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.
I've seen Gnaw run MB before. Seems great vs burn and Zoo, but it's inclusion is probably meta-dependent. What decks do you encounter the most? I feel like its inclusion hits win-more territory, but I could be wrong.
My meta is full of Burn, Zoo, and other decks that really don't enjoy it when you gain 10-20 life at instant speed. It's win-more against some decks, but realistically it's not the worst option to have.
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.
What I like most on the deck are the cards with versatility, haunted dead can be a discard outlet, an amalgam enabler (at instant speed) or a surprise blocker. While narc and imp can be defensive creatures they fill other different roles. Not to mention that it's not like I don't use them for that, they are used and haunted dead complements them.
Hi everyone, I'm building into Dredge and I'm wondering what *the* list is going to look like KLD. Here are my thoughts/questions.
I've found a lot of times when I keep a 1-enabler hand I find I take T2 off. I think we should run either more Haunted Dead (I do not like the card, I am running zero) or a few Scrapheap Scroungers which I think has the potential to be good. However, if Dredge begins to turn more towards the 5c manabase with more enablers this isn't an issue, however I am then unsure of what enabler package to play. Obviously 4 Looting, but I haven't come to a conclusion on how many Tome Scour, Cathartic Reunion, and Neonates to play, and there just isn't room for 4 of each. Basically my questions are:
- Rainbow land or Shock manabase
-If rainbow manabase which enablers to play, if shocks/fetches which T2 plays to run between Scrounger and Haunted Dead.
In the board I've been disappointed with EE and Collective Brutality. Right now I have:
4x Lightning Axe
3x Thoughtseize
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Nature's Claim
2x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Darkblast
1x Vengeful Pharoah
Lightning Axe has been the real MVP and Gnaw has been great. Nature's Claim and Grudge have done their job but I wasn't super impressed, in addition to Thoughtseize, which is in there because I feel we need some way to interact outside of the battlefield against combo decks, control, and Tron and to preemptively nab things like RiP and Anger. Vengeful Pharoah hasn't come in too much but it has rocked the Eldrazi matchup. I was running 3 Darkblasts in the 75 just for Infect but I found that was too many, and post board we actually just have enough removal since it is so easy to find the Blasts.
Only suggestion I'd really make for the SB is to drop an axe and add a grudge. Unless the artifact hate isn't really relevant in your scene but no find that hard to believe
Also as far as enablers 4 looting and 4 neonate is the golden rule, then 2-4 for voice/reunion. I do a 2/3 split between Brutality and Voice for my 2 drops but the brutality is super relevant for my LGS meta
Only suggestion I'd really make for the SB is to drop an axe and add a grudge. Unless the artifact hate isn't really relevant in your scene but no find that hard to believe
Also as far as enablers 4 looting and 4 neonate is the golden rule, then 2-4 for voice/reunion. I do a 2/3 split between Brutality and Voice for my 2 drops but the brutality is super relevant for my LGS meta
It's like arunning joke that there is no Affinity,here in Vermont, maybe one or two players occassionally. I haven't been impressed with Brutality. Can you explain how it's been good for you?
- Rainbow land or Shock manabase
-If rainbow manabase which enablers to play, if shocks/fetches which T2 plays to run between Scrounger and Haunted Dead.
In the board I've been disappointed with EE and Collective Brutality. Right now I have:
4x Lightning Axe
3x Thoughtseize
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Nature's Claim
2x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Darkblast
1x Vengeful Pharoah
Lightning Axe has been the real MVP and Gnaw has been great. Nature's Claim and Grudge have done their job but I wasn't super impressed, in addition to Thoughtseize, which is in there because I feel we need some way to interact outside of the battlefield against combo decks, control, and Tron and to preemptively nab things like RiP and Anger. Vengeful Pharoah hasn't come in too much but it has rocked the Eldrazi matchup. I was running 3 Darkblasts in the 75 just for Infect but I found that was too many, and post board we actually just have enough removal since it is so easy to find the Blasts.
I believe the current convention for mana base is fetch/shock. The reason being is that our Amalgams can dodge Anger if we fetch on our opponent's 2nd main, returning our Bloodghasts. Same timing can be applied to Scrapheap Scrounger.
