Magic: The Gathering Thread XIV: Instant Annoying, Just Add Hexproof

[tgva8889]

Dredge just plays by different rules than other decks, so much so that many don't consider Dredge to be playing "real Magic." Decks that attack with creatures over several turns are generally interactive by default. So Dredge can be interactive, but the general idea of the deck (mill myself, barely cast any spells until you instantly die) generally isn't seen that way. Time Spiral Standard spawned a really large number of highly non-interactive decks.

Even the most non-interactive decks do have to interact sometimes, though, because chances are your opponent will be doing something that you have to do something about if you want to not lose.

[Lea Plath]

So, I'm gonna be doing some article writing for http://ponderingmagic.com/ soon on being a newbie and understanding magic. Check it out!

[Lord Seth]

To put it simply:

Dredge replaces each card you draw with putting the top {insert dredge value here, probably 4, 5, or 6} into your graveyard and putting the dredged card in your hand. Dredge decks discard these via things like Tireless Tribe and Putrid Imp. Then, when they draw for turn, they get it back, and basically replace their draw steps with milling themselves for a certain number of cards. And then they cast things like Careful Study and Faithless Looting to draw two cards and discard them again, milling values like 11 or so each time, or occasionally Breakthrough for X=0 for even more ridiculous dredgin. And then things like Cephalid Colosseum to draw/discard more cards. Then, on their upkeep, they return Ichorids from the graveyard to the battlefield. They use the Ichorids to swing and/or flashback Cabal Therapy or Dread Return (which are in the graveyard from the milling). Whenever one of those Ichorids dies, for each Bridge from Below in their graveyard, they get a Zombie. So, with 3 Ichorids and 3 Bridges, when they all die, the Dredge player gets 9 2/2 Zombie tokens. Add in the fact that all of that milling probably put several Narcomoebas onto the battlefield, which provide more bodies for Cabal Therapy and Dread Return, and each of their deaths generates Zombies. Now combine that with the fact that they just spent a turn destroying someone's hand with Cabal Therapy or generated a huge/huge Golgari Grave-Troll with a Dread Return (or just swung in for damage, if there aren't any blockers), and the fact that those Ichords come back next turn...

Don't forget that in Vintage, you get to play around with Bazaar of Baghdad, which powers up the deck immeasurably. It's so good that I believe it's the only competitive deck in Vintage that doesn't need any of the power 9. Heck, Bazaar of Baghdad is so critical to the deck that the strategy is to (with 4x Serum Powder) mulligan until they start with one.

There's a reason every Legacy tournament player who knows their stuff will pack at least 4 graveyard hate cards (usually just Tormod's Crypts, but that's still something): Dredge is usually just not beatable pre-sideboard.

Okay, this I'll disagree with. At least 4 graveyard hate cards? Nah. 4 is generally the maximum you'd want. If you pack too much graveyard hate you'll just leave yourself open to everything else. And not beatable pre-sideboard? That may be true about Vintage dredge, but not really in Legacy. It's true control decks will have a heck of a time against it early on, but other decks can beat it. Maybe dredge has an advantage, but it's hardly unbeatable.

The "usually" Tormod's Crypt isn't correct either. I don't see that card used much. Relic of Progenitus is far more popular (I believe Surgical Extraction is the second most popular), and for good reason, it has far more utility against other decks. Tormod's Crypt doesn't automatically take Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1, it's a "one and one" deal whereas Relic can keep an opponent's graveyard down for a longer period of time, and Relic is able to replace itself. Tormod's Crypt sees some play to be sure, but Relic of Progenitus has far more general utility and is probably the #1 anti-graveyard card of choice.

Yeah, I'm nitpicking majorly, but I figured I should make it a little more correct.

If you want to see Dredge in action, this is a good video. It's quite long, but I think it demonstrates the way the deck works pretty well, along with how it can overcome (or be overcome by) opposition.

EDIT: Here is a shorter one that I also feel demonstrates the deck well, and and is against a non-combo deck if you wanted to see how that played out (though the transformational sideboard of this Dredge deck is a bit unique).

