When I said popularity, I meant the number/percentage of dredge decks in different metagames. I'm pretty sure that not all areas have dredge decks and dredge decks don't come in big numbers, is 5 in a 60/70-ish people tournament on the average, popular?? 15 decks are st. louis is not an average of dredge deck attendance universally, it's probably a decade-high record of attendance. If the deck is popular then most certainly people would pack hate for it, since it is a popular notion that this deck loses to hate cards. Now, given that the deck is popular and with that popularity comes hate cards, the deck still wins. So that would mean either the deck is not popular, or it can win through hate now. Or people are stupid since they now there alot of dredge decks and they still don't pack hate knowing the deck loses to it (alledgedly), which is most definitely not the case.
Randomness is a reality in magic, but you see, the point of deck building is being able to construct a deck that minimizes the randomness ie. getting the deck's ratios correctly so that you have great odds of not getting trash hands. And also there is this tech called mulliganing if ever you have a bad hand, if you mulligan into more shit, then your deck is probably not as balanced as it could be, this especially applies to combo decks. Luck is virtually a rationalization for a deck's inconsistent construction.
Uhm, this is exactly what people do before tournaments, play-testing. Your point is?
This contradicts the argument of people winning because a certain build is "popular." Just because a list wins, it wins all the time, It just means the list can win and people can pilot a certain list into winning. And because it wins, it can't possibly be terrible. It's not the best, but it's not terrible.
This is unnecessary in showing that certain lists can win games. This is needed in seeing which is better, but like I said, that is not the point of the discussion, the point is whether a list can win tournaments.
Clearly, if there is a trend it can't possibly a fluke. Furthermore, the point of discussion is not which deck is better due to winning, the point is since a deck wins it can't possibly rubbish. We are not saying bloodghast lists are better than ichorid, what we are saying is that the whole list COULD possibly steer the whole deck development into the direction where the deck is getting better.
bloodghast did well everywhere else though, those deserve some credit too. The world is not just the 5k, vestal, or philly meaning they aren't the only results that matter.
Why so serious?
Again, I am not sure where you are getting these numbers from. Do you have any concrete evidence to suggest that Dredge appears 5 times in a 60/70 person tournament? Moreover, do you have any evidence to suggest that this is not a high number for attendance? In the full tournament reports that I have seen (not just the top 8), Dredge is consistently in the top 5 most played decks, if not first or second on that list. If you provide evidence I will happily concede this point to you.
Had you read my earlier post on the previous page, specifically the part entitled "The Myth of Graveyard Hate", you would know that I am in agreement with you here and have been for the entire time. The deck clearly can play through the hatred; the evidence demonstrates it.If the deck is popular then most certainly people would pack hate for it, since it is a popular notion that this deck loses to hate cards. Now, given that the deck is popular and with that popularity comes hate cards, the deck still wins. So that would mean either the deck is not popular, or it can win through hate now. Or people are stupid since they now there alot of dredge decks and they still don't pack hate knowing the deck loses to it (alledgedly), which is most definitely not the case.
The point I am making is that even if your deck has been balanced by God himself, so long as it adheres to statistics and basic mathematical laws, it is EXTREMELY likely that you will get non-representative good and/or bad hands in a tournament. You are only playing a few games. I am not undercutting deck building and the purpose of tuning builds. I am simply saying that at a tournament, even the best tuned decks can lose to statistics. Whereas if you test the deck in 100s of games, you are less likely to lose to randomness IN THE LONG RUN.Randomness is a reality in magic, but you see, the point of deck building is being able to construct a deck that minimizes the randomness ie. getting the deck's ratios correctly so that you have great odds of not getting trash hands. And also there is this tech called mulliganing if ever you have a bad hand, if you mulligan into more shit, then your deck is probably not as balanced as it could be, this especially applies to combo decks. Luck is virtually a rationalization for a deck's inconsistent construction.
That you cannot just use a tournament report as evidence that a deck is performing well overall. it can be evidence to suggest this, but it is not proof.Uhm, this is exactly what people do before tournaments, play-testing. Your point is?
I am not entirely sure what you are saying here. Can you clarify your point? I believe you are saying this, although it is not clear from the sentences above. "Just because a list wins some tournaments, that does not mean it will win all tournaments. It just means that the list is capable of winning. Is it the best? No. Is it terrible? Also no."This contradicts the argument of people winning because a certain build is "popular." Just because a list wins, it wins all the time, It just means the list can win and people can pilot a certain list into winning. And because it wins, it can't possibly be terrible. It's not the best, but it's not terrible.
