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Reconsidering Dredge, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Zombie Bomb by Greg Ivey

A couple years ago (a veritable eon in Magic Years) when Faeries were first battling Volcanic Fallout and Broodmate Dragons were still just hatchlings, a strange blip appeared on the radar of the Magic community. Most people were happily bashing away with token-fueled decks that flipped degenerate pump-spells off Windbrisk Heights, and the general consensus across the globe was that turning creatures sideways was the best method of victory. Everyone's top-8 decklists and minds were full tokens, were mostly devoid of disruption, and were vying to find the best tech to one-up their token-turning opponents. Seemingly out of nowhere, a Japanese player had found the ultimate trump to the accepted strategies wasn't Zealous Persecution, or Garruk, or whatever: he decided to simply make their attacks not matter.

Overnight, Turbo-Fog evolved from a casual idea to a tournament contender.

But don't worry! This isn't an article about Turbo-Fog. I just want to ruminate on the idea of the "best deck" and what it means for tournament preparation. To put it in another light, let's think out loud about the new Extended format. It's easy to assume, as most people did initially, that Faeries will be the new king. Fae dominated block, devastated Standard for a long time, and even had some moderate amount of success in Extended before the recent changes. But without debating what may or may not turn out to be true about the format, let's use this type of thinking in a short trip to imagination land!

Let's say you've been invited to an eight-round, professional REL tournament with all the other best players in the world. Hands-down, the best deck in our imaginary format is Faeries, and you know for a fact that every other person you'll battle will be running the same 75-card optimized list. Do you play Faeries, too? Many of you will say "Of course not! I'd be a fool to do such a thing!" And you'd be right. Even if you were an expert at the Faeries mirror and were packing insane cards that no one was expecting, you'd still have an uphill battle. So in this crazy imaginary tournament, it's easy to see that you'd want to sleeve up some extremely aggressive deck with four main-deck copies of Volcanic Fallout and Great Sable Stag way before you ever thought about tackling eight rounds of Fae on Fae action.

So now that I've bored you to tears with my amazing analysis on the importance of meta-gaming, let me just get to the point: If you are going to Grand Prix: Columbus then you should seriously consider Dredge as the deck to play.

For a long time, Dredge has been kept in check by the inordinate amount of graveyard hate available to players, and up until recently it hasn't been uncommon for players to devote between four and six of their sideboard slots to cards that fight the graveyard. Times change, though, and the volatile and explosive nature of the format combined with the uprising of Reanimator has pushed graveyard hate in sideboards into a noticeable decline in both quantity and effectiveness against Dredge. Things are looking even better for us, as the banning of Mystical Tutor means fewer people will be packing graveyard hate because there should be fewer Reanimator decks running rampant.

To further analyze the hosers people are likely to be packing against the deck, let's look at a list of all the main-deck and sideboard cards that affect Dredge from the top 8 decklists at a recent large Legacy event in St. Louis.

main 1 Tormod's Crypt 8 Cursecatcher 8 Gempalm Incinerator 2 Gaddock Teeg 1 Form of the Dragon

side 5 Relic of Progenitus 11 Tormod's Crypt 1 Extirpate 4 Leyline of the Void 4 Thorn of Amethyst 6 Faerie Macabre 1 Gaddock Teeg 2 Form of the Dragon

As you can see from this list, there were no main-deck cards that are unbeatable for Dredge. Gaddock Teeg is a simple enough card to overcome, as the Dredge player can simply switch from full-on combo mode to Bloodghast and Ichorid beat-downs. He's also a turn too slow to prevent a Breakthrough for 0 on the play or on the draw, which allows the Dredge player to begin filling the graveyard very quickly. If you're expecting Teeg to be heavily played wherever you are (which is likely at GP Columbus, as Zoo is currently a very popular deck) you could also run Darkblast to keep him in check. Form of the Dragon can be very bad for a horde of brainless zombies as it's effectively a moat that also hurts you, it takes quite a bit for the Show and Tell deck to get it into play in time to matter. Worst-case scenario, it's not impossible to get enough flying creatures in play to swing for five damage, which can be accomplished with just three Narcomoebas and a Dread Returned Flame-kin Zealot.

