https://www.mtgsalvation.com/articles/49777-the-end-of-an-era
Over the past few years, MTGSalvation has become very much my home and most of that is due to the community like the Modern community. It has been an honor and a privilege to talk magic, modern ban list philosophy even with the chaos that can ensue and even more the deck brewing and philosophy with you all. On behalf of the staff past and present thank you all so much for helping us create this wonderful community.
But Im not just getting sappy in this post, there is more.
As Feyd mentioned in the article, we are working on a new home for anyone that wishes to follow us on that journey. It is still very much a work in progress, but our goal is to make our new home even more of a community site than what we have now. Beyond that, I can't say much just yet, but as we get closer I'll keep everyone informed in this thread.
If you have any questions or better yet, have any input on things you would like to see then please feel free to post in this thread and we will respond to the best of our abilities.
Ulka
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Oct 31, 201510
Posted in: Combo
Dredge is a unique deck that plays out very differently from many other decks. The deck operates by milling itself, filling its graveyard with a lot of cards. There are several creatures that can be put onto the battlefield from the graveyard for 0 mana. The harder the Dredge deck mills itself, the more such cards will end up in its graveyard, and the faster it can beat down. A good hand can result in 10 or more points of power on the board by the second turn.
If you’ve played old Extended, Legacy, or Vintage, Dredge should be no stranger to you. The history of Dredge in Modern is a little rocky. At the outset, Golgari Grave-Troll and Dread Return were banned (although Grave-Troll was eventually unbanned....only to be banned again), and no Dredge deck was playable for a while. The next few sets gave rise to a “Dredgevine” deck, with additions like Faithless Looting, Gravecrawler, Lotleth Troll and Satyr Wayfinder. Shadows over Innistrad brought two huge improvements for the archetype: Insolent Neonate and Prized Amalgam. Later, Cathartic Reunion, aka Mom Hug, was printed and that put the deck over the top.
Dredge has seen play in any format that has the keyword available to it... and even some standard seasons without it. Truthfully, there is always a graveyard deck in magic, since the ability to use the grave as an "extended hand" or ways to cheat costs is a very good deal. But how far back does dredges roots go? Well it turns out pretty damned far, as it starts in 2007, right when Future Sight was printed.
At the start, when the key word dredge was printed, it was actually a very fair mechanic. Standard used Darkblast to get rid of mana dorks like birds of paradise, sometimes using something like Nightmare Void as a slow way to disrupt a combo piece. Overall, it was pretty lack luster, even in older formats that had tools you could use from the grave. Yes, even then, legacy would rather be playing with threshold than over committing to the grave. The reason for this was simply risk and reward. The risks out weighed the rewards. Then Future Sight happened, and with it, a dredge land, bridge from Below, and Dread Return. All of these were planned by Wizards of course, to make graveyard decks be a thing in standard, but they've openly admitted to not realizing how efficient dredge the mechanic was.
Soon everyone wanted to use Magus of the Bazaar, Merfolk Looter, Drowned Rusalka and Llanowar Mentor to put out tons of zombies, then win the game with a Dread Returned Flame-Kin Zealot.
It also sometimes Dread Returned a Akroma, Angel of Wrath, because that angel was also stupidly powerful.
This deck was so powerful during its time, that it soon transitioned into legacy with the same basic idea, dredge a bridge, use a sac outlet, make tons of tokens, give them haste via dread return, and win the game. However, it is Vintage that shows how strong dredge is with availability to all of magics graveyard tricks. Further more, because it cheats on mana, and doesn't cast spells, it has been a bane of a blue deck since the start, something very good to be in legacy and vintage.
As you can see this deck barely runs any lands what so ever... In fact, Baazar doesn't even produce mana! That's right, at first glace it might see like the deck runs 7 mana lands, it actually runs 0 ways to get mana. Because who really wants to play magic anyways? It never spends mana, and it will only cast 1-2 spells the whole game... if any. This is dredge in its purest form. While this list comes from 2008, and thus lacks even more broken cards, the idea hasn't changed. Dredge a bridge, sac outlet from the yard, then give haste to all your tokens and win. It's sac outlets and discard enablers are the best they can be for 2008, Cabal Therapy, Ichorid, and Dread Return being your sacrifice package, Land Grant for Bazaar of Baghdad and Lion's Eye Diamond for the discard.
Dredge also made it's presence felt with extended and legacy during this time, which I won't post because the power level falls between vintage and standard, but you can be sure the game plan was very much the same.
Zoom to 2011, many new tools were added to the game for grave decks, but most importantly, and the reason you're here, is Modern was sanctioned as a format! But Dredge didn't become what it is today right away. No, it took 5 years to fill out, but it still existed in the format, as a lower power leveled deck called Dredgevine.
You might think that this list looks a little all over the place... and you'd be right. It lacks pretty much everything we've come to know dredge stands for, the bridge, Dread Return, Bloodghasts (which was printed by now, and quickly added to all dredge lists) and Narcomoeba. Grave-Troll and Dread Return were also banned. Well there was many reasons for this. Until around 2010, all dredge lists were 3 colors, black, green and blue. Discard and draw was color shifted to red, so now the decks needed to be rainbow to have access to all the tools, and it caused a strain on mana bases. Furthermore, there was no good reliable sacrifice engine in modern, especially one in the yard like Dread Return. So your normal dredge was impossible to run. But the deck still does roughly the same job as before. Enable discard, dredge a ton, make a hasty army. But the players have changed. Faithless Looting, mill creatures and Lotleth Troll are you main discards, dredgers are the same, and vengevine replaces the bridge.
Golgari Grave-Troll was unbanned in 2015, and promptly did nothing for the deck. But in 2016, 3 cards were printed that suddenly made dredge able to use old tech, and dredge itself from the depths of modern's tier 5 to tier 1. Those cards were Prized Amalgam, Insolent Neonate, and a little later, Cathartic Reunion.
Vengvine was replaced with amalgam, as it was easier to trigger, and without the need to cast creatures anymore, Narcomoeba and Bloodghast were great cards again. Insolent Neonate was the 1 mana loot the deck needed to pull fully out of blue and make their manabase consistent. Reunion gave the deck a critical mass of discard, draw needed to make the engine pur. The deck shot up like a rocket, and since it didn't use very many cards as other decks did, it was cheap. Both ingredients for an explosion of usage.
This deck is also substantially different than its standard, extended, legacy, and vintage counterparts. There is no bridge. This is because the deck still lacked a good sacrifice engine outside of Greater Gargadon, and no good ones from the grave.
At the beginning of 2017, Golgari Grave-Troll was banned to nerf, but not kill the deck. It had it's intended effect, as the deck lost 2-6 dredge power a turn, as well as having to devote more slots to discard and dredgers to shore up the gaps in the engine. It also lost one of it's built in win conditions, especially since Grave-troll was one of the best counters to the most played graveyard hate; Grafdigger's Cage.
The deck would remain powerful, but not oppressive.
When we returned to Ravanica in Guilds of Ravnica, golgari, the guild who gave us the word dredge, didn't help dredge at all as a deck... But leave it to the sneaky Dimir to give us the tools to win the mondern arms race. Enter Creeping Chill, a card that was briefly talked about,but quickly dismissed as a winmore card. As soon as the card became legal on magic online, results started pouring in. It was the shot in the arm to get dredge back to where it needed to be to compete. It sped the decks clock up a turn, giving it a real chance to race combo decks, and the 12 life gained allowed it to stall the game out longer vs fast aggro decks. This allowed the sideboard to also free up a bit, as a wide swath of the field became either favorable or close to it.
Overall, thanks to this single card, dredge enjoys tier one status during this time, becoming as much as a "sideboard boggy man deck" as affinity.
Dredge is a combo aggro deck. By that I mean, it has a combo feeling to how it plays out its game, but it mostly functions as an aggro deck, pushing out damage fast and hard. If Ad Nauseam was a pure aggro deck, it would feel like a assassin, lining up and prepping for the perfect shot. In that case, aggro might feel like a berserk, charging in wildly, slashing as much damage as he can. Dread would combine the two of these, and feel more like someone shotgunning burst damage, prepping again then bursting again.
Below you can read on which cards actually make the cut in the dredge, as well as cards that aren't quite good enough to.
Recommended: 12-14
These are how you discard your dredgers to the yard in order to dredge them up and then reuse them. As it stands the best options to use for this job is Faithless Looting, Insolent Neonate or Shriekhorn, and Cathartic Reunion. Looting and Neonate/Shriekhorn are both one drops, which puts them miles ahead of other options. Neonate is better when running more dredge cards. When you are running less, it is often better to use shriekhorn, as it will put in more work and dig deaper. Looting doesn't let you discard first, but it digs deep when you really need to find the right cards, and can flashback, so it acts as the glue in this deck. Reunion blows the game out of the water, its the explosive dredge you need.
Recommended: 10-13This is your engine. Once enabled, your draw step becomes mill X, and in our deck, more like draw X. We have quite a few dredgers at our disposal, which is good because well never get anymore than the ones we already have. Out of them, these 2 will be your core: Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Thug. After that you use 2 Dakmor Salvage because those are "free" dredge slots. From there, you have to dig into your dredge 3ers for the rest; Darkblast and Life from the Loam, which would be 0-2 and 2-3 respectively.
Recommended: 12Your core will never change: Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam, Narcomoeba These are the creatures that come back from the grave for very little effort. Narcs come back just from milling them, and take amalgam along for the ride. They also proved the deck with great blockers for later game to buy time. Bloodghast is amazing with fetchlands, and are an easy repeatable way to trigger amalgam. You can also fetch on their turn for tricks. Amalgam is the workhorse. He is the beater, and while a 3/3 body doesn't seem that good, four 3/3 bodies is still 12 damage.
You can if you feel like it, fix a few more creatures, but you can read those in other options or Flex Spots.
Recommended: 18-21To start, you'll have to decide on which land base you want to run, the jund land base or the rainbow colored one. Rainbow colored is more consistent, but very painful, which will hurt your aggro and tempo matchups, as well as make bolt, snap, bolt an actual threat to you. The jund lands however, corner you into using mostly jund colors and makes double colored spells tougher. Currently, the Jund lands are favored since modern has a lot of aggro as well as anger of the gods, meaning a fetch on endstep is a lot better to trigger Bloodghast
For the Jund Lands set up you will want 6-8 fetchands, then 4-5 shocklands, likely a 2/2 split of Blood Crypt and Stomping Ground, as well as 2 Dakmor Salvage (which we also covered why in the dredgers section) then 4 Copperline Gorge. You should have 2-3 basics, leaning more on mountains, then forests. From here you should fill the rest out with Fastlands, other shocks, then rainbow lands if you have space left.
