UGH. I know it. I feel like if WOTC can develop cards that look bad in spoiler season and turn out to be playable... we can also have cards that look threatening in spoiler season and have them turn out to be not so much. This just reminds me of when Pithing Needle was spoiled, and even Cranial Extraction.
IIRC, LOR was when the "blue is dead" threads started.
They evolved into "we need good blue cards other than faeries" in MOR.
The cry of blue mage despair reached its apex with that ZEN multikicker tangled-arm counterspell. (Spell Contortion... I am shocked I couldn't remember that one off the top of my head.)
The "blue is weak" themes decommenced about 1 month after WWK.
I think people are overestimating the Cage, just as they did Torpor Orb. It's better than the orb, but what about the extra copies you draw? What if a deck only uses a moderate amount of gy tech? How many copies should you run?
Heh, I think blue players are just whiny in that way. I recall Lorwyn as being the time of Fairies and 5cc, Blue has been stomping skulls ever since.
Even pre-Jace they had those Baneslayer/Sphinx Of Jwar Isle/Some other cool finisher U/W decks with Condemn, Mana Leak, Day of Judgment and the like.
As long as they have a 2cc Counterspell, Blue will always piss all over magic. Each core set that passes I hope and pray to not see Mana Leak on the list, but alas.......
I think this is a great idea. Along with everything else, it means that you have actual answers to the most dominant strategy in a block in block constructed. That seems like a good thing and if anything, long overdue.
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I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause!
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw: SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
I find the idea that the card was put in there without the creators of the set being aware that it hoses the sets theme just ridiculous.
To be fair a couple of things do get changed late and the full impact of those changes is not known at the time of printing. Looking @ skullcamptarmogoyf in particular. And occasionally they have to adapt to a whole new format cloudpost and modern spring to mind again.
Until we know more of the story behind the design of this block we won't know if the cage got through R&D unchanged or if they pushed it in some way. The other side is we only rarely get hints of what R&D play in the Future Future league so don't know if they were completely over run by undying decks and other such out the graveyard shennanigans.
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Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and start slitting throats.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The only defencei can really give this card is that GY wise it didnt give us anything we didnt already have. Nihil spellbomb was already 1 colorless and will with scars, so honestly this card was needex eventually to ensure there would be an answer to Gy.
Having played against lich combo since lich came out i can tell you that it was past broken in many cases and hard to stop if you didnt stop heartless early enough. Lich combo needed this card.
edit: i only play standard and a limited mount if modern.
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Trolling can be defined as "A art, one specifically designed to misdirect, anger, or confuse others by reporting meaningful information in a clear, coherent way."
One day I will go infinate on a token combo then drop Scramble verse and watch as the trolling begins. That day will be a good day.
Its the wrong card for the existing meta? Last i look, U/W was predominate in last year's meta and seems like U/W is going to be it again for this year. Since INNs, Pod and Solar flare are no longer competitive decks. I would like to think that atleast a deck based off reanimator should be a competitive in a new set that's based flavor of INN, not another u/w deck. Any chance that solar flare has against fighting u/w in the future is completely negated by a single card. Where's the 1 mana artifact that stops transformation against devlar decks?
"Threats are supposed to have answers. For a long time R&D kept answers to the block's themes out of the block saving it for the following year. That philosophy burned us a couple times and we learned that the answers have to be within the block as a safety valve.
The goal of Grafdigger's Cage is not to prevent the decks from ever happening (because the card is a dead card if those types of decks never show) but provide answers to them if they get out of hand."
He...doesn't play this game, does he?
Hosers are not the right answer for new deck types. Proper design and playtesting is the answer. Playing in a field where every deck type has a powerful hoser is not fun. If that hoser is available in the same set, then the new deck types will never come together and nobody will have fun with the new mechanics.
MaRo is taking the 'spay and neuter' approach to MTG set design. If you pre-emptively cut off the balls of every deck then there's no chance they can get out of control. This is beyond bad game design. It's appalling.
