Is there a reason you aren't playing Insolent Neonate? You dismissed it quite harshly before and gave literally no explanation.
I'll admit I did do it harshly. I pilot my deck to a reasonable amount of success. Every card in there is synergetic with the entire deck. I don't have a card in my 75 that I'm disappointed to draw (with the exception of my 5th and 6th lands :P)
It is very good at the beginning of the game when I have a dredger to discard and start the chain immediately. Someone on the previous page pointed this out as well, but I feel that if I don't it's a lackluster 1/1 with no immediate effect, aside from being 1 of 2 cards that I cast to trigger Vengevine. There are so many 1 CMC creatures I'd rather play before it...Birds of Paradise, Vexing Devil, and Goblin Bushwhacker, not necessarily in that order, but I feel that I'd rather topdeck a zombie or a 2 CMC creature that does more with the graveyard, i.e. Satyr Wayfinder that cycles itself, or Lotleth Troll with regen and zombie recursion!
I'm also not comfortable changing my entire list. I am an advocate for 4 Gurmag Angler because of its power level. I went to three knowing that with the amount of card draw and how deep I get into my library, that I still have a 68.3% chance of seeing one in my top twenty cards. I used this and other slots to replace with Prized Amalgam, which I'm happy about. I can't bring myself to replace a 1 CMC 5/5 zombie with a 1/1 Vampire with no recursive effect. I feel like my power level goes down if I totally switch out a card that I've won dozens of matches with over the past year or more.
At best, I discard a dredger and get him back or pitch a Vengevine. I have playsets of Lotleth Troll and Faithless Looting that discarding is typically not something I'm worried about, especially with the flashback. I also prefer my first turn to either by Looting or saving life by not fetching/shocking.
Note to players: I will still include Neonate in the front page once I update it
As usual, I agree with your thought process basically entirely. As an aggro-combo deck, we already have enough 1/1's and 2/1's that drop value as the game goes on. Angler's power is relatively consistent throughout the game. Your build is the one I had in mind for updating.
As a side note, I would consider cutting Grisly Salvage instead of Satyr Wayfinder for Abrupt Decay, if you do. With so little mana available per turn, the turns I want to cast Grisly Salvage and the turns I want to cast Abrupt Decay are a huge overlap (i.e. the turns I won't try to cast creatures to trigger VV). I'd feel better with a hand containing Satyr and Decay over Salvage and Decay.
How has only 1 blue source been for you so far? I know we don't plan to cast Prized Amalgam often, but have you found that you dredge it away too often? Also, I would argue that Ghost Quarter is still important in these builds. Especially since we are playing Life from the Loam for Bloodghast, Ghost Quarter is a pretty low investment for a huge payout. It has great targets against most of the big decks going forward (Affinity, Infect, Tron if only Eldrazi Temple is banned, etc.) In a huge corner case, it can also act as a 2nd landfall trigger by blowing up your own land. With all this said, maybe the blue splash means we can't put GQ in?
Maybe I'm just being a wet blanket, but I'm really not too hyped about too many of these. I can buy Prized Amalgam being powerful, but I'm not if cutting Anglers is the best choice. They pulled a lot of weight, acting as both Gravecrawler 5-8 (1-drop zombie) and VV 5-8 (only creatures with power > 4). Angler did some heavy lifting getting through cards like Tarmogoyf, Siege Rhino, Reality Smashers, Tasigur, etc as well as letting us use our graveyard before a RIP or Scavenging Ooze hit the battlefield. I can't the number of games I won by going T3 Lotleth Troll or Satyr Wayfinder into Angler, triggering 1-2 VV in the yard. It also doesn't get hit by Bolt or Decay, which basically every card in the deck is still vulnerable to. Against the faster decks like infect, boggles, burn, zoo, a T2/3 5/5 was often just big enough to slow them down until we could get our engine online. I'm not saying we don't include Prized Amalgam, but I'm thinking at least 2-3 slots have to be given to Angler if you want to have the Gravecrawler, VV engine work. The fact that Prized Amalgam doesn't trigger VV is a liability and one of the reasons Bloodghast tended to be less than stellar.
So would you say Tasigur or Angler is the better delve critter to throw in? I got tasigur sitting around collecting dust, but given how cheap anglers are right now there's no reason not to pick a few up.
It has been the consensus that Angler is better in this deck for a while. 1) It's a zombie to help trigger gravecrawlers 2) In many cases, especially after T2, the extra delve cost is fairly negligible 3) As I mentioned above, the extra point of power above VV is pretty big 4) Tasigurs ability will often do more harm than good, since your opp can put the cards you want in your GY into your hand and vise versa
To second what was said on the previous page, I would highly suggest people read through this thread, as well as the previous Dredgevine thread, at some point. Many many hours of play testing and discussion have been done and that was how I first learned many of the specific ins and outs of the decks.
Regarding whether to use Stinkweed Imp vs Golgari Gravetroll, it is meta and deck-specific and often a split is optimal. Want a big late-game resilient threat in grindy matchups? Want to Dredge as much a possible, with little caring about casting the card? GGT is your man. Want some defense against flyers or single-threat decks? Worried about having too few creatures to trigger VV, especially post board? Stinkweed is good there. I currently go with 3 GGT and 1 Imp, since I never want more than 1 Imp per game, but the 6 dredge makes the deck more consistent.
Maybe I'm just being a wet blanket, but I'm really not too hyped about too many of these. I can buy Prized Amalgam being powerful, but I'm not if cutting Anglers is the best choice. They pulled a lot of weight, acting as both Gravecrawler 5-8 (1-drop zombie) and VV 5-8 (only creatures with power > 4). Angler did some heavy lifting getting through cards like Tarmogoyf, Siege Rhino, Reality Smashers, Tasigur, etc as well as letting us use our graveyard before a RIP or Scavenging Ooze hit the battlefield. I can't the number of games I won by going T3 Lotleth Troll or Satyr Wayfinder into Angler, triggering 1-2 VV in the yard. It also doesn't get hit by Bolt or Decay, which basically every card in the deck is still vulnerable to. Against the faster decks like infect, boggles, burn, zoo, a T2/3 5/5 was often just big enough to slow them down until we could get our engine online. I'm not saying we don't include Prized Amalgam, but I'm thinking at least 2-3 slots have to be given to Angler if you want to have the Gravecrawler, VV engine work. The fact that Prized Amalgam doesn't trigger VV is a liability and one of the reasons Bloodghast tended to be less than stellar.
In other news, SoI has at least two mechanics that could be sweet for us! We will probably trigger Delirium by T2 (fetchland, creature, faithless looting, grisly salvage/abrupt decay). Madness coming back is also sweet! A cheap aggressive madness creature could potentially be huge for the deck depending on what we see. Anything free or 1 mana could get bonkers with Faithless looting, especially if its a zombie.
I am playing Arbor Elf purely because I do not have the funds/ability to get Birds of Paradise.
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Next, to support Bloodghast, I am taking out 1 Overgrown, 1 Blood Crypt, and 1 Stomping Ground to add in three Wooded Foothills. As suggested, I may take out that Mountain and add in another Ghost Quarter or another basic land.
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To fill the spots left by Ghor-Clan and Gnaw to the Bone I am going to try out Grim Lavamancer to get use out of the leftover cards in the graveyard, give some reach, and act as spot removal for creatures.
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As to Dreg Mangler, I am not playing him for the scavenge ability. I am playing him because he is a 3/3 haste creature that allows me to case Gravecrawler from the graveyard. So, he swings in with the Vengevines giving extra damage. Saved my butt a couple of times because he is a Zombie.
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4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Mountain [Going to keep this for now since I have Lavamancer right now.]
I'm a bit surprised you are concerned about the price of Birds, given that they aren't that expensive compared to other cards in the deck (such as the mana base you are switching up). Autocard anywhere is saying you can get them as cheap as $2.50. That said, I'm not crazy about running them since they don't really beat down.
I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I would be a bit weary of running 20 lands if 2+ of them are Ghost Quarter without a Life from the Loam. Once you start dredging, it's can be hard to get more than 3 lands in play. If you want to play that many GQ main (which may be good in this meta), I would consider adding an additional Overgrown Tomb or Bloodstained Mire to bring the land count up to 21.
Based on your descriptions of why you are playing Dreg Mangler, I don't see why Gurmag Angler isn't accomplishing what you want better. It's a zombie for casting Gravecrawlers. It is very feasible to cast it on T2/3 (giving it equivalent haste to the Dreg Mangler). Plus, it can trade or beat Tarmogoyfs, Siege Rhinos, Tasigurs, and Reality Smashers. I honestly treat them as Vengevines 5-8 most of the time. An early Angler has probably won me at least a third of my games.
I agree with creamy99's thoughts on Grim Lavamancer. I have it in my sideboard for certain matchups, but is not in a great spot against a lot of decks. If you are looking for a good singleton, I would suggest something you can pull from your graveyard when you have an empty board. Commonly used examples are Tymaret (as creamy suggested), Rotting Rats, and Fatesticher (in blue).
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Golgari Charm has continued to impress me in its usefullness in so many matchups. Enchantment removal is useful against Graveyard hate, Speading seas, Bogles, Ad Nauseam, and previously Splinter Twin. The -1/-1 effect is also really good against Bogles, Infect, Affinity, Elves, Tokens, and the like. I've almost considered main decking it if it wasn't bad in some of our worst matchups (non-interactive combo).
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Regarding NotWorthTheTime's comments, I feel like with the 4 Life from the Loams, you are trying to play both Vengevine and Smallpox Loam in one deck. While they both rely heavy on the graveyard, they are trying to accomplish very different things. The war-vegetable machine is a proactive aggressive deck that abuses the graveyard to close out games with a little bit of interaction. Traditional Loam is a resource denial deck that recurs reactive discards, life gain, removal, and blockers while it tries to slowly ping the opponent to death. It's not that either of the decks are bad. But with so many moving pieces in each of the decks, trying to do both at once may result in doing neither as effectively.
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It's great to hear that we can potentially fight against the Eldrazi Overlord still. Seems like overloarding graveyard hate might be the way to go. One thought I had was that Reality Smasher's pseudo-hexproof doesn't counter ETB effects. And so, 187 effects might not be to bad. My first thought went to Big Game Hunter, which I remember people discussing on the old thread. What's great is that in a worst case you could actually come out even by pointing a removal spell at a smasher, discarding Big Game Hunter, then madness casting to kill another smasher. Being able to pitch it to Faithless Looting or Lightning Axe means you could kill it without much work on T2 or T3. In a perfect world, since its a creature casting ability, you could even cast a gravecrawler or something afterwords to get those sweet Vengevine triggers. Before it seems perhaps too cute, but might be something interesting to look at if Reality Smashers are a problem. Some other intriguing options I've looked at include Shriekmaw as another 187 effect to kill smashers or Ingot Chewer to kill T1 Chalice of the Voids.
