[Deck] Dredge

[TraxDaMax]

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

I actually consider dredging 30+ cards and not hitting a single Narcomoeba the deck pooping on you. It's like casting Ad Nauseum and not seeing a single mana source before you hit 1 life total coming from 15-20 life. :D

[HokusSchmokus]

...there's nothing to discuss here until a new stronger card appears to cover this faults (I thought that Griselbrand was like this).

Calling stupid repetitive discussion for a card in m13 now. Also, next month is entomb month if I am not mistaken...my prophecies have come true two times already so I look forward to it:D

But seriously, I don't think Griselbrand is the way to go. If you can use it to your profit everything is good and I don't really know what else we can discuss with this card.

he 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?

Using this sideboard I belive Dread Return and Flayer only come in against Reanimator(if you are afraid of Archon) and Enchantress-style decks. Moat+Tabernacle effects probably, too.
Chains/Claims are for permanent based hate, Firestorm for aggro.
Nether Shadow is there to fight extraction basicly.
But you are right, it's not unlikely for a Dredge player to be boarding in 8+cards (I board 11-12 cards in the mirror:P)
The boarding is hard to discribe. Basicly, using Gerry's board I'd board out Breakthrough most often/LED if I rely on Firestorm.
So vs Maverick, +1 Citadel, +3 Firestorm, +3 Chain (possible Claim), so that would be 9 cards. I don't know Gerry's main by heart, but something along the lines of -x Breakthrough-x LED, -1 Ichorid or such seems legit.

Also guys, just a thing that popped up during testing: If you are on the play Game 3 against Maverick(which is the usual case for me), it worked wonders to just board out some stuff again and race the shit out of them.(this even worked quite well with the Quadlazer list, so should work wonders for combo variants)

@ Jares(my third edit...maybe you'll learn from me:P)/@anyone
How often do you have Ichorids with no fodder in your yard? I normally only have this when I return 2-3 Ichorids 2-3 turns in a row Oo and that is not a flaw of the deck anymore:P
Also be sure to know useful tricks with Coliseum and Ichorid(if you don't know already, if you know how a stack works you can probably figure out, if not: a little riddle for you all to solve:))

[Izor]

Also be sure to know useful tricks with Coliseum and Ichorid(if you don't know already, if you know how a stack works you can probably figure out, if not: a little riddle for you all to solve:))

Meh, don't tell me about it. I had to explain this to my opponents and noone knew what I was talking about. And it also works the other way; Lately in the mirror, my opponent screamed at me because I didn't let him recur the Ichorids he Dredged into with a Coliseum activation during his upkeep.

By the way, the same trick works with Ashen Ghoul and Nether Shadow as well. Only that the card text on Shadow is even more confusing to people than Ichorid. The Beta Nether Shadow wants you to pay its casting cost if you want to bring it back during your upkeep...

[Tombstalker]

Has conflagrate been discussed before? Cant find any reference in this new thread but it seems noteworthy as a flashback firestorm for one R more, not teeg friendly though.

Regarding sneaky show- blazing archon is/seems ok, IF you draw it or IF you can DR it first. Likewise griselbrand could help give us a chance to legend rule theirs. I would like to submit pithing needle as a SB option. Needle is broad, can be hardcast easily and ultimately against sneak and show gets put into play off SNT naming sneak attack by APNAP dodging counterspells.
I would say chain of vapor/spot removal might of been ok except now griselbrand laughs at these types of answers while drawing into spaghetti + counters FTW. Alternately I suppose prison effects like propaganda or even elephant grass (think castable tempo play) might be decent. Downside is show and tell decks pack tons of countermagic so anything we have to cast will likely be stopped.
Any better ideas here?

[HokusSchmokus]

IF you dedicate slots for Sneak Show, you might as well run Sharuum to complement the needles. But honestly- What makes you fear this matchup this much? They can hardly interact with your plan, pre- and postboard. The most powerful thing they can reliably do is turn 2 Show and Tell Emrakul. That is not nearly enough if you are on the play, likely not enough on the draw.

[Izor]

IF you dedicate slots for Sneak Show, you might as well run Sharuum to complement the needles. But honestly- What makes you fear this matchup this much? They can hardly interact with your plan, pre- and postboard. The most powerful thing they can reliably do is turn 2 Show and Tell Emrakul. That is not nearly enough if you are on the play, likely not enough on the draw.

Well, it's not that easy actually. They usually go off on turn two, so you can expect them to attack for the win on turn 3. Our own critical turn is pretty much turn two as well, and if we don't have FKZ or Flayer, we'll have to wait a turn until we can win as well. So technically speaking, they're almost as fast as we are. True, we have Therapies, but they also have at least 8 counters and some Brainstorms to hide things. And on top of that, 4 Leylines or at least 4 other pieces of graveyard hate seems to be standard in those decks, so it actually becomes even harder after sideboarding.

