Well you can't run lands with Spy, but your point is fair.Originally Posted by Ramanas
What hurts is if you face considerable hate, Spy sits on the board, whereas Griselbrand doesn't necessarily, giving you more options for the side.
Running grisel free's up board space for options.
I ran Spy for a good 4-5 months on and off. Tried lots of tweaks to the list.
This list from the SCG that top8'd is not what I would run.
Being a combo deck essentially, it's probably fair the comparison between belcher/Pact SI and some other storm variants, but it's not like the Griselbrand list is hand-over-fist stronger than Spy, against extraction, counter & gravehate etc.
FWIW, I liked Spy, and I loved how speed could help you compete against combo, and I liked that I stole quite a few games with Spy.
But on the occasions that I lost games due to inflexibility of the landless spy-list, I wasn't too thrilled either.
Given game1 is your only chance to go all-in in a lot of match-ups, I want my planB to be strong, and I doubt how strong Spy can possibly be against focussed hate postboard.
Playing in a really big tournament tomorrow with Manaless.
I'll post reports with the new list.
Good luck to you! I'm looking forward to some kind of report. Go go go, Hollywood =)
I meant compared to Flayer of the Hatebound, Angel of Despair can pay for Unmask or Sickening Shoal's alternative casting cost.
Good luck!
''The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.'' Lord Eddard Stark - A Game of Thrones
-Adsum
-ChrisMeister on MTGO
Dudes.
I saw on the *Dredge* thread and over on the Theros thread a new card that could be of use to us in the side.
Ashen Rider
Creature - Archon
Flying, 5/5, 4WWBB
When Ashen Rider enters the battlefield or dies, exile target permanent.
Compare to Angel of Despair
This critter is pretty damn good I think, but I certainly don't expect it to be cheap!
Played Manaless at my local game store tonight. Managed to go 4-0 without loosing a single game with this list:
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Shambling Shell
3 Grisselbrand
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge From Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
3 Contagion
1 Sickening Shoal
Sideboard:
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Reverent Silence
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Forest
4 Natures Claim
Sideboardplan was -4 Chancellor, -3 Dread Retur, -3 Grisselbrand, -1 Flayer of the Hatebound, -4 Removal/Phantasmagorian,+15 cards
Managed to dodge Rest in Peace even though I played against Countertop and BW Stoneblade.
Well done. DAMN lucky dodging RiP > I tend to cop that sucker a lot.
Why you play Dryads in the side, and not in the main?
I wanted top play 4 Chancellor, 4 removal and 4-off everything else for redundancy so couldn't fit them. Playing them in the board meant that I think Grisselbrand is the better than Balustrade Spy in this version, for instance if you don't need Contagion/Shoal in but don't want to board out your Dread Return package you can board out those 4 for Dryad Arbors and still have the combo-finish in your deck.
Top 4ed the local yesterday with a new list. Seventeen players, five rounds; played the Bloodghast package.
Details later.
Oh the suspense! I am really interested to see a list that can sideboard and not have to have two random cards in your opening hand to work. Lol I will be honest I have dabbled with this idea since you mentioned it. Its really neat, but to fit what I wanted in I had to loose the flayer combo. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. :/
I wanted to shake things up a bit and see how an older version of Manaless would be able to compete in my local meta yesterday. Turns out it was rather effective, although I don't know if I would run this exact configuration again.
I managed to Top 4 this event with the following list:
Manaless Dredge
//Main
[4x] Golgari Grave-Troll
[4x] Stinkweed Imp
[4x] Golgari Thug
[2x] Shambling Shell
[4x] Ichorid
[4x] Nether Shadow
[4x] Bloodghast
[4x] Street Wraith
[4x] Cabal Therapy
[4x] Phantasmagorian
[4x] Contagion
[4x] Narcomoeba
[4x] Bridge from Below
[4x] Dread Return
[2x] Sphinx of Lost Truths
[1x] Flayer of the Hatebound
[3x] Dakmor Salvage
//Sideboard
[4x] Reverent Silence
[4x] Mindbreak Trap
[4x] Dryad Arbor
[3x] Faerie Macabre
My match-ups were as follows:
R1: Affinity, 2-0
R2: Death and Taxes, 1-2
R3: Manaless Dredge, 2-0
R4: EsperBlade, 2-0
R5: RUG Delver, 2-0
All of my wins were rather lopsided considering this was an older variation of the deck. My round two loss was excruciating to say the least. After winning game one handily, my empty-handed and threat-less opponent proceeded to top-deck Rest in Peace followed by Batterskull. I dredged into thirty-two (32) cards and did not see a single Dread Return, Bridge from Below or Narcomoeba - uncanny odds stacked against me. I was unable to generate a combo finish because of this turn of events and ultimately succumbed to my opponent who was able to capitalize in the third game (Although I was ready to battle Rest in Peace with 'Silence, I didn't hit the pair needed which was clearly an error on my part in the configuration.)
