Its one of our classic dredge problems. We have artifact and enchantment removal from the yard, but thats the place that get exiled. So it defeats the purpose.
Realistically, natural state nature's claim and fragmentize are the best hates you can play from the hand, and grudge and ray is the best from the grave. Thoses are still the best cards for us.
This probably wont change until they print one you can pull from exile or grab from the libary/tutor. Basically,,, and its a weird answer. Our best enchantment and artifact counter hate would be ones that dont use the graveyard at all
Adding Haunted Dead back in the main board helps to always have a discard outlet for the dredgers and Ghasts/Amalgams stuck in my hand, so I think the third Conflagrate is a bit more expendable than before. It'll probably be one of the first cards I board out for game two.
seems reasonable. I did think of that too. Could do it. I suppose personal prefernce. I think the only factor is we dif less deep so running more helps still see it often.
I'm 9-0 with dinausorus's deck on mtgo the past 9 matches. To be fair, I went 3-2 and 2-3 in the two leagues before this run, but I learned how to play the deck better and am still edging out some of my harder match-ups (wins include Tron and Ad Nauseam). I only have two game losses in the past 20.
Changes considering-
-2 Insolent Neonate, +2 Shriekhorn: I'm excited about this change, but every time I consider it, I look at those sideboard Gnaw to the Bone. I still think Neonate + Golgari Thug in one card is better than Neonate + a Fog on one creature without trample.
I really like the Ghost Quarters in the side. It feels so good to play sideboard cards that combat other decks again, especially Tron, which can be a difficult match now that our deck is slower.
I know not having Haunted Dead or fetchlands is hurting myself against Anger and Ugin, but my plan is to not let creatures enter the battlefield unless it decreases my clock by a turn. Then I try to assemble five mana, Bloodghasts, Conflagrate, and Rally/Scourge Devil in the graveyard. I prefer Scourge Devil for this purpose because 2 Bloodghasts with haste are lethal with him rather than Rally. Still, Rally is better in the times where I'm limping out without hitting a Prized Amalgam for a while, and finally I get the big payoff on turn 4/5.
The deck is considerably slower than it used to be. I worry about people solving the Infect/Death's Shadow archetypes after Gitaxian Probe, but also I'm excited to play against more midrange after Aether Revolt releases on MTGO.
I really like GQ in the SB as well. Let us know how it goes. Do you still like pharaoh enough even as temur battle rage is seeing less play?
I would personally also play a haunted dead in the board for anger and ugin decks.
Round 2 vs G/R Titan
Game 1 is a narrow loss on my end, being one turn too slow. I felt the lack of dig here in this match, as I just couldnt hit my right cards as I needed them too.
Game 2 I lost again, just being slightly too slow. This time I was a single ghast away from winning, and just couldnt hit it with my dredge. I check 3 cards deeper, and Id have hit it. Thats troll lacks. Sigh.
Seize worked perfectly however, I really like having sieze back in the board now that valakut, tron and eldrazi is everywhere.
0-2/ 0-1
Round 2 vs Affinity
My hand is racy with looam and reunion, and I hit an early narc amalgam. I eventually just overwhelm the board, and he cant keep up blocks, and I can end the game with a 2 point conflag to the face with him at 2 and a spellskite which stopped me early on.
Game 2 He turn 1 relics me. Which I try to over power, and can more or less, but he turn 1/2ed too much business for me to recover from effectively.
Game 3 I get a fast hand again, with a claim. He turn 1's his relic again, and I claim it right away, then get started on the looting. I hit pharo on my first loot, which keeps him back from early aggression with lands and dumb dudes. He gets out a fast champion, which puts us kinda at paridy, least til I can dredge up some business. I end up getting the winning combo by taking my full turn to leave his board nothing but a huge ravanger and champion, with an opal in the back and a darksteel land.
This was a bait. I knew hed eat everything with ravanger, to hit me for a lot (he needs to race before I out ghast him.) letting me activate my pharo, and pass the counters to champion who cant be pharoed. Which he does. Perfect I think, and I destroy his opal, now turning off metal craft, then grudging away the champion.
Gotta love the games we win with a massive board, against affinity with a land.
