MTG Salvation

Quote from Mazereon »

How have the Hollow Ones played all over the course of the 5 rounds?
They enable some insane openers just as you said in your post, but were there times in the game were they got stuck in your hand, being basically uncastable with 5 mana?

What is surprising is because of how much draw this deck has, I was getting to 5 land every turn 5. And this was with me cutting another land, going down to 17 total, in order to fit a 3rd Stinkweed Imp

I agree. I may have been lucky. Though i had 5 lands every game on turn 5

We'll bsee if i can keep that up going forward lol

So I've been looking for some more cheap cycling cards to use to make Hollow One cheaper. What do you all think of Edge of Autumn as possibly a 2 or 3 of? I've noticed with my games that I've really been wanting a Mountain in the mana base, so I am changing up the fetchable basics to 1 Mountain, 1 Forest, 1 Swamp, and we'll see how it goes.

I'm planning on recording a deck-tech and some League matches tonight and then uploading them to Youtube (if I can figure that out :P). I'll post them if/when I get them put together. Would you guys prefer I do the recorded matches in a competitive league? Or would you be fine with me playing in a friendly one since I am still doing basic testing with the deck?

Well I've started recording and uploading videos. Take a gander and let me know what you think.

My choice of channel url was misguided

All my matches from tonight are up on the link I posted above. There was a recording error with Match 5 so I couldn't upload it. It was a loss to Ad Nauseum

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

Quote from Skitzafreak »

Well I've started recording and uploading videos. Take a gander and let me know what you think.

My choice of channel url was misguided

This is so great! Thanks a lot. I'll watch them over the course of the day.

Feel free to offer plenty of criticism. Do I complain too much? Do I need to speak more clearly, all that jazz.

I must say that with some new additions to the sideboard from Hour of Devastation, I am quite pleased with results as of late. I added Bontu' s Last Reckoning and Driven//Despair. Both are solid cards!

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

I've left a bunch of comments on every video, I'll sure you'll have noticed by now

Just a quick question: what do you think about cutting the cyclers for Deathmist Raptors and Gathan Raiders? Street Wraiths and Edges of Autumn don't seem to be doing too much in advancing your gameplan and this way you have some additional potential for explosive draws. t3 seems the turn this deck goes off most of the time, so they fit the bill. Playing a morph also counts toward your cast count for Vengevine.

Not a fan of the Deathmist/Raiders idea honestly, though it's definitely something I could test out, it's not like the cards are in any way expensive
I honestly see them being way too slow however.

I'm going to respond to your video comments here so everyone can see them lol

Match 1 VS Bring to Light:

I'm so happy to see more Vengevine content on Youtube; getting commentary on it is the icing on the cake. Thank you so much for uploading these!

I'll just compile all my thoughts on the video here, so I won't leave a million comments. Conjunctions are for suckers, anyways:
Wow, the quality is insane for your first upload. 1080p and 60 fps? I'm in.
Music is a tad loud.
It's going to be Resto, isn't it? Ah, *********.
I see what you meant by running 17 lands is enough. All this looting really feels like playing 25 instead of 17.
Madcap Experiment, huh? What is this again?
Well, that's MODO for you. I wouldn't have been surprised if you had drawn 18 lands...

Do people who upload match videos not normally record commentary? lol
Honestly, OBS records at a pretty damn good frame-rate when you have a decent computer. And I didn't name my PC 'TANK' for nothing
Sorry about the music, I noticed the volume was too loud after I did the recording, but have no idea on how editing works. In the future I may tinker around with editing before uploading videos.
That was my reaction to Resto exactly
I know right? I've been surprised by how much I get mana flooded as opposed to mana screwed in a 17 land deck.
Madcap Experiment turns out to be the bane of my existance
I wouldn't have been surprised either.

Match 2 VS Abzan Dude Zoo:

I don't like Gnaw to the Bone in this matchup. You should be faster than them with a normal draw, so it'll often be a dead card. I also would have played Reunion over Neonate t3 game 2 to find removal. You had enough action in hand and just needed things to get rid of the Jailor. Besides, Neonate gets much better once you can activate your Vines again, anyways. Also, draws like this are the reason I wouldn't go lower than 17 lands.

Seems like a tough matchup, overall. Abzan toolbox decks are one of my least favourite things to play against with traditional Dredgevine.