[Fable Wright]

Okay, this I'll disagree with. At least 4 graveyard hate cards? Nah. 4 is generally the maximum you'd want. If you pack too much graveyard hate you'll just leave yourself open to everything else. And not beatable pre-sideboard? That may be true about Vintage dredge, but not really in Legacy. It's true control decks will have a heck of a time against it early on, but other decks can beat it. Maybe dredge has an advantage, but it's hardly unbeatable.

The "usually" Tormod's Crypt isn't correct either. I don't see that card used much. Relic of Progenitus is far more popular (I believe Surgical Extraction is the second most popular), and for good reason, it has far more utility against other decks. Tormod's Crypt doesn't automatically take Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1, it's a "one and one" deal whereas Relic can keep an opponent's graveyard down for a longer period of time, and Relic is able to replace itself. Tormod's Crypt sees some play to be sure, but Relic of Progenitus has far more general utility and is probably the #1 anti-graveyard card of choice.

Perhaps it's a meta thing. However, I can say, from personal experience at least, if you do not play at least 4 graveyard hate spells or a combo deck (which I will admit, potentially won't need them), you will lose your match to dredge. In all of the matches with Manaless Dredge I've played against Merfolk, Reanimator, Maverick, Combo Elves, Stoneblade, and most other fair decks (I haven't had too much testing against Zoo with the combo build, so I can't say too much about that), if you do not see hate in the game, you will lose. This has, oddly enough, applied to most games I played against regular Dredge, as well. The one time a regular Dredge deck beat me without hate was after repeatedly Cabal Therapying out all of my non-dredgers from hand before I could discard a Dredger when he was on the play. As a side note, I have not played against LED dredge and cannot comment on that, and I will note that landed Dredge can play around hate better than manaless.

On reflection, "every" was inaccurate, and there are several cases where people certainly don't need to board in hate (see: Wishboard decks, ANT, Belcher). However, I will stand by my amended assertion that nearly every fair deck pilot (exceptions being Maverick pilots, who need exactly one hate card, and potentially Zoo players, pending further investigation) who knows what they're doing generally does have 4 Graveyard Hate cards in the board. When graveyard decks are "bad," and hate is down, you will see the top 8 players generally having at least 4 hate cards in the board, as graveyard decks become better when they're worse, and without the hate, they tend to lose to graveyard decks in later rounds that dodged a lot of hate. When graveyard decks are big, the highest placing players tend to be either Maverick or have 4 hate cards in the board, as those beat Graveyard decks.

As for Crypt vs. Relic:
I have played in many (mostly local) Legacy tournaments. I have had a Relic played against me exactly once, and Crypts in many more games than that. Legacy is a deck with precise manabases and almost no leftover mana, and most people aren't willing to sacrifice important early game drops and leave mana open to crack a Relic each turn, despite the cantrip effect and ancillary Goyf hate. Surgical Extractions are popular, but they aren't really focused graveyard hate cards, and don't actually do as much against (at least Manaless) Dredge as Relic does. As for the maximum of 4... a lot of people in my area are afraid of Graveyard decks (Every Legacy event at my FLGS has a Dredge deck and a Reanimator deck), and I have seen decks with 8 or more cards in the board solely to deal with Graveyard decks. I have also seen a number of highly placing decklists run 6 graveyard hate cards in the board. Four is by no means the maximum number you should run.

[Lea Plath]

Crypt Versus Relic

I personally find Relic to be stricly better. It can be a more precsise tool or just get rid of anything in a grave and replacement effect is important. However, it does depends on the mana base.

In my modern deck, because I focus on playing creatures cheaply and I can tutor out mana if needed, I can run Relic. In the orginial version, it ran more 2 drops so I was playing 3-4 creatures a turn, then dropping a Rage Forger so I couldn't have run Relic.

And I've just noticed a deck, very very similar to dredge but with a slice of reanimator. Mind if I share?

