Aetherdrift cards have now been tournament legal for over a week, and it’s surprising just how many cards are seeing Constructed play across a variety of formats. Flashy mythic rares like Ketramose, the New Dawn and Brightglass Gearhulk are popping up in Modern, but high rarity cards aren’t the only examples of super impactful designs from the set.
In fact, one card that has become a staple in Standard, Modern, and beyond in the form of Dredger’s Insight. is just a simple uncommon. Many players overlooked Dredger’s Insight during spoiler season, but the powerful enchantment is quickly making a name for itself.
So, today, we’re going to highlight the elite enchantment. There are plenty of unique shells for the card, and it’s a lot stronger than it looks at first glance. To start, we need to take a look at its role in one of Modern’s premier combo shells.
Dredger’s Insight in Modern
Dredger’s Insight has become a common four-of in Golgari Yawgmoth. At first, there were questions about whether this card would actually beat out Malevolent Rumble for more spots in the deck. After all, Malevolent Rumble is a very powerful card. The 0/1 Eldrazi Spawn it generates can be quite useful at maximizing Chord of Calling and Green Sun’s Zenith.
What Dredger’s Insight brings to the table, though, is that it actually helps fuel your combo. See, unlike many modern-day designs, the life gain clause on Dredger’s Insight isn’t limited to once each turn. So, once you’re able to find two copies of Young Wolf and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Dredger’s Insight negates the life loss so you can draw your whole deck. Simply execute the following steps:
- Get Dredger’s Insight, Yawgmoth, and two copies of Young Wolf into play.
- Pay 1 life and sacrifice the first copy of Young Wolf to Yawgmoth’s ability to draw a card
- Young Wolf’s undying ability will trigger, causing it to return to play with a +1/+1 counter on it. This causes Dredger’s Insight to trigger, and you’ll gain 1 life.
- Pay 1 life and sacrifice the second copy of Young Wolf to Yawgmoth’s ability and draw a card. This time, choose to put a -1/-1 counter on the first copy of Young Wolf, thus removing its +1/+1 counter
- The second copy of Young Wolf will come back with a +1/+1 counter, and you’ll gain 1 life from Dredger’s Insight once again
- Repeat this process.
Eventually, you’ll be able to find a kill condition, such as Marionette Apprentice, that you can use to end the game. Dredger’s Insight doubling as a combo piece and value engine puts it over the top.
It digs for your other combo pieces, fuels your graveyard to enable Agatha’s Soul Cauldron (which can help you combo all the same if you exile a copy of Yawgmoth from your graveyard), and buffers your life total. Dredger’s Insight even works well in multiples, gaining you extra life to buy you additional time to set up your combo. What more could you want?
Dredger’s Insight in Standard
Beyond becoming a Golgari Yawgmoth staple in Modern, Dredger’s Insight is also making plenty of noise in Standard. The most common shell for Dredger’s Insight so far is the Gruul Afterburner Expert deck. In this deck, the goal is to mill over copies of Afterburner Expert, then activate other Exhaust abilities to resurrect Afterburner Expert for free.
Dredger’s Insight is a no-brainer inclusion. The potent enchantment helps you find copies of Draconautics Engineer while potentially milling over your Afterburner Experts simultaneously. From there, each time any copies of Afterburner Expert get returned to play, you’ll gain more life. The life gain provides a solid cushion against aggro decks.
While most Afterburner Expert decks take a more assertive angle utilizing Patchwork Beastie, others have gone for a more value-oriented gameplan. Take a look at the decklist shown above, for instance. The combination of Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and Loot, the Pathfinder gives you a fantastic late game engine. In either case, Dredger’s Insight is the ultimate support card.
Dredger’s Insight in Limited and Commander
Modern and Standard are definitely the most popular environments for Dredger’s Insight, but they’re not the only formats where the card shows up. In Aetherdrift draft, Dredger’s Insight actually has the seventh highest win rate of any uncommon when maindecked according to 17lands.com. Even in a Limited setting, the card is still elite.
Plus, there are some sweet synergies available to take advantage of the life gain aspect. Most notably, Earthrumbler pairs nicely with Dredger’s Insight. Obviously, Dredger’s Insight provides fuel for Earthrumbler to be crewed at will.
On top of that, though, Earthrumbler can exile artifacts or creatures from your graveyard one at a time. If you have other self-mill effects in your deck, you may be able to gain a bunch of life on command and make it difficult for your opponent to race.
In EDH, Dredger’s Insight is just a solid addition to any graveyard-matters decks. If you have The Mycotyrant or Anikthea, Hand of Erebos at the helm, chances are you’ll want access to Dredger’s Insight.
Pioneer is one place where the card hasn’t made much of a splash, but if Abzan Greasefang or Soulflayer decks ever become more popular, there’s still hope. All in all, Dredger’s Insight is showcasing just how strong and versatile even an uncommon support card can be.