The Performance of Dredge

According to Smmenen's (now free) article, Dredge was a poor performer in the SCG Open. Actually, I've read a lot of tournament reports/breakdowns for big tournaments where Dredge had a poor performance, with lots of players using the deck but just a very minimal percentage doing well.

However, frogboy's articles regarding Dredge illustrate something entirely different - that the deck is a powerhouse. I personally agree with this statement, as in random games in MWS and in the lcoal store, the deck just blows everyone out, even with multiple pieces of hate. The power, speed, and resiliency all come together for a very potent deck.

Why then, is it underperforming by people's standards? Is it because it's a cheap deck, so a lot of players pick it up and just do not really know how to play it properly? Or is it because the graveyard hate in big tournaments are just too much?

Dredge does poorly in big tournaments because its a lot more fragile than people want to think. It relies on the two zones that are most hated on in Legacy - the Graveyard and the Combat Phase. Plus, there are all sorts of random "bad cards" that just completely blow out the entire strategy.

Think stuff like Elephant Grass, Tabernacle, Mogg Fanatic, Cabal Therapy, and Moat in addition to all the other, more common hate the deck hits - Crypt/Extirpate/Ravenous Trap/Bojuka Bog/etc. And lets also not forget Tarmogoyf, who pretty much stops the Ichorid slow roll plan all by himself (as does any deck with large/moderate numbers of dudes w/4+ toughness.

Dredge isn't a bad deck, but it is very, very fragile and hateable, and bigger tourneys favor more consistent decks over more powerful ones. That's why Dredge is so much better at small events like MWS or your local store than it is at a big tournament.

For general tournament play, most people are bad at mulligans and the absolute worst at sideboarding. Since you don't actually play legit magic with the deck, guess what points you actually have control over where percentage points can be made or lost from?

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Originally Posted by Artowis

For general tournament play, most people are bad at mulligans and the absolute worst at sideboarding. Since you don't actually play legit magic with the deck, guess what points you actually have control over where percentage points can be made or lost from?

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Is it winning the die roll?

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Originally Posted by TeenieBopper

Is it winning the die roll?

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I must ask: How are we supposed to know? I don't think that kind of data is colleted at tournaments.

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Originally Posted by morgan_coke

And lets also not forget Tarmogoyf, who pretty much stops the Ichorid slow roll plan all by himself (as does any deck with large/moderate numbers of dudes w/4+ toughness.

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You need to explain this one.

Racing a single Tarmogoyf or a single Knight of the Reliquary is really really easy. If you're not attacking with your guy, I have all the time in the world to win. My favorite play against Zoo is to bring back Ichorid, not attack, and just get like 3 Zombies. If you are, I get to crack with an Ichorid and keep a Zombie back to block. Either way I eventually alpha strike you.

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Originally Posted by Artowis

For general tournament play, most people are bad at mulligans and the absolute worst at sideboarding. Since you don't actually play legit magic with the deck, guess what points you actually have control over where percentage points can be made or lost from?

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This. Dredge does have a hard time against hate if you keep a poor hand, or if you sideboard incorrectly. If you know what you are doing, very few people actually board enough hate to stop Dredge from picking up the match.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

If you're not attacking with your guy, I have all the time in the world to win. My favorite play against Zoo is to bring back Ichorid, not attack, and just get like 3 Zombies. If you are, I get to crack with an Ichorid and keep a Narcomoeba back to block so I get 3 more Zombies.

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Fixed.

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Originally Posted by Artowis

For general tournament play, most people are bad at mulligans and the absolute worst at sideboarding. Since you don't actually play legit magic with the deck, guess what points you actually have control over where percentage points can be made or lost from?

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The UW Tempo guys did a video against a random MWSer with Dredge. In at least one of the games, the guy kept a hand without a Dredger.

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Originally Posted by Anusien

The UW Tempo guys did a video against a random MWSer with Dredge. In at least one of the games, the guy kept a hand without a Dredger.

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Before you point fingers, you should note the context: He had mulled to five. I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation, were I him. He had multiple lands and discard outlets. A mull to four is not going to be stronger unless it has a Dredger, a discard outlet, and a land, which is pretty damn unlikely.

Game 2 he had a likely turn 3 win even through Force of Will, but my hate trumped him.

Incidentally, Anusien is talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFumGU8n0o

I think that a lot of people play the decks even though they don't know how to pilot it correctly because it's one of the cheapest competitive deck available. You're not playing normal Magic with dredge and you need to know lot of things in order to play it decently.

Personally, I don't play it anymore because people have lucksacked many times in my face (Top deck relic, -> Top Deck relic the turn he cracked the other one), because it's so fragile, you need a decent hand in order to face hate, and because the deck really hates me. I keep having Narcomoeba in A LOT of hands, always lacking land, dredger or discard outlet and having bad dredges...

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Originally Posted by Raptor

Personally, I don't play it anymore because people have lucksacked many times in my face (Top deck relic, -> Top Deck relic the turn he cracked the other one), because it's so fragile, you need a decent hand in order to face hate, and because the deck really hates me. I keep having Narcomoeba in A LOT of hands, always lacking land, dredger or discard outlet and having bad dredges...

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That's how my luck has been since I've picked up the deck.
Maybe the reason Dredge is doing so bad is because the good players are just getting really unlucky?
I'm not saying I'm a good player, because I'm not, but I guess it's at least worth mentioning that bad dredges and mulligans are beyond the reach of most players.

Not only that, but Dredge is considered the boogeyman of the format more than any other deck, which leads to decks like the MBC deck packing 4 Bojuka Bogs. People are just scared shitless of the deck.

@ OP: I would also like to add/address the difference between qualitative and quantitative information gathering. Smmenen's articles are usually based on the latter, whereas Frogboy's have been generally based on the former. Personally, I'm a hardcore believer in qualitative methods, so charts and graphs don't impress me as much as a good ole tournament report. After SCG $5k Orlando, a top 8 Merfolk player wrote a tourney report that was far more important than had you just seen the stats on what he played against. He friggin beat Zoo with Merfolk primarily because the Zoo player was sick as hell and apathetic to what was actually going on. Also, considering this thread, the dredge matchup left many questions in my mind, especially why didn't the Golgari Grave-Troll get Dread Returned? Anyway, my point is that there is no inherent contradiction between Smmenen and Frogboy's respective methods/findings and that both are valuable for different reasons. Smmenen would seem to have found the deck is under-performing, which then leads to a need for qualitative investigations into why.

To get to the bottom of this would require a more in-depth look at poor Dredge tournament performances and trying to see why they performed badly. I don't think anyone has the time or resources to really get to the bottom of it, although some people did outline a few potential reasons above (bad mulliganing, bad sideboarding, lots o' hate, skill level of the pilot, etc.).

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Originally Posted by MMogg

@ OP: I would also like to add/address the difference between qualitative and quantitative information gathering. Smmenen's articles are usually based on the latter, whereas Frogboy's have been generally based on the former. Personally, I'm a hardcore believer in qualitative methods, so charts and graphs don't impress me as much as a good ole tournament report. After SCG $5k Orlando, a top 8 Merfolk player wrote a tourney report that was far more important than had you just seen the stats on what he played against. He friggin beat Zoo with Merfolk primarily because the Zoo player was sick as hell and apathetic to what was actually going on. Also, considering this thread, the dredge matchup left many questions in my mind, especially why didn't the Golgari Grave-Troll get Dread Returned? Anyway, my point is that there is no inherent contradiction between Smmenen and Frogboy's respective methods/findings and that both are valuable for different reasons. Smmenen would seem to have found the deck is under-performing, which then leads to a need for qualitative investigations into why.