For the Rainbow Lands set up, you will still start with 4-6 Fetch Lands, and a 2/2 split of Blood Crypt and Stomping Ground and 2 Dakmor Salvage. After that, put 4 Copperline Gorge in the deck, and 4-6 City of Brass and Mana Confluence.
Recommended: 3-6
Flex spots are openings in the deck to add extra options to your deck. The deck is a very tight core, and the combo aspect of the deck needs most slots to run the engine. In most cases, this should be a plan B should things go awry, or a way to combat tough match-ups. However, I want to stress that these slots are not for putting in cards for no real reason. Each of them should have a role in the deck that allows you to straight up win with it, rather than be "Win More" for classic cases of winmore, look down at the Other Options section.
Plan B Packages-
This small section will be about adding a second layer to your deck, as another option to winning should somehow the core doesn't work. Dredge has been doing this from its inception, and the concept is still the same. Force the opponent to deal with the core, and then if they do, unleash your game winning plan B. If the plan B cant potentially win the game, it is not good enough for the deck. Here are currently the best options:
The Standard option: Life from the Loam/Conflagrate/Creeping Chill Package
~9-11 Total Slots~
3-4 Life from the Loam
2-3 Conflagrate
4 Creeping Chill
This is the conflagrate option, and the one currently favored. It is a way to win without attacking, costs 2 mana, can help with discard in a pinch, kills problem hate creatures like scavenging ooze, while also taking out chump blockers. For all of these reasons, it is the best option because it is both flexible and powerful, and takes very little slots and resources to use.
Creeping Chill is sort of a bridge between the Plan A and B allowing you more time to kill with either option if neeeded, but always shortening the race.
Normally all dredge lists would contain this, but Modern doesn't have the greatest sac outlets, so this plan suffers from it. However, it is still an option to beat out exile effects and make a million tokens.
Reanimator Package
~4 Total Slots~
2 Unburial Rites
0/1 Elesh Norn
0/1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
0/1 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur/Griselbrand/Craterhoof Behemoth
0/1 Flayer of the Hatebound
Reanimation is a staple in dredge, but without dread return, we are left to pay 4 mana to win the game. Still its a very valid package that can win the game on its own and is highly tune-able to different effects.
This package supplements the core beatdown package. Its main job is to speed up the core beatdown wins, as well as provide an out to selective graveyard hate.
Single Flex Cards
This isn't a package, but in dredge you will often have a few slots left over you can tune the deck to hate on other decks. These are often cards that are mostly used in the sideboard, but can see main deck play
Darkblast- An easy way to trigger dredge as well as kill little creatures.
Life From the Loam- An easy way to trigger dredge and re buy effect lands
Gnaw to the Bone- A counter to aggro decks.
Scourge Devil, Rally the Peasants- It can be a package or a single use card. It does the same job as the package.
Haunted Dead- Adds discard outlets to the deck while giving chump blockers and extra attackers
Shriekhorn- A colorless "discard" option if you need more 1 drop discards.
Collective Brutality- Adds more discard options to the deck, while also boasting powerful effects
Ghost Quarter- often paired with loam, you can use this to hinder ramp or greedy mana decks.
Vengeful Pharaoh- Used to take out repeat attackers, best against combo aggro or midrange.
Lightning Axe- A 1 mana kill creature spell that also can get your engine going.
Numbers: Completely dependent on the deckMill is not always used in dredge, but has shown up here and there when the mill effect was strong enough. In legacy, manaless dredge uses Balustrade Spy to mill your self out completely in one swoop. However, modern doesn't have this option and is forced to rely on these 3 cards: Hedron Crab, Tome Scour, and Shriekhorn. Each has benefits over one another. Crab will mill the most for no effort, tome scour has the most impact right away, and Shriekhorn is colorless so it doesn't require running blue in.
Currently none of these options are all that great, and its just better to discard dredgers.
These are other cards that might be brought up from time to time, but are generally considered below average or not playable in the deck. There may come a time when they are great, but they need card support or the meta to change in order to get to that point:
Bridge From Below- The card desperately lacks support, rather than power. There is no good way to have a reliable sac outlet from the graveyard, and so the power of this card doesnt have a chance to be abused.
Vengevine- Largely outclassed by Prized Amaglam. While the later has less power, and no haste, it is much much harder to "cast".
Stitcher's Supplier- A card with promise, but better used in the vengevine decks. Currently the other 1 drop options are better as they take better color of mana, but should we end up in a more bridge from below plan, this card will increase in value.
Demigod of Revenge/Extractor Demon/Worm Harvest- These are "game enders" that are generally outclassed by other game ending cards such as conflagrate and renaimator targets.
Gravecrawler/Lotleth Troll- This deck isn't dredgevine. These are powerful cards to be sure, but they both cost mana to be as effective as they can be, thus the core creatures beat them out through efficiency.
Rotting Rats- More or less replaced by Haunted Dead which discards better, and gives you more flexible options.
Flame Jab/Raven's Crime- Good options for but pretty low power level.
Drowned Rusalka- This is almost exactly like Insolent Neonate. The downside is that you have to use mana, and the upside is it can be a sac outlet for bridge.
Street Wraith- Its a free Dredge for 2 life!
Simian Spirit Guide- This is a way to speed the deck by a turn, allowing for some broken turns, but at the cost of deck constancy.
Understanding the deck in terms of how it functions, rather than just as a set of cards will go a long way into making your deck into a finely tuned engine. It will also help you know where you can cut corners or combine jobs, like Dakmor Salvage being able to help the land count and the dredge count. Play with the numbers and see if you can find the right ones for you!
Sideboarding in dredge is a much more complex process than most decks. Unlike in a deck like Jund or Zoo, its not as simple as "against affinity, you can use Stoney Silence." There are 3 separate things to consider when boarding as a dredge player: What does the archetype board in vs me, What counters the cards they board in vs me, What other cards are good vs them, and do I have room?
In the end, you'll find that its not a one for one sub when boarding, but a balancing act of how to not kill your engine while countering what they are doing. At the end of the day, this deck is a game one deck, and the goal here is to null their strong and narrow hate against you to make game 2 basically game 1.
This is the first step, and most important. Its also the most neglected step by new and long playing dredge players. You should know EXACTLY what hate cards are being boarded in against you, and what they do. Once you can go into any match armed with that knowledge you can move to Step 2. Here is a list of all good anti-dredge cards, take a read of all of them:
Hatecards by Impact
Leyline of the Void
Ravenous Trap
Rest In Peace
Anger of the Gods
Crypt Incursion
Anafenza, The Foremost
Surgical Extraction
Rakdos Charm
Grafdiggers Cage
Scavenging Ooze
Bojuka Bog
Nihil Spellbomb
Relic of Progenitus
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Tormod's Crypt
Loaming Shaman
Memory's Journey
Jund Charm
Dryad Militant
The best way to know what decks are currently using what hate cards is to go to a site like MTGGoldfish and look at the deck lists yourself. But I've added a list here of what each popular archetypes use to reference as you need it. Make sure to memorize this list and move to step 2.
Hate Cards used by Every Modern Archetype
Affinity:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Azban:
Boards in moderate hate
Scavenging Ooze
Nihil Spellbomb
Surgical Extraction
Rest In Peace
Tron:
Boards in heavy hate
Relic of Progenitus
Ravenous Trap
Rest in Peace
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Burn:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Jund:
Boards in moderate hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the Gods
Ravenous Trap
Scavenging Ooze
Bant Eldrazi:
Boards in moderate hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Rest in Peace
Worship
Titan Shift/Breach:
Boards in moderate hate
Anger of the Gods
Relic of Progenitus
Death's Shadow:
Boards in Moderate hate
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the Gods
Ad Nauseam:
Boards in little hate
Fog Effects
U/W Control:
Boards in heavy hate
Rest in Peace
Surgical Extraction
Amulet Titan:
Boards in moderate hate
Bojuka Bog
Ravenous Trap
Grixis Control:
Boards in heavy hate
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the gods
Goryo's Vengeance:
Boards in little hate
Blood Moon
Dredge:
Boards in little hate
Bojuka Bog
Leyline of the Void
Memory's Journey
Death and Taxes:
Boards in little hate
Rest in Peace
Sun and BloodMoon:
Boards in heavy hate
Anger of the Gods
Blood Moon
Exile effects
Rest in Peace
Knightfall:
Boards in little hate
Loaming Shaman
Bojuka Bog
Jeskai Control:
Boards in heavy hate
Surgical Extraction
Anger of the Gods
Rest in Peace
Abzan Company:
Boards in little hate
Anafenza, the Foremost
Loaming Shaman
Infect:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Kiki-Chord:
Boards in little hate
Anafenza, the Foremost
Loaming Shaman
Ravenous Trap
8 Rack:
Boards in moderate hate
Surgical Extraction
Leyline of the Void
Scapeshift:
Boards in moderate hate
Anger of the Gods
Surgical Extraction
Fae:
Boards in Moderate hate
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Ravenous Trap
Surgical Extraction
Zoo:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Soul Sisters/Martyr Proc:
Boards in little hate
Surgical Extraction
Leyline of the Void
Storm:
Boards in little hate
Blood Moon
Living End:
Boards in little hate
Faerie Macabre
Leyline of the Void
Boogles:
Boards in little hate
Rest in Peace
Infect:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
UR Prowess:
Boards in moderate hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Surgical Extraction
Ravenous Trap
Merfolk:
Boards in little hate
Grafdigger's Cage
Relic of Progenitus
Lantern Control:
Boards in little hate
Surgical Extraction
Relic of Progenitus
Tormod's Crypt
Grafdigger's Cage
Grixis Delver:
Boards in little hate
Ravenous Trap
Surgical Extraction
Skred Red:
Boards in heavy hate
Blood Moon
Relic of Progenitus
Anger of the Gods
Grafdigger's Cage
Elves:
Boards in little hate
Scavenging Ooze
Recommended: 0-1/3/4-5
If you havent looked over that massive archetype list I posted in the spoilers, do it, you can't complete this step without it. Some of those archetypes I color coded with Green, Orange, and Red. This color means how much are they siding in against you, and it directly correlates to how much you should be trying to counter their hate cards. See the list below of the best cards to bring in vs what.
Green listed decks will barely side in against you. This is because they would rather race you, or don't mind non interactivity. Against these decks you should side in 0-1 cards to combat them. There is very little chance they will hit their boarded in cards and you are better off just trying to race them yourself or siding in good cards against them that aren't anti-hate cards.
