Newsflash! In case you don’t have StarCityGames.com Premium, you may have missed Mike Flores touting the power of Sindbad / Fa’adiyah Seer with Dredge spells last Friday. Apparently you can use the ability to draw a card, replace the draw with Dredge, and since you didn’t actually “draw” a card, you don’t have to discard it if it wasn’t a land.
Oh wait… that’s right, if you read my stuff, you already know all about the intricacies of Dredge, for free! Woohoo, how d’ya like having an edge on people who only read the Premium stuff?
Good times, good times.
What cracks me up about the some of the Dredgers-come-lately is that they are viewing the mechanic simply as a means to some other end, typically as a way to fuel a reanimation strategy. I suppose we can blame John Rizzo for that, with his Friggorid monstrosity that was all about “drawing” cards, Dredging instead, and loading up a humongous graveyard where creatures came popping out every turn for no mana. The Standard Dredge decks seem to revolve around flashing back Dread Return for some humongous unsolvable creature, both of which got tossed into the grumper from going nuts with card drawing effects and Dredge cards.
When it all comes together, it works great. The problem is that once you add in your card drawing, and then your win conditions (Dread Return, reanimation targets), and survival necessities like Damnation and Wall of Roots (and in some versions Firemane Angel), that doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for Dredge cards. If you don’t access all three elements in a timely fashion the deck sputters and doesn’t do much of anything but look woefully underpowered.
I think what’s being missed, or ignored, or just flat out written off, is the power of Dredge as an engine of action; when you have a dedicated Dredge deck built properly, each and every turn, every drop of mana, you’re doing something. You’re not spending mana and turns playing a card-drawing spell to draw… into more card-drawing. You never just draw and go, bluffing a reactionary spell since your hand is stuffed with cards you can’t yet play. You’re never missing a land drop for the entire game; you’re playing a creature every single turn, or drawing a removal spell or hand disruption when you need it; and you’re setting up your end game that most likely involves a gigantic Svogthos, the Restless Tomb animating and rumbling over for the kill.
I was discussing Dredge with my friend Jay, and he asked me again why I hadn’t played Dredge at Champs this past Fall. Cards like Tormod’s Crypt and Withered Wretch scared me away; I had The Fear, no question. The interesting thing I’ve come to realize now though is that with the metagame so wide open, sideboard space is at a premium. With so many bases to cover, you can’t afford to dedicate that real estate to such narrow cards as Crypt and Wretch. It’s highly probably any tournament you go to, you won’t run across a Dredge deck, and those 3-4 copies of the ultimate graveyard hosers will be blanks you wish were something else. I haven’t even really seen sexy new Extricate being played (which leads me to wonder why in the world StarCityGames.com can’t keep the card in stock at $15 a pop, that’s just insane).
At any rate, it is interesting to see what other Dredge-centric strategies have developed out there amongst the pro player community, and how different they are from the path I’ve forged.
By the way, At Grand Prix Kyoto this past weekend, the two players who went 9-0 were asked Which card in your deck was your MVP for the day?
Yuusuke Iwasaki: “Saffi Eriksdotter”
Naoki Shimizu: “No question – Deadwood Treefolk”
I’ve been touting the joys of Saffi for quite some time now, but unfortunately her appeal to the Japanese appears to be primarily as a filthy combo enabler. Still, it is Saffi love, ain’t it? You take love where you can find it. The real prize here is the mention of Deadwood Treefolk. Some of you may have caught my Single Card Strategy column recently over on MagictheGathering.com; in it, I detail a slight… shall we say disagreement I have running with one Benjamin J. “Exhumer Thrull” Bleiweiss regarding the playworthiness (is that a word?) of this here new Treefolk fella. Not mincing any words, Bleiweiss considers the card “poop.” Grand Prix competitor Naoki “Nine-Oh” Shimizu considers it – no question – MVP for the day.
I’m not saying anything; I’m just sayin’.
So… Dredge is good; Saffi is good; Deadwood Treefolk is good. Say, maybe the new Standard environment is finally Bennie-friendly? Could this be my year to make a run at Regionals and qualify for Nationals?
U.S. Nationals is going to be within spitting distance this year – just up I-95 to Maryland (and yes, you wouldn’t believe how far I can spit…). I was around to read about the first U.S. National championship and have always wanted to attend, but since I had never qualified and could never really afford to travel to Florida or California or wherever, it’s always been an unfulfilled desire. Now though, a mere three-hour road trip away – there’s no excuse! Of course, ideally I’ll qualify at this year’s Regionals and get to actually play at Nationals, but even if I don’t Q I think I’ll go and try to grind in, play in side events, watch some of the best players in world play and try and hobnob with some Magic celebrities. Who knows, maybe Wizards will tap me to help out with coverage if I make myself a big enough nuisance?
Regarding Nationals, it’s part of the “Road to Worlds” that begins at your local game store if you’re geographically fortunate enough to have City Champs being beta-run in your area. I railed against the idea of a beta season since I felt there was no reason not to roll the program out to any area that was interested and had enough participants. I’m over that now; I’m still irritated but I have hopes that next year will be better. At any rate, I went and checked into the closest City Champs region, two and a half hours down I-64 to Virginia Beach, to see how they were doing, and found that one player was dominating the points standing, and that player isn’t local Flores-man-crush pro Shaheen Soorani.
City Championships Rankings: Virginia Beach
1 – Thomas Leveille – 194
2 – Jacob Baughman – 127
14 – Shaheen Soorani – 62
To be fair to Mr. Soorani, he’s been busy traveling the world, kicking butt on the Pro Tour, and adding a third Virginia State Champs title to his trophy collection, so City Champs probably hasn’t been high on his priority list. Still, though… I had to be impressed by Tom Leveille’s commanding 67-point lead.
For comparison, I checked out the points leader for other cities. In New York, the leader has 104 points; Chicago it’s 174 points; Boston it’s 115; Los Angeles / San Francisco it’s 110. If I had no life and could sleep until noon, I’d probably spend the next hour clicking and checking each and every City Champs score for comparison, but I’d hazard a guess that if Tom isn’t the points leader in the country, he’s probably pretty darn close. As such, I figure he might be an interesting fellow to talk to about City Champs.
Tom Leveille is a sophomore at Old Dominion University who holds down a part time job at a silver diner. No, I’m not sure what a silver diner is either. He’s played Magic since Ice Age and Tempest, and frequents PTQs, Champs, and Regionals tournaments. You may have run across his posts on Magic League and MTG Salvation under the user name “phyrexia.” Let’s ask the potential Virginia Beach City Champ a few questions.
As of this writing, you hold a commanding point lead in the Virginia Beach area. What are the keys to your success?
TL: A "secret weapon" for Standard, and a plan for draft.
Have you been playing one particular deck or a variety of decks?
TL: I’ve played Dralnu for a bit, but with a twist. I finally decided to share my secret weapon, I call the deck "breakfast of champions" (and no, I don’t kill with a shapeshifted Phage, but it is quite interesting).
Creatures (8)
Lands (21)
Spells (30)
- 2 Wrath of God
- 2 Rewind
- 1 Mirari
- 3 Lightning Helix
- 4 Remand
- 2 Electrolyze
- 3 Izzet Signet
- 2 Azorius Signet
- 2 Demonfire
- 2
- 3
- 3 Spell Snare
- 1 Commandeer
Sideboard
TL: The deck is geared to fight control matchup but has game for aggro matches. It abuses the ability to use the opponent’s turn against them coupled with the all-powerful Giant Solifuge! There are a few setups for almost auto game wins with this deck, such as turn 3 Remand, turn 4 Solifuge, next end of turn cast Development, then untap Solifuge and attack, possibly with a few 3/1s. There are many ways this deck can take control of the game while retaining an "aggro” edge.
How has Planar Chaos shaken things up, if at all?
TL: PC has wobbled draft a bit, but for Standard I haven’t seen anything that’s made me get ready for rain yet (let’s see what GP Kyoto does though! – Bennie)
I noticed that you’ve got points in quite a few different stores. Do you have a "home base" store or do you make the rounds between a few / all of them?
TL: I play at the two closest stores to me almost every week. Other than that there are three stores in the area, all of which I’ve only visited once. I would say “home base” has always been and always will be Atomic Comics Emporium. The environment and game play there is what keeps me coming back.
Which City Champs format is your favorite?
TL: Probably draft.
Do you consider yourself a Limited or Constructed specialist, or do you enjoy both equally?
TL: I enjoy Limited more than anything. It shows how much of a good player / builder you are. Anyone can go on the net and get a deck, or play a deck like Affinity and just win. In the PTQ Top 8 there was a guy with a five-color Sealed Deck.
Are you planning on attending Nationals if you win?
TL: Absolutely!
How about attending Regionals if you get byes?
TL: Yes. I usually go to Maryland but I might go to North Carolina this year.
How do you like the City Champs program overall?
TL: I don’t like that the Top 8 have to "play off" and you could potentially walk away with nothing. There are a lot of people working hard to make it and spending a lot of money and earning their place at the top of the standings, and it doesn’t seem fair that I could have all these points and get knocked off in the Top 8.
What do you like the best about the City Champs program?
TL: Getting to play Magic more than once a week.
What do you think could be improved?
TL: Fix the Top 8 system.
Hopefully Wizards will be expanding the City Champs once the Beta season is done with. Any advice for players who finally get City Champs in their area on how to do as well as you have?
TL: Just be original. I hate it when people just netdeck… go rogue and surprise people! It’s hard to tell someone how to draft, but one thing I do is aim for "sub-par" cards. It’s an idea that stepped my draft game up to another level.
What’s your favorite Magic card in Standard?
TL: Hands down it’s Research / Development (the Development side). It’s a game winner, and every opponent has to pick up and read it. Simply awesome.
Extended?
Thanks, Tom, for answering my questions and sharing your interesting spin on Dralnu!
Post Script
I was playing in a multiplayer free-for-all game online with a Saffi / Hierarch / Teneb, the Harvester deck with Magus of the Disk and bad mana (haven’t had the scratch for the duals yet), and one player laid out the following enchantments over several turns:
Pain Magnification
Megrim
Furnace of Rath
When Megrim came down, I went ahead and hit Pain Magnification with Krosan Grip, since I had a full… grip… of good cards I was trying to play through bad mana and didn’t want to have to discard them. The same fate befell Furnace of Rath. Megrim was fine since I had a Spectral Force in play. What was hilarious was this player’s stunned disbelief when everyone at the table ganged up to knock him out of the game. “Three on one is very unfair” he sniffed before quitting the game.
Now, first of all, kudos to the man for coming up with this cute little three-card enchantment combo; with it in place, all he’d need is a discard or three-damage spell and whomever he targeted was dead. The problem was that the combo involves discarding; people hate discarding their cards, and it particularly obnoxious in group games, so even without the killer combo, you put a Megrim on the board and you’re a target because people know you’re going to be packing discard, and people hate that.
Loxodon Hierarch, Magus of the Disk, and Teneb, the Harvester… now that’s a laid-back combo that’s only obnoxious once it all comes together and wins the group game!
So, multiplayer enthusiasts: if you play Pain Magnification and Megrim, aren’t you just asking for trouble?
‘Til next time!
Bennie