I've also considered putting Damnation in the board to help against Eldrazi since most of the board wipes we run now can't take care of X/4's or bigger. I worry that it might just be too expensive and slow, however. Engineered Explosives could also be alright in the earlier turns. But if creamy is finding Crumble to Dust to be working, maybe 4-mana isn't too restrictive.
Some other random ideas for fighting the Eldrazi menace: if we get desperate, Painter's Servant? Also, Life from the Loam looping Hissing Quagmire?
They will never unban Dread Return. That's probably the single most degenerate card on the entire ban list. You have no clue what kind of monstrous decks that thing will create.
edit: this is me talking with my experience as a legacy Dredge player.
As somebody who has studied the ban list after everyones explosive interest in stoneforge mystic, it is not the most degenerate card on the ban list, but it will not be unbanned. Wizards doesn't want to speed up the format and dread return would do that significantly. As for deathrite shaman, it's unlikely but it could happen. That would be a swift kick to a region of the body that is painful when kicked. He is targeted graveyard hate and would probably be in every GBx deck along with scavenging ooze which already hurts. The difference between the two is that ooze can do multiple targets in a turn, so it can nueter you're entire graveyard unless you kill it before they have mana. DRS would be able to shut us off early, being not as effective in the late game but for all intesive purposes when they keep exiling your vengevine's in the late game against BGx you're kind of dead.
On a different note what is everyone replacing twin hate with?
Oh yeah, I assumed most of these wouldn't get unbanned. I was just thinking about which unbannings would be the best for the deck.
In terms of the opennings of twin hate, I never had dedicated sideboard slots for Twin. Cards I've had in and out against them have included Duress, Golgari Charm, Murderous Cut, Spellskite, and Ground Seal. Most of them were used for multiple matchups, that are still relevant. It seems like Jund/Junk took a hit (and thus the number of Oozes) by the banning, while Tron, Aggro Decks (Affinity, Infect, Zoo, Burn, Boggles), and the Eldrazi deck are all gaining stock. Against tron, I still am a big fan of the Life from the Loam/Ghost Quarter package. I could see increasing the number of Ancient Grudges to fight Eldrazi, Tron, Affinity. Wraths and repeatable removal is probably much better. Darkblast preys on most of the Aggro decks, and may be crucial if we get a resurgence of Delver due to the number of people switching from Twin. The wraths and repeatable removal I have now is Engineered Explosives, Pyroclasm, Grim Lavamancer, Darkblast, and Golgari Charm. I like EE against a lot of odd matchups (Boggles, Lantern, BW Tokens). If token strategies get most abundant, I could even see Necroplasm being interesting.
I've been thinking a bit about what could be sideboarded against the Eldrazi deck and haven't really came up with anything awesome beyond Ghost Quartering their lands early, then riding early Delve creatures before they can cast their bigger threats. Cheaper wraths are only really good against the Tokens from Lingering Souls/Blight Herder and Wasteland Strangler. Perhaps running Damnation may be better? I'm not even sure if we would want Ancient Grudge or something against them. The whole matchup just seems like a headache.
As a side note, has anyone thought about Natural State as Abrupt Decay 5+/replacement for Golgari Charms? In a lot of matchups, it hits the permanents we would want to hit anyway (Boggles, Rest in Peace, Graffdiggers Cage, Affinity, Blood Moon, etc).
Seeing the recent bannings and a little disappointedly noting there's not going to be any unbannings, what cards would you like to see be unbanned? My first pick (and a quite realistic one at that) would be Sword of the Meek. I'd love to shove in a playset of Narcomoeba and these little badboys and go full dredge-mode with Hedron Crab
I'm not quite as sure about my second pick, Deathrite Shaman. He'd be awesome for us, but he also caused us the most trouble before getting flattened by the banhammer...
Share your thoughts, please. After all, that's what this V8-war-vegetable connoisseur thread is for!
I mean option #1 must be Dredge Return, right? Past that, probably Deathrite Shaman, since he does a lot of heavy lifting for us and we can configure the deck to easily remove an opposing 1/2. Also, I could see a Punishing Fire package being pretty effective in the right build.
SCGCHAR - Dredgevine Deck Tech with Gerry Thompson
It's nice to have some public support for the deck. I know he's played the deck before on SCG. Shame he played against the literal worst matchup. Before the new set comes out, I'm convinced that the deck is basically engineered to beat us. Main deck graveyard hate. Lots of Scions/Lingering Souls tokens to block us going wide. They're big creatures are all perfectly bigger than our (4/5, 5/8). Here's hoping that the new cards in OGW shift the deck to be less horrible. I think we have a much better shot against Though-knot Seer and Reality Smasher.
Now that two of the tougher matchups have been neutered, I expect the only changes to happen in the sideboard. Thoughtseize is definitely a great card vs combo decks such as Scapeshift, Podless Pod, etc. I will be switching out my Twin slots for a more general meta until the new meta is established.
I will update the primer and remove the Twin matchups from the sideboard guide as well as include the new Eldrazi deck. I could use some help with this, so if anyone has any tips, please PM the details on the specific Eldrazi matchups.