Orange listed decks will have a fair amount of hate for you. It will be enough that 1 hate card SHOULD show up games 2 and 3, and as such you should have enough anti hate boarded in that you should see 1 answer to counter it. That should be 3 anti hate cards.
Red listed decks will be overboarding for you. This is likely because they have a bad match-up and need to do this to have a shot at winning. If you can answer their hate cards it should be an easy win. However, some of these listed, like skred red or tron, just naturally use cards that are good for you, and it will be a bad match up anyways. Regardless, you need to board on equal terms and be able to answer at least 2 hate cards per game. That means you will want to board in about 5 anti hatecards
List of Best Cards that Counter Hate Cards
In order of effectiveness
Leyline of the Void
Nature's Claim
Fragmentize
Golgari CharmRavenous Trap
Thoughtseize
Collective BrutalityRest in Peace
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Golgari Charm
ThoughtseizeAnger of the Gods
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Fetchlands
Golgari CharmCrypt Incursion
Thoughtseize
Collective BrutalityAnafenza, The Foremost
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
ConflagrateSurgical Extraction
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Ground SealRakdos Charm
Thoughtseize
Collective BrutalityGrafdigger's Cage
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeScavenging Ooze
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
ConflagrateBojuka Bog
Feels bad manNihil Spellbomb
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeRelic of Progenitus
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeKalitas, Traitor of Ghet
Lightning Axe
Conflagrate
ThoughtseizeTormod's Crypt
Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient GrudgeMemory's Journey
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Ground SealLoaming Shaman
Thoughtseize
Ground SealJund Charm
Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Golgari CharmDryad Militant
Collective Brutality
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
Darkblast
Conflagrate
Step 1 is to know what the hate cards do, and who plays what. Step 2 is knowing what cards you should be playing against said hate cards, and how many of them. So in your sideboarding process, you should have made a pile of cards you want to board in... but what do you board out!? Well, you'll have to bare through yet another list. But this will teach you what you generally for sub out for what.
Important note:This deck is part combo, which means while siding you should not take out a full piece of the engine, but rather, start with your flex cards, then 1 card from the Enablers, Dredgers, and Creatures, like we talked about earlier in the primer. And remember, sometimes its OK to go to 61 cards in this deck
Thoughtseize- Narcomoeba or a Flex Spot, or package slot. Generally if you are thoughtseizing, you are trying to strip a hate card or hurt their combo while maintaining aggression. In both these cases, going down to 3 narcs is perfectly fine.
Nature's Claim/Natural State/Fragmentize- Narcomoeba or a Flex Spot, or package slot. Generally if you are Naturalizing, you are trying to destroy a hate card or hurt their combo while maintaining aggression. In both these cases, going down to 3 narcs is perfectly fine.
Lightning Axe- An easy 1 for 1 sub withInsolent Neonate. Both discard to start a dredge engine, while one dredges, this one interacts
Collective Brutality- An easy 1 for 1 sub with Cathartic Reunion. They both have the same function, discarding cards, but reunion gives you dredge power, and Brutality gives you interactivity
Abrupt Decay- A Flex spot only, or package slot.
Golgari Charm- A Flex spot only, or package slot
Ancient Grudge- a flashback spell, darkblast, flex slot, or loam.
But wait! You still have to cut a few more cards?!
Have no fear, you can still make a few cuts. Heres where you'll find the last few card slots:
- If its against a deck that's faster than you, like an aggro deck, cut 1 bloodghast.
- If its against a deck thats slower than you, like a control deck, cut 1 Narcomoeba
- If its against a deck that has counter spells, cut a loam and conflagrate
- If its against a creatureless/creature light deck, cut a loam and a conflagrate.
- If its against a deck you don't need to race, cut Scourge Devil.
- If its a deck you don't need to have blockers for, cut Haunted Dead.
Recommended: 3/1/0
Now, in step 2 we decided how many anti hate cards we should use in the particular matchup, green getting 0-1, Orange getting 3, and red getting 5. Sometimes that leaves you room to wiggle in extra sideboard cards to beat them. For example, Darkblast isn't a very good anti-hate card, but it is great at killing off affinity's creatures. Affinity also happens to be one of those green listed decks, meaning you can fit 3-4 sideboarded cards in along with 1/2 anti hate cards! So in review
Green listed decks can have 0-1 Anti hate cards, and 3-4 generally useful sideboard cards.
Orange listed decks can have about 3 Anti hate cards, and 1-2 generally useful sideboard cards.
Red listed decks can have about 5 Anti hate cards, and 0 generally useful sideboard cards.
What are these extra sideboard cards that could be useful? Well here's a list!
Darkblast- This card is recycleable and lets you kill dorks dead, giving it a ton of uses. Its best used on mana dork decks like melira company or decks that go wide like Affinity
Vengeful Pharaoh- This is ok against aggro decks like burn or zoo, but its at its best against midrange decks that put their stock less in lots of little creatures, but in quality creatures like tarmogoyf.
Bojuka Bog- Really only playable if you run 3 life from the loam, otherwise use journey or leyline. This can keep grave strategies from getting anywhere.
Ghost Quarter- Useful against manlands, killer against tron and eldrazi. Like Bog, only playable with 3 loams.
Memory's Journey- Surgical grave hate, it's the worst of our options, but also the least hardest on deck building. Doesn't need more than one copy, or additional cards.
Abrupt Decay- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as a random removal spell or anti combo card.
Assassin's Trophy- Like abrupt decay, with a steeper draw back and a stronger effect. Usually better than Decay.
Damping Sphere- A sideboard condensing card, allowing you to hit multiple decks at one time. While not as strong as any of the sideboard cards that can destroy one single matchup, this card has its strength by opening up the board to a wider array of decks.
Thoughtseize- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as a proactive way to deny something. Works best on decks that are later game decks or need to have a few cards at the same time. Works best against combo and big mana.
Collective Brutality- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as a proactive way to do a lot of good things. Its best use is when it can kill a dork, strip an important card. Very good against Company and All in aggro decks like burn or infect.
Ancient Grudge- Can double as an anti-hate card as well as something you can do in your yard. Its best against artifact matters decks like lantern, tron, and affinity.
Ray of Revelation- Don't be fooled, this is NOT an anti-hate card, but instead should only be used as the grave version of Grudge, best against Boogles and enchantment matters decks.
Haunted Dead- Reuseable chump blockers. Very very good against all in aggro decks, where it can buy you time.
Scourge Devil/Rally of the Peasants- simply a way to race. Its at its best against decks that don't interact with you, and you can't interact with them. Stuff like Scapeshift decks.
Leyline of the Void- Graveyard hate that doesnt effect us. Only useful if you devote 3-4 slots in the board.
Lightning Axe- A cheap way to get rid of problem creatures. Best use for aggro, midrange, and combo that uses creatures.
Engineered Explosives- Has a lot of random uses, but the biggest is taking down aggro that goes really wide, while also being able to kill hate cards if needed.
Gnaw to the Bone- Your go to anti aggro card. Usually only a 1 of, but push it to 2 if your meta is all aggro.
In review:
Step 1: Know what the hate cards are used to beat dredge, and which decks use what.
Step 2: Know what Anti-Hate cards you must board in for the match-up and how many.
Step 3: Make the correct cuts from your flex spot and engine so you don't mess up your combo
Step 4: Fill in the extra sideboard cards if you have the space to do so.
Now you know how to do steps 1-4, you wont need a guide. Which is good, because sideboarding in this deck is one of the most complicated parts of it!
Below is a list of details and tips to help you play dredge. They are very boring, and read like a textbook, but they are key to running the deck correctly as possible. I also want to give a shout out to Izzetmage who wrote these!
Read up on these rules to be the best dredge player you can be!
There’s a lot of reminder text on dredge, but honestly no TL;DR version. Just read the text and it should explain everything just fine. Basically, if you would draw a card while you have a dredge card in your graveyard, you have two options:
1) draw the card normally
2) put the dredge card into your hand and mill X
In both cases, you would have one more card in hand than you had before the draw. The difference in case 2 is that you have X more cards in your graveyard. That’s where Dredge (the deck) draws its strength from. Also, when you dredge, you get to choose which card you add to your hand. Need removal? Get Darkblast. Need lands? Get Dakmor Salvage or Life from the Loam.
Dredge is a static, replacement ability. If you decide to dredge, your opponent cannot remove the card that you’re going to dredge “in response”.
You can only dredge X if you have that many cards in your library, or more. So you can’t dredge 3 to get a game-winning Darkblast back in hand if you have 2 or less cards in your library. Be careful!
Dredge replaces any card draw (i.e. any of the red enabler cards), not just the one that you get during your draw step.It’s said that Dredge is not “real Magic”. In this section I’m going to explain why this is so: first by examining how Dredge operates, and second, by examining how it stacks up against conventional “answers”.
If you look at Dredge’s creature base (Narcomoeba, Bloodghast, Prized Amalgam), you should notice that all of them can be put into play for 0 mana. This bypasses the fundamental principle of Magic, where the amount of stuff you can play is limited by the amount of mana you have. Instead, with Dredge, the amount of creatures you can put out is dependent on the amount of creatures you have in your graveyard. And with Imp/Thug dredging 4 or 5 cards per draw, including additional draws from Looting or Inquiry, it’s not hard to get your graveyard filled quickly while hitting a few Narcomoebas along the way. Once that happens, a single land drop will bring all of your Bloodghasts back. How many Bloodghasts, exactly? As many as you milled - mill hard or get lucky and you can have all four for the price of one land drop! Then this sets up Prized Amalgam’s trigger, and like Bloodghast, the amount of Amalgams you can get depends on how many there are in your graveyard, not the amount of mana you have.
There are three main categories of “answers” that other decks play. Dredge matches up favorably against all of them.
Removal: How much mana does it take for Dredge to put a creature into play? Answer: zero. How much mana do removal spells cost? Answer: certainly more than zero. This explains why removal is not cost-efficient against Dredge. Furthermore, if Dredge’s creatures are killed, they go back to the graveyard, but are ready to jump back into play at any moment (that you can play a land). Bridge from Below also neutralizes removal by giving you a Zombie token whenever one of your creatures dies.
Counterspells: How do Dredge’s creatures enter the battlefield? Answer: triggered abilities. They are not casted, so there is nothing to counter unless the opponent is playing Trickbind or Voidslime (which practically nobody does, and even then it costs them more mana to play their counter than it costs you to revive your creature). The only things that can be countered are the enabler cards, which brings up the question: how exactly do you plan on doing so? Most enabler cards cost 1 mana, which is way before you can get most counters ready. Dispel/Spell Snare doesn’t work on them. Remand and Mana Leak cost 2 mana, and in the case of Remand, the countered spell will be easily re-casted. Spell Pierce is the best counter, although it doesn’t stop Insolent Neonate.
