[Deck] Dredge

[joemauer]

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.

Putrid Imp is a flying Carnophage.
He attracts swords to plowshares to him, and away from our ichorids and grave trolls.
He keeps ichorid fed and healthy.
He is one of the best tools we have for fighting crypt or relic.
So what if he gets countered, LED dredge can cast so much bustedness in one turn that we lots of times want him countered and not our key draw spell.
What does phantasgorian do so much better?

The only reason I would cut Putrid Imp from my deck is if I was cutting black all together.

[jares]

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.

May I suggest for the nickname to be "Phant" (makes me think of Dumbo )? It does make things more convenient by being mono-syllabic.

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

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.

Putrid Imp is one of the few cards in Dredge that can fulfill one of three roles (warm body for DR/attacking, discard outlet, Ichorid fodder) whenever necessary (it's worth noting that Phantasmagorian is able to fulfill two). I might be wrong here, but Putrid Imp has that distinction over other card choices (I'd be interested to know if there's any other card that can fit that criteria).

I understand what you mean by "interaction with counterspells being unnecessary", but I'd like to point out that running Putrid Imp doesn't require you to interact "unnecessarily" - you can always opt to go with the DDD route if it's absolutely necessary. In comparison, running Phant (and not running other discard outlets that will require you to interact) does not provide you with the option to deviate from the DDD route, which makes the casual Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek affect you like a Timewalk (and Hymn to Tourach might even become two Timewalks! ).

In summary, the weakness(es) of Putrid Imp won't require you to do something unnecessary if the situation calls for it, and in comparison, Phantasmagorian's weakness will always require you to helplessly "interact". In that sense, it's Phantasmagorian that's doing the unnecessary interaction, rather than Putrid Imp.

As a side note, it's worth noting that counterspells are more abundant in the Legacy metagame when compared to discard effects, but I believe that that consideration will require a separate discussion.

Kind Regards,
jares

[jares]

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).

I was also thinking that, if Faithless Looting was to be the only draw spell in the deck, then the dredging capability of the deck would be severely crippled if Surgical Extraction were to target it. That would leave the remaining LEDs as dead cards (given that no Cephalid Coliseums are used). I guess that that would also mean that our recursive threats are safer by one less Surgical Extraction - that's if they ever reach the graveyard given the crippled dredging power.

I might be missing something here, but if I were in a position to DR anything (much less a Sun Titan), then I might probably be winning anyway. I guess my main concern is that we might not be able to get to that "winning position" as effectively as when we were running enough draw spells to accelerate dredging.

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.

I sincerely enjoy seeing Ashen Ghoul being considered in Dredge lists, though I'm unsure of whether or not it would ever make the cut given it's vulnerability to Wasteland. Firestorm surely makes sense, especially given that the overall acceleration of dredging is comparably slower - slowing down your opponent is the next best thing to speeding yourself up! If counterspells were the main consideration, maybe Street Wraith could help with that, as it provides (minimal) acceleration, and also doubles as fodder to your recursive threats.

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).

I used to have the following hierarchy in weighing the importance of how a card contributes to the deck (in decreasing order):

• 1)Dredgers
• 2)Draw Spells
• 3)Discard Outlets

The above list is of course based on the premise that the inner core (for lack of a better term for the Bridges, Narcomoebas, Cabal Therapies, and Ichorids) remains intact. This hierarchy is based on that fact that 1) Dredge wins by Dredging, and 2) Dredging happens when one is able to Draw. Discarding comes third because there will always be the discard step, and Dredging itself also puts cards into the graveyard. I'm not so sure if this would be the case based on this discussion, though. I'll have to put more thought into it from here...

Kind Regards,
jares

[sambra]

Regarding threat diversity in game 2 and 3, would a tranformational sideboard make sense?
Drew Levin (although not really known as a Dredge specialist) wrote about that in his Dark Ascension set review. His transformational Sideboard for a LED/Lootings (14 lands) build looked something like this:

4 Ghoultree
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker
2 Darkblast
1 Life from the Loam

I'm not sure if i like the cc2 from Tombstalker and Tarmogoyf, but maybe you could replace one or both of them with 3-4 Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul.

Has anyone tried something like this recently?

