@ K1W1:
I really really like Nather Shadow as a card in Dredge. But I think it's only playable with Phantasmagorian.
If you don't have the LEDs, this is not really a problem imho. Just play the best, fastest and most consistent list one can build w/o LED. Aside from my LED list I'm also playing a LEDless list and LED isn't really strictly better.
Basically, I would take out the Shadows and play 4 Breakthroughs in those slots. I personally like me some more Tireless Tribes as well, but that's up to you.
@ Izor
Haha, you should know, i have my Phantasmagorian directly left from my Shadows in my folder. I thought really long about it, but i can't/don't want cut cards for it.
As i said in my post, i don't need the speed. I think to avoid Surgical MORE, it's the better option. My biggest problem with breakthrough is, that i have to discard my whole hand. And i'm one of the lucky person who gets Boked/crypted/reliced...
I will meet my friends tomorrow and test it extremly.
And yeah, Nether Shadow is such a nice creature ( for me )
I could try breakthrough back in main and nether shadows in side, but on the other hand i don't want waste the space in my board. So i think i will test some games with Nether Shadow main and some game with breakthrough to test.
K1w1
My colors are... ZONK!
You haven't any colors. You play Dredge.
You love games, which are unfair. You hate Reanimator & NicFit.
At good days, you destroy everything. At bad days,
you draw Narcomoebas. But the most important thing:
Everybody hates you!
That's what I'm looking for. I'm building a LEDless one, but I'm a bit confused on what to put in the maindeck and need some help. What's the fastest and most consistent list? (or if it's not a common sense, what's your favorite build?)Originally Posted by Izor
Here is the list that I ran yesterday at our local event:
[4x] Faithless Looting
[4x] Lion's Eye Diamond
[4x] Putrid Imp
[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Nether Shadow
[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Golgari Thug
[4x] Bridge from Below
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[2x] Ashen Ghoul
[2x] Dread Return
[1x] Flame-Kin Zealot
[1x] Sun Titan
[4x] Gemstone Mine
[4x] City of Brass
[2x] Undiscovered Paradise
//Sideboard
[4x] Firestorm
[4x] Nature's Claim
[2x] Ray of Revelation
[2x] Ancient Grudge
[2x] Coffin Purge
[1x] Iona, Shield of Emeria
This wound up being very consistent and even more aggressive than seen on paper. I wanted to purposely eschew Cephalid Coliseum and Breakthrough and see how a more persistent threat density would help, and I was certainly impressed.
The one thing I discussed in great detail with some other players and as I previously had mentioned here was where Dredge as a whole is heading in the near future. I think there is nothing wrong with running Coliseum and Breakthrough, but the issue rises when you're able to win game one and then dropping games two and three after the fact. A well-timed Surgical Extraction or Extirpate knocking out a list less dense with threats and more predicted on speed hitting Bridge from Below can be catastrophic. There is nothing more frustrating than losing to an already great match-up because of one card, and it becomes increasingly difficult for an opponent to win a game when you diversify your threats an streamline your consistency.
I've been seeing a lot of lists going something like this:
16 Draw/Discard Explosive Effects
2-3 Ichorid
0-1 Dread Return
10-11 Dredgers
I really think that's a critical mistake. What happens is (and I ran it basically with a configuration like that too) you're able to explode out of the gates, but you either stall out and pass the turn because you brick or don't have anything to bring back into play. It's really bad, and I think it needs to be addressed.
If I were able to make any change to the list above for a large tournament tomorrow, I will probably shift out one Firestorm and up the count of Purges to three (3) - and potentially four if I can make room. The list is a little less dependent on running lands, as you're not requiring mana to activate Coliseum and cast Breakthrough, and ten lands was perfect. The deck still has a healthy amount of discard outlets (Putrid Imp, Lion's Eye Diamond, and Faithless Looting), and with the obvious increase of dredgers here to a healthy twelve, you're not as open to bricking. That also helps against Surgical Extraction, as you've now maxed out your ability to successively dredge.
For what it's worth, I really liked the changes. It was incredibly consistent, yet still explosive, and that is basically all I could ask for at this point. Some slots are debatable (like Ashen Ghoul), but after winning three rounds off his extra damage, I don't think I would cut him for anything else at this point.
Last edited by Michael Keller; 02-10-2012 at 11:47 AM.
I like this list A LOT.
Seems like an absolute blast to play. I agree, more threat density is needed these days. I give your list a try if you don't mind :)
Also it seems it plays a lot like Manaless , is that right?I mean you only have PImp and Looting as potential discard outlets.
How did you do in the tournament?
