[Deck] Dredge

[HammafistRoob]

I always run 14 lands in the main. I don't feel like I lose anything by doing so, and sideboarding lands always seemed wrong to me.

[Anusien]

I always run 14 lands in the main. I don't feel like I lose anything by doing so, and sideboarding lands always seemed wrong to me.

I run 16 lands, because a hand with 2 draw spells and 0 lands is much worse than a hand with 1 draw spell and 1 land.

If you break QuadLazer down this way, it looks like this:

12 Dredgers
12 Discard-only cards (Putrid Imp, Cabal Therapy, LED)
8 Discard and draw cards (Careful Study, Faithless Looting)
4 Draw only cards (Breakthrough)
12 Graveyard only cards
12 Lands

You want a hand that has a draw spell, a land, a discard spell, and a dredger. If you assume a hand isn't keepable without each of these things (which is for the most part true), it doesn't make sense to play 12 Dredgers, 20 discard spells, 12 draw spells and only 12 lands. We would play more Dredgers if we had them, so why don't we play more lands?

[igri_is_a_bk]

So the question is, do you cut LED or Pimp? I'd be inclined to drop LED and take my licks on first turn kills.

[Dice_Box]

Have a new name for this deck. "Trigger Happy". Because if you miss one fucking trigger, you do in your whole plan.

Somehow I think this will make me better with my other decks.

Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.

[Final Fortune]

So the question is, do you cut LED or Pimp? I'd be inclined to drop LED and take my licks on first turn kills.

LED is a pseudo land considering it casts Faithless Looting and activates Cephalid Coliseum, in retrospect I think Breakthrough is the least necessary component of the whole deck, followed by the 4th Ichorid and maybe the 4th Putrid Imp

[Dice_Box]

The new deck I'm working on explores Tortured Existence as a powerful utility-facilitator engine. I'm working on refining a list and trying it out at a bigger tournament. Once that happens, you can expect to see some more in-depth info on it. It's like a hybrid of Manaless and non-LED Dredge. This version (probably more than any other variation of Dredge I've played) grinds games out pretty hard.

Just wondering, any update on this? I am interested to see what your cooking.

[Anusien]

LED is a pseudo land considering it casts Faithless Looting and activates Cephalid Coliseum, in retrospect I think Breakthrough is the least necessary component of the whole deck, followed by the 4th Ichorid and maybe the 4th Putrid Imp

LED, Looting, Troll isn't really a keepable hand. And yes, LED can activate Coliseum, but only after you already have threshold. Which means the cards in your hand can't do it on the play.

If the numbers are 12 Dredgers, 20 discard spells, 12 draw spells and only 12 lands, it doesn't make sense to cut a draw spell for a land. If you count Coliseum as a draw spell (which is dubious because it takes another land or an LED + Careful Study, you're still not cutting the thing you have the most of.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Just wondering, any update on this? I am interested to see what your cooking.

I met Hollywood on MWS. It was a sick experience - one game I had Crypt and Cage out and it did exactly nothing.

[HammafistRoob]

1)LED, Looting, Troll isn't really a keepable hand. And yes, LED can activate Coliseum, but only after you already have threshold. Which means the cards in your hand can't do it on the play.

2)If the numbers are 12 Dredgers, 20 discard spells, 12 draw spells and only 12 lands, it doesn't make sense to cut a draw spell for a land. If you count Coliseum as a draw spell (which is dubious because it takes another land or an LED + Careful Study, you're still not cutting the thing you have the most of.

1) It really depends on what you're up against and if you're on the play. But I would keep that against a fair number of decks if I'm on the play game1. It's definitely a mull against an unknown opponent though cuz if they have a Force you basically just lose.

2) I agree 100% here. Discard spells are the first thing I look to cut if I'm trying to squeeze something new into the main. Although I've been on the same list for a while now and believe it to be quite optimal. Could you post you're list? I'm very intrigued about which cards you axed in order to squeeze in 16 lands, but taking your recent posts into account, I would assume you don't run Putrid Imps.

[Anusien]

LED, Faithless Looting, Troll is basically equivalent to Land, Imp, Troll. Actually, the Looting hand is slightly worse because at least with Imp you can dredge more than once. If you fail to chain dredges on the Looting and the first draw step, you are basically stone cold dead. I would almost never keep City of Brass, Putrid Imp, Golgari Grave-Troll, 4x blanks. The deck mulligans so well and can be so explosive, you are basically asking to lose by keeping such a brick of a hand. I might consider keeping LED, Looting, and 2x Dredger, because that does something. But if you have Thugs, that's barely more than just Dredging a Troll once.

[HammafistRoob]

No, LED, Looting, Troll is guaranteed to dredge you AT LEAST 12 cards deep by turn 2. So that's 19 cards in your graveyard, if you don't hit another dredger there than that's just terrible luck. I definitely consider it a keep against zoo, maverick, and goblins. You mind sharing your list?

[Gui]

In my view, I would keep LED + Looting + Troll + 4 blanks anyday.

Even if you don't know the deck on the other side, I have to go for it. Say half of the decks are playing FoW (this is just a guess, probably more decks do so, but it's just to illustrate), and they have that ~50% chance of having a hand with FoW, this means you will connect LED + Looting+Troll 75% of the time, and god knows you can get way worse hands out of a mulligan.

Troll is the best chance among dredgers you have to connect a dredger, and if, by chance, you hit nothing, you will draw another card and drop troll on the grave. Say what you want, you just have 4+6+1=11 "blanks" on the grave, and a troll for next turn.

