[Deck] Non-LED Based Dredge/Ichorid Combo

[BKclassic]

In the current meta game Terastodon and Woodfall Primus are worthless MD if you run a MD answer to permanents you need to be running on the can also kill or bounce creatures as well do to us losses game 1 to a blazing archon and glacial chasm, with both decks gaining super popularity I'm changing my list.
Here is a question which is a better MD target vs. lands/re-animator, Angel of despair or a Tidespout Tyrant?
They both have their own pro's and con's, I would like to hear your thoughts.

Tidespout seems pretty badass. Cabal Therapy is obviously insane with the Tyrant because you can destroy the permanents you are bouncing. Obviously it is a little greedy, but I think running Dark Blast would help negate that risk by being readily cast-able.

[addaro]

I really love this deck. The way it plays. The things it can do. But sometimes... sometimes it just kicks me in the ass! :( Most times it did it to me in tournaments. You know the stuff... you dredge 20 cards 12 are lands and the rest are draw cards (means you do...nothing). There is one dredger in half of your deck and the rest is hiding at the bottom (means you are slow). 4 Ichorids are the last 5 cards. But why am I whining now? I played a home tournament with a friend yesterday and he beat me with 5 different decks. I managed to win only 1 game! It just breaks my spirit :( So my question is: do you have to be a lucky person to play dredge succesfuly or what?

[MMogg]

I really love this deck. The way it plays. The things it can do. But sometimes... sometimes it just kicks me in the ass! :( Most times it did it to me in tournaments. You know the stuff... you dredge 20 cards 12 are lands and the rest are draw cards (means you do...nothing). There is one dredger in half of your deck and the rest is hiding at the bottom (means you are slow). 4 Ichorids are the last 5 cards. But why am I whining now? I played a home tournament with a friend yesterday and he beat me with 5 different decks. I managed to win only 1 game! It just breaks my spirit :( So my question is: do you have to be a lucky person to play dredge succesfuly or what?

This probably isn't too helpful, but I find this deck is particularly susceptible to clumping, especially the cards removed from the game. Ichorids are usually clumped because of recurring them as are PImps from feeding Ichorids, Cabal Therapies are clumped from flashing back, and often even Narcomoebas are clumped. Maybe that is one cause of some of what you are saying. You have to shuffle a lot to randomize it again and even then, I still get clumps.

[addaro]

I always make sure that cards are randomized! BTW thanks for help, watching replays on MTGO :)

[TheSleeper]

How do I SB against Aggro Loam, particularly the ones packing Leyline? Unless we're packing multiple Wispmare it seems pretty bad for us. Leyline + Chalice @ 1 shuts off most other answers. Or should this simply go down as a bad matchup and focus elsewhere? I was thinking of 2 Wispmare in SB anyways, so would probably go something like: +2 Wisp, +4 CoV (hopefully no chalice @ 1), -3 Careful, -1 BT, -2 DR targets.

Edit: Ray of Revelation also gets there but Wispmare does it for a single mana. Any Loam related SB advice appreciated.

[Ozymandias]

I board out 1 Ichorid, 1 Woodfall Primus, 1 Dread Return, 1 Cabal Therapy (No good targets) 3 Careful Study for +4 Chain of Vapor +3 Nature's Claim. If they do have the nut Leyline, Land, land mox chalice hand, then yeah, it's probably g3 time, but otherwise you have at least one turn to get rid of Leyline. BT gets the nod over study because it can get cast around chalice 1.

[BKclassic]

At risk of saying something dumb and suggested before I present the following.

Everyone has pretty much settled on the following:

15 Lands
11 Dredgers
8 Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe
7 Breakthrough/Careful Study
3 Dread Return
1 Dread Return Target
8 Bridge and Narcomeoba
3 Ichorid
4 Cabal Therapy

The usual variations are -1 Land, Dread Return, Dread Return Target, Cabal Therapy or Tireless Tribe; +1 Ichorid, Dread Return Target, or Dredger

Premises-
1-In a perfect world, we would all run 12 Dredgers, 4 Ichorid and 4 Cabal Therapy.
2-Typically, one of these cards must be cut in order to keep all 4 Tireless Tribe and and another to have 7 Breakthrough/Careful Study. Usually a dredger and an Ichorid.
3- A list with 12 dredgers is better than one with 11 dredgers. But what to cut for it

Conclusion-
If you are playing 60 cards and 11 Dredgers, you should run 61 cards and 12 Dredgers.

So, is my logic faulty? Clearly Premise 3 is the questionable one. 11/60 is a ratio of .18333 of dredgers to cards and 12/61 is a ratio of .19672 dredgers to cards. Running 61 cards as opposed to 60 cards changes the chance of any one card being a certain card from 1.667% to 1.639%, only 3/100 of a percent.

