No DR = Bridge sucks because you have no sac outlets that can be activated from the graveyard for 0 mana. Cabal Therapy isn't legal either.
No DR = Narcomoeba sucks because it's just a 1/1 flier that can't be upgraded to a 2/2 Zombie
While they do not work from the grave (and thus you can't do anything remotely like manaless dredge in Legacy), there are a couple of no-mana, no-board presence sac outlets in Modern. Both Greater Gargadon and Demon of Death's Gate can be used to sac your Bloodghasts, Zombie tokens, Thugs, etc. Demon can't hit Narcomeba admittedly and needs life, while Gargadon does require a R to set up as a one time payment. On the upside, both give you a 9 power body on the field, either immediately or eventually, unlike Therapy. I've also seen the suggestion of Viscera Seer, but I dislike the fact that he's exposed to every board wipe, shock, bolt, electrolyze, etc.
I've been playing around with more classic Legacy mana style dredge decks, using the Demon and Gargadon pair. I'm still investigating options, but the addition of GGT gives enough dredge density to make it mostly work. Some issues are classic Dredge questions, like whether Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith necessary or even useful, and if Leyline of the Void is worth mainboarding to keep your bridges from being easily exiled. Others are obviously Modern specific, like if Dark Deals is worth the extra mana over Faithless Looting or Burning Inquiry. And there's a few about a more hybrid style deck, like if Zombie Infestation as a discard outlet and Gravecrawlers as cheap, recurring, sacrificial creatures are appropriate slot fillers.
It's not quite yet to the point where I'd take it to an FNM, mostly as it's a bit inconsistent still. On the upside, it can occasionally put 20+ power on the board on turn 3, most if it Flying and Trampling. And as with all Dredge decks, it's somewhat difficult to interact with its game plan if you don't have grave hate.
The deck is definitely self painful, but making a 9/9 on 2 or 3 for 6 life is usually worth it. It also has to be mulligan'd very aggressively. You really really want to have a sac outlet in opening hand and preferably 2 lands or a land and a Faithless.
The version with -4 Burning Inquiry, -4 Narcomeba, +4 Gravecrawler, and +4 Zombie Infestation is a little more reliable, but slower overall. It does, however far more frequently make a 9/9 Demon on turn 2, thanks to the combo of Faithless Looting 1 or 2 Bloodghasts, cast a Gravecrawler or two, and then sac all three for a 9/9 Demon.
That said, this is now pretty far afield of the current Dredgevine list, and should probably split off into it's own conversation if people are interested.
I see what you're going at with this build. Without having tested, my worry is the lack of interaction with the opponent. With a search package, there seems very little downside to running something like Reclamation Sage or Acidic Slime or Qasali Pridemage, espicially one of the first two as they have synergies with Resto. It would be nice to have something to cycle Emrakul for when its stuck in your hand if you're not running Breaches. There's a UR land that does this (unfortunately), and the only thing I could really find in a search was Fauna Shaman, which I have no feel for in this deck.
If I were honestly worried about getting the 1 card in the whole deck you can't cast from hand out, I'd probably run a few Faithless Looting. It combos pretty well with Congregation, in that for RWGG you turn any two cards from hand into any two creature cards in your deck. It does effectively lose you half a card if you cast it and flash it back, but in this deck, where you do need to hit a few specific cards eventually, it's not so bad.
If you go all in on the Congregation plan, than a few random toolbox hoser cards would be pretty solid. I did like Acidic Slime back in the INN version of Wolf Run Ramp, especially on combo with Resto here. I did have one game against a Mono-U tron where a Chalice on 6 (6! Really!) made it impossible to cast my bombs and the one on 2 made it impossible to use any of my sideboarded artifact removal (both Destructive Revelry and Ancient Grudge, even flashed back, are CMC2), and another artifact hoser at a different CMC would have been relevant. That said, that's probably a pretty fringe case that's not worth building around. Still, Slime is good value all around, and playable in a deck with some ramp.
Fauna Shaman, in my opinion, is basically unplayable in Modern unless you've got a reliable way to give it haste. The chances that you'll untap with it in a format full of Bolt, Electrolyze, Decay, etc are vanishingly small, and it gives neither ETB or LTB benefits. What we really need is a Modern reprint of Fierce Empath.
Overall, I'm not sure this direction is worth really pursuing too far. While powerful, Congregation is not that fast, and making room for it comes at the expense of your interaction as ingenous28 points out, which is not ideal.
Even without testing/ tuning, your lists look great man. I have most of these pieces and will be getting those that I don't have in a few days, haha.
How long have you been throwing decks together?
I've been playing on and off casually since Revised. I didn't play competitively until doing small tourneys like FNM drafts and the odd constructed around Mirrodin/Kamigawa. I didn't start doing serious constructed tourneys until end of Shards/beginning of Zendikar. I've been playing pretty consistently since then. Modern has been my favorite format since it was introduced, and my primary one for about 8 months now.
I really like what is going on here, and I am going to try out something very similar to what you have there DaR. Keep us updated on the testing hey?
I'm conflicted. This deck archetype has a lot of potential, but I think a lot of that will depend on how the format shakes out with the previous 2 biggest decks to beat both gutted.
On the other hand, I finally have my precious Grave-Troll and I think that, plus the incoming meta shift, may be the pieces I need to take my brew based on TWoo's Zombie Infestation from 'fun but too inconsistent' up to 'could be a real deck'.
I'll probably get both assembled and decide once I actually get to FNM which I'll play.
i would take out the emrakul if i am you as there is no way to hard cast it. it might be possible to change the deck to a revised version of wolf run ramp with trap against blue deck and such. i might even splash for black to play grave titan
I've played a couple versions which already splashed black very lightly to be able to cast Slaughter Games out of the side, because that card just pretty much beats Scapeshift, and usually does a pretty good number on other combo and combo-control decks like Twin. Grave Titan is pretty attractive, but not sure it's more attractive than the white splash.
Forgoing the removal for a greater density of creatures to See/Trap into. Baloth + Resto is a lot of lifegain and ground protection against most decks.
Hey, DaR, after looking through potential lists, I'm very drawn to your Breach-less version. It just feels much more consistent.
How are you feeling about it over the more combo-y list? Do you have any changes that you'd make to the list you posted last page?
Thanks!
I am in inveterate tinkerer. I don't think I ever run the same list more than one or two events in a row. I'm always fiddling around with exact counts, testing "secret tech", and moving stuff in and out of sideboards, especially based on how my local meta looks to be evolving.
Now, with the new bannings, I'd definitely change some things. Random thoughts over the past couple hours about this archetype in general:
Forked Bolts are less important, as I expect a pretty big down-tick in Delver without Cruise and Dig. I'll probably ditch those entirely. Regular Bolt is just fine, and worth keeping around.
Pod going away means Anger's exile clause is probably less important, so I may replace those with Firespouts, Pyroclasms or Volcanic Fallouts, or maybe even move them strictly to sideboard in the short term, since delver is the other match I usually wanted these in.
Chalice is probably also no longer mainboard worthy. Still good in the side against many decks, though. I feel like I might end up casting it for X=2 more frequently now.
Huntmasters lose some of their shine, as a lot fewer decks are going to be casting multiple cantrips in a turn, so flipping him back is less likely to happen, and with fewer delvers around, the searing effect is not quite as important; Thragtusk may finally get the nod here.
Inferno Titans are still awesome, but somewhat less so, as Pod and Delver were the two decks most likely to flood the board with 1 and 2 toughness creatures that need to die.
Ruric Thar, like Chalice, is probably no longer worth mainboarding, as we're going to see a lot more midrange-y BGx creature decks, and he's a bit mediocre against those. Even though Inferno is less awesome now, he's still awesome, so I might go up to a full 4
UWR control and tempo/midrange decks will probably make a comeback, along with more Twin and Scapeshift, so with more counters, Spellbreaker Behemoths might be worth mainboarding. They're also 5/5 for 4, which is just good against most decks anyhow.
If Tron sees more play because the BGx decks are out in force, then more Sowing Salts in the sideboard may be necessary. RG Tron is not a great matchup in my experience. U Tron is even worse. Salts is also good against Infect and UWx decks with Colonnades.
Combust might end up in the sideboard now, to help out the Twin matchup, as I expect a lot more twin. Also surprisingly good against the new Boogeyman Siege Rhinos.
See the Unwritten might be playable, if the format has slowed down a little. I picked up a few to test out. Between Baloths, possible Behemoths and Thragtusks, the Ferocious trigger should be pretty easy to manage. What's better than 1 primetime for 6 mana? 2!
A very small white splash for Restoration Angel and Congregation at Dawn could be interesting, especially if See the Unwritten works out at all. End step tutor a Resto and 2 titans to the top of your deck, then untap, draw the Resto and cast Trap or See to put one or both of the titans into play.... And then next turn Resto a Titan for even more triggers. It also makes sideboard Leylines of Sanctity castable, which is important if BGx with all that discard does come back, and is also good against Scapeshift, which I've found to be a slightly unfavorable matchup due to all the counters.
I haven't quite refined these thoughts into any playable lists yet, and my other current favorite archetype (Vengevine-based BG graveyard decks) got a Golgari Grave-Troll back, so I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to brew with first.
Overall, I think the bannings have probably made the existing versions of this deck a little worse (mainboard chalices and angers are definitely worse, rise in counters makes breach worse, but trap better). But a lot will depend on where the overall format swings as a result.
If Twin and Scapeshift shoot back to the top of the pile, this deck isn't very happy about that. BGx is less bad, but the knock on effect of Tron increasing as well is not good for this deck.
OTOH, if Burn, Zoo/Sligh, and Affinity gain a lot of ground, then this deck is very well positioned.
The rest is pretty standard. This deck loves Obstinate Baloth. I'd love to get that up to 3 or even 4. The land coud use some work. Mossfire Valley is a consession to Coursair and neding 2G on turn 3. There are no Lightning Bolts main. That's probably wrong, but the decks I've been testing against I'd rather have Forked Bolt and Anger of the Gods. The times when Anger is a dead card I find that Bolt often is just as dead, and other times Anger is just flat out better.
As izzetmage points out, Mossfire is not modern legal. However, Fire-lit Thicket is, and does the same job. If budget is not an issue, I'd just go with another extra few Fetch lands, though. Anything which fetches your Stomping Grounds are effectively both Forests you need for Courser/Search/STE and the Mountains you need for turning on Valakut. This means pretty much any of them except Flooded Strand, Marsh Flats and Polluted Delta could be used.
I'm not entirely sold on Courser. I do like the toughness, but the lifegain is pretty small unless you're hitting a titan, in which case you're probably about to win anyways. And while it does smooth out land draws to some extent, it also reveals your draws, which makes some of the gotcha cards like the Breach/Emrakul combo less good. I actually run Scalding Tarns as my "off-color" fetches of choice, precisely because it can make people think I'm playing Scapeshift and not straight RG Trap. If I hit those early, they'll play around completely non-existing counters the first few turns.
I do like the Commune tech. I may play around with that in my Breach-less version.
3-1 tonight. Lost to Delver in a tight matchup (bad hand game 2, game 3 he topped a lightning bolt the turn before a Titan would have killed him). Beat UB Tezz control and the Elemental Shotgun deck (Kiln-Fiends, Swiftspears, lots of Phyrexian and other "free" spells) after a round 1 bye.
Ran a list that was somewhere between Scott and Ricardo's respective GP lists, with a few 1 ofs for testing.
Anger overperformed all night. Fallout did not feel necessary, and a 4th Anger probably would have been fine.
Baloths also overperformed all night. I definitely missed the 4th Baloth
In these particular matchups, I probably wouldn't have minded mainboard Chalices.
Almost lost after a breach Emrakul against Elemental Deck, because putting him to 5 and no permanents and then being unable to follow up for 3 turns almost let him get a Kiln fiend down with 2 pump spells and another free spell in hand. Fortunately managed to top a Baloth to finish him off.
Saw the Scapeshift only once, and pretty much wished it had been anything else.
The Summoner's Pact ended up only being seen once, and having to fetch a STE, because I was stuck on 3 mana and had a hand full of Baloths and Spellbreaker Behemoths.
I missed the Inferno Titans a lot, especially in the Delver matchup.
I didn't resolve a Ruric Thar, but both the Delver and Elemental-Combo players took one look at him off Gitaxian probes and shuddered in horror. Both ended up losing those particular games before he got played. The Tezz opponent only saw him after the match was over, and likewise admitted he'd have trouble with it. Definitely worth of of sideboard slots against spell heavy decks. Might even be worth a main slot, especially with Summoner's Pacts to fetch him.
Slaughter Games from the side pretty much wrecked game 2 for my Tezz opponent, as expected, but I didn't bring it in for the other matches. Definitely worth the slots though, as previous experience indicates racing Scapeshift is not a reliable strategy.
