and it doesn't help that Wizards seems to hate that this crazy "Magic deck that doesn't play Magic" deck exists to such an extent that they've basically made hating against it into a "Choose Your Own Adventure" type of deal.
Ugh, I can't stand that. In the years since Future Sight more or less completed the deck, they've printed:
I mean, I can understand printing one or two hate cards every so often, but why have they printed so many of them so quickly? I don't think any other deck (well, maybe Reanimator due to splash damage) has as many hate cards.
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Burn and dredge have a stigma because without the hate for the decks, you lose. It's as simple as a race at that point. You either combo out before dredge, or you lose. You either out pace burn, or you lose. People talk about the money and all that, but they're wrong. If you're giving two craps about the monetary costs of your decks (while building your deck it's acceptable, but while playing, leave it alone) you're being a sore loser about it.
I play dredge because it's an easy deck that can't really lose without specific hate.
yeah, same with ANT, TES no one lifts a finger against those because they are all expensive
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yeah, same with ANT, TES no one lifts a finger against those because they are all expensive
No one lifts a finger against those decks for more reasons than that. The decks are expensive, yes. But that only compounds upon the issue the deck is more prevalent. The reasons that Dredge isn't 100% a better choice than Storm at all times are specifically that Storm is faster than Dredge (Storm sacrifices the ability to literally not be interacted with for the speed of turn 1-2 wins--that you can also get in Dredge by utilizing LED), and the fact that graveyard hate is a serious Achilles' Heel to the deck, and everyone's caught on to the fact that the Dredge match is so naturally unwinnable to an extent that makes it very likely that you will be fighting against hate in your postboard games. Burn is also often killed in the sideboard, and the deck is very draw dependent, but the very nature of what the deck does means that it's capable of ridiculous starts that are very difficult to interact with in the context of Legacy--it doesn't need to be as fast as storm because what do you do to a combo deck that doesn't fold to a well placed counterspell since it literally casts the same cards on you seven times in a row?
The other thing is that you don't need to lift a finger against ANT and TES because the answers to those decks can be general enough to actually have applications in other matches that you're very likely to see. These answers are general enough to even be mainboarded. See: Gaddock Teeg, almost every counterspell, Ethersworn Canonist, Stifle, Flusterstorm, etc. The only naturally occurring predator card against Dredge that you will find in preboard games is probably Lightning Bolt + a creature dies to it. Also note Alfiriel's comment on Mental Misstep (Hopefully a fixed version is printed somewhere down the road).
The last thing is the learning curve of Storm. You need to put a lot into it to learn how to play the deck, whereas Dredge's difficulty comes almost solely from postboard games. Preboard Dredge games only require that you have enough knowledge about Legacy to name the right cards when you cast Cabal Therapy, and you only really need to know enough about playing around graveyard hate to mise a win since you're like 80% guaranteed to be up one game in the first place. Burn can be a complex deck to play, but it's also often just a matter of seeing how close your hand comes to dealing 20 damage and then just praying that the top of your deck will give you the remainder.
I mean, I can understand printing one or two hate cards every so often, but why have they printed so many of them so quickly? I don't think any other deck (well, maybe Reanimator due to splash damage) has as many hate cards.
As others have said, part of the reason people dislike Dredge is that it requires very narrow answers that aren't applicable to any other matchup, while one of the fundamentals of good competitive Magic is playing broad, flexible cards that apply in multiple matchups.
One of the trends in recent "hate" cards has been making them work more broadly; Scavenging Ooze, for example, is good against non-Dredge decks and even against decks that aren't particularly graveyard-based at all, while Surgical Extraction can be a backbreaker if it hits a key combo piece or snatches duals/fetches.
Of course, in order to get a decent base of cards that are broadly good like this, WotC has to actually print them
I think wizards just knows it was a mistake (same as storm mechanic truth to be told) but is not willing to ban so many cards to get rid of it.
It might have been an accident to make Dredge and Storm such powerful mechanics but I wouldn't call them mistakes.
This game would be a lot less interesting and diverse without those two archetypes. Both storm and dredge have created decks in literally every format they are legal in and I think that's an enormous success. Restrictions and bans keep storm from dominating very well and neither storm decks nor Dredge are dominating any formats.
Without dredge you still have reanimator. They both work on similar principals and a first turn Iona can be just as much as a shut out against the right decks as a zombie horde.
There are plenty of cards that dredge does not interact well against that have other applications against a great range of other decks, including the just printed Thaila, propaganda/ghostly prison, etc.
The thing that dredge does do however, is make some common cards more powerful than the most powerful of cards, and people dont like it when there 75 dollar FOWs and 90 dollar goyfs lose to a 200 dollar deck.
