Seeking Modern Dredge advice
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on Dec. 12, 2016, 10:21 a.m. by Rob12434
Hi everyone, I am hoping to get some deck tweaking advice.Currently at my local fnm I am playing Dredge in modern. These last few weeks I come up short in the rankings and I know its partly misplays and partly that I am not geared for the meta at my shop. My current build the last few weeks: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/boogeyman-20/. The meta consists of a zuicide player, two varied delver decks, some janky gladecover scout infect, tron, fish, and affinity. The rest varies week by week. I have troubles with zoo, barely lose to fish, and only lose to infect with bad dredges. Any tips on my meta, what I should and should not be playing in the main and/or side would be greatly appreciated. Any tips on sideboarding accordingly would also be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone =)
My thoughts:
I would mainboard less Conflagrate. It's a great card, but in a matchup like zoo you might not last long enough for it to really get value for you. Early game it's pretty disappointing, especially if you can't pitch it.
Stinkweed Imp is finnicky. It's undoubtedly an amazing dredger, but when you need to actually cast it it's underwhelming beyond belief. I'm not going to say run less, because you would need to make up for it with more dredgers, but personally I prefer less main with some more side for delver.
This is a much grindier strategy, but Vengeful Pharaoh with Golgari Brownscale is a helluva wall against creature-based aggro.
While disappointing to dredge, Abrupt Decay is such a strong and versatile card (especially against tempo) that I usually include it. It's a wonderful thing to pull opening hand.
If you need something to slow down the aggressive decks like zoo, try Lingering Souls. It will mean less explosive starts, but it's a great way to keep non-tramplers in check. Similarly Haunted Dead, but it's less efficient.
Any reason you aren't running Greater Gargadon? He's a pretty stellar inclusion for the churn-out-bodies archetype of dredge.
December 12, 2016 10:05 p.m.
I appreciate the feedback guys. I already run vengeful in the sideboard but maybe drop a stinkweed imp and a conflagrate to run brownscale. I don't know about lingering souls because i used to run four, plus i'd need to further adjust the mana base to support hardcasting it. I love abrupt decay but not having it in the opening hand is discouraging to have to mulligan for it. Omeros, truthfully I think I lose due to not knowing when to play life from the loam over cathartic or perhaps dredging the wrong cards. And at Jay I don't run gargadon solely because I am not running bridge, they both work very well together and not so well separately. I have also considered haunted dead, it may be inefficient compared to lingering but it can be used more often and provides me discard if for whatever reason I need to discard, also one and a half bodies coming in at instant speed before blocks is very convenient.
December 13, 2016 5:03 p.m.
That sounds like what you need most are more repetitions with the deck against each of the 8-10 most common decks. Just jam games until the lines of play start to feel natural to you. You'll pick up from experience when and why to go for Loam or Cathartic, for example, and how it depends on what deck you're up against and whether it's pre or post-sideboarding.
In the process you should start to pick up on little things like "I seem to draw into Conflagrate just a little more often than I actually need it." If that is the case then you look to swap a single copy for something else.
I highly doubt you want to cut any dredgers from your main, though.
December 13, 2016 8:19 p.m.
Omeros I greatly appreciate the feedback! Do you have a dredge list made? If so I'd love to see it.
December 14, 2016 11:54 p.m.
Here's the stock list I use for early deck testing against my brews (i.e. still testing by myself): Dredge 11-2016. It hasn't been edited to reflect any changes in the meta in the past month but I doubt it's obsolete already.
Omeros says... #2
When you lose, why are you losing? Sometimes bad luck can get you but if it's consistent it's not an issue with luck. Question goes for each matchup separately since the reasons will vary.
December 12, 2016 1:49 p.m.