Match 1, vs Affinity, 0-1
Game 1: Turn 2 Etched Champion, turn 3 Cranial Plating from him. I hit some less explosive dredges and cannot race. 0-1
Sideboard: Out 2 Thug, 2 Neonate, 1 Haunted Dead, 1 Driven, 1 Bloodghast. In 2 Darkblast, 2 Grudge, 3 Sultai Charm.
Game 2: He has turn 1 Steel Overseer, and I cannot kill it before it taps once, putting counters on Memnite and Arcbound Ravager. Sultai Charm takes it out, and I draw an Ancient Grudge, taking out the Ravager and Memnite after it gets the counters. I kill the Memnite at the cost of leaving Cranial Plating on the field, since otherwise I would be dead if he had Galvanic Blast. Instead he plays Etched Champion and equips Plating. Robot Progenitus goes the distance. 0-2
Match 2, vs Grixis Delver, 0-2
Game 1: I curve out and beat him to death before he has a chance to do anything relevant. 1-0
Sideboard: Out 2 Neonate, 1 Conflag, 1 Loam, 1 GQ. In 1 Vengeful Pharaoh, 1 Bog, 2 Axe, 1 Gnaw.
Game 2 & 3: He has turn 1 Surgical Extraction into turn 2 Snapcaster Mage for surgical both games, despite my best efforts to bog away his graveyard. Both games he strips out my Amalgams and Bloodghasts, and then leisurely beats me down with Delvers, delve-creatures and burn spells. 1-2
Match 3, vs Affinity, 1-2
Game 1: I get a Conflagrate to clean his early board up, then use Despair to get past his Master of Etherium for lethal. 1-0
Sideboard:Out 2 Thug, 2 Neonate, 1 Haunted Dead, 1 Driven, 1 Bloodghast. In 2 Darkblast, 2 Grudge, 3 Sultai Charm.
Game 2: Turn 1 he has Grafdigger's Cage, for which I have grudge. He deploys Vault Skirge and Ravager early, and I get to point a flashback Grudge at the Ravager, then Darkblast the Skirge in response to the modular trigger. I then use one Sultai Charm to kill his Cranial Plating, then another one to draw 2, discard 1, accelerating out a huge board he never gets back from.
Match 4, vs Elves, 2-2
Game 1: I do not find Conflagrate, he has Ezuri, renegade Leader, Elvish Archdruid and a total of 10 elves. He overruns 3 times. 0-1
Sideboard: out 2 Thug, 1 Mountain, 1 Driven, 1 Haunted Dead, 1 Reunion. In 3 Brutality, 3 Sultai Charm, 2 Darkblast.
Game 2: I make an early Ghast+Amalgam, and although he uses Loaming Shaman to shuffle away my graveyard, I find a Conflagrate, keeping his board down long enough for me to finish him off. 1-1
Game 3: I cast Brutality turn 2, killing an Elvish Mystic and ripping a Chord of Calling from his hand, seeing 2 Ezuri, 1 Elvish Mystic and 1 Heritage Druid. On his turn he finds a land and plays the two mana dorks, which promptly catch a Conflag. I spend the rest of the game with a slim board, but always sitting on Sultai Charm in case he plays any haymakers, such as Collected Company into Archdruid. 2-1
Match 5, vs Abzan, 2-3
Game 1: Turn 2 Scavenging Ooze, he only fetches green mana for the rest of the game, I never have a window to resolve Conflag. 0-1
Sideboard: Out 2 Neonate, 1 Bloodghast, 1 Mountain, 1 Conflag, 1 Haunted Dead. In 3 Sultai Charm, 2 Lightning Axe, 1 Pharaoh.
Game 2: I get the chance to Conflagrate his Tarmogoyf early, and start presenting a threat. Sultai Charm lets me answer his next threat as well, and with no Scavenging Ooze in sight, that is all it takes. 1-1
Game 3: I get out an early 2 Bloodghasts + 2 Narcomoebas, facing down a Dark confidant and a couple of Spirit tokens. I trade my Ghasts for the spirit and play a land to get them back again. He untaps and plays Flaying Tendrils. I play Sultai Charm in his second main phase to draw 2 discard 1, hoping to rebuild my board. This was probably a mistake, since I had a Faithless Looting I could flashback in my graveyard anyway, and his next turn he plays Ooze, and I spend the rest of the game digging for answers, finding none. Since I already had an enabler for my next turn, I think spending the Charm so quickly was a bit too eager. 1-2
Probably would not have made top 8 even if I won the last game, but still would've been nice to take it. Really long and grindy battle of resources, and I felt like I had such a big window to draw just 1 Lightning Axe, Conflagrate or Sultai Charm to answer his Ooze. Never happened though.