I am not scared of grave-hate in the hands of an unexperienced opponent. And when facing merfolk or reanimator the games get very skill intensive and even my opponents enjoyed it.
and dredge is skill intensive, cause any unexperienced dredge player against anyone who knows what he's doing will lose to hate/counters/wasteland.
I mean, I can understand printing one or two hate cards every so often, but why have they printed so many of them so quickly? I don't think any other deck (well, maybe Reanimator due to splash damage) has as many hate cards.
As others have said, part of the reason people dislike Dredge is that it requires very narrow answers that aren't applicable to any other matchup, while one of the fundamentals of good competitive Magic is playing broad, flexible cards that apply in multiple matchups.
One of the trends in recent "hate" cards has been making them work more broadly; Scavenging Ooze, for example, is good against non-Dredge decks and even against decks that aren't particularly graveyard-based at all, while Surgical Extraction can be a backbreaker if it hits a key combo piece or snatches duals/fetches.
Of course, in order to get a decent base of cards that are broadly good like this, WotC has to actually print them
So we're just pretending that Scavenging Ooze doesn't exist and isn't played widely in a maindeck role already?
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The Problem is... Storm and dredge doesnt work that way...espacilly storm...sure it created something. But it also pushed nearly every other combo out of the meta. So jeah it created a new archetyp ...but killed 4-8 others... that doesnt help diversity.
Slowly Storm replaced all other non grave based combos because the way it can play around your opp, and that I dont see as a good thing. There was combo before storm and it was fine.
It might just be a personal bias of mine, but I'm not seeing which combo decks are "killed" by Storm. I haven't been playing Legacy for too long, so that might be the issue. What decks are you saying are unplayable because Storm exists? From what I have experienced of Legacy, I'd contend that non-storm combo is plenty playable. In the tournaments I've been in, I've seen Hive Mind and Grindstone combo regularly; Aluren, Elf combo and Food Chain combo appear from time to time, and I've been known to play Doomsday-Show And Tell combo at local events. Other combo decks aren't as fast, but the other combo decks also aren't constrained in deckbuilding by the Storm Mechanic. Every deck I named (sans Elves) plays blue, and since none of those decks are forced to rely on Lion's Eye Diamond, they get to play much higher quality protection/disruption in the form of Counterspells. Storm players have to fight through that while still trying to be fast enough to outrace the opposing combo/additional disruption. In what way are you saying that Storm "plays around the opponent," and how is it different than what every other combo aims to do? It seems to me that combo decks in general intend to stifle interactivity, and Storm seems only to differ in its capability to do so via speed; however, I see no difference in "T1 Duress you, T2 go off" and "T3 Show and Tell, go off. Force of Will whatever you try to do in response." Both are equally noninteractive--the latter case is deceptive in that the opponent can make the faulty assumption that they did something because they could cast a spell or two. I also find it particularly interesting that you're singling out Storm for being oppressive, even though decks like Reanimator are almost objectively better because they are just as fast as Storm with better protection/disruption (so they crush Storm), and they're harder to hate out because you can utilize Show and Tell from the sideboard to get around the narrow answers.
The Problem is... Storm and dredge doesnt work that way...espacilly storm...sure it created something. But it also pushed nearly every other combo out of the meta. So jeah it created a new archetyp ...but killed 4-8 others... that doesnt help diversity.
Slowly Storm replaced all other non grave based combos because the way it can play around your opp, and that I dont see as a good thing. There was combo before storm and it was fine.
Similar things can be sayed for dredge. I also really enjoy grave based strategies that dont ignore your opp completly game 1... so I still think hate is the wrong way...ban 1-2 keycards would be fine. and help the diversity of the meta.
I strongly disagree. Nothing needs to be banned in Storm or Dredge and neither deck needs to not exist. Neither deck is currently dominating and neither deck is currently warping the format. Hell, both decks just got hate cards printed in Dark Ascension (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Grafdigger's Cage, respectively.)
Also, Storm needing to be removed for pushing other combo decks out of the meta is like saying Zoo needs to be removed for just being better than the other all-out aggro decks out there. Decks come and go all the time, and it's only a huge problem when cards like Mental Misstep come out and invalidate entire swaths of decks and warp the meta to "play this card/strategy, or play to beat this card/strategy." Neither Dredge nor Storm do that.
There are still plenty of potent combo decks in Legacy that neither of these decks have made unplayable. Reanimator, Sneak Show, Combo Elves, Hive Mind, Charbelcher, High Tide, Painter's Servant, Doomsday, Aluren, Breakfast, etc can all be viable.
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Without dredge you still have reanimator. They both work on similar principals and a first turn Iona can be just as much as a shut out against the right decks as a zombie horde.
There are plenty of cards that dredge does not interact well against that have other applications against a great range of other decks, including the just printed Thaila, propaganda/ghostly prison, etc.
The thing that dredge does do however, is make some common cards more powerful than the most powerful of cards, and people dont like it when there 75 dollar FOWs and 90 dollar goyfs lose to a 200 dollar deck.
The is much cheaper without the LED's...
I've get that feeling too with Burn... It's another deck that may cost you 100 dollars or less to build and it's effective...
Its not really the price of those decks that makes people feel bad. Its because those decks are so narrow and doesn't invoke any decisions.
A burn player will have a bunch of burn spells in their hand. They don't interact. I mean they can bolt your creatures but thats because they are already losing.
Dredge is even more non-interactive in game 1. Half your deck does absolutely nothing. Force of will doesn't do anything. Most decks don't have maindeck answers to dredge 24 on turn 2. I would say storm is more interactive.
Thats why people sideboard tons of graveyard hate. I don't think dredge is too powerful, just that if you don't hate it. You will lose because you cannot interact at all in the mindeck.
I've been rebuilding dredge again, and everywhere I go, I get feedback like "Dredge isn't a real deck, it's mental masturbation." "According to who?" "That's the consensus of the magic community."
Hey man. I do not know in what context you heard/read that stuff. But the phrase "Dredge is not a real deck" does not work in print the way it does in conversation. It is not said with disdain or intended to be inflammatory. You say it with a smirk. "...not a real deck" is reference to the fact that it sidesteps typical rules of deckbuilding, card economy, etc. with a "wow" implied.
But...
All combo decks have a masturbatory element. It can be frustrating when your deck is incapable of interacting with your opponent's plan. But it is each player's responsibility to prepare for the meta. You stick a Crypt and it is Dredge that is backpedaling. You plop down Ethersworn Canonist and storm players start to sweat. The tools are out there. So, no matter how you look at it, anyone who *actually* complains about his opponent's deck is a twerp.
It is a legal deck. It is apparently good enough to win. You suck because you did not plan for it in your sideboard. Now shut up and sign the card 2-0, my win.
Players want to maximize their deck at an unreasonable point. Ten years ago people maindeck'd disenchant and didnt complain about it being a dead draw. Theres no unbeatable deck.
If your deck loses to dredge it is your fault only.
Is everyone using dredge? NO
Do you need more than half of sideboard against dredge? NO
Is dredge winning more than everything else? NO
Players want to maximize their deck at an unreasonable point. Ten years ago people maindeck'd disenchant and didnt complain about it being a dead draw. Theres no unbeatable deck.
If your deck loses to dredge it is your fault only.
Is everyone using dredge? NO
Do you need more than half of sideboard against dredge? NO
Is dredge winning more than everything else? NO
To be fair, Magic was a LOT different 10 years ago. But this still does not change the principle outlined here; Dredge is not impossible to board against or solve, and a competent player can even sometimes take game 1 if their deck is at least a decent matchup vs Dredge. If there were no viable answers to it, if it was degenerate, or if it was a problem and most players would have enjoyed the format with its absence (Ie Flash; Mental Misstep), the cards which power Dredge would have been banned by now. But they aren't.
And a big LOL to those who say Storm kills other combo. Hive Mind, Cephalid Breakfast, Hexmage Depths.....oh yeah, I forgot everyone stopped playing those decks the moment Storm was printed. How foolish of me. Wait a minute....many of these decks weren't around until AFTER Storm became a mechanic! One would say that is certainly not what normally happens when one strategy totally "kills" another.
There is no reason you shouldn't play Dredge if you find it appealing. I would recommend LED Dredge, as its my personal favorite variant, will gain quite a bit from Faithless Looting, is fast and consistent, AND will make your opponents (somewhat) less quick to bash your deck for being "budget noob omg worth less than just my Jace I never got to cast."
Players want to maximize their deck at an unreasonable point. Ten years ago people maindeck'd disenchant and didnt complain about it being a dead draw. Theres no unbeatable deck.
BAM! You hit the nail on the head!
I totally agree... this is why when I do play burn, I'm still packing some kind of artifact removal spell...
If your deck loses to dredge it is your fault only.
Is everyone using dredge? NO
Do you need more than half of sideboard against dredge? NO
Is dredge winning more than everything else? NO
I feel piloting Dredge is just as difficult as Enchantress, Storm and High Tide. These decks do promise a quick win but it also requires lots of thought and knowing how to count the cards in your deck. Ok Enchantress can be debatable on the quick win department...
