Ran dredge for the first time tonight, and even though I didn't do that well (2-2) I had a lot of fun playing it.
Round 3 my opponent was playing mill. I fetched, cast Faithless Looting, and he double Archive Trap'd me in response. I don't think I've ever laughed directly at an opponent's face game 1 turn 1 before. I proceeded to put the top twenty six cards of my library into the yard, and my opponent's reaction was certainly a Bluthian "I've made a huge mistake."
Most of my losses were probably due to often losing 6 life a game to the fetch/shock base. Occasionally it was relevant to fetch to get a Ghast back, but now I can't help but wonder if a rainbow base with more fast lands and then a set of Gemstone Mine and set of Confluence would have helped.
I also had a few cases where Loaming for a Gemstone Mine would have been leagues better than just having fetches and shocks in the yard.
Has anyone run a single Reflecting Pool in the main as well? Doesn't seem like a terrible option.
I also ran Dredge for the first time (since the beginning of Dredge, but my list had Vengevine). 33 person FNM for 5 rounds. I tested it the past 2 weeks with Mom Hug because I heard a lot of ban talk about the deck. I wanted to see what the fuss was since I never have problems with the deck with Bogles or Titanshift.
Round 1 vs. Jeskai Nahiri. Pretty easy 2-0. He killed some creatures with burn and Path to Exile, but there's too many. 2-0.
Round 2 vs. GR Tron. I win pretty easily through some Wurmcoil Engines and O Stones. Conflagrate is great! I dodge Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. 2-0.
Round 3 vs. RG Breach. He gets me in the first game with a turn 4 Breach/Titan. My hand was just slow enough and he had Anger of the Gods. In the next game, I beat double Anger of the Gods since he stumbled a bit, not having the Breach/Titan. In the last game, he thinks he has me with Breach/Titan, but I respond to the Valakut triggers targeting me with Gnaw to the Bone and win easily next turn. 2-1.
Round 4 vs. Abzan Company. I win the first game with Narcomoebas and Conflagrates when he has a board stall. In the next game, he turn 3s me for infinite life. In the last game, I played poorly. I kept a bad hand with Leyline of the Void because I wanted to see what the game would be like and had double Bloodghast to cast as well as 1 Prized Amalgam. But I drew Mom Hug, discarded creatures, and then lost to Scavenging Ooze. 1-2.
Round 5 vs. Merfolk. I win the first game with a bunch of creatures. He gets the next one with a bunch of creatures and I should have mulled to 4. I win the final game after 2 ridiculous Mom Hugs gets nearly every card in the graveyard. I win by drawing my 2nd to the last card, the last land in my deck, for 4 Bloodghasts with . 2-1.
I finish 4-1 for 4th place. Not bad after 5-5 with Double Moon Walkers the past 2 FNMs.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Nice reports foodie and greendale. Glad to see ya on here
Greendale, the mana base is tough. Feel free to run the pain base for a while. I personally think its "easy mode for more pain" but Ill be the first to admit I ran it after the fetch base and went "what was I thinking running fetches... everything is so smooth!" And really learned the decks in and outs without worrying about the lands.
I started really losing hard to delver, jund, affinity, junk, jaskai realized it was the mana and just over the long run how it did more damage after turn 4. I switched back, and now that the decks triggers were easy for me the fetches I learned way quicker and it sorta clicked for me.
I think the fetch base is better, currently, but harder and punishes harder. Thats not a good thing, but stops being a problem after you just add it to your skill set playing the deck. Im sure as good dredge cards are printed into blue and white, and we get a little faster, the pros of being rainbow will outweigh the cons. Right now it feels like it blue and white dont do all that much main, and only a few things in the side. Course they could prunt careful study in revolt and Ill just be wrong.
In overall news... im going to stop beimg tool box bais and try cutting my main darkblast and haunted dead for 1 conflag and 1 loam, switch out the conflag in my board to darkblast, and my journeys into bogs since my loam count is 3 again. See how it goes. Not sold on it yet... but I SHOULD not assume Im better than the hivemind mtg think tank, and look at the raw data.
Haunted dead is at 30% useage, down from its 55% last month. Probably because sucide zoo dropped from tier 1 to 2 in useage. And conflag gets the job done sooner game ending for breach and tron decks, while cleaning up pretty good on infect and affinity. It wassssss bad against sucide zoo, but again... thats dropped in playage and infect and ramp and midrange decks went up.
Id still keep a darkblast in the side for affinity, infect, elves and the rest of the bunch in tier 2. Its too good not to run a 1 of.
So. Well see if I feel I need haunted deads blockability back at some point
Guess while Im here might as well talk about some other trends. Note: all of these are trends so that doesnt mean they are good or bad. Just what the hivemind of mtgo grinders are leaning towards.
So mom hug is up 100% now... lol. And by that I mean the mtgo hivemind is either running 4, or 3.
3 mom hugs? Blasphmy! Well, no I can already see why 40% of dredge is running 3 instead of 4 and thats shreikhorn as a 2 of. Which mind you is up from 2 weeks ago by 10%. Is it a good trend? I dunno, but thats a change so worth noting. Its doing it to make the curve better.
But we all know shreikhorn is a pretty bad card. Its only there because the mana is better and blue just gives us a good shrekhorn, which is still a bad neonate (sorry, but its true) most of the dredge hivemind thinks its better to have a slightly ackward mana curve rather than play bad cards. Im.inclined to agree, but a trend we should keep our eyes on.
Looks like 30% is on rainbow pain train. Which is about 5 % lower than 2 weeks ago and 20% lower than a month ago. So people are easing off it, but some diehards are dieharding. The data for rainbows never trended up mind you. It, and shreikhorn to a lesser extent, were almost 90% at the start of dredge and trickled down as the future moved on. Theyve never trended up, just down but really slowly.
2 grudge is near 100% in sides. Used to be 3 around 2-3 weeks ago, but almost everone is dropping to 2, presmumably because mom hug makes it easier to find and conflag. I made that call before the data trend so im really happy to see data support there.
Gnaw has also trended from 2 to 1, something I also did prior to the trend becsuse i noticed I ever only wanted to side in one. Id like to take credit for that one, but it was one of you posters who said it first. Kudos. The one of is almost 100% so its probably staple at this point as a 1 of in the side.
Darkblast is at 90% as a 1 of now, UP from its 60% 2 weeka. I assume because infect and affinity also went up.
People are stillbeing heavy handed with the amount of natures claim... probably for the mirror (next point). Notibly, there is a split here between paper and online. Online uses less... 1-2 tops, paper uses 3-4. I think thats because the scg crew, but those guys put up results with lists that generally lags behind the internet in terms of "streamlined"... i mean they ran bridge for like 2 weeka after online basically stopped using them all togather. I think claim or slate is a great filler sideboard card, but isnt quite as good as decay.
Leyline of the void is wayyyy up in sideboards. From 55 to 80. I assume because dredge is 7 % of the meta online right now. Makes sense, its a cheap deck, in jund colors incase of a ban, cards are easy to get a hold of. Likely why claim is up too as thats great against void... however if you side in leyline and claim in the mirror your probably doing it wrong. While were here bog is at 30% down from 50. Memories journey is gone completely. Journey isnt suprising. We bring in grave hate to hose grave decks... and the grave deck of modern is... well... us. Leyline is the best card against us, and bog is the second best that we can also run. Memory is best against decks like goryos vengence or reanimator, or living end, which we killed by being good and making all decks pack grave hate.
So. Yeah. Sorry for the splash damage guys.
2 axe has remained steady at 75 to 85 over the last weeks. Its there for jund and junk mostly, but also works with infect and pretty much all the aggro and midrange deck, favoring killing midrange dorks and threats.
Decay and brutality is down. Round 40% from 90. Probably a small time trend. Dredge got big online again, people swapped cages for void, we swapped decays for claim, but well still suck, voids will trickle away and well be back to decays. Thats my bet. Decay is also better vs ooze and anti combo (same deal with collective brutality) which have down ticked. Still blows my mind, both are good against affinity and infect... but maybe jeskai controls fall from tier 1 to 2 means less angers and thus less brutalities? Sucide zoo also fell, and brutality was there for that too.
I dunno. Wouldnt avicate cutting those two but the trend in data is there. Check back in a week or 2.
Last data point is vengeful pharaoh is up from basically nothing to a 1 of at 30%. You dont have to even guess why, its best against stuff like jund... and as jund players have been complaining for a while on here, bant eldrazi are better jund currently. Looks like thats the latest secret tech. Dunno if its good. You still gotta get hit with the 5/5 trample but killing a thought knot seer and dredging it back in your yard again off it is pretty tight
I had a turn 3 kill vs. GR Tron after a silly turn 2 dredge of 2 Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, and 2 Prized Amalgam. I did the math and realized after that dredge on turn 2 that the Rally the Peasants and Mana Confluence in hand meant 20 damage with him on 2 different Tron lands in play and an Expedition Map. Silly, silly deck.
I hope someone does a sideboarding guide as well. There were a few matchups that I wanted to side in more than 6 cards, but refused to because I felt it would change the composition of the deck too much.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Modernnexus run by ktken one of my fellow mods. Meta data will be this week for oct. The data supports us as tier 1. Affinity jund eldrazi and infect all over tske us
Okay, sorry to disturb you guys with this, but I have gone full ban paranoid. I bought into dredge just because i already had the bloodghasts and i could get it all under 200 euros at the time (before ross meriam's win, which skyrocketed the deck's popularity). I have been noticing that, even though dredge is a large % in the metagame, it is very hard to find a tournament in which we get the grand prize, and thus I thought that i wanted to analyze some things. I am just this worried since a ban would leave me out of the competitive modern league for maybe half a year, which would, well, not be very pleasant. What i want to analyze are the metagame efficiency of the deck, this is, the amount of top8s we get vs the amount of players submitting dredge. With this, is there any place i can find raw tournament data for me to analyze? I am also interested in doing the same for other decks, since, obvioulsy, a value on its own is worthless if we can't compare it to something else. Thanks!
Banhammer won't come down on us unless we get something completely busted. Online metas and paper metas are vastly different and paper is more likely to respond to Dredge heavy metas than paper is due to the vast variety they face. Sideboard hate is enough to keep us away from the chop block and in all honesty, we can't be paranoid.
In reply to the top 8 ranks for Dredge: it's a new deck. Very few people can say they are really good with the deck and people are still learning interactions with certain decks and still determining the comp of the deck. A few months ago, pros were still playing Gargodon and the sideboard has yet to be solved. As soon as people realize what to finalize on or as soon as Wizards prints better cards, we'll still be changing.
Dredge's bad match ups (Death's Shadow zoo, Ad Nauseam, Titanshift) weren't popular in last 2 months, that's why Dredge made so good results. We have to wait to see how Dredge will perform in field prepared for it - top 8 and day 2 metagame breakdown of Grand prix Dallas will be very interesting.
Hi lantern, thanks for your continuous contributions to this thread.
I hope you don't mind if they are two points you brought up I respectfully disagree with:
1. Tome scour being "a bad neonate": I'm really puzzled... neonate mills more only if you have access to ggt. We all agree that the deck looks for consistency, and tome scour is so much more reliable... I know it "looks like a bad card" (as opposed to sexy neonate) but shouldn't we be more reasonable that ?
To be clear, Im not saying playing jund colors is wrong. I just want to argue that there is an objective reason to play blue. You don't have to take my word for it: all I ask is that you goldfish imagining neonate is tome scour... how often is it better? It especially helps with mulligans.
For example, look at bbd round 9 match 3 yesterday where he has neonate, lootings and reunion but his only dredger is dakmore salvage. How much better would tome scour have been? (He ended winning still, ill admit haha). At the same time, tome scour is better when you go to five cards or less. Often it's better both in good AND bad hands.
Don't take my word for it, try it at home
2. The hivemind : i think the aggregation you did is very helpful. However, i think there is a limit to the wisdom of the crowd, it tends to be more wisdoms of the pros... so many stock lists are defined by famous people winning with or writing about it (Think lanto with death shadow , overturf with delver, hoogland with chord). So many archetypes went from zero to hero based on a pro playing it: death shadow, lantern, rg valakut, amulet back then. Basically nobody took them seriously before, no one tried or saw the power.
All I'm saying is that modern has taught us to keep an open mind. We often netdeck and that's fine, but let's not forget the aggregate numbers don't say it all: some good ideas can be lost for a long time.
Neonate is instant speed, it can block, and it can count for gnaw and grave troll and it dredges, so it replaces itself unlike scour.
It is better. No one is replacing 4 neonate with any amount of thoughtscour. If your replacing something its a 1 of mom hug and 1 shriekhorn for the purposes of curve.
And I said the data was not good or bad. It was just data. And I was guessing the reasoning. I dont even agree with some of it. But still yhe hivemind, while homogenic alot of the time, does push forword raw "this works" cards. Reason why half this thread was crowing about butning inquary, but no one is now.
I am about as open minded as they come, but 20 years of playing magic has taught me to be more pragmatic and still look at data.
My friend is taking a Dredge deck to Worlds as part of our national team. What advice do you have for him?
and
Has anybody tried impact tremors? It seems like it good do some work with attacking/returning ghasts and amalgams and against ensnaring bridges.
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My friend is taking a Dredge deck to Worlds as part of our national team. What advice do you have for him?
and
Has anybody tried impact tremors? It seems like it good do some work with attacking/returning ghasts and amalgams and against ensnaring bridges.
Conflag does its job better from the yard. If I wanted an impact tremors Id likely play flayer of the hatebound and a reanimation package.
As far as the optimal list? I dunno. Give it a day for the GP lists to come out in full.
Any reason why Dredge doesn't run a single Unburial Rites and some big reanimator target or even Flame-Kin Zealot? They do tend to get to 4 lands. Just win more?
Any reason why Dredge doesn't run a single Unburial Rites and some big reanimator target or even Flame-Kin Zealot? They do tend to get to 4 lands. Just win more?
Rally does it better. Not enough stuff to get haste. With bridge haste would be worth it, but bridge is unreliable in modern.
Least thats my thought process. Conflag/rally/scourge all sorta share the same deck space, and conflag (with maybe one rally/scourge) does the "end the game" job, which can range from direct damage, or wiping the board.
Any reason why Dredge doesn't run a single Unburial Rites and some big reanimator target or even Flame-Kin Zealot? They do tend to get to 4 lands. Just win more?
Rally does it better. Not enough stuff to get haste. With bridge haste would be worth it, but bridge is unreliable in modern.
Least thats my thought process. Conflag/rally/scourge all sorta share the same deck space, and conflag (with maybe one rally/scourge) does the "end the game" job, which can range from direct damage, or wiping the board.
I dont think so sans like... runing bridge and around 2ish haunted dead. Its seriously just there as a toolbox I win button, you dont really need to win twice, plus by that point you should have been able to conflag, dredge loam, loam, rally, then dredge loam, loam, and have enough for a second conflag.
I'm not underselling rally/scorge. They do the job, but I dont think you need more than one when we are able to mill so effectively.
On a side note... saw the avatar. I cosplayed as Bob and Temmie with my girlfriend at dragon con. She was in a wheelchair, so I built her a tem shop to be in. I don't normally do "cute" costumes, but it was surprisingly fun.
Back on Dredge: Only 2 dredges at the top 64 at the GP, but 8 in the top 100. Heres the lists:
Both lists run 20 lands, all of which are fetch mana base, 2 dakmor. I think that puts that to bed, thats what we should be doing. Now, one thing to note in the mana is 6 fetchs vs 8, and one runs a basic forest. I have always leaned on the basic forest camp, but thats just me. Worth noting, BBD lost to Skred red in the top 8, which is a bad matchup for dredge. I kinda think he had a solid shot to take 1st place if he was paired differently... but at the same point kinda glad he didnt because JESUS WAS THE DREDGE HATE HARD FOR THIS EVENT. But if anythings getting banned off this event its infect, not us. thank god.
Back to my point... he lost against a blood moon anger deck. You know the basic forest probably was wanted there.
Creatures. They all do the same thing, not run haunted dead. With a large sucide zoo and infect presence, Im suprised by that, but cant argue the results here.
Spells. Nothing too crazy, but instead of rally they are running devil, which they state they do because of removal spells and recurring amagamates. To paraphrase them they said:
Rally is a better spell when you are winning the game. If you have all of these creatures out, you can win that turn probably, but you'll probably win the next turn anyways. Scourge devil is the better card when you are behind, because it lets you get in for 4 Plus damage while recurring amalgamates to win.
What do you all think about this? Its an unusual defense for it, but could be solid. The reason I switched from rally over devil (if you go back in my posts, I used it for a while stating it was better vs anger of the gods.) was because anytime I casted scourge I was like 2 points off the kill on that turn, but I never thought of it as a reset button. Then again, haunted dead can also do that. This among the sideboard is really what we should talk about.
They also use one shriekhorn, again, they say for mana curve reasons. I still dont buy into it... but I run 21 lands, if I cut a land for a horn, I am "lowering my mana curve" helping to justify the 20 lands... So I can see it.
