[Premium Article] Meandeck Ichorid v. Control Slaver

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=288853

38 pages of analysis, 7 games of Ichorid v. Slaver

I'd love to talk about the various plays made in these games.  Let's get to it!

To get the ball rolling,

1) what is the correct play with the balance hand?

2) how would you play game 6?

3) how would you play game 7?

[Gabethebabe]

Excellent read, Steve.

It must be pretty difficult to try and analyse a hand and make the objectively best play when you know the entire hand of the opponent.

[vartemis]

1) what is the correct play with the balance hand?

This was a tough decision for me.  Mindtwisting your opponent is amazing, but you also did it to yourself and stuck yourself in topdeck mode.  The problem I have found in topdeck mode with frig is that I am torn between wanting to actually draw (to get some mana or utilities like chalice, bazaars, or chains), or dredge.  You can survive with no hand a lot better than slaver if you managed to get a lot of decent dredge.  Unfortunately you got shafted that game with the lack of creatures dropping in the grave.  You also didnt have a lot of mana online to recurr ghouls.  I think that you still made the right play.  It's not like you planned to go 7 turns with slaver unimpeded.

j

[dicemanx]

Another excellent article Steve. The ones with the head to head match-ups are definitely my favorite, since its always interesting to see and analyze how these matches play out.

Regarding the balance scenario:

Balance
Gemstone Mine
Black Lotus
Darkblast
Golgari Grave-Troll
Putrid Imp
Chalice of the Void

I would play this one differently than what you ended up doing. You reset both hands to zero, saving one lone trump: the big Troll dredge. However, thats really risky - if that one dredge with Troll doesn't give you more dredgers you just lost a card to the dredge and along with it possibly the game. The follow-up dredge with Darkblast could have been the final nail in the coffin. CS can top deck as well as you in that scenario, and having both hands reset to 0 with a CotV in play isnt really that huge of an advantage. 

I think you simply must end your turn with an Imp in play - this will guarantee a big 6 card dredge every single turn, and you're going to very likely outrace your 3 card opponent. So therefore:

Land, Lotus, CotV:0, Balance (float B from GSM)

then Imp, burn for 1, pass.

As the game played out you might still lose, but hey, you at least have some serious action every single turn guaranteed.

[Smmenen]

Excellent read, Steve.

It must be pretty difficult to try and analyse a hand and make the objectively best play when you know the entire hand of the opponent.

Actually it's not.  I have been two-fisting for years and the motivation is clear: you want to learn the matchup so that you know it for tournament play.  A good part of my pre tournamnent testing for any deck consists of this format of testing, except that instead of publishing and expanding the results, I post them to my team forums. 

[bzl]

I'm gonna agree with dicemanx on the Balance hand; I like the plan to end your turn with a Putrid Imp in play.  The main reason, beyond a regular discard outlet, is that you can start attacking with it.  The two points a turn is not going to win on its own but that damage adds up.  It may also be useful later on to sacrifice the Imp to Cabal Therapy and then remove it for an Ichorid or a Ghoul.

The Slaver player is going to be looking at a three card hand and a Chalice for zero.  It's going to take a few turns to recover and you might find that lowly Imp doing ten or twelve points of damage.  When I first read through the game, I forgot that the Imp had to be sacrificed to Balance, and I couldn't figure out why you hadn't won yet.

This is also an interesting scenario from the Slaver hand's perspective: which three cards do you keep?  Their opening hand was

Island
Polluted Delta
Mox Jet
Tormod's Crypt
Thirst for Knowledge
Goblin Welder
Sol Ring

The obvious plan is to keep land, Sol Ring and TFK and hope you draw something useful with Thirst.  On the bright side, you'll have three mana available, and you'll get to keep at least two new cards.  The bad news is that you are in total topdeck mode afterwards.

