[Deck] Dredge

[leegoo]

After playing against Nicholas yesterday I would have to say the deck is pretty strong. I resolved Rav. Trap in game 2 removing a large portion of his 60 and he was still able to crush me as soon as he built back up to 8 cards in hand... a turn before I could ultimate Jace sadly.

He was also very knowledgeable about his 75, looked like he had put plenty of time into learning it's ins and outs.

[Ssbm Rocks1]

I was the mana dredge player. Here is my report

I never once used a careful study or breakthrough to dredge, which leads me to believe that the manaless build might be way better. There was also very little hate (extirpate, bog, and extraction were all I saw)

[ESG]

ManaLess Dredge is going to lose a lot to a first turn Relic. I mean their only out is Phantasmagorian and then if you blow Relic in response you just bought yourself 3 turns until they can discard again. Then if they don't have Phantas you just nuke their GY every turn.

Manaless Dredge has 4 Street Wraith, which can respond to your Relic activation. In all likelihood, you're going to slow the deck down by one turn (and maybe nab a Dread Return target or something when you're forced to pop Relic a turn later). Yes, you can beat the deck with a Relic, but that's seldom going to happen.

[daugarten]

Loved the report, great job piloting the deck.


I've been toying around with Manaless Dredge and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I took out Nicholas's Woodfall Primus for a Sphinx of the Lost Truth. Not sure if that is the right call but it certainly helps the speed in Game 1+. The only thing I miss is blasting Karakas with the Primus, but I do love casting 3-4 Dread Returns in a single turn thanks to the ridiculous amounts of dredging the Sphinx allows. I can make do with an Iona + a few 20/20+ Trolls.

My sideboard currently looks like this:
1x Angel of Despair
1x Blightsteel Colossus
2x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2x Flame-Kin Zealot
1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1x Realm Razer
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
1x Sphinx of Lost Truths (#2)
1x Terastodon
4x Leyline of the Void

This obviously needs some work... but I'm coming back around to taking manaless dredge more seriously. I'd like to see a more practical/competitive sideboard now that this deck is on the radar of many players.

[Grillo]

I really think that the manaless strategy is strong. I've been thinking about the problem cards that everybody is talking about: Relic of Progenitus and Leyline of the void.
I really think that with 4 Street Wraith and 4 Phantasmagorian, relic shouldn't be such a big problem. They give you 8 cards to fight it and really, once you have 3 or more cards in your graveyard, it's not that scary.

To prevent scooping to Leyline I think the deck could borrow the strategy Vintage Dredge decks use. Four Dryad Arbor maindeck and probably 4 more green sources in the sideboard. Gemstone Mine for example. That way you can pack Ancient Grudge and Nature's Claim.

So I'd go for something like:

Maindeck:
4 Dryad Arbor
3 Gigapede
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
1 Woodfall Primus
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Chancellor of the Forge

Sideboard:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Nature's Claim
2 Ancient Grudge
... plus relevant Dread Return targets.

My $0.02.

[menace13]

To prevent scooping to Leyline I think the deck could borrow the strategy Vintage Dredge decks use. Four Dryad Arbor maindeck and probably 4 more green sources in the sideboard. Gemstone Mine for example. That way you can pack Ancient Grudge and Nature's Claim.
.

You can not reliably play 8 lands and have Claim+Land+Gas without mulliganing or playing Serum Powders and since Bazaar isn't legal the deck can't Mull or it won't be on the DDD plan for a few turns.

Even with Land+Claim that is going down to 6 on draw( and if mulling then it may be 3-4 cards in grip either before land+Claim is played or after) meaning at least 2-3 turns of inactivity once Leyline is cleared.

[Grillo]

Even with Land+Claim that is going down to 6 on draw( and if mulling then it may be 3-4 cards in grip either before land+Claim is played or after) meaning at least 2-3 turns of inactivity once Leyline is cleared.

Seems better than scooping.

[menace13]

Seems better than scooping.

Anything is better than scooping, but that plan involves one of 8 and one of 4 cards in starting hand in a deck that can't mulligan into them or risks doing nothing for the first 5 turns. In that case you're better off playing 6 more lands and 8 draw spells.

[KevinTrudeau]

By giving the opponent a minimum of two turns of inactivity, you're virtually scooping anyways. I think the manaless build should accept the fact that it auto-loses to Leyline of the Void and try to improve other areas of weakness instead of using valuable sideboard space to fight something it's just not gonna beat.

Dredge will always have a presence in the general metagame, but it will never be THE deck to beat because of the wide variety of hate, doubly so for the manaless build since it takes a minimum of one turn for the engine to start running. However, what you get with the manaless build is a metric fuckton of resiliency against a broad diversification of threats like Swords to Plowshares, countermagic, and one-shot grave removal, which is why in an unprepared metagame, I consider it to be superior to a standard fifteen land LEDless build. While the best (or close to the best) LEDless lists were discovered long ago, I don't feel that there's a standard list for the manaless build yet, and I'd like to try to find it with the help of all y'all. The list I ran to a top eight in a forty person tourney at my local game shoppe a few weeks ago was a bit different that the one that won the SCG Open. Here it is again:

4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell

4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below

^(What I consider to be the 48 card 'core' of the deck, similar to Goblins' core)^

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 River Kelpie
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Angel of Despair

While Rausch's list has added resiliency in the form of Dakmor Salvage and Bloodghast (Salvage provides an out to Daze and LotV, which is nice), my list has speed; it generally alpha strikes on turn three or four thanks to the token Chancellor provides, Probe, Sphinx and Kelpie, and the fact that Chancellor itself can be used as a FKZ some of the time. Running Probe obviously makes the deck weaker to Mental Misstep. Which avenue do you think the deck should pursue, speed or added resiliency?

[Bahamuth]

Manaless Dredge has 4 Street Wraith, which can respond to your Relic activation. In all likelihood, you're going to slow the deck down by one turn (and maybe nab a Dread Return target or something when you're forced to pop Relic a turn later). Yes, you can beat the deck with a Relic, but that's seldom going to happen.

What exactly is the point of dredging more cards with a Relic activation on the stack?


I agree you should just take your loss against LotV. I like the list above me, except for the 4 one-off creatures. You don't need those at all to be able to beat anything game one. I think Gigapede is better.

16 dredgers gives a 7% of not seeing any in your opening 8. It may be considered to run more, because this deck really cannot afford to mulligan under any circumstance.

[kicks_422]

By doing so, you get the dredger back in hand, ready to be discarded at the next end step to continue your dredging.

[Gui]

16 dredgers gives a 7% of not seeing any in your opening 8. It may be considered to run more, because this deck really cannot afford to mulligan under any circumstance.

This is a lot already. This means you won't have a dredger once every ~14 games you play. Seems decent to me.

[Grillo]

Anything is better than scooping, but that plan involves one of 8 and one of 4 cards in starting hand in a deck that can't mulligan into them or risks doing nothing for the first 5 turns. In that case you're better off playing 6 more lands and 8 draw spells.

Lol. I agree with you on that. If LotV is a concern you better play straight LEDless dredge.

Anyways, I still want to help trying to come up with an optimal manaless build. It really looks like it's better than other dredge variants in the post MM meta.

Looking at the list I proposed after reading your comments, I'm still going to playtest the same maindeck even after dumping the sideboard.

IMO Rausch was very clever to put more free creatures in the deck in the form of Bloodghasts. But I think that needing Dakmor Salvage to activate Bloodghast is a bit clumsy. I'd rather play the Dryads and Chancellors.

Gitaxian Probe seems like an interesting alternative for added speed. But I prefer not to give the opponent the opportunity to counter it.

[Gocho]

What exactly is the point of dredging more cards with a Relic activation on the stack?


I agree you should just take your loss against LotV. I like the list above me, except for the 4 one-off creatures. You don't need those at all to be able to beat anything game one. I think Gigapede is better.

16 dredgers gives a 7% of not seeing any in your opening 8. It may be considered to run more, because this deck really cannot afford to mulligan under any circumstance.

As the deck always starts on the draw, a T1 Relic, would use its tap effect to continuously remove the discarded card from the grave.

You can avoid it, forcing to break the Relic, by 2 ways:
- Discarding Phantasmagorian and activating it in response of the tapping Relic effect. You get 3 cards at the grave and the you would play as usual.
- Cycling Street Wraith or playing Gitaxian Probe, you Dredge, return to 8 cards and fill your grave, denying the tap effect. Gitaxian are worst, because let you open to counters and remember that your opponent would have 2 lands and would draw 9 at your 2nd turn.

In both cases you can play as an usual Dredge deck vs a T1 Relic.

[Ziilot]

If they tap Relic and you response by discarding three cards to Phantasmagorian, then they just pop Relic and you have empty graveyard and five cards in hand?

[Fatal]

This deck as also one more weakness which was forgotten in Legacy since great days of dredge - Jailer.

Its also slower than normal dredge which means You can't race with Fast combo (Hive Mind/ANT/TES/Belcher etc).

Leyline of Stanctity would help vs some combo and also resolve problem with turn 1 Relic.

[lordofthepit]

Leyline of Stanctity would help vs some combo and also resolve problem with turn 1 Relic.

The problem with any Leylines in manaless dredge is that you time walk yourself because you have to wait for two turns worth of draw steps before you can start dredging on turn 3. I would cry if my hand contained double Leyline.

[Mojeh]

And what do you guys think about a Land-list with the Phantasmagorian tech?

I am already playing a LED-less common build, playing 3 Phantasmagorians over 1 Tireless Tribe, 1 Tarnished Citadel and 1 Careful Study. I am afraid I didn't tested enough, but I liked the first look.

The next thought is finding a slot for the 4th Phantasmagorian, and maybe, replacing the remaining Tribes with Firestorms. This list would be still based on playing discard outlets, but with a better DDD plan, more Ichorid Food and better dredges. The Firestorms would provide a decent plan against counters, and also helps against fast aggro decks.

Thoughts?

[NecroYawgmoth]

The problem with any Leylines in manaless dredge is that you time walk yourself because you have to wait for two turns worth of draw steps before you can start dredging on turn 3. I would cry if my hand contained double Leyline.

If Leyline of whatever is in your opening hand, you MAY begin the game with it on the battlefield.

[daugarten]

The problem with any Leylines in manaless dredge is that you time walk yourself because you have to wait for two turns worth of draw steps before you can start dredging on turn 3. I would cry if my hand contained double Leyline.

Leyline of Sanctity has the "may" clause, and the combo deck should (in theory, at least) require more than an extra turn to draw into an answer for it. Ultimately, a starting hand with 2 Leylines is rare and not even that bad considering the threat density of this deck compared to regular Dredge.

Regarding the speed of this deck, I've hit the combo on Turn 2 a few times thanks to chaining together 2-3 Sphinx's and a final FKZ. I really think the maindeck FKZ/Sphinx route is miles ahead of Primus/Iona in a meta that favors combo. In a meta surrounding aggro it doesn't hurt the deck to have FKZ/Sphinx maindeck, and the sideboard allows LOTS of space to switch them out for something more relevant G2/G3.

And what do you guys think about a Land-list with the Phantasmagorian tech?

Looks like it's worth a shot. This answers LotV, maintains the # of discard outlets, can play/draw effectively, and should be faster than manaless. Let us know how the testing goes!