Sideboard is where the decks do differ alot. BBD went low, probably too low, on the grudges... but it actually paid off because there wasnt a single copy of affinity in the top 64. Thats not a normal thing btw, thats a first for modern in its full history. Both use Vengeful Pharaoh, which we all know is there for the jund/junk/eldrazi matchups, bbd going hard into it. One uses bog, the other leyline, both are valid options, Id rather use bog since I dont wanna take 4 slots for the mirror. Again, BBDs sideboard was way better for this event, since the dredge count was only 2 in top 64, so he had more space for the stuff that did show up.
I think BBD went a little low on brutality, but 2 darkblasts must have helpped against the stupidness that was 11% of the day 2 meta that was infect, the 36% that was the top 8. Shesh. Skred red was perfect for this GP. They both went Hard in the nature's claim department. Gotta assume its for leylines. Which brings me to the next step of our analysis...
What did people play vs us?
Heres the deal. 64 top spots means sides can pack 256 copies of a card to hate on us. No sane deck will run more than 5 cards of grave hate (1/3rd of their sideboard) to hate on us. So well use that number (256) as the average amount of sideboard hate people have vs us out of the whole top 64 placing decks. Its a bit of an assumption... but a safe one, and lets us see how much sideboard hate people played. If its total over 256, it was clearly unfriendly to dredge, if it was way under and people only sided 1-2 peices, it was soft. This is necessary for dredge to look at. We also need to see what people are using, so we can template our sides correctly.
Bold means in the main
Rest in Peace: 2+1+2+2+2+3 (12)
Grafdiggers cage: 1+2+1+2+1+3+2+1+4+2+2+1+2+2+2+1+1+2+1+3+3+3+1+1+2+2=2 (50)
Ravenous Trap: 2+2+1+2+2(9)
Surgical Extraction :2+2+2+3+2+2+1+1+2+2+2+3+2 (26)
Savaging Ooze: 4+3+2+2+3+1+3+2+2+3+2+2+1+2+1+1+1+1+2 (34)38
Anger of the Gods: 3+2+2+3+1+1+2+3+3+2+2+3+1+2+1+1+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1 (23)43
Leyline of the Void: 4+3+3+3+4 (17)
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: 2+2+11+1 (2)7
Relic of Progenitus: 4+4+42+1+1+1+2 (7)19
Anafenza, the Foremost1+1+1+1+1 (2)5
Crypt Incursion: 1 (1)
Tormad's Crypt: 0 (0)
Rakdos Charm: 3+2+1 (6)
Loaming Shaman: 1 (1)
Faerie Macabre 3 (0)3
Bojuka Bog: 3 (3)
Our total is 184 cards in the side for us, and 231 between side and main. That gives us an average of 3.6 hate cards per deck. Thats still on the high number, as 3 or lower is the number we prefer. So, thats pretty telling. Heres some more raw data, because I know you love me for it.
Top 5 % used were:
Grafdiggers cage-22%
anger of the gods- 19%
scavaging ooze- 16%
extraction- 11%
relic-8%
Bonus: other-23%
Heres a big new indicator. almost any deck running snaps have gone UP on extraction and DOWN on Rest in peace. To me this is a clear "run 2-3 collective brutality" since that hits anger, a turn 2 ooze, and extraction. Maybe the need for natures claim is a little overblown, as while it does hit cage at the number 1 spot, leyline is the number 6 card at less than 7%. I duno. its still one mana and safer, so maybe tossing out a few decays for it is the correct call too. Or golgari charm... Since it kills infect critters, anger, RiP and Leyline.
Also not in the raw data, but noticed while I was taking the numbers. RDW/burn have switched to running rakdos charm. Keep it in mind.
Tome scour is blue,neonate is red,dredge runs more red than blue lands,so more often we have red land sources in our opener and that's probably why drowned rusalka isn't used anymore.Red is used with conflages,reunion, looting and flashback rallys.And for some, gargadons.
Unburial rites I think is better if you run the gargadons,then you can dredge,drop your lands and drop a 9/7 turn four as well as the potential for a turn one suspend if you don't open with a looting or neonate. The trolls aren't enough to warrant the card slot for rites. It allows use of gargadons without needing them in the opening hand basically.
i might drop the haunted dead for the devil, but im hesitant to drop to 20 lands. having an extra land in hand means casting loam later and using the mana to impact the board now
in regards to playing shriekhorn for curve purposes, its not because he is playing 20 lands instead of 21. its because it adds to 14 turn 1 plays, tapped lands also counts
Hey guys thanks for all the input keeping up with how dredge is changing our modern meta.
I don't remember what page the sideboard primer was on or who posted it. It was very helpful.
Does anyone have an updated deck by deck siding list to review. Not much has changed but a lot of us see more benefit with 3's on conflags and loams maindeck.
On 20 lands/scourge/3 conflag/loam The loam, conflag, 20 lands has felt solid again. Openers are still a little shaky... I might need to adjust numbers to see more green. I'll need more testing, but I think the hive mind more or less has this right. I havent had the scourge come up yet too much. I had a game where it was good vs angers, and one where Id rather the haunted vs zoo. Weirdly enough the pharaoh did some work against zoo. Not a huge amount... I was still taking too much damage than Id like, but it did enough as a 1 of to mention. Haunted would have been better, but it was "ok"
On sideboard guidePeople keep asking for sideboard guides, so I guess I'll speak up. Dredge isnt easy copy pasta like that... the reason no one is making one, is because sideboarding for us is way harder than "Oh a grave deck, use scavaging ooze. Its a token deck, use anger of the gods."
We side in based on:
What the opponents deck is, what cards do we have thats good vs that?
What are they siding in vs us?
Are they faster than us?
What parts of the engine do we shave?
