I usually run between 3-4 of both, most often 4.Originally Posted by Zooligan
(I don't play online anymore, I got sick of people rage-quitting if they don't get a god hand in their first 7)
If I side in an answer, I want to see it. I ran 4 Claims and a single Wear/Tear for a little while simply to make sure I found an answer in my grip. Not ideal from what everyone is saying, as siding in more than 4 in Dredge isn't ideal > I completely understand and also agree in some part on this thought, but finding one when you need it is far better than not.
JimmytheGreek makes a very good point, that a lot of the time siding in answers doesn't help. I've been there.
Having to actually draw it, rather than flashback/dredge as answer, is a problem of dredges' deck strategy that works against us.
I prefer to be on the side of having answers, than going fearless for the matchups where it counts. For many matchups however I will go fearless to try and beat them for speed.
FWIW, those Evoke creatures are nice to get around CHalice.
But that's the thing. Many decks run maindeck hate like DRS, and quite a few have more substantial hate in the side that stops us cold.
Sure there will be times when a player doesn't plan for dredge/gravehate, but they are usually in the minority where I play.
I felt the same way when I tested it.
I don't agree they're the worst 1-drop we can play.
At current I play Street Wraith as DRS is everywhere, but I don't think that Pimp is a poor choice compared to SW, more like a preference, kinda like the difference between Flame-Kin Zealot & Dragonlord Kolaghan.
You're proba gonna be forced to choose between the two of these unless they print something better.
::: Fingers crossed the new set gives us a few new toys ::::
It's interesting; I don't play Wraith OR PImp. I feel like if we can't get the engine going without them, they won't help enough to warrant inclusion.
Here's my list:
4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug
4x Faithless Looting
4x Breakthrough
4x Careful Study
4x Narcomoeba
4x Ichorid
4x Bridge from Below
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Dread Return
1x Flame-kin Zealot
1x Griselbrand
Sideboard's a bit up in the air. At the moment the core is 1x Flayer of the Hatebound, Iona, Elesh Norn; 3x Abrupt Decay; 3x Lotus Petal; 4x Nature's Claim.
Anybody running a similar list? Also, still curious as to whether I'm overestimating the strength of Chalice on 1.
The whole fearless approach can be warranted based on the ideals given by Feldman. I would consider playing anti-hate a preferential way to play the deck and not necessarily the correct way. I’ve played both strategies and have had success and failures with both.
The issue is how much space you’re willing to sacrifice when you’re boarding for games 2/3; dredging into anti-hate cards when you need to hit action feels bad. Another issue is the whole anonymity of your opponents sb composition. Most sb nowadays have a mixture of hate cards that while on average (thanks birdbrains) only makeup a small portion of it, are actually diverse, which makes it all the more difficult to tackle the “what do I bring in?” question.
Most boards have different forms of hate i.e. Artifacts (Tormond’s Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Gravediggers Cage), spells (Surgical Extraction, Extirpate), Creatures (Containment Priest, Thalia, DRS, Scooze), Enchantments (RIP, Leyline of the Void,) and others I’m sure I’ve forgotten. While I’m sure we can make reasonable assumptions as to what they’re bringing in based on the deck that they’re playing most will board in a mixture making your anti-hate cards all the more situational.
The reactive approach is fine because it allows you to answer a threat while not having anything committed to the GraveYard. I mean its not like they’re NOT going to slam their DRS, RIP, Cage or other permanent hate piece as soon as possible which allows you to take care of the problem at their end step and blow them out on your turn if you set it up correctly. The problem I’ve found with this approach too is that being reactive usually means you need to have that certain anti-hate piece in your opener, otherwise, why play reactive? If they play a turn 1 Cage and you don’t have Abrupt, claim, or CoV in hand then you’re going to be durdling for a bit while expending your own resources (i.e. Faithless looting, Careful Studies, Coliseum activations, etc.. ) to find them.
