Snop Keep – Dredge

Welcome to another edition of Snop Keep, in which we go through a number of hands and decide whether to keep or mulligan.  After receiving some feedback on this article last time, I have decided to change the format of this a little, from now on we will be looking at hands from the same deck against different matchups.  To start off, we will be playing Modern Dredge, using Aaron’s sideboard guide from last week as a basis, you can check that out here. Make sure to let me know in the comments what your decisions were, whether you thought they were difficult and if you disagreed with me I would love to hear why.

http://articles.trolltradercards.com/2017/07/22/dredge-download-beating-the-hate/

Hand 1: Against Affinty, you are on the play in game 2.

Mulligan.

I think this hand is close, but you do not have a quick enough hand to race a truly fast draw from Affinity.  You have no enablers and casting a Life from the Loam on turn 2 doesn’t seem fantastic.  Although Nature’s Claim has a strong upside of being able to destroy a Cranial Plating or another powerful card, the rest of your hand is not strong enough to keep this 7 on the play.  Ideally against affinity you want to see multiple of your red cards in your hand, especially Conflagrate, which is probably the best card in the matchup.

Hand 2: Against Burn, you are on the draw game 2.

Keep.

Collective Brutality is such a powerful card in this matchup, I feel that it is worth the risk of keeping a hand with no black mana.  You have 13 black sources in your deck, which gives you about a 73.5% chance of hitting a black source by your second draw step with the scry, this high percentage does not include the possibility of hitting a looting turn one or similar.  Once you manage to hit the black source, your hand begins to work, with Stinkweed Imp and Bloodghast in the graveyard.

Hand 3: Against Grixis Death’s Shadow, on the play, game 3. You opponent has mulliganed to 6.

Mulligan.

This is a tough one, Death’s Shadow has a large number of hand disruption spells which can quickly make this hand fall apart, which is what makes keeping this hand such a big risk.  Ideally, we would want to start with a turn 1 Faithless Looting, in order to get underneath a Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek, whereas, with this hand, even on the play we cannot cast anything before our opponent.  If this hand had a dredger instead of a land, I would be a lot more inclined to keep, as the risk / reward is a lot higher, but this hand is not worth the risk.

Hand 4: Against Storm, on the draw game 3. You opponent has mulliganed to 6.

Keep.

Lightning Axe in order to kill their Baral, Chief of Compliance or Goblin Electromancer should slow them down enough to make you have a good chance at winning this game.  Your hand is a dredger or enabler away from being great, and you have a scry and two draw steps in order to find one of these things.  

Hand 5: Against Titanshift, on the draw game 3, your opponent has mulliganed to 6.

Keep.

This hand is very strong if we manage to draw a black source, similar to another hand above.  You have a roughly 25% chance of a black source on turn 1 or a 50% of a black source on turn 2.  However, this hand is still fine with any land, which is roughly a 72% chance of hitting on turn 2.  You do not need to Thoughtseize on turn 1, however you need to be aware of Anger of the Gods before going all in on returning Prized Amalgams early on.  I feel if you draw a land early, and play it well, it is a strong hand against Titanshift.

Please let me know in the comments if there is a particular deck you would like to see featured in upcoming editions.

By George Worsnop
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