I like your report. Good job on your top 4 finish.
You bring up a good point on mulligan decisions with this deck. The dredge mechanic allows you to mulligan extremely aggressively. In most match ups, game one at least, I still feel favored with a good-but-not-amazing four card hand. For example, I beat Junk in a post-board game on a 4 card hand last Friday. Land, land, faithless, dredger with faithless drawing into artifact destruction was enough to do it.
Neonate, troll, fetch, 4 blanks? Ship it, it's a trap and you can do better.
You can do better, but you can do way worse too. I think neonate + troll + lands is at least semi-keepable. If it's your first 7 then no, but if it's your 6 or 5, then I'd say keep.
I like your report. Good job on your top 4 finish.
You bring up a good point on mulligan decisions with this deck. The dredge mechanic allows you to mulligan extremely aggressively. In most match ups, game one at least, I still feel favored with a good-but-not-amazing four card hand. For example, I beat Junk in a post-board game on a 4 card hand last Friday. Land, land, faithless, dredger with faithless drawing into artifact destruction was enough to do it.
Neonate, troll, fetch, 4 blanks? Ship it, it's a trap and you can do better.
You can do better, but you can do way worse too. I think neonate + troll + lands is at least semi-keepable. If it's your first 7 then no, but if it's your 6 or 5, then I'd say keep.
I don't know about Rally, but the unearth Devils plus fetch lands at the end of your opponents' main phase are incredible against anger of the gods and Ugin. 2-4 amalgams attacking for 5 a piece put the opponent in Conflagrate range.
1. You miss the second land drop once in a while. 19 lands is ok. Many merfolk play 19 lands, with 4 drops and mutavault. One landers are hard to win with. Two answers: mulligan more, and have more 1-mana enabler. Tome scour helps with both, this is why it's so good.
2. Reunion (now obsoleting voice) is great, but you need a critical mass of 1 mana enabler. Plus, as you can see by goldfishing, it can make some mulligans akward (no dredger, no second land). Still probably good enough to a four of, but I won't cut Tome scour for it.
3. Rally is great to have. Of course there some matchups where it's not great. It won me many games, and in only a few of them it was overkill. There are a lot of decks to have shut the door on quickly, like Valakut or Melira company. I really think it's pulling its wait. In the course of the tournament I've even started to board it our less and less.
I'll make a separate post about the SB guide I used of the event.
Some notes about my sideboarding strategy at the WMCQ. First, let me say it's just a guide, I made some adjustment on the fly depending on what I saw, whether I was on the draw etc. So instead of exact numbers, I'll have In and Out sections.
General Philosphy: sideboard as little as possible. That includes not bringing hate in the dark (i.e. know the stock SB of all main archetype before the tournament starts, whether you expect a lot of hate to come in). I wouldn't bring natural state against Jund even if they often run 1 cage, but I would against Eldrazi.
I played in the SB:
2 Darkblast
1 Rally the Peasants
4 Lightning Axe
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Collective Brutality
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Natural State
Brutality and natural state were the cards I used the least. Never got to cast them. I think grudge, darkblast and gnaw are too good at doing what they do. I'm very pro lava axe, as a very clean answer to ooze. Decay is a good card of course, and good against all kind of hate (of course if you except a lot of hate, there is a debate whether to play dredge at all).
I wanted to hand in my report as well. Obviously not on the same scale as #dinausorus... but just in case you guys wanted a read.
So, the day after wmcq # 2, i decided to start with dredge. Had little over a month to get it done. Got the cards, tested on my own, read the meta here fairly correctly.
Eventually, and before the wmcq#3:
Got 500 games under my belt with various lists. Losing to aggressive mulligan, scapeshift, tron and the occasional rest in peace/cage.
No one here was playing dredge. Very little hate. No one would get the cards in time even if they concluded it was the best deck. No one knows what bridge from below does.
Lots of burn/affinity. Little to no combo.
Everybody thought i was playing something i wasn´t (we know each other pretty well as we are few)
Game Mull to 3 on the play. Ended up winning anyways thanks to the bridges... and that i´m playing against living end.
