Um, I don't think that works. Bloodghast triggers when you PLAY a land, not gain control of one...
Edit: I think I'm wrong on this one. Any rules help?
Close. It's not when you play a land, but rather when it comes into play. With War Zone, it's already in play, you're just gaining control of it. It's the same as Sower of Temptationing a Stoneforge Mystic; when you gain control of Stoneforge, you don't get to tutor, since it was already on the battlefield.
I wasn't running it he wasn't running contested warzone. I got control of it by ichorids beating face thus triggering bloodG's landfall ability.
Yeah, that doesn't work. It is a common misunderstanding by (newer) players about gaining control of something; when you gain control of a permanent, it doesn't trigger "enter the battlefield" abilities, because it isn't entering the battlefield. I mean, it already there, it's just moving around.
*Although, now that I think about it, Contested Warzone would be fun to add, or just Battle Cry in general. Too bad none of them granted haste to everything else.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
my mistake sorry. I need to read and reread the comprehensive rules until I fully comprehend them. which brings me to a question. do the creatures dredged on top of bridges create zombies or just creatures from the battlefield? I haven't been making tokens from dredged creatures but I've wondered.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
Yeah it doesn't work that way with Contested War Zone, however if they attack you where you can't block (or choose not to) always tap that land for colorless mana so they can't use it.
Is there a way for us to add Zombie Infestation to the deck to make more dudes?
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Standard UW Control UWB Control UB Control MODERN BRGJund X Affinity UWR Control
Yeah it doesn't work that way with Contested War Zone, however if they attack you where you can't block (or choose not to) always tap that land for colorless mana so they can't use it.
Is there a way for us to add Zombie Infestation to the deck to make more dudes?
Nope, because you would have to remove the "Manaless" from the deck title. At which point there are just better spells to be playing instead.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
Round 1: Win 2-1 Versus Luke piloting Fearless Dredge
Game 1: He puts me on the play, which I think was a mistake (as he did this blindly), but obviously works out well against me in general. He keeps a hand with no dredger, while I keep a hand with dredgers and one cantrip. I get going, but he spent several turns just trying to get started, spending multiple Cephalid Coliseum before finding a dredger. We trade minor blows, using Cabal Therapy to each exile a single Bridge from Below, but he has a couple of blank turns that let me assemble a big enough force of zombie tokens to grind him out.
Game 2: I'm entirely confident that he'll put me on the play again, so I bring in my transformational sideboard in anticipation of this. My thought process here was that I would be hard-pressed to race a decent hand in this situation, so I'd be better off trying to get lucky and just kill him. It turns out that he's got a great hand, and on the second or third turn he casts a Cabal Therapy at me with two Narcomoeba in play, two Bridge from Below, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and multiple Dread Return. I scoop in response to deny him the information. It occurs to me now that I was already planning to sideboard back to my maindeck for game 3, so perhaps I should have shown him my hand just to sow confusion.
Game 3: I sideboard back into my main-deck, choose to draw, and watch as he reanimates Golgari Grave-Troll and 3 zombie tokens on the third turn, while I've only just begun to get Ichorid and Bloodghast going. I untap, dredge into Iona, Shield of Emeria, Dread Return, and Bridge from Below, and match his 7/7 with a much better 7/7 of my own (naming Black, although I momentarily considered naming Blue). After I chump-block his Grave-Troll with a token, I take to the air. I bash and use my much-less-molested Bridge from Belows to give me board superiority long enough to kill him, ultimately sealing the win by dredging Darkblast a turn early to shut off 2 or fewer Narcomoeba as an out. After the match, he told me that his friends recommended he take out Ichorid in the mirror, which I think is just wrong. The horror is a little slow, but it exiles Bridge from Below, abuses any that haven't been exiled, and is a recurring damage source that's good even if you've lost Bridges. I told him I'd much sooner cut back on Bridges than on Ichorid, as each Bridge is typically only worth 1-2 tokens and Dread Return is much more likely to be the game-winning play.
Game 2: I transform and roll out, expecting the incidental hate to be matched by actual hate. An early peek at his hand reveals Gaddock Teeg, Tormod's Crypt, Sun Titan, and Veteran Explorer alongside some fetchlands and a Swamp. I pay 8 life over the first few turns but draw into my combo. With Vampire Hexmage and Dark Depths on the board, I know all of his cards except one. I cautiously beat down for a couple of turns until he taps out for Sun Titan and recurs Tormod's Crypt. I make a 20/20 at the end of his turn and kill him.
Game 3: I only spend 4 life this game cycling cards, but he top-decks all 4 Knight of the Reliquary within the first few turns and kills me with 7/7 Knights before I can draw the 3rd and 4th Stinkweed Imp to stabilize or the Depths combo to win. I kill his Veteran Explorer by blocking with Stinkweed Imp, but I'd seen his hand and knew he had nothing to ramp into, so it seemed better than taking the damage every turn.
Round 3: 0-2 Loss against Evan piloting RUG
Game 1: He plays turn 1 Dryad Arbor, go. I discard a Stinkweed Imp for my turn, and he casts a Scavenging Ooze off of a Tropical Island. For the rest of the game, he keeps me off dredgers in the graveyard and I end up just a little short of enough Baubles to get started through the Ooze or enough Street Wraith (namely 1) to 'get him' by cycling in response and making him waste mana on the ability. Notably, he forced my Gitaxian Probe on the second turn, which could have let me get started before the Ooze could really take over.
Game 2: I transform into Hexmage-Depths and cast 3 Vampire Hexmage in the first 5-6 turns of the game, each one running into a top-decked (okay, he had one Brainstorm in there somewhere) Daze. The third finally stuck, but he had Tarmogoyf and Vendillion Clique beating down by this point, so when I made a 20/20 he was able to use Fire//Ice to tap it down and steal the game (and match). After the match he told me a singleton Scavenging Ooze was a last-minute addition to the deck.
