I can't take full credit for this list, since it was suggested to me over chat during an online game. That said, I've done some amount of fine-tuning, and here's what I've come up with. Let's take a look at my Dredge list for Kaladesh Standard!
STRATEGY
The strategy is, obviously (I would hope), to use discard outlets to throw the reanimating/dredge pieces into the graveyard, then keep recurring them turn after brutal turn, keeping 3-9 power on the board consistently. This deck has tremendous grinding power - it's resistant to removal and has some pretty cool instant-speed tricks up its sleeve. Keep it up until they're out of cards, and then you swing in 2-3 times and the game is over!
However, so far it's really only been playtested against control, midrange and Aetherworks Marvel combo decks - I can't really attest to how it holds up against aggro. I plan on updating this with some results later.
THE PIECES:
The Core
Haunted Dead - The combo with Prized Amalgam is nothing new. You can put 9 power on the board at the end of Turn 2 if you draw the perfect hand!
Scrapheap Scrounger - The new reanimator from Kaladesh. The colorless casting cost helps smooth out the curve a lot, but quite often I find myself discarding it to one of the numerous discard effects, planning on bringing it back with its ability. Also, it combos with Prized Amalgam and Eternal Scourge, and it can work on sacrificed Insolent Neonates and Murdered Voldaren Pariah
s as well.
Prized Amalgam - see Haunted Dead, Scrapheap Scrounger
Eternal Scourge - Combos with Scrapheap Scrounger, and often the two are discarded together. It effectively turns every targeted removal into a bounce spell, which helps a lot in the long game. Sometimes I'll cast the same one 3-4 times in a match.
Voldaren Pariah
- Instant-speed boardwipe if you set it up correctly. Leaves you with a 6/5 flier. In something like 60 games, I only hard-cast this once. I'm very impressed by its performance. A huge swing in aggro matchups, and it can hit Smuggler's Copter after it's crewed. How cool is that?
Graveyard Fuel
Insolent Neonate - A turn 1 play, he sneaks in 1 or 2 damage before sacrificing himself to put a Haunted Dead into the graveyard, or Madness a Fiery Temper to remove a Smuggler's Copter.
Lightning Axe - All-star! It removes practically everything, including a full-powered Sylvan Advocate and pre-ETB trigger Archangel Avacyn. Discarding any of the reanimator pieces is great, and comboing with Fiery Temper is gravy.
Haunted Dead - Discarding a Haunted Dead to another Haunted Dead is fine, it can also toss and a combination of Prized Amalgams, Scrapheap Scroungers, and Eternal Scourges. With 3 mana up, it can Madness a Fiery Temper.
Cathartic Reunion - Enables so much stuff, and draws 3. Even if it's countered, half the time it doesn't hurt too bad.
Collective Defiance - Flexible is good. A card that can remove a creature, gives you reach at the end of the game, and wheels your hand full of good graveyard stuff and draws you more cards. Never sorry to topdeck it.
Cryptbreaker - I'm still testing this one, but it enables the graveyard and Madness while building your board, and can quite easily draw you a card with the Haunted Dead + Prized Amalgam combo.
Shard of Broken Glass - I added this close to last, but it seems to perform surprisingly well. It is the only library-to-graveyard fueler, and the +1/+0 is notable in that it puts Haunted Dead's power to 3, making it trade with almost all of the manlands - pretty important in long games. Having the 4 power on the other creatures or 2 on a flying Spirit token is fine, too.
Manabase
Not much to say here, except the deck is very hungry for colored mana. If you want a turn 4 or 5 boardwipe with Voldaren Pariah
, you'll need 3-4 black sources, and probably 1 red for Lightning Axe. That's why I've included the Aether Hubs on top of the 8 dual lands. They also enable a turn 1 Insolent Neonate or Cryptbreaker on a hand of otherwise tapped lands when you need to come out of the gates fast.
23 lands seems to work fine - the game can go long on just 5 lands. This allows a Haunted Dead activation and a Madness effect in the same turn, though of course, the more the merrier. Because of all the discarding, you typically aren't able to do more than one or two things per turn.
Sideboard
VS EXILE EFFECTS
This deck suffers from exile effects pretty bad, and with Incendiary Flow and the various White exile effects around, we need a way to sacrifice the creatures when they get targeted. Voldaren Pariah
can fulfill this role, but only so many times. I've included Vampiric Rites for this purpose, though it pales in comparison to the Evolutionary Leap of yesteryear. Ah, well.
VS EMRAKUL
Lost Legacy gets rid of Emrakul, the Promised End. That's basically it, though it can punch holes in any deck that runs Gideon, Ally of Zendikar or Archangel Avacyn.
The rest of the sideboard is pretty flexible, and I'm very open to suggestions. Ruinous Path hits Planeswalkers, Incendiary Sabotage might work against aggro (but I've never used it).
PROBLEMS
The fact that the deck has no instant-speed artifact/enchantment removal hurts sometimes. I tried sideboarding Demolish, but man it's slow and expensive. Being able to splash Green would be cool, especially since you'd get Hissing Quagmire for longer games, but I'm not sure there's room for it here.
There are more problems, rest assured, but I can't think of them right now. And I've been writing for too long, I could have been playtesting this whole time!!
Well, thanks for reading this far!
COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED!
