LED is only a liability as long as you're sacrificing space in your SB for space in your MD, and personally I'm SBing every card I need to and some of the cards I want to already so it doesn't seem to take anything away from the deck by playing it fwiw.Originally Posted by Hollywood
I mean, the card is stupid good game 1, so I guess my question is what is it hurting in games 2 and 3? If you think playing LED game 1 leaves you with shitty Cephalid Coliseums game 2, that's a legitimate argument and one I've made before myself several times with the Phantasmagorian list.
Do you mean, like, if you're playing lands in your board? If so, I agree with this 100%. If you ever find yourself siding out LED for lands, then just ask why weren't those lands in your deck in the first place.
One quick note I've wanted to ask some people here, but how many cards are you bringing in g2 when you're unsure what hate they'll have. I am kind of getting the impression that some people are over-boarding. Hopefully not, though.
On the discussion of LED being a liability, I just have a question for anyone considering their removal. When dredge is seeing the most success it has in months (fuck, over a year actually), why are we eager to change things? I know it's fun to brew, but we're talking about fixing something that ain't broke.
I like that you're trying to weed-out what you think is unnecessary in the deck, but I find it difficult to believe that what Street Wraith brings to the table is much more necessary than what Putrid Imp is able to contribute. Let me try to break it down a bit:
- Putrid Imp:
- Discard outlet
- Warm Body for creating tokens, casting spells from the graveyard, attacking, etc.
- Ichorid fodder
- Street Wraith:
- Draw Mechanism (draw 1; virtually uncounterable)
- Ichorid fodder
Basically, you're saying that you need the "draw mechanism" more than the "instant-speed discard outlet combined with a multipurpose warm body". I find that difficult to believe, given that, in comparison, you already have 16 draw mechanisms (including LED), but only 8 warm bodies (4 Ichorid, 4 Narcomoeba) and only 8 reliable discard outlets (not counting LED nor Cabal Therapy; of course, there's always the discard phase, but it doesn't seem like your list is built to take that route).
In summary, while I don't contest the possibility that Putrid Imp might not be absolutely necessary, I find that Street Wraith isn't the replacement that fits the criteria of being "necessary".
I find myself avoiding using Pithing Needle because you can't really board it in on Game 2 without first seeing the hate that your opponent is packing (except maybe if the hate is also in the main deck, like Scavenging Ooze), and also because it can also be easily addressed (especially in the decks where Scavenging Ooze is played, because Qasali Pridemages are also there more often than not). I find Firestorm to be the more reliable choice against Scavenging Ooze, given that it can also facilitate discarding without any hiccups, not to mention that it also deals damage to more than one target.
One illustration that made me realize how broken Firestorm is when used in Dredge is that it's essentially a Flame Wave for one mana! That's a total savings of 6 mana! But wait, there's more! You actually get additional forward motion by discarding stuff into it! What a deal!
I hope that helps.
Cheers,
jares
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One illustration that made me realize how broken Firestorm is when used in Dredge is that it's essentially a Flame Wave for one mana! That's a total savings of 6 mana! But wait, there's more! You actually get additional forward motion by discarding stuff into it! What a deal!
Seriously though Firestorm is a bomb a must of 4x in every SB.
I also find it awkward to see main-deck cards being stuffed into the sideboard to make space for LED. It does look necessary sometimes, depending on the configuration of the rest of the sideboard. Generally, though, it sounds inefficient to "sacrifice space in the SB" this way, quoting Final Fortune.
It's not uncommon for me to not board-in anything if I don't have a clear understanding of the hate I'll be going against in Game 2. I find that, if I'm not (blindly) expecting something that is game-ending for game 2 (e.g. Leyline of the Void), or if there's nothing in my sideboard that will clearly improve my chances against the match-up, then I would probably benefit more by NOT diluting the deck.
I got that from the Feldman School of Dredging, by the way.
I've personally been a LEDless Dredge player ever since I learned to Dredge, and the way I went about it is somewhat different. Given the success I've had with going LEDless, I had to convince myself that adding LED to my list was unarguably necessary. I won't deny also being tempted to access the raw power available when wielding LED, but eventually, sound reasoning won me over, and I went on to objectify why I should or shouldn't use LED. So, in my case, I was thinking in exactly the same way that you are - I was not too eager to change things, and was trying to understand whether "fixing what ain't broke" in my LEDless build would be the best thing.
I'm currently trying to finalize my findings on this, and I'll try to find the time to have that posted.
Cheers,
jares
Can't we get a more enticing catalog picture of Firestorm?Order Now!
