[Deck] Dredge

[Michael Keller]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower. Either way, no one sees it coming which is why it gets even better when opponents side out their Forces (and it happens) on the play game two.

So far I'm liking it.

My list currently looks like this:

// Lands
4 [AN] City of Brass
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise

// Creatures
3 [TO] Ichorid
3 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
3 [RAV] Golgari Thug
1 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [RAV] Flame-Kin Zealot

// Spells
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
3 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [DKA] Faithless Looting
3 [TO] Breakthrough

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
SB: 3 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 2 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [7E] Duress
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction

[Rekk]

(ignore accidentally double sent)

[Rekk]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower.

So far I'm liking it.

Iiiii never thought of that, i like that idea quiet a bit. (yet it doesn't really interact with the graveyard at all, which makes it akward due to being a in hand trick only)
If you wouldn't mind could you ship me your list. I feel like calling forth zombies

[joemauer]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower.

So far I'm liking it.

I've considered duress/thoughtseize before because it is like Unmask without the situational drawback.

I thought it might be worth trying against decks using surgical extraction. The only problem is decks that use surgical extraction have a good ole brainstorm or daze/FoW to stop the duress. Thoughseize seems stronger here since you can take their best creature if they have no hate.

Combo hasn't been a problem lately for me, however I haven't tested against the upgraded Sneak N Show decks.

What have you been taking out to add the duress in? And how many duress?

[Michael Keller]

Iiiii never thought of that, i like that idea quiet a bit. (yet it doesn't really interact with the graveyard at all, which makes it akward due to being a in hand trick only)
If you wouldn't mind could you ship me your list. I feel like calling forth zombies

After thinking outside the box for a bit, it didn't make sense to me why any Dredge player should have to live in fear and tailor their entire play around a single card at the mercy of their opponents. Targeted, proactive discard forces an opponent to ditch sandbagged hate and punishes them severely for weak mulligans.

It hits Zenith and other tricky spells, too. What I kind of like about it is that it is definitive, and that actually means something because you're probably going to get something out of it anyway - at worst information, and at best a hate spell or combo piece.

Leyline doesn't see a whole lot of play in my area, so I kind of also have a sideboard tailored that way, but really we run a lot of filtering so finding an answer shouldn't be that big of a deal - especially with Show and Tell on the rise anyhow (circumventing Leyline hate and having it fall from where it once was).

@joe: I've been trying different configurations and don't really have anything set in stone quite yet. I've been trying siding out the Zealot, an Imp, and a Breakthrough in favor of three Duress. Seems to work fine. Also, if an opponent has a Brainstorm with a counter *with an Extraction,* then Duress was probably a good bet anyhow because this way you at the very least force them to use their Brainstorm when they don't want to which in turn gives you a window to do things with something like Coliseum or LED.

Either way, you were in trouble early in that scenario to begin with. This is game two, mind you. I'm also not in any way insinuating this is the best line of play and that this is the best solution to Dredge sideboarding strategies around the world. I'm simply trying something a bit more proactive than reactive in my sideboard and so in some random testing against decks running S.E. (like U/w Snapcaster and Delver variants), it seems to be working really well.

[jares]

I strongly believe nobody was "ridiculed"

I believe that I've observed a lot of ridiculing on this thread, though maybe not for the Nature's Claim+Chain of Vapor Discussion.

I specifically remember the ridiculing involving Vizzerdrix. I'm not so sure about who was being ridiculed, though: it's either Vizzerdrix or the player being responded to.

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Also, I feel like it's wrong to not play at least a few lootings, even in LEDless.

I most certainly agree. Careful Study has always been our most-reliable glue-guy (for lack of a better term), and it just feels wrong to not take advantage of the consistency that Careful Study+Faithless Looting is able to provide - especially when going LEDless.

Kind Regards,
jares

[GerryT]

The first flaw I see with the list is only two Breakthrough. Because LED is much more of a Combo deck than any of its counterparts, you really want either three or four of them to max out on its efficiency. Two really isn't enough to fire out quick wins game one where having a third or fourth add a bit more redundancy to win flat-out with.

Two Ichorids are fine, but I think a lot of folks tend to sway more towards three. If you're plowing through your entire deck and want to facilitate fast, evasive kills, then you really want to have that diversity aside from Narcomoebas to either naturally (EOT) or purposefully put Zombie tokens into play.

I personally don't like Nature's Claims mixed with Chain of Vapor, and have never been an advocate of Chain of Vapor in this archetype. It doesn't do anything but delay the inevitable, and the only targets that you can really benefit from playing this with are against Leyline and Elesh Norn, which is why I just think the certainty and definitive solution of being able to destroy Leyline with Claim is really more than enough.