Another idea is to keep Delta, Sol Ring and Welder.  On your first turn, you break the Delta for a Volcanic Island and play the Welder, and later on you can weld out your Sol Ring for the Tormod's Crypt that you discarded to Balance.  If you're lucky you'll get a few turns before you need to weld, so you can hope to get some use out of the Sol Ring in the meantime.  This slows you down by the three cards you'd see from TFK, but it has the potential to disrupt the Dredge player by even more.  It also leaves you dangerously low on mana.  You know that Darkblast is going to show up sooner or later, too, but not necessarily with the mana to cast it.  Risky, sure, but what's the right move?  I have no idea.


I really like this sort of concrete analysis.  It's too bad that this sort of article isn't more popular, but, you know, it is not exactly light reading.  For what it's worth, I think that seven games may be a few too many for one article-- a lot of people will have trouble getting through the last few games.  I'd say that five would be an easier number to digest all in one sitting.  I'm not saying you should throw out the last two games, though.  Just save 'em for Part Two.

Thank you for all the work you clearly put into this.

[Moxlotus]

I love these articles.  These are probably my favorite articles you right.  Initially I thought I would do the Twist for 7 Balance option.  Then as I thought about it, I think keeping an Imp in play is the correct move for reasons already posted.

[Smmenen]

Jacob Orlove had what I consider to be the correct solution (a solution I had not even contemplated):  Balance to 0, then you simply draw for the first 2-5 turns (depeinding on when you hit mana or a bazaar).  The reasoning is simple: You have set Slaver to 0 cards.  And they can't break out of this Chalice and zero card.  You figure you have, then, 6-10 turns.  There is no reason that we shouldn't have just drawn during the draw step for the first two turns.  If the slaver player hasnt topdecked land, I figure you can still draw.  If you hit a land, then your Ghouls come online.  You should hit a mana source within 5 turns (or else a Bazaar, even better). 

That none of us came up with that solution just goes to show you how bloody hard the Ichorid deck is to play. 

When Jacob mentioned it, it becamse obvious that that was the correct play.

I asked Vegeta to weigh in with what he thought some of the correct players were.  I hope he does.

[Moxlotus]

Wow.  I feel bad that I didn't think of that now.

[Vegeta2711]

Ok, I'll bite.

Jacob seems of 'solved' the Balance hand, but I'll look that over later anyway for any fun alternate plays.

For the game 6 hand, I probably wouldn't even keep the hand as it requires me to find a Bazaar and large dredge card to get going. This means I won't get the engine fully going until turn 3 assuming I even hit a major dredge card. Plus without a Cabal Therapy or Chalice of the Void the CS player basically has free reign over me until I can get established. So I'd personally mulligan hoping I'd hit a Bazaar + Dredge card. (When I actually that hand for kicks, I mulled into Bazaar, Golgari Thug, 4 other cards. On turn 2 I had COTV in play and I won on turn 5.)

But assuming I keep, because you do have so many draw spells and Seal, I argue though casting Imperial Seal is essentially the 'safest' and most straightforward play you can make, casting Brainstorm is better.

There are 2 main reasons I say this.
1. If the Control Slaver has Force of Will he's going to counter the Seal. The CS player knows he'll only be able to counter one or two spells before all of his counters become irrelevant. Hence Imperial Seal has a huge bullseye on it's head, since that will almost always fetch Bazaar. Casting Brainstorm shouldn't draw nearly as much fire and even if they counter, who cares then? You still have the Seal to tutor up Bazaar. If you cast Seal first and it gets FoWed, the follow up is essentially 'hope there's enough action to win' in your next 5-6 cards.

2. Brainstorm allows me to dig the deepest for Chalice of the Void or Bazaar and doesn't make me discard just yet.

If you see Chalice of the Void off Brainstorm, you get to throw it down turn 1 slowing him down and still setting up the turn 2 Seal + Study play. Yeah you don't get to throw down Bazaar on turn 2, but if you discard and dredge card off Study, you'll make up the time off Bazaar usage + draw step anyway. And if you hit Bazaar itself off the Brainstorm? So much the better. Then your turn 2 play can be tutoring for Chalice, Ancestral Recall or even Goglari Grave-Troll!

Worst case you hit 3 'dead' cards. You throw them back, suck up the loss on your 2nd turn draw step and then cast Study and Seal. Sucks, but you have 10 or so cards I'd love to hit off Brainstorm without wasting the tutor, which is why my inclination is to cast that first.

