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Phantasticgorian Manaless Dredge

Legacy Budget Combo Competitive Dredge Five Color Reanimator

carysh


Sideboard

Instant (8)

Sorcery (3)

Creature (2)

Enchantment (2)


Maybeboard


If you've never heard of manaless dredge, you'll be surprised to hear that this deck functions with absolutely no mana sources! It can win on turn 2. Here's how it works: choose to go second, then when you draw a card you'll have 8 cards in hand so you have to discard at the end of your turn. Ideally, you'll discard Phantasmagorian , then on your opponents turn you can discard dredgers and hopefully another Phantasmagorian to keep comboing out. you can then use card draw and Street Wraith , Gitaxian Probe, and Urza's Bauble to help you dredge, and Gitaxian Probe also combos well with cabal therapy. Eventually you'll get creatures out via Nether Shadow , Ichorid , Narcomoeba. You can then dread return a Balustrade Spy to mill your whole library, and your Bridge from Belows will give you zombie tokens whenever you sacrifice to Cabal Therapy or Dread Return. Now you can dread return Flayer of the Hatebound and then Golgari Grave-Troll for an insta-kill. Any suggestions and a +1 are welcome!

The sideboard for this deck is a plan against enchantment and artifact hate like Grafdigger's Cage and Leyline of the Void. It is unique in that it uses Lotus Petal and Elvish Spirit Guide to generate mana so that the Balustrade Spy combo is untouched.

Some explanations for possible sideboard cards:

Here's my reasoning for Unmask or Leyline of Sanctity: I think it's a better strategy to bring in hate cards against other deks: in other words, fight hate with hate. For example, if you are playing burn, and you get out leyline of sanctity, you not only have a great chance of beating them, but you also have protection from some hate, like tormod's crypt thus i think that the best anti-hate cards are the ones that also can disrupt other decks. another example is unmask. Unmask is great because you can not only take away their hate, you could also unmask yourself (to discard a dredger) and potentially go off on turn 1. unmask helps vs. discard as well so that you don't get thoughtseized. It's nice agianst decks like hive mind, etc. because it can be used to mess up their combo if played on say turn 2. It also goes well with cabal therapy.

For the sideboard, Noxious Revival is useful against Surgical Extraction and Extirpate and for other graveyard-abuse decks. We could even use it to recycle Narcomoebas!

Mindbreak Trap makes for a good defensre against storm, and is useful also as a free counter if they cast 3+ spells.

Ashen Rider is superior to Angel of Despair. In case they have some troublesome permanent, like Leyline of Sanctity we only need to put in 1 of these and voila, we can still use our flayer combo.

Serra Avatar is good against 2 types of decks: mill (e.g painter) and show and tell. vs show and tell, we could put out the avatar itself for their Show and Tell, or we could put out Balustrade Spy and not get milled out next turn, and then win! Great plan vs. either deck because it only requires 1 sideboard slot, like Ashen Rider . Definitely include him. As a sidenote, we could also side him in if we think they are likely to disrupt us mid-combo, however unlikely, and we need to be able to win next turn.

Contagion is good against decks such as infect (remember, they're -2/-1 counters, so after 1 turn any pump spells they use to protect it will expire, and so their creature will die!) as well as being able to kill hate creatures like Deathrite Shaman.

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Brought the deck to FNM, here's how it went:

Round 1: Grixis Control

I chose to be on the draw and he immediately knew I was playing MD and mourned that he had chaeted on his graveyard hate. So, Game 1 I actually had a terrible hand/dredges, and wasn't able to win until turn13 or something, which is really really slow for this deck. But win I did. Game 2 was, surprisingly, a bit harder. I assembled a trio of creatures quickly but he countered my dread return, and I also somehow ran out of dredgers. He also exiled 2 then 3 of my bridges by sacking/blocking with his creatures. I realized I would have to go on the beatdown, and so I did, finally killing him with chords, zombies, shadows, and 2 narcomoebas.

Result: 2-0

Round 2: Omni-Tell

Fortunately I know how omni-tell works pretty well, so I knew what to expect, and his deck was more or less your typical omni-tell. Game 1, I drew this ridiculousness: 1 Street Wraith, 2 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Chancellor of the Annex, 1 good dredger, and a few other cards, I think 2 Bridge from Below and a Balustrade Spy. He put down Volcanic Island and then passed to me due to COTA's tax. I drew and then discarded my dredger, then passed to him. He played a land and then played ponder, also paying the 1 from chancellor. At the end of his turn, i cycled street wraith, dredging a couple of beaters and some other stuff. For my upkeep, I brought back a nether shadow, then dredged for the draw step and with the 2 gitaxian probes. The dredges rewarded me with a Narcomoeba , some bridges, and a Phantasmagorian, which I used to get the other bridges from my hand into the yard. I knew he had some Force of Will so I cabal therapied them, subsequently shredded his hand, too. I then had plenty of creatures for a Dread Return, so I DR'ed Balustrade Spy and won. Turn 2 win!! Game 2 was even more interesting. I had another chancellor in my hand, which I made sure to save in case he played Show and Tell. I used phantasmagorian to get stuff in the GY quickly, but I couldn't assemble 3 creatures for a DR due to a lack of bridges. So I decided to aggressively cabal therapy him; actually, I may have cabal therapies myself first so I could get a spy in the GY, although that might have been a different game; so I cabal therapies him blindly naming Omniscience and hit one, also revealing a Cunning Wish and a draw spell or 2. Now both of us were slowed down, me due to lack of creatures and him due to his missing combo piece. He eventually drew a show and tell and played it, so I put in Chancellor of the Annex and he put in Omniscience. At this point the other people who were watching laughed, one saying, "He's got a thalia," and my opponent remarked, "Well this makes things a bit more difficult for me. Uh, let me think for a second..." He couldn't combo off because he actually had to pay for his spells, so I was saved, at least for the time being. He played a few draw spells, then passed to me. I was able to assemble a decent army of creatures, which if I am remembering correctly was: 1 Narcomoeba, the chancellor, an Ichorid, and a Nether Shadow. I swung for 10, bringing him down to 1 life, then I attempted a Cabal Therapy (it might have been a dread return), but he countered by casting FoW for free due to omniscience, although he did have to pay 1 due to chancellor. Ichorid died at the end of turn, leaving me with just chancellor and narco. I passed to him, and he played cunning wish into Swords to Plowshares on my chancellor. He played some dig through times and brainstorms but ultimately did not have enough/the right cards to complete the combo. He was killed by a little flying jellyfish!! :D

Result: 2-0

Round 3: UR Delver He knew already what I was playing, and he told me that he would have to read some of my cards because he wasn't totally familiar with how the deck worked. I quickly smashed him with the regular combo game 1, and 1 spectator joked, "Do you have a license plate for that truck? Cuz you just rammed him." Game 2 was unfortunate, as he opened with a Grafdigger's Cage and I was powerless to stop him. Game 3 was another interesting one. I didn't want to get smashed by cage again, so I figured I'd better do something. I sided in 2 Unmask and went on the play. AS luck would have it, I drew one, so I decided to play it, targeting him. Ironically, he had no grave hate in his hand, but he did have a ponder, 2 swiftspears, and a Delver of Secrets  Flip, so I took away the delver and prayed that he wouldn't draw into any grave hate and that I could survive long enough to draw enough cards and start dredging. His 'spears smashed repeatedly, but on the 4th turn I was finally able to discard. From there, I used a probe and a bauble to quickly fill up my graveyard, but 2 turns later he got me down to 1 and passed the turn to me. I was able to get together 3 creatures for a DR, but I only had 1 DR in my graveyard, and the probe had revealed a force of will. I also had no cabal therapy; either that, or I had to use the only one I had on myself to get a spy in the GY; so I thought I was going to lose at this point. I figured I had nothing to lose from trying a DR, so I did so on spy, and lo and behold he did not counter it! I think he didn't really understand that I would immediately win once I got out spy. In fact, nobody I played against was familiar with the spy-flayer-troll kill, I think; one guy even asked me repeatedly if I was done with my turn, when I was right in the middle of the spy combo. And so, with one life remaining, I DR'ed the spy and then won!

Result: 2-1

I was the only undefeated player left at this point going into the 4th an final round.

Round 4: Lands (Eternal Garden) I knew what deck this guy was playing because I had played a casual game against him once, so I knew I'd have to play through bojuka bogs, among other stuff. Game 1 I don't remember seeing any bogs, but he did manage to pull off a dark depths-thespian's stage combo to get a 20/20 flyer. Fortunately, I had a narcomoeba, who has flying, so i blocked the 20/20 and I quickly combed off with balustrade spy. He kept asking if it was his turn--the combo caught him by surprise. Game 2 was tough. I made a misplay, using phantasmagorian too aggressively, as he followed with bojuka bog and so i did not get in another dredge for a number of turns. By the time I got a discard in, he got the 20/20 combo again, and he swung in on his turn. I cycled street wraith in response, hoping to find a narcomoeba to save the day, but didn't find one. Game 3 was even worse. He kept bogging me down Wink and he landed a the tabernacle at pendrell vale and a glacial chasm, so I kept pinging him with beaters but it wasn't very effective, and i couldn't build up enough of a GY to combo off, as he kept using crop rotation into bog. He brought out the 20/20 and won the match. Result: loss 1-2 Final Result: 3-1 (Tiebreaker: 3rd place, but i had the highest game win %)

Not bad for the first outing!

Comments

Date added 10 years
Last updated 7 years
Legality

This deck is not Legacy legal.

Rarity (main - side)

0 - 4 Mythic Rares

24 - 5 Rares

18 - 6 Uncommons

18 - 0 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 3.42
Tokens Zombie 2/2 B
Folders MonoBlack, cool, cool decks, Can Buy Zis
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