2-1/ 1-1
Round 3 vs. RDW
He mulled to non existance and didnt show me cards, so I had to SB blind
In 2 thoughtseize, 1 decay, 2 brutality Out: darkblast, 1 mom hug, haunted, 1 narc
Aka, no clue what Im doing.
Ha. Brutality came in handy. He couldnt race me with brutality doing 3 jobs.
2-0/ 2-1
Round 4 vs Mad Temur
Goyfs, Cliques, mad cap combo.
Game 1, I just run him over like normal. He tried to keep up, but blanked on my conflag backup and I won.
In: 2 claim, 2 grudge, out: 1 narc, 1 haunted, 1 darkblast. In retro spect, shoulda done seize too.
Game 2 was far too grindy. I get my amaglams extracted turn 1, then my ghasts turn 2 and I cast 2 stinkweeds to attack over goyfs, that might show up. After that he blood moons (Basic forest for the win.) no more imps, and angers. Sigh. And I go to conflag route... I manage to get him to 3 with conflags... then he extracts conflags. So he is at one, and I think about it. I have 2 narcs left in the deck... Well I go for it. Hit one... hes out of removal.
Christ almighty...
2-0/ 3-1
Round 5 vs Grixis
I Mull to 0 on game 1, then lose after looking at what deck hes playing.
In 2 brutality and 1 decay.
Game 2 I did a game one on him. It was over preeeettyyy quick.
Game 3 I got extracted twice, but he hit my ghast and my amalgam. I still had out haunted dead knocking in 3 a turn, and he took land and extration damage, plus my conflag on zombie fish made him waste too many turns. Rebuilt my conflag then won the game.
2-1/ 4-1
Overall
Bah, I can still feel the loss of troll over these rounds. I assume anyone who was intune with this deck can feel that the games they should reach the needed sideboard card, or conflag, they just fall shy by 2 or 3 cards.
SIGH.
Anyways. I mulled a few times, but found my way back, and never to under 5. Cept that last round, but I was able to win it. Truth is, you have to depend on an aggressive discard hand with the deck now. Other than that, deck felt great. Not degenerate anymore, but great. Discard in the side was extra handy, as my hate cards were for the most part extractions now a days.
Having the me experience as Lantern. Feeling the thug digs being lighter. It's not undoable though. I felt grindier and more susceptible to hate. Matchups tron 2x, nahiri jeskai, burn. Side match after with infect after event ended.
In games where I could power through a relic, it's now hitting me harder. Rip feels the most relevant though. I didn't play against any cages but I'm nervous about them too now.
My build was basically the same as Lantern's as well, with more focus on the tron matchup. (It's popular here) so GQ, was doing a lot of work.
Infect just trounced me unless I drew my brutalities (2-3 five games) very fast games felt the loss of GGT most here... Tron felt more coinflippy determined by relic/their lands as usual (2-1, 1-2). Nahiri I was fast enough 2/3. Rip was fast enough for 1/3. Burn I got lucky as they bricked game one, game two gnaw..(2-0) Losses to tron and infect (3-2)
Things I wanna test: tome scour, something other than nature's claims (lost two games because of the lifegain/being slower), maybe even the old bad bridge/gargadon version. Could be a good way to go wider with more of a burst (though possibly slower being able to sac a bloodghast for 2-3 zombies could make up for it.)
With the full rainbow mana base, you can play both tome scour and fragmentize (wear and tear is also a possible option, although I'm not sure it's better).
I haven't played Magic in a very long time. I think the newest cards I have are from 2004. I'm trying to get back into it and Dredge is the first deck that caught my attention. Been playing around with it for a few days now and I find it very fun to play. I know pretty much nothing about the other decks yet though.
I'm considering buying/putting together a Dredge deck. I saw Grave Troll just got banned, and new cards are being released soon so things might change. Would it be wise to buy now or wait? With money not an issue, what Dredge deck you would guys recommend currently?
Why is tome scour better then shriekhorn? It seems like being able to play the fetchland set up is better overall and shriekhorn hits 4 cards before T2 draw so you're only gaining 1x more in the bin by T2 draw but 1 less overall. Also colorless mana makes it very easy to play overall.
