First of all thanks to Final Fortune for your reply!
Talking again about boarding, how many cards do you usually bring in? I always find myself boarding about 7 or 8 cards, because, this makes me feel safe. But I have many problems to find room for those cards. Maybe it's better to board a little bit not to destroy the nature of the deck. I don't know, tell me the right way!
... or Tolarian Winds.Originally Posted by NecroYawgmoth
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
I'm new to the dredge archetype and I'm looking to build a dredge deck, to facilitate this I've been reading this thread and a lot of other sources. Initially I'll build it LEDless because of financial reasons and if I enjoy playing the deck competitively I'll play either LED or LEDless based on my personal preference.
I have 1 question concerning land that I haven't found being discussed yet however (I might've overlooked it, big thread): Why are Gemstone Caverns never run?
As I understand it, an opening hand wants to see mana, a dredger, discard and card draw, so exiling a card (while never good) does not inhibit a prize hand. Nor do dredge decks seem to want to draw into lands, making the colourless generation if Caverns isnt in your opening hand of little concern. At the same time, (mostly LEDless decks) running 14 or 15 lands seem to have a hard time running good gold lands apart from the 8 City of Brass + Gemstone Mine.
I'm not so much advocating playing Gemstone Caverns as that I'm curious why no one seems to consider them over Undiscovered Paradise or Tarnished Citadel
Gemstone Caverns is way too conditional. A land that doesn't tap for a color in ~90% of you having it is kinda sucky
This man is a truthspeaker! You deserve a beer - if you see me in Ghent, you may present yourself to me as The Speaker of Truths and I will buy you a beer of choice
There are many options on boarding for games 2 and 3, but you will usually board in your anti-hate cards (like Nature's Claim or Chain Of Vapor), and hate against that match-up (like Iona or Elesh-Norn) and prepare for a longer game than game 1 (Boarding in Nether Shadow for me), you then board out what you see as not necessary for the match-up or bad for the match-up, this is how I generally boardFirst of all thanks to Final Fortune for your reply!
Talking again about boarding, how many cards do you usually bring in? I always find myself boarding about 7 or 8 cards, because, this makes me feel safe. But I have many problems to find room for those cards. Maybe it's better to board a little bit not to destroy the nature of the deck. I don't know, tell me the right way!
It also forces you to exile a card in your hand and can easily get wasted putting you down 2 cardsGemstone Caverns is way too conditional. A land that doesn't tap for a color in ~90% of you having it is kinda sucky
Currently Playing:
Dredge, The Rock, Lands, Spiral Tide, Affinity
As far as SBing is concerned, the less you SB in game 2 the better, because there's no guarantee the opponent will be able to draw or mulligan into his hate and you don't know which hate he'll draw or mulligan into regardless. Due to this uncertainty, I'll blindly prepare for Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction by playing this configuration game 2.First of all thanks to Final Fortune for your reply!
Talking again about boarding, how many cards do you usually bring in? I always find myself boarding about 7 or 8 cards, because, this makes me feel safe. But I have many problems to find room for those cards. Maybe it's better to board a little bit not to destroy the nature of the deck. I don't know, tell me the right way!
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Breakthrough*
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
2 Dread Return
1 Griselbrand
You'll SB out your Lion's Eye Diamonds for G2, they're the worst cards in your deck vs Tormod's Crypt because they require you to commit your hand to your graveyard and are totally reliant on Faithless Looting to become a pseudo draw spell. Assuming you've already won G1, then G2 you'll be able to use "DDD" and don't need the additional discard outlets in order to get your deck into motion.
I've replaced the 3xAshen Ghoul package with the 2xDread Return, 1xGriselbrand package because I realized either no one plays Tormod's Crypt anymore because it's bad against Reanimator or no one play Tormod's Crypt anymore because you can either kill them before they can play it G3 or you can Cabal Therapy for it and then kill them T2. Maverick, Goblins, Elves and Affinity actually have to play with either Faerie Macabre, Surgical Extraction or Leyline of the Void if they want to have a chance of winning the match, and I think they have to play with Leyline of the Void if they want to have a good chance to win the match by auto-winning G2 vs Dredge players who don't blindly SB vs Leyline of the Void G2. Someday, there may be a meta-shift where you have to SB in Nature's Claim blind G2 vs decks without Force of Will, but I don't think that meta-shift is here yet.
