@NecroYawg
Congratulations on the finish, and for the marterfully crafted list! ^^
Something (probably irrelevant) tho:
When people said 11 was the best number to get exactly one card in hand, I thought they actually did the math and used it, but I guess they didn't. The real best number to get exactly one is 8, with 42,17% chance, and not 11, with 39,83%.
What 11 is better than 9 is into getting 1 or more, but in this case, 12 is better than 11, 13 is better than 12 and so on... Still, 11 does a great job with lands in dredge's experience, so I think it's a good number to have.
And lastly, if you are looking for the best number of lands to run to get [1 or 2] lands in opener, with the drawn card (on the draw), than this number is either 10 or 11, with 66,99%
Sorry for taking too long to check these numbers for you.
Last edited by Gui; 02-01-2012 at 08:27 AM.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^Originally Posted by Tacosnape
I believe that what you're referring to as the "additional discard outlets that this deck sometimes plays that do nothing in the yard and are bad on a mulligan with no dredgers" is Tireless Tribe. I haven't put too much thought into it, but it's possible that there might be an argument worth looking into when considering Entomb as an alternative for the slots for Tireless Tribe. Unfortunately, though, that slot has recently been taken over by Faithless Looting, and I don't think that Entomb would be the better choice over another Careful Study (with Flashback nonetheless).
In the absence of any of the enablers that Dredge already has access to (e.g. Breakthrough, Careful Study, Faithless Looting, Putrid Imp), Entomb would possibly be worth considering. Unfortunately, though, these enablers are just too good to pass up on.
Kind Regards,
jares
It seems that your mulligan rate is higher than the usual. Personally, I would like to mulligan as seldom as possible, which is why I painstakingly try my best to tweak my deck to minimize inconsistencies. Based on your build, I feel that applying the following tweaks would help lower your mulligan rate better than by playing Entomb:
- You're running 4 DR targets in the main deck - this is 2 greater than what can be commonly seen in LED lists, and 3 more than the minimum requirement for going combo-esque.
- You have 3 DR, which is understandable, given that you have a lot of DR targets. It's just worth noting that the more DR you have, the more cards in the deck that won't contribute to your opening hand. The same logic applies to DR targets.
- Having just 8 Gold Lands gives you a smaller probability of getting a land in the opening hand (65%, as compared to 81% if you were to run 12).
- Having just 10 Dredgers (instead of the suggested 11) gives you a smaller probability of getting one in the opening hand. Entomb does not strictly count as a dredger because it requires a land to have it be "converted" into one (and as noted above, your probabilities of drawing the correct land is also smaller in this build), and you also can't DDD with it if the need to do so arises.
- Not running a full set of Careful Study decreases the number of Discard Outlets and Draw Spells that you would both want in your opening hand.
Based on these observations, it seems to me that you'll benefit more from tightening your build rather than make up for the inconsistencies by playing Entomb (by making cuts on some of the essentials) and exposing yourself even further to counters. If you still feel unconvinced of the inconsistencies that I've noted above, I believe that I can provide the numbers that will support these suggestions (though I would rather not go through that).
I hope this helps.
Kind Regards,
jares
A very important aspect of Entomb that most people here seem to be missing is the fact that it helps your game 2 and 3 by giving you access to a toolbox of anti-hate cards. Dredge was never about winning game 1.
Entomb is an answer to Tormod's Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb and Relic of Progenitus, because you can tutor up an Ancient Grudge and force him to crack his hate. That means, for the measly price of 1 sideboard-slot, you will have 5 cards that give you access artifact hate. If you increase the number of Ancient Grudges to 3 or 4, you will have little problems with artifact-dredge hate.
It all depends on how popular Grafdigger's Cage will be, because that knocks some wind out of Entomb's sails. Dredge is known to have limited options / lines of play, and any card that makes the deck more non-lineair requires careful consideration before coming to a verdict. The number, and type of plays Entomb enables suggests that testing, as opposed to theory crafting, will give us more insight.
Entomb may require a different type of framework for dredge, similar to legacy's manaless dredge with gigapede/phantasmagorian or vintage's sharuum sharuum (FoW-based dredge with fatestitchers/altar of dementia).
