Help - How to fight dredge with blue-based control?

[doggue]

Hi all

I found myself having trouble with my dredge matchup. I always board in: 4 Leyline of the Void, 1 Yixlid Jailer, 1 Nihil Spellbomb.

One of my biggest problems is, that I don't really know when to fire off the Spellbomb.

I'd apprechiate it, if you guys could share your general strategies when you face experienced dredge player.

Thanks in advance!

[honestabe]

What are you boarding out?

Also, 6 hate pieces does seem a little light

[TheWhiteDragon]

It really depends on a lot of things, in particular your deck's ability to handle ghasts/zombies.  If you think 4 damage on the table will kill you before you kill them, then you need to wipe the grave when they are going to get 2 attackers.  If you can handle it a bit, then you probably can wait until their second or third bazaar activation...when they have depleted their library a bit and have probably dropped most of the dredgers from their hand.  If you can PLAY the spellbomb aftar they bazaar, they are more likely to dump all their dredgers in case of wasteland (so they can still dredge several times on their draw step).  If you drop the spellbomb immediately, they will play around it and hold a dredger or two in hand.  There is no magic number, but it is very situational and dependent on your deck's capabilities.  In my blue decks, I tend to pop bombs typically after they have dredged with bazaar and dredged on their draw step for the first time.  This tends to hit the ghasts, narcos, dredgers, and therapies, basically negating their first 2 turns.  That's usually enough window for me to get BSC or vault/key or whatever.  Ideally, you can smack a few bridges/returns in what they dredged too.  If their first round of dredging doesn't flip any ghasts or moebas, they will not have any threat for that turn (no therapy or return), so you can wait another turn.  If they flip narco, but nothing great to do with them (multiple therapies or multiple narcos and a return with a target) you can sit on the bomb a turn as well.  Even if they flip ghasts, pop the bomb in response to the land drop.  If they have no land, there's no need to waste your bomb early.

Dredge has some skill in its decision making, but it is VERY luck dependent on what cards flip off the dredge.  It has no tutoring or deck stacking, so whatever the order of the deck is after the shuffle is how the game will play out.  It depends a lot on what they flip and what you can handle.  If they eot bazaar away two grave trolls, then on their upkeep dredge 4 ghasts followed by 4 narcos, pop the bomb and you just won the game.  If they flip crap, just wait.  If, on those same 2 trolls, they flip 2x bridge, therapy, return target, dread return, 2x imp, 2x ghast, and an ichorid....well, then it is really a matter of what you can handle and may need to pop it right there - but wait for them to dredge again on their draw and to drop that land and respond to the ghast triggers in that scenario.  

Again, there are too many factors to have a "right" answer.  I guess the "best" answer is to pop it when their grave allows them substantial lines of play that will affect your ability to win (whether that be in clock or disruption and future dredging).

[mostapha]

White Dragon's advice seems very sound as to when to pop a nihil or the like, but I'm still wondering why the nihil is better than a second Yixlid Jailer. 

Every time I've played a jailer against a dredge player–whether competent or not–they grimace.  The graveyard bombs buy you time, and they can be devastating.  But, in order to respond to triggers the way that Dragon suggests, it has to be on the board when the triggers hit. 

If they're activating Bazaar on your endstep and/or during their upkeep, they know whether they have to play around it or not.  If you hold it, you might be very far behind by the time you can play it, depending on what happened while they were digging for an answer to the Leyline that you mulliganed to. 

I have a lot less experience in Vintage than most of the people here, but I've tested that matchup a good bit and faced seemingly very competent dredge pilots in legacy and one small vintage tournament that I won.  And…I have never wished a Jailer was a graveyard bomb.  I have wished that a bomb was a jailer, which is why I didn't use Stephen's exact sideboard.  Since I made that change, I'm undefeated against dredge post board.  I haven't played that much…and I'm sure none of my opponents were world class vintage players…but the games have never really been all that close. 

I think the bombs leave too much up to chance compared to mulliganing to a leyline, running out a Jailer as soon as you have any protection (or as soon as they kill your leyline if you haven't found protection yet) and then trying to fight the fights that need fighting until you can go for the kill (basically just their anti-hate).  They're digging for about 8 cards that can remove your leyline…and by the time they get to one that you can't counter, either they've exiled a lot of what their deck does or a lot of anti-hate…often both. 

The opinions of the Dredge pilots I've talked to yield the same result.  Maybe the guys at the top are different, but most of them tend to just not care about bombs…they have to be out to work, so they play around it.  It's the equivalent of a couple time walks…not a weak play, but not an auto-win either.  Jailers piss them off. 

