[Premium Article] So Many Insane Plays -- Understanding Dredge, By the Numbers

[Smmenen]

Dredge is one of the bogeymen of Vintage. It’s blisteringly fast, brutally powerful, and surprisingly resilient. While Dredge tends not to show up in large numbers, it’s one of the best performing archetypes in the format in terms of percentage of all Top 8s.

Whether you play it or face it, you must understand it. Since Dredge decks involve a narrow band of constantly changing threats and answers, it’s something that can only be best addressed through careful investigation.

I have pulled every single Dredge list reported in a Vintage Top 8 from March to the present time. There have been 38 different Dredge lists in Vintage Top 8s in that time, of very different design approaches.

I’ve counted up the card choices in every single one of those lists so you can see what the most successful design choices have been over that time period. Here are the results and my analysis.

Whether you are a dredge pilot or a player looking for an edge against Dredge, this article is for you.

http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/vintage/17613_So_Many_Insane_Plays_Prepping_for_the_Legacy_5K_Dredging_Through_Vintage.html

[Kiriyuu]

Good article, thanks!

I've been using an old dredge build in my gauntlet for a while and it needed some updating, so this is really helpful, thanks! : )

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Great article, Steve.  I've been getting more and more interested in Dredge lately.  This article is very helpful. 

I'm glad you stated that Lelyine of the Void is the best anti-ichorid card.  I really don't care for Jailer since Contagion and Darkblast deal with it so easily.  And I do like Relic of Progenitus over Tormod's Crypt in any deck not running Tarmogoyf simply because it hits goyf as well.

River Kelpie is an interesting card.  I remember recomending it in Meadbert's thread about a year ago.  The problem when compared to Cephalid Sage was that it just drew cards and didn't give you a discard outlet.  I think that is still the reason the Sage is more popular than Kelpie.  However, I will say that once Kelpie hits play, you can draw/dredge your whole deck in no time.

I really enjoyed the article, Steve.  Great work!

Peace,

-Troy

[voltron00x]

I think Kelpie is the bees knees in Legacy, but Fatestitcher seems superior in Vintage, since you're pretty much all-in on the Bazaar plan anyway.

[Smmenen]

I was hoping that this article would provoke some debate as to the merits of some of the cards that didn't make the composite cut, such as Sadistic Hypnotist. 

[voltron00x]

I was hoping that this article would provoke some debate as to the merits of some of the cards that didn't make the composite cut, such as Sadistic Hypnotist. 

Me too, since apparently I'm the only one that is passionate about Hypnotist.  It's a lonely feeling.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Hypnotist kind of reads "win the game" doesn't it? I mean unless your opponent has a graveyard that can win off a topdecked Will and they also topdeck that Will isn't it just over? Why would anyone run anything else unless they're expecting a lot of Ichorid mirrors? I can understand running some kind of secondary target to remove an annoying permanent like Angel of Despair/Woodfall Primus or Sharuum to return LED/Lotus and Fatestitcher your whole deck but isn't Hypnotist just strictly superior to any other primary "win now" target?

[Isaac85]

I havnt played dredge before but I have tested with it and against it. Most builds have 2 or 3 dread return targets. Some play 2 flame kin and one draw guy. Some play only one flame kin with two drawl dudes. I love haveing angel. If your opponent has platz in play how are you going to deal with that in a manaless version. Angel hypno and flame kin are my three main guys.

[icky]

great article as always this is my first post. just wondering why no one is running wispmare as it gets around chalice of the void and deals with leyline of the void.

[Sam101]

hypno and flame kin are my three main guys.

I disagree with running both.  I think you should run multiple copies of one or the other; because they both serve the same purpose (win), but handle winning in different ways.  Which target you run should be based on your metagame (and to a lesser extent–your preference).

Maybe this is just a personal thing, but I think you should stick to one type (multiple copies) of a "win if this guy comes into play" creature.  I just feel like one is better than the other, and if you play both there would be too many times where you'd have the one that you don't want in your graveyard and have the one you do want in your library.

