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Jan 23, 2012 -- 1:00PM, igri_is_a_bk wrote:

Jan 23, 2012 -- 12:37PM, MadAdmiral wrote:

@igri:  I don't see how you can say you don't have to mulligan aggresively to get to your anti-hate.  You can't sit there and do nothing for several turns while you wait for the Thug to be played and die.

Sit there and do nothing? I'm dredging. I can still dredge under Cage. If a black mana is necessary, I include 1 or 2 Dakmor Salvage . If my opponent wont attack into Thug, I can access Darkblast in the turns he isn't attacking me. These aren't even stretches of the imagination. The odds of dredge digging out an arbitrary card is much better than you finding Cage in the first place.

why darkblast? yeah, you get the dredge 3, but if you need to hit someone, firestorm is better, just pitch an imp or a grave troll, and do damage, not to mention if you killed one of their creatures, it's goodbye bridges.

Cage stops Narcomoeba, you're right about that. Here are my thoughts on it. If Cage is already in play, then you have to start dredging. Not getting Narco's trigger does suck, but the alternative of losing sucks more. Actually, there is a bit of compensation for Narcomoeba if I have to go Thug into Chewer. I'll get two warm bodies to die and Bridges still trigger, which means I'll have tokens in play the turn that Cage is blown up. At that point, I can start flashing Dread Return and Therapy to lock the game up. That's my plan, supplemented by Nature's Claim or Chain of Vapor.

You do use Nature's Claim. For future LED versions, you can bring in 4 Claim, 2 Chewer & 2 Tarnished Citadel, depending on how much hate they bring in game two. (tip: watch them board) Dredging up Thug and killing it off isn't complicated. Unless they never want to attack on the ground, they're going to give me several turns to answer their hate. Darkblast and Salvage might be complicated, but they do progress the deck and have been used in the past and could be used in the future. My whole point is that dredge has lots of options and some are still unexplored.

Dredge doesn't have to completely blow out the opponent to get the win. A lot of dredge players don't play the deck correctly when you have to take it slow. That might sound arrogant, but I've been playing it for 14 months and have noticed how often people leave in Breakthrough in the wrong matchups, as an example.

Luckily for us, if it doesn't work out game two, you get a third. Side back into the original list (mostly) and blow them out with a Therapy or LED shenanigans.

I can't believe you're so scared of an artifact. It's just going to be popular once it comes out, but I don't think it's stronger than Crypt or Relic, only different. People will want to play with it simply because it's the new thing. Then, its popularity will slowly recede. Legacy is one big fashion trend, if you've noticed.

Jan 23, 2012 -- 6:44PM, igri_is_a_bk wrote:

I can't believe you're so scared of an artifact. It's just going to be popular once it comes out, but I don't think it's stronger than Crypt or Relic, only different. People will want to play with it simply because it's the new thing. Then, its popularity will slowly recede. Legacy is one big fashion trend, if you've noticed.

one thing you have to consider are the players who either get greedy with their sideboards, or try to have a solution for /every/ deck in the metagame. this is one of those things that 2-3 in your sideboard can be used as a solution to a lot of decks.


like MadAdmiral said, it's cheap to obtain, and is bound to be everywhere singles are sold. it may or may not be a mainstay for long but who knows, I can expect a lot of players to side them, and get greedy with them, along with their wheels and tormod's crypts.

I'm not starting a debate here, but I genuinely don't think Cage is harder to stop than Relic or Crypt. I don't use Grudge, so it's really not any different to me. The fact I can dredge against it makes me think it's weaker than the older artifacts.

I thought about it for a while too. The reason I stopped playing Grudge was that people learned to prevent me from dredging in the first place with their hate, rather than using it when they thought was the opportune time. They figured that out from getting beat even with hate on their side. That's why I'm confident in my ability to beat Cage, since I get to progress my game plan, while finding what I need. This is a luxury I didn't have before. 

I'm still siding in six anti-artifact cards, so I can still peel one in my opening seven and just blow the game open. All my eggs aren't in the "dredge despite narco" basket.