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G'day stränga.
Lets jump right in.
This week LEDless Dredge managed to take down the SCG 5k.
Dredge by Michael Morrissey
Every time I see Dredge win I always look in the mirror and say, "How did this happen?"
Have you ever hated someone?
Think hard about the person you hate.
I'm not talking a strong dislike.
I want you to visualize someone that makes your blood boil.
Think of why you hate that person.
You can't quite pick one singular thing, can you?
One day I was in a friends brand new Ford Mustang. We were driving down one of the busier streets in downtown Minneapolis, when all of a sudden we hear someone yell. We look around and see a very intoxicated man.
This man wasn't just drunk.
I'm surprised he was even able to stand let alone speak.
We rolled down the windows and asked him what he was screaming.
He yelled something like this,
"WRYYOU DRUUVEPONDEY!"
Ridin' My Poney
"What!?" My friend replied.
We got out of the car to see if he was okay. We thought he might be in trouble or need help.
We walked over to the man and stood about 5 feet from him when he lunged forward and yelled, "WHY DO YOU DRIVE A PONY!"
He then threw his empty glass bottle at the side of my friends Mustang.
Did I mention what my friend does for a living?
He fights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVMKQP0K3a0
He travels the country doing MMA.
He doesn't like having things thrown at his new car.
Needless to say, some intervention from local police helped handle the situation. My friend got lucky and was just asked to go home.
That drunk (homeless?) guy is the person I hate.
When I picture someone I hate, I picture a disrespectful, dirty, smelly, loud, 55+ year old man.
When I see Dredge, I picture that man.
My friend and I gave him a chance. We thought he needed help. Should we really have stopped to help?
That old drunk is how I feel about Dredge.
I gave it a chance, I own Dredge cards, and I even had them all in sleeves at one point to play it. I then saw the look on my opponents faces as I won the die roll and took the draw. I watched people get stomped by my hard cast Narcomeba as they kept a hand full of Graveyard hate, sans pressure.
Dredge is a deck that, if you aren't prepared for, will disrespect you. Dredge will take your mother on a beautiful date, tell her it had a great time, and then never call her again. If you don't know how to play against it, it will make you regret introducing them in the first place.
Dredge is good because it has a very good game one against nearly everything. Post-sideboard the hate packages come in, if they have any. After moving hate intro your deck, Dredge isn't so bad.
All the Steps
Picture Relic of Progenitus, and Tormod's Crypt as a shower. Give a stinky homeless man a shower and he will smell better. His clothes will still stink and you will still be able to clearly tell he is homeless, but at least you can focus and give attention properly.
Think of Leyline of the Void as a shower, an AA meeting and a job. You get the picture.
The best hate against Dredge is something that stops them before they can really even try.
Okay
Stop picturing the person you hate.
This new Dredge list has a sideboard filled with all kinds of answers to an opponent's hate. This is not something to hate.
It's something to fear.
I like that the list has eight answers to [card Tormod's Crypt]Crypt[/card]. I strong>LOVE that it has six answers to Leyline of the Void. This drunken homeless man (Dredge) came prepared to battle.
You give it a shower and it runs off in the dirt. You take it to an AA meeting and give it a job, then it steals your alcohol and gets you fired from your job.
This deck is sweet.
I would recommend picking up your Foil Phantasmagorians now before they get hard to find.
I think this deck will be tried by a ton of people and could even be the new face Dredge has been needing for awhile now.
I don't hate this list.
I actually like it.
If you have never tried to play Legacy Dredge, I recommend you try. But know it is very narrow and doesn't have a whole bunch of interaction. Kind of like an undisturbed homeless man.
Is This the Future?
I LOVE this card.
I've been brewing it inside of a BUG shell. So far its proven to be pretty good and I'm really excited to play with this card in multiple formats.
I found a set right away for really cheap, at between $5 and $7 each for the set, but I wouldn't pay the requested price tag ($17.49 at SCG) right now.
Being a rare in the first set of a block that has a limited PTQ season means that the non-mythics will eventually find a relatively low price tag. A ton of Innistrad packs will be opened at PTQs and major events this year.
The cards will flood the market for a while and we will see these cards be at a reasonable price after the pre-order dust has settled.
Fetch
A lot of people in my area have been talking about how Zendikar Fetchlands are going to go up in value. Some people have even gone as far to buy them now.
I don't think now is the time to buy.
Give it time.
When Zendikar rotates from Standard, a ton of these will hit the trading room floor. Pick them up when you see them them in peoples' trade binders.
The Onslaught fetches took a lot of time to go up. The Zendikar ones will not take nearly as long, but they will go down before any rise in price is seen.
NOTE: I still don't believe Modern will survive, so the price hike from Modern will end soon enough and the fetches will settle down again.
