Yeah, it felt like rambling. I was quite sleepy. Sorry about that.Originally Posted by Hollywood
Yes, I realize it must attack first, but unless you can take out 15 life in one hit, chances are you will die to Ad Nauseam regardless, so Cabal Therapy is a stronger plan. Racing will give you another option, but I'm saying it really shouldn't be your main plan.
Maybe I don't play like Bryant Cook, but from my experience as a TES player, ETW gets sided out in this match up, so I'm not sure what's going on here. I'm sure most TES players know that ETW is bad here. I'm sure most would go for Ad Nauseam or Ill-gotten gains which just wins it out right, probably Past in Flames now, more than IGG. I think I'm rambling again. The point is TES players deal with Ichorid like they do with Zoo. To TES players, you are pretty much a fast aggro deck. Your only real advantage is Cabal Therapy which is probably the most scariest card to see you dredge.
Post-board Chancellor of the Annex will help here.
It is, but that is exactly what I'm implying. Sure, it doesn't win you the game, but it gets you close enough to kill them with a small FKZ. Yes I agree Dread Return does 'ice the game' but I really don't think it is the be-all-that-ends-all. A fat troll, flaming zombies, or giant angels don't really finish the game immediately in the power level of today's Legacy. I hardly feel safe Dread Returning while my opponent is at 20 life.
Beating them down a little always makes it much easier.
Nether Shadow can die multiple times. Narcomaeba can only die once. Nether Shadow is more conditional, but with Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith, it's hardly a challenge to bring him back.
With 4 Narcomoebas, you have a much higher chance of opening one in your hand than with 3 Narcomoebas making the 4th quite unnecessary and redundant.
I'm only really comparing them on a very basic level. The point is, both decks want to do the same thing. They both want to litter the board with their tribe and swing in for a massive hit. The comparison here is really that and not moot at all. I'm drawing a similarity here and it is the similarity in positioning the board.
I'm really not interested in going into what famous person I'm talking to. I'm just here to discuss the implications of not running a full set of Narcomoebas which I have always felt like a nuisance.
If it has worked for you in the past, that's fine. And I take it that this comment reflects how much experience you have, but I'm just curious how someone with some much experience can so easily deny the possibility of a flex slot in, for lack of better words, 'core part' of the deck.
In my experience with building decks, there is never anything that is a must and almost every card can be shifted. The stubbornness in accepting change is just puzzling.
Strictly speaking regarding this topic though, I find that the only real arguments here are Narcomoeba provides the necessary speed this deck needs to win a turn faster, but does 1x Narcomoeba really affect this speed? I'm not so sure...
That's not my only strategy, but it is the main one. I feel that Dread Return seals the deal, but it's not the strategy I b-line for. Simply put, the aggro plan is much more effective in that it is much harder to play against.
Throwing your whole hand out for a single Dread Return can be very dangerous. I prefer to have the field littered with zombies. Maybe this is my Goblin background speaking, I'm not too sure..
Yes, again, I don't deny that Narcomoeba is faster on the combo turn. I have looked at it. He plays Chancellors to slow down the storm combo player. Sorry I haven't seen your list.
I don't understand your fury here. I agree that "beat-down plan - with supplemental discard - is a [...] thrashing for storm."
In fact, that's the only plan I see Ichorid players doing in order to beat TES. Like I said before, you have to rely on Cabal Therapy. Chancellor really helps here I think, but by slowing them down, it really gives you another turn to get Nether Shadow and Ichorid into play. That way, you can easily Dread Return the Chancellor by that time.
I don't know, that just sounds like you hope they keep a crap hand while you dredge into all of your business. That's too optimistic for me.
Yeah, with the list 8 cantrip list, it seems to be pretty capable of winning turn 3 on the draw. The suggestion is merely a metaphor - mana/hybrid dredge after all is more combo oriented.
