Hi all, I was thinking of going to my first vintage tournament later this month, and I was thinking of playing Pitch Dredge. I chose this because I cannot afford a full vintage deck, and when you factor in the 15 proxies my LGS allows it makes for a cheap vintage deck. Right now I am expecting a lot of Shops and Oath, with a bit of Landstill and Jeskai Mentor. I was wondering if you guys could help me tune my list to help it run smoothly, cheaply, and counter the current meta. I was thinking of running pitch dredge to help with the oath match-up, and to make me more resistant to hate. From my understanding the graveyard hate from the each archetype is as follows:
Landstill: Containment Priest + (Tormod's Crypt?)
Jeskai Mentor: Graffdiger's Cage + Containment Priest
Shops: Graffdigger's Cage + Tormod's Crypt
Oath: Tormod's Crypt?

Right now my list is looking something like this:

Spice (4):
4 Creeping Chill

The Basics (34):
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Bridge from Below
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Ichorid

Disruption (15):
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep

Mana (7):
2 Dakmor Salvage
4 Mana Confluence
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
1 Cabal Pit (Anti-Containment Priest)
4 Nature's Claim (Anti-hate)
2 Serenity (Anti-hate + anti-Shops)
4 Hollow One (Anti-hate)
4 Ravenous Trap (Anti-Oath)

I would appreciate any help that I can get, and I am happy to provide reasoning to any of my choices. Thank you.

@rat3de said in Help with Pitch Dredge:

From my understanding the graveyard hate from the each archetype is as follows:
Landstill: Containment Priest + (Tormod's Crypt?)
Jeskai Mentor: Graffdiger's Cage + Containment Priest
Shops: Graffdigger's Cage + Tormod's Crypt
Oath: Tormod's Crypt?

landstill, depending on color, can play RiP. jeskai can too, of course. shops may play relic in addition to/in place of crypt. oath favors crypt if it's an outcome or salvagers list, and otherwise might just be playing leylines.

how do you see rav trap as a card against oath? while it certainly does something against salvagers, yawgwill, etc it's not nearly enough to be worth a card in the matchup

@blindtherapy I thought that it would help minimize value gained from an oath activation, as one of the two oath lists I have looked at from my LGS runs YawgWill, and it could help if I happen to run into another dredge list (though I do not know if this is likely). What do you suggest I replace it with? I was thinking of putting some Abrupt Decays in the SB to help with the things like RiP or Containment Priest as they tend to be in more controlling lists and my removal may be more likely to be countered. Thank you for your feedback and let me know if you have anymore.

@rat3de against oath you either need to be killing them quickly, which is a matter of how much dread return and fatestitcher your maindeck has, or be able to kill the oath(with your cards to kill oath also hitting their hate). you already have claims, of course. serenity is bad against oath for obvious reasons, wispmare and decay(and i suspect trophy) are good. my current board, though not for a blue list and not playing hollow one, has 4 decay. sadly it doesn't kill leyline, but whether or not oath plays that varies.

a card i've wanted to try for a while but haven't is leyline of sanctity. counters oath, crypt, spellbomb, and tendrils.

@blindtherapy Would you recommend that I take out all four Ravenous Traps and replace them Abrupt Decays? I was also wondering anybody's opinion on Gurmag Angler in the SB. Do you have any advice or comments on the main?

On Oath:
In short, I think you are on the right track with Pitch Dredge for them, but you might want to consider some adjustment here. Longer response...

If they have Orchard and Oath then you will need a way to stop Oath from activating, or a way to answer the target (Ray of Revelation, Karakas, or a Force/Unmask). Dredge has too much difficulty trying to be a consistently a turn 2 deck, and that can actually still be too slow for them (making the only good answers having an opening hand Karakas or Force/Unmask).

As long as you have a way to win in 1 turn then just keeping your board clean, and biding your time works extremely effectively against an Oath if they don't have both Orchard+Oath. That makes non-may effects like Amalgam and Bridge from Below worse in that match up, while Narc/Ghast/Ichorid/ect are much better in those matchups. That said, winning in 1 turn is certainly much easier with a large number of Dread Returns, and either Sun Titan or Griselbrand to set up your kill.