Here is another way to look at it – whenever you resolve dread return during a game (testing or tournament), ask the question "which would I rather target, X or Y," regardless of which ones are (or are not) in your graveyard.  At the end of the day, I would play two copies of the creature that you wanted more.

Sam

[wiley]

I was hoping that this article would provoke some debate as to the merits of some of the cards that didn't make the composite cut, such as Sadistic Hypnotist. 

As far as hypnotist is concerned, there has already been lengthy discussion after I first mentioned it in Bert's dredge primer.  Unless you can guarantee a dread return on turn two the majority (at least 70-80% of the time) of game 1s if uninterrupted then he is crap.  Everything the opponent really wanted to play will usually have been played and the damage will have been done.  Your composite list is not a fatestitcher build, which is the only build (of non-breakthrough combo) that can meet those requirements.

There is also the problem of not having enough mana to use its sideboard.  4 city of brass in the main does not mean you will be able to use those needles, charms, chains, oxidize and grudges from the sideboard.  You need gemstone caverns, which since some people used lands other than caverns like bayou, they didn't make it into the composite.

I'm also rather sad that there are a full 4 dread returns in the list, you only need to resolve one game 1 to cement a win, and games 2-3 they are often garbage since your yard is hated so much.  Whoever is using 4 dread returns, stop.  The freed up space will give you a stronger deck, 2 is enough.

I'm not surprised that sage and fkz are still the preferred targets, though I still disagree with it for the most part, with infinite turns combo the win now-ness is more relevant than ever before.

The angel is almost a surprise to see in so many lists.  Its main purpose is to get rid of artifacts such as platz, ensnaring bridge, needle and its secondary purpose is to destroy oath of druids.  I really wish furnace dragon worked as a reanimate creature, but until they print something like that, angel is the best for such a purpose, followed by woodfall primus (sometimes the other way around depending on meta).

I've never like street wraith in the deck.  It rarely makes a significant impact other than making boarding easier.  Rarely does the 1 extra draw come into importance; however when going up against a slew of storm decks the self damage can matter quite a bit.

As far as the current nomenclature of the decks, mana ichorid should be considered as a breakthrough and careful study dredge list while manaless is a serum powder dredge list.  This is the only real differentiating factor between the two.

[MagicMan]

I don't know if it is possible as I am not a starcitygames fullmember, but can the final decklist be posted to help others comment who can't read the article for another 90 days or whatever the wait is?  Sorry ahead of time if this is not possible.

[negativecreep]

I'm also rather sad that there are a full 4 dread returns in the list, you only need to resolve one game 1 to cement a win, and games 2-3 they are often garbage since your yard is hated so much.  Whoever is using 4 dread returns, stop.  The freed up space will give you a stronger deck, 2 is enough.

I agree that 4 is a bit of an overkill. I feel comfortable with 3, but I am new to the deck and am having trouble winning game 2 and 3. Maybe 2 is enough.

Wiley, what is the gameplan after you board to try to hate out their hate. If you are not DR'ing anything how do you win? Just try to overload with tokens or hardcast nacros? This is where I am failing with the deck.

[Smmenen]

Assuming you can use Hypnotist multiple times turn two, why wouldn't FKZ be a better Dread Return target? I'm not following how winning NOW is worse than locking the game up by making my opponent discard their hand.

[Marske]

@Steve,
Because using Hypnotist turn 2 letting your opponent discard 4-6 cards (which is equal to 2-3 tokens) can be enough to seal the deal while dread returning a Zealot with 2/3 tokens is basically useless. For Zealot to be really good you need at least 6+ tokens. For hypnotist to be good you just need 2-4 tokens. Sure you'll have to return a ichorid or 2 and dredge some more to actually win on turn 3 but that's hardly ever a problem. I could be very wrong about this because I haven't played a lot with the Hypnotist build (just playtesting and took 9th place at 1 event with it) so this is just based on those accounts.

[wiley]

Wiley, what is the gameplan after you board to try to hate out their hate. If you are not DR'ing anything how do you win? Just try to overload with tokens or hardcast nacros? This is where I am failing with the deck.

Between ichorids and bridge tokens you have a free win condition.  You still keep in your free disruption like unmask and cabal therapy.  These combined with a more careful dredging plan and your countermeasures to their hate give you a solid chance to take one of the next two games.

