[Premium Article] Monster Mash: Dredging Up Aggro in Vintage

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11558.html

The blurb is a little over the top:

Hot off his back-to-back T8 finishes at last weekend's double SCG P9 Richmond, Stephen returns to discuss the Dredge deck that he, Randy Beuhler, and the rest of Team Meandeck, piloted in the 148-player Saturday event. If you thought Friggorid was busted in Extended, you haven't seen anything yet!

The articles was written last week and discusses the deck I played on Sat.

Edit: The decklist is fixed.

[exit music]

I hate to be the one to ask... but could you post a decklist for us non-premium members?

[sean1i0]

Wow, another great article, Steve.  I really can't express how excited it makes me to think of aggro as being really good in vintage again.  So, the only question I have right now is this:  are the only changes u ended making to the list before this past weekend the psychatog --> putrid imp change?

EDIT:  When I went back to the article a few minutes later, it was updated.

[nataz]

First off, congratulations are in order for SCG, it took balls to play a deck like that in one of the defining moments of vintage this year.

I was working on this deck and I had a realization. Most of the decks that people had come up with had upward of twelve or thirteen non-Bazaar lands in the deck. I realized something: this deck reminded me of Gro. Upon that realization, I was able to make the first real design leap.

The cutting of lands/off color moxen is something that I totally agree with, and purposely never posted on the Drain (I was supposed to play Ichorid at Myriad 2 weeks ago, but forgot my cards ). By cutting 4-5 lands + 3 moxen from a build like Zeng's it really opens up a lot of slots in what can be a very tight deck. I think it's those slots that allow the deck to even exist.

The question is what do you do with those slots?

I think the core of the deck should be pretty standard.

4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-troll
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Cabal Therapy
9 lands
4 Bazaar
3-4 Ashen
1 recall
------------------
46-ish

w/ the remaining 14-15 slots, I have questions about the following:

1) Draw Package (8)
2) # of black/dredge creatures (i.e., the use of 2 thug) (2)
3) Tutors/TW over more disruption (4-5)

1) I'll freely admit now that I totally overlooked careful study until I played vs. you randomly on MWS. It's perfect for the deck, and I really like it a lot. The question I have actually concerns the use of Brainstorm. I can understand it in a version w/tog and fetches. W/ tog it lets you keep digging for that 3rd mana source you need if you actually want to cast it, and w/ fetches it can be an excellent card selection tool, however w/ neither of those I wonder how much better it is then breakthough.

Sure, you empty your hand, but besides your 2 tutors how often do you need your hand? Breakthough digs an entire card deeper (which can be critical when trying to get either ichorid food/Ashen online), and I think when combined w/ P-Imp is easily just as good as tolarian winds ever was. 4 cards is wicked gassy, and since generally you are using your Bazaar pretty heavily, you aren't going to keep much in your hand for very long anyways.  

Now, there is a flaw.  Pithing Needle, already seeing a good measure of success, will undoubtedly see an increase in usage to fight this monster deck.  Thus, the inclusion of Brainstorm.  

This to me doesn't make much sense. I spent countless hours testing against pithing needle.dec and shutting down draw was never the problem. Pithing needle was so good b/c there suddenly was no cheap discard to back up the draw. an early needle on Bazaar can ruin absolutely beautiful hands b/c suddenly your dredges become one shot deals early in the game. If anything careful study and Imps overcome pithing needle, not Brainstorm, and as I already mentioned I think breakthough when combined w/ P-imp can be just as amazing as Tol Winds was, but w/out the mana commitment.    

2) Where you ever temped to shave off the thugs? As far as ichorid food goes, you have 8x Imp and 3x Ashen. Was it the black creature count or the need for more dredge that brought you to add them in?

3) I can't understand the use of only 4x therp and 4x chalice as disruption. You said it yourself, the deck goldfishes around 3-4, which is the same speed as a deck like gifts. That 3-4 number can fluctuate pretty rapidly depending on what ends up in the GY first, ashen/ichorid, which can effect how you use the therps. I found that with practice, a good gifts/slaver player (or Confidant player) could hide key cards effectively w/ Brainstorm and Mirage style Tutors. As long as they kept cards on top of the Library and not in their hand, there wasn't anything I could do. This was especially problematic w/ cards like Tormods, Pithing (fucking) needle, e-truth, and early Tinkers that could and would come down on turn 2-3 regularly.

I still feel like while this deck seems "fast", it often times won't be fast enough, especially now that people will be more familiar w/ it, and the tutors won't really help solve the problem. For me the tutors ended up being more "cute" then funtional, often times fetching somthing supremely underwhelming or being dredged away. W/out dedicated answers the tutors were often just really slow trolls or bazaars #5-6.  

