Depends on the hate you are expecting. If your meta has a lot of chalice decks then Serenity is a better option in my experience. Other than that, Fragmentize is one of the options to fight the usual hate cards. I still prefer Nature's Claim when it comes to 1CMC answers because of the instant speed but that's just me.
I used to run a single Dakmor Salvage in the main for ages, mainly just so I could reliably flashback looting, but also so I could fight thru taxing back when D&T was the deck everyone was thrashing.
I'm a big fan of Wear // Tear too.
This would be my sideboard for the next tournament:
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Serenity
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I couldn't think of any 1-off card that I can squeeze in so I just put Darksteel Colossus to fight Painter decks coz I remember seeing a Painter deck a few tournaments back eventhough SDT was already banned and Painter decks are usually bad match ups for Dredge as well.
I'll try to grab some serenitys to have them and test them. I run in the side 1 Iona, 1 Elesh, 1 Ashen Rider, 1 ancient grudge, 2 abrupt decay, 3 fragmentize, 3 leyline of the void and 3 firestorm
We have a healthy population of MUD players here in the Philippines so I really need to keep my sideboard diverse in playing around them. I recently found out that Serenity can only do so much in fighting them since they can easily cast CotV for 2 and then I'm locked out if they have a Leyline opening. What I'm trying out now is diversifying my answers so that they would need to have CotV for 1, 2, and 3 before they can lock me out completely. Here's what my sideboard looks like right now:
Nice, I love your country. I kinda wish Jeepney's were in every country LOL
How do you handle cards curling with the humidity?
Here in Australia I'm sure it varies, but around me I tend to see a lot of the same decks. It seems a lot of people netdeck the latest darling of the internet and run with that.
I took my (Blue FOW) LED-dredge in last Thursday at the local, I went a deflating 2-3.
I beat Burn 2-0, RG-Charbelcher 2-1.
Lost to Grixis 1-2, Grixis 1-2, Eldrazi Aggro 0-2.
A few misplays really cost me against Eldrazi, who I pretty much had beat in game1 but couldn't grind it out due to poor dredges, then in game2 I forgot a few triggers on the pivotal turn which opened me up and my grave got wiped.
Grixis (both matches) sucked - both of these guys seemed to just repeatedly get god-hands or god-topdecks. In one game this guy landed 3x surg in one turn!! Spew!
I didn't get to successfully resolve a FoW all night....
As to testing out Failure // Comply.
Yes I tested it. No I won't be running it for now. The upside of the card I think is worth mentioning in the limited testing I did, but it's (possibly) at least a turn too slow to actually be effective in the combo matchups I care about or stop hate landing.
I like the concept of it here in LED dredge, but I'm not the one to champion this card for now.
Just the basics. I keep my cards in a cool dry place and have one of those desiccant packs in my deckbox to prevent further curling. Unfortunately, some of the foil cards I own were already curled when I got them so there's not much I can do there. Jeepneys are fun but the drivers make them more interesting hehe. I'm curious how you beat Belcher as I have never beaten them if my memory serves me right. Any match up is horrible if the opponent is lucky but I think that a lucky Grixis player is so much worse.
Yeah I beat belcher with PlanA - cabal therapy.
I won game1 with a god-hand and mamaged to discard half his hand before he'd really done anything. He beat me in game2 with a T2 belcher. In game3 I managed to discard his belcher on turn1, which left him top-decking for a few turns before I could kill his hand with therapy. Can someone say "lucky therapy guess?"
He was going with the fearless approach, no grave-hate, of course I didn't know that until after I won game3.
I rarely beat this match-up either FWIW.
Grixis is one of those decks I'm really not enjoying playing against, but to be honest I think I disliked Miracles more - glad that deck got a ban-hammer.
I'm new to dredge and am looking at building the list below. I don't have LEDs and don't anticipate having them any time soon, but thought that a mana build in the style of pre-Faithless Looting builds would still be worth playing and probably stronger against hate than manaless. As far as the local meta I'd be playing in, I expect some RB Reanimator, at least 1 Sneak and Show, and some BUG decks. Any suggestions for a new dredge player?
Welcome to the thread and apologies for the delayed response. Looking at your sideboard, I think you don't need Petals since you already have 15 lands in the main. I would suggest putting one Dread Return in your SB since you have dedicated DR targets in your SB and you only have one DR in your main. The 2 slots left you could put in Prized Amalgam or 1 of each BT and CS to maximize your draw spells in case you need to race against a faster combo.
