When playing dredge, the ideal game is as follows: Shriekhorn or Tome Scour on turn 1. The whole idea is to get these cards into the graveyard and then get the creatures onto the battlefield for free or very little mana. The last card, Creeping Chill, normally costs 4 mana, but like Narcomoeba, it can be activated by going from the library to the graveyard. If either of these creatures go to the battlefield from the graveyard, they trigger Prized Amalgam to return as well. If Narcomoeba goes into the graveyard from the library, it comes out for free. Bloodghast is the easiest one as its landfall ability allows it to come back into play for just playing a land. In some way these cards have the ability to leave the graveyard or trigger when they are put into the graveyard.

Today, the payoff cards other than the two mentioned above are Prized Amalgam and Creeping Chill. It had its time at the top of the tiers and the bottom of the tiers. Ever since the late days of Extended, and the early days of Modern, there has been some form of Dredge around. There was a time when the deck ran Bridge from Below, Vengevine, Skaab Ruinator, and Gravecrawler. Bloodghast and Narcomoeba were two of the original payoff cards that were in the early versions of the deck and they still remain to this day. When you combine it with the right cards is when it causes trouble. It doesn’t really sound that broken in a vacuum. Otherwise draw a card.” In short, if you want this card back in your hand instead of drawing a new card, mill yourself. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Cards with dredge have a number after the ability and the reminder text for the ability reads “If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly X cards from your library into your graveyard. Since the guild uses dead material to cultivate new growth, it made sense to have a mechanic centered around the graveyard. Dredge was introduced as the defining mechanic of the Golgari guild back in the original Ravnica block. Today it’s about dredge, a mechanic that is just as broken as phyrexian mana and now has a deck named after it. Phyrexian mana is a great example of this, but that’s another topic. Every now and then Wizards of the Coast releases a mechanic that is too good for Magic, like those that break the fundamentals of the game.

Dredge cards mtg