If you plan to go the fetch route, I often find myself either casting Loam to establish my hand count for Conflagrate, Cathartic Reunion (of which I run 3), Insolent Neonate (of which I run 3), or activating Scrounger. Loaming on turn 2 is often smart since some people run random land destruction and losing green from your mana base can hurt. Cathartic Reunion is even smarter since you can basically dredge half your library. The only problem is that, post board, there are instants that screw that up for us (Rakdos Charm, Surgical Extraction), so I often hold onto it until I can find hand disruption. Otherwise, just cast it. Returning a creature turn 2 or even Conflagrating aren't bad plays to make depending on the situation.
The problem I now have with the rainbow base is with activating Scrounger, you're paying 2 life every time you activate it, which can suck especially against the hyperaggressive meta we're in.
With regards to sideboard, I think that the ideal anti-hate package is 3 Claim and 3 Abrupt Decay. Decay hits everything we hate except Leyline, but also isn't a dead card like Claim is if the hate never shows.
my mainboard is a normal dredge, with 4 Grisly Salvage
not the best card, for sure. but is a dredge4-5 instant speed. and you can get e land, or a neonate.
and is too important in game2-3
I have to agree with you on that one. This sideboard is indeed spicy. Are you running some sort of Unburial Rites package? I would really hope you're not just straight-up hardcasting 'em.
Yea I'm probably going to go with the shock manabase. As far as sideboards go, what does yours look like? I want to play Decay but can't find room.
2 Bojuka Bog
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Nature's Claim
2 Raven's Crime
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Duress
It's very finely tuned to the meta I've been encountering. Duress should probably be Thoughtsieze, but I feel like the only thing we care about in hand are non-land, non-creatures. Here's my list if you want to read my card choices.
Also one thing to take into account for Kaladesh, is that everyone is aware that dredge is getting a new card, and people fear that the metagame share of dredge is going to go through the roof in the near future.
We'll see if that prediction holds, but in any case that means we should expect a lot more hate in people sideboards, and side accordingly.
People brought the hate when the deck popped up. The amount of hate isn't anything we haven't seen before, so don't let it get you down. People have adapted to it and probably feel like they're already prepared. We still have the upper hand considering the most hate they'd probably feel like bringing is 5-6 where we bring that much anti-hate. Dedicating that many slots to one deck isn't a good deckbuilding choice on their part considering that they have even more decks to worry about.
my mainboard is a normal dredge, with 4 Grisly Salvage
not the best card, for sure. but is a dredge4-5 instant speed. and you can get e land, or a neonate.
and is too important in game2-3
I have to agree with you on that one. This sideboard is indeed spicy. Are you running some sort of Unburial Rites package? I would really hope you're not just straight-up hardcasting 'em.
I guess the idea here is to bin creatures with keywords, then cast Flayer, exiling these cards to have Flayer become a Swiss-multitool. Kinda sweet tech, but throwing 12 cards into the deck has to take it's toll on consistency. Some number of Unburial Rites would be fine, as well as changing a manabase a bit to be able to hit BB reliably.
Hey Dinosorus - nice report, and well played getting as far as you did. I have to say, your match report follows quite closely what I'd expect. If the match-ups line up well, and assuming you don't get the 5% awful dredge, you'll win without too much fuss. The decks that are hard to beat then lean on getting the 5% mental "i cant loose" dredge, which can happen.
Just a quick question, and it may be something that you've already addressed - if so, apologies! Tome Scour.. I tested the card, and definitely just had a bad manabase for it, so moved away from it (I wasn't a fan of the 8 pain lands). However, I feel like shriekhorn achieves something very similar (4 random cards before T2 draw step, 6 cards total - in comparison to 5 cards all the time). Shriekhorn is clearly easier on the manabase, and allows you to run fetchlands that combo with bloodghast a tiny bit (they can also turn a T2 Loam into a passable play). Can you make a case for Tome Scour being worth the manabase trouble? I know you didn't dislike the manabase all day, but my personal experience really put me off it (a T1 gemstone mine isn't always the best, since you need mana past T3, and triple-pain lands is just awful). Are the cases where it just looks awesome compared to shriekhorn (which I think does a very similar job on T1)!??
dinausorus and I generally regard fetching on your opponent's turn to be highly overrated. As you may recall, I played a Stitchwing Skaab in GP Charlotte for the same reason which was the first cut afterwards as I found myself destroying Anger decks the entire tournament just by not over-extending. The decks that can run tons of big slow sweepers are the decks where you don't need 14 power to clock them.
As for the pain of the mana base, this is something that comes up all the time, and it basically comes down to playstyle. We are playing the deck as aggressively as you can imagine. We advocate extremely aggressive mulliganning specifically to maximize the probability of playing extremely fast, short games, where the pain you take from your mana base, regardless of what it is, just doesn't matter. If you want to play builds with 21 lands and 12 or fewer enablers, then of course 8 painful lands will be an issue because that version of the deck is playing towards much longer games. It's just our opinion that that choice is inferior to being 100% linear and explosive.
Taking for granted our opinion on how Dredge should be played, there are two points I want to make about Tome Scour versus Shriekhorn. First, the relevant comparison (from our perspective) is the probability of having a dredger in the top 5 versus the top 4 - not the top 6. Tome Scour is there to turn your next draw step into a Dredge. You usually do not have time to wait an extra turn to reap the benefit of the extra card Shriekhorn gives you. Second, Shriekhorn has small downsides that you are overlooking. Shriekhorn doesn't give you the cards all at once, which will sometimes make you lose an Amalgam trigger, and Shriekhorn turns on opposing Decays and K-Commands. If you insist on the Jund manabase, I would consider Memory Sluice instead of Shriekhorn.
I realize that typically, such differences seem small, but when it comes to Dredge (or at least dinausorus's and my version), little edges that affect consistency just flat out matter more than tactical flexibility. The deck just can't play a game of normal Magic. You have to start Dredging and going off before think about whether you can flash in Bloodghast at the right time.
dinausorus and I generally regard fetching on your opponent's turn to be highly overrated. As you may recall, I played a Stitchwing Skaab in GP Charlotte for the same reason which was the first cut afterwards as I found myself destroying Anger decks the entire tournament just by not over-extending. The decks that can run tons of big slow sweepers are the decks where you don't need 14 power to clock them.
As for the pain of the mana base, this is something that comes up all the time, and it basically comes down to playstyle. We are playing the deck as aggressively as you can imagine. We advocate extremely aggressive mulliganning specifically to maximize the probability of playing extremely fast, short games, where the pain you take from your mana base, regardless of what it is, just doesn't matter. If you want to play builds with 21 lands and 12 or fewer enablers, then of course 8 painful lands will be an issue because that version of the deck is playing towards much longer games. It's just our opinion that that choice is inferior to being 100% linear and explosive.
Taking for granted our opinion on how Dredge should be played, there are two points I want to make about Tome Scour versus Shriekhorn. First, the relevant comparison (from our perspective) is the probability of having a dredger in the top 5 versus the top 4 - not the top 6. Tome Scour is there to turn your next draw step into a Dredge. You usually do not have time to wait an extra turn to reap the benefit of the extra card Shriekhorn gives you. Second, Shriekhorn has small downsides that you are overlooking. Shriekhorn doesn't give you the cards all at once, which will sometimes make you lose an Amalgam trigger, and Shriekhorn turns on opposing Decays and K-Commands. If you insist on the Jund manabase, I would consider Memory Sluice instead of Shriekhorn.
I realize that typically, such differences seem small, but when it comes to Dredge (or at least dinausorus's and my version), little edges that affect consistency just flat out matter more than tactical flexibility. The deck just can't play a game of normal Magic. You have to start Dredging and going off before think about whether you can flash in Bloodghast at the right time.
The issue I find with a hyperlinear build of Dredge is the lack of versatility. Your enablers not only allow you to dredge, but also allow you to dig for cards that can shut your opponent's countermeasures off. With the number of enablers we run, dredging shouldn't be an issue. Turn 1 Loot into Turn 2 dredge enable dredge is pretty much the point of the deck. Post board, I want to see either the cards that I sided in or cards that can get to those cards.