Thank you for the suggestions. I'm not sure which I want to maximize between Tireless Tribe and draw spells. Since I'm unlikely to ever flashback Faithless Looting without LED, should I play more Careful Study since it can be cast off of any land in the deck? Right now, I have 2 Tribe and 3 BT, 3 CS, and 4 FL. Would it be better to go with 4 Tribe and shave FL for them? Or perhaps to keep 2 Tribe but max BT and CS by going to 2 FL?
That really depends on your preference. If you like a more grindy game, go with more permanent discard outlets and max out tribe. If you like more redundancy in terms of gas in your opening hand, max out your draw spells. With 15 lands you could flashback Faithless Looting more reliably than those with 12-13 lands. But I would suggest goldfishing with it then tweak it to match your preference/playstyle.
.... in the style of pre-Faithless Looting builds would still be worth playing and probably stronger against hate than manaless.
....
2 Tireless Tribe
A lot of people simply sub out LED's in a typical list for 4x Tireless Tribe. I did it b4 I had the cash for LED's, and it worked just fine. You're right to assume that a flashback'd Faithless Looting is improbable without LED's, but you can raise those odd's by including a single Dakmor Salvage in your list. It's actually not as bad as it looks if you expect to play against a large amount of LD or taxing. All that said, balance here is key - make sure you have enough *black* for Icky.
I agree with Shaboogs too - upping BT & CS to 4, adding a DR to the side are both things I would do. BT on T1 can setup up some bomb plays where you pretty much win on the next turn if they don't have hate to stop you cold.
When you say Manaless isn't as strong against hate, I would argue that Manaless is only weaker due to it being slower.
Both decks essentially fold to the same hate cards, but our opponents' lack the ability to interact with a lot of the plays that Manaless can do.
To be fair to both decks;
The chances of us including anti-hate and resolving it successfully to save our game through counter, discard, LD and/or taxing isn't great. There isn't really a best option, mainly because we will all expect to see differing opponents, but Abrupt Decay, Nature's Claim, Wear // Tear and couple others get a fair bit of love from what I see.
And it looks like they just printed a new version of Tormod's Crypt in the new set, Sentinel Totem.
I think it's unlikely to get much uptake, looks to me to be more a multiplayer kitchen-table choice.
And it looks like they just printed a new version of Tormod's Crypt in the new set, Sentinel Totem.
I think it's unlikely to get much uptake, looks to me to be more a multiplayer kitchen-table choice.
It's closer to a Relic of Progenitus but I agree that it won't be competing against any of the top GY hate cards we see these days.
Thanks for the suggestions. Dakmor Salvage looks like it would make a considerable difference. As I see it, I'm not flashing back FL without a 3 land opener, but Salvage opens that up to 2 landers. I still think I should go to 4 BT and CS because they can be cast on any land (except Salvage).
I think I'll swap a City of Brass for Salvage and play 4:4:2 BT:CS:FL with 2 Tireless Tribe, which I think gives me the best draw+discard spells that I can cast easily plus keeps the black creature density up for Icky.
I think Sentinel Totem is about half way between Crypt and Relic.
So - I'm planning on bringing Dredge to Eternal Weekend. What should I be looking out for, and how should my sideboard reflect that? Thanks (my build is literally ripped from the sample list given in this primer, but I can change most anything)
Thanks for the write up. I always love reading reports.
I am playing Modern Dredge for some time now and I absolutly love the deck, favorite deck I ever played.
I am also looking at getting the Legacy version so this is of great help to me.
I am getting a bit tired of Modern because it is the only format I ever played and I find the meta now just so stale and boring but that can always change.
The whole banhammer and negativity around Modern is also starting to push me away from it but luckily at my local store there is a very big Legacy group and they even host Legacy tournaments and FNM so I am set to go when I have the cards for it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Reanimator
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
My roommate is potentially looking to play Dredge when we go to the Team Constructed GP at Santa Clara. I know it's a difficult deck to pilot well, so I was wondering what deck I should proxy up to test against him to get him used to mulligan's/different lines of play.
Of course I'm going to test multiple decks against him, but what would be a good choice for a deck that beats dredge if the dredge pilot is bad, but an experienced dredge pilot will win most of the time?
