I DEF wouldn't play Krosan Grip out of the board. it's hard enough to get the one mana for some cards, let alone 3. I get it. Split Second takes care of Crypt, and Relic. It's just so high cost for this deck.
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Firestorm I found is great against the Jund/Stoneblade meta here, though that's not the ENTIRE meta. What exactly do we sideboard against Sneak and Show as well? Do we just try to race them?
Firestorm I found is great against the Jund/Stoneblade meta here, though that's not the ENTIRE meta. What exactly do we sideboard against Sneak and Show as well? Do we just try to race them?
Yeah, if you are already running Dread Return, Ashen rider is the way to go with your sideboard. You will probably need some other stuff, but that can change depending on your build.
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Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never Compromise.
How good are the Dread Return builds in the current metagame? A buddy of mine bought a Dredge deck at our friendly neighbourhood card shop and I just got through purchasing a playset for him as a gift. Also, what would be a couple good targets for Dread Returns ability?
They are becoming more important than before. Since the old Quad Builds are finding themselves shut down with Creature hate, the deck is morphing into a combo deck and it needs 2-4 DR's in that style of build.
While I think it is a preference thing, metagames that are more combo-heavy are hostile toward Quadlaser, while creature-centric metas are easy prey for the quadlaser build.
Each dredge player will give you a different answer on DR targets, but:
Much appreciated thank you all. I just have one more question, what are some of the most difficult matchups for this deck? Like I'm talking tip of the top, mb massacre if you don't know what your doing type of stuff
The hardest, that would be decks that can kill their own stuff at instant speed while laying down a clock. Also decks with maindeck grave hate are not fun either. Combo decks are good fun to play against but I hate seeing Jund, Affinity and Fish. Mostly because fish will always have grave hate in the side.
Tin Fins - It's a race. If they don't go off turn one and you get the opportunity to play multiple Cabal Therapy, you may slow them down long enough to kill them before they reanimate anything.
MUD - Turn one Chalice of the Void with one counter followed by turn two Trinisphere is hard to play through. I beat MUD once by keeping a four land hand.
Elves - They are just as fast as us on average. If they play Deathrite Shaman turn one and you don't have the gas to play through it, expect them to be capable of activating it 4-5 times a turn (if not just winning the game) by turn 3.
Show and Tell - If you mulligan aggressively, you can be faster than them. The problem is that being fast can also lead to FoW blowouts. Against Sneak Attack, there's actually a decent chance of having enough zombies to make Annihilator irrelevant. They have more disruption against you than you have against them.
Storm - You have to hope you hit Cabal Therapies early and often.
Merfolk - Cursecatcher puts us in difficult situations. Daze and FoW slow us down enough that we can't always just win off of speed.
Goblins - We should be able to outrace them most of the time. They do have ways to kill their own creatures and a ton of pressure to back it up. Just be careful.
Tin Fins - It's a race. If they don't go off turn one and you get the opportunity to play multiple Cabal Therapy, you may slow them down long enough to kill them before they reanimate anything.
MUD - Turn one Chalice of the Void with one counter followed by turn two Trinisphere is hard to play through. I beat MUD once by keeping a four land hand.
Elves - They are just as fast as us on average. If they play Deathrite Shaman turn one and you don't have the gas to play through it, expect them to be capable of activating it 4-5 times a turn (if not just winning the game) by turn 3.
Show and Tell - If you mulligan aggressively, you can be faster than them. The problem is that being fast can also lead to FoW blowouts. Against Sneak Attack, there's actually a decent chance of having enough zombies to make Annihilator irrelevant. They have more disruption against you than you have against them.
Storm - You have to hope you hit Cabal Therapies early and often.
Merfolk - Cursecatcher puts us in difficult situations. Daze and FoW slow us down enough that we can't always just win off of speed.
Goblins - We should be able to outrace them most of the time. They do have ways to kill their own creatures and a ton of pressure to back it up. Just be careful.
I think there's more to be said for each of these situations, in particular the combo matchups. What's been said for Storm applies across the board: Therapy, Therapy, Therapy is what determines the winner of these matchups most of the time, and gives Dredge game against a lot of these decks. The premise of Dredge is that it's a consistent aggro-combo deck that's hard to interact with outside of specific hate cards. Thus, one of the more challenging situations is against a deck that doesn't need to interact with it because it has a faster clock. In those cases, we need to interact with them, and Cabal Therapy is the only card that does this (outside of Iona, which I love for this reason).
Reanimator: the blind Therapy call, assuming the spell resolves without a Brainstorm response, is Careful Study. You know what's crazy against Reanimator? Memory's Journey.
MUD: Chalice@1 is an inconvenience, but remember that the Chalice only counters the spell, it does not prevent one from casting it (and paying any costs to do so, including the sacrifice of a creature and subsequent generation of zombies). Trinisphere prevents even this, but by the time it comes down, a steady steam of Ichorids + zombie tokens should be entering the board. Post SB, Ancient Grudge is incredible here. All this deck has to fight GY strategies is Tormod's Crypt, the most basic hate to play around.