Round 4: 2-0 Win against Thomas piloting UW Landstill
Game 1: He dropped Moat on turn 4 after using a Counterspell on my first Cabal Therapy. I Cabal Therapy'd him with a second, seeing Nevinyrral's Disk, Fact or Fiction, and Crucible of Worlds. I used yet another Cabal Therapy to strip away his Fact or Fiction, and he dropped a Standstill. I revived Ichorid each turn, clearing out several Street Wraith and some Bloodghast but building a huge token army with Bridge from Below. I eventually found a Narcomoeba to beat down with, and stopped dredging to be sure I could kill him before decking, as he was at around 15 life. After a couple turns of Narcomoeba poking him, he had enough and cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I dredged 18 cards, going down to 4 in the deck. I hit both my Dread Return and targets, but not my last Cabal Therapy, so I dredged Darkblast, which I felt would give me the best chance overall of killing him. I saw that he only had 4 mana available and figured that his best chance of shutting down 2+ Dread Return was with more Counterspell (as opposed to Force of Will). I therapied him naming Counterspell and saw Force of Will, Brainstorm, and some blank cards. He responded to my first Dread Return targeting Terastodon by using his Brainstorm followed by the Force, but the second resolved and I killed him on the spot. I think in the slow matchups like this that favor you, you need to play more conservatively to try and make sure you have answers to their (very powerful) answers.
Round 4: Paul with Doomsday combo
Game 1: I've just been chatting with Paul so we know what each other are playing. He puts me on the play, despite being unsure if he should. I have trouble finding a Cabal Therapy to go with my Gitaxian Probe that revealed a hand of double Dark Ritual, Duress, Infernal Tutor, and Tendrils of Agony. He's stuck for several turns with a somewhat awkward hand until he finds Brainstorm to get the Tendrils out of his hand and smooth things out. He gets the Doomsday off and kills me with a Tendrils of Agony pile based around Meditate.
Game 2: I transform, expecting hate despite the fact that it's a combo deck. I unleash a parade of Cabal Therapys, using all 4 to strip away a Ponder, double Cabal Ritual, a Doomsday and later a Lion's Eye Diamond. The Ponder I picked because Gitaxian Probe showed me a land-light hand (only a single Island), but he eventually got that sorted out with Sensei's Divining Top. After many turns during which I had basically no pressure, he finds a Doomsday and uses it with the Emrakul/Shelldock plan to kill me. I almost aggro'ed him out post-Doomsday with Bloodghasts, but he survived to kill me. I think I mis-played in this game by holding Vampire Hexmage 'safe' in my hand rather than beating down with it, and it probably cost me the game and/or match.
I dropped at this point to go to White Castle.
Impressions: The sideboard plan was awesome and felt incredible against decks with incidental or actual hate. However, I was a little bit too quick to use it. The main-deck seemed a little clunky/slow/overly devoted to consistency and can probably just cut some cards to bring in more explosive options, which will hopefully make the 75 overall incredible.
Lessons: Play more conservatively against control, don't transform against combo (at least not usually), and don't overreact to opponent's plans.
If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, this is the list I would play:
I went 4-2-0 in legacy today I lost to suicide black getting iok and surgical extracted bridges and ggt, and extirpated ichorids. match 2 double lov and I scoop. other match I lost was to gwb top, bob, goyf, and Knight of reliquy with tons of fetches. games two same but tormods crypt helped. the wins came via ich beates and fkz and zombie horde ftw...
I need to develop a sideboard and learn from my misplays ie not blowing my own bridges blocking when i could've won next turn with zombie beat down and fkz return.
First off: Where was that White Castle? I haven't seen one in all of the times I've been to Ann Arbor.
Second, concerning storm combo, most decks like ANT don't play sideboard hate because the plan is usually to just race Dredge. If the only reason to transform is to dodge hate, then doing it against Storm is unwarranted. I can understand thinking that I might side in hate because my deck is usually slower than traditional storm decks, though. My impression from our first game is that your deck isn't quick enough out of the gates to beat a very quick combo deck if that deck can consistently go off on turn two or three (With the way I play my deck, I usually go off on three or four. However, I was torn on whether or not to play or draw against you because I didn't know how the Baubles affected your game compared to lists I had seen, but also because my deck has the rare draw that can win so quickly that having my land in play would have mattered more than letting you use your Cleanup Step). This is my experience from only seeing this deck play once or twice, so please let me know if I'm wrong with my assumptions. That being said, I was impressed with your deck in the second game. I can't say this for every combo deck, but transforming against me seemed like the right call--being able to play your land to cast your Cabal Therapies, and the creatures to flash them back seems much better than giving me free reign to do as I please for the first part of the game. I was only really able to win because I assumed that my discard would be so bad against you that I sided all of it out for random cards in my sideboard--Including Shelldock Isle and Emrakul. Other combo decks don't have that luxury, and if you can hit your Therapies and some creatures to flash them back, any deck will have a hard time.
By the way, had you been attacking with your Golgari Thug at all? I don't really recall you doing so. But I can tell you that I was pretty screwed if you had played that Hexmage at any point before I had cast Doomsday. Now that I know you had it, I have to ask: what did you fear from my deck that led to you keeping it in your hand? There aren't many cards a UBg storm deck could have in the 75 that can do anything to Vampire Hexmage. I had a Thoughtseize all game long and was probably making a huge mistake by not playing it after realizing that you weren't playing Dredge anymore, so the card wasn't even safe in your hand if I had thought about it at all. I had two bounce spells that don't actually solve your guy (I also showed that I was willing to use them very stupidly like when I bounced your Golgari Thug that one turn), and my only removal spell was a Slaughter Pact that I sided in over discard.
It's unfortunate that you didn't do as well as you had liked at the tournament, but keep up the good work on this deck. I'm hoping to try this deck out sometime in the future when I'm able to buy the cards for the deck (A combo deck that sides into Dark Depths? Right up my alley).
First off: Where was that White Castle? I haven't seen one in all of the times I've been to Ann Arbor.
