In a meta that is as wide open as yours I would deffinitly recommend some kind of anti hate, because with BUG Landstill and Aggro Loam you have two potentional candidates for Leyline of the Void and if you got another Dredge player in your meta, then I will ensure you that the other players will squeeze more hate into their boards.
So the decks in your meta can basicly play any kind of hate, from Bojuka Bog over Relic of Leyline of the Void to Relic of Progenitus or Tormnonds Crypt.
Luckily we can handle them with only 2 cards: Ancient Grudge and Natures Claim.
So lets start with 4 of them each
->
4 Ancient Grudnge
4 Natures Claim
7 Slots remaining
The next 4 slots could contain either a playset of Firestorm, Leyline of the Void or Leyline of Sactity. While Firestorm can deal with Merfolk, Affinity and Faeries, Leyline of the Void just wins the mirror if your opponent is unprepared and Leyline of Sactity could potentional buy you the one turn you need to win against TES ( and don't get me wrong: they don't really have any problem to deal with a Leyline, but if it slows them down for one turn, then it got the job done). Also you can also shut down Crypt, Bok, etc. with the Leyline (actually the only way to deal with Bok).
As you got only 1 storm player I would recommend 4 Firestorms, because frying fish and faeries is never a bad idea.
->
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
3 Slots remaining
The last 3 slots should be devoted to DR targets. As there are so many different targets to choose from you should pick some targets who turn the board state into your favor.
Elesh Norn, Iona and Flame Kin Zealot would come into my mind, as each of them can win a game on his own.
Norn is great in the mirror, against Fish, Faeries, Zoo or Affinity, while Iona and Zealot are good against Combo and Control.
The final board would look like this:
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Natures Claim
4 Firestorm
1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Flamekin Zealot
The only way to find out if the board works for you is testing ;).
Well if I'm posting a comment anyway, then I can also include a short report:
Local Tourney, 13 player:
Round 1: Affinity
G1.: He wins the die roll and starts with Darksteel Citadell and some dudes, while I start with a Putrid Imp, followed up by a turn two Breakthrough. On his second turn he played a Ancient Tomb and said something about a missplay on his side, well one Therapy later he loses two Masters of Etherium and the combined force of Ichorid and Zombies take him down quickly.
G2: He leads with a turn 1 Relic, while I start with City and Study, finding a Tireless Tribe while discarding a Troll and a Grudge. On his second turn he plays a Cranial Plating, leaving one mana open for his Relic.
As the Troll is my only dredger I dredge once, play another city and my Tribe. At the end of his third turn I flashback the Grundge to destroy his Relic, leaving me with an empty graveyrd. However in my upkeep I discard the Troll again, play a Colluseum, crack it and animated a big fat Troll to seal the deal (alongside his Zombie buddys).
Round 2: GW Maverick
G1: I start with Carefull Study, discarding Imp and Thug, while he leads with Canopy into Zenith for Dryad Arbor. On my turn I cast another Study and a Breakthrough, leading to a quick surrender from my opponent.
G2: He starts with Forest and Noble Hierach and I just discard a Grave Troll. In his second turn my opponent goes for another Hierach as well as a Mother of Runes, attacking me down to 18. My Troll finds another Troll and an Imp, so I decide to go all in and go for Gemstone Mine into Breakthrough. I find a couple of Moebas and 3 Bridges, so its basicly game over. After sculpting his hand with Therapies I DR for a big Troll and he scoops it up.
Round 3: Affinity
G1: As I know what my opponet plays I lead with Cabal Therapy on my self, to discard 2 Imps. He does the usual Affinity start, with Memnite, Land, Mox, Planting and Frogmite. On my second turn I dredge an Imp, play Colluseum, crack it and cast two Therapys to wreck his hand. He dies one turn later due to Ichorid and Zombies.
G2: We both mulligan down to 5, however I'm still able to lead with a Putrid Imp and a Carefull Study. To speed things up: he doesn't find his hate and dies slowly to Ichorids and Zombies.
Round 4: DDFT
G1: He wins the die roll and reveals his hand, containing USea, 2 Ritual, 2 Petal , LED and Infernal..... nice one.
G2: I lead with a Leyline of Sanctity, he reveals 3 Orim's Chant and we are off to game 3.
Sidenote: We both know each other very well, so we didn't want to waste time watching the other jerking off.