Enchantress: not many people play this, I wouldn't worry about it. It doesn't have such great matchups against the rest of the field. I don't know why we're even talking about Enchantress.
Elves: now this is a dangerous deck, with skilled pilots and plenty of options. Dredge used to prey upon decks like this, prior to the printing of Deathrite Shaman. As scary as DRS is, we have a nuclear sideboard option: Firestorm. There's no way for them to hide resources from Therapy, so those crucial Natural Order / Glimpse of Nature spells are vulnerable. Iona or Elesh Norn are both pretty excellent here, but not as good as Firestorm IMHO.
Show and Tell: I don't think this matchup is bad. Their counterspells, save the Force, are all of the taxing variety. There's usually a chance to Therapy. If you can wrangle a position where there are some creatures in play, a bouncing Ichorid ideally, 1-2 lands untapped, and Cabal Therapy / Dread Return action is going on, that's a solid endgame that probably ends in our favor. Hitting Emrakul off of Therapy is so much fun. Game 2s are interesting: Show and Tell becomes very risky for them, as they might trigger our Iona or Ashen Rider. It's very skill-intensive.
Merfolk: I haven't played this matchup in a long time, never giving it much attention pre-TNN (since 'Folk was pretty bad then) and not having played it since.
Goblins: Dredge is one of the few decks that pump out creatures more quickly than Goblins. Sure, they can kill Bridges. Firestorm, Darkblast, and Elesh Norn out of the board are savage. They will be mulling hard to hate cards, and it's usually either Crypt or Relic. This is another good Ancient Grudge opportunity, as their Vial presents an excellent secondary target.
Death and Taxes: now, here's a tough nut to crack. I have played this deck extensively. Sometimes, if it's a blind situation, they'll keep a sluggish hand with Stoneforge, Mom, Vials, removal, and some lands, which would be great for them in a fair matchup. Fortunately, the deck doesn't play Jotun Grunt in the MD anymore, so it's possible to take games with orderly Dredging and them keeping a less-than-relevant hand. SB games are hard, because not only must their relevant MD cards be answered (Thalia and Company), but the SB Rest In Peace demands an answer as well. Darkblast and Firestorm work well with the hatebears, and Nature's Claim handles RIP, but when facing both it's possible to get stuck with the answer to the wrong question. Chain of Vapor answers both problems, but only temporarily. Assuming I took Game 1, I'd board in my RIP counter-hate for G2 and try to deal with that problem permanent after it hit the field, slow-rolling. G3, assuming I lost G2 (which I expect would happen), I'd play it as fast as possible, hoping to race all of their 2-mana answers. They have no cover from Therapy, after all.
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I might blow any shreds of credibility I've got on this (not that I deserve any), but I'm going to go out on a limb and publicly doubt that Lion's Eye Diamond, Faithless Looting Quadlazer-type Dredge is actually better than the old-fashioned Tireless Tribe, Dread Return, Flame-Kin Zealot build. Bear with me on this, I know it's against the very well-established wisdom on the issue, and a lot of great players like Adam Prosak only started playing the deck once Faithless Looting / LED became a part of it.
The issue is this. Quadlazer is a great deck, very explosive, it can get 43 cards into the graveyard on the first turn of the game under the right conditions. (no mulligan, on the draw, land + LED + Breakthrough, crack LED in response, hit Grave-Troll four times and flip a Faithless Looting, flash it back dredging Grave-Troll two more times) 8(hand)-1(land)+24(breakthrough)+12(faithless)=43.
However, anyone who has played the deck extensively knows what the normal conditions are, and they aren't as impressive. Even with the god-hand 43 card 1st turn Dredge, in order for that to be a lethal attack on turn 2, a lot of resources are required. The full set of Narcos, Bridges, and Therapies puts out 32-power of zombies, but if any of these elements is missing, the output drops to 24-power. Flip just 3 Narcos and just 3 Bridges, and we're down to 18-power, requiring Ichorid support. Under normal conditions, i.e. not the god-hand 1st turn LED Breakthrough with Grave-Troll, and we very quickly the possibility of a fatal second turn disappears. This is normal for Dredge, considered by most to be a turn 3 combo deck. Most articles on combo place the deck in this category. My point is that the explosiveness offered by LED has not actually budged the deck's fundamental turn.
The reason for this is that Quadlazer's creature setup output, if I may term it that, is lower than that of the older Tireless Tribe builds. Tireless Tribe's janky warm body is already 1/3 of a Dread Return, or a way to fire off that early Cabal Therapy that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. Quadlazer will sometimes struggle to get creatures onto the battlefield. Everything will be set up beautifully, except no Narcomebas have flipped, and Ichorid either hasn't appeared on the scene or would eat the only Dredger. Then there's the question of hate: it's pretty clear which card is better, LED or Tireless Tribe, against Tormod's Crypt and similar effects.
Has anyone really tested both decks, side by side, who can weight in on this? I've always just sort of accepted that the Quadlazer is the better Dredge deck, but now I'm not so sure.
I have been playing both versions for about 18 months now, ever since I actually got my LED's. Allow me to post the two lists, so that newer dredgers understand what we are saying:
(FYI, after testing Wraith as suggested in Levin's article, I am totally and completely sold)
The main reason I lean towards LED dredge lists is that it is slightly more consistent and about a half turn faster. In UnLEDed dredge, my average kill is around 4.5, where my average kill in LED is around 4. Both get stuck about the same amount of the time against hate, though I will admit that unLEDed is marginally stronger against fair creature decks. I don't think that is a good comparison point, though, since we are already so favored against them just by virtue of being dredge. The main point comes against combo and control, where the increased consistency of quadlaser and the slight bump in speed make the matches much closer to even.
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...that looks a little funky though. One of the strengths of Tireless Tribe is having an extra body to Dread Return more quickly, but your list isn't running Dread Return at all. It's running Faithless Looting instead, which might be fine, but Looting is definitely a card that favors LED builds.
I think a fairer comparison would be between DR Tireless Dredge and the Quadlazer.
It's obvious what cards are in the Quadlazer, but there's diversity on what should be in a Tireless Tribe build. This might not be the most representative one, but it's the spiciest one IMHO:
Nick Davis, 3rd place, SCG IQ on 8.28.2011 (well before Faithless Looting was printed)
If I were playing this today, I'd probably just switch in the Darkblast for a Golgari Thug, cut Chalice of the Void for Leyline of the Void, and add a Ray of Revelation. I tested the list out with just such a configuration this evening... and I don't know... it's pretty fast... Dread Return --> Iona is a threat most decks have to respect. Quadlazer is usually working on a 3rd or 4th zombie by that point.
...
If anyone wants to take some measurements for a Quadlazer list, that would be convenient. I'm going to start collecting stats on the above list. The rules are:
Pure goldfish, ignore hate, blockers, etc; MD only
Terminate the goldfish either at 20 damage or a reanimated Iona
On the play
Round One testing stats:
T2 kills: 6 (all due to Iona)
T3 kills: 5 (3 FKZ 2 Iona)
T4 kills:11 (6 Ichorid 2 Iona 3 combination)
T5 kills: 5 (2 Ichorid 1 Iona 2 Reanimated Grave-Troll)
Mulls to oblivion: 2
That's 27 hands so far, and I think the quality of the results depends on how good one considers a reanimated Iona to be. Also, obviously, how prone one thinks I am to falsifying my results for personal aggrandizement.
Much appreciated.. Now! Onnnnnnnnne more question, do you think Wizards will ever mitigate the ability to Dredge on the draw step? I actually don't know if this is possible to begin with (me and my buddy are very new at this)
Question to any Ledless players out there, is 8 rainbow lands enough? I know a lot of Led versions run just 8, but I'm thinking I want 9-10 for my Ledless version. Probably going to run either Tarnished citadel or Undiscovered paradise for my last 1-2 slots, are there any other good options as far as rainbow lands go for dredge?
Question to any Ledless players out there, is 8 rainbow lands enough? I know a lot of Led versions run just 8, but I'm thinking I want 9-10 for my Ledless version. Probably going to run either Tarnished citadel or Undiscovered paradise for my last 1-2 slots, are there any other good options as far as rainbow lands go for dredge?
I run LEDless dredge, and I run 12 lands. 4 Cephalid Coliseum, 4 City of Brass, and 4 Gemstone Mine. And it's worked well so far. If nothing else, sometimes I wish I had MORE lands in the main...
-Yawg
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I've seen Tireless lists that run 12, 14, or 15 lands. The first 12 are the usual suspects. The last 0-3 are usually either Tarnished Citadel or Undiscovered Paradise. Undiscovered is normally only used if the player is using Bloodghast. Legacy players almost never go in for that, but some old school (successful) lists ran it.
Tarnished Citadel might sting for 3 life, but it'll never get in the way of a 2nd turn Cephalid Coliseum crack.
You've just convinced me to add a land and go with 15.
While I don't think it's absolutely true that every 7 card hand without a gold land has to be shipped, certainly for Dredge to look like a combo deck it wants an outlet on turn 1, accelerator on turn 2.
There are a few 7-card hands I'd keep (though maybe this is wrong) without a gold land. What about this, for instance, G1 on the play against a Burn deck:
I'll be quite pleased to drop my land, Breakthrough, put the whole lot in my graveyard and start the beats. I'm going to swing for 6 next turn with the Ichorids, and 10 the turn after, and probably for lethal on turn 4 depending on how the Bridges fare and how much food shows up for Ichorid.
That's a silly situation though, so I'll drop it.
With Dredge, I stand by the statement that it's relatively easy to place in a small event with it, very hard to win a large event with it.
Thinking I'll drop one street wraith for another citadel. That gives me 10 rainbow land, 10 dredgers, 9 card draw (not including wraith), and 8 discard outlets. I think that gives a fairly good chance for me to open with what I need, I'd like to make room for one more land, or maybe one more ichorid but having trouble cutting anything else. I really like the Street wraiths so far, those would probably be the first things to go though. Thoughts on changes?