I feel that most opponents do fear decks like dredge because the first and the second turns can be intimidating, and I have seen many players fold their hand because of the intimidation of dreding 12 cards.
So I do agree that dredge is easy to beat, mostly because I believe only a handful of players can pilot the deck quite well (I'm so-so). On the other hand, I also believe dredge is more a casual combo deck because it doesnt leave too much room for protection and dredge effect isnt reliable.
Its not really the price of those decks that makes people feel bad. Its because those decks are so narrow and doesn't invoke any decisions.
A burn player will have a bunch of burn spells in their hand. They don't interact. I mean they can bolt your creatures but thats because they are already losing.
Dredge is even more non-interactive in game 1. Half your deck does absolutely nothing. Force of will doesn't do anything. Most decks don't have maindeck answers to dredge 24 on turn 2. I would say storm is more interactive.
Thats why people sideboard tons of graveyard hate. I don't think dredge is too powerful, just that if you don't hate it. You will lose because you cannot interact at all in the mindeck.
I don't see how dredge doesn't involve any decisions. I can only assume people are playing it poorly when I hear that. Without backing evidence, I can make the same claims about plenty of decks.
Spell it out like that, and it looks like Stoneblade is mental masturbation without any decisions involved.
Dredge is a very difficult deck to pilot well. Yes, you have a favourable game one (though not as favourable as it used to be, thanks to things like Scavenging Ooze lurking in people's maindecks), but you have the least favourable games two and three in the format.
But then, it can be self-fullfilling. People hear that dredge involves no decisions, so they play it like its on autopilot, then get frustrated when they don't actually win with it, and it becomes "not a real deck".
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For the opponent the game is non-interactive. The interactions most decks can make is Force of Will the first discard outlet or play some creatures to block with.
Playing stoneforge mystic isn't really a making decisions. Its the only thing a stoneforge deck can do game 1. Play stuff.
When people lose like that. With no interactions and no out, they start to hate dredge.
For the dredge players, you are always trying to maximize your dredge. There little ways of playing around hate. The best is keeping a dredger in hand. Apart from that the only skill testing card is cabal therapy.
Dredge is probably in a bad spot right now. Its not that everyone is specifically hating dredge. Its just that graveyard hate is important right now. I would definitely say reanimator is probably 80% of what my graveyard hate is for. Then there are loam decks and maybe snapcaster mage.
But that's a weakness of their deck, not a problem with Dredge. If there is a known deck archetype that you cannot interact with, that is your deck's shortcoming, not a reason to be snide and douchey about that deck.
Aggro decks generally have nothing they can do against storm game one except race. But that is just something that aggro players accept as a risk of playing their deck. Why can't people do the same with Dredge?
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But that's a weakness of their deck, not a problem with Dredge. If there is a known deck archetype that you cannot interact with, that is your deck's shortcoming, not a reason to be snide and douchey about that deck.
Aggro decks generally have nothing they can do against storm game one except race. But that is just something that aggro players accept as a risk of playing their deck. Why can't people do the same with Dredge?
force of will: 55$ lowest
wasteland: 90$ lowest
jace: 50$ lowest
tundra: 90$ at lowest
entire dredge deck: 200$
yet it roflpwns them because they do not have hate. now, why might they be pretty angry?
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I don't see how dredge doesn't involve any decisions. I can only assume people are playing it poorly when I hear that. Without backing evidence, I can make the same claims about plenty of decks.
Spell it out like that, and it looks like Stoneblade is mental masturbation without any decisions involved.
Dredge is a very difficult deck to pilot well. Yes, you have a favourable game one (though not as favourable as it used to be, thanks to things like Scavenging Ooze lurking in people's maindecks), but you have the least favourable games two and three in the format.
But then, it can be self-fullfilling. People hear that dredge involves no decisions, so they play it like its on autopilot, then get frustrated when they don't actually win with it, and it becomes "not a real deck".
This is spot on. Interestingly, many off the same arguments have been made about Affinity. Like Dredge, Affinity has a phenomenal game 1, but runs into serious hate cards game 2. Also like dredge, Affinity has a reputation for being a thoughtless deck when in fact it is not.
But that's a weakness of their deck, not a problem with Dredge. If there is a known deck archetype that you cannot interact with, that is your deck's shortcoming, not a reason to be snide and douchey about that deck.
Aggro decks generally have nothing they can do against storm game one except race. But that is just something that aggro players accept as a risk of playing their deck. Why can't people do the same with Dredge?