So I feel its preference at this point whether you’re willing to go in naked or not, however, I understand that cards like RIP, Cage, and Containment Priest have made it all the more difficult as they shut the deck down cold whereas something like Crypt, Relic, Nihil Spellbomb, Surgical and even DRS could be played around.
You can put the onus on your opponent to have the hate. Dare them. What will likely happen is 1 of 3 things. 1. They will mulligan down to find their hate which means their resources will be severely affected (if it’s a hate piece that doesn’t KO us) if they find it at all which puts you in the driver’s seat. 2. They will keep a solid hand with counters and cantrips and try to stall until they find the hate which again puts you in the driver’s seat or 3. They have hate and you just lose. xD
Thoughts on Phantasmagorian and Chalice:
Phantasmagorian is only ok. The card is way better in Manaless dredge when you’re dumping your entire hand with multiple activations instead of just 3 cards stuck in your hand. If you really want a strategy against Chalice on 1 then you can always DDD. I doubt you will be resolving any spells against the MUD player in the face of his/her other cards like Trinisphere and Lodestone Golem anyway.
Also while on the subject of Chalice decks if you’re a dredge player with Nature’s Claim in the board you will be hard pressed to resolve them. :/
At this point I don’t even know what I want my sb to look like. I have thought about the Painter SB, but that would mean changing the makeup of the main board as you would want to include more lands to facilitate the combo. Meh maybe inspiration will strike with the new set.
Sorry, blanking out right now. DDD?
Draw, Discard, Dredge. You draw for your turn, immediately go to the cleanup phase (assuming you had 7 cards in hand before the draw phase) and discard a dredger which you can dredge next turn. Not very effective against DRS naturally.
I'm planning to pick up the deck again for fun in a couple of local tournaments after having played LEDless dredge some years ago. Has there been any sort of consencus reached for the amount of discard outlets and draw outlets? I've always favored playing with a DR target in the main with two DR targets, so some choices have to be made with respect to the amount of Careful Study, Breakthrough, Pimp and Street Wraith in the deck. Any tips/comments are most welcome.
Dusted off the deck and played three rounds yesterday at the local. Went 2-1, winning vs. Sneak & Show and Junk Stoneblade, and losing to American Stoneblade.
R1: Sneak & Show (2-1)
G1: I opened with a Looter, dumping a dredger and starting the chain. He played a fast Show and Tell, dropping Emrakul. Good thing I had a Griselbrand in my opener.
G2: Couldn't get the chain together this game, and I think sideboarded Abrupt Decays just took up space. He landed Sneak Attack, then Griselbrand and Emrakul on the same turn to attack for 22.
G3: I think I managed to chain everything this game and went off with a Flame-Kin Zealot before he could kill me.
R2: American Stoneblade (1-2)
G1: Pretty typical combo. When I flipped G-Brand to the 'yard he conceded.
G2: He EoT Enlightened Tutored for RiP. During my first turn. I actually came really close to cobbling everything back together and going off, but it took me around eight turns to find two/
-producing lands to cast Decay on his RiP. Came really close to making the combo, but he ulted Jace when I had no cards in hand the following turn.
G3: I don't remember for sure, but I think he landed a pretty quick RiP in this game, too, and I just couldn't break it in time.
R3: Junk Stoneblade (2-1)
G1: Another G1 concession.
G2: This was a bit of a weird game. I started the combo in typical fashion, but I got hit by a double Surgical Extraction on Bridge from Below and Golgari Grave-Troll. It went downhill rather precipitously, with his landing two Deathrite Shamans and taking everything out of my graveyard.
G3: I got in some fast damage with Ichorids, but my opponent stayed in the game for a bit by using a card I hadn't known to exist: Batwing Brume. It hit me for about ten damage, so I took my time getting the combo together, but once it got rolling, it got rolling. I cleared the way with Therapy, then reanimated a 9/9 Grave-Troll followed by a Flame-Kin Zealot and around 17 zombies.