Discard: Casting a discard spell to take anything except an enabler is fueling Dredge’s game plan. Even if they do take an enabler, it’s useless if you have another enabler in hand - the odds are good, given that the deck has at least 12 enablers main and up to 4 additional discard outlets if you bring in Lightning Axe. Darkblast, and to a lesser extent Life from the Loam can also be hardcasted to start the dredge chain rolling.
All said, the most effective way to attack Dredge is to attack its graveyard. Grafdigger’s Cage and Rest in Peace will stop Dredge cold. Nevertheless, Dredge can steal games against such hate cards by simply going under them (i.e. getting out a bunch of creatures before they hit the field), or randomly discarding them to Burning Inquiry. Graveyard exilers like Relic of Progenitus can stop the first wave of creatures, but the Dredge deck can beat it by setting up a second wave. Surgical Extraction and Extirpate are problematic if they nab Bloodghast or Amalgam, but they are either rarely played or played in small amounts, giving Dredge a chance of going under them.
In the absence of grave hate, the other way to beat Dredge is to race it. Aggro and combo decks will have a much easier time doing this. Dredge can put a bunch of creatures into the battlefield on turn 2, but it typically takes two turns of attacks to kill a defenseless opponent, unless he took a lot of damage from his lands, or you have Rally the Peasants. This means that Dredge goldfishes at about turn 4, a speed which most aggro and combo decks should be comfortable racing. With Bloodghast being incapable of blocking and Prized Amalgam entering the battlefield tapped, this opens the door wider for aggro decks. The matchup may swing in either direction based on the trump cards that each player has: Dredge has Darkblast, Gnaw to the Bone and Vengeful Pharaoh, while opposing decks may have lifelink or damage prevention effects.
The most effective removal against Dredge is the kind that doesn’t put the creatures in the graveyard, as Dredge can get those creatures back into play easily. Anger of the Gods is a common one. Bounce is less common, but still effective - Dredge needs to take the extra step of getting those creatures back into the graveyard again. Merfolk plays plenty of bounce (Vapor Snag, Harbinger of the Tides), and some decks play Thing in the Ice, which can flip, wipe Dredge’s board, and threaten immediately with its 7 power. That said, Conflagrate allows Dredge to dump its hand and deal a ton of damage.
TL;DR: dredge beats fair decks and loses to grave hate, “anti-meta” decks that maindeck/SB multiple copies of hate cards, and faster decks.Since Dredge works differently from other decks, constructing it also goes against most accepted deckbuilding principles. For Dredge, there is a simple rule of thumb that I use to eliminate card choices:
- Does this card help get more cards into the graveyard?
- Can this card be cast/activated/triggered from the graveyard?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, the card in question is not maindeckable. When you start dredging, you’ll be putting Imps and Thugs into your hand instead of cards that you could draw normally. You can’t draw cards normally, unless you are willing to stop dredging.
- Are you playing this card/effect as a 3/4-of?
- Can this card be cast/activated/triggered from the graveyard?
If the answer to either of these questions is no, the card in question is not sideboardable. Again, dredging means that if the sideboarded card isn’t in your opening hand, it’s going to be in your graveyard. If you can’t cast it from the graveyard, you should play 4 copies to maximize the chances of it being in the place where it matters, i.e. your opening hand.- You can rearrange your graveyard at any time. This rule is unique to Modern (and Standard), but does not apply to Legacy or Vintage where graveyard-order-matters cards like Nether Shadow exist. This makes remembering triggers and viewing your dredge/flashback options much easier: you can simply put all the irrelevant cards at the bottom.
- You should have your graveyard spread out instead of in a stack, so that you can see every card. If you’re playing online, the graveyard window should always be open.
- Remember your triggers. Your creatures enter the battlefield via triggers, and if you forget them, your opponent isn’t going to point them out. After playing a land, especially if you’re playing the land so that you can cast a spell, check for Bloodghast. After milling yourself, check for Narcomoeba, especially if you dredge twice or more. At the end of the turn, check for Prized Amalgam. When anything dies, or before you kill something, or before you enter combat, check for Bridge.
- Perform actions in the order that they are written on the card. Look out for the word “then”. With Faithless Looting, you draw first, then discard. For Insolent Neonate’s cost, it’s a little different: you can pay in whatever order you want, but the order that’s printed on the card is the order that you want to follow anyway (discard Bridge, then sac to get a token). Stitchwing Skaab can discard and trigger a Prized Amalgam in your hand: you discard as a cost first, then Skaab enters the battlefield.
- For cards that say “draw X cards” (i.e. Looting/Inquiry), cards are drawn individually, so you get to dredge for each card that would be drawn. This also means that you decide to dredge before each card is drawn, not upon resolution of Looting/Inquiry. If you happen to mill a Stinkweed Imp or a Dakmor Salvage that you really need on the first dredge, you can choose to dredge that card on the second draw.
- Abilities cannot resolve while another spell/ability is resolving. This is targeted at Narcomoeba - if you play Looting/Inquiry and mill a Narcomoeba on the first dredge, the Narcomoeba trigger goes on the stack after the Looting/Inquiry has finished resolving. Narcomoeba itself is still in the graveyard while you’re doing the second or third dredge. If you mill a Prized Amalgam on the second or third dredge, or discard one to the Looting/Inquiry that's resolving, it will trigger off the Narcomoeba - after Looting/Inquiry finishes resolving, the Narcomoeba trigger goes on the stack, it enters the battlefield, then Amalgam triggers for that.
Another example: if you play Looting/Inquiry, after resolving your first dredge/draw, your opponent cannot cast something like Surgical Extraction before your second draw. He must wait for the Looting/Inquiry to finish resolving.
- Position your Narcomoebas/Amalgams slightly differently to remind yourself of their triggers. For example, if you have your graveyard lined out in a row, you can leave the triggered Narcomoebas/Amalgams sticking out slightly above all your other cards. If you line your graveyard out in columns, you can tap those cards instead (although tapping a card in a graveyard is sometimes used as an indicator that the card has been exiled, so make a separate pile for exile if you’re doing this). With Narcomoeba, it reduces the chance of forgetting about it after completely resolving a multiple-draw card like Looting or Inquiry. With Amalgam, it removes confusion as to which Amalgams have been triggered and which have not (if they were put into the graveyard at different times). If you use tricks like these, remember that the cards are still in the graveyard, and they’ll be lost like anything else if your opponent wipes your graveyard. Also remember that they count towards Gnaw to the Bone.The concept of “card advantage”, when applied to Dredge, is roughly “number of cards in your graveyard”. That said, mulligan aggressively to get good hands. Being low on cards in hand doesn’t matter if you’re still able to get a lot of cards into your graveyard. This is apparent when you realize that all your 1-mana enabler cards leave you down 1 card in hand after you cast them.
Your ideal hand should have two lands and two enablers. Insolent Neonate only counts as an enabler if you have a dredger in hand - with the other enablers you can hope to draw/mill into a dredger. This gives you a turn 1 and turn 2 play, and the second land guarantees a Bloodghast trigger if it ends up in your graveyard. Having an Imp/Thug to discard to one of the enablers makes it a snap keep.
Two lands and one enabler is not too exciting, but keepable. It goes up in keepability if there’s a Darkblast or Life from the Loam in it which you can hardcast, should the enabler fail to find a dredger. This hand is weaker against discard, as they can take the enabler, unless it’s Conflagrate, in which case you just play both your lands and dump your hand on turn 2.
One land hands should not be kept unless there’s a Faithless Looting in it to dig for a second land. Even if you have the most amazing dredges, the only way to get more lands into your hand is to hit Dakmor Salvage, or to decline dredging and draw normally.
Narcomoeba is a dead card in hand (in fact this is one of the disadvantages of the deck: that there are four cards that you want in your library, but never want to draw). Don’t go mulliganing every hand with a Narcomoeba in it “because it’s already a mulligan” though - if the hand is keepable even if you were to remove Narcomoeba from it, keep it!
For post-board games, remember the “Dredge Mentality”: there are two ways to beat hate cards, first is drawing the counter-hate, second is just being faster than them. If you have a good hand that can spit out a lot of creatures by the second turn (plenty of enablers/Looting + Bloodghast/Amalgam), it’s keepable even if there are no anti-hate cards in it.Please visit this link to an imgur album I put together on this.
Dredge playing can be tricky because we don't play like a normal magic deck. So while its technically against the rules to rearrange your play like this when you are at a gp, its more than fine at an fmn. This is the most efficient way to display your cards in order to show your triggers and options.Dredge is a self-perpetuating engine. When you dredge a card, it puts more cards from your library into your graveyard. Ideally, one of those cards will have dredge, so you can repeat this process. This comes to a jarring stop as soon as you run out of dredgers in your graveyard - you’d have to find a way to get a dredge card back into your graveyard before you can begin anew.
One common trap is to get greedy and discard Prized Amalgam to Faithless Looting instead of a dredger. For example, you might be tempted to Loot on turn 1, discard Bloodghast and Amalgam, then play a land on turn two and bring them both back. A better play, however, would be to discard Bloodghast and a dredger - this gives up the immediate benefit of an extra 3/3 body, but won’t leave you spinning your wheels if they manage to deal with your creatures.When playing this deck, it’s easy to forget that your dredgers can do more than dredge. Imp makes a decent blocker with pseudo-deathtouch, and Grave-Troll is a massive regenerating attacker.
Bloodghast, Amalgam and Narcomoeba can also be hardcasted. This does not come up too often though, as Narcomoeba and Amalgam require blue mana, and Bloodghast costs double black.
If your opponent plays Grafdigger’s Cage, your plan from that point on changes to “hardcast creatures”. Grafdigger’s Cage may turn off Bloodghast and stop you from flashing back Ancient Grudge, but it doesn’t stop you from dredging Imps, Thugs and Loams. Trying to beat your opponent with what is effectively a bunch of recurring Pestilent Katharis and a bunch of 1/1s is a long shot, but it’s better than nothing.It’s important to mill hard in the early stages of the game, but as the game goes on and they’re not dead yet, there arises the possibility of losing by deck out. The last few cards in your deck become precious, like the last few pieces of toilet paper on the roll when you’re pooping.
You’ll want to switch to drawing normally instead of dredging. Hardcasting Imp or or grave creatures becomes an option, so be sure to use Loam to get enough lands into your hand before then. Darkblast must be rationed, since it takes out 3 cards every time you dredge it. Dakmor Salvage is always a good option because it only digs two and can recur ghasts.