To get to the bottom of this would require a more in-depth look at poor Dredge tournament performances and trying to see why they performed badly. I don't think anyone has the time or resources to really get to the bottom of it, although some people did outline a few potential reasons above (bad mulliganing, bad sideboarding, lots o' hate, skill level of the pilot, etc.).

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+1

Additionally, IMO the only things numbers from a discrete event can tell you is what happened at that event. I think that statistics are fascinating but its the analysis that makes them valuable. I would be much more apt to conclude something about the type of decks people play in an area then what decks are the top decks from one event.

Speaking of tournament reports where are the excellent ones lately?

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Originally Posted by Forbiddian

Before you point fingers, you should note the context: He had mulled to five. I'm not sure what I would have done in that situation, were I him. He had multiple lands and discard outlets. A mull to four is not going to be stronger unless it has a Dredger, a discard outlet, and a land, which is pretty damn unlikely.

Game 2 he had a likely turn 3 win even through Force of Will, but my hate trumped him.

Incidentally, Anusien is talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFFumGU8n0o

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It's not like any of you play that well. From 3.45: In game 1 when you pay upkeep for your Grunt the second time you should have removed his tribe (he does so himself which is a bad play); that makes Thug much worse since his Thug can't chump to go to the gy then (unless he also blocks with Putrid Imp, but the he runs the risk og losing Imp altogether). In addition, he shouldn't have attacked with Narcomoeba. It would have been much better to block with Narco and Thug. After he declines to block you should have used Jitte to kill Thug, that sends it to the top of his library and it's a dead draw. Then you could kill the Putrid Imp. But I agree that the game was pretty much over at that time.

Dredge is bad because it can never anticipate the hate that is coming. there are a variety of cards that can hate you out of the game.

Lets make a list:
crypt
relic
chalice of the void
leyline of the void
planar void
ravenous trap
boujoka bog
jailor

So in theory, ichorid should usually win game 1. So then game 2 you bring in the anti hate. what do you bring in? darkblast for jailor? ray for leyline? pithing needle on crypt? bujoka bog isnt even stopable.... chalice at 0 for crypt?

guess wrong and you lose game 2. oops. now game 3, you saw what they played in game 2... side in to stop that plan they have. well this doesnt work because a smart player will play one of each. so ill play a crypt, a relic, a planar void and a boujoka bog. now ichorid just rolls over and dies because they can never have the right tech for the hate.

Oh, and because a lot of bad players play dredge. Examples:

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Originally Posted by Rico Suave

You need to explain this one.

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Originally Posted by Ciberon

I must ask: How are we supposed to know? I don't think that kind of data is colleted at tournaments.

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Good Dredge players know the right time to Therapy, what to Therapy for, and siding in Chain of Vapors. Bojuka Bog also isn't really a good hate piece against Dredge.

Also, why did you quote those two? What does that imply?

I've won games when I've seen multiple Crypts and Relics. Actually, I consistently win even when seeing these hate cards, and I know some Dredge players do so as well. Are there really that many bad Dredge players running about?

If this really is a question of playskill, I find it a lot more believable that those of you claiming that Dredge is overpowered are testing against weaker players, not that everyone that actually plays the deck in large tournaments happens to be terrible.

The simplest answer to the question "why is Dredge peforming poorly?" is that Dredge is a poorly-performing deck. Do we need to analyze why Burn is putting up similar numbers?

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Originally Posted by Obfuscate Freely

If this really is a question of playskill, I find it a lot more believable that those of you claiming that Dredge is overpowered are testing against weaker players, not that everyone that actually plays the deck in large tournaments happens to be terrible.

The simplest answer to the question "why is Dredge peforming poorly?" is that Dredge is a poorly-performing deck. Do we need to analyze why Burn is putting up similar numbers?

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To be fair, it's not just Dredge players who are terrible. Most tournament players are terrible. Other decks are just more forgiving. I've watched a lot of matches at SCG Legacy $5ks, and I've not seen any dredge players I've been impressed with.