Edit - after playing a couple matches with the extra ichorid and seeing how much easier it made the beatdown plan in such a smal sample size I'm definitely adding it. -1 looting +1 ichorid. The list seems pretty good at what it does, but I'm still open to changes. I'll be putting it through a lot of testing soon, just have to pick up ichorids on modo first, hate to pay 18 tickets for them but I guess it could be worse.
I don't think running less than 12 dredgers is advisable. I think if you don't run the full set of Troll, Imp and Thugs you are just testing your luck and it will run out by the time you get to the to tables. Same with running only 8 rainbow lands (in LEDless).
I just got to see the very end of the dredge game that was on camera this weekend. Apparently the guy couldn't even dredge once. I'm not sure if this was a viable option in that game, but people tend to forget that you can Draw-Discard-Dredge against FoW+Daze decks, even if you have a land. Unless you are expecting to see a backbreaking hate on turn 2 (RIP, Cage) you can save your lands and draw spells to try to explode an overwhelm them. If they counter it you still get your engine going. Running your discard outlet into a counter and then your (usually only) land into Wasteland will often lock you out of the game for good.
...that looks a little funky though. One of the strengths of Tireless Tribe is having an extra body to Dread Return more quickly, but your list isn't running Dread Return at all. It's running Faithless Looting instead, which might be fine, but Looting is definitely a card that favors LED builds.
I think a fairer comparison would be between DR Tireless Dredge and the Quadlazer.
It's obvious what cards are in the Quadlazer, but there's diversity on what should be in a Tireless Tribe build. This might not be the most representative one, but it's the spiciest one IMHO:
Nick Davis, 3rd place, SCG IQ on 8.28.2011 (well before Faithless Looting was printed)
If I were playing this today, I'd probably just switch in the Darkblast for a Golgari Thug, cut Chalice of the Void for Leyline of the Void, and add a Ray of Revelation. I tested the list out with just such a configuration this evening... and I don't know... it's pretty fast... Dread Return --> Iona is a threat most decks have to respect. Quadlazer is usually working on a 3rd or 4th zombie by that point.
...
If anyone wants to take some measurements for a Quadlazer list, that would be convenient. I'm going to start collecting stats on the above list. The rules are:
Pure goldfish, ignore hate, blockers, etc; MD only
Terminate the goldfish either at 20 damage or a reanimated Iona
On the play
Round One testing stats:
T2 kills: 6 (all due to Iona)
T3 kills: 5 (3 FKZ 2 Iona)
T4 kills:11 (6 Ichorid 2 Iona 3 combination)
T5 kills: 5 (2 Ichorid 1 Iona 2 Reanimated Grave-Troll)
Mulls to oblivion: 2
That's Bloodghast dredge, though. Not the same deck as TT LEDless. The reason I don't have DR in there is that I don't like maindecking DR targets in LEDless because you already have some issues getting going with your draw cards. 12/12 Grave trolls on turn 3 aren't good enough right now, so just having 2 DR in there as value like we used to do doesn't make the cut.
T2: 0 (technically possible with a god hand and god dredges, just didn't happen for me in this testing)
T3:14 (12 of these were the good old T1 LED>breakthrough>crack LED for red in response>faithless looting flashback)
T4: 17
T5:3
Mull to oblivion:1
Ok, not bad, about what I expect out of quadlaser.
T1: 3 (LED's into breakthrough into faithless into DR FKZ)
T2: 7 (same as above)
T3: 9
T4: 10
T5: 0
Mull to oblivion: 6
There were a lot of places this deck would have been screwed against Deathrite shaman that didn't show up in testing. The addition of 4 cards for the DR package actually makes the deck significantly less consistent.
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Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never Compromise.
Yeah, it's Bloodghast Dredge. I don't know if that helps or hurts. It probably hurts, as I'm not sure how much Bloodghast really helps either with an early Dread Return or a later Ichorid beatdown. A better version would probably cut Ghast and just run more land and dredgers.
We can take it as a starting point though, after all that's only a few cards and the list does have a successful tournament track record. I want to stick to placing lists, so as to avoid personal bias. I'm not a pro player or anything.
These are the numbers we have so far. I played out another few hands of the DR Bloodghast build to making it 33 hands.
The percentages don't add up (or add up to too much) due to rounding.
Those are the numbers, and I think they illustrate the points of contention fairly well, as long as one doesn't read too much into small fluctuations. Our sample size is still rather small.
Here's my take on it. The Quadlazer demonstrates the most consistent turn 4 (and earlier) kill, with a pretty solid advantage in lower T5 and Mull to Oblivion numbers than the other decks. It's considerably better at avoiding the anemic turn 5 kill of the Bloodghast version, and while the LED DR deck has a closer number, its concentrated in the Mull To Oblivion category.
If we take a look at the Turn 3 kill category, we see LED DR with a significant lead, higher than 10 percentage points. The size of the lead, however, is roughly equal to the lag in the Mull To Oblivion category. I, personally, just don't see a lot of advantage in a deck that needs to mulligan that much. If it mulls to oblivion that often, it must mulligan a lot in general: even more than Bloodghast DR, and I was mulling a lot with that. The rules of the contest sort of encourage mulligans.