[Fable Wright]

In my modern deck, because I focus on playing creatures cheaply and I can tutor out mana if needed, I can run Relic. In the orginial version, it ran more 2 drops so I was playing 3-4 creatures a turn, then dropping a Rage Forger so I couldn't have run Relic.

...How did I not know about this card until now? I feel the sudden need to build a Rakdos Rage Forger deck...

[Lea Plath]

...How did I not know about this card until now? I feel the sudden need to build a Rakdos Rage Forger deck...

Not standard :P The next best thing is Hellrider, which is in standard right now.

In my deck, I run lots of Bosk Bannerettes, so my turns look like this.

Turn 1: Land, Treefolk Harbinger to Bosk on top of deck
Turn 2: Land, Bosk Bannerette
Turn 3: Land. Bosk. Visonary. Visonary.
Turn 4: More shaman, then drop a rage forger.
Turn 5, swing for at least 10 damage, 4 of which is unblockable.

[Fable Wright]

Not standard :P The next best thing is Hellrider, which is in standard right now.

Who said Rakdos decks have to be standard? Efficiently costed R/B creatures are good in any format, and with the reach that Rage Forger and Hellrider give just makes it better. Besides, you have Lightning Bolt outside of Standard.

[Zombimode]

Ok, just pulled a Jace out of one of the boosters of my case.

According to MKM, a major german/european MTG trading site, those go for 30 euros apiece!

And I don't even like him. But something tells me this price wont stay for long.
I have to get to my LGS next Friday to trade him against three bloodcrypts or something.

[tgva8889]

Well, since every Maverick deck plays "5"+ graveyard hate cards maindeck anyways (Scavenging Ooze), after board they have a lot more options available even if they only have 4 in their sideboard.

[Sohala]

I was doing some tinkering with standard cards and came up with this:

Spoiler

Show

2 Drowned Catacomb
3 Sunpetal Grove
3 Woodland Cemetery
2 Hinterland Harbor
4 Temple Garden
1 Blood Crypt
1 Rootbound Crag
2 Isolated Chapel
4 Overgrown Tomb
1 Rancor
3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
2 Ultimate Price
3 Mulch
4 Tracker's Instincts
3 Grisly Salvage
3 Lotleth Troll
4 Dreg Mangler
3 Splinterfright
3 Deadbridge Goliath
4 Unburial Rites
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Bruna, Light of Alabaster
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
1 Griselbrand
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Beyond the terrible lack of removal, thoughts?

[Lord Seth]

Perhaps it's a meta thing. However, I can say, from personal experience at least, if you do not play at least 4 graveyard hate spells or a combo deck (which I will admit, potentially won't need them), you will lose your match to dredge.

The issue here is that even if you'll likely lose to Dredge, Dredge isn't generally that big a part of the meta. In terms of graveyard decks you have more to fear from RUG Delver, and Relic of Progenitus is far superior against that deck (it brings Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1 whereas Tormod's Crypt leaves it at a minimum of a 1/2, and it can also be used to keep their graveyard down in the long term). Surgical Extraction, on the other hand, is far superior than Tormod's Crypt against other combo decks, in particular making Intuition a dangerous card to try to use. I actually may consider Surgical Extraction better against Dredge because there's really only a few cards in Dredge that are truly dangerous (the dredgers themselves aren't really a threat on their own), so if you can get rid of the Ichorids or Bridges from Below--or even just the Narcomoebas--you've really hurt them.

I also think RUG Delver is pretty decent against Dredge even without hate. Dredge powers up their Tarmogoyfs, has trouble dealing with their Delvers (all they have is Narcomoeba to chump block with), and can be quickly overrun before they get things set up enough. There's even some goofy tactics that RUG Delver can do to thwart Bridge from Below, like using a Lightning Bolt on their own Delver of Secrets.

Winning against it without graveyard hate otherwise is hardly impossible or even improbable. Unless you're playing control, in which case you're probably screwed without strong graveyard hate. Dredge going against something like Miracles reminds me of High Tide going against Lands.

At any rate, my issue was the "usually" claim, when that does not seem to be true.