[HammafistRoob]

Well it's actually a 39.95% chance for them to have a Force if they run 4 and didn't mulligan. But I've seen tons of lists only playing 3 in the maindeck, which is wrong imo but whatever. The chances of not hitting another dredger is really low in this scenario so it really is matchup dependent. Against Storm you would definitely lose unless they kept a durdley hand hoping to get a few turns of cantripping. Or you just dredge like a god and hit something like Narco, double Therapy, Bridge. Point being it's a risky keep against an unknown opponent and there is no need to not trust the decks mulling power.

[Michael Keller]

No, LED, Looting, Troll is guaranteed to dredge you AT LEAST 12 cards deep by turn 2. So that's 19 cards in your graveyard, if you don't hit another dredger there than that's just terrible luck. I definitely consider it a keep against zoo, maverick, and goblins. You mind sharing your list?

The problem is that LED Dredge doesn't run as many dredgers as its counterparts and is less threat-dense aside from Bridge from Below tokens. So, in the event you decide to dump your hand, if you brick, you're basically on the slow-dredge with no further acceleration plan for the remainder of the game in the event you get no action - which happens more often than you might think. The deck is packed with functionally useless cards once they're dredged (draw spells, lands, LEDs), so it's best to weigh your options before committing to dumping your hand turn one in the hopes of hitting gas off the first dredge.

Even worse if you brick and dredge twelve by turn two, you might not even hit another dredger, and without a discard outlet to go with the Troll back in your hand that could be catastrophic. All I'm saying is that LED is light on the threat density but lightning quick on the starts. On the play against those decks, I would mulligan unless my hand contained two dredgers to go with that LED and Looting.

Aside from that, it's a ship-back in my book. You just have to hit the right combination of cards to make it worthwhile. But if you're feeling like going for it, do it.

[Dice_Box]

My LED list runs 11 Dredgers with Dredge 4 or above and a dark blast. My understanding is this is more or less the norm. The 11 core. So I do not buy that we have a lower Dredge chance. As for lower threat density, I agree there. But that's normally what happens when you trade power for speed.

[HammafistRoob]

The problem is that LED Dredge doesn't run as many dredgers as its counterparts and is less threat-dense aside from Bridge from Below tokens. So, in the event you decide to dump your hand, if you brick, you're basically on the slow-dredge with no further acceleration plan for the remainder of the game in the event you get no action - which happens more often than you might think. The deck is packed with functionally useless cards once they're dredged (draw spells, lands, LEDs), so it's best to weigh your options before committing to dumping your hand turn one in the hopes of hitting gas off the first dredge.

Even worse if you brick and dredge twelve by turn two, you might not even hit another dredger, and without a discard outlet to go with the Troll back in your hand that could be catastrophic. All I'm saying is that LED is light on the threat density but lightning quick on the starts. On the play against those decks, I would mulligan unless my hand contained two dredgers to go with that LED and Looting.

Aside from that, it's a ship-back in my book. You just have to hit the right combination of cards to make it worthwhile. But if you're feeling like going for it, do it.

I already said that if you brick, you basically lose. But the odds are in our favor, dredging 12 cards deep is very likely to hit another dredger. I have done the math on situations like these.... I will try to find it.

My LED list runs 11 Dredgers with Dredge 4 or above and a dark blast. My understanding is this is more or less the norm. The 11 core. So I do not buy that we have a lower Dredge chance. As for lower threat density, I agree there. But that's normally what happens when you trade power for speed.

He meant that we have less dredgers, therefore a lower chance to chain into more dredgers. Although this doesn't make much sense because manaless plays practically no draw spells so they're almost always slow dredging.

[Dice_Box]

Question. I keep reading over this line: " You need to explicitly say "retain priority" after you cast Breakthrough, before you crack your LED."but I can nor work out why I should do this. What is the importance of this action?

Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.

[PissedNumlock]

Question. I keep reading over this line: " You need to explicitly say "retain priority" after you cast Breakthrough, before you crack your LED."but I can nor work out why I should do this. What is the importance of this action?

Sent from my mobile, forgive spelling and grammatical errors.

In magic the default behaviour is that you pass priority after casting a spell (as this is what you want to be doing 99% of the time). Cracking a LED falls in the 1% category. If you do not explicitly retain priority your opponent can say breakthrough resolves, and then you no longer have the opportunity to crack your LED to dump your hand in the GY.

[Final Fortune]

I already said that if you brick, you basically lose. But the odds are in our favor, dredging 12 cards deep is very likely to hit another dredger. I have done the math on situations like these.... I will try to find it.


He meant that we have less dredgers, therefore a lower chance to chain into more dredgers. Although this doesn't make much sense because manaless plays practically no draw spells so they're almost always slow dredging.

That's not quite accurate, being able to chain dredgers allows you to discard non-dredgers from your hand, there are situations where I'd forego discarding a Stinkweed Imp over a Cabal Therapy if I could dredge a Golgari Thug and have a guaranteed Cabal Therapy on my next turn, you have to think very carefully about how chain dredging allows you to discard other cards in your hand for better value propositions.

[Mrheizenberg]

Hey Fellow Golgari's players,

I'm quite shocked that nobody is talking about the new spoiler from Theros : Ashen Rider

Ashen Rider
Creature - Archon
Flying
When Ashen Rider enters the battlefield or dies, exile target permanent. 5/5

I was thinking all day long about this and i think it can become a good target (if you play one in g1) for the main deck cause it offers some stupid plays with a fast deck like LED dredge where T2 reanimation isn't a dream. This guy can also target lands and synergyse massively with cabal therapy => our opponents got no ressource left and faces a large army of undead. Even if it is a small chance (cause you need it in your opening hand) he is a great outlet against S&T decks. Exile effect is a way better than a permanent destruction because you can kill a dude without exiling your bridges.

What do you think about it? I'm pretty interested by your thoughts.