Zendikar GY Hoser- Ravenous Trap

[NicolaeAlmighty]

Ravenous Trap
2BB
Instant - Trap
If an opponent had three or more cards put into his or her graveyard from anywhere this turn, you may pay 0 rather than pay Ravenous Trap's mana cost.
Exile all cards from target player's graveyard.

Damn. Dredge, old buddy-- face it. No one likes you.

Aside from that? Not bad in combating Will... But let's be realistic. Die dredge... in a ravenous trap.

[jewfro]

I can see this card replacing tormod's crypt in many sideboards. Slightly better because of instant speed.  Overall it will see a lot of play but won't change things much.

[BruiZar]

its not just dredge. Bazaar as a pillar just died

[TracerBullet]

its not just dredge. Bazaar as a pillar just died

... It really didn't.  Yes, RFG'ing the opposing GY is helpful, but in non-Dredge/Dragon decks, is it really worth a dedicated SB slot?


That being said, it's just another anti-Dredge card, and it's not like there was a shortage before.  Effective?  Yes.  HUGE!!!! ?  No.

[Thegreatgonzo]

Welder can't bring that back, but chalice @ 0 can't stop it.
It's wishable. Actually, if painter is on the table, you can even merchant scroll it. 
Not bad at all.

[BruiZar]

The thing is that bazaar will never see the light of day as a tier 1 pillar with the amount of hate that is currently available. Leylilne, Tormods Crypt, Relic of Progenitus are permanents that can be bounced with chain of vapor, or disabled by Null Rod (Except for leyline). Then there is pithing needle, strip mine, wasteland and the unrestriction of crop rotation.

The problem is that Bazaar's draw back is the exact requirement of the trap and its an instant instead of a permanent. Additionally, it costs  the same as Leyline of the Void, but it doesnt have to be in your starting hand. It is a great top deck against bazaar based decks unlike leyline.

Also, this card hoses intuition and gifts ungiven,

It also triggers by frantic search, often by wheel of fortune, fetch+TFK+Artifact, TFK+2x non artifacts, and other draw 7's besides twister.

[vroman]

reports of bazaar's death are premature. in everything except dredge, the function of bazaar is to improve your hand, and get some synergy out of graveyard recursion as well. if you trap out their yard, you have cut off yard recursion for a turn, true, but have not touched their hand, and spent a card of your own. so while yard-trap may be marginally better than other yard hate, you are still playing same amount of yard hate, so bazaar is still as competitive or non-competitive as it was before, regardless

[AmbivalentDuck]

Also, trap requires allowing your opponent considerable time to set up.  Unlike Leyline, it's a glaring target for Unmask and hardcast Cabal Therapy.

I'm sticking to Leylines personally.

[arkious]

Ravenous Trap is an excellent tool that is effective against numerous decks including Dredge, but also just about any deck that runs Yawgmoth's Will. It is a very well designed card that will have a home in Vintage for years to come.

Nevertheless, with all cards now spoiled from Zendikar, I am extremely disappointed not to have "Time Trap" card. With Time Warp present in M10, and Time Vault being run in Vintage, it would have been an ideal time to introduce a card that punishes players for taking an extra turn. The Time Trap could be potentially have been played for 0 casting cost if a player would take an extra turn. To be effective against Time Vault, it would have to have a pretty serious effect, perhaps something like "If an opponent would take an extra turn, play Time Trap for 0, an you control the extra turn". Or "If an opponent would take an extra turn, play Time Trap for 0, counter the extra turn and you take an extra turn instead". My hope is that some form of Time Trap will appear in the next set in the cycle.

Until then, trap cards introduce an intriguing dynamic into the game and it is nice to see that Ravenous Trap and Mindbreak Trap are powerful enough to even see play in Vintage.

[zeus-online]

Nice! cunning wish got a new tool...Unfortunetly no one plays C. Wish.....but that could change.

Oh yeah, and chalice dosn't lock this one out.

[meadbert]

I was all set to declare Bloodghast the best card in Zendikar untill I saw this.  This pretty much hoses Dredge.  Not only does it dodge Chalice, but you can also Mystical for it.

An interesting and somewhat counter intuitive question is might this actually be played in Dredge as a replacement for Leyline or even Unmask.

[nineisnoone]

reports of bazaar's death are premature. in everything except dredge, the function of bazaar is to improve your hand, and get some synergy out of graveyard recursion as well. if you trap out their yard, you have cut off yard recursion for a turn, true, but have not touched their hand, and spent a card of your own. so while yard-trap may be marginally better than other yard hate, you are still playing same amount of yard hate, so bazaar is still as competitive or non-competitive as it was before, regardless

Agreed.  The question with beating dredge is dedicating slots.  You can always over-board against dredge and cakewalk to victory.  The thing is that it's almost always the better strategic decision not to do so, and if you decide to this card isn't really necessary for that.

I would actually say this card is presumptively worse than Crypt because it's only a conditional answer to Yawgmoth's Will whereas Crypt has utility beyond Ichorid.

[Adan]

I was all set to declare Bloodghast the best card in Zendikar untill I saw this.  This pretty much hoses Dredge.  Not only does it dodge Chalice, but you can also Mystical for it.

To Mystical for it is equal to just playing a T.Crypt. Cabal Therapy ruins your day then. This is by far not the death of Ichorid at all, it is a very strong card, nou doubt, but it's just another T.Crypt effect from which you can recover easily. Being a Dredge-Player myself, I always found the mix between Yixlid Jailer and Pithing Needle to be the most annoying combination of hate to play against, everything else can be circumvented by accurate play or your SB Hate-Hate (except if you Dredge into 3 Moebas with a Thug while you attempt to bait the T-Crypt of your opponent, that's just bad luck).

Most important, being a handcard, it can be easily disposed by Unmask and Therapy.

My bet would be that people will notice that the card is strong against Dredge, but would suck against everything else. Comboplayers will circumvent the whole thing by playing the Will with either backup or they will play mass of Spells in response to their own Will after their GY get's RFG'd.

An interesting and somewhat counter intuitive question is might this actually be played in Dredge as a replacement for Leyline or even Unmask.

Uhm, no offense intended, but it seems to be the most stupid idea to cut Unmask at times where everyone hypes Ravenous Trap.
But now that you mention it, I always found the Tutors (Mystical, Imperial Seal, Vamp) to be very annoying as they can't be attacked efficiently by Unmask/Therapy. I am still thinking about running Archieve Trap as a countermeasure. Might be interesting for these strange FoW-Ichorid builds.

[TheShop]

This whole yard hate situation bears an interesting similarity with the current state of Sac-lands:

The number in decks will not increase, simply the composition. 

Maybe the 7 or 8 cards in the board against dredge will change in composition slightly, but the number of cards dedicated to hating the yard will not (I concur with Nine and Vroman).  There are enough cards in existence that hate the board to fill a huge portion of the deck...but decks abusing the yard are still alive.  For instance, before Ravenous Trap you could run:

4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Yixilid Jailer
4 Extirpate
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Relic of Progenitus
and there is a list of older cards that were used before the last 4 were created (phyrexian furnace used to be big...cremate?). 

But, NO ONE EVER DID THIS as it is not practical. The pure amount of yard hate included in decks/boards has not changed (except when it changed permanently when dredge came out).  I expect that the number will remain the same, (A fact that does  not signal the end of yard abuse because the statistical likelihood of getting your hate will remain the same as it is now-or slightly improve because tutors find trap).

[M.Solymossy]

If you want to hate dredge:


3 Trapmaker's Snare
4 Ravenous Trap.



It dodges all their sideboard cards, and they always have to be conscious of you just blasting them.

[TheShop]

I have been thinking the same thing about the search spell for traps.  My biggest question is:  Will enough playable traps be printed (particularly an artifact hate one) so that blue decks will be able to run the search spell for traps as if it is an instant speed merchant scroll?  If there is a draw trap the same may hold true.

[M.Solymossy]

I have been thinking the same thing about the search spell for traps.  My biggest question is:  Will enough playable traps be printed (particularly an artifact hate one) so that blue decks will be able to run the search spell for traps as if it is an instant speed merchant scroll?  If there is a draw trap the same may hold true.

That doesn't matter.   You can trap up Mindbreak too, but post-board, you just want to smash Dredge.

[zeus-online]

I think the interaction with cunning wish could be a huge factor with this card. Giving you several answers to ichorid game1, aswell as the usual stuff such as REB's, artifact destruction, removal etc. Could really see a UBr Tez deck with wishes.

[TheShop]

I have been thinking the same thing about the search spell for traps.  My biggest question is:  Will enough playable traps be printed (particularly an artifact hate one) so that blue decks will be able to run the search spell for traps as if it is an instant speed merchant scroll?  If there is a draw trap the same may hold true.

That doesn't matter.   You can trap up Mindbreak too, but post-board, you just want to smash Dredge.

Just curious if a trap will get printed that warrants this engine being a maindeck inclusion (after all, it is an instant tutor for 2 mana).  The tutor is currently to narrow, but may improve by the end of the block.

[Beralt]

This is taking a piece of extended tech for dealing with Ravenous Trap. NIX, in addition it counters Tormod's Crypt.  I think it's an interesting alternative, as most sideboard hate is meant to deal with Permanents, this gives Ichord/Dredge/Graveyard decks a way to deal with Ravenous Trap.  If you can afford to run Chain of Vapor, then this could probably make the cut.

[gamegeek2]

It seems nice with Cunning Wish, if you choose to include it. Mindbreak and Ravenous are very strong silver bullets, you can put 2 Ravenous in your board, 1 to bring in and find with Mystical/Demonic/Vamp, and one to Wish for in the board.