MTG Salvation

Hey guys. I'm taking dredge to a weekly modern event tomorrow and want to refine my list before I head in. Here's what I'm working with so far:

If you can consistently win on turn 3 you've successfully broken modern. What's your list? I used to play the list that placed at MOCS with a more standard manabase, -1 rats and +1 loam and I thought too many things had to line up for Vengevines to be useful, even they're more explosive when it comes together. With dredge you can just flip over cards into your graveyard, hit your land drops and your game plan comes together naturally

I think Bridge from Below isn't worth the slots if your deck isn't built to abuse it properly like the gargadon version is. You'd be better off adding in 3-4 tormenting voice and 0-1 utility flex slots (darkblast, third conflagrate, third loam, lightning axe) so you have a higher density of enablers in your deck and therefore have more keepable hands. Also I think maybe 3 dakmor salvage could be too much and you might want to swap one out for an untapped red source, but that's mostly down to personal preference

Dredgevine isn't that much more expensive than regular dredge - the only added expense of note is vengevine at $20 each and blackcleave cliffs over copperline gorge, but the decks share the same core cards. Here's an article written by Lee Shi Tan shortly after Magnus Lantto & Oliver Tiu placed well at a MOCS with dredgevine about his experience with the deck. In two later articles, he goes on to basically design the framework for the tier 1 loam/conflag version currently seeing a lot of play on modo http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/lee-shi-tian/bad-dredge-bad-dredge

Any deck that performs well and seems like it might be too strong for modern (even though people aren't sideboarding vs it yet too much) is under scrutiny for a ban. See: twin, bloom, pod

The difference between dredge and dredgevine is that we get to play up to 15 enablers in our deck (inc. shriekhorn and tormenting voice) because our deck's core takes up so much less space in the deck, and our deck's game plan is enabled just dredging so we're a lot more consistent. Additionally our build has access to either the broken gargadon/bridge engine or consistent turn 4 lethal conflagrate. Sure we fold to graveyard hate harder than dredgevine, but when you're faster than turn 2 rip on the play does it matter?

Ross Merriam just won the scg open this weekend with bridge combo dredge - same list as Todd Anderson as far as I can tell. Deck looked incredible on camera too; he only dropped one game in the top 8

I lay out my playing area in a similar way to jwelt, with a few changes (image is attached at the bottom)

Graveyard is fanned out in rows across the top of the playmat, and a second row can start on top of the first row overlapping so I can read which cards are in my graveyard at all times without taking up too much space

Creatures are in the middle, with any suspended gargadons on the left side of this area (not relevant for me anymore as I'm back to loam / conflagrate after testing earlier today), and lands down the bottom. The deck goes on the right side somewhere between lands & creatures, and exiled cards are turned sideways and sit above the deck

To dredge, I put my hand on the mat face down with the dredger on top of it face up, then pick up my deck and deal out the appropriate number of cards face-down so my opponent can count them before flipping them all over at once & putting them into the graveyard. Also I announce my triggers but don't mess with my graveyard by turning cards sideways to denote narcomoeba or amalgam triggers

I play dredge in legacy too and this setup works equally well for it as it does for modern dredge btw

Looks like dredge won another SCG tournament is being played at another SCG tournament by multiple players with the bridge / gargadon combo http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/dredge_with_todd_anderson.html

I know we like to say it has consistency issues but it seems like it's broken enough for it to be worth destabilising the deck like that. No copies of loam feels super bold, but the list that won that SCG classic last week also didn't play it, so maybe it's more of a crutch than it seems

The main problem I see with Burning Inquiry is with the relatively low density of quality dredgers (only 8 plus loams), it's not likely enough to be able to consistently set up a turn 2 Inquiry to blast through your deck to make it worth playing imo. Sometimes you draw a hand with two lands, a dredger, a neonate and an inquiry and you T4 them no problem, but a lot of the time Inquiry is your only enabler and you're forced to mulligan. If we had a one mana discard outlet creature in the style of Putrid Imp or Tireless Tribe, we'd instantly cut out all Shriekhorns and probably all Tormenting Voices to play 4 Inquiry and play 4 thugs to capitalise on it better, but until then I think it's probably best to stick with the slower but more consistent enablers. We're still fast enough to beat a lot of modern decks with tormenting voice and shriekhorn

Don't know why you're concerned about discarding sideboard cards to inquiry though, it should be the first card you side out imo

@ PaBlItO What's your current list? Interested to playtest it and see how its consistency is compared to the loam / conflag version. Bridge/gargadon combo definitely has a lot more raw power to it

If one of the mods sees this post & has a spare minute, could you please have a look at shifting us out of developing competitive? According to the spreadsheet we're at the bottom of tier 1 now

Looks like a pretty solid list, and 4 simian spirit guide is interesting, but I'm not a fan of his manabase at all. At this point we're basically a RG deck with a very light black splash for darkblast and sometimes casting stinkwed imp, so why is he running a rainbow manabase? I feel like his build would be much better off if he replaced the 12 rainbow lands with 8 fetches, 2 stomping ground, 1 blood crypt and 1 mountain

Quote from PaBlItO »

[deck]
There IS an issue with being almost unable to throw your dredgers away later on (outside of flashback looting). Which is why i think i should try haunted dead as a card. 2 mana and 2 cards is pretty good.

Have you tried a 1 of Phantasmagorian for discarding dredgers? It's kind of a nombo with Conflagrate / Loam but your version doesn't run that package anyway, so I think it'd be helpful. Plus it helps to get bloodghasts & prized amalgams out of your hand in the early game for no mana investment

Black is usually slightly easier on the manabase so most people play Darkness over Haze afaik