Game 7 I'll write up and post/edit in later after I get some of my work done.

[adrienger]

The article is indeed good but I don't see the point...

Why do you always test without sideboard when dredge.deck is probably the one deck that has the best advantage MD and that has to fight a lot of hate post side!

The simple fact that in those tests dredge only won by 4/3 shows that it would probably loose to a best out of three game!


Good article but I believe it overvalues dredge's match ups!

[Disburden]

The article is indeed good but I don't see the point...

Why do you always test without sideboard when dredge.deck is probably the one deck that has the best advantage MD and that has to fight a lot of hate post side!

The simple fact that in those tests dredge only won by 4/3 shows that it would probably loose to a best out of three game!


Good article but I believe it overvalues dredge's match ups!

How do you mean? Meandeck Ichorid uses 4 Pithing needles for Welders and 4 Null Rods for the robots/Slavers. There's also Rootmaze in the sideboard as well. I find this to be inaccurate.

[dicemanx]

The article is indeed good but I don't see the point...

The point is to give players some insight into how these match ups play out, and the types of decisions that have to be made. This is far more valuable than presenting match-up percentages, which are very difficult to establish anyways.

[policehq]

How do you mean? Meandeck Ichorid uses 4 Pithing needles for Welders and 4 Null Rods for the big artifacts/Slavers. There's also Rootmaze in the sideboard as well. I find this to be inaccurate.

I can't see the list until I renew my membership, but adrienger definitely has a point. Even if there are answers in the sideboard to combat hate, what do you side out for them? If there are 4 Root Maze there, 12 cards is one hell of a side. Then you're playing a completely different deck and need to know how to play based on what you expect post-sideboard as well.

Ichorid match-ups are well-above 50% defined by games 2 and 3.

-hq

[Disburden]

How do you mean? Meandeck Ichorid uses 4 Pithing needles for Welders and 4 Null Rods for the big artifacts/Slavers. There's also Rootmaze in the sideboard as well. I find this to be inaccurate.

I can't see the list until I renew my membership, but adrienger definitely has a point. Even if there are answers in the sideboard to combat hate, what do you side out for them? If there are 4 Root Maze there, 12 cards is one hell of a side. Then you're playing a completely different deck and need to know how to play based on what you expect post-sideboard as well.

Ichorid match-ups are well-above 50% defined by games 2 and 3.

-hq

I do realize what you're saying, but I don't agree with the match up swinging out of favor for Ichorid once you side in Null Rod and Pithing needles. I doubt you even need Root Maze. You can also use Leyline of the Void and just shot them down turn one if you draw one early, which was mentioned in the Article. That's eight cards Maybe you can just use three of the needles? I'm not sure, but couldn't you just side of something like this?

-1 thug
-2 Putrid Imp
-1 balance
-1 careful study
-1 chrome mox
-1 imperial seal

Here is the list Steve has in his article, since some of you still do not have premium:

MeanDredge
Suggested by Stephen Menendian on 2006-04-23 as a potential deck for Vintage
As written about in http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/11761.html
Print this deck!
Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire

Creatures
4 Ashen Ghoul
4 Golgari Grave-troll
1 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stinkweed Imp
   

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Darkblast
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries
1 Balance
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Careful Study
1 Imperial Seal

Lands
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
1 Underground Sea
   Sideboard:

4 Null Rod
4 Pithing Needle
4 Root Maze/LeyLine of the Void
3 Chain Of Vapor

[policehq]

Steve, what do you intend to bounce with Chain of Vapor? After Disburden's mention of Leyline of the Void, it seems like you need enchantment removal. That may only be my meta, though.

I was not saying that the match-up swings out of Ichorid's favor, but when you have to make sure hate cards don't mess with your game-plan, a lot of sideboarding has to be done (I know this because I play MaskNought and Sensei's Top decks primarily). A deck with 8 different cards is expected to perform very differently (eg: -2 Putrid Imp in your example, a centerpiece of the deck, in my opinion).

