Worlds 2009 Standard Deck List: Standard Dredge by Michael Jacob
November 21, 2009 | Posted by Dee
About two weeks ago, 2006 Player of the Year Shouta Yasooka surprised the MTG Standard community with a Dredge Deck that went 4-0 in an MTGO Standard Daily. You can check out his list at this link. It’s the second deck on the page.
His deck featured Hedron Crabs and Traumatizes to mill yourself. And then, you usually won with one or two big turns by unearthing a bunch of creatures. Crypt of Agadeem was very important in the deck because it allowed you to generate a lot of mana.
Michael Jacob took the list, made some modifications to make the combo faster, and then went 4-2 with the deck in the Standard portion of Worlds. In this video, he talks about his deck and what makes it work.
| Standard Dredge | |||||||||||
Creatures (29)
Spells (9) | Lands (22)
Sideboard (15) |
| |||||||||
Deck Analysis From the Video
Tome Scour is better than Traumatize. If you don’t have Crypt of Agadeem in your opening hand, Tome Scour lets you find it more quickly with Grim Discovery. This is very important because it’s basically impossible to win without Crypt of Agadeem.
Typically, you win with two big turns. The first turn you don’t deal enough damage but you wreck their hand with Rotting Rats and Sedraxis Specter. Also, in the first turn, you mill yourself with Extractor Demon when you unearth creatures leave the battlefield EOT. The milling from Extractor fuels your second turn, where you deal enough damage to kill them.
Against decks with Wall of Denial and Baneslayer or the Nissa Monument deck, sometimes the best strategy is to mill them with multiple Extractor Demons and a bunch of other unearth creatures. These decks may have too many blockers or lifegain that you can’t deal enough damage to kill them.
Some people think Consume Spirit should be in the deck but it’s hard to find space since you don’t want to cut too many black creatures. Also, Consume Spirit slows down the deck. Michael was able to kill on turn four in one game. It’s tough to do that if you have slower cards like Consume Spirit.
Michael had 3 Ponders at one point but he replaced them with more black creatures to make more mana with Crypt.
He tried out Kederekt Leviathan and Corpse Connoisseur but they were too slow. His aim is a turn five kill and those two cards don’t work toward that goal.
Fatestitcher is helps you generate a lot of mana by untapping Crypt. It also gives you a way to win on the same turn when you play Crypt since Crypt comes onto the battlefield tapped.
Sedraxis Specter is a card you don’t usually see in Crypt decks. It’s a black creature for Crypt. The deck has a Mountain and 4 Scalding Tarns so you can hardcast it. It’s good in games two and three because some players board out removal for graveyard hate. This leaves them vulnerable to an early Specter.
The Mountain allows you to cycle Monstrous Carabid if you’re looking for black mana.
Regarding the sideboard, Deathmarks are good against Putrid Leech and Baneslayer.
Kederekt Leviathan is good against decks that you have to mill to win. When you play it with Extractor, you can trigger Extractor’s ability on their own creatures as well your own.
Blister Beetle comes in against Boros Bushwhacker. It kills Steppe Lynx, Plated Geopede, and Elite Vanguard and then chump blocks to save you life. Also, it’s a black creature for Crypt.
Spreading Seas is for Jund. You use it to keep them off red mana so they can’t cast Jund Charm or Goblin Ruinblaster. Also, the blue enchantment is good in the mirror match to stop other Crypts.
Immortal Coil comes in against Boros Bushwhacker and Mono Red Aggro. They are terrible matchups because they can kill one turn faster than you. But Immortal Coil slows them down by giving you a lot of life since you usually have a stocked graveyard by turn four. And you can keep filling your graveyard in later turns to stay alive.
Immortal Coil stops the lifegain of cards like Baneslayer and Rhox War Monk and it’s great against aggro decks that have no way to interact with your graveyard.
9 Responses to “Worlds 2009 Standard Deck List: Standard Dredge by Michael Jacob”
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y not play the grixis slave driver
Well, on the stack to the above question, the Slavedriver unearths for 4 mana and does 4 ground damage
Extractor Demon unearths for 3, which can be a bit much sometimes, and does 5 damage that is flying plus it’s mill effect.
Sedraxis Specter unearths for 2, and does 3 damage flying and it also hurts their hand.
Slavedriver doesn’t really help the combo, and all you get is a single 2/2 Zombie that can only really chump block.
I love this deck, once I saw it I ordered all of the cards (minus fetchlands, which I traded for) from Troll and Toad. It cost me forty bucks, and it is the funnest deck I’ve played with. Every time I’ve used it, minus a couple of mana screws, I either win on turn 5 or 6, and not many people at the shop I go to runs sideboards, let alone graveyard hate.
I think this is going to become the thing to beat at my shop.
This is a cool deck. I have been running a couple of different variations just to see it possibilities. Its nice to see that someone has pulled a clever combination going against all the straight forward in standard right now.
oh ok thank you. im still havin some trouble playing it but i just got the cards today. i think its fun to play
this is a good wrench to throw in the current metagame of jund vs. blue white control. how would they sideboard against this deck?
pithing needle or spreading seas may answer a crypt of agadeem, which the deck hinges on.
i think this might be at the top of a list of tier 2 sleeper decks.
Actually, I think the deck has a bad matchup to UW Control because of Tectonic Edge. But it seems to have an improved matchup against Jund (maybe 55/45) because Jund Charm has left most Jund sideboards. Still, a turn two Leech is a big problem.
i think bloodghast has a place in this deck… free creatures every turn is very helpful.
[...] Dredgevine decklist to a top four finish at a 5K tournament with 232 players. Like the previous graveyard deck in Standard, Dredgevine is great against slow control decks, solid against midrange decks, and [...]
The Monstrous Carabid puzzles me – with very little red mana, no unearth, and it won’t be cast – isn’t there a better creature to use just for cycling and perhaps a creature that is pro-white and has flying such as Malakir Bloodwitch? You even gain one life and they lose one life when Bloodwitch comes into play.
Also I added Corrupted Zendikon – I use it on a Crypt of Agadeem to return it to my hand if it is destroyed, but better than that, in place of Fate Stitcher, I run Tideforce Elemental which not only allows me to tap or untap the Crypt, I can untap my creatures and tap my opponent’s creature if need be.
With a timely landfall it gets to untap! That means you have a super-turbo charged mana Crypt!