Tuesday, March 27, 2012: (( This post is somewhat incomplete, and undergoing construction as we speak! Come back or refresh often to view new and up to date information as it rolls out! I will be often saving my work as to not lose progress in the event of disaster! So, yay for that! Likewise forgive the few minor spelling mistakes here and there, I am actively refining this post as we speak!))
:symg::symu: Standard "Dredge" Primer :symu::symg:
1.0 - INTRODUCTION
What is Dredge?
If you asked any Legacy or Vintage player, they would say a deck that utilizes the dredge mechanic to bend the rules of the game, and play out of your graveyard. But all that is beyond the point. The whole concept of dredging, is to put obese amounts of cards into your graveyard, and utilize them to your advantage in some way or another. This is often done by casting cards that have varied effects based on a specific condition in your graveyard, or casting directly from the graveyard itself. This deck in particular, utilizes a buffet load of creatures that scale amazingly depending on the creatures in your graveyard, flashback spells that mill you further to keep the chain going, and often times a few nuts and berries in a blender for added fun.
What sets this deck apart from all other decks you could choose in the standard format, is that it plays to the advantage of some of the top decks in the meta currently. This deck shrugs off coutnerspells as they will often only hit your creatures, which will go straight to your graveyard and simply buff your future casted creatures. This deck can lay down hoards of mini-creatures to chump block against the best of the best aggro-swarm decks, and pretty much laughs in the face of any mid-range control deck. This sounds amazing on paper, but there is an alkalies heal to this deck. Nihil Spellbomb. A single card that can shut you down and often buy your opponent all the time they need to reduce your giant glowing life total to zero before you have time to re establish yourself.
In this primer I will be focusing on primarily :symu::symg: variants of the deck, and often times a tiny splash of or :symw:. Should the meta shift, and likewise this deck with it into any other major direction, rest assured it will be covered here. There are however a separate group of people exploring a strictly :symr::symg: version of the deck, if you would like to join that discussion, just follow this link.
2.0 - HOW THE DECK WORKS - (Section somewhat unfinished.)
The Strategy
Mill yourself, get creatures in the graveyard, cast really big creatures! It's about as simple as that! Ok, maybe not exactly that, but thats the general game plan. You are generally going to split your deck up into 4 major components. Milling cards, graveyard effect cards, control cards and mana. The more of those, the more creatures you can fit into each category, the better! Why? Splinterfright, Ghoultree, Boneyard Wurm and Kessig Cagebreakers. They all prefer your milled cards to be of the creature variety, so its only natural to want to have as many mill creatures, graveyard creatures, control creatures and mana creatures as you can, as to make all your mills to the best of your advantage.
Really if I were to continue this conversation, we would start getting into the core cards of the deck, deck assembly, yada yada, and that is a whole new section of this primer. If you are somehow still confused as to how this deck plays, below you will find many videos of people piloting the deck, many of them currently of Brian Kibler, professional MTG player.
Videos Of The Deck In Action
Brian Kibler playing various dredge lists over his stream;
Thanks to Innistrad and Dark Ascension, we have a plethora of wonderful cards to choose from, all of which complement this deck nicely. Hell, most of the cards are pulled from the two sets! That said, I'll break down the card choices below, and provide a quick synopsis of why we pick them, or why we don't, what makes it good, what doesn't, ext.
- Creatures
- [Beat-Stick] - Splinterfright - Well, heres the deck! But no really, Splinterfright is what makes this deck what it is, he is the reason we want to mill and the reason the deck really even exists. He is an X/X body that grows bigger as the number of creatures in your yard does, and has his own evasion right on him to make it so eventually your opponent wont have enough total blocking toughness to stop your trample damage, and oh yeah, he also feeds himself by milling you 2 per turn. There is no ends to the kinds of broken this card is. An auto 4 of in any list.
- [Beat-Stick] - Ghoultree - When Dark Ascension hit, it was a game changer for this deck. We got many new cards to play with, and this was one of them. He might only be a simple 10/10 creature, no bells or whistles, but what else would you give him? Hes a 10/10! No other creature in standard can stand up to him toe to toe short of a creature with deathtouch or is equipped up to superhuman levels. Oh yeah, and he can cost as low as 1 in this deck if its preforming properly... An auto 4 of in any list to include green, "usually".
- [Beat-Stick] - Boneyard Wurm - Don't underestimate this card. As a 2 drop, he is horrible. But do NOT think of him as a two drop. He plays more like Ghoultree then Splinterfright, in that he should come late game, but cost you next to no mana, and be a huge threat your opponent must answer. You will never cast him turn 2, but that should not stop you from considering running him, as he is a powerhouse threat only to be outdone in size and efficiency by Splinterfright and Ghoultree.
- [Beat-Stick] - Kessig Cagebreakers - This card is so good, its bad. Easily the best creature in the archtype, bar none. Heres the problem tho, hes so good at what he does, your enemy will go through great lengths to see that he never sees the light of day. Weather he gets countered, removed from the field, dealt lethal damage, whatever it is, you will almost never get the opportunity to attack with him, and thus make him the worst 5 mana you will ever spend in this deck. For that alone, be cautions when putting him in your 75, let alone actually figuring out when its safe to cast him and when it isn't.
- [Mana-Dork] - Birds of Paradise - This deck is a little slow, and theres no archtype themed 1 drops we can really utilize as of yet. Enter mana dorks. They allow you to have turn 1 plays, and better turn 2+ plays. There is something to be said about being able to drop a turn 2 Armored Skaab or Birthing Pod. It allows for you to make usually, game changing turn 3 plays. Without mana dorks, you do nothing turn 1, nothing meaninghful turn 2 and finally start to get the deck rolling turn 3. That is widely unacceptable. So, use mana dorks! And the birds is da king of da dorks.
- [Mana-Dork] - Llanowar Elves - More mana dorks. If you don't plan on using a white splash, adding 2-4 of these guys to your list is a great idea. Birds of Paradise are amazing, but they are only 4 cards of your 75. You need more turn 1 plays, and here they are!
- [Mana-Dork] - Avacyn Pilgrim - If you are running a minor white splash, or are sideboarding a few low cost whitte spells, these are hands down better then elves. Simple explanation, this deck rarely gets over 5-6 lands. Most of your deck will cost 3+ mana. So you will likely only make 1 play per turn. With no :symg::symg: cards in the deck, you only need 1 green per turn. If you had the ability to cast a mana dork, then you have all the green mana you will ever need. Llanowar Elves might as well be colorless mana, because it being green mana in the first place did not matter. There is almost no difference between these two, other then the fact that pilgrims opens up a splash option while elves does now.
- Spells
- [Filter-Mill] - Tracker's Instincts - There is only one reason not to include this into your decklists, and that is if you arnt playing standard dredge. Zing! But really, this card does everything this deck wants, and then some. If you hit a creature, it mills 3 and snags a creaure for your hand. If you hit no creatures, it mills 4 cards. Then it can be flashed back to do the same! It also shares a strong synergy with other mill, in that if other mill mill Tracker's Instincts off of the top of your deck, you end up able to mill more! Draw big threats into your hand, mill flashback cards and creature cards into your graveyard.... Yes please!
- [Filter-Mill] - Mulch - 1G mill 4 and keep every land you hit in your hand? Alright! In 4 cards you should see at least 1 land, sometimes 2. So net gain is 1-3 creatures in the yard, a few lands in hand and anything else you might mill ends up being a flashback spell. Seems like theres nothing but positives right!? Well no. It doesn't have flashback. Thats a HUGE problem. If you top deck it or see it in your opening hand its great! If you don't, you often wont see it the whole game because once you start milling, you will likely send all your Mulch's to the graveyard and never cast them, making them dead cards in your deck. Just be cautious when considering these in your list, as powerful as they are.
- [--Utility--] - Gnaw to the Bone - Let me first start off by saying, wow. Consider this situation if you will. You JUST cast a Ghoultree this turn and you have an Artful Dodge in your graveyard and your opponents at 10 or less life! But Your opponent also has lethal damage sitting on his side of the turn, so in a normal game, thats it. You lose before you can swing. Enter Gnaw to the Bone. Suddenly, his lethal damage range just got put off by 20... 30...40..? Sometimes upwards of 50+ health farther away! AND YOU GET THE FLASH IT BACK! This card is insane in terms of getting you back in the game, and in some games just flat out making the match unwinnable for your opponent depending on what kind of deck he is playing. Often a mainbaord card in multiples, if you don't run them mainboard it is strongly recommended you sideboard at least 2 if not more.
- Creatures
- [Beat-Stick] - Skaab Ruinator - At first glance, you might be thinking "Hey wait, doesn't removing creatures from your graveyard actually hurt the overall strategy?". Well... Yup! It does. The funny thing about this card is, you put it in your deck hoping to never use it! Allow me to explain. Yes, removing 3 creatures from your yard just to cast him is fairly rough on your other beaters, especially Splinterfright. However, what happens when you mill to many beaters, or you don't have any Splinterfright, Ghoultree or Boneyard Wurms in play to begin with? Then a 5/6 flyer for 3 mana sounds great right? He also has a very great effect against control based decks, who will counter/destroy all your threats as you cast them or they hit the field. Skaab Ruinator helps fight that by being castable from the graveyard, so as long as you have 3 creatures to pitch, you can keep casting your Skaab until he sticks, from that point on it takes a maximum of 4 attacks and you've won the game after grinding out all there hate.
- [Turbo-Mill] - Armored Skaab - Arguable your best turn 2 play off of a mana-dork. It does everything you could ever want your turn 2 to do. Mill 4 cards, thats HUGE. Put a hefty blocker in your opponents way, a 1/4 is nothing to laugh at. As well as after he eventually serves his purpose and prevents damage, only to die ad go to the graveyard, he himself becomes food for the rest of your deck.
- [Turbo-Mill] - Screeching Skaab - Ahh, Armored Skaabs little brother. Hes at an odd place in the deck at the moment. A 2/1 for 2 that mills 2 is great! But due to mana dorks being about our only opening play, 2 mana cost cards lose effectiveness in the deck because in most cases you can just skip to your 3 casting cost cards instantly. Never the less, hes a creature that has mill attached to his back, and for that reason alone he should be ran in many multiples.