Assuming my math is correct, that 1.3% increase in the number of dredgers seems well worth the slight reduction in chance of drawing other cards since dredgers are obviously the key to being able to win.

[drawer]

How do I SB against Aggro Loam, particularly the ones packing Leyline? Unless we're packing multiple Wispmare it seems pretty bad for us. Leyline + Chalice @ 1 shuts off most other answers. Or should this simply go down as a bad matchup and focus elsewhere? I was thinking of 2 Wispmare in SB anyways, so would probably go something like: +2 Wisp, +4 CoV (hopefully no chalice @ 1), -3 Careful, -1 BT, -2 DR targets.

Edit: Ray of Revelation also gets there but Wispmare does it for a single mana. Any Loam related SB advice appreciated.

I've been playing 3 Echoing Truth and 2 Chain of Vapor in my SB for a long time, the Echoing Truths are good against multiple Leylines, Chalice + Leyline, and Empty the Warrens tokens in addition to everything Chain is good against. I also play 16 lands.

I haven't lost a match to Aggro Loam with Leylines since I started playing. I've only played it a few times but my area has some of the most experienced Aggro Loam players around.

[ktkenshinx]

I've been playing 3 Echoing Truth and 2 Chain of Vapor in my SB for a long time, the Echoing Truths are good against multiple Leylines, Chalice + Leyline, and Empty the Warrens tokens in addition to everything Chain is good against. I also play 16 lands.

I haven't lost a match to Aggro Loam with Leylines since I started playing. I've only played it a few times but my area has some of the most experienced Aggro Loam players around.

Ray of Revalation is most readily compared to Ancient Grudge. Similarly, this might suggest that Wispmare is most readily compared to Ingot Chewer. Which of the pairs are optimal?

In my testing, and I believe the testing of others, Grudge is the optimal choice to Chewer. Chalice at 1 is a pretty easy drop for decks like Stax, but Chalice at 2 is a bit more of a leap. Grudge provides both a solution to Chalice and to hatred like Crypt and Relic. It comes back for more, it gives you card advantage, and it synergizes well with Dredge.

So what about Ray? While it looks like it does the same thing as Grudge, this is not entirely true. Decks that run one artifact-hate card tend to run multiples. Because of this, Grudge's redundancy comes into play all the time. But Ray's redundancy is not as powerful. Do you really need to kill 2 Moats? Enchantress and its ungodly amount of threats is an exception to this, but bounce handles that well enough. Because of this overlap between bounce and enchantment destruction, both are not needed.

-ktkenshinx-

[Anusien]

Conclusion-
If you are playing 60 cards and 11 Dredgers, you should run 61 cards and 12 Dredgers.

So, is my logic faulty? Clearly Premise 3 is the questionable one. 11/60 is a ratio of .18333 of dredgers to cards and 12/61 is a ratio of .19672 dredgers to cards. Running 61 cards as opposed to 60 cards changes the chance of any one card being a certain card from 1.667% to 1.639%, only 3/100 of a percent.

Assuming my math is correct, that 1.3% increase in the number of dredgers seems well worth the slight reduction in chance of drawing other cards since dredgers are obviously the key to being able to win.

I don't buy it. Before I'd come close to beliving it, I'd want to see the math on keepable hands. If we assume a minimum keepable hand requires Land, Dredger, outlet, we can mathematically solve to see what percentage of hands are keepable for a given number of lands, dredgers, and outlets. So if you want to make your case, do the math.

[4eak]

Ray of Revelation and Grudge really can't be compared very effectively. Grudge is insane because you can dredge into it or discard it in order to use it against artifact GY hate, while some of the very important enchantment GY hate we'd want to hit with Ray prevent the discarding or dredging into it in the first place (Wheel of Sun and Moon, Leyline).




peace,
4eak

[paK0]

I don't buy it. Before I'd come close to beliving it, I'd want to see the math on keepable hands. If we assume a minimum keepable hand requires Land, Dredger, outlet, we can mathematically solve to see what percentage of hands are keepable for a given number of lands, dredgers, and outlets. So if you want to make your case, do the math.

I think it might actually be possible that this increases the number of keepable hands, since you can usually keep your opening 7 as long as there is a dredger if you face any blue decks.

DDD is the best plan there since I dont' play an outlet if I only have one, loosing to a random FoW is just bad. But I agree, some actual math will be more correct than my imagination.

[TheSleeper]

Because of this overlap between bounce and enchantment destruction, both are not needed.

So you're saying 4 bounce (CoV) is enough for enchantments? Hmm, I'll keep testing.

[pippo84]

Has everyone dropped Bloodghast? It's a while I don't play dredge and read the thread, but I was thinking to do it again..