I think you are starting to take this a little personally. This really isn't a storm vs Ichorid discussion. I'm not saying that Ichorid is incapable of comboing off. All I'm saying is it is a known fact that Ichorid is generally slower than storm combo and that the focus here shouldn't be to combo out, but to disrupt. Given that your opponent has a crap hand, you can easily just go and kill them.
It has been unpleasant talking to you too. Thanks.
Thanks. I recognize that Narcomoebas has been a staple in Ichorid for many years, but the 4th really does seem redundant to me. Instead of dredging them in multiples, chances are you can easily open with 1 or 2 in your hand. Nether Shadows in your hand hurt much less than Narcomoebas as Nether Shadows in your hand can be pitched and generate tokens later while Narcomoebas cannot.
Nether Shadow comes back constantly.
Narcomoeba is faster, but keep in mind that I'm not cutting Narcomoeba from the deck, I'm still running 3 of them.
By the time you can actually kill with Dread Return (let's say you have a broken dredge and you are going to kill turn 3 on the draw), that already gives you sufficient amount of time to have 1-2 other zombies (Ichorid, Nether Shadow) on the board that you don't need to rely heavily on dredging 3 Narcomoebas.
Expert-tested analysis over the course of years' worth of efforted, proven, basic functionalities of this archetype have been completely debunked by you in what appears to be nothing more than effortless opinion than tested conclusions. You're simply immune to understanding something so simple and precise that you're forcing others into having to repeat themselves into oblivion.
I'm afraid you're just going to find that there are people more experienced than you in this archetype of play, which I recommend you learn and understand from instead of trading jabs with people when you appear to have little to no experience with Manaless Dredge. I'm sorry if that sounds offensive, but I'm afraid you're going to find most others will agree.
Even if we're wrong, it's borderline offensive to the historical hard data, professional tournament play, and countless hours of efficiency testing that has gone into this archetype and proven to be optimal. It's not that people are dismissing your ideas, it's that your argument is relatively weak.
I encourage you to let us all know how running three Narcomoeba works for you.
I think you are just conservative and grouchy. I never claimed to be an expert. I'm just trying to stir up conversation about Narcomoeba and how it has worked for the guy from Amsterdam.
I think outright stating that him and Rasche is just doing it wrong is fatal and condescending. I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just suggesting the implications that the 4th Narcomoeba is a flex slot. You are the one straight up rejecting the idea. In that regard, you are the one immune to understanding. To summarize the "TL; DR" (which you started):
Nether Shadow comes back constantly and is ok in your opening hand.
Narcomoeba is faster, but keep in mind that I'm not cutting Narcomoeba from the deck, I'm still running 3 of them. By the time you can actually kill with Dread Return (let's say you have a broken dredge and you are going to kill turn 3 on the draw), that already gives you sufficient amount of time to have 1-2 other zombies (Ichorid, Nether Shadow) on the board that you don't need to rely heavily on dredging 3 Narcomoebas.
I've tested it this past week constantly. It's been fine.
PS: TL;DR sounds more like you are unable to accept rationale more than I am. Rather than attacking me, maybe you should focus on the discussion. If I knew that when losing in rationale, you would resort to name calling, then I wouldn't have voiced out my opinion.
Jin- What is the list you have been testing with? I'm curious to see what you think Narco should be cut for.
Really, Hollywood. Calm down.
This is a forum where it's about sharing opinions and testing results. He had an opinion, did some testing and wanted to know what other people think about it. You don't have to take other people's arguments apart like that each time you don't 100% agree with them.
If mana Dredge people thought like you, Manaless wouldn't even exist.
I am actually quite calm and very relaxed. We can all voice our opinions, but you can't say something is strictly superior without proving your claims. Instead of asking for advice, he generalized - without budging - that one ideology was better than another when it has been proven by individuals who have spent years honing their lists that a specific core group of cards must exist to optimize their deck. The fact is, The Source is overrun by individuals who generalize and theorize more than actually proving what they claim, and it gets old really quick.
