Dredge is a unique deck that plays out very differently from many other decks. The deck operates by milling itself, filling its graveyard with a lot of cards. There are several creatures that can be put onto the battlefield from the graveyard for 0 mana. The harder the Dredge deck mills itself, the more such cards will end up in its graveyard, and the faster it can beat down. A good hand can result in 10 or more points of power on the board by the second turn.
If you’ve played old Extended, Legacy, or Vintage, Dredge should be no stranger to you. The history of Dredge in Modern is a little rocky. At the outset, Golgari Grave-Troll and Dread Return were banned (although Grave-Troll was eventually unbanned....only to be banned again), and no Dredge deck was playable for a while. The next few sets gave rise to a “Dredgevine” deck, with additions like Faithless Looting, Gravecrawler, Lotleth Troll and Satyr Wayfinder. Shadows over Innistrad brought two huge improvements for the archetype: Insolent Neonate and Prized Amalgam. Later, Cathartic Reunion, aka Mom Hug, was printed and that put the deck over the top.
Dredge has seen play in any format that has the keyword available to it... and even some standard seasons without it. Truthfully, there is always a graveyard deck in magic, since the ability to use the grave as an "extended hand" or ways to cheat costs is a very good deal. But how far back does dredges roots go? Well it turns out pretty damned far, as it starts in 2007, right when Future Sight was printed.
At the start, when the key word dredge was printed, it was actually a very fair mechanic. Standard used Darkblast to get rid of mana dorks like birds of paradise, sometimes using something like Nightmare Void as a slow way to disrupt a combo piece. Overall, it was pretty lack luster, even in older formats that had tools you could use from the grave. Yes, even then, legacy would rather be playing with threshold than over committing to the grave. The reason for this was simply risk and reward. The risks out weighed the rewards. Then Future Sight happened, and with it, a dredge land, bridge from Below, and Dread Return. All of these were planned by Wizards of course, to make graveyard decks be a thing in standard, but they've openly admitted to not realizing how efficient dredge the mechanic was.
Soon everyone wanted to use Magus of the Bazaar, Merfolk Looter, Drowned Rusalka and Llanowar Mentor to put out tons of zombies, then win the game with a Dread Returned Flame-Kin Zealot.
It also sometimes Dread Returned a Akroma, Angel of Wrath, because that angel was also stupidly powerful.
This deck was so powerful during its time, that it soon transitioned into legacy with the same basic idea, dredge a bridge, use a sac outlet, make tons of tokens, give them haste via dread return, and win the game. However, it is Vintage that shows how strong dredge is with availability to all of magics graveyard tricks. Further more, because it cheats on mana, and doesn't cast spells, it has been a bane of a blue deck since the start, something very good to be in legacy and vintage.
As you can see this deck barely runs any lands what so ever... In fact, Baazar doesn't even produce mana! That's right, at first glace it might see like the deck runs 7 mana lands, it actually runs 0 ways to get mana. Because who really wants to play magic anyways? It never spends mana, and it will only cast 1-2 spells the whole game... if any. This is dredge in its purest form. While this list comes from 2008, and thus lacks even more broken cards, the idea hasn't changed. Dredge a bridge, sac outlet from the yard, then give haste to all your tokens and win. It's sac outlets and discard enablers are the best they can be for 2008, Cabal Therapy, Ichorid, and Dread Return being your sacrifice package, Land Grant for Bazaar of Baghdad and Lion's Eye Diamond for the discard.
Dredge also made it's presence felt with extended and legacy during this time, which I won't post because the power level falls between vintage and standard, but you can be sure the game plan was very much the same.
Zoom to 2011, many new tools were added to the game for grave decks, but most importantly, and the reason you're here, is Modern was sanctioned as a format! But Dredge didn't become what it is today right away. No, it took 5 years to fill out, but it still existed in the format, as a lower power leveled deck called Dredgevine.
You might think that this list looks a little all over the place... and you'd be right. It lacks pretty much everything we've come to know dredge stands for, the bridge, Dread Return, Bloodghasts (which was printed by now, and quickly added to all dredge lists) and Narcomoeba. Grave-Troll and Dread Return were also banned. Well there was many reasons for this. Until around 2010, all dredge lists were 3 colors, black, green and blue. Discard and draw was color shifted to red, so now the decks needed to be rainbow to have access to all the tools, and it caused a strain on mana bases. Furthermore, there was no good reliable sacrifice engine in modern, especially one in the yard like Dread Return. So your normal dredge was impossible to run. But the deck still does roughly the same job as before. Enable discard, dredge a ton, make a hasty army. But the players have changed. Faithless Looting, mill creatures and Lotleth Troll are you main discards, dredgers are the same, and vengevine replaces the bridge.
Golgari Grave-Troll was unbanned in 2015, and promptly did nothing for the deck. But in 2016, 3 cards were printed that suddenly made dredge able to use old tech, and dredge itself from the depths of modern's tier 5 to tier 1. Those cards were Prized Amalgam, Insolent Neonate, and a little later, Cathartic Reunion.
Vengvine was replaced with amalgam, as it was easier to trigger, and without the need to cast creatures anymore, Narcomoeba and Bloodghast were great cards again. Insolent Neonate was the 1 mana loot the deck needed to pull fully out of blue and make their manabase consistent. Reunion gave the deck a critical mass of discard, draw needed to make the engine pur. The deck shot up like a rocket, and since it didn't use very many cards as other decks did, it was cheap. Both ingredients for an explosion of usage.
This deck is also substantially different than its standard, extended, legacy, and vintage counterparts. There is no bridge. This is because the deck still lacked a good sacrifice engine outside of Greater Gargadon, and no good ones from the grave.
At the beginning of 2017, Golgari Grave-Troll was banned to nerf, but not kill the deck. It had it's intended effect, as the deck lost 2-6 dredge power a turn, as well as having to devote more slots to discard and dredgers to shore up the gaps in the engine. It also lost one of it's built in win conditions, especially since Grave-troll was one of the best counters to the most played graveyard hate; Grafdigger's Cage.
The deck would remain powerful, but not oppressive.
When we returned to Ravanica in Guilds of Ravnica, golgari, the guild who gave us the word dredge, didn't help dredge at all as a deck... But leave it to the sneaky Dimir to give us the tools to win the mondern arms race. Enter Creeping Chill, a card that was briefly talked about,but quickly dismissed as a winmore card. As soon as the card became legal on magic online, results started pouring in. It was the shot in the arm to get dredge back to where it needed to be to compete. It sped the decks clock up a turn, giving it a real chance to race combo decks, and the 12 life gained allowed it to stall the game out longer vs fast aggro decks. This allowed the sideboard to also free up a bit, as a wide swath of the field became either favorable or close to it.
Overall, thanks to this single card, dredge enjoys tier one status during this time, becoming as much as a "sideboard boggy man deck" as affinity.
Dredge is a combo aggro deck. By that I mean, it has a combo feeling to how it plays out its game, but it mostly functions as an aggro deck, pushing out damage fast and hard. If Ad Nauseam was a pure aggro deck, it would feel like a assassin, lining up and prepping for the perfect shot. In that case, aggro might feel like a berserk, charging in wildly, slashing as much damage as he can. Dread would combine the two of these, and feel more like someone shotgunning burst damage, prepping again then bursting again.
Below you can read on which cards actually make the cut in the dredge, as well as cards that aren't quite good enough to.
Recommended: 12-14
These are how you discard your dredgers to the yard in order to dredge them up and then reuse them. As it stands the best options to use for this job is Faithless Looting, Insolent Neonate or Shriekhorn, and Cathartic Reunion. Looting and Neonate/Shriekhorn are both one drops, which puts them miles ahead of other options. Neonate is better when running more dredge cards. When you are running less, it is often better to use shriekhorn, as it will put in more work and dig deaper. Looting doesn't let you discard first, but it digs deep when you really need to find the right cards, and can flashback, so it acts as the glue in this deck. Reunion blows the game out of the water, its the explosive dredge you need.
Recommended: 10-13This is your engine. Once enabled, your draw step becomes mill X, and in our deck, more like draw X. We have quite a few dredgers at our disposal, which is good because well never get anymore than the ones we already have. Out of them, these 2 will be your core: Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Thug. After that you use 2 Dakmor Salvage because those are "free" dredge slots. From there, you have to dig into your dredge 3ers for the rest; Darkblast and Life from the Loam, which would be 0-2 and 2-3 respectively.
Recommended: 12Your core will never change: Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam, Narcomoeba These are the creatures that come back from the grave for very little effort. Narcs come back just from milling them, and take amalgam along for the ride. They also proved the deck with great blockers for later game to buy time. Bloodghast is amazing with fetchlands, and are an easy repeatable way to trigger amalgam. You can also fetch on their turn for tricks. Amalgam is the workhorse. He is the beater, and while a 3/3 body doesn't seem that good, four 3/3 bodies is still 12 damage.
You can if you feel like it, fix a few more creatures, but you can read those in other options or Flex Spots.
Recommended: 18-21To start, you'll have to decide on which land base you want to run, the jund land base or the rainbow colored one. Rainbow colored is more consistent, but very painful, which will hurt your aggro and tempo matchups, as well as make bolt, snap, bolt an actual threat to you. The jund lands however, corner you into using mostly jund colors and makes double colored spells tougher. Currently, the Jund lands are favored since modern has a lot of aggro as well as anger of the gods, meaning a fetch on endstep is a lot better to trigger Bloodghast
For the Jund Lands set up you will want 6-8 fetchands, then 4-5 shocklands, likely a 2/2 split of Blood Crypt and Stomping Ground, as well as 2 Dakmor Salvage (which we also covered why in the dredgers section) then 4 Copperline Gorge. You should have 2-3 basics, leaning more on mountains, then forests. From here you should fill the rest out with Fastlands, other shocks, then rainbow lands if you have space left.
For the Rainbow Lands set up, you will still start with 4-6 Fetch Lands, and a 2/2 split of Blood Crypt and Stomping Ground and 2 Dakmor Salvage. After that, put 4 Copperline Gorge in the deck, and 4-6 City of Brass and Mana Confluence.
Recommended: 3-6
Flex spots are openings in the deck to add extra options to your deck. The deck is a very tight core, and the combo aspect of the deck needs most slots to run the engine. In most cases, this should be a plan B should things go awry, or a way to combat tough match-ups. However, I want to stress that these slots are not for putting in cards for no real reason. Each of them should have a role in the deck that allows you to straight up win with it, rather than be "Win More" for classic cases of winmore, look down at the Other Options section.
Plan B Packages-
This small section will be about adding a second layer to your deck, as another option to winning should somehow the core doesn't work. Dredge has been doing this from its inception, and the concept is still the same. Force the opponent to deal with the core, and then if they do, unleash your game winning plan B. If the plan B cant potentially win the game, it is not good enough for the deck. Here are currently the best options:
The Standard option: Life from the Loam/Conflagrate/Creeping Chill Package
~9-11 Total Slots~
3-4 Life from the Loam
2-3 Conflagrate
4 Creeping Chill
This is the conflagrate option, and the one currently favored. It is a way to win without attacking, costs 2 mana, can help with discard in a pinch, kills problem hate creatures like scavenging ooze, while also taking out chump blockers. For all of these reasons, it is the best option because it is both flexible and powerful, and takes very little slots and resources to use.
Creeping Chill is sort of a bridge between the Plan A and B allowing you more time to kill with either option if neeeded, but always shortening the race.
Normally all dredge lists would contain this, but Modern doesn't have the greatest sac outlets, so this plan suffers from it. However, it is still an option to beat out exile effects and make a million tokens.
Reanimator Package
~4 Total Slots~
2 Unburial Rites
0/1 Elesh Norn
0/1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
0/1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur/Griselbrand/Craterhoof Behemoth
0/1 Flayer of the Hatebound
Reanimation is a staple in dredge, but without dread return, we are left to pay 4 mana to win the game. Still its a very valid package that can win the game on its own and is highly tune-able to different effects.
This package supplements the core beatdown package. Its main job is to speed up the core beatdown wins, as well as provide an out to selective graveyard hate.
Single Flex Cards
This isn't a package, but in dredge you will often have a few slots left over you can tune the deck to hate on other decks. These are often cards that are mostly used in the sideboard, but can see main deck play
Darkblast- An easy way to trigger dredge as well as kill little creatures.
Life From the Loam- An easy way to trigger dredge and re buy effect lands
Gnaw to the Bone- A counter to aggro decks.
Scourge Devil, Rally the Peasants- It can be a package or a single use card. It does the same job as the package.
Haunted Dead- Adds discard outlets to the deck while giving chump blockers and extra attackers
Shriekhorn- A colorless "discard" option if you need more 1 drop discards.
Collective Brutality- Adds more discard options to the deck, while also boasting powerful effects
Ghost Quarter- often paired with loam, you can use this to hinder ramp or greedy mana decks.
Vengeful Pharaoh- Used to take out repeat attackers, best against combo aggro or midrange.
Lightning Axe- A 1 mana kill creature spell that also can get your engine going.
Numbers: Completely dependent on the deckMill is not always used in dredge, but has shown up here and there when the mill effect was strong enough. In legacy, manaless dredge uses Balustrade Spy to mill your self out completely in one swoop. However, modern doesn't have this option and is forced to rely on these 3 cards: Hedron Crab, Tome Scour, and Shriekhorn. Each has benefits over one another. Crab will mill the most for no effort, tome scour has the most impact right away, and Shriekhorn is colorless so it doesn't require running blue in.
Currently none of these options are all that great, and its just better to discard dredgers.
These are other cards that might be brought up from time to time, but are generally considered below average or not playable in the deck. There may come a time when they are great, but they need card support or the meta to change in order to get to that point:
Bridge From Below- The card desperately lacks support, rather than power. There is no good way to have a reliable sac outlet from the graveyard, and so the power of this card doesnt have a chance to be abused.
Vengevine- Largely outclassed by Prized Amaglam. While the later has less power, and no haste, it is much much harder to "cast".
Stitcher's Supplier- A card with promise, but better used in the vengevine decks. Currently the other 1 drop options are better as they take better color of mana, but should we end up in a more bridge from below plan, this card will increase in value.
Demigod of Revenge/Extractor Demon/Worm Harvest- These are "game enders" that are generally outclassed by other game ending cards such as conflagrate and renaimator targets.
Gravecrawler/Lotleth Troll- This deck isn't dredgevine. These are powerful cards to be sure, but they both cost mana to be as effective as they can be, thus the core creatures beat them out through efficiency.
Rotting Rats- More or less replaced by Haunted Dead which discards better, and gives you more flexible options.
Flame Jab/Raven's Crime- Good options for but pretty low power level.
Drowned Rusalka- This is almost exactly like Insolent Neonate. The downside is that you have to use mana, and the upside is it can be a sac outlet for bridge.
Street Wraith- Its a free Dredge for 2 life!
Simian Spirit Guide- This is a way to speed the deck by a turn, allowing for some broken turns, but at the cost of deck constancy.
Understanding the deck in terms of how it functions, rather than just as a set of cards will go a long way into making your deck into a finely tuned engine. It will also help you know where you can cut corners or combine jobs, like Dakmor Salvage being able to help the land count and the dredge count. Play with the numbers and see if you can find the right ones for you!
Sideboarding in dredge is a much more complex process than most decks. Unlike in a deck like Jund or Zoo, its not as simple as "against affinity, you can use Stoney Silence." There are 3 separate things to consider when boarding as a dredge player: What does the archetype board in vs me, What counters the cards they board in vs me, What other cards are good vs them, and do I have room?
In the end, you'll find that its not a one for one sub when boarding, but a balancing act of how to not kill your engine while countering what they are doing. At the end of the day, this deck is a game one deck, and the goal here is to null their strong and narrow hate against you to make game 2 basically game 1.
This is the first step, and most important. Its also the most neglected step by new and long playing dredge players. You should know EXACTLY what hate cards are being boarded in against you, and what they do. Once you can go into any match armed with that knowledge you can move to Step 2. Here is a list of all good anti-dredge cards, take a read of all of them:
Hatecards by Impact
Leyline of the Void
Ravenous Trap
Rest In Peace
Anger of the Gods
Crypt Incursion
Anafenza, The Foremost
Surgical Extraction
Rakdos Charm
Grafdiggers Cage
Scavenging Ooze
Bojuka Bog
Nihil Spellbomb
Relic of Progenitus
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Tormod's Crypt
Loaming Shaman
Memory's Journey
Jund Charm
Dryad Militant
The best way to know what decks are currently using what hate cards is to go to a site like MTGGoldfish and look at the deck lists yourself. But I've added a list here of what each popular archetypes use to reference as you need it. Make sure to memorize this list and move to step 2.
Hate Cards used by Every Modern Archetype
Affinity:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Azban:
Boards in moderate hate
Scavenging Ooze
Nihil Spellbomb
Surgical Extraction
Rest In Peace
Tron:
Boards in heavy hate
Relic of Progenitus
Ravenous Trap
Rest in Peace
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Burn:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Jund:
Boards in moderate hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the Gods
Ravenous Trap
Scavenging Ooze
Bant Eldrazi:
Boards in moderate hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Rest in Peace
Worship
Titan Shift/Breach:
Boards in moderate hate
Anger of the Gods
Relic of Progenitus
Death's Shadow:
Boards in Moderate hate
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the Gods
Ad Nauseam:
Boards in little hate
Fog Effects
U/W Control:
Boards in heavy hate
Rest in Peace
Surgical Extraction
Amulet Titan:
Boards in moderate hate
Bojuka Bog
Ravenous Trap
Grixis Control:
Boards in heavy hate
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the gods
Goryo's Vengeance:
Boards in little hate
Blood Moon
Dredge:
Boards in little hate
Bojuka Bog
Leyline of the Void
Memory's Journey
Death and Taxes:
Boards in little hate
Rest in Peace
Sun and BloodMoon:
Boards in heavy hate
Anger of the Gods
Blood Moon
Exile effects
Rest in Peace
Knightfall:
Boards in little hate
Loaming Shaman
Bojuka Bog
Jeskai Control:
Boards in heavy hate
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the Gods
Rest in Peace
Abzan Company:
Boards in little hate
Anafenza, the Foremost
Loaming Shaman
Infect:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Kiki-Chord:
Boards in little hate
Anafenza, the Foremost
Loaming Shaman
Ravenous Trap
8 Rack:
Boards in moderate hate
Surgical Extraction
Leyline of the Void
Scapeshift:
Boards in moderate hate
Anger of the Gods
Surgical Extraction
Fae:
Boards in Moderate hate
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Ravenous Trap
Surgical Extraction
Zoo:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Soul Sisters/Martyr Proc:
Boards in little hate
Surgical Extraction
Leyline of the Void
Storm:
Boards in little hate
Blood Moon
Living End:
Boards in little hate
Faerie Macabre
Leyline of the Void
Boogles:
Boards in little hate
Rest in Peace
Infect:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
UR Prowess:
Boards in moderate hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Surgical Extraction
Ravenous Trap
Merfolk:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Lantern Control:
Boards in little hate
Surgical Extraction
Relic of Progenitus
Tormod's Crypt
Grafdigger's Cage
Grixis Delver:
Boards in little hate
Ravenous Trap
Surgical Extraction
Skred Red:
Boards in heavy hate
Blood Moon
Relic of Progenitus
Anger of the Gods
Grafdigger's Cage
Elves:
Boards in little hate
Scavenging Ooze
Recommended: 0-1/3/4-5
If you havent looked over that massive archetype list I posted in the spoilers, do it, you can't complete this step without it. Some of those archetypes I color coded with Green, Orange, and Red. This color means how much are they siding in against you, and it directly correlates to how much you should be trying to counter their hate cards. See the list below of the best cards to bring in vs what.
Green listed decks will barely side in against you. This is because they would rather race you, or don't mind non interactivity. Against these decks you should side in 0-1 cards to combat them. There is very little chance they will hit their boarded in cards and you are better off just trying to race them yourself or siding in good cards against them that aren't anti-hate cards.
Orange listed decks will have a fair amount of hate for you. It will be enough that 1 hate card SHOULD show up games 2 and 3, and as such you should have enough anti hate boarded in that you should see 1 answer to counter it. That should be 3 anti hate cards.
Red listed decks will be overboarding for you. This is likely because they have a bad match-up and need to do this to have a shot at winning. If you can answer their hate cards it should be an easy win. However, some of these listed, like skred red or tron, just naturally use cards that are good for you, and it will be a bad match up anyways. Regardless, you need to board on equal terms and be able to answer at least 2 hate cards per game. That means you will want to board in about 5 anti hatecards
List of Best Cards that Counter Hate Cards
In order of effectiveness
Leyline of the Void
Nature's Claim
Fragmentize
Golgari CharmRavenous Trap
Thoughtseize
Collective BrutalityRest in Peace
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Golgari Charm
ThoughtseizeAnger of the Gods
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Fetchlands
Golgari CharmCrypt Incursion
Thoughtseize
Collective BrutalityAnafenza, The Foremost
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
ConflagrateSurgical Extraction
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Ground SealRakdos Charm
Thoughtseize
Collective BrutalityGrafdigger's Cage
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeScavenging Ooze
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
ConflagrateBojuka Bog
Feels bad manNihil Spellbomb
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeRelic of Progenitus
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeKalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Lightning Axe
Conflagrate
ThoughtseizeTormod's Crypt
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeMemory's Journey
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Ground SealLoaming Shaman
Thoughtseize
Ground SealJund Charm
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Golgari CharmDryad Militant
Collective Brutality
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
Darkblast
Conflagrate
Step 1 is to know what the hate cards do, and who plays what. Step 2 is knowing what cards you should be playing against said hate cards, and how many of them. So in your sideboarding process, you should have made a pile of cards you want to board in... but what do you board out!? Well, you'll have to bare through yet another list. But this will teach you what you generally for sub out for what.
Important note:This deck is part combo, which means while siding you should not take out a full piece of the engine, but rather, start with your flex cards, then 1 card from the Enablers, Dredgers, and Creatures, like we talked about earlier in the primer. And remember, sometimes its OK to go to 61 cards in this deck
Thoughtseize- Narcomoeba or a Flex Spot, or package slot. Generally if you are thoughtseizing, you are trying to strip a hate card or hurt their combo while maintaining aggression. In both these cases, going down to 3 narcs is perfectly fine.
Nature's Claim/Natural State/Fragmentize- Narcomoeba or a Flex Spot, or package slot. Generally if you are Naturalizing, you are trying to destroy a hate card or hurt their combo while maintaining aggression. In both these cases, going down to 3 narcs is perfectly fine.
Lightning Axe- An easy 1 for 1 sub withInsolent Neonate. Both discard to start a dredge engine, while one dredges, this one interacts
Collective Brutality- An easy 1 for 1 sub with Cathartic Reunion. They both have the same function, discarding cards, but reunion gives you dredge power, and Brutality gives you interactivity
Abrupt Decay- A Flex spot only, or package slot.
Golgari Charm- A Flex spot only, or package slot
Ancient Grudge- a flashback spell, darkblast, flex slot, or loam.
But wait! You still have to cut a few more cards?!
Have no fear, you can still make a few cuts. Heres where you'll find the last few card slots:
It will always be better to understand why and when to make cuts, but if you need a guide to start out with a good example of it would be Zen Takahashi's Sideboard Guide
- If its against a deck that's faster than you, like an aggro deck, cut 1 bloodghast.
- If its against a deck thats slower than you, like a control deck, cut 1 Narcomoeba
- If its against a deck that has counter spells, cut a loam and conflagrate
- If its against a creatureless/creature light deck, cut a loam and a conflagrate.
- If its against a deck you don't need to race, cut Scourge Devil.
- If its a deck you don't need to have blockers for, cut Haunted Dead.
Recommended: 3/1/0
Now, in step 2 we decided how many anti hate cards we should use in the particular matchup, green getting 0-1, Orange getting 3, and red getting 5. Sometimes that leaves you room to wiggle in extra sideboard cards to beat them. For example, Darkblast isn't a very good anti-hate card, but it is great at killing off affinity's creatures. Affinity also happens to be one of those green listed decks, meaning you can fit 3-4 sideboarded cards in along with 1/2 anti hate cards! So in review
Green listed decks can have 0-1 Anti hate cards, and 3-4 generally useful sideboard cards.
Orange listed decks can have about 3 Anti hate cards, and 1-2 generally useful sideboard cards.
Red listed decks can have about 5 Anti hate cards, and 0 generally useful sideboard cards.
What are these extra sideboard cards that could be useful? Well here's a list!
Darkblast- This card is recycleable and lets you kill dorks dead, giving it a ton of uses. Its best used on mana dork decks like melira company or decks that go wide like Affinity
Vengeful Pharaoh- This is ok against aggro decks like burn or zoo, but its at its best against midrange decks that put their stock less in lots of little creatures, but in quality creatures like tarmogoyf.
Bojuka Bog- Really only playable if you run 3 life from the loam, otherwise use journey or leyline. This can keep grave strategies from getting anywhere.
Ghost Quarter- Useful against manlands, killer against tron and eldrazi. Like Bog, only playable with 3 loams.
Memory's Journey- Surgical grave hate, it's the worst of our options, but also the least hardest on deck building. Doesn't need more than one copy, or additional cards.
Abrupt Decay- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as a random removal spell or anti combo card.
Assassin's Trophy- Like abrupt decay, with a steeper draw back and a stronger effect. Usually better than Decay.
Damping Sphere- A sideboard condensing card, allowing you to hit multiple decks at one time. While not as strong as any of the sideboard cards that can destroy one single matchup, this card has its strength by opening up the board to a wider array of decks.
Thoughtseize- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as a proactive way to deny something. Works best on decks that are later game decks or need to have a few cards at the same time. Works best against combo and big mana.
Collective Brutality- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as a proactive way to do a lot of good things. Its best use is when it can kill a dork, strip an important card. Very good against Company and All in aggro decks like burn or infect.
Ancient Grudge- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as something you can do in your yard. Its best against artifact matters decks like lantern, tron, and affinity.
Ray of Revelation- Don't be fooled, this is NOT an anti-hate card, but instead should only be used as the grave version of Grudge, best against Boogles and enchantment matters decks.
Haunted Dead- Reuseable chump blockers. Very very good against all in aggro decks, where it can buy you time.
Scourge Devil/Rally of the Peasants- simply a way to race. Its at its best against decks that don't interact with you, and you can't interact with them. Stuff like Scapeshift decks.
Leyline of the Void- Graveyard hate that doesnt effect us. Only useful if you devote 3-4 slots in the board.
Lightning Axe- A cheap way to get rid of problem creatures. Best use for aggro, midrange, and combo that uses creatures.
Engineered Explosives- Has a lot of random uses, but the biggest is taking down aggro that goes really wide, while also being able to kill hate cards if needed.
Gnaw to the Bone- Your go to anti aggro card. Usually only a 1 of, but push it to 2 if your meta is all aggro.
In review:
Step 1: Know what the hate cards are used to beat dredge, and which decks use what.
Step 2: Know what Anti-Hate cards you must board in for the match-up and how many.
Step 3: Make the correct cuts from your flex spot and engine so you don't mess up your combo
Step 4: Fill in the extra sideboard cards if you have the space to do so.
Now you know how to do steps 1-4, you wont need a guide. Which is good, because sideboarding in this deck is one of the most complicated parts of it!
Below is a list of details and tips to help you play dredge. They are very boring, and read like a textbook, but they are key to running the deck correctly as possible. I also want to give a shout out to Izzetmage who wrote these!
Read up on these rules to be the best dredge player you can be!
There’s a lot of reminder text on dredge, but honestly no TL;DR version. Just read the text and it should explain everything just fine. Basically, if you would draw a card while you have a dredge card in your graveyard, you have two options:
1) draw the card normally
2) put the dredge card into your hand and mill X
In both cases, you would have one more card in hand than you had before the draw. The difference in case 2 is that you have X more cards in your graveyard. That’s where Dredge (the deck) draws its strength from. Also, when you dredge, you get to choose which card you add to your hand. Need removal? Get Darkblast. Need lands? Get Dakmor Salvage or Life from the Loam.
Dredge is a static, replacement ability. If you decide to dredge, your opponent cannot remove the card that you’re going to dredge “in response”.
You can only dredge X if you have that many cards in your library, or more. So you can’t dredge 3 to get a game-winning Darkblast back in hand if you have 2 or less cards in your library. Be careful!
Dredge replaces any card draw (i.e. any of the red enabler cards), not just the one that you get during your draw step.It’s said that Dredge is not “real Magic”. In this section I’m going to explain why this is so: first by examining how Dredge operates, and second, by examining how it stacks up against conventional “answers”.
If you look at Dredge’s creature base (Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam), you should notice that all of them can be put into play for 0 mana. This bypasses the fundamental principle of Magic, where the amount of stuff you can play is limited by the amount of mana you have. Instead, with Dredge, the amount of creatures you can put out is dependent on the amount of creatures you have in your graveyard. And with Imp/Thug dredging 4 or 5 cards per draw, including additional draws from Looting or Inquiry, it’s not hard to get your graveyard filled quickly while hitting a few Narcomoebas along the way. Once that happens, a single land drop will bring all of your Bloodghasts back. How many Bloodghasts, exactly? As many as you milled - mill hard or get lucky and you can have all four for the price of one land drop! Then this sets up Prized Amalgam’s trigger, and like Bloodghast, the amount of Amalgams you can get depends on how many there are in your graveyard, not the amount of mana you have.
There are three main categories of “answers” that other decks play. Dredge matches up favorably against all of them.
Removal: How much mana does it take for Dredge to put a creature into play? Answer: zero. How much mana do removal spells cost? Answer: certainly more than zero. This explains why removal is not cost-efficient against Dredge. Furthermore, if Dredge’s creatures are killed, they go back to the graveyard, but are ready to jump back into play at any moment (that you can play a land). Bridge from Below also neutralizes removal by giving you a Zombie token whenever one of your creatures dies.
Counterspells: How do Dredge’s creatures enter the battlefield? Answer: triggered abilities. They are not casted, so there is nothing to counter unless the opponent is playing Trickbind or Voidslime (which practically nobody does, and even then it costs them more mana to play their counter than it costs you to revive your creature). The only things that can be countered are the enabler cards, which brings up the question: how exactly do you plan on doing so? Most enabler cards cost 1 mana, which is way before you can get most counters ready. Dispel/Spell Snare doesn’t work on them. Remand and Mana Leak cost 2 mana, and in the case of Remand, the countered spell will be easily re-casted. Spell Pierce is the best counter, although it doesn’t stop Insolent Neonate.
Discard: Casting a discard spell to take anything except an enabler is fueling Dredge’s game plan. Even if they do take an enabler, it’s useless if you have another enabler in hand - the odds are good, given that the deck has at least 12 enablers main and up to 4 additional discard outlets if you bring in Lightning Axe. Darkblast, and to a lesser extent Life from the Loam can also be hardcasted to start the dredge chain rolling.
All said, the most effective way to attack Dredge is to attack its graveyard. Grafdigger’s Cage and Rest in Peace will stop Dredge cold. Nevertheless, Dredge can steal games against such hate cards by simply going under them (i.e. getting out a bunch of creatures before they hit the field), or randomly discarding them to Burning Inquiry. Graveyard exilers like Relic of Progenitus can stop the first wave of creatures, but the Dredge deck can beat it by setting up a second wave. Surgical Extraction and Extirpate are problematic if they nab Bloodghast or Amalgam, but they are either rarely played or played in small amounts, giving Dredge a chance of going under them.
In the absence of grave hate, the other way to beat Dredge is to race it. Aggro and combo decks will have a much easier time doing this. Dredge can put a bunch of creatures into the battlefield on turn 2, but it typically takes two turns of attacks to kill a defenseless opponent, unless he took a lot of damage from his lands, or you have Rally the Peasants. This means that Dredge goldfishes at about turn 4, a speed which most aggro and combo decks should be comfortable racing. With Bloodghast being incapable of blocking and Prized Amalgam entering the battlefield tapped, this opens the door wider for aggro decks. The matchup may swing in either direction based on the trump cards that each player has: Dredge has Darkblast, Gnaw to the Bone and Vengeful Pharaoh, while opposing decks may have lifelink or damage prevention effects.
The most effective removal against Dredge is the kind that doesn’t put the creatures in the graveyard, as Dredge can get those creatures back into play easily. Anger of the Gods is a common one. Bounce is less common, but still effective - Dredge needs to take the extra step of getting those creatures back into the graveyard again. Merfolk plays plenty of bounce (Vapor Snag, Harbinger of the Tides), and some decks play Thing in the Ice, which can flip, wipe Dredge’s board, and threaten immediately with its 7 power. That said, Conflagrate allows Dredge to dump its hand and deal a ton of damage.
TL;DR: dredge beats fair decks and loses to grave hate, “anti-meta” decks that maindeck/SB multiple copies of hate cards, and faster decks.Since Dredge works differently from other decks, constructing it also goes against most accepted deckbuilding principles. For Dredge, there is a simple rule of thumb that I use to eliminate card choices:
- Does this card help get more cards into the graveyard?
- Can this card be cast/activated/triggered from the graveyard?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, the card in question is not maindeckable. When you start dredging, you’ll be putting Imps and Thugs into your hand instead of cards that you could draw normally. You can’t draw cards normally, unless you are willing to stop dredging.
- Are you playing this card/effect as a 3/4-of?
- Can this card be cast/activated/triggered from the graveyard?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, the card in question is not sideboardable. Again, dredging means that if the sideboarded card isn’t in your opening hand, it’s going to be in your graveyard. If you can’t cast it from the graveyard, you should play 4 copies to maximize the chances of it being in the place where it matters, i.e. your opening hand.- You can rearrange your graveyard at any time. This rule is unique to Modern (and Standard), but does not apply to Legacy or Vintage where graveyard-order-matters cards like Nether Shadow exist. This makes remembering triggers and viewing your dredge/flashback options much easier: you can simply put all the irrelevant cards at the bottom.
- You should have your graveyard spread out instead of in a stack, so that you can see every card. If you’re playing online, the graveyard window should always be open.
- Remember your triggers. Your creatures enter the battlefield via triggers, and if you forget them, your opponent isn’t going to point them out. After playing a land, especially if you’re playing the land so that you can cast a spell, check for Bloodghast. After milling yourself, check for Narcomoeba, especially if you dredge twice or more. At the end of the turn, check for Prized Amalgam. When anything dies, or before you kill something, or before you enter combat, check for Bridge.
- Perform actions in the order that they are written on the card. Look out for the word “then”. With Faithless Looting, you draw first, then discard. For Insolent Neonate’s cost, it’s a little different: you can pay in whatever order you want, but the order that’s printed on the card is the order that you want to follow anyway (discard Bridge, then sac to get a token). Stitchwing Skaab can discard and trigger a Prized Amalgam in your hand: you discard as a cost first, then Skaab enters the battlefield.
- For cards that say “draw X cards” (i.e. Looting/Inquiry), cards are drawn individually, so you get to dredge for each card that would be drawn. This also means that you decide to dredge before each card is drawn, not upon resolution of Looting/Inquiry. If you happen to mill a Stinkweed Imp or a Dakmor Salvage that you really need on the first dredge, you can choose to dredge that card on the second draw.
- Abilities cannot resolve while another spell/ability is resolving. This is targeted at Narcomoeba - if you play Looting/Inquiry and mill a Narcomoeba on the first dredge, the Narcomoeba trigger goes on the stack after the Looting/Inquiry has finished resolving. Narcomoeba itself is still in the graveyard while you’re doing the second or third dredge. If you mill a Prized Amalgam on the second or third dredge, or discard one to the Looting/Inquiry that's resolving, it will trigger off the Narcomoeba - after Looting/Inquiry finishes resolving, the Narcomoeba trigger goes on the stack, it enters the battlefield, then Amalgam triggers for that.
Another example: if you play Looting/Inquiry, after resolving your first dredge/draw, your opponent cannot cast something like Surgical Extraction before your second draw. He must wait for the Looting/Inquiry to finish resolving.
- Position your Narcomoebas/Amalgams slightly differently to remind yourself of their triggers. For example, if you have your graveyard lined out in a row, you can leave the triggered Narcomoebas/Amalgams sticking out slightly above all your other cards. If you line your graveyard out in columns, you can tap those cards instead (although tapping a card in a graveyard is sometimes used as an indicator that the card has been exiled, so make a separate pile for exile if you’re doing this). With Narcomoeba, it reduces the chance of forgetting about it after completely resolving a multiple-draw card like Looting or Inquiry. With Amalgam, it removes confusion as to which Amalgams have been triggered and which have not (if they were put into the graveyard at different times). If you use tricks like these, remember that the cards are still in the graveyard, and they’ll be lost like anything else if your opponent wipes your graveyard. Also remember that they count towards Gnaw to the Bone.The concept of “card advantage”, when applied to Dredge, is roughly “number of cards in your graveyard”. That said, mulligan aggressively to get good hands. Being low on cards in hand doesn’t matter if you’re still able to get a lot of cards into your graveyard. This is apparent when you realize that all your 1-mana enabler cards leave you down 1 card in hand after you cast them.
Your ideal hand should have two lands and two enablers. Insolent Neonate only counts as an enabler if you have a dredger in hand - with the other enablers you can hope to draw/mill into a dredger. This gives you a turn 1 and turn 2 play, and the second land guarantees a Bloodghast trigger if it ends up in your graveyard. Having an Imp/Thug to discard to one of the enablers makes it a snap keep.
Two lands and one enabler is not too exciting, but keepable. It goes up in keepability if there’s a Darkblast or Life from the Loam in it which you can hardcast, should the enabler fail to find a dredger. This hand is weaker against discard, as they can take the enabler, unless it’s Conflagrate, in which case you just play both your lands and dump your hand on turn 2.
One land hands should not be kept unless there’s a Faithless Looting in it to dig for a second land. Even if you have the most amazing dredges, the only way to get more lands into your hand is to hit Dakmor Salvage, or to decline dredging and draw normally.
Narcomoeba is a dead card in hand (in fact this is one of the disadvantages of the deck: that there are four cards that you want in your library, but never want to draw). Don’t go mulliganing every hand with a Narcomoeba in it “because it’s already a mulligan” though - if the hand is keepable even if you were to remove Narcomoeba from it, keep it!
For post-board games, remember the “Dredge Mentality”: there are two ways to beat hate cards, first is drawing the counter-hate, second is just being faster than them. If you have a good hand that can spit out a lot of creatures by the second turn (plenty of enablers/Looting + Bloodghast/Amalgam), it’s keepable even if there are no anti-hate cards in it.Please visit this link to an imgur album I put together on this.
Dredge playing can be tricky because we don't play like a normal magic deck. So while its technically against the rules to rearrange your play like this when you are at a gp, its more than fine at an fmn. This is the most efficient way to display your cards in order to show your triggers and options.Dredge is a self-perpetuating engine. When you dredge a card, it puts more cards from your library into your graveyard. Ideally, one of those cards will have dredge, so you can repeat this process. This comes to a jarring stop as soon as you run out of dredgers in your graveyard - you’d have to find a way to get a dredge card back into your graveyard before you can begin anew.
One common trap is to get greedy and discard Prized Amalgam to Faithless Looting instead of a dredger. For example, you might be tempted to Loot on turn 1, discard Bloodghast and Amalgam, then play a land on turn two and bring them both back. A better play, however, would be to discard Bloodghast and a dredger - this gives up the immediate benefit of an extra 3/3 body, but won’t leave you spinning your wheels if they manage to deal with your creatures.When playing this deck, it’s easy to forget that your dredgers can do more than dredge. Imp makes a decent blocker with pseudo-deathtouch, and Grave-Troll is a massive regenerating attacker.
Bloodghast, Amalgam and Narcomoeba can also be hardcasted. This does not come up too often though, as Narcomoeba and Amalgam require blue mana, and Bloodghast costs double black.
If your opponent plays Grafdigger’s Cage, your plan from that point on changes to “hardcast creatures”. Grafdigger’s Cage may turn off Bloodghast and stop you from flashing back Ancient Grudge, but it doesn’t stop you from dredging Imps, Thugs and Loams. Trying to beat your opponent with what is effectively a bunch of recurring Pestilent Katharis and a bunch of 1/1s is a long shot, but it’s better than nothing.It’s important to mill hard in the early stages of the game, but as the game goes on and they’re not dead yet, there arises the possibility of losing by deck out. The last few cards in your deck become precious, like the last few pieces of toilet paper on the roll when you’re pooping.
You’ll want to switch to drawing normally instead of dredging. Hardcasting Imp or or grave creatures becomes an option, so be sure to use Loam to get enough lands into your hand before then. Darkblast must be rationed, since it takes out 3 cards every time you dredge it. Dakmor Salvage is always a good option because it only digs two and can recur ghasts.
- If you open a hand with looting and neonate, it is usually better to neonate first if you have a dredger in hand to discard. so you can dredge twice with faithless. If you need to find a dredger, faithless first, so you have a discard outlet ready immediatly.
- If you are using Neonate, try to use it on their turn rather than yours, if you aren't looking to dredge right away. This will give you a body to block with against aggressive decks. Also, use him on their second main, rather than end, just in case you hit a Narcomoeba and Amalgam.
- Prized Amalgam is a delayed trigger. This can get you into trouble if someone rule sharks you at higher events. When something enter the battlefield, it triggers prized amalgam's effect. YOU MUST ANNOUNCE IT (keep it on the side of the grave, or put a dice on it.) as long as you announce this, should it slip your mind, the entering of amalgam is mandatory and a judge will rule in your favor and he will still enter play. His entering is still a separate trigger, so yes, amalgam has 2 triggers you need to keep track of, not one.
- A common thing people will forget is Prized amalgam has a delayed trigger, which you can use to your benefit. It says "Next end step" not "your endstep." This means it can come back at the end of the opponents turn. If you have a trigger on a amalgam because of a Narcomoeba, then dredge more and find 2 amalgams, the first will trigger at the end of your turn, then trigger the 2 in the yard, meaning 2 amalgams will return at the end of the opponents turn.
- Bloodghasts landfall is very important. It will trigger twice off fetchlands, and once off ghost quarters or paths to exile. If you aim to return them to the battlefield, resolve the fetch first, then crack it later as removal insurance. Also, there will be times ghast will be safer in the yard than the battlefield. This mostly comes from path, ugin or anger of the gods. In that case, you should crack your fetch at the end of their turn to bring them back. HOWEVER this will delay the trigger on amalgam to your turn. Sometimes its best to do it on their second mainphase so you get ghasts AND amalgams.
- Narcomoeba is a trigger you can respond to. If you run ways to dig harder instantly like shriekhorn or Neonate, you can respond to dig deeper to find amalgams.
- Faithless looting's effect lasts until you discard. This is important because it doesnt mean Narcomoeba's effect has triggered yet, letting you discard amalgams to see that trigger.
- Always cathartic reunion before collective brutality if you can. Reunion nets you 0 cards in hand, but brutality nets you -2, meaning you'll be hardpressed to reunion after.
- When nothing really important is happening in a game stall, always start loading on Life from the Loam so you can work on conflaging them.
- Stinkweed should be hardcasted more often than you'd expect. It is a flying deathtouch blocker.
- Golgari Thug can be used to reset Narcomoebas
- Darkblast and conflag can be used to reset bloodghasts to trigger amalgams or to make them avoid anger of the gods.
- Haunted Dead can be used on upkeep to reload an empty grave with dredge cards
- Haunted Dead can be used to discard amalgams and revive them at the same time.
- Two Thugs can be chained together to create a loop to keep you at 1 card in your library.
There are many decks in modern that use the graveyard, but not all of them have overlapping cards. Below here is our sister decks!
DredgeVine
This deck is much more midrange grind than combo graveyard then we are. It still dredges, but also draws too, and often win the game with tall creatures than going wide. Its flaw is there is much less deck space to work with, and not every card synergies with itself as much as Dredge. However, it doesn't roll over to grave hate, which is a strong point. If you like a more "jund" feeling Dredge, check out Dredgevine!
Hallow One
This deck is the aggro counterpart to dredge. While it isn't "all in" on the graveyard, it is an all in deck. If you perfer speed and smashing face, this would be right up your alley. Often this deck is the better pick if dredge is being really hated out of the meta, as it is fast enough to go under most peoples hate cards. Its also a better pick for the meta if you need speed.
This deck loses ground to dredge when the meta is more grindy or interactive. Dredge also has a bit more adaptability than this deck, able to shuffle its game strategies according to the current meta.
BridgeVine
It has much less in common with Dredgevine than you would think, this is a very all in combo deck. The idea behind it is to get bridge into the grave as fast as possible, then cast cards that will die right away, to make a quick army of zombie tokens and win the game. If you like All in combos, than this is much better for you. Fair warning, being all in, it is much less stable (and probably more fun when it goes off)
Craterhoof Dredge
Here we have a more focused on Reanimation dredge. It does this through Llanowar Mentor and Greenseeker to ramp into a quick Unburial Rites targeting Craterhoof Behemoth, then running over them. If you want to play elves the dredge, here you go!
Bans are a real concern for this format, and something that needs to be addressed in this primer. Before we go into this, I should remind everyone this is not the correct thread to talk about bans.If you would like to please instead go to this thread.
With that PSA out of the way, lets get into it. Modern is a format that has historically been pretty ban heavy. Decks that are "too consistently good", make the format more of a sideboard lottery, or are flat out unfun, have been banned before, and we have hit all 3 of those. Its also well known that Wizards has deemed the Dredge Mechanic a massive mistake on their end. So I can not say that this deck is safe from bans. I will say however, that in any eternal format a graveyard based deck will always exist, and they always print graveyard eccentric cards, so dredge will continue to exist in one form or any other regardless. Wizards has made it quite clear they want to control power level, not kill decks, so we should fit into this boat.
In most formats, we are a "sideboard lottery" and with the banning of troll we fold to hate quite easily, so this should be our lifeline. However, if you have reservations to the idea that something may be banned, this deck probably isn't a good fit. However, I'd venture to say that modern is currently in a ban mania time, so any well preforming deck could be hit with bans.
And thats Dredge! I hope this primer has been chalk full of information for you. If it has, leave me a like on this post, so I can see! The idea was to make this knowledgeable enough, that after reading you should be comfortable with the deck, and refer to this primer when you hit some tricky spots. If you have any questions, deck review, or match-up reports, feel free to post it on here!
Now I need to rewatch the match and see how many of my misplays were broadcast to the world. 
1
GW Hexproof is a non-interactive, explosive aggro deck that's based around playing a Hexproof creature (Slippery Bogle, Gladecover Scout or Silhana Ledgewalker) and arming it with powerful enchantments. In a few turns you'll be able to swing for massive damage, most likely with First Strike, Trample and even Lifelink. The deck is somewhat of an all or nothing deck, meaning that, if your opponent manages to handle your limited threats, the deck is often unable to stabilize and regain board position.
Pros: fast clock, non-interactive, fairly easy to pilot and hard to disrupt.
Cons: extremely susceptible to specific hate, difficult to come from behind, limited card draw and lack of late game stamina.
The Mana Base:
Forest – Untapped lands covering the main color of the deck.
Khalni Garden – Tapped lands, as well as producing green mana, produces a Plant token that can protect your creatures from edict effects.
Plains – Untapped lands covering the secondary color of the deck.
Gladecover Scout – Functionally operating as Slippery Bogles 5-8.
Heliod's Pilgrim – Three mana but helps find our critical auras, effectively providing additional consistency to the deck.
Silhana Ledgewalker – Two mana but with evasion against non-flyers, which may be useful when the opponent has many ground creatures.
Slippery Bogle – One mana and Hexproof, our bread and butter creature.
Ancestral Mask – One of the main payoffs that can swiftly end the game when added to a board full of auras.
Armadillo Cloak – Grants Lifelink which can be vital in races, as well as Trample.
Cartouche of Solidarity – Power boost and further protection against edict effects.
Cartouche of Strength – As well as the power boosts, this can act as a pseudo-removal spell, which the deck otherwise lacks.
Ethereal Armor – Power boost that compounds as the game progresses for a single mana.
Favor of the Overbeing – Gives +2/+2, Vigilance and Flying to Slippery Bogle!
Rancor – The durability is not so important given that our creatures will not often be removed, and there is no toughness boost, but the Trample effect can be significant in winning damage races.
Spider Umbra – Provides some much-needed defense against flyers.
Utopia Sprawl – Mana fixing and ramp.
4 Gladecover Scout
2 Heliod's Pilgrim
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Slippery Bogle
Enchantments
4 Abundant Growth
4 Ancestral Mask
4 Armadillo Cloak
3 Cartouche of Solidarity
1 Cartouche of Strength
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Rancor
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Blossoming Sands
11 Forest
2 Khalni Garden
1 Plains
1 Crimson Acolyte
1 Electrickery
2 Flaring Pain
3 Gut Shot
1 Lifelink
2 Obsidian Acolyte
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Young Wolf
2 Standard Bearer
The sideboard has to be adjusted to your meta. These are the most played side board cards in GW Hexproof; mix and match according to your expected meta.
0 Relic of Progenitus
Creatures
0 Crimson Acolyte
0 Gorilla Shaman
0 Obsidian Acolyte
0 Standard Bearer
0 Young Wolf
Enchantments
0 Circle of Protection: Green
0 Circle of Protection: Red
0 Circle of Protection: White
0 Lifelink
0 Dawn Charm
0 Dispel
0 Flaring Pain
0 Fling
0 Fog
0 Negate
0 Pyroblast
0 Tangle
0 Ancient Grudge
0 Electrickery
0 Gleeful Sabotage
0 Gut Shot
0 Natural State
0 Ray of Revelation
It is imperative to know your opponent's deck and in particular which key hate cards you have to take care of or play around, because those cards may completely destroy our linear strategy.
Chainer's Edict/Evincar's Justice/Geth's Verdict- to mitigate these, try to hold reserve creatures in hand and always aim for multiple creatures in play via Khalni Garden and Cartouche of Solidarity. Be careful because Chainer's Edict has Flashback and Evincar's Justice has Buyback.
Echoing Decay- try to play different creatures and/or boost their toughness above 2.
Pestilence- as with cards giving your opponent timing options, try to force it to fire ASAP. Beware that it can kill a Young Wolf by activating first for two and then again for one with the other trigger still on the stack.
Shrivel- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
G
Aura Flux- try to hold reserve enchantments in hand. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out.
Gleeful Sabotage/Natural State- beware these cards when calculating combat math!
Moment's Peace/Tangle- these cards may affect damage race calculations.
R
Blazing Volley- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
Electrickery- as per Blazing Volley but can hit every creature in play.
Krak-Clan Shaman- as your opponent has the option as to when to use it, it is best to force this to happen ASAP. Prior to his coming out, try hard to get your hexproof creatures to 2+ toughness.
Swirling Sandstorm- use Relic of Progenitus. Failing that, a reserve of creatures and enchantments will come in handy.
U
Annul- provides a very efficient counter to our enchantments. Therefore, try to bait it out by playing the less important enchantments first.
Aura Flux- you will need to keep only the most powerful enchantments, likely sacrificing those attached to your lands until you can blow it up.
Fade Away- try not to play unnecessary creatures and maintain a minimum of powerful enchantments until you can blow it up.
W
Celestial Flare- use Plant and Warrior tokens as support and fodder.
Coalition Honor Guard- even worse than Standard Bearer as it doesn't die to Gut Shot! Play your own Standard Bearer.
Holy Light- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
Kor Sanctifiers- represents a good body that can also remove a powerful enchantment from play at sorcery speed.
Standard Bearer is a must-kill creature that can single-handedly wreck your whole game plan. Either kill it, or play one of your own.
- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -1 Rancor
- +1 Crimson Acolyte
- +1 Lifelink
Delver Variants: You really need to make some key enchantments stick to win this one. Beware of cards such as Spellstutter Sprite, Counterspell and Daze and try to play your key enchantments when their shields are down. This may necessitate deliberately playing less important enchantments into counter magic.- -1 Armadillo Cloak
- -3 Rancor
- +1 Electrickery
- +3 Gut Shot
Elves: You have to race in this one, and it can be difficult. As they have limited removal, you can place your enchantments on non-Hexproof creatures. Circle of Protection: Green and Tangle/Fog are strong options.- -4 Armadillo Cloak
- -3 Rancor
- +3 Gut Shot
- +2 Standard Bearer
- +2 Young Wolf
Goblins and RG Aggro: Although this is a damage race of sorts, you are likely to need to hold back your creatures in defensive positions in the early game. Your opponent will keep attacking in and thus you will gradually deplete their resources. Ideally you can find some life gain and then start fighting back after a few turns. Since they are R, be careful of sweeping damage effects such as Electrickery. Note that duplicate copies of Armadillo Cloak stack in terms of life gain!- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -1 Rancor
- +1 Crimson Acolyte
- +1 Lifelink
GW Hexproof: The quintessential race! Post board the game may be decided by Standard Bearer so you may have to mulligan aggressively.- -2 Cartouche of Solidarity
- -2 Rancor
- -2 Slippery Bogle
- +3 Gut Shot
- +1 Ray of Revelation
- +2 Standard Bearer
Mono Black Control and Variants: You are at risk to edict and sweeper effects here, so try to keep out additional creatures. For example, play out two creatures at once before equipping anything to avoid getting hit with an edict on the opponent's turn. Life gain plays a role as the B decks may try to drain your life with spells. You generally need to establish a fairly fast clock as they will become quite powerful as the game progresses.- -1 Ancestral Mask
- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -4 Rancor
- +2 Obsidian Acolyte
- +2 Standard Bearer
- +2 Young Wolf
Stompy: In this match up you have to carefully defend your life total early on. Be very wary of their instant speed tricks to avoid getting a key Hexproof creature killed. Your best option to win may be a suited up Silhana Ledgewalker since they have very few ways to interact with it. Due to the racing nature of the match-up, life gain is very important and you should try to kill their Vault Skirge before its toughness can be increased.- -1 Ancestral Mask
- -1 Armadillo Cloak
- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -3 Rancor
- +2 Gut Shot
- +2 Standard Bearer
- +2 Young Wolf
Tron: In this match you have to be aggressive and try to close out the game early, before their inevitability sets in. You can smash through Moment's Peace with Flaring Pain or else Dispel/Negate. Use this carefully and when their card is exhausted (remember that it has Flashback). You can also consider graveyard control via Relic of Progenitus to manage their looping effects. If playing on mtgo, absolutely make the Tron player finish their wins, because there is a reasonable chance that they would face time pressure in the later games.https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-bogles-pauper/
Paul Cheon pilots the deck through a mtgo league:
https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-cheon-pauper-bogles/
The Arctic Pauper show:
https://puremtgo.com/articles/arctic-pauper-show-%E2%80%93-bogles-20
Paupular Decks mtgo league:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLw8Zsa1ww&list=PL62LJ8tCWqGUWJgz6ZymqEj0m4nBYtDX-
Kungfutrees mtgo league:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGmGYz8Dsk&list=PLaUFF5spB9YESh5tIfArT77-EH4zlkFpD
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1) Against lifelink creatures such as Wurmcoil Engine...even if you do not have a Skullcrack or Atarkas Command, you can chump block with a creature and then kill it with a burn spell to avoid your opponent from gaining any life. I won a game in this manner- opponent at 5 life with Wurmcoil Engine, facing double Goblin Guide. I have Lightning Bolt and a land in hand. He attacks, I chump and Bolt my Goblin Guide. Next turn I draw a Lava Spike and hit him for 5 and the win.
2) I am finding Atarka's Command to be a very good spell, as recommended by others. It functions like Skullcrack but also leads to blazing fast wins in conjunction with creatures (I won on turn 3 due to this recently).
3) Considering why I lose matches, the main reasons (in order) are: life gain, creature beat downs and enchantments. Therefore, I changed my sideboard accordingly to include 2x Skullcrack (to support the 4x Atarka's Command in the main deck), 2x Deflecting Palm [take that Reality Smasher/Wurmcoil Engine!] and the usual 4x Destructive Revelry. I removed graveyard hate as I concur that those decks are usually slower than we are to begin with.
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The matches were as follows:
Bant Eldrazi: 2-0
Affinity: 2-1
UW Smallpox 2-0
Jeskai Tempo 2-1
UR Gifts Storm 2-0
In the Affinity match the decider was extremely close when my opponent made a misclick, clicking on the wrong Inkmoth Nexus (which had summoning sickness). Had he not done this I may not have won it; it was really on a knife edge. Overall, I won this match by following the hints provided here.
The other games went extremely well. I recall one game where I had the opponent down to three life after just three turns via a turn one Monastery Swiftspear.
Against the Jeskai control deck I made good use of the excellent article on Burn versus Control.
Thanks again to all who helped me out!
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Opening Hand
Rift Bolt, Shrine x2, Boros Charm, Arid Mesa, Vantage, Mountain
Turn 1
Opp: Eldrazi Temple.
Moi: draw Goblin Guide. Vantage, Goblin Guide (attacks).
18-20
Turn 2
Opp: Urza’s Mine.
Moi: draw Boros Charm. Mountain, Shrine, Guide attacks.
16-20
Turn 3
Opp: Urza’s Power Plant, TKS (steal Boros Charm).
Moi: draw Helix. Mesa, suspend Rift Bolt.
Shrine: 1
16-20
Turn 4
Opp: Urza’s Tower, TKS attacks (I sack Mesa for a Mountain), block with Guide and Helix TKS (draw Helix), Relic into exile and draw, Endbringer.
Moi: Rift Bolt face->countered by Warping Wail. Draw Guide. Guide, attacks.
Shrine: 5
14-19
Turn 5
Opp: Endbringer draws a card, Ballista (4/4), I play Boros Charm.
Moi: draw Spike. Spike, Endbringer damages Guide, Ballista kills Guide (3/3), Helix opp.
Shrine: 9
4-25
Regarding the various options of playing cards, I believe we play Guide on turn one not simply because it causes two damage (which is less than Lava Spike), but rather due to the possibility of future damage. If unanswered for two more turns then a single mana would have contributed six damage. However, creatures can be shut out by larger creatures or simply removed, so there is considerable uncertainty as to how much damage will go through.
Therefore I am not sure why Boros Charm would be a priority in turn two over Shrine, give that Shrine is likely going to do much more than four damage during the game, and most likely will not be answered. Note additionally that the speed of damage is irrelevant any time before the opponent dies, so for instance, five damage over two turns is better than four damage in one turn if they don’t die this turn.
Finally, thanks to everyone for contributing to this forum. It is a great learning experience for me and motivates me further to explore the deck
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Here is the log of the game against Eldrazi Tron…
Opening Hand
Rift Bolt, Shrine x2, Boros Charm, Arid Mesa, Vantage, Mountain
Turn 1
Opp: Eldrazi Temple.
Moi: draw Goblin Guide. Vantage, suspend Rift Bolt.
Turn 2
Opp: Urza’s Mine.
Moi: Rift Bolt face->countered by Warping Wail. Draw Boros Charm. Mountain, Shrine.
Turn 3
Opp: Urza’s Power Plant, TKS (steal Boros Charm).
Moi: draw Helix. Mesa, Guide.
Shrine: 2
Turn 4
Opp: Urza’s Tower, TKS attacks (I sack Mesa for a Mountain), block with Guide and Helix TKS (draw Helix), Relic into exile and draw, Endbringer.
Moi: draw Guide. Guide.
Shrine: 5
20-22
Turn 5
Opp: Endbringer draws a card, Ballista (4/4), I play Boros Charm.
Moi: draw Spike. Spike, Endbringer damages Guide, Ballista kills Guide (3/3), Helix opp.
Shrine: 9
10-25
From here you can see that the Shrine will finish the opp in turn 6 no matter what they do.
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As such I much prefer testing over theory-crafting, because we can accidentally miss many considerations with our theories. Magic is a complex game and it seems very hard to demonstrate with reasoning alone why card A is superior than card B. I for one have no idea how the Shrine may fare, but will find out for myself over time. And even then, my results will be based on my own style of play, and my personal conclusions may differ from those of another player.
At the very least, a deck that wins a major GP has to be very good, even if it is not perfect. Winning a GP looks like very hard work! If we are not open to following up on such results with investigation then Shrine (or any other new inclusion) will have no chance at all.
Magic is the great game it is because there are few definite answers; it is in the discovery that we come to enjoy the game so much. Perhaps the ultimate Burn deck has yet to be put together- if there even is such a thing, given that the deck's success depends heavily on the other decks in the population.
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It definitely won me some games- there was one game for example where I had the opponent down to 4 life, but he sprang back up to 8, and then a Shrine on 8 finished him off. It seems excellent whenever our main plan doesn't work out perfectly, for example when we start top-decking unnecessary lands in the mid-game.
With the Eidolon (who has my favorite artwork in all of MTG), he also dominated and won me some matches, such as against UR Gifts Storm. However, in certain other matches he just got removed immediately for 2 damage to the opponent, or was not relevant at all since their spells were bigger.
It seems to me so far like the choice depends on the meta you are in, as well as the degree of variance you want to entertain. Having said that, I intend to play on to the 100th overall match to see how I perceive them thereafter.
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