That being said, I don't think we can possibly dredge better than we've been unless Wizards throws us a 1-mana Tormenting Voice. So the rest of the build should be focused on killing our opponent with our creatures. When you're done with turn 2, you don't want to see anything other than dredgers in the grave and payoff creatures. This is where the Conflagrate/Loam engine kicks in. We dredge 3 per turn while stockpiling our hand.
Imagine this scenario: turn 1:land, Faithless Looting/Neonate, hand count at 5. Turn 2: dredge, land, Cathartic Reunion, hand count 5. Turn 3: dredge Loam, cast Loam, play land, hand count 7. See where I'm going? The lands in hand go towards that turn 4-5 Conflagrate for 10-13 while you're applying pressure with creatures. If you don't see enough gas in the first 20-30 cards binned, then you just keep dredging and flashing Loot.
The gameplan is already established, so all we're really waiting for is: a) what is the most ideal manabase outside of personal preference? b) better versions of cards that exist and c) better anti-hate. Maintaining flex spots also allows us to modify the MB to fit meta-dependent challenges. Maybe we can run a few stats?
I've been really thinking it over. I think the pain mana base is still too painful, for really little payoff. I'm still sold on adding a few 1 cmc enablers in there, and dropping cathartic to a 2-3 of (probably needs more testing) since catharic should be the last thing you use. Its a end game dredge.
I actually like memory sliuce. I feel like its ok to add 1 -2 of those (or shriekhorn) to round out mana curves.
The issue I find with a hyperlinear build of Dredge is the lack of versatility. Your enablers not only allow you to dredge, but also allow you to dig for cards that can shut your opponent's countermeasures off. With the number of enablers we run, dredging shouldn't be an issue. Turn 1 Loot into Turn 2 dredge enable dredge is pretty much the point of the deck. Post board, I want to see either the cards that I sided in or cards that can get to those cards.
That being said, I don't think we can possibly dredge better than we've been unless Wizards throws us a 1-mana Tormenting Voice. So the rest of the build should be focused on killing our opponent with our creatures. When you're done with turn 2, you don't want to see anything other than dredgers in the grave and payoff creatures. This is where the Conflagrate/Loam engine kicks in. We dredge 3 per turn while stockpiling our hand.
Imagine this scenario: turn 1:land, Faithless Looting/Neonate, hand count at 5. Turn 2: dredge, land, Cathartic Reunion, hand count 5. Turn 3: dredge Loam, cast Loam, play land, hand count 7. See where I'm going? The lands in hand go towards that turn 4-5 Conflagrate for 10-13 while you're applying pressure with creatures. If you don't see enough gas in the first 20-30 cards binned, then you just keep dredging and flashing Loot.
The gameplan is already established, so all we're really waiting for is: a) what is the most ideal manabase outside of personal preference? b) better versions of cards that exist and c) better anti-hate. Maintaining flex spots also allows us to modify the MB to fit meta-dependent challenges. Maybe we can run a few stats?
Everyone, including me, is going to be playing Reunion soon, so I think having enablers that also find hate cards is not really a concern anymore. I agree that when our flex enabler slots were Inquiry + Tome Scour that this could be an issue, but overall, we felt that having the quicker enablers gave us more percentage points from being more proactive and getting underneath the hate than the percentage points we lost from not being able to find anti-hate cards as efficiently. Our philosophy was that being more fearless was a better strategy.
I think I want to emphasize this a bit more: combo decks in all formats suffer if you over-sideboard or fear the hate too much. It is important to accept the fact that sometimes you will keep hands that have no anti-hate, but are otherwise the nut draw, and then just lose to turn 1 Cage or something - this is just how it is playing a combo deck. Or to put it another way, which may be completely obvious: you have to throw away opening hands that can fight against hate if the hand otherwise wouldn't be able to stomp an opponent who simply didn't draw their hate card.
Anyway, the relevant question right now, as you allude to in the end of your post, is tuning numbers. We actually did write code simulating opening hands to arrive at our final numbers, and that's actually how we came to the conclusion that having 14-15 enablers was better than having more land (contrary to others). This probably will not change drastically with Cathartic Reunion, but I haven't yet written the new code to perform simulations with the new card. It's possible we want another dredger for Cathartic Reunion. We didn't do any statistical analyses of the "metagame" as such since that's really hard to pin down in Modern, especially in large tournaments.
