Pointed Discussion

A strictly combo card that is hard to use but easy to abuse. Commong pairings include Planar Void and living death, and it also features on manaless ichorid, a strong vintage combo deck that wins turns 1-3 without casting a single spell.

mana

Lots of combo potential as DrJones said, but that exile clause is a killer in most other situations. Still, even if one never plays the freaky cards like this, one should be glad they exist ;) They certainly make the game as a whole more interesting.

Also really good with Leyline of the Void from Guildpact.

Candy for your dredge deck. Has a bit of a setback, but can be easily overcome using Leyline of the Void.

4wallz: in a dredge deck this enables kills so fast that there is no need to even attempt to somehow play around this card's drawback. Turn 2 and 3 kills just are that nasty =D

Necromancer's Covenant and this yields 2 zombie tokens per creature and gives them lifelink. Niice.

um. this card rocks in dredge decks. I've seen people use it to get 10 to 30 zombie tokens on turn 2 or 3

Can somebody please explain to me how this card is supposed to do anything good? Cuz I'm not seeing it. 10-30 zombies on turn 3? Where are they getting all the creatures for that? I'm confused.

Ya, I dont get it either. Dredge decks send things to the graveyard from the library (deck), right? this thing gives you zombies when they go to the graveyard from play, meaning they have to be in play, so... what?

Since everyone doesn't see the combo:

The famous deck with this card uses Dredge. It dredges out about 1/3 to 1/2 their deck in turn 1-3 using cards like Breakthrough, Cephalid Colosseum, Putrid Imp and Compulsive Research. The deck almost never have more than 1 land out, unless its using it to sacrifice Colosseum.

The creatures it hits (aside from dredgers) are Icorid and Narcomeba. It sacrifices them to Cabal Therapy while these are in the graveyard to get 1-3 zombies per sacrifice. Then it sacrifices more of themselves and/or the zombies to Dread Return to either get back more sacrifice fodder or, better yet, to get back something like Iona for the lock down or creatures to pump the zombies and give them haste. They then swing for 21 (haste+pump) or wait and swing for 10 two turns in a row (Iona).

The deck is so consistent that most people will just assume they will lose game 1. With my top-tier merfolk deck I manage to beat it game 1 maybe 10% of the time. The deck is fearsome because it requires almost no mana and cannot be disrupted by counter-magic or discard. Removal only hurts it if you remove your own creatures to get rid of bridge, which usually just slows them down.

Game 2 and 3 is where the deck finds itself fighting an uphill battle against Leyline of the Void, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus and a flurry of other graveyard-hate cards.

This card is what really puts Dredge on the map. Using this with a Flame-Kin Zealot can make for a great turn 2 win in Legacy. Too bad Dredge has become so much harder with the loss of Putrid Imp and Breakthrough in Extended! My only question is: why bother to give it a cc at all? Was R&D just trying to be funny? :)

It should have "Cannot be discarded. When this enters the battlefield, sacrifice it.". Totally would have added to the flavour!

I seriously don't get it. How to the creatures hit the field in the first place? they have to hit the field in order for this to work.

At first I thought this was approaching the glory that is Storm Crow, but now I see...

I don't think Planar Void will work - your creatures won't go to the graveyard either so it's second ability won't trigger. But Leyline of the Void will do the job

Turn 1 - Swamp, Dark Ritual, Bridge From Below
Turn 2 - Good game!

It is a good game demonixx, because after you've cast bridge from below I'm never going to destroy it. (look closely, it needs to be in the graveyard to work).

Which begs the question: why does this card even have a CMC?

Use Leyline of the Void with this

Barring its role in the Vintage Manaless Ichorid deck, this card has interesting synergy with Mimic Vat. Assuming the Bridge is in the graveyard, Mimic Vat can selectively prevent creatures from hitting the graveyard, and those that are placed into a graveyard from the vat are from the exile zone not from the battlefield. In return, the vat can supply a steady stream of creatures that will hit your own graveyard.

It's ruined if your opponent uses creature tokens, but still.

This card doesn't deserve a high rating at all, it only really works in one lame deck.... Dredge. And because I extremely hate internet decks... Here is a few cards to put dredge decks to sleep.

Yixlid Jailer This one gets the best reaction
Ghostly Prison & Propaganda &
Dueling Grounds Those 3 enchantments ruin dredge.
If your playing a rushed turn 1 dredge you can even try Elephant Grass just to push the game into a few more turns at minimum. There is a lot more I am sure, and if anyone knows of anything that slaps dredge in the eye, please list it.