If this is indeed what you are saying, then I must ask you to consider the implications of this. Are we to play lists just because they can place well in tournaments? Or should we use careful testing to find the best list, not just circumstantial tournament evidence?
For instance, look at the two Aggro Loam decks that made it to the SCG 10K. One of them ran a Burning Wish toolbox. The other ran big creature beaters. The former placed 6th. The latter placed 1st. Both decks made it to the top 8, and by your logic, both would be equally passable to test. But would we not want to discover which is actually BEST? Just because a deck or card is not terrible does not at all imply that it is good. It certainly does not imply it is best. This brings me to my next point...
I do not want to play a list that "can win games". I do not want to play a list that "can win tournaments." I want to play the list that is BEST at winning games and is BEST at winning tournaments. A thorough comparative analysis of BG builds and no BG builds will prove this.This is unnecessary in showing that certain lists can win games. This is needed in seeing which is better, but like I said, that is not the point of the discussion, the point is whether a list can win tournaments.
I am not at all saying that BG is necessarily bad. The card has performed well since it came out in a wide range of events. But so have builds without BG. This just means that the cards must be thoroughly tested and backed up with evidence and data. It is not enough to look at tournament reports to draw general conclusions from. When I analyzed the results of the well-covered SCG 10K, I did not ever intend that to be taken as gospel on Dredge. I merely discussed a deck's performance at a prolific tournament.
Evidence leads to truth. Testing leads to evidence.
-ktkenshinx
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...&postcount=806 4 in 112 people
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...&postcount=805 4 in 64 people
http://www.magic-speyer.de/showthread.php?tid=216&pid=1670#pid1670 2 in 50 or so people
http://www.magic-speyer.de/showthrea...d=1545#pid1545 0 in 42 people
http://launiversidaddelasartesludica...duals-ual.html 7 in 125
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...&postcount=762 1 in 46
http://www.elsantuario.es/foro/index...ic,3740.0.html 0 in 40.
Im currently busy with school work today so these are the only stuff I could fine on short notice. So you're gonna go out and say that these data are irrelevant now?
So this would definitely debunk the notion that the deck loses to hate. Thanks for clearing that up. Or maybe the pilots you mentioned were able to construct a list and sideboard that is aimed at successfully and efficiently dealing with hate cards played at them. It appears this can be the case since if we assume that majority of the match-ups that dredge players faced hate similar to those you pointed out, not all of the decks had a list and sideboard that that can handle hate as good as the other two lists you mentioned. They didn't play through hate, they answered the hate and played around it given a well constructed list and sideboard.
Elaborate more on the bolded text, please, thanks. I disagree, testing is definitely not definitive proof, furthermore, testing and the tournament atmosphere are two very different environments. A deck can do as good as it can in testing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it would do just as good in a tournament atmosphere. If you play competitively, test and play your deck on a tournament level. Extremely likely? What exactly do you mean by extremely likely? Like in a tournament of 5 rounds, and 3 games each. You get 10 bad of 15 possible hands or more, is that extremely likely? That's having the statistics of your deck all wrong. The point of having a well-tuned deck is finding the right ratio of cards that give you the best odds of getting a good 7 card hand, if not, it gives a good 6 card hand in its place, and so on.
Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but Do you play competitively? If you do, then your probably know that Decklists and builds are subjective to the playstyle of the pilot AND the current meta a certain list is expected to play in. Decks are tuned and changed constantly after every tournament because you may have noticed some things that needed to be changed, or you are expecting to play a different meta, or you plan to change the deck's philosophy, or for whatever reason it maybe, decks and builds are subjective. Given that, it is proper to say that there is no universally accepted "best" build. A build can be good for a time but can get outdated after a few months, thus there is no permanent standard as to what build is the "best." Your build can be the best now, but definitely it won't be the best at competing in a meta that constantly changes, gets more competitive, generally, gets better itself.
This is exactly what people like me that play BG are doing right now, testing.
Why so serious?
To me it seems that if you run Bloodghasts instead of Ichorids you need to go for the combo kill every time, in fact you are sacrificing some consistency AND your plan B to occasionally combo out faster. On top of that Bloodghast only really shines if you dredge in to that dredgeland, otherwise its near useless. Ichorid doesn't have that problem its always good as long as you can feed black creatures to it. I don't think Bloodghasts and Ichorids work well if you put them in a deck together, it seems that you only dillute the base strategy with this; you need to either play ghasts/dredgeland or ichorids/imps. I prefer the Ichorid plan B over the (only slightly) improved combo chance.