You should (could) run some form of grave-hate in the sideboard, but it's obvious he eschewed that to run Vapor for Reanimator or problematic enchantments that deserve to be bounced.

I have also never liked Bloodghast in LED Dredge. If you're looking to explode on someone by using LED or other draw/discard effects, you really would rather have additional Ichorids or Ashen Ghoul/Gravecrawler as they are far less conditional than a card which necessitates having - and holding - a land in your hand in order to be viable. I think Bloodghast is the stone-cold nuts in Vintage Dredge, but not so much in Legacy *LED* Dredge.

The Dread Return targets post-board are cute, and I see what he is trying to do with Sundering Titan and Cabal Therapy, but Dredge shouldn't be wasting its time trying to pin an opponent's resources so much as it should be trying to flat out deal damage and win the game. It's really just a vanilla 7/10 that gets chumped all day and doesn't do much of anything else besides that.

Still, Gerry obviously played tight and did what he had to to win games - which should go to show some of the more inexperienced players that if you play tight, remember triggers and mulligan correctly you can win lots of games.

When building my Dredge list, I did a lot of research including reading a bunch of stuff you wrote, so thanks for that. It's great to have people that are willing to give back to the community.

Anyway, I knew I wanted LED, and I knew there were few situations in game ones where I would need to Dread Return anything special. There are very few corner case scenarios where I would Dredge, Therapy their hand, pass the turn, and somehow not be able to kill them because I died. Dread Return might not be necessary at all, but I was a little shy about going straight Quadlaser. I felt like I might need that Troll to actually cut their clock down to one turn.

Breakthrough and Ichorid were the last cuts made in order to fit the 13th and 14th land. I knew that it was likely "wrong" but I knew that I would definitely regret not having enough lands more than not having access to those cards.

Chain was a hedge vs Maverick, where I wouldn't know if they had the ETutor sideboard or not. It's kind of dated, but it's still out there, and I didn't want to have to board in Nature's Claim against a deck with Scavenging Ooze. Chain is basically Nature's Claim vs Leyline, so that point was moot.

That said, I think if they have an ETutor sideboard, then they got me. I'd rather have a 4th Claim and open up a sideboard slot.

My main concerns with Dredge were how to win when my Bridges got Surgicaled in certain situations, and RUG and Stoneblade are the two most likely decks to have Surgical. I decided that if I had another creature in the sideboard (Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Nether Shadow, etc) then I could realistically cast and resolve one Dread Return per game vs those decks. It was a matter of finding something that outright won me the game or came close to it if they had a Goyf/Batterskull in play.

Vs RUG, Elesh Norn seemed like the best one because they can't beat it and it had crossover effects in matchups like the mirror and Elves. That slot seemed worth it.

Sundering Titan was the best thing that I could come up with for beating a board of lands and Batterskull. I never played against a true Stoneblade deck (although I played against the Delver version from BOM), but the Sundering Titan definitely doesn't do enough.

Flayer was just for matchups with Ensnaring Bridge, Propaganda, and things of that nature, none of which I faced.

Bloodghast was actively awesome but the sideboard Paradise should have probably been a Dakmor Salvage, even though being able to cast my sideboard cards with consistency was very helpful. I'm not sure if the Bloodghast is the right one or I should be playing Nether Shadow or what, but it was awesome against different RUG opponents with Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction.

Hollywood: I know that you trashed Prosak's list, and you think you know everything there is to know about Dredge, but that doesn't mean you do. I kind of fancy myself a deckbuilder and as such, I put a lot of time and effort in deciding what cards I'm going to play and the reasons behind why I should. I might be wrong, but I have a rational for doing everything that I do.

I guess what I'm saying is that while you might know a lot, things that you think are "wrong" could very well just be different. For example, some people have admitted to liking when they win big, like with Griselbrand or Flame-Kin Zealot. However, I just want to win. Neither school is necessarily wrong, as those cards could probably win them games my deck couldn't.

I'm sure a lot of readers would appreciate if you recognized that fact and, instead of cutting people (and their ideas) down, you were more open. You would probably get more respect if that were the case.

As I said though, thanks for the help. Couldn't have done it without the vast pool of information here.

[jares]

And for what it's worth, I have been testing - and liking - Duress in my sideboard against Control decks or other archetypes ideally packing Surgical Extraction or Show and Tell. It's completely unexpected and decreases the amount of variance associated with Cabal Therapy "guesses."

