Dredge Basics
Asked by BreadManDan 9 years ago
Was hoping someone could explain to me how dredge works. It had been suggested that I throw a some dredge into my Karador deck. Here is the deck I am thinking about adding some dredge too once I understand it, and once I figure out if it's worth doing. My Karador deck:
Karador, Chieftan of My Graveyard Playtest
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 4 | 16 COMMENTS | 1207 VIEWSI guess my question is the following, how does Dredge work?? Does the card, in this case a creature, Stinkweed Imp have to be on the battlefield or in the graveyard for the ability to work. I am assuming the card needs to be in the graveyard as it says If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a cardSo, if I am understanding it correctly, if Dakmor Salvage and Stinkweed Imp were both in my graveyard, and I would draw a card at my drawstep, I would Dredge 5 and then Dredge 2. If an opponent is playing Nekusar and forces me to draw 5, and they were both in my hand I would basically dredge 35 cards??? Help me understand the basics please.
Dredge is an ability which functions only while the card with dredge is in the graveyard. Cards with dredge in your hand don't do anything relevant to the dredge ability.
Whenever you -would- draw a card, you can instead choose to put the top X cards of your library into your graveyard to return a card with dredge X from your graveyard to your hand.
So with stinkweed imp in your graveyard, when you -would- draw, you could instead mill yourself for 5 cards and put the stinkweed imp into your hand. If you had both the imp and the dakmor salvage, you would not mill 7. You could choose to use either of their dredge abilities and mill either 5 to get the imp back in hand, or 2 to get the salvage back in hand. If you were to draw two cards that turn, you could replace one draw with "mill 5, get imp" and the other with "mill 2, get salvage" or you could draw two cards, or mix and match.
If they were playing Nekusar, you would take zero damage, because you replaced drawing a card with something else which wasn't drawing a card.
The advantage to playing dredge in Karador is that dredging puts creatures in your graveyard much faster than normal gameplay would, making him cheaper, and giving you far more options for creatures to cast since he lets you cast out of your graveyard.
December 26, 2014 9:53 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #3
The basics of dredge in list form:
Dredge is a static ability that functions from the graveyard. So you can not use it from the battlefield or your hand.
The static ability of Dredge creates a replacement effect, you can choose what order to use replacement effects in so you may choose which Dredge to apply first if you have multiple in your graveyard.
Once one replacement effect has replaced the action of drawing with Dredging you are no longer drawing a card so no further Dredge abilities will apply to the event.
Drawing is always considered to happen one card at a time and Dredge is a static ability so it can have its effect while other things are resolving.
To answer your last question in long form since it is the only one I think may not be apparent from the list I made: If your opponent casts Wheel of Fortune while you have Life from the Loam, Dakmor Salvage, and Stinkweed Imp in your graveyard you may Dredge 3, Dredge 2, Dredge 5, and draw four cards. You may not Dredge 5 seven times because after the first instance of Dredge 5 Stinkweed Imp is no longer in your graveyard since it was returned to your hand.
December 26, 2014 9:58 a.m.
BreadManDan says... #4
Thanks guys. Didn't really understand how it worked before
Epochalyptik says... #1
Dredge is a replacement effect that can apply to any of your card draws if the card with dredge is in your graveyard.
If you would draw a card with a dredge card in your graveyard, you may instead put the top N cards from your library into your graveyard, where N is the dredge number from the replacement effect you're applying. If you do, you return the dredge card to your hand instead of drawing a card.
You can't replace one draw with multiple dredges, but you can dredge once for each card you would draw.
You choose whether to apply dredge to a draw. It's not a triggered ability, opponents can't force you to dredge, and you only dredge the specified number of cards.
December 26, 2014 9:49 a.m.