Seriously though Firestorm is a bomb a must of 4x in every SB.
I'm currently running [3x] in my sideboard, but would love to have that 4th one if I had the room for it.
Cheers,
jares
Have you considered Woodfall Primus instead of Angel?
He usually reads like this, in conjunction with Cabal Therapy: Destroy two target non-creature permanents, while stripping something from your foe's hand, and making zombies in the process.
Let your Dredge 6 be: Narco, Narco, Narco, Bridge, Bridge, Dread Return
Any one have any thoughts or information on running bloodghast in an LED Faithless version of the deck? I have been trying it and I like it because you don't need ichorid fodder, so you have more room in the deck to go off on turn 2 reliably. I ran the deck in SCG memphis and got 16th place, and I had no idea what I was doing really. Also, main deck firestorm was a mistake, if you notice that in the list. Tried it, didn't work when I had it.
I board into ichorids game 2 against decks that don't run many creatures.
That is a solid piece of advice! If you are not sure what hate is coming your way just keep on course then adjust for game three if you get blown out.
It's not uncommon for me to not board-in anything if I don't have a clear understanding of the hate I'll be going against in Game 2. I find that, if I'm not (blindly) expecting something that is game-ending for game 2 (e.g. Leyline of the Void), or if there's nothing in my sideboard that will clearly improve my chances against the match-up, then I would probably benefit more by NOT diluting the deck.
I got that from the Feldman School of Dredging, by the way.
The Idea of playin Bloodghast instead of Ichorid is stupid, sry...
1.) It is only 2/1, but thats not really a disadvantage
2.) You need Landdrops, which youre only getting from Dakmor Salvage (which is incredible bad, because you dont want to dredge only 2, and most times you dredge out with LED (or Breakthrough), you have to discard it at the same moment.) Additional Landdrops in Hand are luxury, imho, or you have to play Undiscovered Paradise, which could slow your tempo down in some cases.
3.) It only has haste, when you have already won the game.
and the worst disadvantage is:
4.) If you have no Therapy (or Dread Return, if youre running it...), he does not produce tokens. So an Extraction on Cabal Therapy wins your opponent the game, or buys him 5 timewalks. Meddling Mage (yes hes irrelevant, because nobody plays him now) on Cabal Therapy is your death.
I think the synergy between Ichorid and BfB is much more important, than being not dependend of black creatures in your Graveyard.
Have you considered Woodfall Primus instead of Angel?
He usually reads like this, in conjunction with Cabal Therapy: Destroy two target non-creature permanents, while stripping something from your foe's hand, and making zombies in the process.I like that you're trying to weed-out what you think is unnecessary in the deck, but I find it difficult to believe that what Street Wraith brings to the table is much more necessary than what Putrid Imp is able to contribute. Let me try to break it down a bit:
Putrid Imp:
Discard outlet
Warm Body for creating tokens, casting spells from the graveyard, attacking, etc.
Ichorid fodder
Street Wraith:
Draw Mechanism (draw 1; virtually uncounterable)
Ichorid fodder
Basically, you're saying that you need the "draw mechanism" more than the "instant-speed discard outlet combined with a multipurpose warm body". I find that difficult to believe, given that, in comparison, you already have 16 draw mechanisms (including LED), but only 8 warm bodies (4 Ichorid, 4 Narcomoeba) and only 8 reliable discard outlets (not counting LED nor Cabal Therapy; of course, there's always the discard phase, but it doesn't seem like your list is built to take that route).
In summary, while I don't contest the possibility that Putrid Imp might not be absolutely necessary, I find that Street Wraith isn't the replacement that fits the criteria of being "necessary".Mäh, i stay with the quadlazer... :DI find myself avoiding using Pithing Needle because you can't really board it in on Game 2 without first seeing the hate that your opponent is packing (except maybe if the hate is also in the main deck, like Scavenging Ooze), and also because it can also be easily addressed (especially in the decks where Scavenging Ooze is played, because Qasali Pridemages are also there more often than not). I find Firestorm to be the more reliable choice against Scavenging Ooze, given that it can also facilitate discarding without any hiccups, not to mention that it also deals damage to more than one target.
One illustration that made me realize how broken Firestorm is when used in Dredge is that it's essentially a Flame Wave for one mana! That's a total savings of 6 mana! But wait, there's more! You actually get additional forward motion by discarding stuff into it! What a deal!
I hope that helps.
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!
I don`t like stop playing a deck when the meta becomes agains us... but in my local game store more players are going to use Reanimate... they are 6 already in an average of 20 people...
This week in a few casual matches I lost 90% of t1 to Elesh Norn...
