MTG Salvation

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Table of Contents

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1) The History of Dredge

• Beginnings
• Modern Format
• Trolls and Shadows
• Post Banning
• Creeping Chill 
2) Deck Construction

• Enablers
• Dredgers
• Creatures
• Lands
• Flex Slots
• Mill?
3) Sideboarding

• Step 1: Knowing Your Enemy
• Step 2: Counter Hate
• Step 3: What do I Cut for What?
• Step 4: Other Useful Cards
4) Technical Play

5) Sister Decks

6) What if Another Card is Banned?

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.

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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.

Beginnings

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.

Standard DredgeMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures (31) 1 Drowned Rusalka 4 Llanowar Mentor 4 Magus of the Bazaar 4 Merfolk Looter 4 Narcomoeba 2 Bonded Fetch 4 Stinkweed Imp 2 Flame-Kin Zealot 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath 2 Life from the Loam 3 Dread Return	4 Bridge from Below 4 Breeding Pool 1 Forest 2 Gemstone Caverns 2 Gemstone Mine 1 Horizon Canopy 1 Overgrown Tomb 1 Svogthos, the Restless Tomb 4 Watery Grave 4 Yavimaya Coast	Sideboard (15) 1 Overgrown Tomb 4 Darkblast 1 Drowned Rusalka 3 Pithing Needle 3 Krosan Grip 1 Dread Return 2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath

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.

Vintage DredgeMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Lands (7) 4 Bazaar of Baghdad 3 Dryad Arbor 2 Flame-Kin Zealot 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 3 Golgari Thug 4 Ichorid 4 Narcomoeba 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Street Wraith	4 Cabal Therapy 3 Dread Return 4 Land Grant 4 Bridge from Below 4 Chalice of the Void 4 Leyline of the Void 1 Lion's Eye Diamond 4 Serum Powder	SIDEBOARD 3 Ancient Grudge 3 Contagion 3 Emerald Charm 4 Reverent Silence 2 Unmask

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.

Modern Format

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.

DredgevineMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures (30) 4 Birds of Paradise 4 Gravecrawler 4 Hedron Crab 4 Magus of the Bazaar 2 Shambling Shell 2 Skaab Ruinator 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Vengevine 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria 4 Faithless Looting 2 Life from the Loam 2 Unburial Rites	1 Blood Crypt 1 Breeding Pool 1 Forest 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Island 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Overgrown Tomb 3 Scalding Tarn 1 Steam Vents 1 Stomping Ground 1 Swamp 1 Temple Garden 4 Verdant Catacombs 1 Watery Grave	2 Darkblast 4 Ancient Grudge 1 Ray of Revelation 4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Gnaw to the Bone 1 Unburial Rites 1 Angel of Despair

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.

Trolls and Shadows

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.

Dredge 2016Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Lands (20) 2 Blood Crypt 3 Bloodstained Mire 4 Copperline Gorge 2 Dakmor Salvage 1 Forest 2 Mountain 1 Steam Vents 2 Stomping Ground 3 Wooded Foothills 4 Bloodghast 4 Golgari Grave-Troll 4 Insolent Neonate 4 Narcomoeba 4 Prized Amalgam 1 Scourge Devil 4 Stinkweed Imp	4 Cathartic Reunion 1 Collective Brutality 3 Conflagrate 4 Faithless Looting 3 Life from the Loam	SIDEBOARD 2 Bojuka Bog 1 Collective Brutality 3 Darkblast 1 Destructive Revelry 2 Gnaw to the Bone 4 Nature's Claim 2 Vengeful Pharaoh

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.

Post Banning

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.

A Chilling Comeback

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.

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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.

Enablers

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.

Dredgers

Recommended: 10-13

This 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.

Creatures

Recommended: 12

Your 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.

Lands

Recommended: 18-21

To 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.

Flex Spots

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.

Bridge from Below Package
~6-7 Total Slots~
2-3 Greater Gargadon
4 Bridge from Below

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.

Team Pump Package
~3 Total Slots~
0-2 Rally the Peasants
0/1 Scourge Devil
1 Haunted Dead

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.

Mill?

Numbers: Completely dependent on the deck

Mill 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.

Other Options

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!

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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.

Step 1: Knowing Your Enemy

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

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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

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~ MTGGoldfish-To see what decks play what ~

Step 2: Counter Hate

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 Charm

Ravenous Trap

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality

Rest in Peace

Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Golgari Charm
Thoughtseize

Anger of the Gods

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Fetchlands
Golgari Charm

Crypt Incursion

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality

Anafenza, The Foremost

Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
Conflagrate

Surgical Extraction

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Ground Seal

Rakdos Charm

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality

Grafdigger's Cage

Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient Grudge

Scavenging Ooze

Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
Conflagrate

Bojuka Bog

Feels bad man

Nihil Spellbomb

Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient Grudge

Relic of Progenitus

Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient Grudge

Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet

Lightning Axe
Conflagrate
Thoughtseize

Tormod's Crypt

Nature's Claim
Natural State
Fragmentize
Abrupt Decay
Ancient Grudge

Memory's Journey

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Ground Seal

Loaming Shaman

Thoughtseize
Ground Seal

Jund Charm

Thoughtseize
Collective Brutality
Golgari Charm

Dryad Militant

Collective Brutality
Lightning Axe
Abrupt Decay
Darkblast
Conflagrate

Step 3: What Do I Cut for What?