Game 2 i get him down to 2 life after an attack. Ended up thinking of whether or to conflagrate him for the win or gnaw to the bone to keep myself alive for the next turn. I gnaw and he jund charms my grave in response. He later told me he would have pyroclasmed, but he noticed he could exile the grave instead. a)Gave him too much time, b) Should have gone for the win, not to try not to lose c)Playing around ricochet trap without having shown a conflagrate game 1 against 4 mana open seems dumb, and d) Gnaw to the bone is probably not even that good anyways.
Game 3 i rebord the congflags, have 2 enablers + ggt and race him before he found the 3rd land to living end me (possibly for the win)
Round 2- Burn
This guy had no clue what was going on. None. Unfortunately for him i knew he was playing burn, so fetched appropriately
Game 1 he thinks whether to keep or not, decides to keep. T1 guide T2 guide guide. I get an early haunted dead, bridges and narcos. He is about to burn me out and i decide to attack with everyhing, he trades incorrectly and doesn´t draw well, and my creatures get the job done.
Game 2 he starts with wild nacatl. I loot and pass. He plays double swift spear. On my turn i dredge and loot, to get 3 narcos 1 bloodghast 2 amalgam and 2 bridges. On his turn he attacks me, i block 1 on 1 each creature. He for some reason uses his pump spells THEN and there, for whatever reason. I end up putting 6 2/2´s and smashing back for 20 against a tapped opponent.
Round 3- Melira
Game1 we both go to 5 cards, i dredge like crazy, conflag 4 mana dorks and win.
Game2 I can´t remember a thing. He decided to combo me on upkeep when i was about to dredge back a darkblast. Had i had a lightning axe, i might have gotten away with it. Would have won with an attack on my turn
Game 3 He hits melira and finks, and that kind of messes things up a bit. However i get him to low cards and life and have a darkblast in hand. He assembles combo with 1 mana to spare, i darkblast the seer, and he chords up the third one in response.
Round 4- Eldrazi
Game1 I start out real slow but escalate quickly, he basically couldn´t stabilize. Bridge did a lot of work, as was ment to do.
Game2 He mulled to 5 got a bit mana screwed. I got real fancy conflagrating my bloodghasts, casting stinkweed imps (that´s pretty fancy :p) and eventually beat him.
Round 5- Taxes
Game 1 i ran him over. He got out a blade splicer, blinked it with flickerwisp and also a brimaz. I was able to conflag the brimaz and wisp and get him down to 0 almost without too much trouble.
Game 2 He didn´t t2 rest in peace me. I had looted in a way that that wouldn´t hurt that much. I decided to thoughtseize just in case. Coast was clear, his hand was double wisp double finks. A few turns later i had a pretty good board. Rest in peace came in but he was already at 4 life, i attacked with the team and traded an amalagam for a finks, which didn´t return (i missed that, someone outside pointed it our). Cast a stinkweed imp and had 2 amoebas and an imp coming in for lethal.
Round 6- Burn
I was in 3rth seat so i decided to draw into the top 8 (yay)
TOP 8
Burn
Game 1 He was on the play. I kind of didn´t have much pressure. I had to conflagrate to get rid of the board and taking him to 10, playing a land and smashing with 1 bloodghast. He had a few cards and i was at 1 life, so his topdeck killed me.
Game 2 I start out fetching carefully but dredging not that much. Eventually i was at a pretty low life, staring a pair of suspended rift bolts but my opponent tapped. I HAD to draw a third land, otherwise it would be likely i lost. Thankfully copperline gorges are my friends. Got 10 life that moment in response to my 2 bloodghast triggers and ended up winning.
Game 3 My opponent got stuck on 2 lands, while i dredge up amalgams and amoebas. Eventually i had him on a 2 turn clock when i flipped my 3rd amoeba, so i decided to leave it there since there was a gnaw in the grave. My opponent boros chams me, i gain 6 in response, and he concedes on his turn.
Melira.
Same person as in the swiss... Every game, basically the same. Was a turn away from winning, and he finds 2/3 combo with the company. Game 2, was a turn away from winning again, and he chords for the seer with a melira he found with a company, the finks he drew, and the chord he had in his hand.