Where the Quadlazer and Bloodghast builds differ the most is in the frequency of turn 2 kills. Assuming that Turn 2 Iona wins the game (it could as easily be Turn 2 Griselbrand to dredge the whole library and DR: FKZ), Bloodghast DR presents this scenario with a fair frequency. With the Bloodghast build, these are the hands that worked out properly: discard outlet on turn 1 and an accelerator on turn 2 (either that or a really lucky flip). When Quadlazer gets this situation, either it makes zombies or sets up an Ichorid kill, and passes the turn. When Bloodghast DR gets this situation, it can get the Dread Return kill immediately.
Given the choice of these three decks, I'd much rather be piloting the first one. These tests were done on the play. Turn 2 Iona, naming white, nice Enlightened Tutor for Rest In Peace there boss.
I'll test out a non-Bloodghast DR list. Here's a list that's so old-school that it still runs Sphinx of Lost Truths. Deryck Rothenberger, 3rd Place at StarCityGames.com Invitational Grinder on 6/5/2011.
I saw another dredge deck running PainterStone sideboard too which I thought was pretty funny. So I have my second sideboard list here:
3x Chain of Vapor
3x Firestorm
3x Leyline of the Void
1x Iona
1x Elesh Norn,Grand Cenobyte
Firestorm I found is great against the Jund/Stoneblade meta here, though that's not the ENTIRE meta. What exactly do we sideboard against Sneak and Show as well? Do we just try to race them?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsjKsaxbnds <- Me.
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Ashen Rider is the Standard hate vs SnT decks.
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Yeah, if you are already running Dread Return, Ashen rider is the way to go with your sideboard. You will probably need some other stuff, but that can change depending on your build.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
Each dredge player will give you a different answer on DR targets, but:
Ashen Rider
Flayer of the Hatebound
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Flame-Kin Zealot
Griselbrand
Iona, Shield of Emeria
Realm Razer
Are all possible options.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
Reanimator - Some lists run Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in the main. It pretty much spells game over.
Tin Fins - It's a race. If they don't go off turn one and you get the opportunity to play multiple Cabal Therapy, you may slow them down long enough to kill them before they reanimate anything.
MUD - Turn one Chalice of the Void with one counter followed by turn two Trinisphere is hard to play through. I beat MUD once by keeping a four land hand.
Enchantress - Every Enchantress player I've played in the past six months runs Rest in Peace maindeck. They also play Enlightened Tutor, Energy Field, and Elephant Grass.
Elves - They are just as fast as us on average. If they play Deathrite Shaman turn one and you don't have the gas to play through it, expect them to be capable of activating it 4-5 times a turn (if not just winning the game) by turn 3.
Show and Tell - If you mulligan aggressively, you can be faster than them. The problem is that being fast can also lead to FoW blowouts. Against Sneak Attack, there's actually a decent chance of having enough zombies to make Annihilator irrelevant. They have more disruption against you than you have against them.
Storm - You have to hope you hit Cabal Therapies early and often.
Merfolk - Cursecatcher puts us in difficult situations. Daze and FoW slow us down enough that we can't always just win off of speed.
Goblins - We should be able to outrace them most of the time. They do have ways to kill their own creatures and a ton of pressure to back it up. Just be careful.
Death and Taxes - If you're paired blind game one and they get Wasteland, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Rishadan Port, you could be out of the game.
WUBRROBOTSRBUW
BRGLIVING ENDGRB
URSPLINTER TWINRU
LEGACY
WUBRGTESGRBUW
WUBRGDREDGEGRBUW
EDH
BRGKRESH, THE BLOODBRAIDEDGRB
WBGDORAN, THE SIEGE TOWERGBW
UBSYGG, RIVER CUTTHROATBU
PAUPER EDH
WUGRHOX WAR MONKGUW
UBRDREADWINGRBU
RGFERAL ANIMISTGR
PAUPER
WUBRGALL OF ITGRBUW
I think there's more to be said for each of these situations, in particular the combo matchups. What's been said for Storm applies across the board: Therapy, Therapy, Therapy is what determines the winner of these matchups most of the time, and gives Dredge game against a lot of these decks. The premise of Dredge is that it's a consistent aggro-combo deck that's hard to interact with outside of specific hate cards. Thus, one of the more challenging situations is against a deck that doesn't need to interact with it because it has a faster clock. In those cases, we need to interact with them, and Cabal Therapy is the only card that does this (outside of Iona, which I love for this reason).
Reanimator: the blind Therapy call, assuming the spell resolves without a Brainstorm response, is Careful Study. You know what's crazy against Reanimator? Memory's Journey.
MUD: Chalice@1 is an inconvenience, but remember that the Chalice only counters the spell, it does not prevent one from casting it (and paying any costs to do so, including the sacrifice of a creature and subsequent generation of zombies). Trinisphere prevents even this, but by the time it comes down, a steady steam of Ichorids + zombie tokens should be entering the board. Post SB, Ancient Grudge is incredible here. All this deck has to fight GY strategies is Tormod's Crypt, the most basic hate to play around.
Enchantress: not many people play this, I wouldn't worry about it. It doesn't have such great matchups against the rest of the field. I don't know why we're even talking about Enchantress.
Elves: now this is a dangerous deck, with skilled pilots and plenty of options. Dredge used to prey upon decks like this, prior to the printing of Deathrite Shaman. As scary as DRS is, we have a nuclear sideboard option: Firestorm. There's no way for them to hide resources from Therapy, so those crucial Natural Order / Glimpse of Nature spells are vulnerable. Iona or Elesh Norn are both pretty excellent here, but not as good as Firestorm IMHO.
Show and Tell: I don't think this matchup is bad. Their counterspells, save the Force, are all of the taxing variety. There's usually a chance to Therapy. If you can wrangle a position where there are some creatures in play, a bouncing Ichorid ideally, 1-2 lands untapped, and Cabal Therapy / Dread Return action is going on, that's a solid endgame that probably ends in our favor. Hitting Emrakul off of Therapy is so much fun. Game 2s are interesting: Show and Tell becomes very risky for them, as they might trigger our Iona or Ashen Rider. It's very skill-intensive.
Merfolk: I haven't played this matchup in a long time, never giving it much attention pre-TNN (since 'Folk was pretty bad then) and not having played it since.
Goblins: Dredge is one of the few decks that pump out creatures more quickly than Goblins. Sure, they can kill Bridges. Firestorm, Darkblast, and Elesh Norn out of the board are savage. They will be mulling hard to hate cards, and it's usually either Crypt or Relic. This is another good Ancient Grudge opportunity, as their Vial presents an excellent secondary target.
Death and Taxes: now, here's a tough nut to crack. I have played this deck extensively. Sometimes, if it's a blind situation, they'll keep a sluggish hand with Stoneforge, Mom, Vials, removal, and some lands, which would be great for them in a fair matchup. Fortunately, the deck doesn't play Jotun Grunt in the MD anymore, so it's possible to take games with orderly Dredging and them keeping a less-than-relevant hand. SB games are hard, because not only must their relevant MD cards be answered (Thalia and Company), but the SB Rest In Peace demands an answer as well. Darkblast and Firestorm work well with the hatebears, and Nature's Claim handles RIP, but when facing both it's possible to get stuck with the answer to the wrong question. Chain of Vapor answers both problems, but only temporarily. Assuming I took Game 1, I'd board in my RIP counter-hate for G2 and try to deal with that problem permanent after it hit the field, slow-rolling. G3, assuming I lost G2 (which I expect would happen), I'd play it as fast as possible, hoping to race all of their 2-mana answers. They have no cover from Therapy, after all.
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...[edited-in content follows]...
I might blow any shreds of credibility I've got on this (not that I deserve any), but I'm going to go out on a limb and publicly doubt that Lion's Eye Diamond, Faithless Looting Quadlazer-type Dredge is actually better than the old-fashioned Tireless Tribe, Dread Return, Flame-Kin Zealot build. Bear with me on this, I know it's against the very well-established wisdom on the issue, and a lot of great players like Adam Prosak only started playing the deck once Faithless Looting / LED became a part of it.
The issue is this. Quadlazer is a great deck, very explosive, it can get 43 cards into the graveyard on the first turn of the game under the right conditions. (no mulligan, on the draw, land + LED + Breakthrough, crack LED in response, hit Grave-Troll four times and flip a Faithless Looting, flash it back dredging Grave-Troll two more times) 8(hand)-1(land)+24(breakthrough)+12(faithless)=43.
However, anyone who has played the deck extensively knows what the normal conditions are, and they aren't as impressive. Even with the god-hand 43 card 1st turn Dredge, in order for that to be a lethal attack on turn 2, a lot of resources are required. The full set of Narcos, Bridges, and Therapies puts out 32-power of zombies, but if any of these elements is missing, the output drops to 24-power. Flip just 3 Narcos and just 3 Bridges, and we're down to 18-power, requiring Ichorid support. Under normal conditions, i.e. not the god-hand 1st turn LED Breakthrough with Grave-Troll, and we very quickly the possibility of a fatal second turn disappears. This is normal for Dredge, considered by most to be a turn 3 combo deck. Most articles on combo place the deck in this category. My point is that the explosiveness offered by LED has not actually budged the deck's fundamental turn.
The reason for this is that Quadlazer's creature setup output, if I may term it that, is lower than that of the older Tireless Tribe builds. Tireless Tribe's janky warm body is already 1/3 of a Dread Return, or a way to fire off that early Cabal Therapy that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. Quadlazer will sometimes struggle to get creatures onto the battlefield. Everything will be set up beautifully, except no Narcomebas have flipped, and Ichorid either hasn't appeared on the scene or would eat the only Dredger. Then there's the question of hate: it's pretty clear which card is better, LED or Tireless Tribe, against Tormod's Crypt and similar effects.
