I find it hard to chose between IOK and thoughtseize. I guess it comes down to what you intened to use it for really. Iok is great at getting rid of your opponents graveyard hate considering almost all sideboard hate cards people play are three or less. Thoughseize is more for a proactive approach against combo decks like scapeshift or coco and can cover the same areas as IOK but you're also taking two damage. It also can let you preemptively take out stuff that we can't deal with on the board (considering darkblast and decay only hit small stuff) I find thoughtseize to be more universally useful, especially if you have decay but I guess it comes down to your preferences/meta.
Value is good. But Dredgevine isn't supposed to be about value. It's supposed to be about V-8; 2000 pounds of nitro boosted war vegetables. The more velocity, the better.
Modern:
DredgeVine EDH:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Anima Standard:
Given the limited sideboard space, I think thoughtseize is generally better. If life loss is an issue (vs aggro-combo), then the go-to card would have been collective brutality.
Without thoughtseize, there would be very few outs from blow out cards like Ugin.
I've been trying to make straight BG Vine work for a while. And we do have better tools now than when I first started forcing the archetype (back when DRS was modern legal) but I still don't know how much potential there is. Here's my current list
The problem is without red, the explosive starts are taken away. Faithless Looting is easily one of the best cards ever printed. Even if Budget is a concern, a playset of Copperline Gorge and a pair of Blood Crypts aren't going to break the bank and it would be well worth it.
That being said, I love my rock vine list. It's been a pet deck of mine forever. I'm waiting for it be viable or at least well-positioned in a meta so I can take a tournament by surprise.
sorry for not replying sooner but I finally got to sit down and browse lists today. Your deck sees viable with some changes to it.
Here is the changes I am thinking:
-4 Sinister concoction
+4 Fatal push or Murderous cut
Concotion's first ability feels really clunky. I have said this a million times(not talking down just reiterating it's importance) that mana intensive abilities are not good for our deck, we want to be cycling our deck as fast as possible or casting creatures to get vengevine. I realize your deck is only B/G but it feels even worse here considering you aren't going with the all out dredge option. The life loss also feels bad but it's minimal.
-2 Vengeful Pharoah
-2 Gurmag Angler
+4 Birds of Paradise
I really like both vengeful pharaoh and gurmag angler. Pharaoh is removal at the expense of your life, it is also really dead almost anywhere besides your graveyard. Even in your graveyard he hinders you from effectively using tasigur and is not an ideal card to exile. Angler is good but your deck is really heavy and I think in your BG style of control build I think tasigur is better. The birds will allow you to get your big stuff out faster and is an easy pick to exile when casting delve spells.
Value is good. But Dredgevine isn't supposed to be about value. It's supposed to be about V-8; 2000 pounds of nitro boosted war vegetables. The more velocity, the better.
Modern:
DredgeVine EDH:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Anima Standard:
Gurmag Angler has synergy with Gravecrawler, so I would probably cut Tasigur before any copies of the Angler.
Grisly Salvage is certainly better than Commune if I cut the Concoctions. But if I keep them then I really like milling into an answer with Commune as opposed to only creatures/lands.
Sinister Concoction is definitely slow, but its a catch-all removal. It's not restrictive like Dismember or Fatal Push, and it doesn't eat my graveyard like Murderous Cut. As you mentioned, the graveyard is a valuable resource in this type of deck and if I'm already delving cards for creatures to recur the Vengevines, then I wanna keep delve-resources for just that. Cards like Stinkweed and Vengevine are no good in-hand, so I like to have at least 8x discard outlets in the deck. Lotleth Troll being the best obviously, but Concoction has a surprising amount of synergy in the deck. It's a 2-mana catch-all removal, for which the mana can be paid on separate turns. The life loss is minimal (less than dismember) and milling 1 card + discarding 1 card is more of a perk for me than a drawback. It's exactly what I want to be doing. I would say the card would be even better if it milled more than just 1 card.
As I stated in my earlier post, there still really is no reason to avoid red. This deck is just more of a fun idea and not something I'm pursuing as competitive until we get at least one more tool. I still love piloting it online though since there are a lot of threats that are immune to Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push.
