- I've always loved Landfall. In particular, I love how a critical mass of Landfall effects gives you increasing amounts of "something for nothing"; the more landfall triggers you have the more you want to stack trigger on top of trigger on top of trigger. Gitrog enables this, of course, by having a built-in Exploration effect.
- I've loved Dredge, but I especially love Dredge to enable graveyard matters decks (now known as "Undergrowth" decks). I love Golgari Grave-Troll for its massive size and resilience, not the combos. I force self-mill any time it is a present strategy in a limited format. My favorite deck in casual of all time was a stock, unmodified Grave Power deck from Dark Ascenion, the one starring Boneyard Wurm and Ghoultree and Splinterfright. I've still got it, sleeved and ready, and despite being an intro deck full of french vanillas and close to zero interaction I've won a LOT of games with it over the last decade. So I wanted a deck that, unironically, aimed to beat face with Boneyard Wurms in EDH.
- Oh, and a deck doing both of these things? Also had a good incentive to be a Living Death and use one of my all-time favorite spells to flip the table on its head
.On its face there isn't a lot in common here, but Life from the Loam, Dakmor Salvage, Worm Harvest, and good ol' Grave Troll are the precious fuel that marries these two strategies, giving me cause to flip my deck into the 'yard to find lands to chain out to trigger landfall over and over and over. They both are also, in effect, "something for nothing" type effects, ones where the more dredge and landfall I have the better subsequent self-mill and landfall payoffs get. This deck has proven quite strong, capable of winning along multiple angles, although of course horribly vulnerable to graveyard hate. It usually goes surprisingly wide - Spider Spawning, Worm Harvest, Kessig Cagebreakers, and Avenger of Zendikar can bring a huge party out all at once, and those little dorks are deadly especially if aided by a Pathbreaker Ibex. The deck can also go tall though, using Brawn to ensure its massive Wurms and Trolls rumble in for a boatload of hard-to-stop damage.
A few deck notes:
- I intentionally am not running Entomb, Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, or Gravebreaker Lamia - I own them, they're obviously good, and I can't trust myself with that kind of power. I'm trying to keep this as close to 75% as possible, and dramatically improving my odds of seeing LftL every game goes against that. Ditto Crop Rotation, Expedition Map, and/or Sylvan Scrying and their ability to go find Dakmor Salvage although those I'm at least considering, since there are other fun silver bullets in my deck.
- For those reasons Underrealm Lich is definitely in on probationary status - he has been super unfun the two times I've cast him, causing me to either immediately win or immediately lose. He's obviously bonkers in Gitrog, but may just be too warping.
- I am not running many other staples (Titania, Protector of Argoth, Cabal Coffers, Lord of Extinction, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Craterhoof Behemoth, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, World Shaper, Crucible of Worlds, Field of the Dead, Nurturing Peatland, Splendid Reclamation, Scapeshift, Burgeoning, Squandered Resources) for budgetary reasons - I would if I could but I don't have them and have a hard time justifying spending cash on a deck that's already at the upper end of my playgroups power level. In the case of Rec, Scapeshift, and Resources, this deck is also again less a combo deck and more a midrangey beatdown deck so they aren't the point. I'd say Hoof and Dryad (alongside newcomer Fiend Artisan) are probably my #1 most wanted pickups now.
- Centaur Vinecrasher seems like it ought to be a slamdunk, but I found the fact that its size was "locked in" at whatever number of lands I had in my 'yard at that moment made for a rough cast. I may circle back to it as it got cut very early on in my refining process, when my land count was lower. That's the same reason, if one is curious, why I'm no longer running Undergrowth Scavenger, Golgari Raiders, or Rhizome Lurcher despite sometimes feeling like I'd like another "undergrowth" effect - tested them and they were just a little too unreliable in this deck.
- I keep going back and forth on adding Ebon Stronghold, Havenwood Battleground, Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, and Warped Landscape to this deck's manabase - what say my fellow gitrog players?
- I purposely am not running Dust Bowl or Ghost Quarter because nuking lands in my meta is tantamount to kicking a puppy. But they were in the list for a very long time and are probably a good call if your meta is full of less carebears.
- The deck's pretty tight - space for noncreature, nonland spells is at a premium. I'd love to find room for one more Overrun-type effect (probably Garruk Wildspeaker, but possibly End-Raze Forerunners or Filth) and one more removal spell, especially removal that can come out of the grave like Polukranos, Unchained, but I have a hard time deciding what to cut.
- A few other cards in the "maybeboard": Strands of Night, Horn of Greed, Khalni Heart Expedition, Skirge Familiar. The first three, again, a bit held back by the lack of space for nonland, noncreature spells in this deck.
- I know 44 lands seems like a lot, because it is a lot, but trust me - I started at 38 and have bumped it up a little more on every tweak and every pass back over the deck. Missing a land drop is just completely disastrous with this deck - missing it pre-'fRog means you're that much further from casting your deck's engine, and post-'fRog you can start locking yourself out of scaling. Given the number of saclands I have, the fact that I'd prefer to never actually play a cycling land if at all possible and instead use them as low-cost "draw 2s", and the fact that Arena doesn't generate mana, if anything I'm tempted always to go higher, but I can promise you after several frustrating non-games that I'd strongly advise against going lower.
Dredgefall Durdling
Approximate Total Cost:
