Matchup Analysis
Of all the decks in Standard today, I personally feel that Dredge is the most difficult
to design correctly. This mainly stems from the fact that each matchup plays completely
differently, and you must know your most effective gameplan against each deck. Certain
cards are MVPs in certain matchups, and it’s not always clear why until you have
logged many games. I see a lot of play mistakes, even in premiere event Top 8 replays.
Knowing the matchups inside and out is key.
I see people leading with the better enablers against Gruul, instead of saving them for
last. I see people casting an enabler instead of a Stinkweed Imp against Gruul. I see lots
of times people miss the play of casting Dread Return on a Drowned Rusalka on turn 3 (with
three Blue mana open and the opponent tapped out in control matchups). That play will
generate a win almost every time. I see people walking Dread Returns into Remands against
Dragonstorm, when they easily have enough time to wait one extra turn. This happens a lot
– people sacrifice their enablers when they misjudge how much time they have left in
a matchup, run the single Dread Return into a counter, and are left with no outs. Instead,
it’s always better to dredge more, and force 3-4 Dread Returns on one turn through
countermagic – especially if you don’t fear Extirpate. Many times, people
refuse to do anything less than a full kill, when a small Dread Return is lethal in many
matchups. I’ve seen someone pass up the opportunity to make six 2/2 zombies against a
tapped out Rack player, because it wasn’t “a kill.” These are just a few
examples of serious misplays that will greatly affect your win/loss percentages, and is why
a matchup analysis is key. While this analysis will likely extend the length of the Dredge
primer into novel-status, it’s of critical importance for the success of piloting
Dredge.
I will not be providing numbers on how favorable each matchup is (i.e. 60/40 for
Dredge). It isn’t because I don’t want to, but rather because the numbers are
entirely impossible to define without actual decklists. They depend entirely on which
version of both decks are being played. This is true for any matchup, and is especially
true for the race matchups such as Dragonstorm. Some versions of Dredge can post a 90/10
matchup against Dragonstorm, while others are lucky if they hit 20/80. This is a symptom of
the highly customizable nature of Dredge decks. Instead, I will highlight which cards are
MVPs in each matchup, which will help you design which version of Dredge you want to play.
Gruul
The Gruul matchup can vary greatly between which version they run, and what their burn
configuration is. Seal of Fire and Shock may not be so hot against Loxodon Hierarchs, but
they are solid against us. Some Gruul lists go with as few as 8 burn spells. Some have as
many as 24.
Against creature-heavy Gruul lists, your gameplan is to combo out as fast as possible.
These Gruul lists are typically faster than burn-heavy lists, which gives the Gruul list an
edge against other race matchups like Dragonstorm. However, creature heavy Gruul lists will
never be faster than a Dredge list. These versions are extremely favorable matchups for us.
MVPs in this version of Gruul are Simian Spirit Guides, Gemstone Caverns, and early Blue
enablers.
Against burn-heavy Gruul lists, your gameplan is to win a war of attrition. You drop
down early enablers, and suck out all their burn. They typically must spend their early
turns answering your enablers instead of developing their board. The game will either get
to a point where you have an unanswered enabler, or where they have successfully burned out
all your enablers. If you have an active enabler, you try and race them as fast as you can,
dropping imps in the way of their creatures. You Dread Return for zombies and Trolls
anytime you can.
If your enablers have all been burned away, your goal is to enter dredge-casting Imp
mode. This is Plan B. You simply dredge an Imp every turn to block their creatures.
Hopefully you will flip over some Bridges and/or Narcomoebas to buy you some time.
Eventually you will either be overrun, or you will stabilize. If you stabilize, you dredge
a Life From The Loam, get up to five mana, and start dropping 20/20 Trolls. Sometimes, you
can just dredge an Imp and Dread Return a few Trolls off Narcomoebas/Imps and zombie
tokens, and don’t even need five mana.
The worst thing that can happen to you in this matchup is turn 1 and 2 burn on your
enablers followed by a turn 3 Blood Moon effect. Games that play out this way are almost
unwinnable unless you have an Imp and a swamp (as well as a Green source for Loam and Troll
later).
Just remember when playing this matchup that Bridges literally mean nothing. This is
contrary to how many people see this matchup – and it is favorable for you. They may
net you an extra zombie or two, but they will rarely do much. You can bring in Leylines to
keep the Bridges in play, but typically you need to bring in answers for more pressing
concerns such as tons of burn and Blood Moon.
Your opponents may bring in cards to fight your Bridges, but they will be fighting the
wrong fight, and this will result in more match wins for you simply because they
don’t understand the matchup the way you do. Don’t be surprised if you have a
horrible matchup if you play it wrong and try and combo out against them. Understanding the
matchup is key, and this matchup is all about Imps and Trolls (and Blood Moon).
Post sideboard, they will present roughly the same 60. Sometimes they bring in
Tormod’s Crypt and/or Blood Moon. Crypt isn’t so bad, but Blood Moon requires
attention (mostly in original design, not so much in sideboard strategy).
Depending on how much you expect the Gruul matchup, you can board up to 12-14 cards
against them. This isn’t because you will devote 14 sideboard slots to beating Gruul,
but because some of your sideboard cards are good across a range of matchups. Wall of Roots
helps immensely, keeping you relatively immune to Blood Moon. Golgari Brownscale is very
difficult for them to beat. Blazing Archon and Akroma can win the game by themselves.
Krosan Grip can remove Crypts and Blood Moons. Delirium Skeins is mostly in the sideboard
for combo decks, but is great against Gruul.
Turn 1 enabler, turn 2 Wall of Roots, turn 3 Delirium Skeins into Imp/Troll recursion
is a total beating for them. Your gameplan post-sideboard is to get the gamestate into
topdeck mode as fast as you can, with you topdecking Imps, Trolls, and Loams. Their
gameplan is to burn out your enablers and lock you out with Blood Moon.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Extra Enablers: 10/10 (swell up to 15-16 enablers post board)
Wall of Roots: 10/10
Blazing Archon: 10/10
Akroma: 10/10
Golgari Brownscale: 9/10
Stinkweed Imp: 9/10
Golgari-Grave Troll: 9/10
Delirium Skeins: 8/10
Krosan Grip: 6/10
Life from the Loam: 6/10
Leyline of the Void: 5/10
Darkblast: 3/10
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 0/10 (these are actually great against burn-light
versions of Gruul)
Green Enablers: 7/10
Blue Enablers: 6/10
In this matchup, your enablers typically won’t get to untap. They are basically
walking Healing Salves because all they do is soak up burn. However, if the Green ones
untap, they can get you a chump blocker, or some land, to ensure Plan B happens easier,
while the Blue ones can draw into more enablers or Imps.
A key part of this matchup is knowing what to do when a Blue enabler is allowed to
untap. Sometimes the correct play is not dredge with it, and draw into
Imps/Trolls/lands/enablers while discarding Bridges and other dead cards in hand.
Boros
The Boros matchup is almost identical to the Gruul matchup in terms of analysis. They
can run creature heavy or burn heavy lists. They can play Blood Moon effects. However, they
also have Icatian Javelineers. Typically, Boros is a slightly worse matchup than Gruul
– all things being equal. Post board, they can even bring in Worship.
Our card ratings are essentially the same for this matchup as the Gruul matchup, except
Krosan Grip goes up to a 9/10 in value due to Worship.
Dragonstorm is another deck that falls into the “race” category. This means
that U/B Speed Dredge is better suited to combat them than a B/G or G/U/B control version.
U/B tends to be a turn faster than Dragonstorm, while G/U/B versions tend to be a turn
slower.
Post sideboard, they bring in some serious hate. Repeal and Tormod’s Crypt are
typical, and Martyr of Ashes is a total beating. Your only “tech” is Delirium
Skeins, or fringe discard spells like Brain Pry and Lost Hours. If you are really afraid of
this matchup, you can bring in Trickbind or Shadow of Doubt – however, keep in mind
that those cards are mainly only useful against the U/R Storm decks, and sideboard space is
generally extremely tight. Unfortunately, your sideboard is only so big.
Before I mention card ratings, I’d like to share a trick that is possible for
working around Martyr. It is fairly situational, but it can come up.
Let’s say you made turn 1 Thought Courier, turn 2 Rusalka, and you hit a Narcomoeba.
You have three mana up, one Bridge in the grave, one Bridge and one Troll in hand. His turn
3, he does the dreaded play of cast Martyr of Ashes plus sacrifice. This will not only wipe
your board, but clear your Bridge. In your hand, you are left with no gas, and this play
will almost certainly win the game for him.
You can work around it as follows:
His Martyr dies and the “deals damage to all creatures” trigger goes on the
stack. Now your Bridges “remove from game” triggers go on the stack.
With your Bridge triggers on the stack, activate Rusalka, sacrificing a Narcomoeba. You
gain a zombie, and get to dredge your Troll. You are hoping to find some Bridges and
Narcos. Lets say you hit one of each (for illustration, this is obviously a lucky dredge).
Now activate Rusalka again sacrificing the zombie token. Discard the Bridge in hand.
Hopefully with this dredge you will turn over more Bridges/Narcos.
Now let the triggers resolve, the old Bridges are removed, but the new Bridges remain.
The Martyr trigger resolves and blows up the world. However, your non-token creatures
will now create an army of zombies.
This has happened in many games, and I’ve been refueled with anywhere from 3 to
10 zombies. Sometimes the Dragonstorm player keeps a sub-par hand with a Martyr because
they know how devastating it is against us. I’ve won many games with plays like that.
Sometimes the Dragonstorm player will then Dragonstorm on turn 4 and clear the zombies,
while you die to Hellkites. Sometimes it’s only 1-2 Hellkites and you can dredge Imps
to get back in the game. But regardless, that little trick will give you a few outs and
will win the odd game that an inexperienced player would lose.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 10/10
Shadow of Doubt: 10/10
Delirium Skeins: 9/10
Trickbind: 9/10
Nightmare Void: 8/10
Lost Hours: 7/10
Brain Pry: 6/10
Stinkweed Imp: 5/10
Blazing Archon: 5/10
Akroma: 5/10
Darkblast: 2/10
Blue Enablers: 10/10
Green Enablers: 5/10
The same thing holds true for the enablers here. The Blue ones allow you to race the
Dragonstorm player. The Green ones don’t do a whole lot for this matchup.
I put Darkblast in there as a 2/10, because I wanted to mention that you
shouldn’t board it in to combat Martyr of Ashes. A Dragonstorm player will almost
never run the Martyr out there blindly. While forcing him to blow it early can help
slightly, overall, it’s still going to be a beating, and you are better off
sideboarding cards like Delirium Skeins. However, if your sideboard contains nothing
relevant, you can still replace your Loams with Darkblasts.
Mono-Green Aggro (MGA)
Mono-Green Aggro falls into the “race” category. Speed combo versions
typically are 1 to 1.5 turns faster than MGA, and slower control versions are typically
1-1.5 turns slower than them. MGA can kill you on turn 4.
In a deck that cannot interact, your only goal is to race them. You are fairly well
suited towards this goal since you can chump block anything but Dryad Sophisticate (or
tramplers). Some builds feature 4 Groundbreakers, 4 Giant Solifuge and 4 Primal Forcemages.
If they drop turn 1 Elf, turn 2 Forcemage, then you could be facing a ton of damage next
turn, and most likely a turn 4 kill. When they drop turn 2 Primal Forcemage, you must
analyze the gamestate, and determine if you are ahead or behind them (“who is the
beatdown?” – michealj), and modify your gameplan accordingly. Sometimes if you are
behind, the correct play will be to reanimate a large Troll to ensure you don’t die
to a 9/3 groundbreaker, even if it means you get no zombies, and you kill all your
enablers.
Post sideboard, you don’t have much to fear coming out of their boards, while
they cannot deal with an Archon.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Blazing Archon: 10/10
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 10/10
Akroma: 8/10
Golgari-Grave Troll: 8/10
Darkblast: 8/10
Wall of Roots: 6/10
Golgari Brownscale: 6/10
Stinkweed Imp: 6/10
Life from the Loam: 3/10
Blue Enablers: 10/10
Green Enablers: 5/10
Any card that provides speed is an MVP in race matchups. Comparing the enabler suites,
while Llanowar Mentor can provide chump blockers, typically they don’t mean anything
since you’ll either be facing a trampler or an unblockable Cloaked creature. The Blue
enablers are much better in this matchup due to their dredging speed.
Perilous Storm
This matchup plays a lot like the Dragonstorm matchup, except that they can Ignite you
out a lot earlier. They also rarely bring in Martyr of Ashes, and almost always bring in
Ignorant Bliss and Tormod’s Crypt instead. This means that casting Delirium Skeins is
extremely risky. Your gameplan remains the same, though… race them. If you can empty
your hand while you do that, then all the better.
Post sideboard, you can demolish them with a Dread Return on Archon followed by
emptying your hand. They will have no way to beat that gameplan should you succeed in
implementing it.
Always watch out for Claws of Gix, because it can remove your Bridges at a
moment’s notice if they have already cast Empty the Warrens.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 10/10
Trickbind: 10/10
Blazing Archon: 10/10
Krosan Grip: 7/10
Delirium Skeins: 6/10
Blue Enablers: 10/10
Green Enablers: 5/10
Again, the Blue enablers are excellent at racing whereas an extra land from a Green
enabler won’t do much. Krosan Grips can help kill Claws of Gix, Lotus Bloom, and
Tormod’s Crypt. I rate it only as a 7/10 because it has lots of targets, but none are
that essential to fight.
Post sideboard, the best plan of attack is an early Dread Return on Archon followed by
emptying your hand. If you don’t have Archon, then you want a large zombie army and
an empty hand.
Dralnu
The Dralnu matchup is all about early enablers, Damnations, and Extirpates. Nothing
else matters. In game 1 you can realistically expect to fight through only one Extirpate.
Post sideboard be prepared for up to four Extirpates and four Leylines.
Resolving a turn 1 enabler is absolutely key in this matchup. If you can stick a Magus
under countermagic turn 1 then you will almost certainly be able to push several Dread
Returns through countermagic on turn 3 or 4. Even an unchecked Llanowar Mentor can be
lethal if they cannot find the Damnation.
If it is game 1, then you don’t play around Extirpate unless you get a really
fishy feeling (or they have five mana for Teachings plus Extirpate). If it is game 2/3,
then you must consider Extirpate at all times.
The Dralnu matchup is very unique. Once the game has started, your gameplan will change
more than any other matchup. The way you play in any point of the match depends on two
things: a) were you able to stick an enabler, and b) what have they Extirpated thus far?
In fact, if you stuck an early enabler your gameplan will also be completely different
based on which enabler. If it was a Magus or Thought Courier, then your goal is to dredge
hard for a turn 4 kill based off pushing 3-4 Dread Returns through countermagic. If it was
a Llanowar Mentor your gameplan is to make an army while dredging and force a game-losing
Sometimes you don’t stick an early enabler, but can still present a strong
gameplan. For example if you have a Rusalka in play, plus a few Narco/Imps. If this
situation occurs, always watch out for the following play… Let’s say you have one
Rusalka, one Imp, and one Narco swinging in the air. Your opponent is on three mana, and
it’s game 1. You haven’t seen a Dread Return yet, and are holding a Bridge and
an Imp. Instead of casting the Imp and walking into a game-ending Wrath, you should keep
attacking with the air troops while keeping your mana open at all times. Eventually he will
have to Damnation since even just two Narcos are lethal in this matchup. Be prepared for
this… In response to the Damnation, sac your Imp to your Rusalka, discard your Bridge
and hope to dredge into either another Bridge or some Narcos. Then you can Rusalka your
zombie token (if you have one), and keep dredging. Keep as many non-token creatures alive.
Make his Damnation work against him.
Aside – Sometimes you have to do some math on if it’s worth using another Rusalka
activation on another non-token creature (say a the Narco). Here Damnation is still on the
stack, lets say you have one Bridge in the grave, one Narco in play, one Blue mana open, 40
cards in your library. You can dredge one more time for six cards (sacrificing the Narco).
If you whiff, then you get less zombies, however if you hit a Narco you get the same (3
zombies) and if you hit a Bridge, you get more (4 zombies). If you get two or more of
either then you are quite a bit ahead. With 40 cards left in your library, three Bridges
and three Narcos left, the chances of you hitting at least 1 of those in a dredge-6 is
(1-34/40×33/39×32/38×31/37×30/36×29/35) 65%. So you should actually pop the Narco, unless
you feel the 35% risk isn’t worth it.
Hopefully, you can get into a state where his Damnation actually ends up killing him.
Even if he has two or three Damnations in his hand he’s still in big trouble. If
you dredge-cast an Imp next turn, he has to Wrath your zombies away, but now because you
re-cast an Imp, he’ll still be facing zombies every turn unless he can Extirpate
Bridge. This play (while strong against Dralnu) is even stronger against Wrath decks that
cannot cast Extirpate.
If somehow you didn’t stick an enabler, and don’t have any pressure
(Narcos/Imps), then your gameplan will be to dredge whatever you can (typically through
Narcos if they let them resolve) and Loam a Svogthos, or dredge-cast a Troll per turn.
They only have two outs to this plan. They can Extirpate Troll, or making a Urza’s
Factory/Skeletal Vampire. With two Trolls, they can only hope for racing you with a
skeletal vampire. Their second out is countering Trolls long enough to deck you.
Just be sure you know when to switch to which gameplan. The only way to know this is by
playtesting.
Plan A is to stick an early enabler under countermagic and either force a lethal Damnation
or push through 3-4 Dread Returns on turn 4.
Plan B is to loam up to 5-6 mana and win through Svogthos and a Troll a turn.
Post sideboard you want to avoid Dread Returning a flame-kin. I typically board them
out, although that leaves you more open to Damnation. However, there’s nothing worse
than getting Extirpated on Bridge in response to Dread Return on flame-kin.
If you won game 1, then I would only bring in two Grips for game 2. Most Dralnu lists
don’t bring in Leyline, as they just don’t have room for it in their
sideboards. However, you must have an out against Leyline if they do bring it in. Game 3
you can adjust accordingly.
Playing through Leyline.
If they drop a Leyline T0, then your game plan for the first 3 turns remains the same:
drop an early enabler under countermagic. If it is a Llanowar Mentor, you want to force a
losing Damnation. Sometime Dralnu will keep sub-par hands because they think that Leyline
just wins. They are just wrong.
If you stuck a Blue enabler, then you want to dredge into grips, or just cast
Narcos/Imps and force a Damnation. Once I get up to three mana, and a Grip, I like to keep
my enablers untapped on their turn, because it opens up certain plays. For example,
sometimes you can win the game by casting Grip on their Leyline and activating a Magus in
response to a Damnation to discard two Bridges and get six game winning zombies. Subtle
plays like this can turn an unfavorable matchup into a favorable one.
Post sideboard, always play around Extirpate. It’s pretty rare that they will
have any less than four Extirpates post-sideboard. Try to protect your Dread Returns. If
you activate a Magus, then you can discard a Dread Return and retain priority. This means
that you can then Dread Return something without the Dread Return being Extirpated.
However, keep in mind that your reanimation target or the Bridges can still be Extirpated.
If you land a turn 1 Magus your gameplan is to push a Dread Return through four
counters, but you typically want to Dread Return a Grave-Troll. This leaves you open to a
Damnation. However, even if they Damnation, you can still enter Plan B, which is a
Troll-a-turn. They will still require an Extirpate on Troll to beat that. If they then
Extirpate a Troll, then you can still Loam up a Svogthos or reanimate Akroma. If they
counter the Akroma reanimation and then drop a Factory or Skeletal Vampire to chump
Svogthos, then you extend the hand and thank them for a game well played. This is like any
control matchup, they have answers, if they draw them they win, if they don’t they
lose. Thankfully, you have several plans to fall back on if the first plans fail.
The good news is, you are a heavy favorite game 1, so you typically only need to win 1
of the next 2 games, which are generally slightly worse than a coinflip.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 10/10
Svogthos: 9/10
4 Dread Return versus only 3: 8/10
Golgari-Grave Troll: 7/10
Krosan Grip: 7/10
Flame-Kin Zealot: 10/10 Game 1, 2/10 game 2.
Blue Enablers: 10/10 (Lore Broker is 0/10)
Green Enablers: 10/10 (Greenseeker only gets 3/10)
U/B Pickles
This matchup follows the Dralnu matchup except for two main points. Sometimes pickles
doesn’t have Damnations, however they can lock you out with the pickles combo.
Overall, what is said above for Dralnu holds for pickles, only that you must be aware
you are fighting a clock that keeps you from ever untapping.
The Rack matchup is very unique as well. It also varies greatly on what their
configuration is. Key cards in this matchup are Loam and Blazing Archon. If you can get
loam going you can get outside of their rack range. If a Blazing Archon hits, then they
have to clear him before they can attack. Most Rack builds now run Slaughter Pact, which
makes Archon killing probable. However some only have Cruel Edict or multiple Last Gasps as
a solution.
Some Rack builds will have maindeck Withered Wretches, Yixlid Jailers, and Extirpates.
They can present significant hate for any Dredge deck. Post sideboard, you may even have to
watch out for Leylines as well.
All that being said, most Rack versions cannot put up too much of a fight in game 1.
Typically an enabler will end up sticking, and you’ll dredge into a lethal Dread
Return on a Troll. Dread returning a Flame-kin is a risky proposition. They can’t
Damnation your zombie army away, so there is no point taking the risk – just Dread Return a
Troll.
Rack also can’t deal with multiple 20/20 Trolls. To win game 1, they must
Extirpate/Withered Wretch away all your Trolls, Bridges, and Loam before you get them
online. They also must kill your enablers. Game 2 and 3, they must also deal with Blazing
Archon.
Withered Wretch and Extirpate are the scariest cards for you. Most versions won’t
have Leylines, but you never know. Post sideboard, Darkblast helps with Jailer or Dark
Confidant (and possibly even Wretch). Krosan Grip may be needed to fight Leyline.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Life from the Loam: 9/10
Golgari-Grave Troll: 9/10
Blazing Archon: 9/10
Darkblast: 8/10
Krosan Grip: 5/10
Flame-Kin Zealot: 4/10 Game 1, 0/10 game 2.
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 4/10
Blue Enablers: 8/10 (Lore Broker is 0/10)
Green Enablers: 8/10
Post board, ideally you will cast Loam to get out of Rack range and Dread Return an
Archon ASAP. However, they may stick a turn 2 Wretch while holding two Extirpates. The best
plan of attack through turn 2 Wretch is to just out-dredge him. A turn 1 or 2 Magus will
easily be able to out-dredge a turn 2 Wretch, however you may walk into a game-ending
Extirpate. However, that’s a lot of hate to fight through.
Overall, success in this matchup will depend on just how badly they are prepared to
hate you out. It can range from a bye to a total nightmare matchup.
URzatron
This matchup is very similar to how the Pickles matchups plays out, except without the
Damnations and Extirpates. Turn 1 enablers are very key in this matchup, since they will
usually go unanswered and win the game. Some URzatron builds run Electrolyze. This can be a
problem if you walk into it, but you should be fine as long as you don’t over-commit.
The good news about Electrolyze is that URzatron will typically cast it as a sorcery,
because they can’t let your enablers lose their summoning sickness. This means that
they will generally be tapped out and unable to counter the enabler next turn.
Post board they will bring in Bottle Gnomes to remove Bridges, and possibly Crypt. You
can play around these with Rusalkas. If you wish you can fight them both with Krosan Grip.
Bottle Gnomes is pretty tame, and Crypt is fairly easy to play around – just get them
to pop it early.
Overall, they don’t have a whole lot they can do to stop you. I’ve played
through four Tormod’s Crypts and still won the game.
They key to playing around Crypt is to force them to blow it early. Generally this is
done via a Troll, or incremental Rusalka activations. If they go to blow the Crypt you can
generally dredge a large amount quickly, especially if you have an unanswered Blue enabler.
In fact, Crypt is essentially meaningless against an unanswered Blue enabler, whereas
it’s much better against an unanswered Green enabler (although Mentor can still
create an army).
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 10/10
Svogthos: 9/10
Krosan Grip: 8/10
Blue Enablers: 10/10
Green Enablers: 9/10 (Mostly because they cost 1 mana, not so much for what they do)
Overall, this matchup is very difficult for you to lose. I’ve only lost when they
Spell Snare a turn 1 enabler, and counter everything else I do, eventually locking me with
Spell Burst plus Tron. An early Triskelavus can also be scary, but it doesn’t happen
often.
Angelfire
This matchup should be extremely easy for combo versions, and slightly more difficult
for control versions. This could be the easiest matchup for the combo version, however both
versions have extremely favorable matchups against Angelfire.
Their deck is very top-heavy. The only way they can interact before turn 4 (wrath) is
with Remand, Helix, or possibly Spell Snare. However, as long as you have 14+ enablers,
they just run out of answers. Eventually an enabler will go unanswered, and will cause a
ton of grief.
The only way they win this matchup is by removing your Bridges on turn 3 with a
suicidal Court Hussar followed by a Wrath of God with your pants down around your ankles.
The Wrath can be dodged with the Rusalka tricks, which were mentioned above.
Post sideboard you should be bringing in a few Krosan Grips in case they bring in
Worship. Other than that, there isn’t a whole lot they can do. Even if they somehow
stop your plan A (which is very hard for them to do), they still die to 20/20
Trolls every turn. They just can’t stop you.
You should generally bring out the Simian Spirit Guides if you have them in the deck.
While they are good against Remand, they are bad against Lightning Helix. Angelfire is also
so slow that increasing your clock by a turn isn’t needed. Instead, you should be
bringing in more resiliency. Your whole deck is good against them, you can afford to bring
in Grips just in case, or bring in Delirium Skeins to empty their hand.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Delirium Skeins 9/10
Svogthos: 9/10
Golgari-Grave Troll 9/10
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 5/10
Krosan Grip: 5/10
Blue Enablers: 10/10
Green Enablers: 10/10
Solar Flare
There may be a little bit of debate over my analysis of this matchup, but I feel Solar
Flare is an extremely favorable matchup. Firstly, game 1, they are essentially Angelfire
without the Lightning Helix. Some versions don’t even run Remand, although some run
Game 2 and 3 they are more difficult than Angelfire because they bring in Leylines and
Extirpates. The only problem is you won’t know which one, because almost all lists
are different. However, with experience both can be played around easily.
You take out the Flame-kins (as with any match you expect Extirpate) and you reanimate
Grave-Trolls. Your gameplan for games 2 and 3 are still the same in the first few turns.
Get an early unanswered enabler. After that, you can find Grips if you need to kill a
Leyline, force a losing Damnation, and fall back into a Troll-per-turn Plan B. There
isn’t a whole lot they can do against either of those plans besides Extirpating both
Bridge and Troll. If that happens, then you fall back to Svogthos, or your other
reanimators.
Games 2 and 3 are closer, but they basically need to Extirpate twice, and then cast
Skeletal Vampire to chump block, and hope you don’t run Akroma. You can
lose, but it’s definitely a favorable matchup once you know how to play it and when
to change gears.
The Mirror
Most people think that Leyline is the most devastating card. The actual answer is
Darkblast. In fact, aside from RakdosHate.dec, the scariest of all matchups is the mirror
matchup. It’s the only matchup where you can realistically be expected to fight
through Darkblast, Leyline, and Blazing Archon, plus a fast clock.
The winner of this matchup will be whoever brings the most dredge tech to the game.
Leyline is great, and must be answered with a Krosan Grip (although if you are faced with a
Leyline, you can try and swarm with Mentors/Llanowar tokens/Narcos and Imps). If the
Leylines are answered, then you must still hope he doesn’t find Darkblast. After
that, he can reanimate an Archon, which you need to kill – typically with Avatar of
Woe or the lesser Angel of Despair (if you have either sideboard).
These matchups are extremely draw dependant, and it is basically just a coinflip. I had
tried a transformational sideboard with madness creatures for the mirror matchups, or any
matchup that had ridiculous hate. It worked out horribly, and I wouldn’t recommend it
at all.
Here are the ratings for various cards in this matchup:
Leyline of the Void: 10/10
Darkblast: 10/10
Blazing Archon: 10/10
Avatar of Woe: 9/10
Krosan Grip: 9/10
Angel of Despair: 7/10
Simian Spirit Guides/Gemstone Caverns: 3/10 (although 10/10 game 1 – which typically
comes down to who is faster)
Blue Enablers: 10/10 (for their dredge speed, and ability to find your
hate/solutions)
Green Enablers: 8/10 (relatively mediocre, except for the option of swarming under a
Leyline)
Others
There are other fringe decks like B/W Panda Connection, various Korlash control decks,
Rakdos aggro, Flores’ Mishra, etc. These matchups all fall into various categories on
how to play them. For example, B/W Panda Connection plays a lot like Solar Flare, except
you must watch out for Martyr of the Sands and Jotun Grunt. Rakdos aggro plays like mix
between the worst parts of Gruul (the burn) and the worst parts of The Rack (the Black
hate). Flores’ Mishra plays like Angelfire in so much that you don’t really
care about what cute tricks they are doing (until they double Tormod’s Crypt you off
a Mishra and follow with Damnation). However, they have that draw as often as we have our
turn 3 kill draws, so it feels like a race matchup sometimes.
While I cannot do a write-up for every single deck in Standard (what a beautiful
diverse format it is), with some experience you should be able to identify three things
about each deck:
How much can they interact with you on turns 1-3?
What kind of clock do they present?
Do they have board sweepers that you must play around?
Do they present the possibility of Extirpate/Leyline/wretch/jailor?
Based on the answers to those questions, you will be able to identify which cards to
play around, formulate your Plan A and Plan B, and you can get a feeling on when you need
to switch plans.
Mulliganing
Understand that this deck will require you to mulligan much more aggressively than you
typically are used to. The good thing however is that you only really need to stick an
unanswered enabler, so even a mulligan down to four can win a game. I’ve even won on
a mulligan to three (although I wouldn’t recommend it).
What is most important to know when playing this deck is which hand will lose. For example,
you may have an opening five of:
3 Land
2 Narcomoeba
While it stinks to have to mulligan to four, that hand of five will almost certainly be
a game-loss. So while it stinks, there’s no risk in mulliganing that hand, because
you are risking an auto-loss.
Keeping poor hands is the best way to accumulate a losing record with this deck. Yes
you will mulligan to oblivion sometimes. However, there is no difference between
mulliganing to zero cards and keeping a poor seven that is an auto-lose hand. Every time
you keep a poor seven, it is the same thing as mulliganing down to zero cards (for argument
sake) – they both lose.
Knowing your opponent’s deck will help greatly with mulligan decisions. In fact,
a Gruul God-hand can be completely unplayable against Dragonstorm. A Dragonstorm God-hand
can be completely unplayable against Gruul.
Consider the following two hands:
Hand 1:
Breeding Pool
Watery Grave
Island
Magus of the Bazaar
Simian Spirit Guide
Golgari Grave-Troll
Flame-kin Zealot
Hand 2:
Watery Grave
Forest
Greenseeker
Llanowar Mentor
Stinkweed Imp
Stinkweed Imp
Golgari Grave Troll
Hand 1 is a bomb hand against Dragonstorm, Perilous Storm, Dralnu, and URzatron.
It’s absolutely horrid against Gruul, Boros, Mono-Red, The Rack, or any deck that can
answer a turn 1 enabler.
Hand 2 is a bomb hand against MGA, Gruul, Boros, and Mono-Red, but is absolutely horrid
against Dragonstorm, Dredge, and Perilous Storm.
Therefore, in a large event (or premiere event online), scouting is an extremely
rewarding skill. If you can track what everyone is playing, then you will – without
any doubt – win more games in the long run than someone that doesn’t scout,
simply because of mulligan decisions.
Let’s talk about some generalities on mulliganing. In general, if you do not have prior
information about your opponent’s 60, a hand is a keeper if it has:
A turn 1 enabler (generally with some other backup plan as well, such as a second land,
and a second enabler)
A turn 2 Magus
Against a non-interactive opponent, you should feel fine mulliganing more aggressively.
For example, against Angelfire you can mulligan harder than against Gruul. All you need is
an early enabler.
However, against Gruul, you must be careful mulliganing too much, because 1 enabler
doesn’t mean much, and the matchup is more about card advantage than an early
unanswered threat. In fact, since winning Gruul matchups has nothing to do with enablers
(besides soaking up burn), you can keep hands like five lands, and Imp, and a Troll against
Gruul, and still realistically win, whereas against just about any other deck that hand is
a mulligan. Against The Rack, you could keep a Darkblast, an Imp, and a Loam, and you would
realistically be okay. Against Dragonstorm, if you don’t have a turn 1 enabler, you
should mulligan (unless you have a turn 2 Magus). Speed is the key in that matchup. Knowing
what cards are important in each matchup is vital to your mulligan decision.
…
As a final point: since decks are constantly in flux, your plans must always be
re-examined. For example, the Dragonstorm matchup used to be extremely trivial until they
started boarding in Martyr of Ashes and Crypts. Gruul used to be highly favorable until
they modified their burn suite, and starting bringing in Blood Moon effects. Many Black
decks are now maindecking four Withered Wretch. I’m sure that a month from now, I
will be designing my starting 60 differently than as I propose above. But everything
discussed above should be a good primer for people learning the deck.
My goal for these articles was to provide an objective primer for how to build and play
dredge successfully. In a format as wide open as Standard is today, it’s always best
to go with a deck packing a lot of raw power. This way, even though some people may be
wearing bullet-proof vests, you will always be the one bringing the gun to the knife fight.
I hope these articles not only helped you choose which gun you want to bring, but how to
aim it and how to fire it.
Keith St. Jean
Cromulantkeith on the forums
WoWChamp on MTGO