Edit: @ Calado: I think the best way to ask for advice is to post the list you have in mind and ask for criticism. There are so many ways to build LEDless Dredge that depend on playstyle, I don't think there actually is a "best" list.
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
Thanks. I'm not saying it's like a "super-optimal list" at this point or anything, but I am just tired of playing the same stock list that masks its flaws by overloading on draw effects and limping on attackers. That's why decks packing Surgical Extraction are able to clutter the Top 32 of an event like a SCG Open and leave Dredge absent in the standings. It's a serious issue right now, yet everyone is forgetting Looting has flashback, and that makes it basically its another set of Careful Studies with LED - which is sometimes, well, all you really need.
@Hokus: 3-1, btw. Sorry. (Lone loss was to Reanimator, and that was relatively close - I lost game three, him on the play and a mull to five, top-decking his turn into a Show and Tell into Blazing Archon and ripping into back to back Faerie Macabres.
Considering where we are now, I just wanted to give this a try...and I think it might be the right way to go. Plays like Manaless, except you're not going to DDD purposely.
Hello all,
So far, I'm liking my list in testing the only deck that I am having trouble beating(short of bad luck), Is an enchantress deck. No matter how I try to use hate to win through, they seem to have enough hate pieces that just make it impossible to win through.
My current List:
//Dredgers: 12
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast
//Discarders: 7
4 Putrid Imp
3 Cabal Therapy
//Card Draw: 11
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough
3 Faithless Looting
//Other Goodstuffs: 17
3 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
//Lands 13
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
4 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Undiscovered Paradise
//Sideboard
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Nature's Claim
3 Ingot Chewer
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 ??
So far this list is working very well for me, locally I have received some flak for not running all 4 Faithless looting, but I am finding that I do not always have the mana that it would need for flash back, I might switch the Studies and the Lootings, but I find that I have more ways to cast study than Looting which seems to justify the way I am splitting it.
Belcher
Delver
Dredge
When your heart won't beat, your eyes go black
There's a light in the tunnel and you can't turn back
Your friends can't save you, your family's gone
You're waiting on your judgment at the foot of the throne
Will you beg for some mercy? Will you cop some pleas?
Will you stand on your own or get down on your knees?
Will your angels release you from where demons dwell?
Will you make it into Heaven or go right back to Hell?
Only time will tell
Thanks for the feedback, Dredgekid and HokusSchmokus.
Hollywood, very interesting build! I've been tossing around ideas like crazy... I know I want Faithless Looting and LED; the combination seems too powerful to pass up. I'm currently testing a list vacant of Dread Return, sideboard and all. I might put the DR package back into the side, but I'm loving the main without it. Here's my current list, which is quit different then the one I recently posted..
[1x] Dark Blast
[3x] Careful Study
[4x] Breakthrough
[4x] Faithless Looting
[4x] Lion's Eye Diamond
[4x] Putrid Imp
[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[3x] Golgari Thug
[4x] Bridge from Below
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Gemstone Mine
[4x] City of Brass
[1x] Undiscovered Paradise
[4x] Cephalid Coliseum
//Sideboard
[4x] Coffin Purge
[4x] Chain of Vapor
[7x] ????
One thing I noticed is, without the DR package, I'm compromising threat density for consistent, explosive hands. That's one reason why I really like your list. As I stated the other day, I'm entering SCG Open come March 10th, which will ultimately run me at least 400 bucks in traveling/hotel alone, and I definitely want to make my trip and expenses worth while.. With it closing in fast, I need to find the most consistent, fast, and resilient list possible as quick as possible.
Someone made the suggestion of removing one Faithless Looting for Careful Study. I like this, as it would add consistency while hardly compromising speed. Though, I added an addition gold land, Undiscovered Paradise, to offset awkward Faithless Looting + Cephalid/no-land hands. Also, I lost one Golgari Thug for a Darkblast, to prevent Ooze from taking over the field game 1, is this correct? What suggestions can you guys make? What should I expect from the meta and what can I do to prepare? Does this build even look accurate?
Much appreciated,
Matthew
Scavenging Ooze against a LED-based variant is going to have an awfully tough time getting there, especially when you're dumping our hand and dredging deep turn one. I don't really think it's too much of an issue right now - especially if you're running Firestorm in the sideboard - but you should be taking down game one.
Also, if you're looking into making a consistent, fast version of Dredge, you're probably going to want to diversify your threats and add some consistency to the deck with Nether Shadow (or Ashen Ghoul, perhaps). Four Ichorid seems good, but remember in games two and three you need to assess what your opponent could potentially be bringing in against you. If someone is bringing in Surgical Extraction, and it's against a competent pilot, then you really should have some sort of plan or base knowledge of what you need to do as far as grinding out a win is concerned.