Is there counterspells?
Do I need to block?
Can I go all in combo
ect ect. Sometimes I'll cut a narc. sometimes instead of the narc I cut a ghast. Its really dependent on what I see played and what I feel they will bring in on me. If I play a guy whos doing a jeskai list but it runs snaps, well they might not have RIP but extraction instead... Unless they lost to me 2 weeks in a row now, and they hate me so they decided screw the snaps, heres RiP.
I cant make a good one. so when I say this next, please please please dont take it the wrong way. You just need to get better at siding via knowing what the opponent is playing, and what your own cards do in this deck. Its a vastly undervalued skill that will hinder people picking up the deck, and bless the people who did alot of testing. But I can give some advice.
Personally I've been looking at raw data every 2 weeks (and I will keep giving you all break downs, so you dont really need to do it yourself, but Id still suggest it:
Go on mtggoldfish
Look at "format staples" and look at the most commonly played grave hate. Make a mental note.
Look at dredge. Look at the current % of side cards and what they play.
Click through the top 10 decks. Look at what sided grave hate they play. Memorize their options. Hell make flash cards.
Optional: play those decks against dredge in goldfishing, get a feel for what does what. Jund plays cage. You can still win with trolls.
This will up your game drastically. You should get better at making quick corrilations. You should take litterally 1 minute tops to realize this thought train: He is jund, jund mostly plays cage in side with ooze main. Trending lately is spell bomb. Decay beats those. I race jund, I need to be fast. Narcs are cuttable, not ghasts."
That wasnt me doing a sideboard guide he plays jund, use this cut this. That was me asking what hate does that shell bring in, and what was his speed. If you all wish I don't mind going card by card and talking about if its good vs x, or Id likely side it in vs X, and what type of cards Id likely cut for it...
But a straight up guide would be far to simplified to use blindly and be successful I think.
Round 3 my opponent was playing mill. I fetched, cast Faithless Looting, and he double Archive Trap'd me in response. I don't think I've ever laughed directly at an opponent's face game 1 turn 1 before. I proceeded to put the top twenty six cards of my library into the yard, and my opponent's reaction was certainly a Bluthian "I've made a huge mistake."
Most of my losses were probably due to often losing 6 life a game to the fetch/shock base. Occasionally it was relevant to fetch to get a Ghast back, but now I can't help but wonder if a rainbow base with more fast lands and then a set of Gemstone Mine and set of Confluence would have helped.
I also had a few cases where Loaming for a Gemstone Mine would have been leagues better than just having fetches and shocks in the yard.
Has anyone run a single Reflecting Pool in the main as well? Doesn't seem like a terrible option.
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Round 1 vs. Jeskai Nahiri. Pretty easy 2-0. He killed some creatures with burn and Path to Exile, but there's too many. 2-0.
Round 2 vs. GR Tron. I win pretty easily through some Wurmcoil Engines and O Stones. Conflagrate is great! I dodge Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. 2-0.
Round 3 vs. RG Breach. He gets me in the first game with a turn 4 Breach/Titan. My hand was just slow enough and he had Anger of the Gods. In the next game, I beat double Anger of the Gods since he stumbled a bit, not having the Breach/Titan. In the last game, he thinks he has me with Breach/Titan, but I respond to the Valakut triggers targeting me with Gnaw to the Bone and win easily next turn. 2-1.
Round 4 vs. Abzan Company. I win the first game with Narcomoebas and Conflagrates when he has a board stall. In the next game, he turn 3s me for infinite life. In the last game, I played poorly. I kept a bad hand with Leyline of the Void because I wanted to see what the game would be like and had double Bloodghast to cast as well as 1 Prized Amalgam. But I drew Mom Hug, discarded creatures, and then lost to Scavenging Ooze. 1-2.
Round 5 vs. Merfolk. I win the first game with a bunch of creatures. He gets the next one with a bunch of creatures and I should have mulled to 4. I win the final game after 2 ridiculous Mom Hugs gets nearly every card in the graveyard. I win by drawing my 2nd to the last card, the last land in my deck, for 4 Bloodghasts with . 2-1.
I finish 4-1 for 4th place. Not bad after 5-5 with Double Moon Walkers the past 2 FNMs.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Greendale, the mana base is tough. Feel free to run the pain base for a while. I personally think its "easy mode for more pain" but Ill be the first to admit I ran it after the fetch base and went "what was I thinking running fetches... everything is so smooth!" And really learned the decks in and outs without worrying about the lands.
I started really losing hard to delver, jund, affinity, junk, jaskai realized it was the mana and just over the long run how it did more damage after turn 4. I switched back, and now that the decks triggers were easy for me the fetches I learned way quicker and it sorta clicked for me.
I think the fetch base is better, currently, but harder and punishes harder. Thats not a good thing, but stops being a problem after you just add it to your skill set playing the deck. Im sure as good dredge cards are printed into blue and white, and we get a little faster, the pros of being rainbow will outweigh the cons. Right now it feels like it blue and white dont do all that much main, and only a few things in the side. Course they could prunt careful study in revolt and Ill just be wrong.
In overall news... im going to stop beimg tool box bais and try cutting my main darkblast and haunted dead for 1 conflag and 1 loam, switch out the conflag in my board to darkblast, and my journeys into bogs since my loam count is 3 again. See how it goes. Not sold on it yet... but I SHOULD not assume Im better than the hivemind mtg think tank, and look at the raw data.
Haunted dead is at 30% useage, down from its 55% last month. Probably because sucide zoo dropped from tier 1 to 2 in useage. And conflag gets the job done sooner game ending for breach and tron decks, while cleaning up pretty good on infect and affinity. It wassssss bad against sucide zoo, but again... thats dropped in playage and infect and ramp and midrange decks went up.