Second, concerning storm combo, most decks like ANT don't play sideboard hate because the plan is usually to just race Dredge. If the only reason to transform is to dodge hate, then doing it against Storm is unwarranted. I can understand thinking that I might side in hate because my deck is usually slower than traditional storm decks, though. My impression from our first game is that your deck isn't quick enough out of the gates to beat a very quick combo deck if that deck can consistently go off on turn two or three (With the way I play my deck, I usually go off on three or four. However, I was torn on whether or not to play or draw against you because I didn't know how the Baubles affected your game compared to lists I had seen, but also because my deck has the rare draw that can win so quickly that having my land in play would have mattered more than letting you use your Cleanup Step). This is my experience from only seeing this deck play once or twice, so please let me know if I'm wrong with my assumptions. That being said, I was impressed with your deck in the second game. I can't say this for every combo deck, but transforming against me seemed like the right call--being able to play your land to cast your Cabal Therapies, and the creatures to flash them back seems much better than giving me free reign to do as I please for the first part of the game. I was only really able to win because I assumed that my discard would be so bad against you that I sided all of it out for random cards in my sideboard--Including Shelldock Isle and Emrakul. Other combo decks don't have that luxury, and if you can hit your Therapies and some creatures to flash them back, any deck will have a hard time.
By the way, had you been attacking with your Golgari Thug at all? I don't really recall you doing so. But I can tell you that I was pretty screwed if you had played that Hexmage at any point before I had cast Doomsday. Now that I know you had it, I have to ask: what did you fear from my deck that led to you keeping it in your hand? There aren't many cards a UBg storm deck could have in the 75 that can do anything to Vampire Hexmage. I had a Thoughtseize all game long and was probably making a huge mistake by not playing it after realizing that you weren't playing Dredge anymore, so the card wasn't even safe in your hand if I had thought about it at all. I had two bounce spells that don't actually solve your guy (I also showed that I was willing to use them very stupidly like when I bounced your Golgari Thug that one turn), and my only removal spell was a Slaughter Pact that I sided in over discard.
It's unfortunate that you didn't do as well as you had liked at the tournament, but keep up the good work on this deck. I'm hoping to try this deck out sometime in the future when I'm able to buy the cards for the deck (A combo deck that sides into Dark Depths? Right up my alley).
It's on Packard, just past the freeway.
I know most combo decks don't sideboard reactive hate like Leyline, but I did notice that your deck was slower, and saw you taking out like 8 cards. While playing the tournament, I realized that I had designed my main-deck to support the sideboard plan so strongly that I'd traded away most of the explosiveness in the main and the sideboard version was probably just a better deck. My proposed change (above) restores much of the explosiveness to the main while only affecting the sideboarded version of the deck by a couple cards.
When I saw your two bounce spells, I crafted a plan to get you with a 20/20, and I initially didn't want to show you the Hexmage for fear of your finding more bounce spells and just buying infinite time. By the time that started to look like a mistake, I felt a little choked on mana and didn't think I really had a chance to cast my beaters. I did know about the Thoughtseize (I think you ended up showing it to me ~6 times over the course of a Gitaxian Probe or two and all 4 Cabal Therapy), but by the time you found black mana it seemed like you didn't have a lot of options either.
So, in conclusion, a guide to what I've learned about playing the tempo role:
How to do it right:
1) Establish a clock
2) Disrupt the opponent long enough to win
How not to do it right:
1) Disrupt the opponent for a while
2) Try to establish a clock
Edit: I cut the last Darkblast from my transformable list for the fourth Bloodghast. The deck is feeling much better now, typically winning on Turn 3-4, with the occasional turn 2. I think it feels half a turn or so slower than the fastest manaless maindecks, but I'm willing to accept this as the price of having an awesome sideboard. I also cut Woodfall Primus for a third River Kelpie.
Can someone please explain how to use river kelpie properly? I've tried goldfishing but I feel I am improperly using him or not exploiting rk to its full potential.
Can someone please explain how to use river kelpie properly? I've tried goldfishing but I feel I am improperly using him or not exploiting rk to its full potential.
I personally refer to River Kelpie as Mind's Desire, which I think is an informative comparison. You invest a fair number of resources in him, but once he resolves (via Dread Return), he's difficult to stop and basically lets you play your entire deck.
In my build, the chief synergies are:
River Kelpie + Narcomoeba: simply dredging into a Narcomoeba will trigger Narco from your graveyard, returning it and netting you an extra dredge.
River Kelpie + Cabal Therapy: flashing back the cabal by sacrificing kelpie will net you zombies and (due to persist) an additional dredge before you resolve the Therapy. You can also flash it back sacrificing a non-Kelpie creature to dredge a card that way. (Sometimes in my build you have to Therapy yourself to discard key cards such as Golgari Grave-Troll to continue the Kelpie chain and win that turn, but who really cares if you win on the spot?)
River Kelpie + Dakmor Salvage + Bloodghast: Off of one of your Kelpie draws, dredge Dakmor Salvage (usually you'll want to plan this out early into your Kelpie-abusing process) and play it (ideally after the Kelpie-abusing process has otherwise run its course) to return Bloodghasts from your graveyard and dredge a card for each one.
River Kelpie + Dread Return: Obviously, the DR that plops Kelpie into play initially will trigger the draw effect and therefore dredge you a card, but subsequent Dread Return will typically provide 2-3 dredges each as well, since they will often trigger each of Kelpie's abilities (not true if the Kelpie itself is sacrificed, of course, but in that case if the persist hasn't been used yet you'll get that trigger).
River Kelpie + Ichorid: This doesn't help you combo out on the spot, but if Kelpie survives a turn it will provide a dredge/draw trigger for each Ichorid you reanimate.
An interesting aside: I've definitely had games where a single River Kelpie has drawn 10+ cards the turn it enters play, so the potential to go way bigger than Sphinx of Lost Truths is definitely there. In lists with minor kelpie-minded tweaking, I would say that Kelpie is generally just a double Sphinx in virtually every respect.
So for the 4 sphinx built, why not go 4 river kelpie instead?
River Kelpie warps the deck (potentially a lot), can sometimes only draw 1 (especially in the face of exile-based removal), and doesn't discard, and can potentially deck you if you're careless. I simply happened to have a pre-warped deck, wherein Kelpie will typically draw 5 or more, making up for any potential bricks (in my opinion).
I compare it to Mind's Desire, but even if the power level is that high (I believe it is, in this deck) it's much harder to use.