The archetype is developing itself and it is nice to see it doing so well. I am actually being polite. My replies have been relatively tame compared to what Parcher would say to something like this. All I'm doing is reiterating that you need to prove what you're saying before you say it. Once you say that fifteen times in a row in a discussion that needs to advance itself but cannot, it gets redundant.
@Hollywood— I thought the post you deleted was very well-spoken, cogent, and not incendiary in the slightest. Also, I was more suggesting LED in a sideboard role against fast combo decks like we were discussing a few months ago; doubling up (along with Chancellor) on the number of cards that accelerate the game by a full turn (or more if you have draw spells in hand) in our favor is pretty good, in addition to the other benefits LED specifically grants.
@Izor— Hollywood was doing just that, sharing his opinion and contributing to the discussion. To say that dismissing the notion of running less than four Narcomoeba is akin to blindly putting down every single "outside of the box" idea (ideas of such a nature did of course contribute to the formation of Manaless Dredge) is pretty ludicrous. Would you go into the Zoo thread and say that you've had success with just three Wild Nacatl, and then say that every dissenter (who disagreed with lengthy, well-spoken counterpoints I might add) was just stifling innovation?
@jin— first, I'd like to apologize if I offended you in any way. Even though I strongly disagree with your hypothesis concerning Narcomoeba, it's always nice to have lengthy discussions. Second, I'd like to address two misconceptions that numerous people have had concerning Manaless Dredge over the past few months before I get into why running four Narcomoeba is important for the deck to succeed:
Misconception #1: Manaless Dredge is a "grind-'em-out" deck, and must abide by that/adhere to that philosophy as much as possible; if you're looking to kill the opponent with Dread Return, there's no point in playing Manaless Dredge over traditional variants of Dredge since they have access to more potent accelerants in the forms of Breakthrough, Cephalid Coliseum, and Careful Study.
The reason why we play Manaless Dredge isn't to force a particular style of play, it's to take advantage of the increased density of graveyard-useful cards one gets by forgoing the playing of lands. We play it to take advantage of a blue-dominated metagame in gaining virtual card advantage by blanking, for the most part, all of their countermagic. One of the benefits of upping the density of graveyard-useful cards is increased resilience against one-shot forms of graveyard removal (Tormod's Crypt, Bojuka Bog, Nihil Spellbomb, and I suppose Faerie Macabre being the best examples). Another key benefit of it is increasing the effectiveness of "grinding"— which I will define as attacking over the course of a few turns with recurring (and largely unstoppable) Ichorids, Zombie tokens, Nether Shadows, Narcomoebas, and sometimes Bloodghasts with virtually no cost to you. Grinding is the best way to beat decks with counterspells, because as I stated before, you gain an immense amount of virtual card advantage when you don't cast spells. So, why not max out on that strategy? The entire point of playing this deck was to trump blue strategies, right?
There are two key reasons why I do not think that doing so would be beneficial for the deck:
Reason #1— The derivative function of the effectiveness of grinding creatures decreases in value as x approaches sixteen (which would be running full playsets of Ichorid, Narcomoeba, Nether Shadow, and Bloodghast). This is to say that each additional creature you add to aid in grinding against blue opponents becomes more and more redundant and less and less useful once you reach a certain point. Your CounterTop opponent with two Tarmogoyf in play was already quite past the point of no return with your two recurrable Ichorids, six Zombie tokens, and two Nether Shadows threatening their well-being every turn; did you really need those two Bloodghast as well? This is especially true for pre-board games, games where the opponent will not likely have any form of dedicated grave hate. The thing we have to find as players looking to optimize our Manaless lists is that point in which the function starts decreasing in value, the peak of the negative parabola (so far, I've found it to be around eleven, although to actually find it one would need to devise a computational algorithm of some sort).