G3: He starts with Top, while I start with a Putrid Imp. He is able to chantwalk me 3 times in a row, while I slowly fill my yard with Therapys. On his 5th turn he goes for a Doomesday, pass. Finaly I get to cast Study and some Therapys, leaving him with lands only. He ponders for a bit, plays Tendrils for 18 and shakes my hand, whew that was a close one.
So I end up 1st, my opponent from round two ends up 2nd and my opponent from round 4 ends up 3rd.
Our music means nothing, except for what it means to
you.
note that I didn't say his comment on the AoD and terastodon was wrong. I just pointed out that the statement about Ledbuilds was incorrect. I agree on the other points!
I have to disagree here. I agree on the 4 Grudges part. Also on the 4 Nature's Claim part, although I prefer Wispmare atm (since its CMC 3 and serves the same purpose). But then you talk about 4 firestorm/leylines. I dont like any of those cards and I feel like those are inferior to Darkblast. The matchups you describe where Firestorm would shine: Merfolk/Faeries/Affinity. Affinity: I never found this a hard matchup at all tbh, with 4 grudge and some darkblasts to kill their 1 drops like signal pest.Originally Posted by Felidae
The point about Darkblast vs Firestorm is: If you want to kill alot of creatures with firestorm you are going to hold it in your hand waiting for them to drop a significant ammount of creatures. By that time you want to be dredging. Merfolk will probably have a cursecatcher by that time, then when you cast Firestorm they simply counter your firestorm and remove your bridges and then swarm you with lords (not even talking about hate). While with darkblast: You kill their cursecatchers/silvergills at such an early state that the loss of bridges is minimal, and that all while dredging through counterspells. Also because you are making land drops you should be much better prepared for hate, being able to flashback grudges/therapys. With Firestorm you dont want to make land drops since it will keep you off DDD. And if you want to use Firestorm t1 to discard Darkblast/Or even DDD is a much more subtle way to achive this. These are my findings in the Merfolk Matchup, and it has been working perfectly so far.
My Sideboard atm:
4 Grudge
3 Wispmare
2 Ray of Relevation
2 Darkblast (got 1 MD also)
1 FKZ
1 Elesh
1 Realm razer
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
I cut Iona since I felt like Elesh was powerfull enough to fight the mono-colored aggro strategys, and for the mono-colored spell strategys like Burn and Spring tide I found racing them with FKZ or disrupting with Hypnotist to be just as effective.
Leyline is nice against combo, but it will slow you down a bit aswell, since you wont be able to DDD. (unless you opened with something insane ofcourse that had land DiscardOutlet Leyline and a dredger but I dont think those chances are too great). And All of those decks run some kind of answer to the card.
These are my thoughts, please let me know of you disagree on something :).
I have to disagree here. I agree on the 4 Grudges part. Also on the 4 Nature's Claim part, although I prefer Wispmare atm (since its CMC 3 and serves the same purpose). But then you talk about 4 firestorm/leylines. I dont like any of those cards and I feel like those are inferior to Darkblast. The matchups you describe where Firestorm would shine: Merfolk/Faeries/Affinity. Affinity: I never found this a hard matchup at all tbh, with 4 grudge and some darkblasts to kill their 1 drops like signal pest.
The point about Darkblast vs Firestorm is: If you want to kill alot of creatures with firestorm you are going to hold it in your hand waiting for them to drop a significant ammount of creatures. By that time you want to be dredging. Merfolk will probably have a cursecatcher by that time, then when you cast Firestorm they simply counter your firestorm and remove your bridges and then swarm you with lords (not even talking about hate). While with darkblast: You kill their cursecatchers/silvergills at such an early state that the loss of bridges is minimal, and that all while dredging through counterspells. Also because you are making land drops you should be much better prepared for hate, being able to flashback grudges/therapys. With Firestorm you dont want to make land drops since it will keep you off DDD. And if you want to use Firestorm t1 to discard Darkblast/Or even DDD is a much more subtle way to achive this. These are my findings in the Merfolk Matchup, and it has been working perfectly so far.
My Sideboard atm:
4 Grudge
3 Wispmare
2 Ray of Relevation
2 Darkblast (got 1 MD also)
1 FKZ
1 Elesh
1 Realm razer
1 Sadistic Hypnotist
I cut Iona since I felt like Elesh was powerfull enough to fight the mono-colored aggro strategys, and for the mono-colored spell strategys like Burn and Spring tide I found racing them with FKZ or disrupting with Hypnotist to be just as effective.
