How are you dealing with wastelands?

[Meddling Mike]

I recently played Dredge at the latest Waterbury tournament to a top 4 finish (Report here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=42119.0) My biggest complaint on the day was the deck's inability to function without an active Bazaar of Baghdad. I found for the most part I was able to efficiently deal with the various Leylines, Relics, etc for graveyard hate that popped up with my sideboard cards, but a Bazaar hit by a strip effect was really difficult to rebound from. I've been considering ways to work around this problem and see that there are basically two ways to go:
1) Get there without Bazaar.
2) Get your Bazaar back or find a new one FAST.

Getting there without Bazaar:
This seems to be the most popular means of approaching the no Bazaar problem. Your clock has been cut down by about 2/3, maybe more if you can't successfully chain dredgers together and are forced to draw up to 8 in order to get a dredger back in the graveyard. You can hit some narcomoebas, Ichorids, Bloodghasts and Dread Return Iona and maybe make some zombies along the way. The major problem with this is that Lodestone Golem has given the workshop player the tools to beat you before this strategy can be effective. The addition of spheres can make this more difficult as it can shut off your defensive spells and keep you from making zombies with Cabal Therapy or getting your fattie into play with Dread Return. There are cards that I think can help facilitate this strategy, but they are also hurt by spheres. Ancestral fills this role nicely in the deck as it works in this scenario as well as when you are searching for the answer to that pesky Leyline of the Void, Relic of Progenitus, Yixlid Jailer, etc. the card with a similar function is Breakthrough. It offers you the effectiveness of two bazaar activations and allows you to dump everything into the graveyard when you are done. Unfortunately, the card discard can be a negative of this card when you are trying to find an answer to graveyard hate rather than searching for draws to dredge. Brainstorm allows you to see the same number of cards/dredges that you would see with Ancestral, but it puts them on top of library, putting you in a weakened position if you did not find what you were looking for in the top 3 while simultaneously pulling dredgers out of the graveyard and not putting them back like Ancestral does when you are using the draws to dredge.

Get your Bazaar back or find a new one FAST:
The alternative is to actually draw for your draw step and attempt to find a Bazaar of Baghdad or a Petrified Field to return your Bazaar of Baghdad. The card that saved my bacon a few times at the tourney was Petrified Field. It cost me a turn, but I had my Bazaar of Baghdad back on the table by turn 3. If they didn't have another strip effect or other hate often times this was good enough to get the job done. The facilitation of landfall and the ability to grab a second Bazaar even if your first Bazaar is completely unmolested is nice. The colorless it generates can also help pay for that Nature's claim through his sphere of resistance. It's really solid in a number of situations. The problem with this card is that it can be hit by the other graveyard hate available. It looks pretty sad when this card comes down when your opponent has a Leyline of the Void handy. The other option I had been considering for pushing this plan is Crop Rotation. Castable off Undiscovered Paradise or City of Brass it gets your Bazaar of Baghdad going again that very turn, a turn faster than Petrified Field. The ability to trigger landfall twice in a turn is also adorable. However, this is still difficult to cast through sphere effects and can be devastating if countered. The last card that could possibly fit this plan is Life From the Loam. It dredges so you don't necessarily need it in opening hand and it can grab multiple lands! Seems like a perfect fit right? Sadly, if the 1cc spells we discussed here are difficult to cast through spheres, casting this 2cc monster is a real challenge.

So I pose the question to you TMD. When your Bazaar of Baghdad gets wasted what's your Plan B and what cards do you run to support that plan?

[Mantis]

The list I last played had both means at getting there without Bazaar and getting Bazaar back.

First of all, I think it's essential to have 4 Ichorids against Workshop, as together with Bridge from Below you can slowly climb your way back. I really like Darkblast to blast away my own Bloodghasts for tokens, again have a dredger in the yard and gain a Zombie or 2 in the process. To support Ichorid however, you need Golgari Thug, as such I think you can only get away with 2 Darkblast max.