Of course, things get much more difficult post-board, but there are very few cards in these sideboards that are really of any consequence. Extirpate can be extremely annoying, but with only one copy floating around all eight decks it's not even something to worry about. It's also very easy to win games without even relying on Bridge from Below zombies, so if they remove your Bridges you can focus instead whittling them down with your non-token creatures. The same techniques can be used to fight Faerie Macabre, and it will be even more effective as the Faerie can only hit two of your cards. There are also only four copies of what is arguably the worst card a Dredge player can expect to see: Leyline of the Void. An opening hand with a Leyline can certainly shut the deck down, but a player mulliganing into a hand with Leyline will often have to settle for a mediocre draw. This will slow the game down until you can find the right spell to kill it, but by then you should have plenty of ways to combo off.

So, as you can see here, there are still cards being played in top decks that can seriously damper the Dredge strategy, but none of them are unbeatable. For every card a player can bring in against the deck, Dredge has access to a trump card. Pithing Needle, Ray of Revelation, Chain of Vapor, Ancient Grudge all are fantastic and versatile answers to the common hate cards people are packing. And, with the release of M11, Dredge has been given another amazing card to add to this arsenal: Leyline of Sanctity.

The list of cards in Legacy that this shuts down is amazing. Tormod's Crypt, Form of the Dragon, and Ravenous Trap are all widely-used enough to warrant trying the new Leyline, but its ability to also shut down Goblin Charbelcher, Thoughtseize and Duress effects, Tendrils of Agony, and Edict effects pushes it over the line in versatility and power. I'm definitely considering running four of these in my sideboard for Columbus, although I haven't had a chance to test it yet.

But what version of Dredge should you play? Lion's Eye Diamond versions are certainly explosive, as with a good hand they can allow you to pitch a handful of dredgers, then cast Breakthrough and Dredge your little heart out. There are also some very interesting control-oriented builds floating around that utilize Force of Will as a way to combat the format and sideboard hate at the same time. I think both of these builds are very strong, however they definitely force you to play in a certain way. And while each of the strategies they are built to optimize are good ones in a number of scenarios, I've found Dredge to be far more successful as it becomes more versatile. This is the list I've been rocking at local events and in playtesting:

1 Dryad Arbor 2 Dakmor Salvage 4 Undiscovered Paradise 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Cephalid Coliseum 1 City of Brass

4 Bloodghast 1 Terastodon 1 Flame-Kin Zealot 4 Putrid Imp 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Hapless Researcher 4 Narcomoeba 3 Ichorid 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 1 Golgari Thug

3 Dread Return 4 Bridge from Below 3 Cabal Therapy 4 Breakthrough

Sideboard SB: 4 Chain of Vapor SB: 2 Ray of Revelation SB: 2 Ancient Grudge SB: 2 Iona, Shield of Emeria SB: 1 Realm Razer SB: 4 Leyline of the Void

For Dredge decks built to abuse Bloodghast, mana-bases typically tend to fall into one of two categories: decks with fetch-lands and Underground Seas and other duals as needed, and decks that can easily produce all colors of mana by running rainbow lands. This particular build is the latter, however, instead of running full compliments of Gemstone Mine and City of Brass, it also uses a host of utility lands. Undiscovered Paradise is both, allowing you to create any color of mana, but also gives you the ability to continually recur Bloodghast through landfall triggers. Dakmor Salvage is similar in that it works very well with Bloodghast, but they also act as two more dredging cards in a deck that wants as many as possible.

