The Dredge Mechanic - Failed MtG Designs

[@williamdrum9899]

There could be a sorcery that says "You lose the game. Dredge 6" and it would still be amazing. This is how broken Dredge is

[@mrziiz6893]

Graveyard decks, uh, finds a way

[@xana3961]

Lich's mastery and the one ring

[@epthopper]

Well, yeah. I’ve never seen Golgari Grave-Troll cast before.

[@williamdrum9899]

@@epthopper I usually cast it once I have 30+ creature cards in gy

[@fauxtool952]

games probably over by then or you need a faster win-con @@williamdrum9899

[@kennydarmawan13]

I find it funny that Dredge failed not because it's bad, but because it ends up doing something it's not intended to to the point of being broken. Dregde itself is busted, as we see with Golgari Grave-Troll, but for all the wrong reasons. It's a graveyard-fueling deck that takes advantage of graveyard effects and no lands. At least Storm was too good in what it's intended to do. Dredge was too good in what it's not intended to do. Also, Golgari Grave-Troll is MtG's That Grass Looks Greener.

[@williamdrum9899]

People often tell me "You should play Lord of Extinction in your Dredge deck" but despite that card counting all cards in all graveyards, Lord of Extinction doesn't fuel itself like Grave Troll does.

[@ich3730]

@@williamdrum9899 Who in the fuck tells you to play lord of extinction in dredge? That card is dogshit outside of limited and EDH

[@dark_rit]

Yeah if they wanted to fix dredge as a mechanic it would be exile the top X cards of your library to recur some card as exiling cards doesn't really interact favorably with most stuff in the game and stuff it does interact with like misthollow griffin wouldn't be broken because it's a 3/3 flier for 2UU and the best use for that card is food chain combo'ing.

[@jproductions1739]

@@williamdrum9899 Five mana? In Dredge? These people have no idea what they're talking about.

[@williamdrum9899]

@@jproductions1739 It's a graveyard all-creatures edh deck with Tymna, Kydele, and Umori as companion

[@RasmusVJS]

I remember being told that the high-numbered millings were supposed to be a downside, when obviously the milling is exactly why it is played.

[@ich3730]

its something thats hard to future proof. Only way for something like dredge to be ok would be to never ever print GY synergy again.

[@zakbrooks7354]

​@@ich3730even then, with just the graveyard synergy we have now, it would still be far too op to let run around. Even if you printed some absolutely busted graveyard hate, i still dont think it would be ok to let back in as dredge is pretty resilient to graveyard hate as is

[@makenshao9886]

​@@ich3730in limited the mechanic had actual downside because decks are about 40 cards each rather that 60. Decking out is a real concern there when you consider limited is a much slower format on average. I'm not sure if they made the mechanic just with limited in mind but on a format as small as limited where you're looking to dredge spells front face first and then dredge as a variant of flashback/unearth/retrace... It makes sense. I don't believe the mechanic made *that* much of a splash in block or standard either. Nevertheless the problems with dredge tend to crop when they are used as engines around other cards... it's just that the front face tends to not be very good or below rate so people don't really remember them as anything but engines. Only life for the loam tends to get played for what it actually does as it is a self perpetuating milling and card advantage engine.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

Ironically, dredge got better and better with each subsequent Ravnica release.

[@EGarrett01]

Golgari Grave-Troll is pretty clearly supposed to fuel itself with the dredging. So I think they had some idea that it could be a good thing.

[@ulture]

as a former Yu-Gi-Oh! player trying to learn more about Magic, this video is especially fascinating as Dredge is very reminiscent of the Lightsworn archetype from YGO. They were popular in YGO about 15 years ago, but have since been superseded by much more powerful mechanics. Lightsworn fans from the old days have been asking for more Lightsworn support for decades now, and none has arrived, and it's probably for exactly the same reason that Wizards can't make new Dredge cards that are both interesting and balanced.

[@waiyon1951]

Or something more modern tearlaments.

[@khub5660]

They have made new cards with Dredge that are balanced. It was Shenanigans. It reads: 1R Sorcery Destroy target artifact Dredge 1 The problem with Dredge is that you can't have the count too high, and the effect of the card too good due to the self efficient recursion

[@N12015]

Then they released the Ishizu cards. Sometimes I wonder if the team at Konami even knows about card design, then I look at the format and I say "No they don't".

[@zedeps]

After all that asking for Lightsworn support, a finger on the Monkey's Paw curled and they got Lightsworn support in the form of Tearlaments. Which, at least flavor-wise, led to Kashtira. What have they done..?