- If you open a hand with looting and neonate, it is usually better to neonate first if you have a dredger in hand to discard. so you can dredge twice with faithless. If you need to find a dredger, faithless first, so you have a discard outlet ready immediatly.
- If you are using Neonate, try to use it on their turn rather than yours, if you aren't looking to dredge right away. This will give you a body to block with against aggressive decks. Also, use him on their second main, rather than end, just in case you hit a Narcomoeba and Amalgam.
- Prized Amalgam is a delayed trigger. This can get you into trouble if someone rule sharks you at higher events. When something enter the battlefield, it triggers prized amalgam's effect. YOU MUST ANNOUNCE IT (keep it on the side of the grave, or put a dice on it.) as long as you announce this, should it slip your mind, the entering of amalgam is mandatory and a judge will rule in your favor and he will still enter play. His entering is still a separate trigger, so yes, amalgam has 2 triggers you need to keep track of, not one.
- A common thing people will forget is Prized amalgam has a delayed trigger, which you can use to your benefit. It says "Next end step" not "your endstep." This means it can come back at the end of the opponents turn. If you have a trigger on a amalgam because of a Narcomoeba, then dredge more and find 2 amalgams, the first will trigger at the end of your turn, then trigger the 2 in the yard, meaning 2 amalgams will return at the end of the opponents turn.
- Bloodghasts landfall is very important. It will trigger twice off fetchlands, and once off ghost quarters or paths to exile. If you aim to return them to the battlefield, resolve the fetch first, then crack it later as removal insurance. Also, there will be times ghast will be safer in the yard than the battlefield. This mostly comes from path, ugin or anger of the gods. In that case, you should crack your fetch at the end of their turn to bring them back. HOWEVER this will delay the trigger on amalgam to your turn. Sometimes its best to do it on their second mainphase so you get ghasts AND amalgams.
- Narcomoeba is a trigger you can respond to. If you run ways to dig harder instantly like shriekhorn or Neonate, you can respond to dig deeper to find amalgams.
- Faithless looting's effect lasts until you discard. This is important because it doesnt mean Narcomoeba's effect has triggered yet, letting you discard amalgams to see that trigger.
- Always cathartic reunion before collective brutality if you can. Reunion nets you 0 cards in hand, but brutality nets you -2, meaning you'll be hardpressed to reunion after.
- When nothing really important is happening in a game stall, always start loading on Life from the Loam so you can work on conflaging them.
- Stinkweed should be hardcasted more often than you'd expect. It is a flying deathtouch blocker.
- Golgari Thug can be used to reset Narcomoebas
- Darkblast and conflag can be used to reset bloodghasts to trigger amalgams or to make them avoid anger of the gods.
- Haunted Dead can be used on upkeep to reload an empty grave with dredge cards
- Haunted Dead can be used to discard amalgams and revive them at the same time.
- Two Thugs can be chained together to create a loop to keep you at 1 card in your library.
There are many decks in modern that use the graveyard, but not all of them have overlapping cards. Below here is our sister decks!
DredgeVine
This deck is much more midrange grind than combo graveyard then we are. It still dredges, but also draws too, and often win the game with tall creatures than going wide. Its flaw is there is much less deck space to work with, and not every card synergies with itself as much as Dredge. However, it doesn't roll over to grave hate, which is a strong point. If you like a more "jund" feeling Dredge, check out Dredgevine!
Hallow One
This deck is the aggro counterpart to dredge. While it isn't "all in" on the graveyard, it is an all in deck. If you perfer speed and smashing face, this would be right up your alley. Often this deck is the better pick if dredge is being really hated out of the meta, as it is fast enough to go under most peoples hate cards. Its also a better pick for the meta if you need speed.
This deck loses ground to dredge when the meta is more grindy or interactive. Dredge also has a bit more adaptability than this deck, able to shuffle its game strategies according to the current meta.
BridgeVine
It has much less in common with Dredgevine than you would think, this is a very all in combo deck. The idea behind it is to get bridge into the grave as fast as possible, then cast cards that will die right away, to make a quick army of zombie tokens and win the game. If you like All in combos, than this is much better for you. Fair warning, being all in, it is much less stable (and probably more fun when it goes off)
Craterhoof Dredge
Here we have a more focused on Reanimation dredge. It does this through Llanowar Mentor and Greenseeker to ramp into a quick Unburial Rites targeting Craterhoof Behemoth, then running over them. If you want to play elves the dredge, here you go!
Bans are a real concern for this format, and something that needs to be addressed in this primer. Before we go into this, I should remind everyone this is not the correct thread to talk about bans.If you would like to please instead go to this thread.
With that PSA out of the way, lets get into it. Modern is a format that has historically been pretty ban heavy. Decks that are "too consistently good", make the format more of a sideboard lottery, or are flat out unfun, have been banned before, and we have hit all 3 of those. Its also well known that Wizards has deemed the Dredge Mechanic a massive mistake on their end. So I can not say that this deck is safe from bans. I will say however, that in any eternal format a graveyard based deck will always exist, and they always print graveyard eccentric cards, so dredge will continue to exist in one form or any other regardless. Wizards has made it quite clear they want to control power level, not kill decks, so we should fit into this boat.
In most formats, we are a "sideboard lottery" and with the banning of troll we fold to hate quite easily, so this should be our lifeline. However, if you have reservations to the idea that something may be banned, this deck probably isn't a good fit. However, I'd venture to say that modern is currently in a ban mania time, so any well preforming deck could be hit with bans.
And thats Dredge! I hope this primer has been chalk full of information for you. If it has, leave me a like on this post, so I can see! The idea was to make this knowledgeable enough, that after reading you should be comfortable with the deck, and refer to this primer when you hit some tricky spots. If you have any questions, deck review, or match-up reports, feel free to post it on here!
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Jun 7, 2017
5
Lantern posted a message on MTGsalvation will now use the tier updates from our own postersAs some of you might have noticed mtgsalvation's tier listing have been... lets say a little wonky for a while. Usually we pride our self for very up to date listings of tiers. One of our mods, ktkenshinx, used to track the information himself, but he is really busy now and can't do it anymore.Posted in: Modern
However some of our posters (below) have been working and perfecting a doc of their own to track data, updated more often. As they have added weights to their data, and it is still improving, along with their dedication to the data listings, mtgsalvation has decided to adopt their tiers into our own from here on.
Their list thread will be stickied to the front page, and their info added to the OP. I will be updating the listings every month now, instead of every 3 month. there will be more movement of the threads as well.
I'd like to thank their hard work (and making my life much easier)
Ashockfan/Avi Mikhli
- Reddit Page: https://www.reddit.com/user/Ashockfan/
- Details: Writer of the Modern Tiered List
rothgar13/Roland F. Rivera Santiago
- Reddit Page: https://www.reddit.com/user/rothgar13
- Details: Writer of MTGS's Modern Merfolk Primer
EverythingIsK/Zac Pinales
- Reddit Page: https://www.reddit.com/user/EverythingIsK
- Details: Our editor and sometimes writer
Coinman1863/Teddy Lockman
- Reddit Page: https://www.reddit.com/user/Coinman1863
- Details: TappedOut Mod, cEDH guru, and possible future data collector for 1v1 Commander Tiered List -
Jun 7, 2017
2
Stille_Nacht posted a message on State of Modern Thread: bans, format health, metagame, and more! (3/13 update)Honestly I fee like some of the arguments on stoneforge mystic are disingenuous at best.Posted in: Modern Archives
1. It's not as fast as the godhands from various decks.
Things like t3 breach are not comparable and not useful to bring up in the conversation. T3 breach is also faster and more broken than esper charm if it had a -5/-5 option, or a hexproof dark confidant. Comparing a single card to an undisrupted godhand that requires the entire deck be constructed around said godhand is silly.
2. It doesn't slot directly into any of the current t1 decks
True enough, and it would certainly be true that stoneforge would create new decks. However, that doesn't mean it's safe. If you banned prized amalgalm, dredge would be tier 3. Does that mean that dread return is ok? Of course not.
3. Ok but it's not good enough to be broken.
This is the most complex one to answer. I think people are fixating too much on trying to imagine overwhelming kill turns. That is very much not what stoneforge mystic does. Stoneforge mystic is strong because it is a cheap, efficient win-con, which significantly alleviates deck-building constraints. The ability to include a 7 card package with a 2 drop which wins the game by itself, no matter the actual clock, is extremely significant.
I realize legacy is not modern, but check out the following:
DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards // Deck file created with mtgtop8.com
// NAME : Death
// CREATOR :
// FORMAT : Legacy
4 [DS] Aether Vial
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
9 [RTR] Plains
3 [LG] Karakas
1 [CHK] Eiganjo Castle
1 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
1 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
1 [NPH] Batterskull
4 [C16] Swords to Plowshares
1 [ORI] Vryn Wingmare
2 [EMN] Thalia, Heretic Cathar
4 [DKA] Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic
4 [CMD] Mother of Runes
1 [CN2] Palace Jailer
2 [M15] Phyrexian Revoker
4 [C14] Flickerwisp
2 [OGW] Eldrazi Displacer
2 [C14] Containment Priest
Notice that a lot of the creature inclusions are actually very weak when it comes to board presence. There's a lot of random bears and 3 drop hate creatures. Why is this deck good? It doesn't do anything that broken right? Sometimes it blinks a 4 drop with flickerwisp to exile something. How's that better than Eldrazi with eye of ugin, eldrazi temple, ancient tomb, city of traitors, and wasteland in its mana base? Surely ACTUAL CONSISTENT t2 thought-knot is better than t3 batterskull right? How's that better than Burn with Price of Progress and Fireblast? Surely burn having access to 8 damage spells is stronger?
This entire deck is only good because the Stoneforge package provides enough winning potential for the rest of the deck to be devoted to disruption. You can play cards like phyrexian revoker and thalia, heretic cathar mainboard, the deck was even running 4 vryn wingmare at one point (now it's 1-2). This is what I mean by freeing up deck-building constraints.
Similarly, if you conceptualize stoneforge as part of UW, you don't say "oh, I'm not racing affinity, so it's bad kappa". You never raced affinity as UW. If you could race affinity as UW, nobody would play anything but UW. Instead, you ask:
Can UW include more spells because of the stoneforge package's win con?
Can UW significantly lower its curve because of stoneforge's mana efficiency?
Can UW get run currently non-viable spell packages because of the turn on which stoneforge stabilizes the board?