Leyline is nice against combo, but it will slow you down a bit aswell, since you wont be able to DDD. (unless you opened with something insane ofcourse that had land DiscardOutlet Leyline and a dredger but I dont think those chances are too great). And All of those decks run some kind of answer to the card.
These are my thoughts, please let me know of you disagree on something :).
You definitely want four ancient grudges as that will stop most of these decks sideboard plans and help versus affinity and stifle nought big time. Depending what aggro loam man uses for hate you want 4 chain of vapors or 4 nature's claim, I prefer the former. Winds of change might be a good one to use against dredge and TES. Then fill the other slots with your favorite/most useful dread return targets. Ancestor's Chosen and Elesh Norm seem to be the best for your meta. Also darkblast is indeed awesome try to squeeze in one or two. Good luck.
This post is directed to Vojvod_dop, quote thing didn't work.
@joemauer- I like your screen name.
I've been having some rough times with the standard 15 land, 13 dredger list as of late, so I decided I'd have some fun this week and play the manaless build since I don't think anyone on here has actually played the deck in a tournament. Hopefully I'll catch some people off guard. Here's the list I'm going to play today:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Chancellor of the Forge
1 River Kelpie
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Angel of Despair
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Dread Return
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void - I've played the mirror twice in the last two tournaments I've been in
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Chalice of the Void - I only have a single copy
1 Terastodon
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Last edited by KevinTrudeau; 06-26-2011 at 12:08 AM.
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@1maarten1: I have to disagree about the Firestorms. They work as an uncounterable discard-outlet, and it's a good option when Mental Misstep can counter all your stuff. You don't need to wait your opponent fill his table, cast Firestorm, and gets it countered... you can use it for 2 or 3, and kill 2 dudes on the end of turn.
Darkblast work as a discard-outlet too, but Dredge 3 is not going to save you from the mermaids.
So, I top 8ed said tournament with the manaless list above, going 4-1-1 in the swiss (of a 40+ person tourney) and losing in the first round of top 8. My matches:
W 2-1 vs. the BUG deck that masquerades as Team America, but plays Bob and Jace
W 2-1 vs. Affinity
W 2-1 vs. Belcher
L 1-2 vs. Dredge (a standard build with no Return targets main) - found Leyline games two and three
W 2-1 vs. NO RUG
ID
Top 8
L 1-2 vs. Cephalid Breakfast - comboed out on turn three of game one before I could Cabal Therapy his hand away the following turn; found Leyline game three
The deck performed a lot better than I initially expected; it's much more resilient versus one-shot grave removal than I'd thought. I wasn't sure about the sideboard coming into the tournament, but after, I wouldn't change a card in the 75 (possibly aside from the miser's Chalice of the Void, but it did win me a match). The deck has a lot of little things going for it, like a better combo matchup than a traditional build, and the fact that losing the die roll is actually winning the die roll, since you'll (usually) get to draw first, and you won't give away any information about what you're playing. The negatives are that you'll likely be playing three games per match, and the fact that Leyline of the Void wins the game on the spot (my only two match losses were because of it).
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Neat list. Couple questions.
1: Phantasmagoria looks pretty cool, how are you using him? Just discard him first, use him as a discard outlet?
2: I think someone was running the black chancellor as a DR target, and as a way to get mana free value, have you thought about it?
3: Nether Spirit seems fairly clunky, since you kind of have to chew through your graveyard in order to keep it active.
Other than all that, the list seems pretty cool.
Phantasmagorian was awesome all day, and really feels like a core card in the manaless build. I don't think I ever discarded it turn one, but there are certain situations, like an opener with a dredger, 2x 'Gorian, and a Nether Shadow, where I'd assuredly bin it first. The trick I used all day was to discard a Nether Shadow EOT whenever I'd dredged into a Phantasmagorian, then activate 'Gorian during their end step by discarding three creatures so I'd have a fresh Nether Shadow the next turn. Once you hit two, you can start chaining them and just basically discard your hand, which when done conservatively and not all willy-nilly, is often times a game winning interaction.
Black Chancellor seems awful; the six point life swing isn't really all that important, and DRing a 6/6 flying lifelinker is pretty underwhelming. I play the red one mainly because it gives you a free token, with the small secondary benefit of acting as a Flame-kin Zealot some of the time. Having a free token at the start of the game to be able to sac to Therapy or DR is huge.