[@THE_BASED_GOD]

My guy, tearlament is basically dredge in YGO. Lightsworn is a more 1 to 1 comparison but tear basically does the same thing and is still seeing competitive play in various incarnations despite being hit a ton (okay probably mostly in MD). Especially if were comparing the speed of typical vintage/legacy dredge throughout the years lightsworn rarely is ever that fast.

[@Quroe_]

The fact that Shenanigans was made for Lantern Control makes the art on it hilarious.

[@williamdrum9899]

Wotc: "Altered artworks cannot have gameplay hints" The artists Wotc hired: "Fine, I'll do it myself"

[@darkcardking]

Dredge was on two cards outside of Ravnica: City of Guilds. It was also on the card Dakmoor Salvage, a land from Future Sight.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Good catch

[@zakbrooks7354]

And that land, unsurprisingly, is another stupidly broken land for graveyard decks despite being a tapped land

[@shade4297]

Gitrog monster enters the chat

[@maggotmanfred936]

We don't talk about future sight 😂

[@williamdrum9899]

It's more so busted in Seismic Swans combos

[@DeDeDarth]

Dredge and the decks build around it really exemplifies how crazy magic strategy can get. It completly turns how the game plays on its head, for both players (and I don't just mean into the graveyard). Which I why I alway love explaining manaless dredge to people just getting into magic. It's just so wierd and different, but also broken.

[@ich3730]

Ngl it has nothing to do with MTG in particular. "Mill a shitton of cards" is good in every popular card game

[@chrisschweitzer5558]

That may be because Magic did it 1st but there is something inherent also. If you give access to a zone then eventually that zone will be used as a resource. @@ich3730

[@aethertech]

Experiencing manaless dredge for the first time was an experience... and I was like "Excuse me, but what the fuck am i supposed to do against that with my vamprie sengirs and prodigial sorcerer deck?"

[@jshtng78]

@@ich3730 But most of the current most popular card games only exploded some time AFTER they got their equivalent of 'the grave is a resource'. Kind of a catch-22 situation there for game designers.

[@MABfan11]

@@ich3730 exactly, Yu-Gi-Oh recently experienced it with Tearlaments

[@aaronmaas7843]

I love that shenanigans’ art is a smashed lantern. Really tells you what Wotc was looking to stop with the card

[@4c3fr3h1y]

I would say dredge was less of a failure and more of an accidental success beyond the designers imagination.

[@MusicoftheDamned]

Yeah, it's basically the "Gone Horribly Right" trope. WotC clearly wanted all of the Dredge cards to give the player value from the graveyard and, uh, mission accomplished a bit *too* well.

[@themantyf1116]

I'm always a bit peeved that Grave-Troll, Imp and Life from the Loan are shown with their more recent art instead of the original Ravnica ones. We can argue about troll (though the original art had some more personality), but Imp and Loam's original arts were something else, and had some real Golgari flavor.

[@Lyscian420]

Nothing is sweeter than drawing your first card of the game, intentionally missing a land drop. Loudly and dramatically bemoaning your bad draws and then discard Golgari-Grave Troll at Cleanup. The groans and eye rolls of the pod will keep me young forever.

[@williamdrum9899]

Even funnier is when your opponent makes you discard and you have one of these in hand

[@JakeTheJay]

I love the dredge mechanic. Self mill is a deck type I hold dearly to my heart and I just wish we could see more dredge cards, even if the mechanic is absurdly broken

[@deltazakuro8939]

I wonder if we will get more in the new set Ravnica Remastered

[@christianroot6287]

​@@deltazakuro8939nah, its just a reprint set

[@connortreleaven5304]

@@deltazakuro8939it’s a remastered set so it’s all reprints

[@simonteesdale9752]

About the only way to make fair dredge cards is to go the Shenanigans route, and make it a mediocre sideboard card with dredge 1. I'm pretty sure someone would somehow break even a grizzly bears if it had dredge 1.

[@williamdrum9899]

Pretty sure the whole set is reprints so no

[@randommaster06]

Coming from the Yugioh side of Dual Logs. It's cool to see Magic has old cards come back and be meta-relevant. Also, old cards accidentally enabling nonsense is a very familiar sight.

[@OkamiZone]

Oh no, Dredge was always a menace. The problem is that it's getting exponentially more stronger over time. In formats where Dedge is banned, decks getting better and better without it. These decks are also named "Dredgeless-Dredge".

[@a_speeder1728]

The best cards in mtg are all old, generally speaking. The creatures have gotten better over time, but the best lands, instants, and sorceries which make up the most busted cards of all time are all from the 90s.

[@randommaster06]

@@OkamiZone That sounds like That Grass Looks Greener, which mills a bunch of cards. Decks used to be made to just find and resolve it and win off the cars you milled. Then they made Tearlaments, which mills itself with it's own cards, no Grass required.

[@randommaster06]

@@a_speeder1728 All our best cards have been printed in the last few years. Most meta cards can basically access your whole deck, so it's easy to get to your desired end board. While old cards have powerful effects, most can't be searched out, so having to draw them is really inconsistent.

[@a_speeder1728]

@@randommaster06 yeah, tutoring in mtg isn’t nearly as prevalent and is both more generic (limits on what can be found are usually based on color) and limited (most common type is using fetch lands to fix mana). The best tutors can find any card, and the most powerful one of those is Demonic Tutor which was printed in the very first set.

[@Arethusa01]

Milling cards for free, what could possibly go wrong?

[@ProbDoney]

I'm actually watching this because I just learned about these "Dredge" cards and it finally made me interested in Magic, it sounds fun

[@JoeNeutrino]

It's sad that dredge ended up being so flawed in practice because it's so great in concept.

[@asmithgames5926]

Yes, it's such an innovative concept. I think it could be balanced if they thought hard enough about it. Dredge 3 max, and after you hard cast the spell party of a dredge card it should be exiled.

[@jayemdaewarehouse9027]

Dredge is an interesting play style, and it is certainly one of the most unique modes of play in MtG. I like the Lands variant the most, play with Manabond for the full effect. I play it ponza, myself.

[@hircenedaelen]

Shenanigans art is literally a shattered lantern lol

[@CasualKing21]

I don't remember who said it, but I remember someone saying that we should change "The Storm Scale" to "The Dredge Scale"

[@BeansLab]

Darkblast can kill 2 toughness creatures . Upkeep cast then dredge if in your draw then you can blast again

[@damo9961]

Yeah that 2 for 1 to kill a 2 toughness creature seem real great

[@simonteesdale9752]

​@@damo9961 It also mills yourself for 3, and it's not like dredge cares about traditional card advantage. They used to run Lightning axe after all. Beside, a lot of hatebears are X/2's. I'm sure you wouldn't mind killing a Containment Priest using a 1-for-2.

[@chrisbelair5916]

They should make more "Dredge 1" cards, just looked and there is only 2 of them

[@bigfootfighter4132]

It’d be neat if they tried bringing dredge back in such a way that a card doesn’t automatically have dredge but needs some sort of requirement. For example, instead of a card statically having Dredge N, you have to pay a mana cost to give it Dredge N until end of turn. Or perhaps you could do something that works the opposite of the way Golgari Brownscale works. Instead of gaining you life when you dredge it, it causes you to lose life.

[@bamboozledboy20]

Running a mycotyrant commander deck right now with some dredge cards so i can keep descending, making my commander stronger and building a 1/1 fungus army. Give me more dredge lol

[@PVRPxWVLF]

Hey you got a decklist? Just pulled a mycotyrant and wanted to do a lil dredge theme w it too!

[@yuwish6320]

Played a Dredge deck for that infamous ~2 weeks when Bridge from Below and Flame-kin Zealot were both T2 legal. Turn 2 wins were had. It had nothing to do with Golgari Grave Troll.

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

Another card was printed outside of Ravnica that revisited Dredge: Dakmor Salvage in Future Sight.

[@EGarrett01]

Is it just me or is this a 15-minute video on Dredge that never mentions Bazaar of Baghdad?

[@demanzanop]

Each video I've seen from this series has made me want to create the decks mentioned and play them. I feel like I've missed so much fun with my late joining to mtg.

[@TsujiCross]

Good to note that one particular Escape card saw quite a bit of play in Dredge: Ox of Agonas. Escape RR + eight cards is hardly a steep cost for a Cathartic Reunion you can cast from the graveyard and gives you an extra 5/3 as cherry on top

[@christophercombs7561]

I remember when golgari grave troll was called trash but graveshell scrab was highly desirable

[@silverdust4197]

"that dredge looks greener"

[@Zap2x_93]

I missed a mention to Dakmor Salvage but the video was very interesting, thank you!

[@skylar5257]

Hey, glad to see my favorite control deck enter a dredge video. Edit: Pyxis and surgical even have a hard time dealing with Shenanigans because surgical leaves one in the graveyard while exiling the rest so you literally have to Pyxis all the copies or surgical exile three then exile the last with the whole graveyard, I’ve done both before… felt good.

[@VirusVescichetta]

I have vague memories of starting the game and hearing about Dredge, and thinking "How could that be broken? How could dumping a bunch of cards into your graveyard over and over be good?" and now I play Lord Windgrace and Muldrotha EDH decks, so I guess I figured it out. Besides Grave-Troll, they also really shouldn't have put Dredge on a land.

[@andrewraebig9271]

I'd like to see some videos in this series on some of the other original Ravnica guild mechanics. Everyone hates on Haunt for some reason.

[@TheBlackAndWhiteDuelist]

I'm sure that Shenanigans was also made a common to help with the Affinity problem in pauper to some degree :)

[@Dogbreath42]

darkblast can kill x/2s but you need the card in hand at the start of your turn. you cast it in your upkeep then in your draw step dredge it back and cast it again

[@Druidoftheyew]

Dakmor Salvage was printed in 2007 in future sight so they thought they may use the mechanic again but saw the damage way to late

[@SuperbFairy]

Dredge is completely broken but such a cool mechanic. Same with storm, it's never going to be seen again but I'm glad that it exists. The only way I can picture dredge being an okay mechanic is if it could be used to replace your draw step card draw only, so it could only trigger once per turn - enabling it as a recursion mechanic for cards instead of allowing players to pitch their whole deck with a draw step and a couple of street wraiths

[@robertoso8796]

i think it's fine these cards exist and that they recognized there was no need for more because there wasn't anything interesting to try. they're all stars in every mill deck but they're not so OP they're in every one like viscera seer for EVERY sac deck. i see plenty of mill decks but i run into loam probably more often and that's been a minute.

[@chapmanandchapmanproductio974]

OMG I’m so excited I have no idea what dredges and I’ve been trying to figure it out. Yay. Hooray.

[@M4niacks2]

I think the main problem is that self-milling is actually an upside, but also only an upside activated only on "bring back form graveyard". So then compare to an hypothetical "dredge 0" and you see the problem in balancing cards that you could theoretically play over and over again, they necessarily would have to be weaker than whatever version with dredge 0 would have. Combine that good cards that make you discard and you get the upside without the downside of a weaker card and you get the weird decks that utilize that. The easy fix is to simply only allow only low amount of dredge, just like they did with shenanigans. However I would prefer card with higher cost drawback and more versatility rather than limited scope, something that would still see play in a limited format without the regular costed alternative then slap dredge 1-2 on it, something like "destroy a nonblack creature" for 4 mana, dredge 2. Also note that this effect is naturally stronger on instant and sorceries than creatures, as creatures have myriads of way to be rendered useless without touching the graveyard, and sometimes you can just afford to let a creature live for a few turns, making the replayability effect less relevant. Very niche cards that come back forever would end up being either hard counter to some decks or be a bit too strong later in the game when your options are basically as strong as a generic card that can do A B or C because you simply choose one out the 3 cards that does it with no drawback this time. This would still happen because no cards have infinite versatility sure, but I feel like it would be less of an issue if the overlap happened faster and ended up resulting in "do mostly anything for slightly higer cost" over time rather than "have access to 3 good effect at regular cost". This would naturally push the archetype towards a more controlly type of deck that would have a hard matchup against midrange type that would simply overwhelm them with "good for their cost" type of cards. Existing synergies would still exist, milling yourself give more good options and discard, instead of enabling you to dredge without the cost, would let you discard your dead draws or your more late-game dredge cards or just simply a card not usefull right now even if you think it's gonna be usefull in 1-2 turns, the synergies with other cards with effect in the graveyard would still exist but to a much lesser extent with low value dredge, and more importantly you would actually play the card instead of using it simply for self-milling. The other option would be to make a spiritual succesor to dredge, something that forces you to play the card if you also want the self-mill effect or making it a 1 time thing. It could also work in a mini-format that won't make the card legal in modern, a format where developpers have 100% control over what card with effect in the graveyard exist.

[@williamdrum9899]

I forget the name but there was some card in Dragon's Maze that essentially was a spiritual successor to dredge but you had to pay mana for it

[@neroneroren6788]

Card games don't make a broken graveyard mechanic challenge (Impossible)

[@FarrelClement]

GA hasn't done it yet

[@jshtng78]

@@FarrelClement It also hasn't exploded in terms of player numbers to be anywhere close to rivaling the games that do have graveyard shenanigans. Maybe precisely because it doesn't have them...

[@DJFracus]

Hearthstone: what is a graveyard?

[@plus9775]

​@DJFracus Hearthstone: you don't just pull cards from nothing for value engines?

[@munchrai6396]

Couldn't you limit the dredge effect to only work during your normal draw for turn? That way you could only get one Dredge per turn and it would be replacing a much more valuable draw for turn.