[Michael Keller]

Putrid Imp is one of the few cards in Dredge that can fulfill one of three roles (warm body for DR/attacking, discard outlet, Ichorid fodder) whenever necessary (it's worth noting that Phantasmagorian is able to fulfill two). I might be wrong here, but Putrid Imp has that distinction over other card choices (I'd be interested to know if there's any other card that can fit that criteria).

I understand what you mean by "interaction with counterspells being unnecessary", but I'd like to point out that running Putrid Imp doesn't require you to interact "unnecessarily" - you can always opt to go with the DDD route if it's absolutely necessary. In comparison, running Phant (and not running other discard outlets that will require you to interact) does not provide you with the option to deviate from the DDD route, which makes the casual Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek affect you like a Timewalk (and Hymn to Tourach might even become two Timewalks! ).

In summary, the weakness(es) of Putrid Imp won't require you to do something unnecessary if the situation calls for it, and in comparison, Phantasmagorian's weakness will always require you to helplessly "interact". In that sense, it's Phantasmagorian that's doing the unnecessary interaction, rather than Putrid Imp.

As a side note, it's worth noting that counterspells are more abundant in the Legacy metagame when compared to discard effects, but I believe that that consideration will require a separate discussion.

Kind Regards,
jares

It's also worth noting that Putrid Imp can stack your graveyard in any order that you opt to discard. If facing down a Crypt or Relic, your flexibility is savagely diminished with Phantasmagorian because you obviously don't want to discard key cards only to have them exiled upon resolution. Putrid Imp keeps things healthy in that respect and is an able-bodied creature playing an effective controlled role.

The one thing about Dredge I love more than anything is controlled discard. The deck already has an abnormally high game one win percentage, and the fact you can control your discarded creatures, dredgers,etc. becomes increasingly important post-board where you know hate is coming in.

Ashen Ghouls could be a bit overkill, but I'm not sure yet. I love the fact that they are activated and can be pitched to Imp during the upkeep and subsequently activated the same upkeep, which is actually quite good. However, I see the issue with the land count and I'm wondering if adding an eleventh land would be the right choice. I didn't have any real issues with that two days ago, and more often than not all you really need is one to start the game.

Also jares, one thing to note is that Lion's Eye Diamond off a necessary 'DDD' into a dredger into a Looting actually does constitute it as a 'delayed' draw spell that basically says:

Lion's Eye Diamond - 0
Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Draw two cards, then discard two cards.

This is in the scenario where you feel your hand is strong enough to DDD on the draw game two (against a deck where it would be okay to do so) and go bonkers thereafter. It's situational, but completely possible. You can also naturally draw with Looting into an LED on turn one or two, and go off from there.

I just keep staring at Ashen Ghoul and realize the card has so much more potential than previously given credit for. There have been a lot of cards printed in Dark Ascension that would fit trendy roles, but nothing else extraordinary. I still think having Haste and the ability to cheat itself into play is what gives Ghoul a thumbs up with Ichorid and Shadow, and to be honest there is no other hate card right now except for Extraction (and Extirpate, to a lesser extent) that I care about. I want to diversify my threats, but not over-diversify. I beat Maverick game one without a single Bridge from Below on Wednesday, and my board looked like this turn two: Ichorid, Ichorid, Ashen Ghoul, Shadow, Imp. The beats just kept coming, no matter what. In fact, it was the flying ability of Imp that won me the game along with Ghoul staying in play.

This is where the meta stands, so we need to address it currently. I like the balance my list provides as far as a healthy dose of recurring threats is concerned, but a flaw stands out from it that I knew from the start but wanted to see how 'bad' it truly was, which is to say the number of draw spells. From my standpoint, the game will play itself out depending on your opening hand, which could go either explode (LED/Looting), discard (Imp/Looting), or DDD (with an LED in hand). Obviously there are a multitude of other plays that are possible to start the game, but these seem to be the most common barring a mulligan. If we exclude mulligans, I think we need either more discard outlets, which I think is fine. I do, however, agree with Fortune by saying that if you opt to go the DDD route purposely, then Phantasmagorian is very potent in that respect.

[Izor]

Regarding threat diversity in game 2 and 3, would a tranformational sideboard make sense?
Drew Levin (although not really known as a Dredge specialist) wrote about that in his Dark Ascension set review. His transformational Sideboard for a LED/Lootings (14 lands) build looked something like this:

4 Ghoultree
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker
2 Darkblast
1 Life from the Loam

I'm not sure if i like the cc2 from Tombstalker and Tarmogoyf, but maybe you could replace one or both of them with 3-4 Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul.

Has anyone tried something like this recently?

Nothing against Drew Levin, but this is a sideboard that usually only someone who has never played dredge can ever suggest. This sideboard is so bad it makes me cry.

I used to have the following hierarchy in weighing the importance of how a card contributes to the deck (in decreasing order):

1)Dredgers
2)Draw Spells
3)Discard Outlets

Actually, Lands are no 1)

no 2) are Dredgers tied with discard outlets.

You can't keep any hand w/o Lands. (unless you know for sure that your opponent is playing CBTop)

And a hand with a Dredger but no discard outlet is only marginally better than a hand with a discard outlet but no Dredgers, especially if that discard outlet is a Careful Study or Breakthrough.


I like Hollywood's idea. It's a good thing to opt for more diverse threats in order to fight through Surgical Extraction more effectively.

However, I also believe that it would be wrong to eschew all our insane draw effects for it. I won't play without Breakthrough or Careful Study, because those are the cards that make the deck so consistently fast and powerful. Diversifying your recursive creatures and playing a DR package is a fine thing, only a list with the maximum number of draw effects will usually not have enough room for that. And if I had to choose, Breakthrough wins against Nether Shadow all day long.

If Hollywoods build actually blanked Extraction entirely or made it hugely ineffective, I would consider this. The thing is, it doesn't. It's still owned by Surgical Extraction targeting your first and only dredger. I know that people should probably extract your threats instead, but be it due to the lack of expierience or no matter what, the first Dredger is the most frequent target for Extraction.

And as much as I try to like that plan, Nether Shadow plus Ashen Ghoul are nowhere near as fast as Breakthrough plus Careful Study in those slots, no matter if the deck has Sun Titans or not. So I'd fear to lose against Storm, Ooze and other cards/decks that we'd better just race more often than with the stock LED list and making myself more susceptible to all kinds of fast pre board strategies is in my eyes not the optimal way to fight one single sideboard card (though I admit that it's the most frequent and among the more powerful sb cards against us).



I'm really curious how the list performs, so it would be cool if people shared their expieriences once they got in some testing. Maybe it'll convince me, but I somehow doubt it.

[Michael Keller]

I was also thinking that, if Faithless Looting was to be the only draw spell in the deck, then the dredging capability of the deck would be severely crippled if Surgical Extraction were to target it. That would leave the remaining LEDs as dead cards (given that no Cephalid Coliseums are used). I guess that that would also mean that our recursive threats are safer by one less Surgical Extraction - that's if they ever reach the graveyard given the crippled dredging power.

If an opponent Extracts your Looting's by the time one is already used, that's basically useless. You can just beat them down naturally with your threats as the turns progress. Hitting Looting would be an error as there are far better options at that point for an opposing player to hit and stall the game out with.

I might be missing something here, but if I were in a position to DR anything (much less a Sun Titan), then I might probably be winning anyway. I guess my main concern is that we might not be able to get to that "winning position" as effectively as when we were running enough draw spells to accelerate dredging.

No offense, but I find this to be a fallacy. There are instances where getting in there for nineteen points of damage is simply not enough. This is why you have a combo finish: to overwhelm with tokens and bring a serious finisher into play that greatly improves your chances of winning the turn it comes into play.

I sincerely enjoy seeing Ashen Ghoul being considered in Dredge lists, though I'm unsure of whether or not it would ever make the cut given it's vulnerability to Wasteland. Firestorm surely makes sense, especially given that the overall acceleration of dredging is comparably slower - slowing down your opponent is the next best thing to speeding yourself up! If counterspells were the main consideration, maybe Street Wraith could help with that, as it provides (minimal) acceleration, and also doubles as fodder to your recursive threats.

Ashen Ghoul can also be fodder to your Ichorids if your lands have been Wasted out. It would be effectively the same circumstance if they Wasted you out and shut you off on your draw effects to win the game. A Wasteland is a Wasteland. Street Wraith is more life lost, and at this point in Legacy, that is clearly not an option (with Burn winning two Opens back to back).