Assuming you can use Hypnotist multiple times turn two, why wouldn't FKZ be a better Dread Return target? I'm not following how winning NOW is worse than locking the game up by making my opponent discard their hand.

It is a matter of resources post dread return.  FKZ need 6 token to kill, provided no blockers and no prior damage.  Hypnotist requires 2 token to discard six cards and leave you with more tokens.  Both should always win you the game, so the one that has a much easier requirement to meet has a slight edge.

Running through hypothetical situations might make more sense.  Say you dredge magnificently and get 5 troll activations after fatestitcher comes out of the yard, netting 30 cards.  In those cards you hit 1 bridge, multiple ichorids, 2 narcomoebas and at least 1 dread return and hypno.  This happens with dredge and it sucks.  With this scenario you can do one of two plays, you can therapy them saccing a narco and then dread return hypno to make them discard 4 more cards and leave you with a token and multiple ichorids next turn or you can guess that they don't have a force, return hypno and make them discard six cards, leaving you with a token and a bunch of ichorids for next turn.

Either way, there was no way that the turn two zealot could kill, you would be attacking for 9 at the most.  With the hypno, you have still gone a long way to securing the game, indeed most players will scoop after that play.  Now, a fkz would have won the next turn no question, but what happens when the opponent has the win in hand for their turn 2 or 3?  That happens quite a bit in vintage, especially lately with simple win conditions like vault key.  What happens when you have to give the opponent the turn to tutor up that one piece of maindeck dredge hate like echoing truth?  Remember that I opened that scenario with a godly dredge opportunity with 5 troll activations on turn 2, while that rarely happens, getting that string of barely relevant cards happens a lot more often.

Sarnathed some by markse, but I hope the expansion on the idea is helpful.

[BruiZar]

How do you guys feels about maindeck pithing needles with the Sharuum Sharuum combo to combat Time Vault/Tezz and Ichorid Mirrors?

[meadbert]

Hypnotist + 2 other creatures = discards 6 which is usually their whole hand.

Hypnotist + 1 other creature means they discard 4 cards which is brutal if you consider that you may have hit something off a Therapy or two as well.

Flame Kin Zealot with 2 other creatures means you swing for 9 or something and Zealot with 1 other creature means you swing for 6 which is not nearly as good.

Zealot gets better once you can swing for lethal damage.

I use Wiley's nomenclature which is Mana Dredge runs Careful Studies and Breakthroughs while Powder Dredge means it runs Serum Powders.  If I ever say Manaless I mean Powder Dredge.

When running Mana Dredge you do not have to worry about RFGing creatures to Serum Powder.  This allows you to do stuff like run 1 Zealot and then 3 Cephalid Sages and just go for the win on turn 2.  I still consider Mana Dredge to be weaker than Powder Dredge because it randomly loses game 1 to cards like Duress, Force of Will, Sphere of Resistance and Chalice@1.  The point of playing Dredge is to dodge common hate.  Mana Dredge adds flexibility in that it plays through Wasteland and Pithing Needle much better, but its draw back is that it can lose to the same hate that most decks lose to.  Mana Dredge's other drawback is that it is less able to abuse Fatestitcher.

Fatestitcher Mana Dredge does not make much sense.  The issue is that Fatestitcher is only good if you start with Bazaar and Mana Dredge is far less likely to start with Bazaar than Powder Dredge does.  Thus, if you run Fatestitchers you probably want to run Powder Dredge.