If you're going to run a bomb…I'd put it in as #7, not #6.  But that's just me. 

[voltron00x]

Nihil Spellbomb has application in other match-ups beyond Dredge, which makes it appealing.

[doggue]

Wow, thank you all very much! I really have trouble with the understanding of this matchup. I almost never play against it outside of tournaments.

I still have some similar questions about crypt effects and the stack, just to be sure:
-If I activate my spellbomb after their bazzar activation in response to their Narcomoeba trigger, they don't enter the battlefield, do they?
-In their upkeep they put Ichorid on the stack. In order to prevent them to enter the battlefield, when do I have to activate my spellbomb?
-In response to the landfall trigger from Blood Ghast, can I activate the spellbomb so they don't hit the battlefield?
-If they sac a moeba for a cabal therapy, can I activate and sac my spellbomb in response to the bridge trigger... what exactly happens? Do the zombies hit the battlefield?


I also run two Mental Missteps in my maindeck. (playing UBR confidant control)

I currently board like this:

-3 Jace
-1 Vendilion Clique
-2 Hurkyl's Recall

+4 Leyline of the Void
+1 Yixlid Jailer
+1 Nihil Spellbomb

Does that seem acceptable?

I'm not sure if I should board in REB's to fight chain of vapor, Lightning Bolts or even Ingot Chewer.

Thanks in advance!

[honestabe]

Wow, thank you all very much! I really have trouble with the understanding of this matchup. I almost never play against it outside of tournaments.

I still have some similar questions about crypt effects and the stack, just to be sure:
-If I activate my spellbomb after their bazzar activation in response to their Narcomoeba trigger, they don't enter the battlefield, do they?
-In their upkeep they put Ichorid on the stack. In order to prevent them to enter the battlefield, when do I have to activate my spellbomb?
-In response to the landfall trigger from Blood Ghast, can I activate the spellbomb so they don't hit the battlefield?
-If they sac a moeba for a cabal therapy, can I activate and sac my spellbomb in response to the bridge trigger... what exactly happens? Do the zombies hit the battlefield?


I also run two Mental Missteps in my maindeck. (playing UBR confidant control)

I currently board like this:

-3 Jace
-1 Vendilion Clique
-2 Hurkyl's Recall

+4 Leyline of the Void
+1 Yixlid Jailer
+1 Nihil Spellbomb

Does that seem acceptable?

I'm not sure if I should board in REB's to fight chain of vapor, Lightning Bolts or even Ingot Chewer.

Thanks in advance!

I think your problem is that you're boarding out your gas for more permission.  Try leaving in Jace and v-clique and taking out your force of wills

[voltron00x]

If you're on the Leyline plan, you probably don't want to side out the Force of Wills you may need to protect it.

[doggue]

I think the forces are needed to protect my leyline.

Do you guy's think a crypt-card like nihil spellbomb is needed? Against Yawg-Will the one spellbomb is just random, isn't it?. I
And isn't a second Jailer just better against dredge?

[meadbert]

Forces do not make sense with so little hate.  Force will never be used to protect Nihil Spellbomb.  Instead you are running 4 Forces in case you are lucky enough to already have one of your 5 hate cards.

When you have no hate your Forces are basically dead and without Jace you cannot even throw them back.

Generally you want hate rather than Forces up to around 7-8 hate pieces.  Around 8 your Forces start to become about as good as hate since you are so likely to have hate already they are most likely protecting hate.

What does the rest of your deck look like?  Are you running Drains or Pierces?

[doggue]

Hi Meadbert

Thanks for your post.

It's not that I want to protect a spellbomb. I obviously try to protect my leyline. The leylines aren't too random since I mulligan into them.

I run 4 Drains and 2 Mental Missteps.

Whats your take on Spellbomb vs. 2nd Yixlid Jailer?

[goober]

The best way to counter someone destroying your hate card is to have a redundant one on the board, not a Force in hand since it costs 2 cards or keeping 5 mana open.  Plus it means you can draw hate more often.

[meadbert]

Hi Meadbert

Thanks for your post.

It's not that I want to protect a spellbomb. I obviously try to protect my leyline. The leylines aren't too random since I mulligan into them.

I run 4 Drains and 2 Mental Missteps.

Whats your take on Spellbomb vs. 2nd Yixlid Jailer?

Here is the problem with mulliganing into Leyline.
Lets say you get Leyline on the second try which is the median.  You start with 6 cards.  Here your plan is to use Force to protect Leyline.
So, you put down Leyline dropping you to 5 cards and they cast their removal and you Force pitching something.  Now you have 3 cards in hand and 0 permanents in play.  Your opponent still has a Bazaar.  They will be drawing 3 cards a turn to find more removal while you do pretty much nothing.  In this median example you are probably going to lose.
Going down to 5 or cards or fewer and you either stop mulliganing in which case you are down several cards without Leyline and possibly with countermagic doing nothing or you keep mulliganing and are more likely to mulligan to oblivion than dredge is.

Throw in a likely game 1 loss vs Dredge and your current sideboarding strategy for Dredge is destroying your deck.
You have dedicated 5-6 slots to almost pure Dredge hate and it maybe raising your round win percentage from close to 0 to ... maybe 10%?  You cannot use that kind of space for such a little result.

One option is to just concede the Dredge matchup and use those 5 Leyline/Jailer slots to beat everything else.

I cannot give detailed recommendations without a more complete decklist, but here are some general rules of thumb.

In magic Combo -> Aggro -> Control -> Combo.

Post board Dredge turns into an Aggro deck.  Even if it is unmolested it is looking to swing for the win on turn 5ish.  Some folks board out all Dread Returns and I personally board down to 1-2 Dread Returns and I pull out my targets so I am bascally getting a fat Grave-Troll.

To beat Dredge post board you do not want to try to play control.  Yes you can get a Leyline out and try to use counter magic to protect it, but Dredge gets to draw 3 cards a turn and every Therapy or Leyline removal is relevant.  They may be running as many as 14 of those.  So trying to draw into a 14of with 3 tries each turn is really easy.  They are discarding in the mean time, but if Dredge simply draws for the turn and then activates Bazaar then their hand is staying the same size.  If they have 4 cards in hand now then your plan pretty much consists of trying to counter 4 Leyline removal spells over the next 5 turns which is not easy.

The better strategy is to attempt to play combo and use Leylines and Jailers as speed bombs.  The idea is to slow their clock down to 6 turns with your speed bumps while you keep in 100% of your original gas and are trying to win on turn 4ish.  In this case do not mulligan to your hate.  The idea is if your hand consists of 7 non hate cards your goldfish should already be really fast.

There is a lot of hate that is relevant both vs Dredge and vs other archetypes.  One strategy for you would be to plan to board out all 10 counter magic and just add a bunch of cards to your board that are broader in their application.
Some examples are:
Strip Mine + Wasteland:  Very good vs Shops.
Pithing Needle
Engineered Explosives:  Wipes out Bridge tokens vs Dredge.  Removes Oath or Confidant.

In your case I think your main already has too many cards that are weak vs Dredge.  Even if you board out Forces and Drains you are still left with some unhelpful bounce, and Clique and Jace may not be that great if he is just crushed with an Ichorid after one Brainstorm.

The final option is to just dedicate more Dredge hate.  This decision will be extremely effective vs Dredge because not only will you have more hate to begin with, but once you get to about 7 hate cards your countermagic becomes as good as hate since it will usually be protecting hate.  For instance with 7 Leylines + Jailers Mental misstep starts to look amazing.
Also Jace can be used to keep drawing more hate and counter magic LEyline/Jailer keep creatures off the table.
The problem is this eats up more space in your sideboard, but I would consider running 4 Leyline/3 Jailer much better than what you are doing now.

In summary:
Option #1:  Concede Dredge and focus on beating everything else.

Option #2:  Make nearly every card in your sideboard relevant vs Dredge by using stuff like Wasteland, Needles and Explosives.  Then you can board out Forces, Drains, Hurkyls and Clique.

Option #3:  Run 4 Leyline + 3/4 Jailer and keep in Mental Misstep and Forces to protect them.  Just board out Clique/Hurkyls/Drain.  This depends on if you run enough blue to support Force.  If not then maybe keep the Drains, but I am not a huge fan of Drain vs Dredge.

[desolutionist]

Something I've been thinking about:

With drede (and minus 6) as popular as it is, would it be good to have a maindeck plan to fight the graveyard?  I recently attempted this strategy with Dark Rituals (in the form of TPS) but 2 of my only 4 match losses (of 27 tournament matches) were to dredge.  Dredge is faster than mana accelerated combo, therfore I've decided to scratch the rituals and go back to Mana Drains.  With a maindeck plan, you'll have almost a guarantee game 1 win because they'll have nothing to defend themselves and you'll have more room in the sideboard for play against blue, stax, fish, etc.