Sphinx of Lost Truths on the other hand, is a combo-turn Ancestral Recall, or a Ill-Gotten Gains, or some other really predictable card that's quite powerful but doesn't just win the game. It gives you a nice little shot of resources, is nice and easy to use, but ultimately doesn't always end the game on the spot... it's entirely possible to brick on hitting another Dread Return target or another Dread Return. Obviously, the built-in discard is also nice.
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URGImperial AnimarGRU BRGProssh, Tokenmaker of KherGRB WURNarset NostalgicRUW UBR"I like your deck better" JelevaRBU UBlue BraidsU GAzusa, Lost but RampingG
WUHanna, Pillowfort's NavigatorUW WBRAleshacratsBRW UBRGrixis Pew PewRBU URGYasova the ThreateningGRU BGGlissa the ArticiferGB WUSygg MerfolkUW RSquee, Value NabobR
Not sure on a fourth target for Dread Return to round up to 60, considering Urza's Bauble maybe in place of Gitaxian Probe.
I haven't really seen Grave Titan in builds I've found, but I'd say he'd be a great target for Return. He's a damned good beater, generates more tokens to fuel Dread Return or to swing with. Plus I just kinda like him.
Not sure on a fourth target for Dread Return to round up to 60, considering Urza's Bauble maybe in place of Gitaxian Probe.
I haven't really seen Grave Titan in builds I've found, but I'd say he'd be a great target for Return. He's a damned good beater, generates more tokens to fuel Dread Return or to swing with. Plus I just kinda like him.
You should almost certainly run Gitaxian Probe before you run Urza's Bauble, and in my opinion Mishra's Bauble is much better than Urza's. You have a lot of ways to see your opponents' hand, so getting a peek at the top of their deck immediately before they draw their card fills the only actual hole in your set of information.
Grave Titan seems uninspiring. Myr Battlesphere is probably just better, and I would never run that. What does Titan do for the deck that the deck can't already do for itself? In the case of Grave Titan, it's basically just extra copies of Golgari Grave-Troll that don't dredge. The fact that it generates tokens is pretty irrelevant because it costs creatures to get into play to begin with. Even if you did want a token-generating creature, the best options for this are pretty clearly Woodfall Primus and River Kelpie.
If you whiff on your first dredge or two, you just lost the game, as you're looking at 5-6 turns to rebuild. If it gets countered, you haven't actually started dredging yet and thus the counter is a Time Walk (this is problematic because getting lucky and squeezing in enough turns to kill you in this manner is the only way these decks have to win, and countering a spell before you have a board/graveyard presence gives them the most freedom to do this).
The real reason, though, isn't because Lion's Eye Diamond is bad. Lion's Eye Diamond is actually fairly good in this deck as a free One With Nothing. The real reason not to run it is that it's only really worth the risk/inconsistency against fast decks that you can't just beat with the DDD plan. Those decks, however, are held back by the same blue-dominated metagame that makes manaless dredge (potentially) so good. If it's worth running, the place to do it is probably in the sideboard as part of a larger anti-fast-combo package, which I think is probably the only sideboard worth running apart from HexmageDepths.
So started running the deck yesterday, a lot of it proxied because I can't afford to drop $80 on a playset of Bridges, and I just plain can't find most of the other cards (Ichorid, Golgari Grave Troll, Cabal Therapy, etc.)
Wow I really like it, it's just fun as hell to play, really different from anything else I've played in my history with the game.
My friend I usually play with..does not, lol. He HATES playing it, even moreso because a lot of it is proxied (but him proxying a playset of Midsculptor, of which he owns 0 copies of I might add, is a-ok). Considering how damned annoying his MUC deck got to play agaist, this was a nice little victory, even if he refuses to play it now until I actually own the cards in it (meh, outside of Ichorid, Bridge, Cabal, and Grave Troll I own at least 1 copy of everything in my deck).
I'm still working the kinks out, and reading through this thread and a few other posts and articles have helped, especially learning certain combos (and I most assuredly will be picking up and running 4 sphinxes now).
I did finally get to use a card I'd always wanted to use as well thanks to the deck. Used Jin Gitaxias as a return target. Get a draw off of him every turn, and he really hits your opponent where it hurts. Not the best target, and winning just off of him isn't really likely, but it felt good using him or once.
Looks like a hybrid list is going be featured on scglive.com in a few minutes for the semifinals. From what they're saying, there are no discard outlets (so DDD is the plan) and no dedicated DR targets, but there are lands and draw spells, including Breakthrough. Should be interesting.
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Looks like a hybrid list is going be featured on scglive.com in a few minutes for the semifinals. From what they're saying, there are no discard outlets (so DDD is the plan) and no dedicated DR targets, but there are lands and draw spells, including Breakthrough. Should be interesting.
EDIT: It's on to the finals against Merfolk.
It wins! Cool beans!
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How are people feelin' Sheoldred as a return target?
Kills off your opponent's creatures, functions as a return of her own every turn, only real downside to her is that she doesn't really protect herself, nor does she win the game then and there.
Still working on my build, mostly experimenting with return targets, mostly because I'm missing a couple of the main go to's (Primus, Elish Norn), and I also need to get the baubles or something..as I'm not really sure I want to go the dakmor/bloodghast route. I know it's good, but putting lands in the deck..when the reason I like it is the lack thereof seems..offputting.
I saw two manaless dredge players at a local tournament today, they were unfortunate enough to be paired against each other in the second round. It was pretty one-sided: One person comboed off before the other could do anything. The second game he sideboarded in 4 Leyline of the Voids and found one in the starting hand. The opponent decided to go with his hand, he put the Leyline down, game over.
The other guy had Angel of Despair, Stormtide Leviathan, Blazing Archon and Leylines in the sideboard. Most of his damage came from Bloodghast + Ichorid + Narco + Nether Shadow and zombies. Both of them didn't have Baubles IIRC, but EVERYONE except them and 1 Zoo was playing blue. Both had Dakmor Salvages, although the first guy didn't have Bloodghasts...?
What I gathered from the match was Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probes are crucial in the opening hand, and Leyline completely shuts the deck down. The player who showed me his deck said opponents should choose to draw first, it wastes the first turn and gives them a free draw. My friend also thinks that discard like Thoughtseize is a free turn for black decks. Could anyone comment on that?