Thoughtseize is also fine and probably better because it can bin a dredger in your hand. However, the decks that you'd typically board that kind of protection in against deal damage in the form of Bolt and such that two life is actually quite important if your hand is a bit slower. Either way, no one sees it coming which is why it gets even better when opponents side out their Forces (and it happens) on the play game two.

I also like this exploration, and this shouldn't be too surprising given that Unmask used to be used extensively in the earlier versions of Dredge. I've also tried to take a look into using Unmask and found that pitching a black card to play it isn't always a harmless move. I'm thinking that I like Thoughtseize better than Duress because it can take out Scavenging ooze, though these slots would probably make more sense against combo decks that don't use too many Creatures anyway.

Cheers,
jares

[iPhael]

Odd, I was just discussing bringing back Unmask yesterday. I'll have to give Duress/Thoughtseize a whirl in it's place, seem's like it could be outright nuts vs. those heavy mullers on the draw.

[Michael Keller]

When building my Dredge list, I did a lot of research including reading a bunch of stuff you wrote, so thanks for that. It's great to have people that are willing to give back to the community.

Gerry, I've never had a chance to speak or meet with you personally because the last four years of my time has been preoccupied with the military and every Open I seem to attend you're never there, but I am proud of what you've done for this game on the Star City Open circuit.

Congrats on taking Dredge the distance!

Breakthrough and Ichorid were the last cuts made in order to fit the 13th and 14th land. I knew that it was likely "wrong" but I knew that I would definitely regret not having enough lands more than not having access to those cards.

I think you did fine (as I had previously stated) with the choices you selected. Some folks tend to lean towards a higher land count and eschew a few other selections. It seems to have worked out for you.

Chain was a hedge vs Maverick, where I wouldn't know if they had the ETutor sideboard or not. It's kind of dated, but it's still out there, and I didn't want to have to board in Nature's Claim against a deck with Scavenging Ooze. Chain is basically Nature's Claim vs Leyline, so that point was moot.

I see. Still, even with an Enlightened Tutor package most LED Dredge variants are able to just cruise past that and blow the game open before an opponent gets a chance to Tutor up and play anything relevant. If anything, an opponent would likely fetch either Crypt or Wheel, which are both nullified by Claim.

That said, I think if they have an ETutor sideboard, then they got me. I'd rather have a 4th Claim and open up a sideboard slot.

I have been teetering this way as well. However, I have been on the brink of running the fourth Claim as I don't know if 'watering' down a strong enough start is worth doing when an opponent is probably more apt to mulligan aggressively to find hate or a decent enough hand to work with.

My main concerns with Dredge were how to win when my Bridges got Surgicaled in certain situations, and RUG and Stoneblade are the two most likely decks to have Surgical. I decided that if I had another creature in the sideboard (Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, Nether Shadow, etc) then I could realistically cast and resolve one Dread Return per game vs those decks. It was a matter of finding something that outright won me the game or came close to it if they had a Goyf/Batterskull in play.

This is why I am beginning to wonder if targeted discard is the way to go in order to fight weaker hands with hate that have been mulliganed or are less reactive without counter-magic. An early Duress or Thoughtseize might be worth the protection instead of holding back and waiting for the blowout.

Vs RUG, Elesh Norn seemed like the best one because they can't beat it and it had crossover effects in matchups like the mirror and Elves. That slot seemed worth it.

Hollywood: I know that you trashed Prosak's list, and you think you know everything there is to know about Dredge, but that doesn't mean you do. I kind of fancy myself a deckbuilder and as such, I put a lot of time and effort in deciding what cards I'm going to play and the reasons behind why I should. I might be wrong, but I have a rational for doing everything that I do.

Gerry, I understand what you're saying. However, I do take a lot of pride in the work that I do when it comes to Legacy deck-building, and am the first to raise my hand when I make a mistake. However, I think I also am the guy who is willing to speak up when others won't in calling something out I see that has serious flaws with it.

I never once claimed to know everything there is to know about Dredge (and I get a lot of flack for this because for whatever reason, people think I'm a self-centered prick who honestly just feels good helping out in any way that I can), but I'll say this: being in the military has given me an awful lot of free time (because technically I'm working 24/7 when needed) to explore in depth thousands of different interactions and an overwhelming number of percentages when it comes to the viability of interactions stacked against the top archetypes - within a certain population of decks.

I had a rationale for blasting Prosak and his list, and I wasn't the only one who did. I was just the one who was more vocal about it. I've been playing Dredge for an incredibly long period of uninterrupted time, and rationale can sometimes be obsoleted by lengthy, direct experience. Adam did quite well with his list, but I still think - like so many others do - that it is inherently flawed based on the countless hours of trials and tribulations and in-play tournament experience people have had testing this archetype. That has to count for something.