Agreed. I assume some sideboard cards that were OK against twin and a few other matchups lose stock as well. Off the top of my head, I can think of Essence Warden, Illness in the Ranks, Curse of Death's Hold, etc. In general, it will be interesting to see what happens to Snapcaster decks. Most Grixis/Delver decks were partially successful because of the fact that they had good Twin matchups. Depends on where the metagame shifts at the Pro Tour, cards like Choke might be less good as well.
Also, with Bloom banned, we can shape up our sideboard slots for other difficult matchups. Maybe some more slots for aggro? Engineered Explosives has worked well for me against Boggles, Elves, Merfolk, Zoo, Tokens (also Lantern) etc. With how good Tron/Eldrazi are shaping up to be, the Loam/Ghost Quarter package might become a requirement. QC wasnt that great against Bloom anyways. Against Bx Eldrazi, we might want to go more heavy on the Delve-aggro strategy and completely forget about Vengevines. 5/5 Anglers matchup well against the Wasteland Stranger, Thought knot Seers, and Blight Herders. Lotleth Troll lines up way better against Eldrazi Scions/Lingering Souls than VV does.
How do you think today's banlist changes affect our position in the meta? IMO twin was a tough matchup to win through before, but tron might get more popular after OGW which is an even worse matchup
Tron lost a good matchup, but got more tools in the new set. I expect it to stick around. I think Twin was an OK matchup. But if Twin players trade into Grixis/UR Midrange, then the meta would be looking better for us.
Does this significantly change anything about our list? For Jund, Lightning Axe gave us a 1-mana answer to Exarch, while also being able to hit Rhinos, Anglers, Goyfs in BGx decks. Still might be worth it, but its targets certainly decreased. What about sideboard? Spellskite is probably still awesome. Rakdos Charm is probably unplayable now (not like it was really playable before). Other thoughts now that we lost 2 big decks in the format?
Hey guys, i'm right now playing UR twin exarch as my primary deck in modern, however I have always liked graveyard strategies and I love the dredge mechanic so I will probably invest into this deck aswell. I will probably build the jund version first, the most grindier version, but I have a question to ask you guys, how do you feel Tarmogoyf would fare in this deck? It's a huge beater that grows with the graveyard as well. Probably some of you have tested it so I would like to see why it can/can't work.
Welcome to the War Vegetable Machine!
I've considered it before. I think in certain metas, it could be good. In general, I think it doesn't progress our game plan at all: doesn't fill the graveyard (Satyr Wayfinder), act as a discard outlet (Troll), and isn't a Zombie (Angler). In addition, unlike a lot of our cards, it dies to many removal spells in the format, which is one of the reasons the deck is quite good against Jund/Grixis. That said, I could see it being good in certain removal-light match-ups when you just want big-cheap bodies. We certainly do a good job of powering up opposing Goyfs with creatures, lands, sorceries, and instants typically in the yard by T2. That said, I haven't coughed up the money to test it.
Regarding the Sultai vs Jund builds, I think the major reasons to go U is for Jace, for flashing back sideboard cards and removal, and for Hedron Crab, for velocity. With respect to consistency of hitting the landfall triggers, I find, at least in the Jund Bloodghast-less builds, that I stop hitting land drops very quickly, and will often throw fetches T1 to help set up Anglers. Without red, you had to shift your removal to rely more on Murderous Cut to take care of Tasigurs, Anglers, Siege Rhinos, etc. With relying on more delve, especially if you are flashing it back with Jace, then you end up burning a lot of your angler fuel early. Plus, I will commonly Lighting Axe T1 on a dork just to set up an early Angler, but I can also save it for their big threats later on.
Also, I don't think the "Dies to Removal" is an unreasonable statement for Magus. Since it dies to basically every removal spell in the format and doesn't have anyway to protect itself, it actually gives opponents a perfect target for their removal, which our deck normally makes horrible (see Bolt, Abrupt Decay vs Gravecrawler, Troll, Angler, Bloodghast, Venginevine, etc). In addition, it doesn't provide any sort of value unless it untaps, which is certainly not a given in Modern. Jace is different because he blanks creature removal once he transforms and his 2 toughness means he is at least somewhat resistant. He might be good as a 1-one, but he is still super fragile and makes him a liability that the base GB shell doesn't normally have
Also CavalryWolfPack, if you are looking to save some money, I think the Jund version is cheaper than the Sultai version. Non-blue fetches (and No-Jace) should cut down the costs, and the red cards are super cheap (Looting, Lightning Axe, Ancient Grudge, etc). Except for maybe Jace, most of the grindest cards in the deck are all GB, so don't worry. It's still super grindy. You haven't lived until you used Tymaret+Gravecrawlers loops to slog through Hordes of Snapcasters, Bolts, and Kolaghan's Command.
Also, I think the thing is that they can't make certain cards legal in a set, or at least don't to avoid huge banned lists, which is what they would have to do if they made cards legal from the Commander sets. Or imagine Modern with Sol Ring in it.
I think that it's fine that these aren't legal in Modern, since it goes againsts WOTC premise of modern of "Play enough standard and you'll have a modern deck!" Plus, there would be no other way to print a lot of legacy staples (Force of Will, Wasteland, etc) without warping the Modern format. I think they like how Scavenging Ooze worked out, where it had a test run in Legacy before being printed in a Standard set.
