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 while minimizing the impact of others like Force of Will and Daze. It functions as an aggro/combo 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.
When to Play Manaless Dredge:
This is surprisingly simple. Avoid playing Manaless Dredge if there is a heavy presence of good graveyard hate (see below, "Dealing with Hate"). Otherwise, play Manaless Dredge if the format is very reactive or very slow. Blue counterspells, creature destruction, and mana restriction are all extremely ineffective against Manaless Dredge. Fortunately, these cards form the basis of many commonly-played decks in Legacy.
Common Misconceptions:
"Manaless Dredge is much, much slower than LED Dredge." This is not true. Manaless Dredge is slightly slower, but because of its high consistency and the fact that each free cantrip is worth a card draw (which is as efficient as a land + Careful Study or Faithless Looting), the average turn to kill is within a turn of LED Dredge and possibly within half a turn (on average), even taking into account that Manaless chooses to Draw rather than Play. The advantage of the slightly slower build is that your deck is extremely resilient to almost all non-hate disruption. Many builds have zero targets for Wasteland and almost no targets for counterspells like Daze and Force of Will.
"Manaless Dredge cannot beat hate." This is not true. Many one-shot hate cards like Tormod's Crypt and Surgical Extraction are ineffective against Manaless Dredge or serve merely to buy time. Furthermore, depending on the build, Manaless Dredge may be able to counter, remove, or circumvent persistent hate like Rest in Peace.
"Manaless Dredge is a bad deck." This is certainly not true. While there are metagames that are favorable and unfavorable for any deck, including Manaless Dredge, it has posted a plethora of strong finishes at large events. See the "Decklists" section below.
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, Nether Shadow, and/or Prized Amalgam every (or nearly every) turn. 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. A particularly potent variant of this is to Dread ReturnBalustrade Spy in decks that have zero land. This allows you to mill your whole deck and set up a kill using multiple Dread Return.
Card Choices:
Card Draw: Street Wraith is a universal inclusion. Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble can be countered and take an extra half of a turn to function, but provide extra speed. The fact that you miss a turn discarding isn't usually a big deal as most lists run some number of extra discard outlets, and the baubles push your hand up to 9 cards the following turn, allowing you to regain the discard you missed.
Discard Outlets: Phantasmagorian is a near-universal inclusion. He's most useful when trying to combo out. Gigapede is uncommon, and is used more to smooth out draws and dredges than to provide rapid acceleration. Cabal Therapy can also fill this role in a pinch.
Bodies: Ichorid is an all-star in this deck. He has plenty of food and bashes admirably. Nether Shadow plays second fiddle to Ichorid but is still an extremely common inclusion. Because you place however many cards you dredge into the graveyard all at once, and you can use Phantasmagorian as an extra discard outlet, Nether Shadow will generally come back every turn. Narcomoeba is another all-star. He doesn't take a turn to come out, so he's very useful when trying to combo out or just as rapid Dread Return/Cabal Therapy fodder. Bloodghast requires Dakmor Salvage and only has haste conditionally, but is still worth considering as an extra body. Chancellor of the Forge is not recommended.
Dredgers: Golgari Grave-Troll has 'Dredge 6' printed on him and can be reanimated as a huge fatty. Stinkweed Imp has 'Dredge 5' printed on him and a deathtouch-like effect. Golgari Thug has 'Dredge 4' printed on him and can prevent decking in certain niche situations. Shambling Shell has 'Dredge 3' printed on him and is a black creature to feed to Ichorid. Darkblast may be worth running if Dakmor Salvage is also present.
Addtionally, all of these creatures will be worth consideration as Dread Return targets on rare occasions.
Graveyard Effects: Bridge from Below combines with beaters to produce a nearly-endless supply of 2/2 zombie tokens. Dread Return helps sew up the game against many opponents, and with the right creature pulls wins out of nowhere against many others. Cabal Therapy acts as a sacrifice outlet as well as incredibly strong disruption against many opponents.
Land:
With the possible exception of special-effect lands like Wasteland and Bojuka Bog, the only land cards worth considering are: Dakmor Salvage, to turn on Bloodghast. Dryad Arbor, to enable a mana-based sideboard without being dead Game 1 (as it can be sacrificed or attack).
Reanimation Targets: Flame-Kin Zealot is the classic win condition. Dragonlord Kolaghan is similar to FKZ, with a number of corner-case differences. Flayer of the Hatebound gets around Moat and friends, but requires a bigger set of Dread Returns to end the game. Griselbrand is a solid draw creature / reanimation target, although he does cost a lot of life. Sphinx of Lost Truths is a balanced, all-around decent card-drawer. River Kelpie draws tons of cards and has persist, but lacks a sizeable body and requires substantial support. Balustrade Spy will eradicate your library in one fell swoop, and is worth considering for any land-less list. Iona, Shield of Emeria occasionally makes the main-deck. Whirlpool Rider is a 2-cost blue creature that provides a large card draw. The small body is made up for by the fact that he can be used to cast Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal.
To deal with hate and fast combo decks, some players run a blue-based deck.
Most of the key cards are presented below, the rest are flex slots left to the player's own choosing.
I personally believe that Dryad Arbor should be augmented by fetchlands and some number of Bayou, but a list configured that way has not yet posted results.
Black-based Aggro
Some players double down on recurring creatures by running 3-4 Dakmor Salvage (possibly reducing the number of other dredgers such as Shambling Shell) in order to run Bloodghast and/or Darkblast and/or a transformation sideboard centered around either black aggro or the Vampire Hexmage+Dark Depths combo.
Deckbuilding Minutiae:
Shuffle Creature:
Some decks will sideboard (or very rarely, maindeck) a creature which causes itself to be shuffled into the deck whenever it goes to the graveyard.
These creatures are primarily run as a backup to the Balustrade Spy combo, or as a hedge against mill decks like Grindstone.
The main distinction about which to run comes from their relative strength against Show and Tell or synergies within the deck. Blightsteel Colossus is strong in that your opponent must block or remove it before Colossus can attack. Often, this will shrink Emrakul to a 4/4 with the Annihilator 6 ability. As Manaless Dredge can generate hasty permanents or flood the board with zombies, this can be a favorable state of affairs. Progenitus is strongly chiefly because of his 5-color status, allowing him to be pitched to Force of Will or Sickening Shoal (among others). Serra Avatar is similar to Blighsteel but requires that you have a life lead (and requires a life total above 15 to win combat with Emrakul). Additionally, it is somewhat weaker against mill+hate (such as Surgical Extraction) because it does briefly go to the graveyard instead of skipping that zone altogether. Worldspine Wurm is less lethal than Blightsteel or Serra Avatar but interacts favorably with Emrakul by either trading with it and leaving tokens behind, or attacking and having tokens after the Annihilator ability causes you to sacrifice Wurm. Like Avatar he goes to the graveyard briefly which is a weakness against mill+hate. Dread and Guile are presumptively worse than Progenitus as shuffle creatures which do briefly go to the graveyard, are a bit smaller, are pitch-able colors, and have potentially relevant abilities. They should only be run in cases where their abilities compensate for their other drawbacks. Legacy Weapon is almost certainly worse than any of the other choices, including Darksteel Colossus, which can hedge against Mind Control effects more effectively. If these effects are a concern, the best card to run is probably Progenitus, which evades almost all Mind Control effects and is a relatively slow clock as well. In theory, Legacy Weapon has a niche application against creature-specific discard, but this is not a major factor. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and the other Eldrazi legends are anti-synergistic with the plan to dredge our own deck. They should generally be avoided.
Bauble:
Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble are optional free card draw that some decks may use.
A mix provides the best chance to evade Pithing Needle or other card-naming cards like Phyrexian Revoker or Meddling Mage. Urza's Bauble is weakly synergistic with Cabal Therapy in a direct way as you can name the card you saw. Mishra's Bauble is weakly synergistic with Cabal Therapy if the game continues for another turn. Mishra's Bauble is strong against decks like Miracles by allowing the manaless player to check for Terminus or other miracles before committing creatures to the board. Mishra's Bauble allows a temporary informational advantage over the opponent while Urza's Bauble basically moves closer to information parity.
Archetype History:
While Mana Dredge (with and without Lion's Eye Diamond) has a long history in tournament Magic, Manaless Dredge is a relative newcomer.
The initial push towards Manaless Dredge was a result of the then-dominant performance of Mental Misstep.
The deck's first coverage began here with a deck that took 81st place at SCG: Denver. Alexander Lapping was featured with the deck, and his friend Michael Joy ran it as well and took 77th place.
The list is below:
Alexander Lapping's 81st place deck from SCG Denver - 6/13/2011 (117 Players)
As players began to brew and playtest, new builds emerged. The most notable new innovation came a month after SCG Denver, when SCG Cincinatti was won by the deck discussed here and here. The list is also below, in the decklist section. The biggest changes are the adoption of multiple Phantasmagorian alongside multiple Gigapede for a large number of discard outlets, and eschewing Chancellor of the Forge and friends for an extra beatdown package of Bloodghast and Dakmor Salvage.
This Article by the Hatfield brother chronicles the increasing metagame share of Manaless Dredge as the Mental Misstep era came to a close. The deck performed tolerably well, earning a winning record, albeit an unspectacular one (virtually even with traditional Legacy Dredge builds in the same event).
Mental Misstep was ultimately banned in Legacy, which helped foster a push back towards the previous metagame. The numerous combo decks that had been tuned to beat control suddenly faced much weaker control decks. For a period, fast combo decks came to characterize the format. This was something of a hostile environment for Manaless Dredge. Manaless Dredge is a fast deck, but can be outraced by the very fastest combo decks.
Soon Dark Ascension was released (Feb 2012), bringing with it Faithless Looting and Flayer of the Hatebound and pushing Mana-driven Dredge to greater speeds and great consistency. Alongside Lion's Eye Diamond, Looting pushed out the Manaless-inspired changes in favor of a full-throttle assault. This was especially useful for Dredge players looking to fight through the heightened speed of the format.
With the release of Avacyn Restored in May 2012 and Griselbrand, interest in Dredge and Reanimator strategies reached a sustained high - occasionally prompting small amounts of Manaless decks to attack control.
Finally, in February of 2013, Gatecrash was released, bringing Balustrade Spy into the Legacy card pool. With this release, Manaless Dredge now has a unique and lethal kill to complement its near-invulnerability to control. This has resulted in increased excitement and heightened levels of play, such as Theo Van Doosselaere's 7th-place finish at StarCityGames 2013 Philadelphia Open.
As the format has come to a more stable place, Manaless Dredge appears to be a deck in its own right, with strong finishes and distinct matchups compared to Mana Dredge. As long as there is no major upheaval in Legacy, control decks will likely become more fine-tuned over time, leading to a very favorable environment for Manaless Dredge.
Decklists:
Nicholas Rausch's 1st Place Manaless Dredge list from SCG Cincinatti 7/17/2011 (228 Players)
I'm including Youmelia Gay's list from GP Amsterdam 2011 below. Gay finished 144 out of 1874. I've tried to include mostly Top8 lists, but I felt this one was worth including anyway. It was featured as undefeated going into Day 2, so it may hold some clues as to how to build if you want to get far in a monster-size tournament like a Euro GP.
Rest in Peace: Strip it from their hand with Cabal Therapy, win with creatures already in play, or concede.
Tormod's Crypt: Make them use it as soon as possible, while keeping as much dredge ability in reserve as possible. A difficult balancing act to master, but one that will give you solid win rates against Crypt.
Relic of Progenitus: See "Tips and Tricks" below as well as "Tormod's Crypt" above. If you get lucky, they may tap out for a turn and allow you to combo out.
Deathrite Shaman: See "Tips and Tricks" below. Like Relic, Deathrite is primarily a threat in the initial turns before you have multiple Dredgers in your graveyard.
Bojuka Bog: Usually if you see Knight of the Reliquary you should assume a Bog will follow. See "Tormod's Crypt" above, but you have to get the balance just right to beat the quick clock of Knight.
Faerie Macabre: See Extirpate above. This is comparable and often weaker.
Additional Reading:
The Mana-based Dredge Thread has an enormous amount of discussion on Mana Dredge, most of which is relevant here. Of particular interest is the discussion of Dread Return usage, as Manaless Dredge will generally be at least as consistent a reanimator deck as Mana Dredge.
This Article by Adam Barnello catalogs the entrance of Manaless Dredge into the Legacy metagame and advises players to run a playset of graveyard hate cards in their sideboards.
This Article by this forum and thread's own -spooky- highlights the strengths of Landless Dredge in Legacy, especially from a budget perspective.
This Article by Gerry Thomspon discusses Mana and Manaless Dredge, including some interesting comparisons of the two.
This Article by Michael Keller discusses some uncommon card choices and argues for their utility.
This Video features Nicholas Rausch himself discussing some of the card choices for Manaless Dredge - albeit with a much less successful finish than his Manaless win in 2011.
This is a short article on DailyMTG celebrating the no-land Balustrade Spy version of the deck.
Tips and Tricks:
Phantasmagorian has a lot of potential tricks. You can simply use him as an instant speed discard outlet, dumping creatures on top of a Nether Shadow at the end of your opponent's turn or otherwise screwing up anticipated combat math. You can also use his ability in response to itself, allowing you to discard 6 or even 9 cards with a single Phantasmagorian. Additionally, you can use two of them together to discard 2 cards at instant speed as many times as you'd like (always discarding a Phantasmagorian to the ability of the other). Finally, you can discard a dredger and two other cards to Phantasmagorian's ability, respond by cycling Street Wraith to dredge it, and then discard it again with another activation of the same Phantasmagorian's ability.
Ichorid dies at end of turn, so sometimes it's correct to reanimate him and not attack just to net zombie tokens.
River Kelpie, if run, can combine with Cabal Therapy, Narcomoeba, and Dread Return to combo out on the spot. Just be careful to count how many cards are in your library, as Kelpie's draw effect is not optional. Remember that Persist will resolve before Dread Return if you sacrifice Kelpie to pay for a Dread Return.
When you attack a non-token creature into a defender, if both die, you can still get zombie tokens by resolving the token-making ability of Bridge from Below first and then resolving the exile ability.
Nether Shadow needs creature cards above him in the graveyard, so be sure that whenever you dredge or discard him you put him as far down as possible. Since you discard for a single effect or mill for Dredge all at once, this is entirely legal.
Discard to a Phantasmagorian in response to the tap ability. You won't be able to discard again until turn 4.
Play a Bauble turn 1. Turn 2, discard, and in response to the tap ability, sacrifice the Bauble. Then you can exile said bauble instead of your dredger.
When an opponent tries to use hate cards to stop you mid-combo (and win due to your decking), Dread ReturnGolgari Thug and sacrifice it to put a creature on top of your deck and gain an extra turn.
Glossary of Terms
DDD - Draw, Discard, Dredge is when you draw until you have 8 cards, then discard due to the hand-size rule, then spend future draw steps dredging a card. The card that is dredged at the beginning of the turn can be discarded at the end, leading to a repeatable loop if desired.
Phantastagorian - My personal term for Phantasmagorian based on how fantastic he is! (Note: I advocate only 2-3 in most Manaless lists, while others often advocate the full 4. He's still fantastic!)
Hate - A generic 'Magic:The Gathering' term for cards which are very narrow but very effective at stopping certain strategies. In the case of Manaless Dredge so-called "gravehate" or graveyard hate threatens to shut down our graveyard-based strategy.
Anti-hate: Cards which stop "Hate" cards. (See "Hate")
Transformational Sideboard: A generic 'Magic:The Gathering' term for a sideboard plan that drastically changes your strategy in game 3, and possibly game 2 of a match.
Draw-Go: A style of play in which a player rarely taps mana on their own turn, and usually draws their card and says "go" to their opponent each turn. Game control is maintained primarily from counterspells played during the opponent's turn. This style of play was more powerful earlier in Magic's history, but many decks still have elements of this style. It is particularly notable for Manaless Dredge players because these decks rely very strongly on the stack to stop their opponent. With Manaless Dredge, you can bypass the stack almost entirely, which negates the Draw-Go defense.
Dredge: The Dredge mechanic, which appears on Dakmor Salvage as well as a variety of cards from Ravnica block, such as Stinkweed Imp. Equally often, it will refer to the Dredge deck.
Manaless Dredge: The Legacy-format version of Dredge which eschews lands altogether. May sometimes run Dakmor Salvage. It operates using the hand-size rule to discard cards, and frequently uses Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probe to increase speed. In rare cases, the term may be used to refer to the Vintage-format version of the deck.
Ichorid: The card Ichorid, but also a generic term for Dredge decks. Occasionally used to refer to Dredge decks without the card Ichorid in them.
Manaless Ichorid: The term primarily used to refer to the Vintage-format version of Manaless Dredge. The Vintage version uses Bazaar of Baghdad to rapidly fill the graveyard without other mana sources or lands. May also be used to refer to the Legacy-format version, although this is rare.
Friggorid: An early version of Dredge deck, this lacked the combo explosiveness provided by Future Sight's cards Bridge from Below, Dread Return, and Nacromoeba. Instead it used the Ichorid-heavy plan backed by Cabal Therapy that makes up the resiliency package and Plan B of modern Dredge decks.
This is a very different deck from the current Mana Dredge and LED Manaless Dredge decks. I think that it definitely deserves its own thread.
Great job at the SCG Legacy Open! A well-deserved win that revealed the deck's consistency and resiliency. I look forward to possibly acquiring the cards myself and toying around with this unique list.
However, may I suggest renaming the deck "Phantasmagorian Dredge" instead of just Manaless Dredge? We don't want people to confuse this version with the LED version.
Why does your recommended list shave Phantasmagorians and Nether Shadows? They are both so vital that it seems like you are taking a gamble by playing 4 MD dread return targets while cutting back2 of the free dudes and the ability to get your in-hand Ichorids/bridges etc... into the yard via Phantasmagorian. Obviously playing 8 Bauble, 4 Streeth Wraith + 4 Probes should let you dig to those cards once you have multiple dredgers in yard (so you can cast your cards from hand without fear of not being able to discard), but Phantasmagorian lets you do that too, and greatly increases your chance of being able to do it on turn 2 rather than turn 3.
14 accelerants (baubles, probes, wraiths), 15 dredgers (cutting 1 Shambling Shell) and just the two sphinxes and single angel for DR targets. Though the angel could easily go in favour of another bauble/shambling shell if you arent concerned about Lands/Enchantress etc... Maxing out on Phantasmagorian is a must IMO. Gigapede is cuttable since its best use is worknig to beat Tormod's Crypt. Realistically the FKZ is win-more, since once you DR a Sphinx you should be able to Therapy away anything relevant on their side and be way ahead on board.
Sphinx of Lost Truths is significantly better than River Kelpie, since you want to do the dredges on your turn so you can make use of the Narcomoeba's and Therapies/DR's you hit immediatly, as well as have the Ichorids and Nether Shadows for the next upkeep.
Your only answer to Moat/Solitary Confinement etc... is reanimating a Child of Alara and saccing it. This is signficantly worse than Woodfall Primus/Angel of Despair/Terrastodon. Elesh Norn is also an important DR target so you dont just get out-raced by Goblins/Merfolk. i.e. Even if they have Stingscourger/Echoing Truth you probably just one-sided wrath'd them.
Unmask is pretty unimpressive. You dont want to do it turn 1, and without 4 Phantasmagorian its harder to use it on turn 2, so you will usually just be boarding out action for a card which will sit in your hand while you try to develope. Leyline of Sanctity does a better job of beating storm, while you probably dont want to have such a slow card vs Hive Mind.
Unmask is pretty unimpressive. You dont want to do it turn 1, and without 4 Phantasmagorian its harder to use it on turn 2, so you will usually just be boarding out action for a card which will sit in your hand while you try to develope. Leyline of Sanctity does a better job of beating storm, while you probably dont want to have such a slow card vs Hive Mind.
With regards to Storm:
Unfortunately, we don't seem to have much data on Unmask. I've been running what is almost exactly ajfirecracker's list, but I don't have a real-life test group and Unmask is unavailable on MTGO :swear:.
What I do have are some sideboarded games against Storm without Unmask, and they're pretty miserable. If you mulligan to Leyline of Sanctity, you've often given the Storm player enough turns to Ad Nauseam into Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor, then kill you. In fact, even just having Leyline in my opener has never been enough.
Mindbreak Trap complements the Leyline plan by presumably countering their bounce spell, but it's easily played around by not triggering the trap cost. Then it's just bounce plus discard and you're dead. If you don't have it with Leyline, then it will just get discarded.
Chancellor of the Annex is fine but it won't stop them from winning by itself (although reanimating it is very effective). It can, however, stop a turn 1 discard so you don't get time walked.
So, in theory, Unmask would take the place of Mindbreak Trap in a 12-card sideboard plan (4x Leyline of Sanctity, 4x Unmask, 4x Chanceller of the Annex) against storm. Basically, Unmask lets you be proactive whereas Mindbreak Trap is reactive and easily dealt with. With Unmask you can mulligan aggressively to Leyline while still being able to discard, or you can keep an opener with Leyline, discard on turn 2, then hopefully disrupt their plan to deal with Leyline on turn 3.
EDIT: Heck, it might just be good enough to go on the play, keep an Unmask hand, and dump a dredger turn 1 to avoid getting time walked over and over (it's not fun). This reduces the reliance on finding a Leyline hand, too.
In essence, while Unmask is pretty unimpressive, it's probably necessary for the Storm matchup.
yo, im new here in the thread, and im quite interested in playing this deck...can you guys give me some hints and strategies on how to play this deck? (i.e. playing this compared to mana dredge?)
Unfortunately, we don't seem to have much data on Unmask. I've been running what is almost exactly ajfirecracker's list, but I don't have a real-life test group and Unmask is unavailable on MTGO :swear:.
What I do have are some sideboarded games against Storm without Unmask, and they're pretty miserable. If you mulligan to Leyline of Sanctity, you've often given the Storm player enough turns to Ad Nauseam into Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor, then kill you. In fact, even just having Leyline in my opener has never been enough.
Mindbreak Trap complements the Leyline plan by presumably countering their bounce spell, but it's easily played around by not triggering the trap cost. Then it's just bounce plus discard and you're dead. If you don't have it with Leyline, then it will just get discarded.
Chancellor of the Annex is fine but it won't stop them from winning by itself (although reanimating it is very effective). It can, however, stop a turn 1 discard so you don't get time walked.
So, in theory, Unmask would take the place of Mindbreak Trap in a 12-card sideboard plan (4x Leyline of Sanctity, 4x Unmask, 4x Chanceller of the Annex) against storm. Basically, Unmask lets you be proactive whereas Mindbreak Trap is reactive and easily dealt with. With Unmask you can mulligan aggressively to Leyline while still being able to discard, or you can keep an opener with Leyline, discard on turn 2, then hopefully disrupt their plan to deal with Leyline on turn 3.
EDIT: Heck, it might just be good enough to go on the play, keep an Unmask hand, and dump a dredger turn 1 to avoid getting time walked over and over (it's not fun). This reduces the reliance on finding a Leyline hand, too.
In essence, while Unmask is pretty unimpressive, it's probably necessary for the Storm matchup.
The deck really isnt designed to beat storm. Which is not a big issue since storm (both Belcher and ANT) have been marginalized to such a degree by the controland aggro-control decks. So having a bad matchups isnt such a huge problem. The main problem I see with unmask is that it actually isnt very good against storm. If you cast it turn 1 then you dont get to discard, add this to the fact that many/most storm decks run multiple targeted discard effects and you will not be dredging for many turns, allowing your opponent to recover from the unmask and kill you before you build up sufficient pressure.If you hold the unmask later than turn 1 on the draw (to try and at least get some dredging going), then it has serious diminishing returns. Turn 2 on the draw and there is fair chance you are already dead, turn 3 and you are at the point at which you are relying on them having a bad draw for the unmask to do anything.
Basically I just dont think unmask actually imporves the storm matchup, its 'ok' vs Hive Mind since you can legitimatly hold it until turn 2 then try to hit their hive mind. If I were trying to board to beat storm I would ensure I maxed out on accelerants between MD and SB (8 bauable, 4 wraith, 4 probe) and enough 'I win' DR targets (Iona, FKZ) so you just maximize your chance of having a turn 2-3 soft-lock or deal enough damage to make Ad Naus bad, possibly relying on an early cabal therpy to buy you a little time. Overall I think it is important to recognize that manaless is not a deck designed to compete with other combo decks, its very much designed to attack the midrange-control meta, and LEDless (mana) dredge is a safer bet if you think you need to beat turn 2-3 combo decks on a regular basis.
On the 'aggressive mull' issue. This is not a deck which ever wants to mulligan. Mulling to 5, then starting with a leyline in play and unmasking them on turn 1 means you are doing anything for a loooong time. They should easily be able to recover from the unmask and find an answer to the leyline in the 4+ free turns you give them with an aggressive mull. I dont think any sideboard play should involve a willingness to mulligan searching for a non-dredge card (unless its leyline of the void vs another manaless dredge deck).
The deck really isnt designed to beat storm. Which is not a big issue since storm (both Belcher and ANT) have been marginalized to such a degree by the controland aggro-control decks. So having a bad matchups isnt such a huge problem.
