Manaless Dredge

Legacy Dredge GWUB

deebiia

Creature (44)

• 4x Golgari Thug
• 4x Narcomoeba
• 4x Nether Shadow
• 4x Prized Amalgam
• 1x Shambling Shell
• 4x Stinkweed Imp
• 3x Balustrade Spy
• 4x Ichorid
• 4x Golgari Grave-Troll
• 4x Street Wraith
• 3x Chancellor of the Annex
• 1x Lotleth Giant
• 4x Phantasmagorian

Sorcery (8)

• 4x Cabal Therapy
• 4x Dread Return

Instant (4)

• 4x Once Upon a Time

Enchantment (4)

• 4x Bridge from Below

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Sideboard

Instant (10)

• 3x Sickening Shoal
• 4x Force of Vigor
• 3x Mindbreak Trap

Creature (1)

• 1x Ashen Rider

Sorcery (4)

• 4x Creeping Chill

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What is Manaless Dredge?

I could write a book on how intriguing this deck is, but I'll keep it simple:

Manaless dredge is a deck that runs zero lands-- or it runs 4 and they still call it manaless for some reason-- and it combos off fast-- only sometimes ever really combos off-- and has so few interactions that your opponent can't stop it-- unless they drop any of the like 6 graveyard hate cards that entirely shut down the deck.

However, we can now not just scoop on T1/2 when our opponents drop a Grafdigger's Cage or Rest in Peace.. Wow, how did anyone play Legacy Manaless Dredge before the printing of our savior Force of Vigor? Force of Vigor lets us pitch a green card, of which there are nine mainboard and even some are dredgers that are green, to destroy those nasty hate cards in game two.

Keepable hands are pretty easy too. Obviously it gets a little more intense game two as your opponent has assuredly boarded in some graveyard hate. The hope is to not have to mulligan ever, however.. that isn't always the case. Sometimes, a mulligan will put you further ahead than keeping a bad 7. Keeping at least one dredger is always nice. Street Wraith is a great card to have in your opening hand as well. Phantasmagorian is probably the best card to have in an opener. I could break down each card, but I'll just show an example of a pretty common opener for Manaless Dredge.

Opening Hands

A Gas Hand

>Be on the draw

Hand:
Phantasmagorian
Golgari Grave-Troll
Nether Shadow
Prized Amalgam
Street Wraith
Stinkweed Imp
>Any card

>Drawn Card for turn

• The play for that hand would be to discard to hand size and discard Phantasmagorian, then at the end of your opponent's second main phase you activate the Phantasmagorian twice-- you do this by holding priority after activating the ability on it, also you must put Nether Shadow lowest in your graveyard so it can trigger on our upkeep to return to the battlefield.

• Move to resolve the activations, discarding everything except the Street Wraith. You then will return the Phantasmagorian to your hand.

• Then, you cycle the Street Wraith and decide to Dredge 6 from the Golgari Grave-Troll instead of drawing-- the reason we do it on their second main phase is so if we hit a Narcomoeba with the dredge trigger, Prized Amalgam comes back on their endstep instead of ours.

• After dredging, we move to their endstep and return at least the Prized Amalgam that we discarded to Phantasmagorian if we hit a Narcomoeba with the dredge, if we didn't, our upkeep happens and we return the Nether Shadow to the battlefield and at our endstep we will return the Amalgam to play.

• Our draw step occurs, and we dredge the Stinkweed Imp and put 5 more cards into our graveyard.

All of that happened between our opponent's second turn and the beginning of our second turn. This is why I adore this deck. Of course it's degenerate to some extent, but to have so many interactions with zero mana sources in the deck is what, to me, makes this deck just a sight to behold.

A Mediocre Hand

>Be on the draw

Hand:
Narcomoeba
Cabal Therapy
Nether Shadow
Ichorid
Creeping Chill
Golgari Thug
Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

>Drawn Card for turn

• With this hand, your dredges matter much more than the first "Gas Hand".

• Discard Golgari Thug to hand size at the end of your turn. We can't interact with much until you begin dredging other cards. If your dredge on your next draw hits a Narcomoeba, an Ichorid, a Nether Shadow, a Phantasmagorian, or a Bridge from Below we can be sitting in a good spot. All of these cards get us somewhere in the game.

• If we start dredging more dredgers, we know our gameplan is probably to dredge most of our library away and to really dig for the game ender, Lotleth Giant.

• If we dredge a Bridge from Below or two, we know we can start on grinding our opponent out of the game with 2/2 zombies, Ichorid's and even Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis.

• However, ideally in the hand we're given, we want to hit a Whirlpool Drake and recur it as soon as possible to dump most of our library. From there, depending on where we are on the board, we can either grind the opponent out or combo off.

Unkeepable Hands

Unkeepable hands to me are usually where I can't see myself doing anything significant for two or more turns. If it takes two turns or more, then it's better to mulligan a new hand and take one turn getting back to a full hand. Manaless Dredge is not a "NO MULIIGAN" kind of deck, you just need to be conservative with what you know will work out or not. In game two and/or three, mulliganing for appropriate removal is suggested as it poses the question, "would you rather be a turn behind or completely shut out of the game if a Containment Priest or Leyline of the Void sticks on the board?"

Card Choices

Force of Despair vs Contagion

• Force of Despair hits more targets, but in most cases it will only hit 1-2. Force also removes larger threats in comparison to toughness. Force can only ever be cast on your opponents turn. Very bad against Containment Priest flashed out on your turn.

• Contagion hits only up to two targets, but can be cast on either players turn. Contagion can also hit targets after the turn ends, unlike Force of Despair. Contagion is rather bad against larger toughness creatures, but can spot remove cards like Containment Priest or Mother of Runes with lower toughness. It can also be a utility card vs. aggressive strategies as it give -2/-1 counters.

Ashen Rider vs Vengeful Pharaoh

Ashen Rider is very good against sneak and show, but have very little utility outside of that. Against aggro it's too slow and too low impact. Most matchups, it's a dead card.

Vengeful Pharaoh is good against slow grindy decks that want to do chip damage. D&T can't attack with Thalia if Mother of Runes isn't in play. Vengeful Pharaoh isn't very good against sneak and show as those creatures that attack are usually game ending on their own before combat damage.

Balustrade Spy vs Whirlpool

Whirlpool Rider and Whirlpool Drake offer significant dredge activations while also not completely milling our library. They also allow us to shuffle our hands and draw a new X hand to find potential removal for a problem card. This is usually not the case, however, I find the extra utility very helpful. I'm partial to using the Whirlpool creatures.

Balustrade Spy is really only an issue if our opponent is on Reanimator and mills us entirely with it. It also just throws the whole library in the graveyard and doesn't let us potentially draw into an answer we might have boarded in. If you reanimate a Balustrade Spy early enough, you can just combo kill the opponent, however Force of Will could ruin your day and counter the only out you have. Then, you just pass the turn and lose on our next draw step.

Whirlpool Rider vs Whirlpool Drake

Whirlpool Rider is great with disrupting shoal, giving you a card to Exile and counter a Rest in Peace or a containment priest. Only one use and possibility to not hit more dredgers if you were to only "whirl" once. Is only a 1/1 on the field.

Whirlpool Drake doesn't have much utility with Disrupting Shoal. When it enters, as long as you have or put a Therapy in your graveyard, you can "whirl" twice back-to-back on the off chance you whiff and cannot win on that turn. Your opponent killing it when low on cards in library isn't bad either. You simply ignore the dredge activations and shuffle your X hand and draw X new cards. Also it isn't a bad card if you need to actually draw a removal spell from your deck. Just whirl your hand and choose to ignore dredge activations. It is also a 2/2 flyer, which is relevant sometimes as a beater or blocker.

Mindbreak Trap vs Force of Will vs Force of Negation vs Disrupting Shoal

Force of Will is a dead card unless you're playing more blue in the deck. One counter vs most decks who also run FoW is a waste in my opinion. Very useful against Death and Taxes or against a graveyard hate card that is dropped early.

Force of Negation is an interesting card for this deck. It does run into the same issue as Force of Will in the aspect that your opponent likely either has a counter themselves or they just play another threat. Not very useful vs D&T, but very good against Sneak and Show or even dredge mirrors.

Mindbreak Trap is my favorite against decks that could and would just go off before we can. Storm is very susceptible to this as is any other deck that goes off too quickly and just wants to cast spells. Also, this doesn't require us to pitch extra cards to the alternative cost. If our opponents start going off way too early, we aren't short a card in hand to discard and begin dredging.

Disrupting Shoal is a very good counter against D&T as long as you have a blue card with CMC 2 to pitch to it. Most of the threats to us are 2 CMC: Rest in Peace, Containment Priest, Phyrexian Revoker, and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. With Narcomoeba and Disrupting Shoal each at 2 cmc, we can still swing Whirlpool Drake instead of Whirlpool Rider, but if necessary it can be replaced with Rider. But also allows us to counter with Prized Amalgam at 3 CMC and Drake at 4 CMC.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is Legacy legal.
Rarity (main - side)	0 - 8 Mythic Rares 31 - 3 Rares 16 - 4 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.58
Tokens	Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	Owned