[Deck] Dredge

[Michael Keller]

I still feel Dread Return enables some incredibly broken plays, in addition to enabling a large number of Zombies to enter the battlefield. I don't see it as a "win more" card, I see it as a "win now" card. Bringing something incredibly powerful into play completely changes the dynamic of the game and can help as an alternate means of winning games.

I wouldn't dismiss it quite yet.

[Final Fortune]

It's not so much that Dread Return is "win more," but a question of just how much you want to build your deck around Dread Return and whether or not that is or isn't a good idea games 2+ based on what kind of hate you expect to see i.e. it's better vs Surgical Extraction than Tormod's Crypt type effects.

Playing Dread Return, in my mind, is either a game 1 consideration where Dread Return increases our clock one turn where we need to race what we can't reliably slowdown with Cabal Therapy or a reaction to indirect MD hate if you look at it from a strategic perspective. Altho' I think there's some argument for just running 1xDread Return to differentiate a little, you can spare the 4th Ichorid for it as long as you have another DR and a target in your SB to represent a clear post-board plan with Dread Return.

[HokusSchmokus]

Diversification, if the opponent removes Golgari Grave Troll(s) from the game with Surgical Extraction then you still have a target worth Dread Returning left in your deck.

Also, people need to stop speaking non-sense about "only" Dredging three activations and having to draw 4 cards being a "bad" thing, being able to trigger the card twice in the same turn, or multiple turns, and keeping some cards in hand is what makes the card busted. Those drawn cards matter too, a lot.

Are people really extracting GGT in your meta?

[Final Fortune]

Are people really extracting GGT in your meta?

It's not as if the opponent purposely targets GGT in order to prevent you from DRing him, but the opponent will accidentally prevent you from DRing him by targeting your first Dredger in response to your draw spell etc. and remove every other copy from the game, effectively cutting you off from being able to target anything better than a Stinkweed Imp.

So yeah, if the opponent uses Surgical Extraction to stop you from your first dredge activation, it's going to incidentally hit GGT 1/3rd of the time and I do not want my DR to be "completely useless" when that happens.

[NQN]

Hey,
just decided I want to spin some cards again and will do so at GP Gent.
Since my only two decks left are TES and Dredge i am currently reading this thread and trying to get to know the meta again :)
But as for the Dread Return question: Since I started playing dredge 19293239 years ago, people tried to add fanzy DR targets or cut it entirely because they believe it´s bad without targets etc etc.
Let me tell you one thing: DR is never dead. I can´t count the number of times I went like:
Ichorids->Attack->Therapy->DR Target Ichorid->Therapy->100 Zombies, go.
GGT is the one and only target u need preboard and if it get´s removed somehow, just reanimate a moeba or an Imp and tell them they suck ;)

[K1w1]

After reading some posts here, i want to tell you my opinion about Dread Return.

I agree that Dread Return helps you a lot in situations, in which you could lose. Or targets that help you in this scenario.
But the thing is, if you play dread return targets with 2-3 dread returns, you can lose due to this.
Game 1 you win easily, imo. There are some situations in which you wont ( Maverick = Ooze, Reanimator = Elesh + Archon, NicFit = Ooze + Pernicious Deed + Maelstrom Pulse ) but normally you can race them. Maybe not the Elesh + Archon against Reanimator, but this just happens.
Game 2 and 3 you want to protect yourself against graveyard hate. And if you play dread return + targets, you have more dead cards in your hand or you can draw cards you don't need.

I played Flayer + 3 Dread Returns, too, but i came to the conclusion, that the quadlazer is the way we ( or I ) should go.
For example: You have an opener with : 3 Dredger, 2 Lands, breakthrough, and DR or DR target. I would more likely have a putrid imp.

Btw, i'm not saying DR is a bad card and you shouldn't play them. Just for me!

K1w1

[Michael Keller]

It's not so much that Dread Return is "win more," but a question of just how much you want to build your deck around Dread Return and whether or not that is or isn't a good idea games 2+ based on what kind of hate you expect to see i.e. it's better vs Surgical Extraction than Tormod's Crypt type effects.

The general consensus among players cutting Dread Return is that they feel it facilitates kills that can already be set in place just as fast based on the deck's incredible strength of speed and resiliency without Dread Return - which in turn obsoletes its utility. You can build a deck around Dread Return, but I don't feel as though that is the reason for its purposeful exclusion by players opting to not run it.