The 2 Farseeks felt pretty good. I don't think I'd want any more than that, as I did have a couple of games where too much ramp left me with nothing productive to do. Another place that the Inferno Titans or a Kessing would have been good. Not sure that skipping them completely and staying at 8 ramp spells is ideal, though. You really need to get to your 5th and 6th mana as soon as possible.
The core of this deck is surprisingly compact. That's one of the things I quite like and think is a real strength. It gives you a lot of room to tune the mainboard for your playstyle and meta, and it lets you sideboard more easily.
In my opinion this is what the core looks like, boiling down the suggestions from the Primer:
Optional (2-10) 0 Farseek (between 0 and 4) 0 Scapeshift (between 0 and 2) 2 Arid Mesa (or other Fetches for Mountains, between 2 and 4)
That leaves anywhere from 4 to 12 slots open for your meta specific cards. Baloths, Chalices, Bolts, Angers, etc.
Yes, despite the thread name, I don't actually consider Through the Breach to truly be core in the deck. As I pointed out, it's a 2 card combo, in that it's basically a dead card in hand unless you have or draw into one of your threats. By comparison, Summoning Trap from the top of deck is almost always castable for some amount of value. Going "off the reservation" and dropping the Breach combo for more threats and midrange can produce fairly interesting results, as the list I posted previously shows.
I think having 8 ways to cheat in a fatty is sufficient . 8 targets is great , one of the methods only requires that you have a fatty in your top 7. Scott lipps list even has a few more creatures , have you been finding that you have problems getting your gameplan going ? Each of those creatures seems edh playable, but a strict downgrade from primeval titan and emrakul " I win " the aeons torn
By the time you get to hard casting those , you have your scapeshift win as well right ?
Against some decks, Scapeshift is a viable win condition. However, unlike the standard RUG Scapeshift deck, this deck does not pack any countermagic at all (except a few people who might run Guttural Response in the side). This makes resolving a Scapeshift much much harder against those decks which are packing counters. That's why a 1 or 2 of Scapeshift is about Plan C at best.
And while 8 is usually a pretty reasonable number of cards for one half of a 2 card combo, the problem is that the Breach and Trap don't entirely overlap in functionality. Breach only works if you've got your fatty in hand. Trap only works if the fatty is in the top 7 of your library. An Emrakul in hand can't be Trap'd. An Emrakul 6 down in your library can't be Breached. That makes the combo a bit more fragile than a normal 8+8 combo would otherwise be.
I'm just looking at ways I can reduce reliance on something that depends on quality and ordering of draws in a deck that has absolutely no other card selection or draw. Many of the people in my area tend to play permission and disruption heavy decks. UR Delver and Scapeshift (both permission) as well as Pod (disruption) are very common, so I can't rely on being able to keep two specific cards in hand until I'm ready to use them and then reliably resolve them. A lonely Breach in hand does nothing that turn; top decking Trap at least does not care about my lack of hand. Worse, a topdeck'd Emrakul in an otherwise empty hand does nothing until I specifically draw Breach, while drawing an Inferno Titan or one of the other suggestions Malt_Meister made are usually at least castable in this deck.
I'm not saying the combo is bad. A breach'd or trapped Emrakul does usually mean game over. However, this deck has ridiculous inevitability. Eventually you will naturally draw multiple Valkuts and get mountains online and burn their faces off. There are very few ways in modern to stop that if the game goes long enough. So the primary concern this deck has is ultimately making it to the long game. Against aggro/burn type decks, you pack things like Huntmaster, Thragtusk, and Baloth to give you time, along with things like Forked Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Anger, Pyroclasm, etc, to keep early pressure off. Against Control-ish decks, you've got a few tricks like Trap and Spellbreaker to ensure you can keep enough pressure to get to a land-based win condition. Fast Combo decks are your one bane, so that's where the Breach and Trap combos help, letting you win at the same time as they would combo out.
So guys I've been looking at some alternative card options for us that we may be able to hardcast in case we see no breach or Trap and I was thinking of in no particular order:
I was thinking about taking out a Scapeshift and an Anger of the Gods in the main to make room for 2 of one of these. Scott Lipp's list is what I'm testing.
What do you guys think? The Liege seems pretty awesome imo
I personally would stick to 6 mana, in general. While this deck ramps, it's not a dedicated ramp deck unless you hit Primeval, which is really it's own win condition. With 8 non-Titan ramp spells, we're likely going to hit no more than 2 or 3 in any single game. Getting to 6 mana is pretty easy, but as RUG Scapeshift shows, sometimes getting to 7 or 8 needs help in the form of permission or other delaying tactics. Consider that you're likely to have 3 lands and a ramp spell in hand. That's getting to 4 mana. In 4 turns, you're likely to draw around 2 more lands and maybe a ramp spell. That puts you at 6 mana reasonably reliably and sometimes 7 mana eventually available. In order to get to 8 mana you probably need 2-3 more draw steps.
According to HGD calculations, if you're rocking 25 lands and don't mulligan, on the play you're 26% likely to have naturally seen 6 land cards by your 4th draw step. You've got about a 76% chance of having seen 4 total land after your 4th draw.
By your third draw you've got a 39% chance of seeing exactly 1 of 8 ramp spells and a 28% chance of seeing exactly 2, with a 12% chance of seeing 3 or more. Right around 80% chance of having seen 1 or more ramp spells between 7 card opening and 3 more draws.
So all told you've got about 60% chance that you'll be able to untap on turn 4 with 5 mana, and about a 30% chance of untapping with 6. Those are pretty important break points, as it means that 5 drops are not super reliable (a point against Thragtusk for instance) on turn 4, and 6 mana spells are probably going to have to wait until turn 5 unless you get a significantly above average draw. That means you have to have some form of interactive game against decks which can semi-reliably win on turn 4, like Twin or JAC.
This next block of statics is about how many mana sources you'll likely have seen. It does not mean in play, just that you will have seen a total of that many land + ramp cards. Calculating how how many ramp spells you'll see and if you hit your land drop every turn and if you're be able to cast the ramp exactly the turn your draw it and other factors is very hard to do precisely, so just figuring out how many you've seen is only a rough guideline.
Mana sources seen on draw #4:
Chance that you'll see 6 or more mana sources: 65%
Chance that you'll see 7 or more mana sources: 38%
Chance that you'll see 8 or more mana sources: 17%
Mana sources seen on draw #5:
Chance that you'll see 6 or more mana sources: 76%
Chance that you'll see 7 or more mana sources: 53%
Chance that you'll see 8 or more mana sources: 28%
Mana Sources seen on draw #6
Chance that you'll see 6 or more mana sources: 85%
Chance that you'll see 7 or more mana sources: 66%
Chance that you'll see 8 or more mana sources: 41%
To summarize, you're about 200% to 300% more likely to be able to hit 6 mana sources than 8, and between 150 and 200% more likely to hit 6 than 7, by the time that it matters.
tl;dr version of the math in the spoiler box: You're very likely to hit 6 mana during a game of modern with 25 lands and 8 ramp spells by turn 6 or 7, less likely but still probable to hit 7, and at best 50/50 odds that you'll hit 8. You're also only slightly above even odds to hit 5 mana on turn 4 without a mulligan, which influences the decision on 4 vs 5 drops.
What this says to me is that a 7 drop is pretty much the maximum castable spell in this deck. I'm not willing odds that are more against than for me. If I were going to run 7 or 8 drops, then I'd probably go back to having at least a few Farseeks or other ramp spells in the main and add a 26th land. That would mean cutting back on some of the incidental hate like Bolts, Angers, or Chalices.
Of the listed cards, Adephage seems like the one that plays best with the deck's gameplan. Big enough to tangle with almost anything, trample to force through token screens, a trigger that works well with Breach (leaving you token copies after it dies, which can in turn make more token copies), and at 7 mana it's at least reasonably castable as a top deck if I can't breach/trap it.
A quick pass through gatherer for 6 and 7 cost creatures who have at least some synergy with the game plan, either in the form of excellent triggers for being trapped/breached, a way to use the mana/lands we're ramping into over multiple turns as a form of virtual card advantage, or some form of play against deck types we have trouble with:
None of these are in the same league as Breaching an Emrakul, though Protean Hulk does come closest, winning points for being able to leave behind an uncounterable Primeval Titan when it dies.
That said, I think Inferno Titan and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed still seem like the two that give us the most benefit. Inferno Titan is a huge play against aggro and tempo decks and is still very good against Pod decks, with the added bonus of being a mana sink. Ruric Thar likewise wrecks most tempo and control strategies, while being a reasonable beater and wall against aggro.
what do you think of worldspine wurm[/card]? I am also finding huntmaster not so favourablein our decks as we are more proactive in casting spells. I will prefer thrun, the last troll or even thragtusk in that slot.
Worldspine suffers the same problem as Emrakul, which is that it's not really hard castable in any game you shouldn't have already won. One of the things that made me look at decks without the combo in the first place is that while Breach is perfectly good with any Titan, or even just Obstinate Baloth in hand, Emrakul is absolutely 100% useless without a resolved Breach or Trapping into it. This deck has ramp, but not enough to ever cast a Worldspine or Emrakul reliably, so having either in hand without a Breach is a mulligan you only might draw out of. Worldspine is a decent budget replacement for Emrakul in this deck, with the only advantage being that it's green so it can be Summoner's Pact for.
Thragtusk is a decent option. It actually gets at least as much value as a typical Huntmaster, and often more, and the number of commonly played cards that deal well with it and the resulting token are smaller. Unfortunately, 5 mana over 4 is a pretty big deal, though being only single green makes up for some of that. This might be worth a test at some point, if only because 5 mana on turn 3 is certainly possible with this deck, and a turn 3 Thragtusk is a lot of value.
I've actually considered just running Spellbreaker Behemoth mainboard. Uncounterable itself, makes titans uncounterable, at 5 toughness it dodges most common removal completely, while 5 power means it kills most things in the format too. The one downside is that without any relevant triggers or evasion of any sort, it's not a great Breach target, and it's weaker than usual to bounce spells like Vapor Snag and Cryptic Command.
DaR I would hate to play delver and get paired against you ! Strong metagaming right there . I still like TTB into a titan as a finisher So I would be tempted to put in two copies , but your list looks great. How are the 4 Huntmasters treating you?
Huntmasters are definitely the weakest card in the mainboard in many matchups. They're the one thing you can burn easily, and getting full value out of them requires things to go to plan (which they of course never do). They're usually the first things I side out when I want to bring in Anger or Spellbreaker. I'd rather have Baloth's 5-8, but alas.
Overall, it was an interesting build, but I think having at least some number of Breaches is good. I could see skipping Emrakul in favor of other finishers, though. Breaching a Primeval is usually good for the game. Inferno Titan is often pretty close, and hard castable, unlike an Eldrazi. Ditto Ruric Thar. Borborygmos Enraged could also be a solid finisher in a deck that's likely to draw lands off his combat trigger.
I'll agree that this is not the deck for Looting effects.
My personal experiments have revolved around Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and Inferno Titan. Inferno Titan is both easy to cast in a deck running primarily mountains, and does an amazing job shooting down aggro creatures like Delvers and Swiftspears. If they've got nothing to shoot, 3 extra to the face is always nice, and we can make use of all the R for further pump. Ruric, on the other hand, is a giant brick wall for most aggro and tempo decks. If he lands, they usually can't remove him without taking at least 6 damage from his ability. He can also be fetched with Summoner's Pact, if necessary.
I also tried piloting a version that ditched the Through the Breach and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn combo in favor of turning into something much closer to the classic INN-era Wolf-Run Ramp Titans.
The week I ran this at a Modern FNM, I ended up going 3-1 in a 20-something person field. The Delver and Burn matchups are very good, between all the lifegain, creatures that can't be easily burned, and available sideboard answers. Scapeshift is a somewhat uphill battle if you don't see some early life gain to keep you out of 7-land scapeshift range, though the Leyline post board can slow them down long enough to fight. Pod is a tossup, and depends on if they're running any of the infinite combos and if you can keep their board clear long enough to get a Titan out. The worst match among top tier decks is Twin, which is nearly an auto loss unless you luck into keeping up double bolt when they go for the deceiver exarch. Combusts in the side could help, but anything I'd give up would more impact multiple other matchups for only a moderate gain.
I play around with variations on Travis Woo's Zombie Infestation deck with Goryo's quite frequently because I just like how it plays. I, too, side a full 4 Pack Rat and 3 Liliana of the Veil. The reasoning is very similar. Any deck which I expect will have access to more grave hate than a Relic or two, that package comes in, and my graveyard reliant cards like Bloodghast, Goryo's, Squee, etc come out. Especially if I suspect Leyline or RIP. Pack Rat is slower, but more resilient and still a good clock if you can untap with it more than 1 turn. At that point I'm basically closer to a BGx style deck, grinding out relative card advantage. I don't personally bring this in against control decks that don't have graveyard hate, though. However, the Zombie infestation shell already has excellent anti-control matchups.
And as wsurugby10 says, in my experience many decks are usually siding out Bolts, Forked Bolts, Paths etc, so the second game they get blindsided by the Rats. Then, if things go to a third game, I often shuffle the whole sideboard in and then pull 15, so they can't know which game plan I'm going to be on.
Why not Bloodghast?
Cause this cant be recats like Bloodsoaked Champion or Gravecrawler and dont trigger Vengevine.
Other people have commented on the list, but I just want to make sure everyone understands that Bloodsoaked Champion's Raid trigger will not in turn trigger Vengevine.
Vengevine's clause requires you to cast the spell, while BSC's return is a activated ability, not a cast. Even though you're paying mana for it, it's never a spell on the stack. This is unlike Gravecrawler which explicitly says you may cast it from the graveyard. In this regard, both Bloodsoaked and Bloodghast are identically useless in returning Vengeveine.
BSC does have the advantage of being only B, rather than BB, which is relevant in a deck with only 20-ish lands. On the downside, he always costs mana to reanimate, unlike Bloodghast, which reanimates more or less for free. However since the activated ability has no timing clause you can actually use it at instant speed if you choose, including during end step or even inside combat. That can be a nice surprise way to save a Varolz, the Scar-Striped from removal. If they try to end-step bolt him, you can reanimate and then sacrifice the BSC for regeneration, much like cracking a fetch to surprise reanimate a Bloodghast.
I started playing EDH right around when Zen came out. I went the Sheldon route and decided to try and build and play one deck of every color identity. About the time I hit the high 20s of decks, I realized I just couldn't give decks the attention they deserved with that many cards tied up in decks I wasn't actively playing at the time. So when I finally completed the set, I broke them all down. As I did, I recorded my decklists using a program (Decked Builder, the pimpest deck and card collection app out there).
I now have a cube/box with 1 of every card I'd want to put in a deck. I also keep a few spares of staples like Sol Ring and Reliquary Tower that go in nearly every deck, so I can have 2 or 3 decks built at once. Every card is identically sleeved (Dragon Shield Clears over KMC Perfect Fits), and well sorted so I can instantly grab them to build a deck. It takes about 10-15 minutes to reconstitute a deck from my boxes using the recorded lists.
Right now I've got 63 deck lists, of which, I've actually built and played 58. Of the remaining 5, 2 are still in progress (Marchessa, Zurgo) and 3 are dumb exercises in degenerate deck building (Karona 100% Defenders, a 5c Mass LD deck, and a Karn/Sydri "who needs creatures when you have equipment" deck) that I would never actually try to use. I tend to build to a theme, so a few of them have evolved quite a bit over time. The Proliferate deck, for instance, started as UB Skeleton Ship, spent some time as UBR Thraximundar, then UBG Damia, and is now URG Animar. The Thelon tribal fungus deck is BG but can also built as WBG Ghave. There are also several variations on the storm/spellslinger deck using Melek or Nichol Bolas. I also keep a couple of specialty lists, like the 5 mono-colored Praetor lists that are balanced and meant to be run as a Star game. But most of the decks are unique and stand alone.
I usually keep 2-3 decks built at a time. After a few weeks and a few tweaks, I usually deconstruct my current set of play decks back into the box and build another few decks with a couple of updates I want to try.
While they do not work from the grave (and thus you can't do anything remotely like manaless dredge in Legacy), there are a couple of no-mana, no-board presence sac outlets in Modern. Both Greater Gargadon and Demon of Death's Gate can be used to sac your Bloodghasts, Zombie tokens, Thugs, etc. Demon can't hit Narcomeba admittedly and needs life, while Gargadon does require a R to set up as a one time payment. On the upside, both give you a 9 power body on the field, either immediately or eventually, unlike Therapy. I've also seen the suggestion of Viscera Seer, but I dislike the fact that he's exposed to every board wipe, shock, bolt, electrolyze, etc.
I've been playing around with more classic Legacy mana style dredge decks, using the Demon and Gargadon pair. I'm still investigating options, but the addition of GGT gives enough dredge density to make it mostly work. Some issues are classic Dredge questions, like whether Phantasmagorian and Street Wraith necessary or even useful, and if Leyline of the Void is worth mainboarding to keep your bridges from being easily exiled. Others are obviously Modern specific, like if Dark Deals is worth the extra mana over Faithless Looting or Burning Inquiry. And there's a few about a more hybrid style deck, like if Zombie Infestation as a discard outlet and Gravecrawlers as cheap, recurring, sacrificial creatures are appropriate slot fillers.
It's not quite yet to the point where I'd take it to an FNM, mostly as it's a bit inconsistent still. On the upside, it can occasionally put 20+ power on the board on turn 3, most if it Flying and Trampling. And as with all Dredge decks, it's somewhat difficult to interact with its game plan if you don't have grave hate.
4 Narcomeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Golgari Thug
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Demon of Death's Gate
4 Greater Gargadon
4 Faithless Looting
4 Burning Inquiry
Enchantments:8
4 Bridge from Below
4 Leyline of the Void
Lands:16
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Dakmor Salvage
4 Mana Confluence
4 Sulfurous Springs
The deck is definitely self painful, but making a 9/9 on 2 or 3 for 6 life is usually worth it. It also has to be mulligan'd very aggressively. You really really want to have a sac outlet in opening hand and preferably 2 lands or a land and a Faithless.
The version with -4 Burning Inquiry, -4 Narcomeba, +4 Gravecrawler, and +4 Zombie Infestation is a little more reliable, but slower overall. It does, however far more frequently make a 9/9 Demon on turn 2, thanks to the combo of Faithless Looting 1 or 2 Bloodghasts, cast a Gravecrawler or two, and then sac all three for a 9/9 Demon.
That said, this is now pretty far afield of the current Dredgevine list, and should probably split off into it's own conversation if people are interested.
If I were honestly worried about getting the 1 card in the whole deck you can't cast from hand out, I'd probably run a few Faithless Looting. It combos pretty well with Congregation, in that for RWGG you turn any two cards from hand into any two creature cards in your deck. It does effectively lose you half a card if you cast it and flash it back, but in this deck, where you do need to hit a few specific cards eventually, it's not so bad.
If you go all in on the Congregation plan, than a few random toolbox hoser cards would be pretty solid. I did like Acidic Slime back in the INN version of Wolf Run Ramp, especially on combo with Resto here. I did have one game against a Mono-U tron where a Chalice on 6 (6! Really!) made it impossible to cast my bombs and the one on 2 made it impossible to use any of my sideboarded artifact removal (both Destructive Revelry and Ancient Grudge, even flashed back, are CMC2), and another artifact hoser at a different CMC would have been relevant. That said, that's probably a pretty fringe case that's not worth building around. Still, Slime is good value all around, and playable in a deck with some ramp.
Fauna Shaman, in my opinion, is basically unplayable in Modern unless you've got a reliable way to give it haste. The chances that you'll untap with it in a format full of Bolt, Electrolyze, Decay, etc are vanishingly small, and it gives neither ETB or LTB benefits. What we really need is a Modern reprint of Fierce Empath.
Overall, I'm not sure this direction is worth really pursuing too far. While powerful, Congregation is not that fast, and making room for it comes at the expense of your interaction as ingenous28 points out, which is not ideal.
I've been playing on and off casually since Revised. I didn't play competitively until doing small tourneys like FNM drafts and the odd constructed around Mirrodin/Kamigawa. I didn't start doing serious constructed tourneys until end of Shards/beginning of Zendikar. I've been playing pretty consistently since then. Modern has been my favorite format since it was introduced, and my primary one for about 8 months now.
I'm conflicted. This deck archetype has a lot of potential, but I think a lot of that will depend on how the format shakes out with the previous 2 biggest decks to beat both gutted.
On the other hand, I finally have my precious Grave-Troll and I think that, plus the incoming meta shift, may be the pieces I need to take my brew based on TWoo's Zombie Infestation from 'fun but too inconsistent' up to 'could be a real deck'.
I'll probably get both assembled and decide once I actually get to FNM which I'll play.
I've played a couple versions which already splashed black very lightly to be able to cast Slaughter Games out of the side, because that card just pretty much beats Scapeshift, and usually does a pretty good number on other combo and combo-control decks like Twin. Grave Titan is pretty attractive, but not sure it's more attractive than the white splash.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Obstinate Baloth
2 Restoration Angel
3 Spellbreaker Behemoth
2 Inferno Titan
4 Primeval Titan
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Sorceries:8
2 Farseek
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 See the Unwritten
3 Congregation at Dawn
4 Summoning Trap
Lands:25
2 Arid Mesa
2 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
6 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Destructive Revelry
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Sowing Salt
2 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
Forgoing the removal for a greater density of creatures to See/Trap into. Baloth + Resto is a lot of lifegain and ground protection against most decks.
I am in inveterate tinkerer. I don't think I ever run the same list more than one or two events in a row. I'm always fiddling around with exact counts, testing "secret tech", and moving stuff in and out of sideboards, especially based on how my local meta looks to be evolving.
Now, with the new bannings, I'd definitely change some things. Random thoughts over the past couple hours about this archetype in general:
I haven't quite refined these thoughts into any playable lists yet, and my other current favorite archetype (Vengevine-based BG graveyard decks) got a Golgari Grave-Troll back, so I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to brew with first.
Overall, I think the bannings have probably made the existing versions of this deck a little worse (mainboard chalices and angers are definitely worse, rise in counters makes breach worse, but trap better). But a lot will depend on where the overall format swings as a result.
If Twin and Scapeshift shoot back to the top of the pile, this deck isn't very happy about that. BGx is less bad, but the knock on effect of Tron increasing as well is not good for this deck.
OTOH, if Burn, Zoo/Sligh, and Affinity gain a lot of ground, then this deck is very well positioned.
As izzetmage points out, Mossfire is not modern legal. However, Fire-lit Thicket is, and does the same job. If budget is not an issue, I'd just go with another extra few Fetch lands, though. Anything which fetches your Stomping Grounds are effectively both Forests you need for Courser/Search/STE and the Mountains you need for turning on Valakut. This means pretty much any of them except Flooded Strand, Marsh Flats and Polluted Delta could be used.
I'm not entirely sold on Courser. I do like the toughness, but the lifegain is pretty small unless you're hitting a titan, in which case you're probably about to win anyways. And while it does smooth out land draws to some extent, it also reveals your draws, which makes some of the gotcha cards like the Breach/Emrakul combo less good. I actually run Scalding Tarns as my "off-color" fetches of choice, precisely because it can make people think I'm playing Scapeshift and not straight RG Trap. If I hit those early, they'll play around completely non-existing counters the first few turns.
I do like the Commune tech. I may play around with that in my Breach-less version.
Ran a list that was somewhere between Scott and Ricardo's respective GP lists, with a few 1 ofs for testing.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Obstinate Baloth
4 Primeval Titan
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Sorceries:10
2 Farseek
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Search for Tomorrow
1 Scapeshift
Instants:10
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Volcanic Fallout
4 Through the Breach
4 Summoning Trap
1 Blood Crypt
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Forest
8 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Destructive Revelry
3 Slaughter Games
2 Sowing Salt
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth
2 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
4 Leyline of Sanctuary
Random thoughts for the evening:
In my opinion this is what the core looks like, boiling down the suggestions from the Primer:
4 Primeval Titan
4 Summoning Trap
Core Ramp (8)
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Search for Tomorrow
2 Forest
8 Mountains
4 Stomping Grounds
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Through the Breach
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn (Or other Stompy Creatures)
Optional (2-10)
0 Farseek (between 0 and 4)
0 Scapeshift (between 0 and 2)
2 Arid Mesa (or other Fetches for Mountains, between 2 and 4)
That leaves anywhere from 4 to 12 slots open for your meta specific cards. Baloths, Chalices, Bolts, Angers, etc.
Yes, despite the thread name, I don't actually consider Through the Breach to truly be core in the deck. As I pointed out, it's a 2 card combo, in that it's basically a dead card in hand unless you have or draw into one of your threats. By comparison, Summoning Trap from the top of deck is almost always castable for some amount of value. Going "off the reservation" and dropping the Breach combo for more threats and midrange can produce fairly interesting results, as the list I posted previously shows.
Against some decks, Scapeshift is a viable win condition. However, unlike the standard RUG Scapeshift deck, this deck does not pack any countermagic at all (except a few people who might run Guttural Response in the side). This makes resolving a Scapeshift much much harder against those decks which are packing counters. That's why a 1 or 2 of Scapeshift is about Plan C at best.
And while 8 is usually a pretty reasonable number of cards for one half of a 2 card combo, the problem is that the Breach and Trap don't entirely overlap in functionality. Breach only works if you've got your fatty in hand. Trap only works if the fatty is in the top 7 of your library. An Emrakul in hand can't be Trap'd. An Emrakul 6 down in your library can't be Breached. That makes the combo a bit more fragile than a normal 8+8 combo would otherwise be.
I'm just looking at ways I can reduce reliance on something that depends on quality and ordering of draws in a deck that has absolutely no other card selection or draw. Many of the people in my area tend to play permission and disruption heavy decks. UR Delver and Scapeshift (both permission) as well as Pod (disruption) are very common, so I can't rely on being able to keep two specific cards in hand until I'm ready to use them and then reliably resolve them. A lonely Breach in hand does nothing that turn; top decking Trap at least does not care about my lack of hand. Worse, a topdeck'd Emrakul in an otherwise empty hand does nothing until I specifically draw Breach, while drawing an Inferno Titan or one of the other suggestions Malt_Meister made are usually at least castable in this deck.
I'm not saying the combo is bad. A breach'd or trapped Emrakul does usually mean game over. However, this deck has ridiculous inevitability. Eventually you will naturally draw multiple Valkuts and get mountains online and burn their faces off. There are very few ways in modern to stop that if the game goes long enough. So the primary concern this deck has is ultimately making it to the long game. Against aggro/burn type decks, you pack things like Huntmaster, Thragtusk, and Baloth to give you time, along with things like Forked Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Anger, Pyroclasm, etc, to keep early pressure off. Against Control-ish decks, you've got a few tricks like Trap and Spellbreaker to ensure you can keep enough pressure to get to a land-based win condition. Fast Combo decks are your one bane, so that's where the Breach and Trap combos help, letting you win at the same time as they would combo out.
I personally would stick to 6 mana, in general. While this deck ramps, it's not a dedicated ramp deck unless you hit Primeval, which is really it's own win condition. With 8 non-Titan ramp spells, we're likely going to hit no more than 2 or 3 in any single game. Getting to 6 mana is pretty easy, but as RUG Scapeshift shows, sometimes getting to 7 or 8 needs help in the form of permission or other delaying tactics. Consider that you're likely to have 3 lands and a ramp spell in hand. That's getting to 4 mana. In 4 turns, you're likely to draw around 2 more lands and maybe a ramp spell. That puts you at 6 mana reasonably reliably and sometimes 7 mana eventually available. In order to get to 8 mana you probably need 2-3 more draw steps.
According to HGD calculations, if you're rocking 25 lands and don't mulligan, on the play you're 26% likely to have naturally seen 6 land cards by your 4th draw step. You've got about a 76% chance of having seen 4 total land after your 4th draw.
By your third draw you've got a 39% chance of seeing exactly 1 of 8 ramp spells and a 28% chance of seeing exactly 2, with a 12% chance of seeing 3 or more. Right around 80% chance of having seen 1 or more ramp spells between 7 card opening and 3 more draws.
So all told you've got about 60% chance that you'll be able to untap on turn 4 with 5 mana, and about a 30% chance of untapping with 6. Those are pretty important break points, as it means that 5 drops are not super reliable (a point against Thragtusk for instance) on turn 4, and 6 mana spells are probably going to have to wait until turn 5 unless you get a significantly above average draw. That means you have to have some form of interactive game against decks which can semi-reliably win on turn 4, like Twin or JAC.
This next block of statics is about how many mana sources you'll likely have seen. It does not mean in play, just that you will have seen a total of that many land + ramp cards. Calculating how how many ramp spells you'll see and if you hit your land drop every turn and if you're be able to cast the ramp exactly the turn your draw it and other factors is very hard to do precisely, so just figuring out how many you've seen is only a rough guideline.
Mana sources seen on draw #4:
Chance that you'll see 6 or more mana sources: 65%
Chance that you'll see 7 or more mana sources: 38%
Chance that you'll see 8 or more mana sources: 17%
Mana sources seen on draw #5:
Chance that you'll see 6 or more mana sources: 76%
Chance that you'll see 7 or more mana sources: 53%
Chance that you'll see 8 or more mana sources: 28%
Mana Sources seen on draw #6
Chance that you'll see 6 or more mana sources: 85%
Chance that you'll see 7 or more mana sources: 66%
Chance that you'll see 8 or more mana sources: 41%
To summarize, you're about 200% to 300% more likely to be able to hit 6 mana sources than 8, and between 150 and 200% more likely to hit 6 than 7, by the time that it matters.
tl;dr version of the math in the spoiler box: You're very likely to hit 6 mana during a game of modern with 25 lands and 8 ramp spells by turn 6 or 7, less likely but still probable to hit 7, and at best 50/50 odds that you'll hit 8. You're also only slightly above even odds to hit 5 mana on turn 4 without a mulligan, which influences the decision on 4 vs 5 drops.
What this says to me is that a 7 drop is pretty much the maximum castable spell in this deck. I'm not willing odds that are more against than for me. If I were going to run 7 or 8 drops, then I'd probably go back to having at least a few Farseeks or other ramp spells in the main and add a 26th land. That would mean cutting back on some of the incidental hate like Bolts, Angers, or Chalices.
Of the listed cards, Adephage seems like the one that plays best with the deck's gameplan. Big enough to tangle with almost anything, trample to force through token screens, a trigger that works well with Breach (leaving you token copies after it dies, which can in turn make more token copies), and at 7 mana it's at least reasonably castable as a top deck if I can't breach/trap it.
A quick pass through gatherer for 6 and 7 cost creatures who have at least some synergy with the game plan, either in the form of excellent triggers for being trapped/breached, a way to use the mana/lands we're ramping into over multiple turns as a form of virtual card advantage, or some form of play against deck types we have trouble with:
None of these are in the same league as Breaching an Emrakul, though Protean Hulk does come closest, winning points for being able to leave behind an uncounterable Primeval Titan when it dies.
That said, I think Inferno Titan and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed still seem like the two that give us the most benefit. Inferno Titan is a huge play against aggro and tempo decks and is still very good against Pod decks, with the added bonus of being a mana sink. Ruric Thar likewise wrecks most tempo and control strategies, while being a reasonable beater and wall against aggro.
Worldspine suffers the same problem as Emrakul, which is that it's not really hard castable in any game you shouldn't have already won. One of the things that made me look at decks without the combo in the first place is that while Breach is perfectly good with any Titan, or even just Obstinate Baloth in hand, Emrakul is absolutely 100% useless without a resolved Breach or Trapping into it. This deck has ramp, but not enough to ever cast a Worldspine or Emrakul reliably, so having either in hand without a Breach is a mulligan you only might draw out of. Worldspine is a decent budget replacement for Emrakul in this deck, with the only advantage being that it's green so it can be Summoner's Pact for.
Thragtusk is a decent option. It actually gets at least as much value as a typical Huntmaster, and often more, and the number of commonly played cards that deal well with it and the resulting token are smaller. Unfortunately, 5 mana over 4 is a pretty big deal, though being only single green makes up for some of that. This might be worth a test at some point, if only because 5 mana on turn 3 is certainly possible with this deck, and a turn 3 Thragtusk is a lot of value.
I've actually considered just running Spellbreaker Behemoth mainboard. Uncounterable itself, makes titans uncounterable, at 5 toughness it dodges most common removal completely, while 5 power means it kills most things in the format too. The one downside is that without any relevant triggers or evasion of any sort, it's not a great Breach target, and it's weaker than usual to bounce spells like Vapor Snag and Cryptic Command.
Huntmasters are definitely the weakest card in the mainboard in many matchups. They're the one thing you can burn easily, and getting full value out of them requires things to go to plan (which they of course never do). They're usually the first things I side out when I want to bring in Anger or Spellbreaker. I'd rather have Baloth's 5-8, but alas.
Overall, it was an interesting build, but I think having at least some number of Breaches is good. I could see skipping Emrakul in favor of other finishers, though. Breaching a Primeval is usually good for the game. Inferno Titan is often pretty close, and hard castable, unlike an Eldrazi. Ditto Ruric Thar. Borborygmos Enraged could also be a solid finisher in a deck that's likely to draw lands off his combat trigger.
My personal experiments have revolved around Ruric Thar, the Unbowed and Inferno Titan. Inferno Titan is both easy to cast in a deck running primarily mountains, and does an amazing job shooting down aggro creatures like Delvers and Swiftspears. If they've got nothing to shoot, 3 extra to the face is always nice, and we can make use of all the R for further pump. Ruric, on the other hand, is a giant brick wall for most aggro and tempo decks. If he lands, they usually can't remove him without taking at least 6 damage from his ability. He can also be fetched with Summoner's Pact, if necessary.
I also tried piloting a version that ditched the Through the Breach and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn combo in favor of turning into something much closer to the classic INN-era Wolf-Run Ramp Titans.
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
4 Obstinate Baloth
2 Inferno Titan
4 Primeval Titan
Sorceries:8
4 Forked Bolt
4 Search for Tomorrow
Instants:8
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Summoning Trap
2 Forest
1 Kessig Wolf Run
8 Mountain
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Destructive Revelry
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Sowing Salt
2 Spellbreaker Behemoth
The week I ran this at a Modern FNM, I ended up going 3-1 in a 20-something person field. The Delver and Burn matchups are very good, between all the lifegain, creatures that can't be easily burned, and available sideboard answers. Scapeshift is a somewhat uphill battle if you don't see some early life gain to keep you out of 7-land scapeshift range, though the Leyline post board can slow them down long enough to fight. Pod is a tossup, and depends on if they're running any of the infinite combos and if you can keep their board clear long enough to get a Titan out. The worst match among top tier decks is Twin, which is nearly an auto loss unless you luck into keeping up double bolt when they go for the deceiver exarch. Combusts in the side could help, but anything I'd give up would more impact multiple other matchups for only a moderate gain.
And as wsurugby10 says, in my experience many decks are usually siding out Bolts, Forked Bolts, Paths etc, so the second game they get blindsided by the Rats. Then, if things go to a third game, I often shuffle the whole sideboard in and then pull 15, so they can't know which game plan I'm going to be on.
Other people have commented on the list, but I just want to make sure everyone understands that Bloodsoaked Champion's Raid trigger will not in turn trigger Vengevine.
Vengevine's clause requires you to cast the spell, while BSC's return is a activated ability, not a cast. Even though you're paying mana for it, it's never a spell on the stack. This is unlike Gravecrawler which explicitly says you may cast it from the graveyard. In this regard, both Bloodsoaked and Bloodghast are identically useless in returning Vengeveine.
BSC does have the advantage of being only B, rather than BB, which is relevant in a deck with only 20-ish lands. On the downside, he always costs mana to reanimate, unlike Bloodghast, which reanimates more or less for free. However since the activated ability has no timing clause you can actually use it at instant speed if you choose, including during end step or even inside combat. That can be a nice surprise way to save a Varolz, the Scar-Striped from removal. If they try to end-step bolt him, you can reanimate and then sacrifice the BSC for regeneration, much like cracking a fetch to surprise reanimate a Bloodghast.
I started playing EDH right around when Zen came out. I went the Sheldon route and decided to try and build and play one deck of every color identity. About the time I hit the high 20s of decks, I realized I just couldn't give decks the attention they deserved with that many cards tied up in decks I wasn't actively playing at the time. So when I finally completed the set, I broke them all down. As I did, I recorded my decklists using a program (Decked Builder, the pimpest deck and card collection app out there).
I now have a cube/box with 1 of every card I'd want to put in a deck. I also keep a few spares of staples like Sol Ring and Reliquary Tower that go in nearly every deck, so I can have 2 or 3 decks built at once. Every card is identically sleeved (Dragon Shield Clears over KMC Perfect Fits), and well sorted so I can instantly grab them to build a deck. It takes about 10-15 minutes to reconstitute a deck from my boxes using the recorded lists.
Right now I've got 63 deck lists, of which, I've actually built and played 58. Of the remaining 5, 2 are still in progress (Marchessa, Zurgo) and 3 are dumb exercises in degenerate deck building (Karona 100% Defenders, a 5c Mass LD deck, and a Karn/Sydri "who needs creatures when you have equipment" deck) that I would never actually try to use. I tend to build to a theme, so a few of them have evolved quite a bit over time. The Proliferate deck, for instance, started as UB Skeleton Ship, spent some time as UBR Thraximundar, then UBG Damia, and is now URG Animar. The Thelon tribal fungus deck is BG but can also built as WBG Ghave. There are also several variations on the storm/spellslinger deck using Melek or Nichol Bolas. I also keep a couple of specialty lists, like the 5 mono-colored Praetor lists that are balanced and meant to be run as a Star game. But most of the decks are unique and stand alone.
I usually keep 2-3 decks built at a time. After a few weeks and a few tweaks, I usually deconstruct my current set of play decks back into the box and build another few decks with a couple of updates I want to try.