I don't hate it. I've gone as low as 2 Breakthrough before, with 2 in the SB.Originally Posted by ChemicalBurns
I think if you play Dredge more like a combo deck, then Probe + Therapy is where it's at.
I approve!
Its just not good enough. 3 mana is a tall order to ask out of this deck. At that point I would rather play Conflagrate, its a shame it costs 2 Red. That or Crippling Fatigue, but I'm not even sure thats good enough either. I doubt there will ever be a burn spell with a cheap flashback cost.
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I went to 3 tournaments recently all GPTs. I managed to top 8 two of them, but unfortunately I got knocked out in the first round of top 8 each time, once losing to Infect (along with poor play from yours truly) and the other to a bad matchup in Sneak & Show. The list I'm sure is the same, but just for reference here it is:http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=15140&d=291743&f=LE
I was trying out a different type of sideboard and its been ok. I have not used FOW as much as I should probably be using it so I still have to playlets some more with it.
Small recaps of my top 8 matches;
Against Infect game 1 I was able to do my thing, however, he landed a turn 2 Blighted Agent and I failed to hit any Cabal Therapies which would have allowed me to name Invigorate and stop him from ending me the following turn. Game 2 I completely have a brain meltdown. This game he's already surgical'd away my Golgari Grave Trolls leaving me with lonely Thug. I have an LED in play and I have a breakthrough. I cast the breakthrough, retain priority and sacrifice LED to float red mana, he then casts Spell Pierce confidently on the breakthrough and I actually thought at the time that he was so sure he was countering it that it was FOW when it really wasn't. I could have paid for the Pierce with the mana I had floating and gone on my way to bringing that game back.. but I punted really bad.
Against Sneak and Show he's able to counter most of my gas via FOW, Pierce, Pierce, and then a single S&T made it elementary from there. Game 2 I mull down to 5. I have combo in the form of LED, Breakthrough, and Golgari Grave Troll, however, I get completely punished when I try to dredge and get hit with a timely Fearie Macabre which essentially blows me out as the troll was my only dredger.
What has been the consensus on Prized Amalgam without forces in the side? In other words, how have peoples experiences been with amalgam in general? I run four ichorids at the moment with four breakthrough ( no side-board force ). I have been considering swapping out an ichorid and breakthrough for two amalgam, i have yet to test this configuration and would like to hear others experiences with the card.
I really love two Prized Amalgams in the mainboard. If you hit them early it just feels like an amazing start into an easy win. I tried them for some time and never went back.
I don't quite like playing a playset of Ichorid and Breakthrough. I always felt that I did not have enough black creature cards in my graveyard to bring all Ichorids onto the battlefield. And getting them extracted felt even more bad. Having Breakthrough as your only draw/discard spell without LED felt really awkward so I trimmed them to three copies.
Thankk you for the reply. I can get behind three ichorid, having a looting effect with breakthrough in your opener is usually just bananas though. Breakthrough for 1 to draw a card is often really good too. Maybe i'll swap an ichorid for amalgam, thanks again.
With Surgical Extraction being the most popular GY hate right now, I think diversifying our threats is not a bad idea. I'm currently on a Quadlaser build with 3 Amalgam in the SB, and have considered replacing one of the Ichorid in the main with an Amalgam.
If you're scared of Surgical Extraction, perhaps playing something entirely different from Ichorid could help. If you get your Ichorids and Narcos extracted, you need another way to trigger the Amalgams. So perhaps playing some number of Ashen Ghoul or Bloodghast in the Sideboard could help diversifying the threats, but I would instead just play some number of Street Wraiths (and or Ground Seal).
To be fair, if I'm taking a Surgical on the chin twice, I've probably already peaced out.
Never quit.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
Hello everyone, just came off a League 5-0 with an interesting list I was toying with. It takes inspiration from the Japanese lists featuring Probe over Breakthrough; seems heinous, but I've really appreciated Probe boosting up percentages against combo by making Therapies so precise - I've kept some interesting hands featuring things like Probe/Therapy/Narcomoeba, just because I can shred apart my opponent's hand. It also, of course, helps with accelerating Dredges, but not as much as Breakthrough.
