[Deck] Dredge

[Parcher]

Just my two cents on Griselbrand, cross-posted from an idiotic foray into MTGSalvation a few weeks ago:

I've been using Griselbrand since he was spoiled, though not in the main deck. I've yet to lose a game when I Returned him, and I've yet to Dredge a single card using his ability. Drawing seven is enough. His power isn't in the life gain, nor the extra Dredge for his ability. His power is in putting life gain, Dredge, and by far the most important, the ability to draw SB cards post-board.

His lifegain wins against any Aggro without Plow. And if they can't immediately access a Plow post-Therapy, it's still irrelevant. So that's one slot in your SB(say, Ancestor's Chosen). His ability to Dredge is a second slot(say, Sphinx). Then you have his ability to draw cards. First, to draw to your cards that affect the board, like Moat or Jitte. And everyone is running a set of Chain or Claim that GB can draw you into easily. That's another DR target slot he replaces(say, Terastodon). Against Combo he can actually draw you into Therapies so that you can cast them before flashing them back. This Sunday I therapied a Doomsday player 5 times on turn two. It's common to have a land open to do so, and if you have an LED, you can even get three black mana in response to the draw, which you can even cast a Thug or the like afterwards. Or just drop the land you drew off GB That's another slot(say, Iona, or Hypnotist). Lastly, he can draw you into Firestorm. Which can not only burn out all of their creatures if you have a full grip after drawing with Griselbrand, it can also take out your opponent. And even without Griselbrand, Firestorm is worth is for the currently rare Aggro/Tribal deck, and against Hate Bears like Thalia and Ooze. Firestorm is actually ridiculous against RUG right now as well, since it kills their biggest threat to Dredge(Delver), discards through countermagic, and plays around Crypt, which most play now over Surgical since they have eschewed Snapcaster. That's another slot(say, Elesh Norn), which should easily free up your SB to add said Firestorms.

Griselbrand is in most situations, individually worse than all of the Dread Return targets that I referred to. The benefit of Griselbrand is the extra slots you get in having a target that can perform all of the needed actions. Flayer is a loss of 2-3 slots maindeck at a minimum. And does nothing without a second Dread Return unless you also pass the turn. And most decks are running one Flayer, and no target to facilitate getting to him. This is to say nothing of the additional slots you gain in your SB by condensing your DR package into two cards(I run two Griselbrand in the side). Especially when you consider that you will still need to bring in whatever anti-hate you normally need regardless of your DR target. Griselbrand also only needs to wait a half turn to gain life against anything but straight Burn. Otherwise, he at the very least will blank an attack step. His vunerability is easily mitigated by discard, and just off of the top of my head, RUG, Dredge, Dream Halls, Sneak and Show, U/R Delver, Burn, Storm, and pretty much all Tribal and Stompy decks have no effective way to deal with him. RUG getting their Delver blocked, you gaining 7, and them having to still double burn him out doesn't really count.

*Currently, I am trying the 1 GB, 1 FKZ configuration in anticipation of the uptick in Sneak and Show, and Storm. It's probably not needed. But I hate to pass the turn against SnT since they can topdeck a lot of outs if they have already landed Sneak Attack.

[HammafistRoob]

I see your point parcher, but I suggest you try the 2nd grislebrand over FKZ. Against SnT if they do stick a sneak attack just dredge out your deck. It doesnt matter if you pass the turn while you have eight 2/2s along with grislebrand in play an a few ichorids in your yard(given your at a decent life total still). Even a topdecked emrakul wont save them.

[Infectious]

I certainly agree. You can even add LED to the list of cards that are "so much more powerful". The thing about Putrid Imp, though, is that it was never meant to be "powerful". While all the cards that we mentioned serve as the "star players" in the deck, I like to think of Putrid Imp as the "glue guy", the role player that rarely gets the credit for doing the little things and never complains about the dirty work. As I've expressed quite a few times in the past, my appreciation of the card stems from the fact that it's able to facilitate several of the deck's functions, while at the same time increasing the deck's resilience and reliability.

While Putrid Imp will never be a piece that will be absolutely necessary for Dredge, but you'll be hard-pressed to look for an alternative for something that makes the other cards in the deck much better.

Cheers,
jares

Entomb used to be a card that would see play on occasion back in the day. If we're talking about potential replacements for Putrid Imp that carry a ton of versatility I think it warrants discussion.

You can use it like a single use discard spell, instead of pitching a dredger it just goes and gets one to put in your yard. The advantage is that you don't need a dredger in your hand to discard, you can get the specific dredger you want, but the disadvantage is it reduces the number of dredgers left in your deck to hit.

You can use it to find a DR or DR target, or a Bridger or Therapy or Ichorid, but doesn't help you discard then if you happened to draw them (fairly minor drawback considering the amount of discard already available in the deck).

If you've got an LED (or a grip of land) it can also function as a draw spell by putting a looting in your yard to flashback.

If you've boarded in cards that do something in your grave (ancient grudge, memory journey, etc etc) entomb can let you go find them instead of having to rely on drawing it. But again p.imp would let you pitch it if you did manage to draw it and wanted it in the yard (much lower probability of having both the card you wanted to get into the yard and pimp in your hand, and even then if you had entomb in the p.imp slot you could still go get another copy of the card as long as you didn't have all of them in your hand).

It can also be played at instant speed, so you can wait until the end of their turn before making your decision of what you want to do.

But those advantages come at the cost of being able to beat down, being a body to sacrifice to therapy or DR (and maybe trigger bridge in the process), being fuel for ichorid, and being more situational against t.crypt (you could get something and force them to blow it, vs having a reliable p.imp to power through).

If you're trying to make a more combo oriented deck, and have cut down on ichorid and therapy (areas where p.imp adds value) it might be a card to consider.

-Infectious

[joemauer]

While burn is an easy matchup most of the time it can become a serious headache if your forced to mulligan to less than 6. They have multiple ways to deal with bridge and they have a decent clock to boot.

While burn may be an easy matchup it doesnt mean that you autowin. With grislebrand though this is as close to an autowin matchup you can hope for.
(this is NOT an arguement to run grislebrand, its meerly an added bonus of running him)

Im about 100% sure grislebrand wont become grislebanned until a certain archetype exploits him well enough. He hasnt shown enough results to be banned in two weeks. My advice is to buy them now before they become 30/40 dollar cards. After wizards makes their money on a card is when they ban it, they wait for the price to skyrocket first.

I was saying burn is indeed an autowin. I can only lose to burn if my deck decides to poop on me, and if my deck is pooping on me then I could be losing to any deck including some U/W delver deck from standard.

Whether or not Grislebrand will be Grislebanned, I don't know. If Show and Tell gets the axe then Grislebrand will become Grislebargainbindollarcard. People anticipating one of the two to get banned is the only reason both have not skyrocketed in value.

[Final Fortune]

I certainly agree. You can even add LED to the list of cards that are "so much more powerful". The thing about Putrid Imp, though, is that it was never meant to be "powerful". While all the cards that we mentioned serve as the "star players" in the deck, I like to think of Putrid Imp as the "glue guy", the role player that rarely gets the credit for doing the little things and never complains about the dirty work. As I've expressed quite a few times in the past, my appreciation of the card stems from the fact that it's able to facilitate several of the deck's functions, while at the same time increasing the deck's resilience and reliability.

While Putrid Imp will never be a piece that will be absolutely necessary for Dredge, but you'll be hard-pressed to look for an alternative for something that makes the other cards in the deck much better.

Cheers,
jares

The good/bad about Putrid Imp is that even tho' it's the worst enabler in Dredge, it's still the best worst enabler we can play in order to add to the consistency of the deck. If I ever cut Putrid Imp, it'll be because I'm adding lands or dredgers or something else entirely to increase the consistency of the deck and not because I'm adding Dread Returns and targets just for more impressive kill sequences. If anything, I think you've discovered that you should be SBing Putrid Imp out in certain match ups more than you were before, especially if you're on the draw for game 2.

One card I've considered in the Putrip Imp slot is Hapless Researcher for being the closest approximation to Careful Study I could find and blue instead of black for the added color consistency, but I got irritated by the card being unable to establish Threshold for Cephalid Coliseum without Golgari Grave Troll. That may be moot tho', because while it's no Careful Study the decrease on the dependence of a gold land in favor of any land made it feel like a pretty consistent, albeit underwhelming enabler that triggered Bridge tokens.

