[Deck] Dredge

[Beatusnox]

I've found, at least with your first therapy don't name what you think they have, name what they COULD have that beats you. Many times I've seen people name a card that doesn't really do anything against them, but and still lose because they didn't name the card that beats them.

Also write down known information in their hand. This deck is a monster when it comes to tracking everything, even more so now that the Amalgam delayed trigger is in the list. Don't rely on just your brain to remember everything, its busy enough. When you therapy or even probe keep that information.

Beyond that, I have a Dual Land tournament later today with the list I posted earlier, as long as I don't scrub out I plan on doing a report.

Sent from my ASUS_Z00TD using Tapatalk

[Beatusnox]

I scrubbed out =(.

Rd. 1: Tinfins
Won the die roll. Careful study off coliseum turn 1 pitched two dredgers found me LED and a Land.
Turn two I go nuts and combo kill with Flayed+GGT and Amalgam.

Game 2 I side in Leyline. Declare pregame effects and opponent scoops. They didn't think I'd bring it in and didn't bring in any anti-hate.

Rd. 2: 12post.
I keep a decent hand G1 I don't remember too much other than casting a looting, dredging 11 cards and hitting lands+irrelevant gas in the GY. Get beaten to death by fatties.

Game 2 even worse. Keep a good hand, but he never taps off his green and eventually just bogs me out.

Rd. 3 Nic fit.
To be honest I don't remember this round too well, I mentally checked out after losing Game 1, but game 2.... I have never experienced such an ass whopping.
I start land therapy Scooze and see a monstrosity. Bayou, Explorer, Surgical, fatal push, deed x2 land.

He plays land explorer and passes. My turn I breakthrough x=1 to keep the coliseum in hand hoping to draw well off of breakthrough. I draw Bridge X2 Narco x2 to go with the one in hand. Discard Ichorid, bridge x2, narco x3. He end of turn nails my ichorids with surgical. Untaps, kills his explorer with push, getting my two bridges, casts Lost Legacy naming Dread Return. Even through all this, he didn't have a clock i roll over the last nacro, I get a bit of dredging going playing draw go, and go too ham, decking myself.

Next round matches against a friend with better breakers, scooped to him to keep him live and went to get food. Didn't drop but scooped to next round opponent. Just wasn't feeling like playing.

I'm happy with my list, even with my garbage performance. I'm inclined to believe my mediocre shuffling and variance being variance.


Sent from my ASUS_Z00TD using Tapatalk

[Bromophelio]

Hey guys,

First time posting on this forum. I have been playing Dredge since I got into Legacy a few months ago. I started with manaless and upgraded to LEDs over a month or so. My meta consists of a lot of combo (storm, reanimator) and grindier delver lists. I started out playing the grindier version of LED with no MB DR targets, but am looking to speed up my game a bit to steal some wins from the faster combo decks. Here is the list I am currently considering:


Mainboard:
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
2 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
1 Putrid Imp
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Confluence
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp

Sideboard:
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Firestorm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Lotus Petal
3 Unmask



I have gone back and forth on the Amalgams, but I think they are good for G1 and can be boarded out vs some of the faster decks, but maintain a wider threat base to grindy matchups. I don't own an FoW currently, which I think diminishes the value of the Amalgams. I am thinking of keeping the Abrupt Decays in for some of the creature based threats (DRS, Containment Priest) but am still pretty unfamiliar with sideboarding. Does this deck seem like a decent start for beating out some of the combo decks in my meta or should I transition to a slower, Git Probe based list without Breakthroughs to really take down the combo decks?

Again, I'm new here so any tips are appreciated :) Thanks

[Que]

Hey guys,

First time posting on this forum. I have been playing Dredge since I got into Legacy a few months ago. I started with manaless and upgraded to LEDs over a month or so. My meta consists of a lot of combo (storm, reanimator) and grindier delver lists. I started out playing the grindier version of LED with no MB DR targets, but am looking to speed up my game a bit to steal some wins from the faster combo decks. Here is the list I am currently considering:


Mainboard:
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
3 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Confluence
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp

Sideboard:
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Firestorm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Lotus Petal
3 Unmask



I have gone back and forth on the Amalgams, but I think they are good for G1 and can be boarded out vs some of the faster decks, but maintain a wider threat base to grindy matchups. I don't own an FoW currently, which I think diminishes the value of the Amalgams. I am thinking of keeping the Abrupt Decays in for some of the creature based threats (DRS, Containment Priest) but am still pretty unfamiliar with sideboarding. Does this deck seem like a decent start for beating out some of the combo decks in my meta or should I transition to a slower, Git Probe based list without Breakthroughs to really take down the combo decks?

Again, I'm new here so any tips are appreciated :) Thanks

The biggest issue you're going to have is probably going to be consistency as you now have more opportunities to open hands with more "dead cards" (i.e. Bridge from below, Ichorid, Narcomoeba, Prized Amalgam) by including two additional Dread Return and Flayer of the Hatebound. Game 1 it likely won't matter as most decks won't have any serious way to deal with your strategy, but it means you can't keep any hands that do not include either a Careful Study or a Faithless Looting to get your engine going; it can get pretty awkward to solely rely on LED as your discard outlet especially if you're not able to use the mana generated to flashback a looting. If you honestly want some advantage over the faster combo decks game 1 then I would want to run main deck Lotus Petal and no Amalgam and relegate those to the board and vice versa if you want to be grindier game 1 and prepare for combo games 2 and 3.



All that being said I still don't believe you need any dedicated DR targets to win and should just try to be the most consistent Dredge deck you can be game 1 because its definitely the game you want to always win. Against combo you want to hit your Cabal Therapies and destroy their hand. Thats how you beat them.

[Bromophelio]

All that being said I still don't believe you need any dedicated DR targets to win and should just try to be the most consistent Dredge deck you can be game 1 because its definitely the game you want to always win. Against combo you want to hit your Cabal Therapies and destroy their hand. Thats how you beat them.

Thanks for the tips. I updated my list to go back to the more standard playstyle of 1 DR main deck with 1 SB as well. This allows me to add in a couple discard outlets in Putrid Imps. I want to keep in one card for a bit of combo game one, so I'll be keeping in a Kolaghan that I can drop out games 2/3. One thing I have been really bad at is knowing how to SB other than bringing in an obvious DR target. Do you have any generic tips, or is the basic strategy always going to be hit Therapies as much as possible and bring in a little counter hate?

[Que]

Thanks for the tips. I updated my list to go back to the more standard playstyle of 1 DR main deck with 1 SB as well. This allows me to add in a couple discard outlets in Putrid Imps. I want to keep in one card for a bit of combo game one, so I'll be keeping in a Kolaghan that I can drop out games 2/3. One thing I have been really bad at is knowing how to SB other than bringing in an obvious DR target. Do you have any generic tips, or is the basic strategy always going to be hit Therapies as much as possible and bring in a little counter hate?

I normally bring in 3x Lotus Petal, 1x Dread Return, and my Dread Return Target of choice for said combo matchup (Iona/Ashen Rider).

Generally if you're not sure what to cut you can always employ a "shave" strat. But def cut the amalgams, some number of Ichorid, some number of Putrid Imp (he's been pretty clutch against the combo decks that play Spell Pierce and/or Flusterstorm though maybe leave in 1 or 2), cut a land going down to 12 because you now have lotus petals. You can also shave a dredger if you're already playing 12.

[Bromophelio]

I normally bring in 3x Lotus Petal, 1x Dread Return, and my Dread Return Target of choice for said combo matchup (Iona/Ashen Rider).

Generally if you're not sure what to cut you can always employ a "shave" strat. But def cut the amalgams, some number of Ichorid, some number of Putrid Imp (he's been pretty clutch against the combo decks that play Spell Pierce and/or Flusterstorm though maybe leave in 1 or 2), cut a land going down to 12 because you now have lotus petals. You can also shave a dredger if you're already playing 12.

Thanks a bunch! I'll be playing again on Monday so I'll have to let you know how it goes. The simple SB tips will help a lot I think.

I've been playing with the goal to dump my hand as fast a possible every game when I should try and hold some stuff back and not set myself up to get hated out as easily. I will try and hold back a little bit until I have a better chance of going off, especially into slower, non-combo matchups.

[tt_abel_tt]

Hey Que, just wanted to thank you for your list. I went 5-4 at GP vegas with the following results:

0-2 uw control (rest in peace + helms of obedience combo)
2-1 reanimator
2-1 infect
0-2 grixis delver
2-1 d&t
2-1 grixis delver
1-2 storm (yuuta takahashi)
1-2 sneak and show
2-0 show & tell

This was my first legacy event, but it was fun learning the match ups on the fly. My buddy (D&T player) suggested it after he watched you play @ fire&dice/knightware. I originally made manaless dredge as a fringe deck, but I'm glad I made the jump to LED dredge.

I didn't have lotus petals and I didn't quite understand the 13th land, so instead I side-boarded in 3x leyline and 1 surgical.

Prior to the main event, I was play testing against my friend on d&t and it didn't feel like it matter if I had 13 vs 12 land. Even if he played wasteland t1 on the play, I would just go with the manaless dredge route and then save my land so that I can cast the draw spells next turn with dredgers in my gy. Lmk if there was more to it, love to get feedback and learn.

In regards to the gy hate, I was hoping it would improve my storm match-up while also improve the reanimator match-up. From playing against storm, I think I got too happy with the hate and I might have slow down the deck by taking out 1x dread return, 2x breakthrough and 1 putrid imp for 3x leyline and surgical. I was thinking that since lotus petal improves the speed of the dredge deck and leyline would slow down the speed of the storm deck... both cards would do the same thing, but i find myself dredging until t5 for a narcoemba. i also didn't realize how powerful it would be to have putrid imp, cabal, land and lotus petal in my opening hand against storm.

Edit: Also I see why you run wear//tear vs. nature's claim ...leyline + chalice on 1 #feelsbadman

[Que]

Hey Que, just wanted to thank you for your list. I went 5-4 at GP vegas with the following results:

0-2 uw control (rest in peace + helms of obedience combo)
2-1 reanimator
2-1 infect
0-2 grixis delver
2-1 d&t
2-1 grixis delver
1-2 storm (yuuta takahashi)
1-2 sneak and show
2-0 show & tell

This was my first legacy event, but it was fun learning the match ups on the fly. My buddy (D&T player) suggested it after he watched you play @ fire&dice/knightware. I originally made manaless dredge as a fringe deck, but I'm glad I made the jump to LED dredge.

I didn't have lotus petals and I didn't quite understand the 13th land, so instead I side-boarded in 3x leyline and 1 surgical.

Prior to the main event, I was play testing against my friend on d&t and it didn't feel like it matter if I had 13 vs 12 land. Even if he played wasteland t1 on the play, I would just go with the manaless dredge route and then save my land so that I can cast the draw spells next turn with dredgers in my gy. Lmk if there was more to it, love to get feedback and learn.

In regards to the gy hate, I was hoping it would improve my storm match-up while also improve the reanimator match-up. From playing against storm, I think I got too happy with the hate and I might have slow down the deck by taking out 1x dread return, 2x breakthrough and 1 putrid imp for 3x leyline and surgical. I was thinking that since lotus petal improves the speed of the dredge deck and leyline would slow down the speed of the storm deck... both cards would do the same thing, but i find myself dredging until t5 for a narcoemba. i also didn't realize how powerful it would be to have putrid imp, cabal, land and lotus petal in my opening hand against storm.

Edit: Also I see why you run wear//tear vs. nature's claim ...leyline + chalice on 1 #feelsbadman

Hey no problem! :) Welcome to the LED fold. haha

Yeah the 13th land is kind of weird. But I usually bring it in against Wasteland decks or where games might go longer than 3 turns. And I tend to lean towards not having gravehate or at least not Surgical as I've still lost to Reanimator playing that card. I like the Petals to just go faster and it has helped me beat decks like Storm, Tin Fins, and Lands. Reanimator will always be tough unless they just completely brick or you "turn 1" them both games and you're on the play. xD

With regards to saving your land thats the right idea. Next turn you have the chance to dredge into a Narco + Cabal Therapy which allows you to check you Opp's hand for counter magic before you fire off your draw spell.

Against storm don't board out your breakthrough as that is your most powerful draw spell. You need to board out slower cards like Prized Amalgam (if you're running it), some number of Ichorid, and a couple of Putrid Imp and bring in a Dread Return Target presumably Iona to shut them out. Ultimately Cabal Therapy is MVP here as you want to strip away their resources. You want to be naming Infernal Tutor, LED (if they haven't cast them for some reason) primarily.

Yup Wear/Tear lol. Now you got it! Though I will not fault anyone for running Nature's Claim either.

[Smea.gol.lum]

What about Failure // Comply from Amonkhet as a sideboard card against other combo decks?
Comply can be dredged into and be cast for W from the gy. You can buy valuable time by naming the scariest card.