With the full rainbow mana base, you can play both tome scour and fragmentize (wear and tear is also a possible option, although I'm not sure it's better).
Right, if you are in rainbow, which you should be if blue is part of your mill possess. The question is do you play the rainbow base over normal dredge. This question is more relivent then ever now.
Its not a quite straight swap. Decks were usually 20 land, 3 conflag, no haunted dead, no to 1 darkblast. This is 19 lands, 2 conflag, 1 haunted and 2 darkblast.
So they still upped the discard and dredge count. But yes, it seems like we got depowered but not detiered.
Yeah. 2 is the right dakmor count. I went to 3 when I was 19 on lands and 2 loam. It was aweful. I think 19 lands work, but you need 3 loams no matter what then. I still perfer 20 lands.
Im fine with haunted and 1 of darkblast, but haunted is more of emergancy discard clause more than bodies. To me its just good to know I can fall back on it.
As far as the forest. I use it. I have the space, Its good off a loam to conserve life. The big thing is blood moon, path and aggro. Having a way to enable gnaw for no life is pretty big for me. Sometimes 1 life to 3 life makes a huge difference vs burn. Espeically because you want green red and black after board.
Oh. One last thing on haunted. One of the other reasons I liked it was flexability. More options are good, but it just gives us better random matchups. Delver, burn, infect, affinity, zoo, kiln fiend, it just randomly helps outs. Its never mind blowing, but it does a lot of jobs. Jack of all trades master of none kinda deal. I often side it out, but I never hate that it exists
My change from before the ban was to swap Trolls for Thugs, obviously. Furthermore, I removed 1 Ghost Quarter for the second Dakmor Salvage and 2 Collective Brutality, one of which was moved to the board. I added a third Life from the Loam and moved Darkblast from the side to the main. I considered changing Scourge Devil for Haunted Dead, as Lantern has been suggesting, but decided against it for now. Better to isolate one variable at a time when testing, and today I wanted to check if adding back the dredge that was lost because of troll would be enough to keep the deck viable.
Match 1, vs Bant Eldrazi
G1: I manage to get on the board early with a ghast and amalgam, and start pecking in for some damage. He goes Hierarch into Skyspawner into Thought-Knot, but I eventually overwhelm him and use Darkblast to clear a way for a lethal attack. 1-0
Sideboard: Out 1 Conflagrate, 1 Loam, 2 Neonate and 1 Scourge Devil. In 2 Abrupt decay (for RiP), 2 Lightning Axe and 1 Vengeful Pharao.
G2: He clogs the board early with Matter Reshaper and an Eldrazi Displacer, but I keep smashing against them and bringing back amalgams with bloodghasts. He is forced to be defensive, and path only goes so far. I eventually overwhelm him and get around his blockers. No real sideboard showing from either of us. 2-0
Record 1-0
Match 2, vs Bant Eldrazi
G1: It turns out turn 2 Cathartic Reunion with 3 Imps is still pretty good. I overwhelm the board and he is forced to play catch-up, despite being on the play. Scourge Devil pushes through damage, and next turn hasty Bloodghasts finish up. 1-0
Sideboard: Same as match 1
G2: I have turn 2 mom hug again, so the pressure is on him. He digs furiously with Ancient Stirrings and tries to conserve his life total. By the time he finds Rest in Peace, my board is 4 amalgams, 4 ghasts and 3 narcomoebas against his Reality Smasher and matter reshaper. I win next turn.
Record: 2-0
BONUS TEST VS AFFINITY:
G1 is close vs him jugling counters with Ravager. I manage to find Narcomoeba to keep back as a blocker, while Scourge devil keeps the pressure on him. He has to chump my attack and cannot kill me on the back-swing. 1-0
No board
G2 it turns out Conflagrate is good when your opponent is all in on 1 Steel Overseer and 3 Ornithopters. 2-0
Match 3, vs Naya Scapeshift
G1 he keeps a 2-lander hand with Anger of the Gods. I have a strong start and put 13 power into play on turn 2. He does not find land, and the game ends quickly. 1-0
Sideboard: Out 1 darkblast, 1 Conflagrate, 1 Cathartic Reunion. In 2 Collective Brutality, 1 Gnaw to the Bone.