Hey iostream - thanks for the replay.
It's interesting that you pointed out the "miss amalgam trigger" thing, because I just came across it testing on MODO. It is really annoying to get a 1/1 flyer on their T1 and a binned amalgam on T2 upkeep that you cant get back. 100% overlooked this point, so that makes a lot of sense.
The main thing that comes to light is the "do you want ot play 16-17 lands or 20-21". My playstyle does lean towards flexibility and turn 3-4 games, rather than going all in. It is preference, and you're certainly not incorrect to run the list you do. Your results are very impressive between the 2 of you. It's just not my preference!
Thanks for your insight, its really useful. Makes me see where I have gone wrong with my tome scour list before
Glad I could help! I think the playstyle comments may actually become somewhat less relevant after Kaladesh. Reunion will likely lead to the two types of decklists converging, since now I have to run enough land to cast 2cmc spells on turn 2 just like everyone else has been
That being said, I'm still high on Tome Scour, and I'll be testing various combinations.
Everyone, including me, is going to be playing Reunion soon, so I think having enablers that also find hate cards is not really a concern anymore. I agree that when our flex enabler slots were Inquiry + Tome Scour that this could be an issue, but overall, we felt that having the quicker enablers gave us more percentage points from being more proactive and getting underneath the hate than the percentage points we lost from not being able to find anti-hate cards as efficiently. Our philosophy was that being more fearless was a better strategy.
I think I want to emphasize this a bit more: combo decks in all formats suffer if you over-sideboard or fear the hate too much. It is important to accept the fact that sometimes you will keep hands that have no anti-hate, but are otherwise the nut draw, and then just lose to turn 1 Cage or something - this is just how it is playing a combo deck. Or to put it another way, which may be completely obvious: you have to throw away opening hands that can fight against hate if the hand otherwise wouldn't be able to stomp an opponent who simply didn't draw their hate card.
Anyway, the relevant question right now, as you allude to in the end of your post, is tuning numbers. We actually did write code simulating opening hands to arrive at our final numbers, and that's actually how we came to the conclusion that having 14-15 enablers was better than having more land (contrary to others). This probably will not change drastically with Cathartic Reunion, but I haven't yet written the new code to perform simulations with the new card. It's possible we want another dredger for Cathartic Reunion. We didn't do any statistical analyses of the "metagame" as such since that's really hard to pin down in Modern, especially in large tournaments.
The thing is is that we really aren't a combo deck. The Gargodon/Bridge was a combo deck. This deck is using insane card draw (in the form of dredge) to play creatures for insane value. Sideboarding isn't really an issue considering we are a graveyard-based deck. If there's a card that wants to be in the grave, then we really aren't watering down our strategy.
On introducing more dredgers, I disagree. Currently, we hold 13 with Darkblasts adding to 14-15. The best dredger we have to add is Golgari Thug, which would be extremely useful to Gargodon builds due to its ability, but to Loam/Conflag, it's only a dredger. I emphasize versatility because every card in the deck has a use other than it's obvious one. GGT can be a finisher by itself and goes around Cage. Stinkweed Imp is basically a removal spell for creature-based strategies. Loam fills our hand for Conflagrate, allows us to hit lands on time, and can be used as a discard outlet(Loam to >7 hand size to discard on cleanup). Dakmor Salvage is a land that doesn't need Loam to come back, which is useful when we want to keep 1 landers.
Sorry if I seem to be argumentative. I want the deck to be the best it can be and by defending our builds and our choices, I feel like we can move away from 'Oh, it's just my playstyle' to evidence-based solutions to problems the deck can possibly face. I really love how everyone here is playing with the deck and getting inventive and this primer is the best way for everyone to share their findings. Good job, Swarm!
Hey all,p laying a little dredge to take a break from infect, loving the deck but having a hard time against bogles. I have 2 ray of revelation and a few thoughtseize, but day break coronet is a beasr unanswered, and once i start dredging, ray is the only card i have access to. Any advice for a bad matchup? Racing seems like my only option.
I am casually looking at Dredge because I have most of the land base and the rest of the cards are cheap and I have a very dumb question.
