At the very least, subjectively speaking, the Grindstone flavor doesn't seem to be too... flavorful. It doesn't seem to be too "Dredg-y" at all.Originally Posted by HokusSchmokus
Cheers,
jares
Which secondary (well, tertiary) undead do you guys think is the best to use against extraction?
- Bloodghast
- Nether Shadow
- Gravecrawler
- Ashen Ghoul
Analysing the disadvantages of each:
Bloodghast needs a land in hand, but can possibly use Darkmor Salvage to recur it
Nether Shadow is probably the easiest to unearth, but 1/1 is kinda lame.
Gravecrawler demands a zombie token, and has to be cast = counterable.
Ashen Ghoul need both 3 creatures and the mana, but it's the most powerful, at 3/1.
What do you guys think?
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
Ashen Ghoul is by far the worst.
I personally don't like Gravecrawler as well, though I know that Adria Romero won a pretty big tournament in Spain lately and he was running them in his board.
Bloodghast is probably the best choice if you're running some Undiscovered Paradise anyway and if you're not afraid of running a Dakmor Salvage, which you'll have to.
I personally like Nether Shadow best, mainly because it can block and because it's pretty much guaranteed to come back each second turn. Being a 1/1 is not actually a big issue, because you basically just want it to die anyway and often you're even glad that they don't trade but just chump.
I don't like Gravecrawler either
I'm not that sure, I mean, it requires almost as much as nether shadow, and you usually have 1 land in play, so I'd say it's not that unusual to be able to unearth it, and it has power 3, being better than the options when bridge has been extracted
Yeah, I think so, although I don't think you need undiscovereds for that to work, just a couple of Darkmors seems ok.
Did you try Nether Shadow vs Extraction already? How did it go for you?
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
Well, I might be too harsh to AG, idk. But I really don't like those recurring threats that tie up mana each turn. I want to be able to bring back more than just one of them each turn and that seems nearly impossible if they cost B.
I have tested Shadow and Bloodghast against Extraction. Honestly, it didn't do a lot more than the whole Purify the Grave/Memory's Journey stuff, which was never really a good solution to the problem either. It takes up more slots from your deck, so I sometimes had to cut my other recurring threats down to make room (being left with say 3 Narcs, 2 Ichorids, 2 other). If your opponent has double Extraction, this might indeed do something.
I hate Dakmor Salvage too much to play Bloodghast tbh, so Nether Shadow would probably be my choice. In my testing, it worked kind of. But too often it doesn't save you anyway to have more diverse threats, and in other games they don't draw extraction and you would be glad you hadn't boarded out your main threats for them. What I can say is that recurring NS isn't a huge problem. You sually won't recur them every turn due to the absence of Phantasmagorian, but it's actually okay in most cases if he returns every second turn.
Curious, what was actually sideboarded out for the painter package to come in. 15 cards in is a lot. I would assume bridge and most of the dredgers.
LMK...
Later EddieO
@Izor
Yeah, the thing about ashen ghoul is true, so using like ~3 ashen ghoul isn't very effective, since you'll recur only one each turn.
I feel like Nether Shadow is a less effective threat because it's not that great without Bridges, and thus it kind of rely on Dread Return. Maybe that's the deal, add NS in place of something other than Ichorid/Moeba and add some DR up to 2 or 3.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
After seeing a lot of people say that Faithless Looting made the deck stable in conjunction to LED, I made this analysis on the "Brokeness" of some Dredge lists. It's not to be taken as last indicator of how good they are, but it at least proves that things are not -exactly- as people say.
I simulated (using Java) 500000 (arbitrarily high number (brute force, babe.)) opening hands for each list, and mulliganed until 4 whenever I didn't have the broken hand.
*opening hands with either Land+Draw+Discard+Dredger or LED+Looting/Cephalid+Dredger.Code://Chance of Being Broken*: Konkurs DRless**: 75,634% Quadlaser: 75,392% LED/LCL: 75,042% Konkurs 1DR: 74,098% LED/2DR: 72,835% Konkurs 2DR: 71,752% LED/voltron00x: 71,639% LED/Flayer: 71,42%
**Konkurs 2DR, but with -2DR +1Thug +1Tireless
I think these are pretty known lists, some from winnings, and Konkurs w/ 2DR is just the plain old LEDless list with Faithless Looting instead of Tireless Tribe. The difference is marginal in chance to have a "broken" hand, and a lot of LED lists out there are currently worse than Konkurs with 2DR.
Indeed, Looting rised the chance of being broken, but LED doesn't have that much to do with it.
P.S.: I took into account that Cephalid Coliseum is only a land when you have CC + careful + draw + dredger as well, the method is kinda complex.
P.S.2: For those who doesn't know, Konkurs is LEDless
Last edited by Gui; 04-20-2012 at 08:45 PM.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
Interesting results. I'd like to inquire about whether or not these figures were based on the premise that LED is already in your opening hand, and that the remaining 6 cards could possibly allow for a "broken" opening play.
My apologies if I missed something here, but I'm a little unsure about how you were able to observe that "LED doesn't have that much to do with it". Were any LEDless lists also simulated?
Kind Regards,
jares
Nope, LED was not in the opening hand, as I posted in bold:
*opening hands with either Land+Draw+Discard+Dredger or LED+Looting/Cephalid+Dredger.
All "Konkurs" lists didn't have LED.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
I believe that Nether Shadow gets the nod because its requirements for being able to come into play is the least conditional when compared to the other options.
Bloodghast has the benefit of being the easiest to put into play in multiples, but is also the most demanding in terms of how you'll need to construct the rest of the deck (which I personally dislike).
Ashen Ghoul and Gravecrawler have the most undesirable drawback of requiring mana to be able to get into play, but between the two, I would prefer Ashen Ghoul because it's less dependent on the other cards in the deck, it has greater power, it can block when necessary, and its ability evades non-Stifle counterspells (though I wouldn't also play more than [2x] of it in the deck).
Cheers,
jares
Noted. My apologies for having missed the obvious points (I really need to get some sleep).
It seems to me that it might be more accurate to say that Faithless Looting, as a major upgrade to Deep Analysis or even Desperate Ravings, allowed LED to be stable enough to warrant inclusion again, as it no longer needs to depend on cards that aren't easily "cast-able" even without it. Your results also seem to suggest the same (unless I've badly misunderstood again).
Cheers,
jares
Thing is, LEDless DRless is technically the same (actually a marginally better) than LED DRless, which is why I said LED doesn't have that much to do with the increased stability.It seems to me that it might be more accurate to say that Faithless Looting, as a major upgrade to Deep Analysis or even Desperate Ravings, allowed LED to be stable enough to warrant inclusion again, as it no longer needs to depend on cards that aren't easily "cast-able" even without it. Your results also seem to suggest the same (unless I've badly misunderstood again
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
@Gui: Good job on the numbers, thank you for sharing your results with us. Correct me if I am wrong, but your analysis has to do with consistency, not speed, right?
The main edge LED Dredge has, in my point of view, is speed, in order to race Ooze, and other combo decks, so the fact LEDless is as consistent as/more consistent still doesn't help you against a turn 2 Ooze.
Updated the OP with some videos and additional information. Still a work in progress.
I appreciate the work, Gui. It's some good piece of information.
However, after trying to objectively and validly compare LED and LEDless builds I think that there are just way too many factors that would have to be taken into account.
I did some testing a few weeks ago, when I goldfished 50 hands with Quadlaser and DRless/LEDless. LEDless appeared to be way better on all accounts. Today I know that one thing that made LED look worse than it would actually have been in a real game scenario was that I always tried to go off as fast as possible when I had the LED in my hand. But in a real game, you can very often wait one more turn and 'go off' in a much more threatening way. What I want to say with this is that it is imho impossible to take everything into account, thus it's impossible to say which build is better.
It's well possible that your way of doing it is better and more representative for the actual power level of the deck variants. In that case, it does not surprise me that much that LEDless seemed so strong. I have always said that LEDless is not invalidated by the printing of Looting and I still think that LEDless has a whole lot going for it in the current metagame. People are slowly moving away from the Snapcaster-Extraction hate again (RUG Delver often doesn't play it at all now), and the more artifact based hate we see ou there, the better LEDless is due to the discard dorks. LED folds to a Crypt plus pressure, Tireless Tribe often laughs at it. That's a fact.
