A quick glance at the Hour of Devastation spoiler doesn’t reveal any obvious game-changers for Modern. Claim//Fame may make the Grixis Death’s Shadow deck even better but it didn’t need the help and decks that did need a helping hand haven’t found it yet. However, there is a seemingly gimmicky card with a ceiling so high that it should catch your attention:

“This costs less if you jumped through these hoops” is well-worn design space but tracking  the number of discarded cards is a novelty. Any Dredge player is familiar with turning the discard clause on Faithless Looting or Cathartic Reunion into a benefit via graveyard synergies but, if those are not available, these effects are no longer impressive. The idea of looting powering 1-mana 4/4s is enough to raise an eyebrow. Compared with Myr Enforcer, an obsolete card in an archetype that offers much sturdier support, there is not much room for hope. On the other hand, Tasigur and Gurmag Angler are premium threats in Modern and Hollow One doesn’t monopolize the graveyard the way those do. The delve creatures are so strong because the only setup required is casting spells – which every deck wants to do anyway! Hollow One demands very specific support for a worse body.

So why am I excited about this card? Look at this early sketch from Joel Larsson:

Plants vs. Zombies
Lands
4 x Blackcleave Cliffs
4 x Bloodstained Mire
2 x Blooming Marsh
3 x Verdant Catacombs
1 x Blood Crypt
1 x Watery Grave
1 x Stomping Ground
1 x Overgrown Tomb
1 x Swamp
1 x Forest
Creatures
1 x Dread Wanderer
4 x Insolent Neonate
4 x Gravecrawler
4 x Bloodghast
4 x Prized Amalgam
4 x Hollow One
4 x Street Wraith
4 x Vengevine
Spells
4 x Faithless Looting
3 x Lightning Axe
4 x Cathartic Reunion
1 x Faithless Looting

This is a spiritual successor to the old Dredgevine decks that fell out of the format when the more dedicated Dredge deck broke through. Hollow One may be just what this deck needs to reassert itself in Modern. In a deck already capable of incredibly explosive starts, Hollow One raises the ceiling even higher. Consider Turn 1 Insolent Neonate into Turn 2 Faithless Looting discarding Vengevine + X (say another Vengevine or Prized Amalgam), sacrifice Neonate, play Hollow One + another creature, return Vengevine and anything else. You now have at least 11 power in play on your second turn and have dug through enough cards to assemble a second wave if the first one fails. Draws with multiple Hollow Ones and/or Vengevines rival anything else going on in the format.

Why would Hollow One put the deck over the top? After all, it doesn’t offer anything unique insofar as you could already “go off” quickly with Vengevines and Prized Amalgams when things went well. The lack of interaction with opposing creatures or combo decks isn’t solved by playing a 4/4. However, you can often avoid the need for interaction by winning the game before the opponent can piece anything together and, with Hollow One in the mix, your draws are fast enough often enough that you can race all but the quickest decks and starts. Hollow One works perfectly with the most appealing interactive cards, namely Lightning Axe or Conflagrate and Collective Brutality (which is outstanding in this deck where you really can use every part of the proverbial buffalo). Lightning Axe is often the card you most want to draw and I would want the 4th copy in Larsson’s list.

The issue with modern Dredge (or “traditional” Dredge, if you prefer) is that if you don’t hit enough Prized Amalgams early it is hard to assemble enough pressure to throw aggro or combo decks off their gameplan. The above-average draw in this deck compares favourably with the nut draw from Dredge and requires fewer specific pieces in the right places. Hollow One offers a built-in backup plan against graveyard hate: just cast your 4/4s and get to work! Its stats line up well against problematic cards for Dredge such as Etched Champion or Anger of the Gods and it is rarely completely dead – it can cycle in a pinch, and cycling one gives you your money back on other copies in that turn, as such it is rare for your hand to be clogged with them.

There is a lot more room to explore here – just for starters, Haunted Dead ties the graveyard, Zombies, and discard packages together neatly while addressing the weakness to fliers. Noose Constrictor and especially Lotleth Troll let you shove on Hollow One in your nut draws and are solid beaters against hate. The Dredge cards and parts of the usual Dredge engine could be spliced in as a way of stocking your graveyard with Vengevines and Amalgams. I predict making quite a few Gatherer searches soon…

It is hard to predict if this will amount to anything or be just another flash in the pan, but this is easily the concept I am most excited to work on with Grand Prix Birmingham on the horizon.