In Fatestitcher Powder Dredge you are reasonably likely to get enough creatures on turn 2 to win with Sage + Zealot.  The issue is that because a token Zealot is likely to be RFGed to power you end up needing to run 2 Zealots and 3 Sages along with Dread Returns.  This might be the fastest version of Dredge for goldfishing purposes, but you have just blown 8-9 slots on Dread Returns and Dread Return targets.  Those slots mean you must run less disruption or slow the deck down by dropping Mana/Fatestitchers, Dredgers or Narco/Bridge/Ichorids.  Instead of running the Zealot win, Fatestitcher Dredge wants a creature that is good on its own on turn 2 when you have a 2-4 creatures in play.  There are a host of options there and I consider Hypnotist to be the best.  Titan, Woodfall Primus, Angel of Despair and other removal creatures are worse on turn 2 than turn 3 since your opponent is less likely to have threats on the board.  Ancestor's Chosen is somewhat worse since your yard is lighter so it gains less life.  Also, Chosen, which was super strong in the mirror, against Oath and against Tendrils and Tinker->DSC is much worse against the Vault/Key combo.  For Powder Fatestitcher Dredge, Hypnotist is on average the best target for turn 2.  That does not mean you should run 3 of them like I have proposed in the past.  It is very possible that something like 2xHypnotist + Angel of Despair is actually better.

The final option for Dredge is more traditional Powder Dredge without Fatestitchers.  The game plan here is to drop much of the speed that Fatestitchers and Breakthroughs allow for and instead pack a ton of disruption and slow roll for a backbreaking turn 3 play.  By turn three the balance between Hypnotist and Titan/Angle/Primus has shifted.  Opponent's threats are more likely to be on the table by turn 3 thus removal is better than discard.  Also you are likely to have 3 Therapies on line by turn 3 thus you can already force your opponent to discard their most relevant cards anyway.  The specific Dread Return target on turn 3 turns out to be unimportant.  I no longer do this but I used to keep track of each and every time I Dread Returned and I marked down which creatures would have won me the game and which did not.  Over 95% of the time any of the creatures I considered would have won me the game.    When it did not work out it was because Titan could not stop Grim Long winning the following turn or Chosen could not stop Dragon from going infinite.  For traditional Powder Dredge there are two issues.  The first is how do you combat Wasteland.  Wasteland is common preboard and if your Bazaar is removed it hurts.  The good news is that Traditional Powder Dredge runs as many as 14 Dredgers including Darkblasts so you can slow roll with one Dredge per turn.  Still, losing Bazaar hurts.  The second problem is how do you bridge turn 2 disruption gap.  Turn 1 you have Unmask, Chalice and Leyline to keep you safe. Turn 2 you might have a Therapy or maybe you can Dredge a Darkblast to nail a Welder (and potentially lose your own Bridges), but in general turn 2 is a scary time.  The two most common solutions to the above problems are Petrified Field and your own Wastelands.  Petrified Field is a nice answer to Wasteland.  Basically you lose your turn 2 Bazaar activation, but you get it back for turn 3.  Meanwhile your opponent had the tempo loss of using Wasteland.  The result is that you should win.  Field can also get back a  Strip Mine for use on turn 2.  This can keep an opponent off Drain if you are on the play.  It is not an uncommon play to use since by turn 3 you have Dredge all you need so removing that extra land can be key.  Unfortunately Petrified Field does not help bridge turn 2 at all.  In fact it is quite dead turn 2 unless you start packing Pithing Needle in the main.

Wasteland is the superior option.  First of all it is awesome turn 2 disruption.  When facing Dredge pre board folks are keen to combo out quickly or tutor up Tormod's Crypt which usually means they want duals for black or possible Red for Welder so they can recur Crypt.  This leaves them wide open to Wasteland.  Also for a deck with little Mana, no card spells Time Walk quite as well as Wasteland.  So Wasteland is golden for bridging turn 2, but what about answering an oponent's Wasteland?  It turns out that Wasteland is amazing there as well.  If your opponent loses their first land drop to their own Wasteland and you then waste their second land drop then they are likely to be in a world of hurt.  This is even more true if you opened with Chalice on the play.  Type 1 decks do not like losing their first 2 lands drops so even if you are left slow rolling to a turn 5 or 6 win without Bazaar, you are likely to race an opponent who lost their first two land drops.

If I were to play Dredge at a tournament tomorrow, I would probably still play Hypnotist, Fatestitchers and Powders, but I am not confident at all that I would be making the correct decision.  Once Fatestitchers came out I was perhaps seduced by the tech and started exploring it, while Wiley continued to focus on more traditional Powder Dredge with Wastelands.  When I play with Fatestitchers I feel like my deck is more broken, but I keep detailed notes of my play testing and the evidence that Powder Dredge with Wastelands is better just keeps adding up.  I am not ready to declare that Powder Dredge with Wastelands is better, but that is the direction that my testing evidence is pointing.