G2 I strip Summoner's pact out of his hand turn 2, seeing Sakura Tribe Elder and a Primeval Titan. He chains one STE chump and sac into another, not finding the land he needs to get out Titan on schedule. I'm able to punish him and unearth Scourge Devil to hit for lethal. 2-0
Final record, 3-0 in matches, 6-0 in games.
The deck still feels really good. It is slower, to be sure, but still a fast deck for the format, and capable of sime busted draws. But it is basically the same deck as before the ban; still a blast to play. You absolutely need to make up for the lost Dredge from troll though. I lost 8 points because of the ban and added 8, so to speak, and I still found myself looking at only 1 or 2 dredge options a lot of the time. As opposed to the troll version, which felt more lenient, this feels like balanicng on a knife's edge, chaining dredgers of the skin of your teeth. But I did not find myself fizzling any more than previously. I did not miss Haunted Dead in the deck. I've played with it before, so I know the virtues of the card, but I did not miss the extra discard today. The engine holds, albeit tighter than before. Scourge devil on the other hand is such an ace. I'll continue to keep Haunted Dead in mind though, in case today was not a representative experience.
Conclusion: Deck is still good and worth playing. I was pessimistic after the ban, but am releived now. Keep the dredge count high, and it still does well. As a bonus, there was definitely less GY hate than before. Every bit helps!
Hi guys, I do not know if it is the right place to talk about this, but I am really intersting to sleeve up the deck (even with the recent ban), but I am a little scared of a futur ban, is it realistic or just me? Thanks !
PS: Awesome primer !
I suspect Grave Troll was sufficient. With the other ban hitting such decks as Infect, I anticipate a little surge in big mana. More land destroy will be in SB hopefully hitting anti-GY hate. Puts us in our place, possibly Tier 2, but not warranting more bans for months. pending future set releases. WotC is on the record as not playtesting modern for standard releases.
Izzet has handed the primer ovee to me. Thats a section ill add since people keep asking, but mostly just clean it up. Unless people want to see other stuff added.
Mkay. I got the OP now, and will be making a new primer. Please shoot me things you want included. I'm keeping a lot of what Izzet has, because its worth keeping.
Also, Made the OP for the tread's date halloween. Seemed fitting.
Realistically, natural state nature's claim and fragmentize are the best hates you can play from the hand, and grudge and ray is the best from the grave. Thoses are still the best cards for us.
This probably wont change until they print one you can pull from exile or grab from the libary/tutor. Basically,,, and its a weird answer. Our best enchantment and artifact counter hate would be ones that dont use the graveyard at all
Modern:
Dredge | Restore Balance | Titanshift
My [360][Unpowered][Modern-Frame] Cube
3 Spirebluff Canal
2 Copperline Gorge
1 Mountain
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
4 City of Brass
22 Creatures
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
2 Insolent Neonate
4 Tome Sccour
4 Faithless Looting
4 Cathartic Reunion
1 Darkblast
3 Life from the Loam
2 Conflagrate
1 Rally the Peasants / Scourge Devil
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Memory's Journey
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Nature's Claim
1 Ingot Chewer
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Lightning Axe
2 Darkblast
Changes considering-
-2 Insolent Neonate, +2 Shriekhorn: I'm excited about this change, but every time I consider it, I look at those sideboard Gnaw to the Bone. I still think Neonate + Golgari Thug in one card is better than Neonate + a Fog on one creature without trample.
I really like the Ghost Quarters in the side. It feels so good to play sideboard cards that combat other decks again, especially Tron, which can be a difficult match now that our deck is slower.
I know not having Haunted Dead or fetchlands is hurting myself against Anger and Ugin, but my plan is to not let creatures enter the battlefield unless it decreases my clock by a turn. Then I try to assemble five mana, Bloodghasts, Conflagrate, and Rally/Scourge Devil in the graveyard. I prefer Scourge Devil for this purpose because 2 Bloodghasts with haste are lethal with him rather than Rally. Still, Rally is better in the times where I'm limping out without hitting a Prized Amalgam for a while, and finally I get the big payoff on turn 4/5.