I'd like to add I'm not trying to persuade people into running these cards; if they don't work for you, that's fine. I just think it's necessary at this point to adapt as it seems like everyone is playing a stock list loaded with draw and discard effects but skimming on dredgers and Ichorids. That doesn't seem all that good if all you're doing is recurring an Ichorid or two on your turn two with no Dread Return or more dudes coming into play. That really defeats the whole purpose of the deck.
The fact you have to pass the turn after doing all of that is bad enough if you're not running a Dread Return package without FKZ. Because the deck uses the attack step to win games, FKZ is an excellent quick finisher, but Iona just seems more reliant as a metagame choice. It doesn't seem good against Maze of Ith or Karakas, which is why Sun Titan (game one) allows you to drill deep into your deck and win games the turn you play him. It's the same principle with Sphinx (of Lost Truths), so it's really dependent on what's in your meta.
Good points. I like the idea of Nether Shadow, or something similar. I'm starting to strongly consider Bloodghast, though I'd have to commit roughly 8 slots to that package.. Which, I don't think would be too horrible if I properly diversify between Ghasts and Ichorids. And, if Undiscovered Paradise isn't too awkward/clunky.. But that leads me to wonder, is all of that really better than a simple DR package??? (Though, it does seem pretty resilient.) And, how strongly would you recommend Firestorm? I'm failing to see it's potential, and definitely don't want to rule it out too early.
The main disadvantage of Firestorm is that it is not a permanent Discard outlet. Also, you cannot just dump your whole hand in your yard with it, that can be important to.
On the upside, Firestorm is uncountarable when it comes to discard, because the discard is part of its cost. Also the ability to timewalk your opponent is really not to be underestimated(best-case-example: You win the roll vs Affinity, you lay down Gemstone Mine and pass. Your opponent now has his dream opening , multiple 0-drops, myr enforce, total of 5 creatures.You then Firestorm for 5 and you just won the game) Oh, and it allows neat tricks in the mirror.
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
I like the idea (and purpose) of increasing the threat density of the deck by cutting the draw spells, but what worries me is this:
- Having only 4x Faithless Looting as a draw mechanism (LED doesn't count, as it won't be able to act as a draw mechanism without Faithless Looting) might be too little in what you're trying to achieve as a Dredge Deck (which essentially lives off being able to draw). This means that you won't be having Faithless Looting, or any other draw spell, in your opening hand 60.05% of the time.
- Assuming that, after not drawing Faithless Looting but drawing into a LED in your opening hand, you're able to dredge with a Golgari Grave-Troll, you still only have a probability of 39.08% of landing a Faithless Looting in your graveyard by then.
The numbers above concern me, and might be able to help with the balance that you're trying to achieve between increasing threat density and the rate of dredging. It might be worth noting, though, that because the density of the available threats is increased, you might not need to dredge as much as the "stock" lists would need to; I do not have numbers to support this, but it's likely that the average number of cards that we would need to dredge to make a case for winning would have drastically lessened in this build.
Kind Regards,
jares
HokusSchmokus,
First of all, thank you for the feedback. So, Firestorm gives us an edge against aggro and aggro-control, correct? And, potentially inflicts a hefty amount of damage. This alone encourages me to run at least two, though I'll still play-test to ensure their slots, of course. lol I'm curious, why doesn't Firestorm allow us to pitch our hand?
Leyline of Sanctity, worth playing in the current meta or not? It prevents Crypt, Relic's first ability, and what else am I missing?
I'm thinking 4x Coffin Purge, 4x Chain of Vapor, and 2x Firestorm are more or less solidified in my sideboard. Iona also, if Dread Return makes it's way back into my main..
Thanks,
Matthew
IMO, you want to play Lion's Eye Diamond before you play Breakthrough, and you want to play Careful Study before you play either Lion's Eye Diamond or Breakthrough. If you play this deck with game 2 and 3 in mind, Lion's Eye Diamond and to a lesser extent Breakthrough are the cards you are going to SB out the most, so you may as well not play Breakthrough MD because it doesn't accelerate your fundamental turn and requires mana compared to Lion's Eye Diamond which lets you race combo and rely less on land. If you play Careful Study, you can keep 8 draw 2, discard 2 effects in your deck game 2, which lets you draw into answers for Leyline of the Void, Grafdigger's Cage etc. and be more resilient vs hate.