So let's take a look at the current prices:
Misty Rainforest - $15.99 on SCG
The UG fetchland has been proclaimed as the best of the enemy fetches. Expect these will go as low as $11 before they start to rise.
Scalding Tarn - $17.99 on SCG
I was actually a little surprised to see the UR fetchland have such a high tag. This has to be a result of Modern. Like I said before, Modern won't survive. Just wait it out and these will go down. I see them all the time for around $12 in trades.
Arid Mesa - $12.99 on SCG
This fetchland's tag is about right where I would like to see all of the fetches. Arid Mesa doesn't see much eternal play so don't go over board on these. There are a ton of them out there and I know you can get them in trades for an easy $10. This one is fine to pick up at around $8-$10. I doubt they will ever go much lower than that.
Marsh Flats - $11.99 on SCG
Just like Arid Mesa, this fetch doesn't see much Eternal play. But one thing is different: It fetches for a Plains and a Swamp. For some reason, every single WB card ever has continued to hold a good value, as casual players love it (see: Deadguy Ale). It was actually harder for me to find these than any of the other fetch, and I'd suspect these to be about the same price as Arid Mesa but harder to find.
Verdant Catacombs - $11.99 on SCG
My favorite of the enemy fetches. This one is a sleeper. A ton of Legacy decks are already playing it. I know this is in the Vampires Event Deck, but that's merely another excuse to get them really cheap. Pick these up at $10 and you will not regret it.
Checklist
This week on the checklist we will focus on some lands. I talked about fetches earlier, so why not aim at more?
Bojuka Bog - $0.25 on SCG
A land that hates on one of the most powerful zones in the game. AWESOME! These are easy to find right now because it was printed semi recently. I recommend buying a few sets of these now, as I bought a ton of foils that I will be sitting on for quite some time. The next few years will make them harder to find.
Maze of Ith - $34.99 on SCG
Maze was cheap for a long time and only recently shot up quite a bit. It's not seeing a ton of play right now, but when it does it will skyrocket. Pick them up in trades for around $30 and just wait.
Creeping Tar Pit - $4.99 on SCG
Don't buy this card right now. Wait a few weeks, and as soon as it rotates from Standard, snap them up. Keep an eye out for people trying to unload these at almost nothing. This card will be a 1-2 of in some decks in Legacy for awhile. It makes both Black and Blue and easily kills Jace, the Mind Sculptor with hardly an issue.
Until Next Time…
Get ready for the rotation! Have some bankroll ready to buy some staples on the cheap.
If you’re not having fun, you’re not risking anything.
Please feel free to post question in the comments or email me.
Hi, and thanks for the article!
I have a question regarding Maze of Ith. It's some now that I discovered that these are undervalued by most traders in Italy, so I usually buy them from 15 to 20$ each and sell them at 28-34$ on a European website. Normally it takes me only 4-5 days to resell them, so I think it's a good way to easily earn 15$ each card. But you said to pick them up in trades and keep them, so do you think they will skyrocket? Is it better to hold a set of them instead of selling for 30$?
Francesco
It depends if you will be playing them or not. I personally would keep a set or two and just keep making money while you can.
Well, I don't play Legacy, so I don't really need them to play. Anyway, beeing a card so old and powerful I agree that it may be worth holding a set and seeing what happens while time goes. Thanks for the answer!
I love your articles. I follow you on twitter. I am typically on board with you, and I hate dredge….but…..I don’t understand why you feel modern will fail I know a lot of people excited about this format. It helps people who don’t like (or want to spend the money on) legacy play with more variety and larger card pool. Wotc will do what they can to fuel it because they can make money from reprinting everything they want in it. Curious why you are so down on it? Thanks.
I dislike Modern because it is a format that is only fixable by banning cards. In legacy we have great cards such as Force of Will and even Daze that keep the degenerate combo decks in check. Modern does not have this. Also I agree that wizards will support modern but they will continue to destroy its value by reprinting a ton of cards. When modern was at its peak it wasn't terribly more expensive than legacy. Modern is doomed to be a PT, GP, and PTQ format because of the combo decks and lack of local support.
I can see your point here. However, how do you feel the format will develop in terms of player/brewer support? It seems that it is possible to break those combo decks and make the format (like it currently is) aggro vs combo, neither really interacting with each other. What if this is what people want?
why do you feel wizard reprinting a ton of modern staples to destroy the format. I feel this is a great way to encourage more people to play it as it becomes more affordable, similar to how standard is the easiest format to get into due to constant cracking of new packs and relative ease of finding cards for decks. Furthermore, wizard supporting the format allows the metagame to keep evolving and allows new decks to be shaped and formed; thus keeping the interest in the game.
The game isn't dying anytime soon. From a financial standpoint reprinting staples is bad for the game. Look at Yu-gi-oh as a great example. Yu-gi reprints cards constantly and kills the prices. If cards decrease in value enough the value of cracking packs will decrease and eventually dry up the game.