The deck is considerably slower than it used to be. I worry about people solving the Infect/Death's Shadow archetypes after Gitaxian Probe, but also I'm excited to play against more midrange after Aether Revolt releases on MTGO.
I would personally also play a haunted dead in the board for anger and ugin decks.
Game 1 is a narrow loss on my end, being one turn too slow. I felt the lack of dig here in this match, as I just couldnt hit my right cards as I needed them too.
Sided in: 2 Brutality, 2 Seize, 1 gnaw
Sided out: 1 darkblast, 1 haunted, 1 narc, 1 mom hug.
Chumps dont do anything here.
Game 2 I lost again, just being slightly too slow. This time I was a single ghast away from winning, and just couldnt hit it with my dredge. I check 3 cards deeper, and Id have hit it. Thats troll lacks. Sigh.
Seize worked perfectly however, I really like having sieze back in the board now that valakut, tron and eldrazi is everywhere.
0-2/ 0-1
Round 2 vs Affinity
My hand is racy with looam and reunion, and I hit an early narc amalgam. I eventually just overwhelm the board, and he cant keep up blocks, and I can end the game with a 2 point conflag to the face with him at 2 and a spellskite which stopped me early on.
In: 1 decay, 1 pharaoh, 2 claim, 2 grudge
out: 1 ghast, 1 loam, 1 reunion, 1 neonate.
Game 2 He turn 1 relics me. Which I try to over power, and can more or less, but he turn 1/2ed too much business for me to recover from effectively.
Game 3 I get a fast hand again, with a claim. He turn 1's his relic again, and I claim it right away, then get started on the looting. I hit pharo on my first loot, which keeps him back from early aggression with lands and dumb dudes. He gets out a fast champion, which puts us kinda at paridy, least til I can dredge up some business. I end up getting the winning combo by taking my full turn to leave his board nothing but a huge ravanger and champion, with an opal in the back and a darksteel land.
This was a bait. I knew hed eat everything with ravanger, to hit me for a lot (he needs to race before I out ghast him.) letting me activate my pharo, and pass the counters to champion who cant be pharoed. Which he does. Perfect I think, and I destroy his opal, now turning off metal craft, then grudging away the champion.
Gotta love the games we win with a massive board, against affinity with a land.
2-1/ 1-1
Round 3 vs. RDW
He mulled to non existance and didnt show me cards, so I had to SB blind
In 2 thoughtseize, 1 decay, 2 brutality Out: darkblast, 1 mom hug, haunted, 1 narc
Aka, no clue what Im doing.
Ha. Brutality came in handy. He couldnt race me with brutality doing 3 jobs.
2-0/ 2-1
Round 4 vs Mad Temur
Goyfs, Cliques, mad cap combo.
Game 1, I just run him over like normal. He tried to keep up, but blanked on my conflag backup and I won.
In: 2 claim, 2 grudge, out: 1 narc, 1 haunted, 1 darkblast. In retro spect, shoulda done seize too.
Game 2 was far too grindy. I get my amaglams extracted turn 1, then my ghasts turn 2 and I cast 2 stinkweeds to attack over goyfs, that might show up. After that he blood moons (Basic forest for the win.) no more imps, and angers. Sigh. And I go to conflag route... I manage to get him to 3 with conflags... then he extracts conflags. So he is at one, and I think about it. I have 2 narcs left in the deck... Well I go for it. Hit one... hes out of removal.
Christ almighty...
2-0/ 3-1
Round 5 vs Grixis
I Mull to 0 on game 1, then lose after looking at what deck hes playing.
In 2 brutality and 1 decay.
Game 2 I did a game one on him. It was over preeeettyyy quick.
Game 3 I got extracted twice, but he hit my ghast and my amalgam. I still had out haunted dead knocking in 3 a turn, and he took land and extration damage, plus my conflag on zombie fish made him waste too many turns. Rebuilt my conflag then won the game.
2-1/ 4-1
Overall
Bah, I can still feel the loss of troll over these rounds. I assume anyone who was intune with this deck can feel that the games they should reach the needed sideboard card, or conflag, they just fall shy by 2 or 3 cards.
SIGH.
Anyways. I mulled a few times, but found my way back, and never to under 5. Cept that last round, but I was able to win it. Truth is, you have to depend on an aggressive discard hand with the deck now. Other than that, deck felt great. Not degenerate anymore, but great. Discard in the side was extra handy, as my hate cards were for the most part extractions now a days.
In games where I could power through a relic, it's now hitting me harder. Rip feels the most relevant though. I didn't play against any cages but I'm nervous about them too now.
My build was basically the same as Lantern's as well, with more focus on the tron matchup. (It's popular here) so GQ, was doing a lot of work.
Infect just trounced me unless I drew my brutalities (2-3 five games) very fast games felt the loss of GGT most here... Tron felt more coinflippy determined by relic/their lands as usual (2-1, 1-2). Nahiri I was fast enough 2/3. Rip was fast enough for 1/3. Burn I got lucky as they bricked game one, game two gnaw..(2-0) Losses to tron and infect (3-2)
Things I wanna test: tome scour, something other than nature's claims (lost two games because of the lifegain/being slower), maybe even the old bad bridge/gargadon version. Could be a good way to go wider with more of a burst (though possibly slower being able to sac a bloodghast for 2-3 zombies could make up for it.)
I haven't played Magic in a very long time. I think the newest cards I have are from 2004. I'm trying to get back into it and Dredge is the first deck that caught my attention. Been playing around with it for a few days now and I find it very fun to play. I know pretty much nothing about the other decks yet though.
I'm considering buying/putting together a Dredge deck. I saw Grave Troll just got banned, and new cards are being released soon so things might change. Would it be wise to buy now or wait? With money not an issue, what Dredge deck you would guys recommend currently?
GRWNaya BurnGRW
GRWJundGRW
CAffinityC
UGUG EldraziUG
GRWBushwhacker ZooGRW
UBWRAd NauseamUBWR
Legacy
RBurnR
UBSneak & ShowUB
CEldrazi AggroC
Right, if you are in rainbow, which you should be if blue is part of your mill possess. The question is do you play the rainbow base over normal dredge. This question is more relivent then ever now.
Regardless Id play frag if I was rainbow.
I mean it depends on what your trying to do. You really only need fetches that get red, unless your a weirdo like me who gets a forest.
So they still upped the discard and dredge count. But yes, it seems like we got depowered but not detiered.
Im fine with haunted and 1 of darkblast, but haunted is more of emergancy discard clause more than bodies. To me its just good to know I can fall back on it.
As far as the forest. I use it. I have the space, Its good off a loam to conserve life. The big thing is blood moon, path and aggro. Having a way to enable gnaw for no life is pretty big for me. Sometimes 1 life to 3 life makes a huge difference vs burn. Espeically because you want green red and black after board.
Oh. One last thing on haunted. One of the other reasons I liked it was flexability. More options are good, but it just gives us better random matchups. Delver, burn, infect, affinity, zoo, kiln fiend, it just randomly helps outs. Its never mind blowing, but it does a lot of jobs. Jack of all trades master of none kinda deal. I often side it out, but I never hate that it exists
3x Wooded Foothills
3x Bloodstained Mire
1x Verdant Castacomb
2x Stomping Ground
1x Blood Crypt
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Steam Vents
2x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Copperline Gorge
2x Dakmor Salvage
1x Mountain
1x Forest
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug
4x Insolent Neonate
4x Narcomoeba
4x Bloodghast
4x Prized Amalgam
1x Scourge Devil
15 Noncreature spells:
4x Faithless Looting
4x Cathartic Reunion
3x Life from the Loam
3x Conflagrate
1x Darkblast
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Gnaw to the Bone
2x Lightning Axe
2x Collective Brutality
2x Nature's Claim
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Vengeful Pharaoh
1x Bojuka Bog
My change from before the ban was to swap Trolls for Thugs, obviously. Furthermore, I removed 1 Ghost Quarter for the second Dakmor Salvage and 2 Collective Brutality, one of which was moved to the board. I added a third Life from the Loam and moved Darkblast from the side to the main. I considered changing Scourge Devil for Haunted Dead, as Lantern has been suggesting, but decided against it for now. Better to isolate one variable at a time when testing, and today I wanted to check if adding back the dredge that was lost because of troll would be enough to keep the deck viable.
