Modern forum
Posted on April 20, 2016, 5:53 a.m. by DarkMagician
Why is this card banned in Modern? What would break it in the format? I love the card because reanimating things is kinda my thing and I really wish it was available to the format.
~Necromancer for life... er unlife?... er relife?~
DarkMagician says... #3
Never say never Boza, keep hope alive!!! Seriously though there's plenty of answers to dredge in the format so why would it be such a big deal? Sorry if it's a dumb question with a stupidly obvious answer but I've never played Dredge despite my love for reanimation.
April 20, 2016 5:57 a.m.
I don't think you understand, DarkMagician. Dredge has the capability of winning on turns 1 and 2 with Dread Return. That, and WotC seems to really dislike Dredge as a whole.
They're not unbanning it in modern. Ever
April 20, 2016 7:06 a.m.
Just because there are plenty of answers to something does not mean it cannot be oppressive. The problem with Dredge is that you can win without ever casting a single spell, often as early as t2 (in modern).
Dread Return is probably the only card that is cemented in the ban list.
Also, if you have never played with Dredge, why do you want that specific card to be unbanned? It is never played outside of that deck because it is quite inefficient otherwise.
April 20, 2016 7:43 a.m.
DarkMagician says... #6
Boza Because I love reanimation and want to do a self mill deck with it.
How can it win so early in Modern?
April 20, 2016 8:41 a.m.
Two ways:
Manaless dredge - Get to 4 mana, one of which is black and play Balustrade Spy or Undercity Informer, putting your whole deck in the yard (you have 0 lands in the deck). You will mill 3 Narcomoeba and put them on the battlefield. Sac them to Dread Return to bring back a Angel of Glory's Rise, which in turn brings back Laboratory Maniac and Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Tap either of them to draw a card and win.
Normal Dredge - use cards like Stinkweed Imp in combination with faithless looting to put your deck in your yard very fast. Get 3 Narcomoeba or anything else on the battlefield, along with several Bridge from Below. Use Dread Return to sac 3 creatures making 3xnumber of Bridge from Below zombies and reanimate Flame-Kin Zealot to give them haste and win on the same turn.
April 20, 2016 8:51 a.m.
I don't think you've ever seen how insane the card is. It would be worse than Eldrazi Winter. It's almost completely unable to interact with and Wizards has said on multiple occasions they wish they had never printed dredge. Grave troll is the closer you're gonna get.
April 20, 2016 9:15 a.m.
You can try in this in legacy. It is really hard to beat unless you play combo yourself
April 20, 2016 9:30 a.m.
Yeah, you know something was a mistake if Force of Will decks have problems interacting with it
April 20, 2016 9:48 a.m.
This is a modern forum... you need 1 mox opal and 3 simian spirit guides lets say until turn 2. THAT WONT HAPPEN
April 20, 2016 2:52 p.m.
It's a turn 2 kill at best in modern but that's too good. It will absolutely win turno 3 and that's just too fast for Modern.
April 20, 2016 2:54 p.m.
To put into context for someone who has never played dredge before let's consider Bloom Titan.
Titan could pull off turn 2 wins with a fairly specific 7, which I'm not a statistician but even I know those odds are low. Despite that, it was deemed too consistent to be acceptable in modern.
Now stack that against a dredge deck in modern where we can sequence turn one Faithless Looting, draw into a couple lands and throw away Golgari Grave-Troll and Stinkweed Imp. Turn two untap, dredge 6 hitting double Narcomoeba and a Bridge from Below, land exile Simian Spirit Guide to flashback Faithless Looting, dredge 5 for improved hitting another bridge, Dread Return and a second Troll. Dredge 6 for second draw to hit your third Narcomoeba and Flame-Kin Zealot, discard your two cards, flash back Dread Return and get 6 2/2 zombies and zealot giving you 7 3/3's with haste. Countering the Dread Return doesn't even help much since you still get 6 zombies to just beat face with.
The reason this is more consistent than Bloom Titan ever was is because you had to have the cards in hand to combo off, dredge just needs a discard outlet and a troll or imp to start rolling. Hope that kind of clears up why we won't see it unbanned any time in the foreseeable future.
April 20, 2016 3:52 p.m.
There's always no banlist modern, I suppose.
I got my LGS to host a couple now, and it looks like it'll keep going. Dredge is OP even in that format
April 20, 2016 4:03 p.m.
DarkMagician says... #17
Yeah I don't see Manaless Dredge being a thing in modern since it requires all 4 Spirit Guides in your hand since both Moxs would be useless in the deck. Now regular Dredge is another story and I can see how everyone would either have to play it or dedicate main board slots to counteract it. Thanks for the clarification guys.
April 20, 2016 8:02 p.m.
Despite it still being powerful, I don't think it would be as busted as everyone thinks. Dredge loses an awful lot of important cards when shipped to modern. Most importantly being Ichorid and Cabal Therapy. It also loses some very good enablers in Putrid Imp, Lion's Eye Diamond, Breakthrough, and Careful Study.
While I believe there are modern playable replacements that could be found, the explosiveness is heavily handicapped. My legacy dredge list is certainly capable of winning turns 1-2, but it doesn't happen too often. The modern version would definitely be slower. So I think the argument against a Dread Return dredge list would be not against its explosiveness, but against its lack of interaction.
I don't think Dread Return should or ever will be unbanned, but I often wish that wizards implemented some form of "trial period" where they unbanned cards for a short time just to see how the meta reacted.
April 20, 2016 8:14 p.m.
Ok first off Manaless Dredge doesn't use mana hence the name, so no Moxes, no SSGs. The combo in legacy is dredge until you get enough Ichorid/Nether Shadow/Narcomoeba/Amalgam into play to dread return Spy, mill out, return Flayer of the Hatebound followed by Golgari Grave-Troll. This is a turn 2-4 combo that will kill on the spot.
In modern there aren't enough free creatures to go that route so instead you'd want Moeba/Amalgam/Bloodghast and possibly a pair of Gravecrawler. You dredge until you get enough stuff into play to flashback dread return into Flame-Kim Zealot and attack for lethal, this would be turn 3-5 in most cases. Part of the issue with Dread Return and dredge in general is the disaster it was for standard/extended and WoTC has no desire to risk that degenerate of a meta again. A deck that can kill turn 3 with near immunity to disruption, removal, and counter magic is not something modern needs.
Boza says... #2
This is a card that will never be available in Modern. Dredge decks will overwhelm the format and make you wish Eldrazi Winter was still going on.
April 20, 2016 5:54 a.m.