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.

It will always be better to understand why and when to make cuts, but if you need a guide to start out with a good example of it would be Zen Takahashi's Sideboard Guide

Other Useful Options

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!

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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.

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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!

~ Dredgevine Primer ~

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.

~ Hallow One Primer ~

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)

~ Bridgevine Primer ~

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!

~ Craterhoof Dredge Primer ~

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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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So creeping chill brought us back up to tier one right?

I'll have to update the primer with that info. Anything else I should do while I'm in there?

I wouldnt drop narc ever. I agree that Creeping Chill might be the future of the deck, but realistically... were looking at 2 things, with 2 sub categories within them "pay offs (Plan A/B) and Set up (enablers and dredge). After all we are a 2 part combo.

Back in the day Troll made dredge so good because he was 2 of these at once. Set up (dredge) and Pay off (Plan B). When he was banned, the deck felt it hard because as I've said in the past, "4 trolls was worth 6-7 cards." We ended up having to cut flex spots and the deck has been tight on cards ever since, argo 1 or 2 scourges/rally/haunted dead. Chill clearly takes those spots.

The next thing you have to do is bite into your Core cards. It doesnt just take Conflags spot, because while conflag isnt great at it... It is Payoff (Plan B AND Set up (Enbaler) Chill is simply Plan B. Its good at that, but thats all it is.

Narc isn't pay off. Its Enabler. You shouldnt cut Enabler for Pay off. You should cut pay off for pay off, enabler for enabler. Conflags likely get cut for chill. Maybe down to a 1 or 2 of, since youd be cutting Plan B for Plan B... A direct substitute. If I was to cut anymore... it would maybe be that last flex spot enabler. AKA a tormented voice or something.

Truth is... You really need to say "Is uncounterable 12 damage and gaining 12 life worth cutting Conflag?" If it is, great. Its the new plan B. If not, well... the deck cant fit more flex spots. So its not worth pointing in.


Deck theory aside... I think it is better. Uncounterable makes you better at killing control, free makes you better at racing combo, and lifegain makes you better against that Aggro race" we always seem to be 1 turn too slow at. Theres no reason you can pack conflag in the board and side 1-2 in against elves and the like. Personally I think the fact that chill reduces the amount of side slots we need to dedicate to aggro AND combo is worth alot more than it seems.

Wait... I didnt see the dies part. Good god works been rough this week... No how is this not an instant staple for us (Well... I know. Freakin mana)


No way, I'm getting a playset and testing the crap put of this. This makes even Rally and devil better.

Welcome Ghouls and Gals, to Reaper King's Halloween Town. This is an EDH / Commander Deck, which tip-toes a balance between fun flavor deck, with competitive EDH cards and synergies. It's aim is to be casual enough for a fun Halloween themed EDH / Commander game among friends, but still good enough to pull out wins. This will be my EDH / Commander deck for life, so it will see regular updates as more "spooky cards" hit the printer!

Overview of Reaper King's Halloween Town

Reaper King's Halloween Town uses its Pumpkin Mayor more of an Emblem that vindicates. When you cast it, you've got enough Scarecrows and Changlings to get at least one in your hand or graveyard. From there you can blink them and recur them for repeat vindicates. Once you add Xenograft and Conspiracy into the mix, those vindicates turn into complete boardstate destruction.

While this is a great trick for the deck, and gives it a couple awesome synergies, I won's deny that its overall a cute commander rather than a strong one. But the 5 colors of it allows you to play white's Ghosts, blue's Tricks and Changlings, Green's Wolves and Spiders, Red's Vampires and Black's well, everything. To make up for that, Halloween Town's residences are some of the most spooky and best creatures for EDH, most of them can win the game on their own if left unchecked. With enough destruction behind it to interact, your team has a strong chance to win.

Overall, if your EDH is a relaxed playgroup that prefers fun over competitive wins, this is a great deck to play that still can pull up results while being "fair". If you want to have quick wins while facing the strongest decks possible, you'll be best to look for one of the more "tier 1 " commanders. Overall this primer will focus on a flavor first approach, but kept as competitive as it can be in that light.

Why Should I Play this Deck?: If you like creepy halloween things, or if you like graveyard and good stuff synergies. The deck also does a lot of very fun things.
Why Shouldn't I Play this Deck?: If you like to win EVERY time, or crave board/stack interaction. The deck does it's own thing, and its a fun thing, but it is simple and not super interactive.

