[Deck] Dredge

[Tombstalker]

Why isnt the 4th cephalid coliseum considered a flex spot over the 12th dredger/4th breakthrough? Coliseum seems to be less desirable than breakthrough considering it requires an additional manasource to activate plus threshold although maybe dodging countermagic is whats more important? I am thinking 12 lands (9 gold, 3 coliseums) vs 13 lands (4 coliseums) 3 breakthrough. Damn but the main is tight in this deck..ugh.

Also 3 pimps/3 thugs seem ok since thug can bring back a pimp to the topdeck if necessary. Is this the mindset on dropping to 3 of each?

Lastly of all the archtypes in legacy I would think that dredge can recover from aggressive mulliganing the easiest. So along this line of thought and considering the ease with which dredge can find even a single card, wouldnt this deck benefit from the 61st card more than any other deck?

Edit- for reference here is what I am thinking of, any inherent problems you see with the list:

Lands 13
4 city of brass
4 gemstone mine
4 cephalid Colliseum
1 undiscovered paradise

Dredgers 11
4 golgari grave-troll
4 stinkweed imp
3 golgari thug

Business 13
4 bridge from Below
4 narcomoeba
3 ichorid
2 dread Return

Draw/discard 22
4 LED
4 careful study
4 faithless looting
4 cabal therapy
3 breakthrough
3 putrid imp

DR targets 1
1 flayer


Anyway I am coming back to dredge after a looong break due to helping a friend with his deck and 'flex' spots are our primary concern when dialing in the maindeck so if these questions are 'noobish' please forgive.

[Michael Keller]

I still feel that Griselbrand and FKZ are an incredibly powerful combination of targets that gives the deck another dynamic of play. Passing the turn with any Combo deck is never good, especially when you're at the mercy of the top of an opponent's library - where that could mean the difference between losing and winning.

As I mentioned, it's a subjective archetype that frankly can be turned and twisted a variety of ways. Primarily, I'm looking into the Sneak-Show match-up and how to address that.

[Calado]

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!

The deck is already built towards the rule. If I need DR to win, that's an exception, so an Exception card is needed. It's not "win more", it's just one more alternative to achieve the victory.
Iona do this by shutting down a single color. But it's not my case most of time, since I'm playing against Sneak Show and Painter too much (where a 7/7 flying doesn't claim victory against annihilator neither deck milling).

We need to realize that DR target is a flexible slot that can be used to explore our enemies faults or to power up our deck. Why the hell the sideboard is meta dependant and the DR target is not?

[Final Fortune]

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...

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot. The whole passing the turn phobia is a monsters under the bed complex, the one time you lose in X games to a top deck does not justify the number of times you lose in Y games because you cut business for two virtually dead cards.

I think the problem is that you always remember the games where you killed the opponent spectacularly with Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot, but you don't remember the games you didn't draw the Breakthrough.

[Vandalize]

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot. The whole passing the turn phobia is a monsters under the bed complex, the one time you lose in X games to a top deck does not justify the number of times you lose in Y games because you cut business for two virtually dead cards.

I think the problem is that you always remember the games where you killed the opponent spectacularly with Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot, but you don't remember the games you didn't draw the Breakthrough.

+1 Well said, sir.

[Calado]

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot.

Well, that's true. I need to get more experienced with Therapy to win more games. I was only figuring out if we can have a "consensual" DR target that makes sort of a miracle.
Ofc I miss the games where I didn't draw Breakthrough, but I remember when I won only by DRing Iona, and I was wondering if this can be more substantial with another target.
Thank you for the reply

[joemauer]

Games are won and lost on the back of Cabal Therapy, not on the back of Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot. The whole passing the turn phobia is a monsters under the bed complex, the one time you lose in X games to a top deck does not justify the number of times you lose in Y games because you cut business for two virtually dead cards.

I think the problem is that you always remember the games where you killed the opponent spectacularly with Griselbrand/Flame Kin Zealot, but you don't remember the games you didn't draw the Breakthrough.

This is kind of true. Having a Grislebrand & Flame Kin package versus more Cabal Therapy & whatever else will increase the speed of the deck for decrease in consistency.

When playing the combo esque kill route your are somewhat reliant on hitting all of your pieces to win: three creatures+dread return+bridges+win condition. Sometimes when you don't get to dredge 25+ cards on turn one or two, it would be better to dredge up more Cabal Therapies or Ichorids instead of a dread return or win condition. In reality these instances don't come up that often.

There are times when not winning on the spot after dredging bunches of cards has lost me the game. There are lots of situations and decks this has come up. All combo decks, particulary the mirror(where cabal therapy won't stop Cephalid Coliseum). Decks packing Ensnaring Bridge, humility, and other game ending cards entering play while being hidden by brainstorm or enlightened tutor. In reality these instances don't come up very often either.

You really can build dredge in either direction. Neither way is incorrect. They both have their subtle advantages and disadvantages.

[Michael Keller]

Games are won on the back on tight play and an appropriate mulligan strategy. The case with Cabal Therapy could be made with any other card or event that occurs within the spectrum of a said game that facilitates winning, like hitting Narcomoebas and Bridges when you need them most. Without them, Therapies become relatively innocuous because, well, you can't use them. Ichorids force you to wait a turn.

LED Dredge has the capacity of going off on turn one and or two. Against some archetypes, that's really what you want to be doing as succumbing to hate and giving your opponent another turn and perhaps more draw and filter to find answers is just not good. If you dredge deep into your library and don't hit anything relevant, you're going to rely more so on hitting those cards the following turn. Because you're doing this, you'll then have to wait an additional turn because you didn't have the capacity or setup to win the game that said turn.

My point is, there are no such things in competitive Legacy as "virtual" wins - in the sense that a given board state immediately qualifies you as the winner of the game, nor should there have to be when the option of actually winning is omnipresent with the dozens of options that create a more complex situation for an opponent to get out of and even more credible diverse options you can take advantage of as the Dredge player.

Winning a game consistently a turn faster with protection seems much better to me than putting myself in a position where I have to rely solely on the strength of my dredges to carry me to victory. LED Dredge is not 'grindy,' but rather a very finesse type of Dredge because it just blasts through itself and basically empties its contents into the graveyard at an incredibly accelerated rate. This is why having an elaborate plan like FKZ/Griselbrand helps facilitate faster kills without dealing with the formalities of waiting a turn or two to see what happens. Even if an opponent counters or stops Dread Return somehow, someway, it doesn't mean they're stopping the horde of tokens coming their way.

I like the combination as it is incredibly fast and multilateral and has the capacity to win you the game on the spot. That to me is what makes a true Combo deck worth playing. I do agree though that Cabal therapy is probably the most important cards in the entire deck.

[Final Fortune]

I believe there's a fundamental diagreement between whether or not Dredge is a "combo" deck attempting to win in one turn or an "aggro" deck attempting to generate and compound incremental advantages in card advantage and board position. When considering the extremes of the Flayer of the Hatebound lists and the Quad Lazer lists, the difference is that the Flayer of the Hatebound list takes more advantage of explosive starts by ending the game in a single turn, where Quad Lazer lists are capable of applying pressure off of gradual starts. To me, the list that can make more of gradual starts is more important than the list that can make more of explosive starts because the act of exploding is a win in and of itself regardless of the kill conditions.

When you say that Dredge isn't a "grindy" deck by nature, that's because you don't build the deck or play the deck in order to be a "grindy" deck by nature where as I, and other players, do. And it's not as if we disregard our explosive openings to do so, where in fact we have more explosive openings because we don't cut business for combo kill conditions, but we always have the tactical option of winning incrementally when necessary.

I disagree with the assertion that there is no such thing as a "virtual" win in competitive legacy, because it's a subjective observation based on whether or not the opponents either have outs to your board state or a non-interactive path to victory. When the opponent has been Mind Twisted, you have a board of tokens and a graveyard of Ichorids it's extremely difficult for any deck to find a way out of that situation because there's no way the can deal with effectively two board states between the threats on the board and the threats in your graveyard with any single top deck.

Games are won before they end, winning is the act of accruing positional and material advantages where ending a game is just the menial process of having to be bothered to go kill your opponent.

[GexxX]

Hey Everyone.
I've been following the last 10ish pages. Usually Storm is my weapon of choice, but from time to time I need something to clear my head a little. I'm not saying Dredge is an easy Deck to play (Therapy can give you a really hard time) but it's something different and that is exciting.
Yesterday was another evening of testing Decks. First time in a while I did not pack my Storm cards, but the Quad-Laser list. 15 Playsets in a Deck, reasonable percentage to draw everything you need and a good percentage of kills before turn 4 is pretty good on paper.

Opponents were:
Burn (75% wins)
Storm (50% wins)
Sneak and Show (67%wins)

Seriously. That's bad ass. I haven't had any control matchups yet (apart from cockatrice) but man that's some good numbers. And the best part is people complaining about dredge being no 'real' deck. I told everyone to play it and to be honest. I'll buy the cards and have no regrets just having them in my closet just to be sure to have the deck prepared whenever I feel it's not the right time to Tendrils people.

Thanks to everyone contributing to todays Dredge list! You did a very good job!

[Digital Devil]

This is why having an elaborate plan like FKZ/Griselbrand helps facilitate faster kills without dealing with the formalities of waiting a turn or two to see what happens.

I dislike the enabler + FKZ route simply because when your enabler is put into your graveyard after FKZ, you now have a useless card in your discard pile, while also creating consistency issues be it in your starting 7. I never played Sage/Sphinx + Zealot simply because that package eats too many slots for the slight gain of winning a turn faster, whereas hitting multiple Therapies almost ensures your victory without warping your deck's construction. To me, FKZ is more of a sideboard card - useful against Lands, Storm, and Reanimator, and even then, I think there are better DR targets. I've won more games on the back of Cabal Therapy than on the back of Dread Return, and BTW, I'm playing a slower (non-LED) version of the deck.

[Calado]

Games are won before they end, winning is the act of accruing positional and material advantages where ending a game is just the menial process of having to be bothered to go kill your opponent.

I've noticed two things in this discussion that need to be cleared. The first is that we don't trade cabal for Griselbrand. We still run 4 maindeck and trade maybe one draw spell and one Ichorid for Griselbrand +FKZ.
The second is that "games are won before they end" is too subjective, especially against decks that set up and win in the same turn (which is what I want my deck to do too). With two therapies is hard to stop sneak show and ANT from continue pondering and brainstorming until find an answer, unless they are unlucky.
I'm trying to say that these targets are bringing more benefits than disadvantages.

[jares]

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?

I most certainly agree. The problem is, that list I made is a list of cards that I've NEVER seen as less than a full set, at least in lists that have garnered a certain degree of success. A lot of people cheat on the other cards that both of us feel should be maxed-out to have the deck be one step closer to optimization, so unfortunately, the core really isn't set in stone. There have been many reasons for why people try their best to cheat on these slots without diluting the deck too much, and I find that the most common reason is to insert a package that would facilitate the combo finish. As for me, I've opted to forgo that package - in fact, I'm probably the only one in this forum that has been very pleased with not playing any packages at all (in the main deck, at least).

Cheers,
jares

[Mojeh]

@Hollywood:

Don't you think the combo route makes the deck easier to pilot? I mean, if you play combo Dredge, you just ignore your opponent most of the times, and winning on the spot seems much easier than making combat strategies and certain Therapies choices.
Maybe that's why we've seen some bad players making good results with weird deck lists. Curiously, most of these "weird lists" were combo based lists.

The Quad Lazer idea came from Germany, curiously the place where are many Dredge-builders.

[Water_Wizard]

I posted this question in the Community Forum, but didn't receive many responses (only 2), so I am going to post it here.

How effective is reactive token hate vs. Dredge? i.e. Echoing Truth or Wrath of God?

To briefly summarize the schools of thought, the school against reactive token hate says: a) if you have to cast reactive hate, you are probably already losing, and b) you have most likely been Cabal Therapied, removing your hate before you can use it (or use it effectively).

However, I hear other people arguing for reactive hate, especially Echoing Truth, the idea being a well-timed Echoing Truth can remove an army of Zombies.

Personally, I am of the former school-of-thought. I would rather try to fight Dredge with counterspells and graveyard hate, but I hear a lot of people saying Echoing Truth should be sided in against Dredge decks.

Thoughts? Play experiences playing against these cards? I imagine an experienced Dredge player could utilize Cabal Therapies and the stack to minimize the effectiveness of Echoing Truth.

[Mojeh]

Indeed Echoing Truth isn't the ideal answer, but it could delay us, specially when we don't expect it.
Echoing truth is a nice sideboard card in some decks, and can have a wide application, so if you have it on your sb, you'd probably bring them against Dredge. On the other hand, if you are trying to actually fight Dredge, you could use some grave-hate.

[Woe]

I agree with FKZ/Griselbrand package because of the speed of Sneak/show and Tendrils. It may just be my meta but it feels like pre-boarding for those matches. I used to play non-led dredge a couple years ago and then moved to tendrils. I'm now playing this version as it feels consistent with faithless lootings. The cuts I made may be questionable, but it has been testing very well. As far as win % I felt the scariest deck was Sneak/Show. So I went with DR package. Their ability to sit on griselbrand through our Cabal therapy's then respond to Draw 7/14 and FOW our Clutch DR on FKZ to go for the win is making me think of adding a third DR as the 61 card. I'm already land lite and am not sure this is the right route. Second main cabal therapy opens up their hand again for emrakul call out as well if they didn't have the FoW.

Suggestions are welcome! I was going to pilot this at mirkwood this weekend but Fatherhood says otherwise.

4x Breakthrough
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Careful Study
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x City of Brass
1x Darkblast
2x Dread Return
4x Faithless Looting
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
3x Golgari Thug
1x Griselbrand
3x Ichorid
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Narcomoeba
3x Putrid Imp
4x Stinkweed Imp

[Izor]

Echoing Truth is generally an instant speed Time Walk against Dredge.

And people who know this deck also know that a Time Walk is surprisingly useless against Dredge, because Dredge generates the most unfair VCA in the format.

Echoing Truth can sometimes be annoying if your opponent can back it up with a strong primary plan (like Show and Tell), but other than that it doesn't really do anything.

[Final Fortune]

Careful Studies are more important than Breakthroughs over the couse of a three game match, cutting them isn't the best idea.

[Tombstalker]

What do people think about skaab ruinator as another wincon and decoy? Costing 3 is probably often to much to reach but my thinking is dredge could reach 3 lands when slow rolling or cast it off LED and people tend to board out spot removal for hate. So is this guy even worth discussing as a 1-2 in the SB or not?