I saw two manaless dredge players at a local tournament today, they were unfortunate enough to be paired against each other in the second round. It was pretty one-sided: One person comboed off before the other could do anything. The second game he sideboarded in 4 Leyline of the Voids and found one in the starting hand. The opponent decided to go with his hand, he put the Leyline down, game over.
The other guy had Angel of Despair, Stormtide Leviathan, Blazing Archon and Leylines in the sideboard. Most of his damage came from Bloodghast + Ichorid + Narco + Nether Shadow and zombies. Both of them didn't have Baubles IIRC, but EVERYONE except them and 1 Zoo was playing blue. Both had Dakmor Salvages, although the first guy didn't have Bloodghasts...?
What I gathered from the match was Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probes are crucial in the opening hand, and Leyline completely shuts the deck down. The player who showed me his deck said opponents should choose to draw first, it wastes the first turn and gives them a free draw. My friend also thinks that discard like Thoughtseize is a free turn for black decks. Could anyone comment on that?
Leyline of the Void shuts the deck down, depending on your sideboard and if you bring it.
Thoughtseize is a Time Walk but only on the first turn. Additionally, it's much, much better than Time Walk against basically every other combo deck. Some decks will have hands where Thoughtseize just does nothing, but in general it buys you 3-4 turns against any combo deck. Buying only 1 against us is quite a decrease in performance.
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Chancellor of the Forge isn't need at all. Sure, once in a blue moon it can allow you to kill your Opponent with Hasty Goblins, but besides that it just wastes space.
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"If you don't wear your seatbelt, the police will shoot you in the head."
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Everyone knows that good luck and good game are such insincere terms that any man who does not connect his right hook with the offender's jaw on the very utterance of such a phrase is no man I would consider as such.
Um, I don't think that works. Bloodghast triggers when you PLAY a land, not gain control of one...
Edit: I think I'm wrong on this one. Any rules help?
Close. It's not when you play a land, but rather when it comes into play. With War Zone, it's already in play, you're just gaining control of it. It's the same as Sower of Temptationing a Stoneforge Mystic; when you gain control of Stoneforge, you don't get to tutor, since it was already on the battlefield.
Have any questions or concerns? Come take a dip in my pool.
Yeah, that doesn't work. It is a common misunderstanding by (newer) players about gaining control of something; when you gain control of a permanent, it doesn't trigger "enter the battlefield" abilities, because it isn't entering the battlefield. I mean, it already there, it's just moving around.
*Although, now that I think about it, Contested Warzone would be fun to add, or just Battle Cry in general. Too bad none of them granted haste to everything else.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
Is there a way for us to add Zombie Infestation to the deck to make more dudes?
currently playing:
Standard
UW Control
UWB Control
UB Control
MODERN
BRGJund
X Affinity
UWR Control
LEGACY
Dredge
R Burn
UWx Miracles
EDH
BRW Kaalia
______
Quotes:
My Magic Card nicknames.
Nope, because you would have to remove the "Manaless" from the deck title. At which point there are just better spells to be playing instead.
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.
4 Bridge from Below
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
2 Darkblast
2 Dread Return
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Terastodon
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
2 Phantasmagorian
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dark Depths
3 Barren Moor
Round 1: Win 2-1 Versus Luke piloting Fearless Dredge
Game 1: He puts me on the play, which I think was a mistake (as he did this blindly), but obviously works out well against me in general. He keeps a hand with no dredger, while I keep a hand with dredgers and one cantrip. I get going, but he spent several turns just trying to get started, spending multiple Cephalid Coliseum before finding a dredger. We trade minor blows, using Cabal Therapy to each exile a single Bridge from Below, but he has a couple of blank turns that let me assemble a big enough force of zombie tokens to grind him out.
Game 2: I'm entirely confident that he'll put me on the play again, so I bring in my transformational sideboard in anticipation of this. My thought process here was that I would be hard-pressed to race a decent hand in this situation, so I'd be better off trying to get lucky and just kill him. It turns out that he's got a great hand, and on the second or third turn he casts a Cabal Therapy at me with two Narcomoeba in play, two Bridge from Below, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and multiple Dread Return. I scoop in response to deny him the information. It occurs to me now that I was already planning to sideboard back to my maindeck for game 3, so perhaps I should have shown him my hand just to sow confusion.
Game 3: I sideboard back into my main-deck, choose to draw, and watch as he reanimates Golgari Grave-Troll and 3 zombie tokens on the third turn, while I've only just begun to get Ichorid and Bloodghast going. I untap, dredge into Iona, Shield of Emeria, Dread Return, and Bridge from Below, and match his 7/7 with a much better 7/7 of my own (naming Black, although I momentarily considered naming Blue). After I chump-block his Grave-Troll with a token, I take to the air. I bash and use my much-less-molested Bridge from Belows to give me board superiority long enough to kill him, ultimately sealing the win by dredging Darkblast a turn early to shut off 2 or fewer Narcomoeba as an out. After the match, he told me that his friends recommended he take out Ichorid in the mirror, which I think is just wrong. The horror is a little slow, but it exiles Bridge from Below, abuses any that haven't been exiled, and is a recurring damage source that's good even if you've lost Bridges. I told him I'd much sooner cut back on Bridges than on Ichorid, as each Bridge is typically only worth 1-2 tokens and Dread Return is much more likely to be the game-winning play.
Round 2: Lose 1-2 against Jason piloting GWB Veteran Explorer homebrew
Game 1: I get off to a slow start and can't seem to find any creatures, which gives him enough time to use Phyrexian Tower, Veteran Explorer, flashback'ed Cabal Therapy, and Sun Titan to wreck my Bridge from Below and my chances of winning the game. Notably, he used Swords to Plowshares on my first Narcomoeba.
Game 2: I transform and roll out, expecting the incidental hate to be matched by actual hate. An early peek at his hand reveals Gaddock Teeg, Tormod's Crypt, Sun Titan, and Veteran Explorer alongside some fetchlands and a Swamp. I pay 8 life over the first few turns but draw into my combo. With Vampire Hexmage and Dark Depths on the board, I know all of his cards except one. I cautiously beat down for a couple of turns until he taps out for Sun Titan and recurs Tormod's Crypt. I make a 20/20 at the end of his turn and kill him.