I really like this list:
Chase Lamm: 13th Place
Maindeck
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
Sideboard:
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer
No win more cards or unnecessary strange numbers, just the core strategy and a FoW sideboard.
On the contrary, I've actually liked the fact that the two play together. Bloodghast makes up for Ichorid's inability to be relevant when comboing out and Ichorid makes up for bloodghast's marginal inability to optimal in a particular area that Ichorid shines in, being a clock, a fast beater that can accumulate tokens. Ever since I started playing the deck, I've only played 3 Ichorids so I've never felt bloodghasts diluted into my Ichorid and critter aggro plan. I've been playing 3 of each and this seems to be just right for making both of them relevant in games without having one card being better than the other in terms of making the deck's game plan work.
Why so serious?
As I said, when provided with evidence, I will happily concede a point. While I would love to have better access to a larger pool of Legacy decklists (the vast majority of tournament reports do not include a full metagame breakdown), I am moved enough by this to say that it is not a wildly popular deck. This does not undercut its prevalence at the two events that I mentioned, however, so I think it is fair to take a middleground and say that it is a competitive deck like any other, and it will be played in most tournaments. Time and more evidence will tell if it is as popular as I suggest, or more of a sleeper as you do.
These are sideboards from 6 different Dredge decks, all of them making the Top 16 of their respective events. I have bolded the cards that appear in at least 5 of the 6 sideboards.So this would definitely debunk the notion that the deck loses to hate. Thanks for clearing that up. Or maybe the pilots you mentioned were able to construct a list and sideboard that is aimed at successfully and efficiently dealing with hate cards played at them. It appears this can be the case since if we assume that majority of the match-ups that dredge players faced hate similar to those you pointed out, not all of the decks had a list and sideboard that that can handle hate as good as the other two lists you mentioned. They didn't play through hate, they answered the hate and played around it given a well constructed list and sideboard.
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Unmask
3 Pithing Needle
2 Null Rod
4 Pithing Needle
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
2 Ancient Grudge
4 Chain Of Vapor
3 Force Of Will
3 Firestorm
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ancestor's Chosen
4 Leyline Of The Void
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Chain Of Vapor
3 Firestorm
1 Ray Of Revelation
4 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Tireless Tribe
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Unmask
1 Gemstone Mine
These seem to be the most common elements of a successful sideboards. Naturally, we would need detailed game-by-game analyses to determine which of these common sideboard cards were actually used to win games. But based off of lists alone, these are the cards that form the core of any serious competitive Dredge sideboard.
There are three ways that we can tell if a deck will perform well at a tournament. First, we can theorize about it. No one is advocating that this is the best way to test decks, just as it is not the best way to test anything. So we will discount that method right off the bat. Second, we can run it in a tournament and see how we do. This gives us a better feel for how a deck works, but in terms of raw numbers, it just isn't enough data to prove anything. Let us use your example: 5 rounds, 3 games each. That's 15 total games. Let's say in those 15 total games you get 3 abnormally good hands and 3 abnormally bad hands. Because drawing a hand is independent of your matchup, let us say that you get the 3 abnormally good hands against a deck that you have problems with. Furthermore, let us say that you get the 3 abnormally bad hands against a deck that you should steamroll. All things being equal, you will probably win the sub-optimal matchup and lose the favorable matchup."I am not undercutting deck building and the purpose of tuning builds. I am simply saying that at a tournament, even the best tuned decks can lose to statistics. Whereas if you test the deck in 100s of games, you are less likely to lose to randomness IN THE LONG RUN."
Elaborate more on the bolded text, please, thanks. I disagree, testing is definitely not definitive proof, furthermore, testing and the tournament atmosphere are two very different environments. A deck can do as good as it can in testing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it would do just as good in a tournament atmosphere. If you play competitively, test and play your deck on a tournament level. Extremely likely? What exactly do you mean by extremely likely? Like in a tournament of 5 rounds, and 3 games each. You get 10 bad of 15 possible hands or more, is that extremely likely? That's having the statistics of your deck all wrong. The point of having a well-tuned deck is finding the right ratio of cards that give you the best odds of getting a good 7 card hand, if not, it gives a good 6 card hand in its place, and so on.