Manaless dredge definitely has an abysmal time against fast combo decks, Storm in particular. And while it may be correct to just ignore them, I always seem to hit two Storm decks in every other tournament I play :rolleyes:.
On the 'aggressive mull' issue. This is not a deck which ever wants to mulligan. Mulling to 5, then starting with a leyline in play and unmasking them on turn 1 means you are doing anything for a loooong time.
Mulliganing is always a risky proposition, and I would try my best to avoid it. But I think you misunderstood me; if mulliganing to Leyline gives me the best shot to win, I would use Unmask to discard a dredger, not disrupt the Storm player.
My point: let's not discount Unmask until we have some more (read: any) data.
However, may I suggest renaming the deck "Phantasmagorian Dredge" instead of just Manaless Dredge? We don't want people to confuse this version with the LED version.
Is there an LED Version that looks very different? If it's just one of these lists but with LED and theBaubles shoehorned in, I think this would be the natural place to discuss it, much the same way that mana dredge typically has conversations about LED and LEDless in the same place.
Edit: Added Tips and Tricks. Feel free to suggest other useful tricks I've overlooked.
Discard to a Phantasmagorian in response to the tap ability. You won't be able to discard again until turn 4.
Play a bauble turn 1. Turn 2, discard, and in response to the tap ability, sacrifice the bauble. Then you can exile said bauble instead of your dredger.
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If you have two creatures in play (at least one non-token) and two Bridge From Belows in the graveyard, then you can use a Cabal Therapy to sacrifice a non-token creature, leaving you with three creatures overall to sacrifice to Dread Return. The same goes for one non-token creature in play and three Bridge From Belows in the graveyard.
This list is only at the goldfishing stage, as usual. The goal is to Dread Return a Sphinx of Lost Truths, then it's GG. Once you find a Flame-kin Zealot, if you still have a draw left, you can dredge up a Dakmor Salvage and get Bloodghasts back as Bridge fodder. If you don't have the Zealot, just chain into more Sphinxes.
In theory, you don't lose anything against do-nothing decks (which is why we're playing Manaless). While Dakmor Salvage's dredge 2 isn't the same as Shambling Shell's dredge 3 (besides both being miserable), enabling four extra 2-power beaters and rawdogged Cabal Therapies seems like a good enough trade-off. Ichorid is just as happy to chomp on Bloodghasts as he is Shambling Shells, so no worries there.
Goldfishing has been promising, with what feels like a fairly consistent turn 3 kill and a pleasant number of turn 2 kills. What I can't pin down is whether the added turn 2 kills are at the expense of consistency when compared to an 8-bauble list.
2-0 vs MUC
0-2 vs Show and Tell
0-2 vs Merfolk
2-0 vs Stonforge Fish-type deck
0-2 vs Elf Combo
After a brief random and very limited (W2-L3) matches on Cockatrice, this deck seems to straight up lose to combo, beats hardcore control, and had problems against aggro-control (though vs Merfolk i had very bad hands). I am also not a great manaless dredge pilot, so maybe i made some misplays as well. All in all, seems slow but resilient.
Note: Elf combo and Show and tell smoked me. But I don't know how this matchup would have been even with LED Dredge.
2-0 vs MUC
0-2 vs Show and Tell
0-2 vs Merfolk
2-0 vs Stonforge Fish-type deck
0-2 vs Elf Combo
After a brief random and very limited (W2-L3) matches on Cockatrice, this deck seems to straight up lose to combo, beats hardcore control, and had problems against aggro-control (though vs Merfolk i had very bad hands). I am also not a great manaless dredge pilot, so maybe i made some misplays as well. All in all, seems slow but resilient.
Note: Elf combo and Show and tell smoked me. But I don't know how this matchup would have been even with LED Dredge.
I think the deck needs to be boarded into a faster, less-resilent vs. combo.
Aggro you should be fairly even, probably slightly favored. This includes Merfolk, as we're turning off 100% of their tempo plays.
Control should be close to unloseable.
Combo should be close to unwinnable, although I personally think that with enough draw effects and a disruption-ey sideboard, there's no reason you can't smoke them too. It occurs to me now (somehow it didn't before) that Lion's Eye Diamond as a discard outlet in the combo matchup is actually fairly reasonable out of the sideboard.
Edit: This has the added advantage of (when a really good player puts you on the play) just demolishing them before they do anything.
This list is only at the goldfishing stage, as usual. The goal is to Dread Return a Sphinx of Lost Truths, then it's GG. Once you find a Flame-kin Zealot, if you still have a draw left, you can dredge up a Dakmor Salvage and get Bloodghasts back as Bridge fodder. If you don't have the Zealot, just chain into more Sphinxes.
I apologize if I'm missing something obvious, but why is the Sage better? 3/5 (blocks Batterskull), flying, unconditional effect, and the extra discard make the Sphinx the clear choice to me.
I always have my eye on the one-of Kelpie, but I haven't figured out all of the nuances just yet. Also, to me it seems like the Sphinx is stronger at comboing out of a smaller graveyard. I don't think I've reanimated a Sphinx that hasn't led to a goldfish win yet, but real games will tell if a miser's Kelpie is needed.
It occurs to me now (somehow it didn't before) that Lion's Eye Diamond as a discard outlet in the combo matchup is actually fairly reasonable out of the sideboard.
This has me optimistic about the combo match's prospects. Every so often I would think about throwing LEDs into the sideboard of the slower 2-Phantasmagorian, 2-Nether Shadow, 0-Bloodghast, 8-Bauble list. But it always seemed like it would just be a patch job, trying to emulate a faster Dredge. But with 4 Phantasmagorian and shifting the mainboard into overdrive, I think this has potential.
I apologize if I'm missing something obvious, but why is the Sage better? 3/5 (blocks Batterskull), flying, unconditional effect, and the extra discard make the Sphinx the clear choice to me.
The extra discard could well be that Dakmor Salvage you just dredged. Keep it in hand, instead, and you don't need extra Dread Returns. Obviously this is more relevant if you're planning on aggressively using your million Phantasmagorians.
I always have my eye on the one-of Kelpie, but I haven't figured out all of the nuances just yet. Also, to me it seems like the Sphinx is stronger at comboing out of a smaller graveyard. I don't think I've reanimated a Sphinx that hasn't led to a goldfish win yet, but real games will tell if a miser's Kelpie is needed.
Kelpie helps more when you're talking about actual matches, where your resources might somehow be constrained or (most especially) you need more bodies. However, with Bloodghast and Dakmor Salvage it might just never be necessary.
This has me optimistic about the combo match's prospects. Every so often I would think about throwing LEDs into the sideboard of the slower 2-Phantasmagorian, 2-Nether Shadow, 0-Bloodghast, 8-Bauble list. But it always seemed like it would just be a patch job, trying to emulate a faster Dredge. But with 4 Phantasmagorian and shifting the mainboard into overdrive, I think this has potential.
LED has some synergy with theBaubles. In any case, I'm very surprised that that list has been slower for you... obviously the Baubles take a while to take effect, but they should help make the Turn 3 kill more frequent. If it's performing slower for you in goldfishing I may just need to try Bloodghast after all. I don't see how running extra Phantasmagorian makes it more worthwhile to run Lion's Eye Diamond against combo... by the time you have three cards in hand and feel the need to discard them, isn't the game just over?
Edit: For a more general discussion of the draw creatures, I would argue the following: Sphinx of Lost Truths is basically a draw-7. You get a bunch of resources and probably win the game. Think Wheel of Fortune. Cephalid Sage is basically a different flavor of draw-7. You get a bunch of resources and probably win the game. Think Windfall or Diminishing Returns. River Kelpie is basically a storm engine part. It requires you jump through some hoops, but generally you just win from any position whatsoever. Think Ad Nauseam or Ill-Gotten Gains or even Yawgmoth's Will. If you don't just win on the spot, the resource advantage/draw engine it gives you will ensure you win the next turn, a la Yawgmoth's Bargain.
Obviously, there are a bunch of games (say, with Tendrils of Agony) where you could just chain draw-7's together and win that way. It's nice to know exactly (or close to exactly) how many extra resources you're getting. That said, I feel like Kelpie usually gives you more resources of each type and a greater variety of resources, which would make it my first-choice draw creature except that Swords to Plowshares and friends completely stomp on it.
The extra discard could well be that Dakmor Salvage you just dredged. Keep it in hand, instead, and you don't need extra Dread Returns. Obviously this is more relevant if you're planning on aggressively using your million Phantasmagorians.
Ah, I had the same concern too until I played a few games. The key is that you will always have at least a Phantasmagorian in hand so looting 3 won't be a problem.
In any case, I'm very surprised that that list has been slower for you... obviously the Baubles take a while to take effect, but they should help make the Turn 3 kill more frequent. If it's performing slower for you in goldfishing I may just need to try Bloodghast after all.
I've probably been ham-handed in my characterization of Baubles = slow. I think I internalized it as "Baubles lose hard to storm -> baubles are slow." I'm concerned what's being sacrificed in the name of turn 2 percentage. I'll really know once I can get into some dailies on MTGO, where combo decks are plentiful. But I would still suggest you try it out because it's fun at least :).
I don't see how running extra Phantasmagorian makes it more worthwhile to run Lion's Eye Diamond against combo... by the time you have three cards in hand and feel the need to discard them, isn't the game just over?
Yeah, they don't interact very well. I just meant having at least 8 discard outlets is probably the necessary starting point in the war against Storm, barring some way of getting more lands + discard dorks into the 75.
EDIT:
I think I've been completely converted to the full 4 Phantasmagorian mindset. I'm always disappointed when I don't have him in my opener because he gets so many useless-in-hand cards into the graveyard, stacks Nether Shadows, etc. But you know all the upsides. I also am happy to see double Phantasmagorian so I can cycle between them. Not to mention he gets better when more of your cards want to be in the graveyard, i.e. no baubles.
EDIT2:
Sorry if it seems like I'm bashing the baubles. They're fine cards for what they need to be, they're just not very impressive either.
Ah, I had the same concern too until I played a few games. The key is that you will always have at least a Phantasmagorian in hand so looting 3 won't be a problem.
What you need is an extra draw (to get the Dakmor Salvage into your hand where you can actually play it), especially if you're very aggressive with Phantasmagorian or use Lion's Eye Diamond at all. I agree that we've got enough (often more than enough) discard outlets.
I've probably been ham-handed in my characterization of Baubles = slow. I think I internalized it as "Baubles lose hard to storm -> baubles are slow." I'm concerned what's being sacrificed in the name of turn 2 percentage. I'll really know once I can get into some dailies on MTGO, where combo decks are plentiful. But I would still suggest you try it out because it's fun at least :).
Baubles add more to Turn 3 percentage and nothing (i.e. detract) to Turn 2 percentage. They should be better against storm than most options, although I'm keen to try a million guys and a million Dread Return.
Yeah, they don't interact very well. I just meant having at least 8 discard outlets is probably the necessary starting point in the war against Storm, barring some way of getting more lands + discard dorks into the 75.
I don't really see how Phantasmagorian helps against storm... at least not until you're already underway. It seems to me that if you can discard him you could've discarded a dredger to begin with.
EDIT:
I think I've been completely converted to the full 4 Phantasmagorian mindset. I'm always disappointed when I don't have him in my opener because he gets so many useless-in-hand cards into the graveyard, stacks Nether Shadows, etc. But you know all the upsides. I also am happy to see double Phantasmagorian so I can cycle between them. Not to mention he gets better when more of your cards want to be in the graveyard, i.e. no baubles.
I really do think 4 Phantastagorian is too many. The first one to hit your discard pile is usually amazing, the second is nice, and the third is a Prowling Pangolin. Given that we're playing dredge, it seems unnecessary to run all 4. At least try 3, if you haven't, as I've never felt like I needed it in the opener (one in the top 10-15 cards + the 8 in hand feels fine to me, which suggests ~3).
EDIT2:
Sorry if it seems like I'm bashing the baubles. They're fine cards for what they need to be, they're just not very impressive either.
Bash away. I'm not a Bauble. They're not impressive, I've just come to the conclusion that they're the best use of the slot. Bloodghast is starting to look pretty promising, though.
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What you need is an extra draw (to get the Dakmor Salvage into your hand where you can actually play it), especially if you're very aggressive with Phantasmagorian or use Lion's Eye Diamond at all. I agree that we've got enough (often more than enough) discard outlets.
Fortunately, it's not too hard to be aggressive with Phantasmagorian and maintain a Dakmor Salvage in hand. The typical play is turn 1 discard Phantasmagorian, EOT discard 6 cards, leaving you with a card (Salvage) and Phantasmagorian in hand. The only time this gets awkward is if you have sorcery-speed draw in hand, too.
While we're talking about our favorite Dredge land: Dakmor Salvage operates in two modes in this deck. A) In your opening hand it can be used to recur enough Bloodghasts to fuel a quick Dread Return. B) In your graveyard, it can either be slow-dredged to fulfill (A) or it can be dredged at the end of a Sphinx of Lost Truths chain in order for your (hopefully four) Bloodghasts to be reprocessed into zombie tokens.
I don't really see how Phantasmagorian helps against storm... at least not until you're already underway. It seems to me that if you can discard him you could've discarded a dredger to begin with.
I really do think 4 Phantastagorian is too many. The first one to hit your discard pile is usually amazing, the second is nice, and the third is a Prowling Pangolin. Given that we're playing dredge, it seems unnecessary to run all 4. At least try 3, if you haven't, as I've never felt like I needed it in the opener (one in the top 10-15 cards + the 8 in hand feels fine to me, which suggests ~3).
But the first one is sooooo amazing that I think it makes having a Prowling Pangolin* or two in your graveyard worth it. At least in this list, Phantasmagorian is instrumental in getting those three guys for an early Dread Return, whether it's Nether Shadow, Ichorid, or Bloodghast, not to mention the other pieces of the puzzle. And I think having access to a quick combo win is key against Storm.
* Haha oh wow, that guy is tailor-made to be a terrible DR target. Counterable by creature decks with a built-in Bridge extractor. Or wait, is he just a super-awesome zombie army generator? I can never remember who gets first choice... I think it's APNAP. If it is, congrats on finding the super secret tech ;).
Fortunately, it's not too hard to be aggressive with Phantasmagorian and maintain a Dakmor Salvage in hand. The typical play is turn 1 discard Phantasmagorian, EOT discard 6 cards, leaving you with a card (Salvage) and Phantasmagorian in hand. The only time this gets awkward is if you have sorcery-speed draw in hand, too.
While we're talking about our favorite Dredge land: Dakmor Salvage operates in two modes in this deck. A) In your opening hand it can be used to recur enough Bloodghasts to fuel a quick Dread Return. B) In your graveyard, it can either be slow-dredged to fulfill (A) or it can be dredged at the end of a Sphinx of Lost Truths chain in order for your (hopefully four) Bloodghasts to be reprocessed into zombie tokens.
After some gold-fishing with the deck, Dakmor Salvage definitely feels lame in either mode. Out of ten games (admittedly quick ones, but I do have a pretty good idea how to combo out with the deck) I came close to winning on turn 2 once (sort of) and achieved it zero times. It also felt like a real struggle to win on Turn 3, something I feel the Bauble list does much more easily.
But the first one is sooooo amazing that I think it makes having a Prowling Pangolin* or two in your graveyard worth it. At least in this list, Phantasmagorian is instrumental in getting those three guys for an early Dread Return, whether it's Nether Shadow, Ichorid, or Bloodghast, not to mention the other pieces of the puzzle. And I think having access to a quick combo win is key against Storm.
* Haha oh wow, that guy is tailor-made to be a terrible DR target. Counterable by creature decks with a built-in Bridge extractor. Or wait, is he just a super-awesome zombie army generator? I can never remember who gets first choice... I think it's APNAP. If it is, congrats on finding the super secret tech ;).
Part of the problem felt like the 6-Phantasmagorian syndrome I've talked about before. Once you start going nuts with Nether Shadow and Bloodghast, the proper number of Phantasmagorian shoots way up from 2-3 to 6-7. Since you can only run four, the deck feels awkward when you don't get one and can sometimes choke on the four you are running. (i.e. it's less consistent, imo)
Prowling Pangolin seems worse than Sadistic Hypnotist, although he is almost-cute. I've always wanted to kill my opponents with a "Creature - Penguin Hedgehog" and I think this is the closest we'll ever get.
I agree that Lion's Eye Diamond is pretty nuts on paper (not maindeck, obviously, but crazy from the sideboard). There aren't any other free One With Nothings. Gustha's Scepter would be thinkable if it worked slightly differently, but it does not.
Edit: Added the Adam Barnello article on Manaless Dredge to the primer.
Edit 2: Added Alexander Lapping's pile from SCG: Denver to the primer, in case anyone is interested in the early evolution of the deck.
Edit 4: It occurs to me that you can actually play around Relic of Progenitus' tap ability with Gitaxian Probe. First, you draw up to 8 and discard a card. Now they have to tap the Relic either on their turn or during our upkeep, or else we'll get a dredge in. Assuming they do so, we can then main-phase cycle our Gitaxian Probe against their tapped relic, staying at 8 cards, and discard a dredger at end of turn. They untap, tap their Relic, exiling Probe, and we get a dredge in. If we discard a non-dredger the first time, they still have to tap Relic before our cleanup for fear of us discarding a dredger the second time. We simply cycle Gitaxian Probe into the untapped Relic, then discard a dredger at end of turn. So this only requires one dredger altogether.
Haha, that reminds me when I first proxied-up said pile. I printed out Bayou and Dryad Arbor in anticipation of the 8x Forest, 3x Reverent Silence, 4x Nature's Claim sideboard. Great minds think alike.
Haha, that reminds me when I first proxied-up said pile. I printed out Bayou and Dryad Arbor in anticipation of the 8x Forest, 3x Reverent Silence, 4x Nature's Claim sideboard. Great minds think alike.
I think what has to happen in the short term is for people to play Manaless in larger numbers. As that happens, most of the slower decks will be forced to resort to Leyline of the Void. At that point, it will either become worth it to fight through the Leylines with a package that takes up half or more of the sideboard, or Manaless Dredge will fall off in popularity and a cycle will be established. I think in general it should serve a role that prevents the format from getting too slow, although it could just be hated out (on and off, of course).
That said, I could also see a banning (presumably on Dread Return, although there are myriad options that have the same middling impact) a few months down the line if combo can't bash through Mental Misstep and blue decks can't fight through Dredge. The deck is certainly unfair enough to generate popular outcry with only a few more good finishes.
A note on tech: If you're running Dakmor Salvage for Bloodghast, it's almost certainly worth it to run at least a single Darkblast as an out to random creatures (specifically Peacekeeper, but there are plenty of others).
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I think what has to happen in the short term is for people to play Manaless in larger numbers. As that happens, most of the slower decks will be forced to resort to Leyline of the Void. At that point, it will either become worth it to fight through the Leylines with a package that takes up half or more of the sideboard, or Manaless Dredge will fall off in popularity and a cycle will be established. I think in general it should serve a role that prevents the format from getting too slow, although it could just be hated out (on and off, of course).
That said, I could also see a banning (presumably on Dread Return, although there are myriad options that have the same middling impact) a few months down the line if combo can't bash through Mental Misstep and blue decks can't fight through Dredge. The deck is certainly unfair enough to generate popular outcry with only a few more good finishes.
A note on tech: If you're running Dakmor Salvage for Bloodghast, it's almost certainly worth it to run at least a single Darkblast as an out to random creatures (specifically Peacekeeper, but there are plenty of others).
that has always been how dredge worked though. game one it was almost always favored, but could be hated on so severely with little effort it was an uphill battle games 2 and 3. when people forget about it and the hate dwindles it catches people off guard and can shine again, and then people bring back hate. i dont think we will see another dredge win for quite some time now until the commotion over this passes.
that has always been how dredge worked though. game one it was almost always favored, but could be hated on so severely with little effort it was an uphill battle games 2 and 3. when people forget about it and the hate dwindles it catches people off guard and can shine again, and then people bring back hate. i dont think we will see another dredge win for quite some time now until the commotion over this passes.
I disagree with this characterization in general (especially recently), although I would agree that it's held at some points in the past, most notably in formats other than Legacy.
In particular, I think that Dredge was inconsistent enough in recent builds that the 3-card special in the sideboard (usually 2 Relic of Progenitus and a Tormod's Crypt, if the deck didn't have any special incentive to run anything else) was enough to constrain it to a 'merely okay' deck. Often it would be a 'merely okay' deck without even this modest hate.
Manaless Dredge, on the other hand, is much more consistent and much less able to ignore serious (really serious) attempts to hate it out (in particular, 4 Leyline of the Void is ineffective against Mana Dredge in some cases because they just kill you with a bunch of dorks).
Sure, we saw the occasional top 8 from Mana Dredge, but there were no otherwise-stable metagames that were weak to Dredge. An all-aggro metagame (no tempo, no control, no combo) would fall to dredge, but virtually anything else could potentially just play Magic: The Gathering against Dredge and still win. An all-aggro meta, however, is not stable; combo quickly rushes in.
Now, we have a deck that demands serious hate and (for the first time since the days of old Extended) sidesteps every fair card in the format. Mental Misstep did not have some magical power to interact that the format previously lacked, Dredge was kept in check (in part) by Force of Will, Wasteland, Daze, Thoughtseize, and Stifle. Now those range from entirely blank to almost entirely blank; only Thoughtseize retains disruptive power, and it slows the deck by a turn instead of 4 or more.
What all this means is that Manaless Dredge (and, presumably, some Mana variants that are also tuned to be uber-consistent DDD decks) will exert metagame pressure, speeding the format up and pushing graveyard hate back into sideboards, something Mana Dredge has not really accomplished in the past.
Edit: In the very short term, I expect a lot of decks that were so-so against Mana Dredge to slightly increase the number of Bojuka Bog, Relic of Progenitus, and Thoughtseize. This means that between combo and these responses, Lion's Eye Diamond will probably be the go-to card for sideboards for a while (assuming it's as good as advertised; I still have woefully little testing with it).
Edit 2: Added today's daily deck (Rausch's Manaless build) to the Archetype History section.
Edit 3: Added the blip.tv video archives for SCG Cinci for Rausch's run to the Archetype History section.
Unfortunately, this means playing cards that do nothing unless they're in your opening 8. But the same could be said for Gitaxian Probe, the baubles, and Street Wraith (besides being food for Ichorid). The question is, which has more utility? Draw spells seem to be better in general, but fetches open up the sideboard quite a bit.
EDIT:
Well, I tested my supposedly anti-combo list in an MTGO Daily, and went a lukewarm 2-2. Here's the list for reference:
The sideboard is in disrepair and needs much attention. Leyline of the Void might not be a terrible addition, for instance. In general the deck felt OK if a bit clunky, but I think Bloodghast showed some promise, and may just take the place of Nether Shadow in the future.
Round 1, I lost to Hive Mind with very early Show and Tells.
Round 2, I won against... Hive Mind, mostly in part due to very slow draws on my opponent's part.
Round 3, I won against Elf Combo 2-1, losing game 2 when Relic of Progenitus forced my hand with Phantasmagorian, mulliganning me to 4. Game 3 I think he mulliganned pretty aggressively and had no action.
Round 4, I lost to what looked like Rausch's Manaless Dredge with baubles thrown in. I won game 1, even after starting with a very slow Dakmor Salvage into no dredger, but I thankfully drew a Golgari Thug. The three Bloodghasts in my hand meant that I was able to dredge my entire deck in one turn and win. Game 2 I had the same slow Dakmor Salvage draw, compared with my opponent's Golgari Grave-Troll/Street Wraith/Urza's Bauble start, killing me with X/1s before I could get off the ground. I lost game 3 pretty hard. The tragic part is my hand was the nuts: Golgari Grave-Troll, Street Wraith, and Gitaxian Probe are just what I remember. But once I saw those cards, I knew I would be getting Leylined for sure.
Overall, I guess 2-2 isn't terrible against an all-combo Daily. I think the real proof will be when I can find a control deck to play against, if this thing can still function on the don't-cast-anything plan.
EDIT 2:
Before I forget: Fetches, beyond having applications with Dryad Arbor and Bloodghast, also have the side-benefit of combatting Relic's tap ability. Fetches could make up for the lack of baubles in this aspect.
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Curse PremiumManaless 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 while minimizing the impact of others like Force of Will and Daze. It functions as an aggro/combo 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.
When to Play Manaless Dredge:
This is surprisingly simple. Avoid playing Manaless Dredge if there is a heavy presence of good graveyard hate (see below, "Dealing with Hate"). Otherwise, play Manaless Dredge if the format is very reactive or very slow. Blue counterspells, creature destruction, and mana restriction are all extremely ineffective against Manaless Dredge. Fortunately, these cards form the basis of many commonly-played decks in Legacy.
Common Misconceptions:
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, Nether Shadow, and/or Prized Amalgam every (or nearly every) turn. 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. A particularly potent variant of this is to Dread Return Balustrade Spy in decks that have zero land. This allows you to mill your whole deck and set up a kill using multiple Dread Return.
Card Choices:
Card Draw:
Street Wraith is a universal inclusion.
Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble can be countered and take an extra half of a turn to function, but provide extra speed. The fact that you miss a turn discarding isn't usually a big deal as most lists run some number of extra discard outlets, and the baubles push your hand up to 9 cards the following turn, allowing you to regain the discard you missed.
Discard Outlets:
Phantasmagorian is a near-universal inclusion. He's most useful when trying to combo out.
Gigapede is uncommon, and is used more to smooth out draws and dredges than to provide rapid acceleration.
Cabal Therapy can also fill this role in a pinch.
Bodies:
Ichorid is an all-star in this deck. He has plenty of food and bashes admirably.
Nether Shadow plays second fiddle to Ichorid but is still an extremely common inclusion. Because you place however many cards you dredge into the graveyard all at once, and you can use Phantasmagorian as an extra discard outlet, Nether Shadow will generally come back every turn.
Narcomoeba is another all-star. He doesn't take a turn to come out, so he's very useful when trying to combo out or just as rapid Dread Return/Cabal Therapy fodder.
Bloodghast requires Dakmor Salvage and only has haste conditionally, but is still worth considering as an extra body.
Chancellor of the Forge is not recommended.
Dredgers:
Golgari Grave-Troll has 'Dredge 6' printed on him and can be reanimated as a huge fatty.
Stinkweed Imp has 'Dredge 5' printed on him and a deathtouch-like effect.
Golgari Thug has 'Dredge 4' printed on him and can prevent decking in certain niche situations.
Shambling Shell has 'Dredge 3' printed on him and is a black creature to feed to Ichorid.
Darkblast may be worth running if Dakmor Salvage is also present.
Addtionally, all of these creatures will be worth consideration as Dread Return targets on rare occasions.
Graveyard Effects:
Bridge from Below combines with beaters to produce a nearly-endless supply of 2/2 zombie tokens.
Dread Return helps sew up the game against many opponents, and with the right creature pulls wins out of nowhere against many others.
Cabal Therapy acts as a sacrifice outlet as well as incredibly strong disruption against many opponents.
Land:
With the possible exception of special-effect lands like Wasteland and Bojuka Bog, the only land cards worth considering are:
Dakmor Salvage, to turn on Bloodghast.
Dryad Arbor, to enable a mana-based sideboard without being dead Game 1 (as it can be sacrificed or attack).
Reanimation Targets:
Flame-Kin Zealot is the classic win condition.
Dragonlord Kolaghan is similar to FKZ, with a number of corner-case differences.
Flayer of the Hatebound gets around Moat and friends, but requires a bigger set of Dread Returns to end the game.
Griselbrand is a solid draw creature / reanimation target, although he does cost a lot of life.
Sphinx of Lost Truths is a balanced, all-around decent card-drawer.
River Kelpie draws tons of cards and has persist, but lacks a sizeable body and requires substantial support.
Balustrade Spy will eradicate your library in one fell swoop, and is worth considering for any land-less list.
Iona, Shield of Emeria occasionally makes the main-deck.
Whirlpool Rider is a 2-cost blue creature that provides a large card draw. The small body is made up for by the fact that he can be used to cast Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal.
Sideboard Choices:
Leyline of Sanctity shuts off targeted effects like Wheel of Sun and Moon, Tormod's Crypt, and Bojuka Bog. It fares poorly against other targeted effects such as Blue Sun's Zenith and Tendrils of Agony, however, as the players aiming to kill with these cards will typically be able to deal with the Leyline.
Leyline of the Void is a strong manaless graveyard hoser.
Bojuka Bog is a graveyard sweeper that can be drawn as one's 8th card and cannot be Chain of Vapor'd, Duressed, or Force of Willed. Unfortunately, it functions at sorcery speed.
Tormod's Crypt is a graveyard sweeper that functions (essentially) at instant speed.
Ravenous Trap is a graveyard sweeper that functions at instant speed.
Faerie Macabre and Surgical Extraction are targeted, free, instant-speed graveyard exilers.
Contagion is a manaless answer to Yixlid Jailer, Scavenging Ooze, and Deathrite Shaman that costs another card. It can also potentially have value against some aggro decks.
Sickening Shoal is a popular answer to bigger threats Knight of the Reliquary or Reanimator's creatures. It can also help against aggro.
Lion's Eye Diamond can be used to discard the entire hand as early as the first turn. In conjunction Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probe as well as the Baubles, this can be used to draw several cards immediately and attempt to out-race a combo deck. Sometimes additional draw spells are included, such as Deep Analysis, Faithless Looting, or Desperate Ravings.
Gut Shot is a slightly narrower answer to Yixlid Jailer than the black pitch spells above. It can only deal with 1-toughness creatures, making it a very specific choice.
Marrow Shards is a niche answer to Weenie-based metagames.
Chancellor of the Annex buys time against some decks and can slow down Duress and Thoughtseize effects by a turn, buying time to get dredges going. Additionally it is a great Dread Return target against many combo decks.
Unmask can potentially be top-decked to get started through a parade of Duress effects and can disrupt opponents of all stripes.
Mindbreak Trap is combo hate.
Reverent Silence and Nature's Claim can potentially be used as land-reliant options to fight Leyline of the Void.
Chalice of the Void is combo hate. Typically it is played for 0 mana to stop artifact mana in combo decks. It may have some other niche uses, such as against Tormod's Crypt.
Utility lands like Wasteland, Maze of Ith, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale or even Quicksand can stop a variety of threats.
Golgari Brownscale, Firemane Angel, Sheltered Valley and even Zuran Orb (if you're running Dakmor Salvage) can gain tons of life against aggro decks.
Force of Will and Disrupting Shoal can be brought in to provide free protection against both combo and graveyard disruption spells.
Up to one shuffle card can be considered as well (such as Blighsteel Colossus or Serra Avatar)
Finally, a variety of reanimation targets may prove worthwhile in the sideboard.
Of special worth for reanimation is Ashen Rider which can deal with troublesome permanents or hose Show and Tell.
Building the Main-Deck:
Composite:
This is a high-performing version of the deck which has shown itself in multiple finishes.
56 of 60 cards are indicated below.
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
Draw Spells
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
Graveyard Goodies
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Phantasmagorian
Reanimation Targets
3 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
The most common choice to fill out the remaining maindeck slots was Chancellor of the Annex
The decks which comprise this composite also shared a few sideboard slots
3 Mindbreak Trap
The rest of the sideboard was composed of a combination of Faerie Macabre, Contagion, Sickening Shoal, Ashen Rider and miscellaneous other sideboard choices.
Blue Countermagic:
To deal with hate and fast combo decks, some players run a blue-based deck.
Most of the key cards are presented below, the rest are flex slots left to the player's own choosing.
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell
Draw Spells
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
Bodies
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
Discard Enabler
4 Phantasmagorian
Reanimation Targets
3 Whirlpool Rider
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
Countermagic
3 Force of Will
1 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal
Green Disenchant Effects:
To deal with hate, some players run a green-based build to support sideboard spells.
As above, empty slots are left to the player's own choosing.
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
Draw Spells
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
Bodies
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
Discard Enabler
4 Phantasmagorian
Reanimation Targets
3 Griselbrand
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
Land
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Reverent Silence
4 Nature's Claim
1 Forest
I personally believe that Dryad Arbor should be augmented by fetchlands and some number of Bayou, but a list configured that way has not yet posted results.
Black-based Aggro
Some players double down on recurring creatures by running 3-4 Dakmor Salvage (possibly reducing the number of other dredgers such as Shambling Shell) in order to run Bloodghast and/or Darkblast and/or a transformation sideboard centered around either black aggro or the Vampire Hexmage+Dark Depths combo.
Deckbuilding Minutiae:
Shuffle Creature:
Some decks will sideboard (or very rarely, maindeck) a creature which causes itself to be shuffled into the deck whenever it goes to the graveyard.
These creatures are primarily run as a backup to the Balustrade Spy combo, or as a hedge against mill decks like Grindstone.
The main distinction about which to run comes from their relative strength against Show and Tell or synergies within the deck.
Blightsteel Colossus is strong in that your opponent must block or remove it before Colossus can attack. Often, this will shrink Emrakul to a 4/4 with the Annihilator 6 ability. As Manaless Dredge can generate hasty permanents or flood the board with zombies, this can be a favorable state of affairs.
Progenitus is strongly chiefly because of his 5-color status, allowing him to be pitched to Force of Will or Sickening Shoal (among others).
Serra Avatar is similar to Blighsteel but requires that you have a life lead (and requires a life total above 15 to win combat with Emrakul). Additionally, it is somewhat weaker against mill+hate (such as Surgical Extraction) because it does briefly go to the graveyard instead of skipping that zone altogether.
Worldspine Wurm is less lethal than Blightsteel or Serra Avatar but interacts favorably with Emrakul by either trading with it and leaving tokens behind, or attacking and having tokens after the Annihilator ability causes you to sacrifice Wurm. Like Avatar he goes to the graveyard briefly which is a weakness against mill+hate.
Dread and Guile are presumptively worse than Progenitus as shuffle creatures which do briefly go to the graveyard, are a bit smaller, are pitch-able colors, and have potentially relevant abilities. They should only be run in cases where their abilities compensate for their other drawbacks.
Legacy Weapon is almost certainly worse than any of the other choices, including Darksteel Colossus, which can hedge against Mind Control effects more effectively. If these effects are a concern, the best card to run is probably Progenitus, which evades almost all Mind Control effects and is a relatively slow clock as well. In theory, Legacy Weapon has a niche application against creature-specific discard, but this is not a major factor.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and the other Eldrazi legends are anti-synergistic with the plan to dredge our own deck. They should generally be avoided.
Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble are optional free card draw that some decks may use.
A mix provides the best chance to evade Pithing Needle or other card-naming cards like Phyrexian Revoker or Meddling Mage.
Urza's Bauble is weakly synergistic with Cabal Therapy in a direct way as you can name the card you saw.
Mishra's Bauble is weakly synergistic with Cabal Therapy if the game continues for another turn.
Mishra's Bauble is strong against decks like Miracles by allowing the manaless player to check for Terminus or other miracles before committing creatures to the board.
Mishra's Bauble allows a temporary informational advantage over the opponent while Urza's Bauble basically moves closer to information parity.
Archetype History:
The initial push towards Manaless Dredge was a result of the then-dominant performance of Mental Misstep.
The deck's first coverage began here with a deck that took 81st place at SCG: Denver. Alexander Lapping was featured with the deck, and his friend Michael Joy ran it as well and took 77th place.
The list is below:
Alexander Lapping's 81st place deck from SCG Denver - 6/13/2011 (117 Players)
1 Angel of Despair
Card Draw
4 Street Wraith
Chancellors
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Chancellor of the Forge
4 Chancellor of the Dross
Discard Outlets
3 Gigapede
Beaters
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
Graveyard Effects
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Gitaxian Probe
As players began to brew and playtest, new builds emerged. The most notable new innovation came a month after SCG Denver, when SCG Cincinatti was won by the deck discussed here and here. The list is also below, in the decklist section. The biggest changes are the adoption of multiple Phantasmagorian alongside multiple Gigapede for a large number of discard outlets, and eschewing Chancellor of the Forge and friends for an extra beatdown package of Bloodghast and Dakmor Salvage.
Videos of Rausch's SCG Run:
This Article by the Hatfield brother chronicles the increasing metagame share of Manaless Dredge as the Mental Misstep era came to a close. The deck performed tolerably well, earning a winning record, albeit an unspectacular one (virtually even with traditional Legacy Dredge builds in the same event).
In the Mental Misstep period and shortly thereafter, Mana-driven Dredge adopted many of the innovations of Manaless, blending the two together. The winning deck from 2011's StarCityGames Atlanta Open, for example, combines Street Wraith and a full set of Phantasmagorian with a mana-based shell.
Mental Misstep was ultimately banned in Legacy, which helped foster a push back towards the previous metagame. The numerous combo decks that had been tuned to beat control suddenly faced much weaker control decks. For a period, fast combo decks came to characterize the format. This was something of a hostile environment for Manaless Dredge. Manaless Dredge is a fast deck, but can be outraced by the very fastest combo decks.
Soon Dark Ascension was released (Feb 2012), bringing with it Faithless Looting and Flayer of the Hatebound and pushing Mana-driven Dredge to greater speeds and great consistency. Alongside Lion's Eye Diamond, Looting pushed out the Manaless-inspired changes in favor of a full-throttle assault. This was especially useful for Dredge players looking to fight through the heightened speed of the format.
With the release of Avacyn Restored in May 2012 and Griselbrand, interest in Dredge and Reanimator strategies reached a sustained high - occasionally prompting small amounts of Manaless decks to attack control.
Finally, in February of 2013, Gatecrash was released, bringing Balustrade Spy into the Legacy card pool. With this release, Manaless Dredge now has a unique and lethal kill to complement its near-invulnerability to control. This has resulted in increased excitement and heightened levels of play, such as Theo Van Doosselaere's 7th-place finish at StarCityGames 2013 Philadelphia Open.
As the format has come to a more stable place, Manaless Dredge appears to be a deck in its own right, with strong finishes and distinct matchups compared to Mana Dredge. As long as there is no major upheaval in Legacy, control decks will likely become more fine-tuned over time, leading to a very favorable environment for Manaless Dredge.
Decklists:
Nicholas Rausch's 1st Place Manaless Dredge list from SCG Cincinatti 7/17/2011 (228 Players)
4 Street Wraith
Discard Outlets
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Gigapede
Beaters
4 Bloodghast
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
Dredgers
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
Dread Return Targets
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
Land
3 Dakmor Salvage
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Blazing Archon
1 Gigapede
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Terastodon
4 Contagion
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
Jacabo Castell's Top4 List at Melendians 2 - Legacy Open 3/24/2012 (101 Players)
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Faerie Macabre
4 Ichorid
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
1 Platinum Angel
2 Acidic Slime
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
3 Bloodghast
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Leyline of the Void
1 Surgical Extraction
Mike Keller's 6th-place list at September Northeast Legacy Championships 9/8/2012 (90 Players)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Contagion
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
2 Griselbrand
1 Sundering Titan
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Flame-kin Zealot
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Nature's Claim
4 Reverent Silence
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Contagion
Kit Capote's 1st-place list at Manila Legacy Wars 3 9/30/2012 (52 players)
4 Nether Shadow
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
2 Shambling Shell
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 OTHER SPELLS
4 Bridge from Below
2 Soul Spike
3 Reverent Silence
4 Dryad Arbor
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Kederekt Leviathan
1 Terastodon
1 Angel of Despair
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Sickening Shoal
Mike Keller's 3rd-place list at October Northeast Legacy Championships 10/20/2012 (68 players)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Contagion
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
3 Griselbrand
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Nature's Claim
4 Reverent Silence
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
1 Ali from Cairo
ykpon's Top4 List at Moscow Legacy Open 11/24/2012 (90 Players)
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Street Wraith
4 Nether Shadow
3 Griselbrand
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Angel of Despair
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
4 Sickening Shoal
4 Reverent Silence
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Contagion
4 Surgical Extraction
Osmo Someroja's Top8 list at Poro Tour Legacy 2013 5/26/2013 (70 Players)
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell
4 Street Wraith
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Ichorid
4 Nether Shadow
4 Narcomoeba
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
3 Griselbrand
4 Dryad Arbor
3 Contagion
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Nature's Claim
4 Reverent Silence
1 Forest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
birdbrains' Top4 List from MTG Deals Open Weekend 7/5/2013 (90-100 Players)
4 Nether Shadow
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
3 Shambling Shell
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Narcomoeba
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
3 Griselbrand
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
3 Contagion
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Reverent Silence
4 Chancellor of the Annex
2 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
Theo Van Doosselaere's 7th-place list at SCG Philadelphia 9/8/13 (280 Players)
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Contagion
4 Mindbreak Trap
2 Sickening Shoal
1 Cabal Therapy
Relling Andreas' 1st-Place list at Legacy Turniers on 12/21/2013 (53 Players)
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Chancellor of the Forge
3 Griselbrand
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Sickening Shoal
4 Contagion
Lucas Fasoli's 2nd-Place list at MLL#5 - Milan on 1/12/2014 (110 Players)
3 Griselbrand
4 Chancellor of the Annex
3 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
4 Force of Will
4 Disrupting Shoal
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Faerie Macabre
Alan Villamayor's Top8 list at TeTe Open on 2/2/2014 (113 Players)
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
4 Contagion
4 Noxious Revival
3 Sickening Shoal
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Cabal Therapy
Michael Boland's 7th-Place list at SCG Los Angeles on 3/23/2014 (374 Players)
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
1 Greater Mossdog
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Mishra's Bauble
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ashen Rider
1 Serra Avatar
4 Mindbreak Trap
1 Noxious Revival
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Surgical Extraction
Caleb Calhoun's Top8 deck at SCG Open Milwaukee on 05/06/2014 (376 Players)
4 Unmask
4 Street Wraith
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Shambling Shell
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
3 Balustrade Spy
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Ashen Rider
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Progenitus
Geo Thornton's Top8 list at SCG Open Indianapolis on 06/01/2014 (347 Players)
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
2 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
2 Griselbrand
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Contagion
4 Nature's Claim
2 Sickening Shoal
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Forest
Juha Tolvanen's Top4 list at SCG Open Edison on 09/28/2014 (259 Players)
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Balustrade Spy
3 Shambling Shell
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Blightsteel Colossus
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
2 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ashen Rider
2 Sickening Shoal
Dan Lashbrooke's Top8 list at SCQ Premier IQ Indianapolis on 06/21/2015 (121 Players)
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Street Wraith
4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Thug
4 Phantasmagorian
3 River Kelpie
3 Ichorid
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
2 Forest
3 Nature's Claim
4 Force of Will
2 Disrupting Shoal
4 Mindbreak Trap
oddseidank's Top8 list at MTGO Legacy Champs on 7/25/2016 (124 Players)
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
1 Ashen Rider
2 Disrupting Shoal
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Force of Will
1 Progenitus
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Whirlpool Rider
Jeremiah Wolfgang's 2nd-Place list at SCG Classic Somerset on 8/21/2016 (266 Players)
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
4 Contagion
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Sickening Shoal
Rollan Julien's Top8 list at Bazaar of Moxen on 9/10/2016 (195 Players)
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
2 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
2 Whirlpool Rider
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Force of Will
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
3 Contagion
4 Disrupting Shoal
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Unmask
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
Iguchi Tomoiro's Top4 list at 65th KMC (Japan) on 9/19/2016 (71 Players)
3 Balustrade Spy
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
1 Ashen Rider
2 Disrupting Shoal
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Force of Will
1 Progenitus
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Whirlpool Rider
lllllll's Top4 list in Legacy Challenge on 1/14/2017 (92 Players)
3 Balustrade Spy
3 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
1 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
1 Ashen Rider
2 Disrupting Shoal
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Force of Will
1 Progenitus
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Whirlpool Rider
Thiago Sant'helena's 1st-Place list in CLC on 3/26/2017 (41 Players)
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
2 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
1 Whirlpool Rider
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
3 Contagion
2 Disrupting Shoal
4 Force of Will
2 Gut Shot
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Whirlpool Rider
Savok's 3rd-Place list in MTGO Legacy Challenge on 9/10/2017 (61 Players)
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
1 Ashen Rider
4 Faerie Macabre
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Noxious Revival
1 Sandwurm Convergence
1 Shambling Shell
3 Sickening Shoal
2 Surgical Extraction
Michael Nakahara's Top 8 list in Channel Fireball Legacy 4k on 3/25/2018 (126 Players)
3 Balustrade Spy
4 Chancellor of the Annex
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Prized Amalgam
3 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
2 Faerie Macabre
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Sickening Shoal
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Vengeful Pharaoh
See also:
I'm including Youmelia Gay's list from GP Amsterdam 2011 below. Gay finished 144 out of 1874. I've tried to include mostly Top8 lists, but I felt this one was worth including anyway. It was featured as undefeated going into Day 2, so it may hold some clues as to how to build if you want to get far in a monster-size tournament like a Euro GP.
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Faerie Macabre
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
3 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Shambling Shell
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Platinum Angel
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 River Kelpie
1 Ancestor's Chosen
2 Gigapede
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Surgical Extraction
Oren Meyer's Top16 list at SCG Indianapolis Legacy Classic on 5/15/16 (292 Players)
3 Chancellor of the Annex
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
4 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Bridge from Below
1 Ashen Rider
1 Chancellor of the Annex
3 Contagion
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Sickening Shoal
2 Tormod's Crypt
Dealing with Hate:
Additional Reading:
This Article by Adam Barnello catalogs the entrance of Manaless Dredge into the Legacy metagame and advises players to run a playset of graveyard hate cards in their sideboards.
This Article by this forum and thread's own -spooky- highlights the strengths of Landless Dredge in Legacy, especially from a budget perspective.
This Article by Gerry Thomspon discusses Mana and Manaless Dredge, including some interesting comparisons of the two.
This Article by Michael Keller discusses some uncommon card choices and argues for their utility.
This Video features Nicholas Rausch himself discussing some of the card choices for Manaless Dredge - albeit with a much less successful finish than his Manaless win in 2011.
This is a short article on DailyMTG celebrating the no-land Balustrade Spy version of the deck.
Tips and Tricks:
Cabal Therapy can net you creatures if you have multiple Bridge from Below.
Ichorid dies at end of turn, so sometimes it's correct to reanimate him and not attack just to net zombie tokens.
River Kelpie, if run, can combine with Cabal Therapy, Narcomoeba, and Dread Return to combo out on the spot. Just be careful to count how many cards are in your library, as Kelpie's draw effect is not optional. Remember that Persist will resolve before Dread Return if you sacrifice Kelpie to pay for a Dread Return.
When you attack a non-token creature into a defender, if both die, you can still get zombie tokens by resolving the token-making ability of Bridge from Below first and then resolving the exile ability.
Nether Shadow needs creature cards above him in the graveyard, so be sure that whenever you dredge or discard him you put him as far down as possible. Since you discard for a single effect or mill for Dredge all at once, this is entirely legal.
Playing through a turn 1 Relic of Progenitus:
When an opponent tries to use hate cards to stop you mid-combo (and win due to your decking), Dread Return Golgari Thug and sacrifice it to put a creature on top of your deck and gain an extra turn.
Glossary of Terms
DDD - Draw, Discard, Dredge is when you draw until you have 8 cards, then discard due to the hand-size rule, then spend future draw steps dredging a card. The card that is dredged at the beginning of the turn can be discarded at the end, leading to a repeatable loop if desired.
Phantastagorian - My personal term for Phantasmagorian based on how fantastic he is! (Note: I advocate only 2-3 in most Manaless lists, while others often advocate the full 4. He's still fantastic!)
Hate - A generic 'Magic:The Gathering' term for cards which are very narrow but very effective at stopping certain strategies. In the case of Manaless Dredge so-called "gravehate" or graveyard hate threatens to shut down our graveyard-based strategy.
Anti-hate: Cards which stop "Hate" cards. (See "Hate")
Baubles: Mishra's Bauble and Urza's Bauble.
Transformational Sideboard: A generic 'Magic:The Gathering' term for a sideboard plan that drastically changes your strategy in game 3, and possibly game 2 of a match.
LED: Lion's Eye Diamond
Draw-Go: A style of play in which a player rarely taps mana on their own turn, and usually draws their card and says "go" to their opponent each turn. Game control is maintained primarily from counterspells played during the opponent's turn. This style of play was more powerful earlier in Magic's history, but many decks still have elements of this style. It is particularly notable for Manaless Dredge players because these decks rely very strongly on the stack to stop their opponent. With Manaless Dredge, you can bypass the stack almost entirely, which negates the Draw-Go defense.
Dredge: The Dredge mechanic, which appears on Dakmor Salvage as well as a variety of cards from Ravnica block, such as Stinkweed Imp. Equally often, it will refer to the Dredge deck.
Manaless Dredge: The Legacy-format version of Dredge which eschews lands altogether. May sometimes run Dakmor Salvage. It operates using the hand-size rule to discard cards, and frequently uses Street Wraith and Gitaxian Probe to increase speed. In rare cases, the term may be used to refer to the Vintage-format version of the deck.
Ichorid: The card Ichorid, but also a generic term for Dredge decks. Occasionally used to refer to Dredge decks without the card Ichorid in them.
Manaless Ichorid: The term primarily used to refer to the Vintage-format version of Manaless Dredge. The Vintage version uses Bazaar of Baghdad to rapidly fill the graveyard without other mana sources or lands. May also be used to refer to the Legacy-format version, although this is rare.
Friggorid: An early version of Dredge deck, this lacked the combo explosiveness provided by Future Sight's cards Bridge from Below, Dread Return, and Nacromoeba. Instead it used the Ichorid-heavy plan backed by Cabal Therapy that makes up the resiliency package and Plan B of modern Dredge decks.
Contract from Below: An ante card, and therefore banned in all formats. Along with Necropotence and Ancestral Recall, it is commonly considered one of the three most powerful draw effects ever printed. In a normal deck, it provides up to +6 Card Advantage. For this reason, I sometimes refer to Golgari Grave-Troll as "Contract from Below", as he also provides +6 Card Advantage (for zero to one mana).
This Magic article from Wizards.com lists it as the single most powerful
Special Thanks to FunkyMo for card headings/formatting for some of the decklist section.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
He explains it quite well.
Level 1 Judge
:symw::symu::symb::symr::symg: Borrowing :symg::symr::symb::symu::symw:
Commander:
:symr::symu::symg: Cascade :symg::symu::symr:
Great job at the SCG Legacy Open! A well-deserved win that revealed the deck's consistency and resiliency. I look forward to possibly acquiring the cards myself and toying around with this unique list.
However, may I suggest renaming the deck "Phantasmagorian Dredge" instead of just Manaless Dredge? We don't want people to confuse this version with the LED version.
Currently playing:
EDH
Currently playing:
:symb::symu::symw: Sharuum, the Hegemon
MY SALES THREAD!
This is the list I've been working with
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Urza's Bauble
2 Mishra's Bauble
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Shambling Shell
4 Bridge from Below
4 Phantasmagorian
2 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Angel of Despair
14 accelerants (baubles, probes, wraiths), 15 dredgers (cutting 1 Shambling Shell) and just the two sphinxes and single angel for DR targets. Though the angel could easily go in favour of another bauble/shambling shell if you arent concerned about Lands/Enchantress etc... Maxing out on Phantasmagorian is a must IMO. Gigapede is cuttable since its best use is worknig to beat Tormod's Crypt. Realistically the FKZ is win-more, since once you DR a Sphinx you should be able to Therapy away anything relevant on their side and be way ahead on board.
Sphinx of Lost Truths is significantly better than River Kelpie, since you want to do the dredges on your turn so you can make use of the Narcomoeba's and Therapies/DR's you hit immediatly, as well as have the Ichorids and Nether Shadows for the next upkeep.
Your only answer to Moat/Solitary Confinement etc... is reanimating a Child of Alara and saccing it. This is signficantly worse than Woodfall Primus/Angel of Despair/Terrastodon. Elesh Norn is also an important DR target so you dont just get out-raced by Goblins/Merfolk. i.e. Even if they have Stingscourger/Echoing Truth you probably just one-sided wrath'd them.
Unmask is pretty unimpressive. You dont want to do it turn 1, and without 4 Phantasmagorian its harder to use it on turn 2, so you will usually just be boarding out action for a card which will sit in your hand while you try to develope. Leyline of Sanctity does a better job of beating storm, while you probably dont want to have such a slow card vs Hive Mind.
With regards to Storm:
Unfortunately, we don't seem to have much data on Unmask. I've been running what is almost exactly ajfirecracker's list, but I don't have a real-life test group and Unmask is unavailable on MTGO :swear:.
What I do have are some sideboarded games against Storm without Unmask, and they're pretty miserable. If you mulligan to Leyline of Sanctity, you've often given the Storm player enough turns to Ad Nauseam into Echoing Truth or Chain of Vapor, then kill you. In fact, even just having Leyline in my opener has never been enough.
Mindbreak Trap complements the Leyline plan by presumably countering their bounce spell, but it's easily played around by not triggering the trap cost. Then it's just bounce plus discard and you're dead. If you don't have it with Leyline, then it will just get discarded.
Chancellor of the Annex is fine but it won't stop them from winning by itself (although reanimating it is very effective). It can, however, stop a turn 1 discard so you don't get time walked.
So, in theory, Unmask would take the place of Mindbreak Trap in a 12-card sideboard plan (4x Leyline of Sanctity, 4x Unmask, 4x Chanceller of the Annex) against storm. Basically, Unmask lets you be proactive whereas Mindbreak Trap is reactive and easily dealt with. With Unmask you can mulligan aggressively to Leyline while still being able to discard, or you can keep an opener with Leyline, discard on turn 2, then hopefully disrupt their plan to deal with Leyline on turn 3.
EDIT: Heck, it might just be good enough to go on the play, keep an Unmask hand, and dump a dredger turn 1 to avoid getting time walked over and over (it's not fun). This reduces the reliance on finding a Leyline hand, too.
In essence, while Unmask is pretty unimpressive, it's probably necessary for the Storm matchup.
The deck really isnt designed to beat storm. Which is not a big issue since storm (both Belcher and ANT) have been marginalized to such a degree by the controland aggro-control decks. So having a bad matchups isnt such a huge problem. The main problem I see with unmask is that it actually isnt very good against storm. If you cast it turn 1 then you dont get to discard, add this to the fact that many/most storm decks run multiple targeted discard effects and you will not be dredging for many turns, allowing your opponent to recover from the unmask and kill you before you build up sufficient pressure.If you hold the unmask later than turn 1 on the draw (to try and at least get some dredging going), then it has serious diminishing returns. Turn 2 on the draw and there is fair chance you are already dead, turn 3 and you are at the point at which you are relying on them having a bad draw for the unmask to do anything.
Basically I just dont think unmask actually imporves the storm matchup, its 'ok' vs Hive Mind since you can legitimatly hold it until turn 2 then try to hit their hive mind. If I were trying to board to beat storm I would ensure I maxed out on accelerants between MD and SB (8 bauable, 4 wraith, 4 probe) and enough 'I win' DR targets (Iona, FKZ) so you just maximize your chance of having a turn 2-3 soft-lock or deal enough damage to make Ad Naus bad, possibly relying on an early cabal therpy to buy you a little time. Overall I think it is important to recognize that manaless is not a deck designed to compete with other combo decks, its very much designed to attack the midrange-control meta, and LEDless (mana) dredge is a safer bet if you think you need to beat turn 2-3 combo decks on a regular basis.
On the 'aggressive mull' issue. This is not a deck which ever wants to mulligan. Mulling to 5, then starting with a leyline in play and unmasking them on turn 1 means you are doing anything for a loooong time. They should easily be able to recover from the unmask and find an answer to the leyline in the 4+ free turns you give them with an aggressive mull. I dont think any sideboard play should involve a willingness to mulligan searching for a non-dredge card (unless its leyline of the void vs another manaless dredge deck).
Manaless dredge definitely has an abysmal time against fast combo decks, Storm in particular. And while it may be correct to just ignore them, I always seem to hit two Storm decks in every other tournament I play :rolleyes:.
Mulliganing is always a risky proposition, and I would try my best to avoid it. But I think you misunderstood me; if mulliganing to Leyline gives me the best shot to win, I would use Unmask to discard a dredger, not disrupt the Storm player.
My point: let's not discount Unmask until we have some more (read: any) data.
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Curse PremiumI've also added some commentary on my list and the thinking behind it.
Is there an LED Version that looks very different? If it's just one of these lists but with LED and the Baubles shoehorned in, I think this would be the natural place to discuss it, much the same way that mana dredge typically has conversations about LED and LEDless in the same place.
Edit: Added Tips and Tricks. Feel free to suggest other useful tricks I've overlooked.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Playing through a turn 1 Relic of Progenitus:
---
If you have two creatures in play (at least one non-token) and two Bridge From Belows in the graveyard, then you can use a Cabal Therapy to sacrifice a non-token creature, leaving you with three creatures overall to sacrifice to Dread Return. The same goes for one non-token creature in play and three Bridge From Belows in the graveyard.
With respect to my likely demented belief that Manaless Dredge should have game against Storm-speed decks, I present a decklist:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmor Salvage
Card Draw
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Phantasmagorian
Beaters
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
3 Nether Shadow
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
Dread Return Targets
4 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame-kin Zealot
This list is only at the goldfishing stage, as usual. The goal is to Dread Return a Sphinx of Lost Truths, then it's GG. Once you find a Flame-kin Zealot, if you still have a draw left, you can dredge up a Dakmor Salvage and get Bloodghasts back as Bridge fodder. If you don't have the Zealot, just chain into more Sphinxes.
In theory, you don't lose anything against do-nothing decks (which is why we're playing Manaless). While Dakmor Salvage's dredge 2 isn't the same as Shambling Shell's dredge 3 (besides both being miserable), enabling four extra 2-power beaters and rawdogged Cabal Therapies seems like a good enough trade-off. Ichorid is just as happy to chomp on Bloodghasts as he is Shambling Shells, so no worries there.
Goldfishing has been promising, with what feels like a fairly consistent turn 3 kill and a pleasant number of turn 2 kills. What I can't pin down is whether the added turn 2 kills are at the expense of consistency when compared to an 8-bauble list.
2-0 vs MUC
0-2 vs Show and Tell
0-2 vs Merfolk
2-0 vs Stonforge Fish-type deck
0-2 vs Elf Combo
After a brief random and very limited (W2-L3) matches on Cockatrice, this deck seems to straight up lose to combo, beats hardcore control, and had problems against aggro-control (though vs Merfolk i had very bad hands). I am also not a great manaless dredge pilot, so maybe i made some misplays as well. All in all, seems slow but resilient.
Note: Elf combo and Show and tell smoked me. But I don't know how this matchup would have been even with LED Dredge.
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Shadow
4 Ichorid
4 Shambling Shell
4 Golgari Thug
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Street Wraith
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Gigapede
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Narcomoeba
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
Enchant
4 Bridge From Below
Land
3 Dakmor Salvage
I think the deck needs to be boarded into a faster, less-resilent vs. combo.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES |
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
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Curse PremiumAggro you should be fairly even, probably slightly favored. This includes Merfolk, as we're turning off 100% of their tempo plays.
Control should be close to unloseable.
Combo should be close to unwinnable, although I personally think that with enough draw effects and a disruption-ey sideboard, there's no reason you can't smoke them too. It occurs to me now (somehow it didn't before) that Lion's Eye Diamond as a discard outlet in the combo matchup is actually fairly reasonable out of the sideboard.
Edit: This has the added advantage of (when a really good player puts you on the play) just demolishing them before they do anything.
-4 Sphinx of Lost Truths +4 Cephalid Sage.
Better yet, -4 Sphinx of Lost Truths, +3 Cephalid Sage, +1 River Kelpie
I would also recommend trying -1 Phantasmagorian, -1 Dakmor Salvage, +2 Shambling Shell
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
I apologize if I'm missing something obvious, but why is the Sage better? 3/5 (blocks Batterskull), flying, unconditional effect, and the extra discard make the Sphinx the clear choice to me.
I always have my eye on the one-of Kelpie, but I haven't figured out all of the nuances just yet. Also, to me it seems like the Sphinx is stronger at comboing out of a smaller graveyard. I don't think I've reanimated a Sphinx that hasn't led to a goldfish win yet, but real games will tell if a miser's Kelpie is needed.
EDIT:
This has me optimistic about the combo match's prospects. Every so often I would think about throwing LEDs into the sideboard of the slower 2-Phantasmagorian, 2-Nether Shadow, 0-Bloodghast, 8-Bauble list. But it always seemed like it would just be a patch job, trying to emulate a faster Dredge. But with 4 Phantasmagorian and shifting the mainboard into overdrive, I think this has potential.
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Curse PremiumThe extra discard could well be that Dakmor Salvage you just dredged. Keep it in hand, instead, and you don't need extra Dread Returns. Obviously this is more relevant if you're planning on aggressively using your million Phantasmagorians.
Kelpie helps more when you're talking about actual matches, where your resources might somehow be constrained or (most especially) you need more bodies. However, with Bloodghast and Dakmor Salvage it might just never be necessary.
LED has some synergy with the Baubles. In any case, I'm very surprised that that list has been slower for you... obviously the Baubles take a while to take effect, but they should help make the Turn 3 kill more frequent. If it's performing slower for you in goldfishing I may just need to try Bloodghast after all. I don't see how running extra Phantasmagorian makes it more worthwhile to run Lion's Eye Diamond against combo... by the time you have three cards in hand and feel the need to discard them, isn't the game just over?
Edit: For a more general discussion of the draw creatures, I would argue the following:
Sphinx of Lost Truths is basically a draw-7. You get a bunch of resources and probably win the game. Think Wheel of Fortune.
Cephalid Sage is basically a different flavor of draw-7. You get a bunch of resources and probably win the game. Think Windfall or Diminishing Returns.
River Kelpie is basically a storm engine part. It requires you jump through some hoops, but generally you just win from any position whatsoever. Think Ad Nauseam or Ill-Gotten Gains or even Yawgmoth's Will. If you don't just win on the spot, the resource advantage/draw engine it gives you will ensure you win the next turn, a la Yawgmoth's Bargain.
Obviously, there are a bunch of games (say, with Tendrils of Agony) where you could just chain draw-7's together and win that way. It's nice to know exactly (or close to exactly) how many extra resources you're getting. That said, I feel like Kelpie usually gives you more resources of each type and a greater variety of resources, which would make it my first-choice draw creature except that Swords to Plowshares and friends completely stomp on it.
Edit 2: With your build in particular, Dread Return River Kelpie, dredge Dakmor Salvage, return Bloodghasts, dredge a million seems sweet.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Ah, I had the same concern too until I played a few games. The key is that you will always have at least a Phantasmagorian in hand so looting 3 won't be a problem.
I've probably been ham-handed in my characterization of Baubles = slow. I think I internalized it as "Baubles lose hard to storm -> baubles are slow." I'm concerned what's being sacrificed in the name of turn 2 percentage. I'll really know once I can get into some dailies on MTGO, where combo decks are plentiful. But I would still suggest you try it out because it's fun at least :).
Yeah, they don't interact very well. I just meant having at least 8 discard outlets is probably the necessary starting point in the war against Storm, barring some way of getting more lands + discard dorks into the 75.
EDIT:
I think I've been completely converted to the full 4 Phantasmagorian mindset. I'm always disappointed when I don't have him in my opener because he gets so many useless-in-hand cards into the graveyard, stacks Nether Shadows, etc. But you know all the upsides. I also am happy to see double Phantasmagorian so I can cycle between them. Not to mention he gets better when more of your cards want to be in the graveyard, i.e. no baubles.
EDIT2:
Sorry if it seems like I'm bashing the baubles. They're fine cards for what they need to be, they're just not very impressive either.
EDIT3:
Sorry for so many edits :cool2:.
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Curse PremiumWhat you need is an extra draw (to get the Dakmor Salvage into your hand where you can actually play it), especially if you're very aggressive with Phantasmagorian or use Lion's Eye Diamond at all. I agree that we've got enough (often more than enough) discard outlets.
Baubles add more to Turn 3 percentage and nothing (i.e. detract) to Turn 2 percentage. They should be better against storm than most options, although I'm keen to try a million guys and a million Dread Return.
I don't really see how Phantasmagorian helps against storm... at least not until you're already underway. It seems to me that if you can discard him you could've discarded a dredger to begin with.
I really do think 4 Phantastagorian is too many. The first one to hit your discard pile is usually amazing, the second is nice, and the third is a Prowling Pangolin. Given that we're playing dredge, it seems unnecessary to run all 4. At least try 3, if you haven't, as I've never felt like I needed it in the opener (one in the top 10-15 cards + the 8 in hand feels fine to me, which suggests ~3).
Bash away. I'm not a Bauble. They're not impressive, I've just come to the conclusion that they're the best use of the slot. Bloodghast is starting to look pretty promising, though.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Fortunately, it's not too hard to be aggressive with Phantasmagorian and maintain a Dakmor Salvage in hand. The typical play is turn 1 discard Phantasmagorian, EOT discard 6 cards, leaving you with a card (Salvage) and Phantasmagorian in hand. The only time this gets awkward is if you have sorcery-speed draw in hand, too.
While we're talking about our favorite Dredge land: Dakmor Salvage operates in two modes in this deck. A) In your opening hand it can be used to recur enough Bloodghasts to fuel a quick Dread Return. B) In your graveyard, it can either be slow-dredged to fulfill (A) or it can be dredged at the end of a Sphinx of Lost Truths chain in order for your (hopefully four) Bloodghasts to be reprocessed into zombie tokens.
But the first one is sooooo amazing that I think it makes having a Prowling Pangolin* or two in your graveyard worth it. At least in this list, Phantasmagorian is instrumental in getting those three guys for an early Dread Return, whether it's Nether Shadow, Ichorid, or Bloodghast, not to mention the other pieces of the puzzle. And I think having access to a quick combo win is key against Storm.
But yeah, it's not as good as Lion's Eye Diamond against Storm. On that note, are there any other free One with Nothings out there?
* Haha oh wow, that guy is tailor-made to be a terrible DR target. Counterable by creature decks with a built-in Bridge extractor. Or wait, is he just a super-awesome zombie army generator? I can never remember who gets first choice... I think it's APNAP. If it is, congrats on finding the super secret tech ;).
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Curse PremiumAfter some gold-fishing with the deck, Dakmor Salvage definitely feels lame in either mode. Out of ten games (admittedly quick ones, but I do have a pretty good idea how to combo out with the deck) I came close to winning on turn 2 once (sort of) and achieved it zero times. It also felt like a real struggle to win on Turn 3, something I feel the Bauble list does much more easily.
Part of the problem felt like the 6-Phantasmagorian syndrome I've talked about before. Once you start going nuts with Nether Shadow and Bloodghast, the proper number of Phantasmagorian shoots way up from 2-3 to 6-7. Since you can only run four, the deck feels awkward when you don't get one and can sometimes choke on the four you are running. (i.e. it's less consistent, imo)
Prowling Pangolin seems worse than Sadistic Hypnotist, although he is almost-cute. I've always wanted to kill my opponents with a "Creature - Penguin Hedgehog" and I think this is the closest we'll ever get.
I agree that Lion's Eye Diamond is pretty nuts on paper (not maindeck, obviously, but crazy from the sideboard). There aren't any other free One With Nothings.
Gustha's Scepter would be thinkable if it worked slightly differently, but it does not.
Edit: Added the Adam Barnello article on Manaless Dredge to the primer.
Edit 2: Added Alexander Lapping's pile from SCG: Denver to the primer, in case anyone is interested in the early evolution of the deck.
Edit 3: As a potential anti-Leyline of the Void package, we might consider something like Maindeck: 4 Misty Rainforest, 4 Dryad Arbor
Sideboard: 1 Forest, 4 Reverent Silence, 4 Nature's Claim
That leaves you with six anti-combo cards, presumably:
4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 2 Chancellor of the Annex
Edit 4: It occurs to me that you can actually play around Relic of Progenitus' tap ability with Gitaxian Probe. First, you draw up to 8 and discard a card. Now they have to tap the Relic either on their turn or during our upkeep, or else we'll get a dredge in. Assuming they do so, we can then main-phase cycle our Gitaxian Probe against their tapped relic, staying at 8 cards, and discard a dredger at end of turn. They untap, tap their Relic, exiling Probe, and we get a dredge in. If we discard a non-dredger the first time, they still have to tap Relic before our cleanup for fear of us discarding a dredger the second time. We simply cycle Gitaxian Probe into the untapped Relic, then discard a dredger at end of turn. So this only requires one dredger altogether.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
Haha, that reminds me when I first proxied-up said pile. I printed out Bayou and Dryad Arbor in anticipation of the 8x Forest, 3x Reverent Silence, 4x Nature's Claim sideboard. Great minds think alike.
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Curse PremiumI think what has to happen in the short term is for people to play Manaless in larger numbers. As that happens, most of the slower decks will be forced to resort to Leyline of the Void. At that point, it will either become worth it to fight through the Leylines with a package that takes up half or more of the sideboard, or Manaless Dredge will fall off in popularity and a cycle will be established. I think in general it should serve a role that prevents the format from getting too slow, although it could just be hated out (on and off, of course).
That said, I could also see a banning (presumably on Dread Return, although there are myriad options that have the same middling impact) a few months down the line if combo can't bash through Mental Misstep and blue decks can't fight through Dredge. The deck is certainly unfair enough to generate popular outcry with only a few more good finishes.
A note on tech: If you're running Dakmor Salvage for Bloodghast, it's almost certainly worth it to run at least a single Darkblast as an out to random creatures (specifically Peacekeeper, but there are plenty of others).
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
that has always been how dredge worked though. game one it was almost always favored, but could be hated on so severely with little effort it was an uphill battle games 2 and 3. when people forget about it and the hate dwindles it catches people off guard and can shine again, and then people bring back hate. i dont think we will see another dredge win for quite some time now until the commotion over this passes.
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Curse PremiumI disagree with this characterization in general (especially recently), although I would agree that it's held at some points in the past, most notably in formats other than Legacy.
In particular, I think that Dredge was inconsistent enough in recent builds that the 3-card special in the sideboard (usually 2 Relic of Progenitus and a Tormod's Crypt, if the deck didn't have any special incentive to run anything else) was enough to constrain it to a 'merely okay' deck. Often it would be a 'merely okay' deck without even this modest hate.
Manaless Dredge, on the other hand, is much more consistent and much less able to ignore serious (really serious) attempts to hate it out (in particular, 4 Leyline of the Void is ineffective against Mana Dredge in some cases because they just kill you with a bunch of dorks).
Sure, we saw the occasional top 8 from Mana Dredge, but there were no otherwise-stable metagames that were weak to Dredge. An all-aggro metagame (no tempo, no control, no combo) would fall to dredge, but virtually anything else could potentially just play Magic: The Gathering against Dredge and still win. An all-aggro meta, however, is not stable; combo quickly rushes in.
Now, we have a deck that demands serious hate and (for the first time since the days of old Extended) sidesteps every fair card in the format. Mental Misstep did not have some magical power to interact that the format previously lacked, Dredge was kept in check (in part) by Force of Will, Wasteland, Daze, Thoughtseize, and Stifle. Now those range from entirely blank to almost entirely blank; only Thoughtseize retains disruptive power, and it slows the deck by a turn instead of 4 or more.
What all this means is that Manaless Dredge (and, presumably, some Mana variants that are also tuned to be uber-consistent DDD decks) will exert metagame pressure, speeding the format up and pushing graveyard hate back into sideboards, something Mana Dredge has not really accomplished in the past.
Edit: In the very short term, I expect a lot of decks that were so-so against Mana Dredge to slightly increase the number of Bojuka Bog, Relic of Progenitus, and Thoughtseize. This means that between combo and these responses, Lion's Eye Diamond will probably be the go-to card for sideboards for a while (assuming it's as good as advertised; I still have woefully little testing with it).
Edit 2: Added today's daily deck (Rausch's Manaless build) to the Archetype History section.
Edit 3: Added the blip.tv video archives for SCG Cinci for Rausch's run to the Archetype History section.
Check it out!
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part-1-one-shot-resources/
http://www.eternalcentral.com/resource-advantage-in-magic-part2-tempo/
I've also written a short primer on Manaless Dredge in Vintage:
http://www.eternalcentral.com/the-dredge-of-glory-an-introduction-to-manaless-dredge-in-vintage/
The interaction between Misty Rainforest, Dryad Arbor, and Bloodghast is starting to tickle my fancy. For example: Play Misty getting back Bloodghast, Cabal Therapy getting a zombie token, crack Misty for Dryad Arbor, bringing back Bloodghast, then Dread Return the dude of your choice.
Unfortunately, this means playing cards that do nothing unless they're in your opening 8. But the same could be said for Gitaxian Probe, the baubles, and Street Wraith (besides being food for Ichorid). The question is, which has more utility? Draw spells seem to be better in general, but fetches open up the sideboard quite a bit.
EDIT:
Well, I tested my supposedly anti-combo list in an MTGO Daily, and went a lukewarm 2-2. Here's the list for reference:
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Dakmor Salvage
Card Draw
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
Discard
4 Phantasmagorian
Beaters
4 Narcomoeba
4 Ichorid
4 Bloodghast
3 Nether Shadow
4 Dread Return
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Bridge from Below
Dread Return Targets
4 Sphinx of Lost Truths
1 Flame-kin Zealot
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Angel of Despair
1 Child of Alara
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Blazing Archon
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chancellor of the Annex
The sideboard is in disrepair and needs much attention. Leyline of the Void might not be a terrible addition, for instance. In general the deck felt OK if a bit clunky, but I think Bloodghast showed some promise, and may just take the place of Nether Shadow in the future.
Round 1, I lost to Hive Mind with very early Show and Tells.
Round 2, I won against... Hive Mind, mostly in part due to very slow draws on my opponent's part.
Round 3, I won against Elf Combo 2-1, losing game 2 when Relic of Progenitus forced my hand with Phantasmagorian, mulliganning me to 4. Game 3 I think he mulliganned pretty aggressively and had no action.
Round 4, I lost to what looked like Rausch's Manaless Dredge with baubles thrown in. I won game 1, even after starting with a very slow Dakmor Salvage into no dredger, but I thankfully drew a Golgari Thug. The three Bloodghasts in my hand meant that I was able to dredge my entire deck in one turn and win. Game 2 I had the same slow Dakmor Salvage draw, compared with my opponent's Golgari Grave-Troll/Street Wraith/Urza's Bauble start, killing me with X/1s before I could get off the ground. I lost game 3 pretty hard. The tragic part is my hand was the nuts: Golgari Grave-Troll, Street Wraith, and Gitaxian Probe are just what I remember. But once I saw those cards, I knew I would be getting Leylined for sure.
Overall, I guess 2-2 isn't terrible against an all-combo Daily. I think the real proof will be when I can find a control deck to play against, if this thing can still function on the don't-cast-anything plan.
EDIT 2:
Before I forget: Fetches, beyond having applications with Dryad Arbor and Bloodghast, also have the side-benefit of combatting Relic's tap ability. Fetches could make up for the lack of baubles in this aspect.