[ktkenshinx]

So you're saying 4 bounce (CoV) is enough for enchantments? Hmm, I'll keep testing.

In my testing, 4 Chain is normally enough, although adding in a Wispmare or 2 (or a 3 Chain/2 Wispmare split) (or even a 3 Chain/2 Truth split) is also viable. It really depends what enchantments are causing problem. Wheel and Leyline cannot be dealt with using Ray as effectively as with Chain and Truth. But Grass/Prison/Moat/Propaganda are all better handled by Ray, especially against decks that run redundant enchantment threats.

-ktkenshinx-

[drawer]

But Grass/Prison/Moat/Propaganda are all better handled by Ray, especially against decks that run redundant enchantment threats.

Don't most people play Terastodon for the Grass/Prison/Moat problem?

[Zappa]

Just wondering what's other's opinion on this, specially when it concerns enchantment based hate...

How far are you willing to Mulligan? There's some hands I've tossed away, where I am wondering whether or not its the correct call. Like some opening hands with a land, dredger, discard outlet/draw enabler... but no answers. Do you mulligan until you've drawn into your answer? Do you keep a 5 or 4 card hand just to draw that Chain of Vapor? What if there's no land to cast that said of chain of vapor? Mull or draw? I understand that artifact based hate I can just try to dredge to an ancient grudge, however Leyline does not give us that option.

I usually board out breakthrough most of the time, as I can also dig in or answers with careful study and allowing us to keep our hand intact. But the problem is when you've drawn into either the nuts hand (but no answers), or drawn a decent hand (but no answers), or drawn your answers to a hate piece but went down to like 5 cards doing so (but no land). This is usually the issue I am having, specially when I know the opponent is packing Leyline. Artifacts for me is fine, enchantments however is a different story.

Thanks.

[NQN]

Even when I assume that my opp has Leyline/Wheel, I´d never ship back a hand like the first one you mentioned. Fact is, if they don´t have Leyline, you win. If they have it, you win if you draw your answer. But nothing is worse than loosing because you mulled to 5 to find Chain and he just goes GoyfGoyfGoyf. Most people think they can win with decent hands even if theres no/few hate in it and will keep hands even without leylines f.e.

[(nameless one)]

I looked over at the Reanimator thread and they have been discussing how Enchantment hate is far more devastating than Artifact hate. I believe this is true on our side too because:

We can still Dredge with an active Artifact hate because of Ancient Grudge. The same cannot be said against Enchantments. A resolve Leyline, Wheel of SaM, Planar Void won't allow you to Dredge at all.

Although, that is not my main point. My main point is Outside Faerie Macabre, are Creature hate that relevant?

The reason I ask is because of my dilemma with Chain of Vapour vs. Nature's Claim. Yes, Chain of Vapour can 'permanently' deal with Leyline but have you ever been a position that you Chain a Wheel of SaM only to see it again next turn because you don't have a Cabal Therapy on hand? Yes Chain of Vapor deals with creatures but it is also a temporarily.

I have been contemplating whether Chain of Vapor is actually good on the side. I think Nature's Claim is the better choice but I could be wrong. I know Frogboy's list from the SCG article ran 4 Chains and 1 Claim. But would it be better if there was more Claim, less Chains and possibly more creature hate.

I was thinking of actually using Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile on the side.

Any opinions with that? Does it depend on the list? Is it a metacall?

[BKclassic]

The reason I ask is because of my dilemma with Chain of Vapour vs. Nature's Claim. Yes, Chain of Vapour can 'permanently' deal with Leyline but have you ever been a position that you Chain a Wheel of SaM only to see it again next turn because you don't have a Cabal Therapy on hand? Yes Chain of Vapor deals with creatures but it is also a temporarily.

I have been contemplating whether Chain of Vapor is actually good on the side. I think Nature's Claim is the better choice but I could be wrong. I know Frogboy's list from the SCG article ran 4 Chains and 1 Claim. But would it be better if there was more Claim, less Chains and possibly more creature hate.

I have been contemplating this mystery as well. I want to run Nature's Claim, but running 7-8 Grudge and Claim seems like a really narrow sideboard. So I came up with this, (MD the same as Frogboy's, -1 Darkblast, +1 Angel of Despair, possibly another Thug as the 61st card):

3 Unmask/Leyline of the Void/Firestorm
3 Wispmare
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Chain of Vapor
1 Terestodon
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Ancestor's Chosen

Wispmare is way better than Ray of Revelation since it can be easily played from your hand as well as recurred through Dread Return. It keeps the versatility of Chain of Vapor for matchups when you just aren't sure what hate they may be packing (namely BGx decks). I think this sideboard gives you a lot of versatility but also good answers.