EDIT: In the mirror, you could search for Memory's Journey to send your opponent's dredgers or ichorid away, gaining valuable tempo. It also helps you disrupt a past in flames turn, or a reanimate. Reanimate, Dredge and Tendrils-combo are all very fast decks, so having an answer to these decks with very little sideboard dedication is worth considering. You can also get Ray of Revelation, but unfortunately, that won't be particularly helpful against Leyline of the Void and Wheel of Sun and Moon.
@Jares: You suggest that tightening the deck helps combat the inconsistencies further than adding entomb, but how does that compare in game 2 and game 3, where you need your anti-hate cards to make your deck function. Entomb looks like a swiss-army knive in g2/g3.
Okay, there are obviously some things you just don't want to see. Entomb is not a swiss-army knife by any means and it simply doesn't belong in this deck.
You say that it improves your game 2 by giving you access to Ancient Grudge. First of all, it's entirely useless for finding anti hate against any other kind of graveyard hate and due to the fact that the artifact based hate cards don't see as much play any more anyway, the value of Entomb is already very limited in that respect.
Now I want to ask you: Your opponent has just dropped a Crypt turn one. What is better?
- An opening hand with Lands, dredger and Entomb, which finds you the Grudge and lets you blow up the Crypt right away. Then you're left without any discard outlets and if you don't find any in the top 4-5 cards of your deck you probably just lose.
- Or is maybe a hand of Lands, dredger and discard dork better, which lets you start slowdredging until you find your first Grudge. You force him to sac his Crypt and can easily restart your engine and probably win from there.
On average, the second scenario will give you a much earlier access to a fully stocked graveyard to win the game.
Second, what about Entomb in game 1. The question is: What does it actually do? It tutors for a Dredger or finds a dread Return target. This application can generally be narrowed down to finding a Dredger, because you will very rarely gat into a situation where you have a fully stocked yard (with DR and enough dudes to sac), have an untapped gold land, have Entomb still in your hand (after a possible Breakthrough) and at the same time don't already have the DR target you want in your graveyard. Then the board state has to be one where the DR target you're looking for is crucially needed to win the game, a board state where Zombies and Ichorids can't get there any more. The occurence of such scenarios is already in question, which is why many people don't even play any DR targets in the main deck at all, in which case this use of Entomb is also not a factor.
So let's pretend that Entomb is actually mainly used for the same things the discard dork you cut for it as well: Getting a Dredger in the yard. If this is the case, I can't really see how it's better than the discard dorks either. True, you can find a Dredger if you don't have any in your hand. And if you brick on the first dredge you'll spend turns after turns trying to recover and get started again. The dorks can't find you a Dredger if you have none in your hand. But even if you somehow keep such a hand, they at least mean that as soon as you find one, you'll be able to combo out and do what the deck can do best. The composition of the deck is already trying to maximize the chance to hit a Dredger in your first seven and in the majority of cases you also hit one.
Entomb is one of those cards that, from time to time, someone brings up and wants to see how good it is. And it's been proven fifty times that it's just way too bad for the deck. I welcome you to be the fifty-first, but I advise you to let it be. That card never was and will never be good enough in this type of Dredge deck.
Quoting this for Truth.
Even some great players brought this topic thinking Entomb was GGT #5, but the simple fact that it has to be cast to become a dredger makes it worse than a dredger, because it won't ever fit in the multiple roles of this deck, or in other words, it won't DDD.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
I have not read any recommendations about Entomb in conjunction with Phantasmagorian before. If it was discussed and tested on these board, please link me to the relevant post.
I specifically stated that Entomb may require a different dredge-framework. Apparently, reading is hard.
I can see how Entomb would fail to perform due to not being as explosive as something like Breakthrough, Careful Study, Faithless Looting or even Brainstorm, but ignoring the fact that the card has a lot of utility, especially game 2 and 3 when it really matters, is just ignorant.
The example you've written out does make sense, however, I'm not advocating cutting putrid imp for entomb per se. Entomb isn't strictly a Reanimator card. I've played it in conjunction with standstill with a toolbox of vengeful pharaoh / darkblast / life from the loam, and it's also played in certain pox builds. It would help if you'd broaden your horizons.
