Dredge veteran here. It's cool to see someone on the life from the loam plan, but I have some criticisms of the primer and your arguments for card choice.
First of all, I think that if you're going to include a 'basic gameplan' section of your primer, you might want to explain how cathartic reunion/thrilling discovery work with dredgers to create a dredge chain. This might not be obvious to a new player, and emphasises the need to have both an enabler and a dredger in an opening hand. Going over the interactions between narcomoeba, amalgam, ghoul, chill etc. might also be helpful.
Secondly, your arguments for card choice.
1. You mention that blue versions of the deck have less keepable hands due to their mana base. However, if you look at stock lists with blue, their manabases pretty much always have 15 blue sources, or every land except their blood crypts and sacred foundries. Your list only has 13 sources of green and 13 of white, so as far as mana bases go, yours is actually less likely to have mana for thrilling discovery/life from the loam than a stock list is to have mana for gaze/scour.
2. I would argue that blue lists actually have *more* keepable hands, since a hand with just a shriekhorn is not really keepable, but in a pinch, a hand with just an otherworldly gaze is keepable since you can use it to filter into another enabler and cast it for flashback.
3. While you are correct that a shriekhorn mills more cards than a tome scour, and does it cheaper than an otherworldly gaze, you've missed an important point. Milling cards in dredge favours milling cards in larger chunks, for two reasons. Firstly, milling more cards up front on turn 1 increases your chances of hitting a dredge card, and being able to dredge for your turn 2 draw step. Secondly, and more importantly, cards milled need to 'see' each other. A prized amalgam needs to 'see' other creatures enter, and a ghoul needs to 'see' a creeping chill. If a shriekhorn mills a creeping chill on turn 1, and then a silversmote ghoul and a narcomoeba on turn 2, and then a prized amalgam on turn 3, you can see how that's significantly worse than a tome scour milling them all together on turn 1.
4. While the loam plan gives you some lategame, by the time you've cast all your enablers and have mana left to start recasting a life from the loam, the stock list instead puts that mana into otherworldly gaze and ox of agonas. These cards tend to have a much greater immediate impact, which helps the deck's primary goal of being a fast aggro deck.
Sorry to hit you with so much criticism, overall you've got a really good primer, and it's great to see people making content for one of my favourite decks that often doesn't get much attention these days. I think overall the power of filtering draws with otherworldly gaze is incredible, and even sticking with the loam plan, gaze is so much better than shriekhorn.
Full agree with you here also a dredge player from 2015, you wrote this and now I don't have to. Thank you for your service, and you wrote it better than I would have I'm sure. One thing though, shriekhorn not maw ;) Horn always felt super clunky even in the days when it was approaching stock. Merchant of the vale for that shriekhorn role. But Gaze lists just work better in a post looting world. I too am a Loam stan but the card even when i've fit it into a list in the past few years felt like a pet card over actual needed value like a darkblast.
I honestly haven't played the blue version much cuz I only played the deck a few times since gaze came out... but just seeing a loam list with 3 Shriekhorn 0 Copperline Gorge seems crazy to me haha.
Again I'm stoked to see you even did the wire up though op, appreciate it.
Thank you for all of your criticisims! I think you bring up some good points. I might argue that the card quality of Life from the Loam is something I've always considered when thinking about Loam vs Gaze. Gaze is a great enabler (and a fine way to spend mana later), but isn't Life from the Loam better in the second scenario, and just a little worse than Gaze in the first?
I think when I mention keepable hands, I'm thinking that hands that do contain a single Shriekhorn have been fine. I might also say that the missing 2 green/white sources have been cut for more enablers and payoffs than the stock list. I guess I'm gambiting a bit on mana in order to keep more hands based on the strength of having more consistency with powerful draws. I also wanted to ask if you thought it could be possible to run a list with Loam and Gaze, maybe cutting the Shriekhorns and the Blood Crypt (?) for the Gazes and Steam Vents. It seems like something that could have legs. I realize I didn't explicitly say all of my concerns about mulliganing with the blue versions in my initial draft!
I just added a section on Dredging with a Cathartic effect! Thanks for that note!
I think it's definitely possible to make a list with both loam and gaze. A manabase something along the lines of the following could be good:
* 4x City of Brass
* 4x Mana Confluence
* 5-6x Red Fetchlands
* 1x Blood Crypt
* 1x Steam Vents
* 1x Stomping Ground
* 1x Sacred Foundry
Then if you decided on only 5 fetchlands, you could add an extra shock of your choice. I would probably recommend against forgotten cave in a 5 colour list, it's just not worth it vs the colours you need.
"Usually, I like to activate a turn 1 Shriekhorn on my opponent's 2nd Main Phase, which gives you a chance to hit a Narcomoeba and a Prized Amalgam or a Creeping Chill and a Silversmote Ghoul."
Read Silversmote Ghoul again.
Dredge veteran here. It's cool to see someone on the life from the loam plan, but I have some criticisms of the primer and your arguments for card choice. First of all, I think that if you're going to include a 'basic gameplan' section of your primer, you might want to explain how cathartic reunion/thrilling discovery work with dredgers to create a dredge chain. This might not be obvious to a new player, and emphasises the need to have both an enabler and a dredger in an opening hand. Going over the interactions between narcomoeba, amalgam, ghoul, chill etc. might also be helpful. Secondly, your arguments for card choice. 1. You mention that blue versions of the deck have less keepable hands due to their mana base. However, if you look at stock lists with blue, their manabases pretty much always have 15 blue sources, or every land except their blood crypts and sacred foundries. Your list only has 13 sources of green and 13 of white, so as far as mana bases go, yours is actually less likely to have mana for thrilling discovery/life from the loam than a stock list is to have mana for gaze/scour. 2. I would argue that blue lists actually have *more* keepable hands, since a hand with just a shriekhorn is not really keepable, but in a pinch, a hand with just an otherworldly gaze is keepable since you can use it to filter into another enabler and cast it for flashback. 3. While you are correct that a shriekhorn mills more cards than a tome scour, and does it cheaper than an otherworldly gaze, you've missed an important point. Milling cards in dredge favours milling cards in larger chunks, for two reasons. Firstly, milling more cards up front on turn 1 increases your chances of hitting a dredge card, and being able to dredge for your turn 2 draw step. Secondly, and more importantly, cards milled need to 'see' each other. A prized amalgam needs to 'see' other creatures enter, and a ghoul needs to 'see' a creeping chill. If a shriekhorn mills a creeping chill on turn 1, and then a silversmote ghoul and a narcomoeba on turn 2, and then a prized amalgam on turn 3, you can see how that's significantly worse than a tome scour milling them all together on turn 1. 4. While the loam plan gives you some lategame, by the time you've cast all your enablers and have mana left to start recasting a life from the loam, the stock list instead puts that mana into otherworldly gaze and ox of agonas. These cards tend to have a much greater immediate impact, which helps the deck's primary goal of being a fast aggro deck. Sorry to hit you with so much criticism, overall you've got a really good primer, and it's great to see people making content for one of my favourite decks that often doesn't get much attention these days. I think overall the power of filtering draws with otherworldly gaze is incredible, and even sticking with the loam plan, gaze is so much better than shriekhorn.
Full agree with you here also a dredge player from 2015, you wrote this and now I don't have to. Thank you for your service, and you wrote it better than I would have I'm sure. One thing though, shriekhorn not maw ;) Horn always felt super clunky even in the days when it was approaching stock. Merchant of the vale for that shriekhorn role. But Gaze lists just work better in a post looting world. I too am a Loam stan but the card even when i've fit it into a list in the past few years felt like a pet card over actual needed value like a darkblast.
I honestly haven't played the blue version much cuz I only played the deck a few times since gaze came out... but just seeing a loam list with 3 Shriekhorn 0 Copperline Gorge seems crazy to me haha. Again I'm stoked to see you even did the wire up though op, appreciate it.
\+1 happy cake day :D
Thank you for all of your criticisims! I think you bring up some good points. I might argue that the card quality of Life from the Loam is something I've always considered when thinking about Loam vs Gaze. Gaze is a great enabler (and a fine way to spend mana later), but isn't Life from the Loam better in the second scenario, and just a little worse than Gaze in the first? I think when I mention keepable hands, I'm thinking that hands that do contain a single Shriekhorn have been fine. I might also say that the missing 2 green/white sources have been cut for more enablers and payoffs than the stock list. I guess I'm gambiting a bit on mana in order to keep more hands based on the strength of having more consistency with powerful draws. I also wanted to ask if you thought it could be possible to run a list with Loam and Gaze, maybe cutting the Shriekhorns and the Blood Crypt (?) for the Gazes and Steam Vents. It seems like something that could have legs. I realize I didn't explicitly say all of my concerns about mulliganing with the blue versions in my initial draft! I just added a section on Dredging with a Cathartic effect! Thanks for that note!
\*edit, is the cut Stomping Ground for the Vents?
I think it's definitely possible to make a list with both loam and gaze. A manabase something along the lines of the following could be good: * 4x City of Brass * 4x Mana Confluence * 5-6x Red Fetchlands * 1x Blood Crypt * 1x Steam Vents * 1x Stomping Ground * 1x Sacred Foundry Then if you decided on only 5 fetchlands, you could add an extra shock of your choice. I would probably recommend against forgotten cave in a 5 colour list, it's just not worth it vs the colours you need.
"Usually, I like to activate a turn 1 Shriekhorn on my opponent's 2nd Main Phase, which gives you a chance to hit a Narcomoeba and a Prized Amalgam or a Creeping Chill and a Silversmote Ghoul." Read Silversmote Ghoul again.
Got it! I updated the primer. Thanks! This is a good argument against Shriekhorn, I think.
https://discord.com/invite/SKh2T97R
Link is invalid :(
How do you dump cards Turn 1 to fish for turn 2 Ox ? From the decklist I don't think it is possible. Your only turn 1 play is Shriekhorn to mill 2.
You'd have to hit a dredger off shriekhorn in your top 4, dredge for T2 draw, and then you could potentially T2 Ox.
Tron Primer?