And P.S. If you play Dredge.... shame on you.... you deserve every loss you get. Such a lame and stupid deck that defies the foundation of MTG. Losing on turn 1 before even dropping your first land... thats pretty stupid. Last two times I played against dredge, I lost (0-2) game 1, turn 1, game 2 turn 2. I lost 2 games in less then a minute... even a tutor wouldn't have saved me. Second time, (0-2) game 1, turn 2, game 2, turn 3. Its very difficult to disrupt that kind of speed if you are not using blue... Maybe I just suck at cutting directly to my opponents combos or something... but if a deck has a 50% chance or higher to go off by turn 3.... I think Wizards should be examining some of these decks a little better. Do you really intend for people to lose 50% of the time against combo decks before you have a chance to drop your first 2 lands?

1/5

the best thing about this card is that it has a shot at getting reprinted.

Early-90's-looking art on a graveyard-focused card made for monoblack.

You know what else looks undead, black and 2nd-Edition-Ravenloft?

The promo art for Innistrad.

We are seeing this card again.

Such a neat card, soooooooo typical of Future Sight...plus, I absolutely lurv the name...the next block, Innistrad, has the motto "Horror Lurks Within"...now that Zendikar is rotating out (along with Bojuka Bog) maybe there will be another graveyard block (cuz that went real well with Psychatog)

I'm also a bit confused on how this supports Dredge. Doesn't the ability only trigger if the card was placed into the graveyard from play? That would imply that cards that go from your hand or library don't trigger the ability

the way this works is sort o combo-ish

the deck that uses this uses cards like putrid imp and tireless tribe to discard cards from there hand, of course, these cards are dredgers like golgari grave-troll or stinkweed imp.

Then, it plays cards like careful study and breakthrough to dredge multiple times, meaning on turn 3, with a golgari grave-troll discarded, you could dredge 6 from your draw, then 24 from the breakthrough.

While dredging, it plays narcomoeba for free, and possibly on the next turn, it plays ichorids from the now vast graveyard.

Possibly on t3 with narcomoeba, and certainly on t4 with narcomoeba and ichorid, it sacrifices 3 for a dread return (possibly targetting iona, shield of emeria or the like). Of course, as i mentioned, you have 1/2+ of your library in the grave, which almost always includes at least 2 bridge from below. You sacrifice 3 creatures and get 6,9, even 12 zombies sometimes, as well as an iona.

Win.

Bridge From Below says "sacrifice your creatures : cool stuff happens." Ichorid says: "I'm one step ahead of you there, buddy! I get sacked every turn." Bring a few Ichorids out every turn from your graveyard, get zombies at end of turn, use dredge to refill your graveyard (because you need more black creatures in the graveyard to make Ichorid come into play again). Rinse, repeat, make profit, win the future. Four Bridge in the graveyard, four Ichorid in the graveyard --> 16 zombies in one turn. (More often, you get only six 2/2 zombies per turn, but still. Wow.)

If Dread Return read "You lose 2 life" instead of "Return target creature from your graveyard to the battlefield" I'd probably still run a couple of them, just for the convenient plays-from-the-graveyard sacrifice effect that synergizes with Bridge so well.

I guess Dredge gets talked to death, so here's an alternative Bridge use: Eternal Renewal + Phyrexian Marauder + Bridge from Below in the graveyard nets you infinite Zombies. Then you can cycle Gemstone Polluter for infinite life loss.

(Picky players will point out that this is improper play, as Eternal Renewal + Phyrexian Marauder already nets you infinite storm for a Grapeshot or Brain Freeze. I refute thee thus: Zombies are cooler than grapes. Zombies are cooler than milkshakes. QED.)

I think this card has a converted mana cost of as a kind of homage to Necropotence, the grandaddy of combo-fueling enchantments...

I love that this works with Damnation the way you think it does. ;) Ie: Kill all creatures, for every one of your creatures, you gain a 2/2 zombie, and then the Bridge is exiled. This works because you are to do the things on the cards in a top down order. :)

An easy way to beat Bridge from Below is any creature that sacrifices itself. Too bad any good dredge player can win without it.

@ internet_decks_ lame

I doubt you did that bad, especially the first game. I play my own twist of dredge and I don't even think it is possible for it to go off on turn one. Also no a tutor wouldn't have saved you because straight tutors suck in most decks.

