Last week I Dredged through Planar Chaos; this week, I unleash the dog decks of Dredge that have been pinging around my brain these last few weeks. A quick caveat – these decks are untested and presented here merely as starting points, a way to get the deckbuilding juices flowing. In the coming weeks I will be attempting to get enough Planar Chaos stuff to start testing these ideas, and with any luck make it out to an FNM or two for trial by fire. If some of these ideas prove to be very promising, either through my testing or according to emails I hopefully get from other Dredge fans, I will come back and share them with you.
Before we get started, I thought I would channel my inner Remie and answer an email I got about Dredge. HydraLord wrote:
I’ve been running a Dredge deck for the last couple weeks at FNM and been having reasonable success with it. It’s a lot of fun. Here’s the list I’ve been running:
4 Darkblast
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Life from the Loam
4 Shambling Shell
2 Golgari Thug
2 Golgari Brownscale
2 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Moldervine Cloak
1 Grave-Shell Scarab
1 Sisters of Stone Death
1 Garza’s Assassin
4 Dimir House Guard
1 Persecute
1 Nekrataal
1 Dread Return
1 Nightmare Void
1 Greater Mossdog
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Llanowar Wastes
4 Snow-Covered Forest
4 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits
2 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb
2 Mouth of Ronom
1 Gemstone Mine
Sideboard
1 Elvish Skysweeper
1 Nullmage Shepherd
2 Nekrataal
1 Keening Banshee
4 Delirium Skeins
2 Greater Mossdog
2 Golgari Brownscale
1 Nightmare Void
1 Dread Return
Aside from the usual stuff, Skysweeper comes in versus Akroma. It also combos with Golgari Thug to let you take infinite turns (which was actually relevant versus Nassif’s deck). The Skarrg plus Gemstone Mine seems a little gimmicky, but it’s won me games fighting against Sacred Mesa.
The big problems that I’ve been having are:
i) Untargetable creatures (Solifuge, Simic Sky Swallower, Mystic Enforcer)
ii) Stabilizing against Boros and getting burned out
Do you have any suggestions for helping with those matchups?
Planar Chaos doesn’t really excite me much, at least not for my present configuration. I thought Phantasmagorian would be good, but Golgari Grave-Troll seems leagues better.
Tormod’s Crypts Defeated (over 3 weeks): 8
Tormod’s Crypts Lost To: 3, but only one of them really mattered
Pretty fun
Oh! I just had an idea. What about boarding in Firemane Angel versus Boros? The extra life might help me avoid death.
Thanks for writing in, HydraLord! First, let me say bravo to your build, which is very much in keeping with “classic” dedicated Dredge style that I have gone over before. I especially like Mouth of Ronom, which seems kinda cool as a later-game killer you can recur with Loam.
To address your questions:
Dealing with untargetables, we get a huge boost in Planar Chaos—Damnation. Yeah, I know you’re probably cringing at the cost of the card just as I am, but I see it as a crucial card that this deck has needed all along, not least of which is how it deals with the otherwise difficult-to-deal with. The good news is that you can actually get away with running just a couple with your Dimir House Guard searcher, until you acquire your playset.
As for dealing with Boros… I would highly recommend running Wall of Roots, which can help you hold the fort early, and give you extra mana to cast your higher cost spells. Another thought is Darkheart Sliver; heck, maindeck Darkheart Slivers and Spike Feeders might be worth it in some Boros-heavy metagames!
Firemane Angel? Yeah, I had thought about that before too. The problem with your build is if you draw one early, it is difficult to get it out of your hand. I’ve run some Dredge builds with Mindless Automaton, so if you had a few of them in your maindeck, you could get away with running maybe three Firemanes in your sideboard to buy you life against aggro.
I have to say I am certainly pleased to hear that you have successfully fought through the eeeeevil Tormod’s Crypt so often, though I’m a bit alarmed that it’s cropping up so often for you. I mean, how many Tier 1 Standard decks out there are truly hosed by Tormod’s Crypt anyway? Why are people still running so many of them in their sideboards? This is not the sideboard card you are looking for…
Okay, let’s go ahead and jump into the new Planar Chaos-juiced Dredge decks I’ve cooked up for testing. I’ll start with the “radical departure” I mentioned last week:
Creatures (23)
- 3 Spike Feeder
- 4 Elves of Deep Shadow
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 3 Grave-Shell Scarab
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 1 Garza's Assassin
- 4 Darkheart Sliver
Lands (23)
Spells (14)
When they reprinted Gaea’s Blessing in Time Spiral, I was intrigued about using a Dredge engine to trigger the Blessing a la Oath of Druids back in the day. Of course, Blessing flies in the face of a “classic” dedicated Dredge strategy, since the whole point of that sort of deck is to build up a huge graveyard and overwhelm your opponent with card selection and eventual death by Svogthos beatdown. The problem with classic Dredge is playing non-land, non-creature cards, since once you’re in the sweet spot of Dredging every turn, these cards are essentially blanks in your deck. Of course, not being able to play good removal spells like Putrefy and now Damnation is a painful pill to swallow. A deck built around the Dredge / Gaea’s Blessing engine is going to have its graveyard reset to zero periodically. What are the implications?
First, Life from the Loam becomes infinitely worse. While you will have lands Dredged up you can fetch back a lot of the times, you will almost never want to Dredge back Loam, since if you happen to flip a Blessing on that Dredge, you won’t have any lands (or anything at all) in your graveyard to retrieve. I’m a little torn about not playing Loam at all though – even if you never Dredge it back, it’s still going to be good to occasionally snag three lands from your graveyard when you draw it normally.
Second, the Svogthos end-game isn’t really possible. So why do I still have one in the deck? My reasoning is two-fold – against control decks, even a smallish Svogthos is going to be a decent weapon to have, and having a backup option to maindeck Extirpate for Blessing might not be a bad thing.
You also cannot really run the otherwise awesome smash-mouth Golgari Grave-Troll. So why go this route? Well, breaking free from the constrictions of dedicated Dredge, you gain the benefit of inevitability with Gaea’s Blessing. At the very least, you will never be decked. You also get the benefit of gradually thinning your deck of lands, increasing the number of “business” spells you draw from the top of your deck.
Running the Dredgers perform as eternal “silver bullets” if you want them to. For instance, against a Weenie deck you can keep snagging back your Darkblast. Against combo, you can keep getting back Nightmare Void.
It occurs to me that this might be the deck where Grave-Shell Scarab actually gets a chance to shine. His low-Dredge count is not a problem here, and he’s not a bad “bullet” to keep Dredging back each turn in the later game since he’s of a decent size and can Dredge himself back.
Lastly, Garza’s Assassin seems like a nice card to have available. Flip him over when you Dredge, even if the Blessing triggers, you can snag him back with your self-sacrificers. You can even time the triggers on the stack so that you can gain the life after you pay half of it to Recover the Assassin. So long as you are not facing a heavy burn deck, the life-loss should be worth the effect against some decks. Against decks he’s not so good against… just let ‘im go!
Creatures (25)
- 2 Avatar of Woe
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 1 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 2 Golgari Thug
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 2 Indrik Stomphowler
- 4 Darkheart Sliver
- 2 Deadwood Treefolk
Lands (23)
Spells (12)
Here is a Planar Chaos update to the “classic” dedicated Dredge deck. The main addition here – flying in the face of the general rule that you don’t play anything you can’t access from the graveyard – is Damnation, but Damnation is too vital to not run. Against fast beatdown decks, you need to draw into Damnation before you get into full on Dredge mode. Darkheart Sliver and Wall of Roots should buy you time. Later on, Thug or Deadwood Treefolk helps you snag Stomphowler beats or Avatar of Whoa!
By the way, you’ll note I keep running one Urborg in these decks – since it provides Black mana, I don’t see the harm in running one copy since it can help fix your Black mana, and lets Svogthos give you colored mana.
Creatures (27)
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 3 Mindless Automaton
- 2 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 2 Golgari Thug
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 1 Indrik Stomphowler
- 3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
- 4 Stromgald Crusader
- 4 Fa'adiyah Seer
Lands (23)
Spells (10)
Mmmm, Mindless Automaton is Haakon’s best friend! The main addition to this build is Fa’adiyah Seer, who lets you get back a Dredge card with no discard drawback. I’ve gone heavy on the Cloaks since putting one on the Knights is solid, and I imagine throwing one on a Wall of Roots or Seer makes for a solid blocker. Grave-Troll or Svogthos should provide some late-game punch. Lack of life gain makes this a poor choice if you expect a ton of Boros burn decks, but it should be solid against control.
Creatures (27)
- 3 Mindless Automaton
- 2 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 4 Stinkweed Imp
- 4 Gemhide Sliver
- 3 Might Sliver
- 4 Mindlash Sliver
- 4 Darkheart Sliver
- 3 Reflex Sliver
Lands (24)
Spells (9)
Ah, Slivers! When I saw Living End in Time Spiral, I thought it might be interesting to pair up with Dredge in order to prime your graveyard. The problem lies with needing to find your first copy of Living End before you go into full-on Dredge mode. I thought about running Diabolic Tutor or Demonic Collusion to increase a couple virtual counts of the card, but it was hard to find the room. In this current version, you probably just ignore the Dredge aspect and just play as a Sliver deck until you draw the Living End, then you can go nuts with the Dredge to prime the graveyard for a huge – and hopefully hasty thanks to Reflex Sliver – Living End.
Creatures (30)
- 4 Wall of Roots
- 3 Mindless Automaton
- 2 Golgari Grave-Troll
- 2 Indrik Stomphowler
- 4 Boreal Druid
- 4 Ohran Viper
- 4 Magus of the Candelabra
- 3 Deadwood Treefolk
- 4 Fa'adiyah Seer
Lands (24)
Spells (6)
Finally we have an oddball Mono-Green Dredge deck I’ve been thinking about. Okay, granted the Dredge element is fairly light, but even one Dredger with Fa’adiyah Seer turns into an extra card drawn each turn. Magus of the Candelabra is here to go nuts with Desert, with a side serving of Scrying Sheets, Pendelhaven or maybe Arena in the later game. Life from the Loam complements the land theme nicely. Once you get access to two Treefolk (one drawn, the other either drawn or Dredged), you should have free access to any creatures that end up in your graveyard.
So there we have it… five Dredge decks for your perusal. Hopefully, something above will get your creative juices going!
Until next week,
Bennie