The main problem I see is you're treating Dredgevine like Jund (minus red) and assuming it's going to work the same way. Look at dredge the past few months preban. They were essentially an uninteractive combo-ish deck. They kept recurring lands for Ghast/Amalgam triggers and eventually a Conflagrate. We are a little different, but G1 should be about recurring as many creatures as possible, as fast as possible. Trying to do too much spreads your deck too thin and weakens its potential. Move all interaction to the sideboard and bring in more stuff.
Grisly Salvage, Life from the Loam are good additions for your deck. Why no Prized Amalgam? It's the best card outside of Vengevine for the deck (I never hard cast him).
Just to pay the Devils advocate, what makes my deck like Jund? The t1 discard effects? Because almost all black decks in modern run them. Since I'm not an all-in combo approach, it helps to peek at their hand in the early turns to see if it's safe to do my business.
That being said, I was actually testing and tweaking this list last night and tried a slightly more all-in approach, below.
-3 Thoughtseize
-3 Inquisition of Kozilek
-2 Abrupt Decay
+4 Grisly Salvage
+3 Hooting Mandrills
+1 Land
It seems like a lot of delve creatures, but the list just never ran out of steam. As much removal as they could throw at me, I followed up with more fatties.
The way I build a deck like this is to think in terms of redundancy. Threats and enablers.
What I'm lacking most is another solid discard outlet, not recursion. That's why I don't play amalgam. I feel like he belongs alongside Ghast and Narcomoeba. My list just doesn't take the combo approach in that manner. If you read my initial post about the list, I mention that I'm aware my explosive starts are disabled by dropping red. If I was to pilot this archetype at a major event, I would definitely include red. But this deck has a surprising resilience in the longer games that shouldn't be judged by speculating and holding to pre-conceived notions about an archetype that hasn't really been competitive for a while now. We're more at liberty to think outside the box. Try it out, even with the duress effects.
In place of those discard spells, you could have more recurring creatures from the yard. Greenbelt Rampager, Prized Amalgam, Satyr Wayfinder, all things that help us go to our plan.
Abrupt Decay is good if you see a lot of g/y hate. If you want removal for creatures, use Darkblast. I only have 3 discard spells in my SB for combo decks. Most other decks run removal, and if they are wasting bolt/path/helix/push on a graveyard creature, there's a very high probability I'm winning and can recur it the next turn.
You have 12 interacting spells via discard or removal. That makes this more of a midrange deck than a graveyard combo deck ish. That's how it makes for more like Jund.
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Modern decks: BGRDredgevineBGR UWRJeskai ControlUWR
Is there a reason to avoid Grim Flayer in the straight BG Dredgevine Decks?
It does everything this deck wants. I'm brewing with Varolz and Death's Shadow after testing this straight RG Vengevine a couple of times: RG Super Vengevine
It's a lot of fun, but i prefer Lotleth Troll and Varolz, the Scar-Striped so therefore brewing with it.
I also assume Soulflayer as a serious option because Troll and Birds of Paradise do enable a serious threat as soon as Turn 3
(does Vengevine give him haste?).
I'd accept that it's a midrange approach rather than a combo approach.
Satyr and Greenbelt do not recurr from the graveyard and Amalgam is very specific. I don't feel I have enough enablers to make use of it in my deck. AnD as a midrange approach I would prefer that all my creatures are Hardcastable if necessary.
Satyr Wayfinder is one card I would definitely like to include in my list. I would replace Commune if not for the fact that commune can find answers in Sinister. But only netting me a land in hand doesn't help as much if I'm not running Bloodghast. And then if I run Bloodghast then I not as well include Amalgam. Then if I include Amalgam I might as well switch to red dredge and be tier 1. But this is not the forum for that now is it?
Is there a reason to avoid Grim Flayer in the straight BG Dredgevine Decks?
It does everything this deck wants. I'm brewing with Varolz and Death's Shadow after testing this straight RG Vengevine a couple of times: RG Super Vengevine
It's a lot of fun, but i prefer Lotleth Troll and Varolz, the Scar-Striped so therefore brewing with it.
I also assume Soulflayer as a serious option because Troll and Birds of Paradise do enable a serious threat as soon as Turn 3
(does Vengevine give him haste?).
I really love the RG Turbo Vine deck. I've been playing it online with great success. It has more explosive starts than BGx Vengevine could hope for.
I feel that Dredgevine's power comes from its Delve creatures (at least in my experience) but Turbo Vine is more about flooding with bears.