- [--Utility--] - Dungeon Geists - Sweet glorious deep fried monkeys on a stick batman! *Had to use a phrase generator to come up with that one, lol*. This is, in my opinion, the most broken card to come out of Dark Ascension. First off, a 3/3 Flyer at 4 mana is amazing, and borderline rare-extremely good uncommon range. But then its effect just pushes it over the top, and I am supposed its not a mythic. Not only do you get a great, cost effective creature that flys, but you get to tap don your opponents biggest threat, and it never untaps as long as Dungeon Geists is on the board? Are you kidding me? Hello super human Fiend Hunter on crack.
- [--Utility--] - AEther Adept - Fallen off of a lot of peoples lists as of lately, still worth a mention. Where this card shines is against decks that often run few heavy beaters, like titans or praetors. You would use adept to bounce there biggest blocker to there hand, and swing with a massive x/x splinterfright trampler. Likewise you could bounce there only mini-blocker, and swing with massive beaters that would be lethal unless they chump block with there fattie, netting you a little trample damage and killing there big threat. The bad of tricks with Adept can be endless, but what hurts it is its just a 2/2 weenie once its on the field, and it cost :symu::symu:, which is often times hard to pull off.
- [--Utility--] - Snapcaster Mage - Where most other blue decks in the format would auto run 2-3+ maindeck in a heartbeat, we have almost no use for him. All your spells should ahve flashback anyway, and those that don't are in your sideboard, so mainboarding any makes little sense at all. However 1-2 in a sideboard, boarded in with spells that don't have flashback could allow you to make Tracker's Instincts a toolbox card when snagging a snappy from your deck, allowing milled spells a chance to see the light of day.
- Spells
- [Turbo-Mill] - Dream Twist - We don't have many good turn 1 plays, and as far as turn 1 milling is concerned, this is it. 1 Mana to mill 3, with an automatic turn 2 play built right in makes this card great. Don't forget it is instant speed, so you can make goofy plays with splinterfright, opting to mill after blockers are declared and hoping to get even bigger, or having your opponent opt to not block and try and instant speed mill-pump for an unexpected lethal.
- [Cantrip-Mill] - Thought Scour - Pretty much the only other turn 1 play in regards to milling. It falls short in regards to Dream Twist in that it dosent have flash back, so when one shows up in the cards you mill off the top of your deck, it becomes a dead card at that point. There is something to be said about it replacing itself when you cast it, netting you 1 card in hand. However dream twist basically does the same thing, as a card in the graveyard able to be cast is just as good as a card in hand able to be cast. To look at it another way, DT mills 3 and gives you another spell that mills 3 guaranteed. TS mills 2 cards, and gives you 1 random card you can cast. DT still wins in this regard because outside mills done make it dead when hit.
- [--Utility--] - Artful Dodge - An amazing card among many lists. An Artful Dodge in hand with 10/10 on the field is a win for you in 2 turns. There isn't much mroe to say about that. You should be running 4 10/10s in the form of Ghoultree, and 4 x/x Splinterfrights that often times get higher then 10/10s, so finding a target for AD isn't hard at all.
- [--Utility--] - Memory's Journey - The utility this card can bring your list is almost endless. First off, it helps protect your deck from graveyard hate as you can shuffle your goodies back into your library, giving them nothing to hit. Secondly, it can be used offensively against a lot of teh top creatures in the format. Memory's Journey stops undying, when used in reponse to the trigger you shuffle away there creature and the ability fizzles. It can destroy Snapcaster Mage strategies as when they throw there mage on the stack, and can in response MJ there likely targets from there graveyard and make there mage a dead card for them, and they will have wasted 2 mana doing so. Nothing better then seeing your opponents face after you basically make them discard there snappy and tell them they don't get to flashback there mana leak to clog up your plans. There are many other scenarios that apply to this card, but you will jsut have to use it in your games to find out just what they might be.
- [-NO-&-NO-] - Forbidden Alchemy - This cost 3 mana to find ONE card, that is bad. It cost SEVEN mana t flash back, that is literally impossible to achieve in this deck unless you are getting land screwed, in which case fetching 1 card off the top of your library will nto fix. Not to mention, it requires going with a splash of black to pull off. This card is not good in this archtype, if you want to make use of it play UB zombies or any UB control variant.
- Creatures
- [--Utility--] - Phyrexian Metamorph - My favorite creature ever printed. For 3 mana and 2 health *or 4 mana if you have it* you can copy all relevant targets in standard. Your opponent have some juicy equipment you want? Get one yourself! Opponent got a Birthing Pod online and you want one yourself to start milling your tapped creatures and fetching large threats? You got it. Opponent got a fattie on the board and you want one too? No problem! Just get one, its alright. Oh, opponent got a legendary that threatens to ruin your day, and your tournament standings? Send that guy to the graveyard with this non-targeting legendary removal. Oh, and I guess he can copy your creatures too. lol. Theres something to be said about playing a Dungeon Geists, and then playing another Dungeon Geists, and then playing another Dungeon Gesits... You see there I am going here right? End result is that all your opponents creatures are tapped, and you have an army of 3/3 flyers that will easily gnaw through your opponents life. The things this card can do are endless.
- Spells
- [Filter-Mill] - Birthing Pod - It may not look like it, but this is a mill card! How so? Well it turns your wimpy little skaabs and mana dorks into amazing beaters, while sending there former selves to the graveyard to pump there future beings! Imagine if you will, you have a birds of paradise in play, and a screeching skaab. You turn the birds of paradise into a phantasmal image, copying the skaab, and then turn that skaab into a splinterfright!? Then you jsut sent 2 creatures to the yard, and milled 4 cards, and the next turn you can mill the original skaab into a 2nd splinterfright! Thats some powerful play right there my friends. The list of combos you can pull off with a birthing pod in your list are almost endless.
- Spells
- [--Utility--] - Ray of Revelation - Almost the whole reason to consider a white splash. If your meta is filled with enchantments, this card is for you. Heartless summoning decks get shut down when you take outthere namesake card. Humans lose a lot of there bit without Honor of the Pure and Angelic Destiny, and Tempered Steel has no gas against you when you hit its name sake card once again. Most enchantment based decks rely on them to drive them to victory, so making sure you have some sort of enchantment destruction is key in these match ups.
- [--Utility--] - Feeling of Dread - There are cirtain scenarios where this card can be amazing. Like tapping down your opponents weenies and leaving there threats up, then swinging lethal and forcing them to chump block your army of 10/10s and never have a favorable trade again.
- [--Utility--] - Day of Judgment - The ultimate sweeper in standard, in the form of white. Always worth mentioning if you are running a white splash.
- Creatures
- [--Utility--] - Grim Lavamancer - An alright card in a red splash, giving you lots of targeted removal against low toughness aggro decks. The problem is that the mroe you use it, the more cards you lose out of your yard, leading to him eventually leaving you with an empty graveyard if you are forced to use him to much to solve your problems.
- [--Utility--] - Urabrask the Hidden - First really used by Brian Kibler on his livestream, in a red splash variant, it can end up winning you the game the turn he comes down, being followed by a few 1 mana 10/10 Ghoultrees with haste.
- Spells
- [--Utility--] - Ancient Grudge - Probably one of the best reasons to red splash. Artifacts are everywhere right now, and just like Ray of Revelation, havinga great hate card against them, complete with flashback is a great way to handle them.
- [--Utility--] - Slagstorm - Pretty much reds top notch board sweeper. Doesn't hit as many things as Day of Judgment, but it could leave your splitnerfrights on the boar,d and make them bigger having killed all your weenies and mana dorks, making next turns swing a lethal one.
Now that isn't set in stone, but thats where every list should at the very least start out. About the only card worth arguing is Tracker's Instincts, but thats only if you take your deck into some low creature count direction that it starts to become bad. While at that point, you should probably consider why your bothering play this archtype at all at that point.
Regardless, there are other common additions you will see in MANY dredge lists, those being:
The amounts are purely up to you, but I promise after a couple of hours of fiddling with your lists, you will likely end up at the same result many of us have, while working over the past couple months. And that is the magic formula!
Lands: 20-23 Spells: 4-12 Creatures: 24-32+
But all that really says, is that as long as you keep to the theme of the deck, then you are descendant to succeed! But there are a few pitfalls here. For instance, NEVER drop below 24 creatures. 24 Is bottom of the barrel, and in itself is probably suboptimal. To even get away with running 24 creatures, you'd better have a great reason, otherwise there is automatically improvements that ca be made for your deck. Likewise, when it comes down to spells, you can really only spare 3-4 of them not having flashback. Usually this is your Mulch or Thought Scour slot. Due to the nature of the deck, the more noncreatures you add to your list, that have no use while being in the graveyard, the more likely you are to trip up, getting horrible mills because you hit nothing but land and useless cards with no effect in the graveyard. Hit 2-3 of those kinds of mills in a game, and you can pretty much hand out the GGs.
Follow that formula, and your deck will more then likely at some level, preform. Tuning the deck ultimately comes down to your decisions as a player, sculpting your deck to fit what you will be put up against in your meta. Don't know what cards would do well in your meta? Well thats why we had the card picks section dummy! Go make reading!
Sample Builds
Below you will find some sample deck lists assembled by the members of this forum, or extremely high placing tournament winners that have proven to preform well under specific circumstances.
Are you walking into a new local meta for the first time, and have no idea what the locals are packing? Something similar to the list below will probably net you the best results. Once you know whats up, you will need to make tweaks to both mainboard and sideboard in order to adapt to that meta better.
This variant on the deck tries to utilize Unburial Rites to go allow big threats to enter the battlefield sooner, and recur them when they happen to become subject of removal spells via your opponent.
Who is Brian Kibler? only one of the best, most medaled out pro mtg player of all time. And guess what? he likes this deck! Below is one of his lists used for a few days during his mtg daily stream.
Oviously, thanks to all the people working behind the scenes in the bakc posts of ths thread, for helping refine hte deck towhtever it is at the time you are reading this. I would name specifics, but I'm sure things will change far to often to even bother.
A Special thanks to Brian Kibler for his interest in this deck, hopefully he plays around with it more and takes it to a GP jsut for fun, man would i pay for footage of that.
Lastly a thanks to Rivenor, for designing our banner at the top of the page. Check out her Miraculous Recovery Shop and maybe get something done by her for yourself!
New thread, new update with more testing. Despite having missed FNM the past week, my decklist has still been changing. I blame the Tokens and Zombies and Humans (oh my). The deck is still a bit slow/midrange, but it has the potential to pack a huge punch.
Reasoning:
- Mulch was really only fetching me lands on occasion, and at least the Emissary helped my board state (at the exact same cost) and was a creature in the yard.
- Ruinators stomp tokens and are recurrable, even at the cost of my gy's strength. Great against anti-gy tech though.
- KCBs were amazing, but they had to swing. For one mana more, I get more lockdown that's twice as big as Dungeon Geists. And yes, the bigger body is huge. As is the semi-hexproof. I almost want another one...
The sideboard still feels a bit all over the place. I want to fit in two more Beast Within, I think, but not sure where to put them. Maybe in place of the Spellbombs, since those were aimed at Zombies mostly, and I've had more success against them lately with the Mulch swap.
Also, Ray of Revelations over Ancient Grudge is a possibility still, if the enchantments start showing up more in my LGS. In that event, Elves become Avacyn's Pilgrims, and the single Mountain becomes a Plains.
That said, I think 2 Ruinators may be too much, and only 2 Emissaries not enough, or perhaps they should be Llanowar Elves anyway. Also, I've begun testing Phantasmal Image instead of the Metamorphs, since I rarely (if ever) have it copy a non-creature artifact; costing 1 and 2 life less is VERY nice.
I've been toying with ways to outrace Tokens, Delver and other flying decks. Since we have issues beginning around T4 with them unless we see our Dungeon Geists or a Skaab Ruinator. I'm starting to reconsider Stitched Drake. Costs the ~same as the Ruinator with a much more manageable setback (the only real casting issue, honestly). The idea, though, is that we may need to outrace them, and a 3/4 survives several anthems...
I tried Tower Geist, but as nice as the sorting was, it just fell short. I'd have rather had Dungeon Geists every time. I tried Niblis of the Breath, but the 2/1 body was a real liability. I also didn't like having to set aside mana, even though it was much more flexible. Still, with fewer decks running Gut Shot now, it might be worth consideration. Eh. Probably not competitive enough.
Unusual choice explanation:
- I went with a 2-1 split between Pilgrim and Elves because I feel that 9 is the correct number of white sources for the amount of white I play. This deck can also wind up short on green occasionally and the single Elves hedges against that somewhat
-Maindeck Memory's Journey may seem odd, but it has a lot of uses in this deck specifically. Its primary use is going to be fetching singletons out of your graveyard for Pod activations, but it also really helps against some random matchups, like anything based on Unburial Rites
-Wurmcoil over second Sun Titan. I think the life gain is very relevant in certain matchups and there are times when the Titan can be lackluster. It's also much easier to cast if I draw it. With MD Journey I think it's an acceptable risk that my single Titan might get milled
-Buried Ruin is definitely a card to consider to grab milled Pods, but I'm afraid of destabilizing the mana base. I rarely run out of plays anyway, and the tempo disadvantage really doesn't seem worth it in this deck.
Overview
The real engine of this deck is Birthing Pod + Tracker's Instincts. Between those two cards, you should never run out of gas
This deck's strength is its versatility. However, that can also be its biggest weakness. Pod and Dredge are both incredibly difficult archetypes to play correctly and, as you can imagine, meshing the two is no easy feat. You have to know your list intimately, because it's very difficult to keep track of what is still in your deck when you are aggressively milling. Remember to make sure what you need is still in your library before you activate the Pod. The other thing to understand is that it's okay to absorb some damage early on, but you should be playing to get to the end game. This deck has an extremely high degree of inevitability, and can stabilize or turn the tide very quickly. This means that it's always in your advantage to extend games. You're going to play a lot of games where you deal your lethal damage with your life total in the single digits, so don't panic
The best way to try to win with this deck is to pick the best creature for whatever MU you are facing, slam it down, and copy it as many times as you can with Metamorph and Image. If you're facing Aggro, a turn 3 Skaab Ruinator can quickly turn the tide in your favor. Against Control, take advantage of ETB/ETG effects like Acidic Slime, Strangleroot Geist, Wurmcoil Engine, Sun Titan, and Solemn Simulacrum. Against midrange, you can stick to the good old Splinterfright strategy. You can also go with the good old Bant Pod route of ramping to Elesh Norn as fast as possible and riding her to victory
If you want to build your own SplinterPod deck, I highly recommend tuning it to your own metagame, but my current list seems to work pretty well against most archetypes. This deck definitely won't work for everybody. In fact, I recommend that you get comfortable with both the Pod and Dredge archetypes before attempting to combine the two. If you manage to come up with something you think works better than what I have, I'd like to see it, but please have results to back it up first
Strengths and weaknesses versus regular UG Dredge:
Strengths
+ Better interaction due to ability to Pod up specific answers to a situation
+ Resistance to blue-based control decks because they don't have many answers for an early Pod
+ More resistance to graveyard hate
+ A flexible plan of attack that can be easily tuned for any metagame
Weaknesses
- Less milling can lead to slower starts if you don't manage an early Pod
- Ghoultree is so bad with Pod that it becomes unplayable
- Weaker to Grafdigger's Cage
- More difficult to play properly
@Kueson: you forgot Faithless looting in card choices.
Aye, I rushed the re-write on the primer a bit, mostly because I wanted to get out foot in the door as the first thread opened on the new developing competitive board, lol.
Also, @Lifekills, I plan on adding your Splinterpod subtype to the main primer once I get all the card choices done, and will likely throw a link down to that post as well for faster updates as you will update yourself faster then I can update about you updating, naturally.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If it looks like a bug, sounds like a bug, and acts like a bug then it's probably working as intended.
@Kueson: you forgot Faithless looting in card choices.
You should add 1 Thalia in the sideboard to fetch her with Birthing Pod. Then only Tracker's instincts is a non creature spell you want to play.
And 1 Thrun, the last troll. They are both better than Negate against control decks (creatures, can be fetched, no need to keep mana, can be found with tracker's instincts...).
Similarly Beast Within is strange when you can side 2 Ray of revelation + 1 Viridian Corrupter or 1 Sylvok Replica.
When do you side Laboratory Maniac? Against control? (with so many removals?) Against mill? (they are extremely rare)
Thalia doesn't do enough on her own to make her really worth running. Besides, if I have a Pod online, I'm already winning against Control.
Your other suggestions are all fine, but my meta is strange with lots of weird stuff like Mill, Venser Lock, Turbo-Fog, Chalice combo, etc in addition to lots of tier 1 stuff. That's why I have some unusual choices in the board. I will probably be replacing the Beast Withins though as they were the only card in my 75 that underperformed in my last round of testing. I'll probably do something like 1 Sylvok Replica, 2 Ray of Revelation
I'll update it with a more generic sideboard when I get a chance (edit: Just did it, -1 Maniac, -3 Beast Within, +1 Thrun, +1 Sylvok Replica, +2 Ray of Revelation). Countermagic is good to have in general because there are some cards that can make my life miserable that are best dealt with using counterspells (Gideon, Karn, Liliana, Spellbomb, Grafdigger's Cage, Fog effects, etc), and it's either going to be Negate, Psychic Barrier, Dissipate, or Mental Misstep. I don't like Psychic Barrier because I have better ways to deal with the few creatures that really bother me and it costs UU. Dissipate costs 3 which is more than I am willing to pay for a counterspell in anything but a control deck although it would let me permanently deal with Lingering Souls. Mental Misstep is a legitimate option and can counter turn 1 Delver which is a moderate threat. Negate gets pretty much everything that nothing else in the deck can deal with. I think as long as you stick to some comination of those 4 cards as counter magic you'll be okay. I don't like Flashfreeze because everything that is good against me is White, Blue, Black, or a non-creature
Aye, I rushed the re-write on the primer a bit, mostly because I wanted to get out foot in the door as the first thread opened on the new developing competitive board, lol.
Also, @Lifekills, I plan on adding your Splinterpod subtype to the main primer once I get all the card choices done, and will likely throw a link down to that post as well for faster updates as you will update yourself faster then I can update about you updating, naturally.
Appreciate it. I'll make mine a little more complete once I get some time
For development I'd like to explore White as more than just a splash.
I think that white has some aggressive creatures to offer. This allows us to assert ourselves in the early game and play a tempo based strategy. Aggression that forces opponents to trade with us or use board wipes which then leads to us dropping our big threats like Splinterfrights, Ghoultrees and Ruinators.
With 6-8 mana producing creatures, I explored our options among 3 CMC creatures. The most aggressive I could find were:
The Legionnaire can be cheated in for 2 mana should we fail to draw a mana producing creature. It has high power and first strike and is good for carving chunks off of your opponents life total or stalling their ground attack. It's downside is that it dies to most common removal: Tragic Slip, Geistflame, Gut Shot, and artifact removal. It does however dodge Go for the Throat which is a plus on most metas.
The Blade Splicer offers two bodies for the price of one. The Golem token is tougher than the Legionnaire and must be taken out with more expensive removal in general.
We have already seen the benefits of a splash of White for Ray of Revelation, and there has even been talk of Feeling of Dread making it in.
Can we really afford to crowd up the 3 drop spot any more? Between Splinterfright and Armored Skaab, it's hard to fit more than 1-2 more creatures there
Can we really afford to crowd up the 3 drop spot any more? Between Splinterfright and Armored Skaab, it's hard to fit more than 1-2 more creatures there
I rarely cast Splinterfrights earlier than turn 5 or 6, so I don't really consider it to occupy the 3 drop spot as far as curving goes. I wouldn't use both Blade Splicer and Porcelain Legionnaire--I would choose one or the other.
I rarely cast Splinterfrights earlier than turn 5 or 6, so I don't really consider it to occupy the 3 drop spot as far as curving goes. I wouldn't use both Blade Splicer and Porcelain Legionnaire--I would choose one or the other.
