Dies to Removal

Alright, I'll post a real deck this time.

[deck]Standard GB Dredge[/deck]
Creatures - 30
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Nemesis of Mortals
2 Deadbridge Goliath
2 Sylvan Primordial
4 Slum Reaper
4 Shadowborn Demon
2 Nighthowler

Spells - 8
2 Whip of Erebos
3 Commune with the Gods
3 Grisly Salvage

Land - 22
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Golgari Guildgate
9 Forest
5 Swamp

Sideboard
4 Lifebane Zombie
4 Pithing Needle
4 Mistcutter Hydra
3 Gaze of Granite [/deck]

The deck plays easily enough; using Satyr, Salvage, and Commune, you fill up the graveyard with fairly pointless guys, and then either land an early Nemesis of Mortals or you get to ignore the downside of Shadowborn Demon. Whip keeps your life total up while allowing you to get a first/second chance to
use those ETB abilities. Getting to 4 guys in your bin by turn 4 is generally easy enough to drop down a 2-mana 5/5 Nemesis and make it a 10/10 by turn 6, and sacrificing a creature to Demon if you don't have the prerequisite 6 creatures in your graveyard usually only means losing a mana dork, or more often than not I found myself sacrificing a Deadbridge or Reaper to get extra utility out of them.

Why no abhorrent overlord?

Look at the Junk Reanimator lists, they're damned annoying on MTGO

Curious about the thoughts on these cards:

Varolz, the Scar-Striped - Keeps your curve low. Let's you utilize all the creatures in your graveyard.
Lotleth Troll - Gives you another way to fuel your graveyard.
Pack Rat - Same as above with less restriction on what you pitch.
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Bestow Nighthowler on Sylvan Caryatid and then fling it at the opponent over a stalled board.

Played against a version of this at the GPT I attended. It was pretty damn mean. He definitely was running Nemesis, Nighthowler along with Jarad and Herald of Torment.

@imopen: Overlord was one of the tougher cuts I made when I was building; originally, the choice was between him and the second Sylvan Primordial, and I decided to go with the Primordial as a way to give me more reach vs. an opposing Whip or PWs, as well as the fact that there's no guarantee you're really going to have that much black devotion when he comes out. I feel that was correct, as Primordial does a great job saving your ass, but with the rise of Monsters as a deck I'll be watching Overlord closely.
Alternatively, you could easily pull a Deadbridge or Nemesis for him, but I face enough aggro in my local meta that I didn't want to reduce the chances of that sweet, sweet turn 3 5/5 that they have such a problem playing around.

@Scralty: I wanted to get away from the Junk version of this deck. First, I was entirely unimpressed with Obzedat in the deck; even with "the Whip trick,&
quot; he's just a good guy who doesn't move your game plan forward any faster than, say, Overlord. Blood Baron, on the other hand, is amazeballs right now, and I was hesitant to cut him, but overall in playtesting the CIPT lands and shocklands lost more games vs. aggro than Blood Baron could justify. I would definitely consider the Junk version once the format calms back the fuck down from this "OMG 14 damage turns!" bender the whole of the Magic world seems to be on right now. If nothing else, I'm excited for the tools that Nyx will be bringing to the deck (the B/G scry land, at least).

@Xanatos:
Varolz - is terrible here. On curve, he's completely outclassed by several different 5/5's or bigger, and pulling creatures out of your graveyard is worse than just leaving them there for fuel.
Pack Rat - this guy, on the other hand, is great in the deck, and was by far the closest shave I made. Originally, I had him in place of Deadbridge Goliath[/c:
23u7vh8u] as a 2-of, and in playtesting he often dominated the game (and 2 of them is all you need, really). Deadbridge made the cut over him for 2 reasons: 1) Pack Rat is a boogeyman, and it's pretty common to say "Hey, how to we answer Pack Rat?" when building a deck, and people are used to either having that answer or playing around him, and 2) I'm totes in love with dropping 5/5's on the 3rd turn to answer aggro (especially with a whip the following turn, how does aggro even win against that?). You mentioned taking over a locked-up board, if you're worried about that over getting aggro'd out Pack Rat should be your go-to there, imo. That being said, there are times when you won't have something good to chuck to Rat; yeah, you can bring Demon & co. back with whip but a lot of the time you'll want to just cast them and win instead.
Jarad, Lotleth - there's another version of the deck that I came across that I really like:
[deck]Judge Dredge[/deck]

{Approximation. If you don't want the white, substituting [c]Nighthowler for Sin Collector and any good guy for Blood Baron would be okay, I think; also, Shadowborn isn't nearly as good here so his slots are up for grabs if you want)

This version of the deck sacrifices dig for (a lot more) aggression, and requires a little more luck to hit what you need when you need it, but maintains the deck's inherent stability and playability. Turn 1 Elf turn 2 Lotleth-pitch-pitch-pitch-maybe regenerate turn 3 Nemesis (or pitch-nemesis-mana back to regenerate) or turn 3 Jarad should be enough on board to win you the game right there. I'm hesitant to switch over to this version myself, because I'm used to getting screwed over by the luck of the draw, but this is a very strong deck in and of itself. One last comment, though,
I've found that having a stalled board state isn't very common with the deck... you're usually going to have enough board presence to keep punching through 5+ damage a turn once you're rolling.

Edit- one suggestion, if you find yourself in a situation where you don't have the elf turn 1 it's still probably correct to drop the Lolteth turn 2 even if you can't regenerate him. Even if they do have the removal, he just another guy in the GY for you to use later.

I'm playing the version of the deck that BBD had in his recent versus video. He actually got it from an IQ here in Charlotte from a guy that plays at our shop, which he played against in the semis. His list is here, the third place list.

I'm playing a slight variation on it, because I wasn't impressed with Deathrite Shaman.

[deck]Dredge[/deck]
Creatures (33)
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Herald of Torment
2 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Nemesis of Mortals
4 Nighthowler
3 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Sylvan Caryatid

Instant (4)
4 Grisly Salvage

Sorcery (3)
3 Commune with the Gods

Mana (20)
7 Forest
7 Swamp
2 Golgari Guildgate
4 Overgrown Tomb

Sideboard (15)
1 Bow of Nyela
2 Whip of Erebos
3 Shadowborn Demon
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Golgari Charm
4 Thoughtseize
[
/deck]

The sideboard is a bunch of bad cards. I should find real ones, but honestly I mostly just bring in the Thoughtseize and Demons for almost everything. Golgari Charms come in for UWx.

Yar, Deathrite is pretty inconsistent. Once every few games, he facilitates some really silly plays or pulls in the last few damage for you, but most games he's just worse than most anything else that could be in his slots. As of right now, I'm kind of enjoying playing with him as a sort of damage magnet/shock-and-awe play vs. bad people who think that since he's banned in Modern he's something to fear in Standard, but above the FNM level I'd have to expect to see an awful lot of mirror matches to make him worthwhile (which, to be fair, he is amazeballs in the mirror).
I'm having the same problem with my SB as you are, seems like every game I actually care about I just side into Lifebane Zombies and call it good since I'm running 2x Demon in the main. I've had success with Mistcutter Hydra coming in vs. ... anything with blue in it, but it's almost win-more to do
so, since the early diverse threats the deck comes out with can often overwhelm them without needing the silver bullet. I don't really like maindecking Reaper of the Wilds, as they don't advance the primary goals of the deck as well as Demon, so I've got them in the side as well as a sort of quasi-transformational SB when I think they're going to side into Scavenging Ooze or Rest in Peace.

I kind of want to play an extra Jarad, he's really good since I play in a meta with a BUNCH of RUG, RG, and Jund monsters, where their primary objective is to build up a huge blockade and durdle until they find the advantage. Demon is alright, I like him a little better than Reaper of the Wilds, but Reaper is also very good against monsters so I can't fathom parting ways with it.

I've literally never run into Rest in Peace but I suppose if the deck gets significantly better after Journey Into Nyx (thanks to the scrylands) then there might be a possibility that the card sees play. I did have a guy Pithing Needle my Nemesis of Mortals in one game, which was pretty funny. ;o

Ah, yup. My LGS is chock full of aggro and mono-black. My main objectives have been board control and lots and lots of fat creatures; in most of the situations where Reaper was relevant, Pack Rat was just doing it better (and I cut him too). I've seen a few people who have had RIP in their SB just for the same problem we're having, their SB is just a big ol' pile once you get past the 4-8 spells they bring in every single time. Ooze has been more problematic, but I'm starting to get comfortable enough with the deck to make playing him awkward.. landing an early threat outclasses him, and if he comes down too late he just dies.

Does this deck have an obviously bad matchup in the current meta? It must do OK against UWx control and MBD. It's pretty solid against burn. Does it just die to aggro? Or it pretty OK against everything but sometimes dies to itself like a good combo deck?

This deck makes me smile.

Does this deck have an obviously bad matchup in the current meta? It must do OK against UWx control and MBD. It's pretty solid against burn. Does it just die to aggro? Or it pretty OK against everything but sometimes dies to itself like a good combo deck?

Don't know what it's overall matchups look like, but the deck can't beat multiple detention spheres, seems soft to early aggression, and probably folds to scavenging ooze. At least that's my experience playing AGAINST dredge.

Detention Sphere is rough but you actually are fine against early aggression, you're playing Caryatid and Mystics, plus disposable 1drops. You almost want them to attack into your Wayfinders.

So anybody got any insights as to how this decks performing post Nyx?

Once i've sussed out how to put a deck list up i'll share what i'm running at the mo along with some of my thoughts about certain card choices. In the meantime i'd love to hear how my fellow dredgers are getting on.

I need to get GB Scrys before I put any more testing into the deck. I've been off of Magic for a few weeks now, had some other stuff going on.