Hi there, well the title pretty much sums everything up. I'm just confused on how to actually win with one of these decks. I'm just talking about any average one, competitive or not, it doesn't matter, I just want to understand this type of deck better and how your suppose to play it properly. If anyone knows about this type of deck, I'd appreciate any info. thanks.
no matter what you want to be on the draw. never mulligan. At the end of your turn discard a card, next turn start dredging, pray your opponent doesnt have a leyline of the void. win. the end. now you can win 5k's.
Well, most of them do run a few mana sources...the idea is to use Bazaar of Baghdad (in vintage) or cheap discard outlets like Putrid Imp, Careful Study, or Breakthrough to dump dredge cards into your graveyard as early as possible. Then you just continually dredge until you mill over some Narcomoeba and Bridge From Below. Once those are in your graveyard, you can start amassing an army of attackers every turn. Ichorid and Dread Return (usually targeting Flame-kin Zealot) allow you to win the game much more quickly.
"Manaless Dredge" outside of Vintage is a horrible idea. If you try it in Legacy, you're just going to get beaten way more than you should because the "draw, discard, go" strategy gets disrupted very easily, especially if they hit you with Thoughtseize. Not to mention it's far slower, less reliable, and very inflexible—personally, I only do it if I fear countermagic.
(usually targeting Flame-kin Zealot)
There's a time and place for FKZ, but he's usually not my ideal Dread Return target, at least after game 1. Sphinx of Lost Truths, Woodfall Primus/Angel of Despair (Primus is nice because you can persist it with Cabal Therapy, but Angel hits Peacekeeper), etc tend to be much better when your opponent is actually prepared to deal with you.
Hi there, well the title pretty much sums everything up. I'm just confused on how to actually win with one of these decks. I'm just talking about any average one, competitive or not, it doesn't matter, I just want to understand this type of deck better and how your suppose to play it properly. If anyone knows about this type of deck, I'd appreciate any info. thanks.
Here's the gist. Details may vary from deck to deck, but this is enough to get you an idea.
1) Get one dredge card into the graveyard. There are several methods of doing this. In vintage, you mulligan for something like bazaar of baghdad. Turn 1 bazaar, activate bazaar,
draw card, discard a dredge card. In legacy. there are several outlets, such as breakthrough. Contrary to the horrible "never mulligan" advice above, you will mulligan aggresively on game 1 to make sure you have some way of putting a dredge card in the graveyard on turn 1.
2) once you have a dredge card in your graveyard, turn every draw into dredge. This will cause your graveyard to fill very quickly. Along the way, you will manage to hit cards like narcomoeba and bridge from below, which will give you creatures.
3) Sooner or later you'll put dread return and a flame kiln zealot. Flashback dread return, return flamekiln zealot into play, all your zombies now get haste and pump, swing in to attack.
Done properly you can win on turn 2 to 3. On a god draw, you can win on turn 1.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Manaless Dredge is an aggro/combo deck which aims to win the game without ever adding mana to the mana pool, often by the 2-4th turn. To do this, it plays abilities and spells from the graveyard, using the maximum hand size rule to discard cards. Once discarding has begun, Ravnica block cards with the Dredge mechanic are used to quickly fill the graveyard and overwhelm opponents.
Deck Philosophy: Manaless dredge eschews mana and mana spells in order to gain resiliency against control and tempo tactics, shutting off some format-defining cards like Wasteland and Mental Misstep while minimizing the impact of others like Force of Will. It functions as an aggro deck with nearly limitless ability to generate board presence. Cards included typically provide card advantage via the Dredge mechanic or resilience and power from the graveyard.
Play Guide: With manaless dredge, you will almost never mulligan. To facilitate this, we run enough dredgers that you have 90%+ chance of having one to discard on the first turn without taking a single mulligan.
You will also choose to draw, when given the choice. This will let you draw up to 8 cards on your first turn, and then end the turn without playing any of them. This will cause you to discard a card due to the maximum-hand size rule, and you will generally choose to discard a dredger or a discard outlet such as Phantasmagorian.
From there, you will build up your graveyard each turn by dredging, and reanimate Ichorid and Nether Shadow every (or nearly every) upkeep. You may simply win at this point, as many decks cannot deal with recursive beaters enhanced by Bridge from Below.
As you're building your graveyard, you can play free cantrips like Street Wraith and Urza's Bauble, replacing the draw effect with a dredge, and thereby accelerate the buildup of graveyard cards.
As you're beating down your opponent with creatures, you can use Cabal Therapy to disrupt their hands, either stopping whatever plan they're trying to advance or taking away hate cards like Ravenous Trap.
Finally, you can put the nail in the coffin with Dread Return on anything from Golgari Grave-Troll to Iona, Shield of Emeria/Stormtide Leviathan/Sphinx of the Steel Wind.
Contrary to the horrible "never mulligan" advice above, you will mulligan aggresively on game 1 to make sure you have some way of putting a dredge card in the graveyard on turn 1.
In Vintage, yeah, mulligan every hand that doesn't have Bazaar of Baghdad in it.
In Legacy, Manaless Dredge can't afford to mulligan aggressively, and luckily shouldn't need to. In the case your opener has no dredgers in it, the decision to mulligan is affected by the matchup, how many cantrips are in your hand, etc.
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1)Contrary to the horrible "never mulligan" advice above, you will mulligan aggresively on game 1 to make sure you have some way of putting a dredge card in the graveyard on turn 1.
Not true. The "manaless dredge" decks don't run bazaar or anything like that. You choose to draw first game every game. Draw up to 8 cards for your turn and discard at the end step without ever casting anything or putting anything into play.
"Manaless Dredge" outside of Vintage is a horrible idea. If you try it in Legacy, you're just going to get beaten way more than you should because the "draw, discard, go" strategy gets disrupted very easily, especially if they hit you with Thoughtseize. Not to mention it's far slower, less reliable, and very inflexible—personally, I only do it if I fear countermagic.
I'm glad someone else shares this opinion. As cool as it is that it won in Cincinnati, it only happened because hardly anyone seemed to be packing the hate for it. Where Mana Dredge can generally play around a substantial amount of graveyard hate, manaless will fold to even a small amount of hate. (the Junk Depth match was really just poor decision making by the Junk player)
I'm glad someone else shares this opinion. As cool as it is that it won in Cincinnati, it only happened because hardly anyone seemed to be packing the hate for it. Where Mana Dredge can generally play around a substantial amount of graveyard hate, manaless will fold to even a small amount of hate. (the Junk Depth match was really just poor decision making by the Junk player)
Don't get me wrong; Manaless Dredge isn't the end-all-be-all of Dredge decks, and just like Mana Dredge, it's very much a "metagame deck." But it does not "fold to even a small amount of hate." I'll shamelessly quote myself from the other thread:
There seems to be a misconception that manaless dredge is more susceptible to non-Leyline of the Void graveyard hate than mana dredge. While a turn 1 Relic of Progenitus can certainly cause problems, it's not the end of the world. Discarding a Phantasmagorian works, but will set you back once the Relic is popped. Other ways include Street Wraith in response, or, if you're playing them, using a Mishra's or Urza's Bauble to get an extra card in the graveyard.
In reality, the manaless dredge player will almost always have a full grip of 7 ready to draw and discard the turn after, say, a Tormod's Crypt has gone off. The mana dredge player, on the other hand, better have a discard dork ready to go. Also, Breakthrough and Lion's Eye Diamond are risky propositions.
Graveyard hate certainly is annoying, but manaless dredge doesn't just fold to it any more than mana dredge does, either (obviously excepting Leyline of the Void).
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Divide & Conquer Card Shuffler
Divide & Conquer is an Android app that completely shuffles your real deck of cards. It's great for unwieldy decks (Battle of Wits, Commander, etc.) and the paranoid thorough 40/60-card player. Check it out!
"Manaless Dredge" outside of Vintage is a horrible idea. If you try it in Legacy, you're just going to get beaten way more than you should because the "draw, discard, go" strategy gets disrupted very easily, especially if they hit you with Thoughtseize. Not to mention it's far slower, less reliable, and very inflexible—personally, I only do it if I fear countermagic.
There's a time and place for FKZ, but he's usually not my ideal Dread Return target, at least after game 1. Sphinx of Lost Truths, Woodfall Primus/Angel of Despair (Primus is nice because you can persist it with Cabal Therapy, but Angel hits Peacekeeper), etc tend to be much better when your opponent is actually prepared to deal with you.
I love when people make me discard when my hand is full of all dredge cards it really works great.
It's been doing pretty well, and last weekend it took 2nd place at SCG Ohio (well over 200 people.) So, if that's terrible then yeah, I guess.
It's just the flavour of the month. A deck can take a metagame by surprise, but this deck doesn't seem to me like it'll be able to stay competitive once people get used to its presence.
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I love when people make me discard when my hand is full of all dredge cards it really works great.
Looking at the lists, I can see a bunch of cards I'd be totally fine with making you discard. Unless you want to try convincing me that your hand will always be 7 cards with dredge...
It's just the flavour of the month. A deck can take a metagame by surprise, but this deck doesn't seem to me like it'll be able to stay competitive once people get used to its presence.
We'll see, but either way, I think calling a deck that places 2nd in major tournament (not just some random FNM) and costs all of 3 cents to put together (!) a "terrible idea" to play is going a little overboard. It can clearly compete and its most expensive card is under 10 bucks. That's pretty good if you ask me.
We'll see, but either way, I think calling a deck that places 2nd in major tournament (not just some random FNM) and costs all of 3 cents to put together (!) a "terrible idea" to play is going a little overboard. It can clearly compete and its most expensive card is under 10 bucks. That's pretty good if you ask me.
To be fair, the deck won the finals but then the player scooped because that's pretty much how StarCity tournaments go.
In vintage, sure (although that's not totally manaless, you still have some SB cards). The legacy version looks quite poor to me, and only won the 5k a couple weeks ago because people aren't packing enough, if any, graveyard hate. And the guy sounded like a pretty competent player.
To be fair, the deck won the finals but then the player scooped because that's pretty much how StarCity tournaments go.
In his defense, he said he doesn't go to SCG opens because he works most weekends, so he took the money and the trophy and let Caleb have the open points as they're more important to him. I would agree that scooping among SCG regulars is a little over the top (referred to by a Source member as an "incestual collusion-fest") but this was not one of those cases.
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Humorously, this thread about Dredge has been reanimated.
On a serious note, all decks to some degree vary in potency based on the meta they are played in. Dredge is just one tool of many in the Legacy arsenal, and has continued to be a part of the Legacy meta that people need to be aware of and prepared for when it shows up.
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Currently dreaming up:
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There's a time and place for FKZ, but he's usually not my ideal Dread Return target, at least after game 1. Sphinx of Lost Truths, Woodfall Primus/Angel of Despair (Primus is nice because you can persist it with Cabal Therapy, but Angel hits Peacekeeper), etc tend to be much better when your opponent is actually prepared to deal with you.
Here's the gist. Details may vary from deck to deck, but this is enough to get you an idea.
1) Get one dredge card into the graveyard. There are several methods of doing this. In vintage, you mulligan for something like bazaar of baghdad. Turn 1 bazaar, activate bazaar,
draw card, discard a dredge card. In legacy. there are several outlets, such as breakthrough. Contrary to the horrible "never mulligan" advice above, you will mulligan aggresively on game 1 to make sure you have some way of putting a dredge card in the graveyard on turn 1.
2) once you have a dredge card in your graveyard, turn every draw into dredge. This will cause your graveyard to fill very quickly. Along the way, you will manage to hit cards like narcomoeba and bridge from below, which will give you creatures.
3) Sooner or later you'll put dread return and a flame kiln zealot. Flashback dread return, return flamekiln zealot into play, all your zombies now get haste and pump, swing in to attack.
Done properly you can win on turn 2 to 3. On a god draw, you can win on turn 1.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
EDIT:
In Vintage, yeah, mulligan every hand that doesn't have Bazaar of Baghdad in it.
In Legacy, Manaless Dredge can't afford to mulligan aggressively, and luckily shouldn't need to. In the case your opener has no dredgers in it, the decision to mulligan is affected by the matchup, how many cantrips are in your hand, etc.
Divide & Conquer is an Android app that completely shuffles your real deck of cards. It's great for unwieldy decks (Battle of Wits, Commander, etc.) and the
paranoidthorough 40/60-card player. Check it out!Not true. The "manaless dredge" decks don't run bazaar or anything like that. You choose to draw first game every game. Draw up to 8 cards for your turn and discard at the end step without ever casting anything or putting anything into play.
RGStandard Gruul AggroRG
I'm glad someone else shares this opinion. As cool as it is that it won in Cincinnati, it only happened because hardly anyone seemed to be packing the hate for it. Where Mana Dredge can generally play around a substantial amount of graveyard hate, manaless will fold to even a small amount of hate. (the Junk Depth match was really just poor decision making by the Junk player)
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Don't get me wrong; Manaless Dredge isn't the end-all-be-all of Dredge decks, and just like Mana Dredge, it's very much a "metagame deck." But it does not "fold to even a small amount of hate." I'll shamelessly quote myself from the other thread:
Divide & Conquer is an Android app that completely shuffles your real deck of cards. It's great for unwieldy decks (Battle of Wits, Commander, etc.) and the
paranoidthorough 40/60-card player. Check it out!Well, hmmm, I guess that depends on what you mean by terrible.
It's been doing pretty well, and last weekend it took 2nd place at SCG Ohio (well over 200 people.) So, if that's terrible then yeah, I guess.
I love when people make me discard when my hand is full of all dredge cards it really works great.
It's just the flavour of the month. A deck can take a metagame by surprise, but this deck doesn't seem to me like it'll be able to stay competitive once people get used to its presence.
Looking at the lists, I can see a bunch of cards I'd be totally fine with making you discard. Unless you want to try convincing me that your hand will always be 7 cards with dredge...
We'll see, but either way, I think calling a deck that places 2nd in major tournament (not just some random FNM) and costs all of 3 cents to put together (!) a "terrible idea" to play is going a little overboard. It can clearly compete and its most expensive card is under 10 bucks. That's pretty good if you ask me.
Also, mana-using Dredge decks aren't exactly expensive either unless you're dead-set on using LED for whatever reason.
To be fair, the deck won the finals but then the player scooped because that's pretty much how StarCity tournaments go.
In his defense, he said he doesn't go to SCG opens because he works most weekends, so he took the money and the trophy and let Caleb have the open points as they're more important to him. I would agree that scooping among SCG regulars is a little over the top (referred to by a Source member as an "incestual collusion-fest") but this was not one of those cases.
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On a serious note, all decks to some degree vary in potency based on the meta they are played in. Dredge is just one tool of many in the Legacy arsenal, and has continued to be a part of the Legacy meta that people need to be aware of and prepared for when it shows up.