Of course, people will continue to be subjective on the varying types of targets to use - if they opt to run them. I think the Flame-Kin/Griselbrand package has the potential to be incredibly viable - as indicated by this recent Open. I also feel as though a legitimate argument can be made for cutting Iona all together.

Let's think about this outside the box for one second:

Iona generally shines in match-ups where a deck operates primarily on a single color to facilitate wins (Burn, Elves, High Tide, etc.). Against Burn, you're already just gaining life off Griselbrand attacks - if not destroying an opponent the usual way flat out. Against High Tide, drawing/dredging into fourteen cards seems absurdly good (a built-in-almost quintuple Ancestral Recall just for you). And against Elves, you can still outgun them with the speed the deck possesses in addition to Firestorms in the board. I understand what it can do - and believe me I still run it - but I am beginning to wonder if it is really all that necessary against match-ups we already have favorable percentages against.

I honestly think Griselbrand - even as a primary or an alternate Dread Return target - may have catapulted this archetype into the heavens, and I'm being generous on that assumption. It's a free Yawgmoth's Bargain in a deck that wants to draw cards and flip itself sideways. Hell, just drawing cards at that rate is still unequivocally good.

[dredgekid]

Which needs 3 DRs in one turn...

DR Grisel, pay 7 life, flip your deck.
DR Flayer, do the usual stuff
DR GGT, win.

How many DRs would you want in that deck?

Well I'm playing quadralazer so zero :rollseyes:

However, the list I am referring to is an established list and a valid choice and grisl is a strict upgrade to sphinx and sun titan. Just because the flayer list isn't your preference, don't assume it's bad

[NecroYawgmoth]

Well I'm playing quadralazer so zero :rollseyes:

However, the list I am referring to is an established list and a valid choice and grisl is a strict upgrade to sphinx and sun titan. Just because the flayer list isn't your preference, don't assume it's bad

I don't assume its bad, I play a Flayerlist myself, LOL.

Thing is that the normal Flayerkill needs 2 resolved DRs and the Griselbrand-lists need 3...

[Holly]

But most Flayer-Builds allready play 3 DR, for the kill you need 2 in your graveyard.
With Griselbrand you can "go off" with 2 DR + Flayer + GGT, or 1 DR + Griselbrand and since you can draw 7 you will allways both your others DR in your graveyard.

Just saying, as a matter of fact I haven't played with Dredge, today will probably my first time if I dont settle for Goblins in the last minute.

[NecroYawgmoth]

Yeah, I see the logic here.

The largest problem is that Flayerlists are already very very tight because 3DR & Flayer are 4 Slots. Finding a 5th slot for Griselbrand seems uberhard, imo.

[joemauer]

Yeah, I see the logic here.

The largest problem is that Flayerlists are already very very tight because 3DR & Flayer are 4 Slots. Finding a 5th slot for Griselbrand seems uberhard, imo.

It is a combo kill. I would not play Flayer without something along the lines of Grislebrand/SotLT. If you are going for the combo route for the kill, whether it be Flayer or Flame-Kin, then the best way to optimize this is to have three dread returns+kill button+draw guy. I have goldfished enough to know this is what you want. Elsewise the kill button + perfect situation(bridges & Narcos or double dread return) won't happen enough to really matter. Upping the dread returns to three and adding a draw creature increases your speed significantly.

In order to go the combo kill route you must trim other aggro-control cards such as ichorids or cabal therapies. You then have a tougher time with the grindy games, but you will have the fastest deck possible that won't auto lose to Force of Will.

I'm not advocating the combo route, especially in a RUG meta, but if you are going to build your deck in that direction then do it right.

[Final Fortune]

The general consensus among players cutting Dread Return is that they feel it facilitates kills that can already be set in place just as fast based on the deck's incredible strength of speed and resiliency without Dread Return - which in turn obsoletes its utility. You can build a deck around Dread Return, but I don't feel as though that is the reason for its purposeful exclusion by players opting to not run it.

Of course, people will continue to be subjective on the varying types of targets to use - if they opt to run them. I think the Flame-Kin/Griselbrand package has the potential to be incredibly viable - as indicated by this recent Open. I also feel as though a legitimate argument can be made for cutting Iona all together.

Let's think about this outside the box for one second:

Iona generally shines in match-ups where a deck operates primarily on a single color to facilitate wins (Burn, Elves, High Tide, etc.). Against Burn, you're already just gaining life off Griselbrand attacks - if not destroying an opponent the usual way flat out. Against High Tide, drawing/dredging into fourteen cards seems absurdly good (a built-in-almost quintuple Ancestral Recall just for you). And against Elves, you can still outgun them with the speed the deck possesses in addition to Firestorms in the board. I understand what it can do - and believe me I still run it - but I am beginning to wonder if it is really all that necessary against match-ups we already have favorable percentages against.