Really? I do turn 2 Armored Skaab, turn 3 Splinterfright constantly. I can't comprehend how you can wait until turn 5-6 and win games
Really? I do turn 2 Armored Skaab, turn 3 Splinterfright constantly. I can't comprehend how you can wait until turn 5-6 and win games
I try to bait as many removal spells and counter spells before I drop my Splinterfights. At a bare minimum I like to make sure its toughness is out of range of known burn I am facing and I don't like casting it into Leaks. That's how I play and I win more than half of my games.
Went 3-1 again tonight, but I was actually disappointed because the first match I got screwed by my deck. The better players at my LGS weren't there tonight, so this should have been a much easier path to victory.
I used the exact same maindeck as in my sig, but I reworked the sideboard due to some metagame scouting:
It's a transformational sideboard. I noticed I was going to face a lot of aggro, so I decided there would be some games where I wanted to board out the Pods and in come the Ghoultrees
Anyway, here's my report:
Round 1: GW Humans (0-2 loss)
Both games I kept 2 land hands and didn't draw another land in either game. Meanwhile he goes turn 1 Champion, turn 2 Gather the Townsfolk both games. Stupid and frustrating
0-1
Round 2: RDW (2-1 win)
Game 1: He gets 2 early Stormblood Berserkers and I draw nothing but mana dorks, a Strangleroot Geist, and clones (horrible against Berserker btw)
In: 3x Ghoultree, 3x Gnaw to the Bone, 1x Thrun
Out: 4x Birthing Pod, 1x Memory's Journey, 1x Elesh Norn, 1x Sun Titan
Game 2 & 3: Gnaw to the Bone and Ghoultree are just too much for him
1-1
Round 3: Esper Spirits (2-0 win)
Game 1: He gets double Captain + 2x Lingering Souls tokens. It's my turn, and I have Strangleroot Geist and nothing else on board, but some clones in my hand. I drop Metamorph copying Geist and swing with both copies. He blocks each with a Souls token (not sure why). I bring back my Metamorph as a Captain then play Phantasmal Image copying my Metamorph. Now I have a 4/4 Captain, a 3/3 Captain, and a 5/4 Strangleroot Geist. I eventually get there
In: 3x Gnaw to the Bone, 1x Dungeon Geists
Out: 2x Birthing Pod, 1x Solemn Simulacrum, 1x Memory's Journey
Game 2: This was a really long game, he is running some clone effects of his own and the game eventually ends up with 3x copies of Dungeon Geists for each of us. I cast Gnaw about 4 times. I'm down to about 8 creatures in my library and 22 in my yard, but I have a massive board presense including 2x Splinterfrights. He casts DoJ, which I hadn't seen to that point, clearing the board. He's at 3 life and I'm at basically infinity. I recast Ruinator from my yard and just start swinging. He is able to cast Lingering Souls a couple of times to get some blockers then copies my Ruinator. We have a standoff for a while, but eventually I draw my last Geists and swing for the win
2-1
Round 4: Grixis Control
Not much to say about this round. Grixis really doesn't have the removal of UB or Esper, and we get out of Slagstorm range really quickly. No Elesh Norn, DoJ, or Gideon to worry about either. Easy victory as long as you play around Olivia
3-1
I like the Ghoultrees in the board for the games where Pod isn't so great. Memory's Journey really underperformed, and I never got out Elesh Norn or Sun Titan in any game. The result was still okay, but I'm not sure my deck wouldn't work just as well as a normal UG Dredge deck
Went 3-2 tonight, and I am tired. Still, lots of fun with a really unusual meta. It somehow shifted away from Wolf Run primary to ... rogue.
Round 1: BGr Wolf Run (1-2 loss)
He saw enough Wurmcoils and Grave Titans that I couldn't lock them all down. Realistically, the Wurmcoils were the breaking point, since I even swung for 2 Artful Dodged Ghoultrees once, but he survived with 6. It really was the darn lifelink...
Game 2 I outraced him by tapping down his only titan and hitting hard with a Splinterfright repeatedly.
Game 3 he won due to two well-timed Nihil Spellbombs. And that was all she wrote.
Round 2: BR sacrificial burn (2-1 win)
This was some sort of homebrew based around sacrificing his dudes to deal wicked damage to me. Mortis Dogs+Artillarize ended Game 1 with something like a 12 point BOOM. Games 2 and 3 I added in my Gnaws and that was that. (At one point in G2 I gained 36 life off one cast.)
Round 3: UGb "Dredge" (2-1 win)
He was running some interesting card choices though, like a singleton Wreath of Geists, a playset of Increasing Confusion, and Dream Twists. But he milled me out Game 1 after an obscenely long match. He got two Gnaws off, and I flashed back 1... yeah. The turn he milled me out, I had two 24/24 Splinterfrights waiting to swing lethal. Sadly, those 4 cards milled cost me instead.
Game 2 I won off of Frost Titan. I tapped down his ginormous Splinterfright while grinding down his other dudes with two Ghoultrees, eventually ending it with another Artful Dodge. The Titan definitely won the game. In that end, he was really useful throughout the night. Would I have been better served with something else? Only a Wurmcoil Engine, I think. But that's because it's just broken to begin with.
Game 3 he got mana screwed, which was good because we started it with 5 mins in the round, and we still went to turns. I won with a T3 fright that got up to 6/6, added to a Viridian Emissary and Screeching Skaab.
Round 4: Kibler's RG Hellrider beatdown (1-2 loss)
Game 1 he got two Hellriders online. It hurt.
Game 2 I knocked him out with Artful Dodge after Titan-tapping down his Urabrask. It was ugly, but I got there. He was pumping out dudes with Garruk the Veil-Cursed, too.
Game 3 he landed a Sword of Body and Mind, put it on a Strangleroot Geist after killing it with his Garruk (flipping the walker and putting a token on the Geist). He then finished me with a Pyreheart Wolf after I couldn't block his geist. Had I been milled 3 more cards, I'd have gotten a 17-creature Gnaw and won the next turn when I swung with my Fright and a dodged Ghoultree. So it goes.
Round 5: Grand Architect (2-1 win)
Game 1 he didn't realize I had so much lockdown. I saw all 3 Dungeon Geists, my Titan, and 2 Phantasmal Images. Yep.
Game 2 he got a Heartless Summoning+Havenguul Lich+Wurmcoil combo online. I scooped for G3 when he pulled out his Steel Hellkite and was already at 45 life.
Game 3 he got mana-screwed, until he Metamorphed his own Architect twice. But by then I had milled enough, drawn enough, and played a Splinterfright and Ghoultree. Artful Dodge. So amazingly good.
Postmortem Lunge's big problems are the lack of flashback and the necessity for a target. Back when we ran Kessig Cagebreakers the choice was obvious. Now you get... a Splinterfright? Unless you've got tons in the yard already, that just isn't imposing, and if you do have tons in the yard already, it's win-more.
The only other tricky play might be flashing in a Bellowing Tanglewurm, which most of us don't run any more either, because green is everywhere.
That leaves... Ghoultree. I'd never pay 8 for a Ghoultree, let alone 8+.
I even tried it way back with a Mirror-Mad Phantasm, and that was hilarious... but it still required a beater to capitalize on the huge mill (that cost 7+: 5 to cast, 2 to activate, and 2 life).
A cute idea, but the Lunge really just is not worth it.
i can see how to beat WRR since our creatures are way bigger and they are all relevant after turn 4... same on other "small creature decks" like RDW and Zombies (armored skaab holding the first waves then playing Enormous creatures)... but how do we beat delver and lingering souls variants... they are all flying and they can be really fast if you are not fast enough...
is there any way to deal with them effectively out of dungeon geists and corrosive gale... for me they don't seem to be enough, but i haven't played the match up a lot yet.
sorry if i ask too much or i make some noobish questions regarding the archetype, but i'm quite new to it and i want to be clear about what works and what doesn't...
Round 2 vs. some Battle Cry nonsense
W: 2-0
MVP: Splinterfright
2-0
Round 3
U/B Control
1-1-1, had to draw the last one due to time, he surgically extracted all my Gnaws like t3, which were the only reason i beat him game 2...he would have won if game had played out.
MVP: Ghoultree & Artful Dodge
2-0-1
Round 4 vs. White Humans (my WORST matchup, i hate swords and i hate Mirran Crusader)
1-2
MVP: Splinterfright
2-1-1
Hey, just a thought but, Strangleroot Geist worth running? Adds the extra power and toughness to your creatures if thrown into the graveyard and if it does get out, it is very resilient
Also: @Fmaholic: do you have a sideboard?
Hey, just a thought but, Strangleroot Geist worth running? Adds the extra power and toughness to your creatures if thrown into the graveyard and if it does get out, it is very resilient
I've thought of this, too.
I've decided no, though.
Here's my reasoning:
Firstly, just looking at the card, he's a :symg::symg: a lot more difficult to cast than needing just :symg::1mana:.
Also, sometimes we want creatures of this type (on a similar note Screeching Skaab) to just do their job and get to the yard ASAP after they chump block or deal a quick two to a blocker (or player).
Strangleroot has undying, yes, but you have to think and consider as to whether he's worth more coming back as a 3/2 or worth more just doing said job and pumping your graveyard (ie: Splinterfrights and Wurms get +1/+1 more, Ghoultree cost (1) less to cast, 2 more life from a Gnaw, etc.)
edit: Also edited previous post w/sideboard. Thanks.
I've been using a single Molten-tail Masticore. I've been able to fetch it from the yard with Buried Ruin and use it to win stalled games. It adds some inevitability to the deck and works well against graveyard hate. If I lose my gy and only manage to mill a few more creatures, the Masticore can make great use of them, whereas a Splinterfright won't be doing much good with 1-4 creatures in the yard and only 20 or so cards left in my library.
Hey, just a thought but, Strangleroot Geist worth running? Adds the extra power and toughness to your creatures if thrown into the graveyard and if it does get out, it is very resilient
Also: @Fmaholic: do you have a sideboard?
Firstly, just looking at the card, he's a :symg::symg: a lot more difficult to cast than needing just :symg::1mana:.
Also, sometimes we want creatures of this type (on a similar note Screeching Skaab) to just do their job and get to the yard ASAP after they chump block or deal a quick two to a blocker (or player).
