I’m sure that Dredge is on your radar for the Modern portion of #SCGINVI or for the upcoming Grand Prix in Indianapolis. It should be. The deck is very strong and rather resilient.
Dredge is an old mechanic, one that some people have never interacted with. Even those who have may be a little rusty on how it works and how to best fight against it. It defies many rules that we’ve come to play with in a normal game of Magic, such as paying mana for spells. Dredge is partly a creature deck and partly a combo deck and attacks on an axis that hopefully the opponent isn’t ready for: playing from the graveyard.
First, the basics.
Dredge is a keyword that allows a player to replace drawing a card with the card in their graveyard. In the case of Golgari Grave-Troll, a player puts the Grave-Troll into their hand at the “cost” of putting the top six cards from their library into their graveyard. This mechanic was aimed to be a drawback with potential deckbuilding upside, and upside it definitely is.
Note that a player cannot dredge six if they have less than six cards in their library.
I played Dredge at the last stop on the SCG Tour®, which was the Open Weekend in Syracuse, NY. There was buzz for it online and from Justin O’Keefe’s Classic win in Baltimore two weekends before. Even though Dredge had more eyes on it that usual, I felt that it would still be a fine choice that people weren’t prepared for.
The question now is if Ross Merriam’s win in #SCGNY will change everyone’s minds.
Creatures (29)
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 1 Golgari Thug
- 3 Stinkweed Imp
- 4 Greater Gargadon
- 4 Narcomoeba
- 4 Bloodghast
- 4 Prized Amalgam
- 4 Insolent Neonate
- 1 Haunted Dead
Lands (19)
Spells (12)
From what I heard, people know to prepare for the rise of Dredge with more sideboard cards. Those can be anything like Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Grafdigger’s Cage, or Nihil Spellbomb. “Normal” cards exist like Scavenging Ooze, Anger of the Gods, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet that are good on their own without necessarily dedicating sideboard slots to one archetype.
I believe Dredge to be stronger than other graveyard decks like Goryo’s Vengeance or Living End. Abzan Company gets some splash damage, but they can slog through hate with Reclamation Sage or creature beatdown.
I want to say that I’m a strong advocate for Dredge based on its power level and its ability to win through hate cards anyway. I won Round 12 against Ryan Hare through a Leyline of the Void. In fact, he had the full four Leylines in his sideboard. I got away with a lucky one there. Being capable of winning through someone clearly intending to never lose to the deck is a testament to Dredge’s power level.
I will say that, in the four matches I lost at #SCGNY, only one of my opponents (Andrew Maine on Abzan Company) ever interacted with my graveyard. They won with a combination of my own deck not functioning and following through with their deck’s own gameplan.
I don’t think that people should go out of their way to find room for anti-Dredge cards in their sideboards at the cost of other matchups. For those worried about Dredge coming out in full force, I recommend deck alterations that are good versus a range of decks without ever being truly dead, like Scavenging Ooze out of green decks and Relic of Progenitus in decks that can afford to play it.
Let’s look at some decks that are in my own personal wheelhouse that I’m considering playing at #SCGINVI in the wake of Dredge’s expected popularity.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (5)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
I played G/R Tron in the Season Two Invitational last year where Ali Aintrazi ultimately took it down. With the amount of Jund going around, I see G/R Tron being a good choice again. Tron has also historically fared well against control decks too, like Grixis and Jeskai with Nahiri.
Karn Liberated has been an “un-cuttable” four-of in G/R Tron for years. Now it’s about time to rethink if all are necessary. If we’re building with Dredge in mind, I know that Karn Liberated is the card that I’m happiest to see, especially if I have a Greater Gargadon on suspend. Karn used to be the nuttiest thing to do with a turn 3 Urzatron. Now I think that it’s a fine play, but possible worse than Wurmcoil Engine in over half of the circumstances.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon has always impressed me. In last year’s Invitational I played a full four with no Oblivion Stone. Pretty crazy, I know. I’m ready to come back to my senses and run a 3/1 split of Ugin and Oblivion Stone now. The preference for Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is more justified now considering how potent a broad exile is against Dredge.
G/R Tron does not fare well against aggressive decks like Infect and Zoo or combo decks like Ad Nauseam or Scapeshift. The dredge matchup is likely negative too, but that can be remedied. G/R Tron used to run four Relic of Progenitus maindeck until dedicated graveyard decks faded from the metagame. Dialing it back to a four-Relic build could push G/R Tron into a good position going into #SCGINVI. It’s great against the fair decks looking to outplay their opponents over several turns, like Jund or Abzan Company.
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
Infect is one of few decks that I’m scared to face with Dredge. It’s the most play/draw-dependent matchup that I’ve come across. I beat it in the Swiss at #SCGNY when I won the die roll and lost to it in three in the Top 8 when I was the lower seed.
The printing of Become Immense has naturally led to less Relic of Progenitus being played in the sideboard. Again, if Infect players want to compete with Dredge in mind, they should dial it back with their own graveyard use in order to not clash too much with their sideboard cards. Grafdigger’s Cage is fine when you don’t want to fetch up Dryad Arbor. Relic of Progenitus is fine when you have a low number of Become Immense, low enough where you can sideboard them all out on command.
Creatures (26)
- 4 Soul Warden
- 2 Auriok Champion
- 4 Ranger of Eos
- 4 Soul's Attendant
- 4 Ajani's Pridemate
- 4 Archangel of Thune
- 4 Thraben Inspector
Lands (24)
Spells (10)
I played Soul Sisters in Grand Prix Charlotte based on its strength against the aggressive decks and Jund. Unfortunately for me, I ran into the maw of Abzan Company three times and lost some pretty close ones each time. Some other bad matchups were in the metagame too, like Ad Nauseum and Lantern Control. Still, I felt like there was enough highly favorable matchups in the metagame that Soul Sisters was worth giving a shot.
Now Soul Sisters is even better-positioned. Jund was secretly one of the best matchups for Soul Sisters and Dredge was a complete joke. That was the Dredgevine build, so it’s unclear whether the matchup is still as great as I remember. I did only play Game 1s in friendly casual games, winning something like 8-0, and can only imagine how it plays out after sideboard. Mono-White has the best options without splash damaging itself. You don’t have many sideboard options to begin with, so four copies of Rest in Peace happily slot in. I’ve always considered Rest in Peace to be the most impactful sideboard card in Modern and Legacy given the appropriate matchup for it.
Creatures (12)
Lands (20)
Spells (28)
Dredge’s worst matchup is likely good ol’ G/W Hexproof. I have to say it’s nothing but justice getting beaten by another non-interactive deck. G/W Hexproof simply cannot be blocked or raced with trample and lifelink. Dredge has no good options outside of Ratchet Bomb or Engineered Explosives. Sacrifice effects are weak given the chance that the G/W Hexproof deck can just play a second creature or fetch up their Dryad Arbor.
They can also just show up with as many copies of Rest in Peace, Relic of Progenitus, and Grafdigger’s Cage as they feel like. G/W Hexproof has a gameplan that just so happens to beat Dredge with a much better sideboard plan than Dredge can ever hope for.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 2 Greater Gargadon
- 4 Narcomoeba
- 4 Bloodghast
- 4 Prized Amalgam
- 4 Insolent Neonate
- 1 Haunted Dead
Lands (20)
Spells (13)
This is what I played at #SCGNY. After solitairing 200 times, I decided that I wanted my sideboard to have the following things present:
Four Leyline of the Void.
Four cards that can interact with hate that I can draw into with Faithless Looting or natural draw steps if needed.
Seven cards that play well from the graveyard.
Six total cards against graveyard decks.
My extra two anti-graveyard cards were Memory’s Journey. They didn’t see much play at #SCGNY. I expected to face the mirror at least once and probably another graveyard strategy in between. Neither happened and those slots went unused.
Two Memory’s Journey was probably too many. I wanted something that was actually castable if it wasn’t in my opening hand. Memory’s Journey does a good job at protecting your key creatures against Surgical Extraction. In longer games you can purposely deck yourself and set up the perfect three, like three Abrupt Decay, to plow through random stuff like Ensnaring Bridge or Ghostly Prison. I played two Memory’s Journey in hopes to cycle them off of each other in longer games.
My testing mostly involved playing out hands by myself in my living room. Who knew that most games with Dredge would involve decking myself and needing to juggle Memory’s Journeys on turn 30?
This is the Dredge deck I’m considering for the upcoming #SCGINVI (which is starting soon if you logged in right at 11am EST. I hope you write fast!).
Creatures (27)
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 2 Greater Gargadon
- 4 Narcomoeba
- 4 Bloodghast
- 4 Prized Amalgam
- 4 Insolent Neonate
- 1 Haunted Dead
Lands (20)
Spells (13)
Yep. One card off from what I played at #SCGNY. I wanted a second Darkblast in my sideboard the whole time against Infect and Affinity, which I played twice each in the tournament. The rest I felt was perfect. The only thing that kept me from hoisting the trophy myself at the end of last Sunday was my own unfamiliarity with the deck and that one sideboard slot.
You may be wondering why I have such odd splits on cards in my deck. There’s a clear line drawn between the Greater Gargadon plus Bridge from Below plan or playing the Life from the Loam and Conflagrate long game.
I choose to play small numbers of each.
Greater Gargadon and Bridge from Below are great in small numbers. I never want to draw two Greater Gargadon in my opening hand. Bridge from Below is sweet in multiples, but overall unnecessary towards winning any given game. Shriekhorn falls into this category too. The first copy is great, but the returns diminish sharply afterwards. These aforementioned cards I’m happy to come across early but by no means count on in any given game.
Likewise, Life from the Loam is a card I like to access to eventually. Hitting that third land drop is important for Bloodghast and to Flashback Faithless Looting. Simply having more cards with the text “dredge” on them is good too for consistency purposes. The final flex slot was given to Collective Brutality. I knew I wanted two copies somewhere in my 75 and felt the first was good enough to start. It’s never truly bad and is sometimes outstandingly good, like against Burn to kill a creature, drain them for two, and take their burn spell, all while discarding dredge cards or creatures like Bloodghast or Prized Amalgam.
Some Notes and Predictions
1. There’s a justified heightened awareness against Dredge.
2. Anything that is a different graveyard deck is unplayable, like Living End or Goryo’s Vengeance decks, based on the splash damage they get from the Dredge hate.
3. Even though Dredge won #SCGNY it won’t see significantly more play. This is a combination of card availability, Dredge’s high learning curve, people’s hesitance to play Dredge based on expected hate, and people’s natural resistance to the style of play that Dredge has. It’s a different style that’s hard to get into.
4. I do think that Dredge is currently the best Modern deck, even in the face of more hate cards. This is likely to change soon. It may happen by this weekend. If not, the format will be more balanced by GP Indianapolis.
5. If I were to play a non-Dredge deck for #SCGINVI I’d play something with a proactive plan that has incidental hate cards without committing too many sideboard slots. The exception is Soul Sisters, which doesn’t have many other options.
6. You’re best off playing what you know. Don’t switch decks at the last minute. Lean your deck to anti-graveyard cards as you feel comfortable without comprising your deck’s primary plan.
Shadows over Innistrad gave the deck Prized Amalgam and Insolent Neonate. Eldritch Moon gave it Haunted Dead and Collective Brutality. It took the Dredge community a minute to find the best build to incorporate those cards, but I think we’ve found it. Adapting to Dredge will be the biggest challenge in the upcoming weeks. A deck is only broken until the metagame sufficiently adapts. After then it’s no longer the best deck, but just a deck. However, every deck can’t commit four to eight sideboard cards to beating one specific strategy forever.
Dredge is here to stay.