[Report] 6th with Manaless Dredge at Jupiter Games DFD Event!

[Michael Keller]

First and foremost, it's good to be a civilian again. I am really happy to be home with my wife and I was looking forward to this event for a long time. I couldn't make all of the Jupiter events in the past because of my obligation to the service, but that time is over. I made it worth the wait and expected to have an incredible time as always. I learned a lot about myself while playing in Virginia with the guys down there - honing my craft - and it was time for me to come out guns a' blazing and ready to go.

After debating what to play for this "return" event, I had a few choices in mind. There were a few lists I had been tinkering with, all of which revolved around the concept of Manaless Dredge. The reason I opted to go with Manaless for this event was actually quite simple, really: I knew the field would be loaded with blue decks and no Leyline of the Void. Sure enough, my gut feeling was right. Not only was Leyline practically non-existent, hate in general appeared to be at a relative low. For the unprepared, a deck like Manaless Dredge can be a thrashing, as there is no tangible way to interact or assault the deck's primary goal: to abuse the Cleanup Step by discarding down to the maximum hand size and using recursive threats to either beat an opponent down each turn or flashback a Dread Return targeting a series of specialized creatures that blow the game open.

After going through several incarnations in testing and tinkering, here is the list I ultimately went with:

"The Best Picture" - Manaless Dredge by Hollywood Mike Keller

//Main
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Golgari Thug
[3x] Shambling Shell

[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Nether Shadow

[4x] Street Wraith
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Phantasmagorian
[3x] Contagion
[1x] Sickening Shoal

[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Bridge from Below

[4x] Dread Return
[2x] Griselbrand
[1x] Sundering Titan
[1x] Flayer of the Hatebound
[1x] Flame-kin Zealot

[4x] Dryad Arbor

//Sideboard
[4x] Nature's Claim
[4x] Reverent Silence
[3x] Sickening Shoal
[2x] Verdant Catacombs
[1x] Forest
[1x] Contagion

In the original concept of the deck, I initially wanted to run cards like Gitaxian Probe or Urza's Bauble to accelerate the deck into a faster kill. I decided this line of play was unnecessary due in large part to those cards' ineffectiveness at doing really anything other than dredging a card. They give you information, but if you're skilled at playing Cabal Therapy you shouldn't have to use those cards as a 'crutch' that weakens the deck's opening draws.

This is why I wanted Contagion and Sickening Shoal.

Not only do these cards give me the ability to kill accelerators (Hierarch, Arbors, Birds, etc.) and problematic creatures (Knight of the Reliquary, Scavenging Ooze, Goblin Lackey, etc.), it also gives me the opportunity to hit my own creatures. When paired with Bridge(s) from Below this can open the door to faster Dread Returns. Counters can be distributed as I choose, and I can stack the Bridge triggers in my favor. This enables me to knock off a serious threat and get myself a Zombie(s) in the process. These are just little lines of play I noticed in testing that wound up being relevant - more relevant than Probe or the assorted Baubles ever have.

I also wanted to max out on Dread Returns and targets. The reasoning behind this is that I saw this event as an opportunity to truly abuse the power of the card by going to five specialized targets to supplement the Grave-Trolls as potential targets to win the game with. I really liked Sundering Titan; it was even relevant in a win against Reanimator (which you'll see later on). The list might not be optimally configured from a design standpoint, but it was certainly a meta call that wound up being incredibly efficient.

Our Head Judge is Mike Caffrey (mcchainmail), and it is announced we have a total of ninety (90) players for this event! And here...we...*go*.

Round One vs. James Higgenbottom with RUG Delver

This was a feature match and can be seen here. (It's the game right at the very beginning of the video.)

To summarize, I wound up taking this down in relatively short order. I know James is usually on the Sneak-Show plan, and when he first dropped a Volcanic Island, I had no reason to believe otherwise. However, when he dropped Delver of Secrets the cat was out of the bag. I was able to overwhelm him game one with recursive threats into a 'Returned Griselbrand. This was highly relevant as it staved off his duel Tarmogoyf attacks and allowed me to (potentially) accelerate into craziness. James scooped then and there.

Game two was virtually identical, except instead of a Griselbrand I opted to return a 7/7 Grave-Troll in the event he drew into hate. My threat base was already decent and I was able to kill a Tarmogoyf with a Sickening Shoal (pitching Phantasmagorian). I attacked James out with several tokens and the Troll and he was never able to recover. I also used Cabal Therapy blind to nab two Forces out of his hand - in both games, no less - to protect my spells and with the Arbor I could pay for any Daze shenanigans.

James also put himself on the play game two, which he later noted as I did that it was a mistake.

1-0, 2-0-0

Round Two versus Chris Hernandez with RUG Delver

This was virtually similar to the round one confrontation with James. Ironically, Chris had James' list and used his almost identical seventy-five with a few slight changes in the sideboard. Game one I was able to overwhelm Chris by discarding Phantasmagorian (which he needed to read, understandably) into some crazy stuff. I had the Street Wraith and activated it which allowed me to recur two Ichorids and a Nether Shadow the following turn. He could not recover.

It was interesting to see Chris try and counter the Phantasmagorian ability by discarding three cards from his hand. I quickly pointed out the secondary ability is activated, as I am not actually casting the card. He gave up the information and I just smashed him from there with said cards and tokens.

Game two was more of the same. Chris couldn't draw into any hate and he wound up mulling to five. I recurred some threats and brought back Griselbrand to turn my deck sideways. Flayer cleaned up from there after I dealt an arbitrarily large amount of damage to him with something like a 27/27 Dread Returned Troll. The Reanimator player next to me took note of that, and it was ironic I would be playing him the next round.

2-0, 4-0-0

Round Three versus Jeff Pyka with Reanimator

Well, so much for a good run. I didn't expect to win this match. Jeff said that he noted who I was after seeing me play next to him the previous round, but I didn't remember him as I was too into my match. Then I recalled the person next to me flashing a Sphinx of the Steel Wind in his deck and I thought to myself, "This is going to be really, really bad."

Turns out, it wasn't.

Game one Jeff started out on the play. He played a Swamp and passed - this after mulling to six. I went to the end of my turn and he proceeded to Entomb for Griselbrand(?). I was kind of confused by this, but whatever. You would think Elesh Norn would be more relevant here. Anyhow, he took his turn and passed without playing anything. Huh. I wound up going ballistic and stripped his hand of any business, and Dread Returned a Sundering Titan off of two Narcomoebas and an Ichorid, destroying his lone Swamp. From there it was elementary and Jeff missed a golden opportunity to cash in on the win. Fortunately for me, his deck betrayed him as he had an Exhume (which while not unilaterally good in this match-up would have helped him) in his hand.

I shuffled my entire sideboard into my deck and proceeded to eye how many cards Jeff was going to board into his deck. I saw four or five cards, which wasn't a lot, but I also gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn't suspect Leyline. Jeff started the game off on the draw and I passed with no play. He had nothing but a few lands and draw spells. Eventually, he had to go to his own Cleanup to discard Elesh Norn. Turns out that line was one turn too late for Jeff, as the next turn I destroyed him with Griselbrand into my entire deck into Flayer into a XX/XX Troll for the win.

3-0, 6-0-0

Round Four versus Timur Babakol with MUD

From what I understand, Timur has been playing MUD to some success recently in the Syracuse area and the Elmira events. I haven't had the chance to compete against him, but I was sure it would be a good match. I won the die roll and put Timur on the play. He winds up mulling to five and starts off fresh with a Tomb into Grim Monolith. From there I just did my thing and I managed to recur my threats and beat him down pretty handily. He was going to play out a Lodestone Golem, but opted to play another threat first. This wound up being slightly relevant, as I used Dread Return to attack him out. He was relatively low on life to begin with, so I'm not sure how much it would have mattered.

Game two was very interesting. I didn't see any of his hate, and after a few turns of beating him down with tokens, Shadows and Ichorids I proceed to get him down to one life. Timur gets a huge draw and plays out Platinum Emperion, to which I cannot answer with a Trinisphere on the table. I proceed to witness a game I had in hand dissipate, only to concede.

In the third and final game, I put Timur on the play. He does the whole crazy thing with Monolith and Key and such and I proceed to discard. I have a Street Wraith after discarding a Troll, and when Timur drops a Wurmcoil Engine (with Key effects, no less) I proceed to go nuts at the end of his turn. Eventually we reach a point where he is untapping his Engine after attacking with it each turn and I have two massive Trolls (12/12 and 13/13) paired with tokens, Narcomoebas, Ichorids and Shadows. Although Timur was keeping himself in the game by gaining life, I was able to pound him with those threats to take massive chunks of his life away.

At one point, he had a Steel Hellkite in play, but it wound up needing to block the massive Troll assault that took him out of the game. He still cleared my tokens away in one shot, at one point.

The reason he couldn't stop my Trolls was that I had a basic Forest on the table, which allowed me to regenerate my Trolls if need be. Timur had held back a few turns without playing anything - including a Dynamo - but it was still an overwhelming amount of damage. I take it down and move to a win away from a Top Eight (8) berth.

4-0-0, 8-1-0

Round Five versus Paolo Cesari with RUG Delver

Another featured match, this one can be found here. (At 2:30:48.)

Paolo and I are good friends in the Syracuse Magic scene and we go a little ways back as acquaintances from the Vintage folks in Rome, NY. Paolo is a gifted player and I know we both need this one to secure a berth in the Top Eight. So, it's off to the races!

I would like to note that in game one I missed a Narcomoeba trigger (which rarely, if ever happens). However, after a brutal contest I was able to prevail by attacking Paolo with an assortment of creatures - finalized with a Griselbrand to seal the deal. I also should have attacked before returning Griselbrand to play, but I was just so depleted and doped up on painkiller medication at this point (whiplash) that I knew at some point I was bound to have a bad game.

Fortunately, I overcame my errors and managed to pull out an essential game one win.

In the second game, I had to contend with Paolo's double Extraction hand. That wound up being really good, and while I probably shouldn't have revealed my hand and deck to him and scooped for the sake of the audience at home, I pondered while he was resolving it with a slower train of thought. Regardless, I scooped and it was on to game three.

Here is where I picked up the pieces from the game two loss and put it together. I knew Paolo was on Extraction now, which was a good sign for me because I don't really care too much about it as long as I play around it properly. This game was a bit more grindy. I started off with a discarded Imp into Street Wraith, which allowed me to recur Nether Shadow and Ichorid the following turn. All of this occurred after Paolo had Pondered and played a Delver. Eventually I was able to grind him down low enough on life through these beats.

Paolo then Bolted his own Delver with only a Mongoose on board to hit one of my Bridges, but it didn't matter a whole lot. I had him at two life with three power on board. He drew and played a Grafdigger's Cage - only to pass. I then attacked for three, he blocked one point and succumbed to the two Shadows. Thus, I earned my place in the Top Eight!

5-0-0, 10-2-0

Round Six and Seven: I.D.

5-0-2, 10-2-2

For the next few hours I was hanging out and enjoying my draws. Watching potential competition was incredibly relevant, and I was able to do that. It should also be said that when playing Manaless Dredge, you always want to draw first. This is now more important than ever in the Top Eight of a large event based on higher seeding getting to choose who plays and draws first. Thankfully, I was the second (2nd) overall seed, and I was going to force my seventh (7th) seeded opponent to play first.

Unfortunately, I got paired against the worst humanly possible match-up.

***Top Eight versus Jer Rudolph with Turbo Eldrazi***

Jer and I go a little ways back, and it's obvious we know what the other is playing. I just glanced at his list for a few minutes and put it down. Jeremiah is a confident player who always knows his deck has a chance to do some serious damage in any tournament he plays in. Unfortunately, a deck like Turbo Eldrazi doesn't get the respect it deserves from other players. But Jer knows how to play it, and he knows how to play it perfectly.

Skill aside, main deck Bog, Glacial Chasm, Crop Rotation(s) and Vesuva(s) are just retarded against me, so I know I am losing this game. I try to get something going but get Bogged and Vesuva'd out early. Thankfully, I was able to partially stabilize with some beaters. I got Jer very low on life - low enough where I was going to win the following turn. With him stunted on blue mana, he Topped during his turn and found the damn Tropical Island to bail him out! He then cast Show and Tell, with me dropping a 15/15 Troll and him a Primeval Titan into play. He proceeded to shut me down with Vesuva - again - and was able to hold me off and accelerate into lands for the win.

I drew a Griselbrand the turn after he cast Show and Tell. I don't know how relevant that would have been, but it certainly would have changed the dynamic of the game for certain.

I'm kind of pleased I actually had a shot to win through multiple Bojuka Bogs, a real shot, but in the end the cards are just stacked against me in this match-up and the outcome was what I expected.

Game two was very strange. Jer had no action and I was able to Flayer him out with beats and a 'Returned Troll into play. Tabernacle was on board, so that with Flayer didn't really do a whole lot except for a lot of potential damage the following turn, where he scooped.

In game three, I had an uphill battle to climb. I had to contend again with multiple Bogs and I just couldn't get anything going. I lost in relatively short order to a Trinisphere which was able to keep me from doing anything - even without a graveyard. It's safe to say Jer put a lot of thought into this match-up, and while I had the chance to win if he had a mediocre draw, it just didn't happen.

5-1-2, 11-4-2

So, for my troubles I wound up taking sixth (6th) place and a set of Bayous. I was very pleased with the tournament and it was an incredible feeling to be home again without having to leave ever again. With my service up, I can focus more on playing Legacy regularly. A lot of people have wanted me to give up on Dredge, and I just haven't because I love it so much and play it extremely well.

Manaless, however, is a whole other beast. It's a derelict from the norm in just about every possible facet of deck design, and it is always a ballsy choice. I would still say it is one of the most powerfully disrespected archetypes currently in the general overall meta. I won't proceed to sell any of you on anything, but I will say this: Jupiter Games and Legacy in general is in for a ride on the wild side with this guy back home - and back to pick up where I left off those four years ago!

Props:
- The catering. A memorable contribution to all of the players attending.
- The event. It was very memorable. Dual Land events aren't as common as they used to be, so it was nice to see some old faces coming out of the woodwork for this event. The event was saturated with talent!
- Nether Shadow. It's just a cool card that represents a period in Magic I love. It also happens to be really fucking good in this archetype.
- Contagion. Incredibly versatile and a powerful removal spell. I was teetering whether or not to run this over Shoal main, and while both have their merits, Contagion won out on its ability to at least break even on card advantage as opposed to Shoal which winds up generating a disadvantage. I'll probably plug and play with the two.
- Sundering Titan. I like the fact it is unexpected and shuts down decks using multiple colors. This with Cabal Therapy is a thrashing.
- Flayer of the Hatebound + Grave-Troll. When one hits play, it's four damage. When it's the other, it's more like seventy.
- Dryad Arbor. The best addition to the archetype since its inception. It was the reason I did well at this event, and I think its utility goes without saying.
- The Jupiter guys. Always nice seeing you all!
- Being in two feature matches. Very cool.
- Being home for good. Nothing beats it.

Slops:
- The rain. I thought power was going out for sure!
- Eli. Where were you?
- Whiplash. If you've experienced it, you know it sucks.

Thanks for reading!

~Hollywood

[Bryant Cook]

Congrats on the finish and thank you for the foil Ingot Chewer!

[Rock Lee]

Always a blast to play with you Hollywood. You'll get your revenge on me yet.

[Zirath]

It was a pleasure playing with you. Hopefully I won't punt a game like that again.

[xikitins]

Good Report!

I have a tournament next saturday and i want to play this deck.

Hollywood, can you put some tips about side boarding???

Thank you!

[Rekk]

Congratulations Hollywood.
Good to see you having success with manaless dredge, you have been praising its return for a bit now.

[Michael Keller]

Thank you to everyone with the kind responses.

@Bryant: No problem, and thanks for the Griselbrand(s). Too bad we didn't get a chance to play.

@Rock: Definitely. I still owe you a thrashing! Of course, that is when you opt to stop playing with Crop Rotations.

@Zirath: Good match, man. Perhaps I'll start seeing you at the Elmira events on a regular basis from now on in.

@xikitins: Check out the Manaless forum for the boarding strategies. There are also some other folks there who are really good at playing Dredge that can give you pointers, too.

[Zirath]

@Zirath: Good match, man. Perhaps I'll start seeing you at the Elmira events on a regular basis from now on in.

It's definitely worth the trip. The store there is awesome and Dan's a great guy.

[Michael Keller]

Definitely. Sounds like it will be lots of fun!

[aahz]

That decklist looks awesome! Congrats on the finish and thanks for the report. I love Manaless Dredge (though not quite as much as Vintage Dredge ), so I'm glad it's back on the radar.

[Michael Keller]

Thanks!

Hopefully, it still stays below the radar...