DREADGE!!!!

aqualad33 · Level 1 Judge Joined: 18 Jan 2010 Posts: 252

Lately I've taken to playing to boogyman of legacy, the evil concoction that everyone loaths and fears, Dredge. In recent years however dredge has become much better do to the release of flayer of the hatebound, a card that I originally found quite odd in a dredge list however it makes the deck much more resistent to targeted graveyard disruption and still enables a combo kill (one that does not involve the redzone at that) (for those who do not know it, dread return flayer 4 damage, dread return grave troll 11+ damage, cabal theraby using flayer as the sac 5 damage).

The way I have it currently I am looking to have the most explosive dredge deck possible g1 (currently it consistently kills on turn 3, sometimes on turn 2, and every once in a while pulls off a turn 1 win). G2, depends on what I'm playing against.

If its an absurd graveyard deck that you are playing against (like the mirror, or reanimator) I'll board like this -1flayer -1 dread return -1 LED -2 Ichorid +4 leyline of the void +1 Iona. Against them, having the combo kill is not that big of a deal, its much more important to maintain your decks consistency and have an opportunity at a free win then it is to win 1 turn sooner.

Against combo decks I just swap flayer for iona to be able to win without having to wait for both dread returns. Cabal therapy slows them down long enough for you to outright win before they have what they need to combo off. However if you are playing combo deck looking to mill you out instead swap 1 winds with blightsteel colossus so that if they go for the combo win, they will instead just set you up to instant kill them.

against counter heavy control decks swap out tolarian winds with firestorms since the discard is a cost and thus sneaks through counters (this is something recommended by a lot of pros however I'm not sure yet if this is any better then just battleing through their countermagic)

against decks that you know you have an excelent matchup against but they will be bringing in surgical's and macabre's in for their graveyard disruption (these are becoming more popular because they are the only ones that are effective against reanimator) swap the careful studies and a LED for street wraiths. You can respond to their hate by cycling the wraith and dredging their target and it does not hurt your consistency that much since its still a free draw spell, and it also fuels your ichorids. I may consider swaping these for nether shadows though since 2 extractions 1 on ichorid and 1 on narcomoeba does a huge number on this deck so that would force them to have to have 3 surgicals to mess me up.

against beatdown decks like mavric just swap flayer for elesh norn, same goes for delver and stoneblade. A resolved elesh norn means that your opponest board gets wiped, he can't play creatures or attack with anything smaller then a 5/5 (and still your more then likely just going to double block it).

as for the ancient grudges, they are there to hedge against problematic artifacts, like isochron's scepter.

anyways here is the list I'm currently testing, I would appreciate any feedback you guys have.

// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)

// Lands
4 [TSB] Gemstone Mine
2 [VI] Undiscovered Paradise
4 [7E] City of Brass
4 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum

// Creatures
3 [TO] Ichorid
4 [RAV] Stinkweed Imp
4 [RAV] Golgari Grave-Troll
4 [RAV] Golgari Thug
4 [FUT] Narcomoeba
1 [DKA] Flayer of the Hatebound

// Spells
4 [TO] Breakthrough
3 [MI] Lion's Eye Diamond
4 [FUT] Bridge from Below
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
2 [OD] Careful Study
2 [TSP] Dread Return
4 [DKA] Faithless Looting
3 [BD] Tolarian Winds

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [M11] Leyline of the Void
SB: 3 [WL] Firestorm
SB: 1 [NPH] Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
SB: 1 [ZEN] Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 1 [MBS] Blightsteel Colossus
SB: 2 [TSP] Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 [FUT] Street Wraith

quiet_riot · Joined: 11 Mar 2008 Posts: 144

Leyline of the Void is kinda antisynergistic?

doc_morriar · Joined: 15 May 2008 Posts: 81

Spyx · Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 1186

Leyline is fine, reanimate is a very bad matchup and it's dominates the mirror too.
I like playing some putrid imps over tolarian winds to make ichorid better (right now you only have 11 black creatures in the deck and you don't want to remove a dredger early on). I still think flame-kin zealot is better maindeck than flayer is, since it requires only 1 dread return to win. I guess there are people on magic-league that actually play moats so thats why you go with flayer? If you want the most explosive game 1 you should have 4 leds.

aqualad33 · Level 1 Judge Joined: 18 Jan 2010 Posts: 252

RThomas · Level 1 Judge Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 389

Leyline of the Void only affects the opponent's graveyard, guy.