[Deck] Dredge

[Parcher]

Regarding the past few pages of debate over Firestorm v. LED in the main. In any specific meta, any card choice may be correct. However, I believe that some are coloring too heavily their choices regarding main-decking Firestorm due to their local preferences. And that a wider view is needed if taking the deck to a full-size tournament.

I think that it's fair to say that there are decks that LED is strictly better against than Firestorm. Specifically decks that have no relevant disruption or GY hate(all assuming in game one of course). These decks I might expect to see are: Goblins, Dredge, MUD, D&T, Affinity, Burn, and Loam.

Then there are decks that I still believe that LED is better, due to their either being as fast, or faster, their having minimal disruption(and LED allowing you to race what they might find), having decent disruption, but not having enough of a clock for it to matter, and/or their having no good targets for Firestorm(again, assuming game one). These decks might be: Show and Tell, Miracles, TruBlade(no Shaman), Patriot, Ad Nauseum, Jund, Reanimator, Maverick, High Tide, Painter, and 12Post,

Then you have the decks that in most cases, either due to heavy permission/disruption, or a devastating weakness to Firestorm, these are the decks that I might prefer Firestorm main over LED: Deathblade, BUG, RUG, Elves, Merfolk, U/R Burn, and Bant.

Now the first four decks on that last list could easily add up to 30% of the field in some metas. And that might be enough to sway me. But in a 300+ tournament, I don't think many could make that call ahead of time. And I think that the number of decks LED is better against would lean me toward running it main more often than not.

And for those concerned with fields filled with maindeck Shaman, I think that you are overlooking one issue with Firestorm main. I think it's fair to say that a resolved LED will allow you to outrace Shaman with a decent hand. People are just concerned that LED is countered by the large amounts of permission that most decks running Shaman run. Well, Firestorm is counterable too. Sure, you get the discard, but if you pitch, say, a Troll, and an Ichorid to a EOT Firestorm targeting Shaman, and they counter it, you are in worse shape than if you had an LED countered. In the latter case, you can sandbag until you have more than one dredger, and a draw spell. If Firestorm is countered, you have lost your dredger if you don't have another+another discard outlet, or you have lost your Ichorid if you do. And it's very easy to find additional discard outlets before sideboarding. It's one of the reasons I remain so faithful to PImp. Regardless of his other benefits, he helps play around Wasteland, which most of these decks run, by keeping a discard outlet in play, allowing you to sandbag a land for your draw spell. Instead of needing two lands in the same turn, or being forced to Firestorm at your most vulnerable due to an opponent's discard or Waste.