Reason #2— Even in a blue-dominated metagame, numerous decks exist that are faster or on par in terms of speed with us. Reanimator and ANT, for example, were the two most played decks during day one of GP Amsterdam (even though, if I'm not mistaken, the blue decks that we thrive on still achieved combined plurality). These decks our our bad matchups because they can simply ignore our gameplan entirely and win before we can really do anything, and are what we should be focusing on beating most. Increasing the number of grinding creatures slows the deck down and decreases the likelihood of winning against such decks. The most optimal way we can combat faster strategies, in addition to resolving a multitude of early Cabal Therapies, is to kill them before they kill you. The best way to go about doing that is through a Dread Return package.
So then, if faster strategies are somewhat predominant, why would you play Manaless in the first place? Traditional Dredge builds have access to Breakthrough, which enables turn two kills (and by that, I mean establishing a lethal board presence while stripping the opponent's hand with multiple Cabal Therapy) better than any other card, after all. The reason lies largely in the second common misconception, and also because traditional builds lack the density of graveyard-useful cards [and therefore, natural resiliency against grave hate and grinding capability (more black creatures to ensure Ichorid can come back every turn, more dredgers, more recurrable creatures, etc.)] that we have.
Misconception #2: Manaless Dredge is inherently slower than traditional variants of Dredge, mostly because it has to draw first and spend its first turn doing nothing other than discarding a dredger.
This is, simply, put, false. I've found that a six-eight Bauble Manaless variant (with four Dread Return, three Sphinx of Lost Truths, and one Flame-kin Zealot) wins on average by turn 3.7, all without exposing itself too much to countermagic by sometimes banking on resolving an outlet or draw spell like traditional builds do. This is, of course, faster on average than conventional builds (at least in my experience). Breakthrough resolving does give Dredge unmatched, consistent explosiveness, but Manaless isn't too far behind in that department, and doesn't necessarily rely on one card to attain such results.
Now, jin, by looking at the first misconception I detailed, you should see why a 3/4 configuration of Narcomoeba/Nether Shadow would be suboptimal; the added grinding capability of the fourth Nether Shadow isn't all that necessary, while the fourth Narcomoeba is very necessary in increasing the percentage of casting an early Dread Return and/or Cabal Therapy against our bad matchups (remember, Nether Shadows dredged into won't be online for a minimum of one turn). You contradict yourself by saying that Cabal Therapy would be the best way to win against combo, and then cut a copy of the creature that fuels Cabal Therapy better than any other. The addition of the fourth Narcomoeba is indeed only a small percentage better in attaining such a feat, but small percentages are everything in the optimization of decklists.
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It's not my list. I was playing the list from Amsterdam. It was linked before. Here it is again:
MB:
1x Angel of Despair
1x Elesh Norn
1x FKZ
1x Iona
1x Sphinx of the Lost Truth
4x Faerie Macabre
4x GGT
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug
4x Shambling Shell
4x Phantasmalgorian
4x Ichorid
4x Nether Shadow
3x Narcomoeba
4x Street Wraith
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Dread Return
4x Gritaxian Probe
SB:
1x Ancestor's Chosen
1x Blightsteel Colossus
4x Chancellor of the Annex
2x Gigapede
1x Platinum Angel
1x River Kelpe
1x Sphinx of the Lost Truth
4x Cranial Extraction
Thanks, this must have taken a lot of time.
This is what I got from this post: you are saying that the 4x Nether Shadows/3x Narcomoeba split is too much in the direction of the grind-out plan and is reaching the point of redundant. What the deck needs is move a bit in the combo-direction because it relies on speed in some match ups.
Yes, that is quite contradictory. These are logical argument I can accept.
What about 4/3 the other way? I noticed Nether Shadow was being cut for bauble which I didn't like. I quite like the list from above though.
I'm actually quite disappointed I didn't get to read that last post. It seemed very exciting. If you presented a logical argument, instead of saying that it's simply better or faster for Dread Return, then I would have accepted it. You didn't present any underlying theory behind the 4th Narcomoeba.
