A few weeks ago, one of my Magical friends sent me a link to a Japanese Magic Blog, I assume for comedy value. The webpage listed a handful of decks that had finished well at a fairly large tournament, including an Angelfire deck piloted by one of the Grand Prix Kyoto Top 8 competitors. The thing was that most of the decks just seemed awful. One had a sideboard made up of fifteen singletons (including Elves of Deep Shadow, Seal of Doom, and Remove Soul), while another was a U/W/g control deck built around Doubling Season.
Still, one deck caught my eye. The fourth-place finisher had a Bridge from Below Dredge deck that had opted out of the standard Zealot kill, and had instead gone for a Stalking Vengeance win. This was interesting to me because I had been toying with the idea of Stalking Vengeance in regular G/B Dredge for a decent while, even going so far as asking my fellow MiseTingers if any of them wanted to try it out and let me know what happened. So there’s this Dredge deck sitting in a pile of Magical hilarity. Even the deck I’m talking about seemed massively untuned, but the point was that someone had found a way to successfully use an idea that I really wanted to try.
4 Magus of the Bazaar
4 Llanowar Mentor
2 Greenseeker
4 Narcomoeba
1 Phantasmagorian
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Golgari Thug
4 Bridge from Below
4 Dread Return
4 Edge of Autumn
2 Street Wraith
3 Stalking Vengeance
2 Nantuko Husk
1 Island
4 Yavimaya Coast
3 Breeding Pool
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Horizon Canopy
Sideboard
1 Golgari Thug
2 Street Wraith
1 Firemane Angel
4 Darkblast
2 Life from the Loam
1 Delirium Skeins
3 Sword of the Meek
1 Leyline of the Void
The Changes
The biggest difference between the original decklist and my final one is the number of colors in the deck. To start, let’s take a look at the spells that you might want to cast in a normal game. Green gives you Llanowar Mentor, Greenseeker, Golgari Grave-Troll, and Edge of Autumn. Blue gives you Magus of the Bazaar and Narcomoeba. Black has Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug, Dread Return, and Nantuko Husk. That’s a total of fourteen Green mana symbols, eight Blue mana symbols, and fifteen Black mana symbols. Despite this fact, our lands include fifteen Green sources, twelve Blue sources, and five Black sources. Given that you’re hoping never to need to cast Narcomoeba, this weight of mana just didn’t make sense. It was nearly impossible to cast a Dread Return or Stinkweed Imp from your hand, making your game against aggro harder than it should be. It was even difficult to cast Trolls, since eight of the seventeen total lands tended to disappear. So I cut the Blue, though I left Narcomoebas in because they’re free fuel for the fire and because they’re good threats against counterspell decks. With my newfound mana freedom, I added in a boatload of Black mana sources, while at the same time I increased the basic land count. The end result is that you can easily play your spells and you don’t pack to a Blood Moon.
Cutting Blue meant that Magus of the Bazaar had left four open slots. The first thing I did was go up to the max on Greenseekers, and then I added one Life from the Loam and one Darkblast to fill the other slots. The Darkblast and Loam came in for a few different reasons, but primarily because I felt I needed more Dredge cards. Darkblast gives me an out to something like a game 1 Yixlid Jailer, although the chance of drawing it is admittedly small, and Loam gives me a draw engine with Canopies and a generally better long-game against control decks.
I played with this setup for a while before I determined that I didn’t like Street Wraith very much. It was far worse than Edge of Autumn, and just didn’t do enough against a lot of decks. Yes, the speed boost was nice every once in a while, but it didn’t come up that often and it was usually unnecessary against all but the fastest of opponents. I was looking for some way to either strengthen the combo overall, or to disrupt my opponent’s game plan. I eventually settled on Leyline of the Void, which either completely stops your opponent’s deck, or at least makes your Bridges much more robust.
Later on I decided that it was time to cut the Golgari Thug. The Thug enabled a large number of cute plays, and I’m fairly certain that he was included for the following reason. You could Dredge him up the turn you wanted to go off, sacrifice him and two other guys to Dread Return, target Narcomoeba with his ability, and then cycle Edge or Canopy to put the Narcomoeba back into play. Really, though, he was just another Dredge guy to cast when you wanted to Dread Return, and Shambling Shell and Brownscale both seemed like better options. I decided that Shell was far superior to Brownscale, partially because the deck was already very strong against aggro strategies, and partially because the Shell was a better combatant.
My final maindeck change was giving Phantasmagorian the axe. For anyone who doesn’t know, Phantasmagorian gives you a free, uncounterable way to discard three cards if you can get it into your graveyard. This ability was helpful when you had a Bridge and a Vengeance you needed to get rid of when your opponent had killed off your spellshapers. However, it came up so rarely that I decided it was better to just have another copy of a combo piece. An additional Nantuko Husk made it easier to go off and gave me another third-turn creature.
During this whole time, the sideboard was in constant flux. The original sideboard made basically no sense to me, but I left it intact for a few games to see if I ever felt the desire to bring in a Sword of the Meek or one Firemane Angel. I never did. The cards that I did board in were Loam, Darkblast, and Street Wraith, and they all made it to the final configuration. The seemingly-random remaining eight cards were all cut to address specific matchups, but I’ll get to the full sideboard in a minute.
Creatures (27)
- 3 Nantuko Husk
- 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 1 Shambling Shell
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 3 Stalking Vengeance
- 4 Greenseeker
- 4 Llanowar Mentor
- 4 Narcomoeba
Lands (17)
Spells (16)
- 1 Darkblast
- 1 Life from the Loam
- 2 Leyline of the Void
- 4 Dread Return
- 4 Bridge from Below
- 4 Edge of Autumn
Sideboard
Why Not Play Speed Dredge?
The short answer is that this deck is better. I have to qualify that statement, though, since it’s true that Zealot Dredge has a much easier time goldfishing its combo-kill. Compare:
Speed Dredge: Any three creatures in play + two Bridges, one Dread Return, and one Flame-Kin Zealot in the graveyard. Sac your guys to Return the Zealot, and swing for twenty one.
No Fear: Any three creatures in play + two Bridges, two Dread Returns, one Stalking Vengeance, and one Nantuko Husk in the graveyard. (You can subtract a Dread Return and a Husk from that combination if you happen to draw one, since the combo is free.) Sac your guys to Return the Vengeance. Sac three tokens to Return the Husk (dealing six damage). Eat three tokens with the Husk (dealing six more), and then eat the Husk (dealing the final eight). And swing with your 5/5 if you need to. Or Return the Vengeance, cast the Husk, and eat all six zombies and the Husk for twenty six points of burn.
So your kill needs the same pieces as Speed Dredge’s, but you either need another man and another Dread Return, or you need to have drawn the man and the lands to cast him. However, Magic is clearly not a game you play against an empty chair, and while the Zealot deck may be better at killing a goldfish than the Husk deck, the Husk deck is better at killing actual players with actual spells.
This conclusion is based on the fact that your pieces, on their own, are not Grizzly Bears. If something happens to the Bridges in response to a Dread Return (say a Scorched Rusalka activation), Speed Dredge will have a 3/3 that later becomes a 2/2. No Fear will have a 5/5 that stays a 5/5 and discourages sweeper spells. Speed Dredge can’t cast its Zealots under all but the strangest of circumstances, whereas No Fear can certainly play Nantuko Husk in the majority of games. Once in play, Nantuko Husk is much more than just a 2/2, since he combines so nicely with so many different cards already in the deck.
The various moving pieces all interact very well together, too. Bridges + Dread Returns + Stalking Vengeance + Husk is a straight kill, but the pairs also work. Both decks have Bridge from Below + Dread Return, but only one can go Ghost Husk style and kill on turn 4 with a 2/2. Stalking Vengeance + Dread Return is usually good for at least six points of burn and a new-found fatty, though sometimes it’s as much as forty points when Grave-Trolls are involved. Nantuko Husk is best friends with so many different parts of the deck, from Bridge to Below to Llanowar Mentor. Shambling Shell can piggyback onto any of your flying creatures when all else seems lost, can ward off Call of the Herd tokens, and sacs for a Lava Spike and a squad of 2/2s whenever you want.
Then there’s the fact that you don’t need to swing to kill them. What if your opponent has a Blazing Archon? Dome them for twenty. What if they have a Seht’s Tiger? Dome them for twenty. What if they have a Fog, or ten goblin tokens and a Pyroclasm, or any number of disaster scenarios? Dome them for twenty. The reality is that you are attacking your opponent on multiple fronts. They have to deal with a Zombie machine. They have to deal with a burn-slinging fatty. They have to deal with Nantuko Husk and a slew of free creatures. They have to deal with 10/10s, repeatable removal spells, and Life from the Loam. They just have to deal with too much.
In other words, when everything doesn’t come together perfectly, this deck is still going wild.
The Anatomy of No Fear
The Enablers – Winning matches with No Fear starts with playing either Llanowar Mentor or Greenseeker on your first turn. There are only eight of them (which means you have about a two-out-of-three shot of hitting one in your opener), so you have to be willing to fly fast and loose with your mulligans. When you do hit, though, the result is very powerful. Greenseeker lets you play your Imps and your Trolls on-schedule, whether you hit a Loam or not. Mentor allows for the fastest possible Dread Returns, as well as giving you chumpblockers, mana-accelerators, and dorks to attack with. Neither of them can be hit by Spell Snare, and they both come out on the first turn every time. Yes, Magus of the Bazaar is much stronger than Greenseeker on turn four when you have two Trolls in your graveyard, but Greenseeker is much stronger on the first two turns. Given that our goal is to win the game on turns 3, 4, or 5, that makes the one-drop much more attractive in my eyes.
The Dredgers – Every Dredge card in No Fear has a purpose beyond flipping your deck over. Golgari Grave-Troll is your heavy-hitter, both because he Dredges for the max and hits for eighteen. Stinkweed Imp is your defense, setting up your engine as well as being a repeatable blocker for anything and everything that’s coming your way. Shambling Shell is a little bit of both, since he can attack for three against control decks and block forever against aggro decks. Darkblast lets you kill off utility creatures, and can even take out something bigger when you set up a turn powered by Horizon Canopies. Life from the Loam lets you abuse the aforementioned Canopies, and it gets you the mana you need to play whatever spell you’d like. Dakmor Salvage is somewhat redundant with Loam in the picture, but there are times when you need to make a land drop but can’t afford to cast a threat and a Loam in one turn.
The Kill – I already extolled the virtues of Stalking Vengeance and Nantuko Husk in the previous section, but I’ll give you the quick and dirty version here. Together, these two can burn an opponent out from an obscene life total (think Martyr of Sands). A solo Stalking Vengeance is still a 5/5 haste creature, it deals extra damage when combined with Dread Return or Shambling Shell, and it throws fire when killed by a Wrath. Nantuko Husk is a relatively small guy that can team up with Narcomoeba, Llanowar Mentor, or Bridge from Below to grow out of hand very quickly. He also controls opposing Bridges for no mana, and allows you to upgrade from tiny non-token creature to many small token creatures without going all-in.
The Rest – Bridge from Below is what it is, and that’s the heart and soul of the combo side of this deck. The same goes for Dread Return, and nearly everyone who played in Regionals knows all this. Edge of Autumn, however, is a pretty spicy card in Dredge. First of all, it’s a mana-free cycler, which means you can spend your mana on Dread Return and flip an extra six cards in the same turn. Second, it can play Rampant Growth when you need to cast Dread Return or Golgari Grave-Troll ahead of time, or if you just need a Swamp to cast your Stinkweed Imp. Sacrificing a land may be a fairly large impact, but Life from the Loam helps negate it, while Dakmor Salvage combos with it. Leyline of the Void is an all-star in some matchups, protects your Bridges against some decks, and at least messes up Dragonstorm’s Rite of Flames.
The Sideboard – Sideboarding gives you access to extra copies of all the things you might ever wish to draw more of, as well as better speed or better defense, whichever you need. The Darkblasts are strong against all manner of aggressive decks, as well as being good against other Dredge decks and Project X. Life from the Loam is great for matchups where you expect your hand to be under attack, as well as against control decks where you may have to fall back on the Troll plan. Loam will also allow you to use and reuse Horizon Canopies, giving you a decent draw engine if you find you need one. The Street Wraiths bump up your speed against Dragonstorm, giving you a better chance to outrace them. The Wall of Roots let you play an 0/4 blocker on turn 2, and still activate your first-turn enabler against decks like Gruul. Leyline is Leyline, and it comes in to wreck the dreams of any graveyard strategy.
Matchups
Dragonstorm (Extremely Close to Unfavorable):
It’s a pure race. Each of you wants to do something dumb and kill the other on turn 4, and each of you sometimes has to fall back on a secondary plan that will take a little longer to win the game. While you’re both approximately as fast as the other when playing against a goldfish, the Dragonstorm deck has Remands and Gigadrowses to disrupt you, whereas you can’t really slow them down. If they go off for less than four, however, there’s a very good chance that you can weather the storm with Narcomoebas and Stinkweed Imps.
Sideboard:
-2 Leyline of the Void, -1 Darkblast, -1 Nantuko Husk
+4 Street Wraith
After boards you should have a slight edge due to your increased speed. You’re dropping three completely dead cards and a 2/2 in exchange for a set of men that can take a whole turn off your clock. It is not unreasonable to expect turn 3 and turn 4 kills after boards, as opposed to turn 4 and turn 5. Many Dragonstorm decks are planning to stop your win by bringing in Martyr of Ashes, though that card won’t stop your Husk and Vengeance from stomping all over your opponent. It’s the ones that have Crypts in the side that you need to worry about, since killing on the third turn is pretty hard when they blow your graveyard away in your upkeep.
Gruul (Favorable):
Games against Gruul are kind of funny, in that you win the short ones and you win the long ones. The games that last five turns, though, are the games that you’ll find yourself losing. If it’s clear that they’re on a creature curve, or if you’re on the play, then you should always try to go for the combo-kill. It doesn’t matter if they play Kird Ape, Scab-Clan Mauler, and running Call of the Herds if you untap and kill them. If it looks like they’re going to try to disrupt you, though, either by playing Scorched Rusalka or Seal of Fire, then you’ll want to fall back on a defensive plan. Use your Imps, Husks, and Shell to hold them off while you try to get up to Troll mana. Play Trolls as blockers, and don’t attack with them if you risk getting hit by a Sulfur Elemental or Giant Solifuge. Eventually you can Dread Return a Stalking Vengeance and sac your Trolls to kill them.
Sideboard:
-2 Leyline of the Void, -4 Edge of Autumn
+4 Wall of Roots, +2 Darkblast
Wall of Roots will usually buy you at least two turns to pull your combo pieces together, and it does that while still letting you pitch to your Mentor on turn 2. Yes, you won’t get to Dredge on turn 2 if you want to play the Wall, but playing the Wall is nearly always correct anyways. After all, you’re looking to stall the game, so missing your Dredge on turn 2 is not going to have a huge long-term effect. If you’re on the play, the Wall stops them from ever getting their Maulers set up, and without them they’re very far behind. Many R/G decks are packing Crypts in the side, so don’t sandbag a Dread Return that’s profitable, hoping you’ll hit Bridge number three. Just bring back Stalking Vengeance and start swinging.
Dralnu (Favorable):
Your spellshapers always get in under the countermagic, even if you’re on the draw, so Dralnu starts the game out way behind. The ideal game plays out with you not casting any real threats until you can go for one turn where even three counterspells won’t stop you. This often means that you sit there, swinging with Narcomoebas and Mentor tokens until you can finally cast four Dread Returns and a Nantuko Husk in one turn. You should also keep in mind that you might not have to do anything at all after turn 1, since they will be loathe to actually spend cards and mainphase mana on Damnation to kill Narcomoebas.
Sideboard:
-2 Leyline of the Void
+2 Life from the Loam
Alternate Sideboard:
-4 Edge of Autumn
+2 Leyline of the Void, +2 Life from the Loam
Against most versions of Dralnu, the Leylines do turn off the Teachings chain and shut down Dralnu himself, but they’re also usually better off being a real card. However, if you really feel like you want to hose their graveyard then you can go with the alternate sideboard plan. Either way, you’re bringing in Life from the Loam so that you can be sure that you’ll have mana to operate if and when the game goes long. Loam also lets you set up a turn where you cash in a handful of Canopies on endstep and untap into multiple threats in one turn, which you usually would not be able to do with Dredge.
Zealot Dredge (Favorable):
I covered a lot of this in the “Why Not Play Speed Dredge?” section, so I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m repeating myself. Your enablers are usually better because they come out faster. Your win plan is better because you don’t need two Bridges to go off and because half of your kill mechanism shuts of theirs. You even have maindeck Leylines that you can get them with.
Sideboard:
-4 Edge of Autumn, -1 Stalking Vengeance
+3 Darkblast, +2 Leyline of the Void
Darkblast kills all of their enablers, so it’s very hard for them to get off the ground in post-board games. In addition to having ‘Blasts to clear out any enabler you see, you’ve got the full boat on Leylines. They may have their own Leylines, but in the Leyline mirror, Husk, Mentor, and Shell beat Zealot, Thought Courier, and Drowned Rusalka.
Project X (Close, but Favorable):
Both of you can cobble together a makeshift offensive team when things aren’t coming together, and both of you are trying to pull out a game-win on the back of your graveyard. However, you have a bit of a trump card since they have to work much harder to combo off if you have a Stalking Vengeance in play. They can’t gain infinite life with one Essence Warden if you have a Shambling Shell, since each iteration will gain them three life (Saffi, Champion, and Shell) and lose them three life (Shell + Stalking Vengeance). Meanwhile, you get to build one of your guys up to mythic proportions, which can kill them when you untap or when you finally bring back a Nantuko Husk. Even if they do manage to go off for x times 3 life (with two Wardens), you’ll have an x/x creature in play, so you can kill them in three swings once he finally starts getting through. They can only go off for infinite tokens if they have enough life to remove Stalking Vengeance from the game before you get to kill them with Husk and Shell. You also get to work over most of their team if you hit a Darkblast.
Sideboard
-4 Edge of Autumn, -1 Dread Return
+2 Leyline of the Void, +2 Darkblast, +1 Life from the Loam
After boards you can usually really get them with Darkblast, though it’s a good idea to try to hold onto one in case they have Withered Wretch in their sideboard. You’re also maxing out on Leylines and bringing in another Loam in exchange for a bit of speed. The Dread Return is safe to cut because their combo, if they get it, will bring your kill back for you.
In General:
Standard is an incredibly diverse format; I made a prediction going into Regionals that I wouldn’t play against any deck more than once, and I was nearly right. This means that there’s a good chance you’ll play against something that I didn’t cover here in your next FNM or Magic Online Constructed Queue, so it’s helpful to know how the sideboard cards generally flow. Street Wraith is there to give you speed against Dragonstorm, and that’s about it. Wall of Roots is to slow down very aggressive decks like Gruul and Zoo, since it blocks even if they blow your graveyard away with Crypt. Darkblast is for any deck with x/1s, though you should leave one in the deck if your opponent has Skeletal Vampires. Life from the Loam is for control matchups, since it shines in long games, but it’s also good against Rack decks, since it keeps you alive. Leyline is for “the Mirror”, Project X, and the Hatching Plans deck.
At this point, I think I’ll answer two questions at once. Why don’t I have any answer to Leyline? Why is the deck called “No Fear”? For much the same reason that I thought I wouldn’t play against any single archetype more than once, I also figured that the number of times I’d see a Leyline would be once, at most. Why waste precious sideboard slots if you don’t think your opponents are going to have the card you’re answering? Then there’s the fact that you rarely beat a Leyline, even if you do have the Krosan Grip for it, since you’ve lost at least three turns getting up to the point where you can kill it. I decided that Leyline was just not worth worrying about. I had No Fear.
Massachusetts Regionals Report
Let me say, right now, that I almost didn’t play Regionals. Everything ended up fine, but I nearly had to play side drafts all day long because I just don’t own cards. Luckily, a denizen of my home-away-from-home (MiseTings) came to my rescue, along with two of his friends, and together they loaned me 67 of the 75 cards I played on Saturday. As such, I figure that the best place to thank Spencer Doehlert and Ryan and Kevin Stechler is right here. Thanks guys.
Round 1 – Mike Gordon (RG Aggro)
He wins the roll and leads off with a Llanowar Elf. I play a Mentor on my turn, and vaguely entertain the thought of blocking his Elf before letting him play a 3/3 Mauler. I untap, Dredge six, and play a land and a Greenseeker. He hits me for four and plays Call of the Herd. I Dredge six again, hitting two Narcomoebas. I have a Bridge in my yard from my earlier Dredge, so I drop a Husk and Dread Return my Stalking Vengeance with the Narcomoebas and the Mentor. This leaves me with three Zombies, two Elves, and a Greenseeker, which all get eaten for eleven points on the way out, and another sixteen courtesy of the Husk.
For game 2 he has one Tormod’s Crypt, which I know because he tells me while he’s boarding it in. I start off with a Mentor and a Wall of Roots, and then make a Nantuko Husk on turn 3. He starts off with an Elf and then back-to-back Calls, and drops the one Crypt. I untap, Dredge past a Narcomoeba, play a Greenseeker, and swing with the Husk. He blocks it, since it could be lethal, and I sac the Greenseeker for a token. He responds by popping the Crypt, so I cash my side in for some 2/2 Zombies. He hangs on for a few turns, but eventually the tokens and the Husk swarm over his defenses.
1-0
Round 2 – John Lawton (Project X)
In the first game, not a whole lot happens. I mulligan and keep a reasonable hand, slowing him down with Darkblast until I hardcast Dread Return for Stalking Vengeance. He has a Saffi out, and I suspect that he’s holding the Teysa combo, but if he ever goes for it then I can bring back my Husk and kill him. I start to play Trolls, and he eventually runs out of blockers.
Game 2 looks like it’s playing out the same way, only I don’t have a Vengeance this time because I can’t find a Dread Return. He Glittering Wishes for a Glare of Subdual, and that holds me off as I dig and dig, trying to find a way to combo-kill him through the Glare. He drops a Ghost Council, which simultaneously kills my Bridges and puts me on a five-turn clock. I can’t hit enough Dread Returns to bring back my Vengeance, then a Troll, and then anything random to kill him, so we go to game 3.
I mulligan again, and keep a hand with two spellshapers, two lands, Darkblast, and Leyline. The Darkblast and Leyline buy me a bunch of time, but my enablers end up getting killed when he Glittering Wishes for Orzhov Pontiff. However, they’ve done their damage, and I find a Dread Return to get Stalking Vengeance. This time, I do have the power to bring back another Vengeance, cast a Troll, and then sac all three for a massive amount of damage.
2-0
Round 3 – Mitch Brent (Mono-White Control)
When he starts off with a Snow-Covered Plains, and I have an Imp and a Greenseeker, I figure that there’s no way I can possibly lose. I enjoy a few turns of undisrupted setup, though I’m having difficulty finding Dread Returns. He drops a Porphyry Nodes, and I spend a few turns feeding Imps to it, which gives me a squad of Zombie tokens. He eventually plays a Sacred Mesa with four mana up, so I’m going to have to kill him or lose my three Bridges on his upkeep. I Dredge six, cash in two Canopies to Dredge another twelve, reanimate a Stalking Vengeance, reanimate a Nantuko Husk, and swing for the fences with Vengeance and my Zombie team, with Husk lurking in the back. He plays Seht’s Tiger before blockers, so I respond with the combo-kill.
He starts game 2 off by mulliganing to Martyr of Sands, but it appears as though he doesn’t know he can sacrifice it in response to my Zombie triggers to kill my Bridges. He eventually sacrifices it, revealing Condemn, Sacred Mesa, and Nodes, so when I hardcast my Dread Return on Stalking Vengeance, I can’t attack with it. He untaps and Wraths, taking four damage and tapping out of White mana. I cast another Dread Return on my turn, and swing for nine with the Vengeance and the Zombies from his Wrath. He has another Martyr, which gains him enough life to pitch two cards to Sunscour to Wrath me again, but I just start dropping Trolls until he’s dead.
3-0
Round 4 – Seth Trahan (B/W/r Control)
In the first game, he mulligans to six and keeps a one-land hand, playing a Basic Swamp and passing. I have a first-turn enabler, but my Grave-Troll and later my Bridges both get hit by Extirpates. Eventually I cast a Dread Return on Stalking Vengeance and just swing three times.
He brings in a huge number of cards, so I assume that he’s playing MBA with sideboard Wretches, Crypts, and/or Leylines. I bring in the Darkblasts to give myself a shot against his supposed Withered Wretches, but when he leads with Blood Crypt and Orzhov Signet, I realize I’ve read him wrong. He again has a series of Extirpates, but I again just reanimate a Stalking Vengeance and send him in until my opponent is dead.
4-0
Round 5 – Ben Chapman (B/W Aggro)
My opponent leads with Snow-Covered Plains again, and I am thrilled again. However, this time he follows it up with another Plains and a Knight of the Holy Nimbus. I start to try to get things going, but I hit a bunch of blanks with my first Dredge. When I go to Dredge on my third turn, he has a Stonecloaker to get my Troll. However, he opts to return Nimbus instead of sitting on the Stonecloaker, and I have an Imp to hold off his flier. I pitch Shambling Shell on turn 4, and hit a Narcomoeba. Over the course of the rest of the game, I keep loading the Narcomoeba up with Shell counters, and protect my huge flier by forcing him to Mortify my Stalking Vengeance instead. Eventually he dies to a 4/4 Narcomoeba.
In game 2 I go for a third-turn Stalking Vengeance, since neither of us has any pressure. He untaps from his Basilica and Mortifies it, so I cash in my Horizon Canopy for a Life from the Loam. I start to build up a ton of Canopies with Loam, and start dropping Trolls while my opponent plays Ghost Council and assorted idiots. Canopies and Darkblast take care of the assorted idiots, but the Council chump blocks for a long time before the Trolls finally make it through for the one-hit kill.
5-0
Round 6 – Jerry Freedman (Mono-Black Rack)
He leads with a Snow-Covered Swamp and The Rack, which combines with Augur of Skulls and Cry of Contrition to start dealing me some serious damage very quickly. Luckily, I hit my Life from the Loam with 10 life left, and I get my head above water. I use the Loam and Canopies to start digging up Darkblast to clear out his side, but he has a Phyrexian Arena and a freshly-played Confidant to go with his double Scrying Sheets, so he’s drawing more cards than I am. He takes his turn, and says that he’s responding to his triggers by activating Scrying Sheets, which I let pass. He doesn’t reveal, and says “okay, I’ll resolve Confidant first”, which I also let pass. After okaying this, I realize that I don’t think he’s allowed to do what he did, by which I mean I think that he has to order his triggers before he can use Scrying Sheets. I call a judge simply to ask if I’m right, which ends up being a huge deal. The judge goes off and confers with the other judges, and then my opponent and I are individually taken aside and asked questions by the judges. They decide that my opponent was not cheating (which I believe), and they decide that I was not fishing for a penalty (which my opponent believes). Since neither of us was cheating, he gets a warning for performing an illegal action, and I get a warning for failing to maintain the game-state. After this twenty-five minute debacle, I untap, blast his side away, and swing for the win with a 14/14 Grave-Troll.
I start off game 2 with a Mentor, but I get hit by a Smallpox. I don’t have any more enablers, but the Pox lets me discard an Imp, and the Imp manages to find more Dredgers. I drop my second land, and Dredge up a Life from the Loam. I need to rawdog a land to cast the Loam, but I hit on my next turn. At this point, my opponent casts a Leyline of the Void, so I have to try to kill him with what’s already in my graveyard and the top of my deck, which is a problem since I don’t have any pressure at all. I end up Dread Returning a Stinkweed Imp and playing out a few 1/1s, but he draws his second Phyrexian Totem to swing for the win at one life… with a Phyrexian Arena in play.
My game 3 hand doesn’t have a spellshaper, but it’s got lands, Darkblast, Dread Return, and a Stinkweed Imp, so I keep it on the strength of Darkblast. He plays a one-drop, which I Darkblast, and my first Dredge hits two Narcomoebas. I go for a Dread Return at some point, and he responds by Funeral Charming his own Confidant to keep me from getting three Zombies. He untaps into Damnation, and I drop a Troll. He Smallpoxes it, but I just go again and he’s out of answers.
6-0
Round 7 – James Pirkey (Project X)
We move out of the main tables to a place where we’ll have plenty of room, since the top tables are extraordinarily crowded for no apparent reason. I lose the roll, and send back a series of completely unplayable hands until I’m looking at Llanowar Wastes and Narcomoeba. I fail to even make it interesting.
For game 2, I keep Greenseeker, Mentor, Stalking Vengeance, Imp, Darkblast, Leyline, and Swamp on the play. I figure that I have Leyline and Darkblast to slow him down long enough that I can hit a Green source off the top and go off. Unfortunately for me, this isn’t at all what happens. Instead he plays Castigate on turn 2, taking my Darkblast. He then proceeds to play a bunch of random guys, like Saffi and Teysa, while I try to get started with my third-turn Llanowar Mentor. I Dredge a couple of cards, but before I can really start rolling he casts Chord of Calling and fetches up Withered Wretch. When I determine that he knows how to use his Wretch, I pack it in.
6-1
Round 8 – Stefan Janiszewski (Dragonstorm)
I start off with a Leyline in play, and he starts off with Island, Sleight of Hand, Suspend Lotus Bloom, so I figure I’m already dead. However, I have a first-turn enabler, and when he misses his fourth-turn Dragonstorm, I feel like I have a shot. He Storms for two on turn 5, and I make an Imp and a Narcomoeba, which hold him off long enough to win with Husk and Bridge, which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I hadn’t had the Leyline.
I keep a great hand in game 2: a land, two enablers, two cyclers, Grave-Troll, and Dread Return. However, I manage to Dredge twenty-four straight blanks (no Dread Returns, no other Dredgers, no Vengeances, and no Bridges), so I can’t get a fast combo-kill. My opponent, on the other hand, can.
In the deciding game of my Top 8 chances, I mulligan to three cards on the play. I keep Dread Return, Stinkweed Imp, and Edge of Autumn, and when I simply say “go,” my opponent looks confused. I have to tell him that I have no land in my three cards, so he goes about his merry way. I rip Horizon Canopy, Stalking Vengeance, Swamp, and Horizon Canopy number two, though, so it almost looks like I’ll have a shot. That is, it looks like I have a shot right up until he has a Delay for my Edge of Autumn. However, he misses the Storm on his Lotus turn again, and I start to get in there with a Husk and a Stinkweed Imp. I Dredge past a Narcomoeba, but my opponent Gigadrowses my attackers, untaps, and Storms for two again. I bring back my Imp and sit there trying to find a Vengeance to kill him with, but before I can do it he rips a Hellkite off the top to kill my Imp. He wouldn’t have had to get lucky if he hadn’t randomly burned his Gigadrowse.
6-2
The tournament didn’t really go at all how I wanted. Starting out 6-0 was great, and I even entertained thoughts of dropping to try to qualify on rating, but I would still have been about ten composite points short. I didn’t play out the last round, since packs had no appeal to me and since I felt burned by my deck.
Despite all that, I still think the deck is amazing. Before playing at Regionals, I had literally never lost a match on Magic Online with the deck. I lost a game once when I mulliganed to one card against The Rack, and I lost one other to an Ignite Memories for eight copies on turn 3, but over one week of queues I didn’t lose a single match. The deck is extraordinarily resilient, and it’s not what people are expecting out of Dredge, which helps contribute to the wins. People continuously had to read cards like Stalking Vengeance, and my opponents often didn’t realize that they were dead until I said “and then sac the Husk for fourteen.”
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me in the forums, via email, or on AIM.
Benjamin Peebles-Mundy
ben at mundy dot net
SlickPeebles on AIM