That said, Scourge of Nel Toth would do wonders for the deck. I've always thought that the one thing the deck was missing from exploding was another creature to consistently cast from the graveyard (Gravecrawler 5-8). My ideal version was something like "B for a 2/1 zombie. can't block. discard a card: you may cast this card from your graveyard until EOT." But, Dread Return as a creature is pretty awesome as well.
And to be honest I haven't had a lot of success with it: went 2-2, 2-1 (including a bye) and 1-3 in those three events. I feel like it's partly the deck and partly my own lack of skill at the game at fault here, so I'd like to improve before my next event tomorrow.
* The biggest problem with the deck I've had so far is a lack of redundancy in its enablers - I've only got 4 Lotleth Troll and no sidegrades to it, so I get Vengevines and GGTs stuck in my hand with no way to bin them; and only 4 GGT so in some games I just don't hit the dredge cards I need to start filling up my graveyard and the deck's gameplan just goes nowhere. To try to combat this issue, I'm thinking of cutting 4x Birds of Paradise and 1x Gnaw to the Bone from the mainboard (with the latter being relegated to the sideboard) and replacing them with 2x Stinkweed Imp and 3x Satyr Wayfinder, though Magus of the Bazaar also seems like it'd be great as a sidegrade for Jace as well. How much do I stand to lose by cutting BoP? He can enable a T2 Vengevine swing with Troll and Gravecrawler, but he doesn't have any direct synergy with the graveyard plan of the deck and I feel like we can't afford to run too many non-synergistic cards in the deck.
* What can I do to improve my burn and infect matchups (or just aggro in general, less so Affinity though)? Whenever I get matched up against one of those decks I always lose 0-2, or 1-2 if I'm lucky.
* I'd like to overhaul my sideboard, as the current list is a holdover from when I was running Jund, so I haven't taken advantage of blue in the SB yet. Should I be looking at Spellskite? Is Fatestitcher more of a sideboard card than a mainboard card?
* Any general tips for piloting the deck?
* Is there any space to include 4x Bloodghast in the BUG version, or is he more of a Jund card?
Thanks in advance
I agree that having a number of discard outlets is pretty big, although Jace should help, in part, with that. I think this is something Rotting Rats also gives you that Fatesticher doesn't, although the stitcher is also very useful at getting out of other engine stalls. I would say guess that while Birds of Paradise does help you with T2 VV, it's can be a fairly dead draw past that. Satyr Wayfinder fills a similar role of keeping the mana flowing, while also progressing your game plan. I am also always happy to chump with it very early on against fast decks, then delve it away for a road-block (ie Gurmag Angler). Gnaw to the Bone I think it too relevant is enough matchups to cut MD. If you need something else to cut, maybe the Scavenging Ooze, since it doesn't advance your game plan directly and dies to a lot of common removal. But I haven't played with it, so I can't speak to how effect it is.
If you are finding Burn to be a hard matchup, one thing you could do is swap your Thoughtseize for Duress or Inquisition of Kozilek. Against infect, I find that siding in most of your removal is the best you can do.
As a side note, I feel like the U dredgevine decks would really benefit form running Life from the Loam. It works well with both the Hedron Crab (more lands) and Jace (dredge, pitch a land, recast loam). Then, once Loam and Crab are working together, I think Bloodghast's value probably increases a bit more than in the Jund Version. Plus, you can easily use Ghost Quarter if the matchups you want it in. Has anyone tried this out?
For general tips, I find it is important to determine what your role is in each matchup. The deck plays very differently when you are going all-in on the combo or playing a semi-disruptive grindy game. And if you are trying to race a deck that is just way faster than you or durdling around when a deck has a better late game, you could just lose games not close.
I just got to looking around at the panoma's mtgo PTQ T8 deck.
I REALLY like the idea of Sultai Charm in this deck. The first two modes basically do the same thing that Abrupt Decay does for us, as well as being an additional dredge enabler/discard card. Also, Stubborn Denial seems like nice protection against some of our worst matchups where we rely on hand disruption a lot. Also, no Jace is interesting, and is probably less good if you are opting for a low dredge emphasis. But, it seems like it would be really good in that deck, given the number of 1/2-of instants and sorceries in the SB. How have people found Jace in testing?
Hey guys! I've been playing this deck for about 3 months, and just about one I have it finished, since I play it aroud twice a week in the local shop with something like 10 people per tournment, I've being doing really well for the last weeks, being around top 4 for 5 times more or less, but today was the first time I did 0-3 and dropped, and realised some very bad matchs: Burn, Affinity and Tron.
Any tips for this matchs??
ps.: i'm new here and I don't know how to upload a decklist, but my deck is pretty similar to this one
But, I run 4 GGT and no Tasigur, no Satyrs and 22 lands (2 ghost quarters)
For Burn, I'd say trying to get a Gnaw to the Bone into the main deck will help a lot Game 1. If you find it's a common deck you play against, perhaps swap out Thoughtseize for Duress or IoK.
For Tron, Life from the Loam makes your Ghost Quarters a lot more powerful and consistent. If you try to race them while looping GQ's, I found the matchup is pretty decent for us.
As usual, I agree with your thought process basically entirely. As an aggro-combo deck, we already have enough 1/1's and 2/1's that drop value as the game goes on. Angler's power is relatively consistent throughout the game. Your build is the one I had in mind for updating.