Two days later, your results are posted to a website and we see that your Dredge deck, which had a 3-2 record, beat Aggro Loam and lost to Countertop. Can we now extrapolate from that and say that Dredge has a good/bad matchup in either instance? Certainly not. Randomness determined a large part of this tiny pool of evidence. This is not a matter of getting your deck statistics all wrong. Even if you only have 1 game that goes well/poorly for you owing to randomness, others will still look at your tournament report and only see the win or the loss. They won't see the randomness that was at work.
The third way to figure out if a deck works is testing. Repeated testing done dozens, even hundreds, of times. Not just on MWS (although that can be helpful), but against intelligent and competent players that you know. This replicates a tournament environment over the long run. Of course, in the end you certainly want to do some of both; a little tournament playing and a lot of testing.
Let me put it this way. Would you rather take a list to a big tournament that you just copied from another tournament winner? Or would you want to take a list that you have thoroughly tested against the metagame, and tuned based on those results? Certainly you want a little of both, but you definitely want to err on the side of more testing.
I have not played competitively for three years. If competition and tournaments have changed drastically in those three years, then I admit that I am no longer qualified to speak about this. If, however, as is more reasonably the case, it is still a similar experience, then for all intents and purposes I do "play competitively". While the best list might change from month to month due to external metagame shifts, there is still an optimal list for that period. Similarly, there is an optimal list for each playstyle and player. Similarly again, there is an optimal list even within periods of metagame shifts, depending on where you live and what decks are popular in your area. What does this mean? Well, it looks like there are many "optimal" lists for each different situation. But what it really boils down to is a single optimal list for a unique player in his or her own metagame.Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but Do you play competitively? If you do, then your probably know that Decklists and builds are subjective to the playstyle of the pilot AND the current meta a certain list is expected to play in. Decks are tuned and changed constantly after every tournament because you may have noticed some things that needed to be changed, or you are expecting to play a different meta, or you plan to change the deck's philosophy, or for whatever reason it maybe, decks and builds are subjective. Given that, it is proper to say that there is no universally accepted "best" build. A build can be good for a time but can get outdated after a few months, thus there is no permanent standard as to what build is the "best." Your build can be the best now, but definitely it won't be the best at competing in a meta that constantly changes, gets more competitive, generally, gets better itself.
On a similar note, we can all agree that there are SUB-optimal lists out there. A Dredge deck with neither BG nor Ichorid would strongly qualify as sub-optimal, for instance. Similarly, a Dredge deck that randomly decided to run 4 Illusions of Grandeur in the maindeck would similarly qualify as sub-optimal. I am not comparing BG's inclusion to Illusions of Grandeur's inclusion. I am simply saying that card inclusion demands testing, and you can't gain convincing data about a cards strengths or weaknesses from tournament data; as we discussed, it is not a reliable representation.
As to Chase Lamm's list, I really enjoy it. As ddt15 said, it is a really tight list that doesn't mess around with "cool things" or anything like that. I do have a few questions about the decklist though (posted below):
Maindeck
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
Sideboard:
4 Force of Will
4 Pithing Needle
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth
2 Null Rod
1 Realm Razer
1. Where would Bloodghast go in this list? Would you do something like -1 Ichorid, -1 Tireless Tribe, -1 ??? to add +3 Bloodghast? What lands would you take out for the Darkmoor Salvage?
2. How helpful are those two Null Rods in the sideboard? Lamm has no way to recur them if they are dredged, and a very small probability of drawing and casting them in a given game. I suppose between Needle and Rod he has 6 ways of dealing with Relic and Crypt, but would not Ancient Grudge be more useful? At least he would have a higher chance of being able to find it.
3. Realm Razer is an interesting choice. Lamm's is the only sideboard that includes this card, and I wonder how it works out for him. Could another creature go here? His list lacks Hypnotist (maindeck or sideboard). Would that be a better inclusion?
-ktkenshinx-
I recently bought a playset of AN City of Brasses, and I just had to buy rest of the cards to the only deck that plays them, Dredge. I'm totally new to the archetype, but I've been reading these forums, and this thread as well for a pretty long time.
ktkenshinx:
This is how I would add 3 Bloodghasts to Lamm's list:
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
3 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
2 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
2 Tireless Tribe
3 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
I don't have all the cards yet so I haven't tested it at all. "On paper", it looks quite solid though. 3/3 split on Ichorid/Bloodghast, 14 lands, 12 dredgers, 6 permanent discard outlets + 4 Careful Study + 3 Breakthrough. I hope it works. ü
-kortero
We dont need Rod. Crypt/Relic is not an issue as we can almost ever play around it or nuke it down with Grudge. I just donīt get the point Oboro. Why is it so amazing? Just because it comboes with BG and therefor does nothing for the deck itself (like Coliseum does in the fact of fast wins through counters)?