Had a lot of weird draws all day. About 85% of the games in and after the tournament, even AFTER substantial and frequent mulligans, I drew a Narcomoeba. Lands and sideboard cards were in much shorter supply.
This was the first tournament in which I'd tried Abrupt Decay in a long time, and I brought them in once/twice per round to see how they performed. Not sold on the card's viability unless we're running additional lands or Petals, and I feel like boarding in both Petal and Decay is a tall order.
One thing I will say in defense of the "fearless" strategy is that we've got a really good chance of winning game 1 and being on the play in game 3 regardless of whether we board in removal during game 2. In game 2, losing the head start with this deck gives our opponents both an excellent chance of hitting an answer to our combo (which my R2 opponent did in both games 2 and 3, and my R3 opponent did in game 2) and an opportunity to start hitting with their win-conditions before we can stabilize, and there's a good chance we're dead regardless of whether we can bring in anti-hate if they either a) land their hate and any threat quickly enough or b) play hate for which there's no answer (Extirpate/Surgical Extraction).
With that having been said, there are so many cards that completely shut us out that I think we're going to need to keep a set of Nature's Claim/Chain of Vapor/Ray of Revelation/Ancient Grudge in the sideboard. Abrupt Decay would be fantastic, but I don't think we can afford to cut for both the Decays and the necessary mana-adjustment we'd need. Eight lands (Coliseum doesn't count) are not nearly enough to support 3-4 2cmc spells like Decay. Decay also doesn't hit Leyline, which I was surprised I didn't see all day.
I only found Lotus Petal once, even in the games in which I sided in 3. I don't think all three were really necessary to have in the sideboard, so I'm probably cutting back to two.
Firestorm wouldn't have helped me much at all except in game 2 of round 3. I still don't think we can count on drawing it against double-Deathrite. They're just too fast.
So I'm thinking of running a board that's essentially three alternate reanimation targets (Iona, Elesh Norn, Flayer), two Petals, and a bunch of varied 1cmc anti-hate. Maybe one extra Dread Return.
I didn't really test Phantasmagorian much until round 3 and I wasn't impressed. If we were running a higher volume of dredgers and a larger number of recurring creatures, it'd be gold, but it doesn't do much off of only 4 Ichorids, 4 Narcos, and 12 dredgers. I may keep it around as a singleton, but I'm not particularly enthusiastic. One thing I noticed it can do for us is to get around Thought-Knot Seer's EtB trigger by dumping everything important into our graveyard. Probably not worth it to run too much of that effect in the 75, though.
So the takeaway, I think, is that we should bring in a few answers to hate (I'd advocate four to six), but we shouldn't be surprised if those answers fizzle. If they do, it might be worth it to just power through without them in game 3, but that doesn't work at all against RiP and Leyline, which remain the best permanent-based answers to our combo.
Played some games against the Eldrazi guy after the tournament. Chalice on 1 and Tormod's are both pretty severe. Don't remember a whole lot except that there were several really, really close games in which he and I were both down to about 3 life. He edged me out most of the time, and I think I was playing rather clumsily. My gut says that, in this matchup, we need to go as quickly as possible, maybe bringing in additional reanimation targets that could just win us the game on the spot. Blazing Archon comes to mind. Abrupt Decay is definitely too slow here.
So the big takeaway: board in anti-hate removal for game 2; consider it, but don't rely on it, in game 3. Cabal Therapy is really helpful if you know what they're running against you. Don't waste time on Firestorm or Abrupt Decay because you'll almost never get the chance to use them. Chalice on 1 is really tough to beat before heavy-duty beaters show up. DDD yields mixed results at best. More research is needed.