Note this was only an experimental list I tried and it happened to work out nicely. I really missed Breakthrough, although I can't say for certain I would want to cut anything else aside from the Ghouls for them right now. With a decreased number of dredgers and recursive threats, Nether Shadow provides a clock and Dread Return fodder, something a bricked Breakthrough and LED combination lack due in large part to the slicing and dicing of other slots in the deck to make room for them. Sure, they're powerful for what they do, but unless someone else can find a way to fit both in effectively I'll probably just cut the Ghouls and go +2 Breakthrough.

Also on Extraction to the first dredger: that would seem to be the case against any Dredge variant. Assuming you have an LED with only one dredger in a build filled with draw effects, and an opponent Extracts it, not only are you going to potentially have no dredgers in your graveyard post-LED/Breakthrough, but you're also going to leave your graveyard open to susceptibility the following turn - with no discard outlets and playing to the strength of the top of your deck, which although might seem on paper good with all of your draw/discard effects, but not so good if you can't capitalize with some sort of recursion. Those variants are lighter on threats and dredgers in general, so you're looking at a graveyard with probably 12-16 cards, maybe one Ichorid, maybe one Bridge, and maybe one Narcomoeba in play (still with more susceptibility to Extraction). Obviously if your opponent is running Extraction, you need to play around it. Thing is, a deck with more draw effects and explosiveness is infinitely more susceptible to an Extraction than a build with a higher threat density, which is really bad.

Which is why we have Nether Shadow to fuel an alternate win condition in Dread Return. If they Extract the target, you're still getting tokens. If they Extract the Bridges, you're still getting your creature. You just really want to be swinging as early and often as possible. As far as I'm concerned, all of our lists are good enough to win game one's. I'm more concerned about the strength of redundancy in game's two and three where we must close or face losing instead. This is where a transformational sideboard would be good, but the fact is we need to have slots dedicated to anti-hate, and a transformational board could really mess up the way the deck plays and suck up useful sideboard space.

I'm really not sure yet as of this point either, but I'll probably be looking into making space again for Breakthrough. It's really just too good to pass up in most instances.

[jares]

I've been playing LEDless Dredge pre-DKA with moderate success, and have been preparing a build post-DKA. After a few iterations, this is the configuration that I've become somewhat comfortable with:

LEDless Dredge
Main Deck

//Dredgers
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug

//Graveyard Effects
4x Bridge from Below
4x Ichorid
4x Narcomoeba
4x Cabal Therapy

//Enablers (Discard/Draw)
4x Putrid Imp
4x Breakthrough
4x Careful Study
4x Faithless Looting

//Lands
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass
4x Tarnished Citadel
4x Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard

4x Faerie Macabre
3x Chain of Vapor
3x Nature's Claim
2x Dread Return
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
1x Firestorm

Notes:

• The most notable deviation from the norm is the exclusion of Dread Return from the Main Deck (as some of you have also started doing). The last configuration I used pre-DKA had 1x Dread Return in the MD and one in the SB (a configuration that I've had moderate success with). I've been leaning more and more towards removing Dread Return from the Main Deck for a variety of reasons, and it seemed to me that the availability of Faithless Looting was the last reason I was looking for.
• This configuration runs 16 lands (12 of them being Gold Lands) to maximize the chances of drawing one in the opening hand. Running 4x Tarnished Citadel might come up as an issue from time to time, but I'd prefer taking damage rather than go through awkward timing issues with Undiscovered Paradise and Cephalid Coliseum. Maybe a 2-2 split would be best.
• I'm still unsure of whether I should be using Faerie Macabre or Leyline of the Void in the anti-GY slots. For now, Faerie Macabre gets the nod because of its flexibility.
• I used to have Woodfall Primus in the SB as a utility card, but the instances where I needed him have been dwindling. I'll probably have to reconsider this when game time comes.
• I would like to have at least 3x Firestorm in the SB, but I'm unsure of what to cut for it. Cutting the Chain of Vapor + Nature's Claim slots to 4 from 6 is an option.

Any additional input would be highly appreciated.