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New Webcomic -- Genocide Man Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
I think the beauty of the cage is that it can easily be played.
The difference between hosers and game winners is that the hosers try to stop the game winners without winning the game in themselves.
If people play this card mainboard, against a lot of current T1 decks, it will be a wasted slot. It encourages people to not have a narrow strategy.
Personally, I am completely fine with seeing hosers printed that too greatly hose something rather than too weakly do it (i.e. "hosers" to caw blade). The cage won't win games, but balance them from getting out of hand. Now they need to print a 1 cost Titan hoser.
They're just figuring out that it's good to put hosers in the blocks they're meant to hose? That's weird.
Problem with the Cage isn't where it was printed, it's the insane power level in all formats. Hosers shouldn't be a safety valve in case design and testing in the block is bad. Design and test properly and you don't need overpowered fix-it cards.
Hosers are not the right answer for new deck types. Proper design and playtesting is the answer. Playing in a field where every deck type has a powerful hoser is not fun. If that hoser is available in the same set, then the new deck types will never come together and nobody will have fun with the new mechanics.
MaRo is taking the 'spay and neuter' approach to MTG set design. If you pre-emptively cut off the balls of every deck then there's no chance they can get out of control. This is beyond bad game design. It's appalling.
To play devil's advocate, I have experience doing professional QA work for video games. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a LOT of work. No matter how much effort you put into it, there's going to be something you miss because there's simply too many multitudes of possibilities to cover exhaustively once a system becomes sufficiently complicated. We were still finding things wrong near our deadline that we simply didn't have the practical resources to fix 'properly', and so we put in 'safety valves' or little band-aids to try and make them a little more manageable.
Looking at the past, there have been several times things have gotten out of hand. Cough, cough, Affinity. Donate Grandeur was an entirely unintentional combo. I'm sure there have been plenty of broken things they've stopped, but they won't always stop some from slipping through.
I'm not saying that the approach he's taking is the best, but to say that 'proper design and testing' will magically produce a perfect product is unrealistic. Sometimes you need a safety net.
Now, whether it's 'fun' or not is another question. Personally, I'd rather see variety. I think this might be overboard, but having these sorts of safety nets in general are a good thing in my eyes. It remains to be seen whether or not a safety net at all, but rather a straitjacket.
Technically, it is a 1 for 0 as you are using a card that doesn't impact the board in any way at all. All it does it prevent future interactions, and only does that so long as the opponent doesn't have an answer.
The fact that this takes a dump on Green Sun's Zenith makes me think it would actually be okay to see it come back in Modern.
I'm fine with this card, but it certainly is above the curve from anything I've seen printed in terms of hate. First, Thalia, and now this. Luckily this card can be dealt with efficiently.
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Commander:
1v1
Talrand, the Sky Summoner
Multi
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Technically, it is a 1 for 0 as you are using a card that doesn't impact the board in any way at all. All it does it prevent future interactions, and only does that so long as the opponent doesn't have an answer.
drop cage turn one against a solarflare / wwr /pod deck. And tell me how it doesn't impact the board in anyway? How many of these cards use their enabler by turn 2? Only wwr with green sun for birds. Pod's at turn3 and solarflare is turn 4.
drop cage turn one against a solarflare / wwr /pod deck. And tell me how it doesn't impact the board in anyway? How many of these cards use their enabler by turn 2? Only wwr with green sun for birds. Pod's at turn3 and solarflare is turn 4.
Yes, this card is extremely good against Pod and Solar Flare if you drop it turn one. It is good against Pod if you drop it any time before turn 3. Against Flare it is not very good unless you drop it turn 1. If you drop it any time after turn 1 it gets progressively worse. They won't have it turn 1 every game, and it won't happen very often since running more than 2 of these is terrible.
Also, against Wolf Run it is just terrible. Are you really going to run this card to shut off only GSZ?
Yes, this card is extremely good against Pod and Solar Flare if you drop it turn one. It is good against Pod if you drop it any time before turn 3. Against Flare it is not very good unless you drop it turn 1. If you drop it any time after turn 1 it gets progressively worse. They won't have it turn 1 every game, and it won't happen very often since running more than 2 of these is terrible.
Also, against Wolf Run it is just terrible. Are you really going to run this card to shut off only GSZ?
Since solar flare is packing lilliana drawing multiples isn't bad. If they +1 you discard an extra cage and they discard something that will not be coming back.
Control was already having a hard time keeping up with delver and other aggro decks. I have played solar flare since Oct. It is now a dead deck. I was planning on moving to zombies. That dream is now dead too.
Yes, this card is extremely good against Pod and Solar Flare if you drop it turn one. It is good against Pod if you drop it any time before turn 3. Against Flare it is not very good unless you drop it turn 1. If you drop it any time after turn 1 it gets progressively worse. They won't have it turn 1 every game, and it won't happen very often since running more than 2 of these is terrible.
Also, against Wolf Run it is just terrible. Are you really going to run this card to shut off only GSZ?
delvar decks have a good matchup already, it really doesn't matter, but in reality ,i sz matters to wwr when they hit turn 4-5 and they want to dump out titan. You already probably have atleast a bounce or counterspell by then, but then again extra options for you so you can hold that for something else.
solarflare rarely goes off with reanimation before turn 4, u need excel turn 1 and discard off forbidden turn 2?. You have 3 turns anyway to drop cage, same against pod. These decks are not tier 1. They need all the help they can get back in there. Printing a 1 mana solution against archetypes is not good. Since Devlar is starting to show it has pretty solid matchups against multiple strats.
If they reprint exhume, i can understand cage being preventive. INN has no real good flashback and this new set does seem much like it either since it looks like more WW and a new direction with b/w tokens. This cage is so out of place. This set's good graveyard effects aside from green bloodghast are overly expensive. You don't need 1 drop artifact solution to stop all of this.
delvar decks have a good matchup already, it really doesn't matter, but in reality ,i sz matters to wwr when they hit turn 4-5 and they want to dump out titan. You already probably have atleast a bounce or counterspell by then, but then again extra options for you so you can hold that for something else.
solarflare rarely goes off with reanimation before turn 4, u need excel turn 1 and discard off forbidden turn 2?. You have 3 turns anyway to drop cage, same against pod. These decks are not tier 1. They need all the help they can get back in there. Printing a 1 mana solution against archetypes is not good. Since Devlar is starting to show it has pretty solid matchups against multiple strats.
If they reprint exhume, i can understand cage being preventive. INN has no real good flashback and this new set does seem much like it either since it looks like more WW and a new direction with b/w tokens. This cage is so out of place. This set's good graveyard effects aside from green bloodghast are overly expensive. You don't need 1 drop artifact solution to stop all of this.
You're right, you don't need a 1 drop artifact to stop all of that. Which is why the card isn't all that amazing in Standard, and in Modern and Legacy there are better options already. This card might see play in Vintage, but that's about it.
Just think if lorywn block had Engineered Plague? Would the fae have gotten out of hand? I think not. I aplaud wizards for making a hoser like this. I think that they obviously playtested these graveyard decks and felt that a hoser was needed
There's a hell of a difference between "your strategy is slightly weaker" and "lol ur deck is brok"
The last time we got a "graveyard matters" mechanic, we got Dredge, which turned out to be one of the most broken mechanics in the history of the game.
Dredge perfectly illustrates the difference between interesting solutions and lazy blanket hosers like Cage. One of my favorite solutions for any combo deck ever was beating Bridge from Below by using Plagued Rusalka. It hits the combo in the gut without completely turning the deck off. It's useful in other situations, unlike a "magic bullet" card like Cage (actually more like "magic shotgun shell" in this case). It can be played around or countered with cards that themselves aren't necessarily going to be incredibly narrow hosers.
Also, something that sticks around is a LOT different from a wiper like Shatterstorm/Creeping Corrosion. The latter happen once and then you at least have the possibility of coming back. Something like Cage or Leyline of the Void that just sits there pretty much just tells you to go to hell.
Timely Reinforcements, Autumn's veil, and Ratchet Bomb happen ONCE and then go away. Kor Firewalker hobbled but did not completely turn off the deck it was against, and even then there were answers that were also useful in other situations (for example Ghostfire- even if they're not using Firewalkers is still a burn spell, however inefficient).
This may be the wrong place to ask, but I'm really torn on this. I run a moderately successful Soul Sisters/Ascension deck in Legacy that sideboards Leonin Arbiter and a couple Leyline of the Voids to neuter dredge, reanimator, and others. The cage seems like it would do that without neutering my Ranger of Eos, but I wouldn't be able to shut down Fetches or anything like that the way Arbiter would, and I would have to toss mana (not really a problem in weanie) to get it to shutdown dredge and and Reanimator a turn later. Which should I run?
This may be the wrong place to ask, but I'm really torn on this. I run a moderately successful Soul Sisters/Ascension deck in Legacy that sideboards Leonin Arbiter and a couple Leyline of the Voids to neuter dredge, reanimator, and others. The cage seems like it would do that without neutering my Ranger of Eos, but I wouldn't be able to shut down Fetches or anything like that the way Arbiter would, and I would have to toss mana (not really a problem in weanie) to get it to shutdown dredge and and Reanimator a turn later. Which should I run?
Arbiter over this for sure. This card does nothing most of the time in Legacy unless you play it on turn 1 or 2. Arbiter hits more and is a body to attack with if you draw it later in the game.
Leyline is a little closer since you're not Black. Although I'd say Relic is better because it replaces itself, and once again, if you draw it turn 2 or 3 it is still useful.
Arbiter over this for sure. This card does nothing most of the time in Legacy unless you play it on turn 1 or 2. Arbiter hits more and is a body to attack with if you draw it later in the game.
Leyline is a little closer since you're not Black. Although I'd say Relic is better because it replaces itself, and once again, if you draw it turn 2 or 3 it is still useful.
I like Leyline a bit because it hoses Dredge a little bit harder. I have to mulligan to it, but I don't have to worry about Narcomoeba bouncing into play. Unless I misunderstand the way the deck works, which is possible.
Thanks! I'm still probably going to search this out cause man it is a sweet hoser.
I like Leyline a bit because it hoses Dredge a little bit harder. I have to mulligan to it, but I don't have to worry about Narcomoeba bouncing into play. Unless I misunderstand the way the deck works, which is possible.
Thanks! I'm still probably going to search this out cause man it is a sweet hoser.
Leyline is certainly the best card against dredge. But it creates 100% dead cards in your deck. And if you are absolutely worried about Narcomoeba, you just pop the Relic in response. If you're worried about keeping one mana up, just run Tormod's Crypt instead. They are all live when you draw them at least.
UGH. I know it. I feel like if WOTC can develop cards that look bad in spoiler season and turn out to be playable... we can also have cards that look threatening in spoiler season and have them turn out to be not so much. This just reminds me of when Pithing Needle was spoiled, and even Cranial Extraction.
Heh, I think blue players are just whiny in that way. I recall Lorwyn as being the time of Fairies and 5cc, Blue has been stomping skulls ever since.
Even pre-Jace they had those Baneslayer/Sphinx Of Jwar Isle/Some other cool finisher U/W decks with Condemn, Mana Leak, Day of Judgment and the like.
As long as they have a 2cc Counterspell, Blue will always piss all over magic. Each core set that passes I hope and pray to not see Mana Leak on the list, but alas.......
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw:
SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
I find the idea that the card was put in there without the creators of the set being aware that it hoses the sets theme just ridiculous.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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To be fair a couple of things do get changed late and the full impact of those changes is not known at the time of printing. Looking @ skullcamp tarmogoyf in particular. And occasionally they have to adapt to a whole new format cloudpost and modern spring to mind again.
Until we know more of the story behind the design of this block we won't know if the cage got through R&D unchanged or if they pushed it in some way. The other side is we only rarely get hints of what R&D play in the Future Future league so don't know if they were completely over run by undying decks and other such out the graveyard shennanigans.
- H.L Mencken
I Became insane with long Intervals of horrible Sanity
All Religion, my friend is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination and poetry.
- Edgar Allan Poe
The Crafters' Rules Guru
Having played against lich combo since lich came out i can tell you that it was past broken in many cases and hard to stop if you didnt stop heartless early enough. Lich combo needed this card.
edit: i only play standard and a limited mount if modern.
One day I will go infinate on a token combo then drop Scramble verse and watch as the trolling begins. That day will be a good day.
Mental Misstep costs 0! Dismember costs 1!
Considering Delver is going to eat faces for a couple swings if you don't... might as well pay the life!
He...doesn't play this game, does he?
Hosers are not the right answer for new deck types. Proper design and playtesting is the answer. Playing in a field where every deck type has a powerful hoser is not fun. If that hoser is available in the same set, then the new deck types will never come together and nobody will have fun with the new mechanics.
MaRo is taking the 'spay and neuter' approach to MTG set design. If you pre-emptively cut off the balls of every deck then there's no chance they can get out of control. This is beyond bad game design. It's appalling.
Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass slaughter can be hilarious.
The difference between hosers and game winners is that the hosers try to stop the game winners without winning the game in themselves.
If people play this card mainboard, against a lot of current T1 decks, it will be a wasted slot. It encourages people to not have a narrow strategy.
Personally, I am completely fine with seeing hosers printed that too greatly hose something rather than too weakly do it (i.e. "hosers" to caw blade). The cage won't win games, but balance them from getting out of hand. Now they need to print a 1 cost Titan hoser.
RDW has survived Timely Reinforcements
Blue has survived Autumn's Veil
RDW survived Kor Firewalker
Tokens have survived Ratchet Bomb
Solar Flare/Burning Vengeance and GY shenanigans will survive this.
MTGS egos at their finest.
Thoughts on proxies:
Problem with the Cage isn't where it was printed, it's the insane power level in all formats. Hosers shouldn't be a safety valve in case design and testing in the block is bad. Design and test properly and you don't need overpowered fix-it cards.
.
To play devil's advocate, I have experience doing professional QA work for video games. It was a lot of fun, but it was also a LOT of work. No matter how much effort you put into it, there's going to be something you miss because there's simply too many multitudes of possibilities to cover exhaustively once a system becomes sufficiently complicated. We were still finding things wrong near our deadline that we simply didn't have the practical resources to fix 'properly', and so we put in 'safety valves' or little band-aids to try and make them a little more manageable.
Looking at the past, there have been several times things have gotten out of hand. Cough, cough, Affinity. Donate Grandeur was an entirely unintentional combo. I'm sure there have been plenty of broken things they've stopped, but they won't always stop some from slipping through.
I'm not saying that the approach he's taking is the best, but to say that 'proper design and testing' will magically produce a perfect product is unrealistic. Sometimes you need a safety net.
Now, whether it's 'fun' or not is another question. Personally, I'd rather see variety. I think this might be overboard, but having these sorts of safety nets in general are a good thing in my eyes. It remains to be seen whether or not a safety net at all, but rather a straitjacket.
Those are 1 for 1. Cage is not, it is continuous...
1 Cage invalidating multiple enablers vs 1 card invalidating 1 card.
Technically, it is a 1 for 0 as you are using a card that doesn't impact the board in any way at all. All it does it prevent future interactions, and only does that so long as the opponent doesn't have an answer.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
I'm fine with this card, but it certainly is above the curve from anything I've seen printed in terms of hate. First, Thalia, and now this. Luckily this card can be dealt with efficiently.
1v1
Talrand, the Sky Summoner
Multi
Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
drop cage turn one against a solarflare / wwr /pod deck. And tell me how it doesn't impact the board in anyway? How many of these cards use their enabler by turn 2? Only wwr with green sun for birds. Pod's at turn3 and solarflare is turn 4.
Yes, this card is extremely good against Pod and Solar Flare if you drop it turn one. It is good against Pod if you drop it any time before turn 3. Against Flare it is not very good unless you drop it turn 1. If you drop it any time after turn 1 it gets progressively worse. They won't have it turn 1 every game, and it won't happen very often since running more than 2 of these is terrible.
Also, against Wolf Run it is just terrible. Are you really going to run this card to shut off only GSZ?
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
Since solar flare is packing lilliana drawing multiples isn't bad. If they +1 you discard an extra cage and they discard something that will not be coming back.
Control was already having a hard time keeping up with delver and other aggro decks. I have played solar flare since Oct. It is now a dead deck. I was planning on moving to zombies. That dream is now dead too.
delvar decks have a good matchup already, it really doesn't matter, but in reality ,i sz matters to wwr when they hit turn 4-5 and they want to dump out titan. You already probably have atleast a bounce or counterspell by then, but then again extra options for you so you can hold that for something else.
solarflare rarely goes off with reanimation before turn 4, u need excel turn 1 and discard off forbidden turn 2?. You have 3 turns anyway to drop cage, same against pod. These decks are not tier 1. They need all the help they can get back in there. Printing a 1 mana solution against archetypes is not good. Since Devlar is starting to show it has pretty solid matchups against multiple strats.
If they reprint exhume, i can understand cage being preventive. INN has no real good flashback and this new set does seem much like it either since it looks like more WW and a new direction with b/w tokens. This cage is so out of place. This set's good graveyard effects aside from green bloodghast are overly expensive. You don't need 1 drop artifact solution to stop all of this.
You're right, you don't need a 1 drop artifact to stop all of that. Which is why the card isn't all that amazing in Standard, and in Modern and Legacy there are better options already. This card might see play in Vintage, but that's about it.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
There's a hell of a difference between "your strategy is slightly weaker" and "lol ur deck is brok"
Good god. Have you played this game before?
Dredge perfectly illustrates the difference between interesting solutions and lazy blanket hosers like Cage. One of my favorite solutions for any combo deck ever was beating Bridge from Below by using Plagued Rusalka. It hits the combo in the gut without completely turning the deck off. It's useful in other situations, unlike a "magic bullet" card like Cage (actually more like "magic shotgun shell" in this case). It can be played around or countered with cards that themselves aren't necessarily going to be incredibly narrow hosers.
Also, something that sticks around is a LOT different from a wiper like Shatterstorm/Creeping Corrosion. The latter happen once and then you at least have the possibility of coming back. Something like Cage or Leyline of the Void that just sits there pretty much just tells you to go to hell.
Timely Reinforcements, Autumn's veil, and Ratchet Bomb happen ONCE and then go away. Kor Firewalker hobbled but did not completely turn off the deck it was against, and even then there were answers that were also useful in other situations (for example Ghostfire- even if they're not using Firewalkers is still a burn spell, however inefficient).
Arbiter over this for sure. This card does nothing most of the time in Legacy unless you play it on turn 1 or 2. Arbiter hits more and is a body to attack with if you draw it later in the game.
Leyline is a little closer since you're not Black. Although I'd say Relic is better because it replaces itself, and once again, if you draw it turn 2 or 3 it is still useful.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
I like Leyline a bit because it hoses Dredge a little bit harder. I have to mulligan to it, but I don't have to worry about Narcomoeba bouncing into play. Unless I misunderstand the way the deck works, which is possible.
Thanks! I'm still probably going to search this out cause man it is a sweet hoser.
Leyline is certainly the best card against dredge. But it creates 100% dead cards in your deck. And if you are absolutely worried about Narcomoeba, you just pop the Relic in response. If you're worried about keeping one mana up, just run Tormod's Crypt instead. They are all live when you draw them at least.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!