The issue is that for a majority of the time that Dredge has existed in every format, basically no deck could really interact with Dredge unless they felt comfortable playing horrible cards with little to no use in any other match, making their deck objectively worse against all decks on the whole. Concerning preboard games, before Scavenging Ooze was printed all you really had was playing mainboard bullcrap that would get you killed against other decks, killing your own guys in hopes of slowing a Dredge player down, or being an even faster combo deck. To me, that implies not an error in deck construction nor even an inherent flaw in the other decks. To me, that implies a mistake in development to allow such a non-interactive deck to exist. I feel strongly that the developers agree, given that they literally try to kill the deck off with new hate cards in every new set. (This also applies to Storm, but not nearly to the extent that it applies to Dredge.)
Also...I can't recall the last time I played against an aggro player who lost gracefully to Tendrils of Agony when I cast it on them, so your point about aggro players doesn't really hold much weight to me.
I'm certainly not saying that people are justified in getting all ruffled up over playing against Dredge to the extent that causes them to "be douchey;" I am saying that if the reasons for them doing so are what you assume them to be, you should at least understand where they are coming from because every deck without Tendrils of Agony/Green Sun's Zenith (a huge part of any Legacy scene) needs to play cards that are actually awful to beat a Dredge Player unless that player has a heart attack in the middle of the game.
How many noncombo green decks are there, and how many of them don't play Green Sun's Zenith?
I don't think any deck is particularly a no brainer. However, in the case of Dredge, I mainly believe this because A) You need to have enough experience to play Cabal Therapy properly; B) You need to have the skill to play through graveyard hate.
You know, now that I think about it, when it comes to people becoming infuriated at Dredge and Burn, I think a big part of it is the concept of control. I want to say that it's not about money, if only because I want to be optimistic enough to assume that people don't really believe that they deserve to win based solely on the cost of their deck. Now then--I know many players who are serious about Legacy and have access to enough cards to play whatever they desire. In this situation, these players decide often to play decks that they feel reward skill in that they interact favorably with most decks, and therefore have the opportunity to outplay their opponents. To these players, I assume that decks like Dredge and Burn are so non-interactive and draw(dredge) dependent that losing to these decks feels like losing to bad luck and not losing to the opponent. I assuming that this is the same feeling that non-blue players get if they get caught by a turn one Ad Nauseam, or when Storm players find themselves facing a turn one Trinisphere.
Actually, I have a question. If Dredge didn't exist, would decks really be playing sideboard graveyard hate for Reanimator and Loam decks? I honestly don't know the answer because I never play graveyard hate in the first place.
Narrow hate cards against Storm are narrow, yes; however, Legacy at large isn't forced to side in 4 Mindbreak Trap anytime they see an opponent packing Rituals. More decks on the whole have maindecked disruption against Storm that has a broad range of applications (specifically, most decks seem to either pack Counterspells or Discard--neither of which is all too great against Dredge).
I personally don't have much respect for Gaddock Teeg, but I'll admit that I might be biased. Teeg only shuts down Dread Return in Dredge, but he doesn't stop your opponent from making so many Zombies that you lose anyway; the only Storm deck that should outright lose to Teeg is ANT--which shouldn't even entirely be the case since GW has become popular enough that you should know to perhaps have a maindeck bounce spell or two. I have no experience with Teeg v. Control decks to say whether or not he is all that great there.
WoTC doesn't like Dredge because it creates non interactive games, and makes n00bs cry. As long as dredge is played, they will continue to print hate for it.
Ugh, I can't stand that. In the years since Future Sight more or less completed the deck, they've printed:
Wheel of Sun and Moon
Faerie Macabre
Relic of Progenitus
Ravenous Trap
Bojuka Bog
Scavenging Ooze
Purify the Grave
Grafdigger's Cage
And arguably Surgical Extraction, which got insane with Snapcaster Mage.
I mean, I can understand printing one or two hate cards every so often, but why have they printed so many of them so quickly? I don't think any other deck (well, maybe Reanimator due to splash damage) has as many hate cards.
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yeah, same with ANT, TES no one lifts a finger against those because they are all expensive
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No one lifts a finger against those decks for more reasons than that. The decks are expensive, yes. But that only compounds upon the issue the deck is more prevalent. The reasons that Dredge isn't 100% a better choice than Storm at all times are specifically that Storm is faster than Dredge (Storm sacrifices the ability to literally not be interacted with for the speed of turn 1-2 wins--that you can also get in Dredge by utilizing LED), and the fact that graveyard hate is a serious Achilles' Heel to the deck, and everyone's caught on to the fact that the Dredge match is so naturally unwinnable to an extent that makes it very likely that you will be fighting against hate in your postboard games. Burn is also often killed in the sideboard, and the deck is very draw dependent, but the very nature of what the deck does means that it's capable of ridiculous starts that are very difficult to interact with in the context of Legacy--it doesn't need to be as fast as storm because what do you do to a combo deck that doesn't fold to a well placed counterspell since it literally casts the same cards on you seven times in a row?
The other thing is that you don't need to lift a finger against ANT and TES because the answers to those decks can be general enough to actually have applications in other matches that you're very likely to see. These answers are general enough to even be mainboarded. See: Gaddock Teeg, almost every counterspell, Ethersworn Canonist, Stifle, Flusterstorm, etc. The only naturally occurring predator card against Dredge that you will find in preboard games is probably Lightning Bolt + a creature dies to it. Also note Alfiriel's comment on Mental Misstep (Hopefully a fixed version is printed somewhere down the road).
The last thing is the learning curve of Storm. You need to put a lot into it to learn how to play the deck, whereas Dredge's difficulty comes almost solely from postboard games. Preboard Dredge games only require that you have enough knowledge about Legacy to name the right cards when you cast Cabal Therapy, and you only really need to know enough about playing around graveyard hate to mise a win since you're like 80% guaranteed to be up one game in the first place. Burn can be a complex deck to play, but it's also often just a matter of seeing how close your hand comes to dealing 20 damage and then just praying that the top of your deck will give you the remainder.
As others have said, part of the reason people dislike Dredge is that it requires very narrow answers that aren't applicable to any other matchup, while one of the fundamentals of good competitive Magic is playing broad, flexible cards that apply in multiple matchups.
One of the trends in recent "hate" cards has been making them work more broadly; Scavenging Ooze, for example, is good against non-Dredge decks and even against decks that aren't particularly graveyard-based at all, while Surgical Extraction can be a backbreaker if it hits a key combo piece or snatches duals/fetches.
Of course, in order to get a decent base of cards that are broadly good like this, WotC has to actually print them
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Lightning Bolts don't kill creatures. State-based actions kill creatures.
It might have been an accident to make Dredge and Storm such powerful mechanics but I wouldn't call them mistakes.
This game would be a lot less interesting and diverse without those two archetypes. Both storm and dredge have created decks in literally every format they are legal in and I think that's an enormous success. Restrictions and bans keep storm from dominating very well and neither storm decks nor Dredge are dominating any formats.
There are plenty of cards that dredge does not interact well against that have other applications against a great range of other decks, including the just printed Thaila, propaganda/ghostly prison, etc.
The thing that dredge does do however, is make some common cards more powerful than the most powerful of cards, and people dont like it when there 75 dollar FOWs and 90 dollar goyfs lose to a 200 dollar deck.
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I agree =)
I trained my buddy playing dredge for tourneys using reanimator, countering all his discard outlets and dropping Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. After SB comes Echoing Truth and Iona, Shield of Emeria/Blazing Archon
Played dredge for a bit, quite fun truth to be told, and yes is much easier to play than my Doomsday Storm =)
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So we're just pretending that Scavenging Ooze doesn't exist and isn't played widely in a maindeck role already?
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“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” - Jack Layton, RIP
It might just be a personal bias of mine, but I'm not seeing which combo decks are "killed" by Storm. I haven't been playing Legacy for too long, so that might be the issue. What decks are you saying are unplayable because Storm exists? From what I have experienced of Legacy, I'd contend that non-storm combo is plenty playable. In the tournaments I've been in, I've seen Hive Mind and Grindstone combo regularly; Aluren, Elf combo and Food Chain combo appear from time to time, and I've been known to play Doomsday-Show And Tell combo at local events. Other combo decks aren't as fast, but the other combo decks also aren't constrained in deckbuilding by the Storm Mechanic. Every deck I named (sans Elves) plays blue, and since none of those decks are forced to rely on Lion's Eye Diamond, they get to play much higher quality protection/disruption in the form of Counterspells. Storm players have to fight through that while still trying to be fast enough to outrace the opposing combo/additional disruption. In what way are you saying that Storm "plays around the opponent," and how is it different than what every other combo aims to do? It seems to me that combo decks in general intend to stifle interactivity, and Storm seems only to differ in its capability to do so via speed; however, I see no difference in "T1 Duress you, T2 go off" and "T3 Show and Tell, go off. Force of Will whatever you try to do in response." Both are equally noninteractive--the latter case is deceptive in that the opponent can make the faulty assumption that they did something because they could cast a spell or two. I also find it particularly interesting that you're singling out Storm for being oppressive, even though decks like Reanimator are almost objectively better because they are just as fast as Storm with better protection/disruption (so they crush Storm), and they're harder to hate out because you can utilize Show and Tell from the sideboard to get around the narrow answers.
