Well there is yet another way to "Go off" now with Gitrog out. Many things we can do with the 1/1's besides attacking as well. (Blasting Station comes to mind). Not totally sold on this thing but it is an option.
I honestly like the BUG All-in Frog combo. We are going to be weak to graveyard hate anyway (as well as removal to Gitrog), I think it's vital that we go as fast as possible and only slow down against decks that pack removal and hate (like Jund). Strip the hate from their hands with Discard and then try and combo off at instant speed. I've worked out several ways to "go off" on turn 3 at instant speed which is nice but it's either missing a way to guarantee lethal or it might not reliably keep the cycle looping.
So here is my delema. Currently my though process is you could do one of 2 things (not the only options for a BUG version but 2 plans I have going):
The goal here is to get 3-4x Necromeba and 3-4x Bridge from Below into the yard. You can stack the Necromeba triggers to go off after the next Gitrog draw trigger (provided you hit a land to trigger it). After you have enough of Bridge and Necromeba's in the yard, let the Necromeba triggers resolve and return to play at which point a State based check occurs after each trigger resolves and the Necromeba will die because it's a 0/0. This will trigger the Bridge from Below. End MAX result if you found 4 Bridge and 4 Necromeba is that you get 16 2/2 Zombies on your oppponents end step, you untap for turn and should have enough damage to swing in for lethal.
Reasons I like this plan: I like this plan because it doesn't rely on you milling your entire library. You just need to find a 3:4 ration of either bridge or Meba. 3 Meba's 4 Bridge makes 12 Zombies, just as 4 Mebas and 3 Bridge makes 12 Zombies. You can get away with 3:3 if they are at 18 life and have no blockers. Since this is done at instant speed, the either have to have Kozilek's Return in hand or Spot removal for Frog (and you have no response in hand or in play to trigger in response) or a GY hate effect already in play (If they have the perfect answer, I'll worry about that down the road when we are tweaking the deck.. I'm just trying to nail down the game plan), you can just lethal them.
Reasons I am hesitant about the validity of this: So the main thing this path makes me uneasy is the lack of a discard outlet. This means that I need to hit Dredgers and Lands to keep going. If the deck is dense enough with them, it might not matter considering you really need to hit your Mebas and Bridge from Belows. That might happen within the first couple dredges if you happened to find a couple GGT since they'll dig through your library quickly. The other issue is that without Heartless Summoning in play, you need another sac outlet (Spawning Pit, Viscera Seer and Blasting Station as alternates). Further to perpetuate the problem (that I just realized while typing) is that the Zombies will be 1/1's due to Heartless summoning. Lucking Gitrog is still a 5/5 at that point which helps. Overall this plan has a lot of ifs and I'm not totally sold. (Blasting Station might be the better option because if you find your 4 Mebas and 4 Bridge from belows you can just sacrifice all the Meba's followed by the tokens to do exactly 20 damage.)
Plan #2:
Turn 1 Land -> Hedron Crab (I love this card in any deck that wants to dredge. It does a TON of work.)
Turn 2 Fetch -> Zombie Infestation
Turn 3 Play fetch but don't crack it. EOT you discard Gitrog to Zombie Infestation (along with any dredgers you have in hand). You then cast Goryo's Vengeance to bring Gitrog to play, crack your fetch and start the loop. You can then essentially mill your entire deck if you so desire and potentially have a bunch of 2/2's.
Why I like this plan: This plan is the most likely to set up an infinite dredge of your library if that is what you desired. If you ever somehow whiff on a dredge (doesn't hit any lands) you could discard 1 from hand (like Drakmor Salvage) to keep going. If you wanted to run an Emrakul like Four Horseman Strategy, this would be a potential way to do it. Once Emrakul shuffles your GY back into your library, discard a Drakmor Salvage and another dredger and you can continue the loop again.
My reservations about this plan: So as much as this will get you all the way through your library, I continue to ask myself, "Well now what?". You could include things like Labratory Maniac (which you can trigger the wincon off Gitrog so thats swell) or some Four Horseman shinanigans with Blasting Station and Necromebas where you do 4 damage a cycle to your opponent (I guess potentially more if you have Bridges in your yard). The problem with running Emrakul is that you have no way of knowing when he'll hit the bin and it might be while you are trying to set up the combo still.. that would suck. Then I started counting how many 2/2's I could make off of Zombie Infestation. So let's say you saw the bear minimum amount of cards by turn 3 (we'll say on the play to be generous). You will have seen 9 cards meaning there is 51 left in your deck. This means you can dredge Golgari Grave Troll 8 times and leave yourself with 3 cards (likely 1 because you will need to draw from your last dredge and your draw for turn). This will net you at least 8 Zombies. You MUST do lethal damage or end up decking yourself on your following turn. That seems precariously close. If you fetch or mill yourself at all that number really starts to drop as well.
Likely the best plan is a combination of the 2 above. Use free value creatures like Necromeba and Prized and try to stick discard and Heartless/sac outlet in play to make sure the first plan goes off. If you have Blasting Station you sort of just win. Worst case you go Loam/Heartless beats plan with Gitrog. Anyone have any ideas of cards I'm missing? The "red" plans seem a bit too reliant on Seismic Assault to combo off. In theory we could do Heartless Summoning, find Gitrog and try to Goryos back Borborygmos Enraged and then win with Drakmor Salvage loop.
Honestly, the better "red" plan might be Lighting storm since if you mill it, you could always flash it back with Snapcaster. Anyway, these are my initial thoughts on it. This card is a really good engine just got to find the right list/balance to make it consistent.
I think the combo is instant speed. The problem is that Unburial Rites and Laboratory maniac are not. (i also have a problem if that is our "win-con" as it can be easy enough to answer and you've already dumped your entire library into the bin so if they do have an answer you just lose.
The best thing on the frog is the guaranteed extra land you can play when he hits the field. This gives you one extra mana, one fetch/Ghostquarter and therefore more potential plays.
Oh god I keep forgetting he lets you get the extra land drop in. He really just screams enabler for dredge stuff. Dredge really needed something like this to really jump into viability. Ghost Quarters actually does double work too since you can blow your own land if you need to and get 2 draw triggers.
Why do Oona's Prowler and Trespasser Il-Vec have to have 1 Toughness? They would be so good with Gitrog+ Heartless summoning. So far only Zombie Infestation seems decently costed to allow the reign of the frog.
Lotleth Troll. You can't discard lands but you can discard Golgari Grave Troll to it. Only difficulty is you'll need it in play before Heartless comes down.
I think the combo is instant speed. The problem is that Unburial Rites and Laboratory maniac are not. (i also have a problem if that is our "win-con" as it can be easy enough to answer and you've already dumped your entire library into the bin so if they do have an answer you just lose.
The best thing on the frog is the guaranteed extra land you can play when he hits the field. This gives you one extra mana, one fetch/Ghostquarter and therefore more potential plays.
Oh god I keep forgetting he lets you get the extra land drop in. He really just screams enabler for dredge stuff. Dredge really needed something like this to really jump into viability. Ghost Quarters actually does double work too since you can blow your own land if you need to and get 2 draw triggers.
If it were in a 4 color control deck, it could work. Also, double GQing your opponent each turn ia disgusting. I might make up a list.
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"Don't believe everything you read on the internet." - Abraham Lincoln
Honestly, the better "red" plan might be Lighting storm since if you mill it, you could always flash it back with Snapcaster. Anyway, these are my initial thoughts on it. This card is a really good engine just got to find the right list/balance to make it consistent.
I'm not a good brewer, but i expect the Craterhoof Behemoth + Unburial Rites Plan is the way to go.
I don't brew around here because i'm totally fine with Prized Amalgam which suits the Rites / Craterhoof Package much better.
I'm waiting until someone really breaks this Card with a Griselshoal'ish All-In Combo
Until then i keep testing on 'Trice
Honestly, the better "red" plan might be Lighting storm since if you mill it, you could always flash it back with Snapcaster. Anyway, these are my initial thoughts on it. This card is a really good engine just got to find the right list/balance to make it consistent.
I'm not a good brewer, but i expect the Craterhoof Behemoth + Unburial Rites Plan is the way to go.
I don't brew around here because i'm totally fine with Prized Amalgam which suits the Rites / Craterhoof Package much better.
I'm waiting until someone really breaks this Card with a Griselshoal'ish All-In Combo
Until then i keep testing on 'Trice
I also just realized it says "for the first time each turn" unlike Gitrog.. That makes it useless.
What do you think about Molten Vortex? I think it could be one of the better one drops for this deck.
Costing R every time you want to do 2 damage isn't worth it. I kind of like Insolent Neonate because he acts like an instant speed Faithless looting and can help you discard a dredger or land if you get stuck with it in hand (and then conveniently redraw it). Unfortunately he just drops dead to Heartless Summoning. I'd like to proxy up a couple lists and see if we really do need a discard effect to prevent us from stalling out on the combo or if we can simply get there without it (and likely the correct line is to run 4x Heartless Summoning 4x Zombie Infestation and just use whichever we get). I do agree that I want Myr Retrievers in here because of the potential to be infinite with a single Bridge in yard as well as their ability to grab Blasting Station back from the yard if we end up using it. I totally thing Traverse will be in this deck as a 4x as well since it can either fetch us Gitrog or Myr Retriever for a single green.