I`m thinking to use the following SB to my LED-looting list:
4x Faeries
4x Leylines
4x Nature`s Claim
2x Chewers
1x Iona (I didn`t took out DR from my MD... it made a lot of diference to play without the Titan... I prefere like this)
Coments are wellcome !!!
In a Meta with too much Reanimator, Chain of Vapor is better than claim for sure. Against Reanimator i think Faerie is > Leyline, because most times, your opponent boards in bounce and they wouldnt board Peedle in, if the dont know that you use Faeries.
My SB is like that:
4x Faerie
3x Chain of Vapor
1x Ray of Revelation
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Putrid Imp (because i play only 3 maindeck atm)
4x experimental Flexslots (e.g. Firestorm/Gitaxian Probe, Cofffin Purge, Memory's Journey, Thoughtseize)
and i perform really good against Reanimator (I never lost 1 whole match in my life against it, but i know, that its a very bad matchup and of course I had some luck in these games.)
If you play Ray, don't forget to board it in, because its a solution for Animate Dead, which means, you only have to therapy on exhume/reanimate.
Actually no, I mean when you don't have enough space for answers to the opponent's hate or you don't have enough space to address a specific deck in the metagame with the hate you need. Dredge SBs are very much like Storm SBs, objectively speaking you don't really need to use them until you encounter an insurmountable problem so your ability to play the maximally degenerate MD is based on the amount of hate you expect to face.
So today i played in my weekly local legacy turnament which has some really good players from the northeast it was 4 rounds though i didnt write anything down i remember most of it. Also i usually play canadian thresh but got bored with it so i tried out dredge and absolutly LOVE IT!! This deck is broken and though i might of made a play mistake or two during this tournament i thought i manuvered the deck pretty well so anyway here is the report
Round 1 ( dredge mirror)
I never have seen anyone play dredge there and today 3 people including myself show up with it thankfully i had leyline in board but had no idea of how to play the mirror so i took it in stride
game 1 he seems to draw no dredgers i dont know why he kept the hand but i make a small army of zombies and bash
game 2 we both mull never seeing each others leylines but i turn 2 am able to make 12 zombies and dread return a 10/10 golgari grave troll thank to the help of a break through 4 bridges and some trolls
so far im 1-0 , 2-0 in games
Round 2 burn
Im kinda worried b/c they can have a fast clock and kill thier own guys off. he also had spark elementals and hellspark which i had to watch out for. thankfully i make a decent size army and kill him turn 3 with a flamekin bash
game 2 he brings in some grave yard removal but i dodge it and he cant slow me down i wreck him around turn 4
2-0 matches 4-0 in games
Round 3 Canadian thresh (my own deck i lent to my friend)
so i know this is going to be hard b/c i play main deck ooze in my thresh which never sees play thank fully but
Game 1 he counters all my attempts to put cards in my yard but countering breakthrough, imp and faithless, by this time his turn 1 delver is getting me close to dead and he seal the deal with goyf and bolt
Game 2 I land a imp though he surgicals my stinkweeds but i kept a troll for percaution and it eventually wins my making a tone of tokens while he draws lands
Game 3 I keep a no land hand and since im on the draw i thought this would work, never hanve a tried this but it payed off he keeps a hand with counters and 2 WASTELANDS i just keep dreding and get ichorids into play let them dies he has goyf and delver holding back i have 4 zombies at one point but he rips surgical and takes my bridges thankfully i have ichorids to return and make it work after all
3-0 matches 6-1 in games
Round 4 (B/w stoneblade)
Game 1 there is nothing for him to really do i just go to town at one point he vindcates his own bob to get rid of briddges but it dosent matter i have a team and they take it down
Game 2 he tells me he is mad b/c he ran 4 leylines last week but not this week go me
though he does have extractions he dosent it one, but turn 1 he hymns me my hand is Putrid imp, faithless looting, dread return, stinkweed imp, city of brass and 2 cephilid collesisums he hits my stinkweed and dread retrurn kinda lucky for me after that i dredge all 4 brdiges and make a army of zombies and ichorids to be undefeated
4-0 in matches 8-1 in games
I had a great first time with this deck its powerlevel is obserd and i think i played it pretty well to nab a load of store credit I played the list that just recently got second at SCG but played 61 cards and ran the 4th therapy (great choice) dont butcher me to much this was a report of the top of my head
Props
to dredge in general
the encounter for hosting awesome tournaments
my opponents for not drawing leylines
Slops
having to face my friends with my own deck
also ive realized that the anithate sideboards just arent really all that neccessary since they HAVE TO draw it to become relevant i smashed through extractions all day and still came out on top thanks for listening
I am not a Mod. English is not my mother tongue. But this post made my eyes bleed.
Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate tournaments reports, but it shouldn't be that hard to extract the valuable information.
Conan, what is best in life? - To crush your enemies, see them driven before you... and to hear the lamentation of their women!
I didn`t mean T1 ... I meant G1 ...
And of course when I say 90% I didn`t count it ... I just mean it is a lot (more then I expected)...
You don't play just Salvage..you also play 1x Dryad Arbor..which is both a creature (warm body to sac) and a land..WHICH you can get back with Dread Return AND you can sacrifice to Dread return (in fact, I believe since sac'ing is part of the cost you can sac the Arbor and also get it back..allowing you to loop dread returns (with Ghasts in the yard) to create an instant zombie army). I run Bloodghasts in my version and it's pretty retarded...
I find that the points that are raised here are fairly valid, and I would agree that the merits of running Ichorid still outweigh its dependency on black creatures, by far.
I wouldn't say that running Bloodghast doesn't have its own merits, though, but I honestly have yet to see a build that has smooth synergy with it, given that the nature of the card almost demands the rest of the deck to adjust to it.
In summary, I believe that, at this point, Ichorid fits the Dredge archetype more seamlessly than Bloodghast does.
Kind Regards,
jares
I'm sure that your build is retarded, as most Dredge builds are, but kindly take note of the points stated by Sedris regarding how Bloodghast interacts with the rest of the deck - the creature simply does not fit with the natural tendencies of the deck. Let me try to list down a few more simple points that I can add to the list:
- Landfall, by definition, requires lands, and I don't think that it's difficult to understand that the fewer lands in the deck, the lesser the probability of triggering landfall. Dredge traditionally plays around 14 lands in the main deck, and the probability of getting 2 or more is a mere 52.19%. I'm personally running the most number of lands among the people that I know (16), and even then, I only have a 60.83% chance of getting at least 2 in the opening hand.
- Undiscovered Paradise is a great solution to the lack of lands, but you're more likely to NOT have it in your opening hand with just a 39.95% chance of drawing it in your first seven.
- Relying on being able to dredge into Dakmor Salvage obviously creates a setback of only being able to dredge 2 cards. Also, consider that Dakmor Salvage takes up the even more space from your business cards/enablers/Gold Lands, inducing even more inconsistency.
- A simple comparison:
- Ichorid depends on being able to dredge into the several black creatures (16 for my build, including the Ichorids themselves) in the deck, and can be easily recurred over several turns if necessary.
- Bloodghast depends on 2 (or less) Dakmor Salvage to be dredged into, a 39.95% chance of getting an Undiscovered Paradise in the opening hand, a chance of around 52.19% to get an additional land to trigger Landfall, or a Dread Return (requiring three creatures, which is another dependency) targeting the singleton Dryad Arbor instead of maybe a Sun Titan/Flame-Kin Zealot/Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur (just for fun
) that can all easily win you the game right then and there. Kindly note that, among the list of dependencies that Bloodghast has, only an opening-hand Undiscovered Paradise can reliably recur it (if the creature is even able to get to the graveyard, given that it can't really get there without help).
- Dakmor Salvage and Dryad Arbor are NOT Gold Lands. Dryad Arbor is even worse in that it can't cast anything other than a possible Nature's Claim from the sideboard. Dakmor Salvage can at least help with hard-casting Cabal Therapy and Putrid Imp, though it does come into play tapped.
I believe that this list can probably go on, but I'm sure that you already get the point. Also, I'd like to note that I'm not trying to hate on Bloodghast here, because, as I've noted in a previous comment, I believe that the card is also able to contribute uniquely to the deck. Unfortunately, the list of relevant considerations are simply stacked-up against it, and it will take a lot more to smooth-out these rough edges.
If what you mean by this is that you can target the same Dryad Arbor that you used to pay the cost of Dread Return, then I think that you're mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this is how it goes:
- 1. Declare that you are casting the spell.
- 2. Choose any modes, targets, and alternate/additional costs for the spell.
- 3. Determine the total cost for the spell, and pay it (you may activate mana abilities in order to do this).
- 4. The spell goes on the top of the stack.
- 5. Each player, starting with the active player, gets priority and may cast instant-speed spells and activate abilities.
- 6. After all spells and abilities above it resolve, the spell resolves.
Unless I'm mistaken, you cannot target the same Dryad Arbor that you intend to use to pay the cost of Dread Return because it's not in the graveyard yet.
I hope that helps.
Cheers,
jares
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