Yeah, I think that Grief is another of the many win-more cards that can be played in Manaless Dredge. As hand disruption, it is worse than Unmask since it cannot target yourself. It is nice if you have a Bridge in the graveyard, but if you already have a Bridge, your engine is going. Unmask can help get the engine started, while Grief cannot, and getting to dredging is the most important thing. As FourDogs said, it may be a sideboard card over Unmask, but I don't think it is worth a maindeck slot.
The Suspend Tutor is absurd in the Collected Conjuring decks. If there's another full cycle of those, plus another cycle of pitch cards, that's probably enough to push that thing to real Legacy deck status, it's already showing in Modern. Wish I could have gotten that one figured out back when I messing with it after it first came out. I knew the potential, I just couldn't get the list/play orders right.
Unmarked tomb: maybe entomb 5-6 in worldgorger. Pretty bad
Magus of the port: Not taking up your land drop means it is effectively one less mana to activate. Also merfolk is critically low on good 1 drops which are needed for your lords to be decent. This will be good in a u/w vial or merfolk deck, but those decks might still be bad for other reasons.
Grief is absurd in gaak. It’s an unmask that gives you a 4/3 (with vengevine) or a 2/2 (with BFB)
In fair decks, basically everything you said applies to force of will or negation though. Unmask was not playable because both the alt cast and the hard cast were worse than force of will. Due to the lack of tempo gain, the alt cast is worse than force of will. But the hard cast is much better than force of will. It’s a 1 for 2 which can also be a 2 for 1. This is a force effect that pox wants even without synergies like reanimate/ephermeate/lily last hope.
Grief will make bug gaak the best graveyard deck and possible tier 1.
Triggers bridge for free
Triggers vengevine for free
Doesn’t hurt yourself like thoughtseize (very relevant vs ur)
Flood insurance
Quite good vs Omnitell which is a horrible mu.
Pushes through crab or supplier on t1 (relevant vs control)
Free hand information, refunding the card disadvantage in conjunction with cabal therapy.
Makes the deck a bit better vs blood moon and chalice.
In dredge or reanimate it isn’t very good as mentioned above. The last three points were true of unmask, but the first ones make it go from worse than thoughtseize to much better.
I think it's very short-sighted to say that Grief is worse than Unmask in reanimator because you can't target yourself. It ignores that Grief itself is a very easy and profitable reanimation target. No it's not Griselbrand but turn 1 Grief, Reanimate Grief is a really powerful play that's very low investment. You've spent two cards to take your opponent's two best cards and have an evasive 3/2 body; it's basically an upgrade on Turn 1 Delver, turn 2 Hymn, which is a very strong opening.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Could also be played with stuff like village rites. Evoke is easy to abuse with lots of stuff.
Swamp, Grief, Rite seem like a really good turn 1 play.
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Also, Grief and Ephemerate is juicy, probably not legacy playable but damn, modern will get a lot more spicy.
Sanppys and Strix so you can "cycle" ephermate.
Also if I unserstand the Grief combo correctly it is somewhat removal proof. You can stack it that unmask resolves first, clearing the hand from removal. He could respond with a bolt but then you ephermate anyway!
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Looking at a recent Esper Yorion list on MtGTop8, there are a number of potentially useful creatures to use Ephemerate with:
28 CREATURES
4 Baleful Strix
1 Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
4 Charming Prince
1 Fblthp, the Lost
2 Gilded Drake
1 Hullbreacher
4 Meddling Mage
1 Palace Jailer
1 Peacekeeper
1 Plague Engineer
4 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Skyclave Apparition
1 Soulherder
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
Now, that deck is mostly UW, but I figure that some Esper list with more B, or a simple WB list with Grief could be made, running things like Village Rites and Ephemerate with Tidehollow Sculler and Grief, etc.
Any instant speed sacrifice effect should also be pretty good with it, e.g. Grief + Phyrexian Tower to ramp early.
Village Rites would also go well with Sedgemoor Witch, or Cabal Therapy, for the matter. Free info to set up a 100% hit T1 Cabal Therapy is very strong, as Gitaxian Probe has shown. Grief can pitch a Chain of Smog you don't have immediate use for. Grief can also provide a body for Therapy if you play it normally later on.
Both Reanimate (get Grief back or steal their fatty) and Cabal Therapy (100% hit) enable very powerful T1 plays with Grief while not being completely useless by themselves. Definitely something to watch out for. I expect this card package to show up in alot of black decks that can run 1 cmc cards.
Do you even play Manaless Dredge? From this post, it doesn't seem so. If you've actually played and experienced the deck, you'd know that the "engine" doesn't go online until turn 3 with non-Street Wraith hands because of the timing of triggers. Against fast combo, Grief can provide bodies on turn 2, which is incredibly rare for this deck other than Narcomoebas, with Bridges, and possibly a Dread Return win right there, or slow down their combo to get to turn 3. It's not just win-more in this case.
Unmasking yourself to start the engine is so narrow that it's not even worth mentioning, in my opinion. So, it's not something to debate between Unmask and Grief. You're playing the wrong deck or playing the deck wrong if you are consistently using Unmask like this.
I'm not saying it should be in the 60, but the points you've brought up aren't helpful and telegraph inexperience.
The fact that Grief is a discard spell, that is relevant late game.... is actually better then people are giving it credit for. Early game seize late game evasive beater? That's a pretty good card.
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