Why Reaper King

Because its the coolest spooky tribe, his favor text is "Its harvest time", how cool is that art work, and he has a pumpkin for a head, what more do you need?

Jokes aside, thats pretty much THE reason to run him, because he is cool. Which is a pretty valid reason in EDH. To be real with you for a moment, Reaper King is one of those really powerful Commanders with not enough support to do anything with him. In pretty much every "top tier" commander you can get better effects because support is easier on theme. Meren of Clan Nel Toth is way better at reanimation, Brago, King Eternal with flickering EtB effects, even Avatar of Woe probably kills more things then Reaper King.

But it's still a cool card, so if you want to use it here's why you should: Five colors are amazing to deck build with, and you dont need removal because you can just use scarecrows instead. The trick with Reaper King so to play more into his 5 colors, and allow his ability to be something you can do, rather than you must build around. Which is perfect for a Halloween themed commander.

Meet the Residents of Halloween Town

Ghouls and Gals

Viscera Seer- A vampire that can be be tutored by Hulk, and is a super cheap and good sac engine.
Blood Artist- A vampire who threatens opponents to not use boardwipes, and rewards our recursion.
Bloodghast- A vampire ghost who lets us get some extra use out of sac and reset effects.
Feral Prowler- What's Halloween without a Black Cat? Well, its not Black Cat, but it's better. I'll admit this is in the deck for flavor. But hey when you are doing sac and recursion, you can actually get closer to draw with this.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan- A sac outlet that fits well enough for the theme, but its price and effect makes it easy to put out and easy to keep. See the synergies down below.
Reassembling Skeleton- This time, a spooky scary skeleton who lets us get some extra use out of sac and reset effects.
Shapesharer- Shapesharer is a master Tricker Treater. He comes in a scarecrow, and changes to what ever you like. Hes so good, he can even make other changelings dress up for a turn.
Plague Belcher- With all the zombies in this list, it will do its fair share of damage, but the real trick is the -1/-1 counters on him, meaning he can combo off with Mikaeus and a sac engine for game winning combos.
Gilder Bairn- Givin' out mad candy like its his business, this guy makes all our planeswalkers and undying better.
Loyal Retainers- Now with The Mummy spookiness! Loyal Retainers helps make the ever growing list of legendaries better, and can recur key peices of your combo: Sacrifice- Grim grin, Recursion- Mikaeus, as well as utility.
Mirror Entity- Another scarecrow, he gives us a mana sink for all our zombies and wolves giving them a boost, and tribal.
Scarecrone- One of our actual scarecrows, this guy brings back some key artifacts creatures like Grim Poppet combo, and gives us tons of CA with a conspiracy or xenograft.
Taurean Mauler- Another scarecrow, this one punishes your opponents for doing anything.
Anger- This really helps get some combos from game breaking to just winning on the spot. See combos below.
Chameleon Colossus- Our biggest scarecrow. He is a 5/5 for 4 mana with his king out, and thus, doubles even better. Protection from black is very important in edh as well.
Crypt Ghast- A ghost who gives you mana ramp and life gain, something the deck actually needs a fair amount of.
Graveborn Muse- often drawing much more than 1, since we can easily make tons of zombies.
Meren of Clan Nel Toth- One of the best witches in EDH, By saccing things we always have her getting better, and she can bring us back really important combo pieces.
Necrotic Ooze- This slime isn't very powerful on its own, but makes some game winning combos when you have the right things in the yard.
Olivia Voldaren- She's your classic masquerade vampire. And she'll invite your friends creatures to the party too! Its too deadly to turn her down.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet- A vampire who brings zombies to the Monster Mash. With some extra life gain and and grave hate on the side.
Body Double- It's literally a person dressing up, and becoming our spooky things in the graveyard. Enables and redundants our combos and jank.
Ghoulcaller Gisa- Now this lady is a powerhouse. Shes a sac outlet that gives you more zombie bodies! Shes everything you'd want.
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born- Another zombie that is a sac outlet, while being a massive beatstick.
Ishkanah, Grafwidow- This card not only fits our theme of tokens on recur... but also gives us win cons when our dudes become spiders, or we go off.
Karmic Guide- An angel might seem out of place here... Until you realize she is in a graveyard. Since her life is mostly spent in the grave, her recursion can happen almost every turn.
Puppeteer Clique- Just like guide, puppeteer recurs things, while recurring itself. Even better, with persist, you can blink, grave recur it back to to use it all over again.
Deadeye Navigator- Who doesn't like pirate ghosts? His blink lets you mess with entering effects, and reset persist and undying. Even better, you can reset him too with the persist and undying triggers.
Grave Titan- Because you never could have enough zombies
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed- Not only does he recur everything, he even resets with a ton of cards on here for basically immortality.
Muldrotha, the Gravetide- Its a hell of a recursion card. Getting back more than just creatures.
Grim Poppet- scarecrow removal, with -1/-1 counters to toss around. Maybe on things with undying for example.
Protean Hulk- The blob, a little weird, but still on horror theme, massively upgrades the deck to enable its combos
Rune-Scarred Demon- sweet sweet recurring tutors! And a flying 6/6 aint so bad either.
Sheoldred, Whispering One- You needed another spider that also plays with the yard? Look no further.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded- Our second bat wings, this gives us a sac engine that can find the pieces we need to win.