Blazing Archon seems to be a decent choice for this matchup. I know that you don't play DR at all in your list, so you lack that option entirely. I dare to say that this could turn out to be a disadvantage in a metagame with lots of Griselbrands.

[HokusSchmokus]

Still don't get it. AFAIK they run Force and Daze. Force slows them down usually, as it always does. Daze isn't a counterspell. You can play around Daze even Preboard. If they combo turn 2, they have Show and Tell. So most likely, Emrakul attacks turn 3. So what? Produce enough permanents and you are good. Emrakul CREATES critical mass for dredge.

Also, Leylines aren't hate. I lost to Show and Tell decks before, but I never ever in my career of competitive Dredging(not counting manaless) lost a match against a Leyline of the Void, except for the mirror. Why do you fear this card? Leylines are not a good card in most decks. More like a lazy-man's choice. If Sneak Show started packing serious hate, there'd be a problem.

[Tombstalker]

Some versions use daze I suppose, others run misdirection for 6-7 free counter spells plus spell pierce and maybe flusterstorm. I think the new incarnations are better with Griselbrand. T2-3 SNT drop sneak attack into Griselbrand is hard to beat when they can draw into counter magic and more hasty legends.

[HokusSchmokus]

With misdirection they are even slower.I don't see the problem

[jares]

I actually consider dredging 30+ cards and not hitting a single Narcomoeba the deck pooping on you. It's like casting Ad Nauseum and not seeing a single mana source before you hit 1 life total coming from 15-20 life. :D

Yeah, that situation really sucks, given that it's very unlikely for that to happen (only a 3.02% chance!), and there's really nothing that we can do to prepare for that situation other than run the full set of Narcomoebas.

The only other thing that I can think of is making an effort to shuffle really really well. After every game, you would find that our cards are heavily stacked - especially the ones that matter (like Narcomoeba). I've experienced these situations myself, and ever since I started playing competitively, I made it a point to start every game with a deck that's as randomized as possible (we've actually discussed this a bit in the old thread). Personally, I try to do a 15x4 Pile Shuffle at least twice (with a Riffle Shuffle in between), and Riffle Shuffle again at least twice (or as many times as I can until the opponent is ready).

I hope that helps.

Cheers,
jares

[Que]

Also, Leylines aren't hate. I lost to Show and Tell decks before, but I never ever in my career of competitive Dredging(not counting manaless) lost a match against a Leyline of the Void, except for the mirror. Why do you fear this card? Leylines are not a good card in most decks. More like a lazy-man's choice.

I don't even think I can believe that. :/

[joemauer]

Did some random testing with dredge today.
Some things I learned:

Putrid Imp is awesome. He is some kind of Swiss Army Knife who makes playing around hate so much easier. I will never cut this puppy.

Nether Shadow/Ashen Ghoul sideboard. I am still not sure which is better, leaning towards Ashen Ghoul as having extra lands happens more in game 2 & 3. I like both though. Blindly siding them in game 2 is always good unless you are fighting Leyline of the Void. People have been doing more of the split 2 extractions & 2 relic/tormod's. So just beefing up your threat density with a couple ancient grudges is a solid plan.

Dread Return into Monster never won me games that I would have lost. Granted it was a small sample set, but I don't think Dread Return + monsters are the way to go currently. I still need to test the Show and Tell match some more though. A quickly Dread Returned Monster might be pivotal in this match.

[Izor]

Still don't get it. AFAIK they run Force and Daze. Force slows them down usually, as it always does. Daze isn't a counterspell. You can play around Daze even Preboard. If they combo turn 2, they have Show and Tell. So most likely, Emrakul attacks turn 3. So what? Produce enough permanents and you are good. Emrakul CREATES critical mass for dredge.

Also, Leylines aren't hate. I lost to Show and Tell decks before, but I never ever in my career of competitive Dredging(not counting manaless) lost a match against a Leyline of the Void, except for the mirror. Why do you fear this card? Leylines are not a good card in most decks. More like a lazy-man's choice. If Sneak Show started packing serious hate, there'd be a problem.

I don't even think I can believe that. :/

Agree with Que.

First of all, the average win turn of the quadlaser list is about 4.0 for the goldfish, so you can usually assume that you have an army that survives Emmy's Annihilator on turn 3 on average. You can not possibly assume that you magane this each and every time. The quadlaser list mulligans relatively often and SneakShow is very consistent with 8 cantrips and Intuitions. On top of that, Griselbrand is often much worse for us due to the Lifelink and its ability to drop more Monsters next turn. Thirdly, Sheak Attack is much much worse for us that Show and Tell, because it gets rid of our Bridges. And there you go tryinhg to race Emrakul's Annihilator without having access to all your BfB.