Game 3: I only spend 4 life this game cycling cards, but he top-decks all 4 Knight of the Reliquary within the first few turns and kills me with 7/7 Knights before I can draw the 3rd and 4th Stinkweed Imp to stabilize or the Depths combo to win. I kill his Veteran Explorer by blocking with Stinkweed Imp, but I'd seen his hand and knew he had nothing to ramp into, so it seemed better than taking the damage every turn.
Round 3: 0-2 Loss against Evan piloting RUG
Game 1: He plays turn 1 Dryad Arbor, go. I discard a Stinkweed Imp for my turn, and he casts a Scavenging Ooze off of a Tropical Island. For the rest of the game, he keeps me off dredgers in the graveyard and I end up just a little short of enough Baubles to get started through the Ooze or enough Street Wraith (namely 1) to 'get him' by cycling in response and making him waste mana on the ability. Notably, he forced my Gitaxian Probe on the second turn, which could have let me get started before the Ooze could really take over.
Game 2: I transform into Hexmage-Depths and cast 3 Vampire Hexmage in the first 5-6 turns of the game, each one running into a top-decked (okay, he had one Brainstorm in there somewhere) Daze. The third finally stuck, but he had Tarmogoyf and Vendillion Clique beating down by this point, so when I made a 20/20 he was able to use Fire//Ice to tap it down and steal the game (and match). After the match he told me a singleton Scavenging Ooze was a last-minute addition to the deck.
Round 4: 2-0 Win against Thomas piloting UW Landstill
Game 1: He dropped Moat on turn 4 after using a Counterspell on my first Cabal Therapy. I Cabal Therapy'd him with a second, seeing Nevinyrral's Disk, Fact or Fiction, and Crucible of Worlds. I used yet another Cabal Therapy to strip away his Fact or Fiction, and he dropped a Standstill. I revived Ichorid each turn, clearing out several Street Wraith and some Bloodghast but building a huge token army with Bridge from Below. I eventually found a Narcomoeba to beat down with, and stopped dredging to be sure I could kill him before decking, as he was at around 15 life. After a couple turns of Narcomoeba poking him, he had enough and cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I dredged 18 cards, going down to 4 in the deck. I hit both my Dread Return and targets, but not my last Cabal Therapy, so I dredged Darkblast, which I felt would give me the best chance overall of killing him. I saw that he only had 4 mana available and figured that his best chance of shutting down 2+ Dread Return was with more Counterspell (as opposed to Force of Will). I therapied him naming Counterspell and saw Force of Will, Brainstorm, and some blank cards. He responded to my first Dread Return targeting Terastodon by using his Brainstorm followed by the Force, but the second resolved and I killed him on the spot. I think in the slow matchups like this that favor you, you need to play more conservatively to try and make sure you have answers to their (very powerful) answers.
Game 2: After a mulligan, I had an opening hand of Dakmor Salvage, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Cabal Therapy, Dark Depths, Golgari Thug, and Ichorid. I almost played the Dakmor Salvage first, but at the last moment changed my mind (thinking about possible top-decks and lines of play, among them Hexmage) and played Urborg and cast Cabal Therapy naming Force. He revealed a hand of Plains, Tundra, Polluted Delta, double Engineered Explosives, Wasteland, and Elspeth, Knight-Errant. His turn was Tundra, Engineered Explosives for zero. I ripped a Vampire Hexmage off the top. I activated it immediately, reasoning that his odds of finding a Swords to Plowshares/substitute were much worse if he couldn't hold up Wasteland indefinitely to buy time. He flipped over the top card of his library - a Brainstorm - and cast it finding nothing.
Round 4: Paul with Doomsday combo
Game 1: I've just been chatting with Paul so we know what each other are playing. He puts me on the play, despite being unsure if he should. I have trouble finding a Cabal Therapy to go with my Gitaxian Probe that revealed a hand of double Dark Ritual, Duress, Infernal Tutor, and Tendrils of Agony. He's stuck for several turns with a somewhat awkward hand until he finds Brainstorm to get the Tendrils out of his hand and smooth things out. He gets the Doomsday off and kills me with a Tendrils of Agony pile based around Meditate.
Game 2: I transform, expecting hate despite the fact that it's a combo deck. I unleash a parade of Cabal Therapys, using all 4 to strip away a Ponder, double Cabal Ritual, a Doomsday and later a Lion's Eye Diamond. The Ponder I picked because Gitaxian Probe showed me a land-light hand (only a single Island), but he eventually got that sorted out with Sensei's Divining Top. After many turns during which I had basically no pressure, he finds a Doomsday and uses it with the Emrakul/Shelldock plan to kill me. I almost aggro'ed him out post-Doomsday with Bloodghasts, but he survived to kill me. I think I mis-played in this game by holding Vampire Hexmage 'safe' in my hand rather than beating down with it, and it probably cost me the game and/or match.
I dropped at this point to go to White Castle.
Impressions: The sideboard plan was awesome and felt incredible against decks with incidental or actual hate. However, I was a little bit too quick to use it. The main-deck seemed a little clunky/slow/overly devoted to consistency and can probably just cut some cards to bring in more explosive options, which will hopefully make the 75 overall incredible.
Lessons: Play more conservatively against control, don't transform against combo (at least not usually), and don't overreact to opponent's plans.
If I were going to a tournament tomorrow, this is the list I would play:
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Street Wraith
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dread Return
3 River Kelpie
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
3 Barren Moor
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dark Depths
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
I need to develop a sideboard and learn from my misplays ie not blowing my own bridges blocking when i could've won next turn with zombie beat down and fkz return.
First off: Where was that White Castle? I haven't seen one in all of the times I've been to Ann Arbor.