In brainstorming, I've only managed to comeup with 2 options:

1. Trinket Mage + Tormod's Crypt, Pithing Needle, Engineered Explosives

2. Crop Rotation (instant) + Bojuka Bog

Also, Academy Ruins could be very useful at recycling Tormod's Crypt to basically lock them out of the game.  I've also been impressed for its ability to reuse Black Lotus.  And consider this Gifts pile: Crucible, Academy, Key, Time Vault.

[voltron00x]

Something I've been thinking about:

With drede (and minus 6) as popular as it is, would it be good to have a maindeck plan to fight the graveyard?  I recently attempted this strategy with Dark Rituals (in the form of TPS) but 2 of my only 4 match losses (of 27 tournament matches) were to dredge.  Dredge is faster than mana accelerated combo, therfore I've decided to scratch the rituals and go back to Mana Drains.  With a maindeck plan, you'll have almost a guarantee game 1 win because they'll have nothing to defend themselves and you'll have more room in the sideboard for play against blue, stax, fish, etc.

In brainstorming, I've only managed to comeup with 2 options:

1. Trinket Mage + Tormod's Crypt, Pithing Needle, Engineered Explosives

2. Crop Rotation (instant) + Bojuka Bog

Also, Academy Ruins could be very useful at recycling Tormod's Crypt to basically lock them out of the game.  I've also been impressed for its ability to reuse Black Lotus.  And consider this Gifts pile: Crucible, Academy, Key, Time Vault.

Some people do play maindeck answers, but most Titan builds do not.  The real issue is that Titan Dredge goldfishes pretty consistently on turn 2 unless it takes a ton of mulligans, so having 2-3 answers main might not impact the matchup in a meaningful way - but could negatively impact your other matchups.  This tension is what makes Dredge so effective.

[desolutionist]

That's why I'm drawn to to the tutors.  You can play 2-3 dynamic answers and 4 tutors for those answers.  In my experiences against dredge, a turn 1 Trinket Mage for Tormod's Crypt (ON THE DRAW) is better than a turn 1 Tinker for Blightsteel Colossus (ON THE DRAW).  A well timed Crypt is actually pretty meaningful.  The trick would to not "negatively impact your other matchups".  Pithing Needle, for example, stops Wasteland and Jace, Tormod's Crypt stops Yawgmoth's Will, and Engineered Explosives kills Dark Confidant.

Auriok Salvagers is crap, but I believe Trinket Mage can still see Vintage play.

The problem with dredge is that it is degenerate -- in addition to being degenerate, many archetypes are uncompetitive just because they have no chance to beat dredge.  If a blue deck emerges w/ maindeck graveyard hate, it will go away for a while.

[TheWhiteDragon]

  If a blue deck emerges w/ maindeck graveyard hate, it (the blue deck) will go away for a while.

I fixed your post - if a blue deck runs ample grave hate to beat dredge, it will be the least consistent/powerful blue deck in the field.  It will go away because everything non-dredge will squash it.

[desolutionist]

I didn't say ample.  I meant enough and only that.  Why would a blue deck, using disruption aimed outside the stack, be any less consistent/powerful than any other blue deck? 

What if those blue decks are left in the loser's bracket because they couldn't beat dredge?

What if those blue decks get paired against you but have nothing substantial to sideboard (because of their dredge hate) while you have exactly what you need to win?

[Prospero]

This most recent incarnation of Dredge has proven itself far more resiliant than I had expected it to be.  I sincerely thought that after GenCon, people would load up on enough hate to beat Dredge - and I cheated on Dredge hate in my sideboard at the last Grudge Match because of it.  I wound up losing to Chas Hinkle in the Swiss and if we had met in the finals (as we were in different brackets) I don't know that I would have gotten there the second time around.

So, Dredge won Champs.  Then it placed second at the Grudge Match.  Then it placed half the top 8 at Blue Bell and made the top four of the N.Y.S.E. the week after.  Now we're heading into October and I expected Dredge to be gone by now.  Except it's still here and it's still powerful. 

If you're running a blue deck, then running some maindeck hate against Dredge may be necessary.  Far from it being a weak call, I think it could be the correct one.

(For what it's worth, coming from a Shop pilot.)

[MaximumCDawg]

I sincerely thought that after GenCon, people would load up on enough hate to beat Dredge - and I cheated on Dredge hate in my sideboard at the last Grudge Match because of it. 

