Mathematically, the right cut is Tireless Tribe, not Breakthrough.
Magic Level 3 Judge
Southern USA Regional Coordinator
Originally Posted by frogboy
Dravus:
Not a problem. Technically speaking, my list can deal with an Elesh Norn in play game one, assuming I am able to bring Griselbrand back from the dead and get some heavy swings in with him. Additionally, if you're able to punish an opponent's life total to the point where Reanimate becomes uncastable, that is another line of play you can take. These are all game one plays.
Games two and three it's really the same premise. If an opponent goes with the Show and Tell plan and you have enough creatures in your graveyard, it's entirely possible to have a Troll in hand that can actually trump whatever an opponent tries to bring into play - like Elesh Norn. My list is a little soft to the Reanimator match-up when a fattie enters the battlefield, that I'll concede. But as Parcher already mentioned, Reanimator isn't seeing a whole lot of play right now. Memory's Journey and Nature's Claim can fight Reanimator pretty good if the game goes to turn three or four (Nature's Claim remember can hit Animate Dead) assuming an opponent just can't find Entomb. Even so, you can build a sizable enough graveyard where finding a Journey or Purge or whatever helps so that you can simply eliminate an imposing threat.
Game one my opponent just wasn't able to produce anything off a slow mulligan and I went the old-fashioned beat-down route with Therapy ravaging his hand. Game two he tried mulling to hit some form of grave-hate or possibly Entomb, and he couldn't find it. Meanwhile, I opened with LED, LED, Breakthrough, Troll, Looting, X card, Y card. He had a Pierce for the LED but not the second and the rest of the action that came along with it. He did manage to find Entomb (as I didn't hit Zealot off all of that draw power - go figure), but I just shipped the Norn back with Journey.
Great discussion in this thread so far guys! I have a few questions maybe you could answer:
FKZ vs elesh norn vs flayer in the main- Basically I would like to know why FKZ is better than the other 2. I realize FKZ gives haste but my question is:
does the +1/+1 and haste to newly created tokens outweigh or even equal the damage output from elesh norns +2/+2 to non-sick tokens or the 9 damage of flayer? This is assuming 1 DR in the yard so no combo kill from flayer + troll or hasted trolls.
Also elesh norn main cancels an opposing elesh norn so there is that to consider I suppose.
Also good showing Hollywood! I like your build but is there anything you would change main or side in retrospect? Do you feel that 11 dredgers and 3 therapies main are sufficient, even optimal? Can coliseum be dropped to 3 to squeeze the 4th therapy/12 dredger or are 4 absolutely necessary?
Thanks and cheers.
This is assuming you can get yours into play first, which could be more difficult with Entomb. You couldn't get it into play if they get theirs in first.
I really like the deck as it stands. There is so much filter/draw/discard that getting a dredger, dredging, and discarding is hardly ever a problem. I still like the three Therapies main as really you're looking at going through your deck really fast and in the fundamental turn you look to win, having something like two can just clear the path to victory.Also good showing Hollywood! I like your build but is there anything you would change main or side in retrospect? Do you feel that 11 dredgers and 3 therapies main are sufficient, even optimal? Can coliseum be dropped to 3 to squeeze the 4th therapy/12 dredger or are 4 absolutely necessary?
Thanks and cheers.
Some decks couldn't even beat LED Dredge game one even if you ran zero Therapies. Seriously. Three to me is a solid number main with the fourth in the board against Control and hate-heavy sideboards. Seems to work good for me.
Also, I totally forgot to mention this: Against the Imperial Painter player, I was able to actually hard-cast two Putrid Imps and a Narcomoeba, while dredging off an Imp into Griselbrand with a Dread Return sitting in my hand game one. I dumped the Imp and drew seven. Pretty disgusting.
One thing worth mentioning is that when you go for an alpha strike with Elesh, you can potentially get blown out by a stp, whereas with FKZ you only lose his 3 damage. Probably a corner case, but still possible. Food for thought.
Double post
Thanks Hollywood and back to fkz vs elesh norn vs flayer regarding damage output, would you weigh in on that.
Bridge from Below makes lots of tokens with Dread Return. You're looking at probably six to eight Zombies created off maybe two non-token sacrifices (plus the creatures already in play) to put a target into play. That's anywhere from seven to nine creatures in play at a given time, all of which now have Haste and +1/+1. That right there is twenty-one (21) to twenty-seven (27) in one fell swoop.
Flame-Kin Zealot serves this purpose at accelerating attacks. What makes it good is that it does so without having to stay in play, unlike either of those two choices in Norn and Flayer - both of which eat it hard to Swords. Sure, Flayer might deal four straight up, but it's still not going to matter when an opponent can just Plow it - or his or her own creature (like Knight) to gain life and stave off a loss. Zealot just brings the house, and while I normally wouldn't advocate him too much before Griselbrand was printed, a demonic, flying Yawgmoth's Bargain with a built-in Angel's Mercy pretty much just changed my mind about that.
Zealot + griselbrand does look really good and zealot not having to remain in play is the part I was missing when compared to elesh norn, thanks.
I always played Iona maindeck, but that was because I was facing decks that depends of one specific color to win (ANT, Zoo, Merfolk and Reanimator). Now that my friends have Sneak Show, Maverick and Painter it's not that godlike anymore (even Angel of Despair is better in this meta, so I was deciding to not run targets maindeck).
I liked very much the Griselbrand build (as I stated about the SCG Orlando), and I'm glad that Hollywood became confident with it too.
Imo paying 7 life to dredge the entire deck seems as good as paying life to Ad Nauseam to go off.
@Hollywood: 1) Did you like Memory's Journey more than Leyline of the Void against Reanimator (I'm ignoring the Painter matchup)?
2) It's wrong to include the 4th Firestorm SB instead of the 4th Therapy?
Four Firestorm is a bit much, IMO. It shines against Aggro, but LED Dredge can already match most Aggro builds in general.
Leyline requires a heavier investment and a much more aggressive mulligan strategy. Journey can be found much easier through dredging, dodges permanent-based hate, and has benefits that can additionally help you.
I'm surprised to see that the success of the Griselbrand+Flame-Kin Zealot package sometimes comes as a surprise to others. Sphinx of Lost Truths+Flame-Kin Zealot used to be the thing, and Griselbrand simply improves on the Sphinx's utility - and more.
I also just noticed that the two more popular combo-finish packages that we have available use the same number of slots (4):
- FKZ Package
- [1x] Flame-Kin Zealot
- [1x] Griselbrand
- [2x] Dread Return
- Flayer Package
- [1x] Flayer of the Hatebound
- [3x] Dread Return
Both these packages have their pros and cons that have already been noted (and re-noted), though I would say that Griselbrand does add a bit more versatility to the deck's options, and seems to be a bit less conditional.
Kind Regards,
jares
Despite the combo finishes, I'm not convinced the Dread Return package is worth the loss of consistency in Breakthrough, Cabal Therapy, Golgari Thug and Putrid Imp MD and it's a lot of cards you have to SB out vs. Tormod's Crypt.
I think Dread Returning Griselbrand is enough to win the game already and that Flame Kin Zealot is just win more, because like Flayer of the Hatebound, it's utility post-board is extremely inconsistent when its secondary combo piece is RFGed i.e. Bridge from Below and Golgari Grave Troll respectively.
But you're still passing the turn, which is inherently bad because it gives your opponents additional turns to find hate. You can either *virtually* win the game with Griselbrand or *actually* win the game with FKZ or FKZ *and* Griselbrand. That seems like a tremendously acceptable approach as any three of those combinations will more than likely seal a win.
Iona on the other hand again doesn't really facilitate anything and against some archetypes it's not even going to do anything - because it's a game one card. While that might seem applicable because it can shut down a single color, you still have to pass the turn - potentially multiple times - without doing really anything involved.
The decks that LED Dredge has an advantage against already doesn't require Iona because it *already* has a good win percentage against those decks anyhow. If the ultimate goal of the deck is to attack for the win, wouldn't it make sense to win in one swing rather than two or three?
I'm not advocating Iona, Shield of Emeria over Griselbrand and Flame Kin Zealot necessarily, as much as I am questioning whether or not the game is already won by either returning your target of choice or by dredging, drawing, disruptions and returning a Troll for inevitability.
The problem with the whole, Flame Kin Zealot wins the game "now" logic is that it's irrelevant if the game is already won positionally between discarding your opponent's hand, having Ichorid's in your graveyard and Zombies and Trolls on your board. What single card to you top deck in order to get yourself out of that position?
Edit: I think Iona, Shield of Emeria vs Griselbrand comes down to Iona being more effective the earlier it comes out and Griselbrand being more of a comeback mechanic between both the draw effects and the Lifelink. I wouldn't say Iona doesn't do anything relevant while she's on the board, it's just that you don't see her doing anything relevant because the effects of preventing the opponent from winning while you clean up aren't as obvious as just blowing him out. I also don't get why you keep repeating that Iona doesn't do anything for us because it's only good vs our bad match ups, because that's seriously wrong if you take into account how good it is vs. stuff like Storm, Burn, Elves etc. which are either unfavorable or close.
I don't really care whether or not that 1xcreature is either Iona or Griselbrand honestly, I just don't think Flame Kin Zealot contributes anything merritious compared to taking up 1 less slot for business or the 3rd Dread Return in the case of Flayer of the Hatebound. We lose a more consistent card MD and SB space for a wet blanket feeling IMO.
Just because the ultimate goal of the deck is to win doesn't mean it should, or needs, to do it in one swing, winning is winning and I think it's the cards that facilitate an advantage are far more important than cards that press that advantage. If resolving Breakthrough wins games, who cares how long afterwards it takes for Trolls, Zombies and Ichorids to end the game as long as we win it? When we start cutting the actual cards that facilitate an advantage for cards that don't really do anything until we've already sealed the game that's pretty bad in the long run. Not having that 4th Breakthrough is going to cost you more games than not having the option of Dread Returning Flame Kin Zealot IMO.
I do agree with you, as my experience has also shown me that Dredge can surely win games even without the combo packages - in fact, even without the entire DR Package. I guess that, at the end of the day, this is one of those trade-offs where one would really have to sacrifice something in favor of the other. The good thing is, these sacrifices are very minor because we essentially use the deck's flex slots (though I feel that we might sometimes be "flexing" it too far), and each Dredge player will really have to decide on where to invest these "flex slots".
As for me, I prefer investing on reliability.
Cheers,
jares
What is and isn't flexible tho'? We've seen the deck is capable of winning regardless of its kill conditions, i.e. 4xIchorid compared to 2xichorid 3xDread Return 1xFlayer of the Hatebound between the two extremes so are we trying to find out how many cards we can remove in terms of consistency to find out how much cute shit we can add?
Why are we playing any more kill conditions than necessary?
The list of areas that have become flexible has grown more and more over time, such that even a Narcomeoba would be cut from time to time. I don't believe that all of this "flexing" is beneficial, though - in fact, I find that most of it is probably harmful (the Narcomeoba example being one of the more obvious ones). As an example, I find cutting a Breakthrough or two from the main deck to be questionable, as my experience has taught me that I would want a Breakthrough in my hand as often as possible. The same goes for Cabal Therapy, especially when considering the possibility of going against tricky match-ups. Of course, it has been proven time and again that running less than a full set of these cards can still produce wins, and that's where things become much more "flexible", at least in terms of perception.
Virtually every card in the deck has been "flexed" at one time or another, except maybe for the following:
Is there anything that I missed?
I like the discussion about how we can look at Dredge in terms of its "Core" and the "Packages" that have been incorporated around it (e.g. DR Package, Discard Dork Package, and even the LED Package). By definition, the inclusions in the "Core" are the non-negotiable areas of the deck, and those that can be considered be part of the "Packages" could very well be the "flexible" inclusions. It hasn't really been established this is the best way to look at things, but I believe that organizing the deck's configurations this way allows us to really dissect the ins and outs of the archetype - I've even suggested that this be discussed in the opening page. I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this, and if this line of thinking can be developed to benefit our deck-building.
... probably because we want to have kill conditions available as often as possible - or at least that's how look at it when considering the number of threats that I want in the deck. This might not be true for everyone else though.
Kind Regards,
jares
That's not always like this. We have tough matchups that we need to win right there. Having 6 zombies plus Ichorid and pass the turn will cost us games against Emrakul, ANT, Elesh/Archon, Belcher, etc. There's a lot of strong decks who can make a comeback when not finished properly, and dread returning Griselbrand can reach the victory even when we are unlikely to win.
e.g. this week I played a match where all my Bridges were in the last 20 cards of my Library. With Griselbrand this wouldn't matter...
I would say Careful Study, Faithless Looting and LED are also non-flex spots. I would probably include Cabal Therapy and Narcomoeba in that list as well (not all will agree here). I'm talking about optimization of the deck so we really do need more "core" cards if we want to achieve that, don't you agree? We don't want to be like Nic Fit, where they can't even decide on what colors are best lol.Virtually every card in the deck has been "flexed" at one time or another, except maybe for the following:
Is there anything that I missed?
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I'm just going to chime in to say that you can't really expect to lose in the few turns that you stick Iona, because they first need to deal with the 7/7 flier and that is a challenge in itself. Then, you consider the fact your graveyard is going to have some goodies if you were digging deep enough to DR her in the first place. Additionally, you'll have a board of X zombies unless the odds decided to screw you over. But if that were the case, I doubt you would have cast DR in the first place, because it's primary purpose is to produce a massive amount of tokens (with the exception of matchups where Iona straight up wins, like the Burn and Elves and whatnot).
Basically, they have to find spot removal for Iona, a sweeper for your Zombies, and a graveyard sweeper to stop the Ichorids from coming back. If they manage to find all that in the 2-3 turns that it may take to kill them, then congrats, they absolutely freakin' deserved it. That would literally be the anti-dredge draw.
I genuinely think the most appealing part of Grisel is that he has lifelink. And when you think about that, he's a pretty poor creature compared to Iona. We've always had the option of playing creatures that will allow us to dredge harder, but we opted to forgo that in the past. Does the lifelink with Grisel change that so considerably? I also worry about paying 7 life on a regular basis with the damage inflicted to ourselves in the first few turns.
You seem to be ignoring Cabal Therapy's utility here. I make it a priority to cast at least one Therapy to see what's going on in their grip before I risk a DR. I think most players do as well.
And the games where the Bridges just sit on the bottom, well, it happens. Luck wasn't working for you, but 9 times out of 10 this isn't an issue. Don't build to suit the exception, build towards to rule. Building towards the exception is when you enter the win-more zone in a vast majority of your games. This kind of extends to what Fortune was talking about with our abundance of win conditions currently and the idea of reducing those.
Anyways, gotta go to work. Lata playas!
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