I guess what I'm saying is that while you might know a lot, things that you think are "wrong" could very well just be different. For example, some people have admitted to liking when they win big, like with Griselbrand or Flame-Kin Zealot. However, I just want to win. Neither school is necessarily wrong, as those cards could probably win them games my deck couldn't.

I'm sure a lot of readers would appreciate if you recognized that fact and, instead of cutting people (and their ideas) down, you were more open. You would probably get more respect if that were the case.

As I said though, thanks for the help. Couldn't have done it without the vast pool of information here.

[jares]

This is why I love this thread - there's a lot of action (and drama) to go around... not to mention suspense, horror, sci-fi, and my favorite, comedy.

Seriously though, I agree with the thought that, as much as it might sometimes be interpreted the wrong way, making an effort to steer our collective thoughts towards the right direction is absolutely necessary in a community as diverse as this one, and we'll only be able to succeed in steering towards the right direction if we do this collectively. It would also help to keep in mind, though, that, sometimes, how we say things is more important than what we do say.

Cheers,
jares

[jares]

Dread Return might not be necessary at all, but I was a little shy about going straight Quadlaser. I felt like I might need that Troll to actually cut their clock down to one turn.

Given your premise, I was wondering if you would still be able to achieve the same function by going with just [1x] Dread Return, but with [3x] Ichorid (at least in the main deck).

Generally, I would think that going with as few as [2x] Ichorids would be okay if the deck was configured to go all-in with the combo kill (though the Flayer main deck would require [3x] DR); your composition noticeably didn't have a main deck DR target (which is actually to my preference). This prompts me to think about what Final Fortune has mentioned a few times - we might actually be running more than the necessary number of Ichorid+Dread Return. This begs the following question: how many of these do we need in the main deck (or sideboard)? Historically, the number is around 4-5 in the main deck, with 1-2 being packed in the sideboard.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Final Fortune]

I'm managing to still win games with only 2xIchorid and 1xDread Return, so it appears it's either the absolute minimum or near the absolute minimum number of win conditions, as I still want to see whether or not I can 2xIchorid and just use Cabal Therapy and Bridge from Below to win my game 1s.

Here's another abstract question, if you had to choose between 10 Dredgers and 11 Golden Lands and 12 Dredgers and 9 Golden Lands which of the two would make the deck more consistent and why?

As far as SBing, I don't think you should play Nature's Claim as anything other than Chain of Vapor 5+, because SBing artifact removal for Tormod's Crypt isn't as good as SBing Tireless Tribe for artifact "resiliency" and still having an outlet and wall for every time they don't draw Tormod's Crypt. You can never know whether or not the opponent is SBing in Tormod's Crypt etc. or Surgical Extraction, and if they SB in Surgical Extraction then you are playing a completely dead card with Nature's Claim where Tirless Tribe would still be generally useful.

The Chain of Vapor slot is just for answering Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage with the most mana efficient removal we can play (i.e. you can cast it off of Cephalid Coliseum) and that's all the utility we need from that slot.

If anybody wants the lists I'm on, it's just Quad Lazer -2 Ichorid, -2 Golgari Thug, +1 Dread Return, +1 Darkblast, +2 Tarnished Citadel and the SB is just Chain of Vapor, Tireless Tribe, an Ashen Ghoul and 2 Nether Shadows, an extra Dread Return and Iona, Shield of Emeria, an Ancient Grudge and an open slot.

[dredgekid]

Do you have any idea how ignorant it is to say this when you don't take into consideration the context in which Dredgers are targeted for removal? It happens, period, I'd prefer to be prepared for it than not.

Lighten up man I was clearly kidding. I've been playing dredge long enough to know that people extract dredgers...

[Parcher]

I think that it might be in everyone's best interest if we could actually find what is the best solution for Extraction/Extirpate. That's always the idea, but for other hate cards, it's less likely to be clear. By that, I mean that stuff like Crypt and Relic, and Leyline not only have a great deal of options for us to deal with them, but these can easily change with the differing builds of the deck.

For Extraction, I don't feel this is true. There should be a definite answer for what is best against it. From what I can see, there are three paths; First, the man plan. Adding alternate creatures to continue threat after an Extraction. The only real options in the LED version that I've seen are Bloodghast, Nether Shadow, Gravecrawler, and Ashen Ghoul. In the non-LED versions I think that a set of Tribes takes care of both Crypt, and acts as a blocker long enough for you to use him as a DR target. In LED versions, you'd need to find enough slots to run a set of them for this to work though. Since you need to assume that you won't open with one, and they can't be Dredged into like the other options.

