First of all this card is beautiful in its weirdness.
Second, is this anything? I don't really know what dredge wants--is it this? Is there another home for it maybe? It's a free 8/8, surely there's some deck in the Bazaar of Baghdad format that can play it.
I thought about posting this, but it's not an official spoiler yet, so could be fake.
Anyway this is weird because it's hurt by Lavinia and Cage =/
@fsecco Ha, I didn't think about Lavinia! That's pretty funny.
I am trying to avoid full deckbuilding until we have the whole set, because if they are printing new storm cards they can print anything, but an 8/8 trample that can be cast by tapping 2 bloodghast or zombies is a hell of a card. I'm not sure if this is an alternative to dread return or a supplement- it's another way to turn 2 creatures into 3 creatures. It pitches to unmask and force of vigor. delving 5 irrelevant cards(pitch spells, powder, lands, etc) is almost nothing when going off, or even less if convoking the colorless further. 2 of these and bridges allows you to convert cards in yard into tapped zombies at some rate, which is something. it triggers dragon breath, which is cute, but this isn't the age of sutured ghoul. delve and convoke both go through every sphere, which is solid.
this is all assuming it's real. From context of the spoiler I think it's real, but we'll have to see.
I think the biggest problem here is the need to already control two untapped black (or green) creatures in order to cast Hogaak. If you could purely Delve this out of the graveyard I think it would have more Vintage applications.
If your opening bazaar dredge has 2 grave trolls in it and you happen to mill this you can play it, but I think in average dredge turn 2s this might actually be very hard to play.
You need 2 creatures that are not narcomebia in play untapped to pay the mana for this, so basically bloodghast and ichorid and then you need 6 cards to exile in the yard, which is actually tough because it cant be this, it cant be the creatures, and it cant be your dredgers you need for the next dredge, and ill guess it cant be your bridges and cannot be your therapies, though you can use thoes to make tokens maybe.
Point is that this card feels like it would be most relevant for a big turn 2, and that seems like a very win more scenario to me.
@protoaddict it's 5 to exile, not 6.
on average, a single bazaar opener with access to dredger will have you at 18 cards in the yard, assuming your dredgers averaged dredge 5, you didn't cast any pitch spells from hand, and your bazaar didn't get wasted. adding up pitch spells, powders, leylines, etc in a typical pitch list is 16-18 cards you absolutely don't care about delving, plus any extra bazaars you mill, narcs you discard, and so forth. that's just at the point where you would expect an average of 5 such cards in a given 18. Delving the third dredger, the second DR target, or other such things also doesn't cost that much. any additional creatures you hit in terms of narc/ghast that end up in play also pay towards the total, reducing what you need to delve, as do zombies.
I'm gonna do some rough testing, but I think it's much easier to cast this turn 2 without losing much of note than it is to cast dread return. I'm not sure if that makes it good, as it's just a big french vanilla beater, but I don't think casting it is the problem.
This is a 0 mana way to trigger Vengevines from the GY. This is pretty big.
Being able to trigger without mana means you don’t need mana or Dread Return (and consequently don’t really need Cabal therapy, to hit 3 creatures, bridge, etc.) this opens up the deck by a dramatic degree. Basically all of current Dredge theory is shattered by this card.
This is all very similar to Creeping Chill, which became a Modern staple, but wasn’t exactly good enough for Vintage. I think this card has a higher floor for when things go wrong.
Lavinia is a non-issue if you are just trying to trigger Vengevine. This does also get around Containment Priest, which is nice.
@vaughnbros I’m confused, can you clarify if I’ve missed something? Since you need to convoke at least twice, the fodder for that needs to be at least two of Ichorid/Amalgam/Bloodghast/Bridge tokens if you want to do it without mana, which seems like it will slow you down significantly on the path towards Vengevine (assuming creature spell #1 is Hollow One from hand) - and most of this is vulnerable to Containment Priest.
2-of a specific set of Creatures (B or G) is different than DR that is a 3-of any creature. This has different deck building constraints, notably Narcomoeba. Dryad Arbor and Nether Shadow are other old Dredge classics that also works with this.
DR also requires you resolve a spell, which is why you need Therapy, and really more like 4 or 5 creatures to go off reliably. With this and VV that is not a requirement. Certainly possible you may still want things like Therapy, but they are more optional than necessary.
@ribby said in [MH1] Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis:
@vaughnbros Since you need to convoke at least twice, the fodder for that needs to be at least two of Ichorid/Amalgam/Bloodghast/Bridge tokens if you want to do it without mana,
Amalgam comes into play tapped and has funky eot timing, so using it to cast this is a nonbo, at least same turn. I think the average case for most turns where you git him in is going to be a ghast and a bridge token from a cabaled narco.
The nice thing about this card though is that there is very little opportunity cost since its cast from the yard. Put 1 copy into a flex slot, it is very unlikely to be the card that loses you the game and will occasionally be useful. I just happen to be very tempered on it
This is a good point that you could just play it in a regular build. Its now in the exclusive class of returners, along with Bloodghast + Narcomoeba, as the only 0-mana options that can come into play the turn that they are milled. This really only pushes you from 2 to 3 creatures though, and not from 0 to 1 or 1 to 2.
I Wonder if whoever designed this set loves survival. It sounds good to draw and it's awesome post sb against fair decks AND probably the most impactful card to blind bazaar on upkeep. I loved to hit deep analysis, but this one is on a completely different league.
card is confirmed real
https://twitter.com/maro254/status/1133776702184669188
Having played a bit against this, I gotta say that it seems very good indeed. That said, my main Dredge hate is Containment Priest, which doesn't prevent this card from being cast from the graveyard.
I’ve now played this guy in bug survival enough to say he certainly belongs. Sometimes tops the chain off much better than Hollow One, other times sort of replaces what Squee used to do in the mid-game.