Does the addition of stoneforge patch a significant portion of the weaknesses of a given UW build?
Do any of these changes make UW too good?
It is unlikely that stoneforge ever makes a deck unbeatable. The risk we need to think about is the creation of a deck which has a 55% win rate against almost everything. For example, imagine if a UW list found that it could lose a lot of its "survive vs. aggro" stuff like lightning helix and electrolyze because stoneforge is stabilizing the early game and focus on other matchups. Also all of you who don't think stoneforge is good against affinity are trippin. Like, they cast it turn 4 or 5 while holding up removal. It's insanely strong to be able to continue removing/countering things while threatening to poop out a 4/4 lifelinker at instant speed.
Would it actually be broken? Difficult to say. Its CERTAINLY not "super safe". Unfortunately, I haven't tested anything with stoneforge since before the eldrazi winter.
-
May 28, 20179
ktkenshinx posted a message on GP Kobe and CopenhagenPosted in: ModernQuote from beanman1000 »Quite a few people in this thread wont be happy unless Miracles, or a modern equivalent, is dominant in Modern. They dismiss UW, Esper, and Jeskai control as complete flukes, which seems very insulting to both the players that pilot those decks to great finishes and those that actively work to tune decks based on said finishes.
Sad, but true. Specifically, I believe the "control sucks" camp won't be happy with Modern until a deck emerges that fits the following conditions:
1. The deck is mostly blue
2. The deck is primarily draw-go
3. The deck doesn't include a viable proactive Plan A/B
4. The deck includes some number, probably 8+, counterspell variants
5. The deck has no matchups worse than 45/55
6. The deck has no more 45/55 (or worse) matchups than other competing top-tier decks
7. The deck has at least as many 55/45 (or better) matchups as other competing top-tier decks
8. The deck consistently places in major event T8s for 6+ months
9. The deck consistent places in MTGO Leagues and major event Day 2s for 6+ months
10. The deck is widely acknowledged by pros as being top-tier
If decks emerge that don't fit all those 10 conditions, I really believe that the "control sucks" contingent of Modern players won't believe in any deck in this format. That's too bad because there are clearly lots of strong options out there, as these events have attested, particularly if one is willing to compromise on at least some of the first four conditions.
In late 2016, I was really unhappy with Modern because you couldn't play reactive blue at all. It was all Dredge, Infect, DSZ, ramp, etc. with no space for any blue decks. Snapcaster was basically extinct. Now, reactive blue is extremely viable between the traditional blue decks and the more proactive DS ones, and the old complaint no longer holds. All that is left is the group of players who still wants the very specific deck I defined above. Or, as beanman said, they won't be happy until they get Modern Miracles. -
May 5, 2017
21
Lantern posted a message on State of Modern Thread: bans, format health, metagame, and more! (3/13 update)Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from Tanukimo »Quote from acc95 »
Apparently, Lantern has changed both the data source and the tiering cutoffs. Now it seems +1% decks are Tier 2 and +3% decks are Tier 1, roughyl. No official layout and/or explanation of changes by any mod so far.Quote from Tanukimo »Can anyone explain to me how the Tier system has changed on this site? Does it have to do with Ktkenshinx leaving?
Thank you. It would be nice if the staff were more transparent about it.
I am. Did you message me? Ive also been commenting on all the deck threads that asked about it.
I'm not a god, I'm not telepathic. I'm a Television Studio Producer. I work about 75 hours a week, and do this on the side. No one is paying me. And my main Mod, who I trained and have been working with for literally years is leaving me. Next time anyone requests me to magically fix everything, they can just quote this.
No offence. I've been modding this sub for literally a decade at this point, and its mostly people telling me how things are wrong. Sometimes I get thanked, most times I dont. I'm training 2 new mods now, so Maybe I can be free enough to actually do more work in the tiering.
I'll be as clear as day here... and again. Yall can quote me on this if anyone asks again, it would save me the leg work of people thinking Im shafting them.
THERE IS NO GOOD DATA FOR ME TO DRAW ON. Point blank. I can use MTG goldfish, but their data is incomplete and they only hold a month of data on file, and when they update they dump 3 weeks of data and start fresh every month. Thats pretty bad for a non rotating slow to change format.
I can use top 8, like I'm doing right now, that does 2 months of data, but has random data holes and weighs everything pretty equally. So theres problems there too.
I can use modern nexus... when they remember to update. They are always late, and depending on them lately has been like throwing a paper plane and hoping it comes back sometime. (If you are reading this modern nexus, sorry. I was extremely pleased by the site, but every update has been weeks late for about a half a year now.)
I can use mainphase's data. Even messaged them (because people assume I havent been trying to fix this problem) asking about the data and more information. Im waiting on replies.
To be clear. You are asking me to be on top of an issue that has no good answers while I also have to feed my family AND train 2 new mods and clean up a forum missing the best partner I ever had.
I'm not going to ask for sympathy over here, or call out selfishness, but I will ask for understanding and patience. Come on. Cut some slack. -
Mar 17, 20173
osieorb18 posted a message on Doomsday UltimatumPosted in: Magic GeneralQuote from Lithl »
Pile split Lab Man -- Everything else. Now your opponent(s) have a turn cycle to deal with Lab Man.Quote from osieorb18 »I like the idea of Laboratory Maniac + Ponder + Serum Visions + Preordain + Opt
True. Not that you have to win in the same turn according to OP, but: I guess you do Laboratory Maniac + Ponder + Pull from Eternity + Think Twice + Wretched Confluence... And then you got it.
1. Lab Man + 4: Take the 4, Pull Lab Man, then Confluence it and play it and Ponder for the win.
2. Lab Man, Ponder + 3: Play Lab Man, play Ponder, win.
3. Lab Man, Pull from Eternity + 3: Pull Think Twice, play Lab Man, play Think Twice, win.
4. Lab Man, Confluence + 3: Play Lab Man, draw with Confluence, win.
5. Lab Man, Think Twice + 3: Play Lab Man, play Think Twice, win.
Any other combinations are self-evident, I think. -
Feb 18, 20174
Teysa_Karlov posted a message on State of Modern Thread: bans, format health, reprints, new cards, and more!Posted in: Modern ArchivesQuote from cfusionpm »Quote from wpgstevo »we can focus on your valid concerns in a more constructive way.
HA! Like anyone does that anyway. I've been a running joke here for most of the past year and few take me seriously no matter how arguments are made or presented (which is probably why I don't take the time to make long, nuanced, and articulate posts much anymore). What's the point? I'd love to have actual constructive conversations, but those conversations get treated the same way no matter what is said.
Did you ever stop and wonder why people ignore your posts?
We know. You want Twin back. Nothing short of Twin coming back and Mark Rosewater hand delivering you an apology will do.
And people tune you out when you repeat that exact sentiment approximately 1,500 times in 16 months. -
Feb 8, 2017
3
lordoftheshadows posted a message on [Primer] UR StormFor ****s sake. This doesn't matter. This is a thread about UR storm (which can include gifts variants) not about who played the damn deck first. If you all want to argue about it then do it somewhere else.Posted in: Combo - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1
If you're green and combo, you want Veil of Summer. It's basically the green Silence. Trades with a counterspell (even Dovin's Veto) or discard spell and draws you a card for your trouble.
2
Alright, since you asked nicely:
- Splicer's Skill: hardcasting it is nothing special. Splicing it is quite expensive. Even if your deck is nothing but 1-mana instants or sorceries, you can't splice this until turn 5.
- Winds of Abandon: about as good as Declaration in Stone. 2 mana, sorcery, with drawback.
- Wing Shards: good players play spells during their second main phase (corollary: good players don't play prowess decks
- Mirrodin Besieged: harder-to-kill alternative to Sai (Saheeli is primarily used in Phoenix so she doesn't count). Playable for this reason, but not spectacular - Sai is a SB card.
- Winter's Rest: Narcolepsy.
- Crypt Rats: what are you hoping to accomplish with this card? If you want to Wrath, play wraths.
- Dead of Winter: unlike On Thin Ice it needs more than one snow land to be good. I think the possibility of maybe having it be a Damnation/Languish for one mana cheaper isn't worth the deckbuilding constraint.
- First-Sphere Gargantua: this is a payoff for looting that doesn't require you to jump through hoops like reanimating another creature or playing two creatures in one turn - you just pay mana for it (gasp!) instead. Unfortunately I think that makes it a bit too fair.
- Nether Spirit: not worth the deckbuilding constraint. You almost certainly have other creatures in your deck, yes, even the fair decks (Snapcaster Mage).
- Ransack the Lab: too expensive at 2 mana.
- Sling-Gang Lieutenant: seems pretty expensive, and we don't have Goblin Lackey to make that a non-issue. The good Goblin deck in Modern has a curve that stops at 2.
- Shatter Assumptions: doesn't seem great against Tron. It's not cheap enough to rip out their land search cards, so they will have Tron, and once they do they are but a topdeck away from getting back into the game after you shatter their assumptions.
- Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet seems better at 4. Helps you when you're behind, etc.
- Aria of Flame: Guttersnipe.
- Geomancer's Gambit: this is like Field of Ruin in spell form, except it is not an instant. Pass.
- Goblin Engineer: PV had a rather amusing Modern Horizons review article which could just have been titled "First Impressions of Goblin Engineer". He does make very convincing arguments for the card. It's a tough call, but I think it's more trouble than it's worth. For the sake of a balanced view I'll list out what I don't like about Engineer:
1) The reanimation ability requires sacrificing an artifact, marring the Stoneforge Mystic comparison. Sometimes the artifact you sacrifice is going to be the weak link that lets your opponent dismantle your lock.
2) It introduces vulnerability to the deck. Yes, you can get back your Bridge through other ways if they kill your Engineer, but that takes time and your opponent can mount an attack while you're defenseless.
3) Abrade answers Engineer if you draw it and your other lock pieces if you don't.
- Igneous Elemental: this is not playable even if it always cost 2RR and didn't have the land check.
- Magmatic Sinkhole: Harvest Pyre, but better. It kills both Crackling Drake and Gurmag Angler while Flame Slash or Roast would miss one of the two, and PWs are no longer safe if they go for the + (well, other than every Karn). Playable in fair UR decks as complementary removal to Bolt.
- Ore-Scale Guardian: Q: How much does this need to be reduced by for it to be a good deal? A: Maybe four. Q: Can you get that many lands into your graveyard quick enough? A: Probably not. Even if you crack fetches from turn 1-3 you still need one more land through some other means.
- Tectonic Reformation: Doesn't seem much better than Molten Vortex, which makes lands in your hand have R: Shock instead of R: draw 1.
