Hello and welcome readers! Since this is my first article I thought I would take a brief moment to introduce myself. My name is Erik and I’m 23 years old. I was born in Germany where I’m still living, and I’ve been playing Magic since 2000. At first I played casually, but with the printing of Darksteel back in 2004 I dove into the Standard scene, playing mostly aggro-decks like White Weenie or Raffinity. In 2005 I quit playing for about two years, only to return in 2007. This time my format of choice was Legacy. After trying a few control decks I then discovered a deck called “Dredge,” which was still under heavy development at the time. With the printing of Bridge from Below and Narcomoeba in Future Sight this deck seemed quite strong to me. I played quite a bad version of it – with Lion’s Eye Diamond and Deep Analysis, as well as Homura, Human Ascendant – to a passable finish at my first tournament with this deck.
After one year of playing it tired of the deck and tried to design a BG/x-Loam-control-version. Some of you may know it under the name of “Trisomy 21”. This deck was decent, but I was ill equipped to play it properly. My skills had not advanced to the stage where I could play the deck properly, and I was still learning.
In the year 2010 there was a Grand Prix in Gothenburg, Sweden I was attending. Since this GP was a Sealed tournament I didn’t count on making it to day two, and I needed a Legacy-deck for the side events. A good friend of mine, Timo Schünemann, told me to play Dredge. He lent me his entire deck (without Lion’s Eye Diamond), gave me sideboarding plans, and I went on to make Top 16 out of over 150 players without any testing for about two years! From that point on I played Dredge almost exclusively in Legacy.
Here are a few fun personal things for your entertainment: I don’t like testing (gasp!), I don’t like tuning decklists, and I don’t like playing smaller tournaments with less than 50 players. That leads to a small tournament-attendance and that I have to test while playing tournaments. Luckily my friends are testing and tuning the deck for me and give me the sideboarding plans. Normally I don’t question anything and just play the deck. This has worked out pretty well so far.
So, with my personal back story out of the way, let’s get down to business. As you have no doubt figured out by now, this is about the most hated and often misunderstood deck in both Legacy and Vintage: Dredge.
The Past
Every year in May there is a huge Eternal event in Annecy, France called “Bazaar of Moxen” (BoM). In 2011 the set New Phyrexia was being released the weekend of BoM, and before the event many people guessed Mental Misstep would have a big effect on the format, including damaging Dredge because Mental Misstep could counter all its enablers (Careful Study, Putrid Imp, Breakthrough for 0, etc.). But which deck should I play? Luckily my buddies had tested Dredge extensively (at least five hours in a row against Merfolk with Mental Misstep). The results were fine for Dredge, so they gave me the decklist and sideboarding plans, as usual. I ended up placing fourth out of 633 players in the main Legacy event.
Here is the decklist I played:
Dredge, by Erik Hegemann – 4th place
Business (45)
3 Ichorid
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Goglari Thug
1 Darkblast
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Narcomoeba
2 Dread Return
4 Careful Study
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Bridge from Below
Mana Sources (15)
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
3 Tarnished Citadel
Sideboard (15)
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Realm Razer
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Hypnotist
4 Nature’s Claim
4 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Darkblast
For beginners, here is how the deck at its core operates. You try to get a card with dredge (Golgari Grave-Troll, Stinkweed Imp, Golgari Thug or Darkblast) into your graveyard, either by cards that let you discard cards or by filling your hand up to eight cards and then discarding at the end of turn. If you would draw a card, you can instead replace this draw with the dredge mechanic by putting one of the named cards above into your hand and, and then place the top three to six cards from your library into your graveyard, and then repeat this process as often as possible. There are ways to cheat creatures into play as well. Narcomoeba can be put directly into play if it gets dredged into your graveyard, and essentially becomes a free creature. Ichorid on the other hand has to be into your graveyard at the beginning of your upkeep, and by removing a black card from your graveyard it can enter the battlefield. Another way to cheat creatures onto the battlefield is with Bridge from Below. If this sweet card is in your graveyard and a non-token creature of yours dies, you get one 2/2 Zombie token for every copy of Bridge in your graveyard.
Besides Ichorid’s trigger that let it die end of turn, there are other ways putting your creatures from the battlefield into graveyard. Namely these cards are Cabal Therapy and Dread Return, as their flashback costs enable you to sacrifice a creature in play, which will trigger Bridge from Below(s). Cabal Therapy really shines in this deck, as it can fill different roles depending on the game state. First of all it can help you gain valuable information by seeing what is in your opponent’s hand, and what their possible lines of play are (as well as cards to play around). Second, if you name the right cards and destroy enough of your opponent’s hand, you can often win just by preventing your opponent from doing anything meaningful while your small creatures attack. Third, it is able to generate tokens by sacrificing non-token creatures (with the help of Bridge).
All in all Dredge is an aggro-control deck which can have – depending on the build, an combo-esque finish (versions with Flame-Kin Zealot or Flayer of the Hatebound, for example). Your goal with this deck is generally to dredge as many cards as fast as possible into your graveyard, generate many tokens, and control your opponent’s cards in hand (and options for interacting) with Cabal Therapy.
For more information on how Dredge really works I think Richard Feldman’s article The Dark Art of Dredge Fu is a good read. I don’t really like his approach to sideboarding though, as if I’m able to board against graveyard-hate the path to victory is generally much easier for me.
The Present
With the printing of Dark Ascension we received a really strong card in Faithless Looting. Soon after the card was spoiled, Timo Schünemann, who is by the way our Dredge mastermind, came up with a decklist that is still set in stone for us and, maybe with slight changes, for many others. Because it plays every card four times in the main deck we call it “Quadlaser.” This is the latest version:
LED Quadlaser Dredge, by Erik Hegemann
Business (44)
4 Ichorid
4 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Putrid Imp
4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Breakthrough
4 Careful Study
4 Bridge from Below
Mana Sources (16)
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Cephalid Coliseum
4 City of Brass
Sideboard (15)
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Ancient Grudge
4 Nature’s Claim
3 Ashen Ghoul
2 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise
So, the big differences between this version and the pre-Dark Ascension one are the inclusion of Lion’s Eye Diamonds, Faithless Looting, and the noticeable lack of Dread Return. Because of Faithless Looting it is now possible and profitable to play the Lion’s Eye Diamond in the deck. Before Faithless looting you had to play Deep Analysis to support the mana you were getting through the Lion’s Eye Diamond. The problem was that Deep Analysis doesn’t do anything on its own and is pretty inconsistent. Faithless Looting however is a pseudo-reprint of Careful Study with a nice little bonus in form of flashback. Careful Study was always good in Dredge, why not play eight of them, including four that are strictly better?
The new speed the deck gained by playing Lion’s Eye Diamond supports more explosive starts allowing you to dredge a good amount of cards in the first turns, while ripping apart the hand of your opponent with Cabal Therapy.
With that speed Dread Return isn’t needed anymore. This deck is built for consistency so it plays every good card four times, and all of the mediocre cards zero times. It really sucks if you’ve got a Dread Return in your opening hand and you know that if it would have been another card, this hand is keepable; otherwise not.
There are players who really like their Dread Returns because it is a little bit easier to win with this card and forgives a few mistakes. I, for one, think Dread Return is unnecessary, but it’s up to you to play up to three copies and maybe a combo-finish with Flayer of the Hatebound. But keep in mind that you have to cut really good cards the deck really like to have.
Sideboarding
The sideboard underwent changes, too. Normally this deck doesn’t want to board anything, but if you encounter hate, you have to react. With the printing of Snapcaster Mage the most common hate is Surgical Extraction (especially because Surgical Extraction can essentially be cast without any colored mana, and can go in any sideboard!). In order to fight this hate it is a pretty good idea to board in the three lands and the Ashen Ghouls. This gives you another avenue of attack if they Extract some key card.
After sideboarding you need the lands to hard cast things if the situation gets serious. The decks playing Snapcaster Mage commonly aren’t the fastest so taking out the Lion’s Eye Diamonds should be fine. If you board that many cards, one Ichorid, one Breakthrough and one Golgari Thug are the next cards to take out; in this order.
Here are a few sideboarding plans against common matchups.
Maverick:
Normally you don’t board anything because the hate they have got is almost always permanent-based. You just need to race them and use Cabal Therapy wisely.
U/W/x Terminator:
-4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
-1 Ichorid
-1 Breakthrough
+3 lands
+3 Ashen Ghoul
U/W Terminator is quite slow so you can take your time and take out Lion’s Eye Diamond to slow down the game to be able to react to them. It is also predictable that they’ll play Surgical Extraction on your Ichorid so you can take one out and sub in the Ashen Ghouls to fight this kind of hate.
Canadian Threshold and U/x Delver:
-4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
-1 Ichorid
-1 Breakthrough
+3 lands
+3 Ashen Ghoul
These decks are faster than Terminator, but your matchup is quite good against those anyways to risk cutting the Lion’s Eye Diamonds. They often don’t have enough hate to deal with your strategy.
Storm, Doomsday, Belcher, Spanish Inquisition, etc.:
-1 Ichorid
+1 Ancient Grudge
Just keep fast hands against these decks. The one-of Ancient Grudge may come in handy, if they play their artifact-based mana in fear of your Cabal Therapy. If they sideboard in Leyline of the Void or something similar you have Nature’s Claim available if need be.
Sneak & Show:
If you suspect them boarding Leyline of the Void against you, I would recommend something like this:
-4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
-1 Ichorid
-1 Golgari Thug
-1 Breakthrough
+4 Nature’s Claim
+3 lands
If they don’t have any hate mulligan to aggressive and fast hands. If they do have Leyline, Relic of Progenitus, or Grafdigger’s Cage, Nature’s Claim can solve all of these problems.
Reanimator:
In this matchup you can gamble that he hasn’t got Leyline of the Void.
-1 Ichorid
-1 Golgari Thug
-1 Breakthrough
-1 Putrid Imp
+4 Leyline of the Void.
If they do you once again have Nature’s Claim at your disposal, and can slow down your game plan slightly to counteract their hate. Most often they will only have a couple of copies of Coffin Purge at most.
Legacy Tournament Performance
The first relatively big tournament I played in with this deck was in April 2012. I placed in the Top 8 out of 127 players. At this point it was clear to me that I had to play Dredge in Annecy at the Bazaar of Moxen this year to defend my Top 4 place from the last year.
All four guys of our “Dredge-car” played Dredge in the Legacy main event in the Bazaar of Moxen. These four people were Timo Schünemann, Julian Hecker, Pierre Liebsch, and me. Some of you might recognize these names as they have made several Top 8’s at various European tournaments. Unfortunately we didn’t place that well. I placed 125th out of over 700 players (6-3-0) in the main event, and 35th out of over 440 players (7-3-0) and the side event the day before.
Our success was not as we had hoped in the Legacy event, but we still had time to prove ourselves once again in the Bazaar of Moxen Vintage main event. Please stay tuned for my next article coming very soon, where I will discuss translating the deck to Vintage for the current metagame, and our dredging adventures at the Bazaar of Moxen Vintage tournament. Until then…
Thanks for reading,
Erik “The Maggot” Hegemann
[in forums: “Brot_Ohne_Kruste”]