---
The deck was great. I kind of wish i had collective brutallity (i coulnd´t get so i tested without) to kill those stupid melira.
19 Land is and has always been fine with MINIMUM 2 loams.
I used to board out loams when i boarded out conflags, but then stopped (not that i lost that many games where i boarded it out, i just didn´t want to risk it) because loam is so so so important it´s not even fun.
Brige from below. So. This card is what makes game 1 against burn "winnable" and makes Thought-Knot seer look like a pile of crap. It makes creature matchups super lop sided, and it has the added benefit of "maybe my opponent screws up". After practicing a TONNE with it, i ended up cutting 1 haunted dead for a conflag (from 2 dead to 1) which with 4 bridges in the deck, is a mistake. Discarding a bridge "on command" gives you a "surprise factor" that makes the card a lot better. I would have wanted 2 dead and i knew it, but it was really tough to take something out so i didn´t (mainly because i would have wanted another land too, just in case).
The sideboard was ok but it´s meta dependent. Most likely in an open meta, natures claim is probably fairly important.. You just want a clear answer to their answer. Explosives is ok, but sometimes it takes 2 WHOLE turns to get anything done, it´s a bit slow. There is probably not that much burn in other places, so 1 gnaw could be okay. I guess collective brutality is a must now a days right?
Brige from below. So. This card is what makes game 1 against burn "winnable" and makes Thought-Knot seer look like a pile of crap. It makes creature matchups super lop sided, and it has the added benefit of "maybe my opponent screws up". After practicing a TONNE with it, i ended up cutting 1 haunted dead for a conflag (from 2 dead to 1) which with 4 bridges in the deck, is a mistake. Discarding a bridge "on command" gives you a "surprise factor" that makes the card a lot better. I would have wanted 2 dead and i knew it, but it was really tough to take something out so i didn´t (mainly because i would have wanted another land too, just in case).
You're playing Bridges, without Gargadons? How good are they without the free sac outlet? Won't creatures trading in combat, or a Burn player point a burn spell at their own creature just exile all of them?
On another note, what do people think about Scrapyard Scrounger? I haven't much discussion about it here, but surely it has some potential in this deck, right?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[Modern] RBGU Dredge RBGU RG Ponza RG UR Thing in the Ice Ascension UR
[EDH/CMDR] G Titania, Protector of Argoth G UB Grimgrin, Corpse-born UB UWR Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
Really, it all comes down to what you want to do i think. The shell is still the shell. Bloodghast+amalgam+amoeba,dredgers and enablers is the core anyways, and it works great. If you want to try something out, but no one has or the winning lists don´t use it, just do it, as long as the core is intact.
Bridges were good for me because i knew most people would forget it, not understand it, run into it etc etc, which would give me an edge, after all a win is a win. I was expecting lots of creatures, bolts and other targeted removal.
The "it´s a dead card in your hand" clause is pretty dumb i think. Half the deck you already don´t want to draw almost EVER. Of course, this adds an additional 4 cards that "don´t want to be in your hand ever", but proportionally "dredge-land-enablers" are still the same, allowing it to function well. Also, the upside for having them is pretty radical in creature matches (improves our burn matchup a LOT i believe)
The theory is usually NOT what it´s like in the practice. Practice points out that our blockers are terrible. If you need to block an infect creature with an amoeba, you´d love to get 1-2 free 2/2´s out of it. Practice also shows that once you flip over an amoeba and a bridge (equally as likely to flip an amalgam as well), burn can´t really attack anymore. Your 1 blocker now becomes 2, eventually you´ll attack with tradeable creatures like bloodghast, which also trigger bridges, and it´s hard to beat you by then.
If your opponent burns his own creature...you´re more than happy. It´s a 2 for 0. For ZERO cards.That´s a pretty terrible play i believe. Also, how likely is it to have 4 amalgams in your yard? Equally as likely to have 4 bridges, they won´t exile completely that often. So, if you flip creatures and a bridge they either attack and you get to trade creatures or make zombies, or they don´t attack, you keep doing what you do, and force them to play burn spells one a turn. If they don´t attack, you still have to kill them, which is somewhat tough, now, g1 you´ll mill over a conflagrate if you stall out, allowing you to pressure them. Game 2, those will be gnaw to the bone, which are even more backbreaking, since now they can´t tap out.