Strangleroot has undying, yes, but you have to think and consider as to whether he's worth more coming back as a 3/2 or worth more just doing said job and pumping your graveyard (ie: Splinterfrights and Wurms get +1/+1 more, Ghoultree cost (1) less to cast, 2 more life from a Gnaw, etc.)
edit: Also edited previous post w/sideboard. Thanks.
This is essentially the same debate I've been having, especially since our deck is curving so low lately (and someone at my shop asked, "What about post-rotation?" and Geist leapt immediately to mind).
As for your current deck, FMaholic: I'd say that 3 Artful Dodge is probably too many mb. You've cut back on Dungeon Geists to accommodate them, and that's just not a trade I like. Dungeon Geists are one of our best weapons against, well, everything creature-based.
I've been using a single Molten-tail Masticore. I've been able to fetch it from the yard with Buried Ruin and use it to win stalled games. It adds some inevitability to the deck and works well against graveyard hate. If I lose my gy and only manage to mill a few more creatures, the Masticore can make great use of them, whereas a Splinterfright won't be doing much good with 1-4 creatures in the yard and only 20 or so cards left in my library.
Have any of you tried using the Masticore?
In the old thread people advocated him a while back, and I didn't understand it... until I got into a game where I needed him. That one game was enough to make me understand. Stonehorn Dignitary/Venser locks are impossible for us otherwise. Same with a good Havenguul Lich deck. We need that ready-fire 4 damage. One is probably also enough, assuming we can get a Buried Ruin out.
What frustrates me is that complete meltdown our deck can have against W/x Token decks. I'd kill for a reprint of Silklash Spider, for example, or something like it. But that's why some sideboards run Ezuri's Archers. Not the most elegant of answers, but it works. We need something better, though, especially with the angelic theme that's coming...
Great job on the Primer Kueson. After checking it out I decided to spend about 4 dollars (:D) and pick up the few cards I needed to complete this deck and I'm glad I did. It's just one of those decks that are really fun to play, I hope it becomes competitive.
With a deck like this, I feel like no spell is worth including unless it has flashback. Why run a spell without flashback in a deck with so much mill? That's why I cut Mulch and only run Tracker's Instincts.
Strangleroot Geist has been some what of a strain on the mana(sometimes it's stuck in hand), but really it adds so much early pressure that I'm willing to take the small risk. I've upped the land count to 24 and added 2 Llanowar Elves, in hopes Geist will be a consistent turn 2 play and also because I am without Mulch.
Great job on the Primer Kueson. After checking it out I decided to spend about 4 dollars (:D) and pick up the few cards I needed to complete this deck and I'm glad I did. It's just one of those decks that are really fun to play, I hope it becomes competitive.
With a deck like this, I feel like no spell is worth including unless it has flashback. Why run a spell without flashback in a deck with so much mill? That's why I cut Mulch and only run Tracker's Instincts.
Strangleroot Geist has been some what of a strain on the mana(sometimes it's stuck in hand), but really it adds so much early pressure that I'm willing to take the small risk. I've upped the land count to 24 and added 2 Llanowar Elves, in hopes Geist will be a consistent turn 2 play and also because I am without Mulch.
:symg::symu: Standard "Dredge" Primer :symu::symg:
1.0 - INTRODUCTION
What is Dredge?
If you asked any Legacy or Vintage player, they would say a deck that utilizes the dredge mechanic to bend the rules of the game, and play out of your graveyard. But all that is beyond the point. The whole concept of dredging, is to put obese amounts of cards into your graveyard, and utilize them to your advantage in some way or another. This is often done by casting cards that have varied effects based on a specific condition in your graveyard, or casting directly from the graveyard itself. This deck in particular, utilizes a buffet load of creatures that scale amazingly depending on the creatures in your graveyard, flashback spells that mill you further to keep the chain going, and often times a few nuts and berries in a blender for added fun.
What sets this deck apart from all other decks you could choose in the standard format, is that it plays to the advantage of some of the top decks in the meta currently. This deck shrugs off coutnerspells as they will often only hit your creatures, which will go straight to your graveyard and simply buff your future casted creatures. This deck can lay down hoards of mini-creatures to chump block against the best of the best aggro-swarm decks, and pretty much laughs in the face of any mid-range control deck. This sounds amazing on paper, but there is an alkalies heal to this deck. Nihil Spellbomb. A single card that can shut you down and often buy your opponent all the time they need to reduce your giant glowing life total to zero before you have time to re establish yourself.
In this primer I will be focusing on primarily :symu::symg: variants of the deck, and often times a tiny splash of
2.0 - HOW THE DECK WORKS - (Section somewhat unfinished.)
The Strategy
Mill yourself, get creatures in the graveyard, cast really big creatures! It's about as simple as that! Ok, maybe not exactly that, but thats the general game plan. You are generally going to split your deck up into 4 major components. Milling cards, graveyard effect cards, control cards and mana. The more of those, the more creatures you can fit into each category, the better! Why? Splinterfright, Ghoultree, Boneyard Wurm and Kessig Cagebreakers. They all prefer your milled cards to be of the creature variety, so its only natural to want to have as many mill creatures, graveyard creatures, control creatures and mana creatures as you can, as to make all your mills to the best of your advantage.
Really if I were to continue this conversation, we would start getting into the core cards of the deck, deck assembly, yada yada, and that is a whole new section of this primer. If you are somehow still confused as to how this deck plays, below you will find many videos of people piloting the deck, many of them currently of Brian Kibler, professional MTG player.
Videos Of The Deck In Action
Brian Kibler playing various dredge lists over his stream;
3.0 - CARD CHOICES - (Section somewhat unfinished.)
Thanks to Innistrad and Dark Ascension, we have a plethora of wonderful cards to choose from, all of which complement this deck nicely. Hell, most of the cards are pulled from the two sets! That said, I'll break down the card choices below, and provide a quick synopsis of why we pick them, or why we don't, what makes it good, what doesn't, ext.
- Creatures
- [Beat-Stick] - Splinterfright - Well, heres the deck! But no really, Splinterfright is what makes this deck what it is, he is the reason we want to mill and the reason the deck really even exists. He is an X/X body that grows bigger as the number of creatures in your yard does, and has his own evasion right on him to make it so eventually your opponent wont have enough total blocking toughness to stop your trample damage, and oh yeah, he also feeds himself by milling you 2 per turn. There is no ends to the kinds of broken this card is. An auto 4 of in any list.
- [Beat-Stick] - Ghoultree - When Dark Ascension hit, it was a game changer for this deck. We got many new cards to play with, and this was one of them. He might only be a simple 10/10 creature, no bells or whistles, but what else would you give him? Hes a 10/10! No other creature in standard can stand up to him toe to toe short of a creature with deathtouch or is equipped up to superhuman levels. Oh yeah, and he can cost as low as 1 
in this deck if its preforming properly... An auto 4 of in any list to include green, "usually".
- [Beat-Stick] - Boneyard Wurm - Don't underestimate this card. As a 2 drop, he is horrible. But do NOT think of him as a two drop. He plays more like Ghoultree then Splinterfright, in that he should come late game, but cost you next to no mana, and be a huge threat your opponent must answer. You will never cast him turn 2, but that should not stop you from considering running him, as he is a powerhouse threat only to be outdone in size and efficiency by Splinterfright and Ghoultree.
- [Beat-Stick] - Kessig Cagebreakers - This card is so good, its bad. Easily the best creature in the archtype, bar none. Heres the problem tho, hes so good at what he does, your enemy will go through great lengths to see that he never sees the light of day. Weather he gets countered, removed from the field, dealt lethal damage, whatever it is, you will almost never get the opportunity to attack with him, and thus make him the worst 5 mana you will ever spend in this deck. For that alone, be cautions when putting him in your 75, let alone actually figuring out when its safe to cast him and when it isn't.
- [Mana-Dork] - Birds of Paradise - This deck is a little slow, and theres no archtype themed 1 drops we can really utilize as of yet. Enter mana dorks. They allow you to have turn 1 plays, and better turn 2+ plays. There is something to be said about being able to drop a turn 2 Armored Skaab or Birthing Pod. It allows for you to make usually, game changing turn 3 plays. Without mana dorks, you do nothing turn 1, nothing meaninghful turn 2 and finally start to get the deck rolling turn 3. That is widely unacceptable. So, use mana dorks! And the birds is da king of da dorks.
- [Mana-Dork] - Llanowar Elves - More mana dorks. If you don't plan on using a white splash, adding 2-4 of these guys to your list is a great idea. Birds of Paradise are amazing, but they are only 4 cards of your 75. You need more turn 1 plays, and here they are!
- [Mana-Dork] - Avacyn Pilgrim - If you are running a minor white splash, or are sideboarding a few low cost whitte spells, these are hands down better then elves. Simple explanation, this deck rarely gets over 5-6 lands. Most of your deck will cost 3+ mana. So you will likely only make 1 play per turn. With no :symg::symg: cards in the deck, you only need 1 green per turn. If you had the ability to cast a mana dork, then you have all the green mana you will ever need. Llanowar Elves might as well be colorless mana, because it being green mana in the first place did not matter. There is almost no difference between these two, other then the fact that pilgrims opens up a splash option while elves does now.
- Spells- Creatures
- [Beat-Stick] - Skaab Ruinator - At first glance, you might be thinking "Hey wait, doesn't removing creatures from your graveyard actually hurt the overall strategy?". Well... Yup! It does. The funny thing about this card is, you put it in your deck hoping to never use it! Allow me to explain. Yes, removing 3 creatures from your yard just to cast him is fairly rough on your other beaters, especially Splinterfright. However, what happens when you mill to many beaters, or you don't have any Splinterfright, Ghoultree or Boneyard Wurms in play to begin with? Then a 5/6 flyer for 3 mana sounds great right? He also has a very great effect against control based decks, who will counter/destroy all your threats as you cast them or they hit the field. Skaab Ruinator helps fight that by being castable from the graveyard, so as long as you have 3 creatures to pitch, you can keep casting your Skaab until he sticks, from that point on it takes a maximum of 4 attacks and you've won the game after grinding out all there hate.