Not saying this is particularly better and I certainly ran well, fighting five non-blue decks.
Lands: (12)
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine
Dredgers: (12)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
Discard: (13)
1 Putrid Imp
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
Disruption: (8)
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
Free Creatures: (13)
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
4 Bridge from Below
DR Package: (2)
1 Dread Return
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
Sideboard: (15)
3 Firestorm
3 Wear/Tear
4 Lotus Petal
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Quick summaries:
Burn (2-0)
- g1 keep a zero lander with a Probe, Guide feeds me one and then we stall the board until we lethal him with the crew.
- g2 I have 2x LED and no land, ready to slow Dredge. Draw Looting and I'm off to the races. My opponent Faeries wrong and then I can Dread Return a big Grave-Troll, which stalls the board until I win.
Nic Fit (2-1)
- g1 Don't crack LED in response to my Probe because I'm dumb. End up slow Dredging off a LED, eventually hit enough gas to get there and massacre his hand.
- g2 Have on the draw LED + Coliseum. End up thinking I don't have enough cards for Thresh after a Thoughtseize and miss an extra Dredging off a Looting as a result. I'm dumb. End up whiffing on creatures a fair bit and then get Scoozed.
- g3 Kept Probe/Therapy/Narco with no Dredger. Ballsy. End up shredding his weak hand with a Bridge in yard too, beating him down with a single Zombie while I flood and my opponent does not much.
Big Eldrazi (2-1)
- It's Joe Lossett!
- g1 I Probe + Therapy away his Dynamos, TKS and then blind hit an Ulamog. Nice.
- g2 I get Leylined and can't find Wear // Tear.
- g3 he mulls into oblivion.
Maverick (2-1)
- g1 Mull into zero lander, hoping to hit land and start on Pimp. Don't and die. DDD is too slow.
- g2 Have a crazy one with Study, Therapy, Petal and LED. Start first turn with a blind Therapy, and then next turn get the ball rolling and kill him.
- And then game three, make a turn one Elesh Norn with LED + Looting. Well.
4c Loam (2-1)
- g1 He has nothing relevant and we Dragonlord him.
- g2 we could've beaten the turn two Scooze. We'd mulled to five and had to dig with Loot spells for a Dredger. At one stage I end up pitching a Petal in hand, but if I didn't, I would've had exactly Threshold to crack Coliseum and go nuts while my opponent was tapped out from Scooze, as my second Looting spell cast after Scooze hit play found Thug and Stinky. Very good lesson learnt.
- g3 My opponent has no Leyline, I have study into pitching my Dredgers. He has turn one Scooze. I break Coliseum and ruin his life. Ashen Rider eats Scooze and we 5-0.
Most of these matchups I just sideboarded for speed (add LEDs, trim some Ickies, Amalgam, Pimp etc.), but I often trimmed Probes post-board when I needed to add Wear // Tear or Firestorm (especially since these were often Chalice/Thalia MUs). Interested to hear people's opinions of the sideboarding, I'm definitely still very much a student of the deck and have lots and lots to learn.
Thanks!
Well done! I'm glad to see you added two more lands, and removed the Petals from the main - unlike the original list. That was something I really struggled with when I tried to play this.
Nice to go 5-0, but based on your report it doesn't seem like probe is much better than breakthrough from your matchups. It does make sense to cut petals if you aren't casting breakthrough though.
-rob
Well, the on-point Therapies were helpful at stripping away hate bears and things like that, but I do agree that the results of this League aren't conclusive. The Probes certainly weren't bad though. They lend a kind of consistency (b/c of its combo with Therapy) compared to Breakthrough. Breakthrough can feel high-variance at times, especially against Blue decks.
That's fair, in my experience breakthrough is best with lotus petal so that it can be a second draw spell during a turn. (preferably on turn 1), but I like to play led a bit more all in where they more or less need a fow. Even then they are in rough shape at times.
-rob
I'm a bit late to the party on this one and I haven't played Dredge in a while, but I like the Amalgams, with or without Force. It's usually one of my first cuts for Dread Return and targets, but if we're aiming to build a board rather than just Dread Return something, it's great. There was some discussion earlier in the thread about the proper number, and I think two is probably what we want. Three Amalgams starts to get clunky; with two, they're often Ichorid food, and on three, I usually just never had a way to bring them back.
I'm no expert, and my (unfavorable) views on Street Wraith and PImp probably go against the grain, but I don't think I'd ever cut the fourth Ichorid from my mainboard. I'd rather have redundant opportunities for fast attacks and sac triggers than a discard outlet or a cycler that doesn't do anything but get exiled unless it's in our hand.
With that said, I'd been thinking to try a PImp or two again the next time I decide to Dredge it up. I'd probably switch out Amalgam and/or Thug for it, but maybe the fourth Icky is the best call.
All Spells Primer under construction: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e...Tl7utWpLo0/pub
PM me if you want to contribute!
With the recent death of Miracles, do you guys have any plans of changing your current sideboard configuration? In my case, I took out the Abrupt Decays and went back to Nature's Claim.
Sideboards should directly reflect the expected meta. So any plans now will be fruitless. I mean, I haven't run Decay in over a year. When 2/3 of the format runs Surgical, why would you? But I believe that will change.
Miracles is gone. Which means that immediately BUG Delver is a top 3 deck. No one has seen it run with 3-4 Push, and 1-2 Decay main for obvious reasons. But it's coming. And all these midrange turds that everyone is all excited to run now can look forward to T1 Deathrite, T2 Hymn, Push your Deathrite. Consequently, B/R Reanimator has lost one of it's better matchups, and one of it's worst will double in penetration. BUG will still run Surgical. It has to for Lands. Which with Miracles gone, and the predicted fallout(much more Elfs and AnT) will likely return. And with all of BUG's other disruption, it doesn't need to hedge more towards Dredge. But with the drop off of B/R, most non-Blue decks I predict will abandon their plans of hedging in Surgicals and Macabres, and go back to their more standard permanent-based hate. Which means removal is a consideration again. It just depends on how many Blue-based decks can afford to run real hate, whether or not Decay is needed over more efficient means of anti-hate.
~ Team Unicorn Motto
Top had to go due to Terminus, it's nice that WotC realized. I feel it might be temporary, but who knows?
BUG is going to be a problem, but I feel with Terminus gone a whole lot of aggro/mid-range decks might emerge out in public again.
I haven't felt this positive about a new change for a VERY long time.
I despise the Bug delver matchup, as its one that seems quite difficult for me. Cabal therapy gets met with brainstorm and their counter magic always hits a relevant spell of mine, all the while getting beat down by that piece of shit gnat.
Bug has plenty of creature removal for our bridges which adds to the frustration. Considering we may be (will be) seeing this deck more often I would like to hear others strategies for beating bug delver. Personally I think 13 land is a minimum to avoid getting wasted out of the game. Is it time to bring back firestorm as a way to destroy (as well as overwhelm) DRS? Due to their plethora of counter magic (and a good player won't take it out) regardless of on the play or draw a turn one therapy targeting them seems reasonable in understanding what to play around.
Usually they only have surgicals for graveyard hate, so it's pretty easy to overwhelm them with an expolosive hand. In game 1 just try to get in a situation where you have an explosive turn, either a diamond into faithless looting, or just an imp on 1 followed by a couple draw spells. Mulliganing aggresively is key to make sure their deathrite is meaningless. Once you get a lot of cards in the yard, therapy prioritizing abrupt decay. You don't need a dread return to win so just try to build up an army of zombies by taking their removal so they can't kill bridges. Sometimes they have everything, but that's magic.
As for the sideboard games, I've run firestorm since I picked up the deck in 2012, has it fallen out of favor? I run 3-4 in the board, bringing it in against any deathrite deck and elves. Sometimes BUG players will keep a hand with force and deathrite and no other hate, so if you are able to therapy for force, or bait it with imp/LED you should be good to resolve it. Having an extra ichorid in the sideboard helps versus any fair deck, if you aren't running the full 4 main. Postboard I like to have a dread return target just in case they surgical bridge from below. I run Griselbrand and dragonlord kolaghan main for the explosive combo kills. BUG delver typically can't beat a 6/5 flying or a Griselbrand in play, so if you resolve a dread return on those you should be fine.
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