I pretty much agree with Hollywood that cutting Thugs and Ichorids is doing it terribly fucking wrong, but I'm not really a big fan of Putrid Imp, Ashen Ghoul, Sun Titan, FKZ or MD Nether Shadow unless you're short on SB space. Putrid Imp is counter bait, Ashen Ghoul is Wasteland bait but probably ok as a singleton, Sun Titan and FKZ are just automatically boarded out every game two and three etc. Stuff like Firestorm probably isn't necessary post-board and can seriously backfire if you're up against Crypt/Relic instead of Faerie/Extraction. Uncounterability is pretty much moot when your best discard outlet is already uncounterable, DDD. I also think cards like Firestorm in your SB are danger of cool things, because it doesn't do anything to address your bad match ups like Reanimator. I think the card has a lot more utility if you actually MD it instead of LED, because you still straight up roll over your otherwise close match ups like Goblins, Affinity, Zoo and Elves etc. It's also more keepable MD post-board than LED, which kind of makes me want to get rid of LED if I weren't such a wanker for spectacularly busted synergy.
I also think Firestorm in the board is probably too much.
What I will try out is Hollywood's list - FKZ -Ashen Ghouls +3 Careful Study(probably -Sun Titan, too to play Elesh Instead, metachoice). Also I am replacing the Paradises with Citadels as I am really fucking sick of this card.I can give the list a test run tomorrow, we'll see how it works out.
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
What's frustrating you about Undiscovered Paradise, usually the drawback becomes a benefit vs decks with counterspells unless you find yourself trying to hardcast Narcomoeba, Golgari Thug and Nether Shadow?
I'd recommend SBing Nether Shadows game 1, they don't really contribute to the speed of the deck without Phantasmagorian and you really want to play the 4th Careful Study and 11th land. Also I'm 100% against Putrid Imp over Phantasmagorian for that matter, playing Putrid Imp is just asking to lose to Force of Will and Daze unecessarily by interacting when you snouldn't.
Has anyone ever considered a list like this?
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Thug
4 Bridge
4 Moeba
3 Ichorid
4 Cabal Therapy
2 DR
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Breakthrough
4 Cephalid Colliseum
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Tarnished Citadel
The numbers may be slightly off. The general idea is to be a brutal uncounterable combodeck in game one that can potentially board into a more grindy Ichorid postboard. 8 Careful Study give you amazing consistency, and you run enough carddraw to dredge large parts of your deck.
The deck obviously lacks Putrid Imp, and therefore doesn't have many black creatures. This shouldn't be that much of an issue if you're playing game one against a deck that's barely going to disrupt you. There would be 4 Putrid Imp sideboard.
"Part of me belives that Barrin taught me meditation simply to shut me up."
-Ertai, wizard adept
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Actually Daze is the issue. And yes, I usually cast at least one most of the times two thugs per game. Ii still feel Nethet Shadow is speeding the deck up if you run DR. I agree Phhantasnagorian(this cards needs a nickname) is optimal fir Shadows, but it seems antisynergistic to the whole point of playing LED
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
True, but you also have Sun Titan and a stable Dread Return package which would be able to bring back Lion's Eye Diamond and more than likely flashback into Looting when it is needed. You're not looking to be overexplosive in the sense you'd run an overabundance of draw effects and no threats. Putrid Imp is good enough as a discard outlet and pulls double-duty when trying to fill the role of a graveyard organizer (like Phantasmagorian would).
However, I would partially agree in the assessment that having just LED and Looting could be too little. The Ashen Ghouls can be cut for something along the way of Firestorm, which would be infinitely better as the discard is not optional and required, where as something like Careful Study could be countered and no effect would take place. It would help in matchups like Elves! and Maverick where a blowout could be just waiting to happen - which in a variation like this could be exactly what we need.
To put it bluntly: I am more concerned with the ability to discard cards into my graveyard whenever and however I want as opposed to playing more "draw X, discard X" cards. Dredge has a very large core which disables people from trying to stuff more strategies in it that can fit, which is why I am leaning more towards timely discard (Imp and Firestorm) as opposed to the aforementioned (Breakthrough and Study). I might be wrong on this, but it doesn't seem to be doing the deck any good right now. Stuffing a thousand draw effects into the deck and having it be cold to a single hate spell is not exactly the ideal way to continue the evolution of the archetype as a whole. The deck does, however, need to be proactive in how it is able to discard cards - which is okay I guess if you're running opting to run Careful Study (functionally identical to Looting).
@Bahamuth: What kind of sideboard package would you consider when you need at least six to eight slots dedicated to anti-hate?
I agree with this, although I like decks able to play 2 roles, LED dredge usually isn't the kind.
And 'gorian nickname is phantasm.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
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