[Premium Article] The Power of 2007: Legacy Dredge

[C.P.]

Link

Grand Prix: Chicago kicks Legacy into firm focus weekend, and Richard Feldman is ready. He believes that Dredge, that old graveyard warhorse, is the most powerful strategy in the format. In today’s Deep Analysis, he breaks down his own build of what he believes is a format-warping archetype. Some of the inclusions – and, more significantly, the omissions - may raise a few eyebrows…


Maindeck:

Creatures
1 Empyrial Archangel
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-troll
3 Golgari Thug
1 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe

Enchantments
4 Bridge From Below


Instants
1 Darkblast

Sorceries
4 Breakthrough
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Tarnished Citadel


Sideboard:

1 Null Rod
4 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline Of The Void
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain Of Vapor
1 Ray Of Revelation


So Feldman talks about 'best' legacy dredge list, claiming everyone else built wrong. As a onetime avid dredge player, I find this claim unfounded and reckless, but I am not an expert on the deck anymore, I'll let people who knows better to have a go at the list.

[Skeggi]

I'm not really sure why non-LED Ichorid would be better than LED-based Ichorid? Can someone explain this to me? I understand it trades explosiveness for consistency, but is that really true? LED and Deep Analysis just seem so synergetic with the rest of the deck. I guess there's also a reason why 'normal' Ichorid is in the DTB forum and non-LED Ichorid isn't.

[C.P.]

I'm not really sure why non-LED Ichorid would be better than LED-based Ichorid? Can someone explain this to me?

According to Feldman, Non-LED is much nore consistent, and only a turn slower.

[Nihil Credo]

According to Feldman, Non-LED is much nore consistent, and only a turn slower.

I've tested LEDless Ichorid a bit and I agree with that - although I think that trade got less interesting with the metagame developments of the last few months. Regardless, cutting Ichorids and Therapy for more lands (painful ones too) is just EW.


Way to put all your eggs into one, Bridge-shaped basket, Richard. As a fan, I'm disappointed. I hope I'm missing something, but I can't figure out what.

[emidln]

Did I miss the part where he offers a way to not scoop to Stax, Tendrils, or even something as bad as Extirpate? On second thought, what happens is that initial draw spell is countered or stifled? I mean, you're slowing down to give Threshold the ability to dig for that TCrypt or Force so that you're deck can flounder. This deck lacks the ability to dredge once per turn and then win off ichorids (the normal way to beat Thresh). I'm just not seeing the effectiveness of this list.

[spirit of the wretch]

Ichorid without LED is quite reasonable (less "all in" and only a turn slower), but Ichorid without ... uhm, well ... Ichorids seems like crap! You basically take the slow-dredge plan away from the deck which made it so incredibly strong against Control and Aggro Control. And you get fisted by Extirpate even more than before.

[kicks_422]

Non-LED Ichorid lists are actually good, those being better or not than those with LED's is still up for debate. However, THAT list looks BAAAAAD.

[bum_man]

I'm not really sure why non-LED Ichorid would be better than LED-based Ichorid? Can someone explain this to me? I understand it trades explosiveness for consistency, but is that really true? LED and Deep Analysis just seem so synergetic with the rest of the deck. I guess there's also a reason why 'normal' Ichorid is in the DTB forum and non-LED Ichorid isn't.

What is the fundamental advantage of LED ichorid over non-LED? It is the fact that it has the ability to win on turn 1. How often do you win on turn 1 anyways? around 6%-8%? and thats on game 1. Post-board given your opponent is on the play with hate cards, can you still win on game 1? i doubt it. LED-less Ichorid gives up the 6-8% chances that you win on first turn for increasing your chances to win on the following turns. LED-less Ichorid for me is better than LED Ichorid post-board because of its higher consistency after the first turn.

[undone]

What is the fundamental advantage of LED ichorid over non-LED?

Its more consistent and better against blue decks.

It is the fact that it has the ability to win on turn 1. How often do you win on turn 1 anyways? around 6%-8%? and thats on game 1.

It gives you +1 ways to get cabal therapy online on turn 1, and it allows you stupid cephilid colluseam plays on the draw.

What he failed to realize is that this deck simply sucks.