Alongside I pack 4 Cephalid Coliseum and 2 Petrified Field to win without Bazaar. I also play 4 Force of Will to deal with Lodestone Golem. With Golem slow dredging is hard, as they put you on a quick clock. You can't really deal with Golem with Claim and Chain as you will never be able to afford them through Chalice @ 1, additional Wastes and additional Spheres. FoW pre-emptively answers Golem by cutting their clock to give you more time slow dredging and allowing you to still pay for Dread Return. I think Ancestral Recall should be in your 75, especially with FoW and Coliseum already there.

I side out 3 or 4 Therapy as I think discard in general is fairly mediocre against Shop and you might not even be able to pay for Therapy through the Spheres. Other than that, postboard the focus is on grinding out the game with Ichorid. I do keep in Dread Return as the effect is much more devastating if you do manage to get enough mana to get through the Spheres.

As you all probably have noticed by now, I prefer to run Fatestitcher and while very good in other matchups, the card is pretty bad against MUD. I do keep in 2 copies, mostly because I need enough blue to support FoW and they are occasionally good at sacrificing their lives for Dread Return.

[bun]

The list I last played had both means at getting there without Bazaar and getting Bazaar back.

First of all, I think it's essential to have 4 Ichorids against Workshop, as together with Bridge from Below you can slowly climb your way back. I really like Darkblast to blast away my own Bloodghasts for tokens, again have a dredger in the yard and gain a Zombie or 2 in the process. To support Ichorid however, you need Golgari Thug, as such I think you can only get away with 2 Darkblast max.

Alongside I pack 4 Cephalid Coliseum and 2 Petrified Field to win without Bazaar. I also play 4 Force of Will to deal with Lodestone Golem. With Golem slow dredging is hard, as they put you on a quick clock. You can't really deal with Golem with Claim and Chain as you will never be able to afford them through Chalice @ 1, additional Wastes and additional Spheres. FoW pre-emptively answers Golem by cutting their clock to give you more time slow dredging and allowing you to still pay for Dread Return. I think Ancestral Recall should be in your 75, especially with FoW and Coliseum already there.

I side out 3 or 4 Therapy as I think discard in general is fairly mediocre against Shop and you might not even be able to pay for Therapy through the Spheres. Other than that, postboard the focus is on grinding out the game with Ichorid. I do keep in Dread Return as the effect is much more devastating if you do manage to get enough mana to get through the Spheres.

As you all probably have noticed by now, I prefer to run Fatestitcher and while very good in other matchups, the card is pretty bad against MUD. I do keep in 2 copies, mostly because I need enough blue to support FoW and they are occasionally good at sacrificing their lives for Dread Return.

Wasteland is boring.

You know what I find boring? Worthless spam posts. Please read the site rules here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=38003.msg508152#msg508152
-Meddling Mage

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[Shax]

I agree with Mantis. Use some number of petrified fields for if your playing lots of Strip and Waste effects. They are great with Bloodghast too, which contribute with the other plan of winning with creature beats. I run a full playset of Ichorid. They are fast and let you win without a Bazaar and just one Bridge in your graveyard means you get something back and value out of the Ichorid. Sometimes you do not even need the Bridges since Ichorids are already getting three in every turn. Plan C is to use Pithing Needle. It works if you want to not use Fields. Revoker is nice too.

[Womba]

I think a lot of it deals with if you are on the play or draw as well as if you have 7 cards in your opening hand or not. If your able to keep ur 6 or 7 and have a dredger it is usually best to just draw and then discard against Shop decks. I am pretty sure that is the correct line of play in 9 out of 10 games. If they have relic, crypt, leyline, etc., leading out with a bazaar isnt going to do much anyway and will only put you farther behind if they have wasteland. The only time this becomes an issue is when they get pressure on board, at which point you have roughly still have a turn or so to draw and discard but have to run out bazaar the following turn and hope you can get an army via slow dredging, drawing a bazaar, or drawing and field. There arent many situations where you should forgo dredging to try to mise the land.

When your opener is less than 6, its a little tougher. A lot of times you have to run out the bazaar and hope to get there, but it comes with playing this glass cannon of a deck.  I would say your build also has some to do with how you play vs workshops but I would strongly suggest in this current meta to have four ichorids in your 75. This has been my strategy vs workshop decks for awhile now and have gone 6-1 against them in my previous 5 tournaments with this deck.