I did only play Parcher Dredge in tournaments (with quite some success) but I want to give this version a shot as well.
Without having read the whole thread, what do you guys think about this:
// Lands
1 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
2 [FUT] Dakmor Salvage
4 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
4 [8E] City of Brass
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
// Creatures
2 [RAV] Golgari Thug
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
2 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [TO] Ichorid
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
// Spells
2 [TSP] Dread Return
3 [OD] Careful Study
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
3 [TO] Breakthrough
1 [RAV] Darkblast
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RAV] Blazing Archon
SB: 1 [10E] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 4 [ON] Chain of Vapor
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 3 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 [SHM] Woodfall Primus
SB: 2 [JU] Ray of Revelation
I tested 2 Iona MD and they were insane, but if Iīm really honest I guess it was just winmore. So I just added some more consistency to it...I won the last tournament there with Parcher.dec and so I think there is going to be lots of hate...but then again, itīs ~40 players so there will be about ~39 players donīt know what to do against Ichorid :P
Well, if our opponents don't know how to handle our deck, all I can say is... l2p. Sorry, even a trained monkey can at least make us slow down. Stopping a competent pilot is difficult (Heck, I nearly won through triple Tormods... not saying I'm competent at all), though.
I think Iona is best in the SB, as the Combo Win G1 is too good to pass up IMO.
Anyone tested Lark a bit more?
I finally put this pile together and I'm really enjoying goldfishing it to get used to the weird dredge playstyle. It's fun to watch the deck do busted stuff while casting very few spells. There are a few things that are nagging me.
I find myself wanting to Dread Return something fat and all I've got is Grave Troll. FKZ and Sphinx are not Fat. Grave Troll doesn't have shroud, trample, or fly.
While I love Careful Study, I don't care so much for Breakthrough and I didn't like seeing it very often so it's not gonna be a 4-of in my deck. Meanwhile, dredging is great and all but both Carefull Study and Breakthrough look so sad and alone in a graveyard from which they'll never return. I put in a singleton Deep Analysis, going up to 61 cards cause I'm just fishin, and everytime it hit the yard I was happy. Why are you guys not running 1-2 Deep Anal?
Most of the time you'll be operating with just 1 land. Wasteland and stuff, you know?
And if you want to reanimate a big fat shrouded creature, I guess you play the wrong deck. Reveillark let's you return 2 GGTs, but that's about it. Iona is another legit target, too, but if you want to win with Empyreal Archangels and Inkwell Leviathans, you should look at Reanimator.
Ancestor's Chosen is pretty awesome, I just watched tourney where dredge got to 95 life and took the mox home. I don't think many decks can come back from that.
Also Eternal Witness can be pretty good for getting that random card back to win the game. Land or breakthrough to combo out. I would say most of the time you will be operating with 2 lands.
I think the "operating on one land" argument is a bunch of boola. If that was actually the case why would Cephalid Coliseum be in the deck? Aside from that, Dakmor Salvage has this strange ability to come back to your hand.
lol...I don't "play" the deck. I just started fishing it today...so I'm learning to play it. Iona is fat...and cool. I could see 1-2 between the main and board.
If a CC stays on the table for too long, something is going wrong I guess. And the Salvages CiP... erm, sorry, EtBT. Sure, DA isn't that bad and I might actually try it instead of something like Breakthrough, but it is only useful when in your GY. And yes, I know, CS and Breakthrough are only useful in your hand...
It does happen that you have 2+ lands, but I can tell you from experience that most of the time you're playing with 1 land. You either trust me, I've been playing this deck for about three-quarter year now, or you don't.
How many lands do you play btw? That might explain something.
As far as the Bloodghast + DDD centric builds, I've found Phantasmagorian to be awesome, it's like a dredgable Putrid Imp game 1 that accelerates your DDD by discarding your dredgers and threats as you go - I'm 100% convinced that playing the outlets G1 is sub-optimal
I don't like phantasmagorian you will understand when you draw it in your opening hand and you go 'f*** i wish i had an imp instead'.![]()
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