[@Warcrafter4]

It wouldn't fix the big design flaw of dredge cards only being used for their dread effects. Free selfmill(Let alone when infinite like dredge) is always a bad idea in any card game with graveyard effects. The main way to fix dredge is to unironically remove its selfmill "cost". As having massively overcosted but theoretically infinitely reusable cards that cost of your card draws is a balanced design by itself. Your trading 1 for 1 card economy wise for it, so no further cost is really needed.

[@XenithShadow]

@@Warcrafter4 It's like that wouldn't really work, while it would kill dredge decks in their current itteration, the first factor being running a single dredge card beats mill decks as you just replace your card draws with recuring the dredge spell. Otherwise the card are either uplayable due to being understated (likely a results of the card having the power level of 20 year old cards), or they are oppresive as the same card can be replayed infinitely. (bar exile removal)

[@Warcrafter4]

@@XenithShadow You can't activate dredge with an empty deck as you aren't drawing a card(No draw effects can trigger if there are no cards to draw). Also the legendary Eldrazi and Dark/Blight steel colossus cards already counter mill decks. Secondly the entire point was to fix its design and dredge cards being uses solely infinite self mill isn't even intended use of the cards. However there's no real way of keeping the Self mill cost without people using them solely for the free self mill or it being nerfed to effectively not have a self mill cost like Shenanigans does.

[@XenithShadow]

Obviously the simplest fixes for dredge is just changing the effect from self mill to exiling card from the top of the libabry. Although thematically it breaks a bunch of the cards.

[@THE_BASED_GOD]

​@@XenithShadowfirst of all mill has mever been a competitive strategy in any format so worrying about mill is irrelevant, and no that is not hoe dredge works. You cannot dredge a card if you have no library. You would just lose like regularly.

[@kalosownswoot]

Just because a thing did not come back does not mean it failed. I see this all the time with your failed card designs both mtg and Yugioh. Sometimes for Yugioh they was super strong at the time then fell off with the power creep and you call them failed. Like you went over shroud (mtg) in a vid before it was fine just the game evolved and changed and didn't need/want it anymore not failed.

[@simonteesdale9752]

To be fair, it was a failed mechanic, because people kept playing it like Hexproof to the extent that the designers discontinued it. Personally I'd argue that mechanics that have a massive negative impact on games (like dredge and Affinity), or were discontinued by the designers for other reasons (Mana Burn, GY order matters) also count as failed mechanics.

[@gjfwang]

Every dredge gangsta until “rest in peace”

[@Blight-Knight9]

Is it wrong that I wish dredge to be back.

[@angrythomas6954]

I too want to see the world burn so, no it's not.

[@5000KAITOSHION]

No because dredge was tight

[@williamdrum9899]

Not really. I end up wishing there were a few more cards that were decent.

[@ich3730]

they could just make the cards for EDH, since its the casual format and balance does not matter

[@RasmusVJS]

@@ich3730 How would you even go about doing that? I can't see how EDH-oriented Dredge cards would make that format better.

[@fumbles01]

Dredge is only good if it has enablers and payoffs. Modern Dredge was unplayable until Prized Amalgam was printed. Dredge became unplayable again when Faithless Looting was banned, despite gaining more explosiveness (Creeping Chill, Silversmote Ghoul, Ox of Agonas).

[@simonteesdale9752]

To be fair, modern dredge also had grave-troll and Dread return banned from basically the start. Then they unbanned troll without any thought to what SOI block would gift dredge.

[@DuncanHarbison]

I think it's fair though, it creates a bunch of deck building problems. Modern dredge basically has 11 cards it wants to draw other than lands. Your deck has lands, it has draw cards, it has dredgers which are bad to draw and it has payoff cards which are bad to draw. You have a bunch of bad mills and a bunch of bad draws and the only way to fix that is to fill your deck with stuff like ancient grudge and life from the loam and then it ends up really really slow. And because the engine to make the deck work takes up so many cards you can't play much interaction and almost your whole side deck has to be removal for the anti-grave cards the opponent brings in, and then you end up drawing nature's claim vs dauthi voidwalker and lightning axe vs leyline of the void. As for not having grave hate in the main deck, even when that's true who cares? You have a matchup that you struggle to beat in game 1? Wow that has never happened in magic before. The interesting design potential comes from putting dredge 1-3 on cards. Just milling 3 per turn is not good enough to keep up if the card doesn't do something decent.

