Unlike Standard, change in Modern happens infrequently. There are just so many established decks and such a large card pool that it's hard for new sets to make an impact.

However, when it does come, it often comes with a bang.

Creeping Chill, while probably intended as a Dimir surveil payoff that isn't really worth the trouble in Standard, ends up being a very effective tool for Dredge that has brought Stinkweed Imp and friends out of the woodworks and back to the forefront of Modern.

Creeping Chill both speeds the deck up against combo decks and buys you time against aggressive decks, cutting anywhere from a half a turn to a full turn off the deck's clock. Dredge had always been very resilient in pre-sideboarded games, but was occasionally too slow to close out against the format's fastest combo decks before they could do their thing.

No longer.

Creeping Dredge | Modern | Jim Davis

• Creatures (18)
• 2 Golgari Thug
• 4 Bloodghast
• 4 Narcomoeba
• 4 Prized Amalgam
• 4 Stinkweed Imp

• Spells (23)
• 3 Conflagrate
• 4 Cathartic Reunion
• 4 Creeping Chill
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Life From The Loam
• 4 Shriekhorn

• Lands (19)
• 2 Mountain
• 1 Dakmor Salvage
• 1 Steam Vents
• 2 Blood Crypt
• 2 Stomping Ground
• 3 Bloodstained Mire
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Darkblast
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 2 Lightning Axe
• 4 Leyline of the Void
• 3 Nature's Claim
• 2 Assassin's Trophy
• 1 Ancient Grudge

Buy This Deck Export text format

Unfortunately, we learned a few things.

One is that the Magic Online metagame moves very quickly; few decks are victims of their own success more than Dredge. Dredge has done very well the last week or so on Magic Online and we saw how prepared everyone was for us with all the graveyard hate we faced (sometimes maindeck!).

We also saw that the deck has a fail rate, which, unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of this league. The deck is also difficult to play, as a few minor mistakes cost us a number of games as well.

Don't let that dissuade you.

While this was written, and this video recorded, before SCG Tour Dallas was played, I am sure that Dredge is going to be the talk of the event. The paper metagame moves much slower than online, which means people usually need to be beat over the head with something before they'll adapt.

Like it or not, Dredge is back.