Which form of dredge is second best?
Legacy forum
Posted on Sept. 1, 2016, 1:19 a.m. by seuvius
I know that dredge with LED is the absolute best but i cannot afford LED's at the moment so i was wondering what is the best way to go? Manaless or normal dredge without LED? Ive been playing manaless and while it can be extremely explosive it is incredibly susceptible to graveyard hate but i have absolutely no clue how well normal dredge runs without LED.
zyphermage says... #3
I have no idea but I would do it with the rainbow lands. You could try with Undiscovered Paradise and Bloodghast. Personally I would like the ability to use cabal therapy twice. Then you also get to run abrupt decay in the side or something.
September 1, 2016 5:19 a.m.
Not having LED is far from terrible. I would imagine it is about a turn slower than LED versions, which is serious. I could imagine running 4 Force of Will for protection instead, you do play a lot of blue cards in dredge.
September 1, 2016 5:22 a.m.
TheManWithaPlan says... #5
I wouldn't build Manaless Dredge. I would aim high and start saving up for LED's. Trust me it's well worth the wait when you save. You feel a sense of accomplishment. I built Grixis Delver over the course of just over a year and it was well worth my time and effort.
September 1, 2016 6:43 a.m.
aeonstoremyliver says... #6
I have a friend of mine that runs Dredge without LED. It's still fantastic and can win on turn two. I prefer that version as it's far more resilient to graveyard hate and is better G2-3.
He runs something like 14 lands or so with City of Brass, Cephalid Coliseum, Gemstone Mine, Gemstone Caverns, Dakmor Salvage, and Tarnished Citadel.
September 1, 2016 9:29 a.m.
I play dredge without LED. It's fine. LED is really only useful on turn one and when you, for some reason, can't dump your hand into your graveyard. More often then not you will be dredging every turn after turn one, and at that point LED is pretty useless.
To conclude, LED definitely makes dredge more explosive and adds a little bit of resiliency, but it is not the best card in the deck.
September 6, 2016 10:18 a.m.
Also, I think manaless dredge is worse than regular dredge. It is slower and gets hosed by some cards that regular dredge does not, such as Sphere of Resistance
September 6, 2016 10:21 a.m.
Well yeah but it is better then regular dredge without the led's
September 6, 2016 12:13 p.m.
zyphermage says... #11
It goes like this. LED dredge > dredge > manaless dredge.
September 6, 2016 6:11 p.m.
Really? Everyone is saying manaless dredge is better then dredge without led. It may be weaker to sideboard hate but other then that its much more explosive and consistent.
September 6, 2016 6:20 p.m.
zyphermage says... #13
Yeah but the problems with consistency means that you lose post game 1 consistently. At least in a general sense. You have to ask, "consistently what?" You might also like the option to mulligan and sideboard better with lands.
September 6, 2016 7:19 p.m.
zyphermage says... #14
The explosiveness you're talking about is marginal. Dredge is explosive in any form. It's like asking ANT versus TES. TES is more explosive sure but both kill t1 potentially so what is the point? Ant has stronger late game also and stronger sideboard. At least it should I think since it doesn't have to support Burning Wish. I play Ant and Lands mostly.
September 6, 2016 7:22 p.m.
Regular dredge, even without LED is consistently able to dredge more than once per turn. Manaless dredge will never have a spell that is as powerful as resolving a Breakthrough.
Also, I don't want to have something as simple as a Thoughtseize set me back several turns. Also manaless dredge gets hurt pretty bad by a turn one Deathrite Shaman.
September 6, 2016 9:46 p.m.
Senserazer says... #16
If I were you I'd go for regular dredge, substituting Lion's Eye Diamond for Force of Will, you run 4x Breakthrough + 4x Careful Study (running FOW and no LED's I'd argue this is even better than Faithless Looting and 4x Narcomoeba (which if they're in your hand are dead cards anyway), giving you 12 blue cards, which I think is just borderline for playing FOW. Or possible going the Undiscovered Paradise + Bloodghast route. Then you can add in the LED's as you can afford them, and I do believe it is a good investment, considering it's a reserve list card. Also: If you cannot afford LED and do not have FOW, the paradise+Ghast route is probably more your budget.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #2
Manaless. It's very explosive and dies hard to hate, like you said, but I think it's a much better alternative to playing without LED.
September 1, 2016 2:17 a.m.