The 2xDread Return and 1xGriselbrand are win/kill condition differentiation vs Surgical Extraction and either forces the opponent to target my initial Dredgers with their first Surgical Extraction or later my Bridge from Belows in order to guarantee reliable damage. When the opponent doesn't draw any hate, then Dread Returning Griselbrand or Golgari Grave Troll and generating a board full of Zombie Tokens is significantly better than having to tap a land on the board in order to cast a single 3/1 Haste.
The asterisk on Breakthrough is because I think it's possible that SBing out Breakthrough for Firestorm is the correct decision vs a Maverick who is playing 4xScavenging Ooze and 1xBojuka Bog between their MDs and SBs, these players are terrible deck builders and magic players because they don't understand that they're letting us keep Lion's Eye Diamond in our deck without the threat of Tormod's Crypt and they're letting us Cabal Therapy OR Firestorm their hate G2 by it being a turn too slow. Pretty much every Maverick player at my shop plays 4 Faerie Macabre for Dredge and Reanimator and only plays 1 Scavengering Ooze and 1 Bojuka Bog between the MD and SB in order to seal the match.
So vs Maverick, look into SBing in Firestorm and pay less attention to cards like Dread Returns, Putrid Imp and Careful Study and just Wrath of God these morons. I also think removing Breakthrough for Firestorm vs. Goblins, Elves and Affinity is quite promising, albeit unnecessary.
That's essentially how I approach SBing with the deck as a whole, I'll have to adapt when Snapcaster decks start to play Tormod's Crypt or Affinity starts to play Leyline of the Void, but until then players are really shooting themselves in the foot by using such predictable hate cards because they have inherent synergy with their decks and they're using too few hate cards as well, I can consistently beat RUG with less than 3 Surgical Extraction and 3 Tormod's Crypt in their SB for example.
Good Luck
Everyday I look these forums to see if people already figured out that cutting the 12th thug instead of, say, the 4th breakthrough is wrong... doesn't look like it will happen any time soon, tho...
If you fail to explain the reason behind your choice, technically, it's the wrong choice.
Zerk Thread -- Really, fun deck! ^^
Ok, finally tried playing Dredge again last night. Pretty small field, we only had 8 show up. But most of those 8 were the ones who matter anyway. So 3 rounds and back home early can't be all bad on a work night.
The list I played :
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Bridge from Below
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
3 Putrid Imp
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Dread Return
1 Grizzlebrand
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
//////
3 Leyline of the Void
2 Nature's Claim
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Firestorm
2 Memory's Journey
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Blazing Archon
1 Angel of Despair
1 Dread Return
The Report :
Round 1 vs Stefani-Anne (no idea on the spelling there) playing Affinity? :
Game 1 - She wins the roll, of course, and leads with a Memnite. I instantly think "Affinity". My turn 1 Cabal Therapy shows Indomitable Archangel, Karn Liberated, Akroma's Memorial & Tempered Steel. Now I'm thinking "Ok, I have no idea but it looks like I've got a little time." Turn 2 she does nothing. My turn 2 I rip her hand apart before proceeding to the "make a huge zombie swarm" step and crush her pretty quickly.
Game 2 - I can't really find anything relevant and she proceeds to drop fast mana and big threats such as Wurmcoil Engine and Darksteel Plate. In no time I'm picking up my cards and moving to the next game.
Game 3 - I get a pretty nuts hand and by turn 3 I've ripped her hand apart and made a zombie swarm that would make George Romero smile. After Griselbrand joins the zombie horde, it's all over.
Side note: Once Griselbrand hit the board, his draw-7 ability was pretty much useless. Every time I use him in this deck this is the case. By the time he comes on line there aren't enough cards left in the deck to use that ability.
(1-0)
Round 2 vs Kevin (my arch-nemesis) playing RUG (as always) :
Game 1 - For those who have read my reports, you know this is the guy I can never beat playing the same deck he plays every single week. As always, I lose the roll and Kevin leads with a dual land and passes. I lead with a Gemstone Mine and Cabal Therapy, Kevin answers with Daze. His turn 2 he plays land and passes. I play City of Brass, Careful Study, to which Kevin answers with Force of Will. I then cast Breakthrough and Kevin answers with Daze. Really?At this point I'm out of gas and Kevin's double Nimble Mongoose takes it to the house.
Game 2 - I board in the Memory's Journeys for the Dread Return and target since I know he brings in Surgical Extraction and Tormod's Crypt. I lead with Gemstone Mine into Careful Study and Kevin let's it resolve. I now have a Stinkweed Imp in my yard, to which Kevin answers with Surgical Extraction. He plays land and passes on his turn. I play a Cephalid Colosseum and cast Breakthrough, Kevin answers with Red Elemental Blast, then on his turn he Wastelands the Colosseum. Again, I'm out of gas and his Tarmagoyf goes the distance as I get to play draw/go for the rest of the game.
For what ever reason, Kevin seems to always have about 8-10 sideboard cards for when he plays me no matter what deck I play. And to top that off, he ALWAYS draws multiples of them in his opening hand. I could almost believe it if it happened occasionally, but every time for the past 4 months? Really?
(1-1)
Round 3 vs Austin playing Pox/Dredge thing :
Game 1 - This matchup is a bit wierd. Austin's deck is sort of half Pox and half Dredge, using a Bloodghast, Life from the Loam engine to create a psudo-lock as needed. So in short, I'm not sure how to play this one. I actually won a die roll so I'm totaly confused, but lead with Gemstone Mine into Cabal Therapy, not even sure what to call. I know I don't want to call the two afore-mentioned cards because he wants them in the yard. Then I remember that he runs Crop Rotation and sure enough, it's in his hand. No Bojuka Bog for you! His turn he plays a land and passes. My turn two I go nuts creating a huge swarm of zombies to which Austin pretty much scoops 'em up.
Game 2 - I mull to oblivion trying to hit a Leyline of the Void I sided in and I don't find it. Austin does however and this one is all him.
Game 3 - Again, no Leyline of the Void, but I choose not to mull because it looks do-able. I lead with my favorite hand; Gemstone Mine, Lion's Eye Diamond, Careful Study popping the Diamond for 3 red and pitching Faithless Looting, Golgari Grave-Troll, Ichorid and Bridge From Below. You can figure out how the rest of this one went.
(2-1)
I ended up 4th on tie breakers, payout to the top 3 of course.
Props -
None - This tournament sucked. It seemed like the whole house was in a funky lifeless haze. There just wasn't any excitement at all. Everyone was sort of just trundling through it like it was a chore they didn't want to do. Even Austin, the store owner, stated he didn't want to play before the tournament but he played so we would at least have 8.
Slops -
Griselbrand - I have yet to see you be 100% relevant in this deck and still can't come to love you here. The times I saw you I really wished you were Flame-Kin Zealot. Sorry bro, I just don't see it.
Shane - Because you decided to hand your round 3 opponent the win without playing him or dropping, he ended up 3rd putting me 4th on tie breakers. I know you would have beat him if you played it so I'm not sure what happened there. I just know it sucked for me.
Kevin - I know the guy is good, but this has gotten to the point where I just don't want to play there any more. I've watched the numbers drop from a steady 22-26 a couple months ago down to 8 last night and I have to wonder if all those guys chose the same thing I am considering now.At one point I just set my cards on the table, drew and passed without even looking at them. At that point you have to ask why you even bother to show up. The downfall of Legacy is that the number of places you can play is pretty limited.
Last edited by TerribleTim68; 08-30-2012 at 05:23 PM.
You want to back up your claim with math? Cutting a Putrid Imp for Dredgers or Lands I'll buy, but cutting Breakthrough for a Dredger is a borderline decision considering hands like City of Brass, Careful Study, Breakthrough and 4 blanks are definitely keepable on the draw when you've got your draw step and Careful Study.
Cutting Breakthrough is wrong, and while I realize having 12 Dredgers and 12 Gold Lands is optimal in terms of mulligan criteria, I think it's difficult to calculate the value of Putrid Imp, and to a lesser extent Tireless Tribe, in place of the 12th Dredger or 12th Gold Lands because being able to discard your entire hand, use your draw step to dredge and guarantee you have a Dredger in your graveyard for your draw spell and play around Tormod's Crypt has merit that's incalcuable.
I can't even figure out what the trade off is between a Golgari Thug and a Gold Land actually is, like Anusien said it feels like having to choose between cutting off a hand or a foot, is the 12th Golgari Thug more important than the 11th Golden Land when the Golgari Thug has a worse return on Dredge (4) compared to Tarnished Citadels equal return on mana (3 damage is irrelevant IMO)?
Maybe the post-board Griselbrand should be a Golgari Thug, worrying about having an alternative Dread Return target in case of Golgari Grave Troll being RFGed may be anal retentive considering putting 3+ Zombie Tokens on the board and either an Ichorid to activate Bridge from Below again at end of turn, a Putrid Imp to discard your hand, a Golgari Thug to sacrifice to Cabal Therapy and stack a Narcomoeba on top of your deck or just a Stinkweed Imp to chump block all have merrit.
Hmm, maybe not playing the 12th Golgari Thug is a personal leak of mine, but RAWR Griselbrand ...
You add in the fact that sometimes in games 2-3 you need to cast Thug to say recur that Therapy in your yard to get some Bridge tokens and take out there Jitte they just fetched for, then trigger thug to recur that Narcomeoba that you sacrificed earlier
Thug Vs Land I still lean on Thug and tend to cut a PImp over him as I like the idea that he can feed Ichorid and recur my Narcomeobas in games 2-3
Currently Playing:
Dredge, The Rock, Lands, Spiral Tide, Affinity
Did you allready had a Dredger in your hand? If yes you should have simply gone for DDD in this scenario.Round 2 vs Kevin (my arch-nemesis) playing RUG (as always) :
Game 1 - For those who have read my reports, you know this is the guy I can never beat playing the same deck he plays every single week. As always, I lose the roll and Kevin leads with a dual land and passes. I lead with a Gemstone Mine and Cabal Therapy, Kevin answers with Daze. His turn 2 he plays land and passes. I play City of Brass, Careful Study, to which Kevin answers with Force of Will. I then cast Breakthrough and Kevin answers with Daze. Really? At this point I'm out of gas and Kevin's double Nimble Mongoose takes it to the house.
Can't find the Journey in your board, you might wanna edit it ;).I board in the Memory's Journeys for the Dread Return and target
Our music means nothing, except for what it means to
you.
I did not, but with Careful Study and Breakthrough in my opening hand I thought for sure I'd get to one in the either 4 cards I would draw between the 1 card for each of my next 2 turn & the 2 off the Study or the 6 I would see off the 1 for each of my next 2 turn & 4 off the Breakthrough. I was looking at a hand that was going to get another 4 to 6 cards very soon and I've had very good luck drawing into a dredger with that kind of hand. I knew I was going to Therapy that first turn so that meant more time to draw into one.
Oops, I knew that didn't look right. I fixed it.
A number of reasons. The first is that it is only a gold land when you are on the draw, and while being on the draw is awesome with Dredge and you will do so more often than just about any other Legacy deck, the reason that Dredge wants the draw is to be able to draw up to 8 cards and discard at end step to get a Dredger in the yard all while avoiding countermagic. Effectively mulliganning twice and starting with a gold land in play is obviously counter-productive to that game plan.
The second reason is that while Dredge doesn't use much land, the land it does use all needs to be colored. Imp, Tribe, Breakthrough, Looting, Study, those are generally the only cards you will tap lands to cast and none of them benefit from a colorless mana source.
And third, the other gold lands are just more reliable. City of Brass and Tarnished Citadel may deal you a bit of damage, but at least they will give you whatever color you need each and every time you use them. Undiscovered Paradise is generally for the landfall in Bloodghast builds, but can also give you the very small amount of mana you will need. Gemstone Mine may only have 3 uses, but those three uses are generally more than enough.
@TerribleTim68
Against RUG, don't you just want to Draw Discard Dredge a few times in game one? Then they have no way to interact with you outside of bolting their own delver to kill your bridges, or bolting a couple zombies.
As long as you don't go saccing zombie tokens to a dread return that almost certainly won't resolve you should be fine.
If you have the absolute perfect hand with like 1 troll, 1 land and several discard/draw outlets thats one thing, but if it is a hand that has a dredger, and would be destroyed by a force of will and a daze, then just keep it and DDD. Save the enablers to speed up your clock latter in the game if you need it after you have a solid hold on the game. If your first 2 dredges flip 2-3 more dredgers then its probably safe to try to fire off a study/looting, and you might just win that turn. But if it fails you still can be dredging the next few turns until you can DDD again.
Its not like the RUG player was extremely lucky to draw 3 pieces of counter magic by the third turn. Thats just what RUG does. Game 2 doesn't sound like he got a nuts draw either. He drew 3 cards that worked well against you, its not like he drew 3 extractions and a crypt. The REB could have been any counterpell. The Wasteland could have been a stifle and still blown you out.
I have played dredge in the past, and currently play RUG, those are just some of the things that I noticed that I think probably went wrong from what you posted.
I used the DDD plan a lot game one. Many decks just can't interact and you can grind them out. You might have a hand that kills on turn 3 if you are not disrupted, but I think its just better to go for the slow grind and guarantee the g1 win, because a lot of the time bad dredges and mulligans to oblivion are the only things that can beat you g1.
Edit:
Just saw you didn't have a dredger, I guess that changes things a bit, I would have maybe mulled the hand in that scenario. DDD just seems so powerful against RUG, and you have a very good shot at drawing a dredger in the mull hand, but you get blown out by countermagic if you keep the hand you kept. Tough call.
@Tim:
He didn't had any preassure on the board, so it was actually really careless to play that Breakthrough right into the Daze when you cut have waited another turn.I play City of Brass, Careful Study, to which Kevin answers with Force of Will. I then cast Breakthrough and Kevin answers with Daze. Really?
It's also questionable if you should have kept the hand at all ( as you knew he was on Canadian).
As for game 2: If you get blown out by a single Surgical Extraction( I wont count the counter, as you have to expect this against Canadian), then you can only blame yourself for keeping a weak hand and not your opponent for doing what his deck is suppose to do.
Our music means nothing, except for what it means to
you.
Well, I thought I was in the clear when he had already used a Daze the turn before and just cast a Force of Will, removing another Force of Will. Having seen 3 counters already I thought "There's NO WAY he has another one!" Guess what?
You're probably totaly right. Having only played this deck twice now I'm by no means "good at it". I'd have to ask for a bit more constructive insight as to how to not end up in the same situation next time. Or should I just switch to a different deck?
That's sort of been my view of these forums lately. Everyone is willing to point out what you did wrong, but no one really says what the right choice is. You're pretty much just left to figure it out on your own with the only advice being "don't do that" after you do that.
Playing your deck is how you get better with it, I know when I started playing Dredge I would never remember my Ichorid TriggersYou're probably totaly right. Having only played this deck twice now I'm by no means "good at it". I'd have to ask for a bit more constructive insight as to how to not end up in the same situation next time. Or should I just switch to a different deck?
That's sort of been my view of these forums lately. Everyone is willing to point out what you did wrong, but no one really says what the right choice is. You're pretty much just left to figure it out on your own with the only advice being "don't do that" after you do that.
After more practice I don't miss them and know when I can keep a hand
Currently Playing:
Dredge, The Rock, Lands, Spiral Tide, Affinity
I wouldn't say that people aren't backing up criticism of the wrong play without providing what the right play was.
Multiple people have said you should have gone the Draw Discard Dredge plan. Also, even with him having used a Daze and a force, Spell Pierce was still live. From what it sounds like, the guy was either miss playing himself, not dropping geese/playing cantrips or he probably had infinite countermagic in his hand, and even if you waited a turn to play around the daze, I would bet that you were about to get hit by either a spell pierce or a second FoW.
Hey guys a manaless list top 8'd our recent major here in the Philippines. He beat 3 Miracles deck lol I think the meta is well tuned for manaless right now if it's full of control terminus and fair decks.
It's what I'm playing right now, FWIW. While I've been doing really well with it, I am still uncertain if it's the "best" Dredge deck right now in the format.
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