Kind Regards,
jares

I have been pondering the above list for some time now, and I've recently considered going up to 61 cards by adding a 13 Dredger in the form of Darkblast. I haven't done enough testing on this, but the numbers I've gathered seem to support this change:

• The probability of drawing a dredger in your opening hand increased by 2.19%
• The probability of drawing a draw spell in your opening hand decreased by only 0.48% (less than 1%)
• The probability of drawing a discard outlet in your opening hand decreased by only 0.62%
  (less than 1%)
• The probability of drawing a land in your opening hand decreased by only 0.48%
  (less than 1%)
• This might be a fallacious assumption, but 2.19% > 1.58% (total decrease in the three probabilities), and that's good news to me
• I don't have the numbers yet, but I'm sure that it also increases the rate of successful Chain Dredging.

Kindly note that these numbers are based on the list quoted above. Further testing will surely help make these findings conclusive or otherwise. Any additional help with the list will be highly appreciated.

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Actually, Lands are no 1)

I totally forgot about lands! haha

I guess that that's my cue for getting some rest now.

Cheers,
jares

[Davran]

Further testing will surely help make these findings conclusive or otherwise. Any additional help with the list will be highly appreciated.

I don't have access to LED and likely won't any time soon...so I am very interested in developing a solid LED-less list. That said, I like the list and will probably try it out myself when I get my hands on some Faithless Lootings.

I am wondering though why you chose to go up to the 16th land? My current pre-DKA list runs 15 (3x Citadel) and I've rarely had land problems. It seems to me that the extra Citadel might actually be your 61st card, not the additional dredger. As more of a general comment, wizards really needs to print a gold land that doesn't bolt us every time we use it (just a little wishful thinking!).

Also, how as no Dread Return/target in the main been working out for you? While I don't often win a game 1 that way, I do sometimes need Flame-kin Zealot to close against faster decks when giving them another turn isn't an option.

[joemauer]

Regarding threat diversity in game 2 and 3, would a tranformational sideboard make sense?
Drew Levin (although not really known as a Dredge specialist) wrote about that in his Dark Ascension set review. His transformational Sideboard for a LED/Lootings (14 lands) build looked something like this:

4 Ghoultree
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tombstalker
2 Darkblast
1 Life from the Loam

I'm not sure if i like the cc2 from Tombstalker and Tarmogoyf, but maybe you could replace one or both of them with 3-4 Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul.

Has anyone tried something like this recently?

This is not a bad idea. Not the ideal sideboard either though.

Perhaps something more like this:
Dark Confidant x4
Lands/Lotus Petals/ or dismembers x3
Gofy x4
Nimble Mongoose x4

Decks packing surgical extractions will become laughable.

When making a transformational SB we want to strengthen our weakest MU's.
Generally that is Aggro control with quick threats,lots of countermagic, wasteland, and good bit of hate. What is the best strategy against those types of decks?

[Final Fortune]

Putrid Imp is a flying Carnophage.
He attracts swords to plowshares to him, and away from our ichorids and grave trolls.
He keeps ichorid fed and healthy.
He is one of the best tools we have for fighting crypt or relic.
So what if he gets countered, LED dredge can cast so much bustedness in one turn that we lots of times want him countered and not our key draw spell.
What does phantasgorian do so much better?

The only reason I would cut Putrid Imp from my deck is if I was cutting black all together.

The difference between Putrid Imp and Phantasmagorian is that Putrid Imp requires you to draw it, a land and resolve it risking a double Time Walk from Force of Will and/or Daze and exposing your land to Wasteland while Phantasmagorian is mechanically superior game 1 and game 2+ if the opponent is SBing Faerie Macabre and Surgical Extraction instead of Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Considering the most popular decks are playing counterspells, Wastelands, Snapcaster Mage and Surgical Extraction right now, it's an obvious decision unless your metagame is stuck in 2010.

[joemauer]

The difference between Putrid Imp and Phantasmagorian is that Putrid Imp requires you to draw it, a land and resolve it risking a double Time Walk from Force of Will and/or Daze and exposing your land to Wasteland while Phantasmagorian is mechanically superior game 1 and game 2+ if the opponent is SBing Faerie Macabre and Surgical Extraction instead of Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Considering the most popular decks are playing counterspells, Wastelands, Snapcaster Mage and Surgical Extraction right now, it's an obvious decision unless your metagame is stuck in 2010.