Sorry if this has been discussed (MTGS search tool isn't the most reliable), but I am toying with this get-out-of-town spicy idea of The Gitrog Monster as Modern's best chance at imitating Legacy Dredge.
The turn 2 win scenario requires a lot of luck, so here's a more realistic turn three scenario.
Turn one: Cast Faithless Looting, discarding Gitrog and Golgari Grave-Troll
Turn two: Play a land. You don't need to do anything else, but you can Grisly Salvage to ensure you have a Dredge target in your bin if you didn't get to loot one away turn 1.
Turn three: Play Goryo's Vengeance, targeting Gitrog. Then play a fetch and crack it.
Here's where things get interesting.
- With the fetch ability still on the stack, Gitrod draws you a card for the fetch going to the bin. Replace that draw with dredging GGT.
- Dredge six. For each land that you hit on the dredge, Gitrog triggers again. As long as you have a dredge target left in your bin, you can replace that draw with a dredge again and keep doing this until you've nearly decked yourself. (Count your triggers to make sure you have enough cards left to draw once you're done dredging.) If you don't have a fourth land in hand, be sure to dredge up a Dakmor Salvage somewhere along this process.
While this is going on, you are filling your graveyard up with Bloodghasts, Narcomoebas and Prized Amalgams, and thanks to Gitrog granting you an extra land drop to trigger Bloodghast, you will likely have 4 of each of these in play at the end of the process, for a pretty lethal swing the next turn.
(This is possible on turn 2 as well - the issue is that Bloodghast is hard to trigger there, because the dredge loop all happens while your fetch trigger is on the stack, and by the time it resolves, you probably don't have a tutorable land left in your library, so you can't trigger Bloodghast, and therefore also miss some copies of Amalgam.)
Here's the thing I'm looking for input on though - this is a crazy effect, but I think we can probably do better than swinging for 24 on turn 4. Let's break this interaction wide open.
Trying to think of ways you could win the turn you mill your library without requiring cards you have in hand to win (IE, lightning storm). My first thought would be to use Memory's Journey, which requires 1 green mana open, but that's not too difficult. This could give you a Doomsday style effect, where you stack the top 3 cards of your library with the frog's draw triggers on the stack.
One infinite combo I'm a big fan of with a dredge / reanimation suite is the Sharuum infinite combo. The problem with this is you wouldn't be able to win the same turn, but reanimating the toad would at least set you up to win the next turn provided no disruption.
The combo requires 4 cards in your graveyard: Bridge from Below, Sharuum, the Hegemon, Phyrexian Metamorph, and then you add a singleton Akroma's memorial to win that turn. The way it works is you reanimate sharuum, which triggers her reahnimation ability. This puts either metamorph copying herself, or another version of Sharuum onto the battlefield, which then triggers the legendary rule, giving you a zombie. You then just cycle Sharuums infinitely to get infinite Zombies, and then using the last Sharuum, choose to reanimate Bridge from Below to give everything haste and evasion. It's not perfect, but what's nice about this is that a lot of the cards are decent in a dredge deck (bridge from below) regardless of the situation, and Goryo's Vengeance can be used at instant speed to reanimate Sharuum a lot of the time.
Okay, that's pretty cool. The issue is at that point you're needing to reanimate Gitrog and Sharuum. Odds of being able to do that aren't awesome. This seems well suited to a Gifts Ungiven combo scenario though.
Sorry if this has been discussed (MTGS search tool isn't the most reliable), but I am toying with this get-out-of-town spicy idea of The Gitrog Monster as Modern's best chance at imitating Legacy Dredge.
The turn 2 win scenario requires a lot of luck, so here's a more realistic turn three scenario.
Turn one: Cast Faithless Looting, discarding Gitrog and Golgari Grave-Troll
Turn two: Play a land. You don't need to do anything else, but you can Grisly Salvage to ensure you have a Dredge target in your bin if you didn't get to loot one away turn 1.
Turn three: Play Goryo's Vengeance, targeting Gitrog. Then play a fetch and crack it.
Here's where things get interesting.
- With the fetch ability still on the stack, Gitrod draws you a card for the fetch going to the bin. Replace that draw with dredging GGT.