- Throes of Chaos: 4 mana for a random spell that costs less than 4 mana sounds like a bad deal.
- Ayula's Influence: hampered by its mana cost. In Life from the Loam decks you want red on turn 1 for Looting to dump lands and Loam in your graveyard. R on turn 1 into RG on turn 2 (for Wrenn/Loam) into RRR on turn 3 for Seismic Assault is easily achievable. If turn 3 is Ayula's Influence, it's technically still doable, but your mana base will be heavier on basic Forests so you might miss those T1 Lootings more often.
- Genesis: too expensive.
- Llanowar Tribe: trite, but dies to Bolt. If you are playing some kind of devotion deck with Leyline of Vitality then it just flips the bird to Bolt, but that seems a little inconsistent, even with the London mulligan.
- Regrowth: probably not good enough. The cards that dump themselves in the graveyard after use are instants and sorceries, and we have Snapcaster Mage to get those back.
- Wall of Blossoms: the OG Wall of Omens, and about as good in the current meta (which is to say, not very). There are decks that want it - Astral Drift is one of them - but I'm not a believer in those decks.
- Weather the Storm: this is not a counter to Storm, they will have enough resources to Grapeshot a second and then third time on the same turn. It is a counter to Burn about as much as Nourish is, i.e. if you're willing to play a card that only counters Burn and is dead in all other matchups, it's there.
- Winding Way: not good, I posted about this already.
- Collected Conjuring: sorcery only kills it. The fun things like Bolts and rituals are instants.
- Ruination Rioter: Like Ore-Scale Guardian, I ask "how much damage does this need to do?" My answer is probably 3; Viashino Pyromancer is unplayable at 2 and player/PW only. That's one less than Guardian, but still a lot of fetches that need to be cracked. Don't play this in a Loam deck of any kind; the whole point of Loam is to get lands out of your graveyard.
- Altar of Dementia: As a Johnny I really like this card since it not only sacs for free but also kills them directly, unlike Viscera Seer/Carrion Feeder/Greater Gargadon. Before this, there was Blasting Station, which was 1 mana too expensive. The Spike in me says that they're never going to print a creature that can be sacced infinitely by itself, so your combo is going to involve at least three pieces (Altar, recurring dude, enabler for recurring dude), one of which can't be grabbed with Collected Company.
- Fountain of Ichor: just play a manland instead.
- Cave of Temptation: see Fountain of Ichor.
- Frostwalk Bastion: oh hey, a manland. Unfortunately, it doesn't tap for colored mana, and Field of Ruin isn't worth cutting for it.
- Prismatic Vista: not playable. In mono-color you shouldn't be playing fetches. In 2-color, use the on-color fetches. If you need more, the question is whether you would rather be able to fetch main color basic + shockland (with an off-color fetch) or main color basic + secondary color basic (with Vista), and I think you'll find the answer to be the former. In 3-color, use fetches in every combination of your colors instead.
- Cloudshredder Sliver: pseudo Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel combo when paired with Gemhide Sliver or Manaweft Sliver. The main difference is that each piece is more expensive than the Elves, and multiple Cloudshredders don't stack like multiple Sentinels.
- Dregscape Sliver: feels too defensive. You either have to wait for your Slivers to die, or go through the trouble of discarding them yourself. If you're playing the 16 rainbow land mana base, you can't play Looting, and Ancient Ziggurat won't pay for unearth.
1
On Horizons itself, it's a nostalgia set so a lot of cards are going to be subject to rose tinted glasses. Cards that were once good in Standard, Extended, or the early days of Legacy might not cut it in current Modern.
- On Thin Ice. Path is still the boss, but this is an acceptable 5th removal spell in UW.
- Serra the Benevolent
- Force of Negation
- Carrion Feeder
- Mind Rake. Making yourself discard turns on Ensnaring Bridge faster.
- Plague Engineer
- Unearth
- Firebolt. Its usefulness is tempered somewhat by the fact that Snapcaster Mage exists.
- Lava Dart, but only for prowess decks.
- Pillage. This card can be hard to cast in Ponza as it plays upwards of six basic Forests, so it's not the automatic upgrade that everyone seems to think it is (Q: why is Ponza playing Stone Rain when Molten Rain exists?) It is, however, a good SB card that hits two types of decks, in the same vein as Abrade or Damping Sphere.
- Shenanigans, aka "can't Cage this" and "how does it feel to draw 2 mana Vindicates for the rest of the game"
- Collector Ouphe
- Crashing Footfalls. I'm probably too hopeful on this one.
- Force of Vigor
- Scale Up
- Eladamri's Call
- Kaya's Guile. Shame about the color combination though.
- Wrenn and Six. Loam has some problems (bad vs combo and persistent grave hate) but I believe they are solvable. I don't think this card is great in non-Loam midrange decks though.
- Scrapyard Recombiner
- Cycling lands
- Horizon Canopy-type lands
- Hall of Heliod's Generosity
- Ranger-Captain of Eos. Controversial opinion! Yes, Ranger of Eos was a playable card. What kind of stuff has Ranger traditionally been used to get?
Death's Shadows
Serra Ascendant + Martyr of Sands
Heritage Druid + Nettle Sentinel
Champion of the Parish + Norin the Wary (I know, I play weird decks)
Two things stand out here:
1) Most 1-drops suck on turn 5 (4 with acceleration) so Ranger usually ends up getting a 2-card combo. Ranger-Captain only gets one guy at a time.
2) Ranger is easily splashable with only one white in its cost. Ranger-Captain has two white. I don't want to try fitting this into a DS deck.
- Vesperlark
- Archmage's Charm. What makes Cryptic Command so good is that it covers all your bases. If your opponent is going to attack, you tap his creatures before combat and draw a card. If your opponent casts a spell, you counter it and draw a card. Rarely will your opponent not do either of the above unless the game is already out of his reach, but you're OK with that anyway; your deck is set up to win a long game, so both players draw-going benefits you. Archmage's Charm doesn't cover you when your opponent attacks.
- Echo of Eons
- Fact or Fiction
- Marit Lage's Slumber
- Prohibit. This card never trades up on mana, and is quite bad on the draw when they start casting 3s and you're on 2 lands (Spell Snare is good because it lets you fight back from behind). It's a bit like Spellstutter Sprite in that sense, but Spellstutter has Bitterblossom (and isn't great even with it). Prohibit has...Baral? Anyway, it's probably not a good idea to go deep on counterspells when one of the tier 1 decks plays Cavern of Souls.
- Tribute Mage
- Urza, Lord High Artificer. He's not good when you're behind, and the Unexpected Results ability is at odds with your deck probably consisting of a lot of 0-mana artifacts.
- Cabal Therapist
- Force of Despair. There's multiple ways to look at this card; if you see it as a Wrath, you need to draw it before they start dumping their hand. If you see it as Cradle to Grave, whatever you're killing had better be worth 2-for-1ing yourself. It's quite a headache for Storm since it answers both Baral, Chief of Compliance and Empty the Warrens.
- Goblin Matron. No Goblin Ringleader
- Seasoned Pyromancer. As a discard outlet it's nothing spectacular, you could have discarded one or two turns ago with Looting/Reunion. In theory fair black decks that play discard should want it, since discard gets worse as the game drags on so you'll have useless spells to pitch, and if you trade your discard spells for cards in the opponent's hand and end up hellbent then there's no drawback. The problematic scenario is when you're holding removal in your hand and want to advance your board with Pyromancer - if you cast it and discard your removal, you could be left without an answer in the two draws it grants you.
- Nimble Mongoose. The LD tools that Legacy has (Wasteland, Stifle) aren't in Modern, and without them it's hard to make Mongoose a 3/3 and keep your opponent from doing stuff at the same time.
- Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. This is another one of those cards that does nothing when you're behind, "behind" being defined as "not having at least two creatures on the field".
- Ice-Fang Coatl
- Kess, Dissident Mage. This was the card that demonstrated the problem with foil-only printings in paper before Nexus of Fate. Once upon a time it was played in Legacy, then Deathrite Shaman got banned and that was the end of it.
- Unsettled Mariner. Humans and Spirits already have plenty of ways to protect their creatures, a lot of which are on the "hard" side (Kitesail Freebooter, Meddling Mage, Drogskol Captain, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, Spell Queller) than the "soft" side (Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Mausoleum Wanderer). Kira is better than Kopala, Warden of Waves in Merfolk, and Monastery Siege is unplayable if these are any indication. More importantly, the soft counters stop combo decks from going off and not just their wincons - if you don't stop them from going off, they're just going to draw their Echoing Truth, bounce your hatebear, then kill you.
- Flusterstorm. This is only great in counter wars or against Storm. Dispel is a harder counter and Spell Pierce hits more things.
1
Yawgmoth is tech against Humans in the same way that Chameleon Colossus is tech against Death's Shadow. Well, until you get killed by a flying Mantis Rider or have Yawgmoth exiled to Deputy of Detention, that is. (I knew there was an upside to Deputy not being a human lol)
Talismans are not too exciting. If you're playing some sort of artifact reanimator deck, the RW talisman/signet will either 1) give you an artifact to sac to Trash for Treasure, or 2) ramp you into Refurbish if you hit an untapped land drop next turn. The problem is there aren't any game-winning artifacts to reanimate.
Eladamri's Call is pretty good. You pay an extra 2 mana to get your creature, just like Finale of Devastation, but Call is an instant, you don't have to pay for the creature + tutor tax all at once, and it goes to your hand so you can use it to grab our dear boi Allosaurus Rider and cast him for his alternate cost for example.
3
P.S.
1) a round of applause for Gitaxian Probe, which managed to get banned in Modern, Legacy, Pauper, and the next closest thing to banned in Vintage
2) I couldn't read "Augur of Bolas was still on the table for discussion" with a straight face. Full disclosure, I don't play Pauper, so the things that make Augur ban-worthy elude me. Then again, Bloodbraid Elf was once banned, so congratulations on not making the same mistake twice, I guess?
1
Sample Dart Prowess list:
4 Monastery Swiftspear
4 Soul-Scar Mage
4 Firebrand Archer
4 Lava Spike
4 Seal of Fire
3 Lava Dart
2 Gut Shot
4 Manamorphose
3 The Flame of Keld
4 Light Up the Stage
1
G1 keeps a mull to 6 with turn 2 kill. Gets IoKed T1 and dies.
G2 keeps a mull to 6 with no lands and a Leyline of Sanctity. Stalls until turn 7, gets Griselbrand out, loses it to Assassin's Trophy but draws 14 cards. Plays Rider, loses it to Trophy again, GG.