I would be careful with Varolz. That card has been discussed a lot in this thread and I believe most people dropped it out of their lists because of how slow it is. Combined with death's shadow it can be powerful though. Just fragile
The RG Vine runs like small zoo with vengevine acting as a combo finisher after a string of HH-BTE. It can combo kill quickly just like zoo, but mulls worse to say the least.
I would think that deck belongs to another thread. Call it DelveVine or something, since it is more delve than dredge..
from this list, what can you say if we tweak it with this:
-1 lotleth troll or bloodghast
-1 cathartic reunion
+2 gather the pack
basically a 2/2 split between cathartic and gather the pack, as mentioned before, our deck lacks a good turn 2 play, cathartic relies on dredge, if we dont have dredge in hand to feed or in gy to get then we only get 3 cards, worst if we get our graveyard creature from those 3 also cathartic is weaker now that ggt is gone.
if its gather the pack, we can dump 5 cards in our graveyard (=dredge 5) or get a creature or 2 from there, we dont need spell mastery but its a bonus if activated and its easy to activate. it needs only G to cast as compared to salvage with BG, downside its not a discard engine.
i tried to play the deck with no mainboard interaction and it really felt uncomfortable. its just me but i bring back 2-lightning axes mainboard.
I really dislike Salvage effects in a dredge list and Gather the Pack is definitely not better than Grisly Salvage in my opinion. I also don't understand how this deck lacked t2 plays, since LolTroll, Reunion, or even two 1 cmc creatures are often great lines of play in my experience. Even if you don't dredge with Momhug (wich doesn't happen too terribly often with 7 dredgers total), discarding action and drawing 3 cards is still great, especially postboard. I can understand wanting to move Trolls to the sideboard, but they're too multifunctional for me to ever consider going below 4. Vengevine and Bloodghast are the kind of cards you either play a playset of or none at all. Especially Ghast, which just triggers passively without much of a setup, gets significantly worse in lower numbers. I'd rather think about cutting a Haunted Dead. Those are great as one-offs and I've considered cutting one myself.
I agree 100% here. Don't mess with the core of the deck, being about 52/60 cards. Gravecrawler, Vengevine, LolTroll, Ghast, Amalgam, Stinkweed, Looting, Reunion, 20 lands, etc. Especially if you're on Jund colors.
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Hey there, is there a solid midrange list anywhere? I've seen discussion and I know that the explosive lists are superior but I'm looking for a BG or BUG build. If anyone could point me in the right direction that'd be awesome
The RG Vine runs like small zoo with vengevine acting as a combo finisher after a string of HH-BTE. It can combo kill quickly just like zoo, but mulls worse to say the least.
I would think that deck belongs to another thread. Call it DelveVine or something, since it is more delve than dredge..
Turbo Vine already has its own thread. It was brought up here only as a reference, no one is trying to derail this thread into RG Vine. Though admittedly I feel that zoo/vine or RG Turbo Vine has more potential than Dredgevine in the current meta game.
Hey there, is there a solid midrange list anywhere? I've seen discussion and I know that the explosive lists are superior but I'm looking for a BG or BUG build. If anyone could point me in the right direction that'd be awesome
We've been demoted to deck creation!
While there are no recent placings of Midrange or BG Vengevine (or any vengevine deck for that matter) I'm still brewing/tweaking my list. I'll drop you a PM when I make a thread in the DC sub forum.
Thanks! I actually finished a build I worked up today so don't worry! I went with the jund all-in build. I'll be checking in every once in a while to check out builds though. I like the idea of a slower more midrange build.
-edited my comment as it came off way more passive aggressive than I was intending
Has anyone tinkered with adding Elder Deep-Fiend in a BUG list? It skews the mana towards a heavier blue splash, but blue does Hedron Crab and Skaab Ruinator. Emerging with a vengevine either endstep or your own mainphase to tap 4 blockers then bringing it immediately back seems pretty strong but it might be too convoluted to set up.
Not so much being too convoluted as we do not need the tempo boost from deep fiend. The outcome of most games depend on whether vengevine gets triggered from the yard so the deck is obliged to make it happen as smoothly as possible, rather than winning more with it in play.