Prisioner's dillema, huh?  Rely on everyone else to beat Dredge for you, and they all do the same thing!

I like Crop Rotation packages, but I don't think they're suited for blue control.  Crop is alot of fun in fish decks that can fetch up Mishra's Factories, Maze of Ith, Bokjuka Bog, or Horizon Canopy, at least.  It's also a great enabler for a striplock engine.  I've never seen someone run it in a blue control shell, though.  What would the package be?  Library, Academy, and Bog?  Library seems bad, since fetching it out t1 means you have to wait a turn without laying a land to get back up to 7 and cast it.  Unless you're on the draw, I suppose.  Academy seems better, but is it worth a slot or two in the deck?

[bluemage55]

If you're running a blue deck, then running some maindeck hate against Dredge may be necessary.  Far from it being a weak call, I think it could be the correct one.

It's also worth mentioning that maindeck hate vs. Dredge doesn't have to be completely dead in other matchups.

There's a number of ways that maindeck Pithing Needle x1 can be valuable against other decks (Wasteland, Mishra's Factory, Jace, SDT, Grindstone, Jester's Cap, etc.), and maindeck Nihil Spellbomb x1 works vs. Yawg, Crucible, Loam, Darkblast, etc. while often cycling itself.

[TheBrassMan]

I think the forces are needed to protect my leyline.

Do you guy's think a crypt-card like nihil spellbomb is needed? Against Yawg-Will the one spellbomb is just random, isn't it?. I
And isn't a second Jailer just better against dredge?

Personally, I only run Nihil Spellbomb because it's an artifact, which hasn't been mentioned yet in the thread. Because Spellbomb is an artifact, it interacts with a handful of cards you may already be running. It turns Tinker and Tezzeret into additional hate spells, and obviously plays nicely with more dedicated artifact-friendly cards like Goblin Welder (not that people are running many of those these days)

If you're not running any of those cards - or if, say, you just never plan on getting Spellbomb with Tinker - then I completely agree with your assessment. Leyline and Jailer are just better than Spellbomb. Without the artifact-synergy cards I'd skip the Spellbomb entirely.

Though nothing is certain without your full decklist and the lists of your dredge-playing opponents, the original sideboard swap you wrote seems largely correct - Forces are a lot more important to the matchup than Jaces, Cliques and Hurkyl's.

[Shax]

If the rise of Graveyard based decks using Fact or Fiction becomes relevant in the slightest, I would have to think Leyline of the Void is a good option or anything besides Nihil Spellbomb. Theory is that Nihil Spellbomb gets countered by Mental Misstep, and Goblin Welder messes with your head.

Besides that, it is a wonderful option to fight Dredge as it draws a card. I also like Relic of Progenitus, but like Nihil Spellbomb gets hit marginally by cards in the blue matchup if for some reason it is used there. Leyline of the Void is the best way for Dredge to have a hate for it or lose. Most of Dredge's hate for Leyline is 1CMC cards, so Mental Misstep again is good at letting you do other things for free G2 and G3. It hits tons of other relevant cards too used by Dredge, such as Cabal Therapy, Ancestral Recall.

The next most relevant option for Dredge specifically I think is Yixild Jailer since it is easy to play the first turn most of the time.

[bisamratte]

I'm playing 4 Leylines, 2 Pithing Needles and 1 Nihil Spellbomb (with 2 Trinket Mages main) and it works. Leyline is the best hate in game 3 and Needle is even good in game 2, beacause he never activates a Bazaar to get cards into his graveyard. A reset button like Spellbomb is ok, but you cannot rely on it. I've been playing Jailers for a long time, but they are really crappy on the draw. If you keep a hand with turn 1 Jailer you get hit by Therapy, Unmask and Chalice0 and with Sun Titans, there is no second chance. That's why I prefer this package.

[bluemage55]

If the rise of Graveyard based decks using Fact or Fiction becomes relevant in the slightest, I would have to think Leyline of the Void is a good option or anything besides Nihil Spellbomb. Theory is that Nihil Spellbomb gets countered by Mental Misstep, and Goblin Welder messes with your head.

The biggest problem with Leyline is that is that it's awful in multiples most of the time, and much worse when not in your opening hand (and as blue control, it's problematic to try to mull until you hit Leyline).

Because of that, it's a poor idea to do anything but run Leyline x4 in the sb if at all.  By contrast, you can reasonably consider maindecking Spellbomb x1 for tutorable, weldable hate that cycles, adds to Academy, pitches to TfK, and isn't completely dead in the non-dredge matchup.