Has anyone really tested both decks, side by side, who can weight in on this? I've always just sort of accepted that the Quadlazer is the better Dredge deck, but now I'm not so sure.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
"I got all excited about LED when Faithless Looting was printed, but I'm back to being about 80% sure it's still a trap."... (http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27755_How-To-Build-Dredge.html - Premium Article)
I don't think people have been seriously testing LEDless builds right now, but I am willing to give it a try in the next weeks
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Tarnished Citadel
DREDGERS
3 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ichorid
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
DREDGERS
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
4 Putrid Imp
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Ichorid
4 Street Wraith
(FYI, after testing Wraith as suggested in Levin's article, I am totally and completely sold)
The main reason I lean towards LED dredge lists is that it is slightly more consistent and about a half turn faster. In UnLEDed dredge, my average kill is around 4.5, where my average kill in LED is around 4. Both get stuck about the same amount of the time against hate, though I will admit that unLEDed is marginally stronger against fair creature decks. I don't think that is a good comparison point, though, since we are already so favored against them just by virtue of being dredge. The main point comes against combo and control, where the increased consistency of quadlaser and the slight bump in speed make the matches much closer to even.
I think a fairer comparison would be between DR Tireless Dredge and the Quadlazer.
It's obvious what cards are in the Quadlazer, but there's diversity on what should be in a Tireless Tribe build. This might not be the most representative one, but it's the spiciest one IMHO:
Nick Davis, 3rd place, SCG IQ on 8.28.2011 (well before Faithless Looting was printed)
3 Bloodghast
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
3 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Bridge from Below
3 Breakthrough
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
1 Terastodon
1 Woodfall Primus
3 Ancient Grudge
1 Darkblast
3 Nature's Claim
2 Ray of Revelation
If I were playing this today, I'd probably just switch in the Darkblast for a Golgari Thug, cut Chalice of the Void for Leyline of the Void, and add a Ray of Revelation. I tested the list out with just such a configuration this evening... and I don't know... it's pretty fast... Dread Return --> Iona is a threat most decks have to respect. Quadlazer is usually working on a 3rd or 4th zombie by that point.
...
If anyone wants to take some measurements for a Quadlazer list, that would be convenient. I'm going to start collecting stats on the above list. The rules are:
Round One testing stats:
T2 kills: 6 (all due to Iona)
T3 kills: 5 (3 FKZ 2 Iona)
T4 kills:11 (6 Ichorid 2 Iona 3 combination)
T5 kills: 5 (2 Ichorid 1 Iona 2 Reanimated Grave-Troll)
Mulls to oblivion: 2
That's 27 hands so far, and I think the quality of the results depends on how good one considers a reanimated Iona to be. Also, obviously, how prone one thinks I am to falsifying my results for personal aggrandizement.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
It's amazing. You therapy them into oblivion then combo off.
Currently playing in Modern:
BBB8Rack
Currently Playing in Legacy:
Foil BELCHER
"Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake"
I run LEDless dredge, and I run 12 lands. 4 Cephalid Coliseum, 4 City of Brass, and 4 Gemstone Mine. And it's worked well so far. If nothing else, sometimes I wish I had MORE lands in the main...
-Yawg
Tarnished Citadel might sting for 3 life, but it'll never get in the way of a 2nd turn Cephalid Coliseum crack.
I personally like 14 lands.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
While I don't think it's absolutely true that every 7 card hand without a gold land has to be shipped, certainly for Dredge to look like a combo deck it wants an outlet on turn 1, accelerator on turn 2.
There are a few 7-card hands I'd keep (though maybe this is wrong) without a gold land. What about this, for instance, G1 on the play against a Burn deck:
Bridge, Ichorid, Ichorid, Bloodghast, Cephalid Coliseum, Putrid Imp, Breakthrough
I'll be quite pleased to drop my land, Breakthrough, put the whole lot in my graveyard and start the beats. I'm going to swing for 6 next turn with the Ichorids, and 10 the turn after, and probably for lethal on turn 4 depending on how the Bridges fare and how much food shows up for Ichorid.
That's a silly situation though, so I'll drop it.
With Dredge, I stand by the statement that it's relatively easy to place in a small event with it, very hard to win a large event with it.
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730
4 Putrid Imp
2 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Street Wraith
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Dread Return
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Faithless Looting
1 Tarnished Citadel
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
Thinking I'll drop one street wraith for another citadel. That gives me 10 rainbow land, 10 dredgers, 9 card draw (not including wraith), and 8 discard outlets. I think that gives a fairly good chance for me to open with what I need, I'd like to make room for one more land, or maybe one more ichorid but having trouble cutting anything else. I really like the Street wraiths so far, those would probably be the first things to go though. Thoughts on changes?
Edit - after playing a couple matches with the extra ichorid and seeing how much easier it made the beatdown plan in such a smal sample size I'm definitely adding it. -1 looting +1 ichorid. The list seems pretty good at what it does, but I'm still open to changes. I'll be putting it through a lot of testing soon, just have to pick up ichorids on modo first, hate to pay 18 tickets for them but I guess it could be worse.
I just got to see the very end of the dredge game that was on camera this weekend. Apparently the guy couldn't even dredge once. I'm not sure if this was a viable option in that game, but people tend to forget that you can Draw-Discard-Dredge against FoW+Daze decks, even if you have a land. Unless you are expecting to see a backbreaking hate on turn 2 (RIP, Cage) you can save your lands and draw spells to try to explode an overwhelm them. If they counter it you still get your engine going. Running your discard outlet into a counter and then your (usually only) land into Wasteland will often lock you out of the game for good.
That's Bloodghast dredge, though. Not the same deck as TT LEDless. The reason I don't have DR in there is that I don't like maindecking DR targets in LEDless because you already have some issues getting going with your draw cards. 12/12 Grave trolls on turn 3 aren't good enough right now, so just having 2 DR in there as value like we used to do doesn't make the cut.
I'll take you up on the goldfish testing.
Quadlaser:
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
4 Putrid Imp
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Street Wraith
T2: 0 (technically possible with a god hand and god dredges, just didn't happen for me in this testing)
T3:14 (12 of these were the good old T1 LED>breakthrough>crack LED for red in response>faithless looting flashback)
T4: 17
T5:3
Mull to oblivion:1
Ok, not bad, about what I expect out of quadlaser.
LED DR Dredge:
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Careful Study
4 Faithless Looting
4 Putrid Imp
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bridge from Below
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Dread Return
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
3 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Ashen Rider
T1: 3 (LED's into breakthrough into faithless into DR FKZ)
T2: 7 (same as above)
T3: 9
T4: 10
T5: 0
Mull to oblivion: 6
There were a lot of places this deck would have been screwed against Deathrite shaman that didn't show up in testing. The addition of 4 cards for the DR package actually makes the deck significantly less consistent.
We can take it as a starting point though, after all that's only a few cards and the list does have a successful tournament track record. I want to stick to placing lists, so as to avoid personal bias. I'm not a pro player or anything.
These are the numbers we have so far. I played out another few hands of the DR Bloodghast build to making it 33 hands.
T2 kills: 7 (21%)
T3 kills: 7 (21%)
T4 kills:12 (36%)
T5 kills: 5 (15%)
Mull to oblivion: 2 (6%)
Total trials: 33
Quadlazer:
T2: 0 (0%)
T3:14 (40%)
T4: 17 (49%)
T5:3 (9%)
Mull to oblivion:1 (3%)
Total trials: 35
LED DR:
T1: 3 (9%)
T2: 7 (20%)
T3: 9 (26%)
T4: 10 (29%)
T5: 0
Mull to oblivion: 6 (17%)
Total trials: 35
The percentages don't add up (or add up to too much) due to rounding.
Those are the numbers, and I think they illustrate the points of contention fairly well, as long as one doesn't read too much into small fluctuations. Our sample size is still rather small.
Here's my take on it. The Quadlazer demonstrates the most consistent turn 4 (and earlier) kill, with a pretty solid advantage in lower T5 and Mull to Oblivion numbers than the other decks. It's considerably better at avoiding the anemic turn 5 kill of the Bloodghast version, and while the LED DR deck has a closer number, its concentrated in the Mull To Oblivion category.
If we take a look at the Turn 3 kill category, we see LED DR with a significant lead, higher than 10 percentage points. The size of the lead, however, is roughly equal to the lag in the Mull To Oblivion category. I, personally, just don't see a lot of advantage in a deck that needs to mulligan that much. If it mulls to oblivion that often, it must mulligan a lot in general: even more than Bloodghast DR, and I was mulling a lot with that. The rules of the contest sort of encourage mulligans.
Where the Quadlazer and Bloodghast builds differ the most is in the frequency of turn 2 kills. Assuming that Turn 2 Iona wins the game (it could as easily be Turn 2 Griselbrand to dredge the whole library and DR: FKZ), Bloodghast DR presents this scenario with a fair frequency. With the Bloodghast build, these are the hands that worked out properly: discard outlet on turn 1 and an accelerator on turn 2 (either that or a really lucky flip). When Quadlazer gets this situation, either it makes zombies or sets up an Ichorid kill, and passes the turn. When Bloodghast DR gets this situation, it can get the Dread Return kill immediately.
Given the choice of these three decks, I'd much rather be piloting the first one. These tests were done on the play. Turn 2 Iona, naming white, nice Enlightened Tutor for Rest In Peace there boss.
I'll test out a non-Bloodghast DR list. Here's a list that's so old-school that it still runs Sphinx of Lost Truths. Deryck Rothenberger, 3rd Place at StarCityGames.com Invitational Grinder on 6/5/2011.
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
3 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Putrid Imp
1 Sphinx of Lost Truths
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Tarnished Citadel
4 Bridge from Below
4 Breakthrough
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
2 Dread Return
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Terastodon
3 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Leyline of the Void
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mindbreak Trap
3 Nature's Claim
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Gitaxian Probe
Overall record: 139-98-15
Total number of matches: 252
Win percentage ignoring draws: 58.649789
Win percentage including draws: 55.158730