No one playing the BUG version anymore? I still prefer the BUG version similar to the PTQ deck from the primer. Now you even have better suited interaction spells in brutality and push. Whenever i play red with looting, dredgers, amalgams and all that i always feel it's just a weaker dredge deck.
Modern:
DredgeVine
EDH:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Anima
Standard:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34518_How-Has-Modern-Changed.html
Without thoughtseize, there would be very few outs from blow out cards like Ugin.
Good luck to Killer_Manfred!
sorry for not replying sooner but I finally got to sit down and browse lists today. Your deck sees viable with some changes to it.
Here is the changes I am thinking:
-4 Sinister concoction
+4 Fatal push or Murderous cut
Concotion's first ability feels really clunky. I have said this a million times(not talking down just reiterating it's importance) that mana intensive abilities are not good for our deck, we want to be cycling our deck as fast as possible or casting creatures to get vengevine. I realize your deck is only B/G but it feels even worse here considering you aren't going with the all out dredge option. The life loss also feels bad but it's minimal.
-4 Commune with the gods
+4 Grisly salvage
Grisly salvage has been one of our best enablers. The only reason I don't play it because Cathartic reunion is strictly better with dredgers.
-2 Vengeful Pharoah
-2 Gurmag Angler
+4 Birds of Paradise
I really like both vengeful pharaoh and gurmag angler. Pharaoh is removal at the expense of your life, it is also really dead almost anywhere besides your graveyard. Even in your graveyard he hinders you from effectively using tasigur and is not an ideal card to exile. Angler is good but your deck is really heavy and I think in your BG style of control build I think tasigur is better. The birds will allow you to get your big stuff out faster and is an easy pick to exile when casting delve spells.
Modern:
DredgeVine
EDH:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Anima
Standard:
Grisly Salvage is certainly better than Commune if I cut the Concoctions. But if I keep them then I really like milling into an answer with Commune as opposed to only creatures/lands.
Sinister Concoction is definitely slow, but its a catch-all removal. It's not restrictive like Dismember or Fatal Push, and it doesn't eat my graveyard like Murderous Cut. As you mentioned, the graveyard is a valuable resource in this type of deck and if I'm already delving cards for creatures to recur the Vengevines, then I wanna keep delve-resources for just that. Cards like Stinkweed and Vengevine are no good in-hand, so I like to have at least 8x discard outlets in the deck. Lotleth Troll being the best obviously, but Concoction has a surprising amount of synergy in the deck. It's a 2-mana catch-all removal, for which the mana can be paid on separate turns. The life loss is minimal (less than dismember) and milling 1 card + discarding 1 card is more of a perk for me than a drawback. It's exactly what I want to be doing. I would say the card would be even better if it milled more than just 1 card.
As I stated in my earlier post, there still really is no reason to avoid red. This deck is just more of a fun idea and not something I'm pursuing as competitive until we get at least one more tool. I still love piloting it online though since there are a lot of threats that are immune to Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push.
Draft My Cube!
Grisly Salvage, Life from the Loam are good additions for your deck. Why no Prized Amalgam? It's the best card outside of Vengevine for the deck (I never hard cast him).
BGRDredgevineBGR
UWRJeskai ControlUWR
Pauper:
GMono-Green AggroG
MTGO Username: creamy99
Twitch Stream: www.twitch.tv/coachcreamy
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/Cherokee3210
Check it out for the latest testing, gameplay, and dailies!
That being said, I was actually testing and tweaking this list last night and tried a slightly more all-in approach, below.
-3 Thoughtseize
-3 Inquisition of Kozilek
-2 Abrupt Decay
+4 Grisly Salvage
+3 Hooting Mandrills
+1 Land
It seems like a lot of delve creatures, but the list just never ran out of steam. As much removal as they could throw at me, I followed up with more fatties.
The way I build a deck like this is to think in terms of redundancy. Threats and enablers.
14 cards that want to be discarded (crawler, pharaoh, vine, imp)
8 discard enablers (Concoction, Troll)
10 Delve threats (angler, monkey, Tasigur)
12 Delve enablers (salvage, commune, imp)
12 recurring threats (crawler, vine, pharaoh)
What I'm lacking most is another solid discard outlet, not recursion. That's why I don't play amalgam. I feel like he belongs alongside Ghast and Narcomoeba. My list just doesn't take the combo approach in that manner. If you read my initial post about the list, I mention that I'm aware my explosive starts are disabled by dropping red. If I was to pilot this archetype at a major event, I would definitely include red. But this deck has a surprising resilience in the longer games that shouldn't be judged by speculating and holding to pre-conceived notions about an archetype that hasn't really been competitive for a while now. We're more at liberty to think outside the box. Try it out, even with the duress effects.
