First, a few words about Dredge:
By “Dredge” I am talking about Extended fast graveyard decks, all lumped together. Like I talked about last week, I anticipate a blending of deck styles, each playing two (or possibly more) of “Standard” Dredge (Bridge from Below / Dread Return / Flame-kin Zealot / Narcomoeba), Friggorid (Ichorid aggro with Dredge cards), and Cephalid Breakfast (Shuko + Cephalid Illusionist). So what is there to say about this that hasn’t been said over and over again recently?
I have been talking to some qualified players and I am pretty surprised. All anyone wants to do is cheat on graveyard defense cards. The Cephalid Breakfast combo can kill on turn 1… not often, but it can; it can kill on turn 2 too often. “Standard” Dredge, unopposed, is going to kill on turn 4… If it’s feeling generous. It wasn’t long ago that every player lamented the unstoppable force in Extended that was Friggorid, and thanked their lucky stars that Leyline of the Void was printed, even if it wasn’t quickly enough to save the end of the PTQ season. Pure power.
That said, a week or two ago, I would have said that this deck had no chance of winning the Pro Tour. However, it has recently come to my attention that the Pro Tour may not have learned the lesson of Pierre Canali. Pierre and his rookie win was a wonder. He fumbled a little, has taken fire for years on the tuning of his deck, but at the end of the day, he got that one big thing right: Pierre played the most powerful archetype that no one was willing to attack. He beat a number of Energy Fluxes, got past the burn, and showed the world why Aether Vial needed to be banned. Should Pierre have won? Probably not… But players with Vampiric Tutors decided they could get by on one Energy Flux, and everyone else seemed to think the Pernicious Deeds were going to hold the robots down. This year, a sentiment seems to be either 1) “mise well cheat on anti-Dredge cards, amiright?” (that is, under-preparing on the numbers), or 2) calling it “someone else’s problem” and hoping that other players will devote the space to beating the uber deck.
Why Dredge?
It wins. Quickly. It can be tuned to beat the hate cards. One Leyline of the Void? Not that hard to beat.
Why not Dredge?
You don’t want to hit what has been called “the amateur bracket” with this strategy. One Leyline of the Void is not hard to beat… Fourteen Leylines in a day is another story entirely. You Chain of Vapor, they untap and lay a Tormod’s Crypt… That’s why not. I am a scared bunny. I know The Fear. I know how lucky I need to be, and how lucky I will typically end up being. I’ve got no interest in a fourteen Leyline day.
The problem is that Dredge is so fast and consistent and resilient in the sense that it doesn’t need to actually resolve spells against Blue (and did I mention fast?) that it largely defies hate. Like we said before, one Leyline doesn’t necessarily scare it. In order to keep Dredge down, you have to be honest about beating it. You have to devote the cards. Not card, more than one for most decks… That, or an overall plan (Yixlid Jailer and Mogg Fanatic, say). Saving that… If players underestimate the fastest, most powerful, option in the format… It will probably win.
The cool thing is that in order to beat Dredge, really all you have to do is devote the space. It’s not actually hard to do. Most of the cards that are good against it are really cheap. You can actually get away with piggybacking pre-existing synergies to steal a little value (I’m looking at you, Sakura-Tribe Elder)… But I don’t think you can realistically pretend that it’s not a problem.
But hey (and this is coming from me), if people don’t want to take Dredge seriously enough… it might just be the deck to play.
That’s it! Next up, a New / Old concept: The Numbers
It’s hard to argue that Zvi Mowshowitz isn’t the best Magic strategy writer of all time. He was just a workhorse. He carried the early Brainburst and single-handedly proved that there could be such a thing as a pay-for Magic subscription site. Zvi was such a monument, I think he was actually gilded… Pretty sure he still has the article writing community covered on earnings, and he’s been retired (and therefore inactive) for two years. Of all the articles the great Zvi Mowshowitz penned, the one that always mattered to me most was some random Deck Clinic on White Weenie from 1998, almost ten years ago. I’ll excerpt the essential part of it.
Zvi was running a clinic where he helped to tune decks submitted by readers of The Dojo… But still tried to preserve what was unique about them. That said, he was ever the realist, and came up with a list of things to think about, numbers that had to be filled in, to illustrate the deck’s ability to handle the speed of the format or the threats posed by opposing lists. Here it is:
Numbers to Keep in Mind:
1. Number of cards useless against a creatureless deck
2. Number of cards a counter deck has to stop to break up your deck
3. Number of turns you need for the goldfish kill [this was more than a year before Zvi coined the term Fundamental Turn]
4. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack
4a. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack and he’s not damaging or attacking you
5. Number of ways to break up Worship or Pariah
6. Number of ways to break up a Spike Weaver, Wall of Blossoms and Tradewind Rider
7. Number of lands you need to operate properly
8. Number of cards your deck effectively has (not counting cheap cantrips)
9. Number of first turn plays
10. Number of Tolarian Academy decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
I’ve decided to update the list for Standard (post-Lorwyn) and Extended (Pro Tour format). I have never adhered to a strict framework when designing decks, but I think this one might be beneficial.
Standard:
1. Number of cards useless against a creatureless deck
2. Number of cards a counter deck has to stop to break up your deck
3. Number of turns you need for a goldfish kill
4. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack
5. Number of ways to kill a Black creature
5a. Number of ways to kill a creature with Protection from Black
6. Number of ways to kill Gaddock Teeg
6a. Number of ways you have to deal with [protect?] a Planeswalker
7. Number of lands you need to operate properly
8. Number of cards your deck effectively has
9. Number of first turn plays
10. Number of Pickles decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
How does this work?
For kicks, let’s just jam Josh Ravitz Predator.dec into Standard and see how it would fare under scrutiny…
Creatures (25)
Lands (19)
1. Number of cards useless against a creatureless deck
Seven. That is actually kind of high for an aggressive deck. Keep in mind Josh’s deck was never intended to fight creatureless decks (in fact it was designed to beat only two very specific decks)… but seven is still something to think about. Dave Irvine’s update without the lone Saffi Eriksdotter increases this number to eight. Will there be creatureless decks?
2. Number of cards a counter deck has to stop to break up your deck
Twenty-one. That’s quite a few. Interestingly in Zvi’s original article, he had the opposite conclusion on the 17-21 the deck in question presented (twenty-one if you count Disenchant for Nevinyrral’s Disk); “Draw-Go typically runs more counters than that.” My, how the world has changed. Predator.dec was wild against the Counterspell deck of its format.
3. Number of turns you need for a goldfish kill
Five. I’m just guessing here. I am pretty sure you can assemble a fifth turn kill with Edge of Autumn and multiple two drops, maybe cheating a little with Fiery Justice and multiple Predators. I find that perfectly acceptable, especially for a Block deck.
4. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack
Seven. I’m not sure how Zvi was counting this… In any case, Predator.dec can’t win without attacking.
5. Number of ways to kill a Black creature
Seven, and not counting creature combat.
5a. Number of ways to kill a creature with Protection from Black
Seven, and still not counting creature combat.
6. Number of ways to kill Gaddock Teeg
Seven, as above.
6a. Number of ways you have to deal with [protect?] a Planeswalker
Twenty-five. Many of them take poor Jace out in one stroke.
7. Number of lands you need to operate properly
Two. Awesome. The deck really wants four, but you can get by forever on just the deuce.
8. Number of cards your deck effectively has
Fifty-six.
9. Number of first turn plays
Eight. Don’t forget that in addition to Dead / Gone, you can cycle Edge of Autumn on Flagstones of Trokair if you want.
10. Number of Pickles decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
Who knows? Zvi put in the Academy question just so he could celebrate an upcoming banning in an article. I chose Pickles for that question because it seemed to me the X-Factor of Time Spiral Block. Pickles was the only deck that didn’t fit under a strict hierarchy; when I first played, it knocked me out of the PTQ (I was on B/U with Shadowmage Infiltrator)… I didn’t feel like I had a chance at all. The rest of the format lined up cleanly… 1) B/U/[x]/[y]/[z] (beats everything), 2) Predator.dec (beats everything but B/U/[x]/[y]/[z]), 3) Donkey Pong (beats everything but B/U/[x]/[y]/[z] and Predator.dec)… and so on. Pickles was the weird one. Some claimed it beat Donkey Pong; some claimed it lost to Donkey Pong. Usually the Pickles player didn’t want to play the U/G player and vice versa. It lost to a middling deck with Serra Avengers, certainly the #2 deck… smashed the overall best deck. Weird.
How about Unbeatable.dec (having seen Gaddock Teeg and some of the other new cards, I don’t know if I can still call this deck by its original name)?
Creatures (9)
Lands (26)
Spells (25)
- 4 Rune Snag
- 4 Cancel
- 1 Careful Consideration
- 4 Mystical Teachings
- 1 Spell Burst
- 4 Damnation
- 4 Dismal Failure
- 1 Extirpate
- 1 Pact of Negation
- 1 Slaughter Pact
Sideboard
1. Number of cards useless against a creatureless deck
Five.
2. Number of cards a counter deck has to stop to break up your deck
Ten… And one of them is Academy Ruins.
3. Number of turns you need for a goldfish kill
Probably close to ten.
4. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack
Twenty-nine.
5. Number of ways to kill a Black creature
Five.
5a. Number of ways to kill a creature with Protection from Black
Five (plus combat).
6. Number of ways to kill Gaddock Teeg
Two.
6a. Number of ways you have to deal with [protect?] a Planeswalker
Eighteen. Most of those are Counterspells… Planeswalkers are probably pretty good against this kind of deck.
7. Number of lands you need to operate properly
Five. I wanted to say four, but I think it’s five.
8. Number of cards your deck effectively has
All sixty.
9. Number of first turn plays
Zero.
10. Number of Pickles decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
???
There is no “right answer” matrix to fill out. This process is just something to help you structure your deck and address the things that you think will be important in a tournament format. I will probably revise the Numbers for Standard before Champs.
Extended:
1. Number of cards useless against a Dredge deck
1a. Number of cards useless against a TEPS deck
2. Number of cards you can realistically get past a resolved Counterbalance
3. Number of turns you need for a goldfish kill
4. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack
5. Number of ways to kill a first-turn Tireless Tribe
5a. Number of ways to kill a first-turn Putrid Imp
5b. Number of ways to kill a second-turn Cephalid Illusionist
6. Number of ways to kill a second-turn Isochron Scepter or Counterbalance
7. Number of lands you need to operate properly
7a. Number of lands you effectively have if the opponent resolves a fast Destructive Flow
8. Number of cards your deck effectively has
9. Number of ways you can make a TEPS deck care that you’re there
10. Number of Leyline-enabled decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
10a. Number of Ancient Grudge-enabled decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
You can put whatever deck you like for Extended through these pre-matchup paces. Just for kicks, I chose a really extreme example, a Week One winner from last season.
Haterator (qualifying build)
Creatures (24)
Lands (10)
Spells (26)
Sideboard
Keeping in mind that Haterator was built only to fight TEPS and Boros, and not even the U/W decks that were common early in the format, let’s see how it fares…
1. Number of cards useless against a Dredge deck
It depends how you count it… But I think about thirty.
1a. Number of cards useless against a TEPS deck
Thirty-six. Not good. Holy sideboard, Batman!
2. Number of cards you can realistically get past a resolved Counterbalance
Eight. Haterator was actually very good against those kinds of decks.
3. Number of turns you need for a goldfish kill
Five. At least.
4. Number of cards useful if you can’t attack
Five.
5. Number of ways to kill a first-turn Tireless Tribe
Zero. (!)
5a. Number of ways to kill a first-turn Putrid Imp
Zero. (!!)
5b. Number of ways to kill a second-turn Cephalid Illusionist
Zero. (!!!)
6. Number of ways to kill a second-turn Isochron Scepter or Counterbalance
Zero. (!!!!)
7. Number of lands you need to operate properly
Can probably get by on three, but I think four just to be safe.
7a. Number of lands you effectively have if the opponent resolves a fast Destructive Flow
Sixteen. No problem.
8. Number of cards your deck effectively has
Fifty-six.
9. Number of ways you can make a TEPS deck care that you’re there
Two.
10. Number of Leyline-enabled decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament, and…
10a. Number of Ancient Grudge-enabled decks you’ll be playing in the next tournament
That’s the question, isn’t it?
LOVE
MIKE