Witches' Spells

Demonic Tutor- EDH staple. Its a tutor.
Buried Alive- This is a first for me... but it basically is a 3 creature tutor for 3 mana.
Eerie Interlude- Another Ghostway, but better.
Journey to Eternity- A fantastic way to abuse a 1 shot sac recur into a rainbow land and with future recursion!
Mimic Vat- Turns out alot of our Creatures love to turn into reoccurring Zombie nightmares. Who knew?!
All Hallow's Eve- Look at the name, look at the art, look at the effect. This card makes the deck.
Arlinn Kord- Werewolf Planeswalker! Makes wolves and wins the game.
Grimoire of the Dead- Why wouldnt we get ourself the necronomicon? We love bringing our things back from the dead.
Rite of Replication- While most decks are content to use this to make a ton of beat sticks... we can use this with reaper king for 25 vindicates.
Arcane Adaptation- See below.
Conspiracy- Makes all your creatures cast become scarecrows... which makes all creatures vindicates with legs!
Xenograft- See Conspiracy.
Dictate of Erebos- We need board control effects and ways to punish removal. This does both.
Grave Pact- See Dictate. Also, you better have the spooky reaper to be on flavor.
Necropotence- The deck lacks a "ton" of actual draw. To compinsate, it needs more powerful draw, and boy is this a powerful draw.
Liliana Vess- Repeatable tutors with pacts from demons
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon- A ghosty dragon! And a super powerful one at that. Everything this thing can do is great.

Mana Candy

Sol Ring- Its a ghost ring thats a staple in EDH
Fertile Ground- Pumpkin patch that gives you mana, whats not to love
Ashnod's Altar- Combo piece and can use our tokens we make
Chromatic Lantern- Needed for the mana fixing.
Coalition Relic- Needed for mana fixing
Phyrexian Altar- Combo piece and can use our tokens we make
Wild-Field Scarecrow- Its a scarecrow that also gets mana!
Scuttlemutt- Scarecrows as a tribe lack alot of things, but apparently not making mana while vindicating.

Haunts and Tombstones In Halloween Town

Lets be honest here... Most of the mana base goes to making 4-5 colors available. Which leaves the trick list of lands rather shallow. But we still can fit some in here.

Ancient Tomb- Mana ramp that fits flavor
Cabal Coffers- Even better mana ramp!
Bojuka Bog- Sometimes you just need to burn the graves so they don't comeback.
Ghost Quarter/Wasteland- You're basic land hate. Truth is, the deck doesn't need a ton, since its scarecrows can also handle this.
Kessig Wolf Run- We had to fit a werewolf in here somewhere, and this one lets our beef be even beefier.
Phyrexian Tower- Adds to our sac effects, while giving mana ramp
Shizo, Death's Storehouse- Since we are mostly good stuff, we use a higher than normal amount of legendaries
Strip Mine- A check against other lands
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth- One of the best lands to use for us, as everything we need should be able to make black
Vault of the Archangel- Lifegain and removal in one card. Great with all our tokens.
Volrath's Stronghold- Reusing creatures is what we do best.

Overall Strategy

There is no clear cut way to use this deck, but the deck does have 3 main themes which is abuses to good effect. These themes are; Good Stuff, Recursion, Scarecrows. That is also in order of importance. Below I'll break down why those themes exist, but playing this deck is actually pretty easy.

Due to the "good stuff: nature of the deck, you just aim to play almost a midrange nature of the deck. Ramp early, play big must deal with threats and try to win off that backed with removal and grave pact effects. Grave Titan on a mimic vat is pretty good. You do this, all the while tutoring and prepping a plan B, which is an oops I win with the second theme recursion.

Good Stuff

Our main goal is good stuff. The idea here is to just jam good hay makers. It is supported by out 2 other sub themes which is bringing them back to life, and using removal. Stuff like Grave Titan or Sheoldred, Whispering One can very likely win the game on their own. And we can dip into all 5 colors of magic because thats Reaper King's real power. A lot of these threats like Rite of Replication don't even use the graveyard so it makes us that much harder to beat or hate out by simple means. Simply cast and try to pressure people.

Recursion

This is your long game and your plan B. It's a way to reuse your threats, giving you gas, and also a few ways to just randomly go infinite, see below in Tricks. Things like Loyal Retainers and Muldrotha, the Gravetide, along with sac effects like Ashnod's Altar and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born let you reuse the same creatures over and over to gain advantage. This combos well with the Good stuff theme, as you are probably gaining advantage every time you do it as well as nulling board wipes and removal. It also plays well with Scarecrows turning them into machine gun removal.

