Hello from the dredge side of legacy. I am sorry for your loss and the loss of a very formidable deck. I enjoyed playing vs Miracles even though the odds weren't much in my favor. I hope to play you all with different decks but the same confidence as you all had with Miracles.
So lately, I've been less afraid of surgical extraction because I've diversified my threats. I run flame jab, which is a more grindy version of conflagrate, Scrapheap Scrounger, Scourge Devil, and (more recently) Worm Harvest. The latter, I feel, makes our super grindy matches very inevitable. Turn 5, you pretty much start getting anywhere between 5-10 power on the board per turn, which for the mana cost, is basically a GGT with trample.
Is it just me or is Worm Harvest really good for us in some super grindy matchups? By turn 5, we have so many lands in the grave that we'd be generating immense numbers of worm tokens every turn afterwards. I think it might deserve an experimental slot in the SB.
The dredge player was probably playing this cards you've listed above, because his teammates stole the better options.
That´s a lot of points to consider when you´re going to share cards.. People which has limited budget (cards) and need to build decks for their entire team could explain it better.
So yes, I think this Unified list is far from the most optimal.
It's a pity as it's skewed the meta data on mtggoldfish and mtgtop8 as a result... It would appear on the surface that dredge has reduced in numbers, but that may only be due to each team not being able to play more than 1 dredge deck if at all.
I'm currently updating to jnclude 2x bojuka bog into my sideboard instead of leylines, replacing the LEYLINES with some 2 more natures claim. I just wonder about maybe only including 1 bojuka bog and including 1 ghost quarter. I know adding the ghost quarter would be personal preference but the real question I'm asking to those who have playtested the bog is; is 1 bojuka bog consistent enough against dredge?
In terms of grave hate, I wouldn't be worried about dredge with bojuka big as much as Goryo's Vengence and other instant speed reanimator strategies. Leyline is a turn 0 solution to a turn 2 or 3 problem. While Living End helps us more than hurts us, they also have ways of controlling our graves with Faerie Macabre and Extractions. So if you can use something to replace Leyline, it should either be permenant or instant.
How many Nature's Claims are competitive Dredge players bringing in G2? For example against Grixis, Jeskai, or Jund.
Not seeing what specific hate how much change are players willing to make?
In a large event in the dark, I would bring in the 3 claims if I'm on the back foot after G1. If you win g1 and are in the dark, hand disruption is my go-to. In a small event, do your homework and find out what people are playing against you and write notes. It helps you considerably in SB choices.
I don't play Dredge.
Answer still applicable. Some players who know the matchups will bring in all of them if they suspect the right hate. If they just don't know what some people bring in, then it's up to the player. I board in Thoughtsieze and Collective Brutality if I'm up a game. But if there's black involved, then I always suspect Leyline and board accordingly.
I was wondering about this when it comes to sideboarding. At the FNM I attend there is plenty of hate. In the scenario where my opponent sides in 3 Leylines and some number of Angers, should I look to have a Brutality on the play, and Claim on the draw?
If your opponent is playing Leyline, you want the Claim regardless of play or draw. The anger can be played around, but the Leyline only has one answer. If you fetch to play around your opponent's possible anger, you can end up dealing a lot of damage, putting them at conflag range. Assuming they're Grixis or Jund, since most decks that run Leyline also want to cast it and afford double black or red, they fetch a lot and probably shock sometimes too, which helps a lot. Another thing you might do is simply returning a small force to beat down for damage before going for the big kill with Scourge or Rally, forcing them to pop anger off early and allowing you to rebuild on the crack back.
How many Nature's Claims are competitive Dredge players bringing in G2? For example against Grixis, Jeskai, or Jund.
Not seeing what specific hate how much change are players willing to make?
In a large event in the dark, I would bring in the 3 claims if I'm on the back foot after G1. If you win g1 and are in the dark, hand disruption is my go-to. In a small event, do your homework and find out what people are playing against you and write notes. It helps you considerably in SB choices.
I don't play Dredge.
Answer still applicable. Some players who know the matchups will bring in all of them if they suspect the right hate. If they just don't know what some people bring in, then it's up to the player. I board in Thoughtsieze and Collective Brutality if I'm up a game. But if there's black involved, then I always suspect Leyline and board accordingly.
I have a love hate realionship with claim. I love it, but I also hate it. It does what I want, but only if its in my opener, and I hate running it as a 4 of. I generally run it as a 2 of. Most players on paper run it as a 4 of though and I assume bring it in almost every match.
I agree with you on the utility of Claim, but then again, an instant that'll be better than Claim won't get printed, so we're stuck with that or hand interaction. I only bring them in when I know that I'm gonna see either an artifact or enchantment that will need answering. Going in blind with them is a little risky, so keep notes about certain matchups and bring in discard in the dark.
How many Nature's Claims are competitive Dredge players bringing in G2? For example against Grixis, Jeskai, or Jund.
Not seeing what specific hate how much change are players willing to make?
In a large event in the dark, I would bring in the 3 claims if I'm on the back foot after G1. If you win g1 and are in the dark, hand disruption is my go-to. In a small event, do your homework and find out what people are playing against you and write notes. It helps you considerably in SB choices.
I am expecting a lot of Burn hence the double Gnaw/Brutalities.
A lot of people are including their second Gnaw in the mainboard and I do it as card 61. It increases your burn win percentage by so much. In an open meta, you want enough hand interaction but plenty of antihate too. Thoughtsieze would be good if you can fit it. I'd go down to 3 Claim and maaaaaaaaaybe 2 Brutalities to jam 3 Thoughtsieze.
Hey, guys!
I've been playing Dredge for a long time, 2 years, more or less.
2 months ago I won a PPTQ and now I want to decide which deck to sleeve up to play the RPTQ.
Dredge was the obvious choice, but I'm really afraid of all that hate cards that we can't answer. Let me explain.
When Amalgam and Neonate were printed and the deck started being this good, people started playing Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Grafdigger's Cage... We have cards against this kind of hate. We can fight them and still winning. We can also play against Anger of the Gods. But now people is playing Surgical Extraction, Crypt Incursion, Ravenous Trap, Bojuka Bog... We have literally nothing against this cards.
Do we have any solution to this?
Another question I have, why the h*ll BBD was not playing Haunted Dead?
For those cards, Collective Brutality, Leyline of the Void, and Thoughtsieze are the cards you want. Leyline stops Snapcaster and is useful vs the mirror and the hand interaction stops all that shenanigans. Also keep in mind that grave hate is slight and suffers from 'draw into it' and 'mulligan to it' syndromes, so the odds are still with you.
Why do you think ancient grudge is great vs Burn while only being good vs Infect and Tron?
The way that I did it, I looked objectively at what they were bringing into the SB vs us. I see where I may have been wrong about burn considering they only bring in 2 Cages, so it's worse in that situation. Its probably better in infect than burn but vs Tron, I think that bringing in grudges dilutes the gameplan too much and you just wanna race. I want to add GQ only because it's our only interaction we have vs them (other than blowing up their eggs, but I find this to be a poor gameplan).
With Jund, I think we play the long game most often post board. Gnaw basically ensures us that we can survive a pummeling. I see that it might be considered win more, so I'll edit it down to good.
I don't think Abrupt Decay and Pharao are worth bringing in vs Burn.
I bring in Pharaohs vs any aggro matchup because it's reducing the amount of creatures they smash face with. While I agree that Conflag does that by just wiping the board, I think a little help goes a long way. Decay is good vs their SB Cages but can just turn into removal for an Eidolon or another creature.
Maybe we could add the mirror, jeskai control and Melira company.
Good idea. I'll make the edits soon.
With this data sheet, I basically took what Lantern said to do and visualized it. I took our most used SB and compared it to the SBs and MBs of the top tier decks. If there are other matchups you would like, be sure to let me know.
I've made a spreadsheet outlining our sideboards vs the top tier decks in the meta. If there is a rating that I made that you think could be changed, let me know by PM or on the google messenger for the sheet.
Okay, sorry to disturb you guys with this, but I have gone full ban paranoid. I bought into dredge just because i already had the bloodghasts and i could get it all under 200 euros at the time (before ross meriam's win, which skyrocketed the deck's popularity). I have been noticing that, even though dredge is a large % in the metagame, it is very hard to find a tournament in which we get the grand prize, and thus I thought that i wanted to analyze some things. I am just this worried since a ban would leave me out of the competitive modern league for maybe half a year, which would, well, not be very pleasant. What i want to analyze are the metagame efficiency of the deck, this is, the amount of top8s we get vs the amount of players submitting dredge. With this, is there any place i can find raw tournament data for me to analyze? I am also interested in doing the same for other decks, since, obvioulsy, a value on its own is worthless if we can't compare it to something else. Thanks!
Banhammer won't come down on us unless we get something completely busted. Online metas and paper metas are vastly different and paper is more likely to respond to Dredge heavy metas than paper is due to the vast variety they face. Sideboard hate is enough to keep us away from the chop block and in all honesty, we can't be paranoid.
In reply to the top 8 ranks for Dredge: it's a new deck. Very few people can say they are really good with the deck and people are still learning interactions with certain decks and still determining the comp of the deck. A few months ago, pros were still playing Gargodon and the sideboard has yet to be solved. As soon as people realize what to finalize on or as soon as Wizards prints better cards, we'll still be changing.
So now that that's out of the way, what's the gameplan now with regards to matchups and sideboard?
In terms of grave hate, I wouldn't be worried about dredge with bojuka big as much as Goryo's Vengence and other instant speed reanimator strategies. Leyline is a turn 0 solution to a turn 2 or 3 problem. While Living End helps us more than hurts us, they also have ways of controlling our graves with Faerie Macabre and Extractions. So if you can use something to replace Leyline, it should either be permenant or instant.
If your opponent is playing Leyline, you want the Claim regardless of play or draw. The anger can be played around, but the Leyline only has one answer. If you fetch to play around your opponent's possible anger, you can end up dealing a lot of damage, putting them at conflag range. Assuming they're Grixis or Jund, since most decks that run Leyline also want to cast it and afford double black or red, they fetch a lot and probably shock sometimes too, which helps a lot. Another thing you might do is simply returning a small force to beat down for damage before going for the big kill with Scourge or Rally, forcing them to pop anger off early and allowing you to rebuild on the crack back.
Answer still applicable. Some players who know the matchups will bring in all of them if they suspect the right hate. If they just don't know what some people bring in, then it's up to the player. I board in Thoughtsieze and Collective Brutality if I'm up a game. But if there's black involved, then I always suspect Leyline and board accordingly.
I agree with you on the utility of Claim, but then again, an instant that'll be better than Claim won't get printed, so we're stuck with that or hand interaction. I only bring them in when I know that I'm gonna see either an artifact or enchantment that will need answering. Going in blind with them is a little risky, so keep notes about certain matchups and bring in discard in the dark.
In a large event in the dark, I would bring in the 3 claims if I'm on the back foot after G1. If you win g1 and are in the dark, hand disruption is my go-to. In a small event, do your homework and find out what people are playing against you and write notes. It helps you considerably in SB choices.
I think it's better solely on the fact that control decks can't counter it. It contributes to GGT, Gnaw, and triggers Amalgams.
A lot of people are including their second Gnaw in the mainboard and I do it as card 61. It increases your burn win percentage by so much. In an open meta, you want enough hand interaction but plenty of antihate too. Thoughtsieze would be good if you can fit it. I'd go down to 3 Claim and maaaaaaaaaybe 2 Brutalities to jam 3 Thoughtsieze.
For those cards, Collective Brutality, Leyline of the Void, and Thoughtsieze are the cards you want. Leyline stops Snapcaster and is useful vs the mirror and the hand interaction stops all that shenanigans. Also keep in mind that grave hate is slight and suffers from 'draw into it' and 'mulligan to it' syndromes, so the odds are still with you.
The way that I did it, I looked objectively at what they were bringing into the SB vs us. I see where I may have been wrong about burn considering they only bring in 2 Cages, so it's worse in that situation. Its probably better in infect than burn but vs Tron, I think that bringing in grudges dilutes the gameplan too much and you just wanna race. I want to add GQ only because it's our only interaction we have vs them (other than blowing up their eggs, but I find this to be a poor gameplan).
With Jund, I think we play the long game most often post board. Gnaw basically ensures us that we can survive a pummeling. I see that it might be considered win more, so I'll edit it down to good.
I bring in Pharaohs vs any aggro matchup because it's reducing the amount of creatures they smash face with. While I agree that Conflag does that by just wiping the board, I think a little help goes a long way. Decay is good vs their SB Cages but can just turn into removal for an Eidolon or another creature.
I think it's good for the drain and hand disruption while also being an enabler, but I'll check the rating and edit.
Good idea. I'll make the edits soon.
With this data sheet, I basically took what Lantern said to do and visualized it. I took our most used SB and compared it to the SBs and MBs of the top tier decks. If there are other matchups you would like, be sure to let me know.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1az_WvJ_kTMeQNRs37aPIdD4stV-NM3f88lRYZKG4MrY/edit?usp=sharing
Also let me know if there's another sb card or matchup that you want to consider. This data is based on MTG Goldfish.
Banhammer won't come down on us unless we get something completely busted. Online metas and paper metas are vastly different and paper is more likely to respond to Dredge heavy metas than paper is due to the vast variety they face. Sideboard hate is enough to keep us away from the chop block and in all honesty, we can't be paranoid.
In reply to the top 8 ranks for Dredge: it's a new deck. Very few people can say they are really good with the deck and people are still learning interactions with certain decks and still determining the comp of the deck. A few months ago, pros were still playing Gargodon and the sideboard has yet to be solved. As soon as people realize what to finalize on or as soon as Wizards prints better cards, we'll still be changing.