Standard Dredge
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2020 6:02 pm
With Demonic Embrace, Silversmote Ghoul, and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath I figured it was time to try and build a dredge deck in standard.
I spent most of last night playing through a ton of different versions of this deck on Arena. Most of them sucked. This is what I am currently planning on testing some more.
Some notes on testing I've found:
I spent most of last night playing through a ton of different versions of this deck on Arena. Most of them sucked. This is what I am currently planning on testing some more.
Some notes on testing I've found:
- The mana base is as bad as it looks. But despite that I don't think the deck can afford to play more non-basics. Fabled Passage is the all-star land of the deck since it can be looped with Glowspore Shaman and goes to the graveyard when cracked.
- The bad mana base is also why only three Merfolk Secretkeeper // Venture Deeper as with only five untapped blue sources it is unlikely to get the dream draw of turn 1 Venture Deeper into Creeping Chill & Silversmote Ghoul (I did get it once though, it was nice).
- The deck is grindy, not explosive like other dredge decks. The lack of Prized Amalgam and another turn one mill play like Stitcher's Supplier is a big reason why. They are also the reason no Narcomoeba (a free 1/1 flyer just isn't worth the slot against most decks).
- Ashiok, Dream Render and Tamiyo, Collector of Tales are the two highest variance cards in the deck. In some games they absolutely dominate. In others they are just overcosted self-mill. I've seriously considered replacing them with either more removal or Skull Prophet (and maybe even Excavation Mole).
- Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is still incredibly powerful, but almost all decks are prepared for him now (even when wearing a Demonic Embrace).
- Something I do want to include is more self-discard. Too often I have Silversmote Ghoul in hand when I would prefer them in the graveyard. The one I am thinking about is possibly Ghostly Pilferer.
- Deathless Knight is a little hard to cast (but no more than escaping an Uro), but is super easy to recur and some decks just can't hand a 4/2 with haste every turn.
- The deck has problem dealing with evasive and/or large creatures (very removal light with situational removal). It can also get overrun pretty easily. The problem is finding the right removal package for the deck (and finding space for them). Assassin's Trophy is the catch-all, while Mogis's Favor is the removal from the graveyard. I've tried Polukranos, Unchained, Pharika's Spawn, Eat to Extinction and Casualties of War. Casualties was too slow. the deck can't handle anymore escape cards (and Polukranos is expensive). Eat to Extinction was the best, but a little slow and has a bad habit of being milled.
- Mire Triton is an all star. That is all.
- I get the feeling this deck might be much better in Best of Three rather than Best of One as their are a ton of great options for specific match-ups available to the deck (like Chainweb Aracnir against decks with a bunch of flyers).