This was my first tournament with Sultai Charm, and I have to say it impressed me a lot. All modes were relevant and powerful, it made sideboarding much more flexible since I was bringing in 3 pseudo-enablers, and games slow down enough post board (usually) that 3 mana is not too high. I did not have any issues making the mana work. I'll have to do more testing with it, but so far I am liking it a lot. I was always happy to have it in my hand, and always wanted to draw it when it was in my deck.
I am going to an RPTQ in a couple of weeks, and will be playing the deck there. I feel like I've got 73 of my 75 cards nailed, the only ones I'm kinda iffy about are Haunted Dead and Bojuka Bog.
Pros:
-Haunted Dead: It can solve an issue where we don't have dredgers in our graveyard, sparing us to have to fire a conflag just to keep our engine going. It provides chump blockers and also a way to attack in the air. It is an activated ability, so it can't be countered. Good against TitanShift, since we need to play around Anger of the Gods, and it gives us a more controlled way to return Amalgams besides Bloodghast, which needs fetchable lands in our deck. Same is true for matches with Wraths in general. Provides two creatures for Despair.
-Bojuka Bog: Low opportunity cost graveyard hate, good against Living End, Storm and the mirror. Fine against Death's Shadow, Delver etc.
Cons:
-Haunted Dead: Slow; most matchups we don't have time to spend two mana on it, since we'd rather cast Loam, flashback Looting or play Conflag. Besides TitanShift, it is best in matchups where we're already favoured; grindy midrange matches. The discard two cards is often a cost we're unwilling to pay, since it competes with Conflagrate for resources. Most games it ends up sitting in the graveyard doing nothing. Are the niche scenarios where it is useful reason enough to keep it in the deck over another, more impactful card?
-Bojuka Bog: Slow; if we do not have it in hand, we need to Loam it back, which is very clearly telegraphed to our opponent. Living End can play around this with Violent Outburst, Death's Shadow and Delver can do the same with a response Snapcaster Mage. Unless we do some tricks with GQ it is a one-shot effect. Could the slot be better used for something else?
Honestly not sure what to do about those two cards. If I cut Haunted Dead I feel like these are my two competing options: Move a Darkblast from the side to the main, or add another finisher card to the main, either another Driven \\ Despair or Scourge Devil. If I cut Bojuka Bog there is really no other single card graveyard hate I would bring in to replace it. Memory's Journey is just not impactful enough, and Leyline of the Void is no good unless you can devote at least 3 slots to it. I'll probably just add another Gnaw to the Bone, I always liked having 2 of that card at my disposal. If I cut both and move Darkblast to the main, I have 2 sideboard slots free, which opens up some more possibilities.
I picked up this deck about 2 weeks ago on MTGO and so far I love it. I havent been able to find the right deck in Modern for me and I think this is it. The only problem I am having is with all of the grave hate. I know that there will always be grave hate and that is our largest problem but I think I am doing something wrong. I am trying to figure out what to do games 2 and 3 once my opponent has played a hate piece such as relic, grafdiggers or RIP on turn 1-3. Should I mull very aggressively for maelstrom pulse and thoughtseize or just go for the same opening hand (2 lands, 1-2 draw and 1-2 dredge) as normally hoped for? My usual plan is to keep a normal good hand without any hate pieces unless I get lucky. Then I play like normal until hate comes down and once hate comes down I hard cast my creatures and try to dig for hate. Usually at this point I am wasting so much time that my opponent can stabilize and win or make it very hard for me to win even once I draw the answer to the hate cards. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
In sideboard games it's often correct to ignore grave hate. We can separate all grave hate to a few groups:
1. Artifact hate which sacrifice to exile grave (Relic, Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt ect) - ignore and hope for the best. If you think they have it lead with Insolent Neonate - you can wait for end of opponents turn to sac him, extra information will often decide between win and lose. If it sticks and it's on thew battlefield try not to use discard outlets and dredge Loams and Imps to oblivion - Narcomoeba's and Bloodghast's triggers will eventually force them to pop out hate cards. Nice trick - if u can keep fetchland on battlefield to have ability to return Bloodghasts in resp to their cracking artifacts.
2. Scavenging Ooze - keep removal in hand, if you have 3 red mana on table don't discard Conflagrate since you can play conflagrate for x=0 and then flashback for a lot killing Scooze - they won't have time to exile Conflag.
3. Graffdigger's Cage - we need to find artifact hate but can easily discard our Dredgers, Bloodghasts and Amalgams. Dig and find something to destroy it. Important note - if you play against for example Jund and they can have 1 Cage in sidebaord don't side in narrow cards for it like Nature's Claim, if they have it they are better players and we sometimes lose. Or we can draw Abrupt Decay/Pulse which are catch all answers to everything they can have.
4. Rest in Peace - yolo, maybe they don't have it. If you are lucky and draw antihate in opening you can wait with for example Looting for a turn to check if they have it.
5. Surgical Extraction - we don't care, sometimes ***** happens. Only playing aroudn we have is to play fetchland to protect Bloodghast being exiled - in resp o Extraction we can crack fetch and return Bloodghasts before Extraction resolve.
6. Ravenous Trap, Faerie Macabre - total yolo, play like they don't have it.
7. Leyline of the Void - only exception. If you know they have it after sideabord (for example you are playing vs 8 rack, BW control or Mardu) mulligan aggresivaly for Claim/Pulse (to be honest Pulse is terrible vs Leyline becouse all Black Leyline decks are decks with a lot of discard, we will lose Pulse before playing third land).
About Reunion there are 3 main situations when we are sididng out Catharic Reunions:
1. They have a lot of countermagic like Negate, Spell Snare, Denial, Spell Pierce, Remand on draw and so on.
2. They have tax effects like Thalia.
3. We need to be very lucky, need to side out a lot of cards and Insolent Neonate with Imp will have more chances to put more power to battlefield on turn 2. But to be honest this situation is really uncommon.
In sideboard games it's often correct to ignore grave hate. We can separate all grave hate to a few groups:
1. Artifact hate which sacrifice to exile grave (Relic, Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt ect) - ignore and hope for the best. If you think they have it lead with Insolent Neonate - you can wait for end of opponents turn to sac him, extra information will often decide between win and lose. If it sticks and it's on thew battlefield try not to use discard outlets and dredge Loams and Imps to oblivion - Narcomoeba's and Bloodghast's triggers will eventually force them to pop out hate cards. Nice trick - if u can keep fetchland on battlefield to have ability to return Bloodghasts in resp to their cracking artifacts.
2. Scavenging Ooze - keep removal in hand, if you have 3 red mana on table don't discard Conflagrate since you can play conflagrate for x=0 and then flashback for a lot killing Scooze - they won't have time to exile Conflag.
3. Graffdigger's Cage - we need to find artifact hate but can easily discard our Dredgers, Bloodghasts and Amalgams. Dig and find something to destroy it. Important note - if you play against for example Jund and they can have 1 Cage in sidebaord don't side in narrow cards for it like Nature's Claim, if they have it they are better players and we sometimes lose. Or we can draw Abrupt Decay/Pulse which are catch all answers to everything they can have.
4. Rest in Peace - yolo, maybe they don't have it. If you are lucky and draw antihate in opening you can wait with for example Looting for a turn to check if they have it.
5. Surgical Extraction - we don't care, sometimes ***** happens. Only playing aroudn we have is to play fetchland to protect Bloodghast being exiled - in resp o Extraction we can crack fetch and return Bloodghasts before Extraction resolve.
6. Ravenous Trap, Faerie Macabre - total yolo, play like they don't have it.
7. Leyline of the Void - only exception. If you know they have it after sideabord (for example you are playing vs 8 rack, BW control or Mardu) mulligan aggresivaly for Claim/Pulse (to be honest Pulse is terrible vs Leyline becouse all Black Leyline decks are decks with a lot of discard, we will lose Pulse before playing third land).
About Reunion there are 3 main situations when we are sididng out Catharic Reunions:
1. They have a lot of countermagic like Negate, Spell Snare, Denial, Spell Pierce, Remand on draw and so on.
2. They have tax effects like Thalia.
3. We need to be very lucky, need to side out a lot of cards and Insolent Neonate with Imp will have more chances to put more power to battlefield on turn 2. But to be honest this situation is really uncommon.
Wow amazing response thank you.
I’m glad I wasn’t too far off in thinking we just needed to outrace the hate.
I would add that games with Relic, Spellbomb and Crypt often turn into games where you try to bait and then restart. You dredge a controlled amount, until you can return some creatures for value, but enough remain in your deck for you to win the game if your graveyard is exiled. Then you go for it, usually by triggering Bloodghast, and stare expectantly at your opponent. Like Sodek says, fetchlands are huge here since they give you two shots, one to force action and one to respond to them activating their hate. The question you force them to answer is if they can beat what you bring back or if they can beat your potential future graveyard. If you have many cards in hand and open mana they also have to respect that you might be holding an enabler. If my opponent has a Spellbomb or a Relic, I usually sandbag a Reunion if I have it, so that when they crack it I can immediately regain my position. Bait and switch is the name of the game, and these are the post board games where your skill as a Dredge pilot really gets tested. Many other hate cards turn into a have it/don't have it game; do they have the hate, do you have counter-hate(RiP, Grafdigger's, Leyline, Ooze). Other cards we just cannot interact with at all (Surgical, Faerie Macabre, Ravenous Trap).
I sometimes side out 1 or even 2 Reunions in matches that are less about speed, and I need cards to interact with my opponent. If we already have the speed advantage then we can sometimes afford to cut some number of it. Counterspells are of course an issue, but I also find that it is often better to side out the first Reunion rather than the third Neonate to maintain a decent mana curve.
Ok so fairly new to the archetype here, well modern dredge at least. I have been heavily reading up and for the most part am starting to understand matchups and more importantly sideboarding. Still have some questions about everything..
First is 20 or 21 lands that relevant? I notice a decent amount of people like to sideboard out the land occasionally depending how deep you're going? I haven't seen any inconsistency with just the 20 though.
Is there that much of a significant difference between dredge 3 v 4, I feel that 6 v 4 is huge post ban of course but now being imp is our biggest and with the rise of affinity, CoCo and other creature based decks like humans randomly, storm the "Boogeyman" having maindeck darkblast v thug would be better?
Driven/ despair v failure/ comply... I currently play the one main despair and so far is so so for me. Granted again my experience is very limited, however it is great at times mostly the menace pushing through damage but others feels like a win more or just irrelevant. The comply version though that levy posted seems sweet, has anyone had more success with that v storm or Titan shift? His article had decent points to it.
I'm pretty much waiting on 2 things to reeeealllllyy pick dredge back up:
1. A good graveyard thing to bump our powerlevel, or
2. Redeption codes for arena in packs.
2 will make me grind for codes weekly, so Id be back into the thick of meta gaming like I used to, and 1 would make me what to pick it back up again. Like IVG said, despair just doesnt do it for fast combo like storm or elves, and is 50-50 vs stuff like valakut. Its pretty close, but not perfect... now gimmie cabal theory, I'll show combo a thing or two.
Same boat here. It is a really fun deck to play and it has games where it looks unstappable but it is not what it used to be.
Also we all know that Wizards hates the Dredge and the Storm mechanic and every time one of those decks becomes Tier 1 people go crazy and a piece of it will be banned.
That is why I think that Dredge will never be a Tier 1 deck for a long time like for example Affinity is.
I’m also building Legacy Dredge. I want to play Legacy, I love Dredge, it is not that expensive and I got a pretty big Legacy scene at my local store so why not.
Hi guys, i'm going to attend Gp Madrid and one of my teammates is playing Ad nauseam,so i can't play gemstone mine, what do u guys think of this manabase?
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Mountain(I'm even considering the 3rd one although i've never played 3 basics)
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Stomping Ground
2 Blood Crypt
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Steam Vents
I need to choose 3 out of the 3rd basic mountain, X blackcleave cliffs, running a single Steam Vents or picking up a rainbow land that deals dmg although i think Steam vents might be better as a 1-of. What do u guys think? I'm also going to run a maindeck lightning axe instead of the darkblast to hedge against eldrazi tron and storm which i expect to be a large part of the metagame and i also wanna know what u guys think about GQ and Collective brutality in the current meta.
I would probably just switch the gemstone mines for city of brass/mana confluence honestly. I don't play 2 dakmor salvages either and I would stick to 2 basics.
Here is a list that just won a mtgo ptq. Most notable is the mana base (no fetches), 2 burning inquiry, and 1 main Gnaw to the Bone.
It is very notable to say that he did play humans 3 matches in a row and that is usually a good matchup for us. Another more standard list placed in the top 32 also.
It is very notable to say that he did play humans 3 matches in a row and that is usually a good matchup for us. Another more standard list placed in the top 32 also.
Austinthelamp, you say Humans is a good matchup for us. I’ve only played the deck once, and both games he crushed me by turn 4. What is the sideboard plan against the deck? Just straight creature kills? It seemed I never had enough.
It is very notable to say that he did play humans 3 matches in a row and that is usually a good matchup for us. Another more standard list placed in the top 32 also.
Austinthelamp, you say Humans is a good matchup for us. I’ve only played the deck once, and both games he crushed me by turn 4. What is the sideboard plan against the deck? Just straight creature kills? It seemed I never had enough.
I've only played vs humans twice so maybe I am wrong but I was able to 2-0 both by prioritizing conflagrate and playing 1 darkblast MD and another side. I also brought in 2 lightning axe and 2 abrupt decay because the only thing we can't deal with too well is when they go tall instead of wide. They have started to side in rest in peace because of us though so be careful. I would imagine that getting Rip'd and them having any sort of board would be hard for us to combat though.
LeDrazi, the humans matchup is largely determined by what our early dredges look like in G1. So long as we hit a conflagrate by turn 3 we will just plague wind them and kill them before they can rebuild. A darkblast in our opener is pretty much GG as well with mantis rider being the only card left to really pressure us.
Has anyone tried burning inquiry? I like the additional draw spell for a more explosive G1, but have no experience with it. I have an rptq this weekend and am strongly considering dredge as my choice for the event.
Edit: I also am unsure how I feel about 18 lands. I understand he added additional draw spells, but inquiry is a random discard. discarding our 2nd land drop means we would have to regular draw until we hit another land.
LeDrazi, the humans matchup is largely determined by what our early dredges look like in G1. So long as we hit a conflagrate by turn 3 we will just plague wind them and kill them before they can rebuild. A darkblast in our opener is pretty much GG as well with mantis rider being the only card left to really pressure us.
Has anyone tried burning inquiry? I like the additional draw spell for a more explosive G1, but have no experience with it. I have an rptq this weekend and am strongly considering dredge as my choice for the event.
Edit: I also am unsure how I feel about 18 lands. I understand he added additional draw spells, but inquiry is a random discard. discarding our 2nd land drop means we would have to regular draw until we hit another land.
Personally I would not drop below 20 lands. I know that we mull great but I already go to 6 cards because of only having 1 land and no faithless lootings way too often. I don't want to hurt that anymore. I ordered a playset of inquiry yesterday and I am going to try them later this week. I am going to start with the playset just so I can draw it often but I couldn't imagine I would actually want more than 2.
LeDrazi, the humans matchup is largely determined by what our early dredges look like in G1. So long as we hit a conflagrate by turn 3 we will just plague wind them and kill them before they can rebuild. A darkblast in our opener is pretty much GG as well with mantis rider being the only card left to really pressure us.
Has anyone tried burning inquiry? I like the additional draw spell for a more explosive G1, but have no experience with it. I have an rptq this weekend and am strongly considering dredge as my choice for the event.
Edit: I also am unsure how I feel about 18 lands. I understand he added additional draw spells, but inquiry is a random discard. discarding our 2nd land drop means we would have to regular draw until we hit another land.
Personally I would not drop below 20 lands. I know that we mull great but I already go to 6 cards because of only having 1 land and no faithless lootings way too often. I don't want to hurt that anymore. I ordered a playset of inquiry yesterday and I am going to try them later this week. I am going to start with the playset just so I can draw it often but I couldn't imagine I would actually want more than 2.
Thanks and cheers to both of you. I’ll have to keep the RiP info tucked away as well. As for the Burning Inquiry, I’m going to try 2 myself, probably cutting my Haunted Dead and Ghost Quarter from my main deck to see how I feel playing under 20 lands. I’m playing a fetchless build myself so shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
Burning Inquiry is not a good card. Its a very much a circle discussion on this guy. It always seems like cool tech, people try it, it blows out some games for them, they think its amazing, then slowly but surely cut all copies due to being insanely inconstant.
List:
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Haunted Dead
Spells:
4 Faithless Looting
4 Cathartic Reunion
3 Life From the Loam
3 Conflagrate
1 Driven // Despair
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Ground
2 Blood Crypt
2 Mountain
2 Copperline Gorge
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Steam Vents
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Sultai Charm
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Lightning Axe
2 Darkblast
1 Gnaw to the Bone
3 Collective Brutality
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Bojuka Bog
Match 1, vs Affinity, 0-1
Game 1: Turn 2 Etched Champion, turn 3 Cranial Plating from him. I hit some less explosive dredges and cannot race. 0-1
Sideboard: Out 2 Thug, 2 Neonate, 1 Haunted Dead, 1 Driven, 1 Bloodghast. In 2 Darkblast, 2 Grudge, 3 Sultai Charm.
Game 2: He has turn 1 Steel Overseer, and I cannot kill it before it taps once, putting counters on Memnite and Arcbound Ravager. Sultai Charm takes it out, and I draw an Ancient Grudge, taking out the Ravager and Memnite after it gets the counters. I kill the Memnite at the cost of leaving Cranial Plating on the field, since otherwise I would be dead if he had Galvanic Blast. Instead he plays Etched Champion and equips Plating. Robot Progenitus goes the distance. 0-2
Match 2, vs Grixis Delver, 0-2
Game 1: I curve out and beat him to death before he has a chance to do anything relevant. 1-0
Sideboard: Out 2 Neonate, 1 Conflag, 1 Loam, 1 GQ. In 1 Vengeful Pharaoh, 1 Bog, 2 Axe, 1 Gnaw.
Game 2 & 3: He has turn 1 Surgical Extraction into turn 2 Snapcaster Mage for surgical both games, despite my best efforts to bog away his graveyard. Both games he strips out my Amalgams and Bloodghasts, and then leisurely beats me down with Delvers, delve-creatures and burn spells. 1-2
Match 3, vs Affinity, 1-2
Game 1: I get a Conflagrate to clean his early board up, then use Despair to get past his Master of Etherium for lethal. 1-0
Sideboard:Out 2 Thug, 2 Neonate, 1 Haunted Dead, 1 Driven, 1 Bloodghast. In 2 Darkblast, 2 Grudge, 3 Sultai Charm.
Game 2: Turn 1 he has Grafdigger's Cage, for which I have grudge. He deploys Vault Skirge and Ravager early, and I get to point a flashback Grudge at the Ravager, then Darkblast the Skirge in response to the modular trigger. I then use one Sultai Charm to kill his Cranial Plating, then another one to draw 2, discard 1, accelerating out a huge board he never gets back from.
Match 4, vs Elves, 2-2
Game 1: I do not find Conflagrate, he has Ezuri, renegade Leader, Elvish Archdruid and a total of 10 elves. He overruns 3 times. 0-1
Sideboard: out 2 Thug, 1 Mountain, 1 Driven, 1 Haunted Dead, 1 Reunion. In 3 Brutality, 3 Sultai Charm, 2 Darkblast.
Game 2: I make an early Ghast+Amalgam, and although he uses Loaming Shaman to shuffle away my graveyard, I find a Conflagrate, keeping his board down long enough for me to finish him off. 1-1
Game 3: I cast Brutality turn 2, killing an Elvish Mystic and ripping a Chord of Calling from his hand, seeing 2 Ezuri, 1 Elvish Mystic and 1 Heritage Druid. On his turn he finds a land and plays the two mana dorks, which promptly catch a Conflag. I spend the rest of the game with a slim board, but always sitting on Sultai Charm in case he plays any haymakers, such as Collected Company into Archdruid. 2-1
Match 5, vs Abzan, 2-3
Game 1: Turn 2 Scavenging Ooze, he only fetches green mana for the rest of the game, I never have a window to resolve Conflag. 0-1
Sideboard: Out 2 Neonate, 1 Bloodghast, 1 Mountain, 1 Conflag, 1 Haunted Dead. In 3 Sultai Charm, 2 Lightning Axe, 1 Pharaoh.
Game 2: I get the chance to Conflagrate his Tarmogoyf early, and start presenting a threat. Sultai Charm lets me answer his next threat as well, and with no Scavenging Ooze in sight, that is all it takes. 1-1
Game 3: I get out an early 2 Bloodghasts + 2 Narcomoebas, facing down a Dark confidant and a couple of Spirit tokens. I trade my Ghasts for the spirit and play a land to get them back again. He untaps and plays Flaying Tendrils. I play Sultai Charm in his second main phase to draw 2 discard 1, hoping to rebuild my board. This was probably a mistake, since I had a Faithless Looting I could flashback in my graveyard anyway, and his next turn he plays Ooze, and I spend the rest of the game digging for answers, finding none. Since I already had an enabler for my next turn, I think spending the Charm so quickly was a bit too eager. 1-2
Probably would not have made top 8 even if I won the last game, but still would've been nice to take it. Really long and grindy battle of resources, and I felt like I had such a big window to draw just 1 Lightning Axe, Conflagrate or Sultai Charm to answer his Ooze. Never happened though.
This was my first tournament with Sultai Charm, and I have to say it impressed me a lot. All modes were relevant and powerful, it made sideboarding much more flexible since I was bringing in 3 pseudo-enablers, and games slow down enough post board (usually) that 3 mana is not too high. I did not have any issues making the mana work. I'll have to do more testing with it, but so far I am liking it a lot. I was always happy to have it in my hand, and always wanted to draw it when it was in my deck.
I am going to an RPTQ in a couple of weeks, and will be playing the deck there. I feel like I've got 73 of my 75 cards nailed, the only ones I'm kinda iffy about are Haunted Dead and Bojuka Bog.
-Bojuka Bog: Low opportunity cost graveyard hate, good against Living End, Storm and the mirror. Fine against Death's Shadow, Delver etc.
-Bojuka Bog: Slow; if we do not have it in hand, we need to Loam it back, which is very clearly telegraphed to our opponent. Living End can play around this with Violent Outburst, Death's Shadow and Delver can do the same with a response Snapcaster Mage. Unless we do some tricks with GQ it is a one-shot effect. Could the slot be better used for something else?
some time ago i saw some lists that ran 4 collective brutality instead of 4 insolent neonate?
Did it have legs or was it just some kind of experiment?
Green @ it's best
It makes you play a more slower and grindier game.
If that is a style you like and your meta calls more for a grindy game then it has legs.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
It’s not a bad idea. I’ve seen some decks that replace a Neonate or the 4th Loam for a copy. I replaced my Darkblast and a copy of Neonate for 2 main.
I picked up this deck about 2 weeks ago on MTGO and so far I love it. I havent been able to find the right deck in Modern for me and I think this is it. The only problem I am having is with all of the grave hate. I know that there will always be grave hate and that is our largest problem but I think I am doing something wrong. I am trying to figure out what to do games 2 and 3 once my opponent has played a hate piece such as relic, grafdiggers or RIP on turn 1-3. Should I mull very aggressively for maelstrom pulse and thoughtseize or just go for the same opening hand (2 lands, 1-2 draw and 1-2 dredge) as normally hoped for? My usual plan is to keep a normal good hand without any hate pieces unless I get lucky. Then I play like normal until hate comes down and once hate comes down I hard cast my creatures and try to dig for hate. Usually at this point I am wasting so much time that my opponent can stabilize and win or make it very hard for me to win even once I draw the answer to the hate cards. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Why side out cathartic? I try to follow the sideboard guide from Zen.
Im considering test Krosan Grip for obvious reasons and pithing needle against spellbomb and relics when I know they bring it.
1. Artifact hate which sacrifice to exile grave (Relic, Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt ect) - ignore and hope for the best. If you think they have it lead with Insolent Neonate - you can wait for end of opponents turn to sac him, extra information will often decide between win and lose. If it sticks and it's on thew battlefield try not to use discard outlets and dredge Loams and Imps to oblivion - Narcomoeba's and Bloodghast's triggers will eventually force them to pop out hate cards. Nice trick - if u can keep fetchland on battlefield to have ability to return Bloodghasts in resp to their cracking artifacts.
2. Scavenging Ooze - keep removal in hand, if you have 3 red mana on table don't discard Conflagrate since you can play conflagrate for x=0 and then flashback for a lot killing Scooze - they won't have time to exile Conflag.
3. Graffdigger's Cage - we need to find artifact hate but can easily discard our Dredgers, Bloodghasts and Amalgams. Dig and find something to destroy it. Important note - if you play against for example Jund and they can have 1 Cage in sidebaord don't side in narrow cards for it like Nature's Claim, if they have it they are better players and we sometimes lose. Or we can draw Abrupt Decay/Pulse which are catch all answers to everything they can have.
4. Rest in Peace - yolo, maybe they don't have it. If you are lucky and draw antihate in opening you can wait with for example Looting for a turn to check if they have it.
5. Surgical Extraction - we don't care, sometimes ***** happens. Only playing aroudn we have is to play fetchland to protect Bloodghast being exiled - in resp o Extraction we can crack fetch and return Bloodghasts before Extraction resolve.
6. Ravenous Trap, Faerie Macabre - total yolo, play like they don't have it.
7. Leyline of the Void - only exception. If you know they have it after sideabord (for example you are playing vs 8 rack, BW control or Mardu) mulligan aggresivaly for Claim/Pulse (to be honest Pulse is terrible vs Leyline becouse all Black Leyline decks are decks with a lot of discard, we will lose Pulse before playing third land).
About Reunion there are 3 main situations when we are sididng out Catharic Reunions:
1. They have a lot of countermagic like Negate, Spell Snare, Denial, Spell Pierce, Remand on draw and so on.
2. They have tax effects like Thalia.
3. We need to be very lucky, need to side out a lot of cards and Insolent Neonate with Imp will have more chances to put more power to battlefield on turn 2. But to be honest this situation is really uncommon.
Wow amazing response thank you.
I’m glad I wasn’t too far off in thinking we just needed to outrace the hate.
I sometimes side out 1 or even 2 Reunions in matches that are less about speed, and I need cards to interact with my opponent. If we already have the speed advantage then we can sometimes afford to cut some number of it. Counterspells are of course an issue, but I also find that it is often better to side out the first Reunion rather than the third Neonate to maintain a decent mana curve.
First is 20 or 21 lands that relevant? I notice a decent amount of people like to sideboard out the land occasionally depending how deep you're going? I haven't seen any inconsistency with just the 20 though.
Is there that much of a significant difference between dredge 3 v 4, I feel that 6 v 4 is huge post ban of course but now being imp is our biggest and with the rise of affinity, CoCo and other creature based decks like humans randomly, storm the "Boogeyman" having maindeck darkblast v thug would be better?
Driven/ despair v failure/ comply... I currently play the one main despair and so far is so so for me. Granted again my experience is very limited, however it is great at times mostly the menace pushing through damage but others feels like a win more or just irrelevant. The comply version though that levy posted seems sweet, has anyone had more success with that v storm or Titan shift? His article had decent points to it.
1. A good graveyard thing to bump our powerlevel, or
2. Redeption codes for arena in packs.
2 will make me grind for codes weekly, so Id be back into the thick of meta gaming like I used to, and 1 would make me what to pick it back up again. Like IVG said, despair just doesnt do it for fast combo like storm or elves, and is 50-50 vs stuff like valakut. Its pretty close, but not perfect... now gimmie cabal theory, I'll show combo a thing or two.
Also we all know that Wizards hates the Dredge and the Storm mechanic and every time one of those decks becomes Tier 1 people go crazy and a piece of it will be banned.
That is why I think that Dredge will never be a Tier 1 deck for a long time like for example Affinity is.
I’m also building Legacy Dredge. I want to play Legacy, I love Dredge, it is not that expensive and I got a pretty big Legacy scene at my local store so why not.
Modern - Burn
EDH - Neheb the Eternal
I would probably just switch the gemstone mines for city of brass/mana confluence honestly. I don't play 2 dakmor salvages either and I would stick to 2 basics.
Here is a list that just won a mtgo ptq. Most notable is the mana base (no fetches), 2 burning inquiry, and 1 main Gnaw to the Bone.
4 Bloodghast
3 Golgari Thug
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Burning Inquiry
4 Cathartic Reunion
3 Conflagrate
1 Driven // Despair
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 City of Brass
2 Copperline Gorge
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
2 Mountain
60 Cards
1 Driven // Despair
1 Gnaw to the Bone
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Collective Brutality
2 Darkblast
2 Lightning Axe
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
It is very notable to say that he did play humans 3 matches in a row and that is usually a good matchup for us. Another more standard list placed in the top 32 also.
Austinthelamp, you say Humans is a good matchup for us. I’ve only played the deck once, and both games he crushed me by turn 4. What is the sideboard plan against the deck? Just straight creature kills? It seemed I never had enough.
I've only played vs humans twice so maybe I am wrong but I was able to 2-0 both by prioritizing conflagrate and playing 1 darkblast MD and another side. I also brought in 2 lightning axe and 2 abrupt decay because the only thing we can't deal with too well is when they go tall instead of wide. They have started to side in rest in peace because of us though so be careful. I would imagine that getting Rip'd and them having any sort of board would be hard for us to combat though.
Has anyone tried burning inquiry? I like the additional draw spell for a more explosive G1, but have no experience with it. I have an rptq this weekend and am strongly considering dredge as my choice for the event.
Edit: I also am unsure how I feel about 18 lands. I understand he added additional draw spells, but inquiry is a random discard. discarding our 2nd land drop means we would have to regular draw until we hit another land.
Personally I would not drop below 20 lands. I know that we mull great but I already go to 6 cards because of only having 1 land and no faithless lootings way too often. I don't want to hurt that anymore. I ordered a playset of inquiry yesterday and I am going to try them later this week. I am going to start with the playset just so I can draw it often but I couldn't imagine I would actually want more than 2.
Thanks and cheers to both of you. I’ll have to keep the RiP info tucked away as well. As for the Burning Inquiry, I’m going to try 2 myself, probably cutting my Haunted Dead and Ghost Quarter from my main deck to see how I feel playing under 20 lands. I’m playing a fetchless build myself so shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.
Don't run it.