Life from the Loam works as an engine producing additional targets for itself when dredging. The dredge card Life from the Loam has since its release found widespread tournament use fueling a wide array of decks. As more graveyard payoffs and discard enablers were printed, Dredge decks become mainstays of all Eternal formats - Prized Amalgam and Creeping Chill in Modern, Bridge from Below and Breakthrough in Legacy, and Bazaar of Baghdad and Serum Powder in Vintage. The Extended Friggorid deck was a common deck archetype built around this mechanic. Such decks work best with cards with high dredge values, such as Golgari Grave-Troll and Stinkweed Imp.

A famous deck based on Ichorid originated from this concept. One of the most popular uses of dredge is to use it to quickly fill your graveyard.

You can't use dredge unless you're going to draw a card and the card with dredge is already in your graveyard.

Once you decide to replace a draw using a card's dredge ability, that card can't be removed from your graveyard 'in response' (replacement effects don't use the stack).

Dredge lets you replace any card draw, not just the one during your draw step.

702.52b A player with fewer cards in their library than the number required by a dredge ability can’t mill any of them this way.

“Dredge N” means “As long as you have at least N cards in your library, if you would draw a card, you may instead mill N cards and return this card from your graveyard to your hand.”

702.52a Dredge is a static ability that functions only while the card with dredge is in a player’s graveyard.From the Comprehensive Rules (April 14, 2023- March of the Machine)

Land dredge