The idea behind just "value bridges" is making combat a living hell against our toughest matches. Without bridges, sometimes there is no reason to attack with a bloodghast, since the creature on the other side is bigger. Bridge kind of gives you something to do with that attack. it lets you attack a lot more freely, plus you don´t HAVE to get value off of them, play accordingly. Additionally, it "kind of" evades grafdiggers cage, as long as you have creatures, Neonate becomes a "trick" and worth 2-3 bodies, and scavenging ooze becomes a joke. What are they going to do? Exile dredgers most likely and block the bloodghasts and amalgams, but with 1-2 bridges out...you completely overload the ooze, that´s just how it turns out.
Brige from below. So. This card is what makes game 1 against burn "winnable" and makes Thought-Knot seer look like a pile of crap. It makes creature matchups super lop sided, and it has the added benefit of "maybe my opponent screws up". After practicing a TONNE with it, i ended up cutting 1 haunted dead for a conflag (from 2 dead to 1) which with 4 bridges in the deck, is a mistake. Discarding a bridge "on command" gives you a "surprise factor" that makes the card a lot better. I would have wanted 2 dead and i knew it, but it was really tough to take something out so i didn´t (mainly because i would have wanted another land too, just in case).
You're playing Bridges, without Gargadons? How good are they without the free sac outlet? Won't creatures trading in combat, or a Burn player point a burn spell at their own creature just exile all of them?
On another note, what do people think about Scrapyard Scrounger? I haven't much discussion about it here, but surely it has some potential in this deck, right?
I'm testing them on xmage currently. They're pretty sweet. It's an extra 3/x body that can trigger Amalgams. Running multiples is something you can't do with Haunted Dead because of the discard, but I ran 3 and had no issue activating since I had plenty of dead Neonates and Narcomoebas to exile. And it has to be the most hardcastable creature we have. A 2 mana colorless 3/2 that can't block is certainly castable before dumping into the grave, which we can't say of any creature other than Neonate.
I see that card pushing this deck to super consistent levels.
On scrapyard scrounger. I think it´s a very good card. Under hate it´s a really good creature. 3/2 for 2 is whicked good. No color requirements, unlike amalgam, it´s a nice way to trigger amalgams back. Seems fine for "slower" builds, where you can spend 2 mana more often. It´s still maybe a bit too tough to get 2 free mana. Usually you´re using most of it for more important things. Generally: t1 enabler t2 enabler or loam, t3 flashback looting or loam + land, t4 loam +land +conflagrate. Maybe later on in the game? I think i´d still rather have haunted dead, but 1-2 might be ok.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A huge thanks to Argetlam and the guys at Hakai studios for this awesome banner
So I've been tooling around with scour as the 1 mana enabler, and it works great. But that manabase is an issue. Like... a real issue. I think the new fastlands help a lot because you can run them to enable yourself, but its still huge. I'll need more testing. You can still play around anger using only fastlands and rainbow lands, but its alot harder, and not guaranteed. But it does fix the speed issue I've been having, giving the deck around .5-1 turn speed boost which goes A LONG way to helping the deck.
I don't thing that Tome Scour is really *that* good. You're chaging your mana base to a worse one for just a single extra card over Shriekhorn on turn 2. Is that single extra card worth everything else lost to support it?
Scrapheap Scrounger seems good, my only issue with it is finding slots for it. The creature package is very tight and I don't like the idea of removing Haunted Dead since it fills a defensive role that srounger can't. The discar also is relevant, even though some people seems to look at it as just a disvantage toward Conflagrate plan, it can be used profitably to throw dredgers, amalgams and ghasts on the grave.
I also think bridge as a value engine something worth of consideration, rather than the cluncky bridge/gargadon thing, my only issue with it is the same as scrounger: finding slots for it.
I dunno. Blue doesnt really give me anything good aside from casting amalgamates and narcs, and more or less nothing in the side. So I dunno. If the deck can be consistant as it is now, mana included, while getting sped up by the thing, Id be down. But thats going to be a lot of testing.