This build runs all the usual guys, but uses Terastodon in the place where most people run Sphinx of Lost Truths. This is a really interesting slot for Dredge, as the number of different creatures that can be used as a Dread Return target is nearly unlimited. Many decks use Iona to lock their opponents out of casting spells, however the rampant abuse of the card in literally every format means most people have found answers to the Angel. Woodfall Primus is another card that fits here quite well, however Terastodon not only causes more carnage when he comes into play, he also lets you trade in your own lands for extra creatures, making the Primus seem rather inferior. There's also Realm Razer, which is extremely hilarious against the Lands Deck and just the format in general - most decks run less than 20 lands, and will have a very difficult time finding a way to deal with you removing what they've dug so far from the game. I normally try to identify troublesome matchups that are popular, and make sure I have a sideboard Dread Return target to address the worst of them. Empyrial Archangel, Blazing Archon, Llawan, Cephalid Empress - there is essentially a Dread Return target for just about any situation. The sideboard is already pretty full, but three spots can easily be dedicated to creatures.

The rest of the sideboard is pretty simple to understand. Chain of Vapor is one of the best cards, as it gives you an elegant, easy to cast, and versatile answer to just about anything. Even if I don't know what my opponent is bringing in against me, I normally bring all four of these in for games 2 and 3. Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge are effectively more Chains, but can also be brought in to when a more appropriate silver bullet is needed. Ray of Revelation, for example, is crucial in fighting Survival decks. The four Leyline of the Void are obviously extremely good in the rare chance that you have to slug out the mirror match, but are also fantastic against a number of decks that pose huge problems. Survival can't cheat Iona into play if they can't get her in the graveyard. Reanimator has to resort to either bouncing the enchantment or using Show and Tell to cheat a fatty onto the board. Even decks that don't abuse the graveyard in some way still use it to remove your Bridges from the game - Goblins, Zoo, Merfolk, and some other decks fall in this category. It's also extremely difficult for Lands and Thopter-Sword CounterTop to kill you until they've addressed the Leyline. I definitely recommend running at least three of these. I've already spent a couple of paragraphs ruminating on the overwhelming awesomeness of Leyline of Sanctity, so I'll spare you any more. It's not too hard to make a few cuts to fit four copies in. This is what I'm leaning toward:

Sideboard SB: 4 Chain of Vapor SB: 1 Ray of Revelation SB: 1 Ancient Grudge SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria SB: 1 Realm Razer SB: 3 Leyline of the Void SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity

While nothing revolutionary, this board addresses your opponents' probably graveyard hate while still addressing a few matchups that can be difficult to win even if they let you go crazy.

So, to sum it all up, if you're the type of person that likes to win every single game 1 in a way that completely demoralizes your opponent, then you should probably be thinking about Dredge. If you're the type of person that likes to crush your opponents under a wave of the undead, then you should be thinking about Dredge. Basically, if you're the type of person who is totally awesome, then you should be thinking about Dredge. Sure, you can never expect to not face any Tormod's Crypts, but you can definitely play around them.

Happy Dredging, dudes.

Last minute edit: I had a chance to play the updated list this weekend at a GP Trial at Pastimes. I played a similar sideboard to the one above, and definitely rocked a main-deck Sun Titan - which I loved. Bringing back a Dryad Arbor to trigger Bloodghasts, then pitching them all to another Dread Return for Terastodon or Flame-kin for the combo kill just felt too good. The list I played (and probably will play in Colombus):

1 Dryad Arbor 2 Dakmor Salvage 4 Undiscovered Paradise 4 Gemstone Mine 4 Cephalid Coliseum 1 City of Brass

3 Bloodghast 1 Terastodon 1 Sun Titan 1 Flame-Kin Zealot 4 Putrid Imp 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Hapless Researcher 4 Narcomoeba 3 Ichorid 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 1 Golgari Thug

3 Dread Return 4 Bridge from Below 3 Cabal Therapy 4 Breakthrough

Sideboard SB: 4 Chain of Vapor SB: 1 Ray of Revelation SB: 1 Ancient Grudge SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria SB: 1 Realm Razer SB: 4 Leyline of the Void SB: 3 Leyline of Sanctity

I went 3-2, which I was pretty happy with considering the relatively high level of players there. I lost to disgusting draws from Show and Tell (at the hands of my wife, no less), and my own decision to keep poor hands against a Merfolk player who went on to the top 8. I definitely felt like I stood a good chance against nearly every deck in the room, so now I just have to work on not being blown out by own life partner in the first round and everything should work out just fine!