I strongly disagree. Nothing needs to be banned in Storm or Dredge and neither deck needs to not exist. Neither deck is currently dominating and neither deck is currently warping the format. Hell, both decks just got hate cards printed in Dark Ascension (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Grafdigger's Cage, respectively.)
Also, Storm needing to be removed for pushing other combo decks out of the meta is like saying Zoo needs to be removed for just being better than the other all-out aggro decks out there. Decks come and go all the time, and it's only a huge problem when cards like Mental Misstep come out and invalidate entire swaths of decks and warp the meta to "play this card/strategy, or play to beat this card/strategy." Neither Dredge nor Storm do that.
There are still plenty of potent combo decks in Legacy that neither of these decks have made unplayable. Reanimator, Sneak Show, Combo Elves, Hive Mind, Charbelcher, High Tide, Painter's Servant, Doomsday, Aluren, Breakfast, etc can all be viable.
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The is much cheaper without the LED's...
I've get that feeling too with Burn... It's another deck that may cost you 100 dollars or less to build and it's effective...
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A burn player will have a bunch of burn spells in their hand. They don't interact. I mean they can bolt your creatures but thats because they are already losing.
Dredge is even more non-interactive in game 1. Half your deck does absolutely nothing. Force of will doesn't do anything. Most decks don't have maindeck answers to dredge 24 on turn 2. I would say storm is more interactive.
Thats why people sideboard tons of graveyard hate. I don't think dredge is too powerful, just that if you don't hate it. You will lose because you cannot interact at all in the mindeck.
But...
All combo decks have a masturbatory element. It can be frustrating when your deck is incapable of interacting with your opponent's plan. But it is each player's responsibility to prepare for the meta. You stick a Crypt and it is Dredge that is backpedaling. You plop down Ethersworn Canonist and storm players start to sweat. The tools are out there. So, no matter how you look at it, anyone who *actually* complains about his opponent's deck is a twerp.
It is a legal deck. It is apparently good enough to win. You suck because you did not plan for it in your sideboard. Now shut up and sign the card 2-0, my win.
If your deck loses to dredge it is your fault only.
Is everyone using dredge? NO
Do you need more than half of sideboard against dredge? NO
Is dredge winning more than everything else? NO
To be fair, Magic was a LOT different 10 years ago. But this still does not change the principle outlined here; Dredge is not impossible to board against or solve, and a competent player can even sometimes take game 1 if their deck is at least a decent matchup vs Dredge. If there were no viable answers to it, if it was degenerate, or if it was a problem and most players would have enjoyed the format with its absence (Ie Flash; Mental Misstep), the cards which power Dredge would have been banned by now. But they aren't.
And a big LOL to those who say Storm kills other combo. Hive Mind, Cephalid Breakfast, Hexmage Depths.....oh yeah, I forgot everyone stopped playing those decks the moment Storm was printed. How foolish of me. Wait a minute....many of these decks weren't around until AFTER Storm became a mechanic! One would say that is certainly not what normally happens when one strategy totally "kills" another.
There is no reason you shouldn't play Dredge if you find it appealing. I would recommend LED Dredge, as its my personal favorite variant, will gain quite a bit from Faithless Looting, is fast and consistent, AND will make your opponents (somewhat) less quick to bash your deck for being "budget noob omg worth less than just my Jace I never got to cast."
BAM! You hit the nail on the head!
I totally agree... this is why when I do play burn, I'm still packing some kind of artifact removal spell...
I feel piloting Dredge is just as difficult as Enchantress, Storm and High Tide. These decks do promise a quick win but it also requires lots of thought and knowing how to count the cards in your deck. Ok Enchantress can be debatable on the quick win department...
I feel that most opponents do fear decks like dredge because the first and the second turns can be intimidating, and I have seen many players fold their hand because of the intimidation of dreding 12 cards.
So I do agree that dredge is easy to beat, mostly because I believe only a handful of players can pilot the deck quite well (I'm so-so). On the other hand, I also believe dredge is more a casual combo deck because it doesnt leave too much room for protection and dredge effect isnt reliable.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
I don't see how dredge doesn't involve any decisions. I can only assume people are playing it poorly when I hear that. Without backing evidence, I can make the same claims about plenty of decks.
Turn 1: brainstorm
Turn 2: Stoneforge, fetch Batterskull
Turn 3: Make Batterskull, profit
Spell it out like that, and it looks like Stoneblade is mental masturbation without any decisions involved.
Dredge is a very difficult deck to pilot well. Yes, you have a favourable game one (though not as favourable as it used to be, thanks to things like Scavenging Ooze lurking in people's maindecks), but you have the least favourable games two and three in the format.