It is also not 2011 where we have to fight through a wall of counters every game.

[jares]

The difference between Putrid Imp and Phantasmagorian is that Putrid Imp requires you to draw it, a land and resolve it risking a double Time Walk from Force of Will and/or Daze and exposing your land to Wasteland while Phantasmagorian is mechanically superior game 1 and game 2+ if the opponent is SBing Faerie Macabre and Surgical Extraction instead of Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Considering the most popular decks are playing counterspells, Wastelands, Snapcaster Mage and Surgical Extraction right now, it's an obvious decision unless your metagame is stuck in 2010.

Kindly refer to the comment below for some points that you might want to consider to enhance your reasoning.

Putrid Imp is one of the few cards in Dredge that can fulfill one of three roles (warm body for DR/attacking, discard outlet, Ichorid fodder) whenever necessary (it's worth noting that Phantasmagorian is able to fulfill two). I might be wrong here, but Putrid Imp has that distinction over other card choices (I'd be interested to know if there's any other card that can fit that criteria).

I understand what you mean by "interaction with counterspells being unnecessary", but I'd like to point out that running Putrid Imp doesn't require you to interact "unnecessarily" - you can always opt to go with the DDD route if it's absolutely necessary. In comparison, running Phant (and not running other discard outlets that will require you to interact) does not provide you with the option to deviate from the DDD route, which makes the casual Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek affect you like a Timewalk (and Hymn to Tourach might even become two Timewalks! ).

In summary, the weakness(es) of Putrid Imp won't require you to do something unnecessary if the situation calls for it, and in comparison, Phantasmagorian's weakness will always require you to helplessly "interact". In that sense, it's Phantasmagorian that's doing the unnecessary interaction, rather than Putrid Imp.

As a side note, it's worth noting that counterspells are more abundant in the Legacy metagame when compared to discard effects, but I believe that that consideration will require a separate discussion.

Kind Regards,
jares

I'll be looking forward to anything else that you might like to add to that.

Cheers,
jares

[HokusSchmokus]

Transformational Boards are ually not a good thing in dredge. Also Tombstalker is not a card you want to play. The really shocking thing is that mr. Levin makes money with this kind of bullshit.

[Final Fortune]

It is also not 2011 where we have to fight through a wall of counters every game.

Mental Misstep may have been the reason Firestorm and Phantasmagorian became the outlets of choice but the actual number of counterspells that targeted Putrid Imp then and target Putrid Imp now are for all intents and purposes the same because most aggro-control and control decks were cutting Force of Will and/or Daze for Mental Misstep and the hate for Firstorm and Phantasmagorian was of the Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus variety then as well, so the counterspells were equivalent, the hate was worse and Phantasmagorian based Dredge was still the better deck.

@Jares

Besides Phantasamgorian being better than Putrid Imp game 1 vs everything and Putrid Imp's ability to "play around" Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progentius being less relevant vs the current hate people are actually playing in the DTB, the main difference is that you can't directly compare every situation between having drawn a Putrid Imp, a Land and resolved a Putrid Imp without having your land Wastelanded and having drawn and discarded or dredged into a Phantasmagorian. Putrid Imp is much slower, more conditional, resource intensive and exposes the deck to both countespells and Wastelands while Phantasmagorian is dredgeable, costless, counterproof and a redundant Dread Return target vs Surgical Extracion on Golgari-Grave Troll.

Phantasmagorian is an inevitable, free discard mechanic built directly into the way the deck works, while Putrid Imp is an unnecessary vulnerability that's only better when you draw it, cast it, resolve it, don't get your land Wastelanded and the opponent is playing with and drew into Tormod's Crypt or Relic of Progentius. Do you guys not see how incredibly conditional Putrid Imp is just to make the deck a "little better" vs Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus in exchange for making it a lot worse vs everything else? I agree Putrid Imp allows you to "deviate" from DDD, but game 1 you can't know whether or not deviating from DDD on turn 1 is correct, because not playing Putrid Imp in order to DDD automatically puts you a fundamental turn behind Phantasmagorian and playing Putrid Imp blindly risks counterspells and Wastelands for absolutely no reason but a second turn Cephalid Coliseum that could've been a Wasteland or Stifle proof Breakthrough.