He litteraly bent over to threshold the deck that he is soposed to beat, by removing LEDs, deep anals (Which thresh/team america/dreadstill anything running waste/daze/force will be happy to replace.. in him) and ichorids is incorrect in every matchup. I have a feeling he chose to not test at all and just post a random theretical list.

Also emperical arc angel is worse than ancestors chosen/akroma/SSS/angel of dispare.

I hate to just dismiss a list without playing it but the reason dredge owned some matchups was its increased consistency from LED. You lose the ability to fight hate as well but if you REALLY thought hate would be an issue your board would be something like

4 lands
4 chain of vapor
4 needle
3 other

I can see maby adding a land, but more than 13 lands is absolutely wrong 12/11 seems right. You will also note deckcheck by my count has 0 ichorid decks T8ed without LED. Seems pretty automatic to me. Its like not including bridge or GGT, its that stupid.

[Adan]

So Feldman talks about 'best' legacy dredge list, claiming everyone else built wrong. As a onetime avid dredge player, I find this claim unfounded and reckless, but I am not an expert on the deck anymore, I'll let people who knows better to have a go at the list.

I assume Feldman is another "proplayer" who has actually got no clue of the format and his claims have their origin in his experience with Extended-Dredge.

As mentioned before, Ichorid without Ichorids sucks as you become absolutely dependant on your 1-mana discard-outlets (PImp, tribe) and dredging Narcomoebas. Recurring Ichorids, attacking with them, flashbacking Therapies and get a shitload full of tokens in exchange is what made that deck so explosive.

Additionally, why is he raising the landcount like crazy but does not take advantage of that? Tolarian Winds, where?

[Pulp_Fiction]

Lets avoid another LED VS non-LED Dredge debate. Those lead to nowhere in a real fucking hurry since each side has their devotees and everyone thinks they are right (even those who have not played either deck) and the people opposing them are dumb.

I personally think that list is just awful. Not running Ichorid in ........ a graveyard based deck with black creatures seems awful. I see the focus of the deck is to just combo out ASAP, but, as a Dredge player, I can tell you that most of the time u win through Ichorid beats. FKZ is there, but most decks are ill-equipped to handle 8 2/2 zombie tokens and hasty 3/1s backed up by hand destruction in the first 2-4 turns of the game. That is the beauty of this deck, you don't need lands or even have to cast a single fucking spell to win the game, u just reanimate Ichorid and build up zombies with Bridges in the yard. Hell, a lot of the time with multiple Bridges I just bring back Ichorid and let him die if they have a blocking creature that Ichorid will kill.

Another debate is the Tolarian Winds one. Even with 15-16 lands it is still terrible. It is going to get Dazed or Spell Snared everytime and puts to much of an emphasis on hitting land drops. It is very unnecessary.

Overall that list seems bad without Ichorid, afterall, the deck is aggro combo not straight combo. It looks like it has all the weaknesses of typical combo decks and yet none of the strengths of typical Dredge.

[Parcher]

"This is an excellent deck, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover... I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private Feldman and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men - especially you, Calosso - to ease her suffering."

[Artowis]

I assume Feldman is another "proplayer" who has actually got no clue of the format and his claims have their origin in his experience with Extended-Dredge.

As mentioned before, Ichorid without Ichorids sucks as you become absolutely dependant on your 1-mana discard-outlets (PImp, tribe) and dredging Narcomoebas. Recurring Ichorids, attacking with them, flashbacking Therapies and get a shitload full of tokens in exchange is what made that deck so explosive.

Additionally, why is he raising the landcount like crazy but does not take advantage of that? Tolarian Winds, where?

To be fair, Feldman isn't really a pro player. He scrubbed at the only individual PT he Q'd for (taking Max with him actually, lol). His claim to fame is he used to make decent metagame decks and actually had the optimal Tron build in Extended for like 3 months which won a GP after the Japanese improved it.

His article have gotten consistently worse over the past 6 months though and he barely plays 'real' magic anymore.

[Apex]

He says he's going to pilot this specific deck (the Ichorid-less, LED-less dredge deck) for the GP.

I'm going to call it right now: he's gonna scrub out, and then next week, either not write anything relating to the GP or write some BS about how his pairings were unlucky and how he kept on playing his bad matchups (which would normally be decent matchups had he not raped the Ichorid deck).