- Dredge six. For each land that you hit on the dredge, Gitrog triggers again. As long as you have a dredge target left in your bin, you can replace that draw with a dredge again and keep doing this until you've nearly decked yourself. (Count your triggers to make sure you have enough cards left to draw once you're done dredging.) If you don't have a fourth land in hand, be sure to dredge up a Dakmor Salvage somewhere along this process.
While this is going on, you are filling your graveyard up with Bloodghasts, Narcomoebas and Prized Amalgams, and thanks to Gitrog granting you an extra land drop to trigger Bloodghast, you will likely have 4 of each of these in play at the end of the process, for a pretty lethal swing the next turn.
(This is possible on turn 2 as well - the issue is that Bloodghast is hard to trigger there, because the dredge loop all happens while your fetch trigger is on the stack, and by the time it resolves, you probably don't have a tutorable land left in your library, so you can't trigger Bloodghast, and therefore also miss some copies of Amalgam.)
Here's the thing I'm looking for input on though - this is a crazy effect, but I think we can probably do better than swinging for 24 on turn 4. Let's break this interaction wide open.
I have been goldfishing this a bit and the Zombie Infestation engine is absurd! Even with a very rough build I was able to drop 20+ power on the board turn 4
I am think of building a BUG control shell around this core:
I am still trying to work out the numbers at moment and this may not be the right shell for it. I want to try out some ramp over the reanimation at the moment, not sure if I want Birds, STE or Edge of Autumn.
Ok this looks sick but what do we do till turn 5? Im right that this only works with frog out, yes? Any way to do this faster? The control route with Babyjace, Tasigur and this new GSZ is great, too!
I have done some early testing and being able to control the board with Abrupt Decays, Maelstrom Pulses and targeted discard seems strong enough to hold back a lot of decks until the Frog can come out. Plus you still get the option on running the Thought Scour + Tasigur "combo" for early pressure and CA from Jace and Snapcasters.
I'm still not sold on the best ramp sell for the deck at the moment; Birds is too fragile and the upside of Edge of Autumn isn't enough, at this point I am leaning toward Sukura Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow. Also, while Zombie Infestation has been insane it isn't needed to win, often a 6/6 backed up with the Loam + Quarter lock feels like enough.
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In play: Jund Death Shadow, Grixis Control, Eldrazi Stompy, Ponza
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
So someone mentioned a card in the spoiler thread and I think they were being a bit sarcastic but it might totally be worth a shot in the BUG version I've been working on that tries to get Heartless Summoning into Necromebas. Phantasmagorian. This will probably ensure we keep hitting lands to trigger Gitrog as well as enable us to discard 3 dredgers if we need to as well.
This is my take on a more all-in plan using Lightning Storm + Dakmor for the win. Hoping there is enough ramp here to realistically get The Frog into play by hard casting if necessary.
It technically works with any dredge card as long as you hit a land when dredging. You can also skirt the eight cards in hand need by having other thinga that let you discard. Oona's Prowler and the like. As mentioned above you could toss in blue for lab maniac. You could try to pump based on number of cards in the yard like Wreath of Geists and/or Ghoul's Feast then give trample and either haste or just stop the loop before you completely mill out. I'm sure there are others.
there is a way to use gitrog, it uses the fact that the cleanup step repeat itself:
514. Cleanup Step
514.1. First, if the active player’s hand contains more cards than his or her maximum hand size (normally seven), he or she discards enough cards to reduce his or her hand size to that number. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.2. Second, the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.3. Normally, no player receives priority during the cleanup step, so no spells can be cast and no abilities can be activated. However, this rule is subject to the following exception:
514.3a At this point, the game checks to see if any state-based actions would be performed and/or any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack (including those that trigger “at the beginning of the next cleanup step”). If so, those state-based actions are performed, then those triggered abilities are put on the stack, then the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. Once the stack is empty and all players pass in succession, another cleanup step begins.
So basically, the combo is gitrog into play, darkmor salvage in hand and 8 cards in hand, you end your turn then at the cleanup step you discard darkmor, the ability of gitrog activate and go to the stack, you dredge darkmor.
After that, a second cleanup step will take place, but you have 2 more cards in your grave and eventually draw with the ability of gitrog, this is infinite with an emrakul in the deck.