[tt_abel_tt]

Hey no problem! :) Welcome to the LED fold. haha

Yeah the 13th land is kind of weird. But I usually bring it in against Wasteland decks or where games might go longer than 3 turns. And I tend to lean towards not having gravehate or at least not Surgical as I've still lost to Reanimator playing that card. I like the Petals to just go faster and it has helped me beat decks like Storm, Tin Fins, and Lands. Reanimator will always be tough unless they just completely brick or you "turn 1" them both games and you're on the play. xD

With regards to saving your land thats the right idea. Next turn you have the chance to dredge into a Narco + Cabal Therapy which allows you to check you Opp's hand for counter magic before you fire off your draw spell.

Against storm don't board out your breakthrough as that is your most powerful draw spell. You need to board out slower cards like Prized Amalgam (if you're running it), some number of Ichorid, and a couple of Putrid Imp and bring in a Dread Return Target presumably Iona to shut them out. Ultimately Cabal Therapy is MVP here as you want to strip away their resources. You want to be naming Infernal Tutor, LED (if they haven't cast them for some reason) primarily.

Yup Wear/Tear lol. Now you got it! Though I will not fault anyone for running Nature's Claim either.

Iona!! aww i didn't think about using it in the storm match-up. I kinda assume it was for merfolk/elves/goblins. I assume you name black to stop their tutor/ritual.

In regards to side-boarding, I've been keeping the card count of draw spells at 10 (based on your list of 4x looting, 3x careful studies, 3x breakthrough). I assume we never touch the looting, since it's the main interaction with led, but I've seen people running different ratio of careful studies and breakthrough. I assume the difference is that breakthrough is faster, so you would want more against aggro/combo decks, while careful is better for slower grinding match-ups where you want to keep hate cards that you can cast in your hand. As i mentioned, I've been keeping my draw spells to 10, so i would do things like -1 careful study and +1 breakthrough. From your experience, would adding more card draws clutter your hand and vice versa would reducing card draw reduce the speed of the deck i.e. taking more turns to dredge something relevant... my decision originally for removing breakthrough against combo was actually geared more around trying to getting surgical in my hand to strip him of a combo piece, rather than going as fast as possible. Definitely not going with this strat next time i play against storm.

Also related to side boarding, i feel like this is one of those decks where sometimes you just don't care about hate or what your opponent is doing so you just want to go as fast as possible. From your experience, Besides storm, what other match-up would you give up on hate/removal and just focus on winning.

Thanks again for the feedback!! Hopefully one day I'll make the trip up to one of your local legacy events, so i can get some more games in and learn some more match-ups from watching you play live. Hopefully you won't out meta everyone and go full delver again... xD

[tt_abel_tt]

What about Failure // Comply from Amonkhet as a sideboard card against other combo decks?
Comply can be dredged into and be cast for W from the gy. You can buy valuable time by naming the scariest card.

That's a pretty spicy card.

[RThomas-]

Here are some thoughts:

Iona!! aww i didn't think about using it in the storm match-up. I kinda assume it was for merfolk/elves/goblins. I assume you name black to stop their tutor/ritual.

It depends, of course, on the type of storm you're playing against. A standard blue/black storm list probably has black as the best color to name. Note that in games vs. Epic Storm, however, you'll want to name red, as Bryant Cook notes in his GP Vegas fifteenth round match here.

Also related to side boarding, i feel like this is one of those decks where sometimes you just don't care about hate or what your opponent is doing so you just want to go as fast as possible. From your experience, Besides storm, what other match-up would you give up on hate/removal and just focus on winning.

This is pretty true against most of the fair decks IMO. Example: I've retried Pithing Needle in the sideboard recently. Against Elves and Deathrite Shaman decks, which I thought it would be terrific against, I always wanted to play a draw spell instead, which is usually what I held off playing in lieu of getting Needle in quickly. The deck is too strong as-is to water it down with stuff like this.

What about Failure // Comply from Amonkhet as a sideboard card against other combo decks?
Comply can be dredged into and be cast for W from the gy. You can buy valuable time by naming the scariest card.

Nice idea since it gets around Therapy and Duress, which your Storm opponent will always leave in against you. It does risk, however, being a little too narrow. What do you name? Infernal Tutor, Past in Flames, Ad Nauseam, Dark Petition, Ritual effects? Storm seems a little too versatile for a one-turn Meddling Mage to be the difference. I would usually rather play a Breakthrough or Faithless Looting with that one mana. YMMV.