Match 1, vs Bant Eldrazi
G1: I manage to get on the board early with a ghast and amalgam, and start pecking in for some damage. He goes Hierarch into Skyspawner into Thought-Knot, but I eventually overwhelm him and use Darkblast to clear a way for a lethal attack. 1-0
Sideboard: Out 1 Conflagrate, 1 Loam, 2 Neonate and 1 Scourge Devil. In 2 Abrupt decay (for RiP), 2 Lightning Axe and 1 Vengeful Pharao.
G2: He clogs the board early with Matter Reshaper and an Eldrazi Displacer, but I keep smashing against them and bringing back amalgams with bloodghasts. He is forced to be defensive, and path only goes so far. I eventually overwhelm him and get around his blockers. No real sideboard showing from either of us. 2-0
Record 1-0
Match 2, vs Bant Eldrazi
G1: It turns out turn 2 Cathartic Reunion with 3 Imps is still pretty good. I overwhelm the board and he is forced to play catch-up, despite being on the play. Scourge Devil pushes through damage, and next turn hasty Bloodghasts finish up. 1-0
Sideboard: Same as match 1
G2: I have turn 2 mom hug again, so the pressure is on him. He digs furiously with Ancient Stirrings and tries to conserve his life total. By the time he finds Rest in Peace, my board is 4 amalgams, 4 ghasts and 3 narcomoebas against his Reality Smasher and matter reshaper. I win next turn.
Record: 2-0
BONUS TEST VS AFFINITY:
G1 is close vs him jugling counters with Ravager. I manage to find Narcomoeba to keep back as a blocker, while Scourge devil keeps the pressure on him. He has to chump my attack and cannot kill me on the back-swing. 1-0
No board
G2 it turns out Conflagrate is good when your opponent is all in on 1 Steel Overseer and 3 Ornithopters. 2-0
Match 3, vs Naya Scapeshift
G1 he keeps a 2-lander hand with Anger of the Gods. I have a strong start and put 13 power into play on turn 2. He does not find land, and the game ends quickly. 1-0
Sideboard: Out 1 darkblast, 1 Conflagrate, 1 Cathartic Reunion. In 2 Collective Brutality, 1 Gnaw to the Bone.
G2 I strip Summoner's pact out of his hand turn 2, seeing Sakura Tribe Elder and a Primeval Titan. He chains one STE chump and sac into another, not finding the land he needs to get out Titan on schedule. I'm able to punish him and unearth Scourge Devil to hit for lethal. 2-0
Final record, 3-0 in matches, 6-0 in games.
The deck still feels really good. It is slower, to be sure, but still a fast deck for the format, and capable of sime busted draws. But it is basically the same deck as before the ban; still a blast to play. You absolutely need to make up for the lost Dredge from troll though. I lost 8 points because of the ban and added 8, so to speak, and I still found myself looking at only 1 or 2 dredge options a lot of the time. As opposed to the troll version, which felt more lenient, this feels like balanicng on a knife's edge, chaining dredgers of the skin of your teeth. But I did not find myself fizzling any more than previously. I did not miss Haunted Dead in the deck. I've played with it before, so I know the virtues of the card, but I did not miss the extra discard today. The engine holds, albeit tighter than before. Scourge devil on the other hand is such an ace. I'll continue to keep Haunted Dead in mind though, in case today was not a representative experience.
Conclusion: Deck is still good and worth playing. I was pessimistic after the ban, but am releived now. Keep the dredge count high, and it still does well. As a bonus, there was definitely less GY hate than before. Every bit helps!
I suspect Grave Troll was sufficient. With the other ban hitting such decks as Infect, I anticipate a little surge in big mana. More land destroy will be in SB hopefully hitting anti-GY hate. Puts us in our place, possibly Tier 2, but not warranting more bans for months. pending future set releases. WotC is on the record as not playtesting modern for standard releases.
Plus they have more issues in Legacy to solve.
Modern
URB Grixis Delver
GWB Abzan Company
RWB Mardu Burn
WB Martyr Proc
Also, Made the OP for the tread's date halloween. Seemed fitting.