This is unique idea, but I think I'm missing the punchline. You deck yourself but shuffle due to Emrakul, and do this infinite times. Then what? How do you win by shuffling your library 100 times?
there is a way to use gitrog, it uses the fact that the cleanup step repeat itself:
514. Cleanup Step
514.1. First, if the active player’s hand contains more cards than his or her maximum hand size (normally seven), he or she discards enough cards to reduce his or her hand size to that number. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.2. Second, the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.3. Normally, no player receives priority during the cleanup step, so no spells can be cast and no abilities can be activated. However, this rule is subject to the following exception:
514.3a At this point, the game checks to see if any state-based actions would be performed and/or any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack (including those that trigger “at the beginning of the next cleanup step”). If so, those state-based actions are performed, then those triggered abilities are put on the stack, then the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. Once the stack is empty and all players pass in succession, another cleanup step begins.
So basically, the combo is gitrog into play, darkmor salvage in hand and 8 cards in hand, you end your turn then at the cleanup step you discard darkmor, the ability of gitrog activate and go to the stack, you dredge darkmor.
After that, a second cleanup step will take place, but you have 2 more cards in your grave and eventually draw with the ability of gitrog, this is infinite with an emrakul in the deck.
This is unique idea, but I think I'm missing the punchline. You deck yourself but shuffle due to Emrakul, and do this infinite times. Then what? How do you win by shuffling your library 100 times?
If you have Heartless Summoning in play, as well as Bridge from Below and Narcomoebas in your deck, you've created a Modern version of the Four Horsemen combo since each repetition of dredge-until-emrakul will yield 1-16 zombie tokens depending on the number of Bridge from Below and Narcomoebas that get dredged in that specific cycle. Probably not tournament viable for the same reason Four Horsemen isn't legal.
One piece to the combo aspect of this deck may be endless obedience. If somebody finds a way to make a large number or infinite number of zombies through the combination of Gitrog+bridge from below+dredge+emrakul shuffle, then try using endless obedience and a Flame-kin zealot to swing right then and there.
Just throwing in some toys to play around with.
there is a way to use gitrog, it uses the fact that the cleanup step repeat itself:
514. Cleanup Step
514.1. First, if the active player’s hand contains more cards than his or her maximum hand size (normally seven), he or she discards enough cards to reduce his or her hand size to that number. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.2. Second, the following actions happen simultaneously: all damage marked on permanents (including phased-out permanents) is removed and all “until end of turn” and “this turn” effects end. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack.
514.3. Normally, no player receives priority during the cleanup step, so no spells can be cast and no abilities can be activated. However, this rule is subject to the following exception:
514.3a At this point, the game checks to see if any state-based actions would be performed and/or any triggered abilities are waiting to be put onto the stack (including those that trigger “at the beginning of the next cleanup step”). If so, those state-based actions are performed, then those triggered abilities are put on the stack, then the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities. Once the stack is empty and all players pass in succession, another cleanup step begins.
So basically, the combo is gitrog into play, darkmor salvage in hand and 8 cards in hand, you end your turn then at the cleanup step you discard darkmor, the ability of gitrog activate and go to the stack, you dredge darkmor.
After that, a second cleanup step will take place, but you have 2 more cards in your grave and eventually draw with the ability of gitrog, this is infinite with an emrakul in the deck.
This is unique idea, but I think I'm missing the punchline. You deck yourself but shuffle due to Emrakul, and do this infinite times. Then what? How do you win by shuffling your library 100 times?
If you have Heartless Summoning in play, as well as Bridge from Below and Narcomoebas in your deck, you've created a Modern version of the Four Horsemen combo since each repetition of dredge-until-emrakul will yield 1-16 zombie tokens depending on the number of Bridge from Below and Narcomoebas that get dredged in that specific cycle. Probably not tournament viable for the same reason Four Horsemen isn't legal.
Four Horsemen isn't allowed to be played because the board state is unchanged at the end of each loop. If we have a Bridge from Below and are getting Zombie tokens into play then there should be no reason to have slow play called on us because the board state is actually changing. The point that a judge could get called would be when we dredge and hit Emrakul without hitting any lands and before hitting and Bridges+Narcomoebas. This would result in having no draw trigger to stack over the Emmy-reshuffle trigger and therefor terminating the loop before any Zombie tokens come into play. That's how I see it ending up in the worst-case scenario but we can probably work out the probability of that happening.
Life from the Loam seems to be one of the best Dredge spells for Gitrog Courser of Kruphix to control the dredge, up the land drop rate with Gitrog out (ensure fetchland drops), and hold the fort. Also they synergise well with Zombie Infestation (lands can be discarded while other lands can be played from the library) Darkblast has been very good to me since we have draws in the end step or the upkeep where we have mana open. Especially if you sacrifice a Dakmor Salvage in the upkeep you want to spend its mana.