Recursion

Most decks run some amount of cheap removal or board wipes. And in that department, you will see we are distinctly lacking. Well this is because scarecrows can play AS removal for us. Most scarecrows included in this deck are simply good on their own like Wild-Field Scarecrow and Scuttlemutt. We also are using only the "good" changelings like Taurean Mauler and Chameleon Colossus for that fact too. Why would we want to run this over actual removal? Because we can use blink and sac effects with them to reuse this effect.

It may seem odd that we aren't all in tribal here. Well simply put, unless the tribe has a TON of support it won't do very well. As such, we have to view Reaper King's lord ability as utility rather than must run. The best cards we can use are Conspiracy like cards or Rite of Replication. I can not stress this enough. Cast Reaper King only after you have a way to Recur scarecrows or have Conspiracy cards in play. We are odd that we only cast our commander after a set up not FOR a set up.

Tricks and Treats

The whole Halloween Town EDH deck isn't nearly as complicated as some "Super competitive decks" by the virtue of sacrificing some of those game ending combos for the sake of "fun," nor is it as easy to understand as most tribal synergies since its very lightly combo. Halloween Town is a very much "good stuff" deck that the cards happen to be creepy. So the best way to help learning the deck, is to have a list of its combos and synergies. If you'd like, print out this section as a visual guide.

Spooky Cards You Might Consider

There are too many cards that are on theme to play all of them. But over time I have created lists of them to keep track of in case I need a sort of effect. If you feel like youd like to add something to the deck feel free! Below I lumped them into overall effect groups

Flavor and Alters! Free tokens and ideas to make it more Halloween.

Quote from akroma44 »

Hmmmm, a few things that haven't been mentioned yet...
Purphoros, God of the Forge, Reaper King, Prime Speaker Zegana (LOL!), and Tishana, Voice of Thunder are pretty sweet.

Reaper King is what I was coming into here to say. Its a fun way to blow up 25 things.

Quote from Spsiegel1987 »

RUG seems too soft to non interactive decks. If you expect an entire room full of fair decks it's fantastic and buries you, but that just seems soft. You definitely need to hit a pairing lottery in long tournaments.

UW Control seems most able to handle a variety of things. Field of Ruins and Spreading Seas is incredibly annoying if you're a three color deck.

Zoo beats most control decks, but Ive beaten that one hard. Zoo is the fairest deck of them all, but I'm undefeated in my testing vs Rug jace. And with Dredge, but thats an unfair deck.

Both are still to your point. both are pretty uninteractive. But one is fair uninteractive.

I'd be for option 2. The truth is... Until wizards lets us get data again, the old way of doing it is dead. No "tier list" exists without bias anymore. Modern has also evolved to be as diverse as legacy, there is a stupid amount of decks now.

So my suggestion would be Option 2- Make a sticky thread that has all Decks in it, with a short overview on the deck in it. That way there is a table of contents and new users can go to that to learn more. Lets be real... returning users subscribe to X amount of threads and dont browse really, only new users looking to get info. Give them that option.

Option 1 has too much bias, and does a bad job at being a tier list. Option 2 with tier list stickys is just doing a worse version of what we have now. Theres no good way to organize those threads in option two sans a table of contents. Option 3 doesnt change anything and has been lacking anyways.

People are over evaluating the legendary jace. This is an aggressive creature format. Jace is horrible in that.

Bbelf is good, but shouldnt have been banned. It was deathrite that carried legendary jund days of yore.

Both cards will find homes and do their jobs. The meta will still be healthy and settle long term. The sky didnt fall.

Quote from mapccu »

[quote from="mapcc
5. Decks like zoo, elves, and midrange (abzan, death's shadow, etc.) kind of suffer from Jace being around.

Zoo has been a jace killer since jace existed. Its sided out vs zoo. Zoo has a absurd win rate vs control.

It lost to miracles because of terminus.

Everyone on the zoo thread is happy about his unban.

I've always struggled with finding right mana rocks for my decks - searching magiccards.info is a really good, but also time consuming way to search for them. While the accelerants are a core parts of any EDH deck, not everyone have enough time to seach for the most optimal ones for their decks. So, to save time and make searching easier, here's the list of all mana-accelerating or mana-making artifacts (I've included things like Wayfarer's Bauble (technically not a rock) and Chromatic Star (eggs may not accelerate you but still are invaluable in certain decks)). If I ommited something worth mentioning - please do tell, I'll update the list!

Last update - Commander 2020 / Ikoria

Hey all, I will not be updating this resource thread anymore. If you want the most up-to-date version, please use the one at MTGNexus.

Welcome to the official Storyline resources thread!

This thread is to replace a couple older storyline threads (specifically the Info Centre) as the new source for up-to date information on Magic Story. I would also recommend you check out the Wiki to help you find whatever you're looking for. It has a huge amount of information on most subjects, just be advised that it's created by users and not everything in there is going to be 100% correct. Please note that the following is not always as detailed as the List of Storyline Sources on the Wiki, but is organized to be more user-friendly.

If you're looking for story summaries rather than the stories themselves, check out the thread A Vorthos Guide to Magic Story.

If you're looking for Ebooks, check out the Magic: The Gathering eBook Portal at vronos.com. I link to the Kindle versions here, but if that's not your preferred source Cary has you covered.

Where to Start?

Magic's Story can best be divided up into three 'Eras' of storytelling, although I should be clear that there aren't any hard lines between each era, more like a gradual shift. Those eras are known as Pre-Revision, Pre-Mending, and Post-Mending. Post-Mending can be further divided into Before and After Magic Origins, which started the current Gatewatch-centric storytelling model. I've written two very high-level story summaries that cover most of Magic's story from beginning to end. You can find them below.

High Level Story Summaries

• Elder Dragons to the Mending (Everything before the current crop of characters)
• Alara to Amonkhet (Everything from the introduction of the new crop of characters to their defeat in Amonkhet)
• A Vorthos Guide to MTG (More Detailed Summaries of every era)
• Multiverse in Review (A blog with detailed summaries of Magic lore)

I'm also including a series here by Sam Keeper from Gathering Magic, which succinctly dives into the eras of Magic's storytelling and the pros and cons of each model over time.

A Brief History of Magic Publishing

• Alpha to Apocalypse
• Planehopping to the End of the Line
• Magic Story Ascendant

If you're brand new to Magic Story, I highly recommend starting with Magic Origins and then working your way forward. It was designed as an entry point for newcomers and there's very little time investment in getting caught up from there than diving headfirst into the novels of Magic's first 20 years. This guide is laid out in roughly chronological order, however, so skip down to The Post-Mending Story (And the Post-Mending chronology) if you're new. You don't need to know everything about Magic's past to get caught up.

The Pre-Revision Story

The stories of the Pre-Revision era were largely handled externally from Wizards of the Coast. The two major sources of lore from this time period were the Harper Prism novels and the Armada Comics series. While many of these events were never referenced again or retconned to fit the new story direction in the Weatherlight Saga, the rule of thumb has been that these events are canon unless explicitly contradicted, and many characters made the jump to post-revision canon. Certain stories, like the Antiquities War and the Ice Age, were later retold in the novels.
The Pre-Mending Story

The novels of the Post-Revision era, now known as the Pre-Mending story, are presented here in roughly chronological order. Most of the stories took place in novel series called cycles, but many short stories have since been made available online. An in-depth knowledge of this era is not required for understanding the modern story. They just add some fun background flavor for a few known planes. Only a single art book was created during this time: The Art of Magic: the Gathering - The Rath Cycle. Only a few comics were produced in this era, a comic from Dark Horse retelling the story of Tempest block, and a series of short 'intro' comics for TopDeck magazine as a teaser for certain novels.
The Post-Mending Story

The current story for Magic takes place after the Mending, in a time when planeswalkers no longer have god-like power or immortality. Plots to regain that lost power or the consequences of its loss are major themes in the post-mending multiverse, as old threats barely contained by what are now known as 'oldwalkers' are now the problem of these weaker 'neowalkers'.

Worldbuilding and the Planeswalker's Guides

One of the great resources made available to readers post-mending is the advent of the Planeswalker's Guides, a series of articles talking about the flavor and worldbuilding of the planes visited in each block. These are great resources for getting the feel of a plane that the story or cards don't necessarily convey. It took a while for these articles to cement, so earlier blocks have some worldbuilding articles I've included that aren't necessarily called planeswalker guides. The official website's Plane Profiles also contain a wealth of information.
Online Articles

Much of Magic's flavor and story in recent years has been told through online articles.

• Savor the Flavor, originally a series called Taste the Magic, was a series of articles that focused on flavorful aspects of Magic: the Gathering. It tended to vary a lot in the type of content it provided and was eventually scrapped in 2012 in favor of Uncharted Realms. All the short stories have been collected on our wiki, which also helpfully divides them by plane and main character.
• Magic Story, originally titled Uncharted Realms, replaced Savor the Flavor in 2012, around the same time the Magic Novels were cancelled. Unlike Savor the Flavor, this series focused entirely on short stories and story-related information, with a new article coming out every Wednesday. Many of these stories flesh out the worlds that each block takes place on, but they also advance the overall plot. A recent shift in creative direction has serialized these short stories into longer ongoing story arcs.
• Planeswalker Webcomics were an early post-mending attempt at making the Magic story more accessible for players. The webcomics were the beginning of many of the story's elements and are a must-read for any story fan.

