: board in ashen rider and iona for amalgams and one street wraith.

Death and taxes: they will have very many different annoying permanents after turn 2, so create a big enough board before turn 2. On the draw, your best chance to win is LED or sniping their hatepiece with therapy after you cycled SW to dredge. Don't board in too much anti-hate on the draw to make both of those plans as consistent as possible. Firestorm is better than tear, because it is proactive. Just present your maindeck on the play and do what our deck does best. You might get blown out by faerie macabre or surgical, but fighting their hateful permanents is a losing battle because they have mom, manadenial and tutors for more hate.

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Originally Posted by Phthisis

I tried out a 4 Silent Gravestone sideboard tonight.
....
My current viewpoint is that in a void, Silent Gravestone is not clearly better or worse than Faerie Macabre or Memory's Journey.

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I still haven't bought any, but I did proxy up a set of 4 and test them out against my other decks that care about the grave.
The only cards I've ever really rated for gravehate in dredge are Faerie Macabre & Leyline of the Void, and (unfortunately) I can't say this card is changing my mind after my first test run.

Thoughts;
This card is all about DRS & Surg. I see these two often.
Decks that regularly wreck me like Reanimator, BUG & Grixis, run at least 8 counter effects and things like Surg in the side. These decks are likely to kill this.
Every deck running DRS will want the mana available to them, at least. Every deck running DRS/Surg will likely kill it (against us).
Should we come up against a deck like Elves, we can turn off their hate with this, but we still have to race them after spending 1cmc on this thing.
This card isn't demanding a slot in my side so far, but it would be a surprise - not many decks will be expecting it postboard.

Shut down Lands with Silent Gravestone last night. It was great.

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Originally Posted by ntropy

Shut down Lands with Silent Gravestone last night. It was great.

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Sweet! Seems that the card has some potential.
I`m still looking into getting a set, my LGS was sold out.

So I brought Dredge today to a 7 round event, I went 3-3 drop because I wanted to leave early and beat traffic.

Decklist was 12 lands, 3 PImp, 4 Street Wraith, 2 Careful Study, 2 Breakthrough and my pet card Darkblast over Thug #4

My Sideboard for the event was:
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Ashen Rider
1x Dread Return
3x Firestorm
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
2x Lotus Petal
3x Silent Gravestone
3x Wear//Tear

I beat Miracles twice, Grixis Pyromancer once, lost to UWr Stoneblade, Grixis Delver, and UR Delver.

Both my losses to Delver I blame on mulligan issues and bad RNG in general. G1 was all my fault, but G3 vs Grixis I kept an otherwise solid 6 card hand with Gravestone, Looting, Dredger, Ichy, Streetwraith, LED but no land. Cycle failed to find land and LED got forced, 6 turns in, still no land. G1 vs UR I had 7,6,5, & 4 card hands that were either no land/LED or all land, 3 card was Dredger, Ichy, Land. I scooped in response to Probe to conceal information. Game 3, my hand was just too slow to beat their Zoo draw. Thug was my only dredger and it failed to find a second Dredger or any of the Narcos I needed to block with when I cracked Coliseum. The wins were all straightforward, nothing fancy just Ichorid & Zombie beats while playing around removal.



In building my sideboard Gravestone took the slot of the 2 Macabres & 1 Memory's Journey I was running. I originally had a 4th Firestorm and 2nd Dread Return in the board. I moved the Dread Return into the main deck cutting Putrid Imp #4 and cut the Firestorm because with Gravestones I didn't feel the need for a 4th removal spell for DRS. I ultimately filled those last 2 slots with Petals because I wanted some extra speed for combo decks and to pay for Daze when on the draw.

I cast Gravestone 4 times, it resolved 3 times. The time it was countered, my opponent Surgicalled it away taking both other copies from my hand that they had seen with Probe (they wanted to get some use out of the Surgical & didn't want me to just cast copy #2). Speaking with my opponents after the match they had between 2-3 Surgicals which were just killed off by the Gravestone. All my UWx Opponents were on 3 Surgicals, 1 C-Priest, as their sideboard plan. One Miracles player had a Kozilek's Return, and the Stoneblade player had an Engineered Explosives too. One of them commented how the Gravestone just shutdown their Snapcasters which really hindered their gameplan. One of the times Gravestone resolved it saved my dredger from Surgical, but my dredges were poor and I was outraced.

I'm going to continue testing Gravestone, but it seemed to be just as good as I expected it to be. As long as DRS is running rampant in Legacy and people are running Surgical as their primary choice of graveyard hate, Gravestone seems to be the best anti-hate. Every single opponent had to read Gravestone and at least commented on having never seen the card before.

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Originally Posted by Orim67

Hey, nice to see that someone wants to bring dredge to bigger tournaments!
Your list looks good, Eruxus had much success online with it, he almost got into top 8 of the last challenge with it.
For the top decks:

Grixis Delver: +3 firestorm, - dread return, - 2 breakthrough
You can try to be greedier on the play and board some number of gravestones in. It just feels very slow vs their mana denial plan.

Pile: their main plan is snap+surgical and drs, so gravestone comes in and firestorm too. Cut dread return and some LED/draw spells and amalgams because they are better equipped to deal with 3/3s than delver and something has to come out.

Miracles: same as pile, but you don't need firestorm on the play. It can be good on the draw, because they will try to fluster/blast your studies/lootings and containment priest becomes a real thing.

ANT: try to be fast and discard their hand with therapies, board in iona. Amalgams are the obvious cuts.

Elves: same as ANT but 3 firestorms come in for studies.

Chalice decks: they will have some leylines, so tear comes in. Ashen rider if they go very big or have ensnaring bridge.
Firestorm can do work if they run blood moon and lets you discard through chalice. Amalgams and street wraiths can come out.

Crop rotation decks: discard their crop rotation and try to go fast and have ashen rider for problematic lands/marit lage. I don't think that gravestone is good enough vs loam, because of wasteland, just try to belcher them.

Show and tell: board in ashen rider and iona for amalgams and one street wraith.

Death and taxes: they will have very many different annoying permanents after turn 2, so create a big enough board before turn 2. On the draw, your best chance to win is LED or sniping their hatepiece with therapy after you cycled SW to dredge. Don't board in too much anti-hate on the draw to make both of those plans as consistent as possible. Firestorm is better than tear, because it is proactive. Just present your maindeck on the play and do what our deck does best. You might get blown out by faerie macabre or surgical, but fighting their hateful permanents is a losing battle because they have mom, manadenial and tutors for more hate.

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Do you tend to treat BUG Delver or Shardless BUG like Grixis Delver, and not bring in Gravestones? Or more like Czech Pile, where you bring Gravestones in?

Thanks in advance!

I haven't played vs non-combo shardless decks much, but I don't think that shutting down only drs is worth it, especially if they have many free counters, wasteland and a fast clock. Gravestone is much better when the games go longer and surgical snap surgical gets scary. Shardless also doesn't play many surgicals I think because artifact based hate is better for them? I wouldn't board in gravestone vs both decks, but it is close because sometimes delver players like to keep hands based on drs. But in another game you fail to race an angler + delver + wasteland because you decided to timewalk yourself turn 1 and not cast looting instead.

Hello everybody!

Im new to the dredge deck but it was the first really weird deck i got to see when i got introduced to magic 7-8 years ago ish..
Anyway, im finally building it, couldn't assemble it because of our legacy scene died out, but this is what im aiming for atm with the cards i have so far:

3x Breakthrough
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Careful Study
4x Cephalid Coliseum
2x City of Brass
1x Dread Return
4x Faithless Looting
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
3x Gemstone Mine
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
3x Golgari Thug
3x Ichorid
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Mana Confluence
4x Narcomoeba
2x Prized Amalgam
3x Putrid Imp
4x Stinkweed Imp
3x Street Wraith
1x Tolarian Winds

For sideboard i got:
1 Iona
1 Ashen Rider
x Nature's Claim
1 Darkblast
2-4 Faerie Macabres

Tolarian winds is there for fun because i got a foiled one. Sadly i only got 1 LED so far.
Replaced 3 leds with Tolarian Winds, Dread Return and FKZ, combo kill and fun What if explosive turn.

One big question tho since Leyline of the Void is an expensive card where i live and the options i have atm when it comes to ordering cards:
Is Leyline of the Void essential in our sideboard?
How frequently does it see play in the sideboard in the dredge deck?

Thank you in advance!

Don't stress about LotV for LED-Dredge - Faerie Macabre is a better fit (think icky).

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Originally Posted by Orim67

.... because you decided to timewalk yourself turn 1 and not cast looting instead.

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Yeah this was my main concern too.
I get that Gravestone can stop DRS/Surg being a threat immediately, but mana for this deck is limited.
We can race DRS & Surg, so do we really need this card?
I'm testing this, hoping it's better than I think. But I can't help but think that whilst DRS & Surg are a pain, I've not been stomped by them routinely.
....I do however get stomped by RiP, LotV & Cage.

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Originally Posted by slave

Don't stress about LotV for LED-Dredge - Faerie Macabre is a better fit (think icky).


Yeah this was my main concern too.
I get that Gravestone can stop DRS/Surg being a threat immediately, but mana for this deck is limited.
We can race DRS & Surg, so do we really need this card?
I'm testing this, hoping it's better than I think. But I can't help but think that whilst DRS & Surg are a pain, I've not been stomped by them routinely.
....I do however get stomped by RiP, LotV & Cage.

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Yeah I was in the "we need to max out on this card" camp when it released. But I believe your assessment is correct in that we normally race DRS and imo if were losing to it its usually because they're backing it up with disruption (countermagic, Wasteland,) or a 2nd DRS which is more difficult to overcome. I've been trying out different main deck and sb configurations recently and also realized that Gravestone suffers from some of the same inherent criticisms some of our other sb cards like Nature's Claim receive. Gravestone is only really going to be effective when they actually have DRS or Surgical (Nature's claim is only going to be effective when they actually have Cage, RIP,etc), but the games where they play out Delver, Young Pyro then back them up with disruption will have meant you played a turn 1 do nothing card while they beat you down with their general strategy. FeelsBadMan.