You simply attacked me and backed yourself up with history which really doesn't explain to me why the 4th is relevant at all. I'm not going to believe you simply because you say so and many other people before said so. I need reason, and you gave me no relevant ones.
Agreed
Hollywood and KevinTrudeau have given great explanations (imho). I don't know if I will be able to add much, but here goes.
I wholeheartedly disagree with you jin. Narco and Bridge are about as 'set in stone' as you can get for any version of this deck, so much so that I'm willing to say that the burden of proof is on you (and those on your side) to show us why we should play only 3 Narco's. We aren't necessarily correct, obviously, but the 4-Narco convention does not look like mere dogma. I'd like you to actually provide better arguments, as so far, you've not provided a good case. Now, if experience and anecdote bring us to a stalemate, then give us some math to ponder. I think once you begin to dig deeper theory and math behind this deck, you may come to agree with 4 Narco's (or so I hope).
Hopefully these numbers will juice your intuitions, jin.
# of Narco's in your deck -- % Chance to open with 1 Narco in opening 8-card hand -- 2 Narco's -- 3 Narco's -- 4 Narco's
1 -- 13% -- n/a -- n/a -- n/a
2 -- 25% -- 02% -- n/a -- n/a
3 -- 35% -- 04% -- 00% -- n/a
4 -- 44% -- 08% -- 01% -- 00%
# of Narco's left in your deck after opening 8-card hand -- Total # of cards dredged before you have a greater than 50% chance to flip at least 1 Narco (added # of cards in deck for context) -- 2 Narco's -- 3 Narco's -- 4 Narco's
1 -- 28 of 52 cards -- [n/a] -- [n/a] -- [n/a]
2 -- 17 of 52 cards -- 39/52 -- [n/a] -- [n/a]
3 -- 12 of 52 cards -- 28/52 -- 43/52 -- [n/a]
4 -- 09 of 52 cards -- 22/52 -- 34/52 -- 46/52
Obviously, this doesn't prove anything, but it does give us firmer ground on which to make claims and to explore the theory behind this deck.
Clearly, there is a speed difference provided by running the 4th Narco. Even you, jin, appear to agree that dredge really wants to flip at least 1 or 2 Narco's in every game. When do you need to flip those? I want to flip at least one on turn by 3 (which gives me 2 turns to dredge). This appears likely to occur (but not even consistently, merely greater than a 50% chance) in the 4-Narco build, but it is appear likely in 3-Narco build.
I think Narco provides a great deal of speed to this deck at a minimal cost in deck space. Nether Shadow, presumably your alternative for the 4th Narco slot, is far slower, and it doesn't seem the 'grind' and 'recursive' ability that it provides, which is suffering from severe diminishing returns (as you already have Ichorid and your other Nether Shadows), is more useful than the 4th Narco. You lose very little of your ability to 'grind' and gain a great deal in speed and early game consistency. This is a small sacrifice worth making.
Edit: I don't like that list. Those DR-targets demonstrate a fundamental lack of comprehension of the goals of this deck. If that is what you've been using, it is no wonder that you don't understand why we are arguing for speed. Make the appropriate adjustments to your DR targets (-1 Junk Target, +1 Sphinx -- bare minimum, and I'd argue for 2), and perhaps you'll be in a better position to understand the value of that 4th Narco.
peace,
4eak
In the turns you spend dredging nether shadow and recuring him you could easily dredge two Narcomoebas if you have 4 in the deck, without that setup you slow down immensely.
As 4eak said, the burden of proof is on you. That's what I've been trying to explain all this time. You're the one who needs to prove that the accepted, tried and true theory is wrong or suboptimal. If you cannot, then the continued methodology for which most (if not all) variants of Dredge operate on will continue to thrive. You're the one going against what is considered the 'norm.' If you can't explain to us intelligently why you feel one option is better than the other, then there's no point in saying something for the sake of saying something.
If it's to generate discussion, that's fine, but ultimately it means nothing when it creates an illogical conclusion that won't prosper into a legitimately tested product.