- [Turbo-Mill] - Armored Skaab - Arguable your best turn 2 play off of a mana-dork. It does everything you could ever want your turn 2 to do. Mill 4 cards, thats HUGE. Put a hefty blocker in your opponents way, a 1/4 is nothing to laugh at. As well as after he eventually serves his purpose and prevents damage, only to die ad go to the graveyard, he himself becomes food for the rest of your deck.
- [Turbo-Mill] - Screeching Skaab - Ahh, Armored Skaabs little brother. Hes at an odd place in the deck at the moment. A 2/1 for 2 that mills 2 is great! But due to mana dorks being about our only opening play, 2 mana cost cards lose effectiveness in the deck because in most cases you can just skip to your 3 casting cost cards instantly. Never the less, hes a creature that has mill attached to his back, and for that reason alone he should be ran in many multiples.
- [--Utility--] - Dungeon Geists - Sweet glorious deep fried monkeys on a stick batman! *Had to use a phrase generator to come up with that one, lol*. This is, in my opinion, the most broken card to come out of Dark Ascension. First off, a 3/3 Flyer at 4 mana is amazing, and borderline rare-extremely good uncommon range. But then its effect just pushes it over the top, and I am supposed its not a mythic. Not only do you get a great, cost effective creature that flys, but you get to tap don your opponents biggest threat, and it never untaps as long as Dungeon Geists is on the board? Are you kidding me? Hello super human Fiend Hunter on crack.
- [--Utility--] - AEther Adept - Fallen off of a lot of peoples lists as of lately, still worth a mention. Where this card shines is against decks that often run few heavy beaters, like titans or praetors. You would use adept to bounce there biggest blocker to there hand, and swing with a massive x/x splinterfright trampler. Likewise you could bounce there only mini-blocker, and swing with massive beaters that would be lethal unless they chump block with there fattie, netting you a little trample damage and killing there big threat. The bad of tricks with Adept can be endless, but what hurts it is its just a 2/2 weenie once its on the field, and it cost :symu::symu:, which is often times hard to pull off.
- [--Utility--] - Snapcaster Mage - Where most other blue decks in the format would auto run 2-3+ maindeck in a heartbeat, we have almost no use for him. All your spells should ahve flashback anyway, and those that don't are in your sideboard, so mainboarding any makes little sense at all. However 1-2 in a sideboard, boarded in with spells that don't have flashback could allow you to make Tracker's Instincts a toolbox card when snagging a snappy from your deck, allowing milled spells a chance to see the light of day.
- Spells- Creatures
- [--Utility--] - Phyrexian Metamorph - My favorite creature ever printed. For 3 mana and 2 health *or 4 mana if you have it* you can copy all relevant targets in standard. Your opponent have some juicy equipment you want? Get one yourself! Opponent got a Birthing Pod online and you want one yourself to start milling your tapped creatures and fetching large threats? You got it. Opponent got a fattie on the board and you want one too? No problem! Just get one, its alright. Oh, opponent got a legendary that threatens to ruin your day, and your tournament standings? Send that guy to the graveyard with this non-targeting legendary removal. Oh, and I guess he can copy your creatures too. lol. Theres something to be said about playing a Dungeon Geists, and then playing another Dungeon Geists, and then playing another Dungeon Gesits... You see there I am going here right? End result is that all your opponents creatures are tapped, and you have an army of 3/3 flyers that will easily gnaw through your opponents life. The things this card can do are endless.
- Spells- Spells
- Creatures
- [--Utility--] - Grim Lavamancer - An alright card in a red splash, giving you lots of targeted removal against low toughness aggro decks. The problem is that the mroe you use it, the more cards you lose out of your yard, leading to him eventually leaving you with an empty graveyard if you are forced to use him to much to solve your problems.
- [--Utility--] - Urabrask the Hidden - First really used by Brian Kibler on his livestream, in a red splash variant, it can end up winning you the game the turn he comes down, being followed by a few 1 mana 10/10 Ghoultrees with haste.
- Spells- Creatures
- [--Utility--] - Herp Derp Waffles - Snoogens.
- Spells4.0 - THE DECK
The Core
Pretty much all standard dredge decks should start with these following cards:
- 0-4 Boneyard Wurm
- 4 Ghoultree
- 4 Splinterfright
- 4 Tracker's Instincts
Now that isn't set in stone, but thats where every list should at the very least start out. About the only card worth arguing is Tracker's Instincts, but thats only if you take your deck into some low creature count direction that it starts to become bad. While at that point, you should probably consider why your bothering play this archtype at all at that point.Regardless, there are other common additions you will see in MANY dredge lists, those being:
- Armored Skaab
- Screeching Skaab
- Mulch
- Phyrexian Metamorph
- Dungeon Geists
The amounts are purely up to you, but I promise after a couple of hours of fiddling with your lists, you will likely end up at the same result many of us have, while working over the past couple months. And that is the magic formula!Lands: 20-23
Spells: 4-12
Creatures: 24-32+
But all that really says, is that as long as you keep to the theme of the deck, then you are descendant to succeed! But there are a few pitfalls here. For instance, NEVER drop below 24 creatures. 24 Is bottom of the barrel, and in itself is probably suboptimal. To even get away with running 24 creatures, you'd better have a great reason, otherwise there is automatically improvements that ca be made for your deck. Likewise, when it comes down to spells, you can really only spare 3-4 of them not having flashback. Usually this is your Mulch or Thought Scour slot. Due to the nature of the deck, the more noncreatures you add to your list, that have no use while being in the graveyard, the more likely you are to trip up, getting horrible mills because you hit nothing but land and useless cards with no effect in the graveyard. Hit 2-3 of those kinds of mills in a game, and you can pretty much hand out the GGs.
Follow that formula, and your deck will more then likely at some level, preform. Tuning the deck ultimately comes down to your decisions as a player, sculpting your deck to fit what you will be put up against in your meta. Don't know what cards would do well in your meta? Well thats why we had the card picks section dummy! Go make reading!
Sample Builds
Below you will find some sample deck lists assembled by the members of this forum, or extremely high placing tournament winners that have proven to preform well under specific circumstances.
Are you walking into a new local meta for the first time, and have no idea what the locals are packing? Something similar to the list below will probably net you the best results. Once you know whats up, you will need to make tweaks to both mainboard and sideboard in order to adapt to that meta better.
4 Splinterfright
4 Ghoultree
1 Skaab Ruinator
Creatures "Control: 6
3 Dungeon Geists
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
Creatures Mana-Dorks": 7
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Avacyn Pilgrim
4 Armored Skaab
4 Screeching Skaab
Spells: 8
4 Tracker's Instincts
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Artful Dodge
Lands: 21
4 Hinterland Harbor
9 Forest
8 Island
4 Beast Within
4 Ezuri;s Archers
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Memory's Journey
3 ____________
This variant on the deck tries to utilize Unburial Rites to go allow big threats to enter the battlefield sooner, and recur them when they happen to become subject of removal spells via your opponent.
4 Splinterfright
4 Ghoultree
4 Phyrexian Metamorph
2 Boneyard Wurm
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Creatures Mana-Dorks": 7
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
Creatures "Mill": 8
4 Armored Skaab
4 Screeching Skaab
4 Tracker's Instincts
Other: 5
3 Unburial Rites
2 Gnaw to the Bone
Lands: 20
4 Hinterland Harbor
8 Forest
6 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Daybreak Ranger
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Gnaw to the Bone
Who is Brian Kibler? only one of the best, most medaled out pro mtg player of all time. And guess what? he likes this deck! Below is one of his lists used for a few days during his mtg daily stream.
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Boneyard Wurm
4 Screeching Skaab
2 Armored Skaab
3 Daybreak Ranger
4 Splinterfright
2 Dungeon Geists
1 Kessig Cagebreaker
4 Ghoultree
4 Faithless Looting
3 Mulch
4 Tracker's Instincts
Lands (23)
4 Copperline Gorge
3 Hinterland Harbor
3 Sulfur Falls
6 Island
1 Mountain
4 Forest
2 Evolving Wilds
2 Negate
2 Flashfreeze
1 Phantasmal Image
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Grim Lavamancer
1 Ratchet Bomb
5.0 - TOURNAMENT REPORTS
Derp derp.
6.0 - THANKS AND STUFF
Oviously, thanks to all the people working behind the scenes in the bakc posts of ths thread, for helping refine hte deck towhtever it is at the time you are reading this. I would name specifics, but I'm sure things will change far to often to even bother.
A Special thanks to Brian Kibler for his interest in this deck, hopefully he plays around with it more and takes it to a GP jsut for fun, man would i pay for footage of that.
Lastly a thanks to Rivenor, for designing our banner at the top of the page. Check out her Miraculous Recovery Shop and maybe get something done by her for yourself!
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Llanowar Elves
2x Viridian Emissary
4x Screeching Skaab
4x Armored Skaab
2x Skaab Ruinator
4x Splinterfright
3x Phyrexian Metamorph
3x Dungeon Geists
4x Ghoultree
1x Frost Titan
4x Tracker's Instincts
1x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Artful Dodge
Lands (21)
7x Forest
5x Island
4x Hinterland Harbor
2x Evolving Wilds
2x Buried Ruin
1x Mountain
1x Artful Dodge
2x Ezuri's Archers
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Ratchet Bomb
1x Gnaw to the Bone
2x Beast Within
1x Molten-Tail Masticore
2x Thrun, the Last Troll
Key swaps:
-2 Mulch, -2 Daybreak Ranger, -1 Kessig Cagebreakers
+2 Viridian Emissary, +2 Skaab Ruinator, +1 Frost Titan
Reasoning:
- Mulch was really only fetching me lands on occasion, and at least the Emissary helped my board state (at the exact same cost) and was a creature in the yard.
- Ruinators stomp tokens and are recurrable, even at the cost of my gy's strength. Great against anti-gy tech though.
- KCBs were amazing, but they had to swing. For one mana more, I get more lockdown that's twice as big as Dungeon Geists. And yes, the bigger body is huge. As is the semi-hexproof. I almost want another one...
Also, Ray of Revelations over Ancient Grudge is a possibility still, if the enchantments start showing up more in my LGS. In that event, Elves become Avacyn's Pilgrims, and the single Mountain becomes a Plains.
