It’s been a few months, and I’m back with some new material. Get ready to take advantage of your $1 Ravnica rares, because I’m about to pull out all the stops! Bloodbond March, here I come! It’s all right here in this version of Raiding the Dollar Bins!

We all live in a crazy world.

Planar Chaos is legal in tournament play. It just came out on MTGO. And guess what?

There’s a new Wrath in town.

Despite all the shenanigans that Planar Chaos presents to all of the casual players out there (and don’t think I won’t be tapping into some of the new rares in the set), we’re sticking with all the old stuff and hopping into the Way Back Machine and returning to Ravnica for a second look at one of its most underrated rares – Bloodbond March.

The reason why it’s rated so poorly? Because, despite being better than most people think, it’s still pretty awful. In the right deck, however, this card can be a miracle worker, and can be pretty darn powerful.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past year and a half, let me bring you up to speed. Dredge is good. Really good. So good, in fact, that Life of the Loam / Dredge decks are running rampant in the current Extended environment, even with cards like Extirpate and Tormod’s Crypt running around. Crazy, right?

Even if it’s not THAT crazy, it’s still crazy enough to take a second look at, right? What makes Dredge so good? The answer is more simple than you’d think – if you’re dredging cards, then you’re choosing the card you draw.

This seems fairly basic to most players until you realize that every turn, you can choose what creature to pick, choose what spell to return to your hand. It’s this kind of card filtering that allows you to do some extremely silly things.

One of those silly things is being able to dredge a Shambling Shell, or any other creature with dredge, out of your graveyard, and play it to bring 3 more back into play with him.

But enough with all this rambling. It’s time to take a look at the deck.

I know, I know, the deck title sounds like an emo band name, but work with me here!

Bloody Return takes advantage of the Golgari multicolored rare Bloodbond March. The card retails for well under a dollar on most online sites, and since this deck is made up of only commons and uncommons besides the March, you should be able to throw this deck together for under 10 dollars.

One interesting part about this deck is that it’s Standard legal right now. With Wall of Roots in Time Spiral, you could possibly even take this deck to your next FNM! But it wouldn’t be all that nice for me to tell you to take it to a Friday Night Magic without first telling you how to use the deck, so read on my friends, read on.

Basically, this deck works by using Looter il-Kor and Compulsive Research to dump Dredge creatures into your graveyard. After that, continue to play and dredge up dead creatures, all the while throwing more and more Dredgers into the graveyard. After you have the March, drop it onto the board and follow it up with a Shambling Shell or Greater Mossdog, and watch as 2-3 more of them hop out of the graveyard to help out!

This deck is slow on the uptake, and using all common and uncommon mana sources kind of hurts because there are times when you could definitely use that land as soon as you play it, but we’ll discuss that a little while later.

If you can (and don't have any other plays), hold mana open to pretend as if you’re holding a counterspell like Cancel, Mana Leak or Remand. Since you’re playing blue, and the Standard (T2) format is dominated by control decks, more aggressive decks at FNM will be hesitant to play their big creatures if they think you might counter them. (This is called bluffing, and it’s a great tactic in any Magic format.)

Looter il-Kor is an amazing card in Limited, and for this deck, he does a superb job of fixing your mana, throwing dredge cards into the graveyard, and finding all those answers you need. He also has shadow, so it’s a lot of fun to give him a Moldervine Cloak to play with too. There’s nothing like 4 unblockable damage each turn that draws you a new card!

Speaking of Moldervine Cloak; man, I love this card! Like Rancor of the days of old, it just doesn’t die, and it gives a significant boost to any creature it’s attached to. Moldervine Cloak is the difference between barely winning the game, and winning the game handily, so make sure you dredge accordingly to be able to take full advantage of it.

Dimir House-Guard sits in on the deck as a 1-of because he can tutor for the Bloodbond March/Nightmare Void/Greater Mossdog. Plus, he's a great attacker when he's suited up with a Moldervine Cloak.

Compulsive Research, most commonly used in forms of Firemane Control and Solar Flare, is a great addition to this deck. It digs through your deck 3 cards deep, and lets you either dump dredge-able creatures or unwanted land into your graveyard. This dual

Why two copies of Svogthos, the Restless Tomb? Well, it doesn't hurt your mana base too much, and with all the dredging you'll be doing, you'll be getting quite a lot of creatures into your graveyard. You can always animate it in your first main, and then play your creature for Bloodbond March in your second main phase to get the full effect of both cards.

Things to Remember

1) Attacking with more than 1 Looter creates a new trigger each time. To be a little more succinct, If you attack with two Looter il-Kor, you don’t draw two cards and discard two cards, you draw a card, then discard a card, then draw a card, then discard a card. It’s something you want to remember if you decide to play this at FNM.

2) Stinkweed Imp has to deal combat damage to destroy a creature. Some creatures, like Evil Eye of Urborg and Gorgon Recluse don’t need to deal damage to destroy a creature. Stinky, however, is not one of those creatures. Beware first strike and other silly tricks if you’re trying to get him to trade with an opponent’s creature.

3) All creatures in the deck are a “4-of” for a good reason. If a creature is not a 4-of in this deck, you’re going to have problems with making Bloodbond March work the best it can. It’s okay to substitute creatures out for other creatures, just try to make sure that you substitute 4 of one creature for 4 of another creature.

Card Suggestions (Adding more $)

One idea would be to add a reanimation theme to the deck. By adding cards like Dread Return and a few copies of cards like Simic Sky Swallower and Akroma, Angel of Wrath, or Avatar of Woe, you can change your small dredge squad into some of the most powerful creatures in Standard. You can also add either Sinbad or Fa'adiyah Seer to the mix in order to get more cards into the graveyard for reanimating. Plus, these little guys like Sinbad are easy to sacrifice to Buyback your Dread Return.

I can’t stress enough how good the Ravnica dual lands are. Watery Grave, Breeding Pool, and Overgrown Tomb are your friends in this deck, and you can make the mana base so much more consistent with these cards. Expect to pay/trade out the wazoo for them, because they’re all still retailing pretty high.

If you can’t afford the Ravnica duals, try the 9th Edition / (Apocalypse/7th Edition) dual lands Yavimaya Coast, Llanowar Wastes and Underground River. Retailing at 6 dollars apiece, they’re not all that cheap, but they are less than half the cost of the Ravnica dual lands.

Golgari Grave-Troll is an affordable and efficient beat-stick that can really help out this deck build. Although their price is on the rise, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can still get a playset for around 3 dollars. In the same vein as Grave-Troll, Grave-Shell Scarab is a great addition to your deck. Take out the Greater Mossdog for these creatures.

Adding cards like Llanowar Elves can accelerate your mana and provide early blockers against pesky weenie decks, and Carven Caryatid can hold off maurading weenies and net you a card. Even Thallid Shell-Dweller can keep weenie decks at bay (although I wouldn't recommend it).

Reclaim or Recollect could be an interesting choice for this deck, as it allows you to grab a card from your graveyard at instant speed and put it at the top of your library. This is great way to determine your next draw, as you can play Reclaim at your opponent’s end of turn step. This is nice if you need to get a Bloodbond March or Putrefy back that got destroyed, used, or dredged into your graveyard.

In that same vein, if you want to hop out of the T2 scene, a great card to add to this deck is Eternal Witness. At 1GG, you get a 2 power creature and a card in your graveyard back. What's not to like about a Regrowth with legs?

Well, that’s all for me this time. Make sure you take a look at my latest project during the upcoming theme week – Land Week! Until then, never forget that fun Magic is only a dollar bin away.

Death_By_Beebles

Death_By_Beebles is really a nice guy, no matter what people say. He lives on a farm sometimes, and goes to school the rest of the time. He enjoys playing casual magic online, so if you see him on MTGO or MWS (addy DeathByBeebles), give him a shout. He thinks kittens are cute. If you have a supposed junk or dollar rare that you would like Death_By_Beebles to cover in Raiding the Dollar Bins, contact him at : deathbybeebles@magicdeckvortex.com

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Articles Spotlights from 2007:
Lorwyn Theme Week Intro & Schedule of Events
Blink And Bounce: Timing is Key
Going Blind: XCB Metagaming - A Prolonged Conclusion.
The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
Shifting Lineaments: Casual Metagaming (Pt. 2).
The Dungeon Of Malefict: Pure Evil!
Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
Irrational Love: Chimeras. The Lego's of Magic.