I am not satisfied that either Wiley or I have a handle on what the best Dread Return target is for Powder Dredge with Wastes.  Titan is sort of redundant since he is golden against Duals which may have already been Wasted.  Ancestor's Chosen used to be the best target, but I am not sure that is the case in the Vault/Key era.

[wiley]

I am not satisfied that either Wiley or I have a handle on what the best Dread Return target is for Powder Dredge with Wastes.  Titan is sort of redundant since he is golden against Duals which may have already been Wasted.  Ancestor's Chosen used to be the best target, but I am not sure that is the case in the Vault/Key era.

Agreed.  Every time an infinite combo has come into the format the choice becomes almost impossible to nail down.  This was especially true when you had tyrant oath and MSpaint and next level doomsday and Flash Hulk and MUD all as popular decks.  While it is a little more focused now, there is still no creature that pops out as being the best.  Like I said, I wish furnace dragon worked as a reanimation target.

[icky]

i have been playing a list with out dread return based off the european list fowchorid. its slower but has more control and seems to do very well against all versions of hate. i have been trying to fit a dread return and a flame Kin Zealot in the main as there are a few times where it would be nice to win now altough not often.

Lands
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Cephalid Coliseum
3 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mines

Artifacts
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
4 Chalice of the Void

Spells
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Careful Study
2 Chain of Vapor
4 Forces of Will
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy

Creatures
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
2 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Ichorid

Side Board
3 Wispmares
4 Contagion
3 Yixlid Jailer
1 Darksteel Colossus
4 Pithing Needle

[Marske]

@Icky,
Why would you run a list that's less explosive and more vulnerable to the "normal" hate? Like Meadbert and Wiley have already stated, you run Dredge to dodge all the typical hate. I can't imagine that list being better then any Powder or Mana Dredge currently being played.

[icky]

I am running 4 force of will 4 chalice of the void 4 cabal therapy which I usually cast on average 5 a game 2 chain of vapor which all help with main deck hate as well as keeping my opponent off there key spells.  As for more explosive most of the time when I can dread return for the win I am already winning and have my opponent far enough behind that I don't need the dread return

[Marske]

@Icky,
So if you're keeping your opponents threats at bay using FoW, you bounce everything that's able to stick to the board before you could counter / let them discard it. Isn't this basically the strategy applied by all control decks ? Seeing as you run a "weaker" strategy as most control shells (Tezz) how are you able to out counter them ? Let alone out draw them ? All I'm trying to say is that you're basically playing a "bad" control deck at this point and because you take away soo much that made ichorid tick in the first place you are now also playing a bad "aggro" deck. Not a direction which ichorid should go in imo.

[wiley]

It still has what makes dredge tick.  It has draw power (indeed the free ancestrals from the coliseums is excellent), it has dredgers, it has free threats and it has disruption.  As long as you counter their graveyard hate and bounce whichever token they target with truth then you can still win.  My only problem with this is that you open yourself to counters and, more importantly, discard.  This dredge deck looks to keep some cards in its hand while using bazaar.  That is a tough thing to do sometimes.

The only other thing that takes me away from this deck compared to the first time I saw it is tarmogoyf.  Before there was nothing in vintage that would actually put a wall between the opponent and your ichorids except tinker targets.  Now there is and it poses a significant problem for the deck.  I haven't tested a fow build in a long time (shortly after gush restriction), but the deck had power then and still does now.

[Marske]

@Wiley,
I have no experience in testing Dredge with FoW so I could have very well been wrong with my previous statement. It just looks weaker then Powder or Mana dredge imo. (decks I do have experience with)

[icky]

Forces help when they are on the play as dredge has nothing game to when your opponent is on the play you might not win a counter war with tez but most people hold there counters for dread return and other key effect. I have had a few players tell me after that they were tempted to counter my force targeting there relic but they had needle and force/ blue card to knock of my bazaar and counter my dread return. I ended up winning off careful study and ancestral recall into narcomoeba and ichorids into token and over ran them in a total of three turns.