So I went 6-3 at the Philly Open with Dredge to just miss day 2 :/ played the following list:
2 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Golgari Thug
3 Putrid Imp
4 Faithless Looting
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
SB:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Firestorm
1 Gemstone Mine
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
My losses were round 1 against Eldrazi, game 3 he had double Tormod's Crypt when I had a Nature's Claim in my opener and could have beaten 1 Crypt. Lost a close match to BUG Delver fair and square (unanswered Cage game 2, Deathrite Shaman and counterspells game 3), and my last loss was to RUG Delver in a very interesting game 3 where he had Surgicalled my Bridges and Narcomoebas and I lost to his Delver and Goyf, the game basically came down to a turn where I had returned 2 Ichorids and had a Golgari Thug in play I had just dredged and cast for blocking duty to put myself down to 7 from painlands, and I attacked him down to 7 with my 2 Ichorids but he had a flipped Delver and 5/6 Goyf that threatened lethal next turn. After the attack I had an interesting decision since I still had 1 painland untapped, an LED that had been uncracked for several turns, and a Nature's Claim in my hand that he knew about from the 2 Surgicals. So basically I had the 2 choices of Nature's Claiming my own LED to go down to 6 then up to 10, or cracking the LED to flashback a Faithless Looting and try to find my 1 Dread Return in the top 12 cards to return a huge Troll which would then be able to block the Goyf and hopefully kill him with 3 Ichorids coming back my next turn. I chose to try and find the Dread Return and didnt find it and ended up losing the next turn when I think he Pondered into a Bolt. In hindsight and after discussing it with my opponent afterwards tho I think I should have taken the Nature's Claim my LED line, as doing that would have forced him to not even attack the following turn since it wouldnt have killed me and he would die to Ichorids the next turn if he made that attack (I think I was dead to a Bolt if he found one in either case), tho if I had found the Dread Return I feel like I would have been in good shape but oh well, it was definitely one of the more interesting decisions ive had to make with this deck in a long time, and it was pretty remarkable that I was even still in the game at all after being Surgicalled twice.
For full disclosure tho I did get insanely lucky to beat a Lands opponent in a matchup that is maybeee 20/80 for us? Lost game 1 to a turn 2 20/20, game 2 on the play my turn 1 I made like 7 zombie tokens and an Iona naming green and Therapied away his Crop Rotation and Gamble, and he was still drawing live to his Tabernacle his first draw step but didnt hit it. Game 3 I won after he Crop Rotationed for Bojuka Bog with a Narcomoeba trigger on that stack during my 2nd turn's draw step, but I still had an LED, Grave-Troll and Breakthrough in hand to go off again that same turn, followed by him bricking on his draw steps for like 3 turns after that. Basically I had to draw insanely well to win games 2 and 3 but I guess that's Magic sometimes and my opponent was a good sport about it.
The Ingot Chewers and Ancient Grudge in the SB were a nod to the Eldrazi Menace which unfortunately appears like its going to be a real thing in the format going forward. Chalice at 1 is insanely good against us but we can still hope to go off with LED/Coliseum or discarding to hand size if they dont have a fast clock. If they have Chalice at 1 and a piece of hate whether it be Crypt or Leyline I think those are just games we have to accept that we will lose, and after having tried Abrupt Decays in the SB at local tournaments for the past few months I didnt miss having them in my SB during the tournament and would still play this same list going forward, tho I think Dredge is not particularly well-positioned at the moment with Deathrite Shaman and/or Eldrazi/Chalice everywhere.
Last edited by Cope; 02-29-2016 at 08:37 PM.
Cope, really like your list by the way. I think people are undervaluing firestorm not only in its ability as an uncounterable discard-outlet (chalice may be prevalent for a bit) but for the potential blow-out factor. Affinity, elves, dnt, goblins (may be seeing more of these guys) and drs decks are all potential targets for a good firestorming. With eldrazi on the rise we may expect an up tick in these creature heavy decks making firestorm a not so bad choice.
hi guys, went 4-1-1 at a local event sunday.