Entomb's role in Dredge would be far closer to Serum Powder in ensuring you get your first turn dredge hand, with the exception that Entomb allows more lines of play and is more relevant when the game has started (Though it's questionable if you will ever actually draw cards after turn 1). There is a reason why Vintage dredge plays with Serum Powder, even though its completely dead after the game has started.
As an aside, I wouldn't pick up dredge right now to begin with. Scavenging Ooze and the hype around Grafdigger's Cage is enough reason for me to pick other, less graveyard dependent options. The graveyard hate is very diversified nowadays.
Entomb does not get you a turn one Bazaar of Baghdad. I think there's a vast difference in power-level between the two here.
For starters, anyone playing Grafdigger's Cage in a deck with Scavenging Ooze is probably making a deck-building or sideboarding error - especially when GS'sZ is your primary tutor. Thus, you'd be forced to open with either, making that deck mulligan a little more aggressively than usual. Also, Grafdigger's Cage does absolutely nothing to stop you from playing out your hand and easily opening into some form of artifact or enchantment hate. It's an investment that in reality does nothing more than Relic or Crypt, and to be honest it doesn't even stop you from dredging. Cage - in my eyes - is inferior in many ways to other forms of hate because Cage does not stop you from dredging or drawing and dumping a few cards to find answers. It's a static artifact that to be honest will see lots of play in the beginning and will slowly fade as just another alternative next to Crypt and Relic - nothing more.
Also, Scavenging Ooze against a deck with Breakthrough, L.E.D., Looting, Firestorm, and Coliseum is ridiculously slow. By the time they can invest one or two mana to do something relevant your hand and probably a third to a half of your library will be in the graveyard - in addition to a stripped hand your opponent will be sitting on. Against L.E.D. Dredge, Ooze is just slow.
It's (Cage) good against Reanimator if they aren't sitting on Show and Tell, but it doesn't really stop Dredge from doing its thing until it answers it straight up - which isn't that difficult. And there are more than four slots in my sideboard dedicated to dealing with it, and in testing it hasn't been a problem yet.
Here we go again. Entomb discussion #34.
Dear gods...
I was at the same tournament as Necro(and K1W1, who didn't play dredge, booooo)
I was using a list very simular to Hollywood's
R1 against Alex
I lost two quick games against Reanimator...
R2 against Norman with U/R Delver
G1 I combo out quick via LED into Breakthrough, not much he can do.
G2 He extracts my Bridges and I take too long to get back into the game.
G3 We both don't really get much, I beat him slowly down with Ichorids. Fun games Oo
R3 against Michael with Affinity
G1 I win the die roll and open with Gemstone Mine , pass. He lays out hhis whole hand and I end of turn Firestorm, cleaning the board, reanimate Sun Titan the following turn and finish the whole thing with flashback Ravings-> he scoops.
G2 He opens with Crypt, I open with Imp and Golgari Thug. I slowdredge, going very low in the process, but he eventually has to blow shit up and I combo off vial my slowrolled Breakthrough.
Round 4 against Felix with MonoB the Gate.. I really hate this matchup-.-
G1 I keep a too slow hand to match his Double Bob into Jitte into Gatekeeper and he wins shortly thereafter.
G2 He again comes out of the Gate faster than me, Getting a double Sadistic Sacrament but I somehow manage to win because my last Bridge was in my hand.
G3 I open fast, but he has Extirpate. I manage to therapy away another Extirpate and a double Engineered Plague but again Jitte comes to save the day and I roll over due to huge amounts of hate.
R5 against Carsten with Threshhold
G1 Is really close. In the end we both have lethal on the board and I make a huge misplay and try to Dread Return FKZ to win but he has stifle. I knew about that stifle goddammit. I lose in the following turn.
G2 Is close once again, he has triple extraction but I manage to Purify my Troll on the third one. After that we both have nothing until I find Elesh Norn to win.
G3 He again has double Extraction but very few threats, I win with Sun Titan on my first Extra Turn.
R6 Against Norman with the bad ANT list from GP Amsterdam.
