King for a day, fool for a lifetime
So GP Lyon is over and it doesn't felt great. After the Modern Pro Tour everybody and his mother liked to grind, resulting in a heavy shift towards Young Pyromancer and Lingering Souls decks. Bant is not super-well equipped to battle thoses grind-/topdeck-wars, so my results has been bad at all.
Saturday i've dropped at 0-2 from the mainevent in Lyon to grind sideevents. I've switched to Dredge, which felt pretty good. I wore down a bunch of Snapcaster Mage decks and ended up with pretty good results. So i've decided to continue the win-streak with Stinkweed Imp, Bloodghast and Conflagrate.
One of my qualities as a player is quickly recognizing which cards put in work and which ones does not. Starting with a mostly stock list (i was missing just Gemstone Mine), i've cut the Scourge Devil for a Haunted Dead, which is far and beyond too good to pass on. The format right now is 90% about grinding (not racing) because Jace and Bloodbraid Elf were unbanned. This unban lead me to conclude that Bant is in a "limbo"-spot right now - it doesn't fit in any kind of shoe, but for sure the decks it prays on are on the decline right now.
Dredge on teh other side dodges Abrupt Decay, Fatal Push, Supreme Verdict, Damnation and so on. Players do pack too few hate for it (no, Anger plus Relic isn't enough seriously) and the most awkward card against it is Scavenging Ooze.
Some refer to sideboarding with dredge as "more of an art" - i cannot follow that assumption, because most of the time it's straightforward: Board in cards that beat the hate and have further uses on top. One of my pet cards here is Golgari Charm - it hits Enchantments, Lingering Souls, everything Affinity, Death and Taxes and it even kills my own zombies (wait, what? - hope those Bloodghast won't pick on me anytime soon). Yeah, sometimes i'm killing my vampires just to get it back at the next end step.
That's the reason i don't play any Nature's Claim in my 75. An awkard card, only here for beating the hate is no reason to me putting it into my sideboard. Even worse, spending 4 life is the exact opposite of what this deck is trying to do. If it's in my hand and doesn't have a target, what's the point of it?
I'm a fan of decks that pack some kind of slight interaction plus a solid beatdown plan - no news on this front. Dredge fits in nicely here, because it gave my Conflagrate plus Darkblast. Those two exceptional tools put this deck above other aggro-variants. Reach in shape of a huge fireball, repeatable removal on top of a value-engine sets these cards apart from other 1-on-1 trade-jank.
After i've declared this easy-to-understand shenanigans, here's a more in-deep look at what this deck is (especially for me). For me it's not about the fancy stuff - this pile of jank can put up to 10+ power on board in turn 2 / 3. But that's not what it's all about.
The ability to grind through removal easily, pressure the opponent and dodge a lot of problems other aggro-decks share is my reasoning behind choosing Dredge as my weapon-of-choice. It's easy for opponents to be upset about teh fact that dredge doesn't act like a normal Gx aggro deck, but noone can't deny that those fair creature decks are a dead-end - they are far too fair to keep up with the format's huge beaters, blistering fast combo-decks or the ramp-into-oblivion piles.
It's easy to understand that aggro has to be either faster, more resilient or more disruptive to keep up with the other top-contenders in modern. Burn strayed away from Wild Nacatl to become more independent of board-state damage and rather chain Lighnting Bolt's to teh opponents face, Affinity floods the board and tries to stick hard-to-remove threats (read: Etched Champion), Humans included disruptive creatures like Meddling Mage and Kitesail Freebooter to hamper the enemy in executing his gameplan.
After this short description my think-process should be clear. I like boardstate-based damage-sources, reach and resilience - dredge is all about that. Beyond that, there are some super sweet things the deck is able to do.
While the gameplan is not quite difficult to understand (find your landdrops, bring back creatures, burn out your opponent, destroy creatures), somethings are quite easy to overlook though.
The most underrated thing about this 60 is the fact that it tries all at once - landing lands, putting creatures onto the battlefield, destroy chumpblockers and fireball your enemy. This task is pretty difficult because sometimes it finds the things it's digging for, on other occasions it misses. That's the spot were it gets interesting.
It's crucial to develope a gameplan in case the deck misses to mill important pieces or it's not healthy (say it outright: too slow) for it. I'm totally fine with the fact that dredging often fails e.g. milling useless jank to teh grave - other decks do share the problem that they draw teh wrong half of there deck. The more common problem here is to see beyond this burden and try to overcome it.
If i miss the busted start dredge is capable of, i'm not worried at all - i'm indeed feel challenged to find a mid-game plan and execute it. This part is much more intrueiging. It's not about the flashy stuff here, it's back to basics - good ol' creature casting and beatdown.
The more spicy stuff (teh real content of this chapter is about to begin) are the things many players ignore; the single best example is Canyon Slough, a pretty new addition to teh deck. At first glance i dismissed the land because it's comes into play tapped clause. As always, for me magic is about mana-efficiency and curving out.
So how does a tapped Blood Crypt fit into this? This is the point were my point of view diverge from other players. The most important turn is teh second for dredge. Either Faithless Looting turn 1 or Cathartic Reunion turn 2, teh "busted" stuff is about to begin in turn 2. So with this knowledge in mind, a tapped land turn 1 is totally fine.
Many will argue against this, but let's be honest: Insolent Neonate isn't broken without Golgari-Grave Troll. So even if i'm spending turn 1 with Neonate, i'm not always dredging at the 2nd main phase of my opponent, hoping to mill some sort of zero-costed critters. Indeed the most busted openings are spent by Cathartic Reunion with Stinkweed Imp.
Some players are rage-hating everything they don't understand - there have to be a single card that solve all my boardstate-based problems. Sadly Wrath of God is not. So bringing sideboard hate is the singlehandily most important thing for those. Common tech are stuff like REst in Peace, Grafdigger's Cage or Anger of the Gods.
I'm not salty at all if those opponents slam there hosers - be happy with it. I'm even not bothered with overboarding against those cards - bringing only a couple of answers is more profitable for keeping the maindeck gameplan intact than freezing in fear and packing anything like upwards to 8 cards against there 3 answers.
It's nothing more than other answers that opponents packed against decks i was playing beforehand - they all have been devastating. Like always i'm a big proposer of the fact that disruption must be paired with a serious clock - everything else remains a lost spot.
I'm looking forward to return to Bant Company as soon as the format has settled. As long as everbody is experimenting with Grind-engines i'm not willing to come back to my tempo-esque Creature beatdown deck. Dredge is my answer to the shake-up that modern is right now.
Saturday i've dropped at 0-2 from the mainevent in Lyon to grind sideevents. I've switched to Dredge, which felt pretty good. I wore down a bunch of Snapcaster Mage decks and ended up with pretty good results. So i've decided to continue the win-streak with Stinkweed Imp, Bloodghast and Conflagrate.
First: Teh deck
Dredge on teh other side dodges Abrupt Decay, Fatal Push, Supreme Verdict, Damnation and so on. Players do pack too few hate for it (no, Anger plus Relic isn't enough seriously) and the most awkward card against it is Scavenging Ooze.
Some refer to sideboarding with dredge as "more of an art" - i cannot follow that assumption, because most of the time it's straightforward: Board in cards that beat the hate and have further uses on top. One of my pet cards here is Golgari Charm - it hits Enchantments, Lingering Souls, everything Affinity, Death and Taxes and it even kills my own zombies (wait, what? - hope those Bloodghast won't pick on me anytime soon). Yeah, sometimes i'm killing my vampires just to get it back at the next end step.
That's the reason i don't play any Nature's Claim in my 75. An awkard card, only here for beating the hate is no reason to me putting it into my sideboard. Even worse, spending 4 life is the exact opposite of what this deck is trying to do. If it's in my hand and doesn't have a target, what's the point of it?
Second: What makes you dredge?
After i've declared this easy-to-understand shenanigans, here's a more in-deep look at what this deck is (especially for me). For me it's not about the fancy stuff - this pile of jank can put up to 10+ power on board in turn 2 / 3. But that's not what it's all about.
The ability to grind through removal easily, pressure the opponent and dodge a lot of problems other aggro-decks share is my reasoning behind choosing Dredge as my weapon-of-choice. It's easy for opponents to be upset about teh fact that dredge doesn't act like a normal Gx aggro deck, but noone can't deny that those fair creature decks are a dead-end - they are far too fair to keep up with the format's huge beaters, blistering fast combo-decks or the ramp-into-oblivion piles.
It's easy to understand that aggro has to be either faster, more resilient or more disruptive to keep up with the other top-contenders in modern. Burn strayed away from Wild Nacatl to become more independent of board-state damage and rather chain Lighnting Bolt's to teh opponents face, Affinity floods the board and tries to stick hard-to-remove threats (read: Etched Champion), Humans included disruptive creatures like Meddling Mage and Kitesail Freebooter to hamper the enemy in executing his gameplan.
After this short description my think-process should be clear. I like boardstate-based damage-sources, reach and resilience - dredge is all about that. Beyond that, there are some super sweet things the deck is able to do.
Third: Spicy stuff
The most underrated thing about this 60 is the fact that it tries all at once - landing lands, putting creatures onto the battlefield, destroy chumpblockers and fireball your enemy. This task is pretty difficult because sometimes it finds the things it's digging for, on other occasions it misses. That's the spot were it gets interesting.
It's crucial to develope a gameplan in case the deck misses to mill important pieces or it's not healthy (say it outright: too slow) for it. I'm totally fine with the fact that dredging often fails e.g. milling useless jank to teh grave - other decks do share the problem that they draw teh wrong half of there deck. The more common problem here is to see beyond this burden and try to overcome it.
If i miss the busted start dredge is capable of, i'm not worried at all - i'm indeed feel challenged to find a mid-game plan and execute it. This part is much more intrueiging. It's not about the flashy stuff here, it's back to basics - good ol' creature casting and beatdown.
The more spicy stuff (teh real content of this chapter is about to begin) are the things many players ignore; the single best example is Canyon Slough, a pretty new addition to teh deck. At first glance i dismissed the land because it's comes into play tapped clause. As always, for me magic is about mana-efficiency and curving out.
So how does a tapped Blood Crypt fit into this? This is the point were my point of view diverge from other players. The most important turn is teh second for dredge. Either Faithless Looting turn 1 or Cathartic Reunion turn 2, teh "busted" stuff is about to begin in turn 2. So with this knowledge in mind, a tapped land turn 1 is totally fine.
Many will argue against this, but let's be honest: Insolent Neonate isn't broken without Golgari-Grave Troll. So even if i'm spending turn 1 with Neonate, i'm not always dredging at the 2nd main phase of my opponent, hoping to mill some sort of zero-costed critters. Indeed the most busted openings are spent by Cathartic Reunion with Stinkweed Imp.
Forth: All about hate
I'm not salty at all if those opponents slam there hosers - be happy with it. I'm even not bothered with overboarding against those cards - bringing only a couple of answers is more profitable for keeping the maindeck gameplan intact than freezing in fear and packing anything like upwards to 8 cards against there 3 answers.
It's nothing more than other answers that opponents packed against decks i was playing beforehand - they all have been devastating. Like always i'm a big proposer of the fact that disruption must be paired with a serious clock - everything else remains a lost spot.
Last words
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