Since you can't really speed the deck up anymore (without making it totally unreliable) you are going to have to be able to slow your opponent down more. Duress, Extract, Pithing Needle, Chain of Vapor, and Leyline of the Void were all cards that I tested in that spot over your tutors in an attempt to overcome some of the MD hate that most of the decent drain decks had.

In retrospect I think I didn't give this deck as much credit as I should of b/c of what I was playtesting against. I had played enough Stax and Aggro to realize that the MD combined w/ the right board made those matches into bye's. Combo was either terrible or great depending on extra disruption (leylines and Duress/Extract). Therefore I spent almost all of my time focusing on Drain Decks because I saw them as the greatest threat, often times w/ MD pithing Needles, Tinker, E-Truth, or Crypt. If caught unprepared the match-up was pretty easy, but with even a little practice on the drain players part I quickly found the match-ups w/ reflection Slaver, GG Gfits, and Control Confidant (w/needle) to be (conter intuitivly) pretty bad.

I know you gave even % on those decks in your article, so I'm really looking forward to see where you and I differed in our testing.  

Again, great job on your finnish this past weekend, and sorry for my jumbled post. I have like 30 something pages of playtesting notes that I'm trying to condense into simple thoughts/comments/and questions and I'm afraid I didnt do a very good job of it. Hope you can make some sense of it.

[Ben Kossman]

Has anyone tried Skullclamp w/Ghoul, Shadow, and Id? It seems like a logical choice if one were to take the deck in a mono-black direction. Could you post the actual list (please)? Congrats on winning with an original deck. American Vintage could use more aggro and less top 8's filled with Gifts and Stax. Keep up the good work.

[Nantuko Rice]

I've been out of magic for a while and I don't plan to return for a while (guaranteed this time).

However I've been informed of your success Stephen. I don't have premium to view your decklist, but the question I have for you is... did you come up with the same deck design, thought process, and card analysis as I did at the last Waterbury I attended where I had horrible matchups and thus couldn't put up good numbers?

Here's the link to my decklist/card choices if you've all forgotten by now:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27196.0
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=27029.0

[Disburden]

Has anyone tried Skullclamp w/Ghoul, Shadow, and Id? It seems like a logical choice if one were to take the deck in a mono-black direction. Could you post the actual list (please)? Congrats on winning with an original deck. American Vintage could use more aggro and less top 8's filled with Gifts and Stax. Keep up the good work.

I don't see the point in adding skullclamp. That would make the deck want more mana, especially colorless mana. The deck basically just wanted to do this:

Cabal therapy a lot
Bazaar turn one
Dredge like 30 motherfuckers by turn three and kill.


This is the list in the article, if Steve has a problem with it being posted, I'll delete it ASAP:

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

Creatures
3 Ashen Ghoul
4 Golgari Grave-troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
   

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Crop Rotation
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Careful Study
1 Imperial Seal
1 Time Walk

Lands
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
   Sideboard:

4 Null Rod
4 Pithing Needle
4 Chain Of Vapor
3 Darkblast

Remember that Brainstorm can be Dredge for like 20 instead (for pithing needle on Bazaar).

[Moxlotus]

One thing I found is that if there's any deck that can run Leyline of the Void, its this one.  Since you almost never see any cards past your opening 7 (since you should be dredging), ANY cards not in your opening hand are pretty useless--so the drawback of needing to be in your opening hand isn't a big deal. 

[abisashi]

One thing I found is that if there's any deck that can run Leyline of the Void, its this one.  Since you almost never see any cards past your opening 7 (since you should be dredging), ANY cards not in your opening hand are pretty useless--so the drawback of needing to be in your opening hand isn't a big deal. 

Conversely, doesn't this deck roll to a Leyline of the Void? You have no means to remove it main, and you are almost incapable of playing spells while it is in play; you are playing a bad sealed deck at that point. You have chain of vapor out of the board, but it still seems sketchy to me. Of course, how many people will run 4 Leyline in their board or main? I would guess that this deck is good, but may never again be great, at least until it is forgotten.

Smemmen, I am curious about how you see this deck in the future, and how resistant it is to graveyard hate.

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Conversely, doesn't this deck roll to a Leyline of the Void? You have no means to remove it main, and you are almost incapable of playing spells while it is in play; you are playing a bad sealed deck at that point. You have chain of vapor out of the board, but it still seems sketchy to me. Of course, how many people will run 4 Leyline in their board or main? I would guess that this deck is good, but may never again be great, at least until it is forgotten.

This deck does roll to Leyline. It would be over before it even thought about beginning... Ofcourse, here's the answer you'll get:

Ugh, don't talk to me about BAD cards.

And there you have it. I personally think the promotion of this deck is a way to get Combo back into the format... What better way to do it then to promote a deck that gets thrashed by it? Ofcourse, I could just be off my rocker... Or just sniffing a bit too much glue. Either or... Conspiracy theories are fun regardless.

However I've been informed of your success Stephen. I don't have premium to view your decklist, but the question I have for you is... did you come up with the same deck design, thought process, and card analysis as I did at the last Waterbury I attended where I had horrible matchups and thus couldn't put up good numbers?

I thought this looked mighty familiar...

[XeroSlainX]

If the deck is just an attempt for people to play it so Smmenen can thrash it with Combo then why did he and along with Team Meandeck and Randy Bueler play it at Richmond?
The deck is good and is more resislient than people give it credit to. I mean, this deck can replay so many Cabal Therapies so fast and doesn't even need to play spells to win.
It beats on Stax and other Aggro and has the tools to deal with Control. Combo is obviously a hard matchup but not unwinnable with 4 Chalice, tons of Cabal Therapies and a very fast win condition.

I see that the manabase is five color and I suspect Null Rod obviously comes in against Combo, instead of Null Rod how do you feel about Pyrostatic Pillar since you can play it? They both costs 2, and Pilllar is much more difficult to remove than Rod(Rebuild, Hurkyl's Recall) and it has great synergy with your deck since you won't play very many spells, just dredging and beating while Pillar is wearing them down, shaving off the turns you need to kill them.

[Disburden]

I think Null Rod branches out more than just to deal with Combo.

Null Rod can also be four more Chalices for 0 in your deck Vs. Tormod's crypt.

Steve also mentions that Gifts is a tough matchup, which Null Rod helps take care of random Time Vault kills. Tinker-DSC is mentioned as being too slow.

[Jacob Orlove]

Null Rod used to be Pithing Needle, but Rod answers Crypt AND buys back tempo, while Needle just wastes a whole turn without slowing them down.

The deck absolutely has issues with dedicated hate cards, but a. you can dig for Chain of Vapor (which we would run MD if we ever play this again), and b. no one at Richmond was going to have dedicated Ichorid hate day 1, so we didn't care.

Nantuko Rice: as you can see from the list Disburden posted, our list is over 20 cards different from yours (and btw it is 100% okay to repost decklists from SCG premium, just not anything else).

[Juggernaut GO]

From what I saw in the match I played against ichorid day 1, It has an enormously favorable game 1 against gifts or any drain deck.  If you lose game 1, then the drain player just got lucky.  However, after sideboard I can not see your matchup remaining favorable.

In the 1 matchup I faced I lost game 1 because I kept a hand with 3x mana drain, which is useless against ichorid.  So I boarded out all my drains for tormods crypt and extra bounce spells.  Even though he mulliganed to 4, I had first turn tormod's crypt with force backup, there was no way ichorid was going to win this game. 

Game 3 I could have lost if chalice for 0 was dropped but would win if it wasn't and I took that risk, I kept a hand with tolarian mox mana crypt tormod crypt gifts and fetchland and merchant scroll.  he went first turn bazaar nothing else, and I won the game on my turn 2 after a gifts for tinker time walk recoup lotus.

I don't think this deck can win through a single tormod crypt, but I can only account for  my own personal observations.  It does have an excellent surprise factor, however.

[Disburden]

That is funny you said this Juggernaut.


In the Article one of the last things Steve mentions is that the most problematic matchups for this deck are:

1) Brassman Gifts

and
2) Control Slaver.

Then I believe he says something a long the lines of combo being a spilt in either direction.
I just wanted to address your post, since in the article it says completely different things on the matchups that are favorable.

Nick

[Dozer]

Well, congratulations to Meandeck and especially Steve! Nice deck.

The Chain of Vapor, though, looks very necessary to me if you want to play this deck from now on. Since the deck will never, ever hardcast Golgari Grave-Troll, after boarding the Chains are the only thing it has against enchantments like Engineered Plague. If Moat wasn't too slow, it could be a giant problem for the deck as well.

I guess Gifts and Slaver are just troublesome because they are about as fast as Ichorid. Both a fast Time Walking Colossus and a fast Mindslaver can put quite a dent into Ichorid. A fast Triskelion or Pentavus (in case Slaver has one) makes it difficult to punch through, too. Plus, both decks can operate out of their graveyards if they have to. It's all about speed -- faster deck wins.


/random edit: lol @ Eon Hub as the tech for Welder-decks against MeanDredge... nice thought.

[Juggernaut GO]

I stopped subscribing to the premium so I was unable to read the article  My post was strictly from personal experience in the matchup and what I saw.  Due to it having multible cabal therapy useable by turn 2, I think any opponent it faces needs to either 1:stop bazaar on turn 1, or 2:put out multiple creatures on turn 1, or 3:win the die roll and  play chalice for 1 and then drop creatures or 4: play eon hub HAHA

[Lyle H]

Conversely, doesn't this deck roll to a Leyline of the Void? You have no means to remove it main, and you are almost incapable of playing spells while it is in play; you are playing a bad sealed deck at that point. You have chain of vapor out of the board, but it still seems sketchy to me. Of course, how many people will run 4 Leyline in their board or main? I would guess that this deck is good, but may never again be great, at least until it is forgotten.

This deck does roll to Leyline. It would be over before it even thought about beginning... Ofcourse, here's the answer you'll get:

This deck does NOT roll to Voids of either kind.  Here is a quote from someone I beat round 3 on Saturday(posted on Star City)

My third round matchup was verse Ichroid (MeanDredge) on Saturday. I found Planar Void to be pretty brutal verse it.

As an aside, I wound up loss the match 1-2. He bounced the Planar Void and eventually Cabal Therapied it away. (Very dumb on my part because only the turn before did I play a blue card and leaving me with a lone FOW when he chained. Very stupid, but play sloppy and lose.)

Also Pithing Needle the Bazarres can help out too.

That was me, who bounced your Planar Void.  I really must say that effects like Leyline and Planar Void are of little to no concern to a good player.  Those effects really just buy you time.  Tormods Crypt is what I really fear, and that as well can be played around as long as you don't screw up, but its hard if the opponents sacs multiples or gets an active welder.  It is good that you realized your mistake. You must remember that I knew your hand contained only the Spiketail Hatchling and the Force of Will from a previous therapy.  Holding that Spiketail Hatchling should have been a large priority until you reached 5 mana for force.

I also bveat Dan Carp who resolved a Leyline on me games 2 and 3.   Game he had the Nuts of Mox, Orchard Oath turn 1 in addition to that Leyline.  Game 3 I succesfully delt with Leyline in time to win the Match.

I had a chance to top 16 with the deck but dropped because SCG said they weren't giving any prize support for top 16(which the ended up changing last minute)

I

[Smmenen]

Wow, another great article, Steve.  I really can't express how excited it makes me to think of aggro as being really good in vintage again.  So, the only question I have right now is this:  are the only changes u ended making to the list before this past weekend the psychatog --> putrid imp change?

EDIT:  When I went back to the article a few minutes later, it was updated.

No, I made some changes that you'll see in the decklists when they are posted on SCG.  I cut two Careful Studies for a ninth land and a 4th Ashen Ghoul (at the urging of Randy and the rest of my teammates - the 9th land was definately right)).  I also cut the two Thugs for 2 Darkblast.  This deck also must have 4 Ashen Ghouls.

After that tournament, the deck should probably have two Chain of Vapor maindeck.  Chain of Vapor is really amazing.  I'd cut the remaining two careful studies for them or for one Chain and 1 Balance.

Pyrostatic pillar is a card I didn't even think of.  It could be amazing, but Null Rod is also amazing. 

[Chiz]

With that mana base, Balance should be maindeck. Most of the time, you have 1-2 lands into play, 0-3 cards in hand and if you want 0 creature. Balance is easy to abuse with this kind of deck.

I really like the Pyrostatic Pillar idea. Against combo, you would probably side in Null Rod. Null Rod and Chalice have a similar effect against combo: That's mana denial. What they will try to do is to find and cast an Hurkyl's Recall or Rebuild, so having both CotV and Null Rod into play won't help you. With 1-2 swing with Ichorids / Ashen Ghoul, Pillar make a lot of pressure against combo (and this deck as a lot of problem with fast combo).

I have a question for you about those Darkblast. Why playing them maindeck? That's not a bad card, but why Dredge needs them so much? Sure, it kills welder and helps against Fish and maybe Oath (To kill their token). Fish and Oath are both good matchups for the deck I found whitout them (Except "old school U-R fish" with Fire and Grim that may cause some problems). Did you expect a lot of Control Slaver??

[Thug]

Especially with the last changes Steve mentioned this list looks very much like the last one I have been working with.
One of the main difference is that I found room for a coupe of Gambles, and I'm interested in people's opinion on Gamble

It's another first turn-tutor that gets Bazaar,
it also gets Chalice turn 1, which is very much needed after game 1.
If going first and dropping Chalice you almost can't lose the game if you have some gas
Gamble has a couple of other uses, but these are the main ones.

How has chrome mox been? I never really tried it, just went with the on-colour ones, but noticed that all you often want is a black mana.
Balance also sounds pretty cute, I need to give that a try too
4 Ashen defenitly is the right call IMO

Koen

[Smmenen]

I kept trying to push gamble, but no one on my team would budge.  I mentioned it in the article.

I was against chrome mox, but Randy and others sold me on it on this reasoning: it helps you put Ghouls into play on turn two.  They are right. 

I finally agreed with Randy and Co about the darkblast main simply becuase we expected lots of welders.

In retrospect, I  would have prefered 1 Darkblast and 1 Thug main.

[nataz]

After that tournament, the deck should probably have two Chain of Vapor maindeck.  Chain of Vapor is really amazing.  I'd cut the remaining two careful studies for them or for one Chain and 1 Balance.

that w/ the added land + Ashen leaves you w/ zero careful studies and only Bazaar and Imp as discard outlets. Even w/ the chains you seem to be really leaving yourself open to random pithing needle losses.

[Smmenen]

Not really.   I've got it all mapped out.  Let me just deal with this point in my tournament report.  Ok?

[Thug]

I kept trying to push gamble, but no one on my team would budge.  I mentioned it in the article.

I see, I must have missed it
But would you/did you play Gamble yourself? Do you feel it belongs?

I was against chrome mox, but Randy and others sold me on it on this reasoning: it helps you put Ghouls into play on turn two.  They are right.

Yeah, in theory it defenitly belongs.

I finally agreed with Randy and Co about the darkblast main simply becuase we expected lots of welders.
In retrospect, I  would have prefered 1 Darkblast and 1 Thug main.

I had a Darkblast and a Loam in those slots.
Loam was mainly there to avoid losses to Chasm and such, aside from locking people with Strip from time to time.

Koen

[Harlequin]

This deck is one more reason why Eon Hub is the shop board card of the future:
Oath
Smoke stack
Tangle wire
Squee
ENERGY FLUX - and mini Energy flux aka Kataki
now and entire DECK!

Eon hub is so for the win!

[meadbert]

Eon Hub interacts well with Glacial Chasm as well.  I still don't see how it is worth the high casting cost though.

[Smmenen]

There are lots of cards that "hose" this deck, but few that don't have answers:

Hub,
Chasm
Pithing Needle,
Tormod's Crypt,
Caltrops,
Moat,
Leyline of the Void,
etc, etc

Most of those answers can be deatl with by maindecking two Chains and playing Therapy.  Others are too expensive to worry about.  And others get stopped by Chalie 0. 

[dicemanx]

There are lots of cards that "hose" this deck, but few that don't have answers:

Hub,
Chasm
Pithing Needle,
Tormod's Crypt,
Caltrops,
Moat,
Leyline of the Void,
etc, etc

Most of those answers can be deatl with by maindecking two Chains and playing Therapy.  Others are too expensive to worry about.  And others get stopped by Chalie 0. 

Is it even worthwhile to have a contingency plan for these cards game 1? You're likely to not see any of these apart from Gifts decks sporting Needles (and maybe the occasional CS with a Tormod's in the metagame slot). Gifts doesn't even really care about you having the few bounce spells for its Needle - it uses Needle not to shut you down but to buy time to goldfish you out, much the same way as this Ichorid deck uses Strip Mine and CotV. In the event that Gifts cannot win quickly, it probably means it has a disruption heavy start, which means that the Needle is likely not getting bounced period.

It just seems to me that diluting the strength of the deck (the massive redundancy) starts pushing you towards inconsistency. This deck has a LOT of similarities with WGD, in that it runs some terrible cards that are made amazing by other terrible cards. This strategy feeds off the mass redundancy to ensure that you get the desired level of synergy, otherwise you might be playing a deck thats literally worse than a sealed deck. WGD faces the same issues with regards to its disruption slots - it's been shown that the answer to the supposed "hate" isn't to increase disruption slots in WGD; if anything, such an approach tends to increase the vulnerability that the deck has to itself. This is an important concept unique to decks like these.

[Smmenen]

My view is that Chains maindeck would have been awesome.

Youa re likely to see DSC all day and Chains also bounce moxen under Chalice into the hand where they are unusable.  You can also gain tempo by bouncing blockers, welders, and all sorts of other cards.  I think Chain is really good maindeck.

I agree with what you say Peter, but I think that Careful Study is not particularly strong in some ways.  This deck also has Imp and three tutors to find bazaar....

What do people think of this so far?