Also, you're claiming that you never lost a game against Leyline? So whenever someone started with Leyline in play against you, it did never occur to you that:

- you hadn't boarded your anti hate, because you really can't know for sure what hate people are packing
- you did board in stuff, but didn't see it
- you did board it in, and even found it, but the rest of your hand couldn't get there?
- your opponent had the counter magic to stop your Leyline removal
- your opponent opened on two Leylines and you only found 1 piece of removal?

(all assuming that you weren't able to go aggro on hardcast dudes and beat them with them, which certainly happens, but you can hardly count on it).


None of those happened to you? To me they all happened, more than once. You're either extremely lucky or you don't face as many Leylines as I do. The point is that leyline is the single worst hate card there is for Dredge. Prove me wrong, but as long as there's a Leyline in play, you can't do anything. Against Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb, Extraction or Extirpate I've won a hundred times without preparing for it.

What am I not seeing?

[HokusSchmokus]

Izor: Those situations did happen. Isaid I never lost a MATCH to it, except in the mirror.
There is no way for me to prove that, I know.
Still: Leyline enforces bad mulligan decisions. Last week at the GPT I won a game against double Leyline with Putrid Imp Beatdown. Also you can win a lot of games because the opponent mulligans to 5 or sth. and you opnen with a therapy and force a mulligan to two.
Believe me or not, but there is a reason I don't consider Leyline a big threat.

[Calado]

The point is that leyline is the single worst hate card there is for Dredge. Prove me wrong, but as long as there's a Leyline in play, you can't do anything. Against Crypt/Relic/Spellbomb, Extraction or Extirpate I've won a hundred times without preparing for it.

Agreed. Even when we're able to destroy it, it still delay us one turn by having to cast claim instead of a discard outlet (unless you start with looting and LED, which is unlikely when mulliganing for removal).
Agreed with the sneak and show matchup being tough, it's my archenemy by these days. It's fine when they cast show and tell and I have the opportunity to put stinkweed imp AND have enough permanents to sac AND enough bridges to get back. Surviving two Emrakul's attacks is not easy if it's early.

[HokusSchmokus]

Agreed. Even when we're able to destroy it, it still delay us one turn by having to cast claim instead of a discard outlet (unless you start with looting and LED, which is unlikely when mulliganing for removal).
Agreed with the sneak and show matchup being tough, it's my archenemy by these days. It's fine when they cast show and tell and I have the opportunity to put stinkweed imp AND have enough permanents to sac AND enough bridges to get back. Surviving two Emrakul's attacks is not easy if it's early.

What is happening? If this is true, why do a lot of Sneak Show pilots I know claim Ichorid is one of their worst matchups? How can a matchup me bad for both sides?^^

[Julian23]

So let's look at it from the other side:
What are the strongest cards that hose Dredge? Everywhere I see HS post, I only read about bad sb cards against Dredge.

[HokusSchmokus]

In my opionion the best single hate cards are Extractions or a way to recur multiple Crypts. If you know what you are doing , 1 Relic or Crypt CAN win the game, but people need to realize that one Crypt activation is normally not enough unless you can back it up. Other than that, the worst thing for me that can happen is if the opponent has several different pieces of hate, that cannot be handled by the same card.
Diverse hate (creature+enchantment+land+artifact, like Maverick can do) is really hard to beat.
My personal record in matches against Maverick with Ooze, Wheel, maybe artifact hate,E-Tutor and Bog is abysmal, for example. Canadian decks that run Crypt+Extraction+Bolt is a pain in the ass, too.
Basicly, what I am saying is that if the hate is diverse enough and people know how to play it, it gets really hard for Dredge to win.
Sure, 4 Leylines and Turn 2 Grisel+Emmy is enough, but that is not somehing that you can expect to happen every game.

Edit:It also depends on what you are planning to do. Koby's Sneak Show list with Cages,for example. He stated that his plan against Ichorid and Reanimator is to delay them for 2-3 Turns. For that, Cage is perfect.

[Calado]

Koby's Sneak Show list with Cages,for example. He stated that his plan against Ichorid and Reanimator is to delay them for 2-3 Turns. For that, Cage is perfect.

That's what came in mind against dredge. Leyline delay as much as cage, with the bonus of being free and allowing them to ponder turn 1. I mean, if you were playing against dredge, why would you prefer running Cage over Leyline?
Against Cage we can discard turn 1, and then claim and dredge on turn 2. Against Leyline, we can only do this if we have permanent discard outlet to bin the dredger after the claim in maintenance phase (one more point for Pimp when dealing with hate).
There's something I'm missing?

[HokusSchmokus]

I think I am misunderstood. Now ofc Leylines effect is powerful,if not perfect against dredge. This is also the reasons why a lot if decks play it (without thinking about it). The reason I consider it bad is that it basocly forces you to mulligan hands without it brcause of the otherwise neigh uncastability of it.
The free aspect is not good enough in most decks imo.