G1 I am way too fast for him, he get's flooded as hell and I win without a sweat. He was kind enough to first turn Duress away my first first turner of the tournament though...meh.
G2 Again I am very fast, but he somehow manages to win via Ad Nauseam on 6 life.
G3. Much more of a game. He is forced to go for Ad Nauseam on turn 3, without mana floating on 18 life and fizzles because he doesn't see the play of pass the turn, then win when he was still at a high enough life total.
4-2 and I am satisfied. I end up 14th and still get a Spellskite, well that's fine.Plus, my little shiny glitty Zombieponies are awesome.
The deck plays really smoothly and I am looking forward for Faithless Looting and quadlasering the shit out of opponents.
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
Hi bruizar,
I'm not sure of what you would like me to address here, but I'll try my best to respond aptly.
"You suggest that tightening the deck helps combat the inconsistencies further than adding entomb..."
- I'm not sure if you agree with this or not, but I'll assume that you do, because you've provided no counter-arguments that I can respond to. Also, just to be clear, my post that you responded to was really an effort to help with the build that was presented, and not a generalization of Entomb (although it's likely to be true that several of those points would still be valid as generalizations).
"how does that compare in game 2 and game 3, where you need your anti-hate cards to make your deck function? Entomb looks like a swiss-army knive in g2/g3."
- First off, I'm one of the people who don't use Ancient Grudge, Ray of Revelation, and other anti-hate that can be used while in the GY, so you might be talking to the wrong person here
).
I guess that's it from what you've left for me to address.
Kind Regards,
jares
I know what it does, I've got 4 Bazaars sleeved up. Serum Powder gets you Bazaar more CONSISTENTLY.
Serum Powder increases the chance to pull a bazaar from 39.95% to 65.36% on the opening 7. It is this increase in consistency that is the reason for its inclusion, not the fact that bazaar is stupid broken (If Bazaar was stupid broken and serum powder wouldn't increase its consistency, Serum Powder wouldn't be played.). The question is, is there something that we can Entomb that is worth increasing its consistency.
I'd argue that a first turn Entomb, into a second turn breakthrough is much more reliable than a first turn careful study with a second turn breakthrough.
You have a 39.95% chance to have a GGT in your opener. That means on 60.05% of the situations, you will have to dig for Golgari Grave Troll.
If I cast a Careful Study, I draw 2 cards, which gives me only 14.66% chance to hit a Golgari Grave Troll in a 53 card deck. This means, I usually don't get my troll online on turn 1 through Careful Study, whereas I will be 100% guaranteed to set it up with Entomb.
Putrid Imp doesn't even influence what, or how many cards you draw, so that's even less consistent but Putrid Imp is also a bad comparison perhaps. However, in the case of pimp you might be wasting your Breakthrough dredging a Dark Blast or Golgari Thug and getting stuck.
The turn after I play Entomb, playing either Breakthrough or Careful Study will let the game go nuts. In both cases, I will end with the Grave Troll back in the graveyard, which gives me a 100% chance to activate my dredge-6 GGT again (if GY is not hated).
One counter argument, is the fact that a turn 1 Careful Study or Faithless Looting allows you to discard not one, but 2 dredgers in the graveyard. In cases where you would have 2 dredgers in your first 9 cards, Careful Study could be better, but it wouldn't neccesarily be better. By going for GGT through Entomb, I will dredge 6 cards deep. If in those 6 cards, I reveal another dredger and can keep chaining my draws, the Entomb play is still better, regardless of the exception with 2 dredgers in your hand.
Hi bruizar,
I believe that you hit the jackpot right there - "testing, as opposed to theory crafting, will give us more insight".
Dredge is in the DTB section because it has proven itself as an archetype, and this archetype is helped defined by what we can refer to as the Dredge Core (which also takes into account the Dredge variations that have also been proven at one time or another). Having said that, I would like to specifically point this out for you:
- The burden of proof is on he that challenges the norm - that's you.
Our responses have not made it easy for you to present your idea specifically because our collective experiences (tournament play, several hours of testing, doing the math, etc.) have shown us that, unfortunately, Entomb does not make the cut. As previously mentioned, it has already been considered repeatedly, even by the players that have brought this archetype to the top, and it seems that not much has changed in the game to allow the conclusion regarding Entomb to to be redone.