On Landstill:
This matchup isn't complicated. If you have a good plan for Wasteland its probably a good match up (Loam / Pet field), if you don't then its not going to be a good matchup.

On Jeskai:
I think this is where Pitch Dredge shines. Jeskai in my experience usually runs Rest in Peace, which is almost impossible to overcome if it resolves. Your best shot is stopping it before that happens. This deck can also run a variety of different Dredge hate and having flexible anti-hate really helps.

On Workshops:
Ancient Grudge, Ancient Grudge, and more Ancient Grudge. Along with the whole good answer to wasteland thing (Loam / Pet field). Pitch is not the best against them as you can't really beat them by just stopping one spell so you have to look at some complementary pieces to cover that match up.

@rat3de

Remove the traps. Move your Confluence to the sideboard, and add better cards to the main deck.

Angler won't really help that much with any of the decks that you just described (except maybe shops?), but Hollow one and Angler more shine in the matchups against Creature-Based decks, where they are larger than all of your opponents threats.

@vaughnbros Would you recommend a list something like this?

Spice (4):
4 Creeping Chill

The Basics (34):
4 Bloodghast
4 Narcomoeba
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Bridge from Below
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Serum Powder
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Ichorid

Disruption (15):
3 Mindbreak Trap
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep

Mana (7):
2 Dakmor Salvage
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Petrified Field
2 Mana Confluence

Sideboard(15):
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Nature's Claim Serenity
4 Hollow One
2 Mana Confluence
2 Petrified Field

@rat3de

It should do okay in the meta that you described. Good luck!

@vaughnbros Thank you for your help. If anybody else has any advice, please let me know.

I'm really digging all the advice being given in this thread. Thanks for starting it, @Rat3dE!

If you're anticipating a lot of Shops, remember that Cabal Therapy is pretty lousy against them, and there's also an argument for cutting Bridge in post-board games. Between Ravager and Ballista your Bridges aren't long for this world.

@oestrus Thank you. Would you, or anyone else mind helping me with sideboard plans for the match-ups I am expecting?

I can't imagine that Creeping Chill is where you want to be because its best case scenario is bolting your opponent's face once. If you want spice, I can instead suggest:

1. Noxious Revival: I love this card, and it's quite good both in the maindeck, because you can play sick tricks alongside Bazaar, as well as the sideboard, where it can help you beat wastelands, surgical, and cage (by recycling anti-hate)
2. Dread Return: This is a good option to beat Oath and otherwise accelerate your clock. I always played it with 1 wispmare and 1 ingot chewer, but aggressive targets wortk too.

I appreciate your feedback, but I have to disagree. Creeping Chill may not be very good, but I would like to argue that it has some utility in that it dodges most hate, and can help you get your opponent down to hasty Bloodghast range. I have to admit Noxious Revival does look fun, but it also less optimal than many other options. Firstly it can be pretty slow, and it gets hit by Mental Misstep. Also, if I am worried about Wasteland and such, then I can just run some number of Life from the Loam or Petrified Field (which I am already doing). Now for Dread-Return, I think that it is an amazing card in Dredge, but I would not really consider it to be spice, as it is in probably 90% of builds, and it tends to be quite weak post-sideboarding. If you have any counterarguments I would love to hear them!

@rat3de it doesn't necessarily dodge most hate; it dodges cage and priest, and can cause people to have to trigger crypt effects.

@blindtherapy
Creeping Chill also buys you some time. If you put 2 in the graveyard on turn two they can only activate Griselbrand once and have a harder time killing you that turn.

@blindtherapy And the rest of your cards dont dodge Priest or Cage in this build so you have to remove them anyway.

Do you guys have any advice for me? I know that @vaughnbros and @BlindTherapy have both already given me some, but if any of you guys have any more suggestions I would be more than happy to hear them.