Scrapheap Scrounger seems good, my only issue with it is finding slots for it. The creature package is very tight and I don't like the idea of removing Haunted Dead since it fills a defensive role that srounger can't. The discar also is relevant, even though some people seems to look at it as just a disvantage toward Conflagrate plan, it can be used profitably to throw dredgers, amalgams and ghasts on the grave.
If a defensive creature is what you seek, you have Narcomoeba and Stinkweed Imp for that. While I agree that flyers are an issue, we have plenty at our disposal.
I straight up removed Haunted Dead, Collective Brutality, and 1 Insolent Neonate. Brutality is nice, but it's at most a 2 of and it does nothing for us in the GY. Neonate is one of our 1-drop enablers, which is sacred, but I'm experimenting with Cathartic Reunion and we might actually have enough draw power to exceed our expectations, so I shaved one off. Haunted Dead, like I mentioned above, may be better defensively, but it weakens our Conflagrate gameplan. Scrounger supports that plan by eating out of our grave, not out of our hands. You can easily run 4 Scroungers while 4 Haunted Dead is a little too restrictive.
On another note, has anyone else played with final deck counts? I run 61 MB and have gone to 64 post-board, but I feel like this number can be tinkered with.
One note on Scrapheap Scrounger that hasn't been discussed yet is that he comes in untapped, unlike Haunted Dead.
As for card count, I run 20 lands and a total of 61 cards with Gnaw to the Bone maindeck as my 61st. I've never been screwed by this and having the mainboard lifegain is really helpful in certain matchups.
You can do better, but you can do way worse too. I think neonate + troll + lands is at least semi-keepable. If it's your first 7 then no, but if it's your 6 or 5, then I'd say keep.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
Keep or ship?
1: stomping grounds, bloodghast, amalgam, haunted dead, life from the loam, faithless looting, Cathartic Reunion on the play
2: dakmor, mountain, neonate, neonate, faithless looting, narcomoeba, stinkweed imp on the draw
3: mountain, faithless looting, cathartic Reunion, stinkweed imp , amalgam, amalgam
narcomoeba on the play
4: foothills, gorge, mountain, conflagrate, amalgam, bloodghast, stinkweed imp on the draw
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
1. Keep (3/5)
2. Keep (5/5)
3. Mulligan (4/5)
4. Mulligan (5/5)
By the way, this is assuming there are 4 tome scour in the deck. With none, I guess you're stuck keeping most of these.
1. You miss the second land drop once in a while. 19 lands is ok. Many merfolk play 19 lands, with 4 drops and mutavault. One landers are hard to win with. Two answers: mulligan more, and have more 1-mana enabler. Tome scour helps with both, this is why it's so good.
2. Reunion (now obsoleting voice) is great, but you need a critical mass of 1 mana enabler. Plus, as you can see by goldfishing, it can make some mulligans akward (no dredger, no second land). Still probably good enough to a four of, but I won't cut Tome scour for it.
3. Rally is great to have. Of course there some matchups where it's not great. It won me many games, and in only a few of them it was overkill. There are a lot of decks to have shut the door on quickly, like Valakut or Melira company. I really think it's pulling its wait. In the course of the tournament I've even started to board it our less and less.
I'll make a separate post about the SB guide I used of the event.
General Philosphy: sideboard as little as possible. That includes not bringing hate in the dark (i.e. know the stock SB of all main archetype before the tournament starts, whether you expect a lot of hate to come in). I wouldn't bring natural state against Jund even if they often run 1 cage, but I would against Eldrazi.
I played in the SB:
2 Darkblast
1 Rally the Peasants
4 Lightning Axe
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Collective Brutality
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Natural State
Brutality and natural state were the cards I used the least. Never got to cast them. I think grudge, darkblast and gnaw are too good at doing what they do. I'm very pro lava axe, as a very clean answer to ooze. Decay is a good card of course, and good against all kind of hate (of course if you except a lot of hate, there is a debate whether to play dredge at all).