@ROW. You don't need LOTV and I would suggest you use the other available options to you beginning with Fearie Macabre. There is also Surgical Extraction and Tormond's Crypt.

Don't stress out over what graveyard hate to run, there are many available options and all are playable. Some will fit your playstyle better than others. I've run Faeries, Surgicals, Leylines, Memory's Journeys, etc.


I'm continuing to test Silent Gravestone at 3 copies. My experience has been that it needs to come down super early for it to be good, essentially turn 1 or 2. I don't bring it in just for DRS, I mostly bring it in if expecting Surgical effects.

In general, all of my opponents who I played it against so far, have been completely unfamiliar with the card. Right now most of my opponents have been relying heavily on Surgical and the turn 1/2 Gravestone has left them with dead cards in hand. For example when I therapied my round 4 opponent, they had 1 Surgical & 1 Extripate and were willing to Force my second Gravestone so if they found green mana they could Abrupt Decay the first copy and turn those cards back on.

That said, I also had a game where I did not find my Gravestones and an early Surgical on my Bridges made me lose the race. This is a problem that all anti-hate Dredge runs suffers from. You need the answer pretty much immediately and if your opponent never finds their hate, your anti-hate is just a dead card.

So far I've been enjoying Gravestone, I'm going to keep testing it. I've got some minor changes I plan to make in the main deck, fiddling around with the number of Breakthroughs and Careful Studies I run.


For racing DRS: Game 1 its typically easy to outrace DRS. You just need to overwhelm it, hit enough Ichorids/Narcos and Bridges. Land->LED->Loot Breaking LED in response is at its best here. Street Wraith stifling a DRS activation often gives you enough of a lead.

Given the general efficacy of Gravestone against a lot of the format's graveyard hate, does anyone think this is likely to spur an increase in genuinely terrible cards for us like Leyline or Rest in Peace?

I don't think so because dredge is still less popular than turbo depths, b/r reanimator and lands. But snapcaster decks might start to keep in some artifact removal.

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Originally Posted by Orim67

I don't think so because dredge is still less popular than turbo depths, b/r reanimator and lands. But snapcaster decks might start to keep in some artifact removal.

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What Graveyard hate is good against Turbo Depths?

Blue decks like to surgical dark depths after they wasteland it or edict/swords marit lage. Caseyc even has a ground seal in the sideboard for that reason I think. Surgical is just very good right now, because lands can't grip it, depths doesn't do much without dark depths and it is free vs b/r reanimator. It is also fine vs storm and miracles.

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Originally Posted by Orim67

Blue decks like to surgical dark depths after they wasteland it or edict/swords marit lage. Caseyc even has a ground seal in the sideboard for that reason I think. Surgical is just very good right now, because lands can't grip it, depths doesn't do much without dark depths and it is free vs b/r reanimator. It is also fine vs storm and miracles.

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I feel it's poorly advised to cater your plan to what bad players may do. Boarding in a card that is totally useless in a matchup unless you have already foiled their primary(in the case of Turbo Depths, only) plan is setting yourself up for failure. More to the point, Surgical is not included in sideboards for Depths. If players want to bring in the card in that matchup, well, I don't play that deck. So good luck with that. But indicating Turbo Depths as a marker for Surgical's saturation is probably misleading.

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Originally Posted by Parcher

I feel it's poorly advised to cater your plan to what bad players may do. Boarding in a card that is totally useless in a matchup unless you have already foiled their primary(in the case of Turbo Depths, only) plan is setting yourself up for failure. More to the point, Surgical is not included in sideboards for Depths. If players want to bring in the card in that matchup, well, I don't play that deck. So good luck with that. But indicating Turbo Depths as a marker for Surgical's saturation is probably misleading.

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Surgical isnt in the side for Turbo Depths as it doesn't hit its primary plan, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't board it in, as long as it's better than the card it replaces (like lightning bolt?). Turbo Depths is dead without Depths, so even as a secondary action, its game over if it pans out.
I think this is what Orim 67 meant, rather than indicating Surgical as frontline hate against Depths.

Yeah, I might be wrong and I just got lucky that one game where I surgicaled depths as grixis delver. I'm not an expert for fair blue. But when everyone has at least 2 surgicals in their sideboard, there might be a good reason for it. Dredge is still not popular enough to make them change their sideboard.
Surgical also synergises well with delver, snapcaster and young pyromancer. Rip has bad synergy with search and snap and leylines don't work well in blue decks.

How is the MU against Eldrazi stompy?

Game 1 is very favorable, because they can't remove bridges and chalice on 1 sometimes doesn't do anything (breakthrough, led + coliseum). We also have a good chance to win by slow dredging after they lock our draw spells out with chalice. Game 2/3 gets much harder because of leylines. It is very unlikely to have a fast hand + enchantment removal, so if our eldrazi opponent has a reasonable hand + leyline, we are often pretty dead. I think that it gets hard enough game 2/3 that the matchup is unfavourable.