Modern is in a strange place right now due to Eldrazi polarizing the playable decks. You either have to play Eldrazi, a deck capable of racing it, or a deck which can win an attrition game going long. This leads to a division in the format, with decks like Elves and Affinity on the aggressive side of the format and Lantern Control and Supreme Verdict decks on the more controlling side. But there may be another option. Last weekend, Jason Chung put up a Top 8 performance at Grand Prix Melbourne with a deck known for grinding harder than any other deck in the format:

Dredge ? Modern | Jason Chung, Top 8 Grand Prix Melbourne

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Golgari Brownscale
• 1 Golgari Grave-Troll
• 1 Necroplasm
• 1 Stinkweed Imp
• 3 Vengeful Pharaoh
• 4 Bloodghast
• 4 Squee, Goblin Nabob

• Spells (22)
• 4 Darkblast
• 1 Deadly Allure
• 2 Lingering Souls
• 3 Conflagrate
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Life from the Loam
• 4 Zombie Infestation

• Lands (23)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 1 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 1 Temple Garden
• 1 Vault of the Archangel
• 2 Blood Crypt
• 2 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Ghost Quarter
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Ancient Grudge
• 2 Memory's Journey
• 2 Raven's Crime
• 3 Ray of Revelation
• 4 Thoughtseize

Buy This Deck

We've seen a handful of takes on Dredge since the inception of Modern, but nothing quite like this. Most builds were more aggressive, focused on assembling a critical mass of Vengevines and Gravecrawlers to get opponents dead as quickly as possible. That's not what this deck is about at all. This deck wants to play a very, very long game. You're going to win by using Life from the Loam and Squee, Goblin Nabob in combination with Zombie Infestation to run your opponent out of cards one 2/2 Zombie at a time.

The game plan is to use Faithless Looting in conjunction with Dredge cards to stock your graveyard with Squee and Life from the Loam. Then you can start generating card advantage with your Faithless Lootings and look for your other powerful, matchup specific cards. Cards like Golgari Brownscale are great against Burn and Raven's Crime is a nightmare against control decks. You can lock Eldrazi out by cycling through Ghost Quarters and keeping Vengeful Pharaohs in your graveyard. Even if your opponent's try to go bigger than you, the Flashback on Conflagrate is particularly powerful when you can use Squees and Life from the Loam to get well over ten cards in your hand.

Because the Dredge mechanic lets you see so much of your deck at a time, the deck is enormously consistent, and can easily find the critical cards for a particular matchup. This means if cards like Ghost Quarter, Darkblast, or Ancient Grudge are good in the format, then this deck is going to be great due its ability to leverage those cards better than any other deck.