[Primer] +Manaless Dredge+

[Echelon]

There are a lot of grindy MU's in my meta (a while back I faced Esper Deathblade 3 rounds in a row, Batterskull + enough mana to bounce it is a bitch). During a lot of those matches, I struggle to get to the point where I can reliably cast DR. This b/c I often have too few creatures (and Bridges) to Cabal Therapy 2+ times in 1 turn (a little bit too often I had to strip away 2+ castable counters/StP etc. before being able to safely go off) AND DR that same turn. The key to solving this is being able to have a few more creatures in play without having to rely on your Bridges.

After a couple of turns of barely getting by, you dredge (if necessary) and play the Dakmoor Salvage and boom, you have 2+ extra creatures to feed to Cabal Therapies. Or, when really living the dream, you may even have an untapped Salvage on the field. Cast Therapy, then flasback it.

Heck, in the worst case it's a couple of extra bodies to join Ichorid on the beatdown.

Anywho, b/c that's what I want to do I obviously can't run Balustrade Spy. This leaves us with the Whirlpool creatures, Kelpie and Griselbrand as most common DR targets/combo enablers. Griselbrand is a great DR target, but you won't always be able to pay 7 life to combo out. On the other hand, Griselbrand is a 3 turn clock, that's never bad. I just can't protect it for that long, not running counters and all. With Kelpie you really have to wait to play a land until after you DR it. This kinda undermines the problem I'm trying to fix. And since I'm not playing any counters, I don't need a 2 CMC creature to pitch to Shoal. So that leaves me with Whirlpool Drake as my DR target. Even if the first trigger nets me only 2 dredges, the second nets me another 2 for a total of 4 dredges (or roughly 20 or so cards in the GY). Or, with enough cards in my hand, I can play through a Stifle, making it easier to go off. It's also nice that the Whirlpool critters let you put Narcomoebas that are stuck in your hand back into your library.