I have played in many (mostly local) Legacy tournaments. I have had a Relic played against me exactly once, and Crypts in many more games than that. Legacy is a deck with precise manabases and almost no leftover mana, and most people aren't willing to sacrifice important early game drops and leave mana open to crack a Relic each turn, despite the cantrip effect and ancillary Goyf hate.

Again, I think you're focused too much on how it handles Dredge. Dredge is far from the only deck in the format or the only deck that needs graveyard hate. And Relic of Progenitus is better against all the other graveyard-based decks I can think of. I will concede that Tormod's Crypt is slightly better than Relic of Progenitus against Dredge, but Relic of Progenitus seems better than or equal to Tormod's Crypt against pretty much everything else.

Four is by no means the maximum number you should run.

It's the maximum that usually gets run unless you have an extremely graveyard-infested meta.

Personally I only run two (a Surgical Extraction and a Ravenous Trap--if Dredge was all over the place I might add on another Extraction), but then again I play High Tide. Unless you count Time Spiral as graveyard hate...

Well, since every Maverick deck plays "5"+ graveyard hate cards maindeck anyways (Scavenging Ooze), after board they have a lot more options available even if they only have 4 in their sideboard.

Took me a while to figure this out. Are you referring to Green Sun's Zenith counting as 4 of them? Might have been better if you had been a little more clear about that, maybe mentioning it in the parentheses with Scavenging Ooze. If someone's not familiar with Maverick--and not everyone here is a Legacy player--they're probably completely stumped by this post. Heck, I'm a Legacy player and I was confused for a while.

[tgva8889]

Considering the post wasn't for anyone who wasn't familiar with Legacy, I'm not sure it matters. That is what I was referring to.

I think Maverick is pretty dependent on two cards to keep up with the "unfair" decks, though I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about Legacy. It seemed to me that Green Sun's Zenith and Knight of the Reliquary were their most powerful and important cards. From watching the deck play, it seemed like this was true.

Scavenging Ooze is a big Legacy card (or at least one of the rather expensive ones). Due to my familiarity with it as a card from Commander, my immediate response to the phrase "graveyard hate in Legacy" led me to it. Perhaps my mind is just weird that way.

[Lea Plath]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

[Fable Wright]

The issue here is that even if you'll likely lose to Dredge, Dredge isn't generally that big a part of the meta. In terms of graveyard decks you have more to fear from RUG Delver, and Relic of Progenitus is far superior against that deck (it brings Tarmogoyf down to a 0/1 whereas Tormod's Crypt leaves it at a minimum of a 1/2, and it can also be used to keep their graveyard down in the long term). Surgical Extraction, on the other hand, is far superior than Tormod's Crypt against other combo decks, in particular making Intuition a dangerous card to try to use. I actually may consider Surgical Extraction better against Dredge because there's really only a few cards in Dredge that are truly dangerous (the dredgers themselves aren't really a threat on their own), so if you can get rid of the Ichorids or Bridges from Below--or even just the Narcomoebas--you've really hurt them.

This... is rather inaccurate. If the Dredge player is struggling to find his dredgers, using it to Extract the one Dredger he keeps using will probably buy you a good amount of time. Just Extracting an Ichorid, and you're leaving yourself open to getting hit by Bridges and Narcomoebas (and giant reanimator targets). Extract the Bridges, and you have to deal with Ichorids while the Dredge player suddenly no longer cares about keeping your guys alive. And you still have to deal with the Zombies already assembled, in any case. Extract the Dread Returns, and you're still dealing with most of the deck- it will be toned down and there's no chance of a sudden kill, but you're still screwed. I may be biased from the fact that I play Manaless Dredge (protip: Nether Shadows and Bloodghasts for beater redundancy and Flayer of the Hatebound as an alternate wincon to Flamekin Zealot will greatly improve your chances of getting the kill), but the one time that a Surgical Extraction did something I cared about was the one time someone had two Surgical Extractions and a Snapcaster mage, which they used to Extract my Gravetrolls, Stinkweed Imps, and Golgari Thugs.

But, you probably have more experience against LED-type Dredge decks to me, and I can see that when there's a lot of chaff in the graveyard (lands, useless draw spells, and LEDs) Surgical Extraction might do a much better job than it has in my experience.

I also think RUG Delver is pretty decent against Dredge even without hate. Dredge powers up their Tarmogoyfs, has trouble dealing with their Delvers (all they have is Narcomoeba to chump block with), and can be quickly overrun before they get things set up enough. There's even some goofy tactics that RUG Delver can do to thwart Bridge from Below, like using a Lightning Bolt on their own Delver of Secrets.

Winning against it without graveyard hate otherwise is hardly impossible or even improbable. Unless you're playing control, in which case you're probably screwed without strong graveyard hate. Dredge going against something like Miracles reminds me of High Tide going against Lands.

At any rate, my issue was the "usually" claim, when that does not seem to be true.

Again, I think you're focused too much on how it handles Dredge. Dredge is far from the only deck in the format or the only deck that needs graveyard hate. And Relic of Progenitus is better against all the other graveyard-based decks I can think of. I will concede that Tormod's Crypt is slightly better than Relic of Progenitus against Dredge, but Relic of Progenitus seems better than or equal to Tormod's Crypt against pretty much everything else.

It's the maximum that usually gets run unless you have an extremely graveyard-infested meta.

Personally I only run two (a Surgical Extraction and a Ravenous Trap--if Dredge was all over the place I might add on another Extraction), but then again I play High Tide. Unless you count Time Spiral as graveyard hate...

Couple of things here. First, in all the games I've played, I have never, ever, lost a match to a RUG Delver player. Again, this may be anomalous from the fact that I play manaless, and combo manaless at that, but Goyf can't do enough damage to me by the time I go off (I usually also have Zombies to block by that point), you have to bolt your creatures early in order to actually use them (Cabal Therapy usually hits them), at which point most of my Bridges are safe. Your experience is probably different- you run a Wishboard and are playing a combo deck. You don't have as much to fear as a "fair" deck, and can afford to skimp on hate. All I'm saying is that fair decks usually want to have at least 4 pieces of graveyard hate to give them game against Dredge, which is usually a fairly big concern in the format.

[Sith_Happens]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

I believe that at least 80% of the total text on this page so far has been dedicated to discussing one (provided that you mean fun for you, rather than for your opponents).

-----

Calling it now: Champion of Lambholt is going to be the breakout star of this Standard season. The synergies with both Selesnya (spam tokens, get counters) and Golgari (scavenge, Gravecrawler) are insane, not to mention Rancor for an easy +2 power.

[Lea Plath]

I believe that at least 80% of the total text on this page so far has been dedicated to discussing one (provided that you mean fun for you, rather than for your opponents).

I don't like none interactive decks. I played Infernity. Turn 2 Red Nova dragon combo meh :P

[Meta]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

There's some good stuff here:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=442552

[Lord Seth]

Someone suggest to me a legacy deck that is cheapish, fun, and consistant? :P

"Fun" is of course relative, but Dredge and Burn spring to mind.

[Fable Wright]

I don't like none interactive decks. I played Infernity. Turn 2 Red Nova dragon combo meh :P

The problem is, interactivity costs money in Magic.

There are 3 main ways of interacting with your opponent: Interacting with their spells, combat, and interacting with creatures outside of combat. The problem is, the best tools to do each of these costs money. Interacting with spells require counterspells, Force of Will being the prime method of doing so. They go for about $60+ apiece. Another outlet is available in the form of Discard, such as with Thoughtseize ($40 apiece or so). However, discard is less precise, as you need to be preemptive about it, and you can't do too much about a good topdeck. There are budget alternatives for discard, however; Hymn to Tourach and Inquisition of Kozilek are both pretty solid discard spells and are relatively cheap. The problem is that if you don't have ways of interacting with your opponent like this, you will probably get blown out of the water by combo decks.

Interacting on the battlefield is also expensive; casting cost is very important in Legacy, as it's very much a tempo-based format. The best creatures cost a lot of money. Tarmogoyf, here, is the biggest one to note. They go for $80 or so apiece. They're also the most cost-efficient creatures in the game, usually clocking in at around a 3/4 body for 2, and occasionally bigger. However, this area generally fluctuates a lot, as tribal decks like Merfolk and Goblins can pump out a ton of creatures for cheap cost, and make them relevant on the battlefield. The problem with this strategy is that you need a lot of Lords, and while the Lords are cheap individually, the prices add up. In Merfolk, for example, two lords you need for of are Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident. Individually, around 5 bucks apiece (Did Not Do Research; I just remembered the prices from when M13 came out). As a set, $40. It's cheaper than buying a single Goyf, yes, but the costs are non-negligible. Alternatively, you use Stoneforge Mystic and an equipment package to win in combat. This has its own cost issues.

Interacting outside of combat is also known as removal; this is generally the cheapest way to interact. Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, and so on. Individual pieces of removal cost usually no more than $6 apiece. There are also other ways of interacting outside of combat, such as tapping down creatures with Merfolk Reejery.

If you want the deck that interacts best in all of those fields, you're looking at RUG Delver, one of the more expensive decks in the format. Force of Will and Daze counters, the most efficient creatures in the game as beaters, and enough burn to finish someone off or to kill off scary creatures outside of combat.

Obviously, you're looking for a cheaper deck. The primary thing to look at, usually, are monocolored decks; dual lands are expensive, and they and fetches will eat up your budget (or proxies, as the case may be).

The second most interactive deck is probably Merfolk, as it interacts with spells the best, has a few ways of interacting with creatures outside of combat, and has a huge number of lords within combat. If you're allowed 20 proxies, as you've said, it's incredibly cheap, as well. The expensive cards are the Forces, the Mutavaults and Wastelands (and fetches), the Vials, and to a lesser extent, the Lords. Everything else is fairly cheap. You're still probably going to spend a bit of money on the deck (perhaps around $30-40+, depending on the build) with proxies, but it's a solid, interactive deck.

Keeping to mono-colored decks, two relatively cheap decks to check out are Pox and The Gate. Both are mono-black decks, and don't have too many expensive cards; they focus on inexpensive discard spells, and a few win conditions. Pox is the cheaper of the two, but isn't that reliable; the deck focuses on forcing people into topdeck mode, and through Liliana of the Veil, preventing their opponents' topdecks from doing anything against them, and finishing them off with Shrieking Affliction and The Rack. If you avoid the Land Destruction builds, it can be cheap, and the games certainly won't be short and "I win." However, it's very much a Griefer deck. Your opponent is likely to hate you towards the end of it, as you prevent them from doing anything. The Gate is a somewhat expensive Mono-Black Aggro/Control deck that focuses on controlling opponents' creatures with sacrifice removal, and grinding value off cards that cost life to use. The problem is that the deck really wants some expensive cards- Dark Confidant, Umezawa's Jitte, Bitterblossom, and Liliana of the Veil. Everything else is fairly cheap, and the deck is interesting to play with.

The final, and cheapest, option is Manaless Dredge. I know you don't like Dredge because of people's opinions on it, but Manaless Dredge (using Nicholas Rausch's original decklist, not the combo version of the deck) is actually fairly interactive. It's unlike most Dredge decks in that it tries to grind out opponents with incremental advantage from Bridge from Below, rather than comboing out with it all at once. It cost me just over $100 to put the deck together from scratch, and it has consistently done well at the Legacy events I've gone to. (Better after I went to the combo mode of the deck (which costs under $5, minus shipping and handling to put together), but whatever.) It interacts with opponents through Cabal Therapy and the careful management of attackers and blockers to get advantage out of Bridge, it requires decisions of Ichorid's management (important, here: You need to know whether or not to exile one of your dredgers and if you're likely to get another), whether or not you need another Phantasmagorian in the graveyard or if you can exile it, whether or not to dump Bridges or Dredgers into your graveyard from your hand with Phantasmagorian or Gigapede, whether to go for the immediate advantage gained by Therapying out Bolts, Removal, or Creatures, or whether to save it for when you want to push through a Dread Return, how/when to save your Flashback spells, and so on. The deck doesn't really pilot itself; it requires experience to use properly, and takes time to win. Adding in the combo takes some of the fun out of that, but makes winning much easier.

It's also the cheapest deck you can build; it's made up of a few money cards (Bridge from Below and Ichorids; $15 and $7, respectively, plus a varying amount of money for your Dread Return targets), Cabal Therapy ($5), Bloodghast ($3.50), a few cards worth a couple bucks (literally $2: Narcomoeba, Street Wraith, Grave-Troll, Nether Shadow), and then the rest of the deck is made up of cards individually worth under a dollar. With 20 proxies, you could put the deck together for under $30, and fill out the proxies easier than any other deck I just listed. And trust me, it does feel satisfying to have a non-proxied Legacy deck to play with.

[/2cents]

[Lord Seth]

But, you probably have more experience against LED-type Dredge decks to me, and I can see that when there's a lot of chaff in the graveyard (lands, useless draw spells, and LEDs) Surgical Extraction might do a much better job than it has in my experience.

I'm talking mostly about Non-manaless dredge (or whatever its term is, usually "Dredge" just refers to dredge with mana in my experience and you have to add the qualifier "manaless" to specify that). And while one Surgical Extraction won't end the deck, it will slow it noticeably. Yes, they have backups, but they have backups if you Tormod's Crypt. What's great about Surgical Extraction is that you now and forever can remove one of their "key cards". The deck can work with the others, but it's slowed down and weakened so you can take them out either more easily or at least have more time to kill them.

I will agree that Tormod's Crypt is probably the best anti-Dredge card anyone can play*, but I question how useful it is against the field in general in comparison to a card like Relic of Progenitus. You're not as guaranteed to see Dredge as you are to see something like RUG Delver, so unless you're really familiar with the meta and know there will be Dredge or another graveyard-based deck, I think I might prefer to have Dredge hate be ancillary to my other hate. 3x Relic of Progenitus might not be ideal against Dredge, but it still covers it while being better against the decks I'd be more likely to meet.

*To clarify, that means a card that can go into any deck. Color-specific cards can be even better...Rest In Peace might be the best card against Dredge ever, but it's really limited in what decks it can actually go into.

As a random question, as a Dredge player, how do you think the Lands matchup is?

[Lord Seth]

Double posting because I think this is a bit separate from my previous one...

I don't like none interactive decks. I played Infernity. Turn 2 Red Nova dragon combo meh :P

Having never played Yu-Gi-Oh I really don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not really sure Dredge is that non-interactive. Every deck has interaction. You'd really have to clarify what you mean by "non-interactive."

Still, it and burn are the cheapest competitive decks in the format. You might have to also qualify what you mean by "cheapish". What qualifies as that?

Nitpicking time again!

Interacting with spells require counterspells, Force of Will being the prime method of doing so. They go for about $60+ apiece.

In all fairness, though, you can play without Force of Will. Someone I know got Top 8 at a SCG Legacy Open with a mono-Blue deck without playing any Force of Wills (deck here). Though if you do that, you definitely want at least 4x Daze.

In Merfolk, for example, two lords you need for of are Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident. Individually, around 5 bucks apiece. As a set, $40.

Where are you buying them? Star City Games sells Masters for $3.49 and Lord of Atlantises for $3.99 ($2.99 if you don't mind them played), and they're one of the more EXPENSIVE places to buy cards. I can buy a full set of both on eBay for $25.48. I know that I can say "I can find them for cheaper" to any of the prices you cited in your message, but this is especially noticeable.

It's also the cheapest deck you can build;

No, I think Burn is cheaper if you're willing to eschew the fetchlands (which literally cuts the price in half--even going with just 8 by not using the Onslaught fetchlands takes the price down a lot).

And trust me, it does feel satisfying to have a non-proxied Legacy deck to play with.

And is required to play in any sanctioned tournament, for that matter. If your local Legacy tournaments are sanctioned, all proxies are out.

[Fable Wright]

As a random question, as a Dredge player, how do you think the Lands matchup is?

For regular Dredge? It depends on the Lands player's deck. If the Lands player gets a Glacial Chasm and a Tabernacle out, the Dredge player is done for. If the Lands player doesn't land a Chasm, he's done for. Chasm provides for losing 2 life every 2 turns rather than taking any damage from an opponent, thanks to Life from the Loam. If there's no Tabernacle out, the Dredge player is probably going to just take this opportunity to stockpile Zombies for the Alpha Strike after a Chasm goes down for good. If the Lands player gets just the Tabernacle, they die a death of Flaming Zombies. If they stabilize with Chasm, they can start wearing down Dredge's resources by doing things such as sacrificing activated manlands for Glacial Chasm to exile Bridges, and when they land a Tabernacle it becomes game over. Dredge does have problems when it can't stick a Zombie and it's on a clock, such as the one provided by the manlands of 43 Lands. Especially when it's losing its Bridges...

On the other hand, having Woodfall Primus as a reanimator target means that Lands has 0 chance of winning. Combo out-> Tons of Flaming Zombies -> No Chasm up for one turn -> Dead lands player.

As I've never actually seen a Lands deck in action, I can't really guarantee the results, but between the Gambles, Life from the Loams, and Mulches, the Lands player does have a chance at getting his out. The problem is, not all Lands decks run Chasm when Tabernacle is available, and some Dredge decks do have Woodfall Primus included as a random Dread Return target. I can't really call for a general decision, but that's basically what the match comes down to.

[Lea Plath]

So, control seems fun. My local legacy does 20 card proxy, so I can proxy wastelands etc.

Decided to try The Gate. It looks more fun than Pox and easier to use. http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/36960 is the deck list I plan to use, with some tweaks. I was thinking maybe Sword of Peace and War over Shadow and Light as I can use it to gain more life, possibly. Also, can anyone see a reason to running the fetch lands over more swamps? I can't quite understand it.

[IthilanorStPete]

So, control seems fun. My local legacy does 20 card proxy, so I can proxy wastelands etc.

Decided to try The Gate. It looks more fun than Pox and easier to use. http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/36960 is the deck list I plan to use, with some tweaks. I was thinking maybe Sword of Peace and War over Shadow and Light as I can use it to gain more life, possibly. Also, can anyone see a reason to running the fetch lands over more swamps? I can't quite understand it.

Shuffle effects for use with Top. If you Top and don't like what you see in your top cards, you can crack a fetch to shuffle them away.

[Sith_Happens]

Also, can anyone see a reason to running the fetch lands over more swamps? I can't quite understand it.

You're "drawing" two lands from your library for every one additional land on the battlefield, which decreases your chances of drawing a land later in the game when you'd much rather get anything else.

[tgva8889]

Looks like one of those "because we can" more than "because it actually provides a huge awesome benefit." The above reasons are correct, but if you're worried about Stifle, it seems reasonable to drop them.

[Penguinizer]

Stifle isn't as common anymore. I've only seen a few decks play it.

[tgva8889]

Probably true. I was speaking more from a metagame perspective, though. If people in your meta were playing lots of Stifle (which is uncommon), it might be correct to change your deck designed for a meta without a lot of Stifle to accommodate it, and thus cut some fetch lands. If you were playing in a metagame that mirrors normal Legacy, you shouldn't have to worry about it so you may as well play the fetch lands.

Edit: Here's a question that came up when I was looking at cards: What kinds of cards would you have to be getting with Firemind's Foresight for it to be good? I was just realizing that we have Sphinx's Revelation, Cyclonic Rift, and Stream Spasm available to fill the three options with relatively flexible cards in both power and usefulness (though I guess playing a 7-mana instant to search your deck for Sphinx's Revelation is questionable).

[Ninjaman]

rakdos return and bonfire are also options.