Draft My Cube!
Abrupt Decay is good if you see a lot of g/y hate. If you want removal for creatures, use Darkblast. I only have 3 discard spells in my SB for combo decks. Most other decks run removal, and if they are wasting bolt/path/helix/push on a graveyard creature, there's a very high probability I'm winning and can recur it the next turn.
You have 12 interacting spells via discard or removal. That makes this more of a midrange deck than a graveyard combo deck ish. That's how it makes for more like Jund.
BGRDredgevineBGR
UWRJeskai ControlUWR
Pauper:
GMono-Green AggroG
MTGO Username: creamy99
Twitch Stream: www.twitch.tv/coachcreamy
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/Cherokee3210
Check it out for the latest testing, gameplay, and dailies!
It does everything this deck wants. I'm brewing with Varolz and Death's Shadow after testing this straight RG Vengevine a couple of times:
RG Super Vengevine
It's a lot of fun, but i prefer Lotleth Troll and Varolz, the Scar-Striped so therefore brewing with it.
I also assume Soulflayer as a serious option because Troll and Birds of Paradise do enable a serious threat as soon as Turn 3
(does Vengevine give him haste?).
Green @ it's best
Satyr and Greenbelt do not recurr from the graveyard and Amalgam is very specific. I don't feel I have enough enablers to make use of it in my deck. AnD as a midrange approach I would prefer that all my creatures are Hardcastable if necessary.
Satyr Wayfinder is one card I would definitely like to include in my list. I would replace Commune if not for the fact that commune can find answers in Sinister. But only netting me a land in hand doesn't help as much if I'm not running Bloodghast. And then if I run Bloodghast then I not as well include Amalgam. Then if I include Amalgam I might as well switch to red dredge and be tier 1. But this is not the forum for that now is it?
I really love the RG Turbo Vine deck. I've been playing it online with great success. It has more explosive starts than BGx Vengevine could hope for.
I feel that Dredgevine's power comes from its Delve creatures (at least in my experience) but Turbo Vine is more about flooding with bears.
I would be careful with Varolz. That card has been discussed a lot in this thread and I believe most people dropped it out of their lists because of how slow it is. Combined with death's shadow it can be powerful though. Just fragile
Draft My Cube!
I would think that deck belongs to another thread. Call it DelveVine or something, since it is more delve than dredge..
from this list, what can you say if we tweak it with this:
-1 lotleth troll or bloodghast
-1 cathartic reunion
+2 gather the pack
basically a 2/2 split between cathartic and gather the pack, as mentioned before, our deck lacks a good turn 2 play, cathartic relies on dredge, if we dont have dredge in hand to feed or in gy to get then we only get 3 cards, worst if we get our graveyard creature from those 3 also cathartic is weaker now that ggt is gone.
if its gather the pack, we can dump 5 cards in our graveyard (=dredge 5) or get a creature or 2 from there, we dont need spell mastery but its a bonus if activated and its easy to activate. it needs only G to cast as compared to salvage with BG, downside its not a discard engine.
i tried to play the deck with no mainboard interaction and it really felt uncomfortable. its just me but i bring back 2-lightning axes mainboard.
BGRDredgevineBGR
UWRJeskai ControlUWR
Pauper:
GMono-Green AggroG
MTGO Username: creamy99
Twitch Stream: www.twitch.tv/coachcreamy
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/Cherokee3210
Check it out for the latest testing, gameplay, and dailies!
Turbo Vine already has its own thread. It was brought up here only as a reference, no one is trying to derail this thread into RG Vine. Though admittedly I feel that zoo/vine or RG Turbo Vine has more potential than Dredgevine in the current meta game.
We've been demoted to deck creation!
While there are no recent placings of Midrange or BG Vengevine (or any vengevine deck for that matter) I'm still brewing/tweaking my list. I'll drop you a PM when I make a thread in the DC sub forum.
Draft My Cube!
-edited my comment as it came off way more passive aggressive than I was intending