Do you ever actually cast Golgari Grave-Troll? 5 mana seems like a lot for a deck that wants to be swinging for lethal on turn 4 or 5 assuming that half your manabase is in the graveyard at this point. It is mainly just for Dredging right? And then in a long game you can Loam back lands to cast it if need be?
We play Grave Troll for the dredge 6. That said, if a game runs long enough to hit 5 lands, he's a great way to close out the game. I've hard cast him several times, usually against Jund/Junk. He's especially great if you're facing down a cage that you can't get rid of, because you can still dredge and cast him as an 11/11 regenerator for 5, and even if they terminate him, you can bring him back next turn.
But in general, he's a dredger almost 90% of the time.
As for Boggles, Vengeful Pharaoh is great, as is Engineered Explosives.
On the Tome Scour point, I guess I just don't see the cost/benefit in favor of one extra one mana enabler that you need to draw vs having to use painlands. Itd be one thing if Tome Scour had flashback. As it is, I think if we really want another 1 mana enabler, Shriekhorn or Memory Sluice provide almost the same effect as Tome Scour, but are in our colors. Sure, I'd rather get one more card in there before my draw step, but I really don't think it's worth the pain, especially with the prevalence of ultra-fast aggro.
If you're thinking of running Git Probe, try Street Wraith instead, same exact effect but street wraith boosts your golgari grave trolls and gnaw to the bone.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Standard: BG Rock
Modern: RW Sun & Moon RBG Dredge RWG Burn
Legacy: W Death & Taxes
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Doesn't apply. Scrounger can't block nor does it have haste.
I've seen Gnaw run MB before. Seems great vs burn and Zoo, but it's inclusion is probably meta-dependent. What decks do you encounter the most? I feel like its inclusion hits win-more territory, but I could be wrong.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
Haunted Dead comes tapped, but not the token. returning untapped is irrelevant for scrounger since it can't block.
I've found a lot of times when I keep a 1-enabler hand I find I take T2 off. I think we should run either more Haunted Dead (I do not like the card, I am running zero) or a few Scrapheap Scroungers which I think has the potential to be good. However, if Dredge begins to turn more towards the 5c manabase with more enablers this isn't an issue, however I am then unsure of what enabler package to play. Obviously 4 Looting, but I haven't come to a conclusion on how many Tome Scour, Cathartic Reunion, and Neonates to play, and there just isn't room for 4 of each. Basically my questions are:
- Rainbow land or Shock manabase
-If rainbow manabase which enablers to play, if shocks/fetches which T2 plays to run between Scrounger and Haunted Dead.
In the board I've been disappointed with EE and Collective Brutality. Right now I have:
4x Lightning Axe
3x Thoughtseize
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Nature's Claim
2x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Darkblast
1x Vengeful Pharoah
Lightning Axe has been the real MVP and Gnaw has been great. Nature's Claim and Grudge have done their job but I wasn't super impressed, in addition to Thoughtseize, which is in there because I feel we need some way to interact outside of the battlefield against combo decks, control, and Tron and to preemptively nab things like RiP and Anger. Vengeful Pharoah hasn't come in too much but it has rocked the Eldrazi matchup. I was running 3 Darkblasts in the 75 just for Infect but I found that was too many, and post board we actually just have enough removal since it is so easy to find the Blasts.
Also as far as enablers 4 looting and 4 neonate is the golden rule, then 2-4 for voice/reunion. I do a 2/3 split between Brutality and Voice for my 2 drops but the brutality is super relevant for my LGS meta
It's like arunning joke that there is no Affinity,here in Vermont, maybe one or two players occassionally. I haven't been impressed with Brutality. Can you explain how it's been good for you?
I believe the current convention for mana base is fetch/shock. The reason being is that our Amalgams can dodge Anger if we fetch on our opponent's 2nd main, returning our Bloodghasts. Same timing can be applied to Scrapheap Scrounger.
If you plan to go the fetch route, I often find myself either casting Loam to establish my hand count for Conflagrate, Cathartic Reunion (of which I run 3), Insolent Neonate (of which I run 3), or activating Scrounger. Loaming on turn 2 is often smart since some people run random land destruction and losing green from your mana base can hurt. Cathartic Reunion is even smarter since you can basically dredge half your library. The only problem is that, post board, there are instants that screw that up for us (Rakdos Charm, Surgical Extraction), so I often hold onto it until I can find hand disruption. Otherwise, just cast it. Returning a creature turn 2 or even Conflagrating aren't bad plays to make depending on the situation.