Jund/Abzam
In: 4 Axe
Out: shave darkblast, loam, conflagrate, voice
Burn
In: Gnaw, brutality
Out: Cut darkblast, conflagrate, loam
RG Valakut
In: Gnaw, rally
Out: cut voice, darkblast
Affinity
In: darkblast, grudge
Out: loam, rally, voice, bloodghast
Death Shadow
In: 4 axe
Out: rally, loam, darkblast, bloodghast
Infect:
In: darkblast, grudge, brutality, maybe a couple of axe
Out: rally, loam, bloodghast, voice, neonate
Not claiming this 100% right but hopefully it gives a general idea.
So, the day after wmcq # 2, i decided to start with dredge. Had little over a month to get it done. Got the cards, tested on my own, read the meta here fairly correctly.
Eventually, and before the wmcq#3:
Got 500 games under my belt with various lists. Losing to aggressive mulligan, scapeshift, tron and the occasional rest in peace/cage.
No one here was playing dredge. Very little hate. No one would get the cards in time even if they concluded it was the best deck. No one knows what bridge from below does.
Lots of burn/affinity. Little to no combo.
Everybody thought i was playing something i wasn´t (we know each other pretty well as we are few)
My list
4 faithless looting
3 tormenting voice
1 lightning axe
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized amalgam
4 Bridge from below
1 Haunted dead
2 Conflagrate
4 golgari grave-troll
4 Stinkweed imp
2 life from the loam
4 Wooded foorhills
2 Bloodstained mire
2 Stomping grounds
2 Blood Crypt
2 Copperline Gorge
2 Mana confluence
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Mountain
1 Steam vents
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Lightning axe
2 Darkblast
2 Gnaw to the bone
3 Ancient Grudge
Round 1 - Living end
Game Mull to 3 on the play. Ended up winning anyways thanks to the bridges... and that i´m playing against living end.
Game 2 i get him down to 2 life after an attack. Ended up thinking of whether or to conflagrate him for the win or gnaw to the bone to keep myself alive for the next turn. I gnaw and he jund charms my grave in response. He later told me he would have pyroclasmed, but he noticed he could exile the grave instead. a)Gave him too much time, b) Should have gone for the win, not to try not to lose c)Playing around ricochet trap without having shown a conflagrate game 1 against 4 mana open seems dumb, and d) Gnaw to the bone is probably not even that good anyways.
Game 3 i rebord the congflags, have 2 enablers + ggt and race him before he found the 3rd land to living end me (possibly for the win)
This guy had no clue what was going on. None. Unfortunately for him i knew he was playing burn, so fetched appropriately
Game 1 he thinks whether to keep or not, decides to keep. T1 guide T2 guide guide. I get an early haunted dead, bridges and narcos. He is about to burn me out and i decide to attack with everyhing, he trades incorrectly and doesn´t draw well, and my creatures get the job done.
Game 2 he starts with wild nacatl. I loot and pass. He plays double swift spear. On my turn i dredge and loot, to get 3 narcos 1 bloodghast 2 amalgam and 2 bridges. On his turn he attacks me, i block 1 on 1 each creature. He for some reason uses his pump spells THEN and there, for whatever reason. I end up putting 6 2/2´s and smashing back for 20 against a tapped opponent.
Round 3- Melira
Game1 we both go to 5 cards, i dredge like crazy, conflag 4 mana dorks and win.
Game2 I can´t remember a thing. He decided to combo me on upkeep when i was about to dredge back a darkblast. Had i had a lightning axe, i might have gotten away with it. Would have won with an attack on my turn
Game 3 He hits melira and finks, and that kind of messes things up a bit. However i get him to low cards and life and have a darkblast in hand. He assembles combo with 1 mana to spare, i darkblast the seer, and he chords up the third one in response.
Round 4- Eldrazi
Game2 He mulled to 5 got a bit mana screwed. I got real fancy conflagrating my bloodghasts, casting stinkweed imps (that´s pretty fancy :p) and eventually beat him.
Round 5- Taxes
Game 1 i ran him over. He got out a blade splicer, blinked it with flickerwisp and also a brimaz. I was able to conflag the brimaz and wisp and get him down to 0 almost without too much trouble.
Game 2 He didn´t t2 rest in peace me. I had looted in a way that that wouldn´t hurt that much. I decided to thoughtseize just in case. Coast was clear, his hand was double wisp double finks. A few turns later i had a pretty good board. Rest in peace came in but he was already at 4 life, i attacked with the team and traded an amalagam for a finks, which didn´t return (i missed that, someone outside pointed it our). Cast a stinkweed imp and had 2 amoebas and an imp coming in for lethal.
Round 6- Burn
I was in 3rth seat so i decided to draw into the top 8 (yay)
TOP 8
Burn
Game 1 He was on the play. I kind of didn´t have much pressure. I had to conflagrate to get rid of the board and taking him to 10, playing a land and smashing with 1 bloodghast. He had a few cards and i was at 1 life, so his topdeck killed me.
Game 2 I start out fetching carefully but dredging not that much. Eventually i was at a pretty low life, staring a pair of suspended rift bolts but my opponent tapped. I HAD to draw a third land, otherwise it would be likely i lost. Thankfully copperline gorges are my friends. Got 10 life that moment in response to my 2 bloodghast triggers and ended up winning.
Game 3 My opponent got stuck on 2 lands, while i dredge up amalgams and amoebas. Eventually i had him on a 2 turn clock when i flipped my 3rd amoeba, so i decided to leave it there since there was a gnaw in the grave. My opponent boros chams me, i gain 6 in response, and he concedes on his turn.
Melira.
Same person as in the swiss... Every game, basically the same. Was a turn away from winning, and he finds 2/3 combo with the company. Game 2, was a turn away from winning again, and he chords for the seer with a melira he found with a company, the finks he drew, and the chord he had in his hand.
---
The deck was great. I kind of wish i had collective brutallity (i coulnd´t get so i tested without) to kill those stupid melira.
19 Land is and has always been fine with MINIMUM 2 loams.
I used to board out loams when i boarded out conflags, but then stopped (not that i lost that many games where i boarded it out, i just didn´t want to risk it) because loam is so so so important it´s not even fun.
Brige from below. So. This card is what makes game 1 against burn "winnable" and makes Thought-Knot seer look like a pile of crap. It makes creature matchups super lop sided, and it has the added benefit of "maybe my opponent screws up". After practicing a TONNE with it, i ended up cutting 1 haunted dead for a conflag (from 2 dead to 1) which with 4 bridges in the deck, is a mistake. Discarding a bridge "on command" gives you a "surprise factor" that makes the card a lot better. I would have wanted 2 dead and i knew it, but it was really tough to take something out so i didn´t (mainly because i would have wanted another land too, just in case).
The sideboard was ok but it´s meta dependent. Most likely in an open meta, natures claim is probably fairly important.. You just want a clear answer to their answer. Explosives is ok, but sometimes it takes 2 WHOLE turns to get anything done, it´s a bit slow. There is probably not that much burn in other places, so 1 gnaw could be okay. I guess collective brutality is a must now a days right?
A huge thanks to Argetlam and the guys at Hakai studios for this awesome banner
You're playing Bridges, without Gargadons? How good are they without the free sac outlet? Won't creatures trading in combat, or a Burn player point a burn spell at their own creature just exile all of them?
On another note, what do people think about Scrapyard Scrounger? I haven't much discussion about it here, but surely it has some potential in this deck, right?
RBGU Dredge RBGU
RG Ponza RG
UR Thing in the Ice Ascension UR
[EDH/CMDR]
G Titania, Protector of Argoth G
UB Grimgrin, Corpse-born UB
UWR Zedruu, the Greathearted UWR
Really, it all comes down to what you want to do i think. The shell is still the shell. Bloodghast+amalgam+amoeba,dredgers and enablers is the core anyways, and it works great. If you want to try something out, but no one has or the winning lists don´t use it, just do it, as long as the core is intact.
Bridges were good for me because i knew most people would forget it, not understand it, run into it etc etc, which would give me an edge, after all a win is a win. I was expecting lots of creatures, bolts and other targeted removal.
The "it´s a dead card in your hand" clause is pretty dumb i think. Half the deck you already don´t want to draw almost EVER. Of course, this adds an additional 4 cards that "don´t want to be in your hand ever", but proportionally "dredge-land-enablers" are still the same, allowing it to function well. Also, the upside for having them is pretty radical in creature matches (improves our burn matchup a LOT i believe)
The theory is usually NOT what it´s like in the practice. Practice points out that our blockers are terrible. If you need to block an infect creature with an amoeba, you´d love to get 1-2 free 2/2´s out of it. Practice also shows that once you flip over an amoeba and a bridge (equally as likely to flip an amalgam as well), burn can´t really attack anymore. Your 1 blocker now becomes 2, eventually you´ll attack with tradeable creatures like bloodghast, which also trigger bridges, and it´s hard to beat you by then.
If your opponent burns his own creature...you´re more than happy. It´s a 2 for 0. For ZERO cards.That´s a pretty terrible play i believe. Also, how likely is it to have 4 amalgams in your yard? Equally as likely to have 4 bridges, they won´t exile completely that often. So, if you flip creatures and a bridge they either attack and you get to trade creatures or make zombies, or they don´t attack, you keep doing what you do, and force them to play burn spells one a turn. If they don´t attack, you still have to kill them, which is somewhat tough, now, g1 you´ll mill over a conflagrate if you stall out, allowing you to pressure them. Game 2, those will be gnaw to the bone, which are even more backbreaking, since now they can´t tap out.
The idea behind just "value bridges" is making combat a living hell against our toughest matches. Without bridges, sometimes there is no reason to attack with a bloodghast, since the creature on the other side is bigger. Bridge kind of gives you something to do with that attack. it lets you attack a lot more freely, plus you don´t HAVE to get value off of them, play accordingly. Additionally, it "kind of" evades grafdiggers cage, as long as you have creatures, Neonate becomes a "trick" and worth 2-3 bodies, and scavenging ooze becomes a joke. What are they going to do? Exile dredgers most likely and block the bloodghasts and amalgams, but with 1-2 bridges out...you completely overload the ooze, that´s just how it turns out.
A huge thanks to Argetlam and the guys at Hakai studios for this awesome banner
I'm testing them on xmage currently. They're pretty sweet. It's an extra 3/x body that can trigger Amalgams. Running multiples is something you can't do with Haunted Dead because of the discard, but I ran 3 and had no issue activating since I had plenty of dead Neonates and Narcomoebas to exile. And it has to be the most hardcastable creature we have. A 2 mana colorless 3/2 that can't block is certainly castable before dumping into the grave, which we can't say of any creature other than Neonate.
I see that card pushing this deck to super consistent levels.
A huge thanks to Argetlam and the guys at Hakai studios for this awesome banner
Scrapheap Scrounger seems good, my only issue with it is finding slots for it. The creature package is very tight and I don't like the idea of removing Haunted Dead since it fills a defensive role that srounger can't. The discar also is relevant, even though some people seems to look at it as just a disvantage toward Conflagrate plan, it can be used profitably to throw dredgers, amalgams and ghasts on the grave.
I also think bridge as a value engine something worth of consideration, rather than the cluncky bridge/gargadon thing, my only issue with it is the same as scrounger: finding slots for it.
If a defensive creature is what you seek, you have Narcomoeba and Stinkweed Imp for that. While I agree that flyers are an issue, we have plenty at our disposal.
I straight up removed Haunted Dead, Collective Brutality, and 1 Insolent Neonate. Brutality is nice, but it's at most a 2 of and it does nothing for us in the GY. Neonate is one of our 1-drop enablers, which is sacred, but I'm experimenting with Cathartic Reunion and we might actually have enough draw power to exceed our expectations, so I shaved one off. Haunted Dead, like I mentioned above, may be better defensively, but it weakens our Conflagrate gameplan. Scrounger supports that plan by eating out of our grave, not out of our hands. You can easily run 4 Scroungers while 4 Haunted Dead is a little too restrictive.
On another note, has anyone else played with final deck counts? I run 61 MB and have gone to 64 post-board, but I feel like this number can be tinkered with.
As for card count, I run 20 lands and a total of 61 cards with Gnaw to the Bone maindeck as my 61st. I've never been screwed by this and having the mainboard lifegain is really helpful in certain matchups.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
Scrounger coming in untapped is pretty irrelevant since he can't block