The early Post-Mending stories were told through a series of planeswalker-centric novels and block novels. Even though Lorwyn was the first set where the neowalkers appeared, their story didn't actually begin until Shards of Alara. Lorwyn, while technically Post-Mending, takes place about 40 years before anything else, as indicated in Nissa's story from Magic Origins.

A Planeswalker Novel

There were three books in this series, and a fourth, cancelled, novel focusing on the character of Liliana Vess.

• Agents of Artifice follows Jace Beleren's early adventures with Liliana Vess as an agent of the Infinite Consortium while under the tutelage of Tezzeret. It is widely regarded as a pretty solid read and is recommended if you want to learn about Magic's story.
• The Purifying Fire follows Chandra after her first confrontation with Jace Beleren in the webcomics. This novel also introduced Gideon Jura. It's considered probably the best of the post-mending novels, and is definitely recommended.
• Test of Metal follows Tezzeret as he tries to slip free of Nicol Bolas' control. It does a great job of characterization for Tezzeret, but it introduces a universally hated magic called clockworking that throws the canon of novel's events into doubt. It is not a recommended read.

Block Novels

There are three novels and two e-novella series in the block novel series. They cover every block from Alara to Theros, with the exception of Innistrad which did not get a block novel but instead two summary articles.

• Alara Unbroken is the Shards of Alara block novel. It tells the story of Nicol Bolas' bid to regain his lost power. It's the best of the block novels Post-Mending, and is recommended.
• In the Teeth of Akoum is the Zendikar block novel. It tells the story of Nissa and Sorin's quest to re-seal the Eldrazi. The book itself is not particularly good, and it's not recommended. All you need to know is the ending, where Nissa breaks open the final seal (ignoring Sorin's advice) and releases the Eldrazi.
• The Quest for Karn is the Scars of Mirrodin block novel. It tells the story of Elspeth, Venser and Koth's search for Karn on a changing Mirrodin. It is borderline unreadable and not recommended. Again, all you need to know is the ending, where Venser dies to restore Karn's spark and mind.
• The Secretist is the Return to Ravnica block novel, told in three parts. It doesn't really deal with any major characters or themes from the original Ravnica, so it's pretty safe to read as a stand alone. It is recommended.
• Godsend is the Theros block novel, told in two parts. It deals with Elspeth being chosen by the god Heliod to defeat Xenagos. It is recommended.

Comics

The Post-Mending story has been told through three different comic book venues at this point.

• Path of the Planeswalker Volumes I and II are the collections of the original Magic webcomics that premiered on the main website during Alara through Scars of Mirrodin. They're linked in my post-Mending chronology below.
• Magic: the Gathering (2012), Magic: the Gathering - The Spell Thief, Magic: the Gathering - Path of Vengeance, and Magic: the Gathering - Theros were the first series of IDW comics released featuring new planeswalker Dack Fayden. While the comic featured the same plane as the blocks they were published alongside, the plot was completely unrelated.
• Magic: the Gathering - Chandra (2018) is the second series of IDW comics, this time featuring fan-favorite planeswalkers like Chandra and taking place between those character's appearances in the main plot.

The Art of Magic: The Gathering

The most recent resource are the new series of Magic Art Books that have been released. These appear to be taking the place of Planeswalker's Guides for 'Return to...' planes, such as Battle for Zendikar and Shadows Over Innistrad. While new planes will still get planeswalker guides, the art books are by far the greatest source of worldbuilding information on each plane.

• The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Zendikar
• The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Innistrad
• The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Kaladesh
• The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Amonkhet
• The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Ixalan
• The Art of Magic: The Gathering - Dominaria

Plane Shift - Fans have been clamoring for a Magic conversion into D&D for years, and James Wyatt has answered. So far, there is only a conversion for Zendikar, but given that it follows nicely on The Art of Magic books, there will likely be more.

• Plane Shift: Zendikar
• Plane Shift: Innistrad
• Plane Shift: Kaladesh
• Plane Shift: Amonkhet
• Plane Shift: Ixalan
• X Marks The Spot: A Plane Shift: Ixalan Adventure

The Post-Mending Chronology

The story is presented here in roughly the order it was published. For the most part, that also means that it is in chronological order, but that won't always be the case, such as with Magic Origins or various background stories. Note that I have placed the webcomics where they belong on the timeline rather than when they were published. It is also divided up as much as possible by who it affects, as many events in the story take place concurrently. Please note that I'm ONLY including stories that are either relevant to the plane they take place on, the overall plot, or to one of the main characters. In general, this means that only characters who appear more than once in the story will appear here, and then only if they have bearing on the overall story. You can find a full list of the short stories in the links I provided earlier to Savor the Flavor and Uncharted Realms articles.
Please let me know below if you think I missed something. I know there are a lot of short stories not included here, but there are hundreds of stories that ultimately don't matter to the overall plot.

Please note that some links may be broken due to Wizards closing out the old site's archive. I've fixed what I can, but if you encounter more please post about it here. In addition, some links to the wiki redirect back to this post, if that happens just go to the wiki manually and type in the name.

Quote from Lantern »

I always valued this thread. I thought it was some of the highest quality in terms of resources. EDHrec doesn't actually fill this service, it lists popularity not power. There is basically no reason that any deck should run a watery grave rather than a Underground Sea but edhrec has the shock as seeing 40% more play.

This thread was always higher quality.

That being said. I dont know how one would get this thread off the ground again. I feel the old way of constantly grinding was too slow to really show new cards in the format, and made it so it depended on people voting literally all the time. For it to be a good resource, I'd think it would have to be a huge poll (or split into many poll threads) that does all colors and cards at once. That way you could do like a yearly update and say "this is poll month" and front load the work on it.

That's kind of what I was thinking. Just do one mass update at set intervals. It's just figuring out what that process would work best.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpbar18/top-8-decklists-grand-prix-barcelona-2018-2018-07-01

Congrats MATTI KUISMA!

Just go with Devil and have fun.

Re: Leylines, I've been running 3 and they typically give you a chance in harder matchups like KCI, grishoalbrand, or hollow one if you face those quite a bit. They're also good since dredge can mull aggressively for them and not suffer as much as say jund or living end would.
I've tried nihil spellbomb since it's easy to cast and draws a card, but found it's too easy to play around and you can't really afford to hold up a mana to draw/dredge. Cards like rakdos charm and surgical also aren't great since it's hard to reliably draw them.

Also, I recently played in the Face to Face Edmonton Open in Red Deer, AB and came 4th! Here's a link to the list: http://f2fseries.facetofacegames.com/red-deer-open-may-12th-2018/

Matchups were:
round 1: Faeries 2-1
round 2: Hollow One 2-1 (This was the guy who came 2nd in the event)
round 3: KCI Combo 2-1
round 4: Blue Moon 2-0
round 5: Affinity 2-0
round 6: Mardu Pyromancer 2-0
round 7: Grixis Death's Shadow 2-0 (I could've drawn here but I didn't know how to convince my opponent to draw without making it seem like collusion so we just played it out)
round 8: ID with the guy who made top 8 on Humans.

Finished 1st after the swiss which was awesome, I think being on the play was super important based on the matchups in the top 8.

Quarter-finals: Infect 2-1
Semi-finals: KCI 0-2

Quote from Lantern »

In legacy I played one due to back to basics and price of progress. In modern there is only path and blood moon (and pain) so I still think theres really no reason to run it. I did in really red decks like blitz

There is Field of Ruin that can cut us out of red

Played on GP Lyon, ended 11-4.
My match ups:
Bye
Bye
3 Traverse Shadow 2-0
4 Traverse Shadow 2-0
5 BR Hollow One 2-0
6 Soulflayer Suprise 2-1
7 Gx Tron 2-0
8 Counters Company 2-0
9 Grixis Shadow 2-1
10 BR Hollow One 1-2
11 Burn 2@0
12 Jeskai Control 2-0
13 Jeskai Tempo 1-2
14 Jeskai control 2-0
15 Humany 2-0

I'll write small report when I got home. Overall event was good but I'm sad that I haven't made cash :'(

I'll be going to a 2/2 split of rhino/bbe in tribal zoo. Cascade into snap is weak, I'll be cutting snap for k command. Cascade into path is also not great, I'll be going from 4/2 path/helix split to 2/4 split. 2 extra helix offsets playing with 2 fewer rhinos.

With 2 k command I'd feel ok exploring alternatives to qasali. Lotus cobra comes to mind. Bringing in 2 cobras makes the one of bird unnecessary and I will swap it with a lavaman.

Lots of tinkering going on but I am excited to see how it goes. I think overall this version is less powerful than before but it could be worth giving up some raw power to be immune to blood moons thanks to cobras and bbe.

This whole sky is falling notion is baffling to me, yup JTMS is bonkers, yup he's going to be expensive for the near future, he'll even warp the format in the next few weeks.

• Will the meta adapt? Of course.
• Can people jam 4 Jace and auto win? Likely impossible.
• Are lists bad with 2 or less points? Horrendously so.

This card just helps shore up our medium/good match ups, and is a bit of a liability in our weak ones unless we can drag the game out (like a control deck) and get to a comfortable place to slam the big boy. He's still trash against any go wide deck unless we can find a sweeper, gets wrecked by burn spells, and is as weak to the vast amounts of discard that dominates this format. Any control player upset by this unbanning I can only imagine is upset that they won't be able to pick up a few for a "reasonable" price for the next several weeks/months.

In the larger meta this may help spawn decks just on the power of Jace; Bant/Sultai/Esper Control, RUG tempo with BBE and Jace as top end, Miracles (rip brainstorm fish). We're in a wild west of sorts and its much more impactful than most new set releases have been for awhile.

I'm pumped, modern is sweet, time to brew and test!