Somehow I like Utopia Sprawl to get there. Courser on turn 2 is good as well as a possible turn 3 Gitrog without the help from Heartless Summoning.
It is far from being as fast and consistent as I want it but so far it has some development time spent on it. Kills on turn 4 or 5 are possible, but it all depends on some crucial land drops/enchantments+ Gitrog.
With Artifact/Enchantment Creatures you REALLY should run Traverse the Ulvenwald. You should hit 4 card types in graveyard pretty quickly and then it gives you a 1 CMC tutor for part of the combo that you are missing.
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Well there is yet another way to "Go off" now with Gitrog out. Many things we can do with the 1/1's besides attacking as well. (Blasting Station comes to mind). Not totally sold on this thing but it is an option.
I honestly like the BUG All-in Frog combo. We are going to be weak to graveyard hate anyway (as well as removal to Gitrog), I think it's vital that we go as fast as possible and only slow down against decks that pack removal and hate (like Jund). Strip the hate from their hands with Discard and then try and combo off at instant speed. I've worked out several ways to "go off" on turn 3 at instant speed which is nice but it's either missing a way to guarantee lethal or it might not reliably keep the cycle looping.
So here is my delema. Currently my though process is you could do one of 2 things (not the only options for a BUG version but 2 plans I have going):
Turn 1 Land -> Hedron Crab
Turn 2 Fetch -> Heartless Summoning
Turn 3 Fetch -> The Gitrog Monster -> Cycle Edge of Autumn EOT (or wait til turn 4 and play the Frog then with a fetch or retrace Raven's Crime or something to start the loop)
The goal here is to get 3-4x Necromeba and 3-4x Bridge from Below into the yard. You can stack the Necromeba triggers to go off after the next Gitrog draw trigger (provided you hit a land to trigger it). After you have enough of Bridge and Necromeba's in the yard, let the Necromeba triggers resolve and return to play at which point a State based check occurs after each trigger resolves and the Necromeba will die because it's a 0/0. This will trigger the Bridge from Below. End MAX result if you found 4 Bridge and 4 Necromeba is that you get 16 2/2 Zombies on your oppponents end step, you untap for turn and should have enough damage to swing in for lethal.
Reasons I like this plan: I like this plan because it doesn't rely on you milling your entire library. You just need to find a 3:4 ration of either bridge or Meba. 3 Meba's 4 Bridge makes 12 Zombies, just as 4 Mebas and 3 Bridge makes 12 Zombies. You can get away with 3:3 if they are at 18 life and have no blockers. Since this is done at instant speed, the either have to have Kozilek's Return in hand or Spot removal for Frog (and you have no response in hand or in play to trigger in response) or a GY hate effect already in play (If they have the perfect answer, I'll worry about that down the road when we are tweaking the deck.. I'm just trying to nail down the game plan), you can just lethal them.
Reasons I am hesitant about the validity of this: So the main thing this path makes me uneasy is the lack of a discard outlet. This means that I need to hit Dredgers and Lands to keep going. If the deck is dense enough with them, it might not matter considering you really need to hit your Mebas and Bridge from Belows. That might happen within the first couple dredges if you happened to find a couple GGT since they'll dig through your library quickly. The other issue is that without Heartless Summoning in play, you need another sac outlet (Spawning Pit, Viscera Seer and Blasting Station as alternates). Further to perpetuate the problem (that I just realized while typing) is that the Zombies will be 1/1's due to Heartless summoning. Lucking Gitrog is still a 5/5 at that point which helps. Overall this plan has a lot of ifs and I'm not totally sold. (Blasting Station might be the better option because if you find your 4 Mebas and 4 Bridge from belows you can just sacrifice all the Meba's followed by the tokens to do exactly 20 damage.)
Plan #2:
Turn 1 Land -> Hedron Crab (I love this card in any deck that wants to dredge. It does a TON of work.)
Turn 2 Fetch -> Zombie Infestation
Turn 3 Play fetch but don't crack it. EOT you discard Gitrog to Zombie Infestation (along with any dredgers you have in hand). You then cast Goryo's Vengeance to bring Gitrog to play, crack your fetch and start the loop. You can then essentially mill your entire deck if you so desire and potentially have a bunch of 2/2's.
Why I like this plan: This plan is the most likely to set up an infinite dredge of your library if that is what you desired. If you ever somehow whiff on a dredge (doesn't hit any lands) you could discard 1 from hand (like Drakmor Salvage) to keep going. If you wanted to run an Emrakul like Four Horseman Strategy, this would be a potential way to do it. Once Emrakul shuffles your GY back into your library, discard a Drakmor Salvage and another dredger and you can continue the loop again.
My reservations about this plan: So as much as this will get you all the way through your library, I continue to ask myself, "Well now what?". You could include things like Labratory Maniac (which you can trigger the wincon off Gitrog so thats swell) or some Four Horseman shinanigans with Blasting Station and Necromebas where you do 4 damage a cycle to your opponent (I guess potentially more if you have Bridges in your yard). The problem with running Emrakul is that you have no way of knowing when he'll hit the bin and it might be while you are trying to set up the combo still.. that would suck. Then I started counting how many 2/2's I could make off of Zombie Infestation. So let's say you saw the bear minimum amount of cards by turn 3 (we'll say on the play to be generous). You will have seen 9 cards meaning there is 51 left in your deck. This means you can dredge Golgari Grave Troll 8 times and leave yourself with 3 cards (likely 1 because you will need to draw from your last dredge and your draw for turn). This will net you at least 8 Zombies. You MUST do lethal damage or end up decking yourself on your following turn. That seems precariously close. If you fetch or mill yourself at all that number really starts to drop as well.
Likely the best plan is a combination of the 2 above. Use free value creatures like Necromeba and Prized and try to stick discard and Heartless/sac outlet in play to make sure the first plan goes off. If you have Blasting Station you sort of just win. Worst case you go Loam/Heartless beats plan with Gitrog. Anyone have any ideas of cards I'm missing? The "red" plans seem a bit too reliant on Seismic Assault to combo off. In theory we could do Heartless Summoning, find Gitrog and try to Goryos back Borborygmos Enraged and then win with Drakmor Salvage loop.
Honestly, the better "red" plan might be Lighting storm since if you mill it, you could always flash it back with Snapcaster. Anyway, these are my initial thoughts on it. This card is a really good engine just got to find the right list/balance to make it consistent.
I think the combo is instant speed. The problem is that Unburial Rites and Laboratory maniac are not. (i also have a problem if that is our "win-con" as it can be easy enough to answer and you've already dumped your entire library into the bin so if they do have an answer you just lose.
Oh god I keep forgetting he lets you get the extra land drop in. He really just screams enabler for dredge stuff. Dredge really needed something like this to really jump into viability. Ghost Quarters actually does double work too since you can blow your own land if you need to and get 2 draw triggers.
Lotleth Troll. You can't discard lands but you can discard Golgari Grave Troll to it. Only difficulty is you'll need it in play before Heartless comes down.
I'm not a good brewer, but i expect the Craterhoof Behemoth + Unburial Rites Plan is the way to go.
I don't brew around here because i'm totally fine with Prized Amalgam which suits the Rites / Craterhoof Package much better.
I'm waiting until someone really breaks this Card with a Griselshoal'ish All-In Combo
Until then i keep testing on 'Trice
Green @ it's best
I also just realized it says "for the first time each turn" unlike Gitrog.. That makes it useless.
Yeah that's not a bad idea. (the Createrhoof and Behemoth plan) it doesn't take a lot to get it online and you can guarantee lethal easier).
Costing R every time you want to do 2 damage isn't worth it. I kind of like Insolent Neonate because he acts like an instant speed Faithless looting and can help you discard a dredger or land if you get stuck with it in hand (and then conveniently redraw it). Unfortunately he just drops dead to Heartless Summoning. I'd like to proxy up a couple lists and see if we really do need a discard effect to prevent us from stalling out on the combo or if we can simply get there without it (and likely the correct line is to run 4x Heartless Summoning 4x Zombie Infestation and just use whichever we get). I do agree that I want Myr Retrievers in here because of the potential to be infinite with a single Bridge in yard as well as their ability to grab Blasting Station back from the yard if we end up using it. I totally thing Traverse will be in this deck as a 4x as well since it can either fetch us Gitrog or Myr Retriever for a single green.
Sorry if this has been discussed (MTGS search tool isn't the most reliable), but I am toying with this get-out-of-town spicy idea of The Gitrog Monster as Modern's best chance at imitating Legacy Dredge.
The turn 2 win scenario requires a lot of luck, so here's a more realistic turn three scenario.
Turn one: Cast Faithless Looting, discarding Gitrog and Golgari Grave-Troll
Turn two: Play a land. You don't need to do anything else, but you can Grisly Salvage to ensure you have a Dredge target in your bin if you didn't get to loot one away turn 1.
Turn three: Play Goryo's Vengeance, targeting Gitrog. Then play a fetch and crack it.
Here's where things get interesting.
- With the fetch ability still on the stack, Gitrod draws you a card for the fetch going to the bin. Replace that draw with dredging GGT.
- Dredge six. For each land that you hit on the dredge, Gitrog triggers again. As long as you have a dredge target left in your bin, you can replace that draw with a dredge again and keep doing this until you've nearly decked yourself. (Count your triggers to make sure you have enough cards left to draw once you're done dredging.) If you don't have a fourth land in hand, be sure to dredge up a Dakmor Salvage somewhere along this process.
While this is going on, you are filling your graveyard up with Bloodghasts, Narcomoebas and Prized Amalgams, and thanks to Gitrog granting you an extra land drop to trigger Bloodghast, you will likely have 4 of each of these in play at the end of the process, for a pretty lethal swing the next turn.
(This is possible on turn 2 as well - the issue is that Bloodghast is hard to trigger there, because the dredge loop all happens while your fetch trigger is on the stack, and by the time it resolves, you probably don't have a tutorable land left in your library, so you can't trigger Bloodghast, and therefore also miss some copies of Amalgam.)
Here's the thing I'm looking for input on though - this is a crazy effect, but I think we can probably do better than swinging for 24 on turn 4. Let's break this interaction wide open.
Here's my extremely rudimentary list.
1x Blood Crypt
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Forest
1x Mountain
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Stomping Ground
1x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Watery Grave
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Bloodghast
4x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Narcomoeba
4x Prized Amalgam
2x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Stinkweed Imp
4x The Gitrog Monster
4x Goryo's Vengeance
4x Grisly Salvage
1x Noxious Revival
Sorcery (5)
1x Conflagrate
4x Faithless Looting
Thoughts?
WBG Abzan Midrange
BRG Dredgevine
WBG Abzan Midrange
BRG Dredgevine
Okay, that's pretty cool. The issue is at that point you're needing to reanimate Gitrog and Sharuum. Odds of being able to do that aren't awesome. This seems well suited to a Gifts Ungiven combo scenario though.
WBG Abzan Midrange
BRG Dredgevine
Merged with existing Gitrog thread
Looks worth testing but you MUST play Insolent Neonate as Faithless Looting 5-8.
I'm still not sold on the best ramp sell for the deck at the moment; Birds is too fragile and the upside of Edge of Autumn isn't enough, at this point I am leaning toward Sukura Tribe Elder or Search for Tomorrow. Also, while Zombie Infestation has been insane it isn't needed to win, often a 6/6 backed up with the Loam + Quarter lock feels like enough.
In the yard: RUG Delver, Kiki-Chord, Grixis Twin, Mardu Control, Smallpox, Jeskai Control, Jeskai Delver, Assault Loam, Elves, Deathcloud, Eggs, Storm
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 The Gitrog Monster
2 Griselbrand
Spells (29):
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Desperate ritual
4 Pentad prism
3 Manamorphose
2 Lightning Storm
4 Bloodstained mire
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Dakmor Salvage
3 Blackcleave cliffs
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping ground
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
This is my take on a more all-in plan using Lightning Storm + Dakmor for the win. Hoping there is enough ramp here to realistically get The Frog into play by hard casting if necessary.
Draft My Cube!
On my tombstone, please write "Now his body fuels the Treasure Cruise"
Or you could Kommand him back...
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Modern:
BURGrixis DelverRUB
URUR DelverRU
URBlue MoonRU
RIPURUR TwinRURIP
Legacy:
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RUBGrixis PyromancerRUB
Commander:
URMelek, Izzet ParagonRU
URBJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeRUB
This is unique idea, but I think I'm missing the punchline. You deck yourself but shuffle due to Emrakul, and do this infinite times. Then what? How do you win by shuffling your library 100 times?
WBG Abzan Midrange
BRG Dredgevine
If you have Heartless Summoning in play, as well as Bridge from Below and Narcomoebas in your deck, you've created a Modern version of the Four Horsemen combo since each repetition of dredge-until-emrakul will yield 1-16 zombie tokens depending on the number of Bridge from Below and Narcomoebas that get dredged in that specific cycle. Probably not tournament viable for the same reason Four Horsemen isn't legal.
Just throwing in some toys to play around with.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
It seems to me that Gitrog would be a fine card on its own in a grindy bgr loam deck...
With Artifact/Enchantment Creatures you REALLY should run Traverse the Ulvenwald. You should hit 4 card types in graveyard pretty quickly and then it gives you a 1 CMC tutor for part of the combo that you are missing.