The Reunion play is probably correct. Once I found removal I would have been fine. I think it's funny how in that game I might have preferred my opponent have Rest in Peace instead of Yixlid Jailer. The deck was super annoying to play against and after sideboard between Jailer and ScOoze, they had so much graveyard hate :\

Match 3 VS Dredge:

T4 game1 I think it's better to flashback Looting as your Bloodghasts are hasty and LolTroll won't be very likely to get bigger than 3/2 this game, anyways. Being at 17 also doesn't make me want to prioritise blockers over more aggression. It uses your mana better, as well.
Death's Shadow is an interesting idea and def worth discussing in the forum. I don't think I'm a big fan, though, since the problem (as always with Vengevine) isn't recurring it, but getting enough of it in the grave. We' also not aggressive enough with our lifeloss and don't run enough removal to want doing that in the first place, imo.

I really like this version of the deck you came up with. Might be better than normal Dredgevine in the current meta, too.

Watching this without music feels much better, btw. Maybe put some quiet, chill instrumentals in the background if that's your thing , otherwise I'd advise against it because it's really distracting.

I agree Looting would have probably been the better play. However I forgot I had a looting in the yard
Death's Shadow would be interesting I agree, though I'd want to run it with Varolz, the Scar-Striped and that might just be too many deck slots. It may be worth testing though, we'll see. I wish Shadows were still worth nothing, but alas
Honestly, we'll see how good the deck turns out being. I know one of my biggest issues with Dredgevine in iterations of it I played before was that you didn't actually get to cast a lot fo your stuff and you were at the mercy of your Dredge triggers. With this setup you feel a lot more in control of what you are able to board in. It's nice to board in cards like Abrupt Decay and not have to worry about milling over them with Dredge triggers.

I think I'll record without music in the background next time. I honestly didn't think the music would be as distracting as it ended up turning out to be. So I apologize for that.

Match 4 VS Infect:

'You have one turn to kill us, sir.'
puts on sunglasses

What's your opinion on the Infect matchup? They obviously had very slow draws and anti-gravehate was the MVP this round. Still, is this a deck we like to face in general?

I think it was weird how he played his last turn. Not blocking with Glistener Elf and then letting it die to Lotleth Troll instead of just pumping it with Pendelhaven seems like a punt. Oh well.
As for the matchup in general, I think it's fine. The problem with game 2 was my opponent had too many things I needed to deal with and I didn't have enough removal. Boarding properly, Infect shouldn't be a problem. This deck is set up to be just as fast as they are.

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

Against what do you bring in Driven // Despair?

To borrow some of the analysis and testing from the Dredge thread in this post and this post, the Despair half can be a house against midrange and combo decks.

Two mana to destroy their hand can often just set you up to win games on the following turn. Consensus so far seems to be using it as early as is reasonable (2-4 creatures attacking) and menace will help your dudes get through. Driven is good but (at least in Dredge) not the primary use. I could see it being slightly better in Dredgevine where you actually want some creatures not named Gravecrawler in hand to cast or to draw land for Bloodghast triggers or hard-casting dudes, but the real value comes from Despair ripping your opponents hand away just before they can stabilize.

That being said, it shouldn't be more than a two-of, since it is utility, and is pretty easy to side out against aggro decks that are too fast at dumping their cards on the table.

Quote from Bo5dey »

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

Against what do you bring in Driven // Despair?

To borrow some of the analysis and testing from the Dredge thread in this post and this post, the Despair half can be a house against midrange and combo decks.

Two mana to destroy their hand can often just set you up to win games on the following turn. Consensus so far seems to be using it as early as is reasonable (2-4 creatures attacking) and menace will help your dudes get through. Driven is good but (at least in Dredge) not the primary use. I could see it being slightly better in Dredgevine where you actually want some creatures not named Gravecrawler in hand to cast or to draw land for Bloodghast triggers or hard-casting dudes, but the real value comes from Despair ripping your opponents hand away just before they can stabilize.

That being said, it shouldn't be more than a two-of, since it is utility, and is pretty easy to side out against aggro decks that are too fast at dumping their cards on the table.

Stealin' my hard earned testin! Heathen!

Actually swinging by to update some of my decklists of yester year on my phone. Is there a current list in dredge vine that seems good? As pizap was saying, I used to use a brew that was closer to his with death's shadows and savage master.

You can check out my videos that I posted above, and decide for yourself if you think the deck is "good"

Otherwise I am not exactly sure where everyone stands on what is good and what isn't.

Also thanks for all your great testing work with Driven // Despair what would we do without you. And by that I mean what would we do without you doing to research for other people and us stealing all your hard work from you

So I don't have to work tomorrow evening, so I am looking at recording and uploading another league (or 2 if I have the time) with the Vengeful One list.

A reminder of what the list looks like for those unaware:



One thing I might try out is removing a Cathartic Reunion for something like Darkblast or a 4th Stinkweed Imp. I've noticed in most of my games I only ever really cast 1 Reunion and I am generally discarding extras to Lootings/Reunions anyway. And increasing the Dredge count may help with the consistency of flooding the board with dudes.

Also wondering if you guys would want me to maybe record a deck tech going over all the cards and how the deck is "suppose" to function.

If you haven't watched my recordings from earlier this week feel free to and let me know any ways you'd like me to change the video formatting so I know for tomorrow

I have considered Collective Brutality but they are so damn expensive on MTGO :/

It's hard for me to justify spending money on a digital version of a card i already have a playset of in paper lol

One more question before I get home from work and start doing some recordings. How was my commentary from my previous videos? Anything you guys would like me to differently?

So I only had enough time to record and upload 2 games tonight unfortunately. Had a lot of unexpected things come up. Anyway here are links to the two videos:

Match 1 VS GW Aggro

Match 2 VS RG Titanshift

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

Thanks again for the uoploads! These really go a long way in figuring out the deck. I left a few comments on the videos, but it might also be worth talking about possible replacements for Stinkweed here. I'm interesting in your opinion about mb Lightning Axe, Brutality, and/or Tasigur.

Glad you're enjoying them. I'll finish up the League after work tonight provided I am not super tired, and I'll upload them probably closer to midnight my time (EST). I'll post them when they're up. Hopefully I can go 4-1 with the deck this time around

You really don't like Stinkweed that much? I do think it's interesting how when you look at the matches from the first League, and the matches from last night it does almost look like i'm playing a completely different deck in some aspects. I'd definitely be willing to try some different cards out if it turns out the Dredge plan doesn't really work with my variant.

With that being said I'm also going to mention I 100% consider the Vengeful One list a Dredgevine variant, whether I have Dredge cards in it or not. The core of the Dredgevine deck as I see it is a deck that has ways to get creatures into the graveyard that can be cheated back into play (Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam) alongside the namesake card Vengevine which itself is cheated into play by the deck running a lot of cheap creatures that are synergistic with the strategy (Gravecrawler, Insolent Neonate, Hollow One). While the Vengeful One list may in the future not contain Dredge cards, it does still meet what I have defined as the core of the Dredgevine deck. I'm mentioning this because I remember someone asking if discussion of the Hollow One list should be moved to a different thread.

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

Quote from Skitzafreak »

I'm mentioning this because I remember someone asking if discussion of the Hollow One list should be moved to a different thread.

That would have been me
I do agree, though, seeing the deck played out. It's the same approach, it just handles the setup a little differently. There's also around 80% card overlap between the two decks, so I wouldn't split the community between two primers like for example with SuperVengevine.

Ahh, so it was you

I am currently working on a tappedout decklist to throw in my signature. Man talking about this deck gets me pumped

Well I'm done the tappedout list. Kind of put a mini-primer in it. Feel free to take a look and let me know what you think

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

Quote from Skitzafreak »

Well I'm done the tappedout list. Kind of put a mini-primer in it. Feel free to take a look and let me know what you think

Good writeup. There's a bunch of mistakes in the text I don't usually see in your comments here, so I'm sure that's due to you writing everything down in a rush. I also reaaaally don't like 3 dredgers in the list, that's even worse than 4, imo. Other than that, it looks decent. Maybe we'll find some more people interested in the new take.

Oh god I have typos?

EDIT: God those were embarrassing. Typos corrected T_T

Quote from Killer_Manfred »

I tried linking this primer in the comments, but said comment doesn't show up. Do you have to confirm it or something? I'm not very experienced with Tappedout.

What do you mean you tried linking it in the comments?