Your B/R control looked sweet so i also printed it out and made a little gauntlet between these 3 decks.
I played 13 games against U/W humans with your deck 7 times B/R on the play and U/W humans on the play 6 times. All games were without sideboard.
U/W humans matchup thoughts:
Without sideboard U/W humans really seems to have the upper hand, unless they have a really clunky start.
Every win by B/R were in a situation where i was hoping the opponent won't top deck an Avacyn, since i was winning while having 1-4 life usually.
Your list doesn't handle Archangel of Tithes too well, only 1 Ruinous Path that takes care of it 1 for 1; sacrifice effects might hit it sometimes, but the humies does have a lot of board presence fast, so the sacrifice effects aren't that reliable.
Transgress the Mind was great against humans to take care of Archangel of Tithes, but i don't think it's enough. Ultimate Price would answer this threat.
Chandra and Kozilek's Return are okish, but if they hit Always Watching they are dead draws most of the time. I really wanted 1-2 Languish in main for this match up rather than Kozilek's Return.
Goblin DD was a house, always a good play on the curve or later.
Mindwrack Demon was kind of a good play, since it blocks most of the opponents creatures except Avacyn if they have Always Watching.
But the problem with Mindwrack Demon is, that it doesn't do enough against the Humans.. Either it gets clued* (*declaration in stoned) or it gets Reflector Maged which just destroyes us if they have creatures to attack us with after that. And since we don't have that many targets for Declaration in Stone, they usually have it for the Demon..
Pia and Kiran Nalaar were great for buying time and dodging Declaration in Stones and Reflector Mages, two seemed ok.
B/W Eldrazi Thoughts:
0 wins with B/R. 3 games on the play, 3 games on the draw, i felt like this match up is a bye for B/W at least in game 1.
They just out value us hard..
They have removal for every win con in our deck, they play Thought-Knot Seer that makes our hand weak.
If the game goes long, Eldrazi Displacer makes our spot removal hard to resolve, Sorin is a huge beathing, Shambling Vent is a problem, Gideon is a problem.
Again i was screaming for languish in this matchup also, it kills everything in their deck, while Kozilek's Return and Kolaghan's Command kills only non-relevant creatures (Hedron Crawler, Matter Reshaper, Knight of the White Orchid).
Kolaghan's Command is still good because of the discard.
This deck needs to have Languish mainboard i would say just because white is so powerful in this standard it seems.
Languish hits everything but Archangel of Tithes or Linvala, the Preserver in white and your deck doesn't really rely on having a huge density of creatures on board.
Ultimate Price / Ruinous Path seems something i would add more to this deck, just because how miserable those 5+ toughness creatures are for this deck.
Mindwrack Demon seems sweet, but if your meta has nothing but Declaration in Stones / Anguished Unmaking / Reflector Mage, i think i would rather try to find another creature that gives value before it dies.
Maybe try Thought-Knot Seer ?
Wow, thanks for piloting the deck that much! I've since played a lot of different decks in a gauntlet with it (U/R Todd Anderson.dec, Mono Black Eldrazi, G/x Humans) and I agree that especially Eldrazi is an almost instant loss. I struggled to beat a very good friend of mine and his Eldrazi list I'd say at best it was 60/40 in his favor. I can only imagine access to how strong white is would have made it worse. If I was to go against that deck I would want 3 To the Slaughter to deal with PW and some of their value creatures. I think To the Slaughter is an AMAZING removal spell when combined with the removal suite we currently have and I consistently want to see more in my hand or the graveyard to recur. I think it depends on what they know of the deck. That's not really a good enough defense but I did blow him out before he could see my list. After he knew what I was doing and we went to SB it became more difficult because he took out most removal and brought in hand disruption and easily out-curved me with Thought Knot Seers, Transgress, and Duress. I had access to Languish, Kalitas, Roast, Ob Nix, and Dragon Master Outcast though.
I really like playing mind-wrack demon and he is an allstar...against very certain decks. Other decks he can be a huge liability...pretty much anything that can clue him makes it very difficult. It's the first thing I side out for Kalitas (really valuable against decks where I know the life gain and my spot removal will shine) and Dragonmaster Outcast (late game bomb like mindwrack but constant threat that they might have to waste strong removal on).
I'm not sure if this will catch on or not but a card that TRULY blows this deck completely out of the water is Infinite Obliteration. My friend piloting the monoblack Eldrazi deck sided them in against me and if he drew it and named GDD it was EXTREMELY difficult, if not impossible to recover. Not only that but he could then name Mindwrack and I'm down to very little threats to even win the game.
Is our creature package a big enough threat? Should we be thinking about adding in exquisite firecraft or fiery impulse to burn our opponent with flashback for the win? Should we splash green for Sylvan Advocate and Den Protector and Pulse of Murasa for probably the strongest recursion package that Standard has seen in a very long time?
At this point I still love the deck and it's performing considerably well against a majority of the field still, but it's closer to a coin flip than I would like sometime. This deck still did really well against the Bant CoCo deck for me (their threats are all easily removed with our removal).
Going forward there's some serious changes to make - I think that Languish is a mandatory MB card after the Open and going forward in this format, if something is below 4 toughness we will always have a phenomenal out to it. At the same time - we only have Mindwrack in theory right now to avoid a languish. Ultimate Price seems weak MB because it's a completely dead draw against Eldrazi, already one of the worst match ups of the deck. Angel of Avacyn is difficult for us to deal with but at least we are in line with the rest of standard in finding it hard to deal with her.
Just let me know what you think you would change. I'm strongly thinking of splashing green just to increase the amount of creatures we can play. Our creatures are so based on value that if they get Declaration in Stone'd it's really hard to come back from that. Also we can't recur them with KCommand afterwards. Is playing hand disruption/removal really enough to get us to turns 4-6, and once we are in the mid game is our deck strong enough to maintain a lead on the board and in card advantage?
Let me know what you guys think. Thanks again for testing the deck.
Fiery Impulse was never worth it for me. Kalitas is only good against certain decks in others he instantly dies because anything below 4 toughness in this meta is going to be easiest to kill with languish becoming a big board wipe. Mindwrack is a 4 of, insanely powerful card. Pie and K are better MB than Kalitas but I switch them out together usually. Kozi's Return can wreck CoCo hitting Jace, but not all their cards. Does great against humans by t3 unless they have a god draw you can wipe a decent board.
If you're facing one of the strange mill decks or U/R fevered visions decks, you want to take out mindwracks and bring in all your hand disruption and dragonmaster outcasts/ob nix etc. because they don't play very many creatures. Grasp needs to be a 4 of because it takes care of almost every major threat in standard during the early - middle levels of the game.
I don't think hangarback fits in this deck at all, I wouldn't really want to pump it because I want to be doing this to disrupt them during their turn and then further my board state. A regular game goes t1 dead weight a human or something, t2 transgress/grasp t3 kcommand, ruinous, read the bones, t4 mindwrack or P&K, t5 flashback a spell and win the game because GDD is ultimate value.
Since my break from Magic (having no one to play with, really), I have not updated or properly maintained this thread in a long time. I will take some time to mull through the recent sets (DKA and AVR) and try and come up with some good inclusions!
In other news, it's good to see that there are still people interested in the Spellslinging version of Riku.
That's quite a good list you've got going there. I don't know if I like Magosi though, simply because it gives opponents too great a tempo boost.
I would also do away with most of the artifact mana in favour of more 2 mana ramp spells.
That's all I can think of for now. In fact, I've got to review my own list before giving more advice!
Amnesia is pretty sweet but I really dislike hitting only one opponent most of the time. It's the same reason I don't usually play Mind Twist in my B/x decks. Though it certainly does sound fun to copy...
Sounds awesome man I can't wait to see the new list. I want this to be my second, new EDH deck after my Ezuri deck.
i love this deck haha. i'll post a picture of a crazy game winning play tomorrow but tonight i'm done testing. I love your version silva, I changed the feeling of dreads in the SB to 1x Skaab Ruinator and 1x GttB.
I run 2 Metamorph in place of Geist MB. I don't like Masticore in the deck, but then again if I start having a problem with Crusader (I might) then I can see it. I think i'd have having 3 of them though...That seems like too many.
it's no problem you'll learn how to play it. If you are new to dredge you should play the deck without DR targets sometime. Not that dredge without DR targets is better but because you learn how to play with the rest of the deck and focus less on dread return. Then you will also really see what wins you the game and what is needed against extraction etc...
it helped me learn to play the deck better.
I totally want too. Have a good list for me to try? I haven't seen one without DR in awhile.
I believe if you look at my initial posts again, you will notice/note that I wasn't flaming at all, and that I was saying that you should try something else. I also did address why the cards aren't good in a classic Kuldotha build.
Please, I will ask one more time, don't get all defensive because I have told you that an idea will not work as well as you want it to. Have I tried the exact list? Of course not, but have I tried things that have led me to believe that it won't work at? I most certainly have.
PS - Genuinely, I am a friendly guy, I don't ever have the intent to rage someone online, so please don't try to do the same to me. I know that ideas of our own can be special to us, but I wouldn't post if I didn't want to help, and I do.
This is literally the nicest thing I've ever seen in a post on here, and the OP just keeps railing you for telling him what to improve on.
i don't know why you don't seem to get the flayer concept. I guess you'll have to test it. It's a better FKZ. And it happens often enough you don't have enough bridges or don't have bridges at all and he is useless while flayer offers a reinforcement of your plan B which is swinging with ichorids etc...
against opponents who know how to play against dredge you will most likely play a grindy game and the times you just go nuts with LED flayer kills in 1 turn 90% of the time. You cabal therapy unwanted cards away, DR him DR troll and nothing can stop you. and if you don't win right away? you pass the turn with an opponent who has a grip of useless cards and a field full of zombies. That is enough, you don't need the fancy in one turn win except against combo and flayer wins in one turn as well, game 1 against combo.
dredge is a very tight deck, it has no slots to use, so we'd better fill every slot with a card that fulfills more than 1 role. FKZ can be a dead card too many times, is often overkill. Flayer can race combo, can bypass moat, peacekeeper etc..., can do grindy games, can work as removal do i have to go on...?
IMO FKZ is the worst target, and if i could choose between running FKZ or not DR targets i would choose no DR targets (which has been my choice for quite some time) and which was enough to win games!
haha I see what you mean...sorry man, I'm totally new to legacy I guess I have this thing where I'm trying to bring new cards into a deck that is by and far already good enough...
I'm totally new to dredge it's a really really fun deck to play and it's probably become my fast favorite for the tight plays and rewarding plays...i really like it.
sorry though, I'll start playing with flayer. I think the problem is I don't really understand how to use it effectively.
just a thing ive noticed, 21 lands is the most this deck needs ive been putting up really good results with my RG elves, splashing only for 4 huntmaster and 2 kessig wolfrun.
Gigafish I love you man, you were one of the people that I saw in the Legacy Elf forum before I even started with Elves in legacy...but I don't think a splash is good right now. I don't think it's consistent enough...I'd love to play you and see your deck or something but I don't think Huntmaster is worth the splash.
This is what I run as my elves list. I really like it and have good matchups against most of the meta due to the resiliency of the tribe. My only complaint would be the impossibility of dealing with Mirran Crusader. The only splash I'd consider adding would be a blue splash. Vapor Snag would help deal with problem creatures, Negate
to deal with sweepers, and maybe the U/G Flashland would be useful. As for a white, red, or black splash is that it slows the deck down enough to eliminate the benefits of running elves in the first place. As wie2323 said Elves are capable of incredibly fast starts. I've had turn four wins before.
Edit: I'm not sure why my card tags within the deck aren't working my apologies.
This is one of the only good decks I've seen posted...Elves really is dead though. I play Elves in every format...I like what someone said doing with Champion of Lambholt.
Gen Wave is fine, but why are people putting dumb things to Gen Wave into? We just need to Gen Wave into Elves...not behemoth or anything, just elves. I'd run 3 GSZ/2 Gen Wave...All Elves, 2 Champion of Lambholt. I'd probably GSZ for that ASAP and if it sticks, you win.
Gen Wave is fine I guess but Behemoth is meh to me. We really need something that will give us haste, but unfortunately there is nothing like that.
The best thing about Elves before Scars was that we had VERY explosive turns by just Ezuri(ing) for 12-30 overrun damage. Stacking Copperhorn/Archdruid is one of the best ways to play Elves still. I don't like most of the other things people are trying to do. Archers is fine because of Delver, swords are meh because we are explosive still...the only card I can honestly think of playing that isn't Gen Wave is Triumph of the Hordes. That seems like it'd be GG if you can't stick a Ezuri but you have archdruid/copperhorn.
Back to testing...I love Elves more than anything, I still have all foils of these cards...Let's break it again ;).
Monogreen is the best though. Just focus on a deck that wins before t6, on the WORST of hands.
I just came back from the 3k tournament i talked yesterday. I went 0-3 drop. Awful luck, the deck works but it wasn't my day to play i guess. I still had the chance to learn some things speaking with some high level players from my city. I will be cutting 1 Ruinator from the main and 1 from the side and 2 Thrun from the side. I'm also looking for adding some mass removal in any way we can find cause ulvenwald tracker sometimes is just not enough and we need a clear path to victory ...
What are you putting in for thrun in the side? He can really run away with some games if you can stick him instead of mill him...
Plus, I'd love to trade my 2 away since they are so high right now :).
I mean like, if you have creatures on the board before you DR for Gisela, she is pretty good right? Swinging for 6 with ichorid, maybe 4 with imp, 2 with naromoeba, 4 with every zombie token...doesn't seem that bad...
Maybe I'm wrong. I definitely get that she does nothing but I hate that Elesh will most likely exile 2-4 Bridges upon being DR'd and just incase you don't win...bad things tend to happen.
EDIT: But I see what you guys mean about the Bridges and stuff. Seems like an important plan...Flayer just seems like a worse FKZ to me because I can't think of that many times where if you DR FKZ you don't just win right there...with Flayer there are times you bring him back/in and you can't get a grave troll out or something and you don't win.
It's more grindy to me that's why I don't like it as much.
Wow, thanks for piloting the deck that much! I've since played a lot of different decks in a gauntlet with it (U/R Todd Anderson.dec, Mono Black Eldrazi, G/x Humans) and I agree that especially Eldrazi is an almost instant loss. I struggled to beat a very good friend of mine and his Eldrazi list I'd say at best it was 60/40 in his favor. I can only imagine access to how strong white is would have made it worse. If I was to go against that deck I would want 3 To the Slaughter to deal with PW and some of their value creatures. I think To the Slaughter is an AMAZING removal spell when combined with the removal suite we currently have and I consistently want to see more in my hand or the graveyard to recur. I think it depends on what they know of the deck. That's not really a good enough defense but I did blow him out before he could see my list. After he knew what I was doing and we went to SB it became more difficult because he took out most removal and brought in hand disruption and easily out-curved me with Thought Knot Seers, Transgress, and Duress. I had access to Languish, Kalitas, Roast, Ob Nix, and Dragon Master Outcast though.
I really like playing mind-wrack demon and he is an allstar...against very certain decks. Other decks he can be a huge liability...pretty much anything that can clue him makes it very difficult. It's the first thing I side out for Kalitas (really valuable against decks where I know the life gain and my spot removal will shine) and Dragonmaster Outcast (late game bomb like mindwrack but constant threat that they might have to waste strong removal on).
I'm not sure if this will catch on or not but a card that TRULY blows this deck completely out of the water is Infinite Obliteration. My friend piloting the monoblack Eldrazi deck sided them in against me and if he drew it and named GDD it was EXTREMELY difficult, if not impossible to recover. Not only that but he could then name Mindwrack and I'm down to very little threats to even win the game.
Is our creature package a big enough threat? Should we be thinking about adding in exquisite firecraft or fiery impulse to burn our opponent with flashback for the win? Should we splash green for Sylvan Advocate and Den Protector and Pulse of Murasa for probably the strongest recursion package that Standard has seen in a very long time?
At this point I still love the deck and it's performing considerably well against a majority of the field still, but it's closer to a coin flip than I would like sometime. This deck still did really well against the Bant CoCo deck for me (their threats are all easily removed with our removal).
Going forward there's some serious changes to make - I think that Languish is a mandatory MB card after the Open and going forward in this format, if something is below 4 toughness we will always have a phenomenal out to it. At the same time - we only have Mindwrack in theory right now to avoid a languish. Ultimate Price seems weak MB because it's a completely dead draw against Eldrazi, already one of the worst match ups of the deck. Angel of Avacyn is difficult for us to deal with but at least we are in line with the rest of standard in finding it hard to deal with her.
Just let me know what you think you would change. I'm strongly thinking of splashing green just to increase the amount of creatures we can play. Our creatures are so based on value that if they get Declaration in Stone'd it's really hard to come back from that. Also we can't recur them with KCommand afterwards. Is playing hand disruption/removal really enough to get us to turns 4-6, and once we are in the mid game is our deck strong enough to maintain a lead on the board and in card advantage?
Let me know what you guys think. Thanks again for testing the deck.
2 P&K
4 Goblin Dark Dwellers
4 Mindwrack Demon
PW:
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
Spells:
3 Dead Weight
4 Grasp of Darkness
4 Transgress the Mind
2 Ruinous Path
1 To the Slaughter
2 Kozilek's Return
3 K-Command
3 Read the Bones
4 Smoldering Marsh
4 Foreboding Ruins
4 Evolving Wilds
2 Blighted Fens
5 Mountain
7 Swamp
2 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Virulent Plague
2 Kalitas
3 Duress
2 Ultimate Price
1 Ob Nix
2 Languish
2 Roast
Fiery Impulse was never worth it for me. Kalitas is only good against certain decks in others he instantly dies because anything below 4 toughness in this meta is going to be easiest to kill with languish becoming a big board wipe. Mindwrack is a 4 of, insanely powerful card. Pie and K are better MB than Kalitas but I switch them out together usually. Kozi's Return can wreck CoCo hitting Jace, but not all their cards. Does great against humans by t3 unless they have a god draw you can wipe a decent board.
If you're facing one of the strange mill decks or U/R fevered visions decks, you want to take out mindwracks and bring in all your hand disruption and dragonmaster outcasts/ob nix etc. because they don't play very many creatures. Grasp needs to be a 4 of because it takes care of almost every major threat in standard during the early - middle levels of the game.
I don't think hangarback fits in this deck at all, I wouldn't really want to pump it because I want to be doing this to disrupt them during their turn and then further my board state. A regular game goes t1 dead weight a human or something, t2 transgress/grasp t3 kcommand, ruinous, read the bones, t4 mindwrack or P&K, t5 flashback a spell and win the game because GDD is ultimate value.
Sounds awesome man I can't wait to see the new list. I want this to be my second, new EDH deck after my Ezuri deck.
I totally want too. Have a good list for me to try? I haven't seen one without DR in awhile.
This is literally the nicest thing I've ever seen in a post on here, and the OP just keeps railing you for telling him what to improve on.
Wow internet. Faith=gone.
i have 4 available to me in sb/MD.
i'll try shieldmate a long with you guys :).
I like boneyard wurm a ton though. 4/4/4 on ghoultree/fright/wurm
haha I see what you mean...sorry man, I'm totally new to legacy I guess I have this thing where I'm trying to bring new cards into a deck that is by and far already good enough...
I'm totally new to dredge it's a really really fun deck to play and it's probably become my fast favorite for the tight plays and rewarding plays...i really like it.
sorry though, I'll start playing with flayer. I think the problem is I don't really understand how to use it effectively.
Gigafish I love you man, you were one of the people that I saw in the Legacy Elf forum before I even started with Elves in legacy...but I don't think a splash is good right now. I don't think it's consistent enough...I'd love to play you and see your deck or something but I don't think Huntmaster is worth the splash.
This is one of the only good decks I've seen posted...Elves really is dead though. I play Elves in every format...I like what someone said doing with Champion of Lambholt.
Gen Wave is fine, but why are people putting dumb things to Gen Wave into? We just need to Gen Wave into Elves...not behemoth or anything, just elves. I'd run 3 GSZ/2 Gen Wave...All Elves, 2 Champion of Lambholt. I'd probably GSZ for that ASAP and if it sticks, you win.
Gen Wave is fine I guess but Behemoth is meh to me. We really need something that will give us haste, but unfortunately there is nothing like that.
The best thing about Elves before Scars was that we had VERY explosive turns by just Ezuri(ing) for 12-30 overrun damage. Stacking Copperhorn/Archdruid is one of the best ways to play Elves still. I don't like most of the other things people are trying to do. Archers is fine because of Delver, swords are meh because we are explosive still...the only card I can honestly think of playing that isn't Gen Wave is Triumph of the Hordes. That seems like it'd be GG if you can't stick a Ezuri but you have archdruid/copperhorn.
Back to testing...I love Elves more than anything, I still have all foils of these cards...Let's break it again ;).
Monogreen is the best though. Just focus on a deck that wins before t6, on the WORST of hands.
What are you putting in for thrun in the side? He can really run away with some games if you can stick him instead of mill him...
Plus, I'd love to trade my 2 away since they are so high right now :).
Maybe I'm wrong. I definitely get that she does nothing but I hate that Elesh will most likely exile 2-4 Bridges upon being DR'd and just incase you don't win...bad things tend to happen.
EDIT: But I see what you guys mean about the Bridges and stuff. Seems like an important plan...Flayer just seems like a worse FKZ to me because I can't think of that many times where if you DR FKZ you don't just win right there...with Flayer there are times you bring him back/in and you can't get a grave troll out or something and you don't win.
It's more grindy to me that's why I don't like it as much.
Cockatrice
EST time.