The problem I now have with the rainbow base is with activating Scrounger, you're paying 2 life every time you activate it, which can suck especially against the hyperaggressive meta we're in.
With regards to sideboard, I think that the ideal anti-hate package is 3 Claim and 3 Abrupt Decay. Decay hits everything we hate except Leyline, but also isn't a dead card like Claim is if the hate never shows.
I have to agree with you on that one. This sideboard is indeed spicy. Are you running some sort of Unburial Rites package? I would really hope you're not just straight-up hardcasting 'em.
2 Bojuka Bog
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Nature's Claim
2 Raven's Crime
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Duress
It's very finely tuned to the meta I've been encountering. Duress should probably be Thoughtsieze, but I feel like the only thing we care about in hand are non-land, non-creatures. Here's my list if you want to read my card choices.
People brought the hate when the deck popped up. The amount of hate isn't anything we haven't seen before, so don't let it get you down. People have adapted to it and probably feel like they're already prepared. We still have the upper hand considering the most hate they'd probably feel like bringing is 5-6 where we bring that much anti-hate. Dedicating that many slots to one deck isn't a good deckbuilding choice on their part considering that they have even more decks to worry about.
I guess the idea here is to bin creatures with keywords, then cast Flayer, exiling these cards to have Flayer become a Swiss-multitool. Kinda sweet tech, but throwing 12 cards into the deck has to take it's toll on consistency. Some number of Unburial Rites would be fine, as well as changing a manabase a bit to be able to hit BB reliably.
MTGO: UberMower
As for the pain of the mana base, this is something that comes up all the time, and it basically comes down to playstyle. We are playing the deck as aggressively as you can imagine. We advocate extremely aggressive mulliganning specifically to maximize the probability of playing extremely fast, short games, where the pain you take from your mana base, regardless of what it is, just doesn't matter. If you want to play builds with 21 lands and 12 or fewer enablers, then of course 8 painful lands will be an issue because that version of the deck is playing towards much longer games. It's just our opinion that that choice is inferior to being 100% linear and explosive.
Taking for granted our opinion on how Dredge should be played, there are two points I want to make about Tome Scour versus Shriekhorn. First, the relevant comparison (from our perspective) is the probability of having a dredger in the top 5 versus the top 4 - not the top 6. Tome Scour is there to turn your next draw step into a Dredge. You usually do not have time to wait an extra turn to reap the benefit of the extra card Shriekhorn gives you. Second, Shriekhorn has small downsides that you are overlooking. Shriekhorn doesn't give you the cards all at once, which will sometimes make you lose an Amalgam trigger, and Shriekhorn turns on opposing Decays and K-Commands. If you insist on the Jund manabase, I would consider Memory Sluice instead of Shriekhorn.
I realize that typically, such differences seem small, but when it comes to Dredge (or at least dinausorus's and my version), little edges that affect consistency just flat out matter more than tactical flexibility. The deck just can't play a game of normal Magic. You have to start Dredging and going off before think about whether you can flash in Bloodghast at the right time.
The issue I find with a hyperlinear build of Dredge is the lack of versatility. Your enablers not only allow you to dredge, but also allow you to dig for cards that can shut your opponent's countermeasures off. With the number of enablers we run, dredging shouldn't be an issue. Turn 1 Loot into Turn 2 dredge enable dredge is pretty much the point of the deck. Post board, I want to see either the cards that I sided in or cards that can get to those cards.
That being said, I don't think we can possibly dredge better than we've been unless Wizards throws us a 1-mana Tormenting Voice. So the rest of the build should be focused on killing our opponent with our creatures. When you're done with turn 2, you don't want to see anything other than dredgers in the grave and payoff creatures. This is where the Conflagrate/Loam engine kicks in. We dredge 3 per turn while stockpiling our hand.