Id still keep a darkblast in the side for affinity, infect, elves and the rest of the bunch in tier 2. Its too good not to run a 1 of.
So. Well see if I feel I need haunted deads blockability back at some point
So mom hug is up 100% now... lol. And by that I mean the mtgo hivemind is either running 4, or 3.
3 mom hugs? Blasphmy! Well, no I can already see why 40% of dredge is running 3 instead of 4 and thats shreikhorn as a 2 of. Which mind you is up from 2 weeks ago by 10%. Is it a good trend? I dunno, but thats a change so worth noting. Its doing it to make the curve better.
But we all know shreikhorn is a pretty bad card. Its only there because the mana is better and blue just gives us a good shrekhorn, which is still a bad neonate (sorry, but its true) most of the dredge hivemind thinks its better to have a slightly ackward mana curve rather than play bad cards. Im.inclined to agree, but a trend we should keep our eyes on.
Looks like 30% is on rainbow pain train. Which is about 5 % lower than 2 weeks ago and 20% lower than a month ago. So people are easing off it, but some diehards are dieharding. The data for rainbows never trended up mind you. It, and shreikhorn to a lesser extent, were almost 90% at the start of dredge and trickled down as the future moved on. Theyve never trended up, just down but really slowly.
2 grudge is near 100% in sides. Used to be 3 around 2-3 weeks ago, but almost everone is dropping to 2, presmumably because mom hug makes it easier to find and conflag. I made that call before the data trend so im really happy to see data support there.
Gnaw has also trended from 2 to 1, something I also did prior to the trend becsuse i noticed I ever only wanted to side in one. Id like to take credit for that one, but it was one of you posters who said it first. Kudos. The one of is almost 100% so its probably staple at this point as a 1 of in the side.
Darkblast is at 90% as a 1 of now, UP from its 60% 2 weeka. I assume because infect and affinity also went up.
People are stillbeing heavy handed with the amount of natures claim... probably for the mirror (next point). Notibly, there is a split here between paper and online. Online uses less... 1-2 tops, paper uses 3-4. I think thats because the scg crew, but those guys put up results with lists that generally lags behind the internet in terms of "streamlined"... i mean they ran bridge for like 2 weeka after online basically stopped using them all togather. I think claim or slate is a great filler sideboard card, but isnt quite as good as decay.
Leyline of the void is wayyyy up in sideboards. From 55 to 80. I assume because dredge is 7 % of the meta online right now. Makes sense, its a cheap deck, in jund colors incase of a ban, cards are easy to get a hold of. Likely why claim is up too as thats great against void... however if you side in leyline and claim in the mirror your probably doing it wrong. While were here bog is at 30% down from 50. Memories journey is gone completely. Journey isnt suprising. We bring in grave hate to hose grave decks... and the grave deck of modern is... well... us. Leyline is the best card against us, and bog is the second best that we can also run. Memory is best against decks like goryos vengence or reanimator, or living end, which we killed by being good and making all decks pack grave hate.
So. Yeah. Sorry for the splash damage guys.
2 axe has remained steady at 75 to 85 over the last weeks. Its there for jund and junk mostly, but also works with infect and pretty much all the aggro and midrange deck, favoring killing midrange dorks and threats.
Decay and brutality is down. Round 40% from 90. Probably a small time trend. Dredge got big online again, people swapped cages for void, we swapped decays for claim, but well still suck, voids will trickle away and well be back to decays. Thats my bet. Decay is also better vs ooze and anti combo (same deal with collective brutality) which have down ticked. Still blows my mind, both are good against affinity and infect... but maybe jeskai controls fall from tier 1 to 2 means less angers and thus less brutalities? Sucide zoo also fell, and brutality was there for that too.
I dunno. Wouldnt avicate cutting those two but the trend in data is there. Check back in a week or 2.
Last data point is vengeful pharaoh is up from basically nothing to a 1 of at 30%. You dont have to even guess why, its best against stuff like jund... and as jund players have been complaining for a while on here, bant eldrazi are better jund currently. Looks like thats the latest secret tech. Dunno if its good. You still gotta get hit with the 5/5 trample but killing a thought knot seer and dredging it back in your yard again off it is pretty tight
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
2 Mountain
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cathartic Reunion
3 Life from the Loam
3 Conflagrate
1 Collective Brutality
1 Rally the Peasants
2 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Nature's Claim
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Memory's Journey
1 Darkblast
1 Naturalize
2 Gnaw to the Bone
I had a turn 3 kill vs. GR Tron after a silly turn 2 dredge of 2 Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, and 2 Prized Amalgam. I did the math and realized after that dredge on turn 2 that the Rally the Peasants and Mana Confluence in hand meant 20 damage with him on 2 different Tron lands in play and an Expedition Map. Silly, silly deck.
I hope someone does a sideboarding guide as well. There were a few matchups that I wanted to side in more than 6 cards, but refused to because I felt it would change the composition of the deck too much.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Banhammer won't come down on us unless we get something completely busted. Online metas and paper metas are vastly different and paper is more likely to respond to Dredge heavy metas than paper is due to the vast variety they face. Sideboard hate is enough to keep us away from the chop block and in all honesty, we can't be paranoid.
In reply to the top 8 ranks for Dredge: it's a new deck. Very few people can say they are really good with the deck and people are still learning interactions with certain decks and still determining the comp of the deck. A few months ago, pros were still playing Gargodon and the sideboard has yet to be solved. As soon as people realize what to finalize on or as soon as Wizards prints better cards, we'll still be changing.
I hope you don't mind if they are two points you brought up I respectfully disagree with:
1. Tome scour being "a bad neonate": I'm really puzzled... neonate mills more only if you have access to ggt. We all agree that the deck looks for consistency, and tome scour is so much more reliable... I know it "looks like a bad card" (as opposed to sexy neonate) but shouldn't we be more reasonable that ?