[@williamdrum9899]

I'd argue Dredge is nearly guaranteed to win game 1 if no graveyard exiling happens

[@mccoyrj452]

Dredge is always terrifying even when used in a “fair” way. I had a Psychatog midrange deck in Legacy a decade ago that would do filthy things casting just Brainstorm. Then if you take care of the Psychatog itself, which was already difficult to do, it could actually just play the Dredge cards and Stinkweed Imp can bring the board state to a halt pretty easily. And this is a fair deck, not even trying to be broken. It’s a mechanic that is honestly a mistake.

[@chrismanuel9768]

I loved my Golgari Dredge Zombies deck lol Dredge could be balanced by just... making it only ever the Dredge 1 version. Skip draw, mill 1, get a card back. Still a very graveyard forward mechanic, can ramp well with draw engines and self milling to get them there, but they're limited that way. Then just make the cards actually, you know, worth putting on the field. Give them "when this creature leaves the battlefield" effects.

[@zenmaster8826]

Life from the loam was how you were supposed to play dredge… repeatable value… Not as a way to cheat your library into your graveyard

[@HS_Gomikubi]

I'm rather disappointed this synopsis doesn't mention of any of the 1st generation enablers that caused the initial surge of Dredge decks, most notably Bridge from Below and Dread Return. The innate synergy of these cards alongside Narcomeba and Ichorid served as the core for the version that first became popular in Extended, and last I checked are still among the key pieces for Dredge in eternal formats not named modern to this day. Breakthrough, Tolarian Winds, Cephalid Colosseum and Careful Study were the looting spells of the era, giving this version a distinct blue base rather than red. It still used City of Brass and Gemstone Mine to reliably generate the token mana investment necessary to win games, which meant any number of utility options could come from the sideboard... The most interesting facet to this format variant in particular however, was the unique angle of counterplay built into the design of Bridge from Below and how it stacked up with this era's meta. Sure, most decks weren't mainboarding the likes of Tormod's Crypt but a fair variety of them played cheap creatures as threats and could often use a removal spell on their own dork if it meant triggering the exile clause on opposing Bridges in order to prevent them from going off. The likes of a humble Mogg Fanatic could manage to spell doom for an overeager/unlucky dredge player even in game 1 scenarios, were they to hit their bridges too early without enough Ichorids in the equation to win the race on their own. There was a lot going on in the format back then, it was an interesting time to say the least.

[@KeroTheInvincible]

When I first got into Magic, cards that self-milled were mystifying to me. I had just come off of Hearthstone, where cards drawn while you had a full hand, or cards destroyed in your deck were simply gone forever. Reanimation strategies were strictly bringing back things that had died on the board, usually at some degree of random. In Magic, plenty of cards are far more useful in your graveyard than stuck in your deck, waiting to be drawn into. Milling yourself is therefore more effective than trying to mill your opponent by a country mile.

[@quinngriffith7064]

“Dredge N” should mean “As long as you have at least N cards in your library, if you would draw a card, you may instead mill N cards and exile this card. You may cast it from exile. Once you have cast it, it goes into exile instead of anywhere else.” This would prevent cards from being dredged over and over again

[@deathZor42]

That wouldn't really fix it, at least for modern like dredge decs well the meta ones don't run a lot of discard so if the dredge like that card is useless anyway, and the plan is to get another dredger in the dredge having to discard the card doesn't really hurt the modern mana dredge, i guess it makes Ox slightly less useful. ( as Ox tends to allow you to just recycle your dredgers ). Vintage manaless dredge, isn't really re-using there dredgers either there looking for a jackpot cards really.

[@bigtimetimmyjim6486]

I have heard a few really bad ways to fix Dredge, but this is not one of them; your solution is simple, easy to understand, has a very "modern magic" feel, and maintains the feel of the mechanic, nice job.

[@chapmanandchapmanproductio974]

All right, I’m starting to understand way to go way to go!

[@Crossark1]

Dredge does have one more weakness aside from graveyard hate: Mill. If a Dredge player’s opponent manages to mill them out, or mill them to a number of cards lower than or equal to their lowest dredge cost, they simply cannot Dredge any longer. If they have insufficient cards in their library to pay the Dredge cost, they can’t activate it, and even if they have *exactly* the right number of cards, they’d be dead on their next turn. The problem is that most mill decks just aren’t fast enough to mill their opponent out before the Dredge player kills them, but it’s at least theoretically a weakness.

[@YoshiKing12EK]

A way to fix it would be to add like “After this card is dredge the next the card is played exile it instead of putting it into your graveyard” there is probably an easier way to say all that to fit in a text box but the idea should make sense you get to dredge it once per game basically

[@XenithShadow]

What your looking for is "if this card would enter your graveyard from your hand exile it instead". This mean's the card need to be played as intended from hand to be dredged (although obviously after you get the cards into your graveyard dredging will enable more dredging).