2-0 vs Cephalid breakfast, easy win with zombie+ichorid
1-2 vs BUG tempo, got beaten by deathrite +3 delver on G2 and Cage+surgical G3
2-0 vs BUG control, G1 22/22 GGT, same thing on G2, 17/17 GGT+ zombie army
2-1 vs D&T, lost to Batterskull-Jitte G2, on G3 discard RIP on turn 1, clear the board with firestorm on turn 5 and win
1-1 vs Merfolk, lost G1 with opponent at 2 life after mulligan 4, G2 easy win, G3 end time with him at 2 life (again) and me with Elesh+ 1 zombie.
I made a huge mistake, i haven't attacked with 1 ichorid before DR Elesh...
2-0 vs miracle, nothing to say
Finished 9th after 6 turns with 4 people at 13 points, i won a Jitte..
My opponent with merfolks finished 8th :'(
hello, so I'm planning to be running Dredge all day at GP DC with an Infinite Challenge badge.
Right now I'm running a Main deck Iona as a hedge vs other combo decks and to lock out my opponents game 1.
But if Eldrazi is going to be as big a presence as everyone is saying, I think it would better if I had Iona in the sideboard.
The question is I have is: Should Iona be in the sideboard or should she stay in the maindeck? If she goes to the SB, should I be running one of my Ashen Riders in the main? Are Riders good vs Eldrazi?
I'm also considering running Reveillark for the lulz, especially if I expect a ton of Miracles. If they Terminus or StP it, I just get back 2 GGTs.
"If we don't know what we are doing, the enemy certainly can't anticipate our future actions!"
-Anonymous
I feel like Griselbrand would be better than all of the above, but that's just me. If nothing else, he chumps 5/5s all day, at a cost of... well... dredging seven times!
Seems I'm in the minority regarding a lot of my deckbuilding/sideboard choices, though, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
I don't really see the appeal of Ashen Rider. Takes down problem permanents, yeah, but I feel like those permanents are always much farther down the list of things we need to worry about than, e.g., a RiP. I guess it might do some work versus Marit Lage et al., but it makes little difference whether you run Rider to junk Moats or a Flayer of the Hatebound to just punch around them. I don't think either is worth a maindeck slot.
Iona's an all star, but Eldrazi and Miracles are matchups in which she does comparatively little or absolutely nothing (much to my dismay). Elesh Norn would keep the Mimic and Mentor problems from developing further, but I don't know that it's as important as either going faster (FKZ) or just stopping them dead (Blazing Archon).
Not sold at all on Reveillark. Why get a 4/3 that brings backup when you can lock the opponent out of the game? Feels like it won't work very often, and when it does (if it does) it'll be pretty win-more. Why not just play faster reanimation targets like the Zealot or G-Brand? Both can pretty much give you an insta-win with only a couple of pieces of support.
[EDIT: Note well that Ashen Rider and Reveillark are both susceptible to Dismember.]
Hi everyone,
I'm thinking about trying Dredge and while I am researching on different strategies, I would like to clarify something.
While dredging, can I put cards in my graveyard in any order?
For instance, I have Golgari Grave-Troll during my draw step and choose to dredge 6 cards. Perhaps, I see a Nether Shadow and three other creatures among these top six cards. So it makes perfect sense for me to put (into graveyard) Nether Shadow first and the rest of the cards on the top of it. However, I watched several games on youtube and never saw a dredge player changing order of the dredged cards.
The most recent comprehensive rules are a bit vague about this:
702.51. Dredge
702.51a Dredge is a static ability that functions only while the card with dredge is in a player’s graveyard. “Dredge N” means “As long as you have at least N cards in your library, if you would draw a card, you may instead put N cards from the top of your library into your graveyard and return this card from your graveyard to your hand.”
Perhaps I missed a definition for "put cards from the top of the library to your graveyard". Applying the same logic behind choosing in which order to discard cards, I assume that I also can dredge cards in any order.
Would appreciate some clarifications.
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Carpe Diem
Whenever multiple cards go to your graveyard at the same time you're free to choose in which order they enter your graveyard.
This only really matters when running Nether Shadow, which is usually only played in Manaless Dredge (and there are just not too many people piloting that).
Also, that someone posts a video on YouTube doesn't automatically mean that they're good at what they're doing.
This is true. However, in my experience, I found that opponents *love* to tell you that your graveyard should be in a certain order. You can tell them you're not playing Nether Shadow, they will call a judge, and the judge will agree with you. You'll be fine. But if you're new to Dredge, and possibly already nervous, this will only add to it. Stand your ground, and do the thing.
Nether Shadow's the only card I can think of off the top of my head that actually checks the order of your graveyard. So yes, you can rearrange cards that you're revealing for a dredge, but only once; once they hit the yard, they have to stay in order.
Keep in mind, also, that you DO have to make sure your graveyard stays in order at sanctioned events, regardless of whether you're running Nether Shadow.
One (unrelated) thing that's worth mentioning, seeing as you said you're new to Dredge: if you draw, say, three cards, you can dredge up cards put into your graveyard off of previous draws from the same spell or effect. So if you sacrifice Cephalid Coliseum to draw 3, discard 3, if you dredge, say, a Stinkweed Imp and reveal a Grave-Troll when you're dredging, you can then choose the Grave-Troll as the next draw and dredge it up. Then, if the Troll reveals another Troll in the top 6, you can choose that Troll as the third card to draw.
You may well have known that already, but it took me forever to find a definitive answer, so just thought I'd mention it.
Happy dredging!
Hey gibbous, someone a few pages back mentioned Blazing Archon as a powerful answer to Eldrazi. I suppose it is susceptible to Dismember+Warping Wail, but other than that, I don't know that they can beat that card.
Not sure if it's better than Griselbrand in that matchup though. I could envision a scenario in which the Eldrazi deck has so much power on the board and we have such a low life by the time we Dread Return that even gaining 7 life/chumping with a couple zombies isn't a great option. Whereas Archon buys us time to clog up the board, as welling as often being a 3 turn clock itself (ancient tomb plus random hits we've gotten in).
I haven't tested it, but I think I might give it a try next week at my weekly.
To sum up, the answer is YES. Thank you for your clarifications. I played MtG from the mid 90s till the early 00s and back then players were more disciplined, I'd say. I don't remember players rearranging graveyards for convenience, but now it is so common so I was not sure if there were some new rules introduced. Anyway.
I see that many can remember only Nether Shadow as a card that requires your graveyard to be in its original order. Spinning Darkness is another famous card that checks the order of cards in your graveyard. Spinning Darkness was widely played in the Black Necro deck (based on Necropotence, Drain Life, and later Corrupt). I am not sure whether Spinning Darkness would work well in Dredge (not in manaless for sure) as there is a limited number of black cards in the deck and perhaps it is more important to feed Ichorid or keep Bridge from Below where it belongs to. However, in some cases, perhaps it is ok to drain-life an early Deathrite Shaman or any other creature your opponent already has in play in response to him/her casting Rest in Peace or activating Tormod's Crypt.
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Carpe Diem
Contagion is a another card I loved to side in against Elves etc. in Manaless Dredge.
Haven't bothered running it in LED-Dredge though, given we have Firestorm.
I used to run G-man in the main with a couple DR's as the sole DR target. I liked it. I don't really play with G-man much anymore, as I got to the point where I felt I didn't really need it to win.
I feel like Ashen Rider has a different purpose, relative to dealing with problem perms that just deny us winning rather than nerfing our grave, or problem perms our deck traditionally can't answer. Obviously Show deserves a mention with this card too...
You can't cast Spinning Darkness on Deathrite Shaman. It says target nonblack creature.
Yes, that's right. My mistake.
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Carpe Diem
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