If you’ve been keeping up with spoiler hype for Aetherdrift, you’ve probably heard a number of players talk about Ketramose, the New Dawn. Ketramose is an elite value engine with potential in a wide variety of archetypes. It’s very easy to trigger Ketramose and draw a bunch of cards over the course of the game.
However, beyond just being a card advantage machine, the powerful legend opens the door for some incredible combo kills if you go down the Dredge rabbit hole. Dredge isn’t super popular in Modern at the moment, but Ketramose’s presence may be enough to spark a resurgence in the strategy.
There’s even hope for Ketramose to enable some sweet shenanigans in Legacy, too. Let’s see what all the buzz is about.
Ketramose and Psychic Frog
The main combo players are hyped about involves three specific cards: Ketramose, Psychic Frog, and any card with Dredge 3 or higher, such as Darkblast. In order to execute the combo, you need to have both Psychic Frog and Ketramose in play, and Darkblast either in your hand or in your graveyard.
If Darkblast is in your hand, start by discarding Darkblast to Psychic Frog. Then, you need to use Psychic Frog to exile three cards other than Darkblast from your graveyard. If you don’t have enough cards in your graveyard to start, you can always discard extra cards from your hand via Psychic Frog.
Once you exile three cards, Ketramose will trigger. Instead of naturally drawing a card, you can now choose to Dredge 3 and return Darkblast to your hand.
Conveniently, this puts another three cards into your graveyard. So, you can discard Darkblast to Psychic Frog, exile the other three cards from your graveyard to give Psychic Frog flying again, and trigger Ketramose once more.
By repeating this process over and over, you can mill out your whole deck. At minimum, you’ll get an enormous Psychic Frog out of the deal to attack with and end the game, so long as your opponent is within range.
What’s nice about this combo is that Psychic Frog and Ketramose are great cards individually, and the cost to running some Dredge cards isn’t that high. Ketramose already seems like it could be a solid fit in Orzhov midrange in Modern alongside Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, Solitude, and beyond. As such, adding Psychic Frog and Darkblast to the equation isn’t too far-fetched.
Supporting Cast
On top of adding blue to a typical Orzhov midrange shell, though, players are already brainstorming ways to further maximize this combo and make it a more reliable kill condition. For example, assuming the goal is to consistently mill your whole deck or close to it, leaning more into the graveyard theme could be worthwhile.
Creeping Chill becomes a great part of the equation at that point. If you can avoid drawing copies of Creeping Chill, milling a ton of your deck at once will result in your opponent losing a ton of life outside of combat. Plus, the life gain comes in handy in ensuring that you don’t run into issues having to pay life with Ketramose.
Unearth seems like another automatic inclusion in a deck like this. Chances are, you’ll play extra cards that dig for your combo pieces and fuel your graveyard, such as Otherworldly Gaze. Once you mill over Psychic Frog or Ketramose, Unearth becomes a great way to resurrect your missing piece and go to town.
Once you factor in Unearth, it’s possible playing a singleton copy of Thassa’s Oracle could be worthwhile as well. During your combo turn, as long as you have Unearth in hand and an extra mana to work with, you can mill your whole deck, bring back Thassa’s Oracle to play, and win the game in trivial fashion.
That way, even if the opponent has gained a bunch of life or your Psychic Frog has Summoning Sickness and can’t attack right away, you can still win the game just fine.
Going Deeper
In addition to being a Dredge build-around in Modern, it’s not out of the question that Ketramose makes a splash in Legacy Lion’s Eye Diamond Dredge shells. These decks are incredibly powerful and make it simple to churn through your library in no time.
Part of what makes the Ketramose combo appealing in this context is the presence of Dread Return. Dread Return is an incredible tool that is banned in Modern but makes winning the game post-combo incredibly simple.
As you’re milling through your deck, you’re bound to put copies of Narcomoeba into play and Dread Return into your graveyard. From there, you just need to sacrifice your Narcomoebas to flashback Dread Return and bring back Thassa’s Oracle. You don’t actually need to draw your reanimation spell in this case, making the combo kill easier to execute.
Ketramose is garnering a ton of attention from Standard, Pioneer, Modern, Legacy, and Commander players alike. It’s no wonder the card is quite expensive right out of the gates. We’re excited to see what the card can do and where it ends up shining brightest.