If you don't like Putrid Imp, I think Hapless Researcher deserves some playtesting.

[Calado]

And Pimp can block Vendilion, delver, Griselbrand, Emrakul, etc.

[Moondancerbb]

And Pimp can block Vendilion, delver, Griselbrand, Emrakul, etc.

Not after turn one.

[Tacosnape]

I'm a fan of Griselbrand/FKZ. I like being able to just straight up win turn one if I see my Griselbrand.

Does anyone have a suggestion, in a 1 FKZ/1 Griselbrand package, how not to lose to UW Miracles managing a turn two Top/Terminus combo?

[KobeBryan]

I'm a fan of Griselbrand/FKZ. I like being able to just straight up win turn one if I see my Griselbrand.

Does anyone have a suggestion, in a 1 FKZ/1 Griselbrand package, how not to lose to UW Miracles managing a turn two Top/Terminus combo?

Is grisel really that effective?

I mean by the time you get your grisel in the GY and able to dredge return, you pretty much won the game already.

[Lans89]

Hi all,

I'm also fond of Griselbrand together with FKZ ;)! I currently run this list:

Maindeck
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
3x Golgari Thug

4x Nacrcomoeba
3x Ichorid
3x Putrid Imp
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
1x Griselbrand

4x Bridge from Below
2x Dread Return
3x Cabal Therapy

4x Lion’s Eye Diamond
4x Faithless Looting
4x Careful Study
2x Breaktrough

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

Sideboard
1x Dread Return
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Flayer of the Hatebound
1x Ichorid
1x Cabal Therapy
2x Chain of Vapor
3x Nature’s Claim
3x Firestorm
1x Ancient Grudge

I made it to top 8 (4-1-1) in a 44 man GPT last weekend, but after I won game one in the quarterfinals I had to mulligan to four cards in both game 2 and 3 and lost =( … Sucks when the deck shits on you after you made it that far! A friend of mine won the 3 byes for the GP in Ghent, so his joy compensated my painfull loss :P…

I’m very happy with the list and don’t think that it needs any improvements (although it’s sad that I can’t find any space for a 4th Therapy main board). However, I found it hard to sideboard because the list is already so tight! I now believe that I should cut Lion’s Eye Diamond whenever I board in Nature’s Claim, Firestorm or Chain of Vapor. When I do so I often side out 2x Faithless Looting as well (and often switch from DR strategy), where I would otherwise side out Breakthrough most often. And sometimes I shave some cards (putrid imp for example)… Still it’s hard!

Could you guys tell me how you would board against most matchups where you can expect some graveyard hate in the form of artifacts/leyline? Or maybe give some common examples.. Thanks =)!

[jares]

Quite a few people have shared their experiences on how Dredge "Shits" or "Poops" on them on their opening hand, causing them to lose even against the auto-win match-ups. From what I've observed, it happens fairly often.

It's worth noting, though, that the frequency of this occurrence happens by design, and not simply because of bad luck (though, of course, no deck is immune to bad draws). It will be healthy to keep in mind that the more enablers we cut (Lands, Draw, Discard, Dredger) in favor of combo pieces that can't help our opening hand (DR, DR-Targets, Excess Free Creatures), the greater the probability of "Pooping" on the opening hand. In same way, if our threat density (Free Creatures, DR) isn't sufficient, we're also likely to "poop" on our dredges (though the rate of dredging is so much more forgiving when compared to just drawing 7 cards to start the game).

Finding the balance between these two competing functions is difficult (as there really is no science for it), but I believe that it's doable. As for me, because dredging is the much more forgiving function with a higher threshold for "error", I try my best to maximize my chances of getting a good hand (while maintaining the deck's threat density).

In other words, when you're deck poops, shits, or craps on you, the composition of your deck should get the blame - bad luck can't take all the credit.

Kind Regards,
jares

[Michael Keller]

I still think it's a mistake to cut Putrid Imp entirely from the deck. He provides a controlled discard outlet in addition to feeding Ichorids, which is actually quite important as the game progresses.

Also, I'm really loving Ashen Ghoul and Memory's Journey together. Both have been incredibly effective against Extraction. Against Sneak and Show, I'm considering reformatting my board to deal with the rise of it, but I'm still trying to decide what will work best.

[TraxDaMax]

Quite a few people have shared their experiences on how Dredge "Shits" or "Poops" on them on their opening hand, causing them to lose even against the auto-win match-ups. From what I've observed, it happens fairly often.

It's worth noting, though, that the frequency of this occurrence happens by design, and not simply because of bad luck (though, of course, no deck is immune to bad draws). It will be healthy to keep in mind that the more enablers we cut (Lands, Draw, Discard, Dredger) in favor of combo pieces that can't help our opening hand (DR, DR-Targets, Excess Free Creatures), the greater the probability of "Pooping" on the opening hand. In same way, if our threat density (Free Creatures, DR) isn't sufficient, we're also likely to "poop" on our dredges (though the rate of dredging is so much more forgiving when compared to just drawing 7 cards to start the game).

Finding the balance between these two competing functions is difficult (as there really is no science for it), but I believe that it's doable. As for me, because dredging is the much more forgiving function with a higher threshold for "error", I try my best to maximize my chances of getting a good hand (while maintaining the deck's threat density).

In other words, when you're deck poops, shits, or craps on you, the composition of your deck should get the blame - bad luck can't take all the credit.

Kind Regards,
jares

I don't really think any dredge player can deny that the deck can go bouncing off in the wrong direction once in a while. While it has the explosive "here I am nothing you can do about it" starts, it also has the " this was supposed to be good but you know what I don't feel like cheating today so lets give your opponent a chance to recover" starts. :p

Latest example.
I remember playing at GP Malmo in a 8 man single elimination tourny. Took my dredge deck for a run(which is a pretty standard FKZ build), and opened with a hand that in my opinion was pretty strong game 1.

LED, LED, Breakthrough, City of Brass, Faithless Looting, Golgari Grave Troll, Golgari Thug.

My opponent had played Island-> Aether Vial previous turn, so I put him on merfolk.

I go Land -> LED.
LED gets forced. I play another LED, which resolves (obviously playing around daze now)
Then I play my Breakthrough, crack LED in response for 3 Red, dredge half(or more) of my deck in the few next minutes only to hit 0 Narcomoebas and 2 Bridges.
I do hit an Ichorid, Flame-Kin Zealot and a dread return.

Next turn he drops a Jitte (!) and passes the turn with vial on 1.

I get back the ichorid, flip the next 6 and still don't hit a narcomoeba or another bridge.
So I have an ichorid in play, 2 Bridges, 2 cabal therapy and DR in GY. He has a vial on 1 and a jitte, but right now the vial on 1 concerns me most as he can pop out a cursecatcher if he has one, which can block my ichorid, or be sacced to a cabal therapy blowing up my bridges. So I pass the turn, hoping to get 2 zombie tokens and hoping I can get a nice dredge + DR next turn. EOT he throws in the cursecatcher as I assumed..

Next turn he equips it and attacks with it, I don't block (not sure if this was right, but I assumed him having to use jitte counters on his own men to blow up my bridges would be better) so I go to 18 and ofcourse he shoots his own little blue dude sending my bridges off to oblivion.

My next turn in upkeep he pings my ichorid with his other counter? I finally find a narcomoeba. I bash for 4 with the zombies, and consider making a 6/6 Troll. Note that this troll will be the only thing on the field for me if I do so, since I don't have any bridges left. I leave the troll sitting in my graveyard as my best dredger hoping my opponent doesn't toss another 2 drop with his vial and that I can get one more try at dredging another bridge. EOT he tosses in Silvergill Adept which gets equipped and well I assume you can realize I'm not going to win this game anymore.

Game 2 was simular, only this involved a turn 1 relic, me not being able to resolve any spells, and him getting Jitte hooked up again. Hooray.


I hope this story didn't take too much of your time, but this is in my opinion pretty much how the deck can poop on you. Or should I have risked my 2 bridges faster in game 1? I just never thought he would be able to play Jitte, Force, Vial, lands and still be able to keep gas coming in the form of little fish. And if I had hit a moeba in the first 30+ cards I sent to my GY that first turn, I should have just won right there on the spot.
Waiting longer to go off with that hand doesn't seem like the right thing to me either, and especially hadn't been in this case. Only thing I could hope for after dredging as if my deck only consists of sorceries and lands, is that my opponent wouldn't have too many creatures after all those other spells, but he did.



To get back to more deck choices, I have been testing FKZ and Griselbrand main deck, and untill now it's not really amazing me to be honest. Odd though, I kind of thought he would be nuts in this deck.

[jares]

I hope this story didn't take too much of your time, but this is in my opinion pretty much how the deck can poop on you. Or should I have risked my 2 bridges faster in game 1? I just never thought he would be able to play Jitte, Force, Vial, lands and still be able to keep gas coming in the form of little fish. And if I had hit a moeba in the first 30+ cards I sent to my GY that first turn, I should have just won right there on the spot.
Waiting longer to go off with that hand doesn't seem like the right thing to me either, and especially hadn't been in this case. Only thing I could hope for after dredging as if my deck only consists of sorceries and lands, is that my opponent wouldn't have too many creatures after all those other spells, but he did.

Without going through the details of "how" and "why", I sincerely believe that the game you described was winnable, which is why I wouldn't consider this to be a scenario where the deck "pooped". Playing through adversity (countermagic, graveyard hate, hate bears, etc.) is difficult, but it is far from impossible - in fact, we should always expect to go through a lot of turbulence when playing Dredge, because, after all, we would otherwise just win without even trying.

To illustrate, these are the scenarios that I would consider to be some of the deck's more popular "pooping moments" (for lack of a better term):

• Opening Hand:
  
  • Hand without a Land, Dredger, Draw Spell, Discard Outlet (worst case)
  • Hand without a Land (or even LED)
  • Hand without a Dredger and Draw Spell
• Dredging:
  
  • Coming up empty while Chain Dredging (happens more often when we cut dredgers)
  • Ichorid without a Black Creature (happens more often when we cut Black Creatures like Golgari Thug and Putrid Imp)
  • Not enough Cabal Therapy in the graveyard (happens more often when we don't run the full set)

I hope that helps.

Kind Regards,
jares

[HokusSchmokus]

Remember that the likelyhood of being pooped on by the deck increases in the comboish lists

[jares]

Remember that the likelyhood of being pooped on by the deck increases in the comboish lists

That is true, at least for the "pooping" in the opening hand. Unfortunately, the combo parts for Dredge are unable to contribute to the opening hand, and the inclusion of these packages increases the likelihood that you'll be pooped-on. DR targets are even worse because, as much as you would want them in the graveyard, these targets can't really do anything by themselves - they would need a solid investment in a Dread Return (which also presents its own layers of dependencies).

I guess that's why it's called "combo" (combination) - these dependencies are part of what defines comboliciousness.

Cheers,
jares

[Alex_UNLIMITED]

The Gerry's sideboard is not clear for me.

Sideboard:
1 Blazing Archon
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
2 Nether Shadow
2 Chain of Vapor
3 Firestorm
3 Nature's Claim
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Dread Return
1 Tarnished Citadel

We can't know the g2 hate, then, the first side-in will be:
nether + nature + dread + flayer + tarnished = 8 cards?!

And vs maverik or bant:
nether + nature + chain + tarnished + firestorm = 11 cards?

Can you explain me the sideboarding in the LED version, please?

[joemauer]

This is my deck pooping on me:

Dredging nothing but draw spells and lands for three turns, then being forced to draw a card which ends up being another dredger.

[Calado]

Well, the deck doesn't necessarily need to be full aggro. There are always cards that we don't need to draw, like narcomoeba and bridge. It's just about pondering the chances of being screwed by drawing one Griselbrand versus winning by dredging it.
"if you're able to DR, you'll win anyway" isn't true. Most of times we're able to DR turn 2, and it doesn't put sufficient tokens into play to win next turn because there's not enough bridges, so compensating this by shutting down a color, dredging the entire deck, giving haste to the tokens or being a 11/11 creature is beneficial.
I agree that we mustn't cut dredgers and lands for this. But if trading other cards like Ichorid and some draw spell ruins the deck that much, there's nothing to discuss here until a new stronger card appears to cover this faults (I thought that Griselbrand was like this).

[jares]

"if you're able to DR, you'll win anyway" isn't true.

In my experience, it is - most of the time, at least.

Cheers,
jares