Weird sideboard for manaless dredge!
Legacy Deck Help forum
Posted on Aug. 5, 2016, 10:10 p.m. by seuvius
Ok so i play manaless dredge in legacy, not the one with Lion's Eye Diamond but the absolutely manaless version with Phantasmagorian and while it can be extremely explosive it gets absolutely wrecked by graveyard hate. What is everyones opinion on running a sideboard with Lotus Bloom for mana since i cant play anything when graveyard hate is out, Eternal Scourge for a potential creature to play from exile with Lotus Bloom, and Ancient Grudge or Smash to Smithereens to deal with Grafdigger's Cage. I know it seems like an odd sideboard but with this at least i wont have to autoscoop to graveyard hate, opinions?
I agree with zyphermage, diluting your combo is not what you want to do with Manaless Dredge.
To be clear, Dredge plays LED and lands. Manaless Dredge is a subtype of the Dredge archetype that doesn't produce mana and places much more emphasis on the combo finish. Dredge decks generally do not need to "combo" to win, but Manaless Dredge decks do.
I think that Eternal Scourge is unimpressive in Legacy, and I don't see any synergy with Manaless Dredge. Lotus Bloom is just slow mana, which is the opposite of what you need for a fast format. If you want to play mana acceleration in Dredge, just play (LED) Dredge with Lotus Petal in the sideboard.
August 6, 2016 12:18 a.m.
Yeah, i realized after writing this that Lotus Petals and Nature's Claim may be the best answer to graveyard hate.
August 6, 2016 12:55 a.m.
Well, Nature's Claim is generally good, but I wouldn't rely on only Lotus Petal to cast it. In Dredge you can count on having green mana because you're already playing 8-9 lands that make every color.
Manaless Dredge has to take a more fearless approach, hoping to just outplay graveyard hate.
August 6, 2016 1:30 a.m.
zyphermage says... #6
Yeah by the time you happened to draw into your sideboarded petal and claim (which used to be a dredge card or enabler). All you managed to do was turn the hate off. You still then need to dredge away cards and then go to combat. At that point in legacy you've already lost the game.
August 6, 2016 12:27 p.m.
Have you tried Chancellor of the Annex or Surgical Extraction? AFAIK those are the more common answers to graveyard hate. Chancellor of the Annex stalls a turn while your opponent tries to break it, giving you time to start the engine (you cycle Street Wraith or get a Mishra's Bauble/Urza's Bauble trigger on their turn).
Surgical Extraction after Disrupting Shoal/Mindbreak Trap then get their hate card out of the way. It even beats their Relic of Progenitus/Tormod's Crypt, since you bait them out once before extracting.
August 7, 2016 6:57 a.m.
I'm a big fan of Chancellor of the Annex. If you want to play the manaless counters package you throw in Disrupting Shoal, Force of Will, and Wave Rider instead of Balustrade Spy. I actually think this is the safest version of Manaless Dredge to play, but it weakens your combo consistency.
The problem with Surgical Extraction is it only targets one kind of graveyard hate, and only after they have used it against you. A lot of decks diversify their graveyard hate because it makes it more difficult to answer with your own sideboard cards. It's not uncommon to see Nihil Spellbomb and Surgical Extraction in Shardless BUG, plus they get to play Deathrite Shaman in the mainboard.
zyphermage says... #2
I'm not really a dredge player but I do know about its play style, more familiar with having LED also. That said, since dredge is basically a combo deck that requires combat I would think it just dilutes your main plan too much. Especially in manaless where you cannot really mulligan. So basically I am saying you just need to keep rolling the dice with what you have, since that is what you sign up for when playing the deck. The only other option is play a different deck.
August 5, 2016 10:53 p.m.