Imagine this scenario: turn 1:land, Faithless Looting/Neonate, hand count at 5. Turn 2: dredge, land, Cathartic Reunion, hand count 5. Turn 3: dredge Loam, cast Loam, play land, hand count 7. See where I'm going? The lands in hand go towards that turn 4-5 Conflagrate for 10-13 while you're applying pressure with creatures. If you don't see enough gas in the first 20-30 cards binned, then you just keep dredging and flashing Loot.
The gameplan is already established, so all we're really waiting for is: a) what is the most ideal manabase outside of personal preference? b) better versions of cards that exist and c) better anti-hate. Maintaining flex spots also allows us to modify the MB to fit meta-dependent challenges. Maybe we can run a few stats?
I actually like memory sliuce. I feel like its ok to add 1 -2 of those (or shriekhorn) to round out mana curves.
I think I want to emphasize this a bit more: combo decks in all formats suffer if you over-sideboard or fear the hate too much. It is important to accept the fact that sometimes you will keep hands that have no anti-hate, but are otherwise the nut draw, and then just lose to turn 1 Cage or something - this is just how it is playing a combo deck. Or to put it another way, which may be completely obvious: you have to throw away opening hands that can fight against hate if the hand otherwise wouldn't be able to stomp an opponent who simply didn't draw their hate card.
Anyway, the relevant question right now, as you allude to in the end of your post, is tuning numbers. We actually did write code simulating opening hands to arrive at our final numbers, and that's actually how we came to the conclusion that having 14-15 enablers was better than having more land (contrary to others). This probably will not change drastically with Cathartic Reunion, but I haven't yet written the new code to perform simulations with the new card. It's possible we want another dredger for Cathartic Reunion. We didn't do any statistical analyses of the "metagame" as such since that's really hard to pin down in Modern, especially in large tournaments.
Glad I could help! I think the playstyle comments may actually become somewhat less relevant after Kaladesh. Reunion will likely lead to the two types of decklists converging, since now I have to run enough land to cast 2cmc spells on turn 2 just like everyone else has been
That being said, I'm still high on Tome Scour, and I'll be testing various combinations.
The thing is is that we really aren't a combo deck. The Gargodon/Bridge was a combo deck. This deck is using insane card draw (in the form of dredge) to play creatures for insane value. Sideboarding isn't really an issue considering we are a graveyard-based deck. If there's a card that wants to be in the grave, then we really aren't watering down our strategy.
On introducing more dredgers, I disagree. Currently, we hold 13 with Darkblasts adding to 14-15. The best dredger we have to add is Golgari Thug, which would be extremely useful to Gargodon builds due to its ability, but to Loam/Conflag, it's only a dredger. I emphasize versatility because every card in the deck has a use other than it's obvious one. GGT can be a finisher by itself and goes around Cage. Stinkweed Imp is basically a removal spell for creature-based strategies. Loam fills our hand for Conflagrate, allows us to hit lands on time, and can be used as a discard outlet(Loam to >7 hand size to discard on cleanup). Dakmor Salvage is a land that doesn't need Loam to come back, which is useful when we want to keep 1 landers.
Sorry if I seem to be argumentative. I want the deck to be the best it can be and by defending our builds and our choices, I feel like we can move away from 'Oh, it's just my playstyle' to evidence-based solutions to problems the deck can possibly face. I really love how everyone here is playing with the deck and getting inventive and this primer is the best way for everyone to share their findings. Good job, Swarm!
Do you ever actually cast Golgari Grave-Troll? 5 mana seems like a lot for a deck that wants to be swinging for lethal on turn 4 or 5 assuming that half your manabase is in the graveyard at this point. It is mainly just for Dredging right? And then in a long game you can Loam back lands to cast it if need be?
But in general, he's a dredger almost 90% of the time.
As for Boggles, Vengeful Pharaoh is great, as is Engineered Explosives.
On the Tome Scour point, I guess I just don't see the cost/benefit in favor of one extra one mana enabler that you need to draw vs having to use painlands. Itd be one thing if Tome Scour had flashback. As it is, I think if we really want another 1 mana enabler, Shriekhorn or Memory Sluice provide almost the same effect as Tome Scour, but are in our colors. Sure, I'd rather get one more card in there before my draw step, but I really don't think it's worth the pain, especially with the prevalence of ultra-fast aggro.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes