Hymn, IoK and thoughtsieze are basically always powerful. Therapy and Twist you have to put a bit more effort into, but they are very efficient when they are good.
As someone who's been playing Dredge, Nic Fit and esper Stoneblade I cant tell you how good it feels to blind hit 2 cards, flashback and hit 2 more. 1 Mana and 1 card for 4 cards, and in nic fit or dredge actually benefiting from the sac, it's awesome.
Has anyone thought of putting One with Nothing in dredge? Seems like a nice way to dump your hand.
Back in late 2011/early 2012 me and a couple people in my playgroup at the time were trying to make a Dredge deck work in Modern. It either went really well or really horribly, and I suggested putting One With Nothing in. Unfortunately it still did rather mediocre. In Legacy you have the much better option of Lion's Eye Diamond, but I imagine One With Nothing it may be too inefficient as a card in your hand that does nothing and can end up only sitting there, as that was the issue in the Modern version we were testing.
Has anyone thought of putting One with Nothing in dredge? Seems like a nice way to dump your hand.
Because Breakthrough is better. Being blue is better for Cephalid Coliseum. Drawing cards is better when you have dredgers in the yard. Being able to make X = 1 allows you to keep anti-hate in your hand.
The best discard spell is cabal therapy in the hands of a skilled player. At the absolute worst (where you have to flash it back) it's a thoughtseize that sacs a creature instead of pays life. The biggest downside is you need to know the metagame, decklists, and have an idea what to name in each matchup to properly use it. But if you know these things there's no real better option.
Thoughtseize Is probably second. Due to it taking any non-land card, showing you the opponent's hand, and having the additional cost of two life, which is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Inquisition of Kozilek Is third IFF you're playing legacy, where it acts like thoughtseize 90% of the time.
Hymn to Tourach comes next. Due to your inability to grab the specific cards you want, I can't really rank it above the other ones I listed... but as far as efficiency goes this card is also insane.
Dredge already has a ton of ways to get cards in the graveyard. Wasting a card slot on a card that does *ONLY* that is a pretty awful play.
The best discard spell is cabal therapy in the hands of a skilled player. At the absolute worst (where you have to flash it back) it's a thoughtseize that sacs a creature instead of pays life. The biggest downside is you need to know the metagame, decklists, and have an idea what to name in each matchup to properly use it. But if you know these things there's no real better option.
Thoughtseize Is probably second. Due to it taking any non-land card, showing you the opponent's hand, and having the additional cost of two life, which is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Inquisition of Kozilek Is third IFF you're playing legacy, where it acts like thoughtseize 90% of the time.
Hymn to Tourach comes next. Due to your inability to grab the specific cards you want, I can't really rank it above the other ones I listed... but as far as efficiency goes this card is also insane.
Dredge already has a ton of ways to get cards in the graveyard. Wasting a card slot on a card that does *ONLY* that is a pretty awful play.
Therapy is also amazing after hitting with a Inquisition or any that let you see their hand.
Not that it's on the same tier as Mind Twist, Hymn, Thoughtsieze, et al, but Mindslicer is possibly the best discard spell in a multiplayer environment, where targetted discard suffers even more than spot removal/counterspells. An early Mindslicer is almost always at worst a large deterrant against being attacked and at best wins you the game when you kill it and cripple everyone's developing hand while you proceed to play out of your graveyard.
Yeah, Cabal Therapy is leagues better than other options. The best thing about it is even if you whiff, it means they don't have the card you don't want them to. Also, for 1 mana, it is a potential two for one. The flashback doesn't even require mana!
After that Thoughtseize, Hymn, IOK, duress in no particular order.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Lycanthropy Awareness Day.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Honestly without a draw engine like Necro Unmask kinda sucks though.
Not really. I've actually played it in Pox a few times while I was trying to get my playest of IoK's and Unmask was spectacular. With the amount of discard and removal in the deck, you can quickly get to the point where you don't need one or the other and Unmask ends up giving you a lot of value. One game I actually managed to pull off a Dark Ritual into one of the Inquisitions I had acquired, then a Hymn, then played an Unmask. Granted, that was 6 cards out 7 in my hand on Turn 1, but they were pretty much neutered for the rest of the game following that. This was against Zoo when it was just Zoo instead of Canadian Threshold, and I managed to hit the only blue mana source in their hand, a mongoose, a goyf and a lightning bolt in one turn
My remaining card was a Swamp, but they didn't draw any more blue mana for a while so as soon as I dropped Liliana about three turns later it was GG. In other games with less ridiculous opening hands Unmask was still pretty awesome, though. More often than not I get a 3-mana Turn 1 play off. Dark Ritual into anything whether it's Liliana + Unmask on Turn 1, or some combination of Hymn + Inquisition (or Thoughtseize now) and Unmask. If they have a creature out, I'll pump out an Edict or Innocent Blood + Discard + Unmask. It's totally solid because so much of Pox is the same type of cards that you're about guaranteed to draw into an answer when you're low on cards.
If I had to rank the top 5 it'd probably be:
(big gap)
(another somewhat big gap)
Duress
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
Thoughtseize
Duress
Cabal Therapy
Hymn to tourach
mindtwist
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
How could I forget? Wow.
I played Dredge for 2 years in Legacy...and still forgot Therapy...:o
BGW Junk / URB Grixis Shadow / RGB Lantern Control / WUBCBant Eldrazi
Current Legacy decks
BUG Shardless BUG / UWR Predict Miracles / RUG Canadian Thresh / WRBG 4c Loam
UB Reanimator
My copies aren't in english so i was sitting here for a minute trying to remember the name.
(Also known as Xenphire)
1. Cabal Therapy
2. Mind Twist
3. Hymn
4. Thoughtseize
5. IoK
Hymn, IoK and thoughtsieze are basically always powerful. Therapy and Twist you have to put a bit more effort into, but they are very efficient when they are good.
As someone who's been playing Dredge, Nic Fit and esper Stoneblade I cant tell you how good it feels to blind hit 2 cards, flashback and hit 2 more. 1 Mana and 1 card for 4 cards, and in nic fit or dredge actually benefiting from the sac, it's awesome.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10650708#post10650708
Back in late 2011/early 2012 me and a couple people in my playgroup at the time were trying to make a Dredge deck work in Modern. It either went really well or really horribly, and I suggested putting One With Nothing in. Unfortunately it still did rather mediocre. In Legacy you have the much better option of Lion's Eye Diamond, but I imagine One With Nothing it may be too inefficient as a card in your hand that does nothing and can end up only sitting there, as that was the issue in the Modern version we were testing.
(Also known as Xenphire)
As a bonus, it's also Armageddon and Wrath of God.
Seems fair for 1W
Because Breakthrough is better. Being blue is better for Cephalid Coliseum. Drawing cards is better when you have dredgers in the yard. Being able to make X = 1 allows you to keep anti-hate in your hand.
Thoughtseize Is probably second. Due to it taking any non-land card, showing you the opponent's hand, and having the additional cost of two life, which is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Inquisition of Kozilek Is third IFF you're playing legacy, where it acts like thoughtseize 90% of the time.
Hymn to Tourach comes next. Due to your inability to grab the specific cards you want, I can't really rank it above the other ones I listed... but as far as efficiency goes this card is also insane.
Dredge already has a ton of ways to get cards in the graveyard. Wasting a card slot on a card that does *ONLY* that is a pretty awful play.
Therapy is also amazing after hitting with a Inquisition or any that let you see their hand.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
I had never seen that card, that is fantastic.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!
Same goes for Hypnotic Specter
4th place at CCC&G Pro Tour
Chances of bad hands (<2 or >4 land):
21: 28.9%
22: 27.5%
23: 26.3%
24: 25.5%
25: 25.1%
26: 25.3%
The power of Unmask: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMei_cxSC0c
Also, in casual formats Raven's Crime is pretty popular
After that Thoughtseize, Hymn, IOK, duress in no particular order.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
Great video, thanks!
Honestly without a draw engine like Necro Unmask kinda sucks though.
Not really. I've actually played it in Pox a few times while I was trying to get my playest of IoK's and Unmask was spectacular. With the amount of discard and removal in the deck, you can quickly get to the point where you don't need one or the other and Unmask ends up giving you a lot of value. One game I actually managed to pull off a Dark Ritual into one of the Inquisitions I had acquired, then a Hymn, then played an Unmask. Granted, that was 6 cards out 7 in my hand on Turn 1, but they were pretty much neutered for the rest of the game following that. This was against Zoo when it was just Zoo instead of Canadian Threshold, and I managed to hit the only blue mana source in their hand, a mongoose, a goyf and a lightning bolt in one turn
My remaining card was a Swamp, but they didn't draw any more blue mana for a while so as soon as I dropped Liliana about three turns later it was GG. In other games with less ridiculous opening hands Unmask was still pretty awesome, though. More often than not I get a 3-mana Turn 1 play off. Dark Ritual into anything whether it's Liliana + Unmask on Turn 1, or some combination of Hymn + Inquisition (or Thoughtseize now) and Unmask. If they have a creature out, I'll pump out an Edict or Innocent Blood + Discard + Unmask. It's totally solid because so much of Pox is the same type of cards that you're about guaranteed to draw into an answer when you're low on cards.
(Also known as Xenphire)
Mindtwist
Thoughtseize
Hymn to tourach
IoK
Cabal Therapy
Liliana of the veil
Duress