Such decks use all the high dredge values cards such as Golgari Grave-Troll and Stinkweed Imp. A famous deck based on Ichorid originated from this concept. One of the most popular uses of dredge is to use it to quickly fill your graveyard. You can't use dredge unless you're going to draw a card and the card with dredge is already in your graveyard.Ĭompetitive play Dredge decks.

Once you decide to replace a draw using a card's dredge ability, that card can't be removed from your graveyard 'in response' (replacement effects don't use the stack).Dredge lets you replace any card draw, not just the one during your draw step.702.52b A player with fewer cards in their library than the number required by a dredge ability can’t mill any of them this way.“Dredge N” means “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 return this card from your graveyard to your hand.” 702.52a Dredge is a static ability that functions only while the card with dredge is in a player’s graveyard.Rules įrom the Comprehensive Rules (September 1, 2023- Wilds of Eldraine) With the introduction of the Mill keyword in Core Set 2021, the dredge reminder text keyword was updated to use 'mill'. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand.

The original reminder text was If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly N cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. As a consequence, changing the mana cost of dredge spells does not do much to its playability, making it impossible to balance. The low numbered ones can be constantly rebought, while the high numbered ones are never cast and are instead used to fuel self-mill decks. costing more to mill the more powerful cards), it went the entirely opposite way. The mechanic is inherently repetitive, and while the dredge value is intended to scale with power (i.e.

Dredge only appears on green and/or black cards with the exception of the land Dakmor Salvage from the Future Sight keyword land cycle and the card Shenanigans from Modern Horizons.ĭredge rates near Storm as an unsalvageable mechanic on the Storm Scale. That number is written on each card with dredge. Dredge is a recursion mechanic, where the owner of a card in a graveyard with Dredge can return the card to their hand by choosing to skip their draw and mill a number of cards.

Creeping chill in legacy dredge