[@zackmorris4977]

1:29 you say stinkweed imp cost 2 and 2 black. It's 2 and 1 black homie.

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

Hm, I should dredge out my old stinkweed imp and put it in my Golgari deck. The one thing it struggles with is kickstarting the graveyard engine.

[@Lovuschka]

An idea on how Dredge MAYBE can be fixed. Whenever you would draw a card, you may instead return a card with Dredge N from your graveyard into your hand. If you do, exile the top N cards of your library with N Dredge counters on them. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a Dredge counter from each card exiled that way. When the last Dredge counter is removed, if it was removed that way, put that card from exile into its owner's graveyard. You may not cast cards with Dredge counters on them from exile.

[@ich3730]

Cards generally can not be cast from exile, you dont have to specify it. Thats like writing "you cant cast this from your trade binder" xD

[@Lovuschka]

@@ich3730 There are a few cards that can be cast from there, so this is specified to prevent that.

[@ich3730]

@@Lovuschka Are misthollow griffin, squee and that random eldrazi from eldritch moon really so important that they need their own clause in a mechanic? xD Thats like putting "you cant cast cards from your deck while resolving this" on every tutor because panglacial wurm might break it in 20 years. It just makes your already pretty wordy mechanic even more convoluted.

[@Lovuschka]

@@ich3730 Well, the point was that there shouldn't be a deck built around it. But yes, you are probably right there. Sorry. 🙂

[@ich3730]

@@Lovuschka your idea is pretty good ngl :D Its really hard to fix something as simple and broken as dredge without getting lost in the word sauce, i honestly couldnt tell you how to do it without making it an essay of a mechanic

[@_d0ser]

The "dredge" deck around M13 was GREAT though.

[@spore4ever91]

One idea for a “fixed” dredge: Exile this card from your graveyard, mill some cards, then cast a copy of the exiled card

[@LokiboIsCoolio]

Dredge has the exact same line of reasoning for existing that old life payment cards did.

[@zonuphaon]

When the cost is an upside, the game quickly turns into YGO

[@ethanlockwood2816]

Rip Lantern Control, no other deck could take a round to time like you

[@basilniebla5535]

It’s pretty funny that Shenanigans has art of a lantern been destroyed --

[@empty5013]

dredge is super fun to play with and is a great mechanic in small doses, I love dakmor salvage and shenanagins in EDH for small incidental graveyard synergy. i didn't play ravnica draft but I imagine it was pretty fun there too! in heavily tuned constructed it turns into a nightmare, which is a great shame, I don't blame wotc for this one tbh, I think nobody could have predicted where dredge ended up.

[@gmradio2436]

I would not mind seeing mechanics like Dredge experimented with again, in its own non legal set. Call it Degenerate or something. Like the UN sets, but more evil.

[@scheikundeiscool4086]

I think it would not be that hard to make a ability like dredge that works. But just slightly altering how it works. Instead of going to the graveyard the cards could be exiled and then be able to be cast for an aditional cost to the amount of cards exiled that way. That would work but it would be a pain in the ass to keep track off

[@IIIXouIII]

One way to fix it is low dredge number + exiled on cast/leave the battlefield.

[@pokeflora]

I think giving Dredge a “you lose 2 life when you activate this ability” would limit the amount of times a person would dredge

[@sorry987654321]

brownscale is a staple in pauper with tortured existence. the hillgiant one would have been a better example

[@TheKillerman3333]

There is a way to balance dredge but they didnt do it. Add a mana cost. You can give it a new name, something like "churn 2" for two or three mana mill cards, return this card to your hand. The lack of mana was really the ultimate downfall of the card. We do have unearth which is a much more restricted version of dredge

[@Pers0n97]

Great video

[@lordsauron8546]

Despite the hate dredge gets, I still love it as a mechanic; yes, it's absolutely busted, but that Golgari-loving mage inside me really lights up any time I see or hear about dredge in Modern/Legacy.

[@Netro1992]

There is something funny about the channel referring to these old decks as oppressive while they had worse stats than whatever deck wizards hasnt rotated out with power creep this season, not because he is wrong but because it makes obvious what wotc's priorities are.

[@blackmage471]

I was "that guy with the manaless dredge deck" for a while. Not anymore, but yeah... I would reanimate Flayer of the Hatebound to deal direct damage to my opponent. Pop some creatures with Dread Return to reanimate a Flayer for 4 damage, get some Ichorids for 6 damage, pop the Flayer and Ichorids for another Flayer for 14 more damage... yeah, it was gross. I still wonder why to this day why Flayer is only a 0.50c rare.