@Kevin: Thank you.
Hey! What's that supposed to mean!?
Screw you, buddy!
~ Team Unicorn Motto
Yeah, I'm not too great with numbers, but the conclusions you draw from your data are acceptable. KevinTrudeau has already explained the bolded part of your quote, so I get where you and he are both coming from.
Again, I'm not claiming to be an expert on the deck. I'm just trying to stir up discussion and talk about the list from Amsterdam which opted to play without the 4th. Also, I'm not saying you guys are incorrect, I'm saying we should open our minds up to the possibility of the 4th being a flex slot whether it is or not is really not up to me.
I didn't build the deck, so I'm not sure why the Dread Return targets are those ones. I do see a second Sphinx, which you agree with, in the sb, so he must know what he is doing. I suppose his choices are quite metagame dependant. I don't quite see what junk target you are speaking of though. I suppose Flame-kin Zealot and Iona both being in the list is quite redundant. Could you clarify here?
You haven't explained much past your first post. Most of it was quite offensive and attacking my character more than explaining your position. Even though it was quite difficult to weed away your assaults and dig at your basis for your conclusion, it proved to be impossible and unacceptable as evidence for your claims, but others have cleared things up, so thanks for your time.
Sorry to interrupt your guy's inane converastion about Narcomoeba, for fuck's sake just play 4, but have any of you guys compared the difference in speed between playing a set of Baubles and playing a set of Chancellor's Annex MD in a variety of matches? The reason I ask is Bauble is a turn 3, or at the earliest turn 2, card that increases the speed of the deck at the cost of exposing it to counter margic where the Chancellor is a turn 0 card that essentially "negates" going second uncounterably. I've been really wondering whether or not that "hiccup" in the opponet's game plan is more consistent tempo/board development for us than the worse draw cards in the deck by way of comparison?
Basically, anybody MDing Chancellor of Annex over Baubles and/or LED/DA?
Also, what bad or break even match up do you think you can "swing" post-board with your board space the most? I've all but given up on Manaless Dredge out racing Storm, but Faerie Macabre and Phyrexian Extirpates have been turning around the Reanimator (and mirror) match ups ridiculously well and my personal bias is that targeting Reanimator with the SB is the highest +EV.
I apologize if I offended you, jin. It's just as someone who takes this very seriously, I am very particular about certain things. I get short-fused sometimes on here due in large part to people purporting something as being optimal without so much as explaining themselves. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. Sorry about that.
At any rate, I am looking at reconfiguring the sideboard a bit. Chancellors I believe belong in the side as we already have a leg-up on Reanimator with Faeries. Does anyone think bringing Gigapede back to the main is a good idea?
Kevin: Personally, I'm trying to keep the list as non-interactive as possible. L.E.D. opens the door to some degenerate plays, but also forces the deck to go all-in.
Also, I had this really 'crazy' idea that I was just tossing around for fun earlier today (and I don't think it is optimal, but worth a look at): I understand none of us are really on the Dakmor Salavage/Bloodghast plan anymore. I was just playing around with running a full set of Salvages, in addition to Leyline of the Void in the sideboard with Sharuum and Helm of Obedience as two side slots as well. It actually went off a few times against Maverick and Merfolk, as they just couldn't stop it outright. This would make L.E.D. decent in the deck, too.
Again - I'm not being too serious, but I thought it's a neat trick to share. Your dredges are almost acting like pseudo-'tutors' in that your just dredging until you hit them and then Dread Return into Sharuum. You could even bring back L.E.D. and flashback a dredged-away D.A.
Gigapede is terrible, unless you're playing a version of Manaless Dredge that eliminates all counterable spells for non-interactivity, all of the alternatives are superior in that slot.
I don't see how LED/DA makes the deck any more interactive than Baubles, nor do I see how "going all in" game 1 is actually a problem. We're only playing LED/DA game 1 vs. any non-combo deck boarding hate, and they can't punish you for "going all in" game 1 so why not do it?
