This is a powerful dredge deck, focused on controlling the game with Vengeful Pharaoh in order to survive to reanimate one of our powerful targets (Iona, Shield of Emeria, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Terastodon
Why play dredge?
You want to play something out of the ordinary, that still wins its fair share of matches.
You like the consistence that comes from seeing about half your deck in each game.
You like playing terastodon and blowing up the board
Card Choices
The dredge:
Golgari Grave-Troll--Dredge 6 means that this card is pretty much a draw 6 once it hits the graveyard.
Stinkweed Imp--Almost as powerful a dredger, and also at a reasonable casting cost in case we dont have enough self discard to put it in the graveyard.
Life from the Loam--This card is multipurpose. It dredges a small amount, and allows us to play only 19 lands, and still build an effective manabase with ease. It also combos nicely with Raven's Crime and also Flame Jab from the sideboard.
The Enablers:
Faithless Looting--allows us to dig 4 cards deeper into our deck (or 2 if we happen to dredge it), and also discard things we draw or dredge for that we don't want such as Vengeful Pharaoh or any of our reanimator targets
Tormenting Voice--a smaller version of faithless looting. We cant play it from the graveyard, but it's still very strong in this deck, essentially a draw 2 for 2 with an upside.
Wild Guess--same as tormenting voice with a slightly more difficult mana cost
Reanimator package:
Unburial Rites--you get the idea.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite--destroys any aggro strategy
Terastodon--destroys tron, Bx eldrazi, or any other deck relying on its lands too heavily
Iona, Shield of Emeria--destroys everything else
extras
Simian Spirit Guide--allows us to go off with unburial rights a turn earlier. The difference between being a fair turn 4 combo deck, and an insane turn 3 deck that beats any deck that tries to play a fair game.
Vengeful Pharaoh--extremely powerful protection from any creature based strategy. once it kills and returns to the top of our deck, we can dredge it right back so we never need to draw it.
Raven's Crime--easily tears apart our opponents hand. along with life from the loam, this is essentially a bbb target player discards 3 every turn we need it. can also put our own cards into the graveyard in emergencies.
Gnaw to the Bone--our concession to the burn decks that are currently taking over the format. We play 18-22 creatures, and it is not unreasonable to expect 5-7 to be in our graveyard.
Sideboard
We want to focus on powerful hosers that can be played from the graveyard. All of these cards fit the description, and will be explained further in the matchups section.