[@memesmemes8552]

You forgot to talk about Gitrog Frog

[@acooldude3164]

When what you designed to be the cost ends up being the largest value-add on the card

[@Shoyro]

I am wondering about a potential problem in the future. What will happen if the meta focuses on Exile more over destroying cards? I'm talking more like *Farewell* type effects. WotC would say, "We'll never do that." Yet they said the same thing with stuff like never touching the Reserve List, yet they did for their Magic 30th set. I can't trust their word nowadays to the point that what I'm expecting will be a relative meta shift. Disagree with me now, but just wait for when we get cards that revolves around the presence of exiled cards.

[@LavenderLout]

Karn the Great Creator loops in Pioneer Mono-G

[@simonteesdale9752]

Technically we already had that with BFZ and ingest/process, and some of the Izzet cards counting exiled cards. Then there's foretell, and whatever Prosper is doing.

[@Metallicity]

I'm not sure I'd call Escape "more successful" than Dredge in practice. It also had multiple enormous design mistakes in Uro and Underworld Breach, which really are a toss up as to whether they are more or less broken than Imp + Troll. There might be a few more Escape designs that fall into the Life from the Loam/Shenanigans camp of being reasonable cards to play on their own, but honestly there's really only 4-5 "playable but not broken" cards for each mechanic. Even a 1:3 ratio of ban-worthy cards to decently playable cards is not a good sign for how easy a mechanic is to balance.

[@joranmoore5663]

"This Mechanic is absurd and completely broken. This is why it's a failed mechanic!"

[@peter-rg9jf]

Dredge needs to create a powerful midrange, but without favoring generic graveyard decks What if after milling, dredge would exile all non dredge cards milled? Or dredging exiles cards, but put them on the grave on your next upkeep, or after you draw for turn?

[@T.D.B-TheDeckBuilder]

As a Yugioh Player i only had to hear what dredge Did and i can say yeah thats totally understandably broken. Holy shit what a crazy idea

[@TrapeZoid_-117]

I find it hilarious every major card game thinks “Hey, why don’t we make a mechanic/Archetype entirely designed around milling their own decks?” Only for it to either be completely useless or become one of the most broken decks the game has ever seen. Seriously, Yugioh likely could have avoided the Fiasco that was Ishizu Tearlament format by just looking at Dredge.

[@TitoRohwedder-my1nh]

i guess descend makes us think back to dredge and how good they would be together...

[@JonNunnelley-g8l]

dredge is a top legacy mechanic and the gitrog explosion in commander is also based in dredge.

[@Play_On_Sunday]

By the end of this video “Dredge” didn’t sound like a word anymore

[@shrekkek9396]

1. Limit graveyard interactions for everything but black. 2. Don't give dredge to black. 3. Print it on more than one colour (non black) cards. 4. Make them overpriced with devotion or such. For anything but black "put into the graveyard" should be downside, not upside.

[@99umber]

I lean heavily on Dredge is my goyf deck.

[@lostalone9320]

Unpopular Opinion - Dredge isn't broken. Life From The Loam is a fine card, and has a niche with Seismic Assault and so on. The real problem is that they also made Dread Return, as well as Bridges and Narcomebas. Basically everything else is fine. The idea of dredging then using flashback spells is cool design, or fuelling your threshold cards, or growing goyf. That's totally ok. But when you can both create creatures by dredging and also sac creatures to reanimate something, then that's obviously the danger zone. It takes a synergy deck and turns it into a combo kill.

[@MosoKaiser]

1:33 How exactly is Stinkweed Imp's ability a "weird" version of death touch? Isn't that pretty much exactly the same, just not keyworded? Damages a creature = dead.

[@svovy5358]

In the days where Jund maindecked Scavenging ooze, and deathrite shaman was in every deck Dredge was terrible The solution was always maindeckable graveyard hate

[@ShaqPlaque]

Dredge - higher than Storm on the Storm Scale

[@asdfasgdfgsd107]

The girtog monster bwing entirely built on a land with dredge for the draw trigger lmao

[@Prince_Eva_Huepow]

This is just a video about Foolish Burials, specifically Dark Matter Dragon.

[@Oliver-ke5es]

Thoughts on cipher?

[@ФёдорГаврилов-с8я]

Dakmor Salvage

[@jshtng78]

You know, the enjoyers of Solitaire and connoisseurs of first turn kills are just as legitimate a part of any TCG fanbase as the others. There's got to be some way to cater to them without turning off everyone else.

[@asmithgames5926]

Proposed fix: Dredge 3 max, and after you hard cast the spell party of a dredge card it should be exiled.