I encourage you to do just as you've suggested - do as much testing as you can, and after that, share your findings. Just remember that there are no right or wrong answers in Magic - there are just the thoughtless ones, and the defensible ones.
Cheers,
jares
Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe are totally sweet fighting hate games 2 and 3, so they are uncuttable.
So if the question is Careful Study versus Entomb, I have to ask whether Tribe/Imp + Careful Study versus Tribe/Imp + Entomb comes up often enough to justify how much "better" Entomb + Breakthrough is in comparison to Entomb.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Agreed
Please point me to the math, and of tournament reports/lists that have used Entomb. It's logical that Entomb doesn't have tournament reports if it doesn't get played.
What is the big problem with Entomb? Why is it so lackluster?
This is true. I've had my share of successes and failures as a brewer. Apparently, I'm not doing bad at all, evaluating cards, since I've speculated on cards for quiet a lump of money (5 digit number) and have made a pretty nice profit to date.
Hi bruizar,
I like that you've done the math, and let me be the first to confirm that these numbers are correct. In comparison, considering the Careful Study example, we would only have a 48.75% chance of getting a GGT in the GY by turn 1. It's worth noting, though, that these are just the numbers for GGT - considering all 12 dredgers (at least for my build), there's an 80.94% chance that you would get an opening hand with at least one dredger.
I believe though, that the issue here is not what Entomb is able to contribute to the deck - I find that the issue is really centered on two things:
- What would you need to cut to make room for Entomb?
- Will the benefits of incorporating Entomb be worth more than the side effects of making room for it?
We could continue making a list of things that Entomb can contribute to Dredge, but until we consider how Dredge is very good and clearly show why it will be better because of Entomb, we will fall short of that "burden of proof" that comes with challenging the norm.
Kind Regards,
jares
"Please point me to the math, and of tournament reports/lists that have used Entomb. It's logical that Entomb doesn't have tournament reports if it doesn't get played."
- I have honestly never seen a winning Dredge list win an Entomb, so I can't really help you there. As for what has already been discussed, I believe that that's somewhere in this forum, and I don't have the patience to go through 150 pages
"What is the big problem with Entomb? Why is it so lackluster?"
- I believe it's really just because there simply are better options based on what Dredge is trying to achieve. In comparison, Entomb is at its best in Reanimator because of what Reanimator is trying to achieve - efficiently "cheat" one large creature into play by smuggling it through the GY, with "ONE" being the operative word.
Cheers,
jares
Tell me only one thing. What do you do if your Entombed GGT does not find a second dredger?
There is no point in duscussing the whole thing any further before you finally comment on the biggest disadvantage of your tech as well. Careful Study, when used as a discard outlet, at least draws you two more cards which can be outlets if you brick on your first Dredge. That's often two Timewalks already, because it gets you two cards deeper on your search for another discard outlet.
Just an aside: the chance for you to have a Dredger in the remaining 6 cards of your opening hand is just as high as your chance to hit another Dredger with your Entombed Troll. Either way, the discard dorks win.
I will be the first to agree that dredge is very tight. However, what Entomb brings is added consistency (getting your best dredger more often, or getting your missing piece for the dread return online: Narcomoeba/Dread Return/Fatty).
It obviously depends on which list to look at. I haven't done the math on this so I'm not sure how unholy it is to touch Tireless Tribe/Putrid Imp.
-1 Golgari Thug/Darkblast (Yes, Dark Blast gives you an out to Yixlid Jailer and a lot of the meta is */1 now)
-2 Tireless Tribe
-1 x
+4 Entomb
I agree that its incredibly tight as it is, and you don't want to lose too many creatures from the build, but I'd still rather have an Entomb than a Tireless Tribe for the simple fact that I can get a guarantee on my GGT.
I can't answer this question. You'd have to have Breakthroughs, Studies, Faithless Looting or an additional Entomb to get Phantasmagorian (if you would run this). This is the most convincing argument against Entomb.
Optimizing game 1 at the cost of games 2-3 is pretty foolish. Don't cut Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
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