'Twas a typo, I meant Nether Shadow. I'll fix it in the first post.
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I dont really get what you are stating here. You say you dont have to keep it in your hand and then you talk about killing 2-3 creatures at the end of the turn. What I am saying is: you firestorm t1 for 2 or 3 creatures leaving you with 3 or 4 cards in hand, if they hit you with GY removal it will take you alot longer to recover then when you went with t1 darkblast or just normal DDD. And sure dredge 3 isnt alot, but it kills their turn 1 and some turn 2 drops so it saves you more time. Darkblast just handles 1 thing alot better then firestorm and that is cursecatcher, which might be the most annoying thing in the entire merfolk deck.
Nice result, did you ever face a turn 1 Relic from your opponent? Because that seems like its pretty much game aswell. And I am pretty amazed leyline is so widely played in your meta, I never see it here. (I guess thats a good thing :)!)
@ 1maarten1,felidae and joemauer.Guys thx for advice! I have one more question,what sb plan and how to play vs Merfolk? I'm probably doing something wrong because they have answer to all my threats :)
I take out the Dread Returns, since they are so awfull against cursecatcher, 2 thugs for 2 Darkblasts and 1 tribe.
so:
-1 tribe
-2 thug
-2 DR
for
3 Grudge
2 Darkblast
I have almost the same boarding plan against Merfolk. Only thing I do different is I don't take out tribes. Why exactly do you do that maarten?
This man is a truthspeaker! You deserve a beer - if you see me in Ghent, you may present yourself to me as The Speaker of Truths and I will buy you a beer of choice
Yeah, trim a cabal therapy instead of tribe would be the better move against merfolk. Besides that 1maarten1 has it right.
Well I made a mistake :P I was in a hurry to go to my work so I wrote that down. I actually mistyped and ment to type 1 breakthrough (sometimes carefull study but I like to leave in all possible discard outlets). I leave in all the discard outlets because that is the first thing I want to land after I started DDD (and dredged another dredger ofcourse) So sorry for mistyping!
I never take out therapy tbh, I found it too multifunctional.
I understood you said that we would have to keep our hand from discarding in order to make a greater Firestorm, I apologize.
Firestorm is obviously weaker to a GY hate, but it is also a way to discard your stuff without bothering with counters. Anyway, I'm going to test with no Firestorms in the 75, but I usually feel more threatened by a swarm of Lords than with a Cursecatcher, since I can win casting no spells at all.
Hey guys, first post here. Was hoping for some criticism/help on my Dredge list, as I'm planning on taking it to the SCG Open in Seattle and I'd like it to work as tightly as possible. Here's the list:
// Lands
4 [CH] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
3 [OD] Tarnished Citadel
// Creatures
3 [TO] Ichorid
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [OD] Tireless Tribe
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
1 [RAV] Flame-Kin Zealot
// Spells
3 [TSP] Dread Return
3 [OD] Careful Study
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [TO] Breakthrough
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
// Sideboard
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 4 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 [JU] Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 [RAV] Darkblast
SB: 2 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 1 [JU] Ancestor's Chosen
SB: 1 [ALA] Realm Razer
I got some feedback on the official Wizards forums and it was recommended to me to cut a Tarnished Citadel and run the Iona maindeck, but I'm unsure about what to run in the 'board in her place. I was also considering running Burning Inquiry in place of Careful Study, as Careful Study has been very underwhelming in my testing. Like, when I cast it, it doesn't seem to have much impact. I think Burning Inquiry might be great Dredge tech. Anyway, any feedback is definitely appreciated, I'd like this deck to run as well as humanly possible. Thanks in advance!
Also, since I'm very new with this deck, any advice on how to 'board against certain matchups, what to put in/take out, would also be great.
Hi. Welcome to Dredge. I greatly recommend reading through the last 15-20 pages of this thread, as that should answer most of the questions you have. A lot of new people are joining The Source, which is nice, but some of the threads are starting to sound like a broken record. We'll be happy to give our advice on things if we haven't already given them. I can tell you that Burning Inquiry is not great Dredge tech, as we generally want to control what we're discarding, and there are overall better options. (If all you're looking for is power, Winds of Change gives you a lot of bang.) Also, of the 15 lands you're running, only 11 can produce red, which means that even though Careful Study might not seem as explosive, it will be dead less often.
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