I have very recently started playing LED dredge in Legacy, though I've been playing dredge decks for a million years, dating back to Extend. As a result, I'm generally pretty comfortable with the deck but I have one question about this version: It seems to me that the only way to flashback Faithless Looting is off an LED. Ignoring times where you're doing normal draws or whatever to dig for anti-hate or something, there is no way to get more lands than what you start with (which is rarely 3), so you can't ever flashback Faithless Looting unless you've got a Lion's Eye diamond. Am I correct that in the standard goldfish-esque situation, the general play pattern is to quickly power out your draw effects in the first 1-2 turns, and then just rely on your draw step to keep the chain going after that?
Modern Dredge can indeed use a little boost but we all know and you said it aswell that Wizard hates Dredge.
So I think that Dredge in Modern will never be a Tier 1 deck for long if it gets a card that makes it a Tier 1 deck again, a ban will just be thrown at it because they hate it and people go beserk when a deck like Dredge is doing good.
That is one of the reasons I went to Legacy aswell. The format just seems a lot more stable to play. I been playing Modern for about 5 years and I already got two decks destroyed and one, Dredge, taken apart because of bans.
Luckily I got a pretty big Legacy community at my local store so I am thinking of just joining them and have some fun.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy - Reanimator
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
Hi! I've been playing LED Dredge for about 1.5 years now, just at my local store (which has about 15 or so semi-regular players; most nights there's 6 of us.) What I'm running into is a general awareness that if they can Surgical Extraction my Narcomebas AND (with a second Surgical or a Snapcaster + Surgical) my Ichorids, it leaves me pretty dead in the water, with no bodies to flashback anything, nothing to generate zombies, etc. (This is not as rare as I'd like.) Yeah, I can hard-cast a Golgari Thug or something, but it does put a hurting on me. My current plan is to add 2-3 Nether Shadows to the sideboard. (Noxious Revival answers Surgical, but does nothing for my own plan. Nether Shadow spreads the Surgical targets, works on its own in the deck, and can feed Ichorid if they survived.) I feel pretty good about that, but wanted to get suggestions from the community at large too. The sum of our knowledge is greater than yadda yadda. Thoughts?
EDIT: Actually, I'm thinking Fatestitcher over Nether Shadows, if you folks agree with this route. (Or maybe 1 each?) Fatestitcher doesn't feed Ichorid, but I can get it into play with any land the same turn I dredge it, rather than wait for an upkeep (or more) for Nether Shadow to trigger. (And could untap that land to grab a second Fatestitcher, tap a blocker, etc.) I feel like the Fatestitcher's one-time recursion (compared to a repeatable Nether Shadow) is negligible, since the Shadow is just a 1/1. But if I just want sacacble creatures to make zombies? I'm rambling now.)
Looks like the new expansion brought us a new toy to fight against the most common hate these days (deathrite shaman and surgical extraction) as well as our two worst match ups (reanimator and lands) in the form of silent gravestone. Will definitely be getting a foil playset to test it this year.
I'm a big fan of Wear // Tear too.
Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Serenity
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
1 Dakmor Salvage
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
I couldn't think of any 1-off card that I can squeeze in so I just put Darksteel Colossus to fight Painter decks coz I remember seeing a Painter deck a few tournaments back eventhough SDT was already banned and Painter decks are usually bad match ups for Dredge as well.
2 Serenity
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Wear // Tear
2 Lotus Petal
1 Ashen Rider
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Nice, I love your country. I kinda wish Jeepney's were in every country LOL
How do you handle cards curling with the humidity?
Here in Australia I'm sure it varies, but around me I tend to see a lot of the same decks. It seems a lot of people netdeck the latest darling of the internet and run with that.
I took my (Blue FOW) LED-dredge in last Thursday at the local, I went a deflating 2-3.
I beat Burn 2-0, RG-Charbelcher 2-1.
Lost to Grixis 1-2, Grixis 1-2, Eldrazi Aggro 0-2.
A few misplays really cost me against Eldrazi, who I pretty much had beat in game1 but couldn't grind it out due to poor dredges, then in game2 I forgot a few triggers on the pivotal turn which opened me up and my grave got wiped.
Grixis (both matches) sucked - both of these guys seemed to just repeatedly get god-hands or god-topdecks. In one game this guy landed 3x surg in one turn!! Spew!
I didn't get to successfully resolve a FoW all night....
As to testing out Failure // Comply.