MDing Faerie Macabre seems kind of bleh, if Reanimator is that prolific in your metagame Dredge is not the deck to be playing.
What's the reasoning behind Chancellor of the Annex being a SB card? I mean the Chancellor has a relevant impact vs. the entire field game 1 where Faerie Macabre is terribly specific, and if pseudo-Dazing the opponent slows him down enough to be equivalent to us speeding ourselves up with a cantrip it seems like the better choice to me because it's uncounterable, a Dread Return target and pumps Grave-Troll.
I don't run Gigapede in my seventy-five anymore. It's far from ''terrible," however, as it actually operates quite well as an unstoppable means of allowing you to continue chaining deep-dredgers, discarding important Dread Return targets, and allowing you to keep Phantasmagorian in your graveyard. Dread Return and Cabal Therapy will always be Dredge staples, and they are interactive. A very large percentage of the deck still remains non-interactive, and thus Gigapede still fits within the scope of that deck structure.
There aren't (to my knowledge) any other unstoppable means of discarding cards from your hand available from the graveyard, so I fail to see how this ranks as a terrible option. It's just difficult finding space for it.
I played Baubles for a long time and they're just too slow. You never want to give your opponent the ability to react to a delayed effect of your during their turn, where you have virtually no way of ensuring the cards you dredged away are secured, in addition to being able to keep Narcomoeba in play and usable for Dread Return/Therapy fodder. You're at the mercy of your opponent in this instance.I don't see how LED/DA makes the deck any more interactive than Baubles, nor do I see how "going all in" game 1 is actually a problem. We're only playing LED/DA game 1 vs. any non-combo deck boarding hate, and they can't punish you for "going all in" game 1 so why not do it?
L.E.D. and D.A. are not worth playing in this deck. That's not to say they're "bad," however. Lion's Eye Diamond forces you to discard your entire hand upon activation. You also have to cast the card first. Assuming it gets countered, you've now 'Time-Walked' your opponent - dropping your hand size down to a 'non-discardable' seven - and relegated that Deep Analysis in your hand as useless. That seems completely suboptimal in a deck that needs a dredger in its 'yard as often and early as possible.
Dropping an L.E.D. is akin to going "all-in" because you're ditching your entire hand in hopes your opponent can't stop it game one and doesn't have graveyard removal games two and three. It forces you to be mulligan-aggressive in searching for Deep Analysis, and that's just not good here. Manaless never wants to mulligan - even if a hand looks suspect. There's no point in playing an L.E.D., risking it being countered, thus putting you out of a discard for the turn, and if it resolves and you activate it, there's no telling if your opponent will drop Crypt or Relic. In those instances, you've now put yourself at a disadvantage - no matter how you look at it.
It's overly situational, completely risky, and just not worth it here.
Reanimator is one of the best decks in the format today, and is certainly not the only deck abusing the graveyard. Faerie Macabre has multiple uses, some I've utilized in tournament play, and some I've encountered in testing.MDing Faerie Macabre seems kind of bleh, if Reanimator is that prolific in your metagame Dredge is not the deck to be playing.
1. It obviously hits relevant Reanimator targets - notably Elesh Norn.
2. It can be brought back into play subsequently with a resolved Exhume.
3. It shrinks potentially lethal Tarmogoyfs (that occurred at SCG - Baltimore as someone mentioned to me it saved them the game and they wound up in 17th place).
4. It feeds to Ichorid.
5. It can be discarded to target zero targets and allows you to put the potentially critical third creature above your Nether Shadows, thus allowing his recursion.
6. It's basically non-interactive and unstoppable.
7. It hits Life from the Loam and its subsequent targets (happened in sanctioned play, hitting Chasm and Bojuka Bog off Intuition).
