Ascending Dredge

Hello everybody!

You know what I love? Combo decks!

You know what I hate? Overextending and getting blow out of the game.

Sadly, these 2 more often than not coincide with each other. Obviously the plan is to usually just play around everything, but sometimes you're facing lethal damage next turn vs Merfolk or Bant and you simply have to hope they don't have the Force of Will as you try to go off with your storm deck.

But a deck that can very easily overextend more than storm is dredge, and sometimes there's almost nothing the player can do about it! Breakthrough for 0? Now you have overextended, and may lose on the next turn by their 0 land Tormod's Crypt hand. Nevermind the rest of their deck.... However Dark Ascension is here for the rescue! 2 cards in particular have piqued my interest from the set for the dredge deck. The first, obviously, is Faithless Looting, as it is just a red Careful Study with Flashback. However, the other might surprise you.... Gravecrawler! Just a 2/1 for B? Sure! There's nothing like a little resilience that doesn't get in the way of speed!

Presenting.... Gravecrawler Dredge!

4x Narcomeba
3x Ichorid
4x Putrid Imp
1x Flame-Kin Zealot
4x Gravecrawler

4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x Golgari Thug

4x Faithless Looting
4x Careful Study
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Bridge from Below
2x Dread Return

4x Cephalid Coliseum
4x City of Brass
2x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island

Sideboard:
4x Firestorm
3x Winds of Change
1x Ichorid
4x Pithing Needle
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Angel of Despair

This is a pretty straightforward dredge deck, but with a few significant changes. I removed the Breakthroughs for the Faithless Lootings so we don't overextend games 2 and 3 without wasting sideboard slots. The other cards I cut from my previous list was the maindeck Firestorms and Street Wraith in lieu of the Gravecrawlers and a 14th land. The one thing I need to do a bit of testing with is the Dual Lands alongside the fetchlands. With 6 slots, there's a few configurations to work with:

2x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island

or

3x Scalding Tarn
1x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands

or

2x Scalding Tarn
2x Underground Sea
1x Volcanic Island
1x Badlands

These are the 3 main configurations that I'm musing over right now. I really can't decide which is best, because I don't expect many draws off the top, so I want to fetch up the required land as fast as possible. However, with the 3/1/1/1 split, you can very easily dredge away that 1-of land that you REALLY need, and have to go without for the whole game.

I think this deck will be what I pack in legacy as soon as the set is released, barring no other busted cards getting released from Dark Ascension. I always hate facing down a turn 0 Leyline of the Void, but I think with Gravecrawler added to the deck, the awkward ground pounding plan might actually get there!

But that's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo