...and it will return, bursting with vigor.
This is not DredgeVine. It may contain Vengevine, and may want it to come crashing headfirst into the red-zone as often as possible, but it is not DredgeVine. This is Dredge. Plain and simple. A look at most 'Vine lists will show that many contain more
Hooting Mandrills
than Dredgers! Bah!
This deck is tight, streamlined, aggressive, and dirty as the innermost sphere of the long-dead plane of Phyrexia! I like it as fast as Affinity, and far more resilient! I want a combo-style deck I can mulligan to four with and still win - and so I built this!
I didn't take this from a 'Vine deck, or any such nonsense, only from the history of Dredge itself. Bazaar of Baghdad is the entire deck in Vintage, and we get it on something we can exile to cast Skaab Ruinator (another magnificent value card), for example. Another example being Narcomoeba, seeing next to no play in Modern outside of my own brews, but seeing play in every Dredge deck, otherwise. And these only touch on the blue!
Comments and suggestions are much appreciated! I love Dredge, and am glad to see its poster-boy back on the stage - help me make this as competitive as possible, please and thanks!
A Small Primer
For those of you to whom Dredge is foreign.
So, what is Dredge? Put simply, it is a grave-based aggro/combo deck that can generate obscene card advantage by using its graveyard as, basically, another hand. In Legacy, Dredge is a feared archetype, being able to kill as early as turn 1, and having some builds that even skip using lands entirely. In Modern, however, we have a few restrictions because of the, ah, notorious history of grave shenanigans and unfair combo decks. You want to fill your graveyard with all the goodies you can, replacing your draws with Dredges (NOTE: Yes, sometimes it is better to draw than Dredge. Figured I should mention that). Most Dredge lists in Modern use Vengevine as the primary win condition, filling most other slots as a usual Jund deck might, full of anemic control elements and Lightning Bolts. This is distinct, however; this is not Dredge, in a true sense, but its own archetype - DredgeVine.
Dredge, itself, is much more focused on the grave as a resource, getting as much value out of every card as possible. Discard, therefore, is very powerful - such things as Faithless Looting and Magus of the Bazaar are the best at what they do, freeing cards otherwise useless in your hand. Getting 'free' creatures is also an aspect of Dredge that sets it apart from everything else. Creatures that recur for little or no cost like Narcomoeba and Bloodghast are borderline game-breaking in a deck in which they have no downside. Vengevine sits in this group as well, but this is the obvious finisher it appears to be.
The deck often appears (especially in Legacy versions) to use rainbow lands like Mana Confluence, because the deck is very greedy in its colour-scheme. This can lead to a lot of damage being dealt to ourselves, but as the aggressor we can oft afford the cost in life.
Let me know if this was helpful! I know it is not yet complete, but if what I've already said has illuminated this wonderful archetype, I'm glad!