That said, I think 2 Ruinators may be too much, and only 2 Emissaries not enough, or perhaps they should be Llanowar Elves anyway. Also, I've begun testing Phantasmal Image instead of the Metamorphs, since I rarely (if ever) have it copy a non-creature artifact; costing 1 and 2 life less is VERY nice.
I've been toying with ways to outrace Tokens, Delver and other flying decks. Since we have issues beginning around T4 with them unless we see our Dungeon Geists or a Skaab Ruinator. I'm starting to reconsider Stitched Drake. Costs the ~same as the Ruinator with a much more manageable setback (the only real casting issue, honestly). The idea, though, is that we may need to outrace them, and a 3/4 survives several anthems...
I tried Tower Geist, but as nice as the sorting was, it just fell short. I'd have rather had Dungeon Geists every time. I tried Niblis of the Breath, but the 2/1 body was a real liability. I also didn't like having to set aside mana, even though it was much more flexible. Still, with fewer decks running Gut Shot now, it might be worth consideration. Eh. Probably not competitive enough.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
GR My Blog RG (Std)
SplinterPod
My current list:
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Avacyn’s Pilgrim
1 Llanowar Elves
2 Screeching Skaab
1 Strangleroot Geist
2 Phantasmal Image
3 Splinterfright
3 Armored Skaab
1 Skaab Ruinator
1 AEther Adept
1 Dungeon Geists
3 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sun Titan
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Spells(9):
4 Birthing Pod
4 Tracker's Instincts
1 Memory’s Journey
Lands(21):
4 Hinterland Harbor
6 Island
8 Forest
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Memory’s Journey
3 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Dungeon Geists
3 Negate
1 Sylvok Replica
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Skaab Ruinator
Unusual choice explanation:
- I went with a 2-1 split between Pilgrim and Elves because I feel that 9 is the correct number of white sources for the amount of white I play. This deck can also wind up short on green occasionally and the single Elves hedges against that somewhat
-Maindeck Memory's Journey may seem odd, but it has a lot of uses in this deck specifically. Its primary use is going to be fetching singletons out of your graveyard for Pod activations, but it also really helps against some random matchups, like anything based on Unburial Rites
-Wurmcoil over second Sun Titan. I think the life gain is very relevant in certain matchups and there are times when the Titan can be lackluster. It's also much easier to cast if I draw it. With MD Journey I think it's an acceptable risk that my single Titan might get milled
-Buried Ruin is definitely a card to consider to grab milled Pods, but I'm afraid of destabilizing the mana base. I rarely run out of plays anyway, and the tempo disadvantage really doesn't seem worth it in this deck.
Overview
The real engine of this deck is Birthing Pod + Tracker's Instincts. Between those two cards, you should never run out of gas
This deck's strength is its versatility. However, that can also be its biggest weakness. Pod and Dredge are both incredibly difficult archetypes to play correctly and, as you can imagine, meshing the two is no easy feat. You have to know your list intimately, because it's very difficult to keep track of what is still in your deck when you are aggressively milling. Remember to make sure what you need is still in your library before you activate the Pod. The other thing to understand is that it's okay to absorb some damage early on, but you should be playing to get to the end game. This deck has an extremely high degree of inevitability, and can stabilize or turn the tide very quickly. This means that it's always in your advantage to extend games. You're going to play a lot of games where you deal your lethal damage with your life total in the single digits, so don't panic
The best way to try to win with this deck is to pick the best creature for whatever MU you are facing, slam it down, and copy it as many times as you can with Metamorph and Image. If you're facing Aggro, a turn 3 Skaab Ruinator can quickly turn the tide in your favor. Against Control, take advantage of ETB/ETG effects like Acidic Slime, Strangleroot Geist, Wurmcoil Engine, Sun Titan, and Solemn Simulacrum. Against midrange, you can stick to the good old Splinterfright strategy. You can also go with the good old Bant Pod route of ramping to Elesh Norn as fast as possible and riding her to victory
If you want to build your own SplinterPod deck, I highly recommend tuning it to your own metagame, but my current list seems to work pretty well against most archetypes. This deck definitely won't work for everybody. In fact, I recommend that you get comfortable with both the Pod and Dredge archetypes before attempting to combine the two. If you manage to come up with something you think works better than what I have, I'd like to see it, but please have results to back it up first
Strengths and weaknesses versus regular UG Dredge:
Strengths
+ Better interaction due to ability to Pod up specific answers to a situation
+ Resistance to blue-based control decks because they don't have many answers for an early Pod
+ More resistance to graveyard hate
+ A flexible plan of attack that can be easily tuned for any metagame
Weaknesses
- Less milling can lead to slower starts if you don't manage an early Pod
- Ghoultree is so bad with Pod that it becomes unplayable
- Weaker to Grafdigger's Cage
- More difficult to play properly
I'll edit this if I think of anything else to add
edit: Updated with generic sideboard
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
Aye, I rushed the re-write on the primer a bit, mostly because I wanted to get out foot in the door as the first thread opened on the new developing competitive board, lol.
Also, @Lifekills, I plan on adding your Splinterpod subtype to the main primer once I get all the card choices done, and will likely throw a link down to that post as well for faster updates as you will update yourself faster then I can update about you updating, naturally.
Thalia doesn't do enough on her own to make her really worth running. Besides, if I have a Pod online, I'm already winning against Control.
Your other suggestions are all fine, but my meta is strange with lots of weird stuff like Mill, Venser Lock, Turbo-Fog, Chalice combo, etc in addition to lots of tier 1 stuff. That's why I have some unusual choices in the board. I will probably be replacing the Beast Withins though as they were the only card in my 75 that underperformed in my last round of testing. I'll probably do something like 1 Sylvok Replica, 2 Ray of Revelation
I'll update it with a more generic sideboard when I get a chance (edit: Just did it, -1 Maniac, -3 Beast Within, +1 Thrun, +1 Sylvok Replica, +2 Ray of Revelation). Countermagic is good to have in general because there are some cards that can make my life miserable that are best dealt with using counterspells (Gideon, Karn, Liliana, Spellbomb, Grafdigger's Cage, Fog effects, etc), and it's either going to be Negate, Psychic Barrier, Dissipate, or Mental Misstep. I don't like Psychic Barrier because I have better ways to deal with the few creatures that really bother me and it costs UU. Dissipate costs 3 which is more than I am willing to pay for a counterspell in anything but a control deck although it would let me permanently deal with Lingering Souls. Mental Misstep is a legitimate option and can counter turn 1 Delver which is a moderate threat. Negate gets pretty much everything that nothing else in the deck can deal with. I think as long as you stick to some comination of those 4 cards as counter magic you'll be okay. I don't like Flashfreeze because everything that is good against me is White, Blue, Black, or a non-creature
Appreciate it. I'll make mine a little more complete once I get some time
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
I think that white has some aggressive creatures to offer. This allows us to assert ourselves in the early game and play a tempo based strategy. Aggression that forces opponents to trade with us or use board wipes which then leads to us dropping our big threats like Splinterfrights, Ghoultrees and Ruinators.
With 6-8 mana producing creatures, I explored our options among 3 CMC creatures. The most aggressive I could find were:
Porcelain Legionnaire
Blade Splicer
The Legionnaire can be cheated in for 2 mana should we fail to draw a mana producing creature. It has high power and first strike and is good for carving chunks off of your opponents life total or stalling their ground attack. It's downside is that it dies to most common removal: Tragic Slip, Geistflame, Gut Shot, and artifact removal. It does however dodge Go for the Throat which is a plus on most metas.
The Blade Splicer offers two bodies for the price of one. The Golem token is tougher than the Legionnaire and must be taken out with more expensive removal in general.
We have already seen the benefits of a splash of White for Ray of Revelation, and there has even been talk of Feeling of Dread making it in.
Thoughts and opinions are welcome.
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
I rarely cast Splinterfrights earlier than turn 5 or 6, so I don't really consider it to occupy the 3 drop spot as far as curving goes. I wouldn't use both Blade Splicer and Porcelain Legionnaire--I would choose one or the other.
Really? I do turn 2 Armored Skaab, turn 3 Splinterfright constantly. I can't comprehend how you can wait until turn 5-6 and win games
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
I try to bait as many removal spells and counter spells before I drop my Splinterfights. At a bare minimum I like to make sure its toughness is out of range of known burn I am facing and I don't like casting it into Leaks. That's how I play and I win more than half of my games.
I used the exact same maindeck as in my sig, but I reworked the sideboard due to some metagame scouting:
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Memory's Journey
3 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Dungeon Geists
3 Ghoultree
2 Ray of Revelation
3 Mental Misstep
It's a transformational sideboard. I noticed I was going to face a lot of aggro, so I decided there would be some games where I wanted to board out the Pods and in come the Ghoultrees
Anyway, here's my report:
Round 1: GW Humans (0-2 loss)
Both games I kept 2 land hands and didn't draw another land in either game. Meanwhile he goes turn 1 Champion, turn 2 Gather the Townsfolk both games. Stupid and frustrating
0-1
Round 2: RDW (2-1 win)
Game 1: He gets 2 early Stormblood Berserkers and I draw nothing but mana dorks, a Strangleroot Geist, and clones (horrible against Berserker btw)
In: 3x Ghoultree, 3x Gnaw to the Bone, 1x Thrun
Out: 4x Birthing Pod, 1x Memory's Journey, 1x Elesh Norn, 1x Sun Titan
Game 2 & 3: Gnaw to the Bone and Ghoultree are just too much for him
1-1
Round 3: Esper Spirits (2-0 win)
Game 1: He gets double Captain + 2x Lingering Souls tokens. It's my turn, and I have Strangleroot Geist and nothing else on board, but some clones in my hand. I drop Metamorph copying Geist and swing with both copies. He blocks each with a Souls token (not sure why). I bring back my Metamorph as a Captain then play Phantasmal Image copying my Metamorph. Now I have a 4/4 Captain, a 3/3 Captain, and a 5/4 Strangleroot Geist. I eventually get there
In: 3x Gnaw to the Bone, 1x Dungeon Geists
Out: 2x Birthing Pod, 1x Solemn Simulacrum, 1x Memory's Journey
Game 2: This was a really long game, he is running some clone effects of his own and the game eventually ends up with 3x copies of Dungeon Geists for each of us. I cast Gnaw about 4 times. I'm down to about 8 creatures in my library and 22 in my yard, but I have a massive board presense including 2x Splinterfrights. He casts DoJ, which I hadn't seen to that point, clearing the board. He's at 3 life and I'm at basically infinity. I recast Ruinator from my yard and just start swinging. He is able to cast Lingering Souls a couple of times to get some blockers then copies my Ruinator. We have a standoff for a while, but eventually I draw my last Geists and swing for the win
2-1
Round 4: Grixis Control
Not much to say about this round. Grixis really doesn't have the removal of UB or Esper, and we get out of Slagstorm range really quickly. No Elesh Norn, DoJ, or Gideon to worry about either. Easy victory as long as you play around Olivia
3-1
I like the Ghoultrees in the board for the games where Pod isn't so great. Memory's Journey really underperformed, and I never got out Elesh Norn or Sun Titan in any game. The result was still okay, but I'm not sure my deck wouldn't work just as well as a normal UG Dredge deck
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
Round 1: BGr Wolf Run (1-2 loss)
He saw enough Wurmcoils and Grave Titans that I couldn't lock them all down. Realistically, the Wurmcoils were the breaking point, since I even swung for 2 Artful Dodged Ghoultrees once, but he survived with 6. It really was the darn lifelink...