But then, it can be self-fullfilling. People hear that dredge involves no decisions, so they play it like its on autopilot, then get frustrated when they don't actually win with it, and it becomes "not a real deck".
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Playing stoneforge mystic isn't really a making decisions. Its the only thing a stoneforge deck can do game 1. Play stuff.
When people lose like that. With no interactions and no out, they start to hate dredge.
For the dredge players, you are always trying to maximize your dredge. There little ways of playing around hate. The best is keeping a dredger in hand. Apart from that the only skill testing card is cabal therapy.
Dredge is probably in a bad spot right now. Its not that everyone is specifically hating dredge. Its just that graveyard hate is important right now. I would definitely say reanimator is probably 80% of what my graveyard hate is for. Then there are loam decks and maybe snapcaster mage.
Aggro decks generally have nothing they can do against storm game one except race. But that is just something that aggro players accept as a risk of playing their deck. Why can't people do the same with Dredge?
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“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” - Jack Layton, RIP
force of will: 55$ lowest
wasteland: 90$ lowest
jace: 50$ lowest
tundra: 90$ at lowest
entire dredge deck: 200$
yet it roflpwns them because they do not have hate. now, why might they be pretty angry?
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This is spot on. Interestingly, many off the same arguments have been made about Affinity. Like Dredge, Affinity has a phenomenal game 1, but runs into serious hate cards game 2. Also like dredge, Affinity has a reputation for being a thoughtless deck when in fact it is not.
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The issue is that for a majority of the time that Dredge has existed in every format, basically no deck could really interact with Dredge unless they felt comfortable playing horrible cards with little to no use in any other match, making their deck objectively worse against all decks on the whole. Concerning preboard games, before Scavenging Ooze was printed all you really had was playing mainboard bullcrap that would get you killed against other decks, killing your own guys in hopes of slowing a Dredge player down, or being an even faster combo deck. To me, that implies not an error in deck construction nor even an inherent flaw in the other decks. To me, that implies a mistake in development to allow such a non-interactive deck to exist. I feel strongly that the developers agree, given that they literally try to kill the deck off with new hate cards in every new set. (This also applies to Storm, but not nearly to the extent that it applies to Dredge.)
Also...I can't recall the last time I played against an aggro player who lost gracefully to Tendrils of Agony when I cast it on them, so your point about aggro players doesn't really hold much weight to me.
I'm certainly not saying that people are justified in getting all ruffled up over playing against Dredge to the extent that causes them to "be douchey;" I am saying that if the reasons for them doing so are what you assume them to be, you should at least understand where they are coming from because every deck without Tendrils of Agony/Green Sun's Zenith (a huge part of any Legacy scene) needs to play cards that are actually awful to beat a Dredge Player unless that player has a heart attack in the middle of the game.
I don't think any deck is particularly a no brainer. However, in the case of Dredge, I mainly believe this because A) You need to have enough experience to play Cabal Therapy properly; B) You need to have the skill to play through graveyard hate.
You know, now that I think about it, when it comes to people becoming infuriated at Dredge and Burn, I think a big part of it is the concept of control. I want to say that it's not about money, if only because I want to be optimistic enough to assume that people don't really believe that they deserve to win based solely on the cost of their deck. Now then--I know many players who are serious about Legacy and have access to enough cards to play whatever they desire. In this situation, these players decide often to play decks that they feel reward skill in that they interact favorably with most decks, and therefore have the opportunity to outplay their opponents. To these players, I assume that decks like Dredge and Burn are so non-interactive and draw(dredge) dependent that losing to these decks feels like losing to bad luck and not losing to the opponent. I assuming that this is the same feeling that non-blue players get if they get caught by a turn one Ad Nauseam, or when Storm players find themselves facing a turn one Trinisphere.
Actually, I have a question. If Dredge didn't exist, would decks really be playing sideboard graveyard hate for Reanimator and Loam decks? I honestly don't know the answer because I never play graveyard hate in the first place.
Narrow hate cards against Storm are narrow, yes; however, Legacy at large isn't forced to side in 4 Mindbreak Trap anytime they see an opponent packing Rituals. More decks on the whole have maindecked disruption against Storm that has a broad range of applications (specifically, most decks seem to either pack Counterspells or Discard--neither of which is all too great against Dredge).
I personally don't have much respect for Gaddock Teeg, but I'll admit that I might be biased. Teeg only shuts down Dread Return in Dredge, but he doesn't stop your opponent from making so many Zombies that you lose anyway; the only Storm deck that should outright lose to Teeg is ANT--which shouldn't even entirely be the case since GW has become popular enough that you should know to perhaps have a maindeck bounce spell or two. I have no experience with Teeg v. Control decks to say whether or not he is all that great there.