As of the December 2009 release of Exodus on Magic Online, the Classic metagame is left standing with two major heavy-hitters: Dredge and Oath. They are not, of course, the only viable decks around – but they are definitely two decks that every competitive Classic player needs to take seriously. Today I’m going to focus on how to battle Dredge.
I’ve always found it useful to boil down high-level strategic goals into a digestible list of plans and tactics. In the past I’ve written a few articles on how to attack specific strategies of the Classic metagame.
(If you’re interested in checking out some of my similar past efforts, click here and/or here.)
Dredge is the perfect focal point for an article along these lines. The deck may be ridiculously powerful, but it’s quite vulnerable to hate. Today I’m going to put together a list of high-level concepts to keep in mind if your goal is to attack Dredge, along with low-level implementation details in the form of specific card examples.
Let’s get started.
To Defeat Something, You Must First Understand It
Before I discuss exactly how to fight Dredge, I want to give a bit of background information on the deck. I’m going to start off with two different decklists, and then reiterate some basic information on Dredge’s game plan.
Deck numero uno, a straightforward Dredge/Ichorid list:
Dredge
"Classic Dredge"
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Here’s how the game plan shakes out:
1.) Play something that lets you discard cards. Bazaar of Baghdad or Breakthrough are ideal.
2.) Discard something like Golgari Grave-Troll or Stinkweed Imp.
3.) Start aggressively dredging huge amounts of your library.
4.) Get as many copies of Bridge from Below into your graveyard as possible, the same goes for Narcomoeba — who will come into play as a free 1/1 flyer.
5.) Sacrifice creatures to flashback Cabal Therapy in order to simultaneously clear threats/answers from your opponent’s hand and put 2/2 zombies into play thanks to Bridge from Below. Repeat.
6.) Sacrifice more creatures to flashback Dread Return. Bring Flame-Kin Zealot into play and attack with strong, hasty creatures for the win.
This version of Dredge plays essentially like a combo deck, and it’s built for speed. Serum Powder pretty much guarantees that your opening hand will have a quality discard outlet. There are fourteen different dredgers, which help to guarantee frequent self-mill action. Two copies of Flame-Kin Zealot help to ensure that there’s always one in your graveyard (which will win you the game instantly when brought into play).
On the downside, this version of Dredge doesn’t pack a significant long-game (other than Ichorid) or any main deck protection other than Cabal Therapy and two copies of Chain of Vapor. If either of these deck attributes seems important to you, then you may want to check out the list that Shouta Yasooka took to the MTGO Championships at Worlds this year:
I just found this article. Very clever! It’s easy to think of Dredge as “oh, I’ll just sideboard in Leyline of the Void and Tormods Crypt and be done with it”, but no. I’ve heard the archetypes described as aggro/control/combo/dredge just because fighting dredge’s array of triggered abilities is so different than anything else in Magic.
In particular, I needed to be reminded that Bridge from Below has a self-destruct clause. I never thought that Mogg Fanatic could do that to Dredge.
I think that more people forget about the Bridge From Below self-destruct clause than you’d think. I watched a game in the tournament practice room recently where someone went down hard to dredge when they could have suicided their Grim Lavamancer to clear out the Bridges. Need to keep your eyes open!
Dredge was always somewhat a mystery for me. I only saw cards moving into and then out of the graveyard but never really took the time to understand how they perform nor how to fight them. This article makes everything much clearer.
Great job, Steve!