Good job in your first time @ GP Vegas.

[Que]

Hmm weird I thought I had posted my brief comments on the GP trip, but I guess it slipped my mind. Anywhoo

I was not incredibly happy with my performance going 5-4 at the grand prix. I wish I could have had better results, but sometimes the cards don't fall in your favor. I felt good about my play all day, but I did unfortunately run into some significant amount of hate. I beat Sneak & Show, Lands, and Grixis Delver. I lost to Bant Deathblade, Food Chain, BUG Delver, and Sneak & Show.

My loss game 3 against Bant came at the hands of a Containment Priest. On the board he also had an EE he played on turn his turn 1 on Zero and a noble hierarch. I was trying to regain some advantage by casting two drops and saccing them to Therapy to put out a couple of zombies a turn. He plows one of the zombies I manage to get that turn and then draws Jitte to shut the door completely; I did not have the Firestorm and did not find Wear/Tear.

My loss to food Chain was due to a game 3 Cage that I could not find a Wear/Tear for after looting twice off of two Cephalid Coliseums and a couple of Careful Studies. BUG Delver hit me with 2 Surgicals and a DRS. Against the Sneak and Show opponent I had the “turn 1”kill, however, he presented Cage and I didn’t board in Wear/Tear. In that match I unfortunately lost game 1 after he went all in on Sneak Attack and let me tear his hand apart; he then drew a cantrip, cast it, found a Griselbrand and proceeded to kill me the turn before he would die to lethal zombies +Ichorid.

After that I decidedly spent most of my time hanging out in Vegas. I didn’t play any magic outside of the main event. I was just chillin all weekend. xD

[Blastoderm]

I'm somewhat new to LED Dredge (I started with Manaless even though I have LEDs lol). Was wondering why wear//tear in the sideboard over fragmentize? Is Wear simply there to get through chalice?

[slave]

I'm somewhat new to LED Dredge (I started with Manaless even though I have LEDs lol). Was wondering why wear//tear in the sideboard over fragmentize? Is Wear simply there to get through chalice?

Pretty much my experience - being a deck full of 1-drops we need something that can get thru a chalice @ 1.

What about Failure // Comply from Amonkhet as a sideboard card against other combo decks?
Comply can be dredged into and be cast for W from the gy. You can buy valuable time by naming the scariest card.

Not bad at all. I missed this one. I'm assuming very few of us are considering this for the *instant* part.
It's situational, but might potentially allow us to name their hate multiple turns in a row, or their combo. Useful.

[slave]

Also;
Failure // Comply also counts as a blue card for the Force of Will sideboard plan, which might help for a few more ways to hinder combo and hate. I'm sure I have no idea how effective the card will be against anything, and when I (mostly) run blue I rarely side in more than 6 cards, but I will at least have something new to test here in dredge.
Been a while since I've said THAT!

[Bromophelio]

Finally getting a chance to do a brief write-up on my local store's legacy night this Monday. I have been switching aroudn buildsa nd finally found one that I like in my meta. I went 3-1, beating Storm, DnT and Infect, while losing to Elves.


First off, here is the list I have settled on for a meta including a lot of storm, delver and recently DnT

3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Cephalid Coliseum
2 City of Brass
1 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Mana Confluence
4 Narcomoeba
2 Prized Amalgam
2 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp

Sideboard:
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dread Return
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Firestorm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Lotus Petal
2 Unmask

Match1: TES 1-0

Game 1: Lose turn 1 on the draw to tendrils. Nothing to see here
Game 2: Keep a hand with 2 coliesums an LED, couple dredges and FkZ. Pass turn without doing anything exciting and my opponent goes off again, but whiffs his Ad Nasueum down to 1 life. I manage to dread return my FkZ and kill him T2.
Game 3: He plays a much slower hand with Ponders and no big explosion. Grind him out with Cabal Therapies and Dread Return an Iona naming red. He draws a Burning wish and scoops

Match 2: Elves 1-1
Game 1: On the draw again. not a super explosive start, but I Cabal Therapy him getting rid of Natural Order when he as about 5 creatures on the field and I ahve 9 zombies. He draws Cradle and brings in Craterhoof for the win.
Game 2: I'm on the play, but keep a rough hand with no dredgres, but a lot of draw. I don't draw into anything and get Craterhoofed ~T4.

Match 3 DnT 2-1
Game 1: I do my thing and get a quick kill with zombies and FkZ
Game 2: Opponent mulligans to 1 keeps a plains and scries a RiP on top. He doesn't draw a land t3 and scoops. I have enough zombies onthe board that I wasn't concerned about the RiP and had Cabal Therappy to take it away anyway.

Match 4: Infect 3-1
This match was scary and my Cabal Therapies saved me.
Game 1: Win through a slow ichorid recursion and amassing a zombie wave while keeping a Narcomoeba up for Inkmoth Nexus. Name Berserk with Therapy and get lucky once. A ble to grind him out and win.
Game 2: Bring in Elesh and hope I don't get comboed. Run into early CTs and take away 2 berserks while maintaining a decent board. Comes down to him having to topdeck a berserk and he doesn't.

Overall I like the way my new lists runs. It feels like it has enough of the combo speed and maintains its resilience and can play slow if need be. After sideboarding, I can go for the all out combo kill or take out some of the more hit or miss aspects and get ready for a grind. Solid night and my first time going 3-1 at the local store.

[Cope]

Sooo I haven't been on this thread for a while now apparently and looking through the past several pages I'm seeing alot of things that surprise me, eg. people are not only playing less than 4 Breakthough, but in some cases replacing it (or Study) with Gitaxian Probe???

For reference, my current list is as follows:

4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Mana Confluence
4 City of Brass
1 Gemstone Mine

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Breakthrough
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Putrid Imp

SB:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Firestorm
2 Nature's Claim
1 Wear//Tear
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Dread Return
1 Iona
1 Dragonlord Kolaghan


Over the past several months playing at local tournaments, I found myself losing several games to losing my Gemstone Mines, so I switched to/am trying 4 Citys because the life loss rarely seems relevant in my experience, though this could be an overreaction to my recent small sample size and any mix of City/Mine for the last 5 rainbow land slots could work just fine I'm sure. I also finally replaced the FKZ with a Dragonlord Kolaghan because the only time FKZ is better is if you have exactly 6 zombies and you can swing for 21 whereas itd be 18 with Kolaghan, and while Kolaghan can get STPed before attacks, STP seems less prevalent these days with (real) Miracles gone, and its of course much better to reanimate by itself and is a black creature for Ichorid if needed. The Leylines have been impressive though honestly, it gives us a lot of game against the Reanimator decks which are normally awful matchups and have been becoming more popular, obv the mirror, and even has some utility vs Lands decks as well.

Some changes I'm considering trying/making based on reading the last many pages of this thread would be trying +2 Amalgam, taking out 1 Ichorid and either Thug#4 or Putrid Imp#2. I'll admit haven't tried the FoW SB package (don't own them lol) but it doesn't sound very good to me anyways, hoping to have FoW, blue card, and an otherwise functional hand just seems very optimistic to me. But I can definitely see the appeal of diversifying the Ichorid/Amalgam mix tho esp with seemingly every SB having 2-3 Surgicals (as they should), but it usually takes 2 Surgicals to beat us anyways unless the first one is perfectly timed.

But yeah I just wanted to share my current thoughts/list that I've been having pretty good success with recently as usual, any questions/comments welcome!

-Cope

[slave]

Sooo I haven't been on this thread for a while now apparently and looking through the past several pages I'm seeing alot of things that surprise me, eg. people are not only playing less than 4 Breakthough, but in some cases replacing it (or Study) with Gitaxian Probe???

I know right?
I can fully appreciate that as a newer player to legacy, Probe is like a warm blanket that can help to make your therapies a little more accurate. Fair enough, but they're suboptimal at best, not a card I want in LED-dredge at all. I prefer the 4x Breakthru, 4x LED build that wants to combo out quick.

I run a build similar-ish to you. I also run a single dread return without a mainboard target besides GGT. I find it does the job against an unknown opponent pretty well.
Your side looks a little light on for fighting hate for me. I've personally found that running 2 Iona with a few DR's has helped my chances of beating combo and a lot of hate cards alike for quite a while now.
I run the blue build - it's not for everyone. Bear in mind the FoW is not just there to counter stuff, it's to fool your opponent into playing slower and buy you another turn to kill them.
Amalgam is worth the effort, the extra damage and additional body is useful when playing against extraction, as I find Icky tends to get extracted often.
I tried running Surg Extraction a while back, but I chose to drop it in favour of Faerie Macabre (for icky), but I no longer play it at all as I'd rather dedicate my side into beating combo and hate.