I honestly think Griselbrand - even as a primary or an alternate Dread Return target - may have catapulted this archetype into the heavens, and I'm being generous on that assumption. It's a free Yawgmoth's Bargain in a deck that wants to draw cards and flip itself sideways. Hell, just drawing cards at that rate is still unequivocally good.

Considering the number of Ichorid's between the MD and the SB is only relevant when facing Tormod's Crypt effects, I'm wondering whether or not we should be persuing the opposite extreme of reducing the total number of "win conditions" MD to their absolute minimum in order to increase the consistency of the deck in terms of lands and dredgers.

Does anyone think there's really any difference between 4xIchorid, 3xIchorid and 1xDread Return, 3xIchorid and 2xDread Return, 2xIchorid and 2xDread Return and 1xTarget, 2xIchorid and 3xDread Return and 1xFlayer of the Hatebound that actually determines whether or not the deck will win or lose game 1?

What's the minimum bounds for having "just enough" win conditions to end the game, 3xIchorid, 2xIchorid and a 1xDread Return, or even 2xIchorid just aren't good enough? If the number of win conditions game 1 were irrelevant, assumming we only really need Narcomoeba, Cabal Therapy and Bridge from Below to actually win games after resolving draw spells, then why aren't we playing with the cards that facilitate gaining advantages i.e. lands that cast spells that put us in a winning position game 1 instead of SBing them for game 2 and only bringing more of them in only as a reaction to the opponent's hate instead of playing lands down game 1 when the composition of the win conditions is meaningless?

Anybody got the balls to just play with Quad Lazer -2 Ichorid, +2 Tarnished Citadel game 1 with the position of the Ichorids and additional Lands switched to see whether or not it actually matters?

[Calado]

IDK, the game is so good when I get Ichorids that even without a bridge it puts pressure on the opponent, so trading it for lands doesn't seems good on Theory.
Trading for DR on the other hand, can increase the chance of win, because when you can win with Ichorids, you can win DRing Iona/Flayer/Troll/etc too, but sometimes you need the DR target to win (against combo, removal, etc).
I agree that the gain may not be high enough to guarantee inclusion, but it fits the role of "pulling wins from nowhere" (and I still love the FKZ btw).

[Izor]

Anybody got the balls to just play with Quad Lazer -2 Ichorid, +2 Tarnished Citadel game 1 with the position of the Ichorids and additional Lands switched to see whether or not it actually matters?

I've been playing Quadlazer with -1 Ichorid, -1 Putrid Imp +2 Tarnished Citadel for months. Sometimes played around with one or two slots in the deck (usually cutting the 3rd PImp for a singleton DR), but this is certainly the 'Best' list I've played so far.

I'm not really sure how much the number of Ichorids matters (although I am sure that the gap between 2 and 3 is much bigger than between 3 and 4), but I can tell you that the additional land is 100% necessary. I'd play 15 If I could. It improves the consistency, general smoothness and average win turn more than anything else.

[Holly]

So, today I played Dredge for the very first time (out of goldfishing), without any tests since I've got this Deck for about a week and had no time =/.
It was a small tournament, we were 23 people, 1 dropped after the first round. He won the first match but did not want to play the Enchantress-mirror and did not want to wait a whole match.
Anyway, I went 4-0-1 (intended draw, we played out) but mostly because of the deck, I made some mistakes.

M1 vs Reanimator
I lost the die roll.
He did nothing in both games besides dropping lands and drawing cards, dumping some creatures..till I killed him (G1 turn ..4? and G2 turn 3). In the second game he had Jin-Gitaxias in his graveyard and could have casted Exhume, but didn't because he feared my 5/5 Troll.. which costed him the game.

M2 vs Dredge
He's the better player, and played Dredge before.. Urghs.
I lost the die roll.
Anyway G1 I mull to 5, discard 2 LED's in his first turn and lose hard.
G2: he sticks a Leyline which I can destroy and I overwhelm him soon.
G3: He mulls to 5, sticks a Leyline. My 3rd Breakthrough for X=3 finally gets me a Claim of Nature to destroy it. Thankfully he couldn't do much with his no-lander hand. I won a few turns later, since he was to slow.

M3 vs Countertop.
I lost the die roll.
G1: Win in turn 2.
G2: He starts with top, I didn't knew he had Counterbalance, thought UW-Controll, top for some miracles.. since I had 2 Stinkweed-Imps in my hand as my only Dredgers, I start with a Therapy on Surgical Extraction, he has none but sticks a Counterbalance next turn. I knew I couldnt cast any lootings/studys so I started to slow dredge (and I mean really slow..t5 the first time. But my dredges do suck, getting no Ichorid till I only have 10 cards left. Later on he exiles my Bridges and I cant do anything..
G3: T1 Therapy for Top, T2, Therapy for Fow, LED, Land, Looting, Crack, Kill.

M4 Enchantress
I WON ! the die roll.
G1: In t2 I have 6 Zombies, he playes Moat, T3 Flayer-Kill..he didn't knew about Flayer ~~.
G2: Elephant Grass from him in T1. My hand consists off.. Troll, Land, LED, Breaktrough & Faithless Looting.. do I go for it? Of course I do.. not finding any other Dredger.. uhm..
My second turn.. I'm thinking.. he still has Elephant grass in play.. so I really need the Flayer.. I Draw, Breakthrough, Chain-Dredging 4 Trolls and win.

M5 Nic-Fit
Intended Draw, we played for fun and for first place, of course I lost th die roll ;P.
We each knew what the other plays.
G1: I Mull to 5, got hit by a Theraphie naming LED, and I'm to slow for a turn 2 Ooze.
G2: He mulls to 5, I know he's looking for a Leyline, so I also mull to 4, Land, Nature's Claim, Looting, Dredger. I destroy his Leyline, he starts with an Explorer. Looting, binning my Stinkweed Imp. Well.. he played again an Ooze and I lost.

[K1w1]

Reporting time.

Went to a tourney with only 22 players ( normally 30-40 )

Played the quadlazer -1 ray -1 grudge +2 journey

Game 1 against UR Delver:
R1: After dredging and multiple therapies, he lost.
R2: I had a nice hand, but he played first turn crypt followed by some delvers and i lost.
R3: I start with therapy into crypt, i hit, but he topdecked another.. I won due to missactivation of crypt.

1-0

Game 2 against CounterTop Miracle 4 ColorGoodstuff, whatever it is called.
R1: He kept a one-lander and didn't draw another.
R2: He didn't find any hate and i won easily.

2-0

Game 3 against High Tide ( the same from last tourney )
R1: I won with multiple therapies.
R2: I lost, because he extracted my therapies and killed me with brainfreeze and blue sun's zenith ( otherwise i had played memory's journey )
R3: I won without therapies, due to he only had two mana in play and used one for brainstorm ( he was at 11 and i did 16 next turn.

3-0

Game 4 ID

3-0-1

Game 5 ID

3-0-2

I'm 2. out of 22 now.

Top 8: Maverick
R1: Won easily with looting, study, LED, breakthrough.
R2: Lost against Crypt/Ooze/Bojuka Bog
R3: Lost against Thalia/Bog/Crypt

6. out of 22

I think i will change it back to +1 grudge -1 journey.
I boarded the journey's every game, but 3 are definitely not needed.

K1w1

[Godmode]

Gerry Thompson is 6-1 and likely to t8 @ the SCG Nashville legacy open. He lost to Justin Uppal (RUG Delver).

Round 6: Gerry Thompson (Dredge) vs. Justin Uppal (RUG Delver) Match Report: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...n_dredge_.html

[GnuHouse]

So, any comments on Gerry's version of Dredge? The main I find fairly "stock" (in that it's off the Quadlazer base with some variance) but the SB is interesting and I'd like to hear some commentary (I'm relatively new to Dredge and trying to learn as much as possible)

Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Creatures
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
2 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp

Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below

Sorceries
2 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
1 Sundering Titan
2 Bloodghast
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Ichorid
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Nature's Claim
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Undiscovered Paradise

[Michael Keller]

So, any comments on Gerry's version of Dredge? The main I find fairly "stock" (in that it's off the Quadlazer base with some variance) but the SB is interesting and I'd like to hear some commentary (I'm relatively new to Dredge and trying to learn as much as possible)

Maindeck:

Artifacts
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

Creatures
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
2 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp

Enchantments
4 Bridge from Below

Sorceries
2 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting

Lands
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
1 Sundering Titan
2 Bloodghast
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Ichorid
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Nature's Claim
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Undiscovered Paradise

There's really nothing new to see here. All he did was shift a few cards around from main to board and tossed in a few dedicated D.R. targets.

Nothing new really at all.