I actually really enjoyed the Bloodghast package and found it to be quite useful in a variety of circumstances. The redundancy in and of itself was really nice and opened the door up to some additional mana production post-board with Arbors. I eschewed running Griselbrand to see exactly how well the discard effect of Sphinx would play out in a (hopeful) Show and Tell scenario. Although I didn't play against Show, Sphinx worked out more than serviceable as a Dread Return target to facilitate the fast win.
As stated, I really only wanted to see how the discard outlet benefit with Sphinx outweighs the straight-up draw with Griselbrand.
The one nice thing that wound up playing out in my favor was the net number of dredgers that were built into the configuration: seventeen (17) total. The Shells were still in there to help with dredging, Ichorids and Contagions, but the addition of Salvages were perfectly fine in helping to dredge and bring back Bloodghasts, too. There are a variety of ways the deck could have gone, but this is what I built the night before the event and just decided to roll with it.
@ Hollywood
I was hoping to see a list using Riftstone Portal or did that not pan out?
I'll be playing a Portal version next week, probably.
Hey all. I'm fairly new to this deck, though I have some experience with LED Dredge. Mostly unpleasant experience. Just because you have LEDs, doesn't mean you should use them... Anyways, I've been reading along this thread, and I have to say that of all of the established deck threads I've read from start to finish, this is by far the best discussion, and has been the most helpful to me learning about the deck. Kudos to y'all for solid testing, great ideas, more testing, clear, concise analysis and conclusions, and keeping open minds about other great ideas. Great tourney reports too, with impressive results!
I have a few questions... Has anyone tried a build that eschews Griselbrand AND Flayer AND Spy AND Angel for more MD space and relies on the beatdown kill? DR can target a Chancellor or a huge Troll to finish them off, and room for Ghasts or Removal can add redundancy and/or resiliency.
Someone mentioned that they liked to be explosive game 1 and resilient game 2, and there has been talk of going "fearless" vs RiP/Leyline. Has anyone tried a Spy list MD and boarding out the Spies/combo parts to make a grindier, more resilient build for games 2/3?
I don't have frequent opportunities to test vs. live opponents, so I don't feel confidant in my results, but I might fiddle around with these ideas in theory world, and see what I can (gold)fish up.
Thanks for the great reading!
Damn the Suspense!lol
I have be playing with that idea, but I am still using Chancellor of the Annex. Trying to slow down a RiP a turn.
It sounds like you are looking for something closer to the older build which are still near and dear to my cool cool heart. You might want to look into a build using a little extra draw power and Flamekin Zealot. I personally prefer the balls to the wall method. Avoiding the Creature hate in the main and use Chandler to slow them down before I combo off.
Hi guys. Having played against this deck in the past I thought I had a feel for it. But recently the deck seemed to be going off much faster against me. It took me a little while to realize that some people had dropped the maindeck removal spells for Gitaxian Probes. I came over here to see what the "normal" build looked like, and I see a lot of people running the removal.
Sorry if this topic has come up in earlier pages of the thread, but is there genuine disagreement over which is better? Or do most people think the removal is better, and I was just facing down a couple renegades who like to do their own thing?
It could be a meta choice, if there aren't many decks running Deathrite Shaman and if they wanted some extra speed and to get extra info for Cabal Therapy.
I'll try... and btw, your thoughts on LED's are pretty accurate > I've played against a few LED-Dredge players who had no idea. ANyhoo;
Flayer and Angel can fit in the same deck, but in truth Angel is very rarely (if ever) a reanimation target, since you're killing a Dread Return and also nuking creatures. A single removal spell then undoes all your work quite easy. My main reanimation target is always a draw/dredge combo piece or a Flayer since all of the have Enters the Battlefield effects.
Griselbrand and Spy (and Sphinx of los truths) kinda demand you choose one or the other, since Dryad Arbor can be a large part of how you play the deck. I would personally build around either Sphinx/Grisel or Spy. I don't think it's possible to really fit many reanimation targets into the deck without seriously slowing it down and reducing consistency.
My typical list for Spy was all about speed in game 1, with 2-3 Probes in there too.
For game 2 or 3 (depending on what opponent is playing and what hate I expected) my side was usually something like 4 Dryad Arbor, 2 Verdant Catacombs, 1 Forest, 4 Nature's Claim, 4 Reverent Silence. A very slow grindy side as you can see, but at the time I was experiencing quite a large amount of gravehate and not too much storm.
I've been away from this deck for a little while, been playing Jund and a couple others, maybe it's time to come back. ;)
@Hollywood:
Why the Sphinx over Griselbrand? Was it because of the discard?
I am convinced that WotC is "dumbing" the game because of all the stupid posts they come across on MTG-related forums
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