I'm attempting to expressly include a Dredge archetype to my cube, by which I mean that the core engine of the deck involves self-mill or otherwise filling the graveyard (via Survival, for example). I view it as synergistic with and occupying a space between the following archetypes:
1. Reanimator, in that reanimating large creatures is one way to win. This is quite similar, really.
2. Pox/Stax, in that many of the best self-milling threats (Bloodghast, Gravecrawler) are also some of the best pox/stax creatures, and can be found with many of the tools that Reanimator uses (Entomb, Buried Alive, Forbidden Alchemy, etc.).
3. Birthing Pod/Survival, because discarding or sacrificing the right creatures (Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Vengevine, etc.) can result in massive swings in your favor.
4. Mill, in that a self-mill archetype can use the mill cards on itself for card advantage that comes from putting flashback spells and recurring threats into the graveyard. For example, casting Glimpse the Unthinkable on oneself might be an excellent way of stocking up the graveyard.
It is, however, a separate entity from any of these.
I've managed to get it working both with Gifts into Worm Harvest / Life from the Loam, and with Living Death. As with U/G in Innistrad, however, the archetype can be difficult for players to see.
In each category, I've put a line break in between the cards that are common cube inclusions and those that are less common. This is to point out that the start of such an archetype exists within most cubes, while also identifying cards that might be good inclusions that make the archetype more competitive.
I'm looking at including a Dredge archetype to my cube. Although Dredge obviously combines well with Reanimator, it is a separate entity from my standpoint.
By Dredge, I mean that the idea of the deck is to get a lot of cards into your graveyard--particularly creatures. This can be easy to do with early trades like Viridian Emissary and cycling creatures like Cloud of Faeries and Twisted Abomination. Oversold Cemetery and Oath of Ghouls can be brutal alongside some of these creatures, providing relentless card advantage and preventing even the most opponents from making headway. Then, these cards power finishers like Pychatog, Golgari Grave-Troll, Cabal Patriarch, Tombstone Stairwell, and Living Death.
I've managed to really get it working once w/ Worm Harvest and Life from the Loam (and Gifts, to get it going). However, the archetype can be tough for players to see. Furthermore, I haven't had the chance to run the cube enough times yet to really see whether it works. U/G Self-Mill in Zendikar, after all, took months to really get popular.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether something like this is viable in your cube, or cubes in general.
My list of cards that are good for this archetype: Victory Conditions
(He turns all reanimation into "regrow a black card", which means you can worry a lot less when noncreature victory conditions get milled)
The main problem with most of these is that they don't cross decks all that well. The 'Tog, Living Death, and Scavenging Ooze are in a lot of extant lists, and I think Xiahou Dun should be as well. Tombstone Stairwell is the most narrow-but-high-impact card here--it can win the game but you need 5 more creatures in your graveyard than your opponent has. (It's especially good with Wonder as one of them.)
I already started a thread on this here. Although this is great info and should definitely be added. Well done!
I think these two discussions are different. You listed a bunch of substandard cards with the Dredge ability, and people are answering your question, which was "What do you think of Moldervine Cloak, Life from the Loam, etc.?" They are doing so within the context of their existing cube lists--does this card work well, does that one, etc.
Here, I've taken the liberty of laying out a complete "Dredge" archetype. The difference is akin to asking "what are your favorite Storm cards?" vs. asking "How do you make a Storm deck viable?" It turns out that the answer has less to do with the Storm cards, and more with the cards around them.
Looters enable all kinds of things, including graveyard synergies. Mask of Memory, Deal Broker, and Smuggler's Copter are the best artifact loot cards I know of. You might also like Mindless Automaton, which plays a lot better in slower formats than it probably appears at first glance.
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I know it's unobtainable if budget is a concern, but if it isn't (or you proxy (which I highly recommend (but won't talk about how to manufacture them, don't worry mods))) then Bazaar of Baghdad is easily the best card for that deck to enable the dredging/getting things to GY.
I've played with it a decent amount; it's definitely not the card that's banned in legacy and the best card in vintage dredge, and I think other people would tell you it's underpowered and that's fair because arguing experiences is tough and it does have a floor thats tough to stomach, but from my own experiences it's not bad and can even be great.
If the goal is to fill up your GY, Bazaar does a great job. You're digging for two while binning three, and not only that but you have an amount of control over what goes in some percentage of games/situations. If you're looking at Codex Shredder or Mesmeric Orb, I think Bazaar does a *much* better job at what they do, and yeah like you say they are definitely low powered but Bazaar has a ceiling which certainly is not. It's also a fine card in pure reanimator strategies too and with delve cards since you can turn on delver super fast.
I'm not going to sit here and herald Bazaar as the incredible card it is in other formats, but it's an option that I think is worth exploring if this is the avenue you want to explore.
Skaab Ruinator + Unearth is sweet. I like ruinator in Dimir Tempo decks, but you definiely need to go deep with the gy support for it to work. It can be done but I don't think a conventional cube list can support it. You'll have to deviate a bit.
You don't realize how hard it is to exile three creatures from your GY consistently until you go to cast Skaab Ruinator. Like ahdabans says, it's hard to make it a thing without going heavy into the GY, heavier than you think.
1. Reanimator, in that reanimating large creatures is one way to win. This is quite similar, really.
2. Pox/Stax, in that many of the best self-milling threats (Bloodghast, Gravecrawler) are also some of the best pox/stax creatures, and can be found with many of the tools that Reanimator uses (Entomb, Buried Alive, Forbidden Alchemy, etc.).
3. Birthing Pod/Survival, because discarding or sacrificing the right creatures (Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, Vengevine, etc.) can result in massive swings in your favor.
4. Mill, in that a self-mill archetype can use the mill cards on itself for card advantage that comes from putting flashback spells and recurring threats into the graveyard. For example, casting Glimpse the Unthinkable on oneself might be an excellent way of stocking up the graveyard.
It is, however, a separate entity from any of these.
I've managed to get it working both with Gifts into Worm Harvest / Life from the Loam, and with Living Death. As with U/G in Innistrad, however, the archetype can be difficult for players to see.
There are typically the following subflavors, of which any deck will typically be a hybrid:
1. Creature based. The idea here is to fill up your graveyard with creatures--preferably creatures with intrinsic graveyard utility like Vengevine, Bloodghast, and Gravecrawler-- and then use a victory condition that capitalizes on that full graveyard--think Tombstone Stairwell, Kessig Cagebreakers, Living Death, Bonehoard, Golgari Grave-Troll, and Unburial Rites. You can fill your graveyard with self-mill, with Green midrange cards such as Survival of the Fittest/Birthing Pod, with cards like Buried Alive/Gifts Ungiven, or through simple attrition and cycling (Krosan Tusker, Twisted Abomination)..
2. Instant/Sorcery-based. This includes Snapcaster Mage, Chandra's Phoenix, Deathrite Shaman, and Nucklavee, This tends to be more of a control deck, so cards that profit from simply having a large graveyard / small library such as Psychatog, Visions of Beyond, and Shelldock Isle really shine here. Cards like Yawgmoth's Will and Past in Flames can also be a central part of a Storm archetype.
3. Land-based. Life from the Loam, Crucible of Worlds, and retrace spells such as Raven's Crime, Flame Jab, Spitting Image, and Worm Harvest, Many cubes include Loam and Crucible but exclude the retrace spells.
My list of cards that are good for this archetype:
1 Psychatog
1 Living Death
1 Tombstalker
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kessig Cagebreakers
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
1 Unburial Rites
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tombstone Stairwell
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Mesmeric Orb
1 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Alesha, Who Smiles At Death
Relevant Utility Cards
1 Shelldock Isle
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Eternal Witness
1 Animate Dead (or other reanimation spells)
1 Dig Through Time
1 Treasure Cruise
[I]Creatures[/I]
1 Bloodsoaked Champion
1 Gravecrawler
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Bloodghast
1 Chandra's Phoenix
1 Flamewake Phoenix
1 Vengevine
[I]
Flashback/Retrace Spells[/I]
1 Lingering Souls
1 Deep Analysis
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Unburial Rites
1 Call of the Herd
1 Past in Flames
Enablers:
[I]Looters[/I] / Self Millers
1 Enclave Cryptologist
1 Looter il-Kor
1 Frantic Search
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Life from the Loam
1 Hermit Druid
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Forbidden Alchemy
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Compulsive Research
1 Faithless Looting
1 Mesmeric Orb
1 Thought Courier
1 Merfolk Looter
1 Vexing Sphinx
1 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Entomb
1 Buried Alive
1 Intuition
Keep Their Graveyard Empty[/I] / [I]Counter[/I]
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Nezumi Graverobber
[I]Oft-Used Cycling Creatures[/I]
1 Twisted Abomination
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Crypt of Agadeem
1 Havengul Lich
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Bonehoard
1 Extractor Demon
1 Dread Return (often on other fat such as Iona)
1 Worm Harvest
1 Think Twice
1 Silent Departure
1 Spitting Image
1 Raven's Crime
1 Flame Jab
1 Moldervine Cloak
1 Golgari Grave-Troll
1 Wonder
1 Brawn
1 Genesis
1 Masked Admirers
1 Ichorid
1 Nether Traitor
1 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
1 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
1 Tortured Existence
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Oath of Ghouls
1 Phyrexian Delver
1 Visions of Beyond
1 Toshiro Umezawa
1 Darkblast
1 Withered Wretch
1 Necrogenesis
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Splinterfright
1 Wreath of Geists
1 Mortal Combat
1 Mortivore
1 Gigapede
1 Scion of Darkness
1 Nether Spirit
1 Cabal Patriarch
1 Bridge from Below
1 Ghoultree
1 Avatar of Woe
1 Skaab Ruinator
1 River Kelpie
1 Cloud of Faeries
I already started a thread on this here. Although this is great info and should definitely be added. Well done!
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I think these two discussions are different. You listed a bunch of substandard cards with the Dredge ability, and people are answering your question, which was "What do you think of Moldervine Cloak, Life from the Loam, etc.?" They are doing so within the context of their existing cube lists--does this card work well, does that one, etc.
Here, I've taken the liberty of laying out a complete "Dredge" archetype. The difference is akin to asking "what are your favorite Storm cards?" vs. asking "How do you make a Storm deck viable?" It turns out that the answer has less to do with the Storm cards, and more with the cards around them.
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If the goal is to fill up your GY, Bazaar does a great job. You're digging for two while binning three, and not only that but you have an amount of control over what goes in some percentage of games/situations. If you're looking at Codex Shredder or Mesmeric Orb, I think Bazaar does a *much* better job at what they do, and yeah like you say they are definitely low powered but Bazaar has a ceiling which certainly is not. It's also a fine card in pure reanimator strategies too and with delve cards since you can turn on delver super fast.
I'm not going to sit here and herald Bazaar as the incredible card it is in other formats, but it's an option that I think is worth exploring if this is the avenue you want to explore.
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