I usually skip his articles on scg.com anyway. Him and GerryT. There are just so much shitfest that goes on in their columns.

[freakish777]

I assume Feldman is another "proplayer" who has actually got no clue of the format

Not entirely accurate. He did 8-0-1 day 1 at GP Columbus with only 1 bye. That's right, Feldman had the balls to play Elves at GP Flash, and was undefeated through 8 rounds...

[Smmenen]

To be fair, Feldman isn't really a pro player. He scrubbed at the only individual PT he Q'd for (taking Max with him actually, lol). His claim to fame is he used to make decent metagame decks and actually had the optimal Tron build in Extended for like 3 months which won a GP after the Japanese improved it.

His article have gotten consistently worse over the past 6 months though and he barely plays 'real' magic anymore.

If that's being "fair," what if you were trying to be "unfair"?

[Pinder]

If that's being "fair," what if you were trying to be "unfair"?

Well, I didn't want to bring it up, but I heard somewhere that Feldman sucks the blood out of newborns to absorb their lifeforce and prolong his twisted immortality, needing more and more of them as the dark magics keeping him alive slowly devour his soul.

Just something I heard.

[DeathwingZERO]

That list is utter garbage.

The main reason for going LEDless is to take advantage of Ichorid beats on a much more regular basis, often as early as turn two, in case the primary combo win doesn't go off fast enough, all without having to go all in every game. Without Ichorids, it's taking the worst of both decks: all-in plays without the backup of LED/DA, and a severely unprotected combo win.

Sixteen land is far too many. There's no need for it. At absolute most you want three on the table, so you can cast recurring Stinkweed when necessary in long attrition games. Aside from that, the deck can still pretty much steamroll on two lands, and usually Gemstone Mine and a City/Coliseum are enough for the early turns. Too many lands clogs up the hand, and takes valuable slots (like Ichorid and Therapy).

Four Breakthrough without LED and Deep is retarded. There's no reason to constantly be doing the all-in play if you aren't using the best combination pieces in addition to it to sustain the engine. Finding yourself stuck with multiple Breakthroughs is terrible, and it's not a setup option like it is in the LED/DA version. At most, I'll use three of them in LEDless, but typically I will only run two, as they are far too situational without the other cards.

I've also never been a fan of the full eight discard outlet creatures. I've often run perfectly fine on just the four Imps, and wasn't seeing significant improvement running two to three Tribes in addition, with the exception of keeping more opening hands (not necessarily a good thing, though). I can't see running all eight being a necessity, though I can't fault anybody for doing so. It just seems really tough on the deck to expect your opening hand to always have one of those rainbow lands in order to consistently drop a turn one discard source, and upping the land count just to compensate seems like a very sub par idea.

The sideboard also looks like complete jank. Both LED and LEDless lists have pretty much omitted running LotV anymore, because the mirror matches don't need them (both lists run answers to them, so they are pretty useless to rely on), and we have outs against Goblins and other sacrificing/tiny critters via Needle and Darkblast. The singleton cards like Null Rod and Ray/Grudge are terrible ideas, and I've thought that since the beginning. You can't afford to dredge to your answers, especially not if you are facing Leyline/Jailer/Crypt/Relic as the threat, and expecting to draw single copies in an opening hand is laughable. Four Chain are typically enough for single problems, and the addition of four Needle and/or Chalice are extremely effective for backup.

I'll have to wait for the article to drop premium to see the reasoning for the choices made, but all in all I can't expect that list to do anywhere near as good as the more "standard" lists, both LED and LEDless.

And as for LEDless Ichorid lists not showing up on Deckcheck, etc....that's mostly because of areas not having enough players to hit the DtB and such (that's at least my case and the same for some of the other players on here). Every tournament I've brought LEDless to I've at least hit top 8, and most of the time I'll be in top 4. I'm also undefeated in the mirrors, which has accounted for 10+ matches in itself now. Just because it still flies in under the radar doesn't mean it's worse, it just means people aren't willing to try it.

[SpikeyMikey]

If that's being "fair," what if you were trying to be "unfair"?

He could say that Feldman is like Smmenen Jr.?

[Adan]

He could say that Feldman is like Smmenen Jr.?

Brilliance.

But just by the way, can someone tell me whether he mentioned anything about actually testing the deck in his article? From what I get now, it mainly based on theory.