Mojeh brings up a good point as well. Your results factor in the 'going off' potential of every opening hand, but they don't quite show how often LED is one turn faster because it's discard outlet is actually a draw spell at the same time and costs 0 mana on top of it. Likewise, you don't see what happens when the opening hands are bad. Land+LED+Dredger is horrible, while Tribe instead of LED is an easy keep after some mulligans. As I said, it's impossible to take everything into account.
Still, thanks for doing this. When I do another testing like this, I'll post it here as well.
@Mojeh and @Izor
Thanks for the replies.
Yes, indeed, as I said, it's not all about this analysis, but it's better than the regular "This is better, this is not" we usually have here. Most of the things, if not all, that Izor pointed I have already thought about. I just wanted to point out why saying "The interaction between Looting and LED put the deck to where it is" is not necessarily right.
About the speed, LED can go off on turn 1, while LEDless in these configuration shown would go off only @ turn 2. But against a turn 2 Ooze, it's almost the same, because they will only activate it at turn 3. I know there are corner cases (a lot of them), but going off turn 2 is usually just as good.
Some other example of things that can be considered is how Konkurs can more easily fight Grafdiggers and LotV (although still hard) and how can LED + flayer, even tho less consistant, can turn1 kill a TES player (although way less often than people say so).
Also, just a sidenote, speed and consistancy go along together. If you can race as fast as T1 in one game and have to go T10 in other 9 games, your deck is not really fast. This is an exageration to show that more consistancy can mean more speed.
Lastly, and probably most important, Quadlazer list with -1 ichorid +1 dredger probably has the most amazing Brokeness chance, but I don't have the code I used to simulate right now to tell for sure. Just thought about it later.
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
I've been playing LEDless for a very long time, and I always play lists focusing on consistency. However, a DRless-LEDless list can't actually fight a turn 2 Ooze.
Let's say you make about 6 zombies and use a couple os therapies (and also entomb some Ichorids, of course) and your opponent has a Ooze and 2 tapped lands (or even 1 untapped), do you think your victory is really ensured? I guess not.
If your opponent play one ore more threats, while keep reaping your GY, you'll probably lose.
If you can actually go off turn 2, which we know is not that easy.
This is what I've learned by my own experience, playing 15 lands, 4 Ichorid, 1 DR and 13 Dredgers, i don't know about yours. So, I am testing with +1 DR/-1 Dredger, and maybe a target MD, alongside 4 Firestorms (meta call).
The point is, LED Dredge does solve this issue, even being a little less consistent, and also, is better against any combo.
What is your guys' usual board plan against RUG Tempo or any deck packing Snapcaster / Surgical? For reference, I'm currently playing Adria's list with a slightly modified sideboard (with Coffin Purges and an extra Dread Return in the board).
My gut reaction is to bring out all Breakthroughs and go with the 'shave' technique to bring in 6 cards. Something like this:
-4 Breakthrough
-1 Golgari Thug
-1 Dread Return
+3 Ancient Grudge
+2 Gravecrawler / Ashen Ghoul / Nether Shadow
+1 Undiscovered Paradise
My reasoning behind this is that you usually don't want to go for an all-in card like Dread Return, which isn't really effective unless you have bridges, and if you have bridges and they aren't removed, you're in a good spot anyways. Breakthrough is also another "all-in" card that can get you in trouble if they bring in Crypt along with Surgical Extraction. I don't want to cut a Careful Study, Cabal Therapy, or Ichorid, so I opt to take out a Golgari Thug. Yes it hurts my dredging, so maybe I should be taking a Study out instead. I'm of the mindset that you SHOULDN'T take out LEDs, because the card allows you to put pressure on your opponent. A lot of times it comes down to overwhelming your opponent before they can muster up an answer.
I'm still not sure what I like better between Ashen Ghoul, Nether Shadow, and Gravecrawler. I think it might be a preference call in the end, as each has a significant advantage and a significant drawback.
Also, against Crypt / Cage / et all, do you usually bring in extra Claims to supplement the Ancient Grudge count? Or do you think bringing in 3 Grudges is sufficient?
Thanks!!
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