To be clear, Im not saying playing jund colors is wrong. I just want to argue that there is an objective reason to play blue. You don't have to take my word for it: all I ask is that you goldfish imagining neonate is tome scour... how often is it better? It especially helps with mulligans.
For example, look at bbd round 9 match 3 yesterday where he has neonate, lootings and reunion but his only dredger is dakmore salvage. How much better would tome scour have been? (He ended winning still, ill admit haha). At the same time, tome scour is better when you go to five cards or less. Often it's better both in good AND bad hands.
Don't take my word for it, try it at home
2. The hivemind : i think the aggregation you did is very helpful. However, i think there is a limit to the wisdom of the crowd, it tends to be more wisdoms of the pros... so many stock lists are defined by famous people winning with or writing about it (Think lanto with death shadow , overturf with delver, hoogland with chord). So many archetypes went from zero to hero based on a pro playing it: death shadow, lantern, rg valakut, amulet back then. Basically nobody took them seriously before, no one tried or saw the power.
All I'm saying is that modern has taught us to keep an open mind. We often netdeck and that's fine, but let's not forget the aggregate numbers don't say it all: some good ideas can be lost for a long time.
It is better. No one is replacing 4 neonate with any amount of thoughtscour. If your replacing something its a 1 of mom hug and 1 shriekhorn for the purposes of curve.
And I said the data was not good or bad. It was just data. And I was guessing the reasoning. I dont even agree with some of it. But still yhe hivemind, while homogenic alot of the time, does push forword raw "this works" cards. Reason why half this thread was crowing about butning inquary, but no one is now.
I am about as open minded as they come, but 20 years of playing magic has taught me to be more pragmatic and still look at data.
and
Has anybody tried impact tremors? It seems like it good do some work with attacking/returning ghasts and amalgams and against ensnaring bridges.
Cult of the Succubi Eating Kitten and Brotherhood of Hamsters - Zombie One/Hulking One - Brotherhood of Hamsters disapproves of Damage on the Stack amputation, the corruption of Mythics,
and the "Major changes to Extended" in July 2010. You aborted our cards., but we approve of the Modern format. Even if it doesn't ha ve Carrion Feeder or Caller of the Claw in it.Dex: http://deckbox.org/users/Egementium_instructoid
Conflag does its job better from the yard. If I wanted an impact tremors Id likely play flayer of the hatebound and a reanimation package.
As far as the optimal list? I dunno. Give it a day for the GP lists to come out in full.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
Least thats my thought process. Conflag/rally/scourge all sorta share the same deck space, and conflag (with maybe one rally/scourge) does the "end the game" job, which can range from direct damage, or wiping the board.
I dont think so sans like... runing bridge and around 2ish haunted dead. Its seriously just there as a toolbox I win button, you dont really need to win twice, plus by that point you should have been able to conflag, dredge loam, loam, rally, then dredge loam, loam, and have enough for a second conflag.
I'm not underselling rally/scorge. They do the job, but I dont think you need more than one when we are able to mill so effectively.
On a side note... saw the avatar. I cosplayed as Bob and Temmie with my girlfriend at dragon con. She was in a wheelchair, so I built her a tem shop to be in. I don't normally do "cute" costumes, but it was surprisingly fun.
Back on Dredge: Only 2 dredges at the top 64 at the GP, but 8 in the top 100. Heres the lists:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Scourge Devil
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Cathartic Reunion
3 Conflagrate
4 Faithless Looting
3 Life from the Loam
1 Shriekhorn
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Mountain
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Bojuka Bog
1 Collective Brutality
2 Darkblast
1 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Lightning Axe
4 Nature's Claim
2 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Scourge Devil
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Cathartic Reunion
3 Conflagrate
4 Faithless Looting
3 Life from the Loam
1 Shriekhorn
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
1 Darkblast
1 Gnaw to the Bone
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Nature's Claim
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
Lets look at some points shall we?
Both lists run 20 lands, all of which are fetch mana base, 2 dakmor. I think that puts that to bed, thats what we should be doing. Now, one thing to note in the mana is 6 fetchs vs 8, and one runs a basic forest. I have always leaned on the basic forest camp, but thats just me. Worth noting, BBD lost to Skred red in the top 8, which is a bad matchup for dredge. I kinda think he had a solid shot to take 1st place if he was paired differently... but at the same point kinda glad he didnt because JESUS WAS THE DREDGE HATE HARD FOR THIS EVENT. But if anythings getting banned off this event its infect, not us. thank god.
Back to my point... he lost against a blood moon anger deck. You know the basic forest probably was wanted there.
Creatures. They all do the same thing, not run haunted dead. With a large sucide zoo and infect presence, Im suprised by that, but cant argue the results here.
Spells. Nothing too crazy, but instead of rally they are running devil, which they state they do because of removal spells and recurring amagamates. To paraphrase them they said:
What do you all think about this? Its an unusual defense for it, but could be solid. The reason I switched from rally over devil (if you go back in my posts, I used it for a while stating it was better vs anger of the gods.) was because anytime I casted scourge I was like 2 points off the kill on that turn, but I never thought of it as a reset button. Then again, haunted dead can also do that. This among the sideboard is really what we should talk about.
They also use one shriekhorn, again, they say for mana curve reasons. I still dont buy into it... but I run 21 lands, if I cut a land for a horn, I am "lowering my mana curve" helping to justify the 20 lands... So I can see it.
Sideboard is where the decks do differ alot. BBD went low, probably too low, on the grudges... but it actually paid off because there wasnt a single copy of affinity in the top 64. Thats not a normal thing btw, thats a first for modern in its full history. Both use Vengeful Pharaoh, which we all know is there for the jund/junk/eldrazi matchups, bbd going hard into it. One uses bog, the other leyline, both are valid options, Id rather use bog since I dont wanna take 4 slots for the mirror. Again, BBDs sideboard was way better for this event, since the dredge count was only 2 in top 64, so he had more space for the stuff that did show up.
I think BBD went a little low on brutality, but 2 darkblasts must have helpped against the stupidness that was 11% of the day 2 meta that was infect, the 36% that was the top 8. Shesh. Skred red was perfect for this GP. They both went Hard in the nature's claim department. Gotta assume its for leylines. Which brings me to the next step of our analysis...
What did people play vs us?
Heres the deal. 64 top spots means sides can pack 256 copies of a card to hate on us. No sane deck will run more than 5 cards of grave hate (1/3rd of their sideboard) to hate on us. So well use that number (256) as the average amount of sideboard hate people have vs us out of the whole top 64 placing decks. Its a bit of an assumption... but a safe one, and lets us see how much sideboard hate people played. If its total over 256, it was clearly unfriendly to dredge, if it was way under and people only sided 1-2 peices, it was soft. This is necessary for dredge to look at. We also need to see what people are using, so we can template our sides correctly.
Bold means in the main
Rest in Peace: 2+1+2+2+2+3 (12)
Grafdiggers cage: 1+2+1+2+1+3+2+1+4+2+2+1+2+2+2+1+1+2+1+3+3+3+1+1+2+2=2 (50)
Ravenous Trap: 2+2+1+2+2(9)
Surgical Extraction :2+2+2+3+2+2+1+1+2+2+2+3+2 (26)
Savaging Ooze: 4+3+2+2+3+1+3+2+2+3+2+2+1+2+1+1+1+1+2 (34)38
Anger of the Gods: 3+2+2+3+1+1+2+3+3+2+2+3+1+2+1+1+2+2+2+1+1+1+1+1 (23)43
Leyline of the Void: 4+3+3+3+4 (17)
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: 2+2+11+1 (2)7
Relic of Progenitus: 4+4+42+1+1+1+2 (7)19
Anafenza, the Foremost1+1+1+1+1 (2)5
Crypt Incursion: 1 (1)
Tormad's Crypt: 0 (0)
Rakdos Charm: 3+2+1 (6)
Loaming Shaman: 1 (1)
Faerie Macabre 3 (0)3
Bojuka Bog: 3 (3)
Our total is 184 cards in the side for us, and 231 between side and main. That gives us an average of 3.6 hate cards per deck. Thats still on the high number, as 3 or lower is the number we prefer. So, thats pretty telling. Heres some more raw data, because I know you love me for it.
Top 5 % used were:
Grafdiggers cage-22%
anger of the gods- 19%
scavaging ooze- 16%
extraction- 11%
relic-8%
Bonus: other-23%
Heres a big new indicator. almost any deck running snaps have gone UP on extraction and DOWN on Rest in peace. To me this is a clear "run 2-3 collective brutality" since that hits anger, a turn 2 ooze, and extraction. Maybe the need for natures claim is a little overblown, as while it does hit cage at the number 1 spot, leyline is the number 6 card at less than 7%. I duno. its still one mana and safer, so maybe tossing out a few decays for it is the correct call too. Or golgari charm... Since it kills infect critters, anger, RiP and Leyline.
Also not in the raw data, but noticed while I was taking the numbers. RDW/burn have switched to running rakdos charm. Keep it in mind.
Tome scour is blue,neonate is red,dredge runs more red than blue lands,so more often we have red land sources in our opener and that's probably why drowned rusalka isn't used anymore.Red is used with conflages,reunion, looting and flashback rallys.And for some, gargadons.
Unburial rites I think is better if you run the gargadons,then you can dredge,drop your lands and drop a 9/7 turn four as well as the potential for a turn one suspend if you don't open with a looting or neonate. The trolls aren't enough to warrant the card slot for rites. It allows use of gargadons without needing them in the opening hand basically.
My thoughts,thats all.
i might drop the haunted dead for the devil, but im hesitant to drop to 20 lands. having an extra land in hand means casting loam later and using the mana to impact the board now
in regards to playing shriekhorn for curve purposes, its not because he is playing 20 lands instead of 21. its because it adds to 14 turn 1 plays, tapped lands also counts
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/
you can apply the information given in this article in the casting costs curve also
I don't remember what page the sideboard primer was on or who posted it. It was very helpful.
Does anyone have an updated deck by deck siding list to review. Not much has changed but a lot of us see more benefit with 3's on conflags and loams maindeck.
On sideboard guidePeople keep asking for sideboard guides, so I guess I'll speak up. Dredge isnt easy copy pasta like that... the reason no one is making one, is because sideboarding for us is way harder than "Oh a grave deck, use scavaging ooze. Its a token deck, use anger of the gods."
We side in based on:
I cant make a good one. so when I say this next, please please please dont take it the wrong way. You just need to get better at siding via knowing what the opponent is playing, and what your own cards do in this deck. Its a vastly undervalued skill that will hinder people picking up the deck, and bless the people who did alot of testing. But I can give some advice.
Personally I've been looking at raw data every 2 weeks (and I will keep giving you all break downs, so you dont really need to do it yourself, but Id still suggest it:
This will up your game drastically. You should get better at making quick corrilations. You should take litterally 1 minute tops to realize this thought train: He is jund, jund mostly plays cage in side with ooze main. Trending lately is spell bomb. Decay beats those. I race jund, I need to be fast. Narcs are cuttable, not ghasts."
That wasnt me doing a sideboard guide he plays jund, use this cut this. That was me asking what hate does that shell bring in, and what was his speed. If you all wish I don't mind going card by card and talking about if its good vs x, or Id likely side it in vs X, and what type of cards Id likely cut for it...
But a straight up guide would be far to simplified to use blindly and be successful I think.