Second, concerning storm combo, most decks like ANT don't play sideboard hate because the plan is usually to just race Dredge. If the only reason to transform is to dodge hate, then doing it against Storm is unwarranted. I can understand thinking that I might side in hate because my deck is usually slower than traditional storm decks, though. My impression from our first game is that your deck isn't quick enough out of the gates to beat a very quick combo deck if that deck can consistently go off on turn two or three (With the way I play my deck, I usually go off on three or four. However, I was torn on whether or not to play or draw against you because I didn't know how the Baubles affected your game compared to lists I had seen, but also because my deck has the rare draw that can win so quickly that having my land in play would have mattered more than letting you use your Cleanup Step). This is my experience from only seeing this deck play once or twice, so please let me know if I'm wrong with my assumptions. That being said, I was impressed with your deck in the second game. I can't say this for every combo deck, but transforming against me seemed like the right call--being able to play your land to cast your Cabal Therapies, and the creatures to flash them back seems much better than giving me free reign to do as I please for the first part of the game. I was only really able to win because I assumed that my discard would be so bad against you that I sided all of it out for random cards in my sideboard--Including Shelldock Isle and Emrakul. Other combo decks don't have that luxury, and if you can hit your Therapies and some creatures to flash them back, any deck will have a hard time.
By the way, had you been attacking with your Golgari Thug at all? I don't really recall you doing so. But I can tell you that I was pretty screwed if you had played that Hexmage at any point before I had cast Doomsday. Now that I know you had it, I have to ask: what did you fear from my deck that led to you keeping it in your hand? There aren't many cards a UBg storm deck could have in the 75 that can do anything to Vampire Hexmage. I had a Thoughtseize all game long and was probably making a huge mistake by not playing it after realizing that you weren't playing Dredge anymore, so the card wasn't even safe in your hand if I had thought about it at all. I had two bounce spells that don't actually solve your guy (I also showed that I was willing to use them very stupidly like when I bounced your Golgari Thug that one turn), and my only removal spell was a Slaughter Pact that I sided in over discard.
It's unfortunate that you didn't do as well as you had liked at the tournament, but keep up the good work on this deck. I'm hoping to try this deck out sometime in the future when I'm able to buy the cards for the deck (A combo deck that sides into Dark Depths? Right up my alley).
It's on Packard, just past the freeway.
I know most combo decks don't sideboard reactive hate like Leyline, but I did notice that your deck was slower, and saw you taking out like 8 cards. While playing the tournament, I realized that I had designed my main-deck to support the sideboard plan so strongly that I'd traded away most of the explosiveness in the main and the sideboard version was probably just a better deck. My proposed change (above) restores much of the explosiveness to the main while only affecting the sideboarded version of the deck by a couple cards.
When I saw your two bounce spells, I crafted a plan to get you with a 20/20, and I initially didn't want to show you the Hexmage for fear of your finding more bounce spells and just buying infinite time. By the time that started to look like a mistake, I felt a little choked on mana and didn't think I really had a chance to cast my beaters. I did know about the Thoughtseize (I think you ended up showing it to me ~6 times over the course of a Gitaxian Probe or two and all 4 Cabal Therapy), but by the time you found black mana it seemed like you didn't have a lot of options either.
So, in conclusion, a guide to what I've learned about playing the tempo role:
How to do it right:
1) Establish a clock
2) Disrupt the opponent long enough to win
How not to do it right:
1) Disrupt the opponent for a while
2) Try to establish a clock
Edit: I cut the last Darkblast from my transformable list for the fourth Bloodghast. The deck is feeling much better now, typically winning on Turn 3-4, with the occasional turn 2. I think it feels half a turn or so slower than the fastest manaless maindecks, but I'm willing to accept this as the price of having an awesome sideboard. I also cut Woodfall Primus for a third River Kelpie.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
I personally refer to River Kelpie as Mind's Desire, which I think is an informative comparison. You invest a fair number of resources in him, but once he resolves (via Dread Return), he's difficult to stop and basically lets you play your entire deck.
In my build, the chief synergies are:
River Kelpie + Narcomoeba: simply dredging into a Narcomoeba will trigger Narco from your graveyard, returning it and netting you an extra dredge.
River Kelpie + Cabal Therapy: flashing back the cabal by sacrificing kelpie will net you zombies and (due to persist) an additional dredge before you resolve the Therapy. You can also flash it back sacrificing a non-Kelpie creature to dredge a card that way. (Sometimes in my build you have to Therapy yourself to discard key cards such as Golgari Grave-Troll to continue the Kelpie chain and win that turn, but who really cares if you win on the spot?)
River Kelpie + Dakmor Salvage + Bloodghast: Off of one of your Kelpie draws, dredge Dakmor Salvage (usually you'll want to plan this out early into your Kelpie-abusing process) and play it (ideally after the Kelpie-abusing process has otherwise run its course) to return Bloodghasts from your graveyard and dredge a card for each one.
River Kelpie + Dread Return: Obviously, the DR that plops Kelpie into play initially will trigger the draw effect and therefore dredge you a card, but subsequent Dread Return will typically provide 2-3 dredges each as well, since they will often trigger each of Kelpie's abilities (not true if the Kelpie itself is sacrificed, of course, but in that case if the persist hasn't been used yet you'll get that trigger).
River Kelpie + Ichorid: This doesn't help you combo out on the spot, but if Kelpie survives a turn it will provide a dredge/draw trigger for each Ichorid you reanimate.
An interesting aside: I've definitely had games where a single River Kelpie has drawn 10+ cards the turn it enters play, so the potential to go way bigger than Sphinx of Lost Truths is definitely there. In lists with minor kelpie-minded tweaking, I would say that Kelpie is generally just a double Sphinx in virtually every respect.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
River Kelpie warps the deck (potentially a lot), can sometimes only draw 1 (especially in the face of exile-based removal), and doesn't discard, and can potentially deck you if you're careless. I simply happened to have a pre-warped deck, wherein Kelpie will typically draw 5 or more, making up for any potential bricks (in my opinion).
I compare it to Mind's Desire, but even if the power level is that high (I believe it is, in this deck) it's much harder to use.
Sphinx of Lost Truths on the other hand, is a combo-turn Ancestral Recall, or a Ill-Gotten Gains, or some other really predictable card that's quite powerful but doesn't just win the game. It gives you a nice little shot of resources, is nice and easy to use, but ultimately doesn't always end the game on the spot... it's entirely possible to brick on hitting another Dread Return target or another Dread Return. Obviously, the built-in discard is also nice.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Living End Contributor and Enthusiast
Come Pucatrade with me
Rules Advisor
Modern: BRGLiving EndGRB
Legacy: UBGShardless BUGGBU
BRGProssh, Tokenmaker of KherGRB
WURNarset NostalgicRUW
UBR"I like your deck better" JelevaRBU
UBlue BraidsU
GAzusa, Lost but RampingG
WBRAleshacratsBRW
UBRGrixis Pew PewRBU
URGYasova the ThreateningGRU
BGGlissa the ArticiferGB
WUSygg MerfolkUW
RSquee, Value NabobR
Draw:
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
Discard:
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Cabal Therapy
Beaters:
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nethershadow
Dredgers:
4 Shambling Shell
4 Gulgari Grave Troll
4 Gulgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
Graveyard Effects:
4 Bridge From Below
4 Dread Return
Dread Return Targets:
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Grave Titan
Not sure on a fourth target for Dread Return to round up to 60, considering Urza's Bauble maybe in place of Gitaxian Probe.
I haven't really seen Grave Titan in builds I've found, but I'd say he'd be a great target for Return. He's a damned good beater, generates more tokens to fuel Dread Return or to swing with. Plus I just kinda like him.
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
You should almost certainly run Gitaxian Probe before you run Urza's Bauble, and in my opinion Mishra's Bauble is much better than Urza's. You have a lot of ways to see your opponents' hand, so getting a peek at the top of their deck immediately before they draw their card fills the only actual hole in your set of information.
Grave Titan seems uninspiring. Myr Battlesphere is probably just better, and I would never run that. What does Titan do for the deck that the deck can't already do for itself? In the case of Grave Titan, it's basically just extra copies of Golgari Grave-Troll that don't dredge. The fact that it generates tokens is pretty irrelevant because it costs creatures to get into play to begin with. Even if you did want a token-generating creature, the best options for this are pretty clearly Woodfall Primus and River Kelpie.
If you whiff on your first dredge or two, you just lost the game, as you're looking at 5-6 turns to rebuild. If it gets countered, you haven't actually started dredging yet and thus the counter is a Time Walk (this is problematic because getting lucky and squeezing in enough turns to kill you in this manner is the only way these decks have to win, and countering a spell before you have a board/graveyard presence gives them the most freedom to do this).
The real reason, though, isn't because Lion's Eye Diamond is bad. Lion's Eye Diamond is actually fairly good in this deck as a free One With Nothing. The real reason not to run it is that it's only really worth the risk/inconsistency against fast decks that you can't just beat with the DDD plan. Those decks, however, are held back by the same blue-dominated metagame that makes manaless dredge (potentially) so good. If it's worth running, the place to do it is probably in the sideboard as part of a larger anti-fast-combo package, which I think is probably the only sideboard worth running apart from Hexmage Depths.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Wow I really like it, it's just fun as hell to play, really different from anything else I've played in my history with the game.
My friend I usually play with..does not, lol. He HATES playing it, even moreso because a lot of it is proxied (but him proxying a playset of Midsculptor, of which he owns 0 copies of I might add, is a-ok). Considering how damned annoying his MUC deck got to play agaist, this was a nice little victory, even if he refuses to play it now until I actually own the cards in it (meh, outside of Ichorid, Bridge, Cabal, and Grave Troll I own at least 1 copy of everything in my deck).
I'm still working the kinks out, and reading through this thread and a few other posts and articles have helped, especially learning certain combos (and I most assuredly will be picking up and running 4 sphinxes now).
I did finally get to use a card I'd always wanted to use as well thanks to the deck. Used Jin Gitaxias as a return target. Get a draw off of him every turn, and he really hits your opponent where it hurts. Not the best target, and winning just off of him isn't really likely, but it felt good using him or once.
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
EDIT: It's on to the finals against Merfolk.
EDIT2: Dredge won. Here's the deck list:
(link)
4 Street Wraith
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
4 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
1 Darkblast
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
4 Ichorid
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Angel of Despair
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Ancient Grudge
4 Nature's Claim
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Divide & Conquer is an Android app that completely shuffles your real deck of cards. It's great for unwieldy decks (Battle of Wits, Commander, etc.) and the
paranoidthorough 40/60-card player. Check it out!It wins! Cool beans!
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Kills off your opponent's creatures, functions as a return of her own every turn, only real downside to her is that she doesn't really protect herself, nor does she win the game then and there.
Still working on my build, mostly experimenting with return targets, mostly because I'm missing a couple of the main go to's (Primus, Elish Norn), and I also need to get the baubles or something..as I'm not really sure I want to go the dakmor/bloodghast route. I know it's good, but putting lands in the deck..when the reason I like it is the lack thereof seems..offputting.
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
One of them was kind enough to show me some of his deck after that (I wasn't playing). He had four Chancellor of the Dross and 1+ Chancellor of the Annex, Sutured Ghoul and even more maindeck. His way of dealing with hate was to sideboard 4 Chancellor of the Spires and 4 Surgical Extractions and hope to catch one of the hate cards.
The other guy had Angel of Despair, Stormtide Leviathan, Blazing Archon and Leylines in the sideboard. Most of his damage came from Bloodghast + Ichorid + Narco + Nether Shadow and zombies. Both of them didn't have Baubles IIRC, but EVERYONE except them and 1 Zoo was playing blue. Both had Dakmor Salvages, although the first guy didn't have Bloodghasts...?
What I gathered from the match was Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probes are crucial in the opening hand, and Leyline completely shuts the deck down. The player who showed me his deck said opponents should choose to draw first, it wastes the first turn and gives them a free draw. My friend also thinks that discard like Thoughtseize is a free turn for black decks. Could anyone comment on that?
Leyline of the Void shuts the deck down, depending on your sideboard and if you bring it.
Chancellor of the Dross is total dross. Chancellor of the Spires is even worse.
Thoughtseize is a Time Walk but only on the first turn. Additionally, it's much, much better than Time Walk against basically every other combo deck. Some decks will have hands where Thoughtseize just does nothing, but in general it buys you 3-4 turns against any combo deck. Buying only 1 against us is quite a decrease in performance.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
- To my youngest sister when she was 6.