@sincleanser: That's definitely not why it works.

I have a sneaking suspicion this will be in Avacyn Restored.

@DarthParallax: Bridge from Below and quite a few dredge cards like Golgari Thug and Stinkweed Imp are Modern legal. It's just Ichorid and Dread Return that are the important Ichorid Dredge enablers, and they're not in Modern.

@DeathParallax:
I know I shouldn't be feeding trolls, but there are a few things you're ignoring about this card:
First off, in Standard, this is by no means a broken or degenerate engine. The deck it would most likely go into would be a self-milling shell- continue to pay mana investment over a period of several turns as build-up to getting off your combo, in relatively small increments, usually no more than 2 or 3 cards, and then it would probably try to run on a basic Messenger+Gravecrawler+Sac outlet loop to try to get a few zombies. Sure, if the combo gets working, it more or less wins the game. Getting an army of zombies tends to do that. However, there are problems with that- the Zombies don't have Haste, and so are vunerable to Wraths for a turn, the fact that a single Shock, Mortarpod or Fume Spitter would prevent the combo from ever going off, and the fact that a single Surgical Extraction would destroy the deck's main engine. Without the cards that fuel Legacy dredge decks- as in, cards with Dredge, Ichorids, Sacrifice a creature Flashback costs, and so on, Bridge from Below is an odd build-around-me card that doesn't break formats in half. Look at Modern, for example- without Dread Return, Cabal Therapy, or Ichorids, Dredge as a deck doesn't really exist. In standard, there's even less fuel to build the deck with. Also, just because Manaless Ichorid doesn't get better with Black Lotus doesn't mean that somehow, magically, Black Lotus becomes a worse card, or somehow not the best card in the entire game. Long.dec with 4 Black Lotuses would beat Manaless Ichorid on just about any day of the week. Plus, given that most dredge decks nowadays use Lion's Eye Diamond, I would say that Black Lotus would have a place in dredge decks if it were allowed.

As for everyone who's hating on dredge: Why? Why all the hate? Because there is a deck that costs less than the dual lands your deck relies on to run that can beat you? Because there is some form of degenerate combo deck that you can't interact with, unlike fan favorites such as High Tide and Charbelcher? Because if you stop the combo, it can still play the game with a chance of winning, unlike Combo Elves? Because there are no decks like Maverick around that prey on Dredge decks? Dredge is a part of the Legacy Metagame as much as decks like Merfolk are. They are extremely powerful against much of the field, but weak to certain decks, and it's easy to board in hate against them. So please- stop treating dredge like it's something that ruined the game. It's a difficult matchup for many decks, and deserves respect from the sideboard. Such could be said about just about any other deck in the format. It's a part of the game, for good or ill, and trash talking the deck doesn't change the fact- Dredge is here, to stay.

Here is some evidence on how cards that were meant to just be unique and different turn into broken powerhouse engines that fuel turn-two wins. Not that there's anything wrong with that ;)
And one day, we will say the same for Steamflogger Boss...

Apprentice Necromancer, Carnival of Souls, Deathgreeter
B, Pay 2X life, sac apprentice necromancer: Put X 2/2 black zombies into play, But X black manna into your manna pool, Put any creature from your graveyard into play + it gains haste (sac at end of turn, unless it has persist or undying).
Sac outlet- for life: allows it to continue if you chose to have the necromancer as the last target, in which case continue on your merry way. (or just have a second Deathgreeter, or replace it Dross Harvester, or just add it for infinite life and manna and creatures.
If sac outlet gives manna you can get enough for anything you want like a Radiated
Profane Command that kills everything and brings back everything in your graveyard + each player loses infinity-1 life (if you took the infinite life route).
Or use Flesh Allergy to kill a platinum angel and kill your opponent.
If they have Laboratory Maniac instead, kill it and play Bitter Ordeal and say "hope you can res him during your upkeep".

I'd like to prove I'm not a Troll. :P

I've made genuinely good comments on lots of cards. Just because I'm everywhere, doesn't mean I'm a troll. I had a huge fumble on Sorin, Lord of Innistrad ok I admit that was being silly :3

But I'd like to say first in my defense that I posted my old comment having JUST discovered what Dredge was/that it existed. I had known for a while about Animate Deading big dumb crap out of your graveyard. I'd know that while our favorite cards to try to cheat into play nowadays usually have anti-Reanimator clauses, what I DIDN'T know was that Dread Return was actually the best-freaking-most-retarded-makes-Unburial Rites-look-like-trash card for Reanimating ever. I'd assumed Reanimate might be the best, since I'd assumed that your deck is always going to be generating mana.

Then I learned that I'd assumed wrong. And OK I way overreacted. I might love to write as a Johnny, but I have an irrepressible urge to enjoy simple things that comes out as Starry-Eyed Timmy sometimes. WELL WHO WOULDN'T have kind of flipped their lid for a week trying to wrap their brains around "ZOMG. Dredge...does...WHAT with card X?" So my last post on this card looked like a Troll. :P Oops.

I defend myself as simply trying to explain why it is still absolutely impossible for this card to be in Standard again, no matter how much you want it, no matter EVEN if maybe it is fair. It is like hoping the Artifact Lands might get printed in a Core Set without any mechanics in Standard to actually support them besides maybe creatures that get +1/+1 for counting all artifacts. Even if that doesn't sound too broken, (compared to most keyword mechanics involving artifacts breaking them in half), you -still- aren't going to get Bridge from Below reprinted, because I do think it and the other Dredge cards ARE black-listed by WOTC, the same way the Artifact Lands and probably the Vivid Lands are black-listed by them.

"Not Good For Standard" is what R&D thinks of the cards that really catch our attention as being super cool and powerful. We'll see Fact or Fiction again before we see Bridge from Below again. They'll give us Lightning Bolt and Mana Leak, but they won't even give us Glimpse the Unthinkable. (Breaking has strictly worse art). They reprint great commons a lot, but great Rares they usually just don't, not in Standard. The Shock Lands are the only exception I can think of that makes my inner cynic shut and wonder if the future might hold some really crazy shit.

You may be able to say they are being irrational, but I still believe there's a 0% chance of Bridge from Below being seen outside multiplayer reprint products.
I'm sorry it was hard to read between the lines the last time I was fangasming over Dredge, but I actually was being Truthful when I said it 'Dethroned Black Lotus"

Bazaar of Baghdad and Black Lotus conditionally TIE for "Best Card in the Game". Black Lotus will be Best in a huge majority of situations, but Bazaar of Baghdad's claim to fame is that it ALSO is a 0-cost, gets-you-three-of-something card that will plain win you the game by degenerate combo, and is almost impossible to disrupt. The Power Nine are half-Blue because of how consistent they make your deck, and the Consistency of Dredge is something that needs to be respected.

"Players expect they will just lose Game 1". That's not just Kitchen Table players, that's Professional Players who do things with cardboard that make the rest of us go 'wait what just happened?!' ALL the time, in Standard, Modern, Limited, and Legacy. They top deck Cruel Ultimatums and Lightning Helixes and make it look like it was the plan all along, and they can beat you with an Intro Pack versus your Premium Deck because they are a better player than you. THAT kind of player goes to Vintage and expects to just lose Game 1 versus Dredge, when they've BEATEN all kinds of Lotus-driven decks some percentage of the time 30 or greater to get there.

That's why "Black Lotus is CONDITIONALLY the Best Card, nearly all the time, Except when Bazaar of Baghdad is better" is a fair and valid sentence.

"Which begs the question: why does this card even have a CMC?"
@Bandswithother:

I didn't realize that until your comment, but it occurs to me that thanks to its CMC, the card can be Transmuted for. Probably has a few other implications too, but that's one of them!

Confirmed to be part of Modern Masters--with new art. So we're not seeing THIS art in a typical frame for a while at least.

Mana-less dredge is completely ridiculous with this. First off, go second, drawing to 8 cards. Discard a Phantasmagorian (discarding your hand) or any dredger. Dredge next turn (or use Gitaxian Probe/ Street Wraith effects to get the draw) filling up your GY, bringing in Narcomeoba/Nether Spirit/Ichorid). Flashback a Dread Return (saccing Nether Spirits, Narcomoebas and Ichorids) into a Balustrade Spy, mill your entire deck, Cabal Therapy it for four zombies, sac with another Dread Return for a Flayer of the Hatebound, flashback yet another Dread Return for a Golgari Grave-Troll, dealing about 30-40 damage to your opponent. This thing is the ammo, Dread Return is the gun. 5/5.

EDIT: Oops, I meant Nether Shadow, not Nether Spirit.

Oh no my opponent has 4 of these in their graveyard with a bunch of dredgers and some Narcomoebas. What ever will I do?
Except, y'know, sacrifice or something.