As a side note, I would consider cutting Grisly Salvage instead of Satyr Wayfinder for Abrupt Decay, if you do. With so little mana available per turn, the turns I want to cast Grisly Salvage and the turns I want to cast Abrupt Decay are a huge overlap (i.e. the turns I won't try to cast creatures to trigger VV). I'd feel better with a hand containing Satyr and Decay over Salvage and Decay.
How has only 1 blue source been for you so far? I know we don't plan to cast Prized Amalgam often, but have you found that you dredge it away too often? Also, I would argue that Ghost Quarter is still important in these builds. Especially since we are playing Life from the Loam for Bloodghast, Ghost Quarter is a pretty low investment for a huge payout. It has great targets against most of the big decks going forward (Affinity, Infect, Tron if only Eldrazi Temple is banned, etc.) In a huge corner case, it can also act as a 2nd landfall trigger by blowing up your own land. With all this said, maybe the blue splash means we can't put GQ in?
It has been the consensus that Angler is better in this deck for a while. 1) It's a zombie to help trigger gravecrawlers 2) In many cases, especially after T2, the extra delve cost is fairly negligible 3) As I mentioned above, the extra point of power above VV is pretty big 4) Tasigurs ability will often do more harm than good, since your opp can put the cards you want in your GY into your hand and vise versa
To second what was said on the previous page, I would highly suggest people read through this thread, as well as the previous Dredgevine thread, at some point. Many many hours of play testing and discussion have been done and that was how I first learned many of the specific ins and outs of the decks.
Regarding whether to use Stinkweed Imp vs Golgari Gravetroll, it is meta and deck-specific and often a split is optimal. Want a big late-game resilient threat in grindy matchups? Want to Dredge as much a possible, with little caring about casting the card? GGT is your man. Want some defense against flyers or single-threat decks? Worried about having too few creatures to trigger VV, especially post board? Stinkweed is good there. I currently go with 3 GGT and 1 Imp, since I never want more than 1 Imp per game, but the 6 dredge makes the deck more consistent.
I'm a bit surprised you are concerned about the price of Birds, given that they aren't that expensive compared to other cards in the deck (such as the mana base you are switching up). Autocard anywhere is saying you can get them as cheap as $2.50. That said, I'm not crazy about running them since they don't really beat down.
I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I would be a bit weary of running 20 lands if 2+ of them are Ghost Quarter without a Life from the Loam. Once you start dredging, it's can be hard to get more than 3 lands in play. If you want to play that many GQ main (which may be good in this meta), I would consider adding an additional Overgrown Tomb or Bloodstained Mire to bring the land count up to 21.
Based on your descriptions of why you are playing Dreg Mangler, I don't see why Gurmag Angler isn't accomplishing what you want better. It's a zombie for casting Gravecrawlers. It is very feasible to cast it on T2/3 (giving it equivalent haste to the Dreg Mangler). Plus, it can trade or beat Tarmogoyfs, Siege Rhinos, Tasigurs, and Reality Smashers. I honestly treat them as Vengevines 5-8 most of the time. An early Angler has probably won me at least a third of my games.
I agree with creamy99's thoughts on Grim Lavamancer. I have it in my sideboard for certain matchups, but is not in a great spot against a lot of decks. If you are looking for a good singleton, I would suggest something you can pull from your graveyard when you have an empty board. Commonly used examples are Tymaret (as creamy suggested), Rotting Rats, and Fatesticher (in blue).
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Golgari Charm has continued to impress me in its usefullness in so many matchups. Enchantment removal is useful against Graveyard hate, Speading seas, Bogles, Ad Nauseam, and previously Splinter Twin. The -1/-1 effect is also really good against Bogles, Infect, Affinity, Elves, Tokens, and the like. I've almost considered main decking it if it wasn't bad in some of our worst matchups (non-interactive combo).
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Regarding NotWorthTheTime's comments, I feel like with the 4 Life from the Loams, you are trying to play both Vengevine and Smallpox Loam in one deck. While they both rely heavy on the graveyard, they are trying to accomplish very different things. The war-vegetable machine is a proactive aggressive deck that abuses the graveyard to close out games with a little bit of interaction. Traditional Loam is a resource denial deck that recurs reactive discards, life gain, removal, and blockers while it tries to slowly ping the opponent to death. It's not that either of the decks are bad. But with so many moving pieces in each of the decks, trying to do both at once may result in doing neither as effectively.
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It's great to hear that we can potentially fight against the Eldrazi Overlord still. Seems like overloarding graveyard hate might be the way to go. One thought I had was that Reality Smasher's pseudo-hexproof doesn't counter ETB effects. And so, 187 effects might not be to bad. My first thought went to Big Game Hunter, which I remember people discussing on the old thread. What's great is that in a worst case you could actually come out even by pointing a removal spell at a smasher, discarding Big Game Hunter, then madness casting to kill another smasher. Being able to pitch it to Faithless Looting or Lightning Axe means you could kill it without much work on T2 or T3. In a perfect world, since its a creature casting ability, you could even cast a gravecrawler or something afterwords to get those sweet Vengevine triggers. Before it seems perhaps too cute, but might be something interesting to look at if Reality Smashers are a problem. Some other intriguing options I've looked at include Shriekmaw as another 187 effect to kill smashers or Ingot Chewer to kill T1 Chalice of the Voids.
I've also considered putting Damnation in the board to help against Eldrazi since most of the board wipes we run now can't take care of X/4's or bigger. I worry that it might just be too expensive and slow, however. Engineered Explosives could also be alright in the earlier turns. But if creamy is finding Crumble to Dust to be working, maybe 4-mana isn't too restrictive.
Some other random ideas for fighting the Eldrazi menace: if we get desperate, Painter's Servant? Also, Life from the Loam looping Hissing Quagmire?
Oh yeah, I assumed most of these wouldn't get unbanned. I was just thinking about which unbannings would be the best for the deck.
In terms of the opennings of twin hate, I never had dedicated sideboard slots for Twin. Cards I've had in and out against them have included Duress, Golgari Charm, Murderous Cut, Spellskite, and Ground Seal. Most of them were used for multiple matchups, that are still relevant. It seems like Jund/Junk took a hit (and thus the number of Oozes) by the banning, while Tron, Aggro Decks (Affinity, Infect, Zoo, Burn, Boggles), and the Eldrazi deck are all gaining stock. Against tron, I still am a big fan of the Life from the Loam/Ghost Quarter package. I could see increasing the number of Ancient Grudges to fight Eldrazi, Tron, Affinity. Wraths and repeatable removal is probably much better. Darkblast preys on most of the Aggro decks, and may be crucial if we get a resurgence of Delver due to the number of people switching from Twin. The wraths and repeatable removal I have now is Engineered Explosives, Pyroclasm, Grim Lavamancer, Darkblast, and Golgari Charm. I like EE against a lot of odd matchups (Boggles, Lantern, BW Tokens). If token strategies get most abundant, I could even see Necroplasm being interesting.
I've been thinking a bit about what could be sideboarded against the Eldrazi deck and haven't really came up with anything awesome beyond Ghost Quartering their lands early, then riding early Delve creatures before they can cast their bigger threats. Cheaper wraths are only really good against the Tokens from Lingering Souls/Blight Herder and Wasteland Strangler. Perhaps running Damnation may be better? I'm not even sure if we would want Ancient Grudge or something against them. The whole matchup just seems like a headache.
As a side note, has anyone thought about Natural State as Abrupt Decay 5+/replacement for Golgari Charms? In a lot of matchups, it hits the permanents we would want to hit anyway (Boggles, Rest in Peace, Graffdiggers Cage, Affinity, Blood Moon, etc).
I mean option #1 must be Dredge Return, right? Past that, probably Deathrite Shaman, since he does a lot of heavy lifting for us and we can configure the deck to easily remove an opposing 1/2. Also, I could see a Punishing Fire package being pretty effective in the right build.
It's nice to have some public support for the deck. I know he's played the deck before on SCG. Shame he played against the literal worst matchup. Before the new set comes out, I'm convinced that the deck is basically engineered to beat us. Main deck graveyard hate. Lots of Scions/Lingering Souls tokens to block us going wide. They're big creatures are all perfectly bigger than our (4/5, 5/8). Here's hoping that the new cards in OGW shift the deck to be less horrible. I think we have a much better shot against Though-knot Seer and Reality Smasher.
Agreed. I assume some sideboard cards that were OK against twin and a few other matchups lose stock as well. Off the top of my head, I can think of Essence Warden, Illness in the Ranks, Curse of Death's Hold, etc. In general, it will be interesting to see what happens to Snapcaster decks. Most Grixis/Delver decks were partially successful because of the fact that they had good Twin matchups. Depends on where the metagame shifts at the Pro Tour, cards like Choke might be less good as well.
Also, with Bloom banned, we can shape up our sideboard slots for other difficult matchups. Maybe some more slots for aggro? Engineered Explosives has worked well for me against Boggles, Elves, Merfolk, Zoo, Tokens (also Lantern) etc. With how good Tron/Eldrazi are shaping up to be, the Loam/Ghost Quarter package might become a requirement. QC wasnt that great against Bloom anyways. Against Bx Eldrazi, we might want to go more heavy on the Delve-aggro strategy and completely forget about Vengevines. 5/5 Anglers matchup well against the Wasteland Stranger, Thought knot Seers, and Blight Herders. Lotleth Troll lines up way better against Eldrazi Scions/Lingering Souls than VV does.
Tron lost a good matchup, but got more tools in the new set. I expect it to stick around. I think Twin was an OK matchup. But if Twin players trade into Grixis/UR Midrange, then the meta would be looking better for us.
Does this significantly change anything about our list? For Jund, Lightning Axe gave us a 1-mana answer to Exarch, while also being able to hit Rhinos, Anglers, Goyfs in BGx decks. Still might be worth it, but its targets certainly decreased. What about sideboard? Spellskite is probably still awesome. Rakdos Charm is probably unplayable now (not like it was really playable before). Other thoughts now that we lost 2 big decks in the format?
Welcome to the War Vegetable Machine!
I've considered it before. I think in certain metas, it could be good. In general, I think it doesn't progress our game plan at all: doesn't fill the graveyard (Satyr Wayfinder), act as a discard outlet (Troll), and isn't a Zombie (Angler). In addition, unlike a lot of our cards, it dies to many removal spells in the format, which is one of the reasons the deck is quite good against Jund/Grixis. That said, I could see it being good in certain removal-light match-ups when you just want big-cheap bodies. We certainly do a good job of powering up opposing Goyfs with creatures, lands, sorceries, and instants typically in the yard by T2. That said, I haven't coughed up the money to test it.
Also, I don't think the "Dies to Removal" is an unreasonable statement for Magus. Since it dies to basically every removal spell in the format and doesn't have anyway to protect itself, it actually gives opponents a perfect target for their removal, which our deck normally makes horrible (see Bolt, Abrupt Decay vs Gravecrawler, Troll, Angler, Bloodghast, Venginevine, etc). In addition, it doesn't provide any sort of value unless it untaps, which is certainly not a given in Modern. Jace is different because he blanks creature removal once he transforms and his 2 toughness means he is at least somewhat resistant. He might be good as a 1-one, but he is still super fragile and makes him a liability that the base GB shell doesn't normally have
Also CavalryWolfPack, if you are looking to save some money, I think the Jund version is cheaper than the Sultai version. Non-blue fetches (and No-Jace) should cut down the costs, and the red cards are super cheap (Looting, Lightning Axe, Ancient Grudge, etc). Except for maybe Jace, most of the grindest cards in the deck are all GB, so don't worry. It's still super grindy. You haven't lived until you used Tymaret+Gravecrawlers loops to slog through Hordes of Snapcasters, Bolts, and Kolaghan's Command.
I think that it's fine that these aren't legal in Modern, since it goes againsts WOTC premise of modern of "Play enough standard and you'll have a modern deck!" Plus, there would be no other way to print a lot of legacy staples (Force of Will, Wasteland, etc) without warping the Modern format. I think they like how Scavenging Ooze worked out, where it had a test run in Legacy before being printed in a Standard set.
That said, Scourge of Nel Toth would do wonders for the deck. I've always thought that the one thing the deck was missing from exploding was another creature to consistently cast from the graveyard (Gravecrawler 5-8). My ideal version was something like "B for a 2/1 zombie. can't block. discard a card: you may cast this card from your graveyard until EOT." But, Dread Return as a creature is pretty awesome as well.
I agree that having a number of discard outlets is pretty big, although Jace should help, in part, with that. I think this is something Rotting Rats also gives you that Fatesticher doesn't, although the stitcher is also very useful at getting out of other engine stalls. I would say guess that while Birds of Paradise does help you with T2 VV, it's can be a fairly dead draw past that. Satyr Wayfinder fills a similar role of keeping the mana flowing, while also progressing your game plan. I am also always happy to chump with it very early on against fast decks, then delve it away for a road-block (ie Gurmag Angler). Gnaw to the Bone I think it too relevant is enough matchups to cut MD. If you need something else to cut, maybe the Scavenging Ooze, since it doesn't advance your game plan directly and dies to a lot of common removal. But I haven't played with it, so I can't speak to how effect it is.
If you are finding Burn to be a hard matchup, one thing you could do is swap your Thoughtseize for Duress or Inquisition of Kozilek. Against infect, I find that siding in most of your removal is the best you can do.
As a side note, I feel like the U dredgevine decks would really benefit form running Life from the Loam. It works well with both the Hedron Crab (more lands) and Jace (dredge, pitch a land, recast loam). Then, once Loam and Crab are working together, I think Bloodghast's value probably increases a bit more than in the Jund Version. Plus, you can easily use Ghost Quarter if the matchups you want it in. Has anyone tried this out?
For general tips, I find it is important to determine what your role is in each matchup. The deck plays very differently when you are going all-in on the combo or playing a semi-disruptive grindy game. And if you are trying to race a deck that is just way faster than you or durdling around when a deck has a better late game, you could just lose games not close.
I just got to looking around at the panoma's mtgo PTQ T8 deck.
4 Gravecrawler
4 Gurmag Angler
4 Hedron Crab
4 Lotleth Troll
1 Rotting Rats
4 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Skaab Ruinator
2 Stinkweed Imp
4 Vengevine
Instant (11)
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Darkblast
4 Grisly Salvage
1 Murderous Cut
1 Sultai Charm
2 Breeding Pool
1 Darkslick Shores
1 Forest
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
2 Woodland Cemetery
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Duress
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Life from the Loam
1 Memory's Journey
1 Spellskite
2 Stubborn Denial
1 Thoughtseize
I REALLY like the idea of Sultai Charm in this deck. The first two modes basically do the same thing that Abrupt Decay does for us, as well as being an additional dredge enabler/discard card. Also, Stubborn Denial seems like nice protection against some of our worst matchups where we rely on hand disruption a lot. Also, no Jace is interesting, and is probably less good if you are opting for a low dredge emphasis. But, it seems like it would be really good in that deck, given the number of 1/2-of instants and sorceries in the SB. How have people found Jace in testing?
For Burn, I'd say trying to get a Gnaw to the Bone into the main deck will help a lot Game 1. If you find it's a common deck you play against, perhaps swap out Thoughtseize for Duress or IoK.
For Affinity, you have a lot of similar cards in the SB as I do. Gnaw to the Bone in the main deck will help with this matchup as well. One thing that could help is putting in some type of wrath effect, (Damnation, Pyroclasm, Firespout, Drown in Sorrow, Engineered Explosives depending on your build).
For Tron, Life from the Loam makes your Ghost Quarters a lot more powerful and consistent. If you try to race them while looping GQ's, I found the matchup is pretty decent for us.