Of the four, I think that right now Ashen Ghoul is the only standalone threat. The rest may add some pressure, but are more there just to facilitate DR. As I see it, these creatures stand like:

Ashen Ghoul:

+3 Power
Can block
Haste

-Needs Black mana to activate(concern against Wasteland)
Needs Creatures in yard to activate
Can't be hard cast


Bloodghast:

+2 Power
Can be used multiple times without graveyard creatures
Get multiple with one activation(though only two in SB)
Can be cast(though difficult with Paradise)

-Worsens manabase(1-2Dakmor,Paradises)
Weakens Coliseum(Paradise)
Need SB slots for Dakmor as well
Can't block
No haste(*mostly)
Needs land in hand
If using LED, must have Paradise turn one or multiple Dakmor

Nether Shadow:

+Haste
Can block
Can be cast

-1 Power
Needs creatures

From what I see, Ghast has both the most advantages, and the most weaknesses. Shadow the least of either, and Ghoul somewhere in the middle.

The second plan is the counter-suite. Using Memory's Journey, Coffin Purge, etc. to fizzle the Extraction. Useless against Extirpate, or if you can't hold mana open. But has the additional benefit as acting as GY hate in other matchup. A slot this decks usually can't afford. Also allows you to go "all-in" against decks not running GY sweepers, since all you have to do after your initial outlay is Therapy countermagic, and sit on the mana for Flashback costs. Coincidentally, this plan works equally well against Painter and Reanimator. Probably not powerful enough in the mirror though.

The third option, currently under review, is adding discard to pre-emptively hit Extraction. This concerns me not only because of all of the decks able to both hide, and protect their Extractions, but also if the just rip one, and you have no alternate plan. If they are able to use their one Extraction through your disruption, and can attack your secondary threat base(Plow'ing Ichorids, removing Bridges, or just having something like a Jitte), it doesn't seem that the discard would be worth it. And you are likely in for a very difficult time.

I'm sure that everyone has done their own testing, and has their own opinion on the subject, but I was hoping that we could get enough information down here to if not get a best answer, then to at least eliminate enough options to get a best plan of attack.

[Michael Keller]

Duress and or Thoughtseize are options we have been discussing, Damon. They fit the bill as proactive answers against Surgical Extraction or other sandbagged hate - in addition to clearing the way of Pierces and other conditional counter-magic. It seems to me that being more proactive and less reactive might be the better line of thought here as cards like Memory's Journey - or even Coffin Purge for that matter - are a bit more situational and conditional. Targeted discard also punishes weaker hands predicated on soft keeps having these hate spells.

I've recently been playing them in my sideboard (in addition to another Paradise) and have been liking them a lot.

What are your thoughts on those?

[Parcher]

I don't like discard, regardless of it's form, against Extraction for the reasons that I mentioned. The decks that tend to use Extraction, tend to be Blue-based. That means that in addition to having Brainstorm, Top, Ponder, etc. to hide Extraction from discard assuming that they don't have a target to hit in response, that they also have countermagic to protect it. Which they will do in such a case. Or they can always just rip it off the top. Dredge really shouldn't be concerned with counters otherwise. The deck is basically built to ignore them in most cases. The only time I feel different is when you are on the Land, LED, Breakthrough type-plan, which should rarely be the case post-board anyway.

They also due to mana or card-type constraints, slow your early turns down. Either by pitching a needed Black card, or using your likely one land for that turn. And additionally, open you up to Wasteland in those cases. Neither using creatures, nor fizzle effects constrain your primary strategy as much, since the openings to use them come from the deck's natural course of action. I think that it's likely that the best solution will allow you to function normally with the deck, and simply get more options to lessen the impact of Extraction. From what I've seen, spending your opening turn or two using discard instead of drawing, discarding(yourself), and consequently being able to dredge, could hurt the way the deck plays. In this case, it may not even have the desired effect due to the reasons mentioned above. There is the chance that you can instead discard their only threat, or counter magic, and that's great. But it's not neccessarily the effect that I'm looking for in this case. Therapy usually does a decent job against the majority of the format for this purpose.

[cb4]

I you wanted to go the counter/fizzle route, you could pack your own surgical extractions. Extract what they target in response to their extraction. You search your library and fail to find any other copies. The copy in the grave is removed by your extraction so their extraction fizzles. All for zero mana.

[Holly]

I you wanted to go the counter/fizzle route, you could pack your own surgical extractions. Extract what they target in response to their extraction. You search your library and fail to find any other copies. The copy in the grave is removed by your extraction so their extraction fizzles. All for zero mana.

In this case Faerie Macabre would be better, doesnt cost 2 life, uncounterable and fodder for an Ichorid.