Game 2 I outraced him by tapping down his only titan and hitting hard with a Splinterfright repeatedly.
Game 3 he won due to two well-timed Nihil Spellbombs. And that was all she wrote.
Round 2: BR sacrificial burn (2-1 win)
This was some sort of homebrew based around sacrificing his dudes to deal wicked damage to me. Mortis Dogs+Artillarize ended Game 1 with something like a 12 point BOOM. Games 2 and 3 I added in my Gnaws and that was that. (At one point in G2 I gained 36 life off one cast.)
Round 3: UGb "Dredge" (2-1 win)
He was running some interesting card choices though, like a singleton Wreath of Geists, a playset of Increasing Confusion, and Dream Twists. But he milled me out Game 1 after an obscenely long match. He got two Gnaws off, and I flashed back 1... yeah. The turn he milled me out, I had two 24/24 Splinterfrights waiting to swing lethal. Sadly, those 4 cards milled cost me instead.
Game 2 I won off of Frost Titan. I tapped down his ginormous Splinterfright while grinding down his other dudes with two Ghoultrees, eventually ending it with another Artful Dodge. The Titan definitely won the game. In that end, he was really useful throughout the night. Would I have been better served with something else? Only a Wurmcoil Engine, I think. But that's because it's just broken to begin with.
Game 3 he got mana screwed, which was good because we started it with 5 mins in the round, and we still went to turns. I won with a T3 fright that got up to 6/6, added to a Viridian Emissary and Screeching Skaab.
Round 4: Kibler's RG Hellrider beatdown (1-2 loss)
Game 1 he got two Hellriders online. It hurt.
Game 2 I knocked him out with Artful Dodge after Titan-tapping down his Urabrask. It was ugly, but I got there. He was pumping out dudes with Garruk the Veil-Cursed, too.
Game 3 he landed a Sword of Body and Mind, put it on a Strangleroot Geist after killing it with his Garruk (flipping the walker and putting a token on the Geist). He then finished me with a Pyreheart Wolf after I couldn't block his geist. Had I been milled 3 more cards, I'd have gotten a 17-creature Gnaw and won the next turn when I swung with my Fright and a dodged Ghoultree. So it goes.
Round 5: Grand Architect (2-1 win)
Game 1 he didn't realize I had so much lockdown. I saw all 3 Dungeon Geists, my Titan, and 2 Phantasmal Images. Yep.
Game 2 he got a Heartless Summoning+Havenguul Lich+Wurmcoil combo online. I scooped for G3 when he pulled out his Steel Hellkite and was already at 45 life.
Game 3 he got mana-screwed, until he Metamorphed his own Architect twice. But by then I had milled enough, drawn enough, and played a Splinterfright and Ghoultree. Artful Dodge. So amazingly good.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
GR My Blog RG (Std)
it is nuts with a splinterfright or a ghoultree
you may even use the little black splash to play spider spawning
Chile!
Standard:
GU Prophet
Legacy:
WBU Shared Fate
Trades
yeah i tried spiders and were too slow actually, better side in corrosive gale against delver and spirits
Chile!
The only other tricky play might be flashing in a Bellowing Tanglewurm, which most of us don't run any more either, because green is everywhere.
That leaves... Ghoultree. I'd never pay 8 for a Ghoultree, let alone 8+.
I even tried it way back with a Mirror-Mad Phantasm, and that was hilarious... but it still required a beater to capitalize on the huge mill (that cost 7+: 5 to cast, 2 to activate, and 2 life).
A cute idea, but the Lunge really just is not worth it.
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
GR My Blog RG (Std)
is there any way to deal with them effectively out of dungeon geists and corrosive gale... for me they don't seem to be enough, but i haven't played the match up a lot yet.
sorry if i ask too much or i make some noobish questions regarding the archetype, but i'm quite new to it and i want to be clear about what works and what doesn't...
Chile!
Anyways, here's my list...I like it all except for the Viridian Emissary slot, should I remove it for another Dungeon Geist, or something else?
Anyways
4 Splinterfright
4 Ghoultree
4 Armored Skaab
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Screeching Skaab
2 Boneyard Wurm
2 Kessig Cagebreakers
1 Viridian Emissary
1 Dungeon Geists
4 Tracker's Instincts
3 Mulch
3 Artful Dodge (win con.)
3 Gnaw to the Bone (love having 3)
Lands
9 Forest
9 Island
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Prey Upon
4 Ezuri;s Archers
2 Ambush Viper
2 Memory's Journey
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Copperline Gorge
Round 1 vs. Zombies
W: 2-1
MVP: Kessig Cagebreaker
1-0
Round 2 vs. some Battle Cry nonsense
W: 2-0
MVP: Splinterfright
2-0
Round 3
U/B Control
1-1-1, had to draw the last one due to time, he surgically extracted all my Gnaws like t3, which were the only reason i beat him game 2...he would have won if game had played out.
MVP: Ghoultree & Artful Dodge
2-0-1
Round 4 vs. White Humans (my WORST matchup, i hate swords and i hate Mirran Crusader)
1-2
MVP: Splinterfright
2-1-1
Round 5: Humans
2-0
MVP: Kessig Cagebreaker
3-1-1
4th out of 19 to net myself a Promo Tectonic Edge & Promo Devil's Play. Yay!
Also: @Fmaholic: do you have a sideboard?
I've thought of this, too.
I've decided no, though.
Here's my reasoning:
Firstly, just looking at the card, he's a :symg::symg: a lot more difficult to cast than needing just :symg::1mana:.
Also, sometimes we want creatures of this type (on a similar note Screeching Skaab) to just do their job and get to the yard ASAP after they chump block or deal a quick two to a blocker (or player).
Strangleroot has undying, yes, but you have to think and consider as to whether he's worth more coming back as a 3/2 or worth more just doing said job and pumping your graveyard (ie: Splinterfrights and Wurms get +1/+1 more, Ghoultree cost (1) less to cast, 2 more life from a Gnaw, etc.)
edit: Also edited previous post w/sideboard. Thanks.
Have any of you tried using the Masticore?
This is essentially the same debate I've been having, especially since our deck is curving so low lately (and someone at my shop asked, "What about post-rotation?" and Geist leapt immediately to mind).
As for your current deck, FMaholic: I'd say that 3 Artful Dodge is probably too many mb. You've cut back on Dungeon Geists to accommodate them, and that's just not a trade I like. Dungeon Geists are one of our best weapons against, well, everything creature-based.
In the old thread people advocated him a while back, and I didn't understand it... until I got into a game where I needed him. That one game was enough to make me understand. Stonehorn Dignitary/Venser locks are impossible for us otherwise. Same with a good Havenguul Lich deck. We need that ready-fire 4 damage. One is probably also enough, assuming we can get a Buried Ruin out.
What frustrates me is that complete meltdown our deck can have against W/x Token decks. I'd kill for a reprint of Silklash Spider, for example, or something like it. But that's why some sideboards run Ezuri's Archers. Not the most elegant of answers, but it works. We need something better, though, especially with the angelic theme that's coming...
Currently Working On: Jund Ramp (RTR Block)
GR My Blog RG (Std)
Im really liking the swap from the mulch/boneyard to emissary/dream twist package.
Turn 1 dream twist is just as good as turn 1 birds IMO
Here's my take on the Deck:
1 Mountain
7 Island
10 Forest
4 Hinterland Harbor
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Llanowar Elves
4 Screeching Skaab
4 Strangleroot Geist
4 Armored Skaab
4 Splinterfright
2 Daybreak Ranger
2 Dungeon Geists
2 Acidic Slime
4 Ghoultree
4 Tracker's Instincts
With a deck like this, I feel like no spell is worth including unless it has flashback. Why run a spell without flashback in a deck with so much mill? That's why I cut Mulch and only run Tracker's Instincts.
Dungeon Geists and Strangleroot Geist have been the MVP's. With Splinterfright a close 3rd. We might be on to a Geist theme here...
Strangleroot Geist has been some what of a strain on the mana(sometimes it's stuck in hand), but really it adds so much early pressure that I'm willing to take the small risk. I've upped the land count to 24 and added 2 Llanowar Elves, in hopes Geist will be a consistent turn 2 play and also because I am without Mulch.
Cards I'm considering:
Creatures:
Deranged Assistant
Civilized Scholar
Dawntreader Elk
Ambush Viper
Wolfbitten Captive
Laboratory Maniac
Spells:
Mystic Retrieval
Mystic Retrieval would be considered if the deck wanted to add spells without flashback, like Ponder, Beast Within, Mulch, etc... That way if you milled your spell you could recover it with Mystic Retrieval.
I personally think you are running too many lands.
Also, strangleroot is not good in this deck because he avoids the graveyard.
I would be more wanting to turn 2 armored skaab.
Also i dont think you have enough mill in your deck.
You need at least a few dream twists in there.