-hq

[Disburden]

Steve, what do you intend to bounce with Chain of Vapor? After Disburden's mention of Leyline of the Void, it seems like you need enchantment removal. That may only be my meta, though.

There is a play in one of the early games that Steve casts Cabal therapy which Slaver than answers with a thirst, then Steve receives Pirority and answers with Chain of Vapor on welder. The Played discards Mindslaver off the Thirst and then Chain hits the welder, Slaver then Welds out Steve's Chalice@zero for a sapphire. Cabal Therapy resolves and named the welder.


Chain is awesome in this deck.
 

[Fantaman]

Hi all,

it's a long time, probably one month, that I'm out of TMD. ( Excuse-me )

I've tested for a long time this deck and I'm very satisfied about the strong and fast hands on the magic board.

I'm playing the deck with TWO powerfull cards that in some situations they save my life or give me the DREDGE card in my graveyard:

Life from the Loam and ENTOMB.

Entomb it's very very strong if you don't have the dredge card in your grave!

Life from the loam sometimes with chalice 0 first turn may kills many decks with the recurring STRIP MINE.... hihihi

Let me know what do you think.

---
Very strong the Root maze... ( I play 3 oxidize sideboard, 4 chains, 4 Needle, 4 N.Road )
---

Ehm last word: I don't play balance...; I know it's sooo strong but I prefer the Loam.

Thanx a lot for interest.

FaNtAmAn

[Disburden]

Steve did mention something about Life From the Loam on SCG forums, but he than said that the card was useless in this deck. He's pretty much tested every card you can think of for Meandeck Ichorid.

[policehq]

Balance, too, is simply not cutable, in my opinion.

-hq

[Disburden]

Balance, too, is simply not cutable, in my opinion.

-hq

I agree. Balance is like three time walks in this deck.

[Smmenen]

The article is indeed good but I don't see the point...

The point is to give players some insight into how these match ups play out, and the types of decisions that have to be made. This is far more valuable than presenting match-up percentages, which are very difficult to establish anyways.

Precisely.  Getting people to talk about the in-game decisions is my goal - or at least focus on them.

To get people to perform with this deck requires that they try to get better.  This deck is *really* hard to play.

I have no trouble identifying the correct play with Gifts and Grim Long, after some consideration, but with hellish frequency I have too much difficulty doing the same with this deck.  I can find *good* plays, but the trick is to find the best.  This deck is hard to play and so a focus on in-game decision making is the only way to help people out, imo. 

[RThomas]

I chose to play this deck last Sunday at the College of DuPage tournament, and I had the misfortune to face Control Slaver in the first three rounds.  Simply put, a very large part of the matchup comes down to if the Slaver player has Tormod's Crypt in play at any time after turn one.  Because they have so many ways to get it into play (hardcast, discarding + Welder, Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will), I'm not sure that you can rely on Chalice for zero in conjuncture with Darkblast and Cabal Therapy all of the time to keep it out of play.  Tormod's Crypt may very well be played around (I won one game where two Crypts were played by hardcasting Ashen Ghouls), but for the most part, I was at a loss for playing around it.  This article gave me a bit more insight on how to approach it, and I thank Steven for that.

My deck was not majorly different from the mainstream list:

-1 Golgari Thug
-1 Brainstorm
+1 Darkblast
+1 Pithing Needle

I hadn't had Careful Study in my original build, and omitted a Brainstorm for it.  Also, I preferred another Darkblast, since I anticipated an abundance of Control Slaver due to the tournament at Pastimes the week before.  The Pithing Needle was present, just because I wanted an extra maindeck solution for Tormod's Crypt.  I felt it was strong because of its versatility in other matchups, as well.  However, I was never able to cast it once.

Has a singleton Pithing Needle been an option anyone else has considered?  Perhaps it doesn't deserver a spot simply because it doesn't have as many uses as Chain of Vapor or Darkblast does.  From my experiences (outside of that particular tournament, of course), I've enjoyed having it in the deck. 

Also, as a side note, Root Maze turned out to be a game-breaker in this matchup (as well as others).  I chose to side it in over Null Rod in the third Control Slaver match, and it slowed the opponent enough for me to rip his hand apart with Cabal Therapy.  How are people usually sideboarding in this matchup?

[policehq]

Control Slaver is a really difficult match-up because Goblin Welder gets around Tormod's Crypt being countered by Chalice of the Void, and Gorilla Shaman enjoys a drink from the Chalice more than eating a Mox. Gorilla Shaman can also take out the Pithing Needles targeting their Tormod's Crypt, and Goblin Welder can weld them out. I look forward to reading this article once I get a little less busy trying to find a summer job and renew my account at StarCityGames, because I believe these two decks are going to be around for a while, no matter how much hate is directed at Ichorid.

-hq

[Fantaman]

wOA... in italy the meta is sooooo different....

probably in europe meta is very strange then U.S. tournaments.

Control slavery is simply not played in italy... ( only one or two players have this deck at PRO tournaments  :shock: )

it's a strong deck but italian guys ignore it like a belcher combo deck....   

I think that it's time to play on tournament the dredge.deck... but..... ehm this deck it's very very under Tentrils variants comboS at the first match with no sideboard...

Thinking sooo much on this speeeed deck.

I'm reading all the post nice nice help from U.S. thanx!

Fantaman

[Smmenen]

Ok, I'll bite.

Jacob seems of 'solved' the Balance hand, but I'll look that over later anyway for any fun alternate plays.

For the game 6 hand, I probably wouldn't even keep the hand as it requires me to find a Bazaar and large dredge card to get going. This means I won't get the engine fully going until turn 3 assuming I even hit a major dredge card. Plus without a Cabal Therapy or Chalice of the Void the CS player basically has free reign over me until I can get established. So I'd personally mulligan hoping I'd hit a Bazaar + Dredge card. (When I actually that hand for kicks, I mulled into Bazaar, Golgari Thug, 4 other cards. On turn 2 I had COTV in play and I won on turn 5.)

But assuming I keep, because you do have so many draw spells and Seal, I argue though casting Imperial Seal is essentially the 'safest' and most straightforward play you can make, casting Brainstorm is better.

There are 2 main reasons I say this.
1. If the Control Slaver has Force of Will he's going to counter the Seal. The CS player knows he'll only be able to counter one or two spells before all of his counters become irrelevant. Hence Imperial Seal has a huge bullseye on it's head, since that will almost always fetch Bazaar. Casting Brainstorm shouldn't draw nearly as much fire and even if they counter, who cares then? You still have the Seal to tutor up Bazaar. If you cast Seal first and it gets FoWed, the follow up is essentially 'hope there's enough action to win' in your next 5-6 cards.

2. Brainstorm allows me to dig the deepest for Chalice of the Void or Bazaar and doesn't make me discard just yet.

If you see Chalice of the Void off Brainstorm, you get to throw it down turn 1 slowing him down and still setting up the turn 2 Seal + Study play. Yeah you don't get to throw down Bazaar on turn 2, but if you discard and dredge card off Study, you'll make up the time off Bazaar usage + draw step anyway. And if you hit Bazaar itself off the Brainstorm? So much the better. Then your turn 2 play can be tutoring for Chalice, Ancestral Recall or even Goglari Grave-Troll!

Worst case you hit 3 'dead' cards. You throw them back, suck up the loss on your 2nd turn draw step and then cast Study and Seal. Sucks, but you have 10 or so cards I'd love to hit off Brainstorm without wasting the tutor, which is why my inclination is to cast that first.

Game 7 I'll write up and post/edit in later after I get some of my work done.

Game 7 is the harder one - although both of your decisions seem sound regarding whether to mulligan and whether to play Brainstorm v. Chalice, how can we know they are correct with any level of confidence?

That's the trick right?

I think the problem with Imperial Seal on turn two is that they'll likely have Drain up...

If they counter the SEal, then you won't lose a draw and your turn two Brainstorm will dig that much deeper and you'll have see another card in addition to your draw for first turn.

But you'd mulligan, would a hand of six on the draw have better tools?  Possibly.  But how can we have confidence in the intelligence of our decision?

I'm looking forward to your analysis of game 7.