As for a bad aggro deck I haven’t seen many aggro decks that can have 6 or 8 2/2 and a few ichorids by turn 2 or 3

Have you had games where you dread return and think if I didn’t have a dread return could I still win the game?

What does dredge do against turn one storm or turn one tezz not saying my build has no problems against either but I do have some answers some times I don’t have enough counters but force of will has won me games.

[wiley]

Have you had games where you dread return and think if I didn’t have a dread return could I still win the game?

Yep, but I've also had games were I would not have won without dread return.  That is why I go back and forth on it so much.

What does dredge do against turn one storm or turn one tezz not saying my build has no problems against either but I do have some answers some times I don’t have enough counters but force of will has won me games.

Depends, do they go first?  If yest then manaless has 4 leyline of the voids and manad has 4 fow.  If no then manaless has 4 ll, 4 chalice, 4 unmask, 4 therapy and mana'd has 4 fow, 4 chalice and 4 therapy (with a better chance to use it).

Both options are strong.

[Adan]

Hypnotist kind of reads "win the game" doesn't it? I mean unless your opponent has a graveyard that can win off a topdecked Will and they also topdeck that Will isn't it just over? Why would anyone run anything else unless they're expecting a lot of Ichorid mirrors? I can understand running some kind of secondary target to remove an annoying permanent like Angel of Despair/Woodfall Primus or Sharuum to return LED/Lotus and Fatestitcher your whole deck but isn't Hypnotist just strictly superior to any other primary "win now" target?

The question is: Who needs Sadistic Hypnotist? If you can resolve the Dread Return, you should have won anyway. Flame-Kin Zealot wins as Dread Return resolves, while the Hypnotist requires you to sacrifice some tokens to mindtwist your opponent. He can still win with a topdecked Will or a topdecked Time Vault with Key out or vice versa. There is absolutely no reason to play Hypnotist over FKZ and give the opponent a extra turn.

So why should he ever be superior to FKZ?

The only advantage I see is: He pitches to Ichorid.  

edit:

Assuming you can use Hypnotist multiple times turn two, why wouldn't FKZ be a better Dread Return target? I'm not following how winning NOW is worse than locking the game up by making my opponent discard their hand.

Apparently, I got ninja'ed by Smennen several posts before. Uhm. Okay, then count my post as another PRO-FKZ and CONTRA-Hypnotist vote.

[Explosion]

Adan:

Wiley and Meadbert answered this in Replies 15 & 16. Flame-Kin Zealot is a win if you have enough tokens, but if you don't have lethal damage, giving them the extra turn may be game over. Sadistic Hypnotist is a slower win, but it rips apart their hand, and they're forced to hope for Yawg Will, and even then, they'll have needed to have dropped 3 mana producers beforehand.

It's a matter of choice, but if you can't guarantee 6 tokens to swing with the Zealot, the Hypnotist looks better.

[Smmenen]

Adan:

Wiley and Meadbert answered this in Replies 15 & 16. Flame-Kin Zealot is a win if you have enough tokens, but if you don't have lethal damage, giving them the extra turn may be game over. Sadistic Hypnotist is a slower win, but it rips apart their hand, and they're forced to hope for Yawg Will, and even then, they'll have needed to have dropped 3 mana producers beforehand.

It's a matter of choice, but if you can't guarantee 6 tokens to swing with the Zealot, the Hypnotist looks better.

But there are important counter-arguments.

For all  of those times that you didn't have enough tokens to win with FKZ, does that outweigh the cost of having a dead card all of the times that you CAN just win with FKZ?  If you are running Hypnotist, you aren't running something else -- something potentially more useful in the early game, such as Leyline or Strip Mine or Unmask. 

Finally, even if you don't have enough tokens to win, do you really need Hypnotist to not lose?  For every scenario set out: where you don't have enough tokens to win with FKZ, but you can Dread Return Hypnotist, it is obviously not the case that you will need Hypnotist to not lose every single one of those instances.  The question is: which proportion of them?