8. It hits Snapcaster Mage targets, including targeted Surgical Extraction.
9. It's a blowout against opposing Dredge builds.
10. It's completely unexpected.
I think these validate its overall utility and power in the first sixty. I've always been happy to open-hand one, and I've heard nothing but good things about it from other players. Definitely a solid contributor and worth the main-deck space in Legacy today.
That might be true, as I've played Chancellor main-deck, but the fact is there are plenty of ways to play around Chancellor once the game begins. Faerie Macabre is the blowout waiting to happen, and forces your opponent to walk into a punishing mistake. Chancellor is a card your opponents can play around because they know you have it, and while its ability is certainly not overlooked, it really doesn't do anything beyond its opening ability against most decks. Faerie's ability to be fed to Ichorid is actually really relevant, as are the other aforementioned reasons.What's the reasoning behind Chancellor of the Annex being a SB card? I mean the Chancellor has a relevant impact vs. the entire field game 1 where Faerie Macabre is terribly specific, and if pseudo-Dazing the opponent slows him down enough to be equivalent to us speeding ourselves up with a cantrip it seems like the better choice to me because it's uncounterable, a Dread Return target and pumps Grave-Troll.
I've teetered between swapping the two main-deck, but Faerie to me has been the better choice so far. I only really like Chancellor against decks like High Tide and Storm, which are obviously good, but I'm finding decks predicated on abusing the graveyard more prevalent at the moment. Storm tends to get knocked out of the early rounds in events with poor pilots, but graveyard-based strategies at the moment - namely Reanimator and opposing Dredge - are dominating the top tables in larger events by punishing poor pilots, bad hands, and bad decks in general. Faerie dictates those match-ups, and again I'm finding its overall utility more attractive.
I'm not disagreeing with you, I just prefer Faerie over Chancellor main.
Last edited by Michael Keller; 10-31-2011 at 11:41 AM.
I'm not certain you're playing LED/DA the way I'm playing LED/DA, you don't play LED turn 1 vs. Islands, you don't mulligan for DA at all and you don't keep LED/DA game 2 vs hate. The deck can and should be played in DDD with LED/DA regardless, and once your first Dredger is discarded at the end step and a second Dredger or Phantasmagorian is put into the graveyard you can continue to Dredge until you reveal a Deep Analysis and then go off on turn 2, 3 or 4 regularly with a "discard your hand" and a "double cantrip."
I'd recommend you play something like,
MD
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Deep Analysis
2 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Phyrexian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
3 Dread Return
2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame Kin Zealot
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
SB
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Bloodghast
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Phyrexian Extirpate
And just get use to playing LED cautiously, and try playing with it vs. Goblins, Elves, Affinity, Lands, High Tide and some of those other, closer match ups to see how much the speed makes a difference (I'm certain this is the fastest, most consistent version of Manaless Dredge - altho' not necessarily the best)
It's not that Gigapedge in and of itself is terrible, it's that Gigapedge is underpowered when you compare it to its alternatives, it's significantly worse than Phantasmagorian and redundant as well.
We can always chalk up Chancellor of the Annex vs. Faerie Macabre as prefereance, but I don't think "playing around" Chancellor of the Annex is an argument because if they "play around" it they are just foregoing their one or two drop and we're accelerating our game plan by decelerating theirs. The other thing I like about Chancellor of the Annex is that it protects the deck from Duress and Thought Seize, which is a plus. My point tho' was that I think Chancellor of the Annex is better than Baubles because the relative tempo is the same, it's uncounterable, it has minor utility in the graveyard and potentially saves SB space.
Dredge makes the semifinals at SCG Open - Kansas City!
Yeah, and punts game three hard. He made two critical errors that were game-breaking. First, he forgot to make two Bridge tokens, which would have been relevant on his last turn. Then, he scooped when his opponent had two Dark Confidant with three life and both triggers were going to be blind flips. A Riptide Laboratory would bounce one, but that doesn't mean the other wouldn't hit a Jace or Force or something.
It's too bad. He should have made the finals.
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