Phantasmagorian never "forces" interaction even vs. Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, assumming your opponent resolve either before you activate a dredged Phantasmagorian you can just decline to activate him. You'd either have to be intentionally misplying the deck or he'd have to top deck it after you double activated it for it to really matter IMO.

As far as Duress is concerned, the only decks that play Duress beat Dredge anyway, which are pretty much Storm and Reanimator, and you can always choose to play vs. Storm game 2. If people start playing Enchantress, then I'll worry about it.

And finally Putrid Imp does jack shit from the graveyard by itself, Phantasmagorian always gives you options by itself and allows you to keep hands you otherwise couldn't by the nature of it just being in your deck. You are going to have more than your fair share of games opening hands without lands or hands without business where Phantasmagorian always performs regardless of whether or not you draw it etc. etc. etc.

Edit: Forgot it's superior at chain dredging.

[Matt]

This is where I'm currently at in my development:

Main:

4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug

4x Putrid Imp
4x Narcomoeba
3x Ichorid
1x Sun Titan
1x Woodfall Primus

4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Dread Return

3x Careful Study
3x Faithless Looting
3x Breakthrough
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

4x Cephalid Colliseum
4x Gemstone Mine
4x City of Brass

Side:

1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Ichorid
4x Chain of Vapor
2x Nature's Claim
4x Faerie Macabre
3x Coffin Purge

It's extremely fast, as you're generally halfway through your deck turn 2-3. It's also very consistent, with 9 drawspells (13 including Cephalid), 4 additional enablers (Imps), 12 dredgers, and a reasonable threat base in the form of Bridge from Below, Dread Return package, and Ichorid. Mainboard Woodfall Primus solidifies the game one win agianst Ensnaring Bridge, Moat, or any troublesome permanent. I like having 3 Breakthrough, 3 Careful Study, and 3 Faithless Looting. This makes hands less awkward while still having a fair probability of dredging into Faithless for LED, but LED can also be popped to recure dredgers and supply Cephalid with mana, if Faithless Looting doesn't show up.

Though this build isn't as vulnerable to Surgical Extraction as most LED builds, I'm sure a well timed Surgical could be really disabling, hence all the space devoted to Coffin Purge and Faerie Macabre. Ichorid comes in for the grindy/surgical match ups. Chain of Vapor is a great all-encompassing kind of card that can almost always come in game two, before you've figured out their hate of choice. Nature's Claim hits Leyline of the Void and forces players to pop their Crypts and Relics prematurely, though Ancient Grudge could take Nature's spot. It just feels like Nature's Claim has a broader range of applications while Ancient Grudge is costly in the hand and is generally shut down by the very hate it's suppose to answer. And lastly, I run one Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, just to give me an edge against Affinity, Elves, and Zoo, considering I currently do not have any spots allotted to Firestorm. My strategy here would be to simply race them and hope I can DR Elesh and stabilize.

Tell me what you think/recommendations,
Matthew

[HokusSchmokus]

My problem with Gorian is that he makes us a turn slower at the least against non blue decks and blue decks withfew counters.Against combo and nic fit this can be deadly.
Also with that many dredgers, starting off with ddd is viable too.

Im gonna test Hollywood's list at my local tourney with a different board,going to comment on possible changes later.

[Izor]

I don't have access to LED and likely won't any time soon...so I am very interested in developing a solid LED-less list. That said, I like the list and will probably try it out myself when I get my hands on some Faithless Lootings.

For everyone without LEDs (or for those who don't want to play it), this is how a LEDless list should look like after I did lots of testing with it:

11 gold lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum

11 Dredgers (4 Troll, 4 Stinky, 2-3 Thug, 0-1 Darkblast)

4 Putrid Imp
2-4 Tireless Tribe
2-4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Breakthrough

3 Ichorid
4 Bridge From Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return

Sideboard:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Firestorm
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
5 semi-flex slots which should include some Coffin Purge/Purify the Grave and some more anti hate in the form of Chain of Vapor, Ingot Chewer, Grudge or whatever you like).


This list is extremely consistent, actually the most consistent Dredge list I've ever run. It lacks the turn 1 kill and generally added speed of LED, but I wouldn't say it's strictly worse.

Only 1 DR in order to have room for the max number of draw effects. This list pretty much always wins between turn 2-4.