Yes I tested it. No I won't be running it for now. The upside of the card I think is worth mentioning in the limited testing I did, but it's (possibly) at least a turn too slow to actually be effective in the combo matchups I care about or stop hate landing.
I like the concept of it here in LED dredge, but I'm not the one to champion this card for now.
I won game1 with a god-hand and mamaged to discard half his hand before he'd really done anything. He beat me in game2 with a T2 belcher. In game3 I managed to discard his belcher on turn1, which left him top-decking for a few turns before I could kill his hand with therapy. Can someone say "lucky therapy guess?"
He was going with the fearless approach, no grave-hate, of course I didn't know that until after I won game3.
I rarely beat this match-up either FWIW.
Grixis is one of those decks I'm really not enjoying playing against, but to be honest I think I disliked Miracles more - glad that deck got a ban-hammer.
4 Cephalid Coliseum
3 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
Spells:
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
1 Dread Return
4 Faithless Looting
4 Bridge from Below
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Tireless Tribe
1 Ashen Rider
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Firestorm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Lotus Petal
3 Nature's Claim
A lot of people simply sub out LED's in a typical list for 4x Tireless Tribe. I did it b4 I had the cash for LED's, and it worked just fine. You're right to assume that a flashback'd Faithless Looting is improbable without LED's, but you can raise those odd's by including a single Dakmor Salvage in your list. It's actually not as bad as it looks if you expect to play against a large amount of LD or taxing. All that said, balance here is key - make sure you have enough *black* for Icky.
I agree with Shaboogs too - upping BT & CS to 4, adding a DR to the side are both things I would do. BT on T1 can setup up some bomb plays where you pretty much win on the next turn if they don't have hate to stop you cold.
When you say Manaless isn't as strong against hate, I would argue that Manaless is only weaker due to it being slower.
Both decks essentially fold to the same hate cards, but our opponents' lack the ability to interact with a lot of the plays that Manaless can do.
To be fair to both decks;
The chances of us including anti-hate and resolving it successfully to save our game through counter, discard, LD and/or taxing isn't great. There isn't really a best option, mainly because we will all expect to see differing opponents, but Abrupt Decay, Nature's Claim, Wear // Tear and couple others get a fair bit of love from what I see.
And it looks like they just printed a new version of Tormod's Crypt in the new set, Sentinel Totem.
I think it's unlikely to get much uptake, looks to me to be more a multiplayer kitchen-table choice.
I think I'll swap a City of Brass for Salvage and play 4:4:2 BT:CS:FL with 2 Tireless Tribe, which I think gives me the best draw+discard spells that I can cast easily plus keeps the black creature density up for Icky.
I think Sentinel Totem is about half way between Crypt and Relic.
I am playing Modern Dredge for some time now and I absolutly love the deck, favorite deck I ever played.
I am also looking at getting the Legacy version so this is of great help to me.
I am getting a bit tired of Modern because it is the only format I ever played and I find the meta now just so stale and boring but that can always change.
The whole banhammer and negativity around Modern is also starting to push me away from it but luckily at my local store there is a very big Legacy group and they even host Legacy tournaments and FNM so I am set to go when I have the cards for it.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
Of course I'm going to test multiple decks against him, but what would be a good choice for a deck that beats dredge if the dredge pilot is bad, but an experienced dredge pilot will win most of the time?
So I think that Dredge in Modern will never be a Tier 1 deck for long if it gets a card that makes it a Tier 1 deck again, a ban will just be thrown at it because they hate it and people go beserk when a deck like Dredge is doing good.
That is one of the reasons I went to Legacy aswell. The format just seems a lot more stable to play. I been playing Modern for about 5 years and I already got two decks destroyed and one, Dredge, taken apart because of bans.
Luckily I got a pretty big Legacy community at my local store so I am thinking of just joining them and have some fun.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
EDIT: Actually, I'm thinking Fatestitcher over Nether Shadows, if you folks agree with this route. (Or maybe 1 each?) Fatestitcher doesn't feed Ichorid, but I can get it into play with any land the same turn I dredge it, rather than wait for an upkeep (or more) for Nether Shadow to trigger. (And could untap that land to grab a second Fatestitcher, tap a blocker, etc.) I feel like the Fatestitcher's one-time recursion (compared to a repeatable Nether Shadow) is negligible, since the Shadow is just a 1/1. But if I just want sacacble creatures to make zombies? I'm rambling now.)
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal