Creeping Dread MTG Card

Encourages tactical play, leveraging graveyard synergies and opponent hand disruption for card advantage. Demands careful planning due to the continuous discard requirement that can erode your hand size. Despite its restrictions, it is an enchantment worthy of consideration for decks that manipulate discard effects.

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	4
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Enchantment
Released	2016-04-08
Set symbol
Set name	Shadows over Innistrad
Set code	SOI
Number	104
Frame	2015
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Anthony Palumbo

Text of card

At the beginning of your upkeep, each player discards a card. Each opponent who discarded a card that shares a card type with the card you discarded loses 3 life. (Players reveal the discarded cards simultaneously.)

Cards like Creeping Dread

Creeping Dread emerges as a unique aspect within Magic: The Gathering’s range of intriguing enchantments. When paralleled with cards like Painful Quandary, which further manipulates an opponent’s choices by inflicting damage or forcing discards, Creeping Dread stands out for its repeatability at the beginning of your upkeep. While Painful Quandary has a wider influence, it lacks the consistency of Creeping Dread’s ability to whittle down opponents’ hands over time.

Another comparable card is Necrogen Mists, which forces each player to discard a card each turn. While Necrogen Mists affects all players equally and does not involve life loss, Creeping Dread offers a pinpointed approach, only affecting the opponent with the most cards. This allows for strategic play without affecting your hand. Additionally, Creeping Dread’s ability to cause life loss can converge nicely with strategies focusing on reducing an opponent’s life total.

Considering these analogues, Creeping Dread holds a position of interest for players who value predictable control over opponents’ resources. The gentle, yet consistent, pressure it provides can subtly tip the scales in a match, making it a valuable role player in Magic: The Gathering’s assortment of impactful enchantments.

Cards similar to Creeping Dread by color, type and mana cost

Feast of the Unicorn - MTG Card versions

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Creeping Dread’s ability to force each player to discard can indirectly work in your favor. If you’re running a deck that thrives on graveyard synergies, you’re setting the stage for future plays while potentially disrupting opponents’ strategies. This can lead to a significant card advantage.

Resource Acceleration: While Creeping Dread itself does not directly ramp your mana, it can complement decks that benefit from card types or specific cards in graveyards. It’s all about the seamless integration of resource acceleration mechanisms that exist within graveyard-focused decks.

Instant Speed: While Creeping Dread operates at the beginning of your upkeep, its effect can feel similar to instant speed tricks. You have the control to adapt your strategy based on the cards you and your opponent will be discarding at the start of your turn, offering strategic depth and flexibility that can be pivotal to the outcome of a match.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Creeping Dread demands a continuous discard from you each turn. This can quickly diminish your hand, leaving you vulnerable and potentially hindering your long-term strategy.

Specific Mana Cost: Creeping Dread’s casting cost requires both black and generic mana. It’s not always feasible in multicolored decks that have a diverse mana base and need consistent access to all their colors.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Four mana for an enchantment that only triggers during your upkeep might be considered quite steep. In a game where tempo is key, other cards may offer immediate and more impactful effects at this cost range.

Reasons to Include Creeping Dread in Your Collection

Versatility: Creeping Dread is a card with broad uses, seamlessly integrating into any deck that capitalizes on opponent disruption and gradual life point erosion. Its continuous effect each turn ensures sustained pressure on your opponents’ game plan.

Combo Potential: This card excels in enabling combos by consistently filling graveyards, setting the stage for powerful reanimation spells or activating abilities that trigger from discarding or milling cards.

Meta-Relevance: In a game where hand advantage is key, Creeping Dread maintains relevance by forcing players to choose their card plays carefully. In environments dominated by creature-heavy or slow-paced control decks, the constant discard requirement can tip the scales in your favor.

How to beat

Creeping Dread’s ability to instill unease among players is what allows it to shine in Magic: The Gathering, where mind games often dictate the outcome as much as the cards themselves. This card forces a rhythm of perpetual hand evaluation as each player must balance between the card they discard and the potential life loss if they cannot comply. It’s a card that rewards players who build around it, manifested through decks that thrive on graveyard strategies or those that ensure their hand always has expendable cards.

To counteract Creeping Dread, the most straightforward tactic involves removing it from the board. Cards with targeted enchantment removal, like Disenchant, provide a clean and efficient answer, restoring balance and preventing further life loss. Another strategy involves deck designs with robust draw capabilities, ensuring your hand remains well-stocked and allowing you to selectively discard without losing momentum. Utilizing cards with Madness also turns the drawback into an advantage, effectively negating Creeping Dread’s life loss threat. It’s a battle of wits and resources, making Creeping Dread a formidable card to beat but not insurmountable with the right plan in place.

Ultimately, understanding the card’s mechanics and preparing your deck to handle its challenges will help ensure that the creeping sense of dread turns into a triumphant victory on your side of the battlefield.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Creeping Dread MTG card by a specific set like Shadows over Innistrad, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Creeping Dread and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Creeping Dread has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Pioneer	Legal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Creeping Dread card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

Date	Text
2016-04-08	Because you consider only the characteristics of a double-faced card’s front face while it’s not on the battlefield, a double-faced card with different card types among its faces (such as Skin Invasion) only compares its front face to the other discarded cards.
2016-04-08	If a player has no cards in hand, that player doesn’t discard a card while everyone else does. If you didn’t discard a card, no player can have discarded a card that shares a card type with the card you discarded, so no player loses 3 life.
2016-04-08	If an opponent discards a card that shares two card types with the card you discarded, such as an artifact creature, that player still only loses 3 life.
2016-04-08	The card types that may be shared for Creeping Dread’s ability are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker, sorcery, and tribal (a card type that appears on some older cards). Supertypes (such as legendary and basic) and subtypes (such as Human and Equipment) are not counted.
2016-04-08	When a spell or ability instructs each player to discard a card, starting with the player whose turn it is and proceeding in turn order, each player selects a card from their hand without revealing it, sets it aside, and then all of those cards are revealed and discarded at once.