R2 vs Burn
G1 mulls to 5 with all pieces for the combo except 2 lands, desperation Shoals his Rider away, dies anyway.
G2 mulls to 5 with 2 lands and Evolution. Down to 10 life and forced to combo out on turn 4 (opp had Eidolon in play). Pact to get Rider and shuffle away a revealed Leyline (8), didn't hit the land that he needed, died. It's unlikely he would have won even if he had hit a land, given he would be down to 6 after casting Evolution, and would have died to 2 burn spells or a Path.
R3 vs Elves
G1 mulls to 6 with all pieces except a land. Draws the land and T2 kills.
G2 mulls to 6 with Pact and Neoform but no lands. Never draws a land, dies.
G3 keeps a 7 with turn 2 kill. Gets the kill.
R4 vs 8 Rack
G1 mulls to 6 with all pieces except a second green card to pitch to Rider. Gets hit by a bunch of discard but pieces together the win on turn 10. His opponent made a mistake by taking Noxious Revival instead of Wild Cantor with discard; NR is deader since it screw you out of new draws.
G2 mulls to 4 with Leyline, Pact and no lands. Liliana comes down and locks the game away.
G3 mulls to 6, missing Rider/Pact. Topdecks Rider (clutch moment #1), spends Manamorphose to filter SSG into green and draws a green card without which he doesn't have enough to pitch to Rider (clutch moment #2). Gets the kill.
R5 vs U Tron
G1 keeps a 7 missing Neoform/Evolution. Fails to draw it and tries Rider beatdown. Eventually draws Neoform, goes for it, gets stopped by a counterspell and dies to Karn + Lattice lock.
G2 keeps a mull to 5 missing land and Rider/Pact. Dies uneventfully.
Mulliganing with the deck is very easy though: figure out how many cards you are from comboing off (you need Rider/Pact, Neoform/Evolution, and mana to cast it), and if the number is 2 or more, mull. If you're missing 2 lands then maybe you keep anyway, although this is usually followed with you questioning your life choices when you fail to draw even a second land. If you're down to 5 then just keep whatever you're dealt; yes, you might need to hit perfect draws to win, but going down to 4 hurts all the more because Rider costs two cards in hand.
Overall his record is what I expect of the deck: despite the turn 2 kills, it's very weak to disruption and loses to itself sometimes, like mulliganing to death or not drawing Shoal (which didn't happen in his games but has in mine).
I guess the big question now is, if the deck is an inconsistent pile but has random turn 1/2 kills, is it going to get banned? We've had decks that match this description (Cheeri0s, Blistercoil Weird) and they haven't been banned. Infect has turn 2 kills and is actually playable, but hasn't gotten anything banned other than Blazing Shoal (which happened like 100 years ago) and Probe (which fell on DS Zoo and UR Kiln Fiend too).
1
- Deceiver Exarch + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- Madcap Experiment + Platinum Emperion
- Through the Breach + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
- Jace, Wielder of Mysteries + Leveler
What's going to show up next? Ral, Storm Conduit + Twincast?1
People are reporting T1, T2 kills on MTGO. Here's the thing: hearing lots of reports of T1 kills just means people are playing lots of games with Neoform. Which is to be expected, since it's a shiny new card. It doesn't tell you anything about how consistently those kills happen.
That said, while I don't think the deck is broken, it fits a criterion for, shall we say, objectionable. Namely, the "turn one: make a huge play. If you can beat it, you win; if not, I win" gameplay that has been stated as not something the designers want to encourage in Modern.
If you literally won as soon as you casted Neoform or Evolution on Rider then the deck would be too broken, but as it stands now, you still have to play the purely luck-based subgame of "will I draw my Shoals". That's both a good and bad thing: good because the subgame has the effect of tanking the deck's win rate compared to a hypothetical world where resolving Neoform/Evo is an immediate win, bad because that drop in win rate is in the hands of luck, not skill.
5
Blast Zone
4
Finale of Promise
Finale of Devastation
3
Narset, Parter of Veils
Liliana's Triumph
Dovin's Veto
Teferi, Time Raveler
Ashiok, Dream Render
Karn, the Great Creator
2
Contentious Plan
Finale of Revelation
Bolas's Citadel
Dreadhorde Arcanist
Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
Angrath's Rampage
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
Neoform
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
Emergence Zone
1
The rest
Opinions on specific cards:
2) You've just searched up and played Mycosynth Lattice, and his static is winning you the game.
3) You've just used him as a colorless Mastermind's Acquisition to get some artifact lock piece against your opponent.
1) depends on what your opponent is playing, 2) costs a lot of mana, and 3) costs a lot of mana too. 4 mana to tutor an artifact in the worst case is not a great rate. There are prison decks that use Whir of Invention to tutor for lock pieces, sure, but those decks are built with cheap artifacts to pay for Whir as well as to keep their hands empty if the lock piece is Ensnaring Bridge.
Most of the PWs are basically enchantments that can be attacked (aren't they all?). Those that have an ability that cantrips (i.e. the blue ones) are better.
As always, data includes MTGO 5-0s which are not chosen at random, so take the numbers with a pinch of salt.
Tithe Taker: 4
Benthic Biomancer: 17
Pteramander: 39
Sphinx of Foresight: 0
Cry of the Carnarium: 3
Drill Bit: 0
Pestilent Spirit: 0
Spawn of Mayhem: 4
Electrodominance: 19
Immolation Shaman: 0
Light up the Stage: 69
Rix Maadi Reveler: 1
Skewer the Critics: 108
Growth-Chamber Guardian: 0
Incubation Druid: 0
Rampage of the Clans: 2
Wilderness Reclamation: 6
Absorb: 37
Bedevil: 2
Biomancer's Familiar: 0
Deputy of Detention: 126
Dovin, Grand Arbiter: 0
Emergency Powers: 0
Growth Spiral: 9
Gruul Spellbreaker: 4
Judith, the Scourge Diva: 3
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper: 33
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade: 4
Prime Speaker Vannifar: 8
Rhythm of the Wild: 7
Incubation//Incongruity: 1
It's time again for the quarterly "hits and misses from the previous set", brought to you by yours truly.
The big winners were Skewer the Critics, Deputy of Detention, and Light Up the Stage. Deputy has seen play in the two premier Aether Vial decks (Humans and Spirits), while the red spells have been a godsend for Burn and mono-red Phoenix. While Light up the Stage has seen plenty of play, at GPs the Light decks have been outclassed by their counterparts - Light Burn by traditional Boros and mono-red Phoenix by Izzet Phoenix. Eidolon of the Great Revel punishes opponents for cantripping to find their action; playing Light up the Stage in the same deck is hanging yourself with your own rope. Mono-red Phoenix is less consistent than Izzet Phoenix due to the lack of Serum Visions.
Moving down the list, we have Pteramander and two surprises. Pteramander goes into Izzet Phoenix, combining desirable attributes from Monastery Swiftspear (can be played on turn 1) and Bedlam Reveler (2 mana total for a big beater). Lately, Phoenix has been moving back to Snapcaster Mage and Pyromancer Ascension in the flex slots though.
The two surprises are...Absorb and Kaya, Orzhov Usurper! Despite both cards being released to lukewarm if not negative reception, Absorb has managed to find a way into some UW Control decks as a 1-of, and Kaya has been mainboarded in Esper and Lantern Control. I'm honestly quite surprised at Kaya; Faerie Macabre is not normally a playable card and neither is Isolate, but put them together on a 3-mana card that lets you use both effects more than once and...they are? Anyway, Ashiok from War of the Spark follows the same template (2 repeatable hate effects on a 3 mana walker), so if you want to look like a genius and/or speculate on cards, there's your pick.
Digging a bit deeper, we've got some good news and bad news. The good news is that Ravnica Allegiance spawned multiple new deck archetypes. Well done! The bad news is they could charitably be called tier 3. Nevertheless, it's instructive to look at these decks and find out why they're stuck in that rut.
Electrodominance: the shell for this deck is Electrodominance/As Foretold + Living End/Ancestral Vision. Casting Living End or Ancestral Vision gives you a huge amount of resources and, in Living End's case, can be enough to win the game shortly.
Where did it go wrong? The devil is in the details. You need to play cyclers to revive with Living End, and as a result you can't play actual cantrips with card selection, like Serum Visions. Secondly, Faithless Looting decks are pretty popular, and Living End is two-sided. They can play one creature to pressure you while discarding a few more to Looting so that they've still got a board if Living End hits.
Prime Speaker Vannifar: this Pod variant brought a lot of attention to itself (they always do - remember Evolutionary Leap and Eldritch Evolution?), along with a spike in Scryb Ranger's price. It had the same Bolt-proofness as Sai, Master Thopterist, but for a 4-drop meant for Modern play, it damn well have.
Where did it go wrong? Vannifar decks are a lot like Bubble Hulk decks:
1) you need to memorize a long sequence of tutor targets to search up
2) those targets are kind of bad, and you wouldn't play them in your deck if not for the fact that you need them for the kill
3) if any of those tutor targets is anywhere but in your library, tough titty. Sometimes if you draw one of the pieces you can hardcast it and combo off anyway. Other times that piece costs 5 or 6 mana.
And that 4 toughness? With the continued dominance of Phoenix, decks (including Phoenix itself) have been turning to Flame Slash to get rid of Thing in the Ice and Crackling Drake. Suddenly that 4 toughness doesn't seem so invincible.
The key lesson from Electrodominance and Vannifar is that the refrain "you win as soon as you resolve X/untap with X" is often not true on closer inspection. There's usually some kind of additional setup needed, like having certain cards in the graveyard or library, and that costs you percentage points.
Growth Spiral, Wilderness Reclamation: the terrors of BO1 Standard made it to Modern, where they continue to... make matches go to time
Wilderness Reclamation in Modern has the leg up against other midrange/control decks; the high density of 4-CMC cards (and Mystical Teachings' flashback) means you'll out-topdeck them every time, and all that ramp allows you to out-mana them every time.
Where did it go wrong? Well, aggro decks. Especially that pesky Burn which got another Bolt to add to its arsenal. The comparison to blue Scapeshift is apt as it traditionally has not been a good choice in an aggro-heavy meta.
As for flops, Humans is still sticking to Gaddock Teeg over Lavinia, Azorius Renegade in their SBs. Being a Human isn't all that matters (just ask Deputy of Detention). And there can be no bigger flop than Sphinx of Foresight, a card which posed us the question, "Would you play Mystic Speculation if it cost 0 mana?" And the answer was no, because scrying 3 doesn't make up for the fact that you're effectively 1 card down.