4x Faithless Looting
3x Life from the Loam
2x Gnaw to the Bone
2x Unburial Rites
2x Lightning Axe
2x Mana Confluence
4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Dakmor Salvage
1x Forest
Sideboard
3x Pithing Needle
2x Leyline of the Void
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Darkblast
1x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
4x Nature’s Claim
Have been throwing the idea of playing Greater Gargadon around to avoid things like Anger of the Gods, and Path to Exile. With that I'd try some number of Bridge from Below as well to run along side of it. I saw Magus_of_the_Moon running a list with those cards and thought it'd be a good idea to toy with them as well. I'd be dropping a portion of the Rites package to make the room for the cards. But I think want to keep Elesh Norn in the list for right now.
So... I went 4-0 last modern day at the local fnm. That is with misplays too! (I played dredge in legacy and vintage though so I am somewhat familiar with the archetype hehe...) but I went with magus_of_the_moon's list as I LOVE gargadon. Having a sac outlet that eventually becomes a HUGE threat won me about 1/4 games including one where nahiri was about to ultimate next turn and I needed the speed. I am tempted by unburial rites (but less tempted by the slowness) due to the traditional drede builds.
Thing is, I'm pretty sure I don't know how prized amalgam works exactly. Someone said in an interview that it sees itself so it can kinda go infinite and this kinda confused me. Does this mean when it enters the battlefield at the beginning of my endstep, I can sac it during my end step and it will recur on my opponent's end step? prized amalgam
A brief rules explanation would be great as it'd be hillarious if that one game where I swung for 59 turn three could have been more. (I popped rally the peasants to play around removal and blocks not just win-more)
You need at least two Prized Amalgam to go infinite. One has to be in the Yard while the other returns. You can however return the same Amalgam multiple times if you have triggered him that many times before the beginning of the end step since the triggers are still there even if Amalgam has returned once. This way you can accumulate a lot of triggers for the next end step with another Amalgam in the yard which then can also trigger the first one again.
Just don't forget it has to see the return of a creature while being in the yard and don't mix up which Amalgam got how many triggers.
@ Parmaha
can you please link to Magus' list?
You can't return Amalgam multiple times per turn. If you return one and then sacrifice it with the other triggers still on the stack, it won't come back again in the same turn since it will have changed zones and thus become a new object. It would need new triggers to return again.
What you can however do with multiple Amalgams is to let all but on of them enter the battlefield, then with the last one's trigger(s) still on the stack, sacrifice all the other ones. The last one entering the battlefield will then trigger all the others to come back in the next end step, where you can do the same trick again. So with multiple Amalgams and a few bridges and a sac outlet you can quickly amass lots of zombies.
You can't return Amalgam multiple times per turn. If you return one and then sacrifice it with the other triggers still on the stack, it won't come back again in the same turn since it will have changed zones and thus become a new object. It would need new triggers to return again.
What you can however do with multiple Amalgams is to let all but on of them enter the battlefield, then with the last one's trigger(s) still on the stack, sacrifice all the other ones. The last one entering the battlefield will then trigger all the others to come back in the next end step, where you can do the same trick again. So with multiple Amalgams and a few bridges and a sac outlet you can quickly amass lots of zombies.
I thought I knew the stack, but I’m a little confused on this. Would you sac. the other 3 amalgams on your end step in order to put the last trigger on your opponent’s end step?
Thanks for the clarification! I could not find a way that it actually went infinite so I'm comforted now. The person must have just meant that you can repeatedly sac them over turns and spoken with hyperbole.
As for magus's list. That's it in the op. It's definitely good. I think gargadon is the way to go honestly. The way it plays around counters is so powerful while providing some awesome inevitability. The deck has some bad hands but fortunately dredge mulligans probably better than any other deck in modern. Bad hands are also a pretty defining characteristic of the archetype so I'm fine with that. I don't think this is a deck you rep every week though as it is pretty squishy.
Figured since I have been playing around with mdoern dredge for quite some time I should post my current list. A friend of mine tipped me off to Stitchwing Skaab awhile back and since then my list has converged to the ones in this thread.
My key takeaways from testing so far:
- Bridge From Below - Modern lacks a suitable sac outlet making the decks with this card extremely high in variance.
- Vengevine - Was far too slow in my testing since it just gives your opponent time to combo themselves or assemble their grave hate. Also a little cute with the cast triggers since that was sometimes very very hard to pull off.
- Unburial Rites - Adding the need for white in the manabase necessitates the use of 4+ pentacolored lands and they end up losing you too many games either by running out of counters (Gemstone Mine) or straight up killing you (Mana Confluence). This is addition to the fact that it adds 3-4 dead cards in the maindeck that are solely useful for the combo.
Notes:
- I am aware the mana in the deck is rough. That said you are not intending to cast any black spells but can dredge dakmoor salvage consistently enough that if the game is grindy enough you have the option.
- The power of the deck lies in the Stitchwing Skaab + Prized Amalgam interaction and the rest of the free creatures which combine with Rally the Peasants to end games quickly and often steal games you would not otherwise win. Its definitely not terribly common but I have had multiple turn three kills with this configuration.
- The biggest issue for dredge decks is the sideboarded graveyard hate. That said I would much rather have the fastest kill possible to force them to have it turn 1 or 2 instead of durdling around with vengevine. I have stolen wins against T2 Rest in Pieces by simply putting out sufficient power on my turn that they couldn't deal with it using their otherwise weak hand.
- This version of the deck does suffer from inconsistency issues though. You are mostly forced to mulligan until you have both land and a T1 discard outlet (Sometimes you can fudge on the dredger if its faithless). Too often for my taste this costs you games since you mull to a bad 4 and cannot get the deck going.
- Drowned Rusalka - I have it in for testing at the moment. As many of you have mentioned the Thought Scour is not very good but the rest of the options are generally as bad or worse. This seems promising as a bad Prized neonate since you can activate it on your upkeep and still get a double dredge in on 'T1'. Any opinions here?
As always I would love any feedback on my list. I am still working to figure out the consistency issues as well as the landbase and sideboard.
Cheers,
Eps.
EDIT: I forgot to ask if anyone has good sideboard tech versus Anger of the Gods without using white or black? That card is a beating and some of the PrimevalShift decks are running 3-4 Maindeck of all things ~.~
There is a lot in common with some lists above, the main difference is that we play bridges and rally, and burning inquiry instead of street wraith, and loam instead of extra shivan reef.
We found loam and bridges to be excellent all weekend. Burning inquiry is so efficient when it works. Having access to rally was amazing.
I like where this is going, comments are more than welcome!
NB: the main change we do in the 75 from charlotte if we had to play tomorrow would be to cut Leylines in the SB for a couple of memory's journey.
My friend has been sweeping the local meta with thia dredge deck that he had been doing well with but because of work conflicts cannot make it to gpla.
So I'm building this list as of right now. Saw this on MTGO today and I really like it a lot. Hopefully Eldritch Moon gives us a few goodies to help push this deck. Anyway, what's the one card do you think we need to make the push in being more competitive? And let's not say Dread Return because that's not going to be in Modern anytime soon.
Oh snap! We're on our way up! Bring us some goodies Eldritch Moon!
In all seriousness, this deck is constantly placing 5-0 in nearly every competitive MTGO League everyday. There is something clicking with this deck right now and I hope more people jump on the train!
So basically we have a few different Dredge enabler. The fixed ones are Faithless Looting and Insolent Neonates. The version I am playing currently has in addition 4 Tome Scour and 3 Burning Inquiry. The benefit of this configuration is more consistency because it is more likely to start the engine and you only have to play 16 lands. Therefore you have more deckspace which you can fill with dredgers and flexslots like rally, gnaw, darkblast or conflagrate.
On the other hand both Tome Scour and Burning Inquiry not necesserely start the engine. Sometimes they do, Burning Inquiry even sometimes turns half the deck upside down, but sometimes you just lose because you hit no dredgers. So a different configuration could be 19 lands and 4 Tormenting Voice. This also seems to be viable but takes away some explosiveness. To be honest in my games I have played so far, I rarely used Burning Inquiry.
The benefit of Tormenting Voice is, that it obviously does not need a dredger in grave and is not as random as tome scour is. With 19 lands you are also more likely to have 3 lands, which can be crucial if you have to resolve a gnaw to the bone vs burn or a Looting flashback.
So what are you thoughts on Tome Scour + Burning Inquiry vs. +3 lands and Tormenting Voice ?
4x Bloodghast
4x Insolent Neonate
4x Narcomoeba
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Prized Amalgam
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2x Stitchwing Skaab
4x Faithless Looting
3x Life from the Loam
2x Gnaw to the Bone
2x Unburial Rites
2x Lightning Axe
2x Mana Confluence
4x City of Brass
4x Gemstone Mine
4x Copperline Gorge
4x Dakmor Salvage
1x Forest
Sideboard
3x Pithing Needle
2x Leyline of the Void
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Darkblast
1x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
4x Nature’s Claim
Have been throwing the idea of playing Greater Gargadon around to avoid things like Anger of the Gods, and Path to Exile. With that I'd try some number of Bridge from Below as well to run along side of it. I saw Magus_of_the_Moon running a list with those cards and thought it'd be a good idea to toy with them as well. I'd be dropping a portion of the Rites package to make the room for the cards. But I think want to keep Elesh Norn in the list for right now.
It functions as amazingly as Bazaar does with the added benefit of eating removal your opponent should be saving for other guys.
View on CubeTutor
Draft it!
Thing is, I'm pretty sure I don't know how prized amalgam works exactly. Someone said in an interview that it sees itself so it can kinda go infinite and this kinda confused me. Does this mean when it enters the battlefield at the beginning of my endstep, I can sac it during my end step and it will recur on my opponent's end step? prized amalgam
A brief rules explanation would be great as it'd be hillarious if that one game where I swung for 59 turn three could have been more. (I popped rally the peasants to play around removal and blocks not just win-more)
You can't return Amalgam multiple times per turn. If you return one and then sacrifice it with the other triggers still on the stack, it won't come back again in the same turn since it will have changed zones and thus become a new object. It would need new triggers to return again.
What you can however do with multiple Amalgams is to let all but on of them enter the battlefield, then with the last one's trigger(s) still on the stack, sacrifice all the other ones. The last one entering the battlefield will then trigger all the others to come back in the next end step, where you can do the same trick again. So with multiple Amalgams and a few bridges and a sac outlet you can quickly amass lots of zombies.
Magus' list:
http://i.imgur.com/jx1Udiu.jpg
As for magus's list. That's it in the op. It's definitely good. I think gargadon is the way to go honestly. The way it plays around counters is so powerful while providing some awesome inevitability. The deck has some bad hands but fortunately dredge mulligans probably better than any other deck in modern. Bad hands are also a pretty defining characteristic of the archetype so I'm fine with that. I don't think this is a deck you rep every week though as it is pretty squishy.
My key takeaways from testing so far:
- Bridge From Below - Modern lacks a suitable sac outlet making the decks with this card extremely high in variance.
- Vengevine - Was far too slow in my testing since it just gives your opponent time to combo themselves or assemble their grave hate. Also a little cute with the cast triggers since that was sometimes very very hard to pull off.
- Unburial Rites - Adding the need for white in the manabase necessitates the use of 4+ pentacolored lands and they end up losing you too many games either by running out of counters (Gemstone Mine) or straight up killing you (Mana Confluence). This is addition to the fact that it adds 3-4 dead cards in the maindeck that are solely useful for the combo.
3 Dakmor Salvage
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Island
1 Mountain
//Dat Dredge (14 W/ the Salvage)
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Golgari Thug
1 Life from the Loam
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stitchwing Skaab
//Start the Engine (12)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Insolent Neonate
3 Thought Scour
1 Drowned Rusalka
//The Combo (2)
2 Rally the Peasants
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Natural State
4 Lightning Axe
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Pithing Needle
1 Swan Song
1 Conflagrate
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Negate
Notes:
- I am aware the mana in the deck is rough. That said you are not intending to cast any black spells but can dredge dakmoor salvage consistently enough that if the game is grindy enough you have the option.
- The power of the deck lies in the Stitchwing Skaab + Prized Amalgam interaction and the rest of the free creatures which combine with Rally the Peasants to end games quickly and often steal games you would not otherwise win. Its definitely not terribly common but I have had multiple turn three kills with this configuration.
- The biggest issue for dredge decks is the sideboarded graveyard hate. That said I would much rather have the fastest kill possible to force them to have it turn 1 or 2 instead of durdling around with vengevine. I have stolen wins against T2 Rest in Pieces by simply putting out sufficient power on my turn that they couldn't deal with it using their otherwise weak hand.
- This version of the deck does suffer from inconsistency issues though. You are mostly forced to mulligan until you have both land and a T1 discard outlet (Sometimes you can fudge on the dredger if its faithless). Too often for my taste this costs you games since you mull to a bad 4 and cannot get the deck going.
- Drowned Rusalka - I have it in for testing at the moment. As many of you have mentioned the Thought Scour is not very good but the rest of the options are generally as bad or worse. This seems promising as a bad Prized neonate since you can activate it on your upkeep and still get a double dredge in on 'T1'. Any opinions here?
As always I would love any feedback on my list. I am still working to figure out the consistency issues as well as the landbase and sideboard.
Cheers,
Eps.
EDIT: I forgot to ask if anyone has good sideboard tech versus Anger of the Gods without using white or black? That card is a beating and some of the PrimevalShift decks are running 3-4 Maindeck of all things ~.~
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
Wrap in Vigor, Spell Pierce/Invasive Surgery?
4 Bloodghast
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Insolent Neonate
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Llanowar Mentor
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
4 Faithless Looting
3 Life from the Loam
2 Unburial Rites
Enchantment [2]
2 Zombie Infestation
Land [18]
2 City of Brass
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Conflagrate
2 Darkblast
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Ray of Revelation
If I were to pick up the deck, I'd probably play that. I just love the combo here.
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
My friend did well at GP Charlotte with the version we've been working on for a while:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/c...tte-2016-05-22
There is a lot in common with some lists above, the main difference is that we play bridges and rally, and burning inquiry instead of street wraith, and loam instead of extra shivan reef.
We found loam and bridges to be excellent all weekend. Burning inquiry is so efficient when it works. Having access to rally was amazing.
I like where this is going, comments are more than welcome!
NB: the main change we do in the 75 from charlotte if we had to play tomorrow would be to cut Leylines in the SB for a couple of memory's journey.
Ooh, I had forgotten about invasive surgery. It doesn't stop cryptic command but it gets most of the other stuff i'm concerned about.
Thanks!
GUGEdric, Spymaster of Trest - Elfball
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic- Doomsday!
RWUEphara, God of the Polis - Blink + Control
GBGGlissa, the Traitor - Stax & Lands
URGMaelstrom Wanderer - Goodstuff RUG
RGWMayael the Anima - Timmy
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher - The One Hit Wonder
RGWMarath, Will of the Wild - Old-school Enchantress Hate
RWRAurelia, the Warleader - Equipment Aggro
GGGReki, the History of Kamigawa - Legends + Banding
UBRSedris, the Traitor King - Creatures with : Ability
BUBPhenax, God of Deception - Mill
*Sidenote, I specifically excluded infinite combos from all these decks with the exception of Marath and the squirrel nest + Earthcraft combo.
Looking for something Aggressive in modern? Try - BR Aggro
I bumped up to 3 Swan Songs in my board because my deck can only race combo, not outrace it. Stopping board wipes and RIP are nice bonuses.
My friend has been sweeping the local meta with thia dredge deck that he had been doing well with but because of work conflicts cannot make it to gpla.
But his deck is this:
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Thug
4 Bloodghast
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Faithless Looting
4 Bridge From Below
//Lands:
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Dakmor Salvage
2 Mountain
1 Smoldering Marsh
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
Sorcery (13)
4 Burning Inquiry
3 Conflagrate
4 Faithless Looting
2 Life from the Loam
Instant (3)
2 Darkblast
1 Rally the Peasants
1 Shriekhorn
Land (19)
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Darkblast
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Bojuka Bog
1 Flame Jab
2 Gnaw to the Bone
1 Memory's Journey
3 Nature's Claim
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Surgical Extraction
For more information on the May metagame update, please check this post in the Metagame Thread:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/566735-modern-metagame-discussion-thread-updated-6-7-2016?comment=1210
Oh snap! We're on our way up! Bring us some goodies Eldritch Moon!
In all seriousness, this deck is constantly placing 5-0 in nearly every competitive MTGO League everyday. There is something clicking with this deck right now and I hope more people jump on the train!
On the other hand both Tome Scour and Burning Inquiry not necesserely start the engine. Sometimes they do, Burning Inquiry even sometimes turns half the deck upside down, but sometimes you just lose because you hit no dredgers. So a different configuration could be 19 lands and 4 Tormenting Voice. This also seems to be viable but takes away some explosiveness. To be honest in my games I have played so far, I rarely used Burning Inquiry.
The benefit of Tormenting Voice is, that it obviously does not need a dredger in grave and is not as random as tome scour is. With 19 lands you are also more likely to have 3 lands, which can be crucial if you have to resolve a gnaw to the bone vs burn or a Looting flashback.
So what are you thoughts on Tome Scour + Burning Inquiry vs. +3 lands and Tormenting Voice ?